A Lethal Disease

This commentary was written and sent to PRIMER by Sheri Angel.

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There is an ancient disease that science, for all its sophistication, has failed to cure. This toxic sickness attacks the mind. Those afflicted are incapable of self-evaluation, refuse to assume responsibility for their actions and blame everyone but themselves. Those infected are repulsed by compassion and tolerance. They seek out groups who share their hate-based world view. Perspective rapidly becomes distorted and there is an obsessive drive to spread the sickness.

This disease traditionally begins with the Jewish nation being used as a scapegoat, but it never ends there. Once the Jews have been dealt with, the enemy steps out from behind their smokescreen and aggressively confront a surprised and unprepared world.

Mass infection of hate occurred in Germany in the 1930s. The Second World War resulted in the death of six million Jews and the nations of the world lost an estimated one hundred million people.

In 1986, Eric Hoffer, an American social philosopher wrote, "I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us."

Yet the nations do not heed Mr. Hoffer's intuition. A more recent example of mass infection can be traced to Durban, South Africa, in 2001. This time, Palestinian Arabs hijacked the United Nations world conference against racism and xenophobia and spread the anti-Semitism affliction to the international delegates from where it was rapidly metastasized around the world. This was hysterically abetted by the so-called human rights establishment. One of the tragic results is that the rampant ethnic murder and human slavery that should have been the focus in Durban continue to plague Nations like Sudan, the Congo and other countries. To this day, hundreds of thousands are dying in these regions.

What is the Amnesty International position on these violations of human rights? Why does the Ford Foundation, Human rights Watch (HRW) and Oxfam which were so vocal and influential at Durban, not exploit their considerable powers to highlight an avoidable cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe caused by a power crazed Robert Mugabe or condemn suicidal killers who discharge their lethal belts among innocents the world over.

This lack of concern from humanitarian organizations is confusing, especially since they spend so much time harassing the tiny nation of Israel, which is confronted by fanatics who wish to destroy it.

The UN role in this travesty is revealing. The number of resolutions brought by the United Nations against Israel compared with any other Nation is so lopsided that one could easily assume that this is their sole raison d'etre.

We are bombarded by media headlines obsessed with Israel. Where is the screaming bold print about beheadings in Riyadh? Why is there no equivalent outrage when Hamas tortures fellow Arabs, when missiles aimed at Israeli homes fall short and kills two young sisters in the Gaza Strip? When Shi'ites kills Sunnis or when a nuclear North Korea threatens South Korea?

The media coverage of Sri Lanka is so shoddy that we have to look to Baroness Deach's speech in the House of Lords to hear of 'the terrible attacks on the Tamils, the hospital under siege, the killing of 70,000 people and of thousands more who are trapped and displaced from their homes.' She wonders why 'this has attracted little opprobrium and no calls for the obliteration of Sri Lanka or talk of its brutalization.' She noted that the charges of "disproportionate" against Israel were not made in relation to other wars that we have recently experienced; Kosovo, Georgia, Iraq or even Afghanistan, where people have died in their thousands. The Baroness asks appropriate questions.

'Durban II' will launch the next stage of spite and hatred, the 'hidden' agenda will be to raise Jew/Israeli hatred around the world to a greater intensity. The World Conference against Racism is to be held in Geneva on April 20-24.

Gerald Steinberg, executive director of the watchdog NGO Monitor feels that this time round, it is unlikely that the NGO's will have a strong showing but that the governments of Iran and Libya who are heading the governmental forum will adopt the same language used by the NGO's at Durban 2001. Israel and Canada have already decided to boycott and the Americans are presently unsure of their participation.

We are likely to hear South Africans like Bishop Tutu and others who experienced the miraculous change from an exclusively white government to a 'Rainbow Nation' betray their history in an attempt to blacken Israel with the inaccurate apartheid label.

In all probability renewed efforts to pass a pernicious resolution equating Zionism to racism, which failed in 2001, will be reintroduced.

For generations, promoting anti-Semitism (today often camouflaged in anti-Israeli terminology) has been the habitual tool used to sidetrack the nations from detecting impending danger. It would be worthwhile to learn from past mistakes. When Jews are selected for loathsome propaganda attacks, there is sure to be a genuine worldwide incoming threat. The international community should be alerted to its fast approaching enemy.

70 years ago it was Hitler's ambitions for Germany. This time, it's the advancement of a new world order, the expansion of a Global Islamic Empire.

Letter to the Editor of The Waterbury Observer

Dear John:

As I wrote in the letter you published in the February issue, "I was astounded to see the inflammatory, factually-challenged article by George Hajjar published in the January issue of The Waterbury Observer [after you] had earlier refused to publish an article I had submitted ... on the grounds that 'the Observer is not the forum to solve the' Arab-Israeli conflict and that you were 'not inclined to re-ignite the he said-she said-he said dialogue between Marilyn Aligata, Mr. Hajjar' and me."

In no way was I suggesting, as you mistakenly implied in your editor's note, that you had any more obligation to publish anything I or anyone else wrote than I or anyone else had "to assist [you] in paying [your] monthly printing bill."

I was merely expressing my surprise at your apparent about face and double standard.

As a former editor of two different free community newspapers, I do have some idea of the realities you confront and have long valued the contributions The Observer has made to the Greater Waterbury community, particularly the in-depth interviews of office seekers during election campaigns.

However, I believe I also have some understanding of the obligations of journalists. These include the obligation to publish the truth, even on the opinion pages. This is recognized by various journalistic organizations.

For example, the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists includes the clause that "analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context." The Statement of Principles of the American Society of Newspaper Editors says "editorials, analytical articles and commentary should be held to the same standards of accuracy with respect to facts as news reports. Significant errors of fact, as well as errors of omission, should be corrected promptly and prominently."

One can excuse occasional errors, especially if they are "corrected promptly and prominently," but as I have pointed out in the past, the columns by Aligata and Hajjar have been filled with gross errors and with no corrections being issued by The Observer.

This is not just a technical issue. The nature of opinion pieces is that the author is trying to influence the reader and the reliability of the writer is an important consideration.

The lack of accuracy in the anti-Israel diatribes published in The Observer fell to an almost laughable level with the publication of the absurd piece by Marie-Therese Saad, "Hajjar's American-Middle East Assessment is Spot On," in the February issue.

Perhaps her funniest assertions were about Dennis Ross and ironically came right after she correctly pointed out "it is important that our students receive accurate information as they will be the ones to solve the Middle East crisis."

Saad criticized Ross' role as a mediator (although she incorrectly referred to him as a negotiator, but that's a minor error), claiming that as a Jew he was completely biased in favor of Israel. I and many other believe she's wrong and that he erred seriously in putting far too much pressure on Israel while putting little pressure on the Palestinian Arabs, but Saad is entitled to express that opinion.

Where Saad made me laugh was in trying to buttress her opinion by asserting that Ross had "dual U.S. Israeli citizenship" and was a "co-founder of the American-Israeli Public Affairs committee [AIPAC]."

I'm used to seeing absurd assertions fabricated by anti-Israel fanatics and they are often difficult to definitely rebut. A Google search on "rebut assertion Ross AIPAC co-founder" turned up 907 hits, but I couldn't find any that seemed to say Ross was not a co-founder of AIPAC.

Fortunately, I had a useful contact to help me in this quest for the truth. A friend of mine has a son who works for Dennis Ross and I asked him about those two assertions. He sent me a concise answer: "Both dead wrong."

Investigating further, it became clear AIPAC was started around 1953 by Si Kenen, although I was unable to find any specific citation stating that Dennis Ross was not a co-founder. However, since Ross was born in 1948 and thus was about five years old when AIPAC was founded, Saad's assertion that Ross was an AIPAC co-founder is obviously laughable.

Saad did correctly include two citations from the PRIMER web site: PRIMER's credo that "Unanswered media bias and misinformation repeated often enough is accepted as truth" and Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels' famous advice to those who wish to misinform "A huge lie repeated often enough is accepted as truth."

I believe that The Observer, in repeatedly publishing error-filled commentaries, is performing a disservice to its readers. I strongly recommend that if you choose to continue to publish anti-Israel screeds, which is certainly your right, you fulfill your journalistic responsibility to ensure they are not filled with false information.

Sincerely,

Alan

Amnesty International Comes Out in Support of the Murder of Jews

They didn't say it in so many words, of course, but that's the real meaning of the 38 page report issues Sunday.

According to an article in The Jerusalem Post, which may be read in full at <www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304850853&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull>, Amnesty Internation, long biased against Israel, "called on the United States to stop weapons sales to Israel and on all countries to impose an arms embargo on both Israel and the Palestinians."

Such an embargo, of course, would have absolutely no effect on the Arab terrorists, who get their weapons from rogue states like Iran, Syria and North Korea. Nor would it apply to those or any of the other Arab and Muslim states which would love the opportunity to succeed in their war of genocide against the Jewish state.

The only effect of such an embargo would be to emasculate Israel and make it far more difficult, if not impossible, to prevent a bloodbath.

The following is excerpted from the article in The Jerusalem Post.

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Amnesty urges arms embargo on Israel

Tovah Lazaroff and Herb Keinon, The Jerusalem Post

The human rights group Amnesty International called on the United States to stop weapons sales to Israel and on all countries to impose an arms embargo on both Israel and the Palestinians.

"As the major supplier of weapons to Israel, the USA has a particular obligation to stop any supply that contributes to gross violations of the laws of war and of human rights. The Obama administration should immediately suspend US military aid to Israel," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty's Middle East director.

He also called on the "UN Security Council to impose an immediate and comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups."

The London-based group, which operates in 150 countries, targeted both Israel and Hamas in the 38-page report it issued late Sunday night.

But the bulk of the text detailed Israeli actions against Palestinians in Gaza and US culpability for Israel's 22-day military operation in the Gaza Strip. Amnesty has been highly critical of Israel in past reports.

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The Foreign Ministry issued a sharp attack on the report prior to its publication and said it was a "tendentious description of reality that doesn't rest on objective and professional criteria."

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The ministry took Amnesty to task for its comparison of the supplying of arms to Israel to the supplying of arms to Hamas.

"Israel is a sovereign state obligated to use force to protect its citizens, while Hamas is a terrorist organization. Is it possible to compare the arms in al-Qaida's hands to the weapons in the hands of the NATO forces?" the statement read.

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In advance of the report, Gerald Steinberg, the executive director of NGO Monitor, said, "This report is clearly part of a campaign to deprive Israel of the means to defend itself. This is another example of Amnesty's double standards and anti-Israel bias exploiting the language of international law."

"Amnesty's reports on Israel are often based on inaccuracies, half-truths and unverifiable allegations from so-called eyewitnesses, and reflect a lack of serious credible research capabilities," Steinberg said.

"In 2002, an Amnesty 'expert' first confirmed the nonexistent Jenin 'massacre,' and in the 2006 conflict with Hizbullah, many of Amnesty's claims were later shown to be unsubstantiated.

The factual errors are amplified by inaccurate statements using the rhetoric of international law, using terms such as 'disproportionate' and 'war crimes,' which they apply far more to Israel than to groups such as Hamas. This ideologically biased pattern was repeated in the recent Gaza conflict."

Rebecca Anna Stoil contributed to this report.

Part of the Path to Peace: A Few Drops of Rain

This was sent via email by Larry Rich, Director of Development and International Public Relations for Israel's Emek Medical Center in Afula.

It serves as a reminder that, ultimately, most people are just that, ordinary people.

Wonderful institutions like Emek Medical Center help break down the barriers that war and terror have built and in an essential way help to bring the day of peace closer.

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In the elevator with me was a young mother who held her baby son close to her as his head rested upon her shoulder. He was obviously weak, bundled up against the cold and I heard her murmur to him in soft Arabic as she kissed his cheek. For some reason, I remembered (and felt) my mother eons ago gently kissing my forehead when I was a young child. The Arab mother walked down the same corridor with me, the young boy listless in her arms as we exited the building. A cold rain was falling and I opened my umbrella and started off to the left as she hesitated before heading to the right '' with nothing more than a thin blanket covering her son's head. I turned to offer them some protection when a Jewish woman popped open her umbrella and kindly encouraged the young mother to walk together with her. As they headed off uphill in the rain, I watched them. A simple unnoticed gesture of kindness between a Jewish woman and an Arab mother protecting her child. I'm sending this to you because if you listened to today's news, you will only have heard that Katyushas were fired into northern Israel from Lebanon and more Palestinian Qassams hit Israel in the south. I consider what I observed also to be newsworthy.

Support Kids 4 Kids <www.emekdonations.org>

Larry Rich
Phone in Israel ... 972-04-649 4417
Mobile in Israel ... 972-0505-737 641
Phone in New York ... 646-546 5970
Fax in Israel ... 972-04-652 2642
Email ... rich_l@clalit.org.il
Mailing address:
Emek Medical Center
Afula 18101
Israel

Yale Daily News Publishes Vicious Anti-Israel Letter, Refuses to Publish Responses

On February 4, 2009, the Yale Daily News somehow saw fit to publish a hateful anti-Israel screed full of misrepresentations, double standards and defamations.

I submitted the following letter in response. The Yale Daily News has apparently refused to publish either my letter or any other letter trying to provide an antidote to the hatred, giving the rather lame excuse of lack of space.

One expects more from a newspaper from one of America's elite institutions.

The text of my unpublished letter is followed by the screed that was published along with the correspondence with the Yale Daily News with their explanation of why they haven't published any response.

The saga may continue, since I wrote back pointing out the lameness of their stated reason.

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Submitted February 8:

With her letter of February 4, "Morris should not be welcome here," Christine Geer has inadvertently performed a valuable service. She has demonstrated the unfortunate need for programs like YIISA, the Yale Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism.

Omitting crucial context, Geer misrepresented the opinions of Morris about events that occurred the year he was born and about hypothetical situations that might occur in the future if Israel's enemies continue their jihad against the Jewish state.

Ironically, Benny Morris has shown great sympathy for the mostly self-inflicted plight of the Palestinian Arabs, even going to jail after refusing to report for reserve duty in 1988 during the first Arab intifada. He is a dove, but enough of a realist to recognize "when the choice is between destroying or being destroyed, it's better to destroy."

Geer also employs a double standard by not criticizing those calling for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the disputed territories. Neither the fact that these demands are often couched in euphemistic terminology, such as "removal of Israeli settlements," nor the fact that they are often made by well-known figures such as the so-called moderate chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and former president Jimmy Carter changes their essential nature.

Completing a triad of offenses, Geer also defames the state of the Jewish people by falsely associating it with Nazism.

Misrepresentations. Double standards. Defamation.

Thank you, Yale, for providing a home for the Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism. It's sorely needed.

Alan Stein

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After this letter was not published, the following was sent to the Yale Daily News on February 16:

Neither having heard again from you nor seen my letter in the Yale Daily News, I suspect you have decided against publishing my letter. If so, I urge you to reconsider.

Had someone with closer ties to Yale responded to Geer's letter, I could understand publishing that in preference to mine. However, I have seen no responses at all and in my opinion Geer's letter is so offensive it would be irresponsible to not publish any responses.

Note that although I am writing primarily in my capacity as president of a statewide organization promoting responsibility in Middle East reporting, of which the publication of Geer's letter was the antithesis, I do have some ties to Yale. I spent a summer at Yale on a faculty fellowship, make annual donations to Yale and attend the seminars organized by YIISA.

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The Yale Daily News responded as follows:

Dear Mr. Stein,

Sorry we did not publish your letter. We are bound by practical concerns, most notably that of space, enough so that we cannot publish every piece we'd like to.

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Note: I had originally posted the above in full, but removed the writer's name after receiving the following message:

Dear Mr. Stein,

Our correspondence was personal correspondence, and should not now be appearing on a public blog. I don't know if this is an attempt to intimidate me or the News, but please remove at least my name and email address from the site.

I believe the representative of the Yale Daily News is incorrect, since the correspondence concerned the actions on behalf of the Yale Daily News, but have complied with the request of that representative.

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By that time, I had already sent the following to the now anonymous staffer of the Yale Daily News but have not yet received a response:

I understand practical concerns, but the reason you give is not very convincing. If the Yale Daily News was a short monthly newsletter in which space was at a premium, it would be one thing, but it is a daily and there will be room another day for that for which there's no room one day.

Several of the main assertions of "fact" in Geer's letter which are used to buttress her highly questionable opinions are simply false. She further shows what is at best ignorance in one of her comments where she either shows a misunderstanding of the meaning of anti-Semitism or deliberately misrepresents it. It is a shame for the Yale Daily News to publish a letter like hers and let it go unchallenged.

The relevant portion of the comment Geer posted is shown below the text of her original letter.

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Yale Daily News

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Letter: Morris should not be welcome here

That a venerable academic institution such as Yale, which two generations of my family have attended, would invite Israeli historian Benny Morris to speak has dismayed me to the point that I will not allow my grandson to apply next year.

Morris is an apologist for Israeli crimes against humanity. In a 2004 interview in Ha'aretz, he approved the 'necessity' of ethnic cleansing in 1948 of over 700,000 Palestinians and faulted Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion for failing to expel all Arab Israelis; he intimated that it may be necessary to finish the job in the future. He has spoken of the murders, massacres and the 'transfer' of the Palestinian population to other Arab nations as a necessary aspect of the survival of the State of Israel.

'Removal' or 'transfer' of a people is a word redolent of the Nazi era, for it is what the Nazis did to the Jews of Europe. The principle has now become enshrined in Likud Party policy, with Morris' blessing. It is a violation of international law, as is the indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations that occurred in the recent Israeli invasion of Gaza. Far from promoting any peaceful solution to the conflict in Israel and Palestine, Morris' ideology can only be classified as an effective recruiting tool for terrorists.

Yale should be ashamed at its invitation to an advocate of crimes against humanity.

The Rev. Christine Geer
Stonington, Conn.

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The following is part of a comment Geer posted among those regarding her screed. It along with the other comments may be viewed at www.yaledailynews.com/articles/comments/27461.

On another point made by some correspondents, re/ my assertion that I would not "allow" my grandson to attend Yale, they are correct in pointing out that he, as well as my granddaughters, should go to the college of their choice. However, as the person who pays the former's tuition, I do have room for some persuasive input. Most likely He would choose another, less anti-Semitic/Palestinian institution (Palestinians being a Semitic people!). Incidentally, my granddaughters, whom I love dearly , are one-quarter Jewish, and we are all proud of their heritage.

The Jewish community around the world is beginning to understand that whatever one labels actions taken against Palestinians for the past 60 years, those actions are by objective standards and international law unjust, counter to the admonitions in Judaism to "love justice", etc. and counter-productive to Israeli security.

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It's worth noting that Geer refers to actions allegedly taken by Israel against the Palestinian Arabs for the last 60 years, even though Israel had absolutely nothing to do with the Palestinian Arabs in the currently disputed territories while they were occupied by Jordan and Egypt from 1948 until 1967.

Geer, like other apologists for Arab terror, is apparently unhappy about the very existence of Israel.

Double Standard at the Waterbury Observer, Part IV

In January, I described how the publisher of the Waterbury Observer had rejected a column I had submitted with the explanation:

"Hi Alan Thanks for sending me your notes from your speech May 1st for consideration in the Observer. I'm going to pass on publishing them because you have already strongly expressed these opinions in the Observer several times before and I'm not inclined to re-ignite the he said-she said-he said dialogue between Marilyn Aligata, Mr. Hajjar and yourself about Israel and the Palestinians. The Observer is not the forum to solve the dispute.

Thanks for thinking of the Observer.

peace, John."

In Part I I posted the text of the column I had submitted.

In Part II I posted an anti-Israel screed he published in the January issue despite his clear indication that he wouldn't be publishing anything else on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In Part III I posted a letter I sent to him pointing out the double standard being observed in The Waterbury Observer.

To his credit, Murray published my letter in the February issue under the accurate headline "Hajjar's Column On Israel Off-Base."

Not to his credit, Murray added the following note of his own:

(editor's note--The Observer admires Alan Stein's passion for Israel's struggle in the Middle East, but must not that Mr. Stein has no idea of the realities of publishing a free community newspaper in Waterbury. We have no more obligation to publish a speech Mr. Stein gave in Hartford, than he has to assist us in paying our monthly printing bill.)

In that note, Murray falsely implies I had claimed he had an obligation to publish the commentary, which he falsely referred to as a speech. (The item had submitted had been based on notes I used for a speech, but was far more comprehensive than the speech I had given at a Hartford Holocaust commemoration.)

I had made no such claim; I had merely pointed out the double standard being observed by The Observer and my astonishment at his publishing an anti-Israel screed given the reason he had given to me for not publishing the article I had submitted.

The Observer also compounded its affronts to journalistic integrity by publishing yet another heavily biased, error-filled anti-Israel screed.

Of course, the publication of a biased column is not a cause for complaint; the nature of commentaries is that they express an opinion. However, once again, the column published contained numerous factual errors, some of an absurd variety, such as the assertion that Dennis Ross was a co-founder of AIPAC, an organization founded in the early 1950's, when Dennis Ross wasn't even in kindegarten, and took on its present name in 1959, when Ambassador Ross was eleven years old.

This is one blog posting to which I would appreciate some comments, particularly regarding the errors in the column below, including, where easily available, references. In particular, I have not been able to find any corroboration of the writer's assertion regarding the Winograd report. I am almost certain it is yet another fabrication, but I don't have time to read every word in the report myself to definitively point that out and haven't yet found anyone else having refuted the writer's accusation.

I apologize for the numerous grammatical errors in the column; they appeared in the published version in The Observer and I just don't feel like splattering "sic" all over the post.

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Waterbury Observer

February 2009

Hajjar's American-Middle East Assessment is Spot On

By Marie-Therese Saad

I would like to expound on some of the important points George Hajjar Jr. made in an article in the January issue of the Observer - that Joe Lieberman has become a one issue senator focused on Israeli needs and policy over our own.

To begin with, Mr. Hajjar correctly states that our university students have an increased interest in Middle East studies now more than ever. So it is important that our students receive accurate information as they will be the ones to solve the Middle East crisis.

Mr. Hajjar rightfully points out that several Jewish American politicians that were completely biased toward Israel, were assigned to fairly negotiate Arab-Israeli peace. But instead they simply reiterated Israeli demands in a take it or leave it order. For example, Dennis Ross is a Jewish American with dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship. He is the co-founder of the American-Israeli Public Affairs committee [AIPAC] and lived and worked in Israel for months on end. Placing biased Ross in a negotiating role between the Arabs and Israelis is like putting a fox in an Arab hen house. Even according to Jewish American Aaron David Miller, a Zionist himself and a "member of the Ross-led US negotiating team in 1999-2000, under Ross they frequently acted as 'Israel's lawyer', and that a policy of 'no surprises' (meaning all US proposals were first reviewed by Israel), led to a lack of negotiating flexibility and independence.'"

Another example of this is Mr. Martin Indynk, a British, Australian and now U.S. citizen. Indynk was fast tracked to becoming a U.S. citizen just days before being appointed to work as a U.S. policy manager for the Middle East by the Clinton administration.

Before during and after this, skewed Indyk worked for AIPAC and he was twice a U.S. ambassador to Israel [even though he's Australian]. Is this a neutral negotiator?

Furthermore, Mr. Hajjar's point of Israel being in violation of numerous international laws and treaties is a fact. The highest authority in the world today is the International Court of Justice [INCJ] which "seeks to resolve matters of international law disputed by state governments." Each and every year the INCJ resolves that Israel must return all of the Palestinian territory it holds illegally. That all Israeli settlements and their settlers are illegal and that East Jerusalem is part or the Palestinian territories and the Palestinians have an absolute right to return to their homeland of Palestine.

Some clever Israeli strategists use the cop out that INCJ is anti-Semitic. Few if any people are buying that nonsense as some of the members of the INCJ are Jewish themselves.

Lastly, let's take a look at some local examples. Mr. Alan Stein of Waterbury, a frequent writer to the Observer, the Republican and other Ct. Newspapers, is clearly misleading people. Stein states he's the president of PRIMER and on his website he illustrates some cartoons. His website displays a Palestinian soldier pointing his rifle from behind a baby in a carriage while the Israeli soldier fires his rifle from in front of the carriage, thus protecting the baby. Stein's point here is that Israelis don't attack from civilian areas while the Palestinians and other Arabs do. This is a false statement. In 2006, after years of planning, Israel invaded Lebanon yet again and killed over 1,000 Lebanese with over 80% being civilians. The Lebanese, who have much less sophisticated weaponry, killed 150 Israelis, 90% of whom were invading soldiers. Israel dropped millions of cluster bombs [that still kill civilians and UN peacekeepers today] on civilians' areas in violation of international law; When criticized about this, in Israel's Winograd report itself, the military admitted that the Lebanese did not launch attacks from civilian areas.

Indeed, it was Israel who attacked from and directly against civilian areas. For example, Israeli photographs that are widely available on the internet, show little girls writing love messages on Israeli missiles just before they were launched into Lebanese civilian areas, killing hundreds. Also in the scene is some Israeli's bobbing in prayer.

In conclusion, I can say I agree with two statements posted on Stein's website which, I think, is some form of a self fulfilling prophesy for him. Stein posts:

"Unanswered media bias and misinformation repeated often enough is accepted as truth." - PRIMER

"A huge lie repeated often enough is accepted as truth." - Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister

(Saad is a resident of Prospect, CT)

Between the Lines: What's the Point of a Phony Truce?

This article appeared in The Jerusalem Post.

Primerprez can't help but wonder what the point of it all is.

If there was a truce that was observed, which not only means no rocket attacks but also not being used by Hamas to smuggle in more arms for the next round, and which did not involve releasing a thousand terrorists to be trained for the next round, it might make sense.

Unfortunately, we can already predict what will happen, regardless of the actual terms.

Hamas and other terror groups will never completely stop firing rockets at Israeli civilians; they will merely modulate the fire, trying to keep it just below the threshold which would bring a meaningful response by Israel. As time goes on, this threshold will be slowly raised.

A significant proportion, if not all, of the terrorists released by Israel will quickly go back to their favorite activity: attempting to murder Jews.

Eventually, Hamas will have reached the point where it feels prepared for another full-scale assault on Israeli civilians, this time most likely having longer range rockets capable of hitting Tel Aviv, and another war will break out, this time far more deadly, for both sides, than the last.

The Right Way

It's possible to have a sensible truce, even if it's not a permanent truce, provided it's done the right way.

Rather than Israel beginning with a position and then slowly capitulating to all the Arab demands before winding up with a truce that's still immediately violated by the Arabs while the world pressures Israel to continue to allow its people to be terrorized, Israel should simply stick to the reasonable requirements it stated at the start, beginning with the immediate, unconditional release of Gilad Shalit, untied to any release of terrorists.

Any release of terrorists should be a phased release, beginning very slowly, perhaps ten per week, and not include any terrorists with "blood on their hands." (There is nothing more counterproductive than caving in on previous red lines.)

Any violation of the truce by the Arabs, including any rocket fire by Hamas or any other terror group, any construction or repair of tunnels, any smuggling of weapons, any terror attacks must mean the end of the truce, including the closing of the crossing points, the ending of prisoner releases, and an attack on the terror infrastructure until Hamas is prepared to abide by another truce.

A repeat of past mistakes, where ill-conceived and unobserved (by Hamas) truces simply traded a temporary lessening of attacks in exchange for future more brutal attacks, would be just that, a repeat of past mistakes, but with more tragic consequences, not only for Israel but for the Palestinian Arabs as well.

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PMO: There will be no ceasefire until Schalit is released

Israel will not agree to a truce with Hamas in the Gaza Strip without the release of kidnapped IDF soldier Cpl. Gilad Schalit, the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement released on Saturday.

Israel and Hamas have been holding indirect talks through Egyptian mediation since the end of Operation Cast Lead, in mid-January. For Israel, the goal of the negotiations has been to create a long-term ceasefire, and to secure Schalit's freedom; for Hamas, the main objectives are the opening of the border crossings without limitations, the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, and a limit to the length of the ceasefire.

Last week a number of reports surfaced suggesting that an agreement between the two sides was near, but over the weekend new reports surfaced which appeared to negate this possibility.

Israel, according to the report, demanded that the truce instead be unlimited. Sources in Hamas were quoted as saying that if Israel would accept a truce limited in time, Hamas would accept the deal by the end of the weekend. The sources added, however, that should Israel demand a longer truce, that would be rejected.

Another report pointed to a potential problem with the prisoner swap. According to Israel Radio, officials in Jerusalem said that all Palestinian terrorists released would not be allowed to return to either the Gaza Strip or the West Bank. While there was no immediate reaction from Hamas, Ahmed Yussouf, a senior official in the group told the Saudi Okaz paper that the group had demanded the release of 1,400 prisoners in exchange for Schalit.

Despite the conflicting statements and reports, it is clear there has been some movement in negotiations. Accordingly, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is expected to convene the diplomatic-security cabinet, comprised of himself, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, on Saturday evening to discuss the progress that has been made, Israel Radio reported.

Some media outlets have claimed that a deal would be reached by the end of Olmert's term as prime minister. In addition, tempered optimism was voiced by exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, who on Saturday denied reports that he had claimed the talks had hit a snag.

On Friday, when asked by reporters during a visit to Doha, Qatar, about the cease-fire, Mashaal reportedly said, "It (the truce) was supposed to start on Sunday, but there has been a setback, and it will not start as it was expected."

Some of the key sticking points in the talks have been opening Gaza's borders, preventing weapons smuggling into Gaza and stopping Hamas rocket fire into southern Israel.

Egyptian state-run newspapers Friday quoted Egypt's top mediator, intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, as saying that four obstacles remained to be resolved; "firing rockets, establishing a buffer zone between Gaza and Israel, a Hamas commitment to respect calm and a halt to weapons smuggling" into the Gaza Strip.

Israeli defense officials said the talks were serious and making progress. An initial agreement could involve a partial opening of Gaza's crossings, they said, with a later agreement to include Schalit's release, in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners demanded by Hamas.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the details remain classified.

Why I am a Bad Jew

This was written by Rami Kaminski, MD, founder and director of the Institute for Integrative Psychiatry in New York City.

It is posted with the permission of Dr. Kaminski.

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For centuries, we lived in Berdichev. In the brutal Ukrainian winter of 1941, SS soldiers arrived there and rounded up eighty-seven members of my family - babies, young adults, octogenarians - stripped them naked, marched them to a nearby ditch, and executed them. Their lifeless bodies fell silently into a mass grave.

Like most Jews in Europe, my family "cooperated" with the Final Solution. They did not resist or fight back. Six million Jews were slaughtered in a period of four years. They received little sympathy while they were still alive and hunted down like animals. There was no public outcry because the Holocaust fit the world's narrative for Jews during the past 2000 years: a people destined to be persecuted and slaughtered.

During their two millennia in the Diaspora, Jews were not known to resist. There are few recorded instances in which Jews turned against their host nations or retaliated against their murderers. Instead, the survivors - if there were any - were expelled or left for another place.

The murdered were regarded as "good" Jews. They accepted their fate helplessly, without resistance.

This narrative of the Jews has played out on the historical stage with boring monotony: Jews get killed because they are Jews. Nothing novel about it. After the Holocaust, however, the world, disgusted by this particularly ghoulish period of history, accorded some sympathy for the Jews.

Media commentary about the ongoing Gaza War reveals the world has now reverted to its pre-Holocaust perspective. Today, the only good Jew is a powerless Jew willing to become a dead one. The Zionist Revolution is to blame. It changed everything. Jews re-created their own country. The Arabs attacked the new Jewish state the day after independence and promised to complete Hitler's genocide. In succeeding decades, the Arabs attacked again and again. Strangely, the Jews, many of them refugees from Arab nations, adopted a surprising, new tactic: they fought back.

With Zionism, the Jews stubbornly refused to follow the centuries-old script. They refuse to be killed without resistance. As a result, the world has become increasingly enraged at their impertinence.

The recent events in Gaza and Mumbai make this plain. In 2005, Israel eliminated all Jewish presence in Gaza making it "Judenrein," and handed it over to the Palestinians. Left behind were synagogues an! d thriving green houses. The Arabs looted and destroyed them literally the day after Israel's withdrawal was complete. Where these structures once stood, the Palestinians built military bases and installed rocket launchers to shell Israeli civilians. To date, some 7,000 missiles have fallen on Israeli cities and towns, killing and maiming dozens, and sowing widespread terror. Medical studies reveal nearly all Jewish children in the communities bordering Gaza suffer from serious, trauma-induced illness.

The Gazan Palestinians then elected Hamas to lead them. Hamas proceeded to kill or imprison their political rivals, and its leaders, true to the Hamas charter, were unabashed in clearly stating their aims: they will not stop until they achieve their Final Solution, kill all the Jews, take over the land of Israel, and establish a theocracy governed by Islamic law.

As killing Jews for being Jews has been a national s! port for centuries, Islamic militants are justified in believing they are merely fulfilling historical tradition in Argentina, India and Gaza. Surely the Jews in Mumbai did not occupy Gaza. They were tortured and killed just for being Jews. And predictably, in the eyes of the world, they immediately became good Jews, just like my murdered family in Bertishev.

Good Jews would wait until Hamas has weapons enabling its members to achieve their ultimate goal of absolute mass murder. Those enraged by Israel's defensive military action insist Hamas uses only "crude" rockets, as if Qassams were BB guns, and military inferiority were somehow equivalent with moral superiority. In fact, Hamas now has Iranian-supplied Grad missiles which have landed on Be'er Sheva and the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

Westerners have had only sporadic exposure to the indiscriminate killing in the name of "holy war" which Israel has lived with for years.

Memories of 9-11, Madrid, and London have dimmed. This is not because the Islamic militants made a careful choice of weapons. They simply have not yet acquired nuclear bombs. Once they do, the West will develop a less detached view about the Islamists' professed intentions for the "infidels."

The only enlightened people in the civilized world who actually get it are the Israelis. They've not had time for detached philosophical ponderings. They've been too busy confronting the reality of Islamic fundamentalism.

Soon, Iran will have nuclear weapons. It will give them to Hezbollah and Hamas. Today, Jews must take a position: either be "good" Jews willing to be slaughtered without resistance, or be "bad" Jews who defend themselves at the cost of being pariahs of our enlightened world. Good Jews would wait for another six million to be murdered, and pick up to leave for another country to start the cycle again. Th! e bad ones refuse to go calmly into the ditch.

I confess: I'm a bad Jew.

---

Rami Kaminski, MD, is Director and Founder of the Institute for Integrative Psychiatry in New York, a not-for-profit organization aimed at evaluating current psychiatric services and how they integrate with medicine, such as the mutual effects between medical and psychiatric conditions. Prior to that, Dr. Kaminkski was the Commissioner's Liaison to Families and Community and Medical Director of Operations at the New York State Office of Mental Health. Dr. Kaminski also holds an academic position as Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University. He earned recognition in 1990 from Mt. Sinai Hospital as Physician of the Year, and received the Exemplary Psychiatrist Awards from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. Dr. Kaminski's research explores neuropsychiatric aspects of brain disorders, such as Alzheimer and Parkinson's dis! ease and movement disorders, as well as psychopharmacology of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. He was for many years Director of The Schizophrenia research Unit at Mount Sinai Hospital in NYC. Dr. Kaminiski also served as the Medical Director of the PMHP and consultant to the committee in charge of developing the Special Needs Program.

Arab Cooperation Required to Bring Peace to Gaza

This was published as a letter in the Waterbury Republican-American, February 10, 2009. An analysis of the op-ed to which this responds is also available on the PRIMER blog.

---

I wish I could agree with my friend Peter Marcuse (Feb. 2 op-ed, 'Israelis vs. Palestinians: the fundamentals'), including his implicit criticism of my perspectives. Unfortunately, he misreads the past, so his prescription for the future essentially calls for repeating past errors.

He calls for Israel to 'show there is an alternative to violence' and in correctly asserts Israel's 'past actions have not shown peaceful negotiations as a priority.'

Near the start of the Oslo Experiment in 1993, Israel began turning over most of Gaza and large parts of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority. With all the Arabs in Gaza and about 95 percent of those in the West Bank living under their own, not Israeli, government, the Palestinian Arabs rewarded Israeli's concessions by launching a brutal terror campaign featuring murderous bus bombings in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. In 2000, Israel agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank. The result was an even more brutal terror offensive, this time featuring suicide bombings.

In 2005, Israel gave all of Gaza to the Palestinian Arabs, only to have Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and other terror groups use it as a pad for launching thousands of rockets on nearby Sderot.

Israel has shown 'there is an alter native to violence,' and its past actions have shown peaceful negotiations to be a priority. Equally obviously, Israel's efforts haven't worked.

Any realistic approach must recognize Israeli concessions met with terror do not bring peace closer; any realistic approach must recognize the need for the Palestinian Arabs to start adhering to the most basic commitments to which they agreed in 1993: to abandon terror and join with Israel in good-faith negotiations.

Alan H. Stein
Waterbury
The writer is president of PRIMER Connecticut (Promoting Responsibility in Middle East Reporting; www.primerct.org).

Show Some Respect for the Palestinian Arabs

Submitted by primerprez to the Washington Post as a letter responding to the editorial "Mr. Mitchell in the Mideast."

The Washington Post apparently declined to publish it.

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Dear Editor:

Your January 31 editorial, "Mr. Mitchell in the Mideast," demonstrated a lack of respect for the ultimate humanity of the Palestinian Arabs in effectively endorsing their demand for the ethnic cleansing of any Jewish presence from whatever portions of the disputed territories are ultimately incorporated into another Palestinian Arab state or states.

Israel already has nearly one and a half Arab citizens; any Palestinian Arab should be insulted by the implication that they cannot tolerate a couple of hundred thousand Jews in their own state.

The editorial also criticized the small increase of 35,000 in the number of Jews living in the West Bank. (Gaza has already been ethnically cleansed, with the only Jew in Gaza being Gilad Shalit, who has been held hostage, without being allowed even visits from the Red Cross, since 2005.)

According to the CIA, the Arab population in Gaza is about one and a half million with an annual growth rate of 3.4 percent and the Arab population in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) is about 2.4 million with an annual growth rate of 2.2 percent.

This translates to an annual increase in the Arab population of the disputed territories of about 103,000. In other words, each year the Arab population in those territories is growing by three times as much as the tiny Jewish population has grown in three years.

---

[The editorial as published in The Washington Post:]

Mr. Mitchell in the Mideast

The Obama administration would do well to follow the advice he already offered -- eight years ago.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

GEORGE MITCHELL, the Obama administration's new Middle East envoy, encountered a grim landscape on a tour of the region this week. The conflict between Israel and Hamas continues to simmer; no cease-fire has been agreed to. Moderate Palestinian leaders and U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia and even Turkey are furious about the heavy loss of life and continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. But Israel is drifting to the right. The leader in polls for next month's election is Binyamin Netanyahu, who favors postponing an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement indefinitely -- and promises to "finish the work" in Gaza.

President Obama has already recognized that closing an Israeli-Palestinian deal on a two-state settlement is not a realistic aim for now; instead, he has spoken of providing "a space where trust can be built." How can the United States do that? One way is the to promote economic development in the West Bank, something that Mr. Netanyahu supports. Mr. Mitchell could also devote himself to constructing a more durable peace in Gaza.

Even as it builds confidence, though, the Obama administration needs to show that the United States is still committed to a separate Palestinian state, and to countering those on both sides who are working against it. That means trying to break the links between Hamas and Iran while pushing the Islamic movement to reconcile with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and allow negotiations with Israel. It also means checking Israel's continued expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank -- a practice that threatens to make a two-state solution impossible to implement.

A report this week underlined the danger. The Israeli group Peace Now reported that settlement growth in 2008 was 69 percent greater than the previous year -- despite the commitment of outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to a Palestinian state. Nearly 600 of the 1,500 new structures were outside the security barrier Israel has built through the West Bank, and more than 250 were in the approximately 100 "outposts" that the Israeli government has itself declared illegal. Mr. Olmert and former prime minister Ariel Sharon repeatedly promised the Bush administration that the outposts would be dismantled and new construction limited to areas that Israel would probably annex as part of a final settlement. Not only did those pledges go unfulfilled, but the West Bank settler population has grown by 35,000, to 285,000, during Mr. Olmert's three years in office.

Mr. Mitchell understands the political as well as the practical importance of settlements. Eight years ago, when he headed an international panel to study the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he concluded that the "expansion of settlements undermines Palestinians' confidence in Israel's willingness to negotiate . . . a viable Palestinian state." Mr. Mitchell proposed and the Bush administration endorsed a settlement freeze, but President George W. Bush never attempted to obtain Israel's compliance even with its own commitments. By holding the next Israeli government strictly accountable, the Obama administration could send a powerful message to Palestinians and Arab states about its commitment to an agreement -- and, at the same time, preserve the space for it to happen.

Profile in Courage?

One has to be a bit of a lunatic to protest in favor of antisemitism, but that's what two lonely fanatics did in New Haven on Tuesday evening, February 3.

They stood out, in more ways than one, in the cold on a snowy night, in front of Yale's Luce Auditorium in New Haven, protesting the Second Annual Professor William Prusoff Honorary Lecture, part of the Antisemitism in Comparative Perspective seminar series organized by YIISA, the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism.

The intrepid supporters of antisemitism were armed with a megaphone and surrounded by a half dozen protest signs, apparently brought to be carried by the hoards of supporters they expected to join in the protest called by The Middle East Crisis Committee, proud of its crusade against any efforts to prevent the ethnic cleansing of Jews from their ancestral homeland.

While they felt no shame in protesting against the study of antisemitism, one of the two was apparently ashamed of the way he looked, frantically hiding his face behind an envelope as soon as a camera came out.

Bringing all that paraphernalia was a waste of time, since primerprez was apparently the only person who stopped by long enough to either see or hear them, but at least they adhered to one tenet that some incorrectly believe is part of the Hippocratic Oath: with nobody being misled, for once they did no harm.

PRIMER Comment & Analysis: Israelis vs. Palestinians: The Fundamentals

The Waterbury Republican-American published the op-ed at the end of this post on February 2, 2009.

This Comment & Analysis includes "Comments" (quotes from the commentary) and follows each by an "Analysis."

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Comment:

"Alan Stein's Jan. 17 letter, "Rockets hurt Arabs more than Israelis," speaks of "Palestinian Arabs" as responsible for rocket fire into southern Israel and seems to conflate all Palestinian Arabs with Hamas. Fatah is also a Palestinian Arab party that governs the West Bank (2.5 million, more populous than Gaza), has accepted a two-state solution and recognizes Israel."

Analysis:

Hamas won the last parliamentary elections for the Palestinian Authority.

The Fatah Charter still contains the following goal: "Article (12) Complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence." That is hardly an indication that Fatah "has accepted a two-state solution and recognizes Israel."

---

Comment:

"Hamas is a political party which, after a democratic election, governs only Gaza and forms its government."

Analysis:

This is misleading, making it appear Hamas took over the government of Gaza as a result of a democratic election.

After the election, Hamas eventually agreed to a unity government with Fatah, but then violently overthrew Fatah in Gaza in a bloody coup.

---

Comment:

"The invasion of Gaza has cost more than 1,400 lives, injured more than 10,000, the majority civilians, including hundreds of women, children, aid workers and medics, and destroyed countless homes, stores, offices, schools and university buildings, and hit hospitals, shelters and U.N.-designated sanctuaries. This is not "collateral damage," in the sense of unexpected and unavoidable damage, but inevitable and predictable if a military decides to bomb cities and attack densely populated areas with remote-controlled bombs and tanks firing at buildings. The humanitarian cost of the invasion has been internationally condemned, and it does the cause of the Israeli people no good to minimize or ignore it, even if it is held to be necessary, as many do."

Analysis:

The figures given in the op-ed are suspect and parrot the numbers given by biased sources such as the Hamas controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza.

The Jerusalem Post at reports that Israeli Military Intelligence "has set up a team to produce a comprehensive list of Palestinian fatalities, including their names and affiliation." According to the article, "The IDF privately told Israeli reporters ... that only 150 of the 900 fatalities it has checked were civilians and that it was likely that the rest were Hamas combatants."

There were roughly another 200 casualties that had not been identified at that time. Those were mostly young men of an age that made it likely most were also combatants.

If one looks at the historical record rather than parroting anti-Israel propaganda, one realizes, as I heard historian Michael Oren recently point out, the LOW level of civilian casualties in Gaza is unprecedented in the history of urban warfare.

In contrast, in urban warfare, typically at least ten times as many civilians are killed as combatants. The low level of civilian casualties in Gaza is even more amazing given the strategy of Hamas and other terror groups of attacking from civilian areas and hiding behind civilians.

Additionally, Hamas used homes, schools, mosques and hospitals to store arms, shelter terrorists and launch attacks.

---

Comment:

"The rocket fire from Hamas is wrong, and indeed stupid from its point of view. Its effects are, comparatively, trivial; a maximum of 10 deaths over several years, none after the first day of the invasion. The rocket fire is to be condemned, but it is widely disproportionate to the scope of the death and destruction in Gaza."

Analysis:

Trivial is in the mind of the beholder. One would not consider it trivial if thousands of rockets had hit Waterbury from nearby Middlebury over a period of several years and caused "only" ten deaths.

Far from being disproportionate, Israel's response to the rocket fire has thus far been insufficient, as proven by the fact that the rocket fire continues to this day, including a Grad rocket hitting Ashkelon this morning.

---

Comment:

"Reasonable people differ on the assignment of moral blame for the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. The international community and the United Nations overwhelmingly hold the Israeli government at least in part responsible, but the debate is not a productive one; all sides agree war is undesirable and the recent cease fire has been widely welcomed."

Analysis:

Article Fifteen of the Hamas Charter begins: "The day that enemies usurp part of Muslim land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Muslim. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised. To do this requires the diffusion of Islamic consciousness among the masses, both on the regional, Arab and Islamic levels. It is necessary to instill the spirit of Jihad in the heart of the nation so that they would confront the enemies and join the ranks of the fighters."

Article 17 of the Fatah Charter reads: "Armed public revolution is the inevitable method to liberating Palestine."

These are hardly consistent with the assertion "all sides agree war is undesirable."

---

Comment:

"Arguing Israel's very existence is at stake in the invasion, and that Hamas must "recognize" Israel before true negotiations can begin, is counterproductive. Israel's existence is not threatened by the pitiable rocket fire from an impoverished and isolated Hamas leadership in Gaza, whatever its rhetoric. Israel is the dominant military power in the Middle East. Let Hamas bluster as it may, Israel's existence is no longer at stake.

"The invasion has not weakened the support of Hamas among the residents of Gaza nor created an alternate entity with which the government of Israel might negotiate. It needs to recognize the reality of Hamas' governmental role, and deal directly with it."

Analysis:

One obviously needs to deal with Hamas, but what is there to negotiate with a terrorist entity whose raison d'etre is your destruction?

---

Comment:

"From the point of view of the Israeli people, a permanent settlement is devoutly to be desired. That must include cessation of rocket fire and agreement on a two-state solution, with peaceful governments on both sides of the border."

Analysis:

Quite true, other than implying a border exists; the location of a border between Israel and whatever entity or entities emerge in the disputed territories must be determined by negotiations.

---

Comment:

"From the point of view of the Palestinian people, a permanent settlement is devoutly to be desired as well.

Analysis:

It should be desired, but the charters of both Hamas and the supposedly more moderate Fatah continue to envision permanent settlements without Israel.

---

Comment:

"That must include an ending of the blockade of Gaza and agreement on a two-state solution, with peaceful governments on both sides of the border and some sharing of Jerusalem. It must deal with settlements in the West bank that preclude Palestinian sovereignty."

Analysis:

There already is some sharing of Jerusalem; the Palestinian Arabs already control Judaism's most holy site, the Temple Mount.

Unless one has no respect for the ability of the Palestinian Arabs to adhere to civilized standards of behavior, there is no more reason for the presence of a relative handful of Jews in the currently disputed territories to preclude Palestinian Arab sovereignty than the presence of more than a million Arabs has prevented Israeli sovereignty.

---

Comment:

"Most participants in the current discussions agree it is in the interests of both peoples to live together in peace."

Analysis:

Unfortunately, Hamas isn't among those participants who so agree.

---

Comment:

"Many on both sides agree and are working together toward that goal. If the Israeli government would prefer a different partner for the discussions than the elected Hamas government of Gaza, its present actions only intensify Hamas' support. It needs to show there is an alternative to violence that moves forward toward peace; its past actions have not shown peaceful negotiations as a priority. The peace supporters on both sides have little to show for their efforts."

Analysis:

The Israeli government has made peaceful negotiations a priority for six decades, but those efforts haven't been very successful.

At the start of the Oslo Experiment, it transferred control over the lives of about 95 percent of the Arabs in the disputed territories to the Palestinian Authority, only to be rewarded with a massive wave of terrorism including bus bombings.

In 2000, it offered the Palestinian Arabs their own state, only to be rewardeds with another terror offensive, this time featuring suicide bombings in pizza parlors, shopping malls and discotheques.

In 2005, it completely left Gaza, only to be rewarded with thousands of Kassam and Grad rockets launched at Sderot, Ashkelon and now Beersheva and Ashdod.

---

Comment:

"The best contribution the U.S. government can make is to put its enormous weight, and now prestige, behind those efforts. Knee-jerk support of the government of Israel, particularly before an election there, is the wrong way to go. A more realistic approach by all sides and more clarity on long-range goals would help."

Analysis:

Realism dictates a recognition that peace is impossible as long as Hamas, in anything resembling its present form, enjoys any signicant support among the Palestinian Arabs.

Realism also dictates a recognition that peace is impossible as long as the supposedly "moderate" Fatah clings to the same absolutist demands it was making at the start of the Oslo Experiment.

---

The Text: Israelis vs. Palestinians: The Fundamentals

By Peter Marcuse

The widespread discussion on the Gaza conflict and the roles of Israel and Hamas might be helped by clarifying just who the writers are concerned about. There is a difference between Hamas and the people who live in the Gaza Strip, and between Hamas and "Palestinian Arabs." And there is a difference between "Israel," the government of Israel, the people of Israel and the particular political leaders who now determine the policies of the government of Israel.

The Jan. 14 letter by Judith and Peter Haddad, "Goals of Israelis, Palestinians need not be incompatible," focuses on what is happening to the 1.7 million people who live in the Gaza Strip. Alan Stein's Jan. 17 letter, "Rockets hurt Arabs more than Israelis," speaks of "Palestinian Arabs" as responsible for rocket fire into southern Israel and seems to conflate all Palestinian Arabs with Hamas. Fatah is also a Palestinian Arab party that governs the West Bank (2.5 million, more populous than Gaza), has accepted a two-state solution and recognizes Israel.

Hamas is a political party which, after a democratic election, governs only Gaza and forms its government.

If we keep those distinctions clear, the following can be recognized by everyone as facts:

The invasion of Gaza has cost more than 1,400 lives, injured more than 10,000, the majority civilians, including hundreds of women, children, aid workers and medics, and destroyed countless homes, stores, offices, schools and university buildings, and hit hospitals, shelters and U.N.-designated sanctuaries. This is not "collateral damage," in the sense of unexpected and unavoidable damage, but inevitable and predictable if a military decides to bomb cities and attack densely populated areas with remote-controlled bombs and tanks firing at buildings. The humanitarian cost of the invasion has been internationally condemned, and it does the cause of the Israeli people no good to minimize or ignore it, even if it is held to be necessary, as many do.

The rocket fire from Hamas is wrong, and indeed stupid from its point of view. Its effects are, comparatively, trivial; a maximum of 10 deaths over several years, none after the first day of the invasion. The rocket fire is to be condemned, but it is widely disproportionate to the scope of the death and destruction in Gaza.

Reasonable people differ on the assignment of moral blame for the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. The international community and the United Nations overwhelmingly hold the Israeli government at least in part responsible, but the debate is not a productive one; all sides agree war is undesirable and the recent cease fire has been widely welcomed.

Arguing Israel's very existence is at stake in the invasion, and that Hamas must "recognize" Israel before true negotiations can begin, is counterproductive. Israel's existence is not threatened by the pitiable rocket fire from an impoverished and isolated Hamas leadership in Gaza, whatever its rhetoric. Israel is the dominant military power in the Middle East. Let Hamas bluster as it may, Israel's existence is no longer at stake.

The invasion has not weakened the support of Hamas among the residents of Gaza nor created an alternate entity with which the government of Israel might negotiate. It needs to recognize the reality of Hamas' governmental role, and deal directly with it.

From the point of view of the Israeli people, a permanent settlement is devoutly to be desired. That must include cessation of rocket fire and agreement on a two-state solution, with peaceful governments on both sides of the border.

From the point of view of the Palestinian people, a permanent settlement is devoutly to be desired as well. That must include an ending of the blockade of Gaza and agreement on a two-state solution, with peaceful governments on both sides of the border and some sharing of Jerusalem. It must deal with settlements in the West bank that preclude Palestinian sovereignty.

Most participants in the current discussions agree it is in the interests of both peoples to live together in peace. Many on both sides agree and are working together toward that goal. If the Israeli government would prefer a different partner for the discussions than the elected Hamas government of Gaza, its present actions only intensify Hamas' support. It needs to show there is an alternative to violence that moves forward toward peace; its past actions have not shown peaceful negotiations as a priority. The peace supporters on both sides have little to show for their efforts.

The best contribution the U.S. government can make is to put its enormous weight, and now prestige, behind those efforts. Knee-jerk support of the government of Israel, particularly before an election there, is the wrong way to go. A more realistic approach by all sides and more clarity on long-range goals would help.

The best contribution the U.S. government can make is to put its enormous weight, and now prestige, behind those efforts. Knee-jerk support of the government of Israel, particularly before an election there, is the wrong way to go. A more realistic approach by all sides and more clarity on long-range goals would help.

Peter Marcuse of Waterbury, once a majority leader of the Board of Aldermen, teaches urban planning at Columbia University. He has visited cities in Israel, the West Bank and Egypt.

I am a Zionist

Written by Yair Lapid, this is from YnetNews.

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I am a Zionist.

I believe that the Jewish people established itself in the Land of Israel, albeit somewhat late. Had it listened to the alarm clock, there would have been no Holocaust, and my dead grandfather – the one I was named after – would have been able to dance a last waltz with grandma on the shores of the Yarkon River.

I am a Zionist.

Hebrew is the language I use to thank the Creator, and also to swear on the road. The Bible does not only contain my history, but also my geography. King Saul went to look for mules on what is today Highway 443, Jonah the Prophet boarded his ship not too far from what is today a Jaffa restaurant, and the balcony where David peeped on Bathsheba must have been bought by some oligarch by now.

I am a Zionist.

The first time I saw my son wearing an IDF uniform I burst into tears, I haven't missed the Independence Day torch-lighting ceremony for 20 years now, and my television was made in Korea, but I taught it to cheer for our national soccer team.

I am a Zionist.

I believe in our right for this land. The people who were persecuted for no reason throughout history have a right to a state of their own plus a free F-16 from the manufacturer. Every display of anti-Semitism from London to Mumbai hurts me, yet deep inside I'm thinking that Jews who choose to live abroad fail to understand something very basic about this world. The State of Israel was not established so that the anti-Semites will disappear, but rather, so we can tell them to get lost.

I am a Zionist.

I was fired at in Lebanon, a Katyusha rockets missed me by a few feet in Kiryat Shmona, missiles landed near my home during the first Gulf War, I was in Sderot when the Color Red anti-rocket alert system was activated, terrorists blew themselves up not too far from my parents' house, and my children stayed in a bomb shelter before they even knew how to pronounce their own name, clinging to a grandmother who arrived here from Poland to escape death. Yet nonetheless, I always felt fortunate to be living here, and I don't really feel good anywhere else.

I am a Zionist.

I think that anyone who lives here should serve in the army, pay taxes, vote in the elections, and be familiar with the lyrics of at least one Shalom Hanoch song. I think that the State of Israel is not only a place, it is also an idea, and I wholeheartedly believe in the three extra commandments engraved on the wall of the Holocaust museum in Washington: "Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but above all, thou shalt not be a bystander."

I am a Zionist.

I already laid down on my back to admire the Sistine Chapel, I bought a postcard at the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, and I was deeply impressed by the emerald Buddha at the king's palace in Bangkok. Yet I still believe that Tel Aviv is more entertaining, the Red Sea is greener, and the Western Wall Tunnels provide for a much more powerful spiritual experience. It is true that I'm not objective, but I'm also not objective in respect to my wife and children.

I am a Zionist.

I am a man of tomorrow but I also live my past. My dynasty includes Moses, Jesus, Maimonides, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Albert Einstein, Woody Allen, Bobby Fischer, Bob Dylan, Franz Kafka, Herzl, and Ben-Gurion. I am part of a tiny persecuted minority that influenced the world more than any other nation. While others invested their energies in war, we had the sense to invest in our minds.

I am a Zionist.

I sometimes look around me and become filled with pride, because I live better than a billion Indians, 1.3 billion Chinese, the entire African continent, more than 250 million Indonesians, and also better than the Thais, the Filipinos, the Russians, the Ukrainians, and the entire Muslim world, with the exception of the Sultan of Brunei. I live in a country under siege that has no natural resources, yet nonetheless the traffic lights always work and we have high-speed connection to the Internet.

I am a Zionist.

My Zionism is natural, just like it is natural for me to be a father, a husband, and a son. People who claim that they, and only they, represent the "real Zionism" are ridiculous in my view. My Zionism is not measured by the size of my kippa, by the neighborhood where I live, or by the party I will be voting for. It was born a long time before me, on a snowy street in the ghetto in Budapest where my father stood and attempted, in vain, to understand why the entire world is trying to kill him.

I am a Zionist.

Every time an innocent victim dies, I bow my head because once upon a time I was an innocent victim. I have no desire or intention to adopt the moral standards of my enemies. I do not want to be like them. I do not live on my sword; I merely keep it under my pillow.

I am a Zionist.

I do not only hold on to the rights of our forefathers, but also to the duty of the sons. The people who established this state lived and worked under much worse conditions than I have to face, yet nonetheless they did not make do with mere survival. They also attempted to establish a better, wiser, more humane, and more moral state here. They were willing to die for this cause, and I try to live for its sake.