$3.50
Louis Rene Beres,, Gary Cooperberg, Dr. Aaron Lerner,
Dan Nimrod, Dr. Steven Plaut,Boris Shusteff and Emanuel A. Winston
and much more........
PAGE
SADDENED BY RECENT EVENTS....Editorial by Bernard J. Shapiro 3
CHANUKAH AND JEWISH HISTORY....Bernard J. Shapiro 4
THE FAILURE OF WYE
PALESTINIAN COMMITMENTS VS. PRONOUNCEMENTS SINCE THE WYE ACCORD 9
DANCING WITH JOY, Moving In For The Kill....Uri Dan & Dennis Eisenberg 10
ALTERNATIVES....Boris Shusteff 11
THE ILLNESS...Boris Shusteff 14
CHALLENGING GOD....Boris Shusteff 16
IMRA'S WEEKLY COMMENTARY ON ARUTZ 7....Dr. Aaron Lerner 18
ISRAEL'S LOOMING WATER CRISIS....Emanuel A. Winston 20
THE GREATER PLAN FOR ISRAEL'S DEMISE....Emanuel A. Winston 21
THE FALL OF JORDAN #2....Emanuel A. Winston 22
ISRAEL AND THE VULTURE, AFTER WYE RIVER....Louis Rene Beres 24
THE MOST HISTORIC MAPS....Akiva Eldar 25
WOULD YOU GIVE AWAY 1.2 BILLION DOLLARS FOR A LIE....Gary M. Cooperberg 26
CAN THE ARABS EVER USE THEIR OIL WEAPON AGAIN?...Emanuel A. Winston 28
ISRAELI DEMOCRACY IS THREATENED BY CENSORSHIP AND McCARTHYISM
WHITHER THE JERUSALEM POST? 30
INDICTMENTS AGAINST ARUTZ -7 CALLED ANTI-DEMOCRATIC 30
LICENSE ARUTZ 7....Editorial from The Jerusalem Post 31
THE RE-EMERGENCE OF ISRAELI McCARTHYISM....Dr. Steven Plaut 32
THE LAVON AFFAIR & THE RABIN ASSASINATION....Emanuel A. Winston 33
CONSPIRACY AND COMPLICITY....Yisrael Medad 36
FREEMAN CENTER SPECIAL REPORTS
PALESTINIAN IDEOLOGY AND PRACTICE 5 YEARS AFTER OSLO....Prof. Moshe Sharon 38
WYE DEAL POSES THREAT TO U.S. INTELLIGENCE.....Center For Security Policy 43
THE UNMAPPING OF ISRAEL....Poetry....Evelyn Hayes 55
THE MACCABEAN
An Editorial
I am profoundly saddened by recent events in Israel. For six years I have provided Jews everywhere with tens of thousands of pages of commentary and analysis fully explaining the devastating dangers inherent in the Oslo process. Yet the process continues unabated. The lemming like march to self-destruction has become an end in and of itself. Oslo has become a 'religion' of the left and a necessary bitter pill to the right.
This last week I have spent much time contemplating Jewish history and trying to understand what we are witnessing today. I was shocked by my conclusion and I will certainly be condemned for revealing the bitter truth:
During World War II, the Nazis occupied European cities containing large well organized Jewish communities. The Jewish leadership was enlisted to control and govern the Jewish population. As the deportations to the death camps began in earnest, that same Jewish leadership was told to supply a specific number of Jews to be deported on a daily or weekly basis. The Jewish leadership, fearful for their own lives and those of their families, agreed to this demand. After all wouldn't it be better to sacrifice some Jews to save others? Of course we all know what happened in the end. They were all killed. Their deal with the Nazi devil did not save them or their families.
My dear friends, the Israeli government with the acquiescence of a large number of Israelis, especially those along the coast from Tel Aviv to Haifa, has made a similar devilish deal. They have made a fateful and quiet decision to sacrifice the lives and homes of the Jews of Yesha to the voracious beast of Palestinian nationalism. Their philosophy has much historical parallel from Chamberlain at Munich in 1938 to Warsaw a few years later. What they all have in common is a certitude of failure. The beast Israeli leaders have chosen to feed has an appetite that will never be sated until the last Jew has been murdered or driven from Eretz Yisrael.
A final note: None of this was necessary. Israel is strong enough to defend its territory and reclaim all of its Holy Land. Arabs could have been give a choice of civil (individual) rights without political sovereignty. Those not happy with that arrangement would have a choice of 24 Arab countries (though none are democratic) to exercise political rights. There is only one Jewish state and we have been fortunate enough to see it emerge in our lifetime. How sad to also have to witness its demise....
Questions:
Was it really necessary to destroy a perfectly good Jewish state in order to appease terrorists with the same goals as the Nazis we fought in World War II?
Why do Jews spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build Holocaust museums and teach about the Holocaust, while they don't lift a finger to save Jews from the coming Holocaust #2?
I encourage anyone with the answers to these two questions to bring them to me....
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made a Faustian deal with the devil. It is true that there was American pressure to make a deal. Some of the reported threats include: the withholding of funds for the Arrow anti-missile project , threats to withhold satellite information on missile launches and aid in combating the non-conventional threat from Iran and Iraq. A true leader would have walked away from a process that included such blackmail. Instead, Netanyahu, made a deal that compromises Israel's sovereignty, introduces the CIA into the most domestic of Israeli security decisions, creates the geographic imperatives that will result in the killing of many Jews, and virtually guarantees the establishment of a Palestinian state. The agreement he forced through his cabinet eviscerates virtually all of the PA compliance requirements previously agreed to by the very same cabinet.
Why does Arafat push for the implementation of this agreement? He supports it because not only does he sell the same "rug of compliance" for the fifth time, but also the way is open to sell it for the sixth time over final status issues like Jerusalem and the "right of return." Netanyahu has sold out the Jewish People's heritage, not for a bowl or porridge but for hot air. Someone should have reminded him that when you deal with the devil, you lose your soul.
The Oslo/Wye Accords have different meanings to different groups:
1. To the Arabs: A weakening of Israel, a chance to kill more Jews, increased number of safe havens in which to retreat after killing Jews and the eventual possibility of destroying Israel and replacing it with "Palestine" from the river to the sea.
2. To the Labor & Meretz parties and the Israeli governments of Rabin, Peres, and Netanyahu: A necessary compromise with the Arab inhabitants of Israel, which would hopefully end the conflict for all time.
3. To Zionists, secular nationalists, and religious Jews: A betrayal of the promise to Abraham by G-d that Eretz Yisrael would be an inheritance of the Jewish people in perpetuity. An incredibly stupid agreement from the strategic/military perspective. A source of division and weakening of the Jewish/Zionist spirit. The creation of a new political entity, Palestine, which has sworn to destroy and replace Israel. The reversal of a 50 year military doctrine not to allow a hostile Arab army between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.
The year is 70 C.E. and a young Roman legionnaire stands on a hill overlooking Jerusalem. While he watches it burn, he says to his comrades in Latin, "Judea Capta Est" (Judea is conquered).Yet like the legendary phoenix, rising from the ashes of its own destruction, Israel burst onto the world's stage 2000 years later, with the cry of a lusty infant yearning to breathe free. Five Arab armies tried to destroy that new life before it could take hold. With blood and fire, including the sacrifice of one per cent of its population (6000 of its best young people), besieged Israel secured its independence.
Just nine short years earlier, European Jewry faced its most devastating experience, the Holocaust. In the areas under Nazi occupation, the Jewish death rate was 90%. Despite revolts in dozens of camps, and heroic resistance with the partisans of free Europe, the Jews were unorganized, unarmed and ultimately became victims. During both the Holocaust and Israel's War of Independence, the world and its leaders were indifferent, if not hostile, to the fate of the Jews.
Jews in their own land, with their G-d, have great power, much more than the sum of arms and men. During Chanukah we should recall the legacy of the Maccabees. Remember how two "Hellenized Jews," Jason and Menelaus tried to destroy Judaism and force assimilation on the Jewish population. For generations we have taught our children about the evil Antiochus and his attempt to suppress the Jews. In reality, there were traitors among our own people who led the way for Antiochus.
There arose in Israel, a similar situation when Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres led a leftwing coalition that was blatantly hostile to everything Jewish. They pushed through the Oslo Accords which surrendered the heartland of Eretz Yisrael, promised in perpetuity to Abraham and his descendants by G-d. The educational system in Israel was being revamped to eliminate the study of Jewish sources like the bible. They cultivated hatred of all things Jewish and especially religious Jews. Units of the Israel Defense Forces were recruited from the non-religious population for the sole purpose of suppressing and possibly destroying the religious villages of YESHA.
Rabin and Peres, anxious to win favor with the Arabs, much like Jason and the Greeks, planned to give away Israel's strategic assets. Territory is not important if your new god is economics. While the Israeli government renounced anything Jewish, including Holy Sites, the Arabs sought strength and comfort in a revived Islam. Nothing portrays the difference better between the Arabs and the Jews than how each views his religion. Young Arab men, promised paradise, cry "ali Akbar" (G-d is Great), then sacrifice their lives to kill Jews in one great jihad. Jewish soldiers flee their posts, uncertain about their open-fire instructions, demoralized by a government, which lies to them about the advent of peace.
The Israeli people rose up in the 1996 election and threw out the party of appeasement that had abandoned Eretz Yisrael. Benjamin Natanyahu became Israeli Prime Minister and the National/Zionist/Religious groups breathed a collective sight of relief. ONLY RELIEF DID NOT COME. For some reason know n only to him, Netanyahu proceeded to implement the very same Oslo agreements the voters had rejected What should we do?
Let us be Maccabees again. Let us go into battle with the Maccabee cry, "All who are with G-d, follow me!" With the words: "Who is like untoThee O G-d (the acronym of which spells out he word Maccabee in Hebrew) inscribed on their flags, the G-d inspired Jewish army swept the much larger enemy from the field in a great victory. It is this victory for which we celebrate Chanukah and not just the miracle of the oil burning eight days.
There is a simple but crucial lesson for us all in the above events. If we as Jews turn our backs on our religion and our G-d, we can expect disaster. The current government of Israel has brought down the wrath of G-d on the Israeli people for turning its back on our heritage. Like Judah Maccabee, angered by the treason of Jason and Menelaus, and outraged by Antiochus, we must revolt against Netanyahu as we did against Peres and Rabin. The nationalist opposition in Israel must unite behind one Zionist banner. They must fill the streets and jails with protesters. City after city must be shut down.
Victory will not fall into our lap. It must be fought for and won. We must demonstrate that the strength of our will and the power of our belief can not be defeated. Only then will victory come.
In the two weeks since the signing of the October 23, 1998 Wye River Memorandum between Israel and the PLO, leading Palestinian officials have made a series of remarks contradicting their obligations under the agreement.
1) Amend the PLO Covenant
"The joint meeting of the PLO Executive Committee, the PNC, the Central Council and the Legislative Council is by the Palestinian National intended only to listen to the speech of President Clinton and there will be no vote [to amend the Covenant]." Council (PNC) (Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, Al-Ayyam, Nov. 4, 1998)
"We shall not convene the Palestinian National Council to change the Covenant." (Abu Alaa, Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Yediot Aharonot, Nov. 6, 1998)
2) Halt Incitement
"Jews are the seed of Satan and the devils" (PA television, Nov. 3, 1998)
"The Israeli side is guided by Jewish merchant tactics in discussing every detail" (official PA newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, Oct. 26, 1998)
3) Reduce the Size of the Palestinian Police
"This is no problem. We will get around it by reallocating policemen such that one who serves in one location can serve in another. We will get around it by adopting a policy of transferring policemen."
(PA Police Chief Ghazi Jabali, Al-Quds, Nov. 4, 1998)
"With regard to lowering the number of Palestinian policemen, Dahlan indicated that the Palestinians do not intend to lower their number. He said, "We have no problem providing one list of policemen and a second list of policemen who do administrative work..." (Muhammad Dahlan, PA Preventive Security chief in Gaza, Al-Ayyam, Oct. 26, 1998)
4) Confiscate Illegal Weapons
"On the issue of confiscating illegal weapons, Dahlan stated there is no agreement on lowering the number of weapons in the PA's possession." (Muhammad Dahlan, PA Preventive Security chief in Gaza, Al-Ayyam, Oct. 26, 1998)
"There is a law for licensing weapons. Every respectable person submits a request... and we give it to him... The weapons license is granted to businessmen, dignitaries, politicians and wanted fugitives..." (PA Police Chief Ghazi Jabali on PA TV, Oct. 30, 1998)
5) Arrest Terrorists
"I can not arrest a Palestinian citizen who killed an Israeli and at the same time give the Israeli the right to commit terrorist acts against Palestinians... my primary security mission is... to protect Palestinian security and defend Palestinian citizens." (Muhammad Dahlan, PA Preventive Security chief in Gaza, Al-Ayyam, Oct. 26, 1998)
"The Palestinians will not listen to the Israeli security
forces' instructions regarding who to arrest." (PA Minister
Dr. Nabil Sha'ath, Voice of Israel in Arabic,
Nov. 5, 1998)
Reprinted from The Jerusalem Post of November 26, 1998
When the South African partner of this column was five years old and camping with his family near a Transvaal river, it was the Zulu nanny who warned her charge: "Passop! [Beware] the cruel crocodiles. They will seize you in their jaws and let you die slowly. When you are near death their horrible eyes will blaze like the fierce sun before they gobble you up!"
Those warning words came to mind as Palestinians danced with joy when the IDF pulled out of Kabatiya in northern Samaria last Friday. They raised their Kalashnikovs triumphantly into the air - perhaps the same rifles that Yasser Arafat threatens to wave over Jerusalem, which he plans to make the capital of his future Palestinian state. The "crocodile" warning, for Israel, is more applicable today than ever before. The Palestinians will unleash their full fury and hatred when they feel the Jews are weakening and are ready for the coup de grace.
The warning went unheeded five years ago, when Yitzhak Rabin shook the hand of PLO terrorist leader Arafat at the While House to signify the "new dawn" of peace that the Oslo Accords were designed to create. Peace was on the lips of Israeli politicians who said "let's give them a chance." Yet there was no sudden flowering of goodwill on the part of the Palestinians, because they sensed that the Jews were losing the heroic resolve that had filled the spirits of the early pioneers who built this land. Victory whetted the appetites of the Palestinian leadership, just as the crocodile anticipates with relish his midday meal held tightly in his jaws.
The result was a series of suicide bombings - the worst orgy of terrorism this country has ever experienced. HISTORY has not repeated itself - as yet, anyway - on that horrific scale since the signing of the Wye Memorandum. But that was sheer luck, as bombers in fact attempted to attack a school bus in the Gaza Strip and shoppers in Jerusalem's Mahaneh Yehuda market. The low body count, however, hasn't stopped Palestinian leaders and their followers from feeling triumphant, believing that now the Jews are really on the run. They are seen as flabby and weak, as they abandon further chunks of their ancestral homeland.
If Arafat is comparatively quiescent at present, it is clear that he is patiently waiting for the day when he gets his hands on another 13.1% of the West Bank, - giving him some 40% of the area. His ceaseless provocations of today surely portend the unleashing of full-scale terror once the land is under his control. His comments and exhortations to his people are totally contrary to the commitments made by him at Wye to prevent incitement.
The burning rage of the crocodile is reflected in the words and cartoons of the Palestinian and other Arab media. A mere 15 days after the Wye accords, the official Palestinian newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (November 7) explains why the Israelis are giving up part of their homeland:
"In their history....the Jews were subject to losses and expulsion as a result of their wickedness and their despicable acts.... Corruption is part of the Jews' nature...It's apparent that the Jews were subjected to losses and expulsions as a result of their wickedness and their despicable acts. All this occurred after their true nature and their responsibility for destroying the world has been revealed."
During a religious TV program four days earlier, viewers were told "that the Jews are the seed of Satan and the devils. The Jews do not believe in God... They lied about their Torah and forged it. They have distorted the faith and exchanged the gift of God for heresy, rebellion and prostitution and distorted the Torah."
PERHAPS we should not be surprised. After all, in Egypt, our first peace partner, the incitement in the state-controlled media is as pernicious as any knife or bomb: "The Jews invented the myth of mass extermination and the fabrication of 6 million Jews that were put to death in Nazi ovens," declared Al-Akhbar on September 25. Added the October weekly (October 4): "Satan worship is part of Judaism."
The cartoons in the Egyptian press are increasingly virulent. One particularly vicious caricature in the Egyptian Al Gomhouriya (September 18) shows both Netanyahu and Israeli soldiers giving the Nazi "Heil Hitler" salute. Another in the same publication (October 26) depicts a Der Sturmer Jew with a long nose whispering to the Netanyahu: "You should have insisted on Monica's return to the White House as a condition for signing the Wye deal."
Clearly the Egyptians - who have experience with crocodiles in the Nile - are now convinced that they have the Jews on the ropes - and are ratcheting up their incitement as they prepare for what they see as the kill.
(c) Jerusalem Post 1998
Uri Dan & Dennis Eisenberg are authors of
The Mossad: Secrets of the Israel Secret Service and
other books on the Middle East.
The issue is not a debate between the Zionist and non-Zionist parties: here we have an argument between the tendency to life and the tendency to death.
.....Zeev Jabotinsky, article "On National Education," 1903
If it were not so tragic it would be funny to watch Benjamin Netanyahu's pitiful attempts to find excuses to postpone the withdrawal of the Israeli Defense Forces from the lands of Yesha, the one to which he agreed in Maryland. It is like the idea of a woman being partially pregnant. She is either pregnant or not. It is impossible to be only a little bit pregnant. The situation with the Israeli government is identical. It has only two choices: either to go ahead with Oslo and to forfeit Jewish rights to Yesha and eventually to the rest of Eretz Yisrael or to terminate the Oslo agreement as mortally dangerous to Israel's existence.
For the Jewish people it does not really matter whether the abandonment of Yesha is authorized by the "leftist"Rabin-Peres government or by the "rightist" government of Netanyahu, a "hard-liner," who, on November 3, said in an interview with the Israeli daily Hatzofe:
"I believe we are all profoundly distressed by having to part with every bit of the Land of Israel. It's what distinguishes us from them. We truly care. We do not feel the joy of giving. Quite the contrary. Our action is always accompanied by a profound love for the Land of Israel."
It is hard to comprehend that this statement is made by the Prime Minister of the country that at one time had one of the best military forces in the world. It is hard to fathom that these words are uttered by a person who was once a member of an elite commando unit. It remains only to ask the Israeli Prime Minister whether he really believes that through "parting with every bit of the Land of Israel" without "feeling the joy of giving" but with "a profound love for the Land of Israel" he "truly cares" about the Jewish people?
By signing the Maryland Memorandum Netanyahu has demonstrated the bankruptcy of the "right wing"camp. Likud, having abandoned its central tenet of "not relinquishing any part of Eretz Yisrael," cannot be called a nationalist party any longer. In an article published on October 30 in the Israeli daily Yedi'ot Aharonot, Yaron London quoted Elyakim Haetzni who said:
"the real situation is that Israel has two major left-wing parties, the Likud and Labor. It will be good to topple him [Netanyahu], because he is the worst alternative. Note the romance between him and Peres, which is aimed at setting up a national unity government in which Peres will have everyone doing his beck and call. If that is the alternative, I prefer Barak, even if only to ensure that Labor will be responsible for the disaster of giving up parts of the Land of Israel."
Haetzni's suggestion to topple Netanyahu touches a nerve for the remains of the nationalist camp. The memory is still fresh of the disaster in 1992, when a split in the right wing camp brought to power the Labor government. As Netanyahu said in the Hatzofe interview, "This is precisely the line Levinger and Ze'evi spearheaded in 1992. And what did it get us? The Oslo agreements. The only place to wage a struggle is inside. Not fighting me, but waging a struggle against the excessive Arab demands together with me."
The fears of the rightist camp were articulated by Transportation Minister Sha'ul Yahalom who, on November 15, told Israeli radio Arutz-7:
"If we move to new elections, Ehud Barak will be running against a right wing divided into two or three groups: a centrist party headed by Roni Milo or Dan Meridor, the proposed new right-wing party headed by Chanan Porat or Benny Begin, and Netanyahu. This will hand Barak a victory on a silver platter, and his first phone call will not be to Porat. We have to understand the alternatives."
When one speaks of "alternatives" one should put them in proper perspective. We are not choosing between giving up 42% or 92% of Yesha. It is obvious that Arafat and the PLO are not going to be satisfied with Israel's fulfillment of her part of the Wye Memorandum. They view the "final status talks" as a tool to secure their control over all of Yesha and Jerusalem. As Nayif Hawatimah, one of the PLO's leaders, wrote on November 3 in the London Arabic newspaper Al-Hayah, "the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip are Palestinian territory, our sovereignty over which is incontestable and over which there can be no compromise or negotiation."
That the current government will be unable to withstand the PLO's demands to cede more territory was demonstrated on November 12. The mini-security cabinet "approved in principle but delayed actual paving" of the El-Aroub by-pass road due to Defense Minister Yitzchak Mordechai's vehement opposition. Mordechai maintained that the "expropriation of Palestinian agricultural land for the road will result in violent confrontations with the Arabs." The Arabs can easily read the signal that Mordechai is sending them: if Israel is afraid to expropriate this tiny piece of land it is obvious that she will surrender the rest of Yesha too.
The Arabs know how to read these signals. On November 19 Dr. Aaron Lerner interviewed Marwan Barghouti, the head of Fatah West Bank, saying that Netanyahus "public position is that there must be a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty." Barghouti replied:
"His position is very clear. But you know, two years ago Mr. Netanyahu said that he would not withdraw from one inch of the West Bank and yet, three weeks ago he signed an agreement according to which the will withdraw from 13 percent of the West Bank. This is the situation. So if he said now that Jerusalem will be united under Israeli sovereignty, well... ."
Haetzni was right when he said that there are two left-wing parties in Israel. It does not matter what their leaders say, what matters is how they act. There is no real difference between Netanyahus "profound distress" to abandon Yesha and Peres's and Beilin's "happiness" to do so. University of Washington Professor Edward Alexander wrote in The Jewish Wars:
"Contemptuous of the notion that modern Zionism is a continuation of the ancient Zionism of the Bible, they [Peres and Beilin] see no reason for staking any claim to the biblical heartland of Eretz Yisrael. But they have yet to face the question of whether the State of Israel can casually abandon that claim and nevertheless insist that it is in Tel Aviv or the land of the Philistines by right. If Jews have no claim to the highlands of ancient Israel, to Hebron, Shiloah, and the Old City of Jerusalem, why should they claim the Philistine coast? By what right?"
Netanyahu's signature in Maryland by default brought Likud and the current Israeli government into the category of those who "have no claim to the highlands of ancient Israel." That means that the alternative is not between Likud and Labor but between Israel's survival and her demise.
The situation today is different from that of 1992. The right-wing camp cannot be split up simply because it does not exist anymore. The day after Chanan Porat said that "Likud has failed in its ideology and in its leadership," the National Religious Party (NRP) followed suit. Israeli radio Arutz 7 reported on November 16 that, after the NRP voted not to topple the government, Michael Kleiner, the head of the Land of Israel front in the Knesset, said that "the NRP missed a historic opportunity to become the political and ideological leader of the nationalist camp in Israel." The call to topple the government is a call for unity. A call for the unification of all nationalist forces. The nationalist camp in Israel should be created anew. Procrastination with the creation of the new party is inadmissible. It is cowardice to run away from making decisions. Every wasted day brings the disaster closer. Actually, there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. The main principles that should go into the Program of the nationalist party are well known, they should be simply reinstated, and reinstated in a way that makes it clear that there will be no deviations from them. One way to do this is by including a provision into the program that will require a vote of 75% of the Party Central Committee and a subsequent referendum among all the Party members to amend any articles of the program.
On November 15 Member of the Knesset (MK) Hanan Porat in an interview with Arutz-7 stressed the urgency for the creation of this movement when he said, "NOW is the critical point for us: Will we be a movement that will be led by its faith, or will we continue to bleat like sheep that there is no choice? We must say, 'No more!,' and not settle for 'minimizing damages.' "
After the National Religious Party failed to vote to topple Netanyahu, MK Tzvi Hendel told Arutz 7 that "if we don't act on our threats to resign we become irrelevant, and we won't be able to put the brakes on this destructive process." Hendel is right. It appears that the whole right-wing camp has become irrelevant. It is too late to "put the brakes" on the Oslo process from inside the government, this has to be done from outside. Netanyahu was bluffing when he said, "The only place to wage a struggle is inside. Not fighting me" The latest municipal elections in Israel have demonstrated the peoples indifference. The creation of a new party with a strongly emphasized nationalist Jewish values could awaken the voters.
The split between Jewish votes in the last elections was 57% to 43% in Netanyahus favor. It is likely that this time the Labor candidate will receive less Jewish votes since Labor plans to abandon Yesha and create another Palestinian state are not secrets anymore. According to some prognoses a real Zionist party with a real Zionist program will be able to get over 25 seats in the Knesset. Even if its candidate does not become Prime Minister in the nearest elections the party will present a formidable force that will struggle for Eretz Yisrael. If the people see that the new party stays true to its announced principles and leads the real struggle for Eretz Yisrael they will follow it.
The Jewish soul is not dead yet, it just needs to be
awakened. However all this can happen only if the representatives
of the nationalist camp from the existing parties put aside their
own ambitions and join together in one authentic Zionist movement.
They are all Jews, the Jews that love Eretz
Yisrael, and this love should help them
to make the decision. They still have the chance to look inside
their hearts and make this first needed step. They must ask their
hearts now so they do not have to look into each others eyes later,
when it is too late. They have to choose life. It is either now
or never. [11/19/98]
There is a well known medical phenomenon. Sometimes a person can develop an illness in a mild form that is not dangerous to him. But if he infects somebody else, the illness can develop in this others person body in a much more dangerous way and become life-threatening. There is something extremely unhealthy in the kaleidoscopic changes in Netanyahus political positions and proclamations. The diagnosis of his "illness" was made by Mahmud 'Abbas, alias Abu-Mazen, secretary of the PLO Executive Committee. On November 10 Londons Al-Sharq al-Awsat published an interview that Abu-Mazen gave during his recent visit to Moscow. When asked what he thought of the Israeli Prime-Minister, he replied, "As for Netanyahu, I have met with him on more than one occasion. He mixes public relations and politics, he is very interested in matters of propaganda, indeed so much so that his interest in these matters exceeds his interest in political matters."
Recent cases positively confirm this diagnosis. On November 3, in an interview with the Tel Aviv daily Hatzofe Netanyahu declared, "As for Jerusalem, we have already closed the (Palestinian) foreign ministry that operated out of Orient House." The problem with this statement is that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is unaware of this "closure." Otherwise they would not have met with a French Delegation on October 22 at Orient House. On the next day the official PA newspaper Al-Hayah al-Jadidah reported from "occupied Jerusalem" that, "a group of Orient House officials, headed by Faysal al-Husayni, member of the PLO Executive Committee, received an 11-member French delegation, headed by Justice Minister Elisabeth Guigou."
The meeting lasted for more than two hours and, according to the newspaper, the "Palestinian officials concentrated on the fact that the Israeli aim is to empty Jerusalem of its legitimate residents, annex and Judaize it. They noted that the annexation of East Jerusalem is illegitimate and illegal." Putting it in plain English: for more than two hours, in a "non-existent foreign ministry," the Israelis "peace partners" conducted a meeting centered on blatant anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda.
On November 17, two weeks after Netanyahus declaration that the PA foreign ministry did not exist, in Ramallah, 1,500 Fatah members participated in the first congress of the Fatah Movement from the "Jerusalem Region." At the end of the day Faisal al-Husaini, called a news conference in the "closed" Orient House, where he discussed the results of the congress and, among other things, said that "resistance against the colonialist cancer is a sacred duty," adding that "the Israeli colonialist activity in the occupied Palestinian territories will bring the region back to the cycle of violence."
Another proof of this "illness" is the extremely painful issue (for the Israelis) of the extradition of Palestinian murderers. It is impossible to count how many times different Israeli ministers, including Justice Minister Tzahi Hanegbi and Netanyahu himself, have promised to the Israeli public that there will be no further redeployment before the murderers are extradited to Israel. The Wye River Memorandum clearly shows that Israel has miserably failed on this issue. Nevertheless, Netanyahu tried his propaganda approach here too. On October 2, in an interview on the Jerusalem Channel 2 Television Network, when pressed by Ya'aqov Eylon to admit that the Wye Memorandum did not "stipulate the extradition of Palestinian terrorists such as Ghazi al-Jabali," Netanyahu declared that, "We are still demanding their extradition." When Eylon interrupted him, saying, "So what if we are demanding their extradition?" Netanyahu started to explain that, "we also know that these people will be jailed and will clearly be unable to leave prison. We have various mechanisms, including the United States, to ensure this."
Suddenly the extradition problem has dissolved by itself. How this happened became clear when, on November 9, in an interview with the Cairo Agency MENA, Dr. Nabil Sha'th, the Palestinian Minister of Planning and International Cooperation explained that "the attempts to seek the extradition of Palestinian citizens to Israel have been canceled for good" and that "the Palestinian side refused to sign an extradition treaty." That simply, the Palestinian leaders firmly said "No," and the Israelis meekly complied.
So while Netanyahu speaks, trying to score points in the propaganda campaign mainly directed towards the Israelis, the PA and the PLO collect real political points. Their achievements are impressive: it appears that Israel has lost every major battle on the Israeli-PLO agenda. Encouraged by President Clinton's commendation of Arafat's "decades, and decades, and decades" of struggle the PLO leaders feel that the time has come to openly declare their direct responsibility in terrorist activity against Israel. First Abu-Mazen, demanding the release of the terrorists imprisoned in Israel, said on November 10 in Moscow that "these prisoners fought under our supervision, and we were the ones who sent them." Then, on November 21, Palestinian Security Chief Mohammed Dahlan, in an interview with The Jerusalem Post, announced that "[It was we]-- myself, Mr. Arafat and Abu Mazen who sent them out on their operations in the first place. Now these fighters are the ones to be released."
Somehow everybody has forgotten what kind of "operations" these prisoners were involved in. It makes sense to refresh the memory. Professor William O. Brien wrote in the book Law and Morality in Israel's War with the PLO, that:
"the overwhelming number of the attacks have been terrorist in intention and execution. The PLO has seldom engaged in counterforce attacks against Israeli military forces and installations. Of 353 terrorist attacks in Israel that caused casualties between June 1967 and October 1985 only 25 involved Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) or security forces personnel. Many of the military personnel attacked were off duty, e.g.,at a hitch-hiking post."
The PLO did not change their style after 1985 either. Hundreds of innocent Israelis and Palestinian Arabs were brutally murdered by the terrorists whose release the Palestinian Authority is arranging today. This issue has been twisted and stood on its head to such an extent that the November 26 issue of The Jerusalem Post, a Jewish newspaper, does not hesitate to publish an article demanding the release of these terrorists, under the slogan "Let our people go," an only slightly altered version of Moses's appeal to Pharaoh to free the Jews, many thousands of years ago.
Netanyahus declaration on November 21 that "on no account" would he "free murderers" is very encouraging. He should be applauded for saying, "Do they expect us to release the killers of children and people who planted bombs a short time after they caused us such harm? I advise the Palestinians not to cultivate such illusions. This is our position and I will not make any agreement which requires me to affix my signature to the release of murderers."
However, knowing about Netanyahu's "illness," one may question this rhetoric, since only one day after his declaration, Israel released three Palestinian policemen who were captured in July,1997 while attempting to carry out a terrorist attack in Har Brachah in Samaria. The logic behind this move was impeccable. Since during the Wye River negotiations Israel waived the right to arrest their cell commander, Palestinian Police Chief Razi Jibali, there was no longer any reason to hold them in custody. If one follows this logic, there is also no reason to hold in custody the 1000 Palestinian terrorists jailed before Oslo either. As Abd-al-Raziq, the Palestinian Authority official in charge of handling Palestinian prisoners said on November 21, in an interview with Israeli radio Kol Yisrael, "it is inconceivable that Israel agrees to talk with those who sent the fighters but not releases the messengers."
While it appears that Netanyahu can survive his "illness" and remain in power, due to the Levy-Gesher injection, Israel, having also became infected, has developed some dangerous symptoms. The Jewish state, weakened by its fifty-year old existential struggle cannot fight anymore. The illness is spreading deeper and deeper into her body. She has lost her hearing and does not react to the uncompromising statements of the PA leaders, their anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli rhetoric. She has lost her vision and does not notice the sea of venom that is pouring from the Arab media. She spends more and more time in surgery where her enemies cut piece after piece from her body. She suffers from a multiple personality syndrome thinking that she is still a proud and independent Hebrew state, while in reality she is a weak and dependent Jewish ghetto. Her condition is deteriorating rapidly. If emergency measures are not taken, a lethal outcome is inevitable. [11/26/98]
Boris Shusteff is an engineer in upstate New
York. He is also a research associate with the Freeman Center
for Strategic Studies.
In the same hour came forth fingers of a mans hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the kings palace; And this is the writing that was inscribed: MENE MENE, TEKEL UPHARSIN....Daniel 5:5, 5:25
Just imagine for a moment that within eighteen days sixty four Israelis were killed in Beersheva, thirty six Jewish children were slaughtered in Gaza and twenty five Jews were murdered in Jerusalem. This is exactly the number of Jews that were targeted by Palestinian terrorists in three recent terrorist attacks. These hundred and twenty five Jews, eighty nine of them wounded, remained alive not because the Palestinian Arabs want to live in peace with the Jews and not because Yasser Arafat and his security services exercised "100% efforts to prevent terrorism" but because the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did not allow the murderers to achieve their goals.
The Jerusalem Post reported on October 30, 1998 that a top Israeli security source said after the terrorist attack in Gaza, "If the bus with the children had exploded, the whole agreement would have been blown up with it." Since when have we started to count the number of Jews killed in a terrorist attack necessary to "blow up" the "peace agreement?" How many Jewish children need to be massacred by the Arabs? Five? Ten? Fifteen? Isnt the life of a single Jew not precious enough? What kind of perverted mathematics is this? Can we count the number of children that the nineteen year old soldier Alexei Naikov could have had if he did not give his life saving the children in Gush-Katif?
Instead of doing the computations one should look at the Palestinian Arabs intents. Yes, the grenade explosion was not powerful enough and spared the Jews in Beer-Sheva. Yes, the new emigrant Russian Jew Alexei Naikov sacrificed his life while intercepting a suicide car bomber aimed at the children's bus. Yes, the explosion in Jerusalem occurred before it was meant to as a result of a fire that broke out in the terrorists car. And yes, yes, and yes, in all three cases the Palestinian terrorists wanted to massacre as many Jews as possible. Thank God the terrible did not happen, but without a doubt the intent was there. There could not be two opinions. Palestinian leaders were very upset that only one Jew was killed during the Gaza terrorist attack. Furayh Abu-Middayn, Minister of Justice for the Palestinian Authority said on October 30,1998 in an interview with Doha Qatar al-Jazirah Space Channel Television, "Why does it [Hamas] carry out such operations in which only a soldier and the suicide bomber himself get killed? I wish that the suicide bomber had been martyred in another location."
So one week later two suicide bombers decided to become "martyrs" in "another location." They chose Jerusalem's Mahaneh Yehuda market for the attack. They had a very good memory of this place, where sixteen months ago sixteen Israelis were killed in a suicide bombing. Miraculously this time, the terrorists did not succeed. Are we simply going to wait for other "martyrs" to find still "another location?" The Jerusalem Post wrote on November 8, 1998 that "Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, in an interview published in the Egyptian Mail, called on Netanyahu to 'boldly face the setback to peace caused by Friday's car bombing and not to further "frustrate the Palestinians."'" Did he mean that the Israelis are frustrating Furayh Abu-Middayn? He must certainly be frustrated since "only the suicide bombers themselves got killed."
Did we really believe Yasser Arafat, when at the signing ceremony of the Wye River Memorandum he said that, "talking in the name of all Palestinians I assure you that we are all committed to the security of every child, woman and man in Israel?" When will we learn our lessons? The Nazis were committed to such "security" too. They would always promise the Jews herded into trains destined for Auschwitz and other places of extermination that they were going to be delivered to "a new place of recreation and work."
Appealing from Washington to the Arab leaders, Arafat said, "To all our brothers, the Arabs, who embrace us in our difficulties and supported us I told them that we will continue our effort and will be committed to our cause." Those who are not aware of what this "cause" is should read The Palestine National Council Political Program from January 12, 1973. Its second article advised:
"To struggle against the settlements mentality and the projects its harbors either for the liquidation of our peoples cause as far as the liberation of our homeland is concerned or for the distortion of this cause by proposals for entities and for establishment of a Palestine State in part of the territory of Palestine; and to resist these proposals through armed struggle and through mass political conflict linked with it."
Did we listen carefully to what Arafat said during the signing ceremony? Before "committing" to Israel's security he declared that "the reconciliation between the Palestinians and the Israeli people will go through negotiations on the table and go through tanks, grenades and barbed wire." This message is easy to interpret: some Palestinian groups will use "negotiations" and others will use "tanks and grenades." There also will be "barbed wire," perhaps placed around the Jewish settlements to "secure" the Jews inside these self-imposed ghettos. Or maybe he is dreaming of the barbed wire that was separating Jerusalem under the Jordanian rule?
At the conclusion of his speech Arafat declared, "And we will work together through the peace process... in order to achieve a final solution." Just listen, he plans to achieve a "final solution!" Don't delude yourselves. Arafat knows pretty well that Hitler used this euphemism to describe his intent to destroy the Jewish people, and he repeated it in his speech several times. Why did he do this? Simply because he realizes that Israel has negated all of the Zionist principles that were laid as the foundation of her existence and thus is heading towards her destruction. On October 27, the Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI) quoted Abd Al Aziz Shahin, the Minister of Supplies of the Palestinian Authority, who stated that "the Israeli right-wing governments readiness to give away territory indicates that the Zionist ideology is crumbling and that the PLO will succeed in fulfilling its platform sooner or later."
While the Zionist ideology is falling apart the PLO is devoted to its principles. MEMRI cited two examples. Fuad Id, the Fatah member of the Palestinian Legislative Council said "that the [Wye River] agreement is just one step in the path we have marched for fifty years." In addition, the Secretary General of the Fatah in the West Bank, Marwan Al Barghuthi, commended Arafat for stating that "there will be no concession on Palestinian axioms that include the Right of Return, the Right to Self Determination, and the Establishment of an Independent State on the entirety of the Palestinian land with Jerusalem as its capital."
What is even worse is that Arafat was encouraged by American President Bill Clintons remarks, who completed Arafats introduction during the signing ceremony of the Wye River Memorandum by saying, "I thank you for decades and decades and decades of tireless representation of the longing of the Palestinian people to be free, self-sufficient, and at home." There is only one logical way to interpret Clinton's words. MEMRI reported that, "the Secretary-General of the [Palestinian] Presidency, Al Tayyeb Abd al Rahim," said to the Voice of Palestine Radio that, "Clintons commendation to Arafat for the many years he led the struggle of his people represents an admission that the years-long struggle of the Palestinians is not regarded as terrorism."
The American administration considers the recent attacks as some kind of nuisance. The attacks were expected. Israel just has to accept them and live with them. The Associated Press reported that Clinton said of the Mahaneh Yehuda bombing: "When Prime Minister Netanyahu and Chairman Arafat signed the Wye River agreement, they knew they would face this moment... They knew when they went home, the terrorists would target innocent civilians." What kind of agreement is this if the terrorist attacks are preprogrammed into it?
The Associated Press reported on October 8 that Palestinian Cabinet minister Nabil Shaath sharply criticized Israel for suspending action on the accord in response to the bombing. Shaath said that "This Israeli government is as guilty as those who want to destroy the peace process with acts of violence." He is absolutely right. This Israeli government is guilty. It is guilty of dealing with Arafat and the PLO. It is guilty of abandoning its Zionist principles. It is guilty of transforming Israel into a vassal state. It is guilty of challenging God by giving away the Land that He promised to the Jewish people. For how long are we going to challenge God? When will we understand that His patience is not eternal? Are we blind and do not see the writing appearing on the wall? The interpretation of the writing is well known. "God hath numbered thy kingdom, and brought it to an end, thy kingdom is divided"(Daniel 5:26, 5:28). [11/09/98.]
Boris Shusteff is an engineer in upstate New York. He is also a research associate with the Freeman Center for Strategic Studies.An archive of Shusteff articles may found on the Freeman Center web site: http://www.freeman.org
[Unless indicated otherwise, the translations of the Arab and
Jewish press are from I & G News]
[November 19, 1998] I'll be frank with you. When I consider everything that has happened in recent days I get the feeling that we are in a free fall to disaster. The atmosphere is more like a hospice, where, at best, efforts are made to ease the pain, than an emergency room, where the situation is critical but at least there's a team at work trying to save situation.
Here are a few of the lows:
I heard NRP Minister of Transportation Shaul Yahalom explain in a radio interview that even if Netanyahu started tearing down settlements that he would support him since, after all, Barak would tear down more of them. We can take this line to any point: Sure Netanyahu is going to divide Jerusalem again, but if Barak did he wouldn't insure that Jews could pray at the Western Wall.
Speaking of Yahalom, I am far from convinced that he is an altruist. After the '96 elections Yahalom decided that the "NRP moderate niche" was good for his future and he set out to get a series of magazine articles on the theme. Now don't get me wrong, far be it for me to claim that other opinions have no place. And Yahalom has every right to hold his views and try to convince others to adopt them. But that isn't what Yahalom did. Instead he went out and labeled his political rivals within the national religious camp "extremists". This is not the language of debate.
This is the language of repression.
Netanyahu's reaction to Arafat's warning that he will use force, if necessary, to take control of eastern Jerusalem, marks another deterioration. Netanyahu's reaction was to orchestrate what appeared to be a retraction but really wasn't one. Yes, Arafat says he hopes to settle disputes with Israel via peaceful means, but that doesn't mean that he won't declare a state on May 4th. I discussed this with Marwan Kanafani, Arafat's spokesman, and he reiterated the Palestinian position that the terms and conditions of the five year interim agreement are just that - for five years.
And that five year period ends on May 4, 1999.
So what is Arafat saying? That he "hopes" it will be possible to settle issues with Israel via negotiations. And what if Netanyahu isn't willing to divide Jerusalem? I wasn't able to get an answer from Kanafani on that one because we had a bad cellular phone connection, but Marwan Barghouti, who heads Fatah in the West Bank, assured me that there was nothing to worry about. After all, a few years ago Netanyahu wasn't willing to withdraw even one percent!
Let's keep our eyes on the ball and not be impressed by Netanyahu's theatrics over minor disputes with Arafat. They may give the impression that he is being tough but its only window dressing. When it comes to the real issues, the issues which have ramifications also in the so-called "final status", Netanyahu is extremely soft.
Consider the weapons issue. Yes, the PA just issued a declaration banning illegal weapons. And they may even confiscate some arms. But, ultimately, the security threat which illegal weapons present to Israel by civilian held weapons is minor as compared to the security threat posed by illegal weapons held by the PA's own security forces.
Israeli intelligence reports that Arafat's army is already equipped with anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles as well as Katyushas and mortars. And this is before the airport opens in Gaza. There is an essentially wall to wall Israeli consensus that there cannot be a foreign army this side of the Jordan River equipped with these devices.
But Netanyahu failed to deliver on this issue at Wye. In fact, Arafat's spokesman told me that as far as he knows this wasn't even an issue at Wye. The only question apparently raised about official PA forces was the size of the police force, and that's easy enough to fudge.
I'll repeat it again for emphasis: everyone recognizes that Israel can't allow a Palestinian army equipped with missiles this side of the Jordan and that army is already here. Yet Netanyahu took no concrete steps now, when he still had cards to trade, to rectify the situation. What is going on? Today we are willing to sacrifice our security in the desperate hope that we will enjoy a few months of quiet in return.
This attitude of sacrificing the welfare of future generations for the sake of short-term gain runs counter to Jewish tradition. The story is told (Ta'anit, 23a) of Honi Hame'agel, the Jewish Rip Van Winkle, who saw an old man planting a carob tree. He asked the man why he was working so hard, since the tree would bear fruit only in 70 years. Replied the man: "I found a world with carobs because my forefathers planted them, and I say: I also plant a carob tree ... for my children after me."
We owe it to ourselves, to previous generations who sacrificed to much to get us here as well as to the unborn future generations, to resist the temptation to forfeit the future in return for what at best may be momentary relief. I say "at best" because its far from clear that we will even enjoy one day of respite as a result of Netanyahu's dangerous concessions.
These past weeks I have focused on criticizing the government. But that does not mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that I am satisfied with what the opposition has done. Labor MK Dalia Itzik is the exception which proves the rule. She studied the Wye Agreement and recognized that Netanyahu made dangerous concessions. But she didn't just lambaste Netanyahu on the floor of the Knesset along with her colleagues in the Labor Party. When the time came to vote, she refused to vote in favor of the deal.
Ehud Barak also believes that Netanyahu made dangerous concessions. Concessions which he himself would never have agreed to. But instead of doing the responsible thing he voted to support Wye, arguing that he was supporting "peace". But a bad deal is a bad deal is a bad deal.
Frankly speaking, I think that Barak is making the biggest mistake In his political career. If he were smart he could pass Netanyahu both on the Left - being up front about the concessions he is willing to make and on the Right by being clear and decisive about policy red lines which Netanyahu has crossed.
If you are looking for some temporary relief I suggest you read what some of the Palestinian intellectuals are saying about the situation. Edward Said, for example, upon seeing Jewish construction in and around Jerusalem, claimed that Israel had succeeded in its efforts to take claim to the city. He also is pessimistic about the large Israeli settlement blocs.
Yes. We are still stronger, bigger and strategically placed. We can move on from this. It is only a question of getting out of the hospice and back into the emergency room. Its up to each and every one of us to let the alternative leadership know that they aren't alone. I know that it's not easy, but when you consider how much worse our position will be in the future if we don't act, the time to act is now.
Dr. Aaron Lerner is the Director IMRA (Independent
Media Review & Analysis).
Be prepared for the Israel government and American Administration to throw a smoke screen over Israel's soon-to-be-lost water. As part of the Wye "River" fiasco, Israel's leaders have finalized her commitment to give away her irreplaceable underground rivers. Arik Sharon, now Foreign Minister, will soon be visiting Washington, there to discuss, among other things, some of the bribes Israel is to receive for caving in on the Wye Agreement. One of those bribes is to be the construction of a desalination plant, presumably to relieve Israel's coming water shortage. This shortfall will become acute as she transfers control of the aquifers under the Judean/Samarian hills - representing approximately 30% of Israel's fresh water resource.
Since ONE desalination plant cannot possibly produce even a fraction of the lost water, it can now only serve as a political curtain to hide the consummate stupidity of Israel's three successive Governments, namely: Labor/Meretz under Rabin and secondly Peres and now Likud under Netanyahu. I mention these names so the readers may forever mark those responsible for the drying up of Israel.
So, what is wrong with turning sea water into drinking water? Absolutely nothing, IF like Saudi Arabia, you have unlimited billions of dollars to build the "many" plants needed and free fuel to power the high energy needs of such plants. Even California couldn't do it with money and fuel from their own pumped oil. Saudi Arabia had the money and the excess natural gas to literally burn from its vast oil deposits but Israel is not blessed with such reserves.
So, what's the problem? A really big plant can range in cost from $3-5 Billion dollars and that's only to build. Then it needs a huge amount of electrical power. In Israel's case, that would likely require either a vast expansion of present power plants - more coal and/or nuclear - or construction of new electrical plants. Here one has the problem of additional Billions in cost to construct, the continuous maintenance costs to produce the power, the polluting fuel (coal or nuclear) and finally the cost per cubic meter of water which will be so high that it will require government subsidies which then comes back in increased taxes.
So, whether it's paid with the water bill or paid from other tax revenues...the people still pay the enormous increase. And that, dear readers, does not solve the problem of losing 30% of Israel's water. I have the feeling that one could line the shores of the Mediterranean with such plants in order to make up the shortfall of 30%. But, that's not all. Presently, our erstwhile leaders are under pressure from our good friends Madame Albright in cahoots with the EU to give up the Golan Heights to Syria.
So, what's wrong that? Besides having primitive leaders in Syria who are armed to the teeth with chemical weapons and the missiles to deliver them, we again have the problem of water. Israel water resources from the Golan represents 40% of its total water supply. If you couple the 30% being given to Arafat with the 40% to be given to Syria that makes a nice round figure of 70%. But wait...Israeli or American politicians can be expected to jump in to tell you that they will arrange an agreement where, at a fixed price, the Palestinians will sell Israel this water with various guarantees. Certainly our erstwhile Jewish leaders will jump at the chance of accepting more guarantees because Oslo I and II, Hebron and Wye worked out so well.
Today, with the water from the Judean/Samarian aquifers and the waters from the Golan and a rapidly diminishing central aquifer Israel is pushing the envelope of its growing water needs. If Israel lost even 5% of current water resources, certain industries would be closed or rationed. If it went beyond that, civilian rationing would begin with a vengeance. Some may recall a brief drought several years back where the level of the Kinneret (Israel's northern reservoir) fell 5 meters.
The government and the people were beginning to panic as the seculars began to urge to Rabbis to pray for rain. Well, finally the rains came and just in time. Mostly due to a volcanic eruption in the Philippines which spewed forth particulate matter in a plume which drifted over Israel causing a weather change resulting in what was called "Century Rains". However, just as an unexpected quirk of nature (Ha Shem) caused the rains, other such quirks caused drought. The African continent is undergoing such a drought and a process called desertification is ongoing and expanding rapidly.
Israel is part of the African continent. Droughts of Biblical proportions lasting years are not unknown in this region of the world. Therefore, if one factors in drought; giving away of 70% of her water resources; increased population along with increased water consumption, the inadequate but costly desalination solution - Israel would dry up to a small, burnt out cinder in the next decade. One can hardly wait for Bibi and Arik to drink a water toast with Clinton/Albright/Arafat and Assad over the new miracle of creating water where there is very little.
And then there is the sewage. We are giving the Palestinians clean water and getting their sewage back, just as is presently happening in Gaza. They pour untreated sewage into the wadis and streams, polluting the shrinking water table. The Palestinians ruined the Gaza aquifer in 2 short years as they sunk 2000 wells. This over-pumping lowered the water table, allowing the sea water to seep in. In Gaza they now drink what they call "salt tea". The Gaza aquifer is unrecoverable.
If Israel gives up control of the Judean/Samarian water resources (30%) and possible the 40% under the Golan Heights to Syria, the foreseeable over-pumping will lower the water-table of Israel's only remaining aquifer on the coast and the Mediterranean will invade the sweet water. Everything that Israel made bloom will wither and die - along with the State of Israel herself.
Emanuel A. Winston is a Middle East analyst &
commentator and a research associate of the Freeman Center For
Strategic Studies.
Keeping Israel's attention fragmented and focused on day-to-day happenings is clearly part of a strategy to obscure the larger and more deadly picture. While American Arabists have the Prime Minister and the Knesset pondering the minutiae of intentionally badly drafted agreements, a larger program is being enacted.
Israel is bit by bit being reduced in her critical mass to a point where she cannot possibly survive. The CIA can't and won't protect or defend Israel against Arab violations of US guaranteed agreements but it will be made to appear to do just that. Israel will, in the near future, become indefensible (with the small exception) unless American troops are stationed on all her borders. That, too, is unlikely to happen since no American President will deploy American soldiers to fight its Arab client states. The US may, however, deploy troops after the fact to establish an American "beach-head" or "power center" in the Middle East. An after-disaster deployment will also silence critics at home for deliberately waiting to assist the Jews of Israel until after the Jihad (Muslim Holy War) was over.
The bigger picture that is being obscured and hidden from Israel's decision makers, calls for the progressive dismantling of the Jewish State to a point where she must surrender all land and property to spurious Arab claimants. Presumably, this would occur in practice when Israel's critical mass is so small that she can be easily conquered by a coalition of Arab armies, with the well-armed Palestinians wearing away at the inner core. This includes the millions of "refugees" they are expecting to flow by agreement of the collapsing Israeli government.
It would appear that this decision has been made at the highest levels of governments in the US and EU. The conclusion would have been made basis the fact that there is no gesture that Israel could possibly make, short of abandoning the State, that would satisfy her Arab adversaries. That being the case and on the theory that the Arab markets are potentially much larger, one or the other must go. You don't need to be a geo-political sophisticate to know which would be the choice.
The only problem of the US and EU planners was how to eliminate Israel without telling their respective citizens that a loyal, democratic ally must be eliminated for long term commercial reasons and "the good of all". The only way to accomplish this was to steadily reduce Israel's critical mass to a point where her internal strength is sufficiently weakened so the coup de grace can be administered by Israel's Arab/Muslim enemies. This would, of course, reduce the chances of these various nations being accused of Genocide or co-conspirators in actions that far exceed war crimes against humanity.
Then the Arabists both in America and Europe can vigorously protest the destruction they planned and arrive with help - too late to stop it. This catastrophe will be followed by many meetings in the UN condemning this madness. The US Congress will deplore these war-like actions and will vote dollars to rescue whatever remnant of Jews is left on the shore of the Mediterranean. Perhaps (this time) some nations will even open their borders to allow some of the survivors in as citizens or on temporary visas.
However, until that time the Israelis will be thrown scraps of "so-called peace" documents which they will ponder and snarl over while the larger net is slowly drawn around them. Even alerting them to this greater scheme will not really catch their attention. Jews enjoy the minutiae of details and cannot much be bothered with long range projections. Telling the Jews that a plan is in operation for their extermination did not make much of an impression before WWII nor will it make a difference now in 1998, marching into the year 2000.
The Nay-Sayers will make light of the conspiracy theory as they have in the past. Some historians will try to tell the politicians and the public that, throughout history, every king-dictator-elected president has been the target of conspiracies to overthrow or conquer. When one reads history, the concept of conspiracy is obvious and accepted - merely because it happened. Forecasting conspiracy - even as evidence piles up - is not acceptable to the Nay-Sayers. This is true for Jews especially. Even when the next Holocaust is upon them, they will struggle to deny its happening.
At the vanguard of this procession to extinction, one will find
the political Left offering glorious visions for a future that
will never be - while following dutifully behind the illusion
will be the Jewish people, once again marching under the archway
with the sign "Arbeit Macht Frei" -
(Work Will Make You Free.)
July 28, 1998 I wrote an article entitled THE FALL OF JORDAN (see on our web sites: www.gamla.org.il & http://www.freeman.org). I opined that, upon the passing of the throne of King Hussein to his brother Crown Prince Hassan, there would be a bloody civil war in Jordan, with the Palestinians taking over the Kingdom as the enlarged "State of Palestine".
There was an immediate flush of counter PR to the effect that everything was going to be fine. My conclusions are already being borne out. It was just reported that Iraqi and Syrian agents were detained for testing the security of Jordan in the King's absence during his chemotherapy in America. Further, several armed Syrian agents were caught organizing and arming groups in Jordanian refugees camps (read: Palestinians). In addition, similar cells were being established by Iraqis with arms and money. Crown Prince Hassan contacted King Hussein in America being treated for cancer who advised Hassan not to make a formal protest to Syria.
What does all this mean? My earlier projection was that since Jordan already 70% Palestinian with many Arafat loyalists previously ejected into Jordan from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War, they were ready to take over Jordan. Arafat and the PA having been encouraged by Israel's Labor government to think in terms of a Palestinian State in Israel were now ready to expand that thought. While a small Palestinian State on the West Bank was a good first stepping stone, why settle for just a small enclave when they could have a full-size State just by taking over Jordan? With a full size State, they could have a full size army and be equal to Syria, Iraq or any other Arab nation.
Since Arafat had already made firm agreements in the past with Saddam Hussein to use his 300,000 Palestinians workers in Kuwait to help Saddam take over that nation, why not continue the arrangement and request a reverse assistance to have Saddam help Arafat take over Jordan? From the reports, this is now in operation. Then, there is Syria. Hafez al Assad does not like Arafat but, there are certain short term agreements you can make with your worst enemy. Syria would like to see King Hussein's monarchy overthrown with Jordan merged into Greater Syria. If you recall, Syria tried to invade Jordan in September 1970, only to be turned back by an Israeli threat to hit Syria's advancing armor column. For Assad, nothing has changed and that option remains open.
But, if the King's government was overthrown by a civil war initiated by the Palestinians (resident Arabs), then there were new opportunities to be exploited. Israel, having been de-clawed by the Labor Party government, in collusion with American Arabists, are unlikely to either engage in fighting a civil war in defense of King Hassan of Jordan, nor will they later fight a war with Syria as it takes over what the Palestinians thought would be their "Greater State of Palestine".
The Americans will not send troops because they couldn't/wouldn't fight their new Palestinian pals, nor would they send troops to fight Syria whom they have been assiduously courting for many years. Israel will now be stuck with a very long eastern border, held either by a hostile Palestinian State or later a hostile Syrian State. Either way Israel loses.
Jordan is nation whose bones are about to be picked clean. Don't expect the thinkers of Israel to think long range. They will stop at a point where the scenario ends on high note and will refuse to go further. Wye not? Whatever bravado Israel may have once had, evaporated with the politization of her officers' corps by the Labor/Meretz parties and obsequious submission by her leaders to American and European Arabists.
Emanuel A. Winston is a Middle East analyst &
commentator and a research associate of the Freeman Center For
Strategic Studies.
A vulture was hacking at my feet. It had already torn my boots and stockings to shreds, now it was hacking at the feet themselves. Again and again it struck at them, then circled several times restlessly round me, then returned to continue its work. A gentleman passed by, looked on for a while, then asked me why I suffered the vulture. "I'm helpless," I said. "When it came and began to attack me, I of course tried to drive it away, even to strangle it, but these animals are very strong, it was about to spring at my face, but I preferred to sacrifice my feet. Now they are almost torn to bits." "Fancy letting yourself be tortured like this!" said the gentleman. "One shot and that's the end of the vulture." "Really?" I said. "And would you do that?" "With pleasure," said the gentleman, "I've only got to go home and get my gun. Could you wait another half hour?" "I'm not sure about that," said I, and stood for a moment rigid with pain. Then I said: "Do try it in any case, please." "Very well," said the gentleman, "I'll be as quick as I can." During this conversation the vulture had been calmly listening, letting its eye rove between me and the gentleman. Now I realized that it had understood everything; it took wing, leaned far back to gain impetus, and then, like a javelin thrower, thrust its beak through my mouth, deep into me. Falling back, I was relieved to feel him drowning irretrievably in my blood, which was filling every depth, flooding every shore.............Franz Kafka, THE VULTURE
Even by the standards of Kafka's uncannily prophetic insights, the parable of the Vulture is remarkable. Examined as a lesson for Israel in its protracted struggle for survival in the Middle East, especially after Wye River, this cautionary tale is right on the mark. Indeed, it reads as if it were written originally with no other struggle in mind.
Consider the scenario. A man is being destroyed, slowly and painfully, by a fierce and predatory bird. Repeatedly, the bird hacks at its victim, immobilizing him systematically and purposefully, piece by piece. The man, of course, has not allowed this process of sequential dismemberment to proceed without defensive reaction. Fearing, above all, for his face, for his very being, he has preferred to "sacrifice my feet." Rather than confront his enemy head on, frontally, with some hope of emerging victorious, he has calculated instead, quite rationally he maintains, the cost-effectiveness of appeasement. In the end, his rational calculations prove altogether erroneous. It is true that our victim does draw ironic satisfaction from the final mutuality of death - the vulture drowns "irretrievably" in the man's own blood - but it is a satisfaction that is necessarily short-lived.
There is more. Before the dreadful demise of both victim and victimizer, a "gentleman" promises aid to the former. The gentleman needs only to return with his "gun;" the man needs only to "wait another half hour." All the while, the vulture, not merely a beast animated by instinct, "understands" the plan against it, and decides, again after "calm" and careful calculation, to launch the decisive thrust. So what if it turns out to be a suicide attack. It is now too late to stop the hacking. Events have achieved an unstoppable momentum of their own. What must be done must be done!
The "gentleman," of course, never returns. Like the American president who urges Israel onward with the "peace process," he has other, more urgent, preoccupations. The problem with his promises is not that he is deceitful or meanspirited (he is, after all, a "gentleman"), but that he is blind.
For more than fifty years, the "vulture" has been hacking away at Israel. For more than fifty years, Israel has been heeding one "gentleman" or another. Although the United States has hardly urged the Jewish State to deal with its painfully progressive decomposition by explicitly recognizing the advantages of firing "one shot," the implicit promise is always present: "Negotiate, compromise, yield, beg; there is really no risk involved. There is always the last resort of overwhelming military power."
This promise, whether it refers to American or to Israeli forces, or to both, is of little or no value. Taken too seriously, it will likely lead Israel toward one form or another of the "Samson Option." While enemies of the Jewish State will "drown irretrievably" in the full fury of Israel's most terrible weapons - in the unspeakable lifeblood of a victim that has waited for too long to ensure its survival - this fate will occasion no celebrations in Jerusalem. Faced with the end of the Third Temple Commonwealth, Israel's leaders will curse their enemies and their "gentleman," but it will be an indecipherable curse, a curse heard by no one.
After Wye River, the "peace process" remains what it has always been, an oxymoron, a paradoxical conjunction of terms that would seal the fate of a state smaller than some counties in California. For Israel, a long- suffering and increasingly willing victim, the process is leading, day after day after day, to complete and irreversible helplessness. Sacrificing more and more essential territory in the hope that predators will be satisfied, it will learn too late - unless Kafka's revealing parable is understood by the endangered People of Israel - that the lure of carrion only inflames the vulture.
LOUIS RENE BERES (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) is Professor of Political Science and International Law at Purdue University. His work is well-known to Prime Minister Netanyahu and to senior IDF and Knesset leaders.Professor of International Law.
E-MAIL: BERES@POLSCI.PURDUE.EDU
Reprinted from Ha'aretz of November 4, 1998
Clip and save the maps of the Israeli upcoming withdrawals. These are historical documents - and there's no need for quote marks around the word. This time, we're not talking about returning the empty desserts of Sinai, or leaving the refugee camps of the Gaza Strip, which has little of the visceral, biblical associations of the West Bank.Up to now Israel has handed over land in Areas A and B, where there's a dense Arab population. The claim could be made that all the withdrawals until now have been little more than the implementation of the autonomy idea from Camp David - something along the lines of the Menachem Begin school of thought that offered "autonomy for people" and claimed that the Palestinians have no valid claim to sovereignty in the areas of "Judea and Samaria."
But every percent of the 13 percent in Area C, even if largely empty of Palestinian villages or towns, is not only equal in area to Tel Aviv - as Benjamin Netanyahu liked to explain when a nine percent withdrawal was considered an existential threat to Israel. Each one of those 13 percents - according to his, and the Likud's ideology - is also equal to Tel Aviv in its historical and religious associations as well as the context of law and sovereignty.
It's not for nothing that the right is talking about "giving up" land, not "returning" it. As far as they are concerned this land always belongs exclusively to the Jewish people, and you don't "return" land to the Palestinians when they never owned it in the first place. The Oslo timetable tried to postpone handing over uninhabited land until the negotiations over the final settlement.
Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres could easily anticipate the reactions of the "national camp" - led by Netanyahu - to this kind of de facto recognition of Palestinian association "with parts of the homeland." Or what would have happened in the Likud if Yitzhak Shamir had brought the Wye maps to the cabinet for approval? Instead of grabbing the microphone at the Likud Center and shouting "who's against terrorism," Sharon got out of his sickbed to defend an agreement that included a six-folded expansion of the area under complete control of the Palestinian police (Area A will grow from three to 18.2 percent).
What would that famous patio overlooking Zion square in Jerusalem have look liked if Rabin had shattered the dream of the Greater Land of Israel based on a coalition that needed the support of Abdulwahab Darawshe? Arafat is right when he discourages the Arab Knesset members from working with Ehud Barak and Rehavam Ze'evi to bring down the Netanyahu government. In the 20 years since the Camp David Agreement was signed, no Israeli government has done so much for Arafat - not the Likud governments, not the national unity government with or without rotation, and not the Labor-Meretz government.
Netanyahu is also right. He's not following in Rabin's footsteps - he has already overtaken him. The Wye Plantation maps shorten the distance between the Oslo agreement and a Palestinian state. Only Bibi could unilaterally release Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin from jail and then blame Arafat for being too soft of the Hamas. Only Bibi could claim that the Oslo agreement did not have a "Jewish mandate" and keep his coalition alive by relying on the Arab Knesset members.
Only Bibi could summon the support of the ministers from the "national camp" for a recycled security agreement that forgoes the extradition of murderers, and present this as an unprecedented victory for the state's security. Only Bibi can turn Sharon from a rival into a partner. He doesn't need any favors from the left, not even the security net it offered for the Wye agreement. Bibi manages just fine without Shimon Peres in the government. Only Bibi could invent a ceremony for signing a relatively unimportant agreement in order to divert the attention from the Rabin memorial. But it's not as bad as it seems. Bibi's withdrawal maps are Yigal Amir's real sentence. Bibi is his punishment. It's just a shame that it has to be collective punishment.
© copyright 1998 Ha'aretz.
B"SD
A Voice from Hebron - November 23, 1998
It may be true that the United States is still Israel's best foreign ally. It may also be true that the government of the United States sincerely wants to bring genuine peace to the Middle East. Were I a Congressman or Senator I would certainly consider voting to give assistance to former warring nations who were now embarking on the road to peace. I would look favorably to giving grants for projects which would bolster the economy of those nations and further promote the peaceful relations which they had strived to achieve.
But, let's be honest, is this the purpose for which Israel is requesting another 1.2 billion dollars in American aid? Netanyahu and Arafat sat, together with the American President, at the Wye River Plantation, and worked at a marathon peace negotiation which, allegedly, saw the two parties achieve significant advances toward peace. A ceremony was held and the two leaders smiled and shook hands. Clearly the window of opportunity had been opened and the white Dove of Peace fluttered right in.
So why is the Israeli Defense Minister traveling to Washington to ask for 1.2 billion dollars from the United States? Will those funds be used to tear down borders and usher in a new era of peaceful relations between Arabs and Jews? Will it be used to finance joint commercial projects? Perhaps the funds will be used to erect a new building in Jerusalem which will house the joint governmental headquarters of Israel and the future PLO state?
Were any of the above suggested as reasons for such a loan, I could certainly understand how American politicians would be willing to grant such a sum. But this is just not the case. Right after working out a precedent setting peace agreement, the Jewish State is asking for financial assistance to build fences, trenches, by-pass roads, sophisticated electronic surveillance devices, bulletproof vehicles, and bullet proof windows for civilian homes. Does this sound like money being spent to enhance peaceful relations? If the two leaders both claimed to be on the road to peace, why then does Israel need to invest huge sums of money to defend itself from attack from its new peace partner? If I were an American politician I would never consider granting any sum of money to finance a lie.
The lie began after the first results of Oslo were revealed. It may well be that Rabin and Peres really thought that they had something with the concept of PLO autonomy. They even planned to test it out before committing themselves to it. Remember "Gaza and Jericho first"? The idea was that Gaza and Jericho would be a test to see if the PLO could accept the concept of self-rule under overall Israeli sovereignty. The test failed miserably. Rather than being grateful for the opportunity to gain autonomy, the PLO openly showed contempt for the concept as they tore down the Israeli flag and raised the PLO flag in its place. Not only was this a violation of the agreement, it was an outright act of war! It was a declaration of PLO sovereignty over Jewish soil! It was at this juncture that the Jewish leadership began its worst self-deception. It "overlooked" an act of war and called it "peace".
Today the Netanyahu government has enhanced this process to the next step. Not has he merely ignored the fact that Arafat has, defacto, declared sovereignty over all lands over which he is only permitted autonomy, but he has openly declared this concept for future concessions as well! This is an alteration of the intention of Oslo to the detriment of the Jewish State. It has turned the autonomy plan into one of outright surrender of our sovereignty! And this is even before Arafat bothers to declare statehood!
It would be one thing if our leadership really thought that we could make peace. But the bitter truth is that no honest person anywhere can really consider what is going on here as a peace process. Arafat has, for all intents and purposes, declared his intention to take our country away from us. He is prepared to at least begin the conquest by "peaceful" means. He will take what we give him. Only after he has gotten all that we are willing to give will he employ the "old fashioned" method to get the rest. This is not a secret. It is just something we prefer not to think about, much less annunciate. We prefer to "hope" for peace. Even when that hope is based upon nothing.
I live next door to the PLO. I admit feeling more comfortable to know that the bus I ride in has bulletproof windows and panels. My car is not so protected and, yes, I am afraid when I have to drive the roads where others have been murdered. I admit that I would feel safer if we had new roads which by-passed heavily populated Arab areas. Perhaps one big underground tunnel to Jerusalem would be even better. But will this bring peace? Is this not admitting that we are under siege. . .literally living in and accepting a state of war?
I don't want bulletproof buses. I don't want to live in a cage. I don't want to spend millions or billions of dollars on new roads and elaborate defensive devices. If monies are to be used for peace, they would be best used to remove our enemies from our homeland. Israel was, is and always will be the exclusive homeland of the Jewish people. We have no right to alter our obligation as Jews by sharing, selling or giving away any part of this Land to any foreign entity for any reason. Even in secular terms the "land for peace" concept is a contradiction in terms. No one buys peace. Land is taken in war. Every piece of land we have given to the PLO is, in their eyes, a military victory. Thus we have been inviting the war we delude ourselves into thinking that we are avoiding. And, to add insult to injury, the very fact that we are willingly weakening ourselves before our most implacable enemies, as we entrench them within our sovereign borders, encourages all of our Arab neighbors to prepare for another attempt to destroy the Jewish State.
So I would tell the American Congress not to give Israel
any money for a lie. By-pass roads and bulletproof buses
are not tools of peace. They are proof that Oslo and Wye are deceptions.
If we need to spend billions to turn our towns and villages into
armed fortresses to protect our families from our peace partners,
then both the recipients and the benefactors will be parties to
a terrible lie which will eventually blow up in our faces. If
we really wanted to spend money for peace, it would be better
spent relocating Arabs to Arab countries. If the war is coming,
and it is, I would prefer to fight it on the borders of my country.
This will only be possible if we remove our enemies now, while
we still can.
The focus of the industrial West has, for many years, been drawn to the oil-bearing nations of the Middle East because they needed oil. As a repository of developed and yet to be developed fields, reserves of precious crude in the Middle East were an irresistible magnet.
The point men were the oil companies who represented industrial and government interests. Nations contested with each other for oil leases and oil contracts as if there were no other oil deposits on the planet. But, something has happened to change that status. There were international interests who wanted Middle East oil prices driven up so they could raise local prices to a similar level in their own countries. And weapons' manufacturers wanted prices to rise so the Arab countries could use there new wealth to buy their goods. Henry Kissinger, then Sec. of State, was particularly anxious for the Shah of Iran to be able to afford generous purchases of weapons in quantities sufficient for Iran to serve as America's guardian and policeman over the Gulf States.
Recall the embargo of 1973, when the Arab countries refused to ship oil to the West? This required assistance from the multi-national oil companies who agreed not to deliver crude oil to America, Europe, Japan. Their trick worked and the prices per barrel skyrocketed from $2.50 per barrel to $10 and then even up to $40 on the spot market as the bidding grew wild. Overnight the Arabs became super rich and the oil companies enjoyed astronomical price increases to their markets.
The profits to the oil nations were enormous which spurred them into a buying spree never before seen in these desert countries. Weapons especially were purchased in such volume that US and European arms manufacturers made fortunes, as did banks, shipping, and industrial building contractors like Bechtel. Money flowed like water via the international exchange medium of black gold. The West had its collective lips firmly affixed to the behind of the Arab nations' dictators. Oil was King and its users became its vassals. Nothing the Arabs demanded was withheld by the West.
But, something was quietly happening in parallel to this flood of this high-priced commodity.
Other countries around the globe envied the easy money that the Arabs were taking from the global economy. They began exploring in earnest their own oil-bearing resources which heretofore were not economical to develop. Sinking wells (many were dry) and running pipe over land to ports (yet to be built) was very expensive. However, with the price of oil at the levels to which the Arab nations had driven it, economics warranted going into debt and this they did.
Slowly, small and even some large fields came on stream. It started with small trickling fingers of oil which began to make it to market. At first the volume was too small to effect the market price. But, soon those small fields were expanded and new fields were discovered, drilled and piped. Those trickling streams grew and started to converge into a mighty river, pouring into a virtual global sea of crude. This resulted in a glut now and still growing.
The Middle Eastern oil potentates tried using their cartel called OPEC (with the assistance of the multi-nationals) to coordinate and pump less in order to keep their prices and profits up to support their now very expensive lifestyles. They had created such massive debts by buying and building infrastructure they mostly didn't need, they could barely keep up the payments. In fact, Saudi Arabia has reportedly just borrowed $5 billion from a neighboring oil nation as it experienced a short fall in liquidity. Other breaking reports speak of these oil nations negotiating to re-schedule their debts to weapons' manufacturers - while canceling orders not yet delivered. This has panicked the weapons' manufacturers who based much of their profits on the income expected from prior and new sales. On the global level, all those nations who borrowed heavily to get in on the Black Gold bonanza now had to pay principal and interest to their creditors. They could not stop or slow pumping. They even had to pump more than was wise as the price per barrel fell ever downward. Recently, at a symposium held by the prestigious think tank, AEI. American Enterprise Institute, there was a startling revelation by Paul Michael Wihbey, an expert on Mid East oil. He said that the center of gravity of oil politics had shifted. He described the dramatic shift away from the Middle East as the primary source of oil. (1)
Today, the South Atlantic region supplies between 45% and 48% of oil imported to America. Combined with imports from Canada, the North Sea, South America (Venezuela and Mexico), Western East Africa (Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Angola and the Congo) total non-Persian Gulf oil represents 81.2% of oil imported by the United States. During the Gulf War (1990-91) 27.8% of American oil came from the Persian Gulf. Today, it has dropped to 18.2% and continues to decline. (2)
Concurrently, more new oil is coming on stream, while the Arab oil states are looking desperately at a now vigorously competitive market. The oil companies have so far successfully manipulated market prices despite the glut so their refined products like gasoline will continue getting high prices at the pump.
Therefore, while the Middle East continues to pump for their necessary cash flow, most of the world's oil is now coming from all those new fields which their inflated prices made economical to develop. Many contractors and end product users of Middle East oil will not be sorry to see the stick removed from the Arab hand. During the era when the Arab nations boycotted Israel, all corporations and nations had to genuflect to Arab wishes with respect to Not doing business with Israel. While not necessarily pro-Israel, these nations and their companies chaffed under the unreasonable dictates of Arab kings, dictators and even free-wheeling terrorist nations and groups who demanded and received protection money for Not attacking the oil flow. What then does this decline in Arab oil power mean for Israel?
First, the nations and corporations will not be so eager to attack Israel on all issue while defending Arab reasons. This will not happen quickly since there are operating institutions whose policy is to continue appeasing Arab nations while concurrently undermining Israel. Three such institutions are the US State Department, the EU (European Union), and the United Nations who often collaborate in undercutting Israel whenever possible. They've got the habit and, even when the world's paradigm reverses, they're not smart enough or eager to switch gears fast enough. Such institutions are so filled with their own hubris that they will not give up their prerogatives so easily when they have an in-bred base of anti-Semitism driving their policies. This demonstrated anti-Jewish bias fit very well with the Islamic driven hostility the Arabs demonstrated against the Jews since centuries before the founding of the State of Israel in 1948.
Along with the shifting centers of energy supplies, Mr. Wihbey also demonstrated how the lucrative markets have shifted from the Arab/Muslim countries to the eastern Mediterranean countries of Israel and possibly Turkey. Now, since Israel is the major high tech market growing in the region, major corporations are placing themselves in that market to buy and sell. Because her technological base is growing at such a fast pace, Israel is often called the "second Silicon Valley". Many nations and companies have taken the opportunity to sub-contract their technological development in Israel. This growth will continue providing the Arab nations in rage and frustration over their own decline don't start a super-war with all their Western-gotten weapons.
1. "US Strategic & Economic Interests in the Region Are Changing?" Paul Michael Wihbey, Institute for Advanced Strategic & Policy Studies at Symposium: "Rethinking the Middle East" AEI: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research October 14, 1998 "
2. "Washington Insight" by Harun Kazaz TURKISH DAILY NEWS
Emanuel A. Winston is a Middle East analyst &
commentator and research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic
Studies.
Arutz Sheva News Service of November 1, 1998 / Mar-Cheshvan 12, 5759
The firing of veteran reporter Steve Rodan from the Jerusalem Post last week has rekindled allegations that the paper is bent on becoming more left-wing. Arutz-7 has been told by sources close to the Post that Rodan was told by the Post's Vice-Chairman Hirsh Goodman, "You are a mouthpiece for the government." Rodan, who is the Middle East correspondent for the prestigious U.S.-based Defense News, and a former correspondent for PBS and Voice of Israel Radio, was given a letter of dismissal signed by Goodman, who became Vice Chairman of the Post four months ago. Since assuming this position, Goodman has also fired veteran correspondent Jay Bushinsky, and columnists Dennis Eisenberg and Uri Dan. Eisenberg told Arutz-7, "Mine was definitely a political sacking. He accused me of writing lies. He is trying to make the paper more left-wing, and morale at the paper is low."
Goodman, speaking with an Arutz-7 correspondent today, denied that the firings were politically-motivated. "I don't even know Rodan's politics, I only met him three times," he said. "On the face of things, there has been a confluence of events that could indicate a change of line in the paper.
But I can tell you that we are now only at the beginning of the re-organization, and we should talk again at its end... and there are no political motives at all." He emphasized that "for purely commercial reasons, my goal is to keep the paper right of center." Sources close to the Post told Arutz-7 that Rodan was told by Goodman, "You have attacked the Oslo process... everything you write is lies... you are a friend of [Netanyahu-aide and former Jerusalem Post editor] David Bar-Illan, and you are a mouthpiece for the government."
Regarding the dismissal of Jay Bushinsky, Goodman said, "I
want my readers to know that what they read is 100% accurate..."
However, sources close to the Post reject the implication, and
claim that Bushinsky - who has been a Middle East newspaper and
radio correspondent for 35 years - was fired because of his personal
anti-Oslo opinions that he expressed privately.
Arutz Sheva News Service of November 24, 1998 / Kislev 5, 5759
Indictments were filed today by the State Prosecutor's Office against ten directors and broadcasters of Arutz Sheva. The ten include Rabbi Zalman Melamed, his wife Shulamit Melamed, Yaakov Katz (Katzeleh), Yoel Tzur, Haggai Segal, and Adir Zik. Attorney-General Elyakim Rubenstein said that he had considered not including Yoel Tzur in the list, "for humanitarian considerations, in light of the terrorist murder of his wife and son two years ago." Rubenstein said, however, that "Tzur's central role in the operations of the station could not be overlooked." The ten are accused of operating a radio station without a license.
Arutz-7 issued the following statement in response to the indictment: "The issuance of indictments against Arutz-7 is an anti-democratic measure, in judicial guise. The State Attorney's Office, the police, and the political left have joined forces to silence the lone voice of the right. Hundreds of thousands of loyal listeners will sit together with us on the defendants' stand."
Yaakov Katz (Katzeleh), Executive Director of Arutz-7 said, "In the past two years, many right-wing government ministers and mayors have been indicted by the State Prosecution, and all were found innocent. These include Agriculture Minister Rafael Eitan, Finance Minister Yaakov Ne'eman, Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, Justice Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, the mayors of Ramat Gan and Petach Tikva, and many more. Abie Natan broadcast for 22 years only one kilometer from the shore, and was protected in every way by the State Prosecutor's Office. The State Prosecution has become a fortress of the left-wing, and has not let up in its efforts to topple the right-wing from power. These efforts to silence us will not succeed, however, and Arutz-7 will continue to operate for many years to come - even if we have to continue broadcasting from the ocean."
It is likely that the Freeman Center, its broadcasts and
publications will be your only source of un-censored news about
Israel. If you are not making a financial contribution to our
efforts, you should do so now. Without your support, we could
be forced to cease our activities. We work so that no one will
ever be able to say: "We didn't know."
Editorial from The Jerusalem Post on November 26, 1998.
There was no lack of irony on Tuesday when the Attorney-General's Office announced its intention to indict senior personnel of the Arutz 7 pirate radio station for violating the law against illegal broadcasts. The fact that the action is being taken while a Likud government is undertaking a revolution in communications deregulation, and while the settlers' movement is going through the wrenching process of absorbing the land concessions of the Wye Memorandum, points to an immediate need to reform the laws regulating the air waves in Israel. The government and the country's arms of justice also need to exercise a bit more common sense in deciding when and how to enforce the laws on the books. Treating people like outlaws can often itself be the cause of their acting like outlaws.
The charges filed against 13 broadcasters and managers of the Arutz 7 settlers' radio station included indictments for operating without a license, operation of wireless equipment without a license, and use of radio frequencies without authorization. Given the open manner in which Arutz 7's broadcasts were listened to throughout the country, on a strict reading of the law it is certainly possible to claim that the station managers did knowingly commit the actions attributed to them. But while upholding the law of the land is a cornerstone of proper government and administration, consideration should also be given to the fact that the managers of Arutz 7 have repeatedly claimed they would be perfectly willing to apply for licenses - if only the law enabled them to do so.
As Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein himself pointed out this week at the Knesset, the simple fact that the letter of the law enables the state to prosecute individuals on a vast number of possible violations does not necessarily mean that indictments should always be filed. As Rubinstein put it, one needs to implement common sense in such matters.
Arutz 7 has been operating for years in an unobstructed manner. Its broadcasts, giving voice to a not insignificant sector of the Israeli public which felt that its opinions were not heard frequently enough on government-controlled and monopolized radio, have often been considered a mirror image to Abie Nathan's Voice of Peace radio station, which similarly broadcast outside the territory of the state and gave alternative points of view a public stage. The Voice of Peace was never shut down by government action in all its years of broadcasts, until it went out of business. Similar tolerance of Arutz 7's operation was exhibited through many years of Likud, Labor, and unity governments. Indeed, politicians from virtually every corner of the Knesset were regularly interviewed in its news segments without giving the matter a second thought.
The fact that legal action is being taken now against the "settlers' radio station," given the context of the painful redeployment as part of the Wye agreement, is already arousing suspicions, justified or not, in the minds of many settlers. Arutz 7 played an important role in assisting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu win the last general election by firmly supporting his candidacy. The station, along with the settler movement, is going through a difficult period now as it is trying to adjust to the new reality of the Likud-led government it supported agreeing to withdrawals from parts of the Land of Israel.
A subtext of much of the settlers' complaints against the previous Labor-led government was the fact that they felt decisions were being taken affecting their very lives without consulting them, as if they were non-existent. The 170,000 settlers form a significant enough fraction of the population. While they cannot be given a veto over the decisions of the government or Knesset, in a democratic system their voice has as much legitimacy to be heard as any other. Indeed, the fact that the settlers' protest against the implementation of the Wye accord has been relatively muted is directly related to a sense that, in this government their positions are at least given a fair hearing, even if they are not necessarily accepted.
The shutting down of Arutz 7 is dangerous at this juncture, because it might be interpreted as an attempt by the government to disenfranchise the settler movement and drive it underground. And a movement which feels that it has been forced to go underground is far more dangerous than one given a chance to participate in public discourse.
The final irony is that fact that the Netanyahu government, through the commendable efforts of Communications Minister Limor Livnat, has been preparing the greatest revolution in the communications field in Israel's history. The Communications Ministry is taking numerous steps to reverse decades-old attitudes, which regarded the air waves as being a government monopoly, by working towards deregulation and an "open skies" policy. Yet this government has also failed to provide Arutz 7 a legal way to broadcast within the bounds of the law.
There should be no distinction in principle between freedom of the printed word and freedom of the spoken word in broadcasting. With minimal government supervision, broadcast frequencies should be made available to any group or individual willing to operate radio stations at their expense, even if only to prevent a situation in which certain segments of the public feel that their views are being kept out of monopolized government channels. Arutz 7 should be given the right to broadcast, under license, as any other group.
Prosecution of those violating the law is a vital tool of law
enforcement. There are cases, however, in which common sense leads
to the conclusion that the law is more in need of correction than
the lawbreakers.
In the dark days after Rabin's assassination three years ago, Israeli democracy came under attack from a wave of anti-democratic McCarthyism, which held that the assassination had been caused by free speech in Israel that needed suppression. In the following days, the authorities launched a jihad against free speech, where anti-Oslo dissidents were carted off for questioning and prosecution, where "incitement" and "sedition" became the synonyms for dissent, where people could be arrested for telling a questionable joke or by reading certain passages from the Bible in public. In the hysteria caused by the assassination, Israelis lost sight of the greater threat to Israeli democracy - anti-speech McCarthyism.. The perpetrators of that McCarthyism were Peres and Labor and Meretz.
The theory that the Rabin assassination was caused by "incitement" in the free speech of demonstrators has become the official gospel of the event, and is repeated in parrot-like manner by all Israeli media and politicians of the Left and Right. The evidence for such a theory consists of nothing. True there were noisy anti-Rabin protests that preceeded the killing, but Yigal Amir ALSO went to law school before the killing - so how do we know that going to law school did not cause the Rabin assassination?
It is true that some anti-Rabin demonstrators used tasteless rhetoric but since when is that a crime? The student demonstrators this week demanding free tuition are using rhetoric just as tasteless.The entire definition of "incitement" revealed the deep anti-democratic inclinations of so many Israelis of the Left and Right. Now I am no free speech absolutist and accept the idea that here and there limitations to free speech are needed. But the term "incitement" was not used for someone saying "Here take this gun and shoot Rabin and I will pay you and if you do not I will shoot your sister", a statement that might be considered legitimately to be criminal incitement and should be prosecuted. Rather, "criminal incitement and sedition" were terms applied to those who blocked traffic intersections (note again the absence of similar application to this week's student hooliganism), to those who yelled "Rabin is a traitor and a murderer." Now, the latter may be tasteless and maybe even wrong, but making it illegal for demonstrators to chant tasteless and incorrect things is tantamount to destroying democracy. Similarly, I see no reason why even praying for Rabin to die should have been illegal. Tasteless and sacriligious perhaps. A felony? Will we have prayer patrols checking what people are asking of God?
Anyway, that dark chapter in Israeli history is now returning, with a new wave of assault upon freedom of speech, this time by a Likud government, which is deptermined to out-Mapai the Labor Party in all things, not just Oslo. The Likud had been the main victim of Labor McCarthyism in 1993-4, with Laborites and lefties still chanting that Netanyahu personally murdered Rabin, and the black widow Leah Rabin still says so also. Well, in the aftermath of Wye, some anti-Oslo folks are mad and they are demonstrating and expressing themselves with emotion, and this includes signs that say Netanyahu is a Liar, Netanyahu Betrayed us/his Principles, signs showing Bibi shaking a bloody hannd of Arafat, even Bibi in a kafiya. You see, chant the Left (and this time with Likud concurrence), the demonstrators are trying to murder Netanyahu! The bodyguards for Netanyahu are noisily and gleefully increased, Netanyahu gets to benefit from some of the martyrdom of Rabin to boost his poll standing, and the Free-Speech-Causes-Murder thesis becomes the official theology of the Likud and the Right. Not a single politician has the courage to say, Rabin was not killed by free speech but rather by a murderer with a gun. And the Wye agreement equates anti-Oslo dissidents with the Hamas and requires Netanyahu to jail Jewish "anti-peace extremists", meaning apparently anyone who disapproves of the Wye deal. This clause was accepted by Netanyahu as part of the Wye accord. The press is already reporting increased police surveillance of anti-Oslo rightists. But have no fear - no one will be watching or harassing the Arab Communist who just became Deputy Speaker of the Knesset (with the approval of Knesset Speaker High-School Dan = Dan Tichon), who has called for the murder of Palestinians who sell land to Jews. (The Commie that is, not High School Dan)
Now no one heard any of the demonstrators calling for violence against Israeli politicians, although some called for revenge against Arab terrorists. Haaretz jumps on the McCarthist bandwagon and links these "inciters" to the murder two days ago of a Palestinian Arab, the same day as a Jewish settler was murdered. You see, pontificates Haaretz, Jewish and Arab extremists are the same and need be suppressed and are murderers. The twin murders prove it.
All except one itsy-bitsy detail. There is no connection whatsoever between the rightist demonstrations and the murder of the Palestinian, which police say they believe was not political at all but rather think was a revenge murder by non-political friends of Itamar Doron who was murdered a couple of weeks back, and the suspect they are hunting is a non-political Bratslav Hassid. But why let the facts get in the way of your McCarthism.
Dr. Steven Plaut teaches business at the University
of Haifa.
Certain similarities between the Lavon Affair and the Rabin Assassination suggest that creating an incident for political benefit has always been a key tactic in the Labor Party's arsenal. While political dirty tricks are well-known tactics, only vested interests desperate for a big gain would dare to cross the red lines of assassination. When Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, certain evidence created the appearance that some one or group had planned to create the fiction of an attempted assassination which was not supposed to kill Rabin. As led by Rabin, the Labor Party poll meisters knew that, with the Oslo Accords failing because of the precipitously rising death toll from Palestinian terrorism, Rabin's chances for re-election were very slight. Only a spectacular event would save the Prime Ministry for the Labor Party.
They may have theorized that a failed assassination attempt on the Prime Minister would arouse the citizenry's sympathies. And that their righteous anger, when properly channeled against the political opposition, the Rightists, the religious and the settlers could change the polls overnight. An investigative reporter Mr. Barry Chamish has devoted considerable time and research on each minute detail of this tragic event. He has just published a book entitled "Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin?" with an accompanying videotape which takes one step by step from the time before the shooting through the events that followed with clarity; logic and a sense of planning that far exceeds the simplistic version of a religious youth on a self-styled mission. A must read book. (1)
(The German General Clausewitz once observed that the failure of a good plan was the search for a better one.) Here we see what could have been an effective plan to reinvigorate Rabin's chances for re-election, which was possibly overtaken by another more sinister plan to actually kill him. This would still benefit Labor and the next candidate amenable to continuing Oslo - perhaps Shimon Peres, Oslo's author, among others. Peres would; of course, be expected to insist that Oslo continue - even as it failed to deliver peace for the land surrendered. Whoever would suspect that Labor's opposition, PM Netanyahu would deliver Oslo/Hebron and so much more?
A great deal of effort has been exerted to keep the Rabin affair from being properly investigated or reported. Even the hearings that were held seemed to rely primarily upon the good reputation of retired Supreme Court Justice Shamgar rather than allowing the real evidence to speak for itself in public review. This 'concealment' gave the perception of a concerted exertion to protect a small part of Israel's Secret Service (GSS) from charges of collusion between the GSS, the political arm of Labor and, very possibly, sources representing other governments who needed a Labor Party in power to complete all Israeli withdrawals.
After considerable maneuvering and avoidance; Attorney General Elaykim Rubenstein under compelling pressure; has offered the public a limited hearing but in camera (public not permitted) of Avishai Raviv; the agent provocateur of the GSS. He has; so far been protected by powerful forces. Now there is to be an expected sham trial merely to say 'Justice has been served' while the real planners have again been protected. Raviv; as you may recall; was tasked by the GSS and the Labor Party to inspire rash acts among the political Right so the public would side with Labor on implementing the Oslo Accords. That is why the trial will be held in secret - although the excuse is that methods of the Secret Service will be compromised by any public trial.
Some may recall the strenuous effort and probable financial support that Bill Clinton employed unsuccessfully to defeat Binyamin Netanyahu in favor of Shimon Peres. Clinton even staged an International Conference against Terrorism to showcase his preferred candidate Peres. This was an unusual and embarrassing episode for US diplomacy when an American President publicly interfered with an election in a fellow democracy. Ever since that time Clinton and his State Department have ramped up this pressure culminating with the Wye Memorandum which was strictly a high priority ambush of Israel. Consider how many prejudiced interests wanted Labor to retain power and continue Oslo all the way to a Palestinians State plus half of Jerusalem - and more. On the day that Gaza International Airport opened, the PLO leadership - especially Yassir Arafat - began proclaiming their plans for a PLO airport in Jerusalem.
You may be wondering where the Lavon Affair fits into this scenario. In brief, a well-researched book entitled "The Gun and the Olive Branch" by David Hirst (2) describes how in 1954 there appeared to be deepening rapprochement between Egypt, Britain and America. This was exceedingly dangerous for Israel as Egypt was to benefit from arms and political assistance. Proving how dangerous this could have been, were four subsequent wars wherein the combined Arab armies including Egypt threatened to obliterate Israel. With this military assistance from Britain and America, Egypt could have had the necessary military power to defeat Israel. Fortunately; Israel's doctrine of ein breira (no choice) gave them the will not to lose any of those wars.
Hirst reports that in order to break up this pending alliance, a desperate plot was evolved where a ring of Israeli operatives in Egypt were to bomb various British and American establishments with the blame falling on Gamal Abdel Nasser's regime. According to Hirst, the orders were given by the head of Israeli Military Intelligence, Col. Benjamin Givli, who was theoretically reporting to then Defense Minister Pinchas Lavon. But as it turned out, neither Lavon nor then Prime Minister Sharett knew of this plot. This secret project was being covertly run by others who then as now believed they knew better.
The Israelis were caught by the Egyptians. At their trials in Egypt available evidence pointed to Lavon as the perpetrator. Later in Israel Col. Givli produced incriminating documents in secret hearings that had Lavon's signatures (but were later proved to be forgeries). Two of David Ben Gurion's protegees, Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres testified against Lavon. PM Sharrett, pressured by the scandal, fired Lavon and called Ben Gurion out of his self-imposed retreat in Sde Boker to replace Lavon as Minister of Defense. Six years later, according to Hirst, the truth came out that Ben Gurion, Dayan and Peres had framed Lavon. Ben Gurion protested that the three year statute of limitations had expired and the case could not be re-opened.
Lavon, now head of the powerful Histadrut Labor Union, demanded and received a full inquiry. The investigation revealed that the operation had been planned without Lavon's knowledge. His signature had been forged and he was to be the designated fall guy for the actual perpetrators.
In 1960 the Israeli Cabinet unanimously exonerated Lavon. The Attorney General found conclusive proof of forgeries and false testimony from earlier inquiries. Both Dayan and Peres evaded indictment for their false testimony. (I don't know what happened to Col. Givli.) In Tel Aviv and Jerusalem students chanted "Ben Gurion, Go to Sde Boker and Take Dayan and Peres with You. We Do Not Accept Leaders with Elastic Consciences."
The real victims were the Israeli agents, two of whom were hung, the rest given long sentences. Marcelle Nino and her fellow agents were exchanged for Egyptian prisoners after 14 years in Egyptia