I*Consult

What My Seven-Year-Old Grandson Can Teach President Obama About Israel

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:29:00 +0000

Reprinted from The Jewish Week, New York

Hebron -- Uriya and 80 other first grade boys received their certificates last month on completing their study of the entire book of Genesis. That's an important achievement in many Jewish day schools in the United States, usually accomplished only in the third grade. What was truly unique about Uriya's reception was its location: The Shrine of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron in the West Bank.

Meorat HaMachpeila, the traditional site of the graves of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah, is the second holiest site in Judaism after the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The burial cave was purchased by Abraham from Ephron the Hittite for 400 shekels of silver, according to the Bible [Genesis 23:17]. The cave was enclosed by a massive Herodian structure some 2000 years ago upon which Muslims added minarets and Christian crusaders added their churches.

Hebron had served as King David's capital until he moved to Jerusalem, and Jews lived in Hebron for centuries until an Arab massacre of Jews in 1929 forced the survivors to flee. For centuries the Muslims forbad Jews from entering the tomb, which they called the Haram al-Ibrahimi. Only after the 1967 war, when Israel pushed the Jordanian Legion from the West Bank, were Jews able to return to Hebron and enter the shrine.

The children's program in Hebron was full of songs, re-enactments of Bible stories, and quizzes about Bible figures and verses. Most of the program was conducted on the broad expanse of grass outside the holy site, and then the boys went inside to pray in the chambers above the graves. Only the large Isaac chamber was off-limits since it is reserved for Muslim worshippers for most of the year. [It was the site of the massacre of 29 Muslims by Baruch Goldstein on Purim, 1994.]

My wife and I grew up in Washington D.C., and we often supplemented our American history lessons with class trips to the U.S. Capitol building, Mt. Vernon or the Supreme Court.

But for Uriya and his friends the field trip was the opportunity to learn about their forefathers and the Cave of Machpeila, a 25-minute ride from his Efrat school in the Etzion Bloc south of Jerusalem. The one biblical matriarch missing from Hebron, Rachel, is buried in a shrine a few miles to the north between Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

Uriya knows a little about the history of the Etzion Bloc and its valiant history in defending the approaches to Jerusalem in May 1948 when 250 Jewish fighters were massacred by Arab armies.

The Jewish communities, built there decades before, were wiped off the map. When he's older, Uriya and his class will visit the site of the massacre and the kibbutz rebuilt after 1967 by the children of the defenders.

Other than playing "King of the Hill, the boys do not understand the intricacies of strategic topography, but they know that across the valley from their school is the community of Elazar, built after 1967. They can relate the area to the ancient Chanukah story. The settlement, another part of the Etzion Bloc, was named for the Maccabean general who died nearby beneath the military tank of the time - an elephant - deployed by the invading Greek army.

The area is steeped in Jewish history -- and Jewish blood.

Uriya's moving ceremony was attended by his parents and two sets of proud grandparents who also live in Efrat. It may be difficult for Americans with their atomized families and cross-continent mobility to understand the pride and efforts of the large Jewish families in the settlements to live in close proximity. They spend Shabbat and holidays together. Siblings and parents are available to babysit and help out when a daughter gives birth. Our home reverberates when a near-minyan of grandchildren come for a birthday party or cookie baking or cherry picking.

Our Arab neighbors understand the idea. When a son marries he builds his home near or above his parents' home. I seriously doubt that any American policy-maker would ever consider denying Palestinians the right to "natural growth" in their places of residence.

A recent Washington Post article described the role played by President Obama's Jewish friends and advisors in setting his draconian anti-settlement policies. It's a shame that the advisors have little or none of the deep emotional Jewish ties to the birthplace and birthright of Judaism - the Biblical sites in east Jerusalem, Hebron or Shiloh. They view with distain the religious devotion of the modern Orthodox Jews and the more than 100,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews who live in Judea and Samaria (not unlike the embarrassment that their parents felt toward their Yiddish-speaking Orthodox grandparents who arrived in America in the early 20th century). Unlike their American Jewish cousins, there will be little if any intermarriage or assimilation among the observant Israeli Jews.

The American friends and advisors to Obama may be friends or relatives of Israelis who are, more often than not, secular Israelis from the Tel Aviv region. The ignorance about the religious "other" is not the sole property of the American Jewish advisors.

Former Prime Ministers Barak and Olmert were quick to relinquish the Jewish patrimony. During the Oslo Accords withdrawal one Israeli military negotiator had no inkling about the sanctity of Rachel's Tomb and "gave it away" until ultra-Orthodox rabbinic leaders persuaded Prime Minister Rabin to correct the spiritual crime.

The relationship between Obama's Jews on one hand and the ardent American Zionists and patriotic Israelis on the other is reminiscent of a conversation held more than a century ago between Chaim Weizmann and Lord Arthur Balfour, the eventual author of the Balfour Declaration that launched the policy to establish a Jewish homeland. Balfour could not fathom why persecuted Russian Jews refused an offer of safe asylum in Uganda. Weizmann argued that Zionist Jews could not accept a home anywhere but Jerusalem.

"Suppose I were to offer you Paris instead of London," Weizmann said.
"But, Dr. Weizmann," Balfour responded, "we have London."
"That is true," Weizmann said, "but we had Jerusalem when London was a marsh."
Balfour asked, "Are there many Jews who think like you?"
"I believe I speak the minds of millions of Jews," replied Weizmann.
"It is curious," said Balfour, "the Jews I meet are quite different."
"Mr. Balfour," Weizmann retorted, "you meet the wrong kind of Jews."

We all pray that Uriya and his classmates will be spared the army service that his father, uncles and grandfather have all experienced.

But if one day he will have to don a uniform, he will know about his centuries-old ties to the land.

Rapture over a Rupture in Relations

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:50:00 +0000

Israel's critics put pennies on the railroad track and then predicted an Obama-Netanyahu train wreck

When Ehud Olmert spoke before the Israel Policy Forum in 2005 he dared to speak for all Israelis when he declared, "We are tired of fighting; we are tired of being courageous; we are tired of winning..." Clearly, he was not talking for most Israelis. Subsequently, the Israeli people fought two wars, proved that their mettle was beyond Olmert's comprehension, and then dispatched Olmert's Kadima Party from government.

Prior to the meeting of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama, two "progressive" American Jewish organizations, the Israel Policy Forum and J Street, attempted to present themselves as the true voice of American Jewry. They called on President Obama to enact "very, very strong involvement" [their euphemism for pressuring or "leaning" on Israel] in the peace process. They echoed the calls of columnists Roger Cohen and Nicholas Kristof for a policy of "tough love" toward Israel - another euphemism, perhaps best defined as "the rape of Israel," a repugnant term actually used by an Israeli editor in a presentation to Secretary of State Condi Rice.
Will American Jewry permit this misrepresentation?

Dismissing the surge of pro-Israel sentiment and activism displayed at the massive AIPAC Policy Conference in early May, the IPF's Director of Policy Analysis, M. J. Rosenberg, even refused to call AIPAC "pro-Israel." Claiming sole possession of the "pro-Israel" mantle and proclaiming a markedly pro-Palestinian agenda, Rosenberg declared, "We need to drown out the clamor produced by a minority within the pro-Israel community that tells our government not to press Israel to freeze settlements, ease the suffering in Gaza, or push hard to end the occupation that is destroying Israel's future and the Palestinians' present."

Thus, in recent months the Israel Policy Forum "welcomed the shift [it perceived] in American policy toward Hamas," opposed "provocative" congressional bills directed at Iran, rushed to the defense of Chas Freeman when his very inappropriate appointment to the National Intelligence Council was challenged, lobbied against a "one-sided" congressional resolution supporting Israeli actions against the rocket-shooting Hamas terrorists in Gaza, and expressed opposition to a "loathsome" bi-partisan Congressional letter to the President encouraging support for direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

This is pro-Israel?

The J Street organization conveyed similar messages on Capitol Hill, charging that the Israeli operation against Hamas in Gaza was "disproportionate and escalatory." A recent J Street poll actually served to advocate sanctions against Israel by suggesting that reductions of diplomatic, economic and military aid were options to "convince" Israel to accept an imposed solution.

BUT NOW Rosenberg and the IPF have gone too far on several issues. Earlier this month the Forum's policy director rewrote Middle East history in chilling Orwellian terms. Israel should return to the 1967 borders after securing peace treaties, he wrote, because "pre-1967 Israel was not terrible at all. In fact it was pretty wonderful." [Emphasis added.] "Wonderful" is barely the way to describe the murderous fedayeen raids of the 1950s, the total ban on Jewish visits to the Western Wall or Cave of the Patriarchs, the abrupt withdrawal of UN troops from Sinai in 1967, the genocidal intentions of Arab neighbors and expeditionary forces, the failure of the United States to uphold its commitments to Israel, and the preparation of mass graves in Israeli parks.

"It is clear from our contacts with this administration," the IPF official continued, that "President Obama wants us to create consensus among all Americans, and particularly within the pro-Israel community, in support of White House efforts to encourage both sides to compromise in order to achieve peace." He longs for a "president [who] is free to lean (emphasis added) on both sides - without fear of being thwarted by the status quo lobby [AIPAC] or its friends in Congress and the media."

ROSENBERG SINGS paeans to the God-less culture and politics of Tel Aviv, the "real Israel."

"Tel Aviv, in all its rich color, is what Zionism is all about.... With its beaches, bars, art galleries, theaters, and high-fashion scene, T-A is often criticized as a 'bubble' because it provides the illusion that it is possible to escape the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while in the heart of Israel. It is an illusion, but a good one - and the very opposite of the ugly and hopeless reality offered by extremists on both sides."

Writing an obituary for Israel's capital last week, Rosenberg pronounced "the death of Jerusalem," a city "divided by walls of hate."

"The secular areas [of Jerusalem] are charming but much of the rest is Jewish Taliban country... No humor, no aesthetics, just lunatics in black. Can't all these black-clad crazies - of all faith and delusions - just recognize their common inhumanity and move to one corner of Asia." Rosenberg called on liberal Jerusalemites "who can't stand Talibanization" to move to the liberal, "hedonistic" Tel Aviv. (Emphasis added.)

In the 1990s a popular American Jewish leader was forced to resign as head of a major organization after remarking that ultra-Orthodox Jews' "image is smelly... Hassids and New York diamond dealers." Some Jewish leaders, he explained, did not like to fly on El Al because "those people" were on board. "TWA flies direct [to Israel], but it's low class, like the Orthodox."

Obviously, Rosenberg's revulsion toward the Orthodox "Taliban, black-clad crazies" is at least as biased, but he spews his hatred on Jerusalem, as well.

It may not be politically correct to label anyone an "anti-Semite" today. But what do you call someone who rejects the centrality of Jerusalem to the Jewish people or labels Orthodox Jews "fanatics, crazies, Taliban and lunatics?"

WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMEN and sources close to Israel's prime minister prefaced the Obama-Netanyahu meeting by predicting that the two men were expected to have a productive and friendly meeting - "a continuation of a very close relationship between the U.S. and Israel," said one US official.

This article goes to press before the meeting, but I expect no fireworks, no train wreck, no blood on the rug. Yes, there are differences in the two leaders' approaches, but to the disappointment of the Israel Policy Forum, J Street, and various pundits, President Obama did not "lean" on Prime Minister Netanyahu. He has more Middle East leaders to meet and more Palestinian steps to be taken before the Obama administration can even consider pressing Israel. The Americans also know that for now and for the next few years, Binyamin Netanyahu will be their primary interlocutor.

The Jewish Left has adopted the two-state solution as their mantra. But American analysts are now questioning whether the two-state solution is really the panacea prescribed by J Street, IPF, Jimmy Carter and friends. "Unlike Zionism, for whom statehood was the central objective," one pro-Arab advisor to the administration recently wrote, "the Palestinian fight was primarily about other matters. The absence of a state was not the cause of all their misfortune. Its creation would not be the full solution either."

President Obama has shown that he "does Jewish" very well - hosting a seder in the White House, planning a visit to a concentration camp in Europe, and declaring May as "American Jewish Heritage Month."

How well does Obama "do Israel?" How well does he understand Israel's fears of an Iranian bomb, its concerns over Hamas terrorism, its hopes for real peace, and its commitment to protecting the Jewish people's past and future? We'll know better after his speech in Cairo next month, but from the messages coming out of the Obama-Netanyahu meeting, it appears that he understands these issues well. At least for the near future, therefore, Obama will not be taking up residence at 1600 J Street, a make-believe street that doesn't really exist.

This article appears in the May 19 edition of The Jerusalem Post.

Washington’s Elders of Anti-Zion and Their Never-Ending Low-Intensity War on Israel

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:38:00 +0000

AIPAC’s annual conference opened this week to the auspicious news that the U.S. Justice Department will drop its case against two former AIPAC employees on espionage-related charges based on a 90-year-old U.S. statute. But the original charges brought against Steve Rosen and Keith Weisman left some friends of Israel uneasy over the calumny of American Jews’ “dual loyalty.” In recent weeks, the case escalated with accusations that Congresswoman Jane Harman, a strong congressional friend of Israel, attempted to influence the case.

In March the queasiness was widespread in the pro-Israel community after Charles “Chas” Freeman claimed that the Israel Lobby torpedoed his appointment to head the U.S. National Intelligence Council. “The aim of this Lobby,” Freeman told reporters, “is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views." One result, he continued, is "the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for U.S. policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics."

Freeman’s complaints echo the widely-criticized 2007 book, The Israel Lobby by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt where the authors claim that the Israel Lobby’s core consists of "American Jews who make a significant effort in their daily lives to bend U.S. foreign policy so that it advances Israel's interests."

And all this came after former president Jimmy Carter published his anti-Israel screed, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid in 2006.

The Elders of Anti-Zion

By no means should anyone ignore or minimize the Washington leaks and attacks against AIPAC, the American Jewish community or Israel. But it should be understood that these actions are part of a historic, decades-long, beneath-the-surface low-intensity war in Washington to weaken U.S.-Israel relations. Not much has changed since an Arab propagandist in the U.S., Mohammed Mehdi, proclaimed some 40 years ago, “The road to the liberation of Palestine leads through Washington.”

In more than 35 years of my involvement in U.S.-Israeli relations, I have seen the ebbs and surges of various anti-Israel campaigns. Once the anti-Israel crusade was led or conducted by Senator J. William Fulbright and Congressman Paul Findley, assisted by Jewish anti-Zionists like Elmer Berger and the apostate Alfred Lilienthal, and supported by Arab propagandists and oil interests. In the 1960s and 70s the legislators charged that American policy in the Middle East was too pro-Israel and that Congress was corrupted.

In 1962 Fulbright launched an investigation of foreign lobbyists in Washington, attempting to force AIPAC to register as an agent of Israel rather than a domestic American lobby. His chief investigator was a journalist named Walter Pincus. [Today, Pincus, the Washington Post’s veteran national security reporter, helps cover the Jane Harman story and the Rosen-Weisman trial.]

"Israel controls the United States Senate,” Senator Fulbright told Face the Nation in 1973. “Around 80 percent are completely in support of Israel; anything Israel wants it gets. Jewish influence in the House of Representatives is even greater.” [Years later, after retiring from the Senate, Fulbright registered as a foreign agent for Saudi Arabia.]

Freeman, Walt, and Mearsheimer are but parrots of Fulbright and Under Secretary of State George Ball who wrote a 1977 Foreign Affairs article, “How to Save Israel in Spite of Itself.” Ball declared more than 30 years ago, “How far should we go in continuing to subsidize a policy shaped to accommodate understandable Israeli compulsions which do not accord with the best interests — as we see it — either of Israel or the United States, but are a threat to world peace? … Because many articulate Americans are passionately committed to Israel, the slightest challenge to any aspect of current Israeli policy is likely to provoke a shrill ad hominem response. To suggest that America should take a stronger and more assertive line in the search for Middle East peace is to risk being attacked as a servant either of Arab interests or of the oil companies, or being denounced as anti-Israel, or, by a careless confusion of language, even condemned as anti-Semitic.”

In the mid-1970s, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, frustrated by Israel’s tough negotiating position and encouraged by Ball, pushed President Gerald Ford to conduct a “Reassessment” of American relations with Israel. After AIPAC rallied strong congressional opposition to the Administration’s proposed policy change, AIPAC was investigated by the Justice Department to see if it should register as a foreign agent of Israel. The investigators concluded, “There is not one shred of evidence that AIPAC should be registered as a foreign agent.”

As Ronald Reagan’s vice president, George H. Bush reportedly led the efforts to embargo F-16 aircraft shipments to Israel after the bombing of the Iraqi reactor in 1981. In 1991 as president, Bush went toe-to-toe with the American Jewish community when he sought to tie loan guarantees, which Israel needed to provide housing for the massive aliya of Soviet Jews, to restrictions on the building of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. When Jewish organizations went up to Capitol Hill to lobby for the aid, Bush went on national TV, pounded his fists and declared that he was "up against some powerful political forces…. I heard today,” he said, “there were something like a thousand lobbyists on the Hill working the other side of the question. We've got one lonely little guy [the President] down here doing it."

Bush went on to chip away at public support for Israel by claiming that American soldiers had “risked their lives to defend Israelis” in the Gulf War and that “despite our own economic problems the United States provided Israel with more than $4 billion in economic and military aid, nearly $1,000 for every Israeli man, woman and child."

Bush’s speech unleashed a flurry of anti-Semitic comments in the U.S. to an extent that the White House felt it had to react. "I am concerned that some of my comments at the Thursday press conference caused apprehension within the Jewish community," Bush wrote to American Jewish leaders. "My references to lobbyists and powerful political forces were never meant to be pejorative in any sense."

The animosity toward Israel and the American Jewish community expressed by the President was probably shaped in part by his National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and shared by other senior staff. Scowcroft continues today to play an “Elders” role in Washington, encouraging a change in policy toward Israel.

In 1991, Bush’s Chief of Staff, John Sununu, was under fire for using military and corporate aircraft for personal trips. According to press reports at the time, Sununu, a Lebanese-American, believed that the attacks against him were generated by pro-Israel groups motivated by his ethnic background and because his positions were "not fully supportive of Israel's demands on the United States." Sununu later sought out Jewish leaders to mollify them and deny that he made the charge.

Bush’s Secretary of State James Baker was infamous for his enmity toward Israel. His purported remark, “F*** the Jews! They don’t vote for us anyway,” probably marks a low point in contemporary American Jewish history.

Attempts to Sink AIPAC?

Administrations’ policy differences with Israel and legislative challenges on Capitol Hill championed by AIPAC were often met in Washington by anti-Israel leaks to the press or by actions by counter-intelligence officials. During the period 1977 – 1982 AIPAC led challenges on Capitol Hill against major U.S. aircraft sales to Jordan, Egypt and particularly Saudi Arabia. On three occasions in those years I was approached at AIPAC by individuals offering classified information they claimed was important for Israel’s security. Once, a man offered to provide blueprints of an airbase being built in an Arab state. On another occasion, two men, claiming that their pastor encouraged them to help Israel, wanted to provide information on American military supplies to the Middle East. In the third case, information on U.S. – Saudi ties was going to be provided. In all cases, I assumed that the men were part of counter-intelligence “sting” operations, and I sent the suspected agents provocateurs packing. The third individual, by the way, was named Jonathan Pollard. I was wrong about his intentions, but AIPAC was spared.

Ultimately, such a sting operation – without the transfer of any documents – was used to entrap the two AIPAC employees in 2005.

Counter-intelligence agencies in the U.S. – and there are several – have long suspected that Jonathan Pollard had an accomplice, Agent X, and that American Jews may be guilty of dual loyalties. In 1997, phone taps of Israeli Embassy lines purportedly picked up a conversation about obtaining a document from an American mole codenamed “Mega.” No such spy existed, Israel insisted. One over-zealous official who worked at both the CIA and FBI, David Szady, was involved in the AIPAC arrests as well as the hounding of an entry-level Jewish attorney at the CIA who had visited Israel as a teenager. Another case of clear anti-Semitic persecution involved a Jewish engineer at a tank facility in Michigan. In all cases, the investigations were finally dropped.

Press leaks about Israeli spying, illegal weapons sales, and the theft of military technology spout almost like clockwork during periods of tension between the two countries. The charges include claims that the Israeli Python air-to-air missile was based on Sidewinder technology, that the Lavie jet and Harpy drone technologies were transferred to China, and that Patriot anti-aircraft missile technology was compromised. No one should have been surprised, therefore by the most recent leak about Congresswoman Harman on the eve of the AIPAC Policy Conference and as the case against Rosen and Weisman crumbled. [Will there ever be an investigation launched to see who leaked details of a secret U.S. government operation in which Harman was taped? Probably not.]

Today’s anti-Israel cabal of Walt, Mearsheimer, Freeman, and columnists Roger Cohen and Nicholas Kristof have the luxury of several Jewish commentators and organizations that support them. Incredibly, the Jewish spokesmen claim to be pro-Israel, but their actions betray their claim. The spokesmen have recently defended Chas Freeman, praised the Walt-Mearsheimer book, lobbied Congress against supporting Israel’s actions against Hamas in Gaza, and called for the recognition of Hamas.

Some of the spokesmen for this appeasement lobby appear to be the disciples and descendants of Rabbi Elmer Berger of the now defunct American Council for Judaism who raised funds at a Beirut dinner after the 1967 war where he likened Israel’s nationalism to South Africa’s apartheid. [Note that the apartheid falsehood heard so often at the Durban Conferences goes back more than 40 years.]

The appeasement lobby’s hero, Stephen Walt, by the way, just published an eight-point “user’s guide” on how the United States can “put pressure on Israel.”

Praise for AIPAC Activists

As the 6,500 AIPAC conference attendees leave Capitol Hill and head back to their homes this week, they should be proud of their efforts, resolute to continue, and encouraged by the words of two great American statesmen and leaders who approved of their efforts.

Two years ago, in a little-noticed commentary, former Secretary of State George P. Shultz responded to the Walt-Mearsheimer rant: “The United States supports Israel not because of favoritism based on political pressure or influence but because the American people, and their leaders, say that supporting Israel is politically sound and morally just. ... So, on every level, those who blame Israel and its Jewish supporters for U.S. policies they do not support are wrong. They are wrong because, to begin with, support for Israel is in our best interests. They are also wrong because Israel and its supporters have the right to try to influence U.S. policy. And they are wrong because the U.S. government is responsible for the policies it adopts, not any other state or any of the myriad lobbies and groups that battle daily—sometimes with lies—to win America's support."

And I still recall the words of former vice president and senator Hubert Humphrey responding to the detractors of the pro-Israel lobby at the time of the Ford “Reassessment” in 1976, telling some 450 AIPAC conference attendees, "Columnists, editorial writers have warned us about ethnic lobbies. We've heard careless, and I think, reckless things being said about the powerful Jewish lobby. As if somehow or another, it was against the law in this country to speak up for what you believe in.”

"It is good for the basic democratic process,” Humphrey continued, “that people who have convictions about what American public policy should be take time to get their fellow Americans and their public officials to understand what they believe and to urge their support. That's what we mean by free speech in this country. I say it will be a sad day for this country when its citizens stop using the precious guarantees in the first amendment to petition their government.”

"So I say,” Humphrey concluded, “there is nothing new about lobbying on behalf of causes in foreign places. It's as American as a hot dog or apple pie, spaghetti, gefilte fish, or Polish sausage.”

That sounds like a delicious menu.

A version of this article appears in the Jerusalem Post, May 6, 2009.

NYT's Roger Cohen Betrays Iranian Jews and the Truth

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:21:00 +0000

Mike Wallace's Disciple?

The New York Times columnist Roger Cohen’s continues to defend a series of columns he wrote over the last month on Iranian Jewry and how well the Iranian government treated him and the Jews he met. ["I'm a Jew and have seldom been treated with such consistent warmth as in Iran."] Even after meeting in Los Angeles last week with Iranian Jews who fled persecution in Iran and whose relatives were executed, Cohen argues, "Just how repressive life is for Iran's Jews is impossible to know."

His whitewash of Iranian intolerance of Jews and hatred for Israel actually has unfortunate precedence in the annals of American journalism. After visiting the Jews of Syria in 1975, CBS’ Mike Wallace reported on 60 Minutes that Jews were subject to special surveillance and restrictions, but “having said that all,” he continued, “it must be added that today life for Syria’s Jews is better than it was in years past.” Wallace also met with local Syrian Jews who claimed that assertions of mistreatment were mere “Zionist propaganda.”

In the case of Syrian Jews, almost the entire community of 4,500 subsequently fled the country.

Wallace also reported on Soviet Jews in 1987 and concluded, “One and a half million Soviets identified as Jews apparently live more or less satisfying lives.” Of course, more than a million Jews disagreed and emigrated the first chance they had. Wallace’s apparent motives were to swim against the currents of anti-Soviet and anti-Syrian attitudes in the U.S. in those times.

What is Cohen’s purpose in trying to kasher Iranian intolerance today? He explains that he seeks to mollify the concerns the West has over Iran's nuclear program and its leadership's call for Israel's destruction. "The hawks' case against Iran," Cohen claims, "depends on a vision of an apocalyptic regime — with no sense of its limitations — so frenziedly anti-Semitic that it would accept inevitable nuclear annihilation if it can destroy Israel first."

So Cohen is out to portray the Iranians as philo-Semitic.

Perhaps he should have read the State Department’s 2008 Report on International Religious Freedom which states:

“While the [Iranian] Government recognizes Judaism as an official religious minority, the country's Jewish community experienced official discrimination…. There was a rise in officially sanctioned anti-Semitic propaganda involving official statements, media outlets, publications, and books. The Government's anti-Semitic rhetoric, along with a perception among radical Muslims that all Jewish citizens of the country support Zionism and the state of Israel, continued to create a hostile atmosphere for Jews. The rhetorical attacks also further blurred the line between Zionism, Judaism, and Israel and contributed to increased concerns about the future security of the Jewish community…. Anti-American and anti-Israeli demonstrations included the denunciation of Jews, as opposed to the past practice of denouncing only ‘Israel’ and ‘Zionism,’ adding to the threatening atmosphere for the community. Jewish community members continued to emigrate, partially due to continued anti-Semitism by the Government and within society."
From the 2008 State Department Human Rights Report: "The Iranian-American Jewish Federation reported that 11 Jewish men who disappeared in 1994 and 1997 remained missing. In 2007 witnesses claimed they saw some of the men in Evin Prison."

International protests against Soviet and Syrian treatment of Jews helped relax draconian restrictions and eventually secured their freedom. If there is no similar public call to save Iranian Jews today it is because of a fear that the Iranian government will use them as pawns. Cohen’s naïve portrait of life for the Jews of Iran plays into the Ayatollahs' hands and may actually endanger their lives and worsen their plight.

Recommended reading: Roger L. Simon's account of the Cohen meeting with Iranian Jews in Los Angeles.

Syria Is Key to Returning Israel's POWs and MIAs How Syria Can Get a Discount Ticket to International Legitimacy

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 05:20:00 +0000

Even as State Department and National Security Council officials were paving a new path to Damascus last week for “preliminary conversations” with the Syrian government, the American ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Gregory Schulte, was warning of “growing evidence of clandestine nuclear activities in Syria."

Recently, some analysts and policymakers expressed the belief that engaging Syria’s President Bashir Assad could almost magically delink Syria from Iran, halt Syria’s assistance to Hamas and Hizbullah, and help bring the dawn of a regional peace in the Middle East. At the same time, however, there was a reminder of why Syria landed on the axis of evil membership list when an international tribunal convened in The Hague on March 1 to deliberate the evidence surrounding the 2005 assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Top Syrian officials, including some close to President Assad, are believed to be involved in the plot.

Despite all the pollyannish rhetoric and analysis, it is correct and responsible to be skeptical of Syria’s leadership and their activities. And Israeli leaders and voters are very skeptical. After all, Hamas headquarters are located in Damascus, Hizbullah’s thousands of rockets and missiles are manufactured in Syria or transported through Syria from Iran, and Syria maintains an arsenal of long-range Scud missiles, many believed to be armed with poison gas warheads. International experts no longer doubt that a clandestine nuclear facility was under final stages of construction when it was destroyed by Israeli bombers.

But there is one way for President Bashir Assad to dissipate Israel’s mistrust, and it does not require the monumental Sadatian step of journeying to Jerusalem to declare an end of war. Syria can clarify the status of Israeli soldiers who are missing in action and believed by some to be sitting in Syrian prison cells.

Tzvi Feldman, Zachary Baumel and Yehudah Katz (from left to right) were soldiers missing in action after the June 1982 Sultan Yaqub battle with Syrian tanks in Lebanon. Various reports, including some quoting Syrian officials, suggest that they may still be alive 27 years later. Baumel was also an American citizen.

Guy Hever (right)was stationed at an Israeli base on the Golan Heights, near the Syrian frontier. In 1997 he disappeared, and no trace has been found. Did Syrian commandos grab him? Did he wander into Syrian territory?

Israeli Air Force navigator Ron Arad (pictured left) was shot down over Lebanon in 1986. He was captured by one of the Lebanese militias and reportedly “sold” to the Iranians. In those days, grass didn’t grow in Lebanon without Syrian approval. At some point, Ron Arad passed through Syrian hands and territory.

Gilad Shalit (right) has been held by Gazan militia forces for almost three years. Ostensibly, Hamas – not Syria – is responsible for his fate. But with Hamas headquarters located in Damascus, Syrian security forces have the ability to “encourage” Hamas to release the Israeli soldier.

Is there any chance that Israeli soldiers are still alive 10 or 25 years after their capture? Yes. Dictatorships are notorious for their decades-long imprisonment of POWs. In 1996 the Pentagon was still analyzing reports of American POWs held in North Korea since the Korean War. In 1998 Iran released some 5,600 Iraqis, many held for more than 15 years after their capture in the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war. Iraq released some 380 POWs in exchange, including an Iranian pilot shot down at the start of the war.

If the Israeli MIAs are dead, then Syria could provide details to their families and begin the process of repatriating their bodies for burial. The Israeli nation would immediately take note of these steps. All of the American and French diplomats making pilgrimages to Assad should move the issue of MIAs/POWs higher on their priority list. There is probably no greater confidence-building step that Syria can take at this time.

Gaza and NATO’s Guidelines on Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:49:00 +0000

The Rules 41 Nations Are Supposed to Abide By

“Militants deliberately target innocent civilians and it is they who must be held responsible. Militants deliberately force civilians into situations where they are either killed or are at risk of being harmed. Militants’ tactics are to launch attacks from civilian areas, retreat to civilian areas and use civilians as human shields.”

The above quote is not from the Israel Defense Forces’ spokesman’s office in the aftermath of the Gaza operation. It appears in an unclassified N AT O document drafted in October 2008, available on the Internet. It is fascinating reading, and indicates that NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has to deal with the same kind of problems Israel faced in Gaza. But in the case of Afghanistan, various members of the media and the NGO community do not work in tandem with the Taliban to demonize NATO and ISAF. [Pictured: ISAF soldiers on the left; IDF soldiers right]

Entitled, “NATO in Afghanistan – Master Narrative,“ the document was prepared for spokesmen “who play a part in explaining the situation in Afghanistan and the International Security Assistance Force.” That force consists of some 56,000 soldiers from 41 nations.

Here are excerpts from the NATO/ISAF document:

* Militants deliberately target innocent civilians with suicide attacks and IEDs (improvised explosive devices).

* Militants forcefully oppose efforts to improve the life of the Afghan people and it is they who must be held responsible for bringing violence to the Afghan people.

* Militants deliberately force civilians into situations where they are either killed or are at risk of being harmed by NATO/ISAF or coalition forces in order to undermine support for NATO/ISAF in Afghanistan and in the International Community.

* Militants’ tactics are to launch attacks from civilian areas, retreat to civilian areas and use civilians as human shields.

* Militants want civilians caught up in the fighting, because they think this will undermine support for NATO/ISAF in Afghanistan and in the international community and weaken the legitimate Afghan government.

* Civilian deaths caused by militants have escalated significantly, reflecting their increasing use of indiscriminate tactics such as suicide bombs and IEDs.

* ISAF Troop Contributing Nations make every effort to minimize the risk of any damage, injury or loss of life to civilians in the course of their operations in Afghanistan. However, ISAF reserves the right to protect its own personnel.

1. Airpower in Afghanistan is used:

- in support of ground forces, with specific need and in specific situations
on positively identified enemy firing positions

- upon request and approval by the ground commander.

2. Airpower is vital to the defence of Afghanistan because:

- it provides speed, maneuverability and range
- the terrain impedes maneuver of troops and supplies
- the remoteness of locations hampers the use of ground forces
- it provides the most precise power projection available.

3. Airpower is employed by ISAF under the strictest possible restrictions—if there is any reason to believe there are civilians present a strike will not occur.

Some Perspective Is Needed

In August 2008, an American C-130 gunship attacked a site in Azizabad believed to be the hideout of a Taliban leader and his men. The Pentagon announced that five civilians were killed, but subsequently, "an investigation by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) found that some 90 civilians, including 60 children, were among those killed during military operations in the strife-torn nation’s western Herat province.”

In July 2008, an air strike on a wedding party in Afghanistan left 47 dead including 30 children, according to the UN. In November 2008, an air strike in Kandahar Province killed some 35 civilians and injured a further 37. Some 2,100 civilians were killed last year, many at the hands of the Taliban and others because of errant bombs.

War is hell wherever it takes place, and innocent civilians are tragically killed. The “good guys” make the utmost effort to minimize the suffering of innocents.

Israel already demands of its army the highest standards to protect civilians in enemy territory. How well do the 41 nations in the Afghanistan force stand up to their standards? At the very least they should understand what Israel faced – and may face again -- in Gaza.

The Palestinians Should Get a State, But Do They Deserve One? Not Yet

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:49:00 +0000

Why Secretary Hillary Clinton Didn’t See What I Saw

I spent one day in 1996 in Ramallah visiting the nascent Palestinian state. I traveled the few miles from Jerusalem to Ramallah with a colleague to attend a session of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) – the Palestinian parliament. It was soon after the Palestinian elections, and the scene in the Ramallah parliament was effervescent. Lobbyists were busy plying their trade in the hallways. MPs were jumping up to object to one point or another. And my translator – the daughter of a moderate PLO official stationed in Europe who was assassinated by radical Palestinians – was practically shaking with excitement. The elected body (yes, it was stacked with many of Arafat’s hand-picked candidates) was debating civil service reform, and members kept referring with approval to how things were done “over there.” It was understood by all they were talking about Israel.

Those were the days. And they may never return.

The language of the debate in the PLC was different but the sense of democracy at work reminded me of the debates in the Knesset or the discussions in the corridor outside of the House of Representatives cloakroom.

At that point in history, the close contact between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza was almost 30 years old. Palestinian women’s groups had learned feminist culture from their Israeli sisters. Palestinian newspapers were publishing uncensored stories out of Jerusalem. Agricultural extension experts from Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture were working with their Palestinian counterparts to improve Palestinian agricultural and livestock yields.

Palestinian bankers, businessmen, doctors and nurses were studying Hebrew in the Israeli language school, Ulpan Akiva, so that they could apprentice in Israeli institutions in order to improve skills and facilitate joint projects. Fundamentalist Palestinian Gazans at the ulpan complained to me once that Israeli television broadcasts in Arabic were featuring clips of naked women to entice male viewers, so I introduced them to Israeli feminists so that they could together challenge the broadcast authorities. At the ulpan in Netanya I first met Dr. Ezzeldin Abu Elaish, the Gazan doctor who tragically lost three children during the Hamas-Israeli war in January.

We met with several Palestinian legislators in the Ramallah parliament building, including a young firebrand, Marwan Barghouti, the Secretary-General of Fatah. He was determined to fight Palestinian corruption and to push for independent Palestinian statehood. We thought that it was a positive sign that Barghouti was channeling his passions in the legislative body. But in 2002 Barghouti was arrested by Israeli troops as the mastermind of terrorist attacks against Israelis. He was convicted for the murder of four Israelis and one Greek Orthodox priest and is currently sitting in Israeli prison.

When Secretary of State Clinton travelled to Ramallah from Jerusalem last week she undoubtedly asked herself, “What went wrong?” What turned Barghouti into a murderer, or was he always a terrorist masquerading as a legislator? What evil force dispatched Palestinian suicide bombers into Israeli streets just a few years later? Why did Palestinian security forces, often trained by the CIA and armed by Israel, turn their guns on Israeli civilians and soldiers? What generated the winds of war that could only be blocked by the building of fences and walls separating Arabs and Jews? And now the Katyushas, Grads and Kassams fly over the fences by the thousands. Today, my meetings at Ulpan Akiva seem like fantasies, and in all honesty, I would not venture into Ramallah today for fear of being lynched as a Jew. That was the fate of two Israeli reservists who accidentally wandered into Ramallah four years after my visit.

What went wrong? Critics of Israel quickly respond that Ariel Sharon’s 2000 visit to the Temple Mount (Haram el Sharif to the Arabs) was the catalyst. But we know today that Arafat was planning the second “Intifada” months before Sharon’s visit, even as he met with President Clinton and Prime Minister Barak at Camp David in the summer of 2000. Some of Israel’s detractors would argue that the Israeli settlements led to Palestinian despair and violence. But settlements had existed since 1968; and already in 1997 Palestinian diplomats with whom I dealt were willing to cede 10 percent of the territories, including the settlements, to Israel.

The blame falls primarily on Arafat for poisoning the tentative but promising ties that were developing between Israel and the Palestinians. All cooperation was stopped after he arrived in Gaza in 1994. Local Palestinian leaders and heads of Palestinian government agencies were replaced by Arafat’s minions who accompanied him from Tunis. The “multilateral talks” established in the 1991 Madrid Conference to discuss the vital issues of water, environment, arms control, refugees and economic development were permanently shelved.

It became clear to American negotiators that Arafat was opposed to the two-state solution. “He was not interested or capable of doing an agreement that ended the conflict,” American negotiator Dennis Ross explained before Arafat’s departure from this world. “As long as [Arafat] didn’t have to make an irrevocable commitment, he was quite prepared to sign up to any agreement. Arafat is someone who will never close a door, never foreclose an option. He has to be able to say that he still has claims, still has grievances, and in light of that, the conflict at a certain level goes on....He doesn’t want to be the one that goes down in Palestinian history as the one who precluded a one-state solution [emphasis added].”

Frankly, the U.S. and Israel share some of the blame for covering up Arafat’s aggression. Palestinian newspapers, radio and TV amplified Arafat’s anti-Israeli line. The preachers in Palestinian mosques were appointed by Arafat and spewed forth anti-Semitism. And Palestinian children were poisoned by a toxic, anti-Semitic, bellicose curriculum even before Hamas gained its political power. While serving as a senior Israeli diplomat in Washington in the late 1990s, I was instructed by Israel’s leaders not to circulate a video called Jihad for Kids, a frightening collection of anti-Semitic TV broadcasts recorded off of Palestinian TV. Israeli and American leaders did not want to endanger what remained of the peace process and chose to ignore the venomous pollution of the Palestinian grassroots.

Hillary Clinton came to realize the danger of the Palestinian incitement. While serving as Senator, she reviewed Palestinian propaganda and concluded in a Palestinian Media Watch press conference two years ago: “This propaganda is dangerous. You know, words really matter. Some people sort of downplay the importance of words. But words really matter. Because in idealizing for children a world without Israel, children are taught never to accept the reality of the State of Israel, never to strive for a better future that would hold out the promise of peace and security to them, and is basically a message of pessimism and fatalism that undermines the possibility for these children living lives of fulfillment and productivity.”

The United Nations Charter declared in 1945 that “All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” That declaration is the basis for many nations’ claim to statehood, including the Kurds, Chechens, Basques and the Palestinians.

Many Israelis believe that right of self-determination should apply to the Palestinians, and Israel proved itself ready to help the development of the Palestinians’ civil society toward that goal. But, after the Palestinians retreated from all forms of cooperation with Israel, choosing a path of confrontation leading to a judenrein one state solution, it was not surprising that a majority of Israelis signaled at the polls last month that they wanted leadership to put the brakes on the establishment of a Palestinian state in the near term. The UN Charter is applicable to “all people” as long as they do not seek the destruction of another. As long as the genocidal Hamas rules a large part of the Palestinian population and threatens to capture control of even more Palestinians in the West Bank and the teeming refugee camps of Lebanon, the Palestinian people will not deserve statehood.

The writer's visit to Ramallah took place when he headed the Jerusalem office of an American Jewish organization, not as an Israeli diplomatic official.

News Item: "West Bank Settlement Gets Green Light for Major Expansion"-- Ha’aretz, February 16, 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:03:00 +0000

Efrat – That headline above now echoes around the world. Criticism from Al Jazeera was to be expected. Now come the attacks from Israel’s most rabid Jewish critics in the U.S., the same ones who opposed Israel’s operation in Gaza last month.

I live in Efrat, the community in question. I have no regrets about living in that “settlement” in the West Bank, even as the international fire and brimstone is unleashed after the barren 420 acres were declared public land eligible for Jewish housing.

The legal and bureaucratic decision has been working its way through the courts for years. That the decision came under the administration of Kadima’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Labor’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak is sweet irony. Israel’s critics would have preferred the decision to have come down during a Netanyahu administration to give greater legitimacy to their dream of an Obama confrontation with Israel. In fact, there has been no criticism of the decision from Israel's Left.

Without letting the facts interfere with his attacks, one of Israel’s nastiest critics in Washington, an official at the Israel Policy Forum, wrote, “Less than a month into the Obama administration, the settlers are sticking it to the new President by expanding Efrat. It's a test for Obama and for Special Envoy George Mitchell.”

The History of Gush Etzion and Efrat

Efrat is situated in the Etzion Bloc on the road from Jerusalem to Hebron. The town is named for the Matriarch Rachel’s final resting place (Genesis 35:19), and her tomb is located a few miles to the north. When my wife and I considered moving here in the mid-1990s, I asked the opinions of two friends prominent in the dovish wing of the Labor Party, Yossi Beilin and Avrum Burg. They responded that they believed that Gush Etzion would remain within Israeli boundaries even after a territorial compromise. Burg quipped, “Anywhere Yitzchak Rabin fought in the 1948 war will stay in Israel.”

Parts of the Etzion Bloc were purchased by Jews 20 years before the State of Israel was declared in 1948. Kibbutzim were established, and when Arab militias and the Jordanian Legion mounted their military campaigns against Palestinian Jewish communities throughout the region in 1947 and 1948, the Haganah dispatched soldiers to hold the Etzion Bloc, a key position on the southern approaches to Jerusalem. Five months of siege and attacks against the Jews of the Gush Etzion ended with the massacre of 250 Jewish defenders on May 13, 1948. The Jewish communities were erased. The next day, the State of Israel was declared. Said Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, "...If there is a Jewish Jerusalem today..., the Jewish people owe their gratitude first and foremost to the defenders of Gush Etzion..."

After Israel captured the West Bank in June 1967, the children of Gush Etzion’s defenders returned. As a young rabbinical student, I spent a blustery Shabbat in the winter of 1968 in the remains of a Jordanian army Quonset hut being used as a yeshiva study hall and dormitory in Kfar Etzion. There were no other buildings standing from the Jewish communities. One oak tree remained – the “oak of return” or alon shvut. I once showed the oak to a group of Texas politicians. Upon hearing the story of the massacre and the return, one declared, “Why, this is your Alamo!” Today the modern Yeshiva complex in the community of Alon Shvut trains more than 450 students; more than 550 overseas alumni, mostly from the United States and who spent one or two years in the institution, have moved back to Israel.

Eventually 20 Jewish communities were re-established in the area.

Adjacent to Alon Shvut one passes several Arab houses and fields, still inhabited and cultivated by Palestinian Arabs who have legal title to the lands. It is likely that their parents and grandparents were involved in the massacre and ransacking of the original communities, but there they live and work.

A short distance away is the community of Elazar with some 400 families. It was founded in 1975, but it is named for Elazar, the brother of Judah the Macabee, who died in the nearby battlefield of Beth Zachariah 2,000 years ago. Part of the Channuka lore recalls Elazar’s brave and fatal attack against the Greek’s “tank” of the day, combat-trained elephants on which the Greek generals rode.

Route 60, the road connecting the Etzion Bloc to Jerusalem to the north and Hebron to the south, gives lie to the claim that Israeli roadblocks choke Palestinian travel and commerce. Every day we share the 40-mile-long artery with thousands of Palestinian taxis, trucks, buses and private cars shuttling between Bethlehem and Hebron and competing with Israeli drivers for the dubious honor of the most reckless. If only there were a checkpoint at the entrance to Bethlehem 10 years ago when a Palestinian terrorist launched a stolen five-ton truck into traffic and collided with my son’s Ford Fiesta with his four passengers. Miraculously they all survived, as did the terrorist who jumped out of the truck and fled back into Bethlehem. During the last intifada, Route 60 became a terrorist shooting gallery where Palestinian gunmen fired on Israeli cars and buses, and several Efrat friends died in those attacks. A checkpoint at the end of route 60 at the entrance to Jerusalem was often the point at which suicide bombers were stopped before they could get on board crowded Jerusalem buses.

Arafat's Thugs Poisoned Relations

Efrat’s relations with the neighboring Arab communities were friendly and cooperative until the late 1990s when Yasser Arafat’s security apparatchiks that he brought from Tunis and Iraq started throwing their weight around. Until that point, skilled subcontractors Mahmoud, Mohammed and Khalil were frequent visitors to Efrat, and the latter provided my family with firewood, raisins and olive oil. At his request, I’d bring him leather jackets, cameras and perfume from overseas – but only on condition that he’d order for his wife, as well. One day when cement was being poured at our house, my wife noticed that one Arab worker brought his six-year-old son. Concerned that he was going to be put to work, my wife asked his father why he brought him. “To show him good Jews” was the response, and, of course, the boy was stuffed with even more cookies.

Efrat set up a nursery school in the neighboring Arab village, and Efrat’s doctors treated local Arab sick. At the initiative of Efrat’s Rabbi Shlomo Riskin (pictured), a local Arab student was sent to medical school and a clinic was set up in one of the villages. Arafat, however, put an end to the cooperation. The clinic was burned, and $100,000 in medical equipment collected by Rabbi Riskin was rejected.

During the intifada two Palestinian suicide bombers were killed before they could blow themselves up in a local supermarket and medical center. Security fences were constructed; access to neighboring Palestinians was restricted. Nevertheless, Palestinian farmers still work their vineyards and groves located within Efrat. They have title to their lands, such as the very large plot across the road from my house. They could make millions of dollars for the prime real estate, but they will never sell: The Arab concept of “sumed – steadfastness” plays a role, as well as the death sentence awaiting any Palestinian who sells land to Jews.

In the late 1970s, Rabbi Riskin discussed his dream of establishing a community in Gush Etzion with Yitzhak Rabin. The original plan for Efrat was to build it closer to Jerusalem to help provide a buffer and security for the capital city a few miles to the north. But, as Riskin explained, the state lands on the hills to the south also needed to be populated; the more obvious section in the building plan, that area first approved by Rabin, could wait. That wait turned into almost 30 years, and finally, in recent weeks, approval was granted to begin planning. The approval was also conditional on clearing all legal objections raised by local Arab property holders. According to Israel’s Ha’aretz this week, eight appeals by Palestinians were rejected. A ninth appeal was accepted, and “the land covered by this appeal was consequently removed from Efrat's jurisdiction.”

The charge that settlements such as Efrat are illegal under international law is viewed here as part of the war against all of Israel’s legitimacy. Why should a Jewish community, built on Jewish land in the real “Bible Belt,” be less legal than Jewish communities built in pre-1967 Israel? Indeed, in the eyes of many Arabs and Palestinians there is no difference, and both are “cancerous cells of infidels.” The call for a “freeze” of settlement growth as demanded by some in the international community simply makes no sense to residents in communities like Efrat. I have married children in Gush Etzion with burgeoning families who need kindergartens, playgrounds and health clinics. The freezing of communities is, to paraphrase the 1960s slogan, “unhealthy for children and other living things.” Sorry, I cannot tell my pregnant daughters, “Freeze what you are doing!”

Gush Etzion is one of the "major population centers" in the West Bank cited by then-President George Bush in a letter to Ariel Sharon in 2004 that would remain under Israeli control after a peace agreement: "In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final-status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949 [i.e., the ’67 borders].”

The previous Olmert, Sharon and Barak-led governments tried to slow settlement growth, but with little success. Not because of their lack of will, but because natural, organic growth is an irresistible and irrepressible force.

The growth of Gush Etzion in the 1980s and 1990s served all of the region’s people – Muslim and Jew. Jobs, healthcare and community cooperation projects took place – under the strict scrutiny of Israel’s supreme court. With the pending change of government in Israel, the growth will undoubtedly continue.

Stories You May Have Missed -- The Islamic Bomb and Israel

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:14:00 +0000

The international press has focused on the recent release from house arrest of A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan’s atomic bomb and the father of bastard A-bombs in North Korea and across the Muslim world. A sampling of Khan's clients include Iran, Syria and Libya.

The Swiss Weltwoche conducted an extensive and rare interview with Khan last month that showed his hatred of the Christian – “Crusader” -- world. Pakistan may be far from the Arab-Israeli front, but A.Q. Khan also expresses his malevolent attitudes toward Israel. Below are excerpts from the interview:

The Libyans and the Iranians had their own [nuclear] programs and motives. Naturally, if they had had nuclear weapons, Israel would not have been occupying Arab lands for 40 years and killing Palestinians armed only with stones. Is it all right for the Israelis to have nuclear weapons but not for their neighbors to have the same?...
The Western world, especially the USA, could never ever have considered the possibility that a backward, Muslim country like Pakistan, which could not even produce bicycle chains, ordinary ball bearings, sewing needles or durable roads, was able to make a breakthrough in the most advanced and complicated technology of uranium enrichment….
Unfortunately, there is a general hatred, consciously or unconsciously, against Muslims in the Christian world. We all saw how almost 250,000 innocent people were murdered in Bosnia before the eyes of "civilized" Christians. For 60 years Palestinians are being killed with no protest from the Christian world. One million Iraqi Muslims have been murdered under false and fabricated accusations of possessing weapons of mass destruction. More than a million Afghans have been killed without any tangible proof of their involvement in 9/11. However, when Indonesia tried to suppress the Christians of East Timor, the whole Christian world forced it to give up its independence.
Even more unfortunate is the fact that almost the whole blame for most of these events goes to the corrupt, spineless Muslim rulers for not standing up to these injustices. One month's oil embargo could force the USA and the Western World to enforce an equitable solution in Palestine, but 8 years of rule by Pres. Reagan, 4 years of Pres. Bush the elder, 8 years of Pres. Clinton and 8 years of Pres. Bush the younger have passed with promises of a Palestinian Homeland without anything materializing. The aim all along has been to allow Israel to build more settlements and occupy more Palestinian land.
This attitude can be traced back to Muslim conquests of Eastern Europe, Spain, etc. The spirit of the Crusades has never died. It always appears in one form or another against Muslims.

An Important Response to the Article on the Vatican Manuscripts

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:01:00 +0000

I received this important comment from Benjamin Richler, the renowned scholar on ancient manuscripts who headed the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts at the Jewish National and University Library. Richler was the editor of the latest Israeli-Vatican catalogue. I reprint his response here rather than put it in the obscure "comment" section.

Lenny, [Your article had] too much speculation and not enough cold facts.

Fact: The Hebrew manuscripts (mss) in the Vatican were not brought there by the Inquisition or from bookburnings. As Rabbi Moshe David (Umberto) Cassuto has shown in a book in Italian , the Palatine collection (288 of the 800 mss in the Vatican) were actually purchased by a Christian banker from a Jewish Rabbi. The provenance of most of the other mss can also be established and they were not stolen from Jews.

Fact. The mss in the Vatican were among the first to be microfilmed for the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew MSS in the National Library of Israel and were available for study for over 50 years in Jerusalem.

In response to some requests, here is the title of the catalogue: Hebrew Manuscripts in the Vatican Library. Catalogue. Compiled by the staff of the Institute of microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem. Edited by Benjamin Richler. Palaeographical and Codicological Descriptions: Malachi Beit-Arie in collaboration with Nurit Pasternak. Citta del Vaticano, 2008 (Studi e Testi 438).

In a few weeks the catalogue will be posted on the website of the National Library of Israel. Microfilms of the mss may be read at the Institute (free admittance).

[signed] Benjamin Richler

The late Manfred Lehmann claimed that many of the manuscripts were turned over to the Vatican after pogroms. "The Israel Government, through its Institute of Manuscripts, published a report written by two prominent Professors, Aloni and Loewenberg, showing that the largest part of the 800 works originated in a part of Germany where they were seized after a pogrom. One of the Catholic rulers in Germany presented them to the Vatican."

Lehmann died over a decade ago. He cannot defend his contention, but his goal is still a worthy one. "A spiritual genocide was also attempted [by the Church] over several centuries by confiscating and burning our precious holy books. After thus destroying hundreds of thousands of sacred Jewish books, there is still a residue of some 800 Hebrew manuscripts in the Vatican. For ten years I have led a campaign to recover at least these survivors of spiritual genocide and have campaigned for their return to their legitimate owners, the Jewish people."

Richler's National Library of Israel -- and not Rome -- is indeed the proper location for the manuscripts' display and study.

Cracking the Vatican Walls

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 06:16:00 +0000

by Lenny Ben-David , Reprinted from The Jerusalem Post

Amid the news reports about the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel attacks around the world last week, this headline stood out: "Vatican and Israeli libraries publish detailed catalogue of Vatican's Hebrew manuscripts."

Readers may ask at this point, "What's the big deal?"

While serving as deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Washington about 10 years ago, I was skimming the mound of daily cables that my diplomatic colleagues from around the world had dispatched to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. One caught my eye: A junior diplomat in Rome was reporting on his meeting with a junior librarian in the Vatican. He had been shown some old manuscripts and told, as my memory recalls, that these manuscripts had not been shown to anyone before.

"Eureka!" was my reaction. I quickly cabled the Rome mission and the Foreign Ministry's Cultural Division. Were they aware of what was being offered? It was just possible that Israel and the Jewish people were being given a peek at manuscripts stolen from the Jewish people over a period of hundreds of years during the Middle Ages. It was just possible that these manuscripts were the tiny fraction of the Talmuds, commentaries and responsa that survived the papal-decreed Jewish book burnings across Europe. It was also possible that these manuscripts were from a special library set up by the Vatican centuries ago for use by Jewish apostates so that they could attack Jewish beliefs.

A reminder: These were all handwritten manuscripts; the printing press would not be invented for centuries.

THERE WAS a centuries-long history of popes and European kings burning Jewish manuscripts as part of their campaign to convert Jews to Catholicism. In 1244, King Louis IX of France ordered the burning of 20,000 copies of the Talmud.

"In 1376 Pope Gregory XI ordered book burning but, as Judaism could not be eradicated by this means," wrote Jeannette Greenfield in The Return of Cultural Treasures, "expulsions of Jews took place in England, France, Spain and Germany... Under Pope Paul IV, all Hebrew books were ordered seized, and even ownership of a Hebrew book became a punishable offense... In 1553 a major book burning of the Talmud and other books was ordered in the Campo di Fiori... This papal bull, which called for the destruction of all Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds, was repeated in subsequent years and issued in all papal lands, and it has not been formally revoked to this day."

The Church-ordered book-burning became the fuel for the auto-de-fe and the burning of Jews at the stake during the Inquisition. Ultimately, the Nazis began their campaign against the Jews by burning their books.

AFTER A FLURRY of diplomatic cables a decade ago, the Foreign Ministry made contact with experts at the Israel National Library, and negotiations and visits to Rome began.

A few of the documents were known to Jewish scholars. In 1987, the Vatican and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (the Reform movement) arranged for the exhibition of 57 manuscripts in US cities. The Committee for the Recovery of Jewish Manuscripts, headed by Dr. Manfred Lehmann (pictured), a businessman, historical scholar and rabbi, demanded that the manuscripts be returned to the Jewish people. In an undated video clip Dr. Lehmann showed viewers scorched pages of Maimonides’ commentaries."The Catholic Church had an obsession to collect, confiscate and burn Jewish manuscripts," Lehmann stated.

At the end of January 2009, the Catholic Church took a big step to atone for this cultural crime. The Vatican Library and the Israeli National Library announced at the Vatican, "After almost 10 years of intense work... [the libraries] published a detailed and descriptive catalogue of the more than 800 Hebrew manuscripts and books held in the Vatican Library." Some of the manuscripts were reported to date from the 9th century.

The Catholic News Service reported details of the catalogue: "The collection includes about 100 Bibles and biblical commentaries; a similar number of works dealing with Jewish law, customs and liturgy; about 100 works of philosophy, including works by Jewish authors or translated into Hebrew; about 70 manuscripts dealing with astronomy, mathematics or medicine; 90 manuscripts dealing with Kabbala or Jewish mysticism; as well as works of literature and poetry."

These historic manuscripts will keep Jewish scholars busy for years. The basic printed Hebrew texts used today will be compared and in some cases may actually be revised.

Much of the credit goes to the intractable and determined Manfred Lehmann, who would never see the fruits of his labor. He died in May 1997.

This column is dedicated to another scholar, my brother, on his birthday. Until 120!

A Hamas Endorsement of Netanyahu and Lieberman?

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:49:00 +0000

The rockets and mortar shells that fall on Israel will shift votes from Kadima and Labor to Israel’s conservative parties led by Likud’s Binyamin Netanyahu and Yisrael Beitenu’s Avigdor Lieberman. Every Kassam reminds voters in the south that the Molten Lead campaign ended too quickly; every Grad shows voters Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s reluctance to knock out Hamas rockets or recapture the Philadelphi route under which Hamas smuggles weapons.

Former Defense Minister Moshe Arens decried Barak’s misfeasance in a column in Ha’aretz today, “The IDF operation was late to get started, proceeded at a leisurely pace, and then halted before the objective of eliminating the Hamas capability to rocket Israel had been accomplished.”

Bombs and Ballots

The course of several European elections have been determined by terrorism. Witness the March 2004 train explosions in Madrid which killed 191 people three days before national elections. The new Socialist government quickly withdrew Spanish troops from the Iraqi coalition.

In Germany today, six months before national elections, al Qaeda tapes have surfaced demanding that German troops be withdrawn from Afghanistan. "The Islamists apparently want to influence Germany's election year 2009," said August Henning, a senior deputy in the Interior Ministry, in Bild am Sonntag. Jörg Ziercke, who heads up the Federal Criminal Police Office, said recently, "We have observed meaningful parallels to the situation in Spain." He was referring to the March 2004 terrorist attacks in Madrid, according to Der Spiegel on February 2.

Terrorists have already “cast their votes” in several previous Israeli elections. U.S. News’ Morton Zuckerman provided this wrap-up several years ago:

“The terrorism of the intifada in 2000 forced Ehud Barak out as prime minister, leaving the office to Ariel Sharon. Suicide bombings in February and March 1996 knocked Shimon Peres out of the prime minister's job. Prior to that, terrorism caused Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to lose an earlier election. And in an election in 1988, Peres lost following the firebombing of a mother and her three children near Jericho.”

So don’t look for any real Hamas efforts to enforce a ceasefire soon. Nothing would thrill Hamas, Iran and Hizbullah more than to see pictures of Israeli voters scrambling for shelter as they stand in line to vote in Ashkelon or Sderot.

Why would Hamas prefer a conservative government in Israel? Maybe they have swallowed the election campaign propaganda claiming that, if elected, a Netanyahu government will inevitably clash with the Obama administration. Hamas simply cannot understand the respect two democratically-elected governments have for each other, even if they have policy differences.

Who Believes Palestinians' Economic Progress Will Help Bring Peace?

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 22:01:00 +0000

MK Binyamin Netanyahu said it, right? And he's been taking flak for it ever since.

But he wasn't the first to say it.

George Mitchell said it a year ago, in an interview in November 2007. Yes, it was President Obama's envoy to the Middle East who declared:

"Political and security measures can’t succeed in any sustainable way unless a very high priority is also given to economic issues.... economic improvement ... has to be front and center, an integral daily part of the process or else the process can’t gain the necessary support of the people in the societies that are engaged in conflict.... I believe, in every conflict situation people need physical security, they need political freedom, they need personal dignity. In the end what people need most of all are jobs. Economic growth, job creation, to give people opportunity, hope, create a sense of meaningful participation in society."

And here's what Netanyahu said in November 2008 to a Knesset committee, according to Ha'aretz:

Israel intends "to advance peace talks with the Palestinians, in order to gain a stable, safe, and prosperous peace." The Likud leader also vowed that Israel will "continue diplomatic negotiations and we will advance the 'economic peace' whose goal is to bring the rapid development of the Palestinian economy and to prepare public opinion for a real agreement. The economic peace is not an alternative for peace talks but will help guide a winning process. We have seen this in the world, quickened economic development has helped form the conditions for peace and the resolution of conflict," Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu was strongly criticized for his economic plan.

In an article entitled, "The Emptiness of Netanyahu's 'Economic Peace' Plan," Israeli analyst Yossi Alpher wrote, "Economic benefits for Palestinians are as intrinsically good for them as for any people, but they, like economic punishments, offer remarkably little substantive input to the peace process."

Fadle Naqib, the acting director of MAS, the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute, claimed that Netanyahu's plan was racist and bound to fail. "If you improve the economic situation this will not solve the problem," Naqib told the bitterlemons.org website. "As a matter of fact, this is an idea we've heard many times before. We've heard it from Israel and we've heard it from other governments and international bodies. It contains an element of racism. It says basically that the non-white people, the third world people, the Muslim people and the colored people do not behave according to principles, they behave according to instincts and if you feed them they will do whatever you want them to do. ... I have not seen any situation where the economy has solved a political problem."

What do the Palestinians and Netanyahu's critics in Israel have to say to George Mitchell's economic prescription?

The George Mitchell Appointment: The Tactics of "Symmetrical Negotiations" May Not Work in "Asymmetrical Conflicts"

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 21:15:00 +0000

By Lenny Ben-David
Reprinted from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

President Barak Obama's appointment of former Senator George J. Mitchell as Middle East envoy was warmly received in Washington, Jerusalem, and Ramallah. Over the years, Mitchell, a respected judge, legislator and negotiator, has been tasked by presidents to broker a peace agreement in Northern Ireland, explore paths to peace in the Middle East, and even chair a commission to investigate steroid use in Major League Baseball. "The Conciliator" was the apt moniker given to Mitchell by one British newspaper.

The Middle East that Mitchell will confront today is much changed from the one he wrestled with eight years ago. And the parties to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict bear little resemblance to the antagonists he dealt with in Northern Ireland.

Mitchell chaired the "Sharm el-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee," mandated by a Sharm el-Sheikh summit in October 2000 to investigate the outbreak of the "al-Aqsa Intifada" one month earlier and to recommend ways to stop the violence. His committee, which also included Senator Warren Rudman and three European statesmen, presented its findings to the new Bush administration on April 30, 2001. Its recommendations were then incorporated into the April 2003 " Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," drafted by the Quartet of the UN, European Union, United States, and Russia.

In 2003, Mitchell distilled his vision of the Middle East conflict: "Palestinians will never achieve a state if Israel does not have security. Israel will never get sustainable security if the Palestinians don't have a state." Based on his experience in reaching the Northern Ireland "Good Friday" peace agreement, Mitchell expressed his belief in 2003 and again in December 2008 that "there is no such thing as a conflict that can't be ended."

The Mitchell Report was seen as an "even-handed" document, reflecting the fact that the committee was directed by President Clinton to "strive to steer clear of any step that will intensify mutual blame and finger-pointing between the parties....The Committee should not become a divisive force or a focal point for blame and recrimination but rather should serve to forestall violence and confrontation and provide lessons for the future. This should not be a tribunal whose purpose is to determine the guilt or innocence of individuals or of the parties."

As a result, the committee attempted - even at the risk of straining credibility - to split the blame for the crisis. "Some Israelis appear not to comprehend the humiliation and frustration that Palestinians must endure every day as a result of living with the continuing effects of occupation," the report wrote. "Some Palestinians appear not to comprehend the extent to which terrorism creates fear among the Israeli people and undermines their belief in the possibility of co-existence."

Humiliation is rarely fatal; terrorism usually is.

While the Mitchell Report did not blame Israeli Prime Minister Sharon for the outbreak of the Second Intifada, nonetheless, it sought to evenhandedly spread the responsibility for the violence, ignoring the evidence of Palestinian incitement. In response to Israeli claims that the violence was planned by Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, the committee declared, "[We were not] provided with persuasive evidence that the PA planned the uprising. Accordingly, we have no basis on which to conclude that there was a deliberate plan by the PA to initiate a campaign of violence at the first opportunity."

Subsequently, the real causes for the violence were exposed by a Palestinian minister in Yassir Arafat's government. Palestinian Communications Minister ‘Imad al-Faluji admitted in the Lebanese daily al-Safir on March 3, 2001: "Whoever thinks the Intifada broke out because of the despised Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque is wrong....This Intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David negotiations." Even earlier, al-Faluji had explained that the Intifada was initiated as the result of a strategic decision made by the Palestinians.

The Intifada's premeditation is seen in the training and indoctrination of 25,000 Palestinian youth in summer camps even while Arafat was engaged in negotiations at Camp David.

The Mitchell Report's Recommendations

In its recommendations to the two sides, the Mitchell Committee could not ignore Palestinian terrorism and the Palestinian use of civilians as human shields. It issued these recommendations:

The PA should make clear through concrete action to Palestinians and Israelis alike that terrorism is reprehensible and unacceptable, and that the PA will make a 100 percent effort to prevent terrorist operations and to punish perpetrators. This effort should include immediate steps to apprehend and incarcerate terrorists operating within the PA's jurisdiction. The PA should prevent gunmen from using Palestinian populated areas to fire upon Israeli populated areas and IDF positions. This tactic places civilians on both sides at unnecessary risk.

According to the committee, Israel's transgression - and there had to be one to balance Palestinian sins - was its settlement activity. "The Government of Israel," the committee recommended, "should freeze all settlement activity, including the ‘natural growth' of existing settlements."

Two years later, the Roadmap would cite the Mitchell Report in its call for a settlement freeze in Phase I of the Roadmap. "Israel also freezes all settlement activity," the drafters instructed, "consistent with the Mitchell Report" (emphasis added).

Israelis objected to the draconian call for a freeze. Sharon asked Secretary of State Colin Powell, "What do you want, for a pregnant woman to have an abortion just because she is a settler?" Moreover, Israelis objected, the freeze - never mandated in the interim stages of the Oslo Accords - would serve to reward the Palestinians' terrorism.

A Changed World Since the Mitchell Report

The Mitchell Report was drafted relatively early in the Palestinian Intifada, when it was believed by some that the Palestinians' violent outbreak was actually a spontaneous reaction to Prime Minister Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000. As mentioned above, the world today knows otherwise.

The committee was appointed before the al-Qaeda attack on September 11, 2001, and the revelation of hostile international Islamic terrorism. The report was issued prior to the capture of two weapons-laden ships bound for Gaza - the Santorini in May 2001 and the Karine A in January 2002 - and the surfacing of proof of the grand battle Arafat was planning against Israel. (The Grad rockets, explosives, mortars and anti-tank weapons on the ships would find their way into Hamas arsenals in Gaza five years later through tunnels from the Sinai Peninsula.)

By 2003, George Mitchell was refocusing his attention on the threat of terrorism. In a commencement address at MIT in June 2003, he stated, "Our committee's report was very tough on terrorism. We branded it morally reprehensible and unacceptable. It is also politically counterproductive. It will not achieve its objective. To the contrary, with each suicide bomb attack, the prospect of a Palestinian state is delayed. Such tactics also are destructive of Palestinian civil society and the reputation of the Palestinian people throughout the world."

Nevertheless, Mitchell repeated at MIT his opposition to Israel's settlement policies, in keeping with the "long-standing opposition to the government of Israel's policies and practices regarding settlements. That U.S. opposition," he continued, "has been consistent through the Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush administrations; just as consistent has been the continued settlement activity by the Israeli government."

The U.S. position toward settlements, of course, underwent a major change under Pres i dent Bush in April 2004 when he assured Prime Minister Sharon: "In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949." The universal interpretation of Bush's letter was that settlement blocs would remain under Israeli sovereignty.

Lastly, the 2001 Mitchell Report was issued years before Hamas' coup in Gaza and its open fealty to Iran. Hamas remains dedicated to Israel's destruction. Its alliance with Iran and its affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood mark Hamas as an enemy of moderate Arab regimes such as Egypt and Jordan. As such, Hamas cannot be compared to the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which wanted to throw the British out of Northern Ireland, but had no aspirations to capture London. Moreover, while the IRA had limited international contacts, it was not a part of a European-wide network and was not backed by a petrodollar-rich, oil-producing country like Iran, which was also on the verge of obtaining nuclear weapons, and thereby emboldening its regional surrogates. In short, Mitchell will be conducting diplomacy under completely different strategic circumstances than he did in the 1990s. Indeed, Hamas may prove to be a fatal flaw to Mitchell's axiom that "there is no such thing as a conflict that can't be ended."

LeFrak City in Gaza

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:27:00 +0000

by Lenny Ben-David

Gaza is the "most overpopulated few square miles in the whole world," wrote veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk in a recent dispatch in the British Independent. Both Israel's Army Radio station and Al-Jazeera's English television reported that "Gaza is the densest populated area in the world." But the claim is simply not true.

About 9,713 Gazans are crowded into each square mile of the strip's total 147 square miles, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But there are denser areas in the world such as Singapore (18,645 people per square mile on 241 sq. mi. of territory) and Hong Kong (18,176 per sq. mi. on 382 sq. mi.).

Population density needs not translate to abject poverty and political unrest. Singapore and Hong Kong are situated along maritime trade routes and their per capita GDP surpasses $42,000. Gaza, however, despite its Mediterranean shoreline and an estimated $4 billion in offshore natural gas reserves, tallies only $1,100 per capita. Surely, Israel's siege of the hostile Hamasland chokes Gaza and is a major factor in its astronomical unemployment. But, Gaza is not necessarily destined to remain a "rubbish dump of destitute people," to use Fisk's words.

Presumably, Israeli military planners and international diplomats are already deliberating options for Gaza's future when the terrorist regime is replaced by Egyptians, the Palestinian Authority or the few Hamas-affiliated non-terrorists who can be found. A priority - perhaps the highest priority - should be a major international construction effort to build mega-housing projects in Gaza. Despite the claims of overcrowding, large areas are available for construction.

Where? On the ruins of Gush Katif settlements, relatively large areas that were expropriated by Hamas and Palestinian militias and used as bases until IAF bombers razed them. During the fighting, the area of the former Netzarim settlement and IDF base, situated at a crucial crossroads south of Gaza City, reportedly served as a temporary base for an estimated 150 tanks. Three other areas suitable for such housing projects include the area of the former Dugit and Nisanit in northern Gaza, a short distance from the Erez industrial zone; the ruins of Kfar Darom near the Kissufim crossing in the center of Gaza; and the southern beach areas surrounding the former Neveh Dekalim that could also serve as the location for a major Gazan resort.

New Yorkers are familiar with Levittown, the planned community built 60 years ago by Levitt and Sons that churned out 30 homes a day. Today, the community consists of more than 17,000 homes and 50,000 residents, all located on just 6.9 sq. mi. with a population density of 7,700 people per sq. mi.

For some of the Palestinians in Gaza, a redesigning of Levittown-type single-family housing may be appropriate for clan life. For other Gaza residents, more appropriate may be high-rise projects like the 20 high-rise buildings of LeFrak City (pictured) in Queens, or Starrett City in Brooklyn with its 5,800 apartments in 43 buildings of eight-20 stories.

A mega-housing project in Gaza will provide thousands of jobs, a major infusion of investment and the concomitant infrastructure for water, desalination, sewage, electricity and transportation. Until they were expelled, Israelis in those Gazan settlements constructed a lucrative hothouse enterprise, growing vegetables and flowers for export. American investors, including Bill Gates, purchased the facilities for the Palestinians only to see them plundered and destroyed. Perhaps the enterprise can be reestablished in areas adjacent to the new housing.

The project will require a shift in Palestinian thinking. Twenty-five years ago the Palestinians vehemently opposed Israeli attempts to build new housing for refugees. The descendents of refugees who live in crowded camps make up one-third of Gaza's 1.5 million residents and are wards of UNRWA. They are directed and determined to return only to their ancestral homes in Israel. Those refugees who claimed to have come from Askalaan/Al-Jura may have moved just 20 miles "down the beach" from present day Ashkelon, but decades of propaganda fired their refusal to be rehoused.

In the mid-1990s I visited high-rise apartments under construction in Gaza with U.S. Agency for International Development and European assistance. The apartments proved that Palestinians were willing to move into American-style apartment buildings. The apartments were large and designed for Eastern customs and lifestyle; for instance, both Western and Arab-style commodes were featured in every apartment. I was intrigued by the many subterranean floors which appeared to be formidable bunkers until I learned that the buildings were designated for Palestinian leadership. I was pleased to see the efficient and on-schedule construction of the American-funded buildings. Congress had made the aid conditional on payments to a third-party management authority, not to the corrupt Palestinian Authority. The European construction, free of such restrictions, was far behind schedule.

Hundreds of tons of cement have been poured in Gaza in recent years for Hamas bunkers and subterranean tunnels. Tens of millions of dollars have been invested in tunnels from Sinai and for the weapons that came through them. Perhaps soon Gazans will have the opportunity to use the cement and money for rebuilding lives, not destroying them.

This article appears in the January 21, 2009 print edition of The Jerusalem Post.

Israel, Dirty Harry and Bob Dylan

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:16:00 +0000

Internet surfers of the Op-Ed postings this morning (January 8) hit anti-Israel shoals in the New York Times and Washington Post. Three Op-Ed writers – Jimmy Carter, Roger Cohen and Nicholas Kristof – paid perfunctory lip service to Israel’s right to defend its citizens, but then they trivialized Israel’s casualties and complained that the rockets didn’t warrant Israel’s tough response.

Carter: “Although [Israeli] casualties were rare (three deaths in seven years) Sderot was traumatized by the unpredictable explosions… We knew that the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza were being starved.”

Cohen: “But what of the intolerable Hamas rockets on Sderot, the 20 Israelis killed by those rockets since 2005 (four of them in the current violence)? … Yes, there has to be a response to Hamas, but this is the wrong one…. I have never previously felt so despondent about Israel, so shamed by its actions.”

Kristof: “Israel’s right to do something doesn’t mean it has the right to do anything. Since the shelling from Gaza started in 2001, 20 Israeli civilians have been killed by rockets or mortars, according to a tabulation by Israeli human rights groups. That doesn’t justify an all-out ground invasion that has killed more than 660 people.”

Kristof has the chutzpah to tell Israel what it should have done instead. Bomb the tunnels, he suggests, or even better “would have been to ease the siege in Gaza, perhaps creating an environment in which Hamas would have extended the cease-fire.”

In other words, the war was Israel’s fault. Kristof’s call to “create an environment” for Hamas is usually called appeasement.

Herschel Cohen and Robert Zimmerman

My mind whirled: where did I hear such a spineless argument before? Where had I witnessed such a bunch of unprincipled namby-pambies? Then I remembered a frustrated Californian cop I met 25 years ago. I’m sure he was an Israeli named Herschel Cohen who had changed his name to Harry Callahan. He hated departmental paperwork and procedure. On the force he was nicknamed “Dirty Harry” because, as his partner explained, “They call him ‘Dirty’ Harry [because] he gets the shit end of the stick every time.” Isn’t that enough proof that Harry was an Israeli?

When Herschel/Harry beat to a pulp a serial rapist-murderer who was released on a technicality, he was admonished by the District Attorney:

Where the hell does it say you've got a right to kick down doors, torture suspects, deny medical attention and legal counsel. Where have you been? Does Escobedo ring a bell? Miranda? I mean, you must have heard of the Fourth Amendment. What I'm saying is, that man had rights.
Callahan: Well, I'm all "broken up" about that man's rights.
District Attorney: You should be. I've got news for you, Callahan. As soon as he's well enough to leave the hospital, he walks. ...
Callahan: And who says that?
District Attorney: It's the law.
Callahan: Well then, the law is crazy!

Today, Herschel’s bosses would probably demand that he use a Taser to subdue a perp on angel dust, and if he had to shoot he had to use a small caliber gun and shoot to wound.

But Harry would never follow those orders. He would use his .44 Magnum, “the most powerful handgun in the world, [that could] blow your head clean off.”

Dirty Harry was certainly not loved, but he was respected in his neighborhood. Yes, he got shot and beaten up, but he survived.

Respect for the Bully

Harry Callahan probably had one atypical eight-track cassette in his car– a Bob Dylan album, Infidel. And Harry would listen to only one song on that cassette: Neighborhood Bully. It was – and is – a strong, defiant defense of Israel. Here are two stanzas:

Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man,
His enemies say he's on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He's criticized and condemned for being alive.
He's not supposed to fight back,
he's supposed to have thick skin,
He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Click to hear Neighborhood Bully. Click here to read the lyrics.

Hamas' Favorite Fauxtographer and Crocodile Tears for Terrorists

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 10:03:00 +0000

Khalil Hamra, the AP "fauxtographer" who provided last week's picture of a "wounded" Gaza man next to three apparently healthy toddlers in a hospital, has snapped again.

The lead picture in dozens of newspapers today, including The Washington Post, showed a teary teen and this caption: "Palestinian relatives of Hamas militant Sami Lobad, who was killed in an Israeli missile strike, react during his funeral in Beit Lahiya. (Khalil Hamra-AP)

"Hamas militant" is newspeak for a terrorist. If Sami Lobad is identified as a dead "militant" killed in the last week, then he was either firing rockets at Israel's civilian population or was a bodyguard of master terrorist Nizar Rayyan, or was a Hamas fighter dedicated to Israel's destruction.

The world would be a better place if pictures of dead terrorists' mourners were not distributed by a major news agency or reproduced in Western newspapers.

Khalil Hamra's specialty appears to be photographing keeners at funerals. Here's another one of Hamra's shots from last month, with a portrait of Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin looking down upon the scene:

Caption: Palestinian relatives of Hamas militant, Mohsen Al Qedra, react during his funeral in the family house in Khan Younis, Nov. 13, 2008. Al Qedra and three other Hamas militants were killed Wednesday as Israeli troops and Palestinian militants fought with missiles and mortars. (Khalil Hamra)

On November 12, the day before the funeral, Israeli paratroopers discovered Palestinian gunmen attempting to infiltrate into Israel from Gaza. Four of the gunmen, equipped with Kalashnikov guns and grenades, were killed. Presumably Al Qedra was one of them.

The AP photographer's online portfolio indicates that he also takes portraits of Palestinian babies and little children. Dead ones, of course. This blog will not reproduce the ghoulish and inciting pictures.

Other blog postings on Gaza:

Why Hasn't Israel Used Its Artillery in Gaza Yet?
Israel Is Also Facing Iran across the Gaza Border
Here Comes the Hamas Propaganda Attack

Why Hasn't Israel Used Its Artillery in Gaza Yet?

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 10:06:00 +0000

Claims that Israel “massacred” or “slaughtered” innocent Palestinians are bald-faced lies.

Israel takes unprecedented precautions to avoid hurting innocent civilians. Gazan civilians actually received telephone calls from the IDF last week warning of impending attacks. Even master terrorist Nizar Rayyan (pictured right), the Hamas military commander killed in Thursday's air raid on his home, received a warning to evacuate his family. He refused, preferring martyrdom for his family over life. Rayyan once dispatched one of his own sons to carry out a suicide bombing. Few tears are being shed for Rayyan, especially in the Palestinian Authority who Rayyan hated as much as he despised Israel.

All of the attacks on Hamas until now have been carried out by the Israel Air Force, but frankly, it just doesn’t make any sense. All targets within Gaza are within range of Israeli artillery or MLRS rockets. Artillery shells are much cheaper than air-delivered bombs and missiles. Artillery can be directed against targets 24/7 and are not limited by bad weather. Send up a plane to hit a Hamas target in Gaza, and the pilot and a $35 million plane are both at risk.

There is only one reason for artillery not being used: It is not as accurate as an attack from the air. Civilians could be hit.

If Israel meant to “massacre” innocent civilians, it certainly has the means. The IDF can eradicate Hamas fighters and anyone within a mile radius without jeopardizing its soldiers. But Israel has repeatedly put its soldiers in harm's way in order to protect Palestinian civilians. Evidence the 23 IDF soldiers killed in close quarter combat in Jenin during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. Blasting away at the alleyways of Jenin with artillery or tank fire would have spared their lives but would have killed countless civilians. The military tactics of Russia, Syria or the Palestinians simply do not exist in the IDF playbook.

To recall, during the Chechen war in the 1990s the Russians carpet-bombed Grozny. Russia allegedly fired missiles into the Grozny market and a local maternity ward. The Syrians are known for playing according to “Hama rules” -- named for a Syrian stronghold of Moslem Brotherhood supporters. Hama was pulverized by Syrian tanks and artillery for three weeks in 1982 resulting in the death of anywhere from 7,000 to 30,000 people. Don’t forget Hamas itself. The Islamic organization made suicide bombings a science, targeting buses, pizza shops and restaurants. During its war with Fatah last year, Hamas threw Fatah enemies off of hi-rise apartment buildings; others were spared when they were only "knee-capped." Last week, Hamas gunmen roamed hospital corridors in Gaza executing their enemies.

When Israel launches its ground assault against Hamas, tragically Palestinian civilians will be hurt or killed. Israel’s government, citizens and soldiers will regret each and every one of them.

Israel Is Also Facing Iran across the Gaza Border --What's at Stake

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 01:05:00 +0000

Those 40 km missiles Hamas is unleashing against Israeli cities are certainly not the “amateur rockets…nagging the residents” of Israeli cities, as a Palestinian journalist recently wrote in a Washington Post op-ed. And Hamas may still surprise Israel with longer-range missiles.

The press calls the rockets “Grads” or “Katyushas,” the Russian name given several generations ago to the original Soviet-made surface-to-surface missiles. Today, it would be more correct to label some of the missiles by their real name, the “Arash,” the name given to them by their Iranian manufacturers. The long-range 120 mm mortars (pictured) raining down on Israel are also Iranian in origin. The mortars are equipped with auxiliary motors to increase their range from six to ten kilometers, reports the IICC think tank.

The Jerusalem Post reports today that the longest range Grads were manufactured in China and that some of them were smuggled to Hamas via Iran. Visitors to Sderot's rocket heap (like Mr. Obama above) can view Iranian-made weapons.

Earlier this year both the Iranian Arashes and mortars were fired from Gaza with deadly results. In February 2008 the mortars were fired at Kibbutz Sa’ad; in June the mortars were used against Kibbutz Nirim, killing one and wounding four, and in November, eight soldiers were wounded by such a mortar at Nahal Oz. The Arash missiles were fired against Ashkelon on several occasions during 2008.

The Long History of Palestinian-Iranian Cooperation

The Islamic Republic worked closely with Yasser Arafat for decades, particularly after the Oslo agreements granted Arafat a foothold in the Palestinian territories. Arafat’s relationship with Ayatollah Khomeini predates the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Former CIA senior officer Robert Baer details the Iranian-Palestinian relationship in See No Evil, The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism. “Arafat had put his entire worldwide terrorist network at Iran’s disposal,” Baer pointed out. “Having been forced out of Beirut in 1982 by the Israelis, he had handed it over lock, stock, and barrel to the Iranians for safekeeping.”

The liaison between Arafat and Iran was maintained by none other than master terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, a former member of Arafat’s Force 17, the mastermind of anti-American bombings in Lebanon, the man behind the bombings of Israeli and Jewish institutions in Argentina, and the alleged chief planner for the 2006 Hizbullah war against Israel. Mughniyeh met a just end when he was killed in his car by a bomb in a Damascus suburb in February 2008.

Iran undertook a major operation to supply weapons to the Palestinians. Click to see the massive invent o ry of the Santorini and Karine-A ships captured by Israel in 2001 and 2002, including dozens of Arash missiles and hundreds of 120 mm mortars. After the capture of the ships, it can be assumed that Iran dispatched new arms shipments which made their way to Gaza through the Sinai tunnels and other seaborne smuggling efforts. Shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles and the anti-tank Saggers were also captured on the ships, and they too are presumably now in the Palestinian arsenal and will be used against Israeli aircraft and tanks.

Was the Islamic University in Gaza also an Iranian Base?

When Israeli air force jets bombed the Islamic University in the Gaza, the BBC declared that “a significant cultural symbol for Hamas” had been hit. It is evident that the university was also a major part of Hamas’ weapons development and storage network.

“The Islamic University was used as a base for Hamas gunmen,” a Fatah [Fatah, not Israeli!] spokesman told the New York Times in February 2008. “We didn’t attack the university because it was a university, but because gunmen were firing from there.”

A year earlier, Fatah-affiliated security officers captured an Iranian general at the school. They claimed he was “supervising the manufacturing weapons and explosives for Hamas,” according to Yediot Ahranot. “The source told Ynet that the expert was in charge of several labs in the university, mainly chemistry labs in which he trained Hamas activists, most of them women, manufacturing the explosives. At least five Iranian citizens were arrested during a raid at the Islamic University, a Hamas stronghold in Gaza City. Hundreds of weapons and a lathe for the production of Qassam rockets were seized in the raid. The Palestinian source added that at least 20 women, some of them students, were arrested in the labs supervised by the Iranian expert, who was mainly involved in developing shells and rockets, but also explosives. “

The Islamic University in Gaza was also a center for Hamas recruitment and training, according to other accounts.

If and when Israeli ground troops enter Gaza they will encounter extensive Hamas bunker and tunnel systems. Hundreds of Hamas tunnels from the Sinai keep Gaza armed and fed. Two years ago tunnels were used to attack an IDF unit and capture Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. But it should be recalled that the use of tunnels and extensive bunkers were tactics taught by Hizbullah and the Iranians. In July 2006, a garrulous officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard revealed to the Arabic publication Sharq al Awsat that Iranian diplomats smuggled North Korean experts into Lebanon under the guise of "domestic workers." They joined "hundreds of Iranian engineers and technicians… to build a 25 kilometer [!] tunnel." The officer did not reveal the location but bragged "each opening in this [tunnel] measures 12 to 18 square meters, and has a mobile floor and a semi-mobile ceiling. Each four openings are connected by a passage that allows fighters to pass easily [from one opening] to the other."

Israel is not facing a ragtag band of Palestinian thugs. (One silly analyst actually rejected the Israeli claim of “self-defense.” The Gaza war is the confrontation of “a state and a networked organization,” she wrote, “like the US Army fighting the Salvation Army.”)

No, this confrontation is yet another round of Israel versus Iran and its proxies. It is a lengthy war fought in the open in Gaza and Lebanon and fought in the shadows in attacks against Israeli and Jewish institutions in Buenos Aires, or against the weapons supply routes between Iran, Syria and Hizbullah, or in the assassination of a master terrorist in Damascus. In such a war, cease-fires can only be a temporary respite, at best, not a basis for peace.

Michael Young, the editorial editor at the Beirut Daily Star, provides this perspective from his precarious perch:

"What we see developing in the Middle East is an accelerating counterattack by non-state actors such as Hamas, Hizbullah and the Islamic Jihad, all backed by a rising Iran, against the majority of Arab states committed to a negotiated peace with Israel. Manipulating the emotions that the fate of the Palestinians invariably release among Arabs, Tehran above all, but also the militant Islamist groups, are attempting to redraw the regional balance of power through a normalization of the armed struggle against Israel and a delegitimization of Arab states opposed to this."

The Photo Still Exists

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 07:02:00 +0000

Readers and bloggers confirm that the hospital picture by Khalil Hamra was removed from the Washington Post photo album. The photo of "Palestinian children and a man wounded in Israeli missile strikes are seen in the emergency area at Shifa hospital in Gaza City" can still be viewed here. Hatip: The Augean Stables.

Visit the Washington Post's website and search for the photographer Khalil Hamra. The picture shows up with this URL. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2008/12/27/PH2008122700591.html Note the "Washington Post" in the address.

Update on the Gaza Propaganda War -- 6 PM EST

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 23:28:00 +0000

The Washington Post's website changed its photo essay and no longer shows Khalil Hamra's fake hospital shots. It even added a picture of damage done to an Israeli apartment by a Hamas Kassam rocket.

Meanwhile, the New York Times' slide show only shows the Palestinian side of the conflict. One caption goes so far as to describe "dozens of mutilated [Palestinian] bodies," thus suggesting another atrocity committed by Israel.

Note in the New York Times' photos how many of the dead or wounded are in uniform, but the Times' captions fail to make the point that they were combatants: "Palestinians gathered around bodies [in uniform]" or "Palestinians carried an injured man [wearing camouflage trousers]."

Israel Attacks Hamas -- Here Comes the Hamas Propaganda Attack

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 17:56:00 +0000

As late as Friday, many Israeli citizens were pulling out their hair. Hamas rockets were falling like rain on Israeli civilians. What was Israel waiting for? Why was Israel allowing the delivery of supplies into Gaza? Why were Israeli hospitals treating Palestinians hurt by errant Hamas rockets?

Now we have some answers:

The humanitarian assistance also served to lull Hamas into believing that Israel was going soft.

The attack on the Jewish Sabbath was also unexpected by Hamas.

Israeli intelligence was tracking, following, and marking the Hamas leadership, terrorist camps, and rocket crews for months. Hundreds of Hamas soldiers were caught in their bases. It can be assumed that aerial surveillance was able to retrace the steps of rocket crews to observe the locations of rocket warehouses and factories. As a result the Israeli Air Force attacks were remarkably accurate.

Now the Propaganda Counterattack

The blood libels against Israel have already begun. A British defense writer, Sean Rayment, blasted Israel in a Telegraph (UK) blog today, "The attack on the Gaza strip is proof that Israel is addicted to violence. Slaughtering 155 civilians, many of whom are women and children, can not be justified."

An absolute blood libel. No military force in the world is as careful as the Israeli Defense Forces in differentiating combatants from the civilians surrounding them. Note this report from Bloomberg: "Most of the Palestinian dead were members of the Hamas security forces, including police chief Tawfiq Jaber and the head of the organization’s Security and Protection Service, Ismail al-Jabary, said Taher Noono, a spokesman for Hamas. "

Pictures from Gaza indicate this fact. Note these photos of Palestinian security forces hit in their bases. These are uniformed combatants of a force that declared war on Israel, and they are very legitimate targets according to international law.

But now comes the "fauxtography" so prominent in the Lebanon war.

A Washington Post photo essay posted the two pictures above of the Palestinian combatants along with a picture of Palestinian wounded in a Gaza hospital. The picture was accompanied by this caption: Palestinian children and a man wounded in Israeli missile strikes are seen in the emergency area at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2008. Israeli warplanes demolished dozens of Hamas security compounds across Gaza on Saturday in unprecedented waves of simultaneous air strikes. Gaza medics said at least 145 people were killed and more than 310 wounded in the single deadliest day in Gaza fighting in recent memory. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra) (Khalil Hamra - AP)

The children appear healthy. Would the photographer and caption writer, Khalil Hamra, fake a picture?

Yes.

Khalil Hamra is the credited AP photographer for many of the pictures of the International Solidarity Movement activities in Gaza, including those of Rachel Corrie. To recall, Rachel Corrie was an American activist who attempted to stop an Israeli bulldozer from destroying Gazan tunnels in 2003. Corrie slipped under the bulldozer, was killed and became a shaheed of the left. Hamra's pictures include this one of Corrie burning an American flag (left).

A search of Google images shows hundreds of Hamra's pictures of grieving Palestinians as well as Palestinian dead and wounded. His many pictures of Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters and military exercises suggest that Hamra could almost serve as Hamas' official photographer.

Guest Response from Journalist and Author Gideon Remez

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 17:09:00 +0000

Right on. Your questions about the MiG 29s are very apt and timely -- Isabella and I were startled last night by this development too. I think, however, that the Russian contingent that arrives in Lebanon with the planes will not be limited to the "advisors and instructors" that you correctly listed. Since given the Lebanese air force's current shape it will take years to recruit and train the necessary complement of pilots, if the planes arrive before then they can only be flown by Russians if not Syrians/Iranians.

In this respect the effect of the MiG-29s in Lebanon will resemble what is to be expected when the Russians complete the upgrading of their facility at Tartus to a full-fledged naval base, protected by Soviet-manned SAM systems, and their aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetzov (with MiG-29s as well as Su-27s) either is based there or visits as necessary. The IAF will, at the very least, be seriously constrained in repeating an operation like the attack on the suspected Syrian reactor, and it certainly will no longer be able to overfly Lebanon, much less attack targets there, with impunity.

Regarding question 12 -- according to one of the reports we saw (in the London Times), the head of Russia's defense cooperation agency mentioned potential supply of "heavy armor" to Lebanon too.

Finally, the putative Lebanese deal combines with the increasing indications that the Russians have no intention of keeping their word to Olmert about refraining from S-300 sales to Iran and Syria; according to a breaking news headline that just now came onto Fox news, Moscow has officially announced the sale to Iran.

This pattern underscores the futility of attempts to buy off the Russians with such gestures as handing over the Sergei Courtyard [in Jerusalem], exempting Russian tourists from visas, or -- worst of all -- selling them Israeli UAV's out of trust in their end-user commitments.

It is a grave underestimation of the Russians to believe that their concept of national interests and priorities can be changed by such offerings, or that (as we were told by a senior intelligence analyst!) "Putin has a soft spot for Israel."

Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez are the authors of Foxbats over Dimona, The Soviets' Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War

20 Questions about Lebanon’s New MiG-29s

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 13:42:00 +0000

Lebanon’s Defense Minister Elias Murr announced this week in Moscow that Russia offered to give Lebanon 10 refurbished MiG-29 fighter jets. The planes will certainly not tip the Arab-Israeli arms balance, but there are many questions surrounding the arms transfer:

1. Does the Russian “sale” indicate a shift away from Lebanon’s long-standing policy of acquiring American weapons? Russian aircraft come with Russian advisors, instructors, radars, weapons and combat doctrine.
2. Will the Lebanese government approve of Defense Minister Murr’s deal and the concomitant change of orientation? The deal requires government approval.
3. Will MiG-29s in Lebanon be interoperable with Syria’s 65 MiG-29s and Iran’s 25 MiG-29s?
4. Will Lebanon’s MiG-29 aircraft and support facilities serve as forward bases for Iran and Syria? Tours conducted by this author of Georgian airbases several years ago indicated that the Soviet Union planned to use Georgian bases as forward refueling, maintenance and re-arming stations against the West. The bases were chockablock with Soviet missiles, ammunition and bombs.
5. What happens after Lebanon’s May 2009 elections when Hizbullah may become an even more prominent player in Lebanon’s government?
6. Will Hizbullah be integrated into Lebanon’s army which is already estimated to be one-third Shiite? In the 1980s the army’s Sixth Brigade – predominately Shiite and trained by Americans – realigned itself with Lebanese militias. The Brigade rightfully earned its reputation, “We serve and defect.”
7. Will Hizbullah have access to the aircraft?
8. Will Hizbullah pilots be trained in Iran or Syria to be on standby for taking over the planes?
9. Against whom does Lebanese Army need MiG-29s, a plane comparable to the American-made F-15?
10. Will the Lebanese Army ever take on the potent Hizbullah army, trained and equipped by Iran? Today, there are vast Hizbullah areas in Lebanon’s south and Bekaa Valley where the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL forces dare not to tread.
11. Will the Lebanese army share the Russian equipment, such as the radars, with Hizbullah? That was the case when Hizbullah attacked and almost sank an Israeli ship during the 2006 war. The ship was tracked by Lebanese army radar stations, later destroyed by Israel.
12. One of the biggest threats to Lebanon today is the growth of al-Qaeda in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. The fighting last year in Nahr el Bared against Fatah al-Islam took more than 100 days and cost the Lebanese Army dozens of casualties. The Lebanese army needs heavy tanks, armored vehicles and combat helicopters for that kind of intense urban fighting, not fighter jets. What good are MiG29s in this fight?
13. Will the Lebanese Air Force use the MiG-29s to challenge Israeli overflights of Lebanon? Israeli aircraft are constantly tracking Hizbullah’s build-up and missile acquisition which Hizbullah does with impunity in violation of UN resolutions 1501 and 1701.
14. How will the Israeli Air Force respond to Lebanese jets flying south of the Litani River and approaching Israeli airspace?
15. What is Russia getting out of the deal? Clearly Russia is challenging American hegemony in the Middle East. The deal “is an effort to reassert Russia's status in the Middle East in a way that has very high visibility," said analyst Anthony Cordesman of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
16. Is the MiG-29 deal a Russian response to American and Israeli military support for Mikhail Saakashvili’s Georgia?
17. How will the U.S. react to the deal? Is the MiG-29 transfer a shuk tactic to get the United States to increase its support for the Lebanese army? Last year the U.S. military assistance to Lebanon amounted to $400 million.
18. Will the U.S. respond by selling advanced fixed-wing aircraft to Lebanon? Currently, Lebanon has two 1960-vintage Hawker Hunter jets.
19. What level of Western technology in Lebanese hands will undermine Israel’s military edge?
20. In May 2008 Hizbullah occupied Beirut, and the Lebanese Army vanished. The action took place after the Lebanese government attempted to replace a Hizbullah-affiliated chief of security at the Beirut airport and tried to shut down Hizbullah’s independent fiber-optic communications network. Can security really be provided for any advanced military equipment in Lebanon?

New Iranian Danger: Is Iran Setting Up Bases around the World?

noreply@blogger.com (Lenny Ben-David -Director of I*Consult, Inc.) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:35:00 +0000

Anyone who has played the strategic board game Risk can envision the world's choke points and key strategic crossroads. Today, upon analysis of Iranian activities and ties, it's not difficult to imagine Iran's green armies setting up bases around the world. The goals: to challenge American military forces across the globe and to position forces which can threaten Western shipping and commercial interests.

Iran's involvement in the terror and turmoil of Iraq has been well documented. Iran also threatens the petroleum lifeline through the Persian (Arabian) Gulf. Forty percent of the world's petroleum sails past Iran's batteries of anti-ship missiles and through the Straits of Hormuz -- the jagged choke point on the northeast corner of the Arabian Peninsula. Armed Iranian fast boats have repeatedly challenged U.S. Navy ships in the area. A pipeline under construction through the United Arab Emirates to the south should eventually cut the dependence on the Straits.

But a new report now places Iranian troops and missiles near the Horn of Africa at another choke point, the Bab el-Mandeb, on the Arabian Peninsula's southern tip. According to The Cutting Edge, "Iranian ships and submarines have deployed an undisclosed number of Iranian troops and weapons at the Eritrean port town of Assab, according to opposition groups, foreign diplomats, and NGOs in the area."

MEMRI reports, "Eritrean opposition websites reported that Eritrea has granted Iran total control of the Red Sea port of Assab, which overlooks the Bab el-Mandeb straits."

All ships going through the Suez Canal sail through the Red Sea and pass through the Bab el-Mandeb, including oil tankers and military vessels. Shipping to Israel's Eilat port and to Jordan's Aqaba port goes through the straits. Israel's Ashkelon-Eilat pipeline -- pumping Azeri oil eastward to the far east or westward from the Persian Gulf to Europe -- relies on oil tankers that sail past Assab.

From the Eastern Med to West Africa and South America

Iran's potent proxy, Hizbullah, has firmly established itself politically and militarily in Lebanon. Israel's Defense Forces must take into account Syrian and Hizbullah (actually Iranian-led) forces to its north. Hizbullah's tens of thousands of rockets and anti-shipping missiles have transformed large segments of Lebanon into Iranian military bases on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. For many years Lebanon's Bekaa Valley was the center for poppy cultivation and a massive international drug operation. Today, the Lebanese government has no authority in the Bekaa, and Hizbullah bases there are used by Iranian Revolutionary Guards to train terrorists from all over the world.

Iran and Hizbullah are pushing hard into western Africa. "West African countries have a large Arab community, and many of them are Shi'ite immigrants from Lebanon - who constitute the Hizbullah infrastructure in the region," a senior official at the Israeli Foreign Ministry told The Jerusalem Post this summer.

Matthew Levitt, the director of The Washington Institute's Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, has investigated the Hizbullah money trail. He reported, "A 2003 charter flight from Cotonou, Benin, in West Africa to Beirut, crashed on takeoff, killing all the passengers. On board were senior Hizbullah members, carrying $2 million in contributions to the organization from across the region. Arab press reports said the money represented the 'regular contributions the party receives from wealthy Lebanese nationals in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Benin and other African states.' A senior Hizbullah official was immediately dispatched to Benin to console the 'sons of the Lebanese community.'”
Competing Saudi, Pakistani and Iranian activists are all trying to win the souls and minds of Nigeria. In 2005 Iranian defense officials toured Nigerian bases and pledged military cooperation. Hizbullah training bases have also sprouted in Nigeria. (See picture from one Nigerian camp. Trainees are holding pictures of Hizbullah's Nasrallah and Hamas' Sheikh Yassin.)

In recent months the Nigerian-Iranian cooperation has also focused on the petroleum and nuclear energy fields. Iran and Nigeria, both major oil producers, have been hit hard by the precipitous drop of the price of oil. The two countries plan to join with Hugo Chavez' Venezuela to push OPEC to cut oil production in order to push oil prices skyward.

In August 2008, Iran offered Nigeria assistance in developing nuclear technology to increase its generation of electricity.

In east Africa, Iranian cooperation with Sudan serves to put pressure on Egypt, Sudan's neighbor to its north, as well as provides additional threats to Red Sea shipping. Leaders of the two pariah states have met often, with Iran providing weapons to Sudan despite a United Nations ban on weapons sales.

The Caribbean Threat

Iran's cooperation with Venezuela's Chavez goes far beyond the two countries' shared petroleum problems. Chavez, a very frequent visitor to Tehran, has helped Iran develop relations with Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador.

Hizbullah activity in Venezuela guarantees Iran a Latin American ally. Officials from the Center for Security Policy testified earlier this year before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, "Since 2003, there have been reports on the presence of Islamic terrorist groups in [Venezuela's] Margarita Island. The U.S. Southern Command stated that Isla Margarita is one of the most important centers of terrorist gathering and money laundering activities for Hamas and Hizbullah. The Chavez regime is giving out Venezuelan passports to foreigners from countries such as Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Egypt and Lebanon."

Chavez' chief liaison with Hizbullah appears to be Tarek El Aissami, Venezuela's Minister of Interior and Justice (pictured). The son of a Ba'ath Party official and great nephew of one of Saddam Hussein's associates, El Aissami was behind the passport production, according to the Miami Herald, as well as illegal raids on Jewish institutions in Venezuela.

The Iranian investment in Venezuela is estimated to be more than $2 billion. For Iran's Ahmadinejad it's a solid investment in undermining American interests in America's own backyard.

Iran and Hizbullah can also count on the lawless "TBA" -- the tri-border area where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet -- for logistical support. The bombers who blew up the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and the Argentinian Jewish Association Building in 1994 are believed to have come out of the TBA under Iranian direction. Senior Iranian diplomats and officials, including former president Rafsanjani, have been formally charged by Argentinian prosecutors for ordering the bombings.

U.S. Southern Commander, Admiral James Stavridis, told a House Armed Services Committee hearing in March 2008 that while the emergence of Islamic radical terrorist groups is a “less immediate force in the region ... it has the potential to become of greater concern to us. At the moment, I would say, at an unclassified level, [their efforts are] largely centered in proselytizing, recruiting, money laundering. It is hooked somewhat into the narcotics trade and, above all, it is a means of generation of revenue, largely for the Hizbullah Islamic radical organization. Monies are garnered here in Latin America and go back to Hizbullah,” said Stavridis.

The admiral also said the Southern Command is “concerned about linkage between the Iranian state and nascent Islamic radical terrorism in this region.”

And Don't Forget Russia

Iran’s challenge to the United States parallels Russia’s efforts to “reinforce multipolarity in the world,” explained recently in Le Monde as a policy to “sustain and develop poles of resistance to U.S. hegemony and unilateralism.” Russia recently announced the reestablishment of a Russian naval base in Tarsus, Syria. Russian and Venezuelan ships conducted military exercises in the Caribbean last week, and a Russian destroyer, the Admiral Chabanenko, traversed the Panama Canal over the weekend – the first time a Russian warship crossed the canal since World War II. Approximately two-thirds of American oil imports travel along four sea routes through the Caribbean to Gulf Coast ports.

Map: http://www.weltrekordreise.ch/flags-maps/mideast_map.jpg