From THE JERUSALEM POST Jul. 3, 2007, by Isi Leibler...
As events unfold in the wake of the Hamas Gaza takeover, there is a sense of deja vu. Despite the bloody consequences of our largely self-inflicted policies, we seem not to have learned any lessons from the bitter past.
Our leaders mindlessly repeat drivel about Mahmoud Abbas being a man of peace and moderation. Yet Abbas, who speaks with a forked tongue, heads a corrupt terrorist organization which is on the edge of unraveling.
Does our government believe that the Aksa Martyrs Brigades have become peaceful? That the PA-administered schools have ceased brainwashing children to become martyrs? That Abbas no longer sanctifies suicide bombers and ceases to pay pensions to their families?
President George W. Bush may be obliged to refer to Abbas as a "peace partner," but must the prime minister of Israel be party to such a charade? More importantly, without receiving even a hint of assurance for the future, we have resumed paying the PA taxes and funds denied since the Hamas takeover.
We are being urged to remove checkpoints to provide greater Palestinian freedom of movement inside the West Bank, despite IDF protestations that this will endanger Israelis.
And, if that were not enough, we are now contemplating providing Abbas with additional weapons, including armored cars, despite knowing that arms previously provided to the Palestinians were ultimately employed to murder Israelis. Indeed only a few months ago, Abbas was appealing to Hamas to stop directing their weapons against fellow Palestinians and unite with Fatah against the Israelis.
TO TOP this insanity, the PA announced that Abbas's Aksa Brigades - which murdered more Israelis than Hamas and remains adamantly committed to promoting terrorism - will be absorbed into the Palestinian police force, which is already, per capita, the largest in the world.
With the standing of Abbas at an all-time low, we are also being implored not to make even minimal demands on him lest we "further weaken" him by making him appear a "collaborator."
And as a sign of good faith, we will release, gratis, 250 prisoners who could have been included in a future deal for the return of our kidnapped soldiers.
Yes, we should inform Abbas of our willingness to assist him. But not at the price of appeasement. There can be no further concessions without total reciprocity and genuine progress. Either Abbas commits himself to controlling terror or he should stew in his own juices.
It is public knowledge that billions of dollars, constituting more aid per capita than any other country, has been donated to the Palestinians by the international community. Yet large proportions of these handouts either disappeared into secret bank accounts or were diverted to finance terror. We must therefore insist that controls are introduced to ensure that such funds be employed exclusively for the welfare of Palestinians.
NOW IS also an opportune time to deal with Hamastan and overcome the sense of impotence currently pervading our government. We continually hear the mantra "There is no answer to Kassam attacks."
The long-suffering citizens in Sderot, who have been transformed into refugees in their own country, are being told by our government to stoically adjust their lifestyles to a regime of daily "Russian-roulette" missile attacks, or evacuate.
This depressing state of affairs has its genesis in the abandonment of the principal axioms of Israeli defense strategy. They include the obligation of the IDF to protect its civilians, even at the price of painful casualties; confronting the enemy on his own territory; and never endangering Israeli civilian lives or compromising our security in order to placate international public opinion.
Alas, in addition to living in dreamland, our leadership has become obsessed with a desire to demonstrate to the world that we are "nice" people. But the "nicer" we are, the worse it gets.
Consider the bitter harvest reaped since our unilateral disengagement from Gaza. Contrast our position now with the days when Israel was regarded as a tough nation unwilling to compromise with terrorists, and was respected and admired.
PARADOXICALLY, appeasement and unilateral concessions havesimply paved the way for unprecedented waves of global anti-Israeli hatred and a rejuvenation of anti-Semitism.
Today there are opportunities to prove our mettle. Gaza is no longer "occupied" and is effectively a mini-state.
We should therefore dismiss the insane idea of parachuting supplies into Gaza. Could we visualize the allies during the Second World War parachuting supplies to German civilians for "humanitarian reasons"? We should proclaim that we are sensitive to the humanitarian plight of Palestinians in Hamastan, but so long as Hamas continues orchestrating suicide bombings and launching rockets on Israeli civilians, we will not lift a finger to help them.
On the contrary, unless the terror is reined in, we will start applying the screws We should inform the world that we intend to respond as would any other nation whose citizens are under missile attack. While seeking to minimize innocent civilian casualties, if terrorists oblige us to choose between the lives of our citizens and those of Palestinians we have a moral obligation to defend our own.
Israel's deterrent effect must be restored. It is immoral, even obscene, for our government to consciously delay tough responses against the missile assaults. Must we await a strike on a kindergarten, hospital or key infrastructure before acting? Only a miracle has averted a calamity to date.
In the wake of each individual missile attack, we should, in a calibrated manner, commence cutting off electricity, fuel and water to Gaza and seal border crossings. It is surely bizarre to continue supplying services to neighbors whose leaders orchestrate missile attacks and openly boast that their non-negotiable objective remains to kill "the descendants of apes and pigs."
WE ALSO need to regain control of the Philadelphi Corridor in order to contain the flow of lethal Iranian armaments pouring across the border.
Targeted assassinations should be intensified against those orchestrating the attacks, including political leaders. This will possibly incur civilian casualties and we will no doubt be accused of responding "disproportionately." However proportionality cannot be a prime consideration when endeavoring to create deterrence to offset ongoing unprovoked attacks on civilians, which are acts of war.
As to morality, even setting aside comparisons to the behavior of other nations, there comes a point in a confrontation where one says: Enough is enough. That point has long been passed. In war a government must be motivated by one objective: to protect its civilians and minimize its military casualties. That is consistent with international law, common sense and morality and must override public relations.
The message to Gaza is neither brutal nor heartless. It is simple and constructive: Stop directing missiles, or bear the inevitable consequences. In fact, a tough Israeli response may encourage Palestinians to exert pressure on their leaders and, in the long run, even save Palestinian lives.
We must also dispel the illusion that appeasing jihadists can ever bear fruit. In fact, retreats and unilateral withdrawals under fire have without exception emboldened jihadists into intensifying violence, and have served as a prescription for greater subsequent conflagrations.
The writer chairs the Diaspora-Israel relations committee of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and is a veteran international Jewish leader. ileibler@netvison.net.il
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Hamas's plans for Temple Mount foiled
From THE JERUSALEM POST Jul. 2, 2007 by Yaakov Katz...
Hamas attempts to gain control of the Temple Mount and recruit new Israeli-Arab operatives in east Jerusalem have been foiled by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), a senior security official announced on Monday.
According to the Shin Bet, Hamas, over the past few years, has invested millions of shekels in Jerusalem charities and religious institutions, as well as in construction on the Temple Mount, in an effort to bolster its presence and standing in the capital. The official said that Hamas recently paid to enlarge a library and several prayer halls in Solomon's Stables, as well as for the renovation of a public restroom facility on the disputed holy site.
"Their goal is to gain full control over the Temple Mount," a high-ranking Shin Bet official said Monday. Hamas, he said, has also tried to infiltrate its members into the Temple Mount as part of the maintenance and religious staff who care for the site and preach, give tours and teach Koran classes there.
Hamas, the official said, had taken advantage of financial troubles in the Jordanian Wakf, which is responsible for the holy site, to bolster its presence there. The wakf has been suffering from financial constraints since 2000, when the Temple Mount mosques were closed to paying visitors. Officials said the Hamas takeover of the Temple Mount was a "strategic" move and was aimed at bolstering the group's standing in the Palestinian territories and throughout the Muslim world.
The Shin Bet also focused its operations in curbing the flow of money into Hamas. A senior Hamas official, Yakub Abu Assab, was arrested for allegedly running a courier service that transferred funds from the West Bank and abroad to the Hamas headquarters in Jerusalem. Israeli efforts to stop Hamas also included the arrests of Hamas parliamentarians, including Khaled Abu Afa, former Hamas minister for Jerusalem affairs. During a year-long operation, Shin Bet arrested 11 Hamas officials based in Jerusalem, 10 of whom hold Israeli identity cards. All 11 detainees were due to be indicted for membership in a terror group and for financing illegal terror activity.
The Jerusalem Hamas operations received their funding from the Union of Good - an umbrella charity organization based in Saudi Arabia that has been outlawed by Israel - which used money changers, bank accounts in the West Bank, and couriers to send the money to local charity organizations, which then transferred cash to the Hamas headquarters in Jerusalem. In the last 18 months, Hamas's Jerusalem headquarters received more than NIS 1 million in this fashion.
The Hamas activities on the Temple Mount were coordinated with the Islamic Movement, headed by Sheikh Ra'ad Salah. The activities also included organizing events during Ramadan such as large-scale post-fast meals, the purpose of which was to recruit support for Hamas and give the organization a foothold on the Temple Mount.
In addition to Hamas's efforts to take over the Temple Mount, in recent years the movement increased its activity in east Jerusalem, where it had set up religious institutions and used what seemed to be innocent festivities to brainwash Muslims with Hamas ideology. To implement its goals, Hamas had also set up a number of institutions of a semi-religious nature to front illegal activities. According to security officials, there are no longer active Hamas institutions in Jerusalem.
Hamas attempts to gain control of the Temple Mount and recruit new Israeli-Arab operatives in east Jerusalem have been foiled by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), a senior security official announced on Monday.
According to the Shin Bet, Hamas, over the past few years, has invested millions of shekels in Jerusalem charities and religious institutions, as well as in construction on the Temple Mount, in an effort to bolster its presence and standing in the capital. The official said that Hamas recently paid to enlarge a library and several prayer halls in Solomon's Stables, as well as for the renovation of a public restroom facility on the disputed holy site.
"Their goal is to gain full control over the Temple Mount," a high-ranking Shin Bet official said Monday. Hamas, he said, has also tried to infiltrate its members into the Temple Mount as part of the maintenance and religious staff who care for the site and preach, give tours and teach Koran classes there.
Hamas, the official said, had taken advantage of financial troubles in the Jordanian Wakf, which is responsible for the holy site, to bolster its presence there. The wakf has been suffering from financial constraints since 2000, when the Temple Mount mosques were closed to paying visitors. Officials said the Hamas takeover of the Temple Mount was a "strategic" move and was aimed at bolstering the group's standing in the Palestinian territories and throughout the Muslim world.
The Shin Bet also focused its operations in curbing the flow of money into Hamas. A senior Hamas official, Yakub Abu Assab, was arrested for allegedly running a courier service that transferred funds from the West Bank and abroad to the Hamas headquarters in Jerusalem. Israeli efforts to stop Hamas also included the arrests of Hamas parliamentarians, including Khaled Abu Afa, former Hamas minister for Jerusalem affairs. During a year-long operation, Shin Bet arrested 11 Hamas officials based in Jerusalem, 10 of whom hold Israeli identity cards. All 11 detainees were due to be indicted for membership in a terror group and for financing illegal terror activity.
The Jerusalem Hamas operations received their funding from the Union of Good - an umbrella charity organization based in Saudi Arabia that has been outlawed by Israel - which used money changers, bank accounts in the West Bank, and couriers to send the money to local charity organizations, which then transferred cash to the Hamas headquarters in Jerusalem. In the last 18 months, Hamas's Jerusalem headquarters received more than NIS 1 million in this fashion.
The Hamas activities on the Temple Mount were coordinated with the Islamic Movement, headed by Sheikh Ra'ad Salah. The activities also included organizing events during Ramadan such as large-scale post-fast meals, the purpose of which was to recruit support for Hamas and give the organization a foothold on the Temple Mount.
In addition to Hamas's efforts to take over the Temple Mount, in recent years the movement increased its activity in east Jerusalem, where it had set up religious institutions and used what seemed to be innocent festivities to brainwash Muslims with Hamas ideology. To implement its goals, Hamas had also set up a number of institutions of a semi-religious nature to front illegal activities. According to security officials, there are no longer active Hamas institutions in Jerusalem.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Hamas TV Mickey Mouse beaten to death by Israeli
From Palestinian Media Watch, July 1, 2007 by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook...
The Hamas satellite TV channel has responded to the international controversy over its hatred-spouting Mickey Mouse clone by having the character beaten to death by an Israeli and becoming a Shahid, martyr for Allah.
Al-Aqsa TV broadcast Friday the final episode of the children’s program Tomorrow’s Pioneers, starring Farfur, the Mickey Mouse lookalike whose teachings about world Islamic domination, violence and hatred outraged the world after PMW made them public in May.
Without apparent regard for the sensitivities of their child viewers, the show’s creators killed off the character in a particularly violent way that allowed them to continue the show’s rabidly anti-Israel messages.
In this last episode, the squeaky-voiced Farfur receives land documents from his grandfather. The episode ends when an Israeli investigator tries to force Farfur to give up the key and the papers that his grandfather had given him. When Farfur refuses, the Israeli continues his brutal attack and beats Farfur to death.
...PMW reported the existence of the Mickey Mouse knockoff and his hateful messages in May, prompting worldwide outrage. The New York Daily News dubbed the character “Terror Mouse,” while Walt Disney’s daughter Diane described it as “pure evil.”
Despite promises by the PA that the show would be suspended immediately, it remained on the air for another week, and was then suspended during the violence in Gaza. This final episode, which includes the killing of Farfur by Israel, enabled Hamas to remove the program while continuing its hate messages.
[Text] “Farfur in Interrogation”
Israeli interrogator: “Sit down, Farfur… Farfur, we want to buy the land, we will give you a lot of money. You will get a lot of money, and we will take the documents.”
Farfur: “No!! We will not sell our lands to terrorists!”
Interrogator: “Farfur!!! I want you to give me the documents, give me the documents!”
Farfur: “I’m not giving the documents! Not giving! Not giving!”
Interrogator: “Farfur!!! [Visual: interrogator beats Farfur] Farfur! Hand me the documents. Farfur! Hand me the documents, Farfur!”
Farfur: “I am not handing them to criminals, to terrorists!”
Interrogator: “You call us terrorists, Farfur?! [Visual: interrogator beats Farfur again] Take this! Take this! Take this! Take this!”
Farfur: “Stop! Stop!”
Saraa’: “Yes, our children friends, we lost our dearest friend, Farfur. Farfur turned to a Martyr while protecting his land. He turned into a Martyr at the hands of the criminals, and murderers. The murderers of the innocent children… [Talking to a child caller] You saw that the Jews let Farfur die as a Martyr. What do you want to say to the Jews?”
Shaimaa’, 3 years old, on the phone: “We don’t like the Jews because they are dogs! We will fight them!”
Saraa’ [sarcastically]: “No, the Jews are good, oh Shaimaa’. The Jews are our friends, and we play with them, isn’t it so?”
Shaimaa’: “They killed Farfur!”Saraa’: “That’s right, oh Shaimaa’. The Jews are criminals and enemies, we must expel them from our land.” [Hamas, Al-Aqsa TV June 27, 2007]
The Hamas satellite TV channel has responded to the international controversy over its hatred-spouting Mickey Mouse clone by having the character beaten to death by an Israeli and becoming a Shahid, martyr for Allah.
Al-Aqsa TV broadcast Friday the final episode of the children’s program Tomorrow’s Pioneers, starring Farfur, the Mickey Mouse lookalike whose teachings about world Islamic domination, violence and hatred outraged the world after PMW made them public in May.
Without apparent regard for the sensitivities of their child viewers, the show’s creators killed off the character in a particularly violent way that allowed them to continue the show’s rabidly anti-Israel messages.
In this last episode, the squeaky-voiced Farfur receives land documents from his grandfather. The episode ends when an Israeli investigator tries to force Farfur to give up the key and the papers that his grandfather had given him. When Farfur refuses, the Israeli continues his brutal attack and beats Farfur to death.
...PMW reported the existence of the Mickey Mouse knockoff and his hateful messages in May, prompting worldwide outrage. The New York Daily News dubbed the character “Terror Mouse,” while Walt Disney’s daughter Diane described it as “pure evil.”
Despite promises by the PA that the show would be suspended immediately, it remained on the air for another week, and was then suspended during the violence in Gaza. This final episode, which includes the killing of Farfur by Israel, enabled Hamas to remove the program while continuing its hate messages.
[Text] “Farfur in Interrogation”
Israeli interrogator: “Sit down, Farfur… Farfur, we want to buy the land, we will give you a lot of money. You will get a lot of money, and we will take the documents.”
Farfur: “No!! We will not sell our lands to terrorists!”
Interrogator: “Farfur!!! I want you to give me the documents, give me the documents!”
Farfur: “I’m not giving the documents! Not giving! Not giving!”
Interrogator: “Farfur!!! [Visual: interrogator beats Farfur] Farfur! Hand me the documents. Farfur! Hand me the documents, Farfur!”
Farfur: “I am not handing them to criminals, to terrorists!”
Interrogator: “You call us terrorists, Farfur?! [Visual: interrogator beats Farfur again] Take this! Take this! Take this! Take this!”
Farfur: “Stop! Stop!”
Saraa’: “Yes, our children friends, we lost our dearest friend, Farfur. Farfur turned to a Martyr while protecting his land. He turned into a Martyr at the hands of the criminals, and murderers. The murderers of the innocent children… [Talking to a child caller] You saw that the Jews let Farfur die as a Martyr. What do you want to say to the Jews?”
Shaimaa’, 3 years old, on the phone: “We don’t like the Jews because they are dogs! We will fight them!”
Saraa’ [sarcastically]: “No, the Jews are good, oh Shaimaa’. The Jews are our friends, and we play with them, isn’t it so?”
Shaimaa’: “They killed Farfur!”Saraa’: “That’s right, oh Shaimaa’. The Jews are criminals and enemies, we must expel them from our land.” [Hamas, Al-Aqsa TV June 27, 2007]
A friend indeed
From a Speech to Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce, by Alexander Downer Tuesday June 26, 2007 (receiving an honourary Doctorate from Bar Ilan University)....
...A lot of people ask me why I seem to be so committed to Israel ....I think I could almost be described as an honorary Jew with a lot of the views that I hold about the issues that Jewish people confront. ...I think there are a variety of explanations for that. ...
...When I was at university I shared a house with four people. One of them was a New Zealander, one of them was Jewish - her name is Judy - and a Scotsman. This was in 1972-73, that sort of time, the significance being 1973. And Judy had a cousin come and stay with her from Israel. And it was at the time, just as the cousin came, the Yom Kippur War broke out. And I remember this just as though it were yesterday, going down into our little kitchenette.... Judy's sitting there in her dressing gown with her cousin from Israel and the cousin from Israel had tears in her eyes. They were both listening to BBC radio, to the details of the Yom Kippur War and you'll remember better than I do how in the early days it wasn't going so well. This cousin of Judy's brother was in the Israeli army and - you know all of this so much better than I do.
But I was tremendously struck by the power of the moment. I was tremendously struck by the Jewish people, as in the Israelis in this case, under siege and so unreasonably in my view - now some people will criticise me for that - but I think completely unreasonably under siege in the way that they were and suffering so much yet again after all the wars that they'd been through. And, I don't know, it seemed to me that somebody had sometimes to stick up for the Israeli people and as the years have gone by the cause of Israel has, in many countries around the world, become decreasingly fashionable. I don't think there's any doubt about that. It hasn't changed my mind that it's become decreasingly fashionable, in fact I've never claimed to be fashionable, I've just tried to do what I thought was the right thing.
... When I come here and look at Israeli politics it also reminds me of home. The interesting way that Israelis conduct their politcs, the same robust - dare I say it - slightly rude way in which your politicians deal with each other, the volatility of your politics - a bit more volatile than ours. Yes, you've had more Foreign Ministers, as Stanley was pointing out, than we have over the last eleven years, but nevertheless the volatility, the confrontation, the partisanship of your politics is very familiar to us.
Of course in a broader sense Israel shares so many of the core values that Australia has as well. Australia is the world's sixth oldest continuingly operating democracy; its democratic roots are very deep. Israel is such a vibrant democracy as well, it's one of the great heartlands of modern democracy as well - the passionate belief in the freedom of the individual that we have in our own society. There's something else about Israel that Australia shares as well and that is that your country seems to me to be a kind of brutally egalitarian society and we kind of like that in Australia. Airs and graces don't go down very well in our country - that's why Europeans think that we're very noisy and perhaps a touch common [laughter]. But it's just that we're very egalitarian. And I think that Israelis suffer from - if you could call it that - the same thing. So there are those great sort of bonds of kinship, I guess, that we have.
We have in Australia a wonderful Jewish community about 100,000 strong. They are just enormous contributors to our country. Our country would not be the great country it is if not for our small but incredibly successful Jewish community in the professions, in business, not so much in politics in our country but there have been from time to time in politics - the first Australian-born Governor General of Australia was Jewish and we've had two Governors General - I think, two - who have been Jewish. Jewish people have been an enormously important part of our society - continue to be - and we're very proud of that as well.
But I suppose on top of all of those things, in very recent years we have kind of been bound together yet again because of the way the world has evolved. I suppose for Jewish people one of the most defining experiences is what happened to them in the 1930s and 1940s. So for Jewish people they understand more than anyone else on earth the pain of the confrontation between liberal democrats, social democrats on the one side and fascism and Nazism on the other side and totalitarianism. After that we had the confrontation between liberal and social democrats and Communism. And I think when we got to 1990-91, the Berlin wall was torn down, Communism collapsed, it became a barren and bankrupt ideology. The Soviet Union itself broke up, we thought it was, to use Francis Fukuyama's phrase, the end of world history, meaning that the great ideological confrontations had finished. We thought that we could pocket a 'peace dividend' as they used to say in the early 1990s, we could put away our arms and spend that money on the things we'd truly love to spend it on - health and education, services and so on.
But then we were very brutally reminded, as time went on, that in fact the great conflicts were not over. That the world still faces a great conflict, which I often define as a conflict between moderate people, between tolerant people, between caring people on the one hand and between extremists, and the intolerant and the uncaring on the other hand. And the intolerance of a minority is an intolerance that causes great death and great suffering.
Now I ask myself what should we do about those who are intolerant, those who have ideologies which they wish to impose on others, and those who are prepared to cause suffering to others for the cause of an ideology because the ideology is more important than human life or it's more important than any individual, that in fact individuals don't count, the corporate ideology is what counts? And this is what we see from the Islamic extremists from, in our part of the world, in south east Asia, from Jemaah Islamiyah, the Abu Sayyaf group, you see from Al Qaeda, and you see to some extent from both Hamas and Hizbollah right around you here in Israel.
Some people said that the best way to deal with Nazism was through a policy that was very fashionable and very popular in the 1940s called appeasement. And we all know in this room that that policy was the wrong policy. And yet it's so often repeated, despite the fact that we know it's the wrong way to deal with extremists we're still inclined to want to repeat it. So when it came to the Soviet Union and the spread of Communism and the challenges that laid down some people thought, "Well that's the way the world is, we just have to find ways of accommodating it".
A lot of you won't agree with me here, because you can see I don't mind always whether people agree or not, but I reckon one of the great speeches of the 20th century, or at least the second half of the 20th century, was Ronald Reagan's speech in 1987 in Berlin where he said, "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall". The importance of that speech was that it was a speech where Reagan was saying, "I want to confront this type of regime, I want to confront this totalitarianism, and I want to defeat it". And he and his successors and a number of other people - there were a lot of people involved in that victory, but they did.
When it's come to Islamic extremism and terrorism, there are still people who think we shouldn't confront it, and we shouldn't try to defeat it, and we should try to negotiate our way out of it. I'm often reminded of the phrase that Osama bin Laden uses - you want to watch these people's videos - just as it was important to read Mein Kampf, so it is important to look at and take seriously what people like Osama bin Laden say. And he says the West is a weak horse. That if you keep confronting the weak horse for long enough eventually it will walk away, that it won't be able to sustain for a long time a campaign against extremism and terrorism. And when I think about the debates that there are - the debates there are about what to do with Hamas or with Hizbollah and Al Qaeda - what should we be doing in Iraq and Afghanistan - should we let the Taliban take over and just go back home, go back to bed and have a cry at night.
Or, in our case, should we and the Americans and the British and others just walk out of Iraq and leave people like Al Qaeda and other extremists to play merry havoc in that country. Imagine what that would mean for you nearby, here in Israel. And people say that's the easy way, that's the way we should do it. I keep thinking to myself, "It would be quite easy", and sometimes I think it might give us a bit of a boost in the polls if we were to do that sort of thing at home. And then I think, "What will it mean for my children? What will it mean for future generations? What will it mean for you here in this country?" if in the end we show weakness, if we are weak horses, if we run away. Will that mean these people themselves will disappear, will their ideology vanish? Will they become our friends as a result of us being weak horses? I think the answer to that is perfectly obvious. And therefore when we think about confronting this great challenge that we have today, that you have of course right here in the forefront of it, and that we have to some lesser extent in south east Asia.
When we think about it we need to work with people who are like-minded, and we need to show a sturdy courage in continuing to confront it. And I don't just mean a physical courage, and it certainly requires on the part of many people that above all and, I'm sorry to say, very often very sad sacrifice. But also for politicians, a lot of political courage as well to continue to make their arguments in their own countries. And some have done that and you know I've admired those people who have been prepared to do that in their countries, sometimes in the teeth of public opposition.
So I say all those things here in Israel on this wonderful evening here tonight, I think our countries have joined together in that great struggle that we have. And what I want to see is an Israel that can live in peace, of course, in peace with its neighbours with two states there, with the State of Israel entirely secure. You don't want to have to spend ten per cent of your GDP, as we were discussing, on defence, but much less, and with a Palestinian state too which is a secure and a prosperous place and a prosperous neighbour and a good neighbour for Israel. And we want to see a world where people are able to live in freedom and democracy and I think Australia and Israel and a number of other countries know that can't be achieved for free - we do have to show strength if we are going to achieve those things. And you know those of us who believe in those things - let's try to stick together, let's not argue too much and fall out with each other....
...A lot of people ask me why I seem to be so committed to Israel ....I think I could almost be described as an honorary Jew with a lot of the views that I hold about the issues that Jewish people confront. ...I think there are a variety of explanations for that. ...
...When I was at university I shared a house with four people. One of them was a New Zealander, one of them was Jewish - her name is Judy - and a Scotsman. This was in 1972-73, that sort of time, the significance being 1973. And Judy had a cousin come and stay with her from Israel. And it was at the time, just as the cousin came, the Yom Kippur War broke out. And I remember this just as though it were yesterday, going down into our little kitchenette.... Judy's sitting there in her dressing gown with her cousin from Israel and the cousin from Israel had tears in her eyes. They were both listening to BBC radio, to the details of the Yom Kippur War and you'll remember better than I do how in the early days it wasn't going so well. This cousin of Judy's brother was in the Israeli army and - you know all of this so much better than I do.
But I was tremendously struck by the power of the moment. I was tremendously struck by the Jewish people, as in the Israelis in this case, under siege and so unreasonably in my view - now some people will criticise me for that - but I think completely unreasonably under siege in the way that they were and suffering so much yet again after all the wars that they'd been through. And, I don't know, it seemed to me that somebody had sometimes to stick up for the Israeli people and as the years have gone by the cause of Israel has, in many countries around the world, become decreasingly fashionable. I don't think there's any doubt about that. It hasn't changed my mind that it's become decreasingly fashionable, in fact I've never claimed to be fashionable, I've just tried to do what I thought was the right thing.
... When I come here and look at Israeli politics it also reminds me of home. The interesting way that Israelis conduct their politcs, the same robust - dare I say it - slightly rude way in which your politicians deal with each other, the volatility of your politics - a bit more volatile than ours. Yes, you've had more Foreign Ministers, as Stanley was pointing out, than we have over the last eleven years, but nevertheless the volatility, the confrontation, the partisanship of your politics is very familiar to us.
Of course in a broader sense Israel shares so many of the core values that Australia has as well. Australia is the world's sixth oldest continuingly operating democracy; its democratic roots are very deep. Israel is such a vibrant democracy as well, it's one of the great heartlands of modern democracy as well - the passionate belief in the freedom of the individual that we have in our own society. There's something else about Israel that Australia shares as well and that is that your country seems to me to be a kind of brutally egalitarian society and we kind of like that in Australia. Airs and graces don't go down very well in our country - that's why Europeans think that we're very noisy and perhaps a touch common [laughter]. But it's just that we're very egalitarian. And I think that Israelis suffer from - if you could call it that - the same thing. So there are those great sort of bonds of kinship, I guess, that we have.
We have in Australia a wonderful Jewish community about 100,000 strong. They are just enormous contributors to our country. Our country would not be the great country it is if not for our small but incredibly successful Jewish community in the professions, in business, not so much in politics in our country but there have been from time to time in politics - the first Australian-born Governor General of Australia was Jewish and we've had two Governors General - I think, two - who have been Jewish. Jewish people have been an enormously important part of our society - continue to be - and we're very proud of that as well.
But I suppose on top of all of those things, in very recent years we have kind of been bound together yet again because of the way the world has evolved. I suppose for Jewish people one of the most defining experiences is what happened to them in the 1930s and 1940s. So for Jewish people they understand more than anyone else on earth the pain of the confrontation between liberal democrats, social democrats on the one side and fascism and Nazism on the other side and totalitarianism. After that we had the confrontation between liberal and social democrats and Communism. And I think when we got to 1990-91, the Berlin wall was torn down, Communism collapsed, it became a barren and bankrupt ideology. The Soviet Union itself broke up, we thought it was, to use Francis Fukuyama's phrase, the end of world history, meaning that the great ideological confrontations had finished. We thought that we could pocket a 'peace dividend' as they used to say in the early 1990s, we could put away our arms and spend that money on the things we'd truly love to spend it on - health and education, services and so on.
But then we were very brutally reminded, as time went on, that in fact the great conflicts were not over. That the world still faces a great conflict, which I often define as a conflict between moderate people, between tolerant people, between caring people on the one hand and between extremists, and the intolerant and the uncaring on the other hand. And the intolerance of a minority is an intolerance that causes great death and great suffering.
Now I ask myself what should we do about those who are intolerant, those who have ideologies which they wish to impose on others, and those who are prepared to cause suffering to others for the cause of an ideology because the ideology is more important than human life or it's more important than any individual, that in fact individuals don't count, the corporate ideology is what counts? And this is what we see from the Islamic extremists from, in our part of the world, in south east Asia, from Jemaah Islamiyah, the Abu Sayyaf group, you see from Al Qaeda, and you see to some extent from both Hamas and Hizbollah right around you here in Israel.
Some people said that the best way to deal with Nazism was through a policy that was very fashionable and very popular in the 1940s called appeasement. And we all know in this room that that policy was the wrong policy. And yet it's so often repeated, despite the fact that we know it's the wrong way to deal with extremists we're still inclined to want to repeat it. So when it came to the Soviet Union and the spread of Communism and the challenges that laid down some people thought, "Well that's the way the world is, we just have to find ways of accommodating it".
A lot of you won't agree with me here, because you can see I don't mind always whether people agree or not, but I reckon one of the great speeches of the 20th century, or at least the second half of the 20th century, was Ronald Reagan's speech in 1987 in Berlin where he said, "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall". The importance of that speech was that it was a speech where Reagan was saying, "I want to confront this type of regime, I want to confront this totalitarianism, and I want to defeat it". And he and his successors and a number of other people - there were a lot of people involved in that victory, but they did.
When it's come to Islamic extremism and terrorism, there are still people who think we shouldn't confront it, and we shouldn't try to defeat it, and we should try to negotiate our way out of it. I'm often reminded of the phrase that Osama bin Laden uses - you want to watch these people's videos - just as it was important to read Mein Kampf, so it is important to look at and take seriously what people like Osama bin Laden say. And he says the West is a weak horse. That if you keep confronting the weak horse for long enough eventually it will walk away, that it won't be able to sustain for a long time a campaign against extremism and terrorism. And when I think about the debates that there are - the debates there are about what to do with Hamas or with Hizbollah and Al Qaeda - what should we be doing in Iraq and Afghanistan - should we let the Taliban take over and just go back home, go back to bed and have a cry at night.
Or, in our case, should we and the Americans and the British and others just walk out of Iraq and leave people like Al Qaeda and other extremists to play merry havoc in that country. Imagine what that would mean for you nearby, here in Israel. And people say that's the easy way, that's the way we should do it. I keep thinking to myself, "It would be quite easy", and sometimes I think it might give us a bit of a boost in the polls if we were to do that sort of thing at home. And then I think, "What will it mean for my children? What will it mean for future generations? What will it mean for you here in this country?" if in the end we show weakness, if we are weak horses, if we run away. Will that mean these people themselves will disappear, will their ideology vanish? Will they become our friends as a result of us being weak horses? I think the answer to that is perfectly obvious. And therefore when we think about confronting this great challenge that we have today, that you have of course right here in the forefront of it, and that we have to some lesser extent in south east Asia.
When we think about it we need to work with people who are like-minded, and we need to show a sturdy courage in continuing to confront it. And I don't just mean a physical courage, and it certainly requires on the part of many people that above all and, I'm sorry to say, very often very sad sacrifice. But also for politicians, a lot of political courage as well to continue to make their arguments in their own countries. And some have done that and you know I've admired those people who have been prepared to do that in their countries, sometimes in the teeth of public opposition.
So I say all those things here in Israel on this wonderful evening here tonight, I think our countries have joined together in that great struggle that we have. And what I want to see is an Israel that can live in peace, of course, in peace with its neighbours with two states there, with the State of Israel entirely secure. You don't want to have to spend ten per cent of your GDP, as we were discussing, on defence, but much less, and with a Palestinian state too which is a secure and a prosperous place and a prosperous neighbour and a good neighbour for Israel. And we want to see a world where people are able to live in freedom and democracy and I think Australia and Israel and a number of other countries know that can't be achieved for free - we do have to show strength if we are going to achieve those things. And you know those of us who believe in those things - let's try to stick together, let's not argue too much and fall out with each other....
Vigilance alone will not win this war
From The Australian, Editorial, July 02, 2007 ...
...Increasingly, Islamism is a threat in the West. Two attempted car bombings in central London on Friday, and a third one at Glasgow airport on Saturday, are evidence of the kind of violence that Australia could face...
.....Our sense of relief that widespread carnage has been avoided is tempered with a sense of catastrophe delayed. These bombs were prevented only because they failed to detonate, not because the authorities were aware of the plots and intervened. Nobody can doubt that Islamists will only redouble their efforts, not be deterred.
The arrest of five Australians in Lebanon who are suspected of being involved with the al-Qa'ida-linked terrorist group Fatah al-Islam emphasises both the direct threat to Australia of terrorist activities in the Middle East and the global nature of the Islamist menace. One of those detained, taxi driver Omar Hadba, is suspected of being the leader of Fatah al-Islam, which is mounting an armed insurgency in northern Lebanon and allegedly had a cache of 500kg of weapons and explosives including assault rifles, grenades, machineguns and mines. Four of the men are disciples of radical cleric Feiz Mohamed, who counts among his students and friends Australia's first convicted terrorist, Jack Roche; the founders of Jemaah Islamiah in Australia, Abdul Rahim Ayub and Abdul Rahman Ayub; Rahim Ayub's former wife, Rabiyah Hutchison, whose sons were deported from Yemen; Zac Mallah, who was acquitted under Australia's new terror laws; hardline cleric Mohammed Omran; and most of those currently facing terror charges in Sydney and Melbourne. As The Australian reports today, Mustapha Kara-Ali, a former member of the Muslim Community Reference Group, has been investigating radicalisation among young Muslim community members in Sydney. He estimates there are between 2000 and 3000 radicalised Muslims in Sydney alone and possibly double that in Australia, who are ideological sleeper cells and who could become extremists.
... the war against terror is not a territorial battle. It is a battle against an anger-ridden ideology, a threat not only to Islam and Muslims but to the entire world. Good intelligence and law enforcement is our first line of defence and will limit the terrorists' ability to kill and maim, but vigilance alone will not defeat the threat we face. Governments, Muslim leaders and the wider community each have a part to play in breaking the link between religion and extremist ideology. Radical sheiks who have hijacked a noble faith and turned it into a violent rallying cry must be silenced. There is no place for their teachings in this country. So far, Australians have been fortunate to avoid attacks on civilians in our own cities, but the threat of home-grown jihadism is real.
...Increasingly, Islamism is a threat in the West. Two attempted car bombings in central London on Friday, and a third one at Glasgow airport on Saturday, are evidence of the kind of violence that Australia could face...
.....Our sense of relief that widespread carnage has been avoided is tempered with a sense of catastrophe delayed. These bombs were prevented only because they failed to detonate, not because the authorities were aware of the plots and intervened. Nobody can doubt that Islamists will only redouble their efforts, not be deterred.
The arrest of five Australians in Lebanon who are suspected of being involved with the al-Qa'ida-linked terrorist group Fatah al-Islam emphasises both the direct threat to Australia of terrorist activities in the Middle East and the global nature of the Islamist menace. One of those detained, taxi driver Omar Hadba, is suspected of being the leader of Fatah al-Islam, which is mounting an armed insurgency in northern Lebanon and allegedly had a cache of 500kg of weapons and explosives including assault rifles, grenades, machineguns and mines. Four of the men are disciples of radical cleric Feiz Mohamed, who counts among his students and friends Australia's first convicted terrorist, Jack Roche; the founders of Jemaah Islamiah in Australia, Abdul Rahim Ayub and Abdul Rahman Ayub; Rahim Ayub's former wife, Rabiyah Hutchison, whose sons were deported from Yemen; Zac Mallah, who was acquitted under Australia's new terror laws; hardline cleric Mohammed Omran; and most of those currently facing terror charges in Sydney and Melbourne. As The Australian reports today, Mustapha Kara-Ali, a former member of the Muslim Community Reference Group, has been investigating radicalisation among young Muslim community members in Sydney. He estimates there are between 2000 and 3000 radicalised Muslims in Sydney alone and possibly double that in Australia, who are ideological sleeper cells and who could become extremists.
... the war against terror is not a territorial battle. It is a battle against an anger-ridden ideology, a threat not only to Islam and Muslims but to the entire world. Good intelligence and law enforcement is our first line of defence and will limit the terrorists' ability to kill and maim, but vigilance alone will not defeat the threat we face. Governments, Muslim leaders and the wider community each have a part to play in breaking the link between religion and extremist ideology. Radical sheiks who have hijacked a noble faith and turned it into a violent rallying cry must be silenced. There is no place for their teachings in this country. So far, Australians have been fortunate to avoid attacks on civilians in our own cities, but the threat of home-grown jihadism is real.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
ex-President for sale
From ICJS, by Alan Dershowitz Wednesday June 27, 2007 ...
....Recent disclosures of Carter's extensive financial connections to Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia, had deeply shaken my belief in his integrity. When I was first told that he received a monetary reward in the name of Shiekh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, and kept the money, even after Harvard returned money from the same source because of its anti-Semitic history, I simply did not believe it. How could a man of such apparent integrity enrich himself with dirty money from so dirty a source?
And let there be no mistake about how dirty the Zayed Foundation is. ...a student at the Divinity School -- Rachael Lea Fish -- showed me the facts They were staggering. I was amazed that in the 21st century there were still foundations that espoused these views. The Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-up - a think-tank funded by the Shiekh and run by his son - hosted speakers who called Jews "the enemies of all nations," attributed the assassination of John Kennedy to Israel and the Mossad and the 9/11 attacks to the United States' own military, and stated that the Holocaust was a "fable." (They also hosted a speech by Jimmy Carter.) To its credit, Harvard turned the money back. To his discredit, Carter did not.
Jimmy Carter was, of course, aware of Harvard's decision, since it was highly publicized. Yet he kept the money. Indeed, this is what he said in accepting the funds: "This award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan." Carter's personal friend, it turns out, was an unredeemable anti-Semite and all-around bigot.
I sadly concluded that Jimmy Carter of the 21st century has become complicit in evil.
In reading Carter's statements, I was reminded of the bad old Harvard of the 1930s, which continued to honor Nazi academics after the anti-Semitic policies of Hitler's government became clear. Harvard of the 1930s was complicit in evil. I sadly concluded that Jimmy Carter of the 21st century has become complicit in evil.
The extent of Carter's financial support from, and even dependence on, dirty money is still not fully known. What we do know is deeply troubling. Carter and his Center have accepted millions of dollars from suspect sources, beginning with the bail-out of the Carter family peanut business in the late 1970s by BCCI, a now-defunct and virulently anti-Israeli bank indirectly controlled by the Saudi Royal family, and among whose principal investors is Carter's friend, Sheikh Zayed. Agha Hasan Abedi, the founder of the bank, gave Carter "$500,000 to help the former presidentestablish his center...[and] more than $10 million to Mr. Carter's different projects." Carter gladly accepted themoney, though Abedi had called his bank-ostensibly the source of his funding-"the best way to fight the evil influence of the Zionists." BCCI isn't the only source: Saudi King Fahd contributed millions to the Carter Center- "in 1993 alone...$7.6 million" as have other members of the Saudi Royal Family. Carter also received a million dollar pledge from the Saudi-based bin Laden family, as well as a personal $500,000 environmental award named for Sheikh Zayed, and paid for by the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates.
It's worth noting that, despite the influx of Saudi money funding the Carter Center, and despite the Saudi Arabian government's myriad human rights abuses, the Carter Center's Human Rights program has no activity whatever in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have apparently bought his silence for a steep price. The bought quality of the Center's activities becomes even more clear, however, when reviewing the Center's human rights activities in other countries: essentially no human rights activities in China or in North Korea, or in Iran, Iraq, the Sudan, or Syria, but activity regarding Israel and its alleged abuses, according to the Center's website
The Carter Center's mission statement claims that "The Center is nonpartisan and acts as a neutral party in dispute resolution activities." How can that be, given that its coffers are full of Arab money, and that its focus is away from significant Arab abuses and on Israel's far lessserious ones?
No reasonable person can dispute therefore that Jimmy Carter has been and remains dependent on Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia. ....Money, particularly large amounts of money, has a way of persuading people to a particular position.
By Carter's own standards, therefore, his views on the Middle East must be discounted. ...his failure to disclose the extent of his financial dependence on Arab money, and the absence of any self reflection on whether the receipt of this money has unduly influenced his views, is a form of deception bordering on corruption.
... there is no person in American public life today who has a lower ratio of real to apparent integrity than Jimmy Carter. The public perception of his integrity is extraordinarily high. His real integrity, it now turns out, is extraordinarily low. He is no better than so many former American politicians who, after leaving public life, sell themselves to the highest bidder and become lobbyists for despicable causes. That is now Jimmy Carter's sad legacy.
....Recent disclosures of Carter's extensive financial connections to Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia, had deeply shaken my belief in his integrity. When I was first told that he received a monetary reward in the name of Shiekh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, and kept the money, even after Harvard returned money from the same source because of its anti-Semitic history, I simply did not believe it. How could a man of such apparent integrity enrich himself with dirty money from so dirty a source?
And let there be no mistake about how dirty the Zayed Foundation is. ...a student at the Divinity School -- Rachael Lea Fish -- showed me the facts They were staggering. I was amazed that in the 21st century there were still foundations that espoused these views. The Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-up - a think-tank funded by the Shiekh and run by his son - hosted speakers who called Jews "the enemies of all nations," attributed the assassination of John Kennedy to Israel and the Mossad and the 9/11 attacks to the United States' own military, and stated that the Holocaust was a "fable." (They also hosted a speech by Jimmy Carter.) To its credit, Harvard turned the money back. To his discredit, Carter did not.
Jimmy Carter was, of course, aware of Harvard's decision, since it was highly publicized. Yet he kept the money. Indeed, this is what he said in accepting the funds: "This award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan." Carter's personal friend, it turns out, was an unredeemable anti-Semite and all-around bigot.
I sadly concluded that Jimmy Carter of the 21st century has become complicit in evil.
In reading Carter's statements, I was reminded of the bad old Harvard of the 1930s, which continued to honor Nazi academics after the anti-Semitic policies of Hitler's government became clear. Harvard of the 1930s was complicit in evil. I sadly concluded that Jimmy Carter of the 21st century has become complicit in evil.
The extent of Carter's financial support from, and even dependence on, dirty money is still not fully known. What we do know is deeply troubling. Carter and his Center have accepted millions of dollars from suspect sources, beginning with the bail-out of the Carter family peanut business in the late 1970s by BCCI, a now-defunct and virulently anti-Israeli bank indirectly controlled by the Saudi Royal family, and among whose principal investors is Carter's friend, Sheikh Zayed. Agha Hasan Abedi, the founder of the bank, gave Carter "$500,000 to help the former presidentestablish his center...[and] more than $10 million to Mr. Carter's different projects." Carter gladly accepted themoney, though Abedi had called his bank-ostensibly the source of his funding-"the best way to fight the evil influence of the Zionists." BCCI isn't the only source: Saudi King Fahd contributed millions to the Carter Center- "in 1993 alone...$7.6 million" as have other members of the Saudi Royal Family. Carter also received a million dollar pledge from the Saudi-based bin Laden family, as well as a personal $500,000 environmental award named for Sheikh Zayed, and paid for by the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates.
It's worth noting that, despite the influx of Saudi money funding the Carter Center, and despite the Saudi Arabian government's myriad human rights abuses, the Carter Center's Human Rights program has no activity whatever in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have apparently bought his silence for a steep price. The bought quality of the Center's activities becomes even more clear, however, when reviewing the Center's human rights activities in other countries: essentially no human rights activities in China or in North Korea, or in Iran, Iraq, the Sudan, or Syria, but activity regarding Israel and its alleged abuses, according to the Center's website
The Carter Center's mission statement claims that "The Center is nonpartisan and acts as a neutral party in dispute resolution activities." How can that be, given that its coffers are full of Arab money, and that its focus is away from significant Arab abuses and on Israel's far lessserious ones?
No reasonable person can dispute therefore that Jimmy Carter has been and remains dependent on Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia. ....Money, particularly large amounts of money, has a way of persuading people to a particular position.
By Carter's own standards, therefore, his views on the Middle East must be discounted. ...his failure to disclose the extent of his financial dependence on Arab money, and the absence of any self reflection on whether the receipt of this money has unduly influenced his views, is a form of deception bordering on corruption.
... there is no person in American public life today who has a lower ratio of real to apparent integrity than Jimmy Carter. The public perception of his integrity is extraordinarily high. His real integrity, it now turns out, is extraordinarily low. He is no better than so many former American politicians who, after leaving public life, sell themselves to the highest bidder and become lobbyists for despicable causes. That is now Jimmy Carter's sad legacy.
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