From The Australian Jewish News, November 30, 2007, by Colin Rubenstein [my emphasis added - SL]:
The new Rudd Government gives every indication of not only seeking to match, but if possible, even improve on the excellent record of the Howard Government in terms of both willingness to act on Jewish domestic concerns and also Australia's support for Israel's security and peacemaking efforts...
....Firstly, historically, despite some exceptions, Australian governments of both political persuasions have gone out of their way to cultivate positive Australia-Israel relations. This has been the historic norm.
Secondly, that being said, the Howard Government has brought that relationship to new heights since 1996. Howard, his Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Treasurer Peter Costello have made Australia one of Israel's closest and most consistent friends. This government has given Israel tremendous verbal support, articulated not only in speeches to the Jewish community, but also in the media.....
....At the United Nations, Howard's Australia fought to end institutional discrimination against Israel; played a leading role in the fight against the violent anti-Zionism mixed with antisemitism that marred the 2001 Durban "anti-racism" conference; voted to end funding for the series of permanent anti-Israeli bureaucracies built into the UN structure and actively lobbied others to do the same; and was willing to be in a small minority in promoting these reforms and opposing one-sided anti-Israel resolutions.
And it should not be forgotten that at the start of the 2003 war in Iraq, Australia primarily contributed elite Special Air Service (SAS) troops whose main role, successfully executed, was to penetrate behind Iraqi lines and prevent the launching of Scud missiles against Israel.
Foreign policy went almost unmentioned during this election campaign, and there is likely to be more continuity than major reversals in Australian foreign policy in general. Moreover, both Rudd and most of his key team members, as their public statements indicate, are committed and longstanding friends of Israel. There is every chance the new ALP government will work to maintain the uniquely close and supportive relations with Israel of the last 11 years, and Kevin Rudd himself fully intends to do this....
....One area to be watched in this regard will be United Nations voting, where we hope Prime Minister-elect Rudd will make sure that Australia does not return to a pattern of European-style abstention on key votes, such as those on the security fence and the funding of anti-Israel bureaucracies within the UN (despite an earlier view that Australia should have abstained from the 2005 vote condemning the security barrier, which Australia courageously opposed).
On the other hand, because the ALP will likely make the UN a larger focus in Australian foreign policy, it has additional incentives to make UN reform a priority - including weakening its institutionalised biases against Israel. And this is certainly in Israel's interest, as well as Australia's.
Further, the suggestion by Kevin Rudd that Australia could play a leading role in international efforts to indict Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for incitement to genocide is also promising. Pursuing such a legal avenue is an important additional diplomatic tool that can increase pressure on the Iranian regime when combined with other diplomatic measures, including especially increased economic sanctions.
In short, there is every reason to believe that the new Rudd Government will continue Australia's tradition of a warm, supportive relationship with the Jewish community and Israel, and succeed in maintaining, perhaps even exceeding, the exceptional support and closeness that characterised the Howard era.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Letting Syria Drill a Hole in the Lifeboat
From GLORIA, by Barry Rubin, November 25, 2007:
.... what is the worst mistake that could be made to ensure that an already difficult situation becomes worse? Answer: invite Syria.
.... Palestinian leaders ...are horrified by Damascus getting equal time [to the Palestinian issue].
...Iraq? Syria is the main sponsor of the terrorist insurgency. It has a deep interest in ensuring that no moderate, stable, pro-Western regime takes root in [Iraq].
The radical alliance? Syria is a leading factor in the problem, a partner with Iran for twenty years. Anyone who believes that Damascus can be split from Tehran understands nothing about the mutual benefits Syria gets from the alliance, far greater than anything the West could possibly give to its dictator President Bashar al-Asad.
Iranian nuclear? When Iran gets atomic weapons it will be a great day for Syria, ensuring its strategic protection, damaging Western influence, and helping the radical Islamist cause that Syria backs.
American credibility? It undermines years of U.S. efforts to pressure Bashar away from radical adventurism. Syria can now show that it can kill Americans soldiers in Iraq, murder democratic Lebanese politicians, foment Hamas’s takeover of the Gaza Strip, and sponsor Hizballah’s effort to seize power in Lebanon without incurring any serious risk or cost.
On the contrary, Syria is now making demands on the United States for concessions ....This is happening at the very moment when plans for an international trial of Syrian leaders for political assassinations in Lebanon is gathering momentum, as Syria’s campaign to install a puppet government in Beirut has just been foiled.
.... Syria [is] the main Arab sponsor of Hamas, a state working tirelessly to throw out the current Palestinian leadership and raise the level of Arab-Israeli violence.
.... what is the worst mistake that could be made to ensure that an already difficult situation becomes worse? Answer: invite Syria.
.... Palestinian leaders ...are horrified by Damascus getting equal time [to the Palestinian issue].
...Iraq? Syria is the main sponsor of the terrorist insurgency. It has a deep interest in ensuring that no moderate, stable, pro-Western regime takes root in [Iraq].
The radical alliance? Syria is a leading factor in the problem, a partner with Iran for twenty years. Anyone who believes that Damascus can be split from Tehran understands nothing about the mutual benefits Syria gets from the alliance, far greater than anything the West could possibly give to its dictator President Bashar al-Asad.
Iranian nuclear? When Iran gets atomic weapons it will be a great day for Syria, ensuring its strategic protection, damaging Western influence, and helping the radical Islamist cause that Syria backs.
American credibility? It undermines years of U.S. efforts to pressure Bashar away from radical adventurism. Syria can now show that it can kill Americans soldiers in Iraq, murder democratic Lebanese politicians, foment Hamas’s takeover of the Gaza Strip, and sponsor Hizballah’s effort to seize power in Lebanon without incurring any serious risk or cost.
On the contrary, Syria is now making demands on the United States for concessions ....This is happening at the very moment when plans for an international trial of Syrian leaders for political assassinations in Lebanon is gathering momentum, as Syria’s campaign to install a puppet government in Beirut has just been foiled.
.... Syria [is] the main Arab sponsor of Hamas, a state working tirelessly to throw out the current Palestinian leadership and raise the level of Arab-Israeli violence.
Annapolis Conference
From a statement by President George W. Bush, Memorial Hall, United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, November 27, 2007 and published on the Department of State Web site (excerpts of the key points only):
PRESIDENT BUSH: .... I'm about to read a statement that was agreed upon by our distinguished guests:
The representatives of the government of the state of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization.... concluded the following joint understanding.
We express our determination to bring an end to bloodshed, suffering and decades of conflict between our peoples; to usher in a new era of peace....
....we agree to immediately launch good-faith bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty, resolving all outstanding issues....
We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations, and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008......
....President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert will continue to meet on a bi-weekly basis ....
...The parties also commit to immediately implement their respective obligations under the performance-based road map ...and agree to form an American, Palestinian and Israeli mechanism, led by the United States, to follow up on the implementation of the road map.
The parties further commit to continue the implementation of the ongoing obligations of the road map until they reach a peace treaty. The United States will monitor and judge the fulfillment of the commitment of both sides of the road map. Unless otherwise agreed by the parties, implementation of the future peace treaty will be subject to the implementation of the road map, as judged by the United States.
Congratulations for your strong leadership. (Applause.)
....Our purpose here in Annapolis is not to conclude an agreement. Rather, it is to launch negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians..... I believe now is precisely the right time to begin these negotiations -- for a number of reasons:
First, the time is right because Palestinians and Israelis have leaders who are determined to achieve peace. ....
Second, the time is right because a battle is underway for the future of the Middle East -- and we must not cede victory to the extremists..... if Palestinian reformers cannot deliver on this hopeful vision, then the forces of extremism and terror will be strengthened....
Third, the time is right because the world understands the urgency of supporting these negotiations......
....For these negotiations to succeed, the Palestinians must do their part..... They must demonstrate that a Palestinian state will ....dismantle the infrastructure of terror.....
The Israelis must do their part. They must show the world that they are ready to begin -- to bring an end to the occupation that began in 1967 through a negotiated settlement....
...Arab states also have a vital role to play..... All Arab states should show their strong support for the government of President Abbas -- and ....should also reach out to Israel, work toward the normalization of relations, and demonstrate in both word and deed that they believe that Israel and its people have a permanent home in the Middle East.....
Finally, the international community has important responsibilities....With strong backing from those gathered here, the Palestinian government can build the free institutions that will support a free Palestinian state.
The United States will help Palestinian leaders build these free institutions -- and the United States will keep its commitment to the security of Israel as a Jewish state and homeland for the Jewish people....
PRESIDENT BUSH: .... I'm about to read a statement that was agreed upon by our distinguished guests:
The representatives of the government of the state of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization.... concluded the following joint understanding.
We express our determination to bring an end to bloodshed, suffering and decades of conflict between our peoples; to usher in a new era of peace....
....we agree to immediately launch good-faith bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty, resolving all outstanding issues....
We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations, and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008......
....President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert will continue to meet on a bi-weekly basis ....
...The parties also commit to immediately implement their respective obligations under the performance-based road map ...and agree to form an American, Palestinian and Israeli mechanism, led by the United States, to follow up on the implementation of the road map.
The parties further commit to continue the implementation of the ongoing obligations of the road map until they reach a peace treaty. The United States will monitor and judge the fulfillment of the commitment of both sides of the road map. Unless otherwise agreed by the parties, implementation of the future peace treaty will be subject to the implementation of the road map, as judged by the United States.
Congratulations for your strong leadership. (Applause.)
....Our purpose here in Annapolis is not to conclude an agreement. Rather, it is to launch negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians..... I believe now is precisely the right time to begin these negotiations -- for a number of reasons:
First, the time is right because Palestinians and Israelis have leaders who are determined to achieve peace. ....
Second, the time is right because a battle is underway for the future of the Middle East -- and we must not cede victory to the extremists..... if Palestinian reformers cannot deliver on this hopeful vision, then the forces of extremism and terror will be strengthened....
Third, the time is right because the world understands the urgency of supporting these negotiations......
....For these negotiations to succeed, the Palestinians must do their part..... They must demonstrate that a Palestinian state will ....dismantle the infrastructure of terror.....
The Israelis must do their part. They must show the world that they are ready to begin -- to bring an end to the occupation that began in 1967 through a negotiated settlement....
...Arab states also have a vital role to play..... All Arab states should show their strong support for the government of President Abbas -- and ....should also reach out to Israel, work toward the normalization of relations, and demonstrate in both word and deed that they believe that Israel and its people have a permanent home in the Middle East.....
Finally, the international community has important responsibilities....With strong backing from those gathered here, the Palestinian government can build the free institutions that will support a free Palestinian state.
The United States will help Palestinian leaders build these free institutions -- and the United States will keep its commitment to the security of Israel as a Jewish state and homeland for the Jewish people....
Saturday, November 24, 2007
The forgotten Refugees
From The Natinal Post (Canada), by Steven Edwards, CanWest News Service, Monday, November 05, 2007 [my emphasis added - SL]:
UNITED NATIONS - New research shows there was Arab inter-state "collusion" to persecute Jews in Arab countries after Israel's creation, former federal justice minister Irwin Cotler and Jewish rights scholars ... announce[d] .... in New York.
While it is known up to 850,000 Jews left Arab countries after the post-war division of the Palestine mandate, the group is holding a news conference to highlight a rediscovered Arab League "draft law" that suggests a pan-Arab conspiracy was at play. The new assessment comes just ahead of a major Israeli-Palestinian peace conference in Annapolis, Md., where the rights of millions of descendants of up to 600,000 Palestinian refugees of the Arab-Israeli conflict will be discussed -- but not the rights of Jews squeezed from Arab countries.
Without the inter-Arab draft, the measures individual Arab states took against their Jewish citizens may not have been so widespread, the researchers will say. Only 8,000 Jews remain in 10 Arab countries today that once hosted many more.
"We will show that the various state sanctions in Arab countries did not occur haphazardly, but were the result of an international collusion organized by the League of Arab States at the time to set in place a blueprint for the denationalization of their Jewish nationals, the sequestrations of their property and the declaration of Jews as enemies of the state," Mr. Cotler said.
He said he and his research colleagues will also present evidence showing the United Nations failed to investigate the matter, in part because an Arab League representative ran the agenda at one of its key debating chambers.
"It is now clear the United Nations has played a singular role in expunging the whole question of Jewish refugees from Arab countries on the Middle East agenda for the last 60 years," Mr. Cotler said....
..."The existence of the Arab League draft law makes the story of what happened all the more heinous because it represented the acting out of a master plan," Mr. Matas said . "It enhances the case for redress, which should at least include recognition of the Jewish refugees, given the peace process speaks of redress for the Palestinian refugees."
The researchers hope their work will influence U.S. lawmakers currently considering two bills that call for the rights of all refugees -- Muslims, Jews, Christians and any others displaced in the region-- to be recognized in the peace talks....
....The researchers will also call on the Canadian government -- as chair of the Refugee Working Group under a peace track launched in Madrid in 1991 -- to include displaced Jews as refugees.
Today comprising 22 countries, the Arab League had seven members in 1947, the year documents say its political committee drafted a Text of Law concerning Jews. They were Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen. After the UN created Jewish and Arab areas in the Palestine mandate, laws reflecting what had appeared in the Arab League draft began to appear in Arab countries.
The draft law calls for registering all Jewish citizens of Arab countries, and freezing their bank accounts to use the money to help fund "resistance to Zionist ambitions in Palestine." This would happen even to those Jews prepared to join an Arab army. A Jew considered an "active Zionist" would be interned as a political prisoner. Such Jews would see their money confiscated.
Brackets written into the draft law suggest it was intended as a template: "Beginning with (date), all Jewish citizens of (name of country) will be considered as members of the Jewish minority State of Palestine," it begins.
The researchers located the document in UN and World Jewish Congress archives after spotting a May 16, 1948, New York Times reference to it. In the Times article, Congress officials cited the document as evidence Jews faced grave danger in Arab lands -- something the researchers say turned out to be prophetic.
UNITED NATIONS - New research shows there was Arab inter-state "collusion" to persecute Jews in Arab countries after Israel's creation, former federal justice minister Irwin Cotler and Jewish rights scholars ... announce[d] .... in New York.
While it is known up to 850,000 Jews left Arab countries after the post-war division of the Palestine mandate, the group is holding a news conference to highlight a rediscovered Arab League "draft law" that suggests a pan-Arab conspiracy was at play. The new assessment comes just ahead of a major Israeli-Palestinian peace conference in Annapolis, Md., where the rights of millions of descendants of up to 600,000 Palestinian refugees of the Arab-Israeli conflict will be discussed -- but not the rights of Jews squeezed from Arab countries.
Without the inter-Arab draft, the measures individual Arab states took against their Jewish citizens may not have been so widespread, the researchers will say. Only 8,000 Jews remain in 10 Arab countries today that once hosted many more.
"We will show that the various state sanctions in Arab countries did not occur haphazardly, but were the result of an international collusion organized by the League of Arab States at the time to set in place a blueprint for the denationalization of their Jewish nationals, the sequestrations of their property and the declaration of Jews as enemies of the state," Mr. Cotler said.
He said he and his research colleagues will also present evidence showing the United Nations failed to investigate the matter, in part because an Arab League representative ran the agenda at one of its key debating chambers.
"It is now clear the United Nations has played a singular role in expunging the whole question of Jewish refugees from Arab countries on the Middle East agenda for the last 60 years," Mr. Cotler said....
..."The existence of the Arab League draft law makes the story of what happened all the more heinous because it represented the acting out of a master plan," Mr. Matas said . "It enhances the case for redress, which should at least include recognition of the Jewish refugees, given the peace process speaks of redress for the Palestinian refugees."
The researchers hope their work will influence U.S. lawmakers currently considering two bills that call for the rights of all refugees -- Muslims, Jews, Christians and any others displaced in the region-- to be recognized in the peace talks....
....The researchers will also call on the Canadian government -- as chair of the Refugee Working Group under a peace track launched in Madrid in 1991 -- to include displaced Jews as refugees.
Today comprising 22 countries, the Arab League had seven members in 1947, the year documents say its political committee drafted a Text of Law concerning Jews. They were Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen. After the UN created Jewish and Arab areas in the Palestine mandate, laws reflecting what had appeared in the Arab League draft began to appear in Arab countries.
The draft law calls for registering all Jewish citizens of Arab countries, and freezing their bank accounts to use the money to help fund "resistance to Zionist ambitions in Palestine." This would happen even to those Jews prepared to join an Arab army. A Jew considered an "active Zionist" would be interned as a political prisoner. Such Jews would see their money confiscated.
Brackets written into the draft law suggest it was intended as a template: "Beginning with (date), all Jewish citizens of (name of country) will be considered as members of the Jewish minority State of Palestine," it begins.
The researchers located the document in UN and World Jewish Congress archives after spotting a May 16, 1948, New York Times reference to it. In the Times article, Congress officials cited the document as evidence Jews faced grave danger in Arab lands -- something the researchers say turned out to be prophetic.
Israel is a Jewish State
From the Boston Globe, November 14, 2007, by Jeff Jacoby [with emphasis added...]:
IN ADVANCE of the upcoming diplomatic conference in Annapolis, Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced the other day that he expects the Palestinian Authority to finally acknowledge Israel's existence as a Jewish state. A newly arrived visitor from Mars might wonder why this should even be an issue - after all, Israel is a Jewish state. If the more than 55 countries that make up the Organization of the Islamic Conference are entitled to recognition as Muslim states, and if the 22 members of the Arab League are universally accepted as Arab states, why should anyone balk at acknowledging Israel as the world's lone Jewish state?
Yet Olmert's demand was rebuffed. Saeb Erekat, the senior Palestinian Authority negotiator, said on Monday that Palestinians would refuse to recognize Israel's Jewish identity on the grounds that "it is not acceptable for a country to link its national character to a specific religion."
In fact, there are many countries in which national identity and religion are linked. Argentinian law mandates government support for the Roman Catholic faith. Queen Elizabeth II is the supreme governor of the Church of England. In the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, the constitution proclaims Buddhism the nation's "spiritual heritage." The prevailing religion in Greece," declares Section II of the Greek Constitution, "is that of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ."
In no region of the world do countries so routinely link their national character to a specific religion as in the Muslim Middle East. The flag of Saudi Arabia features the shahada - the Islamic declaration of faith - in white Arabic script on a green background; on the Iranian flag, the Islamic phrase "Allahu Akbar" (God is great") appears 22 times. And then there is Erekat's own Palestinian Authority, whose Basic Law provides in Article 4 that "Islam is the official religion in Palestine."
Clearly, then, Erekat and the Palestinian Authority do not refuse to accept Israel's legitimacy as a Jewish state out of some principled opposition to linking national and religious identity. Perhaps, our visiting Martian might surmise, their objection is simply tactical: Are the Palestinians withholding formal recognition from Israel in order to extract some corresponding recognition for themselves?
But that explanation also doesn't hold water. Olmert has repeatedly endorsed the creation of a sovereign state of Palestine. "We support the establishment of a modern, democratic Palestinian state," he says. "The existence of two nations, one Jewish and one Palestinian, is the full solution to the national aspirations and problems of each of the peoples." Last week he went so far as to suggest that a plan for Palestinian peace and statehood might be achieved "even before the end of President Bush's term in office."
So why won't the leaders of the Palestinian Authority acknowledge the obvious - that Israel is the Jewish state? The Jewish connection to Palestine is a matter not just of rich historical fact, but of international law. When the League of Nations entrusted Britain with the Mandate for Palestine in 1922, it expressly recognized "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" and the rightfulness of "reconstituting their national home in that country." By that point, Britain had already transferred 80 percent of historic Palestine to Arab rule - today's Muslim kingdom of Jordan. All that remained for a Jewish state was the residual 20 percent. But there, at least, it was clear that the Jewish community was "in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance," as Winston Churchill underscored at the time.
Eighty-five years later, that small sliver of the Middle East is home to nearly half the world's Jews. If that isn't a Jewish state, what is?
Yet all this is beside the point. The refusal of the Palestinian Authority to acknowledge Israel as a legitimate Jewish state isn't a denial of reality; it is a sign of their determination to change that reality. Like Arab leaders going back a century, they seek not to live in peace with the Jewish state, but in place of the Jewish state.
Olmert can show up at Annapolis bearing Palestinian sovereignty on a silver platter, with half of Jerusalem thrown in for good measure. He will not walk away with peace. On the contrary: He will intensify the Arab determination to replace the world's one Jewish state with its 23rd Arab state.
The key to Arab-Israeli peace is not Palestinian statehood. It is to compel the Arab world to abandon its dream of liquidating Israel. As a matter of national self-respect, Olmert should repeat his demand that the Palestinians acknowledge Israel's Jewish identity - and make it nonnegotiable. If Israel cannot insist even on so fundamental a point of honor, it has already lost more than it knows.
IN ADVANCE of the upcoming diplomatic conference in Annapolis, Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced the other day that he expects the Palestinian Authority to finally acknowledge Israel's existence as a Jewish state. A newly arrived visitor from Mars might wonder why this should even be an issue - after all, Israel is a Jewish state. If the more than 55 countries that make up the Organization of the Islamic Conference are entitled to recognition as Muslim states, and if the 22 members of the Arab League are universally accepted as Arab states, why should anyone balk at acknowledging Israel as the world's lone Jewish state?
Yet Olmert's demand was rebuffed. Saeb Erekat, the senior Palestinian Authority negotiator, said on Monday that Palestinians would refuse to recognize Israel's Jewish identity on the grounds that "it is not acceptable for a country to link its national character to a specific religion."
In fact, there are many countries in which national identity and religion are linked. Argentinian law mandates government support for the Roman Catholic faith. Queen Elizabeth II is the supreme governor of the Church of England. In the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, the constitution proclaims Buddhism the nation's "spiritual heritage." The prevailing religion in Greece," declares Section II of the Greek Constitution, "is that of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ."
In no region of the world do countries so routinely link their national character to a specific religion as in the Muslim Middle East. The flag of Saudi Arabia features the shahada - the Islamic declaration of faith - in white Arabic script on a green background; on the Iranian flag, the Islamic phrase "Allahu Akbar" (God is great") appears 22 times. And then there is Erekat's own Palestinian Authority, whose Basic Law provides in Article 4 that "Islam is the official religion in Palestine."
Clearly, then, Erekat and the Palestinian Authority do not refuse to accept Israel's legitimacy as a Jewish state out of some principled opposition to linking national and religious identity. Perhaps, our visiting Martian might surmise, their objection is simply tactical: Are the Palestinians withholding formal recognition from Israel in order to extract some corresponding recognition for themselves?
But that explanation also doesn't hold water. Olmert has repeatedly endorsed the creation of a sovereign state of Palestine. "We support the establishment of a modern, democratic Palestinian state," he says. "The existence of two nations, one Jewish and one Palestinian, is the full solution to the national aspirations and problems of each of the peoples." Last week he went so far as to suggest that a plan for Palestinian peace and statehood might be achieved "even before the end of President Bush's term in office."
So why won't the leaders of the Palestinian Authority acknowledge the obvious - that Israel is the Jewish state? The Jewish connection to Palestine is a matter not just of rich historical fact, but of international law. When the League of Nations entrusted Britain with the Mandate for Palestine in 1922, it expressly recognized "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" and the rightfulness of "reconstituting their national home in that country." By that point, Britain had already transferred 80 percent of historic Palestine to Arab rule - today's Muslim kingdom of Jordan. All that remained for a Jewish state was the residual 20 percent. But there, at least, it was clear that the Jewish community was "in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance," as Winston Churchill underscored at the time.
Eighty-five years later, that small sliver of the Middle East is home to nearly half the world's Jews. If that isn't a Jewish state, what is?
Yet all this is beside the point. The refusal of the Palestinian Authority to acknowledge Israel as a legitimate Jewish state isn't a denial of reality; it is a sign of their determination to change that reality. Like Arab leaders going back a century, they seek not to live in peace with the Jewish state, but in place of the Jewish state.
Olmert can show up at Annapolis bearing Palestinian sovereignty on a silver platter, with half of Jerusalem thrown in for good measure. He will not walk away with peace. On the contrary: He will intensify the Arab determination to replace the world's one Jewish state with its 23rd Arab state.
The key to Arab-Israeli peace is not Palestinian statehood. It is to compel the Arab world to abandon its dream of liquidating Israel. As a matter of national self-respect, Olmert should repeat his demand that the Palestinians acknowledge Israel's Jewish identity - and make it nonnegotiable. If Israel cannot insist even on so fundamental a point of honor, it has already lost more than it knows.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Does Syria want peace?
Analysis by Ely Karmon, from THE JERUSALEM POST, Nov. 22, 2007 [my emphasis added - SL]:
... Syria [is] the key to a stable and pacific Lebanon and a disarmed "political" Hizbullah.
Syria - not Iran - has provided the most important support for Hizbullah's terrorist and guerrilla activity against Israel from the north. Without Syria's overall strategic umbrella, specific military and political coordination and pressure on Beirut to give the organization free rein in southern Lebanon, Hizbullah could not have achieved its current status. Syrian aid in heavy weaponry alongside Iranian support has transformed Hizbullah into a strategic partner and operational arm of the Syrian army.
Syria is also heavily involved in the support of all the radical Palestinian organizations and factions and actively participated in the derailing of the peace process between Israel, the Palestinians and other Arab states.
But Syria is also extremely important in the attempt to isolate Iran in the region by denying the Teheran regime its only ally in the Arab world and the direct operational link to the Palestinian radical organizations acting from Damascus. Without that alliance, Teheran's negative influence on the Palestinian arena and on the peace process would be significantly curtailed.
It is possible that the combined efforts of the European Union leaders, the Bush administration and the Israeli leadership will convince the Syrian leaders of their sincere wish to strike a deal and offer Damascus the return of the Golan Heights and generous economic incentives. Still, in my view, Bashar Assad's regime actually has other priorities that outweigh the Western and Israeli potential incentives.
Fear of the fall of the regime
....Syria lacks internal coherence due to its diverse population and minority-dominated regime. To survive, the regime needs transcendent slogans like Arabism. The regime requires conflict and radicalism as tools for maintaining internal control.
Damascus correctly assumes that any strengthening of US influence in the region will run counter to Syrian interests, so it is no accident that the regime has become the most systematically anti-American state in the Arab world. Defiance and resistance to American pressure will win Assad the support of the Syrian public, and even popular Arab support at large, and ensure the survival of his regime for many years to come.
For Syria, Lebanon is much more important than the Golan Heights....
....Although US policymakers publicly hinted that the United States would help bring about a "Lebanon free of foreign forces" once a peace treaty was concluded, they sent Damascus unmistakable signals to the contrary. American officials failed to recognize that Assad would be prepared to sign a peace treaty only if the expected benefits outweighed the guaranteed political, strategic, and economic returns of the occupation of Lebanon.
Lebanon is, of course, important to Syria for political and military reasons, but this tends to overshadow the economic aspect of Syrian-Lebanese relations. The direct and indirect income derived from Syria's presence in Lebanon has over time become an almost indispensable factor in the Syrian economy.
The Baker and Hamilton Iraq Study Group report proposed cooperation with Syria in stabilizing Iraq. But what Assad wants is a cancellation of the investigation into the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri and the corollary international tribunal approved by the Security Council, a free hand in Lebanon and possession of the Golan without conditions. Are these acceptable conditions?
A Syrian peace agreement with Israel foretells a peace agreement of Israel with Lebanon - which means the Cedar country will be lost forever as a Syrian protectorate.
Palestine part of Greater Syria?
.....This Syrian regime probably still dreams of seeing the national Palestinian movement, like in the 1920s and 30s, part of a Greater Syria.
Waiting for the Iranian nuclear umbrella
Should Iran succeed in completing its nuclear project and declare a nuclear weapons capability, Syria would face a conflicting situation. On the one hand, its devotion to the Arab cause would compel it to share a sense of anxiety. On the other hand, more than other Arab states, it would be untroubled by an Iranian nuclear capability due to the strategic partnership between the two states. Syria would see an Iranian bomb as a useful deterrent against Israel and a newly assertive Iraq and as an important constraint on US freedom of action in the region......That's the sort of rising star to which Syria would like to be hitched.
....In this author's view, a real change in the Syrian regional strategy could happen only if Assad evaluates that the US, or Israel with US support, would attack the nuclear facilities in Iran and thus bring even more direct pressure on the rogue elements in the Middle East.
Possibly, the September 6 Israeli air attack against the presumed "nuclear facility" has shaken the Damascus leaders' confidence in the Iranian invincibility on the nuclear front and they want to use the conference as a feeler for the future US plans and a kind of insurance in case…
The US, Europe and the other powers present at Annapolis should insure that Syria's participation at the conference will not be used to bestow on its regime "incentives" like the "liberation" of the Golan, recognizing its "rights, interests and positive role" in Lebanon, or the closing of the investigation into Rafik Hariri's assassination.
The Damascus regime should see at the conference a united front which presses it firmly, first and foremost, to stop the support to Hizbullah and the Palestinian radicals and to exit the strategic alliance with Iran.
Ely Karmon is Senior Research Scholar at Institute for Counter-Terrorism, The Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya.
... Syria [is] the key to a stable and pacific Lebanon and a disarmed "political" Hizbullah.
Syria - not Iran - has provided the most important support for Hizbullah's terrorist and guerrilla activity against Israel from the north. Without Syria's overall strategic umbrella, specific military and political coordination and pressure on Beirut to give the organization free rein in southern Lebanon, Hizbullah could not have achieved its current status. Syrian aid in heavy weaponry alongside Iranian support has transformed Hizbullah into a strategic partner and operational arm of the Syrian army.
Syria is also heavily involved in the support of all the radical Palestinian organizations and factions and actively participated in the derailing of the peace process between Israel, the Palestinians and other Arab states.
But Syria is also extremely important in the attempt to isolate Iran in the region by denying the Teheran regime its only ally in the Arab world and the direct operational link to the Palestinian radical organizations acting from Damascus. Without that alliance, Teheran's negative influence on the Palestinian arena and on the peace process would be significantly curtailed.
It is possible that the combined efforts of the European Union leaders, the Bush administration and the Israeli leadership will convince the Syrian leaders of their sincere wish to strike a deal and offer Damascus the return of the Golan Heights and generous economic incentives. Still, in my view, Bashar Assad's regime actually has other priorities that outweigh the Western and Israeli potential incentives.
Fear of the fall of the regime
....Syria lacks internal coherence due to its diverse population and minority-dominated regime. To survive, the regime needs transcendent slogans like Arabism. The regime requires conflict and radicalism as tools for maintaining internal control.
Damascus correctly assumes that any strengthening of US influence in the region will run counter to Syrian interests, so it is no accident that the regime has become the most systematically anti-American state in the Arab world. Defiance and resistance to American pressure will win Assad the support of the Syrian public, and even popular Arab support at large, and ensure the survival of his regime for many years to come.
For Syria, Lebanon is much more important than the Golan Heights....
....Although US policymakers publicly hinted that the United States would help bring about a "Lebanon free of foreign forces" once a peace treaty was concluded, they sent Damascus unmistakable signals to the contrary. American officials failed to recognize that Assad would be prepared to sign a peace treaty only if the expected benefits outweighed the guaranteed political, strategic, and economic returns of the occupation of Lebanon.
Lebanon is, of course, important to Syria for political and military reasons, but this tends to overshadow the economic aspect of Syrian-Lebanese relations. The direct and indirect income derived from Syria's presence in Lebanon has over time become an almost indispensable factor in the Syrian economy.
The Baker and Hamilton Iraq Study Group report proposed cooperation with Syria in stabilizing Iraq. But what Assad wants is a cancellation of the investigation into the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri and the corollary international tribunal approved by the Security Council, a free hand in Lebanon and possession of the Golan without conditions. Are these acceptable conditions?
A Syrian peace agreement with Israel foretells a peace agreement of Israel with Lebanon - which means the Cedar country will be lost forever as a Syrian protectorate.
Palestine part of Greater Syria?
.....This Syrian regime probably still dreams of seeing the national Palestinian movement, like in the 1920s and 30s, part of a Greater Syria.
Waiting for the Iranian nuclear umbrella
Should Iran succeed in completing its nuclear project and declare a nuclear weapons capability, Syria would face a conflicting situation. On the one hand, its devotion to the Arab cause would compel it to share a sense of anxiety. On the other hand, more than other Arab states, it would be untroubled by an Iranian nuclear capability due to the strategic partnership between the two states. Syria would see an Iranian bomb as a useful deterrent against Israel and a newly assertive Iraq and as an important constraint on US freedom of action in the region......That's the sort of rising star to which Syria would like to be hitched.
....In this author's view, a real change in the Syrian regional strategy could happen only if Assad evaluates that the US, or Israel with US support, would attack the nuclear facilities in Iran and thus bring even more direct pressure on the rogue elements in the Middle East.
Possibly, the September 6 Israeli air attack against the presumed "nuclear facility" has shaken the Damascus leaders' confidence in the Iranian invincibility on the nuclear front and they want to use the conference as a feeler for the future US plans and a kind of insurance in case…
The US, Europe and the other powers present at Annapolis should insure that Syria's participation at the conference will not be used to bestow on its regime "incentives" like the "liberation" of the Golan, recognizing its "rights, interests and positive role" in Lebanon, or the closing of the investigation into Rafik Hariri's assassination.
The Damascus regime should see at the conference a united front which presses it firmly, first and foremost, to stop the support to Hizbullah and the Palestinian radicals and to exit the strategic alliance with Iran.
Ely Karmon is Senior Research Scholar at Institute for Counter-Terrorism, The Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Stop abusing the memory of Yitzhak Rabin
From JPost, by Isi Leibler November 21, 2007:
... I am enraged at the cynical, even obscene manner, in which the memory of an assassinated prime minister has been transformed into a cult to promote political objectives ... which Rabin adamantly opposed, even at the height of the Oslo period of his career.....
...I had considerable interaction with Rabin ...I found his frankness refreshing and developed a warm relationship with him. ...Oslo proved to be Rabin's undoing....Shimon Peres, Yossi Beilin and their cohorts had sandbagged him into endorsing policies which utterly conflicted with his long-standing attitudes....
... in the course of my private encounters with Rabin I shared with him my growing concerns. I clearly recollect him telling me repeatedly that Oslo was a "gamble" but that he felt obliged to put it to the test. "If it fails," he said, "we will have a carte blanche to take everything back." ....
....It is therefore clear that despite the best possible intentions, Rabin gambled and failed. As a consequence, the nation paid a bitter price. Since Oslo, 1,400 Israelis were killed and some 20,000 injured. Despite one-sided and unilateral concessions, our geopolitical position is at an all time low. Beyond that, we made an irretrievable blunder by literally resurrecting Arafat who at the time, in the wake of the first Gulf War, was effectively a political corpse, even reviled by the Arabs....
....It is therefore surely surrealistic, year after year, to hear speeches sanctimoniously extolling and misrepresenting Rabin's allegedly glorious Oslo legacy and spuriously claiming that he was the first to achieve a historic breakthrough in peace with the Arabs. Promoting such fantasies renders a disservice to Rabin.
It is even more infuriating when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, President Peres and Peace Now activists have the gall to claim that they are implementing Rabin's vision. How Rabin may have acted had he not been struck down by the assassin is open to conjecture. Some speculate that once he came to the realization that his gamble had failed, unlike his Labor successors, he would have reverted to his former stance and initiated tough and resolute military action.
However, what is surely beyond the realm of speculation is that Rabin was a genuine Labor Zionist and despised the Peace Now agitators. He displayed uninhibited contempt toward Beilin, Burg and the young radicals who were then steering the Labor Party toward post-Zionism. The bitter remarks about Shimon Peres which appear in his memoirs speak for themselves.
Indeed, even at the height of the Oslo debate, Rabin's views remained diametrically opposed to the proposals now emanating from those claiming to have inherited his mantle. For example, in one of his last speeches in the Knesset, on October 5 1995, only days before his assassination, referring to borders Rabin said: "We will not return to 4 June 1967 lines."
In relation to Jerusalem he said "First and foremost, united Jerusalem …as the capital of Israel under Israeli sovereignty."
And about settlements he stated "We committed ourselves before this Knesset not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim government and not to hinder building for natural growth."
In this context, for Prime Minister Olmert and his allies to continuously proclaim that they are fulfilling Rabin's vision is pure Orwellian double speak.
But the problem transcends misrepresenting themselves as heirs to Rabin. ....To make matters worse, by collectively portraying entire law abiding sectors of Israeli society especially Orthodox Jews and settlers, as sub- human accomplices to the Rabin assassination, the promoters of the personality cult are themselves indulging in outright incitement and defamation.
....Yitzhak Rabin should be commemorated as an assassinated Israeli Prime Minister who served his country with distinction as a leader, military commander and diplomat. However such commemorations must be apolitical and promote harmony and unity, expressing a tragic national loss as opposed to indulging in divisive and provocative political opportunism.
This, I believe, is how the overwhelming majority of Israelis would wish to honor the memory of Yitzhak Rabin.
The writer is a former chairman of the Governing Board of the World Jewish Congress and a veteran international Jewish leader.
... I am enraged at the cynical, even obscene manner, in which the memory of an assassinated prime minister has been transformed into a cult to promote political objectives ... which Rabin adamantly opposed, even at the height of the Oslo period of his career.....
...I had considerable interaction with Rabin ...I found his frankness refreshing and developed a warm relationship with him. ...Oslo proved to be Rabin's undoing....Shimon Peres, Yossi Beilin and their cohorts had sandbagged him into endorsing policies which utterly conflicted with his long-standing attitudes....
... in the course of my private encounters with Rabin I shared with him my growing concerns. I clearly recollect him telling me repeatedly that Oslo was a "gamble" but that he felt obliged to put it to the test. "If it fails," he said, "we will have a carte blanche to take everything back." ....
....It is therefore clear that despite the best possible intentions, Rabin gambled and failed. As a consequence, the nation paid a bitter price. Since Oslo, 1,400 Israelis were killed and some 20,000 injured. Despite one-sided and unilateral concessions, our geopolitical position is at an all time low. Beyond that, we made an irretrievable blunder by literally resurrecting Arafat who at the time, in the wake of the first Gulf War, was effectively a political corpse, even reviled by the Arabs....
....It is therefore surely surrealistic, year after year, to hear speeches sanctimoniously extolling and misrepresenting Rabin's allegedly glorious Oslo legacy and spuriously claiming that he was the first to achieve a historic breakthrough in peace with the Arabs. Promoting such fantasies renders a disservice to Rabin.
It is even more infuriating when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, President Peres and Peace Now activists have the gall to claim that they are implementing Rabin's vision. How Rabin may have acted had he not been struck down by the assassin is open to conjecture. Some speculate that once he came to the realization that his gamble had failed, unlike his Labor successors, he would have reverted to his former stance and initiated tough and resolute military action.
However, what is surely beyond the realm of speculation is that Rabin was a genuine Labor Zionist and despised the Peace Now agitators. He displayed uninhibited contempt toward Beilin, Burg and the young radicals who were then steering the Labor Party toward post-Zionism. The bitter remarks about Shimon Peres which appear in his memoirs speak for themselves.
Indeed, even at the height of the Oslo debate, Rabin's views remained diametrically opposed to the proposals now emanating from those claiming to have inherited his mantle. For example, in one of his last speeches in the Knesset, on October 5 1995, only days before his assassination, referring to borders Rabin said: "We will not return to 4 June 1967 lines."
In relation to Jerusalem he said "First and foremost, united Jerusalem …as the capital of Israel under Israeli sovereignty."
And about settlements he stated "We committed ourselves before this Knesset not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim government and not to hinder building for natural growth."
In this context, for Prime Minister Olmert and his allies to continuously proclaim that they are fulfilling Rabin's vision is pure Orwellian double speak.
But the problem transcends misrepresenting themselves as heirs to Rabin. ....To make matters worse, by collectively portraying entire law abiding sectors of Israeli society especially Orthodox Jews and settlers, as sub- human accomplices to the Rabin assassination, the promoters of the personality cult are themselves indulging in outright incitement and defamation.
....Yitzhak Rabin should be commemorated as an assassinated Israeli Prime Minister who served his country with distinction as a leader, military commander and diplomat. However such commemorations must be apolitical and promote harmony and unity, expressing a tragic national loss as opposed to indulging in divisive and provocative political opportunism.
This, I believe, is how the overwhelming majority of Israelis would wish to honor the memory of Yitzhak Rabin.
The writer is a former chairman of the Governing Board of the World Jewish Congress and a veteran international Jewish leader.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Conspiracy theory dismantled
From a review of "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy" by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt in The Weekend Australian, by Bret Stephens November 17, 2007 [very brief excerpts only - follow the link for the full article]:
JOHN J. Mearsheimer ...[and]...Stephen M. Walt ...are prominent and highly respected theorists of the realist school of international relations.... That is in part why, when The Israel Lobby first saw light in March 2006 as a long article in the London Review of Books, it caused a worldwide sensation and why its charges were taken with the utmost seriousness by gleeful admirers and shocked detractors alike....
In short, much of The Israel Lobby's authority derives from its authors' resumes. Something similar can be said of the book's effect, particularly of the damage it has caused by throwing a mantle of academic legitimacy over some of the most disreputable ideas to infect political discourse...
... The Israel Lobby makes the case, briefly, that US support for Israel is not only wildly and irrationally excessive but has increasingly become a strategic liability; that it can no longer be justified on moral grounds; that it has led the US into one catastrophic misadventure in Iraq and may soon lead it into further misadventures against Syria and Iran; and, what is key, that it has been sustained only by the strenuous and sometimes bullying exertions of a "loose coalition" of pro-Israel interest groups and individuals, which in turn are often co-ordinated with the Israeli Government.....
.... Precisely because it has issued from two respected establishment figures and comes cloaked in a tone of academic reasonableness, The Israel Lobby and its claims have been subjected to exceptionally close scrutiny during the past 1 1/2 years by any number of careful analysts and researchers. What their collective labours have demonstrated beyond any doubt is that behind the authors' conclusions lies a farrago of shoddy or nonexistent scholarship and rank intellectual dishonesty....
....consider the challenge for a reader or reviewer who must wade through not just The Israel Lobby's 355 pages of text but its no fewer than 1399 footnotes, many of which contain references to multiple sources. The opportunities for intellectual mischief are staggering, and Mearsheimer and Walt rarely miss a chance to take them.
Amid the blizzard of detail, however, one thing stands out: the complete absence of original scholarship. Scarcely any primary source materials cited; no first-hand interviews; no hint that Mearsheimer or Walt bothered to visit Israel during the course of their researches or so much as spoke to an actual member of the lobby against which they level heavy charges of working at cross-purposes with vital US interests.
.... Instances in which Mearsheimer and Walt present claims that are wholly unsubstantiated or blatantly contradicted by a reading of the sources they themselves cite in their footnotes multiply in dizzying profusion. It is no doubt for this reason, among others, that Benny Morris, a controversial Israeli historian on whose scholarship and credentials Mearsheimer and Walt heavily rely, wrote of their original essay that were it "an actual person, I would have to say that he did not have a single honest bone in his body".
True, the authors are on somewhat safer ground with some of their other sources. But what [nasty] sources those are! In addition to Chomsky, one finds respectful appeals in The Israel Lobby to the work of Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish supporter of Hezbollah, as well as to revisionist historian Ilan Pappe, the hysterically anti-Israel Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and radical online newsletter Counterpunch. Where, moreover, the likes of the Brookings Institution and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy are dismissed by Mearsheimer and Walt as lapdogs of the Israel lobby, these other disseminators of supposedly more objective information escape identification as voices from the far Left or the lunatic fringe.....
.... their whole argument is geared towards insinuating (sundry disclaimers notwithstanding) that not Islamist but Jewish behaviour, objectively considered, is the menace to the peace of the world.
...."Some Islamic radicals," they grudgingly concede, "are genuinely upset by what they regard as the West's materialism and venality, its alleged theft of Arab oil, the support for corrupt Arab monarchies, its repeated military interventions in the region, etc." .... if it is the case that Osama bin Laden is "genuinely upset" (!) over our sins against Islam, why should Mearsheimer and Walt's principal prescription for palliating this discontent be to cut back or sever our ties with Israel? Why not press for cutting our ties to the Saudi royal family, or voluntarily paying more taxes on oil, or devoting ourselves wholeheartedly to improving America's moral tone so as to lessen the offence to bin Laden family values? Ah, but none of those would lead us back, always back, to Israel and its American lobby....
....What need for manipulation by unseen forces when the simple truth... is that friends of Israel have "a pretty good product to sell" and that this product is not fake, fabricated or ersatz but a country whose democratic history and daily tribulations resonate in a compelling way with a whole variety of American audiences: Jewish and Gentile, religious and secular, liberal and conservative?
... why, with all the conspiracy theories that political scientists have at their disposal at any given moment, [should] Mearsheimer and Walt have alighted on this one[?] ...that is a question to which the answer may finally have to be sought in modes of investigative analysis beyond the routinely political.
This article was opriginally published in Commentary Magazine [subscription required] by Bret Stephens, a member of the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal and author of the paper's "Global View", a weekly column.
JOHN J. Mearsheimer ...[and]...Stephen M. Walt ...are prominent and highly respected theorists of the realist school of international relations.... That is in part why, when The Israel Lobby first saw light in March 2006 as a long article in the London Review of Books, it caused a worldwide sensation and why its charges were taken with the utmost seriousness by gleeful admirers and shocked detractors alike....
In short, much of The Israel Lobby's authority derives from its authors' resumes. Something similar can be said of the book's effect, particularly of the damage it has caused by throwing a mantle of academic legitimacy over some of the most disreputable ideas to infect political discourse...
... The Israel Lobby makes the case, briefly, that US support for Israel is not only wildly and irrationally excessive but has increasingly become a strategic liability; that it can no longer be justified on moral grounds; that it has led the US into one catastrophic misadventure in Iraq and may soon lead it into further misadventures against Syria and Iran; and, what is key, that it has been sustained only by the strenuous and sometimes bullying exertions of a "loose coalition" of pro-Israel interest groups and individuals, which in turn are often co-ordinated with the Israeli Government.....
.... Precisely because it has issued from two respected establishment figures and comes cloaked in a tone of academic reasonableness, The Israel Lobby and its claims have been subjected to exceptionally close scrutiny during the past 1 1/2 years by any number of careful analysts and researchers. What their collective labours have demonstrated beyond any doubt is that behind the authors' conclusions lies a farrago of shoddy or nonexistent scholarship and rank intellectual dishonesty....
....consider the challenge for a reader or reviewer who must wade through not just The Israel Lobby's 355 pages of text but its no fewer than 1399 footnotes, many of which contain references to multiple sources. The opportunities for intellectual mischief are staggering, and Mearsheimer and Walt rarely miss a chance to take them.
Amid the blizzard of detail, however, one thing stands out: the complete absence of original scholarship. Scarcely any primary source materials cited; no first-hand interviews; no hint that Mearsheimer or Walt bothered to visit Israel during the course of their researches or so much as spoke to an actual member of the lobby against which they level heavy charges of working at cross-purposes with vital US interests.
.... Instances in which Mearsheimer and Walt present claims that are wholly unsubstantiated or blatantly contradicted by a reading of the sources they themselves cite in their footnotes multiply in dizzying profusion. It is no doubt for this reason, among others, that Benny Morris, a controversial Israeli historian on whose scholarship and credentials Mearsheimer and Walt heavily rely, wrote of their original essay that were it "an actual person, I would have to say that he did not have a single honest bone in his body".
True, the authors are on somewhat safer ground with some of their other sources. But what [nasty] sources those are! In addition to Chomsky, one finds respectful appeals in The Israel Lobby to the work of Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish supporter of Hezbollah, as well as to revisionist historian Ilan Pappe, the hysterically anti-Israel Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and radical online newsletter Counterpunch. Where, moreover, the likes of the Brookings Institution and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy are dismissed by Mearsheimer and Walt as lapdogs of the Israel lobby, these other disseminators of supposedly more objective information escape identification as voices from the far Left or the lunatic fringe.....
.... their whole argument is geared towards insinuating (sundry disclaimers notwithstanding) that not Islamist but Jewish behaviour, objectively considered, is the menace to the peace of the world.
...."Some Islamic radicals," they grudgingly concede, "are genuinely upset by what they regard as the West's materialism and venality, its alleged theft of Arab oil, the support for corrupt Arab monarchies, its repeated military interventions in the region, etc." .... if it is the case that Osama bin Laden is "genuinely upset" (!) over our sins against Islam, why should Mearsheimer and Walt's principal prescription for palliating this discontent be to cut back or sever our ties with Israel? Why not press for cutting our ties to the Saudi royal family, or voluntarily paying more taxes on oil, or devoting ourselves wholeheartedly to improving America's moral tone so as to lessen the offence to bin Laden family values? Ah, but none of those would lead us back, always back, to Israel and its American lobby....
....What need for manipulation by unseen forces when the simple truth... is that friends of Israel have "a pretty good product to sell" and that this product is not fake, fabricated or ersatz but a country whose democratic history and daily tribulations resonate in a compelling way with a whole variety of American audiences: Jewish and Gentile, religious and secular, liberal and conservative?
... why, with all the conspiracy theories that political scientists have at their disposal at any given moment, [should] Mearsheimer and Walt have alighted on this one[?] ...that is a question to which the answer may finally have to be sought in modes of investigative analysis beyond the routinely political.
This article was opriginally published in Commentary Magazine [subscription required] by Bret Stephens, a member of the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal and author of the paper's "Global View", a weekly column.
New Palestinian Political Movement Launched
From AP, by MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, 16/11/07:
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Hundreds of Palestinian business people and professionals, led by an influential billionaire, launched a new political movement Thursday, reflecting growing disillusionment with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party.
...Billionaire businessman Munib al-Masri, 73, inaugurated his "Palestine Forum" with meetings in Ramallah and Gaza, linked by video conference. Supporters said he would convert the new group into a political party and field candidates in the next Palestinian election. No date for an election has been set.
...Recent polls have shown that about a third of the people have no faith in either [Fatah or Hamas]. Al-Masri said he plans to step into that breech, emphasizing the economy, education and welfare programs for the needy as well as reuniting the West Bank and Gaza.
"My concern about the fate of my people has driven me to form a national democratic body that cares about people," al-Masri told The Associated Press. "The situation is very difficult, the national cause is deteriorating and people are frustrated."
The U.S.-educated al-Masri runs an investment company that controls the telecommunications sector and has holdings in industry, agriculture, tourism and in banks. His leadership appeals to the West Bank's elite and middle class, trying to protect their investments and businesses in a chaotic political situation.....
...The 2006 election reflected frustration with Fatah for corruption, nepotism and ineffective rule as much as support for Hamas. Members of the Palestine Forum said if Fatah does not reform itself, the new group is poised to replace it.
Palestinian public opinion expert Jamil Rabah said that is a distinct possibility. The people "are closer to Fatah," supporting a peaceful solution to the conflict with Israel, so "if Fatah doesn't reform itself, people would see the Forum as an alternative."
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Hundreds of Palestinian business people and professionals, led by an influential billionaire, launched a new political movement Thursday, reflecting growing disillusionment with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party.
...Billionaire businessman Munib al-Masri, 73, inaugurated his "Palestine Forum" with meetings in Ramallah and Gaza, linked by video conference. Supporters said he would convert the new group into a political party and field candidates in the next Palestinian election. No date for an election has been set.
...Recent polls have shown that about a third of the people have no faith in either [Fatah or Hamas]. Al-Masri said he plans to step into that breech, emphasizing the economy, education and welfare programs for the needy as well as reuniting the West Bank and Gaza.
"My concern about the fate of my people has driven me to form a national democratic body that cares about people," al-Masri told The Associated Press. "The situation is very difficult, the national cause is deteriorating and people are frustrated."
The U.S.-educated al-Masri runs an investment company that controls the telecommunications sector and has holdings in industry, agriculture, tourism and in banks. His leadership appeals to the West Bank's elite and middle class, trying to protect their investments and businesses in a chaotic political situation.....
...The 2006 election reflected frustration with Fatah for corruption, nepotism and ineffective rule as much as support for Hamas. Members of the Palestine Forum said if Fatah does not reform itself, the new group is poised to replace it.
Palestinian public opinion expert Jamil Rabah said that is a distinct possibility. The people "are closer to Fatah," supporting a peaceful solution to the conflict with Israel, so "if Fatah doesn't reform itself, people would see the Forum as an alternative."
Saturday, November 17, 2007
US slams UN Human Rights Council, says body too focused on Israel
From Ynet, 16/11/07, by Reuters:
US ambassador blasts [UN Human Rights] council for failing to address grave human rights violations across world while 'focusing relentlessly' on Israel.
Israel took the unusual step of calling a vote at a UN General Assembly committee on a resolution that would normally have passed by consensus, saying it wanted to put its criticism about the work of the Human Rights Council on the record....
... Friday's vote on a resolution endorsing the council's working rules, including a periodic human rights review for all countries, passed overwhelmingly, but Israel won backing from the United States, Canada, Australia and three other countries in voting against.
Explaining the US "no" vote, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the new body had failed to address the "deficiencies that had politicized the council and prevented it from acting as a serious and effective human rights institution."
He said it had been "a very bad first year" for the council because of its "relentless focus" on Israel and failure to address serious human rights violations in other countries such as Zimbabwe, North Korea, Iran, Belarus and Cuba.
Israel's deputy ambassador, Daniel Carmon, said the council had shown double standards and hypocrisy. "It is high time to see moral conviction in the Human Rights Council - so that it becomes a shield to protect victims of human rights and not a weapon for those who abuse them," he told the committee.
... French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert, who voted in favor, said he shared concerns about the council's focus on Israel but he said the resolution had [to] pass to allow the council to do its work effectively.
US ambassador blasts [UN Human Rights] council for failing to address grave human rights violations across world while 'focusing relentlessly' on Israel.
Israel took the unusual step of calling a vote at a UN General Assembly committee on a resolution that would normally have passed by consensus, saying it wanted to put its criticism about the work of the Human Rights Council on the record....
... Friday's vote on a resolution endorsing the council's working rules, including a periodic human rights review for all countries, passed overwhelmingly, but Israel won backing from the United States, Canada, Australia and three other countries in voting against.
Explaining the US "no" vote, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the new body had failed to address the "deficiencies that had politicized the council and prevented it from acting as a serious and effective human rights institution."
He said it had been "a very bad first year" for the council because of its "relentless focus" on Israel and failure to address serious human rights violations in other countries such as Zimbabwe, North Korea, Iran, Belarus and Cuba.
Israel's deputy ambassador, Daniel Carmon, said the council had shown double standards and hypocrisy. "It is high time to see moral conviction in the Human Rights Council - so that it becomes a shield to protect victims of human rights and not a weapon for those who abuse them," he told the committee.
... French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert, who voted in favor, said he shared concerns about the council's focus on Israel but he said the resolution had [to] pass to allow the council to do its work effectively.
Iran buying time ...
From THE JERUSALEM POST, by JPost and AP, Nov. 16, 2007:
The IAEA's report on Iran's nuclear activities released Thursday makes it clear that ....that nation continues to buck UN demands and develop its nuclear program, Israel said Friday.
...the long-awaited report ... warned that its knowledge of Teheran's present atomic work was shrinking.
The report also confirmed that Teheran continued to defy the UN Security Council by ignoring its repeated demands to freeze uranium enrichment ...
..... on Friday, Britain's Foreign Office said that talks planned for next week to discuss hardening sanctions over Iran's nuclear program have been postponed....
...A European Union official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Chinese could not attend due to scheduling problems. China, along with Russia, is opposed to a hardening of sanctions against Teheran.
....Russia's Itar-Tass news agency reported the meeting had been postponed because China had refused to attend.
Yaakov Katz contributed to this report.
The IAEA's report on Iran's nuclear activities released Thursday makes it clear that ....that nation continues to buck UN demands and develop its nuclear program, Israel said Friday.
...the long-awaited report ... warned that its knowledge of Teheran's present atomic work was shrinking.
The report also confirmed that Teheran continued to defy the UN Security Council by ignoring its repeated demands to freeze uranium enrichment ...
..... on Friday, Britain's Foreign Office said that talks planned for next week to discuss hardening sanctions over Iran's nuclear program have been postponed....
...A European Union official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Chinese could not attend due to scheduling problems. China, along with Russia, is opposed to a hardening of sanctions against Teheran.
....Russia's Itar-Tass news agency reported the meeting had been postponed because China had refused to attend.
Yaakov Katz contributed to this report.
Putin reneges
From DEBKAfile November 16, 2007:
In a dramatic reverse swing, Putin decides to send uranium to fuel Iran’s atomic power station in Bushehr
The Russian president Vladimir Putin indicated Friday that Moscow would send uranium to Iran’s atomic reactor in Bushehr (a reactor unconnected with Iran’s suspect military program) ....
... by this step, Moscow has backed away from the commitments Putin gave President Bush and Israeli prime minister Olmert, after his mid-October talks with Iranian leaders in Tehran broke down in discord. He then promised to withhold the fuel from the Bushehr reactor and indeed pulled all the Russian staff out before they had completed work on the project’s final stages.
Olmert received Putin’s commitment to withhold the uranium fuel from Iran when they met in the Kremlin on Oct. 18 and passed it on to President Bush and later to French president Nicolas Sarkozy and British premier Gordon Brown in special trips he made to Paris and London. The Israeli prime minister announced then that Israel had a true friend in the Russian leader. He is deeply embarrassed by Putin’s about-face.
It also bodes ill for the third round of sanctions, for which the Bush administration is pushing at the UN Security Council, where Russian holds a veto, now that the nuclear watchdog confirmed in its latest report Nov. 15 that Iran had not given up uranium enrichment.
DEBKAfile’s Moscow sources report that the Russian president has reverted to his previous tactic of broadcasting to Muslim nations a message that Moscow has its own agenda and is willing, unlike Washington, to help them develop their nuclear programs.
The question mark hanging over UN sanctions also affects the decision on military action against Iran’s suspect military nuclear facilities, which President Bush had put on a back burner under the influence of Putin’s breach with Tehran. There was a brief thaw in the tense relations between Washington and Moscow and signs of a new willingness for compromise on both sides on such matters as the US plan to deploy anti-missile systems in East Europe.
The month-long détente was abruptly curtailed Friday, Nov. 16, with Moscow’s decision to let Iran have the uranium to fuel its Bushehr reactor six months before its scheduled start-up. The step was gladly welcomed in Tehran.
In a dramatic reverse swing, Putin decides to send uranium to fuel Iran’s atomic power station in Bushehr
The Russian president Vladimir Putin indicated Friday that Moscow would send uranium to Iran’s atomic reactor in Bushehr (a reactor unconnected with Iran’s suspect military program) ....
... by this step, Moscow has backed away from the commitments Putin gave President Bush and Israeli prime minister Olmert, after his mid-October talks with Iranian leaders in Tehran broke down in discord. He then promised to withhold the fuel from the Bushehr reactor and indeed pulled all the Russian staff out before they had completed work on the project’s final stages.
Olmert received Putin’s commitment to withhold the uranium fuel from Iran when they met in the Kremlin on Oct. 18 and passed it on to President Bush and later to French president Nicolas Sarkozy and British premier Gordon Brown in special trips he made to Paris and London. The Israeli prime minister announced then that Israel had a true friend in the Russian leader. He is deeply embarrassed by Putin’s about-face.
It also bodes ill for the third round of sanctions, for which the Bush administration is pushing at the UN Security Council, where Russian holds a veto, now that the nuclear watchdog confirmed in its latest report Nov. 15 that Iran had not given up uranium enrichment.
DEBKAfile’s Moscow sources report that the Russian president has reverted to his previous tactic of broadcasting to Muslim nations a message that Moscow has its own agenda and is willing, unlike Washington, to help them develop their nuclear programs.
The question mark hanging over UN sanctions also affects the decision on military action against Iran’s suspect military nuclear facilities, which President Bush had put on a back burner under the influence of Putin’s breach with Tehran. There was a brief thaw in the tense relations between Washington and Moscow and signs of a new willingness for compromise on both sides on such matters as the US plan to deploy anti-missile systems in East Europe.
The month-long détente was abruptly curtailed Friday, Nov. 16, with Moscow’s decision to let Iran have the uranium to fuel its Bushehr reactor six months before its scheduled start-up. The step was gladly welcomed in Tehran.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
"difficult and painful sacrifices"?
From DEBKAfile, November 14, 2007:
Rice: Israelis must be prepared for "difficult and painful sacrifices" now that they have a negotiating partner in President Abbas
In an address to the United Jewish Communities meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, Tuesday, Nov. 13, the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Israelis must sacrifice some of their “longest held aspirations” in talks with Palestinian leaders. A strong Palestinian state was more urgent than ever, she insisted, as a bulwark against threats from violent extremists, Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas and to Iran.
DEBKAfile’s sources reveal: Rice confirmed what Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and foreign minister Tzipi Livni are holding back from the Israeli public: Their acceptance of deep withdrawals from the West Bank in favor of a Palestinian state, the uprooting of 100,000 Israelis living there, and additional broad concessions ahead of the Annapolis peace conference.
The audience applauded Rice when she reassured them of Washington’s commitment to protect longtime ally against threats from Tehran, fight anti-Semitism and confront Hamas and Iran.
But the crowd was silent when she called Abbas “a true partner for peace” and said Israel now had “responsible leadership” with which to deal.
The concessions exacted from Israel, DEBKAfile has learned, include the ceding of West Bank natural resources to Palestinian control, including shared sources of water. Talks have already begun for a US-Israeli Palestinian mechanism to supervise water sources, possibly including Jordan.
Olmert has further consented to start negotiations with Syria on Israel’s withdrawal from the Golan. The talks will kick off at the follow-up to the Annapolis conference, which will take place in Moscow. He agreed to attend when he met Putin in the Kremlin Oct. 18.
The Annapolis conference, according to DEBKAfile’s sources, is not just an event lasting a few hours, as Olmert downplays it, but part of a broad cooperative US-Russian initiative aimed at bringing the Russian president aboard Washington’s push for tough sanctions against Iran.
Israel’s willingness to negotiate the Golan’s return was offered by Washington as bait to draw the Syrian president away from his pact with Tehran and stop meddling in Lebanon. The success of this ploy will be tested before the Annapolis conference, on Nov. 21, when Damascus must keep its hands off Lebanon’s presidential election.
At some point, the Israeli prime minister and foreign minister will have some hard explaining to do for relinquishing the fundamental demand for secure and defensible borders, and overriding the country’s majority objections to the sweeping concessions to the Palestinians, which he is laying at the Bush administration’s feet.
Olmert will no doubt try and explain that these concessions were mandatory for the sake of achieving US-Russian cooperation for the imposition of sanctions against Iran. The fact that this cooperation will have relieved Tehran of the military threat hanging over its head for continuing to develop a nuclear weapon will not figure in Olmert’s arguments to the nation.
In her Nashville speech, the US secretary of state presented the “difficult and painful sacrifices” Israel must make to meet the most excessive Palestinian demands as a diktat: Failure of the Israeli-Palestinian talks is not an option. She justified it by determining: “What is at stake is nothing less than the future of the Middle East.”
Rice: Israelis must be prepared for "difficult and painful sacrifices" now that they have a negotiating partner in President Abbas
In an address to the United Jewish Communities meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, Tuesday, Nov. 13, the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Israelis must sacrifice some of their “longest held aspirations” in talks with Palestinian leaders. A strong Palestinian state was more urgent than ever, she insisted, as a bulwark against threats from violent extremists, Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas and to Iran.
DEBKAfile’s sources reveal: Rice confirmed what Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and foreign minister Tzipi Livni are holding back from the Israeli public: Their acceptance of deep withdrawals from the West Bank in favor of a Palestinian state, the uprooting of 100,000 Israelis living there, and additional broad concessions ahead of the Annapolis peace conference.
The audience applauded Rice when she reassured them of Washington’s commitment to protect longtime ally against threats from Tehran, fight anti-Semitism and confront Hamas and Iran.
But the crowd was silent when she called Abbas “a true partner for peace” and said Israel now had “responsible leadership” with which to deal.
The concessions exacted from Israel, DEBKAfile has learned, include the ceding of West Bank natural resources to Palestinian control, including shared sources of water. Talks have already begun for a US-Israeli Palestinian mechanism to supervise water sources, possibly including Jordan.
Olmert has further consented to start negotiations with Syria on Israel’s withdrawal from the Golan. The talks will kick off at the follow-up to the Annapolis conference, which will take place in Moscow. He agreed to attend when he met Putin in the Kremlin Oct. 18.
The Annapolis conference, according to DEBKAfile’s sources, is not just an event lasting a few hours, as Olmert downplays it, but part of a broad cooperative US-Russian initiative aimed at bringing the Russian president aboard Washington’s push for tough sanctions against Iran.
Israel’s willingness to negotiate the Golan’s return was offered by Washington as bait to draw the Syrian president away from his pact with Tehran and stop meddling in Lebanon. The success of this ploy will be tested before the Annapolis conference, on Nov. 21, when Damascus must keep its hands off Lebanon’s presidential election.
At some point, the Israeli prime minister and foreign minister will have some hard explaining to do for relinquishing the fundamental demand for secure and defensible borders, and overriding the country’s majority objections to the sweeping concessions to the Palestinians, which he is laying at the Bush administration’s feet.
Olmert will no doubt try and explain that these concessions were mandatory for the sake of achieving US-Russian cooperation for the imposition of sanctions against Iran. The fact that this cooperation will have relieved Tehran of the military threat hanging over its head for continuing to develop a nuclear weapon will not figure in Olmert’s arguments to the nation.
In her Nashville speech, the US secretary of state presented the “difficult and painful sacrifices” Israel must make to meet the most excessive Palestinian demands as a diktat: Failure of the Israeli-Palestinian talks is not an option. She justified it by determining: “What is at stake is nothing less than the future of the Middle East.”
Sending our youth the wrong signals
From JPost by Isi Leibler, November 13, 2007 [my own emphasis added - SL]:
...[a] recent survey of American [non-Orthodox] Jewish attitudes toward Israel ...[finds that] 54% of the under-35 category was "comfortable" with the concept of a Jewish state, in contrast to 81% of those over 65. More disturbingly, over half of those under 35 would not even be inclined to regard the destruction of Israel as a "personal tragedy."
The findings demonstrate that non-Orthodox American Jews under the age of 35 are moving from indifference to outright alienation with respect to their attitude toward the Jewish state. The report challenges the viability of sustaining any meaningful long term Israel-Diaspora relationship.
In retrospect, some erosion was predictable. The memory of the Holocaust has receded from public consciousness and young Jews today simply lack any appreciation of the implications of the powerlessness which prevailed among Jews before the state was created.
Nor does the current generation share the emotional attachments to Israel of their parents who witnessed the Zionist struggle and battles for survival climaxing with the euphoria of the Six Day War and the trauma of the Yom Kippur War. In addition, the combination of media demonization and burgeoning anti-Semitism have influenced many youngsters to transfer their support for Israelis as noble underdogs, toward identifying with what is commonly referred to as the "anti Zionist chic."
While we were aware that this was the prevailing atmosphere in Europe, we had hoped that America, home of the largest, most affluent and influential Diaspora community in Jewish history, would be different. Besides, in contrast to the intensification of hatred against Israel in Europe, over the past decade, American public support for Israel has reached a higher level than ever before. The report also suggests that in the absence of birthright israel visits, the situation would have been considerably worse.
And yet, beyond religious observance, a connection to Israel remains to this day the most important element in Jewish identity. Thus, unless negative attitudes toward Israel are reversed, a further snowballing impact on assimilation is inevitable.
How should we endeavor to reverse these negative trends? First, the government of Israel must become more directly involved. From the onset of the Oslo Accords, successive Israeli governments had distanced themselves from the Diaspora, on the false grounds that with an "irreversible peace process" a reality, mobilizing on behalf of Israel by Diaspora Jews was superfluous and even counterproductive.
Despite subsequent efforts to reverse the situation by Rabbi Melchior and Natan Sharansky respectively as ministers of Diaspora Affairs, by and large, government leaders have taken little interest in overseas Jewish communities beyond lauding potential donors....
.....We must end this madness by launching global educational campaigns to endow our youngsters with an appreciation of what Jewish life was like before the rebirth of the Jewish state and provide them with an understanding of a genuine Israel narrative and the morality of our case.
Let there be no illusions. If the process of alienation from the Jewish state is not reversed, the Diaspora is doomed.
The writer is a former chairman of the Governing Board of the World Jewish Congress and a veteran international Jewish leader.
...[a] recent survey of American [non-Orthodox] Jewish attitudes toward Israel ...[finds that] 54% of the under-35 category was "comfortable" with the concept of a Jewish state, in contrast to 81% of those over 65. More disturbingly, over half of those under 35 would not even be inclined to regard the destruction of Israel as a "personal tragedy."
The findings demonstrate that non-Orthodox American Jews under the age of 35 are moving from indifference to outright alienation with respect to their attitude toward the Jewish state. The report challenges the viability of sustaining any meaningful long term Israel-Diaspora relationship.
In retrospect, some erosion was predictable. The memory of the Holocaust has receded from public consciousness and young Jews today simply lack any appreciation of the implications of the powerlessness which prevailed among Jews before the state was created.
Nor does the current generation share the emotional attachments to Israel of their parents who witnessed the Zionist struggle and battles for survival climaxing with the euphoria of the Six Day War and the trauma of the Yom Kippur War. In addition, the combination of media demonization and burgeoning anti-Semitism have influenced many youngsters to transfer their support for Israelis as noble underdogs, toward identifying with what is commonly referred to as the "anti Zionist chic."
While we were aware that this was the prevailing atmosphere in Europe, we had hoped that America, home of the largest, most affluent and influential Diaspora community in Jewish history, would be different. Besides, in contrast to the intensification of hatred against Israel in Europe, over the past decade, American public support for Israel has reached a higher level than ever before. The report also suggests that in the absence of birthright israel visits, the situation would have been considerably worse.
And yet, beyond religious observance, a connection to Israel remains to this day the most important element in Jewish identity. Thus, unless negative attitudes toward Israel are reversed, a further snowballing impact on assimilation is inevitable.
How should we endeavor to reverse these negative trends? First, the government of Israel must become more directly involved. From the onset of the Oslo Accords, successive Israeli governments had distanced themselves from the Diaspora, on the false grounds that with an "irreversible peace process" a reality, mobilizing on behalf of Israel by Diaspora Jews was superfluous and even counterproductive.
Despite subsequent efforts to reverse the situation by Rabbi Melchior and Natan Sharansky respectively as ministers of Diaspora Affairs, by and large, government leaders have taken little interest in overseas Jewish communities beyond lauding potential donors....
.....We must end this madness by launching global educational campaigns to endow our youngsters with an appreciation of what Jewish life was like before the rebirth of the Jewish state and provide them with an understanding of a genuine Israel narrative and the morality of our case.
Let there be no illusions. If the process of alienation from the Jewish state is not reversed, the Diaspora is doomed.
The writer is a former chairman of the Governing Board of the World Jewish Congress and a veteran international Jewish leader.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Neo-Nazi rally in Prague
From BBC NEWS, 10 November 2007:
There have been clashes in Prague between neo-Nazis and protesters trying to block their right-wing march.
More than 1,000 people rallied in the Czech capital's old Jewish quarter to try to stop the march by members of the Young Nationalist Democrats (MND)..... for the anniversary of the 1938 anti-Jewish purge known as Kristallnacht.
Police managed keep most of the 400 right-wing marchers and the anti-Nazi demonstrators separate. But there were scuffles in side streets near the Jewish quarter and at least one person was injured, witnesses said. Police arrested several of the right-wing marchers.
Anarchists in other parts of the city also clashed with police.
... A shot was apparently fired at a crowd outside the city's law faculty, leading to skirmishes, he adds.....Some of the MND skinheads arrested were armed with batons, truncheons and home-made Molotov cocktails, reports said.
"The march [by the extreme right] was unacceptable," Prague's mayor Pavel Bem told the AFP news agency. "We need to cultivate the national memory to avoid what happened in the past."
Czech President Vaclav Klaus also condemned the MND march.
Some of the anti-fascist protesters wore a yellow Star of David, while others carried red flags and wore slogans reading "Never Again". They gathered in front of a Prague synagogue near a museum dedicated to the memory of some 77,000 Jewish victims of the Holocaust who came from the former Czechoslovakia.
....On Friday, Czech tour operators warned tourists to keep out of central Prague and said organised tours would not travel into the area. There were reports that busloads of German far-right supporters had been detained at the Czech border by police.
There have been clashes in Prague between neo-Nazis and protesters trying to block their right-wing march.
More than 1,000 people rallied in the Czech capital's old Jewish quarter to try to stop the march by members of the Young Nationalist Democrats (MND)..... for the anniversary of the 1938 anti-Jewish purge known as Kristallnacht.
Police managed keep most of the 400 right-wing marchers and the anti-Nazi demonstrators separate. But there were scuffles in side streets near the Jewish quarter and at least one person was injured, witnesses said. Police arrested several of the right-wing marchers.
Anarchists in other parts of the city also clashed with police.
... A shot was apparently fired at a crowd outside the city's law faculty, leading to skirmishes, he adds.....Some of the MND skinheads arrested were armed with batons, truncheons and home-made Molotov cocktails, reports said.
"The march [by the extreme right] was unacceptable," Prague's mayor Pavel Bem told the AFP news agency. "We need to cultivate the national memory to avoid what happened in the past."
Czech President Vaclav Klaus also condemned the MND march.
Some of the anti-fascist protesters wore a yellow Star of David, while others carried red flags and wore slogans reading "Never Again". They gathered in front of a Prague synagogue near a museum dedicated to the memory of some 77,000 Jewish victims of the Holocaust who came from the former Czechoslovakia.
....On Friday, Czech tour operators warned tourists to keep out of central Prague and said organised tours would not travel into the area. There were reports that busloads of German far-right supporters had been detained at the Czech border by police.
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