tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55673191337846855252023-12-12T00:51:02.773-08:00 Cameos From Zion (#CameosFromZion) edited by Stephen Darori Some reflections from an unapologetic Rip Roaring Zionist, an Urban Scavenger for the unexpected. Stephen Darori (#stephendarori,@stephendarori) is a Finance and Marketing Whiz,Social Media Publicist, Strategist ,Investor. Journalist,Author, Editor & Prolific Blogger.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.comBlogger1344125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-7891281716384975482018-10-05T03:00:00.000-07:002018-10-05T03:05:01.569-07:00Grilled Parley Lemon Chicken Kebab Skewers, a recipe from The Bard Of Bat Yam, Poet Laureate Of Zion<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /><br />Lemon is my all-time favorite ingredient, and lately I've been on a bit of a parsley kick. Since lemon and parsley marry so well, these chicken kebab skewers are fragrant, herbaceous, fresh, and flavorful.<br /><br />For best flavor, it's important to use fresh lemon, fresh parsley, and fresh garlic. Bottled lemon juice won't cut it.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /><img height="541" src="https://w3.chabad.org/media/images/1050/BcvU10505346.jpg" width="640" /><br /><br /><img height="521" src="https://w3.chabad.org/media/images/1050/EAzx10505347.jpg" width="640" /><br /><br /><img height="498" src="https://w3.chabad.org/media/images/1050/YQFt10505345.jpg" width="640" /><br /><br /><br />You can cook these on an outdoor grill, indoor grill pan, or even just in the oven. I've given directions for all.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Ingredients</b><br />2 lb. chicken breast, cubed<br />2½ cups flat-leaf parsley (approximately 25 grams)<br />⅓ cup fresh lemon juice<br />6 tbsp. olive oil<br />3 large garlic cloves, crushed<br />2 tbsp. honey<br />zest of 2 lemons<br />2 tsp. kosher salt</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />Directions</span><br />
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<li>Cut the chicken into cubes and place in a bowl or container.</li>
<li>Blitz the rest of the ingredients together in a blender or food processor. Pour over the chicken. Mix so that the marinade reaches all the chicken.</li>
<li>Marinate the chicken for a few hours, or overnight.</li>
<li>Thread the chicken onto wooden skewers. Optional: intersperse the chicken with chunks of onion or other vegetables. I used onion.</li>
<li>Cook skewers on the barbecue until chicken is cooked through but tender.</li>
<li>To cook indoors, pre-heat the oven to 500°F. Heat a grill pan over high heat for 4-5 minutes. Place the chicken skewers on the pan and grill for 2-3 minutes, then flip and grill for another 2 minutes. Transfer pan to the oven and cook for another 5 minutes. If you don't have a grill pan, you can still make these. Place the chicken skewers on a real baking sheet and bake at 500°F for 10-12 minutes.</li>
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</span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />Yields: 10 kebabs</span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-69629933976058431072018-09-06T05:17:00.000-07:002018-09-06T05:17:41.602-07:00The New York Times Anonymous Editorial Op-Ed 5th September 2018 #OyVeyDonaldTrump<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img alt="Image result for Cartoon / Graphic Images Chaos in the Donald Trump White House" height="465" src="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/cf/f1/67/cff167924d4fa87fa37a35189783c81f.jpg" width="640" /></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sept. 5, 2018</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Times today is taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay. We have done so at the request of the author, a senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure. We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers. We invite you to submit a question about the essay or our vetting process <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/reader-center/oped-questions.html">here</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I would know. I am one of them.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That is why many Trump appointees have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/us/politics/woodward-trump-book-fear.html?module=Uisil">vowed to do what we can</a> to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people. At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings. At worst, he has attacked them outright.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In addition to his mass-marketing of the notion that the press is the “enemy of the people,” President Trump’s impulses are generally anti-trade and anti-democratic.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don’t get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But these successes have come despite — not because of — the president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“There is literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next,” a top official complained to me recently, exasperated by an Oval Office meeting at which the president flip-flopped on a major policy decision he’d made only a week earlier.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The erratic behavior would be more concerning if it weren’t for unsung heroes in and around the White House. Some of his aides have been cast as villains by the media. But in private, they have gone to great lengths to keep bad decisions contained to the West Wing, though they are clearly not always successful.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room. We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The result is a two-track presidency.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Take foreign policy: In public and in private, President Trump shows a preference for autocrats and dictators, such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and displays little genuine appreciation for the ties that bind us to allied, like-minded nations.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Astute observers have noted, though, that the rest of the administration is operating on another track, one where countries like Russia are called out for meddling and punished accordingly, and where allies around the world are engaged as peers rather than ridiculed as rivals.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On Russia, for instance, the president was reluctant <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/world/europe/trump-russia-diplomats-expulsion.html">to expel</a> so many of Mr. Putin’s spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. He complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed into further confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that the United States continued to impose sanctions on the country for its malign behavior. But his national security team knew better — such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state.</span><br />
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Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.<br />
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The bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility.<br />
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Senator John McCain put it best in his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/27/us/politics/john-mccain-farewell-statement.html">farewell letter</a>. All Americans should heed his words and break free of the tribalism trap, with the high aim of uniting through our shared values and love of this great nation.<br />
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We may no longer have Senator McCain. But we will always have his example — a lodestar for restoring honor to public life and our national dialogue. Mr. Trump may fear such honorable men, but we should revere them.<br />
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There is a quiet resistance within the administration of people choosing to put country first. But the real difference will be made by everyday citizens rising above politics, reaching across the aisle and resolving to shed the labels in favor of a single one: Americans.<br />
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The writer is a senior official in the Trump administration.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-79758472371944201552018-08-18T23:13:00.002-07:002018-08-18T23:13:53.428-07:00The Brilliant History of Color in Art Hardcover – November 1, 2014 by Victoria Finlay( J. Paul Getty Museum)<img height="640" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61IfdS6NaxL._SX450_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" width="578" /><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Who knew that colors have such fascinating stories to tell? Finlay does a wonderful job of describing, in clear, accessible, witty language, how artists around the world, from prehistoric times to the present, have used natural materials, including charcoal, soot, plants, insects, shells, and gems and minerals, to produce magnificent paint and ink colors that continue to dazzle. Today, though, synthetic paints and even computers produce an astonishing range of hues. Browsers and cover-to-cover readers will find some tantalizing information here. For example, Vincent van Gogh once ate his toxic chromium yellow paint; Santa Claus wasn't always clothed in red; thanks to Isaac Newton, there are seven colors in the rainbow; human and animal body wastes were once essential ingredients in color production; and some commonplace colors were created by sheer accident. The handsomely designed book includes 166 excellent reproductions of artworks, many from the collections of Los Angeles's J. Paul Getty Museum. It is filled with illuminating captions and sidebars; reproductions have been perfectly chosen and placed to illustrate the author's narratives; and a "brilliant history of color" is a compelling, readable account of humankind's yearning to express itself beautifully since the beginning of time. An illustration list and lengthy index are included. Recommended for large public library collections and for school libraries; useful in art classes, particularly in units on art history/appreciation, drawing, and painting</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The history of art is inseparable from the history of color. And what a fascinating story they tell together: one that brims with an all-star cast of characters, eye-opening details, and unexpected detours through the annals of human civilization and scientific discovery.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Enter critically acclaimed writer and popular journalist Victoria Finlay, who here takes readers across the globe and over the centuries on an unforgettable tour through the brilliant history of color in art. Written for newcomers to the subject and aspiring young artists alike, Finlay’s quest to uncover the origins and science of color will beguile readers of all ages with its warm and conversational style. Her rich narrative is illustrated in full color throughout with 166 major works of art―most from the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Readers of this book will revel in a treasure trove of fun-filled facts and anecdotes. Were it not for Cleopatra, for instance, purple might not have become the royal color of the Western world. Without Napoleon, the black graphite pencil might never have found its way into the hands of Cézanne. Without mango-eating cows, the sunsets of Turner might have lost their shimmering glow. And were it not for the pigment cobalt blue, the halls of museums worldwide might still be filled with forged Vermeers.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Red ocher, green earth, Indian yellow, lead white―no pigment from the artist’s broad and diverse palette escapes Finlay’s shrewd eye in this breathtaking exploration.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-33370119637825759312018-08-16T21:35:00.000-07:002018-08-16T21:35:15.994-07:00Jewish Henna Ceremony in Israel<div>
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Henna appears in <a href="http://www.hennabysienna.com/henna-in-the-bible.html">the Bible</a>, as well as in <a href="http://www.hennabysienna.com/henna-in-the-ancient-world.html">other Semitic texts of the ancient Near East</a>, and we know that henna was grown and used in the Land of Israel during the Hellenistic period. The earliest explicit records of Jewish henna ceremonies appear in <a href="http://www.hennabysienna.com/henna-in-the-middle-ages.html">the medieval Mediterranean</a>. Henna use, both for everyday adornment and for ritual purposes, quickly spread throughout the Diaspora and was an established custom among the Jews of <a href="http://www.hennabysienna.com/morocco.html">Morocco</a> and <a href="http://www.hennabysienna.com/algeria.html">other</a> <a href="http://www.hennabysienna.com/tunisia.html">North African</a><a href="http://www.hennabysienna.com/libya.html">communities</a>, <a href="http://www.hennabysienna.com/the-levant.html">the Levant</a> and <a href="http://www.hennabysienna.com/mediterranean-sephardi.html">Mediterranean basin</a>, <a href="http://www.hennabysienna.com/yemen.html">the Arabian Peninsula</a>, and <a href="http://www.hennabysienna.com/iraq.html">Western</a>, <a href="http://www.hennabysienna.com/persia.html">Central</a> <a href="http://www.hennabysienna.com/kurdistan.html">and</a> <a href="http://www.hennabysienna.com/india.html">Southern Asia</a>. Henna was used by some Jewish communities as part of everyday female adornment, dyeing hands, feet, nails, and hair. Some communities also used henna as part of ritual celebrations and holidays. The most significant use of henna in Jewish communities, however, is as part of a pre-wedding ceremony. These communities include Jewish communities sometimes called Sephardi ['Spaniards', i.e. descended from Spanish Jews expelled in the 15th century], or Mizrahi ['Orientals'], as well as others. <br /><br />In these communities, henna was a crucial aspect of the preparations for a Jewish wedding, and often defined the structure of the wedding festivities, from the beginning (marked by the sending of henna from the groom to the bride) through the climax (the main henna ceremony itself) to the end (when the last remnants of henna wore off the skin). Furthermore, henna was used to mark the actors in a variety of other lifecycle events and passage rituals, such as birth, weaning, entering the school system, puberty, and coming out of mourning. It was also used at holiday celebrations and other happy occasions. The symbolism of henna in these Jewish communities was highly polysemous, but it is clear that it had three overarching functions: first, the henna’s staining of skin was seen as beautifying, both as daily adornment and for weddings; second, the materiality of henna was thought as protective, especially of actors at the center of a passage ritual; third, henna was seen as an aid in transforming and guiding the actors into the structure of their new social roles.<br /><br /><b>Henna in Israel</b><br /><br />After the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Jewish communities of North Africa, the Levant and Mediterranean basin, and Western, Central and Southern Asia underwent a massive and sudden displacement beginning almost immediately. Within 10 years, the vast majority of these communities had left their homes and been relocated, either to Israel or to Europe and the Americas. </span><div>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><img height="407" src="http://www.hennabysienna.com/uploads/3/7/0/0/3700391/1942084.png?309" width="640" /><br /><br />In Israel, the majority of the rituals and traditions surrounding the henna ceremony were initially abandoned upon arrival for a variety of reasons: socioeconomic circumstances made it uncomfortable to celebrate loudly and publicly for extended periods of time; the disorientation and confusion of integration into Israeli society had broken up communities and disrupted the traditional ritual sequence of events; and the negative stigma attached to markers of Diaspora identity, and Arabness in particular, discouraged immigrants from engaging in what had previously been activities and symbols with high social prestige and value.<br /><br />It was not until the late 70s, when young non-Ashkenazi Israelis had become increasingly dissatisfied with their marginalization in the public sphere, and they began to vocally demand recognition as legitimate members of Israeli society, that previously-neglected cultural celebrations began to experience a revival: the Moroccan mimuna or the Kurdish saharane holidays, the new emergent style of modern ‘Mizrahi music’, and of course, the henna ceremony.<br /><br />Today, the revived henna ceremony is very different than its historical predecessors. One of the main changes to the henna ceremony has been in its length and timing. While in the Diaspora, the pre-wedding festivities often lasted a week or more, in Israel they were severely compressed due to constraints of money and time. The application of henna to the bride, whether done over a period of three days, <a href="http://www.hennabysienna.com/yemen.html">as in Yemen</a>, or whether done multiple times over a two-week period, <a href="http://www.hennabysienna.com/morocco.html">as in Morocco</a>, was reduced to a single evening. The timing of the henna ceremony was moved from the night before the wedding, or a few days before the wedding, to the week before the wedding or even earlier. Furthermore, where formerly the groom may have been hennaed in a separate ceremony in a separate location, in Israel the two ceremonies were joined, so that the groom sits next to the bride and is hennaed witsth her. Another change was the rapid disappearance of the artistic patterns with which the henna was applied. It appears that the henna patterns practiced by Jewish communities in the Diaspora were almost immediately abandoned upon arrival in Israel. Today, even the memories of these patterns are rapidly disappearing. <br /><br />Henna ceremonies in Israel today serve to reinforce a pan-ethnic unity, and often an even broader ‘pan-Mizrahi’ unity. The henna ceremonies of the Moroccan Jews and Yemenite Jews became the dominant models, while the henna ceremonies of other non-Ashkenazi communities were either abandoned or subsumed into one of the dominant models (usually Moroccan). Regional differences in the performance of the ceremony were abandoned, and one generic “Moroccan” or “Yemenite” ceremony was formed (it was usually a modification of the customs of the capital, or largest city, that prevailed). For example, one of the most significant and visible manifestations of this is in the clothing worn at the henna ceremony: among Yemenite Jews today, the henna ceremony features the Sana’i headdress, the tishbuk lulu, while similarly among Moroccan Jews the contemporary ceremony generally uses the urban grand dress, the keswa lkbira.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-84066435965487733022018-08-16T18:15:00.000-07:002018-08-17T00:25:48.542-07:00Corbyn’s Disturbing Actions Against Israel and the Jews ( do share), #stephendarori, #BardOfBatYam,#PoetLaureateOfZion <span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img alt="Image result for Corbyn anti semitism anti israel prohamas n" height="385" src="https://wjc-org-website.s3.amazonaws.com/production/uploads/ckeditor/pictures/2401/content_jeremy_corbyn.jpg" width="640" /></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 923, August 16, 2018 by Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld Republished ( Do read it and share) </b></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has defined himself as a “friend” and “brother” of genocidal terrorists, and he supports and mixes with Holocaust distorters. Corbyn is an extreme anti-Israel inciter and anti-Semite who has used Iranian media for that purpose.</b></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is now so much information about the misdemeanors of British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn against Jews and Israel that his wrongdoings can be classified into sub-categories.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The first category is his support for genocidal terrorists. Corbyn welcomed representatives of Hezbollah and Hamas at the British parliament in 2009 and called them his “friends.” It took him until 2016, when he was challenged in the House of Commons by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, to renounce his words.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In 2012, on Iranian Press TV, Corbyn praised Israel’s release of 1,000 Hamas prisoners – terrorists who had killed 600 people between them – and referred to the terrorists as “brothers.” In November 2012, he hosted a meeting in Parliament with Musa Abu Maria, a member of the banned terrorist group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad. He has also shared a platform with the Black September terrorist and hijacker Leila Khaled.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img alt="Image result for Corbyn with arab terrorism" height="360" src="https://images.haarets.co.il/image/upload/w_779,h_452,x_22,y_5,c_crop,g_north_west/w_609,h_343,q_auto,c_fill,f_auto/fl_any_format.preserve_transparency.progressive:none/v1534156962/1.6367674.3440418312.JPG" width="640" /></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In August 2018, the Daily Mail disclosed that four years earlier, in Tunisia, Corbyn had stood with a wreath in his hand next to a memorial plaque commemorating the graves of members of the Palestinian Black September movement. This is the terrorist organization that perpetrated the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Telegraph has reported that one of the three main donors to Corbyn’s leadership campaign was Ibrahim Hamami, who supports stabbing Jews in Israel. He is a general practitioner living in London and founder of the pro-Hamas group, the Palestinian Affairs Center. Hamami has also been a columnist at an official Hamas newspaper.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hamami helped organize the visit to Britain of Raed Saleh, who has described Jews as “bacteria” and “monkeys.” Saleh has also promoted the blood libel, claiming that Jews use the blood of gentile children to bake their bread. Corbyn has shared public platforms with Hamami, who acted as Saleh’s spokesman during the visit.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When Saleh was jailed in Britain, Corbyn called him “a very honored citizen who represents his people extremely well” and said he “looked forward to giving [him] tea on the [House of Commons] terrace.” Soon after his election as Labour leader in 2005, Corbyn hired journalist Seamus Milne, who had praised Hamas for its spirit of resistance, as his communications director.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A second category of misdemeanor is Corbyn’s relationship with Holocaust distorters. He has participated annually in gatherings of a charity led by Holocaust denier Paul Eisen and has given it a donation. More recently, it became known that in 2010, on Holocaust Memorial Day, Corbyn held a meeting in Parliament at which the Netherlands’ best known Jewish anti-Semite, Hajo Meyer, compared Israel to the Nazis. (Meyer has done this frequently, including in Germany.) A Holocaust survivor claims that Corbyn told a policeman which protesters he wanted removed from that meeting. Only now, eight years later, has Corbyn apologized for attending.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Both Corbyn and Labour Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell signed a parliamentary motion proposing that Holocaust Memorial Day be renamed Genocide Memorial Day. In 2012, McDonnell accused Israel of attempting to commit genocide against the Palestinians.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A third category of Corbyn’s wrongdoings concerns extreme anti-Israel incitement. Substantial information about this is scattered throughout Dave Rich’s 2016 book, The Left’s Jewish Problem. For example, Corbyn chaired a conference that included talks on apartheid in Israel, Western imperialism, and anti-Arab racism. Rich also writes that throughout the 1980s, Corbyn sponsored and supported the Labour Movement Campaign for Palestine (LMCP). This group wanted to “eradicate Zionism while it supported a democratic secular state in place of Israel.”</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In 2011, Corbyn presented his opinion on the BBC on a state-funded Iranian TV program. He said about the British broadcaster that “there is a bias toward saying that Israel is a democracy in the Middle East, Israel has a right to exist, Israel has its security concerns.”</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In 2012 Corbyn promoted a conspiracy theory about Israel on an Iranian channel, suggesting that it was in “Israel’s interest to kill Egyptians in an attack by Islamic Jihadists.” He also said, “I suspect the hand of Israel in this whole process of destabilization.”</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In 2018, Corbyn attended a Passover seder with members of the small Jewdas Group, a radical anti-Zionist Jewish organization that has called Israel a “steaming pile of sewage which needs to be properly disposed of.” In August 2018, information about a video was disclosed that shows Corbyn making a speech in 2013 for the Palestinian Return Center in which he draws comparisons between the actions of the Israeli government and Nazism.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This year, Jonathan Arkush, the outgoing president of the British Jewish umbrella organization the Board of Deputies, noted that Corbyn had been chairman of Stop the War, an organization that is “responsible for some of the worst anti-Israel discourse.” Arkush added that Corbyn has anti-Semitic views and was making Jews question their place in Britain.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A fourth category of Corbyn’s wrongdoing concerns anti-Semitism. In 2012, he endorsed an anti-Semitic mural on Facebook. He did not apologize for this until six years later. He was also a member of various Facebook groups where anti-Semitic material was posted.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Corbyn is not the only member of his family who is highly problematic as far as anti-Semitism is concerned. His brother Piers tweeted that the “Jewish conspiracy will force Trump into war just like they did to Hitler.” The Daily Mail discovered a Nazi cartoon on his youngest son Tommy’s Facebook page. He, too, was a member of several anti-Semitic Facebook groups.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If only previous Labour leaders and their staffs had been more alert, Corbyn would have been expelled from the party years ago. Corbyn’s predecessor as Labour leader, Ed Miliband, is the main culprit behind this failure. A mainstream party should not have self-defined “friends” and “brothers” of terrorists in its ranks. The same is true for those who support Holocaust distorters. Corbyn belongs in both categories.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-71760186490369981852018-07-28T14:03:00.000-07:002018-07-28T14:03:26.105-07:00Israel's new Nation State Law reminiscent of Aprtheid Laws ( Section 10 of the Urban Areas Act) sets legal parameters for Judification of Zion ( Israel , the Shomron and Yehuda) often refered to as " Historic Palestine" (if Palestine existed ever or not) <span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img height="359" src="https://palestinesquare.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/cover-678x381.jpg" width="640" /></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Before being allowed to immigrate to Israel in 1986, I was repeatedly detained with out trial ( and never charged) for anti Apartheid activities in South Africa. As soon as I step off the plane at Ben Gurion on a miserable wet morning on January 21st after been chained naked to a chair for much of the previous 3 months in a dimly lit damp cockroach invested BOSS (Bureau of State Security cel)l , I resolved my conflict " Human Right" versus " State Security" and have always placed Israel's State Security first and formost . I have always voted for the Likud and even served as a Likud Central Committee Member for 10 years..... and now Israel's New State Law throws me into a huge quandry. .... however way you look at it and especially section 7b it is too reminenced of Section 10 of the Urban Areas Act ( The Native Laws Amendment Act of South Africa. The Native Laws Amendment Act, 1952 (Act No. 54 of 1952, subsequently renamed the Bantu Laws Amendment Act, 1952 and the Black Laws Amendment Act, 1952 and commonly referred to as the Urban Areas Act), formed part of the very apartheid system of racial segregation in South Africa. It amended section 10 of the Group Areas Act. It limited the category of blacks who had the right to permanent residence in urban areas. While Section 10 had granted permanent residence to blacks who had been born in a town and had lived there continuously for more than 15 years, or who had been employed there continuously for at least 15 years, or who had worked continuously for the same employer for more than 10 years. Non-whites living in urban areas who did not meet these criteria faced forcible removal.</b></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Israel's Basic Law reserves national self-determination exclusively for Jewish people and makes discriminatory immigration and housing national values. Yet, what is omitted – especially the lack of geographic boundaries – is at least as relevant as what is admitted: when situating the newly adopted Basic Law within existing and proposed Israeli legislation, practice and policy, what emerges is the consecration of a vision for an exclusively Jewish state in all of historic Palestine.</span></div>
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<a href="http://jps.ucpress.edu/content/47/1/56" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[From the Journal of Palestine Studies | The “Right to Have Rights”: Partition and Palestinian Self-Determination]</span></strong></em></a></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From the very beginning, as negotiations were taking place between white, European elites to give away Palestine, the benefactors of the to-be stolen land were adamantly opposed to a discussion of borders. Even after Zionist colonizers declared victory following the initial conquest of the majority of Palestinian land in 1948, their leadership refused to acknowledge the boundaries of their new State of Israel. Pinhas Rosen, who would become Israel’s first Minister of Justice, was overruled when he suggested to David Ben-Gurion that the state demarcate its borders in its 1948 Declaration of Independence:</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Rosen</strong>: “There’s the question of the borders, and it cannot be ignored.”<br /><strong style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ben-Gurion</strong>: “Anything is possible. If we decide here that there’s to be no mention of borders, then we won’t mention them. Nothing is a priori.”<br /><strong style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Rosen</strong>: “It’s not a priori, but it is a legal issue.”<br /><strong style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ben-Gurion</strong>: “The law is whatever people determine it to be.”<a href="https://palestinesquare.com/2018/07/28/jewish-nation-state-law-sets-legal-parameters-for-complete-takeover-of-historic-palestine/#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[1]</a></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indeed, the law is not an instrument of justice, but rather a tool used by the powerful to serve their interests. Ben-Gurion was, as colonizers have often been, refreshingly honest. And while the intervening years of Israeli politics have been marked by brilliantly executed window dressing, the Israeli Knesset just pulled back the curtain and returned Israel to its roots. The text of the law is explicit, and what is unsaid is also revealing: No mention of Palestine, Palestinian history, Palestinians, or Arabs; no mention of equality, democracy, or human rights for all; and significantly, no mention of borders.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While the absence of borders might seem to suggest that the expansionist ambition of the early Zionists is still unrealized, the demarcation is actually omitted because there is no longer a need to articulate where the sovereign State of Israel ends. The facts on the ground and supporting legislation speak for themselves. The opening article of the Basic Law does nod to the imaginary two-state solution by <em style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">purporting</em> to make a distinction between Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel or historic Palestine) and the State of Israel (presumably land within the 1967 “Green Line” and any already-annexed Palestinian land such as East Jerusalem). However, the law itself blurs the line. For instance, Article 3 declares “a greater, united Jerusalem” to be the capital of Israel, reaffirming the illegal annexation of East Jerusalem. And Article 7 casually endorses “Judaization” or the promotion of Jewish-only settlement. <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/get-over-itisrael-is-the-jewish-state-1532039000" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Supporters of the law</a> have rushed to interpret Article 7 as applying only to areas within the Green Line, though nothing within the law itself or in the policy of any Israeli government would suggest any such limitation. And reading the new Basic Law together with the over twenty “Annexation Laws” proposed in the Knesset over the last three years uncovers the legal scaffolding for the complete colonization of historic Palestine already in place.</span></div>
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<em style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://jps.ucpress.edu/content/47/1/18" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[From the Journal of Palestine Studies | Taking the Land without the People: The 1967 Story as Told by the Law]</span></a></strong></em></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These Annexation Laws are at various stages of the legislative process but all create the conditions for the <em style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">de facto </em>confiscation of private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank through the application of Israeli domestic law to areas in and around the illegal Israeli settlements. The same method was used to illegally annex East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights to Israel in 1967. In <a href="https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/9371" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;">its response to a Supreme Court petition</a> by Adalah regarding the “Settlements Regularization Law” – the most egregious of these Annexation Laws – the Israeli government stated plainly: Jewish settlement in the West Bank fulfills the values of Zionism; and the Israeli Knesset, which is not subject to international law, is the source of authority in the occupied Palestinian territory. Before its Supreme Court, the Israeli government defined itself as the sovereign in the West Bank settlements, meaning there is only one legal regime operating on both sides of the Green Line – throughout Eretz Israel. And last week, the Knesset enshrined Jewish supremacy as the absolute constitutional value of this legal regime, while also definitively eliminating the possibility of Palestinian self-determination anywhere in that entire geographic space, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The new Basic Law therefore signals the end of any prospective Palestinian national project, as long as this new era of bald-faced, legalized racism lasts. This law thus has severe consequences for Palestinians and other non-Jewish citizens or residents currently under Israeli control. With Judaization as a national value, the Israeli government could justify the forcible transfer of populations, and with discrimination enshrined, non-Jewish people have limited ways of challenging unequal access to land, housing, or state resources.</span></div>
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<em style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://infogram.com/65eed730-c51b-416a-9205-a7ccc029dac5" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[Interactive | #418Villages: Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948]</a></span></strong></em></div>
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<img alt="Related image" height="453" src="https://dannottdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/mitt-the-diplomat1.jpg" width="640" /></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Codifying the myth of human hierarchy is deadly – when states elevate one group of people as more valuable, others are dehumanized and their very lives are threatened. At the same time, by explicitly (re)stating and constitutionalizing this myth, the Israeli Knesset has also clarified the root of the problem. And when the root of the problem is understood, so too is the solution. The alternative to this colonial, supremacist present is a decolonized future of equal rights for all. While settler-colonialism is a zero-sum game, decolonization is not. Supremacy insists that only one group of people deserve freedom; equality means we all do.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://palestinesquare.com/2018/07/28/jewish-nation-state-law-sets-legal-parameters-for-complete-takeover-of-historic-palestine/#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[1]</a> Tom Segev. <em style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1949, The First Israelis. </em>Picador: 1988. p. xviii</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-9856707410832257742018-07-25T19:29:00.000-07:002018-07-25T19:29:20.559-07:00The End of Democracy in the Jewish State of Zion , by the Bard of Bat Yam, Poet Laureate of Zion , Stephen Darori<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img alt="Image result for â«××ק ×××× ×פ×× ×תâ¬â" height="480" src="http://maki.org.il/he/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/2018-07-15_203851.jpg" width="640" /></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since its founding in 1948, Israel has grappled with the conundrum of being both a Jewish nation-state and a democracy. Is it even possible?</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Nation-State Law surely created varied reactions since last week. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan led the pack, calling Israel “the most Zionist, fascist and racist country in the world.”</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“The Jewish Nation-State Law... legitimizes all unlawful actions and oppression. There is no difference between Hitler’s Aryan race obsession and Israel’s mentality.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hitler’s spirit has re-emerged among administrators in Israel,” said Erdogan, who has not been exemplary in dealing with the Kurdish minority in his country.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, that hyperbole goes way overboard in describing the effects of the law on Israel, but closer to home, there has also been more nuanced, but still barbed criticism. Ayman Odeh, chairman of the Joint List, said Israel “passed a law of Jewish supremacy and told us [Israel’s Arab citizens] that we will always be second-class citizens.”</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Officially called the “Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People,” the legislation – which was passed by a vote of 62-55 – states that “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people, and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it.”</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It puts on paper some of the defining characterizations of Israel that have been part of the country’s fabric since 1948, many of which are already parts of laws that codify and express Israel’s Jewish identity. For example, the Law of Return, passed in 1950, automatically grants citizenship to any Jew immigrating to Israel.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But the law goes beyond previous declarations of Israel as a Jewish state by further marginalizing its minority citizens in stating that the state’s language is Hebrew and relegating Arabic – the language of 20% of the population – to “special status in the state.”</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another clause says, “The state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation,” wording that can be construed as supporting Jewish-only communities.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kulanu MK Akram Hasson and other top Druze officials filed a petition on Sunday asking the High Court of Justice to strike down all or part of the law as unconstitutional.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hasson said the law transforms the country’s Druze population and other minorities, including Arabs, into second-class citizens. The petition called the law “a terrible blow to the Druze sector, a terrible blow to democracy and a terrible blow to Zionism.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Jewish Nation-State Law disproportionately and unreasonably harms [all minorities, turning them] into exiled people in their own homeland.”</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As Prof. Dov Waxman of Northeastern University wrote, Israel has never been a truly liberal democracy that treats all its citizens equally regardless of their ethnicity or religion. “Instead, from the outset it has been an ‘ethnic democracy’ or ‘ethnocracy’ as scholars have labeled it, serving Jews first and foremost. While Arab living standards have certainly risen over the years, Israel has never fully lived up to the promise contained in its Declaration of Independence to ‘foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants,’ and ‘ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex,’” wrote Waxman.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since its founding in 1948, Israel has grappled with the conundrum of being both a Jewish nation-state and a democracy. Is it even possible? Those tenets in the new law include many of the values that probably many people reading this right now share and weighed when deciding to pick up their lives and move to Israel – the symbols of the country like the flag, Hatikva, Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the Jewish people, and the Hebrew calendar as the guideline for the rhythm of the country.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But they were already well in place. Did we really need a new law that states the obvious, but also further erodes any sense of Israel’s minorities of belonging to the country? As we wrote last week when the bill passed, we agree with Likud MK Bennie Begin, who before abstaining on the vote for law, said it should have stated clearly that Israel, as a Jewish and democratic state, is committed to safeguarding the rights of its minorities. After all, isn’t that what being a Jewish state is all about?</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-2780564137880351442018-07-24T13:17:00.001-07:002018-07-24T13:17:25.572-07:00How Do You Say Apartheid in Hebrew by Paul Mirbach ( republished )<img height="382" src="http://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/styles/n_670_395/public/main-image/2018/07/19/1257271-106673098.jpg?itok=k03-0a6z" width="640" /><span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><div>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In late autumn of 1985, I made the long journey on Egged buses from my kibbutz near Karmiel to Jerusalem, in order to interview Gidi Shimoni. Shimoni, for me, was a cultural hero, a shining beacon of success for a South African who made Aliya to Israel. Not only was he a member of Habonim, our Zionist-socialist youth movement like myself, but he was an example of one who had made it “big time”; he was a senior Doctor of History at the University of Jerusalem, a leading intellectual and a respected force in academia. The subject of my interview, was Jewish fascism. This was the time when Meir Kahane was elected to the Knesset, riding the wave of racial hate and Jewish superiority to get elected. It was for an article I was writing, for a Habonim publication, which I had volunteered to edit. Shimoni did not disappoint; the impression he had on me has lasted to this day. This quote has stuck with me, never forgotten: “Chauvinism is when you take one value, however honorable it may be, and raise it above all other values. Fascism is when you make that value an absolute, and subjugate all other values to it”. It was like a light came on in my brain, like I had an epiphany, a clarification of the epithet from the definition.<br /><br /><br />So, when Professor Emeritus Gidi Shimoni published an opinion piece in the Jerusalem Post in February 2011, explaining why Israel was not an Apartheid state, I not only agreed with him, but I used his article in my arguments with people who did call Israel an Apartheid state. Two nights ago, the Knesset passed the Nation State bill, writing into law that which we have known and has been recognized by the vast majority of nations throughout the world – and I found myself wondering what he would say now, in light of his article in 2011? Let me say that I have the utmost respect for Professor Gidi Shimoni; my intention is not to show that he was wrong, but that our reality has changed. (Map of Bantustan states in Apartheid South Africa)</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img height="400" src="https://static.timesofisrael.com/blogs/uploads/2018/07/129967-004-ABF3A3EE-400x250.jpg" width="640" /><br /><br /><br />In 2011, his first premise in differentiating Israel from Apartheid South Africa, was in the essence of the nature of the conflict; he wrote, “The essence of Israel’s conflict situation has always been a clash of nationalisms; ultimately over the question of who should have primacy in gaining national self-determination in a contested territory. By contrast, the South African conflict evolved out of a centuries-long, near absolute domination exercised by a self-defined racial minority (the whites) over an externally-defined racial majority of the population, which was denied equal civic rights, above all the primary democratic right, enjoyed exclusively by the whites.”<br /><br />The Nation State Bill (“the Bill”) states:<br />– “The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, cultural, religious and historical right to self-determination.<br />– The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.”<br /><br />In other words, for the two million Arabs and other minorities born and living in Israel, Israel is not their national home, and they have no right to self-determination, which is unique to Jews. So, as an Arab, you could trace your roots back to generations living in Israel, and your citizenship is not an indigenous inalienable right, but granted you begrudgingly, whereas a Jew who got off the plane yesterday, has greater claim to be here than you.<br /><br />Further, in 2011, Shimoni wrote, “The Afrikaans term “apartheid” originated during the 1940s to describe an ideological conception and political program that justified, systematized, reinforced and expanded this pre-existent system of racial discrimination and separation.” – In other words, the Apartheid laws passed in 1960, which enshrined in South Africa’s law books the privilege and preexisting preference for White people in South Africa, had existed for decades, even centuries before the law was passed.<br /><br />The Nation State Bill states “The state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation.”<br /><br />This establishes legal privilege and priority for Jews and Jewish settlements, making it a legal precept in our laws. Like in South Africa, it formalizes in our law books the preference for Jews and Jewish settlements, something that has existed in so many facets of our life, for decades. Furthermore, it both contradicts and overrides our Declaration of independence, which has been the guiding light and our “presumptive Constitution”. “The state of Israel will promote the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants” and then it goes on to say that it will “uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens without distinction of race, creed or sex; and will guarantee full freedom of conscience, worship, education and culture.” – How can Israel now do that, when the Bill specifically states that it prioritizes one specific ethnic group? You cannot guarantee “full social and political equality for all your citizens”, when you place a higher value on the aspirations of one ethnic group.<br /><br />Gidi Shimoni then goes on to assert that “world condemnation (of Apartheid) targeted two indefensible wrongs: firstly, the legalized racist basis of apartheid’s enforced inequalities; secondly the adamant refusal of the apartheid regime to cease its unilateral dictates and accept the option of negotiation.”<br /><br />When you have a clause which says, “The state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation”, you have a legalized basis for inequalities.<br /><br />How, you may ask? Here’s how. Up until now, the basis for allocation of funds to municipalities has been upon the basis of “X” shekels per capita per city/town. (Of course there has also always been a priorities map – which in itself is built in inequality – but by and large the budget for municipal funding was done according to this key). But now, with the law encouraging, promoting and establishing the consolidation of “Jewish settlements”, the road is clear to allocate “X” shekels per capita for Jewish settlements and councils and “Y” shekels (a lesser amount) per capita for others.<br /><br />As for the second part, about accepting the option of negotiation: when the Bill writes into law that the right to exercise national self-determination is unique ∂to the Jewish people, and that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”, and that “The LAND of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established” (thereby describing not only Israel “proper”, but also the West Bank), what basis is there left for negotiation with the Palestinians? – So, in my opinion, the criterion which Shimoni emphasized was lacking in order to meet the condition of being Apartheid, now exists.<br /><br />Add to that the demotion of Arabic as an official language of the state. Two million people have just been told that the language they speak as mother tongue is no longer recognized as an official language. What will this mean in the future, in terms of teaching at schools and state exams? Will all Arab students soon have to write their Bagrut exams in Hebrew, giving them an institutional disadvantage in their scholarly achievements, and which could have far-reaching effects on their qualification for university studies, professions and prospects? What will it mean in terms of sign-posting of streets and official offices? What will it mean in terms of budgeting for radio stations and culture?<br /><br />Not related specifically to the Bill, but when an MK from the coalition (Smotrich), says he does not want his wife to share a ward in the hospital with an Arab woman, how long will it take before hospital rooms will be segregated? Or, when an organization like “Lehava”, which intimidates and targets Jewish-Arab couples finds sympathy among members of the legislature who sit in government, how long will it take before mixed marriage will be prohibited?<br /><br />So far, we have talked about Israel “proper”. With regard to the West Bank, Gidi Shimoni did draw parallels with Apartheid and Israel’s activities in the West Bank. This is what he wrote of Israel’s policy in the West Bank, “It fosters Jewish settlement while subjecting the Palestinian majority to a wide range of administrative and legal discrimination and hardship … and limitations on freedom of movement and housing development”. Further, he explained how Afrikaner intelligentsia spoke of “separate development”, a phenomenon clearly evident in the West Bank.<br /><br />What if Israel were to annex the West Bank? It is no longer far-fetched. The above-stated clauses of this Bill certainly gives that possibility a push forward, when it speaks of viewing Jewish settlements as a national value. It also does this, when it states in its first clause that “The land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established”, thereby dismissing the differentiation between the State of Israel and the Land of Israel. When you add to that the pending law proposal to impose Israeli law on Jewish settlements in the West Bank, you have further evidence of us moving in that direction. If Israel annexes the West Bank, what will Israel do with the 2.5 million Arabs living there? Will it make them citizens and grant them franchise? I seriously doubt it. I think they will be disenfranchised, one way or another. That’s another nail, locking in Apartheid. But more worrying, how can it then justify allowing Israeli Arabs living inside Israel “proper” the right to vote, but not Arabs from the West Bank, if the West Bank will become an integral part of Israel? What does that mean about the traditional franchise of Israeli Arabs?<br /><br />Or, Israel could adopt Naftali Bennett’s solution, which is to impose Israeli law on areas “B” and “C” as outlined by Oslo, while giving area “A” “autonomy”. Residents of area “A” would vote for their own leadership and administration. If you look at the map, you will see that area “A” basically is the area with dense Arab population – Ramalla, Nablus, Jericho etc – and there is no contiguous territorial connection between them (the connecting line is designated as “B”, which would be annexed). This is his way to circumvent the problem of giving 2.5 million Arabs voting rights. Basically, he is manipulating “democracy” for his nationalist purposes. In Shimoni’s 2011 article about South Africa, he says, “The most notable measure of this “reformed apartheid” praxis was the ruthless enforcement of the homelands (“Bantustans”) policy. Only in their own homelands were voting rights to be granted to the blacks, including those domiciled in white areas.” Sound familiar?<br /><br />Shimoni describes Israel’s activities today in the West Bank as “a policy and vision that replicates the theory and praxis of the reformed phase of South Africa’s apartheid policy, which was adopted as a survivaliststrategy… Characteristically, they too cast about for spurious arrangements calculated to ensure Jewish control and privilege (like the Whites did in South Africa) – , devoid of Israeli political rights, or relegation of citizenship and electoral rights to the adjacent Kingdom of Jordan… It is in this respect alone that use of the South African analogy to critique Israel is justified, and importantly so.”<br /><br />The similarity of Bennett’s plan to the Batustan policy is striking!<br /><br />I wonder how Gidi Shimoni would view Israel today, as compared to his excellent, defining article seven years ago.<br /><br />In 1982 I made Aliya and along with the excitement of fulfilling my Zionist dream, was relief that I was leaving Apartheid behind me. Now, I feel like history is repeating itself, and once again Apartheid is casting its shadow on my life. The reason why history repeats itself, even when we don’t forget it, is because we expect for it to be a carbon copy of the previous event, with the exact same policies and the exact same process and events – and that prevents us from identifying its repetition. However, it mutates. It becomes cloaked in euphemistic language. It is obfuscated. To prevent history from repeating itself, we need to see the process for what it is and not go into denial, wistfully thinking “we’re not there yet”. Apartheid is here. It is knocking on our door and the knocking is getting more insistent. Will we open it, or barricade it shut?<br /><br /><img src="https://static.timesofisrael.com/blogs/uploads/2018/07/images-400x250.jpg" /><br /><br />ABOUT THE AUTHOR<br />Paul Mirbach made aliya from South Africa to kibbutz Tuval in 1982 with a garin of Habonim members. Together they built a new kibbutz transforming rocks and mud to a green oasis in the Gallilee. He served in infantry during his army service, serving in both Lebanon and the West Bank, including on reserve duty during the first intifada. Paul still lives on Tuval with his wife and two sons.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-59216585563654987882018-07-18T21:38:00.000-07:002018-07-18T21:39:49.100-07:00#OyVeyDonaldTrump ..The return of the Bioviator by the Bard of Bat Yam, Poet Laureate Of Zion Stephen Darori<img alt="Image result for Donald Trump pompous delux cartoons" height="640" src="https://i.pinimg.com/736x/bf/e6/7e/bfe67eef46a2505a6242e90cc8f6ffd0--time-magazine-magazine-covers.jpg" width="480" /><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><b>1. A public figure, such as a politician or an actor, who makes outlandish, strident statements on issues, thinking that the average man will care about their opinions.</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><b>2. Someone who pontificates about issues of which they are uninformed, yet pretend to be expert.</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><b>3. Pompous blowhard, using their celebrity to speak about topics on which they are totally unqualified.</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As Donald Trump surges, so does "bloviate." "The bloviating billionaire" — it's clearly an alliteration whose time has come. But there's hardly a candidate or commentator who hasn't been labeled with the word. Thirty years ago it was dated slang; now it's seen as the prevailing vice of our public discourse.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Bloviate" has risen and fallen in American life. It was coined in the 1840s from "blow," a facetious pseudo-Latinism mocking the inflated oratory of an era when, as Tocqueville observed, Americans couldn't take to the stump without "venting their pomposity from one end of a harangue to the other."</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That bloated style had its last champion in the 1920s in the affable person of Warren Gamaliel Harding. Harding was blessed with strong pipes and a fine head of white hair. He prided himself on his gift for bloviating, which he defined as "speaking as long as the occasion warrants and saying nothing." His sonorous platitudes aroused the contempt of H.L. Mencken, who wrote that Harding's English was a "loud burble of words" fit only for morons and small-town yokels: "It reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it."</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Those stump-speech declamations soon fell victim to radio and the modern fashion for naturalness and informality, taking "bloviate" along with it. By the 1970s, the word was moribund. It was arguably saved from extinction only by the timely interventions of language columnist William Safire, who offered it as a replacement for phrases such as "empty rhetoric."</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then, in the late 1990s, "bloviate" began a dramatic comeback, most likely in response to the sheer pervasiveness of political yammer. Between 24/7 talk radio, cable news, social media, blogs and websites, we're exposed to more raucous voices in a single week than anyone in the age of Harding could experience in an entire lifetime.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So "bloviate" was summoned back to life, but in a new guise. Its jocular origins are forgotten; you sometimes see Safire credited with inventing it. And it no longer implies pomposity or even long-windedness — people complain about all the bloviating on Twitter. (Harding couldn't even have said "Ahem!" in 140 characters.) Sometimes it's just a way of dismissing whole networks and sectors as not worth listening to.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There's no "correct" way to use "bloviate" — it was never a real word to begin with. But I like to reserve it for the fondness for bombast that runs deep in the American spirit. The classic bloviator is someone so besotted with the majesty of the language that comes out of his or her mouth that it takes on a life of its own. In that sense, bloviating is a kind of backhanded tribute to language.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's an occupational hazard that many people who live by words are susceptible to. Think of Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg, or of William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal, whose sesquipedalian 1968 debate confrontations are on exhibit in the new documentary "Best of Enemies." Or David Foster Wallace or Christopher Hitchens — the woods are full of fine writers whose need to say things grandly sometimes comes at the cost of saying them well.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The most artful bloviators are self-aware enough to own it. Buckley tossed off esoteric words like "albescent" and "catechize" with pointed nonchalance, as if to suggest that that's how he'd talk if you woke him in the middle of the night. Bill O'Reilly wants you to draw the opposite conclusion. He calls himself a bloviator, as Harding did, but rarely uses an SAT word without disavowing it at the same time. "You're casting aspersions," he tells Jon Stewart, then adds "big word." He over-enunciates fancy words like "opine" and "bloviate" itself, with the implication that there would be something genuinely pretentious about saying them straight.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">O'Reilly is typical of the modern political bloviators so carried away with their words that they imagine others must be too. Their ranks are thinner than people make them out to be: O'Reilly but not Sean Hannity, Chris Matthews but not Rachel Maddow, Ted Cruz but not Chris Christie, Michael Moore but not Bernie Sanders, "Colbert" but not Colbert.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That's not to let the others off the hook. The American lexicon is rich with names for hooey and its purveyors: There are "blowhards" and "windbags," there is "ballyhoo," "bluster" and "bunkum," not to mention a less decorous word for nonsense that also begins with a B.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That leaves no shortage of alliterative epithets for Trump: the blustering billionaire, the gassy gazillionaire, the preening plutocrat. (Safire might have said Trump calls for a revival of Mark Twain's favorite, "blatherskite," for a "blustering noisy talkative fellow.")</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But if Trump is a bloviator, he's one who regards words with something between indifference and disdain. He'd never overreach for a fancy word and come up with something like George W. Bush's "Grecians" or Sarah Palin's "refudiate." He's utterly unself-conscious about his language, and if he has any self-awareness about it, he does a good job of hiding it. The broken sentences, repetitions, false starts and digressions, the banal superlatives and insults —Tremendous! Fabulous! Moron! Loser! — Trump may be sui generis as a candidate, but his language is the culmination of a fixation with the "natural" that has shaped public discourse over the last century. It's not really public speaking, just a simulation of street-corner schmoozing, which is one reason so many people find Trump "real," "authentic" and even "just like us."</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And yet. The bloviator's first object is to dazzle himself with his own words, and Trump's are exactly the simple ones that he wants to hear, particularly when the conversation turns to his favorite subject: "I'm really rich." "I'm a really smart guy."</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I think of what the psychologist B.F. Skinner said: The reason we boast is to hear someone saying nice things about us.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-60568405511228805122018-06-28T09:40:00.000-07:002018-06-28T09:40:14.037-07:00The Two State Fantasy versus The New State Solution<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For decades the world has subscribed to the notion that the two-state solution presents the most viable road to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; it is time that other ideas be allowed to enter the public discourse.<br /><br /> As with all incoming administrations, a Trump presidency ushers in the opportunity to review, retain, or revise the terms of long-standing policies, including those relating to the Middle East.<br /><br />The ‘two state solution’, as broadly defined, is a policy that must be reviewed and revised. No proposed solution to the conflict need be perfect; all must be possible, however. The two-state solution is neither. The insipid one state solution is even less so.<br /><br /> Both ideas have gained too much traction. Neither is understood by the vast majority of those by whom they are championed. The saving grace of these notions seems primarily to be their alliterative, easily retained titles.<br /><br /> A further state for the Palestinian Arabs can be established. That state must be viable though. It must augur in a future of promise, security, liberty, sovereignty, self determination and opportunity for its inhabitants. Citizens of this Palestinian state must be granted every possible chance to positively thrive. It must be a state whose people not only dare to dream, but who actually realize the dreams they conceive.<br /><br /> This state must not come into being at the expense of Israel either now or in the future. Neither Israel the people, nor Israel the country must be existentially compromised in order to facilitate its creation.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://images1.ynet.co.il//PicServer4/2016/09/22/7282730/72827280991296640360no.jpg"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://images1.ynet.co.il/PicServer4/2016/09/22/7282730/72827280991296640360no.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /></span><div>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Israel and Egypt from space at night (Photo: NASA)<br /><br /> Any solution must be characterized by the reconciliation of practicability, possibility and imagination.<br /><br /> With the above in mind, I introduce what I term <b>THE NEW STATE SOLUTION.</b><br /><br /><b>ON CONTIGUITY</b><br /><br />The least practical aspect of the two-state scenario results from the geographical positioning of the Gaza Strip in relation to Judea and Samaria (West Bank).<br /><br />Unlike in other proposals, The New State Solution would front-load this most intractable geographical challenge rather than defer it to a nebulous ‘future date.’<br /><br /> The New State Solution would thus be anchored first and foremost in the Gaza Strip, with territorial expansion into a section of the Sinai Peninsula. This state could be larger than anything that could be accommodated by the minute area of Judea and Samaria, thus granting geographical viability. It also redefines the Gaza Strip as a central part of the solution, rather than an insurmountable problem.<br /><br /><b>ON THE ARAB STATES</b><br /><br />The boundaries of the New State would be brokered and ratified by several other parties beside Israel; most notably Egypt. Egypt is a prime mover within the Arab world. Having their imprimatur would grant legitimacy among several Arab nations and non-western nations. Egypt also has a history of going alone in the Arab world where necessary, so long as its own best interests are assured.<br /><br /><b>ON FRATERNAL RELATIONS</b><br /><br />The New State would enjoy clearly defined, secured borders. Good fences make good neighbors. To the south, Egypt would positively amend the current arrangements it has with the Gaza strip in line with the contours of The New State and the opportunities that spring forth. To the north, Israel would extend its arm even further and open its hand even wider to partner with its new, peace-seeking neighbor.<br /><br /> The New State would have cultural affinity with its Egyptian neighbors and there is far closer cultural familiarity between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs than many fully appreciate. That affinity could be built upon and expanded, creating triangulated, regional cooperation.<br /><br /><b>ON DOMESTIC SECURITY AND DEMILITARIZATION</b><br /><br />There would be no IDF presence within the borders of the New State. None. Independent states do not want foreign troops within their land. The New State would thus be both demilitarized and have a highly effective security apparatus. Contrary to the perception of many, demilitarization does not mean no weapons. Nor does it mean no security. It means no military. For example, The New State would have APC’s but not tanks. It would have light air ordinance such as helicopters but no fighter jets. It would have speed boats and patrol boats, but no battleships or submarines. It would have a police force but not an army. The security and police forces of the state would maintain superior fire power and logistical capabilities. These are the same tools by which democratic states maintain daily, domestic security after all.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://images1.ynet.co.il//PicServer4/2016/10/22/7337041/7337036292495640360no.jpg"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://images1.ynet.co.il/PicServer4/2016/10/22/7337041/7337036292495640360no.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gaza Strip (Photo: Southern Network)<br /><br /><b>ON PREVENTING ENDOGENOUS SPILLOVER AND INFILTRATION</b><br /><br />Any Palestinian Arab state established in Judea and Samaria requires that both Israel and Jordan stand fast as military guarantors. No state in the region enjoys absolute, total security but Israel is a comparative super power in the Middle East. The long term security of Jordan is far more precarious. The establishment of a Palestinian Arab state in Judea and Samaria means that in the event of a collapsing or collapsed Jordan, an unimpeded corridor of potentially pernicious states would be established to Israel’s east, extending from Afghanistan and Pakistan, into Iran, through Iraq, via Jordan, across Judea and Samaria, and onto what would be the divided city of Jerusalem in the two state formula.<br /><br /> Israel would stand alone as the final bulwark against such threats. Advocates of the two state solution must not shut their eyes to this very stark possibility.<br /><br /> The New State Solution offers far more reasoned security guarantees. To the south, south-west and south-east of the New State, the Egyptian military would be present only on the Egyptian side of the shared border. Israel would maintain its security presence on the border with the New State on the Israeli side only.<br /><br /> Israeli and Egyptian forces manning the borders would not only offer reassurance to their own countries, but also to the New State. Both would closely assist and cooperate so as to prevent spillover beyond, and unwanted infiltration within, the borders of The New State.<br /><b><br />ON COMMERCE</b><br /><br />A state established in Judea and Samaria will be close to landlocked with very few natural resources. That may beget a culture of tremendous entrepreneurialism among its citizens, but it may not. It may beget despair. Nobody can be certain. A failing economy will yield only a failed or client state and will be a manifestation of a problem unresolved.<br /><br /> By contrast, The New State Solution, established as proposed, offers miles of beautiful, Mediterranean coastline.<br /><br /> With a shoreline no less inviting than that of Tel-Aviv, The New State would boast rich opportunity for trade, commerce, tourism, hotels, resorts, casinos (on or off-shore), import, export and both an open, commercial air-port and an open commercial sea-port. Both would be toward the western most section of the country. Favorable security coordination would be agreed between Israel, Egypt and The New State.Massive economic investment within The New State would come from all international parties who have pledged their commitment to resolving the conflict. Actors would include the United States, the E.U., Great Britain and both Israel and Egypt; at a minimum.<br /><br /><b>ON DEMOGRAPHICS</b><br /><br />Financial and commercial assistance would be granted to any residents of Judea and Samaria wishing to relocate to The New State.<br /><br />Consider that today, as in the past, Jews immigrate to Israel with the belief that a better life awaits them here. Their reasons for doing so are varied. Significantly, however, Jews come to Israel voluntarily. They are neither forcibly transferred into Israel as individuals, nor as whole communities.<br /><br /> So too should it be for the Palestinian Arabs of Judea and Samaria.<br /><br />Like many in the Jewish Diaspora, some will wish to remain where they currently reside. Others will sense and seize upon the gleaming opportunity offered by The New State.<br /><br /> The Palestinian Arabs are no more monolithic than are the Jewish People. Some may wish to constitute their futures in Judea and Samaria, others will prefer the option of opening a hotel along the shores of their own state or the prospect of building a home overlooking the Mediterranean, or they will move seeking employment and the opportunity to build up a state in which they have agency. They ought to be allowed to choose.<br /><br /> Successful repatriation to The New State would significantly further reduce Israel’s demographic considerations regarding Judea and Samaria while those residents already in the Gaza Strip would be part of The New State, resolving that demographic concern.<br /><br /> For those not wishing to relocate from Judea and Samaria, the more favorable demographic realities enjoyed by Israel would engender the confidence needed to annex Judea and Samaria with full and equal rights being extended to all, regardless of race, religion or creed. This would take place only once a 50% immigration threshold to The New State is achieved.<br /><br />Israel would continue the policy of the right of return and would control immigration policy within Israel. It would thus maintain its democratic and Jewish character by far more than the two-thirds majority advocated by some proponents of the one state solution.<br /><br /> Those Palestinian Arabs claiming citizenship overseas would have an open channel to immigration into The New State, with The New State affixing immigration policy for itself.<br /><br /><b>ON GOVERNANCE AND GOVERNMENT</b><br /><br /><br />Any future massive attack launched against the State of Israel from the Gaza Strip should serve as a prelude for the total and final toppling and dismantling of Hamas and their oppressive regime. The destruction of Hamas should be undertaken with the aim of facilitating and incubating the legitimate emergence of a new, pragmatic, though not necessarily westernized, government that will administer a free, viable, secure, burgeoning New State that is secured, supported and championed by Israel, Egypt and the international community.<br /><br /> The first footstep into Gaza by IDF soldiers as part of the next defensive operation in response to rocket or tunnel attacks should set in motion The New State Solution as strategy. The diplomatic groundwork should begin immediately however, in advance of any unwanted, but likely, future conflict.<br /><br /><b>THE CASE FOR THE NEW STATE SOLUTION</b><br /><br />In December, 2015, Secretary of State John Kerry stated:<br /><br /> "The United States is deeply committed to securing Israel's future as a Jewish and Democratic state. We are also committed to an independent, viable Palestinian state, where Palestinians live with freedom and dignity. The only way to achieve that is through a negotiated solution that creates two states for two peoples living side by side in peace and security."The New State Solution adheres precisely to Kerry’s own spoken definition of the sole way forward, though not to his vision.<br /><br /> It offers a negotiated solution resulting in two states for two peoples living side by side in peace and security. The definition endures therefore. It is the vision that must change.<br /><br />For too long, calls have come for a two state solution incorporating Judea and Samaria as the basis of a Palestinian state. At its core, such a plan requires the mass, likely enforced displacement of at least many tens of thousands of Jewish people in order to build a home for another people. Past experience within Israel does not bode well for any such notion, nor should it. I do not want to see the people of Israel go through such a process. I do not wish to see the Palestinian Arabs go through such a process. There should be no forced transfers of populations.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://images1.ynet.co.il//PicServer4/2014/08/19/5532897/553288301001499640360no.jpg"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://images1.ynet.co.il/PicServer4/2014/08/19/5532897/553288301001499640360no.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hamas terrorists inside their attack tunnels (Photo: Reuters)<br /><br /> Politicians and communal figureheads frequently declare that the two-state solution is the ‘only solution.’ This tone of finality is both inaccurate and unhelpful. It places far too much faith in a plan that is demonstrably flawed and it blunts legitimate discussion and debate about alternatives.<br /><br /> There are alternative solutions to every problem – including to this problem. I am presenting my plan as one such alternative. It can be refined; but it is an alternative.<br /><br /> When assessing opportunities for peace, it is my hope that President-elect Trump brings with him a new attitude, where Presidents turn their gaze away from Israel’s east, and affix it instead upon Israel’s west when reviewing the peace process.<br /><br /> He, Israel’s Prime Minister and the President of Egypt could yet realize a new, fresh and viable vision by so doing.<br /><br /> I hear Mr. Trump has an eye for the development of gleaming, shining and bold new projects. This would be the boldest of all.<br /><br /><br /><br /> <br /><br />The two-state solution is defunct. Long live the New State Solution.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-56616806629819924942018-06-13T02:30:00.001-07:002018-06-13T02:30:45.605-07:00Bird's Eye View of Jeremy Corbyn and Uk Labour Party antiSemitism <span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img alt="Image result for Jeremy Corbyn anti israel and antisemitism" height="435" 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" width="640" /><br /><br /> An analysis of the British Labour party under the chairmanship of Jeremy Corbyn provides a panoramic view of many aspects of socialist anti-Jewish hate-mongering. The most extreme comments come disproportionately from Muslims, a subject that is taboo for the British media. The incitement is accompanied by a whitewashing of the party’s anti-Semitism problem, a whitewashing that is supported by a great majority of its members. The ongoing hate-mongering in the party has led to some unprecedented reactions by the British Jewish leadership.<br /><br />In the past decades, Western European social democrat politicians and parties have been among the most extreme inciters against Israel. In several cases, there have also been expressions of anti-Semitism. Leading socialist politicians, including the late Swedish Socialist Prime Minister Olof Palme and the late Greek Socialist Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, have accused Israel of Nazi practices.<br /><br />Only in the past two years, however, has a European socialist party – the British Labour Party – been exposed for widespread and extreme anti-Jewish incitement. Classic anti-Semitic as well as anti-Israel remarks by elected representatives have been published on a more or less ongoing basis. An analysis of the British Labour party provides a panoramic view of many aspects of socialist anti-Jewish hate-mongering.<br /><br />In September 2015, extreme leftist Jeremy Corbyn became the party leader. A few months later, the first accusations about anti-Semitism concerning the Oxford University Labour Club became widely known. The party’s National Executive Committee chose to reveal only a limited summary of the findings exposed by Labour peer Lady Royall. Several months later the entire report was leaked to the press.<br /><br />As the “anti-Semitism in Labour” issue started to interest the British media, it slowly became clear that extreme anti-Semitic expressions had been present in the party prior to Corbyn’s appointment. In 2014, for example, under previous Labour leader Ed Miliband, Naz Shah proposed – before she was elected MP in Bradford – that Israel should be relocated to the US. At that time, apparently no one was interested in publicizing this statement.<br /><br />Among the expressions of anti-Semitic hate uttered by elected representatives, a disproportionate number has come from Muslims. This was the case during Miliband’s leadership and continues under Corbyn. Despite hundreds of articles on anti-Semitism in Labour, the specifically Muslim aspects remain taboo in the British media.<br /><br />Miliband steered the party towards a proposal of recognition of a Palestinian state. This was possibly done to gain the support of Muslims during the May 2015 elections, as an estimated 4.5% of the British population are Muslim.</span><div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Corbyn mixes with anti-Semites. He has donated money to, and attended gatherings of, a charity headed by Holocaust denier Paul Eisen. He has referred to the genocide-promoting Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations as his friends. When he came to power he promoted anti-Semites, including Ken Livingstone, to senior positions. Livingstone, the former mayor of London, was later suspended after his repeated claims that Hitler had supported Zionism in the 1930s. Livingstone resigned from the party in 2018.<br /><br />It is not easy to identify which of Corbyn’s acts fall squarely within the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s definition of anti-Semitism, which was adopted by the UK government. In May 2018, Jonathan Arkush, outgoing President of the Board of Deputies, the umbrella organization of British Jewry, claimed that Corbyn held anti-Semitic views. He noted that the Labour leader had been chairman of the Stop the War organization, which is known for some of the worst anti-Israel discourse.<br /><br />When media pressure concerning anti-Semitism in Labour became an issue, Corbyn appointed human rights activist Shami Chakrabarti in April 2016 to investigate the accusations. Her report was poorly written and unprofessional. Shortly afterwards, Corbyn proposed Chakrabarti for a peerage, which resulted in her becoming a baroness. Corbyn also appointed her the party’s Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales. Little has been heard from this supposed expert about ongoing Labour anti-Semitism.<br /><br />It is by now abundantly clear that Corbyn has little desire to confront anti-Semitism in his party other than through general statements. As a result, the whitewashing of anti-Semitism in Labour has become a significant problem. In March 2018, a poll of paying Labour members found that 47% said anti-Semitism is a problem, but the extent of the problem is being exaggerated “to damage Labour and Jeremy Corbyn or to stifle criticism of Israel.” A further 30% said anti-Semitism is not a serious issue. Sixty-one percent thought Corbyn is handling the anti-Semitism claims well. Only 33% thought he is handling them badly.<br /><br />The confrontation with anti-Semitism in one of the country’s two major parties has had an important impact on members of the Jewish community. Many of them no longer vote for Labour, and some have stopped donating. An unprecedented demonstration of the Jewish community against anti-Semitism in Labour took place in London outside a Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) meeting. In a letter to the chair of the PLP, the Board of Deputies wrote: “Again and again, Jeremy Corbyn has sided with anti-Semites rather than Jews.”<br /><br />In Parliament, several Jewish and pro-Jewish Labour MPs have reported that they have been subjected to tremendous harassment. Labour’s attempt to conquer the London constituency of Barnet – the most Jewish borough in the UK – failed in the May 2018 local elections.<br /><br />The modest increase in Labour seats nationwide during those elections disappointed the party’s expectations and was seen as partly due to the anti-Semitism debate. Arkush went farthest, stating that Corbyn’s views could drive Jews to leave Britain if he were to become prime minister. He was one of the Jewish leaders who met Corbyn in April 2018, a meeting those leaders found disappointing.<br /><br />Small groups on the Jewish left are enthusiastic supporters of Corbyn. He continues to provoke, and attended a Passover seder at Jewdas – a radical anti-Zionist Jewish organization that has called Israel a “steaming pile of sewage which needs to be properly disposed of.”<br /><br />In March 2018, Corbyn said that since he became party chairman, there have been 300 complaints about anti-Semitism. He said that of those accused, 150 people have either been expelled or resigned, and added that the backlog of complaints is 60 cases. However, the Daily Mail reported a backlog of 74 cases and said MP John Mann claims to be aware of another 130 complaints. One source in Labour told the paper: “Many of these cases include the most shocking and blatant anti-Semitism that would make even a committed Nazi blush.”<br /><br />The disappointing local election results may have been the impetus for Labour’s announcement that it will speed up dealing with the complaints with the intention of clearing the backlog by the end of July. In view of the party’s checkered past under Corbyn, we will have to wait and see whether this promise will be fulfilled.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-79762349443165183022018-06-10T21:06:00.002-07:002018-06-10T21:07:47.340-07:00#OyVeyDonald Trump in Syria, Chaos and Mayhem in the Middle East<br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Trump’s Passive-Aggressive Syria Policy Risks Creating More Mayhem in the Middle East<br />The United States is pursuing a worst-of-both-worlds mix of hawkish confrontation and strategic retrenchment<br /><br /><br /><img height="430" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1000/1*KlmITCmvD2MAlTw5cMJDnw.jpeg" width="640" />U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a briefing on Syria in the White House on April 9. From left: U.S. Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley, Vice President Mike Pence, Trump, and National Security Advisor John Bolton. Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images<br /><br />The addition of uber-hawkish fresh faces to President Donald Trump’s national security team raised justifiable <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/magazine/can-jim-mattis-hold-the-line-in-trumps-war-cabinet.html">worries</a> that the president was assembling a “war cabinet.”<br /><br />But as the limited targets of the U.S. <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/14/syrian-chemical-weapons-use-prompts-missile-volley-from-trump/">missile strikes</a> against Syria on Friday show, a continuation of the essence of Trump’s foreign policy in the Middle East is far more likely: a worst-of-both-worlds mix of tactical, hawkish confrontation and an underlying strategic retrenchment.<br /><br />Call it a passive-aggressive Middle East strategy — aggressive enough to turn up the heat on the region’s conflicts yet passive enough to ensure that the United States does not really invest in addressing them.<br /><br />Trump’s approach undercuts U.S. influence and ability to shape outcomes in the region:<br /><br />Rip up the Iran nuclear deal, but make no serious plans to challenge Iran in the region. Crush the Islamic State militarily, but walk away from the aftermath. Launch limited strikes into Syria (which we support) without a strategy — all while barring America’s doors to Syrian victims. Then <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/985130802668294144">declare</a>“mission accomplished” as Syria burns.<br /><br />Roll out the red carpet for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s visit to Washington, but squander that leverage by writing him a blank check for continued regional conflict. Gain leverage, and then squander it. Rinse, repeat.<br /><br />Delegate all meaningful follow-through down to the ghost ship of the nondefense national security bureaucracy. Strain the U.S. military by escalating tensions around the world and sending troops to a fake threat on America’s southern border at the same time. Trump has slapped the “America First” bumper sticker on a Middle East policy that does little to advance America’s interests or tackle its enduring challenges.<br /><b><br />How will this approach play out on the ground?</b><br /><br />The next two months will tell us a great deal. Just as Trump reshuffles his national security team, he has also arranged a series of self-imposed Middle East crises.<br /><br />Over a single, head-spinning stretch in early May, Trump is likely to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/iran-deals-fate-may-rest-on-late-european-interventions/2018/04/15/3d40f9a8-40a6-11e8-b2dc-b0a403e4720a_story.html?utm_term=.1bd2f2d75d4c">rip up</a> the Iran nuclear deal and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/world/middleeast/trump-embassy-jerusalem-.html">open</a> a U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem — just as Iraqis <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/mideast-crisis-iraq-election/iraq-parliament-confirms-may-12-as-date-for-elections-state-tv-idUSL8N1PH1Y7">head to the polls</a> for national elections. And that was before Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s horrific chemical weapons provoked a U.S. military response — and raised the stakes of Trump’s <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-syria/trump-tells-advisers-he-wants-u-s-out-of-syria-senior-officials-idUSKBN1H61J0">musings</a> on pulling U.S. troops out of eastern Syria.<br /><br />Over the coming month and a half, Trump and his team could well make three unforced errors in the Middle East.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><b>Iran</b><br /><br />Trump seems ready to isolate the United States and undermine its leverage by pulling it out of the Iran nuclear deal. This would increase security tensions in the region while unilaterally removing from the United States a key tool blocking Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon in the coming years. European countries, China, and Russia might well stay in the deal, and it remains to be seen what Iran would do. There is little evidence that Trump’s team — including John Bolton, the new national security advisor, and Mike Pompeo, the CIA director and Iran hawk whom Trump has nominated for secretary of state — is prepared to deal with the range of outreach and contingencies required to mount a credible campaign of renewed international pressure.<br /><br />Looking beyond the deal to the broader region, the gap between Trump rhetoric and reality is wider still. The United States is largely bereft of an active strategy to engage and compete with Iran in the fields where it matters most, particularly regarding political and security situations on the ground.<br /><br />Seeing the Trump team’s failure to compete in the nonmilitary, non-palace-pomp dimensions of regional leadership, one gets the feeling it views the United States as another regional monarchy, whose only tools are its Special Forces, Air Force, and royal court. And the results are likely to be similarly underwhelming unless the United States changes its approach.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><b>Anti-Islamic State</b><br /><br />The same brittle combination of aggressive militarism and strategic passivity may be also taking hold in the fight against the Islamic State.<br /><br />Trump’s pledges, despite warnings from his team, to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/29/politics/trump-withdraw-syria-pentagon/index.html">remove</a> U.S. troops from eastern Syria “very soon” have been deferred, at least for now.<br /><br />While we see the risks of continued presence, ultimately Trump’s proposed withdrawal would risk abandoning U.S. anti-Islamic State partners to Turkey, Russia, Iran, and the Syrian government. This could unleash a major new wave of fighting, mass displacement, and human suffering that might well breathe new life into the Islamic State.<br /><br />Similar concerns exist in Iraq, where May elections represent a political inflection point. Whether the country can bridge its internal divisions is a key test of whether the military defeat of the Islamic State will be translated into a sustained political defeat. While attention is focused elsewhere, a great deal is at stake: Will Iraq’s next prime minister look to the United States, or will Iraq be dragged under Iranian domination? Will Iranian-backed militias be a problem to manage or coalition partners sharing the spoils? Will the Kurds unite to block a hard-line Iran-backed Shiite prime minister from dividing and ruling them?<br /><br />The United States can have a significant impact in helping the new Iraqi government tackle the next phase in the fight against the Islamic State and define its relationship with its neighbors, particularly Iran and Saudi Arabia. But there is little evidence of such an effort underway amid all the churn at Trump’s National Security Council and the State Department. The risk is that, having invested so much into militarily defeating the Islamic State, the United States will needlessly fail to make a far smaller investment of resources and high-level attention to ensure that America can engage and compete. As an Iraqi told one of us, “He who does not show up has no influence.”<br />The Israeli-Palestinian conflict<br /><br />The Trump team has promised a peace plan for Israelis and Palestinians but failed to do even the bare minimum to cultivate a Palestinian partner willing to engage in the process. By unilaterally moving the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem — taking Jerusalem “off the table,” to use Trump’s evocative <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-trump-netanyahu-meet-in-davos-1.5766434?=&ts=_1523837305367">phrase</a>, without asking for any constructive steps from Israel in response — Trump’s plan may be dead on arrival.<br /><br />As events this past week — not just in Syria but in Yemen and the Gaza Strip — demonstrate, the Middle East remains a dangerous tinderbox where ongoing conflicts in particular corners of the region could easily erupt into wider conflagrations. Trump carries out episodic actions in a strategic vacuum. Scratch beneath the surface of his rhetoric and militarism and, in many instances, you find a shabby disengagement with the underlying drivers and challenges.<br /><br />The actions the United States takes this May in the Middle East may set a new tenor for America’s engagement. Trump seems ready to add more fuel to the fire of the Middle East’s conflicts, with neither the will nor the game plan to put those fires out.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-49194238349266092442018-06-07T02:17:00.000-07:002018-06-07T02:17:41.868-07:00Stability in Gaza is not directly proportionate to Economic Benefits<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Economic Benefits Will Not Bring Stability to Gaza<br /><br /><br /><img alt="Image result for hamas rally" height="446" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRcKK3clqHqpWxKepRWebbAlvI_Lq9pKX6B0HtyzErkzzt21_mR" width="640" /><br /><br /><br />The easing of economic conditions – a strategy that benefited Palestinian areas in the West Bank – is increasingly touted as the way to achieve political stability in Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas. But this strategy only works after the enemy is defeated.<br /><br />Many experts claim that an easing of economic conditions in Gaza, particularly the granting of permission to Gazans to work in Israel, is the way to achieve political stability in a Gaza Strip ruled by Hamas.<br /><br />This is a fallacious argument.<br /><br />To understand why this is so, one must revisit the Marshall Plan for Europe, the most successful example in history of how economic largesse can facilitate the transformation of a destructive foe into a staunch and healthy ally. West Germany became a lynchpin in the security architecture of the Western alliance against the Warsaw Pact countries under the Soviet orbit.<br /><br />No one can deny the success of the Marshall Plan, especially in contrast to the fallout from the destructive vindictiveness of western allies against Germany after World War I. Indeed, that vindictiveness contributed to the rise of Nazi Germany, forming the historical justification for the Marshall Plan.<br /><br />By the same token, one can hardly deny the even greater importance of two geostrategic factors at the time that made such economic largesse towards a former enemy worthwhile.<br /><br />First, the total defeat of Nazi Germany, and its subsequent occupation and division by the winning coalition, meant that the US and its allies could mold West Germany to their liking through denazification and democratic rule, just as the Soviet Union created an East Germany in its own totalitarian image.<br /><br />Second, West Germany was, like the rest of free Europe, beholden to the US for its security in the face of a menacing Soviet Union and its satellite states.<br /><br />In the face of these two basic facts, the Marshall Plan can be seen as having facilitated and reinforced a process.<br /><br />Benjamin Netanyahu’s liberal economic policy towards the residents of Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA), primarily the allowing of over 100,000 workers with or without permits to work in Israel, succeeded in part because it satisfied the two basic conditions that made the Marshall Plan successful.<br /><br />At the height of the second intifada in 2002, Israel reconquered major towns in the PA that had become sanctuary areas for Fatah, PA-linked, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad terrorism. It has prevented the reemergence of sanctuary areas ever since through preventive arrests throughout the West Bank that run into the thousands annually.<br /><br />Like Germany, the PA was essentially defeated. And as was the case with West Germany and the US, Israel and the PA became allied against joint enemies – Hamas and Islamic Jihad.<br /><br />If the PA ever had any doubts about who was more threatening to Abbas’s rule, Israel or Hamas, those doubts were put to rest after the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007.<br /><br />It was only after these two conditions were met that economic prosperity could play its facilitating role.<br /><br />And even then, the economic effects were limited compared to hard and fast political and military factors.<br /><br />After all, even after workers from the West Bank were granted permission to commute to work in Israel, where they earn almost twice the wages of workers in the PA (after debiting commuting costs), over 250 Palestinians were motivated to commit murders in the wave of terrorism at the end of 2015-16.<br /><br />The relative difference in the lethality of this terrorist wave – in which only 45 were killed compared to 800 in the second intifada by the same number of terrorists – was due not to a decrease in motivation but to the fact that they no longer had sanctuaries from which to organize elaborate suicide bombings or store large quantities of firearms.<br /><br />In fact, by the time of the wave, the professional terrorist infrastructures of Hamas and Islamic Jihad had been thoroughly smashed.<br /><br />In Gaza, neither of these conditions prevails. Gaza under Hamas rule remains a sanctuary area where Hamas can freely build up its military capabilities and launch a sophisticated campaign like the March of Return with little interference.<br /><br />There is no common enemy that would render Hamas conciliatory, as was the case between the US and West Germany or between Israel and the PA.<br /><br />Only a policy of toughness towards Hamas can induce it to assure stability and quiet in Gaza.<br /><br />The three large-scale bouts of conflict between Israel and Hamas in 2008-9, 2012, and 2014 led the inhabitants of Gaza to demand that Hamas bring an end to the launching of missiles that had led to those clashes. Hamas acknowledged that pressure and acted upon it.<br /><br />Further popular pressure after the failure of the March of Return campaign is likely to induce Hamas to stop campaigns of violence altogether.<br /><br />Economic largesse at this point would only augment Hamas’s resources, as it taxes incoming goods and aid. That money will be funneled back to its hard core through campaigns such as the March of Return.<br /><br />Gaza’s inhabitants voted in Hamas in 2006. They have lived to regret it. It is now incumbent upon them to defang their government by making sure it deals in butter, not guns.<br /><br />Only when Hamas envisions its territory as a future Singapore rather than a murderous labyrinth of fundamentalist terrorism should economic benefits accrue to Gaza.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-59903411216851160362018-06-01T03:41:00.000-07:002018-06-01T03:41:28.562-07:00Porn is Jewish Conspiracy ....welcome to the Alt Right ( again) <span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Why the Alt-Right Thinks Porn is a Jewish Conspiracy<br /><br />A few months ago, a user on a bodybuilding supplement forum asked if it was weird that he had a childhood crush on Lola Bunny from Space Jam.<br /><br /><img src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/0*LbZTrQSxhVBP_KsR." /><br /><br />“It’s not weird,” someone assured him. In fact, this someone added, there’s “a conspiracy from sinister guys at the top” to pornify popular culture, in order to get young boys so addicted to pornographic images that they develop “bad social skills” and are too weak and distracted to resist the elites in power. “Looks like it worked,” agreed another user, who then pressed ENTER 144 times and posted a gif of a fly rubbing its front legs together, with a hook-nosed, yarmulked Jewish caricature photoshopped on its head.<br /><br />How did this bodybuilding forum go from Lola Bunny screenshots to anti-Semitic memes in less than 24 hours? Well, it turns out that despite the stereotype that alt-righters spend hours in their parents’ basements watching tentacle hentai, many of them are theoretically anti-porn. More specifically, they believe porn is a Jewish conspiracy to weaken white men and, if all goes according to plan, destroy Western civilization. (Honestly, this isn’t that different from how a lot of mainstream commentators talk about porn — but more on that later.)<br /><br />I became aware of the alt-right theory of smut on February 11, 2018, the day after New York Times columnist Ross Douthat called for an outright ban on pornography. A conservative writer I follow on Twitter agreed with Douthat, and I replied with some practical concerns about what might happen if the porn industry became an unregulated black market. Then someone with the handle @SwiFT__1889 (a simultaneous tribute to alt-right icons Taylor Swiftand Charles Lindbergh) wrote this:</span><figure class="graf graf--figure graf-after--p" id="cbf7" name="cbf7" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; margin: 43px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; position: relative; user-select: auto; z-index: 100;"><div class="aspectRatioPlaceholder is-locked" style="margin: 0px auto; max-height: 330px; max-width: 688px; position: relative; width: 688px;">
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</figure><span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />Lindy TayTay’s impassioned stance took me aback. All of men? The well-being of the masses? What was going on here?<br /><br />After some clicking around, I found they’d recently retweeted Paul Nehlen, the white nationalist running for Paul Ryan’s seat in Congress, and the tweetlinked to a video titled “The Jewish Role in the Porn Industry.” That same day, February 11, Twitter suspended Nehlen’s account, and hundreds of his followers changed their avatar to Nehlen’s and used hashtags like #FreeNehlen and #JeSuisPaulNehlen.<br /><br />The video in question was made by Mark Collett, former director of publicity for the British National Party (check out this 2002 video of baby Mark being interviewed by baby Russell Brand, featuring the line, “I just missed a call for you, ya Nazi!”). Since it was posted nine months ago the video’s garnered 80,000 views.<br /><br />Collett’s argument is this: Jews have had a disproportionate presence in the porn industry since at least the 1970s. (There’s some truth to this, as we’ll see in a bit.) And they aren’t just motivated by profit — they actually mean to harm Western civilization, too. Young white men, Collett claims, become addicted to porn at an early age, to the point where they’re less and less interested in, or even capable of, actual sex. Furthermore, these young men’s addiction drives them to pursue ever greater highs, as the porn they used to watch no longer works for them. So they end up hooked on gay and trans porn, and interracial porn featuring black men and white women. This is why “cuck,” the porn trope of a white man forced to watch his wife have sex with a black man, became a popular alt-right term for anyone to their left.<br /><br />The goal of this addictive material, supposedly, is to neuter and desexualize white men, and ultimately doom the white race. This is where the alt-right theory of porn ties into the larger theory of white genocide. The immigration of people of color into Europe and North America, coupled with the declining birth rate among white couples, will render white people a minority, if not altogether extinct, and then Jews will be the only high-IQ race left in the West, leaving them free to control the black and brown masses.<br /><br />Collett is far from alone in his views. He’s joined by white nationalist and alt-right voices like David Duke, Kevin MacDonald, Identity Dixie, the Daily Stormer and this random YouTube commenter:</span><figure class="graf graf--figure graf-after--p" id="f5df" name="f5df" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; margin: 43px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; position: relative; user-select: auto; z-index: 100;"><div class="aspectRatioPlaceholder is-locked" style="margin: 0px auto; max-height: 94px; max-width: 613px; position: relative; width: 613px;">
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was a response, by the way, to a <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">video</span> posted by The Golden One, a Swedish bodybuilder-fascist who frequently tweets out memes like this:</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“It’s hard to find someone on the alt-right who <em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: "liga", "salt";">doesn’t</em> basically buy the ‘Jews created porn’ idea,” says <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">Daniel E. Harper</span>, who knows the ins and outs of the Alt-Right Extended Universe better than anyone who isn’t, you know, a Nazi. And according to Harper, the alt-right is generally in agreement that the purpose of porn is “to corrupt ‘the host society,’ i.e. white society.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What’s the alt-right’s evidence? They like to point out that in 2016 Israel passed a <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">law blocking</span> all internet porn sites by default, requiring users to contact their ISP if they want access. In other words, the alt-right claims, Jews know porn is bad for you; they only want to spread the virus to other societies.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another piece of evidence the alt-right cites over and over again is an <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">article</span>published in the <em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: "liga", "salt";">Jewish Quarterly</em> 14 years ago, written by <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">Nathan Abrams</span>(now a film studies professor at Bangor University in Wales with a <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">new book</span>out on Stanley Kubrick). Abrams argues that Jews have been, and continue to be, disproportionately influential in the American porn industry. He discusses such figures as <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">Reuben Sturman</span>, who built an adult-bookstore empire and became the nation’s largest smut distributor during the 1970s and 1980s; and <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">Al Goldstein</span>, the <em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: "liga", "salt";">Screw</em> magazine cofounder who first outed J. Edgar Hoover and gave <em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-color: transparent; background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em; font-feature-settings: "liga", "salt"; text-decoration-line: none;">Deep Throat</em><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;"> </span>(the film, not Hoover’s erstwhile deputy associate) its first signal boost. There’s also the gonzo porn pioneer <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">Seymore Butts</span>; <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">Steven Hirsch</span>, the founder of Vivid Entertainment, for years the largest porn studio in the world; and actors <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">Ron Jeremy</span> and <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">Nina Hartley</span>. (Collett would add to this pantheon <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">Greg Lansky</span>, CCO of the popular interracial site Blacked.com.)</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why the disproportionate Jewish presence in porn? Abrams suggests it was the same reason Jews dominated Hollywood from early on — it was an industry with a low barrier of entry and little respect from polite society. Plus, unlike in other industries, Abrams writes, “in porn there was no discrimination against Jews.” Abrams even speculates there’s a subversive element to Jewish involvement in porn, a middle finger “to the entire WASP establishment.” Indeed, Al Goldstein once <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">claimed</span> “the only reason that Jews are in pornography is that we think that Christ sucks.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As you can imagine, Abrams has been getting crazy emails about this article for more than a decade. The alt-right takes advantage of Abrams’s legitimacy as a scholar, always making sure to mention he’s a professor, not a crank. But at the same time, they hold his scholarship in contempt; they say it’s evidence the Jews aren’t just undermining Western civilization — they’re bragging about it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But Abrams says this alt-right conspiracy theory of porn is nothing new; it’s just the latest incarnation of a longstanding association of Jews with prostitution, STDs and sexual perversion. Hitler spent <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">several pages</span> of <em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: "liga", "salt";">Mein Kampf</em> bemoaning the spread of syphilis via Jewish pimps and prostitutes, which he feared could jeopardize the continuation of the Aryan race. The Nazis even had an umbrella term for prostitution, pornography, homosexuality, abortion and other forms of sexual degeneracy — “sexual Bolshevism,” which, like the “cultural Marxism” the alt-right blames everything on, is just a short hop away from blaming the Jews.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even when they haven’t been anti-Semitic, critics of so-called sexual degeneracy have long been motivated by a desire to preserve the white race. As <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">this ContraPoints video</span> explains, the modern concept of degeneracy developed in the same post-Enlightenment stew as scientific racism. European and North American elites fretted that industrialization, urbanization and cosmopolitanism would transform vigorous white men into, well, beta cucks. Their societies would then weaken and decay until they were overpowered by more robust outsiders, just as the Huns and Visigoths supposedly conquered Rome because it was too busy having genderqueer orgies. “Impotent, decadent manhood,” writes historian <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">Gail Bederman</span>, would bring about “race suicide.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For example, look at this British cartoon from the 1870s. An older man walks upon a newlywed couple and finds they’re pouting:</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The young man is disappointed in the size of his new bride’s waist and the shape of her nose, which pale in comparison to the classical sculptures he’s obsessed with. His bride is similarly disappointed in his chin and lack of facial hair. They’re so educated and sophisticated that they’re more into erotic art than each other.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Furthermore, we know from this cartoonist’s <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">other work</span> that he feared the men in his society were becoming feeble <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">soyboys</span> indistinguishable from women:</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So what was the solution to this epidemic of weak, over-civilized men? Boys and young men were encouraged to lift weights and go camping (this is where we get the <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">Boy Scouts</span>) and to stop playing with themselves. Americans who weren’t Jewish <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">started circumcising</span> their infant boys for the first time in significant numbers, in part because the sensitive foreskin was thought to be too great a temptation. The U.S. government <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">cracked down</span> on pornography, abortion and contraceptives, which were all seen as aiding and abetting race suicide.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But the truth is, when modern commentators criticize porn, they’re often using the same basic framework. For one thing, they don’t really care about porn’s impact on women. As the British lad-mag-editor-turned-anti-porn-advocate Martin Daubney <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">puts it</span>, “Porn is more of a problem for men than women.” He explains this by way of brain science, but the real thrust (or lack thereof) of his argument is that he cares more about what porn might do to men’s sexual prowess, “turning increasing numbers of men in their sexual prime into flops.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The other telltale is when people fret over porn’s “<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">threat to virility</span>” and “<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">collapsing birth rates</span>.” I assure you they’re not worried about birth rates in <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">Nigeria</span> or Indonesia. Just as with the opioid epidemic or the old tire factory closing down, these commentators’ main concern is what porn will do to <em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-feature-settings: "liga", "salt";">white men</em>. When Douthat called for a ban on porn, he lamented that American society is “trending Japan-ward,” invoking the stereotype of an effeminate man more interested in furry manga than raising a family. This isn’t that different from the NoFap redditor who <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">says</span>, “White people are being outbred by Muhamed, Jamal, Chang and Enrique,” and then issues the clarion call of “don’t fap, breed.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Are there serious problems with porn? Sure. But we can’t have that conversation if we’re narrowly focused on poor men degenerating into antisocial incels. The biggest problem with porn, after all, is that <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">people have stopped paying for it</span>! Pirated content powers free tube sites that promise bottomless wells of dopamine blasts, making porn both more addictive and more accessible to children.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If we started <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">consuming porn ethically</span>, we’d give a boost to better, more creative porn, and young folks could be exposed to sex that didn’t follow the pattern of bored kissing, bored blowjob, bored pussy-eating, bored missionary position, bored doggy-style, a little more bored blowjob, money shot. <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">Paying for porn</span> would also encourage productions with a more diverse array of bodies, skin tones and gender identities.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But we don’t want to have that conversation. If we think there’s a problem with porn, we’d rather blame “modern society,” the “elites” or “cultural Marxism,” and before you know it, you’re only a YouTube rabbit hole away from blaming the Jews for white genocide. We need to grapple with how the modern porn industry is shaped by neoliberalism, patriarchy and white supremacy, or else all we’re left with is the same tired story of white dudes suffering from <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.54); background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.68) 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%); background-position: 0px 1.07em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 0.1em;">death grip</span>.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-18461508174941766682018-06-01T03:13:00.001-07:002018-06-01T03:13:59.705-07:00The Palestinian State and the threat to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan <span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />The Danger to Jordan of a Palestinian State</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><img height="458" src="https://besacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Egyptian-President-Gamal-Nasser-brokering-ceasefire-ending-Black-September-with-PLO-Chairman-Arafat-and-King-Hussein-of-Jordan-1970-photo-via-Wikimedia-Commons-300x215.jpg" width="640" /><div>
<br /><span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Egyptian President Gamal Nasser brokering ceasefire ending Black September with PLO Chairman Arafat and King Hussein of Jordan, 1970, photo via Wikimedia Commons</span><br /><br /><span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><b> The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan stands to lose more than any other party from the establishment of a State of Palestine. While the potential dangers and complications for Israel of such a state could be significant, Jordan would face threats to both its social stability and its foundational idea: that it governs the Arab population on both banks of its eponymous river. In addition to the substantial political and security difficulties such a state would create for Jordan, it could also jeopardize its continued viability by shifting the locus of political leadership for a majority of Jordanians away from Amman and towards Ramallah. </b><br /><br />It is becoming increasingly clear that Palestinian statehood is a moribund idea. Despite official pronouncements, none of the principal parties seem very keen on achieving it, least of all the PA.<br /><br />However, if, through some unilateral action, a State of Palestine were to be declared in the territory comprising Areas A & B, the repercussions (mostly negative) would affect the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan more than any other party, including Israel.<br /><br />The dangers to the Kingdom would manifest themselves on three levels: the political threat, the security threat, and the existential threat.<br /><br /><b>The Political Threat</b><br /><br />With the establishment (or announcement) of a state of Palestine, the tensions that have characterized the relationship between the Palestinian organizations and the Hashemite Kingdom since the 1960s would take on an institutional concreteness, and would become a fixed feature of the new post-statehood scene. The recent tension over access and security management of the Temple Mount area provides a foretaste of the public embarrassments and diplomatic paralysis that would afflict the crucial Israel-Jordan relationship as a result.<br /><br />Israel and Jordan are developing very close institutional relationships – perhaps the strongest in the region. Economic integration is moving apace, with significant portions of Jordan’s energy and water consumption to be provided by Israel. This provision is on track to reach such a level in the foreseeable future as to increase the likelihood that a sudden interruption would have catastrophic results for the Kingdom.<br /><br />Cooperation and integration in the security sphere are arguably just as important. For decades, Jordan’s enemies, both internal and external, have had to reckon with a powerful pair of disincentives when contemplating violent action against the government: a first line of defense consisting of a tenaciously loyal Jordanian army, and a second in the form of an overwhelmingly powerful IDF.<br /><br />Even with this background of increasing integration, the Jordan-Israel relationship is chronically strained by the adventurism and rejectionism of the PA leadership. That strain would worsen dramatically if the Palestinian leadership had full statehood rights at Arab and international fora.<br /><br /><b>The Security Threat</b><br /><br />For a preview of the relationship Jordan would have with a State of Palestine across the river, one can look to Egypt’s current relationship with Hamas. The main difference is that Jordan’s troubles would be many times greater than those from which Egypt suffers today. The reasons are many:<br /><ul>
<li>Jordan’s border with the West Bank is longer and more porous than the one between Gaza and the Sinai.</li>
<li>The presence of Palestinian political forces, especially those supporting Hamas, are greater and more entrenched in Jordan’s political life than they are in Egypt’s.</li>
<li>Jordan’s south is both more populous and in some towns (notably Maan) more radicalized than the Sinai tribes who, under the banner of ISIS, have at times wrested control of parts of the peninsula from Egypt.</li>
<li>Perhaps most importantly, on cultural, linguistic, and ethnic grounds, the distinction between Egyptians and Gazans is much clearer than that between the Arabs living on either side of the Jordan River. As a result, cracking down on organized subversion or even a low-intensity insurgency in Jordan would feel more like a civil war. It would test the loyalty of the Jordanian armed forces, especially if Israel is seen as the Jordanian government’s partner in such an effort.</li>
<li>Last but not least, Jordan would have to contend with a security nightmare-scenario that would likely develop soon after a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood. Such a declaration would probably precipitate an Israeli decision to pull the plug on a corrupt and ineffectual PA, a move that would almost certainly bring about its collapse. This would then be followed by a bloody struggle for supremacy between nationalists and Islamists, as occurred in Gaza. Because of the lack of contiguity between many towns in Areas A and B, the outcome will not be a speedy Hamas victory as occurred in Gaza in 2006, but a prolonged, low-intensity civil war with assassinations and sporadic outbreaks of mass violence. Israel would probably limit itself to containing and preventing the violence from spilling into Area C and beyond.</li>
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<br />Regardless who gains the upper hand, West Bank Arabs able to escape this bloody mess will do so in a hurry, and will head in the only direction open to them: eastwards, to Jordan. The Kingdom will then be faced with two unhappy choices: either to absorb yet another large wave of restive refugees into a system already bursting at the seams, or to reassert, with likely Israeli acquiescence, limited administrative and security prerogatives over the afflicted areas in the West Bank in order to forestall a greater humanitarian catastrophe and the mass exodus such a catastrophe would precipitate.<br /><br /><b>The Existential Threat</b><br /><br />It is arguable that these threat scenarios could be handled by a Jordanian leadership and army that have repeatedly demonstrated resilience in crises of greater duration and severity. However, setting aside all the situational challenges that a declaration of Palestinian statehood would engender for Jordan, a qualitatively greater long-term strategic threat will inevitably develop for the Kingdom from the realization of Palestinian statehood.<br /><br />It is a fact that most Palestinians are Jordanian and most Jordanians are Palestinian. More precisely stated: a majority of those who self-identify as Palestinians inside and outside Jordan carry a Jordanian passport (including Mahmoud Abbas and Khaled Mash’al); and a majority of Jordan’s resident population self-identify as Palestinians. This has been Jordan’s chronic conundrum since the late 1950s, when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser began actively incubating a separatist Palestinian nationalism in direct challenge to Jordan’s formal custody of West Bank Arabs. Simply put, the putative Palestinian national identity was the result of an Egyptian anti-Hashemite campaign begun in the late 1950s and institutionalized with the creation of the PLO at the Cairo Arab Summit of 1964.<br /><br />This anti-Hashemite campaign was at the core of Jordan’s most dangerous cascade of crises in 1959, 1967, 1970-71, 1986, and 1988. A formal declaration of Palestinian statehood would take it to a much more dangerous level for the simple reason that a state cannot long survive when a majority of its citizens claim the national identity of a neighboring (and likely adversarial) state.<br /><br />This concept is easily grasped. If, for example, a majority of Guatemala’s citizens self-identified as Mexican, Guatemala would simply turn into a cultural and political vassal of Mexico.<br /><br />Similarly, the national identity of Jordan and its political viability will be difficult to sustain if a majority of its citizens owe political allegiance to a foreign, neighboring, albeit Arab state. Such a state would be able to indirectly steer the affairs of Jordan by mobilizing a sizable part of the citizenry to do its bidding if its interests conflict with those of the Jordanian government.<br /><br />Setting aside the official Jordanian posture towards the conflict, the political class in the Kingdom must be aware of these threats from a future Palestinian state, especially the first two. But it also needs to be aware that the entire edifice of the Palestinian national movement is a political construct of Jordan’s Arab enemies that was meant to make the country ungovernable by the late King Hussein. In their origins and practice, Palestinian nationalist organizations, regardless of their rhetoric, have been more anti-Hashemite than anti-Zionist. These organizations have always claimed to represent a majority of Jordan’s citizens, a dangerous claim for any country. For Jordan, such a claim becomes intolerable when concretized in an adjacent state whose leadership has a history of serially attempting to sabotage Hashemite rule.<br /><br />In the view of many Jordanians, the disengagement announcement of 1988, which formally recognized the PLO as sole representative of the “Palestinians” (a majority of Jordan’s citizens), was a mistake that sundered the national demographic unity of the country in response to Arab political pressures. The conditions that generated those pressures are now gone – indeed, they are reversed. Consequently, Jordan should consider reversing the announcement (which, constitutionally speaking, remains invalid to this day because it was never ratified by Jordan’s parliament). This would be in the best interest of Jordan’s citizens on both banks, and in the best interests of peace and stability in the region.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-88440440779882654132018-05-25T16:15:00.000-07:002018-05-25T16:16:08.231-07:00Time for a Independent ( relatively) Gaza Strip Entity ? <br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Time to Reach a Settlement with a Functional and Restrained Entity in the Gaza Strip<br /></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The idea of the “March of Return,” which was initiated by civil organizations in the Gaza Strip seeking once more to direct the attention of the international community to the suffering of the local population by means of mass demonstrations along the border, was hijacked by Hamas. Hamas pushed aside the organizers of the project and in effect took over the production and direction of the events. For its part, Israel is capable of accommodating a hostile entity living beside it, as long as this entity is restrained, deterred, and functional. This aim can only be achieved after Israel recognizes the need to develop separate strategies vis-à-vis the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, exhaust every possibility of taking advantage of Hamas’s current weakness, and leverage Hamas’s willingness for a long term hudna. The proposed strategy is also based on the understanding that the Palestinian Authority will not resume its rule in the Gaza Strip in the foreseeable future, and that effort must be invested to consolidate the PA’s governance in the West Bank and improve the living conditions, freedom of movement, and economy in that area, while also securing the conditions for the future achievement of two nation states.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Since late March 2018, a campaign along the border of the Gaza Strip has been underway, based on a rationale shaped by Hamas, which took control of a civilian initiative that provided the organization with an escape route from its current strategic hardship. The idea of the “March of Return,” which was initiated by civil organizations in the Gaza Strip seeking to refocus the attention of the international community on the suffering of the local population by means of mass demonstrations along the border, was hijacked by Hamas. Hamas pushed aside the organizers of the project and in effect took over the production and direction of the events.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hamas’s difficulties stem from four main reasons:</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a. The failed reconciliation process with Fatah, which resumed after Hamas announced its failure to administer the civil realm in the Gaza Strip and expressed its willingness to transfer relevant powers to the Palestinian Authority;</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">b. The severe humanitarian plight in the Gaza Strip and the mounting frustration of the local population;</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">c. The significant erosion of the value of its strategic military assets, given the defensive and neutralizing elements that have been developed by the IDF;</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">d. Hamas’s essential lack of desire and readiness to enter into another large scale military clash with the IDF.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Thus, the campaign along the border fence serves a number of Hamas’s strategic goals, most importantly by diverting the mounting frustration among the local population toward Israel and demonstrating the organization’s commitment to the struggle against Israel, which necessarily comes at the expense of the status of the Palestinian Authority. At the same time, it serves to refocus international attention on the Gaza Strip, strengthen the narrative of Palestinian victimhood, exhaust the IDF forces along the border over a long period of time, and delegitimize Israel.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The failure of the reconciliation process between Fatah and Hamas underscores that only an extremely slim chance exists that the Palestinian Authority will regain control of civil administration in the Gaza Strip. In reality, there are two separate Palestinian entities, each of which is hostile to the other and both of which struggle against Israel: Hamas, which leads the armed struggle and, in the current campaign, the local popular struggle as well; and the Palestinian Authority, which leads the popular struggle and the political struggle in the international arena. However, security and economic coordination and cooperation exists between Israel and the Palestinian entity in the West Bank, and some local civilians are even permitted to work in Israel and in the industrial areas of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The inhabitants of this region enjoy a significantly higher standard of living than the residents of the Gaza Strip, as well as more extensive freedom of movement.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The current campaign along the border with the Gaza Strip reminds us that under the present circumstances – most prominently the split in the Palestinian arena and the severe humanitarian and infrastructure conditions in the region – the Gaza Strip will continue to constitute a strategic challenge for Israel even when the current phase within it comes to a close. However, Israel’s position and policy regarding Hamas and the Gaza Strip perpetuate this situation and therefore also fuel the underlying conditions for security escalation.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Based on the assumption that Hamas will remain the sovereign power in the Gaza Strip and that Israel does not intend to take action to remove it from power and replace it with other leadership or govern the Gaza Strip on its own, Israel needs to examine the possibility of coming to terms with this hostile entity on its border and formulating a strategy to regulate its relations with it, including by means of security understandings and even a limited degree of security coordination. This presumably would create a chance for ongoing quiet along and around the border.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Israel, with the assistance of Egypt and the involvement of the international community, can develop mechanisms of regulation and interaction vis-à-vis Hamas, even without mutual recognition and without direct contact. These mechanisms could serve to facilitate a more effective response, in comparison to what exists today, to the humanitarian hardships that currently prevail inside the Strip; to restrain Hamas from attempts to strike at Israel; and to improve its civil governance in the Gaza Strip. After all, there is not necessarily a contradiction between the Gaza Strip being a hostile entity and the ability to develop mechanisms of regulation and interaction.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Such a course of action would be conditional upon undermining the equation that was established between Israel and Hamas since its security closure of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, whereby the Palestinian Authority is the only official party with which Israel will engage in dialogue. Israel must come to terms with the existence of both distinct Palestinian entities and strive to establish a reality based on an arrangement that will be less than a final status settlement, with conceptual and operative separation between the policy toward the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the separate policy to be developed and sharpened vis-à-vis the Gaza Strip. The proposed strategy, then, calls for striving to reach an arrangement with Hamas, which will necessarily strengthen it and could serve to weaken the status of the Palestinian Authority. This arrangement would promote a long term hudna with Hamas.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In recent months, Hamas spokespeople have conveyed messages indicating a willingness on their part to reach a long term hudna with Israel. This was not the first time that such sentiments have been voiced. However, the idea never took shape due to conditions advanced by Hamas for its implementation, as well as Israel’s unwillingness to consider a possibility in this direction, which would necessarily mean recognition and legitimization (albeit indirect) of Hamas and its control over the Gaza Strip. This time, as well, a process leading to an agreement over a hudna between Israel and Hamas, whether declared or implied, will be complicated. However, in light of Hamas’s hardships and the hopelessness of the Gaza population (which in itself constitutes a threat to Hamas’s rule and the danger of a chaotic reality as a result of its undermining or fall), its fundamental willingness for a hudna (which is also encountering opposition within Hamas’s ranks and leadership) can be viewed as a basis for a greater feasibility of actualizing the idea.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To advance the idea, Israel will need to qualify the reservations of the international community in general, and the European Union in particular, regarding its intentions regarding Hamas and regarding the Palestinian Authority. However, the Palestinian Authority now is neither present nor governing in the Gaza Strip in any event, and there is currently no concrete chance of a change in this situation. Therefore, adhering to the condition that all contributions to the Gaza Strip be made through the Palestinian Authority and that the PA be returned to power in the Strip actually helps perpetuate the problematic reality in the Strip and, at the same time – in part because the political process is currently at a dead end – does not serve to strengthen the Palestinian Authority.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The first stage of a process of regulating interactions with Hamas in the Gaza Strip will require the work of a mechanism led by representatives of the involved parties and Hamas that is charged with supervising the use, and preventing the abuse, of donated funds. The possibility of using this mechanism to transfer a relative portion of the tax revenues collected by Israel for goods and services into the Gaza Strip should be considered. Next, and subject to Hamas’s fulfillment of the terms of the agreement, the possibility of expanding its powers regarding the management of the donated funds should also be considered. Israel will also need to recruit Egypt as a major partner in the process vis-à-vis Hamas. Egypt’s contribution will need to take the form of the regular operation of the Rafah border crossing, securing Hamas’s commitment to the process, and restraining the organization. At the same time, it will be necessary to create the conditions for channeling the relief funds to the rebuilding of essential infrastructure and economic incentives, including through the establishment of industrial areas on the border of the Strip. Such areas will provide a location for advancing and implementing joint industrial initiatives that will provide employment. Israel will be able to help create conditions for the normalization of the local population if it considers adopting an approach that is more flexible regarding the import and export of goods to and from the Strip and increasing the number of entry permits for commercial traders, workers, and those in need of medical treatment.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Israel already has experience building mechanisms aimed at regulating relations with Hamas (the principles of the security perimeter that were formulated through Egyptian mediation following Operation Pillar of Defense), and doing so would therefore not be setting a precedent. Nonetheless, this time, Israel could begin reshaping its policy regarding the Gaza Strip with the aim of leveraging Hamas’s current weakness and the willingness for a hudna that is taking shape among influential elements within Hamas’s leadership, led by the organization’s leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar. Although Hamas is not expected to dismantle its military wing even within the framework of a hudna, there is reason to believe that it will be possible to reach agreements regarding the cessation of its military buildup and its efforts to develop offensive means against Israel in the underground, maritime, and air realms.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In parallel, and in order to reduce the effect of the new policy toward Hamas on the status of the Palestinian Authority, Israel will need to present a policy for conduct vis-à-vis the Palestinian Authority itself. In this realm, Israeli policy will need to be based on three primary foundations: a) preservation of Israel’s ability to engage in security activity in the West Bank; b) striving to improve the economic and infrastructure reality in the West Bank, including the creation of transportation contiguity and authorization for the construction of Palestinian infrastructure in the parts of Area C that are adjacent to Area A; and c) a commitment to refrain from expanding settlements outside the settlement blocs.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Israel is capable of accommodating a hostile entity living beside it, as long as this entity is restrained, deterred, and functional. This aim can only be achieved after Israel recognizes the need to develop separate strategies vis-à-vis the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, exhaust every possibility of taking advantage of Hamas’s current weakness, and leverage Hamas’s willingness for a long term hudna. The proposed strategy is also based on the understanding that the Palestinian Authority will not resume its rule in the Gaza Strip in the foreseeable future, and that effort must be invested to consolidate the PA’s governance and rule in the West Bank and improve the living conditions, freedom of movement, and economy there, while also securing the conditions for the future achievement of two nation states.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-27160239165625874402018-05-24T23:42:00.001-07:002018-05-24T23:42:43.659-07:00Liberal Zionism and the increasing wedge between US and Israeli Jews<br /><img height="483" src="http://ajwnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/JSt-Two-States-Matter-AJWNEWS.gif" width="640" /><br /><br /><br /><span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><b> A troubling side effect of the Zionist enterprise is that 70 years after the State of Israel came into being, a wedge has grown between Israelis and the Diaspora, driven by guilt and presumptions of moral superiority. The root of the problem is that too many American Jews are uncomfortable with power.</b></span><div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Mandatory Palestine, Jews began to accumulate power – economic, political, and military – which caused other Jews to immediately question the enterprise itself. Old anti-Semitic tropes came to the fore, like the notion that a Jewish state would be based on “exploitation” or even Zionist “world domination”. The prospect of a Jewish state generated non-Jewish hostility and, among a Jewish minority, feelings of guilt. Decades before the state was founded, Judah Magnes anxiously said: “It is not only the end which for Israel must be desirable, but what is of equal importance, the means must be conceived and brought forth in cleanliness.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But no state has or could achieve that desired level of purity, particularly one surrounded by implacable enemies. Powerlessness was the preferred – even the ideal – situation, and the rootlessness that accompanied it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A century after Balfour, the strength of his declaration is grounded in the political understanding that Jews are indeed a nation. Zionism is thus Jewish nationalism in its purest form.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yet today, the word Zionism is unique. No other term for a national movement evokes such a visceral reaction. No other word has been infamously defined in the UN as “a form of racism and racial discrimination” by a coalition of racists led by the Soviet Union, as occurred in 1975.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No other national movement has a global boycott movement aimed against it that positions itself on a moral pedestal and strives to rewrite history and control the definition of Zionism itself.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Among the most pernicious consequences of the BDS movement is the wedge that has been driven between Israel and liberal Americans, including liberal American Jews. The relentless misappropriation of human rights and anti-racist discourse, the slanderous talk of Israeli “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide,” and the bitter ad hominem attacks on Israelis, their international supporters, and the peace process itself have taken a severe toll on American civil discourse.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jews and Israelis are now called upon to demonstrate their “moral fiber” by using their own Jewish identity as a vehicle to question Israel and its legitimacy. More perverse are the use of Jewishness to passionately make pleas for the Palestinian cause and the assertion that Jewishness is somehow based on pro-Palestinian beliefs as a “progressive” value. For Jews on the far Left, as for Arab Palestinians, the events of 1948 are the original sin.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Seen through a colonialist prism, Western powers implanted a Jewish state in the Middle East to control the region. Jews, the true indigenous population, are cast as doubly illegitimate. Jewish apathy, religious ignorance, and the deliberate substitution of “social justice” for traditional Jewish liturgy account for the decline – and show the danger of placing antipathy towards the Jewish state of Israel at the center of religious belief.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Historically, from before 1948 all the way through the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War, there was an appreciation of Israel – not only as the fulfillment of the ancient longing for return, but also as a haven. In the aftermath of the Holocaust the threat of annihilation was understood to be real. Moreover, Zionism was viewed as part and parcel of American Jewish identity, especially in the years leading up to 1967. There was no contradiction between being a liberal American and a Jew.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Justice Louis Brandeis expressed this well:</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let no American imagine that Zionism is inconsistent with patriotism…There is no inconsistency between loyalty to America and loyalty to Jewry. The Jewish spirit, the product of our religion and experiences, is essentially modern and essentially American…Indeed, loyalty to America demands rather that each American Jew become a Zionist. For only through the ennobling effect of its striving can we develop the best that is in us and give to this country the full benefit of our great inheritance.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Albert Einstein had a similar appreciation for Zionism and the Jewish State:</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Zionism springs from an even deeper motive than Jewish suffering. It is rooted in Jewish spiritual tradition, whose maintenance and development was for Jews the raison d’être of their continued existence as a community. In the re-establishment of the Jewish nation in the ancient home of the race, where Jewish spiritual values could again be developed in a Jewish atmosphere, the most enlightened representatives of Jewish individuality see the essential preliminary to the regeneration of the race and the setting free of its spiritual creativeness.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Both Brandeis and Einstein clearly understood the need to maintain and incorporate Zionism within their Jewish identity even if they did not agree with certain policies of the State of Israel and its leadership.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Zionism of 1948-1967 is not the Zionism of 2018; each generation needs to find its own form of Zionism. But eliminating Zionism in the name of Judaism negates Jewish history instead of embracing and remembering it. As Yigal Allon correctly stated, “Zionism is, in sum, the constant and unrelenting effort to realize the national and universal vision of the prophets of Israel.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many of the problems faced by Israel at 70 are manifested within the Jewish community, above all a false distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. At the end of the day it will have to be understood that hatred of Israel can no longer be separated from loathing of Jews, even by Jews </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-68356490538649947922018-05-23T03:43:00.001-07:002018-05-23T03:44:53.140-07:00Iran’s Dilemma: Respond to Israeli Actions in Syria in direct attacks o Israel or with Terror Attacks Abroad?<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><img src="http://www.inss.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/000_Par7237772.jpg" height="423" width="640" /></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In view of the public promise by senior Iranian spokespersons that Israel would soon weep over its soldiers just as Iran mourned its soldiers, it remains to be seen if and how Iran will retaliate against Israel’s recent broad counter-attack against Iranian targets in Syria: with what intensity, with what method, and in what location. However, notwithstanding declarations from Iranian leaders that ongoing Israeli actions against its forces and proxies will lead to the destruction of Haifa and Tel Aviv, it appears that Iran is not genuinely interested in war, particularly not on Syrian or Lebanese territory, fearing the consequences for both the survival of the Assad regime and for Hezbollah's status. (Israel too is not interested in an all-out war.) Therefore the mutual verbal onslaughts between Israel and Iran oblige both sides to ensure that their actions should be painful, but at the same time measured, in order to avoid escalation. For Iran, a possible arena for a response to what is perceived as intolerable Israel provocation is the international arena. Israel, aware from past experience how Iran can use its capabilities and proxies to carry out serious attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets overseas, is preparing for the possibility that Iran may choose this method again. The main candidates for executing such an attack are the Revolutionary Guards, alone or in cooperation with contracted Hezbollah operatives skilled in overseas attack arrangements, and perhaps even with the assistance of local elements in the various countries.<br /><br />Iran’s launch of some twenty missiles from Syria toward Israeli territory on the night of May 9-10, 2018 marked the end of the Israeli debate on the question of whether, how, and from where Iran would seek to avenge the deaths of its Revolutionary Guards operatives in Israel's attacks on Syrian territory. After the first Iranian response to the attacks, in which Israel suffered no losses, Israel responded to the missiles with a widespread attack on Iranian military infrastructures in Syrian territory, causing severe damage. In view of the public pledge by senior Iranian spokespersons that Israel would soon weep over its soldiers just as Iran mourned its soldiers, it remains to be seen if and how Iran will retaliate for Israel’s broad counter-attack: with what intensity, with what method, and in what location.<br /><br />The Iranian rhetoric suggests the response will be directed against military targets in Israel. However, the scope and continuation of Israeli damage to Iranian targets in Syria; the influence attributed to Israel over President Trump's decision to withdraw from the nuclear agreement; Iran's embarrassment over the public exposure of its nuclear archive; and public threats by senior Israeli figures to block Iran's intention to consolidate its military infrastructure in Syria – all these add to the Iranian sense of humiliation and could broaden the range of its possible responses. Apart from the Revolutionary Guards, Iran can draw from a pool of proxies and organizations comprising Lebanese, Iraqi, Syrian, Palestinian, Afghan, and Pakistani militants. Some might be willing to participate in action against Israel. And notwithstanding declarations from Iranian leaders that ongoing Israeli actions against its forces and proxies will lead to the destruction of Haifa and Tel Aviv, it appears that Iran is not genuinely interested in war, particularly not on Syrian or Lebanese territory, fearing the consequences for both the survival of the Assad regime and for Hezbollah's status. (Israel too is not interested in an all-out war.) Therefore the mutual verbal onslaughts between Israel and Iran oblige both sides to ensure that their actions should be painful, but at the same time measured, in order to avoid escalation.<br /><br />For Iran, a possible arena for a response to what is perceived as intolerable Israel provocation is the international arena, although that too is not free of risks and constraints. Israel, aware from past experience how Iran can use its capabilities and proxies to carry out serious attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets overseas, is preparing for the possibility that Iran may choose this method again. The main candidates for executing such an attack are the Revolutionary Guards, alone or in cooperation with contracted Hezbollah operatives skilled in overseas attack arrangements, and perhaps even with the assistance of local elements in the various countries.<br /><br />For Iran, there are pros and cons regarding overseas terror attacks on Israeli or Jewish targets. The decisions will depend on the answers to the following questions:<br /><br />a.Would one or more terror attacks on Israeli/Jewish targets overseas be a suitable response to the severe damage suffered by Iran in Syria, and fulfill the declared Iranian promise to make Israel pay?<br /><br />b.To what extent would such an action deter Israel from continuing its attacks against Iranian moves towards consolidation in Syria?<br /><br />c. What are the chances of executing an attack without the perpetrators or their support staff being caught or leaving traces that lead back to Iran?<br /><br />d. Is it possible to realize this intention within a reasonable timeframe, so that the connection between the Israeli activity and the response is clear? An effective attack overseas requires a local logistical and human infrastructure linked to external activists. Even if the basic infrastructure already exists, it will take time to train it properly while avoiding any incriminating links to Iran. Precise information must be collected about targets, which is particularly challenging given the strict Israeli security arrangements for their overseas representatives and institutions. Moreover, the planners must take into account that Israeli security elements are particularly alert at this time and also enjoy cooperation with local security elements.<br /><br />e. How is it possible to avoid further damage to Iran's image and preclude further isolation, especially when the United States is leading an international campaign to tarnish its name as a country that uses fraud and deception in the nuclear field, and a leading player in the spread of international terror? For example an exposure of Iran's involvement in a terror attack in the European arena, an attack that it initiated and carried out itself or through a proxy, would support the American demand to impose sanctions on Iran for terror, perhaps within an international coalition. There would likewise be negative ramifications in the nuclear context, since Iran has no interest in hampering the efforts of Western countries to prevent the collapse of the nuclear agreement following the withdrawal of the United States.<br /><br />f. The arena: Iran's need to limit the risk of exposure and consequential severe diplomatic damage could direct the attention of the planners to places where these risks are relatively small. Accordingly, countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, or Central and South America are more suitable than the United States or leading European countries.<br /><br />g.The nature of attacks and an estimated number of casualties, as much as possible: when selecting the type of action, there is tension between the wish to impose a painful and heavy price on Israel and the fear of a direct Israeli response, and particularly of a strong international response. Such responses will be directly influenced by the number of victims, direct and indirect, resulting from the attack. For example, an attack on a passenger aircraft could potentially cause massive deaths and lead Israel to an extremely severe response, with significant escalation of its activity against Iran, and also arouse intense international anger. On the other hand, damage that is limited to Israeli representatives or organizations will keep the tension within the bilateral sphere, if there are few local casualties.<br /><br />Iran could opt for a terror attack on Jewish targets identified with Israel, or on Israeli residents and tourists, who are less protected. The many young Israelis who travel in Latin America and the Far East after their army service could be an attractive target for an attack or even kidnapping, since Iran and Hezbollah can present them as Israeli soldiers.<br /><br />Overseas terror appears to be a means of warfare available to Iran in cases where it wishes to respond, take revenge on Israel, and send messages of deterrence, while retaining the ability to deny any involvement. In recent years, the Israeli public has tended to downplay the potential danger from terror attacks by Iran and Hezbollah, due to the relatively weak Iranian response to assassinations of its nuclear scientists that are attributed to Israel, and because of Hezbollah's failed response to the death of Imad Mugniyeh in 2008: Nasrallah assured Israel of a very severe response and failed. Iran and Hezbollah together planned at least 15 attacks overseas, including attacks on Israeli targets in India and Bulgaria. Thus, Iran and its proxy have not been deterred from attempts to harm Israel outside its borders, and this fact should always be borne in mind. The sometimes unprofessional execution and Israel's success - in cooperation with foreign security elements - in foiling most of the planned attacks are no guarantee that Iran and Hezbollah will not improve their future performance.<br /><br />To date, Israel has not succeeded in deterring Iran and Hezbollah from use of the overseas arena to launch revenge actions and to intimidate Israel. Iran's relative inaction in this arena is mainly due to self restraint, in view of the potential for international complications, or preference for other, more available, arenas. Hezbollah's "open account" with Israel for Mugniyeh's death, declared by Nasrallah, has not been closed. Moreover, it has been joined by other "open accounts" for the killings of other senior Hezbollah personnel, as well as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards killed by Israel in Syria. All these could lead Iran and Hezbollah back to consider the overseas arena, but this time Iran will probably be more meticulous about professional execution, and choose relatively convenient sites for action, where the chances of being foiled or exposed are more limited. Nor is it yet clear if Iran would stop at this stage, or be satisfied with efforts to attack Israel from the battlefield in Syria, or whether it will decide to operate in other areas on the Israeli borders and even beyond. In any event, it seems that the current head-on hostilities with Israel will stimulate Iran to refresh its ability to carry out terror attacks overseas. If it indeed decides to take this route, the infrastructure and capabilities at its disposal will be better than those demonstrated by Iran and Hezbollah in recent years.</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-86521514784645372962018-05-23T03:03:00.000-07:002018-05-23T03:03:48.848-07:00 IAF aircraft strike underground Hamas terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip <div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wednesday 23rd May 2018: Israeli Jets Attack Gaza; IAF aircraft strike underground Hamas terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip as well as two military targets that belong to its naval force Tuesday night.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Israeli warplanes on Tuesday night struck underground Hamas terror infrastructure in northern Gaza, as well as two additional military targets that belong to the terror organisation's naval force, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said at 4.30am Wednesday morning.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“The strikes w<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">ere in response to the event that took place yesterday morning, when a number of terrorists infiltrated Israel and set a military post on fire,” said the statement. “Additionally, the strikes were carried out in response to the ongoing attempts to dispatch drones and kites, with the intention of conducting terrorist activity and setting Israeli territory on fire.”</span></span></div>
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The statement noted that the IDF “views these continued attempts with great severity, specifically Hamas’ daily attempts to damage Israeli security infrastructure and threats to the safety of Israeli civilians. The IDF is determined to fulfil its mission to protect Israeli civilians. The Hamas terror organisation is accountable for all threats originating from the Gaza Strip, above and below ground, and will bear the consequences for its actions against Israeli civilians and Israeli sovereignty.”</div>
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Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman tweeted Wednesday morning, "Last night, the IDF destroyed another terror tunnel belonging to the Hamas terror organization."</div>
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"The attempts to attack Israel from the air, via the border fence, and underground will be blocked by an iron wall and by the IDF's might. It would be well if the Hamas leaders understood that their military project is a failure, and invest their resources in bettering the lives of Gaza's citizens."</div>
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Palestinian Arab media reported earlier that the IDF attacked two naval police installations in Gaza. According to the reports, explosions were heard west of Gaza City and a fire broke out. Some of the reports said that the facilities were attacked with three missiles, one from the water and two from the shore.</div>
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The Arab Al-Jazeera network later on Tuesday published a video showing the infiltration into Israel by the Palestinian Arab terrorists, who had crossed the border fence south of Kissufim.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-38813461336128762592018-05-04T09:12:00.000-07:002018-05-04T09:12:21.868-07:00Israel Goes to War. Whose makes that decision. PM or DM ?, by Stephen Darori, The Bard Of Bat Yam, Poet Laureate of Zion<div class="publication_info" data-place="sfunction_434" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212121; font-family: PTSans; font-size: 15px; line-height: 0; margin: 5px 0px; padding: 5px 0px; text-align: justify;">
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Knesset has recently amended the “Basic Law: The Government,” with respect to "authority to declare war or conduct a significant military operation." Under the previous legislation, this authority was given to the government, but the new law grants the authority to the Ministerial Committee for National Security (the Security Cabinet). However, the final version of the new law goes even further, and concludes: "Under extreme circumstances and for reasons that will be noted…the prime minister and the minister of defense are authorized to make the decision in a more restricted legal quorum." Such a law has almost no equivalent in Western democracies. It lacks the checks and balances essential to a democratic regime and is bound to undermine the principle that war is an act requiring maximum domestic and international legitimacy. Yet in view of the new legislation, the Security Cabinet's work should be improved so that it will be fully familiar with the strategic matters on the agenda. In addition, both for the sake of checks and balances and the prevention of an overconcentration of authority in the hands of individuals and so that more than two elected representatives of the people bear responsibility for cardinal policy measure such as war and peace, at least the entire Security Cabinet should participate in the decision. The tactical decisions can and should be made in restricted forums, but it is best for such a momentous decision as a declaration of war to be taken in a broad forum that bears the burden of the responsibility.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In view of the escalation both in rhetoric and on the ground in Israel's northern and southern conflict areas, the question of who in Israel has the authority to declare war should be considered. The Knesset has recently amended the “Basic Law: The Government,” with respect to "authority to declare war or conduct a significant military operation." It is doubtful whether legislation was needed to change this authority. Under the previous legislation, this authority was given to the government, but the new law grants the authority to the Ministerial Committee for National Security (the Security Cabinet). However, the final version of the law goes even further, and concludes: "Under extreme circumstances and for reasons that will be noted…the prime minister and the minister of defense are authorized to make the decision in a more restricted legal quorum." Such a law has almost no equivalent in Western democracies. It lacks the checks and balances essential to a democratic regime and is bound to undermine the principle that war is an act requiring maximum domestic and international legitimacy.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reasons for restricting the forum that decides on whether to declare war focus on streamlining the decision-making process and preserving its secrecy. Judge (ret.) Eliyahu Winograd, who chaired the 2006 Commission of Inquiry into the Events of Military Engagement in Lebanon, expressed his opinion about the Israeli government's decision making process as follows: "Almost none of the conclusions of the final report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Events of Military Engagement in Lebanon were implemented by the government…the recommendations of the final report were not implemented, and lessons were not drawn." In his report on Operation Protective Edge (2014), the State Comptroller, considering the government's decision making processes about the Gaza Strip before and early in the operation, stated, "The cabinet's authorities, including the question of which issues fall under its purview, are not anchored in writing….Cabinet ministers do not know whether the cabinet is a decision-making body or an advisory one….In addition to failure to anchor the cabinet's authority, there is also no norm establishing the duty to provide the cabinet with information…[although] this information was essential for decision-making."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In December 2017, the Ministerial Commission on Legislation approved a bill sponsored by Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked authorizing the government to delegate its authority to the Security Cabinet, which would then be able to decide on a military operation likely to lead to escalation and then to war. The bill addressed two aspects: the nature of military action in our time and the government's mode of operation. The bill was based on a report by a committee headed by former National Security Council head Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror, which included recommendations on the declaration of war. The reasons given for the bill stated that there was a lack of clarity concerning the government's authority, since Section 40(A) of the “Basic Law: The Government” states, "The state may only begin a war pursuant to a Government decision," while Section 40(B) of the same law states, "Nothing in the provisions of this section will prevent the adoption of military actions necessary for the defense of the state and public security." The committee believed that it is best that the government authorize the Security Cabinet in order to streamline the decision making processes and maintain secrecy before the campaign.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since the First Lebanon War (1982), there were very few cases in which the Israeli government made orderly decisions out of a clear understanding that a large scale military conflict or potential for such a conflict was at stake. One example of such a decision is Operation Defensive Shield (2002), in which the government headed by Ariel Sharon ordered the IDF to retake control of the Palestinian cities in the West Bank. Another example is the decision by the government headed by Ehud Olmert to destroy the nuclear reactor in Syria (2007), which involved the possibility of escalation into a full scale military campaign. At the same time, in two events that did escalate into a large scale operation or a war, the Second Lebanon War (2006) and Operation Protective Edge, events unfolded like a snowball, and the government or the Security Cabinet approved measures incrementally, without officially declaring a major campaign until very advanced stages. The dynamic nature of the campaigns in recent decades has usually dictated policy through a series of tactical, rolling, and successive decisions that in retrospect generated a decision to go to war.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the United States, the Congress is responsible for declarations of war, as Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution states explicitly that it possesses the sole power "to declare war" and to make rules concerning captures on land and water. Legitimization by the people's representatives as a reflection of the entire people is required for such a critical act in the life of the nation. This does not mean that the American president, the commander in chief of the army, lacks extensive power to use force. The Vietnam War, for example, was the result of a presidential decision by Lyndon Johnson, who relied on a resolution of the Congress following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964. This resolution authorized him to use military force, but did not constitute an official declaration of war.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A similar case occurred in Israel in 2006. The government approved Operation Density, an attack by the Israeli air force against Hezbollah's batteries of long range rockets, without understanding where this was liable to lead. According to then-Deputy IDF Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. (res.) Moshe Kaplinsky, in the Second Lebanon War, "the first point in which we erred or failed as commanders was our inability to change the approach or the general mindset… the confrontation with Hezbollah was not a direct continuation of the ongoing operations we had carried out for the last six years in Judea and Samaria but was, rather, a war." When the government voted a year later on the attack against the Syrian nuclear reactor, it had already learned from experience, and took the trouble in a series of discussions to consider the consequences in depth.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is legislation the proper way of changing the delegation of authority? Not necessarily, first because official declarations of war are becoming rarer, while events that escalate into a conflict have become more common. Second, the previous law allowed a decision to be taken on an essential military operation even without a decision by the entire government, and the Security Cabinet was authorized to make decisions on operations similar in character to those conducted by Israel in the Gaza Strip in the past decade. At the same time, because of the overall responsibility and the exercise of judgment required, especially when a large scale security event liable to spiral out of control and extend beyond the boundaries of the sector is involved, the decision should be brought before the entire government in a plenary session. Considerations of efficiency, rapidity of response, and even secrecy should not exclude in-depth judgment, an analysis of the information and the alternatives, acquisition of internal and external legitimacy, and the opportunity to consult with everyone who bears responsibility: the elected public officials serving as government ministers and of course the officeholders in the defense and political establishment.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It appears that the main power of the new law will lie in strengthening the element of accountability among the ministers in the Security Cabinet, because it clearly regulates its status as an entity with the authority to make decisions and carry them out – a kind of mini-government in an emergency. Once its legal status and authority is established, the ministers who are members can no longer argue that they did not know and were not informed, as occurred in the past, for example in the case of the terror tunnel threat in Operation Protective Edge. The law gives the Security Cabinet a great deal of authority, but in practice, almost no issue is put to a vote in the Security Cabinet in opposition to the prime minister's view. When the authority to decide is in the hands of two people (and one person if the prime minister is also the minister of defense, as was the case with David Ben Gurion, Levi Eshkol, Yitzhak Rabin, and Ehud Barak, for example), a decision is unlikely to be taken without the support of the heads of the security branches, as is proven by the history of the decision not taken (2010-2012) to attack in Iran.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In view of the new legislation, the Security Cabinet's work should be improved so that it will be fully familiar with the strategic matters on the agenda, instead of coming to a discussion of these issues like a fireman putting out fires. In addition, both for the sake of checks and balances and the prevention of an overconcentration of authority in the hands of individuals and so that more than two elected representatives of the people bear responsibility for cardinal policy measure such as war and peace, at least the entire Security Cabinet should participate in the decision. The tactical decisions can and should be made in restricted forums, but it is best for such a momentous decision as a declaration of war to be taken in a broad forum that bears the burden of the responsibility.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With the delegation of responsibility for such a fateful decision from the government to the Security Cabinet, let alone to only two senior government members, note should be taken of the sharp comment by the State Comptroller in his report on Operation Protective Edge: "Dismissing diplomatic alternatives without presenting them to the cabinet first prevented the ministers from properly discussing the advantages or risks involved in those alternatives." Everything that applies to the necessary assessment of the situation in the security sphere with respect to a military conflict also applies in the political and diplomatic sphere – including, for example, peace processes.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-27531129222787709242018-05-02T20:58:00.000-07:002018-05-02T20:58:14.952-07:00The Palestinian Agenda is not on the Agenda of the Iranian , person on the Street<br /><br /><img height="458" src="https://besacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/An-Iranian-family-visiting-the-Ali-Qapu-Palace-in-Isfahan-photo-by-David-Stanley-via-Flickr-CC-300x215.jpg" width="640" /><div>
<br />An Iranian family visiting the Ali Qapu Palace in Isfahan, photo by David Stanley via Flickr CC<br /><br /><br /><span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most Iranians Couldn’t Care Less About the Palestinians or Israel. Diplomats who served in Tehran frequently claim that Israel and the Palestinians are marginal to Iranian concerns. They are correct about the Iranian public and wrong about the leadership. Maybe this and other formidable gaps between the Iranian public and the leadership could provide the fuel to ignite the opposition to remove them from power.<br /><br />Three years ago, the then Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, who had also served as ambassador to Iran, told members of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies something they had heard from other foreign diplomats. “You Israelis are obsessed with Iran,” he said. “For Iranians, you and the Palestinians are a marginal concern.”<br /><br />The Polish minister was right about the average person-in-the-street in Iran, but he was wrong about the leadership. Their divergence of interest regarding Israel and the Palestinians is but one element in the disconnect between the Iranian leadership and the Iranian public – a disconnect that may explain why Iranians took to the streets to protest the ayatollahs.<br /><br />The Polish minister was correct that Israel and the Palestinian question are of only marginal concern to even educated Iranians. This can be seen by examining internet search terms, which Google Trends plots by country to show relative interest. Terms can be entered in any language including Farsi, which uses Arabic script. (Many of the terms related to Israel and the Palestinians are in fact the same in Farsi and Arabic, though Farsi is an Indo-European language like English and Arabic is a Semitic language.)<br /><br />This means it is easy to compare the Iranian public’s interest in Israel and the Palestinian problem to its interest in Arab states.<br /><br />“Filastin” is both the Arabic and the Farsi term for Palestine. One would think, given the increasingly belligerent tenor of Israeli-Iranian relations, that Iranians would show interest in both Israel and the Palestinian problem.<br /><br />But typing “Filastin” into Google Trends in Arabic script clearly confirms the Polish minister’s observation. In the breakdown by country, Iran did not even appear in the 11 countries listed as searching for the term. In the past five years, Iranians searched the term less than one-hundredth the number of times Palestinians did and less than one twenty-fifth the number of times the Jordanians did, who were second on the list of those who searched the term. (That Jordan is second on the list is hardly surprising as most of its population is Palestinian.)<br /><br />These differences are even wider than they first appear, as there are at least ten times more Iranians than Palestinians and Jordanians whose levels of internet use is similar to that of the Palestinians.<br /><br />The lack of interest amongst Iranians is confirmed when other terms are searched.<br /><br />Probably the most prevalent term regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the term “occupation”, which the Palestinians have successfully marketed in the world.<br /><br />The number of Iranians searching the term “ihtilal”, “occupation” in both Arabic and Farsi, again amounts to less than 1% of the searches made by Palestinians and only 4% of searches made by Jordanians. Iran does not even make the list of 19 states where searches amount to one-hundredth of those searched by Palestinians.<br /><br />Hamas, whose leaders have been warmly embraced in Tehran and many of whose fighters have been trained by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, is also of negligible concern to the average Iranian. Iran ranked last out of 21 states who use Arabic script to search for Hamas, and the relative interest is similar to that of the two previous terms.<br /><br />Perhaps the more religious evocation of “al-Quds”, which means “holy place” and is both the Farsi and the Arabic word for Jerusalem, has greater resonance among Iranians?<br /><br />Not at all. Iran does not figure in the top twenty countries searching for<br />al-Quds, and searches for the term by Iranians account for less than 1% of the number of Palestinian searches. For the more religious symbol, the al-Aqsa mosque (“masjid al-Aqsa”), there were too few searches to record.<br /><br />Obviously, the Iranian man- and woman-in-the-street does not share the leadership’s enthusiasm for Hamas, Jerusalem, or, for that matter, the Palestinian issue writ large.<br /><br />And he or she doesn’t think much about Israel either.<br /><br />While Iran is of much concern to Israelis, the term “Israel” in Farsi/Arabic receives much the same attention in Iran as terms related to Palestinians. Once again, Iran appears last on the list of 21 countries, with searches for Israel by Iranians amounting to one-hundredth the number of Palestinian searches and one-fortieth the number of Jordanian searches.<br /><br />For Israelis, the search for “Iran” in English (which for most Israelis is only a second language) amounts to 4% of the number of searches of the word in Iran, which understandably tops the list. By comparison, searches of the word “Iran” in the US amount to only 6% the number of Iranian searches for the term. Considering that the population of the US is about 40 times that of Israel, this means Israelis search the term “Iran” hundreds of times more often than the average American. (One can’t compare the term in Hebrew as only in Israel is Hebrew widely read or spoken.)<br /><br />The Iranian public’s lack of interest in Israel and the Palestinians contrasts sharply with the focus, almost obsession, of the leadership of the Islamic Republic with Israel and, to a lesser extent, the Palestinians.<br /><br />This is especially true of the hardliners. After all, the elite units of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are called the al-Quds Force, and one of the biggest annual political events in Iran, al-Quds Day, is devoted to defaming Israel and castigating it for being a “usurper” state that expelled and now occupies the Palestinians.<br /><br />There is, however, good news. The staggering gap between the Iranian public’s concerns and interests clearly contrast with those of its leadership. It might grow even larger and widen to other areas – which might be sufficient to motivate the Iranian public to get rid of this leadership of woes altogether.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-37177660120058132712018-05-02T20:38:00.000-07:002018-05-02T20:38:46.195-07:00Declining Forex Value the Rial addsfurther challenges to Iran <span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><img height="458" src="https://besacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Iranian-currency-image-by-BockoPix-via-Flickr-CC-300x215.jpg" width="640" /><br />Iranian currency, image by BockoPix via Flickr CC<br /><br /><br /><b>Iran Faces Economic Challenges as Its Currency Plunges. The sharp decline in the value of the Iranian currency is causing upheaval in the Iranian economy and challenging the government and the banking sector. The local currency’s plunge to a rate of 6,000 tomans to the dollar, despite the high level of oil and gas revenues, reflects a lack of trust between the citizens and the banking system. A consideration of Iran’s economic policy sheds light on the limitations of the “dual economy” practiced by the Islamic Republic since its inception.</b><br /><br />At a time when Iran’s moves in the geopolitical sphere are getting the lion’s share of public attention, economic processes are occurring that will bear consequences for the power of the Islamic Republic. The recent sharp decline in the value of the local currency against the dollar reflects the severity of Iran’s economic plight. When the local currency plummeted to below the benchmark of 6,000 tomans to the dollar, currency trading came to a halt. The efforts of Iran’s central bank to stabilize the rate at 4,200 tomans failed, prompting the closure of the currency conversion market.<br /><br />A look at the local-currency exchange rate in the early days of the Islamic Republic highlights the dire straits of the currency relative to today’s global market. In the wake of the revolution, the Iranian currency’s exchange rate stood at seven tomans to the dollar, while on the free market the dollar was traded for <a href="http://www.bbc.com/persian/business-41877123">ten tomans</a>. It is no surprise, then, that the recent plunge in the currency’s value and the distrust between the citizens and the banking system have led some members of parliament to demand the immediate dismissal of Valy Allah Seif, president of the central bank.<br /><br />There is an apparent contradiction between the nadir the local currency has reached and the state’s revenues from oil and gas. The Iranian oil market is fifth in the world, with a production capacity of four million barrels per day. In addition, Iran’s natural gas reserves are estimated at 17.5% of all known gas reserves, second in size globally after Russia. According to the CIA’s The World Factbook, Iran’s GDP is estimated at <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/ir.html">$1.63 trillion</a> and its GDP per capita at $20,000.<br /><br />However, these figures do not reflect the reality faced by the Iranian population, which suffers from unemployment, inflation, growing gaps between average family income and the basket of household expenditures, a severe housing shortage, and more. Why the discrepancy?<br /><br />An analysis of the political-economic equation can shed light on the reasons for the crisis in the Iranian exchange-rate market. Western experts tend to categorize the Iranian economic regime as a “command economy,” wherein the ruling establishment is the decisive and exclusive actor when it comes to the production and consumption of goods and services. This kind of economy is epitomized by that of the Soviet Union before its demise.<br /><br />It is true that there is a certain similarity between Iran’s economic regime (which has weakened the private sector) and a “command economy,” but this perception is insufficient as it ignores the characteristics of the dual economy practiced in Iran.<br /><br />The Iranian economy is comprised of two parallel axes: the official economic regime implemented by the government and the “charity foundation economy” (the Bonyads economy). The largest of the foundations is the “Oppressed and Disabled Foundation” – the second-largest economic entity in the country after the national oil company. The work of the charity foundations, which originated in the revolutionary regime’s confiscation of the assets of the Pahlavi Foundation, involves supplying the needs of the lower classes, helping the families of those fallen in battle, rehabilitating prisoners of war, providing assorted forms of welfare, and inculcating Islamic education, culture, and so on.<br /><br />Over time, the charitable foundations have become a powerful economic axis that is not subject to governmental monitoring, taxation processes, reporting, or registration in the state accounting system. Not surprisingly, the inability to monitor these entities has given rise to corruption, tax evasion, and resource allocation outside the framework of the approved annual budget.<br /><br />Furthermore, the Iranian constitution explicitly delineates the balance of power between the Supreme Leader and the president, putting the Supreme Leader in charge of agenda-setting and resource allocation. As a result, a large proportion of state revenues are channeled to entities that are directly under Ayatollah Khamenei’s aegis – such as the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has evolved not only into a formidable security establishment but also into a powerful economic conglomerate.<br /><br />The dual economic structure has created consequences that are unique to the Iranian economy. For example, the current president of the Foundation of the Oppressed and Disabled, Muhammad Saeed-kia, has no less power (some claim he has even more) than the minister of economic affairs and finance, Masoud Karbasian. The charitable foundations’ power and influence over the Iranian economy are a source of incessant wrangling between governmental power brokers. The foundations’ activity is clearly aimed, among other things, at bolstering the religious establishment in Iran’s political balance of power. For example, the “Ostan-e Quds-e Razvi” Foundation serves as a support base for Ebrahim Raisi, who challenged Rouhani in the presidential elections.<br /><br />As usual, the Iranian ruling establishment is pinning the blame for the drop in the currency’s value on external factors, notably the West, claiming that the turmoil stems from Washington’s threats to pull out of the nuclear agreement. Various spokespersons say the Trump administration’s policy on renewing sanctions is fostering uncertainty that is deterring European countries from signing trade agreements with Iran. Yet local traders accuse Iran’s central bank of deliberately slowing the flow of foreign currency into the exchange trade in order to create a shortage. Moneychangers also claim that the shortage is aimed at boosting demand for foreign currency and filling budget shortfalls.<br /><br />Citizens’ desire to convert their money into foreign currency in order to retain its value attests to a lack of popular trust in the banking system. Inflation and rising prices on the basic basket of goods impel a constant search for solutions in the absence of a banking alternative. The fall in the currency’s value is accompanied by an ongoing slump in local market production that stems from the government’s lack of encouragement. High unemployment figures and the preference for imports over local products also contribute to the currency’s distress.<br /><br />In the view of industrialists and economists, the stagnation stems from both the sense of security fostered by high revenues from natural resources and the regime’s preference for setting the economic agenda. Moreover, the establishment’s flouting of basic principles of a free economy – in which private owners make their own decisions on what to produce, how to price it, and what to invest in in the first place – exacerbates the weakness of the Iranian economy.<br /><br />The trouble now besetting the Iranian currency cannot be seen in isolation from the social unrest that began at the end of 2017. The protests that swept about 80 towns across Iran stemmed from the growing gaps between massive investments in the military sphere (with the aim of expanding Iran’s regional influence) and the population’s desire for a better standard of living. This movement was driven by the rising cost of living, high poverty and unemployment levels, a housing shortage, and increasing crime. The travails of the currency need to be analyzed in the wider context of developments affecting Iran.<br /><br />From the moment the Iranian Republic was established in 1979, its leaders called for the rejection of all aspects of Western life, including the use of foreign currency. Iran’s citizens have taken the opposite tack. The Iranian economy’s source of strength – its gas and oil revenues – could turn into a weakness because of the fragility of the economic regime. The leadership’s ignoring of society’s needs and funneling of massive resources into the military sphere, while averting its gaze from the liabilities of the dual structure, could create serious challenges for the revolutionary regime in the future.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-186522898445327582018-04-21T14:24:00.001-07:002018-04-21T14:25:00.589-07:00Russian Deterrence influenced Minimal strike on Assad's Chemical Weapons Facilities<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /><br /><img height="458" src="https://besacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/US-airstrike-on-Syria-before-and-after-screenshot-from-YouTube-video-300x215.jpg" width="640" /></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />US airstrike on Syria before and after, screenshot from YouTube video<br /><br /><b> While the purpose of the US strikes was to target Syria’s chemical-weapons capabilities, the relatively modest scale of the strikes are an indication of Russia’s ability to cause Western powers to limit their actions.</b><br /><br />The recent US missile strikes on three chemical-weapons sites in Syria represent relatively small-scale action against Syrian President Bashar Assad and underline the extent of Russia’s deterrent posture.<br /><br />The purpose of the strike was to damage Syria’s chemical-weapons program and to deter the murderous regime in Damascus from unleashing further chemical weapons on the civilian population. Yet in actuality, the strikes are more of an indication of Russia’s success at causing Western powers to limit their actions and opt for extreme caution in their response to Assad’s crimes against humanity.<br /><br />Russian officials made explicit threats to shoot down US missiles prior to the strike and even to target the missile-launchers. These threats are part of a wider Russian posture aimed at showing the entire world – and the Middle East in particular – that Russia stands by the Assad regime no matter what horrors it unleashes.<br /><br />Russia’s actions are guided by a cold, hard logic. By standing firm alongside its Syrian client, it is broadcasting the message that any Middle Eastern actor who partners with Russia will gain the essentially unconditional backing of a major power. Between the lines, the Russian message seems to be, “How can you trust the fickle West and the US, which abandon allies or leave them to fight alone? Join our sphere of influence and you will receive real backing.”<br /><br />This kind of posturing is part of Moscow’s attempt to rebuild its global empire and boost the value of its currency as a superpower ally. There will likely be regional actors who will pay attention to this message.<br /><br />As for the strikes themselves, they will probably have minimal, if any, impact on overall events in Syria.<br /><br />The reason the Assad regime uses chemical weapons is because it is engaged in a war against Syria’s Sunni Muslim population, and it is attempting to ethnically cleanse whole areas of communities deemed a threat by the regime.<br /><br />The Assad regime makes no distinction whatsoever between armed combatants and innocent civilians living in the areas from which the rebels operate, viewing them all as threats to its existence. This is why it repeatedly uses chemical weapons on entire neighborhoods, as well as conventional weapons, committing mass murder and trying to get the rest of the population to flee – preferably, from Assad’s perspective, out of the country.<br /><br />Already, the Syrian refugee exodus is the worst since WWII. Out of an original population of 22 million people, more than half have left their homes. Of those, half are internally displaced, and around half have left Syria’s borders. The majority of these refugees are Sunni.<br /><br />The Assad regime is from the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, and the fact that millions of Sunnis are fleeing the country suits it just fine. This strategic shift in the country’s sectarian balance serves Assad’s long-term goal of strengthening its rule. It will continue to work towards this goal by terrorizing and butchering the Sunni population, and by dwindling its numbers by forcing people to leave Syria.<br /><br />As a result, Europe should expect further waves of Sunni Syrian refugees.<br /><br />The Assad regime has the backing not only of Moscow, but also of a regional and radical Shiite power: Iran. An array of Iranian-led Shiite armed forces are deployed across Syria, where they oversee the brutal campaign against Syria’s Sunnis.<br /><br />Striking three chemical-weapons targets in Syria will not change this.<br /><br />The Iranian-Israeli front<br /><br />Meanwhile, Syria is also becoming an active combat arena between Iran and Israel. This front is growing more explosive and tense with time. Iran is trying to convert its military assets in Syria into bases of attack against Israel. Jerusalem is showing resolute determination to stop this from happening.<br /><br />The Israel Defense Forces recently <a href="https://twitter.com/IDFSpokesperson/status/984841342487613442">announced</a> that an Iranian drone that flew into Israeli airspace in February and was shot down by the Israeli Air Force was armed with an explosive and was on its way to conduct an attack inside Israel.<br /><br />This represents the first known time that Iran has attempted a direct armed strike on Israel from Syria, rather than its traditional attempts at organizing attacks via proxy.<br /><br />The <a href="https://www.jns.org/analysis-latest-israeli-airstrike-in-syria-likely-stopped-new-iranian-threat/">recent reported Israeli airstrike on an Iranian-run military base</a> in central Syria, which purportedly was used by the Iranians to operate drones and threaten Israel, appears to represent Israeli self-defense. The goal is to stop Iran from turning Syria into a forward base of aggression.<br /><br />In the aftermath of the strike, Iranian officials have been issuing threats of retaliation against the Jewish state.<br /><br />Israeli defense officials have reportedly responded by saying that if Iran makes good on its threat, the whole of the Assad regime could be destroyed in the subsequent Israeli response.<br /><br />These events represent a high-stakes struggle between Tehran and Jerusalem, with Iran pushing and testing Israel’s red lines and Israel enforcing them consistently. If Iran pushes too far and disregards Israel’s warnings, this low-profile war could turn into a major regional conflict.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-37401080967026145932018-04-08T00:15:00.002-07:002018-04-08T00:15:55.430-07:00Citizens and Democracy in Zion <img alt="Image result for Benjamin Netanyahu election" height="360" src="https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150318081314-13-israel-elections-super-169.jpg" width="640" /><br />
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If Benjamin Netanyahu is forced to step down from his position as prime minister without sufficient evidence proving him to be guilty of criminal activity, the country will lose an experienced and capable leader at a time of growing danger. </span></strong><strong style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The elites who are so eager to push him out should consider whether their wish to install an individual more to their tastes is worth the possible cost to Israel’s security.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Winston Churchill was right when he said in 1947 that “democracy is the worst form of government ever invented – except for all those other forms that have been tried.” One of the reasons is that sometimes a democracy will fail unless its citizens act maturely despite inclinations tempting them in another direction. “Democracy” here means all the processes and behavior that determine what happens in the governance of a liberal democratic country such as Israel.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Israel’s democracy is now undergoing such a test. Our region is in a time of bloody turmoil and instability. Israel, despite its great strength, faces dangers that require it to act prudently, wisely, and perhaps forcefully to protect itself from rapidly changing security developments.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fortunately we have a prime minister who is widely recognized as one of the most eloquent and capable statesmen in the world today. With that said, no one would claim that he makes no mistakes or that Israel’s policy cannot be improved.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Partly because of Netanyahu’s unique experience at the center of affairs for many years, and the opportunities he has had to build relationships with leaders such as Putin, Trump, Modi, and Abe (of Japan), it is clear that no other Israeli today is anywhere near as capable of running Israel’s foreign and security policy as is Bibi.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the other hand, a great many Israelis scorn and disapprove of the prime minister. Even many of his admirers see him as a man of poor character – small-minded, selfish, miserly, and disloyal, unable to create and maintain close relationships with strong people and political allies (with the striking exception of Ron Dermer). Perhaps most of all, Bibi’s hedonistic lifestyle – apart from his strong work ethic — offends many Israelis who contrast it with that of Begin, Rabin, and other Israeli political leaders of the past.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If it turns out that Bibi is guilty of real criminal conduct, as distinguished from technical violations of law, Israel would of course have to do without his foreign policy talent and experience. Perhaps there is still a possibility that the extraordinary efforts to bring Bibi down, by his long-time enemies in the media and the police, will prove that he genuinely is a criminal whom Israelis cannot in good conscience leave as head of government. But so far what is apparent is that a very small fire can be used to make a lot of smoke. Much of Israel’s establishment uses double standards to pursue partisan goals at the cost of weakening their prime minister’s ability to do his job.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Israel’s democracy – its voters, politicians, media, and police – must decide whether the prime minister shall continue to be the man by far most capable of protecting the country in particularly dangerous times, or will be replaced by someone whose personal character is felt to be less objectionable – especially to leftists troubled by having to face a man of the right who is obviously smart and sophisticated. Experience suggests that if Bibi is replaced as PM we cannot assume that his successor will necessarily be a person of better character.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On present evidence, if Netanyahu has to step down now it will be a failure of democracy. It would be a profligate decision to prefer a more appealing national leader over a determination to put the country’s safety in the best hands available.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One possibility is that the police, media, and elite attacks on Bibi will force him to have an early election which returns him to office, perhaps with an increased majority. That would be a case of democracy succeeding through the wisdom of the voters defeating media and legal system leadership. Still, despite their defeat by the citizenry under those circumstances, that elite would have inflicted great costs on the country by an unnecessary election and the diversion of much of Netanyahu’s time and energy from his job.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course Bibi will not live forever, and no person is indispensable. Sooner or later Israel will have to find a new prime minister. If necessary, Israel will get through the present and future dangers without Netanyahu. But a maturely prudent democracy will take advantage of Bibi’s special talents and experience as long as it can, even if it dislikes him.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08080502740625442490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5567319133784685525.post-46244152181136375412018-03-20T04:40:00.000-07:002018-03-20T04:41:59.614-07:00The Political Abuse of the Palestinian Refugee Issue by Stephen darori (@stepehendarori #stephendarori)<h1 style="break-after: avoid; font-weight: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Arab version of the tragic fate of Arab refugees who fled from British Mandatory Palestine before and during the 1948 war, and from Israel immediately after the war, has so thoroughly dominated the thinking of even well-educated historians, commentators, journalists and politicians, that it is almost a given that the creation of the State of Israel caused the flight of almost a million hapless, homeless, helpless and hopeless Arab refugees. Israel caused the problem and thus Israel must solve the problem.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This assertion, although viscerally engaging and all but canonized by the anti-Israel left (including the Arab-dominated UN)and the core of its narratives of the Middle East conflict, is unequivocally and utterly false.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <b>Origins of the Problem<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The details of the process whereby the approximately 725,000 Arab residents of British Mandatory Palestine in Cis-Jordan achieved refugee status and endured</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">brutal oppression and unmitigated suffering at the hands of their host Arab countries are described in Part II below (“the Eight Stages of Creation”). The bottom line itself is very straightforward and simple:</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The State of Israel was created in a peaceful and legal process by the United Nations. The UN partition plan (resolution #181, November 29, 1947) created two states: the State of Israel for the Jews, and the State of Palestine for the Arabs.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Arab refugees were people who fled because of the war, the Arab states started. The rulers of eight Arab countries whose populations vastly outnumbered the Jews initiated the war with simultaneous invasions of the newly created State of Israel on three fronts. Nascent Israel begged for peace and offered friendship and cooperation to its neighbors. The Arabs rejected this offer and answered it with a war of annihilation against the Jews, which fortunately failed. To this day the Arab states and the Palestinians refer to the failure of their aggression and the survival of Israel as the <i>Nakhba</i> – the catastrophe.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Had there been no Arab aggression, no war, no invasion by Arab armies whose intent was avowedly genocidal, not only would there have been no Arab refugees, but there would have been a state of Palestine on the West Bank and Gaza since 1948.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Israel offered to return land it had acquired in defending itself against the Arab aggression in exchange for a formal peace. It made this offer during the Rhodes Armistice talks and Lausanne conference in 1949. The Arab rulers refused. Had Israel’s offer been accepted, there could have been prompt and just resolution to all the problems that have afflicted the region since. The only problem that wouldn’t have been resolved to the satisfaction of the Arabs was their desire to obliterate the state of Israel. After their victory, Israel passed a law that allowed Arab refugees to re-settle in Israel provided they would sign a form in which they renounced violence, swore allegiance to the state of Israel, and became peaceful productive citizens. During the decades of this law’s tenure, more than 150,000 Arab refugees have taken advantage of it to resume productive lives in Israel.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It should be completely obvious to any reasonable and fair-minded observer of this history, therefore, that it was not the creation of the State of Israel that caused the Arab refugee problem, nor was it Israel that obstructed its solution.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On the contrary, the Arab refugee problem was the direct result of the aggression of the Arab states, and their refusal after failing to obliterate Israel to sign a formal peace, or to take care of the refugees who remained outside Israel’s borders. </span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <b>The Jewish Refugees<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There were other refugees from the Arab-Israeli conflict that everyone on the Arab side of the argument chooses conveniently to forget. Between 1949 and 1954 about 800,000 Jews were forced to flee from the Arab and Muslim lands where they had lived for hundreds and even thousands of years – from Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan and Iran. These Jews were peaceful citizens of their Arab countries and in no way a hostile population. Nonetheless, they were forced at gun-point to flee with nothing but the clothes on their backs. The only reason for their expulsion was revenge against the Jewish citizenry of Arab countries for the shame of the Arab defeat in their war of aggression.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Most of these Jewish refugees came to Israel, where they were integrated into normalcy by the tiny fledgling Jewish state, which did for its own precisely what the Arab states (and later the PLO) have refused to do for theirs. </span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some observers have suggested that this turn of events could be understood as a “population exchange” – Arabs fled to Arab countries as Jews fled to the Jewish country, both as a result of the 1948 war, both under conditions which their side regards as forced evacuations. On the other hand, no one on the Arab side has suggested the obvious: if Jewish refugees were resettled on land vacated by fleeing Arabs, why not resettle Arab refugees on the lands of Jews who were forced to flee the Arab countries. One reason no one has suggested this is that no Arab state with the exception of Jordan will even allow Palestinians to be citizens. Another point: Taking into account the assets of the Jewish refugees from Arab and Muslim lands, one can conclude that the Jews have already paid massive “reparations” to the Arabs whether warranted or not.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The property and belongings of the Jewish refugees, confiscated by the Arab governments, has been conservatively estimated at about $2.5 billion in 1948 dollars. Invest that money at a modest 6.5% over 57 years and you have today a sum of $80 billion, which the Arab and Muslim governments of the lands from which the Jews were expelled could apply to the benefit of the Arab refugees. That sum is quite sufficient for reparations to Arab refugees. There is no way of accurately assessing the value of Arab property left in Israel’s control; but there are no estimates as high as a 1948 value of $2,500,000,000. So, hypothetically, the Arab side would be getting the better of such a deal.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <b>The Arab Refugee Problem<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Another irony must be considered in the context of the refugee issue. Israel handled its Jewish refugee problem by devoting massive resources to the education and integration of the Jewish refugee population into its society. These refugees never became a burden on the world, never needed the assistance of the United Nations, and never had their civil and human rights denied by their new host country. Instead, despite great hardship, early discrimination, difficult adjustments and initial privations, they and their offspring have become productive citizens of the Middle East’s only democracy, and substantive contributors to one of the most technologically and socially advanced countries in the world.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The fate of the Arab refugees has been the diametric opposite of this obvious positive solution to their problem. Arab leadership has purposely kept their Palestinian brethren in the equivalent of concentration camps, maintained at a subsistence level, with their misery perpetuated by Machiavellian rulers to be used as a propaganda weapon against Israel and against the west. The Palestinian refugees in Gaza were forced there in 1948 not by Israel but by the Egyptians, kept there under guard, shot if they tried to leave, and never given Egyptian citizenship or Egyptian passports. (These facts are recorded by Yasir Arafat himself in his authorized biography by Alan Hart, <i>Arafat: Terrorist or Peace Maker?</i> 1982). Refugees in Lebanon were kept under similar but less draconian repression, with Lebanese law barring them from almost 70 professions, with no citizenship, and no right to travel. Only in Jordan were the refugees granted citizenship.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This brutal repression of Arab refugees by their Arab host countries is especially significant when one recalls that during the many wars of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, tens of millions of refugees were created in Europe and Asia. In 1922, 1.8 million people were relocated to resolve Turkey-Greece war. Following World War II, some 3,000,000 Germans were forced from countries of Eastern Europe and resettled in Germany. When the Indian sub-continent was divided, over 12 million people were transferred between India and Pakistan. </span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">All such refugee issues have been resolved, except the 725,000who fled Israel during the 1948 war! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Senior Fatah Central Committee member Sakher Habash succinctly explained the reason for the calculated refusal of the Arab rulers including the Palestinian rulers to help the Palestinian refugees to return to normal lives. During a 1998 lecture at Shechem’s An-Najah University, Habash said: “To us, the refugee issue is the winning card which means the end of the Israeli state.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In other words, war, terrorism, diplomatic isolation of Israel, world-wide PR campaigns to demonize Israel…..all may fail (and most have, so far); but as long as this last trump card is still alive, hope for the destruction of Israel still pulses in the hearts of Arab revanchists.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In reality, Palestinians who fled Israel in 1948 and are still alive have no legal right to return to Israel, because the Arab leadership representing them (Arab nations until 1993, and since then the Palestinian Authority) are still, <i>de jure</i> and<i> de facto</i> at war with Israel; and these refugees, therefore, are still potential hostiles. International law does not require a country at war to commit suicide by allowing the entry of hundreds of thousands of a potentially hostile population. In the context of a peace treaty, in 1949, the Arab refugees could have taken advantage of Israel’s offer; but their leadership refused.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Of course the present Palestinian claim of a “Right of Return” is accompanied by the claim that there are not 725,000 refugees (minus those who have died in the interim) but <i>5 million</i>. This number serves many political agendas but from the point of view of international law later generations born into a refugee population that has been resettled and living in exile do not have the legal status of refugees. That means that legal refugee status today applies only to those few surviving Arabs who fled in 1948, among whom most are advanced in age.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <b>A Summary of The Salient Facts<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The protracted Arab refugee crisis is an artificial crisis maintained for 57 years by Arab rulers in order to exploit their own people’s suffering -- to create a “poster child” for Palestinian victim-hood; a staging ground for anti-Israel propaganda; a training center for Arab terrorists; and a trump card for the anti-Israel <i>jihad</i> (per Sakher Habash) if/when all else (war, terrorism, international diplomacy) fail.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “Haq el-Auda,” the “law of return”, for Palestinian Arabs to their own homes and farms and orchards that have been part of Israel for the past 57 years is a sham.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Sixty years ago there were nearly a million Jews in the Arab states of the Middle East: honest hard-working citizenry contributing to the culture and economy of their countries of domicile. Today, there are almost no Jews in the Arab countries of the Middle East, and racist apartheid laws prohibit even Jewish tourists from entering Arab countries.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In Israel, on the other hand, the Arabs who did not flee numbered about 170,000 in 1949; and now number more than 1,400,000. They 12 representatives in the Israel Parliament, judges sitting on the Israeli supreme court bench, and Ph.D’s and tenured professors teaching in Israeli colleges and universities. They are a population that enjoys more freedom, education, and economic opportunity than do any comparable Arab populations anywhere in the Arab world.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Arab rulers caused the Arab refugee problem in 1948 by their war of aggression against the infant state of Israel, a legal creation of the United Nations; the Arab rulers have since maintained the Arab refugee population and and denied it any possibility of normal life in Arab countries in order to use the suffering they themselves have causedit as a weapon in their unending war against Israel. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">During all these decades the refugee camps and their Arab exploiters have been funded by billions of dollars from the United Nations, the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * </span></div>
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<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The Eight Stages of the Creation of Arab Refugee Problem<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There were eight stages to the flight of Arabs from what would soon become Israel:</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>One.</b> As early as the Fall of 1947, months before the UN partition plan of 11/29/47, it was clear that there would be a war no matter what course of action the UN took. In anticipation of this war, many of the well-to-do Arabs (the Effendi) of the Western Galilee, from Haifa to Acco and villages in between, closed down their houses and went to Beirut or Damascus, where with their wealth and connections they could wait out the war in safety. They thought that they would thus be out of the way of danger, and when the war was over (no one imagined that Israel would win) they would come back to their homes.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Current estimates by objective observers (Conan Cruise O’Brien, in his book “The Siege”, being perhaps the most objective) is that about 70,000 fled.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Two.</b> These refugees caused a sudden absence of political and social leadership among the Arabs of the Galilee, and thus as the hostilities developed in the Winter of 1947, many of the Arab peasantry (Felahin) fled as well, following their leaders' example. They lacked the money and connections to make a comfortable trip out of the way of danger, as their Effendi had done. So many of them simply walked with whatever they could carry, to Lebanon or Syria. Their main motivation for leaving was that since their leadership had fled, things must be pretty bad, so they had better leave too. They too were sure, based upon documentation from Arab press at the time, that when the war was over and the Jews were all dead or driven from Israel, they would come back to their homes.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There are no solid numbers for this exodus, but estimates range around 100,000 people. There were so many exiting that the Arab states had a special conference in Beirut to decide how to handle all the Arabs that were pouring across the borders. They set up special camps...later to be known as refugee camps.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Note Well!! These Arabs were fleeing of their own free will. No one, neither Israel nor Arab states, were encouraging, frightening, or ordering them to do</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">so. The war had not yet even begun.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Three.</b> After 11/29/47, warfare between the Israeli Haganah (not yet called the IDF because the local British Mandatory forces were stalwartly pro-Arab and</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">routinely arrested Haganah soldiers and took their arms...so the Israeli army was still an underground army) and para-military Arab volunteers numbering in</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the tens of thousands (trained and armed in Syria and Lebanon, with the aid of both ex-NAZI and British officers) began in earnest.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Arab press and public speeches made it clear that this was to be a war of annihilation...like the great Mongol hordes killing all in their path. The Jews would be either dead or out. Israel was fighting not a war of independence, but a war of survival.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In order to defend some areas where Jews were completely surrounded by Arabs (like the Jews of Jaffa, Jewish villages or kibbutzim in parts of the Galilee</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and central hill country, and in Jerusalem) the Haganah adopted scare-tactics that were intended to strike terror into the Arab population of those areas, so that they would retreat to safer ground, and thus make it possible for the Hagana to defend those Jews who would otherwise be inaccessible and thus vulnerable to genocidal Arab intentions.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Many Arabs in parts of the western Galilee, Jaffa, and parts of western Jerusalem, fled because of these tactics (rumors that a huge Jewish army from</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the West was about to land on the coast, hand-grenades thrown on front porches of homes, jeeps driving by and firing machine guns into the walls or fences of</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">houses, rumors circulated by Arabic-speaking Jews that the Haganah was far bigger than it really was, and was on the verge of surfacing with a massive</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Jewish army, etc.).</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here it is important to note that Jews were at cause in this part of the Arab flight. But it was not because they wanted to ethnically cleanse the country, or to wipe out the Arabs. It was because they knew that Jews undefended in Arab enclaves would be slaughtered (as in fact was the case of Jews in the Gush Etzion villages and in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City in Jerusalem, and as had happened in Hebron in 1929). It was the exigency of their fighting a war of survival against a bigger and better armed enemy that drove them to the tactics described above.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is also important to note here the following two facts:</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A) Had the Arab leadership accepted the UN partition plan; there would have been a state of Palestine since 11/29/47, for the Arabs, alongside of Israel.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">B) Had the Arab armies not invaded, there would have been no refugee problem.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In light of these two facts, it is clear that the total onus of culpability for the start of the refugee problem rests squarely and solely upon the Arab states that invaded, in clear disregard for the UN resolution 181 and international law.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Four.</b> Arab leadership from among the para-military forces, and the forces of Syria, were vociferous in their announcements that they wanted Arabs to leave so that the armies would have a clear field in which to perpetrate their genocide of the Jews (see appendix below). When the war was over (Arab newspaper articles suggested about 4-6 weeks before all the Jews were driven out or killed), the Arab residents could come back and have both their own lands and those of the Jews.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We cannot know how many Arabs fled because of these announcements; but since a number of Arab spokespersons after the war admitted to having done this, and wrung their hands publicly in painful repentance of having created the refugee problem, it is clear that the Arab leadership's own message to many Arabs in the area was a major factor in the Arab flight.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is also important to point out at this time that there were a number of cases where Jewish leaders got out in public and pleaded with Arabs not to leave. The mayor of Haifa is the best example of this. At the risk of his own life, he drove through the Arab section of Haifa with a loudspeaker on his jeep, and in Arabic called out to the residents of his city to disregard the Arab propaganda.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Nonetheless, tens of thousands fled. The incredulous British officers who witnessed this (don't forget, the British had not yet left) documented it in a</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">variety of sources (some mentioned in the appendix below). Those Arabs who stayed were unharmed and became citizens of Israel.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The British also documented for the world a similar phenomenon in Tiberius (a town in which the Arab population vastly outnumbered the Jewish), where the</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Arabs quite literally chose to leave even though they were under no direct threat from the Jews, and asked the British to assist them. Tens of thousands</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In a slightly different twist, the Arabs of Safed (Tzefat), fled before the Haganah attack, even though the Arab forces in Safed outnumbered the Jews about 10 to one.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Wherever Arabs chose to stay, they were unharmed and later became citizens of Israel.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There have been a number of essays written by later historians contesting the truth of the assertion that Arab leaders told their people to flee. But Conan</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Five.</b> Deir Yassin: The events that took place at Deir Yassin are still hotly disputed. But by their own admission, Arab leadership today acknowledges that the lies created by the Arabs then about the fictitious "massacre" were concocted in order to shame the Arab armies into fighting against the Jews, and to frighten the Arabs and encourage them to flee.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The village sits near Jerusalem, overlooking the road from Tel Aviv. Jewish Jerusalem was under siege, and its lifeline was this one road to Tel Aviv. A</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">contingent of Iraqi troops had entered Deir Yassin on 3/13/48. Some sources suggest that they were asked to leave. Apparently they did not, since their</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">armed bodies were numerous among the dead after the battle. It was obvious that they were going to try to cut off that road. Doing so would spell the end of Jewish Jerusalem. So on 4/9/48 a contingent of the Irgun (a para-military splinter group) entered the village. This operation was completely legitimate in the context of rules of engagement, since the Iraqi presence made the village a legal military objective.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Their intent, to capture the village and drive out the Iraqis, was completely clear from the onset, because they entered with a jeep and loudspeaker telling</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the civilian population to flee the village (unfortunately, this jeep slid into a ditch, so some of the villagers may not have heard the message; but many did, because they fled before the Irgun got into the village); and because rather than surrounding the village and barring escape, they left several routes open for the civilians to flee, which hundreds of villagers used. However, the Iraqis had disguised themselves as women (easy to hide weapons beneath the flowing robes of the burqa) and had hidden themselves among women and children in the village. So, when the Irgun fighters entered, they encountered fire from women!</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When the Irgun fighters fired back, they killed many innocent women because the Iraqis were hiding behind them. After suffering more than 40% casualties to their forces, the Irgun succeeded in killing or capturing the Iraqis. Then, while they were in a group, still dressed as women, having surrendered and agreed to be taken prisoner, some of the Iraqis opened fire again with weapons concealed beneath their women's clothing. Irgun fighters were caught off guard, more were killed, and others opened fire into the group. Iraqis who had indeed surrendered were killed along with those who had only pretended to surrender and had then opened fire.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When the Hagana arrived they found the dead women and other civilians; and thus incorrectly accused the Irgun of murder and massacre. But the Red Cross, which was called in to assist the wounded and civilians, found no evidence of a massacre. In fact, even the most recent review of the evidence (7/1999), by Arab scholars at Beir-Zayyit university in Ramallah, indicates that there was no massacre, but rather a military conflict in which civilians were killed in the crossfire. The total Arab dead, including the Iraqi soldiers, according to the Beir Zayyit calculation, was 107.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So where did the idea of a massacre come from? The same Arab sources that confess to having urged the Arabs to flee have also acknowledged that Arab</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">spokespersons at the time galacticly exaggerated the Deir Yassin fight, making up stories of gang rape, brutalizing of pregnant women, killing unborn children cut from their mothers' wombs by blood-thirsty Jews, and massive murders with bodies thrown into a nearby quarry. These same Arab sources admit that their purpose in these exaggerations and lies was to shame the Arab nations into entering the conflict with greater alacrity, so that the Jews would be destroyed by the overwhelming numbers of Arab invaders.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The plan backfired. The Arab armies invaded, but only with a fraction of their total military capacity. But as a result of these exaggerations and lies, Arab civilians panicked upon hearing these stories, and fled by the tens of thousands. This is documented on television by a 1993 (revised 2001) PBS program (50 Years of War) in which Deir Yassin survivors were interviewed in 1991. They unabashedly proclaimed that they begged Dr. Hussein Khalidi, director of Voice of Palestine (the Palestinian radio station in East Jerusalem) to edit out the lies and fabrications of atrocities that never happened. He told them: “We must capitalize on this great opportunity!”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Note well!! The flight of Arabs had begun per #1-4 above many months before Deir Yassin. So Deir Yassin cannot account for those hundreds of thousands of Arabs who sought refuge prior to 4/9/48. Moreover, while current Arab propaganda asserts that Deir Yassin was one of many examples of Jewish massacre and slaughter, there is not one other documented example of any such behavior by the Jews. Deir Yassin was not an example, it was the exception.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In sum, re Deir Yassin, it was not what happened at Deir Yassin that caused the flight of tens of thousands of Arabs; it was the lies invented by the Arab High Command and Dr. Hussein Khalidi of the “Voice of Palestine” radio news channel that caused the panic. One can hardly blame Israel for that.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Moreover, we have from an unimpeachable source, Yassir Arafat himself (his authorized biography, by Alan Hart, "Arafat: Terrorist or Peace Maker") that the Deir Yassin lies were spread "like a red flag in front of a bull" by the Egyptians. Then, having terrorized them with these stories, the Egyptians proceeded to disarm the Arabs of the area and herd them into detention camps in Gaza (today's Gaza refugee camps). Why did the Egyptians do this? According to Arafat, it was to get the Arabs out of the area because the Egyptians wanted a free hand to wage their war. Egypt had every intention of conquering the Negev and southern part of the coastal plain. They wanted no interference from the locals.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So the lies about Deir Yassin were spread in order to shame the Arab armies (didn't work) and (by the Egyptians) panic the Arab civilians (did work).</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bottom line, Deir Yassin was not a massacre, nothing even vaguely akin to what the Jews are accused of ever happened. The lies were made up by Arabs, and spread by Arabs. The further flight of refugees after 4/9/48 was caused not by the Deir Yassin battle, but by the Arab lies about the Deir Yassin battle. And this from Yassir himself, and from Beir Zayyit University.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We don't know how many Arabs fled as a result of the “Voice of Palestine” exaggerations. Several hundred thousand is a good estimate. Most of them ended</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">up in the Egyptian detention camps in Gaza.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Six</b>. There were two more incidents (in addition to the actions noted above in #3) of Arab refugees being forced to flee by Israeli army actions: Lydda and Ramle.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Both villages sat astride the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. As the siege on Jerusalem tightened, the Israeli forces knew that in order to save the Jews of</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">west Jerusalem from defeat and possible annihilation, they had to keep that road open. So one night they entered both villages and forcibly drove out the Arab residents. They rousted them from bed and sent them walking across the fields to the area that was under Jordanian control (some kilometers away).</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Note...none were killed. There was no massacre. But they were driven out. However, they were driven out because their villages sat astride the road to Jerusalem, and the only way to guarantee the survival of 150,000 Jews in Jerusalem was to control this one road.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Seven</b>. By 5/15/48 the British had evacuated their forces from all of British Mandatory Palestine, and the Jews had a free hand in using their Haganah,</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">which now became the IDF. And the Arab countries had a free hand in attacking. And attack they did. Armies from 8 Arab nations poured into the area from</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt (volunteers and soldiers from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Morocco came too - hence 8). They outnumbered the Hagana (now IDF) about 5 to one. For the next month or so the Israelis were fighting a terribly difficult defensive war, just barely able to keep the invaders out. There were about 63,000 IDF volunteers, but weapons for only 22,000.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In June of '48 the UN imposed a cease-fire. By July when the Arabs re-initiated hostilities, the Israelis had been able to use the cease-fire to import arms and planes from Russia and Germany via Czechoslovakia. Now better armed, the IDF numbered 65,000 and the odds were reduced to about 2-1. Good odds for the determined Jewish fighters.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When the fighting resumed in July, the IDF went on the offensive and succeeded in driving the Arab armies out of both the Jewish areas and large parts of the</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">areas that the UN had intended to be the Palestinian state (western Galilee, and southern coastal plain north of Gaza). When this offensive began, more Arabs fled. As noted above, the Arabs that stayed were not harmed, and became citizens of Israel.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Contrary to revisionist and mendacious Arab propaganda, there was never any intent to massacre Arabs. Many civilians died in the cross fire, and the</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">overwhelming majority of Arabs who fled did so needlessly, at their own initiative, or because of the Arab leadership that lied and intimidated them.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some Arabs were driven out by the IDF, but as part of a defensive measure. Not as part of any plan to ethnically cleanse the land or massacre/genocide the</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Arabs. These accusations are all new revisionism aimed at exonerating the Arabs from their heinous and brutal role in creating the Arab Refugee problem, and at transferring the guilt to Israel.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Perhaps the most revealing considerations in the conclusion that Israel NEVER set out to put into action a plan to genocide the Arabs of Palestine or to drive them from their homes are:</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The complete absence of any coverage in any world press, including Arab press and western press openly hostile to israel, about any such actions of which Israel is today accused. The complete absence of these accusations from any Arab spokespersons during this time, even at the very height of the flight (post-Deir Yassin), and for many years thereafter). The fate of the Arabs who stayed. They became Israeli citizens and enjoy more freedom, democracy, political representation, high standard of living, education, and economic opportunities, than any Arabs anywhere in the Arab world today.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Finally, after the 2/49 cease-fire, when the war was over, there was still a continued flight by tens of thousands of Arabs. The Jews did absolutely nothing to encourage or force this flight.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The above are the 7 stages of causation. The next stage recounts on-going Arab obduracy in the maintenance of the refugee problem and refusal to seek any solution.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Eight</b>. As noted above, the Arabs caused the problem by starting the war, and by encouraging Arabs to leave during the war. Even worse, although Israel offered</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">on several occasions to repatriate refugees, the Arab states refused.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">During the Rhodes armistice talks in 2/1949, Israel offered to return to the Arabs the lands that the Jews had conquered that were meant to be part of the</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Palestinian state, in exchange for a peace treaty. This would have allowed hundreds of thousands of refugees to return to their homes. The Arabs said no,</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">because, as they themselves admitted, they were momentarily going to mount a new offensive. They had lost round one. There would be more and more rounds, until the Arabs won. Their new offensive was the 9000 terrorist attacks mostly from Egypt that the Arabs perpetrated against Israel from 1949-1956 (part of the cause of the '56 war).</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At the Lausanne conference in 8-9/49, Israel offered to repatriate 100,000 refugees even without a peace treaty. The Arab states said NO, because that</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">would involve a tacit recognition of the state of Israel.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Thus, despite Israel's offers of repatriation, the Arabs insisted on maintaining the refugees in their squalor and suffering. Arab spokespersons in Syria and Egypt were quoted in their newspapers as saying: we will maintain the refugees in their camps until the flag of Palestine flies over all of the land. They will go back home only as victors, on the graves and corpses of the Jews.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Moreover, as some Arabs were candid enough to announce in public, the refugee problem would serve as "..a festering sore on the backside of Europe", as moral leverage to be used against Israel, in order to win the emotional support of the West against Israel.</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Conclusion<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Arab refugee problem was created by the belligerent Arab states that defied the UN, invaded Israel, encouraged the Arabs to flee, and then purposefully kept them in a state of wretched poverty for Machiavellian propaganda purposes. Israel’s role was a relatively minor one, in legitimate military contexts, which it tried to reverse after the war.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The problem was maintained intentionally by the Arab states through their refusal to abide by the UN resolutions and the Geneva convention, refusal to integrate any refugees into under-populated Arab countries (except for Jordan), refusal to enter into peace negotiations with Israel, and refusal to countenance ANY steps toward resolution by Israel or others.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">By maintaining the problem, the Arab leaders sought to gain pseudo-moral leverage against Europe and Israel, to keep a “festering human sore” in the forefront of their propaganda war against Israel, and to use the issue as a political weapon against Israel.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Israel indicated its willingness on several occasions to include repatriation and/or reparations for Arab refugees, in context of peace treaty; but its offers were rejected by the Arab leadership.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Egypt, in its 1979 treaty with Israel, refused to deal with refugee issue in Gaza strip, and ceded all of Gaza strip to Israel. The PLO refused to negotiate with Israel, so refugee status of Gaza Palestinians was maintained.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Jordan had integrated thousands of Palestinians into its economy, and did not see any need or responsibility to deal with the disposition of those on the West Bank in the context of its 1994 peace treaty with Israel.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The abuses, exaggerations, lying, and distortions, perpetrated by Arab governments, UNWRA and the refugee spokespersons made it impossible, even back in 1949, to identify a bona fide refugee populace.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Palestinian population of the West Bank, under Israeli rule from 1967 to 1992, experienced the highest standard of living of any Arab country with the exception of the oil states. The same is true of Arab Israelis. The Arab population of West Bank and Gaza has tripled since 6/67: no genocide, no ethnic cleansing.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Palestinian population under the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) from 1994 to the present has declined precipitously, the standard of living eroded, GDP is one-tenth of what it was under Israeli control; all due to mis-appropriation of approximately $5.2 billion by the PNA into personal wealth and weapons stock-piling, and due to Arafat’s terror war against which Israel must exercise defensive controls and deterrents.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Justice for Jewish and Arab refugees could have been part of a peace settlement, if the Arab states had been willing. Today the same is true, if the Palestinian National Authority would stop the terror war and fulfill the obligations to which it committed at Oslo.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Appendix: Quotes confirming that Arab leaders told Arabs to flee:<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1. “The first group of our fifth column consist of those who abandon their homes…At the first sign of trouble they take to their heels to escape sharing the burden of struggle”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- Ash-Sha’ab, Jaffa, 1.30.48</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2. “(the fleeing villagers)…are bringing down disgrace on us all… by abandoning their villages”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- As-Sarih, Jaffa, 3.30.48</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3. "Every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab populace to stay and carry on with their normal lives, to get their shops and businesses open and to be assured that their lives and interests will be safe."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- Haifa District HQ of the British Police, April 26, 1948, (quoted in</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><u>Battleground</u> by Samuel Katz).</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">4. "The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by order of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter of Haifa a ghost city.... By withdrawing Arab workers their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- Time Magazine, May 3, 1948, page 25</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">5. “The Arab streets (of Palestine) are curiously deserted (because)…following the poor example of the moneyed class, there has been an exodus from Jerusalem, but not to the same extent as from Jaffa and Haifa”,</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- London Times, 5.5.48</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">6. "The Arab civilians panicked and fled ignominiously. Villages were frequently abandoned before they were threatened by the progress of war."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- General John Glubb "Pasha," The London Daily Mail, August 12, 1948</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">7. “The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the act of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-– Emile Ghoury, secretary of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee, in an interview with the Beirut Telegraph 9/6/1948. (same appeared in The London Telegraph, 8.48)</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">8. The most potent factor [in the flight of Palestinians] was the announcements made over the air by the Arab-Palestinian Higher Executive, urging all Haifa Arabs to quit... It was clearly intimated that Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- London Economist Oct. 2, 1948)</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">9. “It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">refugees’ flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem”.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station, Cyprus, 4.3.49</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">10. "[The Arabs of Haifa] fled in spite of the fact that the Jewish authorities guaranteed their safety and rights as citizens of Israel."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- Monsignor George Hakim, Greek Catholic Bishop of Galilee, New York Herald</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Tribune, June 30, 1949</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">11. “The military and civil (Israeli) authorities expressed their profound regret at this grave decision (taken by the Arab military delegates of Haifa and the Acting Chair of the Palestine Arab Higher Committee to evacuate Haifa despite the Israeli offer of a truce). The Jewish mayor of Haifa made a passionate appeal to the delegation (of Arab military leaders) to reconsider its decision”.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- Memorandum of the Arab National Committee of Haifa, 1950, to the governments of the Arab League, quoted in J. B. Schechtman, The Refugees in the World, NY 1963, pp. 192f.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">12. Sir John Troutbeck, British Middle East Office in Cairo, noted in cables to superiors (1948-49) that the refugees (in Gaza) have no bitterness against Jews, but harbor intense hatred toward Egyptians: “ They say ‘we know who our enemies are (referring to the Egyptians)’, declaring that their Arab brethren persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their homes…I even heard it said that many of the refugees would give a welcome to the Israelis if they were to come in and take the district over”.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">13. "The Arab states which had encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees." </span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-– The Jordanian daily newspaper Falastin, Feb. 19, 1949.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">14. "The Secretary General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, assured the</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and of Tel Aviv would be as</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">simple as a military promenade...Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Palestine to leave their land, homes, and property to stay temporarily</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In neighboring fraternal states, lest the guns of invading Arab armies</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">mow them down."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">--Al Hoda (a New York-based Lebanese daily) June 8, 1951</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">15. "Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor nor conscience? Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their honor? The Arab states, and Lebanon amongst them, did it."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- The Beirut Muslim weekly Kul-Shay, Aug. 19, 1951.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">16. "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said, quoted in “Sir An-Nakbah” (The Secret Behind the Disaster) by Nimr el-Hawari, Nazareth, 1952</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">16. "The Arab Exodus …was not caused by the actual battle, but by the exaggerated description spread by the Arab leaders to incite them to fight the Jews. …For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs ... By spreading rumors of Jewish atrocities, killings of women and children etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled leaving their homes and properties to the enemy."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">–- The Jordanian daily newspaper Al Urdun, April 9, 1953.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">17. The Arab governments told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">got out, but they did not get in. (Quoting a refugee)</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- Al Difaa (Jordan) Sept. 6, 1954</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">18. “The wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boasting of an unrealistic press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of some weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab states, and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re-enter and re-take possession of their country”.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- Edward Atiyah (Secretary of the Arab League, London, <u>The Arabs</u>, 1955, p. 183)</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">19. “The Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the UN and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders do not give a damn whether Arab refugees live or die”, -- Ralph Galloway, former head of UNWRA, 1956</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">20. "As early as the first months of 1948, the Arab League issued orders exhorting the people to seek a temporary refuge in neighboring countries, later to return to their abodes ... and obtain their share of abandoned Jewish property."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- Bulletin of The Research Group for European Migration Problems, 1957</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">21. "Israelis argue that the Arab states encouraged the Palestinians to flee. And, in fact, Arabs still living in Israel recall being urged to evacuate Haifa by Arab military commanders who wanted to bomb the city."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- Newsweek, January 20, 1963</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">22. "The 15th May, 1948, arrived ... On that day the mufti of Jerusalem appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- The Cairo daily Akhbar el Yom, Oct. 12, 1963.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">23. In listing the reasons for the Arab failure in 1948, Khaled al-Azm (Syrian Prime Minister) notes that “…the fifth factor was the call by the Arab governments to the inhabitants of Palestine to evacuate it (Palestine) and leave for the bordering Arab countries. Since 1948, it is we who have demanded the return of the refugees, while it is we who made them leave. We brought disaster upon a million Arab refugees by inviting them and bringing pressure on them to leave. We have accustomed them to begging...we have participated in lowering their morale and social level...Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson and throwing stones upon men, women and children...all this in the service of political purposes...”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- Khaled el-Azm, Syrian prime minister after the 1948 War, in his 1972 memoirs, published in 1973..</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">24. "The Arab states succeeded in scattering the Palestinian people and in destroying their unity. They did not recognize them as a unified people until</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the states of the world did so, and this is regrettable."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), from the official journal of the PLO, Falastin el-Thawra (“What We Have Learned and What We Should Do”), Beirut, March 1976</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">25. “Since 1948, the Arab leaders have approached the Palestinian problem in an irresponsible manner. They have used to Palestinian people for political</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">purposes; this is ridiculous, I might even say criminal...”</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- KING HUSSSEIN, Hashemite kingdom of Jordan, 1996</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">26. “Abu Mazen Charges that the Arab States Are the Cause of the Palestinian Refugee Problem” (Wall Street Journal; June 5, 2003):</span></div>
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) penned an article in March 1976 in Falastin al-Thawra (cf. supra), the official journal of the PLO in Beirut: "The Arab</span></li>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny, but instead they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">homeland, imposed upon them a political and ideological blockade and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live in EasternEurope" (emphasis added).</span></div>
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As Abu Mazen alluded, it was in large part due to threats and fear-mongering from Arab leaders that some 700,000 Arabs fled Israel in 1948 when the new state was invaded by Arab armies. Ever since, the growing refugee population, now around 4 million by UN estimates, has been corralled into squalid camps scattered across the Middle East - in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Gaza, and the West Bank.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In 1950, the UN set up the United Nations Relief and Works Agency as a "temporary" relief effort for Palestinian refugees. Former UNRWA director Ralph Galloway stated eight years later that, "the Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders do not give a damn whether Arab refugees live or die." The only thing that has changed since then is the number of Palestinians cooped up in these prison camps.</span></li>
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