The Palestinian Authority is accused of corruption by many but receives more humanitarian aid per capita from the international community than any other country in the world. The billions of dollars that are meant for schools, hospitals and infrastructure have been spent on luxury villas, casinos and payments to terrorists.
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Remarks By President Barack Obama at the Reception in Honor of Jewish American Heritage Month, Thursday, May 27, 2010
THE PRESIDENT: Hello, hello, hello! Thank you. Thank you. (Applause.) Everybody, thank you. Please have a seat. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It is wonderful to see all of you, and I am proud to welcome you to the first ever event held at the White House to honor Jewish American Heritage Month. (Applause.)
This is a pretty — pretty fancy group here, pretty distinguished group. We’ve got senators and representatives. We’ve got Supreme Court justices and successful entrepreneurs, rabbinical scholars, Olympic athletes — and Sandy Koufax. (Applause.) Sandy and I actually have something in common — we are both lefties. (Laughter.) He can’t pitch on Yom Kippur; I can’t pitch. (Laughter.)
I’m looking forward to the reading by Rabbi Alyssa Stanton, the performance by Regina Spektor.
I know that my Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, wanted to be here but, as some of you know, he is in Israel for the Bar Mitzvah of his son.
The diversity of talents and accomplishments represented in this room underscores the vast contributions that Jewish Americans have made to this country. Of course, it’s impossible to separate the achievements of Jewish Americans from the struggles of Jewish people around the world. Even before we were a nation, we were a sanctuary for Jews seeking to live without the specter of violence or exile. That’s what drew a band of 23 Jewish refugees to a place called New Amsterdam more than 350 years ago. That’s what brought Jewish immigrants fleeing pogroms on a long journey to America in the last turn of the century. And that’s what led Holocaust survivors and Jews trapped behind the Iron Curtain to travel to these shores to rebuild their lives.
As Jews sought freedom and opportunity in America, these waves of immigrants and generations that followed have helped to make America what it is — richer, stronger, more prosperous — from the discoveries of Jonas Salk to the pioneering work of Albert Einstein; from the music of Irving Berlin to the poetry of Emma Lazarus. And then there are the countless names that we don’t know — the teachers, the small business owners, the doctors and nurses, the people who seek only to live honestly and faithfully and to give their children more than they had. Jewish Americans have always been a critical part of the American story.
These contributions have not always been embraced. Jewish communities have at times faced hardship and hostility — right here in the United States of America — a reminder that we have to respond at all times swiftly and firmly whenever bigotry rears its ugly head. But no matter what the obstacles, Jewish Americans have endured — learning from each other, leaning on each other, true to their faith, leaning on the values that have been associated for so long with Jewish history: a sense of community, a sense of moral purpose, and an ethic of responsibility.
So it’s heartening to know that these are the enduring values of a history marked by so much tragedy — not cynicism or despair, not callous indifference. Every person in this room knows somebody — perhaps a mother or father, an aunt, an uncle, perhaps yourself — who exemplifies this heritage. Every person in this room stands at the end of an unbroken chain of perseverance — of a conviction that a better future is possible — that doesn’t just offer a lesson to Jewish Americans. It offers a lesson to all Americans. And ultimately, that is what we are celebrating today.
Yes, Jewish Americans have garnered success in industry and in government — as we can see by the guests gathered here today. Yes, Jews have helped to pioneer incredible advances in science and medicine, across countless fields. But the contributions of the Jewish community to America run deeper. As a product of history and faith, Jewish Americans have helped to open our eyes to injustice, to people in need, and to the simple idea that we ought to recognize ourselves in the struggles of our fellow men and women.
That’s what’s led Jewish advocates to fight for women’s equality and workers’ rights. That’s what led rabbis to preach against racism from the bimah [Jewish pulpit] — and to lead congregants on marches and protests to stop segregation. And that is what helped lead America to recognize and support Israel as a Jewish homeland and a beacon for democratic values — beginning mere minutes after its independence was declared. In fact, we have the original statement by President Harry Truman on display here today. [Article and photo on p. 9 of June 2010 Levitt Letter.]
So what we are called upon to do now is to continue to live up to those values as a nation — to continue to uphold the principle of “tikkun olam” — our obligation to repair the world. Here at home, at a time of continuing struggle for millions of families, it is incumbent upon us to remain focused not only on rebuilding our economy but rebuilding it stronger than before. And I’d note that our efforts are bolstered by the work of so many Jewish organizations that help the sick and educate our children and provide assistance to seniors and others in need.
But our responsibility doesn’t end at the water’s edge. That’s why my administration is renewing American leadership around the world — strengthening old alliances and forging new ones, defending universal values while ensuring that we uphold our values here at home. In fact, it’s our common values that leads us to stand with allies and friends, including the State of Israel. That’s why, even as we never waver in pursuing peace —(pager beeps) — that happens to me all the time. (Laughter.)
That is why, even as we never waver in pursuing peace between Israelis, Palestinians, and Arabs, our bond with Israel is unbreakable. (Applause.) It is the bond of two peoples that share a commitment to a common set of ideals: opportunity, democracy, and freedom.
Those ideals are what have drawn generations to these shores. Those ideals are what have allowed Jewish immigrants to seek a better life in America — while enriching the life of our country. And those ideals are what you and all Jewish Americans continue to help us uphold each and every day.
So thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)
By Elaine Ganley, Associated Press
A photo released Monday July 26, 2010 by the City of Marcoussis, south of Paris, showing French aid group Enimilal member, Michel Germaneau, in 2007. The leader of al-Qaeda's North African branch (AQIM) said in a message broadcast Sunday that the 78-year-old French engineer was killed in retaliation for the killing of six al-Qaeda members in a raid. Humanitarian worker Michel Germaneau was abducted April 22 in Niger. (AP Photo/Mairie de Marcoussis/Enmilal)
PARIS (AP) — France has declared war on al-Qaeda, and matched its fighting words with a first attack on a base camp of the terror network’s North African branch, after the terror network killed a French aid worker it took hostage in April.
The declaration and attack marked a shift in strategy for France, usually discrete about its behind-the-scenes battle against terrorism.
“We are at war with al-Qaeda,” Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Tuesday, July 27, a day after President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the death of 78-year-old hostage Michel Germaneau.
The humanitarian worker had been abducted April 20 or 22 in Niger by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and was later taken to Mali, officials said.
The killers will “not go unpunished,” Sarkozy said in unusually strong language, given France’s habit of employing quiet cooperation with its regional allies — Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Algeria — in which the al-Qaeda franchise was spawned amid an Islamist insurgency.
The Salafist Group for Call and Combat formally merged with al-Qaeda in 2006 and spread through the Sahel region — parts of Mauritania, Mali, and Niger.
Officials suggest France will activate accords with these countries to stop the terrorists in their tracks.
“It’s a universal threat that concerns the entire world … not just France or the West,” Defense Minister Herve Morin said Tuesday on France-2 television. “We will support local authorities so these assassins and (their) commanders are tracked, judged, and taken before justice and punished. And, yes, we will help them.”
Algeria, Mauritania, Mali, and Niger in April opened a joint military headquarters deep in the desert to respond to threats from traffickers and the al-Qaeda offshoot. U.S. Special Forces have helped the four nations train troops in recent years.
The United States said it would help the French “in any way that we can” to bring those who killed Germaneau to justice, according to U.S. State Dept. spokesman P.J. Crowley.
“There is no religion that sanctions what can only be described as cold-blooded murder,” Crowley said Tuesday.
Fillon refused to say how France would act. “But we will,” he said in an interview with Europe1 radio.
And perhaps it already has. The previous week, the French backed Mauritanian forces in attacking an al-Qaeda camp on the border with Mali, killing at least six suspected terrorists. It is the first time France is known to have attacked an al-Qaeda base.
France said it was a last-ditch effort to save its citizen, while Mauritania said it was trying to stop an imminent attack by fighters gathering at the base.
For the French, the move may have backfired. The al-Qaeda group said in an audio message broadcast over the weekend that it had killed Germaneau in retaliation for the raid. However, French officials suggested that the hostage, who had a heart problem, may already have been dead. Even now, “We have no proof of life or death,” Morin said.
“We can expect an increase in the French riposte,” said Antoine Sfeir, an expert on Islamist terrorists who has traveled in the region.
An estimated 400-500 such fighters are thought to roam the Sahel region, a desert expanse as large as the European Union.
Despite meager numbers, the region’s al-Qaeda fighters pose a clear threat. Among the more recent victims, a British captive was beheaded last year and two Spanish aid workers were taken hostage in Mauritania in November. Spain is working to free them. Mauritanian soldiers also have fallen in numerous attacks.
The head of the French Institute of Strategic Analysis suggested the French government’s rhetoric was normal.
“It’s important to make that kind of announcement,” Francois Gere said. “I think it’s made of the same stuff” as former U.S. President George W. Bush’s tough line on al-Qaeda.
But “a government has to make clear it must respond strongly” while maintaining the discretion needed to ensure cooperation, Gere said. In the past France has been cautious because those governments don’t want the appearance of interference from the West, he said.
Spain has maintained a low profile as videos by the al-Qaeda franchise regularly call for the conquest of “al-Andalus” — a reference to the period of Muslim rule of much of Spain in medieval times.
By Robert Spencer, www.HumanEvents.com
In February 2009, Aasiya Z. Hassan, a 37-year-old Muslim woman, was found decapitated in Orchard Park, N.Y., a village near Buffalo. Her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, admitted that he beheaded his wife. [See story in April 2009 Levitt Letter, p. 3.] Yet now, in a bizarre turn in the case, Muzzammil Hassan has claimed that he was the real victim in the case, driven to murder his wife after enduring years of her emotional and physical abuse.
The case stands as a classic example of the universal tendency on the part of Islamic supremacists and jihadists to blame everyone but themselves for what they have done.
In a larger sense, Muzzammil Hassan’s attempt to claim that he was actually the victim of the woman he beheaded is exactly like the jihadis blaming American foreign policy for the global jihad, and is related to the campaign to get the West to “stop linking Islam with terrorism.”
Islamic jihadists link Islam with terrorism with consistent and religious fervor, but if a Western non-Muslim notices this, he is “hateful,” “bigoted,” “Islamophobic,” “ignorant of Islam,” etc. Never would the Muslims who accuse non-Muslims of “hate” for “linking Islam with terrorism” ever look to themselves and see the responsibility for the link as being within the Muslim community rather than outside it.
It is always someone else’s fault. In this case, according to the Buffalo News, “Hassan has never publicly denied killing his wife. Instead, he has suggested he will build his court defense on the grounds that as a long-abused spouse, he finally snapped and killed his wife in a desperate bid to end the psychological abuse inflicted upon him.” Hassan himself has claimed that “anytime I sought outside help, I got falsely accused of sexual misconduct or physical abuse—more than 12 police reports, each in response to my reaching out for help from counselors, my family, or her family.”
Poor lamb. Clearly the only option left open to him was to behead his wife.
He beheaded Aasiya in the offices of the Muslim cable channel, Bridges TV, which he founded. Muzzammil Hassan founded Bridges TV in 2004 to combat the negative perceptions of Muslims that he thought were dominating the mainstream media.
According to a Reuters story at the time, none other than Aasiya “came up with the idea.” It was all about depicting Muslims as moderate and peaceful. Muzzammil explained: “Some derogatory comments were being made about Muslims that offended her. She was seven-months pregnant, and she thought she didn’t want her kids growing up in this environment.”
Bridges TV originally declared that its intention was to “fuse American culture with the values of Islam in a healthy, family-oriented way.”
However, there were indications at the outset that it might not have been as moderate as many assumed. Bridges TV from the beginning had ties to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case, and Islamicity.com, which retails rabid anti-Semitic literature. In 2006, Arab News reported that Hassan was trying to raise money for the network from Saudi investors.
Government and law enforcement officials should have recognized these warning signs and paid more heed to Aasiya Hassan’s claims of abuse. The mainstream media should not have given Muzzammil Hassan credibility as a “moderate” Muslim without looking more deeply into his connections. And on a larger scale, the claims of groups like CAIR that have so many connections to terror groups and activities should no longer be taken at face value.
The stakes are simply too high. And the decapitated body of Aasiya Hassan will be just the beginning if these words are not needed, as they probably will not be.
Muzzammil Hassan is not a victim. Muzzammil Hassan is a murderer. Islamic jihadists worldwide are not victims of American foreign policy, or Israel’s, or of anything else. They are murderers. If the West doesn’t regain its moral clarity about this, it will not prevail against them.
| Israel Today |
| Palestinian terrorists operating out of the Gaza Strip fired four rockets and two mortar shells at communities in southern Israel on Saturday, July 24.
There were no injuries in any of the attacks, as all the projectiles landed just outside local Israeli villages. Defense officials noted that at least one of the Palestinian rockets was manufactured in a very professional manner, and they believe it had been imported into the Hamas-controlled territory. Israeli officials have been warning for months and even years that despite international guarantees and feeble efforts to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza, terrorists based there has managed to acquire large quantities of long and short-range weapons. The presence of these weapons will inevitably lead to renewed open warfare in the area. |
International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, www.ICEJUSA.org
Making his way home from a recent Latin American junket, Syrian President Bashar Assad warned in Madrid that the current rift in Israel-Turkey relations means “the prospect of war grows” in the region, but his army may be in no shape to fight. According to Syrian opposition figures in exile, Assad has ordered the shutdown of all Syrian military exercises due to a plague that is currently affecting a large swath of the army, especially conscripts in basic training.
The epidemic is being blamed on poor drinking water and food on Syrian army bases and a current heat wave that has come amid years of drought in the region. The epidemic could cause extensive damage to elements of the 215,000-man standing army in coming weeks, according to the International Society for Infectious Diseases. Hundreds of thousands of people are experiencing food shortages; peasants have been decimated, and many people are fleeing the country. Already, nearly 60,000 small livestock owners have lost all their animals, and 50,000 others have lost 50-60 percent of their cattle. Reports indicate that if the early symptoms of plague have occurred in the military, it is probable that the soldiers will spread the disease when they return to their villages.
RTTNews.com
Israel jobless rate dropped in May from the previous month.
The jobless rate decreased to 6.5% in May from 6.6% in the previous month, a report by the Central Bureau of Statistics showed on Monday. The jobless rate has been easing since June 2009. A year earlier, the jobless rate was at 7.8%.
Separately, the statististical office said, the manufacturing output increased a seasonally adjusted 0.6% on a monthly basis in May, slower than a 1.9% growth in the previous month. Output increased for the sixth consecutive month. A year earlier, manufacturing output slipped 0.3%.
By Dean Nelson, www.Telegraph.co.uk
Sandra Samuel, background, has been awarded Israeli citizenship in recognition of her bravery and as 'a humanitarian step' to allow her to remain with Moshe Holtzberg, foreground Photo: DEBBIE HILL
The Indian nanny who saved a Jewish toddler from militants who killed his parents during the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks is to be given Israeli citizenship.
Sandra Samuel, 46, a Christian from Goa, was looking after the two-year-old son of Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, when Pakistani gunmen attacked the Jewish center they ran in the heart of Mumbai.
Samuel, a recently widowed mother of two, was on one of the lower floors of the Chabad House Jewish Center when she heard machine gun fire on the upper floors. But when the sound of gunfire subsided the following day, she heard two-year-old Moshe crying for her.
Instead of running away, she went upstairs to look for the toddler and found him covered in blood between the dead bodies of his parents. As the terrorist commandos stalked the roof, Samuel wrapped Moshe in a blanket and fled the building to safety.
She was immediately hailed for her heroism, but has struggled to secure an Israeli visa to help her remain in the country caring for Moshe, who now lives there with his maternal grandparents.
According to a statement by the Chabad organization, the Israeli authorities have now granted Samuel Israeli citizenship to allow her to fulfill her hopes of looking after Moshe until he reaches adulthood.
Israel’s interior minister said he had conferred citizenship on her in recognition of her bravery and as “a humanitarian step” to allow her to remain with the child.
By Charles Krauthammer, www.WashingtonPost.com
The world is outraged at Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Turkey denounces its illegality, inhumanity, barbarity, etc. The usual U.N. suspects, Third World and European, join in.
But as Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes, the blockade is not just perfectly rational, it is perfectly legal. Gaza under Hamas is a self-declared enemy of Israel—a declaration backed up by more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israeli civilian territory. Yet having pledged itself to unceasing belligerency, Hamas claims victimhood when Israel imposes a blockade to prevent Hamas from arming itself with still more rockets.
In World War II, with full international legality, the United States blockaded Germany and Japan. And during the October 1962 missile crisis, we blockaded (“quarantined”) Cuba. Arms-bearing Russian ships headed to Cuba turned back because the Soviets knew that the U.S. Navy would either board them or sink them. Yet Israel is accused of international criminality for doing precisely what John Kennedy did: impose a naval blockade to prevent a hostile state from acquiring lethal weaponry.
Oh, but weren’t the Gaza-bound ships on a mission of humanitarian relief? No. Otherwise they would have accepted Israel’s offer to bring their supplies to an Israeli port, be inspected for military materiel and have the rest trucked by Israel into Gaza—as every week 10,000 tons of food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies are sent by Israel to Gaza.
Why was the offer refused? Because, as organizer Greta Berlin admitted, the flotilla was not about humanitarian relief but about breaking the blockade, i.e., ending Israel’s inspection regime, which would mean unlimited shipping into Gaza and thus the unlimited arming of Hamas.
Israel has already twice intercepted ships laden with Iranian arms destined for Hezbollah and Gaza. What country would allow that?
But even more important, why did Israel even have to resort to blockade? Because, blockade is Israel’s fallback as the world systematically de-legitimizes its traditional ways of defending itself—forward and active defense.
(1) Forward defense: As a small, densely populated country surrounded by hostile states, Israel had, for its first half-century, adopted forward defense—fighting wars on enemy territory (such as the Sinai and Golan Heights) rather than its own.
Where possible (Sinai, for example) Israel has traded territory for peace. But where peace offers were refused, Israel retained the territory as a protective buffer zone. Thus Israel retained a small strip of southern Lebanon to protect the villages of northern Israel. And it took many losses in Gaza, rather than expose Israeli border towns to Palestinian terror attacks. It is for the same reason America wages a grinding war in Afghanistan: You fight them there, so you don’t have to fight them here.
But under overwhelming outside pressure, Israel gave it up. The Israelis were told the occupations were not just illegal but at the root of the anti-Israel insurgencies—and therefore withdrawal, by removing the cause, would bring peace.
Land for peace. Remember? Well, during the past decade, Israel gave the land—evacuating South Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005. What did it get? An intensification of belligerency, heavy militarization of the enemy side, multiple kidnappings, cross-border attacks and, from Gaza, years of unrelenting rocket attack.
(2) Active defense: Israel then had to switch to active defense—military action to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat the newly armed terrorist mini-states established in southern Lebanon and Gaza after Israel withdrew.
The result? The Lebanon war of 2006 and Gaza operation of 2008-09. They were met with yet another avalanche of opprobrium and calumny by the same international community that had demanded the land-for-peace Israeli withdrawals in the first place. Worse, the U.N. Goldstone report, which essentially criminalized Israel’s defensive operation in Gaza while whitewashing the casus belli—the preceding and unprovoked Hamas rocket war—effectively de-legitimized any active Israeli defense against its self-declared terror enemies.
(3) Passive defense: Without forward or active defense, Israel is left with but the most passive and benign of all defenses—a blockade to simply prevent enemy rearmament. Yet, as we speak, this too is headed for international de-legitimization. Even the United States is now moving toward having it abolished.
But, if none of these is permissible, what’s left?
Ah, but that’s the point. It’s the point understood by the blockade-busting flotilla of useful idiots and terror sympathizers, by the Turkish front organization that funded it, by the automatic anti-Israel Third World chorus at the United Nations, and by the supine Europeans who’ve had quite enough of the Jewish problem.
What’s left? Nothing. The whole point of this relentless international campaign is to deprive Israel of any legitimate form of self-defense. Why, just last month, the U.S. reversed four decades of practice by signing onto a consensus document that singles out Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons—thus de-legitimizing Israel’s very last line of defense: deterrence.
The world is tired of these troublesome Jews, 6 million—that number again—hard by the Mediterranean, refusing every invitation to national suicide. For which they are relentlessly demonized, ghettoized and constrained from defending themselves, even as the more committed anti-Zionists—Iranian in particular—openly prepare a more final solution.
Compiled by The Simon Wiesenthal Center
Lie #1: Israel was created by European guilt over the Nazi Holocaust. Why should Palestine pay the price?
Three thousand years before the Holocaust, before there was a Roman Empire, Israel’s kings and prophets walked the streets of Jerusalem. The whole world knows that Isaiah did not speak his prophesies from Portugal, nor Jeremiah his lamentations from France. Revered by its people, Jerusalem is mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures 600 times—but not once in the Koran. Throughout its 2,000-year exile there was continuous Jewish presence in the Holy Land, with the modern rebirth of Israel beginning in the 1800s. Reclamation of the largely vacant land by pioneering Zionists blossomed into a Jewish majority long before the onset of Nazism.
After the Holocaust, nearly 200,000 Shoah survivors found haven in the Jewish State, created by a two-thirds vote of the UN in 1947. Soon 800,000 Jews fleeing persecution in Arab countries arrived. In ensuing decades, Israel absorbed a million immigrants from the Soviet Union and thousands of Ethiopian Jews. Today, far from being a vestige of European guilt or colonialism, Israel is a diverse, cosmopolitan society, fulfilling the age-old dream of a people’s journey and ‘Return to Zion’—their ancient homeland.
Lie #2: Had Israel withdrawn to its June 1967 borders, peace would have come long ago.
Since 1967, Israel has repeatedly conceded, “land for peace.” Following Egyptian President Sadat’s historic 1977 visit to Jerusalem and the Camp David Peace Accords, Israel withdrew from the vast Sinai Peninsula and has been at peace with Egypt ever since.
In 1995, Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel but neither the Palestinians nor 21 other Arab states have done so. In 1993,Israel signed the Oslo Accords ceding administrative control of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority (formerly the PLO). The PA never fulfilled its promise to end propaganda attacks and drop the Palestinian National Charter’s call for Israel’s destruction.
In 2000, Prime Minister Barak offered Yasser Arafat full sovereignty over 97% of the West Bank, a corridor to Gaza, and a capitol in the Arab section of Jerusalem. Arafat said NO. In 2008, PA President Abbas nixed virtually the same offer from Prime Minister Olmert. In 2005, Prime Minister Sharon unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. Taken over by terrorist Hamas, they turned dismantled Jewish communities into launching sites for suicide bombers and 8,000+ rockets into Israel proper. In 2010, Prime Minister Netanyahu renewed offers of unconditional negotiations leading to a Palestinian State, but Palestinians refused, demanding more unilateral Israeli concessions, including a total freeze of all Israeli construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Lie #3: Israel is the main stumbling block to achieving a Two-State solution.
The Palestinians themselves are the only stumbling block to achieving a Two-State solution. With whom should Israel negotiate? With President Abbas, who, for four years, has been barred by Hamas from visiting 1.5 million constituents in Gaza? With his Palestinian Authority, which continues to glorify terrorists and preaches hate in its educational system and the media? With Hamas, whose Iranian-backed leaders deny the Holocaust and use fanatical Jihadist rhetoric to call for Israel’s destruction?
Today, it is a simple fact that while the State of Israel is prepared to recognize all Arab States, secular or Muslim, these states adamantly refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish State and demand “the right of return” of five million so-called Palestinian “refugees”—a sure guarantee for Israel’s demise.
Lie #4: Nuclear Israel not Iran is the greatest threat to peace and stability.
Though never acknowledged by Jerusalem, it is generally assumed that Israel has nuclear weapons. But unlike Pakistan, India, and North Korea, Israel never conducted nuclear tests. In 1973, when its very survival was imperiled by the surprise Egyptian-Syrian Yom Kippur attack, many assumed Israel would use nuclear weapons—but it did not. Contrary to public condemnations, many Arab leaders privately express relief that Israeli nuclear deterrence exists. While Israel has never threatened anyone, Tehran’s mullahs daily threaten to “wipe Israel from the map.” The U.S. and Europe can afford to wait to see what the Iranian regime does with its nuclear ambitions. But Israel cannot. She is on the front lines and remembers every day the price the Jewish people paid for not taking Hitler at his word. Israel is not prepared to sacrifice another six million Jews on the altar of the world’s indifference.
Lie #5: Israel is an Apartheid State deserving of International Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaigns.
On both sides of the Atlantic, church groups, academics and unions are leading deceitful and often anti-Semitic boycott campaigns demonizing what they call the Jewish “apartheid” State.
The truth is that unlike apartheid South Africa, Israel is a democratic state. Its 20% Arab minority enjoys all the political, economic and religious rights and freedoms of citizenship, including electing members of their choice to the Knesset (Parliament). Israeli Arabs and Palestinians have standing before Israel’s Supreme Court. In contrast, no Jew may own property in Jordan, no Christian or Jew can visit Islam’s holiest sites in Saudi Arabia.
Lie #6: Plans to build 1,600 more homes in East Jerusalem prove Israel is ‘Judaizing’ the Holy City.
Enemies of Israel, exploit this phony issue. Jerusalem is holy to three great faiths. Its diverse population includes a Jewish majority with Muslim and Christian minorities. Since 1967, for the first time in history, there is full freedom of religion for all faiths in Jerusalem. Muslim and Christian religious bodies administer their own holy sites. Indeed, the Waqf is allowed to control Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, even though it rests on Solomon’s temple and is holy to BOTH Jews and Muslims.
Meanwhile, Jerusalem’s municipality must meet the needs of a growing modern city. The unfortunately-timed announcement during U.S. Vice President Biden’s visit of 1,600 new apartments in Ramat Shlomo, was not about Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, but for a long established, heavily populated Jewish neighborhood in Northern Jerusalem, where 250,000 Jews live (about the same population as Newark, NJ.)—an area that will never be relinquished by Israel.
Lie #7: Israel policies endanger U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The charge that Israel endangers U.S. troops in Iraq or the AF-Pak region is an update of the old “stab in the back” lie that Jews always betray their own friends, and the libel spouted by Henry Ford and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion that “Jews are the father of all wars.”
U.S. General Petraeus has stated he considers Israel a great strategic asset for the U.S. and that his earlier remarks linking the safety of U.S. troops in the region to an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal (which 2/3 of Israelis want) were taken out of context. A resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would benefit everyone, including the U.S. But an imposed return to what Abba Eban called “1967 Auschwitz borders” would endanger Israel’s survival and ultimately be disastrous for American interests and credibility in the world.
Lie #8: Israeli policies are the cause of worldwide anti-Semitism.
From the Inquisition to the pogroms, to the 6,000,000 Jews murdered by the Nazis, history proves that Jew-hatred existed on a global scale before the creation of the State of Israel. In 2010, it would still exist even if Israel had never been created. For example, one poll indicates 40% of Europeans blame the recent global economic crisis on “Jews having too much economic power,” a canard that has nothing to do with Israel.
The unsettled Palestinian-Israeli dispute aggravates Muslim-Jewish tensions, but it is not the root cause. During World War II, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a notorious Jew-hater, helped the Nazis organize the 13th SS Division, made up of Muslims. Unfortunately, in addition to respectful references to Jewish patriarchs and prophets, the Koran also contains virulent anti-Semitic stereotypes that are widely invoked by Islamist extremists, including Hezbollah (whose agents blew up the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires in 1994), to justify murdering Jews worldwide. The disappearance of Israel would only further embolden violent Jew-haters everywhere.
Lie #9: Israel, not Hamas, is responsible for the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza. Goldstone was right when he charged that Israel was guilty of war crimes against civilians.
The Goldstone Report on Israel’s defensive war against Hamas-controlled Gaza, from which 8,000 rockets were fired after Israel’s unilateral withdrawal in 2005, is a biased product of the UN’s misnamed Human Rights Council. The UNHRC is obsessed with false anti-Israel resolutions. It refuses to address grievous human rights abuses in Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and beyond. Faced with similar attacks, every UN member-state including the U.S. and Canada would surely have acted more aggressively than the IDF did in Gaza.
Yet, Richard Goldstone, a South African Jewish jurist, signed a document prepared by investigators whose main qualification was rabid anti-Israel bias. He accepted every anonymous libel against the IDF. But he insisted that hearings in Gaza be televised, guaranteeing that fearful Palestinians would never testify about Hamas’s use of civilians as human shields and their hiding of weapons in mosques and hospitals. Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz denounced Goldstone’s Report as a modern “blood libel” accusing Israeli soldiers of crimes they never committed.
Lie #10: The only hope for peace is a single, bi-national state, eliminating the Jewish State of Israel.
The One-State solution, promoted by academics, is a non-starter because it would eliminate the Jewish homeland. However, the current pressures on Israel are equally dangerous. In effect, the world is demanding that Israel, the size of New Jersey, shrink farther by accepting a Three-State solution: a PA state on the West Bank and a Hamas terrorist state controlling 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. All this, as Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, stockpiles 50,000 rockets, threatening northern and central Israel’s main population centers.
In 2010, most Middle East experts believe that the only hope for enduring peace is two states with defined final borders. But too many diplomats, pundits, academics and church leaders ignore the fact that current polls show that while most Israelis favor a Two-State solution, most Palestinians continue to oppose it.
Reprinted with permission from The Simon Wiesenthal Center.
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