An "Even-Handed" Arbiter for the Israel vs. Arabs "Peace"?

The infamous "Quartet" fiddles on . . .


















A "Palestinian" Woman shows the Artbiter a "Palestinian" Undergarment
in hopes of Further Swaying the Arbiter in the Arabs' Direction

Photo originally captioned as Tony Blair talks to a Palestinian woman in traditional clothes at the merchandise exhibition in the West Bank city of Bethlehem Photo: EPA

Is the "Arbiter" an "Even-Handed" Broker?

Blair served for eleven months as international envoy for Palestinian development

Blair and his family have spent several family holidays at Sharm as guests of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president.

Obadiah Shoher at Samson Blinded holds the following:

Blair cannot possibly arbitrate our conflict with Arabs because of self-interest; as if real conflicts could be arbitrated at all. Britain consistently takes pro-Arab position in foreign relations. British economic interests lie with oil-producing Muslims. British strategic partnerships are with Arab countries. Britain sought to prevent Israeli state from coming into being and usually did not oppose UN’s anti-Semitic resolutions.

***

Is there an arbiter acceptable to Israel? The defeatist establishment accepted even the most biased arbiter, the Quartet. A Jewish government would have rejected any arbiter because we want the land rather than justice for Arabs; let the Americans restore justice to their Native Indians first. But an impartial arbiter is impossible to find: since Arabs are more numerous than Jews, more important strategically, and possess oil, any governmental arbiter would favor them.

***

. . . an impartial arbiter is impossible to find: since Arabs are more numerous than Jews, more important strategically, and possess oil, any governmental arbiter would favor them.

See

http://the-jew-in-yellow.blogspot.com/2009/03/tony-blair-dimwitted-slimeball-will.html

and the

Original post by Obadiah Shoher at Samson Blinded as "Down With The Queen"






















Gentleman Wankers Off on a Spree . . .
(Tony Blair is in the Back Row, 3rd from the Right)

Norway Funds NGO's that Support Israel's Enemies

[NGO's = Non-Governmental Organizations]

Also see IMRA's Press Release: Norwegian Government Funds Fuel Mid East Conflict who provided the link to the following:

New Report: Norwegian Government Funds Fuel Mid East Conflict

The Norwegian government provides tens of millions of Norwegian kroner (NOK) annually to politicized NGOs that operate in the Palestinian Authority and Gaza. Some of these NGOs are involved in anti-Israel boycott campaigns and the Stop the Wall Campaign in Norway.

Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), which received NOK 49 million from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) in 2007 for its work in with the Palestinians, accused Israel of “war crimes” and “collective punishment,” is active in the Stop the Wall Campaign, uses “apartheid” rhetoric, and supported the so-called Free Gaza Movement. NPA also funds other anti-Israel NGOs and partners with them.

The Norwegian Aid Committee (NORWAC) receives MFA humanitarian funds for emergency medical assistance. A NORWAC representative, Dr. Mads Gilbert has engaged in radical propaganda, including justifying the 9/11 attacks and false claims on the Gaza conflict.

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) partnered with Palestinian "right of return" NGO Badil on a report on the security barrier. The report labels the barrier a "crime against humanity," and does not call for a halt to the terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians that led to the barrier’s construction.

Norwegian Church Aid supports many NGOs with anti-Israel agendas, including Bat Shalom and EAPPI, and is an "important affiliate" of the Stop the Wall Campaign in Norway. NCA attacked the Norwegian government for refusing to transfer money to the "Hamas government" in Gaza.

The MFA funds Israeli NGOs B'Tselem, PCATI, HaMoked, and Gisha. The Norwegian Representative Office to the Palestinian Authority supports extreme groups Al Haq, Al Mezan, PCHR, and Miftah. During the Gaza conflict, these NGOs condemned Israel, misrepresenting international humanitarian law to delegitimize Israeli self-defense measures.

NORAD supports a number of NGOs active in "anti-wall" campaigns, including the Norwegian Assosiation of NGOs for Palestine, the "coordinator for the Norwegian Tear-Down the Wall Campaign and the Norwegian Boycott Israel Campaign."

-------- ENDS ------------

[IMRA] Editor's Notes:
Please click the link below to view the full NGO Monitor report on
Norwegian government funding
www.ngo-monitor.org/article/norwegian_ngo_funding_boycotts_and_apartheid_rhetoric_instead_of_peace_and_coexistence
NGO Monitor was founded to promote transparency, critical analysis and debate on the political role of human rights organizations. For more information, see our website at
http://www.ngo-monitor.org/
Other recent publications and reports by NGO Monitor include:-Amnesty's Gaza Report: Abolishing Israel's Right to Self-Defense - February 25, 2009
'Hijacked by Hatred': British NGOs Use Christmas for Anti-Israel Attacks - December 23, 2008
NGO 'Lawfare': Exploitation of Courts in the Arab-Israeli Conflict - October 8, 2008NGO Monitor's Executive Director is Prof. Gerald Steinberg.
Members of NGO Monitor's International Advisory Board include Elie Wiesel, Prof Alan Dershowitz, Sir Martin Gilbert and R. James Woolsey
For further information, comment or interviews contact Dan Kosky+972 (0) 546-305-504
NGO Monitor - 1, Ben Maimon Blvd. - Jerusalem 92262 - Israel - T: +972-2-566-1020F: +972-77-511-7030E: dan.kosky@ngo-monitor.org

Whose Patriarchs? And What To Do About the Pretenders . . .

. . . to the Legacy of the Bastard*

















Prayer books at holy site vandalized

from http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3683844,00.html


Jewish settlers accuse Palestinians of destroying prayer, psalm books at Cave of Patriarchs
Efrat Weiss

Police launched an investigation Monday after Jewish settlers in Hebron accused Palestinians of destroying prayer and psalm books in the Cave of the Patriarchs.

Spokesman for the Jewish settlement in Hebron, Noam Arnon, claimed a double standard was at play. "If Quran books had been torn up I have no doubt the case would be handled drastically and immediately, but when it's damage done to Jewish holy sites there is disregard and whitewashing," he said.

Every year Jewish and Palestinians worshippers are allowed 10 days at the holy cave. On Monday Jewish prayer-goers arrived to find their holy books vandalized during one of the Muslim days of worship at the cave.

According to Arnon, the incident was not the first to occur. "After every such day we gather shards and appraise the damage. This time the damage occurred to prayer and psalm books; in the past it was mezuzot, furniture, pipes, and faucets," he said.

He added that complaints had been filed before, to no avail. "No one has ever been interrogated or brought to justice. No sanctions exist to prevent such incidents," he said.


MK Uri Ariel (National Union) responded to the incident by saying, "The barbaric behavior of the Hebron rioters, who destroyed holy books in the Cave of the Patriarchs, proves once again that they are an agitating and destructive presence that finds itself among cultured people."

He added that the next government, in which his party is predicted to participate, would strive to secure full Jewish control over the holy site.

Police stated that an investigation has been launched. So far no arrests have been made.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3683844,00.html


Prayer books at holy site vandalized
Jewish settlers accuse Palestinians of destroying prayer, psalm books at Cave of Patriarchs
Efrat Weiss
Published:
03.09.09, 23:38 / Israel News
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3683844,00.html


Desecration of Holy Books at Ma'arat HaMachpela in Hebron
The Jewish Community of Hebron/Arutz 7-Israel National News/Ynet
March 09, 2009

(IsraelNN.com) Muslims in the city of Hevron were allowed to access the entire Tomb of the Patriarchs (Maarat HaMachpelah) this week in honor of the birthday of Mohammed, whom Muslims revere as a prophet. Worshipers took advantage of the opportunity to desecrate Jewish holy texts, including prayer books and books of Psalms.

The damage was discovered on Monday when Jews were allowed to return to the prayer halls usually set aside for Jewish use. The desecration caused upset and anger among the returning Jewish worshipers.

Jewish community spokesman David Wilder said such damage is unfortunately common. Jews have often returned after Muslims made use of the entire holy place to discover ruined holy books, damaged mezuzah cases and other destruction, he said. Jews try to remove all holy objects from the sanctuary before turning it over to Muslim use, he explained, but books are occasionally accidentally left behind.

The damage is not accidental, however, Wilder clarified. “They know exactly what it is that they are doing,” he said of those who destroy the holy texts.

The IDF is aware of such incidents, he added, as video cameras in the building allow them to see what takes place in the prayer halls. “It's very unfortunate that more care isn't taken to prevent these things from happening,” he said.

Hevron's Jews are now calling on the IDF to refuse the next request for Muslim access to the Jewish prayer halls. If the desecration is not met with punishment, such acts will continue, they say.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/
© Copyright IsraelNationalNews.com
___________________________
*referring to Ishmael, Abraham's older son by an Egyptian handmaiden
___________________________


The Arabs (Moslems) have no claim on Ha Machpela!


ARE THE ARABS DESCENDED FROM ABRAHAM'S SON ISHMAEL?

References at:
http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/ishmael.htm
http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/ishmael2.htm
http://www.imninalu.net/myths-Arabs.htm
http://www.imninalu.net/myths-pals.htm

"there is no historical evidence for the assertion that Abraham or Ishmael was ever in Mecca, and if there had been such a tradition it would have to be explained how all memory of the Old Semitic name Ishmael (which was not in its true Arabian form in Arabian inscriptions and written correctly with an initial consonant Y) came to be lost. The form in the Quran is taken either from Greek or Syriac sources." (Islam, Alfred Guillaume, 1956, p 26-27, 61-62)
http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-myths-arabs-descendants-of-ishmael.htm

The Ishmaelites are mentioned as a distinct tribe in the Assyrian records. They later intermarried with and were absorbed by the Midianites and other local tribes. In Gen. 37:25-28; 39:1, the Ishmaelites are called the Midianites and in Judges 8:22-24 cf. 7:1f, the Midianites are called the Ishmaelites. The identification cannot be made any stronger.

Arabia was already populated by the descendants of Cush and Shem long before Abraham or Ishmael were born (Gen. 10:7). Their cities and temples have been well documented by archeologists.

If all the Arab people descended from Ishmael as Muhammad claimed, where did all the original Arabs go? What happened to them? Who did Ishmael marry if the Arabs did not already exist? If Arabia was unpopulated, who built Mecca? Since he lived there, obviously it existed before he was born. The facts speak for themselves. The Arab people existed before, during, and after Ishmael moved started roaming the wilderness of North Arabia.

The descendants of Ishmael were scattered in Northern Arabia from the wilderness of Shur to the ancient city of Havilah. They were absorbed by the local tribes such as the Midianites (Gen. 37:25-28; 39:1; Judges 8:24). There is no historical or archeological evidence that Ishmael went south to Mecca and became the "Father" of the Arab race. Some modern Arab scholars admit that before Muhammad, Qahtan was said to be the "Father" of the Arab people, not Ishmael.

The Abrahamic Covenant was given only to Isaac and to his descendants. Ishmael and the other sons of Abraham were explicitly excluded by God from having any part of the covenant made with Abraham. (Gen. 18:18-21)

"There is a prevalent notion that the Arabs, both of the south and north, are descended from Ishmael; and the passage in Gen. xvi.12, "he (Ishmael) shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren," is often cited as if it were a prediction of that national independence which, upon the whole, the Arabs have maintained more than any other people. But this supposition is founded on a misconception of the original Hebrew, which runs literally, "he shall before the faces of all his brethren," i.e., (according to the idiom above explained, in which "before the face" denotes the east), the habitation of his posterity shall be "to the east" of the settlements of Abraham’s’ other descendants...These prophecies found their accomplishment in the fact of the sons of Ishmael being located, generally speaking to the east of the other descendants of Abraham, whether of Sara or of Ketuah. But the idea of the southern Arabs being of the posterity of Ishmael is entirely without foundation, and seems to have originated in the tradition invented by Arab vanity that they, as well as the Jews, are of the seed of Abraham--a vanity which, besides disfiguring and falsifying the whole history of the patriarch and his son Ishmael, has transferred the scene of it from Palestine to Mecca." (McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, (Vol. I:339)
http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-myths-arabs-descendants-of-ishmael.htm

Encyclopedia of Islam Myths: Arabs are not descendants of Ishmael
http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-myths-arabs-descendants-of-ishmael.htm

Origin and Identity of the Arabs
"Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she thought, ‘I cannot watch the boy die.’ And as she sat there nearby, she began to sob. God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.' Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt." Genesis 21:13-21
http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/ishmael.htm

In his rebuttal to Dr. Robert A. Morey's book Islamic Invasion, W. Aliyyuddin Shareef, is honest enough to admit:
"In pre-Islamic times Ishmael was never mentioned as the Father of the Arabs." (Shareef, In response to Robert Morey's Islamic Invasion, pp. 3-4; bold emphasis ours)

Writer Camilla Adang, in a footnote from her book Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible from Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazm, mentions:
... Ishmael is considered the progenitor of the Arabs. Dagon (1981) has shown that this idea is an Islamic construction AND THAT NO CONNECTION BETWEEN ISHMAEL AND THE ARABS HAD EVER BEEN MADE IN THE PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD. Already in the first Islamic century, however, Ishmael came to symbolize the Islamic Umma, and biblical passages about Ishmael were taken to refer to Muhammad, the Arabs, or the Muslim community. (Adang, p. 147, fn. 37: E.J. Brill Academic Publishers; August 1997 ISBN: 9004100342; bold and capital emphasis ours)

Former Muslim turned to atheist Ibn Warraq writes:
We are told that [Abraham] was born in Chaldea, and that he was the son of a poor potter who earned his living by making little clay idols. It is scarcely credible that the son of this potter went to Mecca, 300 leagues away in the tropics, by way of impassable deserts.

If he was a conqueror he no doubt aimed at the fine country of Assyria; and if he was only a poor man, as he is depicted, he founded no kingdoms in foreign parts. — Voltaire

For the historian, the Arabs are no more the descendents of Ishmael, son of Abraham, than the French are of Francus, son of Hector. — Maxime Rodinson

It is virtually certain that Abraham never reached Mecca. — Montgomery Watt

The essential point ... is that, where objective fact has been established by sound historical methods, it must be accepted. — Montgomery Watt
http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/ishmael.htm

http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/ishmael2.htm


Ishmael Is Not the Father Of Muhammad’ Revisited.


Arabs Moslems lay claim to all Jewish Holy Sites

Therefore, Arab Moslems Have No Right to Ha Machpela

It's Time They Were Booted from this Site !

Must Israel Change its Relationship with the United States?

The following comes from Prof. Paul Eidelberg

Concerning Forthcoming Eidelberg Reports

1) For its own sake as well as for the sake of its American friends, Israel must change its benign relationship to the United States.

2) The American Government has become an overt, and not merely a covert, enemy of Israel.

3) It is a mistake to believe that the so-called right wing has 65 Knesset seats.

4) Netanyahu is desperate to include Kadima and/or Labor MKs in his coalition since more than five members of his coalition do not support a Palestinian state.

5) A Palestinian state means nothing less than a sovereign Arab-Islamic state in Judea and Samaria and would therefore pose a constant existential threat to Israel.

6) Regardless of his or her subjective feelings, anyone that advocates a Palestinian state must be deemed—from an objective point or view—an enemy of Israel and should be treated accordingly.

7) Certain members of the Knesset should form a strategy board to reassess Israel’s relationship to the United States, and to determine what must be done to prevent the Israel’s Government from betraying the Jewish people as it did in 1993 via the Oslo Agreement and again in 2005 via unilateral disengagement from Gaza.

Reacting to an International War Against Israel

Prof. Paul Eidelberg

Caroline Glick reports:

Ever since the outgoing Kadima government ended Operation Cast Lead in Gaza on January 20, the Palestinians have steadily stepped-up their missile war against Israel. Over the weekend the IDF acknowledged that six weeks later, daily Palestinian missile barrages against Israel have returned to pre-Operation Cast Lead levels. Moreover, the IDF warned that over the past six weeks, Hamas and its sister terror groups have rebuilt their missile arsenals both through imports of Iranian arms from Egypt and through local production lines. They have also brought in fairly advanced anti-aircraft missiles capable of shooting down IAF helicopters. [Nevertheless,] representatives from 80 countries and international organizations convened in Sharm el-Sheikh to pledge billions of dollars in aid to Hamas-controlled Gaza (Jerusalem Post, March 3, 2009).

Donor nations, including the United States, Europe, and Saudi Arabia, agreed to give a total of $4.481 billion to Gaza, that is, to Hamas via the Palestinian Authority, collaborators in the terrorist war against Israel.

Even if much of this money helps rebuild Gaza, any candid person knows that much of it will be used by these terrorist organizations to purchase weapons to be employed against Israel. Indeed, the donation of this money to the Palestinian Authority—the umbrella organization for various terrorist groups, including Fatah and Tanzim— constitutes an additional incentive on the part of these terrorists to wage further war against Israel. Terrorism pays!

It follows that the donor nations in question have become covert if not overt allies of Israel’s enemies. They must therefore be treated as belligerents in the terrorist war against Israel.

There is only one way to respond to these enemies, and that is to employ a principle repeatedly advocated by Benjamin Netanyahu, namely, “reciprocity,” which, in the present case, requires Israel to wage war these nations. Of course, Israel will do nothing of the kind.

Let me nonetheless convey some critical information from Robert Baer, Sleeping with the Devil:

If [some power] were to simultaneously hit only five of the many sensitive points in Saudi Arabia’s downstream oil system, they could put the Saudis out of the oil-producing business for about two years. A commando boat attack could do the job. Simply blowing of Abqaiq’s up the East-West pipeline’s Pump Station One to smithereens—or a single jumbo jet with a suicide bomber at the controls, hijacked during takeoff from Dubai and crashed into the heart of Ras Tanura, would be enough to bring the world’s oil-addicted economies to their knees, America’s along with them.
Consider America. By giving a reported $900 million to the terrorist organizations called the Palestinian Authority, the United States is violating international law. Let me state the issue with the help of Louis Rene Beres, a professor of international law:

There is a long-standing rule in international law known as NULLUM CRIMEN SINE POENA, "No crime without a punishment." It is codified directly in many different authoritative sources, and is also deducible from the binding Nuremberg Principles (1950) [that were applied to Nazi war criminals]. According to Principle 1: "Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment."

Terrorism is an established crime under international law; one of the very worst. The precise offenses that comprise this crime can be found at THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON THE SUPPRESSION OF TERRORISM. Palestinian terrorists are guilty of crimes of war and crimes against humanity — crimes so egregious that the perpetrators are known in law as HOSTES HUMANI GENERIS, "Common enemies of humankind."
International law presumes solidarity between states in the fight against all crime, including the crime of terrorism. This presumption is mentioned as early as the seventeenth century in Hugo Grotius' THE LAW OF WAR AND PEACE.
Although Israel has clear jurisdiction to punish crimes committed on its territory (the primary basis of jurisdiction under international law is determined by territorial location of the offense), it also has the right to act under broader principles of "universal jurisdiction." Its case for such universal jurisdiction, which derives from an expectation of interstate solidarity, is found at the four Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949.
These Conventions unambiguously impose upon the High Contracting Parties the obligation to punish "Grave Breaches" of their settled rules.
Instead of punishing “Grave Breaches” of international law, the United States and other nations are rewarding terrorists under the facade of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian Authority—to repeat, an aggregation of terrorist organizations.

Even if I were not an American tax-payer—besides, I don’t like my money going to terrorists, i.e., my potential murderers—I would strongly oppose this violation of international law by the Government of the United States. Although the U.S. Congress has in the past allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority, I invite experts in American law to investigate more thoroughly the legality and constitutionality of such allocations.

The overriding issue, however, is that United States is aiding Israel’s Arab enemies and may thus be deemed a belligerent under the laws of war. I believe that such action on the part of the United States is contrary to the interests of the American people, that such action contradicts America’s war against international terrorism, and that such action constitutes a betrayal of America’s only reliable ally in the Middle East, Israel.

Netanyahu: Lobbyist for a Stateless Arab State

by Paul Eidelberg

In May 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu became prime minister of Israel in the country’s first national election for that office. He defeated Shimon Peres, the architect of the disastrous Oslo or Israel-PLO Agreement. Netanyahu thus had a mandate to scuttle Oslo. He himself had previously said Oslo would lead to war, not peace.

During his premiership, Netanyahu’s office issued daily reports of PLO violations of Oslo. He nonetheless failed to abrogate Oslo even though Israel had every legal and moral right to do so. Unreported, however, are the political and psychological consequences of Netanyahu’s timidity: By adhering to Oslo despite constant terrorist attacks, Netanyahu virtually legitimized Arab terrorism. People abroad became increasingly indifferent to terrorism in general, and to the murder of Jews in particular. They were conditioned to Israeli passivity until Operation Cast Iron Lead, and then the ugliest hatred of Israel erupted.

Netanyahu is partly responsible for this hatred. For by failing to abrogate Oslo as soon the PLO violated its agreement with Israel, he fostered worldwide acceptance of Arab terror and then worldwide outrage against Israel’s belated retaliation in Operation Cast Iron Lead. No one is saying this, neither critics like Moshe Feiglin, nor supporters like Caroline Glick.

Moral responsibility as well as political accountability has been buried in this country along with 1,700 Jewish victims of Arab terror. That’s why Shimon Peres is President of Israel, why Olmert remains Prime Minister, and why none but moral clods or third-rate politicians contested Netanyahu’s return to the premiership. Par for the course in Israel.

Without constitutional checks and balances, without a constitution that could be taught in schools and thus enlighten the public, prime ministers, like Olmert, don’t have to worry about losing their jobs, and they can ignore public opinion with impunity. Thus, on September 27, 1996, Prime Minister Netanyahu said on CNN that no one ever thought he would meet with Yasser Arafat, which means that the people who voted for Netanyahu not only opposed such a meeting, but also its logical consequence, the implementation of the Israel-PLO Agreement! Netanyahu unwittingly admitted that he had betrayed his voters!

(Netanyahu is not unique. Sharon betrayed the nation when he adopted Labor’s policy of disengagement; and Rabin violated his pledge to the nation not to negotiate with the PLO.)

Netanyahu is more subtle. Despite his warning that Oslo would lead to war, he said, "We always intended to implement the Israel-PLO Accords," except that he insists on “reciprocity." What can reciprocity mean? Perhaps this: Israel gives Arabs Judea and Samaria on which to establish a state, and the Arabs give Israel a signed document that this state will have no army, will not make treaties with any country it wants, will not control its own airspace and water supplies?

Can you imagine the Arabs agreeing to this “reciprocity”—this stateless state? Can you imagine the Islamic world remaining silent about this warmed-up version of the Begin Autonomy Plan? Any Arab that agreed to head this stateless state would be committing suicide. Does Netanyahu take Arabs for fools? Or is he taking Jews for fools?
Like other unprincipled politicians, Netanyahu has trapped himself in a charade that requires him to negotiate with terrorists committed to Israel’s destruction. His latest spin is that he will not negotiate with the Palestinian Authority if it includes Hamas—as if Fatah consisted of Canadians rather than Jihadists.

His advisers say he will “lobby Secretary of State Hillary Clinton … against US recognition of a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas” (Jerusalem Post, February 26). How charming! In this illusionary democracy, the people elected not a prime minister so much as a lobbyist who is going to charm Hillary with his illusionary Palestinian state!

Let’s get serious. Can this spin master compete with relentless and cunning foes like Fatah and Hamas? Can he choose a foreign minister and a defense minister that can reverse the disastrous course of Oslo when he himself voted against its abrogation? Can his foreign minister and defense minister have the conviction and courage to say an Arab state on Jewish land is theologically unacceptable and strategically suicidal?

But since Judea-Samaria is not a theological problem for secularists, perhaps Netanyahu will have them say something like this: “Let’s not rush into this two-state business. We need two decades to make the Palestinians prosperous, peace-loving, bourgeois democrats.” Perhaps he can enlist Natan Sharansky to help him? Just the man to enlighten President Obama about a democracy run by Arabs who taught their children to hate Jews and emulate suicide bombers!

Yes, but Obama has a short-term schedule. As for Fatah and Hamas, they are now playing the “soft-cop-hard-cop” routine. Theirs is the Soviet strategy of the "uninterrupted attack." This strategy uses not only arms but peace offensives, diplomatic pressure, psychological warfare, and manipulation of the media to emasculate the enemy prior to the coup de grace. Never let the enemy relax—this is the essence of the Arab war against Israel, and the Arabs will use Israel’s Left to facilitate their objective.

Israel's leaders don’t know how to fight such a war. They overemphasize the role of PR, and this requires a lot of time when time, in warfare, as in physics, is linked to space. Moreover, unlike the Arabs, who have a forward or offensive strategy, Israel has a strategy of territorial retreat. It’s called “territory for peace.”

But peace with bellicose Islam is a contradiction in terms. Peace with Islam would require Muslims to renounce the ethos of Jihad. It would necessitate the transformation of Islamic civilization. Imagine Netanyahu winning the long distance race in the next Olympics.

Netanyahu has resigned himself to a Palestinian state—and this means nothing less than a sovereign state. He will now have the support of Israel Beiteinu’s chairman Avigdor Lieberman, whose Jewish convictions are as deep as a billboard.

That’s what Oslo is all about. Oslo means the establishment of a Palestinian state on the one hand, and the dissolution of the Jewish state on the other.

Let’s be honest: Israel is supposed to be the God-bearing nation. Anything less is a world-historical fraud, which will prompt more and more gentiles to call for Israel’s elimination. You’re seeing the world’s loss of Israel in America, where the Courts have banned the Ten Commandments from the public sphere.

Leaving the Jewish vision aside, can Netanyahu act on the time-proven principle that nations respect strength, not weakness? Hence, can he go on the offensive against Israel’s enemies and so-called friends?

Does he have the backbone not only to abrogate Oslo, but also to declare that any nation that aids Hamas violates international law and will be deemed a belligerent?

Does this sound truculent? Rabbis have said, “Don’t irritate the goyim?” But Israel’s very existence irritates the goyim. Good Christians will tell you that. Israel should therefore give nations solid cause for being not merely irritated but fearful. Polls say Israel poses the greatest threat to peace. Perhaps it would be wise for Israel to be worthy of that canard? If so, Israel should then be utterly unpredictable, a regime that, if threatened, can set the Middle East ablaze.

Am I sounding mad? But how often is it said that if Israel does not agree to a Palestinian state the Middle East will explode? This means that the only way to prevent this explosion is for Israel to commit suicide.

Better the Middle East should explode. The United States will do nothing about it, if only because America is dependent on an oil rich regime within striking distance of Israel.

Can Netanyahu rise to the challenge and gather a small group of people to wage a sustained multifaceted war against Israel’s enemies?

The provocation or pretext will come any day. Can he eradicate the entire network of terrorist groups west of the Jordan River and thereby cow the enemies beyond?

Can he stop being a politician and a pacifist and become a statesman and a conqueror?

Of course, I am tilting at windmills. Netanyahu will remain Bibi, won’t he? But who knows? Who knows what Israel is capable of doing given the existential threat of Iran. Perhaps Netanyahu will rise to the occasion.

A Conversation With Avigdor Lieberman

Interview by Lally Weymouth at the Washington Post
Sunday, March 1, 2009; Page B01
http://the-jew-in-yellow.blogspot.com/2009/03/conversation-with-avigdor-lieberman.html

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