07.19.2006

England and the United States just will not accept that they are wrong; they will not admit that they have failed. What will it take for them to acknowledge the truth and go back to the drawing board on the Arab-Israeli conflict to find a new approach that has a real chance of success?

This morning (Monday) US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were recorded expressing, among other things, their unaffected belief that the creation of two states – “Israel and Palestine” – is still the only way to go! To that end an international force should be inserted in southern Lebanon, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice should then be dispatched to the region as soon as a ceasefire is in place to kick start the “diplomatic process” once again.

British MPs in the House of Commons this afternoon put the end purpose of those plans into words, with both Labor and Conservative party members insisting that the conflict must come to an end in order that the parties can return to the “Road Map” to a “Two State Solution.”

Such obdurate behavior goes beyond ignorance and mere blindness. These leaders are intent on proceeding with a process that, if (somehow) they did not realize it before, they now know without a doubt poses a clear and present danger to the existence of the state and people of Israel.

This is outrageous. How much longer must the people of Israel be made to suffer and live in a protracted state of war; paying for the policies of other countries with their security, their peace of mind, and their lives?

It must be glaringly obvious to any honest observer that the land-for-peace formula is bankrupt, a sad, sick joke. All that the years of diplomacy, arm-twisting and threats have brought Israel is more hatred, more danger, more violence, and more war.

Right now, two Israeli young men are being held in Lebanon, and rockets are falling in the north of Israel, killing and wounding Israelis and inflicting fear on hundreds of thousands of people, with a situation perilously close to erupting into a regional conflict, all because the world did not insist on Lebanon implementing United Nations resolutions calling for the disarming and disbanding of the Hizb’allah after Israel unilaterally left southern Lebanon in 2000.

Right now, one Israeli young man is being held in Gaza, and rockets are falling in the south of Israel, endangering Israelis, destroying their homes and keeping thousands of people in fear alongside a Gaza Strip turned into a Mecca for terrorism, all as a direct result of the world’s unrelenting pressure on Israel to give that land to the Palestinian Arabs, culminating in Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza last year.

More than a thousand Jews have been robbed of their lives, many thousands more robbed of the use of their limbs, and untold thousands more robbed of their sense of security because of this foolish, irresponsible and downright criminal “peace process.”

For a decade-and-a-half the red warning of danger has been flashing for all who have eyes to see.

The red light flashed when, after the signing of the Oslo Agreement, Israelis were introduced to a whole new hell of terrorism in the suicide bomber, and the outbreak of drive-by shootings.

The red light flashed when, with every additional Israeli concession to the “Palestinians,” the terrorism increased in tandem with the hate-filled anti-Israel sentiment – all fueled specifically by the belief that Israel’s willingness to make peace at such a cost proved its weakness and insured its ultimate defeat.

The red light flashed when Israel pulled out of southern Lebanon and the Iranian-backed Hizb’allah moved in, deploying thousands of missiles and repeatedly trying to provoke Israel into a fight by attacking the Sheba’a Farms and attempting to kidnap IDF soldiers.

The red light flashed when Israel pulled out of Gaza and the Palestinians voted the Iranian-backed Hamas into power, while Kassam rockets started to fall in the south.

The red light is flashing now, the claxon sounding its cry of alarm, as Israel fights a war on two fronts, with both sets of enemies sponsored and egged-on by Iran, and the world now trying to get the ‘peace process” back on track, so that a third front is opened up against Israel – this one running the length and breadth of the Jewish state, and situated on the high ground overlooking Israel’s population centers, industrial centers, and international airport.

May Israel heed the red light. May the blood soaked ground, the lives that have been lost, the lives that have been ruined, the families that have been bereaved, the soldiers that have been kidnapped and the pain of their loved ones, the fear of the children and their parents – may all of it cry out to the heavens, and may it all cry out to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and to all the leaders of Israel:

Enough! No more! No more land-for-peace that brings everything but peace! No more disengagement! No more strengthening of the enemy at Israel’s expense. No to concessions! No to a Palestinian state.

Boasting in its strength, Israel has in fact proven to be too weak for too long. It’s time to be strong in a way that really counts. World leaders are gearing up to renew that pressure; Israel should make its move. As the sirens wail in Haifa, and the air force takes Israel’s answer deep into Lebanon, Jerusalem should send out the clear and unequivocal message:

Thus far and nor further. The Road Map is a dead end. Let the G8, the Quartet and all their components find a new way to bring peace to the Middle East.

Stan Goodenough
Hard To Solve But Easy To Explain
07.19.2006

The Middle East conflict is difficult to solve, but it is among the simplest conflicts in history to understand.

The Arab and other Muslim enemies of Israel (for the easily confused, this does not mean every Arab or every Muslim) want Israel destroyed. That is why there is a Middle East conflict. Everything else is commentary.

Those who deny this and ascribe the conflict to other reasons, such as "Israeli occupation," "Jewish settlements," a "cycle of violence," "the Zionist lobby" and the like, do so despite the fact that Israel's enemies regularly announce the reason for the conflict. The Iranian regime, Hizbollah, Hamas and the Palestinians — in their public opinion polls, in their anti-Semitic school curricula and media, in their election of Hamas, in their support for terror against Israeli civilians in pre-1967 borders — as well as their Muslim supporters around the world, all want the Jewish state annihilated.

In 1947-48, the Arab states tried to destroy the tiny Jewish state formed by the United Nations partition plan. In 1967, Egypt, Syria and Jordan tried to destroy Israel in what became known as the Six-Day War. All of this took place before Israel occupied one millimeter of Palestinian land and before there was a single Jewish settler in the West Bank.

Two months after the Six-Day War of June 5-10, 1967, the Arab countries convened in Khartoum, Sudan, and announced on Sept. 1, 1967, their famous "Three NOs" to Israel: "No peace, No recognition, No negotiations."

Six years later, in 1973, Egypt invaded the Israeli-held Sinai Peninsula, a war that ended in a boost in Egyptian morale from its initially successful surprise attack. Though nearly all of the Sinai remained in Israel's hands, the boost in Egyptian self-confidence enabled Egypt's visionary president, Anwar Sadat, four years later (November 1977), to do the unimaginable for an Arab leader: He visited Israel and addressed its parliament in Jerusalem. As a result, in 1978, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in return for which Israel gave all of the oil-rich Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt.

Three years later, in 1981, Sadat was assassinated by Egyptian Muslims, a killing welcomed by most Arabs, including the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization). Why welcomed? Because Sadat had done the unforgivable — recognized Israel and made peace with it.

The lesson that Palestinians should have learned from the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement was that if you make peace with Israel, you will not only get peace in return, you will also get all or nearly all of your land back. That is how much Israelis ache for peace.

Think about Israel for one moment: Israel is one of the most advanced countries on earth in terms of culture (most books published, translated from other languages and read per capita; most orchestras per capita, etc.); major advances in medicine; technological breakthroughs; and decency as a society, as exemplified by its treatment of its women, gays and even its large Arab minority (particularly remarkable in light of the widespread Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism and desire to annihilate Israel). This is hardly a picture of some bloodthirsty, land-grabbing society. And Jews, whatever their flaws, have never been known to be a violent people. If anything, the stereotypical Jew has been depicted as particularly docile.

As a lifelong liberal critic of Israeli policies, the New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman wrote just two weeks ago: "The Palestinians could have a state on the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem tomorrow, if they and the Arab League clearly recognized Israel, normalized relations and renounced violence. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't know Israel today."

Give Israel peace, and Israel will give you land.

Which is exactly what Israel agreed to do in the last year of the Clinton administration. It offered PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat about 97 percent of the West Bank and three percent of Israel's land in exchange for peace. Instead, Israel got its men, women and children routinely blown up and maimed by Palestinian terrorists after the Palestinians rejected the Israeli offer at Camp David. Even President Clinton, desirous of being the honest broker and yearning to be history's Middle East peacemaker, blamed the ensuing violence entirely on the Palestinians.

Israel's Camp David offer of a Palestinian state for Palestinian peace was rejected because most Palestinians and their Arab and Muslim supporters don't want a second state. They want Israel destroyed. They admit it. Only those who wish Israel's demise and the willfully naive do not.

If you don't believe this, ask almost anyone living in the Middle East why there is a Middle East War, preferably in Arabic. If you ask in English, they will assume you are either an academic, a Western news reporter, a diplomat or a "peace activist." And then, they will assume you are gullible and will tell you that it's because of "Israeli occupation" or "the Zionist lobby."

But they know it isn't. And it never was.

Jewish World Review

Israeli Troops Enter Lebanon

07.19.07

BEIRUT — Israeli troops clashed with Hezbollah guerrillas on the Lebanese side of the border Wednesday, while warplanes flattened 20 buildings and killed at least 19 people, officials said, as fighting between the two sides entered its second week.

 USA Today