CAFI Newsletter ##57
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Sat, 1 Dec 2001 07:52:06 -0500
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* CHRISTIAN ACTION FOR ISRAEL NEWSLETTER #57 *
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"On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen" Isaiah 62:6
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Friday, November 30, 2001
IN THIS ISSUE :
1. TWO MESSAGES. ONE SUBJECT. FIGHTING TERROR.
2. POWELL'S INTRUSION
3. PLAYING CHICKEN
4. AFTER THE SPEECH
5. QUOTES TO NOTE
6. HIGHLIGHT ARTICLES
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1. TWO MESSAGES. ONE SUBJECT. FIGHTING TERROR.
Tuesday, at 10:30 am two terrorists opened fire near the
Central Bus Station on a crowd of innocent people in the Israeli
town of Afula. A man and woman were killed. Thirty-five
were injured. The terrorists were shot dead. Two terrorist
organizations took "credit" for the attack:
Islamic Jihad and Fatah (Arafat's group).
Hearing this news, Mr. Zinni, America's envoy here in Israel
for talks, said this only underscored "the need for a ceasefire."
Is that what America's war on terror is all about? The need to
negotiate a ceasefire with terrorists to prevent further acts
of terror? Funny, I heard Mr. Bush wasn't negotiating with
al Khaeda. So, does that mean Mr. Zinni's approach only applies
to Jews who are murdered in the street of Israel by
Muslim terrorists?
If the Americans think this is such a good idea they flew
across continents to share it with us Israelis personally,
I suggest they take the next plane home and discuss applying
this method to their own rules of engagement with bin Laden.
Terrorist acts are not a negotiating tool. They are not a
prelude to peace talks. Terrorist acts should be met with
an all-out, uncompromising, and ceaseless war on terrorists
until not a single one is left standing.
Isn't that what the President of the United States,
Mr. George W. Bush, has been saying?
Or did I misunderstand him?
Or is that only true when the blood of victims is American ?
Naomi Ragen
Part Two:
I got the following letter from a reader, addressed to the U.N.
If you'd like to add your own comment, Mr. Eckard can be
reached at: eckhard@un.org
Dear Mr Eckhard,
It is with some surprise that I read on the UN website:
29 November 2001
The Secretary-General will speak at a meeting with the
Committee on Palestinian Rights to mark the International Day
of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
May I inform you that according to several sources that
November 28, 2001 is the 60th anniversary of the meeting
between Adolf Hitler and Hadj Amin el-Husseini, the then
well-know mufti of Jerusalem, in Berlin! and they agreed
there a lot about the fate of the Jews in general, each
of them in their respective area.
Do you feel that this is the right date and action by the
most important person from the UN held a speech. Also due
to the fact that November 29 is the anniversary of the UN
resolution on the state of Israel, which has never been
accepted by the terrorists in Palestine, the whole world
may consider this speech as an excuse by the UN of the
creation of Israel at the same moment that neo-Nazi's are
joining extreme Palestinian opinions regarding the
destruction of this state.
I would appreciate receiving your response on above facts.
With best regards
Rudi Roth
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2. POWELL'S INTRUSION
By George F. Will - The Washington Post - November 25, 2001
When Colin Powell retired as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff in 1993, he quoted Thucydides: "Of all manifestations of
power, restraint impresses men most." It might have been an
impressive example of restraint if the United States had
husbanded its power and continued to refrain from intruding
itself, with special emissaries and multiplying plans, into the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
However, Secretary of State Powell's Louisville speech about
that conflict was useful because it demonstrated that there
really is nothing much to be usefully said on the subject at
the moment. At least his speech did not make matters worse,
or at any rate not much worse.
Before the speech, Powell said he would appeal for Yasser
Arafat to use his "moral authority" to stop the terrorists who
operate in the territory controlled by Arafat's Palestinian
Authority. Perhaps Powell meant that Arafat's status as the
world's senior terrorist might make Arafat willing and able
to stop terrorism. Perhaps.
Powell did helpfully say that Palestinians must recognize
Israel's right to exist as a "Jewish state." This U.S. policy
opposes Arafat's demand for an unlimited "right of return"
for all Palestinians who claim to be connected in some way
with those who in 1948 fled Israel, confident that Arab armies
would extinguish the new nation.
How important is the "right of return" demand -- which would
mean the effective dissolution of Israel -- to Arafat? Prime
Minister Ehud Barak's rejection of that demand caused Arafat
to scupper the July 2000 Camp David meeting at which Barak,
going far beyond any previous Israeli offer and far beyond
what he could persuade his country to accept, offered 98
percent of the West Bank and partial Palestinian control of
a divided Jerusalem.
In Louisville, Powell made the obligatory denunciation of
Israeli settlements in the West Bank. They occupy only 1.5
percent of the West Bank, and their legality is indisputable,
because the West Bank is an unallocated portion of the
League of Nations 1922 Palestine Mandate. And the final
status of that territory is to be settled by negotiation.
Perhaps Powell meant only that settlements complicate the
"peace process." But, then, what did Powell mean when he
said Israel must "end its occupation"? If Powell believes
the entire West Bank is occupied Palestinian territory,
what is to be negotiated? And what becomes of the "land for
peace" approach if there is this prejudgment about the
land at issue?
In Louisville, Powell endorsed the creation of a "viable"
Palestinian state.
Well.
Leave aside the fact that Switzerland would not be viable
if governed by the thugocracy that is Arafat's Palestinian
Authority. But does Powell believe that the territory
currently controlled by the Palestinian Authority is
inherently unviable as a state? If so, what territorial
adjustments would be necessary for viability? And how
might those be squared with his call for
"taking full account of Israel's security needs"?
Does Powell believe that Israel's 1967 borders, within
which Israel was at one place just 11 miles wide, were
defensible? And what does he think an Israeli withdrawal
to those borders would accomplish, given that in 1967
Arafat rejected Israel's right to exist, and today he
says that an Israel with the 1967 borders would be
illegitimate?
Powell is dispatching two officials to rev up the
"peace process." The idea that this is a propitious moment
for that is akin to the State Department's recent idea
that the Northern Alliance should be asked to stop at the
outskirts of Kabul while U.S. diplomats fine-tune
Afghanistan's political conditions.
Powell's emissaries follow CIA Director George Tenet's
mission, which followed former senator George Mitchell's
mission, which produced the idea that the problem between
Israel, which intends to exist, and her enemies, who say
she should not, is a lack of "confidence." Hence the
centerpiece of the Mitchell plan;
-- "confidence-building measures."
Powell's emissaries will urge Arafat to arrest -- or
re-arrest; or re-re-arrest -- some terrorists for his
revolving-door jails. The hope is that Israel will then
drop its supposedly utopian demand for a week -- yes,
seven whole days -- without violence before proceeding
with "confidence-building."
When Arafat launched the current wave of violence 14
months ago, his pretext was Ariel Sharon's visit to
Jerusalem's Temple Mount. The next time Powell meets
with the world's senior terrorist, he should ask Arafat:
Do you deny, in spite of abundant historical and
archeological evidence, that the Temple Mount is the
location of the Second Temple, destroyed in 70 A.D.?
When Powell hears Arafat's answer, Powell's confidence
may need to be rebuilt.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
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3. PLAYING CHICKEN
By Yehuda Poch November 25, 2001
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a speech in
Kentucky last Monday. Normally, Kentucky isn't much worthy
of mention anywhere outside a chicken outlet. But Powell's
speech concerned the Middle East. Since it seems that the
Middle East is worthy of mention everywhere - except
perhaps for chicken outlets - Kentucky got a few minutes of
fame.
And in the Middle East, conventional wisdom - on both sides
of the conflict - is tripping over itself with glee at the speech
that Colin made. The Israelis think the speech was great
because Powell demanded an end to the violence before
negotiations could begin. The Arabs think it was a great
speech because Powell called for an immediate freeze in
Israeli settlement activity. The Israelis think it was great of
Powell not to refer to the Arab demand for a Right of Return,
and the Arabs think it was great that Powell called for an end
to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.
Well, I am always in support of giving conventional wisdom
credit when credit is due - which is rarely ever. The chief,
number one, top of the heap problem facing the world today
is that it is run by conventional wisdom. In general, I have
found that conventional wisdom has its place in the world. It
is very useful for showing what policies should not be
followed. It is also a great indicator of a rudderless ship of
state - kind of like the one whose navigator is named Colin.
Because conventional wisdom seems to be getting in the way
quite a bit of late, I think the time has come to set the record
straight. There was almost nothing good about Powell's
speech, despite what every Israeli talking head - or politician
- has been saying today. Giving credit where it is due, I
should point out that Powell did recognize there actually is
violence caused by the Palestinians, and he did not actually
demand that Israeli ignore it. But that's where his credit
ends.
To begin with, the Israelis are not occupying anyone's land
but their own. Even should one assume that the Palestinians
have a legitimate claim to territory in Israel, an assumption to
which I most certainly do not subscribe, 98% of Palestinians
living in these areas do not live under Israeli control of any
kind. In many cases, they are prevented from leaving PA
occupied territories, but hey, they are Israel's enemies - even
they say so. Syrians are not allowed into Israeli territory, nor
are Iraqis, Iranians, Saudis, Afghans, or any other enemy of
Israel. Why should Israeli forces allow Palestinians out of
their own territory into Israel?
Then there is the Right of Return. In no place on Earth do
citizens of one country have the automatic right to settle in
the territory of another. But that is what Arafat is demanding
of Israel. He wants millions of Palestinian ex-patriots to be
allowed to settle in Israel, upsetting the demographic
balance of the country and totally obliterating any national
identity of Israel as a Jewish State - its stated identity in both
UN resolutions and its own Declaration of Independence.
It was this issue alone that torpedoed the Camp David talks
in the summer of 2000 and led directly to the current
violence. Not settlements, not "occupation," not anything
else. Then-prime minister Ehud Barak was prepared to pull
Israeli presence, including settlements, out of 97% of Judea
and Samaria and all of the Gaza Strip. He was prepared to
turn over the eastern half of Israel's capital to enemy hands.
He paid for his recklessness with his political life.
But while Israel offered to meet all the demands set out in
Powell's speech 16 months before that speech was made,
Arafat was not prepared to accept it. It seems that under no
circumstances will Arafat be prepared to end the violence -
short of Israel's total destruction as represented by the Right
of Return.
Powell knows that the Right of Return is a non-starter. He
knows that no such thing exists anywhere in the world, and
he knows that it is the single issue that will destroy any
future talks. He was intelligent enough not to mention it in
his speech.
But judging by what he did say in his speech, it seems that
Kentucky is still best known for chickens. Powell still doesn't
get the truth. The violence will not end, because Arafat
doesn't want it to. Arafat had as much offered to him as he
could ever dream of getting. He chose violence instead. The
Bush Administration has spent its first 10 months in office
watching, looking, examining, and considering the issues.
Last Monday's speech was a foreign policy disaster simply in
that after so long an opportunity to develop a real,
imaginative, innovative Middle East policy, the only thing
Powell could do was trot out the same unworkable formulas
and tired clichés.
So I am left with the following dilemma. Was Powell's speech
more indicative of an ostrich sticking its head in the Middle
Eastern sand, or of a chicken running around without its
head? Given that Powell is the top foreign policy official in the
US, and that the speech was made in Kentucky, the answer
should be obvious.
israelinsider.com
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4. AFTER THE SPEECH
Zalman Shoval - Jerusalem Post - November 30
- Actually, there were two
speeches - first, US President George W. Bush's
anti-terror speech at the UN (with Palestinian
Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat looking on
unhappily) and then, the long-awaited speech by
US Secretary of State Colin Powell, which has
probably elicited more advance speculation than
any other speech in recent history.
While the president dealt with the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict only in passing (three
brief sentences in a 22-minute speech), the
secretary devoted more than half of his to it. Both
spoke about "Palestine," a geographical term
which the Arab leadership in this country has
successfully made its own, but more importantly,
both reiterated their warning to all those, including
the Palestinians, who engaged in terrorism or
supported it. Neither left any doubt that America
opposed all terrorists, not just some of them. As
Bush put it, "no national aspiration, no
remembered wrong, can ever justify the deliberate
murder of the innocent... Any government that
rejects this principle, trying to pick and choose its
terrorist friends, will know the consequences."
Both leaders clearly recognized that distinguishing
between acts of terror according to their
motivations or their different targets is not only
immoral but also counterproductive - for what
would prevent a future Osama bin Laden, or even
the same one, from defining acts of terror in terms
of political "aspirations" instead of a "war against
infidels"? This was especially significant coming
from the mouth of the secretary, some of whose
department's pronouncements in the past could
have been interpreted as if Palestinian terrorists,
contrary to those practicing bin Laden's brand of
terrorism, were really "freedom fighters,"
belonging to some unclassifiable "gray area."
Israel was naturally pleased by Powell's strong
reiteration of America's "enduring and iron-clad"
commitment to Israel's security, (though for some
reason he failed to mention the US commitment to
Israel's qualitative edge), by his implied opposition
to the "right of return," by his condemnation of
anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incitement in the Arab
world, and by having made it clear that, contrary to
the Clinton administration, the present one would
not be content with a 100 percent "effort" by Arafat
to stop the violence, but would be demanding
concrete results.
Powell made a deliberate - and in retrospect,
largely successful - effort to keep several balls in
the air at the same time: Israel, Palestinians, Arab
allies, Europeans, and last but not least, different
views inside the American government itself.
Perhaps as a result of this, while addressing many
of Israel's concerns, there were some parts which,
unless clarified in due course, could lead to
unnecessary disagreements between
Washing-ton and Jerusalem.
There is, of course, nothing new in the fact that
Israel and the US have not always seen eye to eye
on certain issues, especially matters resulting from
the Six Day War. However, such differences have
never led to a long-lasting estrangement between
the two countries or the two peoples - nor will they
now. The mutual strategic interests and shared
moral values are far too solid to allow this to
happen, especially now when both are facing the
scourge of terror.
But much more important than, hopefully,
avoidable disagreements in the future was
Powell's firm and clear pronouncement that "terror
and violence must stop, and stop now!" It is in the
same spirit that Israel welcomes the appointment
of General (ret.) Anthony Zinni and his task to
achieve a durable cease-fire - as Israel itself has
demanded for a long time.
Violence must indeed stop, not just because Israel
has made this a pre-condition for resuming
political negotiations, but even more so, because
in practical terms, ongoing terror and bloodshed
would negate any serious effort to reach equitable
political solutions.
Unfortunately, Powell's speech also created an
artificial parallelism between violence and
settlements. While according to all existing
agreements, ending violence is an immediate and
unconditional imperative, the matter of settlements
was to come up only in the final stage of the peace
process (the Mitchell Committee Report modified
this somewhat, calling for a freeze on settlement
activity during the third "confidence building" stage
of its proposed work plan). Israel, of its own
volition, has agreed not to construct new
settlements, but the question of building within
existing ones is, of course, quite different. In any
case, a commitment to halt all settlement activity,
including that related to natural growth, cannot
logically be considered indefinite or open-ended
as nobody could expect people living and working
there to stay in a permanent state of deep-freeze.
One may be excused for thinking that some of
Powell's speech writers must have dropped off
during their history lessons, for otherwise the
speech could, for instance, have mentioned that
Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza as a result
of Arab aggression against it in 1967. Referring to
Israel's position in the land which was the cradle of
Jewish nationhood and the fount of the
Judeo-Christian heritage as "occupation," is, to
say the least, strange.
Though only a minority of Israelis would today refer
to the territories which, until 1967 were under
Jordanian and Egyptian military occupation, as
"liberated" land, a majority of Israelis do not
regard themselves as "occupiers," tending to
agree with David Ben-Gurion that though
historically, morally and legally all the land between
the Mediterranean and the Jordan rightfully
belongs to the Jewish people - for the sake of real
peace Israel would agree to far-reaching
compromises, including giving up part of it. This is,
however, not ending the "occupation" of what
belongs to someone else, but sacrificing what is
rightfully yours. (The famed human rights activist,
Elena Bonner, widow of Nobel Peace-Price
winner Andrei Sakharov, once compared
forbidding Jews to live anywhere in the country
with ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.)
Perhaps as a sop to what passes as Arab public
opinion, the speech also mentioned "final status"
talks, although nobody wanting to avoid a
Clintonesque Camp David debacle, would harbor
the illusion that a permanent, final peace
agreement could realistically be achieved anytime
soon. Still, there is no harm in expressing a hope
that things could change in the future - a hope
cherished also by Israel - provided, however, that
holding out for an unrealistic best will not prevent
moving forward to a possibly attainable better.
Understandably, Powell mentioned the failed Oslo
process only in passing, putting much greater
emphasis on the "spirit of Madrid." But in this
context, it merits remembering that one of the
fundamentals of Madrid was that the "US would
not support the establishment of an independent
Palestinian state." Nor had there been "land for
peace" - a formulation implying that peace can
only be bought at a price - like love that one can
buy only for money. The basis was UN Security
Council Resolution 242 - i.e. calling on Israel to
withdraw from certain territories to "secure"
borders - and by no stretch of the imagination
could the former "green line" be considered a
"secure" border. The authoritative US position at
the time had been that requiring Israel to return to
the pre-1967 armistice line was incompatible with
Resolution 242. Logically and realistically it
should, therefore, only be the correct,
American-supported interpretation, not the
misleading Arab and Soviet one, which Powell
meant, speaking about the "principles embodied
in Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338."
Whether a future Palestinian state, whatever its
geographical dimensions, will be "viable" - to cite
Powell's definition - is open to question, but not for
the reasons that the speech implies. The
Palestinian Authority has made rather a mess of
things since the Oslo agreement, and the 95
percent or so of Palestinians who live under its
less than perfect regime, probably have few
illusions in this respect, nor should the rest of the
world.
But to conclude: the most important, certainly the
most urgent message in the Powell speech was
that violence must stop, not only because after
September 11 America would no longer tolerate
any kind of terrorism, but also because, as many
Palestinians - though not Yasser Arafat himself -
have come to realize, in political and military terms
the "intifada" has failed and, as Powell said,
Palestinians "would never achieve their national
aspirations through violence."
That those "national aspirations" are not
necessarily identical with Powell's own vision of
peaceful co-existence between Israel and a future
Palestinian state alongside Israel, is another
matter - but then Jonathan Swift already told us
that more often than not, "visions are the art of
seeing things invisibleÉ"
(The writer is a former ambassador to the US.)
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5. QUOTES TO NOTE
"I think this [Afula attack] points out the importance
of gaining a cease-fire."
-U.S. Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni, hovering over Afula in a
helicopter shortly after yesterday's terrorist attack, as emergency
vehicles rushed to the scene (two were killed, and many wounded).
[Said one Israeli official, "If Palestinian terrorists intended
to give the U.S. mission a complete example of what Israel has
been facing, this is it."] (Daily Telegraph, Nov. 28)
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6. FEATURE ARTICLES
THE HEART THAT REFUSES TO BLEED
For those of us born after the Holocaust and living in the West,
the rumble of institutional anti-semitism often resonates as a
faint echo from a past that is not entirely recognizable. We take
for granted that Jewish organizations, whose reach is
international and whose work extends well beyond local concerns,
will be accorded respect by the wider community of nations.
Nevertheless, once in a while this belief is rattled by an
incident that raises the lid on the steaming hatred that still
seems to seethe just below the surface of even the most
benign causes.
http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/antiholo/heart.html
PREVENTING ANOTHER DURBAN
The hijacking of the Durban conference by the Arab states and
their allies confirmed the need to prevent the use of the UN as
a tool of political propaganda. The history of the world
organization proves that only financial pressures can help in
achieving this goal.
http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/un/preventing.html
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