CAFI Newsletter #90
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Fri, 28 Jun 2002 20:24:23 -0400
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* CHRISTIAN ACTION FOR ISRAEL NEWSLETTER #90 *
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"ON YOUR WALLS, O JERUSALEM, I HAVE APPOINTED WATCHMEN"
Isaiah 62:6
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Friday, June 28, 2002
IN THIS ISSUE:
1. SITE UPDATE
2. WELCOME TO THE LAND OF DEATH
3. SAUDI ARABIA'S ROLE
4. YES, SUICIDE BOMBING PAYS
5. TERRORISM GETS THE DOOR
6. QUOTES TO NOTE
7. HIGHLIGHT ARTICLES
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1. SITE UPDATE
We recently combined our "Latest News" page with our
Home Page to create a "one-stop" source for breaking
news, the latest additions to our site, and selected
external editorials. We hope you like the new format!
We've also added a Donations page, and now,
through PayPal, are able to accept major credit cards
and debit cards. Our VISA only secure server is still
available, but several prospective donors requested we
make arrangements to accept Mastercard and others.
WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT
Our site (and newsletter) are privately owned and
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http://christianactionforisrael.org/donations.html
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2. WELCOME TO THE LAND OF DEATH
By Avi Davis
Ben Gurion Airport these days is eerily quiet, looking
and feeling much like the arrival terminal at one of
the South American airports I visited in the 1980s.
Although not exactly under either curfew or martial
law like that city, the similarities are unnerving.
Here, for instance, the taxi drivers loll around the
taxi ranks playing backgammon and smoking leisurely
when once they frenetically competed to win business.
The drive into the city takes hours as cars are
checked and rechecked in anticipation of a terrorist
bombing warned to take place in the coming days.
A pall of gloom hangs over Jerusalem as the city
braces for the next the next wave of carnage.
It doesn’t have to wait long. On the morning of
June 18, a suicide bomber detonates his charge
on a bus in the north of the city, killing 20.
The next day a bus stop in the suburb of French Hill
is hit, resulting in another seven deaths – among
them the elderly and the young.
For many Jerusalemites their city and home has
begun to resemble a death trap. A simple excursion to
the supermarket now involves a stressful decision as
to which shopping hours to avoid. . Parents send
their children to school on buses uncertain that they
will return. Taxi drivers refuse to drive behind
any large vehicle, particularly a bus, and will take
passengers on the most circuitous of routes in order
to avoid them. The center of the city, usually so
heavily trafficked, is barren of night shoppers and
evening strollers– the blood of over forty civilians
now freely associated with its famous pedestrian mall.
The mere act of living or following a normal pattern
of life is loaded with the menace of an
untimely death.
How a population adapts to such abnormality is a
test of its character as a people. During the London
Blitz it is said that after bombing raids that
brought devastation to the city, thousands of
Londoners would gather in courtyards of bombed out
buildings to clear away the rubble and set up tables
for card games. The people of Stalingrad, under
siege for nearly three years by the occupying
Nazi army and reduced to eating weeds, developed
the habit of planting flowers in the casings of
spent shells. At Gamla, a northern Judean city
besieged by the Romans in 66-67 A.D, archeologists
have uncovered pottery sherds indicating that
philosophical debate and learning proceeded
furiously even in a situation of enormous privation.
Israelis are confronted with the same daily
challenges as those besieged people. While not
barricaded behind walls or bombarded from the air,
the Israelis face a parallel existential threat of
extinction. There is no doubt that the organizers
of Palestinian terror understand this. They fully
appreciate that suicide bombs cannot win battles;
but operate as a psychological weapon of enormous
power. It instills in the threatened population
the message that no matter where you go nor what
you do, you will not be safe. Better, the suicide
bomber argues, to surrender than endure such
uncertainty.
New skills and attitudes are needed to confront
such psychological warfare and through their
indomitability, the Israelis may be providing
the world with an important lesson in survival.
There is enthusiastic compliance with tightened
security measures. Senses are sharpened for
anything out of the ordinary - a man or woman
walking oddly, a package or bag left unattended,
a car parked where it should not be. The social
network survives and dramatic performances,
garden parties and .social events continue.
But a more fundamental social transformation is
taking place that has gone largely unnoticed –
and that is the acceptance among ordinary
Israelis of the vital need for a Jewish state.
In Jerusalem in the same week in which the two
suicide bombings occurred, the 34th World Zionist
Congress convened. This is the same forum that
in 1897 gave birth to Zionism as a political
movement, a force decisive in winning independence
for the Jewish state fifty years later. For the
half century before the creation of the State of
Israel, it operated as a repository for the hopes
and dreams of the Jewish people. Since then it
has rapidly declined as a political movement , to
the extent that members of the Government Press
Office , where I went to obtain my press pass,
did not even know it was taking place.
But this year’s Congress marked a watershed. For
15 years the concept of a distinctively Jewish
state has been under assault from mostly left wing
ideologues who have argued that Zionism is outmoded
and has achieved its aim.
Their movement has become known as post-Zionism.
Rather than remaining a distinctively Jewish state,
post –Zionism advocates an Israel that should
become a state of all its citizens, discarding
its distinctive Jewish character and embracing
multi-culturalism.
This Congress was expected to be a victory for
post –Zionism but the reverse actually occurred.
In motion after motion the post –Zionists were
defeated, the Congress reaffirming the centrality
of Jewish identity to the State of Israel and its
indivisible connection to the Jewish nation.
The meaning of this endorsement could not come
at a more significant moment. The ideological
underpinnings of a state are as vital to its
survival as its measures for security. Without
believing that the Jewish State has a purpose and
a destiny, no measures for individual or national
protection will be effective. Ultimately, a
state will rise or fall, based on the belief of
its people that the State is not only viable but
essential to national continuity. The Russians
proved this at Stalingrad and the British in London.
The Jewish people are now proving it in Jerusalem.
They are proving it in the face of a civilian
death toll and level of tragedy unknown to its
history. Welcome, then, to the land of life. For
if anything is clear , it is the millions of living
Jews who will ultimately define the nature and the
purpose of the Jewish state. And with such
commitment they will also avenge those of their
brethren who have been so cruelly murdered.
Avi Davis is the senior fellow of the Freeman
Center for Strategic Studies and the senior
editorial columnist for Jewsweek.com
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3. SAUDI ARABIA'S ROLE
Washington Times Editorial • June 26, 2002
In Monday's speech on the Middle East, President
Bush emphasized that "every leader actually committed
to peace" must "stop the flow of money, equipment and
recruits to terrorist groups seeking the destruction
of Israel. Although he did not mention Saudi Arabia
by name, Mr. Bush's comments on this score were
directed most certainly at that regime. The Saudis
have played a key role in financing the infrastructure
of terror responsible for the past 20 months of
suicide bombings and other attacks against Israel.
Perhaps the most perverse aspect has been the
regime's fund-raising campaign to aid the families
of Palestinian terrorists who blow themselves up
aboard Israeli buses and in pizzerias, cafes,
discotheques and shopping malls. In April, the
Saudis raised $109 million to assist the families
of these Palestinian "martyrs." But that may only
be the tip of the iceberg. Writing in the Weekly
Standard, Stephen Schwartz, quoting the Saudi
Embassy's web site, reported several months ago
that the kingdom had pledged $400 million for this
purpose. At "$5,300 per martyr, that works out to
about 75,000 martyrs, suggesting that the Saudi
princes anticipate a lot more suicide bombings,"
Mr. Schwartz wrote.
Israeli military intelligence officials recently
released documents captured during raids on
terrorist hideouts and Palestinian Authority (PA)
offices in the West Bank detailing Saudi Arabia's
role in financing Palestinian terror. The documents
"come in many flavors. They include Saudi government
and accounting schedules showing the amount of
money paid to individual Palestinians and their
families, with the names of suicide bombers and
others who carried out armed attacks against
Israelis highlighted," Kenneth Timmerman reported
in Insight magazine. "They include correspondence
between Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority and
the Saudi government that discusses the payments.
They also include a damning letter from the Saudis
complaining that the Palestinians had exposed the
secret financial ties by allowing the publication
of a Feb. 19 report in the PA publication al-Hayat
al-Jedida thanking Saudi Arabia for assisting the
families of terrorists killed in attacks on
Israelis."
Nor have the Saudis been helpful on other fronts.
This month, for example, the Saudis stepped up
their efforts to ensure that no Israeli-made
products are brought into the royal kingdom.
Despite this sorry record, optimists like
Israeli Defense Minister and Labor Party chief
Benjamin Ben-Eliezer (showing the same quality
of political judgment that got his predecessor,
former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, trounced by 25
points at the polls last year) wrote in the Wall
Street Journal yesterday that the Saudi peace
plan, announced in March at the Arab Summit in
Beirut, could be a suitable basis for starting
peace negotiations. Unfortunately, the plan leaves
unanswered one of the most serious questions of
all: The longstanding pan-Arab demand for the
return of millions of Palestinian refugees to
Israel, something Israelis regard as a formula
for the destruction of the Jewish state. Until
the Arabs jettison this demand in unmistakably
clear terms, the Saudi peace plan will do
essentially nothing to advance the cause of peace.
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4. YES, SUICIDE BOMBING PAYS
By Evelyn Gordon Jerusalem Post
(The writer is a veteran journalist and commentator.)
Having apparently despaired of convincing the
Palestinians that the deliberate slaughter of women and
children is immoral, the international community has
recently adopted a new tactic: It is trying instead to
convince them that such slaughter is counterproductive.
US State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher, for
instance, declared last week that suicide bombings "set
backÉ the realization of the Palestinians' legitimate
aspirations." British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw echoed
this warning almost verbatim: "Attacks such as this only
make it more difficult for the Palestinian people to
realize their legitimate aspirations."
Even French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin
proclaimed that suicide bombings "do not render service to
the cause they pretend to represent."
Persuading the Palestinians that terrorism is
counterproductive is obviously a good idea. In fact, it is
such a good idea that it would be impossible to quibble
with this campaign, were it not for one minor problem: It
is also manifestly false.
The sorry truth is that almost two years of unrelenting
terrorism have not diminished world support for Palestinian
demands by one iota. Indeed, far from muting international
advocacy of a Palestinian state, the terror has, if
anything, put Palestinian statehood higher on the
international agenda.
The European Union's response to last week's suicide
bombings was typical: The de rigeur warnings that these
attacks hinder establishment of a Palestinian state were
promptly followed by a summit declaration calling for an
urgent international conference to hasten the creation of
such a state.
And as a first step, the summit demanded that Israel
facilitate the bombers' work by instantly withdrawing its
troops from the West Bank and Gaza.
SUCH BEHAVIOR is hardly surprising from the EU - but
the leader of the global war on terrorism has been scarcely
less generous in rewarding Palestinian terror. George W.
Bush became the first American president to make
establishment of a Palestinian state an explicit US foreign
policy goal - 11 months after the Palestinians launched a
terrorist war against Israel.
Furthermore, he repeatedly postponed implementation of
a law mandating the transfer of the American embassy to
west Jerusalem - the part of the city that everyone agrees
is Israeli - arguing that the violence made it imperative
to avoid upsetting the Palestinians.
Finally, lest the Palestinians still fail to get the
message that terrorism pays, Bush prepared a major foreign
policy address that, according to press reports, will
announce US support for accelerated Palestinian statehood.
But then, to prove that he is not rewarding terrorism, last
week Bush imposed a truly devastating penalty: He announced
the postponement of his speech - by as much as several
days!
Palestinian terror has also led to no change at all in
the international view of what a Palestinian state should
look like. No international leader has even suggested that,
given the Palestinian Authority's violation of no less than
five signed pledges to renounce violence in a mere eight
years, Israel has a right to be skeptical of future such
pledges, and thereby to demand borders that would enable it
to protect its population should a Palestinian state
similarly renege.
No one has even suggested that, given the barrages of
Palestinian gunfire at Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood from
neighboring Beit Jala, Israel has a right to demand that
its future borders not leave the rest of Jerusalem's
residents similarly exposed to Palestinian gunfire.
The world, including the US, continues to insist that
the Palestinian state-to-be must include all of the West
Bank and Gaza plus half of Jerusalem (including the Temple
Mount) - a proposal that would enable Palestinian gunmen to
fire at will on most of Israel's major population centers.
Shockingly, even many Israelis continue to advocate this:
The diplomatic plan that the Labor Party is slated to
formally adopt at its convention next week also proposes a
Palestinian state on virtually all of the West Bank and
Gaza, including east Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.
Palestinian terror has not even caused any interruption
in the flow of foreign aid - despite the growing evidence
that the PA uses this money to finance terror.
Indeed, at least with respect to the EU, ratcheting up
the terror has proven an excellent method for securing an
increase in aid - because higher levels of terror provoke
stronger Israeli military responses, which in turn prompt
the EU to give more money to the PA.
In short, terrorism has proven to be a win-win
proposition for the Palestinians: It inflicts immense
misery on Israel - which for most Palestinians is a good in
and of itself - while at worst not making a dent in
international support for the Palestinians' declared goals,
and in many cases even increasing such support.
With suicide bombings producing such satisfying
results, is it any wonder that an overwhelming majority of
Palestinians support them?
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5. TERRORISM GETS THE DOOR
Cal Thomas
There's plenty about which one could nitpick
in President Bush's proposal for peace between
Israelis and Palestinians. On balance, though, his
speech on Monday was about as protective of Israel's
interests as one could expect from a divided
administration.
The onus is clearly on the Palestinians to
demonstrate whether they truly want a peacefully
co-existing state with democratic values and will
commit to ending terror. Good luck. With the
exception of Israel, no other nation in the Middle
East has a history of democracy or is about to
accept a Western model of government.
The president laid down a number of markers
on the road to a Palestinian state indicating they
are conditional to the success of such a state.
"The United States will not support the
establishment of a Palestinian state until its
leaders engage in a sustained fight against the
terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure,"
Mr. Bush said Monday.
He also strongly indicated that Yasser Arafat
must go, that new elections should be held and
that a Palestinian state should have a
"new constitution, which separates the
powers of government."
As the target of terror and elimination,
Israel presumably will not have to give back more
land or do much else until progress is made
toward these objectives.
In a telephone conversation from Israel,
former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told me
he was mostly pleased with the president's
remarks. Mr. Netanyahu, who felt he was
sandbagged by President Clinton into making
concessions to Mr. Arafat without reciprocity
at the Wye River, Md., summit meeting in 1998,
said: "For the first time we have an American
president standing up and putting the blame
where it belongs and demanding a change of
regime and a change of behavior on the part
of the Palestinians, which is refreshing."
What if Mr. Arafat wins in a new election?
Mr. Netanyahu said,
"President Bush took care
of that when he said the next leadership will
have to follow certain standards of
responsibility. It's not just a democratic
election, which Arafat was never elected with.
Even if he were, that is not enough by itself.
We should put it squarely to any Palestinian
leader that in order to be a candidate for any
political negotiations with us, they would have
to do two things: Disavow the demand for
flooding Israel with millions of Palestinians
[known as "the right of return"] and practically
sign up to an international program to
rehabilitate the remaining refugees where they
are and ending all of the propaganda against
Israel, which can be monitored over time.
Secondly, Arafat must end terror, which can
also be monitored. My position is to then
allow [the Palestinians] to have full
self-government, but without those sovereign
powers that could lead to the eradication
of Israel."
One of the issues Mr. Netanyahu says
he'd like to hear from Mr. Bush about in
future speeches is the limitations the
president would like to see on a Palestinian
state, "assuming [Palestinian leaders] meet
all [of Mr. Bush´s] tests."
They won't, of course, because the
intention of much of the Palestinian leadership
and its followers is not building shopping
malls and prosperity, separation of powers, a
constitution, freedom and peaceful co-existence
with Israel. Their theology, as expounded by
radical clerics, is that Israel has stolen land
that is theirs (all of it) and that their God
is ticked and wants them to use force to reclaim
the land, which includes the murder of babies
and grandmothers.
They see the West as decadent and Christians
and Jews as enemies of God. How do you make peace
when your enemy thinks like this? Palestinians
will need the religious equivalent of a new
revelation if they are to think differently.
That would then require the next generation of
children to be taught something other than
martyrdom and the current generation to stop
seeing Israel as a target for eradication.
My sense is that, for the moment, the
Bush administration has changed the subject in
the region from prodding Israel into additional
concessions to pressuring the Palestinians to
stop terrorism and institute democratic reforms.
While he waits for an acceptable response,
Mr. Bush may pursue other objectives, such as
taking out Saddam Hussein.
Even if that's not the case, Mr. Bush's
proposals condition any hope of a Palestinian
state on changed behavior, changed thinking and a
complete change in leadership. The Middle East is
known for miracles, but this one is beyond belief.
Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist
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6. QUOTES TO NOTE
"The free world. The people who are going
to be asked to put up the money."
President Bush, when asked at the G8 summit in
Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada, who would judge
whether the Palestinian Authority had reformed
or not.
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“I hope the P.A. will now understand that
it should support resistance and not chase
after the West.”
—HAMAS leader Ismail Abu Shanab (N.Y.T., June 25)
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7. HIGHLIGHT ARTICLES ON OUR SITE
ARAFAT HAS TO GO
``Asking Arafat to give up terrorism,'' explains
Bernard Lewis, the dean of Middle East scholars,
``would be like asking Tiger Woods to give up golf.''
http://christianactionforisrael.org/isreport/june02/hastogo.html
ARE WE AT WAR WITH ISLAM?
Are we at war with Islam? Most definitely not.
But, Islam is at war with us.
http://christianactionforisrael.org/islam/at_war.html
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For more great reading, visit our new EDITORIAL ARCHIVE
http://christianactionforisrael.org/previous.html
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A PALESTINIAN STATE ?
Is It Inevitable? - Or Is It A Disastrous Idea?
http://christianactionforisrael.org/palstate.html
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Become a WITNESS TO THE NATIONS and let them know what
great things our Lord is doing for Israel and what great
things He will continue to do for her, His firstborn.
http://christianactionforisrael.org/witness/home1.html
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