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OLIVE TREES PROVIDE COVER FOR PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS

Olive trees provide cover for Palestinian terrorists
By Julie Stahl
CNSNews.com
October 30, 2002

A Palestinian terrorist gunned down two 14-year-old girls and a woman overnight after infiltrating a West Bank settlement.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction claimed responsibility for the attack. It identified the gunman as Tariq Abu Safakeh, 22, of Tulkarem.

Linoy Saroussi and Hadas Turgeman were sitting on a bench chatting outside Linoy's house in the small community of Hermesh, located in between the Palestinian cities of Jenin and Tulkarem, when they were sprayed with automatic weapons fire.

The girls died a short time later, the army spokesman said. The assailant also came upon the open door of the Eshel home and fired into the house, killing Orna, 53 and injuring her husband.

A woman in the community fired a gun at the terrorist but missed when her gun jammed. Two other Israelis were wounded before soldiers were able to kill him.

Hermesh resident, Pessach Rubin, 46, lives just 30-40 meters from the area where the murders happened.

"I heard shouting in Arabic," Rubin said. It was less than two minutes between the time the shooting started and the soldiers responded and another few minutes before the terrorist was killed, he added.

Rubin explained that the terrorist was able to penetrate the community by crawling underneath the perimeter fence at a gate used by Palestinian olive harvesters.

OLIVE ANGLE

There are several places, he said, where a few olive trees belonging to the surrounding groves are within the community boundaries. Rather than cut them down, the settlement made a provision for the olive harvesters to pick olives within the community.

"Somebody guided this terrorist," Rubin said. There were two sets of footprints leading directly to the place of the penetration, which is only 10-20 meters from the houses, he said.

"We may be naive that we [permit] them to harvest the trees," he added.

During the last few weeks there have been a number of incidents where settlers attacked Palestinian olive pickers in groves elsewhere in the West Bank.

Leftwing Israeli activists and some foreigners have banded together to help the Palestinians harvest their crops. Four foreigners, including an American, were among eight harvesters attacked and lightly injured by settlers over the weekend.

But Rubin said that maybe the settlers were doing the right thing by trying to push the harvesters away from the boundaries of their communities so they could not use the harvest as an excuse to come close to the settlements to collect information that might lead to attacks.

Although there have been incidents of stoning or shooting along the road to Hermesh, this was the first attack on the community itself, and until now it had good relations with its Arab neighbors, Rubin said.

Rubin, an aeronautical engineer who moved to Hermesh three years ago, said the community is not a religious or ideological settlement. Established in the early 1980s, it will soon mark its 20th anniversary.

Rubin, who owns an apartment in the center of the seaside city of Netanyah, said the attack would not deter him. "As long as I can I will live here," he said.

Two years ago, the community was almost full to capacity with about 80 families living there. A year ago – after a year of violence and terrorism – it had dropped to 35 families but some of those have begun to return and now there are some 40 families in the community.

Two of those killed were from families who had just returned to Hermesh in the last few months, Rubin said.

"Yesterday, I spoke with the kids [of the community]," Rubin said. "[As Jews] we are born into this agony and all the time we are trying to push [away] the timeline of when we will first meet it."

It might be at school age, or in the army or doing reserve duty that somebody one cares for or knows personally will die from something unnatural, he said.

Psychologists on Wednesday went to the Omer High School, which Linoy and Hadas attended, to help students there deal with the sudden loss of their friends.

Another Hermesh resident Avi Hachmon was quoted in the Hebrew paper Yediot Aharonot describing Linoy and Hadas as "wonderful girls...who contributed to the settlement and to all of us."

"Our two flowers have been cut down. Linoy's parents had wanted to leave the settlement, but Linoy told her father, 'If you want to leave, then do – I'm staying," Hachmon said.

"I think now [the world] understand[s] our position in dealing with terror," Rubin said. "It's everybody's problem."

 

ISRAELI AUTHORS HELP PALESTINIANS HARVEST OLIVES

Leading Israeli authors help Palestinians harvest olives
By DPA (German press agency, Deutsche Presse-Agentur)
October 30, 2002

Reacting to attempts by Israeli settlers to harass Palestinian olive pickers, bestselling Israeli authors A.B. Yehoshua, Amos Oz, Meir Shalev and David Grossman toured villages in the West Bank Wednesday and helped residents harvest their olives, Israel Radio reported.

Extremist settlers in the northern West Bank have in recent weeks disrupted the Palestinian olive harvest, beating and sometimes firing at Palestinians and Israeli peace activists who come to help them.

Most Israeli politicians have condemned the harassment, but police and the Israeli army have been unable to help the Palestinians and only a handful of settlers have been arrested.

 

NEW HAMAS COMIC: “OUR EXPECTATIONS WILL NOT BE FULFILLED UNTIL WE FIGHT AND KILL JEWS”

Excerpts from the new Hamas comic; praising terrorism to children
October 23, 2002

Hamas has launched a new comic for children, al-Fateh (http://www.al-fateh.net). The second edition, (October 2002) as published on the Internet site of the Hamas movement, lashes out against the "Jewish enemy" and the other countries that assist it against the Palestinians.

The newspaper also attacks those assisting the "Jewish enemy" from within the Palestinian population, portraying them as traitors who sell themselves to the Jews. The newspaper connects the Jihad and the religion of Islam. It calls upon children to educate themselves according to Islam, in order for them to become Jihad fighters and assist the Palestinians. Below the headline, "Why is Darer Furious?" – Darer is the name of one of the children – is a dialogue between two Palestinian children. The dialogue indicates that children are integral participants in the Palestinian Intifada. The children complain of the silence of the Arab world regarding the current events in the region and they mention their own never tiring activity on behalf of the Intifada: "We, the children of Palestine, take part in the national struggle and encourage our heroes... We observe the actions of the settlers and of the soldiers of the occupation, and report it to our heroes..."

One of the children seeks justification for his claims from within Islamic tradition. "Our expectations will not be fulfilled until we fight and kill the Jews, especially as we are standing east of the river [of Jordan] with the Jews still standing west of the river of Jordan; and until the rock and the tree says, 'woe Muslim, woe subjects of Allah, here is a Jew [hiding] behind me. Come and kill him...' "

Also mentioned is the story of the children who were allowed to take part in the battle of Dar by the prophet Muhammad. It was at Dar, when Muhammad defeated the heretics and the Kuriyesh tribe on his way from Meca to Medina in 624CE. During the battle the children stabbed Abu-Jahal to death. As part of its non-compromising and militant nature, the comic quotes the Syrian poet, Omer Bhaa-Dein, resident in the Persian Gulf. Bhaa-Dein claims that his heart goes out to the Palestinian people, but that he is unable to help them. In addition he wishes that Palestinian children grow to become soldiers of Muhammad. This continues a theme that the comic started in its first edition, when it idolized the legacy of Abde-Alqadar Alhusseini, who was the head of the Nationalist-Palestinian movement in the years before the creation of the Jewish State in 1948. In addition the newspaper dedicates a special corner to the martyr Ismayal el-Muassabi, who blew himself up in 2001 in a car bomb in the northern Gaza strip.

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“A GREAT DEAL OF ANTI-SEMITISM”

Arab satellite station to air controversial series despite fierce critcism from Israel over Anti-Semitism
Al Bawaba (Television and Entertainment section)
October 28, 2002

The Emirates satellite channel announced yesterday that it has gotten the exclusive rights to air the controversial Egyptian TV series, "Fares Bila Jawad" (Knight Without a Horse), in the upcoming fasting month of Ramadan, despite fierce Israeli opposition to the story tackled in the series, according to the UAE daily, Al Bayan.

Members of the Media and Culture Committee at the Egyptian Parliament declined on Thursday an Israeli demand to cancel the airing of actor Mohammed Subhi's series, saying that no party has the right to ask for such action.

The Egyptian MPs criticized what it referered to as Israel's 'silly objection' and called upon the Emirates Television to air the series as planned. "We want to show what the Israeli aggression toward our brothers in Palestine is all about," said the MP.

Last week, Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister, Michael Melchior, harshly criticized the Egyptian government for giving the green light to air the series, which is based on the book "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", which according to Israelis, was written by a Russian intelligence officer working for the Russian Tzar about 100 years ago. Melchior said that all Israelis view this book as one of the most anti-Semitic in the world, as Israelis beleive that it is a forged document allegedly claiming that the Jews plan to control the whole world.

The deputy expressed his anger toward the series, which details the Israeli conspiracy to take over Palestine, saying that, "unfortunately, the Arab media does not only address one single incident within the book, but rather a great deal of anti-Semitism."

The series, written by Mohammed Subhi and Mohammed Baghdadi, and directed by Ahmed Badriddin, also stars, Simon, Hanaa al Shorbagi, Gamil Rateb, Ashraf Abdel Ghafour, Khalil Murcy and Randa from Egypt, as well as others from Syria and Lebanon.

 

“ZIONISM EXISTS AND IT HAS CONTROLLED THE WORLD SINCE THE DAWN OF HISTORY”

Anti-Semitic 'Elders of Zion' gets new life on Egypt TV
By Daniel J. Wakin
New York Times
October 26, 2002

The images flash quickly across the television screen. They show a bloody face, Victorian men and women in a drawing room, soldiers wielding rifle butts. And a man in black hat with side curls and long beard.

An Egyptian satellite television channel has begun teasers for its blockbuster Ramadan series that its producers acknowledge incorporates ideas from the infamous czarist forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." That document, a pillar of anti-Semitic hatred for about a century, appears to be gaining a new foothold in parts of the Arab world, some scholars and observers say.

The series, "Horse Without a Horseman," traces the history of the Middle East from 1855 to 1917 through the eyes of an Egyptian who fought British occupiers and the Zionist movement.

It is divided into 41 episodes and will be shown nightly through the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which begins in about two weeks and guarantees maximum viewership because many Muslims congregate at home after breaking the daily fast.

With Egyptian state television and other Arab channels also broadcasting the series, the potential audience numbers in the tens of millions.

A historical epic with a pulpy look, judging from the commercials, the series is the first production of one-year-old Dream TV.

The channel is one of the country's first two private stations, and has a somewhat freewheeling format compared with state television. It is controlled by Ahmed Bahgat, a prominent Egyptian businessman.

The "Protocols," which purports to depict Jewish leaders plotting world dominion, has long been recognized as a fabrication by the czarist secret police. It was used in early 20th-century Russia and in Nazi Germany as a pretext for persecution of Jews. Still, the show's backers say they are keeping an open mind about its authenticity. They say that in any event, reality seems to bear them out, in that Israel controls part of the Middle East.

"In a way, don't they dominate?" said Hala Sarhan, Dream TV's vice president and feisty personality on the air. "Of course, what we read from the 'Protocols,' it says it's a kind of conspiracy. They want to control; they want to dominate. I represent everybody in the street. We will see whether this happened throughout history or not."

Ms. Sarhan is quick to point out that the material about the "Protocols" is only one aspect of a sweeping television panorama. But others who have seen the entire program say that a Zionist conspiracy to control Arab lands is one of the themes running through the series.

At one point, men in the Arab anti-British resistance movement find the "Protocols" and have it translated, said a co-writer, Muhammad Baghdadi. "They discovered that many things in this document were happening in reality," Mr. Baghdadi said, "whether they were written by the Jews or not."

The underlying focus of the drama "is how the Zionist entity was planted in Palestine and in the Arab world," he said. Mr. Baghdadi said the series respected Judaism as a religion. "We only criticize the Zionist movement," he said.

Nevertheless, the program has troubled the United States as well as Israel. American Embassy officials say they raised their concerns with the Egyptian government but received a noncommittal response.

The series is closely associated with Muhammad Sobhi, a popular Egyptian screen and stage actor who is not shy about courting controversy and whose previous works have sometimes poked fun at Arabs. He co-wrote the script and plays the main character.

Mr. Sobhi declined to be interviewed, but earlier this year he told Al Jazeera television that whether or not the "Protocols" was authentic, "Zionism exists and it has controlled the world since the dawn of history."

He said that many of the book's predictions had been borne out and that it would be "stupid" not to consider the possibility that the book was true, even if the chance was "one in a million."

Commentators, like David I. Kertzer, a professor of anthropology at Brown University, have noted an increase in anti-Semitic imagery more typical of Western societies cropping up in the Arab world since the Sept. 11 attacks, along with the canard that Jews were warned of the attacks.

Michael A. Sells, a professor of comparative religion at Haverford College, said, "With each new wave of war and anger, the European-imported brand digs itself deeper into society."

[The rest of The New York Times article can be found here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/26/international/middleeast/26CAIR.html?ei=1&en=bdfa4e577dc550b6&ex=1036633197&pagewanted=print&position=top ]

 

“THE TIP OF A HUGE ICEBERG OF ANTI-SEMITISM IN THE MEDIA”

Israel protests airing of Anti-Semitic Egyptian television series
By Julie Stahl
CNSNews.com
October 17, 2002

A special Egyptian television series represents only the "tip of the anti-Semitic media iceberg" and violates the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, Israeli officials are saying.

The series "Fares Bila Jawad" ("Knight Without a Horse") is based on a fabricated book ("The Protocols of the Elders of Zion") about an alleged Jewish plot to take over the world.

It is due to air on the Dream Channel, a private satellite television station owned by an Egyptian businessman, during the upcoming Muslim holy month of Ramadan in November.

Egyptian authorities claim they cannot prevent the 30-part "comedy" series from being broadcast because it is a matter of freedom of expression.

But Israeli officials charge that even the privately-owned and produced media is controlled by the government authorities.

The Ministry of Information, headed by Minister Safwat a-Sharif, is responsible for deciding if the program will be aired, an Israeli diplomat said. A-Sharif is close to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Before any production can begin the script must be approved by a censor from the Ministry of Information and after the program is produced it must be approved by another censor from the Ministry of Culture, said the diplomat who asked not to be named.

The program was produced in the equivalent of Egypt's Hollywood, a city called October 6 – named for the day the Yom Kippur War with Israel began in 1973, which the Egyptians consider to be a victory for them. Films and programs produced in the city are controlled by the government, the diplomat added.

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior earlier expressed his regrets over the Egyptian decision to allow the program to be screened.

"Unfortunately, we are not speaking about a single event but rather the tip of a huge iceberg of anti-Semitism in the media," Melchior said in a statement.

"This is not the way to educate the next generation," he said.

Egyptian newspapers, which are controlled by the government, regularly print anti-Semitic and anti-Israel cartoons and editorials.

Melchior said he hoped that the Egyptian authorities would not allow the series to be screened since in his opinion it would severely harm cooperation in the Middle East.

The Israeli diplomat also noted that the production is in contravention of the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace accord, which calls on both sides to prevent incitement against each other. Egypt was the first Arab nation to sign a full peace treaty with Israel.

Anti-Defamation League spokeswoman in Jerusalem Laura Kam-Issacharoff said that nothing is produced in Egypt without the approval of government censors.

"For anybody to imply that this is freedom [of expression] is totally disingenuous," Kam-Issacharoff said.

"The government may say it is freedom of artistic expression, but the government approved the script [and production] every step of the way," she added.

According to a translation of an article about the upcoming program in an Egyptian weekly ("Mussawar"), the series examines the Zionist ideas starting in the 1900s and the relationship Arabs had to what it called the "new" idea of Zionism and its connection to British, French and Turkish imperialism in the region.

"Zion" is a biblical term relating to the Land of Israel, which was later applied to the millenniums-old desire of the Jewish people to return to the holy land.

The program also examines the "centrality of Jerusalem in the eyes of the Arabs," the weekly said.

Main actor and co-writer of the series Mohammed Subhi Saher is widely known for his programs with anti-Israel themes, the paper said.

Subhi was quoted as saying that he had read "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" from an early age and was amazed at the broad conspiracy of evil revealed in the protocols. The book is readily available in Egyptian bookstores.

"Mussawar" refers to an earlier program in which Subhi participated. In it, Egyptian citizens lose their way while riding on a bus to Sharm e-Sheikh – the site of many Israeli-Arab peace negotiations. A traitor on the bus – who favored normalization of relations with Israel – was responsible for the travelers losing their way.

The travelers had to decide if they take refuge from the extreme heat and cold of the desert in the bus on the border of Israel, thereby subjecting themselves to humiliation and shame; or if they would die rather than have a relationship with Israel. They chose the latter course, to preserve Egyptian honor.

Qatari newspapers were quoted as describing the current series as patriotic and not anti-Semitic or hostile. But, they said, it revealed the Jewish conspiracy to steal Palestine.

Israel lodged a complaint with the United Nations last year over a program aired on Abu Dhabi television during Ramadan. Dubbed a political satire, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was portrayed in that series offering a toast of the blood of Arab children together with a grotesque-looking Orthodox Jew.

In another scene, Sharon was said to be preparing to bottle a new cold drink made from the blood of Arab children.

According the Israeli diplomat, Abu Dhabi has expressed interest in broadcasting this year's program. The producers are also trying to persuade the Egyptian government to air the series on state television.

 

SAUDIS AIRING ANTI-SEMITIC TV SERIES BASED ON PROTOCOLS

Saudis airing anti-Semitic TV series for Ramadan based on Protocols of the Elders of Zion
By Matthew Kalman
The National Post (Canada)
December 7, 2001

A major Arabic TV channel has produced a 30-part dramatization of the notorious anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion, to be broadcast throughout the Arab world as a special program for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Horseman Without a Horse is a multi-million-dollar production starring leading Egyptian actor Muhammad Subhi in 14 different roles with a large international cast from Egypt, Syria and France. The program was made by Arab Radio and Television (ART) a popular satellite channel based in Jedda, Saudi Arabia.

Roz Al-Youssuf, an Egyptian weekly, said in an admiring preview that the series successfully debunks Jewish claims that the Protocols – the supposed minutes of the Jewish clique that controls the world – were a forgery invented by anti-Semitic propagandists in Tsarist Russia.

"For the first time, the series' writer courageously tackles the 24 Protocols of the Elders of Zion, revealing them and clarifying that they are the central line that still, to this very day, dominates Israel's policy, political aspirations and racism," the paper reported.

The Protocols, which first surfaced in Russia at the end of the 19th century, have fed anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that suggest Jews seek to exercise world domination through control of the media, banking system and political movements.

They were popular in Nazi Germany and are required reading among neo-Nazi groups to this day. The Protocols have sold thousands of copies in several Arabic editions and are particularly popular in Egypt and Syria.

News of the ART production comes as Dubai TV continues its nightly broadcast of Terrorman – a Ramadan satire depicting Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister, drinking the blood of Arab children.

Since Sept. 11, one often-repeated fantasy that has been pushed is that the Israeli Mossad was behind the World Trade Center attack – a gruesome twist on the Jewish conspiracy theory that finds its most potent statement in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

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LEGAL ASPECTS OF THE PALESTINIAN REFUGEE QUESTION

Legal aspects of the Palestinian refugee question
By Ruth Lapidoth

Until September 2000, hopes were high that soon an agreement on the final status of the West Bank and Gaza would pave the way for peaceful coexistence between Israel and the Palestinians. These hopes have unfortunately been shattered, as Palestinians violently attacked Israelis in both the administered territories and in Israel proper, provoking violent reactions by Israel. One could wonder what purpose there is in analyzing legal issues related to a peaceful settlement when violence is the order of the day. If we nevertheless examine some of the legal issues, it is because we have not yet lost hope that sooner or later the guns will be silenced and the parties will return to the negotiating table.

The underlying conflict is mainly of a political nature. However, for several reasons it should also be analyzed from a legal perspective. First, some of the questions involved are overwhelmingly of a legal nature. Second, the parties base their claims on legal arguments. And, third, if and when a compromise is reached, it will be drafted in legal terms and be included in a legal text. This is also true of the question of Palestinian refugees.

THE BEGINNING OF THE REFUGEE PROBLEM

The plight of the refugees is a serious human problem. During the 1947-48 period, many Arabs "left, ran away, or were expelled."1 At the same time, Jews escaped from Arab countries. While the Jews were integrated into the countries to which they fled, the Arabs were on purpose denied integration in most Arab countries (except Jordan) in order to prevent any possible accommodation with Israel. The refugees have been receiving support and assistance from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), established by the UN General Assembly in 1949.2

According to various estimates, the number of refugees in 1949 was between 538,000 (Israeli sources), 720,000 (UN estimates), and 850,000 (Palestinian sources). By 2001, the number of refugees registered with and supported by UNRWA had grown to about 3.5 million, since also children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are registered. Another reason for this increase is the fact that UNRWA does not systematically delete all deceased persons from its registry. According to UNRWA, in 2000 there were about 550,000 refugees in the West Bank, some 800,000 in the Gaza Strip, 1,500,000 in Jordan, 350,000 in Lebanon, and 350,000 as well in Syria. Only part of them have lived in refugee camps. The situation of the refugees has been particularly severe in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon.3

The plight of the refugees raises at least three legal questions:

Who should be considered to be a refugee?
Do the Palestinian refugees have a right to return to Israel?
Do they have a right to compensation?

WHO IS A REFUGEE?

The question arises whether all those registered with UNRWA should be considered as refugees. The 1951–1967 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees4 has adopted the following definition:

"...[A]ny person who: (2) owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it... "

There is no mention in this definition of descendents. Moreover, the convention ceases to apply to a person who, inter alia, "has acquired a new nationality, and enjoys the protection of the country of his new nationality."5

Under this definition, the number of Palestinians qualifying for refugee status would be well below half a million. However, the Arab states managed to exclude the Palestinians from that definition, by introducing the following provision into the 1951–1967 Refugees Convention:

"This Convention shall not apply to persons who are at present receiving from organs or agencies of the United Nations other than the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees protection and assistance..."6

In no official document have the Palestinian refugees been defined, and UNRWA has been adopting varying definitions, such as:

"A Palestinian refugee is a person whose normal residence was Palestine for a minimum of two years preceding the conflict in 1948, and who, as a result of this conflict, lost both his home and his means of livelihood and took refuge in one of the countries where UNRWA provides relief. Refugees within this definition and the direct descendants of such refugees are eligible for Agency assistance if they are: registered with UNRWA; living in the area of UNRWA operations; and in need."7

This is a very broad definition under which the number of refugees constantly increases. It may be appropriate for UNRWA purposes in order to decide who qualifies for assistance, but it is hardly suitable for other purposes. It follows that the parties should agree on a more suitable definition.

DO REFUGEES HAVE A RIGHT TO RETURN TO ISRAEL?

Another legal controversy concerns the question whether the refugees, whatever their definition, have a right to return to Israel. We will discuss this subject from three points of view: general international law, the most relevant UN resolutions, and various agreements between Israel and its neighbors.

Several international human rights treaties deal with freedom of movement, including the right of return.8 The most universal provision is included in the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which says: "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country."9

The question arises, who has the right of return, or: what kind of relationship must exist between the state and the person who wishes to return? A comparison of the various texts and a look at the discussions which took place before the adoption of these texts lead to the conclusion that the right of return is probably reserved only for nationals of the state.10

Even the right of nationals is not an absolute one, but it may be limited on condition that the reasons for the denial or limitation are not arbitrary.

Moreover, according to Stig Jagerskiold, the right of return or the right to enter one's country in the 1966 International Covenant

"is intended to apply to individuals asserting an individual right. There was no intention here to address the claims of masses of people who have been displaced as a by-product of war or by political transfers of territory or population, such as the relocation of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe during and after the Second World War, the flight of the Palestinians from what became Israel, or the movement of Jews from the Arab countries."11

In the context of general international law one also has to observe that humanitarian law conventions (such as the 1949 Geneva Conventions for the Protection of Victims of War) do not recognize a right of return.

THE IMPACT OF UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTION 194

The first major UN resolution that refers to the Palestinian refugees is Resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, adopted by the General Assembly.12 This resolution established a Conciliation Commission for Palestine and instructed it to "take steps to assist the Governments and authorities concerned to achieve a final settlement of all questions outstanding between them." Paragraph 11 deals with the refugees:

"The General Assembly...resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible..."

Though the Arab states originally rejected the resolution, they later relied on it heavily and have considered it as recognition of a wholesale right of repatriation.

This interpretation, however, does not seem warranted: the paragraph does not recognize any "right," but recommends that the refugees "should" be "permitted" to return. Moreover, that permission is subject to two conditions – that the refugee wishes to return, and that he wishes to live at peace with his neighbors. The violence that erupted in September 2000 forecloses any hope for a peaceful co-existence between Israelis and masses of returning refugees. Moreover, the Palestinians have linked the request for return to a claim for self-determination. If returning refugees had a right to external self-determination, this would mean the end of the very existence of the State of Israel. Under the 1948 resolution, the return should take place only "at the earliest practicable date." The use of the term "should" with regard to the permission to return underlines that this is only a recommendation – it is hortatory.13 One should also remember that under the UN Charter the General Assembly is not authorized to adopt binding resolutions, except in budgetary matters and with regard to its own internal rules and regulations.

Finally, the reference to principles of international law or equity refers only to compensation for property and does not seem to refer to permission to return.

It should also be borne in mind that the provision concerning the refugees is but one element of the resolution that foresaw "a final settlement of all questions outstanding between" the parties, whereas the Arab states have always insisted on its implementation (in accordance with the interpretation favorable to them) independently of all other matters.

In this context one should bear in mind that the General Assembly has also recommended the "reintegration of the refugees into the economic life of the Near East, either by repatriation or resettlement" (emphasis added, R.L.).14

AFTER 1967

As a result of the Six-Day War in 1967, there were about 200,000 Palestinian displaced persons (i.e., persons who had to leave their home and move to another place in the same state). These were dealt with by Security Council Resolution 237 of 4 June 1967,15 which called upon the government of Israel "to facilitate the return of those inhabitants [of the areas where military operations have taken place] who have fled the areas since the outbreak of hostilities." The resolution does not speak of a "right" of return and, like most Security Council resolutions, it is in the nature of a recommendation. Nevertheless, Israel has agreed to their return in various agreements, to be studied later. Some 30 percent of the displaced persons of 1967 had already been counted as refugees of 1948.16

Of great importance in the Arab-Israel peace process is Security Council Resolution 242 of 22 November 1967.17 In its second paragraph, the Council "Affirms further the necessity...(b) for achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem." The Council did not propose a specific solution, nor did it limit the provision to Arab refugees, probably because the right to compensation of Jewish refugees from Arab lands also deserves a "just settlement." There is no basis for the Arab claim that Resolution 242 incorporates the solution recommended by General Assembly Resolution 194 of 1948 analyzed above.

THE REFUGEE QUESTION IN ARAB-ISRAELI AGREEMENTS

Turning now to agreements between Israel and its neighbors, we find that already in the Framework for Peace in the Middle East agreed at Camp David in 1978 by Egypt and Israel,18 the refugee problem was tackled: It was agreed that a "continuing committee" including representatives of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians should "decide by agreement on the modalities of admission of persons displaced from the West Bank and Gaza in 1967" (Article A, 3). Similarly, it was agreed that "Egypt and Israel will work with each other and with other interested parties to establish agreed procedures for a prompt, just and permanent implementation of the resolution of the refugee problem" (Article A, 4).

In the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements of 1993 between Israel and the Palestinians,19 again it was agreed that the modalities of admission of persons displaced in 1967 should be decided by agreement in a "continuing committee" (Article XII). The issue of refugees should be negotiated in the framework of the permanent status negotiations (Article V, 3). The 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip20 adopted similar provisions (Articles XXXVII, 2 and XXXI, 5).

Somewhat more detailed is the relevant provision (Article 8) in the Treaty of Peace between Israel and Jordan of 1994.21 As to the displaced persons, they are the object of a text similar to the above ones. As to the refugees, the peace treaty mentions the need to solve their problem both in the framework of the Multilateral Working Group on Refugees established after the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference, and in conjunction with the permanent status negotiations. The treaty also mentions "United Nations programs and other agreed international economic programs concerning refugees and displaced persons, including assistance to their settlement."22

None of the agreements between Israel and Egypt, the Palestinians, and Jordan, respectively, has granted the refugees a right of return into Israel.

This short survey has shown that neither under the general international conventions, nor under the major UN resolutions, nor under the relevant agreements between the parties, do the Palestinian refugees have a right to return to Israel. In 2000 there were about 3.8 million Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA. If Israel were to allow all of them to return to its territory, this would be an act of suicide on its part, and no state can be expected to destroy itself. On the other hand, at least some of the refugees would object to and try to delegitimize any agreement that did not grant a wholesale right of return.23 Moreover, they threaten those who would like to settle for a different solution. It seems to be a vicious circle.

The solution may include a right to return to the new Palestinian homeland, settlement and integration in various other states (Arab and non-Arab), and possible return to Israel if compelling humanitarian reasons are involved, such as family unification.24

A RIGHT TO COMPENSATION?

The third legal problem pertaining to refugees is the question of whether they have a right to compensation for their lost property, and to a subsidy for their rehabilitation, i.e., integration or resettlement or return, respectively.25 General international law recognizes the obligation to pay compensation in case of confiscation of property belonging to foreigners. There is, however, disagreement about the amount that should be paid. In this case, two experts have suggested a standard of "adequate compensation," taking into account the value of the property and the specific needs of the respective refugee.26 If a definitive solution to the problem is sought, one should consider paying – either by law or ex gratia – not only compensation for lost property but also a reasonable subsidy for rehabilitation, and perhaps also compensation to the host country, where the refugee has lived and where he should settle. Since Israel had not started the 1947-48 war but was attacked by the Arabs, it is not responsible for the creation of the refugee problem. Hence it is not under an obligation to recruit the necessary sums. Preferably an international fund should be established for that purpose, to which other countries as well as Israel would contribute. The difficulty is the enormous sums which would be needed.27

It is advisable to resort to a lump sum arrangement which would settle all financial claims between the parties and preclude any further claims. A way would have to be found in order that the arrangement would bind not only Israel and the Palestinian Authority, but also all the refugees.

To conclude our discussion of the refugee problem, it is recommended that the parties agree on a reasonable definition of the refugees and not automatically adopt the one used by UNRWA. The refugees do not have a right of return to Israel, neither under general nor special international law; the adequate solution seems to be return to the Palestinian homeland, resettlement and absorption in other countries (preferably according to the wishes of each refugee), and some may be allowed to return to Israel. A prompt and adequate solution will also involve the payment of compensation for lost property and a subsidy for rehabilitation.

* * *

NOTES

1. Eyal Benvenisti and Eyal Zamir, "Private Claims to Property Rights in the Future Israeli-Palestinian Settlement," American Journal of International Law 89 (1995):297.

2. UN General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV) of 8 December 1949, adopted at the 273rd plenary meeting.

3. Yitzhak Ravid, The Palestinian Refugees (Ramat Gan, 2001), pp. 1-12 (Hebrew).

4. UN Treaty Series, vol. 189, no. 2545 (1954), pp. 152-156, article 1A (2).

5. Ibid., Article 1 C (3).

6. Ibid., Article 1 D.

7. Don Peretz, Palestinians, Refugees, and the Middle East Peace Process (Washington, D.C., 1993), pp. 11-12.

8. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 13 (2); the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 12 (4); the 1963 Protocol IV to the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 3 (2); the 1969 American Convention of Human Rights, Article 22 (5); the 1981 Banjul Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, Article 12 (2) – see Basic Documents on Human Rights, Sir Ian Brownlie, ed., 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1992), pp. 21, 125, 347, 495, 551; for additional examples, see Paul Sieghart, The International Law of Human Rights (Oxford, 1985), pp. 174-178.

9. 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 12 (4).

10. Paul Sieghart, The International Law of Human Rights, p. 179; Geoffrey R. Watson, The Oslo Accords: International Law and the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Agreements (Oxford, 2000), p. 283; Ruth Lapidoth, "The Right of Return in International Law, with Special Reference to the Palestinian Refugees," Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 16 (1986), pp. 107-108.

Some experts are of the opinion that the right of return applies also to "permanent legal residents" – see, e.g., the discussion that took place in the sub-commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, as reported in the Report by Chairman-Rapporteur Mr. Asbjorn Eide, UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1991/45, of 28 August 1991, p. 5. The Human Rights Committee established under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights has adopted an interpretation according to which the right of return belongs also to a person who has "close and enduring connections" to a certain country – UN Doc. CCPR/C/21/Rev. 1/Add. 9, 2 November 1999, pp. 5-6.

11. Stig Jagerskiold, "The Freedom of Movement," The International Bill of Rights, Louis Henkin, ed. (New York, 1981), p. 180. For a different opinion, see Geoffrey Watson, Oslo Accords, p. 283.

12. GAOR, 3rd session, part I, 1948, Resolutions, pp. 21-24.

13. Geoffrey Watson, Oslo Accords, p. 281.

14. UN General Assembly Resolution 393 (V), 2 December 1950, adopted at the 315th plenary meeting. See also the second paragraph of UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (III), 11 December 1948, and Resolution 513 (VI), 26 January 1952, adopted at the 365th plenary meeting.

15. SCOR, 22nd year, Resolutions and Decisions, 1967, p. 5.

16. Salim Tamari, "The Future of Palestinian Refugees in the Peace Negotiations," Palestine-Israel Journal 2 (1995):12.

17. SCOR, 22nd year, Resolutions and Decisions, pp. 8-9. For its legislative history, see, e.g., Arthur Lall, The U.N. and the Middle East Crisis 1967 (New York, 1968). For an analysis, see, e.g., Adnan Abu Odeh, Nabil Elaraby, Meir Rosenne, Dennis Ross, Eugene Rostow, Vernon Turner, articles in UN Security Council Resolution 242: The Building Block of Peacemaking (Washington, D.C., 1993); Ruth Lapidoth, "Security Council Resolution 242 at Twenty Five," Israel Law Review 26 (1992):295-318.

18. UN Treaty Series, vol. 1138 (1987), no. 17853, pp. 39-45.

19. International Legal Materials 32 (1993), pp. 1525-1544. On this declaration, see, e.g., Joel Singer, "The Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements," Justice (Tel Aviv), no. 1 (1994):4-21; Eyal Benvenisti, "The Israel-Palestinian Declaration of Principles: A Framework for Future Settlement," European Journal of International Law 4 (1993):542-554; Antonio Cassese, "The Israel-PLO Agreement and Self-Determination," ibid., pp. 564-571; Raja Shihadeh, "Can the Declaration of Principles Bring About a 'Just and Lasting Peace'?" ibid., pp. 555-563; Karin Calvo-Goller, "Le regime d'autonomie prevu par la declaration de principes du 13 Septembre 1993," Annuaire Francais de Droit International 39 (1993):435; K.W. Meighan, "The Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles: Prelude to a Peace?" Virginia Journal of International Law 34 (1994):435-468.

20. Articles 1, 3, 4, 7, 13 and Annex I of the Declaration of Principles. Excerpts of the 1995 agreement were published in International Legal Materials 36 (1997), p. 551. For the full text, see Kitvei Amana (Israel's publication of treaties), vol. 33, no. 1071, pp. 1-400. For commentaries, see Joel Singer, "The West Bank and Gaza Strip: Phase Two," Justice, no. 7 (1995):1-12; Rotem M. Giladi, "The Practice and Case Law of Israel in Matters Related to International Law," Israel Law Review 29 (1995):506-534; Raja Shihadeh, From Occupation to Interim Accords: Israel and the Palestinian Territories (London, 1997), pp. 31-72; Geoffrey Watson, Oslo Accords.

21. International Legal Materials 34 (1995), pp. 43-66.

22. Article 8, para. 2 (c), pp. 49-50.

23. Salim Tamari, "The Future of Palestinian Refugees," pp. 11-12.

24. For possible solutions, see Geoffrey Watson, Oslo Accords, pp. 286-290; Donna E. Arzt, Refugees Into Citizens: Palestinians and the End of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (New York, 1997); Joseph Alpher and Khalil Shikaki, The Palestinian Refugee Problem and the Right of Return, Harvard University, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs; Working Paper no. 98-7 (Cambridge, MA, 1998).

25. Geoffrey Watson, Oslo Accords, pp. 286-290; Eyal Benvenisti and Eyal Zamir, "Private Claims."

26. Ibid., pp. 331 and 338. However, Resolution 194 (III) spoke only of compensation for property.

27. Yitzhak Ravid, The Palestinian Refugees, pp. 36-40.

FULL ARTICLES

“YOU’RE PART OF THE JEWISH LOBBY, AREN’T YOU?”

America in the dock
By David Frum
The Daily Telegraph
October 21, 2002

Myth I: America is totally in hock to the Jewish lobby

Three weeks ago, I was standing in Piccadilly, watching the big anti-war march pass by. Two girls in Islamic headdress glanced my way, nudged each other, and then approached me.

"Have we seen you on television?" one of them asked.

I had appeared on a British television programme about Iraq shortly before, so I answered that yes, very possibly they had.

"We knew it!" they exclaimed. Then they hissed: "You're part of the Jewish lobby, aren't you?"

"Oh yes," I said, with maybe more bitterness than I should have. "I'm the man responsible for putting up your interest rates."

I wish I could say that those two girls had learnt their politics from some ranting mullah in a north London mosque. In fact, the certainty that American policy is controlled by what one British magazine called a "kosher conspiracy" was the single most widely held opinion I heard in the course of an eight-day visit to Britain.

When The Daily Telegraph invited me to report on British attitudes about America, I had braced myself for the worst. Only a week after September 11, the Guardian had published a column with the charming headline, "A Bully With a Bloody Nose is Still a Bully", and, in the year since then, my "ugly file", as I called my collection of anti-American clippings from the British press, had grown fatter and fatter.

So it was a very pleasant surprise to spend a week here in person and discover just how faint and marginal true anti-Americanism is. It exists, of course, but even when it does, it often seems motivated by envy rather than hatred. "You have to understand," one Left-wing journalist told me over a boozy lunch, "that everybody in our business here wonders whether he didn't make the mistake of a lifetime by not moving to the United States when he was 22."

What I encountered more often than animosity was a strange unawareness of the realities of American society and politics. So I thought it might be useful to address directly the perceptions – and misperceptions - about America that I encountered most often. Think of it as one Anglophile's reply to Four Weddings and a Funeral: Four Myths – and One Truth.

Like many myths, the myth of the Jewish lobby is founded on observed facts. Once upon a time, Jewish votes – though few in number – did play a strategic part in national politics. Back in 1948, New York was the largest state in the country. Harry Truman may have hoped that recognition of Israel would help him snatch New York's electoral votes from his Republican opponent, New York Governor Thomas Dewey.

Today, Jewish votes matter much less, not only because the Jewish population is relatively smaller (5.2 million in a country of almost 300 million), but because only one of the states with a large Jewish population – Florida – is still a key marginal state in a presidential election.

It is true that American Jews are important sources of political funds. Some experts estimate that up to one third of the money given to Democratic candidates comes from Jewish donors.

But most of this money seems to come from people motivated by their liberalism rather than their ancestral Judaism: Hollywood gives generously to pro-abortion and pro-environmental Democrats, but in this year's United Jewish Appeal campaign, Greater Los Angeles lagged well behind Toronto, a city with half LA's population and much less than half its wealth.

Here is where the myth is false. The force that sways American politicians' positions on Israel is not their hope for Jewish money or votes: it is ideology, conservative or liberal.

Of all American presidents, Bill Clinton was far and away the most personally friendly to America's Jews. No president had ever before named so many people of Jewish background or faith to so many important positions: Madeleine Albright, Sandy Berger, William Cohen, Alan Greenspan, Bernie Nussbaum, Robert Reich, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers and on and on. Even Clinton's most famous mistress was Jewish.

And America's Jewish community loved Clinton right back. He raised tens of millions in soft money from Jews in Hollywood and New York, culminating in an $8 million gift from entertainment mogul Chaim Saban to build a new HQ for the Democratic Party and more than $500,000 from Denise Rich for his own library.

And which American president was it who pushed Israel hardest and furthest to evacuate from the West Bank and Gaza for a Palestinian state? Who received Yasser Arafat more often than he received any other world leader, including even the Prime Minister of Britain and the President of Russia? Who responded to the September 2000 al-Aqsa intifada by pressing Israel for even more radical unilateral concessions? That same Bill Clinton.

Conversely: of all American presidents since the Second World War, only one was infected with antisemitism – Richard Nixon. "The Jews are irreligious, atheistic, immoral bunch of bastards," Nixon observed in a conversation he recorded in 1972.

Nixon kept lists of Jews in the media and in his own administration, and never quite forgave even his closest adviser, Henry Kissinger, for his religion. Yet it was Nixon who rearmed Israel in its darkest hour, October 1973, turning catastrophic defeat in the early hours of the Yom Kippur war into triumph by the end.

If Jewish influence explains America's Middle East policy, how do we account for Clinton's conduct and Nixon's? For that matter, how do we account for George W Bush's? Few presidential candidates of modern times received less support from Jews than did Bush in November 2000 – about 19 per cent.

The answer to the conundrum can be found in the opinion polls. In America, Israel is not an issue that divides Jews and non-Jews. It divides liberals and conservatives. A Gallup poll taken in April found that Republicans secular as well as religious support Israel over the Palestinians by a margin of 67 per cent to eight per cent, while Democrats do so by a margin of 45 to 21. (The most liberal Democrats are even more evenly divided: 41 for Israel against 40 for the Palestinians.)

When the European political Left looks at the Middle East, it sees a page out of a shameful past: arrogant white people conquering and colonialising oppressed non-whites. They think the Israeli cause is wrong, but, right or wrong, they believe it is hopeless – after all, did their own countries not fight very similar wars themselves during the retreat from empire? And did they not lose?

Nor is the political Left immune to older prejudices: a Labour minister complained to me about the Israelis "rampaging through the Holy Land at Easter" – an unconscious hint that, while dechristianised Britain may have lost its faith that Christ ever lived, it has not quite forgotten who killed Him.

But post-colonial guilt has a weaker purchase on the American conscience. When Americans look at the Middle East, they see a democratic society inspired by the Bible and committed to human freedom, surrounded by murderous and tyrannical enemies.

And when they look at the Palestinians, what do they see? Not the victims that Europeans perceive – but the people who danced with glee as New York and Washington burned. Americans see the inventors of the airplane hijacking and the exponents of suicide-murder. In short, they see people who inspired and sympathise with America's newest and deadliest enemies.

There's a joke from the 1960s about the social worker who witnesses a brutal mugging. The victim crumples to the ground, the mugger administers a final kick and then runs away with the victim's wallet. The social worker rushes over, checks the victim's pulse, and murmurs: "That poor man! Imagine how much he must have suffered to want to beat you like that!"

Americans had little sympathy with that social worker; they have less sympathy for her foreign policy equivalents today. And it is for that reason, and not because of some kosher conspiracy, that America stands by Israel and confronts Iraq.

 

“AND ON THAT MORNING, THE OLD ORDER BECAME UNSUSTAINABLE”

America in the dock
By David Frum
The Daily Telegraph
October 25, 2002

The truth: America is indeed subverting the Middle East

It sometimes seems that the three groups of people in the British Isles most bitterly hostile to American foreign policy are Muslim extremists, Trotskyists and former Tory foreign secretaries. Of the three, it is the former foreign secretaries who have the closest grip on reality. What they understand is the Truth with which we end this series: since September 11, America has ceased to be a "status quo" power in the Middle East and has become, or anyway is becoming, a revolutionary one.

The modern Middle East was, of course, a British and French invention, but America long ago took responsibility for policing and protecting it. Over the years, that job has become more and more demanding. In 1961, it took only 6,000 British troops to save Kuwait from Iraq. Thirty years later, America and its coalition partners sent more than 500,000.

The full cost of maintaining the old order in the Middle East did not, however, become apparent until September 11. The Middle East is now a region of overpopulation and underemployment, where tens of millions of young men waste their lives in economic and sexual frustration.

The region's oppressive regimes stifle their people's complaints about every local grievance, and direct their rage outward instead: to Israel, to America, to the infidel West, until one day that rage devoured 3,000 lives in New York in a single morning.

And on that morning, the old order became unsustainable.

What has happened to America's Middle East policy at the beginning of the 21st century is a lot like what happened to Britain's Near East policy at the beginning of the 20th.

Britain fought one war to defend the Ottoman empire in the 1850s, and nearly fought another in 1878. And yet in 1914, the Turkish government chose Britain for an enemy and Britain was left with no choice but to destroy the empire it had protected for so long.

America has not yet reached the point of deliberately smashing the post-colonial Middle Eastern order. On the contrary, Americans are doing everything they can to preserve it. They speak with a low voice about human rights abuses in Arab countries. They seek military and intelligence co-operation from Arab autocracies they describe as moderate. They are working dutifully to create a Palestinian state.

William Burns, an Assistant Secretary of State, has just returned to the region for another round of negotiations only this week, in the hope of protecting friendly Arab regimes against the putative wrath of the Arab street. Americans endlessly praise the contribution of Saudi Arabia and other Arab states to the war on terror – you'll find an impressive collection of them on the website of the Saudi embassy in Washington.

And yet, as the elder statesmen of the Foreign Office understand, at the same time as they do all these careful, conservative things, the Americans every day take other actions that subvert and undermine the old order in the Middle East. As the Americans follow the terror trail, they are exposing the intimate connections between the so-called moderate states and terror organisations such as al-Qa'eda and Hizbollah.

As they crack down on fundraising for terrorism, they threaten the legal position of wealthy and powerful individuals throughout the Islamic world who, out of fear or out of conviction, have contributed millions to the terror network. As they apply the "with us or with the terrorists" standard enunciated by George W. Bush, the Americans are systematically depriving Arab regimes of the margin of ambiguity that had once insulated them against both the Americans and the radicals.

Above all, as they come to appreciate how political oppression in the Arab world has turned populations against the West, Americans have begun, for the first time, to promote democratisation and liberalisation.

In the words of Colin Powell last November: "When you don't have a free democratic system, where the street is represented in the halls of the legislature and in the executive branches of those governments, then they have to be more concerned by the passions of the street. And so," Mr Powell told Arab governments, "in addition to sort of criticising us from time to time... you'd better start taking a look in the mirror."

None of these steps was consciously intended to weaken the position of America's supposed friends in the Arab world. But the old Arab hands in London and Washington correctly perceive their subversive tendency.

And most subversive of all is the looming war with Iraq. For 10 years, America has struggled against Saddam Hussein in a way that T E Lawrence would have approved of: a series of covert actions and plots intended to kill him and replace him with another Sunni strong-man who would govern in a way more amenable to Western interests.

That campaign repeatedly and ignominiously failed, leaving America to confront the growing likelihood of a nuclear-armed Saddam, or else to deal with him openly and take responsibility for replacing him. And since America, operating in its own name and under its own flag, cannot replace one dictator with another, the preparations for war in Iraq have forced America for the first time to consider imposing – and defending – representative government in an Arab state.

This possibility horrifies moderate regimes as much as radical ones, a horror symbolised by the embrace given by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah to Iraq's Izzat Ibrahim at the Arab summit in March.

Democratisation and liberalisation mean doom not only for the rulers of the moderate states – the Saudi royal family, the Mubarak clan, and so on - but also for a much broader swath of the elite: all those people who have made fortunes out of the closed system of controls and special favours that directs the Arab world's wealth into the hands of a tiny, well-connected elite.

The American determination to root out terror – to put a stop to the game where Arab regimes direct their people's anger outward at America and Israel, to eliminate the ambiguity that allows terrorist groups to raise funds more or less openly in states that pretend to deplore them – threatens to upend a system of government to which many in the West have become comfortably accustomed.

As Saudi Arabia's veteran ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar, told the Washington Post in a report this February: "If the reputation... builds that the Saudis take care of friends when they leave office, you'd be surprised how much better friends you have who are just coming into office."

It was a shrewd assessment, and, after nearly 20 years, in America, Prince Bandar has acquired some very good friends indeed.

America does not want to destabilise the Middle East. But Islamic extremism, anti-American incitement, and willing and unwilling support for terrorist organisations have fastened themselves deep into the societies and cultures of the Middle East. Osama bin Laden's terrorism is not the work only of a few sociopathic killers: it is the product of a wide and deep complicity throughout the Arab world. Finding, uprooting, discrediting and destroying terror will have equally wide and deep – and unpredictable – consequences.

And that is why so many Europeans with an interest in the Arab world and its oil have urged America to learn to live with terror: to be realistic, to adjust, to accommodate – as they have had to do. And it is America's refusal to be realistic in this way that, more than anything else, has puzzled, vexed and even enraged so many in Europe and in Britain.

America's greatest disappointments and disasters have originated in the national unwillingness to live within realistic limits. So have America's greatest triumphs. Into which category will the war on terror ultimately be assigned? Of course I do not know. But let us hope it is the second – because, like it or not, with friends or without them, America is going ahead.

• David Frum was President Bush's speechwriter in the first year of his administration. He is now a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and is writing a book about the Bush presidency.

 

Frum's other three articles this week were titled:

Myth II: America wants war with Saddam because of oil
Myth III: Bush wants war with Iraq because of a family vendetta
Myth IV: America couldn't care less what the rest of the world thinks

FULL ARTICLES

EDITORS DISMISS ALLEGATIONS OF BIAS

Editors dismiss Israeli press chief's allegation of bias
By Edward Pilkington
The Guardian
October 17, 2002

The head of the Israeli government press office has provoked stinging criticism from international news organisations by accusing them of gross bias in favour of Palestinians.

Daniel Seaman said that BBC editorial decisions were in the hands of the Palestinian Authority and that the Guardian had bowed to Israeli state pressure to withdraw its award-winning correspondent, Suzanne Goldenberg.

Last night Mr Seaman, said he stood by the accusations he made in an interview with a Hebrew weekly magazine, Kol Ha'ir.

The accusations were rebutted by the news organizations involved.

The editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, denied in a letter to Mr Seaman that Ms Goldenberg had been withdrawn from Israel as a response to the Israeli government's position.

"This is completely untrue," he wrote. "We regard Suzanne Goldenberg as an outstanding correspondent and had every faith in her reporting on the Middle East. During her period in Israel, she won four prestigious awards from independent juries.

"The decision to promote her to a new role in Washington was mine alone, and was utterly unconnected with any view of her reporting which the government of Israel might or might not have had."

Bill Schiller, foreign editor of the Toronto Star, denied a similar allegation that its correspondent, Sandro Contenta, had been moved under duress.

"We categorically deny that Mr Contenta was removed from his post because of any pressure from any corner. Mr Contenta executed his duties as Middle East correspondent with the accuracy and objectivity of a professional," he said

Mr Seaman, a civil servant, said in his interview that foreign reporters for the BBC, CNN, Reuters, Associated Press, ABC and CBS were all under the direct control of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority.

Major news organisations were compelled "at the direct instruction of the Palestinian Authority" to hire Palestinian directors and producers who "determine what is broadcast".

Andrew Steele, the BBC bureau chief in Jerusalem, dismissed the accusation. "It's particularly insulting coming from the man who bans my Palestinian colleagues from even coming into the office because he won't give them press cards."

Mr Seaman singled out four correspondents who recently left Israel for particular criticism: Ms Goldenberg and reporters with the Washington Post, Toronto Star and ABC.

He said their papers had been forced to withdraw them because the government refused to work with them. "We simply boycotted them. The editorial boards got the message and replaced their people," he said.

Last night Mr Seaman said he stood by his claim.

"If the Guardian had continued using Suzanne Goldenberg here, she would be useless to them. She would have had no access to anyone here," he said.

 

“‘ABSOLUTELY NO TRUTH’ TO CLAIM THAT STAR YIELDED TO PRESSURE”

Editors defend newspapers after Israeli allegations
"Absolutely no truth" to claim that Star yielded to pressure
By Nicholas Keung
The Toronto Star
October 18, 2002

Editors at three major newspapers, including The Toronto Star, have dismissed allegations made by the head of the Israeli government press office that their correspondents have been forced to leave posts in Israel because of political pressure.

London's Guardian, the Washington Post and The Star yesterday rejected the accusations made by Daniel Seaman, director of the Israeli press office, that their coverage of the Middle East is biased in favour of the Palestinians.

In an interview with Kol Ha'ir, a Hebrew weekly magazine, Seaman also stated the British Broadcasting Corporation's editorial decisions were in the hands of the Palestinian Authority and said the Guardian had bowed to Israeli pressure to withdraw its award-winning correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg.

In the same interview, he singled out the Washington Post's Lee Hockstader and The Star's Sandro Contenta, who both left bureaus in Israel recently for new postings. Seaman said they had been forced to go because the government refused to work with them.

Reached yesterday, Seaman said he stood by his claims. "Basically, we're not pleased with the way these correspondents were covering the events here," he said.

"We refused to work with them. The fact is they are no longer here ... They (the newspapers) replaced them to please us."

"There is absolutely no truth to this," said Mary Deanne Shears, The Star's Managing Editor.

"Contenta did a thoroughly professional job under very dangerous and difficult circumstances. He had been covering the Middle East for more than 3 1/2 years. We are proud of his work there.

 

“I WOULD LIKE TO DEPRIVE THE PRIME MINISTER’S SPOKESMEN OF THEIR PLATFORM”

BBC's Mideast bureau chief calls for boycott of Sharon
By Sharon Sadeh
Ha'aretz
October 17, 2002

The BBC's Middle East bureau chief Andrew Steele has asked BBC London to boycott Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's bureau, not to ask Sharon's people for any comments or reactions and to interview only Foreign Ministry officials, because of what he says is the government's refusal to give press accreditation to Palestinians employed by the BBC.

In an internal memorandum to BBC producers, Steele said, "The Israeli government is withholding press accreditation from Palestinians working for the BBC, as part of a long war of attrition between the Prime Minister's Bureau and the foreign media. It is difficult to find appropriate ways of retaliation without losing our journalistic objectivity. Except for one thing – I would like to deprive the prime minister's spokesmen of their platform. Until we resolve this, I would appreciate it if any guest bookers would approach Foreign Ministry officials only – Gideon Meir, Arye Mekel, Mark Sofer and others – and not Ra'anan Gissin, Dori Gold etc. who work for Sharon."

BBC management sources said Thursday, "We always aim to cover the Middle East conflict in a fair and balanced way. The BBC and other media in Israel are currently looking to resolve the issues with the Israeli government regarding the press accreditation."

The spokesman of the Israeli Embassy in London said Israel regards this request with severity and that "this behavior is not surprising."

[Added note by commentator David Steinmann]

What this piece (above) doesn't say is that the law in Israel requires Israeli citizens to have preference for Israeli jobs – just as American law does. So, when the Prime Minister's office refuses to give professional credentials to foreign people employed in Israel it is actually enforcing Israeli law. The BBC apparently believes that it isn't subject to Israeli law and can hire foreigners – Palestinians – to do its work in Israel when there are a lot of qualified Israelis available who could do the same jobs. Of course, one has only to read or listen to the BBC's virulently anti-Israel product to understand why they won't use Israelis – not to mention that using Palestinians curries favor with the BBC's buddies in the Palestinian authority. If any other employer wants to do business in Israel it has to follow Israeli law. But not the BBC?

 

“THE CORRESPONDENTS REPORTED ABOUT EVERY SLANDER AGAINST ISRAEL AS IF IT WERE A FACT”

Why Israel's image suffers – An Interview with GPO Director Danny Seaman
Kol Ha'ir
Edition of October 11-17, 2002
[Translation by the Israel News Agency]

Danny Seaman knows exactly why the State of Israel looks so bad on television screens around the world.

"At the direct instruction of the Palestinian Authority," explains the director of the Government Press Office (GPO), "the offices of the foreign networks in Jerusalem are compelled to hire Palestinian directors and producers. Those people determine what is broadcast. The journalists will certainly deny that, but that is reality."

Q: What makes you so sure?

"A lot of sources that, if exposed, will be compromised professionally. Those are people who were outraged by the events in those offices."

Q: Which offices are we talking about?

"The most senior are the Associated Press and Reuters, which provide information to hundreds of millions of people around the world. On the second level are the major television networks, CNN and the BBC, and the American stations, ABC and CBS."

Seaman claims that the Palestinian workers at the various networks work with complete coordination. But that is nothing. "Three senior producers," alleges the GPO director with deep internal conviction, "were coordinated with Marwan Barghouti. He used to call them and inform them about what was about to happen. They always received early warning about gunfire on Gilo. Then they shot for TV only the Israeli response fire on Beit Jala. Those producers advised Barghouti how to get the Palestinian message across
better."

Q: After the accusations give me some names.

"I'm not prepared to divulge details. Everyone who deals with this knows who they are."

In his professional capacity Seaman mediates between the foreign journalists and the various authorities in Israel. While the latter receive ample representation, the former are perceived as a rather bothersome nuisance. Seaman is not ashamed to admit it. He considers the foreign correspondents to be a bunch of spoiled brats that until now has received privileged conditions and has repaid that by giving back the finger.

"They've grown accustomed to being treated very freely in Israel," said Seaman, "but the liberty that we gave them was abused."

Seaman, a civil servant, does not mince words when he describes the foreign media's conduct in Israel. He levels harsh accusations at the foreign correspondents, some of which sound rather odd. Not only are they entwined with the Palestinian Authority by means of a Gordian knot, but they also steal Israelis' livelihoods. But things here will be A.O.K soon enough. Seaman will set those gentiles straight.

Last week Ma'ariv reported that the GPO would issue press cards to foreign photographers and production staffers only if they obtained a work permit from the Labor and Welfare Ministry and a visa from the Interior Ministry. At stake is an old law that has never been enforced until now. It means that the number of foreign workers in offices in Israel is expected to be cut substantially. But even before Seaman decided to revoke the press cards from all the residents of the territories.

Officials at the news agencies and the networks find it very difficult to understand, or at least feign innocence, as to what exactly it is that Danny Seaman wants from them. Israelis, after all, are barred from entering the territories, say the office managers and, therefore, without foreign photographers and Palestinian reporters it is very difficult to work and perhaps even impossible. They reject with disdain Seaman's allegations about pro-Palestinian coverage. "I've had Palestinian workers for years already," says Charles Enderlin, the veteran France 2 TV correspondent, "and they have proven their professionalism. Regardless, there is no bureau chief who allows his Palestinian assistant to decide what is broadcast. I deny that allegation outright."

"We don't make the news, we only broadcast it," say the foreign journalists defensively. Quite a few of them feel, even if they won't say so explicitly, that someone who didn't like the message has decided to kill the messenger. Seaman, 41, was born in Germany. His father was a member of the US Airforce, and his family followed him around across the world. In 1971 they immigrated to Israel and settled in Ashkelon. Seaman served in the paratroopers, and after his discharge studied political science in New York.

At the same time he also began to do public relations work for the Israeli consulate in New York. When he returned to Israel in 1990 he found work in the GPO. He spent two years with the IDF Spokesman's Office, and in January 2001 was appointed director of the GPO. "I am the first director who was not appointed for political reasons," he says proudly.

Seaman defines his job as "dual and restrictive. On the one hand, I need to represent the State of Israel and its interests to the foreign media, and on the other hand, I am supposed to represent the foreign reporters to the government and to create an appropriate media atmosphere for them. Sometimes the one role supersedes and other times the other does."

Q: Which is more dominant now?

"Today there is a greater need to look out for the State of Israel's interests because we are in an emergency situation."

The impression is that Israel has nothing to be concerned about, Seaman is doing his job. He always arrives at the scenes of the major terror attacks and tries to help the journalists gain access as quickly as possible to the material. Seaman has also made a point of attending Marwan Barghouti's trial. "The GPO is not covering the trial," he explains, "but it would be negligent were we not to capitalize on this event for public relations. Our job is to allow coverage." MK Ahmed Tibi, who also has used the trial for public relations purposes, is angry at Seaman. "Seaman's behavior in the court room is beyond the pale," says Tibi. "He asks the journalists to interview the families of terror victims. That is none of his business, that is an editor's job."

Seaman fought back: "Ahmed Tibi would be pleased were the State of Israel not to exist at all," says Seaman. "So he finds it jarring that the state is doing its job. I would urge him to learn to respect the courts before he comments to me about how to do my job."

Seaman has a clear understanding about how the Palestinians succeeded in seizing control of the television screens. He said that in the 1980s the Palestinians began to nurture young people who would work with the foreign press. He also alleges that all of the Palestinians who work with the media took a course in media manipulation at Bir Zeit University.

The effort paid off, if one is to believe Seaman. "For years," he explained, "the foreign reporters created a kind of romanticism surrounding the Palestinians' struggle. They adopted their point of view and their terminology." Seaman, who claims to be apolitical, said this process was exacerbated also by the "discourse in Israel. From the moment that the old Land of Israel lost the elections in 1977 the delegitimizing that was done to all the right wing leaders, Begin, Shamir, Netanyahu and Sharon, contributed to the struggle to delegitimize that the Palestinians launched in 1964."

Seaman is convinced that the foreign journalists were able to move about the territories freely and speak with whomever they wanted before Arafat's arrival. "From the moment Arafat arrived," explains Seaman, "their dependence on Palestinian media staffers grew. And the more the PA tightened its hold on the ground and the closer the date of the conflict grew, the Palestinian hold on the foreign press became firmer. Four years ago began the threats on the Israeli staffers, including Arabs from East Jerusalem.

The Palestinians let the foreign journalists understand: if you don't work with our people we'll sever contact with you, you won't have access to sources of information and you won't get interviews."

Seaman is certain that the overwhelming majority of the media bowed to this pressure. He is not prepared to give any credit to the Palestinian journalists who work in the foreign networks. "Today we know," Seaman says in a heated tone, "that the entire Mohammed a-Dura incident was staged in advance by the Palestinian Authority in collusion with Palestinian photographers, who worked for the foreign networks. In my opinion, that is the incident that really began the Intifada. Until then it hadn't caught on."

Palestinian stills photographers are also part of the game. "They always stage photographs," says Seaman unequivocally and states that he is prepared to be taken to court for libel. "The IDF announces that it is going in to demolish an empty house, but somehow afterwards you see a picture of a crying child sitting on the rubble. There is an economic level to that. The Palestinian photographers receive from the foreign agencies 300 dollars for good pictures; that is why they deliberately create provocation with the soldiers. They've degraded photography to prostitution." Seaman gives the foreign media a five on a scale of one to ten for its coverage of the events in the past two years. As noted, he believes that nearly all of them are infected. "They're hostile," he says, and itemizes: they being the French, the Spaniards, the BBC. The hostility manifests itself in the writing, the tendentious footage, the automatic adoption of the Palestinian version and the immediate suspicion of the Israeli version. In the course of the siege on Bethlehem the Palestinians claimed that we killed a monk. No one bothered to pick up the phone and speak to the Pope's representative to hear from him that nothing of the kind had happened."

Seaman has no problem harping on the Europeans' conscience. "I accuse," he says without a moment of hesitation, "particularly the European press. The correspondents reported about every slander against Israel as if it were a fact. The negligence of their coverage contributed to the anti-Semitism that is now making rounds on the continent, and that ought to lie heavily on their consciences." Four Western journalists received special attention from the GPO.

Actually, at issue was a lack of attention. Seaman has no problem naming names: Suzanne Goldberg from the British Guardian, Lee Hockstader from the Washington Post, Sandro Contenta from the Toronto Star and Gillian Findlay from ABC. Seaman accuses each one of the four of inaccurate reporting, to understate things. Now, none of the four are in Israel any longer. "We simply boycotted them," recounts Seaman. "We didn't revoke their press cards, because this is a democratic country. But in the name of that same value I also have the right not work with them. The editorial boards got the message and replaced their people. When the Washington Post saw that a smaller newspaper, such as the Baltimore Sun, was getting exclusive material, they understood that they had a problem."

Some of those who were ousted have come out ahead. Suzanne Goldberg was promoted to Washington, and the one reporter who made it big is Rula Amin. The famous Palestinian reporter for CNN whose reports from here in Operation Defensive Shield were perceived by many as being authored by the Palestinian Information Ministry, now reports from Baghdad and has a lot of screen time. Seaman tries to stay calm. "When the CNN executives visited here," he says, "they led us to understand that if we drop the issue of her, she would find herself on the way out. The fact that she is now in Baghdad attests to the professional level of the network and to the [value of] the word of its executives."

When the Kol Ha'Ir photographer asked to take Seaman's picture against the backdrop of a television screen, he agreed only if the television was turned to Fox, the cheaper alternative that the cable companies found to CNN. Seaman says he does not regret the impending loss. "Personally, I don't like CNN's broadcasts in Israel," he says, "because it is their European network. If it were the American network maybe it would disturb me more." Foreign reporters and editors at the JCS building on Jaffa road in Jerusalem, where the offices of some of the leading foreign media services in the world are located, were rather stunned this week by Seaman's statements. "I cannot believe," says Charles Enderlin, "that Mr. Seaman, the director of the Government Press Office, would make those kinds of accusations. If that is how they want to do public relations here then I don't understand a thing about the country that I've been living in for the past 34 years."

Enderlin says that there were isolated instances of Palestinian pressure on local issues. He said that the Foreign Press Association in Israel found an appropriate response: "We decided that if a photographer from one of the networks captures a picture that the PA wants to confiscate then everyone is allowed to use it." Another senior journalist admits that some of the Palestinian journalists must naturally support the Palestinian national struggle, but he stresses that he encounters far more often displays of courage. "It is very difficult to produce free media in the territories today, but they succeed in doing that," says the journalist.

In response to this article, Tim Heritage, the bureau chief at Reuters, said "Seaman's accusations are absurd and baseless." Andrew Steele, the BBC Jerusalem bureau chief, said: "The BBC has an international reputation because of its objectivity and balance. The thought that a few of our more experienced journalists suddenly developed complete dependency on Palestinian sources and that the Palestinian workers decide which news will be broadcast abroad could be funny if it were not so insulting. It is even more infuriating when one bears in mind that Mr. Seaman's office has been barring press cards from our Palestinian staff members."