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“WE MUST MAKE CERTAIN THAT ARAFAT BE STRIPPED OF ANY EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY”

Barak: Road map won't work if Arafat has power
Ha'aretz

Former prime minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday that the road map can only be implemented successfully if Arafat is removed from a position where he can influence the dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians. "We must make certain that Arafat be stripped of any executive authority," Barak said on Israel Television. "If he has any bit of control or authority, there will be no agreement between Israel and the Palestinians." Barak described the European vision of the plan as "very dangerous to Israel," and said, "We must insist that what is implemented be as close as possible to the Bush vision."

 

ABBAS SAYS ARAFAT IS STILL IN CHARGE

New Palestinian PM says Arafat is still in charge
Reuters
May 21, 2003

New Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas said President Yasser Arafat remained in charge despite a U.S. and Israeli refusal to deal with him, and said his stamp of approval should precede any political action.

"Arafat is at the top of the (Palestinian) Authority. He's the man to whom we refer, regardless of the American or Israeli view of him," Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, said in an interview with Egypt's semi-official al Mussawar weekly.

"For us, Abu Ammar is the president elected by the Palestinian people and he is the chairman of the whole Palestinian Authority. We do not do anything without his approval," Abbas said, referring to Arafat by his nom de guerre.

After a power struggle with Arafat, Abbas came to power last month amid intense U.S. pressure for Palestinian reforms. Washington accuses Arafat of doing too little to rein in militants.

"I will not allow any serious differences between Arafat and me," Abbas told al Mussawar's editor-in-chief Makram Mohamed Ahmed in Gaza. "There may be day-to-day differences... But there will be no serious problems that lead to 'divorce'."

Abbas reiterated his backing and respect for Arafat, who symbolizes the struggle for independence for most Palestinians and Arabs. The prime minister said he would not travel abroad until the president was also allowed full freedom of movement.

"I cannot imagine how can there be different treatments for me and for Abu Ammar," he said, referring to Israeli restrictions on Arafat's ability to travel.

Earlier this month, Abbas held talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the highest-level Israeli-Palestinian meeting in more than two years.

Abbas said they discussed the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan but Palestinian and Israeli views were far apart. While the Palestinians have accepted the initiative, Israel has raised several reservations.

"We as Palestinians are determined to accept the road map as we received it. But Sharon insists on accepting the 'principles' of the road map," Abbas said. "The two stances are totally different."

 

PALESTINIAN FM: PA WILL NOT DISARM TERRORIST GROUPS

Palestinian FM: PA will not disarm terrorist groups
By Khaled Abu Toameh
The Jerusalem Post
May 20, 2003

The Palestinian Authority will not disarm Palestinian terrorist groups until the "Israeli occupation forces stop the killing and the oppression" in the territories and until Israel accepts the 'roadmap' plan to Palestinian statehood unconditionally, Palestinian Minister for Foreign Affairs Nabil Sha'ath said Tuesday.

"The Palestinian government will not initiate any conversation with the militant factions until Israel declares its unconditioned approval of the 'roadmap'", Sha'ath told reporters in Cairo after meeting Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

Sha'ath also met in Cairo with Gen. Omar Suleiman, head of Egyptian Intelligence, who is trying to arrange a meeting in the Egyptian capital between different Palestinian factions to discuss the possibility of suspending terrorist attacks inside Israel.

"How can we ask the Palestinian resistance factions to lay down their weapons while Israeli tanks are raiding [northern Gaza Strip town] Beit Hanoun and killing its residents for five days now?" the Palestinian minister asked.

Sha'ath said he discussed the Israeli threats to expel Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat following the recent spate of suicide bombings with Mubarak. "President Arafat's life is in danger," he added.

He urged Mubarak to launch an urgent campaign with the help of other Arab countries to save Arafat's life, pointing out that the Egyptian president had already contacted Israel and the US to warn them against taking any action against the PA chairman.

Sha'ath said he delivered a written message from Arafat to Mubarak briefing him on the latest developments in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and accusing Israel of seeking to sabotage the road map plan.

Meanwhile, a senior Palestinian cabinet minister on Tuesday told The Jerusalem Post that the new Palestinian cabinet still doesn't have a plan to disarm militias. "Talk about a security plan to fight Hamas and Islamic Jihad is untrue," the minister said.

He noted, however, that Minister for Security Affairs Mohammed Dahlan has been holding secret talks in the Gaza Strip with representatives of some Palestinian factions to prepare for another round of talks in Cairo over a cease-fire. The minister said Hamas and Islamic agreed in principle to attend the talks.

 

ROAD MAP TO DISASTER

Road map to disaster
By Elyakim Haetzni
May 1, 2003

PROLOGUE

In brief, we may state without exaggeration that we are facing a Road Map to Disaster, a document whose consequences are no less severe than those of the British White Paper of 1939. [The British White Paper prevented Jews from entering Israel prior to 1948 when Israel became a state. In effect, the British White Paper prevented the saving of six million European Jews who had no place to go except to the ovens of Nazi Germany.]

The Oslo Agreements were child's play compared to this Road Map. Methodological criticism of the Oslo Accords pointed to a basic flaw: Israel's haste to establish the Palestinian Authority and accord the Palestinians authority, territory, weapons and funds, while leaving the chief points of disagreement – borders, refugees, Jerusalem, settlements and sovereignty – to be resolved later. This enabled the Palestinians to exploit their achievements in an attempt to force their own preferred solution to the deferred issues to be resolved.

Sharon apparently failed to learn a lesson from the Oslo Accords, having repeated this tactical error under far more serious circumstances: This time, he is paying the Palestinians an advance in the form of a sovereign state. From that point on, they can fight to achieve their perceived objectives as a bona fide state, a member of the United Nations, equipped with all tools, authority and individual support entailed thereby.

After two and a half years of the present Intifada that he declared and opened, Yasser Arafat can credit himself with having achieved all his war objectives: A Palestinian state within immediate reach, international involvement and supervision, introduction of the United Nations and Europe into the area, military involvement by Jordan and Egypt, elimination of Jewish settlements and release of Israel's effective hold on most parts of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. It is chilling indeed to realize that we have paid for this total political victory with over a thousand Jews murdered and many thousands more wounded since the Oslo Accords were drafted. It is all the more frustrating to think that Arafat thus emerges as the unquestionable winner, despite Israel's clear military victory.

FULL ARTICLE

INTRODUCTION

All the following citations are derived directly from the Third (and to the best of our knowledge the most recent) Draft of the Road Map, formulated by the four powers known as "the Quartet" (the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia), whose publication had been postponed at Israel's request pending the January 28 elections and the formation of a new Cabinet.

The following are the main points of this document, whose full name is: A Performance-Based Road Map to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

1. Establishment of a Palestinian State

As is evident from the Road Map's title and text, the key objective is establishment of "an independent and viable Palestinian state with sovereignty" and "a maximum extent of geographical continuity" (the Road Map makes no mention of Sharon's conditions, e.g. that this state be demilitarized, that it not be granted authority to control borders or airspace or contract international agreements, etc.).

The Palestinian State will be established in two phases:

A. "The option of establishing a Palestinian state with temporary borders" following general elections in 2003. The Road Map states explicitly that "the members of the Quartet Committee will push towards an international recognition of the Palestinian state, including the possibility of membership in the United Nations."

B. A Palestinian state with permanent boundaries, to be established "after solution of issues concerning borders, Jerusalem, refugees and settlements" in 2005 (disregarding the Israeli Prime Minister's well-known stipulation that the process extend over at least ten years).

2. Internationalization of the Conflict

A. Two International Conferences.
B. The Quartet.

The First International Conference will convene in 2003 after the Palestinian elections to "launch a process that leads to the establishment of a Palestinian state with temporary borders."

The Second International Conference will convene in 2004 "to ratify the agreement reached on the state with temporary borders and to launch a process "that leads to a final solution..." [and a permanent Palestinian state].

All Governments of Israel, right-wing and left-wing alike, have avoided international conferences like the plague. The reasons for their decision, so obvious that even a child could understand them, remain unchanged during Sharon's term of office. In fact, the situation may well have worsened, considering the extensive international support expressed for the Arabs, along with overt hostility towards Israel and even Jews as a whole.

The Quartet is the chief instrument applied to wrest freedom of sovereign behavior from Israel and grant it to the Palestinians. The following are a few of its functions and authorities:

C. Convening International Conferences (although it may "consult" with the parties involved). In other words, International Conferences will be forced on Israel against its will.

D. Deciding, based on "the collective ruling of the Quartet Committee whether the conditions are appropriate for progress taking into consideration the performance of all parties." This means that transition to the Palestinian state phase will be determined by foreign elements, contravening Sharon's stipulation that any such activity be dependent on Israeli assessment of elimination of terror, confiscation of weapons, cessation of incitement and the like. In brief, we have been denied the right to conflict management.

E. Establishing a means of monitoring implementation of the Road Map by Israel and the Palestinians. We recall that Sharon avoided any substantive military activity for a year and a half just to keep international observers out of the area. Now, he has consented to institutionalized international supervision that will essentially undermine our sovereignty in managing the conflict from the outset, even before a Palestinian state is established.

F. The Quartet will ensure that both sides "perform their commitments in a parallel manner." This proviso contravenes Sharon's insistence that any measure taken by Israel must be preceded by the Palestinian side's having carried out its commitments to the fullest. For example, the Palestinian undertaking to eliminate terror will be rendered parallel to Israel's commitments regarding settlements (see below). The very apposition of these two issues is outrageous. Moreover, it is obvious that the Palestinians will perceive themselves as exempt from the obligation to halt terror simply because construction is taking place or some prefabricated structure or other has been set up on the Israeli side, including eastern Jerusalem. Adjudication of such disputes will be vested in the Quartet, that will hear these claims of Israeli violations. The Quartet's involvement thus largely vitiates Israeli sovereignty.

G. The Quartet plays a decisive role in other respects as well:

* Intervening "whenever the need arises" in direct negotiations between the parties, thereby nullifying another principle that Israel held sacred for decades: Direct negotiations.
* Determining "a realistic timetable" for progress.
* Offering "effective and practical support" at each stage of transition towards Palestinian rule, i.e. intervention in all spheres of activity – finances, administration, security and the like. Such intervention is already taking place.
* Intervening in the achievement of a "final solution," including all that concerns Jerusalem, refugees and settlements.
* International efforts to facilitate reform and stability of the Palestinian institutions and the Palestinian economy," i.e. intervention in all spheres of activity.

3. Settlements

A. The Road Map insists that "the Israeli government dismantles immediately all settlement enclaves that were erected since March 2001" or: "the Israeli government dismantles all settlement outposts that were erected since March 2001." According to both these versions, dismantling of outposts and the settlement freeze described below are not contingent on prior cessation of terror but are to be carried out, as indicated, "in parallel," with no differentiation between "legal" and "illegal" outposts.

B. "The Israeli government freezes all settlement activities ... (including the natural growth of settlements)" or: "the Israeli government freezes all settlement activities ... along with giving priority to the projects that threaten the continuity of Palestinian residential regions, including the regions around Jerusalem," all to be carried out in 2003.

C. Demanding "a maximum extent of geographical [or: territorial] continuity, including additional steps on the issue of settlements" for establishment of a state with temporary borders (the intention is transparent: Uprooting of settlements that interfere with "geographical continuity," namely the Judean Hills settlements). This too is to be carried out before establishment of the provisional state, i.e. by the end of 2003.

D. Discussion of the fate of the remaining settlements will take place before establishment of a Palestinian state with permanent borders, i.e. by the end of 2005.

4. Jerusalem

A. "The Israeli government will reopen the Palestinian Chamber of Commerce and other Palestinian closed institutions in East Jerusalem," meaning that Orient House, among other institutions, will be functioning once again.

B. Discussions regarding the permanent situation aim at providing "a realistic... and just solution to the issue of refugees and negotiable decision on the status of Jerusalem that takes into consideration the political and religious concerns of both parties." This accords the Arabs in Jerusalem political status equivalent to that of Israel, thereby mandating a priori division of the city. The expression "just solution" regarding the refugees does not augur well either.

5. "Security"

"The implementation of the U.S. plan starts for reconstruction, training and resumption of the plan of security coordination in cooperation with an external supervision council that includes the U.S., Egypt, Jordan (The EU demands adding the phrase: 'with support from the Quartet Committee or with support from the EU')." It is especially ominous to note Sharon's consent to involvement of Egyptian and Jordanian military elements!

6. Other Elements

A. The Saudi Initiative

"The plan takes into special consideration the Saudi Initiative which was ratified by the Arab Summit in Beirut." This initiative explicitly calls for full withdrawal to the 1967 borders (including Jerusalem) and the return of refugees according to UN Resolution 194, a point stipulated unequivocally at the Beirut Summit. Sharon's attempts to have it deleted were unsuccessful.

B. "Terminating the Occupation"

This terminology demonstrates that mention of the Saudi Initiative is not a mere literary device, as corroborated towards the end of the Road Map: "... the parties reach an agreement on the permanent and comprehensive status that end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in 2005 through an agreed upon settlement reached through negotiations between the parties and based on the UN Security Council Resolution... that end occupation which started in 1967."

C. The Golan Heights

"to achieve a comprehensive peace on all tracks, including the Syrian-Israeli and the Lebanese-Israeli tracks."

"A second international conference ... [that will] support the progress towards a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East between Israel and Lebanon and between Israel and Syria as soon as possible."

D. "Deliberate Malfeasance"

The Israeli government will not undertake any acts that undermine the confidence, including deportation, and attacks against civilians... confiscation or demolition of homes and Palestinian properties as punitive measure or facilitating Israeli construction and demolishing civil institutions and the Palestinian infrastructure. All Israeli official institutions end instigation (or: incitement) against Palestinians."

To achieve balance, Israel, too, is accused of incitement: Israeli construction is considered to "undermine confidence." This is no mere theoretical matter, as indicated in the Bedein Report (published in the Hebrew weekly Besheva): "When I asked a U.S. Embassy spokesperson whether renovation of the Hurva Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City would be considered illegal construction, the response I received in the name of United States Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer was that indeed, any construction in the Old City of Jerusalem would be deemed 'illegal' according to U.S. foreign policy."

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth carried the following item on January 21, 2003: Powell Responds to Sharon: "We helped set up the Quartet and support it completely," said U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday in response to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's derisive reaction.

Speaking in New York, Powell said that "once elections have been held in Israel, we will cooperate with the Quartet in its efforts to achieve an agreement in the Middle East. We are committed to the Quartet and the Road Map, on which we've been working very hard."

Powell also "reminded" Sharon of President George W. Bush's vision: "His goal is to establish a Palestinian state in the region."

The Bush Plan, that is now tightening like a noose around Sharon's neck, was put forward as a cooperative effort by both heads of state. Since Israel was established, it has always been a dependent of the United States "and not always well fed at that. From now on, we've been abandoned to the vagaries of the United Nations, the Europeans and Russia, all with the active participation of the Sharon Government and its Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who stated in an interview with Dan Margalit on Israel Television's Channel One (October 15, 2002): "The Government announced that it accepts Bush's vision of two states for two peoples," adding that "A third party has now joined - the Quartet."

Sharon, interviewed by Margalit the next day, indicated that "acceptance of the Bush Plan is a strategic decision. The plan is essentially a joint Israeli-American plan."

Foreign Minister Peres presented the President of Mauritania with "the Quartet's plan, including ... establishment of a Palestinian state with temporary borders ... The Quartet is now working on drawing up a detailed Road Map, an idea that Israel accepts in principle..." (Yedioth Ahronoth, October 9, 2002).

Strange as it may sound, the Road Map that everyone is so worried about is essentially based on ideas that Prime Minister Sharon himself had raised in Washington previously, ideas that also helped shape Bush's speech regarding a solution in the Middle East. For example, the three-phase plan stipulated in the new Road Map, is originally Arik Sharon's. The Road Map, now a concrete document in the Pentagon's possession, also obligates Israel to take certain steps ... (Alex Fishman, Yedioth Ahronoth, October 18, 2002)

Teams of Egyptian and Jordanian intelligence experts will soon arrive in Jericho to train the new Palestinian security system teams. Training of workers will be part of the planned reforms in Palestinian security" (Yedioth Ahronoth, August 21, 2002).

FULL ARTICLE

THE “ROAD MAP” WON'T LEAD TO PEACE IF IT BYPASSES THE CAUSES OF WAR

The "road map" won't lead to peace if it bypasses the causes of war
By Abraham D. Sofaer
Commentary Magazine
May 2003

Immediately after the 1991 Gulf War, the first Bush administration convened in Madrid an international conference on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. This was an event that political leaders all over the world had been pursuing as if it were the holy grail of international diplomacy. It set in motion a decade of "peacemaking" that included the treaty between Israel and Jordan but whose most visible fruit was the Oslo accords of 1993.

In recent months, three years into the bloody Palestinian assault on Israel that the Oslo peace process became, the same dynamic has once again been in play, as international diplomats and government officials have scrambled to take advantage of the anticipated defeat of Saddam Hussein by pushing forward their preferred solutions. President Bush himself predicted in late February that "success in Iraq could... begin a new stage of Middle Eastern peace," while England and other European nations, keen to demonstrate their good faith to the Arab world, have gone much farther. In the very first week of the war, the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, complaining about an alleged double standard when it came to "injustice against the Palestinians," equated U.N. resolutions concerning Saddam Hussein's threats to international peace with those condemning Israel on a range of less significant matters.

A more evenhanded view underlies the latest diplomatic initiative to address the Israel-Palestinian dispute. This is the famous "road map" prepared by the "quartet" of the United States, the European Union, the U.N. and Russia. The road map, released earlier this week, proposes a two-state solution to the conflict, to be reached in three phases.

In Phase I, the Palestinians are to "declare" an end to violence and terrorism; undertake "visible" efforts to prevent attacks on Israelis, consolidate all security forces under an "empowered" interior minister, and restructure Palestinian institutions through numerous, detailed measures. Israel, for its part, is to call for an end to violence against Palestinians; cooperate in rebuilding a viable Palestinian security force; cease all actions "undermining trust," including deportations, demolition of homes and destruction of Palestinian infrastructure; take measures to improve the humanitarian situation; and "immediately" dismantle "settlement outposts erected since March 2001" and freeze all other settlement activity, including "natural growth."

All this is to happen by next month. Then comes Phase II, which foresees the "option" of creating a Palestinian state, with provisional borders, attributes of sovereignty and maximum territorial continuity; the completion date for this phase is the end of 2003. Phase III, which is to result in a final agreement between the parties settling all outstanding issues, is to be completed by the end of 2005.

The road map was given a major boost on March 14 when President Bush affirmed his support for it and promised to publish it as soon as the Palestinians appointed a new prime minister with "real authority." British Prime Minister Tony Blair promptly signaled his readiness to put pressure on Israel to move the process forward whether Palestinian violence ceases or not. Meanwhile, both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have claimed to accept the road map "in principle" – a standard Middle East negotiating ploy – although both sides have major differences with it. In particular, Ariel Sharon's government has insisted that Palestinians must end all attacks before Israel is required to take any steps on the proposed "road."

MANY SUBSTANTIVE OBJECTIONS CAN AND SHOULD BE RAISED

Quite apart from its wildly optimistic timetable, many substantive objections can and should be raised to the road map. Still, it may be stipulated that the plan's aim – a two-state solution – is a reasonable one, accepted by the present Israeli government. But the mere recitation of a valid aim, even when coupled with a scheme for negotiations and escalating concessions, will hardly suffice to realize the peace envisioned by the road map's authors. The problem is that this road map, like many plans for Middle East peace, expects to bring an end to Palestinian violence against Israel without addressing the reasons why the Palestinians have deliberately and repeatedly chosen that path.

Dennis Ross, the former U.S. negotiator for the Middle East, recently admitted that ever since the last Gulf War, he and other U.S. negotiators failed to take seriously the Palestinian Authority's steadfast refusal to end violence. (As Mr. Ross put it in State Department doublespeak: "The prudential issues of compliance were neglected and politicized by the Americans in favor of keeping the peace process afloat.") Instead, in the face of the continuing violence, the U.S. kept pressing Israel to make further concessions, thereby convincing Palestinians that they could go on cheating and killing and still procure the benefits for which they had been negotiating. In the end, it seemed reasonable to suppose that they might even force Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza as it had been forced to withdraw from southern Lebanon in the summer of 2000.

But Palestinian violence is a much more serious and difficult problem than even Dennis Ross now admits. It is the product of an environment that fosters, shelters, encourages and rewards acts aimed at nullifying Israel's very existence. And that environment is itself the creation not only of the Palestinians, or of the Arabs, but also of the international community – including the U.S. To change this situation requires changing not just the actions and attitudes of Palestinians but the policies and practices of others, again including the U.S. No recognition of these facts, let alone any acknowledgment of the need to do something about them, has been made part of the road map – which is again why it shares the basic flaw of every Middle East peace plan that has preceded it.

The policies and practices I have in mind can be broken down into categories, of which the first has to do with terrorism.

The United States portrays itself, properly, as leading the world-wide effort to combat terrorism. Some longstanding American policies, however, have contributed to terrorism, and especially to terrorism against Israel. Although steps have been taken to rectify matters in the wake of September 11, terrorists and supporters of terrorism continue to be abetted by the U.S. in their determination to control the destiny of both Israelis and Palestinians.

Consider, first, the longstanding strategy of Arab states and the Palestine Liberation Organization to keep as many Palestinians as possible living under horrible conditions in refugee camps, close to Israel. The camps, first set up after the 1948 war that followed the establishment of the state of Israel, are administered by an arm of the United Nations, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency. UNRWA now spends more than $400 million a year to assist a population that has swollen over the past half century to some 4.5 million, relatively few of whom are refugees by any accepted definition of the term. The whole system could not have been better designed both to endanger Israel's security and to damage its moral reputation.

In the late 1980s, when I was running the legal adviser's office in the State Department, my colleague Nicholas Rostow and I proposed to Secretary George Shultz that the U.S. move toward ending its financial support of UNRWA programs that perpetuated the exploitation of refugees as tools of the radical Palestinian cause. The "building" – as the department is called by insiders – rose up in opposition. Our diplomats acknowledged that the camps were awful places that bred hatred and terrorism. But, they claimed, it was too late to do anything about it, and anyway the camps would disappear once peace was achieved. They declined to consider the possibility that the camps were helping to prevent peace from being achieved.

What would an alternative look like? It would include plans for building permanent homes for Palestinian refugees within Palestinian territories on the West Bank or in nearby states. As the scholar Scott B. Lasensky has recently suggested, incentive programs could also be put in place to encourage refugees to relocate and neighboring Arab states to accept them. Such resettlement could commence immediately; as long as it does not, we will be continuing to aid in solidifying the sentiments that lead to terrorism.

THE PALESTINIAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM IS AN ABOMINATION

Second, the Palestinian educational system is an abomination; it, too, is largely funded by the U.N., with the substantial support of American taxpayers. In their schools, Palestinian children are taught mendacious versions of their own history as well as of Jewish culture, history and beliefs. Generations have been fed on propaganda that denies the legitimacy of the state of Israel while simultaneously glorifying intolerance, fanaticism and "martyrdom."

Very little that is actually useful – engineering, computer technology, science, finance – is taught in these schools. In the private, religiously funded schools, things are still worse. There, in the words of Itamar Marcus, "children have been taught to hate, and to die for Allah. Their childhood has been destroyed by indoctrination to hate and kill Jews as well as Americans and Westerners in general."

The U.N. and the U.S. have allowed these terrible practices to continue for years. Although efforts have been made recently to restrict the flow of funds to some schools, little if anything has been done to halt the teachings themselves. How can Palestinians realistically be expected to accept Israel as long as they continue to convey to their children that Israel is unacceptable, and that terrorism against it is a noble undertaking?

Third, our policies have worked to prevent Israel from defending itself against terrorism. Nowhere is this clearer than in our relations with the highest level of Palestinian political power. The Palestinian Authority has advocated, planned, financed and rewarded terrorism against Israel and Jews. And yet, during the Oslo years and for many months during the current intifada, the State Department persistently called on Jerusalem to go on turning over to the authority the sums collected by Israel for its use. Only Israel's refusal to go along prevented us from enabling the Palestinian Authority to increase the level of violence and thus forestalling the very negotiations we wanted to see resumed.

Aside from government funding, the Palestinian Authority and other terrorist groups also receive massive financial support from a network of private companies, humanitarian fronts and wealthy individuals, some of them with American addresses. This is consistent with the pattern used by al Qaeda in financing the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. Recent indictments of individuals like Sami al-Arian of Florida State University and of the leaders of "charities" like the Global Relief Foundation of Illinois, the Benevolence International Foundation of Chicago and the Holy Land Foundation in Texas will help limit the flow of such funds. But much more needs to be done to curb the resources of terrorists – a subject about which the authors of the road map, aside from their vague and general call for action against terrorism, are silent.

Terrorists have also benefited from unreasonable efforts to restrict Israeli responses to their operations. The U.S., for example, has known for many years that in addition to those associated with the PLO, at least three major terrorist groups operate in Israel: Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Until recently, however, the State Department has joined in castigating Israel for capturing or killing leaders and members of these groups. The State Department was wrong to do so. It is neither an "assassination" nor a "nonjudicial execution" to target an individual who has killed and intends to continue to kill one's citizens if that individual cannot safely be apprehended. Such conduct is part of every state's legitimate right of self-defense.

After 9/11, the U.S. recognized the need for an active defense against terror. We killed many terrorists in Afghanistan, and we continue to hunt down al Qaeda operatives and leaders. Where possible, they are arrested and held as prisoners; where necessary, they are killed. We have also undertaken to assist several states in similar defensive operations--even while criticizing Israel for exercising its sovereign right in this regard. Are we to deny to Israel the flexibility in protecting itself and its citizens that we demand in protecting ourselves?

Besides criticizing Israel, our government and others also repeatedly accuse it of using excessive force and improper methods. There are indeed occasions when such criticism is warranted: Destroying the homes of suicide bombers, which can leave entire families homeless and has sometimes resulted in the death or injury of noncombatant neighbors, is a form of collective punishment that is not defensible. But Israel is clearly permitted by the laws of war to destroy homes used by terrorists when necessary to attack or capture them, or to protect Israeli soldiers or civilians from attack, or in any other military operation. Although one would hardly know it from the routine condemnations that issue from the international community, most of the destruction that occurs is in fact for these proper reasons.

OUTRIGHT FABRICATIONS

Not only are most criticisms of Israeli antiterror operations baseless, some are outright fabrications, as in the case of the alleged "massacre" of "thousands" of Palestinian Arab civilians in Jenin in the spring of 2002. This charge was endorsed by the U.N. envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, without even conducting an investigation. As was subsequently demonstrated, a total of 52 Palestinians died in Jenin, most of them fighters.

Israel has demonstrated its readiness to drop improper practices, including deportations, and now leads the world in developing and using nonlethal military methods. It has also apologized for mistakes and punished its own soldiers as the law requires. Such conduct is inconceivable from the Palestinian Authority. That is precisely why the U.S. government needs to protect its own credibility by declining to join those who make a habit of censuring lawful Israeli actions.

Our government has also consistently failed to come to grips with the extent and seriousness of Palestinian terror itself. The annual State Department report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism," listed only nine terrorist attacks in Israel in 2001. In fact, there were 97. Among the 88 incidents omitted from the list were Hamas bombings in Haifa and Netanya in which 20 were killed and 140 wounded, as well as other devastating bombings by Islamic Jihad and Yasser Arafat's Fatah. This simple refusal to acknowledge reality underlies, in turn, the continuing demand by our government that Israel restore the PA's security forces – the same forces that we paid to build up in the 1990s, only to see them placed at the service of terrorism.

In addition to subsidizing refugee camps that breed terrorism as well as an educational system that justifies and extols it, and in addition to hobbling Israel's efforts to counter terrorism, we and others continue to be remiss in dealing with state support of terror.

Iran, together with Hezbollah, its proxy force in Lebanon, supports Hamas, an Islamist organization based in Gaza. Hamas also has supporting offices in other countries, including Jordan. Islamic Jihad and the PFLP are based in Syria, where they enjoy sanctuary and have been provided with training camps. These organizations also raise funds and recruits in Saudi Arabia, in Europe and even in the United States.

Syria and Iran are on the State Department's list of states that support terrorism. By itself, this means nothing – their support for terror has continued with impunity. After 9/11, however, the U.N. Security Council reaffirmed the duty of states to refrain from instigating, supporting or acquiescing in terrorist attacks on other states, and it also set out positive duties for suppressing such support. This statement offers a powerful basis for pursuing, through the "inherent right of self-defense," remedies against states supporting terror.

Even before 9/11 we ourselves insisted that if a state is unwilling or unable to prevent terrorist attacks, or if it supports such attacks, a victim-state is entitled to act in self-defense. This is the legal basis upon which, for example, President Reagan retaliated against Libya for supporting terrorist attacks on U.S. nationals in Europe, and which even President Clinton invoked in his ineffectual responses to Iraq's efforts to kill the first President Bush and to al Qaeda's bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

As for Israel, it has expressly threatened to use force against states that support or fail to prevent terrorist attacks on its citizens, although it has done so but rarely. One occasion was the hostage-release operation at Entebbe; another was the bombing of the PLO headquarters in Tunis; a third was the 1982 incursion into Lebanon. It now faces the far more difficult task of dealing with terrorism supported directly by Syria and Iran and indirectly by others like Saudi Arabia. These are major states with substantial military capacities, including, potentially, weapons of mass destruction.

Syria has openly acknowledged giving shelter to terrorist groups driven from Israel and the Palestinian territories, although it claims that the facilities are not being used for terrorism. Even if that were true, such support is illegal and subject to appropriate remedial action. As for Iran, former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres identified it as long ago as March 1996 as the source of support for terrorist activity in Israel. More recently, Iran supplied the arms on the Karine A that had been purchased by the Palestinian Authority for terrorist operations; it has also supplied Hezbollah in Lebanon with some 10,000 short-range rockets, as well as Iranian-made Zelzal-2 and Fajr rockets capable of reaching Tel Aviv.

WE CANNOT EXPECT ISRAEL TO GO ON ACCEPTING STATE SUPPORT OF TERRORITTS WITHOUT ACTING IN SELF-DEFENSE

In 1986, when the Iranians were mining the Persian Gulf, we warned them to stop; when they persisted, and we caught them in the act, we destroyed half their naval vessels. They stopped. We cannot expect Israel to go on accepting state support of terrorists without acting in self-defense. If we are serious about peace in the Middle East, we and the other members of the quartet should be placing far greater emphasis on convincing Iran and Syria to alter course.

President Bush made clear where he stands in his speech of June 24, 2002: "Every nation actually committed to peace must block the shipment of Iranian supplies to [terrorist] groups, and oppose regimes that promote terror, like Iraq. And Syria must choose the right side in the war on terror by closing terrorist camps and expelling terrorist organizations." Secretary of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, have emphatically reiterated this warning. Pressuring states to stop supporting terror against Israel would help create an atmosphere more conducive to peace with the Palestinians. But the pressure cannot be merely rhetorical, or limited to one or two speeches; and the results must be seen to be believed.

I now pass to a different class of issues relating to Palestinian violence. In negotiations between the parties, the U.S. has worked to keep some matters unresolved. Of these, a few are indeed so difficult as to be properly deferred. Others, however, clearly admit of only one possible resolution; if they have nevertheless been pushed off to some future date, that is because it is felt by our diplomats that they should not be foreclosed until the parties themselves come to an agreement on them. This tactic, however, has caused far more harm than good, allowing illusions to grow and take root that damage the practical prospects for peace.

* Jerusalem. Every successful presidential candidate since at least Ronald Reagan has promised that, if elected, he would move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel's capital city of Jerusalem. Yet, once elected, every president has breached this promise, announcing that current conditions do not yet favor such a move. Sometimes Congress has attempted to cut through the issue by mandating a move to Jerusalem, only to be instructed that it must not intrude on an area of presidential prerogative.

If moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem would actually harm prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, then it should not be moved. But the claim is spurious. Moving the U.S. Embassy to the site designated for it in the western part of Jerusalem would merely acknowledge that Jerusalem is in fact the capital of Israel. It would not eliminate from discussion the issue of East, or Arab, Jerusalem, or the issue of who is to control the Old City, which includes the Temple Mount and other holy places. At most, it would make it harder for Palestinians to raise West Jerusalem as a negotiating chip in their efforts to secure control of the rest of the city. Far from being an obstacle to peace, it would tend to force Palestinians to confront the real compromises they would need to make if they truly desired peace.

More fundamentally, our continued failure to demonstrate that we accept Jerusalem as Israel's legitimate capital has encouraged virtually all other states to behave similarly. This, too, feeds the openly expressed hope of radical Palestinians and their supporters that somehow, some day, Israel can be pushed back to its pre-1948 lines, if not into the sea. Palestinians are in the grip of quite enough disabling fantasies as it is; they can well afford to surrender the fantasy of undoing Israel's claim to Jerusalem.

* Right of return. At the Camp David negotiations in the summer of 2000, American diplomats were surprised by the fierceness with which Palestinian representatives insisted upon a "right of return" for all Palestinian refugees to Israel proper. If acted upon by the millions claiming to be refugees, such a right of return would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state. The Palestinian position was especially stunning in light of confident predictions by Yossi Beilin, Israel's former deputy foreign minister, that no such right would be invoked, but only a right to appropriate compensation for property and other measures of relief.

The U.S. bears some responsibility for encouraging Palestinians in this regard. Specifically, we backed the Arab interpretation of a 1949 General Assembly resolution, No. 194, that has no legal weight, that was originally rejected by all Arab states, and that is but one small item in the great mass of anti-Israel declarations by that body. More recently, we were among those welcoming a February 2002 Saudi peace "initiative" that explicitly invoked a right of return.

The road map, in turn, cites the Saudi plan in a positive manner. Though it does – finally – call in passing for a "realistic" solution to the refugee issue, any plan seriously aimed at leading toward peace, and backed by the U.S., should make it crystal clear at the outset that a right of return is antithetical to peace, and must be renounced. Furthermore, any reference to the rights of Palestinian refugees should be balanced by one to the legitimate claims of the hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled from Arab countries, which must be satisfied on the basis of the same principles. Justice requires no less.

* Settlements and borders. Although the road map leaves the final borders of Israel and a future Palestinian state to final-status negotiations, it does insist on a complete cessation of all settlement activity by Jews, including "natural growth," beyond the Israeli side of the pre-June 1967 borders. State Department officials have long adhered to the notion that Security Council Resolution 242, issued in the aftermath of the June 1967 Six Day War, requires treating those borders as final; if, they say, Israel wishes any adjustment in them, it will have to compensate the Palestinians with some additional concession, probably in the form of land on Israel's side.

The State Department's interpretation of Resolution 242 is not only mistaken – the literature on this point is formidable – but it could end up presenting at least as great an obstacle to peace as Israel's policy of building settlements in areas heavily populated by Palestinians. In Israel's history, settlements have a central and necessary place. The road map disregards both this history and the plain legitimacy of building places to live in what Israelis regard as their historic (though not exclusive) homeland. The road map also errs in treating every Israeli settlement as equally troublesome, even though some are obviously defensible on security grounds and minimally disruptive to Palestinian inhabitants of the territories. It thereby once again creates unwarranted expectations among Palestinians.

The settlements issue cannot be resolved by means of solemn declarations. In my own view, a pragmatic approach that is not anchored in the pre-June 1967 lines would have a far greater likelihood of success in any set of good-faith negotiations than the unrealistic and indiscriminate proscription contained in the road map. It would require, among other things, considering the settlements in categories.

A small number of settlements are illegal; Israel has ordered them closed, but it has not always enforced the order. If, however, these particular communities may be regarded as a genuine obstacle to peace, the same cannot be said of the largest settlements, which lie virtually adjacent to the pre-June 1967 lines and contain some 80% of the settler population. Nor would "natural growth" in or close to these settlements be a serious problem, since it is widely recognized that the areas will become part of Israel in some appropriate exchange. As for the many other settlements that exist in the territories, while some Israelis would struggle to retain control over all of them, they would be unable to prevail if the government considered it in Israel's best interests to act otherwise. Ariel Sharon, it should be remembered, removed the settlers from Sinai to implement the 1978 peace treaty with Egypt. Nor should the road map or any other plan preclude Israel and the Palestinians from developing methods for preserving some settlements under Palestinian control, or under joint administration.

By tacitly accepting interpretations of reality that unfairly put the onus on Israel – in this case by demanding a "freeze" on settlements as if all settlement activity were either illegal or evidence of evil intent, or both – the United States helps to perpetuate Arab revanchism and works against the possibility of peace.

Beyond, above and behind every failed policy that has been devised to nudge forward the prospects of reconciliation in the Middle East there lies a simple if often unacknowledged fact: There can be no peace until the Arabs of the region openly accept the existence of Israel as a permanent, sovereign state. For 55 years most of Israel's Arab enemies have refused to do so. For 55 years the community of nations has tolerated, acquiesced in and thereby confirmed the propriety of that refusal.

A PARIAH STATE

To this day, Israel is treated in international affairs and by most members of the United Nations as a pariah state. The U.S., despite the generous and indispensable support it has extended to Israel, has too often gone along with that treatment. From time to time, as the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan documented in Commentary, it has even "joined the jackals."

The blanket exemption from treating Israel as an ordinary state and an equal member of the international community has had a pervasive impact on the calculus of war and peace. To Israel's enemies, it has sent a signal that the conflict between them may yet be resolved through Israel's complete delegitimization and destruction. To Israel itself, it has sent exactly the same dire signal.

* The U.N. Nowhere is this more salient than at the U.N. itself. There, Israel has been refused a place in the regional grouping of Middle Eastern states and hence an opportunity to serve on the Security Council and other U.N. bodies – an opportunity afforded to every other member state. In addition, U.N. members have prevented Israel from serving in any important role on virtually any functional agency or body. The number of Israelis serving in significant U.N. positions has always been small, even relative to Israel's size; after a series of votes against Israeli candidates, that number is now down to a single person whose term is scheduled to expire within the next year.

The notion that the U.S. and other friends of Israel can do nothing about this outrageous situation is simply wrong. For years, the State Department agreed with the U.N. legal office that the 1975 General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism could not be repealed. Once a resolution has been adopted, the argument went, it can only be modified in its effects by some subsequent resolution. The first Bush administration put the lie to this idea when Secretary of State James Baker developed a plan for repealing the resolution, thus marking the beginning of the end of that infamous chapter in the history of anti-Semitism. During the current Bush administration, similarly, the president and Secretary of State Powell refused to go along with the racist attacks on Israel at the United Nations conference in Durban in the summer of 2001; Mr. Powell canceled his appearance, and the U.S. delegation withdrew when it became clear that the conference had been hijacked by anti-Semites.

There is every reason to approach the issue of Israel's continued ostracism in international bodies in the same spirit and with the same conviction. Nothing meaningful can be done internationally without U.S. involvement and support, and nothing is more important to the principle of sovereign equality than the fair and equitable treatment of member states of the United Nations. Are we to go on approving, by our silence, a situation wherein a true pariah state like Libya can serve a term as chairman of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights while democratic Israel is refused the right to participate in multilateral affairs? It is a grotesque charade, and it dishonors us.

* Normalizing relations. Arab states – even the few that have concluded formal peace agreements – have refused to normalize relations with Israel. Egypt, for example, has created many obstacles to trade, and although it has opened its doors to Israeli tourists willing to brave the pervasive anti-Semitic climate in that country, it has severely restricted tourism from Egypt to Israel. Our State Department has rejected the idea of working to alter this behavior. Not that it opposes greater openness; it simply regards the issue as subordinate to the "peace process" with the Palestinians, and has not wished to irritate the Egyptians.

The same attitude is reflected in the road map. That document barely mentions Arab-Israeli relations, and then only to call on Arab states during Phase II to "restore pre-intifada links to Israel (trade office, etc.)" and to revive certain multilateral discussions – water, the environment, economic development, refugees and arms control – begun after the 1991 Madrid conference. But these measures amount virtually to nothing. Few Arab states had significant links with Israel prior to the intifada, and multilateral discussions, however potentially interesting they may be, do not in themselves imply or depend on a meaningful acceptance of Israel. "Even if peace is accomplished," Syria's President Bashar al-Assad remarked matter-of-factly in late March of this year, "Israel will not be a legitimate state."

Progress has been made in relations between Israel and Jordan, and between Israel and Turkey. Much more could be done – by us – to encourage Arab states and others to deal with Israel as an equal in commercial matters. Instead, we have declined to hold the international community to a proper standard of behavior, and we have acquiesced in the exclusion of Israel from the economic and political benefits of normalization.

* Israel as ally. In 1990, as we prepared to confront Saddam Hussein over his seizure and occupation of Kuwait, we built, under the authorization of the Security Council, a coalition of forces in which every state willing to participate was welcomed, except one: Israel. During the ensuing conflict, when Iraq fired 39 missiles at Israel in an effort to draw it into the conflict, the U.S. asked the Israeli government not to respond; in deference to us, and in violation of its cardinal principles of self-defense, Israel agreed.

This year, in preparing our latest campaign in Iraq, we again asked Israel to stay on the sidelines for fear of alienating Arab allies. As insurance, we took measures to defend Israel from Iraqi attack by placing missile-defense units on its eastern border and providing unprecedented access to battlefield intelligence. Once again Israel went along, although this time Prime Minister Sharon reserved the right to respond if attacked.

Asking Israel to stay out of the coalition against Saddam in 1991 and then to refrain from exercising its right of self-defense was morally wrong, tactically shortsighted and very harmful to the goal of securing Israel's acceptance in the Middle East. The decision to keep Israel out of the war gave credence to a preposterous premise: that Arab states would have preferred to let Saddam keep Kuwait than permit Israel to fight in the same campaign with them. Naturally, Saddam exploited this premise by attempting to draw Israel into defending itself and thereby undermining the coalition against him.

A way could have been found in 1991 to welcome Israel into the coalition against Saddam without destroying it. The U.S. did not even try. Instead, it granted validity to the notion that Israel should be excluded. We in effect said to the Arab and Muslim states, "We don't necessarily share your view, but we understand and accept your need to avoid any appearance of countenancing the legitimacy of the state of Israel."

Why should we continue to operate on this premise, when what we should really be doing is working to challenge and overcome it? The principle informing our action should be that Israel – our ally, remember – is a state with the same inalienable rights as all other states. President Bush has quite rightly demanded that Arab states make clear "that they will live in peace with Israel." We should be doing all we can to enforce that demand.

* The Jewish question. Some one million Palestinian Arabs – a fifth of Israel's population – live there as citizens. Jewish settlers in the West Bank number, at most, a tenth of the area's population – but the guiding assumption of all international efforts to achieve peace is that no Jew should be allowed to reside in any Palestinian area.

Some Israeli extremists, it is true, have attempted to inflame existing animosities between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in the hope of securing permanent Israeli control of certain hallowed sites in territories claimed by Palestinians. Their efforts would be futile if Palestinians accepted Jews in their midst. They do not. On the contrary, they have attacked and killed Jews seeking to live in places like Hebron, an ancient and holy Jewish seat where Jews lived for centuries before being slaughtered and driven out in the 1920s.

JUDENREIN SHOULD BE AN IMPERMISSIBLE POLICY, EVERYWHERE

The notion of a Palestine in which Jews are not allowed to live is anathema. It implicitly affirms the hatred and violence that has made the Arab and Muslim Middle East virtually Judenrein, and it thoroughly undercuts any hope for peace. It should be anathema, above all, to the U.S. Palestinians should be required to agree explicitly that Jews may live in their midst. Arab states should be expected to reverse anti-Jewish policies and laws, based as they are on racist ideas that are not only intrinsically offensive but completely inconsistent with peaceful coexistence. Judenrein should be an impermissible policy, everywhere.

As for the much larger and excruciating question of Arab anti-Semitism, this is not the place to comment at length on its frightening tenacity, its ferocity and its world-wide reach. What must be said, though, is that the failure of our government at the highest levels to denounce the genocidal teachings that issue regularly from the press, the mosques and the schools of Arab and Muslim regimes, some of them our longstanding allies, is shameful.

This failure has consequences in policy. Throughout Israel's history, and especially now, Palestinians have acted as though they have a perfect right to kill Jews with impunity. Little wonder: they live in a culture in which armed men, and men of God, publicly and routinely call for the murder of Jews. Fundamentalist Muslims and nationalist Arabs alike preach and practice a racist ideology based on the inhumanity of Jews. In their ravings, Jews – "dogs," "cockroaches," "filthy bacterial growth" – deserve to be killed en masse and uprooted from a land they have defiled by their presence. When Arab terrorists are themselves killed by Israeli reprisals, Palestinians parade through the streets of their cities with guns, masks and suicide-bomber outfits, crying to heaven for vengeance.

All this would be intolerable, and shocking beyond belief, in any society based upon law. Yet so pervasive is it in Palestinian society, as indeed in Arab society generally, that one doubts even Israelis have taken in its full dimension. About it, the road map utters not a word, and neither has our government. Instead, as I have already noted, some government spokesmen have unconscionably criticized Israel for targeting terrorists in order to prevent further homicidal attacks on its people.

The same lack of moral compass can be seen in the equanimity with which the civilized world responded to Saddam Hussein's lavish cash awards to the families of suicide bombers and other Palestinian "martyrs," with the highest amounts reserved for those who killed children and other innocents within Israel proper. President Bush was the only Western leader to condemn this monstrous behavior. Western indifference to Saddam's public offer to pay for the murder of Jews, combined with the major increase in anti-Semitism in Western Europe itself, cannot but have reassured Israel's Arab enemies that they are not alone in regarding Jews as a lesser form of humanity, and Jewish life as an object of little value.

THE PROBLEM IS EXISTENTIAL

However much it may exasperate those bent on "bringing an end" to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, decades of war, terror and hatred are not to be undone through declarations and deadlines. The problem is not one of borders and territory; it is not one of schedules; it is not even one of a Palestinian state. The problem is existential.

Israel is at present capable of defending itself against any conventional armed threat; it may also be expected to deter any overt attempt to attack it with weapons of mass destruction. But such capabilities are no longer sufficient to ensure security. An attack by an extremist group, secretly supported by a state capable of providing it with weapons of mass destruction, can no longer be ruled out of the question. Alternatively, a state could act irrationally, driven by fanatical beliefs or by leaders prepared to absorb grave punishment in exchange for wreaking irreversible harm on Israel.

That is what is meant by an existential threat – a threat to Israel's very existence, fueled by a radical and uncompromising hatred of that existence and by the implacable determination to liquidate it. Some Arab and Muslim states, along with private and religious groups around the world, have adopted the destruction of Israel as official policy. Others give sanctuary and active help to groups committed to that end. With support from Germany, France, Russia and other nations, states controlled by Islamic extremists or Arab radicals have acquired or are acquiring nuclear devices and other weapons of mass destruction. The former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani – who has been described as a "moderate" – has declared that "the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground"; Pakistan's retired intelligence chief, Gen. Hamid Gul, now a "strategic adviser" to the Islamist parties that control the Pakistani legislature, has asserted that "we have the nuclear capability that can destroy Madras [India], surely the same missile can do the same to Tel Aviv."

In the democratic West, no one wishes to believe this – it is too awful. And that, too, adds to the magnitude of the threat. By omission as much as by commission, the U.S. and other democracies have encouraged radical Palestinians and their supporters to cling to their dream of eliminating the Jewish state. They have acquiesced in and thereby promoted the separate and unequal treatment of Israel as a member state of the community of nations. They have truckled to, and pressured Israel to reach an accommodation with, the most radical elements among its adversaries, while subsidizing and turning a blind eye to the culture of violence in which generations of those adversaries have been raised. When it comes to the workings of anti-Semitism, they have chosen not to absorb, and not to act upon, the indelible lessons of history.

In late March, Condoleezza Rice remarked that although the administration welcomed "comments" on the road map, the document itself was not susceptible of "renegotiation." If true, that is a pity. A road map to peace is a fine thing, but if it is based in denial and wishful thinking it will be rightly doomed. The task for diplomats and all other interested parties is to force an end to the murder of Jews and to the effort to destroy the Jewish state; in pursuit of that goal, it is as necessary to delegitimize Palestinian violence once and for all as it is to prevent and repudiate the delegitimization of Israel. When that necessary condition is met in word and deed, all manner of desirable and mutually beneficial outcomes will become negotiable; but not before.

FULL ARTICLES

“IT CAN BE SAID THAT ARAFAT LOST THE BATTLE BUT WON THE WAR”

Road map for legitimizing terror
By Israel Harel
Ha'aretz
May 2, 2003

If political gains are, by definition, the main fruit of victory in the battlefield, the road map proves the Palestinians – not Israel – have the upper hand in the war of terror that they initiated.

The attack in Tel Aviv – in the early morning hours after Holocaust Memorial Day and after Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) was sworn in as the Palestinian Authority's first prime minister – is further proof that Israel does not have enough strength to put an end to that war.

Is it any wonder, then, that the United States is saying to itself: If Israel does not have the determination to put an end to the terror that is persistently striking it, its best friend must take the initiative to stop the bloodbath that Israel has been unable to halt – due to inhibitions that are characteristic of Jews, who are afraid to take the necessary steps, even when they would lead to the prevention of the continuous murder of Israeli citizens.

In order for the road map to have a chance, it must be pro-Palestinian because the initiative, even after 13 months of killing Jews, continues to be in the hands of the Palestinians.

The road map's main danger is not the harsh demands it makes on Israel but its very publication. The Arabs conclude, and rightly so, that America is declaring via the map that the terror against the Jews, unlike terror against the citizens of any other country, pays and is therefore permissible. The road map is also a personal victory for Yasser Arafat, the man who until recently seemed to have fallen, never to rise again.

It can be said that Arafat lost the battle but won the war. What's more, despite the fact that, in principle, his crimes against humanity, particularly in the past two and a half years, are no different from the crimes of Saddam Hussein and all the other war criminals who have butchered civilians, Arafat enjoys immunity like no other leader of mass terror. Perhaps it is because his victims are Jews.

The bulk of his immunity is granted by the Israeli government, which is obligated to act on behalf of the victims who were murdered by his criminal activities. This is because the government, due to characteristic Jewish victims' complexes ("political reasons"), does not dare charge Arafat with war crimes. If this is the nature of the victims' government, how can we complain against the rehabilitation provided by European governments whose representatives do not desist from making pilgrimages to visit him.

It is unfortunate that the Israel Defense Forces, unlike the American army in Iraq, did not manage to grant its government the unequivocal victory that would have enabled it to dictate political and security conditions to the Palestinians. Such a victory would also have restrained the international pressure and prevented the need, certainly from the American's point of view, for the road map.

This would also have created a political-psychological atmosphere that would have made it possible to try Arafat for war crimes, along with the band of terrorists who acted on his behalf, just as the Americans are about to try the war criminals in Iraq and just as the Allied forces, led by the Americans, tried the German war criminals 57 years ago.

We would also be able to drive home the awareness that the blood of Jewish terror victims is just as red as that of Saddam's victims and, believe it or not, as the blood of the Americans who were murdered in the terror attacks. Just imagine what America would do to Saddam, to bin Laden and their minions when they are caught.

Only after 19 months of rampant terror, following the attack at the Park Hotel in Netanya on Seder night (March 27, 2002), did Israel understand that it was the defensive doctrine that everyone praised, thanks to the reduced military casualty figures, that had practically given the terrorists free reign to organize and carry out the mass-fatality attacks.

Even during Operation Defensive Shield, despite its relative success, the job was not finished and the terrorists remained undaunted. The IDF, like the American army in the 1991 Gulf War, halted the war on the verge of victory, while most of the terror infrastructures, particularly the headquarters and the directive and political leaderships, continued to operate.

Abu Mazen, who is now being told to finish the IDF's job, will smoke out the terrorists with the same vigor, the same efficacy and the same results as his predecessor to the commitment "to dismantle the terrorists infrastructures" - Arafat.

The United States gave us enough leeway to win this war. President George W. Bush even tried to neutralize Arafat, the patriarch of Arab terror. When we did not meet the performance test due to our inhibitions and our failings, and the people continued to bleed, the Americans had to come up with a plan that they, in their mistaken naivete, felt would bring an end to the bloodshed.

And when Israel is ordered to start with "gestures" toward the Palestinians, and later to bear the brunt of the price of implementing the plan, there is no doubt as to who has won the battle. It is no wonder, then, that Arafat's calendar is so full of meetings with foreign ministers. He has been perceived, and rightly so, as the one who has again come out as the political victor in another round of the never-ending terrorist war the Arabs are waging, and will continue to wage, against the existence of the Jewish Zionist state.

 

ABBAS’S BURDEN OF PROOF

Column One: Abbas's burden of proof
By Caroline Glick
The Jerusalem Post
April 25, 2003

There was a distinct feeling of deja vu from 1994 in the air this week. Back then, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak saved the international community from embarrassment by physically forcing Yasser Arafat to sign the Gaza-Jericho agreement on live television. This week, Mubarak sent the commander of his intelligence service to repeat the performance. General Omar Sulieman came to Ramallah on Tuesday and literally forced Arafat to meet with his deputy, Dr. Mahmoud Abbas, and accept Abbas's cabinet.

As in 1994, the US and Europe heaved a collective sigh of relief at Egypt's manhandling of Arafat. The question is whether Arafat's seeming capitulation now will prove as fraudulent as his behavior then.

When last June US President George W. Bush called on the Palestinian people to reject the regime of PLO chief Arafat and to elect leaders "not compromised by terror," he underscored the necessity of a complete overhaul of the way the Palestinians perceive their national identity. No longer could the Palestinians conceive of their nationalism as something that must necessarily supplant Jewish nationalism in order to reach fruition. Rather, a new group of leaders was called on to rise up who would understand that the realization of Palestinian aspirations can come about only after the Palestinians accept Israel's right to exist as the Jewish state.

Today, responding to British pressure, the Bush administration stands poised to preside over new talks between the Israeli government and the PLO under the nascent leadership of Abbas, Arafat's deputy of four decades. The announced aim of these talks is the speedy establishment of a Palestinian state.

But before any such talks begin it is vital that all concerned parties, but especially Israel, pause a moment and consider the reason for Oslo's abject failure.

The Oslo process was predicated on a set of false assumptions. The primary assumption was that the PLO, an organization founded with the expressed aim of destroying Israel, no longer sought our liquidation. Instead, what we found with Arafat's rejection of Ehud Barak's offer at Camp David is that the PLO had not changed. Not only would Arafat not yield the Palestinians' so-called "right of return," he also denied that the Jewish people have any historic and legal claims to Jerusalem.

And for this stand he received a hero's welcome by the Palestinians upon his return to Gaza.

The Oslo process also posited that the PLO had forsworn its armed struggle for the destruction of the State of Israel. Yet Arafat himself formed the Aksa Martyr's Brigades, which as Thursday's suicide bombing shows, is still actively conducting terrorist operations against Israelis. Then, too, even before the Palestinian Authority launched its terrorist war against Israel in September 2000, its security services never made any sustained effort to destroy Hamas or Islamic Jihad terror infrastructures. To the contrary, PA military commanders like Col. Muhammad Dahlan embraced Hamas leaders like Muhammad Deif. Already back in September 1996, Arafat showed that he had no compunction about using the weapons Israel had given him to fight terrorism to kill Israelis.

Finally, the Oslo agreement wrongly assumed that the PLO could be trusted to abide by its signed commitments to Israel. It could not. From allowing the free flow of sewage into riverbeds streaming into Israel to amassing arsenals of prohibited armaments to registering tens of thousands of vehicles stolen from Israelis, the Palestinian Authority breached every single commitment it made to Israel at the negotiating table.

Now we are told that all of this is past, because under Abbas's leadership the Palestinian Authority is reformed. We are told that Arafat, who this week was feted by the entire international community in an effort to have him accept Abbas's proposed cabinet a cabinet that looks almost exactly like Arafat's cabinet no longer holds influence over what happens in the Palestinian Authority.

Yet even if we accept the dubious assertion that Arafat is now neutralized, we still must ask ourselves the question, why would Abbas be any different? Abbas received his doctorate in 1983 from Moscow's Oriental University. There his dissertation topic was "The Secret Relationship between Nazism and Zionism." In his dissertation, which was adapted into a book published in Jordan in 1984, Abbas argued that, as opposed to what is commonly believed, "even fewer than a million Jews" were murdered by the Nazis.

He further argued that the gas chambers were not used to kill people but rather to disinfect them and to burn bodies to prevent the flow of disease. Abbas claimed that Hitler did not decide to kill the Jews until David Ben-Gurion provoked him into doing so by "declaring war on the Nazis" in 1942. It was the Zionist conspirators, Abbas explains, who created the myth of six million murdered Jews in order to force the world to accept the establishment of Israel.

To date, neither the Israeli government nor Abbas's main champion, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, have asked him to retract his statements of Holocaust denial.

Then too, the US plan to base new rounds of negotiations with an Abbas-led PA on the Quartet's "road map" has never taken into account Abbas's expressed agreement with the maximalist Palestinian demands set out by Arafat at the Camp David summit. In an interview with Kul al Arab radio in August 2000, Abbas said of the Palestinian demand for the "right of return," "It is only natural that each refugee return to his home." In the same interview he also directly threatened Israel, stating that if Israel does not accept the Palestinian demands, "We will open up the records of the past and demand the country in which they live" that is, pre-1967 Israel. He also stated that he does not believe that Solomon's Temple ever existed in Jerusalem.

A year later, in an interview with the PA's Al-Ayyam newspaper, Abbas explained why any flexibility in the Palestinian demands toward Israel is unacceptable. "When a Palestinian says that we have missed an opportunity or a tempting or a beneficial offer [by rejecting Barak's offers at Camp David and Taba] it weakens the Palestinian position since [consequently] the Americans and Israelis say, 'Here is a Palestinian who agrees with our position.' Such things, unfortunately hurt the Palestinian position."

So much, then, for Abbas's alleged moderation. Then there are the claims that Abbas, unlike the rest of the PA, is untainted by corruption. Yet both Abbas and his Security Minister-designate Dahlan are some of the Palestinians most associated with PA corruption. Both men made a fortune from kick-backs from the cement monopolies in Gaza. For years, photographers were prohibited from taking pictures of the multi-million dollar villas in Gaza both men financed by bilking the public trough.

Abbas has also shown that his Soviet education rubbed off on him. Speaking of reforms in May 2002, Abbas explained that the reforms need to take economic power away from Palestinian civilians and transfer all power to the Palestinian Authority. Abbas argued then that a necessary reform would involve preventing international NGOs from distributing monies directly to Palestinian NGOs. All those funds, he argued, must be transferred to the PA, the sole organization responsible for deciding how it should be apportioned.

It is true that in some recent statements, Abbas has argued that the PA's terror war against Israel did not serve the national aspirations of the Palestinian people. But these sort of statements, while encouraging, should be seen for what they are: an argument about tactics, not strategy, certainly not morality. They are not denunciations of terrorism per se, only of terrorism that doesn't work. Together with his record as anti-Semitic ideologue of Palestinian terrorism, it ought to be enough to dampen anyone's enthusiasm for Abbas as an improvement over Arafat.

Learning the lessons of Oslo means placing the full burden of proof on the Palestinians. Abbas, not Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, must be challenged to show that he wishes to make concessions for peace. He must be challenged to recant his denials of the Holocaust. He must be called to accept that Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. He must forswear his insistence on the "right of return." He must be called on to accept publicly the existence of the Jewish people whose national, spiritual and political roots are in Jerusalem.

None of this is meant to humiliate Abbas. After all, no one believes that Sharon is humiliating himself when he says he will accept the establishment of a Palestinian state. Rather, all of this is necessary to ensure that not only will a peace deal be reached, but that the peace will hold. If we learned anything from the past three years it must be this: Unless the Palestinian Authority under Abbas is actually willing to abide by the commitments taken on by the PLO a decade ago, there is no point in cheering his rise, no reason to negotiate anything with him, and certainly no reason to sigh in relief that Arafat again has done Mubarak's bidding.

 

“WESTERN JOURNALISTS HAVE BEEN SINGING JOYOUS DITTIES OVER THE APPOINTMENT OF ABBAS”

Road map gives Israel just another bad steer
By A.M. Rosenthal
The New York Daily News
May 1, 2003

The U.S. has made public still another plan for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement. It won't work.

For one thing, it is too vague, or tricky, about the problem that bedevils the Israelis. Once again, they will carry out irreversible concessions about land while the Palestinians keep talking about their promises – most often, to dampen terrorism. They forgot to carry through with those promises after each of seven previous negotiations.

This new plan, mostly American-made, is called the road map. But in addition to Israelis, Palestinians, Americans and Britons, a bunch of others will be at the talks reaching for the driver's wheel – Russia, the European Union and the UN, all of which spend much of their time slanging away at Israel and making its life as hard as they can.

Even though a new Palestinian state is taken as a given, the road map gives Palestinians three years to create the government and social and political frameworks to make it democratic. One might think the Palestinian movement would have to prove its ability to govern itself before it's brought into the UN.

If the Israelis have any memory, they'll recall the fiasco of Oslo and other talks that wound up with land for Palestinians and promises for them. Like earlier negotiations, this one will end without tested machinery to make peace a permanent reality.

The road map does create a lot more meetings whose accomplishments, if any, cannot be enforced. Before the talks start is the time for every Jew, Christian and Muslim to think through past Israeli-Muslim negotiations and their failure to reach peace and to ask whether the upcoming talks will succeed or merely set the scene for another round of talks in a few years.

While Arabs are given independence, Israelis must scrap their settlements – whether decades old or recently built – for Jewish families who dared to expand. Where the Jewish babies will be put, the road map does not say.

The plan instructs Palestinians to end violence, terrorism and incitements and to confiscate illegal weapons and arrest terrorists. Presumably, this time they'll keep them locked up instead of rushing so many out of prison, as in the past. Then, to show its even hand, the road map tells Israelis to do the same against its own terrorism. The authors, whatever bureaucrats or specialists they may be, are among the most unashamed practitioners of the sin of moral equivalency I have encountered.

The decades since the beginning of Israel's fight for survival show that when it came to military matters, the Israelis came out on top. But when both sides went to negotiations, Israel lost land and consequent military maneuverability. What it gained from these negotiations I cannot see, except that it may have helped destroy the snarling myth that Jews are such shrewd bargainers.

Fairy tales aside, the creation of an independent Palestine will hardly make Israel more secure. The Palestinian Authority will have another army and police force to add to its strength, and it was enormously skillful at integrating its forces with Yasser Arafat's terrorists. Young Arabs who may fight Israel in the future have grown up immersed in vicious anti-Israeli propaganda. Saddam Hussein was their hero before, during and after the war on Iraq.

Western journalists have been singing joyous ditties over the appointment by the Palestinian parliament of Mahmoud Abbas as prime minister. They may be premature. In a 1983 book, Abbas wrote that Zionist leaders gave permission to the Nazis to drive Jews out of Europe as long as they fled to Palestine. And like a good Arab leader, he mocked the idea that 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust. The Zionists, he wrote, invented the figure – it was really just a few hundred thousand. The book's title was "The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and the Zionist Movement."

Is he now a different man? Maybe. But he told an Arab paper that the intifadeh must continue and Palestinians must resist Israelis with all means, including arms.

That was March 3, 2003.

 

“A COUNTRY DISJOINTED BY SPLINTERED AUTHORITY CANNOT SURVIVE”

Israel must not miss yet another opportunity
By Shimon Peres
The Los Angeles Times
May 16, 2003

For the "road map" to avoid becoming moribund even before it has had a chance of turning into a green light for the peace process, issues that have little chance of being resolved – such as the Palestinian "right of return" – must be removed from the road map agenda.

Israel's position on this issue is unequivocal and backed by the whole of the Israeli political spectrum. If millions of Palestinian refugees are allowed to return to Israel, it will endanger the very foundations of a Jewish state. A Jewish state means a Jewish majority. And Israel will not commit political suicide.

The Palestinian right of return will need to be realized within the borders of a Palestinian state. I am aware that the Palestinians will not express public acceptance of this position. On this subject, we must therefore agree to not agree, without allowing this absence of agreement to interfere with the road map.

The Palestinian government must without delay put into effect a plan to dismantle and disarm the various armed militias operating on the ground and consolidate matters of security under its sole authority. Unless this course of action is enforced, Hamas and Islamic Jihad will dictate the Palestinian agenda and foil its attempts to advance peace. A government can be democratic or not democratic, but a country disjointed by splintered authority cannot survive.

Israel's government must implement the assurances it gave not only upon its recent election but also during its previous term, that new settlement activities will cease. This resolution was debated at the Knesset and approved, making it legally binding. The same commitment was made to the United States and must be fulfilled.

Since this commitment was made, several hundred settlements and outposts were created, and they must be dismantled. The so-called "painful concessions" pledge (by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon) cannot replace the real test of deeds.

All of the sides – the "quartet" with the United States in the lead (along with Russia, the European Union and the United Nations), Israel and the Palestinians – must agree on a two-way track at the start: to fight terror as though there were no negotiations and engage in negotiations as though there was no fight against terror. If one is dependent on the other, it is doubtful that the process will ever leave the station.

Fighting terror is not a gift that the Palestinians are offering Israel.

A terrorist – or even semi-terrorist – Palestinian state has no chance of seeing the light of day. But Israel must also fight the motives for terror. The Palestinian people will commit themselves fully to fighting terror only when it becomes clear to them that an end to terror will yield greater dividends than allowing it to continue.

Therefore, it is manifestly in Israel's self-interest to create a political horizon that will encompass an end to the occupation, its agreement to borders on the basis of U.N. resolutions 242 and 338 and the establishment of a demilitarized yet sustainable and independent Palestinian state.

We must not miss yet again the rare opportunity we are now given. It has always been hard to untangle ourselves from the complexities of the situation, and this time too will not be easy. But as opposed to the past, the potential peace today seems to overshadow the fear of war.

A ROAD MAP TO ISRAEL’S OBLIVION

A road map to Israel's oblivion
By Cal Thomas
Fox news
May 5, 2003

President Bush appears ready to press ahead with the "road map" to establish a Palestinian state that can only jeopardize the continued existence of Israel.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says the road map – drafted last year by the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations – will be published once the new Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, is on the job.

This is sham Middle East theater. Having gained so many concessions from Israelis without living up to a single agreement they have signed, Palestinian leaders are not about to rescind their political-religious objective of eliminating Israel as a state and the Jewish presence in the region. The administration is as anxious to declare victory in the maddening Middle East conflict as the Nixon administration was to end the Vietnam War. Thirty years ago, President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger trumpeted "peace with honor" following talks with North Vietnamese leaders in Paris. South Vietnam soon fell to the Communists, who had never abandoned their vision of one country under their dictatorial control. Israel could easily become like South Vietnam – overrun by its enemy – if the "road map" is implemented.

Among the road map's many problems is that it fails to fulfill President Bush's own conditions. In a speech last June, the president said 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." That is unlikely to happen since terrorism has been the official policy of Yasser Arafat and his bloody band of brothers for more than 30 years. The faux "democracy" that Abbas supposedly represents is about as credible as one of Saddam Hussein's near-unanimous elections.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said there can be no lasting peace in Northern Ireland until the Irish Republican Army destroys its hidden weapons, renounces violence and commits to a political process. He is right about that, but wrong when he and President Bush want to push ahead with their Middle East road map without making similar demands of the Palestinian leaders.

The new Palestinian cabinet is full of Arafat supporters. As many as 14 ministers are expected to be old Arafat appointees with just four to six loyal to Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen). While Abbas controls one "security" organization, Arafat still commands many far larger ones. Arafat refuses to accept Abbas' "demand" that the armed factions of Fatah, such as the Al-Aqsa martyrs brigade, be dissolved. Arafat will continue to be the puppeteer, no matter whom the audience sees on stage. He will resemble Richard Gere in the film "Chicago," pulling the strings and providing words for his dancing marionettes.

Abbas retains his hard-line views. If implemented, they will jeopardize Israel's very existence. In an interview last month, he continued to justify "armed struggle" against Israeli civilians. He has never repudiated his 1983 book, "The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and the Zionist Movement," which denies the Holocaust occurred.

The minimum requirement before moving ahead with any "road map" is for Abbas and his cabinet to renounce violence as a means of achieving their objectives and then begin dismantling the terror infrastructure that has murdered schoolchildren and adult civilians for more than three decades. If that happens, the pressure will shift to Israel to reciprocate. But it won't happen because this conflict isn't about "two states living side by side in peace," as President Bush wants. It is about creating a new state that will be used as a base to eliminate Israel.

That Palestinian objective won't change because abolishing Israel is in the corrupted blood of Arafat and all his henchmen, including Abbas. The standard for compliance about violence should be no different from that applied to the IRA by Tony Blair in Northern Ireland or to Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Surely President Bush knows this. Perhaps he is merely staging his own political theater to expose Arafat and company as the liars they are. That's fine, but Israel should not be required to buy a ticket to this show until it sees the last act.

 

WHY SHOULD WHAT FAILED IN THE 1990S BE EXPECTED TO SUCCEED NOW?

Going along with the road map
By Barry Rubin
The Jerusalem Post
May 6, 2003

Here's a quick test: What is the correct name of the road map peace plan? Answer: A Performance-Based Road-map to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict."

The title expresses the trade-off at the heart of this plan. If by their performance the Palestinians prove themselves ready for a solution, they will get the reward of a state.

The road map's basic logic is the same as that of the Oslo Agreement. An interim period of two years (compared to five in theory for Oslo) will give both sides a chance to show each other they are ready to make a comprehensive peace.

Why should what failed in the 1990s be expected to succeed now? I can see only three possible reasons:

• Abu Mazen is prime minister. Since much of the problem in the 1990s was Yasser Arafat, his replacement should do better.

• The suffering of the last three years should persuade both sides that they desperately need a deal.

• Changes in the regional order, the defeat of Iraq, and the growth of US power will help the peace process to work.

Before discussing why these factors seem inadequate to bring success, let's look at the US and European sponsors. Both would like to see an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Yet they also have more immediate motives.

The United States wants to show the Arabs that it is their friend, to encourage acceptance of its actions in Iraq and wider program in the region.

But the American government is in no mood for appeasement. It will demand that the Palestinians meet performance criteria and make some real, though reasonable, compromises along the lines of what was offered in the Camp David summit and Clinton plan. It will strengthen Abu Mazen's hand and look toward the long-run, post-Arafat period.

Even if this round fails it can help lay a foundation for future success. The Europeans in general are very much in a mood for appeasement. They want to show their own constituencies they are solving the Arab-Israeli conflict (which they insist is the region's core issue); they want to stave off Arab anger and regional instability they fear will trigger terrorist violence and unwanted immigration; and they want to make money selling things to the Arabs.

They care little about performance. It is not much of an exaggeration to see their basic message as: Give them a state as soon as possible, and get it over with. Who cares about the details?

No doubt, the US interpretation will prevail. Yet all these external considerations are secondary anyway. What counts right now is what the Palestinians do. And what they that is, Abu Mazen have to do is to implement a real cease-fire in their war against Israel.

I believe Abu Mazen, Abu Ala, Muhammad Dahlan and their colleagues are sincere about ending the current conflict. Why not? It has resulted in a disastrous defeat for them.

Palestinian casualties have been heavy, the Palestinians enjoy no meaningful international support, their economy is destroyed, their infrastructure has been heavily damaged, and they are at the mercy of a leader who seems incapable of functioning in a rational manner.

As if that were not enough, it is quite clear that their current strategy of violence (a little guerrilla warfare, a lot of terrorism) is not going to defeat Israel. In other words, their current strategy guarantees that they will not get a state and that the occupation will continue indefinitely.

Therefore one does not have to be a genius to know that an end to violence, serious negotiations, and a compromise peace agreement is in the interest of the Palestinians.

But that, unfortunately, is the problem. Even the longest journey, so the Chinese saying goes, starts with a single step. In this case, that single step is Abu Mazen's pressuring which means forcing Hamas, militants in his own Fatah, and others into stopping terror attacks on Israelis.

There can be no successful deception here. Either attacks are being carried out, or they aren't. A small number, but not too many, would be accepted by Israel as evading Abu Mazen's best efforts.

As for Israeli attacks on Palestinian-controlled territory, these will obviously stop if the terror stops.

Let's assume Abu Mazen is acting in complete good faith in wanting to move the process forward. But what does he see?

• Yasser Arafat trying to sabotage him at every turn. Arafat's newest idea is to establish a national security council reporting to him that will control the security forces and negotiations with Israel. He will try to reduce Abu Mazen's power whenever possible.

• a cabinet that may be more loyal to Arafat than to himself.

• an inability to order security forces to suppress violent attacks on Israel.

• clear statements of intention from Fatah militants, supported by Arafat, and from Hamas, to continue attacks.

• Palestinian public opinion receptive to a steady stream of propaganda that he, Abu Mazen, is a traitor for wanting to make a deal with Israel.

• worst of all: obsessive Palestinian fear of a civil war. Anything is better than that, even the status quo.

In other words, Abu Mazen's chances of getting anywhere are minimal at best. The Palestinian argument will quickly become: Well, we really desired peace, but we knew Ariel Sharon wouldn't give us what we want, so it is all his fault.

Obviously, Israel must go along with the road map and show itself flexible, cooperative, and truly desiring peace. This is necessary to retain international support and keep open the possibility of Abu Mazen achieving something, or of better success in future.

But unfortunate as the situation is – and I'd prefer a real cease-fire, a compromise deal, and a Palestinian state living peacefully next door to Israel, wouldn't you? – we should have no illusions about it.

(The writer is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, part of the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (IDC). His most recent book is The Tragedy of the Middle East.)

 

A REAL PEACE PROCESS

A real peace process
By Fred Barnes
The Weekly Standard
May 5, 2003

Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat doesn't yield easily. He responds only to force and pressure, never to appeasement, unilateral concessions, or "confidence-building" gestures. The good news is that arm-twisting has finally been applied – by President Bush, Europeans, and Egypt – and Arafat has yielded twice in ways he didn't want to. The first was to name a Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, the second to compromise with Abbas last week on a cabinet that includes several Arafat critics. These concessions do not mean peace is at hand. There is much more to do and much more pressure to be applied.

Start with Arafat himself. He remains the Palestinian strongman, able to fire Abbas or thwart his initiatives. There will be no peace with Israel so long as Arafat retains power. He is the fellow who turned down in early 2001 a settlement in which Palestinians would have gotten 98 percent of the West Bank, half of Jerusalem, a land bridge between Gaza and the West Bank, and the elimination of a host of Israeli settlements. Sadly, the just-completed negotiations with Abbas over his cabinet sent the message to the world that, still, nothing important can happen in Palestinian affairs unless it goes through Arafat.

Who can change this? President Bush has already done his part by announcing, in his speech on Israel and the Palestinians last June 24, a ban on American dealings with Arafat. This weakened Arafat, but didn't cripple him. Now it's time for the Europeans, especially British prime minister Tony Blair, and the Arab states (especially Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan) to do their part. They should stop supporting Arafat. Blair, in particular, should end his chummy phone relationship with Arafat. The Arab states, if they're sincere in wanting a peace accord, can help by sending no more money to Arafat and refusing to treat him as the man to see among Palestinians. If they walk away from Arafat, he will quickly fade.

More important, they must embrace Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen). For the Arab states, this means declaring support for him in public. Dennis Ross, the former Middle East negotiator, has suggested the Saudis, Egyptians, and Jordanians issue a joint statement with Abbas to declare undying support for the Palestinian cause. But the statement would insist the cause be pursued the legitimate way – without terrorism or violence – and include political and economic reforms.

Israel, too, has a vested interest in Abbas, since the alternative is Arafat. Israel can help, but only if Abbas meets his obligation to crack down on terrorist attacks against Israelis by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades. The members of the "quartet" – the United States, United Nations, European Union, Russia – must hold Abbas accountable for suppressing terrorism, which is part of their "road map" toward a peace settlement in three years.

As Abbas works to improve security for Israelis, Israel can reciprocate by making life better for Palestinians. Without that, Abbas will never gain real authority among Palestinians, and Arafat will find himself in a still stronger position. What could the Israelis do? Lots of things: Reduce checkpoints, allow more Palestinian workers into Israel, channel resources to productive Palestinian enterprises, and release some of the 5,000 to 6,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails. Discussions between Abbas and Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, private or public, can work out exactly what each side should expect from the other in coming weeks. For Israel, it's a reduced threat of terrorism, for the Palestinians an easing of Israeli control.

Bush has a significant role to play. He's already done the hard part by liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein. Now he needs to keep up the pressure on Middle East governments that support terrorism and Islamic extremism and block the emergence of democracy. That means, for starters, Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Maybe we're wrong, but the president seemed too hasty in praising Syria for aiding the United States by promising to turn over Saddam's henchmen who seek sanctuary. That's fine, as far as it goes. But more should be required of Syria, such as ending support for Hezbollah, the world's largest terrorist organization, and tossing out of Damascus the 10 terrorist groups with headquarters there. One result will be a weakening of Palestinian terrorists, who now depend on Syria's aid.

Years ago, the late Abba Eban said the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. But that outcome is not inevitable. As a new prime minister without Arafat's bloody history but with tangible support from European and Arab leaders, Abbas could make a dramatic difference. But only if people who acted wrongly in the past – by backing Arafat, for example – do the right thing now.

 

“A DOCUMENT OF BUREAUCRATIC, PRIMITIVE UTOPIANISM”

Until Israel is recognised, this road map leads us nowhere
By Barbara Amiel
The (London) Daily Telegraph
April 28, 2003

[Please note -- I have edited out the first part of this article, which concerned Iraq, since this email dispatch is concerned solely with the Road Map]

... Next in [the British Parliament will be a demand for a settlement of the Arab-Israeli war. This week Mr Blair goes to talk about the new "road map" for peace with, fittingly one feels, Jose Aznar, the prime minister of Spain. This is Don Quixote with a road map to the windmills in his hand.

The road map has not officially been published but drafts have circulated. Produced by the "Quartet" of America, Russia, the EU and the UN, it is all that one might expect from that glorious collaboration – a document of bureaucratic, primitive Utopianism that could have been written by President Carter and Madeleine Albright on an exciting hormone day.

There will be "free, fair and open elections" in Palestine and an "immediate and unconditional" end to violence and incitement of hate towards Israel. Given the history of the past few hundred years, one feels it could work only if every Arab state from Libya to Saudi Arabia had the equivalent of a cultural sex change.

In return, the Israelis will immediately dismantle certain watchtowers and settlements, partially withdraw the army and reinstate blocked Palestinian funds. The Israelis see this as demanding irreversible actions in return for a series of reversible goodwill slogans from the Palestinians. Rather like selling and handing over your car for a cheque that will bounce.

Official release of the road map text is contingent on the confirmation of a new Palestinian Authority cabinet by the PLA. Commentators have focused on whether the new PA prime minister-designate Abu Mazen has or has not compromised himself in the deal struck with Yasser Arafat. But this is out-of-focus. If there were genuine acceptance of the need for peace with Israel, the number of Arafat cronies in the new cabinet would be academic.

Indeed, with such an acceptance, the Palestinians would have had their state 55 years ago when the UN gave it to them. All that matters in this discussion is one overwhelming issue: the Arab world has not wanted a Jewish state in the Middle East and until it is prepared to tolerate one, no plan will work.

This blunt fact has been with us since six Arab countries invaded the state of Israel hours after it came into being 55 years ago. The Arab League has not made peace to this day. Such unyielding hostility can be ignored, I think, only because most people are fed up with the matter.

The amount of danger and bother the world takes because of the "shitty" little country of Israel has worn everyone out. Such a state of mind is not predicated on any special affection for Muslims and Arabs. It simply takes into account that 1.2 billion incensed Muslims insist their big problem is a little sliver of land called Israel and will cheer suicidal terrorists flying planes into skyscrapers if that action helps undermine its chief ally, America.

The Arab-Israeli conflict has negatively affected the world economy, wreaked havoc with travel plans and destabilised societies. Understandably, most Western leaders want to wash their hands of it. But it is uncomfortable to say this. They rely instead on invoking the need for "accords" and "road maps". A mantra develops about Israel's "illegal settlements", and no one faces the disquieting truth that until 1967 there were no Jewish settlements on the West Bank, the territories were in Arab hands and Israel still couldn't get peace.

We cannot use the broom of Oslo to sweep the Muslim world's inability to endure the notion of a Jewish state under the carpet. This is not to say that no single state or person in the Arab world will accept Israel, only that the fulcrum is rejectionist. It is futile to make peace with a few doves who when war comes will, like Jordan or Egypt, sit back on the sidelines and lament that it's none of their doing if their kissing cousins in Syria and Iran are trying to blow Israel up.

The Middle East is seething with its own difficulties: moderate Islam versus fundamentalism, tribal factions, religious splits and economic underdevelopment. Removing Israel would solve none of these. But the presence of Israel in the Arab/Muslim world has come to symbolise in some obsessive way all their fundamental failures and shortcomings. It is like a person with both a serious disease and a speck of dirt in his eye. His heart disease might kill him but as long as that speck of sand is under his contact lens, it is all he can think about.

Like squabbling scholastics, Mr Blair and Westminster will not face the real dilemma. They will quarrel over the Quartet's "evaluation" of "performance on implementation" of the road map's arcania of "obligations in parallel unless otherwise indicated". But this road map is a road map to nowhere. Until there is acceptance of a Jewish state in the Middle East all peace plans are illusory and with real acceptance, any map is unnecessary. One only hopes that God has a road map of his own.

FULL ARTICLES

“ANOTHER WICKED AND POINTLESS LOSS OF INNOCENT LIFE”

Another carnage
Editorial
Arab News (Saudi Arabia)
May 18, 2003

Another country, another slaughter, another wicked and pointless loss of innocent life, another act which brings shame to the Islamic world, in whose name the suicide bombers claim to be acting. The latest series of international outrages, this time in the Moroccan city of Casablanca has left everyone, not least the Moroccans themselves, shocked and appalled. According to authorities, the carnage had all the hallmarks of Al-Qaeda.

The question that comes back once again to all decent people is what these barbarians think they are doing? How can anyone imagine that the butchery of fellow human beings in such a random and brutal fashion advances any cause one centimeter?

As we have said before, there is absolutely nothing noble about mass murder. These people may claim to be fighting a jihad and embracing martyrdom, but the only martyrs are their pitiful victims. Those who throw away their lives in such a wicked cause are common murderers. It is hard to believe, given their intelligence and cunning, that they do not appreciate the contempt and loathing with which all decent people view their actions. It must therefore be assumed that they welcome such reactions.

In some perverse manner, they see the disgust their actions generate as a measure of their success. The angrier they can make people, the further their cause is being advanced. It is hard to know how to deal with such warped logic. It has long of course been the stock in trade of terrorists down the ages. And it has not been without success. Men who were once branded as terrorists have in time come to political power. Archbishop Makarios in Cyprus and Menachem Begin in Israel were both guilty of heinous crimes earlier in their political lives. But as part of the realpolitik of international diplomacy, in time they became accepted as statesmen on the world stage.

Herein however lies the gaping difference between the reprehensible actions of these terrorists and those of Al-Qaeda. The former were acting for a specific cause, centered on a specific country. Al-Qaeda, by contrast, has less well-defined aims. Its killers are attacking international society in a vicious, inchoate campaign that has at its heart a desire for anarchy and destruction on a scale never before imagined or seen.

There is only one certainty in this horrific, manic campaign of terror and that is that Casablanca will not be the last helpless community to feel the spite of Al-Qaeda killers. Many more helpless people who have the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time will die. There are misguided individuals at this very moment planning to destroy themselves along with as many of their perceived enemies as possible in the next outrage.

However, from the sick mentality of these killers emerges an opportunity for all those who embrace the normal, pacific values of the world. Just as the terrorists seem to define themselves by the carnage that they can perpetrate, so we must identify ourselves by our stoicism in the face of such great evil.

These sick terrorists will eventually be tracked down, not least the cynical leaders who send young fools to their deaths. However until this happens, our reaction should not be primarily one of fury, but of pity and contempt. To fear and hate them will, by contrast, give a perverse victory to them and their deeply flawed cause.

 

“TERRORISTS AND CRIMINALS SHOULD BE CHASED IN EVERY CORNER OF THE WORLD”

Jordan condemns criminal terrorist attacks
Jordan Times
May 18, 2003

Jordan on Saturday condemned the "criminal terrorist attacks" in Morocco, which claimed dozens of innocent civilian lives.

In a statement carried by the Jordan News Agency, Petra, Minister of State for Political Affairs and Minister of Information Mohammad Adwan said: "This criminal act highlights again the fact that fighting terrorism is a collective responsibility that should be shouldered by all countries, particularly in this part of the world."

"Terrorists and criminals should be chased in every corner of the world," he added.

"Countries should join ranks in combating those murderers who seek to kill and terrorise innocent civilians to destabilise the region," Adwan, who is also government spokesperson, said.

"This abhorrent crime which come less than a week after a similar one was committed in the capital of Saudi Arabia proves that terrorists and their cowardly acts have nothing to do with Islam, not only because they targeted Arab and Muslim countries, but also because Islam rejects such hideous deeds."

Adwan expressed Jordan's support for Morocco and condolences to the Moroccan people, particularly the victims' families.

Also Saturday, Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher condemned the "monstrous attacks" committed in Casablanca and said time had come to mount a counterattack against the "terrorist plague."

"Jordan condemns these monstrous attacks, which have no aim other than to soil the image of Arab and Islamic civilisation throughout the world," Muasher told Agence France-Presse.

"The time has come to stage a counterattack, which we will join fully to eliminate this cancer among us," Muasher said.

The minister stressed that Jordan "stands firmly by Morocco and Saudi Arabia, as well as with all those who work for peace and stability in the region and stand up to this madness hurting humanity."

Muasher said Amman was not worried about also being targeted by the terror group Al Qaeda despite a February recording attributed to its head, Osama Ben Laden, that threatened Jordan along with the two countries hit this week.

"Nothing will change or affect Jordanian policies, which aim to bring peace and stability to the region. Such actions will only reinforce our efforts to fight terrorism," Muasher told AFP.

 

“BLACK TERRORISM”

'Black terrorism:' Cycle of international violence widens
Al-Ittihad (Abu Dhabi)
May 19, 2003

Writing on the bomb blasts that rocked the Moroccan coastal city of Casablanca on Friday, the paper described the attacks as the work of an international terrorist network that was born in the terrorist training fields in the Tora Bora Mountains, Kandahar and Jalalabad.

Despite the possible havoc that such terrorist elements could wreak on peaceful societies, they are doomed to fail as long as their perverted ideology is rejected by those societies, the paper said.

"The terrorists will remain isolated. This time around they have chosen the wrong venue Morocco, a country which enjoys political pluralism and stability."

Al-Rai (Amman)

Columnist Tareq Massarwa predicted that from now on terrorists would continue to strike throughout the Arab world with only one objective in mind: forcing Americans, including their giant corporations out. "Terrorism strikes again. But it is clear that its methods and targets are organized and bear the same fingerprints as Al-Qaeda," the columnist said.

He recalled that US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and British Prime Minister Tony Blair had said, in connection with the huge anti-war demonstrations that took place during the Iraqi offensive, that protesters would go back home and forget everything as soon as the war was over. "This US and British conceit should stop," the columnist said. "If the demonstrations in London, Berlin and San Francisco stopped, that does not mean that the demonstrations in Khartoum, Rabat and Damascus will stop too.

The columnist stressed that Rumsfeld and Blair made humiliating statements and went home to sleep quietly. But the Arabs wake up to another slaughter every day. Massarwa expressed fear that the US and its allies would use the latest spate of terrorist attacks as an excuse for launching more attacks against Arab states.

Asharq Al-Awsat (London)

The second terrorist operation in the Arab world in a post-Iraq war era was condemned by several Beirut newspapers, just like the previous attack in Riyadh was, the paper said. It is no longer possible to keep quiet about this "black terrorism" which has moved, in a few days, from one end of the Arab world to another," the paper said Sunday.

This means that the entire Arab world, with all its various communities, is targeted by this "mobile terrorism and this dirty war," which is being waged by some deranged groups, who think they have a score to settle even with children, the paper said.

It warned that these groups, whether through the direction of Al-Qaeda or not, will attack anywhere in the Arab world. The paper called on all Arab communities to be prepared to face up to this "mobile terrorism," because the responsibility to prevent these attacks does not fall only on the security and intelligence services, but on the entire population of the Arab world.

Akhbar Al-Arab (Abu Dhabi)

Writing on the recent terror attacks, the daily said: "The Casablanca and Riyadh bombings have proven that earlier measures to combat terrorism have failed. The fact that the terrorists were able to hit again calls for a total review of earlier measures."

Ad-Diyar (Beirut)

The explosions which rocked the Moroccan city of Casablanca Friday, leaving over 40 dead, was strongly condemned by columnist Nizar Abdel Qader Sunday. He claimed that the Casablanca and Riyadh attacks were a clear sign that the US-led anti-terrorism war, whose first phase took place in Afghanistan and the second phase in Iraq, had failed to check the advance of international terrorism and to secure US interests in this part of the world.

He claimed that the two bombing attacks had not targeted the US mainland, but targeted Washington's oldest allies in the region. "This has produced a feeling of near panic with the US expatriate communities in both countries.

Abdel Qader concluded that Washington had clearly failed to address the issue of terrorism in this part of the world because the Americans were dealing with the consequences of terrorism instead. "They should be looking for its causes such as poverty, deprivation and backwardness, and once these issues are addressed, terrorism will end," he wrote.

An-Nahar (Beirut)

Columnist Ali Hamadeh, writing for the conservative daily, called for disarming the Lebanon-based Palestinian refugee camps, which have witnessed a recent spate of armed violence. "Explosions and armed confrontations are daily occurrences in the camps and the only way to stop them is for Lebanese authorities to engage in a dialogue with local Palestinian chieftains."

Hamadeh accused the Lebanese authorities of keeping the Palestinian camps armed in order to "use them as regional bargaining chips with Israel in the future." He said the majority of Lebanese are angry at the escalating violence in the camps, where the country's laws do not apply.

Al-Akhbar (Cairo)

Speaking on the latest repercussions of the US-British war in Iraq, the pro-government daily said: "Egypt has long warned against the consequences of the use by the US and Britain of excessive military force to settle the Iraqi crisis, urging a peaceful solution instead.

"Egypt's warnings have proved valid. Cairo has reiterated that opting for military intervention was likely to encourage acts of terrorism driven by injustices, frustration and despair. It is time the international community had enough courage to acknowledge that it is not Al-Qaeda alone that is responsible for the resurgence of acts of international terrorism. It is the combination of American collusion with the Israeli aggression, along with the sidelining of justice and peoples' will, that is to blame."

Al-Watan (Oman)

Commenting editorially on the objectives of the Casablanca bombings and those that occurred in Riyadh last week, the daily said: "Aside from spilling Western blood, their objective is to undermine the economic and political stability of Arab states by creating fear psychosis among foreigners notably expatriate residents, tourists and investors. But all that they have succeeded in doing is massacring innocent people, Arabs and non-Arabs alike."

FULL ARTICLES

“WE HAVE TO RECONSIDER EVERYTHING”

Moroccan Jews see attrition as the enemy
The community has coexisted with Muslims, but its youth seek opportunities abroad
By Tracy Wilkinson
May 20, 2003

Michel Meyer Edery, a Jew who has lived his entire life here, received two sets of phone calls in the hours after suicide bombers launched deadly attacks across his city and at the Jewish community center he frequents.

His brothers in Israel and France called to tell him it was high time to leave Morocco.

And Edery's many Moroccan friends – Muslims – called to make sure he was safe and to tell him how appalled they were at what happened.

"I gave him a big kiss when I saw him again and saw that he was OK," said Mohammed Ouhane, a Muslim who has been Edery's friend since the two middle-aged men were teens. The pair surveyed the damage at the community center, where blood dappled the interior walls and broken glass and masonry covered the floors.

Morocco, an ancient kingdom on the northern African coast, has long prided itself as a tolerant, multicultural society where Muslims and Jews have coexisted with an ease unequaled in the Arab world.

Jews first arrived here with Phoenician traders two millenniums ago, and the community thrived through thick and thin for centuries. While the population has dwindled in the last 50 years, it remains a uniquely vital Jewish presence among Muslims.

But today, Moroccan Jews are faced with new questions about their survival, haunted by a sudden sense of vulnerability. The targets in Friday's bombings, in this country unaccustomed to political violence, included a Jewish cemetery, a hotel where Israeli tourists were staying and a Jewish-owned restaurant, in addition to the community center, itself the heart of the old Jewish Quarter in downtown Casablanca.

"We have to reconsider everything," Serge Berdugo, president of the Moroccan Jewish Community, said in an interview Monday. "Not just Jews but all Moroccans. Our mistake was to think we were immune."

The Moroccan Jewish community numbered 290,000 in the early 1950s, according to Berdugo; today there are fewer than 5,000. Most are in Casablanca, where, like other Moroccans, they migrated over the decades as the city became the economic center of the country. At today's rate of attrition, there is a real concern that the community will die out over the next generation.

Some Jews are convinced the synchronized string of bombings, which authorities blame on radical Islamists from Casablanca's slums, was aimed specifically at Jewish interests; others think the larger goal was to destroy the secular way of life and moderate form of government represented by Morocco under King Mohammed VI.

"We are starting to panic a little," Edery, who owns a small garment factory, said Monday. "The government will tell us that we can open up our clubs and they will give us security, but it will never be completely peaceful again. There is fear."

Edery, 41, has decided to follow thousands of Moroccan Jews before him and will leave the country. It's a decision he says he made before Friday's attacks, and it has more to do with economic opportunity and the future of his children than worries about security.

His six brothers and sisters have already left; they last came home for their mother's funeral 10 months ago. His apartment building on Rue Galilee was inhabited by 15 Jewish families 10 years ago; today, five Jewish families remain.

"The Jewish community here is disintegrating," he said. "I've lived my life, I'm fine and not worried about myself. But I have to give my kids a platform where they won't suffer."

Jewish youth here customarily finish their high school exams and then must go abroad to university. And most don't return, building their lives in other countries, usually Israel, France, the United States or Canada, where jobs and potential spouses are more readily available.

Edery's eldest son is almost 18 and will take his exams in a few weeks. Then the family will move to Israel, where Edery said he will be given an apartment, a job, some cash and be taught the language.

Israel actively encourages Jews from other countries to move to Israel, to fortify the state and the collective Jewish identity.

An estimated 600,000 Moroccan Jews live in Israel, Berdugo said, having taken with them their brand of mystical Judaism and colorful foods, dress and customs. Unlike immigrants to Israel from Iran, Syria and a host of other Muslim countries, however, Moroccan Jews readily return to Morocco for vacations, to visit the graves of their ancestors, or to pay homage to Jewish martyrs, saints and revered rabbis.

Edery and other Moroccan Jews here say they have not felt inhibited in the practice of their faith. Edery lives a couple of blocks from the community center, in a neighborhood that counts no fewer than 30 synagogues, all tiny, and several kosher butchers.

He prays every morning and attends service every Shabbat.

Yaakov and Rosette Ruimy keep their menorah and Shabbat candles on a small table near their front door. He keeps several dozen velvet skullcaps in a chest of drawers. The couple, born and raised in Casablanca, have been married for 27 years, and they say they have no intention of leaving Morocco.

"When something like this happens, we all get together, Jews and Arabs," Yaakov Ruimy, 47, said. "It's against the kingdom, an attempt to destabilize the kingdom. We are all Moroccans."

The Ruimys' eldest son left eight years ago for Israel. Their daughter left 2 1/2 years ago for the U.S. Their 19-year-old left six months ago. Eight-year-old Avishai, a precocious and friendly boy, is the last child at home.

"They've made their lives abroad," Yaakov Ruimy said. "It makes me very sad. It's a shame The kids are leaving and the old ones are dying."

Rosette Ruimy's brother was the only Jew hurt in Friday's attacks: He broke a leg when he was caught a few yards from the community center. No Jews were among the 42 people killed. If the bombers had attacked a night earlier, hundreds of people would have been caught inside the center. But on Friday, it was closed.

Berdugo said the special place of Jews in Morocco is rooted in history. Jews were here long before the Muslims and both were driven from Spain by the Catholic monarchs during the Inquisition. There were periods when Jews were forced into ghettos or persecuted. During World War II, however, Morocco harbored Jews and others fleeing the Nazis. Later, Morocco, unlike other Arab countries, did not expel its Jews, he noted, and Jews who left could retain citizenship and property.

As Arab countries go, Morocco has had good relations with Israel and worked behind the scenes to promote peace between Israel and Egypt and then the Palestinians.

Although then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel led a large delegation to King Hassan II's funeral in 1999, official relations soured after the intifada broke out, and Israel's trade office in Rabat, the Moroccan capital, was closed in November 2000, amid huge anti-Israel demonstrations.

A former tourism minister whose family came to Morocco in 1492, Berdugo said he remains confident that there is a future for Jews in Morocco.

A number of Moroccan Jews are well connected. One of the most powerful men in the country is Jewish: Andre Azoulay, a key advisor to the monarchy for more than a decade.

"In numbers, we are not so big," Berdugo said, "but in a symbolic way we are very important for Morocco. We are proof that this is a tolerant and open country."

Still, the specter of radical Islam has become a concrete threat. Central Casablanca is a cosmopolitan place of palm-lined boulevards where French is heard at least as readily as Arabic. But drive a few miles to northern slums like Sidi Moumen, described by authorities as a breeding ground for radical Islam and home to most of last week's suicide bombers, and the picture changes.

"In our neighborhoods, in the center of the city, Jews and Arabs mix. We grew up together, there is no anti-Semitism," Edery said. "But if you go to the suburbs, where it's all Muslim, the people don't understand what a Jew is."

 

JEWS WELCOME THE SUPPORT OF MUSLIMS

Jews welcome the support of Muslims
By David Sharrock in Casablanca and Adam LeBor
The London Times
May 19, 2003

Grisly remains still clung to the demolished entrance to a Jewish social club yesterday, a reminder of the horrific attacks launched here on Friday evening and a talisman of ill fortune for Morocco's dwindling Sephardic community.

Jews here have been heartened, however, by expressions of support from their Muslim fellow citizens expressing anger and outrage over the attacks.

Victor Mamane, a leader of Casablanca's Jews, said: "Many Muslims have telephoned us to show their solidarity, to say that they are with us. We feel reassured by the authorities' response to this attack, and we have every confidence in them."

Less than 100 years ago the Sephardim – which means "from Spain" in Hebrew – could count themselves in their hundreds of thousands, a legacy of the expulsion of the Jews by the Roman Catholic King Fernando and Queen Isabel of Castille and Aragon in 1492.

For centuries the Maghreb was a refuge for the Ladino-speaking Jews – although many moved on to Turkey and the Balkans – but the creation of the state of Israel changed everything.

Casablanca today might still be as Jewish as New York, but the Arab-Israeli wars reduced their numbers to little more than 6,000 – and the figure is falling.

Many Moroccan Jews opted to emigrate to Israel and now constitute the bedrock of support for Likud, the party of Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister. These right-wing, predominantly working-class Israelis, who mainly oppose a land-for-peace deal with the Palestinians, draw on their "folk memory" of living under Arab rule to justify their intransigence. Other Moroccan Jews departed for Europe, the United States or Canada.

With their departure, historic buildings and disused synagogues in Morocco are being turned into tourist attractions.

Then, a year ago, a Jew was stabbed in the Lusitania, the area of central Casablanca where most Moroccan Jews live. Since then the wearing of the skullcap in public has all but ceased.

Islamic fundamentalists stir the pot occasionally. Recently a leading sheikh launched an extraordinary public attack on André Azoulay, the last Jewish adviser to an Arab leader.

"Jews sympathise with Israel; they cannot be trusted with the affairs of a Muslim state," Sheikh Zimzami said. Mr Azoulay, who is adviser to King Mohammed VI, preferred not to comment yesterday, saying that he was not a spokesman for the Jewish community.

But his silence was mirrored everywhere and the complacency, or in many cases a passive hostility, of Moroccans to the plight of the Jews is what Aboubakr Jamai, Editor of Le Journal, calls simply "a tragedy for the country".

Morocco is one of the few Arab countries to celebrate the heritage and contribution of its Jewish community and it takes pride in a tradition of cosmopolitan tolerance that has its root in medieval Islamic Spain, known as Jewry's "Golden Age", when Jewish writers, thinkers and philosophers wrote in Arabic.

Jews in Morocco, like Christians, were treated as dhimmi, a protected minority, but one subject to special restrictions and taxes to remind them of their subservient status.

 

“ALL JEWS HAVE TO FEEL AFRAID”

Jews in Casablanca ponder meaning of attacks
By Elaine Sciolino
The New York Times
May 20, 2003

For Serge Berdugo, the president of the Jewish Community of Morocco, the terrorists who attacked the Cercle de l'Alliance social club last Friday night left behind a message of hate – but something else as well.

The attack, which badly damaged the two-story white concrete building, was carried out on the Jewish Sabbath, so the three suicide bombers killed no one but themselves.

And in what Mr. Berdugo called "a sign from God," the massive crystal chandelier in the central hall remained intact, the photograph of King Mohammed VI hung in place, and the framed blue and orange declaration that the club was kosher was untouched.

"We are still in a state of shock, but look at this; we still have light, we still have the king and we still have the kosher declaration that defines our belief," he said. "And we promise to be open again in no more than three months."

Mr. Berdugo is a former minister of tourism, a fierce nationalist and a fervent supporter of the king. His family emigrated to Morocco in 1492 when the Catholic King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella expelled the Jews from Spain.

So it is not at all surprising that he is determined to calm Morocco's small, aging Jewish community and reinforce the official message that Morocco is a nation of tolerance and interfaith understanding.

At least three of the five targets in the terrorist operation – a Jewish social club and restaurant, a Jewish cemetery in the old city and a Jewish-owned Italian restaurant – were aimed directly at Jews. Some members of Morocco's Jewish community believe that even the Hotel Farah was a target because it was often used by Jewish tourists.

But there were no Jews among the 28 victims of the attacks. In the members-only Jewish sports club in the center of town, that was called nothing less than wondrous. Just two nights earlier, more than 200 people had come to the Cercle de l'Alliance for its weekly kosher Chinese dinner.

"If they had attacked another day and killed Jews, it would have been the end of the world for us," said Itah Violette, the manager of the kosher restaurant at the club. "I have to call it a miracle."

The attacks affected a Jewish community that is struggling to stay alive and strong as its numbers decline. Jews first arrived in Morocco after the destruction of the Jewish Temples. In 1948, there were more than 250,000 Jews out of a total of 7 million inhabitants.

Today, out of a population of 30 million, there are at most 5,000 Jews left (some officials say only 3,500), most of whom live in this ocean port city that serves as the country's commercial capital. But most Jewish high school graduates try to go to college and then find jobs abroad because there are so few jobs at home.

There is a strong campaign to revitalize the Jewish community that remains. Casablanca, for example, is home to five main synagogues (and two dozen tiny ones large enough for only 10 worshipers), six kosher restaurants and a kosher liquor store, Jewish schools and butcher and bakery shops. A new synagogue was inaugurated last year and there is a new Jewish museum.

The Jewish community has largely coexisted peacefully and integrated easily with Muslims, and Jews are wondering now whether Friday's attacks were homegrown or the work of international terrorists, as the interior minister, Mustapha Sahel, suggested on television this evening. Mr. Sahel also said that authorities had two of the suspected 14 suicide attackers in custody after 12 people – and not 13, as authorities originally said – had died in the bombings.

Moroccan Jews recall how the grandfather of the current king refused to deport Jews during World War II. In the aftermath of Friday night's attacks, there is a determination to keep the peace.

"We have always lived, eaten and worked together with the Muslims," said Moise Amou, who heads Casablanca's Jewish community. "All of us together; we cannot let down our guard and do nothing in the face of these attacks. If we do that, the other side is going to win."

At the sports center, groups of men lingered over a kosher lunch and argued over the bombings.

"The goal wasn't to kill Jewish people," said Salvador Bentolila, a 55-year-old printer. "It was symbols of the Jews they wanted to strike."

Marc Abitbol, a 60-year-old business executive, disagreed, saying, "They just made a mistake. They got the wrong night. All Jews have to feel afraid. We were the target even if no Jews were killed."

A 65-year-old corporate director, who declined to give his name, spoke of an undercurrent of anti-Jewish feeling because of American foreign policy. "Everyone thinks the Jews are supported by the Americans, and people are very anti-American," he said.

Some thought the downtown hotel was attacked because it often had Jewish clients. But others felt the attack was directed against rich, Westernized Gulf Arabs. "There were many Kuwaitis, many Saudis who came there for, excuse me, debauchery," said David Benarroch, a corporate executive. "They came to drink and watch belly-dancing. And it was known that many prostitutes came there."

There was talk of creeping Islamization in everyday life, and the dramatic increase in the number of women, especially young women, covering their hair with scarves.

"I have a secretary – she's very modern and normal – and one day she arrived in a blue scarf," said Mr. Abitbol. "I thought maybe she was sick or maybe her hair wasn't in good shape that day. But then she came in wearing a different scarf. When I asked her what was happening, she lowered her eyes and said, 'I decided to wear a scarf because of my religion.' And here she's married with kids, modern. In a scarf, a curtain."

The men say they must walk a careful line when it comes to foreign policy. There are subjects the men say they never discuss – like Israel's policies toward the Palestinians. Morocco and Israel formalized a relationship in 1994 when Israel opened a liaison office in the Moroccan capital, Rabat. But Morocco closed the office shortly after the Palestinian uprising in September 2000.

"We avoid talking about events in Israel," said one man who did not give his name. "We don't want to mix events in Israel with events in Morocco." Said another, "We talk about it – among ourselves."

The same goes for the war in Iraq. "Officially, we were against the war, like all the people in Morocco," said one man. "But in our hearts, as Moroccan Jews, we were for it. Saddam for us was a terrible threat for all the Jews."

 

CASABLANCA’S JEWISH COMMUNTIY IN DECLINE

Casablanca's Jewish community in decline
Middle East Online
May 18, 2003

The former head of Israel's Moroccan liaison bureau says Jewish community does not feel it has future in kingdom.

Casablanca's old and once thriving Jewish community feels increasingly alienated, with many Jews preferring to move overseas, the former head of Israel's Moroccan liaison bureau said Saturday.

"The precise numbers are not known, but there are a few thousand Jews in Casablanca, the largest segment of the Jewish population in Morocco," Gady Golan said here following bomb attacks in Casablanca that killed at least 41 people overnight.

Among the blasts' targets were a Jewish cultural center and cemetery.

"There are still three Jewish high schools in the city, but a third of their students are Muslims who attend for the high level of education. Actually, once they've obtained their diplomas, most young Moroccan Jews go abroad," Golan said.

"The less wealthy families send their children to Israel, others generally send theirs to France and Canada. The Jewish community does not feel it has a future in Morocco, even if a leading member, Andre Azoulay, is an economic advisor to King Mohammed VI," he added.

Golan, who was Israel's top representative in Morocco, closed the liaison office shortly after the Palestinian intifada against Israeli occupation in broke out in September 2000.

Azoulay, a banker, also founded the cultural group Identity and Dialogue in 1976, promoting Moroccan Jewish culture and helping build closer ties between Israel and Morocco under the late Moroccan king Hassan II.

Morocco's Jewish community numbered roughly 250,000 people in 1948, the year Israel declared independence and began attracting large numbers of emigres.

EU: ARAFAT STILL A KEY PLAYER IN MIDEAST PEACE PROCESS

EU: Arafat still a key player in Mideast peace process
The Associated Press
May 19, 2003

The European Union urged Israel on Monday to accept the Mideast "roadmap" to peace and dismissed a decision by the Israeli government to cold-shoulder foreign dignitaries who meet with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

EU Spokeswoman Emma Udwin said the Europeans continue to see Arafat as a key player in Mideast peacemaking despite a weekend flare-up of violence that led Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to postpone a visit to Washington this week.

She said the EU will continue to involve Arafat in the search for peace.

"Yasser Arafat remains an elected representative of his people. Our position is not changing," she said outside an EU foreign ministers meeting.

Israel blames Arafat for not clamping down on Palestinian militants believed to be behind recent suicide attacks.

“THERE WERE NO JEWS THERE AT THE TIME, BECAUSE IT WAS CLOSED”

"There were no Jews there at the time, because it was closed"
The Associated Press
May 17, 2003

It was a normal Friday evening of bingo in the upscale Casa de Espana club and restaurant in downtown Casablanca when several near-simultaneous explosions transformed the night into chaos and killed at least 30 bystanders.

"We had just been served paella, and they were calling out the numbers. Then, 'Boom!,' a first blast – it was like a thunderclap," said Mohammed Zerrouki, a medical technician having dinner and playing bingo with his friends.

On Saturday afternoon, the official Moroccan news agency MAP said the attacks killed 41 people – about 10 of them terrorists. MAP said about 100 people were injured.

Witnesses and officials described deafening bombs set off by suicide attackers. The targets were a Jewish community center and an old cemetery, the Belgian Consulate, a major downtown hotel and the club.

Zerrouki's head was covered in a hastily wrapped white bandage. He grimaced in pain from what he said were bomb splinters that bore into his flesh.

The pastel pink walls of the restaurant bore few traces of the devastation that rocked the popular night spot and several other locations in the city, the economic heart of Morocco.

"I'm here today because God saved my life," Zerrouki said.

At the Jewish community center, about a kilometer (half-mile) away from the Casa de Espana, rubble was strewn everywhere and the front door was blown off.

"There were no Jews there at the time, because it was closed," said Mohammed Aithammou, the owner of a nearby cafe, where many of the windows had been blown out.

Witnesses described horrifying scenes of destruction.

"I heard the bombs and then everything started burning," Rafael Bermudez, president of the social club housing the restaurant, told Spanish National Radio. "Everyone was on the ground and there was blood everywhere. It was horrible."

Victims screamed in shock and pain. Others simply held their heads and cried in disbelief. Body parts were strewn about and pools of blood were almost everywhere.

Ambulances hauled off the wounded, many with their clothes blown off. Most victims apparently were Moroccans. However, six foreigners – two Spaniards, two Italians and two French – also were killed, according to Said Ouhalia, medical chief at Azerroes Hospital.

Hundreds of curiosity seekers and family members rushed to the scene, seeking information about the first terrorist attack in Morocco in nine years.

The attacks occurred as Moroccans celebrated the birth of the first son of King Mohammed VI. The monarch was traveling to Casablanca later Saturday.

FULL ARTICLES

PRO-ISRAEL LOBBY ON CAPITOL HILL

Pro-Israel lobby on Capitol Hill
Newsnight
BBC Transcript
May 8, 2003

How far will the pro-Israel lobby let America go in the Middle East? We talked to the man described as the most powerful in the Jewish community there.

Both the Labour party and Jewish organisations have reacted angrily to allegations by the longstanding gadfly, Tam Dalyell, that Tony Blair is unduly influenced by what he called a cabal of Jewish advisors.

Untrue, they say. But it is received wisdom in much of the Arab world that a so-called Zionist lobby has a stranglehold on American foreign policy. Washington denies that, too.

But now, Newsnight has had access to the man described as 'the most influential private citizen in American foreign policy'. His name's Malcolm Hoenlein.

Tom Carver looked at the strength of the pro-Israel lobby on Capitol Hill.

TOM CARVER: This will be as much of an American journey as a Middle Eastern one. Past crashes and breakdowns litter the roadside and serve as cautionary tales. To turn failure into success will require the full support of the Jewish community in America, just as much as their cousins in Israel. But many of the leaders of this community in America are sceptical of the road map.

MALCOLM HOENLEIN: (Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations) How can you bring the UN and the EU with their hostile records towards Israel into those determining compliance? We saw what a great record they had in regard to Iraq. How can you have a successful process, whereby you put a 150 measures in a short period of time that can never be implemented in the schedule designed?

TOM CARVER: The most well-known face of the Jewish political groups in this country is AIPAC, which calls itself a pro-Israel lobby. It helped to organise this demonstration on the Capitol steps last year. AIPAC doesn't give interviews easily and turned down our requests. But you can glean a lot about the way it works from public records. AIPAC itself is not a donor. What it does is encourage its many members to donate as private individuals to the campaigns of hundreds of politicians.

JJ GOLDBERG: (Editor, Forward) You give $2,000 and bundle cheques together adding up to $10,000 because the legal amounts are small these days. But it gets you on the phone. It's not so much fear of your donors, it's access for the donors and fear that the money will show up on the other side.

TOM CARVER:Hard facts are difficult to pin down, but 80% of the Senate received money from pro-Israeli political action committees in the last election, and that doesn't even include individual donations.

Look at Amy Friedkin, AIPAC's president. Before her appointment last May, she gave money as a private citizen to more than 40 members of Congress on both sides of the aisle. Among them, several of the Democrat presidential candidates like John Edwards, the Democrat leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, the Republican leader in the Senate, Bill Frist, and the Republican speaker of the house, Dennis Hastert.

JJ GOLDBERG: Everybody will tell you, in American politics, access is everything. The other everything is money. If you have 60,000 people, all of whom make it their business to donate and raise money for their favourite candidates, candidates remember you when you walk in with a bundle of cheques. That is a network of influence.

TOM CARVER: There are bigger donors than the pro-Israeli lobby, but none equal its commitment and organisation. To the extent that few politicians now dare oppose it.

DOUGLAS BLLOMFIELD: (Legislative Director, AIPAC 1988 – 89) AIPAC has one enormous advantage. It really doesn't have any opposition.

TOM CARVER: When he was AIPAC's legislative director, Douglas Bloomfield found that Arab-Americans who opposed Israel had an uphill struggle.

DOUGLAS BLOOMFIELD: There are 22 Arab countries. There are both Christians and Muslims. Most of the American Arabs who came to this country fled to get away from oppressive regimes. None of those countries today has a democratic regime, with which Americans can easily identify. My ancestors came from Syria. I want to improve US-Syrian relations. But my Congressman says that Syria heads the list of terrorist nations.

TOM CARVER: What really alarms the likes of Tam Dalyell is the purported Jewish influence in the White House. There's certainly a close alignment between the neo-cons in the Republican Party and those in the Jewish community.

The most powerful intellectual advocate of the war in Iraq, Paul Wolfowitz, is Jewish. So is Bill Kristol, one of the most influential Republican journalists. His father, Irving Kristol, was an early neo-con in the '70s with Norman Podhoretz, who just happens to be the father-in-law of Eliot Abrams, George Bush's key Middle East advisor.

But these connections don't make a conspiracy – after all, the Clinton White House had its fair share of Jewish intellectuals too. Whatever influence someone like Norman Podhoretz has is not because he's persuaded George Bush, but because his and the president's world view happen to coincide.

NORMAN PODHORETZ: The only way to ensure a victory against terrorism and our own safety, is to do what Vice-president Cheney said, to drain the swamps in which terrorism breeds. By "swamps", he means the despotism of the Middle East. They and we look forward to regime changes in that part of the world.

TOM CARVER: How successfully does Ariel Sharon exploit all these connections? Again it's not as straightforward as it seems. Because he's such a good friend of Israel, it's difficult for Sharon to criticise George Bush publicly. So Jerusalem resorts to backroom tactics.

At Forward, one of the most respected newspapers in the Jewish community, journalists have uncovered instances of Jerusalem using the American lobby to apply pressure on the White House.

JJ GOLDBERG: There have been times when American Jews have been presented with a far more alarmist version than Canadian or British Jews. The Israeli embassy in Washington was putting out material substantially different from other Israeli embassies. I have to conclude that was a decision that American Jews have a huge influence in Washington and therefore in the Middle East. Canadian Jews are less crucial, so you might as well treat them as people.

TOM CARVER: Tell them the truth?

JJ GOLDBERG: Yes.

TOM CARVER: Hidden in the very success of groups like AIPAC lies a fundamental, possibly fatal, weakness. AIPAC's way of rewarding its donors is to give them the chance to mix with the A-list of the Administration. But that creates dependency on the White House and its stars like Colin Powell.

DOUGLAS BLOOMFIELD: They would not show up if this institution was in confrontation with the Administration. It says, if you want this kind of access, to raise this kind of money, you have to pull your punches. You can't be totally free if you're dependent on this cycle of fund-raising.

TOM CARVER: You're saying AIPAC is dependent on the Administration, not the other way round?

DOUGLAS BLOOMFIELD: Definitely.

TOM CARVER: But in the heart of Manhattan we met a different type of lobby. Malcolm Hoenlein's been called the most influential member of America's Jewish community. Every major Jewish group belongs to his organisation. He is supposed to represent their views. His critics claim he uses the platform to push his own right-wing views. What no one disputes is that, after 16 years operating behind the scenes, he has unrivalled access to the political establishment.

Does the road map have a future, in your view?

MALCOLM HOENLEIN: It could. It depends upon the actions of the Palestinians in terms of compliance. The mistake of the past has been to have time-driven deadlines and targets, not performance-driven.

TOM CARVER: For several years in the '90s, Malcolm Hoenlein raised money for Bet El, one of the most militant of settlements just outside Ramallah.

MALCOLM HOENLEIN: It's a city of 15,000. They have educational institutions. I spoke at a dinner raising funds for those institutions. I don't believe those places will be removed, I don't think these cities will be removed. They will be part of the negotiations. If you remember in Camp David they talked about an exchange of territory. There's no reason why Jews couldn't continue to live under the final arrangement.

TOM CARVER: You'd be happy for that area to come under Palestinian rule?

MALCOLM HOENLEIN: I would be happy to see negotiation to resolve the issue where both parties' interests can be met.

TOM CARVER: The road map, in the final phase, suggests that some Palestinian refugees should be given the right to return to their old homes. It states that parties must reach "an agreed, just, fair, and realistic solution to the refugee issue".

Malcolm Hoenlein's view?

MALCOLM HOENLEIN: The right of return is impossible. That's a death knell for any negotiations. No matter what the most left or right government is. I don't think any international leader expects the implementation of the right of return is even on the cards. Maybe you can't expect the Palestinians to repudiate this from the start, but they also have to acknowledge that implementation is not realistic.

TOM CARVER: For any Palestinians?

MALCOLM HOENLEIN: They can come back to the Palestinian entity once it is created. But not to come back to Israel.

TOM CARVER: Do you worry about Tony Blair's influence?

MALCOLM HOENLEIN: I'm not worried. I don't think the politics of one country should dictate with such a delicate and complex issue as the Middle East peace process.

TOM CARVER: He's maybe not as hard-line as you'd like him to be.

MALCOLM HOENLEIN: This isn't a question of hard-line or soft-line. This is a question of realism. If you want something to happen, you don't achieve it by making excuses, by closing your eyes, or by appeasement.

TOM CARVER: A strange aspect is that although the Jewish lobby is hawkish, the wider Jewish community is not. The Republicans have never scored a majority of the US Jewish vote. Bush won just 20% of the vote. On domestic issues American Jews remain democrat. What is new is that when it comes to things about the state of Israel, they are becoming more hawkish.

STEPHEN APPELL: Every time I hear of a new suicide bombing in Israel, my first reaction, my gut reaction is one of tremendous anger and a desire to see vengeance and at that moment I want to kill them. Then I say, "Who are "them"?"

TOM CARVER: The Appell family is classic Jewish Brooklyn. Democrat, socially involved, liberal. Steve and Madeleine have absolutely no desire to live in Israel but they are emotionally tied to her welfare. 30 months of intifada and repression have disorientated their political compasses.

STEPHEN APPELL: I'm an ambivalent and disillusioned dove. I'm beginning to think so-called dove solution doesn't work. I fear the hawk solution won't work. I'm beginning to feel more in sympathy with big power efforts.

BRADLEY APPELL: Why are young girls blowing themselves up? We have to face these realities. The more they do it, the more Israel sends in its forces to the occupied territories, the more the anger grows and innocents die.

MADELEINE APPELL: When 9/11 occurred, I felt very vulnerable. I identified with the pain of the citizens of Israel. They do their chores and live their life in a feeling of threat. Yet they go on.

TOM CARVER: Before long, the road map heads into the next presidential election. Then the key will be not so much the lobby but George Bush. How much political capital will he be willing to spend trying to reach that elusive vision of Middle East peace?

This transcript was produced from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight. It has been checked against the programme as broadcast, however Newsnight can accept no responsibility for any factual inaccuracies. We will be happy to correct serious errors.

ISRAEL'S POPULATION – 6.7 MILLION...

Communicated by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics Spokesman
May 5, 2003
Press release

Israel's population today stands at 6.7 million (eight times its size on May 15, 1948). The proportion of Jewish residents of the state – 81 percent – has remained the same in the past 55 years. About 5.4 million Jews now live in Israel. Israel accounts for 38 percent of the world's Jewish population.

Since last Independence Day, the population of the state of Israel has grown by 131,000, an annual growth rate of 2%. 140,000 babies were born in Israel during the past year.

Jerusalem has 680,000 residents; its population grew by 1.7% during the past year. In 1948, 36% of the country's population lived in the Tel Aviv area; 18%does so today.

Of the 1.3 million non-Jewish Israelis, 82 percent are Muslim, nine percent are Christian and nine percent are Druze. Since the state of Israel was founded in 1948, 3 million people have immigrated. 31,000 people arrived in 2002.

50 new immigrants will arrive today from Argentina. During the coming week 296 immigrants are expected to arrive in Israel. Of these, 81 will be from Ethiopia, 53 from the Central Asian republics of the Former Soviet Union and the southern Caucasus, 42 will be from Russia, 30 from Ukraine, 20 from France, 8 from the USA and the remainder will be from Brazil, Uruguay, South Africa, Australia and other countries not identified for security reasons.

Number killed in Israeli wars until yesterday – 21,541.
Number of soldiers killed since Remembrance Day last year – 254

 

LATEST ISRAELI TO BE MURDERED IN TERROR ATTACK

Latest Israeli to be murdered in terror attack – on Monday night, May 5, 2003 – Gideon Lichterman, 27, of Ahiya, as he was driving home. His six-year-old daughter Moriah, and another passenger, aged 25, were seriously wounded in the shooting attack. Lichterman was buried yesterday in Haifa. The military wing of PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement yesterday claimed responsibility for the terror attack.

Independence eve editorial of Israel's highest circulation newspaper, "Yediot Ahronot" (May 6, 2003). "Even today, after yet another terrorist attack, spring is in the air. Suddenly, the unexpected is to be expected. Suddenly, the unbelievable seems believable. There is the feeling – however amorphous and hard-to-grasp – that something deep, and not yet fully understood, is about to change." The editors believe that the terrorist threat has weakened since Independence Day last year and suggests that, "While large numbers of Palestinians are still being killed, their political leadership is looking for a way out of the impasse into which it has led its suffering people." The paper says that, "While the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'" are still being printed in updated editions, according to which the Jewish conspiracy was responsible for the US war in Iraq, the new anti-Semitism has gone out of fashion even in the salons of Paris." The editors remind their readers that, "While Israel's economic growth is still close to zero, it is no longer negative," and suggest that unemployment is no longer growing. The paper asserts that the shekel is holding its own and that Israel's credit rating ("last year's economic horror story"), "is even likely to improve." The editors declare: "And the main point: A settlement with the Palestinians is still far away but it seems closer than it ever has been in the last 32 months."

 

INDEPENDENCE DAY EDITORIAL FROM THE FINANCIAL TIMES

Independence Day editorial of the "Financial Times" of London: "Optimism has been in short supply in Israel over the past three years. The breakdown of attempts to forge a deal to secure peace between Israelis and Palestinians, the outbreak of another spate of violence and regional instability all depressed public opinion.

And yet on Wednesday, as the country marks 55 years since the founding of the state of Israel, there is a surprising upsurge in the mood of political leaders and commentators.

Ariel Sharon, prime minister, led the chorus on Tuesday with a Remembrance Day speech in which he declared: "There is hope in the air this spring," adding, with characteristic pugnacity, that it was a hope rooted in "constant and persistent combat". Saddam Hussein's regime had been defeated, he said, and the US and its allies had shown inspiration and determination in confronting "evil" regimes in the Middle East.

If the hopes invested in the new Palestinian government were realised, he was prepared to make the painful sacrifices involved in reaching a peace that would last for generations."

 

MESSAGE FROM PRESIDENT MOSHE KATSAV

Message from the President of the State of Israel Moshe Katsav to the Jewish communities on the occasion of the State of Israel's 55th Independence Day

Dear Friends,

On the 55th Independence Day of the State of Israel, we are still fighting for the basic issues in the life of the nation and the country: the struggle for the status of the capital of Israel is continuing; our main border in the east has not yet been determined; we are still combating Palestinian terrorism, and Arab countries and organizations are still calling for the destruction of Israel.

The security situation is influencing the economic and social conditions. Nevertheless, despite the difficult challenges we are facing, on Independence Day, we are proud of the great achievements made. We have a sovereign, democratic, Jewish, liberal, developed and progressive country with international achievements in science, agriculture, technology and culture. We have a country which succeeds in providing its citizens with health, education and housing services, a country, which continues to absorb Jewish immigrants from all over the world, a state which has become a model and example to be emulated by many other countries in the world.

I feel that recently the people of Israel have become more united than in the past. The tension between the various sectors in Israeli society has lessened. I also feel a great rise in the solidarity expressed by the Jewish people in the Diaspora towards Israel. Many leaders of world Jewry have been visiting Israel and a large number of Jewish communities have sent solidarity missions this past year. These visits strengthen our relations and contribute to mutual enrichment.

The free world's campaign to eliminate international terrorism is of great necessity. The fear in the hearts of humanity must be eradicated. Human beings have a basic right to live without fear of terror.

We are all one big family. We all have the same destiny and tradition. We can be proud to belong to the Jewish people.

May every one have a happy Independence Day and may we see the fulfillment of all our national and sovereign aims. I wish the Jewish people and the State of Israel quiet and tranquility, peace and security, economic stability and social justice.

Yours sincerely,

Moshe Katsav

 

MESSAGE FROM PRIME MINISTER ARIEL SHARON

Message from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to the Diaspora communities on the occasion of the State of Israel's 55th Independence Day

On the occasion of Yom Ha'atzmaut, it is my great pleasure and privilege to send you greetings from Jerusalem, the eternal and undivided capital of the State of Israel and the Jewish people.

Fifty-five years ago, the State of Israel was forged in struggle. Since then, we have built an independent Jewish democracy, making great strides in fields such as medicine, technology, agriculture and the arts while simultaneously fighting for our existence. Our cities have flourished, and we have absorbed millions of immigrants – from 102 countries – who conduct their lives in Hebrew, the ancient language of the Bible. From these accomplishments we derive the strength and resilience to persevere, even in the face of challenge and adversity.

The future of the Jewish people rests on our combined shoulders. With our common history, heritage and mission as our guide, we are certain to achieve even greater heights in the future. I call upon each of you to personally take part in the Zionist enterprise – by making Aliyah and joining us here. Aliyah is vital to the continued existence, growth and prosperity of Israel. Together, we will succeed in bringing peace and security to our nation and homeland.

Mazal Tov and Chag Sameach.

Ariel Sharon

 

“TRUE INDEPENDENCE”

True independence
Palestinian human rights monitoring group
Press Release
May 5, 2003

With the establishment of the first Palestinian Authority, new hopes sprung to life within Palestinians, hoping to be treated fairly and with dignity, after years of suffering under the Israeli occupation. Surely those who fought for peace and the establishment of an independent authority would be treated with respect and appreciation on behalf of the Palestinian people.

Unfortunately, quite the opposite came to be true. Farouk Abu-Hassan is a man who bears an example of the cruel injustices conducted by the Palestinian Authority. Mr. Abu-Hassan was imprisoned by the Israelis for 13 years between 1972-1985 for writing a letter with others from prison to Egyptian President Sadat regarding Palestinian rights and congratulating him on his peace initiative. In November 1994, under suspicious circumstances, Mr. Abu-Hassan was taken late at night from his home by the military intelligence of the Palestinian Authority. He is still, to this day, in jail under the Palestinian Authority. The charge against him is the letter he wrote to President Sadat.

Mr. Abu-Hassan has a wife and three children, who for at times, have been prohibited from seeing him for up to 18 months. Mr. Abu-Hassan has been tortured during interrogation by the hands of the Palestinian Authority. His lawyer quit his case because the Palestinian Military Intelligence Service (MIS) would not cooperate with him on the case. At one point, Abu-Hassan's wife was tricked into paying the MIS 8,500 Jordanian dinars when promised her husband would then be released in 10 days because he was innocent. His wife managed to come up with this sum and did pay, but it ended up in vain because her husband was never released. Mrs. Abu-Hassan tried earnestly several times to meet with President Arafat, but he never granted her an opportunity to meet with him.

Farouk Abu- Hassan is still, to this day, imprisoned in Gaza, with no specific charge or trial. In December 2000, there was a decision to release him, but this was denied by Mousa Arafat.

It is the hope of PHRMG, that with a new Palestinian Parliament and a new Prime Minister, that Farouk Abu-Hassan will be released from this unjust imprisonment and that such cases as his will not happen again under the new Palestinian government. The Palestinian people have suffered enough injustice and it is shameful to keep perpetrating it upon their own people. PHRMG hopes that the parliament and prime minister will ensure true freedom, transparency, and justice for all Palestinians.

The director of PHRMG, Bassem Eid, has written a letter to Prime Minister Mahmoud Abass (Abu Mazen) and the Minister of Justice Mr. Abdul Karim Abu-Salah to make him aware of the situation of Farouk Abu-Hassan and appeal for his immediate release.

Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG) The PHRMG is a Palestinian, independent, non-governmental organization working to end human rights violations committed against Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, regardless of those responsible. The members of the Monitoring Group believe that the strength of democracy and civil society in Palestinian society will be determined by the Palestinian people, through their defense or neglect of human rights.

Ragheb Nashashibi Street 5
Sheikh Jarrah-Jerusalem
P.O. Box 19918
East Jerusalem 91198
admin@phrmg.org
www.phrmg.org

May 6, 2003

Correction

PHRMG apologizes for the mistake in our previous press release regarding Farouk Abu-Hassan. Mr. Abu-Hassan was arrested in 1972 by the Israeli authorities and put in detention for 13 years because of his security offenses and his membership in PFLP. He was released by the Israelis in 1985. After his release, he was detained in 1994 by the Palestinian Authority because of the letter to President Sadat that he and his colleagues sent from prison in 1981, congratulating Sadat on the peace agreement with Israel. Sadat was extremely isolated by the Arab world at that time and anyone supporting Sadat's peace agreement with Israel was considered a collaborator. The Palestinian Authority also arrived to the Occupied Territories after a peace agreement with the Israelis. This makes it even more shocking for the PA to arrest someone who had supported Sadat.

Please contact the new Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and the Minister of Justice Abdul Karim Abu Salah to appeal for the release of Farouk Abu-Hassan and for reform of the Palestinian justice system.

Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen)
Telephone: 972-2-295-9642
Fax: 972-2-295-9648

Minister of Justice Abdul Karim Abu Salah
Telephone: 972-8-282-9286
Fax: 972-8-283-6993

We sincerely apologize for this mistake and any confusion it aroused.

FULL ARTICLES

NO COMPROMISE WITH ANTI-SEMITISM

No compromise with anti-semitism
Tam Dalyell's claim that Jewish influence is driving Blair's war policy is poisonous, conspiratorial nonsense
By Mike Marqusee
The Guardian
May 5, 2003

Tam Dalyell has an honourable record as a parliamentary maverick and forensic critic of military adventures, but his comment on the alleged Jewish influence on US and British war policy should be seen for what it is – an anti-semitic outburst.

Although Dalyell does not appear to have used the wretched phrase "Jewish cabal", his remarks were redolent with hoary and dangerous mythology. What's more, they are a disservice to the anti-war movement and the left, which will decisively reject them.

In his interview with Vanity Fair and comments to the Sunday Telegraph, Dalyell ropes together a variety of figures on both sides of the Atlantic and declares not only that they are all "Jewish" (some have never identified themselves as such), but that it is this shared Jewishness that accounts for their hawkish politics. There is a warning implied in his remarks: a religious minority is exercising an undue, malign influence on British and US foreign policies. And that influence is exercised on behalf of a foreign country – the state of Israel.

This is a conspiracy theory with the most unsavoury historical precedents – not least in the grim saga of European anti-semitism. What's disturbing is that a man can lead such a distinguished public career and still succumb to the "it's in the blood" pseudo-logic that links genealogy to religion to politics to national loyalties without pausing for breath – or thought.

Dalyell insists that he is merely "being candid" and predicts that he will be punished for this "candour". But this sounds woefully familiar. It's no more than a polished specimen of the "people are afraid to say it, but we all now what they're like" school of racist apologetics. You can find it in the rightwing tabloids and on the phone-ins any day of the week. There's no bravery in Dalyell's "candour", merely muddle-headed bigotry.

His remarks impute to Jewishness itself a hawkish pro-Israeli bias. The reality, of course, is that political opinion among Jews is diverse. It's said that around a third of the International Solidarity Movement volunteers currently inserting their bodies between Israeli bulldozers and Palestinian homes are Jewish. Large numbers of Jews both here and in the US opposed the invasion of Iraq and oppose the ensuing occupation. Among Jews in the US, a sizeable majority vote for the Democrats. So whatever the Perles and Wolfowitzes represent, it isn't Jewish opinion as a whole.

The US supports Israel not because of the "Jewish lobby" but because of the strategic priorities of the US corporate elite, not least those arising from the desire to control access to oil. Israel is the biggest recipient of US military aid – but Egypt is the second biggest, and no one speculates that behind these billions of dollars lies an "Egyptian/Arab/Muslim" hand.

The Muslim population of the US is only slightly smaller than the Jewish one and will probably exceed it in the years to come. But however well-organised and even well-funded it may become, its political clout will not exceed that of the so-called "Jewish lobby", because that lobby is promoting policies consonant with long-term US objectives.

One of the grotesque ironies of the current American political landscape is the unholy alliance between extreme Zionists and neo-Conservatives, many of whom subscribe to a form of Christian fundamentalism that threatens Jews along with other minorities.

The disproportionate numbers of Jews active in both the antiwar and pro-war camps reflects, among other things, Jewish traditions of social activism. In urging the public to see the Jewish influence at work in the war, Dalyell not only smears Jews, but suggests that the sources of war and empire-building are other than they are.

His comments will also play into the hands of those who seek to turn an essentially political conflict into a religious or ethnic one. The defenders of the indefensible who have sought shelter by making accusations of anti-semitism – against the anti-war movement, supporters of the Palestinians and the left in general – will take comfort.

From my experience as an anti-war activist (and, incidentally, a Jew) who's attended anti-war meetings both in Britain and the US, I know that Dalyell's comments are exactly not the kind of logic or sentiment that has characterised this remarkable movement. In particular, I've found the great majority of Muslim activists highly alert to the question of anti-semitism, keen to engage in dialogue with Jews and well aware that anti-semitism and Islamophobia are drawn from the same template. In contrast, in my brief exposure to the British upper classes I've found anti-semitism commonplace and frequently unblushing. I've heard Jews both admired and resented – but in any case distrusted – as "a successful race".

I suspect Dalyell's comments may reflect that background, but that does not mean the left or the anti-war movement can merely breathe a sigh of relief. We have to sustain a thoughtful vigilance in drawing a rigorous line between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism. Failure to do so ignores, as Dalyell has, some of history's most salient lessons.

 

“IMAGINE IF HE’D SAID BLACK OR MUSLIM...”

Richard Littlejohn column
The Sun
May 6, 2003

Tam Dalyell, the veteran Labour MP for Belgrano, Seabed, has accused the Prime Minister of being unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers. Imagine if he'd said "black" or "Muslim" instead of Jewish. The squeals from the race relations industry would be deafening. There would be demands for Dalyell to be drummed out of the Labour Party. The police would be swinging into action with a prosecution for inciting racial hatred. But it seems that the Jewish community doesn't enjoy the same kind of protection.

And it's curious that those who feel free to slander the Jews are the first to scream "racism" in almost any other context. Mad mullahs are allowed to preach death to the Jews and encourage young Muslims to attack Jewish targets. Islamic fanatics recruit young British Muslims to stage homicide attacks in Israel and fight against British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet only recently, after years of inciting hatred against the Jews, has Captain Hook been reined in. And that's largely symbolic. Plenty of other "clerics" still operate openly.

Will the Commission For Racial Equality take action against Dalyell? Don't hold your breath. In Britain, slagging off Jews means never having to say you're sorry

 

JUDGE IDEAS, NOT PEOPLE

Judge ideas, not people
Letters
The Guardian
May 6, 2003

It really was not very clever of Tam Dalyell to talk about the "Jewish influence" on UK/US foreign policy (No compromise with anti-Semitism, May 5). First, it is legitimate to oppose those who oppose the stance of the UK or the US to Israel. It is not legitimate to consider the ethnic origins of those who advocate that stance. Second, drawing attention to the ethnic origins of people who hold opinions one does not agree with cannot but encourage those with a predilection for conspiracy theories. Third, the most powerful section of the pro-Israeli lobby in the US consists not of Jews but of fundamentalist Christians.

Tam Dalyell is no anti-semite and it is daft to accuse him of being so. All the same it must be admitted that on this occasion he has expressed himself in a way that is so wildly inappropriate that it may encourage those who like to judge political ideas in terms of the ethnic origins of those who hold those ideas.

David Pavett
Isleworth, Middx

• You are quite right to say that neither Jack Straw (Jewish grandfather) nor Peter Mandelson (Jewish father) can be defined as Jewish by the traditional standard of direct matrilineal descent. However, under the racial purity laws introduced by the Nazis, one Jewish grandparent of either sex sufficed to define a person as a Jew. This is clearly the definition preferred by Tam Dalyell.

Simon Jarrett
Harrow, Middx

• Mike Marqusee is correct to condemn the remarks by Tam Dalyell. Marqusee is also right to observe that Jews have been as active on the left as on the right of current political debates. However, he is in denial of the facts in suggesting that this "outburst" is unusual within large swaths of what passes for the left these days. Anti-war political commentators frequently invoke a conspiratorial Jewish/Zionist lobby in America and Britain to account for US and British foreign policy, as well as in responding to negative comment on their own views.

Marqusee stresses the need to distinguish between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism. In fact, the relevant difference is between vigorous criticism of the brutal annexationist policies of the Israeli government on one hand and rejection of Israel's right to exist on the other. The former is commendable. The latter is not. It denies the legitimacy of an entire people and so entails a racist view.

Prof Shalom Lappin
King's College London

 

DALYELL STEPS UP ATTACK ON LEVY

Dalyell steps up attack on Levy
Veteran MP rejects accusations that he is anti-semitic and renews criticism of Jewish adviser to No 10
By Michael White
The Guardian
May 6, 2003

The Labour MP Tam Dalyell yesterday scornfully brushed aside accusations of anti-semitism but stood by the allegation that has landed him in political trouble, that "there is far too much Jewish influence in the United States" and one over-influential Jew in Tony Blair's entourage.

Faced with threats to take "inflammatory remarks" to the commission for racial equality, the MP for Linlithgow raised the stakes significantly by criticising Lord Levy, the music mogul turned Blair fundraiser and tennis partner, whose in timate contacts across the region have made him No 10's envoy to the Middle East.

"I believe his influence has been very important on the prime minister and has led to what I see as this awful war and the sack of Baghdad," said Mr Dalyell, who has long been a critic of Israeli expansionism and insists that many Jews are also "desperately unhappy about it'.'

The father of the Commons, an MP for 41 years and a pillar of the "awkward squad" for most of them, Mr Dalyell qualified his criticisms only to the extent of saying he was not attacking Jewish influence as such, but what he called the "Sharon-Likudnik agenda" of the hardliners – led by Ariel Sharon's Likud party – who dominate Israeli politics.

After Mr Dalyell was indirectly reported by Vanity Fair magazine as criticising "a cabal of Jewish advisers" driving US-UK policy towards Iraq – and now Syria – there were protests, and Professor Eric Moonman, a Labour MP 20 years ago, started legal consultations over a complaint to the CRE.

But Mr Dalyell may be the MP least likely to buckle to pressure. Questioned on Radio 4's World at One, he said: "The cabal I referred to was American," and named seven hawk ish advisers to President George Bush – six of them Jewish – as urging a strike against Syria.

"It's the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs combined with neo-Christian fundamentalists. I think a lot of it is Likudnik, Mr Sharon's agenda, and when it comes to an attack on Syria this is a very serious matter."

Pressed further, the MP conceded he had "picked out one person [in Britain] about whom I am extremely concerned and I have to be blunt about it. That is Lord Levy, Mr Blair's official representative in the Middle East. This has two questions: first, should not this be done by the Foreign Office; second, are special representatives to be accountable or not?"

Downing Street has often been forced to defend Lord Levy, both over aggressive fundraising and as an envoy – welcome in Arab capitals, including Damascus, as well as Tel Aviv – who cannot be questioned by MPs.

Mr Dalyell's career includes a close alliance with the late Richard Crossman, a passionate Zionist who believed that all gentiles – including himself – are anti-semitic at some level. The claim won him the friendship of Chaim Weizman, a president of Israel.

Prof Moonman, president of the Zionist Federation, said: "I do not believe Tam is anti-semitic," but said his "old friend" had used language which could support that view.

Whatever the extent of Lord Levy's influence, Mr Dalyell and his detractors yesterday appeared to make no acknowledgement of the defence lodged by Mr Blair's allies.

They constantly point out that No 10 has helped persuade the White House to promote the latest "road map" version of the Middle East peace plan in the teeth of Israeli opposition.

 

DALYELL ATTACKS “JEWISH CABAL”

Dalyell attacks 'Jewish cabal'
By Jo Dillon
The Independent on Sunday
May 4, 2003

Tam Dalyell, the Father of the House of Commons, has accused the Prime Minister of "being unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers".

His remarksprompted immediate outrage from politicians and members of the Jewish community. The MP expressed concern that Tony Blair continued to back the United States' stance on Syria and Iran, having given his support to war on Iraq.

Mr Dalyell named, in his interview with Vanity Fair, Lord Levy, Mr Blair's personal envoy to the Middle East, Peter Mandelson, whose father was Jewish, and Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, who has Jewish ancestry, as the influential figures behind the Government's Middle East policy.

The MP for Linlithgow defended his comments, telling The Sunday Telegraph: "I am fully aware that one is treading on cut glass on this issue and no one wants to be accused of anti-Semitism but, if it is a question of launching an assault on Syria or Iran ... then one has to be candid."

Mr Dalyell said he himself was not anti-Semitic and would not be branded as such, adding that his children had worked on a kibbutz.

The MP claimed Mr Blair had also been directly influenced by Jewish people in the Bush administration, including Richard Perle, the Pentagon adviser, Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz and Ari Fleischer, President George Bush's press secretary.

A spokesman for No 10 said the MPs comments were "ludicrous" and Mr Mandelson branded him "incorrigible", while a spokesman for the Foreign Secretary added: "If these reports are accurate, these remarks are too unworthy to be worth a comment."

 

DALYELL MAY FACE RACE HATRED INQUIRY

Dalyell may face race hatred inquiry
By Nicholas Watt
The Guardian
May 5, 2003

Tam Dalyell, the veteran Labour MP and opponent of countless wars, faces an investigation for inciting racial hatred after he accused Tony Blair of being unduly influenced by Jewish ministers and officials.

As leading British Jews criticised Mr Dalyell for his "misguided" remarks, a former Labour MP said he would refer the father of the Commons to the commission for racial equality.

Professor Eric Moonman, president of the Zionist Federation, who was a Labour MP from 1966 to 1979, said he was seeking advice on whether there was a case for referral. "I believe there is," he said.

"I will be distressed to do it because of a relationship with a man I admire enormously," Prof Moonman said. "But he made the statements and he knew what he was doing."

The row started when Mr Dalyell, who for 20 years has opposed every war involving British soldiers, told Vanity Fair magazine that Mr Blair relied too much on Jewish figures in Britain and the US. Mr Dalyell named the former cabinet minister Peter Mandelson, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, and the prime minister's Middle East envoy, Lord Levy. Only Lord Levy is Jewish. Mr Mandelson's father was Jewish and Mr Straw had a Jewish grandfather.

Mr Dalyell said: "I am worried about my country being led up the garden path on a Likudnik, [Ariel] Sharon agenda", adding that "Straw, Mandelson and co" were leading "a tremendous drive to sort out the Middle East".

Mr Dalyell's critics took exception after it was claimed that he felt Mr Blair was influenced by a "cabal" of Jewish advisers. But Mr Dalyell said he used the word cabal only in reference to the Bush administration, not Downing Street.

"The cabal that I referred to was in the US," he said. "That is the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. I was thinking of [Paul] Wolfowitz, [deputy defence secretary], [Richard] Perle, [John] Bolton, assistant secretary of state, [Douglas] Feith, [Ken] Adelman, [Elliott] Abrams and [Ari] Fleischer, [Mr Bush's press secretary.] Those people drive this policy."

But Jewish figures were furious. David Garfinkel, the editor in chief of the London Jewish News, said: "Coming a few days after the BNP won council seats in the north of England this is the kind of menacing candour which the country certainly does not need."

Ministers were also aghast. One said: "Quite apart from how offensive his remarks are, Tam is wrong. Tony and Jack have faced strong criticism in Israel because of their pressure for the road map to be published."

Mr Dalyell denied he was anti-semitic. "If I were anti-semitic I would not have spent a holiday in Israel, I would not have gone as a young man to stay on a kibbutz. To say I am anti-semitic is preposterous."

He also said he had been parliamentary private secretary to former cabinet minister Dick Crossman, who was something of a hero in Israel. Crossman became close to Chaim Weizman, who was Israel's first president. "Would Dick Crossman have had an anti-semitic gentile as his PPS? I identify with the Weizman tradition. This is not about being anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic or anti-Israeli."

 

BRITISH UNIVERSITY TEACHERS TO DEBATE ACADEMIC BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL

British University Teachers to debate academic boycott of Israel
By Douglas Davis
The Jerusalem Post
May 4, 2003

Britain's 46,000-strong Association of University Teachers will debate a motion calling for an academic boycott of Israel at its annual three-day conference this week.

The motion, proposed by English lecturer Sue Blackwell, of Birmingham University, calls on the union to sever "any academic links they may have with official Israeli institutions."

Delegates will also be urged not to attend conferences in Israel and to support colleagues who have allegedly been the focus of a "witch-hunt" because of their support for an academic boycott.

The motion is one of 59 that has been selected for debate by the union's six-member agenda committee from several hundred submissions. It has been set down for debate on Friday afternoon, when a number of Jewish academics will be absent because of the onset of the Sabbath.

The decision to raise the issue has provoked an angry reaction from some academics, who say it is anti-Semitic and should not be given a public hearing.

The union's national executive has recommended that the call for action be rejected, although it has defended its decision to debate a boycott of Israel.

Secretary-general Sally Hunt said that the union represents "a wide spectrum of views on numerous matters. This subject will be fully debated and I am sure those who feel strongly about the issue will put forward their arguments."

Emanuele Ottolenghi, an Israeli lecturer at Oxford University's St Antony's College, condemned the motion as anti-Semitic and contrary to the ethics of the academic community. He also warned that the idea of a boycott is gaining legitimacy and is "slowly being allowed to become mainstream."

"Anti-Israeli campaigners lament the fact that they are labeled anti-Semitic and make a distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism," said Ottolenghi, who lectures in Israeli studies, noting that "anti-Zionism denies an entire people the right to define themselves as a nation. They attack Israel not for what it does but for what it is."

But Blackwell told the Sunday Telegraph in London that she rejected the charge: "I deny emphatically that I am somehow anti-Semitic by bringing this motion," she said. "I have been a member of the Anti-Nazi League for many years and a campaigner for human rights. I absolutely condemn terrorism of any kind."

She understood her call to isolate Israel "could create bad feeling among colleagues," but she said "the boycott is aimed at institutions not individuals."

Birmingham University said it neither "endorses nor condones these views but supports freedom of speech."

The motion to be put to the conference states: "In view of Israel's repeated breaches of UN resolutions and of the Geneva Conventions, council urges all UK institutions of higher education, all AUT local associations and all AUT members to review immediately, with a view to severing, any academic links they may have with official Israeli institutions, including universities."

Last year, the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology last year held an inquiry into the decision by Egyptian-born Professor Mona Baker to sack two Israeli academics – from Tel Aviv and Bar-Ilan universities – from the editorial boards of translation journals she owns because they were Israelis.

The inquiry found that Baker had not acted improperly under its rules because the journals she owns were not connected to the university, although they bore the university's logo.

At the time, Prime Minister Tony Blair said he would do "anything necessary" to stop such boycotts.

 

REPORT: 50 BRITISH SUICIDE BOMBERS READY TO ATTACK ISRAELIS

Report: 50 British suicide bombers ready to attack Israelis
May 4, 2003

The Sunday Times, published in Britain, reported today that a leading British Islamic radical is claiming that there are 50 British Muslim suicide bombers ready to carry out attacks in Israel.

The radical, Hassan Butt, said that scores of young British Muslims have told him they were ready to volunteer for 'martyrdom operations (suicide bombers) for the Islamic Holy war, reported Army Radio.

"They are aged 17 to their late thirties and are contacting me about organization," said Butt.

The Times also reported that Israel's Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, has ordered the Mossad to increase its spying activity against radical Muslim organizations in the UK as a response to last week's attack on a Tel Aviv pub, which was carried out by two British Muslims.

The bombers, Asif Mohammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, were the first British citizens to carry out such an attack. Sharif managed to escape the scene of the attack after his explosive failed to detonate, and there is an intense manhunt underway for him.

In a related story, the Observer, also published in the UK, claims that leaflets published in the British Midlands urging Muslims to become suicide bombers have been found in The West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"Israeli authorities have demanded that Britain launch an immediate investigation into al-Sunnah, the organization based at Birmingham's Center for Islamic Studies, which published the leaflets," reports the Observer.

The al-Sunnah group is known as a radical Muslim organization supporting anti-Israeli views.

Al-Sunnah publishes books, leaflets and a monthly magazine that is distributed across the Muslim world including the West Bank and Gaza strip.

According to the report, one leaflet published just before the war in Iraq said: 'When this sudden explosion of American-Zionist violence is aiming to eradicate a nation's existence, eliminating its vitality and sites of resistance, the only way to protect this nation is through acts of martyrdom.'

 

MOFAZ: EXPLOSIVES USED IN TEL AVIV ATTACK WERE SMUGGLED INSIDE A KORAN

Mofaz: Explosives used in Tel Aviv attack were smuggled inside a Koran
May 4, 2003

"The explosive material used in the bombing on Mike's Place in Tel Aviv last Tuesday night was smuggled inside a Koran," revealed Minister of Defense, Shaul Mofaz, at a Cabinet meeting Sunday.

According to Ynet, Mofaz said that the explosives were hidden inside a Koran and smuggled into Israel from overseas.

Three people were killed in the attack outside Mike's Place, a pub right next to the US embassy building.

Mofaz recommended Sunday that the cabinet limit the access of foreign nationals to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as a means of avoiding terror attacks by perpetrators from overseas, media reports said. Mofaz said such a step may be necessary in the wake of the suicide bombing carried out last week by a terrorist with a British passport.

The authorities are still looking for a second accomplice, also a British passport holder, who absconded from the scene early Wednesday, leaving his bomb behind because it was faulty.

Also under investigation is how the authorities permitted the terrorists to reach the Gaza Strip after arriving at Ben-Gurion Aiport outside Tel Aviv, and then to reenter Israel, to stage their attack.

Mofaz's comments also follow the killing of a British photographer in Gaza this weekend, the latest of a series of shootings in that area to which foreigners have fallen victim. The IDF is investigating whether James Miller, 35, was shot by a soldier or by Palestinians on Friday, as died apparently amid an intense exchange of fire between IDF forces and Palestinians in Rafiah

Also at the Cabinet meeting, the Defense Minister expressed doubts that the Palestinians would change their policies. "Arafat plans to do everything he can to thwart Abu Mazen. The double-focused leadership will not lead to a war on terror," said Mofaz.

Mofaz added that Israel would not declare a ceasefire without evidence that the Palestinian Authority was fighting terrorism. Mofaz said that the reforms in the Palestinian Authority would not be complete until all the security forces were brought under one central command, which would not be Arafat.

Relating to Syria, the Defense Minister denied the reports that Syria had started acting against terrorist groups which hold offices there, and said that US pressure on Syria was centered around the issue of Iraq.