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Is the Temple Mount in Danger of Collapse?

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
-

Israel fears that Temple Mount retaining wall will collapse and that the region will burn. The problem: Aerial photographs of Temple Mount have proven that al-Aqsa Mosque’s southern wall is inclined to one side. The reasons: Wear-and-tear over time, ground shifting and renovations being carried out by Waqf. The proposal: Israel proposed to assist in renovating wall but Waqf has yet to respond. Waqf: “If wall collapses, there will be general war.” The municipality: “We are helpless.”

Experts from Israel and other countries around the world have recently determined that one of Al-Aqsa Mosque’s retaining walls is in danger of collapse. They claim that if renovations are not carried out immediately at the site, the wall is liable to collapse. Such an event, if it happens, has a vast potential for destruction and would even be liable – beyond direct losses to life that would be caused by a collapse – to ignite the Middle East. The Arab world would likely claim that the wall’s collapse was the result of a religious-Israeli plot to destroy the mosques on the Temple Mount and build the Third Temple in their place.

The experts’ determination was made on the basis of a precise study of aerial photographs of the Temple Mount. The experts were asked by the municipality and the police to examine the aerial photographs and render an opinion in wake of the construction and renovations which Islamic Waqf personnel have carried out in the Temple Mount area. While they were examining the maps, the experts were astounded to discover that Al-Aqsa Mosque’s southern wall was bulging outwards, toward the south. The Mosque’s southern wall is part of the Old City wall and overlooks the village of Silwan and David’s City. Israeli archaeologists have been carrying out excavations at the foot of the several-dozen-meter long wall since 1967. In Israel, it is claimed that there is no connection between the excavations – which are being carried out at a reasonable distance from the wall itself – and the inclination of the wall. However, Israel fears that the Palestinians are liable to exploit the affair in order to claim that it is the archaeological excavations which are damaging the wall and threatening to bring about its collapse.

Since 1967, the Palestinians have been accusing Israel of excavating under the Temple Mount with the goal of undermining the foundations of the mosques and bringing about their collapse; this coming, in their words, in the framework of a plot by Jewish extremists to destroy the mosques and rebuild the Temple in their place. The Palestinian mufti of eastern Jerusalem, Sheikh Ekrema Sabri recently warned that any attempt to infringe on the status quo on the Temple Mount would lead to all-out war in the Middle East.

The experts’ opinion was recently passed on to the Islamic Waqf in eastern Jerusalem and the Jordanian government. The Waqf administration – which is subordinate to the Jordanian government – reported the matter to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. Israel offered to assist the Waqf in renovating the wall in order to prevent its collapse but has not, as of yet, met with any response to its offer. Apparently, the Waqf would prefer to carry out the renovations without Israeli involvement. One of the possibilities is Jordanian, Egyptian and Moroccan experts will soon tour the Temple Mount in order to study the issue and recommend ways to deal with the problem.

At this stage, it is not clear what exactly has caused the Mosque’s wall to bulge. One assessment is that it is due to wear-and-tear over time and various ground movements which have occurred over the centuries. The experts do not rule out the possibility the extensive construction being carried out by the Islamic Waqf on the Temple Mount, including the establishment of a new underground mosque – El Marwani (which Jews call Solomon’s Stables) – have also contributed to the wall’s inclination. They claim that the presence of tens of thousands of worshippers in the Mosque, mainly during Ramadan, is pressing on the wall’s stones and causing them to deviate. Shalom Goldstein, the municipality’s adviser on Arab affairs, says that, “It is known to the municipality that the wall has a ‘belly’ which attests to the fact that it is indeed inclining to one side. However the municipality is helpless and cannot deal with the situation since it lacks a statutory position on the Temple Mount. Police officers go there. We can only watch from outside and sound warnings but beyond that, we have no authority.”

This article ran in Yediot Aharonot on 17th August

Remembering Hillel Kook: A Giant of 20th century Jewish history

By
David Bedein
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One of the drawbacks of longevity is that when that person dies, his impact on history may be lost on a new generation who did not know who he was. Such is the case with Hillel Kook, who died on August 18, 2001, at the age of 87.

On my 37th birthday, on August 31st, 1987, the day that I initiated a news agency, “Israel Resource”, I interviewed and consulted with Hillel Kook, an older maverick who had made an imprint on Jewish and Zionist history. Hillel was introduced to me by the Jerusalem Post’s late Louis Rappaport, whose book, published posthumously, “Shake Heaven and Earth: Peter Bergson and The Struggle to Rescue The Jews of Europe”, by Gefen Publishers in Jerusalem, chronciled the amazing feats of this man.

At a time when so many books and museums have emerged of late concerning the destruction of European Jewry and its aftermath, Hillel Kook was one person which epitomized the question of that era: Could more have been done to save Jewry from the inferno of the death camps?

Hillel was the scion of the great Rabbinic Kook family. He made his mark on history when he arrived in the US in the late 1930’s, to eventually assume the name of Peter Bergson, with the initial task of organizing a Jewish army for Palestine, in coordination with Z’ev Jabotinsky.

With the outbreak of the war and the gradual strangulation of the Jews under Nazi conquest in Europe, Kook/Bergson changed his goal to galvanzing a rescue and relief operation for Jews, to use any means possible to save Jews from Hitler’s clutches.

The late Louis Rapaport, a journalist who spent more than 18 years with the Jerusalem Post until his untimely passing in 1991, spent many years chronicalling the untold efforts made by Bergson, whom Rapaport rightfully descibed as a man of with tremendous organizational agility, who operated under the worst of hostile circumstances.

The strains on Bergson were not only because of Hitler and the reports that streamed across the Atlantic about the mass murder of Jews. ( Bergson never liked to use the term “holocaust”, which connoted a Greek perception of sacrfice on an alter. Bergson preferred to simple describe what happened as “mass murder”)

In his book, Rapaport published previously unseen documentation which showed how Bergson’s self-appointed task of organizing rescue efforts for Jews in Europe were hampered and almost crippled by Jewish organizations in the US, by Jewish officials in the US government and even in the Zionist leadership of the time. US titular leader Rabbi Stephen Wise and the pre-eminent Zionist of the time, Nahum Goldman, joined forces with US congressman Sol Bloom and FDR confidante Felix Frankfurter to carry out a campaign to besmirch and denigrade Bergson’s efforts, which all four thought to be counterproductive to the two goals at hand: the defeat of Nazi Germany and the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.

Rapaport obtained previously classified testimony which Bergson gave to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by New York Jewish congressman Sol Bloom, in which Bloom grilled Bergson and intimated that Bergson’s activities were both un-American and anti-Zionist.

Undaunted, Bergson’s tenacity of purpose led him to form an effective non-Jewish coalition in the US Congress that kept the issue of the Jewish plight in Europe on the agenda of the US media and constantly in front of world opinion.

The concrete accomplishment of what came to be known as the “Bergsonite lobby” in the US congress was the creation, in 1944, of the WRB, the War Refugee Board, which was credited with saving thousands of Jews in the waning days of World War II.

In a special citation from the US congress that Rapaport uncovered, both houses of congress gave direct and deserved credit to the activities of Peter Bergson which resulted in the creation of the War Refugee Board.

The work of Hillel Kook, operating under the name of Peter Bergson, remained virtually unknown and unrecognized for a full generation.

Jewish and Zionist organizations who had turned their backs on his efforts never wanted to admit that they had made an error in judgment.

Yet when I met Hillel he felt vindicated, with a good sense of humor.

It turned out that the late former US justice Arthur Goldberg and the eminent Zionist leader, Prof. Arthur Hertzberg, established a commission of inquiry in the early 1980’s to determine if Jews in the US could have done more to rescue European Jewry. Their conclusion was yes. Goldberg and Hertzberg took the opportunity to specifically cite the efforts of Hillel Kook, alias Peter Bergson.

The question that Goldberg and Hertzberg posed and the question that those who take a moment to remember Hillel Kook will ask:

How many more Jews could have been rescued if a War Refugee Board had been established in 1942, instead of 1944. After all, Jewish organizations and the US state department had already been officially informed by mid-1942 that two million Jews had already been murdered.

In my last conversation with Louis Rapaport, shortly before his untimely death in 1991, Rapaport emotionally expressed to me his worry that his chronicle of Hillel Kook’s life would not come out during Kook’s lifetime, and may never ever be published, leaving another generation with little knowledge of the exploits of Peter Bergson.

Well, the book came out during Kook’s lifetime, but not during the life of Rapaport.

Hillel Kook had a message: learn from history and what one man can do to affect it. He had specific advice about the attitude of Jewish organizations to issues of consequence and crisis in the Jewish people: Basically, not to trust them, because their survival as organizations always comes before the survival of far-away Jews.

The Economic Cooperation Foundation and Dr. Yossi Beilin

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
-

The ECF was founded ten years ago by Yossi Beilin, and initially registered at the address of Dr. Yair Hirschberg. The ECF charter states that its purpose is to facilitate the intervention of the EU in any future peace process between Israelis, Jordanians and Palestinians. Not assistance. Intervention.

The ECF, working with the funding of the EU, was the initiator of the Oslo peace talks, as well as the informal understanding that was reached between Yossi Beilin and Abu Mazen.

Yossi Beilin, who has left the Israeli government and Knesset, now introduces himself as a senior researcher within the ECF.

That is despite the fact that ECF records show that Beilin resigned from the ECF back in 1995.

Perhaps that is why Beilin opened a second ECF office, not far from the registered ECF office.

It may soon be the job of the Israel Register of Non-Profit Organizations to determine if Beilin is keeping a system of double-book keeping.

The ECF coordinates a forum for about forty NGO’s that are involved with any and all aspects of the negotiating process with the PLO. ECF provides these 35 to 40 NGO’s with technical support and fund-raising services, according to Aviv Is-Am, the Project Director of the ECF. Under Beilin’s direction and guidance, these NGO’s have been meeting all through the current intifada and to work with Palestinian counterparts.

Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom, field director for “Rabbis for Human Rights” and liaison between the “Rabbis for Human Rights” and the ECF, stated that that these meetings have provided a “moral boost for the peace activists”

Beilin uses this forum as a way to consolidate EU funding for NGO’s. From documents that we have examined, we learn that the EU uses Beilin as a referent for funding.

Not surprisingly, the ECF “Forum for Peace NGO’s” are not on the PNGO (Palestinian NGO) black list of banned Israeli NGO’s.

According to Avivit Ish-Am, the ECF is supported by donations world wide, With donations coming in from Belgium, Denmark, Britain, Holland and Italy.

One of the groups supporting the ECF is the “Christian foundation of Holland”, which also sponsors “LAW”, the virulent lobby of the PLO.

Avivit Ish-Am reports that foundations often give money to the ECF destined for Palestinian causes, because they trust that the ECF to hand over the money to the right people. This is a transparent move designed to prevent money from winding up in questionable P.A. accounts.

In this respect, Beilin actually plays a role that the P.A. was supposed to play for the areas under P.A. control.

The ECF also receives money from foundations in Europe, the United States and Canada. Among the foundations sponsoring the ECF are the Ford Foundation, which maintains close contact with the US state department, and with the Kahanoff Foundation, which is associated with the Hertzog family in Canada.

While ECF is registered as an Israeli organization and doesn’t have offices outside of Israel, the ECF works closely with the Israel office of the Ebert Foundation, the political foundation of the SPD leftwing political party in Germany.

The ECF works on four general issues. The first is policy planning and policy Implementation. This section is concerned with issues respective to a permanent status with the Palestinians. They work on a long term basis. They deal with planning matters concerning refugees, security, settlements, border, economy and Jerusalem.

The second issue is crisis management and crisis prevention. In this respect, the ECF acts as a go-between with leaders of both sides and act as messengers between Israel and the Palestinians. [At a time of open war and conflict, one wonders whether a private foundation should play such a role.]

In this context, the ECF was actively involved in wording the Mitchell Report, which places the blame for the outbreak of rioting entirely on the shoulders on the state of Israel, even if the Mitchell report did not specifically note that Arik Sharon’s Temple Mount visit did not spark the violence. It should be noted that the Mitchell Report was written while Beilin was the Israel Minister of Justice, and submitted after the Barak defeat to the Sharon administration.

The third issue is permanent status planning, designed to build a structure to build and maintain a peace after agreements are signed between Israel and the Palestinians.

The ECF is adapting European models of cross country cooperation for Israel and the Palestinians. One example is the 1999 “Cooperation North” between the municipalities of 70 towns in the Haifa and Jenin area. This aspect of the ECF program is funded by the German government.

The fourth issue that the ECF deals with is the already mentioned internal issue of Israeli Arabs. In working with Palestinians and Jordanians, they are working on a long term plan on how fully include Israeli Arabs into Israeli society. The ECF works as an advisor to the head of the municipal organization of the Arabs in Israel, the mayor of Jaffa and head of the monitoring group of Arabs in Israel.

Asked if there was talk about resuming peace talks within Palestinian society, Yossi Beilin acknowledged that he was instigating negotiations on all levels, while admitting that there was no talk about peace in Arab society and that no mirror image in Palestinian society exists to parallel Israeli peace activism.

Beilin blamed this on the kind of is conscious that peace as a subject can not develop with the kind of political system that the Palestinians have. Nevertheless he thinks that it is possible to simply ignore the fact that there is no corresponding political discourse in the Palestinian society and still no push for peace.

Beilin said that this does not prevent him from working on these peace initiatives, together with Avraham Burg, who was a founding and still active member of ECF, and with Shimon Peres. Burg is the leading candidate to win the race for Labor Party leadership on September 4th.

Sometimes, Beilin says, the work is done in a bilateral fashion between Burg and Beilin, sometimes among the three of them, with Burg, Beilin and Peres making decisions.

Yossi Beilin’s assessment is that it is unrealistic to wait for a cease fire to start talks. Beilin openly states that he does not want the Israel Labor Party to wait for a cease fire and that he will continue to negotiate, even though terror attacks may continue

Yossi Beilin’s perspective is that while negotiations may be halted for some time, getting them back on the negotiating table is the most important thing to achieve for him at the moment. And Beilin says that the politics of an Israeli government policy that there should be no negotiation under fire, are not relevant to him.

Asked about what will happen if Yassir Arafat builds a unity government with Hamas and Jihad, Beilin simply states that such a government is artificial and may make things a bit difficult, but that this would certainly not prevent him from continuing his cooperation with the PLO and the Palestinian Authority.

Tenacity is the middle name of Yossi Beilin.

While violence rages back home, Canada may host Mideast lawmakers

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
-

Unable to stop the drift toward war in their native land, Israeli and Palestinian legislators hope to be more successful in the quieter atmosphere of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.

A Canadian parliamentary committee is making arrangements for the Halifax Peace Forum, which is expected to bring together six representatives each from the Israeli Knesset, the Palestinian legislative council and the Canadian Parliament for talks in the Nova Scotian capital from October 14 to 16.

The initiative was launched last January by Bill Casey, a member of Canada’s Parliament from the Conservative Party, shortly after he approached Israeli and Palestinian diplomats stationed in Canada.

Both representatives told him that Canada should do more to promote peace in the Middle East.

“Both sides said the same thing, and that really impressed me,” Casey told JTA. “They said that Canada could help facilitate and help build bridges that could lead to peace. They said that Canada was in a unique position, that Canada could do something that other countries couldn’t do.”

Casey discussed the idea of a forum with Liberal Party Parliament member Bill Graham, chair of a parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, and quickly won his support.

Then Casey, from Nova Scotia, approached House Speaker Peter Milliken, who wrote to his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts asking for their support and help in coordinating invitations to legislators from each side.

Accompanying Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley on a diplomatic tour of the Middle East in May, Casey delivered the letters to Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg and Ahmed Karia, speaker of the Palestinian legislative council. Both responded enthusiastically.

Casey also met with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, winning their support for the initiative.

Both sides have confirmed their desire to meet in Halifax in October despite the escalating Mideast violence, said Mark Entwistle, the veteran Canadian diplomat who is the forum’s executive director.

“So far we have full green lights from the Israelis and the Palestinians in terms of wanting to have this opportunity kept open,” he said. “So that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

Entwistle, who was press secretary to former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, said the steering committee is attempting to formulate a “smart agenda” to meet the needs of both sides.

He said the forum would have two main objectives: to build a new line of communication between Israelis and Palestinians and to discuss how Canada can play a more constructive role in the region.

“What makes this interesting is that it’s a political meeting between elected legislators,” Entwistle said. “But it’s important to mention that it’s not meant as a negotiating session. There are negotiators elsewhere.”

“Our goals are very modest,” Casey said. “We want to establish a dialogue. We want to learn from them what the issues are and what the best role for Canada might be.”

David Cooper, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Ottawa, expressed support for the Canadian initiative.

“We believe in dialogue, and we feel it’s something that won’t hurt,” he said. “Also, it will give Canadian parliamentarians some insight into the complex problems of the Middle East.”

Egyptian and Jordanian ambassadors have praised the idea, Casey said.

“The Canadian people, much more than the government, are getting behind this. They’re volunteering to help in so many ways,” Casey said. “We’ve received offers from the Jewish community, the Arab community and many others.”

Among the offers of hospitality is one from Nova Scotia’s Jewish Lieutenant Governor Myra Freeman, who is planning to hold a reception for the visitors at Government House in Halifax.

“From the Canadian side, we’re delighted to offer a safe and neutral venue,” Entwistle said. “We’ll take it one day at a time as we organize it.”

This ran on the Jewish Telegraphic Agency wire on August 6, 2001

After They Have Destroyed Everything We Built”

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
-

President Arafat addressing the Arab Foreign Ministers in Cairo:ilt”

“We need a more firm stand confronting the Israelis after they have destroyed every thing we built”

Cairo, August 23rd, WAFA (Official Palestine news agency), President Yasser Arafat called, yesterday, for a more firm stand confronting the Israeli aggression after they have destroyed every thing the Palestinians have built over the years.

Addressing the Arab Foreign Ministers, with the participation of Sheikh Hamad Ben Jasim, the chairman of the current urgent summit, Mr. Amro Musa the Secretary General of the Arab League, Abdulelah Alkhatib the head of the Arab Follow up Committee, and several Arab Foreign Ministers, H.E. emphasized the importance of setting united Arab strategic plans in every direction, in order to oblige the UN Security Council, the International Community and the UN General Assembly to carry out their duties and liabilities, towards this region, stressing the need for them to fulfill their duties before it is too late.

He added that we are peace seekers and we seek a permanent, just, right and acceptable peace, which can be achieved by the Israeli withdrawal to the June 4th 1967 borders, and recognizing truly the Palestinian rights.

He also said that the breaches committed by Israel are bold violations to the agreements signed between us in Oslo, emphasizing that our nation will not be defeated no matter how much the Israeli war machine is powerful, for we will struggle until we achieve our national goals and internationally approved and recognized rights, of establishing our independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.

We thank “IMRA” for calling this to our attention

Liberating Jerusalem Again . . . And Doing it Right

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
-

A number of years ago during the early months of the first Intifada, David Krause, who was then police commissioner, briefed the commanders of police units deployed throughout Jerusalem. He ended the briefing with a sentence that has remained engraved in the memories of all who were there – “We are now going to liberate Jerusalem once again.”

In the decade since that assertion was issued, Israel did not liberate Jerusalem “once again.” In fact the Palestinians succeeded in creating in the city’s Arab districts their own special reality – a reality seen by many as trappings of sovereignty. Orient House, which was shut down over the weekend, was only the flagship of this reality. Alongside Orient House, there were security agencies and various civilian institutions covering a wide range of fields – education, housing, culture, transport, mortgage banking, propaganda, and media. All of these agencies and institutions were directly or indirectly linked to the Palestinian Authority, which openly declined to acknowledge the commitments it had made, under the terms of the Oslo accords, to avoid any activities in Jerusalem.

All Israeli governments from 1967 onward have allowed the continued existence of this “black market” of sovereignty – a form that Ehud Barak’s government was prepared to “launder.” This conveyed a clear message to the residents of East Jerusalem – “Israeli sovereignty and rule in East Jerusalem are temporary. Israel’s presence in the eastern part of the city is nearing its end and will soon be replaced by a new regime.”

The measures that the Israeli government adopted last Thursday are intended, for the first time in 12 years, to send an entirely different message. The measures were meant to teach PA Chairman Yasser Arafat a lesson and to demonstrate graphically to the Palestinians that they might end up losing a great deal.

Furthermore, the actions of the government caught the Palestinians completely off guard and they were implemented without any clashes or injuries. The measures were widely supported by the Israeli public and drew only token protests from the international community.

However, the chief significance of these actions is that they have the potential to initiate a major change in Jerusalem and establish the groundwork that will ensure, to the satisfaction of both the State of Israel and the Jewish people, that Jerusalem will remain a united city under Israeli sovereignty. For the first time in years, instead of asking whether Jerusalem will be divided, and if so by whom, one can now turn that question inside out and ask something that sounds far more sensible: “Will Jerusalem be reunited, and if so when and by whom?” However, the golden opportunity now on Israel’s doorstep could be missed if Prime Minister Ariel Sharon satisfies himself with merely closing down Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem. If he probes the Jerusalem issue deeply, Sharon will discover that for years, many government ministries have treated the eastern section of the city as if it were truly foreign territory.

One can cite, for example, the routine monitoring activities of the Ministry of Trade and Industry (in its efforts to protect consumers) or of the Israel Police’s traffic department. These two agencies operate these activities throughout Israel, but not in East Jerusalem. One could also cite the horrendous shortages in East Jerusalem in the fields of health care, education, transport and other services, and especially infrastructure. Granted, the independent Palestinian institutions established in East Jerusalem were created against the backdrop of Palestinian aspirations for sovereignty in Jerusalem too.

Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that the emergence of these institutions must also be attributed to the vacuum produced in the wake of the withdrawal of parallel Israeli services – services that should be restored to East Jerusalem now. There are a number of individuals who will very quickly discover that the independent Palestinian institutions will return to East Jerusalem through the back door. There are those, for example, who think it sufficient to distance the personnel of Jibril Rajoub, the PA’s head of preventive security on the West Bank, from Jerusalem, without seeing to it that the Israeli police step up their efforts to serve the citizens of the city better.

There are those who think it enough to shut off the cash faucets of Palestinian housing foundations without seeing to it that housing projects are built for the Arabs of East Jerusalem. There are those who think it sufficient to shut down the social services department in Orient House without seeing to it that mother and infant care clinics, health maintenance organization clinics, centres for the care of the elderly, youth clubs and schools in the Arab neighbourhoods of Jerusalem are set up.

There is a two-fold justification for extensive investment in East Jerusalem. First, every Israeli government has been committed to the principle of such investment although it has avoided implementing it as a principle. Those who want to exercise sovereignty over Jerusalem cannot settle for a limited demonstration of muscle-flexing in front of Orient House and for an exclusive concern with only one segment of Jerusalem’s population. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. You cannot argue that Israel’s sovereignty and responsibility extend to all of East Jerusalem and at the same time refuse to recognize – and refusing to do anything about – the enormous gap between East and West Jerusalem in terms of services and investment in those services. Investment in East Jerusalem is first and foremost a moral commitment.

Yet there is another side to the coin. In the past decade, Israel’s governments have failed to acknowledge their obligation to remove every trace of the PA and its branches from East Jerusalem. Those who are sincerely bent on attaining this goal must provide an alternative to the various services that the PA and its institutions have been delivering over the last few years to East Jerusalemites.

The negotiations that the Barak government conducted over a final status arrangement for Jerusalem fell through – however, those negotiations did establish the starting point for all future negotiations with the Palestinians. There can be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the Palestinians would definitely prefer to use the partition plan that was proposed by former American president Bill Clinton, and which was accepted by the Barak government as the basis for future talks with Israel over Jerusalem. Sharon’s recent actions are an attempt to establish a new starting point for the negotiations over Jerusalem. This is a step in the right direction but it must be accompanied by other measures as well.

This article ran on August 16, 2001 in HaAretz

Zionist Patriotism Revived

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
-

The recent Palestinian violence has produced at least one positive result: the reawakening of Jewish patriotism, namely, Zionism. Whereas until recently people gave voice here to post-Zionist and global village ideas and said that Zionism had become obsolete, the recent incidents in the territories and among the Israeli Arabs have revived Zionism, rendering it once again relevant to our day and age as well. Zionism has been taken out of the civics classroom and has returned to being a relevant political position. It is difficult not to discern this in our daily lives: the overwhelming support for the national unity government and of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a dramatic cooling of the religious, ethnic and social rifts, the impressive fortitude displayed in the face of the frequent suicide bombing attacks, the top TV ratings that the broadcasts of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Maccabiah games commanded, citizens demanding to perform reserve military duty, and even an attack by the pillars of the establishment, such as Professor Shlomo Avineri, against Ha’aretz for being post-Zionist

This is classic Zionism, a Zionism of tenacity, a long-term self-perception based on a sense of having no other choice and a willingness for self-sacrifice.

In light of the circumstances, Zionism has come once again to be a means of self-definition for Israelis and Jews who, until a year ago, considered themselves to be citizens of the world.

The attacks from without, particularly from the direction of Europe, have also contributed to the reawakening of Zionism. The intention to revive the equation of Zionism with racism and the nefarious attacks against Israel have produced the opposite effect from the one desired by Europe: pushed into the corner, an increased spirit of davka [“in your face,” despite everything – INT], and the bolstering of Jewish patriotism have arisen. Just as in the past the hatred of Jews was a major catalyst for Zionism, the same has happened now when Palestinian patriotism is legitimate in Europe while Jewish patriotism is perceived as colonialism, condescension and an absurdity.

Patriotism, as opposed to nationalism, is immensely important for strengthening the solidarity of any society. But in the last decade in Israel there has been the feeling that Jewish patriotism is something that had become obsolete, a dark and even embarrassing phenomenon. The result was the collapse of the solidarity of the collective in our society, and a prevailing sense of “what do I care.” Now, when Islamic suicide bombers reach everywhere and the threat is the same to everyone, the sense that we are all in the same boat is bolstered, hence the weakening of individualistic motifs in social discourse and a return to collective patterns.

This sociological process is deeper than we may think. Even a return to negotiations will not change it, since it is now clear to us that neither the return of territories nor any other magical solution will be sufficient to reach a peaceful arrangement.

This is an interesting paradox: Jewish patriotism is what created and fired Palestinian patriotism throughout the entire 20th century, it challenged it and forced it to respond. Now the picture is inverted: it is actually the Palestinian patriotism that is fueling and rebuilding Jewish patriotism. Ahmed Yassin and Yasser Arafat may not like it, but they have indirectly made a significant contribution to the fortitude of the State of Israel’s society in the future, which should be of more interest to us than security considerations.

An awakening of this sort is liable to bear with it some disadvantages, such as a single opinion and an aversion to the other, but it is reasonable to believe that the democratic Israeli consciousness will not allow that to happen. In any event, being aware of this sociological change taking place before our very eyes could help produce a new and original cohesive to heal the rifts that were created in our society in the last number of years. These bitter times may ultimately come to produce a positive result.

This article ran on Friday, August 10 in Yediot Aharonot

Why Did Israel Close the Orient House: The Inside Story

By
David Bedein
-

News reports concerning the Israeli takeover of the PLO Orient House in Jerusalem focused on the Orient House as little more than a symbol of PLO presence in Jerusalem, and as a place where the PLO welcomed foreign dignitaries.

However, having covered the Orient House for the past seven years, and having conducted extensive interviews with the Orient House staff over the past year, an insider’s view of the Orient House would not underestimate the operational significance of the Orient House to the PLO.

Each department of the Orient House carried tremendous security implications for Israel.

The Orient House was a hub of PLO activity throughout the past seven years of the Oslo process and especially over the past ten months, when various armed forces of the PLO made it their venue for meeting. Reporters visiting the Orient House witnessed daylight meetings of the Tanzim, the Fatah hawks, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. It was not unusual to witness them brandishing their weapons. These varying security services were not only involved in war with Israel. They were all involved in “law enforcement” in East Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods, which often meant abductions of Arabs from their homes for questioning and detention in Ramallah.

Last August, 2000, I interviewed with Khalil Tafakji, the Director of the Arab Studies Society, the director of a project based at the Orient House whose task it was to computerize the land records of Jerusalem and its environs, cross-referencing property records with the ownership claims of the refugees. By the time that the project was completed in January, 2001, the PA had computerized records that show the present owner or user of each parcel of land in Jerusalem and the Arab owner of each parcel prior to 1948. Tafakji explained that the purpose of the project was to prepare a legal claims for return of the properties or claims for damages for the value of the properties. In February, 2001, Tafakji pioneered similar projects on the computer at Orient House that traced land ownership in all other parts of Israel, with regard to properties to which Arab refugees can now make claims.

The Orient House computer was not only emphasizing the technical legal property claims for Arabs to receive compensation for their loss. The Orient House computer became a most efficient vehicle for Arab refugees to prepare for their actual return, even if the property that they had left had since been developed as an Israeli neighborhood, kibbutz, moshav or woodland since 1948.

This became very real to me when Tafakji casually pointed out familiar streets in Jerusalem on the computer screen, and then clicked to the names of the residents on those same streets from 1947, and then clicked to the whereabouts of those same residents and their descendents in the UNRWA Arab refugee camps today, where they have wallowed since 1949.

Since Arab refugee families in the UNRWA-run Palestinian Arab refugee camps live in areas that are marked according to the precise neighborhoods and villages that they lived in 1948, the Orient House mega-computer, working with UNRWA, efficiently distributed computer print outs to UNRWA refugee camp residents, so that they can realize their “right of return” to the neighborhoods and villages from before 1948.

In September, 2000, I accompanied a BBC TV crew that reported the daily bus trips for UNRWA camp residents to see the homes and neighborhoods that they will soon be claiming for themselves, in places such as Canada Park, the Tel Aviv University campus, and Ben Gurion International Airport.

The officials at the PA legal services department at the Orient house explained that this was similar to that of the Jewish claims against Germany, Austria and countries to which Jewish assets were sold or transferred by the Germans and their allies. It was also similar to the claims against Switzerland and other countries that benefited from the deaths of Jewish property owners whose assets were confiscated after their deaths at the hands of the Nazis.

The Arab Refugee Affairs Department at the Orient House, run PLO official Daoud Barakat, made it quite clear that that the “our task at the Orient House is to mobilize Palestinians from around the world to return to their homes”.

Barakat did not mince words about the Jews who had moved into areas that had been Arab before 1948: “They will simply have to leave”, Barakat explained in a taped interview. “Then the rightful owners of their homes would force them to leave”, he said, referring to areas taken by Israel in 1948, not in 1967.

The most cooperative and media-conscious PLO official at the Orient House was Mr. Nabeh Aweidah, the Orient House press office manager. One of Aweidah’s most important tasks was to print up and to distribute thousands of maps which conveyed the PLO vision of a Palestinian state in the future, in which all Israeli settlements that were established since 1948 were eliminated, and in which Palestine comprises all of the land of Palestine, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.

A few months ago, our agency dispatched a TV crew to film the Orient House in action – the security services, their mega computer, their lawyers and their map department. The raw footage will be available for the press and public to judge for itself as to whether the Orient House was only an innocuous welcome mat for the PLO cause.

How the Official Palestinian VOICE OF PALESTINE Radio Covered the August Bombings

By
​Center for Near East Policy Research
-

On the day of the massive bombing in Jerusalem–August 10, 2001–The Voice of Palestine opened its morning broadcasts at 7 a.m. with a 15-minute spotlight on Ali Joulani, the man who, 2 days earlier died while committing a terror attack in Tel Aviv. Joulani, 23, was lionized as a “shaheed,” or “martyr” in the cause against Zionists.

The V.O.P.–in a most unusual 15 segment–featured Joulani as the apotheosis of “istish-had”–an Arabic term that means both “martyrdom” and “heroic death against infidels.”

His drive-by shooting attack on everyone in sight near the Qirya military base in Tel Aviv (he drove off the main Ayalon Freeway near the main shopping mall) and began sooting up Kaplan Street, wounding several men and women, mostly unarmed soldiers.

The Voice of Palestine condemned Israel for not immediately turning over “the martyr’s body” to Palestinian control for a hero’s burial.

Seven hours later, the huge suicide bombing occurred (at 2 p.m. Jerusalem time), and at the first opportunity, The V.O.P. announced (3 p.m.) that “it is not clear if the explosion is a heroic martyr operation or an accident.”, in language putting blame on Israel and demanding that Israel seek a ceasefire.

Yet the “denunciation” or “condemnation” was very very circumspect and not (repeat NOT) offered in Arafat’s voice.

In fact, during its first full news round-up at 9 p.m., the headlines did not even mention the “istinkar” (condemnation) but only in the body of the ninth news item.

The next day’s main news show (7 a.m.) opened with a stirring Palestinian condemnation (“the Palestinian Authority strongly condemns [Arabic: adanat b’shidda] only the Israeli aggression at Orient House”) regarding Israel’s closure of the illegal Palestinian operations in Jerusalem’s Orient House.

“Sending Our Son Off to War”

By
David Bedein
-

This week we accompanied our first born son, Noam, to the IDF army recruitment center in Jerusalem, where he was inducted into an IDF combat unit, with three months of basic training lying ahead of him.

On the evenings before a young man goes in the IDF, neither he nor his parents get much sleep.

The soon-to-be IDF inductee parties with his friends. The parents also do not sleep – out of worry, fear and apprehension.

Our Noam, 19, was named after a soldier, Noam Yehuda, who was born in Philadelphia and who grew up in Safed, and killed by a PLO missile at the age of nineteen, on the fourth day of the Lebanon War in 1982.

The enemy was the same: Arafat and his terrorists who had set up a world-wide terrorist organization from his base in Lebanon and was held responsible for the murders and massacres of hundreds of Jews and Israelis throughout the world. The irony is that our own Noam, nineteen years later, is going to be forced to fight the same enemy – this time on our own land.

An enemy who had duped the world to such an extent that he received the Nobel Peace Prize! An enemy who was invited by the Israeli government to return from Tunis, given arms by the IDF and who turned the tables to set up cities of refuge for his “troops” to again launch attacks against Israelis.

Unlike many other Israelis, Noam holds a US passport. He could easily skip the country without too much difficulty and attend university in the US. However, he chooses to stay and serve.

When you take your son on that proverbial ride to the draft induction point, your son’s entire life flashes in front of you. All those special moments are quashed into those twenty five minutes of negotiating Jerusalem rush hour traffic. His moment of birth. His Brit. His first step. His first day in nursery school. His first day in first grade. His performance in the local singing group and how he “cut” his first cassette. His bar mitzvah. His going off to yeshiva. His summer of work with down syndrome youngsters. And his resounding Shabbat meal send-off with his friends, when they sang sweet Shabbat melodies along with varying sounds, varying from Psalms to Punk Rock.

A few nights ago, we watched the evening news with Noam. Thousands of Arab rioters shooting guns wildly in the air, as they ran through the streets precariously toting the teetering body of yet another “shahid” – “holy martyr” (a title given to terrorists who blow themselves up with innocent Israeli civilians for the “Glory of Palestine”) – Noam’s comment: “Well, Wish me luck! I’m going to be in a war”.

Noam’s mood on the day of his induction was enthusiastic and adventurous, joined by two friends from his yeshiva who were being recruited together with him as well as three other friends who had come to part with him and wish him luck.

Watching our son joke with his friends while waiting to be called to get on the bus, our heart swelled with pride at this wholesome, fine son of ours who was eager to serve his country despite the gruesome predicament the country is in right now

This past year has been a year of reflection for Noam. He was glad to have made the decision not to go straight into the army following graduation from high school. Instead he chose a Yeshiva preparation program with a curriculum readies the yeshiva students for the army service through deep philosophical discussions and basic physical education to prepare him for rigorous army training.

It has also been a year of funerals. Too many funerals. Noam told us after returning from the funeral of our daughter’s 20 year old youth counselor who had been shot dead in a drive by shooting, that “Now I know what I am going into the army for. Going to all these funerals has made me aware of what I must do: to protect the people of Israel”.

At the induction center, only about twenty after we got there, Noam’s name was called out. The time had come to part. We hand over to the IDF a wholesome, happy, wonderful son. Noam stretched out his arms and held each of us in a tight embrace. The lump in each of our throats choked back the words we had each planned to say. All we manage to say is: “Good luck. Stay safe, May God be with you”.

Please God, we pray, return him to us unharmed, safe and sound – in body and mind.

Insert: From a reporter’s desk on the day of my son’s induction
David Bedein
Israel Resource News Agency
Beit Agron Int’l Press Center
Jerusalem, Israel

Returning to my desk at the press center in Jerusalem, on the day of my son’s induction into the IDF, I look at several things that bring to mind the wars of the past. My grandfather’s diary from when he was an American soldier in World War I. A postcard that my father, an American soldier, sent his mother in World War II.

And my favorite book from childhood: the chronicle of the Civil War by Bruce Catton. As I send my son off to war, I cannot help but thinking of my visit to the Antitiem battlefield only 18 months ago, when I was covering the Israel-Syria negotiations in nearby Shepherdstown, West Virginia. I stood on that preserved pristine battleground, and thought of a generation in America when both two sides fought in battle who believed in what they were fighting for, with each side ready to pay the supreme sacrifice for what they believed.

Walking down that eery bloody lane, I could hear the drum roll from Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage and the poetry of Steven Vincent Benet, knowing full well that I would soon return to Israel to send my son into battle, dedicated to fight for a country that we choose to fight for.

Since I cover the Palestinian Authority and since I interview the officials of the PA, I know full well that they are equally dedicated to the fight for.
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