Correcting Wrong Impressions About Eisenhower and Israel’s Forced Withdrawal From Sinai

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February 13, 2002

Writing in the Jerusalem Post on February 7, 2002, Henry Siegman, U.S. Council of Foreign Affairs senior fellow and former American Jewish Congress President, enthusiastically recalls and invokes President Eisenhower’s declaration”… without equivocation that the 1956i nvasion of Egypt by Israel, Great Britain and France was wrong and needed to be reversed, all three countries pulled out promptly.”

(This episode is routinely raised by those who want the US to be severe with Israel.)

But Eisenhower changed his mind. In 1965 he said: “You know, Max, looking back at Suez, I regret what I did. I never should have pressed Israel to evacuate the Sinai.” (“Quiet Diplomat, Max A Fisher”, biography by Peter Golden, 1992, page xviii) Golden relates Eisenhower continuing “… if I had a Jewish advisor working for me, I doubt I would have handled the situation the same way. I would not have forced the Israelis back.” (page XIX)

Evidently Eisenhower did not contemplate that any Jew would have Siegman’s mindset.

As an advocate of “land for paper” it should come as no surprise that Siegman also neglects to mention what evolved as a result of Eisenhower’s pressure: Israel pulled out of the Sinai in return for a written American assurance that the U.S. would act if Israel was denied passage through the Straits of Tiran. A written assurance not honored when Nasser imposed a blockade on Israel in 1967. Also, Egypt did not follow through on the understanding that she would leave the Gaza Strip. No doubt Siegman is so dedicated to his position that none of this matters.

Abington: the Man Who Wrote Arafat’s Oped in the New York Times

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Center for Near East Policy Research

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February 13, 2002

Dr. Aaron Lerner recently noted that Ha’aretz Correspondent Amir Oren reported in his weekly column in today’s Hebrew edition of Ha’aretz that Edward Abington, who was the United States consul general in Jerusalem until 1997 and is now Arafat’s top paid lobbyist in Washington, drafted Yasser Arafat’s op-ed piece that appeared in last Sunday’s New York Times along with “one of the Israeli ‘guardians of Oslo'”. Arafat’s PR aide Saeb Erekat put the finishing touches on the article.

Questions remains:

Will anyone confront the NYT with their misprepresentation of Arafat.

Will anyone ever challenge the fact that Abington receives a 2.5 million dollar retainer from Arafat, following his service as the US consul in Jerusalem, during which time he concluded hundreds of contracts between the US and the PA.

Would Abington’s current fee not be termed a “payoff”?

EU Sponsored Israeli-Palestinian Bereaved Families’ Forum For Peace Launches Ad Campaign

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Center for Near East Policy Research

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February 13, 2002

The Israeli-Palestinian Bereaved Families’ Forum For Peace headed by Yitzhak Frankenthal has stepped up its ad campaign with a new series of full color newspaper and billboard ads “Lebanon 1982. The Palestinian Authority 2002. The same unnecessary entanglement. The same destruction. The same victims dying in vain. Stop Shooting Start Talking. The road to peace is preferable over the path to war.”

At the outset of the campaign Frankenthal told IMRA that the European Union provided financial support and that the campaign cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The Israeli-Palestinian Bereaved Families’ Forum For Peace is a group of Israelis and Palestinians who all agree that Israel should make compromises for peace.

The “bereaved families” label is applied equally to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers and the families of those murdered by the bombers.

Yossi Beilin drawing NIS 350-400 thousand salary covered by European Union

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Center for Near East Policy Research

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February 13, 2002

Investigative reporter Yoav Yitzchak report in the February 7th issue of Ma’ariv that former Labor Party MK Yossi Beilin is drawing an annual salary of NIS 350,000 – NIS 400,000 from The Economic Cooperation Foundation (ECF), a Tel Aviv based organization that he formed with Yair Hirschfeld at the end of 1990.

Yitzchak notes that the bulk of the ECF budget is covered by the European Union. In addition to the salary, ECF covers Beilin’s heavy travel expenses – including meetings with Palestinians overseas.

For all practical purposes, Yitzchak writes, the European Union is paying for Beilin to negotiate with the Palestinians.

Egypt Continues Missile Projects in North Korea

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Center for Near East Policy Research

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February 13, 2002

The CIA has dismissed Egyptian assertions that Cairo has ended its missile relationship with North Korea.

In both congressional testimony and in its latest report, the U.S. intelligence community has reported that Egypt continues to cooperate with North Korea in ballistic missile programs. The CIA said Egypt remains a key client of North Korea, which is offering intermediate and long-range missiles to the Middle East.

CIA director George Tenet referred to Egypt during testimony last week to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. In testimony on February 6, Tenet grouped Egypt together with Iran, Libya and Syria as North Korean clients for missiles and weapons of mass destruction.

Congressional staffers said Tenet’s assertion came in the wake of several hearings in which House and Senate members questioned Egypt’s missile cooperation with North Korea. In closed hearings, U.S. intelligence officials reported that Cairo had sought No-Dong missile engines from Pyongyang.

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Al Quds (Palestinian daily) Editorial Explains Palestinians Won’t Honor Security Obligations if Israel Doesn’t Meet Demands

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Center for Near East Policy Research

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February 13, 2002

The contacts of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his foreign minister Shimon Peres with a number of high-level Palestinian officials have given the impression that the tide may be changing in the region towards calm after such a long period of mutual violence. This impression was reinforced by word that an agreement had been reached between Peres and Legislative Council Speaker Ahmad Qrei’, a news report quickly denied by the Israeli minister.

Even the limited level of optimism some observers have relayed over the current situation as a result of these contacts has dwindled since Sharon’s statements. Following his meeting and that of Peres with the Palestinian officials, he clarified his point of view, which did not include anything new or any change regarding a general political settlement or an acceptable mechanism for calm.

Anyone who examines the conditions the Israeli premier wishes to impose on the Palestinian side before agreeing to put an end to his government’s oppression against the Palestinian people and the siege on President Arafat finds them nothing less than crippling. Or perhaps they are yet another political tactic intended to consolidate the current situation and prevent an end to the acts of violence. In this regard, the move may be no different from the provocative military activities of Sharon’s government every time it finds itself faced with the possibility of resuming negotiations or determining the mission of American envoy to the region Anthony Zinni, for example.

It is neither reasonable nor logical for Palestinians to wage a civil war or that the Palestinian Authority launch a campaign against certain sectors of the Palestinian people. Nor is it logical that this Authority turn into a police force to protect Israel at a time when the occupation and settlement expansion continues and when the horizon carries no hint of a possibility that Sharon’s government may recognize the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people.

Instead, the Israeli prime minister has announced his rejection of even the most modest of proposals, which his foreign minister is said to have offered to the Palestinian Legislative Council speaker. It has still not been officially confirmed that this proposal included the establishment of a Palestinian state on a limited area of land in return for a ceasefire understanding.

The Israeli premier’s insistence on confining negotiations with Palestinians to security issues and drawing a line when it comes to political issues only confirms that he has not changed his well-known tune, which relies on military force as the only way to contain Palestinian national aspirations. This only increases the feelings of pessimism and despair towards the possibility of reaching – in the near future – an initial understanding between the two sides that would lead to the immediate resumption of the political process where it left off in Taba, according to the Clinton proposal. The suffering of the Palestinian and Israeli peoples will thus increase and will threaten security and stability in the region as a whole.

The Palestinians See a ‘Joan of Arc’

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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February 13, 2002

Wafa Idris, who detonated a bomb on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem two weeks ago, killing herself and an 81-year-old man, and injuring 140 people, was the first Palestinian woman to carry out a suicide attack. Though Israeli security officials are not entirely convinced that Idris’s intention was indeed a suicide attack, her action has triggered a debate about Islamic ethics in the Arab world. Idris has lit a fuse, lighting up the imagination of many Palestinians and Arabs; for many, she is a heroic Muslim patriot, and also a feminist.

Idris had been active in the Fatah movement; and it was Fatah’s military wing, the Al-Aqsa Brigades, who took responsibility for the terror attack. Since her death, she has been perceived as a national, and pan-Arab, heroine. Arab-language newspapers circulating both in the territories and in the Arab world, have given space to public discussion of her act; the debates are conducted both from a religious standpoint, and from a social-cultural point of view. The Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI – www.memri.org), which runs offices in Jerusalem and in Washington, has compiled some of these discussions about Idris.

Particularly in Palestinian newspapers, the commentators have wondered whether Idris was motivated by emotional distress. According to reports, she married a cousin at the age of 16, and was divorced nine years later because she had not been able to bear a child. Friends and family relations told reporters that her divorce might have compelled her to carry out the suicide attack.

After her divorce, Idris worked as a volunteer for the Palestinian Red Crescent emergency medical service. Some relatives and friends have speculated that her trying experience attending to victims of the intifada led her to take vengeance against Jews.

Though many Palestinians have expressed astonishment that a terror attack was perpetrated by a woman, most have justified Idris’ action. Such support was exemplified at a symbolic funeral service for Idris that Fatah held in Ramallah. Eulogists from the whole spectrum of Palestinian politics praised her.

In the religious sphere, leaders of most Islamic organizations in the territories have concurred that Idris’ attack was permissible, and just, given Islamic law and tradition (their position has been supported by one of Egypt’s most respected Islamic sages). Hamas leaders in the territories such as Hassan Yusuf have stated explicitly that “Jihad against the enemy is an obligation borne not only by men, but also by women.” Islam, these Hamas leaders emphasize, does not distinguish between men and women on the battlefield.

Yet Hamas’ spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, has taken a skeptical position on the subject of women and suicide attacks. He told the London-based newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat that “at the present stage,” there is a sufficient number of men who are prepared to carry out such attacks, and that “for the time being women do not have a military organization” within the Palestinian Islamic movement. Yassin explained that though a woman is entitled to take part in the holy war, a man must supervise her acts. Three days after noting this requirement of male chaperons for Islamic women fighters, Yassin clarified his view; he explained that a male escort is necessary if a a woman is to be gone “longer than a night and a day” in a military action. Should the the action be shorter in duration, “she doesn’t need a [male] supervisor.”

Ataf Alian, a Palestinian woman from the Islamic Jihad organization who was involved in an attempt to explode a car bomb in Jerusalem in 1987, challenged Yassin’s view. Alian, who did part of her extended prison term in Israel, and who was released as a result of the Oslo Accords, was lauded in an article published in an Islamic Jihad journal in 1989 as a model of “the Islamic woman of our generation, who obliges the orders of religious law… and all commandments and prohibitions, including the desire to make it to heaven via self-sacrifice.” Interviewed last week by Al-Sharq al-Awsat, Alian criticized Yassin’s position, and said that the order to send a chaperon to supervise a woman during a suicide attack is impractical, and also not required by religious law. Her position drew upon oral traditions concerning the views of the prophet Mohammed. Under these traditions, a woman is obligated to take part in jihad, even without the consent of her husband, should an enemy invade a Muslim land.

Idris has been praised widely in Arabic language newspapers. MEMRI researchers say that scarcely a day goes by without five to 10 articles being published in praise of her act. Arab pundits compare her to Joan of Arc; in Baghdad, journalists reported that Saddam Hussein has ordered that a monument be built in her honor.

Particularly effusive with praise for Idris are Egyptian journalists, both in the state-sponsored newspapers and also opposition journals. For instance, Ahmad Bahajat, a columnist for Al- Ahram, wrote that Idris will go down in history as a symbol of heroism; alluding to her work for the Red Crescent, he added that “she expanded the sphere of her work from saving individuals, to saving the Palestinian people.”

Is Idris a feminist symbol?

Wafa Idris has been adopted by some Arab feminists to promote their agenda. For instance, Dr. Samiah Sa’ad a-Din, who has a column in the Cairo-based newspaper Al-Akhbar, wrote that “the limbs of this woman martyr sketched the outline of change… in the ideology of the struggle. Palestinians have ripped out the mention of gender in their identity documents, and declared that sacrifice for Allah will not only be done by men; all the women of Palestine will advance the history of liberation with their blood, and become time bombs posed to strike the Zionist enemy. They will no longer be content with the role of being mothers to martyrs.”

In contrast, Islamic Jihad men have used Idris’ example to denounce feminism. An editorial published by the Islamic, Cairo-based weekly Al-Sha’b declared that Idris was a woman “who taught Muslim women the meaning of genuine liberation… For the woman, the meaning of liberation is to free the body from the hardships of this world, and bravely embrace death.”

Israel’s Requirement For the Next Palestinian Arab Leader: Declare in Arabic, “No to the “Right of Return”

By

David Bedein

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February 13, 2002

Details of the meetings held on February 8th between US President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon are emerging.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Bush administration will not protest too vehemently if Israel’s isolation of Arafat will lead to the downfall of the PLO leader.

After a week in which Arafat delivered tirades almost every night in Ramallah to excoriate “hundreds of suicide bombers to die in the liberation of Jerusalem”, and after a week in which fatal PLO attacks claimed the lives of Israeli women almost every day, it would seem that few Israelis would shed a tear when Arafat leaves the scene.

The US and Israel have been quoted as seeking a successor to Arafat among the PLO’s “war lords”. The short term American and Israeli criteria for recognizing a successor to Arafat is simple: someone who would can maintain law and order and “prevent further terror”.

Indeed, as Ariel Sharon stepped off the plane from the US, he was “greeted” with yet another Arab terror attack in the Israeli city of Beersheva, which Arafat’s Palestinian Authority maps describe as an illegal Israeli settlement that replaced the Arab town of Bir A Sibi in 1948.

The official PBC radio of the Palestinian Authority has justified attacks in Israeli cities of Beer Sheva, Hadera, Netanya and Naharia, since these towns all replaced Arab villages in 1948, after which the residents of these and hundreds of other Arab towns were dumped into Arab refugee camps which are operated to this day by the UN, under the premise and promise of the “right of return” to the 531 Arab villages that were wiped out in 1948.

Under Arafat’s leadership, the Palestinian Authority mandated that the suffering in the refugee camps must continue.

Arafat has declared time and time again that the “right of return” must be the prime agenda item for his people. Therefore, the Intifada al Awhda, the “rebellion for the right of return” has become the slogan for the current state of unrest.

If Arafat is replaced by yet another Palestinian leader who believes in continuing to confine more than a million 1948 Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendents from 1948 to refugee camps under the “right of return”, the middle east will see more unrest, not less.

While at least one Palestinian Authority leader has declared that the time has come to abandon the idea of the right of return, he is not allowed to say so on any media outlet of Arafat’s regime.

That is because the “right of return” dominates all policy proclamations in the Arabic language radio, TV or newspapers of the Palestinian Authority since the emergence of the PA in 1994.

While many Israelis may be ready for a two state solution, such an idea is foreign to the ethos of the Palestinian Arab entity that Arafat has forged.

At this point in time, every candidate the US and Israel have examined to succeed Arafat has sworn allegiance to the Intifada al Awhda, the “rebellion for the right of return”.

Only if a Palestinian Arab leader emerges who will communicate to his people in their own language that he is ready to remove Arab refugee camps and live with Israel without advocating the “right of return”, will peace in the middle east be at all forseeable.

Bush and Sharon should keep that in mind and not look for short term solutions for “preventing terror”.

Rabbis for Human Rights Fabrications: A Critique of The “Olive Tree Campaign”

By

David Bedein

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January 29, 2002

Throughout the centuries, Jews have suffered whenever a lie repeated often enough becomes believable.

Fifty dedicated people were brought to Israel this week under the specious premise that tens of thousands of trees had been uprooted in Arab villages by Israeli soldiers and Israeli civilians. These volunteers came to plant trees and distribute more than $100,000 a.m.ong Arab villagers.

The organization that imported this delegation is known as the Rabbis For Human Rights, which posted on their website,on e-mails, in opeds and even in full page ads taken out in the New York Times over the past year that proclaim that Israeli soldiers and civilians who have “marauded” through Arab villages and cut down between 30,000 and 100,000 trees.

While it is an empirical fact that there have been cases where the IDF cut down some olive tree groves in a few Arab villages that had been used as convenient cover to protect snipers, and while there is no doubt about it that some Arab grove owners have suffered financial difficulties as a result, such an allegation that Israel has conducted such a policy would seem to fly in the face of reality, since none of the three hundred news agencies based in Israel or the PA have ever discerned that such a massive policy exists or that tens of thousands of trees have even been uprooted.

Where did the Rabbis for Human Rights get the idea that such a policy of mass uprooting of olive trees exists?

Rabbi Arik Ascherman, the director of the Rabbis for Human Rights, was asked for his sources. His reply was “LAW or PHRC”.

Both of these are Palestinian organizations. LAW is the leading Palestinian lawyers association, while PHRC is the Palestinian Human Rights Center – both of which work closely with the Palestinian Authority. In July, 2001, the LAW organization organized forty Palestinian Non Government organizations To condemn the Israeli human rights organization B’tzelem for denouncing The decision of the Palestinian Authority to endorse the killing of anyone Whom the PA would define as an Israeli settler.

Later, Asherman added, “different organizations and eyewitness experience” were his sources and would not give more details.

Rabbis for Human Rights claims not to take a political stand. However, their 10-day visit in Israel was characterized by meetings arranged exclusively with Palestinian groups or with Israeli political groups from the far left side of Israel’s political map.

When delegation participants were asked about whether they had requested a rebuttal from an IDF spokesman or the Israeli civilians that Rabbis for Human Rights accuses of mass uprooting of Arab orchards, such a question drew blank stares.

Rabbi David Forman, a founding member and spokesman of RHR offered the following comment, “I know it’s true that in some cases Palestinians stand behind trees and snipe at people, but in 95% of the cases, the trees were removed needlessly. According to Palestinian sources, 25,000 to 30,000 trees have been removed.

“It reminds me of when I served in Lebanon. Our commander showed us, ‘There’s the sea, and there are the banana fields.’ There were women working in the banana fields and there were snipers there. Our commander told us, when attacked, to shoot first and ask questions later. Once we didn’t shoot back and two tanks of ours were taken out. Three of my soldiers were killed.”

When asked, in retrospect, would he do the same thing again? Rabbi Forman paused and answered, “Yes. These are difficult moral dilemmas, but yes.”

T.T. Fitzgerald, M.D., a delegation member who works for an organization known as “Medicine for Peace”, came from Baltimore, where he is part of a group called ‘Baltimore Area Jews who work for Israeli-Palestinian Peace.’ He spoke passionately about the Beduin in the Negev where the group had planted that day. It had been considered too dangerous to go over the green line, as there had been shooting there that day.

“The village is not recognized by the government… they pay taxes and lots of them serve in the IDF but they don’t have electricity and water.”

Question: How did you get involved in RHR?

“I work against whatever war the U.S. is in… 3-5,000 children die in Iraq every month. Friends of mine were subject to indictment for bringing toys and medicine to Iraq… [America] should stop making war in the rest of the world.”

Question: What happened to the olive trees?

“They were destroyed by the military or by settlers.”

Question: Do you know where that information comes from?

“No.”

Question: Did you meet with any government officials?

“No. It wouldn’t be a good use of our time.”

Richard Kohl is an American-born economist from western New York living In Paris who conducts policy research on poverty and inequality. “

Question: What happened to the olive trees? “Vigilante groups of settlers and the IDF or border police pull them up.

Question: What are your source? “Arik Asherman. He showed me clippings in London, of the Washington Times, for instance.”

Question: What are the primary sources? ” Palestinian villagers said that in the middle of the night, 25 trees disappeared. Arik said, it’s Kafkaesque, the settlers expand the borders of their settlements, so the Palestinians don’t have access to their trees. They (RHR) wanted to help harvest, the settlers let in the Israelis but not the Palestinians. They let the bus through because it had yellow plates.”

Question: What do you think of the Karine A boat episode? “I’m not sure if it was a boat going to the Palestinians or if, like they say, it was set up by the Israelis. The Middle East is full of conspiracy theories. I don’t know which is the truth.”

Rabbi Gerald Serotta, of Chevy Chase, Maryland, is the acting chair of the RHR in the U.S. and is in the process of organizing an independent North American support group.

Question: What are the sources of information regarding the number of trees That were cut down and who did the cutting?

“I don’t know, but I trust the rabbinic leaders here in Israel. Anyone can go see where they are. Visual evidence is obvious about what’s for security, which is legitimate and what is collective punishment and a violation of Jewish law and traditions.”

Ruth Atkin, Mayor of Emeryville and delegation participant, was not new to the idea of enriching the environment and quality of life for individuals. Emeryville is a city with 7,000 people, located between Berkeley and Oakland, at the base of the Bay Bridge.

“There is now a hi-tech and retail center that the city has just completed. I was elected in November of 1999 and when I came into office the city Was just finishing its last major deal, creating an urban village with a pedestrian Main Street. We are now finishing up that Renaissance and conversion and will deal with the residential quality of life issues. We’re converting an abandoned railroad spur into a greenway and are working to balance residential needs with a diversified economy.”

Atkin’s passion in life involves planting trees in the urban environment, and presented the villagers of Hares with the idea of a sister-city partnership.

Atkins was yet another mission participant who believed the claims of the Rabbis for Human Rights that thousands of trees had been uprooted by IDF troops and Israeli civilians.

Atkins also described a meeting that she had been set up to meet with a family in Beit Jala, near Bethlehem, and how all their children were wetting their beds at night because of the Israeli shooting. Nobody bothered to tell Atkins that Beit Jala is the place from where Arab sharpshooters fire on the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, and on traffic below, and that five Israeli drivers have been murdered on that road. When asked if she would at least meet with a family in Gilo, Atkins replied, “No, they don’t have the level of unemployment in Gilo that they have in Beit Jala.” Two nights after Atkins had dinner in Beit Jalla, PLO gunman from Beit Jala fired on Gilo, damaging twenty Israeli homes.

Janet Tobacman, a health educator who originally hails from Cleveland and now lives in San Francisco, had the same feeling:

“My understanding is that a combination of the Israeli army and Jewish settlers have cut down thousands of olive trees throughout the West Bank and Gaza and people have depended upon them. Lots have been cut down and the official understanding of that from Israel is that trees are a security risk, but there are great numbers, so either you can look at it as a matter of Israel wanting the land, or as harassment or collective punishment.”

Some American born Rabbis in Jerusalem are upset with the Rabbis for Human Rights.

Rabbi Gershon Winer is one of them. He served as a Conservative rabbi in Grand Rapids, Michigan and in Long Island before he made aliya to Israel in 1970. He is professor emeritus of Yiddish Literature at Bar-Ilan University and the author of The Founding Fathers of Israel.

Rabbi Winer has spearheaded a campaign to have a resolution officially adopted at the next Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative movement, to take place in February in Washington, D.C., in which he calls for the Rabbinical Assembly to “no longer ‘applaud and endorse’ the policies and activities of the Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel.”

His proposed resolution uses strong language. It reads: “The statements and activities of the Rabbis for Human Rights organization often run counter to national interests and policies as determined by the Israel government and supported by public polls, such as interfering with necessary security measures taken by the Israel Defense Forces against the enemy, or advocating the repatriation of Arab refugees within the borders of Israel.” Rabbi Winer’s proposed resolution also criticized the RHR for, “… remaining at the Durban Conference after all other Jewish delegations, joined by the official representative of the United States Government, left in protest against the anti Israeli bias infecting the proceedings…”

According to Winer, “what really ignited me against the RHR is their Yom Kippur ‘confession’ that they sent out last year and asked to be read in synagogues during the services.” We obtained a copy of that “vidui”. While referring briefly to Palestinian violence, the main thrust of the “prayer” is a sweeping, total and chilling condemnation of Israel and the Jews for their behavior toward Palestinian and Israeli Arabs. The collective Jewish people are accused of incitement, demonizing, abuse, hardening of hearts, and the use of “excessive lethal force to kill and maim.”

“When I found out about this,” says Winer, “I decided to introduce the resolution. I also found out about the olive tree project, the attempt to remove roadblocks that have been set up by the IDF against terrorists [the roadblock removal is referred to by Rabbi Arik Ascherman in a description of the action he wrote about on a Palestinian website]

Rabbi Ehud Bandel, President of the Masorati (Conservative) Movement in Israel, was asked to respond, “I am a member of the RHR and was their founding director in 1988. Today, because of my role as President of the Conservative movement, I feel I cannot be responsible for their actions and therefore resigned as a board member. The prohibition against hurting trees during war appears in Parshat Ki Tetzeh [in the Tora]. I agree there are certain circumstances in which peoples’ lives are more important. I trust that RHR knows where they’re planting them.

Bandel emphasized that he cannot take responsibility for actions taken by the RHR. “For instance, if money were given to families of terrorists, I would not stand behind it. I intentionally don’t arrive at meetings.” Concerning the Durban conference, when the RHR was the only Israeli or Jewish group that did not walk out together with Israel and the U.S., Rabbi Bandel said, “I warned Jeremy about Durban and that the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic groups would exploit us.” [Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom is the RHR Field Director for the Rabbis for Human Rights. – TKG]

Conservative Rabbi Ben Hollander, a founding member of RHR, teaches at The Schechter Institute in Jerusalem, noted the lack of balance in the tone of the RHR literature referring to the olive tree project, and in the 10-day program itself, during which the group met exclusively with Palestinian groups and left wing groups.

Rabbi Hollander: “Contrary to popular conception, RHR is not a political organization but a human rights organization. Many of those coming from America for this mission are political activists on the left and actually we did not plan their program. This was their goal in coming here. It’s like asking, how can a solidarity group come and only meet with Palestinians? But that is their orientation. This group from America does have a political agenda and I saw [it] in the program…I am much more centrist and moderate. There are also people who are liberal and who believe that we in Israel did more than our share -this is my personal view as well – to achieve peace.

Asked why he is still a member of RHR, Rabbi Hollander said that “a watch dog organization like ours is enhancing security because it is preventing human rights abuses.

Funding from the New Israel Fund and The Shefa Fund RHR receives funding through the New Israel Fund and from the Shefa Fund.

On the NIF website, it states, “The New Israel Fund is a philanthropic partnership of Israelis,. North Americans and Europeans that works for equality and social justice for all of Israel’s CITIZENS.” (CAPS are the author’s)

Palestinians who live in the West Bank and Gaza are not Israeli citizens.

Itzik Shanan, Director of Communication and Public Relations for the New Israel Fund, was asked if NIF funds was intended for grantees who hold activities in the West Bank and Gaza? His answer was a flat “no”, yet he said that he did not to know too much about the Rabbis for Human Rights tree planting activities in Arab villages, even though the Rabbis had sent out a daily e-mail on this project and its connection to the New Israel Fund throughout the past year, always mentioning the New Israel Fund and the Shefa Fund of Philadelphia as the conduits for funds. RHR went so far as to place a full page ad in the New York Times that advertised the New Israel Fund and the Shefa Fund as the place where funds could be sent to help replant “thousands” of trees that the IDF and Israeli civilians had uprooted.

The word “allegedly” does not appear in the literature of the Rabbis for Human Rights.

IDF Spokesman responds to RHR accusations regarding the numbers 30,000 – 100,000 that appear on the RHR website, IDF spokesman Capt. Yaakov Dallal responded by while exact numbers of uprooted trees are not available, the IDF rejected any notion that there were such a massive number of olive groves that had been uprooted over the past two years.

Regarding accusations that the IDF cuts down more trees than is necessary, Dallal said, “There is such a thing as cutting down trees or shrubbery and also other cases, such as demolition of houses, when these serve as cover for Palestinians who are carrying out attacks on Israelis and on Israeli soldiers. It happens all the time that people hide in orchards, in areas close to roads that have plants and trees, and that they plant a roadside bomb and hide again. They use these areas for ambushes on civilian and IDF vehicles. We’ve seen a ton of this on a daily basis over the past 16 months.

“Occasionally a decision is taken to clear an area. That decision is based on the experience in the area, a record of previous attacks and a determination that the attacks would have been thwarted if this area were cleared. The permission to clear an area is not taken by a local commander; it is generally a brigadier general or the head of the central or southern command, for instance.

“The Alei Sinai case [in which Palestinian terrorists broke into a Jewish community in Katif and murdered two people] was a particularly severe case, first of all because of the type of attack, and secondly because the plants and growth significantly helped the infiltration and helped the terrorists make their way to the settlement.

“There have been other attempts and it makes it easier if the area is cleared to spot the terrorist, especially because they usually come at night. It’s much easier to spot them now, as they are continuing to attempt to infiltrate and attack, and continue to be spotted – and that’s thanks to the clearing of the area, which gives a lot of advance warning, for half a kilometer.

Most significantly, Capt. Dallal invoked international law: “According to International law, if any property – such as a building, orchards, a greenhouse, or a tree – is used for to launch military activity, it is no longer regarded as personal civilian property. Under international law it is possible to clear the area because it becomes a place from which attacks are launched; it takes on a different legal status.

Emmanuel Nachshon, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reinforced the position of the IDF, “Unfortunately, the IDF sometimes has to take part in certain activities, such as uprooting of trees, to protect soldiers and others on the roads from Palestinian gunfire. That is not a matter of policy, but a necessity within the framework of our duty of self-defense. Those who show blatant disregard towards the trees in this country are the Palestinian terrorists who do not hesitate to use them as shelters for their criminal activities.

So there you have it. The Rabbis for Human Rights have prepared fifty “ambassadors” to spread the word throughout the world that Israel carries out a policy that does not exist.

An Examination of the Work of the JMCC: The Jerusalem Media and Communications Center

By

David Bedein

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January 22, 2002

When a foreign journalist arrives in Israel, according to law, he must get a press card that is certified for use in Israel from the Israel Government Press Office, located at the Beit Agron International Press Center in Jerusalem. To get the card, the journalist must give the Press Office two pictures of him/herself and proof that he/she works for a publication. The Government Press Office will then supply the foreign journalist with notifications to the press from all the government offices and announcements regarding press conferences.

That sums up the Israeli Government Press Office’s involvement with the foreign press, who carry the weighty responsibility of presenting Israel’s image to the world at large.

Daniel Seaman, who is director of the Israel Government Press Office, would like to offer services to the foreign press such as tours, excursions and meetings with sources which would assist the reporter to gain a deeper understanding about the people living in Israel and its political climate. However, the government of Israel did not find it necessary to finance such expenses.

But no need to worry. Right under the nose of the Israeli Government Press Service, an energetic news agency operates, which offers all the above services and much more.

It is efficient, available and costs very little.

When the foreign journalist steps outside the Beit Agron Government Press Office holding his freshly stamped press card, the reporter will often find parked outside a mini-bus belonging to a press agency known as the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC).

The purpose of that agency and its media- friendly services is to seek out foreignjournalists and to take them to whatever destination which will further the interests of the Palestine Authority.

The JMCC was founded by Ghassan Khatib, a member of the Palestinian Legislation Council, and a close associate of Yassir Arafat. The JMCC provides the journalists with daily trips to Jerusalem, refugee camps, the Gallilee, the Negev and to Arab and Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza strip including Jewish settlements. The JMCC media guides consist of Arab professionals, Israeli Leftists, and Arab or Israeli academics.

The Israel Ministry of Tourism, the Jerusalem Municipality and the Yesha Council do not initiate trips of this nature, creating a vacuum that is filled efficiently and professionally by the JMCC.

The offices of the JMCC are easily accessible, located on Nablus Street in Jerusalem, a few minute walk from the hotels favored by the foreign press such as the Ambassador Hotel and the American Colony. Nearby are the offices of the UN, the European Union, and the American, Italian, Belgian and Swiss Consulates.

For nominal fees, the JMCC provides the media with television equipment, and translators from Hebrew and Arabic. JMCC’s web site, www.jmcc.org is updated a number of times a day, and provides the party line of whatever message that the PLO seeks to communicate as well as the wide variety of services offered by the JMCC.

Also for a nominal fee, the JMCC provides reporters with a daily report on what is happening on the Palestinian front in addition to a summary of the Israeli and Palestinian press. The JMCC’s translations of the PLO press are devoid of the virulences that you will find in the original Arabic language media, but this detail goes by unnoticed by the reporters.

The JMCC provides an impressive colorful 50-page brochure called “This Week in Palestine”, issued for tourists and the foreign press, and contains detailed and updated information about Palestinian Society, descriptive information of tourist attractions, as well as a comprehensive list of names of local tour guides.

The brochure includes maps of Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Palestine.

The term “Israel”does not appear anywhere in the brochure or on its maps.

The Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem, is erased from the JMCC map of Jerusalem. Every site is mentioned as part of the Palestinian heritage, connecting it to the Palestinian struggle for independence or to Islam without any hint of Jewish significance. Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus, becomes Yussof’s Tomb, with a unique Islamic heritage. Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem also becomes an Islamic site and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem also went through Islamic conversion with never a mention as to its holy and historical significance to the Jewish nation.

JMCC advertisers to the brochure includes all the Arab hotels in East Jerusalem, all the foreign consulates in Jerusalem, as well as various restaurants. “This Week in Palestine” can be found in all the Hotels in East Jerusalem as well as in some Israeli hotels.

Another magazine put out by the JMCC and geared for journalists is called “The Palestine Report”. JMCC also provides evaluations and analysis of Israeli media and web sites.

For a nominal fee, JMCC provides the foreign press with a subscription to a daily e-mail report about events in the Palestine Authority, which is marketed to 168 various press offices and diplomats in Jerusalem. The daily report service has been operating since 1989 (though not in the internet format), following the outbreak of the War in Lebanon.

The service was then called “The Palestine Press Service”, and founded by Ramonda Tawil, who later became Arafat’s mother-in-law. Tawil, who was the partial owner of the Jordanian bank of Irbid, was also involved in training Palestinian Arabs for interviews with the press. Thus she gave a “spokesman course” for the Jibril terror exchange in 1985, when Israel released more than 1,000 Arab terrorists in exchange for six Israeli POW’s. The course trained released terrorists how to handle their limited-time interviews with the press, and to focus on presenting themselves and their conditions in the Israeli jails, instead of talking about their actions which led to them being put in those jails. Many of Tawil’s graduates are graduates from Israeli prisons, and are now serving as reliable sources for Human Rights Groups in Israel and abroad as well as for every possible delegation visiting beyond the Green Line.

Additional JMCC services include a well stocked video library with documented material on every possible subject promoting the Palestinian cause. Among the videos available for the reporter are video clips of the abuse of Palestinian Arab children at the hands of Israeli soldiers, the intolerable conditions of the refugee camps, and various portrayals of dead and dying Arabs, with smashed and detached body parts, along with mourning Palestinian families and more.

The JMCC also provides updated polls regarding the mood of the Palestinian street. Israel’s Broadcasting Authority and Israeli journalists from the Haaretz and Jerusalem Post newspapers all publish these polls as reliable sources. The question of how reliable is a public opinion poll which is taken in a totalitarian society by a body connected to the ruling regime almost never comes up.

The JMCC is also coordinated with two Palestinian health experts, both bearing elaborate family ties. The first is Dr. Fatchi Arafat, head of the “Red Crescent”, and brother to Yasser. In October 2000 the IDF spokesman gave a detailed report about the role of the “Red Crescent” ambulances in the transfer of weapons and fighting equipment to the Arabs who participated in violent clashes against Israel, yet forgot to mention the name and next of kin of the head of this organization. The other health expert at the disposal of JMCC is Dr.Mustafa Barguti, the chief of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees which was founded by the National Front, and brother of Marwan Barguti, secretary of the Fatah and commander of the armed PLO Tanzim. The two doctors are at the service of any foreign journalist wishing to report on the Palestine Authority health system. Dr. Barguti is also the source of the sensational news campaign in 1990 which alleged that Israel was using poisonous tear gas on Palestinian demonstrators which somehow capable of killing children.

In terms of its legal status, the JMCC had always held press credentials from the Israel Government Press office until this January 1. In deciding not to extend their credentials beyond January 1, GPO director Daniel Seaman noted that JMCC defines itself as a PR firm and not as a news agency and therefore should not have received press credentials in the first place, according to Seaman.

Despite the fact that JMCC registered itself as an Israeli firm in 1994, JMCC, which receives annual grants from the European Union and the Ford Foundation, has never paid taxes on its more than twenty employees, nor has the JMCC ever issued a single legal receipt to include the VAT, the Israeli Value Added Tax. For all these reasons, JMCC was stricken from the Israel corporate record in 1999 – yet the Israel tax authority in East Jerusalem issued an official memo that the JMCC was operating within the confines of the Israeli law. How the Israel tax authorities came to such a conclusion seems mysterious.

All in all, journalists who come to Jerusalem seem rather pleased with the operation and the services provided by the JMCC. Reporters find out soon enough that the JMCC is promoting an Arab point of view. However, as one TV producer noted, “their message is soft and their methods are professional. Even though they may promote a cause, we do not feel that they are clubbing us over the head with a hard sell approach”.”

Anyone who wonders why Israel fails to make its case to the media need look no further than the JMCC operation in Jerusalem.

No Israeli public or private concern provides any parallel service to welcome and serve the media in Jerusalem.

The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs is blessed with a budget of five million dollars to provide such services to the foreign media.

The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs is well aware of the above scenario.

The question remains: Is this a matter of benign neglect or a policy of allowing the PLO to have free reign of the turf…

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