Brig. Gen. (res.) Aharon Levran

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December 22, 1997

IMRA interviewed former senior intelligence officer Brig. Gen. (res.) Aharon Levran, in Hebrew, on December 14th.

IMRA: The IDF’s “security map” is now public and it shows a security area of three kilometers depth as compared to Sharon’s map with a ten kilometer deep security band on the Green Line. What’s the difference from a military standpoint between the two?

I want to say at the outset that I don’t support the concept of a security zone – be it a 3 kilometers or 10 kilometers wide. I also have not seen the maps. But I can definitely say that there are advantages to a 10 kilometer zone as compared to a 3 kilometer zone.

If you have only a three kilometer security zone you put the flight paths from airports within range of anti-aircraft missiles.

IMRA: Netanyahu’s most memorable contribution to the 1992 Likud election campaign was the television spot he did near Ben Gurion Airport in which he made this very point. Ironically, Mordechai’s security map, which Netanyahu reportedly now tends to support, does not include Beit Arieh which is four kilometers from Ben Gurion International Airport.

Levran: Jets taking off from the airport would still be at a low enough altitude to be hit by anti-aircraft missiles in the area of Beit Arieh.

A ten kilometer zone also has significance because it puts the shorter range Katyushas out of range as well as light weapons. Artillery and long range Katyushas would, of course, still be well within target range.

IMRA: Would these weapons truly tilt the scales?

Levran: You don’t need heavy weapons to win. When you consider what has happened to us, the Palestinians have succeed in beating us with the lightest of weapons. Clausewitz defines successful war as gaining one’s goals. And when you consider what the Palestinians have done – the territory which they have gained – then truly they have demonstrated that terror is not simply a nuisance – it is in and of itself a strategic threat. We have already seen how short range light weapons, when used to carry out a campaign of terror, can be just as effective in achieving the Arab’s goals as heavy weapons. After all, terror has achieved something which, traditionally, one side only loses after a crushing defeat – territory.

That’s not to say that I support a ten kilometer zone. I think that it is ridiculous. I spoke with Sharon about this years ago and I thought I convinced him about this but I was wrong. Consider that Sharon was one of the leaders of the anti-Oslo movement. I told him then that his “security zone” approach was mistaken because it creates Jewish “security pockets”. It’s as if you are basically saying that the country isn’t ours but that you want some security areas within which to survive. Forget about the land being ours and ideological matters – they aren’t important – just give me some security. This turned the whole matter from a question of national spirit and ideology to a matter of horse trading – some here some there. This is the way to treat the Land of Israel? The homeland?

He has to do all of this? The leader of the opposition to Oslo – just to sit in the government? He knows that he has a prime minister who is a sham but he continues to sit with him. He has lost all of his integrity.

And the biggest lie of all of these people is “we don’t want to interfere with their lives – let them live their lives.” What is this “let them live their lives?”. They won’t give us solace.

Now there is talk: yes state no state as if it doesn’t matter.

The authority today in an embryo. It can still be aborted. But a state – God forbid. And every day it will get worse. We can’t let things develop this way.

IMRA: Your objection to security areas sounds more like an objection on Zionist rather than security reasons.

Levran: There were once two very smart people in the country – Yigal Alon and Moshe Dayan. Alon and the Alon Plan and he said ‘let’s hold onto areas where there aren’t many Arabs and it will also serve our security needs.’ And Moshe Dayan told him, to paraphrase: but what can you do when those who control the hilltops control Western Israel?

We are going to give up the hilltops? All this talks of security areas sounds so pleasant – that we will be satisfied with having just some areas – just what is really required for our survival.

I would go even further. If I had to chose between holding onto Jerusalem and holding Western Israel I would choose Western Israel. Because we stand or fall depending on if we hold it. It’s not that I am minimizing the spiritual importance of Jerusalem. It is our spiritual survival and symbol of our existence etc.. For years now there are people who say “Jerusalem forever” but are willing to give up the rest.

I maintain that the ideological argument is the stronger one to go into negotiations with. If you argue solely on security grounds you are bound to find your demands whittled away. “Take another cannon instead of land”, they will say. “Take another million dollars”. They don’t understand.

If there was some area which theoretically we could do without it would be one thing. But there isn’t such an area. I need the high ground and the areas from the Alon Plan and the connecting roads. So what’s left? Arab pockets. Fine. Let’s change them all to Area B. Joint control – our security control and they have their own municipal lives. That is the true implementation of our not having anything to do with their lives. Everything else is cities of refuge and traps.

IMRA: “Maariv” reporter Ben Caspit claims that Israel was on the verge of an agreement with the Syrians which would include as one of its provisions that a division of Syrian tanks would be deployed between Damascus and the Golan but that the tanks would not represent a danger to Israel since they would only have a “belly” of ammunition with supplies located at a distance.

Levran: This is ridiculous. Can we really trust Assad. Especially today after the Teheran Islamic Conference? All of these attempts to micro manage arrangement are absurd. You have to look at the situation at the macro level when you want to consider if given arrangement is workable. You have to appreciate the dangers involved in leaving the Golan from a macro level.

IMRA: You were in the army when the Egyptians immediately violated the terms of the cease fire agreement which came at the end of the War of Attrition on the Suez Canal by advancing their SAM sites. How did people react inside the army when the Americans claimed that they needed to study the situation and examine the evidence. Did you know at the time that the Americans were photographing the area the entire time and were fully aware of the situation?

Levran: We were apoplectic. They kept reviewing our photographic evidence. We knew what was happening but, already then, we were caught up in this feeling of dependence on “Uncle Sam” so we couldn’t do anything.

This wasn’t the first time. Recall that the Americans also stalled when the Straits of Tiran were closed to Israeli ships back in 1967.

You have to keep in mind though, that at that time the country was war weary. Sure we enjoyed success with our deep penetration raids in Egypt, but then we lost some Phantom jets and the mood was very low. When the Egyptians violated the agreement the country was not geared to respond.

IMRA: So Israel was happy to get American “black boxes” instead of acting against the missiles?

Levran: Yes.

IMRA: Do you feel that there is any danger to Israel in sharing weapons technology with Turkey?

Levran: The relationship with Turkey is an important one. No one wants to be alone. Not to mention that the alliance with Turkey is designed to weaken the Syrians and the Arab-Iranian camp. We face this problem all the time when the defense industry wants to sell weapons systems. I would say, however, that our policy is to sell systems when we have the next generation of the system for ourselves so that we maintain a technological edge.

IMRA: What’s your view of the Arrow systems? Will they tilt the balance in our favor?

Levran: When you talk of defense against ballistic missiles there are two stages when you can stop them: when they are launching and on re-entry. It is very difficult to stop them while they are in outer space. I would say that while the Arrow system is important, systems mounted on pilotless planes which can shoot down missiles as they launch can also play an important role. If they are not too expensive we could have a considerable number of them deployed. It is difficult, however, from a command and control standpoint to operate continuously at such great distances. It is one thing to carry out a deep penetration operation – as we did in Entebbe and in bombing the Iraqi nuclear reactor, but continuous operation is something else.

I would however, note that some critics of Arrow have incorrectly claimed in the face of a nuclear threat that a system which is not 100% effective is useless.

Consider the situation for the enemy’s standpoint: If they launch a nuclear or other nonconventional strike against Israel they face odds that the missile won’t get through and then they will face an Israeli response. By the way, even if they would succeed, Israel would still be able to launch a devastating counter strike many fold graver. And our enemies have to consider all of this.

IMRA: America has shown its great concern for creating power vacuums. Even in the middle of the Gulf War, the fear of power vacuums stopped America from defeating Iraq. If Israel were to be attacked, would the Americans allow Israel to counter strike with the possibility the move would create a power vacuum?

Levran: You have to consider the conditions which you are describing. Let me tell you something. Before the war in Lebanon, I met with Harkabi, and he said he was concerned about the hundreds of artillery pieces in the hands of the PLO. If the Palestinians were to start firing at the Northern settlements, he argued, the Americans surely would not countenance our invading Lebanon. I explained to him that if the PLO started with us we would go into Lebanon regardless of what America thought. I was right. The same is the case if Israel were to be struck today by such an attack.

The Anatomy of Paternalism

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Center for Near East Policy Research

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December 15, 1997

In retrospect, the Palestinian Arab rebellion against Israel, also known as the Intifada, has gained wide respectability within Israel itself.

At the tenth anniversary of the Intifada, an increasing number of Israelis have developed a certain infatuation with the passions of a Palestinian national movement. Indeed, for some strange reason, there is a new Israeli passion to grant a nation-state to its traditional enemy and put aside its traditional hesitancy to grant any such gesture

The new Israeli attitude to Palestinian Arabs conveys a certain presumptuous paternalism. Since the Palestinians long so much for a state of their own, so goes the Israeli paternalistic thinking, and since we in Israel so much want to separate from them, we’ll give them a state, not a real state, but rather more like a toy state, a nation without an army, without control over its skies and certainly without any real sovereignty.

Our native paternalism does not stop with any such insulting idea, but rather with the illusion that Palestinian Arabs will even think of agreeing to it, and that they will thank us for such a gesture and yearn to make a peace treaty with us as a result.

As a case in point, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu naively declared that a future Palestinian Arab state could be modeled on a mini-state such as Andorra or Puerto Rico and that would provide an appropriate national model that the Palestinian Arab national movement would be prepared to accept.

When it comes to the concept of this ” Palestinian toy state”, opinions in Israel do not really vary, from right to left. No one even in the Israeli left is prepared to accept an independent Palestinian Arab state in the middle of the country, with artillery power and/or control over water resources. “Between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea there is simply no room for another nation-state”, Rabin would declare in the days before the Oslo process, and his position was and is accepted by a wide consensus in Israeli society, although not by Palestinian Arabs themselves.

With all due respect, the Palestinians did not conduct an Intifada in order to get a kind of semi-state, comprised of two detached pseudo-autonomous districts in the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians were not arrested in the thousands and killed in the hundreds in order to earn the right to empty out municipal garbage by themselves.

After all, their leaders led the Intifada under the slogan of “With blood and fire we will redeem Palestine”. The Intifada was a national rebellion, while the Palestine National Liberation movement never reneged on full liberation of all of Palestine as its goal, and it has never hinted that it would settle for anything than less than a state where the issue of Palestinian Arab sovereignty is recognized with Jerusalem as an integral part of its state.

The Palestinian Arabs most certainly became used to our paternalistic attitude towards them, throughout their and our mutual history. Israeli leaders have always believed that they “read” the Palestinians better than they read themselves. Israel’s former prime minister Golda Meir used to go out of her way to declare that the Palestinian people simply does not exist. Even worse, a steady stream of leaders over the past few years have tried to minimize the expectations of Palestinian leaders and present them as an infantile people who are ready to pioneer an infantile state.

These days, Israelis seem to compete with one another to declare that a Palestinian state is already an “established fact”. On almost every newsreel, more and more Israelis join the chorus, and a recent pubic opinion poll showed that 52% of the Israeli population sample surveyed now believe that the Palestinian state is now a reality.

Palestinian Arab surveys might come out differently. But who here cares what Palestinians are thinking? Does anyone care how Palestinian Arabs interpret the meaning of a “Palestinian state”?

The Palestinian Arab people continued to exist even when we in Israel said they did not. and they continued their war of independence even though we declared ourselves to be the victors of that conflict.

Israel can continue to give paternalistic admiration to the political achievements of the Intifada that Palestinian leaders brought for their people. However, Israelis who embroider a Palestinian Arab state with their blue and white thread may find that Palestinian Arabs may not be too pleased with what Israelis have in mind for them.

Emunah Elon, 42, is an Israeli news columnist, mother of six, and, until recently, the advisor on women’s affairs to the Prime Minister of Israel.

The Peace Query that was Lacking …

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David Bedein

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December 15, 1997

We regret to inform our readers that our Peace Research Query that was published in the 8th December, 1997 issue of Israel Resource Review did not make mention of the fact that Arafat had used the term “Shalom” in several speeches. Even if he used it in a manipulative manner, he still used it.

Respectfully submitted,

David Bedein

U.S. Government Delivers Ultimatum to Netanyahu

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Center for Near East Policy Research

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December 8, 1997

Substance of the Message: “The United States will publicly support the establishment of a Palestinian State, if Israel does not carry out the stages which it agreed to in the Oslo Agreement”. The Prime Minister’s Bureau: “It never happened”

The United States has warned Israel that it will publicly support the establishment of a Palestinian State, with the Jordan River as its Eastern border, if Israel does not carry out the three withdrawal stages which it agreed to in the Oslo agreement. This message was delivered yesterday by a senior official in the American administration.

According to the American source, the White House has delivered this ultimatum to Netanyahu’s office, because of difficulties which have arisen in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. In discussions which took place in Washington with Israeli Embassy staff, senior administration officials stated that 1997 was disastrous for the peace process and that during the month of December it will be necessary to make up for all that was not done in the previous 11 months.

The American source stated that senior officials in the United States Administration have reached the conclusion that Netanyahu does not intend to carry out Israel’s commitments in the Oslo Agreement. The United States is attempting to formulate its own initiative, as it feels that the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have reached an impasse. According to the view now taking hold in the United States, it will not be possible to reach a final settlement without the establishment of a Palestinian State.

The senior administration official stated that, despite the foregoing, if ultimately the Israelis and Palestinians can reach their own understandings, the United states will moderate its involvement and will not impose a solution.

A senior Israeli Embassy official in Washington expressed concern regarding a possible change in American policy and said: “In the past few days, Arab officials feel that they can expect something very significant as a result of this change in American policy, so they are convinced that if they wait and exert pressure they will receive more.”

Shai Bazak, media adviser to the Prime Minister, denied that any ultimatum was received and stated: “It never happened”. US involvement in the peace process gained further momentum with the appointment of Ned Walker as the new American Ambassador to Israel. Our correspondent, Alex Fishman, reported that Walker, due to begin his term in Israel on December 23, is thought to be a close associate of Madeleine Albright and a supporter of active American involvement in the political arena.

U.S. Pledges $470 Million for Palestinian Refugee Relief

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Center for Near East Policy Research

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December 8, 1997

United Nations — The United States is donating $70 million to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) for its 1998 programs, according to an announcement made December 2.

Voicing the U.S. “strong support for UNRWA,” U.S. delegate Allen Jury announced the U.S. contribution to the agency’s regular budget during a pledging conference in the General Assembly.

The U.S. contribution “is specifically in support of UNRWA’s core programs of education, health, and social services benefiting the approximately 3.4 million Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon,” Jury said.

The conference raised pledges totaling $125,677,700, but UNRWA said that the amount is less than 40 percent of what the agency will need to maintain its regular education, health, relief and social services programs in 1998. UNRWA had a deficit of over $50 million in 1997.

The largest pledges were made by the United States, Sweden ($19 million), Norway ($14.2 million) and the Netherlands and Switzerland ($5.5 million each).

Jury said that UNRWA’s ability to make “quick and demonstrable progress” in developing effective strategies for the future programs “will be one factor the U.S. will consider in deciding how much more money beyond the $70 million” Washington will be able to give UNRWA later in the year.

Following is the text of Jury’s remarks:

Mr. Chairman, the United States welcomes the opportunity to again voice our strong support for UNRWA and to acknowledge the critical humanitarian role it plays on a daily basis in the lives of Palestinian refugees. We commend UNRWA as well for the important contribution it makes to the international community’s ongoing efforts to find a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.

I am therefore pleased today to announce a voluntary contribution from the United States of $70 million toward UNRWA’s Regular Program Budget for 1998. This money is specifically in support of UNRWA’s core programs of education, health and social services benefiting the approximately 3.4 million Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. As we have stressed at previous gatherings, the United States hopes that UNRWA will do all it can to ensure that, in this era of resource limitations, donor contributions are directed to the agency’s highest priority activities, especially those which benefit the most vulnerable members of the refugee population.

It goes without saying that UNRWA continues to face serious financial and budgetary problems, problems which have resulted a now almost predictable cycle of crisis. As UNRWA’s largest donor, the United States has a very real stake in ensuring that UNRWA address the problems it faces in a comprehensive and fair manner which ensures the agency’s future financial stability. It serves neither donor, host government nor refugee interests to see UNRWA continue to experience the financial turmoil which, I am sad to say, has grown so familiar in recent years.

We recognize that breaking the cycle of crisis will not be easy, that divergent points of view inevitably will emerge, and that no one course of action will ever have unanimous support. Nevertheless, the United States believes firmly that very real and sustained progress must be made quickly or we will soon find ourselves in an even more difficult situation than we are now.

In our view, UNRWA’s recurring financial crises are not solely the result of lack of adequate resources provided to the organization. UNRWA itself, in dialogue with its major supporters, should develop a stronger policy planning capacity that articulates an effective strategic vision for the future. Such a vision should inspire confidence among donors and host governments and align the agency’s program priorities and implementation more closely to realistic projections of available resources. UNRWA’s ability to make quick and demonstrable progress in developing such a vision will be one factor the U.S. will consider in deciding how much more money, beyond the $70 million announced today, it will be able to contribute to UNRWA later in the year.

The United States therefore welcomes Commissioner General Hansen’s plan to establish a policy planning unit in UNRWA headquarters. We further welcome his interest, as expressed at the October UNRWA Advisory Committee meeting in Amman, in working with donors and host governments to further augment UNRWA’s staff capacity to address long-term program and budget planning issues. The United States stands ready to provide an expert to further strengthen UNRWA’s planning capacity. We urge the Commissioner-General to provide interested governments as soon as possible a comprehensive proposal as to what expert staff augmentation UNRWA would like so we can all work together cooperatively to try to meet your needs. Only by working together, speaking frankly, making honest evaluations of the choices and opportunities available to us, and, most importantly, taking action when action is needed, can we realistically expect to solve these very real problems which lie before us.

The Other Side of Pollard: Damage, Duplicity – and Justice

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Center for Near East Policy Research

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December 8, 1997

Even in the icy world of international espionage, it is still somewhat startling that “equal justice under law” is little more than a palsied proverb.

Consider these three cases of law and perfidy:

From November 1992 to September 1994, U.S. Navy Lt. Commander Michael Schwartz delivered secret American defense information to Saudi Arabia. Schwartz was indicted for violating various federal statutes as well as the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He pleaded guilty, and was given an “other than honorable” discharge from the Navy. No fine, no prison – and no comment.
In fact the government is remarkably mum about Mr. Schwartz. Neither the Clinton Administration nor the Pentagon will disclose any information concerning his case – nor, apparently, has the Senate Intelligence Committee shown even a modicum of curiosity. Was any formal protest ever lodged against the Saudis? Do they continue to recruit American spies with impunity? Have they returned (or acknowledged) the stolen documents? Inquiring minds may want to know, but they’re not going to find out by asking the Navy or the White House. Or could it be that the United States fears offending its oil-rich ally – much the same way as during the Persian Gulf War when it ordered our soldiers to risk their lives defending the richest Arab monarchy, but not to celebrate Christmas on Saudi soil?
In 1986, Major Yosef Amit, who served in elite intelligence units of the Israel Defense Forces, was arrested at his home in Haifa and charged with providing classified military information to the United States. An Israeli court found him guilty and sentenced him to twelve years in prison. But in October of 1993 Amit was pardoned by Israeli President Ezer Weizman, and set free.
Few Americans would know anything about Amit were it not for the fair-mindedness of Senator David Durenberger. In 1987 the former chairman of the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence disclosed that the United States had “changed the rules” by using “an Israeli to spy on Israel, and he got caught.” he was referring to Amit, but nothing ever came of his comment save for a scathing rebuke of Durenberger by then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.

This was not the only recent case of Americans spying on Israel. In the past ten years at least two Americans on academic and industrial exchange programs have also been caught gathering secrets – one from the nuclear research center in Nahal Soreq (south of Tel Aviv), the other at a state-owned weapons development company in Haifa. Israel’s response? Simply to ask both agents to leave the country at once.

Where is Schwartz now? Amit? The American scientists? Neither the American nor Israeli governments seem to know, at least not according to the Pentagon and the IDF.
There is no such problem with Jonathan Pollard, whose whereabouts everyone knows. Pollard is the former Navy intelligence analyst who was arrested in 1985 and charged with passing classified information to Israel. The federal prosecutor engineered a plea agreement under which he would seek leniency in exchange for cooperation – then (after the defendant pleaded guilty) promptly reneged on his promises.
The judge not only ignored the plea agreement, but solicited a secret memorandum from Weinberger that offered up all sorts of speculative evidence and specters of unprecedented treachery. Neither Pollard nor his lawyers were ever able to challenge the last-minute charges proffered against him. Weinberger called him one of the worst traitors in history; the judge sentenced him to life in prison; the duplicitous prosecutor recommended that Pollard never be paroled.

And indeed he hasn’t, already having served thirteen years of by far the harshest sentence ever meted out for a similar offense. Where is Schwartz, who gave American secrets to the Saudis? OrAmit, who gave Israeli secrets to the United States? The U.S. and Israel know the full and precise extent of the damage done by the two of them – and that the damage done by Pollard was paltry in comparison. In thirteen years not one stance has surfaced (or documented in the Victim Impact Statement authored by his prosecutors) of any actual harm caused by Pollard.

Why have these three been treated so differently? All we know is what we’ve seen. The U.S. Government – which expressed official outrage at Israel’s “arrogance” and “ingratitude” in the Pollard case – has handled the Saudi-Schwartz situation with kid gloves and virtual silence. The Government of Israel – which for twelve years had claimed that Pollard was part of a rogue operation, but has now been forced by its own Supreme Court to acknowledge that he was formally and officially an agent of Lakam (an ultra-secret intelligence unit of the Ministry of Defense) – has sent back American spies with barely a slap on their wrists.

Why are these cases different? Because, we can reasonably surmise, of the causes being pursued.

With the Saudis, it’s petro-politics: Oil among allies is a powerful balm for soothing the slights that come with the territory in the world of international intrigue and espionage. With the Israelis, a different standard is at work. There is ample reason to believe that Weinberger and his minions exploited Pollard for two purposes: to call into question the “dual loyalty” of American Jews, and to put Israel in its place as a strategic but beholden ally. Saudi Arabia’s oil, after all, is much more marketable than Israel’s democratic pragmatism; the Jewish State’s chutzpah is somehow deemed more galling than that of the morally bankrupt House of Saud.

What’s the difference between Amit and Schwartz on the one hand, and Pollard (the lone spy of the three who was caught out in the cold, and has been kept there) on the other?

Only that “equal justice under law” does not apply – nor does the damage done matter – when there are greater political “causes” to pursue.

Kenneth Lasson is a law professor at the University of Baltimore.

The Tatiana Soskin Case Critically Examined

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Center for Near East Policy Research

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December 1, 1997

When 26 year old Tatiana Soskin was brought before a judge, he recorded her personal details. No, she has no job, replied the new immigrant from Russia. No, her parents are not in Israel, she is alone. No, she does not even have a telephone.

The Israeli press described Tatiana as tall, thin and pale, “a Barbie doll,” in the words of Israel’s largest daily. But this young woman has been sitting in solitary confinement for four months.

At a time when a Tel Aviv museum is displaying photographs of naked men wrapped in tefilin, and the national Israel Museum in Jerusalem has an erotic exhibit identifying with Eva Braun, Tatiana Soskin is in jail because she insulted not Judaism, but Islam. Tatiana studied art at the Bezalel Academy of Art for three years, after she moved on her own to Israel. Last June Tatiana drew a picture of a hog, labelled Mohamed, writing the Koran. Israeli newspapers and commentators called the pro-Nazi and anti-Jewish exhibits “art” “that makes people think.” Tatiana’s judge said “only a distorted mind could create her drawing” and sent her to prison to await trial.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized to the Mayor of Hebron, declaring that Tatiana’s drawing “contradicts the respect and admiration the Jewish religion has for the Islamic religion and its founder.”

Tatiana was a bit surprised at the whole ruckus. Perhaps she shouldn’t have done the drawing, or distributed it in Hebron, famous as the city whose Arabs attacked and murdered the local Jewish community in the pogrom of 1929, and where Jewish residents and Israeli soldiers today are subject to a neverending stream of stabbings, petrol bombs and shootings. Tatiana is today more concerned over her liver illness and her loneliness, but she nevertheless disagrees with Netanyahu’s apology to the Mayor of Hebron’s Arabs. “If that is the way they act, and their religion allows them to act this way, then they really behave like pigs,” she sighs.

Asked why she drew the by-now infamous caricature, she explains that “Arab leaders used the name of the prophet Mohamed when they called in the mosques to attack Jews. That seems to me a swine-like use of Mohamed’s name, and that is what I tried to say with the drawing. It was my response to the incitement.”

Tatiana’s bright green eyes dim somewhat as she describes her life today. “For 24 hours a day,” she says, “I am alone in a small cell. I am not allowed to talk to anyone, I have no clean air, barely any light. At the corner of the room is a small hole in the floor, where, pardon my language, I take of my needs. Above it is a shower and opposite, a barred window. I cannot even respond to my needs or take a shower without being afraid someone will suddenly look through the window.

“Most of the inmates work and can buy themselves things. I don’t work, so I don’t have money, not even for chocolate. On Friday I asked the jailers to bring me candles so I could light the Sabbath candles, but they didn’t bring any…”

Tatiana’s lawyer, Samuel Casper, says that everyone has the right to express his opinion, and this includes by means of caricatures. He notes that in January 1995 a journal called “Shpitz” published cartoons mocking religious Jews and the government’s legal advisor refused to bring charges, ruling caricatures are protected by free speech. Casper relates how he came to represent Tatiana: “I asked her if she had money to pay for the legal representation. She said, ‘Not now, but I will pay.’ At first I worked for free. A few weeks later she came in, took off her earrings, and said, ‘Please take these, I don’t want you working for nothing.'”

Tatiana says she reads and draws most of the day. She hopes to get out of jail soon, so she can resume studying, and touring throughout the Land of Israel, which she loves to do.

If you would like to help Tatiana, please send a postcard defending the right of free speech and urging leniency for Tatiana, to the Israeli Minister of Justice, Tsachi Hanegbi, at The Knesset, Jerusalem, Israel.

If you would like to help defray Tatiana’s legal costs, please send a check to Mercantile Discount Bank, Branch 064, Account number 40568 and earmark it for Tatiana Soskin.

Press here to see Tatiana’s Cartoon and other cartoons.

40 Minutes in Palestine

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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December 1, 1997

In Jerusalem, about a 10 minute drive north from the Temple Mount, or Haram al-Sharif, lies the only refugee camp in the Holy City. It is called Shofat. Mostly concrete and dust, rundown but teeming with life and a variety of humanitarian outreaches, the “camp” represents to its residents — perhaps on this very spot — the future capital of Palestine.

As with all of Abraham’s offspring, its children are its future stars: among them, 46 teenagers, 9th grade students at the Shofat Basic Girls’ School. The bell rings; this is their English class. Later in the lesson, we will interrupt the teacher and girls to poll them. The results will not be surprising.

Now, however, as the 40-minute period begins, the teacher is calling four of the girls to the front of the class. She asks the quartet to sing a song in English.

“How about ‘We Shall Overcome’? Now let’s not be shy. Good and strong,” says the teacher, a middle-aged woman dressed in black. She is one of some 10,000 Palestinian teachers employed by UNRWA to educate Palestinian refugees in territories and countries surrounding Israel. UNRWA is the acronym for United Nations Relief & Works Agency; the United States is its largest donor.

By now the young women, dressed in brown and white-striped uniforms like their classmates, are facing their peers, giggling with stage fright; a universal “teacher’s look” calms them down.

“We Shall Overcome, we shall overcome…we shall live in peace someday…deep in my heart, I still believe,” they sing, parroting the popular American civil rights theme — but with a personalized touch, a kicker that snaps this former Chicago inner-city English teacher, now a correspondent who is sitting at one of the long desks in the back of the room, observing — snaps him out of ’60’s make love, not war nostalgia and into the ’90’s and beyond:

“Deep in my heart, I still believe, we shall have Palestine some day!” The room is now alive with applause. Maybe we should give it to them. One God, one Messiah, Hatikva, no Right nor Left wing, just peace, Thy most precious gift. Imagine all the people….

The four girls return to their benches and the teacher picks up a piece of chalk.

“So, class, what’s this song about? What do we want?” she asks rhetorically. Peace, they respond; “Pease” one girl writes on the chalkboard, to the left of a map of the world. “Good, very good,” the teacher says, ignoring the spelling. “And why do we want peace?” No more war. “Good, no more war. Wonderful,” she says. The atmosphere is charged and rarefied; the teacher has written, then crossed out the word “war.” Suddenly her tone shifts.

“But class, our people have not yet overcome; they are being killed. Why?” asks the teacher. The class rustles, but there is no response. “In case no one is listening, I’ll ask again: our Palestinian people, why are they being killed?” Still no verbalizing. “Anyone? What is the killing about?”

“Land,” someone responds. “It’s because of land.”

“That’s exactly right. Our land is under occupation,” says the teacher, writing “land” to the right of the map, then shifting back to the class. “And who took our land?”

“The Israeli’s,” 46 girls respond in unison. “Israel” is written under “Occupation.” Meanwhile, sitting next to me and growing increasingly uneasy as I write down the classroom dialogue is the UNRWA public information person who has brought me to the school. Glances are exchanged between the teacher and official, (who wishes not to be identified.)

The teacher continues. “Now for the most important question, the question we’re all concerned about: How do we fight for peace? We have to fight for peace — by education. Okay, please take out your book and turn to the lesson on shopping,” the teacher says. And the practical lesson begins.

The 40-minute period is now half over. Choices must be made: should I check the textbook for bias or…? Suddenly I remember, then extract a form which has been sitting in my briefcase: “Confidential Survey On Middle East Issues.” After perusing the questionnaire, my anonymous UNRWA guide, also bored with the shopping lesson, whispers, “Good idea — let’s try it,” and walks to the front of the classroom where he consults with the teacher.

She sits down and he takes the floor. He reads in English, then in Arabic, each statement on the poll, then counts raised hands and writes the numbers on the sheet. Responses range from “strongly agree” to “unsure” to “strongly disagree.”

The straw poll lasts beyond the bell, then class is dismissed; we exchange awkward, but cordial smiles. The teacher asks to make copies of the survey, then returns with the original. After student-made sugar cookies with the principal, I take one final photograph of the Shofat School; then the UNRWA guide drives me back down through the dusty, narrow, winding streets of the camp: Jerusalem, capital of Palestine to three million refugees.

Of these refugees, 46 (100% of the class) “agree” or “strongly agree” with the following:

There should be a Palestinian state next to Israel. Israel should give the West Bank to the Palestinians. All Palestinian refugees & descendants should have right of return.

All “disagree” that Jews should be able to live in the West Bank and Gaza while all “agree” that Palestinians should be able to live within the borders of Israel.

For some reason, the following statement was also polled, hands were raised and counted, but the response was left unrecorded:

Based on religious traditions, both Palestinians and Jews have a legitimate claim to some of the Middle East lands.

Michael Cohen
4/94 El Al St,
Herzliya Bet 46588 Israel
Tel: (972-9) 955-7401
e-mail: nu@netvision.net.il

Henry Kissinger, The Real Prime Minister of Israel?

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

December 1, 1997

Henry Kissinger’s involvement with the Council on Foreign Relations and the New World Order has been well documented for many years. However, little is known to Americans of his role in the Middle East and how he has influenced the events there to help the New World Order gain control over this area of the world.

The late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin met Kissinger when he was the U.S. secretary of state and Rabin served as the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. from 1968-1972. Later, Rabin stated that Kissinger was his role model.

During the Yom Kippur War, Kissinger refused to supply much-needed arms to Israel unless Golda Meir resigned as prime minister and supported Rabin as the next Labor Party candidate for the post. At that time, Rabin had never even been a Knesset member and was listed far down on Labor’s Knesset list.

After the war, Meir appointed Rabin as Minister of Labor and supported his candidacy for party chairman, paving his way to become prime minister in 1974.

While Rabin was prime minister, Kissinger presented his “Gaza-Jericho First” plan in 1976 which called upon Israel to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and the city of Jericho first in any overall peace plan with the PLO. It was this plan that was incorporated into the Oslo Agreements which Israel and the PLO signed in 1993; the first Israeli redeployment under Oslo was from the Gaza Strip and Jericho.

During his first term as premier, Rabin and Kissinger redrew the map of the Middle East, which included Lebanon being absorbed by Syria. (It was this plan which reportedly caused Ariel Sharon to resign as an advisor to Rabin’s first government.) Kissinger then instigated the Levanese civil war in order to accomplish this goal. He succeeded when Syria annexed Lebanon during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

During Menachem Begin’s tenure as premier, Kissinger’s influence in Israel was considerably reduced. Begin tried to reverse the Kissinger plan through the Peace for Galilee War in the 1980’s (also known as the Lebanon War.) It wasn’t until the Labor Party regained power in the 1992 elections with Rabin as prime minister that Kissinger could truly reassert his influence in Israel.

Kissinger seems to have a great deal of power over other individuals as well. In 1994, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was on his way to South Africa when, summoned by Kissinger, he made a 5,000 mile detour to meet Kissinger for two hours in a Manhattan restaurant.

Ariel Sharon, former defense minister and now national infrastructure minister, alson met privately with Kissinger at the Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan on October 17, 1996; they were spotted by reporters. The Jerusalem Post also published a picture from the Associated Press of the two men shaking hands in its October 18, 1996, edition. Sharon, supposedly in New York for an Israel-North America Business Conference, told reporters at a press conference after the meeting with Kissinger, “There must be sacrifices for peace. Peace, like war, is cruel. It requires concessions.”

Sharon’s spokesman, Raanan Gissin, later played down the entire affair. “I don’t know why everyone is making such a fuss about it,” Giffin said. “Mr. Sharon has met Dr. Kissinger every time he’s flown to America over the past twenty five years… Dr. Kissinger and Mr. Sharon have shared a deep friendship that began after the Yom Kippur War.”

Gissin refused to give details about what Sharon and Kissinger discussed, saying that only the peace process and “regional details” were involved.

Kissinger continues to control Israel through the latest prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu’s contacts with individuals from the Council of Foreign Relations can be traced to an anti-terrorism conference which Netanyahu organized in memory of his dead brother, Yonatan, who died during the raid on Entebbe, Uganda.

Netanyahu returned to Israel after quitting a $100,000 a year job in the U.S. with the Boston Group, owned by Ira Magarzina, a well-known New World Order insider and the person behind the failed Clinton health plan. Netanyahu worked for the Boston Group only eight months, deciding to take a position with a furniture firm in Israel which paid only $25,000. When he held the anti-terrorism conference, the CFR sent its most influential members at the time including George Schultz and George Bush from the Trilateral Commission. It is strange that the CFR would be interested in a conference organized by an unknown, even if it was in memory of an Israeli war hero.

After the anti-terrorism conference, Moshe Arens asked Netanyahu to be his aid in Washington, D.C. when Arens served as Israeli ambassador to the U.S. After a two-year stint working for Arens, Shimon Peres successfully secured Netanyahu’s appointment as Israel’s U.N. ambassador over Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s objections. While U.N. ambassador, Secretary of State George Schultz, a former member of the CFR, visited Netanyahu every time he flew to New York City.

Schultz’s connections with Netanyahu continue to this day. Before he became prime minister, Netanyahu was opposed to the establishment of a regional branch of the World Bank in the Middle East. According to an article in the August 1, 1996 edition of The Jerusalem Post, Netanyahu changed his mind after meeting with Schultz in the U.S. on his first visit there after his election victory.

Before his death, Rabin related what he thought was a funny story in an interview on Israeli television.

Kissinger told Rabin that Netanyahu had called him in New York and requested he issue a proclamation against stationing foreign troops on the Golan Heights as part of any peace treaty with Syria. According to Rabin, Kissinger told Netanyahu, “Oh, Bibi, stop bothering me with your nonsense, I don’t have time.”

The next day, Netanyahu confirmed the phone call to Kissinger. However, Netanyahu said that Kissinger did not laugh at him but said he would consider Netanyahu’s request.

In spite of Netanyahu’s various connections with the CFR and the New World Order insiders, it is clear that he did not know exactly what he was getting involved in until after he was elected prime minister in May, 1996.

On Friday, July 5, 1996, an economic “International Forum for the Middle East” was held in Amman, Jordan. Some of the attendees included Simon Weil, first president of the European Union, Henry Kissinger, and Conrad Black, CEO of Hollinger International and owner of The Jerusalem Post. It is somewhat odd that these men would fly from halfway acrosse the world to Amman, Jordan for a simple economic conference.

The Jerusalem Post described the conference in its July 10, 1996, edition. “The 30 politicians, economists and academics in the forum, including Henry Kissinger, Simon Weil, and Lord Weidenfeld, will monitor the effects of important events on the region and make appropriate recommendations.”

Some important questions need to be asked about this conference. First, what authority do Henry Kissinger and these other men have to monitor events in the Middle East and make “appropriate recommendations”? What kind of recommendations will they be making? And to whom?

After the conference, Kissinger flew to Jerusalem with Conrad Black in Black’s private plane. While in Jerusalem, Kissinger held two meetings: one with newly-elected Prime Minister Netanyahu and another with Yehuda Levy, president of The Jerusalem Post.

On July 8, 1996, The Jerusalem Post carried a story about Kissinger’s visits to both men, complete with a picture of Kissinger, Conrad Black, and Yehuda Levy together at the Post building. The article was entitled: “Kissinger: PM will learn peace is in Israel’s interests.”

“Furthering the Middle East process is necessary for Israel and Benyamin Netanyahu will soon realize this, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger said yesterday.

Speaking to reporters after visiting the grave of Yitzhak Rabin, Kissinger said, ‘What he [Rabin] has started grew out of Israel’s necessities, and I think any prime minister will come to the conclusion that the [peace] process has to be continued. Of course, each leader has his own ideas.’

“Kissinger, in Israel to visit Rabin’s family, met Netanyahu earlier at the prime minister’s residence. He said he is confident Netanyahu would take a ‘constructive’ message to Washington on his maiden visit starting tomorrow.

“Israel and the United States have a common destiny, and their leaders have come to express that common destiny’ Kissinger added.

“Kissinger and Conrad Black, CEO of The Jerusalem Post’s parent company, Hollinger International, also paid a visit to The Jerusalem Post building for a short, unplanned meeting with the President and Publisher Yehuda Levy.

“Levy updated them on the situation at the Post, focusing on the departure of executive editor David Bar-Illan.”

Kissinger held a two-hour private meeting with Netanyahu. According to those who were present, Netanyahu emerged from the meeting white and pale, refusing to repeat what Kissinger had said to him.

It is not too hard to deduce who is behind Netanyahu’s meetings with Arafat, his caving in to Arab demands on the Hebron agreement, and the continuing building freeze of Jewish settlements in the territories.

Jibril Rajoub’s security men will continue to roam Jerusalem unhindered. Under Netanyahu, Orient House and other PA institutions in the city have not only remained open, they have flourished. According to the February 12, 1997 edition of Ha’aretz, twenty PA institutions and offices are now operating openly in East Jerusalem. Netanyahu claimed only four PA institutions were found in Jerusalem. However, Ha’aretz listed all twenty PA institutions, describing their functions.

It will be amazing if the apartment buildings of Jerusalem’s Har Homa are ever built. Netanyahy refused to authorize building the apartments before he left for Washington, D.C. in February, to the great disappointment of Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert and a delegation of coalition members. Although construction on Har Homa was authorized by the cabinet after he returned to Israel, Netanyahu ordered it delayed he says for “technical reasons.” These same “technical reasons” were stated when construction for settlements in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) were authorized and stalled.

The amount of control Kissinger now wields over Netanyahu was never more clear than during the prime minister’s trip to the U.S. in February. After meeting with Clinton, Netanyahu planned a short visit in New York City, planning to leave on Saturday night after Shabbat was over. But while he was in Washington, he suddenly announced he would stay in New York for an additional 24 hours.

An article in Ha’aretz on Friday, February 14, 1997 reported that Netanyahu had decided to spend an extra day there in order to meet with various Jewish leaders on Saturday night and hold press conferences on Sunday. Among the additional meetings Netanyahu scheduled was one with former secretary of state Henry Kissinger.

Netanyahu did not suddenly “decide” to stay in New York an extra 24 hours; he was ordered to do so by Kissinger.

When Yasser Arafat declares a Palestinian state, Netanyahu will not say or do anything to prevent it, no matter how much he protests to the contrary right now. Indeed, he cannot do anything, for he is powerless.

Israel has a hidden leader that they did not choose or vote for, and one they do not know anything about.

Henry Kissinger is the real prime minister of Israel.

Joseph Alsop, a noted columnist who witnessed Dr. Kissinger’s rise to political prominence, wrote in his editorial column:

As secretary of state, Kissinger will be acting upon a view of the political historical process so somber that it is close to anti-American.

The American view is all optimism and all morality….

That is not the way Henry Kissinger thinks. He never expects any nation to put morality above the chance of great gain….“

(Daily Oklahoman 9/10/73 — emphasis added).

Dr. Henry Kissinger is a political survivor. Her continues on to pursue the “cruel road to peace” at the expense of singular nationalism, biblical morality; and God’s standard for human government. The odds are fantastically high as to preclude his present status as having been arrived at through chance.

Therefore, if not by chance, it must be by design. Whose design? The CFR has a plan for a One World Order. The Devil pursued his plan to exalt his throne above the stars of God. God has a plan to bring all nations into Israel at the battle of Armageddon. God’s plan includes ruling “… in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth over it the basest of men” (Daniel 4:17).

Is Spying For A Democratic Ally The Same As Spying For A Totalitarian Regime?

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

December 1, 1997

Imagine it is 1940, and Great Britain is fighting Hitler’s Nazi Germany almost alone. Imagine further that an American who loved both America and England and hated the Nazis worked in American Intelligence and had access to secret files concerning Germany that, for whatever reason, the United States had not shared with Great Britain. This American gave the secrets to England and was caught.

This spy had, of course, violated both American law and the trust that its intelligence agencies had placed in him. Now, the question is what should be done to him? Specifically, should we regard him morally or legally as the same as an American who spied for Germany?

The answer is so obvious that only in a morally confused age such as ours would the question even be entertained. Yet this is precisely the question to be asked with regard to Jonathan Pollard, the American who spied for Israel.

Let us review the parallels to the imaginary situation outlined earlier. Israel has been at perpetual war for its survival (a threat that England never faced against Germany, which wanted to vanquish, not end, its existence). An American who loved both America and Israel, used his access to American intelligence on those Arab regimes and passed it on to Israel. He spied on behalf of America’s most loyal allies, not on behalf of any of America’s enemies, and he gave away secrets about Arab regimes devoted to Israel’s destruction not, to the best of our knowledge, about America. And, unlike spies whose espionage cost the lives of American and pro-American foreign agents, we know of no American and pro-American foreigner who lost his life because of Pollard.

Yet Jonathan Pollard was given a life sentence in prison – more punishment than some Americans who have spied on behalf of America’s enemies, and certainly more punishment that nearly all the murderers in America; and he has now languished in prison, often in solitary confinement, for 12 years.

The argument that Pollard was a spy, and that is all that matters, may be legally valid, but it is not morally valid. The argument that “spying is spying” is no more moral than “killing is killing”. Circumstances always determine the morality of an act. Just as most of us distinguish morally between terrorists killing innocents and anti-terrorists killing terrorists, most of us morally distinguish between spying on a democratic ally, especially one fighting for its existence, and spying for an anti-democratic enemy such as the Soviet Union. Furthermore, the United States spies on Israel and probably on most of its other allies.

Last year, for example, Germany expelled an American for spying on Germany.

None of this is meant to defend what Jonathan Pollard did. Unless he actually saved Israel from something as awful as an Iraqi biological or nuclear attack what he did is unjustifiable. As Rabbi Irving Greenberg recently wrote, “Pollard’s good intentions paved the way to political hell.” I am writing only to morally evaluate what he did in light of the suffering he has endured, and to compare his punishments with those given to other American spies and to violent criminals.

He is largely a broken man who suffers alone, and who, for reasons that are not our business but that compel our compassion, has also suffered family crises. His continued suffering serves no good purpose. Again as Rabbi Greenberg, one of the most credible voices in American Jewry, and someone for who, in his own words, “was not one of those who expressed sympathy for him when the case first broke,” wrote, “I have come to the conclusion that enough is enough…It is time to extend mercy to Jonathan Pollard…. (There has been a) relentless parade of parallel cases in which far more damaging and dangerous spies received milder sentences.”

We quickly learn of the damage done to America by those who have spied on behalf of America’s enemies, and no damage has been revealed in Jonathan Pollard’s case. It makes one wonder why former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger so vociferously sought to keep Pollard in prison. Two reasons suggest themselves. One is that, for whatever reason, Mr.Weinberger has a particular loathing for Pollard; the other is that he may fear that if Pollard is released, Pollard will reveal how much sensitive data about Israel’s enemies the Weinberger Defense Department kept from Israel. I have no proof for either claim – I hope they are untrue. But neither Mr. Weinberger nor anyone else, including the entire American Media has offered any data that argue for the treatment Pollard has received.

Enough is enough. As I watch America release thousands of murderers and child molesters after a few years in prison, and give a spy for Saudi Arabia no prison term at all, I get progressively more disturbed and curious as to why Jonathan Pollard is still in prison.

Justice for Jonathan Pollard
Tel: (416) 781-3571
Fax: (416) 781-3166
Email: http://www.interlog.com/~abrooke/jp

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