Ras el Amud: Analysis

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September 22, 1997

Who would have imagined, even a few months ago, that three Jewish families moving near one of the great Jewish holy spots in Jerusalem, into homes that have been owned by Jews since 1902, would spark riots and media coverage, the world over.

There once was a time in America, when some people were not allowed to buy and live in houses in certain areas because of their race, color or creed.

In Germany the right to own property was taken from minorities and political opponents of the the Third Reich in 1935.

The Ras Al Amud property was originally sold to two Jews, Mr. Nissan Bak and Mr. Moshe Wittenburg, by the Turkish government about 100 years ago. They then leased the land to build Jewish seminaries there in 1928.

However, the ruling British colonial authority in Jerusalem at the time would not allow the Bak and Wittenberg families to build these schools

Instead, Ras El Amud was leased to Arab farmers for the purpose of raising wheat for the production of special “Matzot Shamurot”, the unleavened bread, for the Passover meal. During the Jordanian occupation of East Jerusalem the land was held in trust for Jewish owners by the Jordanian Government.

In 1964, when an Arab farmer who worked the land at Ras El Amud claimed it for himself, the Jordanian Hashemite court of land registration rejected the claim of the tenant farmer, because the title was still owned by the Bak and the Wittenberg families.

In 1967, Ras El Amud was transferred to the Israel Land Trust and placed under the administration of the Jerusalem Municipality.

In 1984, the Jerusalem Municipality sold Ras El Amud to a housing development corporation owned by Mr. Irving Moskowitz, an American Jew from Miami.

Ras El Amud and The Mount of Olives are located on the slope that leads to the Golden Gate to the Old City in Jerusalem.

The Golden Gate was sealed by Moslem clerics in the Middle Ages, so as to prevent the Jews buried on the Mount of Olives who “might be brought back to life during messianic times” from approaching the Temple Mount to rebuild the Jews’ Holy Temple and destroy their Al Aksa mosque.

The Mount of Olives cemetery was transformed into a military camp by the Jordanian Arab Legion in 1949, and it continues to be vandalized.

Meanwhile, the new Palestinian Authority has declared that selling land to a Jew is an offense punishable by death.

It is not only the Palestine Authority that has made an issue of Jews moving into new lands.

Since 1967, Jews buying land or establishing new Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem has been the subject of an international outcry, at times led by the United States.

In 1970, while the Jerusalem municipality debated building a new neighborhood on the the slopes that lie directly north of the city, near the grave of Samuel The Prophet, the US State Department spokesman Robert McClosky declared that such an action would be a violation of international law and an act of war. On the day following McClosky’s denunciation, the Jerusalem city council decided in a unanimous vote to build the Ramot neighborhood there. Ramot now counts 45,000 Jewish residents.

In 1974, the US state department objected to Israel building a suburb to Jerusalem on its eastern slopes. That suburb, Maaleh Edumim, now houses 23,000 Jewish residents.

Ironically, some of the Israelis who protested the Ras El Amud initiative now live in Ramot and Maaleh Edumim.

On June 5, 1997, on the thirtieth anniversary of the six day war which resulted in the conquest and subsequent annexation of East Jerusalem, Yassir Arafat sent a personal spokesman, Walid, to appear at a press forum, together with former Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek and current Jerusalem deputy mayor David Cassuto. Speaking on behalf, Awad declared that the minimal requirement for peace would be the evacuation of Jews from any new Jewish neighborhood that was established after the 1967 war. Another Arafat intimate, Sayid Kenan of Nablus, declared that Palestinian Arab refugees who left their homes in 1948 would be brought to live in the Israeli settlements, – wherever they are – in Jerusalem, the west bank, Gaza or the Golan Heights.

It would seem that the prerequisite that no Jew can live among Palestinian Arabs may be a condition of the peace process that Israel may not be able to live with.

The Crisis of Confidence in the Peace Process

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David Bedein

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September 22, 1997

What most distressed veteran US diplomat Madaline Albright on her maiden sojourn Secretary of State to the Middle East was the depth of the crisis of confidence that now exists between Israelis and Palestinians.

The current dynamics of the Oslo peace process are such that if you light a match, you might kindle a tinderbox that will devour any of the deteriorating relationship that remains between the state of Israel and the new Palestine Authority.

The trust that had been fostered over four years of the intensely negotiated Oslo Middle East Peace Process between Israel and Yassir Arafat had essentially ground to a halt on August 20, 1997, the day that Arafat’s Palestine Authority announced a formal working alliance. The Hamas bombings in Jerusalem’s crowded Machane Yehudah marketplace on July 30 and on Jerusalem’s crowded Ben Yehudah mall on Sept 4 and Arafat’s refusal to take any action against Hamas signaled that this was a new turn in the peace process that few had expected.

On Monday, September 15, 1997, Israel prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu dispatched an Israeli intelligence official to testify before the Israel Knesset Intelligence Committee that Arafat had not taken any concrete steps to dismantle the Hamas terror infrastructure. The official added that the Israeli public should brace itself for more Hamas terror attacks, which are to be expected imminently, adding that Arafat must immediately do what he is supposed to do – to dismantle terror operatives before they go into action. However, he added, Israel held no illusions that Arafat would do so.

All week long, the Israel’s Defence Forces went on high alert, sending Israeli intelligence units to conduct a massive preventive surveillance operation to stop terror groups that may infliltrate any part of Israel at any minute. The operation bore fruit, when the IDF announced on Friday, the apprehension of a terror group en route to kill the Mayor of Jerusalem.

On the very night that the IDF began its massive sweep to seek out and prevent new Hamas terror operations in Jerusalem, several Israeli families made it a point to establish their first small community on Ras El Amud.

What upset Netanyahu about Ras El Amud was its timing, not its substance. The issue of confidence building measures has also fallen victim to the crisis of the current Middle East crisis.

Jerusalem had always been a subject that would be the final stage of negotiations. A gentleman’s agreement had it that Israel would take no more unilateral motives. In the current stage of the Oslo process, gentleman’s agreements are off.

Philadelphia Inquirer: Poster Child of Peace is Terror Victim

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Center for Near East Policy Research

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September 15, 1997

Jerusalem — Smadar Elchanan was only a baby when she became a poster child for the peace movement.

Her photograph appeared in a 1984 flier that called for peace with the Arabs so that the children of Israel might enjoy a better future. The brief message on the flier mused about what life in Israel would be like when Smadar reached the age of 15.

Who would have guessed that she wouldn’t make it?

Smadar Elchanan was killed by an Islamic suicide bomber 10 days ago as she went shopping for a birthday present on Jerusalem’s Ben Yehuda Street. She was just two weeks shy of her 14th birthday. And in death, as in life, she has become something of a symbol for Israel.

The girl’s truncated biography is weighted with irony. Her grandfather was the late Brig. Gen. Matti Peled, a hero of the Six-Day War of 1967, who was one of the first Israeli officials to talk with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

In deference to Peled, Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat sent a personal envoy to Smadar’s funeral last Sunday at a kibbutz in central Israel. That was shocking in itself, but then Smadar’s mother, Nurit Peled-Elchanan, issued the coup de grace when she made a startling accusation in a radio interview: “I hold the government of Israel responsible for the death of my daughter.”

On Friday, as she sat at a round kitchen table covered with offerings of cakes, cookies, and newspaper clippings about Smadar’s death, Nurit, 48, repeated her indictment of her country’s leadership:

“I really believe it is the fault of the Israeli government more than the terrorists. Israel is breeding terrorism by heaping these humiliations against the Palestinians. By behaving like conquerors, we’ve brought it on ourselves.”

Nurit said she had voiced her opinions to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, as it happens, is a friend from childhood. He called to offer condolences. However, Smadar’s father, Rami Elchanan, was so angry that he refused to take Netanyahu’s telephone call.

The Peled-Elchanan family’s views are radical by Israeli standards, but they do reflect a growing despair over the state of the nation and the Netanyahu government. In a poll published Friday in the newspaper Ma’ariv, 72 percent of Israelis said that Netanyahu had no solution to the terror predicament. Asked how to describe the “national mood” today, 34 percent selected the answer “terrible” and 26 percent “not good.” (In contrast, only 5 percent chose “good.”)

Their frustrations were echoed Thursday by Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright. While she told the Palestinians they had to be “relentless” in combating terrorism, she asked Israel to stop responding with measures she said undermine the “partnership” required for peace. She left Israel on Friday, saying it was up to both sides to resume the peace process.

The apartment where Smadar grew up is in the leafy Jerusalem neighborhood of Rahavija. Inside is a comfortably disheveled home filled with houseplants and paintings. Instead of the standard death notice, the 1984 poster with Smadar’s baby picture is taped to the front door.

In Smadar’s tiny room, tacked to the walls between portraits sketched by an older brother, an artist, is a photograph of the funeral of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, architect of the 1993 peace accords with the Palestinians, and also a family friend.

Nurit Peled-Elchanan says her daughter was just becoming interested in politics, but still preferred the more conventional teenage passions of music and style. (“She tried to join the leftist youth movement, but it bored her to tears,” her mother said.) Smadar idolized John Lennon, Tom Waits and especially Sinead O’Connor, whom she emulated by shaving her own head and piercing her navel and nose.

“She liked to say, ‘Mom, I’m a bit freaky,’ but really she was quite a little girl and very feminine,” Nurit recalled. “She loved perfume. She loved to cook.”

Like others in the family, Smadar was heavily influenced by her famous grandfather, Gen. Peled. She was avidly studying Arabic in junior high school and prided herself on her views. She told her family recently about an incident on a public bus in Jerusalem when she yelled at an Israeli who was being rude to an Arab passenger.

A few days ago, when her mother, Nurit, was taking an early-morning walk, a Palestinian street-cleaner approached her to offer condolences following the bombings, which killed four other Israelis and the three suicide bombers.

“Your daughter would always say hello to me in the morning,” the street-cleaner told Nurit. He then added a personal note: “I know what it means to cry. I lost two brothers in the intifadah [Palestinian uprising].”

Not all of the Peled and Elchanan family is leftist. Smadar’s paternal grandfather, a Hungarian-born survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp, traditionally supported the conservative Likud Party and voted for Netanyahu in the 1996 election. He often argued about politics with Gen. Peled, who died of cancer in March 1995.

The general maintained that the creation of a Palestinian state was an absolute necessity for Israelis to live in peace. “He believed that only with two states, divided, would we be able to overcome our differences and that only after some years separation would there be real peace,” said Nelly Levy, one of Smadar’s aunts.

The general had strong views on the West Bank and Gaza as well. He resigned from the army to protest its refusal to withdraw from those territories, captured in the Six-Day War.

In the last year of his life, Peled squabbled with his old friend Yitzhak Rabin about delays in the peace process. Nevertheless, he remained optimistic. The family recalls that a few months before his death, Peled told Smadar’s oldest brother, Elit, who is now 20, that he should try to defer joining the army until after completing university.

“In five years, by the time you are finished with university, they’ll really need educated people in the army because it will be an army of peace, not war,” Nurit Peled-Elchanan remembered her father saying.

Smadar Elchanan was buried last Sunday under a grove of carob trees at Kibbutz Nachshon, next to the grave of her grandfather. The funeral was attended by many political notables — among them former Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Dalia Rabin, the daughter of the late prime minister. Rami Elchanan read the Kaddish, the traditional Jewish prayer for the dead, losing his composure only when he came to the passage, “Whoever makes peace on high, will make peace for us and the whole of Israel.”

For many of the family’s friends and relatives, the loss of the dream was almost as grievous as the loss of Smadar herself.

“This is such a paradox. We’re looking at a family that raised its children on the values of peace and love and equality and tolerance,” said Hannah Altman, 47, an old friend of the Peled and Elchanan families. “Smadar was raised on hope for the future. Where will that go now?”

Philadelphia Inquirer: U.S. Government and European Community Finance PLO Broadcasts

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Center for Near East Policy Research

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September 15, 1997

I am a daughter of Palestine….

Koran in my right hand, in my left — a knife.

A slightly older girl with her ponytail wrapped in a checkered kaffiyeh gives an emotional recitation of a poem for Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat:

I am finished practicing on the submachine gun of return….

We swear to take vengeful blood from our enemies for our killed and wounded. We will board a bustling boat which will take us to Jaffa.

The girl approaches Arafat, who plants congratulatory kisses on her cheeks.

These are excerpts from children’s programs broadcast on Palestinian television, a facility funded in part by American aid. They are the basis of what might be called Exhibits A and B in a case the Israeli government is mounting against the Palestinian Authority. It says the fledgling Palestinian radio and television network is being used as a powerful propaganda tool to incite hatred against Israel.

The excerpts are from broadcasts aired before three suicide bombers killed four Israelis in Jerusalem on Thursday, but they are considered all the more incendiary by Israelis in the aftermath of the latest Islamic terror attack. The images of violence and death on the broadcasts are especially galling to many Israelis because of repeated pledges by Arafat to crack down on terrorism. After a June 30 suicide bombing of a Jerusalem market killed 15 Israelis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to jam the broadcasts. He didn’t carry out the threat, but he is expected to voice the complaint when Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright visits this week.

The Palestinian Broadcasting Corp. is a creature of the 1993 peace accords, which afforded Palestinians the first trappings of self-rule. The “Voice of Palestine” radio broadcasts began in 1994, television the following year.

The network was nurtured with about $500,000 in equipment and training from the U.S. Agency for International Development and with more than $6 million in aid from the European Union, according to network chairman Raddwan Abu Ayyash. A spokesman for the United States Information Service in Jerusalem said he could find records for only $70,000 in U.S. aid spent on training and TV cameras, but he added that the United States provided other funding for the network.

The network is based in Ramallah, a sun-bleached West Bank city that has become the de facto seat of government for the Palestinian Authority. Abu Ayyash, a prominent journalist who was jailed by the Israelis in the 1980s, denies the broadcasts incite, but concedes they relay an increasingly angry mood among Palestinians.

“I can’t put love longs and dances on television when people are being killed,” Abu Ayyash said, referring to Palestinians killed while taking part in attacks on Israeli soldiers. “Journalists have to be part of society and reflect what is happening on the ground.”

To some extent the debate over Palestinian media mirrors the larger debate about Arafat himself: The conflict between his conciliatory statements, usually in English, to diplomats, and his often incendiary speeches in Arabic to his Palestinian political constituency.

Israeli officials protested last month when Arafat embraced a Hamas leader and delivered an anti-Israeli tirade to supporters in Gaza in which he declared, “all options are open” — a clear implication that armed struggle remained a possibility.

Palestinian TV broadcasts the usual mixture of sports, movies, cartoons, talk shows and news. Most of it is not nearly as violent as, say, the police dramas on American television, but the shows do reflect a society preoccupied with war and struggle. In a show about the opening of Palestinian schools, girls in frilly white dresses were shown dancing — incongruously — with Kalashnikov rifles that they twirled like batons. In another broadcast, a schoolboy, asked what he got out of summer camp, answered: “I am defending the homeland and undergo training like army drills.”

There is a children’s quiz show about great figures in Palestinian history — many of whom are considered heroes by Palestinians, but terrorists by Israelis.

One show featured Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam, a sheik who was killed by the British in 1935. The military wing of Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement, which has carried out many terrorist bombings in Israel, was named for Qassam.

The heroine of another episode was Delal Al-Magribi, a woman who commanded a bus hijacking near Haifa in 1978. Thirty-four Israelis and nine Palestinian commandos, Magribi among them, were killed. The quiz-show emcee referred to Magribi as “our sacred martyr.” Under the peace accords, the Palestinians were allowed to set up a police force, but not an army. But it is hard to tell the difference in some of the Palestinian footage — shot MTV-style with inspirational music accompanying shots of police marching in formation, drawing rifles and diving under burning barricades.

In one rapid and heavily edited sequence in a music video, an Israeli soldier is shown firing a gun. Then, a quick cut and a shot of a girl falling in a forest.

The television excerpts were taped and translated from Arabic by the Palestinian Media Review, a private, nonprofit organization run in part by former Israeli security specialists. English-language transcripts were shown to Abu Ayyash, who said they appeared to be accurate, but added that they represented only a few examples from hours and hours of programming.

David Bar-Illan, Netanyahu’s spokesman, says he is most distressed by the broadcasts designed to influence children. “The unfortunate thing is that it leaves very little hope for a better relationship between the two peoples… especially if children are being taught to hate Israelis,” he said.

Ghassan Khatib, an independent media analyst and head of the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center, says the Palestinian programming has grown more militant since Netanyahu came to power in 1996, coinciding with the souring relationship between the Israeli and Palestinian leadership.

“I think in the beginning, when the Palestinian Authority first took over in 1994, they were speaking in a very moderate voice, avoiding anything that was very hostile or critical of Israel,” Khatib said. “Later, it changed. The mood became hostile. I don’t think the Palestinian Broadcasting Corp. is to blame. I think they are reflecting the views of official Palestinians.”

One article in the peace accords says that Israel and the Palestinian leadership must “foster mutual understanding and tolerance and shall accordingly abstain from incitement, including hostile propaganda.” But exactly what constitutes incitement — and what is merely the free expression of opinion — is a matter of intense debate.

Itamar Marcus, codirector of the Palestinian Media Review, says the problem with Palestinian broadcasting lies not strictly in what is said, but in the mood created.

“It is a whole atmosphere of a nation preparing for war,” Marcus said.

Marcus is particularly critical of Palestinian TV’s habit of broadcasting maps of Palestine that include all of Israel — not just the West Bank and Gaza, the territories that Palestinians expect to make up a future Palestinian state.

“There is no sense here that they are willing to accept Israel as a neighbor,” Marcus said.

Voice of Palestine radio referred to Thursday’s suicide bombing as a “terrorist attack,” but in “occupied Jerusalem.”

Under an unusual structure, the Palestinian Broadcasting Corp. reports directly to Arafat, bypassing the Palestinian Ministry of Information. He is able to dictate its content while shaping a different message when addressing diplomats, Israel and the Western news media.

In September 1996, on the day before protests over a tunnel opening in Jerusalem’s Old City led to clashes in which 61 Palestinians and 15 Israelis died, Arafat told Palestinian police: “The believers shall fight for the cause of Allah. They shall kill and be killed…. Our blood is a small price to pay for the cause.”

Addressing a news conference as the clashes spread, he spoke of the need to “calm the situation down.”

Last month, during another widely broadcast speech delivered to the Palestinian legislative council during a visit by U.S. envoy Dennis Ross in which Arafat promised to crack down on terrorism, the Palestinian leader said: “We must confront them. We must confront them…. We must confront them in every sense of the word.”

Arafat carefully refrains from any references to “the Jews” or even to “the Israelis,” usually specifying that his anger is directed toward the Netanyahu government and often going out of his way to praise other Israelis. With some exceptions, the same applies to other senior Palestinian officials.

The Israeli government, however, has complained about the Mufti Ikrama Sabri, who in a recent Friday prayer broadcast by radio from Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque, called for “Allah to take revenge on behalf of his prophet against the colonialist settlers who are sons of monkeys and pigs.”

Abu Ayyash and other broadcast officials contend that if they had the resources to carefully scrutinize Israeli television, they would find an equal or greater number of inflammatory anti-Arab statements.

“People sometimes make extreme statements, especially on our live shows. I can’t put plaster over their mouths,” Abu Ayyash said. “At times, I’ve tried to soften the mood, but if this is the way people think, these are the kinds of things they say.

“What I won’t do, though, is become a branch of Radio-Television Israel. That is what Netanyahu would like us to do and that is an occupier’s mentality,” Abu Ayyash said. “This is Voice of Palestine. We have to reflect our own culture and our own history.”

Barbara Demick is a Inquirer Staff Writer

Senior Palestinian Official Calls for Destruction of America and Labels it a Terrorist State

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Center for Near East Policy Research

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September 15, 1997

Following are excerpts from the Friday prayer sermon delivered by PA Mufti Ikrama Sabri at the Al-Aksa mosque in Jerusalem on September 12, 1997.

Sabri’s sermon was broadcast on the Voice of Palestine, the PA’s official radio station, immediately following the 10 minute address by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to Palestinians on the same station. Sabri is the official Mufti (senior Muslim cleric) of the PA, and was appointed to his position by Yasser Arafat.

“Oh Muslims, we must raise our voices against America, its ally Britain and all the infidel nations and say that Israel is stealing our land and establishing illegal settlements… Why does America support settlements in Israel? Are the settlements not terrorism? And therefore, America is the chief of the terrorists. Oh Allah, destroy America, her agents and her allies! Cast them into their own traps, and cover the White House with black!

Oh Muslims, our brothers in faith everywhere, the purpose of the American Secretary of State’s visit to Palestine is to support the Israeli position regarding deceitful security and fanatical settlements… The strategic covenant between Zionism and the Crusaders is a satanic alliance hostile to Islam and the Muslims and we expect no good from it. The Muslim masses in Palestine and the world over condemn Albright’s declarations issued today and in the past two days. The masses condemn America’s pro-Israeli stance, which demonstrates that global forces, the heretics, the terrorists and those filled with hate are forging an alliance against Islam and Muslims… Oh Allah, destroy America, her agents and allies! Allah, raise the flag of Islam over the Al-Aksa mosque, Jerusalem and Palestine… “

Two months ago, in his prayer sermon of July 11, 1997, Sabri also called for the destruction of America. Following are excerpts from his July sermon, broadcast on the Voice of Palestine:

“Oh Allah, destroy America, for she is ruled by Zionist Jews… Allah will paint the White House black! Clinton is fulfilling his reverend’s will to identify with Israel…. The Muslims say to Britain, to France and to all the infidel nations that Jerusalem is Arab. We shall not respect anyone else’s wishes regarding her. The only relevant party is the Islamic nation, which will not allow infidel nations to interfere…. The homes the Jews are building will become Arab property, with Allah’s help…. “

Allah shall take revenge on behalf of his prophet against the colonialist settlers who are sons of monkeys and pigs…. Forgive us, Muhammad, for the acts of these sons of monkeys and pigs, who sought to harm your sanctity.”

The Voice of Palestine is under the auspices of the PA’s Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation (PBC). According to the Philadelphia Inquirer (7th September, 1997), the PBC has been funded in part by the United States government.

Should a Publicly Funded Leah Rabin be Above Public Reproach?

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David Bedein

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September 15, 1997

Under a special act of the Israeli Knesset, Leah Rabin receives public funding for travel and communications.

The time has come to introduce international public scrutiny of Leah Rabin’s use of Israel taxpayer funds.

Most recently, Leah Rabin signed a “peace declaration” with Yassir Arafat in Ramallah, which Arafat curiously refused to translate and distribute in Arabic.

Leah Rabin once again referred to Arafat as a “man of peace” while mentioning Israel’s current Prime Minister as a “man of war”.

The governor of Ramallah who hosted Leah Rabin, Mustafa Liftawi, planted a bomb in Zion Square in Jerusalem on July 5, 1975, killing thirteen people.

Lifatwi expresses no regrets.

Meanwhile, a clause inserted into the Declaration of Principles for the Oslo accords and signed by Yitzhak Rabin and Yassir Arafat was that no one with a background in terror activity could be employed by the Palestine Authority

Asked about this Arab terrorism, Leah Rabin shrugged her shoulders and told the Times of London that “there were Jewish terrorists, too”.

It is not clear as to how seriously the Israeli public takes Leah Rabin. Perhaps that is why the Israel Labor Party Movement did not make much use of her during the 1996 electoral campaign.

However, Leah Rabin has a mesmerizing effect abroad.

In Leah Rabin’s public appearances abroad, she does not hesitate to mention that Israeli opposition leaders distributed Yitzhak Rabin’s picture in an SS Uniform, despite the fact that Leah Rabin knows that this is a lie.

Leah Rabin knows that sworn testimony at the Shamgar commission that investigated the murder of Yitzhak Rabin proved that Israel Intelligence officer, Lt. Col. Avishai Raviv, who reported directly to Rabin, was the only man who distributed the Rabin picture in the SS uniform and the only man who waved that picture in front of an Israeli TV camera.

Leah Rabin knows that sworn testimony at the Shamgar commission that investigated the murder of Yitzhak Rabin from more than twenty people showed that it was Avishai Raviv who implored Yigal Amir to kill Rabin.

Leah Rabin also knows that the Shamgar commission that investigated the murder of Yitzhak Rabin identifies Yigal Amir as an officer of Israeli intelligence.

Yet none of this makes it into Leah Rabin’s repertoire abroad, which are reported as tirades against Israel’s current government, which she consistently accuses of playing a hand in her husband’s murder.

With the approach of the New Year, the time has come to reconsider the standing of Leah Rabin, and to monitor every speech that she makes.

Is Diana a Role Model to Emulate?

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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September 15, 1997

Here are a few of the special stories you’ll find in this week’s issue of the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix…. Online!… as well as the Jewish community’s need for more positive role models like Princess Diana at http://www.jewishaz.com/jewishnews/970912/diana.shtml.

Diana Spencer a postive role model for Jews? Hello?

What kind of Judaism do y’all practice out there in Arizona?

Let’s remember all the positive things your role model did:

She utterly failed (from her end) to keep her marriage together.
She cavorted about in public with the disreputable playboy son of a shady Arab businessman who the British government had refused for years to grant citizenship.
She abandoned her children with the father.
She dishonored her family, the Royal Family and England itself.

Diana Spencer haimish? I think the Yiddish phrase that more adequately describes her and all that surrounds here is “goyishe nachas.”

I certainly hope you don’t use this role model to teach Jewish ethics and foster Jewish continuity out there in Arizona.

Full Letter Given to US Secretary of State by American Hospitalized by Bomb Victim

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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September 15, 1997

September 9, 1997

Dear Secretary Albright,

As a United States citizen, I am deeply touched by your personal visit.

By the grace of God, I was spared death, as a nail-filled bomb pierced most of my body

With help from above, I will recover, but I am deeply troubled by what I saw.

As a yeshiva seminary student, I try to search for a deeper understanding of the events that I see.

And as I lay in a hospital bed, I also try to comprehend the ongoing political process.

I am deeply troubled by what I see. In December of 1992, the late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin expelled 400 Hamas members from the country. Yet after intense US state department pressure, the Israel government gave in, and allowed these terrorists to return to the country. That mistake has cost hundreds of lives. I almost paid for this blunder with my life.

Secretary Albright, please do not be fooled and deceived any more. Yassir Arafat has embraced and armed Hamas leaders and has embraced their policies. It has been exactly four years since Arafat signed the Oslo accords at the White House, promising that the PLO would revoke the covenant to destroy Israel. After fours years it remains just that; a promise.

Enough is enough. Secretary Albright, precious lives are at stake. The policies that you choose are crucial. The decision not to stand up to Hamas four years ago almost cost me my life, while claiming the lives of over 300 terror victims. Your decision to stand up to Arafat could save lives tomorrow. Please do the right thing.

Respectively Yours,

Daniel Miller, age 19, student studying in Jerusalem from Miami, Fla
Orthopedic Recovery Ward
Hadassah Hospital
Jerusalem, Israel

An Interview with Col. Yoash Tsiddon-Chatto

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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September 8, 1997

The career of Col. Yoash Tsiddon-Chatto is one of the most distinguished in Israel. He played a leading role in the development of the Israel Air Force, and after his retirement from that career he played a vital role in the economic life of the country and later in the Knesset before the Oslo agreements.

His contributions to Israel are so numerous that this entire column would be consumed by simply reciting a portion of them. What is important is that he was sufficiently trusted to be a member of the carefully selected Madrid Peace Mission in November 1991, which was foiled by the Oslo operations of Yossi Beilin. His views about the current Government of Israel and the Oslo peace process are very important. Col. Tsiddon-Chatto was one of those responsible for the electoral reform that instituted in direct elections for the position of Prime Minister, resulting in the present leadership, of Benjamin Netanyahu.

What is perhaps most important is that Col. Tsiddon-Chatto is optimistic about Israel’s future despite the internecine squabbles of the Israeli politicians and the sometimes imperfect performance of the Israeli Government. That confidence is based on the fact that despite those failings, the Jewish population has risen from a mere 500,000 at the end of the Second World War to the present figure of almost five million. The most recent Russian immigration is almost threefold the original population of the Yishuv at the declaration of the existence of the state.

Despite his optimism, however, Gel. Tsiddon-Chatto believes that we are heading for a confrontation with the Palestinian Arabs and perhaps the Arab states as well. What is not certain is when that confrontation will occur. It will certainly come, according to the Colonel, but whether sooner or later is not predictable at this moment.

Whether the confrontation will lead to war is also uncertain at this moment, but it is quite clear that war can be avoided. War or peace will be determined by the ability of the Israelis to deter the Arabs by the strength of their armed forces. If, but for a moment, the Arabs believe that they can win even a moderate or limited victory, war will become inevitable.

To maintain that deterrent power, Col. Tsiddon-Chatto argues that there can be no diminution of the defense budget. This is essential because the question of peace or war depends upon deterrence and the Arab acceptance of Israeli military superiority. Col. Tsiddon-Chatto has discussed in articles published in Israel the fashion in which the budgetary needs can be met.

Within this view of the Israeli situation, Col. Tsiddon-Chatto evaluates the Hebron accords in a purely rational unemotional fashion. It is his view that this agreement is similar to placing highly volatile, explosive material near an open flame in a kitchen. Israel must react vigorously to any incitement. Col. Tsiddon-Chatto recalls having seen a confidential letter from Kissinger to Shamir, reportedly dated Feb. 8. 1988, urging the Israeli leader to react swiftly and with maximum force to suppress the intifada, accepting the fact that there would be a momentary sharp, negative international reaction and censure which would die down very quickly and would soon be forgotten. If however, the situation was permitted to fester, it would become a chronic problem.

The Oslo process is doomed to failure as soon as the major issues are reached in the negotiations. As soon as the Arabs comprehend that there can be no Arab Law of return and that the security needs of Israel involve the construction of roads under Israeli control that cut into very tiny pieces any Arab autonomous territory, they will have to lower their expectations. The fact is obvious that there can be no territorial contiguity or unity to the proposed Arab state or autonomous territory, nor can Jerusalem be divided.

The collapse of the Oslo process, however, does not necessarily mean war. If Israel has sufficient deterrent power, the Arabs will keep the peace. The introduction of ballistic missiles in the region, as has been done by the Arabs, increases the need for massive deterrent power on Israel’s side. If Israel is strong enough, peace will survive, but every Israeli government will have the constant task of maintaining that high level of deterrent force in order to convince the Arabs of the futility of war.

On the other hand, the failure of the Oslo process should lead to new solutions to the conflict, in the eyes of the Colonel. The two main issues requiring affirmation are the “civil” rights of the Arabs and the security of Israel. Innovative suggestions must be forthcoming to insure that a peace takes those two needs into account and satisfies the requirements of both sides.

That solution cannot, however, satisfy all of the present Arab demands. The full extent of those demands became evident in a symposium held by the Dayan Institute of Tel Aviv University in the late summer of 1994 in which Col. Tsiddon-Chatto participated. At that symposium were to be found all of the prominent Arabs who spanned the entire spectrum of political opinion, from those who were members of the Labor Party to those who were declared supporters of the PLO.

Without exception, those Arabs pointed out that even if a new Arab state were to be created between Jordan and Israel, that would be insufficient because almost a million so-called Israeli Arabs would still ho living under “foreign” domination. The claim of the Arabs was that, if the Jews truly wanted peace, they would have to change the name of the state so as to reflect the entire population rather than merely the Jewish majority. The state, in effect, would have to become a bi-national one with a new flag and a new national anthem.

It would also have to include an Arab law of return to admit all Arabs who supposedly fled from the land as well as their descendants. In other words, the success of the Oslo process means the disappearance of the Jewish State and the end of Zionism, as well as the creation of still another Arab-dominated state.

The very Declaration of Independence that was read at the foundation of modern Israel, which stated that this was to be a Jewish state, would be declared null and void. The 2,000 year-old dream would have ended in complete failure.

This was net merely a demand of the radicals or fundamentalists; it was a demand of all the Arabs who participated in the symposium. Those claims revealed how unrealistic were the expectations of the Arabs which were engendered by Israeli radicals like Yossi Beilin or Yaron Ezrahi.

The most recent events prove that Col. Tsiddon-Chatto was almost prophetic in his predictions. Arafat and the Palestinian (Arab) Authority are fully responsible for the end of the Oslo process. The attempts of Yossi Beilin to conduct a private diplomacy of appeasement to salvage the wreckage are both illegitimate and unwise. President Clinton’s attempt to save his reputation by applying mere pressure on Israel is also ill founded. Either Arafat is responsible for controlling the Arabs, or there can be no autonomous area.

As Col. Tsiddon-Chatto indicates as emphatically, there must be a totally new approach to the process of making peace between Arabs and Israelis, one with much lower expectations, certainly without a new Arab state. There must be a new proposal that may result in true peace between the parties to the dispute.

In a new paper that will hopefully be published in the near future, Col. Tsiddon-Chatto suggested that there can be municipalities enjoying some degree of Arab autonomy within Israel, but that the Arab political rights can only be secured by giving those Arabs in the Holy Land Jordanian citizenship. His arguments are strong ones, but they do require even further lowering of the expectations and goals of the Arabs. Let us hope that these new suggestions are given an adequate examination.

Will the PNA Make a 100% Effort?

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

September 8, 1997

The following are selections from “Basic Fateh Position” – “an editorial submitted to the press by the Palestinian Liberation Movement, Fateh” which was published in the September 5, 1997 edition of The Jerusalem Weekly.

The Palestinian leadership understands that the US demand represents an Israeli strong desire not for peace but to create a situation which results in a Palestinian civil war. In fact, asking the PNA to make 100% effort means transforming it into an army of collaborators and agents according to Israeli dictates. That will never happen. The PNA remains the outcome of the PLO, and it represents the Palestinian dream that will one day come true.

… the Accords do not commit the Palestinian side to execute Israeli demands of arresting members of the opposition or destroying the infrastructure of that position. The Oslo Accords commit the Palestinian party to applying its own laws, which consider illegal all actions that directly harm the peace process.

The PNA will never act the way the Israelis used to. It cannot, for example, impose collective punishment on its people. It is true that the PNA could act against Jihad and Hamas through paralyzing their infrastructure and arresting some members. That is only adopted when these position forces declared their responsibility for attacks resulting in loss of lives.

However, talks between these forces and the PNA have led to a general understanding that bars any opposition group from carrying out actions that may undermine the jurisdiction of the PNA or jeopardize its security. Following this understanding, the PNA released all detainees who proved to have no connection whatsoever with actions considered criminal according to the Palestinian law. Therefore, it is utterly illegal for the PNA to redetain innocent people who were released earlier.

In fact, the PNA will be violating human rights stated in international conventions if it, for example, puts in prison a person like Abdul Aziz El-Rantisi, a leading member of Hamas.

… if Albright’s emphasis is the implementation of Israeli dictates, the US Secretary of State may not be able to achieve a breakthrough. Although we are eager to see the US shouldering its responsibility towards the peace process as a co-sponsor. Palestinians will not welcome her arrival if it becomes conditioned upon Palestinian execution of 100% security measures. We will not be happy to see the killer attending the funeral procession of the victim.

… Our dealing with Albright’s initiative will be based on our steadfast adherence to peace agreements and to our national rights including the right of return. self determination and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. We will not, therefore, allow Israel to turn Albright’s projected visit into an attempt to patch up an outlet for Netanyahu’s government, which has imposed the most inhumane measures on our people.

In facing such a possibility the Palestinian leadership has decided to adopt a policy of steadfastness and confrontation. A special committee has been set up to put forward a plan to be implemented at the political level by providing answers to possible questions Albright’s visit may pose.

The Jerusalem Times, 5th September, 1997

Dr. Aaron Lerner,
Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
P.O.BOX 982 Kfar Sava
Tel: (+972-9) 760-4719
Fax: (+972-9) 741-1645
imra@netvision.net.il

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