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Arutz Sheva Daily News Service
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1. Belfast Guards Save Israeli Speaker from Pro-Arab Attackers
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Pro-Arab hecklers at Belfast’s Queen’s University recently threatened
an Israeli speaker, who was rescued by security men, but his taxi was
attacked as he fled.
Solon Solomon, a former member of the Knesset’s legal department, had
been invited to speak to law students at the university, but Palestine
Solidarity Society (PSS) and Sinn Fein hecklers forced him to abandon
the lecture hall. They surrounded the room where he had fled, until
security men rescued him.
Meanwhile, members of the Northern Ireland Friends of Israel ran into another room until they could leave safely.
After security guards ushered Solomon into a taxi, the anti-Israeli mob
attacked the vehicle and tried to break its windows. The taxi ran over
the foot of one of the protesters who was attempting to stop the
vehicle.
The Belfast Herald noted that Israel Professor Geoffrey Alderman had
been invited to join a panel at a Queen’s Festival event but the
invitation later was rescinded without explanation.
The newspaper wrote of the incident at Queen’s University, “This is not
actually an issue about being pro or anti Israel. It’s about being
pro-freedom of speech."
"We have been told that disciplinary proceedings are a matter for the
university authorities," reported the student newspaper The Gown.
"Offenses of misconduct [at the university] include criminal damage,
nuisance behavior and disorderly behavior. If an individual is found to
have carried out an offense it could result in a £150 fine or expulsion
from the University.”
University official Sarah Wheeler said, “It’s very sad really, I
suppose in 25 years as an academic, I’ve never seen anyone shouted down
after five minutes speaking.”
A Sinn Fein member told the student newspaper, “It’s a disgrace we
invited a war criminal. There was meant to be a debate but they only
invited one side.” Sinn Fein during its extreme terrorist days received
assistance and training from Palestinian terror groups. Although it has
"renounced" terrorism the organization continues to be partisanly
anti-Israel.
2. New Peace Initiative: Annex and Survive
by Uri Elitzur, Editor Makor Rishon
The popular right-oriented Hebrew newspaper Makor Rishon devoted this
past weekend's main editorial and a slew of debates in its magazine
insert “Forum”, to a surprising initiative for preventing the
establishment of a Palestinian state on Israel’s borders.
INN brings you the leading editorial (translated with permission) by
Uri Elitzur , associate editor of Makor Rishon, well known publicist and
head of Binyamin Netanyahu’s office during his first term as prime
minister.
We invite your opinion and will publish a selection of readers’ responses.
The Challenge of Inclusion: Annex and Survive
Not long ago, Shimon Peres was vehemently against a Palestinian state.
Today, even Netanyahu supports the idea. A Palestinian state now is the
worst possible scenario for Israel, and it will occur if we don’t have
the courage to consider the following counter-proposal seriously: that
is, a proposal that entails adding more than 1 million Arabs to Israel’s
population.
Here are Shimon Peres' own words: (in translation)
“If a separate Palestinian state is formed, it will be armed from top
to bottom. It will be a base for the most extremist terror groups, who
will have anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, endangering not only
passersby but every airplane or helicopter that uses Israeli air space,
every vehicle on Israel’s major coastal highways. It is doubtful
whether territorial depth provides deterrence. But the absence of
minimal territorial depth leaves a state without any deterrence. This
option in itself makes attacking Israel on all fronts irresistibly
tempting…demilitarization of the West Bank is a questionable antidote:
the problem is not the agreement to demilitarize, but whether the
agreement will be honored. The number of agreements broken by the Arabs
is not less than the number they have kept.”(“This Time Tomorrow”,
Jerusalem 1978/ page 255.)
I did not quote this text to ridicule President Peres. It is common
knowledge that until about 15 years ago, there was an across-the-board
consensus against a Palestinian state. Ten years ago, the Labor party
would not agree to put the idea on its platform. Today, everyone is for
it. From Left to Right. Yet every word that Peres said is as true as it
was then. Nothing has changed, except for Peres himself.
And Sharon. And Olmert. And Tzipi Livni. And Netanyahu. In short,
everyone. In the Israeli political system, there is an overwhelming
majority—from Chaim Oron (Meretz) to Netanyahu, including Foreign
Minister Lieberman—that supports the establishment of a Palestinian
state in principle.
In the international arena, there is not one politician who thinks otherwise, including Israel’s best and warmest friends.
How did this happen?
The answer is that time has run out for the temporary solution. Those
on the right of the political map have always been asked what
alternative they have to suggest, and they have never responded with the
simple and self-evident answer that the present situation is the
alternative. What is now is what should be. Is there anything simpler
than that?
Not only didn’t Netanyahu say that, neither did Yaalon, nor did
Yitzchak Shamir. All the Israeli right ever said for years is that there
is no one to talk to on the other side. It’s not the result of faulty
public relations. The fact is, that a democratic country ruling over an
entire population that lacks civil rights can only be a temporary
solution. And the famous saying that there is nothing more permanent
than something that is temporary rings well, but is itself only true
temporarily.
They are Afraid
Now that 44 years of ‘temporariness’ have passed, it is time to give a better answer than “not now”.
Everyone who realizes that Israel must continue to rule permanently in
Judea and Samaria, if only to prevent the establishment of an armed and
hostile Palestinian state, must realize that there is a heavy price
involved: the annexation of the territory and all its residents. That
means adding 1.25 million or 1.5 million Arabs to Israel. This price
causes panic in Israel, causing Shimon Peres to be ready to agree to
almost all the things he vehemently and eloquently disagreed to in the
past. Everyone else, from Left to Right, follows in his footsteps.
Lieberman suggests an interim agreement, as if he can delay decisions
for somewhat longer. Perhaps a little bit more time can be gained, but
the time for avoiding decisions has run out.
The result is that only one plan is on the table, and Israel has
retreated from all its red lines under each and every government.
Because when Israel says that separation is a matter of life and death,
and the option of annexation causes total panic, there is nothing left
about which to negotiate. You cannot bargain about prices with a
customer, if your time is up and you admit that you have no other choice
but to sell.
Israel has to decide whether to annex more than a million Arabs or to
accept a Palestinian state under the most adverse conditions. These are
the two options. If no one gets up and puts a suggestion for one state
on the table, if Israelis are not able to weigh this option and its cost
without going into hysterics, if they cannot rationally compare it with
the cost of the opposing option, the result will be a Palestinian
state.
It will be an armed and hostile state, that doesn’t recognize Israel as
a Jewish state. It won’t be demilitarized, it won’t compromise on
uprooting all the communities in its territory and it won’t sign a peace
treaty with Israel. Israel’s demands and preconditions will erode bit
by bit, just as the opposition to a Palestinian state did.
The number of Israeli Arabs is more or less equal to the number of
Arabs in Judea and Samaria. If there are 10 Israeli Arab MK’s today, and
if annexation of Judea and Samaria is a gradual process that takes
place over 30 years, one can expect double the number of Arab MK’s at
that point. This will not change Israel into a bi-national state.
If during those 30 years Israel passes Basic Laws that define Israel’s
status as the state of the Jewish People, and if during that period
there is a significant wave of aliyah, it will be easier to deal with
the danger. It will be difficult. But the fear of putting the subject up
for debate is out of all proportion, especially when the option of a
Palestinian Hamas state from where rockets will be launched at Tel Aviv
is much, much worse.
In general, fear is a very bad adviser, and in this case it is a
repeat of the sin of 10 of the 12 spies in the Book of Numbers who told
the Jews in the desert: "The people in the Promised Land are stronger
than we are."
Will we relinquish the land so as not to have to deal with a minority
of 30 percent? Let’s do just the opposite. Let’s keep the land and
let’s not act precipitously. We have faced far more difficult challenges
successfully.
The Palestinian State train has already left the next-to-last station
and is traveling full steam ahead. If there were a last stop, nothing
could stop that train from getting there. However, the State of Israel
can still be saved from the Palestinian state disaster because there is
no last stop in existence. Abbas doesn’t want to reach an agreement. The
Palestinians don’t want the small state they have been offered, and to
their good fortune, Obama has given them a perfect excuse for not
accepting it.
This is the time to raise the option described above and debate it
openly and fearlessly, as our “Forum” magazine does this week.
Another word on peace
Those who have named themselves “The Peace Camp” are not really
interested in peace with the Palestinians. They simply want to be rid of
them, and to put them behind some sort of separation wall (as if that
were possible). However, there are those who really want peace between
Jews and Palestinians. They are the reason I have added the next few
paragraphs.
It has finally become politically correct to call our ‘friend’ Husni
Mubarak a corrupt dictator, and to admit that he wasn’t much of a friend
to begin with. Everyone still says that the peace with Egypt is a
strategic asset, but adds that its continuation is not clear. What has
become painfully clear, however, is that the Egyptian masses do not find
peace with Israel particularly attractive, and that the Egyptian elite
and intelligentsia absolutely hate us passionately after 30 years of
peace.
The peace with Jordan fares no better, and does not express the will of
the people. This agreement is based on the will of a non-democratic
regime’s interests, a regime which needs to preserve a cold peace with
us in order to survive. If it ever becomes expedient for them to end
that peace, that is what will happen. We did not succeed, not in Egypt
and not in Jordan, to get the people interested in peace, to develop
trade relations, to attract tourism, work opportunities, to be allowed
to enjoy a unifying humus and pita snack in Cairo or Amman with the
locals.
The only Arab population that we live with in real peace, for the most
part without hostility and hatred, is the Israeli one. Not everything is
rosy within Israel between Jews and Arabs. There is much to improve
here as well, and there is also cause for worry, but despite that, the
fact is that Israeli Arabs were on the side of our enemies in the 1949
War of Independence, but today they are citizens who study with us, join
us, live with us in peace.
And they don’t want to lose their Israeli citizenship. This is not
because of negotiations or ceremonial treaty signings. Had we tried
negotiations with the Arabs living in the Galilee in 1949, we would
still be at it. What brought about the only peace we have with an Arab
population group in the Middle East was simply giving them Israeli
citizenship.
3. Netanyahu Plays ‘Give and Take’ on Outposts
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The Netanyahu government has announced it will destroy several Jewish
“outpost” communities by the end of the year – and will legalize others.
Responding to a High Court hearing initiated by Peace Now against Jewish communities it considers illegal,
government spokesmen said that all buildings on land found to be owned
by Palestinian Authority Arabs will be destroyed. Approximately 50
structures are affected, primarily at the communities of Givat Asaf,
Givat HaRoeh and Ramat Gilad, all of them located in Samaria.
The response to the court stated that the government, for the first
time, will legalize hilltop communities built on private land. This
presumably would include Gilad Farm (Havat Gilad), bought and owned by
the Zar family, but targeted by security forces several times the past
two years. Arabs claim the land is theirs.
Last week, a pre-dawn raid by gun-wielding police, who shot plastic bullets at Jewish residents there in an unprecedented show of violence, caused an outrage among a wide range of political leaders. Police claimed they shot in response to rock attacks, but no evidence has been produced to contradict eyewitness accounts that there was no rock-throwing.
The government response to the court has left both left-wing and
nationalists dissatisfied. Peace Now, which wages a campaign against any
Jewish presence in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem areas united after the
Six Day War, commented that previous promises by government officials to
destroy outposts have not been fulfilled. Peace Now Secretary-General
Yariv Oppenheimer said. "Experience shows that in nine months the state
can make up excuses to avoid evictions."
Defense Minister Ehud Barak,
former chairman of the anti-outpost Labor party, has said several times
in the past he would carry out the demolitions. If they are carried out
this time, they will be done so under the orders of Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu, who previously has made more concessions to the
Palestinian Authority than his Labor and Kadima party predecessors.
Not everyone in the Likud is happy with his decision. Knesset Member
Tzipi Hotovely, a leading nationalist, said that all of the hilltop
communities should be legalized and warned that demolitions will cost
the Likud support from its own party.
She has favored Israel’s officially annexing Jewish communities in
Judea and Samaria, which legally are under military rule. The only
obstacle to many homes being of “legal” status is the missing signature
of Defense Minister Barak.
Judea and Samaria committees described the government position on
outposts as “a punch in the face” to nationalists. Residents seem
unconcerned and continue to rebuild structures that security forces have
razed.
Itamar Ben Gvir, an aide to National Union Knesset Member Dr. Michael Ben-Ari, commented, “I dare them to raze all the illegal structures in Umm al-Farm and Rahat," large Arab and Bedouin cities in Israel which are replete with illegal structures.
4. Supreme Court Against Profiling Arabs in Israeli Airports
by Elad Benari
Israel’s Supreme Court issued a court order on Monday asking airport
authorities to explain within 45 days why they cannot inspect all
airport passengers using equal, objective and uniform criteria and why
Arab passengers are automatically tagged a security risk.
The order comes after a previous hearing last week, during which the
judges harshly criticized the tagging of Arab citizens as a security
risk.
During the hearing, Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch noted that
it is impossible to label an entire population and that there is no
doubt that humiliating Arab citizens during the security inspection is
unacceptable.
Attorney Auni Bana, who represented the Association for Civil Rights in
the discussion along with Attorney Dan Yakir, expressed his
satisfaction at the court’s decision. “This is the essential issue at
hand: Is it permissible for the state authorities to sweepingly declare
minority groups who are citizens of Israel as a security risk in way
which humiliates them and is discriminatory them.”
Bana added that “No one disagrees about the importance of security
checks, but the sweeping way in which Arab citizens are questioned about
their destination, about the people whom they plan to meet, the fact
they are required to disclose personal information stored on their
computers - all these create an intolerable situation in a democratic
country and is a constant reminder to these citizens that the state
itself does not see them as deserving of equal rights.”
Attorney Dan Yakir, legal adviser for the Association for Civil Rights,
noted during the hearing that former Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet)
officials said that even after the Supreme Court forbade them to
torture prisoners, the security situation was not negatively affected.
“Security authorities have many different measures they could use for
security inspections. A democratic state cannot accept the humiliation
and discrimination against twenty percent of its citizens.”
In response to the court order, an airport security official told Arutz
Sheva’s Hebrew site on Monday: “it is unfortunate that the Supreme
Court judges are sitting in their air conditioned rooms and do not
understand the dangers posed just by debating the issue. The Twin Towers
tragedy took place, the danger has not disappeared and peace has not
come. The Supreme Court is endangering the security of Israeli
citizens.”
5. Abbas Wins Symbolic Victory in Britain: PA Now a ‘Mission’
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Britain told visiting Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas
that it is upgrading the status of the PA from a “delegation” to a
“mission” in London, easing visa requirements but not granting
diplomatic immunity.
The mainly symbolic change is another diplomatic plum for the
globe-trotting Abbas, who flew to London on Monday to win international
recognition of the PA as an independent state without having to talk
with Israel. He will leave Britain for Denmak before flying back to
Ramallah.
Britain follows France, Ireland, Spain and Portugal, all of which have
granted the PA the status of a “mission,” while Norway has given the
head of the PA delegation the rank of ambassador. The United States upgraded PA status from a "bureau" to a "special delegation" in July 2010, allowing the PLO flag to be flown.
The Israeli embassy in London stated, "The real upgrade that's missing is in the Palestinian willingness to talk peace.”
Abbas spoke with Prime Minister David Cameron
and Foreign Secretary William Hague to “address the situation in the
Middle East, the faltering peace process and Israeli settlement activity
as well as the upcoming meeting of the Quartet," according to Abbas’
spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina.
The discussions are a promo for a meeting of the Quartet – the European
Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States – in Paris
later this month.
Abbas has refused all offers to sit down with Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu for direct discussions until Israel freezes all construction
for Jews in Judea and Samaria. He also has rebuffed all suggestions that
he recognize Israel a “Jewish state,” a definition that would undermine
his aim of flooding the country with approximately five million foreign
Arabs claiming Israel as their home.
Britain, like U.S. President Barack Obama, has backed virtually all PA
demands that it be declared an independent country with a border that
would require Israel to surrender all of the land restored to it in the
Six-Day War in 1967, including areas that house approximately 600,000
Jews in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.
6. Arabs Attack Near Shilo, Jew Suffers Head Wound
by Hillel Fendel
Arabs stormed the area of Jewish neighborhoods Alei Ayin and Esh
Kodesh, near Shilo, this afternoon. One Jew has been treated for a head
wound after a rock hit him.
IDF forces were said to be on their way to the scene of the clash, after the Jews reported that they were “in trouble.”
Dozens of Arabs arrived in the afternoon hours and threw rocks at the Jews there.
Alei Ayin and Esh Kodesh are two start-up neighborhoods adjacent to
Shilo, in eastern Binyamin, north of Jerusalem. Together with Achiya and
Adei Ad, they line the road leading from Shilo and Highway 60 to the
Jordan Valley.
Two months ago, hundreds of Arab similarly stormed the area of Alei
Ayin, just a day after homes there were destroyed by Israeli security
forces.
7. Egypt to Barak: Voters to Back Anti-US and Anti-Israel Policies
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
A prominent Egyptian told Defense Minister Ehud Barak
that voters will favor candidates hostile to the US and Israel. The
peace treaty is to remain – “for the time being,” he said in an
interview with The Wall Street Journal.
The unnamed Egyptian told the Defense Minister, “'We're going to have a
really open election....Civic parties will hire advisers from the U.S.
and Europe and find immediately that what can bring them voters is
hostility to America and Israel.'"
Defense Minster Barak called the uprising in the region “a historic
earthquake...a movement in the right direction” but at the same time
refrained from expressing any long-term optimism on Egyptian-Israeli
relations.
His view is that the upheavals require Israel to ask the United States
for another $20 billion in military assistance over the next generation.
Defense Minister Barak, former IDF Chief of Staff, who worked as an
advisor to military firms during his hiatus from politics in the
beginning of the last decade, did not detail Israel’s new defense needs.
"The issue of qualitative military aid for Israel becomes more
essential for us, and I believe also more essential for you," he told
the newspaper. "A strong, responsible Israel can become a stabilizer in
such a turbulent region."
While insisting that the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty will
continue, he added that public pressure in Egypt could change the
diplomatic recognition, which he said remains “for the time being.”
Barak said he has been in contact with his Egyptian counterpart,
Mohammed Hussein Tantawi. The two men fought against each other in a
tank battle in the Sinai Peninsula during the Yom Kippur War in1973.
8. Syrian Pilots Flying Libyan Warplanes, Rebels Charge
by Aryeh Ben Hayim and Tzvi Ben Gedlyahu
Libyan insurgents claim to have shot down two warplanes over the oil
town of Ras Lanuf and that their pilots' identity cards and accents
indicated they were from Syria.
The al-Tabu Front for the Salvation of Libya claims that the Syrian
authorities were complicit in the participation of Syrian soldiers.
The insurgents told the relatively reliable Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, as
translated by the Lebanese news portal Iloubnan.info, that the
government is using mercenary pilots from Syria, Algeria, Ukraine,
Serbia and Romania to fly air force warplanes because Libyan pilots are
no longer considered reliable.
Muammar Qaddafi’s air force staged new raids on rebels on Tuesday as
rebels said they rejected attempt by intermediaries for Qaddafi to talk
with the provisional national council.
A council spokesman said there is nothing to talk about until Qaddafi
leaves the country. "We're not going to negotiate with him. He knows
where the airport is in Tripoli and all he needs to do is leave and stop
the bloodshed," the official said, according to Voice of America.
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