War on Terrorism OR War for Islam?

Do we need an interpreter with the capability of Rashi, maybe, in order to tell what is really the Bush Administration policy on terrorism? On the one hand, Mr Bush declared a War on Terror. On the other, the Bush Administration, particularly the State Department, helps Arab terrorists against Israel while --in the Balkans-- it is trying to expand the territory of the Muslim-dominated Bosnian entity. After 500 years of conflict between Christians and Muslims in the Balkans, after World War II when Bosnian Muslims formed an SS division under the religious supervision of Haj Amin el-Husseini [al-Husayni], British-appointed mufti of Jerusalem, after the bloody Bosnian war of the 1990s when all three ethnic-religious groups in Bosnia perpetrated atrocities on one another, the State Dept now wants to incorporate the remaining part of Bosnia from which Serbs have not yet been "ethnically cleansed" into the Muslim-dominated Bosnian state. We bear in mind that during WW2, Serbs suffered mass murder at the hands of both Croatian Catholics and Bosnian Muslims. This was against the background of a multi-century history of Muslim suppression of Serbs in the Balkans, especially the bloody and brutal suppression of a 19th century Serbian revolt against the Ottoman Empire in Bosnia.

Let's just say that the State Dept does it again.

U.S. Selling Out Bosnian Christians to Muslims, Serb Leader Says

Kenneth R. Timmerman [NewsMax]
Thursday, May 24, 2007

The man who helped overthrow Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic says the State Department is pressuring him to hand over Christian Bosnia to its powerful Muslim neighbor, threatening the delicate balance that ended the Bosnian War.

The Bosnian Serbian entity was created under the 1995 Dayton peace accords.

"At the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo, I was threatened that if I did not agree to these U.S. demands, I would have problems," Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik told NewsMax in an exclusive interview.

In a meeting on Wednesday at the State Department, Dodik said that Assistant Secretary Daniel Fried didn't repeat the threats, but insisted that Dodik and the Christian Bosnian Serb government agree to dissolve its independent police force and parliament, and merge them into Muslim-majority federal institutions.

"The United States is trying to assimilate us into Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), which is a Muslim entity," Dodik said. Today, Dodik will be meeting with Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, who is expected to reinforce these demands. Dodik told NewsMax, "I will refuse."

Asked why he was coming to Washington if to be read the riot act, Dodik said it was "hard to refuse when you've been summoned."

Nearly 1.4 million Serbian Christians live in the Republic of Srpska [Republika Srpska = Serbian Republic (of Bosnia)], the autonomous Serbian entity that Serbs say was "forced down [their] throats" under the 1995 Dayton agreement

Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. official who negotiated the 1995 agreement, told a forum marking the 10th anniversary of the Dayton accords in November 2005 that among his "mistakes" were the words "Republika Srpska." He called for the Serbian entity to be dissolved into Muslim Bosnia.

Dodik said that while 99 percent of Bosnian Serbs would prefer to live in an independent state, the Dayton accords had achieved a "balance" and that it would be a mistake to change them now.
. . . .

"If the U.S. project of turning BiH into a single government controlled under one man one vote, in 10 years there will be no more Serbs in the area. All I want is for the U.S. to leave us alone."

Under the current arrangement, the Bosnian Serbs have 22 members of the federal parliament, and the Bosnian Muslims have 24 members. Simple majority rule, as advocated by the United States, would allow the Bosnian Muslims to transform the Bosnian federation into an Islamic Republic.

In addition, the assimilation of the independent Bosnian Serb police force into a single, federal force "would mean we must accept terrorists who have been recruited into the police by the Bosnian Muslims."
. . . . .

Well before the Dayton accords, the Bosnian Muslim authorities forged a close relationship with Osama Bin Laden, even providing him a Bosnian diplomatic passport after his Saudi passport was revoked by the Saudi government.

Five of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were trained in Bosnian Muslim al Qaeda camps.

During the Clinton administration, "the U.S. gave its blessing as 4,400 jihadis came to Bosnia from Afghanistan," Dodik said.

If the Bush Administration supports expansion of the pro-Islamist terrorist, Muslim-dominated Bosnian entity --in particular at the expense of the Serbs-- then its claim to be fighting terrorism cannot be taken seriously. Likewise, in the Middle East, why should it be seen as fighting terrorism when it openly calls for giving money and weapons to the Fatah terrorist gang of Mahmud Abbas [Abu Mazen]? Of course, if the above account is reliable, then the Clinton Administration was no better in its dealings with terrorism, particularly of the Islamist variety.

Timmerman's full article is here and commentary on it by Hugh Fitzbgerald is here.
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Coming: More on James Baker and US policy toward Israel, peace follies, propaganda, Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, etc.

Melanie Phillips Understands that Judea-Samaria Are Not "occupied"

Melanie Phillips has written three hard-hitting posts on her blog about the international legal status of Judea-Samaria and of the Land of Israel as a whole. This must be the first time in a long time that any mainstream journalist in the United Kingdom has been able to exercise historical memory going back to the true legal status of the Land of Israel established in 1920. It takes a great deal of honesty and integrity to overcome the legacy of BBC & the Guardian & the Independent's slander of Israel that has been going on for so many years, overcoming the legacy of Christopher Mayhew and Robert Fisk and Tom Paulin and so many other scribblers. Here are her three posts: here & here & here.

The fact that the League of Nations recognized the Jewish National Home principle, embodied in the Mandate to the United Kingdom to rule the Land of Israel, has been conveniently forgotten by Israel's enemies, not only among the Arabs but in the West. The mainstream media go along with the intentional forgetting, which shows us how ignorant or deceitful they are. Now, the Jewish National Home was embodied in the Mandate and Britain was committed to fulfilling this international mandate. Which it deliberately refused to do, such refusal being embodied in the 1939 "White Paper on Palestine," which was found in violation of the Mandate by the League's Permanent Mandates Commission. Then after World War 2 the international commitment was forgotten. What does this mean? It means that Israel and the Jewish people in general cannot trust the "international community," including the West, to fulfill or comply with the commitments that they have made to Israel and Jews generally. For instance, Norway, the state that mediated the horrendous Oslo Accords [resulting in the deaths of thousands of Jews and Arabs], has recognized the Hamas government of the "palestine authority" that openly rejects those Oslo Accords, declares its intention to make war on Israel forever until Israel is destroyed and will not even pretend to recognize Israel's rights. Thereby, Norway openly exposes its own bad faith. We have called for expelling the Norwegian ambassador from Israel and reducing its representation here to the charge' d'affaires level. The main thing is Norway's contempt for its own ostensible "peace efforts."

Other worthwhile articles on the international legal status of the Land of Israel are found here & here. Also look at a long list of articles on this subject on the Israel White Paper website.
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Coming: More on James Baker, peace follies, propaganda, Jews in Jerusalem & Hebron, etc.

James Baker and US Foreign Policy towards Israel -- Part 4

Throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s, the Petro-Diplomatic Complex worked to undermine Israel in American public opinion. One way was to set up the American Friends of the Middle East, which enjoyed government funding. This group lobbied the Congress on behalf of pro-Arab policies, although it was probably illegal for a body supported by government funds [up to $400,000 per year] to lobby its own funder, the US government. I L Kenen points out that this subsidy was not ended until 1967 on account of a Congressional investigation of CIA operations [Kenen, Israel's Defense Line, pp 115-116]. The publications of the Arabian-American Oil Co. [ARAMCO] too, like ARAMCO World, also served to provide the Arabs with a favorable image in the United States. For instance, the barbarous kingdom with its cruel, bigoted medieval laws, based on Wahhabi Islam, was described as: "A Desert Democracy." Likewise, the National Geographic and publications of the Arab League offices in the USA also published pro-Saudi, pro-Arab propaganda. The Luce publications --Time and Life-- did the same, although inconsistently. For instance, after the Six Day War had raised Israel's prestige in the United States, the Luce publications were pro-Israel for a while in accord with public opinion.

Gurfinkiel writes that starting in the early 1960s with the Kennedy Administration, through the Johnson Administration, and into the Nixon Administration of the early 1970s,

Washington began a rapprochement with Jerusalem, . . . In the eyes of the oil men and their friends, the most powerful lobby in the country, this deviation could only be explained by the action of a "Jewish lobby" at least as powerful; a classic case of projection on the adversary of one's own behavior.
[Michel Gurfinkiel, "Rapport sur Baker," France-Israel Information, Oct-Nov-Dec 2006]

This is an important insight. The extremely powerful oil lobby that was able to arrange vast tax advantages for itself and its Arab allies, like application of the Foreign Tax Credit to oil payments to Saudi Arabia, among other tax favors, accused the Jewish lobby of being all-powerful. In fact, the paranoid loathing of a Jewish or pro-Israel lobby interfering in the plans of empires came to the surface in remarks by certain influential Britishers around the time of the reestablishment of Israel and in later years. For instance, various prominent British personalities, such as Dennis Brogan, an influential British political scientist, complained about the Jewish lobby in the United States interfering with British designs for the Land of Israel.

Gurfinkiel believes that the Israel-American partnership of the sixties and seventies had much to do with the Soviet alignment of important Arab states, Egypt, Iraq, Algeria, and Libya. Furthermore, the OPEC states, the Arab members first and foremost, had greatly raised the price of crude oil. For this reason and on account of the hostile Arab attitude [including that of Saudi Arabia] in that 1973-74 period, some have claimed, the United States was contemplating seizing the Persian Gulf oil fields. Be that as it may, certainly many Americans were very angry at the Arab oil states for making life more expensive for Americans and the rest of the world. The greatest damage of the sharp rise in oil prices was no doubt to the world's very poorest countries which lacked valuable natural resources and were not exporting manufactured goods. Parenthetically, we should point out that apologists for the Arabs in that period, claimed that the sharp rise in oil prices was "good" for the Third World as a whole, that is, for the poor countries too. These apologists had no shame then just as today apologists for the Arabs are still shameless.

Gurfinkiel also points to the rise of fanatical Islam, as another factor encouraging an Israeli-American partnership. Nevertheless, the Pro-Arab lobby did not go away. The territorial situation created by the Six Day War gave new opportunities to pro-Arab propaganda.

The Pro-Arab Lobby Counter-Attacks
The Six Day War furnished it [the pro-Arab lobby] with a less cynical argument than the interest in oil alone.

During this conflict, the Jewish state had taken control of [not "occupied"] territories situated outside of the demarcation line [armistice line] established in 1949 at the end of the first Israel-Arab war (the Green Line). . . It had also occupied territories situated beyond the international borders of former mandatory Palestine: the Golan, Sinai. The pro-Arab lobby stated that the Arab and Muslim countries --or at least "the more moderate ones"-- would make peace with Israel when Israel had returned these conquests: "Territory for peace." The slogan was striking in its simplicity and its seeming equity. In fact, it made it possible to avoid the true questions: Why had the Arab countries refused the partition of Palestine in 1947? Why did they subsequently refuse to recognize Israel? Why did they multiply attacks on Israel [political attacks in international bodies, attacks by terrorist infiltrators, the blockade of the Straits of Tiran, etc] before 1967, when it did not occupy any territory beyond the Green Line? Why did they refuse after 1967 [after the Six Day War] an Israeli offer for comprehensive negotiations [a refusal embodied in the Three Noes of Khartoum]? How can Israel ensure its security in the long term against repeated aggressions without the strategic depth provided by the conquests [of the Six Day War]? [Gurfinkiel, ibid.]

Indeed, these are all important questions glossed over by the peace-mongers. The Arab states had refused to make peace with Israel when it was in its restricted frontiers of the 1949 armistice lines. Why would they make peace with Israel or keep a peace accord with Israel if Israel went back to those restricted, difficult to defend armistice lines? Why not consider Judea-Samaria or the West Bank area as a parallel --at least in military-strategic terms-- to the protective function of the Sudetenland for Czechoslovakia in 1938? As we know, the Czechs --under British and French pressure-- gave up the Sudetenland in late 1938, in the name of self-determination for the Sudeten Germans and of "peace." Just a few months later, in March 1939, the Germans took the rest of Czechoslovakia. Hence, the Munich Pact for peace had resulted in the total subjugation of Czechoslovakia to the German Nazis and an improved strategic situtation for Germany in its plans to attack Poland later in 1939. In short, the Munich Pact for peace had made war more certain by improving the German strategic situation against Poland, thus facilitating a future attack on Poland. Combining the terms used then and those used nowadays, we may say that the appeasement movement or peace process of the 1930s reached its peak with the inception of World War Two in September 1939. By the way, in accord with the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939, both the Nazis and Soviet Communists invaded Poland from the west, north and south [the Germans] and from the east [the Soviets]. In the fall of 1939, the Communist USSR and Nazi Germany officially declared a joint Struggle for Peace. Is something like this grim scenario the purpose of today's "peace process"?

Note that Gurfinkiel avoids saying that Judea-Samaria were "occupied" by Israel in 1967. He is aware that these areas were part of the Jewish National Home set up by the San Remo Conference in 1920, endorsed by the League of Nations in 1922 and later by the United States in an accord with Britain. He knows that this status was not cancelled by the General Assembly partition recommendation of 29 November 1947.
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Coming: More on James Baker and US-Israel relations, Jews in Jerusalem & Hebron, peace follies, propaganda, etc.

Muslim Leader Reminds Us that London Hosted Islamist Terrorists

After the July bombings in London, a Muslim leader in Italy remembered that London had hosted terrorists and terrorist leaders who had done their awful work in other cities in other countries. In the mid-1990s, terrorists struck several times in France, including the Paris subway, the Metro. French investigators traced the commanders of these attacks back to Islamic terrorist leaders in London. I believe that it was these French investigators who gave London the nickname Londonistan. Islamist terrorists operating against Israel also had connections in London, and enjoyed a broad tolerance from the British authorities. Khalid Chaouki [= Shawki] published his statement as a letter in Il Riformista [9 July 2005]. His letter describes him as director of the website Musulmaniditalia.com. Here are his words:

Another massacre. This time terrorism of an Islamic matrix has struck that capital that had indirectly tolerated it, [and] hosted international leaders of Islamist radicalism. London, the multicultural city where diverse cultures and traditions live together. That country of a great democratic tradition. . . always the refuge for millions of workers and intellectuals in search of liberty. Unfortunately, after New York and Madrid, it has now fallen to London's lot. . .

Ancora una strage. Questa volta il terrorismo di matrice islamica ha colpito quella capitale che l'aveva indirettamente tollerato, ospitato esponenti internazionali del radicalismo islamista. Londra, la citta' multiculturale dove convivono culture e tradizioni diverse. Quel paese di grande tradizione democratica . . . da sempre rifugio di milioni di lavoratori e intelletuali in cerca di liberta'. Purtroppo dopo New York e Madrid, ora e' toccato proprio a Londra. . .

Chaouki wants to be nice to the Brit government, so he says "indirectly tolerated." But didn't anybody in an official position in Britain know what was going on? Didn't anybody know that --for instance-- mad mullahs in Britain were preaching/inciting the murder of Jews and the Islamist takeover of Britain? What's a madda? Din't nobody know nuttin?

For more on British promotion of Islamist fanatics, see the recent posts here on Tony Blair, "palestinian authority" and Hamas [May 16, May 7].

There is good reason to call London Londonistan!
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Coming: More on James Baker, more on Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, peace follies, propaganda. etc.

G8 Helps "Palestinian Authority" Instead of the Really Poor

Peace --the last refuge of the scoundrel [circa 2007]
Eliyahu m'Tsiyon

Just about everybody knows that international humanitarianism represents hypocrisy more often than not. The UN, for instance, founded to bring world peace, so its own charter states, more often than not promotes war, promotes oppressors, dictators, barbarians. So-called "non-governmental organizations" [NGOs] in favor of "human rights" or "peace" more often than not serve the partisan purposes of various powers, if not worse.

Likewise, the G8, the grouping of the eight major industrialized countries, chirp about peace and human rights and ending poverty and all sorts of goody-goody, sickeningly sweet things at their summit meetings from time to time. But the United Kingdom is active and influential within the G8 framework. And that right there should warn us not to take the G8 platitudes at face value. A G8 summit meeting was taking place in Scotland when the 7 July 2005 mass murder bombings took place in London. Tony Blair used the horrendous event to promote his own project of strengthening the anti-Israel "palestinian authority" [see our post of 7 May 2007]. After the bombings, Blair made a surprise proposal to add three [3] billion dollars for the "palestinian authority," to the funds already approved for the environment and the truly poor countries of Africa. The three billion USD$ for the PA would be the "best response to Islamic terrorism." Meanwhile, the whole of Africa was only allocated fifty billion. Compare the per capita contribution to Africa with the per capita allocation to the PA, which may have 1% or 2% of Africa's population. Further, much international funding had already been going to the PA, and in any case the poor in Gaza and Judea-Samaria appear as propsperous next to the truly poor in Africa, India, and various other countries often labelled "third world." Here is the Il Riformista report on this imbalanced funding.

Moreover, the Big Eight announced the sending of an aid packet to the Palestinian National [watani] Authority: three billion dollars to be distributed over the next three years. The news was greeted by various commentators as the announcement of a "Little Palestinian Marshall Plan" and as a signal of opening --joined with firmness against terrorism-- towards the Arab world. It means, besides, a figure anything but meager, even when compared to the fifty African billions, if one considers that the PNA [= palestinian national authority] counts less than 4 million inhabitants [whereas Africa has more than 300 or 400 million].
[Il Riformista, 9 July 2005]

Before the London bombings, the G8 had allocated 50 billion dollars for Africa. Afterwards, Tony Phoney proposed also allocating 3 billion USD$ to the PA. Compare, on a per capita basis much more is being given to the "palestinian authority" [almost a contradiction in terms] than to the truly poor in Africa and elsewhere. In fact, this situation goes back years, back to the beginning of the "palestinian authority."The situation has not changed since 2005. What explains this disparity?

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Coming: More on Jim Baker, Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, peace follies, propaganda, etc.

British Consul in Jerusalem in 1864 Confirms the Jewish Majority

French diplomat Cesar Famin reported a Jewish majority in 1853. His report was repeated by Karl Marx in 1854. Then, Gerardy Santine asserted in 1860 that Jews were "a good half" of the city's population. Next, in 1864, Noel Temple Moore confirmed the Jewish majority in Jerusalem [for Famin, Marx and Santine, search this blog].

Moore is cited by Martin Gilbert, a historian who has written both about the history of the Land of Israel and about the life and political career of Winston Churchill. In fact, Gilbert is the authorized biographer of Churchill. No doubt he had easy access to British Foreign Office records.

By 1864 the resident Jewish population of Jerusalem constituted a majority of the city's inhabitants, according to the British consul in Jerusalem, Noel Temple Moore, who estimated the total population of the City at 15,000: 8,000 Jews; 4,500 Muslim Arabs, and 2,500 Christians and Christian Arabs [or Arabic-speaking Christians]. All 8,000 Jews lived within the Old City, mostly in the Jewish Quarter.
[Martin Gilbert, Jerusalem, Illustrated History Atlas (New York, London, 1977), p 47]

Gilbert reminds us, as does Yehoshua Ben-Arieh in his book Jerusalem in the Nineteenth Century, that Jews were a majority in the Old City in the second half of the 19th century. The last Jewish inhabitants of the Old City were driven out in May 1948. Able-bodied men were jailed by the Jordanians, while women and children were allowed to leave, taking only those possessions that they could carry.

The Arab and pro-Arab propaganda so commonplace in our times conveniently overlooks facts like the Jewish majority in Jerusalem since the mid-nineteenth century.
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Coming: More on Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, peace follies, propaganda, etc.

Jews in Jerusalem in 1860s

Echoing the accounts of mid-19th century Jerusalem by Cesar Famin [paraphrased by Karl Marx] and by Gerardy Santine, the Britisher Andrew Thomson found that Jews were a majority in the city, although the Muslims were the masters.

. . . while the Mohammedans are the masters, the Jews form the decided majority, being, it is likely, not far short of 8000. They come in a constant stream from every part of the world, many of them on pilgrimages, by which they hope to acquire a large fund of merit, and then return again to their native country: the greater number that they may die in the city of their fathers, nd obtain the most cherished wish of their heart by being buried on Mount Olivet, and it is remarkable that they cling with a strange preference to that part of the city which is nearest the site of their ancient Temple, as if they still took pleasure in its stones, and its very dust were dear to them.
[Andrew Thomson, 1869; quoted by Martin Gilbert, Jerusalem: Illustrated History Atlas (Jerusalem: Steimatzky 1977), p 43]

The part of the Jerusalem Old City closest to the Temple Mount is what is today called the Muslim Quarter. In fact, many Jews lived in that quarter in the mid-19th century and more Jews were moving in.
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Coming: more on James Baker, Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, propaganda, peace follies, etc.

Is the United Kingdom Israel's Most Dangerous Enemy???

NOTE UPDATING NEAR THE END OF THIS POST

This post's headline must sound absurd, bizarre --even insane-- to many readers. But if we study the history of British governmental and semi-official actions regarding Jews and Zionism since 1920, then this conclusion becomes likely, although not everyone would be convinced. The first thing to do is to detach the grand flowery words of politicians and "statesmen" from their actual policy. In the American context, George W talks of a "war on terror." However, in fact, he has often favored terrorist movements and their enablers, including their financiers, such as the Saudi royal family who have in turn favored many American officials and ex-officials involved in US Middle Eastern policy with jobs and money and other gifts. Just lately, George's secretary of state, Miss Condi, has submitted demands that Israel remove checkposts in Judea-Samaria, an action which would facilitate terrorist attacks on Jewish Israeli civilians. Is Rice unaware that the various Arab mass murderous terrorist groups are in a very aggressive state of mind now, chomping at the bit for more chances to attack Israel?? Which they themselves frankly admit. Only Miss Condi doesn't seem to hear. So much for the gap between fine words and reprehensible deeds on the part of US diplomacy.

The British are past masters at the art of duplicity, hypocrisy, and playing off one side against the other. They have perfected the gambit of "let's-you-and-him-fight." Meanwhile the British sit on the sidelines and claim to judge others' morality. They are also masters of propaganda and its big sister, psychological warfare. The mainstream media in the USA and in much of Western Europe overlook the real situation, preferring paranoid fantasies of total USA support for Israel or even "Jewish Neo-Con" or "Zionist" control of Western policy. The British "leftist" press organs like the Guardian, the Independent, and the BBC may be the worst. In any event, the Italian newspaper Il Riformista, organ of the Italian Movimento per le Ragioni del Socialismo [close to the Italian Radical Party], is more truthful than most of the English-language press in the UK and USA. See right there, a good reason for Americans to learn foreign languages. Otherwise you will not know what is really going on outside the USA.

Il Riformista, in an article from July 2005, gives us a glimpse of anti-Israel policy planning in the British Foreign Office. Bear in mind that when the July 7, 2005, mass murder bombings took place in London, Blair was hosting a G8 [the eight major industrial countries] meeting at Gleneagles in Scotland. These terrorist attacks allowed Blair to present a surprise at the G8 summit with a helpful sense of urgency. Note what the surprise was:

For Months Blair Has Been Pondering a Surprise Dialogue with Hamas and a Marshall Plan
. . . The surprise was entirely in 3 billion dollars over 3 years designated for the Palestinian Authority, that famous Marshall Plan to stabilize the project for "two peoples-two states" . . .
To tell the truth, for several months . . . the Foreign Office had taken to rethinking the previous absolute No on contacts with Hamas and Hizbullah, considered and treated for all practical purposes as terrorist organizations, in full coordination with the American position and at the request of Israel. But the strengthening of Hamas [in Palestinian Authority local elections] . . . and the participation of Hizbullah in the Lebanese elections at the end of May-mid-June [2005] have necessarily driven British diplomacy to review positions, by embracing greater realism. At the end of 2002, Alastair Crooke [quale nome ben trovato!] , the "brains" of the MI6 at the British consulate in East Jerusalem, initiated a systematic series of contacts with the Hamas leaders more favorable to a full political transition, no longer military, of the movement [that is, Hamas' transformation into a political movement]. This activity over the past year finished by provoking a growing resentment among Israeli authorities, who a couple of times went so far as to issue "warnings" to Crooke and to present confidential protests about him to the British embassy in Tel Aviv. Further, on 19 May, the deputy chief of information at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Gideon Meir, referring to the secret British meetings, saw fit to say that "any contact with Hamas on the part of representatives of foreign governments is considered by the Israeli government as encouragement for striking us with terrorist acts."

Tony Blair had asked Jack Straw before the election for a general review of the British position on the Israelo-Palestinian difficulty, in the light of the upcoming Palestinian elections. And the file was presented to the British premier just a few days before the G8. The first suggestion was precisely the extraordinary allocation adopted yesterday in favor of the PNA [= palestinian national authority], in order to give the British position and the European umbrella a rather larger power than that apparent until now over an issue, the Israelo-Palestinian, [on which the Americans have had the greatest influence]. . . up till now.

After the terrorist attacks in London, Blair, with the support of Berlusconi, had an easy time of convincing the G8 leaders in a few minutes --especially a reluctant George Bush-- that the best response to Islamic terrorism was to add a special chapter totally dedicated to supporting the Palestinian cause to the commitments to Africa and the environment. Moscow was favorable and Bush could not say No, and here [is] the true surprise of a G8 [summit meeting] born and praised as an example of internationalism [for quite other purposes] . . . The Israelis could do nothing officially but energetically request that the aid be vigorously tied to the condition that all the various Palestinian expressions abandon every form of armed struggle and terrorist attacks. But in Jerusalem, the chapter added by surprise was not very pleasant, to tell the truth. But it was also, and indeed specifically for this reason, that Hamas issued a harsh condemnation of the London terrorist attacks. [Il Riformista, 9 July 2005, article signed OFG]

No doubt, it was well worth the 3 billion dollars, to obtain in exchange a condemnation by mass murdering terrorists of acts of terrorist mass murder committed by others. But did all of Britain's pandering to Hamas change the nature of the beast? We won't insult the reader's intelligence by answering the question. But let's consider other implications of the information in this article.

As early as late 2002, Alastair Crooke of the British East Jerusalem consulate had been meeting with Hamas leaders. This was two years before Arafat died and more than three years before Hamas won --or supposedly won-- elections to the palestinian authority legislative council. We know from other sources that Crooke was encouraging talks in Cairo between Hamas and Fatah and Egyptian authorities. All that time, Crooke and his superiors in London were not troubled by the explicit genocidal threats against Jews and Israel in the Hamas charter. From late 2002 till today, the Hamas has not changed its principles, its genocidal goals or its mass murderous methods. The Hamas has stated its position rather frankly over and over. Either the British foreign affairs specialists have a hard time understanding what those goals, principles, and purposes are --as if they had no experts who understood Arabic-- or the British policy planners in the Foreign Office don't really care. Going by the British record of policy towards Jews since the 1939 "White Paper on Palestine," one concludes that the British don't care or perhaps even support the Hamas' hatred of Jews for their own reasons.

It is also noteworthy that the British Foreign Office had great influence over other great powers at the July 2005 G8 summit meeting. Tony Blair even obtained American acquiescence to his supposed emergency allocation for the palestinian authority. At the same time, reasonable people understand that showering money on mass murderous terrorists does not lead them to be peaceful but to intensify their attacks --which have already elicited incentives in the form of the allocations.

UPDATING:
Melanie Phillips reported in her blog entry of 2 May 2007, that:

Last February, Tony Blair suggested that the British government might be prepared to do business with ‘the more sensible elements of Hamas’ in order to restore negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. This was about as rational as suggesting in 1942, say, that one might do business with the more sensible elements of the SS.
. . .
I am told that shortly after making this remark about talking to the ‘more sensible elements of Hamas’, Blair was rudely disabused of such fantasies, not by Israel or America but by two somewhat unexpected sources. The first was Mahmoud Abbas, the front end of the Palestinian pantomime horse. The second was King Abdullah of Jordan. Both told Blair with great force that there were no sensible elements of Hamas, and talking to anyone inside that murderous organisation would be a total disaster because it would merely strengthen it.

Note that Tony Blair's position was more dangerous than that of two Arab leaders --at least in this regard.

Can our conclusion about the UK as an enemy of Israel be justified?

SECOND UPDATING: See this Melanie Phillips column too.

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Coming: More on James Baker, peace follies, propaganda, Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, etc.

Jimmy Carter Stole [Borrowed??] His Book Title from Arab Nationalist Liar

Just last November, Jimmy Carter published his notorious anti-Israel tract, Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid [November 14, 2006]. The book is thin on facts and has been widely deprecated for the falsehoods that it contains. It is interesting that Carter took his title from a book published by notorious Arab propagandist and liar, Marwan Bishara. Among other places, Marwan has written several viciously deceitful op eds for the International Herald Tribune, at least one of them using traditional Judeophobic themes, such as Jews as crucifiers.

Here are the titles of two of Marwan Bishara's books, which may be different versions of the same book:
Palestine/Israel: Peace or Apartheid, Prospects for Resolving the Conflict, published December 7, 2001, in paperback. Since then a slightly different title by Bishara was published on September 13, 2003, Palestine/Israel: Peace or Apartheid: Occupation, Terrorism and the Future, in hardback.

Here is a reader review on Amazon by a reader named S Sassoon, of the second title.

If you happen to be a Palestinian or relate to the media's version of a Palestinian Cause, looking to feed your fervor, this book is definitely for you. If you happen to have a pro-Israel stance and bear an intellectual capacity to distinguish between pseudo scholarly bias and nonsense, this book is also for you (you'll be able to cement your case). BUT, if you are someone with common sense looking for a somewhat truthful or dare I say historic approach to this sensitive material, than save your money and buy another book or take a class in Middle Eastern Affaires. This work is quite weak, tedious, and appears to have been fallen victim to horribly poor translation (there's no indication that this work has been translated, however, it's quite apparent by the outrageous use of language in the book that something's odd). Perhaps my opinion of this book might improve were I to read the Arabic version, should one actually exist, and provided the laughable content was in fact a blundering consequence of the translation.

Maybe it's just coincidental, but both Carter and Bishara have gotten payments from sources in oil rich Arab states. Bishara was a guest at a pseudo-academic conference in Qatar sponsored by the Islamic Free Market Institute Foundation. Indeed, Marwan seems to be associating with Free Market Neo-Cons. Can that be? For more on Marwan, see the previous post. Carter has gotten payoffs over the years --for himself and his Carter Center in Atlanta-- from various ultra-rich Arab sources. For instance, the Bank for Credit and Commerce International [BCCI, now bankrupt due to dishonest management] which was owned by the Shaykh and government of Abu Dhabi, and from the Saudi Bin Ladin Group. For the Bin Ladin Group's payoff, see the annual report of the Carter Center and also my earlier post. So it seems that both Marwan and Jimmy slurp at the same hog trough.

Marwan is the brother of Azmi Bishara, who was sent to Communist East Germany for a university education by the world Communist movement. Azmi later became a member of Israel's parliament [Knesset], where he specialized in Arab nationalist demagoguery, sometimes disguised in a Stalinist-democratic garb. He is now the subject of an investigation for espionage on behalf of Hizbullah, Iran, and Syria. Of course, I do not have access to facts uncovered in the investigation, but some of Bishara's offenses were committed very publicly and blatantly. He traveled to Syria and Lebanon on several occasions, including the funeral of Syrian butcher Hafiz Assad. He praised Assad and the Hizbullah, encouraging the Hizbullah and other Arabs to attack Israel. This is not a secret. Films of his treasonous statements made in Syria and Lebanon were shown on Arab TV and afterwards on Israeli TV. He even traveled to Lebanon during last summer's war between the Hizbullah and Israel. This was obvious and open treason. After Israel's parliament, the Knesset, had removed Bishara's parliamentary immunity several years ago so that he could be prosecuted for his earlier acts of betrayal, the Supreme Court, under the scofflaw, pro-fascist Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Aharon Baraq, declared that his treasonous incitement in Syria was no more than the legitimate use of a Knesset member's duty to represent his constituents, who were Arab nationalists, of course. Now, Azmi has the hutspeh to portray himself as a saint crucified by the Jews, going so far as to equate himself with Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, a Jew persecuted on false charges of espionage more than 100 years ago [see here for LATimes op ed]. But in Bishara's case, much of the treason was done openly. While he identifies himself with Dreyfus, for propaganda purposes in the West, crude Judeophobic propaganda is regularly published and broadcast in the Arab world, such as the blood libel, and Jews in general are defined as traitors by nature. Before we forget, let's recall how Azmi denied the well-documented Arab collaboration in the Holocaust.

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Coming: more on James Baker, peace follies, propaganda, Jews in Hebron and Jerusalem, etc.

Azmi Bishara Stars as a Martyr in the LA Times

A few weeks ago we wrote in a post that Azmi Bishara was on his way to becoming a world class martyr, indeed, he is already being portrayed as the victim of a Jewish crucifixion. His lies about his innocence have now been picked up by the Los Angeles Times [see here]. The LAT thereby enlarges its place as a world class Judeophobic, pro-Nazi rag. Bishara was spying for the Hizbullah, which made clearly Nazi-like statements in the past, besides being the prote'ge' of both Syria and Iran, which both make Nazi-like propaganda, while Iran declares its intention to destroy Israel.

As a sample of Hizbullah pro-Nazi utterances, back in 1987, when elections took place in France, the results were not to the liking of Hizbullah officials and publications. As the French daily Le Figaro reported, one Lebanese Hizbullah paper blamed the results on the Jewish vote in France. The Hizbullah paper wrote: "The Jewish microbe is everywhere" [Le microbe juif est partout]. This statement equates Jews with microbes. It is a clearly Nazi-like utterance. Unfortunately, it was not given the attention it deserved in the world press. Now, this kind of paralleling of the Nazis makes the Hizbullah's description of itself as a Resistance movement --seconded by its many Nazi-sympathizing admirers worldwide [especially "Leftists"]-- especially absurd.

There has been a propagandistic attempt to identify Hizbullah with the World War 2 era Resistance movements. However, whereas those movements were anti-Nazi, the Hizbullah is itself Nazi-like in many ways. Some Hizbullah sympathizers asserted that it was all Israel's fault for occupying Lebanon or part of it. Not only did these sympathizers overlook the Syrian occupation of most of Lebanon, of much more Lebanese territory than Israel was occupying, but that Hizbullah was an agent and/or ally of the Syrian occupation, of an occupation by a state that made pro-Nazi propaganda, as well as an agent of Iran that did the same. Furthermore, somehow these sympathizers forgot that Germany, Austria, and Japan were occupied countries after World War 2, and rightly so. The Communist ["leftist"] Soviet Union occupied parts of Germany, Austria and Japan, the aggressor states of WW2, as did the United States. France and Britain only occupied parts of Germany and Austria. Would a German "resistance" movement against the Allied occupation have been justified??? The Left of that time called for suppressing any German resistance as Nazi. By the way, Russia, heir of the USSR, still occupies parts of Japan which it has annexed [northern Sakhalin Island and the Kurile Islands].

Now, Azmi Bishara gave military information to the Hizbullah Nazis to use against Israel, including target selection and rocket aiming advice, during last summer's war. But he shamefully lies in the LATimes article, denying everything. That the LATimes rejects Israel's assertions and accepts an Arab's lies is a sign of the LA Times' deep Judeophobia. In other words, the LAT says that the Arab should be believed, whereas the Jews lie.

Nevertheless, Azmi gives some info in the LAT article that can be used against his side.

I am. . . a citizen of Israel and was, until last month, a member of the Israeli parliament.

This statement is true. In fact, it flatly contradicts the lies of an Arab American citizen, one Michael Tarazi, who was [and probably still is] a PLO spokesman despite being a US citizen. Interviewed on an international TV news network, CNN or BBC, a few years ago, Tarazi said that as a Christian Arab, he could not be an Israeli citizen nor be elected to the parliament [Knesset]. This was a gross lie. Arab citizens of Israel --now numbering over one million-- have had the right to vote and sit in the Knesset since the first parliamentary election in 1949. There are Arab members in the Labor and Likud and Qadimah parties. There are also parties that openly claim to represent Arab national interests in Israel's Knesset. Whether such parties should be allowed to sit in the Knesset is another matter, but they are there. The Israel Communist Party was mostly Arab in membership and Azmi grew up in the party, which sent him to Communist East Germany where he studied German philosophy, that is, the Judeophobic philosophy of Kant, Hegel and others. Marwan Bishara, Azmi's brother, now holds a position at an international affairs institute in Paris, which I assume is funded by the French government. Marwan is a big supporter of his big brother. Marwan used to often appear on French TV several years ago, at the beginning of the mass murder war called the Oslo War or --by Arabs and their sympathizers-- the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Needless to add, but we do it for the record, Marwan too is a very big liar and that is what he was doing in his many appearances on French TV back in late 2000 and in 2001 and 2002. Both of them, like other PLO spokespersons, Hanan Ashrawi, Leila Shahid, Sa'ib Erikat, Michael Tarazi, are very big, very shameless liars.

In the early years of the now ongoing war [year 2000 on], various French TV outlets gave Marwan and Leila Shahid a platform for their lies. Now, the LA Times gives Azmi a platform for his lies. Does this indicate that Arab lies are a convenient pretext and cover for Western Judeophobia?

UPDATING: More on Marwan Bishara. A google search turns up various institutional connections: In the year 2000 he was at Le Centre Indisciplinarie de Recherches sur la Paix in Paris. He may still be there. However, more recently he turns up as a teacher of international relations at the American University of Paris. Then, he is or was also at Ecoles Des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. He also speaks at conferences at Doha in Qatar before the Islamic Free Market Institute Foundation, no doubt collecting generous fees from the extremely democratic and tolerant shaykhs.

LATE UPDATING: French commentator, Michel Gurfinkiel, editor of Valeurs Actuelles, has supplied a summary of Bishara's career here in French.

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Coming: more on James Baker & US Middle East policy, Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, peace follies, propaganda, etc.

Arab Conquests Finished Off the Ancient East, according to the Louvre

Link added 1-14-2010

The famous Louvre Museum in Paris admits that the Arab Conquests, the coming of Islam, represent a discontinuity --a breach, a sharp turning point-- in the history of Oriental civilization. In fact, the Arab Conquests finished off, wrecked, in plain English, the ancient East. Here is how the Department of Oriental Antiquities of the Louvre describes itself in its galleries[first English, then French original].

Collections of the Louvre - Department of Oriental Antiquities
"The Department of Oriental Antiquities is devoted to the ancient civilizations of the countries of the Near and Middle East, from the birth of villages more than 10,000 years ago until the arrival of Islam. Starting with the IIIrd Millenium, the same written culture, the cuneiform, was spread throughout the ancient East, including Egypt."

Collections du Louvre - Antiquités Orientales
“Le département des Antiquités orientales est consacré aux civilisations anciennes des Pays du Proche et Moyen-Orient, depuis la naissance des villages il y a plus de 10.000 ans jusqu’à l’arrivée de l’Islam. A partir du IIIe millénaire, une même culture écrite, celle du cunéiforme, est répandue dans l’ensemble de l’Orient ancien, y compris l’Egypte.”

Now some might want to soften the picture by saying that the arrival of Islam was a new departure. Indeed, the Louvre's Department of Oriental Antiquities itself softens the picture by saying "the arrival of Islam." Maybe it merely arrived, just like a letter in the mail. In fact, it was a brutal conquest which wrecked the Ancient East, putting an end to ancient Oriental civilization in the cradle of its birth. Nevertheless, despite the Louvre's use of a euphemism announcing "the arrival of Islam," it recognizes that the East has never been the same since the Arab-Islamic conquest, which submerged the pre-existing cultures, peoples, religions, and languages of the ancient East, wrecking whole civilizations. Edward Sa`id, arch-propagandist that he was, could not recognize this truth, or did not want to recognize it.

For contemporary views of the Arab Conquest, see the two preceding posts on this blog. For Spanish readers, the post of 4-26-2007 includes the Spanish version of an important passage from a contemporary account [in Syriac] of the Arab Conquest of Israel and other Middle Eastern countries, along with two English versions of the same passage.
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Here is the Louvre's official Spanish-language version of the text quoted above in English & French:

El departamento de Antiguedades orientales esta dedicado a las civilizaciones de los paises de Oriente Medio y Proximo, desde el nacimiento de las aldeas hace mas de 10.000 anos hasta el advenimiento del Islam. A partir del III milenio, una misma cultura escrita, de caracteres cuneiformes, se expande por todo el Antiguo Oriente, incluido Egipto.

UPDATING- 18 June 2008
Here's an example of what is said above. A wonderful lighthouse was built at Alexandria in Egypt during the period of rule of the Ptolemies, a Macedonian dynasty descended from one of Alexander's generals, called Lagos.
Here is a partial description of the lighthouse and an admission by an Egyptian archeologist that it was wrecked at the time of the Arab conquests. The quote is taken from here.

The lighthouse used to have a huge mirror, which according to myth, reflected the whole of the city. The mirror and the brazier at the top created the large[st] amount of light ever produced by a lighthouse. As such the lighthouse of Alexandria influenced man's initial thinking about the uses of lenses. According to Dr. Hawass the lighthouse remained functioning until the Arab conquest in 641 AD.

An admission by the foremost archeologist in Arab Egypt. Some attempts to partly restore the lighthose were relatively briefly successful.
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Link Added 1-14-2010 John J O'Neill concurs with me that the Arab/Muslim conquests finished off classical civilization. Whereas I focus on civilizations in the Middle East [the Orient in Roman geographical terminology], O'Neill looks from the point of view of Europe [here & here]
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Coming: More on James Baker, Jews in Jerusalem & Hebron, peace follies, propaganda, etc.