Het verschil tussen Amerikaanse en Israëlische rapporten over Irans atoomprogramma

Waarom verschillen de Amerikaanse en de Israëlische inlichtingendiensten van mening over Irans atoomprogramma? Overigens maakt dit wel duidelijk dat de VS niet door de Zionistische lobby wordt beheerst, zoals een toenmend aantal mensen schijnt te geloven.

 

Both countries are also influenced by different political agendas. The Americans, for example, are still traumatized by the blatant intelligence failure vis-à-vis Iraq's alleged WMD and, therefore, does not want to be caught crying wolf again. Israel, on the other hand, is traumatized by its failure to learn of Libya's nuclear program before it was abandoned in a deal Col. Muammar Gaddafi struck with the US and UK.

 

Het probleem is dat dezelfde gegevens soms tot tegengestelde conclusies kunnen leiden, afhankelijk van de interpretatie.

 

 

Ratna

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Analysis: Why does US and Israeli intel differ?
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 4, 2007
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1195546805590&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

All it took was eight pages, and the entire international front against Iran has undergone a revolution.

The US intelligence report released Monday with the claim that Iran froze its nuclear military track four years ago has Israel concerned that the United States is weakening its strong stance against Iran that had President George W. Bush warning that World War III would break out if the ayatollahs got their hands on a bomb.

What the report makes even clearer are the major differences between the various intelligence agencies in Israel and the United States.

The Mossad claims that the Iranians will be able to develop a nuclear bomb by the end of 2009; Military Intelligence warns that Teheran will cross the technological threshold within six months; and now the Americans are putting the timeline toward the middle of the next decade, or 2013 at the earliest.

Defense officials in Tel Aviv admitted Tuesday that the report would probably embolden Iran, even though the differences between Israel and the US were not so great as a superficial reading of the report might indicate.

The core of the disagreement is over the question of whether Iran abandoned its military nuclear program. While the American report claims they froze the program in 2003, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday it was highly probable that it was restarted shortly thereafter.

Putting this disagreement aside, however, both countries are on the same page regarding the possibility that Iran's civilian nuclear program could be used to manufacture bombs when it is completed. Here, the date is the only difference.

But the basic question remains: What is the true timeline? Here, as with anything from the world of intelligence, there is no clear answer. While there is high-level cooperation between the US and Israel on Iran, each intelligence agency has its own sources and its own modus operandi.

Both countries are also influenced by different political agendas. The Americans, for example, are still traumatized by the blatant intelligence failure vis-à-vis Iraq's alleged WMD and, therefore, does not want to be caught crying wolf again. Israel, on the other hand, is traumatized by its failure to learn of Libya's
nuclear program before it was abandoned in a deal Col. Muammar Gaddafi struck with the US and UK.

As a result of these traumas, both countries interpret the situation a little differently. Israel takes the more stringent track. As one defense official put it on Tuesday, "It is better to be safe than sorry." However, in America, where there is an already-growing anti-war sentiment, the report is meant to send a message that the military option is, at least for now, off the table.

One official involved in high-level discussions about Iran raised a hypothesis on Tuesday that the release of the report on Monday was actually timed with an announcement made on Sunday that America had succeeded in getting the Chinese to agree to a new round of sanctions. By taking the military option off the table, the official suggested, the US might succeed in getting China and Russia on board for sanctions.

Amerikaans rapport over de atoomplannen van Iran zorgt vooral voor verwarring

Amir Oren van Haaretz en Ami Isseroff van Israel News becommentariëren hieronder het rapport van de Amerikaanse veiligheidsdiensten over de nucleaire ontwikkelingen in Iran.

 

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Iran nuclear intelligence mess

http://zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2007/12/iran-nuclear-intelligence-mess.html

 

The USA National Intelligence Estimate on Iran is truly a masterpiece of doubletalk. About 70% of it is devoted to explaining what the US intelligence service is and explaining the difference between "high probability" and "very likely" and other such terms.

 

There are two "bottom lines" to the document, only one of which is given below.

 

1- The US estimates that Iran probably could not build a nuclear weapon for another 5 to 10 years, as outlined below.

 

2- The US believes that though Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapons program until 2003, it stopped doing so at the time and has never resumed the program. This is the important news, which is not really discussed below.

 

What it might or might not mean is anyone's guess. The document itself is essentially bumph, but it is based on thousands of bits of intelligence intercepts, including a conversation in which an Iranian officer complains that work as stopped on the nuclear program.

 

The intelligence estimate, like all such estimates, is characterized by totally opaque prose. For example:

 

Judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program. Judge with high confidence that the halt lasted at least several years. (DOE and the NIC have moderate confidence that the halt to those activities represents a halt to Iran's entire nuclear weapons program.)

What could be the difference between "halted its nuclear weapons program" and halt to Iran's entire nuclear weapons program??" Is the halt ongoing or not? Maybe:

 

Judge with high confidence that the halt lasted at least several years.

And what if the intelligence intercepts were plants?

 

Why then, was the document released now, of all times, when the US is trying to corral support for sanctions against Iran? Is it because the CIA disagrees with the administration and wants to embarrass it? Is that a way to run a government?

 

 

Ami Isseroff

 

Source document: National Intelligence Estimate on Iran

 

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Last update - 16:32 04/12/2007    

 

ANALYSIS: Iran laughing at U.S. lack of nuclear intelligence 
By Amir Oren, Haaretz Correspondent 

 

The noise that was heard last night in Tehran, according to credible reports, was a hearty Persian laugh after looking at the U.S. intelligence service's website. The unclassified document that Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Mike McConnell published, titled "Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities," as a laundered version that faithfully represents the greatest secrets collected by the CIA and the other U.S. intelligence services, can appropriately be called "much evaluation on no intelligence."

 

The document's eight pages, which include embarrassing instructions on how to differentiate between different yet related terms ("it is possible," "it may be so," "one must not remove from the equation," and "it's reasonable to assume"), enable the Ayatollas' nuclear and operations officials and the heads of the Revolutionary Guards to reach this soothing conclusion - from their point of view: The Americans have no understanding of what is really happening in Iran's nuclear program. They have no solid information, they have no high-level agents and they have nothing more than a mix of guesswork and chatter. The dissemblance and concealment have succeeded, and the real dispute is not between Washington and Tehran, but within the U.S. administration itself.

 

Only five weeks ago, McConnell announced that as a rule, he doesn't believe in the release of such documents. He regretted the publication of the principles of the intelligence evaluation on Iraq.

 

McConnel kept quiet on Monday. Donald Kerr, his deputy, was enlisted to explain why the Iran assessment followed in Iraq's footsteps. The essence of his explanation: The worst-case evaluation which has been repeatedly published since 2005 has changed, and it is important to clarify its "proper presentation." He means to say that if the politicians, President George W. Bush and Deputy President Richard Cheney, insist on leading their country into a war with Iran, this is their democratic right - on the assumption they receive Congressional support - but they shouldn't delude themselves that they can do this on the back of the CIA's investigative officers. Iraq won't repeat itself.

 

On one level, this is a philosophical debate: How should the lack of "indicative signs" be interpreted, in the face of a devious enemy, a certified cheat who is determined in his pursuit of the goal (also according to the intelligence assessors). The suspicious Bush and Cheney believe the absence of evidence is in fact evidence of the existence of an additional, hidden channel of nuclear development. Their intelligence services say that without proof there is no place for such an evaluation.

 

Responsibility is different for each rank. Intelligence is responsible for making assessments on facts collected, and the diplomats are responsible for preventing a failure at the two extremes: Not in making an over-estimation such as with Iraq (a result of former President Saddam Hussein's deception) and not in making an under-assessment such as with Al-Qaida before September 11, 2001. It is possible to say, using an Israeli parallel, like July 11, 2006, when the Israel Defense Forces Military Intelligence did not know - or did not understand what it had heard - that Hezbollah would execute a kidnapping operation on the following day.

 

On a second level, the debate is a professional one: How does one evaluate developments in the nuclear field, when there are no actual objects which can be felt (missiles or bombs, for example), and before tests have been conducted. It is possible to weigh from a distance the kilograms of uranium which have been made in centrifuges, and to count how much of them have been hidden or enriched; but the great mystery is the degree of success achieved by the "weapons group," the teams of experts attempting to make the material explosive.

 

Behind the heap of words, presented as "a low or medium level of certainty," the differences between the worst-case and the best-case views on when Iran will be capable of producing a nuclear weapon are not that great. These range from somewhere between 2009 and the following five years, starting in 2010. Even McConnell's intelligence officers agree that Iran can buy nukes off the shelf - from Syria, North Korea and maybe Pakistan - and that the renewal of the program, if it is indeed on a coffee break, depends only on the intentions of the rulers, and those intentions will change only when the rulers are replaced.

 

The CIA is so angry with Bush, it seems, that it is ready to go to great lengths in order to help another president. Not Ahmadinejad, God forbid, but the next president in Washington. The result is likely to be the opposite: Higher Iranian militancy along with Bush and Cheney's determination to act - regardless of what the intelligence agencies say.

 

 

Source of this Israel News article

 

Meeste Israëli's buiten afscheidingsbarriere niet bereid te vertrekken tegen compensatie

Dit is slecht nieuws, want het betekent dat al deze mensen tegen hun wil zullen moeten vertrekken, en de kans is groot dat een deel daartegen in actie zal komen. Voor een onpopulaire leider als Olmert is dat wellicht reden dit moment nog een tijdje vooruit te willen schuiven.

 

Van de andere kant zou op dit moment de Palestijnse Autoriteit absoluut niet in staat zijn de controle over de Westelijke Jordaanoever over te nemen, en is de kans groot dat Hamas er de macht zou grijpen na een Israëlische terugtrekking.

 

Lekker achterover leunen dus? Als Olmert en de andere ministers zich niet alleen bekommeren om hun eigen positie maar ook om de toekomst van het land, dan bereiden zij de bevolking voor op wat onvermijdelijk komen gaat, en laten ze zien dat het de regering ernst is door alvast alle buitenposten te ontruimen.  

 

 

Ratna

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Poll of Israelis beyond separation fence: 78% not willing to leave for "fair compensation"

Dr. Aaron Lerner     Date: 7 December 2006

Telephone poll of a representative sample of 400 adult Israelis residing in communities that are on the eastern side of the separation fence by Teleseker for Maariv the week of 7 December 2007. Statistical error +/- 4.9 percentage points.

In principle, would you be willing to be evacuated from your home in return for fair compensation?
Yes 18% No 78%  Don't know 4%
Religious: Yes 8% No 89%
Traditional/Secular: Yes 42% No 53%

Would you be willing to be evacuated from your home and move to live on the western side of the separation fence?
Yes 11% No 84% Don't know 5%

For compensation of 150% of the value of your home?
Yes 14% No 81% Don't know 5%

For compensation of 200% of the value of your home?
Yes 17% No 76% Don't know 7%

Maariv  7 December 2007

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Website: http://www.imra.org.il

Hamas verbetert arsenaal Qassam raketten

Hamas verbetert zowel het bereik van zijn raketten als de mogelijkheid ze voor langere tijd op te slaan. Dit laatste maakt het mogelijk om in korte tijd honderden of duizenden raketten af te schieten. Tot nu toe was Hamas gedwongen om raketten altijd direct af te schieten na fabricage of, wanneer dat politiek niet zo goed uitkwam, ze te overhandigen aan de Islamitische Jihad of andere terroristische organisaties.

 

The improvement in rocket-storage capability followed the entrance into Gaza in recent months of Palestinian terror experts, mostly via the Rafah crossing from Egypt. These experts, members of Islamic organizations, trained with Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon and Iran.

 

 

Dit is één van de redenen dat Israël de grenzen gesloten houdt voor personen en een aantal goederen. Overigens worden bij de productie van Qassam raketten onder andere metaal, suiker en meel gebruikt, en is water en electriciteit nodig. Roep dus niet meteen 'collectief straffen' als er daarvan een tekort is in Gaza. Is het niet misdadig dat ondanks de tekorten deze 'grondstoffen' voor de fabrikage van raketten worden gebruikt?  

 

 

Ratna

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Defense officials concerned as Hamas upgrades Qassam arsenal
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent Last update - 07:38 07/12/2007
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/932106.html

Hamas has recently upgraded its Qassam rocket capability in the Gaza Strip, raising grave concern in the Israeli defense establishment.

Senior defense officials say that Hamas is now able to store the rockets for a relatively long period, which would allow the organization to launch a large number of Qassams at one time.

Over the past year, the IDF and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) have said that two developments could prompt a major Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip. One was an improvement in the range of the Qassam rockets, which would place Ashkelon within range. The other was an ability to store the rockets for a longer period of time. It seems that Hamas has already achieved the latter, and is close to achieving the other.

Until recently, Hamas had difficulty in storing the rockets. The Qassam is a relatively primitive device, assembled on improvised production lines in the Strip. The explosive charge installed on the rockets is volatile and might explode if kept for more than a few weeks. This is one of the reasons behind Hamas' haste to launch most of its rockets as soon as it gets them.

When firing rockets is politically inconvenient, Hamas hands them over to smaller organizations such as the Islamic Jihad, various Fatah factions and the Popular Resistance Committees to launch them in its place.

In previous periods of escalation between Israel and Hamas, such as last year's Independence Day, Hamas fired almost 300 rockets in a few days before running out of supplies.

The defense establishment is now concerned that Hamas may accumulate several hundred or even thousands of rockets, building up a large arsenal. Under this scenario, Hamas would be able to fire hundreds of rockets a day at Sderot for several days, prompting Israel to take extreme measures.

The Second Lebanon War showed that the Air Force is incapable of overcoming short-range rockets launched from a small area, not to mention a densely built area like Gaza. In the absence of an aerial solution, the IDF may have to mount a ground operation that would lead to heavy casualties on both sides.

The improvement in rocket-storage capability followed the entrance into Gaza in recent months of Palestinian terror experts, mostly via the Rafah crossing from Egypt. These experts, members of Islamic organizations, trained with Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon and Iran.

Alongside the ability to store rockets for longer periods, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, with Iran's help, are expected to increase the Qassam rockets' 15-kilometer range, which would place Ashkelon and dozens of small communities in the northern and western Negev within rocket range.

Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai met Thursday with mayors and regional council heads from Ashkelon, Sderot, Netivot and the communities bordering on the Gaza Strip. He advised them to prepare their communities for an escalation in the area, including increased rocket fire.

 

PA verbluft over Egyptisch-Saoedische deal met Hamas over haj pelgrims

Terwijl de door Abbas gecontroleerde Palestijnse Autoriteit met Israël was overeengekomen dat 2000 Palestijnen uit Gaza via Israël naar Saoedi-Arabië konden reizen, om daar aan de jaarlijkse haj pelgrimage in Mekka deel te nemen, hadden Egypte en Saoedi-Arabië een deal met Hamas gesloten:

 

"The Egyptians stabbed us in the back," a senior PA official said. It turned out that the move had been coordinated with the Hamas government and Saudi Arabia. The Saudi embassy in Cairo swiftly processed the Gaza pilgrims' visa applications sent by the Hamas government, while the Saudi embassy in Amman held up all the visa applications sent by the PA, even those of West Bank pilgrims.

 

Waarom heeft Saoedi-Arabië niet beide groepen Palestijnen een visum gegeven? Dan hadden 4000 Palestijnen naar Mekka kunnen reizen. Terecht menen PA funtionarissen dat hier een politieke motivatie achter zit: Egypte en Saoedi-Arabië zijn voorstander van een verzoening tussen Fatah en Hamas, en hebben even duidelijk laten voelen dat wat hun betreft Hamas evenzeer een legitieme vertegenwoordiger van de Palestijnen is. Hoe dit zich verhoudt tot hun positie als 'gematigde' staten en bondgenoot van de VS, is een goeie vraag.

 

 

Ratna

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PA miffed at Egyptian-Saudi deal with Hamas over hajj pilgrims

By Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondent Last update - 05:12 07/12/2007
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/932107.html

The news from the Rafah border crossing earlier this week astounded the leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah. They had arranged with Israel to allow some 2,000 Palestinians from Gaza to go to Saudi Arabia via the Kerem Shalom and Allenby Bridge border crossings for the hajj celebrations.

But Cairo apparently had different plans. The Egyptians allowed 700 Palestinians on Monday and 1,300 on Tuesday to cross the border into Sinai, where buses were waiting to take them to Saudi Arabia.

"The Egyptians stabbed us in the back," a senior PA official said. It turned out that the move had been coordinated with the Hamas government and Saudi Arabia. The Saudi embassy in Cairo swiftly processed the Gaza pilgrims' visa applications sent by the Hamas government, while the Saudi embassy in Amman held up all the visa applications sent by the PA, even those of West Bank pilgrims.

The PA, which had invested huge efforts in organizing the pilgrims' trip to Saudi Arabia in a bid to improve President Mahmoud Abbas' status in the Gaza Strip, was enraged by Egypt and Saudi Arabia's conduct. The PA official in charge of civil coordination, Hussein al-Sheikh, had told the people in Gaza that the visas Hamas would issue for traveling to Saudi Arabia would be invalid. PA officials managed to reach an agreement with the Israeli authorities on taking some 2,000 people out of Gaza and transferring them through Israel - an unprecedented understanding in Hamas-era Gaza.

Ismail Haniyeh's government, however, had assured Gaza Strip residents all along that the pilgrims would leave via the Rafah crossing in coordination with Egypt. In other words, this was a planned move.

PA officials have difficulty understanding why Egypt and Saudi Arabia acted against Abbas' interests in this way. Only a week earlier Abbas met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Now they assume that Cairo and Riyadh wanted to protest Abbas' persistent refusal to resume the dialogue with Hamas. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have recently given Abbas hints that he should resume the talks, but a senior Palestinian official said that "all told it's a continuation of the Egyptian game and the dual policy regarding Hamas."

Indeed, it seems that despite Egypt's repeated assertions of its uncompromising war on Hamas and Gaza terror organizations, Cairo and especially Egyptian intelligence officials prefer to keep normal relations with Hamas, even at Abbas' expense.

Bush in januari voor het eerst op staatsbezoek in Israël

Het werd tijd dat Bush officieel Israël bezoekt, want hij is er in zijn 7 jaar als president van de VS nog nooit geweest.

 

Het lijkt erop dat hij nu serieus wil zoeken naar een oplossing van het Midden-Oosten conflict, om als hij volgend jaar moet aftreden toch nog één succesje op zijn CV te kunnen schrijven. Als hij daarin daadwerkelijk zou slagen, zou dat één van de grootste na-oorlogse Amerikaanse successen op buitenlands gebied zijn. Niemand durft dan ook optimistisch te zijn dat iemand als George Blunder Bush dat voor elkaar kan krijgen...

 

 

Wouter

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Bush to make 1st official visit to Israel in January
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service

Last update - 22:07 04/12/2007
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/931129.html

United States President George W. Bush will make an official visit to Israel in January, Haaretz learned on Tuesday.

During his visit, Bush is expected to focus on promoting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the framework of agreements reached at last week's Mideast peace conference, held in Annapolis, Maryland.

This visit will be Bush's first visit to Israel since he took office seven years ago. Bush visited Israel in 1998 when he was governor of Texas. In contrast, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Israel three times in the six week period leading up to the Annapolis peace summit.

It is still unclear whether Bush will be visiting neighboring countries while in the region.

Bush's visit will come approximately one month after the Annapolis conference. Last week, Bush was criticized by American columnists for not having visited Israel. With this visit, Bush hopes to demonstrate his commitment to the peace process relaunched in Annapolis.

Bush is also expected to discuss with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert the issue of Iran's nuclear program, and steps to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.

Last week, Haaretz reported that Bush had been invited to take part in Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations in 2008.

Officials at the Prime Minister's Office reported that Bush's visit has not yet been confirmed, but it will likely take place in January, and will likely include a tour of Gulf States as well.

Toespraak Benjamin Netanyahu in de Knesset over 29 november 1947

Een heldere en krachtige speech van Netanyahu in de Knesset op de speciale 29 november zitting, helaas een stuk mooier dan zijn daden als minister van financien, toen hij zware bezuinigeingen in het leger doorvoerde, die mede het slechte verloop van de Libanon oorlog veroorzaakten.

 

Het volgende is wishful thinking:

 

 

That is why I was shocked to hear in the press that the prime minister said: "If there will not be two states, Israel is finished."

Mr. Prime Minister:  The State of Israel will never be finished!  Our fate will be determined by us, and us alone!

Our existence does not depend on the willingness of the Palestinians to make peace with us. Our existence is secured by our right to live in this land and our capacity to defend that right.

We built up our country for 31 years before the peace agreement with Egypt, we continued to build it for another 16 years before the peace agreement with Jordan, and I hope we will not wait long before we can achieve a peace agreement with the Palestinians and with others in the Arab world.

But we do not condition our existence on their agreement. That was the policy of all Israeli governments until now, and it must be the policy of all Israeli governments in the future. Let me repeat: Our fate will be determined by us and us alone!

 

Olmert had natuurlijk gelijk, al is het de vraag of het verstandig was dit zo te verwoorden: Israël is afhankelijk van de VS, en de VS heeft meer belangen dan een sterk en veilig Israël. Geen enkel land kan zonder strategische bondgenootschappen, en Israël is vanwege haar kwetsbare positie zeer afhankelijk van Westerse steun en erkenning. Israël kan uiteraard niet haar bestaan afhankelijk maken van Arabische goedkeuring, maar zal continu duidelijk moeten maken dat het bereid is tot pijnlijke compromissen, en dat het er alles aan doet om tot vrede te komen.  

 

Netanyahu was - evenals Sharon - fel gekant tegen de concessies die Israël onder het Oslo proces moest doen, en evenals later Sharon won hij de verkiezingen dankzij een golf van Palestijnse aanslagen, die hij als reden aanvoerde om de Oslo afspraken niet uit te voeren. Netanyahu wist het Palestijnse geweld sterk terug te dringen, maar het vredesproces kwam bijna tot stilstand. Hij tekende alleen onder zware Amerikaanse druk de Wye akkoorden met de Palestijnen, die door beide kanten nauwelijks werden uitgevoerd, en hij deed niets om de groei van de nederzettingen te stoppen. Dat was weliswaar geen vereiste van Oslo, maar het ondermijnde wel het vertrouwen van de Palestijnen in het vredesproces. Het vastlopen van het vredesproces is dan ook zeker mede aan hem te wijten.

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Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu's Knesset Speech - Commemorating November 29

The UN resolution of November 29, 1947 recognizing a Jewish state was an important moment in the history of our nation, and an important moment in the history of all nations.

Since then, we have made peace with Egypt and Jordan, but the obstacle to widening the circle of peace remains what it has always been: the refusal of Israel's enemies to recognize the Jewish State in any borders.

Our enemies do not want an Arab state next to Israel. They want an Arab state instead of Israel.

Time and again they were offered an Arab state next to Israel: first, in the partition plan of 1947; then, indirectly, in the Oslo accords; later, unequivocally, at Camp David in 2000; and finally, in the countless declarations since then by both Israeli and international leaders which have called for two states for two peoples.

And how did our enemies respond to these offers? Time and again they violently rejected them. In 1947, they launched terror attacks and then an all out war to annihilate the Jewish state. During the Oslo peace process, they terrorized Israel with suicide bombers; after Camp David, they orchestrated the Second Intifadah in which over 1,000 Israelis were murdered; since then they have fired thousands of Katushya rockets on the Galilee and thousands of Kassam rockets on the Western Negev in order, they say, "to liberate occupied Palestine" - in other words, "occupied" Haifa, "occupied" Acre, "occupied" Sderot and "occupied" Ashkelon.

In doing so, Hezbollah and Hamas are merely following the words of Jamal Husseini, a cousin of the Mufti and a member of the Arab High Committee, who said four days before the UN partition vote: "Palestine will be filled with blood and fire if the Jews receive even a part of it."

Regrettably, even the more moderate Palestinians refuse to support making peace with Israel as a Jewish state. They support two states for one people: A Palestinian state cleansed of Jews, and a bi-national state that they hope to flood with Palestinians according to what they call the "right of return."

Until they truly recognize and internalize the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own and until their leaders show the courage of President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan, it is doubtful that we will have a real partner for a genuine peace.

In this context, we can understand what happened - and what didn't happen - with the adoption of the UN partition resolution in 1947.

The resolution did not fix for all time the contours of a final settlement between us and our neighbors. After all, the Arabs rejected the establishment of a Jewish state and sought to destroy it. The day after the vote the Mufti himself said, "what the UN wrote in black ink, we will write in red blood."

Arab leaders cannot come today, 60 years later, and demand to turn back the clock as if nothing happened. They cannot demand that we accept an agreement that they themselves tore to shreds because, having failed to destroy Israel, they have now concluded that its provisions would spell Israel's doom.

Ben Gurion understood this well when he said in one of the first meetings of the government of Israel: "The decisions of November 29 are dead. The borders of partition are dead.  Jerusalem as an 'international city' is a mere fantasy."  He repeated these ideas in his speech to the Knesset on December 12th, 1949 when he said that the UN decision was null and void.

Thus, neither the borders of partition nor the internationalization of Jerusalem are the enduring features of the UN vote.

What is enduring is the international recognition of the right of the Jewish people to their own state, a right anchored in the Balfour Declaration which recognized the right of the Jews to a national home in the Land of Israel and which was reaffirmed by both the San Remo conference in 1920 and by the League of Nations in 1922.

But the UN partition vote is seared in our memory because immediately following the vote Britain began to leave the country, opening the way to the fateful battle that almost snuffed out our existence.

The UN partition vote did not establish the state of Israel. It merely recognized the historic right of the Jewish people to return to their homeland and restore their sovereign existence.

But had it not been for the millennial longing of the Jewish people for the land of Israel, the continuous presence of Jews here across the centuries and the seventy years of intensive Jewish settlement in the land that preceded the UN vote, this historic right would never have been realized.

And even these would not have sufficed had not the sons of a tiny nation, in the wake of the horrific Holocaust, raised the sword of the Macabees and with incomparable heroism repelled an Arab onslaught that was about to overwhelm the fledgling state.

The enduring belief in our historic national rights, the settlement effort that realized those rights and the military struggle that defended them- these are what established the Jewish state.

The UN vote merely gave international recognition to this. Yet the UN vote was an important and historic decision, and it is right that we commemorate that vote today with the distinguished ambassadors of the nations that supported it.

But consider this: What would have happened to the UN decision if we would have been defeated in the War of Independence?

The key to Israel's existence has always been rooted in strengthening Zionism and our ability to defend ourselves - and this remains the key to our existence and the key to forging a genuine peace with all our Arab neighbors. Only when some of them recognized Israel's permanence and indestructibility did they reconcile themselves to making peace with us.

That is why I was shocked to hear in the press that the prime minister said: "If there will not be two states, Israel is finished."

Mr. Prime Minister:  The State of Israel will never be finished!  Our fate will be determined by us, and us alone!

Our existence does not depend on the willingness of the Palestinians to make peace with us.   Our existence is secured by our right to live in this land and our capacity to defend that right.

We built up our country for 31 years before the peace agreement with Egypt, we continued to build it for another 16 years before the peace agreement with Jordan, and I hope we will not wait long before we can achieve a peace agreement with the Palestinians and with others in the Arab world.

But we do not condition our existence on their agreement. That was the policy of all Israeli governments until now, and it must be the policy of all Israeli governments in the future. Let me repeat: Our fate will be determined by us and us alone!

In the Middle East, peace and security go hand-in-hand. In fact security, which stems from Israel's strength, precedes peace and peace agreements.
Whoever does not understand this will be left without security and without peace.

Only a strong Israel, confident in the justice of its cause and led by a strong leadership, will be able to achieve the lasting peace with our neighbors for which we all yearn.

--
Ari Harow
Senior Advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu
011-972-3-621-0888
www.netanyahu.org.il

Speciale zitting Knesset over delingsplan 1947 geboycot door Arabische Knessetleden

De herdenking van 60 jaar VN delingsplan voor het mandaatgebied vormde voor de Israëlische politici een aanleiding om te evalueren waar men stond met betrekking tot de tweestatenoplossing en het herstarte vredesproces. Ook de Arabische Knessetleden maakten duidelijk waar zij staan in hun relatie tot de staat Israël, en bleven massaal weg.

 

Olmert toont zich verbluffend toegefelijk naar de Palestijnen, en lijkt bijna wanhopig in zijn pogingen het Israëlische publiek rijp te maken voor zware compromissen. Ik weet niet goed of het me moet spijten dat Olmert te weinig aanzien heeft om daarin te kunnen slagen, want zelfs voor mijn linkse, vredeminnende hart loopt hij wat te hard van stapel. Wat te denken van:

 

Olmert stressed that the government would continue to "fight for the status of Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel."

 

Niet: "Jeruzalem is onze hoofdstad en zal dat altijd blijven, daar moeten de Palestijnen maar mee leren leven", of zelfs: "Jeruzalem als gedeelde hoofdstad van twee staten kan een lichtend symbool worden van verzoening tussen ons en onze buurvolken", maar: "Jongens, ik doe mijn best om Jeruzalem voor ons te behouden, maar ik kan niets beloven..."

 

Dit staat in schril contrast met de Palestijnse opstelling: het Palestijnse parlement is bezig een wet aan te nemen die het tot hoogverraad maakt om over een compromis betreffende Jeruzalem te onderhandelen. (Klik maar op de link, ik zou het zelf anders ook niet geloven!)

 

Dit gaat lekker, jongens. Ik voorzie een Palestijnse staat in 2068...

 

 

Wouter

_________________

Haaretz / Last update - 22:01 03/12/2007

Most Arab MKs boycott special Knesset session commemorating partition plan

By Shahar Ilan, Haaretz Correspondent
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/930703.html

Arab MKs boycotted Monday a special Knesset session commemorating the 60th anniversary of the 1947 United Nations decision to partition British-mandate Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state. (Click here for Haaretz special coverage of the anniversary)

The decision effectively gave international backing to the creation of the State of Israel.

All but one Arab MK - Nadia Hilou of Labor - decided not to attend the session, including her fellow party member Culture and Sport Minister Ghaleb Majadele.

More than a third of MKs were absent during the session, including Kadima MK Ruhama Avraham, who is the minister charged with organizing Israel's 60th Independence Day celebrations in the spring, and Communications Minister Ariel Atias of Shas.

In his address to the plenum, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, made the right decision in agreeing to partition. "My father opposed partition and was wrong," Olmert said. "Ben-Gurion was right - there was a need to accept the possible.

"The choice, both 60 years ago and today, is between a Jewish state on part of the Land of Israel and a binational state on all of the Land of Israel," the prime minister continued. "That is the choice we are faced with today - the existence of two nation-states, Israel and Palestine, in the Land of Israel."

Olmert stressed that the government would continued to "fight for the status of Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel."

"I don't underestimate the difficulties, I don't diminish the threats, and I will never compromise on Israel's security," he said. "But as long as there remains even a chance of peace, I will exhaust it fully."

Netanyahu: Peace that stems from a strong Israel takes precedence over accords

The Head of the Opposition, Likud MK Benjamin Netanyahu, said that "it is under question whether we'll have a real partner for real peace."

"Arab leaders cannot demand to set the clock back as if nothing has happened. They cannot urge others to accept the decision [on partition] that they themselves rejected." He quoted Ben-Gurion, who said shortly after the establishment of the State of Israel that "the partition borders are no more."

Netanyahu said that "it was not the UN resolution that prompted the establishment of the state - it just recognized the historic right of the people of Israel to return to its homeland. This right would not have been fulfilled if it was not for the generations-long longings of the people of Israel to the Land of Israel, the continuous presence of Jews here throughout the years, and 60 years of extensive settlement and cultivation prior to the resolution.

"Only when our neighbors realized that Israel is a fait accompli," Netanyahu said, "were they willing to pursue peace with us. That's why I was surprised and amazed to hear the prime minister say that unless the two-state solution is achieved, Israel is done for," he said.

Netanyahu made a personal appeal to the prime minister: "Prime minister, Israel will never be done for. Our existence is not dependant on the willingness of the Palestinians to make peace, but on our ability to defend our right to live in this country. Our existence must not depend on their consent. No government has agreed to this in the past, and none will in the future. Our destiny will be determined strictly by us, not by anyone else, because in the Middle East peace and security are intertwined, and peace that stems from a strong Israel takes precedence over peace agreements. Whoever ignores that is left with neither security nor peace."

Livni: Israel's democracy and Jewish essence are not contradictory

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said: "I am not here to argue on rights and on who is right, I'm here to address my counterparts in the Arab world and say that the right thing to do is to be attuned to our children's right to live in peace and mutual respect, in accordance with the values which I hope all the nations of our region share."

Livni reiterated her commitment to the two-state solution. She said that the partition plan did not induce the conflict, but was rather meant to solve it. "It did not determine who is right, but outlined a path for peace," she said, adding that the resolution that was rejected by the Arab world is the one that the Palestinians should pursue. "On the day of the creation of our state, which you call the Nakba - the catastrophe, the State of Israel seeks peace and good neighborliness with its neighboring countries," Livni emphasized.

"We extend our hand toward peace with the Arab and Muslim world," Livni said. She called on the Arab residents of Israel to take part in the establishment of the State of Israel. "Israel's democracy and Jewish essence are not contradictory," she said. "We should work toward a national home for the Jewish people in Israel and a national home in Palestine for the Palestinian people wherever they are - the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and refugee camps in Arab states," she said," as long as the word Nakba would be removed from the Palestinian vocabulary in relation to the State of Israel."

Palestijns parlement neemt wet aan tegen compromis over Jeruzalem

De nieuwe Palestijnse wet definiëert concessies over Jeruzalem als hoogverraad, en eenieder die de wet overtreedt wordt vervolgd.

Hoewel veel Fatah leden de sessie van het Palestijnse parlement boycotten, zijn zij het wel eens met deze wet:

 

However, many Fatah legislators have made it known that they too support the law, which states that Jerusalem is a Palestinian, Arab and Islamic city and that it is totally forbidden to give up or conduct negotiations about any part of the city.

 

 

Dat betekent dus ook, voor de duidelijkheid, dat het een vorm van hoogverraad is om Joodse rechten in de Oude Stad, zoals de Klaagmuur en het Joodse kwartier te erkennen. De wet moet nog door Abbas worden goedgekeurd, maar dat hoeft niet zo'n probleem te zijn:

 

Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a top aide to Abbas, said in response that, as far as the PA was concerned, Jerusalem was a "red line" that can't be crossed.

Abbas told supporters in Ramallah Thursday that he did not go to Annapolis to make concessions. "There are some people who are trying to distort the truth," he said. "They are saying that we went to Annapolis to sell our cause, negotiate and sign agreements. But we went there to convey our principle and fixed positions."

 

 

Misschien is dit wel een van de redenen waarom vredesonderhandelingen niet tot een oplossing van het conflict leiden. Als je niet bereid bent enige concessies te doen, als je je eigen rechten als absoluut en on-onderhandelbaar ziet, dan valt er niet veel te bespreken. Het probleem is dat 'fixed positions'  bepaalde rechten van de Joden uitsluiten, zoals hun recht op zelfbeschikking.

 

 

Ratna

--------- 

PLC passes law to make any concessions on J'lem illegal

Khaled Abu Toameh , THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 6, 2007
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847272927&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

The Hamas-dominated Palestinian Legislative Council Thursday passed a law that makes any concessions on Jerusalem illegal.

The law, which was approved by first reading, also defines such concessions as a crime of high treason.

Presented by Hamas legislator Ahmed Abu Halbiyeh on behalf of two parliamentary committees - the Judicial Committee and the Committee for Jerusalem Affairs, the law is expected to pass in second and third readings in the coming days.

The PLC session was boycotted by many members of the rival Fatah faction in protest against Hamas's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip last June.

However, many Fatah legislators have made it known that they too support the law, which states that Jerusalem is a Palestinian, Arab and Islamic city and that it is totally forbidden to give up or conduct negotiations about any part of the city.

According to the law, anyone who violates the law would be prosecuted as a traitor.

The new law still requires the approval of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said Ahmed Bahar, acting speaker of the PLC. He said the law would be submitted to Abbas after it passes second and third readings.

The law is intended to embarrass Abbas and ties his hands on the eve of the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on core issues, including the future status of Jerusalem. Hamas officials said Abbas would have no other option but to endorse the law.

Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a top aide to Abbas, said in response that, as far as the PA was concerned, Jerusalem was a "red line" that can't be crossed.

Abbas told supporters in Ramallah Thursday that he did not go to Annapolis to make concessions. "There are some people who are trying to distort the truth," he said. "They are saying that we went to Annapolis to sell our cause, negotiate and sign agreements. But we went there to convey our principle and fixed positions."

Abbas said the Palestinian team to Annapolis faced many "obstacles." He said that these obstacles included demands to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and relinquishing the rights of the Palestinian refugees.

Abbas also revealed that he and his team rejected the idea of establishing a Palestinian state with temporary borders for fear that the borders would one day become permanent.

"The Palestinian people want a state in the 1967 borders, including Jerusalem," he stressed. "We also want a solution to the problem of the refugees in accordance with the Arab peace initiative and United Nations resolution 194."

Abbas reiterated his readiness to talk to Hamas, but only after the Islamist movement relinquishes control over the Gaza Strip. "What Hamas did [in the Gaza Strip] was a disaster for the Palestinians," he said. "This was a black coup that was carried out by the prime minister and interior minister in the deposed [Hamas] government. But we are not opposed to dialogue with Hamas. Hamas is an integral part of the Palestinian people."

Abbas' controle over de Westelijke Jordaanoever een optische illusie - munitie prijzen kelderen

De prijs van kogels op de zwarte markt is gedaald, omdat munitie uit de voorraadkamers van de Palestijnse Autoriteit in handen valt van terroristische groepen. De PA krijgt wapens en munitie van onder andere de VS, met als doel de terroristen beter te kunnen bestrijden. Ondanks beweringen van het tegendeel heeft Abbas zijn zaken absoluut niet op orde, en kan overdracht van land en verantwoordelijkheden fatale gevolgen hebben.

 

 

Ratna

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Abbas' West Bank Rule an Optical Illusion
Amir Rappaport Maariv-Hebrew, 30 Nov 07

[Translation and summary by Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Daily Alert - December 4, 2007]

Israel's security services believe that if they were not making arrests in the West Bank every night, it is quite probable that Hamas would overcome Fatah there as it did so easily in Gaza. In practical terms, this means that, to a great extent, Fatah control in the West Bank is an optical illusion. Israel's security services are concerned at clear signs of Hamas strengthening in the West Bank. Even in the Fatah stronghold of "secular" Ramallah, the number of mosques has doubled in recent years as the number of worshippers has increased. At the same time, Israel has been unable to block the large flow of Hamas money to its welfare institutions, which function much better than the failed PA institutions.

Hamas is building up its military capabilities in the West Bank. Its forces are training and building bunkers in cities like Nablus and Kalkilya, while its activists plan attacks on Israeli civilian targets. Given this reality, is there any point in conducting negotiations with the heads of Fatah when the issue being discussed is the transfer of land that Fatah is unable to control without the continued presence of the IDF and the Israel Security Agency (Shabak). Of additional concern are the thousands of rifles and millions of bullets that were brought in from Jordan for the Palestinian police. In recent years, due to intensive IDF activity against weapons smuggling, the price of a bullet had risen to tens of shekels. It has now fallen drastically as ammunition from PA police warehouses finds its way into the hands of terrorists.


--------------------------------------------
IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il

Christelijke Arabieren zullen verdwijnen uit Palestijnse gebieden

Waarom is hier zo weinig aandacht voor, en waarom horen we in dit opzicht nooit grote woorden als 'etnische zuivering', die "vredesactivisten" zo makkelijk in de mond nemen waar het Israëlische behandeling van de Palestijnen betreft?

 

 

Ratna

------------

Expert: 'Christian groups in PA to disappear'
Etgar Lefkovits , THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 4, 2007
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1195546795874&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

The ever-dwindling Christian communities living in Palestinian-run territories in the West Bank and Gaza are likely to dissipate completely within the next 15 years as a result of increasing Muslim persecution and maltreatment, an Israeli scholar said Monday.

"The systematic persecution of Christian Arabs living in Palestinian areas is being met with nearly total silence by the international community, human rights activists, the media and NGOs," said Justus Reid Weiner, an international human rights lawyer in an address at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, where he serves as a scholar in residence.

He cited Muslim harassment and persecution as the main cause of the "acute human rights crisis" facing Christian Arabs, and predicted that unless governments or institutions step in to remedy the situation - such as with job opportunities - there will be no more Christian communities living in the Palestinians territories within 15 years, with only a few Western Christians and top clergymen left in the area.

"Christian leaders are being forced to abandon their followers to the forces of radical Islam," Weiner said.

Facing a pernicious mixture of persecution and economic hardships as a result of years of Palestinian violence and Israeli counter-terrorism measures, tens of thousands of Christian Arabs have left the Palestinian territories for a better life in the West, in a continuing exodus which has led some Christian leaders to warn that the faith could be virtually extinct in its birthplace in a matter of decades.

The Palestinian Christian population has dipped to 1.5 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, down from at least 15% a half century ago, according to some estimates.

No one city in the Holy Land is more indicative of the great exodus of Christians than Bethlehem, which fell under full Palestinian control last decade as part of the Oslo Accords.

The town of 30,000 is now less than 20% Christian, after decades when Christians were the majority. Elsewhere in the Palestinian territories, only about 3,000 Christians, mostly Greek Orthodox, live in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, out of a strongly conservative Muslim population of 1.4 million.

"In a society where Arab Christians have no voice and no protection it is no surprise that they are leaving," he said.

In his address, Weiner pointedly downplayed the effects that Israeli security measures, such as the security barrier being built between Israel and the West Bank, have had on the Christian Arabs living in the West Bank.

The barrier, which is especially conspicuous at the entrance to Bethlehem where it is a concrete wall, is an issue which many Palestinian Christian clerics have pointed to, along with the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as a central cause of Christian emigration.

Weiner argued there was a "180 degree difference" between the public statements coming out of the mainstream Christian leadership in the Holy Land - who "sing the PA's tune" and blame Israel for all the Christian Arabs' ills - and people's experience on the ground.

"The truth is beginning to come out," he said. "The question is what is being done with the truth."

His comments come just months after a prominent Christian activist, Rami Khader Ayyad, 32, was killed in Gaza.

"For too long the plight of Christian Arabs has been put on the back-burner or ignored altogether," said Rev. Malcolm Hedding, executive director of the International Christian Embassy, a Jerusalem-based evangelical organization.

The Evangelical leader, who has drawn the wrath of Catholic leaders in the Holy Land for his strong support for Israel, said that "power politics" has prevented the major Christian leaders in the Holy Land from speaking out on this issue.

"There is a one-sided debate in which Israel is responsible for everything," he said. "The Christian world needs to stand up and speak out about this."

Al-Azhar universiteitsvoorzitter en ex-moefti van Egypte rechtvaardigt Palestijnse zelfmoordaanslagen

De Palestijnen plegen geen zelfmoordaanslagen uit wanhoop, maar uit eigen vrije wil en overtuiging, aldus een Egyptische universiteitspresident en voormalige moefti.

 

Tegelijkertijd rechtvaardigt hij deze 'martelarenoperaties', omdat Israël zo zwaar bewapend is en de Palestijnen hun land toch moeten kunnen bevrijden.

 

 

Ratna

--------------

 

Ahmad Al-Tayyib, Al-Azhar University President and Former Mufti of Egypt, Justifies Palestinian Suicide Bombings

 

Following is an excerpt from an interview with Al-Azhar University President Ahmad Al-Tayyib, former mufti of Egypt, which aired on Al-Mihwar TV on October 10, 2007:

To view this clip visit: http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1621.htm

Ahmad Al-Tayyib:

We do not permit the killing or terrorizing of peaceful people, when two countries, two armies, or two forces confront one another.
This is forbidden, even if the Muslim forces are being defeated. But with regard to Palestine and Israel, this is not the case, and to say otherwise is to confuse things. We are facing a country, which is armed to the teeth with a hellish weapon...

Interviewer:

It has lethal weapons.

Ahmad Al-Tayyib:

Exactly. We are facing tyranny and oppression, while the world watches from the sidelines. The Palestinians, on the other hand, are defenseless and have nothing, and they want to defend their country, their faith, and their homeland. The only method they have is [martyrdom operations], and employing it is very difficult for them. Is it easy for a Palestinian to bring his life to an end? No, it isn't. He too is a human being, who wants to live. What makes him resort to this method? It is not despair, as is claimed by many people who try to interpret martyrdom operations as suicide operation driven by despair. No. That is not true. The Palestinian martyrdom-seeker knows that he is free to go on this operation, in order to please Allah and enter Paradise, in defense of his religion, his country, and his land.

http://www.memritv.org

Eerder vrijgelaten Palestijnse gevangenen doodden 177 Israëli's

Van tijd tot tijd heeft Israël Palestijnse gevangenen vrijgelaten als gebaar van goede wil, in een uitruil tegen gegijzelde Israëli's, of gewoon omdat ze hun straf hadden uitgezeten. Bij een uitruil werden deels ook gevangenen vrijgelaten met 'bloed aan hun handen', dat wil zeggen dat zij (mede) verantwoordelijk waren voor aanslagen waarbij Israëli's omkwamen. 

 

De gevangenen die Israël als gebaar naar de PA vrijlaat, hebben in principe geen bloed aan hun handen, maar waren mogelijk wel betrokken bij mislukte of verhinderde aanslagen. Het is daarom nog maar de vraag of bij hen het risico veel kleiner is dat ze later alsnog slachtoffers maken. Zijn zij na een mislukte aanslag en jaren in een 'Zionistische' gevangenis immers niet extra gemotiveerd om nu wel een geslaagde aanslag te plegen?

 

Het zou interessant zijn de percentages gevangenen van de verschillende categorieën te vergelijken die terugkeren naar het terrorisme. Waarschijnlijk ontlopen ze elkaar niet zoveel. Het grootste nut van het gevangen zetten van Palestijnen die bij gewelddadig verzet betrokken zijn, is wellicht niet zozeer ze te straffen, maar de ergste terroristen een tijd lang van de straat te hebben.     

 

Ratna

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Report: Palestinians released in previous gestures killed 177 Israelis
Nadav Shragai Haaretz 4 December 2007
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/930821.html

Palestinian militants, freed in past prisoner releases by Israel, were responsible for at least 30 terror attacks which claimed the lives of 177 Israelis, according to a study published yesterday by Almagor, an organization representing the victims of Palestinian terrorism.

The report's publication came in response to yesterday's release of 429 Palestinians jailed in Israeli prisons.

According to the report, 6,912 militants were released between the years 1993 and 1999, and nearly 80 percent of them returned to terrorist activity.

Een Pogrom in Peki'in, Israël

Hoewel er ook tijdens de rellen van 1929 een pogrom had plaatsgevonden, gold het dorp Peki'in in Galilea lange tijd als voorbeeld van vreedzaam samenleven tussen verschillende bevolkingsgroepen in Israël. Het zou zelfs het laatste dorp zijn waar sinds de oudheid onafgebroken Joden hebben gewoond. Uit de meeste Arabische dorpen met kleine Joodse gemeenschappen waren deze gevlucht tijdens diverse onlusten in de eerste helft van de 20ste eeuw.

 

Tijdens onze reis naar Israël afgelopen voorjaar waren we door Elia en Gabriel de Jong uitgenodigd om bij hen langs te komen, maar konden Peki'in helaas niet in ons reisprogramma inplannen. Zij lieten ons weten dat ze, toen ze jaren geleden naar Israël emigreerden, bewust voor dit dorpje hadden gekozen om hun kinderen een 'multiculturele opvoeding' te geven. Een paar maanden geleden namen Gabriels ouders hun huis over, maar moesten hier tot hun ontsteltenis eind oktober een moderne pogrom meemaken. Hun eigen relaas is hier te lezen: Onrust in Galilea.

Hoe het zover heeft kunnen komen blijft nog onduidelijk. Er was onrust over GSM-zendmasten in de omgeving en vermeend stralingsrisico daarvan, er waren schijnbaar ook valse geruchten en opruiing onder de Druzen (de meerderheid in het dorp) en enkele gewelddadige incidenten tegen Joodse inwoners. Een overmacht aan Israëlische politie zou daarna met grof geschut hebben geprobeerd de orde te herstellen en de verantwoordelijken te arresteren, en nadat ze het gebedshuis van de Druzen betraden zou de vlam helemaal in de pan zijn geslagen, waarbij tientallen gewonden vielen en zelfs een poltieagente werd gegijzeld.

 

 

Wouter

_____________________________

 

Last Jewish family leaves Peki'in

 

De Jung family, who emigrated from Holland four months ago, flee Druze village after locals torch their car. All nine Jewish families who used to live in Peki'in leave due to repeated harassment

 

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3478336,00.html

 

Goel Beno

Published:

12.03.07, 09:31 / Israel News

 

The last Jewish family to remain in Peki'in after riots shook the Druze village last month, has recently decided to move out as well, after its car was torched last weekend.

 

Ruth and Abel De Jung are the ninth family to leave due to repeated harassment by local residents. The only Jewish resident to remain in the village is Margalit Zinati, whose family has lived in Peki'in for centuries.

 

The De Jungs, both Holocaust survivors, emigrated from Holland to Israel four months ago, and are now considering returning to Holland. In the meantime they are staying with friends, as they currently have no place to live.

Ruth and Abel's son, Gabriel, and his wife Elizabeth, have already left the village with their two sons three months ago, and now reside in the community of Katzir.

 

"We chose to come to Peki'in from Holland. We wanted to live in a place where people of all religions live side by side. At first we were very much respected, and paid our neighbors in kind," Gabriel recounted. "Until one day, my son came home crying and said that the children in his kindergarten no longer call him by his name, but al-Yahud (the Jew)."

 

Zegelman family's house after the riots (Photo: Gil Sapir)

 

Gabriel and Elizabeth have no plans of returning to their Peki'in house, which was purchased from a Christian family, at least not in the near future. "We have a lot of anger in our hearts. On the day of the riots I arrived at the village and couldn't bear to say hello to my friends there," said Gabriel.

 

Aviv Zegelman and his wife, Orit, left the village with their six children after their house was burned to the ground during last month's riots. They stated that they would return to Peki'in "only after tensions subside and the police confirm that it's safe. At the moment we have nothing to come back to, and it's very dangerous there."

 

Syrische atoombommenfabriek doelwit van Israëlisch bombardement september

Het wordt steeds waarschijnlijker dat Israëls geheimzinnige bombardement in Syrië op 6 september, een fabriek waar nucleaire bommen worden gemaakt tot doelwit had. Dit is gevaarlijker dan een nucleaire reactor, waarna het immers nog jaren kan duren voordat een land in staat is een atoombom te fabriceren.

But Even said that purely from scientific observation, he had reached a different conclusion - that it was a nuclear bomb factory, posing a more immediate danger to Israel. He said that satellite photos of the site, taken before the Israeli strike on September 6, showed no sign of the cooling towers and chimneys characteristic of nuclear reactors.
Syria's haste after the attack to bury the site under tons of soil suggested that hundreds of square yards were contaminated and there were fears of radiation, the professor added.
Since then the Syrians have sealed up the location, levelled the site and diverted curious journalists to a place that had not been attacked by Israel.

Syrië had plutonium via Noord-Korea verkregen. Dit verklaart ook de stilte van alle betrokken landen, inclusief de VS. Dit land is immers in onderhandeling met Noord-Korea over sluiting van haar nucleaire installaties, en het heeft Syrië nodig voor vooruitgang in Irak. Israël en Syrië hadden beide geen belang bij een escalatie tot een oorlog, en Israëlische borstklopperij over de succesvolle aanval had de kans daarop zeker vergroot.

Het is ook duidelijk waarom Israël bereid was dit risico te wel lopen door te bombarderen, omdat de fabriek in de nabije toekomst een kernwapen zou kunnen produceren. Rest alleen nog de vraag waarom professor Uri Even nu wel bereid is te praten, en hoe betrouwbaar de Sunday Times is.


Ratna

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Israelis hit Syrian 'nuclear bomb plant'
Uzi Mahnaimi in Tel Aviv and Michael Sheridan in Seoul
The Sunday Times (UK) December 2, 2007
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2983719.ece

ISRAEL'S top-secret air raid on Syria in September destroyed a bomb factory assembling warheads fuelled by North Korean plutonium, a leading Israeli nuclear expert has told The Sunday Times.

Professor Uzi Even of Tel Aviv University was one of the founders of the Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona, the source of the Jewish state's undeclared nuclear arsenal.

"I suspect that it was a plant for processing plutonium, namely, a factory for assembling the bomb," he said. "I think the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] transferred to Syria weapons-grade plutonium in raw form, that is nuggets of easily transported metal in protective cans. I think the shaping and casting of the plutonium was supposed to be in Syria."

All governments concerned - even the regime in Damascus - have tried to maintain complete secrecy about the raid.

They apparently fear that forcing a confrontation on the issue could spark a war between Israel and Syria, end the Middle East peace talks and wreck America's extremely complex negotiations to disarm North Korea of its nuclear weapons.

The political stakes could hardly be higher. Plutonium is the element which fuelled the American atomic bomb that destroyed the Japanese city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.

Critics in the United States say proof that North Korea supplied such nuclear weapons material to Syria, a state technically at war with Israel, would shatter congressional confidence in the Bush administration's diplomatic policy.

From beneath the veil of military censorship, western commentators have formed a consensus that the target was a nuclear reactor under construction.

But Even said that purely from scientific observation, he had reached a different conclusion - that it was a nuclear bomb factory, posing a more immediate danger to Israel. He said that satellite photos of the site, taken before the Israeli strike on September 6, showed no sign of the cooling towers and chimneys characteristic of nuclear reactors.

Syria's haste after the attack to bury the site under tons of soil suggested that hundreds of square yards were contaminated and there were fears of radiation, the professor added.

Since then the Syrians have sealed up the location, levelled the site and diverted curious journalists to a place that had not been attacked by Israel.

The professor's theory fits with authoritative technical evidence about North Korea's nuclear weapons programme. The North Koreans are able to produce weapons-grade plutonium, which is electro-refined, alloyed and cast into shapes ready to be machined to fit into a warhead, according to a team of distinguished American nuclear weapons scientists who visited the  country's laboratories.

One of those scientists, Siegfried Hecker, was allowed to hold a sample and was told that it was "good bomb grade plutonium", because it had a very low content of plutonium240, the isotope which reduces the overall quality of the material.

Assembly of a Nagasaki-type bomb involves mating a plutonium core with a uranium wrap and inserting a small quantity of polonium and beryllium to initiate the chain reaction.

"Plutonium is highly dangerous material," explained the Israeli professor. "It is easily oxidised in air unless protective measures are taken. The oxide is easily dispersed as dust in air when machining plutonium to create the 'pit' [a hollow sphere in many nuclear weapons] and thus can be inhaled, causing a fatality in minute quantities.

"Plutonium pellets are handled and machined exclusively in a large array of 'glove boxes', to protect the technicians and their environment. That is why you need a relatively large containment building and cannot assemble a nuclear weapon in your garage - unless you are suicidal of course."

The debris from a destructive raid on a weapons-building facility could therefore contain toxic radioactive waste. But the main danger for Syria would be the telltale exposure of the elements to surveillance and detection by America. This would explain the cover-up at the site.

North Korea, for its part, has more than enough plutonium to sell some of its stock to Syria.

The same team of visiting US scientists estimated that by late 2006 the nation had made 40-50kg (88-100lb) of the material. Between six and eight kilograms are needed for a weapon.

For the US and its allies the Syrian connection raises the deeply worrying possibility that North Korea has succeeded in building what the US scientists called "a sophisticated design with smaller dimensions and mass so as to fit onto a . . . medium-range missile".

That puzzle was complicated when North Korea announced that it had tested its first nuclear bomb on October 9 last year. The yield of the blast was small - less than a 20th of the Nagasaki bomb - suggesting to some scientists that the device was sophisticated and small while others believed the North Koreans had simply not made a very good bomb.

Professor Even believes the North Koreans have not yet perfected small warheads. "The mechanical dimensioning at this stage is extremely demanding (less than 0.01mm). So is the casting of the explosives around the plutonium core and the initiation of the implosion," he said.

The question is under urgent study by nations who might one day be targets of a North Korean device sold to Syria or Iran. Iran is known to have financed missile and weapons deals between North Korea and Syria, causing concern to Israel and the US. One day after the Israeli attack, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, sent his nephew with a personal letter to Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian leader.

The professor's theory of a clear and present danger that Damascus would get the bomb may be the only credible explanation why Israel carried out a military strike against Syria and risked an all-out conflict.

Indeed on September 6 Israel was ready for war with Syria. Israeli sources said its military chiefs assumed Syria would launch a retaliatory attack, but no reprisal came.

Meanwhile, President Bush has authorised his chief negotiator, Christopher Hill, to go on talking to North Korea in the search for a peaceful solution. Hill will visit Pyongyang this week to pursue negotiations after international technicians got to work on disabling the reactor at Yongbyon, the source of North Korea's plutonium.

The North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il is supposed to make a full declaration of his nuclear programmes by December 31. The US says that must include information on his weapons deals with Syria and Iran.


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IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il

Aanslagen tijdens vredesonderhandelingen legitiem verzet volgens PA

Vorige week vroeg Aaron Lerner van IMRA aan het Palestijnse departement dat over de gevangenen in Israël gaat, of men vond dat alle gevangenen vrij moesten worden gelaten voor de ondertekening van een vredesovereenkomst, ook Palestijnen die na de Annapolis conferentie, dus tijdens de vredesonderhandelingen, gearresteerd zullen worden. De directeur van het Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs antwoordt:

"You are talking about people detained for resistance operations that take place during the negotiations between Abu Mazen and Mr. Olmert - right?
It is the position of the Ministry that all prisoners should be released during this process. They are engaged in resistance against the Israeli occupation - not against the peace process.
We want all the prisoners to be released because the reason that they were retained was resistance to the occupation."

Wat hij in feite zegt, is dat het vermoorden van Israëli's of een poging daartoe (want dat is waar veel gevangenen voor zijn gearresteerd) legitiem verzet is tegen de bezetting. Dit is op zijn zachtst gezegd een beetje vreemd, want de regering onder leiding van Abbas heeft zich officiëel uitgesproken tegen geweld en aanslagen op Israëli's. Als er een vredesverdrag komt zal een amnestie regeling daar wellicht onderdeel van uitmaken, maar om op voorhand te zeggen dat iedereen die zich bezig houdt met 'verzet tegen de bezetting' vrijuit moet gaan is een ander verhaal. Het is immers de bedoeling dat de Palestijnse Autoriteit voor orde gaat zorgen en aanslagen op Israëli's gaat voorkomen. Als men deze aanvallen en aanslagen consequent met 'verzetsoperaties' aanduidt, en de plegers die daarbij omkomen als'martelaren' prijst zoals gebruikelijk bij de Palestijnen, bevordert en steunt men deze juist in plaats van ze tegen te gaan. Het feit dat politieagenten vorige week een Israëlische burger dood schoten is dan ook niet vreemd. Hoe één en ander zich tot de Routekaart en de mooie vredeswoorden op Annapolis verhoudt, is een geheel andere vraag.

 

Ratna

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PA Official to IMRA:

Killing Israelis is resistance to occupation - not peace process,

Palestinians who kill Israelis should not be imprisoned

Dr. Aaron Lerner / Date: 27 November 2007

Question to Mr. Saleh Nazal, Director, Minister's Office - Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs in English:  I wanted to understand the Palestinians position demanding the release of all Palestinian prisoners by the time of the signing of an agreement.  Would this also apply to Palestinians arrested for activities they carried out after Annapolis - during the negotiation period until the signing.

Would those people also, by the Palestinian view, have to be released by the time of the signing or would they have a different status?

Nazal: You are talking about people detained for resistance operations that take place during the negotiations between Abu Mazen and Mr. Olmert - right?

IMRA:  Yes.

Nazal:  It is the position of the Ministry that all prisoners should be released during this process.  They are engaged in resistance against the Israeli occupation - not against the peace process.

We want all the prisoners to be released because the reason that they were retained was resistance to the occupation.

IMRA: So that is to say that people detained for activities they carry out between Annapolis and the signing of an agreement should also qualify for release at the time of an agreement.

Nazal:  As I told you before.  This is resistance against the occupation. Not resistance against the negotiations.

The Israeli forces are arresting people, building settlements, building barriers.  You are looking only now at one party and not looking at the other one.


Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
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IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il

Golfstaten steeds bezorgder om atoomplannen Iran

Niet alleen Israël en de VS, maar ook de Golfstaten maken zich grote zorgen over de nucleaire ambities van Iran, en geloven niet in het sprookje dat haar nucleaire programma slechts voor vreedzame doeleinden is bedoeld.

 

_______________________

Gulf states increasingly wary of Iran's nuclear plans
Agence France-Presse - 02 December, 2007
www.gulfinthemedia.com/index.php?id=362565&news_type=Top&lang=en

The six Gulf states whose leaders meet in Doha tomorrow for a two-day summit are increasingly suspicious about Iran's nuclear ambitions which they fear could spark a new regional conflict. Tehran's nuclear programme is expected to be high on the agenda of the Doha summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

The GCC states "support the peaceful efforts deployed to solve the Iranian nuclear crisis, because any escalation would only complicate the situation," GCC Secretary-General Abdul Rahman bin Hamad Al Attiyah said.

"I solemnly invite all parties, including Iran, to use the language of reason and dialogue, away from confrontation and escalation," he said of the standoff with the international community over Tehran's programme of uranium enrichment.

Gulf leaders tend to avoid voicing their concerns about Iranian intentions in public.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will attend the GCC summit, the first time Iran will take part in a meeting of the group.

In an interview last month with British newspapers, Bahrain's Crown Prince, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, for the first time, accused the Islamic republic of seeking to acquire nuclear arms.

Fearing a new armed conflict after the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), the first Gulf War in 1991 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the GCC has proposed an internationally controlled consortium to supply enriched uranium to Middle Eastern countries.

This suggestion, greeted coldly by Tehran, is "the best guarantee to prevent having atomic arms in the region," said Riad Kahwaji, director of the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.

"When a country like Iran has the liberty to enrich uranium, there is a danger that this country will equip itself with atomic weapons," he said.

He said that Arab countries, which have announced their intention to start civilian nuclear programmes, cannot counterbalance Iran's nuclear ambitions.
"Iran has a real nuclear programme which is running and developing, while Arab states simply intend to acquire reactors to produce nuclear energy" without mastering the expertise needed to develop an atomic bomb, he added.

The GCC nuclear programme is the subject of a feasibility study which will be discussed at Doha. "The Gulf monarchies, which have increased the number of their joint military meetings, are seriously worried about the Iranian crisis sliding into an armed conflict," Kahwaji said. "These monarchies will be obliged to intervene in such conflict" if their territory close to Iran was hit, he added.


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IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il

Civiele dienst bevordert de integratie van Israëlische Arabieren

Antizionisten spreken geregeld schande van de ongelijkheid tussen Joden en Arabieren in Israël en de discriminatie van de tweede groep. Je zult nooit iets positiefs van ze horen, zoals instemming met de verbreding van de vrijwillige maatschappelijke dienstplicht, die een zeer gunstig emancipatorisch effect kan hebben. Of een woord van afkeuring voor de negatieve - zelfs ronduit vijandige - reaktie van Israëlisch-Arabische leiders. Dat past niet in hun simpele visie van boze Zionisten versus zielige onderdrukte Arabieren.

 

Overigens geeft het leger niet alleen voordelen: er wordt ook over geklaagd dat juist mensen die niet in het leger hoeven te dienen betere carriere kansen hebben, omdat zij drie jaar eerder kunnen gaan studeren en werken. Een vervangende dienstplicht, zodat iedereen gedurende twee of drie jaar het land moet dienen, werkt in alle opzichten bevorderend voor de integratie en vermindert de ongelijkheid.

Dat Arabische politieke leiders hiertegen protesteren is kenmerkend voor hun weigering om deel uit te maken van de staat Israël. Minderheden hebben altijd moeten vechten voor gelijke rechten, maar die kunnen ze alleen krijgen als ze de staat ook erkennen en zich loyale burgers betonen.

 

 

Ratna & Wouter

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Resisting Arab integration
Political leaders who object to civilian service for Arabs undermine equality

Eliyahu Matza

Published: 12.02.07, 11:25 / Israel Opinion
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3477953,00.html

Knesset Member Jamal Zahalka characterized young Arab men and women who volunteer to perform civilian service (instead of military service) as "pariahs" and threatened to cut them off. No Arab Knesset member or public figure saw fit to express their disagreement, and some even supported this message.

Such response is irritating and puzzling. Irritating - in light of the baseless claim that the real intention behind the civilian service program is to obligate the Arabs to perform military service. Puzzling - because of the plan's rejection based on its aim to "Israelize" young Arabs.

Civilian service volunteer opportunities, which in the past have been open only to Jewish girls exempted from IDF service, have been opened to all those exempt from military service, including Arab citizens of Israel. Volunteering for civilian service grants the volunteer, following two years of service, the full benefits given to discharged soldiers.

Therefore, opening civilian service to young Arabs would make their chances equal to discharged soldiers in terms of academic studies and employment. Referring to people who do volunteer service as "pariahs" and presenting their Israeliness in a negative light aims to deter young Arabs from making a move that can first and foremost work in their favor.

It is worthwhile mentioning that the call to allow Arabs to volunteer for civilian service, which has been raised several times in the past, was explained by the State's duty to make it easy for young Arabs to integrate equally into Israeli society. A recommendation to comply with this call was included in a report submitted to the government in 2004 by a ministerial committee headed by then-Justice Minister Yosef Lapid.

Another committee recently looked into the matter as well. In its report, it proposed that civilian service, which at first will be on a voluntary basis, will turn into mandatory service after some time and constitute an equal alternative to IDF service.

Encouraging segregation

Recently it was reported that ever since the volunteer program has been expanded, the number of Arab volunteers for civilian service is constantly rising. Young Arabs who experienced the service have been praising the opportunity given to them. However, at this point it is hard to know how this trend will be affected by the position articulated by Arab leaders, who reject such service.

We should not accept calls that Arab civilian rights should be conditioned on their willingness to bear all the obligations assumed by Jewish citizens. In addition, we should not condition the acceptance of an Arab to school or work at a public body on performing civilian service. Equality requires us to treat a young Arab who did not volunteer just as we treat a young Jew who did not volunteer.

However, equality is not undermined if the right for special benefits, granted only to soldiers who completed their IDF service, will be granted to all those exempt from service only if they volunteered for civilian service.

Those who care about promoting the equally of Arab Israelis should be concerned about the line led by Arab leaders. Integrating the Arabs into equal frameworks is conditioned, among other things, on the Arab willingness to integrate, yet Arab leaders are not encouraging integration – rather, they are encouraging segregation.

The burden of advancing the equality of Israeli Arabs is first and foremost the Israeli government's job. Yet it would be very beneficial if Arab institutes and public figures, who attach importance to the integration of young Arabs into their country, would publicly express their disagreement over the positions articulated by their political leaders.