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Israel's Freeing of
Palestinian Terrorists
Violates International Law
Louis René Beres
From the beginnings of its now
decade-long “peace process” with the Palestinian Authority, Israel has
agreed to various intermittent terrorist releases. The rationale of
these actions is always the same; that is, that there will be a
Palestinian quid pro quo in the form of reduced Arab violence
against Israelis. Inevitably, however, this turns out not to be the case
and freed Palestinian terrorists proceed to join an expanding stream of
Arab murderers.
This article points out that Israel’s
freeing of terrorists – the latest expression of which is in alleged
compliance with the Quartet’s “Road Map” – is not only foolish, but also
illegal. Terrorism is a codified crime under international law. No
government has any legal right to free any terrorists as a so-called
“goodwill gesture”.
International law presumes
solidarity between states in the fight against all crime. Whenever an
individual state violates this solidarity – as is currently the case
with Israel and the Road Map – it implicates itself in a “denial of
justice”. This is true even where a particular terrorist release is
backed by the United Nations. All states, even when they are consciously
seeking peace, are subject to the persistently overriding claims of
“peremptory” norms – rules that usually derive from what is commonly
called “Higher Law” or the “Law of Nature”. The obligation to seek out
and punish terrorists is such a peremptory norm. Significantly, the
origins of this Higher Law lie in Ancient Israel.
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Two Countries for the Two Nations on the Two Banks of the Jordan
Aryeh Eldad
The “Road Map” plan, which emerged
from the Quartet‘s (the United States, Russia, Europe and the United
Nations) strategic cooperation was presented to the Israelis and the
Palestinians in early May 2003. The plan delineates stages leading to a
peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, when at the first
stage the Palestinians are required to demonstrate governmental reform
and a struggle against terrorism and Israel is required to make an
unequivocal declaration that it agrees to the establishment of a
Palestinian state.
The plan is based on UN Resolutions
242 and 338 (which Israel had already accepted in the past) but also on
the “Saudi Peace Initiative”, which calls for an Israeli withdrawal to
the 1967 borders and the “right of return” for the 1948 refugees. The
plan also establishes an international apparatus to be deployed on the
ground and to supervise the plan’s progress. A freeze on Jewish
settlement, dismantling of the settlements, deliberations over the
“right of return” and the “Jerusalem problem” await Israel with the
continued implementation of the plan.
The “Road Map” threatens the very
existence of the State of Israel and all Israeli leaders since the Six
Day War have opposed the principles upon which it is based. The plan,
for all intents and purposes, calls for the transfer of the almost half
a million Jews living today in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Jewish
neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.
Withdrawal to the 1967 borders,
internationalization of the dispute, establishment of a Palestinian
state west of the Jordan and the “right of return” for refugees were
always considered existential threats to Israel. Agreement to dismantle
settlements undermines the moral basis for our very residence in the
Land of Israel, as it acknowledges the right of another people over part
of it.
It is incumbent upon the State of
Israel to fight the plan and prevent its implementation and on the other
hand – we must present an alternative plan, which takes into
consideration the Palestinian need for self-determination, the need to
resolve the problem of the refugees – who are the real foundation of
terrorism since the State’s inception – and geopolitical, economic and
historical common sense: The Land of Israel belongs to the People of
Israel by virtue of every conceivable right: Divine promise, the course
of history and international law. The plan learns the lessons from the
failure of all of the plans calling for partition west of the Jordan
ever since the days of the British Mandate, and demarcates two states
for the two nations on the two banks of the Jordan.
Jordan is Palestine ever since it
was established and allocated to that nation in the partition of the
Land of Israel during the British Mandate. Seventy-five percent of its
residents are Palestinian and the entire refugee population residing
today in the camps in Judea, Samaria and Gaza as well as Syria and
Lebanon could be settled there. Large investments in infrastructure and
desalination devices will facilitate that settlement and a solution to
the refugees’ severe humanitarian problem.
Self-rule with municipal authority
will be granted in the framework of seven cantons to all of those Arabs
who are not refugees and who wish to remain in their homes. These
cantons will not be territorially contiguous and will not have any
political authority; they will have a police capability in order to
maintain local order. The residents of the cantons will have
Jordanian-Palestinian citizenship and will vote for the parliament in
Amman.
According to this plan, total
sovereignty over the western Land of Israel, from the Jordan to the
Mediterranean will remain in Israeli hands.
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The Media -
A Terrorist's Best Friend
David Bukay
It is well-known throughout the
world that the media is the terrorists’ best friend. An act of terror
without publicity is worthless by itself. Without the media, terrorism
is the weapon of the impotent. Ted Koppel was on the mark when he noted
that television and terrorists have an essentially symbiotic
relationship. The media is the superpower of the world today – more than
any other element in modern Western society – and since it works
actively in the political arena and influences the public agenda, it
needs to be responsible and honest.
This article discusses the
symbiotic connections between the Israeli leftist media and Palestinian
terrorism. We refer to a new concept as “pseudo-Zionism”, to describe
those who despite being within the Zionist camp, harshly criticize
Israeli defense policy, while being blind to the claims and aspirations
of its enemies. These “pseudo-Zionists” victimize the victims, while
rehabilitating the murderer. They oppose Israeli nationalism and
national pride as being extreme chauvinism, whereas Palestinian
nationalism is legitimate. They are prepared to accept the murderous
demands of Israel’s enemies that pose an existential danger to the State
of Israel. They bear significant responsibility for the fact that for
the first time in world political history, a ceaselessly violent
terrorist movement stands to triumph and establish a state.
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Seeds
of Evil: From Oslo to Aqaba and Back
Raphael Israeli
The Aqaba Summit, which once again
raised hopes for the revival of a peace process with the Palestinians,
bears all the discouraging signs of Oslo – that is a sure road to
disaster. Because, not only were the difficult issues of Jerusalem, the
settlements and the refugees once again relegated to the negotiations
for a permanent settlement, something that is certain to be crushed
after the high expectations raised by the parties before those
negotiations opened, but, once again, the issue of eliminating violence
unconditionally, as promised in Oslo and once again in Aqaba, remains
unresolved. Abu-Mazen did not condemn violence for its immorality, but
because of the expediency of the moment while the US President was
listening and watching; he did not condemn the perpetrators, whom he can
identify by name, but the acts of terror as if they were natural
calamities; and he refused to battle terror and dismantle its
infrastructure. What is the basis for the new hopes, if we once again
embark on that bumpy road of Oslo which has led us nowhere?
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Ancient Brigandage, Jewish-Pagan Relations, and the Contest over the Land of
Israel
David Rokéah
Brigandage was rife in the
Hellenistic and Roman periods. There were notorious gangs of pirates
based in Cilicia, who not only stole merchandise but also kidnapped
people in the Mediterranean and then sold them into slavery or held them
for ransom. This situation was reflected in Talmudic sources, which
described the Ishmaelites as following in the footsteps of their
robber-ancestors.
The Sages first adopted the hostile
attitude of the Torah, formed in the wake of the religious-ethnic
conflict of the Israelites with the peoples that inhabited the “Land of
Canaan”. Therefore, they permitted discriminating against the Gentiles,
defined as the Canaanites. However, following Roman intervention, and
because of their fear of possible retaliation and abuse of the name of
the God of Israel, the Sages prohibited anti-Gentile discrimination.
Daily contact with non-Jews, especially in the cities having mixed
populations, brought the Sages to foster friendly behavior towards the
Gentiles, even to providing them with economic aid directly – with the
condition that this did not involve recognition or support of idolatry.
The same policies and practices are exhibited by the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Just as the Sages modified their
stand, so we – in this age of globalization – must act so as to ensure
the well-being of our fellow Jews abroad, remembering that “all Jews are
responsible for one another.”
* * *
The rebellion of the Maccabees
against the Seleucid kingdom in the 2nd century BCE,
following which the Maccabees conquered many Greco-Syrian cities on the
sea coast, in Samaria, in Galilee, and elsewhere, increased the
hostility of the native population. This hostility was expressed in
libellous and anti-Semitic treatises (see my “Tacitus and Ancient
Anti-Semitism”, Revue des etudes juives 154 [1995]: 281-294).
When confronted by Antiochus VII
Sidetes’ demand that he evacuate the coastal areas, Shimeon the Maccabee
retorted that this land was inherited from the Jews’ forefathers, and
that its enemies occupied it unlawfully. Echoes of this dispute are
found in the writings of John of Antioch and of Procopius, two Christian
historians of the 5th and 6th centuries
respectively. Their writings state that, after leaving Egypt, the
brigand, Joshua son of Nun, led the Hebrews into Palestine, conquering
the land of the Girgashites, the Jebusites, and the Canaanites. As a
result, they said, these inhabitants had to flee to Africa.
This tradition is corroborated by
several midrashim, in which “sons of Africa”, Canaanites, and
Ishmaelites, claim that the Land of Israel was theirs and that the
Israelite robbers had stolen it. These Gentiles’ claim, based on
Biblical verses, was refuted by other Biblical verses cited in the
midrashim.
Nowadays,
the Palestinians – dissatisfied with their identification with Ishmael
the son of Abraham – assert that they are the descendants of the
Canaanites and the Jebusites, who preceded the Israelites in the Holy
Land. Thus, they fabricate a “history” for themselves, while
obliterating all evidence of the continuous Jewish historical bonds with
the Land.
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EuroIslam: The Jihad
Within
Olivier Roy
Translated and Reprinted with
permission
© The National Interest, No. 71 (Spring 2003), Washington, DC.
If there were any question as to
whether Middle Eastern-born Muslim radicals could wreak massive
destruction in Western countries, it was answered on September 11, 2001.
An important related question, however, remains on the table. Could
future Islamic terror arise from within Western societies, from
Muslim radicals born in the West and thoroughly familiar with its ways?
What paths might such radicalism take? To answer this question, we must
develop and consult a new sociology – that of EuroIslam. (This
essay deals only with western Europe. A universal form of Islam is also
developing in the United States and Canada, but it differs in structure
and implication from that in European countries.)
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The
Destruction of the Jews of Jedwabne
Laurence Weinbaum
At the
beginning of the new millennium, an unprecedented national debate raged
in Polish society. The controversy was precipitated by the publication
of the book Neighbors by Jan Tomasz Gross that chronicled the
destruction of the Jews of Jedwabne at the hand of local Poles in July
1941. A Polish government commission charged with investigating the
massacre ultimately confirmed that locals, not German forces, were
indeed responsible for the slaughter at Jedwabne (and two dozen other
hamlets in the same area of Poland). In this article, Laurence Weinbaum
claims that the chilling description of what happened to Jews in
Jedwabne (which has since become a synonym for killings carried out by
locals) is in some sense a vindication of Jabotinsky’s grim prophecy
about a looming catastrophe about to befall the Jews of East Central
Europe. Although it is inaccurate to claim that Jabotinsky “predicted
the Holocaust” (as many of his followers do), he had warned that
the deep-rooted hostility of the autochthonous population among
whom the Jews had lived for generations posed a mortal threat and that
Jews should evacuate the area at once. Jabotinsky’s detractors focus on
the Revisionist leader’s undeniable failure to predict the outbreak of
the war. They also emphasize that at the end of the day it was the
“Nazis” (not Germans) who carried out the murders, not the
autochthonous populations. At worst, the “neighbors” were accomplices –
not prime perpetrators. However (and without detracting from the guilt
of Germans and Austrians), in the last decade, after the collapse of
Communism and with newfound access to archives buried beyond the
now-rusted Iron Curtain, we find that indigenous people of many
nationalities were often more than mere accessories to the destruction
of age-old Jewish communities. The extent of active local participation
in the destruction of the Jews was far greater than had originally been
believed and Jedwabne was but one example of a phenomenon that took
place across the length and breadth of East Central Europe. In his work
The Jewish War Front, penned shortly before his death in 1940
(and before the Final Solution had been put into motion), Jabotinsky
made clear, that even if Jews who have been displaced from their homes
and places of work do survive, one could not expect that the people who
have replaced them will acquiesce to their return. Governments may be
persuaded to uphold the concept of civil equality, but in practice this
notion is doomed to ruin. This scenario was played out after the war in
Poland and the rest of East Central Europe, where returning Jews were
met with antipathy, and often murderous, violence. The author takes
pains to explain that the revelations about Jedwabne notwithstanding,
history is obviously more nuanced than many of us would like to
acknowledge and the question of how Poles behaved during the Holocaust
resists simple explanations and sweeping generalizations.
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The
Jews of France Tormented by the “Intifada of the Suburbs”
Paul Giniewski
The Jews of France have been deeply
involved in “the War of Human Bombs” since October 2000; first of all,
emotionally. The vast majority have been very involved in the cause of
defending Israel.
They have been politically involved
too. Their institutions (particularly the CRIF, the Representative
Council of Jewish Institutions of France) and their press have stood up
against the disinformation of the media, and against the favoritism of
French governments (both right and left) for the Palestinian Arabs.
However, even more than this, the
involvement of the French Jews has been physical. Since the beginning of
the “Intifadat al-Aqsa”, anti-Israel demonstrations have
proliferated. They have been accompanied by anti-Jewish violence. Shouts
have been heard in the streets of Paris; not only “Down with Sharon!”,
but “Death to the Jews!” as well. Hundreds of incidents of anti-Jewish
violence have occurred, in Paris as well as in the provinces,
anti-Semitic graffiti and insults, schools and synagogues burned down,
an attempt to murder a rabbi, etc. The term “Intifada of the
Suburbs” emerged spontaneously, in view of the coexistence in the same
Paris suburbs of significant Jewish communities and communities of North
African origin.
The reaction of the authorities and
the media at first consisted of almost completely ignoring the
phenomenon. Little by little, in view of its magnitude, public opinion
and the government began to take it seriously. Nevertheless, both
communities were urged to abstain from violence; the community from
which Judeophobic violence was coming, and the Jewish community which
had suffered this violence. Likewise in play was the unjust equivalence
asserted by Europe in the Middle East between the violence of the
Palestinian terrorists and Israel's legitimate acts of self-defense.
This equivalence was even more out of place in France where not one
single “anti-Arab” act was committed by the Jews.
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Contemporary Polish
Poetry:
A Short Anthology
Philip Rosenau
The article is the author’s
personal stroll through some of the main streets of the contemporary
Polish poetry, intended to show its breadth and unique scope. On purpose
he has excluded in this stroll the “grand trio”: Milosh, Herbert and
Szymburska. It is when the tallest trees are removed that one gets a
panoramic view of the landscape. The author, Professor of Mathematics at
Tel Aviv University, left Poland over 45 years ago at the age of 10, and
has “discovered” contemporary Polish poetry which, of course, is
completely different from the sounds of childhood nurseries, in a
second-hand bookstore in Manhattan. Poems by one Zbigniew Herbert,
translated by Milosh with an afterword by Brodski, were like a burst of
a super-nova in dark skies. They marked for him a beginning of a long
personal journey into contemporary Polish poetry, of which translation
of Polish poetry plays an important part.
One of the topics he muses over in
the article is the unique cultural climate prevailing in Poland after
World War II. On one hand there was a communist repression, which no
matter how bad, was still very mild when compared with the one going on
in the Soviet Union. But, since Poland was a free country prior to the
war, old cultural and literary traditions were very much alive and could
not be easily eradicated by the new regime. The amalgamation of the old
traumas and traditions with new ones created a set-up that soon was to
beget unique results. Since the mid 1950s, the central stage of Polish
poetry was taken by a new generation of poets who, when the war started,
were still teenagers, and thus, although badly impacted upon, were not
crippled by its events. What has become an essential trademark of this
generation was not a hope for quick victory or any victory for that
matter, but a preservation of human dignity in spite of the relentless
acoustic pollution induced by the communist propaganda that threatened
to contaminate irrevocably the language. Ten years of literary activity
– from the mid 1950s through to the mid 1960s – resulted in a body of
literature of which any nation would be proud.
The enhanced Communist repression
since the late 1960s and voluntary and even more so, involuntary,
emigration of many poets to the West, has transformed the literary
landscape from being uniquely Polish into an all-European affair. The
result of this transformation is that the poetry written in the last 20
years or so, although as good as any, no longer carries the unique
Polish characteristics which gave it its former uniqueness.
The presented translation includes
poems by Rozewich, Twardowski, Bursa and Zagajewski.
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The Day Peace and
Tranquility Broke Out
Steven Plaut
It was in the year 2006. The
Israelis at long gave up their attempts to resist the pressures of the
world. They elected a new government headed by Prime Minister Yossi
Beilin, the original promoter of the Oslo Peace Process, in coalition
with the Jewish and Arab parties of the Left. They announced that Israel
was willing to implement the newest Road Map in Full, to accept the
unanimous proposal for peace supported by every single country in the
world, and would return to its pre-1967 borders, remove all Jewish
settlements from the territories of the new state of Palestine,
recognize Palestine, and grant Palestine all of East Jerusalem, that is,
all of the city located east of a line running north-south through Zion
Square, renamed Jihad Square.
The world had not seen celebration
like it since the fall of the Berlin Wall or the transferal of power in
South Africa to the black majority. All-night celebrations were held in
every city on the planet, but none so enthusiastic as the party held in
Tel Aviv in Rabin Square. Speaker after speaker appeared under a banner
"Liberation at Last", and praised the decision to agree to the terms of
the accord as the ultimate completion of the work and dreams of Yitzhak
Rabin.
The settlers were marched out of
the lands of Palestine at bayonet point, with crowds of jeering Israeli
leftists pelting them with garbage as they moved into their temporary
transit camps inside Green Line Israel. Liberal Jews in the United
States organized a million man march in Washington together with Arabs
and the Nation of Islam to celebrate the breaking out of peace and final
settlement of the conflict. Peace at Last was the number one pop single.
The State Department sent out a message urging Israel and Palestine to
conduct good-faith negotiations and round-the-clock talks on all
outstanding issues of disagreement still separating the two sovereign
states. At long last, there were two states for two peoples. Land had
been exchanged for peace. Peace had at long last broken out in the
world's most troubled region.
The morning after the Palestine
Independence Celebrations, the message arrived in the Israeli
parliament, brought in by special messenger. The newly formed government
of Palestine had only a small number of issues it would like to discuss
with Israel. It proposed that peaceful relations be officially
consummated as soon as Israel turned over to Palestine the Galilee and
the Negev.
Israeli cabinet ministers were
nonplussed. We thought we had settled all outstanding territorial issues
by giving the Palestinians everything, they protested. The spokesman for
the Palestine War Ministry explained. The Galilee was obviously part of
the Arab homeland. It was filled with many Arabs, and in many areas had
an Arab population majority. Israel was holding 100% of the Galilee
territory, and Palestine none at all, and surely that was unfair. As for
the Negev, it too has large areas with Arab majorities, but is in fact
needed so that Palestine can settle the many Palestinian refugees from
around the world in lands and new homes.
Israel's government preferred not
to give offense and sour the new relations, and so offered to take the
proposal under consideration. Within weeks, endorsements of the
Palestinian proposal were coming from a variety of sources. The Arab
League endorsed it. The EU approved a French proposal that the Galilee
and Negev be transferred to Palestine in stages over 3 years. The US
State Department proposed agreement to a new Road Map.
Within Israel, many voices were
heard in favor of the proposal. Large rallies were held on the
universities. The Israeli press endorsed the idea almost in full unison,
with only some regional weeklies from the north and south dissenting.
Israeli film producers began turning out documentaries on the sufferings
of Galilee and Negev Arabs under Israeli rule. Sociologists from around
the world produced studies showing that these Arabs were victims of
horrible discrimination and that Israel is characterized by
institutional racism. Israeli poets and novelists wrote passionate
appeals for support of the Galilee and Negev Others.
When Israel's cabinet rejected the
proposal, the pressures mounted. A Galilee and Negev Liberation
Organization was founded and immediately granted recognition by the UN
General Assembly. It established consulate facilities in 143 countries.
Weeks later the infiltrations
began. Squads of terrorists infiltrated the borders between Palestine
and Israel, and suicide bombers produced a carnage of 75 murdered Jews a
day. The border fences were reinforced, but to no avail. The US State
Department proposed that Israel defuse the situation by considering
compromise on the matters of the Galilee and Negev.
Six months later, the Galilee and
Negev victims of Jewish discrimination decided to escalate their
protests. Gangs of Arabs lynched Jews throughout the disputed
territories. Roadblocks were set up, and entire families of Jews were
dragged from their cars by the activists and beaten to death or doused
with flames. The EU sent in observers, but warned Israel that there is
no military solution to the problems of terrorism and violence. When
Israel arrested gang leaders from the riots, the General Assembly
denounced Israeli state terrorism against Galilee and Negev Arabs.
French universities gave the pogrom leaders, Ahmed Tibi and Azmi Bashara,
honorary doctorates.
Meanwhile, boycotts of Israel arose
throughout Europe. Professors at the US Ivy League colleges demanded a
total embargo and divestment from ties with Israel until it ended its
racist apartheid regime. The leaders of the Reform synagogue movement
supported the State Department and demanded that Israel end its
obstinacy.
Israel's own leftists launched a
Movement against Apartheid, and the foreign press reported that 400,000
protested attended a rally by the Movement in Rabin Square. Cars around
Israel had bumper stickers that read "My Son Will Not Die for Nazareth",
and "Peace Now". The Israeli Labor Party proposed erecting a series of
separating barriers throughout the Galilee under the slogan "Good Fences
Make Good Neighbors".
But Palestine could not sit idly
by. Barrages of rockets and mortars drenched Israeli cities. The death
toll rose to 7,000 Israelis per month. The White House and State
Department threatened to cut off all supplies from Israel if it dared to
launch reprisal raids against independent Palestine. Large cargo ships
from Egypt laden with advanced arms entered the port of Gaza. Thousands
of volunteers streamed into Palestine to assist in the campaign to
rescue the Galilee and Negev Arabs from Israeli oppression.
On the afternoon of Yom Kippur,
tank columns cut Israel in two just north of Tul Karem. Palestine
offered to withdraw in exchange for transferring the Negev and Galilee
to its control. An Israeli newspaper and the Israeli Peace Movement
proposed transferring the disputed areas to EU control until things
could be settled.
Synagogues in Belgium and France
were torched. Teach-ins for Palestine were held on US campuses. A new
conference was called in Durban to denounce Israeli apartheid. The White
House insisted that Israel not expel the invading Palestine troops who
had divided the country, for it was a matter for negotiations and
dialogue. The President invited both sides to Camp David, with observers
from the Negev and Galilee militias present.
Increasing numbers of Israeli
politicians urged that Israel respond to the situation by granting
limited autonomy to the Negev and the Galilee. The Americans offered to
send in ground troops to protect the remaining Israeli territories if
Israel decided to accept the proposal to give up the Negev and Galilee.
Let's at long last have peace in the hills that Jesus roamed, suggested
the President.
Jews living in the Galilee and
Negev were under siege everywhere, and the roads were unsafe. The road
through the Negev to Eilat was cut by militia gangs in four places.
Leftist Israeli professors officially joined the Arab militias fighting
for liberation. Two of them blew themselves up on a Jewish school bus to
show their solidarity with the oppressed Arabs. Ahmed Tibi, head of the
largest militia, insisted he was doing everything possible to stop the
suicide attacks on Tel Aviv and Haifa from the Galilee, but the
Americans demanded that he do more. The UK demanded 100% effort to stop
the violence. The PLO proposed as a compromise that instead of being
annexed by Palestine, the Negev and Galilee be allowed to form a
separate state. The Arab League endorsed the idea.
CNN broadcast a series of specials
on the plight of the Negev and Galilee Arabs, and the BBC started
referring to Tel Aviv as illegally occupied Arab Jaffa. Netanya and Beer
Sheba were described by them as illegal colonial settlements. When the
carnage exceeded 10,000 a month, The New York Times for the first
time expressed regret in having promoted the peace process and ran as
its lead headline "Oops".
The Washington Post however
urged more Israeli flexibility and concessions. The publishers of Tikkun
Magazine and the Reconstructionist movement announced they
would be merging with the American Buddhist Society. The Economist
demanded a new Road Map.
The Negev and Galilee Liberation
organizations raised their flags over their towns and proposed that the
Jews living in their territories be resettled elsewhere. The Palestine
War Ministry was shipping them guns and explosives. The first word came
of a detention camp north of Nazareth in which Jews expelled from their
Galilee homes were being concentrated, with a second camp opened in the
Negev near Rahat.
Strange black smoke rose from the
chimneys.
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