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Will Israel
Always "Live by the Sword"?
Atalia Ben-Meir
The
State of Israel’s investment in the peace process has dissipated.
The agreements did not solve the real problems that were at the
foundation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Palestinians perceived themselves as
victims, and, therefore, had no obligations, no responsibility, and
no accountability; the burden of taking risks falls wholly and
exclusively on Israel. Since Israel refuses to totally comply with
the rules of the game, the issues plaguing the conflict have
remained outstanding.
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The Palestinians regard the “right of
return” to Israel, and not to the Palestinian state, as
non-negotiable.
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The Palestinians are impervious to Israelis
security concerns; Israel’s compromises never satisfying their
demands.
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The Palestinians demand that Israel
relinquish all claim to Jerusalem, denying any Jewish religious,
national and historical bonds.
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Israel’s trust in Arafat was a delusion. Not
only did he not suppress terror, he collaborated with the
terrorist organizations, transforming terror into a ruthless,
brutal and deadlier force.
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The Palestinian Authority is waging a
persistent war of incitement to hatred, including educating
children to be human bombs sent to slaughter Israelis.
Jews have always yearned for peace. However,
the price and the risks of peace must never be ignored. The
inversion in the status of Israel and the PLO in the course of the
Oslo process, where the Palestinians now decisively control the
negotiation process, has subjugated Israel’s status to the ambitions
and the interests of the Palestinians.
However, the Peace Now vision was anchored in
the vision that conceding to Palestinian demands would lead to
peace. The basic fallacy of this ideology was its focus on the ‘here
and now, and only on facts that supported it. The fanatic adherence
to ideology led to a disregard of reality, and the ramifications of
each concession. The possibility that these concessions embodied the
risk of future war was never entertained.
The
recurrence of the main failures of the negotiation processes
ultimately transformed the Oslo process into a legacy of folly. The
State of Israel must cease its obsessive pursuit of an agreement,
but rather reinvent itself as a bastion of security and as a wall
against the erosion of the rights of Israeli citizens, especially
the right for Jewish self-determination.
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The Iranian Nuclear
Threat
Shalom Freedman
This paper opens with a
brief consideration of the strategic doctrine of the present regime
in Iran. After describing the process of lies and deceptions through
which Iran has to this point advanced its nuclear program, the
author offers:
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A detailed look at the
process by which Pakistan defied the world, and acquired nuclear
weapons.
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The way Iran has
already used, and will continue to use the Pakistani precedent to
forward its own nuclear program.
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An examination of the
effort to halt the Iranian program through peaceful means, showing
why it has a small chance of success.
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The meaning of the
Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons for the world situation,
focusing on the disarmament/ proliferation aspect of this.
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The possibilities for a
military option preventing Iran from acquisition of these weapons.
The article concludes
with a brief consideration of how Israel might take a deterrent
posture against Iranian nuclear weapons.
The first aim of the
paper is to focus attention on the process of acquisition and to
show that as things are now, Iran is definitely on the way to
nuclear weapons, showing why such a possibility is so negative not
simply for Israel and the United States but for the world as a
whole.
The
paper is meant to be an alarm, but it leaves open the question of
whether even those who are in positions of power and action, when
hearing this “wake-up call”, will be able to do anything to stop the
world from having a nuclear Iran.
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Watching
the Pro-Israel Media Watchers
Manfred Gerstenfeld and Ben Green
Media
watching can be defined as critically examining one or more media on
a regular or recurrent basis. It usually results from a conviction
that certain media are biased against a cause that the monitoring
body or individual supports. Media-watching activities include
collecting, analyzing, and publishing data.
Over
the past decades, the media have made the most of a unique
situation. Whereas they have the power to criticize
others relentlessly and sometimes brutally, there are few ways to
take them to task. The work of their staff is only subject to the
specific media’s self-regulation. Media also rarely criticize each
other. According to some experts, the extreme power of the media
poses a major danger to Western democracy.
Pro-Israeli media monitoring goes back about three decades. The
first watches were in written form. In the mid-1970s Si Kenen,
editor of the AIPAC-affiliated, Washington-based Near East Report
and the activists he mobilized effectively criticized the leading US
columnist Rowland Evans so that he had to retract false information
about Israel.
Currently several organizations and individuals, in Israel and
abroad, monitor foreign media’s reporting on Israeli-related
matters. They differ in their aims, focus, and modus operandi; for
some of them, media watching is one of a wider range of activities.
Most pro-Israeli media watches are in English but there also some in
other languages such as French, Italian, German, Spanish, and
Portuguese. Among the ones in English are Camera, Honest Reporting,
Palestinian Media Watch, The Anti-Defamation League, Honestly
Concerned and Take-a-Pen. These organizations differ in their aims,
focus, and modus operandi; for some of them media watching is one of
a wider range of activities.
Pro-Israeli media monitors typically have a number of
characteristics such as focusing on the Arab-Israeli conflict and
supplying information otherwise difficult to access. They have a
website on which their material is published regularly. Frequently
it is sent by emails to their subscribers. Sometimes media watchers
will speak, without publicity, to a media organization that has
published biased material and seek to reach an agreement. Several
also lobby foreign governments and authorities. Their ultimate
common aim is to remove the media bias.
Pro-Israeli media watching does have an impact, both causing
journalists to report more objectively and influencing policymakers.
The media watching of the Middle East conflict may well be the
forerunner of a much wider and healthier process. Media watching may
finally make the media – sometimes called the fourth branch of
government – subject to certain checks and balances such as those
existing for the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches.
Making media more accountable for what they write serves democracy
well. As the criticism flows from many concerned people, media
monitoring is becoming an important democratic process.
Jewish
organizations and individuals are among those in the forefront of
the effort to make the media more accountable. Their actions have a
social and political importance that goes far beyond public affairs
aspects. As both the Middle East conflict and the disproportionate
interest in it continue, media-watching activities are likely to
grow further in the coming years.
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Demography: Existential Threat or Myth?
Ezra Sohar
Most of
the demographic prognostications, since the turn of the previous
century, consistently predicted that the Jewish majority in the Land
of Israel has no chance against the Arab proliferation. This article
disputes that assessment, regarding which there is virtual consensus
with Prof. Arnon Sofer of Haifa University, one of its most avid
proponents.
A
summary of the points raised in the article:
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All
predictions regarding the makeup of the population from the birth
of Zionism have proven wrong – all overstated the Arab ability to
procreate and properly assessed neither the level of Arab
emigration from Israel nor the level of Jewish immigration to it.
The makeup of the population in the Land of Israel is primarily
determined by immigration to and emigration from it.
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In
1949, the Jews were transformed from minority to majority status
in the Land of Israel.
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The
model of natural procreation of the Arabs is identical to that of
the West. The “Palestinian womb” is not superior. The increase in
the Arab population is also influenced by steady immigration and
not only by natural increase.
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Jewish immigration – an important component in determining the
Jewish majority in Israel – is a steady phenomenon: Beginning in
1882, the year in which data began to be collected, immigration
has not ceased for even one year. Jewish immigration has its own
characteristics: It is not continuous but in waves, with peaks.
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The
attempt to “disengage” by means of a partition has been a dismal
failure and a waste of billions of shekels.
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The
Arab birth model poses no threat to Israel, however the system of
excessive economic support for children and naturalization laws
are part of the Israeli effort to facilitate the growth of the
Arab population by force. Instead of being frightened by the
threats of mistaken prognostications – we must adjust the level of
child support to the reality, prohibit polygamy and repeal
distorted naturalization laws.
If we
take action in this manner, there is no reason to be concerned that
a change in the demographic balance in Israel will transpire, and it
is worthwhile to remember that the synopsis of the Central Bureau of
Statistics preceding Rosh Hashanah 5765 related that the percentage
of Jews in the population of the State of Israel is 81% and the
percentage of Arabs is only 19%.
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The
Media and Intellectual Anti-Semitism in Western Europe
Robert S. Wistrich
“Judeophobia at the beginning of the 21st century has been
undergoing a significant metamorphosis. It is not primarily ethnic,
völkisch, or racist in character as it was six decades ago in
Europe. In contemporary Western Europe, anti-Semitism is no longer
the exclusive preserve of xenophobic forms of radical populism or
the ultra-nationalism that was traditionally linked with it, both
before, during and after the Holocaust. This does not mean that the
existing movements of the radical Right have ceased to be a matter
of concern. They are remarkably stable and in many Western and
Central European countries, they represent between 10-20% of the
electorate. Jews are still targeted but less so than foreign
immigrants, guest workers, Arabs, Africans, Gypsies or other
outsiders.
“On the
other hand, though militant Islam is perceived as an enemy by the
radical Right, so, too, is the “international Jewish lobby”. Indeed
anti-Semitic “anti-Zionism” has led to a significant rapprochement –
particularly in Germany – between the far Right and radical
Islamists. Both accuse “the Jews” of exploiting the Holocaust to
financially blackmail Germans and gain world-wide support for
Zionism. Despite its endemic anti-Arab racism, the far Right often
uses the Middle East conflict, anti-Zionist slogans and “solidarity
with the Palestinians” as a means to further anti-Semitic political
propaganda.”
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The Swinish Israeli
Uri Paz
An
expanded tribunal of nine High Court of Justice judges, headed by
Chief Justice Aharon Barak, decided that the sale of pig meat is
permissible throughout Israel on a temporary basis. The ruling marks
an additional, significant chapter in the history of the pig in the
Land of Israel. Therefore, it is important that it be clear to each
and every Israeli the historical, national and religious motives for
the prohibition of eating pig.
The
religious motive: The Bible of Israel prohibits Jews from eating pig
meat and from deriving pleasure from it as well. From generation to
generation, the Jewish repugnance vis-à-vis the pig
intensified, to the point that its consumption became the symbol of
all sin. The article attempts to respond to the question: Why were
the Jews forbidden to eat pig? It concludes that the rabbis
refrained from providing reasons for it.
The
national, historic reason: Research of the settlements in Canaan is
aided by a conspicuous characteristic of the tribes who lived and
functioned there – animal bones. In Ezbat, Certa and Shiloh there
was no incidence of pig bones, and the researchers identify the
residents of those sites as Israelis, thus the residents of those
areas specifically refrained from eating pig, a prohibition
mentioned twice in the Bible.
The
absolute national revulsion of the pig exacerbated in the wake of
tragic historical events experienced by the Jewish people. The
article surveys extensively how the pig was an anti-Jewish symbol
throughout Jewish history, and the enemies of the Jewish people used
it to attack the Jews, to harass them and ridicule them and their
beliefs, and thus the pig became the symbol of impurity in the eyes
of the Jewish people. Thus, it is no wonder that the sale of pig
meat throughout Israel is different than the sale of other
non-kosher products.
Imagine
what the reaction would be if a plant for the manufacture of
neckties and ribbons, symbols and shirts, emblazoned them
with…swastikas? Would there not be an outcry? Would there not be
complaints about insensitivity, offending the feelings of victims of
the Nazis and trampling national pride? Who would dare assert that
the economic profit of the thriving plant justifies offending public
sensitivities? However, under the symbol of the swastika “only” six
million Jews were killed, while under the symbols of Christianity,
who hold the pig in high regard, tens of millions, including those
six million were killed, for if it were not for the tradition of
Christian anti-Semitism, whole nations would not have joined that
awful massacre.
The
pig is a historical symbol, a national-Jewish ethos with
significance for the Jewish people as a collective, and its roots
are planted in the earliest days of its nationhood, which, without a
doubt, should tilt the balance of the scales of justice. That Jewish
ethos of our fathers regarding the non-raising and non-consuming of
pigs, and the cooperation with the objective of preserving the
Jewish way of life and Jewish spiritual life for hundreds of years
of wandering and persecution – that ethos is a significant part of
the fabric of one collective ethos which distinguishes us, and one
criterion to lean on in the Jewish state today.
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