Operation Preaching to the Choir

I have always been political. I grew up at a time when people became polarized over Viet Nam and it made me very, very political. My leanings in college were radical activist, but I tempered them when I joined my first political campaign - I was one of the "Clean for Gene" McCarthy supporters. I recall a bus trip to Scranton to identify McCarthy voters. After I dropped out of college, I moved to Israel, and lived on a Kibbutz for a year. I got married, we moved back to the States, and I became active working for former Congressman Abner J. Mikva in some of the closest Congressional campaigns imaginable. I remained active, but in lesser capacities, until I moved to California and found myself living in the Beach Cities where I was surrounded by Republicans; some wealthy, some skin heads, some just too confusing. After 9/11 I found myself unable to speak my fears because of the people who surrounded me.

Then I got an email from my friend Alicia about her experience singing on Neil Young's Living with War album. I started tentatively to blog, and found more people who shared my fears, and voice. Now, Alicia has done it again with a new blog, Operation Preaching to the Choir. Here is her comment: "I have come to understand that there is a large segment of the population that, because of their emotional need, will follow this administration wherever it goes; that there is nothing awful enough that would change the minds of these people, if they have chosen to believe in these self-appointed authoritarians. If George Bush says black is white (and he does!) then that's what they'll believe. Facts, logic and reality have no place in their worldview. As Richard Pryor once said, "Who are you going to believe - me or your lying eyes?"

But I also understand that this segment is not the majority, and I am not going to attempt to change the minds of these people. The ones I'm concerned with right now are the people like me - the ones who believe in peace, in social justice, in America as it was intended to be, but are not active because they don't understand that it is necessary. I want to 'preach to the choir'."

This is so simple - one method she suggests is to carry around whatever book you are reading as a way to open conversation. That's so non-threatening, but it also makes people aware. Already, I am seeing changes and inroads. My formerly Republican friend was just back east for a wedding - she just called me, we're meeting tonight for dinner. Her big news? She went, with her Republican sister-in-law, to hear Al Gore do his presentation. She said they both walked out energized, convinced they have to take action!

One person talking to another, in conversation, to find solutions. Let's get out there! Let's preach to the choir that hasn't found their voice.

Hate has no place in the Media

If you didn't sign this petition at Helen Wheels, then do it here. It is a petition to get hate spewing right wing pundits like Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly off the air. Take a minute to sign, and pass it on to others.

Prudhoe Bay Oilfield

It's August. British Petroleum has announced they're shutting down their oil production from Prudhoe Bay while they repair 70% of corroded pipeline covering a 20 mile stretch. Prudhoe Bay Oilfields supply about 20% of the oil to California refineries. Back in March, after an oil spill, BP was ordered by the US Government to inspect the pipes and they are under Grand Jury investigation over pollution.

Traders in New York's oil market got nervous over the closures, and the cost of crude jumped to almost $77 a barrel. That will affect prices at the pump (love my hybrid). Could the price of gas go over $4 a gallon? Hmmm.

The War in Iraq has now exceeded $300,000,000,000 which is more that I can actually say out loud. The war in Iraq is about control of oil. BP has not said how long the repairs to the pipeline will take, nor when they will re-open.

Timing is everything.

Sore throat

Not a good thing when you earn your living on the phone. Had a client cancel a cruise because the original itinerary changed. It is no longer calling on Beiruit, and it won't go to Lybia either, because US Citizens are once again not allowed to enter Lybia. That changes on a regular basis, but my client was disappointed because he wanted the original itinerary.

Now, because it is work, I can't really say "Listen, buster, have you been reading the papers? There's a war on and Beiruit is getting hammered."

I had been working on a really long pre-cruise and post-cruise land program for him, to go to Israel and Egypt in great depth. He said "Egypt would probably be okay, but I think Israel might be a little uncomfortable."

Ya think?

So he cancelled, and had me re-book him on another cruise line, another itinerary, that doesn't visit any place currently at war.

Another lady called to book another cruise, and she just started talking politics to me - total stranger, mind you - about this heartbreaking disaster in Lebanon and Israel. She said (total stranger from the Middle West) that she thinks it is really a fake war to keep people from paying attention to Iraq. Then she said "I don't mean fake in the sense that it isn't real, but I mean fake because the killings there make people not think about what we are really doing."

I thought, damn, this lady took a full on risk with me! Still, I'm at work, and I cannot do that discussion on the phone. But it has been my day for cruisers who want to go to the Middle East.

Just got off the phone with another one. Meanwhile, my throat is just screaming - I don't want to talk, I don't have a thought in my brain, I want to get popsicles and really do nothing.

Back from the mountains, and tag, you're it.

Hi everybody. What a gorgeous weekend in Big Bear Lake Village. It was my first time up at Big Bear Lake, and it sits within the San Bernadino National Forest, so development is limited. My cousin and I didn't do much much chill out, talk, laugh, and unwind. It was fantastic after a tough couple of weeks. The only downside was that it was too short. Thank you for your words of kindness about my friend Sandy. And as for my little Ellie Bean, just remember, I don't have a cat. So since I can't do friday cat blogging, I do the grandmother thang.

But I come home to find I've been tagged, twice - Spooky Pete and BZ both tagged me on my favorite books. So, I sort of don't understand the tagging part, but will give it a go:

1: One book that changed your life:
Alcoholics Anonymous also known as The Big Book. Here is where I have been given a new life, and a solution to a terminal illness. This book has saved my life.

2: One book you have read more than once:
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner. This is a magnificent book by one of the most eloquent voices in American literature. It is a journey of discovery on so many levels. I love this book.

3: One book you would want on a desert island:
Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales. It is a fascinating read about who lives, who dies, in extreme survival situations, and why.


4: One book that made you laugh:
Native Tongue by Carl Hiassen. Well, anything by Carl Hiassen, really. But this one is hilarious. It's about a search for a pair of blue-tongued mango voles stolen from an amusement park in Florida. And it is insane. Also, The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost, a travelogue about how he came to live in the god-forsaken atoll of Kiribati (pronounced Kiribath) - it made me laugh a lot.

5: One book you wish had been written:
Well, I don't know. Right now I'd like to see a book on do-it-yourself Impeachment.


6: One book you wish had never had been written:
Almonds and Raisins by Maisie Mosco. I just can't even begin to go into how badly it was written.


7: One book that made you cry:
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. A gorgeous testimony to courage against prejudice. And Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler. This one so paralleled the emotional roller coaster of my upbringing, that it made me weep for hours. Oh, and The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. If you haven't read it, do.

8: One book you are currently reading:
Conservatives without Conscience by John Dean, which is actually scaring the bejezus out of me.

9: One book you have been meaning to read:
The One Percent Solution by Ron Suskind and Our Endangered Values by Jimmy Carter.

10: Now tag five people:
Robin Andrea and Roger (does this count as two people?)
Tina
Karena
Sigrid Jardin

Okay. You're all it.

Friday grandbaby blogging

She likes to climb on things. She has a growing vocabulary: mama, dada, again, ball, cat, doggie, up, blue. Everything else is doggie.

She goes to the drawer, or cabinet. She takes each thing out individually, and says "Hello, spoon. I'm Ellie. It's so nice to meet you." This sounds like "grible doggie bleip flrfle." Then she puts the thing on the floor, takes out the next thing, and repeats the process. After everything has been removed, she takes the last object, kisses it good bye and puts it back in the drawer. After everything is put away, she starts the exact same process of introduction again.

Off to work, then the mountains with my cousin, I actually packed and am bringing my camera. Have a great weekend, and thank you all for your hugs and support.

In memory of a collegue

Just got the email from a friend in Chicago. Her business partner, Sandy, died last night at 7PM from breast cancer. We were all Aussie Specialist travel agents and Sandy was born & raised in Melbourne. We had history - we were friends, then not friends (she could be prickly) but after I move out here, we began to find our way back to being friends. We truly enjoyed each other!

My friend Sunnie, Sandy's business partner, is a real dear - her name fits her - and she's devastated. I called her immediately, and we just cried together on the phone. We're traveling together over a huge chunk of our upcoming Australia trip - so there will be a few tears shed.

The three of us, Sandy, Sunnie and I, shared a Qantas Airways Sales Rep when I was in Chicago - Laura Lee Morobito was our Rep until she moved to Boston. I'd moved to Los Angeles in April 2001; on Sept. 11, 2001, I had to call Sunnie and Sandy to tell them that Laura had been confirmed on the American Airlines flight 11 that flew into the first of the World Trade Center towers.

Sandy will be missed.

Altered Oceans

A chemical imbalance, creating higher levels of acidity in our oceans, threatens to wipe out coral, fish and other crucial species worldwide.

Marine biologist Victoria Fabray has been conducting an experiment with cold-water snails called pteropods. She had them in plastic jars filled with seawater, little microcosms of the world's oceans. These snails are found in the coldest waters; in her experiment, she put them into sealed jars. The snails expend carbon dioxide, which in turn makes the water more acidic. Within 36 hours, their shells were disolving from the acidity.

As industrial activity pumps massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the environment, more of the gas is being absorbed by the oceans. As a result, seawater is becoming more acidic, and a variety of sea creatures await the same dismal fate as Fabry's pteropods.

The greenhouse gas, best known for accumulating in the atmosphere and heating the planet, is entering the ocean at a rate of nearly 1 million tons per hour — 10 times the natural rate.

I'm a scuba diver - not a great one, but I love to dive. I've seen evidence of coral bleaching, another result of chemical imbalance and greater than normal ocean temperatures. Coral bleaching has many potential harmful impacts. Corals die faster after bleaching starts. Coral death is proportional to how long water temperature has been higher than normal. The greater the amount of bleaching, the more likely the coral will die. However, if corals survive bleaching, their reproductive capacity is greatly reduced and reef productivity and growth is diminished. Without the nutrients produced by coral, fish die. It goes on, and on.

Scientists report that the seas are more acidic today than they have been in at least 650,000 years. At the current rate of increase, ocean acidity is expected, by the end of this century, to be 2 1/2 times what it was before the Industrial Revolution began 200 years ago. Such a change would devastate many species of fish and other animals that have thrived in chemically stable seawater for millions of years.

Primitive life forms will likely survive, to the detriment of higher forms of sea life. Corals and shells will be come too fragile to withstand the pounding of waves.

Oceans have been a protective barrier against carbon dioxide when increases are gradual. Were it not for our oceans, the average temperature increase over the last several years would be higher; glaciers would be gone by now. When carbon dioxide is added to the ocean gradually, it does little harm.

Today, however, the addition of carbon dioxide to the seas is anything but gradual.

Scientists estimate that nearly 500 billion tons of the gas have been absorbed by the oceans since the start of the Industrial Revolution. That is more than a fourth of all the CO2 that humanity has emitted into the atmosphere. Eventually, 80% of all human-generated carbon dioxide is expected to find its way into the sea.

The increase of CO2 in the oceans creates carbonic acid, which can cause heart attacks in some fish. Geological records show that there has not been a change in the oceans PH levels in 650,000 years, til recently. The current changes, if they continue at their current pace, will change by 150% by the end of the century.

The last time ocean chemistry underwent such a radical transformation, Ken Caldeira, an expert on ocean chemistry and carbon dioxide at the Carnegie Institution's department of global ecology, said, "was when the dinosaurs went extinct."

Scientists say the acidification of the oceans won't be arrested unless the output of CO2 from factories, power plants and automobiles is substantially reduced. Even now, the problem may be irreversible.

Environment: Good News, Bad News

First, the good news: Vail Resorts to invest heavily in wind power, making it the second largest corporate buyer of wind power after Whole Foods Markets, which is now using 100% wind power for its energy needs.

Just outside of Palm Springs, California, you can see a huge wind farm. I don't know how to describe my feelings whenever I see it, but I personally find it to be beautiful. Hundreds and hundreds of quiet, simple, windmills. They're all lined up like a marching band formation. I find them to be elegant. And it is a renewable energy source, doesn't create greenhouse gasses, it is our friend.


And the bad news:

Plague of plastic chokes the seas, causing the death of at least 40% of Albatross chicks on Midway Island Atoll. Chicks die with a belly full of bottle caps, combs, cigarette lighters, golf tees. John Klavitter, a wildlife biologist who is stationed at the atoll for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We often find cigarette lighters, bucket handles, toothbrushes, syringes, toy soldiers — anything made out of plastic."

Midway Island Atoll is 1000 miles from the nearest city; it is midway between the USA and Japan, and is without any industry, no fast-food establishments, no overflowing trashcans, and only a handful of people. Yet the deaths of these magnificent birds is a clear indicator of the massive amounts of crap that clogs the seas.

Albatross fly hundreds of miles in their search for food for their young. Their flight paths from Midway often take them over what is perhaps the world's largest dump: a slowly rotating mass of trash-laden water about twice the size of Texas.

This is known as the Eastern Garbage Patch, part of a system of currents called the North Pacific subtropical gyre. Located halfway between San Francisco and Hawaii, the garbage patch is an area of slack winds and sluggish currents where flotsam collects from around the Pacific, much like foam piling up in the calm center of a hot tub.

Nearly 90% of this crap is plastic. Most of it comes from land, litter tossed out on highways, streets, streams, rivers which gets swept out to sea. The rest is dumped from ships - both passenger and cargo ships. Some consists of synthetic floats and other gear that is jettisoned illegally to avoid the cost of proper disposal in port.

In addition, thousands of cargo containers fall overboard in stormy seas each year, spilling their contents. One ship heading from Los Angeles to Tacoma, Wash., disgorged 33,000 blue-and-white Nike basketball shoes in 2002. Other loads lost at sea include 34,000 hockey gloves and 29,000 yellow rubber ducks and other bathtub toys.

This crap floats around in various gyres for dozens of years, eventually finding its way to various currents, and spreading out across the seas. The victims - sea birds, seals, sea lions, whales, dolphins, sea turtles, fish - mistake it for food, and die. Since the 1950s, the plastic debris has increased 10-fold each decade.

Plastic doesn't disintigrate. And plastic is derived from petroleum. And petroleum is a huge contributor to greenhouse gasses.

But WINDFARMS are a non-polluting, renewable resource that don't kill sea life or choke our oceans.

The Israeli invasion is bad enough without manufacturing hatred,

On another blog, I read a lengthy post which repeated a quote attributed to Ariel Sharon. The quote was fabricated, yet, the blogger repeated it in his post like a mantra, as proof that the Jews control America. Zionism is bad. I'm waiting for him to suggest that it was Zionist Jews behind the attacks on 9/11, because that's how misinformed I find him to be. But he writes well, and given the American tendancy to believe blindly, the comments on his post all support him as being right on, the voice of reason. Personally, I find him to be hateful. Filled with hatred, misinformation, which he dissembles as not being anti-semetic.

Listen, folks. The Israeli government is wrong. However, The USA controls Olmert and the Knesset. It is not the other way around. Rather than focus your misguided hatred on Israel, it is better served to focus on Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, Rice, Kristol, Wolfowitz, and the PNAC.

But back to the quote:

Syndicated Columnist Georgie Anne Geyer Uses Fabricated Sharon Quote by Tamar Sternthal

In a May 10, 2002 column (“Now Isn’t the Time for Bush League Moves”), nationally-syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer included bogus and inflammatory allegations against Prime Minister Sharon and Israel’s supporters in America.

First, she wrote:

In fact, it [American support for Israel’s actions] led Prime Minister Sharon to tell his Cabinet recently, “I control America.”

CAMERA conducted extensive Nexis and Internet searches, and found that no mainstream news organization reported as true the fabricated quotation.

The hoax originated with an October 3, 2001 press release from the pro-Hamas group, the Islamic Association for Palestine. It said:

An acrimonious argument erupted during the Israeli cabinet weekly session last week between Ariel Sharon and his foreign Minister Shimon Peres during which Sharon reportedly yelled at Peres, saying “don’t worry about American pressure, we control America.”

Notably, in the same press release, the direct quotation “we control America” changed to “we the Jewish people control America.”

IAP wrote:

According [to] the Israeli Hebrew radio, Col [sic] Yisrael Wednesday, Peres warned Sharon that refusing to heed incessant American requests for a cease-fire with the Palestinians would endanger Israeli interests and turn the US against us. At this point, a furious Sharon reportedly turned toward Peres, saying “...I want to tell you something clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel, we the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it.”

According to the IAP press release, the statement was reported on Kol Yisrael. However, CAMERA’s calls to Kol Yisrael confirmed that no such broadcast occurred.

Geyer’s second problematic claim was:

Look at U.S. television: One minute, you see pro-Israeli ads saying the Arabs are all dogs...

However, here too investigation turned up no evidence that any such ad ever appeared on U.S. television.

Since the Sharon “quotation” and the “Arabs are dogs" ad are preposterous on their face, one would have expected Geyer (and editors who publish her column) to verify their accuracy before including such inflammatory statements in her column.

Geyer’s piece, which is syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate, is known to have appeared in the Chicago Tribune and the San Diego Union Tribune.

UPDATE (June 15, 2002): Geyer Expresses "Regrets"
CAMERA notified Geyer’s editors that the Sharon “quote” originated on a pro-Hamas website (the Islamic Association for Palestine), and that it had not been corroborated by any reputable media organization. CAMERA also pointed out that IAP’s alleged source, a report on Israel radio, is apparently fictional – Kol Yisrael denied to CAMERA that it had ever broadcast any such report.

When CAMERA requested substantiation from Geyer, the columnist first asserted that she was abroad and would have to check her notes when she got back home in June. After CAMERA contacted editor Bruce Dold of the Chicago Tribune (which ran the Geyer column), he replied:

Ms. Geyer does indeed cite the same sources you note [an Islamic Association for Palestine press release that claimed Kol Yisrael radio reported the Sharon statement] on the Sharon quote. If you have a statement or confirmation from Kol Yisrael, I’d like to see it. As for the second point [concerning the alleged television ads], that is not a direct quote from an ad, but Geyer’s own interpretation of the nature of the content.

Informed that the Kol Yisrael reporter assigned to cover the Israeli Cabinet [where the Sharon statement was alleged to have been made] denied Sharon had made the attributed comment, Dold responded with a different story from Geyer. She now claimed that her sources were two anonymous Israelis.

Finally, Geyer’s syndicate disseminated the following Editor’s Note which appeared on June 14 in the Chicago Tribune and Sarasota Herald Tribune and will likely be published by other papers that ran Geyer’s May 10 column.

Editor’s note: Georgie Anne Geyer’s May 10 column included a quote from Ariel Sharon, 'I control America.’ This quote was widely reported in the Palestinian press but cannot be confirmed in independent sources. Geyer and Universal Press Syndicate regret not having attributed the quote more specifically.

While the syndicate thus admitted that “This quote...cannot be confirmed in independent sources,” it failed to state unambiguously that Sharon never uttered the words and that the alleged quotation first appeared in a press release from the pro-Hamas IAP. Since IAP said that Kol Yisrael was their source and Kol Yisrael denies broadcasting any such report, there should be no question that IAP was attempting to perpetrate a hoax. The syndicate also should have written “alleged quote” whenever referring to the supposed statement by Sharon.

Furthermore, the Editor’s Note implies that the problem was one merely of mistaken attribution – that it would have been acceptable for Geyer to use the bogus quotation had she cited “Palestinian sources.” Obviously, since these sources have been proven false, the quote should not have been published at all.

Additionally, the Editor’s Note fails entirely to address the other baseless assertion in Geyer’s May 10 column, her outrageous statement: “Look at U.S. television: One minute, you see pro-Israeli ads saying the Arabs are all dogs...”

Repeated CAMERA requests for Geyer to identify the specific ad that led to her “interpretation” have gone unanswered. Clearly there is no way that her readers could have understood that she was “interpreting” rather than paraphrasing or quoting from a supposed ad. Since it is extremely unlikely that any “U.S. television” station would have broadcast any such ad, Geyer and her syndicate owe her readers another “Editor’s Note” or apology.

Meanwhile, Politics as usual

The Republicans are without shame, without a shred of common decency. House GOP ties minimum wage to Estate Tax Cut.

Really, someone explain to me how the Republicans can justify leaving the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour, where it has languished for the last ten years, while they try to repeal a tax that affects only the wealthiest Americans. By tacking an amendment onto a bill to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour, they display an arrogance that goes beyond comprehension.

"According to the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank, the modest wage raise would directly benefit an estimated 6.6 million people who are currently bringing home less than $7.25 per hour. The average wage increase predicted for those workers is $1,200 per year. The Center also estimated that current minimum-wage workers would see their yearly incomes go up about $4,400 to $15,100 per year, still less than the federal poverty level for a family of three.

The other beneficiaries of the House bill would be the heirs of Americans who have more than $5 million in assets. The estate-tax cut would allow those heirs to keep an estimated $267.5 billion between 2007 and 2016 that would otherwise go to federal coffers, according to Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation."

Midterms are coming up, not soon enough by my count.

I Have No Government. I'm A Disenfranchised American.

I urge you to read This post by Linda Milazzo at Winograd Watchdog. She writes In the current debacle between Israel and Hezbollah, with the mounting deaths of Lebanese children, it is unconscionable for Israel to justify murdering these children by labeling them embeds of Hezbollah. I agree. Every day this disaster continues, I feel my heart break.

Ms. Milazzo also writes: Sadly, this badge of inhumanity isn't only worn by Israel who slays the children of Lebanon. Or by the Hezbollah who slay the children of Israel. It is worn by the Sudanese, who willingly decimate the children of Darfur. It is worn by the Congolese soldiers who savage the children of Congo. It was worn a dozen years earlier in Rwanda, when willing Hutus murdered hundreds of thousands of Tutsi children in a span of 100 days. The same badge of inhumanity was worn in Bosnia by the Serbs who murdered Muslim children, by the Turks who murdered Armenian children, by the Nazis who murdered Jewish children, and on and on and on.

Throughout the history of un-civilization, the badge of inhumanity has been worn by one genocidal ideology after another.

Shamefully, this very same badge of inhumanity is also worn by the United States, where I live. Where the Government's decision to willingly overtake the nation of Iraq has triggered the murders of tens of thousands of children. And where the ideological refusal to support a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel willingly adds to the murders of Lebanese and Israeli children each and every day.

The right wing says "America, love it or leave it." Ms. Milazzo writes America, leave it or SEIZE IT. Humanity, know it and show it. Save the children!! Save the children!! Save the children!!

In Lebanon. In Israel. In Iraq. In sub-Saharan Africa. In Aceh, Indonesia. In Haiti. In the Dominican Republic. In South and Central America. In North America.

Please read the entire post.

The Sequel

Hat tip to Agi - he says Mel Gibson's making a sequel.

Condi ends her Middle East Trip

And Israel agrees to a 48 hour cease fire. This is effective immediately, to allow an investigation into the bombing of Qana that left about 57 Lebanese cililians dead.

History repeats itself; in 1992, Israel launched a similar attack on Qana, leaving 100 civilians dead. International outcry was strong enough then to stop Israel's operation at that time. Will it be strong enough now? Hezbollah promises vengence.

Prime Minister Fouad Siniora of Lebanon said he will not hold talks on the crisis until there is an immediate and permanent cease-fire. Condi packed her bags and went home without calling for an immediate cease fire.

Reluctant post about Israel/Palestine, take two

I don't think this post will win me any popularity contests among leftist bloggers, although I am a leftist blogger. But I also happen to be a Jew, and a Zionist. I read people's comments that range from "the Zionists need to pack their shit and leave," to dropping the full weight of hatred and responsibility on the backs of the Jewish people. This breaks my heart. On some days, it breaks my spirit. On other days, it infuriates me. My anger on those days is not only at the sociopaths who have stolen their way into power in the United States, and, quite probably, Israel; but also at the Militant, fundamentalist leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, who also hold their people hostage to their restrictive beliefs. And my anger is also directed at my brothers and sisters in the left blogsphere, who often have an unbalanced view of what is actually happening in the Middle East.

Let me be very clear: I do NOT condone Israel's invasion of Lebanon. I do NOT condone Israel's dropping bombs on the people living in Gaza. I urgently support an immediate cease-fire, and serious negotiations. That said, I also need to post some clarifications.

The Cave of Machpelah is the world's most ancient Jewish site and the second holiest place for the Jewish people, after Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The cave and the adjoining field were purchased—at full market price—by Abraham some 3700 years ago. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah are all later buried in the same Cave of Machpelah. These are considered the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish people. The only one who is missing is Rachel, who was buried near Bethlehem where she died in childbirth. I have visited these places. They are in The West Bank.

MYTHS AND FACTS

MYTH

“The Jews have no claim to the land they call Israel.”

FACT

A common misperception is that all the Jews were forced into the Diaspora by the Romans after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 C.E. and then, 1,800 years later, suddenly returned to Palestine demanding their country back. In reality, the Jewish people have maintained ties to their historic homeland for more than 3,700 years.

The Jewish people base their claim to the Land of Israel on at least four premises: 1) the Jewish people settled and developed the land; 2) the international community granted political sovereignty in Palestine to the Jewish people; 3) the territory was captured in defensive wars and 4) God promised the land to the patriarch Abraham.

Even after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and the beginning of the exile, Jewish life in the Land of Israel continued and often flourished. Large communities were reestablished in Jerusalem and Tiberias by the ninth century. In the 11th century, Jewish communities grew in Rafah, Gaza, Ashkelon, Jaffa and Caesarea. The Crusaders massacred many Jews during the 12th century, but the community rebounded in the next two centuries as large numbers of rabbis and Jewish pilgrims immigrated to Jerusalem and the Galilee. Prominent rabbis established communities in Safed, Jerusalem and elsewhere during the next 300 years.

By the early 19th century — years before the birth of the modern Zionist movement — more than 10,000 Jews lived throughout what is today Israel. The 78 years of nation-building, beginning in 1870, culminated in the reestablishment of the Jewish State.

Israel’s international “birth certificate” was validated by the promise of the Bible; uninterrupted Jewish settlement from the time of Joshua onward; the Balfour Declaration of 1917; the League of Nations Mandate, which incorporated the Balfour Declaration; the United Nations partition resolution of 1947; Israel’s admission to the UN in 1949; the recognition of Israel by most other states; and, most of all, the society created by Israel’s people in decades of thriving, dynamic national existence.

MYTH

“Palestine was always an Arab country.”

FACT
The term “Palestine” is believed to be derived from the Philistines, an Aegean people who, in the 12th Century B.C.E., settled along the Mediterranean coastal plain of what are now Israel and the Gaza Strip. In the second century C.E., after crushing the last Jewish revolt, the Romans first applied the name Palaestina to Judea (the southern portion of what is now called the West Bank) in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel. The Arabic word Filastin is derived from this Latin name.

The Hebrews entered the Land of Israel about 1300 B.C.E., living under a tribal confederation until being united under the first monarch, King Saul. The second king, David, established Jerusalem as the capital around 1000 B.C.E. David’s son, Solomon, built the Temple soon thereafter and consolidated the military, administrative and religious functions of the kingdom. The nation was divided under Solomon’s son, with the northern kingdom (Israel) lasting until 722 B.C.E., when the Assyrians destroyed it, and the southern kingdom (Judah) surviving until the Babylonian conquest in 586 B.C.E. The Jewish people enjoyed brief periods of sovereignty afterward before most Jews were finally driven from their homeland in 135 C.E.

Jewish independence in the Land of Israel lasted for more than 400 years. This is much longer than Americans have enjoyed independence in what has become known as the United States. In fact, if not for foreign conquerors, Israel would be more than 3,000 years old today.

Palestine was never an exclusively Arab country, although Arabic gradually became the language of most of the population after the Muslim invasions of the seventh century. No independent Arab or Palestinian state ever existed in Palestine. When the distinguished Arab-American historian, Princeton University Prof. Philip Hitti, testified against partition before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he said: “There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history, absolutely not.”

Prior to partition, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as having a separate identity. When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted:

We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds.

In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine: “There is no such country as Palestine! ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria.

The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations submitted a statement to the General Assembly in May 1947 that said, Palestine was part of the Province of Syriaand that, politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity. A few years later, Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, told the Security Council: “It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria.”

Palestinian Arab nationalism is largely a post-World War I phenomenon that did not become a significant political movement until after the 1967 Six-Day War and Israel’s capture of the West Bank.

MYTH

“The Palestinians are descendants of the Canaanites and were in Palestine long before the Jews.”

FACT
Palestinian claims to be related to the Canaanites are a recent phenomenon and contrary to historical evidence. The Canaanites disappeared from the face of the earth three millennia ago, and no one knows if any of their descendants survived or, if they did, who they would be.

Sherif Hussein, the guardian of the Islamic Holy Places in Arabia, said the Palestinians’ ancestors had only been in the area for 1,000 years. Even the Palestinians themselves have acknowledged their association with the region came long after the Jews. In testimony before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, for example, they claimed a connection to Palestine of more than 1,000 years, dating back no further than the conquest of Muhammad’s followers in the 7th century. And that claim is also dubious. Over the last 2,000 years, there have been massive invasions (e.g., the Crusades) that killed off most of the local people, migrations, the plague, and other manmade or natural disasters. The entire local population was replaced many times over. During the British mandate alone, more than 100,000 Arabs emigrated from neighboring countries and are today considered Palestinians.

By contrast, no serious historian questions the more than 3,000-year-old Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, or the modern Jewish people’s relation to the ancient Hebrews.

MYTH

“The Balfour Declaration did not give Jews the right to a homeland in Palestine.”

FACT
In 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration:

His Majesty’s Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

The Mandate for Palestine included the Balfour Declaration. It specifically referred to “the historical connections of the Jewish people with Palestine” and to the moral validity of “reconstituting their National Home in that country.” The term “reconstituting” shows recognition of the fact that Palestine had been the Jews’ home. Furthermore, the British were instructed to “use their best endeavors to facilitate” Jewish immigration, to encourage settlement on the land and to “secure” the Jewish National Home. The word “Arab” does not appear in the Mandatory award.

The Mandate was formalized by the 52 governments at the League of Nations on July 24, 1922.

MYTH

“The ‘traditional position’ of the Arabs in Palestine was jeopardized by Jewish settlement.”

FACT
For many centuries, Palestine was a sparsely populated, poorly cultivated and widely-neglected expanse of eroded hills, sandy deserts and malarial marshes. As late as 1880, the American consul in Jerusalem reported the area was continuing its historic decline. “The population and wealth of Palestine has not increased during the last forty years,” he said.

The Report of the Palestine Royal Commission quotes an account of the Maritime Plain in 1913:

The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track suitable for transport by camels and carts...no orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached the Jewish village of Yabna Yavne....Houses were all of mud. No windows were anywhere to be seen....The ploughs used were of wood....The yields were very poor....The sanitary conditions in the village were horrible. Schools did not exist....The western part, towards the sea, was almost a desert....The villages in this area were few and thinly populated. Many ruins of villages were scattered over the area, as owing to the prevalence of malaria, many villages were deserted by their inhabitants.

Surprisingly, many people who were not sympathetic to the Zionist cause believed the Jews would improve the condition of Palestinian Arabs. For example, Dawood Barakat, editor of the Egyptian paper Al-Ahram, wrote: “It is absolutely necessary that an entente be made between the Zionists and Arabs, because the war of words can only do evil. The Zionists are necessary for the country: The money which they will bring, their knowledge and intelligence, and the industriousness which characterizes them will contribute without doubt to the regeneration of the country.”

Even a leading Arab nationalist believed the return of the Jews to their homeland would help resuscitate the country. According to Sherif Hussein, the guardian of the Islamic Holy Places in Arabia:

The resources of the country are still virgin soil and will be developed by the Jewish immigrants. One of the most amazing things until recent times was that the Palestinian used to leave his country, wandering over the high seas in every direction. His native soil could not retain a hold on him, though his ancestors had lived on it for 1000 years. At the same time we have seen the Jews from foreign countries streaming to Palestine from Russia, Germany, Austria, Spain, America. The cause of causes could not escape those who had a gift of deeper insight. They knew that the country was for its original sons (abna’ihi­l­asliyin), for all their differences, a sacred and beloved homeland. The return of these exiles (jaliya) to their homeland will prove materially and spiritually [to be] an experimental school for their brethren who are with them in the fields, factories, trades and in all things connected with toil and labor.

As Hussein foresaw, the regeneration of Palestine, and the growth of its population, came only after Jews returned in massive numbers.

Mark Twain, who visited Palestine in 1867, described it as: “...a desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds-a silent mournful expanse....A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action....We never saw a human being on the whole route....There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”

MYTH

“Zionism is racism.”

FACT
In 1975, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution slandering Zionism by equating it with racism. Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, which holds that Jews, like any other nation, are entitled to a homeland.

History has demonstrated the need to ensure Jewish security through a national homeland. Zionism recognizes that Jewishness is defined by shared origin, religion, culture and history. The realization of the Zionist dream is exemplified by more than five million Jews, from more than 100 countries, who are Israeli citizens.

Israel’s Law of Return grants automatic citizenship to Jews, but non-Jews are also eligible to become citizens under naturalization procedures similar to those in other countries. More than one million Muslim and Christian Arabs, Druze, Baha’is, Circassians and other ethnic groups also are represented in Israel’s population. The presence in Israel of thousands of dark-skinned Jews from Ethiopia, Yemen and India is the best refutation of the calumny against Zionism. In a series of historic airlifts, labeled Moses (1984), Joshua (1985) and Solomon (1991), Israel rescued more than 20,000 members of the ancient Ethiopian Jewish community.

Zionism does not discriminate against anyone. Israel’s open and democratic character, and its scrupulous protection of the religious and political rights of Christians and Muslims, rebut the charge of exclusivity. Moreover, anyone — Jew or non-Jew, Israeli, American, or Saudi, black, white, yellow or purple — can be a Zionist.

Writing after “Operation Moses” was revealed, William Safire noted:
“...For the first time in history, thousands of black people are being brought to a country not in chains but in dignity, not as slaves but as citizens.”


By contrast, the Arab states define citizenship strictly by native parentage. It is almost impossible to become a naturalized citizen in many Arab states, especially Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Several Arab nations have laws that facilitate the naturalization of foreign Arabs, with the specific exception of Palestinians. Jordan, on the other hand, instituted its own “law of return” in 1954, according citizenship to all former residents of Palestine, except for Jews.

To single out Jewish self-determination for condemnation is itself a form of racism. When approached by a student at Harvard in 1968 who attacked Zionism, Martin Luther King responded: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism.”

The 1975 UN resolution was part of the Soviet-Arab Cold War anti-Israel campaign. Almost all the former non-Arab supporters of the resolution have apologized and changed their positions. When the General Assembly voted to repeal the resolution in 1991, only some Arab and Muslim states, as well as Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam were opposed.

MYTH

“The delegates of the UN World Conference Against Racism agreed that Zionism is racism.”

FACT
In 2001, Arab nations again were seeking to delegitimize Israel by trying to equate Zionism with racism at the UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. The United States joined Israel in boycotting the conference when it became clear that rather than focus on the evils of racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia that were supposed to be the subject of the event, the conference had turned into a forum for bashing Israel.

The United States withdrew its delegation “to send a signal to the freedom loving nations of the world that we will not stand by if the world tries to describe Zionism as racism. That is as wrong as wrong can be.”

MYTH

“The Zionists could have chosen another country besides Palestine.”

FACT
In the late 19th century, the rise of religious and racist anti-Semitism led to a resurgence of pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe, shattering promises of equality and tolerance. This stimulated Jewish immigration to Palestine from Europe.

Simultaneously, a wave of Jews immigrated to Palestine from Yemen, Morocco, Iraq and Turkey. These Jews were unaware of Theodor Herzl’s political Zionism or of European pogroms. They were motivated by the centuries-old dream of the “Return to Zion” and a fear of intolerance. Upon hearing that the gates of Palestine were open, they braved the hardships of travel and went to the Land of Israel.

The Zionist ideal of a return to Israel has profound religious roots. Many Jewish prayers speak of Jerusalem, Zion and the Land of Israel. The injunction not to forget Jerusalem, the site of the Temple, is a major tenet of Judaism. The Hebrew language, the Torah, laws in the Talmud, the Jewish calendar and Jewish holidays and festivals all originated in Israel and revolve around its seasons and conditions. Jews pray toward Jerusalem and recite the words “next year in Jerusalem” every Passover. Jewish religion, culture and history make clear that it is only in the land of Israel that the Jewish commonwealth can be built.

In 1897, Jewish leaders formally organized the Zionist political movement, calling for the restoration of the Jewish national home in Palestine, where Jews could find sanctuary and self-determination, and work for the renascence of their civilization and culture.

MYTH

“Herzl himself proposed Uganda as the Jewish state as an alternative to Palestine.””

FACT
Theodor Herzl sought support from the great powers for the creation of a Jewish homeland. He turned to Great Britain, and met with Joseph Chamberlain, the British colonial secretary and others. The British agreed, in principle, to Jewish settlement in East Africa.

At the Sixth Zionist Congress at Basle on August 26, 1903, Herzl proposed the British Uganda Program as a temporary emergency refuge for Jews in Russia in immediate danger. While Herzl made it clear that this program would not affect the ultimate aim of Zionism, a Jewish entity in the Land of Israel, the proposal aroused a storm at the Congress and nearly led to a split in the Zionist movement. The Uganda Program, which never had much support, was formally rejected by the Zionist movement at the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905.

MYTH

“All Arabs opposed the Balfour Declaration, seeing it as a betrayal of their rights.””

FACT
Emir Faisal, son of Sherif Hussein, the leader of the Arab revolt against the Turks, signed an agreement with Chaim Weizmann and other Zionist leaders during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. It acknowledged the “racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people” and concluded that “the surest means of working out the consummation of their national aspirations is through the closest possible collaboration in the development of the Arab states and Palestine.” Furthermore, the agreement looked to the fulfillment of the Balfour Declaration and called for all necessary measures “...to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale, and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish immigrants upon the land through closer settlement and intensive cultivation of the soil.”

Faisal had conditioned his acceptance of the Balfour Declaration on the fulfillment of British wartime promises of independence to the Arabs. These were not kept.

Critics dismiss the Weizmann-Faisal agreement because it was never enacted; however, the fact that the leader of the Arab nationalist movement and the Zionist movement could reach an understanding is significant because it demonstrated that Jewish and Arab aspirations were not necessarily mutually exclusive.

MYTH

“The Zionists were colonialist tools of Western imperialism.”

FACT
“Colonialism means living by exploiting others,” Yehoshofat Harkabi has written. “But what could be further from colonialism than the idealism of city-dwelling Jews who strive to become farmers and laborers and to live by their own work?”

Moreover, as British historian Paul Johnson noted, Zionists were hardly tools of imperialists given the powers’ general opposition to their cause. “Everywhere in the West, the foreign offices, defense ministries and big business were against the Zionists.”

Emir Faisal also saw the Zionist movement as a companion to the Arab nationalist movement, fighting against imperialism, as he explained in a letter to Harvard law professor and future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter on March 3, 1919, one day after Chaim Weizmann presented the Zionist case to the Paris conference. Faisal wrote:

The Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement....We will wish the Jews a hearty welcome home....We are working together for a reformed and revised Near East and our two movements complete one another. The Jewish movement is nationalist and not imperialist. And there is room in Syria for us both. Indeed, I think that neither can be a real success without the other.

In the 1940s, the Jewish underground movements waged an anti-colonial war against the British. The Arabs, meanwhile, were concerned primarily with fighting the Jews rather than expelling the British imperialists.

MYTH

“Israeli policies cause anti-Semitism.”

FACT

Anti-Semitism has existed for centuries, well before the rise of the modern State of Israel. Rather than Israel being the cause of anti-Semitism, it is more likely that the distorted media coverage of Israeli policies is reinforcing latent anti-Semitic views.

As writer Leon Wieseltier observed, “The notion that all Jews are responsible for whatever any Jews do is not a Zionist notion. It is an anti-Semitic notion.” Wieseltier adds that attacks on Jews in Europe have nothing whatsoever to do with Israel. To blame Jews for anti-Semitism is similar to saying blacks are responsible for racism.

Many Jews may disagree with policies of a particular Israeli government, but this does not mean that Israel is bad for the Jews. As Wieseltier noted,“Israel is not bad for the Jews of Russia, who may need a haven; or for the Jews of Argentina, who may need a haven; or for any Jews who may need a haven.”

MYTH

“Supporters of Israel only criticize Arabs and never Israelis.”

FACT

Israel is not perfect. Even the most committed friends of Israel acknowledge that the government sometimes makes mistakes, and that it has not solved all the problems in its society. Supporters of Israel may not emphasize these faults, however, because there is no shortage of groups and individuals who are willing to do nothing but focus on Israel’s imperfections. The public usually has much less access to Israel’s side of the story of its conflict with the Arabs, or the positive aspects of its society.

Israelis themselves are their own harshest critics. If you want to read criticism of Israeli behavior, you do not need to seek out anti-Israel sources, you can pick up any Israeli newspaper and find no shortage of news and commentary critical of government policy. The rest of the world’s media provides constant attention to Israel, and the coverage is far more likely to be unfavorable than complimentary.

Zionism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Zionism is a political movement and ideology that supports a homeland for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, where the Jewish nation originated over 3,200 years ago and where Jewish kingdoms and self-governing states existed up to the 2nd century. While Zionism is based in part upon religious tradition linking the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, the modern movement was originally secular, beginning largely as a response to rampant antisemitism in Europe and in many parts of the Muslim world during the 19th Century. After a number of advances and setbacks, and after the Holocaust had destroyed much of the existing Jewish society in Europe, the Zionist movement culminated in the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

Since the founding of the State of Israel, the term Zionism is generally considered to mean support for Israel. However, a variety of different, and sometimes competing, ideologies that support Israel fit under the general category of Zionism, such as Religious Zionism, Revisionist Zionism, and Labor Zionism. Thus, the term is also sometimes used to refer specifically to the programs of these ideologies, such as efforts to encourage Jewish emigration to Israel. The term Zionism is also sometimes used retroactively to describe the millennia-old Biblical connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel, which existed long before the birth of the modern Zionist movement.

Certain individuals and groups have seized on the term Zionism and misuse it to justify attacks on Israel. In some cases, the label "Zionist" is also used improperly as a euphemism for Jews in general by those wishing to whitewash anti-Semitism (as in the Polish anti-Zionist campaign).

How's this workin for ya, Shrub?

Audit Finds U.S. Hid Cost of Iraq Projects . An agency in the State Department running a shell game! Hiding costs and overruns, withholding information, lying (gasp.) The findings appeared in an audit of a children’s hospital in Basra, but they referred to the wider reconstruction activities of the development agency in Iraq. Guess who the contractor is? Bechtel. Yes, THAT Bechtel, the one with a slew of contacts within the Government. After leaving the Nixon administration, former Treasury Secretary George Shultz joined Bechtel in 1974 as its executive vice president. Shultz suspended his association with Bechtel when appointed secretary of state by President Ronald Reagan in 1982. In 1983, Shultz dispatched diplomatic envoy Donald Rumsfeld to meet with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to advocate for construction of a pipeline running from Iraqi oilfields to Jordan's port of Aqaba. According to documents recently obtained by the Institute for Policy Studies, Hussein was afraid Israel would bomb the pipeline, so an investor in the project—whom Bechtel claimed was not on its payroll—reportedly tried to arrange a deal through the U.S. Attorney General's office by which Israel would receive some $70 million per year not to bomb the pipeline. Critics accused Shultz of intervening on behalf of Bechtel, which he denied. Shultz rejoined Bechtel in 1989 as a member of its board of directors after retiring from the State Department. Upon returning, he learned that the company had assumed a $2 billion contract for project management of an Iraqi petrochemicals complex that manufactured ethylene oxide, a chemical used in the production of plastics. U.S. chemical experts pointed out, however, that the chemical was also a precursor to mustard gas. On Shultz's recommendation, Bechtel pulled out of the project. Shultz currently serves as a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

In 1998, Bechtel hired former Marine four-star general Jack Sheehan as senior vice president in charge of project operations in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Sheehan served as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic and Commander in Chief U.S. Atlantic Command before his retirement in 1997. After leaving active duty, Sheehan served as Special Adviser for Central Asia for two U.S. defense secretaries. He also sits on the Defense Policy Board, a Pentagon-appointed board that advises it on defense issues.

But back to the Basra Children's hospital. The project was budgeted to cost $50 Million. Bechtel told the Agency in April that it would actually cost $98 Million. But the Agency wrote in its report the project cost was $50 Million - The rest was reclassified as overhead, or “indirect costs.” "We find the entire agreement unclear,” the inspector general wrote of the A.I.D. request approved by the embassy. No kidding, ya think?

Meanwhile, Partisan Divide on Iraq Exceeds Split on Vietnam. While people were sharply divided over Viet Nam, it was not a division along party lines, as this appears to be. As a nation, we still feel the scars from the Viet Nam War. The Vietnam War caused a wrenching debate that echoes to this day and shaped both parties, but at the time, public opinion did not divide so starkly on party lines, experts say. The partisan divide on Iraq has fluctuated but endured across two intensely fought campaigns in which war and peace — and the overarching campaign against terrorism — have figured heavily. Each party has its internal differences, especially on future strategy for Iraq. But the overall divide is a defining feature of the fall campaign.

How we vote this fall is essential. We have an opportunity to take back our country. John Dean, in Conservatives Without Conscience, has some quotes before the table of contents:

"If you think [the United States] could never elect an Adolf Hitler to power, note that David Duke would have become governor of Louisiana if it had just been up to the white voters of that state." - Professor Bob Altemeyer

"The administration of George W. Bush is not a dictatorship, but it does manifest the characteristics of one in embryonic form." - Jonathan Schell

And if we sit back, and let the neo-conservatives have their way, the bloodbath will continue.

Saturday night movie thoughts

Needing mindless entertainment, a friend and I went to see Pirates of the Carribean 2, with the hilarious Johnny Depp. One of the endless bits of advertising was for an upcoming football film based on a true story about LA Gangbangers who are sent to a particular facility and turned into a football team. The guy who trained them in real life felt that he needed to take these rival gangs and teach them to trust each other, and turn them from potential statistics into winners (he means in the sense that they'd make something positive of their lives, not necessarily on the football field.) His premise was to take historical hatred and turn it around by showing them what they shared. I didn't think much about it, other than to note it's a football film, which I love as a genre because football players have fantastic butts, and I like to - oh, never mind - but after the movie, and dinner, I came home, and was downloading some music to my ipod when it hit me.

One true method of eradicating historical hatreds is to find the common, shared experience. We look at the differences, because it is easy. It is much harder to find commonality. When I was new in AA, all I could focus on was how different everyone was from me, and how I didn't belong there. I hated it. Someone wiser told me I had to find the similarities, to listen to the similarities. It saved my life. There is a Kabbalistic concept of a River of Light that connects all things. We are connected. Our job, as human beings, is to try to heal the world.

IPCRI - A Comprehensive Approach to the Current Crisis

IPCRI
מרכז ישראל/פלסטין למחקר ולמידע
مركز إسرائيل فلسطين للأبحاث و المعلومات
Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information

New IPCRI Policy Paper
A Comprehensive Approach to the Current Crisis
JULY 25, 2006

General Comprehensive Approach

It has been said that wars create opportunities for political changes. The current Middle East crisis should be used by decision makers to create opportunities to bring the region into a new era of regional and bilateral negotiations aimed at dealing with the Israeli-Arab conflict in a comprehensive fashion.

Some of the opportunities which could be created by the crisis include:

Greater will of all parties involved to replace the paradigm of violence with one of political dialogue and negotiations.
The implementation of UN Resolution 1559 and other relevant UN Resolutions.
Creating a peace process between Israel and Lebanon.
Creating a peace process between Israel and Syria.
Stabilizing a long-term Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire leading to the renewal of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
The utilization of international forces in various effective peacekeeping roles.
The integration of several of the regional actors in the international forces in various effective peace-keeping roles.

This paper outlines several new directions that seek to exploit and to materialize the opportunities created by the current crises. These opportunities include several bilateral tracks with specific steps that should be taken to resolve the current immediate crisis and to bring the region back to the peace track. The comprehensive approach of dealing with bilateral tracks in parallel enables the entire process to be concluded by addressing the root causes of the conflict. The comprehensive approach detailed below could lead to the development of peaceful relations between Israel and all of its neighbors in accordance with the vision of the Arab League Peace Initiative from March 2002. That initiative takes the most comprehensive approach which includes the end of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, the establishment of an independent Palestinian State along the 1967 borders and a just and agreed upon solution to the Palestinian refugee problem. Together with the advancing of an Israeli-Lebanese Track and an Israeli-Syrian Track, the end result could be the establishment of peace and normalized relations with all of the countries of the Arab world.

The following describes in brief the measures that we believe must be taken in order to return the region to a political process.

Israeli-Lebanon Track

A ceasefire agreement will be reached supported by the international community. The Lebanese government will ensure immediately that signs of life of the two Israeli soldiers are transmitted to the Government of Israel. A mutual exchange of all prisoners will take place immediately after the ceasefire agreement comes into force.

Israel will withdraw all of its forces in Lebanon and an effective international peace-keeping force led by NATO and mandated by the Security Council will be sent to south Lebanon. The force will work with the Lebanese Army to strengthen it as it is deployed in southern Lebanon and along the Lebanon-Israel border. The Government of Lebanon will implement UN Resolution 1559. Hezbollah forces will be immediately removed from the south of Lebanon.

Israel will withdraw from the Shebaa farms which will be turned over to the United Nations until transferred either to Lebanon or Syria.

Israel and Lebanon will enter into bilateral peace negotiations assisted and/or supervised by France and/or others with the aim of reaching a full peace treaty including normalized relations between them addressing all outstanding issues. The peace treaty will be ratified by the United Nations Security Council. This process is part of the larger regional process involving bilateral negotiations on other tracks and will be considered within that framework.


The Israeli-Palestinian Track

The Palestinian captors of Israeli soldier in Gaza must immediately show a sign of life from him.

The Palestinian President and the Palestinian Prime Minister should announce an immediate ceasefire agreed to by all of the factions including all acts of aggression against Israel, especially the Qassam rockets from Gaza. The Government of Israel should respond by announcing an immediate Israeli ceasefire including all acts of aggression against the Palestinians, especially targeted killings and Israeli military incursions in Gaza and the West Bank.

The kidnapped soldier will be released in Gaza to one of the international representatives in Gaza. The Egyptians could probably fulfill this role.

Within one week after the release of the Israeli soldier held in Gaza, and as part of the framework of the ceasefire agreement, Israel will release all of the women and minors Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

One week later assuming the continuation of the ceasefire, Israel will release all of the Palestinian PLC members and Ministers from prison.

An Olmert-Abbas summit will be held immediately to begin the renewal of the political process that could focus on the ultimate coordination and cooperation of all future Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank and on outstanding issues concerning Gaza such as the passage between Gaza and the West Bank, the air and seaports, and internal Palestinian issues such as the unification of the Palestinian forces, the rule of law and order in the Palestinian territories.

Within six months of the Olmert-Abbas summit, Israel will release all of the Palestinian security-political prisoners in Israeli jails from before September 1993.

Within one year of the Olmert-Abbas summit, permanent status negotiations will ensue that will be completed within six months time leading to the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian state and peaceful relations between the two states based on the Clinton parameters and the Arab League Peace Plan. This process is part of the larger regional process involving bilateral negotiations on other tracks and will be considered within that framework. The peace treaty will be ratified by the United Nations Security Council.


Israeli-Syrian Track

The United States will undertake to support a renewed track of negotiations between Israel and Syria following Syria's undertaking in respect of several steps that will demonstrate Syria’s willingness to change its current course. These steps will include the sealing of its borders with Iraq, the closing of the offices of Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Damascus, and the closing of the “pipeline” of transferring weapons to Hezbollah.

In agreement between the United States, Syria and Israel, the Israeli-Syrian track of negotiations will be immediately renewed.

The basis of the Israeli-Syrian track have been mostly agreed to in the past and it entails a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights. The territory of the Golan will be demilitarized forever with a ten year mandated international peacekeeping force in place.

Israel and Syria will sign a full peace treaty between them with full normalized relations. This process is part of the larger regional process involving bilateral negotiations on other tracks and will be considered within that framework. The peace treaty will be ratified by the United Nations Security Council.

The United States and the EU will provide significant funding for the economic development of Syria and the advancement of regional cooperation and economic development programs.

Concluding the comprehensive approach

The implementation of these steps in all three bilateral tracks would enable the conclusion of peace treaties and normalized relations between Israel and all of the countries of the Arab League.

Once the three trilateral tracks have reached peace treaties, the multilateral aspects of the Madrid process should re-resume with the convening of the original five multilateral working groups.



IPCRI
Gershon Baskin and Hanna Siniora – Co-CEOs
Khaled Duzdar and Yossi Ben Ari – Co-Directors, the Strategic Affairs Unit

P.O. BOX 9321
JERUSALEM 91092

Telephone: +972-2-676-9460
Fax: +972-2-676-8011
ipcri@ipcri.org
http://www.ipcri.org/


NOW IS THE TIME TO SUPPORT IPCRI’S EMERGENCY APPEAL

What does this solve?

Six shot, one fatally, at Seattle Jewish Federation office. The lone gunman, a Muslim, expressed anger toward Jews in a phone conversation with police. He was arrested immediately after the shootings, and his action is being treated as a hate crime. No kidding.

A Seattle Mosque was attacked after Sept. 11, 2001. The gunman in today's shooting is not a resident of Seattle. He identified himself as Muslim-American, and that he is angry with Israel.

I get it. Angry with Israel, go shoot up some American Jews in Seattle. That's going to bring an end to the war in Lebanon.

Do NOT, do not, do not tell me another word about the Zionist Pigs in Israel. Do not. I am a Zionist. I believe in the necessity of the State of Israel. I want to see broad reforms to their system of government that will lessen the stranglehold the military has on the country. I love Israel, and I love America so much that I am sick at heart, at core, at depth at how these bastards without heart have hijacked both countries. Responding with hatred solves nothing. It serves to divide those of us who should be supporting a strong peace effort. War will not right what is wrong. Suicide bombings will not right what is wrong. The destruction of Israel is not the solution. The murder of Lebanese civilians is not the solution. You will not change my opinion, I will not condemn an entire country - I will condemn the people in power, and them alone. But I remain a Zionist, and I remain an American.

I am proud of what America promises when we adhere to our Constitution, and when we are at our best. We've been so far off since the Great Orator, Ronnie Reagan, was President that I fear we'll never get back on track. Israel is still young - 58 years old. They need major overhaul to their system of government, and they need people who have the hearts of lions to stand up and say Peace.

The true warrior hates war. The true warrior will find a peaceful settlement. Self-righteous indignation and finger-pointing at this moment solves nothing.

But if you feel the need to tell me how wrong Israel is (bigger weapons, alleged banned weapons) and how you dislike Zionists, so be it. You need to be right. I need to hope for a restoration of sanity and semblance of civility. You can be right. Israel is bad. There. Happy now? Does it justify shooting up a Jewish Federation office in Seattle?

Friday Grandbaby Blogging

Without photo - nothing new has been sent in two weeks. I'm pouting now. However, I called them yesterday on my way to work. Daughter wasn't home, Son-in-law was just putting Ellie to bed for a nap, but he put her on the phone first to talk to gramma. I said "Ellie, can you say doggie?" She put the phone down, ran to her doggie, and shouted "DOGGIE." That was the coolest thing - she just is so clever. Her voice is as sweet as can be, and I want to bite her chubby cheeks.

But I need new photos, because she changes weekly.

Fridays around the blogs I read often have cat blogging or doggie blogging - but I have Ellie Bean.