Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce, with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to
85 in the U.S.,
over 70 in Japan,
and less than 60 in Germany.

With over 25% of its work force employed in technical professions. Israel places first in this category as well.

You can't vote for rock?

Odd that we beat Japan. Not too long ago they were our big nemesis. The people who were going to out tech us and take over the world.

Hamas, Son of Israel

The Israelis birthed and nurtured their Islamist nemesis

by Justin Raimondo

Amid all the howls of pain and gnashing of teeth over the triumph of Hamas in the Palestinian elections, one fact remains relatively obscure, albeit highly relevant: Israel did much to launch Hamas as an effective force in the occupied territories. If ever there was a clear case of "blowback," then this is it. As Richard Sale pointed out in a piece for UPI:

"Israel and Hamas may currently be locked in deadly combat, but, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials, beginning in the late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas over a period of years. Israel 'aided Hamas directly – the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization),' said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic [and International] Studies. Israel's support for Hamas 'was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative,' said a former senior CIA official."
Middle East analyst Ray Hanania concurs:

"In addition to hoping to turn the Palestinian masses away from Arafat and the PLO, the Likud leadership believed they could achieve a workable alliance with Islamic, anti-Arafat forces that would also extend Israel's control over the occupied territories."

In a conscious effort to undermine the Palestine Liberation Organization and the leadership of Yasser Arafat, in 1978 the government of then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin approved the application of Sheik Ahmad Yassin to start a "humanitarian" organization known as the Islamic Association, or Mujama. The roots of this Islamist group were in the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, and this was the seed that eventually grew into Hamas – but not before it was amply fertilized and nurtured with Israeli funding and political support.

Begin and his successor, Yitzhak Shamir, launched an effort to undercut the PLO, creating the so-called Village Leagues, composed of local councils of handpicked Palestinians who were willing to collaborate with Israel – and, in return, were put on the Israeli payroll. Sheik Yassin and his followers soon became a force within the Village Leagues. This tactical alliance between Yassin and the Israelis was based on a shared antipathy to the militantly secular and leftist PLO: the Israelis allowed Yassin's group to publish a newspaper and set up an extensive network of charitable organizations, which collected funds not only from the Israelis but also from Arab states opposed to Arafat.

Ami Isseroff, writing on MideastWeb, shows how the Israelis deliberately promoted the Islamists of the future Hamas by helping them turn the Islamic University of Gaza into a base from which the group recruited activists – and the suicide bombers of tomorrow. As the only higher-education facility in the Gaza strip, and the only such institution open to Palestinians since Anwar Sadat closed Egyptian colleges to them, IUG contained within its grounds the seeds of the future Palestinian state. When a conflict arose over religious issues, however, the Israeli authorities sided with the Islamists against the secularists of the Fatah-PLO mainstream. As Isseroff relates, the Islamists

"Encouraged Israeli authorities to dismiss their opponents in the committee in February of 1981, resulting in subsequent Islamisation of IUG policy and staff (including the obligation on women to wear the hijab and thobe and separate entrances for men and women), and enforced by violence and ostracization of dissenters. Tacit complicity from both university and Israeli authorities allowed Mujama to keep a weapons cache to use against secularists. By the mid 1980s, it was the largest university in occupied territories with 4,500 students, and student elections were won handily by Mujama."

Again, the motive was to offset Arafat's influence and divide the Palestinians. In the short term, this may have worked to some extent; in the longer term, however, it backfired badly – as demonstrated by the results of the recent Palestinian election.

The Hamas infrastructure of mosques, clinics, kindergartens, and other educational institutions flourished not only because they were lavishly funded, but also due to being efficiently run. Sheik Yassin and the future leaders of Hamas acquired a reputation for "clean" governance and good administrative practices, which would greatly aid them – especially in comparison to the PLO, which was widely perceived as corrupt. Indeed, "clean government" – and not the necessity of armed struggle – was the main theme of their successful election campaign.

The response of Israel and the U.S. has been shock, horror – and a stated refusal to deal with any government dominated by Hamas. U.S. congressional leaders – who unhelpfully passed a resolution prior to the Palestinian poll that demanded Hamas be banned from running – are now calling the entire "peace process" into question. Yet no one acknowledges that the victory of the Suicide Bombers Party demonstrated, in practice, an ancient principle expressed, I believe, by no less an authority than the Bible (Galatians 6:7):

"Be not deceived. God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

This "blowback" principle applies to Hamas not only insofar as Israel was involved in funding and encouraging Mujama, but also, after the consolidation of Hamas as an armed group, due to Israeli military policy. The much-touted "withdrawal," which amounts to Israel giving up Gaza while strengthening its hand elsewhere in the occupied territories, has been grist for the radical Islamist mill, as has the Wall of Separation and the attempt to quash the vote in East Jerusalem. Israel's relentless offensive against its perceived enemies – first Fatah, now Hamas and Islamic Jihad – has created a backlash and solidified support for fundamentalist extremist factions in the Palestinian community.

Likewise, the victory of Hamas will embolden the ultra-Zionists in Israel, who similarly mix a fanatic theology with faith in a military "solution" to the Palestinian "problem." The electoral victory of Hamas was only a few hours old before Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu went on television explaining why any concessions to the Palestinians – including the Gaza pullback – only served to embolden the most radical elements, such as Hamas.

The stricken Ariel Sharon lies in his hospital bed, unconscious – while his unilateral "land for peace" plan suffers from a very similar condition. Sharon's newly-formed Kadima Party is the big potential loser in all this, with Netanyahu's Likud looking to gain bigtime. The irony is that, as defense minister, it was Sharon who helped conceive and oversee the Village Leagues scheme that did so much to implant and empower Hamas. Like some Middle Eastern version of Dr. Frankenstein, he wound up being struck down by his own monstrous creation.

There is a lesson in there, somewhere, though it isn't one the Israelis or their American sponsors seem capable of learning just yet.

The idea that voting is some kind of panacea that will cleanse the Middle East of a self-defeating radicalism is an illusion that died a painful death with the election victory of Hamas. It had earlier suffered near-fatal convulsions with the ascension to power in Iraq of a Shi'ite fundamentalist coalition closely tied to Iran. The honey-goddess of capital-D Democracy is a fickle and often perversely cruel deity, whose worshippers have been hit with a one-two punch as they seek to transform an entire region according to the canons of their peculiar dogma.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

More on Hamas and the "blowback" effect from Robert Dreyfuss, one of my favorite writers, in this podcast interview with the History News Network's Rick Shenkman.

Maybe this is why the president and his supporters often refer to the "war on terrorism" as if it will go on forever.

David Frum, former presidential speechwriter and National Review's resident neocon commissar of political correctness, cheers Jacques Chirac's threat to nuke hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings. Frum's only worry is that Chirac's nuclear sabre-rattling won't be believed. On the other hand, it would be all too believable if the prime minister of Israel – who has his finger hovering over the nuclear button – were to make such an explicit threat. Which puts Iran's ambition to go nuclear – the real subject of Frum's outburst – in perspective.


http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8449

The rest of the story.

I'm told Justin is a fudgepacker.

Aljazerra.com

“Final war” between Muslims, West- Ahmadinejad

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
meets with journalists in Tehran


Speaking to HAMAS leaders in Damascus, the new Iranian President MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD said on Friday that the Middle East conflict has become “the locus of the final war” between Muslims and the West, Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, reported.

On the second day of his two-day visit to Syria, NEJAD told HAMAS leaders, “Today, victory in Palestine has become a matter of life and death for the Islamic world and for Global Arrogance (the West),”urging the Palestinians to reject the so-called Israel’s WITHDRAWAL FROM GAZA STRIP.

“Some point to the withdrawal of the occupiers from parts of Palestine, but this event has already been greatly detrimental to Muslims”, AHMADINEJAD stressed.

“If the occupiers stay on even one inch of Palestinian soil, the goal of Palestine will not be realised”, Ahmadinejad told HAMAS leaders, who included Khalid Mash’al, the head of the group’s political bureau.

“We must not let our guard down now for even one moment against the enemies’ plots. Belittling the goal of Palestine is a great plot that the enemies are after”, he said.

During his meeting with Syrian economic officials, the Iranian President called on all Islamic states to make use of their economic potentials to "cut the hand of the enemies," IRNA reported.

"We (can only blame) ourselves for promoting the economies of the enemies and letting them impose pressure on us whenever they wish," AHMADINEJAD said.

"Just three percent of global trade is accounted for by trade among Islamic countries. Islamic states are main importers from non-Islamic countries," he said with regret.

"Today, a big economic war is underway. The political war is obvious to all but there is an economic war that goes on undetected," he said. http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10517

They have to import because outside of oil they make nothing anyone wants. Even the parts and workers they need to pump their oil come from abroad.

Are they going to import garbage men and street cleaners? The Palestinians are in for a big shock. How are they ever going to manage? Does anyone in his right mind think that Hamas is going to provide a government for the Palestinians? Who is going to pay for it? Where did Arafat hid the billions he skimmed

Haven't they been on welfare provided by first world countries for years now?

They certainly didn't get any help from the Sauds, Jordanians, Egyptions, Iranians et al. The Palestianians got more help from Israel than Arab countries. They had a higher standard of living than the neighboring Arab countries, they had jobs and homes. They did better under the Jews than any help the Arabs gave them. It just shows me that Democracy isn't the solution for the Arab nations, they need a democratic republic. Giving them the vote is the equivilent of letting the prison elect the warden. How about Hillsdale college electing an 18 year old as mayor of the city? Do we need sharia law in the Arab countries? I think not!

Switzerland and France. John Kerry visits it regularly.

I'm sure some Arab nations will be more amenable to helping just because they can stick it to the US and Israel.

Like I said on the Iraq board, if Hamas has declared war on Israel by rights Israel should be able to retaliate at any time. The Muslims better be careful what they wish for. Even the French have made known they'll retaliate given the right circumstances.

After the "Palestinian" election, now what.
- written by jerry golden

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For years I’ve been hearing Israelis and the International Community say, the average “Palestinian” really wants peace, and that they are just normal people who want to get along and make a living like the rest of us. Well we can put that lie to rest. What this “Palestinian” election proves beyond any doubt is these people want nothing but the destruction of Israel at any cost. Peace is not part of their Islamic Jihad thinking. There isn’t one “Palestinian” who didn’t understand that a vote for Hamas was a vote for continued terrorism towards Israel. That more suicide bombers and car bombs along with more advanced warfare will be the order of the day from now on. Out of 132 seats in the PA, 76 will now belong be Hamas, that means they will not need to form a coalition for they are the majority in control of the PA.



The first thing I heard today on Israeli TV was a remark from a Hamas Leader, you could hear in the back ground the Arabic “Itbach al Juhud” (Slaughter the Jews) he said there will be no negotiation with Israel and they will not give up their arms, that this is a new day for “Palestine”. I then read about the new Fatah-al Aqsa missile they now have thanks to the open borders with Egypt. This missile has a 27 kilometer range, putting all of Ashkelon in serious danger. Not only can this weapon when fired from Gaza hit the major city of Ashkelon but others like Netivot, Ofakim, and all of the smaller Jewish town just north of Be’er Sheva the largest city in the Negev. It is a Russian made (of course) Grad 121mm. It is also known that many shoulder held heat-seeking ground to air missiles (Russian made of course) are now in the hands of Hamas as well as in the hands of terrorists in Samaria and Judea putting commercial airliners in danger. With the Gaza/Egyptian border open for all weapons to come in, we now find that not only al-Qaida is making a very strong presence in Gaza but the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood who are affiliated with the Wahbadi out of Saudi Arabia, this is a very dangerous mixture of Islamic fanatics.



One thing is certain this is a sad day for the Arab’s who call themselves “Palestinians” and an even sadder day for Israel and the rest of the civilized world. For peace took a back seat to Islamic terrorism and the near future for this region just got a lot darker. The question is now when will the fireworks begin? My guess is we won’t have to wait very long to find out. What we now have in Gaza and the so-called West Bank (Judea and Samaria) are terrorists who will take their orders from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt. And the money will pour in for the terrorists while the average Arab who voted for Hamas will suffer more than they ever thought possible before it is over. The US, EU and others will now have to make the decision to support a PA controlled by a Terrorist organization or turn their backs on the “Palestinian” people, and why not they over whelming voted for Hamas as their leader.



To add insult to injury we here in Israel have a Government gearing up for an election and is itself in transition, with an acting Prime Minister who belongs in one of the liberal Parties, or better said has taken over where Sharon left off in forming a far left Party behind the lie of being in the Center. Something no one is talking about is that the Hamas victory is a direct result of the Bush/Sharon Disengagement as is the military build up of Terrorists in Gaza. So it is fair to say that the coming war is also a direct result of the Disengagement.



No one really knows what the next few days or weeks will bring us here in Israel but I don’t know anyone who is optimistic about it.

article

Iran is going to support Hamas. The Chinese and Russians will support Iran. round and round it goes. (Arafat's wife got the money.)

Bingo.

'Bart Katz,' et al,

It is a by-product.


(COMMENT)

If you are actively supporting the government, you have to have at least some level of confidence in the policies mandated as a direction, by the Administration. These policies are a "fait acompli."



If you are in direct support of our government and its policies, you have to “believe” (to some degree anyway) that the policies are sound.

In the case of The Road Map, you have to believe that the Palestinians are not a dead culture. You have to believe that a majority of the Palestinians want "peace and prosperity." And if you can believe that far, then it is a logical leap that, given the opportunity to make their voice heard, and to establish a government, that these people will elect a government representative of thier ideals and expresses their concerns.

(THE DISBELIEF)

If the Palestinians really wanted to achieve peace and prosperity, they would not have installed a government that threatens the use of -- force or violence against Isreal to coerce or intimidate western efforts that oppose radical political, religious, or ideological objectives.

If one does not believe in the policies, then what is the alternative? It would suggest that the Palestinians, as a culture, are either self-destructive, non-progress, or otherwise harmful to any adjacent civilizations; or – simple immature as a people, unable to assimilate their culture with the greater Middle Eastern regional populations. And if that is true, then democracy will only reveal the nature of its true character, and demonstrate it negative development; not HELP it progressively develop.

Where have we seen this before? We have seen it in Islamic Iran, Afghanistan and the Taliban, the first fall of democracy in Iraq, and in the Republic of Syria.

If we cannot show some confidence in the Palestinian people, the Theory of Spreading Democracy throughout the Middle East is flawed and that not all people of the Middle East are ready for Democracy.

Most Respectfully,

Hamas divulges
'peace initiative'
Leader reveals to WND truce plan,
but explains aim is to destroy Israel



http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=48535

If the Palestinians really wanted to achieve peace and prosperity, they would not have installed a government that threatens the use of -- force or violence against Isreal to coerce or intimidate western efforts that oppose radical political, religious, or ideological objectives.


Most Respectfully,
[/quote]


Was there even a real choice? Arafat didn't start his party to spread peace and democracy any more than Hamas did.

I know how a lot of Palestinians probably feel. You get two bad choices, given to you based on a past you really have no control over.

The anatomy of Hamas' victory
By Caroline B. Glick


What the "mainstream media" isn't reporting


http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Thursday morning we awoke to a new reality: Hamas is the official leader of the Palestinian Authority and — thanks to the US and Israeli governments — the official representative of Arab Jerusalemites. If before Wednesday's poll Hamas concentrated its efforts on conducting its terror war against Israel and indoctrinating Palestinian society to support jihad, now the terror group will continue with its previous activities as the official, popularly elected government of the Palestinian Authority.


Hamas's rise to political leadership and the significance of its ascendancy for Israel must be understood on two levels.

First, Hamas must be viewed in the local Palestinian context.

Second, the jihadist group's political victory must be viewed in the context of regional developments. On the local intra-Palestinian level, Hamas's decision to participate the Palestinian political process is the result of its adoption of PLO's traditional strategy of combining politics with terrorism.

In 1996, Hamas opted not to participate in the Palestinian elections — preferring to suffice with an operational agreement with Yassir Arafat. That decision enabled Hamas to preserve its "purity" as a terrorist organization and social movement rather than "dirtying" itself with questions regarding the management of Palestinian relations with Israel and the rest of the world.


From a local perspective, two events caused Hamas's strategic shift that brought it to run in Wednesday's elections:

Arafat's death at the end of 2004 and Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria last summer. Arafat's death left Fatah without a charismatic, popular leader able to rally Palestinian society behind him and his party.

Israel's decision to withdraw from Gaza and northern Samaria without first reaching a peace accord with the Palestinians gave credence to Hamas's view that there is nothing to be gained by recognizing Israel's right to exist, even on the declarative level.

At the same time, local dynamics alone do not explain Hamas's decision to change its strategy and run for office. Regional developments also played a major role. These dynamics were what drove Hamas to believe that if it were to run and win, it would also be able to rule in a manner that suits its long term goal of destroying Israel.


The policies of the Egyptian government and domestic Egyptian political developments constituted Hamas's first regional rationale for believing that if it were to win the elections, it would also be able to rule. Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak's decision to hold official contacts with the Hamas commanders, under the guise of continuous negotiations towards a ceasefire with Israel — contacts which have been ongoing for the past five years — granted Hamas political legitimacy as an independent actor both in the Arab world and in the EU, (which officially sponsors the negotiations). As well, under the cover of the American policy — which defines the conduct of open elections in Arab states, regardless of the identities, ideologies and practices of the competing parties, as the main component of its strategy of democratizing the Arab world — Hamas's sister movement, the Muslim Brotherhood was allowed to participate in Egypt's parliamentary elections last month. The Muslim Brotherhood's success in those elections, and the international legitimacy conferred on those elections, constituted and important component of Hamas's decision to run on Wednesday.


Aside from events in Egypt, Hamas's leaders are deeply influenced by events in Syria and Iran. Today both countries are led by men who have rejected the traditional policies of terror sponsors such as the late Hafez Assad, former Iranian president Muhammad Khatami and Arafat. Unlike Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syria's President Bashar Assad, those men practiced the art of dissimulation. They hid and denied their active support for terrorism and their strategic aim of destroying Israel.


The fact that Ahmadinejad and Assad Jr. are managing to survive even as they daily challenge the West and Israel, demonstrated to Hamas that a Palestinian government under its leadership will be able to survive for the long haul even if it retains its public rejection of Israel's right to exist and enacts policies that openly advance its jihadist, terrorist agenda.

THE FIRST question that Israel must ask itself is how we arrived at our current situation. Only after we understand the forces that enable radical regimes to survive and indeed to prosper, will we be able to move to the question of what we are to do now. The answer to the first question is that the current situation — characterized by the empowerment of radical elements in regional states — has come about and persists because the world powers — the US, Britain, France, Russia and China — have been incompetent in reaching a consensus that the current state of affairs cannot continue. In the case of Iran and Syria, both Ahmadinejad and Assad are betting — and so far justifiably — that the relevant international actors will not be able to muster the collective or individual will to bring them down.


Iran's daily declarative and substantive provocations of the international community in general and of Israel in particular have been met by international bluster backed by policy paralysis. Today there is no agreement — nor the beginning of an agreement — on the need to enact even the mildest of sanctions against Iran despite its resumption of its uranium enrichment activities. Indeed, on Tuesday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair remarked, "There would be a terrible misunderstanding, indeed a terrible miscalculation being made both by the Syrian and Iranian regimes if they thought that we were interested in destabilizing those two countries." In light of statements like Blair's, it is perfectly rational for Assad and Ahmadinejad to believe that they have no reason to change their behavior.


In a panel discussion at the Herzliya Conference Sunday morning on the issue of Iran's nuclear program, Britain's former undersecretary of defense Sir Michael Quinlan asserted that short of a total invasion and occupation of Iran there is no way to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons program. As a result of this assumption, Quinlan explained that when world leaders refer to Iran's program as "unacceptable" it doesn't follow that they intend to take any steps to prevent the "unacceptable" from becoming reality. Indeed, Quinlan offered the view that Iran's acquisition of nuclear capabilities is inevitable and that at the end of the day, only Israeli concessions — land giveaways to the Palestinians and unilateral Israeli nuclear disarmament — can serve to change Iran's behavior.

The Israeli panelists at Herzliya had a suitable answer for Quinlan. Retired generals Yitzhak Ben Yisrael and David Ivry explained that a military strike against Iran's nuclear installations would not be geared towards destroying Iran's nuclear program, but to setting the program back a few years. That is, the Israelis argued that the goal should be to use force in order to neutralize the immediate threat while buying time to enable internal Iranian processes that could lead to the overthrow of the regime to unfold. They further argued that in the meantime, no concessions should be made to Tehran.


Last Thursday's suicide bombing in Tel Aviv occurred the same day that Ahmadinejad met in Damascus with the heads of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP and Ahmed Jibril's PFLP-GC. This fact was yet one more signal to the Israeli government that the policy it is advocating towards Iran should be similarly adopted in the Palestinian arena given the obvious links and the complimentary nature of the two conflicts. But the signal went unheeded.

In her address before the Herzliya Conference on Monday, Foreign Minister Tzippi Livni claimed that Israel's international legitimacy as a Jewish state is dependent on the establishment of a Palestinian state. Livni further argued that in the event that Israel has no Palestinian partner for peace, it must remove itself from Judea and Samaria and so work to establish that Palestinian state at all costs.

In his remarks the next evening, Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made similar remarks when he stated that while Israel will fight terrorism, in the event that the possibility of reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians is blocked, Israel will determine its borders for itself. That is, like Livni, Olmert pledged that Israel will remove itself from Judea and Samaria.

What Olmert and Livni's messages served to communicate to Hamas was that its decision to replace Fatah as the Palestinian political leadership was a wise one. Under the leadership of Kadima, Israel acts towards the Palestinians as the Europeans act towards the Syrians and Iranians. That is, Israel's strategy towards the Palestinians today is to speak harshly while surrendering. Hamas clearly understands the game that Israel is now playing. Looking forward, if Kadima wins the March elections, and continues on its current course, Israel will be severely weakened both internationally — as the legitimacy of the most extreme elements of Palestinian society is widened, and militarily — as Israel transfers control of more territory to forces that actively collaborate with Arab states and Iran towards the destruction of Israel.


All this naturally raises the question of whether Olmert and Livni's strategy is the only possible strategy that Israel can adopt. The answer of course is no.

In their remarks at the Herzliya conference both Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu and former IDF chief of staff Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon outlined the general contours of an alternative strategy. Interestingly, their strategy is similar to the one that Israel now claims to be advancing towards Iran.

Both Netanyahu and Ya'alon explained that given the current situation, where terrorist forces and ideology reign supreme in Palestinian society, Israel must make no concessions — either diplomatic or territorial — towards the Palestinians. Israel's influence on its enemies, both explained, stems from its ability to deter them from attacking. That deterrence was weakened by Israel's retreat from Gaza and northern Samaria. Israel must now work to regain its deterrent credibility.

Israel's deterrent powers can only be rehabilitated by a stubborn, uncompromising campaign against Palestinian terror infrastructures and chains of command. Such a continuous campaign, both men argued is the only way to make the Palestinians realize that they have nothing to gain by continuing their war against Israel. The Palestinians' internalization of the understanding that pursuing their war against Israel will bring them no advantage is the necessary precondition for any future peace.


All of this leads to a clear conclusion. The failure of Israel's leadership is one of the most significant causes of Hamas's ascension to political power. Just as the persistence of radical regimes in Damascus and Tehran is the result of the inability of the international community to rise to the challenge they manifest to international security, so too, the empowerment of Hamas is the result of the adoption of a strategy by Israel that is based on how we wish the world to be rather than on the way the world actually is.

By the same token, Israel's ability to fashion suitable responses to Hamas's electoral victory is dependent on its citizens' willingness to choose leaders capable of accepting the realities we face and acting accordingly.

Jimmy Carter, supporter of Hammas, who never met a dictator or terrorist that he didn't like calls for US funding of Palistinians

A day after Hamas swept to an upset victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, former US President Jimmy Carter on Thursday said that Wednesday's voting had been orderly and fair.



Carter, who led an 85-member international observer team from around the world organized by the 'National Democratic Institute' in partnership with 'The Carter Center,' urged the international community to directly or indirectly fund the new Palestinian Government even though it will be led by an internationally-declared foreign terror organization.

"The Palestinian Government is destitute, and in desperate financial straits. I hope that support for the new government will be forthcoming," Carter said at a Jerusalem press conference.

CARTER WANTS "MUCH- NEEDED" MONEY TO GO TO HAMMAS BY WAY OF THE UN

.

He added that if international law barred donor countries from directly funding a Hamas-led government than the US and the EU should bypass the Palestinian Authority and provide the "much-needed" money to the Palestinians via non-governmental channels such as UN agencies.

"Regardless of the government, I would hope that potential donors find alternative means to be generous to the Palestinian people [even] if the donor decides to bypass the Palestinian government completely," Carter said, stressing that his main concern was to avert the "suffering" of the Palestinian people, which he said could lead to a new cycle of violence.

He noted that the heavily funded Palestinian Government would run out of money at the end of next month.

Hamas, the largest and most powerful of the Palestinian terror organizations, which advocates Israel's destruction, has carried out scores of bombings over the last five years of Palestinian violence, attacks which have killed hundreds of Israeli civilians.

Earlier Thursday, Israeli statesman Shimon Peres had opined in a radio interview that international aid to a Hamas-led government would likely be terminated.

The former Democratic president's comments came as US President Bush said that Hamas cannot be a partner for Middle East peacemaking without renouncing violence, reiterating that the United States will not deal with Palestinian leaders who do not recognize Israel's right to exist.

Carter, who has long supported the participation of Hamas in the Palestinian elections, voiced the hope that the Islamic terror group would act "responsibly" now that it had won the elections. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull

Since the UN is so responsible with money, it seem appropriate that they should fund terrorist operations

Two good articles. I have a horrible feeling that there's no way out of some kind of war breaking out. Hamas against Fatah. Israel against Iran. The US against the UN. Carter against reality.

Something has to give.

Heh, 'outside of oil they make nothing anyone wants,' what else does SA provide?

It's not a 'merely' item.

~~~~~~




You're an idiot.

Wouldn't know a true patriot if ya bit him.

It's not unavailable anywhere else either. We have it in Alaska, offshore, in shale and elsewhere, but we aren't allowed to use it. So we pay more, import more, and Chevron makes record profits.

I was listening to some interesting talk on the radio today. About the amount of oil available being nowhere near "peak oil" and some of the manipulation of environmentalists AND oil companies do together to keep the price high for both of their benefits. Interesting stuff, but the guy was a Kerry hater so I might as well not even post any of his work.

When Palestinians turn in their weapons they get land, when Israelis give up their weapons they get annihilated.

You know the libs always whine about how brutal the Israelis have been then they piss and moan about torture in Iraq.

War is Hell Sherman once said. the liberals of today would have been foaming at the mouth in WWII over FDR's actions.

Are you drunk?









January 6, 1969 Jimmy Carter witnesses a flying saucer

April 20, 1979 Jimmy Carter Attacked by Killer Rabbit

I don't think the Israelis will go down without a fight. I'm pretty sure so far Israelis are ahead on body count alone, but the reality is there are a lot more Arabs than Jews in the region. A war of attrition doesn't do the Israelis well at all.

QUOTE
If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement.

The libs live by this one.......If GWB sneezes in the White House, He pisses off most of the blue states and the middle east.

Facts about the 100th smallest country, with less than 1/1000th of the world's population.


Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce, with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in the U.S., over 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in Germany. With over 25% of its work force employed in technical professions. Israel places first in this category as well.

Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world.

Israel has the highest per capita ratio of scientific publications in the world by a large margin, as well as one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.

In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world. In absolute terms, Israel has the largest number of startup companies than any other country in the world, except the US (3,500 companies mostly in hi-tech).

Israel is ranked #2 in the world for VC funds right behind the US.

Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita.

Outside the United States and Canada, Israel has the largest number of NASDAQ listed companies

Israel has the highest average living standards in the Middle East. The per capita income in 2000 is over $17,500, exceeding that of the UK.

With more than 3,000 high-tech companies and start-ups, Israel has the highest concentration of hi-tech companies in the world (apart from the Silicon Valley).

With an aerial arsenal of over 250 F-16s, Israel has the largest fleet of the aircraft outside of the US.

Israel's $100 billion economy is larger than all of its immediate neighbors combined.

The cell phone was developed in Israel by Motorola-Israel. Motorola built its largest development center worldwide in Israel.

Windows NT software was developed by Microsoft-Israel.

The Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed in Israel at Intel.

Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.

AOL's instant message program was designed by an Israeli software company.

Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the US in Israel

The city of Beer Sheva in Israel has the highest percentage in the world of Chess Grand Masters per capita – one for every 22,875 residents.

On a per capita basis, Israel has the largest number of biotech start-ups

Israel has the largest raptor migration in the world, with hundreds of thousands of African birds of prey crossing as they fan out into Asia.

Twenty-four percent of Israel's workforce holds university degrees -- ranking third in the industrialized world, after the United States and Holland -- and 12 percent hold advanced degrees.

The only thing they don't have is oil.

Those darn land hogging Jews!!

Mofaz: Hamas Acting Responsibly;

Hamas: Israel Must Change Flag
21:40 Jan 29, '06 / 29 Tevet 5766
By Scott Shiloh


Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the Israeli cabinet on Sunday that since the election Hamas was acting responsibly. Shortly afterwards, a senior Hamas official called on Israel to change its flag.


Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the Israeli cabinet on Sunday that since Hamas won a sweeping victory in last Wednesday’s PA parliamentary election, the extreme Islamic terror group was acting “responsibly.”

Mofaz also said that in the short term, he thinks Hamas will refrain from terror attacks.

He added that it was likely that the Hamas will also attempt to block the Islamic Jihad from carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel. Islamic Jihad, trying to portray itself as more radical than Hamas, boycotted last week’s election. They claimed that the elections were based on the Oslo accords and playied into the hands of the United States.

Shortly after making his comments about the Hamas, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said from Gaza that Israel must change its flag. "Israel must remove the two blue stripes from its national flag", said Zahar. The stripes on the flag are symbols of occupation. They signify Israel's borders stretching from the River Euphrates to the River Nile."

Israel's national flag, a blue Star of David set between two blue stripes was designed to resemble a Jewish prayer shawl which traditionally has stripes.


When asked whether the Hamas would renounce terrorism, Zahar said in a CNN interview, "What is the international definition of terrorism? When (Israeli planes) attack houses by F-16, just when they are using helicopters, when they are killing people and children and removing our agriculture system, this is terrorism."

Mofaz said the government’s policy towards Hamas must be clear. The Hamas, he said, “must annul their charter and disarm, and then we'll be facing a clearer reality," Mofaz said. The Hamas charter calls for the destruction of Israel.

An Israeli government official said that Egytian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan’s King Abdullah are worried that the Hamas electoral victory might encourage radical Islamic groups in their own countries.

The Hamas's ideology is based on that of the Moslem Brotherhood, a radical Moslem sect based in Egypt.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni (Kadima) said she would be travelling to Egypt next Wednesday to discuss the Hamas victory with Mubarak.

As for the future of ruling PA chief Mahmoud Abbas, Zahar said the Hamas planned to work with Abbas, also called Abu Mazen, the name he used as a PLO terrorist.

Abbas, who heads the Fatah party, was elected head of the Palestinian Authority in a separate election. Legally, he can retain his post until finishing out a four-year term.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=97520

About 10% of our oil imports come from the Middle East. The major part of our imported oil comes from Canada and Mexico.

What makes you think we "pay more" for that oil? How so? Is there a world market in oil or not? Marginal consumer and marginal supplier and all that good econ stuff?

I think the reality is there really isn't a world market for oil. That would assume everyone traded with everyone, and just tried to get the best price available. The reality is some suppliers are highly unstable, and alliances have other suppliers making decisions based on things other than price.

And of course it's even a lot MORE complex when you go from just worrying about crude oil supplies as opposed to the product that actually ends up running a car or truck engine in it's various formulations.

Fair enough. It's debatable whether the shortages in refining capacity are the result of refiners' actions, "environmental regulation", or both.

For the U.S., the price 'we' pay for oil (and its derivatives) is market-price. We've got no 'special deals' with domestic (or U.S. domiciled) producers and refiners.

I still disagree with your original statement that because we haven't maximized our crude-oil extraction in the lower 48 and in Alaska, we're somehow "paying more" for crude oil, let alone for gasoline, etc.

Most of our as yet-untapped crude oil domestic resources are only 'economically viable' if crude oil prices remain relative high.

It looks to me like they will remain relatively high, and if Iran closes off exports or Venezuela gets froggy and cuts us off things will probably get worse. Prices don't just rely on supply and demand, bit also on stability and certainty. Drilling our own oil would at least alleviate some uncertainty.

Setting up some incentives for more refining ought to relieve some uncertainty as well. But it takes time to get refineries online. Right now why would anyone want to risk building more refineries if they can concentrate on selling the high priced product they have now? Why even deal with more environemental regs and public fallout when they can avoid risk AND get a good price?

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE JEWS IN ISRAEL?

Never in the history of modern Israel has the Israeli Government ordered its military to be brutal with it’s own citizens while ripping them from their homes. Even in the recent Gaza Disengagement we never saw such brutality against the citizens of Israel by its own army.




This time the IDF (Israeli Disengagement Force) found that the Jewish citizens were willing to fight for their homes and businesses. With nearly 6,000 Israeli Police and IDF soldiers against a few hundred Jews fighting for their lives, many saying we are not fighting for our homes or businesses, we are fighting for the very soul of Israel for it is being taken away from us and given to the enemies of Israel and the enemies of God, in order to please George Bush and his Road Map to hell.



Over 150 Jews were wounded fighting for what is rightfully theirs, and 86 IDF and Israeli police were wounded. The Police Inspector General Moshe Karadi admitted that the police were ordered to use sever force. There were mounted police on large horses swinging the batons causing many head wounds and many now in the hospital with concussions. The 16 year old son of National Union director-general Nahi Eyal is in the hospital in serious condition with a fractured skull. Three Knesset MK’s Arye Eldad, Effi Eitan, and Benny Elon, were also wounded by the IDF and Israeli police and taken to the hospital. The IDF and Police came with the order to spill the blood of the Settlers these order came from the top of Kadima. MK Eitam said to Ehud Olmert, that he was far from being the successor of Sharon, that he proved by giving such order to harm other Jews that he was fearful, confused, manipulative, and exhibited stupidity and opacity.



It’s a sad state of affairs that this country has come to the point that the acting Prime Minister thinks that in order to get the left and center votes in the March elections that he must be willing to beat Jewish women and children, what we are witnessing is the pogroms all over again this time brought on us by the Israeli Leadership.

Many here in Israel believes that this is just the beginning, for those who stood on the hill top in Samaria saw something they thought they would never see, their own army beating Jewish women and children from horse back, for no other reason than to give their homes and land to the Arabs who have been killing us for so many years. Surely God’s wrath will fall on this land with such a vengeance that Jews will once again be brought to their knees in repentance. And may the hand of George Bush that is forcing this Road Map to hell be brought before the Throne of God for judgment, for vengeance is His alone.

In the United States you have the ACLU we here in Israel have the Peace Now, both organizations seem to be obsessed with the destruction of their country, for now the Peace Now has applied to the High Court here in Israel to destroy more “illegal” settlements. Considering the High Court here in Israel is controlled by the powers to be will undoubtedly order the IDF to once again in the very near future destroy more Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria in favor of the Islamic enemy who is now controlled by the Terrorist Organization Hamas. The Golden Report

It's not quite as black and white as you think.

Have you read this book?

It is probably the most comprehensive book on the subject. It's a historical document but easy reading. It really clarifies the situation in the middle east.

ARAFAT THE MONSTER
By Jeff Jacoby, a columnist for The Boston Globe, Link



YASSER ARAFAT died at age 75, lying in bed surrounded by familiar faces. He left this world peacefully, unlike the thousands of victims he sent to early graves.

In a better world, the PLO chief would have met his end on a gallows, hanged for mass murder much as the Nazi chiefs were hanged at Nuremberg. In a better world, the French president would not have paid a visit to the bedside of such a monster. In a better world, George Bush would not have said, on hearing the first reports that Arafat had died, "God bless his soul."

God bless his soul? What a grotesque idea! Bless the soul of the man who brought modern terrorism to the world? Who sent his agents to slaughter athletes at the Olympics, blow airliners out of the sky, bomb schools and pizzerias, machine-gun passengers in airline terminals? Who lied, cheated, and stole without compunction? Who inculcated the vilest culture of Jew-hatred since the Third Reich? Human beings might stoop to bless a creature so evil -- as indeed Arafat was blessed, with money, deference, even a Nobel Prize -- but God, I am quite sure, will damn him for eternity. [...]

How is it possible to reflect on Arafat's most enduring legacy -- the rise of modern terrorism -- without recalling the legions of men, women, and children whose lives he and his followers destroyed? If Osama bin Laden were on his deathbed, would we neglect to mention all those he murdered on 9/11?

It would take an encyclopedia to catalog all of the evil Arafat committed. But that is no excuse for not trying to recall at least some of it.

Perhaps his signal contribution to the practice of political terror was the introduction of warfare against children. On one black date in May 1974, three PLO terrorists slipped from Lebanon into the northern Israeli town of Ma'alot. They murdered two parents and a child whom they found at home, then seized a local school, taking more than 100 boys and girls hostage and threatening to kill them unless a number of imprisoned terrorists were released. When Israeli troops attempted a rescue, the terrorists exploded hand grenades and opened fire on the students. By the time the horror ended, 25 people were dead; 21 of them were children.

Thirty years later, no one speaks of Ma'alot anymore. The dead children have been forgotten. Everyone knows Arafat's name, but who ever recalls the names of his victims?

So let us recall them:
Ilana Turgeman.
Rachel Aputa.
Yocheved Mazoz.
Sarah Ben-Shim'on.
Yona Sabag.
Yafa Cohen.
Shoshana Cohen.
Michal Sitrok.
Malka Amrosy.
Aviva Saada.
Yocheved Diyi.
Yaakov Levi.
Yaakov Kabla.
Rina Cohen.
Ilana Ne'eman.
Sarah Madar.
Tamar Dahan.
Sarah Soper.
Lili Morad.
David Madar.
Yehudit Madar.
The 21 dead children of Ma'alot -- 21 of the thousands of who died at Arafat's command.

Yasser TerrorFat cannot order Palestinian children to murder Israeli children anymore

Mr. Arafat, also known by many as "Yasser TerrorFat", was a mass murderer, a liar, and a killer of children. He refused peace with Israel in October 2000 and stopped the Palestinians from getting a State of their own (click here for details). For these qualities he has earned the respect of the French, but the scorn and disgust of the civilized world.

Here's a partial list of terrorist operations Yasser TerrorFat was personally responsible for:

To understand Arafat's legacy, there is no better to place to start than the listings of Palestinian terrorist attacks in Israel since 1965 – or well before the Israelis took control of the West Bank and Gaza. Here is a listing of the some of the more prominent atrocities during Arafat's first decade of terrorism, first as the head of Fatah and then the PLO:

Jan. 1, 1965: Fatah's first terror attack in Israel. (Other Palestinian armed groups had carried out many other terror attacks before this, however.)
July 5, 1965: Fatah plant explosives at Mitzpe Massua, near Beit Guvrin; and on the railroad tracks to Jerusalem near Kafr Battir.
1965-67: A wave of Fatah bomb attacks target Israeli villages, water pipes, railroads. Homes are destroyed and Israelis are killed.
Feb. 21, 1970: SwissAir flight 330, bound for Tel Aviv, is bombed by the PLO group PFLP in mid-flight, killing 47.
May 21, 1970 PLO Shooting a Bazooka to the School bus of Moshav Avivim 10 kids plus 2 adult died, 24 wounded.
Sept. 6, 1970: TWA, Pan Am, and BOAC airplanes are hijacked by the PLO.
September 1970: The PLO attack Jordanian targets, then flee to Lebanon.
Sept. 5, 1972: 11 Israeli athletes killed at the Munich Olympics by the PLO.
March 1, 1973: Palestinian terrorists take over Saudi embassy in Khartoum and murder the United States' ambassador to Sudan, Cleo Noel and others.
April 11, 1974: 18 residents of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel are killed in their apartment building by the PLO who infiltrated from Lebanon.
May 15, 1974: A school in Ma'alot is attacked by Palestinian terrorists who infiltrated from Lebanon. 26 Israelis, including many children, were killed.

"WHERE ARE THE NUMBERS FOR THE BANK ACCOUNTS?"

From Time Immemorial (book)
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From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine is a controversial book by Joan Peters published in 1984.

Peters argues in her book that a large portion of Palestine's 1948 non-Jewish population were recent immigrants from adjacent Arab states.

"Much of Mrs. Peters's book argues that at the same time that Jewish immigration to Palestine was rising, Arab immigration to the parts of Palestine where Jews had settled also increased. Therefore, in her view, the Arab claim that an indigenous Arab population was displaced by Jewish immigrants must be false, since many Arabs only arrived with the Jews." [1]

Peters concludes therefore that many of the refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war were not native Palestinians.
[edit]

Assessments

The book was controversial from the time of its publication and remains so. Many prominent right wing political commentators and politicians continue to promote it, but academic historians of Palestine have almost unanimously ignored or dismissed it.

Reviewing the book for the January 16, 1986 issue of The New York Review of Books, Yehoshua Porath, a prominent Israeli scholar in the field of Palestinian history wrote that Peters made "highly tendentious use — or neglect — of the available source material". But more crucially, he wrote, "is her misunderstanding of basic historical processes and her failure to appreciate the central importance of natural population increase as compared to migratory movements." Porath concluded:

"Readers of her book should be warned not to accept its factual claims without checking their sources. Judging by the interest that the book aroused and the prestige of some who have endorsed it, I thought it would present some new interpretation of the historical facts. I found none. Everyone familiar with the writing of the extreme nationalists of Zeev Jabotinsky's Revisionist party (the forerunner of the Herut party) would immediately recognize the tired and discredited arguments in Mrs. Peters's book. I had mistakenly thought them long forgotten. It is a pity that they have been given new life." [2]

The left wing critic and author Norman Finkelstein also dismissed the book by arguing in his book Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict that much of Peters' scholarship was fraudulent. From Time Immemorial later became the central issue in the Dershowitz-Finkelstein affair.

The neoconservative American Middle East author Daniel Pipes expressed a more favorable opinion, stating:

"From Time Immemorial quotes carelessly, uses statistics sloppily, and ignores inconvenient facts. Much of the book is irrelevant to Miss Peters's central thesis. The author's linguistic and scholarly abilities are open to question. Excessive use of quotation marks, eccentric footnotes, and a polemical, somewhat hysterical undertone mar the book. In short, From Time Immemorial stands out as an appallingly crafted book."

"Granting all this, the fact remains that the book presents a thesis that neither Professor Porath nor any other reviewer has so far succeeded in refuting. Miss Peters's central thesis is that a substantial immigration of Arabs to Palestine took place during the first half of the twentieth century. She supports this argument with an array of demographic statistics and contemporary accounts, the bulk of which have not been questioned by any reviewer, including Professor Porath."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Time_Immemorial_(book)

by Daniel Pipes
New York Review of Books
March 27, 1986

Joan Peters's From Time Immemorial has, broadly speaking, been received in two ways at two times. Early reviews treated her book as a serious contribution to the study of the Arab-Israeli conflict and late ones dismissed it as propaganda. Coming almost two years after the book's publication, Professor Yehoshua Porath's review in your January 16, 1986 issue probably closes the second round. As one of those who reviewed the book when it first appeared—and who was referred to for this reason in Professor Porath's review—I should at this time like to comment on the debate.

The difference between the two rounds is not hard to explain. Most early reviewers, including myself, focused on the substance of Miss Peters's central thesis; the later reviewers, in contrast, emphasized the faults—technical, historical, and literary—in Miss Peters's book.


I would not dispute the existence of those faults. From Time Immemorial quotes carelessly, uses statistics sloppily, and ignores inconvenient facts. Much of the book is irrelevant to Miss Peters's central thesis. The author's linguistic and scholarly abilities are open to question. Excessive use of quotation marks, eccentric footnotes, and a polemical, somewhat hysterical undertone mar the book. In short, From Time Immemorial stands out as an appallingly crafted book.

Granting all this, the fact remains that the book presents a thesis that neither Professor Porath nor any other reviewer has so far succeeded in refuting. Miss Peters's central thesis is that a substantial immigration of Arabs to Palestine took place during the first half of the twentieth century. She supports this argument with an array of demographic statistics and contemporary accounts, the bulk of which have not been questioned by any reviewer, including Professor Porath.

Nonetheless, Professor Porath dismisses her argument as "fanciful." He says that "the main reason" for Arab population growth is that Arab births remained steady while infant mortality decreased. He concludes that the movement of population was not significant in comparison with natural increase.

Now, there can be no question that improvements in medical conditions contributed to the increase in Arab population. But it is not immediately clear that declining infant mortality was more important than immigration. Professor Porath asserts this but he does not provide the evidence necessary to convince a reader.

The disproof of Miss Peters's thesis requires a detailed inquiry into birth and death records, immigration and emigration registers, employment rolls, nomadic settlement patterns, and so forth. She may be wrong; but this will be proven only when another researcher goes through the evidence and shows that immigration was unimportant. The existence or absence of large-scale Arab immigration to Palestine has nothing to do, of course, with Miss Peters's motives or the obvious short-comings of her book. The facts about population change will not be established by heaping scorn on Miss Peters, only by going back to the archives.

Faulty presentation notwithstanding, Miss Peters's hypothesis is on the table; it is incumbent on her critics to cease the name-calling and make a serious effort to show her wrong by demonstrating that many thousands of Arabs did not emigrate to Palestine in the period under question.


Until such happens, what is one to think? Is there reason to accept Miss Peters's version of events? I believe so: even though From Time Immemorial does not place Arab immigration to Palestine in a historical context, it is not hard to find a rationale for their movement. The Arabs who went to Palestine sought economic opportunity created by the Zionists. As Europeans, the Zionists brought with them to Palestine resources and skills far in advance of anything possessed by the local population. Jews initiated advanced economic activities that created jobs and wealth and drew Arabs. Zionists resembled the British, Germans, and other Europeans of modern times who settled in sparsely populated areas—Australia, southern Africa, or the American West—and then attracted the indigenous people to themselves.

There is really nothing surprising in all this; and because it makes such good sense, I put credence in the argument that substantial numbers of Arabs moved to Palestine. I will adjust my views, of course, should compelling evidence be found to show otherwise. But this will require that Miss Peters's critics go beyond polemics and actually prove her thesis wrong.




From Time Immemorial
The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine
by Joan Peters


Commentary
July 1984
Reviewed by Daniel Pipes

French version of this item


Joan Peters began this book planning to write About the Arabs who fled Palestine in 1948-49, when armies of the Arab states attempted to destroy the fledgling state of Israel. In the course of research on this subject, she came across a "seemingly casual" discrepancy between the standard definition of a refugee and the definition used for the Palestinian Arabs. In other cases, a refugee is someone forced to leave a permanent or habitual home. In this case, however, it is someone who had lived in Palestine for just two years before the flight that began in 1948.

This discrepancy made little impression on her at first, Miss Peters recounts. But as she continued, the anomaly of the Palestinians "began to nag and unravel" the outline of her book. Why a separate definition for the Palestinians? What was it about them that had to be incorporated in the official description of eligibility for refugee status? Reading historical materials about Palestine in the years before 1948, Miss Peters came across a statement by Winston Churchill that she says opened her eyes to the situation in Palestine. In 1939 Churchill challenged the common notion that Jewish immigration into Palestine had uprooted its Arab residents. To the contrary, according to him, "So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population."

Arabs crowded into Palestine? As Miss Peters pursued this angle she found a fund of obscure information that confirmed Churchill's observation. Drawing on census statistics and a great number of contemporary accounts, she pieced together the dimensions of Arab immigration into Palestine before 1948. Although others have noted this phenomenon, she is the first to document it, to attempt to quantify it, and to draw conclusions from it. Her historical detective work has produced startling results, which should materially influence the future course of the debate about the Palestinian problem.

Before entering into the statistics and reports Miss Peters uses to put forward her argument, however, I should enter a word of caution about From Time Immemorial. The author is not a historian or someone practiced in writing on politics, and she tends to let her passions carry her away. As a result, the book suffers from chaotic presentation and an excess of partisanship, faults which seriously mar its impact. But they do not diminish the importance of the facts presented. Despite its drawbacks. From Time Immemorial contains a wealth of information, which is well worth the effort to uncover.

Making use of work done by Kemal Karpat in the Ottoman records, Miss Peters ascertains the non-Jewish population in 1893 of the area that would later form Palestine under the British Mandate. She then divides this area into three parts: one without Jewish settlement, one with light Jewish settlement, and one with heavy Jewish settlement. She compares the non-Jewish population of each of these parts in 1893 and 1947, on the eve of Israel's independence. In the area of no Jewish settlement, the non-Jewish population stood in 1893 at 337,200; in 1947 it was 730,000, a growth of 116 percent. In the area of light Jewish settlement, the non-Jewish population grew in the same period from 38,900 to 110,900 or 185 percent. Finally, in the area of heavy Jewish settlement, the non-Jewish population grew from 92,300 in 1893 to 462,000 in 1947—or 401 percent. From these figures Miss Peters concludes that "the Arab population appears to have increased in direct proportion to the Jewish presence."

The great variance in the figures usually gets obscured because the three regions are lumped together and counted as a single unit. Population in the whole area of Mandatory Palestine grew 178 percent in fifty-four years. This increase can be accounted for through natural reproduction alone; it therefore raises few questions. But 401 percent cannot be explained in this way, much less the vast difference in growth rates among the three divisions.

How, then, to account for the varying rates? By the movement of peoples. Although the Jews alone moved to Palestine for ideological reasons, they were not alone in emigrating there. Arabs joined them in large numbers, from the first aliyah in 1882 to the creation of Israel in 1948. "The Arabs were moving into the very areas where Jewish settlement had preceded them and was luring them." Arab immigration received much less attention because both the Turkish and British administrators (before and after 1917, respectively) took little interest in them. Under the latter, for instance, "there was not even a serious gauge for considering the incidence of Arab immigration into Palestine." The return of Zionists to the land of their ancestors was a topic of nearly universal fascination, both positive and negative. Arabs crossing newly-established and artificial boundaries caught no one's interest.

As a result, officials in Palestine counted only a small percentage of the Arab immigrants. British records for 1934 show only 1,734 non-Jews as legal immigrants and about 3,000 as illegals. Yet, according to a newspaper interview in August 1934 with the governor of the Hauran district in Syria, "In the last few months from 30,000 to 36,000 Hauranese had entered Palestine and settled there." In 1947, British officials had counted only 37,000 Arabs as the aggregate of non-Jewish immigrants in Palestine since 1917—hardly more than had come from one district of Syria in less than one year alone.

Non-Jewish immigrants came from all parts of the Middle East, including Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Transjordan (as Jordan was once known), Saudi Arabia, the Yemens, Egypt, Sudan, and Libya. Thanks to British unconcern, Arab immigrants were generally left alone and allowed to settle in Mandatory Palestine. So many Arabs came, Miss Peters estimates, that "if all those Jews and all those Arabs who arrived in ... Palestine between 1893 and 1948 had remained, and if they were forced to leave now, a dual exodus of at least equal proportion would in all probability take place. Palestine would be depopulated once again."

Some British administrators complained about the laxness toward Arab immigration, but to little avail. The author devotes sixteen pages to the memoranda sent in the latter part of 1937 by the British consul in Damascus, Colonel Gilbert MacKereth, in which he urges a more effective patrolling of Palestine's borders. MacKereth failed in this because British concern with immigration remained always focused on the Jews.

What took hundreds of thousands of Arabs to Palestine? Economic opportunity. The Zionists brought the skills and resources of Europe. Like other Europeans settling scarcely populated areas in recent times—in Australia, Southern Africa, or the American West—the Jews in Palestine initiated economic activities that created jobs and wealth on a level far beyond that of the indigenous peoples. In response, large numbers of Arabs moved toward the settlers to find employment.

The conventional picture has it that Jewish immigrants bought up Arab properties, forcing the former owners into unemployment. Miss Peters argues exactly the contrary, that the Jews created new opportunities, which attracted emigrants from distant places. To the extent that there was unemployment among the Arabs, it was mostly among the recent arrivals.

This reversal of the usual interpretation implies a wholly different way of seeing the Arab position in Mandatory Palestine. As Winston Churchill observed, "It is very difficult to make a case out for the misery of the Arabs if at the same time their compatriots from adjoining states could not be kept from going in to share that misery." The data unearthed by Joan Peters indicate that Arabs benefited economically so much by the presence of Jewish settlers from Europe that they traveled hundreds of miles to get closer to them.

In turn, this explains why the definition of a refugee from Palestine in 1948 is a person who lived there for just two years: because many Arab residents in 1948 had immigrated so recently. The usual definition would have cut out a substantial portion of the persons who later claimed to be refugees from Palestine.

Thus, the "Palestinian problem" lacks firm grounding. Many of those who now consider themselves Palestinian refugees were either immigrants themselves before 1948 or the children of immigrants. This historical fact reduces their claim to the land of Israel; it also reinforces the point that the real problem in the Middle East has little to do with Palestinian-Arab rights.[color=#FF0000]

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/1110



The book was controversial from the time of its publication and remains so. Many prominent right wing political commentators and politicians continue to promote it, but academic historians of Palestine have almost unanimously ignored or dismissed it.

Right! The book is controversial and the Palestianians hate it. So what else is new? Why don't you read it and decide for yourself?

Daniel Pipes?

Yeah, sure. Another zealot.

I will give neither of your authors the time of day.



No thanks.

I wouldn't expect you to want to be confused by facts!

From Time Immemorial:
The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine
by Joan Peters, JKAP Publications, Chicago, IL

review by John Gellner, editor of Canadian Defence Quarterly

This book, scholarly in the truest sense of the word, is a study of the basic reasons for the Arab-Jewish feud - no fewer than 189 pages are taken up by appendices, notes, bibliography and index. Together with 412 pages of text, they amply support the author's thesis that the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Arabs who had lived in what became Israel in 1948 is not the reason for the conflict which has now been going on for years.

It is not true, argues author Joan Peters, that if whatever wrongs may have been done were rectified, Arabs and Jews would live side by side in peace and harmony. The fact is that the enmity has been there "from time immemorial." It is an institutionalized enmity: the Charter of Omar, Mohammed's successor, sets down the conditions under which dhimmis - non-Moslems - are allowed to live among the believers, and even that harsh law does no more than introduce a modicum of discretion into the injunction of the Koran to fight non-believers.

In spirit, if not always in letter, dhimma laws have been observed in some Arab communities until recent times, and are indeed still being observed. In the case of the Jews, the laws would have been as harsh as ever had there not been a wholesale Jewish exodus from Arab countries after 1948. These are the Sephardic Jews, descendants of families who had lived among the Arabs for centuries, who now form the majority of the population of Israel.

Readers will not need much convincing to accept the author's contention that it is hatred of Jews, virulent anti-Semitism brought down from generation to generation, and not the fate of the Palestinian Arabs, which makes the existence of a Jewish state difficult to accept if not intolerable to Arab countries. Nor should Western man adopt a "holier than thou" attitude in that respect; the West's own record is rather shocking.

There have been persecutions of the Jews all through the history of the Western world, and even in this century they have not been limited to the abominations of the Nazis. There were bloody pogroms in Czarist Russia; legal restrictions on Jews, such as their exclusion from the civil and the military services, were in force in some European countries right to the end of the First World War. Also, hidden anti-Semitism was widespread, and to a degree it still is.

Peters devotes a part of her book to showing that it was that kind of hidden (or even subconscious) anti-Semitism that made the British authorities, in the days of the Palestine mandate, generally encourage Arab immigration, and put obstacles in the way of Jewish immigration. This continued even after 1933, when many Jewish lives could have been saved - Hitler, in the beginning, wanted the German Jews to leave voluntarily and said so loudly. (Canadian authorities, incidentally, did not show much compassion either. This was brought out by Irving Abella and Harold Troper in their recent book, None Is Too Many: Canada And The Jews Of Europe 1933 - 1948.)

Peters devotes a good deal of space to proving that the Palestinian Arabs' claim against Israel cannot rightly be based on the claim that Arabs are native people displaced by a national and religious group that had not been there for almost 2,000 years and that is now asserting historic rights to the land. She shows that despite the Diaspora, many Jewish settlements had remained in Palestine. At the same time, part of the Arab population was made up of immigrants or descendants of fairly recent immigrants. Perhaps her most interesting figures are those that show that of the Arab "settled population," counting those whose families had been in the areas included in the new state of Israel before 1893 - 140,200 stayed and 342,800 left, while all 170,300 recent Arab immigrants became refugees.

In other words, in the case of the Palestinian Arabs, attachment to the land of their ancestors played a role when it came to making the decision whether to yield to pressures to leave. If there was a difference in the case of the Palestinians, it was one that had little to do with their own attitudes or indeed with Israeli policies.

Contrary to what the rule has been in similar population movements in our times - Greeks from Asia Minor, Germans from Eastern Europe, Moslems from India and Hindus from Pakistan after the partition, French "colons" from Algeria - the Palestinian Arabs were generally not absorbed by the racial and national entities they joined (Jordan excepted). There was a political reason for that. It kept alive a very visible grievance - masses of Palestinians in wretched refugee camps - which helped justify the uncompromising anti-Israeli stand of Arab countries.

Even the most wide-eyed optimist will, after reading Peters' book, have to come to the conclusion that peace in the Middle East is not at hand. Despite the odd hopeful sign, such as the Camp David accord between Egypt and Israel, the best that can realistically be expected is the continuation of the fragile undeclared armistice that has generally prevailed for the last 11 years. Review

Good facts vs bad facts? yeah lady... surrrrre

I've read Daniel Pipes, IMO, he is not very credible and just another fanactical rightwing idealogue.