| Shabbat Shalom! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The E.U.'s "East Jerusalem" Christmas Gift By Moshe Phillips Christmas came early for Israel's enemies this holiday season. On December 1 a "draft statement" from the European Union calling for the immediate restart of negotiations leading to a "viable state of Palestine...with East Jerusalem as its capital" made worldwide news. And this is very curious because, after all, "East Jerusalem" does not actually exist. At least not yet. Let's remember that "East Jerusalem" is what the Bible means when it refers to Jerusalem. Words, and especially names, have meaning. Especially in the Middle East. The European Union obviously chose to use the words of Israel's enemies deliberately. So, just what is "East Jerusalem" and why is adding the word "East" to describe part of Judaism's holiest city and Israel's capital of any serious magnitude? East and West in Israel are not simple geographic terms as they are in the U.S. Northeast Philadelphia, the Upper East Side in Manhattan and East L.A. are used to denote neighborhoods and sections of a city. In Israel, where Judea and Samaria have been labeled as the West Bank, things are different. The term West Bank was created by Arab propagandists to de-emphasize the area's inherent Jewishness and to disassociate the land from the State of Israel. East Jerusalem was similarly invented. What is "East Jerusalem"? In the Christian Bible every single instance when a specific location in Jerusalem is mentioned it refers to an area that the E.U. would now see given to the Palestinians. The term "East Jerusalem" cannot be found in a Christian Bible. And that is because "East Jerusalem" is about as real as Santa Claus. The expression "the Lights of Chanukah" refers to the Menorah in the ancient Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The EU sees the Temple Mount (the site of the Holy Temple in Biblical times) as included as part of this mythical creation of "East Jerusalem" in its unholy Palestinian state. There is no "East Jerusalem" in Judaism. According to Wikipedia: "East Jerusalem refers to the part of Jerusalem captured by Jordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and subsequently by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. It includes Jerusalem's Old City and some of the holiest sites of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, such as the Temple Mount, Western Wall, Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher." So, "East Jerusalem" is Jerusalem's Old City and its surrounding neighborhoods. The original and oldest parts of Jerusalem are in this "East Jerusalem". There has never been in history an independent municipal entity known as "East Jerusalem". And, for the record, there has never been an independent national entity known as Palestine…But, that is another story. When anti-Israel extremists created the term "East Jerusalem" it was for one reason. They wanted to rip Israel's capital apart in order to defeat Israel. This effort tragically gained full force with the Oslo Accords. This was fully explained in the B'tzedek Online Journal on December 30, 1996 in an editorial titled The War Has Just Begun: "The Oslo Accords are indeed the fulfillment of the PLO "salami" strategy. That is to say, Israel shall be destroyed not through overt military action of Arab nations, but through the whittling away of Israeli resolve and slow but determined territorial expansion of a Palestinian state. Slice by slice Israel will be carved away by the knife of terrorism and world opinion, both deftly handled by the Israeli created Palestinian entity." The very name Jerusalem means city of peace, city of completeness and city of perfection. This was something that Bible believing Americans of all faiths in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were taught. See Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary (1869) and Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897) for more on the fascinating derivation of the name Jerusalem. A Jerusalem that is not complete is just not Jerusalem. The United States can do much to confront the EU on Jerusalem. The late Senator Jesse Helms wrote in 1996 that "Israel is the only nation in the world denied the right to choose its own capital. This second class citizenship among nations must end". Now is the time for friends of Israel to apply more pressure on the Obama Administration to move America's Embassy. The U.S. government has failed to relocate the American Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv for over ten years. The Jerusalem Embassy Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on October 23, 1995 and the law reads that "Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel; and the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999". "For Zion's sake I am not silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I do not rest," reads Isaiah 62:1. For Jerusalem's sake contact your Congressman today and demand that the Jerusalem Embassy Act be honored. ======== Moshe Phillips is a member of the Executive Committee of the Philadelphia Chapter of Americans for a Safe Israel – AFSI. The chapter's website is at: www.phillyafsi.com and Moshe's blog can be found at http://phillyafsi.blogtownhall.com.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WINSTON MID EAST ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY December 16, 2009 Email: winston@winstonglobal.org Please disseminate & re-post. If you publish, send us a copy. Many of our articles appear on http://www.gamla.org.il/english, freeman.org & JewishIndy.com Outgoing mail is virus-checked. Bibi's Big Blunder by David Singer IsraelNationalNews.com forwarded with major commentary by Emanuel A. Winston, Freeman Center Middle East Analyst & Commentator In the early 1980s Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres engaged in secret negotiations with Yassir Arafat’s PLO which I, among others, wrote about. At that time the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) was declared a Terror organization and therefore illegal to meet with. Those meetings were the forerunners of Intifada I, Oslo 1 and 2, Gush Katif/Gaza expulsion. Rabin and Peres believed that the Labor Left could engage in a series of moves which, collectively, would serve to drive all Jews out of the territories liberated during the 1967 Six Days War. That includes Judea, Samaria, Gaza (YESHA), the Golan Heights and all those parts of Jerusalem (north, south, east) that Jordan occupied and desecrated for 19 years from 1948 to 1967. The Rabin-Peres-Arafat plan instigated by Peres in the 1980s, has clearly been now re-introduced by Israel’s current Prime Minister Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak - with the assistance of President Barack Hussein Obama’s administration - as follows: The Israeli government plan, with Arafat at that time in the ‘80s, restricted building in Judea and Samaria by withholding permits. That included actual construction, i.e., pouring foundations, building the outer shell. The utilities’ hook-ups were to be stopped, e.g., water lines, sewage piping, electric grid. Further pressure was to be applied by cancelling military patrols and checkpoints, deliberately creating a zone of danger for the settlers. Once the settlers were driven out of their homes, farms, factories, synagogues and utilities were to occupied by the incoming Muslim Arab Palestinians. Money was to be offered to the settlers, expecting those who would take the money and leave because they had moved into YESHA for its less expensive housing, more space, beautiful surroundings. Those who would stay had moved into YESHA because they wanted to live in the heartland of our ancestral religious origins, would be dealt with using Israeli army troops. (Sound familiar?) In August 2005, this occurred in Gush Katif/Gaza also and, no doubt, without the Government of then Prime Minister Ariel (Arik) Sharon having the expectation of paying for their forced eviction. To date the Governments of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and now Netanyahu have yet to pay in full. During the Rabin-Peres-Arafat era, Rabin had already been assembling special military units (later called Yassam), chosen for their innate brutality, lack of Jewish knowledge and lack of ideological affinity to the Land as given by G-d to the Jewish people. The Yassam forces, dressed in black uniforms, were to be used to force out those settlers who refused to accept the bribe money to leave their homes. They were used in Gush Katif/Gaza and Amona. Now they are violently protecting Barak’s anti-construction inspectors and, no doubt, intending to be back to attack - under orders from Barak. Today the violence was happening in Tzufim. Another plan arising out of Rabin and Peres’ illegal meetings with Yassir Arafat was to make the roads very dangerous for Israeli drivers (men and women) in cars or buses who were going to work or driving children to schools. This was to be Arafat’s Terrorists’ obligation. With no IDF patrols and checkpoints, the Muslim Arab Terrorist Palestinians could raise havoc for Israeli drivers. I personally had two dangerous encounters with Arab truck drivers. One was a huge lorry whose Arab driver tried to smash into my car head-on, which I avoided. Another was when I was chased by 4 Arabs in a car on the road to Lachish, where previously several Jews were kidnaped and murdered. This old/new plan now called the “construction freeze” seems to have been reintroduced by Israel’s current Prime Minister Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak - with coordinated pressure from Obama and the Arabist U.S. State Department. Additional pressure is coming from the European Union, with Sweden and Norway offering plans to unilaterally declare another State of Palestine with a divided Jerusalem as the Capital of a united Fatah and Hamas, the two Terror organizations that rule Judea/Samaria and Gaza now. Mahmoud Abbas, current President of the Palestinian Authority, is to be replaced by Marwan Bargouti, now serving 5 life sentences for murder of Jews but, the Arabist State Department is pressing for his release under the trade of Corporal Gilad Shalit for 1000 caught, convicted and jailed Muslim Arab Terrorists. Research shows that as many as 50% of released Terrorists return to further Terror, having honed their Terror skills in prison. This massive release will likely lead to more kidnapping and killings of Israelis. Should this lead to a “Third Intifada”, I fear for the safety of Netanyahu and Barak who will be rightfully blamed for Israelis murdered by released Terrorists. Israel’s Supreme Court should have taken up this case of pure treason - except as cooperating Leftists that is unlikely. Bibi's Big Blunder by David Singer Kislev 19, 5770, 06 December 09 (Israelnationalnews.com) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu incredibly appears to have committed a major blunder in the way he authorized "a policy of restraint regarding settlements which will include a suspension of new permits and new construction in Judea and Samaria for a period of ten months.” Nowhere in the Prime Minister’s statement is there a cut off point for the Palestinian Authority to accept Israel’s offer before it is deemed to be withdrawn. It seems that this offer is to be kept on foot for ten months during which period the Palestinian Authority will be given the time to decide whether it will enter into negotiations or not. The Palestinian Authority is clearly not happy with the limited suspension of building activity set out in Mr Netanyahu's statement and is trying to get America to pressure Israel into making further concessions before agreeing to enter into negotiations. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statements were unsatisfactory and will not enable the Palestinians to resume negotiations. Presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said that the resumption of negotiations requires total cessation of settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem. If the Palestinian Authority eventually decides to enter into negotiations with Israel in say seven months time, that will leave only three months to complete those negotiations. What will happen at the end of those three months if such negotiations have not been finalized? Will further extensions have to be granted by Israel to keep the negotiations alive? Mr Netanyahu’s statement goes on to say: “When the suspension ends, my government will revert to the policies of previous governments in relation to construction.” This would appear to clearly indicate that if the Palestinian Authority does not enter into negotiations in ten months the moratorium period is over. However if Israel were not to extend the moratorium period once the negotiations had begun - it would soon be branded as irresponsible and the prime cause of any breakdown in negotiations by unreasonably refusing to extend the moratorium period to enable the negotiations to continue. The longer the negotiations continue the greater the pressure on Israel to extend the moratorium period to allow those negotiations to be finalized. Since the parties have been negotiating for sixteen years without any result it would not be too unrealistic to assume that the Palestinian Authority could enter into negotiations within the next ten months and thereafter indefinitely delay the end of the moratorium period. What Israel should have done is make it quite clear that: 1. The Palestinian Authority was to be given until 25 December 2009 to enter into negotiations with Israel. 2. If negotiations were commenced within that time then the moratorium period would be extended until 25 September 2010 3. If negotiations were not concluded by 25 September 2010, no extension of the moratorium period would be granted as a condition of the negotiations continuing. Israel appears to have fallen into a trap of its own making. It urgently needs to clarify the intent and meaning of its statement and remove any ambiguity as soon as possible. ============ Iranian Endgame – by P. David Hornik Posted By P. David Hornik On December 17, 2009 @ 12:10 am In FrontPage | 1 Comment FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com -
 On Tuesday, Danielle Pletka wrote [1] in the Washington Post that “Iran is proceeding with an aggressive nuclear weapons program,” and that apart from “a few dogged holdouts,…much of the Obama administration has come to terms with that reality.” By “coming to terms” Pletka means that, while recognizing Iran’s aggressive intentions, “official Washington has resigned itself to pursuing a containment policy”—which, as Pletka effectively argues, would be misplaced and unavailing in the case of Iran. But Pletka adds that “privately, Obama administration officials confess that they believe Israeli action will preempt our policy debate, as Israel’s tolerance for an Iranian nuke is significantly lower than our own.” Also on Tuesday Israel’s chief of Military Intelligence, Amos Yadlin—who last month informed the nation that Gaza-based Hamas had obtained rockets [2] that can reach Tel Aviv—addressed the Iranian issue at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. Yadlin said [3] Iran was building dispersed, overt and covert nuclear sites, was “simultaneously developing a military capability that would allow a breakthrough when it so decides,” has already [4] “enriched 1.7 tons of low enriched uranium at its facility in Natanz, which is enough for a nuclear weapon,” and that it was time for “tough sanctions on the regime” by the international community. The internal Iranian protest movement? Yadlin stated: [5] “This protest does not have a classic leadership which is capable of bringing down regimes, as leaders of the protest movement are still the regime’s own flesh and blood.” But given the West’s continued dithering [6] on the sanctions issue and delusive efforts to get Iran’s friends Russia and China to cooperate effectively with the democratic powers, Yadlin’s professed belief in sanctions could merely be a way of upholding Israel’s official line—meant in part to avoid appearing trigger-happy. If Pletka is right that the U.S. administration is resigned either to “containment” or an Israeli strike, then hopes of sanctions stopping Iran’s nukes are indeed misplaced. Focusing on Israel’s difficult environment, Yadlin said [4] “There are places in Iran and Syria where weapons tests are carried out and you can see Iranian and Syrian scientists next to Hizbullah operatives and even representatives from Hamas and sometimes Islamic Jihad who are invited to watch.” He also “warned that any weaponry, no matter how advanced it might be, that is in Syrian and Iranian hands could one day be delivered to Hizbullah in Lebanon.” That is, Israel could see nukes in radical hands on its doorstep. Or as Yadlin summed up [7]: “Our enemies are challenging the IDF’s supremacy—in the air, in terms of intelligence and accurate weapons—in a defensive and offensive manner, and are trying to threaten our existence. The enemy’s abilities are still far from the IDF’s abilities, and the challenge is to maintain the gap.” An Iranian nuclear capacity—and the Middle East-wide nuclear arms race that is universally seen as the inevitable result—would mean not much, if anything, would be left of that gap. In other words, if the administration believes “Israel’s tolerance for an Iranian nuke is significantly lower than our own,” the administration is right—even if, as Pletka asserts, “subcontracting American national security to Israel is an appalling notion, and we cannot assume that an Israeli action would not provoke a wider regional conflict into which the United States would be drawn.” Some see the picture as less bleak and hope (for instance, here [8]) President Obama’s antipacifist statements during his Nobel Prize speech—“There will be times when nations—acting individually or in concert—will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified…. A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies….”—signal a greater realism toward Iran. Time will tell. Israel’s only prudent course is to assume the worst and prepare accordingly. |
Thursday, 17 December 2009
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