February 20, 2010
Motzei Shabbat (After Shabbat)
“The Tooth Fairy Lives”
I refer to the tooth fairy because – as I reported last week – Netanyahu advisor Ron Dermer, speaking at the Jerusalem Conference, said it was more rational to believe in the tooth fairy than to think that our acceding to international demands would make us more respected in the world.
That “fairy” theme carries over in the piece that Caroline Glick wrote on Friday, which she entitled “The Fatah Fairy Tale.” I think this column – which exposes so much-- is one of the more important ones she has written in a while.
The column deals with Fahmi Shabaneh – who I’ve written about a couple of times now. Shabaneh is the former member of PA Intelligence who gave an exclusive to Khaled Abu Toameh, in the Jerusalem Post, regarding the degree of corruption that exists in the Palestinian Authority.
Glick carries it one step further, however: Her focus is not on what Shabeneh revealed (which is plenty, with regard to millions pocketed by PA officials), but rather with the fact that there has been silence concerning these revelations. Silence from the media, which would be in a frenzy of reporting if any allegations were made against Israel , silence from Obama, silence from the Europeans, and silence from the Netanyahu government.
The world, you see, is so invested in the legend of its own making – that Fatah is “moderate” and a credible partner for peace with Israel – that to face the truth now would be to make a whole lot of people look very foolish indeed and to send crashing to the ground the expectation, so eagerly and foolishly embraced, that “peace” is possible now.
Netanyahu, who fully understands the truth, is afraid to rock the boat, says Glick. But she argues that only Israel can force the rest of the world to face the truth about Fatah.
Read it all:
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=169129
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A meeting that American Jewish leaders had on Thursday with PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad provides troubling, even alarming, evidence of the degree to which the fairy tale of Fatah moderation continues to be embraced:
The Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations is in Israel for its annual conference, and members of the group went to Ramallah to meet with Fayyad. There is reason enough to ask in the first place why they went, when the PA is demanding the ’67 lines for a state, and won’t sit with Israel .
But take a look at what Fayyad said to them:
The PA is doing a great deal to prepare itself for statehood, but Israel ’s military operations in PA-controlled areas “undermine our credibility and standing. We need actions taken by the Israelis to be consistent with the notion of a state in evolution. [Israeli incursions put] the whole enterprise at risk.”
In a word, he wants Israel to stop going after terrorists in PA areas.
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It’s worth taking a closer look at what’s going on here. Fayyad is making a demand of Israel via American Jews. Why? Because he hopes or expects that they will communicate this to the Israeli government, or to their government, which then will presumably put pressure on Israel . Do the American Jewish leaders know they’re being used this way? Do they care?
More importantly, do they understand the total impropriety of Fayyad’s demand? I’ve written several times here about the fact that the PA security forces, including those being trained by the Americans, are not up to – or not willing to fully assume - the task of taking on Hamas. The IDF does nightly incursions into PA areas to catch terrorists and uncover weapons caches and manufacturing. It is in good part because of these diligent operations that we have had a huge drop in terrorism.
And Shabaneh, in his interview with Abu Toameh, made the same point. Hamas would have taken over already, he said, if it were not for the IDF.
Only if the hard truth is totally ignored can there be any notion of strengthening an entity that will live by Israel ’s side in peace, taking out terrorists as it needs to.
It’s painful, and dangerous, that governments and media ignore that hard truth. But what about American Jewish leadership? I fear for where many of them stand on this, and hope to follow up. It is not yet clear to me precisely which members of the Conference were in Ramallah or how they responded.
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News has undoubtedly made it to many, if not most of you, regarding the fact that Dubai police have alleged that the assassins of Hamas’s Mahmoud al-Mabhouh – reputedly at least 11 in number - came into the country on forged British, Irish, French and German passports. In six instances, the passports are reported to have carried the names of actual persons, olim (immigrants) from Britain , who are living here in Israel , and in an additional case there was a German-Israeli.
That there were names of Israelis used on some of these passports has led to charges that this was a Mossad operation. This may or may not have been the case. (Remember that the passports were not Israeli, but British-issued.)
The fact remains that al-Mabhouh deserved to be assassinated. He was tasked with overseeing the smuggling of upgraded missiles from Iran into Gaza (missiles that would have put the Tel Aviv area within Hamas sites), and was apparently involved in this undertaking when in Dubai . He came in without a security entourage and in circumstances that were suspect.
Dubai officials are in quite a state of fury over what they are reporting, and are even demanding that Meir Dagan, head of the Mossad, be arrested. They certainly seem much more concerned about al-Mabhouh’s murder than about the purpose of his visit in their country in the first place.
The Israel position is that there is nothing definitive linking Israel to the assassinations. While the media are having a field day with this, and undoubtedly there are those who will utilize it to further demonize Israel , there are signs that the fury will fizzle. Israeli Ambassador to Britain , Ron Prosor, was invited into the British Foreign Office for a discussion of the matter, but the fact that, in diplomatic parlance, he wasn’t “summoned,” which suggests a reprimand, is considered significant.
The Jerusalem Post editorial on this subject is on the mark in suggesting that it is a sort of moral impoverishment to refuse to acknowledge that sometimes the ends do justify the means.
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See my website www.arlenefromIsrael.info
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