Israeli Prime Minister Olmert Declares Intent to Resign in September

Perhaps now, courage, pride and morality will once again return to Israel. From Israeli Prime Minister Olmert Declares Intent to Resign in September:

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced on Wednesday that he would resign after his Kadima party chose a new leader in September elections. The leadership race has been set for Sept. 17, with a runoff, if necessary, on Sept. 24. The main contenders are Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, a former defense minister.

Deals with devils

Israel has undertaken an incredibly wrongheaded prisoner exchange with the terrorist group Hezbollah. It's just the latest move in a troubling trend of unequal deals between the Jewish state and its declared enemies. Read the article by Steve Emerson.

Prof. Gabriela Shalev Named Israel's New UN Ambassador

From Prof. Gabriela Shalev Named Israel's New UN Ambassador:

Professor Gabriela Shalev was named Israel's new ambassador to the UN on Tuesday, replacing Ambassador Dan Gillerman. Shalev, who is serving as the Rector of the Ono Academic College, was an associate professor of law at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and is considered a world renowned expert on contract law.

Israel Wins Significant EU Upgrade

From Israel Wins Significant EU Upgrade:

Despite intense lobbying by Egypt and the PA, the European Union on Monday agreed to a significant upgrade of relations with Israel. There will be regular annual meetings at a senior level between the Israeli and EU leadership, as well as increased meetings between government ministers, senior officials and parliamentarians. Israel will join European agencies, programs and working groups, bringing the Israeli economy and society closer to European norms and standards. In addition, a joint working group will examine the areas in which Israel is capable of integrating into the European single market.

LBJ's Newly Released Oval Office Recordings Disclose His Deep Feelings toward Israel

Via LBJ's Newly Released Oval Office Recordings Disclose His Deep Feelings toward Israel:

Tapes of Lyndon Johnson's Oval Office conversations, released to the public for the first time on Wednesday, reveal that the American president had a personal and often emotional connection to Israel.

"I sure as hell want to be careful and not run out on little Israel," Johnson said in a March 1968 conversation with his ambassador to the United Nations, Arthur Goldberg. In a taped conversation from June 25, 1967, about three weeks after Israel defeated three Arab armies, Johnson relates a conversation with Soviet Premier Alexey Kosygin.

"He couldn't understand why we'd want to support the Jews - 3 million people - when there are 100 million Arabs," the president said.

"I told him that numbers do not determine what was right. We tried to do what was right regardless of the numbers."

Deconstructing the mythology of palestinian land

On a daily basis, we hear assertions from pablum-eating pro-palestinian sheep that Israel is occupying palestinian land.

This is, of course, propaganda of the first order, since there is no such thing as palestinian land. To use that phrase - palestinian land - is to promote a blatantly political anti-Israel agenda.

The excellent article below, by Lawrence Auster, lays bare the historical facts of the matter: Israel has never taken land from the palestinians, and the palestinians have no legal claim to Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) or Gaza.

We urge you, whenever you see unquestioning reports of "palestinian land", to write the editor with a request for clarification. This article will supply you with all the facts you need:

There is a myth hanging over all discussion of the Palestinian problem: the myth that this land was "Arab" land taken from its native inhabitants by invading Jews. Whatever may be the correct solution to the problems of the Middle East, let's get a few things straight:

• As a strictly legal matter, the Jews didn't take Palestine from the Arabs; they took it from the British, who exercised sovereign authority in Palestine under a League of Nations mandate for thirty years prior to Israel's declaration of independence in 1948. And the British don't want it back.
• If you consider the British illegitimate usurpers, fine. In that case, this territory is not Arab land but Turkish land, a province of the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years until the British wrested it from them during the Great War in 1917. And the Turks don't want it back.
• If you look back earlier in history than the Ottoman Turks, who took over Palestine over in 1517, you find it under the sovereignty of the yet another empire not indigenous to Palestine: the Mamluks, who were Turkish and Circassian slave-soldiers headquartered in Egypt. And the Mamluks don't even exist any more, so they can't want it back.

So, going back 800 years, there's no particularly clear chain of title that makes Israel's title to the land inferior to that of any of the previous owners. Who were, continuing backward:

• The Mamluks, already mentioned, who in 1250 took Palestine over from:
• The Ayyubi dynasty, the descendants of Saladin, the Kurdish Muslim leader who in 1187 took Jerusalem and most of Palestine from:
• The European Christian Crusaders, who in 1099 conquered Palestine from:
• The Seljuk Turks, who ruled Palestine in the name of:
• The Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad, which in 750 took over the sovereignty of the entire Near East from:
• The Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus, which in 661 inherited control of the Islamic lands from:
• The Arabs of Arabia, who in the first flush of Islamic expansion conquered Palestine in 638 from:
• The Byzantines, who (nice people—perhaps it should go to them?) didn't conquer the Levant, but, upon the division of the Roman Empire in 395, inherited Palestine from:
• The Romans, who in 63 B.C. took it over from:
• The last Jewish kingdom, which during the Maccabean rebellion from 168 to 140 B.C. won control of the land from:
• The Hellenistic Greeks, who under Alexander the Great in 333 B.C. conquered the Near East from:
• The Persian empire, which under Cyrus the Great in 639 B.C. freed Jerusalem and Judah from:
• The Babylonian empire, which under Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C. took Jerusalem and Judah from:
• The Jews, meaning the people of the Kingdom of Judah, who, in their earlier incarnation as the Israelites, seized the land in the 12th and 13th centuries B.C. from:
• The Canaanites, who had inhabited the land for thousands of years before they were dispossessed by the Israelites.

As the foregoing suggests, any Arab claim to sovereignty based on inherited historical control will not stand up. Arabs are not native to Palestine, but are native to Arabia, which is called Arab-ia for the breathtakingly simple reason that it is the historic home of the Arabs. The territories comprising all other "Arab" states outside the Arabian peninsula—including Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria, as well as the entity now formally under
the Palestinian Authority—were originally non-Arab nations that were conquered by the Muslim Arabs when they spread out from the Arabian peninsula in the first great wave of jihad in the 7th century, defeating, mass-murdering, enslaving, dispossessing, converting, or reducing to the lowly status of dhimmitude millions of Christians and Jews and destroying their ancient and flourishing civilizations. Prior to being Christian, of course, these lands had even more ancient histories. Pharaonic Egypt, for example, was not an Arab country through its 3,000 year history. The recent assertion by the Palestinian Arabs that they are descended from the ancient Canaanites whom the ancient Hebrews displaced is absurd in light of the archeological evidence.

There is no record of the Canaanites surviving their destruction in ancient times. History records literally hundreds of ancient peoples that no longer exist. The Arab claim to be descended from Canaanites is an invention that came after the 1964 founding of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the same crew who today deny that there was ever a Jewish temple in Jerusalem. Prior to 1964 there was no "Palestinian" people and no "Palestinian" claim to Palestine; the Arab nations who sought to overrun and destroy Israel in 1948 planned to divide up the territory amongst themselves. Let us also remember that prior to the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, the name "Palestinian" referred to the Jews of Palestine.

The only nations that have perfect continuity between their earliest known human inhabitants and their populations of the present day are Iceland, parts of China, and a few Pacific islands. The Chinese case is complicated by the fact that the great antiquity of Chinese civilization has largely erased the traces of whatever societies preceded it, making it difficult to reconstruct to what extent the expanding proto-Chinese displaced (or absorbed) the prehistoric peoples of that region. History is very sketchy in regard to the genealogies of ancient peoples. The upshot is that "aboriginalism"—the proposition that the closest descendants of the original inhabitants of a territory are the rightful owners—is not tenable in the real world. It is not clear that it would be a
desirable idea even if it were tenable. Would human civilization really be better off if there had been no China, no Japan, no Greece, no Rome, no France, no England, no Ireland, no United States?

Back to the Arabs: I have no problem recognizing the legitimacy of the Arabs' tenure in Palestine when they had it, from 638 to 1099, a period of 461 years out of a history lasting 5,000 years. They took Palestine by military conquest, and they lost it by conquest, to the Christian Crusaders in 1099. Of course, military occupation by itself does not determine which party rightly has
sovereignty in a given territory. Can it not be said that the Arabs have sovereign rights, if not to all of Israel, then at least to the West Bank, by virtue of their majority residency in that region from the early Middle Ages to the present?

To answer that question, let's look again at the historical record. Prior to 1947, as we've discussed, Palestine was administered by the British under the Palestine Mandate, the ultimate purpose of which, according to the Balfour Declaration, was the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. In 1924 the British divided the Palestine Mandate into an Arabs-only territory east of the Jordan, which became the Kingdom of Trans-Jordan, and a greatly reduced
Palestine Mandate territory west of the Jordan, which was inhabited by both Arabs and Jews. Given the fact that the Jews and Arabs were unable to coexist in one state, there had to be two states. At the same time, there were no natural borders separating the two peoples, in the way that, for example, the Brenner Pass has historically marked the division between Latin and Germanic Europe. Since the Jewish population was concentrated near the coast, the Jewish state had to start at the coast and go some distance inland. Exactly where it should have stopped, and where the Arab state should have begun, was a practical question that could have been settled in any number of peaceful ways, almost all of which the Jews would have accepted.

The Jews' willingness to compromise on territory was demonstrated not only by their acquiescence in the UN's 1947 partition plan, which gave them a state with squiggly, indefensible borders, but even by their earlier acceptance of the 1937 Peel Commission partition plan, which gave them nothing more than a part of the Galilee and a tiny strip along the coast. Yet the Arab nations, refusing to accept any Jewish sovereignty in Palestine even if it was the size of a postage
stamp, unanimously rejected the 1937 Peel plan, and nine years later they violently rejected the UN's partition plan as well. When the Arabs resorted to arms in order to wipe out the Jews and destroy the Jewish state, they accepted the verdict of arms. They lost that verdict in 1948, and they lost it again in 1967, when Jordan, which had annexed the West Bank in 1948 (without any objections from Palestinian Arabs that their sovereign nationhood was being violated), attacked Israel from the West Bank during the Six Day War despite Israel's urgent pleas that it stay out of the conflict. Israel in self-defense then captured the West Bank. The Arabs thus have no grounds to complain either about Israel's existence (achieved in '48) or about its expanded sovereignty from the river to the sea (achieved in '67).

The Arabs have roiled the world for decades with their furious protest that their land has been "stolen" from them. One might take seriously such a statement if it came from a pacifist people such as the Tibetans, who had quietly inhabited their land for ages before it was seized by the Communist Chinese in 1950. The claim is laughable coming from the Arabs, who in the early Middle Ages conquered and reduced to slavery and penury ancient peoples and civilizations stretching from the borders of Persia to the Atlantic; who in 1947 rejected an Arab state in Palestine alongside a Jewish state and sought to obliterate the nascent Jewish state; who never called for a distinct Palestinian Arab state until the creation of the terrorist PLO in 1964—sixteen years after the founding of the state of Israel; and who to this moment continue to seek Israel's destruction, an object that would be enormously advanced by the creation of the Arab state they demand. The Arab claim to sovereign rights west of the Jordan is only humored today because of a fatal combination of world need for Arab oil, leftist Political Correctness that has cast the Israelis as "oppressors," and, of course, good old Jew-hatred.

Lawrence Auster is the author of Erasing America: The Politics of the Borderless Nation. He offers his traditionalist conservative perspective at View from the Right. With gratitude to FLAME for their dedication to defending the sovereign nation of Israel.

Israel Should Be the Plaintiff, Not the Defendant, in the Court of Public Opinion

From Israel Should Be the Plaintiff, Not the Defendant, in the Court of Public Opinion:

It is not about land. Israel is a hangnail-sized piece of land with no oil and no resources other than those produced by the sweat and brains of its inhabitants. Surrounding this minuscule plot, demonstrably the Jews' ancient homeland, are 22 Arab countries covering a tenth of the world's land mass, 640 times more land than Israel occupies. It is about Arabs' intolerance for any other people in their midst. In particular Jews. Instead of defending Israel's right to exist, the court of public opinion should be prosecuting the Arabs' crime of relentless hate speech and incitement to violence.

The "great Arab nation" is greatly misanthropist

The alleged "great Arab nation" has once again demonstrated just how very misanthropist it is. For the first time in Israel's history, she initiated and authored and submitted a UN resolution. The resolution would encourage able nations of the world to develop farming technology for developing countries.

There were 118 votes in favor and 29 abstentions, with no opposing votes. So who didn't vote for it?

Algeria, Bahrain, Brunei, Darussalam, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Yup, you read it correctly. Those who didn't vote were none other than Jew-hating, theocratic, fascist, jealous, unevolved mostly Muslim nations who never helped anyone do anything - ever - and instead, gained its own enterprising status in the world largely from riding on the coattails of the hard work and endeavors of Jewish and Christian scientists, researchers, oil engineers, and doctors.

Ironically, South Africa abstained, considering it would have been the main beneficiary of the resolution. But we already knew that South Africa and Muslim dictators are in bed together, united in their Jew hatred. So, I say, let them starve.

Jerusalem, Earthly and Heavenly

From Jerusalem, Earthly and Heavenly, via Daily Alert:

Jerusalem does not rely upon natural wonders, outstanding weather or unusual surroundings for its attraction. It is holy, mysterious, the soul of Jewish history and longing. To see Jerusalem as a piece of real estate, a place on the map, is not to see it at all, let alone appreciate its role in Judaism and Jewish life and thought. The driving force behind Zionism, even in its most secular format, was the hunger of the Jewish people for Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the emotional battery that charged all of the movement of the return to Zion by Jews in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Ten Ways Israel Is Treated Differently

From Ten Ways Israel Is Treated Differently:

First, Israel is the only UN member state whose very right to exist is under constant challenge. Notwithstanding the fact that Israel was created with the imprimatur of the UN and has been a member of the world body since 1949, there is a relentless chorus of nations, institutions and individuals denying Israel's very political legitimacy. No one would dare question the right to exist of Libya, Saudi Arabia or Syria. Why is it open hunting season on Israel, as if we didn't know the answer?

Second, Israel is the only UN member state that's been publicly targeted for annihilation by another UN member state. Think about it. The Iranian president calls for wiping Israel off the map. Is there any other country that faces such an open call for genocidal destruction?

Third, Israel is the only nation whose capital city, Jerusalem, is not recognized by other nations. Imagine the absurdity of this. Foreign diplomats live in Tel Aviv while conducting virtually all their business in Jerusalem. Though no Western nation questions Israel's presence in the city's western half, where the prime minister's office, Knesset and Ministry of Foreign Affairs are located, there are no embassies there. In fact, look at listings of world cities, including places of birth in passports, and you'll often see something striking - Paris, France; Tokyo, Japan; Pretoria, South Africa; Lima, Peru; and Jerusalem, sans country - orphaned, if you will.

Fourth, the UN has two agencies that deal with refugees. One, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), focuses on all the world's refugee populations, save one. The other, the United Nations Refugee and Works Administration (UNRWA), handles only the Palestinians. But the oddity goes further than two structures and two bureaucracies. They have two different mandates. UNHCR seeks to resettle refugees; UNRWA does not. When, in 1951, John Blanford, UNRWA's director, proposed resettling up to 250,000 refugees in Arab countries, those countries refused, leading to his resignation. The message got through. No UN official since has pushed for resettlement.

Moreover, the UNRWA and UNHCR definitions of a refugee differ markedly. Whereas the UNHCR targets those who have fled their homelands, the UNRWA definition covers "the descendants of persons who became refugees in 1948," without any generational limitations.

Fifth, Israel is the only country that has won all its major wars for survival and self-defense, yet it's confronted by defeated adversaries who insist on dictating the terms of peace. In doing so, ironically, they've found support from many countries who, victorious in war, demanded -- and got - border adjustments.

Sixth, Israel is the only country that has been censured by name -- not once, but nine times -- since the new UN Human Rights Council was established in June 2006. Astonishingly, or maybe not, this UN body has failed to adopt a single resolution critical of any real human rights abuser. When finally discussing the Darfur situation, the Council shamefully balked at pointing a finger at Sudan.

Seventh, Israel is the only country that, in violation of the spirit of the UN Charter, isn't a full member of one of the five regional blocs -- Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and West Europe and Others (WEOG) -- that determine eligibility for candidacy for key UN posts. While Israel achieved a breakthrough in 2000 and joined WEOG, its membership is limited to New York, not other UN centers, and is both conditional and temporary.

Eighth, Israel is the only country that's the daily target of three UN bodies established solely to advance the Palestinian cause and to bash Israel -- the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People, and the Division for Palestinian Rights in the UN's Department of Political Affairs.

Ninth, Israel is the only country that is the target of a boycott by the British-based National Union of Journalists. An earlier British boycott against Israeli academic institutions was voided on a technicality because the union that adopted the measure merged with another. There is now an incipient call by some in the British Medical Association to exclude its Israeli counterpart from the World Medical Association.

And tenth, Israel is the only country where some associated with its majority population, i.e., Jews, openly call, for political or religious reasons, to dismantle the state. Is there a comparable situation to those religious voices of Neturei Karta, for example, who traveled to Teheran to join publicly with a leader seeking Israel's destruction, as well as those political extremists who seek to delegitimize the State of Israel and call for a "one-state" solution? Speaking of our own worst enemies... Tackling any one of these ten, much less all of them, is a daunting challenge, to state the painfully obvious. And, as I suggested, this list is far from complete. But it gives a sense of what's going on beyond the daily headlines.

The old ad used to say that you don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's Jewish rye bread. Well, surely, you don't have to be an ardent pro-Israel activist to be troubled by the unjust treatment of Israel. All it takes is a capacity for outrage that things like this are going on before our very eyes.

40th Anniversary of the Reunification of Jerusalem

Via Israel HighWay:

Most Jews in Israel and throughout the world barely remember a time when the Old City of Jerusalem and the rest of east Jerusalem were not an important part of the fabric of the city and the country. For 19 years, from the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 until the Six Day War in 1967, Jerusalem was a city divided by barbed wire and dangerous "no-man’s land" running roughly north to south separating the Jewish people from the Old City of Jerusalem. The Old City, the City of David, was the cornerstone of 2,000 years of Jewish longing for Zion. The long-held dream of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel was finally achieved, but the heart of the land was at once visibly close and miles away.

When Israel was born in 1948, its citizens and armed forces were unable to defend the Old City, and it fell to the Jordanian Legion. Jews were cut off from their holiest sites in Jerusalem, including the Kotel (Western Wall), the City of David just outside the Old City Walls, Mt. Scopus and the ancient Mount of Olives cemetery.

Throughout this time the Jewish character of the Old City was systematically destroyed by the Jordanian government. Thousands of Jewish residents of east Jerusalem and the Old City were driven from their homes. Fifty-eight Jerusalem synagogues, including some that were hundreds of years old, were destroyed or ruined and others were turned into barns for animals or public bathrooms. The entire Jewish Quarter was destroyed, houses were built immediately adjacent to the Kotel and all access to the ancient city was completely denied to Jews. Then suddenly, in the middle of the Six Day War, Israel found itself, unexpectedly, in control of the Old City.

With the news that Israel had taken control of the Old City and east Jerusalem, Israelis from all over the country began flocking to the Kotel to celebrate their young country’s miraculous victory. With Israeli sovereignty in all of Jerusalem, the holy sites of the world’s three great monotheistic faiths were opened to all, as they had never been under centuries of Muslim rule.

Now, 40 years later, many Israelis don’t know an Israel without a united Jerusalem offering free access to the Kotel and the important cultural and historic sites in the Old City. What was once "no man's land" dividing Israeli west Jerusalem from Jordanian-controlled east Jerusalem is now home to many landmarks and tourist attractions. One such place is the Haas Promenade, the first stop for many tour groups because of its scenic overlook of the entire Jerusalem panorama.

In recent years, Jerusalem has struggled as a growing and modern city. The city's narrow and winding streets are often snarled with traffic, and the city center, the site of frequent terrorist attacks during the Second Intifada, has struggled to keep shoppers and to attract people seeking entertainment who favor the modern indoor mall on the outskirts of the city. However, the city is in the midst of a major building campaign centered around the Jerusalem light rail system which will connect the outlying neighborhoods of the city with the center of town. The light rail, with its signature "Bridge of Strings" at the entrance to the city, will serve as a catalyst for new pedestrian malls, shopping areas and a reduction of traffic in and around the city center.

However, everything is not settled. To this day, 40 years after the unification of the city and almost 60 years after the founding of the State of Israel, the world refuses to fully accept Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Children born in Jerusalem to American parents are issued U.S. passports with the country of birth left blank. For decades, only two countries, Costa Rica and El Salvador, maintained their Israeli embassies in Jerusalem, and both of those countries announced last year that they would be moving their embassies to Tel Aviv.

The issue of Jerusalem has played a significant role in various diplomatic discussions in recent years and remains a key "final status" issue in the on-again, off-again talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The Oslo Accords, the negotiations at Camp David and the other interim discussions have all touched on the future of Jerusalem but opted to postpone the discussion. This year’s controversy over the Mugrabi Gate excavations shows just how sensitive an issue Jerusalem can be. The Mugrabi Gate serves as the entry point to the Temple Mount for all non-Muslim visitors. The bridge was built after the Six Day War to bring visitors to the Temple Mount. Recently it was heavily damaged during torrential rainstorms, and Jerusalem city architects ruled that is must be replaced with a more permanent and safer structure. In February, initial excavations of the site for the new bridge brought a swirl of controversy from the Muslim world, with Muslim and Arab leaders accusing Israel of seeking to undermine mosques on the Mount. Israel defended the decision to rebuild by inviting inspectors from various countries to observe and inspect the area themselves. A UN ruling on the incident cleared Israel of wrongdoing, acknowledging that they had acted with professionalism.

What is the future of Jerusalem? Will it remain the undivided capital of Israel or will the world demand official Palestinian sovereignty in parts of the Holy City? The answers to these questions remain unclear to all; but on this, the 40th Yom Yerushalayim, we should all stop to appreciate the Eternal City.

Take Action:

* Celebrate Yom Yerushalayim on May 16.
- Put an Israeli flag on your window or porch.
- Wear an Israeli flag pin.
* Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Attend a special service at your school or synagogue to mark the miracle of Jerusalem's reunification.
* Write a letter to your congressmen, senator, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanded that the American Embassy be moved to Jerusalem.

* Watch these video clips on Jerusalem:

- Jerusalem of Gold
- Matisyahu's Tribute to Jerusalem

Click here to listen to a live broadcast of the liberation of the Old City on June 7, 1967.

Likud launches vigils across country for resignation of Olmert Government

Starting this Friday (April 20, 2007) the Likud Party is launching a weekly protest vigil at major intersections across the country calling for the Olmert Government to resign.

The vigils will be held from 12 noon to 2:00 PM at:

Arlozorov-North Train Station - Tel Aviv
Sahkarov Gardens Junction - Jerusalem
Raanana Junction
Megido Junction
Kanyon Hasharon Junction - Netanya
Shilat Junction - Modi'in
Beersheva
Petach Tikva
Afula
Holon

For details: 03-6210888

Arabs and erev rav Israelis plan to march against Israel on Yom HaAtzmaut

From INN: On the day most Israelis will be celebrating the 59th Yom Ha'atzmaut, Independence Day, some Arab and left-wing Jewish citizens will march against the foundation of the state.

The Association for the Defense of the Rights of the Internally Displaced (ADRID) is planning to hold its tenth annual Procession of Return. The march, which last year drew hundreds of participants, is set to take place Tuesday, April 24, in the village of Al-Lajjun, adjacent to the northern Arab-Israeli city of Umm Al-Fahm. ADRID was established with the goal of returning Arabs to the houses and villages they or their families left during and after the 1948 War of Independence.

In the 2006 Procession of Return, Arab and left-wing marchers waved PLO flags and black flags "as a clear and decisive statement in the face of the Independence Day celebrations across other Jewish areas of the country," according to Ido Tzvieli, writing in the website of the Israel-based Jewish-Arab Zochrot organization. Zochrot, which will be taking part in the procession in Al-Lajjun, is dedicated to promoting the Arab view of the establishment of the State of Israel as a "day of catastrophe" (Al-Nakba).

Leading Middle East researchers, however, note statements on the issue made by Arab leaders and spokespeople during and after the War of Independence, indicating that Arabs in the land of Israel mostly fled due to Arab propaganda. The Arab leadership promoted libelous accusations against the Jews of Israel and warned Arab villagers to make way for conquering Arab armies.

For example, the New York-based Lebanese daily Al-Hoda wrote that in 1948, Arab League secretary Azzam Pasha "assured the Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and of Tel Aviv would be as simple as a military promenade.... Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes and property, and to stay temporarily in neighbouring fraternal states."

Also during the War of Independence, hundreds of Jews were forced to abandon towns and communities that were conquered by Jordanian, Egyptian and other Arab forces, such as in Jerusalem, Gaza, Hevron and other parts of Judea and Samaria. The lands and homes abandoned by Jews were quickly taken over by Arab soldiers and civilians. In most cases, the properties taken over by Arabs have remained in their possession, even after the 1967 Six Day War, when Israeli forces returned to the areas in question. In addition, in the aftermath of the War of Independence, acts of official and unofficial retaliation against Jewish communities in Arab countries forced upwards of 700,000 Jews to flee their homes and emigrate to Israel and the West, in most cases leaving their possessions behind.

People are waking up out of their slumber

Now this is someone who should be Prime Minister of the legitimate and sovereign nation of Israel. From YnetNews:

Mourning the loss of his beloved state which was 'murdered by wicked gold diggers,' 60-year-old Shmuel Gonen blames the public for lack of action.

"In sorrow and grief we announce the passing of our beloved State of Israel," read an obituary published in Ha'aretz newspaper Tuesday as one angry man's final attempt to bring about a change.

According to the notice, the State "was murdered by wicked gold-diggers who only sought power, men who would fight and argue. Those who destroyed you (Israel) came from within you."

Death notice in full reads: "In sorrow and grief we announced the passing of our beloved State of Israel which was murdered by wicked gold-diggers who only sought power, men who would fight and argue. Those who destroyed you came from within you."

The Illusion of "Peace in Exchange for Territories"

From The Illusion of "Peace in Exchange for Territories":

Since the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference, Arab leaders have repeated the mantra that peace with Israel hinges upon a withdrawal to the pre-1967 border. Yet it remains unclear whether the Palestinians will be satisfied with a homeland in the West Bank and Gaza following an Israeli withdrawal to the "green line." Palestinian insistence on the refugees' right of return, ending the Jewish majority in the State of Israel, indicates hostile intent.

Relations between Israel and its Palestinian and Arab neighbors are not dominated by the issue of disputed territory, but by the issue of the alleged right of return. The preservation of the refugee ethos through the media and the education system is intended to prevent concession on the right of return.

All Palestinian symbols and illustrations depict Palestine as the land from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. These illustrations do not show the Palestinian state as Gaza and the West Bank.

Western negotiators and Israelis tend to brush the refugee problem under the table, but for Arab societies surrounding Israel, the refugee issue is acute. Those who believe that the return of territory will bring peace must analyze and understand what is being said in the Arab media and on the Arab streets.

If a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Golan and Judea and Samaria (including Jerusalem) were to occur, Israelis would be bitterly disappointed to discover that the main problem between Israel and its neighbors - the problem of the State of Israel's very existence - has not been solved.

The writer, a Begin-Sadat Center research associate, served for 25 years in IDF Military Intelligence.

Maps: The Arab Israel Conflict in Maps

Here is exceptional visual content in an updated link to the Arab Israel Conflict in Maps via The Jewish Agency for Israel. Please add this to your list of resources.

Israeli cabinet approves appointment of first Muslim minister

From CBCNews:

The Israeli government overwhelmingly approved the appointment of the country's first Muslim cabinet minister Sunday, Raleb Majadele. Israel's parliament has always had Arab lawmakers — today, they number 13 members out of 120. But the country has had only one Arab cabinet minister before: Salah Tarif, a Druse, who was appointed in 2001 and forced to resign nine months later under a cloud of corruption allegations. This appointment was more contentious
because Muslim and Christian Arabs, unlike the Druse, do not serve in the army and have a far weaker identification with Israel. Arabs have been slowly taking on a more visible role in Israeli society in recent years. There is an Arab Supreme Court justice, as well as several diplomats and senior civil servants. There is also a smattering of Arab TV journalists and actors, along with a former national beauty queen and the winner of the Israeli version of America's Next Top Model.

Israel's Population: 76% Jewish, 20% Arab

In its annual report published Thursday, the Central Bureau of Statistics revealed that at the end of 2006, 76% of Israel's residents were Jewish (5,393,600), 20% were Arabs (1,413,500), and 4% were of other nationalities (309,100). During 2006 some 19,900 new immigrants arrived in Israel, a number similar to 2004 and 2005.

Exploring the Strength of Ties to Jerusalem

Daniel Pipes, in Exploring the Strength of Ties to Jerusalem:

Historically, the religious standing of Jerusalem for Muslims waxed and waned six times through 14 centuries. British rule over the city in 1917-48 galvanized a passion for Jerusalem that had been absent during the 400 years of Ottoman control. Throughout the Jordanian control of the walled city in 1948-67, Arabs largely ignored it. Jordanian radio broadcast Friday prayers not from Al-Aqsa mosque but from a minor mosque in Amman. The PLO's founding Covenant, which dates from 1964, contains no mention of Jerusalem.

Muslim interest in the city revived only with the Israeli conquest of Jerusalem in 1967. By 1990, the Islamic focus on Jerusalem reached such a surreal intensity that Palestinian Arabs denied the city's sacred and historical importance to Jews.

The Camp David summit of July 2000 saw the Israeli government put forward its demands for sovereignty over parts of the Temple Mount. As Dennis Ross, an American diplomat present at the summit, put it, Arafat "never offered any substantive ideas, not once" at the talks. However, "He did offer one new idea, which was that the Temple didn't exist in Jerusalem, that it was in Nablus." With this, Jerusalem's pseudo-history became formal Palestinian Authority policy.