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Jerusalem tourism waxes and wanes with international politics
By Ira Sharkansky
Ira Sharkansky
JERUSALEM–More than two million overseas visitors arrived in Jerusalem during a recent year. The attractions are well maintained places linked to individuals and events featured in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, and a functioning Old City enclosed by walls built in ancient times and last reconstructed in the 16th century. The Old City offers sites and shopping for tourists, and four distinctive neighborhoods that are the homes of 30,000 Jews, Muslims, Armenians and other Christians. Only a short ride away is Bethlehem, equally compelling for those wanting to see the roots of Christianity. Jericho is not much further in another direction. It offers winter visitors a chance to dine comfortably in an outdoor restaurant, while ten miles away in Jerusalem it may be raining and close to freezing.
While the numbers coming to Jerusalem are impressive, and often a nuisance to locals having to cope with crowds and traffic, the city ranks lower than 50 others in the numbers of tourists it attracts. London, New York, Bangkok, Paris, and Rome attract from three to seven times the number of international tourists as Jerusalem. Dublin, Amsterdam, and Prague get twice as many, while even Kiev and Bucharest, plus resorts near Bangkok attract 50 percent more international visitors than Jerusalem.
Jerusalem may have more of a mystic pull than these other places. The “Jerusalem syndrome” is a documented condition whereby some visitors believe themselves to be biblical characters. Jewish and Christian sufferers act as David, Jesus, or some other figure associated with their faith. I am not aware of visitors to London and Paris thinking that they are Henry VIII, Napoleon, or any of the other figures associated with local history.
Why does Jerusalem rank only #51 on a sophisticated ranking of international tourism?
Distance has something to do with it. Visitors to Western Europe can avail themselves of numerous attractive destinations as part of the same trip from home. There are decent beaches and other features in Tel Aviv and Netanya, but they attract only 60 and 10 percent of the overseas visitors as Jerusalem. Tiberias is on the Sea of Galilee and close to sites important to Christians, but draws only 25 percent of the number of visitors to Jerusalem.
There are other sites in countries close to Jerusalem, notably Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, but the borders of the Middle East are not as easy to cross as those of Western Europe. For some years now Israeli security personnel have not allowed Israeli Jews to visit Bethlehem or Jericho without special permits, and others have to pass through barriers and inspections meant to protect us.
Politics and tension are more likely to figure in a decision to visit Jerusalem than other cities. The number of overseas tourists to Israel dropped from 2.4 million in 2000, which was mostly prior to the onset of the latest intifada, to a bit over one million in 2003, which was one of the bloodiest years. Numbers increased to 1.9 million by 2005 when the violence had diminished significantly. No other country included in the regions of Europe and the Mediterranean surveyed by the United Nations tourist agency showed comparable variations in the same period. Even on a mundane issue like this, the U.N. is unable to consider Israel part of the Middle East region, which includes all of the countries bordering it and Palestine.
Jerusalem has drawn more tourists that some well-known sites in Europe. It does better than Florence and Venice, and is pretty much tied with Athens. Why less than Kiev and Bucharest? There are mysteries in the world of tourism that may boil down to nothing more than current fashion or a lack of precision in the numbers.
Tourist flows change with politics and economics. Thirty years ago there was virtually no direct travel between Israel, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Now Russian visitors are in second place behind those from the United States; there are sizable numbers from Ukraine and Poland. Thousands come each year from India, Korea, Japan, China, and Nigeria. Indonesia and Morocco receive Israelis and send visitors to Israel, even though there are no formal diplomatic relations. There are even a few hundred visitors annually from Malaysia and Iran, whose officials are usually among our most intense critics .
My latest Jerusalem experience may be part of a multicultural gesture to attract overseas visitors, or it may reflect nothing more than the lack of experience or attention by the person responsible. While I usually pay no attention to the music piped into the exercise room at the university gym, this morning I became alert to something familiar. It was Silent Night, in the English version I was required to sing many years ago at the Highland School. But only in December. Never in July.
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Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University
Glick warns that Iran believes creating nuclear force its religious duty
By Norman Greene
Norman Greene
LA JOLLA, California — No matter what else is discussed, “Iran is the main issue in the Middle East…everything else is irrelevant,” stated Caroline Glick, Deputy Managing Editor of the Jerusalem Post before an audience of over 500 gathered at Congregation Beth El by the San Diego Chapter of Friends of the Israel Defense Forces.
Can a nuclear Iran be contained? “Absolutely not,” she stated because “we are dealing with a death cult” that fervently believes in a life beyond this one where Islam will rule. All Iran’s nuclear efforts are “to advance Iran’s messianic quest.” There is no parallel with the history of U.S./Russia’s nuclear competition or standoff, because the Soviet Union believed in nothing…no hereafter.
Glick, born in Chicago, received her B.A. from Columbia, her Masters from Harvard, made Aliyah in 1991 and served in the IDF for five years before embarking on a many faceted career that has seen her as an adviser to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, a member of the team negotiating with Yasser Arafat’s PLO, a Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. and currently the lead columnist for Israel’s Makor Rishon newspaper, as well as her current Jerusalem Post position. She is a frequent speaker and TV commentator, as well as an author and syndicated columnist.
Her San Diego presentation Tuesday evening, July 20, was both rapid fire, detailed and impassioned.
Glick reported three consequences of a nuclear Iran: Middle East de-stabilization, a political realignment of Middle East nations and a Middle East nuclear arms race (Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Jordan) that she stated had already begun. As a result, “Egypt and Jordan will abrogate their peace treaties with Israel. Fatah, which has no authority to make peace, will abandon any efforts. All of the U.S. Persian Gulf Sunni allies (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain) will move away from the U.S.”
In discussing sanctions against Iran, which she says has dominated U.S. discourse, Glick stated that they have been on the table since early 2000 and that “none will have the slightest effect on Iran’s nuclear program. Even if 70 million Iranians have to starve, the regime doesn’t care.”
As far as “regime change” is concerned, Glick says there is no chance of that happening in the foreseeable future. Still she feels: “It is good to keep the regime busy with the opposition, no matter the moral quality of that opposition.”
Drawing a bleak picture, Glick was very clear that “the only way to stop Iran’s nuclear program is the use of military force. She reiterated that “seven years have been wasted by feckless politicians without the guts to take action.” There has been a complete failure of U.S. policy beginning with the last two years of George Bush’s presidency (“when he seemingly lost his will”) and continuing with Barack Obama’s first year of appeasement efforts that have totally failed, said the Chicago native.
The U.S., she said, “has fallen asleep on its watch – a terrible thing.”
An attack on Iran’s nuclear capabilities “would not be to protect Israel” she bluntly stated. It is in the fundamental interest of the U.S. to protect the flow of Middle East oil. While noting that the U.S. military has the power, she stated that a U.S. attack on Iran was “not going to happen” even though the U.S. needs to project its power in the Middle East. She noted that Israel hasn’t attacked because of U.S. pressure.
Referring to anti-missile systems development, she said that such programs do not constitute a viable program. They are ” a failure of imagination” in the face of a threat to world security. She noted that Iran’s satellite launching long-range missiles endanger not only Israel, but also Europe and all other Arab nations.
Glick discussed Israel’s role in the equation and stated that Israel, which was founded to prevent another Holocaust, has the capacity to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, but is hampered by the U.S. threat to withhold re-supplying Israel should an attack occur. “Obama has not given Israel any assurances to resupply if war were to happen.”
As such, Glick was extremely critical of the Obama administration. Quoting Winston Churchill: “The U.S. always does the right thing after exhausting every other possibility,” Glick exhorted her audience to show their support for Israel and the Free World by contacting all their representatives and political candidates to openly stand behind Israel against Iran. The U.S.’s lack of meaningful action she attributed to the backlash against Bush’s Iraq war.
Glick warned that Israel has been “carrying the rest of the world for quite a while now and there is fatigue, a fear of making mistakes, the wearing effects of the condemnation of the rest of the world.” She said the distortions of Jew-hating groups attempting to delegitimize and isolate Israel is real and paralyzing. “There is need to hear the voices of reason in the U.S..”
Glick worries about the loss of young Jews in the Diaspora, which she blames on the emphasis in Jewish education since the 90’s on the Holocaust at the expense of teaching Zionism. “The Holocaust is a German story, not a Jewish Story,” Glick stated. ” It focuses on the Jews as victims, not as actors who are ‘doing’ things.”
“To be a Jew, you have to do something – to build and to ‘do’–instead of holding a whiny discourse” Glick stated. “If you are damned if you do or don’t, it’s far better to ‘do’ ” she added.
Glick was welcome to the podium by Julian Josephson, San Diego chair of the Friends of IDF, Executive Director Nir Ben Zvi and Charles Wax who made the formal guest speaker introduction. A brief IDF film showed that since the organization was founded in 1981, it has provided support for Israeli soldiers, veterans and their families through scholarships, recreation facilities as well as social welfare, spiritual and bereavement programs. The message delivered is that “soldiers know they have strong backing from Friends of the IDF worldwide.”
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Greene is a freelance writer based in San Diego
A pleasure cruise to Turkey? I think not!
By Donald H. Harrison
Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO–A friend of mine was considering a Mediterranean cruise. I suggested that he find another itinerary. One of the ports of call he had been considering was in Turkey. I can’t imagine a reason after the Gaza Flotilla incident why any member of the Jewish community would want to go to Turkey, anymore than they should want to go to Iran, Syria, Lebanon, or to Gaza.
There are places in the Muslim Middle East I would recommend visiting: Egypt, Jordan, and Oman, all of which I’ve had the pleasure of visiting myself. Oh, I’ve also been to Turkey, but not again, thank you. While Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in power, I’ll be waiting for his government to be reset, tied up, er-gone. If I want Middle Eastern flavor, I’ll go to Israel. And if I do venture among Israel’s other neighbors, perhaps it will be to the United Arab Emirates, Morocco or Tunisia. I certainly won’t waste time on the country of a false friend, a provocateur, someone who has betrayed Israel in order to curry favor with the most radical regimes in the Middle East.
Beautiful beaches? Erdogan’s Turkey can keep them. Antiquities? There are a lot more in Israel, Jordan and Egypt. Turkish coffee? The world has learned to brew it long ago. Carpets? We can manage without them.
There was a time when I wanted to travel everywhere on the globe, to meet the people of every land, to taste their foods, partake of their customs. Not anymore. If other countries want tourism, let them earn it. Let them show that they respect the people of the world, no matter where they come from or how they pray. Let them demonstrate that they are willing to abide by international standards of decency.
It was an act of indecency last May when Turkey attempted to force Israel to either give up its right to self-defense or be condemned by Arab-engineered “world opinion” for blocking such manifestations of “humanitarian assistance” as knives, cutlasses, grenades, and automatic weapons.
Five of the six ships in the so-called Gaza Flotilla went peacefully to the Israeli Port of Ashdod and their humanitarian cargoes were transferred without incident to Gaza. These supplies amounted to drops of water in the river of aid that Israel continually sends to the people of Gaza notwithstanding the fact that their Hamas “leaders” thank the Israelis with Kassam missile strikes on Sderot and the villages of Sha’ar Hanegev.
Only the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara refused to be escorted peacefully to Ashdod. As the video released by the IDF makes clear, the “humanitarians” on board replied to the Israelis who invited them to deliver the cargo there: “Shut the f**k up. Go back to Auschwitz! We’re helping Arabs going against the U.S. Don’t forget 9/11 guys.”
Listen, you so-called “humanitarians,” we Jews are not going back to Auschwitz. And we Americans will definitely remember 9/11, and all the innocent people who died there at the hand of terrorists with whom you apparently have much in common.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World
Gaza-bound Libyan ship docks at Egyptian port after deal
(WJC)–A deal struck between Israel and Egypt has reportedly enabled a Libyan ship carrying aid for Gaza to change course and dock peacefully at the Egyptian port of El-Arish. An Arab newspaper in London reports that in return, Israel has agreed to let the Gadhafi Foundation begin a US$ 50 million project to rebuild damaged buildings in Gaza, together with the United Nations.
On Thursday, the Amalthea docked at El-Arish after Israel’s navy had stopped it from reaching the Gaza Strip territory. Since Hamas rose to power there, Israel maintains a sea blockade to prevent weapons smuggling.
The director of the port of El-Arish, Gamal Abdel Maqsoud, said the ship would unload its cargo and hand it over to the Red Crescent for delivery to Gaza by land. Israeli ships stopped the aid vessel from reaching Gaza.
The Gadhafi Foundation, headed by a son of Libyan leader Muammar al-Gadhafi, said the ship had left Greece on Saturday carrying 2,000 tons of food and medical supplies.
Meanwhile, another Gaza-bound aid convoy left the Jordanian capital Amman on Tuesday, heading to the Red Sea port city of Aqaba. Around 150 activists traveled with the convoy, which includes 25 trucks laden with basic humanitarian aid including food and medicine, as well as an ambulance donated by Jordan Medical Association members, according to Jordanian officials.
The convoy is set to travel by boat from Aqaba to the Egyptian port of Nuweibeh and then enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing.
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress.
The religion of Barack Hussein Obama
By J. Zel Lurie
J. Zel Lurie
DEL RAY BEACH, Florida–President Obama’s religious affiliation is in the news again. The Moslem fingerprints on his early life were prominently displayed during the 2008 primary campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton and in the election against John McCain.
The voters paid no attention but some Jewish bloggers made a big stink about Obama being a closet Moslem. The reply of Jewish voters was to give Obama a greater majority than any previous president.
Now that the relations between Obama’s Administration and the right-wing government of Israel are a bit strained the Jewish bloggers are at it again. This time they have the evidence of the Foreign Minister of Egypt Ahmed Aboul Gheit. Mr. Gheit is alleged to have said on Egyptian TV that in a conversation with Obama, the President said that he was really a Moslem and that he had half-brothers in Kenya who were Moslems.
Hosni Mubarak’s foreign minister would have to be an idiot to say anything derogatory about Barack Obama on public TV. But assuming the story is true, what are the facts about Obamas religion?
President Obama was born in 1961 in Honolulu to Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas and Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a black Moslem student from Kenya.
His parents were divorced when Obama was two years old. His father left for Connecticut and then returned to Kenya where he married again and had five sons and a daughter. There is no evidence that Obama Sr. played any role in the life of Obama Jr.
Barack Hussein Obama Jr. spent his early formative years in Hawaii with his mother and stepfather, a Moslem from Indonesia named Soetro. When Barack was six years old, Mr. Soetro lost his residence permit and the family, which included a younger half-sister, moved to Jakarta in Indonesia.
From age 6 to 10 Barack Obama attended public schools in Jakarta. A school registration has been unearthed for Barry Soetro, a Moslem.
Obviously dissatisfied with the Jakarta schooling, at age 10, his mother shipped the boy to her mother in Kansas. The President has credited his grandmother with playing the key role in his upbringing. From Kansas schools to Harvard to Chicago to the United States Senate and finally the White House, he was a black American of the Christian faith. He has always belonged to a church. He was married in a church and his children were baptized.
So how come the President and the Egyptian Foreign Minister were discussing Moslem affiliations? The Egyptian might have brought up the Moslem dictum: Born to a Moslem father you remain a Moslem all your life.
This contrasts with the Jewish religion. Born to a Jewish mother you remain a Jew in your life. The rabbis have found an escape clause. If you convert to another religion, you cease to be a Jew.
Hitler did not recognize conversions. He looked upon the Jews as a race and not a religion.
I am unaware that the Moslems have a similar clause. Nor was Obama ever converted. His mother and his grandmother considered him to be a Christian from birth.
Does his Moslem biological father have any effect on his actions on the Israel Palestinian dispute? Not in the slightest.
I wouldnt care if Obama used the Lincoln room to touch his forehead to the floor in Moslem prayer five times a day. To paraphrase Ben Gurion what counts is what he does, not to whom he prays.
Here is what he does. His first step into the Mideast cauldron was to appoint George Mitchell, who brought peace to Ireland, as his special envoy to the Palestine-Israel conflict. Next he appointed Rahm Emanuel, whose father fought the British to achieve a Jewish state, as his chief of staff. His chief strategist, David Axelrod, is also Jewish.
Last month Rahm Emanuel took his daughter to Israel for her Bat Mitzvah. While there he invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House. The state visit occurred July 6.
Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had powerful Jewish backers in her fight for the presidency.
She has been instrumental in securing a ten-month freeze on construction of settlements. Although every President has opposed the settlements, this is the first time that Israel was pressured into agreeing to a freeze since Jimmy Carter got Menachem Begin to agree to a freeze during the Camp David negotiations. That freeze lasted three months.
The proximity talks now going on under George Mitchell are the crowning achievement of the Obama Administration. Mitchell has held several meetings devoted to solving Israels security needs.
Israel says that its security will depend on its continued control of the West Bank’s Eastern border. To me, a Zionist, who is familiar with Israel’s problems, this is an understandable request. Secretary of State Clinton must look at the question differently. How can a sovereign state allow a former enemy to control its frontier?
This is the type of question that the talks under George Mitchell must solve. Next is defining the permanent frontiers of the two states, Israel and Palestine, including the division of East Jerusalem. Then there is the question of Tel Aviv’s water which comes mostly from West Bank aquifers. Then there is the perennial question of the 1948 refugees and many other minor questions.
George Bush ignored these complex questions, allowing Israel to continue the evil occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Barack Obama will do his best to achieve two states living side by side in peace and security. The question of his Moslem father is a red herring that is beginning to stink.
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Lurie is a freelance writer based in Del Ray Beach. His articles appear regularly in the Jewish Journal of South Florida.
Deconstructing President Obama’s interview on Israeli TV
Shoshana Bryen
WASHINGTON, D.C. –President Obama dragged out some really dated stereotypes while demeaning both Jews and Israelis in an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 Television. Confronted with the “anxiety” (as the reporter put it) that some Israelis feel about his relationship toward Israel, Mr. Obama bluntly blamed the Jews:
He continued:
Would someone please tell the President that in the 21st Century the “some of my best friends are Jewish” line is offensive? And, in this case, inconsistent. Before the election, the President’s people demanded that no one associate the candidate with the vicious anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism and anti-Israelism of his longtime pastor and spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright, in whose church then-Senator Obama sat. If nothing of Wright rubbed off on him in 25 years, how did those sneaky Jews do it?
Speaking of irony, here’s one. After claiming closeness to the American Jewish community vicariously – through the Jewish commitment to the American Civil Rights Movement of which he was not a part and because he has Jewish friends and, after claiming that, “My closeness to the Jewish American community was probably what propelled me to the U.S. Senate,” Mr. Obama opines:
More than 76 percent of the Jewish electorate voted for him. Does he think they didn’t know his name was Hussein? Does he think Jews are easily swayed, or stupid? He continued:
It is blatantly stereotypical to say that Israel or American Jews understand either the “Muslim community” or the Middle Eastern “Muslim world” as a monolith deserving of a “friend of my enemy is my enemy” approach. A slur like that makes people “anxious,” first because is grants no nuance to Israel and Jews, and second because if the President of the United States sees the region as a zero-sum game with Jews and Israel on one side and Arabs and Muslims on the other, it will be almost impossible to address the region’s real problems.
And they are legion and have little to do with Jews.
The Middle East is split by Arab/Persian/Ottoman rivalries, by the Sunni/Shiite rivalry, by radical/traditional regime rivalries, the Syrian/Lebanese rift, the Hashemite/Palestinian divide and the Hamas/Fatah civil war. The Middle East is endangered by Iran’s determination to have nuclear weapons capability, the Muslim Brotherhood’s determination to have Cairo after Mubarak, the minority Alawite determination not to lose the regime in Syria for fear of death by the Sunni majority, Hezbollah’s determination to control Lebanon, and Iran’s determination to have hegemony in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf.
But here’s what really produces anxiety in some people, including us: In response to a question about being president, Mr. Obama said:
Nice words, but the anonymity was cynically calculated. JINSA wrote at the time:
It is the disconnect between words, attitudes, facts and policies that makes a lot of people – not just Jews, not just Israelis – anxious.
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Bryen is senior director of security policy of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. Her column is sponsored by Waxie Sanitary Supply in memory of Morris Wax, longtime JINSA supporter and national board member.
Obama-Netanyahu meeting papers over their differences
By Shoshana Bryen
Shoshana Bryen
WASHINGTON, D.C. — There is a crucial divide between PR and straight talk, between red lines, bottom lines and spin. Last week we cautioned against mistaking Israel’s bad PR for bad policy, and faulted people who respond to Israel based on how things look in the media rather than for what they are. We were irritated with those who demand better polish. This week, we are worried about people who mistake good PR – smiles, handshakes, mild jokes and a kosher lunch – for good substance.
President Obama looked fairly relaxed during the short press meeting and told reporters, “Our commitment to Israel’s security has been unwavering. And, in fact, there aren’t any concrete policies that you could point to that would contradict that.”
That was a good PR move, sliding over the fact you don’t need “concrete policies” to embolden Israel’s enemies and objectively weaken its security. U.S. support of the biased Goldstone process and providing only very weak support for Israel when it was attacked by blockade-busters trying to sail to Gaza, and hinting that there is a mixed opinion in the U.S. government about the role of Hamas and Hezbollah in future negotiations all embolden Israel’s enemies. The President’s comment that the Israel-Palestinian conflict costs the United States in “blood and treasure” may not have been a policy, but it was close to a blood-libel on top of being untrue.
Over Israel’s objection, the U.S. allowed the UN Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty Review to single out Israel’s presumed nuclear capability for concern while it took a pass on Iran, North Korea and what U.S. intelligence believes is a secret Syrian program. This is the first administration to put Israel on that international “hot seat” paving the way for future meetings, including the IAEA meeting in September, to pressure Israel.
But the President put a good PR gloss on that one, saying, “We discussed issues that arose out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Conference. And I reiterated to the Prime Minister that there is no change in U.S. policy when it comes to these issues… the United States will never ask Israel to take any steps that would undermine their security interests.”
The difference between the President “asking” Israel to take steps that would undermine its security and the President throwing Israel under the bus of Arab demands himself is too thin to measure and a craven abdication to those who would destroy America’s only democratic ally in the Middle East.
One such Arab demand delivered to Israel by the President of the United States was the call for a “total settlement freeze,” giving the Palestinians an excuse to cut off direct talks, substituting “proximity” talks and an announcement that the Palestinian Authority would negotiate only with the United States. That reversed 17 years of American policy for which Israel will now have to “pay” to get the Palestinians back to the table.
By calling the third of seven administrative levels of permission to build apartments in North Jerusalem (in the former “no man’s land” of the illegal Jordanian occupation of half of Jerusalem in defiance of the UN) a “humiliation” of the United States, Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama set the stage for ongoing Palestinian violence on the West Bank. Israel will now have to “pay” for a re-stabilized relationship.
But the President put a little PR gloss on that as well, figuratively patting the Prime Minister on the head and saying peace, “requires work and that requires some difficult choices – both at the strategic level and the tactical level. And this is something that the Prime Minister understands.” It requires considerably more work when one of your “partners” keeps moving the bar away from you and toward your adversaries. “Difficult choices” is a euphemism for continuing not to build houses for Jews in places the President – on behalf of his Arab and Palestinian friends – doesn’t want them built.
Oddly, Prime Minister Netanyahu allowed President Obama to characterize Israel’s commitment to its own security – and the President did it badly, saying, “During our conversation, [the Prime Minister] once again reaffirmed his willingness to engage in serious negotiations with the Palestinians around what I think should be the goal not just of the two principals involved, but the entire world, and that is two states living side by side in peace and security. Israel’s security needs met, the Palestinians having a sovereign state that they call their own.”
Almost realistically, the President pointed out that, “Those are goals that have obviously escaped our grasp for decades now.” But PR trumped realism as the President concluded, “But now more than ever I think is the time for us to seize on that vision.”
Real progress toward a secure Israel requires an American president who understands that “what I think should be the goal” is relatively unimportant and it isn’t what “the entire world” thinks. It requires a president who understands that there are those – mainly housed in the Middle East – implacably committed to the destruction of the State of Israel and providing money, training, arms and political support for the most irredentist Palestinian vision.
A previous American president also foundered on “the vision thing,” perhaps forgetting that how it sounds isn’t what it is.
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Bryen is senior director of security policy of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. Her column is sponsored by Waxie Sanitary Supply in memory of Morris Wax, longtime JINSA supporter and national board member.
$60 million contribution to Palestinian refugees brings U.S. 2010 total to $225 million
The $60.3 million contribution will provide critical services, including health, to 4.7 million Palestinian refugees. Of this contribution, $5.7 million will support nine special projects, including reconstruction and rehabilitation of schools in Jordan, Syria, and the West Bank, an afterschool program for refugee children in Lebanon, and a referral system to help refugees facing gender-based violence.
UNRWA currently faces a shortfall of $161 million, including $91 million for core expenses such as salaries for teachers educating nearly 500,000 Palestinian refugee children across the region.
With this contribution, the U.S. will have provided more than $225 million to UNRWA in 2010, including $120 million to its General Fund, $75 million to its West Bank/Gaza emergency programs, $20 million to emergency programs in Lebanon, and $10 million for the construction of five new schools in Gaza.
The U.S. commitment to the welfare of the Palestinian people was further underscored by the President’s June 9 announcement that the United States will move forward with $400 million to increase access to clean drinking water, create jobs, build schools, and address critical housing and infrastructure needs in the West Bank and Gaza. As UNRWA’s largest bilateral donor, the U.S. recognizes the critical role UNRWA plays in assisting Palestinian refugees and maintaining regional stability and calls upon other donors to enhance their support for UNRWA.
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Preceding provided by U.S. State Department
Imagine what hypocrites would do without Israel to condemn
By Rabbi Ben Kamin
Rabbi Ben Kamin
SAN DIEGO–Sometimes one wonders what the media, the pundits, the leftists, the Presbyterians, and most of Europe would all do if they did have not the Jews to examine and excoriate. Certainly it’s a collective straight line away from their own inexhaustible layers of racial hypocrisies, inquisitions, crusades, slave-trading, and discarding-all-principles-for-oil that comes with their parlor anti-Semitism.
Since BP (then the Anglo-Persian Oil Company) first raped that land, now called Iran, for oil in 1908, there has been a love-hate liaison with the Arabs that has manipulated the American consumer, cost the lives of the thousands of American soldiers in several business war adventures [Kuwait-Iraq-Saudi Arabia], while conveniently stonewalling our finest ally in the region, Israel, as the scapegoat for any and troubles.
For us, world history has been an oil leak, from betrayal to BP.
The current, essentially unchecked gushing of oil into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig, and the attendant destruction now wrought upon the waters, coast, wildlife, environment—not to mention the hard-working people, economy, and the future of a significant portion of the United States—remains a toxic allegory of this entire duplicity.
Millions of words of analysis and somber reflection, if not steaming chastisement, fill the pages and testimonies of the world’s press and legislative records about Israel’s bungled incident with the cynically presented “peace” flotilla. Not a lot of parallel consideration has been given to Egypt’s quiet cooperation with Israel’s arms blockade of the Hamas-locked Gaza, or to the fact that Turkey’s sudden and overwrought concern for the Palestinians does not seem to extend to their refugee camps in Lebanon, or to the fact that Jordan massacred manifold times more Palestinians in 1970 deliberately than Israel ever has in defense of its borders, or that the United Kingdom (whose academic centers practically offer anti-Semitism as a curriculum item) invented white colonialism.
Moreover, while it is invigorating that South Africa is hosting the World Cup, it is also beyond any realm of pretense for that nation to join in the knee-jerk labeling of Israel as an “apartheid” state. Such a libelous claim was again obviated when one of fourteen Arab members of the Israeli Parliament, Azmi Bishara, who was on board the raided flotilla but then addressed her fellow legislators in Jerusalem two days later (I’m not saying she wasn’t heckled). Try that same scenario in Teheran, Cairo, Damascus, or even Istanbul.
The Israeli people, feisty, democratic, weary, filled with self-awareness, though unwilling to ever give up their remarkable country, are undergoing a thorough and painful period of introspection in the wake of recent events and the larger question of this 43-year occupation of territory that followed the 1967 war forced upon them. Jews all over the world join with them in contemplation and reflection, hope and prayer.
We are not doing it because the chorus of anti-Semitism is getting louder and uglier. We are not going to suddenly capitulate on anything, however. For us, world history has been an oil leak, from betrayal to BP. So you see, it’s just that we are not going to be marched to the gas chambers ever again.
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Rabbi Kamin is based in San Diego. This article also appeared on examiner.com
U.S. funding contributes to ‘unsustainable’ situation in Palestinian Territories
Shoshana Bryen
WASHINGTON–President Obama described the situation in Gaza as “unsustainable,” and a White House statement said the administration “demands a significant change in strategy” while agreeing that “Israelis have the right to prevent arms from entering into Gaza that can be used to launch attacks into Israeli territory.” Standing with Abu Mazen, the President announced $400 million in U.S. humanitarian aid for Gaza Palestinians. How? Even The New York Times acknowledged that it wasn’t clear, “how Mr. Abbas, who has authority in the West Bank but no authority in Gaza, would be able to administer (the funds).”
State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley tried to make it all work:
Not quite accurate.
The “nature” of the Fatah government on the West Bank is that it believes, like Hamas, that the creation of Israel was a “naqba” and a mistake by the international community. It wants the mistake corrected with the dissolution of Israel and the creation of a Palestinian state in all of the territory of Mandatory Palestine, including Jordan. Fatah, like Hamas, rejects the legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty in the Middle East. And, like Hamas, Fatah believes in “armed resistance,” having reaffirmed violence against Israel at its convention last summer. Unlike Hamas, however, Fatah believes that the dissolution of Israel can be accomplished by political means, so Fatah will discuss many things with the Government of Israel, including economics, day-to-day wellbeing for the people and even, temporarily, security.
In fact, Israel retains security control of the West Bank territory, protecting Abu Mazen from Hamas (because the American-built Palestinian Authority Security Force can’t do it yet and JINSA remains concerned about the emergence of a Palestinian army under the above circumstances) as well as protecting Israeli citizens, thus establishing the fundamental conditions for economic growth-security and rule of law. The biggest economic problem for Palestinians there right now is the self-proclaimed “embargo” on working for/being paid by Israeli business, and buying goods made in Israel.
As for Gaza, there is no “compelling and urgent humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” What there is in Gaza is a radical, Iranian-backed dictatorship that holds 1.2 million people hostage while it threatens Israel and insufficiently enthusiastic Palestinians.
The President suggested that, “While we work with our partners in the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Egypt, and the international community to put such a strategy in place, these projects represent a down payment on the United States’ commitment to Palestinians in Gaza, who deserve a better life and expanded opportunities, and the chance to take part in building a viable, independent state of Palestine, together with those who live in the West Bank.”
Why do they “deserve” a better life? They elected Hamas. To the extent that they made a mistake they now regret, we’re sorry they’re sorry. Money, however, is completely fungible. Any aid the United States thinks it is putting toward the needs of the people of Gaza will necessarily strengthen Hamas as UNRWA and the Red Cross both have to bow to Hamas in order to work. Any American tax dollars that pay for schools, housing, health care, etc. frees up Iranian dollars, passed through Egypt to Gaza, for Hamas to use in the purchase and smuggling of additional arms. Crowley acknowledges that Hamas won’t spend money caring for its people so why should Americans pay to relieve Hamas of the burden?
We would do better to relieve the people of Gaza of the burden of Hamas.
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Bryen is senior director of security policy of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. Her column is sponsored by Waxie Sanitary Supply in memory of Morris Wax, longtime JINSA supporter and national board member.
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