ISRAEL
- YASSER ARAFAT REJECTS GENEVA ACCORD, BUT LETS OFFICIALS ATTEND
LAUNCH
Haaretz Correspondents - by Arnon Regular, Yossi Verter and Mazal
Mualem 12/01/2003 - Senior Palestinian officials flip-flopped
Sunday before agreeing at the last minute to attend Monday's
launch of the Geneva Accord, an unofficial Israeli-Palestinian
peace plan.
- The Palestinian negotiators, who had been threatened by militants,
initially said that they would only attend if they received a
written letter from PA Chairman Yasser Arafat stating that he
and the Fatah Central Committee support the initiative. But although
Arafat refused to grant the letter, they agreed to make do with
a verbal statement that they were attending the ceremony with
his permission, in their capacity as private citizens. But Arafat
stressed that neither he nor the PLO have officially accepted
the draft peace accord, which was negotiated by Israeli opposition
figures and senior Palestinian officials with his consent. Palestinian
Prime Minister Ahmed
-
- Qureia also declared that the Palestinian participants represent
neither the PLO nor the Palestinian government. A source close
to Arafat explained that the PA chairman is opposed in principle
to consenting to the draft agreement in writing. "Arafat
did not give written consent to [former U.S. president Bill]
Clinton regarding a permanent-status agreement, and there is
no reason to give it now to [Yossi] Beilin," the chief Israeli
architect of the accord, the source said. Meanwhile, a survey
commissioned by Haaretz has revealed that within Israel, opponents
of the draft agreement only narrowly outnumber supporters. The
poll found that 31 percent of Israelis support the agreement,
38 percent oppose it and 20 percent have not yet formed an opinion.
Even 13 percent of Likud voters supported the accord, which was
negotiated without the Likud-led government's consent and is
fiercely opposed by it.
-
- The last-minute doubts about Palestinian participation fueled
some doubts about the Palestinians' willingness for peace. "Any
Palestinian distancing from the agreement cancels its very basis,
because what it is selling is a Palestinian partner," noted
Channel 2 diplomatic reporter Rina Mazliah. "What almost
happened on Monday strengthens the Israeli opponents of the accord."
Beilin, however, remained calm. "What is very clear is that
they are having their own debate," he said. "It is
just a demonstration of the difficulties that both sides are
facing." The crisis began when two Palestinian cabinet ministers
and two legislators who helped negotiate the plan announced they
were withdrawing from the ceremony. Palestinian participants
had been under intense pressure by militants, who were angry
over the accord's concession on refugees.
-
- In a leaflet, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades called them "collaborators,"
a loaded term that often marks Palestinians for death. Masked
gunmen also reportedly shot at the home of former cabinet minister
Yasser Abed Rabbo, the key Palestinian architect of the agreement.
On Sunday, Fatah and Hamas activists attacked delegates trying
to leave Gaza for the ceremony, calling them "traitorous"
and blocking their cars for about 45 minutes. Minister Hisham
Abd al-Raziq and legislator Khatem Abdel Khader, as well as fellow
Fatah member Qadoura Fares, decided to go, while a fourth would-be
participant said that he would stay behind to market the agreement.
Arafat's national security adviser, Jibril Rajoub, is also going.
But most of the several hundred lower-level Palestinians who
had planned to attend changed their minds yesterday after the
Fatah Central Committee publicly urged them to boycott it. Both
supporters and opponents of the draft said they believe Arafat,
who has been publicly vague about his support, in fact believes
that the authors are "trading in national assets and are
collaborators with the American Zionist project."
-
- But Arafat was still interested in having Palestinian delegates
attend the ceremony, they said, in order to embarrass Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon. The ceremony will be attended by some 200 Israelis,
a few dozen Palestinians and numerous foreign dignitaries, including
former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, former Polish president Lech
Walesa, the foreign minister of Qatar and envoys from Oman, Bahrain,
Morocco and Egypt.
- The main points of the Geneva Accord The Geneva Accord is
a model permanent-status agreement between Israel and a Palestinian
state. Following are its main points:
-
- l The agreement constitutes an end to all claims on
both sides. The border it sets is final, unappealable and replaces
all UN resolutions and previous agreements.
- l The Palestinians recognize the Jewish people's right
to a state, and each side recognizes Israel and Palestine as
the other's national homeland. The Palestinian state will inherit
all of the PLO's rights and responsibilities.
- l Jerusalem: All Jewish neighborhoods, including those
in East Jerusalem, will remain under Israeli sovereignty, and
the Palestinians will recognize Jerusalem, in its new borders,
as Israel's capital. Palestinian neighborhoods will be under
Palestinian sovereignty and will become the Palestinian state's
capital. Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem will lose their
Israeli residency rights and become Palestinian citizens.
- l The Temple Mount will be under Palestinian sovereignty,
but an international force will maintain order and ensure freedom
of access for all faiths. Jewish prayer on the mount will be
forbidden, as will archaeological digs.
- l The Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter, including
Zion Gate and Dung Gate, will remain under Israeli sovereignty.
- l Refugees: The words "return" or "right
of return" do not appear in the document. Israel will accept
a limited number of Palestinian refugees, with this number at
its own discretion (experts estimate around 40,000 refugees over
a period of several years). The other refugees may resettle in
Palestine or third countries. Israel will pay an agreed sum in
compensation to the refugees.
- l Borders: Israel will withdraw to the 1967 borders
within 30 months, except for agreed territorial exchanges in
a 1:1 ratio. The Israel Defense Forces will maintain a presence
in the Jordan Valley for an additional three years. l Territorial
exchanges: Israel will annex a strip of the West Bank near Ben-Gurion
Airport and major settlement blocs near the Green Line, including
the West Bank settlements around Jerusalem: Ma'aleh Adumim, Givat
Ze'ev, Gush Etzion and Givon. In exchange, Israel will give the
Palestinians equivalent territory in the Negev, adjacent to the
Gaza Strip. Efrat, Har Homa and Ariel will become Palestinian.
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/366879.html
- -----
- FATAH OFFICIAL INITIATIVE DESIGNED TO DIVIDE ISRAELIS
- Jibril Rajoub, Nov. 30, 2003 by Khaled Abu Toameh and Lamia
Lahoud - appointed Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's adviser
for national security affairs on August 25th, 2003. - Fatah official:
Initiative designed to divide Israelis IDF movements monitored
on TV Attorney general: general strike is illegal Syria hands
22 bombing suspects over to Turkey Burns: Israeli concessions
not good enough Army: Palestinian terror organizations joining
forces more . News Fatah scares off would-be Geneva signers Burns:
Road map the only route Sharon agrees to product-origin labels
Editorial Cartoon Jews Powell's wrong move Erdogan's choice Features
A threat to modernity? Cause for optimism Turkish Plight.
- -----
PALESTINIANS STAY AWAY FROM THE SIGNING CEREMONY OF THE GENEVA
ACCORD
Faced with a campaign of terror and intimidation, a number of
Palestinians have decided to stay away from the signing ceremony
of the Geneva Accord, due to be held in Switzerland on Monday.
- Those who decided to boycott the ceremony include Fatah officials
Hatem Abdel Kader and Muhammed Hourani, who played a major role
in the behind-the-scenes talks that resulted in the Geneva Accord.
- Abdel Kader told The Jerusalem Post that the main goal of
the Geneva Accord was to create a schism inside Israel and undermine
the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "Our aim
was to create divisions inside Israel and block the growth of
the right-wing in Israel."
- Kader said that he decided not to travel to Geneva after
PA Chairman Yasser Arafat and the Fatah Central Council refused
to endorse the agreement. "We didn't get the OK from Arafat,"
he said, "and this paved the way for street protests. We
can't go to Geneva without Arafat's consent."
- "We don't want to be like [Jerusalem academic] Sari
Nussaibah, who is under attack because of his peace initiative
with [former Shin Bet chief] Ami Ayalon," said Abdel Kader.
"There is a state of confusion and crisis inside Fatah.
Some Fatah leaders are exploiting the agreement to incite against
us and organize street protests."
- Abdel Kader said that in any case it would have been impossible
for him and his colleagues to sell the Geneva Accord to the Palestinians
under the current circumstances. "We need to wait for a
better opportunity," he added. "The people are now
very angry because of the ongoing Israeli military measures in
the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Most of the people are afraid of
being branded now as traitors, especially those who spent many
years in Israeli prison."
- Palestinian protests
- On Sunday some 200 demonstrators attacked negotiators at
the Rafah crossing on their way to the signing ceremony condemning
the Palestinian dignitaries as traitors. They blocked the road
near the crossing into Egypt and beat and kicked Palestinian
negotiators as they emerged from their cars. Unarmed Palestinian
policemen intervened and restrained the demonstrators. The brother
of one of the negotiators was also attacked and beaten on Sunday
in Gaza, Palestinian sources said.
- Last week, gunmen most likely from Fatah fired shots at the
home of former PA minister and Arafat confidant Yasser Abbed
Rabbo, who led the negotiations that led to the symbolic peace
accord. "They were afraid that Arafat will turn against
the accord after he sees public anger at the agreement and they
will stand alone in Fatah," a Fatah source said.
- But Kadoura Fares, another one of the authors of the agreement,
said he received a green light from Arafat to travel to Geneva.
Kadoura, who serves as Minister of State in the PA cabinet, said
Arafat told him during a meeting in Ramallah on Sunday evening
that he was not opposed to the participation of Palestinians
in the ceremony.
- Fares lashed out at members of the Fatah Central Council,
accusing them of inciting against him and other Palestinians
associated with the Geneva Accord. "Some irresponsible members
of the Fatah Central Council don't understand that one of the
goals of the Geneva Accord is to create a rift in the Israeli
street and a crack in the Sharon government, and not to create
divisions inside Fatah and the Palestinian people."
- He said that after he and many of his colleagues announced
that they would not attend the signing ceremony in Geneva, Arafat
summoned him to an urgent meeting and asked him to travel to
Switzerland. "President Arafat invited me to his office
and told me that as the chairman of the PLO and PA, he supports
and appreciates our positive efforts," Fares added. "He
said that we have permission to travel to Geneva."
- The decision to boycott the signing ceremony followed a marathon
and stormy meeting of Fatah officials in Ramallah late Saturday
night. At the end of the meeting, Fatah announced that its representatives
would not travel to Geneva because they did not receive Arafat's
blessing. "Arafat doesn't want to support the agreement
in public," a senior Fatah activist told the Post. He too
accused members of the Fatah Central Council of organizing a
campaign of "terror and intimidation" against the authors
of the Geneva Accord.
- The Fatah Central Council is dominated by veteran Arafat
loyalists belonging to what many Palestinians describe as the
"old guard" generation of the PLO. By contrast, the
majority of the Palestinians involved in the Geneva Accord are
regarded as representatives of the "young generation"
of Palestinian leaders.
- Sakher Habash, one of the top Fatah leaders opposed to the
Geneva Accords, explained: "The Fatah Central Council never
discussed this plan. The Palestinian leadership studied it and
there was a consensus that this is not an official plan. President
Arafat also said that the Geneva plan does not represent the
official Palestinian policy, so I don't understand why they insist
on going [to Geneva]."
- On Saturday, the armed wing of Fatah, al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades,
issued a strongly worded statement condemning the agreement and
describing its Palestinian authors as traitors and collaborators
with Israel and the US. The group called on Arafat to prevent
Palestinians from traveling to Geneva because the agreement relinquishes
the refugee's right to return to their original homes inside
Israel. Fatah gunmen are believed to be behind a shooting attack
on Friday night on the home of former PA cabinet minister Yasser
Abed Rabbo, the head of the Palestinian team that negotiated
the Geneva Accord.
- Over the past few days, several rallies and demonstrations
were organized in different parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip
to protest the Accord. Senior PLO and PA officials took part
in some of the rallies, as well as armed masked men from various
Palestinian factions. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and many other Palestinian
factions have aso rejected the agreement.
- At the Rafah crossing point on Sunday, hundreds of angry
demonstrators, chanting "Death to the dogs and traitors,"
tried to prevent a group of Palestinians from leaving to Cairo
on their way to the signing ceremony in Geneva. Some of the protesters
beat and kicked members of the Palestinian delegation before
PA policemen dispersed them.
- The demonstrators carried placards denouncing the "treacherous"
Geneva Accord and stressing that the right of return for all
the Palestinian refugees is a "sacred" right. They
also expressed their outrage at numerous "peace" initiatives
over the past few weeks that include unacceptable concessions
on part of the Palestinians.
- Swiss prepare
- About 400 people carrying flowers held a string across Mont
Blanc bridge, symbolically linking the two sides of Lake Geneva
to demonstrate support for an unofficial accord between Israel
and a Palestinian state, the Associated Press reported Sunday.
- The organizers urged participants to refrain from shouting
slogans and to demonstrate just by being there that they support
"the necessity for the creation of a sovereign Palestinian
state alongside an Israeli state inside safe borders recognized
by its neighbors."
- The group stood quietly for half an hour in the rain before
disbanding. Joining the demonstrators, most of whom were Swiss,
was former Palestinian Cabinet minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, who
worked with former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin on the
initiative.
- Organizers have kept tight wraps on details of the two-hour
ceremony planned for Monday afternoon in Geneva, but officials
said former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is to be one of the high-profile
guests, and that former South African President Nelson Mandela
is expected to deliver a speech by video.
- Other names mentioned include Nobel laureates Lech Walesa
of Poland and John Hume of Northern Ireland as well as Simone
Veil, an ex-president of the European Parliament and a Holocaust
survivor.
- The auditorium being prepared for the ceremony features a
large sign declaring "There is a plan" and a live olive
tree has been placed on the stage.
- http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1070165913971
- -----
SHARON UNDER FIRE FOR TALK OF DISMANTLING SETTLEMENTS
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon came under heavy fire at
a Likud faction meeting Monday over his declared intention to
take unilateral steps vis-a-vis the Palestinians, with measures
that would include the dismantling of some settlements.
- The prime minister reiterated his pre-election statement
about the need for “painful concessions” to promote
the peace process, adding, “It is obvious that ultimately
we shall not be in all the places we’re in now.”
- The Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria, and
the Gaza Strip (Yesha) held an emergency meeting Sunday night
to discuss Sharon’s statements. The Council issued a statement
saying that a government of Israel that agrees to uproot settlements
would lose its right to rule.
- The council said Tuesday that rightists within Prime Minister
Sharon’s own Likud party would create a political “iron
wall” to block any attempt by Sharon to unilaterally dismantle
settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
- The council also announced a campaign to fight evacuation
of settlements. The name of the campaign, “In Netzarim,
Israel will be victorious,” refers to the isolated, embattled
Gaza Strip settlement that has been a focus of bloodshed for
years and the subject of increasing calls for evacuation.
- The Yesha anti-evacuation campaign will center on Sharon’s
own statements, such as the one made in April 2002: “The
fate of Netzarim is as the fate of Negba and Tel Aviv. Evacuation
of Netzarim will only encourage terrorism and increase the pressure
on us.” VirtualJerusalem.com 11.30.2003
- -----
GENEVA SELLOUT
- JEWISH WORLD REVIEW By Charles Krauthammer - Nov. 28, 2003
/ 3 Kislev, 5764
- On Monday, a peace agreement will be signed by Israelis and
Palestinians. This "Geneva accord" has gotten much
attention. And the signing itself will be greeted with much hoopla.
Journalists are being flown in from around the world by the Swiss
government. Jimmy Carter will be heading a list of foreign dignitaries.
The U.S. Embassy in Bern will be sending an observer.
- This is all rather peculiar: The agreement is being signed
not by Israeli and Palestinian officials, but by two people with
no power.
- On the Palestinian side, the negotiator is former information
minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, who at least is said to have Yasser
Arafat's ear. The Israeli side, however, is led by Yossi Beilin,
a man whose political standing in his own country is so low that
he failed to make it into Parliament. After helping bring his
Labor Party to ruin, Beilin abandoned it for the far-left Meretz
Party, which then did so badly in the last election that Beilin
is now a private citizen.
- There is a reason why he is one of Israel's most reviled
and discredited politicians. He was the principal ideologue and
architect behind the "peace" foisted on Israel in 1993.
Those Oslo agreements have brought a decade of the worst terror
in all Israeli history.
- Now he is at it again. And Secretary of State Colin Powell
has written a letter to Beilin and Rabbo expressing appreciation
for their effort, and is now planning to meet with them.
- This is scandalous. Israel is a democracy, and this agreement
was negotiated in defiance of the democratically (and overwhelmingly)
elected government of Israel. If a private U.S. citizen negotiated
a treaty on his own, he could go to jail under the Logan Act.
If an Israeli does it, he gets a pat on the back from the secretary
of state.
-
- Moreover, this "peace" is entirely hallucinatory.
It is written as if Oslo never happened. The Palestinian side
repeats solemn pledges to recognize Israel, renounce terror,
end anti-Israel incitement, etc. — all promised in Oslo.
These promises are today such a dead letter that the Palestinian
side is openly bargaining these chits again, as if the Israelis
have forgotten that in return for these pledges 10 years ago,
Israel recognized the PLO, brought it out of Tunisian exile,
established a Palestinian Authority, permitted it an army with
50,000 guns and invited the world to donate billions to this
new Authority.
- Arafat pocketed every Israeli concession, turned his territory
into an armed camp and then launched a vicious terror war that
has lasted more than three years and killed more than 1,000 Israelis.
It is Lucy and the football all over again, and the same chorus
of delusionals who so applauded Oslo — Jimmy Carter, Sandy
Berger, Tom Friedman — is applauding again. This time, however,
the Israeli surrender is so breathtaking it makes Oslo look rational.
- A Palestinian state, of course. Evacuating every Jewish settlement
in new Palestine, of course. Redividing Jerusalem, of course.
But that is not enough. Beilin gives up the ultimate symbol of
the Jewish connection and claim to the land, the center of the
Jewish state for 1,000 years before the Roman destruction, the
subject of Jewish longing in poetry and prayer for the 2,000
years since — the Temple Mount. And Beilin doesn't just
give it up to, say, some neutral international authority. He
gives it to sovereign Palestine. Jews will visit at Arab sufferance.
- Not satisfied with having given up Israel's soul, Beilin
gives up the body too. He not only returns Israel to its 1967
borders, arbitrary and indefensible, but he does so without any
serious security safeguards.
- Palestine promises to acquire and buy no more weapons than
specified in some treaty annex. This is a joke. Oslo had similarly
detailed limitations on Palestinian weaponry, and nobody even
pretended to enforce them. Last year, a massive illegal boatload
came in from Iran on the Karine A. What did the world do about
it? Nothing.
- Today, however, Israel still has control over Palestine's
borders. Under Beilin, this ends. Palestine will be free to acquire
as much lethal weaponry as it wants.
- And on the critical question that even the most dovish Israelis
insist on — that the Palestinians not have the right to
flood Israel with Arab refugees — the agreement is utterly
ambiguous. Third parties (including among others the irredeemably
hostile Syria and its puppet Lebanon) are to suggest exactly
how many Palestinians are to return to Israel, and the basis
for the number Israel will be required to accept will be the
mathematical average!
- This is not a peace treaty, this is a suicide note —
by a private citizen on behalf of a country that has utterly
rejected him politically. That it should get any encouragement
from the United States or from its secretary of state is a disgrace.
- Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in
Washington and in the media consider "must reading."
Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. http://www.jewishworldreview.com
-----
PRO-CHOICE JUDAISM
- Jewish World Review Nov. 5, 2003 /20 Mar-Cheshvan, 5764 by
Rabbi Ave Shafran - One would expect, considering their compassionate
social agendas and track records championing the rights of the
powerless, that the Anti-Defamation League and Hadassah would
be the very last groups to promote the unfettered right to snuff
out fetal life. Instead, the bigotry watchdog group and the Jewish
women's organization both resolutely support not only such a
right but even, apparently, the right to kill a child who is
already born.
- For that is precisely what the "partial-birth abortion
" legislation currently on President Bush's desk is about.
Despite the intense and concerted efforts of some to misrepresent
the bill, its language is stark and clear. The bill prohibits
any overt act "that the person knows will kill" a fetus
whose "entire... head is outside the body of the mother,
or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal
trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother."
- Yet, Abraham Foxman, the ADL's national director, contends
that the legislation "wrongly intrudes on an individual's
most personal decisions" and that "the government should
not interfere in matters of individual conscience." This,
despite the fact that the ADL is hardly shy about exposing and
combating personal decisions born of individual conscience that
cause harm to others.
- For her part, and continuing her group's ill-considered foray
into Jewish legal decisorship, Hadassah president June Walker
pronounced that the bill "undermines Jewish values"
since "the preservation of a woman's health is the standard
in determining when an abortion is permissible."
- She grievously misleads. To be sure, the Talmudic
sources are clear that the life of a pregnancy-endangered Jewish
mother takes precedence over that of her unborn child when there
is no way to preserve both lives. And, while the matter
is not free from controversy, there are rabbinic opinions that
allow abortion when the pregnancy seriously jeopardizes the mother's
health. But those narrow exceptions do not translate into some
unlimited mother's "right to make her own reproductive choices,"
the upshot of Roe v. Wade, which Hadassah enthusiastically endorses.
- And Hadassah's bemoaning of the lack of a "health of
the mother" exception to the partial birth abortion bill
is a red (schmaltz) herring. Congress' findings include the conclusion
of medical experts that the procedure banned by the legislation
awaiting the President's signature is never necessary to preserve
a mother's health. What is more, and more germane, the procedure
is not really abortion at all but rather the dispatching of a
born baby. The child, according to both Jewish
law and any reasonable person's judgment, is already born —
its head, or most of its body, has emerged into the world
— when its skull is punctured.
- Why, then, the clamorous opposition? Because the measure,
when signed into law, will represent the first
chink in Roe v. Wade's armor, the first time since
1973 that a federal law limiting abortion in any way will be
on the books.
- The partial birth brouhaha, in other words, is essentially
a symbolic battle. Few if any unwanted fetuses will be saved
by the ban. What the legislation, however, will do — in
fact has already done — is force people to think anew about
the fragile beginnings of human life. Which, in turn, may help
them realize that the crux of the abortion issue is not "a
woman's right to choose" at all, but rather to what extent
to value the life of a fetus.
- Most reasonable people would agree that a
woman has no right to choose to kill her newborn,
even if it was born prematurely and even if it is still connected
by its umbilical cord to the placenta within her body. Whence,
then, her right to choose to kill that same being as it floats
in a bag of amniotic fluid a mere moment earlier?
- According to Jewish law, there
is in fact such a right, at least at times, when the mother's
life and the child's life cannot both be preserved. But that
is a matter of weighing adult life against fetal life (potential
life, almost-life, call it what you will), not a matter of "personal
choice." And moving the discussion from the realm of "choice"
to that of "lives" — how to value them and what
to do when two clash - is precisely what the pro-abortion movement
seeks at all costs to avoid.
- But it is — or should be — the national discussion,
at least for a culture that claims to value life. Contorting
the abortion issue into one of a woman's "right to choose,"
as has been done for fully three decades, predicates it on the
contention that a fetus's life has no inherent worth at all.
- Where such self-deception can all too easily lead is evident
in what goes on in places like China and India. The Chinese government
uses a number of means to discourage couples from having more
than one child and a cultural preference for boys has resulted
in widespread abortion (and, according to UC-Davis China specialist
G. William Skinner, "female infanticide on a grand scale''
— close to 800,000 baby girls abandoned or killed in a single
region during the years 1971-80 alone).
- Indian census commissioner J. K. Banthia recently estimated
that several million female fetuses have been aborted in his
country over the past two decades because ultrasound scans showed
they were female and Indian parents prefer boys. What those parents
exercised was choice. Is being unwilling to shoulder the burden
of a child — the reason for many if not most abortions in
America today — somehow more honorable that preferring a
son to a daughter?
- As is happens, there is in fact a choice pertinent to the
abortion issue, and it happens to come right from the Jewish
tradition, from the Jewish Bible's book of Deuteronomy.
- "I have placed before you," the Creator informs
us through Moses, "life and death, the blessing and the
curse."
- "Choose life," the verse continues, "so that
you and your seed will live."
- http://www.jewishworldreview.com/avi/shafran_2003_11_05.php3
- -----
- A 'RELIGION OF PEACE' SAYS PRESIDENT ABOUT ISLAM
- Jewish World Review Nov. 20, 2003 / 25 Mar-Cheshvan, 5764
- by Diana West / Larry Elder
- A "religion of peace," says President Bush about
Islam. But investigative journalist Robert Spencer, in his new
book "Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens
America and the West," argues that what we call "Islamic
extremism" stems from a straightforward reading of the Koran
and interpretative Islamic texts.
- On Nov. 10, 2003, I interviewed Spencer.
- Larry Elder: Is Islam a religion of peace that's been
hijacked by Islamic extremists, as George W. Bush says?
- Robert Spencer: There are millions of peaceful Muslims
. . . but the fact is that radical Muslims are using core texts
of Islam that are deeply rooted in Islamic theology, tradition,
history and law to justify their actions, and those radical Muslims
are able to recruit and motivate terrorists around the world
by appealing to these core Islamic texts. . . . As far as the
radical, violent elements of the religion go, they are very deeply
rooted, and we are naive in the extreme if we don't recognize
that and try to get moderate Muslims to acknowledge it so that
real reform can take place.
- Elder: Have some translations of the Koran taken out
the more extreme statements?
- Spencer: The only Koran that really matters is what's
in Arabic, because as far as traditional Islamic theology goes,
Allah . . . was speaking to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel,
and the language is intrinsic, can't be separated from the message.
The fact is that what's in Arabic is very clear . . . but in
two opposite directions. What you have are very many verses of
peace and tolerance, and also very many verses sanctioning and
mandating violence against non-believers. . . .
- You find many moderate Muslim spokesmen and American-Muslim
advocates in this country, who quote you the peaceful and tolerant
verses, and no reference to the violent verses. . . . When you
read Islamic theologians themselves . . . you find they actually
confront this problem directly. . . . Some of the most respected
thinkers in Islamic history say that when you come upon these
kinds of disagreements — where you see peace in one place
and violence in the other — you have to go with what was
revealed last, that cancels out what was revealed before. Unfortunately,
for the moderates, the violent verses were revealed later and
they cancel out the peaceful ones — but you won't hear this
from the American Muslim advocacy groups. . . .
- What we need to see is a forthright acknowledgement of it
and reform from moderate Muslims themselves, the same way that
the Pope has apologized for the Crusades and Christianity at
large . . . has repudiated the theology that gave rise to them.
So we need to see . . . moderates on a large scale repudiating
the theology that has led to violent jihad, which the radicals
are using to justify their actions.
- Elder: You write, "Muslims must present non-Muslims
with the three choices of Sura 9:29 of the (Koran): conversion,
submission with second-class status under Islamic rule, or death."
- Spencer: Correct. This is a deeply rooted tradition
in Islam. Islam is unique among religions in having a developed
doctrine theology in law that mandates violence against non-believers.
Not all Muslims take it seriously, but the radicals do, and they
are working to recruit and motivate terrorists. So . . . whenever
anybody says we want to institute Sharia Islamic law in a country,
they mean these laws. They do not provide for the equality of
rights and dignity of non-Muslims in a Muslim society . . . (but)
mandate just the opposite — that non-Muslims are not to
be given equality of rights, but denied various jobs because
they're not allowed to hold authority over Muslims.
- They must pay a special tax called the jizya, which is referred
to in the verse you mentioned. . . . Their humiliation and inferior
status is enforced with numerous other regulations, still part
of Islamic law, and liable to be enforced by radical Muslims
and who want to gain power and institute Islamic law. . . . Anybody
who is concerned about human rights would be resisting and be
happy to join in the War on Terror.
- Elder: So, when the president says that Islam is a
religion of peace, is he saying that because it's a politically
correct way of phrasing it so that people don't get the impression
that we are at war against a religion?
- Spencer: Your guess is as good as mine in terms of
what the president is thinking. . . . He's aware that radical
Muslims are trying to make this into that kind of a war . . .
and he's trying . . . to keep that from happening. . . . The
problem with what he's saying is that it's misleading. If it's
followed through, it might hinder law enforcement efforts against
radical Muslims who are operating in the United States . . .
and it could have very serious consequences.
- Elder: What should he say?
- Spencer: I think he should say nothing. As Pat Robertson
said, he wasn't appointed the Chief Theologian of the United
States . . . he doesn't have to tell Americans what Islam is
all about. All he has to do is fight against the enemies that
are threatening . . . our freedom and our continued life in the
United States.
- Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in
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- JWR contributor Larry Elder is the author of, most
recently, "Showdown: Confronting Bias, Lies and the Special
Interests That Divide America." (Proceeds from sales help
fund JWR)
- Larry Elder Archives - http://www.jewishworldreview.com
- Showdown : Confronting Bias,
- Lies, and the Special Interests
- That Divide America
by Larry Elder (Author)
Paperback: 390 pages
Publisher: Griffin Trade Paperback; (September 2003)
- for more information click on the ISBN number:
ISBN:
0312320175
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- STOP INSULTING JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY, MR PRESIDENT
- Jewish World Review Nov. 20, 2003 / 25 Mar-Cheshvan, 5764
- by © 2003, Diana West - I'd like to think that with Ramadan
rolling around again, President Bush at least considered calling
off his annual White House dinner with assorted
Muslim luminaries to break their holiday fast. No
other religious group — not Jews, Catholics, Protestants
or even Druids — rates an official celebration like the
Iftaar supper, a White House "tradition"
since 2001. That was the year the United States first decided
that "reaching out" to Muslims following Muslim terrorist
attacks on the United States was a good idea. Three Ramadans
later, a sense of dining entitlement has no doubt kicked in that's
harder to buck than not.
- So,the president hosted his Ramadan dinner. Believing (and
having written) that this man is all that separates us from the
abyss, I'm pulling for Mr. Bush to succeed. At the same time,
I'm also hoping he choked a little on his official remarks, at
least on the part where he called on people of all faiths to
reflect on "the values we hold common — love of family,
gratitude to G-d, and" — insert Heimlich Maneuver here
— "a commitment to religious freedom."
- Islam may have a lot of things — love of family and
gratitude to G-d, as the president said, along with jihad (holy
war), dhimmitude (inferior status of non-Muslims) and a corner
on the suicide bombing market — but it
does not have "a commitment to religious freedom."
And, that goes even after excluding al Qaeda, the Taliban and
the entire royal family of Saudi Arabia. Take Egypt. According
to a report I first saw posted at www.robertspencer.org, a new
Web site devoted to both jihad and dhimmitude, a slew of Christian
converts from Islam have been arrested since Oct. 21 in Egypt
— our modern (moderate?) friend and recipient of billions
in U.S. aid — in a crackdown on "apostates."
- As reported by the Barnabas Fund, a British watchdog group,
as many as 22 Christian converts
"have been taken from Alexandria to police stations in Cairo
and are being beaten, interrogated and tortured."
The charge? Falsifying identity papers. While it's not technically
against the law in Egypt for Muslims to convert to Christianity
— as it is under the sharia law
of, say, Iran, Sudan and Saudi Arabia — it is illegal for
any Egyptian to drop his Muslim name for a Christian name. "Thus,"
as the Barnabas Fund explains, Christian converts
in Egypt are always "regarded as Muslims
in the eyes of the law."
- The repercussions never end. Muslim women
who convert to Christianity are prohibited from marrying Christian
men, while children of converts
are regarded as Muslims and educated as Muslims. Even
in death, converts must be buried as Muslims. As a result, the
Barnabas Fund explains, some Christian converts apply for official
papers under assumed names the Egyptian state considers illegal.
If their unofficially adopted Christian names are detected, converts
are open to charges of falsifying official documents — "which
can be used as a way of punishing them for their apostasy."
- What was that the president was saying about Judaism, Christianity
and Islam being equally committed to freedom of religion? It
sounds like the voice of diplomatic politesse — as it does
every time Mr. Bush insists the Muslim terrorists waging jihad
on Western civilization "are evil people
who have hijacked a great religion." It may seem
nice and neighborly, but such a formulation categorically denies the fact that there is something inherent to
that "great religion" — jihad and dhimmitude,
for starters — that inspires the supposed "hijacking,"
shaping a theology that has always been part terrorist manifesto.
This same soft-soap routine also obscures the desperate need
for Islamic reformation, an accommodation with modernity that
would allow other religions to coexist with Islam without fear.
- The impulse to hide the truth about Islam — about its
connection to terrorism and its disconnection from Western civilization
— is a shocking fact of the "war on terrorism."
Addressing reporters on the day of his Ramadan dinner, Mr. Bush
said Muslim leaders have asked him: "Why
do Americans think Muslims are terrorists?" Instead
of answering, "Because an unending pattern
of catastrophic terrorism against the United States has been
perpetrated by Muslims, that's why," Mr. Bush
replied: "That's not what Americans think. Americans think
terrorists are evil people who have hijacked a great religion."
-
- Preaching on Saudi state television from the holy mosque
in Medina, Shaykh Salah Bin-Muhammad al-Budayr recently hailed
Ramadan, concluding his sermon (according to a translation at
www.imra.org.il): "O G-d, support Islam
and Muslims and destroy the enemies of Islam, including Jews,
Christians and atheists. . . . O G-d, deal with the Jews for
they are within your power. . . O G-d, shake the land under their
feet, instill fear in their hearts and make them a booty for
Muslims and a lesson to others."
- Such sermonizing — quite common in the Muslim world
— may show a commitment to something, but religious freedom
isn't it.
- Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in
Washington and in the media consider "must reading."
http://www.jewishworldreview.com
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