Rael Jean Isaac

DISARMING TERRORISTS PA STYLE

Mahmoud Abbas has developed a novel way of disarming terrorists, his first obligation under the so-called Road Map. He is incorporating 350 gunmen from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, all of them on Israel's list of wanted terrorists, into the Palestinian Authority security forces. The move, said PA Minister of Agriculture Ibrahim Abu al-Naja, "is designed to protect them against Israeli assassination attempts. They are entitled to join the security forces because of their involvement in the resistance." The PA's security forces are clearly not going to contribute to Israel's security; the well-deserved joke on Abbas is that they are hardly likely to improve his security either.

THE OTHER RACHELS

The indispensable Steven Plaut reports that a play "My Name is Rachel Corrie" premiered in London at the Royal Court Theatre on April 14. Corrie was the campus radical from the International Solidarity Movement (with Arab terror) who was inadvertently run over while trying to prevent Israeli bulldozers from destroying a tunnel used by terrorists in Gaza to smuggle in explosives. Plaut (with thanks to writer Tom Gross) cites some other Rachels who have not been similarly commemorated: Rachel Levy (age 13, blown up in a grocery store); Rachel Thaler (age 16, blown up in a pizzeria); Rachel Levi (age 19, murdered waiting for a bus); Rachel Gavish (killed with her husband and son, at home); Rachel Charhi (blown up sitting in a cafe); Rachel Shabo (murdered with her three sons, 5, 6, and 13, sitting at home). Plaut observes that it would be interesting to know how many of these Rachels were murdered with explosives smuggled in through the same tunnels that Rachel Corrie and her ISM pro-terrorist friends were "defending."

A POPE'S PLEA

With the passing of Pope John Paul II, Jews might also reflect on the life of a great predecessor, Pope John XXIII, Angelo Guiseppe Roncalli, whom Jews have reason to remember with special affection and respect.. Shortly before his death, in an eloquent prayer in 1963, he asked the Jews' forgiveness: "We recognize now that for many centuries blindness covered our eyes so we were unable to see the beauty of your Chosen People....We recognize that we carry the mark of Cain on our foreheads. We recognize that for centuries Abel was lying down covered with blood and tears while we forgot your love. Forgive us that we with our condemnations crucified you for the second time because we didn't know what we were doing." (Our thanks to Herb Loebel for bringing this quotation to our attention.)

SHARON ANSWERS WHY

In a meeting in April with Jewish leaders in Washington D.C., Sharon was asked by the ZOA's Mort Klein why he took a strong stand in favor of the Gaza settlements in his campaign for Prime Minister and a year later was determined to uproot them, even though the head of the Israel Defense Forces, General Moshe Yaalon, believes the withdrawal "will blow up in our faces." This was the gist of Sharon's answer: "First of all I understand that the Oslo agreements were the greatest disaster Israel ever had. But we cannot sit quietly and take no steps. The world won't accept it, including the U.S. and the U.S. is under pressure from Europe to pressure us." Although he rambled on for close to 15 minutes, Sharon offered not a single benefit his action would bring to Israel. The notion that Israel "cannot sit quietly and take no steps" is what produced Oslo. But if Sharon recognizes Oslo as the greatest disaster ever to befall Israel why does he want to repeat it on his watch?

What's wrong with saying that until the Palestinian Authority totally roots out the terrorists and their organizations, Israel is not prepared even to communicate with its leaders. What's wrong with standing firm, with building up Israel's communities rather than tearing them down, with punishing terror rather than rewarding it? It's a wonderful alternative to the suicidal actions pursued by this Prime Minister.

NEW ISRAEL FUND AGAIN

Fifteen years ago AFSI published a pamphlet on the New Israel Fund entitled A New Fund for Israel's Enemies. There was an outpouring of outrage from establishment Jewish organizations and leaders who came to the Fund's defense. How right we were (and how wrong, as usual, they were) has become more obvious with each passing year. A couple of examples: Currently B'Tselem, the mislabeled "human rights" group (wholly uninterested in Jewish human rights) and long a major beneficiary of the New Israel Fund, has issued a document "Land Expropriations and Settlements" demanding that Israel evacuate every inch beyond the 1949 Green Line, including the Jewish Quarter in the Old City, Ramat Eshkol and French Hill. And then there is New Israel Fund 2004 Fellow Shamai Leibowitz who goes the distance. Leibowitz, as Avi Bell reports in "NGO Monitor," since receiving the Fellowship "has devoted great efforts to advancing the cause of economic and diplomatic war against the existence of the Jewish state." He participated in the Palestine/Israel Conference on One Democratic State (promoting the PLO demand to eliminate Israel and replace it with a single "democratic" state) and has written and testified tirelessly in the U.S. on behalf of divestment resolutions directed against Israel, singling out for special praise the Presbyterian Church for its divestment resolution.

CUT FLOWERS

Historian David McCullough in a fine speech at Hillsdale College on February 15 entitled "Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are" quotes the late historian and Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin who said that trying to plan for the future without a sense of the past is like trying to plant cut flowers. We were reminded of Israel's Shimon Peres who never tires of dismissing history -- "I have become totally tired of history," "Instead of dwelling on the history of the past, we have to look to the history of the future," "I have very little patience for history. I am bored with history." (See AFSI's pamphlet Shimon Says for the sources for these and other examples.) Israel's leaders, and Peres is simply the most brazen in articulating it, have cut themselves off from the past as they shape Israel's future and in so doing are planting cut flowers. Alas, Israel will wilt very fast.

SPENCER BOOK

A new book that should be in the library of every AFSI member (available from Amazon): Robert Spencer's essay collection The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: Islamic Law and Non-Muslims, published by Prometheus.

AN ORGY OF HATRED

Melanie Phillips notes that it is not just on the left that the virus of hatred for Israel spreads through England — it also infects conservatives. Writes Phillips: “Public debate in Britain is now marked by a collapse of objectivity, truth, fairness and balance caused by a post-Christian and anti-Western victim culture, which stands truth and morality on their heads. British hostility toward Israel and the Jews should be set in the context of this wider assault on the Christian values of its society. And behind these Christian values are Jewish values. It is the Jewish moral codes constraining human appetite in the blueprint for the values of Western civilization that are now under attack in the culture wars. It is therefore no coincidence that the people who gave the West its moral codes now find themselves at the very heart of the firestorm of hatred engulfing Britain and Europe.