Rael Jean Isaac

ZUCKERMAN'S FOLLY

In last month's Outpost we reported that billionaire publisher Mortimer Zuckerman had rallied his old boy network to donate $14 million (a small fraction of their worth) to buy 3,000 Gush Katif greenhouses to give to the Palestinian Authority. It was only a matter of days before the Arab inhabitants of Gaza demonstrated their gratitude for Zuckerman and Co.'s attempt to help jumpstart their economy. While the PA police stood by passively, they divided their time between burning down Jewish synagogues and smashing and looting the greenhouses, yanking out the metal support beams, dragging off irrigation hoses, water pumps, plastic sheets, anything that could be moved. Zuckerman and his friends deservedly look like fools -- and kicked-in-the-teeth dhimmi-wits.

SHIMON SAYS

Israel's ludicrous former Prime Minister, ever solicitous for Arab welfare, frets on Israel Radio that if Hamas candidates are permitted on the ballot in Palestinian Legislative Council elections, "the major threat is that the Palestinians will lose or endanger the massive financial aid they have been offered." Said Peres: "I don't think the world will support any Palestinian institution that supports terror."

That this gasbag still heads Israel's Labor Party is the best single disproof of the contention that Jews are intelligent. Under Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian Authority had of course been supporting terror all along: apparently Simple Shimon never figured that out. And as for "the world" cutting off the PA, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has already announced that the U.S. has no objection to Hamas on the ballot: this administration, obsessed with "process," sees no problem with empowering terror organizations.

ON EHUD OLMERT

In the July/August Outpost we cited a June 9 speech by Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in which he proclaimed a naked defeatism. He told the far left American Israel Policy Forum: "We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies..." Since then we have obtained the complete transcript of that speech, which puts not only Olmert but the Sharon government in an even worse light.

For one thing, Olmert made clear that Sharon's decision to destroy the Jewish communities of Gush Katif and northern Samaria was not the result of U.S. or European pressure. Boasted Olmert: "The beauty of this policy of the Israeli government is that this is a unilateral action. No one imposed it on us, no government, no foreign government, forced Israel to pullout from these territories.”

As for the expected result, Olmert spouted utopian fantasies worthy of Peres. "I came here tonight to tell you...that we are confident that this disengagement will be successful and that it will then lead to the beginning of a new pattern of relations between us and the Palestinian Authority...I pray that...when all Israelis will be resettled inside the State of Israel and the Gaza District will be sovereign entirely by the Palestinians, that a new morning of great hope will emerge in our part of the world...I believe that this change is going to be the beginning of a great time for all of us in the Middle East."

Well, the "disengagement" was successfully carried out. The result? Within a week of Israel's departure Gaza, as Carolyn Glick observes, was "transformed into the largest, best-armed and best-financed terror base in the world." Thousands of tons of weaponry were brought into the area. As the border with Egypt was thrown open, not only weapons but large numbers of terrorists, including many from Al Qaeda, poured into Gaza. In Gaza City, 10,000 uniformed, armed Hamas terrorists marched, the single largest Palestinian show of force ever.

So much for the fruits of the "disengagement" of which Olmert proclaimed: "It will bring more security, greater safety, much more prosperity, and a lot of joy for all the people that live in the Middle East."

YASSIN TOWN

In last month's Outpost we guessed at how the Jewish communities of Gush Katif would be renamed now that Sharon, in his madness, had turned them over to the PA. We had surmised that Kfar Darom or Netzarim would be named after Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin. We were wrong. Kfar Darom, now an arms arsenal, is renamed Yassin Town. In Netzarim the former synagogue is being converted into a Hamas terror museum.

NO FLY ZONES

High ranking Israeli officers may have to forgo
their customary trips abroad. Retired Major General Doron Almog, on his way to a London charity fundraiser, learned from the Israeli Embassy that British detectives were waiting to arrest him when he landed. Daniel Machover, an Israeli “human rights” lawyer in London, acting for the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, had filed charges in a British court against Almog for war crimes. Also involved was the Israeli anti-Zionist outfit Yesh Gvul. Faced with the prospect of a jail cell instead of a luxury hotel, Almog decided to stay on his El Al plane and go back home. Yesh Gvul declared it was in the process of filing similar suits in England against eight other senior IDF commanders including former chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon and current Chief of Staff Dan Halutz. (As a result Ya’alon has been forced to cancel his own scheduled trip to London.) Meanwhile Machover, furious at Almog’s “escape,” called for the arrest of the Israel ambassador! As English journalist Melanie Phillips observes, this was for warning Almog "that he was about to be arrested by the forces of a state that appears to have taken leave of its senses."

The suits are of course a travesty, but we can't help feeling that while these generals continue to enjoy comfortable homes in Israel, the former residents of Gush Katif remain refugees in their homeland. These generals should have resigned rather than carry out policies they knew to be morally wrong and strategically insane.

ANGLICANS FOR ISRAEL

Thanks to Melanie Phillips for reporting on a group of brave and decent Christians who are challenging the Anglican establishment's anti-Israel policies. The group, calling itself Anglicans for Israel, seeks not only to end the Anglican program of “divestment” but among other worthy goals, "to promote bonds of fellowship and interfaith understanding between Anglicans and the Jewish people," "to call the Church to affirm the centrality of Israel to the Jewish faith," "to fight all libels against Israel and the Jewish people and their State," and "to bring the Church back to an understanding of the Jewish roots of our faith." The group’s organizer is Simon McIlwaine, a practicing Anglican who, in his own words, "cares for Israel and its people."

CHRISTIANITY DIES IN ITS BIRTHPLACE

In the New York Sun of Sept. 13, Daniel Pipes notes that Christians are being forced out of lands under the control of the Palestinian Authority. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Catholic Custodian of the Holy Land, declares "Almost every day--I repeat almost every day--our communities are harassed by the Islamic extremists in these regions.” He reports that in addition to the Islamists and the PA itself there is a "Muslim land mafia" which threatens Christian land and home owners, forcing them to abandon their properties.

Christian churches abroad, which could exert pressure, are silent. Instead, as Pipes notes, they pursue the self-indulgent path of venting moral outrage against Israel -- where alone, in that region of the world, Christians flourish.

ETHNIC CLEANSING KOSOVO STYLE

In 1999, under U.S. prodding, NATO intervened to prevent the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo by Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic. Today the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo is almost done, only the land is now being ethnically cleansed of Serbs, with virtually no notice from the West's leaders or media.

Jason Lee Steorts, in Frontpage (August 31) describes his visit to Orahovic in Kosovo, escorted by UN guards, in a car with Hungarian diplomatic plates (Serbian license plates were likely to provoke an attack). Over 3,000 Serbs have been killed in Kosovo, an additional 200,000 driven out, their homes torched or occupied by Albanians. In Orahovac Serbs live under siege. Residents cannot move without an armed escort so work is out of the question. Their children cannot go to school so classes are held in homes. Aid organizations bring them food. The only hospital is run by Albanians who will not treat Serbs. Their leader says "We call this an imitation of life."

NATO and the UN have totally failed to bring security. During a major riot, when mobs set fire to more than 800 Serb homes and over 30 Orthodox churches, 17,000 NATO troops stood by and watched the property burn.

Jews especially should be sensitive to Kosovo's history. Serbs call Kosovo the Serbian Jerusalem because it is the crucible in which Serbian nationalism was forged 600 years ago. The birthright of the Serbian Orthodox Church (intrinsic to the national identity of Serbs) is in Kosovo, the site of many of its historic churches and monasteries. The overwhelming disparity in population between Moslems and Serbian Orthodox is largely the result of a relatively recent decision by Yugoslavia's former ruler Tito to invite Albanians to settle there.

And there is surely a lesson for Jews in what is likely to transpire in Kosovo. It will be given its "independence" from Serbia. The remnant of its Serbian Orthodox population will be forced to flee. As Steorts points out, this will "make a mockery of the West's claim that talks on Kosovo's final status would follow only upon improvements in the rule of law, freedom of movement, and the protection of minorities." The message will be that ethnic cleansing pays.

Of course in Israel the Jews are pioneering in a new variation: "ethnic self-cleansing."

ISRAEL'S PEACE MOVEMENT

Arutz Sheva on September 21 ran an article on an extraordinary man, Avri Ran, the so-called "father of the hilltop movement" [of settlements in Judea and Samaria] now on trial on trumped up charges. Ran's brother works for Israel's secret service and his comment on the Israeli peace movement bears repetition here. “They call themselves 'peace activists,' but basically they are 'war activists.' They have a religion they call 'peace' -- it is a fundamentalist religion that is very dangerous. They are warmongers that sow the seeds of war in every case where there is a chance for coexistence and peace.”

FROM A SPANISH JOURNALIST

Precisely because the voices of sanity in European media are so rare, it is encouraging that the following brief reflection "Europe Died in Auschwitz" was written by Spanish journalist Sebastian Villar Rodriguez.

"I was walking along Raval (Barcelona) when all of a sudden I understood that Europe died with Auschwitz. We assassinated 6 million Jews in order to end up bringing in 20 million Muslims!

" We burnt in Auschwitz the culture, intelligence and power to create. We burnt the people of the word, the people who proclaimed the chosen people of God. It is the people who gave to humanity the symbolic figures capable of changing history (Christ, Marx, Einstein, Freud), who are the origin of progress and well-being.

"We must admit that Europe, by relaxing its borders and under the pretext of tolerance for the values of a fallacious cultural relativism, opened its doors to 20 million Muslims, often illiterates and fanatics that we could meet, at best, in places such as Raval, the poorest of the nations and the ghettos, and who are preparing the worst, such as the 9/11 and Madrid bombings and who are lodged in apartment blocs provided by social welfare.

"We have exchanged culture for fanaticism, the capacity to create for the will to destroy, wisdom for superstition. We have exchanged the transcendental instinct of the Jews, who even under the worst possible conditions have always looked for a better, peaceful world, for the suicide bomber. We have exchanged pride in life for the fanatic obsession of death. Our death and that of our children.
"What a grave mistake we made!!!"

FROM DIANA WEST

We find Diana West one of the best columnists in the U.S.

An excerpt from a recent column: “What’s really going on with Israel? Having withdrawn from Gaza, Israel doesn’t even get Washington lip service when it comes to its determination not to assist in PA elections that feature Hamas terrorists...Whatever happened to George W. Bush’s raison d’etre: namely that we oppose terror networks and the countries that support them? Maybe the answer lies in what passes for tea leaves these days: as in the fact that the new U.S. ambassador to Israel, Richard Jones...has “roots in the Arab world so deep, reports The Washington Post, that his beloved greyhound is named Kisa for Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, his first posting in the Arab world.”