Dangerous Overtures
Herbert Zweibon

From the Editor
Rael Jean Isaac

Unethical Divestment
Paul Bogdanor

Learning From Catastrophes
Victor Sharpe

Is Gaza Burning?
Jack Engelhard

Mourn for Us. Mourn for the World.
Naomi Ragen

The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims
Reviewed by Rael Jean Isaac

Britain’s Foreign Office Appeasers
Melanie Phillips

It’s Not The Constitution… It’s The People Who Govern
Ruth King

Outpost
Editor: Rael Jean Isaac
Editorial Board: Herbert Zweibon, Ruth King

Americans For a Safe Israel
1623 Third Ave. (at 92nd St.) - Suite 205
New York, NY 10128
tel (212) 828-2424 / fax (212) 828-1717

Herbert Zweibon

Moslem leaders have been manipulating American Jewish leaders – and painful to say, they have basked in the exploitation. On September 17, under the auspices of the American Jewish Congress, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf addressed over 300 Jewish leaders. Calling Islam a “religion of tolerance, compassion and peace,” and offering a cosmetic gloss on the history of Jewish-Moslem relations (not Jewish dhimmitude but “cooperation and coexistence”), Musharraf went on to urge the entire Jewish community to “use its considerable influence” to pressure Israel “to put an end to the Palestinian dispute once and for all.” The entire onus was on Israel: Israel must accept a Palestinian state, withdraw to the 1949 borders and, insult to injury, internationalize Jerusalem.

Most dangerous of all, for this is the false argument Arab leaders obsessively press upon Western politicians, Musharraf said he did not have “an iota of doubt” that the Palestinian problem “lies at the heart of terrorism in the Middle East and beyond.” (Prince Saud Al Faisal, Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs, speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations a few days later made the same claim: with Israel’s “total withdrawal…the other conflicts in the region would vanish and fade.”)

It was as if Sharon had gone to Islamabad and told a gathering of leading imams and politicians that he hoped to restore the historically warm relations between Jews and Moslems but diplomatic relations would only be possible once Pakistan had abolished its nuclear capability, closed down its madrassas, and come to a comprehensive agreement with India in which it renounced all claims to Kashmir. One can only imagine the reception Pakistanis would accord such a speech. The Jews listening to Musharraf making equivalent demands accorded him a series of standing ovations.

Not to be outdone, within a week of the meeting with Musharraf, Jordan’s King Abdullah addressed a group of American rabbis in Washington D.C. . No list of demands on Israel this time: just soothing statements about Jews and Muslims being irrevocably “tied together by culture and history” and his own firm opposition to radical Islamists. Again, standing ovations punctuated the eleven minute talk and Rabbi Marc Gopin told Abdullah that secular leaders “need to learn from your example” of “true heroism.”

Yet a few days earlier Jordan’s Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs had blasted the UN for even permitting Sharon to speak. “How could this world organization allow a war criminal to review lies based on false claims and biblical legends in Palestine” when “historic, demographic and religious facts” prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that “the land of Palestine and Jerusalem have been inhabited by Arab Canaanites for over 5,000 years.” A just-released Pew opinion survey found that Jordan led the Islamic world in antipathy to Jews, with 100% viewing them unfavorably. As Jihad Watch’s Robert Spencer points out, 100 percent of a nation’s population does not express disdain for Jews unless they live in a culture awash in anti-Semitic vitriol.

It’s no secret why Musharraf and Abdullah met with Jewish groups. The Jerusalem Post (Sept. 18) reports that officials traveling with Musharraf privately said that he regards the support of U.S. Jewry as an immensely valuable factor as he seeks to solidify his ties with the United States administration.

And it only requires a little common sense to know what Jewish targets in this country should be saying in response to overtures from Arab leaders: We’d love to meet with you, but only when you can offer a progress report on the steps you have taken in your own country to counter anti-Semitism and anti-Israel hatred.

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.”

Paul Bogdanor

With the growing popularity of “ethical investment” policies in the financial dealings of the great and the good, it was only a matter of time before we witnessed the birth of its evil twin – unethical divestment. In recent months, the major target of this sinister practice has been the State of Israel.

A few weeks ago, the Presbyterian Church USA threatened to divest its stock in four companies providing helicopters, cell phones and other “controversial” items to Israel. Similar measures had already been proposed by the Episcopal Church USA, the United Church of Christ and two regions of the United Methodist Church, as well as the World Council of Churches. Meanwhile the Church of England (many of whose members espouse anti-Semitic “replacement theology”) could hardly wait to adopt this latest expression of bigotry masquerading as political correctness.

In promulgating these self-righteous decrees, the “liberal” churches deliberately ignore six decades of Arab violence and fanaticism aimed at the destruction of Israel, including crimes against peace (armed aggression, economic blockade), crimes against humanity (massacres of civilians in schools, synagogues, planes, airports, buses and restaurants) and Nazi-style antisemitic incitement (openly genocidal pronouncements from political and religious leaders in Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian Authority and other medieval tyrannies in the Middle East). Worse still, by contributing to the isolation and demonization of the Jewish state, they consciously further the interests of those who organize, sponsor and finance the current campaign of terrorist atrocities against the Israeli people.

The advocates of divestment are well aware of the value of American Jewish timidity in legitimizing their conduct. At the same time, they are extremely anxious to seize the moral high ground from their Jewish victims. Late last year, for example, a number of “liberal” Protestant groups actually had the effrontery to invite Jewish organizations “to explain why they find economic sanctions against Israel objectionable” – and Jewish leaders, instead of declaring that they would not be summoned as shamefaced defendants in an ideological show-trial of their own people, saw fit to provide a detailed written response (Forward, December 3, 2004).

Similarly, when the United Church of Christ passed its veiled divestment resolution in July, its spokesman hastened to emphasize that the Church remained “committed to interreligious dialogue” and “has affirmed its relationship with the Jewish community in condemning anti-Semitism in all its forms.” The UCC would like nothing better than a certificate of political kashrut from Jewish leaders, even as it singles out the world’s only Jewish country for vilification and pariah status.

In response to this malevolent campaign, American Jewish organizations have accused the divestment promoters of employing a bigoted double-standard against the Jewish state. But if they truly believe what they say, then they must draw the logical conclusion and treat these institutions just as they would treat any other hate group – the Ku Klux Klan, for example. That means announcing that there will be no meetings, no interfaith dialogue, no joint political statements or campaigns, no joint “fact-finding” trips to Israel – generally no cooperation or recognition of any kind, until the divestment motions are repudiated and a public apology issued.

But this should be only the beginning. Since the enemies of Israel intend to punish certain companies for standing by the Jewish state while its citizens are in peril, friends of Israel should make it clear that they will reward these companies for the same reason. American Jewish institutions should announce that their own investment portfolios will buy stock in any companies from which the “liberal” churches divest, and that they will recommend these companies’ products to their members. And they should lobby Congress to include divestment campaigns in the legislation banning compliance with the Arab boycott of Israel.

Initially, some progress was made along these lines. The American Jewish Committee indicated that it had no interest in further “dialogue” with the Presbyterian Church USA, while the American Jewish Congress proposed to buy shares in companies targeted for divestment (The Jewish Week, April 1, 2005). But by September, Jewish organizations had already caved in, eagerly hosting a delegation from eight “liberal” denominations on a mindless “fact-finding” visit to Israel – as if the reality of the murderous Arab war against the Jews were an esoteric mystery that could only be deciphered on the scene of the crime.
If American Jewish leaders truly care about their Israeli brothers and sisters who are being bombed, shot, knifed, incinerated and massacred, then they cannot be content with ritual denunciations of the boycotters and divestors. There can be no policy of “business as usual” with those who practice economic discrimination against any Jewish community. Friends of Israel should ostracize the purveyors of bigotry. And they should persevere until they have secured not only an end to the divestment campaign, but an appropriate display of contrition from its instigators and accomplices.

Paul Bogdanor is the co-editor (with Edward Alexander) of The Jewish Divide Over Israel: Accusers and Defenders (forthcoming from Transaction Books).

Victor Sharpe

Max Nordau, one of the most noted European philosophers of the 19th century, and the right hand man to Theodore Herzl, once told another great Zionist leader, Vladimir Jabotinsky, that, “the Jew learns not by way of reason but from catastrophes. He won’t buy an umbrella merely because he sees clouds in the sky. He waits until he is drenched and catches pneumonia.”

This prescient observation foreshadowed the calamitous German Nazi juggernaut as it rolled over the Jews of Europe many years later and swallowed them up in the genocidal embrace of the enforced ghettos, the killing squads of the einsatzgruppen, the death camps, the gas chambers, and the starvation and horrors that forever darken the face of Europe.

Before the Second World War broke out on September 3, 1939, Jabotinsky repeatedly warned the leaders of the Jewish communities what lay in store for them and begged them to defend themselves and endeavor to send as many people as possible to safety amongst their fellow Jews in British Mandated Palestine. His appeals fell on mostly deaf ears and he was even accused of being an alarmist. After all, these leaders countered, how could a civilized nation like Germany do such terrible things? It was unthinkable. And the result was the unthinkable — The Holocaust — with the almost total destruction of European Jewry.

But decades before, the same Jabotinsky saw his dreams of a secure Jewish State in the lands both west and east of the Jordan River eroded by many of his fellow Jewish leaders in the Zionist movement. They preferred to ignore or shrug off the steady betrayal of the Balfour Declaration by successive British politicians. They preferred passivity and a reluctance to confront His Majesty’s Government even as it diluted its obligations to the League of Nations mandate for Palestine, which instructed Great Britain as the Mandatory power to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish National Home on both sides of the Jordan River.

Jabotinsky died from a massive heart attack -- but also from a broken heart -- in New York in 1940. It is no wonder that his profound disappointment at the way Britain reneged on its promises to the Jewish people, and the way many of his own colleagues let him down, led him to sum it all up in the Latin phrase, “home homini lupus, man to his fellow man is a wolf.”

He is buried next to Theodore Herzl on Jerusalem’s Mount Zion. But his life’s work on behalf of the ever persecuted Jewish masses was undone by far too many of his Zionist contemporaries. Jabotinsky, who almost single handedly created the Jewish Legion — which fought heroically and helped liberate the geographical territory of Palestine from the Turkish yoke -- was constantly forced to fight those of his colleagues who were faint of heart or obscurantist.

Elias Gilner, the author of War and Hope, The History of the Jewish Legion, described Jabotinsky’s Herculean efforts during World War I as follows:

“He had reached the soul of his people; he had overcome the stolidity and short-sightedness of small men in high places; he had defeated the myopic Zionist ‘friends’ and prevaricating assimilationist foes. He had triumphed.” But, as the above shows, his triumph was fleeting.

As a young man in 1903, Vladimir Jabotinsky had witnessed the Kishinev pogrom in Russia and immediately after helped organize one of the first Jewish self-defense groups. The following year, the crew of the Russian warship Potemkin mutinied in the Black Sea off Odessa. Jabotinsky warned that yet another pogrom would follow but his words were scorned by the Russian Jewish leadership and, sure enough, a small pogrom broke out. In the following year, 1905, the abortive precursor of the later Russian Revolution took place.

Now fast-forward one hundred years to 2005 and to what Jabotinsky would see if he was able to miraculously return to life. The State of Israel, despite suffering from the same “shortsightedness of small men in high places” has nevertheless created wondrous achievements since its rebirth in 1948 in its ancestral and Biblical homeland.

But an act utterly antithetical to all that Jabotinsky stood for has occurred. An Israeli Government has expelled Jewish villagers and townsfolk from ancestral territory in both Gaza and northern Samaria (the so-called West Bank). Their homes, farms, schools are demolished by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the synagogues desecrated by Arabs and the cemeteries, where many victims of Arab terror are buried, have been dug up and the bodies removed for fear of desecration by ghoulish Moslem mobs.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon created this plan, which he called “disengagement.” He felt that by arbitrarily retreating from areas of the Land of Israel he would reduce or even end international pressures for further withdrawals. But the United States administration, as well as the international community, jumpedupon this retreat and are already expecting additional withdrawals to follow.

President Bush, despite claims by Prime Minister Sharon that the President recognizes Israel’s communities across the green line, such as Ma’aleh Adumim and Ariel, appears instead to be expecting Israel to withdraw to the 1967 borders – the same armistice lines described by former Foreign Minister Abba Eban as the Auschwitz borders.

Sharon has thus opened a monstrous can of worms and set an unholy precedent. The discredited idea of “land for peace,” whereby Israel always gives away land but never receives peace, was bad enough, but now “disengagement” becomes a euphemism for all that Jabotinsky fought against in his lifetime.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader so recently embraced by President Bush as a “man of peace,” has no intention of disarming the Hamas or Islamic Jihad terror network in Gaza or of ending the appalling anti-Jewish incitement broadcast by his Palestinian Authority controlled media. He will call for Jerusalem to be divided and — for the first time in history -- Arabs will call Jerusalem capital of an Arab state. Abbas will still call for Israel to be flooded with the millions of descendants of those Arabs who were urged to leave by their corrupt leadership in the 1948 Arab-Israel war. This would be the end of the one and only sovereign Jewish state in the world.

Endless concessions to the late Yasser Arafat were greeted by him and by all Arabs as signs of Israeli weakness. Doing the same with Abbas is no different, but merely reveals the absence of logic by the present Israeli Government and follows the dreary myopic tradition exemplified by so many small men in high places.

In a depressing way, Max Nordau was right about many of his fellow Jews. The present leaders of the Jewish State are ignoring the heavy rain clouds that augur the coming deluge and, instead, wait until Israel is drenched and catches pneumonia.

Let us pray that Jabotinsky may rest in peace and that wiser counsel may yet emerge before a new self-imposed catastrophe occurs.

Victor Sharpe is a writer on Jewish history and the Arab-Israel conflict.

Jack Engelhard

The dictionary defines “looting” as “to rob, steal, pillage.” But, in its first reports on Gaza, where Palestinian Arab mobs were, well, looting, The New York Times came up with a nifty twist to avoid the L-word. There was no looting going on, only “looking for usable materials.”

Our friends in Print and Broadcasting are having difficulties putting a shine on this Palestinian Arab rampage that’s been in progress ever since the Israelis departed. Obviously, we need a new dictionary, or the same dictionary that they’re using over there at the Times, the BBC, and wherever truth needs to be camouflaged.

CELEBRATION, for example, usually means “to express happiness,” but it means something entirely different when describing the total takeover of Gaza by Palestinian Arabs. In this case it means rage and rioting, or, indeed, “looking for usable materials.” When the new inhabitants of Gush Katif ransacked the greenhouses left behind by the Israelis, and, like termites, tore down everything that stood, they were celebrating.

HOLY PLACES used to refer to places of worship of all religions. Not so anymore. Holy Places refers only to mosques and other Muslim shrines. Churches, for example, are not Holy Places ever since Arab terrorists invaded the Church of the Nativity (April 2, 2002), used it as a latrine, and hardly anyone complained. They also ripped the place apart, no doubt “looking for usable materials.” More recently, like yesterday, the new inhabitants of Total Gaza set fire to about 25 synagogues and this, indeed, is seen by the world as a step toward peace. Torching synagogues can also be found under TO CELEBRATE.

FIRE. What fire? The BBC only showed the smoke and conceded that things were burning, but were careful not to mention the arsonists. Fire happens.

PAIN. Only Muslim Arabs are entitled to pain. Here, for example, is the BBC’s Orla Guerin reporting from Gaza: “Palestinians came streaming to the settlements that caused them so much pain. Israel stole 38-years from them; today, many were ready to take back anything they could.” The Israelis who were evicted from their homes felt no pain. Is that clear? Also, thanks to Ms. Guerin and the BBC, we know that “Israel stole 38 years from them.” This sets a new standard for totally objective and thoroughly unbiased journalism.

SUFFERING. In the old days, suffering used to include everyone who was, well, suffering. That’s been changed to Palestinian Arabs only. They have “suffered under Israeli occupation” for so long that they are entitled to grievances beyond the rest of us. Christians, especially Zionist Christians, do not suffer. Hindus do not suffer. Sikhs do not suffer. Jews certainly do not suffer. In the Times, the BBC, and along the remaining network of Print and Broadcast, the word “suffering” is reserved for Muslim (not Christian) Arabs. Christian Arabs, incidentally, are continually harassed and murdered by Muslim Arabs, but since they are Christian, they do not suffer. Such harassment and murder against Christian Arabs takes place in Gaza and in other territories occupied by Muslim Arabs, most recently in Beirut. See OCCUPIED TERRITORY.

OCCUPIED TERRITORY. The above definition is incorrect. Occupied Territory refers only to Jews, or any place a Jewish man or woman sets foot or builds a home. See ARAB LANDS.

ARAB LANDS. Everything. Everywhere.

AL QAEDA. The name for every terrorist attack around the world, but actually a code when we are afraid to mention the real enemy. See TERRORIST.

TERRORIST. There is no such thing.

JIHAD. Some call this a holy war against Western Civilization. This is what it is: “looking for usable materials.”

Jack Engelhard’s novel The Days of the Bitter End is being prepared for movie production.

Naomi Ragen

Ever since the decision to retreat from Gaza, I have felt that events were rushing by at such a furious pace it was impossible to comprehend them. The horror of forcible evacuations of Jews by Jews, the bulldozing of hundreds of homes, the wholesale destruction of businesses and schools and community centers. The busloads of homeless arriving in Jerusalem with only the clothes on their backs, forced into hotel rooms with no refrigerators to hold bottles and baby food. The frightening and strange parallels of human suffering and homelessness across the seas by an act of God.

The idea that synagogues would be blown up, the decision to leave them followed by the horror of Hamas-led destruction and wholesale burning of holy places. The falling of two Kassam rockets within Israel (Sderot and Yad Mordechai) with no Israeli response, despite our Defense Minister's toothless threat of "zero tolerance" for any more Kassams. The knowledge that more Kassams will fall, and our government will do nothing until it is too late, until small Jewish children lie dead in the streets of Israel, as we experienced during the Intifada.

The Philadelphi corridor, that strip of land between Gaza and Egypt where so many of our young soldiers died keeping terrorists from smuggling in more weapons and bombs, suddenly turned over to Egyptians -- (even though the weapons-smuggling tunnels clearly exited into Egyptian army camps.) The complete failure of the Egyptians to exert control of the border, allowing Palestinian hordes from Gaza to overrun them....

The symbolism of 9/11 being the day that Israel let the terror groups take over Gaza. How can I understand how America -- who spoke so bravely of fighting terror, of finding in anyone who supported terror an enemy of the United States -- is now responsible for Israel's complete capitulation to terror?

In my mind's eye, I see what should have happened: The American support to destroy Hamas. The destruction of terrorist camps all over Gaza. The denunciation of the Palestinian Authority for being terror-supporters. The support for the settlers in Gaza and the West Bank. Instead, this incomprehensible policy of appeasement and capitulation. The British desire to cancel Holocaust Memorial day to appease the Muslims.

History will show that the day Israel was forced by the United States and Europe and her own misguided stupidity and blindness to give aid and succor to terrorism, to leave her people vulnerable to terrorism, was the day the peace of the world was destroyed.

I don't know how this is going to happen, but just as the feeding of Ethiopia and Poland and Czechoslovakia to Hitler, bite by bite, only whet his appetite and increased his hubris, so the burning of Jewish synagogues by the Hamas in Gaza, the unprovoked rocket attacks that went unanswered by a brave and competent army, incomprehensibly emasculated by weak and confused politicians, will prove a turning
point that all mankind will have reason to mourn.

I mourn now.

Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and essayist living in Jerusalem.

The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims, Edited by Andrew Bostom, Prometheus Books, 750 pp. $28.
Reviewed by Rael Jean Isaac

The famous Jewish philosopher and physician Maimonides, often cited as an example of the fruitful symbiosis of Jewish and Islamic culture, had this to say of Arabs: "The Arabs have persecuted us severely and passed harmful and discriminatory legislation against us...Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase and hate us as much as they."

If this was the assessment even of Maimonides, how then to explain the widespread view of a golden age of Islamic tolerance? In his introduction to this invaluable compendium of source materials on the religious roots of jihad and the impact on those conquered in its holy wars, Ibn Warraq notes how Jews have contributed to the misperception of Islam. He quotes the dean of Middle Eastern studies Bernard Lewis who makes no bones that the golden age of equal rights was an illusion, noting "the myth was invented by Jews in nineteenth-century Europe as a reproach to Christians."

No one who even dips into Bostom's book can maintain a rosy view of Islam’s effect on human welfare. For example, Part 6 chronicles the impact of the Islamic conquests in the Near East, Europe, Asia Minor and the Indian subcontinent where Muslim invaders are estimated to have killed an incredible 70 million people over centuries. Everywhere advancing Islam laid waste to hitherto prosperous regions. An enthusiastic description of an attack on an Indian town noted: "The blood of the infidels flowed so copiously that the stream was discoloured and people were unable to drink it...Praise be to Allah." Often the only reason a remnant of the existing population was left alive -- in a state of dhimmitude or outright slavery -- was the fear of Muslim leaders that there would be no one to provide for the basic needs of the jihadists, preventing them from moving on to further conquests. Section 8 provides poignant eyewitness accounts over 1300 years of the cruelty meted out to subject populations in both Asia and Europe.

This volume makes it clear that Islam is a religion whose mission is conquest (and eventual conversion) of the world. When one group of Muslims assumes responsibility for jihad, others are relieved of this duty. It is thus no wonder that radical Muslims believe they act on behalf of the entire umma. Bostom shows that even terror is an old and familiar tool: according to the book The Quranic Concept of War, "Once a condition of terror into the opponent's heart is obtained, hardly anything is left to be achieved...Terror is not a means of imposing decision upon the enemy; it is the decision we wish to impose upon him."

But Bostom does more than show the terrible effects of Islamic warfare. Early sections (after his own lengthy and useful overview) offer primary sources -- texts on jihad (holy war as a religious duty) from the Koran and hadiths and subsequent opinions on jihad laid down by Sunni and Shi'ite theologians and jurists. Bostom also provides analyses from early twentieth century scholars of Islam (before the field of Middle Eastern studies was corrupted by the current crop of academic apologists). Much of this material is available here for the first time: Bostom has included hitherto unpublished sources and had a number of essays translated into English from Arabic and Persian as well as from European languages.

All this is the more extraordinary because Bostom is not a scholar of Islam but a medical doctor, a clinical epidemiologist. It has taken a non-specialist, an autodidact, to fill the gap left by scholars whose education has left them with a "trained incapacity" to portray the reality of Islam. Raphael Israeli, professor of Islamic Civilization at the Hebrew University, praises Bostom for being “sensitive and wise enough to tell the essential from the marginal, meticulous enough to reflect the spirit of the texts, thorough enough to understand the sub-texts, and diligent and conscientious enough to leave no stone unturned in his effort to transmit a complete message."

This is not a book that can be read through in one or even several sittings. Above all it is a resource which should be consulted by U.S. and European legislators, policy makers and media opinion-shapers. At present the public is fed what classics professor Bruce Thornton aptly describes as "a reduction of history to a melodrama in which a noble, tolerant, cultured Islamic world has been unjustly attacked by an intolerant, greedy West addled by Christian bigotry and racist stereotypes of bloodthirsty jihadist warriors. All the problems in the Middle East today, in this Orwellian rewriting of history, thus derive not from anything dysfunctional in Islam or Arab regimes but rather in the sins of the West and its Middle Eastern minion, Israel."

There is no better antidote to this nonsense than Andrew Bostom's The Legacy of Jihad.

Melanie Phillips

The Observer has published an immensely important and disturbing story. It has obtained two leaked documents which explicitly reveal what has long been apparent to those with eyes to see — the government’s craven and lethal policy of appeasement towards radical Islamism in Britain. The first document was a letter from William Ehrman, the top intelligence official at the Foreign Office. He proposed that spies should infiltrate extremist Islamist websites posing as radicals with the aim of dissuading extremists from taking up arms. This would be done, apparently, by feeding them anti-western propaganda which would nevertheless stop short of violence.

But behind the scenes he proposed developing 'messages aimed at more radicalized constituencies who are potential recruits to terrorism'. These radicals would not listen to the traditional calls 'for the Middle East to become a zone of peace and prosperity', said the intelligence officer. 'They might, however, listen to religious arguments about the nature of jihad, that, while anti-Western, eschew terrorism.'

This is stark staring mad. Delivering anti-western messages will not damp down violence. It will promote, incite, justify and increase it. Not surprisingly, there are those in the Foreign Office and elsewhere who are deeply alarmed by this official lunacy:

According to the Observer, “Officials within the Foreign Office are known to be unhappy about the growing 'Islamisation' of the department and many feel uncomfortable with moves across Whitehall to open up a dialogue with radical Islamists. However, ministers believe it makes sense to engage with the more moderate fringes of political Islam…

“The 7 July bombings were a direct challenge to the policy of engagement and have led some critics to suggest it should be abandoned. One former minister said last night: 'The strategic error is to think you can fight hot fire with cooler fire. These people still want to see sharia law extended and find it difficult to handle secularism or gay rights. You need more, genuine political engagement rather than searching for the acceptable face of Islam.'“

The second document is a memorandum from Mockbul Ali, the Foreign Office's Islamic issues adviser, which recommends allowing the radical cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi into Britain. This deploys the classic argument of appeasement – that unless Britain lets Qaradawi in, notwithstanding his support for human bomb terrorism in Israel and Iraq, Muslims will claim that Britain has an anti-Islam agenda and more will be recruited to violence. In the words of the document:

“We certainly do not agree with Qaradawi's views on Israel and Iraq, but we have to recognize that they are not unusual or even exceptional among Muslims. In fact it is correct to say that these are views shared by a majority of Muslims in the Middle East and the UK. Refusing entry on these grounds would also open a Pandora's box in relation to entry clearance for others in the Muslim world.

“Excluding Qaradawi would give grist to Al Qaeda propaganda of a western vendetta against Muslims and would undermine Qaradawi's counter-terrorism messages. Qaradawi would be the first port of call when encouraging statements against terrorism and the killing of Muslim civilians in Iraq, as requested recently by Iraq Policy Unit. He has repeatedly and authoritatively condemned terrorist attacks -- after 9/11, Bali, Madrid, Beslan, the Bigley kidnapping and recently after the bombings in Qatar, as well as on other occasions. When Qaradawi was accused last year of justifying killings and kidnappings of civilians in Iraq, particularly US civilians, he has firmly stated "I did not issue such a fatwa". In fact Qaradawi was widely reported as "vehemently opposed to kidnapping and killing innocent civilians" and "urged the release of four Italian and French individuals recently abducted in Iraq" (see Annex 1). We could not engage with Qaradawi on counter-terrorism or Iraq should there be a decision to exclude him from the UK.”

So let’s get this right. This Foreign Officer adviser is saying we cannot offend Qaradawi because we need him to condemn terrorist attacks — which he does nevertheless only selectively, disapproving of Al Qaeda operations while telling Muslims it is their duty, no less, to kill Israelis and coalition troops in Iraq. Despite this we are already, it seems, 'engaging' with this inciter of jihadi terror on counter terrorism. And we cannot do anything that might further inflame the false view by Muslims that the United Kingdom has a vendetta against them because most of them subscribe to extremist jihadi views of the kind that Qaradawi espouses. The logic of that thinking is that since Muslims take the view that a) any assertion of western values that conflict with Islam or b) any attempt by western society to defend itself against Islamic attack is instead an attack on Islam, it follows that the British government will never do either a) or b) for fear of recruiting yet more to the jihad. And if that really is the case, then it’s all over for British culture.

The leaks provoked a fine polemic in The Observer by Nick Cohen who, after drawing attention to London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s continued support for the ‘murderous queer basher’ Qaradawi and pourinscorn on the Foreign Office for sucking up to the Muslim Brotherhood, then alighted on a particularly unsavoury passage in Mockbul Ali’s memorandum:

“The Foreign Secretary may remember the negative media storm when Livingstone last brought the priest to Britain, the civil servants tell Jack Straw. He should ignore it. The accusations came from tainted Jewish sources, ‘the Board of [Jewish] Deputies’ and the Israeli monitoring site MEMRI, which is ‘regularly criticised for selective translation of Arabic reports.’ This simply isn't true. Qaradawi's extremist views haven't been spread by scheming Jews but are well documented on his very own website.”

In fact, Ali went further and said:
“The founding President of MEMRI is retired Colonel Yigal Carmon, who served for 22 years in Israel's military intelligence service. MEMRI is regularly criticised for selective translation of Arabic reports.”

The latter claim is not true. There has never been a single authoritative challenge to the veracity or integrity of MEMRI’s authoritative translations, which have opened the eyes of the west to what the Arab and Muslim world is really saying. And the former remark echoes Livingstone’s own smear that MEMRI was a Mossad plot, a claim for which Carmon is now suing him for libel.

With these references to MEMRI and the Board of Deputies, Ali has made a tactical error. The rest of his memorandum may be guilty of appeasement but it studiedly distances itself from the extremist views under consideration. But when Ali gets to the Jews, his guard slips and he endorses the conspiracy theory which is the signature of the Islamic extremist.

Britain, it need hardly be said, is allegedly in the forefront of the fight against Islamic extremism. Now we can see that its own Foreign Office is acting as a kind of appeasement fifth column in the very heart of government.

Melanie Phillips is a British journalist.

Ruth King

Iraq will shortly be voting on a Constitution. President Bush congratulated Iraqis for “completing the next step in their transition from dictatorship to democracy.” But don’t pop the bubbly quite yet.

In fact, it is not constitutions that protect citizens in democracies….it is the people who govern. Many states, despite exemplary constitutions, have been among the worst violators of human rights.

We need go no farther from our shore than Cuba, whose constitution, drafted in 1976 and amended twice, guarantees privacy, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, health benefits, schooling and rest and recreation. Odd then, that over decades hundreds of thousands of its 11,000,000 citizens have set forth on flimsy homemade rafts, risking oceans and sharks, to escape this constitutional paradise.

And what about Haiti? Chapter 11 of its constitution grants so many rights that one is hard put to explain the misery and lawlessness that prevails. On February 7th, 1991, Jimmy “I hate Israel” Carter attended the swearing in of the “democratically” elected Aristide and hailed Haiti’s Constitution. By September Aristide was overthrown by Raul Cedras, and as late as this spring government troops fired on demonstrators at a rally demanding constitutional rights. Dissenters are jailed, tortured and executed.

Then there is Zimbabwe, of which Robert Mugabe became the elected Prime Minister in 1987. Article 20 of its model 1980 constitution states:
“Except with his own consent or by way of parental discipline, no person shall be hindered in the enjoyment of his freedom of expression, that is to say, freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference, and freedom from interference with his correspondence.”

The only restraint on freedom in this lofty document is to forbid persons to obstruct traffic for political rallies.

On the stated theory “Every sovereign people is entitled to give birth to its own constitution” Mugabe periodically rewrites it; in 1999 he set up a commission to “update” the constitution: i.e. to give more power to Mugabe and his despotic land redistribution campaign (in itself in total violation of the rights provided to property-owners by the Constitution). Mugabe pays no attention to any rights guaranteed by the Constitution. So it’s hard to know why he has bothered to “update” it 17 times, most recently on August 18, 2005: the “new” constitution abolishes freehold property titles, strips landowners of their right to appeal against expropriation and permits the government to deny passports to its critics. The economy has shriveled along with the rights of Zimbabwe’s citizens, millions of whom have fled, while AIDS and Mugabe-created starvation ravage most of the rest.

Then there is the Syrian constitution enacted in March of 1973:
According to Article 4: “ Freedom is a sacred right and popular democracy is the ideal formulation which insures for the citizen the exercise of his freedom….The homeland's freedom can only be preserved by its free citizens. The citizen's freedom can be completed only by his economic and social liberation.”

The Assads, pere et fils, chiefly respected Article 2: “…..Likewise, any danger to which any Arab country may be exposed on the part of imperialism and Zionism is at the same time a danger threatening the whole Arab nation.”

Egypt’s constitution was passed in 1971. Among the articles guaranteeing every conceivable freedom….press, privacy, etc., there is this gem in Article 46: “The State shall guarantee the freedom of belief and the freedom of practicing religious rights.” Presumably the Copts are making up those stories about harassment, oppression, incarceration, rape and kidnapping.

And here is Article 12 of Rwanda’s 1991 constitution:
(1) The human being shall be sacred.
(2) The liberty of the human being shall be inviolable; no one may be prosecuted, arrested, imprisoned, or convicted other than in the cases prescribed by the law in effect at the time of the perpetrated act and within the forms prescribed by that law.
(3) No infraction may be punished by penalties which were not prescribed by law before it was committed.
(4) Any person shall be presumed innocent of the charges as long as a definite conviction has not taken place.
Too bad the rampaging Hutu did not heed these inspiring words.

Libya produced a sterling Constitution in 1951:
“Libyans shall be equal before the law. They shall enjoy equal civil and political rights, shall have the same opportunities, and be subject to the same public duties and obligations, without distinction of religious belief, race, language, wealth, kinship or political or social opinions.”

In 1969 a new Constitution blithely voided many of the freedoms guaranteed by the old, establishing the primacy of Shari'a, or Islamic law.

Perhaps the finest constitution of all was that of the Soviet Union. This document was passed in 1924, refined in 1936, amended in 1964 and in 1977. It got better with each rewriting. One could hardly be faulted for rushing to buy a dacha in Moscow on reading it. For example, here is Article 119: “The right to rest and leisure is ensured by the establishment of a seven-hour day for industrial, office, and professional workers, the reduction of the working day to six hours for a number of arduous trades and to four hours in shops where conditions of work are particularly arduous, by the institution of annual vacations with full pay and by the provision of a wide network of sanatoria, rest homes and clubs for the accommodation of the working people.”
So that’s what the gulags were! Paid vacation spas.

Article 123 guaranteed equality of rights in every area to all citizens “irrespective of their nationality or race” and declared any “advocacy of racial or national exclusiveness or hatred and contempt is punishable by law.” Article 124 declared “Freedom of religious worship and freedom of anti-religious propaganda is recognized for all citizens.” (Except maybe for “refuseniks” like Sharansky and Ida Nudel and the evangelical Christians sent to the gulag.)

Article 125 even has the government promoting dissent by “placing at the disposal of the working people and their organizations printing presses, stocks of paper, public buildings, the streets, communications facilities and other material requisites for the exercise of these rights.”

Amazing in light of this stirring document that Joseph Stalin and his KGB thugs starved, imprisoned, tortured, jailed and murdered over 20,000,000 people in the USSR.

And now in Iraq it is deja vu all over again. As Dr. Andrew Bostom points out “the current discussions about a constitution show no awareness of the fact that the Iraqis have tread this path before, when the British, who ruled the country from the end of the Great War to 1932, helped set up a modern state with a non-religious constitution under which the rights of all Iraqis would be protected. The results were grim, culminating in massacres of the Assyrian Christians in 1933-34 and the pogrom of Baghdad’s Jewish population in 1941.” In fact Iraq has had four other constitutions…..1963, 1964, 1968 and 1970.

They are clearly prolific constitution writers. Maybe a cottage industry could outsource this talent.

As Lupi Mushayakarara, a brave dissident in Zimbabwe has said: "The constitution is just a piece of paper. It won't transform Zimbabwe into a democratic society." That holds true for all nations. It takes much more than a constitution.

Oh, by the way, democratic Israel and England have no constitutions.

Put away the champagne.