A CONTRACT WITH ISRAEL
HERBERT ZWEIBON

FROM THE EDITOR
RAEL JEAN ISAAC

CLEAN OUT THE STABLES AND PREPARE FOR WAR
MOSHE SHARON

PERETZ AND THE IDF: OUTPOSTS TO GO!
MOSHE DANN

THE EUROPEAN JIHAD
MELANIE PHILLIPS

WHO HAS TO APOLOGIZE?
WILLEM VAN DER HOEVEN

THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT
RUTH KING

OUTPOST

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

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HERBERT ZWEIBON

Kadima’s days are numbered. But if new elections are to produce only a musical chairs of failed politicians, there will be no coming to grips with festering problems that endanger the cohesion and viability of the state. As Islamic expert Moshe Sharon points out in these pages, a clean broom to sweep out the stables is needed, new leadership with the vision, energy and courage to make the profound changes required if the nation is to be restored.

Taking a leaf from the 1994 Republican Contract with America, which promised “to restore bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives” we suggest ten principles such new leaders in Israel might offer as bedrock commitments.

Contract with Israel
1) Restore the technological superiority, capability and fighting spirit of the IDF.
2) Change the process of selection and appointment of justices to all courts, including the Supreme Court.
3) Develop a patriotic curriculum for the schools and eliminate anti-Zionist materials that deny morality and justice to Jewish nationhood.
4) Substitute for the present system of proportional representation direct election of Knesset member on the basis of geographical districts.
5) Ease restrictions limiting media outlets.
6) Require a super majority of the Knesset for territorial concessions.
7) Foster improved relations and understanding between the religious and secular segments of the population.
8) Clarify the separation of powers between the branches of government.
9) Require citizens to make a declaration of loyalty and a pledge of service to the State of Israel --and establish processes to encourage the emigration of those who refuse to do so.
10) Eliminate corruption at all levels of government.

The importance of some of these is obvious, others perhaps less so. The Supreme Court (which is basically self-selecting) has turned itself into a super-legislature, pursuing a universalist agenda wholly out of touch with Judaism or Zionism. Knesset members are accountable only to party leaders pursuing naked self-interest (ministerial “chairs”) in sublime disregard of Israeli voters. In a free society, it is unconscionable that radio station Arutz Sheva should have been harassed for years and finally forced off the air. As for item 9, Israel must come to grips with a huge fifth column (not all of it Arab) that identifies with its enemies.

Perhaps the most important is Item 10. Corruption has become a lethal cancer on the state. The only rational explanation for Ariel Sharon’s abrupt embrace of “disengagement” is that he hoped to stave off indictment on corruption charges. There was triple corruption here: the initial actions of Sharon and his sons, Sharon’s willingness to undermine Israel’s security to benefit his family and the corruption of the Attorney General’s office which, Sharon knew, would give him a free pass if he pursued its leftwing ideology.

The deepest corruption is the dishonesty of the leadership. Who can forget, during the Six Day War, when the Arab states proclaimed great “victories” and the Israeli government soberly reported what actually took place. Now both sides are equally untrustworthy. Ehud Olmert is spinning Israel’s defeat in Lebanon as a victory greater than the Six Day War. Since Oslo, Israeli leaders have engaged in massive deception, feeding the public delusions of peace processes, encouraging them to retreat into the “bubble” that Moshe Sharon describes.

First and foremost, to be honest with themselves and the public. This must be the core commitment of any new leadership that would save Israel.

RAEL JEAN ISAAC

AZNAR SPEAKS UP

Yet another reason to regret the electoral defeat of former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar by the appeasement-minded Jose Luis Zapatero: In a speech at the Hudson Institute, commenting on the outraged Islamic response to Pope Benedict’s remarks on Islam and violence, Aznar declared that Moslems should apologize to Spain for occupying that country for 800 years. As for the UN backed program to encourage dialogue between Moslems and the West, Aznar had a word for it: “stupid.”

EVANGELICALS FOR ISRAEL

While mainline church bureaucracies line up to condemn and disinvest from Israel, evangelical Christians accurately describe themselves as “Israel’s best friends.” Minister of Tourism Isaac Herzog points out that one in every three American tourists is an evangelical Christian.

Of the 100,000 people participating in Jerusalem’s annual march saluting Israel’s defense forces in October, 5,000 were evangelical Christians from over 80 countries who had come for the annual Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkoth) celebration organized by the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem.
The Christian embassy recently raised $500,000 within a week to help families in the north and to revitalize Galilee. And the same organization, working with the Jewish Agency, invested $40 million to assist Soviet Jews to come and be absorbed in Israel. Indeed Christian support represents 2.5% of the Jewish Agency’s total budget.

MODERATE MOSLEMS? HOW MANY?

Syrian born political scientist Bassam Tibi, a German citizen since 1967, is a moderate Moslem. In an interview with Der Spiegel he urges Europe to stand up to Islamists and urges Moslems to integrate into European societies. He identifies what Moslems have to do to become Europeans: renounce jihad, give up shariah (it’s incompatible with the German constitution), and accept pluralism and tolerance.

Asked how many of the three million Moslems living in Germany would agree to these demands, Tibi replied: “A few thousand perhaps.”

NO BRAINERS

Propositions that should by now be no-brainers (appeasing Arab enemies won’t work) have not penetrated the skulls of Israeli politicians who, whatever their formal IQs, are themselves “no-brainers.”

Listen, for example, to Labor Knesset member Ephraim Sneh: worried that President Bush will not act, Sneh wants Israel to launch an emergency buildup of long-range military capabilities so that it could act alone to address the Iranian challenge. But then he insists Israel must rush to cut a deal with Mahmoud Abbas, and says “we know the price.” The price, which Abbas has made clear countless times, is withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, creation of a sovereign Palestinian state and opening Israel in its shrunken borders to millions of Palestinian Arab “refugees.”

In other words, the price is substituting an Arab state for Israel. At that point there would be no Jewish state for Ahmadinejad to incinerate. Why then advocate an emergency buildup against Iran?

FAIR WITNESS

There is a fine new organization Christians for Fair Witness in the Middle East, which advocates among mainline Protestants and Catholics in North America for fairness in the church’s witness on issues related to the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

We quote from a recent press release calling to account the Jesuit magazine America for an editorial entitled “Unending War:”

“Cluster bombs are very destructive weapons. But to attribute a motivation of ’ethnic cleansing’ to Israel — a charge we do not recall being leveled against NATO forces after their use of cluster bombs in Serbia and Kosovo — while ignoring more obvious motives such as delaying the return of Hezbollah terrorists to the region, is irresponsible at best.

“America’s allegation of’ ethnic cleansing is a canard that has no logical place in analyzing Israel’s tactics, added Fr. James Loughran. If there is any attempt to ‘cleanse’ this region of any group it is Hezbollah’s, Hamas’ and Iran’s openly stated policy to destroy the Jewish state.

“We must remind America that there is an ‘unending war’ in this region because Israel’s Arab neighbors have refused since 1936 to accept the presence of a Jewish state. Repeated Arab attacks in the
form of five wars and endless acts of terrorism have forced the state of Israel into an unending, unwanted
mode of self defense.”

JEWS FOR ISRAEL'S SOUL

As if Israel did not have enough tzoros (Yiddish for troubles) it now has Soros, who is creating a new political lobby to combine rich Jews and left-wing Jewish organizations to serve as a counterweight to the pro-Israel AIPAC.

Like the Jews of Breira and the New Jewish Agenda of earlier decades, this crop will claim to care deeply for Israel’s soul -- and if that means the real world state must be sacrificed, no problem. These groups never heard of an Israeli retreat they did not approve, an attack on Israel they did not excuse, or an instance of Israeli self-defense they did not condemn.

As Jews they can attack Israel more effectively than non-Jews. With Soros’ billions behind it, look for real trouble from this outfit.

FROM MINISKIRST TO HIJABS

Morocco is undergoing rapid Islamization. Counterterrorism expert Oliver Guitta reports in The Weekly Standard (October 2) that the government has arrested 59 people engaged in terror plots, staving off a repeat of the attacks three years ago in Casablanca by an Al-Qaeda linked group that left 45 dead.

Worried about infiltration of the army by jihadists, the government has ended compulsory military training. But the problem goes deeper. Writes Guitta: “In just a few years, Moroccan women have gone from the miniskirt to the hijab. Interviewed in the French daily Le Monde a few months ago, a Moroccan high school teacher named Soukaina (she said she was afraid to use her last name) said that she no longer recognizes her country. Twenty years ago her high school had only one veiled teacher. Today everyone is veiled, teachers and students alike.”

Guitta notes that both in Morocco's big cities and in its villages, street vendors sell Islamist propaganda calling for jihad, spewing anti-Semitism and hatred of the West, on audio and video tapes, CDs and DVDs. Most serious, the leading Islamist party--the terror-linked Justice and Development party--is projected to win 47 percent of the vote in the coming Parliamentary elections. The king would then be obliged to ask it to form a government.

REGISTERING FOR JIHAD

Jihad registration offices are to be opened in Mogadishu. The online JihadWatch observes: “If this catches on worldwide it will give Western officials something new to do: just as now they assure us that this or that incident had nothing to do with terrorism on the basis of the perpetrator not being a known member of Al-Qaeda or some other terrorist group, so then they will assure the public that the latest incident of violence and terror wasn’t really jihad, since the perpetrator was unregistered.”

PIRATES A ZIONIST PLOT

Poor Walt Disney. In his lifetime not known for friendship to Jews, his studio is now accused of engaging in Zionist plots. The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has provided translations from Iran’s IRINN TV channel on which the Disney studio is described as a tool of the Zionist lobby. Both the recent Johnny Depp hit Pirates of the Caribbean and the older movie Aladdin (which supposedly was designed to denigrate Arabs) are specifically held up as examples of the Zionist effort to “gain control.”

MOSHE SHARON

The second Lebanon War (the “Three Weeks of Mourning” war) of the summer of 2006 has not yet come to an end. It is only an introduction to the prologue. Today it is clear to everyone who is prepared to confront unadorned reality, and they are the majority of people in Israeli society with the wish to live, that we have to take advantage of the short period of time left to us to prepare the army for the inevitable next war.

Hezbollah is the immediate enemy. No one will disarm it because it has no intention of disarming and there is no one to coerce it to do so. The UN is collaborating with Hezbollah and none of its member nations has any interest in dealing with it. As Hezbollah has no one to fear – and now not even Israel – it has no reason in the world to relinquish the power that renders it master of Lebanon.

After many years, during which the Shiites were the most backward segment of Lebanon’s population, they have now become the masters. They are supported by two countries that arm them to the teeth, provide them with massive economic support, and enable them to emerge as the spearhead in Islam’s war against Israel. It is clear, therefore, that the Hezbollah will not emerge weakened from this stage of the battle but, instead, will become much more powerful.

Let’s say it clearly: Nothing was achieved in this war except for a ridiculous UN document and an interlude during which the enemy will have the opportunity to better entrench itself 700 or 70 meters from the border, in and under villages that were virtually undamaged. If the organization lost some fighters (not many more than the IDF losses) that has not weakened it, as it has the ability to recruit thousands from within Lebanon and abroad in a short time. The Hezbollah army does not need to be large in terms of manpower. It functions in small, fast units, which can easily hide in the houses, and the natural surroundings that they know better than anyone else. The homes of fellow Lebanese are its shelters and their babies are its human shields, and it has learned that it is dealing with Israelis for whom the lives of their enemies very often take precedence over the lives of their soldiers and civilians.

Islam came into being as a fighting religion. Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, imposed his authority, first and foremost, by means of his military strength. Islam established an empire even before it crystallized as a systematic religion. It established its institutions, developed its theories, built its culture, and created its theological and legal systems only after it had established an empire. The imperial and religious aspects of Islam are interconnected. Without an empire – without a massive political framework, loose though it may be – Islam feels that it lacks a home.

The empire expressed Islamic power, prominence and virility. Islam was born in order to rule, to be great, as is only fitting for the religion of Allah. Allah’s words in the Quran have guided the Muslims throughout the generations. They engraved them on their coins and repeated them at every opportunity: “It is He (Allah) who has sent His Messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, that he may uplift it above every religion…” (Sura 9 verse 33). The Jews and Christians, some of whose prophets’ names appear in the Quran, cannot claim that they possess true, holy scriptures as all of the holy scriptures must be identical to the Quran. If in the Bible and the New Testament there are things that differ or are opposed to what is written in the Quran, the only possible conclusion is that the Jews and Christians are in possession of forged books. They, “the People of the Book,” “changed and replaced” in their iniquity, that which is in their holy scriptures. There remains only one true prophecy and one true book and one universal legal system: The prophecy of Mohammed and the book of Allah – the Quran and the legal system of Islam which obligates the entire world forever.

If two generations ago, these concepts were limited to the scholars and students in Muslim seminaries, today they are a political program, a means of action, a basis for political thought, a guide for fighters and a guide for government. One must look at the constitution of Hamas, which guides the Palestinian Authority in its war against Israel, in order to understand that these are not archaic religious theories, but rather the supreme ideas of conduct mandated by Islam and Muslims in the modern era. Muslims are obligated to preserve and implement the Islamic world order and defend it against anyone who attempts to violate it. This is the natural order determined by Allah: One God, one religion, one prophet and one law, the law of God, the law that guides the community of Muslim believers – it and it alone is the community of Allah.

Jews can live under Muslim rule, subservient to this law, but woe unto them if they try to emerge from the status of dhimmi, which the Islamic law destined for them. Therefore, the establishment of the State of Israel, in which the Jews not only are not under Muslim patronage but even rule over Muslims, has created a situation which is in contravention of the laws of nature. The establishment of a Jewish state on Islamic land is an open rebellion against Islamic law, an insolence toward its prophet and impudence towards Allah.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, a great tragedy befell the world of Islam, the importance of which has only become apparent in recent years. It is not “imperialism and colonialism” (the two words so beloved by those seeking the causes for the backwardness of their society in others rather than in themselves), but rather the abrogation of the caliphate by Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern, secular, westernized Turkey. All at once the Muslim Empire was beheaded and it matters not that by then it had already become only a virtual empire. The caliphate is the great dream of contemporary Muslim leaders and of every Muslim. It is a dream of the past, veiled in a romantic aura. One only need enter the Khilafah (caliphate) websites on the Internet in order to understand how alive and vibrant the dream is: To renew the great momentum of the days of the Prophet and his successors, and arrive at a situation where the entire world will be ruled by the Islamic legal system according to which one Muslim government will be established with the Commander of the Faithful at its head. However, in order to realize this, the Muslim world must be prepared to make sacrifices. Every Muslim is called upon to sacrifice, and first and foremost to want to sacrifice his life for the sake of this holy objective.

This is not merely romantic enthusiasm, but rather a political and military program. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently gave a speech before a group of Iranian scholars on the subject of Islamic art. He declared that true art is martyrdom. The death of the martyr, he said, is the most sublime expression of true art, and added in his flowery language, which sounds so good in Persian, that with the help of Allah, Islam will soon be raised to the highest peaks from which it will rule the entire world. Inshallah. (May it be the will of Allah).

In the last generation, this zealous and combative Islam, which directly influences the lives and the thoughts of many millions of people, has discovered the way to fight the enemies of Islam around the world. It discovered that through the combination of education to hatred, zealotry and martyrdom, with cheap, unsophisticated weapons and a few kilograms of explosives, it was possible to undermine the security of western societies, to damage the framework of their lives and to expose the helplessness of the large empires. We call acts of horror that indiscriminately strike at innocent people, terrorism. However the Muslims, who engage in those acts, call them jihad, holy war.

Terrorism is not a new Islamic discovery. It appeared as quite an effective tool among the early Muslims and it has accompanied their history in various degrees of intensity. The Shiite Hashíshiyún, of the 11th and the 13th century, are the source of the European term “assassin” (following the colloquial Hashsáshín) which is used to describe an ambush killer, hired killer or a killer in cold blood. Today, the world is filled with Muslim assassins, who, like the Hashíshiyún of the Middle Ages, undergo a long process of indoctrination and are happy to be martyrs and to reach the next world quickly. During the Middle Ages only the suicide martyrs themselves were indoctrinated; in the modern Islamic world, an entire public is being indoctrinated. This indoctrination is carried out in every possible manner: by preachers in mosques and in religious study groups; in the electronic and print media; by Muslim intellectual elites – writers and artists, filmmakers and playwrights, actors and singers; in schoolbooks, in schools, in and out of class.

The thrust of Muslim propaganda is directed against the Jews. From European anti-Semitic sources the Muslim authors collect everything that describes the Jews as the filth of humanity fit only for destruction. The Jews control the world, ruin its economy, incite wars, poison wells, spread disease, and cause men to be sterile. All these are negligible when compared to the Moslem versatility at fabrication. In Egypt, a book called The Bomb was recently published. What is the bomb? It is a sensational “revelation” by the author, containing “scientific” proof, that the Jews are descendants of apes and swine. He produces pictures of skeletons with tails as the ultimate evidence for his great discovery and the indisputable proof for what was written in the Quran: That the Jews were transformed into monkeys and pigs.

The blood libel is also alive and well in the world of Islam. Thus, for example, in a film which has been shown on the Hezbollah TV station al-Manár on a regular basis, a group of Jews is seen slaughtering a Muslim child and using his blood to prepare unleavened bread. In Syria, Mustafa Tlas, who was the minister of war, wrote his doctorate on the Jewish use of blood for ritual purposes and called it The Matzah of Zion. Thousands of caricatures have been and continue to be published in all the Arab media, in which Jews are portrayed as horned goats, with tails, jumping around on rats’ legs or dining on a meal of Palestinian corpses.

When a Muslim, unceasingly exposed to this volume of hatred, looks at the map of the Middle East and sees a tiny patch stuck in the heart of the Arab-Islamic world like a dagger, and he knows that the patch is controlled by Jews, in refutation of the entire Muslim doctrine, he inevitably sees it as a shocking violation of all he believes in. With his independent existence and all the trappings of sovereignty, the Jew is challenging the truth of Islam; this cannot be permitted!

Thus, the time has come for the Jews in that little patch, who live in the bubble that they have created for themselves and inside of which they play peace games, to internalize the simple, clearly manifest truth: there is no peace nor will there be peace in the Middle East as long as an independent Jewish state exists in which Jews and Muslims enjoy equal rights. There is not and there will not be peace in the Middle East unless it is in accordance with Islam: the total destruction of the Jewish state, the destruction of most of its Jewish residents and the transformation of Palestine into an integral part of the Muslim world. If after the destruction, the expulsion and the mass slaughter some Jews remain in Palestine, they might be allowed to receive second-class citizen status, living in the shadow of Islam and according to its laws. That is the only Islamic plan! It is not a secret plan. It is publicized, advertised, preached, taught but on the whole, unfortunately ignored, minimized, and in many western circles “explained,” tolerated and even excused.

The Muslims consider the State of Israel nothing less than a sacred Islamic endowment, a Muslim waqf, that was expropriated from Muslim hands in a momentary tragedy and therefore must be returned to Islamic hands. Sometimes various sophisticated political tools have to be employed. It is possible and permissible, according to Islamic law, to reach a cessation of combat, a temporary postponement of the jihad, as Mohammed did with his enemies. (Recently Hamas, following Muhammad’s precedent, suggested 10 years armistice – hudnah – with Israel). Cessation of combat can even have the characteristics of a “peace agreement” as then the enemy is willing to sacrifice vital interests and expose itself to the eventual Muslim attack.

Holy War is the strategy and therefore the agreements (“peace”) with Egypt and Jordan are a sort of interlude. They are agreements between governments, in which the Arab side fulfills only a bare minimum of its clauses. Egypt, which committed itself to stopping the atrocious propaganda against Israel and to normalizing relations, is the leader of anti-Semitic activity in the Arab world. Egypt acts enthusiastically against Israel in international bodies. Along with the blatant education of the masses to hatred of the Jews in every mass media outlet, Egypt has been preparing an enormous military infrastructure for years, with the assistance of the United States and the European countries. Is it necessary to ask, to fight against whom did Egypt create an army of close to a million soldiers?

Up to this point we have addressed Islam in general; however it is necessary to pay special attention to Shiite Islam against which the State of Israel just fought and will have to fight under more difficult conditions in the future. Shiite Islam is the more messianic branch of Islam. It has built itself up as a religio-political body, concentrating its hopes, beliefs and aspirations around the image of the “hidden imám,” the Mahdi whose imminent appearance from his hiding place is anticipated at any moment. The Shiite messianic concept is unlike the Sunni and Jewish ones. In contrast to these, according to which the identity of the Messiah is not precisely determined, the Mahdi of the Shiah is a living Messiah. He is a direct descendent of Muhammad; he has a name (also Muhammad), his father and his ancestors are known; he is alive and well in his hiding place in this world and awaiting the opportunity to appear. It will be an impressive appearance with a drawn sword and blood and fire. The Mahdi will go to war against the whole world (including Sunni Islam). He will win; and finally, a descendant of the Prophet will rule over Islam in its entirety – the one, true Amir al-Mu`minin – Commander of the Faithful.

The Shiites have always been and remain a minority within Islam. Throughout their history they bear on their foreheads the mark of Cain for the murder (in 680) of the third imam, Imam Hussein. True, they did not murder him; it was the representatives of the Sunni government who did it; however they feel that they were accomplices to the crime, and that, in their eyes, was a terrible sin against God. The sin of standing idly by when Hussein was murdered rests on every Shiite wherever he may be and cannot be expiated. All the Shiites can do is to remember the murder every moment of their lives and attempt to feel some of the pain that Hussein felt on the day he died. Therefore, the Shiites perform their Ashurá ceremonies (called ta‘ziyah) in public. They cut themselves with knives, daggers and swords, spill each other’s blood and even spill the blood of babies in their cradles in an outburst of mass ecstasy, and they aspire to die at that moment as an act of identification with the death of the Prophet’s grandson. This one day, the 10th of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic year, expresses, perhaps more than anything else, the death wish, the desire for martyrdom and the thirst for suffering, pain and blood.

Throughout their history, the Shiites have sought to achieve some sort of legitimacy for themselves in the Sunni world, in whose eyes they are considered “dissenters.” Now they believe that they have found the way to accomplish that. Over the course of more than 50 years, the Islamic Sunni world – headed by the huge Arab world, surrounding Israel like a ring – has been unsuccessful in getting rid of the Jewish state. Now Iran, the only Shiite country in the world, is sure that it can do it. Under its leadership the Shiites will assume leadership of the jihad against the entire world and they will start it from Israel. The aspiration to acquire nuclear weapons is part of the plan. Iran plans to use them and if in the process millions of Muslims die, all the better – paradise has room for all the martyrs. Perhaps that is what the Mahdi is waiting for, that the entire world be drawn into a colossal Armageddon. He will certainly choose to appear surfing on waves of blood, blazing fire, and the billows of smoke of a radioactive world, and bring an end to the humiliation of Islam by the infidels and salvation to the world – a Muslim world free of Jews ruled by the laws of the Mahdi. Ahmadinejad truly believes that he is destined to hasten his coming.

Hezbollah is a Shiite organization whose name means “Party of Allah.” This name incorporates a patently Islamic idea – Hezbollah is actually the entire Islamic world, as all Muslims are Allah’s party, all Muslims are his nation, all Muslims are his army. The Hezbollah of Lebanon is avant-garde, the front line camp of Allah’s army and as such it fulfills the role of fighting against the front line of the Satan – Israel. This explains the demonological imagery that we see and hear on a daily basis in the Arab media outlets: Israel is the devil’s son, the “little Satan”; America, England and the Western world in general are the great Satan: that is to say, the ultimate negative force confronting Allah and the entire Muslim nation. The great Satan confronts the Great Hezbollah – the Islamic nation in its entirety. The little Lebanese Hezbollah confronts the little Satan.

If war is the only existing alternative in this part of the world (“agreements” are also part of it), the public justifiably asks: How long? And the answer is: Until the Muslims lose all hope of liquidating us, and that means forever. The Arabs and Islam in general will never be able to come to terms with the reality expressed in the simple question posed on a daily basis by one or another Muslim leader: How is it possible that a billion and a half Muslims, who control massive resources, cannot wipe out (another) six million Jews ensnared in a fifty-kilometer-wide death trap.

Anyone unwilling to understand that this is the reality with which we must live, and anyone unwilling to deal with it, does not belong in the Middle East – the old, cruel Middle East.

We must, therefore, return to classical warfare. Not a “small, smart army,” like the one suggested by Ehud Barak, the Prime Minister who brought the Party of God down on our heads, but a large regular army, emergency warehouses filled to capacity and beyond, a reserve-force trained and skilled to the utmost capability. A fundamental change of values, a reordering of national priorities: Everything for an offensive force, not a defensive one; a well-trained military force standing ready to attack with maximum force.

It is not against Lebanon that we should have fought this last war, but rather against Syria, Hezbollah’s patron and the link connecting Iran and Hezbollah. The airports, the fuel storage facilities, the dams on the Euphrates, the army headquarters, the missile systems and the presidential palaces all should have become heaps of ruins and the Israeli army should have been on the outskirts of Damascus. That could have been accomplished if Israel had a bold leadership which understood that the state is in a battle for survival. Iran, too, would certainly have begun thinking differently.

And another classical concept of warfare – strategic depth. The Six Day War for the first time provided Israel with limited strategic depth, until Oslo, when Israeli leaders relinquished it to Arafat’s gangs, whose declared aim is the destruction of Israel. However, the army retains control of the “killing area” of the Jordan Valley, and backed by the Jewish settlements it can control the mountain region. The foolish “disengagement” relinquished territories of the highest strategic importance in Gaza and exposed the country to missile terrorism, and now fools seek to cede the last remaining strategic assets in Judea and Samaria. If that were to happen, Israel would become a narrow coastal country, like the post-1187 Crusader state. In the recent war, the residents of the north fled to the center of the country. Where will the residents of Tel Aviv flee when not Katyushas, but merely primitive Kassams and mortars are fired upon the city from Samaria? Into the sea to fulfill the Arabs’ great dream?

A substitute for the strategic depth that we lost in Lebanon has not and will not be found. When the IDF fled Lebanon in 2000, proponents of the flight said that there would be no more fatalities in Lebanon. The price of remaining, they said, was too steep: 25 dead per year. In the present war, we have paid exorbitant interest in dead, wounded, disabled, and destruction for each of those six years.

And regarding the Palestinians. Here we must decisively do away with the notion of the Palestinian state. Not because of a “messianic” vision, as the opponents of Jewish settlement in the ancient Jewish mountain home of Judea and Samaria say, but rather because a Palestinian state which will control the coastal plain from the mountains is a surefire recipe for destruction. Therefore in the framework of reordering national priorities, settlement in the mountains should be established as a fundamental component right after rehabilitation of the military force. This is an existential need, not ambition of occupation or colonization as Israel’s enemies call it. A nation cannot “occupy” its own country.

Therefore, the nonsense of building a “security fence” should be halted and the billions saved should be earmarked for the army and for investment in other vital needs. A fighting nation does not hide behind a bizarre joke of cement and barbed wire fences. Even the Great Wall of China did not halt invaders.

Is there leadership in the State of Israel capable of facing the truth without fear, a far-sighted leadership, leadership that will develop Israeli might to an extent that its enemies will be forced to postpone the jihad against it indefinitely?

Is there leadership that will begin to establish fundamental values that are based on truth and not on empty fantasies that have humiliated the state and placed its very existence in danger?

Perhaps such leadership can be found after the stables have been cleaned out.

Moshe Sharon is Professor of Islamic History at the Hebrew University. This is excerpted from an article that appeared in the September 2006 Nativ.

MOSHE DANN

Despite warnings from the heads of Israel’s military and security forces that Hamas and Hezbollah are active throughout the West Bank, particularly in northern Samaria, and will turn the area into another Lebanon if Israel withdraws, Israeli leaders are planning to do just that.

Statements by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Amir Peretz that they will follow "The Road Map" (devised by the Quartet – which includes Russia, a major supplier of Iranian nuclear bomb-making facilities and Syrian/Hezbollah arms) are a clear indication that Jewish communities are once again on the chopping block.

Recent suggestions that unilateral withdrawal ("realignment," "convergence," etc) from Judea and Samaria are temporarily off the agenda apparently do not apply to all Jewish communities.

According to an official source in the Defense Minister's office, "illegal outposts," extensions of long-established Jewish communities and strategically located off-shoots that were built with government assistance, have been given demolition and evacuation notices and will be destroyed.

In preparation for the next stage of unilateral withdrawal Israeli police have also arrested Jewish "activists" throughout Judea and Samaria. No charges, no trials.

The IDF confirmed that "in cooperation with all Israeli security bodies,” it will “conduct...enforcement operations in regard to illegal settlements, according to decisions of the political echelon."

The IDF also confirmed that it had given restrictive orders and arrest warrants to Jewish residents "following the decision of the Minister of Defense and the Prime Minister." The orders were signed by Capt. Harel Weinberg, legal advisor to the military authority in the area, under General Yair Naveh.

A military source explained that these warrants "are given to law breakers who act violently towards Palestinians living in the area or security forces operating in the area." This includes those who have been involved in self-defense actions and other confrontations.

An example is Boaz Albert, who lived with his wife, Irit, and six children on "Hill 725," a neighborhood ("outpost") of Yitzhar with a half dozen families. On June 22 the police served him with orders prohibiting him from residing in Judea and Samaria. Since her husband's banishment, Irit has been living in her home alone with her children.

Why Albert? A year and a half ago, Albert, the security chief of Yitzhar, was resting at home one afternoon when an Arab "olive picker" broke into his home. Albert managed to wound the intruder, who ran away, but later died of his wounds. After a thorough investigation by police and the IDF, and media accusations of deliberate murder, Albert was cleared of all criminal charges. But the police suspect that he would try to resist the destruction of his home.

Ariel Gruner, who works with Honenu, a legal defense organization, and also lives on Hill 725 with his wife and child, was just released after serving two months in prison. Again, there was no trial and no charges.

Neriyah Ofen of Yitzhar was forbidden to be in his home for months – or face jail. Again no charges were filed.

The IDF refused to answer whether those who had been arrested or forced to leave their homes had been charged or suspected of any criminal activity.

Several actions against Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria were carried out during the Lebanese war and Prime Minister Olmert has indicated that his plans for unilateral withdrawal have been "postponed" but remain operative.

Recent rumors that the Ministry of Justice might consider "legalizing" some of the outposts slated for destruction have not been confirmed and most believe this to be an attempt by the government to throw opponents off balance.

Spokespeople for the outposts emphasize that the outposts guard the perimeters of larger communities and provide a first line of defense. Although the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel (www.leumi.org.il) has challenged the government's position that the outposts are "illegal," their status is uncertain.

All "outposts" have been built on state land or private land which was purchased or unclaimed. All were built with the supervision and assistance of local councils and the IDF.

Ironically, Israel, which has made every effort to respect and protect Arab property rights, ignores those of Jews. In the forefront of the fight against discrimination against Jews elsewhere, the Israeli government has enacted what appears to be an unjust policy in Judea and Samaria..

According to official figures, hundreds of thousands of illegal structures have been built by Arabs throughout Israel, including the “West Bank” -- tens of thousand in Jerusalem alone. Yet, few of them have been destroyed by the authorities.

In contrast, the government is following a policy in Judea and Samaria which can only be described as resolutely anti-Zionist.

Not only does this policy serve no purpose, it is a security risk. Muslim terrorists are able to establish themselves in Israel's heartland, depriving Israel of its strategic position and control of natural resources, especially water. Nearly everyone, from military experts to environmentalists predicts Israeli withdrawal will be disastrous.

Think we learned any lessons from Gaza and Lebanon? Think again.

Moshe Dann is a writer living in Jerusalem. He suggests sending protest letters

MELANIE PHILLIPS

You would barely know it in Britain, but France is currently under violent siege from the jihad — and buckling under the onslaught. The Daily Telegraph broke the almost total media silence in Britain about the horrifying violence going on across the English channel with this story about the fighting in the suburbs between Muslim youths and the police:

“Radical Muslims in France’s housing estates are waging an undeclared intifada against the police, with violent clashes injuring an average of 14 officers each day. As the interior ministry said that nearly 2,500 officers had been wounded this year, a police union declared that its members were ‘in a state of civil war’ with Muslims in the most depressed banlieue estates which are heavily populated by unemployed youths of North African origin. It said the situation was so grave that it had asked the government to provide police with armoured cars to protect officers in the estates, which are becoming no-go zones…

“Michel Thoomis, the secretary general of the hardline Action Police trade union, has written to Mr Sarkozy demanding that officers be given armoured cars in the most dangerous areas. He said yesterday: ‘‘We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists. This is not a question of urban violence any more, it is an intifada, with stones and Molotov cocktails.’”

It seems that other police officers, and other parts of French society, are still in a state of denial over what they are facing, insisting this is some kind of class war rather than what it really is, a religious war. They said the same thing about last year’s riots, ignoring clear signs of religious activism and incitement— along with the fact that the French government in desperation drafted Muslim Brotherhood imams into the banlieues to quell the disorder, thus giving the lie to the claim that these were merely “secular” disturbances, all about poverty and unemployment and other such sub-Marxist claptap. They were anything but; they were actually all about French Muslims declaring their turf to be no-go areas for the French state.

The Brussels Journal crisply gets to the point:

“Most observers in the mainstream media provide an occidentocentric analysis of the facts. They depict the ‘youths’ as outsiders who want to be brought into Western society and have the same rights as the natives of Old Europe. The mainstream media believe that the ‘youths’ are being treated unjustly because they are not a functioning part of Western society. They claim that, in spite of positive discrimination, subsidies, public services, schools, and all the provisions that have been made for immigrants over the years, access has been denied them.

“This is the Marxist rhetoric of the West that has been predominant in the media and the chattering classes since the 1960s. But it does not fit the facts of the situation in Europe today… Unlike their fathers, who came to France from Muslim countries, accepting that, whilst remaining Muslims themselves, they had come to live in a non-Muslim country, the rioters see France as their country. They were born here. This land is their land. And since they are Muslims, this land, or at least a part of it, is Muslim as well. The society they live in is a homogeneous Islamic one. For them that is society, there is no other. Consequently there is also no question of their ‘leaving’ that society to become part of another society, the putative Western one….

“Those media that tell us that the rioting ‘youths’ want to be a part of our society and feel left out of it, are misrepresenting the facts. As the insurgents see it, they are not a part of our society and they want us to keep out of theirs. The violence in France is in no way comparable with that of the blacks in the U.S. in the 1960s. The Paris correspondent of The New York Times who writes that this a ‘variant of the same problem’ is either lying or does not know what he is talking about. The violence in France is of the type one finds when one group wants to assert its authority and drive the others out of its territory.”

Meanwhile a French philosophy professor, Robert Redeker, has been in hiding for more than three weeks after being denounced on al Jazeera by [London Mayor] Ken Livingstone’s friend Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, following which he received death threats. His crime was to write an article in Le Figaro denouncing Islam as a religion of inherent violence, unlike Christianity or Judaism, and comparing Islamism to Soviet communism. The Brussels Journal (again) reports:

“In the article, which was published in the conservative daily Le Figaro of September 19th, Robert Redeker accused Islam of ‘exalting violence.’ Mr Redeker has not attended classes at his school near Toulouse since the article was published. Pierre Rousselin, the editor in chief of Le Figaro, apologized on Al-jazeera for the publication of the article. A number of Islamic countries, including Egypt, banned Le Figaro following the publication of Redeker’s piece. Mr Rousselin said the publication of the op-ed was a mistake. He said the article did not express the paper’s opinion. The article is no longer available on the Figaro website.

“Mr Redeker has written a letter to his friend, the philosopher André Glucksmann, describing his ordeal : ‘I am now in a catastrophic personal situation. Several death threats have been sent to me, and I have been sentenced to death by organizations of the al-Qaeda movement.…On the websites condemning me to death there is a map showing how to get to my house to kill me, they have my photo, the places where I work, the telephone numbers, and the death fatwa.…There is no safe place for me, I have to beg, two evenings here, two evenings there.…I am under the constant protection of the police…. And the authorities urge me to keep moving.…All costs are at my own expense...It’s quite sad. I exercised my constitutional rights, and I am punished for it, even in the territory of the Republic. This affair is also an attack against national sovereignty – foreign rules, decided by criminally minded fanatics, punish me for having exercised a constitutional right, and I am subjected, even in France, to great injury.’”

The Journal has also been reporting violence in Brussels, with three days of “Ramadan rioting” and prison officers having to receive police protection on their way to work because of attacks following the death of a Muslim prison inmate for which other Muslims blame the prison authorities. And now the violence is spiraling out into the political sphere:

“Belgian artists warn that a victory of the ‘islamophobic’ Vlaams Belang [Flemish Interest] party in the local elections on October 8th may lead to violence. In an interview in the Dutch-language weekly Knack Magazine this week painter Luc Tuymans says: ‘In the worst case you will get organized resistance, perhaps even rather violent reactions. I suspect many shop keepers will have their windows smashed. People do not seem to be aware, but a vote for the Vlaams Belang may have serious consequences. They should realize this before they take a final decision in the voting booth.’…

“Last week, self-declared ‘anti-fascist’ activists vandalized a car with Belgian license plates in Amsterdam. They mistook the vehicle for the car of Vlaams Belang politician Filip Dewinter. The car, however, belonged to a French businesswoman based in Brussels. VB politicians are often the victims of acts of vandalism, including arson attempts. Yesterday the party announced that it has established a fund to reimburse local candidates whose properties get damaged.”

Just across the channel, therefore, there is mayhem: a religious war, escalating violence and gross intimidation, supine or ineffectual public authorities locked into a state of denial, and a growing climate of political violence and anarchy. Yet apart from a small number of articles, the British media has barely registered these terrifying and most ominous events. It has been preoccupied with yet more evidence of its own deep confusion as it progressively allows itself to be cowed by Islamic extremism.

Melanie Phillips is a British journalist and author of the recent book Londonistan.

WILLEM VAN DER HOEVEN

You want Pope Benedict to apologize for having quoted a Byzantine Emperor for saying there is something inherently evil in the teachings of Islam in regard to Jihad and violence. You feel hurt and incensed; that these words are an attack upon your faith and prophet. But what about you again and again attacking the West and Israel, calling the U.S. the big Satan and Israel, small Satan, daring to call – and openly basing yourself on the teachings of the Quran – Jews and Christians pigs and monkeys! And you want the West to apologize for a Danish cartoon or a quote from the Pope when we have to suffer, not only your violent words but, what is far more serious, your violent acts of war and terror. It is not enough that Mohammed in his comparatively short lifetime waged more than forty wars and butchered thousands of Christians and Christian communities and Jews in order to spread the teachings of Islam.

Do you now have to show the world, by burning churches and murdering Christians – from the Phillippines to the Sudan, from Indonesia to Pakistan – that you apparently are still not a peaceful religion that believes in a merciful God? Not to speak of all the scorn, hatred and indiscriminate killings you heap upon God’s own people, the Jews, now back in the land that our God, the only true God, promised them as an everlasting possession.

And you make fun of this, our sincerely held belief, believed by millions of Jews and Christians – calling us pigs and monkeys – but giving yourself the right to burn synagogues, as you did in Gush Katif, and churches from Nablus to Nigeria, because we hurt your religious sensitivity.

It is to us that you owe an apology – and we should finally hear that you are sorry to have blasphemed our faiths, caused untold sufferings, rivers of tears through your Allah-inspired acts of inhumane terror, from Munich to the towers in New York, from the Metro in Madrid to the Metro in London, from the thousands of Christians in Sudan to the thousands of Jews in Israel, from the children in Ma’alot to the murdered children in Beslan, Chechnya, from the synagogues in Istanbul to the synagogues in Paris.

You claim Islam is really a peaceful religion and Allah all merciful. Then where is that peace and that mercy in the words I just heard from Ibrahim Mudeiris, one of the Imams of the Palestinian Authority who was caught in a recording and translated by Palestinian Media Watch?

“Israel is a cancer spreading through the body of the Islamic nation,” he raged. “And … the Jews are a virus resembling AIDS, from which the entire world suffers.

“You will find that the Jews were behind all the civil strife in this world. The Jews are behind the suffering of the nations. … It was the Jews who provoked Nazism to wage war against the entire world …

“We have ruled the world before, and by Allah, the day will come when we will rule the entire world again. The day will come when we will rule America. The day will come when we will rule Britain and the entire world…

“The day will come when everything will be relieved of the Jews - even the stones and trees which were harmed by them. Listen to the Prophet Muhammad, who tells you about the evil end that awaits Jews. The stones and trees will want the Muslims to finish off every Jew.”

And what about the words of Hamed Al-Tamimi, the director of the so-called Palestinian Authority’s Inter-Religious Dialogue Department, who recently unleashed a vicious attack on Christian Zionists for “carrying out their criminal activities against the Palestinian issue and the Palestinian people.”

Says Tamimi “The Zionist-Christian motivation, in addition to imperialist motivation, was behind the cursed Balfour Declaration--Balfour and Prime Minister Lloyd George were Christian Zionists…and the truth is we should not deny [that] these Crusader motivations stand [today] behind the British and American policy in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Arab and Muslim countries.

“They [Christian Zionists] are a group who adopted Satan as God who drives their crazy nature. They have praised depravity and cursed virtue, they have turned the moral scale upside down and have reached [a point] in which forgery, deception, and lying have turned into descriptions of world policy, which is led by Zionism on both its branches - the Jewish and the Christian."
And you still want an apology from us? We want one from you!

Jan Willem van der Hoeven is director of the International Christian Zionist Center.

RUTH KING

During the summer of 2005, cheered by both left and right, Israel would leave Gaza. Many saw the area as a drain on Israeli military forces and not crucial for Israel’s long term security. And doubters relied on Sharon: if he proposed it, then it must be right. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice gushed: “This is an historic moment for both sides, and the commitment of both sides to a successful disengagement process has been impressive.”

American philanthropists, buoyed by the possibility that Gaza’s Arabs would continue the prosperous agricultural businesses created by Jews (a major source of export income) purchased existing greenhouses from Jewish residents to give them to the Arabs. This would give the Arabs, who were ostensibly ready to get down to the business of disciplined self rule, a big economic boost. Inspired by this notion, Mortimer Zuckerman, a staunch supporter of Israel, inspired other moguls, not proven friends of Israel, to ante up $14,000,000 for this noble enterprise.

Just think, …the world would see how generous the Jews were…how flexible…..how devoted to peace. Global warming was just around the corner. Right? Well, not exactly. In short order the Arabs of Gaza ransacked, looted and destroyed the greenhouses. They turned their energies to more congenial enterprises, like digging tunnels for smuggling weapons and showering the village of Sderot with missiles. They elected the unapologetically terrorist Hamas one of whose leaders declared “The jihad and the resistance are the only ways to liberate our homeland, not negotiations and agreements.”

Nonetheless, the media quickly put out the spin that Hamas won because of its "humanitarian" work in providing food, shelter, band-aids and bubble gum to the Palestinian Arabs.

And while the administration tirelessly avers that the peaceful “Palestinian people” yearn only to live in a democratic state beside Israel, Ehud Yaari(Jerusalem Report, October 16) offers this sober assessment of the facts on the ground in Gaza. (Yaari, author of Toward Israeli-Palestinian Disengagement is currently an associate of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, hardly a right-wing group.)

“…..an unprecedented arms-acquisition effort is under way in the Gaza Strip. Close to 20 tons of standard explosives have been smuggled in since Israel withdrew last summer. Thousands of RPG grenade launchers and large quantities of rifles, pistols and grenades are coming in through the tunnels under the Philadelphia Route, separating the Strip from Egypt. Several Katyusha rocket launchers, like those used by Hezbollah against northern Israel, are already in the hands of Hamas and other terror groups. It is only a matter of time before they also get hold of shoulder-launched anti-aircraft rockets and, even more troubling, third generation anti-tank missiles, like the Russian Koronet. Such weaponry will enable the terrorists to effectively target vehicles and structures 3-4 kms. inside Israel, and not to have to depend on their primitive high-trajectory Qassam rockets. Also under way is a feverish campaign to dig tunnels into Israel under the security barrier around the Strip, with the aim of facilitating terror attacks in Israel.”

For those in the Bush administration (and elsewhere) who propose more peace processing by propping up Abbas, Yaariv offers this caution:

“Fatah is not on the way back to power….Abbas and his Fatah cohorts are doing their best to hang on to their power and privileges, but they lack the momentum and the determination to go onto the offensive against Hamas….In fact, Hamas is gradually penetrating the security apparatuses that were the heart of the Arafatian regime and which are rapidly ceasing to function in the West Bank....At most, Fatah will manage to survive as the junior partner to Hamas or, perish the thought, its fig leaf.“

In spite of the evidence of a colossal failure in Gaza, on October 11 Madame Secretary Rice delivered this assessment at the inaugural dinner of the American Task Force on Palestine, a new Arab advocacy group. "For decades, Hamas dwelled in the shadows, able to hijack the future of all Palestinians at will, without ever having to answer for its actions. Today, however, the Palestinian people and the international community can hold Hamas accountable. And Hamas now faces a hard choice that it has always sought to avoid: Either you are a peaceful political party, or a violent terrorist group — but you cannot be both.”

Well dear Secretary Madeleine Powell Rice, it is risible to believe that Hamas has any intention of being “a peaceful political party.” Indeed, you diminish President Bush who, on the same day, in his own address to the nation, spoke of the dangers in leaving Iraq abruptly….the betrayal of allies who want democratic co-existence; the creation of a void to be filled by terrorists; the bad example it would set for our enemies. Just substitute the words West Bank for Iraq and his words apply to Israel. President Bush says he will not cut and run. And on the very same day you urge Israel to cut and run.

Hamas has made and declared its choice and all the hot air about Arab democracy has not brought any global warming at all…..anywhere.