Sderot Now, Tel Aviv Tomorrow
Herbert Zweibon

From the Editor
Rael Jean Isaac

Winogradation
William Mehlman

Say Goodbye, Shas
David Isaac

Muslim Immigration: America’s Biggest National Security Problem
Debbie Schlussel

The EU and Islamization of Europe
Fjordman

Dr. William Eugene Blackstone
Ruth King

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

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Herbert Zweibon

On February 17 a Kassam rocket exploded near a preschool in Sderot sending several people into shock. A week earlier two brothers, Rami and Osher Twito, were on an errand to buy after-shave lotion for their father’s birthday when a Kassam struck, leaving both boys lying in a pool of blood and severing 8 year old Osher’s leg. In one four day period over 150 rockets exploded in Sderot and its surroundings. Nor are the citizens of Israel being targeted “settlers”—they live within the 1949 Green Line, an area not the subject of negotiations, that not even the most appeasement minded Israeli would call “occupied territory.”

Desperate, people from Sderot demonstrate in front of the Prime Minister’s Office, pitch tents before the Supreme Court, block the main entrance to Jerusalem, close the main entry road to Tel Aviv, anything to draw attention to their plight.

As Sderot teeters close to collapse, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert worries not about the lives of his people but that he might be impelled to do something. “I am fending off heavy pressure to launch a major ground operation in Gaza” he told Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik. His government does virtually nothing to perform its most basic task: protecting the security of its citizens. Yet as legal scholar Abraham Bell points out, under international law the right to self-defense authorizes Israel to initiate military action in Gaza, regardless of whether or not it is seen as having independent sovereignty.

The Olmert government’s behavior is yet worse: it holds the people of Sderot hostage. Over 20% of the population has left and fearful of projecting an image of defeat, the government seeks to impel the rest to remain. It refuses to help those with mortgages to leave (under current conditions no one will rent or buy) and thousands living in public housing are in the same predicament, refused alternative accommodation elsewhere. Israel Schwartz, deputy director-general of the Housing Ministry, is candid: “Assisting Sderot residents and the Gaza envelope pay the rent is akin to declaring the evacuation of settlements.”

Not realizing what lay ahead, the residents of Sderot were passive when the Sharon government forfeited their security by destroying the Jewish communities of Gaza. At present the Olmert government is preparing a similar fate for the residents of Jerusalem, Haifa, Tel Aviv and the entire coastal plain. It is negotiating the transfer of Judea and Samaria and much of Jerusalem to Fatah. What happens when the terrorists control the high ground of Judea and Samaria? What happens when a missile brings down an airplane flying into or out of Ben Gurion airport? Can there be any doubt that every single airline, with the single possible exception of El Al, will cease flying to Israel? What then happens to Israel’s vaunted economy? And what happens—remember that Israel is a mere nine miles wide at its waist—when missiles fall on Netanya or Nahariya or Tel Aviv? The exodus of Jews that Arafat foresaw will become a rapid reality, as those who can most easily leave—Israel’s most productive citizens—will rush for the exits, even as many of those who can leave, now flee Sderot.

Noting that Sderot has put the government’s ability to protect its citizens to the test, Eeki Elner, who directs the Center for Leadership in Sderot, writes: “The collapse of Sderot would mark the Zionist vision’s collapse. It constitutes the collapse of what is left of the trust in our national leaders. It would be the collapse of our hope and faith in our right to cling to our land.”

The government’s failure to protect the most populated parts of Israel—indeed its willful turning of Israel’s heartland into a target for terrorists—will surely spell the total collapse of the Zionist vision.

Will the Jews of Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem wake up like the Jews of Sderot – when it is too late?

Rael Jean Isaac

An Independent Kosovo

It’s not often we side with Russia and China but in ignoring Serbia’s legitimate claims to Kosovo (legally part of Serbia and the cradle of its civilization) and promoting another Moslem state in the Balkans, the Bush administration is taking a step profoundly inimical to the interests of the U.S., the West and international stability. It has split the EU, with countries like Spain, worried about its own Basque separatists, opposing recognition. Needless to say, the 57 country Organization of the Islamic Conference is enthusiastic—which should be enough in itself to give the West pause. EU foreign ministers supportive of Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence drafted a statement declaring this a “one-off,” which shouldn’t set a precedent elsewhere. But of course it will set a precedent, encouraging geographically concentrated ethnic minorities to follow in the Kosovo Liberation Army’s footsteps, using violence and the threat of violence to achieve their aims.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the EU was eager to close the book on “two decades of violence and conflict and strife” in the western Balkans. For Miliband and anyone else who thinks this will foster stability or multi-cultural harmony in the Balkans, there’s a bridge for sale in Brooklyn. On the contrary, George Friedman asserts in the Stratfor Intelligence newsletter, the U.S. and the EU are tossing out the principle that has formed the basis for European stability since World War II, namely that outside powers cannot redefine recognized international boundaries, which can be changed only through mutual agreement.

On the truly important issues—reining in Iran’s nuclear weapons program, putting pressure on North Korea to live up to its commitments—the U.S. will have undercut such ability as it had to obtain Russian and Chinese cooperation. Indeed the Russians could well step up support for Iran as a response to the West’s ignoring what Russia has defined as a fundamental interest. And for what purpose is the U.S. recognizing Kosovo’s independence? As a Washington Times editorial (Feb. 19) noted, the Kosovo Liberation Army (whose veterans are bound to assume a major role in an independent Kosovo) was among the first international terror groups linked to al Qaeda in the late 1990s, its members training at al Qaeda training camps. Lawlessness and terrorism are likely to fester inside an independent Kosovo, an economic basket case rife with mafia-style criminal gangs, drug running and corruption, just like adjoining Moslem Albania. In the clash of civilizations, the U.S. has just struck a blow for the other side.

As for the frequently cited bromide that the Kosovars are “moderate Moslems,” Israeli Knesset member Aryeh Eldad reminds us that “it was from these moderate Moslems that Haj Amin El-Husseini gathered tens of thousands of volunteers for the 13th SS Division (Handschar) and 21st SS Division (Skanderbeg).” On them he built his dream of marching with Hitler’s armies into Palestine and destroying the Jews of (then) Palestine.

For Israel, the implications are ominous. In the December 2007 Outpost, we quoted a paper published by the Begin-Sadat center: “The theory that outside powers can award part of a state’s sovereign territory to a violent ethnic or religious minority would put in question not only Judea and Samaria…but even such areas as the southern Galilee and parts of the Negev, where non-Jews have, or may eventually acquire, local majorities.”

Going further, Israel Harel, writing in Haaretz (Feb. 21), says “Kosovo is already here.” He notes that in Galilee the Arabs are already a majority, with Jews steadily leaving the area since the Arab riots of October 2000, which cut off access to Jewish communities there. Similarly in the Negev, Harel writes, “the Bedouin are taking over large stretches of land almost without hindrance….This inertia will probably continue, with the Zionist state financing…a population that is de facto establishing a Palestinian state within the sovereign State of Israel—separate, of course, from the Palestinian state that the Arabs are pushing for in Judea and Samaria.”

Serbia at least has Russia and China backing her claims to Kosovo, which has meant the UN, where they exercise veto power, could not be used as an instrument for giving legitimacy to Kosovo’s independence. With the U.S. now endorsing the principle that a local majority trumps recognized boundaries, Israel in future could find itself cut into small ribbons by a unanimous Security Council.

By Those They Honor…

Last month we reported that Israel’s Emet Prize went to Israel-defamer Avishai Margalit. This month there is yet worse to report: Israel’s highest prestige prize, the Israel prize, went to Ze’ev Sternhell of the Hebrew University, whom the judges described as “one of the leading scholars in the field of political since the year was not yet one month old) came from the English Daily Mail: “Government Renames Islamic Terrorism as ‘Anti-Islamic Activity’ to Woo Moslems.” As Steyn notes, “Her Majesty’s Government is engaging not merely in Orwellian Newspeak but in self-defeating Orwellian Newspeak. The broader message it sends is that ours is a weak culture so unconfident and insecure that if you bomb us and kill us our first urge is to find a way to flatter and apologize to you.”

Then there’s the Archbishop of Canterbury who argued that sharia law should be given equal status with English law in Britain, with people being allowed to choose which system they wanted. To quote Melanie Phillips: “The implications of this are simply staggering. One law for all is the very basis of legal and social justice and is the glue that binds a society together….To enable people to chop and choose between jurisdictions would destroy the unitary nature of British society and fragment the country.”

While the Archbishop later denied he said what he said, Anne Applebaum, writing in The New York Sun, asserts the actual speech was even worse than the way it was reported. Despite an initial firestorm of complaints, the establishment closed ranks, not against sharia law, but around the Archbishop.

The more flaccid English politicians become, the more British Moslems flex their muscles. The (London) Sunday Telegraph of February 3 reports that female Moslem medical students are challenging a new Department of Health hygiene rule designed to stop the spread of deadly superbugs. At several hospitals they are refusing to roll up their sleeves when washing their hands on the grounds this is regarded as immodest in Islam. The Islamic Medical Association has come to their support: “No practicing Muslim woman—doctor, medical student, nurse or patient – should be forced to bare her arms below the elbow.”

By Their Friends

If societies reveal their values by those they honor, a man can be judged in part by his friends. Take The New Yorker’s star investigative reporter (and defamer of Israel) Seymour Hersh. Ibrahim Mousawi, editor of Hezbollah’s Alintiqad weekly newspaper declares: “I have many Jewish friends around the world, such as Stanley Cohen and Seymour Hersh.” Hersh, who sees himself as a brave iconoclast, recently appeared on Al Jazeera to cater tamely to the Moslem world’s paranoid conviction that Jews control U.S. policy. He declared that Hamas wanted peaceful coexistence and as for U.S. policy on Israel “it’s very hard you know, in America there’s just no questioning. The American Jewish influence is enormous. There’s a lot of money.”

A Photo Speaks

We are accustomed on television to seeing the accused, bent over, often with a hood over his shamefaced head, being marched off by the police. Nothing better captures the triumph of Moslem terrorists in Europe than this photo. Accused terrorist Mohammad Ayub walks bare-faced, head high, while the Spanish police, fearful of identification by their captive’s terror cohorts, hide their faces behind ski-masks.

William Mehlman

“Confused? So are we,” read the headline of an article by Ha’aretz reporters Amos Harel and Avi Isaacharov a day after the release of the Winograd Committee’s 600-page final assessment of the Olmert government’s handling of the Second Lebanese War.

So are we all. For deep within the innards of an exhaustive discovery brief simmering with condemnation of the failure of strategic purpose, preparation, organization and execution--military and political–that marked Israel’s conduct of the 34-day conflict in 2006 was a statement that seemed to defy all rational explanation. It clearly, however, wasn’t one that was going to escape public scrutiny, because it rubbed up against the most controversial aspect of the war–its final 60 hours. It was in those closing hours, in the face of an imminent UN cease fire, that the IDF, allegedly on orders from the government, launched a ground offensive against deeply rooted Hezbollah forces in south Lebanon that resulted in the death of 33 soldiers. The storm raised by the families of the 33, their charge that their sons and husbands were sacrificed to a vain effort by the Olmert government to enhance its bargaining position and repair its shattered military image in advance of the cease fire, has been the emotional fulcrum of the case against the government’s conduct of the war.

Winograd’s verdict on this issue was a stunner. Conceding that the offensive “did not achieve any military objective” and further conceding that “the manner in which the ground operation was conducted raises the most difficult of questions,” the Committee nevertheless concluded that “the desire to improve Israel’s military position constituted reasonable political justification for the ground invasion.” These considerations, it additionally averred, not only “required, or at least justified, the continuation of the planned military step, if there was a reasonable operational expectation that it would achieve the goals in the period of time remaining,” they actually dictated “a practically essential decision.”

But how, Harel and Isaacharov argued in their analysis of this exercise in double-talk, could a time-frame circumscribed by an onrushing UN cease fire have rendered the launching of a major ground operation a “practically essential decision?” To a query by Public Security Minister Avi Dichter at an August 9, 2006 cabinet meeting as to whether there was the remotest chance of degrading Hezbollah’s Katyusha capacity in the time left to the army, IDF Chief of General Staff Dan Halutz was reported to have replied: “We can conduct a four-day campaign, but it doesn’t serve any purpose.”

Why is this the case? Winograd, in a contradiction it has yet to resolve, supplied the answer in its April 2007 interim report. The execution of the IDF’s military plan, the Committee wrote, would have required four days simply to take over Hezbollah’s fortifications south of the Litani River. It would have taken another 4-6 weeks to “cleanse” the area. The Committee concluded in its interim report that “a reduction of the timetable to 60 hours made the move unrealistic in terms of the necessary achievement.”

So how, in the nine months between the interim and final reports of the Winograd Committee, did the “unrealistic” become “a practically essential decision?”

The answer lies deep within the tangled roots of the Israeli judicial system and the Olmert government’s efforts to obfuscate it.

To begin with, it needs to be understood that the Winograd Committee has no juirisdictional powers under Israeli law. It was selected and appointed by the prime minister in place of the independent State Commission of Inquiry that should have been enjoined to examine the prosecution of Lebanon II. A state commission would have had the authority to use its findings to institute court proceedings. That’s what the IDF reservists and most of the country wanted. That’s what the Olmert government was determined not to let happen.

What the government failed to anticipate was that its five Winograd Committee members, under the compulsion of evidential discovery, might begin to behave like something other than benevolent allies. Indeed, with the Committee’s witnesses unfettered by judicial restraints and guaranteed the right to speak their minds without fear of their names appearing in the next day’s newspapers, Winograd’s April 2007 verdict on the conduct of the war was so clear, frank and pointedly personal that Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Chief of General Staff Dan Halutz saw no alternative but to resign. Suddenly the government’s anticipated slap on the wrist from a quintet of aging good-ole-boys had turned into a shot to the solar plexus. Olmert managed to hold off his own exit, but the heat on him had the 911 bells ringing.

The prime minister’s fire brigade responded with a legal maneuver sprung out of a modern Machiavellian playbook. Cutting the legs out from under his own committee, Olmert got Israel’s deputy attorney general and IDF Solicitor General Col. Orna David to file petitions to the Israeli Supreme Court for a ruling that would prohibit Winograd from issuing any further conclusions or recommendations pertaining to the personal responsibility of any member of the government for the conduct of the war. In compliance with the petitions, the High Court dutifully ruled that the publication of such conclusions and recommendations would, under article 15 of the Israel State Commission’s Inquiry Law, require Winograd to dispatch “letters of caution” to any and all individuals named, informing them that they could be damaged by the Committee’s findings and granting them and their lawyers the right to respond and cross-examine the witnesses against them. Such a procedure might have tied Winograd in knots for years, which is exactly what the Olmert team wanted. As anticipated, the Committee backed off.

With one bold stroke, Olmert had managed to load onto the back of his handpicked Winogradians all the legal baggage of the State Commission of Inquiry he had refused to appoint, but only after having first denuded Winograd of the authority a state commission would have had to initiate court action based on the evidence it produced.

The considerations that prompted this frantic legal ploy could not have been more transparent. There is no prima facie evidence of political or diplomatic motivation behind the government’s ordering of ground forces into south Lebanon in the waning hours of the war. That would have amounted to a criminal act. But even an investigation of the charges leveled by the IDF reservists and the bereaved families might have been enough to send the Kadima coalition packing. It had to be stopped, even at the cost of explaining how a military operation without the slightest rhyme or reason evolved into “a practically essential decision.” The April 2007 interim Winograd report provided the exit cues for Amir Peretz and Dan Halutz. The defanged January 2008 final report left Ehud Olmert at center stage.

Predictably, the Olmert camp wasted no time wrapping itself in the perceived absolution of the hamstrung Winograd findings. Having already informed the nation that “I have no intention of letting go, no matter the political costs,” the prime minister’s crediting the Committee with “lifting the moral stigma from me” was as fine a blend of sanctimony and sophistry as Israeli politics has ever witnessed. His aides could barely restrain their glee. “The report exonerates Olmert,”. a smirking Vice Premier Haim Ramon shouted at reporters. Another demanded that the prime minister’s critics “apologize” to him.

Ramon could have saved his breath in calling on Defense Minister Ehud Barak to “show national responsibility” and continue to grace the Kadima coalition with his 19 Labor Party seats. Barak had already given every indication he was going to renege on two separate promises he’d made last summer to quit the government and force new elections unless the final Winograd Report resulted in Olmert’s resignation. It took him five days to confirm what everybody suspected. Ducking a press conference, Barak casually let drop to a handful of reporters grouped outside the government’s weekly cabinet meeting that he had decided to remain defense minister. “Because I know what challenges Israel faces: Gaza, Hizbollah, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, rehabilitating the army and the diplomatic process,” he said, “I have decided to do what’s right for the nation and this is right for the nation.”

Barak’s clumsy effort to save face the following day with a vow to “find the right time in the not too distant future to topple the government” went over like a lead balloon. None were more distressed than veteran members of his own party. Labor secretary Elie Cabel gave up his cabinet seat in protest. MK Danny Yatom said he would either quit politics altogether or spend the rest of the Knesset term voting against the coalition. MK Yoram Marciano excoriated Barak for avoiding a direct confrontation with the press and Ophir Pines-Pines accused him of abandoning his pledge to quit the coalition out of fear of an election that might return Likud head Benjamin Netanyahu to power. “Whoever is afraid of Netanyahu and serving in the opposition,” he thundered, “will never get to power.” Declaring herself “sickened by the relentless celebrations” over Winograd in the Olmert camp, MK Shelly Yachimovich, the fire-eating former TV news commentator, convened a meeting of the Labor Party dissidents in her Tel Aviv apartment to coordinate strategy for a battle against the coalition.

While Barak continued to avoid the Knesset and recriminations over his reneging on a pledge that would have rid Israel of the most unpopular government in its history, the prime minister, ignoring repeated interruptions from the bereaved families and heckling from opposition MKs, left and right, told a plenum packed with spectators (the IDF reservists were barred) that he took “full responsibility for the failures” [exposed by Winograd] and would “use this responsibility to fix the faults, implement the recommendations and jump-start the changes.” In respect to which, Netanyahu had earlier remarked, “Who would want to offer the captain of the Titanic a second command?”

The prime minister’s associates were effusive in their praise of Ehud Barak for his gift of “nine months of political quiet” in backing off on his threat to torpedo the coalition. “There is no problem in the coalition anymore,” one of them remarked. “If there’s a diplomatic deal that includes Jerusalem in November, there will be problems, but until then there will be only minor setbacks ...This government will last longer than all the prophets predicted.”

The Olmert government’s “nine months of political quiet” lasted about 72 hours. It ended with a thunderclap of incredulity produced by interviews in Ma’ariv and The Jerusalem Post with Yehezkel Dror, one of the five members of the Winograd Committee.

The 80 year-old founder and president of the Jerusalem’s Jewish People Policy Planning Institute threw the political scene into turmoil and the integrity of the Winograd Report into question by indicating that its failure to hold the prime minister’s feet closer to the fire may have been influenced by a desire to shield the “peace process” from a governmental collapse. Dror’s subsequent strenuous denial that Winograd’s judgments were skewed by political considerations wilted before the statements he served up to the press.

"We must think of the consequences,” he remarked in the Ma’ariv interview. “Who would you prefer, a government led by Olmert and Barak or new elections that will give rise to a government led by Netanyahu?”

While Netanyahu declined comment on the remark, a senior Likud official considered it sufficiently grave to warrant a full new investigation of the conduct of Lebanon II. “It’s not just Dror’s comments in the papers,” he asserted, “it’s the statements made in the report itself which are concerning.” Pointing to Winograd’s Article 64, stipulating that Israel must establish peace with its neighbors, the Likud official exclaimed: “Who authorized the Committee to make political statements?”

At another point in The Jerusalem Post interview Dror averred that “Israelis considering Ehud Olmert’s resignation” over the handling of Lebanon II, should “balance assessments of his performance against the fate of the peace process and whether new elections would disrupt it. This is a matter for subjective judgment.” He underscored this by telling the interviewer, “Let me state in the interest of full disclosure: I am personally for the peace process. You should know I’m for it…”

Dror was just as frank about his feelings toward public opinion and his view of who should be calling the shots for Israel. “Should a head of government resign because public opinion polls show he is distrusted?” he asked “The answer is no. Because it is a populistic business and I don’t have such a high opinion of public opinion. I am an elitist. Eighty percent of the critical decisions affecting Israel are shaped by 100 or 200 people, 300. These are my clients. These are the people I want to read the report and discuss it.”

The shock waves generated by Dror’s remarks and their impact on the credibility of the Winograd report have reverberated across the political spectrum, “If a member of the [Winograd] Committee claims that the considerations that guided him pertained to who could bring peace and who would be prime minister,” Likud MK Silvan Shalom declared, “this calls for a state commission of inquiry.” On the other side of the divide Meretz Chairman Yossi Beilin let it be known that his support of the peace process was not to be translated into condoning the use of the issue by any Winograd member to color his judgment. “The question regarding the prime minister’s ability to promote peace should not have been considered by members of a public committee of inquiry appointed to investigate the war’s failings,” Beilin averred. “This is an issue that the political parties and the public should decide. If this was indeed taken into consideration by the Committee, then it has lost its legitimacy.”

Whether the Knesset State Control Committee exercises its power to order a full state commission investigation into the conduct of Lebanon II will ultimately depend on how much weight it assigns to the influence concerns for the peace process and the prime minister’s future might have exerted on Winograd’s findings. “We need to examine the [Winograd] Report and question its judges before any further steps are taken,” said National Union-National Religious Party MK Zevulun Orlev, the Knesset committtee’s chairman. Orlev made it clear that the first person he’ll be summoning for interrogation is Yehezkel Dror. “We will hear what he has to say and ask our own questions to determine if his decision was influenced,” the chairman remarked. “If he says anything similar to what was stated in Ma’ariv, we will have no choice but to ask for a State Commission of Inquiry that will investigate the personal recommendations issued against the political echelon.”

At this writing, an uncharacteristic silence has settled on the Olmert camp. If it’s a change of subject they’re banking on, the only one on the horizon is the growing likelihood of a ground operation into Gaza, one whose long delayed implementation is certain to be measured in increased IDF casualties. With an eight year-old boy lying in hospital with one and possibly both of his legs sacrificed to a Hamas rocket, the cries from Sderot can no longer be ignored. Winograd and its implications will not go gently into the night but it may in the end stand only as marker on the road to a shattering political upheaval.

William Mehlman represents AFSI in Israel and is co-editor of the internet magazine ZionNet.net.

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David Isaac

I kinda gotta figure out what I need (oh)
There's never a right time to say goodbye
But we know that we gotta go
Our separate ways
And I know it's hard but I gotta do it,
And it's killing me
Cause there's never a right time
Right time to say goodbye
-“Say Goodbye,” Chris Brown

Pop singer Chris Brown is only 19-years-old but he’s a lot wiser than the purportedly nationalist Shas party, which can’t figure out that the right time to say goodbye to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was a long time ago.

In early February, The Jerusalem Post broke a story revealing that Olmert’s foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, was holding secret talks and had made concessions on Jerusalem.

In an echo of the secret talks held by Yossi Beilin that led to the Oslo Accords and so much misery, the Post quoted a Palestinian Authority official, who said, "There are public meetings and there are secret ones. … The main progress has been achieved during the secret talks, particularly on the issue of Jerusalem. Today we can say that Israel is prepared to withdraw from almost all the Arab neighborhoods and villages in Jerusalem. Israel is prepared to re-divide Jerusalem, and this is a positive development."

Shas Chairman Eli Yishai, who serves as Trade and Labor minister, warned that if the story were true his party would pull out of the coalition. "If it is true, Shas will leave the government," Yishai stated flatly. "If secret negotiations begin tomorrow, we are leaving."

Olmert and Livni at first denied it, saying there were no secret channels on Jerusalem. “It is clear to all of the sides that the issue of Jerusalem will be the last issue on the agenda with the Palestinians," Olmert said.

Their denial quickly conflicted with statements by the Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator, Ahmed Qurei, who said that Jerusalem was indeed on the table, putting Israel’s government in the awkward position of being less truthful than a terrorist entity.

A number of other PA figures gleefully chimed in. One said in an interview that Jerusalem "is not only on the table, it's also under the table." Meanwhile, Yishai was surprised to learn of the high number of meetings Livni had with Qurei. Wait, they’re meeting Monday and Tuesday?

Then, in response to a letter from a Jerusalem city council opposition leader demanding to know what the hell was going on, Livni replied bizarrely that she wouldn’t discuss what was being discussed with Qurei as "until there is an accord on every issue there will be no accord on any issue and that the contents of the negotiations must not be disclosed." However, "you cannot conclude anything from my lack of response and the absence of a denial is not any form of confirmation."

Huh?

This is the point where any self-respecting Shas Chairman (we can’t think of any but if there were) would click onto iTunes, call up Olmert and play Chris Brown into the receiver. Maybe throw in Gordon Jenkins singing, “So long, it’s been good to know ya,” for good measure.

Instead, Yishai decided that two can play at that game. Hey, we are the People of the Book. So he engaged in his own little wordplay, only more efficiently, swapping out the word “begin,” as in, when negotiations on Jerusalem begin, for “continue,” as in, “If negotiations on Jerusalem continue, Shas will immediately leave the government.” That was his statement to an American audience in Jerusalem.

The verbal gymnastics remind this writer of a signature line from “Yes, Prime Minister,” the popular British sitcom from the ’80s, which also happened to be Margaret Thatcher’s favorite show. Paul Eddington, the actor who played the show’s PM to perfection, when pressed as to when exactly he would fulfill this or that promise would reply, “In the fullness of time… when the moment is ripe… at the appropriate juncture.”

It meant never.

Nationalist groups are shouting at Shas to get out. Even Shas’s own Council of Torah Sages says quit. But it ain’t easy going cold turkey when you’re hooked on the government hand-outs that come with being part of the ruling coalition. Shas, a highly religious outfit, probably holds a contemptuous view of Israel’s secular establishment. It doesn’t look at Israel’s government as, well, a government so much as it does a bank account. And what idiot quits a bank account?

The problem for Shas is that it doesn’t want to go and speaks disingenuously because it feels it must pay lip service to its “principles”. Why not admit the truth? If you’re not going to stand up, you might as well give up. If you can’t “Say Goodbye,” Avalon’s “I Don’t Want To Go” ought to do it.

So come whatever,
(Whatever may come)
I'll stick with you.
(Right by your side)
I'll walk, you'll lead me,
Call me crazy or a fool,
For forever I promise you...

David Isaac is a free-lance writer living in California.

Debbie Schlussel

While Presidential candidates debate which is best for our national security—staying in Iraq or leaving, beefing up troops in other spots of the world or bringing them home—the biggest national security threat is already inside our borders: Muslim immigrants.

The problem is that America not only sets no real limits on the number of Muslims allowed into our country, but also does a poor job—if any—of screening these individuals for terrorist background. Even when such screening is done, there is no real way to verify that the applicant is who he/she says he is. There have been many instances of terrorist suspects (and some who’ve been convicted) whose identities aren’t certain. They’ve given several different names in order to enter and stay in the U.S. And we don’t really know who they are.

Last year, a man who was given U.S. citizenship was convicted of spying on our troops on behalf of Al-Qaeda. A contractor, he served as a translator for our military in the Middle East, and passed on classified information about their movements in Iraq to Al-Qaeda insurgents. It led to ambushes and murders of our troops. I call the man Mr. Al-X because we’re not sure what this man’s name really is. He used the following names in gaining entry, citizenship, and access to classified information in his job with our armed forces: Noureddine Malki, Almaliki Nour, Abu Hakim, and Abdulhakeem Nour. One wonders which of these names will be on Mr. Al-X’s prison ID and which one or more of these aliases he will use after he serves his sentence in Federal Prison.

So, how does a man like Mr. Al-X, who professed support for Al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks, get to stay in the U.S., become a citizen and get access to U.S. Army classified info?

Well, there isn’t much of a check of backgrounds of any applicants for green cards and citizenship, also known as “immigration benefits.” Michael Maxwell, the former Director of Security for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said that his former department spends, on average, less than six minutes looking into the background of every applicant. That doesn’t account for bathroom, smoking, and lunch breaks, which cut down on that time.

And until recently, during those less than six minutes USCIS employees were not allowed access to FBI terrorism databases against which to check to see if green card and citizenship applicants were on those lists. That wasn’t because the FBI didn’t grant access. It was because USCIS didn’t want employees who serve as immigration benefits adjudicators to spend time looking on these lists. Instead, the department gave monetary bonuses to employees to rubberstamp applications forward toward citizenship and discouraged any careful examinations or any significant number of rejections of applicants. Worse, even in those cases where immigration fraud was suspected or some other red flag was raised, about 80% of the cases referred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) by USCIS are turned down by ICE. Because those cases are not investigated, that means that 4 out of every 5 applicants for which immigration officials believe there are serious fraud or national security issues are approved for green cards and citizenship.

And even in cases where a thorough check of applicants was scheduled, those applicants are now being rushed through for citizenship. In February of this year, pursuant to a lawsuit brought by activists in the pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the U.S. government announced that 47,000 immigration applications will skip the FBI background check against terrorist and other criminal databases. That’s because the government wants to “eliminate the backlog.” But the fact that most of these 47,000 individuals have been living here before they got such a background check is also frightening. We don’t know if these people are dangerous, but they’re in our midst.

Then, there is the other neglected issue of visa violators. While President Bush made a deal with Saudi King Abdullah to bring thousands of Saudi students per year to American colleges and universities, one of the biggest problems in the illegal alien population are those who’ve violated their visas by not leaving when their visa expired, or not abiding by the terms of the visa—such as working in an agricultural or high-tech capacity.

The San Jose Mercury News recently reported that 400,000 Indian nationals are here illegally and in violation of their H-1B visas because they are no longer working for high tech companies that brought them here. There is speculation that many of these 400,000 are Muslim Indians or other Muslims who are really from Bangladesh. Mahmud Abuhalima, one of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, was here on an agricultural worker visa. But he was, instead, driving a taxi on the streets of New York, where not much crop-picking happens. But at that time the INS (like ICE now) did not put a priority on locating and deporting such visa violators who do not show up for work or school. Instead, the focus at ICE is on raiding meat-packing plants and employers where the illegal alien employees are mostly far less harmful Hispanic Catholics. So Muslim students and workers who disappear into our midst remain there, largely off the radar screen. Even when they are located and deported, if they had children, those kids have birthright citizenship and can remain here.

Finally, it’s important to come full circle to the issue of Muslim immigrants who’ve cleared every background check and are here legitimately. They bring with them their culture, mores, and intolerance (including a virulent anti-Semitism), but unlike other alien populations, most do not bring with them the desire to absorb into American culture. Instead, they want America to absorb into them and their ways. That’s why honor killings of Muslim American women are occurring with some frequency, as are female genital mutilations, violence, and food stamp and Medicaid fraud scams.

While all of these aspects of lax immigration are frightening, what’s even more frightening is that not a single person in contention for the White House has announced any intention to ever address them. And that’s why we may, in future generations, not have to worry about fighting Islamic terrorists. They will reach critical mass through their high birthrate and legal and illegal immigration. Then they can take over democratically.

Debbie Schlussel is a political commentator, radio talk show host, columnist, and attorney.

Fjordman

I've suggested in the past that the EU is the principal motor behind the Islamization of Europe, and that the entire organization needs to be dismantled; otherwise nothing substantial can ever be done about the Muslim invasion.

As Bat Ye'or demonstrates in her book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, senior EU leaders have actively been working for years to merge Europe with the Arab world. They are now feeling confident enough to say this openly. The British Foreign Minister David Miliband in November 2007 stated that the European Union should work towards including Middle Eastern and North African countries, as this would "extend stability." He also said that the EU must "keep our promises to Turkey" regarding EU membership.

The EU involves the free movement of people across borders. If it expands to the Middle East, hundreds of millions of Muslims will have free access to Germany, Italy, France, Britain, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Austria. If Turkey becomes a member, it means that Greeks, Bulgarians and others who have fought against oppression by Ottoman Turks for centuries will be flooded with Muslims from a rapidly re-Islamizing Turkey. The same goes for Poles, Hungarians, Romanians and others who fought against Muslims for centuries.

The EU's Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini states that Europe must relax its immigration controls and open the door to an extra 20 million "Africans and Asians" during the next two decades. Most of these "Africans and Asians" come from the predominantly Muslim countries of North Africa and the Greater Middle East. Frattini has also banned the use of the phrase Islamic terrorism: "People who commit suicide attacks or criminal activities on behalf of religion, Islamic religion or other religion, they abuse the name of this religion." He thinks we shouldn't use the word "immigration" either; we should talk about "mobility."

Why would anybody in their right mind want to import Islam, the most destructive force on the planet? Are EU leaders naïve? I don't think so, at least not all of them. You cannot maintain political power in the long run if you are totally naive.

We are told to treat cultural and historical identities as fashion accessories, shirts we can wear and change at will. The Multicultural society is "colorful," an adjective normally attached to furniture or curtains. Cultures are window decorations of little or no consequence, and one might as well have one as the other. In fact, it is good to change it every now and then. Don't you get tired of that old sofa sometimes? What about exchanging it for the new sharia model? Sure, it's slightly less comfortable than the old one, but it's very much in vogue these days and sets you apart from the neighbors, at least until they get one, too.

I have heard individuals state point blank that even if Muslims become the majority in our countries in the future, this doesn't matter because all people are equal and all cultures are just a mix of everything else, anyway. And since religions are just fairy-tales, replacing one fairy-tale with another one won't make a big difference. All religions basically say the same things in different ways. However, not one of them would ever dream of saying that all political ideologies "basically mean the same thing." They simply don't view religious or cultural ideas as significant, and thus won't spend time on studying the largely unimportant details of each specific creed.

Far from being an irrelevant detail, religion is the heart and blood of any civilization. The greatest change (until now) in my country's history was when we adopted Christianity instead of the Norse religion. This changed the entire fabric of our culture. Maybe Christianity helped in creating the foundations of nation states with an individualistic culture. If so, perhaps changing the religion is beneficial for those who want to replace nation states with authoritarian transnational entities, for instance the European Union. Islamic societies are always authoritarian. Those who want to abolish the democratic system and rule as an unaccountable oligarchy thus naturally prefer Islam.

The EU is an awful organization even if you don't take Muslim immigration into account. Former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovksy, who is not preoccupied with Islam, fears that the European Union is on its way to becoming another Soviet Union: "The sooner we finish with the EU the better. The sooner it collapses the less damage it will have done to us and to other countries."

The brilliant French political thinker Montesquieu advocated that the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government be assigned to different bodies, each of them not powerful enough alone to impose its will on society. This is because "constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go." This separation of powers is almost totally absent in the EU, where there is weak to non-existent separation between the legislative, the executive and the judicial branches, and where all of them function more or less without the consent of the public.

As Montesquieu warned, "When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner." He also stated that "Useless laws weaken the necessary laws." The problem with the EU is not just the content of laws, but their volume. Law-abiding citizens are turned into criminals by laws regulating speech and behavior, while real criminals rule the streets. This will either lead to a police state, to a total breakdown in law and order, or both.

At least two conditions must be fulfilled in order to prevent the arbitrary use of power. The first is a system of formal checks and balances, including the possibility of removing officials who are not doing their job. The second is transparency, so people know what their representatives are doing. The EU ignores both these conditions, especially the latter. Vast quantities of power have been transferred to shady backrooms and structures the average citizen hardly knows exist. Eurabia was created through such channels.

The pompous former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing declared that the creation of the proposed EU Constitution was Europe's "Philadelphia moment," alluding to the Philadelphia Convention or Constitutional Convention in the newly formed United States of America in 1787. The U.S. has its flaws, but if Mr. Giscard d'Estaing had actually understood the American Constitution, he would have discovered that Madison, Jefferson and others took care to implement checks and balances in the new state, precisely what is lacking in the EU. The American Constitution is short and understandable, whereas the EU Constitution is hundreds of pages long, incomprehensible and displays an almost sharia-like desire to regulate all aspects of human life. After it was rejected by Dutch and French voters, the Constitution was renamed and is being smuggled in through the back door.

Madison, Jefferson, Washington and the other American founding fathers acted in the open, were elected by their peers and applauded for their actions. Contrast this with Jean Monnet, who is credited with having laid the foundations of the EU. Most EU citizens never heard of him. He was never elected to any public office but worked behind the scenes to implement a secret agenda. I read an interview with a senior Brussels lobbyist who dubbed Monnet "the most successful lobbyist in history." To this day, the EU capital of Brussels is dominated by lobbyists. The Americans in Washington D.C. have their fair share of lobbyists, too, and this can be problematic. The difference is that the EU capital is wholly dominated by lobbyists and unelected bureaucrats.

Frankly, I don't think the EU has the right to use the term "European." Those inhabiting the European continent are first and foremost Germans, Dutchmen, Poles, Italians, Hungarians, Portuguese etc. "Europe" has existed mainly to protect the continent against Islamic expansionism. Charles Martel created Europe when he defeated the Arab invasion in the seventh century, later aided by people such as Pelayo, who started the Reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula, John Hunyadi and Lazar of Serbia who fought against the Turks in the Balkans and John III Sobieski, King of Poland, who beat the Ottomans during the 1683 Battle of Vienna. The EU is actively trying to undo everything Charles Martel and these men achieved. This makes it the anti-European Union, an organization with no moral legitimacy whatsoever.

The EU is gradually reducing the indigenous people of an entire continent to a future status as second-rate citizens in their own countries. It is quite possibly the greatest betrayal in the history of European civilization since the fall of the Roman Empire, yet it is hailed as a "peace project" in the media. It is shameful to witness the bullying displayed by EU leaders vis-à-vis the Serbs, who are being forced to give up their land to Muslim thugs. This template will eventually be used against all Europeans.

Some hope we can keep the "positive" aspects of the EU and not "throw out the baby with the bath water." I beg to differ. The EU is all bath water, no baby. The EU got off on the wrong path from its inception, and is now so flawed that it cannot be reformed. Appeasement of Islam is so deeply immersed in the structural DNA of the EU that the only way to stop the Islamization of Europe is to dismantle the European Union. All of it.

This is an edited version of an article by the anonymous Norwegian blogger Fjordman. It appeared on jihadwatch on February 9, 2008.

Ruth King

Israel will soon celebrate its sixtieth anniversary. Much will be written about Israel’s birth pains, wars and accomplishments as well as the prophets of Zionism and early settlers whose faith and commitment made May 1948 a reality.

I suspect much less will be written about nineteenth century American Christian Zionists like Dr. William Eugene Blackstone, a man of many achievements including numerous scientific findings in astronomy, botany and biology.

Born in New York, a Methodist, William Blackstone was drawn to the Christian Evangelical movement at an early age. During the Civil War, Blackstone, as a member of the United States Christian Commission, served under President Grant as coordinator of medical services for injured combatants. In June of 1870 he and his wife Sarah Lee Smith settled in Oak Park, Illinois where he worked in building and real estate. He turned increasingly to religion and as he ministered across the nation, one of his overriding themes was the restoration of Jews to their ancient home in Palestine.

His book Jesus Is Coming, published in 1881, was translated into over 42 languages, including Hebrew and Yiddish. The Hebrew version, published in 1925, was entitled The Second Appearance of the Messiah. In it and in subsequent sermons appended to the book, Blackstone passionately invoked a biblical mandate for Jews to be restored in their land. He proclaimed in writing and the spoken word: “Divest yourself of prejudice and preconceived notions, and let the Holy Spirit show you, from His word, the glorious future of God's chosen people."

Blackstone’s initial focus was on the return of Jews to the Holy Land as a prelude to their conversion to Christianity, in order to hasten the coming of the Messiah. However, his emphasis changed as he became increasingly concerned with the plight of European Jewry and the necessity to create a haven in the form of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

In 1887 he became a founder of the Hebrew Christian Mission, which became the Chicago Hebrew Mission and then, in 1889, The American Messianic Fellowship. A fellow of the Mission, Mrs. T. C. Rounds described Blackstone: "A tall, fine, intellectual man with sideburns rose with Bible in hand and gave a short, most interesting talk on the Jews, a people chosen by God to manifest His power and His love to. . .a world steeped in deepest idolatry."

In 1888 Blackstone traveled to Palestine with his daughter and came back convinced that a return to their ancient homeland was the only solution to Jewish displacement and persecution. Blackstone organized the “Conference on the Past, Present and Future of Israel” held on November 24-25, 1890 which was attended by leaders of the Christian and Jewish communities, with the notable absence of most of the leaders of the Jewish Reform movement.

Blackstone was not content with rhetoric on the plight of oppressed European Jews. His campaign for the resettlement of Jews in Palestine culminated in 1891 in a petition, the “Blackstone Memorial” which was presented to President Benjamin Harrison and signed by 413 leading Americans, Jews and Christians, including William McKinley, John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, editors of such major newspapers as The Boston Globe, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Washington Post, and university and seminary presidents, mayors, legislators and leading businessmen.

The petition argued:

"What shall be done for the Russian Jews? It is both unwise and useless to undertake to dictate to Russia concerning her internal affairs. Where shall 2,000,000 of such poor people go? Europe is crowded and has no room for more peasant population. Shall they come to America? This will be a tremendous expense, and require years.

Why not give Palestine back to them again? According to God's distribution of nations it is their home, an inalienable possession from which they were expelled by force.

Why shall not the powers which under the treaty of Berlin, in 1878, gave Bulgaria to the Bulgarians and Serbia to the Serbians now give Palestine back to the Jews? These provinces, as well as Roumania, Montenegro and Greece, were wrested from the Turks and given to their natural owners. Does not Palestine as rightfully belong to the Jews?”

Blackstone also pressed the legality of Jewish claims in Palestine, quoting international law, and averring that since the Jewish people have never given up their claim, but rather, were dispossessed, no law of “dereliction“ or abandonment could obtain “for they never abandoned the land. They made no treaty; they did not even surrender. They simply succumbed, after the most desperate conflict, to the overwhelming power of the Romans...the Jewish claim is legal…”

While many in the Reform movement, with the notable exception of Rabbi Bernard Felsenthal, leader of the German Reform Synagogue of Chicago, fretted about possible charges of dual loyalty, Blackstone inspired many Jews to join the cause of Zionism. The Chicago Hebrew Literary Society was formed to learn to read and speak Hebrew instead of Yiddish, and The Knights of Zion raised funds for the purchase of land for Jewish settlement in Israel.

Although President Benjamin Harrison did not accept the terms of the petition, he was moved to write a scalding letter to Russia on May 9th, 1891:

"This Government has found occasion to express...to the Government of the Czar its serious concern because of the harsh measures now being enforced against the Hebrews in Russia. By the revival of anti-Semitic laws, long in abeyance, great numbers of those unfortunate people have been constrained to abandon their homes and leave the Empire by reason of the impossibility of finding subsistence within the pale to which it is sought to confine them.

The immigration of these people to the United States—many other countries being closed to them—is increasing...It is estimated that over 1,000,000 will be forced from Russia within a few years.

The Hebrew is never a beggar; he has always kept the law--life by toil--often under severe and oppressive civil restrictions. It is also true that no race, sect, or class has more fully cared for its own than the Hebrew race.

This consideration, as well as the suggestion of humanity, furnishes ample ground for the remonstrances which we have presented to Russia."

Blackstone remained committed to Zionism and in May of 1916 sponsored another petition, this time to President Woodrow Wilson, asking him to advocate for a Jewish homeland when World War I ended. Although Wilson rebuffed him, the American Jewish community showed its appreciation. Nathan Straus, a prominent New York businessman and philanthropist (Netanya bears his name), wrote to Mr. Blackstone in a letter dated May 8, 1916:

"Mr. Brandeis (Louis D. Brandeis, first Jewish Supreme Court Justice) is perfectly infatuated with the work that you have done along the lines of Zionism. It would have done your heart good to have heard him assert what a valuable contribution to the cause your document is. In fact he agrees with me that you are the Father of Zionism, as your work antedates Herzl."

Blackstone continued to speak and preach on behalf of Zionism until his death in 1935.
The rest, as they say is history, but supporters of Israel everywhere owe a debt of gratitude to the Evangelical Movement in America--then and now.