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To: arutz-7@israelnationalnews.com, arutz-7b@israelnationalnews.com From: Arutz-7 Editor <feedback@israelnationalnews.com> Subject: Arutz-7 News: Monday, Sept. 3, 2001
Arutz Sheva News Service <http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com> Monday, Sep. 3, 2001 / Elul 15, 5761 ------------------------------------------------
TODAY'S HEADLINES: 1. ISRAEL RETALIATES, HITS P.A. INTELLIGENCE HEADQUARTERS 2. ATTACK FIGURES PROVIDED BY THE IDF 3. "COMPROMISE" IN DURBAN 4. JEWISH ACTION IN DURBAN: THE POSITIVE SIDE 5. ...AND THE NEGATIVE SIDE
1. ISRAEL RETALIATES, HITS P.A. INTELLIGENCE HEADQUARTERS Israeli helicopters attacked the empty headquarters of Palestinian General Intelligence south of Hevron this afternoon. The building suffered heavy damage. Three Arabs are reported wounded in the attack, which came in retaliation for today's bombs in Jerusalem (see below) and last night's shooting attack at a Jewish car south of Hevron. Two IDF soldiers were wounded - one is in moderate condition - by a pipebomb explosion in Hevron. Arab gunfire directed at the unit followed the explosion.
2. ATTACK FIGURES PROVIDED BY THE IDF The IDF Spokesman's Office announced that there had been 7,368 Arab terrorist attacks - not including stones and firebombs - in the eleven months of warfare between September 29, 2000 and September 1, 2001 in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. These included the following: 4,322 shootings at military installations 1.041 Shootings at vehicles 679 Shootings at towns and villages 432 Grenades 291 Bombs detonated 262 Mortar bombs 184 Anti Tank missiles 126 Bombs found 22 Stabbings/Assaults 9 Hit and run
3. "COMPROMISE" IN DURBAN International efforts to prevent the Israeli and American delegations from quitting the World Conference Against Racism in Durban are strongly underway, and it appears that they will bear fruit. Specifically, a Norwegian compromise proposal has apparently been accepted by both sides. It states that the final resolutions will not use the words "apartheid" or "racism," nor will they condemn Israel by name. They would, however, mention the Palestinians outright. Even Amr Mussa, Secretary-General of the Arab League, said he supports the search for a compromise that will prevent the American and Israeli walkouts, but insisted that in any event, the Conference's final resolution "must relate to the Israeli policy." A resolution accepted yesterday by the non-government organizations called Israel a "racist apartheid state," and accused it of "carrying out racist crimes, including war crimes, genocide, and ethnic cleansing."
Additional Durban conferences against racism are scheduled for three, five, and ten years from now, all to be funded by the United Nations.
Because Israel did not send a high-level delegation to the conference, Foreign Ministry Deputy Director-General Mordechai Yedid delivered the speech that Deputy Foreign Minister Rabbi Michael Melchior was to have given. Yedid said, "The Jewish People is the nation that gave the world the concepts of equality and dignity for all men. Zionism is merely the dream of the Jewish nation to return and live in its land... When people condemn Zionists, they mean Jews..." This last point was once made by Martin Luther King, who wrote,
"...You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely 'anti-Zionist.' And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews - this is God's own truth... All men of good will exult in the fulfillment of God's promise, that his People should return in joy to rebuild their plundered land. This is Zionism, nothing more, nothing less... And what is anti-Zionist? It is the denial to the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord all other nations of the Globe. It is discrimination against Jews, my friend, because they are Jews. In short, it is anti-Semitism... Let my words echo in the depths of your soul: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews - make no mistake about it."
-- from "This I Believe: Selections from the Writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." (New York, 1971), pp. 234-235.
4. JEWISH ACTION IN DURBAN: THE POSITIVE SIDE Shlomo Blass, an Israeli delegate of WUJS in Durban, confirmed that the atmosphere in Durban is largely anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. Speaking with Arutz-7's Elisha Dickman last night, Blass said, "The Moslems and Palestinians are everywhere; they even burst into the discussion group on anti-Semitism and started spewing their hatred... One Christian girl came up to me and said, 'Regardless of your specific opinions, I just want to tell you that I admire you and your group for being willing to come here under such a hostile atmosphere, where you are clearly being singled out and targeted, and stand up for your cause...'"
Blass related some examples of the hostile atmosphere he and his colleagues face: "We stormed out of a group last night where every single person there was screaming, 'Free Palestine!' ... A flyer is being distributed with a picture of Hitler, with the caption, 'If I had won, there would be no Israel and no Palestinian bloodshed...' The place is swarming with pictures of Jews with fangs and crooked noses and bleeding hands. In terms of security, we don't walk alone, but only with a few people together. A few of us prepared a sign reading WCAR: World Conference Advocating [instead of Against] Racism."
To hear the complete interview with Shlomo Blass, click on http://www.israelnationalnews.com/metafiles/asx/shows/politics.asx
5. ...AND THE NEGATIVE SIDE Only about two or three Jewish groups or individuals in Durban have joined up with the Moslem-Arab groups in their campaign against Israel: One is the fiery anti-Zionist Neturei Karta, one of whose three representatives is Yisroel Dovid Weiss of New York, who has been photographed countless times marching alongside Arabs holding a sign against Zionism. Weiss' internet statement says, "We would like to make aware to the world that Zionism and Judaism are diametrically opposite... The actions taken by Zionists against the Palestinians are not accepted by the Jewish people."
Asked his opinion of this phenomenon, Beit El's Rabbi Shlomo Aviner said,
"I don't know this man, but he is making a very grave mistake. I wouldn't say that he has 'cut himself off from the People of Israel,' and in fact he probably thinks he is helping the People of Israel with his actions. But Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook once wrote that just as Maimonides wrote that 'rabbis' who think that G-d is corporeal are making a mistake, so too this is a mistake."
Jews in South Africa had a more practical view of the Neturei Karta actions; one leader, David Jaffe, said that the Neturei Karta are, "by their actions, giving encouragement to groups that advocate intifada and suicide killers."
Another Jewish group claiming that Israel is racist is Rabbis for Human Rights, headed by Reform Rabbi Arik Ascherman. Its field director and representative in Durban, Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom, participated together with the well-known anti-Zionist Israeli Dr. Uri Davis, the author of a new book entitled, "Israel: An Apartheid State," before a throng of more than 1,000 Moslems in the main mosque of Durban. Investigative journalist David Bedein reports that Rabbi Milgrom also confirmed that he worked with LAW, the PLO legal advocacy lobby, at the preparatory session in Geneva to draft ideas for the UN conference in Durban.
Bedein reports that Ascherman admitted that his organization raised and distributed money for Palestinians, based on recommendations by LAW - and LAW spokesman Arjan El Fassad explained that monies received from the Rabbis for Human Rights go to the families of "martyrs" who have been killed while attacking Israelis over the past ten months.
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To: arutz-7@israelnationalnews.com, arutz-7b@israelnationalnews.com From: Arutz-7 Editor <feedback@israelnationalnews.com> Subject: Arutz-7 News: Tuesday, Sep. 4, 2001
Arutz Sheva News Service <http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com> Tuesday, Sep. 4, 2001 / Elul 16, 5761 ------------------------------------------------
TODAY'S HEADLINES: 1. EU CONDEMNS DURBAN RESOLUTION 2. PERES EXPLAINS WHY ISRAEL LEFT; GUSH SHALOM HAS A DIFFERENT APPROACH 3. BURG vs. BEN-ELIEZER TODAY
1. EU CONDEMNS DURBAN RESOLUTION The European Union has condemned the Durban conference resolution equating Zionism to racism. It was this resolution that led the U.S. and Israel to announce last night their intention to quit the conference. The EU's condemnation was publicized in the European parliament, currently convened in Strassbourg, France. Belgium's Deputy Foreign Minister also condemned Palestinian suicide terrorism, calling acts of this nature "shameful."
Deputy Foreign Minister Rabbi Michael Melchior, who was to have led the Israeli delegation to Durban, but remained at home after the delegation was downgraded, told Arutz-7 today that he is "deeply concerned by the escalation of the hatred in the Arab world towards us, the new code words, etc." He noted that Egypt was among the worst offenders in its encouragement of hatred at the Conference, and that its Foreign Minister had even exclaimed to a group of Israeli reporters, "Who cares if five or ten cars blow up in Jerusalem?"
Melchior explained his concerns that the conference would likely have "broad negative results for the State of Israel, not just in terms of politics and public relations, but also in the economic and the social spheres," as a result of decisions taken in various forums at the conference. On the other hand, Rabbi Melchior finds encouragement in the fact that many countries did not support the Arab position in favor of anti-Israel resolutions. He cites countries such as Uganda, Rwanda, and Ethiopia that publicly expressed their frustration over Arab manipulation of the Conference for anti-Israel propaganda: "The Ugandan delegate asked why no one is talking about the blacks who are systematically discriminated against by Arabs in neighboring Sudan, and the Rwandan asked why the conference was being hijacked for anti-Israeli propaganda..." Furthermore, according to Rabbi Melchior, most of the editorials in the world press condemn the sharp escalation in Arab anti-Semitic hatred. "Most of the world supports us," said the Deputy Minister, "even if this does not find expression in the mass media... But I am very fearful of the escalation of hatred against us in the Arab world..."
When asked how he feels, in light of his support for the Oslo agreements as a way of increasing Israeli acceptance in the world, about the anti-Semitism displayed in Durban, Rabbi Melchior said, "I think we have to distinguish between the fact that the world does not want us in Judea and Samaria and the fact that they are not willing to accept the escalated hatred against Israel..."
MK Michael Kleiner (Herut) rather emphasizes the negative significance of the Durban conference anti-Semitism. He told Arutz-7 today, "Every pogrom and even the Holocaust was preceded by some conference or political forum that paved the way for strong violence, and I fear that this one will not end only with words. I think that the Durban conference released the anti-Semitic demon from the bottle, as we see beatings of Jews in Paris, Nazi graffiti in Belgium, and the sale of 'Fuehrer Wine' in Italy. Jews are often the last ones to see the writing on the wall, and they should not count on coming to Israel at the last minute. The time to come to Israel is now, and despite all, Israel is still the safest place for Jews."
2. PERES EXPLAINS WHY ISRAEL LEFT; GUSH SHALOM HAS A DIFFERENT APPROACH
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, explaining the Israeli decision to withdraw from the World Conference Against Racism in Durban yesterday, said,
"We regret very much the very bizarre show in Durban. An important convention that was supposed to defend human rights became a source of hatred, a show of unfounded accusation, a reverse to every responsibility on the international arena...
"In 53 years since the establishment of Israel, we were attacked five times with an attempt to overpower us and to bring an end to the State of Israel. We stand alone, outnumbered, outgunned, and we defended our lives. We won all the wars, we won a lot of territories. We gave back the territories, the water, the oil to Egypt. We gave back the land, the water to Jordan. We have withdrawn unilaterally from Lebanon in accordance with UN Resolution 425. We offered to the Syrians an exchange of land for peace. We have offered the Palestinians something that no Arab country did before us, because the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were under Arab control. We offered them an independent state. We offered them to withdraw from most of the territories. We offered them a position in Jerusalem. They have rejected it. Instead, there was the intifada, and even today there were four bombs in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel.
"I want to thank the United States of America that took an extremely courageous position in favor to make the world look more responsible, more balanced, more truthful... I want also to express my thanks to 43 countries that took a clear position against this unbelievable attempt to smear Israel with false colors - among them, in addition to the United States: the Republic of Russia, India, the members of the European Union, the countries of East Europe, most of the countries in Latin America, many countries in Africa.
"We know there are two leagues which began leagues of hatred to Israel - the Arab League, which calls for belligerency, for boycott, for severing relations, for bringing an end to the peaceful efforts; and the Moslem League... One bloc that usually voted against us, the bloc of nonaligned nations, was this time broken into pieces. Many of its most important members voted against the Arab proposals, [but] I am not surprised that some of them remained as old-fashioned and as prejudiced as they used to be in the past."
Peres explained afterwards that the 43 countries to which he had referred did not officially vote, but rather "expressed themselves against the proposal."
Only hours after the Israeli delegation walked out of the international conference in protest, the Gush Shalom "peace" organization announced its sympathies with the opinions of those who call Israel an "apartheid and racist state." Referring to the Durban conference's resolutions against Israel, Gush Shalom grudgingly admitted that "some of the formulations may have helped to present it" as if the resolutions were anti-Semitic - and then continued in the same breath, "Yet... a senior officer of the Israeli police [Alik Ron] is making abundantly clear that he considers 20% of Israel's citizens - the Arabs - as enemies..." The reference is to Ron's statements that he considers a threat to the State those Israeli-Arabs who call for Israel's destruction. For more on Ron's testimony, see below.
3. BURG vs. BEN-ELIEZER TODAY Today's Labor Party election, which appears to interest the Israeli public only slightly more than last year's coal production figures, sees Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer running for Labor leader. The winner will also become the party's Prime Ministerial candidate in the next national elections. Burg has already spoken with Prime Minister Sharon about what ministerial position he will assume in the unity government if he wins, while Ben-Eliezer, for his part, says that latest polls show that he will come out on top. Final results are expected sometime during the night.
Arutz-7's Haggai Segal spoke to both campaign chairmen today, and each sounded equally optimistic that his man was the winning choice. Arik Hadad said that Ben-Eliezer is "a great combination of military experience with concern of and knowledge of social issues, a real bulldozer who gets things done, a man of great charisma and a man of the people." He backed up his optimism with yesterday's Teleseker poll showing Ben-Eliezer winning by 3%; "this was the same polling company that once showed Burg leading by 37%." Hadad said that some voters in the Kibbutz movement "want us to be Meretz B [i.e., more left-wing], but we want to be Labor A."
Yuval Frankel, representing Burg, said that his man has the ability to form a new leadership for the party and also to attract sectors of the population that long ago abandoned Labor. "I have no doubt that the fact that Burg wears a yarmulke [he is the son of the late National Religious Party leader Dr. Yosef Burg] is very significant for the traditional and religious sectors of the party," Frankel said, "but even more so is the fact that he has reached his high position in the party even though he did not grow up in Labor circles."
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To: arutz-7@israelnationalnews.com, arutz-7b@israelnationalnews.com From: Arutz-7 Editor <feedback@israelnationalnews.com> Subject: Arutz-7 News: Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2001
Arutz Sheva News Service <http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com> Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2001 / Elul 17, 5761 ------------------------------------------------
TODAY'S HEADLINES: 1. BEN-ELIEZER TO FIGHT LABOR ELECTION RESULTS 2. LIEBERMAN PROPOSES MUTUAL TRANSFER 3. TOURISM TROUBLES IN TIBERIAS 4. DEMORALIZATION IN P.A.
1. BEN-ELIEZER TO FIGHT LABOR ELECTION RESULTS Yesterday's Labor Party elections seem to be going the route paved ten months ago by the American presidential election: a photo-finish, accusations of duplicity, and probably a court decision. The official results of yesterday's Labor Party election show Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg leading Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer by 1%, but the latter's camp claims that many results, particularly in the Druze sector, were contrived.
In a press conference this afternoon, Ben-Eliezer called upon Burg to agree to the formation of a committee, headed by a retired judge, that would investigate the voting and ballot counting procedures. "I promise, Avraham, to abide by whatever conclusions the committee reaches," Ben-Eliezer said. He repeatedly accused the Burg camp of "stealing" votes, and of delaying the entry of observers into several of the polling stations. In the Druze town of Hurfeish, for instance, it was reported that the total number of votes was higher than the number of registered voters, with 80% of them going to Burg. When the "mistake" was pointed out, a "corrected" count arrived at Labor's election headquarters - with exactly the same amount of votes as registered voters. Fourteen complaints were filed against irregularities in the Druze and other sectors; by mid-afternoon, the results of seven of the problematic polling stations had been approved by the Labor Party elections committee. He called the election results a "scandal among the worst in Israel's political history."
Burg and the party's secretary-general, Ra'anan Cohen, rejected Ben-Eliezer's call for an outside investigative committee. Both camps have already hired top-name lawyers for the expected legal clash: Atty. Ram Caspi for Ben-Eliezer, and former Justice and Finance Minister Atty. Yaakov Ne'eman for Burg.
Former Labor MK Haggai Merom, writing a piece entitled "Labor in Trouble" for Ynet today, comments,
"The results of the elections will lead to lawsuits, bad blood, mutual recriminations. It ended badly because it began badly. A party whose leaders were scared to run for the top spot, yet are stricken with bouts of jealousy at the two contenders, is essentially de-legitimizing whoever wins - and this is before the Likud even starts to open its mouth.
"If Ben-Eliezer is declared the winner, the Beilin-Burg-Tamir group, with the backing of [other groups such as Peace Now], will begin forming a liberal-socialist alternative party. If Burg wins, the centrist stream in the party, backed by Barak, Ben-Ami, and Ben-Eliezer, will begin casting doubts as to Burg's future candidacy for Prime Minister, and Burg will have to wage street fights in every corner within the party. All the more so, now that there is a stand-off.
"Whoever hoped that the [election] would be the harbinger of a new way for the party, should note that the wheelings-and-dealings that will now begin have destructive potential for the Labor Party, and only a miracle can stop them."
2. LIEBERMAN PROPOSES MUTUAL TRANSFER National Infrastructures Minister Avigdor Lieberman has a new plan to deal with Israel's problem of its Arab citizens - "a sharper problem than that we face with the Palestinians; the two cannot be separated." Lieberman said that it's not that we're approaching a situation in which we may lose control, but rather "we have already lost our control in certain areas. For instance, it's about as dangerous to enter Um el-Fahm [in Wadi Ara, between Hadera and Afula] as it is to enter Area A in the Palestinian autonomy. We don't enforce building regulations in the Arab sectors in the north, just as we don't with the Bedouin in the south. The Arab leadership largely identifies with the Palestinians and with our enemies in the region. We therefore must make a basic decision regarding our relations with the Arabs in Israel."
What then does he suggest? "I propose that we must solve both problems - the Palestinians and the Israeli-Arabs - at once. I do not rule out a population transfer in the final arrangement, which would involve transferring the population of a few of the isolated Jewish communities in Yesha to other [areas] under Israeli sovereignty, and the moving of a significant portion of the Israeli-Arab community into four separate Palestinian cantons. This would also solve the Palestinian problem; we cannot have one Palestinian entity with a 'safe passage' [between Gaza and Ramallah/Hevron] that will cut Israel in two - this is absurd; everyone knows that we can't have armed terrorists going across a safe passage right in the middle of Israel. The four Palestinian cantons - Jericho, Samaria, Judea, and Gaza - will have separate governing authorities, and not one central government, and no territorial contiguity."
Lieberman was asked, "Is it part of your plan that the tens of thousands of Arabs in Um el-Fahm must emigrate to the Palestinian areas?" "Most definitely, we must make sure that those Arabs who see themselves as Palestinians, such as those who demonstrated against Alik Ron yesterday in Jerusalem and chanted that the intifada will win - this is intolerable - [move to the Palestinian areas]. 90% of the Jewish communities in Yesha will come under sovereignty... I am talking about a program in which 55-60% of [Yesha] remains under Israeli sovereignty, with permanent borders. We must make sure that this country remains a Jewish country, and not just a democracy with a Jewish majority, as some of our left-wing leaders want..."
When it was pointed out that this program is not very practical, Lieberman said, "No program of this nature can be implemented in one day... Even the new Zionist program in Basel [proposed 100 years by Theodore Herzl] took a few days to be implemented... We have to present a comprehensive program, including final borders and our relations with the Arabs in Israel, with all of its complexity. I see no alternative solution other than this plan of cantons."
3. TOURISM TROUBLES IN TIBERIAS Foreign tourism to the Tiberias area in the Galilee has fallen by 85% this year, according to Avi Zandberg, Chairman of the Union of Hoteliers in Tiberias. Zandberg told Arutz-7 today that while Israeli internal tourism continues apace, it can support only a fraction of the Galilee area tourist industry. Tiberias hotels and the associated tourist trade once employed approximately 6,000 people, he said, but this year, as a result of the sharp downturn, half of them are now out of a job. Tiberias and the Galilee, he said, "is dependent on foreign tourism, yet Christian pilgrims, for whom the Galilee is a mainstay of their itineraries, have almost completely stopped coming." The situation has reached the point where all three hotels that once operated in Nazareth have closed their doors.
An emergency meeting this week of the Hoteliers Union has produced a new campaign aimed at improving the situation. The group will lobby the government for assistance to the tourist industry in the Galilee, and will seek exemptions from the Value Added Tax, in order to encourage internal Israeli tourism to the area. "We have to be able to compete," Zandberg said. They will also seek government recognition of the Galilee as a "Preferred Area," providing residents and investors with economic incentives. "After all," said Zandberg, "we are the periphery." Finally, in an effort to assist former employees, the Union will ask for temporary, emergency unemployment payments for those who lost their jobs as a result of the current situation. If the government does not intervene, said Zandberg, "the hotels will shut down entirely."
4. DEMORALIZATION IN P.A. Excerpt from an article in the Palestinian Authority newspaper Al-Hayat al-Jadida, entitled, "The Leadership is Corrupt" (with thanks to Ha'aretz and IMRA):
"We continue to bring out all the embarrassments and crimes in our midst... Senior figures in the Palestinian Authority are leaving the homeland, leaving the area that is their responsibility without permission from above, without informing a soul and for no reason related to their tasks. They are leaving because of their own personal interests or fears, and sometimes they also use despicable excuses. If the individual who is responsible for control and monitoring were to print out from the computers at border terminals the number of departures and days absent from the homeland in one year, then since the beginning of the intifada, the figures - backed by signatures and dates - would be distressing. Many go away, leave their jobs, among them director-generals, aides and members of parliament. And if anyone asks where they are going to, the answer is also distressing: to their homes and families... People will serve the ruling authority as long as it is made up of responsible and respected people who inspire awe - isn't there a limit to tolerance and forgiveness?"
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