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Yesterday’s terrorist attack was different than most. Not just because “only” two people were killed (talk to their families – see if they care that it was “only” two). In case you don’t know, 4 Palestinians snuck into Israel yesterday and murdered two Israelis who were working at a fuel terminal close to the border. It is believed that they were looking to kidnap Israelis.

The Palestinian gunmen took advantage of Israel’s eases on roadblocks. As part of an agreement made when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Israel, Israel eased many restrictions on the Palestinians, including opening up a checkpoint and removing 50 roadblocks.

While Israel was transferring 127 truckloads of medical aid, diapers, and basic food supplies to the Palestinians, 4 people, backed by several different terrorist organizations, took advantage of these open crossings to enter Israel and murder 2 workers at the fuel terminal (through which, by the way, Israel has been transferring over 75,000 liters of fuel a week to the strip). At the same time, the Palestinians shot more than 50 rockets and mortal shells at Israel. For the record, the purpose of the terminal is to transfer fuel, food, and medical supplies to the Palestinians.

By the way, this is not the first time that the Palestinians have taken advantage of the humanitarian crossings: This has happened quite a few times before. There have been terrorist attacks at the Karni crossing – in January 2005, 6 people were murdered. The Erez crossing also had quite a few terrorist attacks.

Here’s my question: Why in G-d’s name would you (the terrorists and terrorist organizations) take advantage of the places that help your own people? You yell and scream to the world that you are being mistreated and neglected, and when Israel eases restrictions and transfers literally tons of humanitarian aid to your own people on a daily basis, you do the one thing that could torpedo these acts.

You are shooting yourself in the foot. In Hebrew there is a saying, “You are spitting in the well you drink from.” That is actually quite literal here. So Israel is in a position where it’s damned if it does, and damned if it doesn’t. If Israel stops transferring aid – they are committing a Holocaust and are an apartheid. If they keep it going – they’re idiots. After all, while they are helping the Palestinians, the Palestinians are helping themselves to taking Israeli lives.

If Israel makes border crossings more difficult and opens up roadblocks again – it is, again, being an apartheid, committing a Holocaust, and sins against humanity. If it keeps the status quo (the present status quo), its own citizens are in danger.

Israel has been passing much humanitarian aid to the Palestinians for quite a while. Almost 20,000 truckloads (close to half a million tons) of humanitarian aid and supplies, including food and fuel, have been transferred to the Palestinians since this summer.

Let’s pretend for a moment that terrorist attacks help you achieve your purpose of getting a Palestinian state. Let’s put aside the fact that surveys SHOW that most Israelis are for a Palestinian state. How does forcing Israel to stop providing aid or making it harder for your own people to get around serve your purpose?

Is it really worth not getting the fuel and medical supplies and food from the Israelis just to prove to the world that Israel is the Big Bad Wolf?

You are risking the lives of thousands of people for the murder of a few. I’m not expert aboutIslam – I know very little. But I know that Islam is against suicide and is supposed to be a peace-seeking religion. And surely it must be about protecting its own, right?

This isn’t even close to being the only example of Palestinians torpedoing themselves. Take for example the employment situation. The Palestinian economy is in the rocks. Let’s “ignore” the fact here that, while Arab countries support the Palestinians fight against the Zionists (Israelis don’t exist), their money is only good for terrorism, not to help their “brothers.” You can also ignore the fact that millions of dollars are transferred to the Palestinians from the US government (and Israeli government) but the people don’t get to see it.

Israel allows for a certain number of Palestinians to work inside Israel proper. (Forget the fact that we have our own homeless and unemployment issues). The recent concessions made towards the Palestinians included increasing the number of Palestinians who can work inside Israel. (Remind me how many Mexicans cross the border every day to work inside the US, please?) Just today, the Shabac, one of Israel’s intelligence agencies, publicized that they were able to stop a terrorist attack that was to be carried out by two Palestinian workers at a restaurant in Ramat Gan. (Sorry – it’s in Hebrew – I couldn’t find the English version yet.) This is only today’s example, but it’s not a new one.

Israel can’t make all of the concessions and measures of good faith without receiving something on their end. We’re not asking for anything material – all we want is for the Palestinians to stop murdering innocent people and stop launching dozens of rockets and mortars on a daily basis.

Israel has tried to meet you halfway. It’s time you do the same.

Taisir Karaki, the Arab cab driver from Jerusalem who was murdered in Tel Aviv Tuesday, will be recognized by the State of Israel as a terror victim, National Insurance Institute officials estimated.

The decision is pending the approval of the defense establishment.

Karaki was allegedly murdered by Julien Soufir, a new immigrant from France, after Karaki drove him to Tel Aviv. According to suspicion, Soufir invited Karaki to come up to his apartment and use his bathroom, and then slit his throat with a knife.

You can read the rest of the article from Ynet here.

I’m waiting for the announcement that the Palestinian Authority will pay the families of all the victims who died in terrorist attacks carried out by their people. Many of whom were commissioned by Hamas. Which their government.

One of the rockets launched this morning landed inside a classroom at a high school where students were taking their finals.

Luckily, the classroom was empty since it was not fortified, which is the only reason a huge disaster was averted. Several students were hurt in a nearby classroom and all exams were suspended.

The only students who arrived at school today were those who had to take their matriculation exams, and they were placed in fortified classrooms.

Eli Moyal, the mayor of Sderot, said that although the country and Gaydamak had buses take residents to nearby towns, it was only to “catch a breath” and not to get everyone out of the town.

That would be giving them what they want.

Extensive retaliation is being planned for Gaza.

And this isn’t a war zone? Watch this video from Channel 10 News in Israel. Someone was video taping one of the rocket attacks and the rocket landed just by him – literally. In their back yard.

Israel is going to plan a retaliation, and I’m normally against it, but seriously – over 40 rockets launched in the past 2 days, and this didn’t just start now. Dozens injured, many “only” shocked, but that’s still not normal.

Again, in case this is the first time you’re reading my blog, these rocket attacks are being carried out by the Palestinian “government” led by Hamas (along with Fatah, but they aren’t the ones trying to annihilate us.)

Rockets are still being launched into Israel despite IDF activity in the area that they generally come from (duh!)

Two were launched this morning and an additional four this afternoon.

Luckily, no injuries were reported, though there was structural damage where they landed in residential areas.

In an earlier post, there was a comment about if Israel ends the occupation, then no more rockets will be launched at it.

Thing is (and I added that in my reply), I don’t believe it will end at all even if we pull out today, for the simple reason that these rockets aren’t being launched at us because of the occupation.

They’re being launched as us because we exist.

The Israeli Defense Forces’ recent operation in the Gaza Strip has been specifically designed to shut down the operations that keep sending rockets into southern Israel.

In the past year alone, around 300 Qassam rockets have been launched into Israel from the area of Beit Hanun.

For the entire article, click here.

Gaza resident tries to sneak 6 kg of explosives into Israel through Karni Crossing, to Palestinian resident of Tulkarm. Police: ‘We have no doubt we prevented terror attack in Israel’

The Shin Bet, in cooperation with Southern District Police, in recent days thwarted an attempt to smuggle explosives from the Gaza Strip into Israel through the Karni Crossing, it was released for publication Wednesday.  

A number of Palestinian laborers tried to smuggle the explosives with the apparent aim of carrying out a terror attack in Israel. At the start of the week security forces discovered six kilos of standard TNT hidden inside an iron cage used to transport goods from Gaza into Israel.

The same day, three Israeli truck drivers from the Negev were detained for questioning for suspected involvement in transporting the explosives. 

An interrogation of the suspects revealed that Mahmoud Samih Abu Nagi, a Palestinian residing in Sheikh Radwan in Gaza who works at the Karni Crossing coordinated the transfer of the explosives into Israel.

Meanwhile, the same night Rami Samir Abid, 25 from Tulkarm, who was allegedly supposed to collect the TNT once it reached Israel, was arrested at his home.

 How can you say we’re not being provoked? How can you say the Palestinians want peace when they themselves are treatening us with rocket attacks and suicide bombing with the sole purpose of provoking at attack on Israel???

This is an article from WorldNetDaily

By: Aaron Klein, WND

Several senior terror leaders in Gaza told WorldNetDaily that terror groups allied with Hamas in the Gaza Strip are planning a series of large-scale attacks against Israeli positions near Gaza “within the coming days,” including rocket attacks, suicide bombings against Jewish communities and raids of Israeli military posts.

Palestinian and Israeli security officials said they are aware of the attack plans. Israel said it beefed up security at Gaza border crossings.

The Palestinian officials said the threatened large-scale attacks, which they claimed may be imminent, are meant to provoke an Israeli military response in Gaza that would unite the Palestinians and thwart any attempt by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to dissolve the Hamas-led Palestinian government.

“The Israelis have misunderstood the period of calm in last few weeks and months. This was the calm before the storm,” Abu Abir, spokesman of the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees terror organization, told WorldNetDaily.

“The Palestinian resistance will carry out very soon a big offensive that will include shootings of rockets for a distance farther then until recently; it will include tunnel attacks and suicide attacks inside Israel,” Abu Abir said.

The terror leader urged Israel to respond with a Gaza assault.

“We wish Israel will come in (to Gaza) in a bigger way because we will turn the entire area of the Israeli operation into a big cemetery filled with Zionist soldiers,” Abu Abir said.

The Popular Resistance Committees is an umbrella of several terror groups, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Islamist sections of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the declared “military wing” of Abbas’ Fatah party. Israel says the Committees carries out terror attacks at the direction of Hamas.

Abu Ahmed, the northern Gaza commander of the Al Aqsa Brigades, told WND today his group decided to participate in the coming spate of theatened attacks from Gaza.

“The United States is pressuring Fatah leaders like (Gaza-based Fatah strongman and former PA security chief) Mohammad Dahlan into collaborating with them and dismantling the Palestinian government. We will not let the US dictate the future of the Palestinian people,” Abu Ahmed said.

Abu Ahmed said while his cell of the Brigades will work with Hamas, other Al Aqsa Brigades cells may not.

Asked whether his group is planning to attack Israel in order to stall the dismantlement of the Hamas-led government, the Committees Abu Abir replied, “No. But these attacks will mark to our people that the enemy is Israel. Killing Israelis hurts the Americans and the Israelis and this is who we should target. Not each other.”

The last major Hamas-led attack from Gaza was a well-coordinated raid through a tunnel of an Israeli military station at the Gaza border during which Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped. The attack, which took place in June, resulted in the first large Israeli ground assault of the Gaza Strip since the Jewish state vacated the territory last August.

Israeli security officials say they have received multiple attack warnings against the same military station in recent weeks. They also said they received warnings of possible tunnels dug from Gaza into nearby Jewish communities.

Hamas won a majority of Palestinian parliamentary seats in elections earlier this year. According to multiple press reports Abbas has been considering dismantling the Hamas-led PA.

As Palestinian president, Abbas has the authority to abolish the PA and establish an emergency government that he would head for three months, at which point new elections would be held. Under certain circumstances, Abbas can maintain and lead the emergency government indefinitely, usurping Hamas’ power

Major Hamas-Fatah clashes are feared if Abbas dismantles the PA, said Israeli and Palestinian security officials.

Last month Hamas and Fatah engaged in heavy gunfights in Gaza, Judea and Samaria after negotiations to establish a national unity government between the two appeared to have fallen through.

Even if any Hamas-directed attacks are not carried out, Israel might still conduct a major military operation in the Gaza Strip in the near future, according to senior Israeli Defense Force officers speaking to WND yesterday.

The IDF officers said the Israeli military is set to present battle plans for approval by the government here later this week for a large-scale Gaza offensive. The IDF assault, a version of which includes reoccupying the Philadelphi Route between Egypt and Gaza, is aimed at blocking weapons smuggling routes, confiscating weaponry already transferred into Gaza, halting the rocket-firing at Jewish communities and badly damaging Gaza’s terror infrastructure.

The officials said the offensive is “crucial” for Israel’s security and would be the largest military operation launched against Palestinian terror groups in Gaza since Israel evacuated the territory last year.

The statements follow the regular firing of rockets by Palestinians in Gaza aimed at nearby Jewish communities and continued reports that massive amounts of weaponry have been smuggled into the territory from neighboring Egypt.

Meanwhile, if Abbas indeed dismantles the Hamas-led Palestinian government, there are fears Hamas might target both Israeli and regional United States interests.

A report in Time Magazine this past weekend quoted several anonymous Hamas sources claiming the US was urging Abbas to dismantle the PA. The sources, speaking to Time anonymously, said clandestine meetings were held in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to discuss the possibility of targeting the US

The report said the Israeli intelligence estimate is that for now Hamas will restrain from targeting the US, but if its government is toppled such restraint could dissipate.

Speaking openly to WorldNetDaily on Sunday, Abu Abdullah, a leader of Hamas’ so-called military wing in Gaza, confirmed the Time report.

“The Americans are supporting Israel unfairly and are playing a leading role in the conspiracy against the (Hamas led) Palestinian government. All Palestinians feel a hatred toward the American government and wouldn’t mind attacks (against it), but for now we are limiting our fight to Palestine,” said Abu Abdullah, who is considered one of the most important operational members of Hamas’ Izzedine al-Qassam Martyrs Brigades, Hamas’ declared “resistance” department.

Abu Abdullah warned to WND that if the Hamas government is “toppled” with the help of the US then “all options are open.”

When I was snoozing this morning between alarm rings, I realized that there is a fundamental difference between Israel and the Palestinians that will prevent peace from occuring in the region.

While the Israeli government acts against the Palestinians when provoked, Israeli individuals don’t.

The bible says “an eye for an eye” but the people don’t implement it. That is, if every person who was personally vicitimized in any way (which, unfortunately, is almost everyone – there is not one person in Israel who hasn’t lost someone or has a friend who lost someone) in this conflict (general conflict, not the recent Lebanese war) were to implement  the “eye for an eye” rationale, both our peoples would be wiped off the earth.

The Palestinians need to put faith in their elected government. For heaven’s sake – they have a government! Why all the resistance organizations? Put faith in your elected government to “revenge” for you or act in your name.

If you continue to take “an eye for an eye” literally (or whatever the Quran says), then this will never end.

What is it about saying Death to Israel that makes so many people feel so good?

Why is it, that so many people find so many ways to say it?

You can literally hear a new one every day. Sometimes twice.This was, in fact, Death to Israel Weekend on the radical Islamist network. On Friday, Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar kicked things off at a rally in Khan Yunis, bringing down the house by declaring that Israel is “an abomination in the Middle East” that will someday “disappear.”“We will never recognize Israel, and in the end the [fate of] Zionists will be like that of the Crusaders, the Persians and the English, who left,” said Zahar, a founding father of Hamas.

“We want all of Palestine, every centimeter, from the river to the sea, from Rosh Hanikra to Rafah. If we can form a state within the 1967 borders we will do so, but this doesn’t mean that we will relinquish our right to every centimeter of Palestine’s land.”

There it is. No room for us Jews. No room for our history, our past presence here. No room for our common ancestry with the Palestinians. No room for Abraham. He was, after all, not from here. He was from Mesopotamia. Let him go back.

There it is. There’s not a centimeter that we can call our own. But don’t take Zahar’s word for it. Listen to a speech later the same day.

The occasion was the Silver Anniversary observance of Al-Quds Day, a national festival of protests the length and breadth of Iran, meant as a tribute to the Jewish-occupied Holy City of Jerusalem (Quds in Arabic)

The speaker was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose opening reference to Israel said that there was no reason for Israel to exist.

“This regime, thanks to God, has lost the reason for its existence,” Ahmadinejad told thousands at a Death to Israel pep rally in Tehran.

“Efforts to stabilize this fake (Israeli) regime, by the grace of God, have completely failed… You should believe that this regime is disappearing,” he said.

In a uniquely Mideastern mirror image of Theodore Herzl’s 1897 prediction that a Jewish state would be founded “Perhaps in five years, but certainly in 50,” sworn enemies of Zionism have begin consoling themselves with the belief that relief from Israel’s existence is just a matter of time.

These days, Jews have begun to suspect the same thing.

The comments of Nobel Laureate Yisrael Robert Aumann, who last week voiced doubts regarding Israel’s long-term ability to survive, have reverberated far from the West Bank college where they were delivered.

“If we don’t understand why we are here, and that we are not America or just a place in which to live, we will not survive,” Aumann told a gathering at the College of Judea and Samaria in Ariel.

“The desire to live like all the nations will sustain us maybe another 50 years, if we are still here.”
Of course, the Death to America types might argue that the United States is no place to live, either.This is probably the point at which I should make my confession. For some reason, all this talk of Death to Israel has fueled my optimism about this place.At play, I want to believe, is what may be called the Herzl Inversion Principle, which states: If you dream it, it will boomerang.”

Around here, where you’re not likely to get what you dream about anyway, things tend to blow up in your face in a way that has all the earmarks of a personal affront.

Just ask the Israeli right, which worked tirelessly for the election of Ariel Sharon, and wound up with the obliteration of all settlements in the Gaza Strip, and the erasure of four in the West Bank.

Just ask the Israeli left, which worked tirelessly for the election Amir Peretz, and wound up with Avigdor Lieberman.

Be careful what you wish for. Or, as Ahmadinejad himself said in the Al-Quds Day stemwinder:

“Don’t complain tomorrow.”
From: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/778763.html

I’m not talking about kidnapping for the sake of kidnapping (not that that’s right either). I mean kidnapping as a means to get money or to settle personal disputes with local authorities authorities.

Today’s kidnapping (and subsequent release) of AP photographer Emilio Morenatti in Gaza today ended well, as (thankfully) have previous kidnappings.

Palestinian militants in Gaza have frequently kidnapped foreign journalists and aid workers in the past two years, usually seeking money or to settle personal disputes with Palestinian authorities.

What I don’t understand here is why. Why kidnap the people who are trying to help you? I can “understand” the kidnapping of an enemy (though in our case it usually results in murder). But why and aid worker or a journalist?

A previously unknown group calling itself the Holy Jihad Brigades claimed responsibility. Its demand for the release of Muslim prisoners held by the United States raised fears that foreign extremists, perhaps al-Qaida, had infiltrated Gaza.

Palestinian security officials, however, said the name was a front for local militants.

Either way, this is not the way to gain sympathy. Alienating those who want to help isn’t the way to go. Even the Palestinian government knows that – that’s why they condemn these acts.

It’s time the people face up to the government they have elected and allow them to do their job. Otherwise, anarchy will prevail, and no type of peace will be possible.

CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists) Executive Director Joel Simon said today in response, “We’re dismayed that journalists have become pawns of Palestinian groups seeking to exploit them for political purposes. These blatant attacks on journalists will have a chilling effect on their ability to do their work and will ultimately deprive the world of information about this critically important story.” 

If you don’t like what your government is doing, elect a different one. Or run yourself. Just take into consideration that terrorising those who are on your side isn’t quite the way to go.

This post is actually a comment I left on someone else’s post. I’ve decide to post it on my blog as well since I feel that it contains a lot of important information and points I would like to make. I have posted several other similar comments on other sites, so I will probably post these in the future. This is the post in almost its entirety (minus a personal commendation to the blogger himself).

Not ALL Israeli soldiers are saints, but hardly any army in the world can claim that. It’s enough just to mention the pictures from Iraq with the
US and British soldiers to prove that point. However for the most part these are 18-year-old kids and 35-year-old men who would like nothing more than to be at home.

As for the wall. If you ask almost any Israeli (and I’m not talking about any extremists or fundamenstalists), you will hear that in an ideal world we wouldn’t need to wall. It’s uglying up our country as well. We don’t want it. but the documented proof is that stince that wall has gone up, the amount of suicide bombers making it into Israel has decreased dramatically.

The Palestinian government is doing a great job (I’m being completely serious here) in stopping terrorists. I know they do a lot to make sure they don’t get through, and they work religiously with Israel on this. (Again, I am being serious.) When you couple that together with the roadblocks and the border points, they are extremely efficient together at stopping ALMOST all the suicide bombers from getting through into
Israel.

Unfortunately, the system is not yet working perfectly. In an ideal world, and the world that Israelis hope is nearby, Israel won’t have to put up roadblocks anymore and we would be able to depend 100% on the Palestinian government to stop any potential terrorism from entering our country.

If you think that no Israelis opppose the building of the wall then you are wrong. We would much rather this money go towards helping the poor and homeless in our country, to help with hunger, education, etc. We have plenty of domestic problems that have gone almost completely unaddressed since the inception of the country for the simple reason that if you can’t ensure your citizens are safe, you can’t expect to work on welfare.

No one here wants to starve anyone, Palestinian or otherwise. When you have terrorist orgainzations (excluding Hamas since basically for the past year at the very least they haven’t carried out any acts of terror) threatening to send in terrroists on our holiest of days, sometimes we have no choice but to disallow any of them to enter our country. Even then they get through.

Speaking of Hamas, however, they still don’t recognize our right to exist and still call for the destruction of our country. So while they have temporarily (their words) halted terrorist attacks, they still openly state that we should be wiped off the face of this earth. A large portion of the problems they are having nowadays is because they refuse to recognize Israel and enter peace talks. You can’t possibly expect us to withdraw all our troops and let palestinians get everything without getting anything in return.

We already pulled out of the Gaza strip and misplaced thousands of people. In return we only got more terrorism and nothing in return. So, yes, it was unilateral and it was intended to be, but you’d think one act of good will would be returned with another. It’s the only way peace can be achieved. There is no relationship in the world where one person gives and gives and gives and the other side doesn’t. One will end up breaking up with the other.

As for calling any organization trying to establish their country a terrorist organization, that is true in cases where excessive killing is used as the only means. You’re right about Israel having resistance organizations that assisted in establishing the country. Yes, they also resorted to physical harm, though they went more for blowing up bridges. There were several organizations struggling to help create the state of Israel, and the moment that it was declared these ceased to exist.

The Haganah and Palmach became part of the Israeli army (they didn’t have any terrorist activities anyway – they didn’t believe in violence, those were the Irgun and Lechi), and the irgun and lechi were invited to join israeli forces as well.

Ben Gurion, the first prime minister of israel, almost caused a civil war in the case of Altalena, preferring to shoot his own people (israeli jews) than let them smuggle arms into jerusalem with the sole purpose of attacking arabs. You can read more about that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altalena

As for Liberman, eyes are wide open right now. The labor party is threatening to leave the coalition if Liberman gets out of line, and Liberman in resopnse has stated that he does not intend on changing the directin the government has been going in.

I can understand the election of Hamas in a way – the Palestinians are desperate for a leadership that will do something, and hamas acted, even if it was by blowing hundreds of israeli women and children to pieces. You think we don’t have hundreds of dead children? you don’t see the pictures because we do not publicize them out of respect for the dead (which, by the way, why open caskets don’t exist in Judaism).

You’re right, the cell phone solution is a band-aid, and not a very effective one. mostly one of those with disney characters on it. My point about that article was that people are trying to take care of the symptoms in order to alleviate the pain as much as possible so that an actual diagnosis can be found and treated.

I await the day where someone will suddenly think up a solution to solve the problems on both sides. I think Israel has a lot to offer the palestinians. thousands of them work in israel anyway, and were the terrorism to end, more would be able to work in our country, which would help them economically.

For years they were the victims of Arafat’s government where the funds they received went to fund themselves instead of assisting the palestinians who needed it for their infrustructure, education, and even food and medications.

Regarding the illegal settlements being built I think they are wrong: they are illegal because the government does not approve either, and you have seen that they have torn them down. yesterday or the day before there was a meeting adn articles about pulling out of those territories voluntarily. i’m not sure i’ve seen it in english, but i can find it for you if you’d like. Most israelis (again, not extremists and fundamentalists) agree that we shouldn’t build these settlements, and if makes you feel any better, we are often perplexed by why people would choose to build those settlements to begin with.

Israelis and palestinians have worked together before, and it saddens me that it is more than anything due to our governments (though i do see the palestinians government more to blame here than ours) that we don’t cooperate more. You can read stories all the time about israelis who donated their family members’ organs to palestinians and vice versa. There’s no reason this can’t go on into other categories as well.

Israelis aren’t anti-arab, which you can see both by our peace treaties with jordan and egypt (not to mention tourism with egypt, and former tourism with jordan until the intifada broke out in 2000), as well as the large amount of israeli arabs.

I think the biggest problem facing us right now is the fact that while israelis accept palestine’s right to exists, our right to exist is still not recognized my most arab and muslim countries, which you can’t deny (i can point you to many sources – from Ahmadinejad to palestinians officials to the hezbollah). I think once our mere existance is accepted and recognized, we will then have some more common ground upon which we will be able to begin building two states for two peoples.  

Did you know that almost 1 million Jews have been kicked out of Arab countries? It’s not just Palestinians who have been kicked out of their land. Not to mention the fact that most of the Palestinians who left in 1948 left of their own will, not because they were forced to leave. The proof is in the Israeli Arabs. They were all offered to remain under Israeli rule. Back to the news at hand.

World Jewish groups began a global campaign this week calling for recognition of Jews from Arab countries as refugees in theMiddle East conflict.

“The world sees the plight of Palestinian refugees, and not withstanding their plight, there must be recognition that Jews from Arab countries are also victims of the Arab-Israeli conflict,” said Stanley Urman, executive director of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC).JJAC, a U.S.-based coalition of Jewish organizations, is one of the groups coordinating the campaign, which aims to record testimonies of Jews who fled in the face of persecution, list asset losses and lobby foreign governments on their behalf.

Jewish groups have estimated that since 1948 at least 900,000 Jews have been forced to leave their homes in Arab countries such as Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. At least 600,000 went to Israel. The rest sought sanctuary in France, Britain, the United States and other countries. A meeting of Jewish groups in Jerusalem yesterday marked the first concerted effort to put the issue on the world agenda. Linda Abdel Aziz, who fled to Israel in 1971, is one of many thousands of Jews born in Iraq who left or were expelled as conditions deteriorated due to discriminatory legislation, pogroms and public executions. Abdel Aziz has recorded her testimony in the campaign. Her father, Jacob, who stayed behind in Iraq, disappeared in 1972, and family members believe he was executed by the ruling Baath party regime for being a Jew. “We did not interfere in politics but we were persecuted. We are all haunted,” said Abdel Aziz, 56.   Jewish communities in theMiddle East stretch back over 2,500 years. But anti-Jewish violence, fanned by Arab nationalism, swept through the region in the early 1940s. A wave of pogroms against Jews was triggered by the establishment of Israel in 1948 and a war in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes in what became the Jewish state.After 1948, conditions deteriorated for Jews in many Arab countries, including property confiscation by Arab governments. The World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries, another body spearheading the new campaign, has estimated that Jews lost more than $100 billion in personal and community assets through confiscations by various Arab governments. While some individuals have tried to file suits for lost property, particularly in Libya and Iraq, there has so far not been a concerted effort by Jewish groups to seek reparations.JJAC is working in tandem with the Justice Ministry, which is collecting and registering testimonials, affidavits and property claims. The ministry has already received thousands of claims. “With memories fading, and elderly people passing on each day, this will be our last, best chance to obtain this important record of Jewish history and the evidence for future claims,” Urman said. Any future claims are complicated by the fact that the departure of Jews from Arab states happened alongside the flight of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

I agree. 

Annual survey conducted by American Jewish Committee reveals most American Jews back Israel’s efforts to achieve peace, but worry that conflict may lead again to war. Majority of respondents disapprove of American government’s handling of Iran’s nuclear threat; most believe anti-Semitism set to increase worldwide in coming years

Ynetnews, Published October 23, 2006, 17:04. 

While American Jews are highly supportive of Israel’s efforts to achieve peace, in the wake of the summer war with Hizbullah a majority remains skeptical about the chances for achieving an overall peace and worry that the conflict may lead again to a regional war, according to a new survey by the American Jewish Committee. Fifty-six percent of American Jews think Israel and the Arabs never will be able to settle their differences and live in peace, while 38 percent believe they will. Regarding the war between Israel and Hizbullah, 55 percent approved, and 35 percent disapproved, of the way the Israeli government handled the conflict in Lebanon in July and August. Similarly, 53 percent approved, and 39 percent disapproved, of the way the US government handled the conflict.

American Jews are evenly divided on the outcome of Israel’s summer war with Hizbullah, with 49 percent saying neither Israel nor Hizbullah emerged the winner, 2 percent saying both were victorious, 24 percent to Israel and 15 percent to Hizbullah.

Despite these mixed results, a majority of American Jews, 54 percent, favor the establishment of a Palestinian state, while 38 percent are opposed. These figures are consistent with AJC surveys since 2001.

AJC’s Survey of American Jewish Opinion, conducted annually since 1997, gauges US Jewish views on the Arab-Israeli peace process, terrorism, Iran, the war in Iraq, perceptions of anti-Semitism, social and political issues in the US such as energy and immigration, and Jewish identity concerns.

The complete AJC survey is available at www.ajc.org.

The complete Ynet article is available here.