Local Citizen Response During a Crisis: Jewish Leaders Need to Lead

 

The FBI's investigation of AIPAC

John Landau contributed research and reporting to this article. The extremely comfortable and secure American Jewish community is totally unaware of the deadly peril that is even now threatening the security that it takes for granted. But in the near future, this peril will become too visible and immediate to be ignored any longer. I speak of the FBI's ongoing investigation of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee -AIPAC-- which has been ongoing for four years now and is very far from being over. A low-ranking civilian employee of the Pentagon, Larry Franklin, was formally charged on May 4 with having given classified information two years previously to two high-ranking executives of AIPAC who were not legally entitled to the information.  The two former AIPAC officials, Steve Rosen, the Director of research about foreign policy issues for AIPAC, and Keith Weissman, the deputy director of policy research with responsibility for policy towards Iran, were dismissed from their positions in January as the investigation of them gathered momentum. Four even more senior AIPAC executives, Executive Director Howard Kohr, Managing Director Richard Fishman, Research Director Rafael Danziger and Communications Director Renee Rothstein, were grilled by a grand jury in December 2004. AIPAC's offices have been raided twice by the FBI, and computer discs belonging to the two suspects have been seized.

No one is sure exactly when the other shoe will drop. But both FBI and AIPAC "sources" speaking off the record have said they expect that Rosen and Weissman will also be arrested and charged with having passed on the informat ion, which they are alleged to have known was classified "top secret," to Israel. They are not suspected of having actually received or passed on secret documents to Israel-only information that Franklin had gleaned from reading such documents. According to the complaint filed by the FBI against Franklin, the information he is supposed to have conveyed to the two AIPAC executives concerned possible terrorist threats to U.S. soldiers in Iraq from groups and individuals supported by Iran.

Why is any of this important to the American Jewish community?

Polls taken by the Anti-Defamation League have shown that the prejudice held most widely by their fellow Americans against American Jews is the belief that they are more loyal to the state of Israel than to the United States. According to the ADL polls, fully half of the American public suspects their Jewish compatriots of "dual loyalty." One striking example of the practical consequences of this prejudice is the almost incredibly harsh sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole that was imposed on Jonathan Pollard for spying for Israel in 1985.  Pollard has already served twenty years of his sentence, with no end to it except his death in sight. By contrast, all individuals convicted of spying for other countries allied to, or even on reasonably cordial terms with, the United States have received sentences of less than ten years.

The investigation of AIPAC, if it leads to the conviction of AIPAC executives, is certain to greatly increase this prejudice and give it new respectability among America's elite classes government officials, journalists, academics, think-tankers and all other decision-makers and opinion-makers. AIPAC is widely perceived in the Washington "beltway" as a representative of the American Jewish community as a whole.

AIPAC is sponsored and supported in one way or another by nearly all of the organizations represented on the board of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, the umbrella group that speaks for the American Jewish community to the U.S. government.  It is not a marginal group that has been denounced by all mainstream American Jewish organizations and leaders, like the Jewish Defense League, whose leader, Irving Rubin, was arrested for alleged conspiracy two years ago, and who then died under suspicious circumstances in prison. Nor are AIPAC's leaders like Jonathan Pollard, a low-ranking government employee without connections to the rich and powerful, who acted entirely on his own to provide Israel with intelligence about terrorist organizations and hostile Arab regimes.

By contrast, AIPAC and its executives are perceived to be at the center of the American Jewish "establishment," the "organized American Jewish community." If AIPAC is discredited in the eyes of the American public as a nest of spies, then the loyalty of every single American Jew will be put in question. In addition, there are indications that AIPAC is not the sole, perhaps not even the main, target of the FBI's investigation. Speaking off the record,
FBI "sources" have suggested to reporters at the Los Angeles Times and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that high-ranking Jewish officials of the U.S. government, especially the so-called "neoconservatives" in the Department of Defense, are in the FBI's counterintelligence crosshairs as well.  One such "neocon," Douglas Feith, heads the office at the Pentagon at which the alleged spy Larry Franklin worked. Feith's name, along with that of former Assistant Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz, has figured prominently in the FBI's off-the-record "backgrounders" to journalists. Our surmise that the Jewish officials in the Department of Defense who supported President Bush's decision to invade Iraq are "persons of interest" to the FBI has been confirmed by anonymous sources at the Pentagon, who have told reporters that internal disputes within the U.S. intelligence community about the accuracy of the United States' prewar intelligence about Iraq are the real motives behind the investigation of Larry Franklin and AIPAC.But it is Israel itself that is probably the FBI investigators' primary target. The anonymous FBI 'sources," speaking to LA Times and New York Times reporters, have claimed that Israel runs a larger espionage operation in, and against, the United States than any other foreign country except Russia. This allegation has been vehemently denied by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who says that Israel has not spied on the United States since the Pollard affair in 1985.

What will the AIPAC case mean for Israel? AIPAC has been the main advocate for Israel's interests with Congress and successive administrations in Washington for more than a generation. If Israel's principal American advocates in Washington are branded as Israeli spies, American friendship with Israel will be severely strained. And it is by no means certain that Israel and her six million Jewish inhabitants, surrounded by far more numerous enemies baying for their blood, can survive without at least one powerful friend somewhere in the world. And what does the FBI's AIPAC probe mean for the United States? Clearly the four year investigation of one of America's closest allies in the war on terrorism and its American supporters must have consumed millions of dollars, and hundreds of hours of time put in by highly trained agents, that could have been better spent in fighting the war on terrorism.

Does America have anything to lose as a result of the AIPAC investigation?
Potentially, a great deal. Far from being sympathetic to the terrorists who have attacked American civilians and soldiers over the past four years and have killed over four thousand Americans, Israel has provided the United States with massive assistance in fighting them. This assistance has included a constant flow of information gathered by Israeli intelligence to the United States, the training of American soldiers by their very experienced Israeli counterparts in counter-terrorist and counterinsurgency tactics, and logistical support for our troops in Iraq. The United States military, according to many well-informed sources, quietly and without fanfare maintains supply bases in Israel for the war in Iraq and to meet other possible security threats in the region. American and Israeli forces have conducted joint maneuvers along Israel's Mediterranean coast.  Israeli engineers have developed much of the American military's cutting-edge weapons technology in recent years. A highly publicized show trial focused on supposed espionage by a loyal and very helpful ally of the United States would put this military and intelligence cooperation, and with it the national security of the United States, in the gravest jeopardy. Are the accusations against Larry Franklin and the two AIPAC officials true
? Does AIPAC engage in espionage against the United States? Does Israel?

What are the motives behind the investigation? Who is spearheading it? Have enemy agents infiltrated the FBI itself? Are certain officials in the FBI and other U.S. agencies anti-Semitic? Stay tuned!

WITH GEORGE BUSH AS A FRIEND . . .

[It is with heavy heart that it has become necessary to document the actions of a President we had supported and believed in. His actions are a betrayal of our most loyal ally and are endangering the security of the state of Israel.]

Many believe the often repeated assertion that George Bush is giving one-sided support for Israel and that this policy is harming U.S. relations with the Arabs. There are two things wrong with that belief. First, it totally ignores Israel’s loyal support for America and its huge contribution to our security over the decades. That issue will be examined in greater detail in a subsequent column. The second fallacy is that George Bush is a true friend of Israel in the first place.

George Bush's 'Roadmap' for Israel and the Palestinians is jointly sponsored by the so-called ' Quartet,' composed of the United States, Russia, Europe, and the U.N. These last three are all hostile to both America and Israel and biased in favor of the Palestinian Arabs. America would never allow these three to influence our decisions about our own national security. Yet Bush has invited them to influence Israel’s decisions about its own national security.

Bush is intent on creating a second Palestinian Arab state inside Israel’s heartland, even though Jordan has been a Palestinian state for sixty years. Israel is trying its best to accommodate this ill-conceived idea, but has raised 14 security issues that need to be resolved before its implementation. Bush has refused to accommodate any of Israel’s 14 security concerns. Meanwhile, he is pressing Israel to carry out the ethnic cleansing of Jews from parts of their ancient homeland, all of them within the area designated by the League of Nations eighty-three years ago as a national home for the Jewish people. His double standard requires the expulsion of Jews from historically Jewish areas because they are claimed by Arabs, while allowing Arabs to live anywhere, including inside Israel. Nowhere else in the world is such ethnic cleansing tolerated. The U.S. even went to war in Bosnia and Kosovo to oppose alleged ethnic cleansing of Muslims by Serbs.

Bush is trying to push Israel back to the highly vulnerable "Auschwitz borders" (so named by Abba Eban) of 1949, within which Israel was only 9 miles wide at its densely populated middle, and Jerusalem was split in two by barbed wire. He has totally ignored the recommendations of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, submitted to President Lyndon Johnson following the Six-Day War in 1967, that Israel's minimum security needs required that it permanently retain control of Gaza and the high ground in the West Bank--even though modern weapons now make Israel's 1949 armistice lines even more vulnerable than they were in 1967, when Nasser attempted to wipe Israel off the map. The planned expulsion of many thousands of Jews from Gaza and Samaria in response to U.S. pressure will further traumatize and demoralize the Israeli people, and in addition devastate their economy, since the immense relocation costs will be borne entirely by Israel. The U.S. government has not offered to help pay even a cent of these costs. This unilateral withdrawal and forced relocation of civilians, euphemistically called a "disengagement," will demonstrate that after two thousand years of exile, homelessness, and persecution Jews are still not secure even within their biblical homeland, thanks to their "friend" George Bush. Arabs can have 5 million square miles and 22 countries, but Israel is denied security within less than 0.2% of that vast territory. Mahmoud Abbas refuses to disarm and dismantle the terrorist groups and demands extensive Israeli concessions in return for only a vague promise of something called "calm" until the end of 2005—not even a cease-fire or "truce," as these temporary, informal arrangements are traditionally called. Bush has not objected to this one-sided proposal, and he offers no U.S. security guarantee even if Israel yields to all demands.

Bush has ignored a ten- year-old Congressional mandate, the will of most Americans, and the urging of former Secretary of State George Schultz that the U.S., after 55 years of delay, at long last move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, even though he promised during the 2000 election campaign to fulfill this American commitment. Bush’s continued refusal sends a signal that Israel’s standing with his administration is inferior to that of the Arabs, and that he can be pressured to break his promises to Israel.

Bush earlier warned Israel not to harm or expel terrorist leader Yasser Arafat. This allowed Arafat to continue terror operations from Ramallah until his death, at a cost of a thousand Jewish lives. U.S aid to the Palestinians Authority, through so-called "non-governmental organizations" (or NGO’s) that it controls, continued throughout the terrorist "intifada" directed by Arafat from September 2000 until his death. Bush has now doubled U.S. aid to the PA, including training of the Palestinian 'security' forces by the CIA, despite the absence of any undertaking by the PA’s post-Arafat leadership to disband and disarm the terrorist organizations, or any serious plan to end the pervasive corruption within its own ranks. Bush’s supposed "support" for Israel includes arming Egypt and Jordan with advanced weapons over Israel’s security objections. Bush’s actions require Israel to divert major resources to protect against a potential attack from two of its "peace partners" (In 1967 Jordan attacked Israel with U.S.-supplied tanks despite U.S. assurances to the contrary and without suffering any U.S. consequences).

Bush ignores Egypt’s long standing incitement of its own people against Israel by means of relentless anti-Semitic propaganda in the government-controlled press, and the constant training and preparations of the Egyptian Army for a possible war against Israel. He also ignores Egypt’s complicity in smuggling weapons via tunnels from Egypt into Gaza to arm the Palestinian terrorists. There has been no demand by the Bush administration that Egypt put a stop to this smuggling, even though it is a flagrant violation of the Israel-Egyptian peace treaty, of which the United States is a guarantor. Nor has Bush acted to oppose the buildup of thousands of offensive missiles and Hizbullah terrorists on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

Bush wants to make the Palestinian state "contiguous," including a corridor linking Gaza and the West Bank. That corridor would cut Israel in half, demonstrating that Arab demands again trump Israel’s security needs and Israel’s rights. Bush has repeatedly pressed Israel to practice restraint in the face of ongoing mass killings of its people while we slowly prepared to attack Iraq. When Israel asked for some extra aid to offset her battered economy Bush indicated general agreement to encourage their further restraint, and then, without warning, cut the grant request by three quarters. Bush is pressing Israel to release large numbers of terrorists as a gesture to the PA even though past experience indicates that many go back to commit more terror.

Bush intervened when pilot-less drones previously sold by Israel to China were returned by the Chinese to Israel for routine maintenance and possible upgrading, in accordance with a contract signed by the two nations more than ten years ago. Without warning, Bush demanded that Israel confiscate the drones, which would violate this long-standing legal contract, even though the equipment utilized no American technology. These peremptory American demands threaten to damage severely Israel’s relationship with China. The Bush administration meddled in this matter even though a previous administration had approved the sale of the drones to China, and even though Israel has sold China no new weapons for many years in deference to American objections. The Bush team has placed Israel in an impossible predicament, forcing it to choose between American and Chinese friendship – even as the U.S. government subsidizes and encourages the sale of American nuclear technology to China by the Westinghouse Corporation, an "American" company wholly owned by the British government! In the absence of any consistent U.S. policy of the withholding militarily sensitive technology from China, this bullying of Israel does nothing to enhance American national security.

The Bush people have also smeared A.I.P.A.C. (the American- Israel Public Affairs Committee) by releasing rumors promising an indictment of A.I.P.A.C. executives for allegedly spying for Israel. Although this investigation has been going on for two years, it has apparently turned up no evidence that A.I.P.A.C leaded U.S. military or intelligence secrets to Israel. Meanwhile Israel’s supporters have become intimidated and reputations have been damaged, with no accountability, no apology and no punishment for those officials who did the smearing. The administration has offered no explanation concerning why the FBI has diverted investigative resources and personnel desperately needed for the war on terrorism to an investigation of a loyal ally in this war, its American supporters, and a patriotic U.S. official (not Jewish) suspected of leaking non –sensitive information to A.I.P.A.C.

The Bush people have pressed Israel to exclude from its purely defensive security fence many Israelis communities outside the 1949 armistice lines, popularly known as the "green line," (which was never an internationally recognized border between Israel and the still-nonexistent Palestinian state), in order to appease Arab opposition to the security barrier. And administration officials have said that the Israeli communities outside the U.S. – approved route of the fence will have to be "dismantled" and "evacuated." Construction of the fence has been slowed to a crawl by American interference, placing hundreds of thousands of Israeli lives at risk. Bush has demanded that Israel move the route of the security fence to about a mile from Israel’s only international civilian airport, at Lod, within easy range of shoulder-fired missiles fired by terrorists from the Arab side of the "green line".

American law provides for extradition of terrorists who kill American citizens while abroad. This law has been enforced in all cases except when Arab terrorists killed American Jews in Israel. Attorney Nathan Lewin testified on Nov. 20, 2002 before the U.S. Senate about the discrimination by Bush’s officials against American Jewish victims of Arab terror. In particular, he described the case of young David Boim, an American citizen killed by Hamas terrorists who were later briefly detained, but soon freed, by the Palestinian Authority. The State Department failed to demand the extradition of Boim’s killers to the U.S., where they could be tried for the murder of an American citizen. Attorney Lewin documented the consistent run-around he received from American officials who refused to follow U.S. extradition laws fairly when American Jews are victims. Arab terrorists have killed dozens of American Jews, but not one killer has been extradited to America for trial by the Bush administration.

Bush’s double-standard policy of demanding Israeli 'restraint' in the face of a massive Palestinian terror offensive over the past four and a half years that has cost Israel over a thousand dead and thousands wounded, many of them hideously maimed and severely disabled for life. Proportionate to its population, Israel has suffered the equivalent of 60,000 American dead and hundreds of thousands badly wounded - many times worse that our own 9/11. Bush showed little appreciation for Israeli sacrifices in blood and economic damage when he forced Israel to "show restraint' in its operations against the Palestinian terrorists, in order to protect American interests in the Arab countries

Israel has been our most loyal and most helpful ally in the war with the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. But when Bush praises and thanks 'coalition' countries for their help, Israel is always missing from the list. Its contributions to the protecting and supplying of American soldiers in Iraq, including the existence of American supply bases in Israel, are being kept secret. This failure to publicly acknowledge Israel’s contributions has helped to foster a widespread misimpression that Israel is a burden and liability to the United States, and that it receives U. S. assistance solely to appease a supposedly all–powerful American Jewish "lobby." In reality, Israel’s assistance to America’s intelligence about the Middle East, to the development of cutting-edge military technology for our armed forces, to the training in anti-terrorist and counterinsurgency warfare for our soldiers in Iraq, and to our military logistics for re-supplying them, have been worth their weight in American gold many times over.

George Bush is actually following a long-standing American practice in that Arab oil distorts our Middle East policy. We sometimes treat our enemies better than our friends, as is the case with back-stabbers France and Saudi Arabia. We should not be surprised when other governments conclude that in some cases it is more profitable to be the enemy of America rather than a friend.

Bertram Cohen and John Landau contributed research and reporting to this article.

 

Nagging questions about the war in Iraq

Nagging questions about the Iraq war remain unanswered.  Both advocates and opponents have failed to address a range of issues even when they seemingly could be used to bolster their respective positions.  Until and unless we obtain answers to some of the questions presented here it will be difficult to fully trust the judgment of either side in this debate. Administration advocates for regime change in Iraq have failed to make their best case.  Their response to the charge of no WND found in Iraq is weak, and consequently has allowed the opponents to further charge that the Bush administration deliberately misled Americans in order to justify an unnecessary war.
 
Libya is one such example. After Colonel Khaddaffi relinquished his WMD programs the U.S. moved large amounts of weapons material from Libya to secure storage inside the U.S.  It was reported that Saddam Hussein had sponsored WMD programs in Libya together with some of his scientists also located there.  It was also reported that Libya originally claimed the secret work being carried out under a huge bombproof mountain was for manufacturing pharmaceuticals.  It remains a puzzle why the Bush administration has consistently failed to tell us what was discovered in Libya and to cite this as a legitimate example of an ongoing Iraqi-sponsored WMD program.
 
There is also the Syrian question.  Multiple reports described a convoy of trucks moving materials at night from Iraq to neighboring Syria shortly prior to the start of the war.  Sources such as David Kay, the former head of the coalition's hunt for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction,  and others such as John Loftus,  former U. S. Justice Department prosecutor, and the Washington Times reported on these transport projects, including specific storage locations in the Bekka Valley where these materials were buried along with special military protection.  Before the war President Bush warned Syria against receiving any WMD from Iraq. Surprisingly the Bush administration has been inexplicably silent on this matter since that time.  There is understandable speculation that the Russians were involved and, along with Saddam Hussein, preferred to have any evidence of WMD removed, along with any possible evidence of their involvement.  It remains a mystery as to why there is no western and U.N.-sponsored demand to inspect what was trucked out of Iraq and buried in the Bekka Valley.
 
For years Saddam Hussein played elaborate cat and mouse games to foil the U.N. weapons inspectors.  If he had nothing to hide, do we then believe he did this deliberately to provoke America and its allies to finally lose patience and attack while assuming he was hiding WMD?  Opponents of the war have a special obligation to explain what Saddam was hiding and why he blocked U.N. inspections.  Opponents of the war have failed to offer their own long-term response to dealing with Saddam Hussein. Simply standing still indefinitely would not have been a satisfactory answer. It would have allowed Saddam to defy over a dozen U.N. resolutions demanding freedom on arms inspection, which in turn would have allowed other nations also to flout international arms controls.  It would have allowed him to further brutalize his own population with impunity, which is a direct challenge to the cause of human rights around the world.  It would have allowed more time for him to research and develop WMD, either inside Iraq or subcontracted to other countries such as Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, etc.  It also would have allowed more time for the U.N.'s oil-for-food scandal to persist in which Saddam bought the support of Russia, France, Germany and others while blaming America for his deliberate failure to properly feed and care for his own people.  If war was not the answer what credible alternative was put forward by the war's opponents, along with what timetable?
 
The failure to properly answer these questions regarding Iraq can make it more difficult to deal with the threat from a nuclear Iran.  Some of the opponents of the Iraq war are transferring their skepticism on U.S. action against Iraq to skepticism on any U.S. action against Iran.  Decisions on Iran should be based purely on facts about Iran, but politics may cause opponents of George Bush to exploit the Iraq war to block needed action on Iran. Opponents of the war also cite the fierce and ongoing insurgency that is taking a heavy toll on American forces and American resources and citing this as more evidence that the war was a mistake.  But we also know that many of the insurgents come from, and receive support from, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia, among others.  The obvious question is why the U.S. is not squeezing these countries so they will reign in their support which is costing American lives and destabilizing Iraq.
 
Another mystery is Egypt. The U.S. taxpayer has provided some $50 billion in aid to Egypt over the past 30 years. Today Egypt has a military with strong offensive capability although facing no enemy. While Egypt continues to incite hatred for America and Israel they contribute nothing toward our effort in Iraq.  As a well-armed Arab country with huge and available forces why are they exempt from aiding our anti-insurgency efforts?  They can easily spare many thousands of ground troops to relieve the task now borne by American forces.  Neither supporters nor opponents of the Iraq war have addressed this question.
 
We cannot arrive at the best decisions as long as so many important questions remain unanswered and even unasked.

 

 

REPORT CARD ON AMERICAN JEWISH LEADERSHIP

The collective performance of mainline American Jewish leadership should be evaluated as an incentive toward reforms and improvements. In the absence of any mechanism to accomplish that task, a collective 'report card' based on the experiences and observations of some long time Jewish activists is presented. This evaluation is timely, and even urgent, because Israel is facing extreme danger, anti-Semitism is increasing globally, and we look to our Jewish leaders for competent guidance. The report shows American Jewish leadership, over all and with a few exceptions, has failed badly.This report evaluates the leadership as a whole based on total results since the end of WWII. Some organizations, such as Chabad-Lubavitch with their over 2,000 centers and global outreach, have a remarkable record of accomplishment but they are an exception. Naturally every organization will emphasize their strengths and achievements which they showcase on their web sites. To have a complete picture we must also note the major failures which are not being publicized. We cannot turn back the clock but a thorough self-examination is essential to making necessary improvements. This article is not intended to single out any particular organization for criticism but rather to cite areas where the collective Jewish leadership has failed to respond. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, comprising over 50 organizations, represents the bulk of organized Jewry in America. The issues listed below should be the responsibility of this umbrella organization. These are the findings listing areas of major failure where the need for improvement is painfully evident.

1.  Failure to replace the Six Million

There was never any serious effort to replace the Six Million that perished in the Holocaust. Following WWII there were about 6 million Jews in America. If they had simply increased at a modest 1.5% per year (the same growth rate as Israeli Jews) those 6 million, from 1945 to 2004, would have grown to become 14 million. That is without any additional effort to replace those lost in WWII. From 1945 to 2004 American Jews received three waves of Jewish immigrants: Holocaust survivors, Immigration from Israel and later Jews from the former Soviet Union. During this period the small orthodox community was also growing in size. American Jewry is also more affluent than most Americans. Despite all these advantages we managed, during this time, to actually decline from about 6 million to about 5 million instead of growing to 14 million. (And some of those 5 million are only marginally Jewish at best.) We are therefore missing 9 million American Jews - fifty percent more than Hitler killed! The bulk of American Jewry despite major advantages still shrank from 6 to 5 million. That means that the bulk of American Jewry shrank at a far faster rate, than just 6 to 5, during recent decades reflecting high assimilation and low birth rates. And now with no more waves of Jewish immigration in prospect, what additional shrinkage can we now anticipate? Is there any other ethnic group in America that is voluntarily committing cultural suicide in this manner? And although there is some awareness of this problem there is NO truly serious program now in place to arrest this trend, much less to reverse it. After WWII there were about 12 million Jews surviving in the world with 6 million in the U.S. and 6 million outside the U.S. Most of those Jews outside America were in war-torn Europe, in the former Soviet Union, and in Arab countries, with most of them living under bad conditions. While American Jews, under favorable conditions, were declining from 6 to 5 million these other Jews, under bad conditions, were growing from 6 to 9 million during the same period - a 1.5% rate of annual increase. That is how we now account for the current world Jewish population of 14 million, i.e. 5 million in the U.S. plus 9 million elsewhere, including Israel. It is astonishing to contemplate the contrast. Six million America Jews, with all the advantages decline to 5 million while the other 6 million with all the disadvantages grow by 50% during the same time. Does that suggest that Jews can survive hard times much better than good times? Had American Jews simply grown at 1.5% annually those additional 9 million Jews would, by now, be giving us a dramatically improved situation in America and in the world. This record is beyond disgraceful and the failed American Jewish leadership seems incapable of feeling either shame or embarrassment.

2.  Failure to properly respond during WWII

In general American Jewish leadership failed to respond in a timely and vigorous manner to press a reluctant U.S. government to intervene to save Jews. We have ample documentation in books such as: The Abandonment of the Jews - America and the Holocaust 1941-1945 by David S. Wyman; "While Six Million Died - A Chronicle of American Apathy" by Arthur D. Morse; and A Race Against Death" - Peter Bergson, America, and the Holocaust by David S. Wyman and Rafael Medoff. Many of those Jews might have been saved if American Jews had campaigned more vigorously and if the Roosevelt Administration had been pressured to respond with a credible effort. It should be noted that Hitler initially wanted to just expel the Jews. It was only after noting the callous indifference to Jewish survival of America and England, that Hitler understood that no one cared, and he could now proceed to exterminate the Jews with impunity. Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg recounted his personal experience. During WWII his father was rabbi of a congregation near Washington, D.C. In the midst of the war his father delivered a High Holiday sermon imploring his congregation to stand in front of the White House to demand that Roosevelt make direct efforts to rescue endangered Jews. After that sermon the synagogue's board of directors met and fired his father. Some had their own children employed in the Roosevelt administration and did not wish to do anything to jeopardize those jobs. Unfortunately this story is emblematic of the self-censoring attitudes of too many Jewish leaders at the time.

3.  Failure to hold our government responsible for the Six Million after WWII

Following WWII ample documentation emerged to show the deliberate obstruction and deception of the Roosevelt administration in its reluctance to save Jews. There was sufficient opportunity in the years after WWII for the Jewish leadership to at least confront our government regarding its crime and to demand an honest accounting. In memory of the Six Million we must refute any U.S. government claim of innocence and that they 'tried their best' and replace it with the hard truth. No such action ever took place.

4.  Failure to self-evaluate the American Jewish response to the Holocaust

In 1981 The American Jewish Commission on the Holocaust was established with former Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg as its chair. The following are edited excerpts from the Simon Wiesenthal Center web site where the full text can be read: http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/resources/books/annual3/chap12.html

"In June 1981 a group of Jews, headed by former United States Supreme Court justice Arthur Goldberg, formed an American Jewish Commission on the Holocaust. Composed of 33 members, including 10 rabbis, eight formerly elected or appointed political officials, a dozen or so Jewish community leaders, and one professor of history, the new commission set out "to record and publish the truth, as nearly as we would determine it, as to what American Jewish leaders did, and what indeed they might have been able to do in all of the circumstances to mitigate the massive evils of the Holocaust."

To that end a professional staff, headed by Ambassador Seymour Maxwell Finger, was put together and individual historians and journalists were asked to do scholarly research on the subject. Their collective findings are reported in Finger's summary and many appendices, which include the original research papers that were done and some miscellaneous material. Together this was printed in 1984 under the title "American Jewry During the Holocaust." Most members of the Commission refused to endorse the report, but that fact is buried in one of the bizarrely paginated appendices. ...

That American Jewish politics and personal prejudices affected the formation and ongoing work of the Commission seems certain. When Arthur Goldberg announced the Commission's formation, he indicated that the researchers would delve into the question of what the Jews in the United States knew about Hitler's plans to exterminate the Jews and when they knew it, what American Jewish leaders and organizations did once they received that knowledge, and "could the persecution of Jews have been limited if American Jews had shown more concern for their coreligionists in Europe and exerted their influence on President Roosevelt and on Congress?"

The framing of the last question suggested that the answer would not reflect well on the actions of American Jewish leaders during World War II in regard to rescue. But in case anyone missed that point, Ambassador (as he likes to be called) Finger emphasized, before the research had even begun, that the findings would be 11 'potentially embarrassing' to some American Jewish groups and are 'likely to be controversial in any case.'" ...

The report also emphasized the difficulties faced by the Jewish leaders. Anti-Semitism in America was an obstacle to helping Jews plus Roosevelt was reluctant to stir up more political opposition by helping Jews. All of the excuses and difficulties were laid out to argue that Jewish leadership tried their best but the difficulties were too great. But what is missing is the story of the "Bergson group". Young Hillel Kook, under the name of Peter Bergson, came from Palestine to America on the eve of the war and worked feverishly to mobilize public opinion in support of help for the Jews of Europe. He and his few associates received little help from organized American Jewish leaders. They struck out on their own and were succeeding in mobilizing support among American political leaders, the media and other sections of society. Playwright Ben Hecht wrote powerful ads that were placed in the newspapers. The true scandal is that the same Jewish leadership that failed to do their job found strength to oppose and sabotage the Bergson group when that tiny band was accomplishing what the Jewish establishment failed to do. That account is recorded in the book, A Race Against Death - Peter Bergson, America and the Holocaust by David S. Wyman (Author of The Abandonment of the Jews) and Rafael Medoff. This dismal episode is something that deserves to be re-examined.

5.  Failure to speak the truth for Jewish land rights

The case against Israel is based primarily on the false allegation that Israel is occupying stolen Arab land. That is the main foundation for justifying all manner of ongoing murder and terrorism in the name of 'ending the occupation'. At the moment the term 'occupation' refers to all lands liberated in 1967. (Note that Arafat's maps, and all PLO stationery, consistently show a 'Palestine' in all of the land with no Israel at all - and who is protesting that?) Today, even many Jews accept the false notion that the territories are all 'occupied' 'Palestinian' lands which should be exchanged for peace, including even the re-division of Jerusalem. Without this false allegation of 'occupied' lands the entire case against Israel collapses, and even reverses, because it then becomes obvious that it is the Palestinians who are now occupying Jewish land.

Twenty years ago in 1984, author Joan Peters published her book, From Time Immemorial - The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine. Years of laborious research, including delving into British government archives, totally explode the myths of a 'Palestinian people' and of any legal or historical Arab claim to the land of Israel. She shows how the Palestinian myth was deliberately fabricated and the nefarious role of the British government throughout. "The reader comes away not only rethinking the middle east refugee problem, but also the extent to which propaganda can be swallowed whole for lack of information." - Los Angeles Times. This one book alone provided the silver bullet to totally demolish the deadly myth that has been the prime propaganda weapon used against Israel over all these years and resulting in so much needless death and suffering. Years of painstaking research went into its writing to produce this monumental work. That was twenty years ago and what did American Jewish leaders do with this silver bullet? Absolutely NOTHING! How many Jewish leaders even read that book? They themselves remain mostly ignorant along with much of the Jewish public. In all discussions today virtually everyone speaks of a 'Palestinian People' who deserve to have their own Palestinian state 'alongside' (but really inside) the state of Israel. That big lie has become firmly entrenched and it is our own fault.

It is essential to remember the historic and amicable Jewish-Arab agreement of 1919 between Chaim Weizmann and Emir Feisal. The Jews were then set to have a recognized national home as per the Balfour Declaration to include present day Jordan plus Israel along with all the current territories. Some 45,000 square miles for the Jews but comprising still less than 1% of the 5 million square miles of lands received by the Arabs after the dissolution of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. It wisely set the pattern for a peaceful and prosperous Middle East. That international agreement was duly ratified by the then League of Nations and is still legally binding despite the actions of England and later the U.N. to abrogate its spirit and its letter. How many Jewish leaders know about this agreement or even care? These unfathomable failures suggests a lack of serious intellect combined with a lack of elementary courage. And why do we still commit to binding agreements when the other side always remains free to violate them with impunity? This is beyond stupidity. It constitutes criminal negligence on the part of a failed Jewish leadership! Just consider the consequences of Oslo which are still manifesting in endless conflict and misery. And some among these failed leaders might now argue that it is too late to insist on the truth because everyone now believes the Arab claims and we Jews will just have to make the best of it, even if it means trying to survive indefinitely inside a tiny state with 'Auschwitz borders', as Abba Eban once declared.

6.  Failure to respond to the secret war against the Jews

Another monstrous falsehood claims that America provides total and uncritical support for Israel and that is the main reason that the Arabs hate America. The truth is largely the opposite because American involvement with Israel is far more injurious than supportive. American 'support' resides mainly among the public and the Congress. However the real power for conducting foreign policy is firmly in the hands of the Administration, the State Department and the CIA where a secret war against Israel and Jews has been ongoing for many decades regardless of which party is in power. In 1994, authors John Loftus and Mark Aarons published their book, The Secret War Against the Jews - How Western Intelligence Betrayed the Jewish People. The following quotes from the Introduction will indicate the main thrust of this research.

"The major powers of the world have repeatedly planned covert operations to bring about the partial or total destruction of Israel. Long before there even was a Jewish state in Palestine, Western spies already were out to wreck the Zionist dream. The savage extent of the secret wars against the Jews will horrify the western public. This chapter of espionage history, beginning in the 1920's, and continuing to the present day, has never been revealed before."

... "The main thesis of this book is that the secret bias of Western governments against the Jews was, and is, the single largest obstacle to peace in the Middle East. We present a shameful history of racism, greed, and secret betrayal that is so sickening that it will be difficult for many Western readers to accept. On the other hand the evidence is particularly hard to ignore."

Following publication of this 658 page indictment of America's secret war, John Loftus spoke frequently on radio interviews and before various groups. If Jewish leadership took serious notice there was little evidence of that. This book provided a hundred 'smoking guns' documenting American criminality that should have enraged the Jewish community and generated a long needed confrontation with those officials perpetrating this betrayal that cost so many Jewish lives. In addition A Concubine in the Middle East by Professor Ezra Sohar was published in 1999. It adds much additional information with extensive references to supplement and re-enforce the case presented in The Secret War Against the Jews. [Editor's note: See Think-Israel book review: http://www.think-israel.org/lipkin.soharreview.html]  All this arduous and meticulous research went for naught because the Jewish leadership remained ever inert. Those who betrayed the Jewish people must have been amazed at the moral paralysis of the Jewish leadership and even of the larger community.

7.  Failure to debunk the myth of 'American aid to Israel'

Israel's opponents often cite the roughly three billion in annual aid to Israel. They complain that Israel is the largest recipient, receives too much, and is a burden upon U.S. taxpayers. Jewish leaders meekly mumble that Israel is the mid East's only democracy and our friend. Most people care little about that argument. Our leaders fail to mention the following important points:

• Aid to our Israeli ally logically belongs in our defense budget along with our immensely larger expenditures for NATO, Japan and Korea and not in the foreign aid budget where it easily becomes a political football.

• Aid to Israel is largely offset by massive U.S. military aid to Egypt and our arming of Saudi Arabia, both of which remain a potential threat to Israel requiring Israel to shoulder heavy additional defense expenditures to deter attack.

• Ignored in all this discussion is the immense help America receives from Israel. Israel helped us in major ways to win the cold war and is now fighting and bleeding on the front line in our joint war against terror. Jewish leadership failed to compile that story, widely publicize it, and then demand full public recognition from the administration.

• It can also be demonstrated that America has received far more help from Israel, in comparable value, than the cost of aid to Israel.

Both American and Israeli leaders have totally failed to educate the public and our government to the truth and have thus allowed damaging falsehoods to take root by default.

8. Failure to speak truth to power in our own government

American Jews are far too reticent and fearful to speak out bluntly to our government on issues concerning Israel's legitimate security needs. Other interest groups routinely speak out boldly in support of their own issues. But we Jews barely whisper when we have completely legitimate complaints and should be boldly speaking truth to power. The U.S. administration certainly does not hesitate to publicly chastise Israel, invoking their own double standard, whenever they deem it expedient to appease the Arabs.

9.  Failure to oppose the Oslo Accords

From the very beginning it was obvious that Oslo was clearly defective and one-sided and some did sound early warnings. Further, Oslo was created in secret and presented to the Israeli public with no opportunity for open democratic debate in the Knesset and among the public. It soon became obvious that Arafat was cynically violating the 'no more violence' pledge and Israel was paying the price in blood. American Jewish leaders, with only a few courageous exceptions, remained in blind support long after the rising Israeli death toll demonstrated that this was a road to war and not to peace.

10.  Failure to provide an adequate Jewish education for many Jews

For many years Jewish education was too low a priority. Today we see the tragic results in high assimilation based on ignorance of our rich heritage. Remarkably, the less affluent orthodox community finds it possible to both have more children and to provide a better Jewish education. That proves it is primarily a matter of values rather than of money alone. It is also noteworthy that the Hasidic community, and especially the Lubavitch community, has set an exemplary example for all of us including their outreach to all Jews and their 2,000 Chabad centers around the world.

There is also a three-fold failure to properly present the Jewish religion to the larger society.

1. Too many gentiles have a confused understanding of the Jewish religion. We would benefit if we moved to vigorously educate our fellow Americans about Judaism and Jewish history. Having college courses and web sites is not enough. There should be much greater public outreach.

2. A greater public outreach would also attract some converts who would likely be of high human quality to invigorate our anemic Jewish ranks.

3. Along the way we would also reach and recover some of the alienated and assimilated Jews who are being lost under present conditions.

11.  Failure to establish a Jewish economic infrastructure

American Jewish life remains heavily dependant on 'schnoring', i.e. begging for donations all the way from the big givers and on down to local rummage sales, raffles, etc. Israel Bonds is a commendable and very successful program in helping Israel but we never moved beyond that to the next level, and into solid economic Jewish enterprise. Israeli exports provided a major missed opportunity. Department stores selling a full range of Israeli products should have been established 40 years ago in major U.S. Jewish communities. In addition there are about 2,000 Jewish institutions (i.e. synagogues, Jewish centers, day schools, etc.) in the U.S. and Canada many of which could have begun locally to also carry Israeli products. Earlier I investigated this concept and found that with a shoestring investment and a few shelves, any synagogue or Jewish center, could begin operating with a small initial inventory and expand from there. More recently this concept was proposed to the national Jewish leadership. Their response was to ignore the whole idea without even investigating. Israel has a huge export industry that we could have augmented while also earning a substantial and growing income for local Jewish needs. Shifting existing buying patterns is potentially much easier than repeatedly soliciting outright donations.

Meanwhile there has been a sharp decline in Jewish giving among Jewish philanthropists. It was reported that 50 years ago they averaged about 50% to Jewish causes and today only 20% of their total giving supports Jewish causes. And Jewish philanthropists can also unduly influence the policies of the recipient organizations in an undemocratic manner. By now Jewish enterprise based on Israeli exports could have provided a large, dependable, and growing income stream so we would be less dependent on charity, generate more self-respect, and be more democratic. We remain trapped with too many overlapping Jewish organizations all competing for donations and which confuses the Jewish public and wastes valuable resources. Personal egos and entrenched thinking prevent a much needed restructuring and streamlining to prepare for the future.

12.  Failure to demand justice for Jonathan Pollard

Too many Jews accepted the false, self-serving, versions by our government and media, about Jonathan Pollard and were all too quick to denounce him while fearing the old accusations of 'double loyalty'. Pollard was a whistle blower who discovered a dangerous betrayal of Israel by U.S. intelligence which was acting in violation of Ronald Reagan's Presidential agreement of 1983 to share intelligence. Pollard discovered that the Israel's enemies were acquiring weapons of mass destruction and also that his superiors at U.S. Naval intelligence were deliberately, and illegally, withholding that essential intelligence information. He gave Israel what they should have received automatically but his superiors had their own agenda and then wanted to punish him for foiling their plans. There is extensive documentation on www.jonathanpollard.org and further exoneration on http://www.john-loftus.com and click on link: "The Truth About Jonathan Pollard." Jonathan now begins his 19th year in prison for passing secrets to an ally which usually carries a sentence of 2-4 years as happened in all other cases with non-Jews and with other countries. What is sought here is NOT a favor but TRUTH and JUSTICE and yet again the Jewish leadership has run away from its moral duty in a show of near total cowardice. (They issued a few feeble and ineffectual letters politely asking for his release.) All this makes it extremely easy for our enemies to fabricate lies and use those lies to attack Israel and by extension Jews in general.

13.  Failure to build a stronger sense of community

Unfortunately this problem remains too low a priority within the Jewish leadership. It is not all that rare or unusual for Jews to encounter a certain coldness within the community which serves to undermine the building of a strong sense of belonging and solidarity. Singles have a tougher time than married couples, lower income non-professionals are less welcome than higher income professionals, etc. Egos and cliques operate to make certain Jews feel less welcome and one result is that some will eventually drift away from the community or even end up joining other religions where the welcome is much warmer. Years ago, at a synagogue, there was a lecture by a female editor of a Jewish woman's magazine. She recounted experiences at a public college where Jewish men went out of their way to embarrass and ridicule Jewish women in public. At a college football game they shouted insults, they posted 'JAP' ridicule messages on the dorm doors of Jewish women and even wore 'JAP' insults on their 'T' shirts (JAP means Jewish American Princess and is not a compliment) - all in the name of rollicking fun. This was a measure of Jewish self-hatred by Jewish men who obviously lacked a proper upbringing. Even among Jews with high intelligence we can still find frequent instances of crude and low class behavior. Where is the teaching of basic social skills and proper etiquette that is even part of our religion? We cannot afford this type of ignorance and this should be recognized and confronted. Although that congregation responded with interest and concern, the synagogue leadership never followed up on this issue.

One reason that many Jews marry non-Jews without even expecting the non-Jewish partner to convert to Judaism is the lack of proper upbringing. There is a lack of early conditioning to maintain the Jewish community, a lack of teaching social graces and a lack of sufficient opportunities for single Jews to meet comfortably in a dignified manner within a Jewish atmosphere. What opportunities do exist are often commercial, exploitive and demeaning or else very inept when offered by Jewish institutions. Despite the high number of Jewish professionals in the fields of psychology, counseling, social sciences and in the human potential movement, it is truly ironic that we still suffer from so much social dysfunction inside our own community.

14.  Failure to expose and to oppose the Jewish leftists

From earliest times there have been those of Jewish ancestry who have acted to undermine the security, and even the survival, of the Jewish People. Today, as before, these people again make common cause with our most dangerous enemies. They readily tell any lie to further incite our enemies to even greater levels of murderous hatred. Most of these are on the political left and are usually non-religious. However there is also the fanatic Netura Karta religious extremists who deny the right of Israel to even exist prior to the coming of the Messiah. They are so extreme that they align with the PLO and other murderers of innocent Jews. Enemies of the Jewish People are only too eager to cite these Jews as evidence of how evil Israel is and by extension the Jewish People as well. In the face of all this the Jewish leadership has been ineffective. In America the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations has consistently failed to educate the Jewish public about this and to publicly expose and denounce these traitorous and self-hating Jews. Their crime of silence allows these evil ones of Jewish birth a free hand to spread their poison far and wide.

15.  Failure to establish a Jewish think tank

Jewish intellectuals are active participants in every area of our secular society and Jewish scholars do report on the problems within the Jewish community. However, a true Jewish think tank is needed. It would be charged with coming up with creative, innovative, viable, solutions to major problems and not just observing and documenting them. And we also need to invite the Jewish public to offer constructive ideas for the general welfare. Enlightened companies, for example, have long had suggestion programs where employees can submit ideas and have them seriously evaluated and possibly implemented. The same Jews who enthusiastically work hard to succeed in secular endeavors exhibit contrasting attitudes of apathy when it comes to bringing the same creativity to Jewish affairs. Being Jewish in America today urgently needs to be re-defined to a higher and more meaningful level.

16.  Failure to respond properly to Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan

The disengagement plan of Prime Minister Sharon will have immense consequences for the future of Israel. It not only involves Israel's security but would permanently cede land that was an integral part of our biblical inheritance that came with instructions to never divide the land. This is thus a major issue that affects all of the Jewish People. In Israel this plan was sprung by Sharon and imposed on his Likud party. Calls for a national referendum in Israel have been rebuffed while Sharon abruptly reverses his own prior and long standing policies. He refuses to answer serious objections concerning consequences of his actions and remains determined to impose his plan on a sharply divided country. And with such an important issue facing all Jews the American Jewish leadership has meekly acquiesced with no open, democratic debate to inform the public and air all views. The failures listed above are certainly not meant to be comprehensive but rather to illustrate the vast extent of the shortcomings. These criticisms are certainly harsh because the failures are numerous and severe. Perhaps the biggest criticism of all is the ongoing failure of Jewish leadership to honestly evaluate itself and institute much needed reforms. There is also the problem of huge egos that become obstacles to reform and to progress.

We Jews have made many mistakes throughout our long history and even our bible recounts many of them together with warnings of consequences. In the past few years the Jews of Israel, and also in the Diaspora, are becoming painfully aware that we face severe dangers and we must mobilize all of our strength and wisdom to face them. We have not yet recovered numerically from the Holocaust and we now face new dangers.

Will our leadership fail us again or finally rise to the challenge?

 

 

 

 

A true solution requires confronting two fundamental issues: 1. Current proposals, including the Road Map, are totally unworkable and should be abandoned. 2. An entirely fresh approach is required that is free of imposed constraints. The purpose of this essay is first to briefly challenge the entrenched mindset and then advance a win-win solution for both Jews and Arabs. Before proposing the proper solution it is necessary to first demonstrate the falsity and futility of some of the main arguments intrinsic to the Oslo Accords and to the Road Map.

Demonstrably false argument 1. - Israel should trade ‘land for peace’ to create yet another Arab country.

There are 22 Arab countries and only one Jewish country. The land-rich Arabs already occupy over 5 million square miles and land-poor Israel, including all of its territories, comprises only about 10,000 square miles. The Arab areas are thus 500 times larger than Israel and the Arabs already possess 99.8% of the total land. The so-called West Bank and Gaza areas combined total 2,300 square miles and comprise a miniscule 0.046% of the entire Arab empire - and to seize this speck of land the Arabs are adamant and willing to fight and die forever! Only a mind, hopelessly out of touch with reality, can seriously suggest that the Arabs need still more land, carved out of Israel, to create yet another country.

Demonstrably false argument 2. - The ‘Palestinians’ are a separate people who deserve their own country.

There are no authentic ‘Palestinian’ people and there never was. Even the name of Palestine is a historic fraud perpetrated by the Romans, to permanently erase the original name of Judea, following the Jewish revolt against Rome of two thousand years ago. As recently as the 1940’s the name ‘Palestinian’ clearly meant a Jew in the land of Israel and Arabs were simply called Arabs. After Israel’s rebirth the local Arabs appropriated that now-available title for themselves and created a new identity. This was done for purely hostile political purposes to undermine Israel’s legitimate right to its biblical homeland. In all of history there never was a Palestinian nation, or country, or people, or language, or religion, which was distinct from the existing Arab counties in that region. Repeated attempts to rewrite history must never be allowed to corrupt the truth. To fully expose the ‘Palestinian’ hoax in modern times one should read Joan Peter’s critically acclaimed book, From Time Immemorial - The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine.

Demonstrably false argument 3. - We can have a viable ‘Palestinian’ state in the so-called West Bank and Gaza next to a viable Israel.

Proponents of the Road Map offer NO development plan whatsoever. Any genuine plan must include a comprehensive environmental impact study covering: population growth; water resources; agriculture resources; economic development; social and political considerations; etc., with projections extending through at least the next century. Proponents offer NO plan because it is impossible to design any plan that enables both peoples to live viably in so tiny an area along with normal population growth. Below are projections for population growth in Israel and the territory of the proposed Palestinian state, based on current growth rates:Inside Israel Assuming continuation of their current growth rates for the next hundred years, Israel’s Jews at 1.5% per year become 28 million and Israeli Arabs at 3% per year become 23 million. That totals 51 million Jews and Arabs living on less than 8,000 square miles with a density of 6,500 per square mile. The Israeli Arabs have double the Israeli birth rate and are already 23% of the total population and gaining. They remain mostly hostile and will soon be able to gain political control and they already hold about 10% of the Knesset seats. Israel will thus be unable to remain permanently Jewish and the Israeli Arabs will always be seeking to advance their Arab identity in conflict with Israel. Inside the territories At their present high growth rates the Palestinian Arabs, inside the West Bank and Gaza, growing at 3-4% per year become 120 million in 100 years. Including all the Palestinian refugees, who could migrate in from outside, would add another 47 million. Thus there are a potential total of 167 million Arabs in the projected Palestinian state in 100 years in an area of only 2,300 square miles for an astronomical density of 72,500 per square mile. Many fail to appreciate the awesome power of compound growth until it is too late. These are only projections but long before those numbers are reached the area will explode in misery and conflict based on a crushing burden of population overload, aside from any political conflict. It is totally impossible for that many people to survive, much less thrive, in such a tiny area. That should be obvious to all.

Demonstrably false argument 4. - Arab possession of their 22 countries and 5 million square miles is legitimate and not to be challenged.

Just how did the Arabs come to control such vast territories? They got it the old fashioned way - by conquest! Before Mohammed, 1,400 years ago the Arabs lived in the Arabian Peninsula. Mohammed founded Islam and with it the zeal for jihad to conquer and convert, often by force. During the period following Mohammed the Arabs conquered vast areas in North Africa, southern Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia and spread Islam far and wide. Today Arabs directly control 5 million square miles and 22 sovereign states, while non-Arab Islamic countries control nearly another 5 million square miles. The Arabs often claim that they were the original inhabitants in the land of Israel. Actually Arab invaders did not enter the land of Israel until about the year 638 while Jews had established their first commonwealth under King David, with Jerusalem as their capital, over 1,600 years earlier. Archaeologically, the entire land of Israel gives testimony to the ancient Jewish presence, but there is no evidence of any ancient ‘Palestinian’ presence. And most of those 22 Arab States, including Iraq and Jordan, were first created by England, France or Italy during the past century to further their imperial interests, and with no historical justification.

In summary, advocates of these senseless schemes seriously propose to: invent a people that never was; seize land from Jews having virtually no land; transfer that Jewish land to those with too much land and unrelenting murderous hatred; and then let them all grow in numbers and suffocate together inside of a coffin-size territory - all in the name of peace and justice! That is what passes for thinking in this insane world. The Road Map guarantees a lose-lose outcome - we need a win-win outcome.

The true basis for a lasting peace

A far-sighted Arab-Jewish agreement was arrived at 85 years ago but was never fully implemented. This still-legal agreement provides the basis for a solution today and should become widely publicized and supported.In 1919, following the end of World War I, an international Paris Peace Conference was convened by the victorious Allies to settle international questions. Delegations attended from around the world including an official Arab and Zionist delegation. The Arab delegation was led by Emir Feisal I, who agreed that the entire Palestine territory of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 would become the Jewish national home and expressed that position in separate letters to Zionist leaders Dr. Chaim Weizmann and Felix Frankfurter. In return for Arab support the Zionists promised economic and technical assistance to the local Arabs and the Allied powers agreed to grant eventual sovereignty to many of the Arab peoples in the region that were previously under control of the former Turkish Ottoman Empire. This conference, and a subsequent one at San Remo Italy, amicably settled the issues among the parties with voluntary, legally binding, international agreements. In 1922 the League of Nations assigned Britain as the Mandatory to faithfully carry out these agreements. It was British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill who unilaterally divided Mandatory Palestine into an exclusively Arab sector (Trans Jordan) and a Jewish sector. The Arabs received 76% of the original territory, comprising 35,000 square miles, located east of the Jordan River. That left the Jewish sector with only 10,000 square miles out of their original 45,000 square miles, which was still less than 1% of the combined Arab areas of 5 million square miles. That remaining Jewish sector is today contested with the ‘Palestinians’ claiming the ‘West Bank’ and Gaza to create, in effect, a second Palestinian state. (Jordan is mostly Palestinian.) It was the British, in 1919, who began to undermine their own Mandate and to instigate the Arabs against Jews. The Ariel Center for Policy Research in Israel (www.acpr.org.il) has a policy paper no. 147 titled, “Legal Rights and Title of Sovereignty of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel and Palestine Under International Law” by Howard Grief, author of the forthcoming book. It ably summarizes the post-World War I settlement of the Palestine question and its subsequent betrayal by the British government entrusted with implementing it. A few extracts from the executive summary (www.acpr.org.il/publications/policy-papers/pp147-xs.html) will indicate its importance. “Under this settlement, the whole of Palestine on both sides of the Jordan was reserved exclusively for the Jewish People as the Jewish National Home, in recognition of their historical connection with that country, dating from the Patriarchal Period. ... The Palestine aspect of the global settlement was recorded in three basic documents that led to the founding of the modern State of Israel: ... The British Government repudiated the solemn obligation it undertook to develop Palestine gradually into an independent Jewish state. ... The US aided and abetted the British betrayal of the Jewish People by its abject failure to act decisively against the 1939 White Paper despite its own legal obligation to do so under the 1924 treaty. The UN Partition Resolution of November 29, 1947 illegally recommended the restriction of Jewish legal rights to a truncated part of Palestine. ... Despite all the subversive actions to smother and destroy Jewish legal rights and title of sovereignty to the entire Land of Israel, they still remain in full force by virtue of the Principle of Acquired Rights and the doctrine of Estoppel that apply in all legal systems of the democratic world.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It has been argued, by scholars of international law, that the agreements of the international Paris Peace Conference of 1919, and their formal assignment to Britain as the Mandatory by the League of Nations, continue to be legally binding on all parties under international law. In addition to Jewish legal claims based on the 1922 law a case can be made that it is also morally binding and that England is guilty of bad faith and for having engaged in deliberate sabotage of that agreement. A most promising beginning for Arab-Jewish relations in the Middle East was deliberately undermined by England and this part of history must be brought to bear upon the present conflict. Israel has a right to make full land claims under that 1922 Mandate by the League of Nations. The Arabs should also be made aware that it was England that instigated them against the Jews in pursuit of British imperial interests and to the disadvantage of both Arabs and Jews. Significantly, Arab support for a Jewish state was clearly manifested at the Paris Peace conference of 1919. This should also be part of the legally binding Arab obligations to acceptance of a Jewish state with full rights. Emir Feisal I, son of Hussein, Sheriff of Mecca led the Arab delegation to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Excerpts of two letters from Emir Feisal to Zionist leaders Dr. Chaim Weizmann and to Felix Frankfurter indicate their friendly relations and high hopes for Jewish - Arab cooperation. Also note in the following text the term ‘Palestine’ clearly refers to the Jewish national home and not to any Arab entity or people.

From Emir Feisal to Dr. Weizmann: “His Royal Highness the Emir Feisal, representing and acting on behalf of the Arab Kingdom of hedjaz, and Dr. Chaim Weizmann, representing and acting on behalf of the Zionist Organization, mindful of the racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish People, and realising that the surest means of working out the consummation of their national aspirations is through the closest possible collaboration in the development of the Arab State and Palestine, and being desirous further of confirming the good understanding which exists between them, have agreed upon the following Articles:” ....... Article IV: “All necessary measures shall be taken to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale, and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish immigrants upon the land through closer settlements and intensive cultivation of the soil. In taking such measures the Arab peasant and tenant farmers shall be protected in their rights, and shall be assisted in forwarding their economic development.”

From Emir Feisal to Felix Frankfurter: .... “We feel that the Arabs and Jews are cousins in race, having suffered similar oppressions at the hands of the powers stronger than themselves, and by a happy coincidence have been able to take the first step towards the attainment of their national ideals together.” “We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our deputation here in Paris is fully acquainted with the proposals submitted yesterday by the Zionist Organization to the Peace Conference, and we regard them as moderate and proper. We will do our best, in so far as we are concerned, to help them through: we wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home.” .... “People less informed and less responsible than our leaders and yours, ignoring the need for cooperation of the Arabs and the Zionists have been trying to exploit the local difficulties that must necessarily arise in Palestine in the early stages of our movements. Some of them have, I am afraid, misrepresented your aims to the Arab peasantry, and our aims to the Jewish peasantry, with the result that interested parties have been able to make capital our of what they call our differences.” ....(To read full text go to  www.jmcc.org/documents/fesialweizman.htm