Via Frontpage:
Israel’s war against Hamas brings up the old quandary: What to do about the Palestinians? Western states, including Israel, need to set goals to figure out their policy toward the West Bank and Gaza.
Let’s first review what we know does not and cannot work:
- Israeli control. Neither side wishes to continue the situation that began in 1967, when the Israel Defense Forces took control of a population that is religiously, culturally, economically, and politically different and hostile.
- A Palestinian state. The 1993 Oslo Accords began this process but a toxic brew of anarchy, ideological extremism, anti-Semitism, jihadism, and warlordism led to complete Palestinian failure.
- A binational state: Given the two populations’ mutual antipathy, the prospect of a combined Israel-Palestine (what Muammar al-Qaddafi calls “Israstine”) is as absurd as it seems.
Excluding these three prospects leaves only one practical approach, that which worked tolerably well in the period 1948-67:
- Shared Jordanian-Egyptian rule: Amman rules the West Bank and Cairo runs Gaza.
To be sure, this back-to-the-future approach inspires little enthusiasm. Not only was Jordanian-Egyptian rule undistinguished but resurrecting this arrangement will frustrate Palestinian impulses, be they nationalist or Islamist. Further, Cairo never wanted Gaza and has vehemently rejected its return. Accordingly, one academic analyst dismisses this idea “an elusive fantasy that can only obscure real and difficult choices.”
It is not. The failures of Yasir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, of the Palestinian Authority and the “peace process,” has prompted rethinking in Amman and Jerusalem. Indeed, the Christian Science Monitor’s Ilene R. Prusher found already in 2007 that the idea of a West Bank-Jordan confederation “seems to be gaining traction on both sides of the Jordan River.”
The standard “peace process” can never work because Palestinian political groups, from Hamas to the PA, are strongly influenced by their Nazi roots. John Loftus offers a short history of the political maneuvering behind the conflict:
The Muslim Brotherhood began to expand in scope and influence during World War II. They even had a Palestinian section headed by the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, one of the great bigots of all time. Here, too, was a man — The grand Mufti of Jerusalem was the Muslim Brotherhood representative for Palestine. These were undoubtedly Arab Nazis. The Grand Mufti, for example, went to Germany during the war and helped recruit an international SS division of Arab Nazis. They based it in Croatia and called it the “Handjar” Muslim Division, but it was to become the core of Hitler’s new army of Arab fascists that would conquer the Arab peninsula from then on to Africa — grand dreams.
At the end of World War II, the Muslim Brotherhood was wanted for war crimes. Their German intelligence handlers were captured in Cairo. The whole net was rolled up by the British Secret Service. Then a horrible thing happened.
Instead of prosecuting the Nazis — the Muslim Brotherhood — the British government hired them. They brought all the fugitive Nazi war criminals of Arab and Muslim descent into Egypt, and for three years they were trained on a special mission. The British Secret Service wanted to use the fascists of the Muslim Brotherhood to strike down the infant state of Israel in 1948. Only a few people in the Mossad know this, but many of the members of the Arab Armies and terrorist groups that tried to strangle the infant State of Israel were the Arab Nazis of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Britain was not alone. The French intelligence service cooperated by releasing the Grand Mufti and smuggling him to Egypt, so all of the Arab Nazis came together. So, from 1945 to 1948, the British Secret Service protected every Arab Nazi they could, but they failed to quash the State of Israel.
As a result of these efforts to backstab Israel, the spawn of Britain’s adopted Nazis are currently stormtroopering through the streets of London. Yet more blowback from their policy of supporting ‘friendly’ terrorist/extremist groups.
The no-state solution is the best way to stop the destruction caused by these policies.
Link thanks to Alan Sullivan
Mary P. Madigan 
Pipes’ plan is very simplistic. He doesn’t mention what he would do with the hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews living in the “West Bank.” Also, what happens when some suicide psychopath decides to start shooting rockets from Ramallah? Does Israel then bomb Amman, with which it has a peace treaty? Do they violate the now sovereign soil of Jordan? This idea is full of holes.
John Loftus…..”Everyone thinks that Islam is this fanatical religion, but it is not…… Islam is a very peaceful and tolerant religion. It has always had good relationships with the Jews for the first thousand years of its existence. ”
I am speechless for now, after drinking this John Loftus cocktail of rewritten history mixed with peoples refusal to give even a passing nod to the violent history of Islam and it’s founder…. Sometimes you have to dig deeper than the CIA basement of history if you are the least bit curious of someone’s refusal to acknowledge life before the United State and Britain. Do you see the blood dripping from Mohammads’s sword? Do you see the heads rolling?
Also, what happens when some suicide psychopath decides to start shooting rockets from Ramallah?
An individual suicide psychopath would have a very hard time buying and assembling the materials required for a successful Kassam launch. Even the traditional suicide-bomber-in the-marketplace attack requires a level of coordination and organization that individual suicide attackers can’t manage.
Those rocket launches and other ‘individual suicide’ attacks are a community effort, arranged, paid for and tolerated by remote sponsors and the local government. If the Jordanian government does not tolerate it, and if the sponsors are properly intimidated, it would not be a problem.
However, the issue of the Jews living in the West Bank would be a problem, but this is an issue that the two-state plan would also have to deal with.
Do you see the blood dripping from Mohammads’s sword? Do you see the heads rolling?
I don’t see the blood dripping from Mohammed’s sword because he died a few centuries ago. Since we’re discussing real-life politics, it would be best to limit the poetic imagery and keep our heads in the real world for a while.
In this post, I’m discussing solutions to existing 21st century problems. Loftus’ and Pipes articles describe real-world strategies that can be used to stop the current rise of fascism in the Middle East.
History is not the real world or not YOUR real world? Pity you dimiss history and therefore are doomed to repeat it. It seems you only do enough digging to bury your head in the sand.
History is the real world. For instance, I know that Mohammed was more of a military leader than a religious leader. Mosques are built to serve as armories. Islam is not a peaceful religion.
I also know that Muslim paramilitary ‘warriors’ are primarily funded by Saudi Arabia. Although Islam is a culture of warriors, these warriors are badly trained and none of them can shoot straight. Religion is used as a recruiting tool by these armies, but drugs, racism and the promise of being a gangster/badass are also recruiting tools.
These armies are funded by petrodollars, drug money and funds from kidnapping and extortion. The Muslim Brotherhood, a financial/political organization with branches worldwide, manages these paramilitary armies. Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Many western nations try to ally with and empower ‘good’ terrorists, like the members of the Muslim Brotherhood, Fatah or Saudi Arabia, in the hope that they will deal with ‘bad’ terrorists, like Iran or Hezbollah. This strategy has always failed in the past and it will fail in the future, because empowering terrorists encourages the growth of more terrorism. We should stop doing this and try other strategies. That was Loftus’ point.
All of these facts are relevant. Poetic religious imagery of bloody swords is not.
Your blog your last word, but when a founder of a faith with millions of followers worldwide demands the blood or at the least, the dhimmitude of unbelievers, the imagery of a bloody sword is the most relevent fact of all.
Yes, but what practical suggestions can you offer for dealing with this…?
Is there a practical solution possible when one party calls for the complete destruction of another? I’m all ears.
Lynn, what point are you trying to make? Are you trying to say that all Muslims are big bad boogymen?
If so, what do you want me (and any random readers) to do about that?
My point is, that if you took away the Nazi’s, took away Britain, took away the United States etc. you would still have to uncover the root of this conflict, Islam. The history of forcing conversion, dhimmitude or death on nations would make your statement that all Muslims are boogeymen complete nonsense, but I’m sure you know that.
I really don’t want you to do anything, just acknowledge that the deepest root Israel faces at this time in history, is the call for death to the Jews and death to the infidels that comes from the grave of their Allah.
I acknowledge that Israel and many other parts of the world face a threat from a political organization that bases its ideology on Islam.
There is no reasonable way to wage war on a religion, and I have no interest in doing so. However, it is possible to wage an ideological and military war against a political or legal entity.
Islam is more than a religion, it’s also a political and legal entity. I’d say that right now it’s about 1/3 religion, 1/3 legal and 1/3 political/military. If there are people out there who object to the entity ‘Islam’, it might be a good idea to make this point, and to seek to reclassify Islam as a political/military organization.
This is an organization that uses ‘religious’ structures as political meeting houses and armories. Their Imams are proud of their violent imagery and fighting ‘skills’. People really need to rethink the concept that judicial/military infrastructure is a religion.
Israeli Attacks in Gaza and the Arab Demagogy
Dr. Sami Alrabaa
Once again some of us Arabs are as usual in a big mess. The Islamist extremist group Hamas, which came to power 2006 through an un-Islamic political process, namely democratic election, has since hijacked Gaza, established its rocket factories in residential areas, in bunkers under mosques, schools and hospitals. Over the past three years, the Hamas jihadis and their affiliates have frequently targeted their Kassam rockets at residential areas in Israel. Even during the ceasefire brokered by Egypt in 2008, Hamas shot their rockets at Israel. On top of all these, Hamas, like the PLO before the Oslo Accords, rejects the existence of Israel, a UN member state. Its ultimate aim is liberating all Palestine, which include Israel, by wiping out the Jewish state from the world map and possibly by genocidal massacre or deportation of all Jewish people.
The “struggle” of Hamas is backed by Islamists across the globe, by state-controlled media of the Arab world, and by one-eyed anti-war campaigners in the West. Ban Ki-Moon, the Secretary General of the UN, has condemned the latest Israeli military operations in Gaza as “disproportionate”.
All these organizations and groups have voraciously consumed the Hamas propaganda; they allege that the Israeli blockade has caused abject misery in Gaza, people there are starving. Some compare Gaza to a huge prison, to Holocaust. But who is to blame for all this calamity?
Israeli politicians have repeatedly stated that once Hamas stops its terrorist activities and launching of missiles, the blockade would be lifted. The Israeli cabinet even approved of aid convoys into Gaza despite Hamas’ continued shooting rockets. The Hamas leadership ignored such conciliatory Israeli gestures and carried on the rocket-attacks on residential areas in Israel.
We Arabs are very good at twisting facts and exaggerating them, when it suits us. Mustafa Barghouthi, a Fatah activist, told CNN (28.12.2008) that “It was Israel which broke the ceasefire with Hamas.” Buthaina Sha’ban, a Syrian cabinet Minister, called the recent Israeli attacks on Hamas’ military targets “the most atrocious Holocaust in the history of mankind” [London-based Saudi daily Al Shraq Al Awsat, 29.12.2008].
We Arabs also prefer to be mystical, wishful rather than realistic. Waleed Al Tabtaba’i, an Islamist member of the Kuwaiti parliament, hoped that Allah would come to rescue the Gazans as he did with his prophet Muhammad in all his raids against the infidels [Al Watan, 29.12.2008].
Yusuf Al Qaradhawi, the renowned radical Islamic cleric, told the Al Jazeera TV that “We Muslims, we are a bunch of donkeys if we do not stand up and fight the Israelis and their supporters wherever they are.”
Hamas and its affiliates are feeding on wishful thinking. They believe that an escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would bring them closer to their aim: Arabs and Muslims would take to the street and urge their governments to take action against Israel. Islamists in Iran and Indonesia have registered themselves to fight Jihad against the Jews, the “apes” or “monkeys” as Allah calls them.
We Arabs have learned nothing from the two major disastrous wars against Israel. Some of us still believe that the Israelis understand only the language of defiance and violence. Violence is the only “argument” we possess. Rational, realistic thinking has never been a part of our discourse and action.
Especially Islamists, they rejoice at the on-going maiming and killing in Gaza, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. None of those Hamas-sympathizers has ever condemned the atrocities inflicted upon innocent people, arbitrarily killed in these countries by suicide bombers in the name Islam.
In Arabic we say, Ja’ja’a bila taheen” (It is all noise without flour). We Arabs are most boisterous, shrill people, but less effective or inclined to seeking pragmatic, workable solutions.
According to a clandestine survey by Bielefeld University conducted in Syria and Egypt (2006), over 70% of the population in these countries want peace with Israel. They are “sick and tired”, as many put it, of the belligerent discourse of the Islamists and the biased and instigatory propaganda of their national media. They, of course, don’t dare say that openly.
Khaled, who wants to be identified by his first name only, told me, “Our leaders and their affiliates suffer from some kind of personality disorder. They keep us busy with Israel to distract from their failure to establish democracy and remove poverty. They also support radical organizations like Hamas and Hizballah as tools to keep that distraction alive.”
Fatima said, “Israel left South Lebanon and Gaza. Yet, for Hizballah and Hamas this is not enough. What do these people want? They are making the life of their people and ours miserable. We feel hijacked by these murderers. We want peace.”
Hamas and its affiliates are among the bloodiest in the history of mankind. They do not value human life. They deliberately provoked the Israeli offensive and were aware that that would cause death to hundreds of civilians living in areas where Hamas had stored its rockets. Hamas leadership has been banking on images of death and destruction as a means to rally support in Arab, Muslim, and Western streets.
According to a recent opinion poll, conducted by Emnid Institute in Germany, more than 80% of the German population blame Hamas for the high toll of deaths among civilians in Gaza. One interviewee put it this way, “Hamas is acting like armed criminals who have barricaded themselves among innocent civilians and arbitrarily fire at people around them. As the criminals adamantly refused to stop shooting, the police had no other choice but to storm the area to catch the criminals, or kill them. Unfortunately, several innocent people were killed. You can not blame the death of innocent people on the police. It is the criminals to blame for all this.” Israel must carry on its offensive until the Hamas leaders surrender. There is no peace without sacrifice. All Israelis and decent Arabs would be grateful to the Israeli army if it rids us from those thugs. We want to live in peace.
In view of the fact that Kuwait and Lebanon allow relatively higher freedom of speech, columnists like Ahemd Al Sarraf, Ali Al Baghli, Hasssan El Essa, Fouad Al Hashem, and Khaleel Haidar in these countries have blasted Hamas and the Islamists for the calamity in Gaza.
The Arab world has never experienced any semblance of political freedom and stability. Since independence over the last half of the 20th century, the Arabs have been ruled by despots, either military or hereditary. Demonstrations are basically forbidden; calls for political reforms are ruthlessly squashed. But when people demonstrate against a foreign powers—Israel or the USA, for instance—they are then most welcome.
The Syrian regime even allowed a hand-picked group people to protest against the Egyptian embassy for not opening the border with Gaza. The Egyptian government also allowed demonstrations against the Israeli strikes against Hamas, while the authoritarian regime of Husni Mubarak deals with demonstrators for political reforms ruthlessly; see it here.
The Arab regimes have always projected the “Palestinian cause”—the “Wound of all Arabs” or the “Nakba” (calamity) as some Arabs prefer to call it—as a pretext to keep the people distracted from calls for political and economic reforms at home. The occupation of Iraq and the rise of Islamism have provided Arab regimes with new opportunities to defer socio-political reforms.
Besides, Arab regimes, such as the Egyptian, Syrian and Saudi governments, have appeased Islamists by antagonizing the same enemy, namely Israel and the USA, at least in the media. The radicals have stopped their arbitrary attacks in these countries; instead, they cross borders to wage Jihad against the foreign infidel enemy: in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Some dictators have never left a worthy legacy. Many of them have also left destruction, misery and deaths of numberless innocent people: think of Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Pol Pot; the list is long. The Arab dictators are in a sense in good company.
All that being said, the road to democracy, freedom and liberty in the Arab world will yet be long one; the Arabs would still have to wait for decades before they can enjoy these basic rights of man.
In the meantime, the name of the game in the Arab world would remain demagogy, irrationalism, political schizophrenia, defiance and violence.
“Karin in Saudi Arabia”: A Look Into What Life In Saudi Arabia Is Really Like
Dr. Sami Alrabaa has written a book entitled “Karin in Saudi Arabia”, about a German woman who lived in Saudi Arabia for a while and fell in love with a Saudi–and the nightmare that ensued.
An editorial review by the author is below:
Annotation/Editorial Review
“Karin” is a real story of a German woman, who lived in Saudi Arabia for a while and fell in love with a Saudi. Later, this love turned into a devastating nightmare. The Saudi “Morality Police”, notorious for their bestial brutality, raped Karin and threw her in prison. Her crime was, she was driven alone downtown by a taxi-driver. Her German-Saudi baby son was taken away and she was deported to Cyprus without passport and money. Muna, a young Moroccan woman was luckier. She managed to smuggle herself and baby after one-night marriage with Sultan, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
In Saudi Arabia, you can marry and divorce a woman in her absence. All you need is a religious man and two male witnesses. This is exactly what happened to Karin; she was married in her absence. Muna never saw any marriage or divorce papers.
Mimi and Najat were brutally stoned to death. Najat, a deaf-dumb was caught by the “Morality Police” and suspected of being a prostitute. In reality she was waiting for her brother to pick her up in front of shop window.
The Morality Police Chief quickly passed sentence on Najat. He wrote, among other things: “Najat was working as a prostitute and was caught in the very act of picking up a client. We advise that she be stoned to death…” Two muttawas (Morality Police) delivered the document to Prince Salman, the governor of Riyadh. He jotted down a verdict to match the suggestion, then signed it. Najat was to be publicly stoned to death the following Friday.
Mimi, a house-maid from the Philippines, was denounced by the wife of Karin’s lover. She was picked up by the “Morality Police” and also stoned to death. These stories happen very often, and people are defenseless towards them. There are no courts in Saudi Arabia, and the princes there possess absolute power.
Nisrin, a Bangladeshi woman, who married a Saudi, was deported and the marriage was annulled. Before that she was raped by one of those “Morality Police”. A Saudi who belongs to an important tribe, cannot just marry anyone.
Mohammed, a Syrian truck-driver had both hands amputated for allegedly stealing the truck he was driving.
Very few atrocities like the ones I’m reporting reach the international media. In March, 2002, the Saudi Morality Police prevented school girls from leaving a blazing building because they were not wearing the correct Islamic dress. As a result 15 girls were burned alive.” My stories are a pattern that happen day in day out.
When you study Islam; the Quran and Shari’a, and live in Saudi Arabia for a while, you find out that the Saudis are in fact applying the Islamic law. “The woman who commits adultery must be stoned to death.”(Quran, 36:18). “And (as for) the man who steals and the woman who steals, cut off their hands as a punishment for what they have earned, an exemplary punishment from Allah; and Allah is Mighty, Wise.” (Quran 5:38). For more details, check out http://europenews.dk/en/node/13862and “Understanding Muhammad” by Ali Sina.
The book also shows that not only the Saudi regime and its religious fanatic establishment are oppressive, but also other groups in society: Saudi men oppress and ill-treat women, and Saudi men and women oppress and abuse foreigners.
When I delivered the manuscript of this book to friends outside of Saudi Arabia, asking them to read it over, their response was uniform: they shook their heads in disbelief. Nobody in the civilized world seemed able to fathom the extent of the arbitrariness and atrocities to which victims in Saudi Arabia are subjected. To them, it was incredible. Some remarked that I was telling stories about the actions of monsters from another planet. They could not believe that any human could act as a Saudi corrupted by power does.
The Book is available on http://www.amazon.com and in your bookstore.
Dr. Alrabaa – thanks for your very informative comments. Do you mind if I quote you on the front page?
On 11/8/99 Chairman Yasser Arafat signed an agreement giving BG Group 90 percent interest and 10 per cent to Consolidated Contractors Company, an Athens based Palestinian entity connected to the PLO. A final allocation of the rights continues to be contested between BG Group, Israel, Egypt and the Palestinians in obscured ongoing negotiations. The Israelis began their program of killing and harassing the Gazan fishermen only after the discovery of the natural gas deposits. It is a reasonable assumption that the two events are linked: That the Israelis are asserting control over this resource valued at over 4 billion dollars; And that they are intent on denying any benefit to the Palestinians regardless of who controls Gaza.
That’s what’s going on there. Greed. The same greed that led the US to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.
June, 2008 -Israel contacted BG Group to propose reopening negotiations over the natural gas deposits. Actual negotiations overseen by Ehud Olmert were taking place in October, 2008. It appears that Israel wished to reach an agreement with BG Group before the secretly planned invasion began.
11/18/08 – An Egyptian court ordered the government to stop shipping natural gas to Israel. Under a 2005 agreement Egypt agreed to deliver 1.7 billion cubic meters of gas to Israel over a 15-year period. The gas began to flow in May, 2008. A lawsuit followed seeking to bar delivery since the Parliament had not given its approval. The court supported the lawsuit and its findings are being appealed. The potential cutoff of the gas from Egypt gave Israel even more incentive to take control of the Gaza Marine deposits and to deny any benefits to Palestinians whether Hamas or Fatah.
12/27/08 – Israel began bombing Gaza as phase 1 of operation “Cast Lead”. The vast natural gas deposits of Gaza Marine 1 and 2 rest a few miles offshore.
To the victor the spoils one more time? Only time and perhaps the conscience of the world will determine.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11787
Maria, pipeline conspiracies are so last century.