פרסומים אחרונים במדור "פוליטיקה"

4. Assures the rejection of all forms of Palestinian patriation which conflict with the special circumstances of the Arab host countries.

3. The summit rejects all forms of resettlement of Palestinians which conflicts with the special circumstances in the Arab host countries.

http://fyi.cnn.com/2002/fyi/news/03/28/peace.proposa...

The Spectator is by no means on par with The Sun, as far as readership concerns, qualitatively and qualitatively. It is an elitist weekly magazine, and the extent of its influence is unknown to me. The crux of last week's leading editorial, tiled Fighting Fanaticism, was:

"The condemnatory noises made by the West against Israel will not appease the Arabs, who believe that Israel can be made to do anything the Americans tell it to do, but will encourage the terrorists, who will derive moral justification for their acts from them. The West is shooting itself squarely in the foot by its insincere denunciations of Israel, suggesting a moral equivalence between a democratic state’s self-defence and the bombers of pizza parlours."
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old&am...

BTW, countering that point of view, Emma Williams wrote in the same issue, Stop in the name of decency:

"Under the guise of ‘self-defence against terror’, Israel is now violating virtually every article of the Geneva Convention. And for what? The results of Sharon’s policy appear all too clear: hundreds killed, thousands swearing revenge, and hundreds of thousands in a humanitarian crisis"

Note the exact opposite spin given to the notion of "self-defence"

(Sorry 'bout the English but I'm away from my [un]trusy PC)

There is, with a good bit of deep sadism, due to
1) Deterioration in level of education in the last 20 years, in particular in regards to sciences and mathematics.
The result: Rather than deep level habits of thought, surface-level-thought barbarianism, impatience, low level ethics and high sensation seeking

2) Some elements of cult culture in Israel output young hooligans

Open Letter to the World

Dear World,

I understand that you are upset by us, here in Israel. Indeed, it appears that you are quite upset, even angry. (Outraged?) Indeed, every few years you seem to become upset by us. Today, it is the "brutal repression of the Palestinians"; yesterday it was Lebanon; before that it was the bombing of the nuclear reactor in Baghdad and the Yom Kippur War and the Sinai campaign. It appears that Jews who triumph and who, therefore, live, upset you most extraordinarily.

Of course, dear world, long before there was an Israel, we - the Jewish people - upset you. We upset a German people who elected Hitler and upset an Austrian people who cheered his entry into Vienna and we upset a whole group of Slavic nations - Poles, Slovaks, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Russians, as well as Hungarians and Romanians. And we go back a long, long way in the history of world upset. We upset the Cossacks of Chmielnicki who massacred tens of thousands of us in 1648-49; we upset the Crusaders who, on their way to liberate the Holy Land, were so upset at Jews that they slaughtered untold numbers of us.

For centuries, we upset a Roman Catholic Church that did its best to define our relationship through inquisitions, and we upset the arch-enemy of the church, Martin Luther, who, in his call to burn the synagogues and the Jews within them, showed an admirable Christian ecumenical spirit. And it is because we became so upset over upsetting you, dear world, that we decided to leave you - in a manner of speaking - and establish a Jewish state. The reasoning was that living in close contact with you, as resident-strangers in the various countries that comprise you, we upset you, irritate you and disturb you. What better notion, then, than to leave you and thus love you - and have you love us? And so we decided to come home - to the same
homeland from which we were driven out 1,900 years earlier by a Roman world that, apparently, we also upset.

Alas, dear world, it appears that you are hard to please. Having left you and your pogroms and inquisitions and crusades and holocausts, having taken our leave of the general world to live alone in our own little state, we continue to upset you. You are upset that we repress the poor Palestinians.You are deeply angered over the fact that we do not give up the lands of 1967, which are clearly the obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Moscow is upset and Washington is upset. The "radical" Arabs are upset and the gentle Egyptian moderates are upset.

Well, dear world, consider the reaction of a normal Jew from Israel. In 1920 and 1921 and 1929, there were no territories of 1967 to impede peace between Jews and Arabs. Indeed, there was no Jewish State to upset anybody. Nevertheless, the same oppressed and repressed Palestinians slaughtered tens of Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Safed and Hebron. Indeed, 67 Jews were slaughtered one day in Hebron in 1929.

Dear world, why did the Arabs - the Palestinians - massacre 67 Jews in one day in 1929? Could it have been their anger over Israeli aggression in 1967? And why were 510 Jewish men, women and children slaughtered in Arab riots between 1936-39? Was it because Arabs were upset over 1967? And when you, world, proposed a UN Partition Plan in 1947 that would have created a "Palestinian State" alongside a tiny Israel and the Arabs cried "no" and went to war and killed 6,000 Jews - was that "upset" caused by the aggression of 1967? And, by the way, dear world, why did we not hear your cry of "upset"then?

The poor Palestinians who today kill Jews with explosives and firebombs and stones are part of the same people who - when they had all the territories they now demand be given to them for their state -attempted to drive the Jewish state into the sea. The same twisted faces, the same hate, the same cry of "itbach-al-yahud" (Massacre the Jew!) that we hear and see today, were seen and heard then. The same people, the same dream - destroy Israel. What they failed to do esterday, they dream of today, but we
should not "repress" them.

Dear world, you stood by during the holocaust and you stood by in 1948 as seven states launched a war that the Arab League proudly compared to the Mongol massacres. You stood by in 1967 as Nasser, wildly cheered by wild mobs in every Arab capital in the world, vowed to drive the Jews into the sea. And you would stand by tomorrow if Israel were facing extinction.

And since we know that the Arabs-Palestinians dream daily of that extinction, we will do everything possible to remain alive in our own land. If that bothers you, dear world, well - think of how many times in the past you bothered us. In any event, dear world, if you are bothered by us, here is one Jew in Israel who could not care less.

Ariel Ben Attar
Israel

Myths & Facts A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/myths/mftoc.html

I am so angry at what is happening to what I have worked on so long that I
wrote this article. If anyone wants to try and place it in a newspaper,
magazine, mailing list or any other publication please feel free to do so.

A Palestinian refuses to accept Israeli attempt to destroy Hope

By Daoud Kuttab

I still remember the day early in March 1997 when I was handed a piece of
paper issued by the Palestinian Authority allowing us at Al Quds
University's Institute of Modern Media to establish a local television
station in Ramallah. With lots of energy and almost no resources we began
the process of setting up Al Quds Educational Television. We wanted an
independent TV station that was neither a governmental mouth-piece nor a
commercial station that lives by game shows and shampoo

It wasn't easy but we were largely successful until this week.

Five years after launching our first broadcast using a 40 Watt transmitter
and screening a gold fish in a glass bowl swimming to the sounds of
Beethoven, our dreams have been shattered. Our station, which has grown in
size, viewrship and program, has been arbitrarily closed, our equipment has
been destroyed and Israeli soldiers are using our offices, studios and
equipment as their bowling ally. No order was issued for this closure, we
didn't violate any law. The destruction was simply an act of unprovoked and
uncivilized aggression

From early on the going was tough, but our existence until this week was
never in doubt. We tried to stay independent as the best means we believed
will help us in the pursuit of serving our people. We received little help
in our mission. The major international donors wanted to help the state-run
television as a means to boost the Palestinian Authority. With help from
Palestinian foundations like the Welfare Association and international
organizations like the Open Society Foundation and the Ford Foundation we
were able to create a Palestinian TV station that combined PBS and
C-Span-type of public service programming.

Early on, senior leaders in the Palestinian Authority were not happy with
us. When we started broadcasting live sessions of the elected Palestinian
Legislative Council, Palestine TV started jamming us. When we aired a
session that dealt with corruption in the Palestinian Authority I was
arrested and held in a Palestinian jail for seven days. My release as a
result of local and international pressure helped secure our station's
continuity and progress.

Since then and despite some programming critical of the Palestinian
Authority, we were left alone. On our screens we have dealt with issues
ranging from children's rights to the problems of early marriage among young
Palestinian women. From issues about physical and sexual abuse of children
to programs dealing with our societies lack of respect for individuals with
disabilities. We tackled issues dealing with the environment, public health
and family planning. Freedom of expression and presenting multiple opinions
on social economic and political issues were our motto.

During this time, and despite many pressures, we were excited about our
efforts. We felt that we were not only building up a TV station but
contributing in the building of our society. Throughout this period we felt
firmly that we were laying the blocks for a cohesive progressive society
that will be the foundation of an independent state.

As part of the vision of the president of Al Quds University, Professor Sari
Nuseibeh, we embarked on a brave television co production to produce a
Palestinian-Israeli version of Sesame Street. The program was produced with
the aim of teaching both our children mutual respect and tolerance. We even
used the same image of the fish from our first broadcast to teach children
the Arabic word for fish samak. Although the program was aired on our and
other local Palestinian television stations, the harsh realities on the
ground made our job much more difficult. The Netanyahu Administration had
dashed all previous hoped for peace and it was clear that the situation had
not changed enough to allow our children to consider paying serious
attention to the television program's curriculum goals of tolerance and
mutual respect.

It wasn't only the children who were disappointed with the lack of progress
in the effort to end the Israeli occupation. We were all unhappy with the
continued Israeli hesitation in delivering on our right to freedom from
checkpoints and travel permits not to mention the continued illegal
settlement activities.

Yet we kept hoping. For so long we kept on hoping, refusing to give-in to
despair. As late as last week and despite the Israeli humiliations to our
president and our people we kept the vision alive.

When the latest Israeli incursion occurred we tried our best to keep our
cool despite the next to impossible mission of running an educational
television station in such times. Tanks were rolling around our city, our
staff were under curfew and we were cut off from each other except for
telephone contacts. The fact that our station was on the edge of town
sparred us in the early days of the incursion. e kept running our station
with a mix of public service messages (phone numbers of medical care etc.)
plus public service programming. A series of 13 Public Service Messages that
we produced with UNICEF with the aim of helping parents and children deal
with the trauma of violence were repeatedly broadcast.

But this Israeli honeymoon didn't last. At 6:30 on April 2, 2002, Israeli
soldiers came to the four story Medical Professions College Building where
located and began destroying our dream. Every office in this educational
facility was broken into, equipment was destroyed and office space was
settled into by the invading soldiers. Our two remaining staff members
manning the broadcast were arrested and held for four hours in the cold
before being released. Moments before their arrest they turned off the
transmitter in fear that the Israeli soldiers would repeat what they did at
a local commercial station a few days earlier. When the Israelis occupied
the building housing Watan TV, they kicked away its staff and after a while
the soldiers started to broadcast pornographic material.

While being held, the two remaining staff in the building and the
University's guard heard and noticed the destruction of our building. They
saw television cameras and invaluable video archives thrown from the fourth
floor where our equipment and studio are located. Neighbors saw at least
five Israel tanks rolling in and parking in the parking lot where professors
and television staff used to park. The entire building's offices were lit
till late hours of the night and when a number of our viewers called to find
out what was happening Israeli soldiers answered our phones as if this was
their private homes.

I am fortunate that my family and our staff have not been physically hurt.
When compared to the fate of others we must be grateful.

But what happened hurt when seen in the context of what one has been working
for all his life. The attempt to destroy our dream, both personally in
building a useful educational TV station, or collectively in building a
viable state, will not be shattered by such reprehensive actions.

It will not be easy to pick up the pieces after one experiences such
brutality and lack of respect by individuals who no doubt bring shame to the
nation and religion that they belong to.

I have no doubt that we will rebuild our television station and re ignite
the hope that we had five years ago. At the same time I am confident that
our people with the support of the international community will rise from
the pain and build the foundation of a viable state that can live in peace
with its neighbors.

Daoud Kuttab is a Palestinian journalist from Jerusalem. He is the director
of the Institute of Modern Media at Al Quds University which owns and runs
Al Quds Educational Television. In May 2001, Mr. Kuttab received the
International Press Institute's award as one of fifty press freedom heroes
in the last fifty years.

Ynet: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3169474,00.h...