Martin Indyk, are you listening?
A couple of years ago, '
moderate' '
Palestinian' President
Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen told an Israeli interviewer that he had
no intention of returning to Tzfat (Safed), a town that is located within the Israeli side of the 1949 armistice lines. Of course, he immediately walked back that statement.
His spokesman, Nabil Abu
Rudaineh, tried to explain that the interview with Channel 2 was mainly intended
to “affect Israeli public opinion.”
In other words, the spokesman is
telling Palestinians and Arabs that Abbas is telling Israelis what they like to
hear – namely that Palestinian refugees would not return to their former homes
inside Israel.
Which statement is the truth? Obviously,
the second one.
Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview with Egyptian newspaper
Akhbar el-Yom over the weekend that there are 6 million Palestinian
refugees waiting to return to their homes and that he was one of them.
The Middle East Media Research Institute
reviewed the statements made by Abbas in the Arabic daily, and found
that Abbas said he would not recognize Israel as a Jewish state because
he believes it would undermine the national interests of Israeli Arabs,
and prevent millions of Palestinian refugees from returning to their
homes. "We cannot recognize a Jewish state," he said, adding, "We cannot
close the door to those who wish to return."
He further said that if the U.N. Security
Council rejects the Palestinian proposal for a two-year deadline for an
Israeli withdrawal to 1967 lines, he may end Palestinian security
cooperation with Israel and even step down and transfer responsibility
for the Palestinian Authority to Israel.
He said that if Israel continues to prevent
the Palestinians from forming an independent state, then it should "take
responsibility for the occupation," including the health and education
sectors as well as all internal affairs.
Martin Indyk, are you listening?
Labels: Abu Mazen, Martin Indyk, right of return, Tzfat
Who cares if Abu Mazen doesn't return to Tzfat?
You might recall the highly embellished story that was published in the New York Times a couple of years ago, when '
moderate' '
Palestinian' President
Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen described how his family had
left Tzfat (Safed) in 1948.
In an interview with Israeli television last Thursday, Abu Mazen did something that would have been really gutsy but for the fact that he has immediately walked it back. Abu Mazen told an Israeli interviewer that he
did not want to return to Tzfat, opening the possibility that other 'refugees' (most of whom never lived in Israel) would not 'return' either from their 'refugee camp' prisons.
Abu Mazen's comments provoked outrage - part of which is his own fault because during the time that he has been the 'Palestinian leader' he has never prepared his 'people' for a settlement that would not include vitiating the Jewish states. And so, whether he meant it or not, he is now telling everyone that he didn't mean it.
He is being accused of “giving up the right of return” for
millions of Palestinian refugees and some of his political rivals have gone as
far as calling for his execution for “high treason.”
What surprised Abbas
was the fact that the strong condemnations were not only from Hamas and radical
Palestinian groups, but also from ordinary Palestinians, including some of his
political allies in the PLO.
If he was surprised, he should not have been. That's always been the 'Palestinians' position, and that's one reason why they never reached an agreement with Barak at Camp David or Taba, or with Olmert at Annapolis. It's always been a zero sum game with them.
I don't believe he was surprised. I believe it was a slip of the tongue.
But what it shows more than anything else is that the 'Palestinians' are not ready for compromise.
Judging from his
response, one is left with the impression that Abbas regrets having ever given
an interview to an Israeli media outlet.
His spokesman, Nabil Abu
Rudaineh, tried to explain that the interview with Channel 2 was mainly intended
to “affect Israeli public opinion.”
In other words, the spokesman is
telling Palestinians and Arabs that Abbas is telling Israelis what they like to
hear – namely that Palestinian refugees would not return to their former homes
inside Israel.
Well, isn't that just so reassuring?
What's curious is that I did a little searching on the web and didn't find a whole lot of reaction from Arab states. Sure, there was a reference in Al-Ahram to 'occupied Galilee,' but I suspect that other than the countries that immediately surround us and house 'Palestinian' refugees, the non-Islamist Arab countries (like Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries) have tired of the issue.
Labels: Abu Mazen, right of return, Tzfat
Arabs taking a page out of the Jews' book
In the pre-state era, Jews paid massive amounts of money - and overpaid - to buy land from Arabs and reclaim it as Jewish land. Is the process now being reversed?
On Sunday, I received the following email from
Russel H:
This shabbos I heard a story that Arabs have been trying to buy homes in Tzfat, sometimes offering up to four times their value. The money, apparently is Saudi. Do you know anything about this?
I didn't. But I put the question to
Joel B, who runs
this website. Here's his response:
I don't know specific prices but I do know that Tsfat is one of many, many, cities on the 'hit' list. This is a national issue. Everywhere in the country they are either buying or trying to buy. In the predominantly Arab areas they build illegally non stop.
Hey folks - is anyone there? Wake up!
Labels: Arab land grabs, Tzfat
Arab Muslims harass Jewish girls in Tzfat (Safed)
Some of you may recall that about a year and a half ago, there was a hue and cry over a ban issued by
several rabbis against Jews renting and selling
homes to Arabs in Tzfat (Safed).
In case you're wondering what the fuss was about, Pam Geller has some
updated details.
Too many obscenities for me to post on this site, and I cringe at the thought of the Jewish girls hearing those words.
Labels: renting or selling land to non-Jews in Israel, Tzfat
How I ran away
Some of you have been asking where we went. .
About three months ago, one of my group buys offered a tzimer (literally a room, but more like a bungalo) for one night other than the Sabbath for NIS 250 (regular price NIS 550 $1 = NIS 3.4 these days). They offered only 50 spots. The tzimer is in Yavne'el, a peaceful little village about 12km east of Tiberias (pictured). It had to be used before July 31. I bought a voucher and figured I would surprise Mrs. Carl. (If anyone wants details on the tzimer, please send private email).
As it happens, logistics of the two of us getting away without children are way too complex for me to keep this a secret until we get in a car to leave, especially since our car died three weeks ago. So before I left for the US, I told Mrs. Carl what I had done and asked her to arrange a date. The date was Tuesday night.
So Tuesday afternoon (much later than planned), we drove to Yavneel, which took about two hours. After I took a nap and still fell asleep again in the synagogue waiting for the afternoon service, we decided to head to Tiberias for dinner and not risk waiting until after the evening service. Surprisingly, there were far more super-Kosher (Mehadrin for those in the know) restaurants in Tiberias than we ever thought there would be. We found dinner and came back to Yavneel to sleep.
On Wednesday morning, a private guide took us for a two-hour hike through a wilderness area. Then we drove to Tzfat (Safed), which is about an hour's drive, and spent a few hours wandering around the old synagogues and the artists' quarter. Then we drove to Meiron (probably a 20-minute drive, but we made a wrong turn coming out of Tzfat which added to the trip) and went to the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (which was crowded!). Then we drove to Netanya, where I took Mrs. Carl to a restaurant I ate in last year and really enjoyed, but to which she would never agree to drive just to go to dinner (it's about 90km from Jerusalem). And then we came home.
So we had a couple of days away from the kids (the 20-year old and the 17-year old took care of the three little ones, although we did need a babysitter for a few hours tonight), and now we're back and
exhausted raring to go.
UPDATE 1:20 AMForgot to mention that I did not see Abu Bluff's family home in Tzfat, but did see some horrific stories about how the British tried to make sure the city went to the Arabs when the Mandate ended. Will try to remember to post tomorrow.
Labels: Meiron, Netanya, Tverya, Tzfat, vacation, Yavne'el
Abu Bluff's fairy tale
Ephraim Karsh tells the real story of
'moderate' '
Palestinian' President
Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen's
Tzfat (Safed).
But was he expelled? Hardly. Not only did Abbas reveal a couple of years ago, in an Arabic interview, that his family had not been forcefully expelled and that his father was affluent enough to provide for them for a year after their flight (so no canvas tent), but none of the 170,000- 180,000 Palestinian Arabs fleeing urban centers, in the five-and-a-half months from the passing of the UN resolution to Israel’s proclamation on May 14, 1948, were expelled by the Jews.
Quite the reverse in fact, huge numbers of these refugees were driven from their homes by their own leaders and/or by Arab military forces which had entered the country to fight the Jews, whether out of military considerations or to prevent them from becoming citizens of the prospective Jewish state.
In the largest and best-known example, tens of thousands of Arabs were ordered or bullied into leaving the city of Haifa (on April 21-22) on the instructions of the Arab Higher Committee, the effective “government” of the Palestinian Arabs, despite strenuous Jewish efforts to persuade them to stay. Only days earlier, Tiberias’s 6,000- strong Arab community had been similarly forced out by its own leaders, against local Jewish wishes. In Jaffa, Palestine’s largest Arab city, the municipality organized the transfer of thousands of residents by land and sea; in Jerusalem, the Arab Higher Committee ordered the transfer of women and children, and local gang leaders pushed out residents of several neighborhoods.
And what about Safed? Having declined an offer by Gen. Hugh Stockwell, commander of the British forces in northern Palestine, to mediate a truce, the Arabs responded to the British evacuation of the city with a heavy assault on the tiny Jewish community, less than a quarter their size. “Upon the British evacuation on April 16, we occupied all the city’s strategic positions: the Citadel, the Government House, and the police post on Mount Canaan,” recalled a local Arab fighter.
Read it all and see what a liar Abu Bluff is.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Tzfat, War of Independence
