Obama claims Peres and Rabin aren't buried in Israel
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
Here's a screen shot of the text of President Obama's speech at Shimon Peres' Friday funeral:
For the record, Mount Herzl is located in 'West' Jerusalem (the part that was ruled by Jews between 1948-67) so he doesn't have that excuse either. This is from Tom Gross via email:
What many Israelis and others don’t find amusing is that the White House – eager to stick with its fiction that (west) Jerusalem is not part of Israel – issued a press release correcting their previous press release which had stated that Peres’s funeral was in Israel. (See screenshot above.)
It is preposterous that Barack Obama, having just given a speech that many Israelis welcomed in which he appeared to show some real empathy for Zionism, and having firmly implied that he was giving the speech in Israel, should then allow his press aides to remove the word “Israel” from the White House press material sent out to hundreds of journalists.
Even journalists not normally sympathetic to Israel said they were surprised at the White House’s actions.
Obama was speaking at Mount Herzl nearby Yad Vashem in west Jerusalem. Shimon Peres’ coffin was laid to rest next to that of Yitzhak Rabin. Is it really the position of the White House that Rabin and Peres are not buried in Israel?
Why anyone thinks Obama has any empathy for Israel is simply beyond me. He cannot be gone from office soon enough.
Abu Mazen earns praise for plan to attend Peres funeral, but Fatah says he's 'destined for hell' and Hamas calls for 'days of rage'
'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen is drawing praise from the Israeli Left for his plan to attend Shimon Peres' funeral. Peres was the man who brought the 'Palestinians' in from the cold.
But Israel's Arab MK's are being criticized for ignoring Peres' death, while Abu Mazen's Fatah faction has described Peres as 'destined for hell' and his Hamas rivals are calling for 'days of rage' in response to Peres' death.
This is the second link from the above paragraph.
On the day after former Israeli
President Shimon Peres passed away, Fatah demonized Peres as a murderer
about to enter Hell. In a cartoon on Fatah's official Facebook page
(shown above) Peres is shown trembling and handcuffed as the Grim Reaper
shows or reads to Peres from an English language scroll the long list
of "crimes" that the PA-Fatah accuse Peres of committing. In the
background flames are seen, representing the fires of Hell that,
according to Fatah, are awaiting Peres.
Likewise, official PA TV's "Israeli
affairs expert" spoke about Peres. The "expert," an Israeli Arab named
Fayez Abbas, described Peres as a man of war who should have been tried
in the International Criminal Court, and as "the greatest fraud in the
history of the Zionist movement." The essence of his message about Peres
was that he succeeded in deceiving the entire world when he talked
about peace:
The Hamas terror group urged Palestinians to hold a “Day of Rage” on
Friday, coinciding with the state funeral of former Israeli president
Shimon Peres, which will be held in Jerusalem on that day.
The call is meant to mark the one-year
anniversary of the beginning of a wave of terror attacks, including
stabbings and car-rammings throughout the West Bank and in Jerusalem,
that launched in September 2015.
Hamas’s call follows a Wednesday statement by the group’s spokesman in Gaza that expressed happiness at Peres’s death.
A spokesman for the group, Sami Abu Zuhri,
told AP on Wednesday that “the Palestinian people are very happy at the
passing of this criminal who caused their blood to shed.”
He added, “Shimon Peres was the last remaining
Israeli official who founded the occupation, and his death is the end
of a phase in the history of this occupation and the beginning of a new
phase of weakness.”
Meanwhile, Abu Mazen expressed sorrow over Peres' death... at least in English.
In a statement, Abbas said he has sent a condolence letter to Peres’s family expressing “sorrow and sympathy.”
He called Peres a partner in reaching a “peace
of the brave” with the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and prime
minister Yitzhak Rabin. The three men shared the 1994 Nobel Peace prize
for reaching the Oslo interim peace accord.
Abbas said Peres “exerted persistent efforts to reach a just peace from the Oslo agreement until the final moments of his life.”
Once again the 'Palestinian Authority' is speaking from both sides of its mouth.
Greetings from Paris - Charles DeGaulle where once again Every Landing Always Late. They've admitted to two hours and fifteen minutes so far. And to think that I ran like crazy thinking I had only an hour and fifteen minutes to make a connection (American left more than two hours late from Charlotte last night, but made up much of that time on the way).
That's okay, because I will have some time to work after I finish this post (and maybe another one) and Paris may be one of the most appropriate places in the world to talk about Shimon Peres, who passed away this morning at the age of 93, because he was fluent in French and because in his later years he so emulated the French.
Israel owes a lot to Shimon Peres, especially our alleged nuclear capability, which was his doing in the early 1960's. I saw a Facebook post this morning that claimed that Peres 'saved' the country from hyperinflation in the 1980's, but the person who wrote it was a child at the time, and I was an adult. I don't believe that's accurate.
Palestinian Communications Minister Imad Al-Faluji, Al-Safir, 3 March 2001. (Translated by MEMRI):
Whoever thinks that the Intifada broke out
because of the despised Sharon’s visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque is wrong..
. . This Intifada was planned in advance, ever since President
Arafat’s return from the Camp David negotiations, where he turned the
table upside down on President Clinton.
Yasser Arafat’s wife Suha (pictured above) said the following (from Palestinian Media Watch):
On the personal level, I miss him very, very
much. [Our daughter] Zahwa also misses him, you can’t imagine. She
didn’t know him. She knows that Arafat sent us away before the [Israeli]
invasion of Ramallah. He said: ‘You have to leave Palestine, because I
want to carry out an Intifada, and I’m not prepared to shield myself
behind my wife and little girl.’ Everyone said: ‘Suha abandoned him,’
but I didn’t abandon him. He ordered me to leave him because he had
already decided to carry out an Intifada after the Oslo Accords and
after the failure of Camp David [July 2000].
Imad Faluji, PA Minister of Communications:
Whoever thinks that the Intifada started because
of the hated Sharon’s visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque is mistaken. That was only
the straw breaking the Palestinian people’s patience. This Intifada was
already planned since [Arafat] the President returned from the recent
talks at Camp David [July 2000].” [Private filming of speech by Faluji, Dec. 5, 2000]
The Israel Project
notes that American diplomat Dennis Ross recounts in his book The
Missing Peace how the Israelis called Washington with proof that the
Palestinians were “planning massive, violent demonstrations
throughout the West Bank and the next morning, ostensibly a response to
the Sharon visit.” Washington pressured Arafat to dampen the violence, but the Palestinian leader – again per Ross – “did not lift a finger to stop the demonstrations, which produced the second Intifada.”
Who was Shimon Peres. Some interesting quotes are here. He did some good for the State of Israel, but he took many actions, especially in his later years, that were based on delusions of grandeur that harmed many people.
Video: Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech for the 40th anniversary of the Entebbe rescue
Here's Prime Minister Netanyahu speaking at the Entebbe Airport today. Part of the speech is in Hebrew, and since this was posted by the Ugandan television network NBS, there is no English translation. I apologize but I don't have the time to write a translation.
Let's go to the videotape.
Ugandan President Musevani's speech was in English - long and rambling and spending way too much time on the 'Palestinians' - and it may be found here.
Hamas propaganda video encourages 'Palestinian police' to attack Israeli soldiers
When Israel entered into the Oslo accords in the mid-90's, it thought it was getting 'police' who would carry light arms and carry out typical policing functions.
But Yasser Arafat insisted that there be huge numbers of police - far more than any other population in the world on a per capita basis - and that they be given military armaments. And with Rabin and Peres eager for a deal - any deal (sound familiar?) - the 'Palestinians' got what they wanted.
Now, Hamas is encouraging the 'Palestinian police' to turn those arms on IDF soldiers just as they did during the 'second intifada' a decade plus ago.
Let's go to the videotape.
Newly released #Hamas propaganda video focuses on encouraging PA police to carry out terror attacks on #IDF soldiershttps://t.co/Xl4jzVtgwp
By the way, a senior Fatah official claims that Hamas only represents 5% of 'Palestinians.' Let's say that's an understatement, and a pretty gross one at that.
Martin Indyk, Barak Ravid and Haaretz (and NPR) campaign to pin Rabin assassination on Netanyahu continues
Israel's Left, together with certain career 'diplomats' in the US State Department, have never relented in their efforts to pin the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin on Prime Minister (and then opposition leader) Binyamin Netanyahu. The latest assault comes from the publication by Barak Ravid and Haaretz of a 'secret' cable (published by uber-Leftist NPR) ostensibly sent by then-US Ambassador Martin Indyk to the State Department on the morning after the assassination more than 20 years ago. But before we even look at the cable, look at the inflammatory Haaretz English edition (the only edition that's read and it's read mostly outside Israel) headline: Indyk: At Funeral, Netanyahu Lamented That Assassination Made Rabin a Hero.
Indyk made the remarks in a Frontline documentary broadcast on PBS on Tuesday. Netanyahu was opposition leader at the time.
"Netanyahu sat next to me when I was ambassador in Israel at the time of Rabin’s funeral," Indyk says in the film. " … I remember Netanyahu saying to me: 'Look, look at this. He’s a hero now, but if he had not been assassinated, I would have beaten him in the elections, and then he would have gone into history as a failed politician.”
Indyk said that he had the impression that "even at that moment of tremendous support, a tragic moment of support for Rabin, Netanyahu was thinking, well, politically he was on the ropes before he was assassinated."
Indyk's comments are reinforced by a telegram sent from the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv on the morning after Rabin's assassination, a message that was exposed by Wikileaks a few years back. In the classified telegram that Indyk sent on November 5, 1995 at 10:15 A.M. to the White House and the State Department, he reported on a conversation that had taken place a few hours earlier between the State Department adviser at the embassy and Netanyahu. The Rabin assassination, Netanyahu is quoted as saying, is "a disaster for the Jewish people, a disaster for Israel and a disaster for the right, which will be decimated if elections are called soon."
Netanyahu's office denies that the conversation ever took place and says that Indyk fabricated it.
The Prime Minister's Office issued a “blanket denial,” saying that what Indyk said “never happened.”
The
Likud issued a response to Indyk's statement saying that “this is
another blatant lie by Indyk, who never stops discrediting and defaming”
Netanyahu.
But what's also true is that the comments attributed to Netanyahu do reflect what the conventional wisdom here in Israel was shortly after the assassination: That it would turn Rabin into an icon (indeed, it has made criticizing the very premises of the Oslo Accords into heresy) and would decimate the Right the next time there were elections.
But instead of calling elections immediately as many in the Left urged Shimon Peres to do (link in Hebrew and discussed below), Peres waited three and a half months to call elections, by which time the 'Palestinians' had committed two massive terror attacks here in Jerusalem against the number 18 bus on consecutive Sunday mornings followed by a massive terror attack on the eve of Purim at Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv.
The elections took place in late May, and shortly after Uzi Baram of the Labor party publicly thanked Arab voters for putting his party and the Left over the top, around 6:00 am on the morning after the elections, Netanyahu and the Likud suddenly and inexplicably pulled ahead and went on to victory.
Much of that is in - or is alluded to - in the Hebrew version of Ravid's article, which has far more than the English version. The Hebrew version reports that on the morning of Rabin's funeral, the Left was behaving every bit as politically expediently as the Right, urging Peres to call elections. And the Hebrew version reports that Yasser Arafat was decimated by Rabin's assassination (no other event shook him as much except for the 1988 assassination of his top aide - Abu Jihad - allegedly by Israeli commandos led by Ehud Barak in Tunis), believing correctly that Peres would not be strong enough or have close enough connections to the IDF to give the 'Palestinians' their reichlet.
The Hebrew version of Haaretz also reports that Arafat gave orders to the 'Palestinians' to 'minimize' celebrations of Rabin's assassination and shooting in the air (an order that Arafat did not give on 9/11 by the way).
Twenty years ago tonight was one of those moments that you always remember where you were when you heard about it. Twenty years ago tonight, then-Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin was assassinated at the end of a 'peace rally' in Tel Aviv. (For the record, I was in our apartment on the computer and Mrs. Carl had gone with a couple of the kids to the mall - I think I had the two then-youngest kids at home).
I have written many times before about the assassination and why I believe that the person sitting in jail for doing it did not receive a fair trial. But perhaps the more significant question is whether Rabin would have continued the 'peace process' had he lived. Jeff Jacoby argues that Rabin would have brought that process to an end after the 1996 elections (Hat Tip: Martin Kramer).
Oslo was a disaster from the outset, arguably the worst
self-inflicted wound in Israel’s history. By 1995, it was widely
regarded as a failure by Israelis; polls showed public approval of Rabin
and his Labor Party sinking to record lows.
Oslo’s architects had promised that empowering Yasser Arafat and the
Palestine Liberation Organization with their own quasi-state in Gaza and
the West Bank was the best way to suppress terror attacks and improve
Israel’s security. Rabin’s government took the gamble, but the “peace
process” didn’t deliver peace. It delivered bus bombings and suicide
attacks.
More Israelis were killed by Palestinian terrorists in the 24
months following the famous handshake on the White House lawn than in
any similar period in Israel’s history.
In public, Rabin professed
to be undaunted, repeatedly insisting that the engagement with Arafat
must proceed: “We have to fight terror as if there were no peace talks,
and we have to pursue peace as if there were no terror.”
But privately, Rabin was having grave doubts.
According to Efraim Inbar, head of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University and the author of “Rabin and Israel’s National Security,”
Rabin was no starry-eyed peacenik. He was a pragmatic leader for whom
peace, in and of itself, was never a core value. The Oslo concessions
could be justified only to the extent that they left Israel more secure.
As it became apparent that instead of land for peace, Israel had
exchanged land for terror, incitement, and hatred, Inbar said Wednesday in a lecture at Boston University, there is good reason to believe he would have pulled the plug.
Others have said the same thing. Dalia Rabin, the prime minister’s daughter (and a former deputy defense minister), recalled in 2010
that she had been told by many of her father’s confidants “that on the
eve of the murder he considered stopping the Oslo process because of the
terror that was running rampant in the streets, and because he felt
that Yasser Arafat was not delivering on his promises.” And Moshe
Ya’alon, who in 1995 was Israel’s chief of military intelligence, was
told by Rabin that he intended to “set things straight” with Oslo after
the 1996 election, since Arafat’s commitments were plainly worthless.
Would
he have done so? Of course we cannot know for sure, but as Inbar notes,
Rabin did believe that Oslo was reversible. When critics expressed
alarm at an agreement committing Israel to arm a Palestinian police
force, he replied that there was nothing to fear.
“There is no danger that these guns will be used against us,” Rabin
said. “The purpose of this ammunition for the Palestinian police is to .
. . fight against Hamas. They won’t dream of using it against us, since
they know very well that if they use these guns against us once, at
that moment the Oslo Accord will be annulled.”
But he waited too long.
Rabin was never a willing participant in Oslo. Shimon Peres sent Yossi Beilin, Ron Pundak and Uri Savir to Oslo to negotiate with the PLO behind Rabin's back. Presented with the fait accomplis, Rabin went along. I think he would have dropped it in a minute.
Buzi Herzog has lived through everything and learned nothing
Israel's Left has spent nearly 20 years turning purported Rabin assassin Yigal Amir into the national bogeyman, while accusing the Right - and particularly Binyamin Netanyahu - of inciting the Rabin assassination. Now, the Left is trying to incite the assassination of Naftali Bennett - who is not as pliable as Binyamin Netanyahu - by putting up posters like the one above which claims that Yigal Amir (who is not allowed to vote) has told his family to vote for Bennett.
In Washington, whether it’s an R or D administration, in fact, we
want Israeli leaders like Rabin, Peres, and Barak who see the world more
or less the way we do when it comes to the two-state peace process. We
have a much harder time with those Israeli leaders—Begin, Shamir,
Netanyahu—whose views on what to do about the Palestinians don’t
naturally accord with ours. (Sharon was a special case. He and George W.
Bush got along reasonably well because neither really cared about the
peace process and both were governing in an age of terror.)
But sometimes those initial judgments about who’s naughty or nice end up confounding.
Because U.S. administrations tend to divide the Israeli political
spectrum into two parts—the good Israelis who share our views and the
not so good ones who don’t—they’re not entirely sure what to do with the
fact that Israeli prime ministers of all political stripes have
continued Israeli settlement building on the West Bank and construction
in parts of east Jerusalem that we’d like to see become the capital of a
Palestinian state.
It’s an inconvenient but important reality to acknowledge that of the
three U.S.-orchestrated breakthroughs in the Middle East peace process,
two of them—the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty and the Madrid peace
conference—came from hardline Likud prime ministers. The third—the three
disengagement agreements following the 1973 war —came courtesy of a
very tough Labor prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin.
But secretly rooting for the good Israelis and wishing them success
is one thing. What about actually doing things that help the good ones
succeed or alternatively weakening the Israelis we don’t want to see in
power?
I can recall at least three occasions when Republican and
Democratic administrations willfully picked Israeli favorites and tried
to shape election outcomes.
...
Now, as the clock ticks down on Israeli elections scheduled for March
2015, will the Obama administration play internal Israeli politics to
try to tip the election against Netanyahu?
Obama’s relationship with Bibi is perhaps the most dysfunctional of
any president-prime minister pair in the history of the U.S.-Israeli
relationship. Doubtless John Kerry, too, would like to see another
Israeli leader with whom he could dance a real peace process.
Yet constraints against U.S. meddling abound. First, there’s the
Republican-controlled Congress, which will be watching hawk-like for any
such funny business. Second, there’s the absence of a clear and
credible alternative to Bibi with whom the administration is close; and
then there’s the matter of the lack of a big issue for such lobbying.
The peace process is in a coma; and ISIS, Hamas, Assad, Hezbollah, and
the Iranian mullahs make Israel look like the good guys. Finally,
there’s Obama himself. He’s not Clinton. Does he really care? Do most
Israelis trust him? Could he get away with a campaign that makes clear
Bibi isn’t the right guy and candidate, but X is? I am betting on “no”
to all three questions. Don’t even think about it, Mr. President.
The last constraint is the most important one. Many Israelis saw Bush I as neutral at best and hostile at worst. But that didn't compare with what Israelis think of Obama. While we may differ on why, most Israelis agree that Obama is viscerally hostile to Israel. There is little that can be done to convince us otherwise (and with good reason).
If Obama tries to interfere (and with his arrogance I would say that there's a fair chance of that happening). it would likely backfire. That's what Miller is trying to prevent.
Keep writing Aaron. But don't expect Obama to listen.
Aaron David Miller: 'We always tried to influence the Israeli elections, but we never succeeded; Obama shouldn't even try'
Aaron David Miller, who was Dennis Ross' top assistant, has told YNet that the United States 'always' tried to interfere in Israeli elections, but never succeeded (Hat Tip: Red Tulips) (link in Hebrew).
According to Miller, the US gathered a lot of information about Prime Minister Netanyahu - including his activities while a student in the United States - but no one would listen.
Miller admits that the George HW Bush administration influenced the outcome of the 1992 election to bring Yitzchak Rabin to power over Yitzchak Shamir, but he claims that's because the US set up the environment for that election through the Bush-Baker controversies with Shamir. He admits that the Clinton administration also tried - unsuccessfully - to ensure Shimon Peres' election as Prime Minister in 1996. But Peres lost to Netanyahu.
Miller says that the Clinton administration gathered information on Netanyahu and leaked it to the Israeli media. The information included Netanyahu's activities as a student in Boston and Philadelphia, his name change to Nitai, his forfeiting of his American passport, and the failure of Netanyahu's first marriage. Miller claims that it caused a scandal but had no influence.
Miller advises President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry not to even try to influence March's elections. Clinton was a President who was beloved in Israel, says Miller, while Obama is extremely unpopular (you don't say...) and any attempt to influence the March elections would backfire.
Obama and Kerry are declining to comment on the upcoming elections, although Kerry has said that he hopes that a new government will be able to conduct a 'peace process.'
Funny how he doesn't mention the Americans' greatest success - the 1999 replacement of Netanyahu with Ehud Barak courtesy of Clinton.
'I gave the order to turn Pollard away from the embassy' and Rabin and Peres knew
In an interview to be broadcast on Monday night on Israel's Channel 2, Rafi Eitan, who was Jonathan Pollard's 'handler' within the Israeli government admits that he gave the order to turn Jonathan Pollard and his then-wife Anne away from the Israeli embassy in Washington on November 21, 1985. Eitan also says that Yitzchak Rabin and Shimon Peres knew all about Pollard.
You received a phone call in real time that Pollard and his wife are here at the gate, what to do?
Rafi Eitan: Yes. I got the news that he was standing at the embassy.
What do you say to yourself?
I immediately say, 'Throw him out'. I have no regrets.
When I'm in a battle, and it’s life or death, I have to decide yes or
no. I decide according to what is required at that moment. I make a
decision based on the interests of the State of Israel, you cannot let
any other thought interfere with the decision the moment you make it,
had I not done it the situation would have been much worse.
In the interview, Eitan says that he knew about Pollard’s
impending arrest three days before the arrest. That very night he goes,
according to his testimony, to Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Defense
Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and tells them that the arrest is about to
happen. He says the prime minister and defense minister were aware even
before this incident that Israel operates agents in the United States
military.
You know that part of their action plan would be to also sacrifice you?
I suggest ahead of time that they sacrifice me, I say at the outset, I
take all the responsibility, I gave the order, only I gave the order,
no one authorized me to do so. Just me. No one gave me an order, I
initiated it all alone. I am responsible, I tell them in advance.
But there was an incident here, it still exists, is affects the relations between Israel and the United States.
True, but nobody asked who is responsible. Everyone knew who was in charge, who initiated, who did what - only I am responsible.
Now you can tell us, Rabin is no longer with us, Shimon
Peres, he has already finished his last public position, do the prime
minister and defense minister know that Israel has American agents
inside the U.S. Army?
I do not want to answer that, because as soon as I answer this, there will be headlines in the newspapers.
From your answer I can understand.
You can understand.
They knew?
Obviously...I never lied to my government.
I don't just think he's wrong morally - I think he's wrong politically. If Israel had 'owned' Pollard when it happened, we wouldn't still have this scandal 29 years later, and Pollard wouldn't still be rotting away in jail.
Cabinet passes law aimed at stopping terrorist releases
Israel's Ministerial Legislation Committee has approved a bill to be presented by the coalition, which would pass a 'basic law' (allegedly cannot be overridden by the Supreme Court) that would bar the premature release of 'Palestinian' terrorists.
Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said "the State of Israel is opening a
new page in the war against terror and its moral commitment to bereaved
families.
"Years of blackmail and wholesale release will stop when this bill
becomes law," Bennett added.
"The Bayit Yehudi will work in the upcoming
[Knesset] session to pass the law without delay."
Seven ministers, from Likud Beytenu and Bayit Yehudi, voted in favor and three Yesh Atid and Hatnua ministers opposed.
The proposed legislature
aims to allow the courts to use the heavy sentence, which blocks the
president’s ability to pardon criminals in special cases like terrorist
attacks, murder with nationalist motivations, or murder of children.
...
The bill was proposed by Bayit Yehudi faction chairwoman Ayelet
Shaked and MK David Tsur (Hatnua) and co-sponsored by coalition chairman
Yariv Levin (Likud Beytenu), MKs Robert Ilatov (Likud Beytenu), Orit
Struck (Bayit Yehudi), Shuli Moalem-Refaeli (Bayit Yehudi), Motti Yogev
(Bayit Yehudi) and Yisrael Hasson (Kadima).
Ilatov pointed out
that similar sentences exist in the US and that the bill, should it
become law, will not discriminate by religion, ethnicity or gender of
the murderer.
"The goal is to have more severe sentences, without
having the death penalty," he explained. "Whoever deprives the whole
world [by killing a person] will pay by losing his freedom."
The legislation is an amendment to Basic Law: The Presidency, which currently says the president may pardon any criminal.
If the change becomes law, it will allow judges to use their discretion
on whether a murder is a “special case” or not, meaning there is a
possibility that law may never be put to use even if it is passed.
I'm almost surprised that the Left didn't vote in favor. This law sounds like it could be used to prevent the release of alleged Rabin assassin Yigal Amir.
I will never forget the morning after the 1996 elections. The Leftists - which was most of my government office at the time - were walking around crying because Binyamin Netanyahu had beaten Shimon Peres in an election six months after Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin was assassinated. I and the two other rightists in the office kept to ourselves to avoid being ostracized.
Today's edition of Yediot Ahronot features a "what if" article asking
various Israelis to speculate how things would be different today if various
events had not taken place.
Question: What would have happened if Rabin hadn't been murdered?
Yadlin: He would have lost the elections in any event to Binyamin Netanyahu
in '96. The public atmosphere in the country was that the Oslo process
failed, the terror attacks of Jihad and Hamas were unacceptable and Rabin
himself would have reconsidered Oslo. I have no doubt that he lost his
trust, if he even had it, in Yasser Arafat.
Question: And the claims that we would be after Oslo today, with two states
for two peoples?
Yadlin: That has no basis in reality.
But don't expect the Left to acknowledge this or to retry Yigal Amir - who was convicted by a lynch mob mentality of the assassination.
"The time has come to acknowledge reality:..There will be no peace
along the lines of the model that has stirred such a mighty uproar here
for the past decades, over which Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was
assassinated. In fact, let’s admit it -- the uproar has been fading for
some time. The burning issue has consumed itself and turned to dust. All
that passionate, feverish arguing has grown hollow. All that remains is
an empty shell that echoes with the raucous shouts of the ghosts of Rabin Square.
There won’t be two states for two peoples. It’s not going to happen.
Jerusalem will not be divided, no arrangement will be found for the Holy
Basin, settlers will not be evacuated, construction in the West Bank
will continue, the occupation will not end, no agreement will be signed
and there won’t be any unilateral withdrawal, no land swaps will take
place, America won’t present an ultimatum, Vladimir Putin won’t put a
gun to our head, Europe won’t boycott until the situation becomes
unbearable..."
Haaretz actually published this. Of course, the fact that they did so after 3:00 pm on the eve of Passover may be one reason why you missed it.
Can't get to the rest of it - it's behind a paywall. But it sounds pretty good.
You might recall the story of Eilat-based Yitzhak Rabin Ramsy, and his quest for Israeli citizenship. Rabin and his mother have finally gotten their wish. Rabin and his mother got Israeli citizenship on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, after years of struggling with the Ministry, that wish
was finally granted by Interior Minister Gidon Sa'ar. Sa'ar traveled to
Eilat to present Rabin with his Israeli identity card - and citizenship -
in a special ceremony.
"I went to the Interior Ministry, the military and the media,"
Rabin's attorney, Naomi Gonen, told the press after the event. "I was
sure it would be easier, but then I found out that things work very
slowly to move through the system. It took a few months, but the main
thing is that in the end we succeeded - mainly thanks to the media, who
supported the cause."
"The struggle of Yitzhak Rabin ends now that he has successfully
obtained an identity card, and the gates of the country are open for
him," the attorney continued. "Were it not for the positive response of
the media in this fight to get him his citizenship, we would never have
succeeded."
This is the amazing story of a Jordanian baby named Yitzchak Rabin (who was so named two months after the original Rabin was assassinated) and his struggle to stay in Israel with his mother.
Protecting Yitzhak has been her life’s mission ever since he was
born, in January 1996, near the city of Irbid in northern Jordan—just
two months after the assassination of the original Yitzhak Rabin at the
hands of an extremist Israeli Jew opposed to the prime minister’s peace
overtures to the Palestinians. Miriam decided to name her son after the
Israeli leader in honor of the historic Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty
signed in 1994 by Rabin and Jordan’s King Hussein.
The problems started almost immediately. The media in both Jordan and around the world got windof the plan,
and the Jordanian Interior Ministry wouldn’t approve the name. Only the
personal intervention of King Hussein, Miriam says, allowed the couple
to prevail. “The king said, ‘Let them name the baby whatever they
want.’”
Local opposition to the move didn’t subside, however, especially after
King Hussein himself fell ill (he would die, in 1999, from complications
arising from cancer). The family was harried by Palestinians inside
Jordan who were strongly opposed to any reconciliation with Israel.
(Yitzhak’s parents are Bedouin Jordanians, also referred to as native
“East Bankers,” as opposed to Jordanians of Palestinian origin who came
to the Hashemite Kingdom as refugees in 1948 and 1967.) Miriam and her
infant son were forced to move from place to place like fugitives, even
spending nights in bus depots and a safehouse with an uncle in Amman.
...
The former first lady of Israel arranged for the family to emigrate,
and assisted them in their early years in Israel with work and
navigating bureaucratic hurdles. But she passed away in 2000, after
which the family fell on harder times.
Yitzhak, entering first grade in central Israel, was picked on by
kids in his class—“Arab-Israeli children, whose parents put thoughts in
their heads,” Miriam recalled. There were issues, too, between Miriam
and her Palestinian co-workers, who knew the family’s history. But the
most tragic situation befell Miriam’s brother back in Jordan, who,
according to Miriam, was murdered by a group of thugs as revenge for his
nephew’s name. Miriam took Yitzhak to Jordan with the intention of
attending her brother’s funeral, but, in her telling, a melee ensued at
the border crossing, where a small group of protesters awaited them. She
put Yitzhak, still a toddler, back on the bus to Israel, bruised and
bleeding. It was the last time he would set foot on the soil of his
native country.
Seeking a quieter existence away from the major Arab-Israeli
population centers of northern and central Israel, the family moved down
to Eilat, and have called the resort city on the Red Sea home for the
past 11 years. Given everything that has transpired, it’s no surprise
that Yitzhak has grown up wholly Israeli, surrounding himself with
Jewish friends, speaking Hebrew, and adopting Judaism as his own (he is
set to officially convert in the coming weeks).
I don't recall seeing this reported elsewhere. If it's true - and I have no reason to believe it's not - it places an entirely different light on President Obama's treatment of Prime Minister Netanyahu between 2009 and 2011. Additionally, if the claim below is true, it makes a farce of the complaint that Netanyahu favored Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 elections. If this is why Obama is spying on Israel, why shouldn't Netanyahu - even openly - favor Romney. Heck, if I'd known about this, I would have called on Netanyahu to endorse Romney publicly and damn the consequences (Hat Tip: IMRA).
Second, there is a matter of American interference in Israel’s
internal affairs. The eavesdropping wasn’t just about trying to
ascertain what Israeli leaders really think about the peace process and
how much they’re willing to give up to advance it. It wasn’t just about
getting an inside track on how Israel’s relations with China or Russia
are advancing, or about arms deals that involve U.S. technology.
It was, according to reports, an attempt to gather information on
politicians whose views aren’t in sync with those of the U.S.
administration. This information was to be leaked to the local media in
order to embarrass these figures and ruin their political careers.
It isn’t too hard to guess which politicians were being targeted. It
stands to reason that it was those pesky “radical” right-wingers who
oppose territorial compromise.
It's well known here that George H.W. Bush did all he could to help Yitzchak Rabin defeat Yitzchak Shamir in 1992, and that Bill Clinton did all he could to help Ehud Barak defeat Binyamin Netanyahu in 1999. But at least those actions were out in the open. Only Obama has hidden behind wiretaps and spying and intercepted phone calls and emails.
America ought to be ashamed. Your government has no integrity - and even releasing Jonathan Pollard (as the editorial above joins so many others in advocating) won't restore it.
We all know that Prime Minister Netanyahu has problems from the right side of his coalition. Now, it turns out, he has even bigger problems from the left of the coalition. No, not Tzipi Livni. That would have been expected. It's Yair Lapid.
In August 2013, Lapid, who seems to have an IQ somewhere in the 70's, undercut Israel's most basic position in the 'negotiations' with the 'Palestinians' by telling the New York Times' Roger Cohen (the one who thinks that Jews in Iran just love the Ayatollahs) that it doesn't matter whether the 'Palestinians' accept Israel as a Jewish state as part of a final agreement. That acceptance is code for "end of conflict." Lapid has completely undercut his Prime Minister's (and just about everyone else's) position on the issue. And Cohen has exposed that fact in a column published in Wednesday's New York Times - the day before US Secretary of State John FN Kerry's arrival.
Then there is the rebounding Israel-is-a-Jewish-state bugbear: Netanyahu
wants Palestinians to recognize his nation as such. He has recently
called it “the real key to peace.” His argument is that this is the
touchstone by which to judge whether Palestinians will accept “the
Jewish state in any border” — whether, in other words, the Palestinian
leadership would accept territorial compromise or is still set on
reversal of 1948 and mass return to Haifa.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, says no; this “nyet” will
endure. For Palestinians, such a form of recognition would amount to
explicit acquiescence to second-class citizenship for the 1.6 million
Arabs in Israel; undermine the rights of millions of Palestinian
refugees; upend a national narrative of mass expulsion from land that
was theirs; and demand of them something not demanded from Egypt or
Jordan in peace agreements, nor of the Palestine Liberation Organization
when, in 1993, Yasir Arafat wrote to Yitzhak Rabin that it “recognizes
the right of Israel to live in peace and security.”
This issue is a waste of time, a complicating diversion when none is
needed. As Shlomo Avineri, a leading Israeli political scientist, put it
to me, “It’s a tactical issue raised by Netanyahu in order to make
negotiations more difficult.”
Of course, any two-state peace agreement will have to be final and
irreversible; it must ensure there are no further Palestinian claims on a
secure Israel. It may well require some form of words saying the two
states are the homelands of their respective peoples, a formula used by
the Geneva Initiative. But that is for another day.
If Israel looks like a Jewish state and acts like a Jewish state, that
is good enough for me — as long as it gets out of the corrosive business
of occupation. Zionism, the one I identify with, forged a Jewish
homeland in the name of restored Jewish pride in a democratic state of
laws, not in the name of finicky insistence on a certain form of
recognition, nor in the name of messianic religious Greater Israel
nationalism.
When I spoke to him in Tel Aviv a few months ago, Yair Lapid, a top
government minister, said: “The fact that we demand from Palestinians a
declaration that they recognize Israel as a Jewish state, I just think
this is rubbish. I don’t need that. The whole point of Israel was we
came here saying we don’t need anyone else to recognize us anymore
because we can recognize ourselves. We are liberated.”
There are huge differences between Jordan and Egypt on the one hand, and the 'Palestinians' on the other, and there is every reason in the world why an agreement between Israel and the 'Palestinians' ought not to mimic the agreements that it made with those two countries. But let's leave that for a minute. How does Lapid come off contradicting his Prime Minister?
The answer is that it's not the first time, and since Netanyahu didn't act the first time Lapid shot off his mouth, Lapid went ahead and did it a second time.
"I
don't feel we we need a declaration from the Palestinians that they
recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” Lapid said. “My father [former
Justice Minister Yosef Lapid] didn’t come to Haifa from the Budapest
ghetto to get recognition from [Palestinian Authority President] Mahmoud
Abbas. The whole concept of the State of Israel is that we recognize
ourselves. After 2,000 years of being dependent on other people, we are
independent and make our own rules now.”
Is Lapid willing to sign an agreement without an end of conflict provision? Is he willing to let the 'Israeli Arabs' undermine a rump state that is left after an agreement?
One has to wonder - again - what Naftali Bennett was thinking when he entered into his agreement with Lapid, and what Netanyahu was thinking when he took the two of them into his government. Actually, I don't have to wonder about Netanyahu. At heart, he's Yitzchak Rabin and Ehud Barak.
You mean you didn't think you were voting for the Labor party in 2009 and 2013? Surprise, surprise, surprise....
Overnight music video: Mama Rochel and 'Rabin's legacy'
I missed 3:00 am Israel time tonight (went to dinner with a cousin), but I'm going to do 3:00 am US time instead because tonight is the 11th of Cheshvan, and there's a song I must play in honor of the occasion. But there's also much more after the video.
The 11th of Cheshvan is the yahrtzeit (anniversary of the death) of our Mother Rachel.
Here's Abie Rotenberg with Mama Rochel (Our Mother Rachel).
Let's go to the videotape.
I'd also like to post part of last year's post from this date (when I was not allowed to post music).
There's a connection between Yitzchak Rabin, the Prime Minister who was
assassinated on the 12th of Cheshvan, and our matriarch Rachel, and it
goes beyond the coincidence of the consecutive dates of death. Here's the connection.
"During the Rabin administration, Kever Rachel was slated to fall into
'Area A', that is, under full Arab civil and military control. Upon
seeing this, Knesset Member Chanan Porat [National Religious Party.
CiJ] decided that he must speak with Rabin in the hopes of changing his
mind. As Chanan Porat was walking to Rabin's office, Knesset Member
Rabbi Menachem Porush [United Torah Judaism.
CiJ] asked Porat where he was going. Hearing that Porat was about to
fight for Kever Rachel, Porush asked to join in the meeting. At Rabin's
office, Chanan Porat was diligently explaining the ins and outs of the
security situation at Kever Rachel and making rational arguments that
did not seem to move Rabin.
"Suddenly Rabin looked at Porush and
saw that he was crying. Porush held Rabin's hands and with tears
streaming down his face, said: 'Yitzchak, it's Mamma Rachel, Mamma
Rachel.' At that moment Rabin's heart opened, and he altered the map so
that Kever Rachel would remain in Jewish hands."
Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from the respective turnouts for the two memorials on Saturday night. Some 70,000 people showed up to pray at Rachel's tomb. Only 15,000 showed up for the Left's annual hatefest in Rabin Square.
Maybe the people of Israel have figured out that they have never been told the truth about Rabin's death.
The Left tried to turn this year's Rabin memorial (which took place already) into a demonstration for democracy. They weren't successful. This is from al-Monitor - a mostly Left publication.
Some 35,000 people gathered in Rabin Square, in the center of Tel Aviv,
for the event on the night of Oct. 12. Most were youth movement
members, both right and left wing. In other words, a large number of the
attendees were not even born at the time of the assassination.
Inevitably, they became the subject of intense discussion during
current-event TV and radio shows the next morning. Studio discussions
dealt with the general question of what happened to Rabin's legacy, the
relative dearth of participants as compared with previous years and the
reason why senior political figures and the general public alike were
absent from this year's memorial, especially when compared with years
past.
The general tone was critical and expressed a kind of longing for the
way the assassination was marked in the early years. Back then,
assembling tens of thousands of participants who were joined by
political leaders from the left and the entire Rabin family needed no
organization — while the event itself was broadcast on every channel
imaginable.
In an interview on the Israeli Army radio station — with the event's
moderator, actor Moshe Ivgi — anchor Niv Raskin tried to get him to
compare the enormous funeral for Rabbi Ovadia Yosef,
which took place on Oct. 7, and the significantly more modest event to
commemorate a prime minister who was killed because of his efforts to
achieve peace. Luckily, Ivgi was both wise and seasoned enough to avoid
falling into that easily refuted populist trap.
Efforts to blame the current political leadership or the growing
ignorance of the general population for the decline in the event's
stature misses the main point: Most Israelis are not interested in the
Palestinian issue.
If it's not dead, the 'two-state solution' is on life support. It's time to pull the plug.
Rabbi who was fired for speaking out against 'Rabin's legacy' to receive NIS 400,000 in compensation
A rabbi who was fired by the Education Ministry for criticizing 'Rabin'slegacy' will be compensated to the tune of NIS 400,000 (a bit more than $100,000) under a court ruling issued on Thursday (link in Hebrew - English summary below).
Rabbi Yisrael Shiran, who was fired by the Education Ministry for speaking out against 'Rabin's legacy' will receive NIS 400,000 in compensation according to a ruling on Thursday by the Jerusalem District Court.
The story started in 2000, when the rabbi published an article speaking out against schools conducting memorial services for Rabin and being forced to conduct special sessions on 'Rabin's legacy.' Then-Minister Yuli Tamir suspended him from the school for which he worked.
The decision was made depsite a declaration by the parents' committee that they wanted Rabbi Shiran to remain with the school.
Shiran appealed the suspension and returned to the school, but he left in 2002 after an argument with the school's administration.
In 2007, the parents' committee signed another agreement with Shiran, but the Education Ministry nixed the agreement, saying that in light of its previous experience with Shiran as a homeroom teacher, they were not willing to have the school employ him as a rabbi.
Shiran then appealed to the court again, and today was granted NIS 400,000 in compensation.
On his Facebook page, Shiran thanked God and all those who supported him.
I'm amazed he was allowed to return to the school in 2002....
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
