Tale of Two Cities

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." So begins Charles Dickens' novel of the French Revolution. In a modern version of Dickens' vision, the worst of the times -- or the Guardian of London in this case -- chooses to proclaim how Israel is "threatening the peace" by daring to claim all of Jerusalem as capital.

Threatening the Peace

Secret British document accuses Israel

FO paper says international laws are being violated and peace jeopardised
Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
Friday November 25, 2005
The Guardian

A confidential [British] Foreign Office document accuses Israel of rushing to annex the Arab area of Jerusalem, using illegal Jewish settlement construction and the vast West Bank barrier, in a move to prevent it becoming a Palestinian capital.

In an unusually frank insight into British assessments of Israeli intentions, the document says that Ariel Sharon's government is jeopardising the prospect of a peace agreement by trying to put the future of Arab East Jerusalem beyond negotiation and risks driving Palestinians living in the city into radical groups.

Why does the claim to an eternally United Jerusalem threaten the peace?

I prefer to ask, why do the Palestinians specifically claim "El Kuds" as their capital, rather than Ramallah or Shchem? Of all places, this is the place that they want?

Why are they so insistant, so intransigent on this point? (Let's not ask the pposite question, are they flexible on any point? Let's not say that every single concession bar none that Israel has "won" from the Arabs has either been abrogated, or never even given a nodding attempt at fulfillment.)


The Prime Directive

The Palestinians, and their Guardian lapdogs, are so insistant for a very simple, but basic reason, and it is this motivator that explains much of the Palestinians' policies:

If it's something important to the Jews, then it's vitally important to conquor and overrun.

This is typical of historic Muslim imperialist techniques: after taking over an infidel's land, the first op consists of razing any place of worship, and then building a mosque over it.

One place this is blatantly obvious is in the building over the Cave of the forefathers, in Hevron.


The Ma'arah

Hevron, the city, has existed for thousands of years. In approximately 1677 BCE, Avraham, the acknowledged forefather of both the Muslims and ourselves, purchased the rights to a cave in the Hevron hills to bury his beloved wife, and our ultimate mother, Sarah. The agreement and deed is recorded publicly, and you need merely to open your bible to Genesis 23 to read it. Purchased. Not "occupied".

We have never relinquished our ownership of the area. In fact, to commemorate and immortalize this, the Jewish king Herod built a large building over the caves, in the form of the Temple in Jerusalem, during the Roman period, about 20 or so BCE.

Following the Crusades, with the ascendancy of Muslim rule over the Land of Israel, the ruling Mamlukes (13th-16th centuries) transformed this building into a mosque, removing much of its original Jewish nature, even though there were Jews living and thriving continuously in Hevron from the Roman period. During the Ottoman period, the Jews were allowed to use a couple of the rooms in this building for synagogues; to this day, you can see scrollwork in Jewish motifs (Stars of David, Menorahs) in the smaller Chamber of Jacob, and in various places in the large, central Chamber of Isaac.


Six holes

But also readily apparent in the large, central Chamber of Jacob, are fairly obvious attempts by the Arabs to remove these signs. In each of the three "chambers" in the building are representations of tombs of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, buried below in the caves. In the Chamber of Jacob, these block-like mini-buldings have brass grillwork gates, always kept locked. On each of these gates is a 6" circle -- with a crescent moon in the center.

But a closer examination shows two curious things: the moon is of different, less expensive metal; and there are six holes in the surrounding circle, even though the moons are attached by only four. Why six? What symbol was excised from the grillwork, that connected to the outer circle at six points?

Arabs ask Settlers: Help in Banishing the Leftists

A tidbit from Arutz-7, the banned right-wing Israeli radio station:

Hevron Arabs Ask Jews For Help In Banishing Leftist Activists
By Ezra HaLevi

Arab leaders in Hevron have contacted the city’s Jewish leaders for help in getting rid of self-proclaimed anarchist volunteers who, they complain, are destroying their traditional way of life.

The anarchists, many of whom are members of the International Solidarity Movement, flock to flashpoints throughout Judea and Samaria, ostensibly to help PA Arabs contend with IDF closures and protect them from harassment. In actuality, many of the volunteers seek confrontations with IDF soldiers and local Jewish residents, taking advantage of their Western passports to cause havoc – knowing that, at worst, they will be deported, not jailed.

(Rest of article is here).


This story isn't so untoward. When I was a resident of Kiriat Arba, about 20 years ago, I used to pray at sunrise in the building over the Cave of the Forefathers in Hevron, just a 10 minute walk away. We would see the members of the Waqf, the Muslim Religious leadership, and would nod back and forth as we passed -- tense, but peaceful.

When I left Kiriat Arba to live in Yitzhar -- near Shchem, or Nablus, in the North -- I came over to the head of the Waqf and wished him well. Reacting to where I was going, Ibrahim said to me, "Be careful of those Shchemites ^*-- they are irreligious, and are dangerous."

One of the keys to understanding Arabs is that they are *NOT* monolithic, but that each group is dangerous in their own way. Part of the background for the chaos that has come to fore now in Gaza -- it was never hidden -- is the extreme hatred between the religious Hamas and Hizbulla on one side, and the irreligious Fatah on the other.

In the Judea/Samaria paradigm, the area about Hevron in the south is almost uniformly religious, blending to religious Christians (that remain) in Bet-Lehem (Bethleham) and Bet Gala towards Jerusalem; north of Jerusalem, you have Ramallah which is mixed and has its own tensions, to Shchem, historically controlled by secular Arabs and the site of the large University and medical school.

Let there be no mistake -- had I turned my back on the Waqf and appeared weak, they would have attacked me. We both understood this, and accepted it as natural and normal for them. The Arab culture is hierarchical to a fault; trying to impose a Western concept like "equality" or "mutual trust" is an anathema to them, and breeds both hatred, and quiet disdain.


* Shchemites - residents of Shchem. I guess if you don't like them, you're an anti-Shchemite?

Krembos & Ketyushas

Consider this story, recently carried as "Odd news" by Reuters:

Marshmallow treats stopped from leaving Gaza
Mon Nov 21, 2005 10:39 AM ET

The Chief Rabbinate, which ensures anything labeled as kosher complies with the Jewish dietary law, said the boxes of "krembos" were sent back because they had forged kosher seals.

A spokeswoman for the Chief Rabbinate said Israel does not import any of its krembos. The round chocolate shells filled with flavored marshmallow cream on a biscuit are one of the country's most popular winter snack foods.

The Karni crossing from Gaza was reopened last week under a U.S.-brokered deal to ease restrictions on the 1.4 million Palestinians living in the impoverished territory following Israel's withdrawal in September.

Israel inspects all goods leaving Gaza closely, saying it must do so to prevent the smuggling of weapons or suicide bombers by militants waging an uprising.

Palestinian businesses complain that checks cause costly delays and sometimes mean perishable goods are ruined before they can be exported to Israel, the West Bank or beyond.

OK. not the most devastating thing in the universe. But consider the reverse: if an Israeli company shipped snacks containing pig fat to the PA. What would happen? Riots. World condemnation. UN resolutions. Accusations of aparthied, of racist Jews with no respect for innocent Muslims, et cetera, ad nauseum.

Meanwhile, the ketyushas and mortar shells fall on the northern settlements in the most serious and intensive attack on Israel by the Hizbullah in years. Oh, the deafening outcry from the world!


The Oh-so-neutral BBC, again

In brief, on Monday, 21 Nov, the Hizbollah launched a broad offensive in a number of places along Israel's border with Lebanon. Following a rocket and border barrage, terrorists crossed the border intending on kidnap Israeli soldiers. Far beyond a mere military attack, rockets and mortar shells were directed against civilian towns all along the northern border. The BBC, though, seemed to ignore much of this in its continuing atttempt at "neutrality":

HEADLINE: DEADLY CLASH ON LEBANESE BORDER

Israeli troops have killed three Hezbollah fighters during a guerrilla attack near the Lebanese border, which also left several Israelis wounded.

No civilian targets? Mass-terrorism becomes a "clash"? Terrorists are now "fighters", a nice, neutral term?

Please refer to the fine and in-depth analysis on this at Honest Reporting


Denial of Legitimacy

What's the connection? Very simple: when you allow your own legitamacy to be denied, then any attack, whether of fire or of food, becomes legitimate itself.

Non-observant Israelis, by marginalizing Kashrut concerns, give ex-post-facto approval to the foreign press to regard cultural terrorism to become "Odd News".

The issue isn't the krembos or the kashrut -- it's the marginalizing (thus, delegitimizing) of something that, had it been reversed, would have had the world up in arms.


Knee-jerks

Perhaps I'm just used to the press (both Israeli and world) and the State Prosecutor here having knee-jerk reactions over the reverse. People have been jailed for a couple of years or more for leaving a pig's head on the grave of the 1930's Palestinian terrorist Izz el-Deen al-Qassam, the inspiration for Hamas:

Attacks on mosques could lead to an Israeli Arab revolt, the Islamic Movement's northern branch leader, Sheikh Raed Salah, said on Friday during a rally at the Hassan Bek Mosque in southern Tel Aviv, one week after a pig's head was thrown into the mosque. Haaretz (reposted) Friday, Aug. 26, 2005 22:18

Then there's Tatiana Suskind, a Jewish girl living in Hevron, who planned to circulate a drawing of Muhhammed as a pig, and got prison time for that henious crime. Not circulated: planned to circulate.

Had someone had tossed the same head into a synagogue, they'd merely be fined for littering for their stupidity. Or less... as the case of the frat student, who, thinking he was posting his pig's head in front of a vegetarian restaurant, put it at a Kosher one instead. He got a mention in the news, had to apologize, and pay $50 to pick up the garbage.

The State Prosecutor's Office and Shabaq (Israeli secret police) are very straightforward why they're so hard on this: they fear that these actions will endanger the State, in their words.

Take for example, this gem:

JERUSALEM (JTA) (Friday April 2, 1999) -- Two Israeli extremists were convicted Tuesday on charges that included incitement, arson and sedition.

Avigdor Eskin and Damien Pakovitch were found guilty of placing a pig's head on the grave of Islamic leader Izz aDin al-Kassam, torching the Jerusalem offices of the Dor Shalom peace movement, and planning to put a pig's head on the Temple Mount.

The judge wrote in his verdict that if the Temple Mount plot had succeeded, it could have led to war with the Muslim world and perhaps even to the destruction of Israel.

Wow. He must think the State is really fragile, if a mere act of stupidity can bring about its destruction.


Intention

Some see this as a kind of 'intention' thing, too: if the intention of the piggers is to frighten or anger someone, then they see this as a big difference from someone falsely labeling something as kosher.


The real point

The labeling fraud had two purposes:

one, to make a quick buck, and

two, to step on the stupid Jews

A bona-fide kashrut seal does cost money, because the manufacturers have to pay for the time and effort -- and sometimes considerable expenses -- of expert kashrut inspectors, who trace the origin of all chemicals and ingredients that go into a manufactured food product.

But what is more to the point here is that Arabs who get away with that sort of thing can "count coup". Unfortunately, when they can get away a little thing, often it grows.

By getting the world press and public opinion used to making nothing of a direct attack against Judaism, they lay the groundwork for trivializing blatant and bloody attacks against unarmed non-combattants.