What to Do With Lemons

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman proposes a solution to untangle the Palestinian Authority-Israeli problem in his column What to Do With Lemons: The United Nations 1947 Partition Plan

He proposes an amendment  should be voted upon in the UN:

 “This body reaffirms that the area of historic Palestine should be divided into two homes for two peoples — a Palestinian Arab state and a Jewish state. The dividing line should be based on the 1967 borders — with mutually agreed border adjustments and security arrangements for both sides. This body recognizes the Palestinian state as a member of the General Assembly and urges both sides to enter into negotiations to resolve all the other outstanding issues.”  

His arguments are interesting - read them. As are two criticisms posted:

• Thomas Friedman's "What to Do With Lemons": A Lemon of a Proposal
• Thomas Friedman ‘Solves’ the 'PA Homeland' with Sour Lemons

What Friedman and his critics seem unable to grasp is the pivotal point of his proposed resolution as applied to the party who originally accepted the United Nations' Partition Plan in 1947.

He wishes "This body recognizes the Palestinian state...".

Israel rightly expects all to recognize the State of Israel and this State's right to exist within secure borders.

Unless all interested parties can accept this fundamental truth then any lemonade made by any body will be undrinkable.

Assad paid Golan demonstrators $1,000 apiece

Syrian President Bashar Assad's security machine is creaking judging by its failure to raise thousands of Palestinian and Syrian volunteers to brave the Israeli troops manning the Golan Sunday, June 5 - three weeks after his success in staging the first mass border incursion.

Intelligence sources reveal that even the few hundred willing to turn out demanded a fee: $1,000 for every demonstrator who managed to cut a piece of razor wire from the Israeli border fence – and exorbitant fee in Syrian terms - and $10,000 for the families of volunteers shot by Israeli troops before they reached their goal.

Syrian state TV reported 20 killed and 277 injured in clashes with Israeli border troops - figures which are not reliably confirmed.

Assad's home front is sinking fast, which was why he tried to stage a piece of nation-cementing drama on the Israeli border. He hoped the Golan dead would outnumber the many hundreds killed in his three-month crackdown on the protest movement against his regime and is therefore likely to keep on trying.

Sunday alone, scores died in Syrian tank-backed attacks on protesters in northwest Syria who are now using live fire against his troops. Sources report that Syrian security agents captured by protesters were hanged in broad daylight from electricity poles on city high streets Sunday, June 5, causing troops and police to flee in panic.

"We are deeply troubled by events that took place earlier today in the Golan Heights resulting in injuries and the loss of life," the State Department said in a statement.
"We call for all sides to exercise restraint. Provocative actions like this should be avoided. Israel, like any sovereign nation, has a right to defend itself," the US statement added.

DEBKAfile

Obama and the truth

President Obama often turns to the “truth” when talking about the Middle East. In fact, he used that word five times in his 2009 Cairo speech and four times in his Middle East doctrine speech at the White house last week.

In 2009, the president proclaimed before his Cairo audience that “the truth is that America and Islam are not exclusive”, that “Islam is a part of America, and America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations.” He also said “there is one rule that lies at the heart of every religion – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This truth transcends nations and peoples.”

In his doctrine speech last week, Obama said that America would assist civil societies “who speak uncomfortable truths”, that “the truth cannot be hidden”, and that “precisely because of our friendship (America and Israel it is important that we tell the truth: the status quo is unsustainable,Israel must act boldly to advance a lasting peace” and that America "holds these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

Before an AIPAC audience that same week he reiterated the “fundamental truth that has guided presidents and prime ministers for more than 60 years: that even while we may at times disagree, as friends sometimes will, the bonds between the United States and Israel are unbreakable.”

All of these truths may have merit, but for truth to become the theme for Middle East peace and prosperity, President Obama and his various audiences should also consider the following noteworthy truths:

1) Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for over 3,000 years and that of the State of Israel since its re-establishment, with a large Jewish majority since 1860. Jerusalem is referred to thousands of times in Jewish scriptures; Jews pray towards Jerusalem and yearned to return to it during 2,000 years of forced exile. Jerusalem was never the capital of an Arab state, doesn’t appear once in the Koran and Muslims pray towards Mecca;

2) The 1967 borders, referred to by Obama and others, are in essence the 1949 armistice borders drawn after Israel’s victorious 1948 War of Independence;

3) Although there was never a sovereign Palestinian state at any point in the history of mankind, Israel accepted the UN’s 1947 partition plan. The Arabs did not, and instead reciprocated with war, and another war, and then a couple of more wars, simultaneously combined with more than 70 years of terror against innocent civilians. Therefore, aside from its biblical and historical rights, Israel has more than 25,000 reasons, one for each slain soldier and terror victim, to refuse the return to 1967 borders;

4) Peace could have prevailed at any point during the century-long conflict between Israel and its Arab enemies had the Arabs only agreed to put down their arms. In contrast, if Israel would put down its arms it would cease to exist;

5) With the rapidly changing world, one of the few theories of International Relations that still holds water is that “true Democracies do not go to war against true Democracies.” Israel is the only true democracy in the Mideast and therefore, as Prime Minister Netanyahu pointed out in his 2011 AIPAC speech, “it's time to recognize this basic truth: Israel is not what's wrong about the Middle East. Israel is what's right about the Middle East.”

Acknowledging these telling truths is the preface to peace and prosperity.

Political censorship in Scotland

Israeli book ban may be imposed in Scottish libraries.

Move is part of boycott policy by council near Glasgow, 'Jewish Chronicle' reports; Israel supporters: Scottish Council is like Iran, Saudi Arabia.

A ban on books by Israeli authors could be enforced in Scottish libraries as part of a boycott policy by West Dunbartonshire Council which covers villages near Glasgow, The Jewish Chronicle reported last week.

The move may be illegal under local government legislation, the report said.

Israel supporters quoted by the Chronicle said the policy puts the council in line with Iran and Saudi Arabia and that it was an "outrage."

To date, no books have been removed from any of the libraries as the council members say censorship is "not in the spirit" of their boycott. However, the report added that "it is understood that officials are prepared to rule on a book-by-book basis."

West Dunbartonshire approved a boycott of Israeli products in 2009, following the Gaza flotilla incident.

Arieh Kovler, the director of the Fair Play Campaign Group which opposes boycotts against Israel, was quoted by the Chronicle as saying: "Banning access to knowledge for political reasons is nothing short of censorship. West Dunbartonshire must reverse this policy or their libraries will become an international laughing stock."

A West Dunbartonshire Council spokesman said in response: "It would only be in a very limited number of circumstances that this boycott would apply."

Obama blows it in Middle East speech - no RESPECT!

The President of the USA  Barack Hussein Obama produced the usual red herring whilst he mildly castigated his best friends and totally ignored Saudi Arabia.

Despite his moral rhetoric and his offer of economic aid to the emerging democracies together with his condemnation of the regions bad boys - Gadaffi ("when Gaddafi inevitably leaves or is forced from power, decades of provocation will come to an end, and the transition to a democratic Libya can proceed.") and Assad ("President Assad now has a choice: he can lead that transition, or get out of the way"); his softy lines on Bahrain and his inability to remember what and where Saudi Arabia is (or maybe he did - and therein lies the rub) -, all media attention has concentrated on his undermining and incorrect statement:  "The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.".

President Obama does not realize this fundamental truth about the State of Israel: what Israel wants is negotiated peace and secure borders. What happens to the Palestinians - their own state etc. - is a detail dependant on peace and secure borders, not the reverse. Convince the Arab - not just Hamas but also those endemically anti-Jewish states such as Syria and Iran, to recognise and respect the State of Israel and everything will fall into place. Unless this happens - nothing will change.

Besides, it is an error of puerile proportions to consider a return to a situation from a time past.  From whom did the Israelis occupy the land of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the first place? Not from the Palestinians, but from the Kingdom of Jordan who had occupied these lands illegally since the end of the British Mandate in Palestine. Perhaps, with the possible declaration of a Palestinian state by the UN imminent, we should consider returning to 1947 when the UN first offered the two states  (only for Israel to accept and the Palestinian partition to be violently rejected by the Palestinian representatives and all the Arab countries)?

Of course not.  Different conditions prevail. There have been causes and there have been consequences. Time moves on from when the President of the USA  Barack Hussein Obama was 6 years of age. Whilst little Barack played with his toys, the Prime Minister of the State of Israel Benyamin Netanyahu (the democratically elected head of the USA's best ally in the region) was signing  up for his first tour of duty in the Israeli Defence Force.

 I was 20 years old in 1967 and selectively remember these events from that year of different mind sets, with the Vietnam War, race riots, an elected segregationist governor in Georgia etc. (what Obama needs to show for Netanyahu is a little R*E*S*P*E*C*T):

January 6 - Vietnam War: USMC and ARVN troops launch Operation Deckhouse Five in the Mekong River Delta.

January 8 - Vietnam War: Operation Cedar Falls starts.

January 10 - Segregationist Lester Maddox is sworn in as Governor of Georgia.

January 14 The New York Times reports that the U.S. Army is conducting secret germ warfare experiments.

February 14 - Respect is recorded by Aretha Franklin (to be released in April).

April 2 - A United Nations delegation arrives in Aden due to approaching independence. They leave April 7, accusing British authorities of lack of cooperation. The British say the delegation did not contact them.

April 4 - Martin Luther King, Jr. denounces the Vietnam War during a religious service in New York City.

April 7 - Six Day War (approach): Israeli fighters shoot down 7 Syrian MIG-21s.

April 10 Oral arguments begin in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), challenging the State of Virginia's statutory scheme to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications.

April 14 - In San Francisco, 10,000 march against the Vietnam War.

April 15 - Large demonstrations are held against the Vietnam War in New York City and San Francisco.

April 28 In Houston, Texas, boxer Muhammad Ali refuses military service.

May 6 Four hundred students seize the administration building at Cheyney State College, now Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, the oldest institute for higher education for African Americans.

 May 17

• Syria mobilizes against Israel.
• President Gamal Abdal Nasser of Egypt demands withdrawal of the peacekeeping UN Emergency Force in the Sinai. U.N. Secretary-General U Thant complies (May 18).

May 18 Tennessee Governor Ellington repeals the "Monkey Law" (officially the Butler Act; see the Scopes Trial).

May 23 - Egypt closes the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, blockading Israel's southern port of Eilat, and Israel's entire Red Seacoastline.

June - Moshe Dayan becomes Israel's Minister of Defense.

June 1 - The Beatles legendary release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, nicknamed "The Soundtrack of the Summer of Love"; it would be number one on the albums charts throughout the summer of 1967.

June 5 Six-Day War: Israel occupies the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai peninsula and Golan Heights after defeating its Arab neighbours.

June 8 - Six-Day War - USS Liberty incident: Israeli fighter jets and Israeli warships fire at the USS Liberty off Gaza, killing 34 and wounding 171.

June 10

• Israel and Syria agree to a United Nations-mediated cease-fire.
• The Soviet Union severs diplomatic relations with Israel.

June 11 - A race riot occurs in Tampa, Florida after the shooting death of Martin Chambers by police while allegedly robbing a camera store. The unrest lasts several days.

June 12 Loving v. Virginia: The United States Supreme Court declares all U.S. state laws prohibiting interracial marriage to be unconstitutional.[4]

June 13 - Solicitor General Thurgood Marshall is nominated as the first African American justice of the United States Supreme Court. [5

June 23 - Cold War: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in Glassboro, New Jersey, for the 3-day Glassboro Summit Conference. Johnson travels to Los Angeles for a dinner at the Century Plaza Hotel where earlier in the day thousands of war protesters clashed with L.A. police. [7]

June 26 The Buffalo Race Riot begins, lasting until July 1; leads to 200 arrests.

June 28 - Israel declares the annexation of East Jerusalem.

July 12 After the arrest of an African-American cab driver for allegedly illegally driving around a police car and gunning it down the road, race riots break out in Newark, New Jersey, and these riots last for six days.

Everything wrong in Syria is caused by the Jews, honest Mr. President.

Syria has condemned the imposition of sanctions on its president by the United States as being "part of a regional scheme, aimed primarily at serving Israel's interests", state media reports.

The Syrian government said that the sanctions "have not and will not" affect any of its decisions, nor would it affect Syria's stand on regional and international politics, the SANA news agency reported on Thursday.

The United States imposed sanctions a day earlier on Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, and six senior officials, citing alleged human rights abuses committed during a government crackdown on pro-democracy protests across the country.

Syria has termed the move an attempt to "prolong the crisis in Syria" on the part of the United States.
"The US measures are part of a series of sanctions imposed by successive US administrations against the Syrian people as part of a regional scheme, aimed primarily at serving Israel's interests," SANA said.
The White House announced the sanctions on Wednesday, a day before Barack Obama, the US president,  was to deliver a major speech on the uprisings throughout the Arab world.

The sanctions are part of "an effort to increase pressure on the government of Syria to end its violence against its people and begin transitioning to a democratic system", a US official told the AFP news agency on the condition of anonymity.

In a letter to congressional leaders, Obama said he issued the new sanctions order as a response to the Syrian government's "continuous escalation of violence against the people of Syria".

Obama cited "attacks on protesters, arrests and harassment of protesters and political activists, and repression of democratic change, overseen and executed by numerous elements of the Syrian government".
The sanctions will freeze any assets Assad and the six Syrian government officials have in US jurisdiction and make it illegal for Americans to do business with them.

The six officials are: vice-president Faruq al-Shara, prime minister Adel Safar, interior minister Mohammed Ibrahim al-Shaar, defence minister Ali Habib Mahmud, military intelligence chief Abdul Fatah Qudsiya and director of the political security directorate, Mohammed Dib Zaitoun

Obama to spank Assad: Assad to throw toys at Israel

Washington sources report exclusively that President Barack Obama has finally resolved to stamp down hard on Syrian President Bashar Assad in person as the man responsible for the inhuman Syrian crackdown on protest against his regime and the massacre of hundreds of dissenters.

Before his much-awaited speech on US relations with Middle East Muslim nations Thursday, May 19, Obama is preparing to impose sanctions on the Syrian president.  The White House is working on the final text of the announcement but has already decided to recall the newly-appointed US Ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford for consultations.

An American ambassador was last recalled from Damascus in 2005. It took five years for Obama to appoint Robert Ford to the post in late 2010.

The administration has also decided to authorize the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna to report to the UN Security Council that Syria was building a plutonium reactor for military purposes at Deir A-Zour, which it was bombed by Israeli in September 2007. Damascus has refused to cooperate with the nuclear watchdog in making the site available for inspection. The IAEA is therefore urged to seek the same Security Council for Syria as those imposed on Iran for its nuclear activities.

Barack Obama was finally convinced that Assad must be stopped without delay by the horrifying discovery of five hastily-dug dug mass graves near the protest center of Daraa in southern Syria. They containing scores of bodies of men, women and children shot in the head. This raised the civilian death told from Assad's savage three-month crackdown on dissent well past 1,000.

It is taken into account, DEBKAfile's military sources report that tough American measures targeting Assad will bring forth heightened Syrian-Israeli border tensions, potentially in the form of a limited Syrian military strike into Israel or Lebanon or both. Indeed his cousin Rami Makhlouf threatened that instability in Syria would cause instability in Israel.

The expectation of trouble to come was strengthened by the information reaching Washington that Syrian military intelligence and Ahmed Jibril's PFL-General Command had organized the forcible crossing of the Israeli border on the Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe) Day, Sunday, May 15, of thousands of Palestinians streaming out of the camps in which they are held near Damascus. The operation was also synchronized with the Lebanese Hizballah.

According to this information, Syria and the PFL-GC are planning another mass incursion in the same format for June 5, the 44th anniversary of the 1967 War, when Syria lost part of the Golan after attacking Israel.

Free bus trip to Golan in support of Assad and Hizballah

Intent on extending their day trip  from Syria into Israel

President Bashar Assad had more than one objective in bussing thousands of demonstrators to Israel's Golan border Nakba Day, Sun. May 15. Showing how easily he and his Hizballah partner could capture a village on the Israeli side of the enclave was only one. The other was to put a spoke in Egypt's wheel for transferring Hamas' command centers from Damascus to the Gaza Strip as part of its moves for taking the Gaza Strip and its Hamas rulers under Cairo's wing against Israel.

In the light of this contest, the case for renewing peace talks with the Palestinians, argued interminably between Israel's government and opposition leaders (despite the Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas's two-year refusal) has lost its relevance. The rejectionist Syria, Hizballah and Hamas are now calling the Palestinian shots..

“The Syrian regime is intentionally attempting to divert international attention away from the brutal crackdown of their own citizens to incite against Israel,” said Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, an Israeli military spokeswoman.

Israel’s military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, told Channel 2 TV he also saw “fingerprints of Iranian provocation and an attempt to use ‘nakba day’ to create conflict.”

Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV was in place to film much of the day’s clashes, and defense officials said the activists were bused in from Palestinian refugee camps throughout Syria. Many of them held European passports and told interrogators they had been flown in from abroad for the march.

“It’s our land,” one of the infiltrators, Sufian Abdel Hamid, told Israel’s Channel 2 TV. “We won’t stop trying to come back.”

Israel unhappy at orchestrated invasion

An explosion of unrest along the border could play into the hands of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has faced two months of popular protests against political repression and rights abuses in his country. The uprising, in which human rights groups say more than 800 people have been killed, is the most serious challenge to the Assad family’s 40-year dynasty.

Assad has cast himself as the only person who can bring stability to Syria — a country with a volatile mixture of religions and sects, and with a hostile neighbour in Israel.

The Soul has Many Secrets

The soul has many secrets. They are only revealed to those who want them, and are never completely forced upon us. One of the best-kept secrets, and yet one hidden in plain sight, is that the way up is the way down. Or, if you prefer, the way down is the way up….

In Scripture, we see that the wrestling and wounding of Jacob are necessary for Jacob to become Israel (Genesis 32:26-32), and the death and resurrection of Jesus are necessary to create Christianity. The loss and renewal pattern is so constant and ubiquitous that it should hardly be called a secret at all.

Yet it is still a secret, probably because we do not want to see it. We do not want to embark on a further journey [the second half of life] if it feels like going down, especially after having put so much sound and fury into going up [the first half of life]. This is surely the first and primary reason why many people never get to the fullness of their own lives.

Fr. Richard Rohr


On Your Way Down
-- Alan Toussaint

Sunrise
Sunset
Since the beginning it hasn't changed yet
People fly high begin to lose sight
You can't see very clearly when you're in flight

It's high time that you found
The same people you misuse on your way up
You might meet up
On your way down

Vintage wines from the year '62
It's your thing, it's your thing
It pleases you
You got to frown when you cross town
You think it's an honor just to have you around

It's high time that you found
The same dudes you misuse on your way up
You might meet up
On your way down

You think the sun rises and sets for you
But the same sun rises, sets and shines
On the poor folks too
I don't mind you turning round
I myself would even like a little higher ground

It's high time that you found
The same people you walk on on your way up
You might meet up
On your way down
On your way down

As sung by Little Feet.

Assad threatens Israel with war

Egypt's military rulers promised Hamas' political leader Khaled Meshaal to let him transfer his base, command center and residence from troubled Damascus to a new haven in the Gaza Strip as an inducement for signing the Palestinian unity agreement with Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah on May 4. This is disclosed for the first time by intelligence sources.

Rami Makhlouf 

In Damascus, Bashar Assad's close confidante Rami Makhlouf threatened that Syria would go to war against Israel in reprisal for US and Europe backing for the uprising.

Makhlouf, an international business tycoon, is on the US and EU sanctions lists. In an interview with the New York Times Wednesday, May 11, he said: "If there is no stability here, there's no way there will be stability in Israel. No way, and nobody can guarantee what will happen after, God forbid, anything happens to this regime."

He advised the US and Europe not to "put a lot of pressure on the president, don't push Syria to do anything it is not happy to do."

The Syrian president is examining two strategic options, he said: "Going to war against Israel, and/or sending weapons shipments to the West Bank and to Israeli Arabs for use in terrorist attacks against Israel.

Military sources note that Makhlouf, who is a cousin of Bashar Assad, built up his fortune from smuggling Saddam Hussein's underground fighters, weapons and funds from their havens in Syria to Iraq, as well as al Qaeda combatants and leaders to fight Americans into the wartorn country. He therefore has excellent connections with terrorist networks and is very familiar with their requirements for pursuing suicide bombing campaigns.

The tycoon would not have made his remarks to the NYT without the Syrian president's nod. So they may be safely interpreted as a declaration that the Assad regime is holding Israel hostage for its survival against the groundswell of popular disaffection shaking it for more than two months.

Fatah and Hamas sign reconciliation deal

The fox and the scorpion shake hands.

You may recall the story:

The fox and the scorpion stand on the banks of the river Jordan looking into Israel.

The scorpion says to the fox, "If I hop on your back, we can swim over and conquer the Israelis."

The fox looked at the scorpion incredulously and said, "You must be joking. One bite from you and I would be dead."

"That I wouldn't do." replied the scorpion, "Then we both would die".

"True", thought the fox. "OK - hop on". And they plunged into the water.

About halfway over, the scorpion bit the fox.

"Why did you do that?" exclaimed the fox in his dying breath.

The scorpion replied, as the waters swallowed them both up, "It's the middle east, my friend, it's the middle east..."

Yom Hashoah – Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day

Yom Hashoah – Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day is a national day of commemoration in Israel, on which the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust are memorialized. It begins on the evening of the 27th of Nissan which this year falls on May 1st. The central ceremonies, in the evening and the following morning, are held at Yad Vashem – The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority.

Each year at the ceremony, six torches are lit in memory of the six millions Jews murdered during the Holocaust. The torchlighters are people whose wartime experiences reflects the central theme chosen by Yad Vashem. Their personal stories can be read here.

And here are photos of how they look today in 2011 — alive, well and living in the Jewish state — something Hitler hoped they would never see.

Thank God they are not Jews

The Jews in their desire to establish independence and realize control of their own democratic institutions accepted the UN partition of Palestine in 1947. They were attacked by the surrounding Arab nations who had rejected the UN partition plan. After a hard fought War of Independence the Jews were not "pushed into the sea", the State of Israel was declared and established. 500,000 Arab refugees were created - a sad fact that was to be manipulated and distorted and misused far outweighing in the eyes of so-called impartial third party observers the criminal acts of the rejectionists of the UN partition.

And who are these rejectionists who have constantly supported terrorist actions and promoted, participated in wars against the State of Israel? Who are these rejectionists who took the high moral ground when judging Israel’s almost impossible task of policing the intifadas that were fuelled by these rejectionists' anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli rhetoric?

They are the same toilets (Gadaffi and Assad et al.) who are indiscriminately killing their own people for the terrible crime of wanting control of their own democratic institutions.