<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Dr. Martin Sherman</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/author/dr-martin-sherman/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com</link>
	<description></description>
	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 31 Dec 2014 07:56:08 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en-US</language>
		<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
		<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	
	<item>
		<title>The Palestinian Problem: A Real Solution</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dr-martin-sherman/the-palestinian-problem-a-real-solution-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-palestinian-problem-a-real-solution-2</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dr-martin-sherman/the-palestinian-problem-a-real-solution-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 03 Aug 2010 04:01:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dr. Martin Sherman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=67794</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Palestinians have nothing to lose but their chains -- in which their leaders have imprisoned them.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/aaaGazaAntiIsraelRally.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-67796" title="aaaGazaAntiIsraelRally" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/aaaGazaAntiIsraelRally.gif" alt="" width="375" height="299" /></a></p>
<p>From Israel’s point of view, the &#8220;two-state/land for peace&#8221; solution to the Palestinian conflict has proven to be a long, drawn out failure that should have been abandoned long ago. It is only because many prominent political figures have foolishly mortgaged their personal and professional prestige in the name of this unworkable position that it manages to remain a live option – to the grave detriment of Israelis and Palestinians alike.</p>
<p>Any dispassionate evaluation of the events of the past two decades invariably leads one to accept the following conclusion: that the Palestinians seem far more focused on annulling Jewish political independence than attaining Palestinian political independence. That is to say, Palestinians are far more committed to the deconstruction of the Jewish State than to construction of a Palestinian one.</p>
<p>However, no matter how convincingly one can show that the Palestinians as a national entity have failed to create their own national destiny, a stark reality remains: there are hundreds of thousands of essentially disenfranchised Palestinian families residing both in Israeli territory and in the wider Arab world.</p>
<p>Addressing this situation requires a comprehensive solution comprised of three constituent elements, all eminently consistent with liberal political doctrine. Two involve eliminating discriminatory practices against the Palestinians as refugees and as residents in Arab countries. The third involves facilitating free choice for individual Palestinians to determine their own future.</p>
<p><strong>Eliminating the UNRWA</strong></p>
<p>As Daniel Pipes has pointed out, the persistence and scale of the Palestinian refugee problem is, to a large degree, an artificial construct. The UN body under whose auspices all the refugees on the face of the globe fall &#8212; except for the Palestinians &#8212; is the UN Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).  A separate institution exists for the Palestinians &#8212; the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. UNHCR and UNRWA have widely different definitions for the term &#8220;refugee&#8221; and widely divergent mandates for dealing with them.</p>
<p>According to the High Commission&#8217;s definition, the number of refuges decreases over time, while according to the UNRWA definition, the number increases. This &#8220;definition disparity&#8221; brings about an astonishing situation: If the High Commission criterion was applied to the Palestinians, the number of refugees would shrink dramatically to around 200,000 – i.e., less than 5 percent of the current number of almost 5 million according to the UNRWA definition.</p>
<p>Moreover, while the mandate of the UNHCR permits the body to seek permanent solutions for refugees under its auspices, UNRWA is permitted only to provide ongoing humanitarian aid for the ever-increasing population of Palestinians. Accordingly, while UNHCR operates to dissipate the problems of the refugees under its auspices, UNRWA activities serve only to prolong their refugee status and thus, their predicament. Indeed, rather than reduce the dimensions of the refugee problem, UNRWA has actually functioned to perpetuate the refugee status of the Palestinians from one generation to the next. It has create an enduring and expanding culture of dependency, while cultivating an unrealistic fantasy of returning to a home that no longer exists.</p>
<p>As long as the Palestinian refugee problem continues to be treated in what former Congressman Tom Lantos called  “this privileged and prolonged manner&#8221; it will never be resolved.  Accordingly, the first step toward the resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem must be the abolition of UNRWA and the transfer of responsibility for the matter to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. This move will facilitate the gradual tapering off of support for what should be a decreasing Palestinian refugee population.</p>
<p><strong>Eliminating Arab Discrimination against Palestinians</strong></p>
<p>Throughout the Arab world, the Palestinians are subject to blatant discrimination with regard to employment opportunities, property ownership, freedom of movement, and acquisition of citizenship. For example, Saudi Arabia in 2004 announced it was introducing measures to ease the attainment of Saudi citizenship for all foreigners who were residing in the country except Palestinians, half a million of whom live in the kingdom.</p>
<p>Similar policies of discrimination are prevalent in other Arab states. A 2004 <em>Los Angeles Times</em> report painted a grim picture of the life Palestinians are forced to endure among the Arab &#8220;brethren.&#8221; According to the report, Palestinians in Egypt suffer restrictions on employment, education, and owning property, and when Egypt announced in 2003 that it would grant nationality to children of Egyptian mothers married to foreigners, Palestinians were excluded. In Lebanon, meanwhile, nearly 400,000 Palestinians live in 12 &#8220;refugee camps,” where crime is rife and clashes between rival Palestinian factions are common. Palestinians cannot own property or get state health care. According to Tayseer Nasrallah, head of the Palestinian Refugee Rights Committee in the West Bank, Lebanon bans refugees from 72 areas of employment, including medicine and engineering.  Syria, with a population of 18 million, is a strong verbal supporter of the Palestinian cause, but refuses citizenship to its 410,000 Palestinian refugees. Even in Jordan, where Palestinians comprise nearly 70% of the population, Palestinians complain that they are discriminated against in terms of employment.</p>
<p>When approached on this issue of discrimination against the Palestinian residents in Arab countries, Hisham Youssef, spokesman for the 22-nation Arab League, openly acknowledged that Palestinians live &#8220;in very bad conditions,&#8221; but claimed the policy is meant &#8220;to preserve their Palestinian identity.&#8221; He went on to explain with perhaps unintended candor:  &#8220;If every Palestinian who sought refuge in a certain country was integrated and accommodated into that country, there won&#8217;t be any reason for them to return to Palestine.&#8221;</p>
<p>But according to a survey conducted by the well-known Palestinian pollster, Dr. Khalil Shikaki, most Palestinians were less interested in being nationalist standard-bearers than in living fuller lives. This view resonates strongly with opinion samples gathered by the leading Arab television stations Al-Arabiya and Al Jazeera of Palestinians living in the various Arab states, the vast majority of whom very much want to become citizens in the their respective countries of residence.</p>
<p>This clearly seems to indicate that Palestinian national identity is something more jealously guarded by non-Palestinian Arabs rather than the Palestinians themselves.</p>
<p>It is only the United Nations Relief and Works Agency that allows the Arab countries to continue to keep the Palestinians within their borders in their situation of suspended stateless animation. For while its mandate prevents finding a permanent solution for the Palestinian residents in these countries, it is the ongoing humanitarian aid that it provides for an ever-increasing client population that permits the host governments to sustain their discriminatory policy toward their Palestinian “guests,” to perpetuate their inferior status, and to allow their situation to languish and fester.</p>
<p><strong>Allowing Individual Palestinians the Exercise of Free Will</strong></p>
<p>If the first two elements of the proposed solution &#8212; abolishing the UNRWA and attacking the discrimination Palestinian émigrés suffer in other Arab countries &#8212; are directed mainly toward easing the plight the Palestinians living outside the West Bank and Gaza, a third element is aimed directly and exclusively at those living inside these areas.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dr-martin-sherman/the-palestinian-problem-a-real-solution-2/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>26</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Woefully Ignorant or Willfully Misleading?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dr-martin-sherman/woefully-ignorant-or-willfully-misleading/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=woefully-ignorant-or-willfully-misleading</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dr-martin-sherman/woefully-ignorant-or-willfully-misleading/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Jul 2010 04:00:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dr. Martin Sherman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=65993</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Peter Beinart's warped understanding of Israel.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/a340x.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-66015" title="a340x" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/a340x.gif" alt="" width="375" height="458" /></a></p>
<p>In a polemic published last month in the <em>New York Review of Books,</em> &#8220;The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment,” the left-wing journalist Peter Beinart argued that American Jews, especially the younger generation, are turning their backs on Israel. In Beinart’s estimation, this is a most understandable and inevitable development. Beinart expounded on the points of his original essay during a recent lecture at Los Angeles&#8217;s Temple  Beth. Just as in the original article, Beinart’s argument was profoundly flawed.</p>
<p>For anyone with a modicum of knowledge of Israeli society and the larger picture of the Middle East, the lecture was an astonishing display of ignorance and arrogance. The following analysis of the lowlights of his talk shows how Beinart, like other Israel-bashers, rides roughshod over the truth in an effort to portray Israel as violent and inhumane and deserving of the increasing suspicion in which it is held by American Jews.</p>
<p><strong>The &#8220;Radical Settlers&#8221;</strong></p>
<p>Beinart stated as a matter of fact: &#8220;The same radical settlers who used violence against Palestinians used violence against an Israeli prime minister [Rabin].&#8221;</p>
<p>Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin was not assassinated by a “radical settler,” but by a law student from Herzilya, a coastal town adjacent to Tel Aviv.</p>
<p>Beinart gave no evidence in this part of his talk that he knew what percentage of the settlers were involved in violence against Palestinians. Or who has been subject to greater and more lethal violence. Is it Palestinians by settlers? Or settlers by Palestinians?</p>
<p>Nor did he mention that Palestinian movements have proven all too ready to use violence. Not only is this violence directed toward &#8220;radical settlers&#8221; and innocent Israeli citizens, but Palestinians have also embarked on a frenzy of fratricidal fury against themselves.</p>
<p><strong>The Eviction of  Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah Quarter in East Jerusalem</strong></p>
<p>On this matter, Beinart posed this rhetorical question:</p>
<blockquote><p>Is what is happening in Sheik Jarrah, where Palestinians who were living in their homes for 50 years were forcibly evicted and are now living in the street, &#8220;kosher&#8221;?</p></blockquote>
<p>This mirrors his claim in his <em>New York Review of Books</em> article that:</p>
<blockquote><p>[In] the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, … a Palestinian family named the Ghawis lives on the street outside their home of fifty-three years, from which they were evicted to make room for Jewish settlers.</p></blockquote>
<p>In fact, the Palestinians&#8217; eviction was not a politically motivated initiative to dispossess hapless, helpless Palestinians as Beinart implies, but the result of a court ruling.</p>
<p>The courts (including the Israeli Supreme Court, which often &#8212; indeed more often than not &#8212; rules against the &#8220;radical settlers&#8221;) determined that the property in which the Palestinians were living in fact belonged to Jewish owners. In 1967, the court awarded the Palestinian families &#8220;protected tenant&#8221; status, whose right to reside in the homes was guaranteed as long as they paid rent to the legal owners.</p>
<p>In 1982, the legal owners sued 23 families for nonpayment of rent. According to an agreement reached between the lawyer representing the Palestinian families and the authorized representatives of the owners, the Palestinian families were indeed recognized as &#8220;protected tenants&#8221; whose occupancy in the buildings was ensured as long as they paid rent. However, most of the families refused to do so.</p>
<p>Does Beinart believe that Israel would be looked on more favorably if the rule of law was flouted, and legal property rights violated because of the ethnic identity of those ruled against?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Pikuch Nefesh and Reverence for Life Over Land</strong></p>
<p>Beinart lamented:</p>
<blockquote><p>One of the things that bothers me is [the undermining of] the great reverence for Pikuach Nefesh [preserving lives] and the recognition that it is acceptable to withdraw from land if it meant saving lives.</p></blockquote>
<p>This is a statement that can only be explained by either total ignorance or total insincerity. For as anyone who follows the news or reads the papers must know, a dramatic inverse relationship exists between Pikuach Nefesh (preserving lives) and withdrawal from land.</p>
<p>Indeed, since the doctrine of &#8220;land-for-peace&#8221; was introduced into Israeli policy, fatalities have soared to unprecedented levels on both the Israeli and the Palestinian sides.  To suggest otherwise reflects a massive deficit of either information or integrity.</p>
<p><strong>Double Standards</strong></p>
<p>Regarding the conduct of his like-minded Israel-basher peers, Beinart pontificated: &#8220;There is something frankly silly to me about a Jewish community that feels so self-confident in how our values apply in Bosnia, the former Soviet Union, and Darfur, but is so timid in talking about how our values apply in the place we care about most [presumably Israel].&#8221;</p>
<p>So Israel’s attempts to defend its people are morally comparable to the wholesale slaughter in Darfur, the widespread massacres in Bosnia, and the oppressive brutality of the Soviet regime?</p>
<p>What a windfall for the assorted collection of Jew-baiting anti-Semites, Judeo-phobic Israel-bashers, and other hate-driven villains such thinking is.  What greater endorsement could they hope for than Beinart&#8217;s exhortation that his fellow Jews relate to the Jewish State as if it were governed by the genocidal Janjaweed militias in Sudan, or by the brutish guards in the Siberian gulags, or the murderous perpetrators of the bloody events in Srebrenica.</p>
<p><strong>Double Standards II</strong></p>
<p>Beinart endorses double standards when they work to Israel&#8217;s detriment, and only dismisses them when they do not.</p>
<p>When a challenge was raised regarding the application of these double standards, Beinart&#8217;s rather glib and unoriginal response was to claim that while Israel was &#8220;far morally superior to North Korea, Syria, Libya and Iran,&#8221; these were not relevant criteria he would expect from a Jewish state. According to Beinart, he should not have to &#8220;compromise [his expectations from Israel] just because North Korea is worse.&#8221;</p>
<p>Such an approach might have some merit if Israel was being censured less severely, or even equally severely, for violations of liberal-democratic values <em>similar</em><strong> </strong>to those perpetrated by North Korea, Iran, etc.  But what is happening is altogether different. Israel is being censured far more harshly and frequently for infringements much less notable than those glossed over by the international community when committed by other nations.</p>
<p>Moreover, it is not only in comparison to the tyrannies in Tehran and Tripoli and the dictatorships in Damascus and the DPRK (Democratic People&#8217;s Republic of Korea) that Israel is being held to a double standard. Indeed, widely divergent criteria are used to judge the actions of Israel and those of the leading democratic countries that comprise NATO. This is true both with respect to military action in the Balkans and the &#8220;War on Terror&#8221; in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>In the Balkans, high-altitude bombing by NATO, including the use of cluster bombs, inflicted hundreds of civilian Serbian casualties during a military campaign in which not one single civilian in a NATO nation was ever threatened.</p>
<p>In Afghanistan, where military action was undertaken in response to a single terror attack on a single NATO member, estimates of civilian deaths caused directly by NATO military action since 2001 are in the range of 5000-8000, with additional indirect fatalities estimated at up to 20,000.</p>
<p>Why should the victims of Israeli actions taken to defend their citizens elicit a far greater expression of moral outrage on the part of the international community than actions taken to perpetuate regimes in East Asia, Central Africa, or in the Middle East?</p>
<p>Why should several families evicted because of failure to pay rent, after being afforded due process by the Israeli legal system, be more troubling to liberal Jews than the millions of victims of gender apartheid, creed apartheid, and gay apartheid across the Islamic world?</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Israel&#8217;s Right to Defend Itself</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>Beinart magnanimously agrees that &#8220;to ask Israel to be willing to not defend itself would be wrong,&#8221; but predictably goes on to ask – rhetorically &#8211; &#8220;is every military action…does every Israeli policy contribute to Israeli defense..?&#8221;</p>
<p>To be sure, with the benefit of hindsight, some Israeli security measures may be criticized for one reason or another. But in a situation of such uncertainty, what would Beinart recommend as Israel&#8217;s working security policy: To err on the side of sober caution? Or on the side of reckless optimism?</p>
<p>Nothing could imperil liberal democratic values more than trying to foist on Israel unattainable standards of liberal democratic ideals that make the defense of these ideals impossible. These standards are not demanded or expected of any other country, much less from one faced with such grave existential threats.</p>
<p>Of course no one is disputing Beinart&#8217;s right to criticize Israeli policy. However, as someone who has chosen not to share the burden of living in Israel, he would surely understand that when he states that &#8220;as a Jew, I have a certain set of expectations… as to what a Jewish state might be,&#8221; some might interpret his approach as being more than a little presumptuous.</p>
<p>Indeed, it would be interesting to know what kind of Israeli military actions Beinart would condone as not offensive to his liberal sensibilities. Would they include the construction of the much maligned separation barrier? Targeted killings (with the lowest level of collateral casualties in military history)? Large scale campaigns (such as &#8220;Cast Lead&#8221;) to quell rocket and mortar fire on civilian populations?</p>
<p><strong>Blockades and Balance</strong></p>
<p>Beinart asks: “How did the Gaza blockade which banned a vast, vast number of consumer products that had nothing to do with making rockets…help Israeli security?&#8221; He added, &#8220;It seems to me that all it did was lead to more and more and more hatred of Israel.&#8221;</p>
<p>Can Beinart really be unaware of the fact that the imposition of the blockade was a result of, not a reason for, Palestinian enmity; that it is a consequence, not a cause, of Palestinian hatred for Israel?</p>
<p>Is he really ignorant of the fact that whenever Israel has turned the other cheek, it has been resoundingly slapped by the Palestinians; that whenever Israel extended the hand of friendship, it has been brusquely brushed aside by the Palestinians?</p>
<p>Why should Israel be condemned by liberal democrats for imposing a blockade on Gaza, when the international community imposed a UN Security Council-sanctioned blockade against Iraq and its despotic ruler?</p>
<p>Why is the Gaza blockade more reprehensible than the U.S.-led, UN sanctioned Iraqi blockade that caused infant mortality to sky-rocket and banned importation of over 300 items – including painkillers, pencils, hearing aids, musical instruments, and shampoo?</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dr-martin-sherman/woefully-ignorant-or-willfully-misleading/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

<!-- Performance optimized by W3 Total Cache. Learn more: http://www.w3-edge.com/wordpress-plugins/

Object Caching 371/379 objects using disk
Content Delivery Network via cdn.frontpagemag.com

 Served from: www.frontpagemag.com @ 2014-12-31 07:40:52 by W3 Total Cache -->