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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Yonatan Silverman</title>
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		<title>The True Meaning of Israel&#8217;s Sartaba Mountain</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/yonatan-silverman/the-true-meaning-of-israels-sartaba-mountain/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-true-meaning-of-israels-sartaba-mountain</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Oct 2012 04:04:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Yonatan Silverman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Babylon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[communication]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[diaspora]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[exile]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[homeland]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mountain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sartaba]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=148819</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Ancient lessons from the people of Israel and what they mean to the Jewish community today. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/yonatan-silverman/the-true-meaning-of-israels-sartaba-mountain/tel-sartaba/" rel="attachment wp-att-149398"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-149398" title="tel-sartaba" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/tel-sartaba.gif" alt="" width="315" height="237" /></a>The Babylonian King Nebuchednezzer exiled the Jews of Israel to Babylon in the year 587 BCE. Then, after defeating the Babylonian Kingdom, the Persian King Cyrus decreed that the Jews could return to Israel in the year 538 BCE. Cyrus also permitted the returning Jews to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.</p>
<p>It is very difficult if not impossible to determine the precise number of Jews who were exiled from Israel to Babylon. But it does seem that not all of the Jewish community in its entirety in Israel was exiled there.</p>
<p>It also appears that Jewish life in exile in Babylon was not an endless case of oppression and want in vile captivity. Quite the contrary.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.jewishhistory.org/babylon-and-beyond/">Babylon</a> became such a home-away-from-home that the Talmud (Kesubos 111a) went so far as to say that one who lives in Babylon is as though he lives in the Land of Israel and will be spared the “birth pangs of the Messiah,” the terrible sufferings that will herald his coming. There is even an opinion in the Talmud that Jews were forbidden from leaving Babylon until God would come and redeem them. They should not go back to the Land of Israel on their own. Even though that was not the accepted opinion in Jewish law, and it was not accepted in practice, nevertheless it was an idea that was floated about. Such an idea could gain currency only if there was a hospitable climate.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bible-history.com/map_babylonian_captivity/map_of_the_deportation_of_judah_treatment_of_the_jews_in_babylon.html">The Jewish people survived</a> in Babylon because the Babylonian policy allowed the Jews to settle in towns and villages along the Chebar River, which was an irrigation channel. The Jews were allowed to live together in communities; they were allowed to farm and perform other sorts of labor to earn income. Many Jews eventually became wealthy. This was probably because of the influence of certain Jews who ministered in the palace of Babylon, like Daniel and his friends. It is also likely that the Lord purposed that the Jews would settle down there and get comfortable. Then after the 70 years were complete it would be a test of faith to pick up and return to Jerusalem. During captivity the Jews were encouraged by the prophet Jeremiah from Jerusalem to take wives, build houses, plant gardens and take advantage of their situation because they were going to be there for seven decades.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.jewishhistory.org/babylon-and-beyond/">By contrast, the Jews</a> who were exiled to Babylon after the destruction of Judea established a Jewish community that lasted continuously until modern times, a period of more than 2,500 years. For well over 1,500 of those years the Babylonian Jewish community flourished to the point that, after the destruction of the Second Temple, they even became the undisputed center of Jewish life.</p>
<p>The singular and most important achievement of the Babylonian Jewish diaspora community is unquestionably the creation of the Babylonian Talmud, but this did not come out until 1000 years after the return from exile in 536 BCE.</p>
<p>The fact is only a small minority of the exiled Jews in Babylon returned to Israel in 536. But the Jews in Israel felt a community and a religious need to communicate with the diaspora community in Babylon. In particular the Jews in Israel felt a need to communicate to the Jews in Babylon an accurate message about the beginning of each Jewish month.</p>
<p>Methods of long range communications were obviously very primitive in the year 500 BCE. But the Jewish community in Israel devised a method based on the day’s best technology. They employed “mesuot” Hebrew torches.</p>
<p>On the eve of the new Jewish month the community in Jerusalem would dispatch messengers to the tops of mountains along a chain in the Jordan Valley leading to the Babylonian border. So there would be a signal relay employing mesuot starting from the Mount of Olives to the mountain Sartaba in the Jordan Valley near Jerusalem – all the way to the other messengers on the other mountains in the chain – until the signal and the message about the new month reached Babylon.</p>
<blockquote><p>From the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem to Sartaba and from Sartaba to Grofina and from Grofina to Hauran and from Hauran to Beth Baltin. [The messenger] on Beth Baltin did not budge from there but went on waving to and fro and up and down until he saw the whole of the diaspora before him like one bonfire. (Talmud Babli)</p></blockquote>
<p>Undertaking long range communications in this way in the year 500 BCE is exceptional. No other ethnic or religious group ever organized itself in the way the Jews of Israel did in those days for the purpose of sending a message to their diaspora brethren. Remarkably, despite oceans of literature in the Jewish world dealing with every in and out of every matter imaginable, no one has ever examined the rationale or the underlying community motivation behind the mesuot or the urge to deliver the message of the new month.</p>
<p>The issue essentially has two parts. What was the underlying community motivation in Israel to send a message to the diaspora community in Babylon? Why did they choose to send the message of the new Jewish month?</p>
<p>One motivation of the Jewish community in Israel was surely to exercise leadership, to ride herd as it were, and take measures to ensure that the diaspora Jewish community in Babylon understood that the Jewish community in Israel was boss. The understanding was that the diaspora Jews in Babylon had to listen and adhere to what the Jews in Israel were telling them.</p>
<p>Beyond the hierarchical relationship however there was also surely a plane on which the impulse to communicate with the Jews in Babylon was simply a communal impulse to take measures so that the distant diaspora Jews and the Jews at home in Israel would have a meaningful form of contact.</p>
<p>But the bottom line is the content of the message. Why was it so important for the Jews of Israel then to signal the Jews in diaspora in Babylon about the accurate beginning of the new Jewish month?</p>
<p>Mainly because knowing the accurate beginning of the new Jewish month enabled the Jews in Babylon to fix their monthly calendars properly and observe holidays and other significant Jewish events on their appointed days. This approach also includes the related interest to avoid mistakes in fixing dates during the month. The Jews in Israel sent this exceptional message to the Jews in Babylon in order to keep them in line, and not fall into the trap where the days of their month were unaligned with the source in Jerusalem.</p>
<p>It isn’t possible to determine how long the Jews in Israel in those days continued employing the method of mesuot to communicate with the Jews in Babylon.</p>
<p>It also isn’t possible to determine why they stopped. Although there is speculation that the Samaritans interfered with the method and lit mesuot on the mountaintops on days that were not the first of the month and undermined the whole process.</p>
<p>The mountain Sartaba still sits where it always was in the Jordan Valley near Jerusalem. What the mesuot prove and stand for is that it is possible to unify the Jewish nation, in diaspora and in the Jewish homeland,  through communications. This is the paradigm the mesuot represent in Jewish history. The mesuot and the first relay point at Sartaba are paradigms of Jewish idealism, and they will always be a Jewish national inspiration and a reminder of what can be done given the desire and the interest.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Scrapping Oslo</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/yonatan-silverman/scrapping-oslo/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=scrapping-oslo</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 20 Sep 2012 04:05:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Yonatan Silverman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[first intifada]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lieberman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Oslo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[palestinian authority]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Yasser Arafat]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=144570</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Peace accords are dead on the vine -- but what are the alternatives?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/clinton_arafat_rabin.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-144904" title="clinton_arafat_rabin" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/clinton_arafat_rabin.gif" alt="" width="375" height="259" /></a>A front page article in the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv from 14 September discloses that Foreign Minister Lieberman has decided to re-evaluate the nineteen-year-old Oslo Agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. According to Lieberman: “There is no sense in keeping Abu Mazen’s rotten regime on artificial breathing.”</p>
<p>So the Foreign Minister ordered the Foreign Ministry management to examine an alternate model for relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority against the background of the problems in reaching a permanent settlement.</p>
<p>Lieberman harshly attacked the PA Chairman. “There is a basic mistake in dealing with Abu Mazen and his regime. The Palestinians blame Israel for everything just like all the corrupt regimes in the Arab world do all the time. Abu Mazen is not adapted to impose order in the PA. He and his regime are living on borrowed time. He lost all his credit with the Palestinian people.”</p>
<p>Is Foreign Minister Lieberman’s proposal to find an alternate model for relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority feasible? There is no question that something is indeed rotten in the Palestinian Authority. It stopped adhering to the principle of bilateral negotiations three years ago. Instead of engaging in bilateral negotiations with Israel as it did in the 1990s, the PA adopted a unilateral track to achieving statehood recognition through the UN. Since embarking on their UN initiative, the PA has closed the door on bilateral negotiations. The PA’s hostility to Israel takes other more explicit forms, such as gross incitement against Israel in their media. The school books and maps in the Palestinian Authority education system erase Israel’s existence and replace it with the state of Palestine. The Palestinian Authority routinely names summer camps and city squares after terrorist murderers.</p>
<p>Oslo was supposed to be a vehicle for negotiating two states for two peoples. But today the Palestinian Authority’s underlying policy is the elimination of Israel. Their refusal to back down on their demand for the Palestinian refugee right of return, for example, is prime evidence of their deeply imbedded hostility to the existence of the Jewish state. They even refuse to recognize that Israel is the Jewish State.</p>
<p>One also needs to bear in mind that while the Israeli government may want to change its relationship with the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian Authority surely seeks to maintain the status quo. The European Union, the Quartet, the US, the Arab world, provide the Palestinian Authority with huge transfusions of financial and political support. FM Lieberman may call this support &#8220;artificial breathing&#8221; for a sick body. But this is the reality with the PA. It may be sick but it refuses to die – or change.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, there are three options related to changing Israel’s relationship to the Palestinians – the status quo ante, the Jordanian option, and the Eight State Solution.</p>
<p>The status quo ante is the situation that existed before Oslo in 1993. The civil administration oversaw administration of the needs of life for the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza. Of course Gaza is out of the picture since the Hamas terror gang took over the territory there. So if there is a return to the status quo before 1993, the civil administration will only be occupied with the West Bank Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority would be abolished and Palestinian statehood or any self-determination at all would be an old story, not a realistic prospect by any means. Israel lived with this status quo from 1967 to 1993 – 26 years. The process was interrupted in the late 1980s by the first intifada.</p>
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		<title>The Oslo Accords Are Dead &#8212; And the Palestinians Killed Them</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/yonatan-silverman/the-oslo-accords-are-dead-and-the-palestinians-killed-them/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-oslo-accords-are-dead-and-the-palestinians-killed-them</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 14 Aug 2012 04:05:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Yonatan Silverman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[arafat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Oslo accords]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[palestinians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=140350</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why the Palestinian Authority no longer has any legitimacy. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/rabin-arafat.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-140409" title="rabin-arafat" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/rabin-arafat.gif" alt="" width="375" height="250" /></a>On August 13<sup>th</sup> the Jerusalem Post reported the release of a report on Palestinian incitement, authored by Strategic Affairs Ministry director-general Yossi Kuperwasser. Among other things Kuperwasser wrote:</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=281005">The bottom line is that Palestinian incitement</a> is “going on all the time,” adding that the phenomenon is “worrying and disturbing.” He said that at an institutional level the Palestinian Authority was continuously driving three messages home: that the Palestinians would eventually be the sole sovereign on all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea; that Jews, especially those who live in Israel, were not really human beings but rather “the scum of mankind”; and that all tools were legitimate in the struggle against Israel and the Jews, though the specific tool used at one time or another depended on a cost-benefit analysis.</p></blockquote>
<p>The unceasing phenomenon of Palestinian anti-Israel incitement is prima facie evidence that Oslo is dead.</p>
<p>When international agreements like the Oslo Accords are born it is very difficult for them to go out of existence. In general in the world of international diplomacy, when two countries make a diplomatic agreement it is permanent, like a country’s laws or its constitution. Once the powers that be agree on the small print in the newly codified laws or the country’s venerable constitution these documents are solidified. They remain in existence and remain in force ad infinitum – just like the countries themselves.</p>
<p>When Israel and the Palestinians signed the Declaration of Principles for the Oslo Accords in September 1993, the general assumption then also was that the agreement would be permanent and provide a constellation for bilateral negotiations between the sides that would ultimately lead to a permanent settlement.</p>
<p>In fact a series of twisting, difficult negotiations took place between the sides all through the 1990s and these negotiations also produced viable agreements. It looked like Oslo really was the answer to reaching a permanent settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.</p>
<p>The Oslo 2 Agreement, for example, signed in 1995 turned control over to the Palestinian Authority in the following West Bank cities – Bethlehem, Hebron, Jenin, Nablus, Qalqilya, Ramallah, Tulkarm, and some 450 villages. This agreement is a clear demonstration of Israeli good will and good intentions under Oslo. Oslo’s underlying purpose was to bring about the termination of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and here under Oslo 2 Israel was following the letter of the law.</p>
<p>Then PM Ehud Barak came along and attempted not only to negotiate territorial and political issues with the Palestinian side but go the whole nine yards and reach an end to the whole conflict.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1991to_now_campdavid_2000.php">Barak’s dramatic offer</a> to Arafat at Camp David in the summer of 2000 reportedly included the following proposals to achieve an end to the conflict:</p>
<p>• Israeli redeployment from 95% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip;</p>
<p>• The creation of a Palestinian state in the areas of Israeli withdrawal;</p>
<p>• The removal of isolated settlements and transfer of the land to Palestinian control;</p>
<p>• Other Israeli land exchanged for West Bank settlements remaining under Israeli control;</p>
<p>• Palestinian control over East Jerusalem, including most of the Old City; and</p>
<p>• “Religious Sovereignty” over the Temple Mount, replacing Israeli sovereignty in effect since 1967.</p>
<p>Arafat for his part simply rejected the offer. Around January 2001 Clinton met with Arafat again in the White House but there were no developments. Except that President Clinton was deeply offended and insulted that Arafat turned down the best offer for a peace settlement anyone would ever offer him. Indeed, inexplicably Arafat and his team said no again to the US-brokered Israeli proposals and they had no proposals of their own to offer.</p>
<p>Of course the immediate Palestinian response following the failure of the Camp David summit was the bloody Second Intifada. The brutal terrorist violence of the Second Intifada lasted through 2004 and took the lives of 1000 innocent Israelis. One shift on the Palestinian side was that Arafat was pressured to surrender a measure of power, and he did so by appointing Abu Mazen as prime minister in 2003.</p>
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		<title>The Palestinians Create a Virtual State</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/yonatan-silverman/the-palestinians-create-a-virtual-state/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-palestinians-create-a-virtual-state</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Jul 2012 04:01:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Yonatan Silverman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bethlehem]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[church of the nativity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Palestine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[United Nations]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=137035</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Until they can destroy Israel, Palestinians find solace in a fantasy state. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Palestinians-in-Ramallah-007.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-137036" title="Palestinians-in-Ramallah--007" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Palestinians-in-Ramallah-007.gif" alt="" width="375" height="251" /></a><a href="http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=276621" target="_blank">Bethlehem 7 July 2012</a> – Following UNESCO’s decision to recognize the Church of the Nativity as a world heritage site in &#8220;Palestine,&#8221; the Palestinians celebrated the event with the greatest false pomp and hyperbole.</p>
<p>PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said the inclusion is “the most remarkable event on the path of Palestinian state-building since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority.”</p>
<p>Speaking from the podium in front of Manger Square in Bethlehem, Fayyad said that UNESCO’s decision is important as it evidences an international acknowledgment of Palestinian sovereignty over their land in the pre-1967 lines.</p>
<p>“It’s a recognition of our people, who deserve and are able to protect this humane heritage that Bethlehem and its jewel, the Nativity Church, represent,” he added.</p>
<p>Fayyad called on the UN’s institutions to protect the Palestinian people, land, holy places and human heritage from the Israeli “occupation”  and “terror” of the Jewish State&#8217;s settlers.</p>
<p>“Here we are from the heart of Bethlehem where we overlook the Aksa mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the eternal capital of our <a>future</a> state,” he said.</p>
<p>The extreme falsehood and hypocrisy of Fayyad’s statements only underline the degree to which the entire Palestine outlook on peace with Israel is false, theatrical and characterized by virtual reality – not reality as it is generally defined and understood by humanity at large.</p>
<p>Virtual reality as commonly defined and understood is essentially a phenomenon related to computer games, with numerous bells and whistles and sophisticated visual effects that attempt to give an effective illusion of reality. The expression &#8220;virtual reality&#8221; has another definition however that emanates from the period before computers proliferated in the world.</p>
<p><a href="http://fusionanomaly.net/antoninartaud.html" target="_blank">The term &#8220;virtual reality</a>&#8221; can be traced back to the French playwright, poet, actor, and director <a title="Artaud" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artaud" target="_blank">Antonin Artaud</a>. In his seminal book &#8220;The Theatre and Its Double&#8221; (1938), Artaud described theatre as &#8220;la réalite virtuelle,&#8221; a virtual reality in which, in Erik Davis&#8217;s words, &#8220;characters, objects, and images take on the phantasmagoric force of alchemy&#8217;s visionary internal dramas.&#8221; Artaud claimed that the &#8220;perpetual allusion to the materials and the principle of the theater found in almost all alchemical books should be understood as the expression of an identity [...] existing between the world in which the characters, images, and in a general way all that constitutes the virtual reality of the theater develops, and the purely fictitious and illusory world in which the symbols of alchemy are evolved.&#8221;</p>
<p>Theater and the magical universe of alchemy – the key elements in Artaud’s definition of virtual reality &#8212; have also become the key elements in the Palestinian side’s approach to negotiations with Israel, and also in general their relationship with the whole world. These relationships have boiled down essentially to a series of theatrical or magical tricks that have no basis in reality and cannot achieve anything for the Palestinians. But they do these things anyway out of a strong desire to stab Israel in the back.</p>
<p>The most recent Palestinian trick, and betrayal, was their successful bid to have Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity recognized by UNESCO as located in Palestine.</p>
<p>In terms of reality as people everywhere understand it, UNESCO’s identifying the Nativity Church as a heritage site located in Palestine is completely meaningless. It was also meaningless when UNESCO voted to include Palestine as a full member state in the organization. The Palestinian Authority’s feverish exertions in the UN to obtain member status there are also meaningless. Through doing these things the Palestinians are not dealing with reality as people everywhere understand it –  but a malicious virtual reality whose meaningless elements are aimed to ambush Israel diplomatically. Claiming that the Christian faith’s holy shrine in Bethlehem is located in Palestine is no different than claiming it is located in Los Angeles. Both claims are false, of course. But there is a burning desire in the Palestinian community and the Palestinian leadership to take any measures virtually imaginable to harm Israel diplomatically. But these tactics also are meaningless because essentially they just roll off Israel’s back and achieve absolutely nothing for the Palestinians.</p>
<p>Prior to UNESCO’s recognizing the existence of the Nativity Church in Palestine, UNESCO also took the outrageous and groundless step to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/world/middleeast/unesco-approves-full-membership-for-palestinians.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">recognize Palestine as a full member state</a> in the organization.</p>
<p>The step cost UNESCO one-quarter of its yearly budget — the 22 percent contributed by the United States (about $70 million) plus another 3 percent contributed by <a title="More news and information about Israel." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/israel/index.html?inline=nyt-geo" target="_blank">Israel</a>. Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokeswoman, said that American contributions to UNESCO, including $60 million scheduled immediately, would not be paid.</p>
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		<title>Whither the Quartet?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/yonatan-silverman/whither-the-quartet/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=whither-the-quartet</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Apr 2012 04:01:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Yonatan Silverman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gaza]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mideast quartet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[palestinians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Roadmap]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[How the "roadmap" to peace lead to a brick wall. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Middle-East-quartet-membe-002.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-129181" title="Middle-East-quartet-membe-002" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Middle-East-quartet-membe-002.gif" alt="" width="375" height="253" /></a><a href="http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=265741">The Jerusalem Post reports</a> that in its latest statement the Middle East Quartet is equating acts of violence on the part of the Palestinian population and on the part of the Jewish settlers who live in Judea and Samaria. And it condemns violence from both sides equally. This is a false and outrageous comparison which bears no relationship to the facts on the ground. The fact is the Jewish settlers almost never engage in violence against Palestinian people or property, while Palestinians almost never stop throwing rocks (an Molotov cocktails) at Israeli individuals and vehicles.</p>
<p>One victim of these attacks, <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/fatal-west-bank-car-crash-caused-by-palestinian-stone-throwing-1.386594">Asher Palmer, and his infant son</a>, Jonathan, were killed when a Palestinian threw a large rock at their car and it went off the road. Then in March 2011 Palestinian youths butchered the Fogel family in their sleep on the Itamar settlement with kitchen knives, including a three-month-old baby. Catherine Ashton, one of the Quartet’s key figures, added insult to injury by equating the killing of children in Gaza during IAF aerial retaliation for Hamas rocket fire to the cold-blooded murders of Jewish children in Toulouse, France by a crazed Muslim. These are only the most recent cases of Quartet insensibility and nonsense. The group has been in existence since 2002, and in all that time and despite hours and hours of effort and diplomacy, it has achieved nothing. There is a long chain of reasoning (or lack thereof) behind this reality.</p>
<p>The international Quartet is a political body comprised of the US, Russia, the European Union and the UN whose purpose is to encourage and coordinate peace negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel. Since its founding in 2002 the Quartet has launched a number of initiatives and made numerous statements regarding its positions on Palestinian/Israeli negotiations for peace. The Quartet even predicted the establishment of a Palestinian state by September 2011. What has this august group of nations achieved in nine years? What achievements can it point to? What exactly is the Quartet’s track record?</p>
<p>The group was established in Madrid in 2002 by then Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, as a result of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Former British PM Tony Blair is the Quartet&#8217;s current Special Envoy.</p>
<p>The events of the Second Intifada in Israel motivated the creation of the Quartet. Launching the Intifada was Yasser Arafat’s tactic for addressing the collapse of the Oslo peace negotiations at Camp David in the summer of 2000. Arafat has been roundly indicted for the tragic failure of these talks, but he reacted with a wave of brutal terrorism nonetheless. The year 2002 represents a peak in the terrorist violence in Israel and Israel’s determined counter-reaction.</p>
<p>The suicide attack on March 27, 2002 at the Passover seder in Netanya&#8217;s Park Hotel, was the straw that broke the camel&#8217;s back.</p>
<p>IDF Operation Defensive Shield was launched two days later on March 29, and continued intensively through April 21.</p>
<p>A reserve force of 30,000 was called up, and they occupied the major cities of the West Bank, including Tulkarm, Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah, Qalqilya, and Bethlehem.</p>
<p>In response to this bitter war for survival Israel was forced to fight against Islamic terrorism, the Quartet proposed an evenhanded “Roadmap for Peace.” As explained by the Middle East Quarterly:</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="http://www.meforum.org/556/four-part-disharmony-the-quartet-maps-peace">On April 30, 2003</a>, following the swift collapse of Saddam Hussein&#8217;s regime in Baghdad, the Bush administration released the latest plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace, a document entitled A Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.&#8221; The declared destination of the &#8220;roadmap&#8221; was &#8220;a final and comprehensive settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict by 2005.</p>
<p>In the summer of 2000, the government of Israel and the Palestinian leadership seemed to be on the brink of consummating a final agreement for partition and peace. However, once again the Palestinian refusal to legitimize Israel led to an eleventh-hour rejection of partition and the launching of a new war, the so-called Al-Aqsa <em>intifada.</em></p></blockquote>
<p>The year 2003 was another ugly scenario in Israel with suicide bombings from the Islamic terrorists against innocent civilians and other murderous attacks. Peace was nowhere in sight. Israel was under brutal attack from vicious Palestinian terrorists. <a href="http://www.meforum.org/556/four-part-disharmony-the-quartet-maps-peace">The 2003 Quartet roadmap comprised three goal-driven phases</a> with the ultimate goal of ending the conflict as early as 2005.</p>
<p>With all due respect to the merit of proposing a peace program for Israel and the Palestinians something critical was missing from the Quartet’s proposal:</p>
<p>“The roadmap is yet one more effort to engineer a two-state solution, another attempt to achieve, by diplomacy, what has yet to be achieved by history: Palestinian acceptance of Israel,” as Daniel Mandel of the MEQ put it.</p>
<p>It should come as no surprise that the state of Israel rejected the Quartet Roadmap</p>
<p>On May 12, 2003 it was reported that Israeli Prime Minister <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Sharon">Ariel Sharon</a> had rejected Israel&#8217;s main roadmap requirement, a settlement freeze, as &#8220;impossible&#8221; due to the need for settlers to build new houses and start families.</p>
<p>On May 25, 2003 the Israeli government announced fourteen prerequisites before acceptance of any peace platform.</p>
<p>The first step on the roadmap was the appointment of the first-ever Palestinian <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister">Prime Minister</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Abbas">Mahmoud Abbas</a> (also known as Abu Mazen) by Palestinian leader <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasser_Arafat">Yasser Arafat</a>. The United States and Israel demanded that Arafat be neutralized or sidelined in the roadmap process, claiming that he had not done enough to stop Palestinian attacks against Israelis while in charge. The United States refused to release the roadmap until a Palestinian prime minister was in place. Abbas was appointed on March 19, 2003, clearing the way for the release of the roadmap&#8217;s details on April 30, 2003.</p>
<p>The Prime Minister&#8217;s Cabinet approved the roadmap with 14 reservations.</p>
<p>President Bush visited the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East">Middle East</a> from June 2–4, 2003 for two <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summit_(meeting)">summits</a> in an attempt to push the roadmap as part of a seven-day overseas trip through <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe">Europe</a> and Russia.</p>
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		<title>The New Middle East: A Graveyard</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/yonatan-silverman/the-new-middle-east-a-graveyard/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-new-middle-east-a-graveyard</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Jan 2012 04:06:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Yonatan Silverman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afternoon Edition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Arab Spring]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gaza Strip]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tunisia]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh embarks on an Arab Spring tour to put a human face on his inhuman terrorist organization. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/ismail-haniyeh.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-119095" title="ismail-haniyeh" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/ismail-haniyeh.gif" alt="" width="375" height="262" /></a></p>
<p>While on the Tunisia leg of his vaunted Middle East marathon, Hamas Prime Minister <a href="http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=252736">Ismail Haniyeh said</a> that Muslims will create the new Middle East. Ismail Haniyeh does not have a sterling reputation for telling the truth but his stating that Muslims will create the New Middle East is correct – a New Middle East graveyard. Estimated death tolls from a series of so-called Arab Spring rebellions include Syria – 6000; Yemen – 500; Bahrain 200; Libya – 30,000; Egypt – 1000;  Tunisia – 300. This is an estimated total of 38,000 people killed for the sake of the so-called Arab Spring. An abhorrent number. Clearly, based on these numbers it has been an Arab Abattoir and leave it to an arch terrorist like Haniyeh to overlook this carnage in his boastful declarations.</p>
<p>Haniyeh has distinguished himself on his tour of Islamic countries recently by saying other empty boastful and meaningless things. Haniyeh reiterated his pledge not &#8220;to lay down our arms&#8221; or recognize Israel. He has championed issues ranging from stopping the &#8220;Judaization of Jerusalem,&#8221; the IDF blockade on Gaza to the so-called Arab Spring revolutions that he claims have influenced favorably the Palestinian cause. Haniyeh also told an interviewer for the <a href="http://www.iba.org.il/bet/bet.aspx?type=1&amp;entity=812440">British paper <em>Independent</em></a> that he thinks Israel is encountering its worst security problems and that Egypt will not allow Israel to attack Gaza, and will suspend its support of the Gaza siege as well.</p>
<p>Who is Ismayil Haniyeh? What gives him the nerve to spout such preposterous folderol and balderdash?</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismail_Haniyeh">Haniyeh was born</a> in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shati_(camp)">Al-Shati</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_refugee_camps">refugee camp</a> in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Gaza_Strip_by_Egypt">Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip</a>. His parents became <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_refugee">refugees</a>, after they fled from their homes in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkelon#History_of_the_moddern_city">Majdal</a> (currently <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkelon">Ashkelon</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel">Israel</a>) during Israel’s War of Independence. In 1987, he graduated from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_University_of_Gaza">Islamic University of Gaza</a> with a degree in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_literature">Arabic literature</a>. In 1989, he was imprisoned for three years by Israeli authorities for participation in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Intifada">First Intifada</a> and membership with Hamas. Following his release in 1992, he was exiled to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanon">Lebanon</a> with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Yassin">Ahmed Yassin</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdel-Aziz_al-Rantissi">Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi</a> and other senior Hamas terrorists. A year later, he returned to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza">Gaza</a> and was appointed as Dean of the Islamic University.</p>
<p>Haniyeh’s rise to a position of influence in Hamas Islamic terror society in Gaza is nothing special. The real farce – folderol and balderdash in earnest – began when Hamas won the elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006 and Haniyeh became prime minister.</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Hamas_Election_Victory">On January 25, 2006</a>, elections were held for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Legislative_Council">Palestinian Legislative Council</a> (PLC), the legislature of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_National_Authority">Palestinian National Authority</a> (PNA). Notwithstanding the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_municipal_election,_2005">2005 municipal elections</a> and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_presidential_election,_2005">January 9, 2005 presidential election</a>, this was the first election to the PLC <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_legislative_and_presidential_election,_1996">since 1996</a>. Palestinian Authority elections were repeatedly postponed due to instability stemming from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli-Palestinian_conflict">Israeli-Palestinian conflict</a>. Palestinian voters in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip">Gaza Strip</a> and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank">West Bank</a> including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Jerusalem">East Jerusalem</a> were eligible to participate in the 2006 election.</p>
<p>Final results show that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas">Hamas</a> won the election, with 74 seats to the ruling-<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah">Fatah</a>&#8216;s 45, providing Hamas with the majority of the 132 available seats and the ability to form a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majority_government">majority government</a> on its own.</p>
<p>Then-<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_the_Palestinian_National_Authority">Prime Minister</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Qurei">Ahmed Qurei</a> resigned, but at the request of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_Palestinian_National_Authority">President</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Abbas">Mahmoud Abbas</a>, remained as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_government">interim</a> Prime Minister until February 19, when Hamas leader <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismail_Haniya">Ismail Haniyeh</a> formed the new government.</p>
<p>The terrorist Hamas&#8217;s entry into Palestinian government triggered sanctions. The 2006–2007 economic sanctions against the Palestinian National Authority were imposed by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel">Israel</a> and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartet_on_the_Middle_East">Quartet on the Middle East</a> against the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_National_Authority">Palestinian National Authority</a> and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_territories">Palestinian territories</a>.</p>
<p>Israel and the Quartet stated that sanctions would be lifted only when the Hamas government met the following demands:</p>
<p>• Renunciation of violence;</p>
<p>• Recognition of Israel by the Hamas government (as had <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel-Palestine_Liberation_Organization_letters_of_recognition">the PLO</a>); and</p>
<p>• Acceptance of previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority.</p>
<p>The international sanctions were terminated in June 2007 following the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaza_(2007)">Battle of Gaza</a>, while at the same time a new and more severe <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip">blockade of the Gaza Strip</a> was initiated.</p>
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		<title>A Forty-Year Fraud</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/yonatan-silverman/a-forty-year-fraud/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-forty-year-fraud</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Aug 2011 04:02:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Yonatan Silverman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afternoon Edition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The UN Committee for the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People has been holding a knife to Israel’s back since 1975.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/86-UN.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-103168" title="86-UN" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/86-UN.gif" alt="" width="375" height="250" /></a></p>
<p>Since its establishment in 1993, the Palestinian Authority has been the leading political body for achieving Palestinian rights in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But behind the scenes in the UN, the Committee for the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People has been holding a knife to Israel’s back since 1975. And just recently, this monstrous organization based within the venerable corridors of the UN lashed out maliciously and baselessly at Israel again.</p>
<p>On August 19, the UN Committee for the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People issued an extremely harsh condemnation of Israeli settlement policy. <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=39340&amp;Cr=Israel&amp;Cr1">The UN Public Information Office</a> press release begins: “The United Nations committee on inalienable Palestinian rights today called on the international community to take &#8216;credible and decisive action&#8217; to compel Israel to halt its settlement activity in occupied Palestinian territory.&#8221; The press release goes on to say:</p>
<blockquote><p>The illegal Israeli settlements have a corrosive effect on confidence and undermine goodwill, absent which serious and genuine permanent status negotiations are unlikely to succeed… the issues of settlements and Jerusalem are among core issues to be negotiated by the parties. All unilateral actions by Israel which prejudge the outcome of negotiations by creating faits accomplis on the ground have no legal validity.</p></blockquote>
<p>The Palestinian Inalienable Rights Committee also strongly condemned Israel’s “illegal and provocative acts,” which it said were aimed at &#8220;encircling and separating East Jerusalem from the rest of occupied Palestinian territory behind a wall of settlements.”</p>
<p>The committee’s statement concludes by demanding the UN Security Council implement harsh punitive measures against Israel.</p>
<p>Two years ago, in 2009, the Palestinian Authority halted bilateral peace negotiations with Israel and set off on a global diplomatic initiative to obtain the support of governments for its proposed unilateral statehood recognition in the UN.</p>
<p>The consequences and repercussions of this recognition are unclear.</p>
<p>Some even say that now at the last minute Palestinian Authority chairman Abu Mazen is having cold feet about the UN vote in September. For his part, Abu Mazen continues to claim he prefers direct negotiations with Israel, but this claim is always attached to completely unacceptable conditions. So it appears the die is cast.</p>
<p>But the problem is not something that started in 2009; it goes back 35 years to 1975 and the establishment of the UN Committee for the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People:</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="http://www.i-p-o.org/palestine-sovereignty.htm">General Assembly resolution 3236</a> (XXII) of 22 November 1974 reaffirmed the “inalienable rights of the Palestinian people in Palestine including (a) the right of self-determination without external interference, (b) the right to national independence and sovereignty.</p>
<p>In 1975, <a href="http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/com.htm">by its resolution</a> <a href="http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/B5B4720B8192FDE3852560DE004F3C47">3376</a> the United Nations General Assembly established the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, and requested it to recommend a program of implementation to enable the Palestinian people to exercise their inalienable rights to self-determination without external interference, national independence and sovereignty; and to return to their homes and property from which they had been displaced.</p>
<p>Assisted by the <a href="http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/com.htm">Division for Palestinian Rights</a>, the Committee organizes international meetings and conferences, cooperates and liaises with <a href="http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/ngo.htm?OpenForm">civil society organizations</a> worldwide, maintains a publications and information program, and holds each year on 29 November a special meeting in observance of the <a href="http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/solidarity.htm?OpenForm">International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People</a> (29 November).</p></blockquote>
<p>The selection of 29 November as the day for international solidarity with the Palestinian people is obviously a slap in Israel’s face. The date is the anniversary of the partition resolution in 1947, over which all Israelis rejoice. But this exceptional date, like the date for Israel’s declaration of independence (Nakba Day), are preserved in Palestinian psychology as days of disaster.</p>
<p>And clearly, these Palestinian approaches to their history are not just frivolous impulses in the Palestinian heartland. They emanate directly from the authority of the United Nations – and its committee for inalienable Palestinian rights. It is this UN committee which has beaten the drum for four decades in the Palestinian community and promoted independence and sovereignty for the Palestinian populace in the West Bank and Gaza. And also persistently, the Palestinian refugee right of return. This is where the initiative for Palestinian statehood recognition was born, not the mind of the PA’s chairman Abu Mazen. After 35 years in the hands of this UN committee, Abu Mazen is just taking the Palestinian statehood idea the last mile.</p>
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