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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Catherine Ashton</title>
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		<title>Israel’s European Challenge</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/caroline-glick/israels-european-challenge/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=israels-european-challenge</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Oct 2013 04:53:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Caroline Glick]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[armistice lines]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[boycott]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Catherine Ashton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[european union]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=208630</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Is there any hope for improving relations with the anti-Israel Continent? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Catherine-Ashton-EU.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-208638" alt="Catherine-Ashton-EU" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Catherine-Ashton-EU.gif" width="281" height="217" /></a>Originally published by <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Column-one-Israels-European-challenge-329699">The Jerusalem Post</a>. </em></p>
<p>Last month, the European Union pushed European- Israeli relations to a new low.</p>
<p>In mid-September, the IDF enforced a High Court of Justice order to destroy 250 structures built illegally by Palestinian squatters in the Jordan Valley.</p>
<p>The High Court acted in accordance with the agreements signed between the Palestinians and Israel. Those agreements gave Israel sole control over planning and zoning in the Jordan Valley and throughout the area of Judea and Samaria defined as Area C.</p>
<p>Five days after the IDF destroyed the illegal structures, Palestinian activists arrived at the site with tents. Their intention was to act in contempt of the law and of the agreements the PLO signed with Israel, and to resettle the site.</p>
<p>The Palestinians did not come alone. They were accompanied by European diplomats. The diplomats were there to provide diplomatic cover to the Palestinians as they broke the law and breached the agreements the PLO signed with the Israeli government.</p>
<p>This would have been bad enough, but in the event, one European diplomat, Marion Castaing, the cultural attaché at the French Consulate in Jerusalem, decided that her job didn’t end with providing diplomatic cover for lawbreakers. She joined them. She punched an Israeli border policeman in the face.</p>
<p>Rather than apologize to Israel for using European diplomats to support Palestinians engaged in criminal activity, and for Castaing’s shocking violence against an Israeli soldier lawfully performing his duties, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton attacked Israel.</p>
<p>Ashton called the tents, presumably paid for by European taxpayers, “humanitarian assistance,” and declared, “The EU deplores the confiscation of humanitarian assistance carried out by Israeli security forces yesterday in Khirbat al-Makhul.</p>
<p>“EU representatives have already contacted the Israeli authorities to demand an explanation and expressed their concern at the incident. The EU underlines the importance of unimpeded delivery of humanitarian assistance and the applicability of international humanitarian law in the occupied Palestinian territory,” Ashton said.</p>
<p>The EU’s role in financing illegal Palestinian building efforts in the Jordan Valley is not unique. For some time, in contempt of Israeli law and the agreements signed between Israel and the PLO, the EU has been financing illegal building by Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem.</p>
<p>What was new in last month’s incident was the deployment of European diplomats at the scene to provide diplomatic cover for Palestinian law-breakers, and of course their willingness to physically assault Israeli security forces.</p>
<p>In recent months, there has been a palpable escalation of European hostility toward Israel. The significance of this escalation must be properly understood, for only by understanding precisely what is new in the EU’s treatment of Israel, will it be possible to develop proper responses to what is happening.</p>
<p>The incident in the Jordan Valley followed the EU’s announcement in July that beginning in January 2014, it will impose guidelines barring cooperation between the EU and EU member nations and Israeli entities located or operating beyond the 1949 armistice lines. Those guidelines constitute a low-grade trade war against Israel. They advance the goal of forcing Israel out of joint undertakings with Europeans and denying us access to European markets.</p>
<p>The Europeans are so eager to begin their economic war against Israel that they have launched it even before the guidelines have come into force. Firms in the Netherlands and Germany involved in waste treatment projects in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, whose completion would benefit Palestinians and Israelis alike, have received warnings from their home governments to cease their operations lest they face legal consequences.</p>
<p>In addition to barring European-Israeli economic activities that may even indirectly benefit Jews beyond the 1949 armistice lines, Ashton has promised to soon introduce EUwide rules requiring member nations to place special labels on Israeli goods produced by Jews beyond the 1949 armistice lines.</p>
<p>By placing special labels on goods produced by Israeli Jews in specific areas of Israel, the EU is shaping European public opinion to view all Israeli products produced by Jews as morally inferior, and therefore less desirable than all other products they come into contact with. Foes of Israel hope this opinion-shaping will lead to the initiation of European consumer boycotts of Israeli products.</p>
<p>Most Israeli responses to Europe’s ever-escalating hostility have focused on European hypocrisy. We have repeatedly decried the unique standard to which the Europeans hold Israel and Israel alone.</p>
<p>European hypocrisy is infuriating. But it is nothing new.</p>
<p>It was decades ago that Europe created a separate standard that it applies only to Israel.</p>
<p>Consider the European’s position on Jerusalem. Since Israel was established, the Europeans have denied the Jewish state the right they accord to every other state on earth: the right to determine its capital city.</p>
<p>Or consider Europe’s position on Israeli communities built beyond the 1949 armistice lines. Europe wrongly asserts that these communities are illegal. But even if they were right, Europe’s behavior toward Israel would still make a mockery of its proclaimed devotion to international law. Europe has no problem, indeed it has actively supported settlements for citizens of a belligerent occupying powers in areas ruled through occupation. As Profs. Avi Bell and Eugene Kontorovich from the Kohelet Policy Forum explained in a recent paper on the EU’s guidelines, the EU supports settlements by occupying powers in Northern Cyprus, Abkazia and Western Sahara. In light of this, it is clear that the guidelines directed against Israel are inherently discriminatory.</p>
<p>The EU’s supposed commitment to international law is similarly exposed as a sham by its willingness to turn a blind eye to the Palestinian Authority’s diversion of EU aid monies to finance terrorism. Despite mountains of evidence accumulated over the past 13 years that aid is being siphoned off to finance terrorist attacks against Israel, the EU has refused to take action. And its refusal to act is itself a breach of international law.</p>
<p>Then there is the EU claim that its actions are undertaken to advance the cause of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.</p>
<p>This claim is also not credible. By encouraging the Palestinians to breach their signed agreements with Israel, and by engaging in economic warfare against Israel for refusing to capitulate to all Palestinian demands preemptively, the Europeans are escalating Palestinian intransigence.</p>
<p>Throughout the years, Europe’s policy has been inconsistent.</p>
<p>At the same time some European leaders have led the diplomatic war against Israel, other leaders were cultivating close ties with the Jewish state. Over the years, Europe signed a series of economic association and free trade agreements with Israel. Europe has willingly cooperated with Israel in areas where it believed it had something to gain from that cooperation.</p>
<p>For instance, European nations, and the EU, have cooperated with Israel in the areas of science, technology, economics, intelligence gathering and military affairs. Until recent years, there was a distinct separation between the European leaders who sought to discriminate against Israel and those who sought cooperation with it.</p>
<p>But recently the distinction between “good Europe” and “bad Europe” has eroded. What we are seeing today, and what distinguishes the discriminatory behavior Israel faces from Europe today from what it has faced from Europe for decades, is the increased control that anti-Israel forces are exerting over all areas of European-Israel relations.</p>
<p>Consider European Commission Vice President Antonio Tajani’s visit to Israel this week. Tajani came to promote business relations and expand cooperation in science and other fields with Israel. While here he signed an agreement with Science, Technology and Space Minister Yaakov Perry that will enable Israelis to participate in the EU’s Galileo satellite project.</p>
<p>But according to media reports, the only thing Israelis wanted to discuss with him were the new European guidelines and the fact that they make it impossible for Israel to participate in the Horizon 2020 scientific research program. Israel has participated in the program since the mid-1990s. But for Israel to participate in the upcoming round of the Horizon program, it will have to discriminate against Israelis based or operating beyond the 1949 armistice lines. And so Israel will be unable to participate.</p>
<p>Until now, Europeans like Tajani, who have been interested in fostering cooperation with Israel where such cooperation benefits Europe, have had no trouble doing so. But now, due to the economic regulations against Israel, his hands, and those of like-minded Europeans, are tied by leaders like Ashton whose opposition to Israel has reached obsessive heights.</p>
<p>There are lessons that Europeans who do not support the downward trajectory of EU-Israel ties and Israelis need to draw from the current state of those relations. First, Europeans interested in maintaining and fostering good relations with Israel need to be willing to confront their fellow Europeans.</p>
<p>Until now they never questioned the goodwill of those who claimed that it is illegal for Jerusalem to be Israel’s capital, or for Jews to live wherever they have property rights in the Land of Israel.</p>
<p>But the hypocrisy and discrimination inherent in these claims needs to be pointed out. European supporters of close European-Israeli relations need to show the duplicitousness of proclamations of devotion to the peace process and international law by officials like Ashton. If they wish to stop the precipitous decline in Europe’s relations with Israel, they can no longer pretend that these claims are open to interpretation.</p>
<p>As for Israel, we need to recognize first and foremost that we do not control what happens in Europe. In adopting anti- Israel policies, European leaders are not responding to actions Israel undertakes. When 40 percent of Europeans tell pollsters they believe that Israel is enacting a genocide against the Palestinians, it is clear that European views of Israel are not based on facts of any kind, and certainly not on anything Israel does.</p>
<p>Moreover, we need to recognize that like our European friends, we have given the benefit of the doubt to our continental adversaries, believing their empty claims of commitment to the peace process and international law. As a consequence, since the outset of the peace process with the PLO 20 years ago, most of the steps we have taken to demonstrate our good faith have strengthened those Europeans who wish us ill at the expense of those who wish us well.</p>
<p>Like our European friends, we need to stop giving a pass to those who distort the very meaning of international law while making empty proclamations of support for the cause of peace. Only be exposing the truth behind the lies will we strengthen our European friends and so increase the possibility that our relations with Europe may improve one day.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<item>
		<title>Israel and the New Munich</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/caroline-glick/israel-and-the-new-munich/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=israel-and-the-new-munich</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 18 Oct 2013 04:49:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Caroline Glick]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Catherine Ashton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[negotiations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nuclear Weapons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[talks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[United Nations]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=207866</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The West prepares to repeat the mistakes of 1938. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/32166D2D967064070F8D4F2A923.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-207878" alt="32166D2D967064070F8D4F2A923" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/32166D2D967064070F8D4F2A923-450x350.jpg" width="270" height="210" /></a></p>
<p><em>Originally published by <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Column-one-Israel-and-the-new-Munich-329046">The Jerusalem Post</a>. </em></p>
<p>Speaking to the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Wednesday, Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz explained Israel’s concerns about the nuclear negotiations with Iran in Geneva. “We’re worried Geneva 2013 will end up like Munich 1938.”</p>
<p>Well, the time for worrying has passed. The statements from the Obama administration and the EU following the closing of the first round of talks all made clear that Geneva 2013 is Munich 1938.</p>
<p>The White House was unable to restrain its excitement at the prospect of a deal with the genocidal, nuclear weapons-developing mullocracy.</p>
<p>White House spokesman Jay Carney said, “The Iranian proposal was a new proposal with a level of seriousness and substance that we had not seen before.”</p>
<p>EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who led the six-power delegation that faced the Iranians, said that the talks were “the most detailed we have ever had, by a long way.”</p>
<p>Ashton also said that she is committed to making concessions to Iran as quickly as possible. In her words, “When we have been talking and in our discussions in these last days we know that we have to look for a first step, a confidencebuilding step, and we know we have to be clear about the last steps and to do that in the context of the objective overall.”</p>
<p>The stunning talks even included a one-on-one discussion between the chief US negotiator Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman and the Iranians.</p>
<p>The only problem with all these exciting developments is that all the “serious Iranian proposals” would result in the same outcome: a nuclear-armed Iran. There was nothing in the Iranian proposals that could give anyone any reason whatsoever to believe that Iran is serious about stopping its nuclear weapons development program. Indeed, the only thing we learned this week is that like the Allied powers in 1938, the Obama administration and the Europeans have no stomach for a confrontation and are willing to dress up appeasement of a dangerous foe as “peace” and “progress.”</p>
<p>The Iranians have given no indication that they would be willing to suspend all uranium enrichment.</p>
<p>In his press conference after the current round of talks ended, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif insisted that Iran has the right to continue enriching uranium. The Iranian offer appears to involve suspending its 20 percent uranium enrichment activities and sufficing with enriching uranium to 3.5%.</p>
<p>As everyone from US Sen. Mark Kirk to the Washington Post editorial board to US President Barack Obama’s former chief pointman on Iran’s nuclear program Gary Samore have stated over the past several days, given Iran’s current enrichment capabilities, Iran’s offer is meaningless.</p>
<p>Over the past year, Iran has installed a thousand sophisticated centrifuges at its nuclear installation at Natanz. These new centrifuges allow Iran to transform 3.5% enriched uranium to bomb-grade material (enriched to 90%) as quickly as its old centrifuges were capable of transforming 20% enriched uranium to weapons-grade levels. So today, 3.5% enrichment is as comfortable a jumping-off point for the Iranian weapons program as 20% enrichment was a few years ago. Iran’s “serious proposal” is a joke.</p>
<p>As Samore told The New York Times, “Ending production of 20% enriched uranium is not sufficient to prevent breakout, because Iran can produce nuclear weapons using low-enriched uranium and a large number of centrifuge machines.”</p>
<p>In a conference call with the Israel Project Wednesday, Samore explained, “What they’re offering is really no different than what we’ve heard from the previous government, from [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad’s government for the last couple of years&#8230;. They continue to reject any physical limits on their enrichment capacity – meaning the number and type of centrifuge machines, the stockpile of enriched material that they have in country. And as far as I can tell, they have continued to reject closing any of their nuclear facilities&#8230; I haven’t heard of any agreement to halt work or to modify the heavy water research reactor that they’re building, and which may be close to operational.”</p>
<p>So the Iranians offered nothing this week that they didn’t offer in the past. And as a senior administration official told the Times, the Iranian program is already so advanced that for there to be time to negotiate a comprehensive agreement, Iran needs to first take steps to halt or even reverse its nuclear program.</p>
<p>And as Samore explained, none of the reports on the conclusion of this week’s round of talks indicated any Iranian willingness to take such actions.</p>
<p>The negotiations in Geneva bear an unsettling resemblance to the negotiations the West held with North Korea as it developed nuclear weapons. There, too, Western negotiators bragged about new, serious and unprecedented North Korean “concessions.”</p>
<p>Pyongyang used the talks to undermine Western resolve to block its nuclear progress.</p>
<p>Just as happened with North Korea, so with Iran, the appeasement-crazed press will bring us endless stories about new, serious negotiations documents that will “ensure the peace.”</p>
<p>The last of the stories will be published the day Iran tests its first atomic bomb.</p>
<p>Since the Iranians are making the same unserious offers they have been making for years, why are the Americans and the Europeans hailing the talks as a new beginning? Why is Ashton talking about confidence-building measures? Why are American commentators and senators talking about various steps the US could take to appease Iran? By midweek, talk was rife in Washington about the prospect of unfreezing some of the $50 billion Iranian funds that have been held in escrow in Western banks. Doing so, we were told, would reward the Iranians for being so “serious,” but it wouldn’t involve directly unraveling the sanctions regime.</p>
<p>All of this is happening because the American and Europeans have changed their game. The only serious development of this week is the revelation of their new game.</p>
<p>The Iranians remain committed to developing nuclear weapons. But the US and Europe have stopped even paying lip service to stopping them. Instead, the US and Europe aim to destroy domestic Western opposition to Iran’s nuclear program. This is the new American/European game plan. This is what stands behind all the nonsensical talk of “serious” Iranian proposals.</p>
<p>Before his reelection, Obama felt constrained to pretend that he was serious about preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. He opposed but then grudgingly signed comprehensive sanctions passed overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress. He told AIPAC that he had Israel’s back.</p>
<p>But now that he’s no longer facing reelection, the jig is up. Obama’s new goal, which is enthusiastically supported by Ashton and her comrades in Brussels, is to use the new negotiations with Iran’s phony baloney “moderate” new president to give himself political cover to open the door to Iran acquiring nuclear bombs. Obama doesn’t want to prevent Iran from getting the bomb. He wants to insulate himself from criticism when it gets the bomb.</p>
<p>Not only do the White House’s lies about Iran’s new “level of seriousness” give Obama the maneuver room to pretend he’s acting responsibly, they trap Israel into inaction. After all, how could Israel possibly bomb Iran’s nuclear installations when Iran is negotiating so seriously, and is “this close” to making a groundbreaking agreement?</p>
<p>We shouldn’t be surprised by this state of affairs. Obama has never acted in good faith with Israel.</p>
<p>Take the latest news on Turkey, for example.</p>
<p>On Thursday, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius reported that last year NATO member Turkey gave Iranian intelligence the identities of up to 10 Iranian agents working for the Mossad after they met with their Israeli case officers in Turkey. Turkey’s action was a shocking betrayal of what was supposed to be a goal it shared with Israel and the US – preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Turkey willfully harmed Israeli efforts to achieve this goal by turning in 10 Israeli agents.</p>
<p>Rather than taking action against Turkey, or simply acknowledging that the actions of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan represented a fundamental shift in Turkey’s strategic outlook, Obama shrugged off Turkey’s betrayal. The US didn’t even protest Turkey’s despicable deed. Instead, as Ignatius noted, “Turkish-American relations continued warming last year to the point that Erdogan was among Obama’s key confidants.”</p>
<p>A few months after Turkey colluded with Iran against Israel, Obama coerced Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu into apologizing to Erdogan for Israel’s lawful maritime interdiction of the Mavi Marmara as it unlawfully sought to breach Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza coastline.</p>
<p>No doubt, in making this concession Netanyahu believed that he would win Obama’s goodwill. In a similar fashion, in the hope of appeasing Obama, Netanyahu has made concession after concession to the Palestinians – from drastically downgrading Jewish property rights in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem to releasing Palestinian murderers from prison.</p>
<p>Yet in all of these cases, Obama has pocketed Israel’s concessions and demanded more concessions.</p>
<p>In all these cases, Obama’s allies have used the concessions to present a picture of Israel as both an ungrateful and unhelpful ally, and as a weakling. And in the meantime, Obama has facilitated EU sanctions against Israel. He has leaked top secret Israeli intelligence operations to the media. He has repeatedly threatened to abandon Israel at the UN Security Council. He has supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.</p>
<p>And now he is involved in negotiations with Iran that will necessarily lead to Iran’s emergence as a nuclear power.</p>
<p>From Netanyahu’s repeated declarations that Israel will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, it is unclear whether he realizes what is going on. More than anything else, those statements represent an attempt to negotiate with Obama. Netanyahu is still trying to win Obama over.</p>
<p>If there was ever an argument to be made in favor of Netanyahu’s pleading, their time is long past. In nothing else, the obscene diplomatic theater in Geneva this week made that clear.</p>
<p>Israel is alone. We have no diplomatic option.</p>
<p>No matter what Israel says, no matter what it does, neither the US nor any other Western power is ever going to be convinced to take the only step that would set back Iran’s nuclear program – bombing its nuclear installations. No matter what, neither Obama nor any European leader will ever support an Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear installations.</p>
<p>Israel’s back is to the wall. That is the meaning of the talks in Geneva. If we aren’t prepared to live with a nuclear-armed Iran, we have to stop talking and start acting. And we need to prepare for the diplomatic hell that will break loose thereafter.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Dreamy Foreign Policies</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/caroline-glick/dreamy-foreign-policies/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=dreamy-foreign-policies</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 18 Jun 2012 04:45:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Caroline Glick]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Catherine Ashton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[european union]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Settlers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Syria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[violence]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=135139</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[European Union foreign policy chief uses a speech on the atrocities in Syria to bash Israel.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/baroness-ashton_0.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-135144" title="baroness-ashton_0" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/baroness-ashton_0.gif" alt="" width="375" height="258" /></a>With her unbridled hostility towards Israel, the EU&#8217;s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton provides us with an abject lesson in what happens when a government places its emotional aspirations above its national interests.</p>
<p>Since the establishment of the State of Israel, many of Israel&#8217;s elite have aspired to be embraced by Europe. In recent years, nearly every government has voiced the hope of one day seeing Israel join the EU.</p>
<p>To a significant degree, Israel&#8217;s decision to recognize the PLO in 1993 and negotiate with Yasser Arafat and his deputies was an attempt by Israel&#8217;s political class to win acceptance from the likes of Ashton and her continental comrades. For years the EU had criticized Israel for refusing to recognize the PLO.</p>
<p>Until 1993, Israel&#8217;s leaders defied Europe because they could tell the difference between a national interest and an emotional aspiration and preferred the former over the latter. And now, Israel&#8217;s reward for preferring European love to our national interest and embracing our sworn enemy is Catherine Ashton.</p>
<p>To put it mildly, Ashton is not a friend of Israel. Indeed, she is so ill-disposed against Israel that she seems unable to focus for long on anything other than bashing it. Her obsession was prominently displayed in March when she was unable to give an unqualified condemnation of the massacre of French Jewish children by a French Muslim. Ashton simply had to use her condemnation as yet another opportunity to bash Israel.</p>
<p>Her preoccupation with Israel was again on display on Tuesday. During a boilerplate, vacuous speech about President Bashar Assad&#8217;s slaughter of his fellow Syrians, apropos of nothing the baroness launched into an unhinged, impassioned, and deeply dishonest frontal assault against Israel.</p>
<p>The woman US President Barack Obama has empowered to lead the West&#8217;s negotiations with Iran regarding its illicit nuclear weapons program stood at the podium in the European Parliament and threw an anti-Israel temper tantrum.</p>
<p>The same woman who couldn&#8217;t be bothered to finish her speech about Assad&#8217;s massacre of children, the same woman who is so excited about her Iranian negotiating partners&#8217; body language that she doesn&#8217;t think it is necessary to give them an ultimatum about ending their quest for a nuclear bomb, seemed to lack a sufficiently harsh vocabulary to express her revulsion with Jewish &#8220;settlers.&#8221;</p>
<p>As she put it, &#8220;We are also seriously concerned by recent and increasing incidents of settler violence which we all condemn.&#8221;</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not clear what &#8220;recent and increasing incidents of settler violence&#8221; she was referring to. But in all likelihood, she didn&#8217;t have a specific incident in mind. She probably just figured that those sneaky Jews are always up to no good.</p>
<p>ASIDE FROM condemning imaginary Israeli crimes more emphatically than real Syrian crimes, Ashton&#8217;s speech involved a presentation of the EU&#8217;s policy on Israel and the Palestinians.</p>
<p>That policy is based on three premises: The EU falsely claims that all Israeli communities beyond the 1949 armistice lines are illegal.</p>
<p>It rejects Israel&#8217;s legal right to assert its authority over Area C &#8211; the area of Judea and Samaria that is empty of Palestinian population centers.</p>
<p>And it will only soften its anti-Israel positions if the Palestinians do so first.</p>
<p>Aside from its jaw-dropping animosity towards Israel, what is notable about the EU&#8217;s position is that it is actually far more hostile to Israel than the Palestinians&#8217; position towards Israel as that position was revealed in the agreements that the Palestinians signed with Israel in the past. In those agreements, the Palestinians accepted continued sole Israeli control over Area C. They did not require Israel to end the construction of Jewish communities outside the 1949 armistice lines. The peace process ended when the Palestinians moved closer to the EU&#8217;s position.</p>
<p>The EU&#8217;s antipathy towards Israel as personified in Ashton&#8217;s behavior teaches us two important lessons. First, it is often hard to tell our friends from our foes. Israelis &#8211; particularly those born to families that emigrated from Europe &#8211; have traditionally viewed Europe as the last word in enlightened democracy and sophistication and style. We wanted to be like them. We wanted to be accepted by them.</p>
<p>Indeed we were so swept away by the thought that they might one day love us back that we adopted policies that were inimical to our national interest and so weakened us tremendously.</p>
<p>It never occurred to us that the fact that Europe insisted that we adopt policies that undercut our national survival meant that the Europeans wished us ill.</p>
<p>They seemed so nice.</p>
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		<title>World Powers to Iran: Keep Building Nukes</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/davidhornik/world-powers-to-iran-keep-building-nukes/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=world-powers-to-iran-keep-building-nukes</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 16 Apr 2012 04:55:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Catherine Ashton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[european union]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nuclear Weapons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[P5]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[talks]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=128945</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why the winner of the first round of nuclear talks is the Islamic Republic. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/web-iranOSM13-N_1395766cl-8.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-128950" title="web-iranOSM13-N_1395766cl-8" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/web-iranOSM13-N_1395766cl-8.gif" alt="" width="375" height="252" /></a>On Saturday the P5+1 countries (the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, and China plus Germany) <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/world/europe/iran-begins-nuclear-talks-with-six-nations.html?hp">met with Iran</a> in Istanbul for what is being called a “first round” of nuclear talks. By all accounts, it was a “round” with little or no substance—except one major result: the parties agreed to reconvene for another “round” in Baghdad in another five weeks, on May 23.</p>
<p>No one seriously concerned about Iran’s ongoing enrichment of uranium, its ongoing transfer of centrifuges to its deep-underground Fordo site, its ongoing work on nuclear-weapons development, could be pleased with this result. As Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4216279,00.html">put it bluntly</a>: “My initial impression is that Iran has been given a freebie. It’s got five weeks to continue enrichment without any limitation, any inhibition.”</p>
<p>Some, though, were indeed happy with the meeting’s outcome.</p>
<p>One was EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton—who not long ago made waves when she <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/03/22/toulouse-jihadist-revealed/">reacted to the Toulouse terror</a> by equating the Israeli army with mass murderers. Ashton called Saturday’s talks “constructive and useful” and rhapsodized: “We expect that subsequent meetings will lead to concrete steps toward a comprehensive negotiated solution which restores international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program.”</p>
<p>And another party that reacted with great satisfaction was the Iranians themselves. Their chief negotiator Saeed Jalili exulted that the talks were a “positive sign” compared with “the language of threats and pressure that do not work on the Iranian people.”</p>
<p>And AFP <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/iran-world-powers-set-depth-talks-baghdad-020326230.html">reported</a> on Sunday that “Iran’s media, including outlets close to the leadership…hailed renewed talks with world powers as positive[.]” The government-run, English-language <em>Iran Daily</em> trumpeted on its front page: “EU Reaffirms Tehran’s Nuclear Rights.” The newspaper <em>Jomhuri Eslami</em> said the key to progress “is that America give up its political games and surrender to the realities”—that is, of Iran’s ongoing march toward the bomb.</p>
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		<title>The Ongoing Tragedy of Gilad Shalit</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/davidhornik/the-ongoing-tragedy-of-gilad-shalit/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-ongoing-tragedy-of-gilad-shalit</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:04:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ashton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[captivity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Catherine Ashton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Clinton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cruelty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[David Harris]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[defense establishment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gaza]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gilad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gilad shalit]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Netanyahu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[netanyahu government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[passover seder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rescue attempt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Secretary of State Hillary]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Shalit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sheer hatred]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=56858</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What’s being done to the free the Israeli soldier from his imprisonment by Hamas?
]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/r92479_276950.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-56859" title="r92479_276950" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/r92479_276950.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>This year for the Passover Seder some Israeli families left a symbolic empty chair for Gilad Shalit, the soldier who was abducted by Hamas on June 25, 2006, and remains in captivity today. Nineteen years old at the time, he is <a href="http://www.habanim.org/en/gilad_en.html">described</a> as “well-mannered, quiet and introverted”—an account that fits the clips of him that have been shown, in some periods with high regularity, on Israeli TV since his kidnapping.</p>
<p>Apparently both the Olmert and Netanyahu governments have judged that there is no military option for rescuing Shalit even though he’s located, so to speak, next door to Israel in Gaza. The Israeli defense establishment either doesn’t know more precisely where he is, or does know but regards the spot, and his situation—heavily guarded? surrounded by explosives?—as infeasible for a rescue attempt.</p>
<p>Somewhat surprisingly, about half a year ago the Netanyahu government was involved in negotiations with Hamas for Shalit’s release in return for a draconian number of terrorists, generally reported as about a thousand. It still wasn’t enough for Hamas and the negotiations broke down. Before they did Hamas released a coerced <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1118449.html">video</a> of Shalit, made on September 14, 2009, in which he addressed his family members and spoke of his desire for freedom. In a segment this week on Israel’s Channel 2 news, Shalit’s parents said they had heard nothing of him since then, and possibly no one else in Israel has either.</p>
<p>As Shalit’s captivity approaches four years, the cruelty of what is being inflicted on him and his family—even if completely to be expected from a group like Hamas—is limitless. In stark contravention of international law, even the International Red Cross has not been allowed to visit him. Although Hamas has practical aims—coercing a higher price out of Israel, pressuring its government and its society more generally—the cruelty is also an expression of sheer hatred, a phenomenon in itself.</p>
<p>The phenomenon has a deeply sobering effect in Israel but does not necessarily impress others. When EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton visited Gaza two weeks ago, there is no indication that she sought a meeting with Shalit or, as David Harris put it in <a href="http://israelinsider.ning.com/forum/topics/david-harris-dear-baroness">an open letter to her</a>, “press[ed] [her] hosts on why no one has been permitted to visit him since his abduction.” When, during her visit, a Thai worker in Israel was killed by a Hamas rocket, the <a href="http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/mideast-diplomacy.3ok/">most Ashton could say was</a> “I condemn any kind of violence, we need to move forward to get the peace process moving toward a successful resolution.”</p>
<p>Ashton’s apparent softness or blindness toward Hamas is consistent with a trend: the EU’s official research institute, the Institute for Security Studies, has published a series of reports <a href="http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2010/03/eus-think-tank-engage-hamas-and.html">urging engagement</a> with the Gaza-based group and others of its kind. The most recent, titled “Engaging Hamas: Rethinking the Quartet Principles,” argues that the EU’s three conditions for recognizing Hamas—renouncing violence, recognizing Israel, accepting previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements—should be relaxed in the interests of “peace.” The paper makes no mention of Shalit.</p>
<p>Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for her part, seemed to touch the right base last week in <a href="http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2010/03/22/1011273/hillary-clintons-aipac-speech">her speech to AIPAC</a> by proclaiming that “Gilad Shalit must be released immediately and returned to his family.” But the Obama administration’s fervor to create a Palestinian state—reportedly within two years—exposes the shallowness of the words. Such a state would have to be ruled, at least in part, by Hamas. The administration can’t have missed that fact, but is not deterred by it.</p>
<p>Meanwhile Gilad Shalit has lost almost four years of his young life sitting in some cellar. Seriousness about the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” presupposes relating to this with something beyond empty platitudes.</p>
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		<title>A Blind Eye for Hamas&#8217; Victims</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/anav-silverman/a-blind-eye-for-hamas-victims-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-blind-eye-for-hamas-victims-2</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 29 Mar 2010 04:05:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Anav Silverman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[acts of violence]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[attack]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Australia]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[islamic]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[israeli civilians]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Joe Stork]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Judea]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[migrant worker]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[responsibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rocket]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rocket attack]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shock waves]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Thai]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[thai worker]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[thailand]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[War]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[war crimes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[worker]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=56242</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Where is the world's outrage about the killing of Manee Singmueangphon, a Thai migrant worker, by a Gaza rocket? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/manee1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-56243" title="manee" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/manee1.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="499" /></a></p>
<p>It is not every day that Human Rights Watch (HRW) comes out with a report that accurately highlights Hamas war crimes against Israel, but in the case of the Thai worker killed by a Gaza rocket on March 18, 2009, HRW did just that.</p>
<p>The tragic story of Manee Singmueangphon , a Thai migrant worker who was killed when a rocket struck an Israeli greenhouse north of Gaza on Thursday March 18, was barely given any in-depth coverage in the mainstream media. Most news reports simply stated that a Thai migrant worker was killed in a rocket attack, not even giving the victim a name.</p>
<p>Indeed, almost no western leader  or human rights organization directed words of  condemnation to the Islamic terrorists who fired the rockets that killed Manee, a 33-year old husband and father with children back in Thailand, and sent shock waves among his fellow Thai and Nepalese workers. In an <a href="http://sderotmedia.org.il/bin/content.cgi?ID=620&amp;q=3" target="_blank">interview with Sderot Media Center</a>, a friend and coworker of Manee indicated that the rocket attack made him question whether working in Israel was worth the money.  &#8220;Money is not worth this kind of danger,&#8221; the Nepalese worker stated in shock.</p>
<p>Over 70 people around the site of the rocket attack sought therapy treatment for shock and trauma, including 20 workers from Sderot.</p>
<p>Those foreign officials who did voice condemnation glazed over very general statements that held no one in Gaza responsible for the rocket attack. Catherine Ashton, the top EU diplomat who happened to be entering Gaza at the time the rocket was fired at Israeli civilians on the other side, responded that she condemned “any kind of violence,” while UN Chief Ban Ki-moon stressed that all acts of violence are “totally unacceptable.”</p>
<p>Indeed, is ‘unacceptable ‘really the most appropriate term to describe the murder of another human being at the hand of radical Islamic terrorists?  And is it morally right to allow the Hamas government that controls the area in which the rocket was launched to get away with so not so much as a finger wagging from the global community?</p>
<p>If the Thai national would have been killed in Gaza, in an Israeli defense operation, world reaction would have been far stronger condemning the attack.</p>
<p>Human Rights Watch, however, made it clear in its March 19 report titled <a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HRW/d500e5e3670a7f963c1d1eac4220a487.htm" target="_blank">Gaza: End Impunity for Indiscriminate Rocket Attacks</a>, that Hamas bared sole responsibility for violating laws of war.  “Hamas as the de facto authority in Gaza has the responsibility to stop indiscriminate rocket attacks into Israel,” according to Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at HRW.</p>
<p>The HRW report stated that “deliberate or indiscriminate attacks against civilians are serious violations of the laws of war. Such attacks committed willfully, that is, intentionally or recklessly, are war crimes that are subject to criminal prosecution.”</p>
<p>Ansar al-Sunna, the al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group initially took responsibility for the attack, citing that the rocket fire was in response to Israel’s “Judaization&#8221; of Islamic holy places in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria. Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum also stated that Israel “bears the responsibility for the rocket attacks because it “has launched a war against the Palestinian people and against holy cites and the al-Aqasa mosque.”</p>
<p>Interestingly, the so called more moderate Fatah’s military wing, the Al Aqsa Brigades, also claimed responsibility for the attack.</p>
<p>These statements, however, did not faze Human Rights Watch. Stork called such explanations a “diversion.” “The laws of war never permit indiscriminate attacks regardless of the conduct of the other side,” he stated.</p>
<p>In general, the Western’s world attitude of toleration towards Islamic terrorists and terrorism has become a very worrying phenomenon.  The killing of the Hamas commander, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai, was received by shocked disapproval  from the international community. Many news outlets, including AP, called his death a murder.</p>
<p>The fact that al-Mabhouh was key to moving arms made or funded by Iranian government to Hamas in Gaza, or for his role in the 1989 kidnapping and killing of two Israeli soldiers, did not elicit any signs of outrage in a world where Islamic terrorists are not often brought to justice.</p>
<p>The underlying result of al-Mabhouh’s death is that a dangerous terrorist, abetting the radical Islamic jihadist organization, Hamas, which is responsible for thousands of Israeli civilian deaths and injuries, is no longer a threat to humanity. Britian, Australia, France and other western nations, however, simply slammed Israel, the accused agent behind the assassination for carrying out the attack by using fake foreign passports.  Not one word was said about the global need to successfully combat terrorism and bring terrorists to justice.</p>
<p>In order for terrorism to abate, the anger and words of condemnation and action need to be directed at those terrorists who commit these heinous acts. World leaders both in Europe and the West need to look beyond Islamic jihadist rhetoric and take a  firm stand against Islamic terrorists whether it be in Israel, Gaza, Iraq, Afganistan, Iran, Somalia and other areas, where women and children remain their constant targets.</p>
<p>It is time that the Western community begins to understand Israel’s position in regard to its security struggles against Islamic jihadist terrorism. A news report in <a href="http://gulfnews.com/news/region/palestinian-territories/gaza-hits-boiling-point-as-rockets-fly-across-borders-1.602060" target="_blank">GulfNews.com</a>, a United Arab Emirates publication, by Nasser Najjar on March 24, succinctly summed it best: “Because suicide bombing has become a nearly impossible means of resistance due to the isolation of the Gaza Strip and the more than 600 check points in the territories, launching rockets has become the most suitable military solution for the Palestinian factions.”</p>
<p>As long as the world tolerates those Islamic jihadists who fire rockets against innocent Israeli civilians and accepts their legitimization for it, terrorism will continue to strike innocent civilians everywhere. The killing of Manee Singmueangphon by a Gaza rocket should serve as a constant reminder that people of all nationalities are indiscriminate victims of Iranian-sponsored Islamic terrorism.</p>
<p><em>Anav Silverman is the International Correspondent for </em><em>Sderot</em><em> </em><em>Media</em><em> </em><em>Center</em><em>: </em><a href="http://www.sderotmedia.org.il/" target="_blank"><em>www.SderotMedia.org.il</em></a><em>.</em></p>
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		<title>Israel’s Latest Sin—Honoring Its Heritage</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/davidhornik/israel%e2%80%99s-latest-sin%e2%80%94honoring-its-heritage/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=israel%25e2%2580%2599s-latest-sin%25e2%2580%2594honoring-its-heritage</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:05:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Abraham]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bank]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=52416</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Palestinian bullying continues.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/hebron.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-52472" title="hebron" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/hebron.jpg" alt="" width="452" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>When the Israeli cabinet announced the other day that the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem, would be included in a list of Israeli “heritage” sites, it touched off a wave of Palestinian violence and threats—along with diplomatic protests that were all too concordant with the Palestinian bullying.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has launched the “heritage” program as a way of strengthening Israelis’ connection with their Jewish and Zionist roots, initially left the two West Bank sites (though other West Bank sites were included) off the list, apparently fearing various kinds of fallout. Netanyahu was only persuaded to include them at the last minute by Shas, a religious party that is part of his coalition.</p>
<p>Sure enough, the West Bank <a href="http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/ipc_e074.htm">heated up</a> with an increase in rocks and Molotov cocktails thrown at Israeli vehicles, and, particularly, daily disturbances in Hebron, where crowds of Palestinians burned tires and threw rocks and bottles at Israeli soldiers. By Sunday the disturbances had <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=169829">spread to Jerusalem</a>.</p>
<p>On the verbal plane a spokesman for the Gaza-based Islamic Jihad terror organization <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3853720,00.html">declared</a> that “If the Israelis continue to damage our mosques and holy places, we will respond [i.e., mount terror attacks] within the Zionist territory”—alluding to the fact that the Cave of the Patriarchs is a compound with a mosque as well as a synagogue, while Rachel’s Tomb has recently been claimed to be a mosque as well.</p>
<p>Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas prime minister in Gaza, <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3853485,00.html">piped up</a> with “Jerusalem is ours, the land is ours, and God is with us. We will not accept these decisions….” And Mahmoud Abbas, president of the official, West Bank-based Palestinian Authority and considered secular and a moderate, was hardly more moderate in his reaction, calling the decision to add the two sites to the heritage list “a serious provocation which may lead to a religious war.”</p>
<p>The U.S., too, <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9E2SBTG1&amp;show_article=1">voiced its objection</a> as “State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the administration viewed the move as ‘provocative’ and unhelpful to the goal of getting the two sides back to the table,” and that “U.S. displeasure with the designations of the Cave of the Patriarchs in the flashpoint town of Hebron and the traditional tomb of the biblical matriarch Rachel in Bethlehem had been conveyed to senior Israeli officials by American diplomats.”</p>
<p>UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33884">complained</a>, and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton <a href="http://www.ejpress.org/article/42603">said</a> “the European Union calls on Israel to refrain from provocative acts.”</p>
<p>On the Israeli side, a particularly indignant rejoinder came from Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, who <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3853720,00.html">called</a> Abbas’s statement:</p>
<blockquote><p>“insolent and outrageous and another attempt to rewrite history. The Cave of the Patriarchs, like Rachel’s Tomb, are Jewish heritage sites pointing to the deep 3,700-year affiliation of the people of Israel to their land.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>“The people of Israel’s affiliation to the land did not begin—as the Palestinians are trying to claim—in the past 100 years, but when the Cave of the Patriarchs was bought by Abraham from Ephron the Hittite for 400 silver shekels and Rachel’s Tomb was purchased for a full price in the Binyamin region.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>“They are both still mentioned in the Torah in the Book of Genesis, and no one can take that away from the people of Israel. The wild Palestinian attack is aimed at…rewriting history. This is a continuation of their ideological objection to recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Netanyahu, for his part, was more conciliatory, <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3854186,00.html">stressing</a> Israel’s commitment to religious freedom and that “this policy is implemented in the Cave of the Patriarchs as well, where the State is working constantly to guarantee appropriate prayer conditions for [both] Jews and Muslims.”</p>
<p>A few observations are in order. First, Israel did not announce that it was <em>annexing</em> the two sites, only that they had been added to a list designated for renovations and for encouraging <em>visits</em> by Israelis. Treating these two sites as major foci of the Jewish heritage is not a political statement; it is simply, as Shalom emphasized, a recognition of reality. But whoever envisions the purported “two-state solution” as one in which even minimal Jewish rights would be upheld within the Palestinian state should take note of the contempt toward Jewish history and values that was, once again, displayed by Palestinians this week.</p>
<p>Second, as alluded to by Netanyahu, Israel’s record in terms of honoring non-Jewish religious rights in the West Bank and Jerusalem is indeed exemplary—or even goes too far. On the Temple Mount in Jerusalem,  Israel grants administrative control to the Muslim Waqf, which allows non-Muslims to visit there only at restricted hours. In Hebron and elsewhere, Muslims have had full freedom of worship; while other Jewish sites in Nablus and Jericho have been damaged and desecrated. That the Palestinian behavior this week stems from an Islamic supremacism that Israel, with its democratic norms, is unable to appease—is a bit more reality than Israel’s diplomatic critics want to contemplate.</p>
<p>And so, while the U.S., UN, and EU rebukes come as no great surprise, they are of a piece with a long-held axiom that when such “Israeli-Palestinian tensions” emerge, the side that bullies and threatens war gets the nod while the side capable of upholding pluralism gets censured.</p>
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		<title>Eurabia vs. Israel on Jerusalem &#8211; by P. David Hornik</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/davidhornik/eurabia-vs-israel-on-jerusalem-by-p-david-hornik/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=eurabia-vs-israel-on-jerusalem-by-p-david-hornik</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/davidhornik/eurabia-vs-israel-on-jerusalem-by-p-david-hornik/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Dec 2009 05:06:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The EU pressures Israel to surrender its capitol. 
]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p dir="ltr"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-42567" title="1306345-View_of_Old_City_from_Mt_Of_Olives-Jerusalem" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1306345-View_of_Old_City_from_Mt_Of_Olives-Jerusalem.jpg" alt="1306345-View_of_Old_City_from_Mt_Of_Olives-Jerusalem" width="463" height="314" /></p>
<p dir="ltr">The recent Swiss vote to ban minarets was seen by many as a further indication that European populations are waking up to the threat of Europe’s Islamization and the need to stop the trend. If so, the European Union—the centralized bureaucracy that, as documented in Bat Ye’or’s important book <em>Eurabia</em>, went “over the heads” of European publics to meld the European and Arab/Muslim civilizations in the first place—still hasn’t caught up and remains locked in a pro-Arab/Muslim disposition.</p>
<p dir="ltr">At least, the EU’s stance on Jerusalem would suggest so. Last week the new EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, “<a href="http://euobserver.com/9/29167">came down hard</a> on the Israeli government” in her maiden speech to the European Parliament and said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr">“East Jerusalem is occupied territory together with the West Bank. The EU is opposed to the destruction of homes, the eviction of Arab residents and the construction of the separation barrier.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p dir="ltr">Her words prompted Israel’s deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon to <a href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&amp;cid=1261244337074">reply</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr">“Just as the Romans did not succeed in cutting off Jerusalem from Israel, so too will diplomats from the UN and the EU be unsuccessful as well.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p dir="ltr">Ashton, previously the EU’s trade commissioner and expected to be given considerable authority as a new sort of EU foreign minister, also called Israel’s recently launched ten-month moratorium on settlement construction a “first step”—representing, as the <em>EUobserver</em> <a href="http://euobserver.com/9/29167">comments</a>, “a cooler tone than EU foreign ministers who last week took ‘positive note’ of the move.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">The <em>EUobserve</em>r also pointed out that the speech was</p>
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr">“significant for what it left out: Ms Ashton did not say that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, that it faces a security threat from Palestinian ‘terrorists’ or that Palestinians should immediately return to formal peace talks—the classic tenets of Israeli supporters.”<strong> </strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p dir="ltr">Ashton’s statements also come hard on the heels of an EU-Israel spat over Jerusalem in which the EU explicitly called for East Jerusalem to become the capital of a Palestinian state. That demand was later only partially toned-down under intense Israeli objections.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In other words, even at a time when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly accepted the call for a Palestinian state and enraged part of his right-wing base with the settlement moratorium, the EU keeps reflexively embracing Arab/Muslim positions. As always, the EU’s stance on Jerusalem ignores several facts.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Jerusalem was unified under Israeli sovereignty in 1967, after nineteen years in which Jordan illegally occupied the city and finally used it to attack Israel despite being implored by Israel to keep out of the fighting.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Under Israeli rule, Muslims and all other groups (except Jews—on the Temple Mount itself) have enjoyed full freedom of worship—a stark contrast to the nineteen years of Jordanian rule when Jews and Christians were denied access to Jerusalem’s holy places and Jewish synagogues and gravestones were destroyed and desecrated.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Muslims already have full control over Mecca, Medina, and countless sacred locales and shrines throughout the vast Muslim world, and their demand for Palestinian sovereignty in Jerusalem and the redivision of Israel’s capital can reasonably be regarded as excessive – especially when, as noted, Israel gives Muslims full access to their Jerusalem shrines and full rights in the city.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Indeed, Jerusalem is full of minarets, and any visitor to its Old City or its Arab neighborhoods can attest to the vibrancy of Muslim religious life there. The EU should be more concerned with Islamization on the continent than with taking harsh stances against Israel as it struggles to survive and to find the right mix of accommodation and steadfastness in an Arab/Muslim environment hostile its very existence.</p>
<p dir="ltr">But for the EU, after decades of forsaking its Judeo-Christian roots for pro-Arabism, that may be too much to expect. Even if European populations are starting to grasp the consequences of this civilizational self-abnegation, Europe’s Brussels-based bureaucracy remains willfully ignorant of the stakes.</p>
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