The next generation - Israel in 2040

Israel at 60 is as prosperous and secure as it has ever been, but its future looks increasingly uncertain, says Gideon Lichfield (interviewed here). Can it resolve its problems in time?

Flash90

THREE years ago, in a slim volume entitled "Epistle to an Israeli Jewish-Zionist Leader", Yehezkel Dror, a veteran Israeli political scientist, set out two contrasting visions of how his country might look in the year 2040.

 

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Revenge for Mugniyah Could Ignite Conflict in North of Israel

Expecting retaliatory attack by Hizbullah for Imad Mugniyah's killing,
regional players – including Israel, Iran and Syria – boost
preparations for possible military confrontation on Israeli-Lebanese
border

Revenge for Mugniyah Could Ignite Conflict in North
Ron Ben-Yishai
Published: 04.03.08, 09:52 / Israel News
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3527123,00.html

Preparations on both the Syrian and the Israeli side for a possible
retaliation for Imad Mugniyah's killing have brought about a "cold
escalation" on the northern border that could lead to an open military
confrontation.

Since Hizbullah's leader's assassination in Damascus in February,
Syria and Israel have gradually boosted deployment on the ground,
while at the same time sending out covert and overt warnings to the
other side.

Arab news outlets recently reported that Syria has already started
reinforcing its forces on the Lebanese border, called up the reserves
for training and raised alertness of its missile, rocket and
anti-aircraft systems. Hizbullah has also boosted preparations for a
potential Israeli tank offensive, while making last-minute efforts to
have its heavy rocket systems north of the Litani River ready.

The recent escalation emanates from Israel's assessment that Hizbullah
– with the aid of Syria and Iran – is planning a big terror attack, or
a rocket and missile attack, as revenge for Mugniyah's death.
Officials also estimate the Syria might join forces with Hizbullah in
such an attack, to retaliate for Israel's strike on its alleged
nuclear facility last summer.

Meanwhile, Syria, Hizbullah and Iran are aware that such an attack
could lead to a "hard and disproportionate" Israeli response, which
Israeli officials have already threatened to deliver. Israel's enemies
believe that such a response would include a large-scale airstrike on
Lebanon and Syria that would help Israel rebuild its deterrence
following the Second Lebanon War.

Hamas to aid Hizbullah?

While revenge for Mugniyah is currently the most obvious cause for the
rising tension on the border, Israeli intelligence officials also
believe that if the IDF launches a wide-scale operation in Gaza, Iran
could instruct Hizbullah to aid Hamas by firing rockets at Israel.

A reverse scenario, in which Hamas launches rockets, missiles and
terror attacks on Israel in a bid to help Hizbullah in the north is
also plausible.

A third scenario that should be taken into account is that Syria may
take advantage of a retaliatory attack by Hizbullah, and a consequent
Israeli response, to regain its control over Lebanon and crown the
Shiite organization as the dominant political force in the country.

Two views of Fitna the movie: A Donnybrook

 

Fits about FITNA::Tom Carew refutes Hugh Fitzgerald's Jihadwatch attack about Dutch film

Tom Carew's Israel News article on Fitna, the Geert Wilder's movie, cautioned against accepting the premise of the movie at face value and insisting that all Muslims are Jihadist fanatics. Hugh Fitzgerald has attacked Carew:

 

All those tom-carews of this world have been attacking Fitna because they wish to retain the support, as they see it, of some "moderate" Muslims, which "moderate" Muslims are simultaneously our "allies" in "this struggle." But why? Shouldn't they too wish Infidels to be apprised of what is in the Qur'an and, indeed, in other canonical texts of Islam? Isn't that the best way to ensure that Infidels will cease to assume the posture of the "pre-emptive cringe" -- in J. B. Kelly's phrase -- and, in recognizing what is wrong with those texts, be firmer and therefore more steadfast in dealing with what Tom Carew devoutly hopes and wishes to believe is merely the "bad" version of Islam as opposed to the "good" one about which he, Tom Carew of Dublin, is knowledgeable, and which he, Tom Carew of Dublin, finds so impressive and its existence so comforting?

 

That's about the mildest part of Fitzgerald's text. Fitzgerald goes on to confute Tom Carew with the likes of Esposito and other publicists for Islamism. The rest of the attack is here. A veritable Donnybrook in the liveliest tradition.

 

My own comments on Fitna are in Religious hatred: the movie. Carew is right. Regardless of what it says or does not say in the Quran, the main point is that Wilders' movie is a reactionary political statement that is intended to stir up primitive prejudices against all Muslims in Europe. Widlers is entitled to his opinion, and his opinion is not that Jihadism should be fought and prohibited, but that all Muslims should be expelled from Europe. Wilders is preaching a doctrine that is philosophically about as evil as Jihadism, though he doesn't seem to advocate violence. The movie is designed to attract converts to that cause. "Fitna the movie" is not fit for human consumption.

 

Below is Tom Carew's response.

 

Ami Isseroff

Comment from Tom Carew re views of  Hugh Fitzgerald:

There is not now, and never was in the past, any such fixed entity as **Islam itself**.  Neither Islam-as-understood, nor Islam-as-lived.

And I can only wonder whether Hugh Fitzgerald has spent half as much time pondering and evaluating the actual writings of non-toxic Muslims, some of whom I instance, or on the brave role of many current Muslim defenders of freedom, as he has dwelling on a plethora of secondary literature from commentators on the originals, who mostly concentrate on the toxic stream.

Just as Judaism, or its Brooklyn or Israeli versions, are certainly not reducible to, or identifiable with,  the toxic ideology of the maverick mass murderer, Dr. Baruch Goldstein, slaughtering 29 worshipers in the Hebron Ibrahimi Mosque on Feb 25, 1994, nor is Christianity reducible to the Inquisition or the Crusades. The Judaism I admire is that of the Warsaw Ghetto Rising in 1943, the Sobibor and Auschwitz Revolts, the  Jewish Legion  [under Irish Col John Henry Patterson ] in WW I, and the  Jewish Brigade in WW II, or the profound philosophy of Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, while the assassin of PM, Lt-Gen  Yitzhak Rabin, Yigal Amir, is no reason to reject or dismiss the entire Jewish people or tradition.

The toxic appeasement by many, indeed by most Lutheran and Roman Catholic bishops in Nazi Germany, or of Nazi Austrian, Bishop Alois Hudal, or Croatian Ustashe fascist Rev Dr. Krunoslav Dragonovic, both based in Rome and notorious for organising the flight of fugitive Nazi war-criminals to South America,  contrasts with the Christian martyrs, like Protestant Pastors Dietrich Bonhoeffer and WW I veteran
 Paul Schneider, or Roman Catholic Dean Bernhard Lichtenberg of St Hedwigs Cathedral in Berlin, who died in Dachau Camp, and Jesuit Alfred Delp or Rev Karl Leisner, or with those clergy aiding escaped anti-fascists, persecuted Jews or Allied Prisoners of War [ like Scottish Presbyterian **Tartan Pimpernel** Rev Donald Caskie or executed Catholic Abbe Pierre Carpentier in France, or Irish Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty and 18 more clerics in his network in Rome ]. The voices and courageous witness that have become influential and been rightly honored, have been those of the resisters, not the collaborators, or the craven appeasers.

Continued: Fits about FITNA::Tom Carew refutes Hugh Fitzgerald's Jihadwatch attack about Dutch film

Responding to Geert Wilders

A Responsible Response to Geert Wilders

http://infomideast.com/wordpress/?p=707

April 3rd, 2008 by ejournal

By Mona Eltahawy ***

 

NEW YORK — As soon as I heard that right wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders' anti-Islam film had been uploaded onto an internet site, I did what any self-respecting Muslim would do: I clicked on the link and prepared to be offended. 

 

Talk about anti-climax! What happened, Geert? Like a magpie stringing cheap trinkets together, "Fitna" is a cut-and-paste affair. It tries to pass itself off as precious insight. It isn't.

 

It's not breaking news that Muslim radicals have abused the Quran to justify their violence. Just like Wilders, they cherry-pick their verses from the Muslim holy book to make their bloody point.

 

Most of us Muslims have long urged that we leave behind these verses referring to a very different time and place — just as most Christians and Jews have moved on from verses in their holy texts that extremists still use to justify violence, slavery, and misogyny. 

 

Wilders has the right to make whatever film he wants. I defend his freedom of speech. It protects my freedom too. I would much rather err on the side of freedom than on the side of restraint, as Islamic countries recently did at the U.N. Human Rights Council. 

 

At the urging of Egypt and Pakistan — hardly bastions of freedoms of any kind — the council adopted a measure that added monitoring religious prejudice to the duties of a U.N. free speech expert. Now, as well as reporting on repressive governments' restriction of free speech, the U.N. investigator will report acts of "racial or religious discrimination" that constitute "abuse of the right of freedom of expression."

 

Continued at: A Responsible Response to Geert Wilders

 

Alhomayed: Don't Withdraw the Arab Peace Initiative

It is not certain what the Arab peace initiative is, or how Israel could meet the terms of this initiative, so why really, are the Arabs surprised that no progress has been made in implementing it, and what is the point of withdrawing such a wonderful and meaningless propaganda device?

 

Ami Isseroff

 

Beware Of Tampering With The Arab Peace Initiative
By Tariq Alhomayed
In Asharq Alawsat (Pan Arab), Opinion
April 2, 2008

 

In its closing statement, the Damascus Summit called for the re-assessment of the peace strategy with Israel, furthermore setting the coming May as the latest deadline. This formula appears to be the middle ground in terms of the demands that were proposed during the summit with regards to the reconsideration of the Arab Peace Initiative.

Doesn't "reassessing the peace strategy" – if that may be deemed a diplomatic expression – imply that the other option is war? And which among the Arab states is ready to declare war on Israel today?

The problem with this rhetoric is that it raises the expectations of Arab public opinion – however; it is not accompanied by any real action. Moreover, it grants Israel an opportunity it already wants; which is that the concerned parties cancel their initiative and spare Israel international embarrassment.

Another point of equal importance is: Are some parties in the Arab world aware, especially Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan that the cancellation or disruption of the peace initiative is greater and more dangerous then the justifications put forward?

Tampering with the Arab initiative would be the equivalent opening up a Pandora's Box. Following the nullification of the Arab initiative, as a response to Israel's apathy or hostility, it would open the door for Egypt to demand to void its peace agreement with Israel, which would mean a war between Egypt and Israel. This matter has been raised in all the crises that have provoked Arab public opinion.

Consequently, Jordan will also demand to cancel its peace agreement with Israel, which would also mean war between Jordan and Israel. And the same applies to the Palestinian Authority (PA) – in fact, it is what Hamas specifically demands; Hamas which is backed by Syria and Iran. Therefore, the final outcome will be the prevalence of chaos that will result in changing the status quo of the entire region.

And it would not just end there; in the perpetuation of chaos with the intention of exploiting it, we will find that the situation will reach of the point of demanding the revision of the Lebanese Taif Agreement. The indicators for that exist and have been proposed.
The problem with the Arab world lies in the moderate states' reluctance to confront the instigators of crises at a time when greedy states do not hesitate to stir up chaos so as to dominate the region and push things to the limit. That way they can reshuffle their cards and cash in on the new centers of power that have entered the games in Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine.

The moderate states' hesitation when it comes to confrontation is understandable – considering the heavy price to be paid; however the question remains: Is there another solution?

Nullifying or disrupting the Arab initiative is a new trap set for the moderate Arab states; instead of trying to unify the Palestinian ranks and striving to resolve the Lebanese presidential crisis, we find them immersed in a game of one-upmanship over the reassessment of the Arab initiative.

What is strange is the Arabs are being asked to reconsider the Arab peace initiative, which was proposed in 2002 on the grounds that it has amounted to nothing, whereas no one dares to demand that Syria reconsider its ceasefire agreement with Israel over the Golan Heights when the agreement was signed over 30 years ago [1974]. And in those years the Golan has still not been liberated!

 

Cross posted: Israel News  Middle East Analysis

Hamas insults to Jews, do not promote peace

by STEVEN ERLANGER
Tuesday April 1, 2008
from The New York Times

GAZA — In the Katib Wilayat mosque one recent Friday, the imam was discussing the wiliness of the Jew.

"Jews are a people who cannot be trusted," Imam Yousif al-Zahar of Hamas told the faithful. "They have been traitors to all agreements — go back to history. Their fate is their vanishing. Look what they are doing to us."

At Al Omari mosque, the imam cursed the Jews and the "Crusaders," or Christians, and the Danes, for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. He referred to Jews as "the brothers of apes and pigs," while the Hamas television station, Al Aksa, praises suicide bombing and holy war until Palestine is free of Jewish control.

Its videos praise fighters and rocket-launching teams; its broadcasts insult the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, for talking to Israel and the United States; its children's programs praise "martyrdom," teach what it calls the perfidy of the Jews and the need to end Israeli occupation over Palestinian land, meaning any part of the state of Israel.

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U.K. Shelves Plan to Cut Force in Iraq After Fighting

April 1 (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Gordon Brown shelved a plan to withdraw more British soldiers from Iraq after violence flared in Basra, where the U.K. has responsibility for security.

The U.K. will maintain a contingent of about 4,000 troops at the airbase outside the southern Iraqi city instead of reducing it to 2,500, as announced in October, Defense Secretary Des Browne said today in Parliament.

The withdrawal was derailed last week when Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki sent his army into Basra to crack down on Shiite militias, killing hundreds of people. That forced U.S. and British forces to provide air and artillery support.

``The conditions have changed and the military advice has changed,'' Browne said. ``It is prudent that we pause any further reductions.''

By backing away from the pullout, Brown is bowing to criticism made when his plans were announced Oct. 8. At the time, opposition lawmakers questioned the utility of keeping such a small British contingent in Iraq after sending 46,000 soldiers there at the time of the invasion five years ago.

Today the opposition Conservative Party accused the Labour government of seeking political gain by announcing the withdrawal last year.

``The government has been caught too often on the overoptimistic end of the spectrum,'' Conservative defense spokesman Liam Fox said. ``I hope that the government has now learned not to play party politics with projected numbers.''

 

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