Winning Friends, Iran Encircles Israel

The interesting part of this story is at the end, which is aid Iran is going to give to Palestine. This wouldn't be happening if Israel, the US, the EU, and others had accepted the the results of the very fair and democratic election in Palestine. Instead, the new axis of evil (US-EU-Israel) have attempted to starve the Palestinians into submission, a tactic which isn't working. (Since the Palestinians refuse to bow in the face of starvation, the evil axis has shifted to trying to bring about a civil war and violent overthrow of the Palestinian government -- so much for George Bush's "Arab democracy.")

QUOTE: According to Haniyeh, the Iranian donation will include a direct cash payment to Hamas of $100 million. The remainder will be divided as follows: paying the unpaid salaries of employees of three ministries - labor, welfare and culture - as well as stipends to Palestinian prisoners and their families for the next six months ($45 million); paying stipends of $100 a month to some 100,000 unemployed Palestinian civil servants for the next six months ($60 million); doing the same for some 3,000 Palestinian fisherman ($1.8 million); building a cultural center and "national" offices, apparently for the government's use ($15 million); rebuilding some 1,000 demolished houses, at a cost of about $10,000 per house ($20 million); purchasing 300 new cars for the Palestinian government ($3 million); and purchasing Palestinian olive oil at a special high price ($5 million). Iran also promised to build three new hospitals and 10 clinics in the territories over the next 10 years. Haniyeh said that the financial aid was personally approved by Iran's supreme spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei, with whom he met on Sunday.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/799737.html

Tue., December 12, 2006 Kislev 21, 5767 | | Israel Time: 20:17 (EST+6) Ha'aretz

Last update - 07:40 12/12/2006

Olmert sends emissaries on secret Ramallah visit to Abbas

By Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondent

Two emissaries of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert paid a secret visit to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on Sunday, Haaretz has learned.

During the meeting, Olmert also spoke with Abbas by telephone, and the PA chairman said that he wants Israel to release Marwan Barghouti from prison independent of any deal for the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Barghouti, a senior official in Abbas' Fatah party, is currently serving five life sentences for his role in the murder of five Israelis during the intifada.

However, Olmert replied that he is not even willing to discuss this issue until after Shalit is returned to Israel.

Palestinian sources said that the meeting, which was attended by Olmert's bureau chief, Yoram Turbowicz, and his political advisor, Shalom Turjeman, was extremely positive.

"We received several very positive messages from Israel," said one.

This is the first time that Olmert's emissaries have been to Ramallah to meet with Abbas, so the very fact that they came was also perceived as an encouraging gesture, the sources said. Hitherto, Turbowicz and Turjeman have only met with lower-level PA officials.

At the meeting, Abbas and the Israeli officials also discussed U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's planned visit to the region next month and the possibility of an Olmert-Abbas meeting. That meeting has been delayed by the lack of progress on Shalit's release.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh announced Monday that Iran had promised to give the PA's Hamas government $250 million in 2007.

Haniyeh, who was speaking at the conclusion of a visit to Tehran, termed the visit "historic and very successful."

"We achieved our goals on this visit," he said. "We found all the love it is possible to give to the Palestinian people."

According to Haniyeh, the Iranian donation will include a direct cash payment to Hamas of $100 million.

The remainder will be divided as follows: paying the unpaid salaries of employees of three ministries - labor, welfare and culture - as well as stipends to Palestinian prisoners and their families for the next six months ($45 million); paying stipends of $100 a month to some 100,000 unemployed Palestinian civil servants for the next six months ($60 million); doing the same for some 3,000 Palestinian fisherman ($1.8 million); building a cultural center and "national" offices, apparently for the government's use ($15 million); rebuilding some 1,000 demolished houses, at a cost of about $10,000 per house ($20 million); purchasing 300 new cars for the Palestinian government ($3 million); and purchasing Palestinian olive oil at a special high price ($5 million).

Iran also promised to build three new hospitals and 10 clinics in the territories over the next 10 years.

Haniyeh said that the financial aid was personally approved by Iran's supreme spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei, with whom he met on Sunday.

Following that meeting, Khamenei said: "The day will yet come when all of Palestine will be under Palestinian rule. Only struggle and resistance will restore all of Palestine, every centimeter of it, to its owners. The Palestinian government will receive full support from the Islamic Republic of Iran."

Israel Blocks Beit Hanoun Massacre Inquiry

Despite the Israeli disclaimer in this story, it's hard to believe they don't bear animosity to Desmond Tutu personally. In the 1990s, he upset Israelis by visiting Palestine and openly siding with them on human rights matters. Tutu was a major figure in the struggle to end Apartheid in South Africa, which was a good ally of Israel for many years, and probably cooperated in the development of nuclear weapons.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/09/wtutu09.xml

Israel blocks Tutu massacre inquiry

By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem

Last Updated: 1:11am GMT 09/12/2006

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who is heading a United Nations fact-finding mission into the Beit Hanoun massacre, was prevented yesterday from visiting the town by Israel.

Nineteen Palestinians, mostly women and children, were killed after their home was struck by Israeli artillery last month.

The mission was unable to reach Beit Hanoun, a town in northern Gaza, because the Israeli authorities refused to grant the necessary travel permits to the Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

The mission will most likely be postponed as the former anti-apartheid campaigner must return home to South Africa to attend a conference.

Mark Regev, a senior spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry, said Israel had no grievance against the 75-year-old cleric but it had serious concerns about the UN Human Rights Council responsible for organising the mission.

"No travel permission has been granted yet for the mission and that is because the council is blatantly politicised," Mr Regev said.

"Discussions are still ongoing because we do not know to what extent Mr Tutu's mission is politicised along the same lines."

Archbishop Tutu declined to comment last night.

tim.butcher@telegraph.co.uk

Jimmy Carter Blasts Israel Lobby Intimidation

Jimmy Carter an anti-Semite? The man most responsible for the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel? Read on...

In the headline above, "Israel Lobby" doesn't refer just to AIPAC, but to the whole pro-Israel "establishment" in this country, including those who aren't organized into a group but who, perhaps on their own, use their jobs in the news media and other places to select and censor the news they present, and who, in their own small ways, intimidate critics of Israel in an attempt to silence them: example, read below Carter's comments about reviewers of his book.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-carter8dec08,0,7999232.story?coll=la-home-commentary

Speaking frankly about Israel and Palestine

Jimmy Carter says his recent book is drawing knee-jerk accusations of anti-Israel bias.

By Jimmy Carter, JIMMY CARTER was the 39th president of the United States. His newest book is "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," published last month. He is scheduled to sign books Monday at Vroman's in Pasadena.

December 8, 2006

I SIGNED A CONTRACT with Simon & Schuster two years ago to write a book about the Middle East, based on my personal observations as the Carter Center monitored three elections in Palestine and on my consultations with Israeli political leaders and peace activists.

We covered every Palestinian community in 1996, 2005 and 2006, when Yasser Arafat and later Mahmoud Abbas were elected president and members of parliament were chosen. The elections were almost flawless, and turnout was very high - except in East Jerusalem, where, under severe Israeli restraints, only about 2% of registered voters managed to cast ballots.

The many controversial issues concerning Palestine and the path to peace for Israel are intensely debated among Israelis and throughout other nations - but not in the United States. For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices.

It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians. Very few would ever deign to visit the Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Gaza City or even Bethlehem and talk to the beleaguered residents. What is even more difficult to comprehend is why the editorial pages of the major newspapers and magazines in the United States exercise similar self-restraint, quite contrary to private assessments expressed quite forcefully by their correspondents in the Holy Land.

With some degree of reluctance and some uncertainty about the reception my book would receive, I used maps, text and documents to describe the situation accurately and to analyze the only possible path to peace: Israelis and Palestinians living side by side within their own internationally recognized boundaries. These options are consistent with key U.N. resolutions supported by the U.S. and Israel, official American policy since 1967, agreements consummated by Israeli leaders and their governments in 1978 and 1993 (for which they earned Nobel Peace Prizes), the Arab League's offer to recognize Israel in 2002 and the International Quartet's "Roadmap for Peace," which has been accepted by the PLO and largely rejected by Israel.

The book is devoted to circumstances and events in Palestine and not in Israel, where democracy prevails and citizens live together and are legally guaranteed equal status.

Although I have spent only a week or so on a book tour so far, it is already possible to judge public and media reaction. Sales are brisk, and I have had interesting interviews on TV, including "Larry King Live," "Hardball," "Meet the Press," "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," the "Charlie Rose" show, C-SPAN and others. But I have seen few news stories in major newspapers about what I have written.

Book reviews in the mainstream media have been written mostly by representatives of Jewish organizations who would be unlikely to visit the occupied territories, and their primary criticism is that the book is anti-Israel. Two members of Congress have been publicly critical. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for instance, issued a statement (before the book was published) saying that "he does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel." Some reviews posted on Amazon.com call me "anti-Semitic," and others accuse the book of "lies" and "distortions." A former Carter Center fellow has taken issue with it, and Alan Dershowitz called the book's title "indecent."

Out in the real world, however, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I've signed books in five stores, with more than 1,000 buyers at each site. I've had one negative remark - that I should be tried for treason - and one caller on C-SPAN said that I was an anti-Semite. My most troubling experience has been the rejection of my offers to speak, for free, about the book on university campuses with high Jewish enrollment and to answer questions from students and professors. I have been most encouraged by prominent Jewish citizens and members of Congress who have thanked me privately for presenting the facts and some new ideas.

The book describes the abominable oppression and persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories, with a rigid system of required passes and strict segregation between Palestine's citizens and Jewish settlers in the West Bank. An enormous imprisonment wall is now under construction, snaking through what is left of Palestine to encompass more and more land for Israeli settlers. In many ways, this is more oppressive than what blacks lived under in South Africa during apartheid. I have made it clear that the motivation is not racism but the desire of a minority of Israelis to confiscate and colonize choice sites in Palestine, and then to forcefully suppress any objections from the displaced citizens. Obviously, I condemn any acts of terrorism or violence against innocent civilians, and I present information about the terrible casualties on both sides.

The ultimate purpose of my book is to present facts about the Middle East that are largely unknown in America, to precipitate discussion and to help restart peace talks (now absent for six years) that can lead to permanent peace for Israel and its neighbors. Another hope is that Jews and other Americans who share this same goal might be motivated to express their views, even publicly, and perhaps in concert. I would be glad to help with that effort.

Anti-Semitism Increasing in Europe

There have been many stories in the last few years asserting that anti-Semitism is growing in Europe, but not many have given numbers as clearly as this one (up from 26% to 36%). Unfortunately, the story gives no indications of what has caused this increase. It would have been most useful, for example, if questions had been asked and reported regarding the current Israel-Palestine strife that began in 2000.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1164881830664&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

16 Kislev 5767, Thursday, December 7, 2006 23:16 IST Jerusalem Post

Dec. 6, 2006 10:20

Poll: One-third of Ukrainians don't want Jews

By JTA

One in three Ukrainians do not want Jews to be citizens of their country, a survey found.

Conducted by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, the survey found that 36 percent of respondents do not want to see Jews as citizens of Ukraine, compared to 26 percent in a similar survey conducted in 1994.

Researchers also found that anti-Semitic attitudes were especially widespread among younger respondents.

The survey of 2,000 respondents in 24 regions of Ukraine was conducted Oct. 13-24 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Propaganda vs. Negotiations: Israel's Image Problem

QUOTE: I think the best way to win friends for Israel among the undecided out there is to lay off the propaganda and bullshit and talk like one reasonable, balanced, intelligent adult to another. . . . But finally, the only thing that's going to radically change the world's opinion of Israel is a return to a peace process worth the name, such as the one that went on between Israel and Egypt, and, for a few years, between Israel and the Palestinians. All the rest is hasbara, which, we should know by now, is a losing strategy.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1164881834535&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

16 Kislev 5767, Thursday, December 7, 2006 23:23 IST Jerusalem Post

Dec. 6, 2006 21:41 | Updated Dec. 7, 2006 9:35

Rattling the Cage: The hype that failed

By LARRY DERFNER

Nobody and nothing in the world has an army of advocates, defenders, PR people, marketers, spin-meisters and image-polishers like Israel has. This army isn't made up just of the government, but of Jews and Judeophiles all over the world, especially in the US. It includes the entire alphabet soup of American Jewish organizations, right-wing "media watchdogs" like CAMERA and Honest Reporting, hundreds of Jewish newspapers and Web sites, Alan Dershowitz, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Republican Party, the Christian Right, FOX News and an assortment of other forces.

Yet despite this incredible mobilization, Israel's image, its "brand," couldn't be in worse shape. The latest evidence comes from a polling organization called Nation Brands Index, which asked over 25,000 consumers worldwide their impressions of 36 different countries, and found that Israel finished 36th, at the bottom - by a wide margin.

Most Jews, I think, would blame these results on anti-Semitism, on hostile foreign media coverage of Israel, and on Israel's incompetence at making its case to the world. The solution, most Jews would probably say, is to redouble the hasbara effort, to find winning personalities and persuasive voices to carry Israel's banner, to come up with fresh angles and arguments, to speak with "one voice," to stay "on message"; and, at the same time, to "rebrand" Israel as a land not of war, but of beautiful beaches, dazzling nightlife, Nobel scientists and violin virtuosos.

I find this to be a self-righteous attitude, typical of the staunchly "pro-Israel" community, and also pathetic because it has led, and will continue to lead, to nothing but failure.

So long as Israel is seen in the media beating the crap out of Arabs, especially Arab civilians, it will be judged a bully, and nobody likes a bully. So long as Israel inflicts many, many times more damage on its enemy than it suffers at the enemy's hands - as was the case in Lebanon - Israel will come out looking bad. As long as Israel fights by the principle of dozens upon dozens of eyes for an eye - as it has been doing in Gaza - Israel will remind the world not of David, but of Goliath.

I'm afraid that anyone who absorbed the news from Lebanon and Gaza, and who does not believe in the principle of myriad eyes for an eye, has to say that Israel has pretty well earned that image of late.

THIS IS not to say, however, that the world sees the Palestinians or Hizbullah and its followers as a bunch of little Davids, or innocents. The Nation Brands Index didn't measure the popularity of the Palestinian Authority, or south Lebanon, or Syria, or Iran; if it had, Israel might not have finished last on the list. The world's consumers don't want anything to do with terrorists and Islamic fanatics, either. They're sick and tired of Israel and its enemies. They think we're all crazy, and they're basically right (even though I would say Israel is still less crazy than its enemies, and a lot less crazy than the worst of them).

So the standard hasbara approach of insisting that Israel is 100% right while the Arabs are 0% right, that Arab violence is strictly aggression while Israeli violence is strictly self-defense, and that Israel's hand is perpetually outstretched in peace but the Arabs only want to exterminate us - that approach is doomed. It only works on the home crowd - those who love nothing more than cheering Israel and booing the Arabs - and they, obviously, don't need convincing. To any disinterested, balanced observer of the friction between Israel and its neighbors, the standard hasbara approach is ridiculously one-sided, propagandistic, not to be taken seriously at all.

AS FOR "rebranding" - which means changing the subject from "the conflict" to all the cool and groovy things about Israel - this is insipid. This is an insult to people's intelligence. It's an attempt to airbrush certain little details - specifically, endless war and hatred - out of the Israeli picture in the belief that people are too dumb to notice, and that they will begin associating Israel not with war and hatred, but with dancing in Tel Aviv and hi-tech in Herzliya Pituah.

And in the face of continuous, utter failure, the hasbara army marches on. In her story on the Nation Brands Index, The Jerusalem Post's Tovah Lazaroff reported: "The Foreign Ministry's Director of Public Affairs Amir Gissin said the survey underscored for him the importance of the new nation-branding drive Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni launched this fall."

However, Simon Anholt, head of Nation Brands Index, drew the opposite conclusion, reported Lazaroff: "The most persuasive and memorable facts, unfortunately for Israel, were about the conflict, so the image of Israel as a bully was more likely to stick in people's minds rather than the idea of Israel as an expert in solar energy, Anholt said. These images are 'so negative and powerful that they contaminated everything else in the index,' Anholt said."

PERSONALLY, I don't care that much about Israel's image. I know that Muslims, on the whole, and hard-line leftists turn everything against Israel no matter what its enemies do, but I find that the Western world, in general, takes a fair view of Israel's role in the conflict. I have no problem, for instance, with the coverage in CNN or The New York Times. And again, regarding those 25,000 consumers in the survey, my strong hunch is that they are at least as put off by Israel's enemies as they are by Israel.

So I am not a soldier in the hasbara army. But if I was, and if I had sufficient rank to influence that army's battle plan, I'd suggest abandoning the children of light vs children of darkness theme and forget about the rebranding gimmick. Instead, I think the best way to win friends for Israel among the undecided out there is to lay off the propaganda and bullshit and talk like one reasonable, balanced, intelligent adult to another.

In other words, to say to people that Israel isn't as good as its press releases, nor as bad as its enemies say. To concede that Israel is sometimes in the wrong, sometimes too eager to fight, sometimes steps on its neighbors' toes - but to remind people that the neighbors here include the likes of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizbullah, so it's not as if Israel's fractious behavior comes out of nowhere; there have been, and continue to be, provocations. In all, we should admit frankly that while the Arabs owe us plenty of apologies, we owe the Arabs, certainly the Palestinians, some apologies of our own.

I think people in the world would be relieved to hear an Israeli message like that - and they do hear it from Israelis like Amos Oz and David Grossman, who, I'm convinced, are much better, much more effective "spokesmen" for Israel than, say, Netanyahu or Dershowitz. They're more believable. Their portrayal of Israel as a country that does wrong as well as right rings truer. It makes Israel seem a recognizable nation of human beings, instead of an impossible nation of coloring-book good guys.

But finally, the only thing that's going to radically change the world's opinion of Israel is a return to a peace process worth the name, such as the one that went on between Israel and Egypt, and, for a few years, between Israel and the Palestinians. All the rest is hasbara, which, we should know by now, is a losing strategy.

Peace Conference Excluding Israel?

This is sure to ignite a controversy if attention is paid by mainstream media. If it proves to be true that Baker advocated peace talks excluding Israel, you can be sure there will be a campaign in the US to demonize him.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3337124,00.html

Initiative: Middle East peace conference without Israel

Insight magazine reports recent American government proposal to hold peace conference without Israeli presence. Baker says goal is to 'reach agreement without Jewish pressure'

Yitzhak Benhorin

Published: 12.07.06, 10:38

WASHINGTON - According to Thursday's issue of the conservative Washington Times' Insight magazine, the White House was looking into proposal by former Secretary of State James Baker to hold a Middle East peace conference without Israel .

According to the report, the United States government was going to consider the possibility of having a second Madrid Conference in which Arab states would participate, including Syria and Iran , but with without Israel being invited to participate.

As reported by the magazine, officials said the conference would be promoted as a forum to discuss Iraq's future, but actually focus on Arab demands for Israel to withdraw from territories captured in the 1967 war.

A source in the US government was quoted in the report as saying, "As Baker sees this, the conference would provide a unique opportunity for the US to strike a deal without Jewish pressure. This has become the hottest proposal examined by the foreign policy people over the last month."

Other sources in the government told the magazine that the proposal was supported by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Under Secretary of Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, and National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.

Renewed pressure on Israel

Also, government sources were quoted as saying Baker's proposal to exclude Israel from a regional peace conference was receiving a lot of support due to Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to Saudi Arabia last November, during which sources in the country made it clear that Israel, and not Iran, was the cause of instability in the Middle East.

A US government source claimed that Cheney's original goal of the trip - to enlist Saudi Arabia's support in Iraq - was never even discussed. In addition, the source said that instead, the Saudi's demanding an initiative to end Israel's attacks on Gaza and Cheney merely agreed.

Baker's current initiative was to have the US enlist the aid of Arab States in exchange for an American commitment to renew pressure on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and the Golan Heights.

According to the Associated Press, a high-level commission said Wednesday after nearly four years of war and the deaths of more than 2,900 U.S. troops, the situation was "grave and deteriorating", President Bush's policy in Iraq was "not working", and America's ability "to influence events within Iraq is diminishing".