Le meme article en Francais


Il FAUT SOUTENIR ISRAEL

CAR S'IL TOMBE, NOUS TOUS, NOUS TOMBERONS



Par José Maria Aznar, ex 1er ministre d'Espagne

The Times –Londres 17/06/10

Traduction Albert Soued [soued.chez.com] pour www.nuitdorient.com



La colère à propos de Gaza est une diversion. Nous ne pouvons pas oublier qu'Israël est le meilleur allié de l'Occident dans une région turbulente.

Cela fait trop longtemps maintenant qu'il n'est plus "à la mode" de défendre Israël. A la suite du récent incident de la flottille remplie d'activistes anti-israéliens en Méditerranée, il est difficile de trouver une cause aussi impopulaire à défendre.

Dans un monde idéal, l'assaut des commandos israéliens sur le Mavi Marmara ne se serait pas terminé par 9 morts et des douzaines de blessés. Dans un monde idéal, les soldats auraient été accueillis paisiblement à bord. Dans un monde idéal, aucun état, notamment un allié récent d'Israël comme la Turquie, n'aurait promu et organisé une flottille dont le seul but était de créer une situation impossible pour Israël, c'est-à-dire choisir entre l'abandon de sa politique de sécurité et le blocus naval, ou risquer la colère du monde.

Dans nos relations avec Israël, il faut dissiper les brumes rousses de la colère qui trop souvent brouillent notre jugement. Une approche équilibrée et raisonnable devrait inclure les réalités suivantes.

D'abord l'état d'Israël a été créé par une décision de l'Onu. Par conséquent, sa légitimité ne peut pas être mise en question. Israël est une nation qui a des institutions profondément ancrées dans la démocratie. C'est une société ouverte et dynamique qui ne cesse d'exceller dans la culture, la science et la technologie.

Ensuite, grâce à ses racines, son histoire et ses valeurs, Israël est une nation occidentale à part entière. En effet, c'est une nation occidentale normale, mais qui est confrontée à des situations anormales.

Unique en Occident, c'est la seule démocratie dont l'existence est menacée depuis sa création. Elle a d'abord été attaquée par ses voisins, avec des armes conventionnelles. Puis elle a fait face au terrorisme culminant, vague après vague, dans des attentats-suicide. Aujourd'hui sous l'instigation d'islamistes radicaux et de leurs sympathisants, elle affronte une campagne de dénigrement à travers la loi internationale et la diplomatie.

62 ans après sa création, Israël se bat encore pour sa survie. Puni par des missiles qui pleuvent du nord comme du sud, menacée de destruction par un Iran qui cherche à acquérir des bombes nucléaires et pressé par les amis comme les ennemis, il semble qu'Israël n'ait aucun moment de répit.

Pendant des années, l'Occident a concentré son attention sur le processus de paix entre Israéliens et Palestiniens, et on peut le comprendre. Mais si Israël est en danger aujourd'hui et si toute la région est en train de glisser vers un avenir très préoccupant, ce n'est pas du tout parce que les parties ne s'entendent pas sur les moyens de résoudre le conflit. Les paramètres de tout accord de paix futur sont clairs, même si pour chaque partie, le processus final à atteindre est difficile et douloureux.

Les menaces réelles à la stabilité régionale se trouvent, cependant, dans la montée d'un islamisme radical qui voit la destruction d'Israël comme l'accomplissement d'un destin religieux et, simultanément, dans le cas de l'Iran, comme une expression de ses ambitions pour une hégémonie régionale. Les 2 phénomènes sont des menaces qui affectent non seulement Israël, mais aussi tout l'Occident et le monde entier.



Le cœur du problème se trouve dans la manière ambiguë et souvent erronée avec laquelle de nombreux pays occidentaux réagissent à la situation. Il est facile de blâmer Israël pour tous les maux du Moyen Orient. Certains agissent et parlent comme si on pouvait parvenir à une nouvelle entente avec le monde musulman, à condition de sacrifier l'état d'Israël sur l'autel de cette entente. Ce serait une folie.

Israël est notre première ligne de défense dans une région turbulente qui risque à tout moment de sombrer dans le chaos, une région vitale pour notre sécurité énergétique, du fait de notre surdépendance du pétrole du Moyen Orient, une région qui constitue une frontière dans le combat contre l'extrémisme. Si Israël sombre, nous tous nous sombrerons.



Pour défendre le droit d'Israël à exister en paix et dans des frontières sûres, il faut un degré de clarté morale et stratégique qui trop souvent semble avoir disparu en Europe. Les États-Unis montrent des signes inquiétants car ils empruntent la même voie.

L'Occident traverse une période de confusion quant à l'avenir du monde. Dans une large mesure, cette confusion vient d'une sorte de doute de soi masochiste qui concerne notre propre identité, du fait du politiquement correct et du multiculturalisme qui nous forcent à nous mettre à genoux devant les autres, et d'une laïcité qui, ironie du sort, nous aveugle, même lorsque nous sommes confrontés à des djihadistes qui font la promotion d'une foi fanatique. Abandonner Israël à son sort, en ce moment critique, ne servirait qu'à illustrer combien nous avons sombré et combien notre déclin semble désormais inexorable.

On ne peut pas laisser faire. Motivé par le besoin de reconstruire nos propres valeurs occidentales, exprimant une profonde inquiétude au sujet de la vague d'agression contre Israël, et conscient que la force d'Israël est notre force et que la faiblesse d'Israël est notre faiblesse, j'ai décidé de promouvoir une nouvelle initiative d'"Amis d'Israël" avec l'aide de quelques personnalités, dont David Trimble [ex-Premier ministre d'Irlande du Nord], Andrew Roberts [historien anglais], John Bolton [ex-ambassadeur américain aux Nations unies], Alejandro Toledo (ancien président du Pérou), Marcello Pera (philosophe et ancien président du Sénat italien), Fiamma Nirenstein (auteure et politicienne italienne), le financier Robert Agostinelli et l'intellectuel catholique George Weigel.



Nous n'avons pas l'intention de défendre une politique spécifique ou un gouvernement israélien particulier. Les auteurs de cette initiative sont certains d'être parfois en désaccord avec certaines des décisions prises par Jérusalem. Nous sommes des démocrates et nous croyons en la diversité.

Ce qui nous lie, toutefois, est notre soutien indéfectible à Israël et à son droit à exister et à se défendre. Que des pays occidentaux se rangent du côté de ceux qui remettent en question la légitimité d'Israël, jouent avec des questions de sécurité vitales pour Israël au sein des instances internationales, ou apaisent ceux qui s'opposent aux valeurs occidentales plutôt que de s'élever vigoureusement pour la défense de ces valeurs, n'est pas seulement une grave erreur morale, mais une erreur stratégique de premier ordre.



Israël est une partie essentielle de l'Occident. L'Occident est ce qu'il est grâce à ses racines judéo-chrétiennes. Si l'élément juif de ces racines est déterré et Israël perdu, alors nous sommes perdus aussi. Que cela nous plaise ou non, nos destins sont inextricablement liés.

open letter to President Obama from Jon Voight




An open letter from actor Jon Voight to President Obama:
June 22, 2010

President Obama:

You will be the first American president that lied to the Jewish people, and the American people as well, when you said that you would defend Israel, the only Democratic state in the Middle East, against all their enemies. You have done just the opposite. You have propagandized Israel, until they look like they are everyone's enemy — and it has resonated throughout the world. You are putting Israel in harm's way, and you have promoted anti-Semitism throughout the world.

You have brought this to a people who have given the world the Ten Commandments and most laws we live by today. The Jewish people have given the world our greatest scientists and philosophers, and the cures for many diseases, and now you play a very dangerous game so you can look like a true martyr to what you see and say are the underdogs. But the underdogs you defend are murderers and criminals who want Israel eradicated.

You have brought to Arizona a civil war, once again defending the criminals and illegals, creating a meltdown for good, loyal, law-abiding citizens. Your destruction of this country may never be remedied, and we may never recover. I pray to God you stop, and I hope the people in this great country realize your agenda is not for the betterment of mankind, but for the betterment of your politics.

With heartfelt and deep concern for America and Israel,

Jon Voight

The Washington Times june 22, 2010

Monsieur le Président, de quel côté vous êtes ?

Who Paid For Obama's Harvard Law Education?
Advance Indiana

Posted on Saturday, September 06, 2008 1:41:18 PM by pissant

There are many questions which remain unanswered about the mysterious Barack Obama. The mainstream media has vetted Gov. Sarah Palin more in the past week than they've bothered to vet Sen. Barack Obama over the past year. When you start digging into Obama's background, you turn up more questions than answers.

Obama's father was a Kenyan citizen and his mother was American. His name as a young child was changed to Barry Soetoro when his mother married Indonesian citizen Lolo Soetoro and moved to Jakarta. Indonesian school records state that Obama was an Indonesian citizen and not an American citizen and that his religion was Islam and not Christian, protestations by Obama to the contrary notwithstanding. When or how Obama acquired U.S. citizenship or changed his name back to Barack Hussein Obama is unclear. A birth certificate produced by the Obama campaign was determined by several document experts to be a forged document.

We know from his autobiography that he had Muslim roommates in college of foreign nationality. Now it turns out that an influential, radical black Muslim with close ties to the Saudi royal family and an outspoken opponent of Israel helped finance Obama's law school education. Obama's benefactor at the young age of 25 is Dr. Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour a/k/a Donald Warden. Here are some facts you should know about al-Mansour according to a Newmax investigative report:

* "He is well known within the black community as a lawyer, an orthodox Muslim, a black nationalist, an author, an international deal-maker, an educator, and an outspoken enemy of Israel."

* In a 1995 book, “The Lost Books of Africa Rediscovered,” he alleged that the United States was plotting genocide against black Americans.

* He was the mentor of Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton and his cohort, Bobby Seale.

* Al-Mansour’s more recent videotaped speeches focus on Muslim themes, and abound with anti-Semitic theories and anti-Israel vitriol.

* At the same time he was raising money for Obama's education he was representing top members of the Saudi Royal family seeking to do business and exert influence in the United States.

* He advises Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in his U.S. investments. Prince Talal is most famous for offering $10 million to the City of New York following 9/11, a contribution turned down by Mayor Rudy Giuliani because the Prince said American policies were to blame for the terrorist attacks. Prince Alwaleed has made tens of millions in contributions to Muslim-American charities, some of whose leaders have been charged by our government with terrorism-related ties. Prince Alwaleed also donates millions to Harvard for Islamic studies.

Newmax sought a response from the Obama campaign about the financial assistance Obama received from al-Mansour, but the campaign refused to respond. This disclosure came in a very unlikely fashion. Percy Sutton, a prominent African-American businessman, was being interviewed when he described how he first came to know Obama. “I was introduced to (Obama) by a friend who was raising money for him,” Sutton told NY1 city hall reporter Dominic Carter. “The friend’s name is Dr. Khalid al-Mansour, from Texas,” Sutton said. “He is the principal adviser to one of the world’s richest men. He told me about Obama.” "Sutton, the founder of Inner City Broadcasting, said al-Mansour contacted him to ask a favor: Would Sutton write a letter in support of Obama’s application to Harvard Law School?"

Note:For more insights please search www.youtube.com for Percy Sutton's or Khalid al-Mansour videos

Son of Hamas



Will Palestinian Statehood Bring Peace?

This is a big question and not an easy one to answer.

I long for an independent state as much as any Palestinian. But a two-state solution is like the quest for the Holy Grail, the golden fleece or King Solomon’s mines. It is highly unlikely, if not impossible.

To understand this, a brief history review might be helpful:

****** The 1993 Oslo Accords offered Palestinians self-government. They established the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the governing body, under the leadership of PLO chief Yassir Arafat and represented primarily by Fatah, its largest faction. In addition, Israel agreed to a phased withdrawal of its settlements from the West Bank and Gaza.

****** The United States and other foreign governments financed, trained, armed and equipped the PA, whose mandate was to secure and maintain peace in the territories. Arafat accomplished this by systematically imprisoning, torturing, and/or killing nearly every member of Hamas. The rest went underground. And by the end of 1996, Hamas was all but dead.

****** But peace negotiations broke down, and Israel and the PA were at each other’s throats. So Arafat resurrected Hamas to spearhead the Second, or Al-Aqsa, Intifada. He was the Puppet Master, fighting Israel safely from backstage. He got others to light the fuse, then accused them of blocking the road to Middle East peace. It seemed like a win-win plan.

****** It wasn’t. Hamas was in its element on the Palestinian streets, and it had a score to settle with the PA. In those days, Hamas was still a small organization—a handful of underground cells, executing suicide attacks and launching missiles. But that would change radically.

****** In January 2006, when the time came to elect members to the Palestinian Legislative Council, Hamas decided to run. It won—74 seats to Fatah’s 45—and expected to rule. But how? Hamas was on the list of terrorist organizations throughout the world. And those nations refused to recognize its political legitimacy.

****** Historically, Hamas had always refused to negotiate with Israel or compromise with the international community. Its single-item agenda was the obliteration of Israel. Not surprisingly, the PA refused to let Hamas run the government. The inevitable clash of ideologies came the following summer in a bloody two-day coup.

****** When the dust settled, Hamas was in total control of Gaza. That’s because the PA, a more visible target than the ghostlike Hamas, had become weakened, its infrastructure nearly destroyed, by its clashes with Israel during the second intifada. Hamas took advantage of the collapse of peace negotiations to secretly smuggle in huge caches of weapons through tunnels from Egypt and build an army bigger, better armed, more highly motivated and better organized than the PA. The PA didn’t see it coming. Neither did Israel, even though I had warned the Shin Bet a year earlier that Hamas was planning a coup. Based on information gleaned from my father and his conversations with Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, I had prepared a report. The Shin Bet took it seriously and passed it up the political chain of command all the way to Prime Minister Olmert’s office—where it was summarily ignored.

An independent Palestinian state is not a viable solution to peace in Israel or in the Middle East if for no other reason than that the Palestinian people are irreconcilably divided.

The Palestinians who live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are under PA control. To make certain that Hamas does not get control of the West Bank, the PA and Israel are now working together to crush the movement there—arresting and imprisoning Hamas members, raiding their strongholds and confiscating their weapons.

Palestinians living in Gaza, on the other hand, are controlled by Hamas, which is doing to Fatah in Gaza what the PA is doing to Hamas in the West Bank.

Further complicating the politics and logistics of the West Bank are more than 200 Israeli settlements and outposts and the half million armed Israelis who occupy these posh fortresses. In 2005, Israel evicted 10,000 settlers from Gaza, nearly triggering a civil war. Israel certainly does not want to face a problem fifty times greater in the West Bank. Quite to the contrary, it seems determined to build 900 new housing units for Israelis in Palestinian East Jerusalem. In addition, right after Israel withdrew from Gaza, Hamas began to launch missile strikes. Gaza is a little 139-square-mile piece of southern real estate bordering the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt and Israel’s Negev Desert. How much more damage could be done to Israeli cities from the West Bank, an area about the size of Delaware, within easy range of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and other congested population centers!

These two Palestinian territories today are as unalike as East and West Germany during the Cold War, without the advantage of having once been an independent state. They have hostile governments (Hamas has not forgotten that the PA once imprisoned and tortured its members). Opposing armies with personal grudges to settle. Irreconcilable belief systems (Islam vs. secular). Divergent agendas (compromise vs. conquest).

So let’s say that Israel tomorrow decides to give the Palestinians their own state. Which state will it be? The state of Gaza or the West Bank? Who should Israel, America and the international community negotiate with? The corrupt PA government or the fanatical Hamas government? If with the PA, what about the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza? If with Hamas, what about the 2 million Palestinians in the West Bank? And what would happen to Israeli security with open borders and the strong likelihood that Hamas would use the situation to bring in more weapons and missiles?

There can be no real, lasting solution until there is a real and lasting peace. And that will never happen as long as Islam is part of the equation.

To Hamas, Islamic Jihad and more than 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide, the land called Israel today is an Islamic waqf, “an inalienable religious endowment.” It is a trust. Its owner is Allah himself. It cannot be bargained away or be allowed to be conquered by infidels. A waqf is nonnegotiable. And compromise is not part of the Muslim lexicon.

Declaring an independent Palestinian State may bring a temporary truce, but there can never be peace as long as there is Islam.

A diplomatic solution like statehood is too broad a brushstroke to bring peace. So are military and economic solutions. Because the problem is not political, cultural, or economic. And it’s not a logistical problem. Israel’s wall will not protect it from Palestinian suicide bombers any more than China’s wall protected it from the Mongols.

Let’s go even further. Let’s say that a miracle happens and the PA and Hamas become unified, and other insurmountable obstacles are surmounted. Will this bring peace to the Middle East?

Not as far as 1.6 billion Muslims are concerned. Not only is the land of Israel itself an Islamic trust, but it is also home to Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third most holy site after Mecca and Medina, as well as many other holy sites, including the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron where tradition holds that Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekeh, Jacob and Leah and Joseph are buried. The global Muslim community will never rest until it regains control over these sites.

The so-called “Palestinian Problem” is first of all a theological problem but ultimately an individual problem.

It is a theological problem because the god of the Qur’an demands nothing short of an Islamic world and the death or subjugation of every infidel (non-Muslim). It is a theological problem because the god of the Qur’an claims sole ownership of Israel and considers its Jewish inhabitants to be “pigs” and “monkeys.”

The biggest obstacle to the peace process was when Palestinians allowed their cause to be Islamized. And until Islam is removed from the equation, the problem will remain an unassailable Gordian Knot. Non-Muslim Palestinians need to stop fighting Israel and put their efforts into an aggressive campaign to expose the lies of Islam, thereby neutralizing the Islamic factions.

It is also an individual problem—not only in the Middle East but throughout the world—because every Palestinian, every Jew, every atheist, every Christian must decide for himself whether he will love and forgive or hate and avenge. The former will result in peace and life; the latter can result only in violence and death.

I realize that this too is not an easy solution. Just look in the Bible or a history book to see what love and forgiveness cost Jesus Christ. Anyone can hate and kill. But love and forgiveness are the stuff of heroes.

Of what value is a violent, vengeful, arrogant Palestine or a violent, vengeful, arrogant Israel? If one ultimately conquers the other, the net result is a graveyard.

[sonofhamas.wordpress.com]

The only thing worse than going to war is losing

Swift victories with minimal casualties help a war to be portrayed positively, while a prolonged, bloody entanglement retroactively erodes the rationale for ordering the operation.

By Aluf Benn - Haaretz


As I took a peek yesterday at Sky News before perusing the headlines in the British newspapers on the war in Libya, I felt as if I were watching Channel 2 (israeli TV) during Operation Cast Lead. The British reporters sounded a lot like Roni Daniel, proclaiming that "our pilots" had gone to battle, Muammar Gadhafi's air defenses had been "neutralized," and the enemy had resorted to using civilians as "human shields."

Even the political argument in London sounded familiar, with the prime minister said to be eager to overthrow the Gadhafi regime while his military was adhering to the more modest goals of Operation Odyssey Dawn. This argument sounded exactly like the dispute between Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak over whether to overthrow the Hamas regime in Gaza.



In this Thursday, July 9, 2009 file photo, US President Barack Obama, right, and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi pictured during the G8/G5 summit in L'Aquila, Italy. Photo by: AP

In the United States, the picture is more complex. Left-wing columnists who assailed George W. Bush over the war in Iraq are now praising Barack Obama for his war in Libya. On the right, it's the opposite. The headlines there are declaring that the mission has been accomplished and Libya has been declared a no-fly zone. Leaders have taken to using the customary newspeak reserved for situations like this. "This isn't a war, but a brief humanitarian mission," said a senior U.S. official who was visiting Jerusalem yesterday.

For an Israeli listening to these statements, it's easy to get angry over the West's attitude toward the war, particularly British hypocrisy. While the British mount legal battles against Israeli leaders and IDF commanders over the bombardments of Gaza, they boast about their own bombings of Tripoli. But this is too simplistic an approach. The justness of a war is in the eye of the beholder, and it depends on its final outcome.

Swift victories with minimal casualties help a war to be portrayed positively, while a prolonged, bloody entanglement retroactively erodes the rationale for ordering the operation. If Olmert had defeated Hezbollah after two days of fighting, he would have been praised for his boldness. Since he didn't achieve victory after five weeks, the decision to embark on war was in the eyes of the Winograd Committee a "grave error," staining his reputation forever.

All wars look the same on television. There are images of fighter jets, sounds of gunfire, footage of smoke rising above destroyed buildings, pictures of civilians seeking refuge, and scenes of dead and wounded bodies. Neither Obama nor British Prime Minister David Cameron possess any new gimmicks that Bush didn't have in Iraq or Olmert in Gaza. Public opinion will determine whether the killing and destruction constitute "humanitarian aid" or "war crimes."

Regarding the Gaza war, most of the world leaned toward the opinion that the operation was a criminal act. In Libya, opinion is more divided. While the developing world is condemning the operation, the West is firmly in support. This shows Gadhafi's popularity relative to Israel's. We are hated more. Whether fought in modern or ancient times, whether they are world wars or regional skirmishes from Europe to the Middle East, all wars share one iron rule: The launching of war invariably stems from domestic considerations. Leaders embark on war only when they feel that the political price to be paid from refraining is higher.

The reasons vary: the need for domestic legitimacy (Olmert in Lebanon ), public pressure on the leaders (the Romans in the war against Hannibal, Levi Eshkol in the Six-Day War ), and limited room to maneuver because of an adherence to an ideology (Adolf Hitler in World War II, Gamal Abdel Nasser in the Six-Day War and Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam ). Usually, though not always, the decision to fight is influenced by the belief that the enemy is weak and will be quickly cut down to size (the Kaiser in World War I, King Farouk in 1948 ).

Obama is abiding by the iron rule of war, just as every leader does. He didn't want a war, but Gadhafi portrayed him as a dishrag, while his supporters demanded that he respect his ideological support for bridge-building diplomacy and human rights, as well as his call to remove the colonel from power. That was how he was dragged to war. He is also certain to have been enticed into believing that Libya is a "one-man regime" and the leader's removal would spark an easy victory. This was also what Bush was told about Saddam Hussein before the war in Iraq.

Obama is not the first leader to launch a war after snaring a Nobel Peace Prize. He was preceded by Menachem Begin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat. He is no more hypocritical or dishonest than the others. He's just more like them than he expected to be once he gained power. The same paradigms that have dictated the human race's behavior since the dawn of history also apply to him.

Now it is important for Obama to remember the second rule: The only thing worse than going to war is not winning a war.

[www.haaretz.com]

Dear Members and Friends,

The information below has been verified by a number of my sources. It is the "real deal."

A Facebook page was created calling for a 3rd Intifada on Israel. They are calling for the Arab world to take over Israel. The number of people clicking on the "Like" button is increasing every hour (yesterday they had 125,000 likes, this morning 221,000+ ). We MUST have Facebook take action and remove this page. Please click on the link below and scroll down the left side of the page where you will see (under where it shows how many people like it) a "Report Page" link. Select that option and choose "Contains hate speech".
[www.facebook.com]
If you don't have a Facebook account, you should still forward this to others.
Thank you !
The Board of Second Generation

Vive le Québec libre

Last week, Montréal University (l’Université du Québec à Montréal, or UQÀM) made me feel good: After I delivered my lecture there, I was surrounded by four bodyguards that rushed me through a backdoor and then into a car that drove off speedily. What fun: I felt like a head of State kept away from the mob or like James Bond narrowly escaping a Soviet trap. Alas for my ego, the true reason for this drama is that I am Israeli.

Although I was invited to give a talk on a non-controversial issue (the geopolitics of energy), what made my presence controversial is that I am Israeli. Some students and their representatives demanded the cancellation of my invitation on the grounds that hosting an Israeli would be an affront to the University, since Israel is “committing genocide in Palestine.” The faculty did not reject the demand outright. Rather, it organized a vote on the issue (a majority of professors rejected the cancellation of my lecture).

Those students who unsuccessfully tried to prevent me from speaking at UQÀM posted around the campus a picture and a quote of mine with the purpose of discrediting me. But both the picture and the quote they picked actually made me proud. The picture (downloaded from my website) shows me in my IDF uniform. As for the quote (also taken from my website), it goes like this: “Saying that you are anti-Zionistic but not anti-Semitic is like saying that you have nothing against the Jews as long as they are vulnerable.” As a Jew, I am proud to be a reserve soldier in the IDF. And as a public speaker and author, I like it when people quote my favorite punch lines.

After I finished my talk, the “questions” from the audience were mostly hysterical (and long) tirades on the “crimes of Zionism.” One student accused me of being a “war criminal” because of my affiliation with Bar-Ilan University (I’m a fellow at BIU’s Center for International Communication). Since BIU runs a couple of programs at the Ariel Academic College, that makes me a war criminal. To which I replied that the Ariel Academic College, as opposed to the Tel-Aviv University campus (where I teach), is not built on the ruins of an Arab village, and that as opposed to my Arab colleagues in Israeli universities, I as a Jew cannot become a professor in an Arab country.

I kept going on with more embarrassing facts that made my accusers look silly. To the point, indeed, that they simply left the room –only to come back later on to scream out “Zionists, Murderers!” with loudspeakers.

“Anti-Semitism is the snobbism of the poor” wrote Jean-Paul Sartre in his Réflexions sur la question juive. Today, anti-Zionism is the snobbism of the ignorant. On many campuses, all you need in order to acquire “respectability” without knowledge is to adopt an outraged attitude on Israel.

The audience at UQÀM was not only composed of Arab inciters and native simpletons. In fact, dozens of people came to me at the end of my talk (and Q&A session) to shake my hand and say thank you. Some were Jews, many were Christians. They all said the same thing to me: “Thank you for saying the truth, thank you for restoring our pride, thank you for giving us hope.”

Those people know that their freedom is at stake. So do more and more Europeans and Americans. They realize that the intellectual terrorism, irrationality and hypocrisy that characterize the treatment of Israel in the West are ultimately a threat to the West itself.

The list of résistants is growing by the day. It includes Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper who declared recently that “those who threaten the existence of the Jewish people are a threat to all of us;” Former Spanish Prime Minister José Mariá Aznar, who says that “Israel’s struggle is our struggle;” Spanish liberal journalist Pilar Rahola, who has written that “if Israel is destroyed, our freedom, modernity and culture will be destroyed;” Italian member of parliament Fiama Nirenstein, who has declared that “the libelous accusations against Israel are an embarrassment to the world;” French Socialist senator Jean-Pierre Plancade, who implores Israel to win for the sake of his freedom; former German Social-democrat senator Thilo Sarrazin, who claims that Islam is overtaking Germany; and British journalist Melanie Philips who shows how Britain is sinking into irrationality.

When de Gaulle exclaimed « Vive le Québec libre! » from a balcony at the Montréal City Hall on July 24, 1967, he meant « freedom » from Anglo-Saxon supremacy. Today, Québec’s freedom, and indeed the freedom of the West, is once again threatened by the hatred and irrationality of which the Jews are always the first, but not last, victims in line. Now that we Jews are sovereign and free, our former oppressors expect us to prevail for their own sake. What an irony –and what a responsibility.

Posted by Emmanuel Navon

Thursday Apr 07, 2011
Royal visit to Morocco: Charles and Camilla visit Synagogue in Fez


Prince Charles visited the Aben Danan synagogue in Fez, Morocco yesterday, whilst Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall was busy shopping in the Medina. The Prince would have admired the traditional zeillige Moroccan tiles on the walls and the carved Torah Ark filling the width of an entire wall.

Some ten years ago, the synagogue, now a museum, was in desperate need of repair: the plasterwork was peeling and the beams were rotting. Henri Cohen is the architect who restored the Aben Danan synagogue to its former glory under the auspices of UNESCO. We’d met in 1988 and our families have remained friends ever since. "The Jewish community here is very happy to be welcoming Charles and Camilla to Fez," he told me. "Prince Charles was wearing a blue velvet kippa, embroidered with the Prince of Wales’ feathers.'"

I would have loved to have taken Charles and Camilla on an extra tour. I have been to Morocco about 30 times in the past 25 years, and it was in Fez that I was a whisper away from buying a second home. When I first visited the city, the Jewish community was around 350; today it has dwindled to 75. It will continue to do so - when their children finish school they pursue their education in France and don’t return. I know the community well and have happily welcomed their children into my London home and been a guest at their lavish weddings.

Fez is the most enchanting city; it’s very similar to Jerusalem. It’s on a hilltop, with winding, narrow alleyways that can only be crossed on foot. You feel like you’re in a time machine going back a thousand years. The unfamiliar smells are a real shock to the nostrils, exotic spices sold on colorful, open stalls contrasting with the nauseous odors of the old tanneries. All the assorted wares in the markets are transported to their pitches on donkeys. It’s an amazing sight at the gates of the old city to see traders transferring their goods from shiny Mercedes and reloading them onto donkeys.

The city is full of artisans, and a sneak off the main alleyways will take you into little courtyards crammed with garage-sized workshops, each one housing a dozen or so craftsmen tapping away at metal, chiseling into wood, stitching through leather and preserving crafts long lost to the West. Everywhere there are traces of ancient Jewish life, including the home of Maimonides, who lived in the city from 1159-1165. When you walk around the Mellah you will see in the doorposts the burrows that once housed a mezuzah, indicating a Jewish household. The nearby cemetery contains the tombs of many Jewish saints. It is impossible to ignore the prominent, brightly painted tomb of Lalla Solica, a Jewess from Tangier who was executed for refusing to convert to Islam. Her shrine has become a pilgrimage for infertile women of both Muslim and Jewish faiths.

Not that the Jews live in the old city any more: they all have modern apartments in the Nouvelle Ville, close to the Maimonides community centre, where there is a kosher restaurant and modern synagogue on the premises. The Jewish women stand out a mile from the local Muslim community. Stylishly dressed in the latest French fashions, these women divide their lives between their children in Paris and the business in Fez. Amongst themselves they speak French, but with the local community it’s Arabic.

Come Shabbat the community is up early for a 7.30am Shaharit service at the beautiful Ben Sadoun Synagogue. This synagogue was built in the 1920's. The floors are made of traditional zeillige tiles, from the ceiling hangs a multitude of colorful lanterns, engraved with names of departed relatives and the walls are embellished with exquisite plaster carvings, reminiscent of the decoration of traditional mosques and medrasas. By 10.30 am the congregation all off to work in their own businesses.




There is an enormous love and loyalty to the king. Every home and business has a framed picture of Mohamed Vl prominently displayed. The kings of Morocco have been good to their Jews and protected them from the rioting mobs. In the Fez pogrom in 1912 more than sixty Jews were killed, fifty wounded and a third of the Mellah was set on fire. The Jews took sanctuary in the precincts of the King’s palace, but a Jewish population of 10,000 was reduced to 8,000 and forced to survive on charity. The Fez pogrom deeply influenced the older generation of Moroccan Jews, and was a major factor in the mass exodus following the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. My friends in Fez believe that a quarter of the Muslims in the old city are actually Jews who converted to Islam after 1912. They look different from the other Muslims and have names that start with ‘Ben.’ Some secretly celebrate Passover.

But what is the future of this community amid the unrest sweeping the Arab world? Will the Moroccan monarch survive the Arab Spring?

I hope so but I don’t think there will be any Jews in Fez in 20 years’ time. The only reminder of a Jewish presence will be synagogues like the Aben Danan, so proudly shown off to Charles and Camilla yesterday.
[attachment 16987 Charles20visit.jpg]

One last chance for Israel to reaffirm its right to exist

This time it is not the chance to end the conflict with the Arabs but to work with the international community to firmly establish the Jewish state's right and ability to exist.

By Ari Shavit


Just like the Palestinians, we never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Time after time, we reject the complex diplomatic proposal that has been placed on the table. Time after time, the next proposal is more difficult than its predecessor. Although time is against us, we recklessly refuse to realize this. We refuse today what we will ask for tomorrow and what will cause us regret the day after tomorrow.

In 1987, Israel did not move ahead on a peace agreement that might have have been signed with King Hussein. In 1991, Israel did not reach an autonomy agreement that it might have been able to reach with the Palestinian leadership in the territories. In 1993, Israel did not demand that mutual recognition between it and the Palestinian Liberation Organization be immediately turned into a final-status agreement. In 1995, Israel did not try to implement the Abbas-Beilin understandings. In 2002, Israel did not propose its own initiative to counter the Arab peace initiative. In 2005, Israel did not leverage disengagement to determine a defensible border that would divide the land.


Because of greed and hesitation, we always did too little too late. Because we tried to have it all, we have attained little. Because we tried to expand our border, we have narrowed it. Deplorable foot-dragging has caused us irreversible diplomatic damage.

Make no mistake: It is not at all certain that at any one of the tests over the past quarter-century, Israel had a partner. It is unclear whether King Hussein, Faisal Husseini, Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas and the Arab League were partners for peace. But the moment to test Husseini was the year of the Madrid Conference. The moment to test Arafat was the great summer of Oslo. The moment to test Abbas was the winter after Rabin's assassination. The right time to test the Arab League and the international community would have been right after disengagement. Israel did not act at the right time and the right place to put its enemies and allies to the true test.[/b]

The outcome is an avalanche. The more time that passes, the more the Jewish national movement retreats and the stronger the Palestinian national movement becomes. International support for Zionism has eroded while Israel's security and demographic situation grows worse.

What Israel could have gotten from Jordan we are unlikely to get from the PLO and will not be able to get from Hamas. What we could have gotten from Clinton, it is doubtful we can get from Obama and impossible to get from his successors. What we could have gotten from the international community in exchange for a major withdrawal in 1990, in 2000 and in 2005, we cannot get now. The slope is not only slippery, it is also steep.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should understand the process well. The statesman who was once a Greater Land of Israel man now has the views of one of Labor's early predecessors, Ahdut Ha'avoda. His fondest dream is the Allon Plan to partition the West Bank. His red lines are Rabin's lines. What deputy foreign minister Netanyahu rejected point-blank in 1991, Prime Minister Netanyahu is enthusiastically prepared to adopt in 2011. But even during his two years in leadership, Netanyahu has continued to stall and stall - and stall. He did not produce a daring diplomatic plan following his Bar-Ilan speech. He did not propose the establishment of a demilitarized and limited Palestinian state last summer. He allowed Obama, Abbas and time to wreak havoc on him. He brought Israel to a point in which time, which is working against it, could be its undoing.

The opportunity of the summer of 2011 differs from all previous ones. This time, it is not a chance to make peace, but to avoid defeat; not the chance to end the conflict with the Arabs but to work with the international community to firmly establish the Jewish state's right and ability to exist. But to implement even this modest opportunity, we will have to pay. It must be made clear that Israel will not rule over another people, and that under the right conditions and at the right time, Israel will withdraw to adjusted 1967 borders. The payment required is costly and painful. For Prime Minister Netanyahu, the chance of the summer of 2011 is the last chance.

Escape from Hamas.

Le temoignage (en anglais) d'un ancien radical, fils d'un leader du Hamas, promu a la direction du parti mais qui, par un revirement miracle, abandonne l'Islam et le fondamentalisme et se convertit au Christianisme.

Il s'agit d'une emission de FOXNEWS postee sur Youtube en 6 morceaux. Voici le lien pour voir les autres [www.youtube.com]



[sonofhamas.wordpress.com]

Jacques Soussan was kind enough to send me this most inspiring video.

Mon cher anidavid,
je tiens à souligner que ce Vidéoclip m´a été envoyé par notre cher ami Emilio, avec qui je corresponds presque tous les jours!

A la prochaine cher ami!

Un article interessant sur le Washington Times sur la probable inefficacite des sanctions contre l'Iran et la rhetorique persistante d'Obama. L'Iran sera bientot nucleaire si le monde ne prend pas garde conclut le Washington Times dans son editorial.

EDITORIAL: The myth of crippling sanctions


Tehran will get nukes if the world doesn’t get serious fast
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The White House keeps waiting for “crippling sanctions” to have an impact on Iran’s nuclear program. It will be a long wait.

This week at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference, almost every speaker who addressed the Iran issue made reference to the need for “crippling sanctions.” President Obama and his supporters touted the White House claim to have already imposed crippling sanctions on Tehran. Republican presidential candidates and other administration critics said the current sanctions are not crippling enough. The term has become so overused that it is a cliche, and there is good reason to doubt crippling sanctions can even exist.

The term gained widespread usage in the 1950s when Arab states attempted to use the United Nations to impose crippling sanctions on the young state of Israel. The attempt failed, but the expression lived on. Since then, the word “crippling” has been attached to every real or proposed sanctions regime from Indonesia in the 1960s to Iraq in the 1990s. Sometimes sanctions have had an impact, sometimes not, but there are no good cases of a country being driven to its knees.

Even if sanctions bite, they don’t necessarily interrupt weapons development. The operative example is North Korea. Through the 1990s and 2000s, Pyongyang faced a shifting array of sanctions and incentives geared toward dissuading the development of a nuclear weapon. North Korea was crippled to begin with; then, as now, North Korea was among the poorest countries in the world. Pyongyang was determined to develop atomic weapons and conducted its first nuclear test in 2006. The lesson that should have been learned is that even in a destitute country where the people have been reduced to eating grass, if the leadership devotes sufficient resources to weapons development, it can achieve nuclear capability.

Iran faces asset seizure, financial restrictions, oil boycotts and various designations of supporting terrorism. These measures arguably have had some impact on Iran’s economy, but not to the point where they will be “crippling.” Perhaps they could be called annoying, or aggravating, but those terms hardly have the same ring. Unlike North Korea, Iran has a solid position in the global energy market, a functioning economy and strong international backers in Russia and China. Tehran also can count on benefiting from Pyongyang’s experience and expertise in nuclear-weapons development. The idea that sanctions could be crippling enough to dissuade the mullahs from achieving their objective of possessing nuclear weapons defies both logic and experience.

It is unlikely that sanctions have driven the mullahs to the bargaining table. Iran’s new offer for talks is a delaying tactic, a means of forestalling the use of force. Tehran’s best move is to begin an interminable round of negotiations to blunt the momentum for military action. As diplomats congratulate themselves on fictional victories for peace, Iran’s nuclear program would continue. That’s the reality of nonmilitary solutions. The only thing sanctions are crippling right now is movement toward an effective solution to Tehran’s nuclear aspirations.

The Washington Times

[www.washingtontimes.com]

concrete wall

Israel reports improved bunker-busters could destroy nuke sites on first strike

TEL AVIV — Israel has reported the enhancement of bunker-busters for its Air Force, without U.S. assistance.
The state-owned Israel Military Industries has upgraded the capabilities of its MPR-500 missiles. IMI said the missile, deployed on the F-15 and F-16 combat aircraft, could be used to penetrate bunkers.

“This is a precision-guided weapon that would ensure that targets are destroyed during a first strike,” an official said. IMI has been developing bunker-busters as part of an Israeli program to end its reliance on U.S. and other foreign munitions. MPR-500 was designed to be installed in the U.S.-origin Paveway air-to-ground attack kit. The Air Force has been equipped with U.S.-origin bunker-busters. But over the last five years, Israel has been repeatedly denied requests for advanced U.S. munitions that could destroy underground Iranian facilities. Officials said MPR-500, which weighs 250 kilograms, contains a circle error of probability of as little as two meters. They said this would enable the destruction of Iranian or other enemy nuclear and non conventional weapons facilities without repeated bombings.
IMI said the new bunker-buster could penetrate four double-reinforced concrete walls or floors with a thickness of 200 mm each. The company released a video in which MPR also penetrated a one-meter double reinforced

The Israeli web site Ynet reported that IMI and the Israel Air Force tested the missile recently. Ynet said MPR was said to have proven its capability to “easily penetrate bunkers and deeply hidden underground weapon caches.”

Obama caught on camera.

Anidavid bonjour, aucune surprise et il est evident que Obama nous reserve non pas des surprises apres les elections car on s'en doute evidemment mais l'essentiel de sa politique sera mis a execution apres sa re-election, s'il est reelu et le moins que nous puissions dire, c'est que ce ne sera pas agreable pour Israel.

Je le soupconne de vouloir ensuite "obliger" Israel a se defaire de son arme nucleaire et continuer son programme de "denuclearisation" de la region. Il resoudra ainsi le probleme iranien et mettra a execution sa politique de rapprochement au monde arabe initie a son debut de mandat et "derange" en quelque sorte par Israel.

Je crois qu'il mettra les pression a son comble et cela va faire un gros probleme pour Israel qui ne peut logiquement se defaire de son arme ultime, seule garantie a sa survie dans la region islamisee a 90 % et extremement hostile aux Juifs.

Evidemment, quant a l'Amerique d'Obama (en accord avec la Russie), il n'est pas question de renoncer a leur arsenal nucleaire, loin de la ! mais seulement de le "limiter". Et ils en ont tellement que cette reduction en est risible !

Je doute fort qu'Israel ne se plie a cette exigence abusive car Israel n'a jamais menace personne mais garde cette option comme gage contre sa securite mais cela lui donnera du fil a retordre.

Quels sont les dangers d'une forte dette comme celle actuelle de l'Europe ou des Etats-Unies ?

Seul l'interet actuel de 3 % (qui est particulierement bas. Il y a 3 ans, il etait de 4,5 % et on a connu des periodes ou il etait de 6 % et meme de 8 % !!). L'interet donc que les E.U. paient pour leur dette est 3 fois plus elevee annuellement que la totalite des frais de guerre annuel en Iraq et en Afghanistan.

i les taux d’intérêt grimpent à 6%, le service de la dette sera équivalent, chaque année, au coût de la 2e guerre mondiale. À 8%, le coût annuel du service de la dette sera équivalent à celui de toutes les guerres auxquelles les États-Unis ont participé.



[www.antagoniste.net]

Mamita Hebrew. A voir

Just over two weeks ago, Ron Prosor, Israel's representative at the United Nations, made the following statement as part of an "Open Debate on the Situation in the Middle East."

Thank you, Madame President.

Let me begin by thanking you, personally, for your outstanding leadership of the Security Council this month. Churchill once said, "In the time that it takes a lie to get halfway around the world, the truth is still getting its pants on."

In the barren deserts of the Middle East, myths find fertile ground to grow wild. Facts often remain buried in the sand. The myths forged in our region travel abroad - and can surprisingly find their way into these halls.

I would like to use today's debate as an opportunity to address just a few of the myths that have become a permanent hindrance to our discussion of the Middle East here at the United Nations.

Madame President,

Myth number one: the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is the central conflict in the Middle East. If you solve that conflict, you solve all the other conflicts in the region.

Make no mistake: it is important for Israel and the Palestinians to resolve our longstanding conflict for its own merits. Yet, the truth is that conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Bahrain, and many other parts of the Middle East have absolutely nothing to do with Israel.

It is obvious that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict won't stop the persecution of minorities across the region, end the subjugation of women, or heal the sectarian divides. Obsessing over Israel has not stopped Assad's tanks from flattening entire communities. On the contrary, it has only distracted attention from his crimes.

This debate - even this morning - has lost any sense of proportion. Thousands are being killed in Syria, hundreds in Yemen, dozens in Iraq - and yet, this debate again repeatedly is focusing on the legitimate actions of the government of the only democracy in the Middle East.

And dedicating the majority of this debate to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, month after month after month, has not stopped the Iranian regime's centrifuges from spinning. Iran's ambitions for nuclear weapons are the single greatest threat to the Middle East, and the entire world.

The Iranian nuclear program continues to advance at the speed of an express train. The international community's efforts to stop them are moving at the pace of the local train, pausing at every stop for some nations to get on and off. The danger of inaction is clear. We cannot allow the diplomatic channel to provide another avenue for the Iranian regime to stall for more time, as they inch closer and closer to a nuclear weapon.

Madame President,

Myth number two: there is a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

In fact, numerous international organizations have said clearly that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, including the Deputy Head of the Red Cross Office in the area.

Gaza's real GDP grew by more than 25 percent during the first three quarters of 2011. Exports are expanding. International humanitarian projects are moving forward at a rapid pace.

There is not a single civilian good that cannot enter Gaza today. Yet, as aid flows into the area, missiles fly out. This is the crisis in Gaza. And that is what keeps Gaza from realizing its real potential.

It is a simple equation. If it is calm in Israel, it will be calm in Gaza. But the people of Gaza will face hardship as long as terrorists use them as human shields to rain rockets down on Israeli cities.

Each rocket in Gaza is armed with a warhead capable of causing a political earthquake that would extend well beyond Israel's borders. It will only take one rocket that lands in the wrong place at the wrong time to change the equation on the ground. If that happens, Israel's leaders would be forced to respond in a completely different manner.

It is time for all in this Chamber to finally wake up to that dangerous reality. The Security Council has not condemned a single rocket attack from Gaza. History's lessons are clear. Today's silence is tomorrow's tragedy.

Madame President,

Myth number three: settlements are the primary obstacle to peace.

How many times have we heard that argument in this chamber? Just this month, the Human Rights Council proposed yet another "fact-finding" mission to Israel. It will explore...surprise, surprise...Israeli settlements.

Today, I'd like to save the Human Rights Council and the international community some time and energy. The facts have already been found. They are plain for all to see. The fact is that from 1948 until 1967, the West Bank was part of Jordan, and Gaza was part of Egypt. The Arab World did nothing - it did not lift a finger - to create a Palestinian state. And it sought Israel's annihilation when not a single settlement stood anywhere in the West Bank or Gaza.

The fact is that in 2005, when I was the Director-General of Israel's Foreign Ministry, we took every settlement out of Gaza and only got rockets on our cities in return.

The fact is that this Israeli Government put in place an unprecedented ten-month moratorium on settlements. The Palestinian leadership used the gesture as an opportunity to take Israel and the international community on another ride to nowhere. For nine out of those ten months, they rejected the moratorium as insufficient - and then demanded that we extend it. As former U.S. Special Envoy George Mitchell said "what had been less than worthless a few months earlier became indispensable to continue negotiations...[for the Palestinians]."

Madame President,

The primary obstacle to peace is not settlements. The primary obstacle to peace is the so-called "claim of return" - and the Palestinian's refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

You will never hear Palestinian leaders say "two states for two peoples". You won't hear them say "two states for two peoples" because today the Palestinian leadership is calling for an independent Palestinian state, but insists that its people return to the Jewish state. This would mean the destruction of Israel.

Some of you might say, "Oh Ambassador, but the Palestinians know that they will have to give up this claim, that's what they whisper quietly at the negotiating table."

Ladies and Gentleman - the Palestinian leadership has never, ever said publicly that they will give up the so-called "claim of return" - neither to the Palestinian people, nor to the Arab World, nor to the international community, or to anyone else.

Since the Palestinian leadership refuses to tell the Palestinian people the truth, the international community has the responsibility and duty to tell them the truth. You have a duty to stand up and say that the so-called "claim of return" is a non-starter.

Instead of telling the Palestinian people the truth, much of the international community stands idle as the Arab World tries to erase the Jewish people's historical connection to the Land of Israel.

Across the Arab World - and even at this table - you hear claims that Israel is "Judaizing Jerusalem". These accusations come about 3,000 years too late. It's like accusing the NBA of Americanizing basketball.

Like many nations around this table, the Jewish people have a proud legacy of age-old kings and queens. It's just that our tradition goes back a few years earlier. Since King David laid the cornerstone for his palace in the 10th Century BC, Jerusalem has served as the heart of our faith. In debate after debate, speakers sit in the Security Council and say that Israel is committing "ethnic cleansing" in Jerusalem, even though the percentage of Arab residents in the city has grown from 26% to 35% since 1967.

The holiest sites in Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people, were closed only to Jews from 1948 until 1967. Everyone could come to these sites except Jews. There was absolutely no freedom of worship. The world did not say a word about the situation in Jerusalem at that time.
Since Israel unified the city, it has thrived under the values of tolerance and freedom. For the first time in centuries, sacred places that were once sealed off along religious lines are now permanently open for worship by all peoples. This is a principle grounded in our values, our actions and our laws.

Madame President,

There is another great truth that this organization has completely overlooked for the past 64 years. In all of the pages that the UN has written about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, in all of its reports and fact-finding commissions, and in all of the hours dedicated to debate about the Middle East, there is one great untold story. Or - to be more specific - there are more than 850,000 untold stories.

More than 850,000 Jews have been uprooted from their homes in Arab countries during the past 64 years. These were vibrant communities dating back 2,500 years. On the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Babylonian Jewry produced many of Judaism's holiest books - and thrived for two millennia. In the great synagogues and libraries of Cairo, Jews preserved the intellectual and scientific treasures of antiquity into the Renaissance. From Aleppo to Aden to Alexandria, Jews stood out as some of the greatest artists, musicians, businessmen, and writers.

All of these communities were wiped out. Age-old family businesses and properties were confiscated. Jewish quarters were destroyed. Pogroms left synagogues looted, graveyards desecrated and thousands dead. The pages that the UN has written about the Palestinian refugees could fill up soccer stadiums, but not a drop of ink has been spilled about the Jewish refugees. Out of over 1088 UN resolutions on the Middle East, you will not find a single syllable regarding the displacement of Jewish refugees. There have been more than 172 resolutions exclusively devoted to Palestinian refugees, but not one dedicated to Jewish refugees. The Palestinian refugees have their own UN agency, their own information program, and their own department within the United Nations. None exist for the Jewish refugees. The word "double-standard" does not even begin to describe this gap. This discrepancy is very convenient for some in this Chamber, but it's not right. The time has come for the UN to end its complicity in trying to erase the stories of 850,000 people from history.

The time has also come to speak openly in these halls about the Arab World's role in maintaining the Palestinians as refugees for more than six decades. Jews from Arab countries came to refugee camps in Israel, which eventually gave birth to thriving towns and cities. Refugee camps in Arab Countries gave birth to more Palestinian refugees. Israel welcomed its Jewish refugees with citizenship and unlocked their vast potential. As they rose to the highest levels of society, our refugees lifted the State of Israel to new heights. Imagine if Arab countries had done the same with their Palestinian refugees. Instead, they have cynically perpetuated their status as refugees, for generation after generation. Across the Arab World, Palestinians have been denied citizenship, rights and opportunities.

All of these are facts that must be neither forgotten nor overlooked, as we look to move forward on the path to peace.

Madame President,

I've saved the most obvious myth for last: the myth that peace can somehow be achieved between Israelis and Palestinians by bypassing direct negotiations. History has shown that peace and negotiations are inseparable. Direct negotiations are the only tool, the only way and the only path to create two-states for two peoples. Last January, Israel offered a clear proposal in Amman for restarting direct negotiations. We presented the Palestinian delegation with negotiating positions on every major issue separating the parties. That proposal - filled with Israel's vision for peace - continues to gather dust, as Palestinian leaders continue to pile up new pre-conditions for sitting with Israel. They are everywhere except the negotiating table. It is time for them to give up unilateral efforts to internationalize the conflict and take up the real path to peace.

Madame President,

This week we will observe the two most significant public holidays in Israel - our day of remembrance and our day of independence. On Wednesday, sirens will sound across Israel. For two minutes, everything will come to a halt. People will stop in their tracks, cars will pull over to the side of highways, and the entire country will pause to remember the more than 22,000 Israelis who have been killed by wars and terrorism in our nation's short history. On Thursday, we will celebrate the rebirth of the Jewish nation - and our 64th year as a free people in our ancient homeland. Against persistent threats and overwhelming odds, Israel has not only survived, but thrived.

I walk the halls of this organization tall and proud of my extraordinary nation - a nation of just 7 million that has produced 10 Nobel prizes; a nation that sends satellites into space, puts electric cars on the road, and develops the technology to power everything from cell phones to solar panels to medical devices.

We intentionally commemorate these two days one after another. As the Israeli people celebrate our independence, we carry the heavy weight of great suffering and sacrifice. The lesson we take from these days is clear. We can never turn a blind eye to the dangers around us. We cannot pretend that we live in a stable region filled with Jeffersonian democracies. But there is another lesson that will fill the hearts of Israelis this week. We can never, ever give up hope for lasting peace. The price of conflict is too high. The evil of war is too great. That is the fundamental truth which guides our leaders.

Madame President,
In the dangerous uncertainty of a turbulent Middle East, the Security Council has never had a greater responsibility to separate myth from truth, and fact from fiction. The clarity of candor has never been more valuable. The need for honest discourse has never been clearer. It is time for this Council to sweep out the cobwebs of old illusions - and plant the seeds for a truly "open" debate on the Middle East. The challenges before us demand nothing less