It is good to see PA President Mahmoud Abbas taking seriously our demand that the palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
"Recognize you as Jewish? Who are you kidding? I can't see a damn thing!"
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas answered a demand by Israel to recognize it as a Jewish state somewhat sardonically, saying that as far as he was concerned, “Israel can call itself… the Jewish-Zionist Empire”. Abbas spoke just before meeting President Shimon Peres in New York.
In an interview with the Palestinian Maan news agency Abbas said the state’s character was “not interesting”, adding that “if Israel wants negotiations in which the Palestinians recognize it, then it must also recognize a Palestinian state”.
Abbas spoke shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations that the recognition would be a central part of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
“Just say it,” Netanyahu called on Abbas. “Say yes to a Jewish state”.
The prime minister explained that he was insisting on this because “this is a move the Palestinians have refused to make for 62 years. Its significance is Palestinian recognition of the right of the Jewish people to self-definition in their historic homeland. I recognized the Palestinians’ right to self-definition, so they must do the same for the Jewish people.”
Palestinian officials have said repeatedly that they would not recognize Israel as Jewish because it would irredeemably revoke the Palestinian refugees’ right of return.
“Just as Israel has given every Jew in the world the right to immigrate to Israel, so should the new state allow Palestinians throughout the world to immigrate to its territory. Palestinian refugees have no place in a Jewish state,” Netanyahu said.
Regarding the Israeli Arabs he said, “A Jewish state means no one has the right to approve a law damaging Israel’s character. There are more than a million non-Jews in Israel who enjoy equal rights, but this does not mean they have national rights. They are free to voted and be chosen, and to be full and equal partners in Israeli democracy, but they do not have the right to create their own state.”
Abbas must make a decision, Netanyahu declared. “He cannot evade the issue nor can use vague words and terms. He must recognize the state as Jewish and say it in a clear manner to his people in their language,” he concluded.
I guess Abbas is saying Israel is free to call itself what it wants…in the same vein that the people he is representing started calling themselves
“palestinians” only after the establishment of the state of Israel.
Britain’s spies have come in from the cold with an authorized history of their early exploits.
“MI6” is being published Tuesday and tells the story of the country’s foreign intelligence agency from its foundation in 1909 to 1949.
It is written by Keith Jeffery, a historian at Queen’s University Belfast, who had access to previously secret files from the MI6 archive.
The stories describe the agency’s exploits in World War I and World War II, and contain some sensitive revelations. They include an account of Operation Embarrass, in which British agents blew up ships to deter postwar Jewish refugees from sailing to Palestine, then under British control.
The book follows the publication last year of an official history of MI5, Britain’s domestic spy agency.
Next time England lecture us on “concentration camp” Gaza or our actions regarding the flotilla, we should take this book and shove it where the sun don’t shine.
A new type of nanoparticle that resembles the six-pointed Star of David, a Jewish symbol which appears on the flag of Israel, has been discovered by researchers at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The Hebrew University team, headed by researcher Uri Banin, said the star-shaped nanoparticles have a unique, cage-like structure. The discovery is described in an article in the October 2010 issue of the journal Nature Materials.
The particles, which are some 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, may prove useful in applications ranging from the development of new ways to sense glucose in diagnosing diabetes to serving as photo-catalysts for turning solar energy into clean fuel, the university said.
“Exploration into the possible applications for the nano Stars of David has just begun, and already they have shown that they are not just beautiful; the composition and the unique cage shape makes them useful,” the university said in an e-mailed statement.
The Hebrew University team has been working on developing new nanoparticles made of two kinds of materials joined together. Until now, scientists had only been aware of nanoparticles in which one material encapsulates the other, resembling an egg and a yolk, or where an island of one material forms on the other, much like the head of the match on a matchstick, the university said in the statement.
The Star of Davids are “nano-cages,” with hexagonal crystals, each with a tiny metal frame wrapping around them and “encasing them like a bird cage, but 100 million times smaller,” according to the statement. The cage structure has never been observed in hybrid nanoparticles before.
1:00PM: Hamas has denied the Gilad Shalit video I posted about yesterday was their handiwork.
A video which appeared in the Israeli press Monday and attributed to Hamas “was fabricated and false,” officials with the party’s armed wing said Tuesday.
The video showed captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit flanked by two armed men, one who unpacks papers from a briefcase. It ends with a caption reading “Will the mission be completed” as gunshots are heard.
“We have nothing to do with this video,” a statement from Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades said explaining that no video had been prepared or released and adding that whatever appeared on YouTube was a fake.
Gul said Israel’s deadly attack on the flotilla attempting to breach the Israeli blockade of Gaza would be best handled under international law, but also suggested that Israel still needs to take public responsibility for the attack.
“It is not possible to act as though this incident did not take place,” he said. “In the old world, in the old times, if such an incident were to take place, wars would follow.
9:00AM: From Shimon Peres’ speech to the UN General Assembly yesterday:
Addressing the UN General Assembly on Monday, President Shimon Peres denounced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying, “There is enough room for friendship in the Middle East,” and later calling him “a living declaration against the charter of the UN.”
He’s also a living warning against inbreeding.
6:18AM: An Arab land dealer claims the PA’s decision to reaffirm the death penalty for palestinians who sell land to Israelis is indicative of their corruption, as well as their lack of seriousness about peace.
One day after the Palestinian Authority reaffirmed the death penalty for Palestinians who sell land to Israelis, one of the most prominent Arab land dealers called on the Israeli authorities to help him and other Palestinians whose lives are at risk.
The veteran land dealer, who asked not to be identified by name – although his identity is known to the PA and many Arab residents in Jerusalem – also appealed to settler groups and American Jewish millionaire Irwin Moskowitz for assistance.
The PA’s latest threat should be taken “very seriously,” the land dealer, who belongs to a large clan in the city, told The Jerusalem Post.
The PA “has many agents in east Jerusalem who serve as informants and enforcers,” he said.
He pointed out that in the past, members of various branches of the PA security forces had abducted and murdered Palestinians suspected of selling land to Israelis. Most of these extra-judicial killings took place between 1995 and 1998, he said.
“I’m really afraid for my life,” the land dealer said. “I have sold a lot of land and houses to Jews over the past 30 years and the Palestinian Authority knows about me.”
He claimed that senior PA officials had also been involved in selling Arabowned houses and land to Israeli settler groups and wealthy American Jews.
“I have all the evidence with me,” he told the Post. “One day I will reveal the identities of top Palestinian civilian and security officials who were involved in such transactions.”
The land dealer, who avoids entering PA-controlled territories in the West Bank, said that he personally acted as mediator and facilitator in some of the deals involving the Palestinian officials.
“The senior officials made a lot of money by selling land and buildings to Israelis in Jerusalem,” he continued.
“They got their kickbacks and became rich.”
Asked why he was withholding the names of the PA officials, he replied: “The day will arrive when I will reveal everything.
They know that they have good reason to be afraid of me.”
He said that among the groups he has helped buy property in east Jerusalem were Ateret Cohanim and Elad. He said he also had a close working relationship with Moskowitz.
The PA security forces tried many times to recruit him as an informant, but to no avail, the land dealer said.
“I don’t trust the Palestinian Authority because most of their leaders and security commanders are in touch with the Shin Bet and Mossad,” he said. “They are mercenaries whose only aim in life is to make as much money as possible. With money you can buy the biggest official in Ramallah.”
The land dealer also told the Post that in the past he paid “protection money” to several PA security forces so that they would not harm him.
“But as soon as I stopped paying them, they started issuing death threats against me for selling land and houses to Jews,” he explained.
“When I used to pay them, it was okay to sell land to Jews. When I stopped, suddenly it became illegal and forbidden.”
The decision to impose the death sentence on Palestinians who sell land to Israelis showed that the PA leadership “was not serious about peace,” he said.
He believes that the decision is first and foremost designed to “cover up” for the corruption of many senior Palestinian officials involved in land deals with Israelis.
“The Palestinian leaders want to appear as patriots in the eyes of their people,” he concluded. “That’s why they have decided to use the death penalty against us.”
Asked if he had been deterred, the land dealer said: “I will continue to work in my business regardless of the threats. It’s a very dangerous business, but I don’t care. As we speak, there are many others who are selling their homes and land to Israelis in Jerusalem, particularly in the Old City. I know that I could be killed any minute, and that’s why I want the Israeli government and all the Jews I have helped to stand with me and not to throw me to the dogs.”
6:10AM: Former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert is a big fat liar.
Former US president George W. Bush did not and could not have agreed to accept 100,000 Palestinian refugees as former prime minister Ehud Olmert claimed in a speech over the weekend, former Bush administration official Elliott Abrams told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
Abrams, who was deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy and held the Middle East portfolio on the National Security Council, said Bush administration officials did believe that if a peace deal was reached with the Palestinians, there would need to be actions by many countries to address the refugee issue, both financially and by offering to take some refugees.
But he said there was no commitment to take 100,000.
“President Bush did not, I am sure, promise or pledge to take 100,000 Palestinian refugees,” Abrams said.
“The president knew, as everyone in the White House knew, that no president has the power to make such a commitment. We have immigration laws and they don’t allow that kind of move by a president. He would have had to ask Congress to change our laws. Moreover, we would never have committed to a specific number anyway, nor did Olmert ask us to or raise that number.”
The president [Abbas] said he was angered by the assassination by Israeli soldiers of a Hamas leader at his home in the West Bank city of Tulkarem on Friday, adding that he demanded that Israel stopped its attacks on Palestinian cities.
What chance is there of reaching a peace agreement with a leader who says he is angered by the killing of a terrorist out to destroy the peace process?
If you say Abbas has to say that to his palestinian audience, what chance is there of peace with a people who for the most part see such terrorists as national heroes?
A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
A new type of nanoparticle that resembles the six-pointed Star of David, a Jewish symbol which appears on the flag of Israel, has been discovered by researchers at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
