Jerusalem deserves more respect than the contemptuous words of a self-hating Jew named Matt Gross, the travel reporter for the New York Times.  His narrow focus ignored the magnificence of the City on the Hill, situated 800 meters above sea level and dominated by biblical hills and towering modern skyscrapers. Likewise, he missed the significance of the human laboratory that is Jerusalem.  The essence of Jerusalem, unbeknownst to Gross, is more than that of a city; it is a symbol of hope for humanity.

In the ancient Old City, surrounded by the Herodian and Ottoman walls, Orthodox Jews bustle about in black long coats co-mingling with priests in black robes and brown-clad monks, as well as with Arab Muslims wearing kaffiyahs on their heads.  Added to the mix, this reporter spotted a nearby mix of mini-skirted Scandinavian girls, Russian, Brazilian, Japanese, Indian, African, British, German, and American tourists, as well as secular and skull-capped Israelis seeking out souvenirs in the narrow alleys of the Arab souk (Arab market).

Just a few yards outside the Jaffa Gate is the newly built Mamila open mall with its chic stores offering clothing, fine jewelry and gift items, as well as art galleries and   restaurants.  At the Aroma, (Israeli chain of café-restaurants with branches in New York) one can witness a heartwarming sight of head covered Arab-Muslim women sitting next to a table with Orthodox Jewish women whose hair is also covered.  At another table, western attired Arabs are arguing loudly in good spirit, while at the next table skull-capped Israeli teenagers are busy talking.  In another corner of the Café, three young Arab-Muslim girls are giggling and exchanging experiences in Arabic.  Secular Israeli Jews can also be seen in this kaleidoscope that makes up Israeli society.  It is a picture of peace, in contrast to the often portrayed scenes of conflict and violence western reporters are so fond of presenting their readers in New York, London, Paris, Berlin, and Toronto.

Jerusalem is not merely a holy city for Christian pilgrims who come to follow the path of Jesus’  last torturous walk along the Via Delarosa’s Stations of the Cross, the Church of the Holy Sepulchere (Jesus’ burial place) or the Garden Tomb. Nor is Jerusalem’s Kotel, or Western wall (a remnant of the Temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE) the only meaningful Jerusalem experience for Jews.  In addition to archaeology and biblical history, Jerusalem is a vibrant mix of culture, entertainment, and natural beauty, aspects of which Mr. Gross did not bother to examine.

The Hebrew University at Givat Ram in central Jerusalem is an outstanding academic institution that offers enriching lectures on a wide range of issues, and its Mount Scopes facility offers a beautiful view of the city.  The city is replete with museums, a biblical zoo, and historical sites, as well as a magnificent Supreme Court building and the Knesset hill.

Malha Mall, built just outside of the city, has become a hub for locals and city folk – a place where Arab and Jewish Jerusalemites come together.  And, in central Jerusalem on the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall one sees tourists, out-of-town Israelis and locals in the restaurants, falafel stands, ice cream parlors, gift stores and the ever present nut shops with mouthwatering pistachios, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, almonds, and more.  The cozy Nahalat Shiv’a, another pedestrian promenade is located nearby and offers tourists the best of Israeli artists in chic galleries, and a variety of foods in its many restaurants.

On November 2, the Obama administration sharply criticized Israel’s decision to accelerate construction of Israeli housing in various communities in and around Jerusalem and elsewhere in the West Bank. The administration also had some harsh words about Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmud Abbas’ renewal of efforts to wrest recognition for his “Palestinian State” from the UN Security Council, in which endeavor he may have made some progress with the recent UNESCO vote to accept “Palestine” as a member.

It is important to recall that Mr. Abbas’ maneuvers in the UN are actually part of the PA’s political and propaganda war against Israel, which, as he told the world back in May, will not stop once the UN recognizes the state of “Palestine,” but rather will be ratcheted up for a more effective assault against Israel.  Moreover, the apartments that PM Netanyahu plans to build are not on Palestinian land, but are suburbs or even neighborhoods of Jerusalem, none of which are on the agenda for land swaps in a peace agreement.

Irrationally, but not unexpectedly, the White House and State Department used identical language to express the President’s disappointment with both Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and with Abbas. The State Department spokesperson went on to chastise Netanyahu for Israel’s temporary suspension of the transfer of millions of tax dollars that Israel collects on behalf of the PA.

By using the same language for both Israel’s housing construction and Abbas’ diplomatic saber rattling, Obama creates a moral equivalence between one side’s accommodating its population growth and the other side’s efforts to ultimately destroy that population.  By demanding that Israel bequeath millions upon the PA, our State Department is pretending that the PA leadership and its partners (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc.) will use that money for state-building and economic development.

There is a rather surreal dimension to this scenario, a strange confusion of the arsonist with the fire fighter.

Victor Davis Hanson, a professor of military history at UC Fresno, California, addressed this confusion back in 2004.  When asked “At what point should we reconsider our rather blanket support for the Israelis and show a more even-handed attitude toward the Palestinians?” he responded:

we should no longer support Israel, when:

Mr. Sharon suspends all elections and plans a decade of unquestioned rule.

Mr. Sharon suspends all investigation about fiscal impropriety as his family members spend millions of Israeli aid money in Paris.

All Israeli television and newspapers are censored by the Likud party.

Israeli hit teams enter the West Bank with the precise intention of targeting and blowing up Arab women and children.

Preteen Israeli children are apprehended with bombs under their shirts on their way to the West Bank to murder Palestinian families.

Israeli crowds rush into the street to dip their hands into the blood of their dead and march en masse chanting mass murder to the Palestinians.

Rabbis give public sermons in which they characterize Palestinians as the children of pigs and monkeys.

Israeli school textbooks state that Arabs engage in blood sacrifice and ritual murders.

Mainstream Israeli politicians, without public rebuke, call for the destruction of Palestinians on the West Bank and the end to Arab society there.

Likud party members routinely lynch and execute their opponents without trial.

Jewish fundamentalists execute with impunity women found guilty of adultery on grounds that they are impugning the honor of the family.

Israeli mobs with impunity tear apart Palestinian policemen held in detention.

Israeli television broadcasts to the tune of patriotic music the last taped messages of Jewish suicide bombers who have slaughtered dozens of Arabs.

Jewish marchers parade in the streets with their children dressed up as suicide bombers, replete with plastic suicide-bombing vests.

New Yorkers post $25,000 bounties for every Palestinian blown up by Israeli murderers.

Its not very often that Senator John Kerry gets something correct–especially about the Middle East. Lets face it, this is the guy who, when running for President in 2004, tried to get the Jewish vote by announcing that he would make Jimmy Carter or James “F**k the Jews they won’t vote for us anyway” Baker as his Middle East negotiator. But I have to give credit where credit is due–this time the Massachusetts senator and heir to his wife’s ketchup fortune got it half right.

In a speech on Tuesday Kerry said that the approach taken by President Obama to seek peace between Israel and the Palestinians was a waste of time.  He also said that Obama’s approach may have caused the gridlock in negotiations happening today.

“I was opposed to the prolonged effort on the settlements in a public way because I never thought it would work and, in fact, we have wasted a year and a half on something that for a number of reasons was not achievable,” Kerry told the U.S.-Islamic World Forum, organized by the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center. “I think it sort of put the cart ahead of the horse in a way here. The key is to get to the security and borders definition and if you can get the borders definition you’ve solved the problem of the settlements. But we can’t get that discussion right now.”

Not content with quitting while he was ahead, Kerry continued by saying that the president will step out very soon with a new initiative that might break the gridlock, forgetting the fact that it takes “two to tango.”

“I suspect that it’s very possible that President Obama will even step out ahead of that and will possibly–I say possibly–make his own contribution to where he thinks the process ought to go in the meantime. Conceivably, that can come together in a responsible effort that produces a transition here,” Kerry said. “I think we can get to borders and the fundamental issues fairly quickly and its conceivable that between now and September we will do that.”

By September, Sen. Kerry is talking about the Palestinian Authority’s effort to evade negotiations and get the UN General Assembly to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state with a capital in Jerusalem, within the 1949 armistice lines.

Kerry’s original statement is correct, President Obama’s Middle East policy is in ruins. The U.S. continues to press Israel for a settlement freeze (and a freeze on Jerusalem), even though Obama’s strategy has totally fallen apart. The president’s demands have given the Palestinians an excuse to avoid negotiations and the other Arab nations an excuse to avoid making the “gestures” for which the President is looking.

What the President and his advisers perceived as a minor concession (a settlement freeze) was for Israel, a grave sacrifice. It also broke a Israeli/US agreement allowing the Jewish state to add housing to existing communities. This was a major error by the Obama administration. Their insistence on a freeze and their constant one-sided public berating of the Jewish state has turned the Israeli population against Obama, especially the Israeli left, whom Obama would look to for support.

Why why were the Palestinians so quick to use the “settlement” issue to delay negotiations? Because of something that President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, “Why The Long Face John?” Kerry, and most in the progressive community do not understand: the Palestinian leadership does not want a peace agreement, and never did.

The strategy has always been to look like a moderate in English call for war in Arabic.  Its why both Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas each rejected deals which would have given them nearly everything that they were demanding.  It is also why the Palestinian Authority continues to praise or downplay terrorists attacks on Israeli civilians.

For example, the closest advisor to the PA prime minister claims the recent attack on an Israeli school bus which critically injured a 16-year-old child was exaggerated by those evil Zionists:

Or the recent ceremony where Palestinian Authority Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs Issa Karake visited the family of the terrorist Abbas Al-Sayid who planned the homicide  bombing in 2002, where the bomber entered a hotel in Netanya and detonated his bomb during the Passover seder dinner, killing 30 innocent people. A  photo in the PA newspaper shows the  minister handing the family an honorary plaque from the PA.  As Palestinian Media Watch has reported that honoring terrorists is an integral part of PA policy.

The leadership of the Palestinian Authority continues to demonize Israel and Jews because its good for business.

Arafat and his cronies famously stole billions of dollars of foreign aid slated to help the Palestinian Arab community. Abbas’ government has had similar problems with corruption (which is why Hamas won the PA election in 2006). Only by continuing the incitement against all Israel and Jews, can the PA leadership keep the heat off themselves.

Even today, despite what Kerry said the other day, the Palestinians have no desire to negotiate for peace.  And now they don’t have to; they are are just biding their time till September when the UN General Assembly will make a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood. While it wont have the authority of a Security Council resolution, it will give the PA legitimacy, without having to make territorial, security, or any other kind so concessions to Israel.

John Kerry’s declaration was half right, Obama has spent the first half of his administration screwing up the Middle East peace process by focusing on Israel’s expansion of existing communities in Judea and Samaria as well as the building in Jerusalem. Unfortunately it is too late for the second half of his comments  to come true.  Why should the Palestinian Authority negotiate for something in May, when four months later they are likely to be handed all that they want on a silver platter?

While ferment grips the Arab world in the Middle East and North Africa and all eyes are on Libya, Palestinian terrorists continue their deadly activities against Israel including a bombing in Jersualem yesterday and rocket attacks on Israeli cities launched from Gaza.

I believe that the terrorists are being opportunistic in the timing of their attacks. They may well be seeking to prod Israel into a massive retaliation, which they would then try to morally equate to  Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi‘s killing of civilians that brought forth a military response from the international community.

So far, unless you were very closely following the news, you wouldn’t know much from the mainstream press about the terrorist bomb attack in Jerusalem yesterday. The New York Times carried a story about the incident on p.6 today, for example. Reuters simply called it “a Palestinian strike.” Even the Fox News prime time shows last night made little mention of the attack or the rockets launched from Gaza against civilians in Israel.

The Palestinian terrorists and their sponsor Iran know that the front page headlines will come from any significant retaliations by Israel causing loss of life, and the loud cries that follow from the “international community” for action against Israel.

Yesterday, a bomb exploded in a telephone booth next to a bus stop in a busy part of Jerusalem killing a 59-year-old woman and injuring dozens of other people. It was the worst attack in Jerusalem in four years.

Israeli Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said in a conference call organized by The Israel Project that the dead woman was a tourist, although her country of origin had not yet been determined. He also said that the bomb was the same type used during the Palestinians’ Second Intifada. It weighed between 2-4 pounds and included steel pellets added to the device to cause the maximum number of casualties.

All those injured were standing on the sidewalk. Had the bomb exploded inside a bus, the death toll would have been much higher. As Rosenfeld said:

We’re very lucky that more people weren’t killed.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad condemned the attack “in the strongest possible terms” but a Gaza terror group praised it and said it came in response to “Israel’s crimes.”

As if to back up their praise, terrorists in Gaza fired nine more rockets and mortars at civilians in southern Israel, including two military-grade Katyusha-type missiles at the city of Beersheba. They have fired over 80 mortars and rockets at Israel since last Saturday. This in turn followed the cold-blooded massacre of a Jewish family in the West Bank, which included the slaughter of an infant.

In response to both the Jerusalem bombing and the terrorist attacks launched from Gaza, Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, indicated that Israel may be planning a firm response. This may well be what the terrorists want – to prod Israel into another operation in Gaza and exploit it in a propaganda effort to garner world support for an international response akin to the no-fly zone established over Libya.

Here is how national security expert Frank Gaffney described a scenario that might play out, based on what he calls the “Gaddafi Precedent“:

It begins with the Palestinian Authority seeking a UN Security Council resolution that would recognize its unilateral declaration of statehood.  The U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, one of the prime-movers behind the resolution that authorized the use of force against Gaddafi and a vehement critic of Israel, urges that the United States abstain, rather than veto the Palestinians’ gambit.  She is joined in that recommendation by a kindred spirit at the Obama National Security Council, Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs Samantha Power, and by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose unalloyed sympathy for the Palestinian cause dates back at least to her days as First Lady.

This resolution enjoys the support of the other four veto-wielding Security Council members – Russia, China, Britain and France – as well as the all of the other non-permanent members except India, which joins the United States in abstaining.  As a result, it is adopted with overwhelming support from what is known as the “international community.”

For its part, Israel refuses to evacuate the oft-condemned “settlements” on Palestinian land or to remove the IDF personnel, checkpoints and facilities it rightly sees as vital to protecting their inhabitants and, for that matter, the Jewish State itself.

Hamas, which controls Gaza, seizes this moment to forge a united front with Abbas’ Fatah…The unified Palestinian proto-government then seeks international help to “liberate” their land.  As with the Gaddafi Precedent, the first to act is the Arab League.  Its members unanimously endorse the use of force to protect the “Palestinian people” and end the occupation of the West Bank by the Israelis.

Turkey, which is technically still a NATO ally despite its ever-more-aggressive embrace of Islamism, joins forces with Britain and France, applaud this initiative in the interest of promoting “peace.”  They call on the UN Security Council to authorize such steps as might be necessary to enforce the Arab League’s bidding.

Once again, Team Obama’s leading ladies – Mesdames Clinton, Power and Rice – align to support the “will of the international community.”  They exemplify, and are prepared to enforce, the President’s willingness to subordinate U.S. sovereignty to the dictates of transnationalism and his hostility towards Israel.  They appeal to his sense of history and his oft-expressed sympathy for the Palestinian right to a homeland to trump his political advisors’ concerns about alienating Jewish voters on the eve of the 2012 election.

Accordingly, hard as it may be to believe given the United States’ longstanding role as Israel’s principal ally and protector, Mr. Obama acts, in accordance with the Gaddafi Precedent.  He warns Israel that it must immediately take steps to dismantle its presence inside the internationally recognized State of Palestine lest it face U.S.-enabled “coalition” military measures aimed at neutralizing IDF forces on the West Bank – and beyond, if necessary – in order to fulfill the will of the international community.”

A very scary scenario, yes, but one quite likely to unfold as long as the Obama administration remains in office.

Joseph Klein is the author of a recent book entitled Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, the United Nations and Radical Islam

Actions only speak louder than words when the two conflict. In the Middle East, they work in concert, representing two fronts in the war against Israel.

And so, despite legal proof to the contrary, Israel’s stewardship of Judea and Samaria became an illegal “occupation.” And oh by the way Judea and Samaria had already become the West Bank, a name made up on the fly when Jordan illegally occupied the territory between 1949 and 1967.

And the Jews who lived in this disputed territory became “settlers,” while their Arab neighbors were “residents.” And the part of the Geneva Conventions Israel’s enemies used to attempt to prove the settlements’ illegality was constructed with the express purpose of stopping Nazi population transfer. The Israel=Nazis implication was clear.

The word Palestinians, once used disparagingly by Arabs in pre-state Israel to describe the Jews there, now meant Arabs who live in the disputed territories.

And these Palestinians needed a state, to one day be called Palestine. Once again, it was the media to the rescue; The Economist has found a solution. Here’s a line from their recent editorial: “[Obama] pushed for peace in Palestine, but retreated at the first whiff of domestic opposition.”

Leave aside the obvious reference to the Israel lobby, The Economist now speaks as though there is no such country as Israel. It has gone back to calling the entire area “Palestine.” Israel is still responsible for the lack of peace, but apparently the Jews—with a democratic government and a pluralistic society with equal rights for minorities—now constitute the insurgents, the terrorists, the disruptive presence in an otherwise serene land.

So now we’ve come full circle, all thanks to words speaking far louder than actions. It shouldn’t surprise, then, that when the Washington Post reported the terrorist bombing in Jerusalem this morning, the report led with the following sentence: “A bomb exploded at a crowded bus stop Wednesday in central Jerusalem, wounding at least 25 people in what appeared to be the first militant attack in the city in several years.”

Relax everyone, there’s been no terrorist attack. Just “militant” acts. Militant, of course, is an irredeemably inexact word to use for such an event. As a former newspaper editor, I would never have allowed it—not on ideological grounds, but on the grounds that newspaper reporting has a responsibility to be as clear as possible.

But that’s the point here, isn’t it? The media is intentionally muddling the coverage, because the truth puts Israel in a morally superior position.

This is all doing more damage to the beloved “peace process.” How can the Palestinians be expected to recognize Israel if The Economist doesn’t?

Let’s return to that question in a bit. Early on in our trip to Israel last week with Act for Israel, we met with Mark Regev, spokesman for the prime minister. This is what he said about the need for a change in attitude and language from the Palestinian side:

“I would ask them, if the Jewish state is fundamentally illegitimate in your eyes, that you’re never willing to accept its legitimacy, what sort of peace are you offering me? Maybe you’re offering me a ceasefire. OK, let’s talk about a ceasefire. But you said you want peace. A ceasefire you pay less for than you pay for a peace treaty, right?”

And he continued by asking rhetorically what Israel needs for peace. This was his answer:

“One, security, and two, legitimacy. Without those two elements there is no peace.”

He is absolutely right. Because—and Regev said this himself—you must be able to protect the peace. You simply cannot do that effectively if major elements of the Palestinian side do not accept Israel’s legitimacy. Regev put it this way:

“If tomorrow, the Israeli prime minister and the Palestinian president signed a peace treaty, we know there would be an escalation of violence straightaway.”

That is a sad state of affairs. But Regev is right again. A peace deal that leads to more violence isn’t a peace deal at all. And true peace needs not just security, but the affirmation of Israel’s legitimacy and right to exist.

When Palestinian terrorists bombed locations in Tel Aviv, such as the Dolphinarium, they did so because Israeli governance of Tel Aviv is illegitimate in their eyes. There is no Israel on their maps, so they speak often of “liberating” Haifa. And Israel’s evacuation of Jews from the Gaza Strip has been met with nonstop rocket attacks on the Negev, because Israel’s borders are irrelevant to them. There are only two borders that matter in their mind: the river and the sea.

As rockets continue to rain down on defenseless Israeli children, and a terrorist strikes at the heart of Jerusalem, those responsible must be held to account. But the rest of the world can play a productive role here, if they’re willing, because a change in the debate must take place immediately.

After all, how can the Palestinians be expected to recognize Israel if The Economist doesn’t?

To understand the people of Gaza, who now lay claim to the passions of humanitarians-without-a-cause, one might begin by considering Gazans’ freely elected leadership: the Hamas terror network.  And to understand Hamas, one might begin by looking closely at the Hamas logo. The logo’s center features swords and a golden-domed structure, but the squiggle at the top-center of the logo is most descriptive. One squiggle is worth a thousand words. That squiggle is not an Arabic symbol but the map of Israel.

Look even more carefully: the squiggle – the map of Israel depicted on the Hamas logo – primarily is pre-1967 Israel.  It is Israel without the Gaza Strip.  Hamas has no designs on the Gaza Strip it controls.  Rather, leveraging Gaza as a springboard for its actual aspiration, Hamas illustratively has designs on the only Palestine it ever has coveted:  the Palestine that now is called “the State of Israel.”  As Jew-hating journalist Helen Thomas recently said about Israelis, “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, these [Arab] people are occupied, and it’s their land.”  The Jews, Thomas added, can go back where they come from – “Poland.  Germany. . . . And America and everywhere else.”  (Reflecting ignorance all too common among the White House press corps, Thomas is unaware that the majority of Israelis are children of the Middle East, descendants of the 850,000 Jews exiled by Northern African Arab dictatorships during the years Israel was being founded.)

The only “Palestine” that ever existed was always synonymous with the Jewish homeland that later was renamed “Israel” in 1948. Rent a copy of the 1960 movie “Exodus.”  Listen dispassionately to the dialogue. Don’t take sides.  Just listen for definitions. The British, fairly or unfairly, are depicted as the bad guys in the movie, trying to keep the Jews out of “Palestine.” Paul Newman is trying to get the Jews into “Palestine.” Everyone watching the movie perceives that “Palestine” is a name that refers synonymously with “Israel.” Thus, what we seem to have had here is a failure to communicate. It could not be simpler: For the past two thousand years, since the Romans renamed the land of Israel after they expelled and exiled the Jews, “Israel” always was synonymous with “Palestine,” and “Palestine” always was “Israel.”

There never ever was an Arab Palestine entity. Who, after all, ever was its leader? Try to name any leader who ever in history led a sovereign “Palestinian Arab” people of “Arab Palestine.” What year was that entity founded? What was the name of its capital city — any capital city? Where is the drawing or photograph of its seat of government, or the place where its governmental leader lived? What was the name of its currency? Whose face, what slogan was on that currency? When did it fall? In which Olympic Games did it compete? Which issue of Encyclopedia Britannica had an entry for its government?

Consider this way:  The American city of Palestine, Texas was founded in 1846.  It was so named in honor of an early settler there, Daniel Parker, who hailed from Palestine, Illinois.  That Palestine was chartered in 1811.  It drew its name in 1678 from the French explorer, Jean LaMotte, who looked at the land and named it “Palestine” because it reminded him of the Biblical Promised Land of the Jews, flowing with milk and honey.  No one associated “Palestine” with the Arab community, not even the French in the 1600s.  Rather, the name was associated with the Jews and their Biblical Promised Land. The same with Palestine, Arkansas (pop. 741) and East Palestine, Ohio.

Before the Jewish country was named “Israel” in 1948, even the most ardent Jews identified the Jewish homeland as “Palestine.” Today’s Jerusalem Post, the English-language daily newspaper of Israel, originally was called the Palestine Post.  The pre-government institution that laid Israel’s political foundation was the Jewish Agency for Palestine, headed by Dr. Chaim Weitzmann, who became Israel’s first head of state.

It is this “Palestine” – namely, the State of Israel – that Hamas forthrightly is determined to seize.  The squiggle tells all.  To attain the power to pursue its dream of eradicating Israel from the map, Hamas first engaged in more than a decade of bloody terror, killing some 500 people in the course of more than 350 terror attacks since 1993.  Hamas popularized suicide bombing.  Then, during the January 2006 general elections held freely and with minimal intimidation within the areas of Gaza and the segments of Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) controlled by the Palestine Authority, the Palestinian Arab electorate voted Hamas into power.  Hamas won 74 seats, compared to 45 for runner-up Fatah. Former President Jimmy Carter monitored the vote and declared the election of Hamas “fair and square,” deeming them free, fair, just, and transparent.  That is, the Palestinian Arab voters freely chose to be led by a group of terrorists and suicide-bomb architects outlawed throughout the world.  After winning parliamentary elections, Hamas terrorists in Gaza proceeded to launch a bloody internecine war against their political competition, Fatah terrorists loyal to Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. More than 600 Arab terrorists killed each other during the next eighteen months.  Ultimately, Hamas won and seized the reins of power in Gaza.  By virtue of the freely expressed will of the people of Gaza, Hamas now enjoys popular support to lead Gazans with the Hamas vision.

On March 5, 1933, the German people cast their ballots, resulting in Adolf Hitler’s ascent to power as chancellor of Germany.  The voters knew Hitler’s agenda, and he prosecuted the agenda he promised them.  Mass terror followed, and the world was submerged into a war that brought death to tens of millions.  By the end, America and England gained an upper hand and had enough.  In one midnight hour, the Allies dropped more than 2,300 tons of aerial bombs on Hamburg. During the bombing of Dresden, the allies dropped more than 3,900 tons of bombs in two days, killing some 25,000 Germans.  As the debate raged over whether these aerial bombings had been overkill, an underlying justification always lay in the recognition that the German civilian population had elected the Nazis and, by the power of their ballots, willingly brought the war and destruction on others – and, by the end, onto themselves.

So it is with Gazans and the Hamas terror vision for which they voted “fair and square.”  In a world that has seen Iranian civilians rise up and, like Neda Soltani, give their very lives trying to liberate themselves from the yoke of an Islamofascist regime led by Ayatollahs and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the stark contrast from the people of Gaza is striking.  Gazans celebrate death.  They celebrate terror.  Given a free choice, they have opted for a vision of terror aimed at wiping out innocent Western lives and eradicating Israel off the face of the earth.  In the face of such contemporary persecutions as the Sudanese terror in Darfur and the Turkish oppression of the Kurd minority that now numbers more than two million refugees, can anyone truly make a “fair and square” argument that the people of Gaza are victims of anything other than their own tragically violent predilection to support terror over coexistence and war over peace?

Dov Fischer is a legal affairs consultant and adjunct professor of the law of civil procedure and advanced torts. He was formerly Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review and writes extensively on political, cultural, and religious issues.  He is author of General Sharon’s War Against Time Magazine and blogs at www.rabbidov.com

A couple dancing at Snowbar in Ramallah

When most people hear the word “Palestine” they immediately think “occupation” and  “oppression.” People imagine that Palestinians are the most impoverished people in the world, living in ramshackle refugee camps—not because their own leaders have stolen their money and forced them into endless war with Israel—but because Israel, is allegedly, a “colonialist,” “apartheid,” and “Nazi” state.

Of course, this is not true. But the propagandists have done their job very well and have infected, virus-like, every area of human communication and in every language. You will find that poets and physicians, diplomats and ditch-diggers,  students, journalists (think: Helen Thomas), businesspeople, the faithful, and the secular all share this view.

Over the weekend, a British journalist claimed that Israel is responsible for “squalor” and “rubble” in the Gaza Strip and that while some cafes and shops in Gaza are well-appointed, and have plentiful menus and produce, that most of Gaza lives in conditions comparable to … East Congo, where some restaurants still serve great food while others are starving to death nearby.

Of course, this is the article that Arts & Letters Daily chose to feature.

What image comes to mind when people hear the word “Ramallah”? Checkpoint “humiliation,” shootouts, Arafat’s headquarters and now tomb?  I myself think about the two Israeli reservists who, in 2000, were lynched in Ramallah; but that’s me. When I saw American newscasters play and re-play the crazy grins and the bloody hands of their murderers without once using the word “barbarians” or “racists,” I knew that the bloody beast was back, that anti-Semitism had, once again, taken the world by storm.

But guess what?  There is another image of Ramallah now being advertised in the very western mainstream media that sells us the propaganda.

This past weekend’s Travel section in the New York Times astounded me. The story title is: “Ramallah Attracts a Cosmopolitan Crowd.” The pull quote reads: “Visitors are drawn to the city’s café culture and thriving night life.” One photo shows the Qalandia checkpoint (from Jerusalem, Israel) to Ramallah. The second, larger photo shows a couple in western dress, dancing. She is bare-armed, with her head thrown back, arms around her male partner’s neck, and she is smiling erotically; he is laughing. Behind them, two or three girls in pants seem to be standing at a bar. This photo is captioned: “The deck at the Snowbar, where bonfires warm spectators.”

Where are all the gun battles, the “refugee camps,” the disenfranchised and angry youth, the ruthless terrorist fighters who live among and hide behind civilians, including women and children? Are they figments of my imagination, or are they now all organizing or boarding Turkish boats to challenge the Israeli “blockade” of Gaza? Are the facts on the ground, and what people actually say and do, privately, in the Middle East, quite different from what they say and do publicly? My friend, Barry Rubin, insists that this is so. Is reality more complicated than the ideologues have allowed us to believe?

The Travel section article tells us that the particular bar in Ramallah being featured is one of the many chic watering holes for “the offspring of the Palestinian elite” and is the “destination for thousands of young North Americans and Europeans.” Live musicians, female lead singers, rhythmic dancing of hundreds of young people, the many music, dance, and arts festivals in Ramallah have rendered it a competitor for the nightlife heretofore available in Amman, Jordan and Tel Aviv, Israel.

The article quotes an American-Palestinian who moved back to Ramallah from San Francisco and who likes the nightlife—“You’re like a celebrity. It’s very easy to meet people.” A Jewish American also lives here; she finds “Ramallah one of the more liberal places in the Middle East.” Indeed, “young couples kiss behind screened-in booths, out of site [sic] of families.” A French woman describes Ramallah as “a mirror city of Tel Aviv.”

Stop me. I must be dreaming.

And yet, we are told, more than one million tourists came to the West Bank in 2009.

Make no mistake: I am glad to hear this. I am glad that young girls and women are dancing and having a night out rather than being beaten, forced into early marriage, or honor-murdered. For that also happens in Ramallah. I am happy if someone quoted in this article believes that women will soon be wearing “bikinis” at a future hotel. (No, I am not a fan of bikinis but they are not forced upon women by the family or the state and are not equivalent to the niqab or burqa. Women are not killed for refusing to wear bikinis).

I wish that the Palestinian economy would flourish. I am glad that tourists are coming to dance and not to violently confront and challenge the Israeli right to defend its citizens and its borders.

So, fellow earthlings, sister earthlings: What will it be? Is the Arab Middle East just like us only better, filled with light, laughter, color, warmth, hospitality, and a decadent, Western-style nightlife—or is the Arab Middle East filled with preachers of hate, shrouded women, “morality” police, honor murders, polygamy, female genital mutilation, warring tribes, the murder of infidels and other vast jihadic plots?

Tell me what you think.

WASHINGTON - Israel envoy criticized Ankara's outreach to terrorist groups Friday, the same day that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying Hamas is not a terrorist organization.

"Turkey has embraced the leaders of Iran and Hamas, all of whom called for Israel's destruction," Ambassador Michael Oren declared.

"Our policy has not changed but Turkey's policy has changed, very much, over the last few years," he said. "Under a different government with an Islamic orientation, Turkey has turned away from the West."

But Oren, speaking on a conference call organized by The Israel Project, held out hope for reconciliation.

"We certainly do not have any desire in any further deterioration in our relations with the Turks," he said. "It's an important Middle Eastern power. It has been a friend in the past."

Erdogan on Friday declared at a rally that Hamas is not a terrorist organization, but a resistance movement, according to the Istanbul-based daily Hürriyet.

Erdogan said that Hamas, the legitimate winner of the Palestinian elections, was fighting for its land.

"You are always talking about democracy. You'll never let Hamas rule. What kind of democracy is this?" he said, apparently addressing the Israeli leadership.

"I do not think that Hamas is a terrorist organization," Erdogan was quoted as saying. "They are Palestinians in resistance, fighting for their own land."...

Iran has warned that it could send Revolutionary Guard naval units to escort humanitarian aid convoys seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza - a move that would certainly be challenged by Israel....

"Iran's Revolutionary Guard naval forces are prepared to escort the peace and freedom convoys that carry humanitarian assistance for the defenceless and oppressed people of Gaza with all their strength," pledged Hojjatoleslam Ali Shirazi, Khamenei's personal representative to the guards corps.

The threat came as the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, dismissed a UN proposal for an international commission to investigate last week's commando assault on aid ships, in which nine people died. Another aid ship, the Rachel Corrie, carrying Irish and other peace activists, was boarded peacefully by Israeli forces on Saturday, escorted to the port of Ashdod, and its passengers deported.

Netanyahu has defended Israel's right to maintain the blockade by arguing that without it Gaza would become an "Iranian port" and Hamas missiles would strike Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Israel's undeclared aim is to weaken or bring down the Hamas government.

Iran continued to exploit the "freedom flotilla" affair to lambast Israel. Its foreign minister, Manuchehr Mottaki, told the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Jeddah on Sunday that Israel's crime was "another instance of the Zionist regime's brazen and merciless treatment of Muslims, especially the oppressed Palestinian people."...

Now there's a fine example of projection.

Shirazi said Iran should encourage international efforts to break the blockade. "We should expose our enemies to spontaneous global action and not let them achieve their heinous goals," he was quoted as saying by the semi-official Mehr news agency.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards, which have a command structure separate from the regular armed forces, are fiercely loyal to the supreme leader. Khamenei has attacked the raid as a "mistake" that "showed how barbaric the Zionists are"....

Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestine Authority, we are told, comprise the moderate Palestinian alternative to the Hamas-driven vision of mayhem and terror in Gaza.  This assurance is repeated despite Abbas’s well-established biography as someone antipathetic to Jews as a people.  In his doctoral thesis, written at Moscow’s Institute of Oriental Studies, Abbas presaged Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by denying the Holocaust.  As a top lieutenant to Yasser Arafat – he named a son “Yasser” for his mentor – he was a terrorist leader, even sporting a nom-de-guerre:  Abu Mazen.  In his prominent role within Al-Fatah, Abbas provided the funds that Abu Daoud used to perpetrate the 1972 massacre of eleven Israeli athletes at the Munic Olympic Games. During the period Abbas has headed the Palestine Authority on the land that Arabs call the “West Bank” and Jews call “Judea and Samaria,” he has honored mass murderers by naming town squares for them, has permitted mass media under his control to savage Jews as people, and even has allowed anti-Jewish vituperative to be taught in the curricula of his schools.

Now comes word that his Government – ever on the international prowl with outstretched hand seeking hundreds of millions of dollars and euros to cushion its bankrupt economy – has found $50 million to fund a new initiative.  The Palestinian Authority will pay Arabs not to accept employment in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

Will American tax dollars indirectly be financing this “fund”?  Inexorably so. Only last year we pledged the Palestinian Authority and Gaza $900 million, then rushed them another emergency infusion of $200 million as their economy crumbled.  Yet, while the Palestine Authority may not be wealthy, their sense of irony is rich: If Israelis hesitate to employ Palestinian laborers, sincerely fearing terrorism in their midst, they are berated as “racist” and “apartheid.” Now, in the face of tens of thousands of Palestinians working amicably with Jews, Mahmoud Abbas will pay them to revert to unemployed rather than to accept employment within Judea and Samaria.

More than 20,000 Palestinian Arabs now work at the industrial parks and construction sites that employ them throughout Judea and Samaria.  Despite continual efforts by Mr. Abbas and Israel’s haters throughout the world to slander Israel as an “Apartheid” entity, the reality is that Arabs often earn from their Jewish employers twice the income they command within Mr. Abbas’s polity.  These are good salaries, and those wages support large families. The people whose lives would be affected by the cynicism – the workers in the industrial parks – do not want to give up those jobs.  The Associated Press interviewed Suhail Jaber, who supports his family of eight by working in a picture frame company in the community of Barkan in Samaria, an industrial park employs some 5,000 Arabs. Jaber told the AP that, if forced by Abbas to quit without being assured a new job, he might turn to stealing to feed his family.  Another employee, Samer Awad, “said he would sleep in Barkan’s furniture factory to avoid detection by Palestinian law enforcement, rather than quit.”

This is the season when pockets of Western campus radicals enjoy proclaiming on their respective campuses their annual day or week of anti-Israel hate.  (They mark May 15, 1948 as the “Day of Catastrophe” because Israel was proclaimed into existence as the Middle East’s first democracy on that day.) Curiously, the anti-Zionists actually are half-correct when they bewail the presence of Apartheid segregation and Nazi-like hatred in the Middle East.  There really is “Apartheid in Palestine.” There really is “Nazi-like hate” in the Middle East. The only tweak on those anti-Israel posters, Jew-hating sloganeers, and haters who call Israel-supporters the “new Nazis,” is that the Apartheid and venom of Nazi-like hatred in Palestine is perpetrated by the Palestinian Arabs.  It is their unbridled insistence on demographic separation – complete, utter separation from Jews – and their concomitant dehumanization and demonization of Jews that sees them refuse to coexist permanently with a Jewish state next door or anywhere in the Middle East.  This social pathology mirrors the Apartheid and Nazi-like vitriol that sees the Coptic Christian minority persecuted in Egypt, the Berber minority persecuted in Algeria, the Christian minority persecuted in Saudi Arabia, African Christians persecuted in the Sudan, the Baha’i persecuted in Iran, Kurds mass-murdered in Iraq, and even Shiites persecuted in Sunni Muslim lands and Sunnis persecuted by Shiites. The affinity with Hitler’s Nazi paradigm of mass-murder and Jew-hatred may be traced back to the father of Palestinian nationalism, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

This pathological hatred of Jews transcends the worst images of Hitler’s Mein Kampf. At the core of Scripture, in its chapter five (“The Table”), Surah 5:57-62, the Koran discusses the “People of the Book,” portraying Jews as sub-human, despicable animals: “Believers, do not seek the friendship of the infidels and those who were given the Book before you . . . . Say: ‘People of the Book, do you hate us for any reason other than . . . that most of you are evil-doers?’. . . .You see many of them vie with one another in sin and wickedness . . . . Evil is what they do.”  Thus, Allah will lay his “worst reward” on the Jews, “transforming them into apes and pigs.”   The vicious ape/pig demonization of Jews recurs throughout the Koran (see, e.g., “The Cow,” 2:64-65), and that vicious imagery – a veritable Blood Libel – has been a central message propagated by the Palestine Authority in its mass media for years, even as it is a recurring Friday sermon topic telecast on Palestine Arab television – the literal demonizing of Jews as blood brothers or children of apes and pigs.

For all the hatred, perhaps nowhere in the world is Apartheid in Palestine more pernicious than . . . within the Palestine Authority.  Only within the Arab world do we find civilian populations in their thousands consigned to “refugee camps” for sixty years.  This perpetual consignment – indeed, virtual internment – constitutes one of the worst crimes against humanity we have witnessed in the modern era: the concerted persecution of Palestinian Arabs by cynical Arab regimes who have planted them in “refugee camps.”  Nowhere is the cynicism more manifest than it is within the Palestine Authority, which maintains “refugee camps” in cities like Jenin. Consider: If those denizens indeed are Palestinian Arabs, and if the Palestine Authority oversees the homeland of the Palestinians, then how in the world can people living in their own land, under a government freely elected by their own people, be deemed “refugees”?

Those “refugee camps” are historical anomalies, thoroughly anachronistic. Their residents are dumped onto international welfare rolls, under the rubric of a cynically anti-Jewish United Nations agency, the “United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East” (UNRWA), which runs the camps and their schools.  The UNRWA has a vested interest – namely, preserving their own existence, preserving their own continued employment and pay checks, preserving their jobs –  in perpetuating the historical crime of refusing to let the residents be absorbed into their local environments.

During the last century, the world has seen so many tragically painful “population exchanges” play themselves out on the world stage. Greek ethnics were forced out of Bulgaria and into Greece, while Bulgarian ethnics were forced from Greece into Bulgaria. In 1922, under the League of Nations, 1.25 million Greek Orthodox ethnics were transferred from Turkey, and half a million Moslems were transferred reciprocally to Turkey from Greece. Fridtjof Nansen, who oversaw the population exchange, was awarded the 1922 Nobel Peace Prize for his effort. In 1940, under the Treaty of Craiova, there was a massive population exchange: 80,000 Romanian ethnics were forced into Bulgaria, and 65,000 Bulgarian ethnics forced out of Romania. After World War II, between 14-16 million ethnic Germans were transferred out of Central and Eastern Europe, and into Germany. Poland and the Soviet Union exchanged populations: between 1944 and 1946, some 2 million people, Polish ethnics sent to Poland from the Ukraine and Ukrainians sent out of Poland, were transferred. More than 5 million Hindus and Sikhs were forced to India from the regions that became Pakistan, and more than 6 million Moslems were pushed from India into Pakistan.

Where are the languishing Bulgarian refugee camps? Greek refugee camps? Romanian/ Polish/ German/ Ukrainian/ Hindu/ Sikh refugee camps? Where are the Bosnian Moslem refugee camps?  Why is there no massive international welfare apparatus in the rubric of a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for any of these  refugees? How is it that no one even thinks to ask?

Maybe, as Mr. Abbas directs $50 million to pay Palestinian Arabs to leave their jobs alongside Jews, and to return to the squalor of his homespun “refugee camps,” it is time for Americans to ask that question – before we write him our next billion-dollar check.

Dov Fischer is a legal affairs consultant and adjunct professor of the law of civil procedure and advanced torts. He was formerly Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review and writes extensively on political, cultural, and religious issues.  He is author of general Sharon’s War Against Time Magazine and blogs at www.rabbidov.com.

The Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC) has yet really to condemn the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia 35 years ago.  Or the Marxist orchestrated famine in Ethiopia that killed almost as many during the 1980′s.  It never directly condemned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.  Saddam Hussein’s hundreds of thousands of murdered victims also failed to arouse the WCC’s concern across 25 years. Nor has the multitude of crimes by Iran’s theocracy across 30 years interested the WCC.  North Korea’s slave state for the WCC is a place of pilgrimage but not criticism.  Even North Korea’s recent unprovoked torpedoing of a South Korean ship, killing 46 sailors three months ago, has not caused the WCC to peep.

But the WCC needed less than 24 hours to condemn Israel’s “deplorable” interception of a “peace” flotilla trying to bust the blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza.  The 9 anti-Israel “peace” activists killed after the Israelis were resisted with metal poles and other weapons, were apparently more sacred to the WCC than the millions of victims slain by communism, Islamists and other anti-Western tyrannies over the last 4 decades.

“It is with great distress that the World Council of Churches received the news that the Israeli naval forces stormed a Gaza-bound vessel carrying humanitarian aid in international waters before dawn on Monday, killing at least 10 civilians and injuring many more,” immediately bemoaned WCC chief Olav Fykse Tveit.  A Norwegian Lutheran theologian, Tveit seems steadfastly committed to the WCC tradition of bashing only Israel and America.  ”We condemn the assault and killing of innocent people who were attempting to deliver humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza, who have been under a crippling Israeli blockade since 2007.”

Why has Gaza been blockaded by Israel, and, though unmentioned by the WCC, also by Egypt?  Could its rocket-firing Hamas regime be part of the explanation?  The WCC is not interested in such details. “We further condemn the flagrant violation of international law by Israel in attacking and boarding a humanitarian convoy in international waters,” Tveit continued.  ”We pray for all those who are affected by the attack, especially the bereaved families.”

Tveit demanded Israel repatriate all of the flotilla’s activists, release the impounded ships and, naturally, end the blockade of Gaza.  He also wants a “full” United Nations investigation into Israel’s “assault.”  For that, Tveit almost certainly will get his wish.  He concluded:  ”The deplorable events which occurred yesterday off the coast of Gaza remind us yet again of the pressing need for an end to the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories.” But of course, Gaza is not Israeli occupied.  It is governed by its Islamist “liberators,” Hamas.  And most of the West Bank is governed by the Palestinian Authority.  It’s never entirely clear what the Religious Left means by “occupation.”  But certainly it ignores the considerable problems created by Gaza’s and most of the West Bank’s ostensible liberation from direct Israeli control.

The WCC’s major U.S. member, the Presbyterian Church USA, also chimed in quickly over the Gaza flotilla in slightly more measured tones.  ”A severe blockade of Gaza by Israel in response to the free election of Hamas representatives in 2006 and the military incursions of Operation Cast Lead in late 2008 and early 2009 have dramatically increased the already acute humanitarian need,” surmised the church’s Stated Clerk, Gradye Parsons. “We grieve the killing and injuring of participants in the humanitarian effort, as well as the injuring of members of the Israeli military forces that occurred when the Israeli forces stormed one of the ships and those on board resisted.”

Parsons noted that the Presbyterian tradition is “not strictly pacifist,” which is surely an understatement, but “honors peaceful resistance, including nonviolent disobedience to unjust government policies and actions.”  He opined that the flotilla could have been a “powerful” instrument for peaceful resistance.  And he warned,  ”These actions sometimes incite violent responses,” but the “long-term success of this kind of resistance requires a nonviolent response on the part of the demonstrators, even when they are under attack.”  Parsons sounds like a Presbyterian Gandhi.

Meanwhile, Jerusalem-based Sabeel, a center for Palestinian Liberation Theology with Western affiliates, including Friend of Sabeel – North America, has quickly issued a prayer litany of solidarity with the failed Gaza flotilla.  ”The Israeli attack on the Gaza Flotilla resulted in numerous deaths, dozens of injuries, and hundreds of arrests,” Sabeel bewailed.  ”Almighty God, comfort the bereaved, heal the injured, and grant freedom to the prisoners. We pray that you will strengthen each of us to do what is necessary to end the siege on Gaza. Help us to recognize and to fight the structures of oppression, wherever we may encounter them.”

Do these “structures of oppression” include the Hamas regime in Gaza, or its chief patrons, the Islamist theocrats who tyrannize Iran?  If so, Religious Left groups in the West, who are Sabeel’s main patrons, will not say so audibly.  Maybe the WCC is praying quietly, very quietly, for Hamas’s victims.  These silent prayers are perhaps similar to the inaudible prayers that the WCC and rest of the international Religious Left may have lifted up for so many otherwise unacknowledged victims of tyranny and oppression over the last 40 years. Apparently only Israel’s and America’s victims can benefit from the Religious Left’s very loud prayers.

Israel celebrated “Jerusalem Day” last week, which commemorates the 1967 reunification of the city following the Six Day War.  The celebrations and speeches were especially poignant in view of the Obama Administration’s decree that Israel must cease building in Jerusalem.

For Jews, Jerusalem is, has been, and always will be the symbol and the heart and soul of their national identity.  Jerusalem is mentioned almost 900 times in the Bible (767 in the King James Version and not a single mention of the city in the Koran) including Psalms (“If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning” – Psalm 137:5) and in the Passover Haggadah with the words “Next Year in Jerusalem” concluding the Passover service.  Through pilgrimages and prayers, Jews have demonstrated their love and yearning for Jerusalem for more than two millennia.  Zionism, the Jewish national liberation movement, is derived from Zion, another name for Jerusalem.

King David made Jerusalem his capital in 1000 BCE and unified the nation around it.  The city became the political and spiritual center of Jewish life, with the Temple at its heart.  But it took one of King David descendants, King Josiah, crowned 2650 years ago, to fortify the Jewish nation with a memory of Jerusalem that has kept the Jewish people united together during the Babylonian exile and beyond.

At the age of twenty, King Josiah understood that the assimilation of Jews into the idol-worshipping cultures that surrounded them might doom his kingdom and his people. He, therefore, enacted religious and political reforms aimed at establishing a unified national and religious worship.

The struggle between Jewish particularism and universalism is as long as Jewish history itself.  On one side, there were those who sought to assimilate into the neighboring (or prevailing) culture and on the other side, there were those who were dedicated to preserving the Jewish particularistic nature. We all know the story of Hanukkah and the Maccabean revolt against Greek rule and their agents from within. It was King Josiah, whose father King Amon was an idol-worshipper, who helped to create a Zion-oriented, national and religious Jewish particularism.

Following King Solomon’s death, the unified kingdom of Israel split up.  The Kingdom of Israel turned its back on Jerusalem and adopted the idol-worshipping universalist culture of the surrounding lands.  It did not survive.  Conversely, the Kingdom of Judea, with Jerusalem as its capital, survived for almost a century-and-a-half thereafter.  Josiah’s particularistic Jewish kingdom prepared the Judeans and future generations against ultimate defeat and exile by rededicating the lost Book of Deuteronomy to the people.

Josiah’s revolutionary actions were based on shifting the focus of religious worship from the physical domain (sacrifices) to the spiritual domain with the reading of the Torah.  Josiah did in his time what Martin Luther did in 16^th century Europe.  By removing the exclusivity of the priests (in sacrifices) and the scribes, who read for the entire community, the common people were now compelled to learn how to read, altering their role as passive participants.

The Book – The Torah, which maintained a unitary focus on Zion, had a centralizing impact on Judaism.  Whereas sacrifices could be made at any place and for all “gods” or sovereigns, Josiah provided the Jews with a particularistic culture that is eternal and accessible to all the people.   Josiah was in a sense fulfilling Moses’ command in the Book of Deuteronomy 31:19, “Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach it to the Children of Israel: put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the Children of Israel.”

Josiah’s great achievement is in facilitating the rise of the synagogue as a replacement for the destroyed Jerusalem Temple.  The practice of reading from the Torah began with Josiah and continues to this day among all Jews. King Josiah was greatly aided and strengthened by the Prophet Jeremiah who preached during his reign.  Jeremiah tied together the notion that worshipping God in the City of David (Jerusalem) and the freedom from foreign oppressors the city afforded them, are connected by an unbreakable chain.  It was an essential Zionist message.

The full extent and meaning of Josiah’s revolution is seen with the returnees from the Babylonian exile, Ezra and Nehemiah.  While they were dedicated to the rebuilding of the Second Temple, they understood that the essence of public worship was concentrated in public prayer.  Ezra stood on top of a wooden platform and opened the book while the masses of Jews rose to their feet; he read from the Torah and translated it to the masses (many of whom had lapsed in their practice of Judaism in the absence of strong Jewish leadership following the general expulsion to Babylon.)

The sacrificial alters (used by Jews and idol-worshippers alike) were replaced by a new institution, namely the synagogue, where Jews assembled for worship without the sole orchestration of priests who came from Aaron’s lineage (Moses’ brother). Instead, they were led by scribes from all walks of life and from any tribe.

Josiah’s contribution to Judaism and Zionism is in having forged an intellectual revolution based on three elements: Concentrating the kingdom (nation) around Jerusalem or Zion, from which all spirituality emanates; abolishing the foreign idol-worshipping and foreign cultural influences that erode the national and religious strength; and transferring the centrality of religious worship from the physical (sacrifices of animals) to a spiritual and intellectual worship.

Modern celebrations of Jerusalem serve a two-fold purpose: to remember that 2000 CE Jerusalem marked its 3000 birthday and 2010 marked the 43^rd anniversary of the reunification of city.

The Obama administration’s attempted imposition of a building halt in Jerusalem and his anticipated division of the city is once again pitting universalist Jews (those who seek to be accepted and liked by the world) against particularistic Jews, (who see Jerusalem as the heart and soul of Jewish sovereignty and faith).  The Netanyahu government is currently in the midst of a debate on the building freeze.  In Prime Minister Netanyahu’s “Jerusalem Day” speech he vowed never to allow the division of Jerusalem. It remains to be seen, however, whether Netanyahu will follow the particularistic actions of King Josiah or succumb to the universalist culture and accept Obama’s foreign idols.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Defending Israel's enforcement of its blockade of Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday it was vital for security and would stay in place.

In a televised speech after world outrage erupted over nine deaths in Monday's seizure of a Turkish ship bound for Gaza, a defiant Netanyahu said easing controls would put Iranian missiles in the hands of the Palestinian enclave's Hamas rulers.

This threatened not just Israel but Europe too, he said.

Turkey, a Muslim country that had been Israel's strategic ally, accused it of "state terrorism" and has recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv and demanded it lift its blockade.

Those calls have been echoed by European leaders and the United Nations whose Human Rights Council voted to set up an independent fact-finding mission into the incident.

Israel's key backer, the United States, is less outspoken. It has called for calm. Western powers agree with Israel that Iranian-backed Hamas is a threat but say the embargo should not punish the 1.5 million people trapped in the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu made no mention of launching any form of investigation, despite the growing calls inside Israel as well for a hard look at what critics say was a bungled raid.

He lambasted world leaders for criticizing the ships' takeover, accusing some of holding Israel to what he called a double standard and questioning its right to defense.

"Once again, Israel faces hypocrisy and a biased rush to judgment," Netanyahu said as he defended the actions of Israeli marines who, he said, fired in self-defense against Turks wielding sticks and knives on the cruise liner Mavi Marmara.

"The international community cannot afford an Iranian port on the Mediterranean...The same countries that are criticizing us today, should know that they could be targeted tomorrow."...

Oh, they'll find out.

During a violent anti-Israel demonstration in Paris on Monday, demonstrators tried to break into the Israeli embassy.

The demonstration was in protest at the killing of nine pro-Gaza activists during the storming of the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara early on Monday morning.

About 1200 people took part in the noisy demonstration against Israel, and threw stones at police who cordoned off the embassy.

Israel's top officials worked round the clock Monday to quell worldwide censure against its pre-dawn raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla in which 10 activists were killed.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu cut short his visit to North America and canceled his much-anticipated meeting with US President Barack Obama to head back to Israel, while the UN Security Council convened an emergency meeting in New York. [...]

Turkey recalled its ambassador and canceled three joint military exercises with Israel. Greece suspended a military exercise with Israel that was in progress and postponed a visit by Israel's air force chief.

In Jordan, Turkey, Beirut, Greece and Pakistan, protesters rallied against Israel.

In Paris, activists clashed with police near the Israeli Embassy. Many in the throng shouted, "Israel, assassin!" and "We are all Palestinians," while youths near the front sought to break through a police line. There were angry protests in London as well.

International leaders also spoke out harshly. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, "I am shocked by reports of killing of people in boats carrying supply to Gaza. I heard the ships were in international waters. That is very bad." He called for a "thorough investigation."

The European Union's foreign affairs chief, Catherine Ashton, called on Israel to launch an investigation into the incident. Spain, which holds the EU presidency, said Israel's storming of the flotilla was "unacceptable."

Netanyahu spoke by telephone with Obama, and the two leaders agreed to reschedule their meeting at the first opportunity. In a statement, the White House was notably cautious and understated.

"The president expressed deep regret at the loss of life in today's incident, and concern for the wounded, many of whom are being treated in Israeli hospitals," the statement read. "The president also expressed the importance of learning all the facts and circumstances around this morning's tragic events as soon as possible."

Amid the international criticism and protests, Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Ayalon all strongly reaffirmed the policy of intercepting the flotilla and firmly backed the conduct of the IDF itself.

"I fully support the IDF action," said Netanyahu. He explained to reporters after a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper that Israel needed to check the cargo that the flotilla was bringing to Gaza, to ensure it contained no weapons. This had been done successfully with five ships, but the sixth had not cooperated, said Netanyahu.

People on board that ship beat, clubbed and stabbed soldiers, and there was a report of gunfire, he said.

Both Lieberman and Ayalon disputed claims that Israel had broken international law when it boarded the vessel.

"Israel is a sovereign state and cannot accept any challenge to its sovereignty," said Lieberman. "This is not the first time Israel has stopped ships in international waters. When a ship refuses to accede to warnings and obey instructions, we have the right to board it [under] international law."

Ayalon, who said he planned to hold discussions on Tuesday with key North American Jewish leaders and organizations, said the flotilla "was an armada of hate and violence," and added, "It was a premeditated and outrageous provocation."

The flotilla's organizers had ties to global jihad, al-Qaida and Hamas, said Ayalon....

JERUSALEM -- Israeli naval commandos stormed a flotilla of ships carrying aid and hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists to the blockaded Gaza Strip on Monday, killing nine passengers in a botched raid that provoked international outrage and a diplomatic crisis.

Dozens of activists and six Israeli soldiers were wounded in the bloody predawn confrontation in international waters. The violent takeover dealt yet another blow to Israel's international image, already tarnished by war crimes accusations in Gaza and its 3-year-old blockade of the impoverished Palestinian territory.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu canceled a much-anticipated meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington on Tuesday in a sign of just how gravely Israel viewed the international uproar. In Canada, Netanyahu announced he was rushing home.

Israel said it opened fire after its commandos were attacked by knives, clubs and live fire from two pistols wrested from soldiers after they rappelled from a helicopter to board one of the vessels. Late Monday, it released a grainy black-and-white video that it said supported its version of events.

Reaction was swift and harsh, with a massive protest in Turkey, Israel's longtime Muslim ally, which unofficially supported the mission. Ankara announced it would recall its ambassador and call off military exercises with the Jewish state.

The U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting later Monday to hear a briefing on the incident, said Lebanon's Deputy Ambassador Caroline Ziade, whose country holds the council presidency. The Arab League called for a meeting to discuss the issue Tuesday in Cairo....

Bravo. Jihad Flotilla Update: "Mideast: Flotilla; Barak, No Humanitarian Crisis In Gaza," from ANSAmed, May 31 (thanks to Insubria):

(ANSAmed) - JERUSALEM, MAY 31 - There was no humanitarian crisis and nobody is dying with hunger in the Gaza Strip, where the real problem is the fact that control of the territory is in the hands of a terrorist organisation (Hamas), said Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak today. He made his remarks in a press conference, hastily organised after the high number of victims that fell when a flotilla of pro-Palestinian activists was boarded by the Israeli navy off the coast of Gaza. The reason for the isolation of Gaza, he continued, is to keep weapons and terrorists from entering this area. Israel, Barak added, is determined to defend its sovereignty. (ANSAmed).

Jerusalem ---- May 31, 2010 .... The Israel Navy this morning blocked the Hamas backed "Gaza Freedom Flotilla", a group of ships carrying up to 800 people from entering the Gaza Strip.

Israel was well aware that this was not a humanitarian love boat trek but rather an exercise in Islamic digital PR.

The organizers of the Palestine Flotilla to Gaza consisted of some of the worst global terror groups including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda and their fund raisers the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation.

What made this Palestine PR stunt or electronic Jihad exercise even more barbaric was the blatant use of volunteers on the ship who had good and true humanitarian intentions.

Some of these humanitarian volunteers were unaware that they were being used by the terror group Hamas as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation used both diplomats and volunteers from the UK, the US, Sweden, France, Germany and other countries as human shields as Hamas attacked a peaceful IDF boarding force with guns, knives and clubs.

Just before sunrise the IDF Navy intercepted six ships that were attempting to break the maritime closure of the Gaza Strip. Israel and the Israel Navy provided numerous warnings issued prior to the incident. The Israel Navy requested that the Hamas backed ships to redirect themselves towards Ashdod where they would be able to unload their aid supplies which would then be transferred to Gaza after undergoing security inspections.

Israel provides tons of food, water, medical supplies and fuel to Gaza on a daily basis. Israeli officials repeated that if this was a true humanitarian event, not a PR exercise, Hamas would have used the existing channels - the UN, the EU and Israel to transfer whatever cargo they had.

During the boarding of the Gaza flotilla ships, protesters onboard demonstrated that this was not a non violent event as they attacked IDF Naval personnel with live fire and light weaponry including knives and clubs.

"The Palestinian Gaza demonstrators had clearly prepared their weapons in advance for this specific purpose," the IDF told the Israel News Agency....

Read it all.

Armed Navy ships escorted boats from the Gaza protest flotilla to Ashdod on Monday afternoon, hours after IDF soldiers and activists clashed in a fatal raid.

International activists aboard the ships opened fire on IDF soldiers who boarded the ships to prevent them from breaking the Israeli-imposed sea blockade, the IDF said Monday.

According to the IDF, the international activists "prepared a lynch" for the soldiers who boarded the ships at about 2 a.m. Monday morning after the soldiers called on them to stop, or follow them to the Ashdod Port several hours earlier.

According to IDF reports, at least 15 activists were killed during the ensuing clashes and dozens were wounded. Some of the wounded were evacuated to Israeli hospitals by Air Force helicopters.

Five Navy commandos were also wounded, some of them from gunfire. At least two soldiers were seriously wounded.

In international reactions, Turkey, Sweden and Greece summonsed their Israeli ambassadors for discussions on the violence.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas also responded to the clashes, which he called a "slaughter," according to an AFP report.

Upon boarding the ships, the soldiers encountered fierce resistance from the passengers who were armed with knives, bats and metal pipes. The soldiers used non-lethal measures to disperse the crowd. The activists, according to an IDF report, succeeded in stealing two handguns from soldiers and opened fire, leading to an escalation in violence.

Al Jazeera on Monday broadcasted footage from the Gaza flotilla's lead vessel, the Mavi Marmara, showing Israeli Navy commandos boarding the ship. Helicopters could also be seen flying overhead.

"It was like a well-planned lynch," one IDF officer said. "These people were anything but peace activists."...

In any future agreement with the Palestinians, Israel has a critical need for defensible borders. Watch this new video, produced by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, that outlines the threats to Israel from terrorist rockets, ballistic missiles, and conventional ground and air threats from the east: