For an index to all "allegation" articles, see entry dated May 5, 2002

CitCUN is being discontinued - long live IsraPundit

Ottawa, Sept 4, 2002

IsraPundit, the new site of Bloggers In Support of Israel (BISI), has been so successful that it was deemed preferable to “amalgamate” CitCUN into IsraPundit, rather than continue to maintain it separately.

All the new articles that would have been posted here, will be posted, therefore, on IsraPundit. The content of CitCUN will be retained on the CitCUN site, for the time being.

You are invited to visit Israpundit.

Touring the Kingdom of 15/19

Ottawa, Sept 3, 2002


The daily, Ottawa Citizen is probably read by very few of this site's readers (which is OK - I don't read the Akron, Ohio, Beacon Journal either). On Sunday, August 25, the Ottawa Citizen ran an article about Saudi Arabia, that extended over three pages of the broadsheet. Written by Robert Sibley, an editorial writer, the article was based on a tour to Saudi Arabia, in which the author travelled with other journalists on an "Islam Study Tour".

The tour seemed to have been joyous from the outset:

As our Lufthansa flight approached Riyadh, the flight attendants advised us not to take copies of the Bible with us and to make sure any non-Islamic religious symbols - crucifixes, the Star of David, for example - were out of sight. This ban on non-Islamic worship also means that no churches, synagogues or Hindu or Buddhist temples can be built.

Here is a vignette from Mr Sibley's sightseeing in Riyadh:

The plaza is also known as "Chop-chop Square." It is here that the kingdom's murderers, rapists, drug smugglers, sorcerers and, sometimes, treasonous rebels are beheaded. According to Human Rights Watch, 121 Saudi citizens and non-western foreigners were beheaded in 2000, and 81 in 2000. The count is 67 so far this year.

Apart from this kind of sightseeing, the journalists' tour also included meeting high Saudi officials. In one such meeting, dealing with 9/11 and Arab hostility towards the US,

[i]t was even suggested that the Americans had only themselves to blame for supporting Israel and the Jews. "The Jewish lobby controls the United States," said Khedir al-Qurashi, the vice-minister for education. "They control your economy. They control your media." Similarly, Fouad ai-Farsay, the Minister of Information, when asked why the Saudi media knowingly publicized false reports that the Israeli Mossad was behind the Sept. 11 attacks and that 4,000 Jews had been warned to stay away from the World Trade Center, said: "We don't defend our enemies." In other words, I thought, you're willing to print lies if it serves your purpose. [Bold type inserted by me.]

The element of "lying", to which Mr Sibley alluded, reminded me of a passage in Philip Roth's Operation Shylock:

One's interest allows anything. Very, very basic. Comes from the desert. That blade of grass is mine and my animal is going to get it or die. It's my animal or your animal. That's where interest begins and it justifies all duplicity. There is in Islam this idea of taqiya Generally called in English 'dissimulation.' It's especially strong in Shi'ite Islam but it's all over Islamic culture. Doctrinally speaking, dissimulation is part of Islamic culture, and the permission to dissimulate is widespread. The culture doesn't expect that you'll speak in a way that endangers you and certainly not that you'll be candid and sincere. You would be considered foolish to do that. People say one thing, adopt a public position, and are then quite different on the inside and privately act in a totally different way. They have an expression for this: 'the shifting sands'--ramal mutaharrika An example. For all their bravado about opposing Zionism, throughout the Mandate they sold land to the Jews. Not just their run-of-the-mill opportunists but also their big leadership. But they have a wonderful proverb to justify this as well. Ad-daroori lih achkaam. 'Necessity has its own rules.' Dissimulation, two-facedness, secretiveness--all highly regarded values ...

[Cited from p. 145 of:

Roth, P. Operation Shylock. NY: Simon and Schuster, 1993.]

Dining with an American businessman, Mr Sibley was introduced to the realities of the Saudi educational system:

"Four out of the country's eight universities teach only Islamic studies," the businessman said. "So the Saudi education system is producing thousands of graduates who think and act on the basis of religious training. Not only can't they work, they don't want to work" The Saudi monarchy "allowed the education system to be hijacked by the religious fundamentalists. That was their big mistake. Instead of getting people who could run petrochemical plants, you got a bunch of jihadists."

The result:

Already, about 50,000 students who leave school each year are unable to find a job. Unemployment among the youngest job seekers is as high as
30 per cent. "The government is certainly worried," said the businessman. "How do you keep control when you have a huge population of young men with no jobs, no prospects and no place to go except to the mosque, where the mullahs fill their heads with anger for America?"

And this is the country to which George Bush pledged eternal friendship?



Contributed by Joseph Alexander Norland, dt804[at]yahoo[dot]ca

The Gathering Storm

Ottawa, Sept 2, 2002

One of the most spectacular successes of the Arab propaganda machine is the fact that it has succeeded in seducing even the most savvy to believe that a second Palestinain-Arab state in Judea, Samaria and and Gaza is inevitable.

You see this belief expressed everywhere. On Wednesday, August 28, 2002, my PBS station (WNPI) aired David Shipler’s film, “Arab and Jew: Return to the Promised Land”. One Israeli Jew, an immigrant from the US no less, stated quite explicitly that we all know the end game and we even know the approximate borders of the two states to be, so why go on shedding blood?

Another example: In his recent book on Israel (dated May, 2002), journalist Anton La Guardia states,

Over the decades of struggle, the Palestinians have fought, rioted, hijacked and bombed their way back into western conscience... [T]here is also realization that Palestinians need a country of their own. That country is not Lebanon or Jordan, but a piece of historic Palestine.

[Cited from p. 9 of:
La Guradia, Anton. War Without End. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, May, 2002.]

This success of the Arab propaganda machine even found its way into the White House, with George Bush being the first US president to openly and explicitly endorse the creation of a second Palestinian-Arab state in Judea, Samaria and and Gaza. And today’s news brings another sign of the gathering storm, as the EU-niks go into overdrive in their attempts to repeat the folly of Munich, September 1938, this time at Israel’s expense. Here is the bad news as presented on September 1, 2002, by AFP, under the headline, EU envoy to head to Mideast with new peace "road map"

A senior EU envoy heads to the Middle East on Monday for a three-day trip to present a new peace "road map" hoping to take advantage of a relative lull in violence, diplomats said.

Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, secured support for the plan at a weekend meeting of EU foreign ministers in Denmark...

The three-page EU document is based on ideas including [sic!] from the Americans but also specifically from France, Germany and Saudi Arabia, officials say.

According to a copy of the plan seen by AFP, the first stage of the EU plan would involve negotiations later this year, leading before the Palestinian elections next January to a security agreement allowing the withdrawal of Israeli forces from re-occupied Palestinian areas.

The second stage of the process "starts after the Palestinian election in January 2003 and ends with the conclusion of an agreement on the creation of a Palestinian state with provisional borders by August 2003."

The third phase of the plan, after August 2003, would involve a final phase of negotiations aimed at the formal creation of a full Palestinian state "with limited arms" by 2005, according to the Danish presidency document.

For the sake of Western democracies, if not for the sake of Israel, this plot must be defeated, and public opinion in North America must be marshalled against it.

For a “catalogue” of 23 reasons to oppose the creation of a second Palestinian-Arab state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, see CitCUN, article dated 29 July, 2002.


Contributed by Joseph Alexander Norland, dt804[at]yahoo[dot]ca.



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Calling all pro-Israel bloggers

Ottawa, Sept 1, 2002

CitCUN has been on break during the month of August and is now back in full vigour, and with a few changes.

First, the site will now extend its pro-Israel advocacy beyond the topic of the UN.

Second, the site will now be closely affiliated with IsraPundit, the new pro-Israel advocacy site which is the vehicle of the newly-formed Bloggers In Support of Israel, or BISI. This affiliation will enable the site to link to articles posted on members’ sites, as well as to reproduce such articles.

The objectives of BISI and its site (IsraPundit) are detailed in the Introductory article posted on that site:

The principal objective of IsraPundit is Pro-Israel advocacy.

The need for pro-Israel advocacy stems from the realization that the Arab propaganda machine has monopolized the discourse in terms of topics (you never hear about occupied Tibet, but the “occupied” Palestinians are ubiquitously front and center), as well as in the terminology used (“occupied Arab lands”, but never “disputed lands”, as Israelis see it). Above all, the Arab propaganda machine has succeeded in influencing public opinion to take for granted the inevitability of creating a second Palestinian-Arab state (the first one being Jordan).

IsraPundit may not succeed in reversing the damage that has already been done, but is sure will try.

To help reverse the tide, a group of pro-Israel bloggers has banded to join forces; our Group name is “Bloggers In Support of Israel - BISI”, and IsraPundit is the conduit for expressing our views. IsraPundit will carry articles we post in our individual blogs as well as articles written specifically for IsraPundit.

IsraPundit also invites anyone who wishes to have an article posted to submit it to the e-mail address, dt804@yahoo.ca. This invitation is particularly open to contributors who are not bloggers and/or who are pro-Israel bloggers but not members of our Group, BISI.

In addition to posting on IsraPundit, BISI will also engage in such activities as:

• Compilation of a link list (bloggers, data sources, other relevant sites)
  
• Cross-posting among bloggers
  
• Division of labour with regard to reviewing selected sites
  
• Exploring the possibility of co-operation with such organizations as ADL and AIPAC, which engage in pro-Israel advocacy
  
• Support for ongoing petitions and similar pro-Israel activities
  
• Letter-writing to corporations, universities and foreign embassies to protest their anti-Israel policies/actions
  
• Discussion concerning other measures BISI can take in support of Israel
  
• Automatic posting in a designated site, of the titles or summaries of articles posted by BISI members.

If you are a pro-Israel blogger but not yet a BISI member, consider the advantages of joining, bearing in mind that joining entails no obligations to speak of.

The advantages of joining include: In instances when a blogger is short on time and unable to write articles, members’ sites and IsraPundit offer a daily reservoir of material that can be copied freely. If time is too short even to copy, or during vacation/exam/heavy workload times, members could (by bilateral agreement) cross-post to ensure that sites are not bereft of articles for any length of time. If one reviews the foregoing list of tasks that BISI intends to undertake, then other advantages become apparent, such as the division of labour in reviewing articles and other bloggers’ sites.

If you are a pro-Israel blogger, I urge you to consider joining.

May Israel Flourish.


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Selected web links concerning the UN, with special reference to Israel-UN relations

The “allegation” series is taking a break until September 1, 2002. For the benefit of readers who may be interested in studying the UN, especially in connection with its obsession with Israel, I am listing below the sources I have found most useful.

A google search under “United Nations and country x” will provide enough links to keep one busy for a very long time. With web searches, the question is usually how to reduce the list of hits to a manageable, useful number, rather than how to find hits. The object of this piece is to help address this question. I intend to update this article periodically, and I welcome readers’ comments and addenda; please e-mail me: dt804@yahoo.ca. Links cited were verified as of July 18, 2002.

1. In addition to CitCUN, several other sites have been tracking the UN's operations and conduct concerning Israel. Among these sites, the one maintained by the Christian Action for Israel is noteworthy. The site is quite extensive in its coverage of the UN-Israel problem, and includes sub-sections entitled “articles”, “UN in the news”, “opinion”, “history”, and “UN resolutions”. Additionally, the home page of the site may be used as a source for other Israel-related topics, such as the “Palestinian state” and the holocaust.


2. Links to a good selection of a dozen articles about the UN and Israel (including articles by Mark Steyn, David Tell and Anne Bayefski) may be found at http://medlem.spray.se/watch/themes_20.htm. This web page may indeed be considered as a “meta-link”.

A second site that can serve as a “meta-link” of this kind is MidEastTruth.


3. An important link is http://news.google.com. By entering a search criterion such as “United Nations and “Israel”, one can flag scores of current news items every single day.


4. Primary-source material can be found at the various sites of the UN and its affiliates. Starting with the home page one can find, for example, official UN current news or Security Council resolutions.

However, the UN official site provides General Assembly documentation only as of 1977. For earlier material, as well as for an alternative source to the official UN site in general, one may use the Yale Law School project known as “Avalon”. For example, the web pages at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/mideast.htm provide a “Middle East Documentary Record” for the period 1916 - 2001, organized by decade.

Collections of documents on the UN and Israel are also available at the Jewish Virtual Library and at the official Israeli site .


5. Recommended sites that are devoted to a critique of the UN are UN Watch , New American, Get us out , American Policy Center, Sovereignty International, and United Nothing. Like most sites, these web pages provide links to further primary-source material, including the UN Charter.


6. Among the many articles on Israel-UN relations, I find the following to be particularly important:

6a. A seminal article by Arnold Beichman, entitled “UN Lynching Prelude” is available at Christian Action for Israel;

6b. A comprehensive article, giving a historical review, is posted by the Canada-Israel Committee

6c. Another comprehensive article, entitled “What is the evidence that the United Nations is biased against Israel?”, is posted at the Palestine Facts site. The home page of this site provides many other useful links and articles.

6d. An article by S McCrimmon , entitled, “How the U.N. betrays Israel” is of interest not only for its contents, but also for the unadorned, appealing style, which characterized many of the WorldNetDaily articles.

Also at WorldNetDaily is an article dated July 13, 2002 and entitled “Losing patience with the U.N.”, by Henry Lamb, Chairman of Sovereignty International.


Generally, articles on the UN and Israel are scattered in numerous newspapers, magazines and web sites. Below is a handful of the sites I find most useful (listed alphabetically), each having an extensive collection of relevant material that can be accessed using the site’s “search” option:

ADL, http://www.adl.org/;
AISH, http://www.aish.com/;
EretzIsrael, http://www.eretzyisroel.org/;
Government of Israel, http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/home.asp;
Israel Insider, http://web.israelinsider.com/bin/en.jsp?enPage=HomePage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=Zone&;
MiddleEastForum, http://www.meforum.org/;
Peace Encyclopaedia, http://www.yahoodi.com/peace/index.html;
Townhall, http://www.townhall.com/.

Several articles related to the UN and Israel have been published by Mark Steyn, Anne Bayefski, Joseph Farah and David Tell. A Google search using these names and the term “United Nations and Israel” yields a rich crop of articles in addition to those specified above.

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Arguments for opposing the creation of a second Palestinian-Arab state

The UN is responsible for legitimizing and spreading the Arab propaganda line about "Israeli occupation of Arab land", "illegal Jewish settlements", and "the Palestinians' right to self-determination". The logical conclusion from this line is support for a second Palestinian-Arab state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, in addition to the Palestinian-Arab state that already exists in Jordan. The article below represents a sumary of a "catalogue" of 23 arguments for opposing the creation of the second Palestinian-Arab state. The detailed text, elaborating on each of the 23 points below, may be found at the IsraPundit site.

Updated: 6 March, 2003

Why one should oppose a second Palestinian-Arab state in
Judea, Samaria and Gaza

Introduction and Summary

The object of this 23-article series is to provide a resource that is not only reliable and well-documented but also one for which documents are easily accessible, preferably from the web. The term "second Palestinian-Arab state" is used in order to underscore that one Palestinian-Arab state already exists: Jordan, which is located in the part of eastern Palestine that was originally to have been part of the Jewish National Home.

Text of 23 statements, each corresponding to a separate article

1. Palestine belongs to the Jews as their ancestral land, a land inhabited by Jews continuously for thousands of years. The Jewish connection to Palestine was recognized by the “International Community” in the form of the League of Nations’ mandate over Palestine.

2. With Britain accepting the mandate over Palestine, subject to the conditions of the League of Nations, Britain committed herself to establishing the Jewish National Home in Palestine by encouraging Jewish immigration and settlement.

3. The mandatory power, Britain, betrayed her mandate by slicing off the majority of the territory allotted to the Jews by the League of Nations; the Jewish people should not now be required to relinquish sovereignty over more territory.

4. The Jews have established their right to the land, inter alia, by developing a desolate, barren, virtually abandoned territory into a flourishing country.

5. The notion of the Palestinian Arabs as a nation is a recent invention. Palestine's Arabs are indistinguishable from the Arabs in neighbouring countries, especially the Arabs in Jordan, which is in effect a Palestinian-Arab state. Creating a second Palestinian-Arab state, which would be the 22nd Arab state, is unjustified.

6. "Palestine" is a geographic term, assigned to a region, and historically, has never referred to an Arab state. This underscores that a "Palestinian nation" does not exist except as an anti-Israel propaganda card. Hence, creating another sovereign Arab state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza is unjustified for an invented nation.

7. Israel is in possession of Judea, Samaria and Gaza (Yesha) as a consequence of the 1967 defensive war that Israel was forced into. The areas of Judea/Samaria and Gaza were occupied from 1948 to 1967 by Jordan and Egypt, respectively, but no calls for "Palestinian sovereignty" were heard during that period. Since Jordan and Egypt have renounced their claims to these territories, Israel has the strongest claim to Yesha.

8. The Palestinian Arabs had at least three opportunities to establish their own sovereign state by peaceful means: the Peel commission plan of 1937 which the Arabs rejected; the UN partition plan of 1948, to which the Arabs reacted by engaging in war; and the Barak/Clinton offer of July 2000/January 2001, to which the Palestinian Arabs reacted by igniting Intifada II. (The Oslo Accords of 1993, stipulated self government, i.e., autonomy, and not sovereignty.) By their actions, the Palestinian Arabs have forfeited any right they might have had to a sovereign state in Palestine.

9. The growth of the Arab population in Palestine was, in great measure, a consequence of Arab immigration, attracted to Palestine from the surrounding Arab lands because of the development initiated by the Jews. The British authorities turned a blind eye to this migration, while placing severe restrictions on Jewish immigration into Palestine.

10. Palestinian-Arab spokesmen leave no doubt about their intention to destroy, annihilate and eliminate Israel; therefore, creation of a second Palestinian Arab state will not solve the Israeli/Arab conflict.

11. Creation of a second Palestinian Arab state and will not pacify the region. Destabilizing internecine wars among the region's countries, such as the Iran/Iraq or the Iraq/Kuwait wars, are unrelated to the Israeli/Arab conflict or to the absence of a second Palestinian-Arab state.

12. Creation of a second Palestinian-Arab state will obviate Israel's ability to defend herself in time of war. In fact, weakening Israel by creating the second Palestinian Arab state may precipitate another war against Israel.

13. Given the record of the Palestinian Arabs (their leadership as well as the “street”) regarding Iraq and Iran, one should deem a second Palestinian Arab state as a potential threat to the entire world, and particularly to Western democracies, since such a state could forge alliances with the likes of Saddam Hussein and could station WMD on its soil.

14. Recalling the PLO’s connections with international terrorism, one may well suspect that in the future, the West might be in danger of coming under attack by Bin Laden-like terrorists, trained in a sovereign Palestinian Arab state.

15. The scarcity of water in the region renders it imperative that Israel retain control over the this resource in Western Palestine as a whole (Israel and Yesha). Based on past experience, one has reason to suspect that should a sovereign Palestinian-Arab state control this resource, such a state would be a permanent threat to Israel.

16. The Palestinian Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza (“Yesha”) lack the elements that permit the development of an economically viable sovereign state.

17. The record of the PLO and the PA suggests that they continually deceive and breach agreements. Even if a second Palestinian Arab state were created under restrictive terms, the record implies that the terms would not be adhered to.

18. Islamist hatred towards the West will not diminish with the creation of a second Palestinian-Arab state, since this hatred has far deeper roots; nor will the terrorism that this hatred nurtures cease.

19. Judea, Samaria and Gaza (“Yesha”) are disputed territories, not “occupied Arab lands”, and the settlements are not “illegal”. Even if a sovereign Palestinian-Arab state were to be created, it is incomprehensible that Jews be allowed to live in any European or North American city, but not in Yesha.

20. An undivided Jerusalem rightfully belongs to Israel. Jerusalem is the heart of the Jewish state but of secondary importance to the Palestinian Arabs, except as a propaganda tool.

21. The problem of the Palestinian-Arab refugees was created by the Arabs themselves. The Arabs have also prevented the refugee problem from being solved, and a second Palestinian-Arab state will not alter the situation. A solution based on the right of return is patently impossible.

22. Creating a second Palestinian Arab state will reward terrorism, and in this respect, is a blow to all Western democracies. The very talk about a second Palestinian Arab state encourages terrorism, giving terrorists hope that if they persist, they will be vindicated ultimately. The proposed state reeks of appeasement, reminiscent of Munich, 1938.

23. An alternative to a sovereign Palestinian Arab state is autonomy within a sovereign Israel for the Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. This will answer Israel's vital security requirements and safeguard the civil and religious rights of the Arabs.
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Even a broken clock can show the right time occasionally

Some time ago, UNIFIL, the UN presence in Lebanon, made it to the headlines because it stood by and filmed as Israeli soldiers were being abducted (October 7, 2000), and later murdered. It took a major effort to get the UN to even admit that the film existed, as reported in a CitCUN article dated 21 May 2002.

UNIFIL has also made it to the news in connection with the missiles launched against Israel from Lebanon by Hizbullah and the fact that UNIFIL troops have been harassed by Hizbullah.

In a rare flash of decency, the UN Security Council released a report pointing the finger at the Hizbullah terrorists. Following is the story as reported by the Daily Star, under the heading, "UN: Stop blocking peacekeepers' mission - Security Council sends out warning to 'armed elements' ":

The United Nations Security Council, which is due to vote on extending UNIFIL's mandate next week, says that the peacekeeping force must be able to operate without hindrance in its area of operations.

"Members of the council insisted that all violations of the cease-fire should stop - there have been too many in recent weeks - (and) that UNIFIL should be allowed to do its job on the ground without impediment", said Jeremy Greenstock, the president of the Security Council on Monday after the council's members met to discuss UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's report on renewing UNIFIL's mandate.

In his report, which was released last week, Annan said he remained concerned at the restrictions placed on UNIFIL by 'armed elements' , a reference to Hizbullah.

"The government of Lebanon should implement its obligation to ensure full freedom of movement of UNIFIL throughout its area of operation," Annan wrote.

Four UN observers were badly beaten by Hizbullah fighters in April during a series of clashes between the resistance and Israeli forces in the Shebaa Farms. Daily harassment has continued almost uninterrupted since Israel's withdrawal from the South.

The Security Council appears to be stressing the harassment as an example of the government's failure to assume control over the border area to the satisfaction of the UN.

Annan's report contained his sternest criticism yet of the lack of attention paid by the government to the well-being of the South.

(The official UN news release on this issue may be found at the official UN site.)

Anyone who thought that Syria would be impressed by the UN "toughness" was disillusioned the following day. The Lebanese Speaker, Nabih Berri, responded, according to the Daily Star, as follows:

"I say to all the Lebanese, especially after the recent report by UN Secretary-General (Kofi Annan), that the state does not have problems in the border districts," Berri told the audience that filled UNESCO Palace on Tuesday during the Amal Movement's 10th General Conference.

The speaker said allegations that the area suffered from instability were "a distortion of the image of national coexistence, threats against freedom of affiliation and freedom of expression, and threats (of violating) human rights."

"Who is saying that the Lebanese Army is not present there? The Lebanese Army is present in the ... border area," he said, adding that this was "in accordance with the vision that the military institution's leadership deems necessary," and that it conformed with the "ways and capabilities within reach, if Israel returns to (commit) aggression.

"Therefore, moving forward or backward is an issue related to what the army sees as necessary, and it is not in conformity with what Israel sees or wants," Berri said.

The UN may be right once in a while, but even then it takes two to tango.


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