THE VIEW FROM JINSA

National borders ignored by terrorists

By Shoshana Bryen

WASHINGTON, D.C.—One of the clearest asymmetries in the war against terrorists and the states that harbor and support them is that Western countries believe borders are sacrosanct, while terrorists and their sponsors do not. Syria and Iran supply Hezbollah across the Lebanon border. The PKK crosses from Iraq into Turkey. Hamas shoots rockets at Israel and smuggles arms from Egypt. Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia have all permitted irregular forces to cross from their countries into Iraq. Taliban and al Qaeda cross into Afghanistan from Pakistan. Efforts at defense against these incursions are internationally suspect and retaliation generally condemned, at least by the UN.

South of our border, terrorist organizations and state sponsors combine in places with weak governments. A variety of Islamist organizations, including Hamas and Hezbollah, are active the in the uncontrolled area between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay known as the Tri-Border Area. Venezuela has given identity documents that can be used for Venezuelan passports and even American visas to people from Syria, Pakistan, Egypt and Lebanon. Saudi Arabia finances the construction of mosques and Islamic centers in several countries. Free trade zones make travel between countries easy.

Not all of the mess is related to Middle Eastern activities. Democratic Colombia has been plagued for years by FARC, a vicious drug cartel dealing in kidnapping and massacres of civilian opponents. Designated a terrorist organization by the United States and Europe, FARC had based one of its top commanders in neighboring Ecuador.

Colombia struck back this weekend - killing a top FARC commander and about 20 of his operatives in a raid on a base about a mile inside Ecuador. No Colombian forces remained in Ecuador after the raid. The Washington Post reported:

Senior Colombian officials say a laptop recovered at the FARC camp contained evidence that Mr. Chávez had recently given the group $300 million and had financial links with the terrorists dating to his own failed coup against a previous Venezuelan government in 1992. Colombia said Mr. Correa's government (Ecuador) had been negotiating with Mr. Reyes (the FARC commander) about replacing Ecuadorian military officers who might object to his use of the country as a base. In other words, both Mr. Correa and Mr. Chávez were backing an armed movement with an established record of terrorism and drug trafficking against the democratically elected government of their neighbor.

That makes Venezuela and Ecuador state sponsors of terrorism in our book, providing the attributes of statehood to non-state actors. They should be no more immune from retaliation than Iran, Syria, Pakistan or the Palestinian Authority should be.

Unfortunately, The Organization of American States yesterday denounced Colombia's defense against the FARC, calling the raid, "a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ecuador and of principles of international law." The OAS has learned nothing from the Middle East's experience with transnational terrorism. It is Ecuador that permitted the violation of Colombia's sovereignty, and Ecuador that must either fix the problem or expect the legitimate response of a country that declines to be the victim.

Bryen is special projects director of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)

THE HISTORY MAN

Will Jewish woes in UK spread to US?

By Lloyd Levy

LONDON—Is the problem facing UK Jewry going to happen to Jews in the U.S. in the future ?

There appears to be a belief in USA, that the UK education system is refusing to teach the Holocaust, due to Muslim pressure. There may be some truth in this, but it is almost certainly not official government policy- more a question of some local education board initiatives. The current Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and his predecessor Tony Blair, are both extremely pro-Jewish.

Nevertheless, in my personal opinion, the average British Jew certainly does feel under serious threat, and regards the future with some apprehension. I have never known a situation where so many Jews are buying properties in Israel, as a future escape route.  South Netanya is a firm favourite, although mine is in the Negev (you can't escape much further than that !!).

I think we all fear the Islamisation of Europe, and have great anxiety for the future of our children.  There are nowadays only approx 250,000 Jews in UK, with numbers having fallen by half in the last 60 years or so, due to low birth rate and intermarriage. Jewish communities of significant size only exist in maybe four cities. Compare this to the Muslim population, which is at least 2 million, and even that is probably an underestimate, because the British Government has had no effective control over immigration. So there are eight times more Muslims than Jews in UK, and one doesn’t have to be a genius to realise who many politicians pander to, in order to get votes.

Combined with this, is a virulent anti-Israel bias in most of the national newspapers, and even more so the BBC (although I feel they are recently trying to be slightly more “balanced”.)

There is an ongoing battle with elements of the Trade Union movement and others on the“left”, to prevent them trying to impose a boycott of Israeli goods. Sadly, many of these anti-Israel movements are led by “Jews.”

Have no doubt about it,  these matters do have the effect of undermining Jewish self confidence. Its not a question of physical attacks on Jews, or anything as overt as that, but more of being intimidated and cowered.  We do not have the robust Communal leadership in UK that there is in the USA, so we feel very vulnerable to events outside our control.

Is it perhaps not beyond the realm of possibility that in future years we will witness a similar situation developing in USA?. Will future U.S. governments and politicians be as pro-Israel as they have been in the past? And will Jewish opposition to any anti-Israel policies then put American Jewry in conflict with the majority population ? Can American Jews really be sure they can avoid in future years what we are facing now ?

Comments to the editor on this issue are welcome at sdheritage@cox.net

Levy is a British businessman who divides his time between London and Eilat

Hillary in 2008, Barack in 2016

By J. Zel Lurie

DELRAY BEACH, Florida—A couple of weeks ago I had lunch with publisher emitus Bruce Warshal at the local Holiday Inn.

Bruce mentioned my column a month ago in which I brashly said that Hillary Clinton would “edge out” Barak Hussein Obama. She would be our first woman president.

My forecast was quickly followed by a series of Obama victories in one small state after another. The Clinton victories in New York, Massachusetts, California and other large states were forgotten. To Obama supporters like Rabbi Warshal, the Obama momentum would lead to an inevitable nomination and victory in the election.

“Are you going to write a mea culpa?” Bruce asked me.

“Let’s see how she does in Ohio and Texas” I hedged.

The results are in. She beat the pants off Obama in Ohio, In Texas she edged him out. She won Rhode Island by a wide margin and he did the same in Vermont. In Wyoming earlier this week, he won.

Her victory speech in Ohio overwhelmed me. We have had enough of promises, we need solutions, she proclaimed. We need to end the war in Iraq and win the war in Afghanistan.

“Yes we will,” shouted the crowd, a better slogan than Obama’s yes we can.

We need to see to it that every man, woman and child has medical care, she went on. She has not adopted the slogan “Medicare for all.” Not yet, anyway. It would end the hegemony of insurance companies, who are siphoning off an overhead that amounts to one-third of the billions spent on health care and much of it goes to employees whose job is to find ways to deny insurance coverage to patients.

John McCain, the Republican come-back kid,  sewed up his nomination last Tuesday. He devoted his victory speech to patriotic rhetoric. I have the feeling that he’s a good man in the wrong party.  I’m probably wrong.

Obama’s speech last Tuesday evening lacked Hillary’s fervor. Once again, as he has done numerous times on the campaign trail, he told the story of the boy from Kenya who aspired to be president of the United States. He talked of health care but he knows that his plan will not provide universal coverage.

I have a suggestion to both Hillary and Obama. In your campaign speeches, talk abut bringing peace to Israel and Palestine, which only the United States can do.

Get a hold of the book Negotiating Arab-Israel peace: American Leadership in the Middle East by Daniel C. Kurtzer and Scott B. Lazensky, which will be unveiled in a ceremony at the United States Institute for Peace in Washington.

This slim book is the product of an 18-month study by a group of  five professors under the auspices of the Peace Institute. It was led by Kurtzer, who is the former American Ambassador to both Egypt and Israel. Its main point is that, unlike George Bush, who spent eight years neglecting the matter, and Bill Clinton, who worked at it intensively only in the last few months of his reign, the next president must make peace in Jerusalem a priority in his/her inaugural address.

While Kurtzer has been advising Obama, Hillary is more apt to follow his advice in her campaign for nomination. She goes into detail and talks substance and solutions.

The book says that the next president must make clear that an Israeli-Palestinian settlement is of vital national interest. The United states is not doing favors.

The next president must develop a just and fair policy, get the agreement of the parties  and count on our envoys to see to it that the parties implement what they have agreed to. As we all know, the latter has been the chief failure of past agreements.

A special envoy might be needed, but the study found that with the president enunciating a fair and just policy a special envoy could be superfluous. “Better a policy without an envoy than an envoy without a policy,” says Kurtzer.

If a special presidential envoy is needed, Hillary could not do better than to call Princeton University for  Obama advisor Amb. Daniel Kurtzer.

Hillary is ready for the White House phone to ring at 3 a.m. with a crisis that needs an immediate decision. Obama will be ready in 2016 after another eight years as Senator or a post in the Clinton government, like Secretary of State.

Lurie is a freelance writer based in Delray Beach, Florida







THE JEWISH CITIZEN

PBS explores forgiveness; can the Jewish community ever forgive Germany?

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO— A teenage gang member shoots and kills a pizza deliveryman who refuses to give him a pizza for free.  If you are the parent of the delivery man, can you forgive the shooter? A gunman walks into a school and opens fire, killing five students.  If you were the parent of one of those students, could you forgive the assailant?

Terrorists fly airplanes into the World Trade Center, killing thousands of people trapped inside.   Can you forgive the terrorists? Members of your religion have been fighting members of the other religion for generations.  Can you forgive the others?  A nation engineers the systematic, mass murder of your people.  Can you, as a survivor, forgive that nation?

You may be surprised by the answers in the hour-long program The Power of Forgiveness directed by Martin Doblmeier and scheduled for broadcast over KPBS at 10:30 p.m., Sunday, March 30.   Its central premise is that forgiveness brings about healing, for both the forgiver and the forgiven.

Although the program presented these cases in a different order, one can look at this phenomenon at levels escalating from individual to small group to national groups.  We in San Diego are quite familiar with the story at an individual level as exemplified by the Tariq Khamisa Foundation, which was begun by Tariq’s father, Azim, after his son was murdered in 1995 by 14-year-old Tony Hicks. 

Azim, a Sufi Muslim, decided that there were “victims on both sides of the gun” and he reached out to Ples Felix, the grandfather of Tony.  They started making appearances around San Diego together, explaining the need for reconciliation.  “If he and I can come together, we all can do it,” says Azim.

Indeed, the friendship between Azim and Ples has become strong, and the forgiven Tony, remorseful in prison, knows that when he completes his sentence, there will be a job waiting for him at the Foundation to continue its work.  He has a chance to start over and to make a success of his life.

A segment of the program suggests that if Azim—or any other victim of violence—had decided instead to hold onto his anger, to become hell-bent on gaining revenge, that this would have resulted in adverse medical impacts: increased heart rate, blood pressure, sweat, tension.  So, in letting go of the anger, in forgiving Tony, he benefitted himself as well as Tony.   

The school shooting portrayed in the documentary occurred in 2006 in the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. Five girls at the school were killed, but though the parents grieved, they decided to communicate their forgiveness to the family of the gunman, who had killed himself.   

The Amish do not get angry with God, the documentary reported.  One of the first things Amish school children are taught to take to heart is a line in The Lord’s Prayer from Christian Scriptures: “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us…”

A large segment of the documentary deals with the families of those who had died in the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers.  Can anyone forgive the terrorists? It depends on how one defines “forgiveness.”  If it is seen as a final act that can be conferred only after justice has been meted out, then forgiveness is impossible while mastermind Osama bin Laden is still at large.  If, however, it is ridding one’s heart of anger, and trying to build bridges to others, then it may be possible.  The documentary follows three families of World Trade Center victims on a visit to Beirut to participate in the planting of a peace garden envisioning amity among the world’s religions.

Part of the process of forgiving others involves forgiving oneself—and that can be one of the most difficult obstacles to overcome.  The mother of one of the World Trade Center victims had fought with her son over his choice of marriage partner. Her remorse over not being able to reconcile with him before he died continues to fuel her anger.  Like other members of the victims’ families, she also was embittered that tons of debris from the World Trade Center, including whatever human remains were left, were carted to the Fresh Kill landfill in New Jersey.  For the families, it was as if their loved ones’ bodies were tossed into the garbage.

What was ongoing warfare between Protestant and Catholic in Northern Ireland is also the subject of forgiveness work.  Rather than trying to resolve this problem at the macro-level only, programs in schools help children deal with their anger at peers.  The students are taught that they can acknowledge their hurt and at the same time find some good quality within their oppressor or rival.   

Another portion of the documentary deals with Elie Wiesel as a spokesperson for the generation of the Shoah.  When he addressed the German Parliament in 2000 , he noted that up to that point, whereas Germany had paid reparations to the Jewish people, it never had asked for their forgiveness for the Holocaust.  Following the speech, President Johannes Rau of Germany went before Israel’s Knesset and did just that.  Many seats, however, were empty, as some MKs were unprepared to even hear Rau much less to forgive Germany.

Wiesel said that whereas he personally can forgive, neither he nor anyone else has the right to forgive the Nazis on behalf of all the Jewish people.