KNOW THEM BY THEIR ICONOLOGY

Here's another piercing insight by Jihad Watch's own Hugh Fitzgerald, this time a long cold stare into the "morality play" we are now experiencing with the incident of the 15 British sailors captured by Iran in what has been falsely claimed as Iranian waters.

The parading of enemies, a staple of cruel and totalitarian regimes, begins with examples of Enemies of the State (domestic version), and those Soviet show trials of the Old Bolsheviks such as Bukharin, accused of the crime of being "wreckers" - "wrecking" things built on the glorious path to Communism. The foremost prosecutor was the inimitable Andrey Vyshinsky, back in the 1930s, and along with being "wreckers" those Old Bolsheviks (old enough to have known Stalin when he was just one more young psychopath, not yet powerful enough to find a 6000-mile-wide outlet for his peculiar urges). For more see Alexander Weisberg, "The Accused" or read, still better, the actual Soviet transcripts of the trials (the paper can crumble in your hands, so watch out).

Baby versions of the Soviet trials were also arranged in the countries of Eastern Europe, once they were seized by the Red Army and its local collaborators. After the noble Tomas Masaryk (the son) was murdered, thrown out of a building's window by the NKVD in the Second (or for purists, Third) Defenestration of Prague, and the Communists came to power, there was scarcely time to hold one's breath before Rudolph Slansky, and others, mostly but not exclusively Jews, were removed from power, and charged with treason. Stalin, back in Russia, was just warming up to the pleasing idea of finishing off Hitler's unfinished symphony of mass murder of the Jews, and the idea of the Doctors' Plot, and what would naturally follow, was hatching in his wolf-like primitive brain. The Slansky Trials followed, very quick, very efficient, readings aloud by the accused of confessions prepared carefully by the NKVD, and a good time was had by all.

Then came the Parading of Enemies (foreign style). The Chinese Communists did a lot of this, and the North Koreans: the bestial Americans, whether soldiers or civilians, captured and paraded, derided and berated. But this was still in the days before television was for the masses, so the parading was mainly for the world press.

The Iranians, in their earlier androlepsy (strictly speaking, a word that applies only to the seizure of diplomatic personnel), the seizure of the American Embassy in Teheran, and the parading of the blindfolded diplomats (one of those whom the Americans hostages saw on several occasions—see the testimoony of Don Sharer and others—was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), to be taunted and jeered and jostled about, all for the delight of the hysterical Iranians, in the first flush of their Khomeini madness.

Now it is the turn not of the Great Satan (America) or the Little Satan (Israel) but the Old and Cleverest Satan (in the Iranian mythology), England. The letter from Turney, the abashed confession given by British male sailor was at this point willing to yield (there will no doubt be others)—all of this is of a piece with Stalin or for that matter with those Chinese professors forced to wear dunce caps, and have affixed to their chests their own "confessions" before being paraded in the streets and then killed (or sometimes merely condemned to a lesser fate) during the "Cultural Revolution."

Any country or regime that puts on such parades, just as any country that has giant photographs of its leaders, shows its own country to be unfit for human habitation, and should be accorded not automatic respect (for its display, as the Iranian government thinks, of its might) but automatic contempt. No other proof is needed. It has conducted its own show trial. It accuses itself. It confesses to its own crimes, which it does not recognize as crimes. And it condemns itself, as Iran is now condemning itself.

And it will be punished.

OF VIRGINS, RECALL THE TEN

The Parable of the Ten Virgins is a parable told by Jesus in the the gospel of Matthew (Matthew 25:1-13). In it, the five virgins who are prepared for the bridegroom's arrival are rewarded and the five who are not prepared are excluded. The parable has a clear apocalyptic theme: be prepared for the day of reckoning.

Despite all the warnings of the past forty years from a few voices from the wilderness such as Bat Ye'or, Oriana Fallaci and Robert Spencer, the cult of political correctness and its legions of leftist radicals conspiring to gut capitalism as just another fatted calf of the wicked West, modern history itself has a more foreboding tale to tell. During 1894-1923 the Ottoman Empire (Muslims) conducted a policy of Genocide of the Christian population living within its extensive territory. The Sultan, Abdul Hamid, first put forth an official governmental policy of genocide against the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire in 1894.

Systematic massacres took place in 1894-1896 when Abdul savagely killed 300,000 Armenians throughout the provinces. Massacres recurred, and in 1909 government troops killed, in the towns of Adana alone, over 20,000 Christian Armenians.
When WW1 broke out the The Ottoman Empire was ruled by the "Young Turk" dictatorship which allied itself with Germany. Turkish government decided to eliminate the whole of the Christian population of Greeks, Armenians, Syrians and Nestorians. The government slogan, "Turkey for the Turks", served to encourage Turkish Muslim civilians on a policy of ethnic cleansing.

The next step of the Armenian Genocide began on 24 April 1915, with the mass arrest, and ultimate murder, of religious, political and intellectual leaders in Constantinople and elsewhere in the empire.

Then, in every Armenian community, a carefully planned Genocide unfolded: Arrest of clergy and other prominent persons, disarmament of the population and Armenian soldiers serving in the Ottoman army, segregation and public execution of leaders and able-bodied men, and the deportation to the deserts of the remaining Armenian women, children and elderly. Renowned historian Arnold Toynbee wrote that "the crime was concerted very systematically for there is evidence of identical procedure from over fifty places."

The Genocide started from the border districts and seacoasts, and worked inland to the most remote hamlets. Over 1.5 million Armenian Christians, including over 4,000 bishops and priests, were killed in this step of the Genocide. The Greek Christians, particularly in the Black Sea area known as Pontus, who had been suffering from Turkish-Muslim persecutions and murders all the while, saw the Turks turn more fiercely on them as WW1 came to a close.

The Allied Powers, at a peace conference in Paris in 1919, rewarded Greece for her support by inviting Prime Minister Venizelos to occupy the city of Smyrna with its rich hinterlands, and they placed the province under Greek control. This action greatly angered the Turks. The Greek occupation was a peaceful one but drew immediate fire from Turkish forces in the outlying areas. When the Greek army farmed out to protect its people, a full-fledged war broke out between Greece and Turkey (the Greco-Turkish war).

The Treaty of Sevres, signed in 1920 to end WW1 and which provided for an independent Armenia, was never ratified. The treaty's terms changed not long after the ink dried as England, France and Italy each began secretly bargaining with Mustafa Kemel (Ataturk) in order to gain the right to exploit oil fields in the Mozul (now Iraq). Betrayed by the Allied Powers, the Greek military front, after 40 long months of war, collapsed and retreated as the Turks began again to occupy Asia Minor.

September 1922 signaled the end of the Greek and Armenian presence in the city of Smyrna. On 9 September 1922, the Turks entered Smyrna; and after systematically murdering the Armenians in their own homes, the forces of Ataturk turned on the Greeks whose numbers had swelled, with the addition of refugees who had fled their villages in Turkey's interior, to upwards of 400,000 men, women and children.

The conquering Turk- Muslims went from house to house, looting, pillaging, raping and murdering the population. Finally, when the wind had turned so that it was blowing toward the sea so that the small Turkish quarter at the rear of the city was not in danger, Turkish forces, led by their officers, poured kerosene on the buildings and homes of the Greek and Armenian sectors and set them afire. Thus, any remaining live inhabitants of the city were flushed out to be caught between a wall of fire and the sea. The pier of Smyrna became a scene of final desperation as the approaching flames forced many thousands to jump to their death or to be consumed by fire.

The native population of Asia Minor traces its Christian roots to the early days of Christianity. the Armenians, an ancient people, trace their origins back 2500 years. In 301 AD. the Armenian King Dftad declared Christianity as the kingdom's official religion, making Armenia the first Christian political state in the world. The migration of Greek tribes to Asia Minor began just before 2,000 BC and the Greeks built dozens of cities such as Smyrna, Phocaea, Pergamon, Ephesus and Byzantium (Constantinople).

The native inhabitants of Asia Minor, among the first to accept the message of Christianity, were later to be persecuted and uprooted from their lands because of that same faith. Turkish-Muslim tribes plagued the region. Later another tribe, the Oyuz Turks who embraced Islam and ultimately produced the Ottoman Turks, conquered Persia, the Caliphate of Baghdad, and then the whole area presently occupied by Syria, Iraq and Palestine.

Under the Ottoman Empire the Christians suffered a steady decline. Forced conversions to Islam, the abduction of children to serve in the fanatical Janissary corps, persecutions and oppression reduced the Christian population. Oppression intensified, leading to Genocide. Christian clergy were a constant target of Turkish persecution, particularly once the 1894 policy of Armenian genocide had been declared by sultan Abdul Hamid.

Victims of horrible torture, many Orthodox clergy were martyred for their faith. Among the first was Metropolitan Chrysostomos who was martyred, not just to kill a man but, to insult a sacred religion and an ancient and honorable people. Chrysostomos was enthroned as Metropolitan of Smyrna on 10 May 1910. Metropolitan Chrysostomos courageously opposed the anti-Christian rage of the Turks and sought to raise international pressure against the persecution of Turkish Christians. He wrote many letters to European leaders and to the western press in an effort to expose the genocide policies of the Turks. In 1922, in unprotected Smyrna, Chrysostomos said to those begging him to flee: "It is the tradition of the Greek Church and the duty of the priest to stay with his congregation."

On 9 September crowds were rushing into the cathedral for shelter when Chrysostomos, pale from fasting and lack of sleep, led his last prayer. The Divine Liturgy ended as Turkish police came to the church and led Chrysostomos away. The Turkish General Nouredin Pasha, known as the "butcher of Ionia", first spat on the Metropolitan and informed him that a tribunal in Angora (now Ankara) had already condemned him to death. A mob fell upon Chrysostomos and tore out his eyes.

Bleeding profusely, he was dragged through the streets by his beard. He was beaten and kicked and parts of his body were cut off. All the while Chrysostomos, his face covered with blood, prayed: "Holy Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." Every now and then, when he had the strength, he would raise his hand and bless his persecutors; a Turk, realizing what the Metropolitan was doing, cut off his hand with a sword. Metropolitan Chrysostomos was then hacked to pieced by the angry mob.

Among the hundreds of Armenian clergy who were persecuted and murdered were Bishop Khosrov Behrigian and Very Reverend Father Mgrdich' Chghladian Bishop Behrigian (1869-1915) was born in Zara and became the primate for the Diocese of Caesarea/Kayseri in 1915. He was arrested by Turkish police upon his return from Etchmiadzin where he had just been consecrated bishop. Informed of his fate, the bishop asked for a bullet to the head. Deliberately ignoring his request, the police tied him to a "yataghan" where sheep were butchered an then proceeded to hack his body apart while he was still alive.

Father Chghladian was born in Tatvan. In May 1915, as part of the campaign of mass arrests, deportations and murders, the priest was tortured and displayed in a procession, led by sheiks and dervishes while accompanied by drums, through the streets of Dikranagerd. Once the procession returned to the mosque, in the presence of government officials, the sheiks poured oil over the priest and burned him alive.

Four of the martyred bishops who were murdered between 1921-1922 are today elevated to sainthood in the Greek Orthodox Church: They are, in addition to Metropolitan Chrysostomos, Bishops Efthimios, Gregorios and Ambrosios. Bishop Efthimios of Amasia was captured by the Turkish police and tortured daily for 41 days. In the last days of his life he chanted his own funeral memorial until finally dying in his cell on 29 May 1921. Three days later a written order for his execution arrived from Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk).

Metropolitan Gregorios of Kydonion remained with his church until the end, helping 20,000 of his 35,000 parishioners escape to Mytilene and other free parts of Greece. On 3 October 1922, the remaining 15,000 Orthodox Christians were executed; the Metropolitan was saved in order to be buried alive.

Metropolitan Ambrosios of Moshonesion, along with 12 priests and 6,000 Christians, were sent by the Turks on a forced deportation march to Central Asia Minor. All of them perished on the road, some slain by Turkish irregulars and civilians, the remainder left to die of starvation. Bishop Ambrosios died on 15 September 1922, when Turkish police nailed horseshoes to his feet and then cut his body into pieces.

And then, to sum up what is the arrogance of all despots:

"I have given orders to my Death Units to exterminate without mercy or pity, men, women, and children belonging to the Polish speaking race. It is only in this manner we can acquire the vital territory which we need. After all, who remembers the extermination of the Armenians?"

- Adolf Hitler, 22 August 1939

Religion of Peace? Or as some on the left say, poor oppressed Muslims?

Wake up world!

FISHING FOR A PERFECT SOLUTION

The following essay by Rachel Neuwirth and titled "A Win-Win Solution To the Arab-Israeli Conflict" was written as a win/win solution to the so-called Palestinian problem, but it simply does not take into account the Mohammedan precept of annihilating the Jews from the face of the earth wherever they find them. And since such is the case, no amount of logic or cajoling will suffice in convincing the Arab nations in the Camp of Islam to abandon its prime directive. The only anecdote to this crisis is to soundly defeat and eradicate this ideology no less than Naziism was squashed less than a century plus ago. The Muslim populations must be disabused of their diabolical ideology, forever. Islam, after all, does mean "submission" in Arabic.

Let's say it again: Muslims only recognize 3 types of peace with infidels—death, conversion to islam, or dhimmitude (which is offered only to Jews, Christians and Zorastrians who fearfully acknowledge that Mohammed is the Muslim's prophet and also concede other Islamic ideas).

Israel has a very ignorant, very timid, very confused, very bad government. It has had such governments for quite a while. In this it is little different from the rest of the civilized Western world, failing to come to grips with a problem that was foreseen, and analyzed, long ago, by a very few specialists in Islamic matters, most notably that soft-spoken small and steely woman, Bat Ye'or.

But for its own sanity, and the safety not only of its people but to help get other Infidels thinking about their situation, the government of Israel has a duty to raise the issue of Al-Hudaibiyya and force declarations on the matter from Arab states. The very phrase a “final peace settlement” rings hollow to anyone familiar with the tenets of Islam. For there can never be a “final peace settlement” between Moslems and non-Moslems. The model for treaties is the agreement made between Muhammad and the Meccans in 628 A.D., the Treaty of al-Hudaibiyya.

It was supposed to be a “truce” treaty that would last 10 years. It lasted scarcely 18 months, when Muhammad, feeling that his forces had grown sufficiently, breached the agreement on a pretext, and attacked the Meccans. As Majid Khaddui notes in War and Peace in Islam, this Treaty of al-Hudaibiyya became the model, and the basis, for all future “treaties” with Infidel peoples and polities.

And it has another duty. That duty is to raise the even larger question: what does Islam inculcate, what do Muslims believe, about the permanence of any Infidel state, anywhere? Yes, we know the answer. But not everyone does. And everyone among the Infidels everywhere—in Thailand, and in India (where some may think that sacrificing Kashmir will lead the Muslims of Pakistan and India to cease their attacks, when it will do nothing of the sort), and in the Philippines, and in France and Germany and Great Britain and Spain and the Netherlands and Belgium and Norway (in the grim grip not of Thor's sons but of Quislingettes, of the unshakeably pro-"Palestinian" variety) and Sweden (more or less ditto).

The Spanish need to know what the Moroccans in their midst think, what they think when they hear the word "Al-Andalus." And the Portuguese. And those living in southwest France, right up to Poitiers. The Italians need to understand what will happen to Sicily. The Greeks, the Serbs (no, they don't need to be reminded, they know), the Croats, the Slovenes, the Rumanians, the Bulgarians, even the Hungarians, need to know what, in Islamic terms, their former status under Ottoman Muslim rule means for their status, in Muslim eyes, today.

And what about the rest of us, living as we fondly believe, in places that were never part of Dar al-Islam? What we, in North America and Australia and other places fail to realize, is that the whole word belongs to Islam, and it is only a matter of time and tactics, in the Muslim view. While some Muslims have comically tried to backdate their connection to various places—claims that Muslims settled long ago in Australia, or were on the boat with Columbus, have already been tellingly made, and while Infidels joke about it, that kind of thing is not quite a joke for the Muslim masses, steeped deeply in a crazed view of history, easily susceptible to any tall tale or conspiracy theory, a susceptibility made much greater than among most non-Muslims today because Islam, more than any other belief-system called a religion, inculcates the habit of mental submission, to not merely the will, of Allah, but to the whim of Allah, who does whatever he wants, breaks every rule

And since Israel are not behaving as proper dhimmi—their only choice is to start behaving as proper dhimmi—if they want to live. Their land is Muslim booty and to be distributed as the Muslims see fit. Or else, join the dead. This is the Muslim way, and the Saudis with their Wahhibi evangelism are primary instigators, and have no intention in "solving" the problem.

Here is Ms. Neuwirth's well-meaning but rather naive essay:

A true solution requires confronting two fundamental issues: 1. Current proposals, including the Road Map, are totally unworkable and should be abandoned. 2. An entirely fresh approach is required that is free of imposed constraints. The purpose of this essay is first to briefly challenge the entrenched mindset and then advance a win-win solution for both Jews and Arabs.

Before proposing the proper solution it is necessary to first demonstrate the falsity and futility of some of the main arguments intrinsic to the Oslo Accords and to the Road Map.

Demonstrably false argument #1: Israel should trade 'land for peace' to create yet another Arab country.

There are 22 Arab countries and only one Jewish country. The land-rich Arabs already occupy over 5 million square miles and land-poor Israel, including all of its territories, comprises only about 10,000 square miles. The Arab areas are thus 500 times larger than Israel and the Arabs already possess 99.8% of the total land. The so-called West Bank and Gaza areas combined total 2,300 square miles and comprise a miniscule 0.046% of the entire Arab empire - and to seize this speck of land the Arabs are adamant and willing to fight and die forever! Only a mind, hopelessly out of touch with reality, can seriously suggest that the Arabs need still more land, carved out of Israel, to create yet another country.

Demonstrably false argument #2: The 'Palestinians' are a separate people who deserve their own country.

There are no authentic 'Palestinian' people and there never was. Even the name of Palestine is a historic fraud perpetrated by the Romans, to permanently erase the original name of Judea, following the Jewish revolt against Rome of two thousand years ago. As recently as the 1940's the name 'Palestinian' clearly meant a Jew in the land of Israel and Arabs were simply called Arabs. After Israel's rebirth the local Arabs appropriated that now-available title for themselves and created a new identity.

This was done for purely hostile political purposes to undermine Israel's legitimate right to its biblical homeland. In all of history there never was a Palestinian nation, or country, or people, or language, or religion, which was distinct from the existing Arab counties in that region. Repeated attempts to rewrite history must never be allowed to corrupt the truth. To fully expose the 'Palestinian' hoax in modern times one should read Joan Peter's critically acclaimed book, From Time Immemorial - The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine.

Demonstrably false argument #3: We can have a viable 'Palestinian' state in the so-called West Bank and Gaza next to a viable Israel.

Proponents of the Road Map offer NO development plan whatsoever. Any genuine plan must include a comprehensive environmental impact study covering: population growth; water resources; agriculture resources; economic development; social and political considerations; et cetera, with projections extending through at least the next century. Proponents offer NO plan because it is impossible to design any plan that enables both peoples to live viably in so tiny an area along with normal population growth. Below are projections for population growth in Israel and the territory of the proposed Palestinian state, based on current growth rates:

Inside Israel. Assuming continuation of their current growth rates for the next hundred years, Israel's Jews at 1.5% per year become 28 million and Israeli Arabs at 3% per year become 23 million. That totals 51 million Jews and Arabs living on less than 8,000 square miles with a density of 6,500 per square mile. The Israeli Arabs have double the Israeli birth rate and are already 23% of the total population and gaining. They remain mostly hostile and will soon be able to gain political control and they already hold about 10% of the Knesset seats. Israel will thus be unable to remain permanently Jewish and the Israeli Arabs will always be seeking to advance their Arab identity in conflict with Israel.

Inside the territories. At their present high growth rates the Palestinian Arabs, inside the West Bank and Gaza, growing at 3-4% per year become 120 million in 100 years. Including all the Palestinian refugees, who could migrate in from outside, would add another 47 million. Thus there are a potential total of 167 million Arabs in the projected Palestinian state in 100 years in an area of only 2,300 square miles for an astronomical density of 72,500 per square mile.

Many fail to appreciate the awesome power of compound growth until it is too late. These are only projections but long before those numbers are reached the area will explode in misery and conflict based on a crushing burden of population overload, aside from any political conflict. It is totally impossible for that many people to survive, much less thrive, in such a tiny area. That should be obvious to all.

Demonstrably false argument #4: Arab possession of their 22 countries and 5 million square miles is legitimate and not to be challenged.

Just how did the Arabs come to control such vast territories? They got it the old fashioned way—by conquest! Before Mohammed, 1,400 years ago the Arabs lived in the Arabian Peninsula. Mohammed founded Islam and with it the zeal for jihad to conquer and convert, often by force. During the period following Mohammed the Arabs conquered vast areas in North Africa, southern Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia and spread Islam far and wide. Today Arabs directly control 5 million square miles and 22 sovereign states, while non-Arab Islamic countries control nearly another 5 million square miles.

The Arabs often claim that they were the original inhabitants in the land of Israel. Actually Arab invaders did not enter the land of Israel until about the year 638 C.E. while Jews had established their first commonwealth under King David, with Jerusalem as their capital, over 1,600 years earlier. Archaeologically, the entire land of Israel gives testimony to the ancient Jewish presence, but there is no evidence of any ancient Arab settlers presence. And most of those 22 Arab States, including Iraq and Jordan, were first created by England, France or Italy during the past century to further their imperial interests, and with no historical justification.

In summary, advocates of these senseless schemes seriously propose to: invent a people that never was; seize land from Jews having virtually no land; transfer that Jewish land to those with too much land and unrelenting murderous hatred; and then let them all grow in numbers and suffocate together inside of a coffin-size territory - all in the name of peace and justice! That is what passes for thinking in this insane world. The Road Map guarantees a lose-lose outcome - we need a win-win outcome.

The true basis for a lasting peace:

A far-sighted Arab-Jewish agreement was arrived at 85 years ago but was never fully implemented. This still-legal agreement provides the basis for a solution today and should become widely publicized and supported.

In 1919, following the end of World War I, an international Paris Peace Conference was convened by the victorious Allies to settle international questions. Delegations attended from around the world including an official Arab and Zionist delegation. The Arab delegation was led by Emir Feisal I, who agreed that the entire Palestine territory of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 would become the Jewish national home and expressed that position in separate letters to Zionist leaders Dr. Chaim Weizmann and Felix Frankfurter. In return for Arab support the Zionists promised economic and technical assistance to the local Arabs and the Allied powers agreed to grant eventual sovereignty to many of the Arab peoples in the region that were previously under control of the former Turkish Ottoman Empire.

This conference, and a subsequent one at San Remo Italy, amicably settled the issues among the parties with voluntary, legally binding, international agreements. In 1922 the League of Nations assigned Britain as the Mandatory to faithfully carry out these agreements. It was British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill who unilaterally divided Mandatory Palestine into an exclusively Arab sector (Trans Jordan) and a Jewish sector. The Arabs received 76% of the original territory, comprising 35,000 square miles, located east of the Jordan River. That left the Jewish sector with only 10,000 square miles out of their original 45,000 square miles, which was still less than 1% of the combined Arab areas of 5 million square miles. That remaining Jewish sector is today contested with the 'Palestinians' claiming the 'West Bank' and Gaza to create, in effect, a second Palestinian state. (Jordan is mostly Palestinian.) It was the British, in 1919, who began to undermine their own Mandate and to instigate the Arabs against Jews.

The Ariel Center for Policy Research in Israel has a policy paper no. 147 titled, "Legal Rights and Title of Sovereignty of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel and Palestine Under International Law" by Howard Grief, author of the forthcoming book. It ably summarizes the post-World War I settlement of the Palestine question and its subsequent betrayal by the British government entrusted with implementing it.

A few extracts from the executive summary will indicate its importance:

"Under this settlement, the whole of Palestine on both sides of the Jordan was reserved exclusively for the Jewish People as the Jewish National Home, in recognition of their historical connection with that country, dating from the Patriarchal Period. ... The Palestine aspect of the global settlement was recorded in three basic documents that led to the founding of the modern State of Israel: ... The British Government repudiated the solemn obligation it undertook to develop Palestine gradually into an independent Jewish state. ... The US aided and abetted the British betrayal of the Jewish People by its abject failure to act decisively against the 1939 White Paper despite its own legal obligation to do so under the 1924 treaty. The UN Partition Resolution of November 29, 1947 illegally recommended the restriction of Jewish legal rights to a truncated part of Palestine. ... Despite all the subversive actions to smother and destroy Jewish legal rights and title of sovereignty to the entire Land of Israel, they still remain in full force by virtue of the Principle of Acquired Rights and the doctrine of Estoppel that apply in all legal systems of the democratic world."

It has been argued, by scholars of international law, that the agreements of the international Paris Peace Conference of 1919, and their formal assignment to Britain as the Mandatory by the League of Nations, continue to be legally binding on all parties under international law. In addition to Jewish legal claims based on the 1922 law a case can be made that it is also morally binding and that England is guilty of bad faith and for having engaged in deliberate sabotage of that agreement. A most promising beginning for Arab-Jewish relations in the Middle East was deliberately undermined by England and this part of history must be brought to bear upon the present conflict. Israel has a right to make full land claims under that 1922 Mandate by the League of Nations. The Arabs should also be made aware that it was England that instigated them against the Jews in pursuit of British imperial interests and to the disadvantage of both Arabs and Jews.

Significantly, Arab support for a Jewish state was clearly manifested at the Paris Peace conference of 1919. This should also be part of the legally binding Arab obligations to acceptance of a Jewish state with full rights. Emir Feisal I, son of Hussein, Sheriff of Mecca led the Arab delegation to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Excerpts of two letters from Emir Feisal to Zionist leaders Dr. Chaim Weizmann and to Felix Frankfurter indicate their friendly relations and high hopes for Jewish - Arab cooperation. Also note in the following text the term 'Palestine' clearly refers to the Jewish national home and not to any Arab entity or people.

From Emir Feisal to Dr. Weizmann:

"His Royal Highness the Emir Feisal, representing and acting on behalf of the Arab Kingdom of hedjaz, and Dr. Chaim Weizmann, representing and acting on behalf of the Zionist Organization, mindful of the racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish People, and realising that the surest means of working out the consummation of their national aspirations is through the closest possible collaboration in the development of the Arab State and Palestine, and being desirous further of confirming the good understanding which exists between them, have agreed upon the following Articles:"

Article IV: "All necessary measures shall be taken to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale, and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish immigrants upon the land through closer settlements and intensive cultivation of the soil. In taking such measures the Arab peasant and tenant farmers shall be protected in their rights, and shall be assisted in forwarding their economic development."

From Emir Feisal to Felix Frankfurter:

"... We feel that the Arabs and Jews are cousins in race, having suffered similar oppressions at the hands of the powers stronger than themselves, and by a happy coincidence have been able to take the first step towards the attainment of their national ideals together."

"We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our deputation here in Paris is fully acquainted with the proposals submitted yesterday by the Zionist Organization to the Peace Conference, and we regard them as moderate and proper. We will do our best, in so far as we are concerned, to help them through: we wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home."

"People less informed and less responsible than our leaders and yours, ignoring the need for cooperation of the Arabs and the Zionists have been trying to exploit the local difficulties that must necessarily arise in Palestine in the early stages of our movements. Some of them have, I am afraid, misrepresented your aims to the Arab peasantry, and our aims to the Jewish peasantry, with the result that interested parties have been able to make capital our of what they call our differences."

What remains now is for all parties to courageously and boldly cast off the mindless schemes of Oslo and the Road Map and return to the sanity and statesmanship of the 1919 agreement. Those Arabs who have an acquired identity as 'Palestinian' should be given a far better alternative option than to be buried alive inside a non-viable illegal micro-state carved out of the Israeli heartland.

The Win-Win solution...

Contrary to popular belief, the Arab-Israeli conflict has a reasonable solution. An orderly resettlement elsewhere of the so-called Palestinian Arabs would solve this long-standing 'intractable' problem. To propose this solution today elicits automatic rejection by almost everyone and perhaps even anger and hostility at its very mention (although attitudes may finally be changing). This is because the minds of many have been so thoroughly conditioned, with layer upon layer of repeated falsehoods, such that open-minded reconsideration is almost impossible. But resettlement could become the basis of a win-win solution for both sides.

For example Saudi Arabia comprises some 750,000 square miles. It has a very low population density of only 33 per square mile vs. 1,000 for Israel including the territories. A modest 4% of Saudi Arabia, some 30,000 square miles, should be set aside for a new Palestinian state. That state would be 13 times the size of the present Palestinian area proposed under the Road Map and would now have ample space for natural growth. All of the intractable problems facing both Jews and Arabs, arising under the present schemes, would be eliminated. The Palestinians could now construct their own state with full political independence, self-rule and full dignity. The sources of friction between them and Israel would now be removed along with all the immense human and material costs associated with the current conflict.

Palestinians could begin using their legitimate 'right of return' to exit the territories, and the refugee camps, and migrate back to their ancestral home in Arabia and thereby also be closer to Mecca and Medina. A fraction of the countless billions spent on weapons by the Arab governments could fund the cost of establishing new settlements for the Palestinians. Israel would be free of Arabs, and the Palestinians would be free of Israel. The deep wounds of both peoples would now have a chance to heal.

In early 2004 a poll by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion shows 37% willing to emigrate in return for a home, a job and $250,000. And this is before a far better deal has been offered, including true self-rule, peace and security, plus their own ample territory. What if 'Palestinians' were offered a homeland territory, drawn from lands donated by one of the more spacious Arab countries, one expressing continuous concern, love for, and outrage at the treatment of these very same folk?

Israeli Arabs could play a constructive role in this because of their higher level of education and their experience living as full citizens in democratic Israel. They would become the managerial and entrepreneurial class and provide valuable assistance and leadership for fellow Palestinians who were stagnating in refugee camps inside other Arab countries. This crime was committed by their own brother Arabs, who refused to allow them to settle.

Once the migration starts toward a far better future the movement could well accelerate voluntarily because the first ones to relocate would receive the best 'ground floor' opportunities and the last ones to move would get what remains. Today there are tens of millions of people on the move around the world in search of better living conditions, so relocation is a long established and viable option for everyone.

Another important advantage is that Israeli-Palestinian interaction would be limited to the selling of Arab homes in the territories and an orderly exit. No more frustratingly complex agreements as with Oslo where Israel honors all commitments and Arabs violate all commitments, and even U.S. assurances often prove worthless. The less need for Israel to depend on agreements with Arabs, Europeans and even Americans the better.

Part of the problem are those Arab governments who deliberately keep the Israel-Palestinian conflict alive to divert attention from their own corrupt regimes. Also, western governments still pander to their corrupt Arab clients for purely expedient reasons. But new progressive voices are emerging among Arab intellectuals and even among some Moslem clerics that call for Arab societal reform, and who also recognize Jewish rights in the land of Israel. These voices need to be encouraged and enlisted in this quest for sanity.

What is also needed is Saudi cooperation and active support. The Saudis have long been responsible for promoting anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, and anti-American hatred along with funding terror and the teaching of a hateful form of Islam. With their 'royal' family of thousands of princes living lavishly, off of oil income and the labor of foreign workers, they are a cesspool of corruption that even Osama bin Laden finds offensive.

It is time to demand that the Saudis make a major contribution to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. They caused much of the problem and they must now assist with the solution. It is time for the Bush administration to make the Saudis 'an offer they can't refuse' and have them realize they have a direct interest in providing 'land for peace'.

For too long many people have labored under a collective mindset resembling a bad dream where big lies become entrenched wisdom and truth is constantly strangled. Unless we change direction there will be dire consequences extending well beyond the peoples of the region. Those who still have minds and morals intact now have an obligation to think clearly and with sanity and support this approach to finally resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict.

__________________

Rachel Neuwirth is a Los Angeles-based analyst on the board of directors of the West Coast Region of the American Jewish Congress and the chairperson of the organization's Middle East committee.

This article appeared as a guest commentary in MichNews.com July 26, 2004 and is archived here. Contact the author.

SEND THEM HOME

Solutions. Recent history offers us a few choice examples of practical reactions to an enemy within. From the ever vigilant Hugh Fitzgerald, a primary contributor to the Jihad Watch website:

Fatalism is not supposed to be a European trait. One usually speaks of "Oriental fatalism" and by that is meant not something to be found in the Far East, but among Muslim peoples. Inshallah-fatalism doesn't look good on non-Muslims.

In 1946—surely the Austrian minister recalls—7 million (or was it even fewer?) Czechs (that is, Czechs and Slovaks) expelled from Czechoslovakia 3-3.5 million ethnic Germans. They did so because, before the war, under Heinlein, the leader of the "Sudeteners" (the Germans who lived in the "southland"—that is in Czechoslovakia, all along the border—and who became for Hitler such a useful cause. All through 1938 he could hardly speak of anything else except the supposedly cruel treatment of the "Sudeteners" by the Czech government. Nazi agents gave Heinlein orders: start riots, so that when the Czech police put down those riots, their actions will be depicted as those of "brutal" Czechs "suppressing" the "Sudeteners" who were merely "demanding their legitimate rights." And so they did, and so the papers, including the London Times, reported, and so was Czechoslovakia, in truth the most advanced, tolerant state in all of Eastern or Central Europe, had its name blackened in the very countries that would find such blackening made it easier for their leaders to betray the Czechs at Munich. And those pictures of Heinlein's parents, so gemutlich (you can find an example in the Life Magazine anthologies—the aging mother and father of Heinlein, in their cottage, a picture taken by Marguerite Bourke-White). Tugs at the heart strings, if you don't know better.

During the war, the ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia were treated, like ethnic Germans in other conquered lands, as "Volksdeutsche," and given the food rations of Germans (as opposed to what the non-Germans got) and otherwise were, so many of them, treated so very well and, in return, were happy to collaborate with their fellow members of the Deutschtum.

After the war, Masaryk (Tomas, son of the even more famous Tomas who founded modern Czechoslovakia in 1919) and Benes and every other thinking Czech, was determined that, even though Germany lay in ruins, never again would the people of Czechoslovakia have to take a chance, never again would they have to endure such a threat to their security. And they decided to expel all of the ethnic Germans, and did so. It was the famous Benes Decree, or rather one of the series of Benes Decrees, that removed what was correctly perceived as a potential threat, and removed it forever.

No one objected in Czechoslovakia. Not then and not later. Not General Ludovik Svoboda. Not the poet Jaroslav Seifert. Not Aleksandr Dubcek of the Prazhskaya vesna or "Prague Spring." Not Pavel Kohout. Not Vaclav Havel. Not Milan Kundera. Nor did anyone outside Czechoslovakia. Not Churchill or Truman or De Gaulle or later, Attlee or De Gasperi or anyone at all, not a single figure, not a writer, not a statesman, no one, in New York or London, or Paris or Rome, dropped a single tear, objected with a single syllable, to the removal of the ethnic Germans—3-3.5 millino of them—removed, expelled, virtually overnight. Indeed, the only people who have objected at all ahve been right-wing revanchiste groups in Germany and Austria. And even if there were injustices done, that is because in all of politics, when large groups and not individuals are being considered, there will necessarily be some who should not have been considered part of the affected class. It is the the perennial problem, both of politics and law.

Why does one refer to the Benes Decree? Why does one note the absence of moral objection? Because what the Czechs, and the Poles, and man other countries did, expelling ethnic Germans after the war, because of what happened during the war, or what they reasonably foresaw, given the history of the past century, of a threat that might recur, could happen again.

Now an unheard-of event has happened. The source, the center, of Western civilization, Europe, could be transformed, and its entire legacy of art, science, and mental freedom, its achievements in every area, not one of which could have possibly occurred in the Lands of Islam, where "Islam dominates and Muslims rule," could be inherited by the wrong people, who cannot possibly understand, much less have any desire to preserve, them—Muslims, who will have conquered only because Europeans compounded the initial error of admitting large numbers of them into their midst, and now, because of fashions in behavior and thought, are unwilling to do what would have seemed so obvious and so right not a thousand years ago, but merely sixty years ago, in 1946, in that most advanced and tolerant of Western lands, led by two of the products of high European civilization, Tomas Masaryk and Eduard Benes.

The current leaders of Europe who are unwiling to study Islam and to grasp its meaning, who refuse to see what a threaat it is, however packaged or smoothly presented by some smiling tariq-ramadans, should make way for those who have a sense of what can be lost, and take a more rational, and some would say—quite incorrectly—a harder view, precisely to the extent that they are passionately attached to, and know about, that civilizational legacy. But if you have no idea what it is in the first place, then it won't matter, and you will be happy to throw in your lot, or will not realize what you have inherited and what needs to be protected.

Plassnik deserves no quarter. But then, there are so many plassniks all over the place. They should be, possibly, in prison for treason. Instead, they are in power.

It is an incredible thing: it is all happening right before our eyes, and we cannot as yet find the leaders able to see this, and willing to do something.

FOEHAMMER'S ANVIL

As a longtime reader of a blogger named Forhammer, I thought I should share one of his more comprehensive essays. Without a doubt, many in this country are waking up to the fact that the enemy is not just in some Afghanistan cave or some Iraqi dust hole, but right here among us, being toasted at the White House all the while plotting to strike America down, and conquer her. Read the essay "The Threat Worse Than Islamic Terrorism" now, before it's too late.

TIPPING THE BREAKPOINT

The following are excerpts from an address by Abdallah Safialdeen, Hizbullah's representative in Iran, which aired on Iranian Channel 4 on March 4, 2007.

Abdallah Safialdeen: The day that Hizbullah won the war shaped the future of the region. It led to what we are witnessing today: America's actions, the domestic problems of the Zionist regime, the confusion of Europe. The Europeans are very confused now, and don't know what to do. The horse that they put their money on—Israel—can no longer fulfill the role it played in the past.

America has not had any success anywherein the region. In our opinion, the harbinger of this lack of success was the victory of Hizbullah, the bitter defeat of the Zionist regime, and its incompetence in the region. You should know that. Do you know what an American withdrawal from Iraq will mean? It will mean that Israel will lose its support. It will mean that the Lebanese Hizbullah will not need a large-scale war in order to enter Palestine. Hizbullah will be able to simply walk into Palestine.

Rest assured that the day the American forces leave Iraq, the Israelis will leave the region along with them. What was one of the reasons for Olmert's recent visit to America? He went there in order to say to the Democrats: "Don't say that the American army will leave Iraq, because this would mean the annihilation of the Zionist regime." This is because the annihilation of the Zionist regime has begun.

Like some of our friends say, Palestine is no longer a problem for us, because the Americans will be forced to leave Iraq. With or without a war against Iran, they will be forced to do so. The moment they leave Iraq, you, the Muslims of the world, can
walk into Palestine, because Israel will no longer exist. It will be over and done with. Even with America's [help], Israel could not do a thing.

The Americans will be kicked out of the region, without accomplishing anything. The American forces will be kicked out of the region, in disgrace, humiliation, and defeat. Therefore, this victory was very important. It was a landmark in the history of the Islamic world and the entire region.

TO VIEW THIS CLIP: click here.

TICK TOCK

A chill is in the March air. Well, let's look at a few cold-blooded facts.

Islam (and it's all quite radical and totalitarian) seems to be spreading by leaps and bounds into just about every crevice of the world. These invaders have the wealth and power to build their lavish mosques and killer schools geared to spread their satanic religion in Africa, Indonesia, India and Asia, and everywhere they can gain a foothold. Make no mistake about it, this "hooded and sworded" population is on the warpath.

No one is stopping it.

Muslims are snapping up or side-stepping entry visas and gaining asylum, and setting up war zones in every Western nation today.

No one is stopping that!

Western lawmakers are changing Western laws to pacify Muslims in every Western country. Slowly, but as surely as their own religion demands it, our own way of life is being changed by the "guests" in our countries.

No one is stopping that either.

As a result of anti-discrimination laws we cannot bar Muslims from serving in our militaries either. As periodic news reports make plain, many of these Muslims in western clothing are privy to and are transferring to the enemy information they shouldn't be privy to.

Who's going to stop them? Who?