Jerusalem Post: Middle East Drama starring Israel's Danny Ayalon

Middle East Drama starring Israel's Danny Ayalon
By Ray Hanania
(Published in the Jerusalem Post Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010)

When Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon intentionally disrespected Turkish Ambassador Ahmet Oguz Celikkol last month in the "sofa affair," many believed he was just an immature politician.

In reality, though, Ayalon's snub of the ambassador represents more than just one man's failings. His actions symbolize the fundamental shortcomings common to rejectionists and shared by the Arabs, too.

Ayalon didn't accidentally disrespect the Turkish ambassador. He did it with flair and intended mischief. Ayalon had Celikkol sit on a couch in his office that was "lower" than his own chair. Not that anyone would care except that Ayalon intentionally pointed out the slight to the Israeli media to drive home the embarrassment.

Celikkol was "summoned" to Ayalon's office to be "reprimanded" because Turkish state TV was airing a program that made the IDF look bad. Well, if they were mad about that, you can imagine why they were enraged with the war crimes allegations against the IDF in the UN's Goldstone Report.

And in an apparent response to the Ayalon "slight" of Celikkol, a billboard went up near Istanbul on Sunday depicting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan standing upright before Israeli President Shimon Peres, an advocate of peace, who was portrayed "bowing" to the Turks. Is that the best the Turks can come up with?

THE CONTROVERSY hadn't even cooled when Ayalon did it again last week. This time, Ayalon reportedly refused to meet with an influential delegation visiting Israel organized by J Street and refused to let them meet with senior Israeli officials, a charge the Foreign Ministry denied earlier this week. J Street is the celebrity Jewish American lobbying group that seeks to replace the rigidly right-wing policies of AIPAC with more moderate views to convince American Jews to support peace based on two states. The delegation included five members of the US Congress, normally a place where childish behavior is rewarded.

But for Ayalon, it wasn't enough to not shake their hands or make them sit on a "time-out couch." According to J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami, Ayalon ordered a "boycott" of the delegation.

When the congressional delegation protested in anger, Ayalon reportedly apologized (although this was also denied by the Foreign Ministry) - through a surrogate - to them too.

AYALON'S CONDUCT is not peculiar to Israelis, though. There is more than enough childish behavior among the Arab and Palestinian rejectionists. Arabs don't need a TV show to set them off. There are more "serious" things like when an Arab journalist tried to interview an Israeli official and was reprimanded by the Arab Journalists Syndicate, which acts more like a mafia than a professional fraternity of the Fourth Estate.

But the worst offense for the rejectionists is to embrace the two-state solution to the Middle East conflict.

Arab rejectionists insist that the solution is a failure. Their answer: one state, a goal they share with Ayalon whose right-wing party endorses one state but without Palestine, while the Arab rejectionists endorse the same without Israel.

So why not have a debate about it? Because that is normalization, too. Haram[forbidden] of the highest fatwa order.

This attitude to "normalization" (contact with the enemy) and "public debates" isn't just a problem with Arabs in the Middle East. It is a bigger problem with the Arabs who live in the West and in the US.

Recently, a group sought to bring together two Palestinians to debate the issue of "One State or Two?" at the University of Chicago.

The proponent of the two-state solution is Hussein Ibish, a fellow at the moderate American Task Force on Palestine in Washington as well as one of the most articulate English language spokespeople for Palestinian rights.

The sponsoring organization at the university reached out to nearly every leading Palestinian activist to present the case for "one state," and all refused, including, according to Ibish and event sponsors, the canonized saint of the "one state" plan, author Ali Abunimah.

Based at the University of Chicago, Abunimah is one of four founders of the online "Electronic Intifada," where Palestinian moderation is regularly browbeaten and defamed. Abunimah is also the author of the convoluted manifesto and the rejectionist's bible titled One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Basically, the "one-state" theory goes like this: If Palestinians will just refuse to compromise and to create two states, Israelis and Jews will simply give up so Palestinians can replace the Jewish homeland with an Islamic homeland.

Just like that.

Wow. If we only knew that, how many suicide bombers could we have spared in the past? A stupid notion, it has gained huge support among Arabs, maybe because it is just that, a stupid notion.

But "one state" advocates have an ulterior agenda. They know their idea is impossible to achieve and it allows them to exploit Palestinian anger and frustration, turning suffering into hatred and hatred into violence.

Rejectionists have no desire to compromise. They want to keep the conflict going until they can win, they think.

In the end, although Israeli rejectionists are similar to Palestinian rejectionists, there is one glaring difference. Palestinians never apologize for anything or admit they are wrong.

Apologizing means compromise. Apologizing recognizes a mistake. Palestinian rejectionists live in a pretend world where their mistakes don't exist and their failures are not debatable. War crimes committed on their behalf are never addressed, only the war crimes of others.

Danny Ayalon may be a poor diplomat but at least he knows when to apologize and recognize when he is wrong.

When Israelis and Arabs can apologize and recognize when they are wrong together, and stop denying everything as they often do, maybe, just maybe, we might see the day when genuine peace is achieved.

That's something I would bow to myself.

Named Best Ethnic Columnist in America by New America Media, the writer is a Palestinian-American columnist and peace activist. He can be reached at www.YallaPeace.com

Abbas should call Israel's bluff and push for peace talks, Jerusalem Post column

Abbas should call Israel's bluff and push for peace talks
By Ray Hanania

It’s too easy for members of Israel’s government to call for peace talks to resume. From one side of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s mouth, he says he wants peace. From the other, he says he won’t freeze settlements.

They are not compatible statements, but Netanyahu knows that each message has a
different intended audience. Not freezing settlements is intended to provoke Palestinians into their typical rejectionism. The Palestinians have a button that Israelis can easily push to get the reaction they want, the same reaction every time.

Netanyahu also knows that constantly calling for peace is exactly what American leaders want to hear, easing the pressure off President Barack Obama. The US, which has a multibillion-dollar annual investment in Israel and politicians who pander to pro-Israel votes during biannual elections, doesn’t really care about the problems of the Middle East conflict, so freezing or not freezing settlements is a non-issue to most Americans.

Do Netanyahu and most Israelis want peace? The only way to find out is to push them into a corner from which they can’t escape. But you can’t do that when you are in your own corner, drawing lines around yourself and babbling meaningless rhetoric as the world continues to collapse around you.

Instead of issuing unenforceable preconditions on Israel, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas should go to the peace table and play the cards he has. Talk. But this time, do what his predecessor the late president Yasser Arafat failed to do. Partner peace talks with public relations. When they collapse, as they might, make sure you get your story out first before Israel, not three years later as Arafat did in futility during the siege of the Mukata and the confrontation years with Netanyahu’s party predecessor Ariel Sharon.

WHAT’S THE worst that can happen? Peace talks collapse and the region nose-dives into militant-driven violence, terrorism and excessive, heavy-handed military responses from the IDF. Or, just maybe, peace talks progress and Netanyahu, given something to take back to Israel’s increasingly intransigent population, shows them peace might work and restoring hope.

Peace is the only answer that can move Israelis and Palestinians away from the precipice where they have debka’d during the past 62 years. Not only are Israelis and Palestinians bad dancers, they are terrible at reading road maps. But only Israel has the clout.

Israelis will not willingly budge from their rejection of compromise with the Palestinians. It’s been too easy for them over the years. The Palestinians demand “all or nothing” and constantly end up with nothing, while the Israelis take whatever they can get.

A peace agreement is the only way to freeze Israel’s settlement expansions around Jerusalem.

The Israeli settlements didn’t just appear because some ingenuous Israeli developed a bullet-proof strategy to build them, but because Palestinians always said “no,” demanding everything and always ending up with nothing. Israel had carte blanche to take what it wanted. And it did. Who wouldn’t?

IN RETURNING to the peace table despite Israel’s hard-line stance, Abbas can also give some strength back to the weakened President Obama, whose powerful shouts of peace sound more like distant whispers these days. If Obama can show some progress in the Middle East, he just might be able to leverage that to pressure Israel’s government to do more, which it should, and add tenor to his declarations.

But with Abbas saying “no,” and with Netanyahu’s clever double-talk to preserve his right-wing coalition, Obama can’t do much except tell Americans he will focus his attention elsewhere.

The Palestinians will never have a stronger American ally than Obama. Every other Democratic alternative, including Hillary Clinton, would move the table back into Israel’s corner. Politically, there is no advantage to confronting Israel in the United States.

Every Republican challenger, like Mike Huckabee, will be fawning all over Israel during repeated visits, telling the Israelis everything they want to hear, from bashing the Goldstone Report as the bible of anti-Semitism to promising that America will always stand by Israel’s side – well, as long as there are Jews in America who can vote. There is neither virginity in American politics nor innocence.

My guess is Abbas will make the wrong choice, again, and waste his time trying to smooth things over with the uncompromising Hamas, presumably to strengthen his own weak government. Only Hamas can play the game of double-talk better than Netanyahu. And there is nothing anyone could do to change Hamas, which is uncompromising by faith.

The only Palestinian leader giving Abbas good advice is his prime minister, Salam Fayyad. But Fayyad’s role has been relegated to that of an entertainer as he travels the country and the world telling audiences what they need to hear while failing with his own people.

The truth is Israel holds all the cards. If Israel wanted to end the conflict it could. But with Israelis becoming increasingly satisfied with the status quo – controlling everything with only “minor” losses of life – there is little incentive to push them to do the right thing.

If Abbas could stop being predictable and surprise Israelis and the US, maybe he could regain the momentum and reignite a peace process that Israel cannot reject.

What do Abbas and the Palestinians have left to lose that they haven’t already lost?

Named Best Ethnic Columnist in America by New America Media, the writer is a Palestinian-American columnist and peace activist. He can be reached at www.YallaPeace.com

When journalists routinely brush off criticism of popular governments

When journalists routinely brush off criticism of popular governments …

Last summer, New York Times Columnist Stephen J. Dubner wrote a column in which he trashed claims that the Israeli military was harvesting organs from palestinians without the permission of their relatives.

Dubner, with no facts but probably an instant bias against all claims critical of Israel or, more likely, that drive sympathy for the oppressed Palestinians, write that the claim was “probably false.”

Wow. A whole column on why something so significant would be false. you wouldn’t expect the New York Times or its flashy columnist, Thomas Friedman to explore the veracity of such an outrageous claim against Israel, athough Dubner made sure to include the knee-jerk response that Israel always makes when it is criticized, quoting:

“The Israeli government has struck back, claiming that Boström’s article is false, outrageous, and, in the words of Benjamin Netanyahu, a “blood libel,” the sort of malicious rumor that has led to the persecution of Jews for centuries.”

Click here for the link to the column.

Then, Dubner went on to explain why harvesting human organs would be unlikely. It requires so much technical know-how.

That was in August 2009. A few weeks back, Jan. 19, 2010, Dubner offered a mild correction in typical pro-Israel bias seen often at the New York Times and in larger mainstream news media that just don’t want to be bothered by the facts when defending Israel or bashing Arabs. Dubner wrote:

“And in a more distant post, I discussed why an accusal of “the Israeli Army of harvesting organs from Palestinians wounded or killed by soldiers” was “probably false.” In a separate but related story, it has since been reported that “Israel has admitted that in the 1990s, its forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without permission of their families.” ”

Click here for a link to the story.

Tragically, this kind of shoot-from-the-hip defense of a foreign government is not unusual. Had this story involved any other nation, it would have dominated the news headlines for weeks. It is scandalous.

The response of the Israeli  government — and I want to stress here that this is NOT about criticizing Israel or Israelis, but criticizing a government — is outrageous. They finally admit a decade later that they did indeed harvest organs from Palestinians. They lied about it when it happened, denied it and, as you read, slandered those who made the claims.

What does that say about today? That because the mainstream news media does not do its job, we must wait 10 more years to discover the truth?

What about the accusations in the report by renown war crimes Jurist Richard Goldstone, a report that detailed numerous atrocities committed by Israeli soldiers, including in one case rounding up civilians in a school building and then shooting them dead.

Read the Goldstone Report, if you have any foundation of professional journalism. The facts are outrageous and offensive. Those who are using the Goldstone Report to slander Israel and Israelis are clearly overstepping their bounds. But the news media refusal to hold the Israeli government accountable amounts to a violation of their professional responsibilities. Allowing people like lawyer Alan Dershowitz slander those calling for an investigation by publishing his columns in their newspapers is a violation of professional journalism, a violation especially when his accusations are published without adequate defense of the Goldstone Report.

The Goldstone Report reminds me of the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam by Lt. William Calley. Then, the news media held the US Military and the government accountable. yes, it was an outrage. But by airing the crimes and demanding justice, journalists reflected the highest levels of ethics and morality.

Today, that moral high ground is AWOL in mainstream American journalism.

I would like to see it return not just for the of the victims but for the sake of Israel. By investigating and prosecuting the crimes, the United States did this country a great service strengthening our Democratic principles by investigating and standing up for justice. Israel can and should do the same thing.

– Ray Hanania

(Ray Hanania is a  columnist for Israel’s  Jerusalem Post Newspaper, writing every Wednesday, and also a columnist for PalestineNote.com, the leading news and opinion site for Palestinians.)

Columnists: We come and we go (Jerusalem Post)

Columnists, we come and we go
By Ray Hanania
(Originally published in the Jerusalem Post, Feb. 2, 2010)

Years ago I was a lead writer for a flashy column in Chicago’s daily newspaper The Sun Times. Called Page Ten, it showcased an assortment of news tidbits – some called gossip, others called insider tips – and my beat was politics, mainly Chicago’s City Hall.

After two years, the editor called me one day and said the column run was over. All the celebrity recognition I received from the column quickly ended and the column was replaced with someone else’s. They moved me back to my regular beat covering Chicago’s City Hall, which is where I wanted to be from the beginning.

In journalism, this happens all the time. Sometimes the move is a shift. Other times it involves scandal. Sometimes, it even involves a newspaper reacting to public outcry.

In Israel, this week, The Jerusalem Post decided to drop the regular column ‘Critical Currents’ by Naomi Chazan, the head of the New Israel Fund. The change came in the middle of a storm of controversy in which Chazan and the NIF were being attacked by a right-wing Israeli organization which was angry because, it asserted, the NIF had made it possible for the United Nations to produce “The Goldstone Report.”

The Goldstone Report, as you have read, is the report completed by a fact-finding mission led by renowned international jurist and civil rights lawyer Richard Goldstone. The report concluded that Israel and Hamas both committed war crimes.

But in demonizing NIF and Chazan, the critics complained not that the report was inaccurate, but that some of the facts obtained by the report came from organizations that received funds from NIF. It is a typical lynch mob mentality. Demagoguery at its worst.

NEVERTHELESS, CHAZAN’S column was dropped. It should also be noted that Chazan was also writing for Yedioth Aharonot and Maariv and online web sites and some of her columns were dropped there, too.

I know the NIF very well. It has, in the past, supported the Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour. I have attended many of the events it has organized in Chicago and in Jerusalem. It is progressive and it supports peace based on justice. It backs the two-state solution and its programs often involve frank discussions and analysis that not only challenge the extremism in the Palestinian community but the growing extremism in Israel, too.

I worked for Yedioth Aharonot’s online web page, YnetNews.com, also. And I have been writing irregularly for The Jerusalem Post since leaving YnetNews about two years ago. (I won a Society of Professional Journalism Lisagor Award for my columns at YnetNews.com and I enjoyed the freedom they gave me.)  

But YnetNews.com is an online news site. And being the old-fashioned journalist that I am, I still prefer the print newspaper. I like to see my columns in print, not just online.

Recently, The Jerusalem Post offered to give me a regular column. The column will run every Wednesday, except for this week. The column will reflect my fiercely moderate views and unashamedly anti-extremist views. I passionately dislike extremists – a political lifestyle I define for someone who rejects compromise and enables violence through selective silence; someone who denounces others for violence but is silent when their side engages in the same violence.

A moderate is everything an extremist is not. And, I will go further to say that the new Middle East is not a conflict between Israeli and Palestinians, but rather between extremists and moderates. I am proud to help lead that fight.

The fact that I am Palestinian does not make me feel uncomfortable writing for The Jerusalem Post, which is usually right of center (although it does carry left-wing columnists and op-eds) and all the way to the limits of the right. I don’t mind. To me, journalism is about divergent views.

In fact, to the contrary, I feel at home writing for the newspaper. I believe in the secular future of Palestine and Israel. I also recognize and respect the heritage of my family which has had roots in Jerusalem for a millennium and probably even more. Jerusalem is my home whether it is controlled by the Ottomans, the British or Israel.

Many Palestinians are angry with me for writing for The Jerusalem Post, but I don’t care. There are even more Israelis angered by my columns who sometimes are more articulate in expressing their hate.

But there are far more Palestinians and Israelis who support my views and who reject the extremists who try to control through censorship, intolerance and bullying.

I support the NIF. And I am proud to also write for The Jerusalem Post. I am sure Chazan will do well and find a new forum for her views, views that are badly needed.

In the meantime, I’ll keep writing and define “the moderate Arab voice” speaking to an audience or primarily Jews and Israelis who I believe need to better understand what has otherwise been a poorly articulated Palestinian narrative and viewpoint.

Named Best Ethnic Columnist in America by New America Media, the writer is a Palestinian-American columnist and peace activist. He can be reached at www.YallaPeace.com. This column originally appeared at the PalestineNote.com news blog.

Criticize, yes; Demonize, no

Criticize, yes. Demonize, no
By RAY HANANIA
Originally published in the Jerusalem Post Newspaper
03/02/2010 21:07

It wasn’t that the NIF criticized its government for moral lapses that angers its critics. That it criticized Israel at all provoked the venom.

I always thought it was the Arabs who had the most extremist fanatics screaming at everyone in my community who dared utter something “moderate” or “middle of the road.” In recent months, though, it seems that Arabs and Jews really have more in common than we think.

The Goldstone Report on the Gaza Strip has been a lightning rod for propaganda and hypocrisy on both sides. Authored by a Jewish jurist of the highest caliber, the report details the excesses that some – I repeat some – in Israel’s military engaged in last year against Hamas. It also details war crimes by Hamas against Israel.

If we could ever strip away the political layers of this issue and tune out those who scream that Israel is a “Nazi state” or those who call Israel’s critics anti-Semitic, we might get to a truth that is good for everyone.

Innocent people died in the conflict. The response from Israel was excessive and did not always show concern for the well-being of civilians. Of course, Hamas rockets fired wildly across the border did no better in caring for civilians’ well-being.

Some 1,387 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died. Maybe had the number of deaths been more equal, both Palestinians and Israelis might have taken pause to see this conflict not for the political points that could be scored, but rather for the humanitarian toll it involved. Maybe the debate would not have provoked such tragic hyperbole from both sides.

ON THE Arab side, I can say much of the debate is not about the war crimes or provocations of Hamas, but rather about blaming Israel. I happen to believe Israel’s government made a conscientious choice to attack Hamas even though the data compiled by reputable Israeli institutions showed that for the most part, Hamas was abiding by the summer “lull” agreement of 2008. I think some Israeli generals and government officials were playing politics, and the attack against Hamas had another purpose besides disabling its rocket-firing capabilities. But to the extremist Arabs, the Goldstone Report is a gold mine of hatred.

Tortured images of children mangled by bombs and fire are casually distributed on the Internet, not with condolences to the relativesbut with fiery words of hatred toward all Israelis.

Not saddened by the deaths, the Arab activists are moved to near glee to have finally caught Israel in a mistake, even though mistakes have been made consistently by all sides. The dominant Israeli response has been the same, but focused more on rejecting the criticism. How could a Jewish state founded in the wake of the Holocaust engage in such brutal behavior? It’s a dilemma few Israelis want to address. Nor will they admit to a weakening of Israel’s morality in its assault on Gaza.

But there are a few who recognize that addressing faults is what makes a people strong. In other words, recognizing the excesses of the Israeli military, despite all the arguments of Hamas provocation, strengthen rather than weaken Israel.

Strong leaders are not those who outgun critics in rhetorical skills or PR spin. A leader who recognizes his own faults and seeks to correct them is strong and courageous. It is the correction of a failure, not the denial of that failure, that is the substance of great nations.

RECENTLY, ONE courageous group in Israel, the New Israel Fund, stood up and questioned the IDF’s conduct during the Gaza war. By Arab standards, the NIF critique hardly satisfied the “Down with Israel!” protests that characterize most Arab responses. But the criticism stings nevertheless.

It wasn’t that the NIF criticized its government for moral lapses that angers its critics. That NIF criticized Israel at all is what has provoked the venom.

Calling Goldstone “anti-Semitic” does not seem to bother right-wing fanatics who defend Israel by demonizing the NIF leadership with Nazi-like caricatures.

NIF calls the attacks despicable, as they are. One such assault screams loudly: “Without the New Israel Fund, there would be no Goldstone Report, and Israel would not be facing international accusations of war crimes.” Really? Without the NIF, the Goldstone Report would not have come about?

The criticism is ridiculous, of course. War crimes are not based on accusations but on facts. Ugly facts. Distasteful facts. Unwanted facts. But facts nonetheless. Facts mitigated by context and circumstance perhaps, but facts that must be unbearable to those who have embraced Israel’s dreams through blindness rather than principle.

The accusation, repeated by other hard-line groups, is the equivalent of a police officer who sees a fellow officer commit a crime and turns that colleague in. It’s not easy and in many countries, including Arab nations, it is taboo.

I know Israelis have a tough time acknowledging ugly truths. Arabs have a tough time, too.

I hope to one day experience this simple dream where Israelis and Palestinians, instead of pointing fingers at each other, look first within to acknowledge and correct their own misguided actions.

When a Palestinian can denounce the Palestinian murder of an Israeli, and when an Israeli can denounce the Israeli murder of a Palestinian, then we might have begun to restore the moral compass we need to lead us all to peace.

Yes, it’s just a dream, but I can be criticized for that.

www.YallaPeace.com

A dark lining in every silver cloud, Ray Hanania, Jerusalem Post

A dark lining in every silver cloud
By Ray Hanania
Published in the Jerusalem Post Jan. 30, 2010
Why can’t we say that the recent reports of a reduction in violence is a result of improved relations? That maybe we are starting to hate each other less?

There were no suicide bombings in Israel in 2009. That doesn’t mean no one was killed. Media reports, including in The Jerusalem Post, note that five Israelis were killed in Israel and the West Bank last year. About 49 Israelis were wounded in attacks, not including those injured during Operation Cast Lead at the beginning of last year.

I am surprised, though, that Israelis didn’t give all the credit to the wall, which they call a fence, even though in reality it is a “wall” where it is around people and a “fence” where it is around farmland and open space.

Instead, some give credit for the lower casualties and deaths to war in the Gaza Strip. Others say it’s because of better security and the ability to prevent Palestinians from arming themselves. The focus is on the perpetrators, not those engaged in peace.

How about giving some credit to the majority of Palestinians who didn’t engage in violence, who didn’t engage in protests and who watch Israel’s government continue its policies of expanding the settlements in the West Bank and around Jerusalem, including on my land just north of Gilo?

During the same period, there were many Israeli assaults, mostly by the military and some by the settlers, against Palestinians. According to The Washington Post, 27 Palestinians were killed in “conflict related violence,” down by half from 2008. That doesn’t include the more than 1,000 killed during the war in Gaza.

It has become kind of an industry in Israel and Palestine. I mean, of course, not the killings, but tabulating death tolls from violence. It says something that it is easier to find out how many Israelis and Palestinians were killed by each other than in car accidents or suicide.

It’s almost like dying from natural causes or accidents doesn’t matter as much.

THE GAZA Strip isn’t occupied by Israel any more, although it is certainly controlled by Israel, with the help of Egypt – I’m not sure if that is better than it would be if it were reversed and the Egyptians controlled Gaza with Israel’s help.

But the West Bank and east Jerusalem are, and that’s where my focus is. Why can’t we say the reduction in violence is a result of improved relations? That we are starting to hate each other less?

Why isn’t that reduction in violence an impetus for both sides to ramp-up (an American corporate term that has nothing to do with building Israelis-only roads in the West Bank, by the way) peace talks?

Doesn’t anyone believe that if peace talks resume in earnest, there will be even fewer deaths? “Earnest” means Palestinians speak genuinely about peace and out loud against the violence, and Israelis stop advocating settlement expansion and start looking at shutting some down while easing restrictions.

Is it too much to believe that peace generates more peace? And that peace is the better “wall” or the better “fence,” depending on which side of the conflict you stand?

I own 33 dunams of land next to Gilo near the Muslim village of Sharafat, the “Tarud” land (one of my mother’s families from Bethlehem). The Israelis are planning to confiscate it and build new homes.

I won’t resort to violence, although I bet many others would if it was their land being taken. I will go to the courts and fight and demand that everyone who buys or takes a home there be sued. The court system is where much of this conflict should be taken, not to a violent battlefield.

But I understand that it’s easier to do things in the face of violence than it is in the face of peace. The unknown investors in Jerusalem who are licking their chops at profiting from my land want it this way. The violence allows them to continue to take and profit.

I know the extremists among the Palestinians also are licking their chops knowing that although they speak out against the land confiscations and settlement expansions, those actions give them perceived public approval to engage in more violence against Israel.

Imagine if the land confiscations ended, and the settlements were really frozen, that peace talks could blossom and even fewer people will die. Wouldn’t it be nice if next year, we read stories that reports no Israelis and no Palestinians were killed? Peace talks increased?

That’s the silver lining in the dark clouds above our lives today. We can have that, or we can continue to look for the usual dark linings in the rare silver clouds.

In the meantime, if you know of a good lawyer who doesn’t mind representing Palestinian rights in lands controlled by Israel, have them give me a call. I won’t engage in violence, encourage violence or enable violence to achieve my rights.

It’s something we all should try, don’t you think?

http://www.yallapeace.com/

What Arabs and Muslims hope for from President Obama's speech tonight

American Arabs and Muslims on hopes for Obama

By Ray Hanania

President Barack Obama tonight delivers his State of the Union address, as he rounds the end of his first year in office.

I brought the topic up on my radio show “Radio Chicagoland”and also discussed it on NPR and a few other programs around the country.

What are Arab and Muslim Americans expecting from Obama? And what do they hope for?

Obama is from Chicago, so he is a familiar face to me where I have covered politics as a journalist for more than 33 years. We always knew he was inspirational as a speaker, but we also knew that his inspirational chatter doesn’t always deliver in legislation.

He was a so-so member of the Illinois Senate, close friend of several slippery Chicagoland Arab American activists and as a U.S. Senator, he was a celebrity more than an effective leader driving through important legislation to help his state, Illinois.

But everyone wants inspiration, especially after the tragedy of eight years under former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney – who I call “the anti-Christ” in my standup comedy routine, reflecting his vicious policies that have driven America into near economic ruin. Of course, to be honest, that is very unfair to the anti-Christ.

Obama delivered inspiration. Sometimes that’s all we need to restore confidence, hope and rejuvenate our efforts towards justice.

But there were problems and many Arab American especially recognized those problems right away.

No one pushed Obama to “get tough” with Israel, but Obama did it demanding that Israel’s rightwing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (who could change, maybe) that the expansion of illegal settlements must change.

Well, we all know how that car crash ended. Netanyahu snubbed his nose at Obama and he is still expanding illegal settlements, undermining Middle East peace and fueling continued conflict there.

But it was Obama’s speech to the “Muslim” World that set off many Arabs. The Middle East conflict is NOT a Muslim issue, although Muslims are a large part of the conflict. It is a secular problem involving Arabs who are only a small percentage of the World’s Muslim community. In fact, Arab Muslims are a minority in the Islamic World just as Christian Arabs are a minority in the Arab World.

So when Obama, who has experience in the Muslim World and a Muslim father, characterized his speech as being to the “Muslim World,” many secular Arabs were concerned that maybe Obama doesn’t even understand the fundamentals of the Middle East conflict. So, how can he resolve the problems there?

It’s not a unique problem for Obama. It is an American problem. When the nation’s first daily Islamic radio program launched several years back, it received national media coverage.

When the nation’s first daily Arab radio program launched two years later,  the media ignored it.

Worse in all this are Obama’s non-Middle East troubles.

How can you expect President Obama to resolve the Middle East conflict when he can’t even control his own party of Democrats? Nor can he get even a fundamental package through to give universal healthcare to all Americans, something most other world nations that don’t claim to be the “leader of the Free World” offer to their own citizens.

It is, after all, only Obama’s first year. But it is a good lesson in the damage one can cause by giving people expectations that are too high and maybe unreasonable. Unreasoned expectations, apparently, are the fruit of inspirational speeches.

What does he need to do? Listeners to my radio show, Arabs and mainstream Americans across the board seem agreed on this:

He can put his foot down and challenge Israel’s Netanyahu. Freezing settlements is a simple act that Israel could easily do if the government there genuinely supported peace.

Obama could also get tough on the rebels in the Democratic Party and among Republicans in districts with strong Democratic votes.

Why did Obama allow U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman to retain his perqs and committee chairmanships after Lieberman torpedoed Obama’s health care reform legislation? Lieberman opposes “government run healthcare” in the United States, but not in Israel a foreign country where Lieberman spends most of his Senatorial efforts to help.

Obama should get tough. Legislators who refuse to support his programs should be punished, not rewarded or allowed to retain their leadership positions.

But the bottom line is this. Despite all of his failings, Barack Obama is a far better president than Bush ever was.

And in American politics, it is not about “who is the best.” Politics is sadly only about “who is better.”

-          - Ray Hanania hosts America’s only morning daily Arab American radio show, www.RadioChicagoland.com. This column first appeared at PalestineNote.com

More free speech in Israeli and Palestinian than US media

By Ray Hanania
Published in the Jerusalem Post Jan. 20, 2010

The United States may be the world's most powerful nation, but I think Americans might be afraid of Israel. I know many of the politicians are.

Take the recent case of Jared Malsin, a Jew with US citizenship who covers the Palestinian territories from Bethlehem at the Palestinian news agency, Maan. Malsin took a trip to Prague last week and upon his return, was arrested and taken into custody by Israeli authorities at Ben-Gurion Airport. He was deported to New York yesterday.

During his interrogation and week-long detention, Israeli police took time to look him up on the Internet and read through his writings, which were largely critical of Israel. It's a fascinating story whenever a journalist is detained and jailed by any government. But did anyone in the US care or come to his defense?

Why would they, you might ask?

Well, last year, freelance American journalist Roxana Saberi was arrested by Iranian officials and charged with espionage. There wasn't one politician, candidate or elected official in the US who didn't come to her defense and demand her release.

Months later in March, two Asian-American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were arrested and charged with espionage by the North Korean government. The response from the US was powerful and loud. Everyone, including President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, issued statements denouncing the arrests and demanding the release of the journalists.

SO WHY the near-total silence from American leaders and muted coverage in the American press now over the arrest and detention of Malsin?In both cases, the mainstream American news media reported on their status almost daily, sometimes as their lead stories.

It is a testament to the confidence of Israel's media that they, more than anyone else, have written and followed the Malsin story. In fact, if it wasn't for the Israeli media and the Maan News Agency, few others would be covering the story.

The Palestinian press is much like any media, including Israel's. Some, like the Maan News Agency, are professional journalists. Others, who I will leave unnamed, are not. The issue isn't Malsin's arrest as a journalist by a government, but rather that issues like these are frequently turned into political tools to bash Israel.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Israeli government was wrong in detaining Malsin, keeping him in custody for a week and then deporting him. His rights were seriously restricted.

Malsin is the victim of bad government policy. His arrest undermines principles of freedom and justice Israel claims it represents, though most Israeli media uphold journalistic principles by reporting on the incident.

It's the American mainstream media and its government officials who disappoint me the most, however. While the Israeli media sees this as a story about a government agency violating free speech, the American media and the elected officials in the US view it as a reason to bash Israel.

In a way, that puts the mainstream American press and American politicians in the same boat with those Palestinian and Arab media which see the issue not as one of principle but as an opportunity to attack Israel.

Malsin's arrest and deportation is not about whether Israel is a good or bad country. It's not about whether or not the Israeli government is fair or unjust when it comes to Palestinian rights. It is, though, about a government agency that has violated a journalist's rights and in so doing, compromised Israel's image as a free nation.

One of Malsin's colleagues told me that while there are restrictions that keep most Israeli journalists from entering and covering the West Bank, and most Palestinian journalists from entering and covering Israel, for the most part, Malsin was allowed to travel almost everywhere to get his story, until this incident.

You may not agree with his views, or maybe you do. That isn't nor should it be the issue.

But there is one thing for sure. Most of the Israeli and Palestinian media did a better job of covering his case than the mainstream news media in America, the country that claims to set the bar for the rest of the world when it comes to free speech.

Have the mainstream American media and American officials failed in doing their jobs, or are they just afraid to get on Israel's bad side?

Whatever the reason, many in the Israeli and Palestinian press are keeping the story on the front burner in a way that helps guarantee that Malsin's journalistic rights will eventually be protected, while putting the "free media" in America to shame.


The writer is a Palestinian American columnist, Chicago radio talk show host and coordinator of the National Arab American Journalists Association.

American Journalist Jared Malsin detained one week and deported

20 January 2010
For immediate release

For the first time in a week, journalist Jared Malsin was allowed to use his mobile phone on Wednesday morning to inform Ma'an that he was being placed onto an El Al flight to New York.

He sounded shaken and confused. He said he did not know why he was not being flown to Prague, where he was expected to be sent, saying only that flying there "would create problems." He said he was in an armored vehicle that was transporting him to the airport gate.

On Tuesday, Tel Aviv District Judge Kobi Vardi ordered that a hearing be scheduled to consider the Israeli Ministry of the Interior's decision to deport the journalist. Following the call, lawyer Castro Daoud went to the airport detention facility where Malsin has been kept for the past week to deliver the news.

At about 2:30 pm, Daoud left the detention center and filed a motion requesting that Jared be permitted to leave the country while the hearing and case proceed in his absence. As the Attorney General's Office insisted that Malsin not be permitted to attend his hearing, Daoud argued that it was no longer necessary to keep him confined to his cell in the detention center.

At about 4:30pm, staff from the US Embassy in Tel Aviv notified Malsin’s parents in the US state of New Hampshire that he would be on the next flight to Prague, even though Justice Vardi had not ruled on Daoud’s motion to let Malsin travel and still pursue the case.

At about 7:30pm, Daoud expressed shock after he received notification that a motion was signed by Malsin requesting his deportation challenge be annulled. Justice Vardi has closed the case on Malsin’s deportation order one week after it was filed.

Ma’an is deeply concerned that there was no lawyer present when Malsin apparently filed this independent motion, which was sent from the Ministry of the Interior and not his legal representative, who had just left. It is inexplicable that Malsin would knowingly drop the legal challenge after his first major success.

Without jumping to conclusions, Ma’an wants to be sure these events did not take place under duress, and is consequently concerned that Malsin’s lawyer and parents were prevented from reaching him during the 24 hours before the deportation to clarify what happened between 2:30 and 4:30pm on Tuesday afternoon.

See the following for more information:

On the reaction of international press associations:
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=254583
On Jared’s fight to overturn the deportation order:
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=254021
On the timeline of Jared’s detention and questioning:
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=254589

For further inquiries, please contact:

George Hale (English)
              +972(0)52.785-4907         +972(0)52.785-4907
Raed Othman (Arabic)
              +972(0)59.925-8705         +972(0)59.925-8705
Nasser Lahham (Hebrew)
              +972(0)59.925-8704         +972(0)59.925-8704

For the most updated version of this news release, click here:
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=253864

Arab journalists suffer oppression because Arab Journalism groups fail to work together

Arab journalists suffer oppression because Arab Journalism groups fail to work together

By Ray Hanania

Jared Malsin, an English editor at the Maan News Agency in Bethlehem, was arrested and jailed by Israeli border police this week for the high crime of "criticizing Israel." The journalist is sitting in a jail cell awaiting a kangaroo court hearing before an Israeli judge. And there is nothing Arab Journalists can do about it, mainly because they spend more time fighting among themselves than they do networking and creating one, single, strong voice.

Maan, which is constantly under siege from israeli authorities and operating under Israel's brutal repression of palestinian voices in the occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem, is fighting to spread the word and get support.

But the challenge they face is not of their own doing. The problem has to do with the fact that most journalism associations, especially those organized by Arabs, do not work together. Maybe it's rivalry. Maybe it's politics. Maybe it's about jealousy. Maybe it's just that the presidents-for-life at the various groups just don't like each other.

And who suffers? Journalists like Jared Malsin.

In the United States, Arabs have 10 journalism associations. None of them will work together. Almost all of them insist on being "the" organization, when in fact none of them are really anything of significance.

Working together or networking doesn't mean an organization has to lose its identity nor lose it's influence. It CAN mean just linking together the way we link pages on the Internet. But that means showcasing another organization and American Arab organizations -- not just the Arab journalism groups -- don't like to do that.

Maybe it is a cultural thing?

Because the same thing happens in the Middle East.

Arab World Journalists are arrogant and look down on American Arab journalists, even though journalism in the United States, despite the political bias towards Israel, is more professional and more powerful than anything written in the Middle East. In fact, much of the arrogance has to do with a cultural flaw in the world of Arab journalists. If you don't speak and write in Arabic, you are NOT an Arab! That's the corrupted attitude of how Arab World journalism operates.

The truth is that the Arab World media that writes only in Arabic is doing the Arab people, and especially the Palestinian people, a huge disservice. In fact, it might be a moral crime. The Western audience doesn't read, hear or understand anything published in the Arab World media in Arabic and therefore the Arab World media in Arabic is not influential and marginalized.

But they are legends in their own minds, of course.

How do we change that?

1 - All Arab journalism organizations in the Middle East and in the West such as the United States, should network together. Put aside their differences -- Journalism is NOT about politics or activism, but about professional journalism principles of objectivity.

2 - The Arab World media should expand their operations to include mirror English web sites and even sections in their all-Arabic pages with English translations.

3 - Arab American and Western Arab groups should insure they also provide both English and Arabic sections.

Setting aside politics is going to be tough because Arab World journalism did not arise out of the need for free speech, but rather out of the long term activism to fight political oppression in places like Israel and also in other Arab countries like Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.

In the meantime, everyday an Arab journalist like Jared Malsin is detained, harassed and intimidated by Israel or another government agency including in the Arab World.

And until Arab Journalists decide to set aside their political rivalries and focus first and foremost on professional journalism reporting in both Arabic and English, Jared Malsin won't be the last.

Click to Read the National Arab American Journalism Association release on Maslin.

Click to read the recent update by Maan (Ma'an) News Agency's update on Maslin.

-- Ray Hanania

http://www.naaja-us.com/

http://naaja-us.ning.com/

The challenges and experiences of Arabs in American, radio discussion

Producer and filmmaker Usama alShaibi joins Ray Hanania in discussing with guests on "Mornings with Ray Hanania" radio the challenges facing American Arabs and their experience in America with guests Laila alHussini, the morning radio talk show host in Dearborn, Michigan. Also, Victor Ghannam, a musician with singer sensayion Safa Dahan, discusses Middle Eastern music and their performances in Chicago.

The show was broadcast live on WJJG 1530 AM Radio Monday January 11, 2009 and is podcast on iTunes and on www.RadioChicagoland.com.

Laila alHussini hosta "Good Morning Michigan" radio in Dearborn and is occasionally a co-host with Hanania as the simulcast a syndicated show broadcasting live to both the Chicagoland and Dearborn areas. The show is also broadcast in Windsor, Canada, and Ohio.
 ... Listen to the Podcast

Musician and producer Victor Ghannem discusses his new music CD and American Arab music during the final 15 minutes of the 60 minute interview segment. Ghannem performs Wednesday January 13 at the theatre of Old Town School of Music in Chicago, with the well known American musician, Jacco Muller and Middle East singer sensation Safa Dahan.Call 1-773-728-6000 for reservations. Tickets are free, but donations are accepted (Ghannam interview is last 15 minutes of podcast) 

Radio Chicagoland is one of the few programs hosted by an American Arab that also discusses in its show schedules each morning issues related to American Arabs, Muslims and the Middle East. Hanania and al-Hussini also are the only two American Arabs who broadcast a Monday thru Friday morning radio program in the country. Radio Chicagoland is broadcast Monday thru Friday on WJJG 1530 AM Radio from 8 am until 9:30.

The show format takes calls from listeners.

-- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com

www.Hanania.com

Pro-Hamas media bias and Gaza activists block peace

Pro-Hamas media bias and Gaza activists block peace
By Ray Hanania

When Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas complained recently in Qatar that the media there was pro-Hamas, and that tis bias was threatening the ability to achieve peace, he struck a chord that many Palestinians know is true.

It isn't just the mainstream Arab media that is pro-Hamas, branded a "terrorist organization" by many nations, but it's also the groups that support Hamas that slowly dominate the Middle East landscape unchallenged that are threatening peace.

A good example of this is the issue of the Gaza Strip, where Palestinians complain they are under an oppressive military and economic Israeli siege and where Israelis counter that radical elements there continue to target their civilians with Katyushas and Kassam missiles.

Gaza is a very complicated issue, but not that hard to really understand.

The area has been controlled by Hamas and radical Muslims since the 1970s. Although Hamas's parent organization, the Islamic Association, did provide health and social care to its citizens, that care was only given to those who embraced its hard-line religious ideology.

Hamas opposes genuine peace with Israel, and used the most pernicious form of violence - suicide bombings - throughout the 1990s to destroy the peace process and prevent compromise. Its mission is not to achieve peace based on compromise, but to pursue the impossible dream - more a nightmare for everyday Palestinians - of destroying Israel and returning Palestine to what it was in 1917, before it came under British colonialism.

THAT HAMAS desire is not only shared by the religious extremists who continue to grow, but by those who are secular fanatics yet also oppose peace based on compromise. Most of those activists are based in Western countries, where it is easy to chant for the destruction of not only Israel but of Abbas's secular Palestinian government which does support compromise based on two-states.

These are strange bedfellows in the Palestinian extremist camps, religious fanatics shoulder-to-shoulder with secular extremists like the Popular Front and the rejectionists led by the activists and fawned on by the Arab media that mistakenly believe "freedom" means embracing the most extremist activists.

The Arab media, which glorify religious extremism and even violent attacks, don't realize, of course, that under a Hamas-run government, it wouldn't just be Jews, Christians and secular Muslims who would be oppressed. The media in a Hamastan would be among the primary targets, stripped of the "freedoms" they enjoy today - of criticizing Abbas, two states and peace based on compromise.

THE ISSUE for the Free Gaza protesters is not about bringing freedom to the 1.3 million Palestinians there or lifting Israel's "oppressive military and economic siege." It's about their long-term goals. By "freeing" Gaza, they mean declaring Hamas the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people." But that's not their goal.

The purpose of many of the protesters is to strengthen Hamas. They know that Israel is forced to deal first with the threats rather than the compelling cases for peace. And Hamas is a threat not only to Israel but also to the Palestinians, secular Arab countries like Egypt and Jordan, to Christian and Jewish religious independence and, more importantly, to the goal of achieving a peace based on nonviolent compromise.

The activists continue to cling to the false and irrelevant claims that Hamas won one election in 2006 and ignore the fact that Hamas was ousted from political leadership in the same way it was installed. It was a corrupt election that was poorly constructed, allowing the divisions of the majority of Palestinians to be merged with Hamas's faith-based reticence. In Western nations with elections, they separate the two processes, allowing individual parties to select their candidates from internal battles before putting them up against candidates from the other parties.

Hamas and the activists have allowed the Gaza Strip to fester in economic squalor because it suits their purpose. They can't rally support based on their ideals because they have no realistic ideals. They call for the destruction of Israel and the destruction of a secular two-state Palestine, and also for the destruction of Egypt and pretty much anyone who doesn't agree with their extremist agendas.

Rather than help the besieged people of the Gaza Strip achieve freedom and build the first steps of a secular Palestinian state that would lead to the creation of full Palestinian statehood in the West Bank, the protesters have helped to encase the Palestinians there in continued suffering.

THE PROTESTERS seeking to enter Gaza have closed their eyes to the oppression and brutality that is the true Hamas. They have limited their criticism to Egypt.

More importantly, this bizarre alliance between the religious fanatics and the secular extremists which today is focused on the Gaza Strip is silent on the campaign of terror that Hamas continues to wage against secular Palestinians.

Hamas has made it easy for some to oppose Palestinian statehood, and is the main obstacle standing in the way of peace.

The Arab media are going through an internal struggle no different than the one now dominating Arab and Palestinian politics. It's one between extremists who see the media as an instrument of activism and those of us who believe the media must remain objective witnesses to the truth.

Truth means that not all of today's tragic events can be blamed on Israel, Egypt, Abbas or on the failure, so far, to achieve peace.

The writer is a Palestinian American columnist, satirist and founder of Yalla Peace.

This column appeared in the Jerusalem Post Jan. 12, 2010

Ray Hanania interviewed by satire web site criticizing fanatics

Here's the link to Ray Hanania's interview on the satire site taking on extremists and fanatics in the American Arab community at "KabobFest."

Click here to read story?

www.RadioChicagoland.com

Interview with Bradley Burston of Israel's Haaretz Newspaper

JAN. 2010 -- Interview with Haaretz Columnist Bradley Burston

Haaretz columnist Bradley Burston on Radio Chicagoland 12-20-09 @ Yahoo! Video

Tragedy in Wonderland, the fatalism of the rejectionist ideology

It's one thing to be optimistic. But when you replace optimism with fatalistic hope, it is irresponsible and even selfish.

How else do you describe the bizarre, although articulately expressed, assertions by Ali Abunimeh, the presumed successor to the late great philosopher Edward Said, that Israel is "failing?" Published on Abunimeh's web site "The Electronic Intifada," where Abunimeh pines for the days when Palestinians were willing to sacrifice everything by using inadequate violence to respond to Israel's military violence, the column makes the seemingly bold claim that Israel is a "failed" state.

That kind of rebellious declaration, or rhetoric, does make the Palestinian sheep that follow him blindly cheer for optimism. But it isn't optimistic at all. In fact, attempts to rally the Palestinians with empty claims are undermining Palestinian ability to overcome the occupation.

The fact is if Israel is a "failed" state, then what is Palestine? What is the Palestinian achievement? What is the Palestinian strategy/ What is the means by which Palestinians might exploit this national failure by Israel?

The sad truth is that Palestinian extremists have been feeding false hope and useless rhetoric that instead of moving Palestinians to overcome the occupation have deluded them into believing that the continuation of the occupation is good because it will miraculously vanish because "Israel is a failed state."

Never mind that the movement Abunimeh cheers like a scene from the film "Lord of the Flies" amidst the bonfire of his vanities is an empty movement with only one goal: keep the conflict going because there might be some miracle. Because that is what Palestinian extremists need, a miracle. And they don't mind waiting through three more generations of Palestinian refugee destitution in the hopes it will arrive. Someday. Not now, of course. But someday, in the distant future.

People who are desperate and denied leadership will consume anything for hope. Alixirs. Promises of dreams that in reality are nightmares. False hope is always what false leaders offer to the hopeless. Because feeding hopelessness preserves the leaders of the "leaders."

They can't tell the people the sad and pathetic truth that after 62 years of fighting with false hope and lies and alixirs, the Palestinian people are no closer to statehood than they were in 1948. The rejectionists used to blame that failure on the late Palestinian President Yasir Arafat. Never mind that Arafat was the only Palestinian to achieve any significant objective, raising through revolution the Palestinian people out of the abyss of darkness and forcing the world to recognize that we in fact do exist. But that revolution in the hands of extremists and other false Palestinian prophets is non-existent. They wish for it, which is why Abunimeh's Electronic Intifada is an online altar to a power long lost.

There have been two Intifadas. The first was powerful and pushed Israel to the negotiating table that it falsely claimed it hoped to sit at with Palestinian peace partners. The sacrifices of the first Intifada, led by Palestinians at the grassroots level of the occupation, had a goal: to resist the oppressive Israeli military occupation and to push Israel to a solution to end the occupation and allow creation of a Palestinian State.

The second Intifada was started not by Palestinians but by Ariel Sharon, an Israeli terrorist in a three-piece suit who rose from the infamy of the Qibya massacre of Palestinian civilians in 1953 (and later was also involved in the Qafr Qassem massacre as a military supervisor in 1956) to become Israel's most vicious prime minister. It was hijacked from the hapless Palestinian people by the terrorism of Hamas, a religiously fanatic militant organization that Sharon and Israel helped midwife into being in the 1970s.

Abunimeh, who comes from the same corrupted Palestinian elite who destroyed Palestinian hopes and dreams in the pre-1948 years, pines for another Intifada, a violent and unnecessary option that would heap huge suffering upon a Palestinian people already max-ed out in suffering. The last thing the Palestinians need is another violent struggle against Israel. After two failed struggles and limited success from a revolution, Palestinians need leaders who can bring the conflict to an abrupt end and achieve at least some form of genuine statehood sovereignty. The only way to do that is to negotiate a real peace that establishes Palestine as a state in the last remaining land in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

There is still hope for that two-state settlement, but that hope is exactly what pushes the rejectionists to mislead Palestinians into believing that somehow Israel, which has its military boot on the necks of Palestinian Nationalism, is in fact a "failure."

The only answer is peace. But that is why the rejectionists and their disciples continue to push for conflict. Their goal is the same goal that was sought by Hamas when Arafat and the late Yitzhak Rabin sought to negotiate a final peace agreement. Hamas and Abunimeh want the option of peace to be erased forever. If they can just get rid of the slim hope for peace through negotiations and compromise, then, maybe, Palestinians will stop trying to compromise and instead go all out in a new Intifada, one in which the leaders, sheltered in their luxurious homes in the decadence of the West that they so despise, can cheer on each and every Palestinian to martyrdom. Every Palestinian Martyr becomes another opportunity to push palestinians away from hope and in to the hands of all out conflict.

That reality is that while many in the world are outraged at Israel's military and violent excesses in the West Bank and the alleged war crimes in the Gaza Strip, Israel is far from failure. It is the Palestinian people who are moving closer and closer to failure, thanks to the rejectionists and their lack of leadership and their inspirationally misleading words to fight on. "Until every last Palestinian has sacrificed his or her life for the rejectionist cause."

But Abunimeh is just one person. A good person when he is not leading the Palestinian people, but one who is leading Palestinians to another decade of slaughter. The real problem is the extremism that his zealotry represents. The idea that destroying peace and igniting a new Intifada because "Israel is a failed state" is so appealing to the traumatized, hapless Palestinian masses (who have been embraced by conflict for so long they know no other means of life) they are willing to go that route and lose everything rather than salvage what they can.

Many often point to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and observe that Palestinians mimic the Israelis in their actions. Yet Palestinians have not mimicked israel at all. Instead, they chose the fatalistic and the failed option almost every time. Israelis have always taken what they could, when they could, and how they could. In contrast, Palestinians, led by rejectionist leaders, have insisted that they must take "all or nothing."

It was the three famous "No's" in the 1960s. And those "No's" have turned into the foundation of Palestinian rejectionist policies. No normalization. No compromise. No peace. "All or nothing."

I will admit though that Abunimeh has a better chance of achieving the goal that is the destiny of his leadership: Palestinians, having demanded "all," will find themselves with "nothing."

You never know, though. There could be a miracle. Someday. Maybe. Possibly. Just say no to peace. Turn anger into hatred and hatred into violence.

Or, Palestinians can break the bonds of the extremist hallucinogens, open their eyes, see that their people are in such a state of despair that compromise is their only hope to begin to rebuild their devastated nation.

But few Palestinians have the courage to admit that they made a mistake, they were wrong and that the policies of violence and empty rhetoric are as much to blame for their plight as are the brutal policies of the Israeli occupier.

Israelis could not have wished for a better opponent, one that allows emotion to trump reason and good decisions to be erased by empty words of extremist and rejectionist rhetoric.

Tragedy in Wonderland.

-- Ray Hanania

www.YallaPeace.com