Judea Magazine, No. 6.6
Hebron Etzion
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"Rebuilding Jewish Life in Judea, Israel"
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JUDEA ELECTRONIC MAGAZINE Vol.6, No.6 Heshvan-Kislev 5759/Nov-Dec 1998
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Website: www.virtual.co.il\clients\judea
Contents:
* The Return to Simon the Righteous
* Hurricane Benny
* Why I'm Optimistic
* Jewish Heroes: Tank Commander Shmuel Askarov
* From "Peace Now" to Zionism
* Investing in Yasser Arafat
* Not Equal
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A Hanukkah Story
THE RETURN TO SIMON THE RIGHTEOUS
An historic and emotion-filled event took place in Jerusalem on the
eve of the first day of Hanukkah, and it was not Bill Clinton's visit.
The restored synagogue of Shimon Hatzadik (Simon the Righteous) in the
once (and now again) Jewish neighborhood of Shimon Hatzadik in eastern
Jerusalem was rededicated in the presence of former residents of this and
surrounding neighborhoods.
Before the candle-lighting ceremony, some of us were taken on a tour
by the army officer who was the first Jew to return to the neighborhood
during the Six-Day War when eastern Jerusalem was liberated. Shimon
Hatzadik was founded in 1891 and was home to many Jews until the eve of
Israel's War of Independence in 1948, when they were forced to leave by
the British who wanted the area Judenrein. The Jewish homes were on the
route that the British were to take as they left Jerusalem for the last
time, at the end of the Mandate.
We stood on what was once the Israeli side of no-man's land, looking
at the former Jordanian position overlooking to the neighborhood. Our
guide shared with us the problems involved in capturing that position,
among them an unfamiliarity with the area -- someone had forgotten to
bring the aerial photos. Yet in spite of the odds, he and two other
soldiers managed to get behind the Jordanian position, surprising the
enemy from the rear.
We crossed over no-man's land, passed the former Jordanian position,
and suddenly there was a commotion in our group as the older men, those
who had once lived there, began to recognize features of the area. Some
had not been back since 1948.
"Here is where one of the synagogues was," said one man pointing at
a small building. The original structure had been destroyed. "See that
tree. My father planted that tree," exclaimed another. Across from the
tree is a house whose lintel is graced with a Magen David and two
_hamsot_ (a hand-shaped symbol used as a protective amulet by Jews to
this day). The old Arab woman living there remembered the Jews and
proudly displayed the Jewish symbols over her door. The children around
her were also very friendly -- no one seems to fear that the Jews are
coming back to their former homes.
Down the road, some of those with us remember the tiny, one-room
home of an old Arab man who used to rent bicycles to the Jewish children
in the neighborhood. He was still there.
One of the men pulls us over to two windows and says with great
emotion. "See these windows. Inside there is a wide window ledge. The
ledge could be lifted up and below was a 'slik,'" a hiding place where
the Haganah (one of the Jewish underground groups) hid its weapons from
the British. Every time there was a British raid on the area, his
mattress was put on the window ledge and he would lie down pretending
that this was his bed. The British never found the hiding place, and in
1968 this man went back and found all that was hidden there from 1948 --
guns, ammunition, documents. Today it is all in the Haganah Museum.
The most recent event in the Shimon Hatzadik neighborhood began a
few months ago when someone noticed that the Arab who lived next door to
the abandoned Shimon Hatzadik synagogue was expanding his house to
incorporate the synagogue. MK Rabbi Benny Elon, together with Yeshivat
Beit Orot on the nearby Mount of Olives, worked quickly to stop the Arab
and turn the synagogue and some of the old Jewish property around the
synagogue back into a place where Jews once more walked, prayed, and
learned.
And so it was that the synagogue was renovated in time to be
rededicated on the first night of Hanukkah. The beautiful new Hanukkiah
(menorah) was dedicated to the memory of Shlomo Ben Aziza, a young man
who died just fifty meters from his home in the neighborhood while
defending the convoy of doctors, nurses and patients ambushed by Arab
murderers in 1948 while on its way to Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus.
Seventy-eight Jews were slaughtered that day by the Arabs.
The neighborhood's former residents brought their children and
grandchildren, some having traveled a great distance for the occasion.
It felt like a journey back through time, and yet it wasn't only about
reminiscing. Something is being built and renewed here. Even though it
will not be like it was before, Jews had come back to reclaim, restore,
and rededicate another piece of their land -- not unlike the ancient
Maccabees who, over 2,000 years ago, restored and rededicated the sacred
Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. -- Y.A.
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HURRICANE BENNY
Retired supreme court justice Menachem Elon is his father. Margalit
Har-Shefi is his niece. Rehavam Zeevi is his colleague in the Moledet
party in the Knesset. But soft-spoken MK Benny Elon, 44, a resident of
Beit El, continues to enjoy the image of a well-mannered, polite, and
very intelligent man with whom it is possible to speak.
Q: Beyond the ideology and the fight for Eretz Israel, what happens
to you inside, in your deepest private space, as the withdrawal agreement
is being implemented?
A: "I feel the pain of amputation. Exactly that, like cutting off a
leg. They're taking away the land beneath our feet. We are becoming
virtual, diasporized, less healthy. I feel like I'm in the midst of a
battle, that I can't rest for a second. On the other hand, I also feel
like some anachronistic cuckoo, saying things people don't want to hear
about the danger from a Palestinian state. This feeling isn't new, but
now I feel more isolated."
"I tried to explain countless times to the prime minister that he
faced a critical moment in history, that if he could reach May 1999 and
Arafat was left without the goods, this would break up Arafat's 'Plan of
Stages' that he has been following for the past 22 years and the whole
climate of the area will change."
"The average citizen only understands the situation when he sees
blood. People haven't realized that the conflict with Arafat is a
thousand times more difficult than any war we've known in the past. He's
carefully bringing us, step-by-step, to the 1967 borders, exploding the
myth of Israeli success. We're losing faith in the justice of our cause,
beset with internal quarrels, becoming easy prey for slaughter whenever
Arafat or his successor decides, together with Arab states, that the time
for slaughter has arrived."
(From Interview by Ronel Fisher in _Maariv_ Weekend, 27 Nov 98, pp.
8-14.)
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WHY I'M OPTIMISTIC
Moshe Feiglin
People have been asking me these days, how is it that I can be so
optimistic? The truth is, in the face of such a terrible situation, I do
feel a bit awkward explaining to friends of mine whose homes are about to
be turned into islands within the Palestinian autonomy, why things are
really not so bad. I tell them that they have a great merit in being the
ones to protect this land for the entire nation. I explain to them that
just like Metulla and Gadot absorbed the enemy attacks in the 1950s, so
too we are the front line of our country in our generation. It's true
that there is a major difference: the kibbutzniks were supported by the
entire nation, while we are considered merely a thorn in its side. It's
true that it would be easier if we had their support - but so what? If
this is the test that God wants to give us, then apparently we are able
to meet the challenge.
We should remember the underground organizations that drove the
British from the land. Was the nation behind them? A lot less than they
are behind us! Those heroes were persecuted from within and without. Does
this mean that their struggle wasn't worth it? Of course it was! Without
them, we wouldn't have had a state today. The leftists of that time would
have reached some sort of compromise with the British - but instead,
those "extremists" messed up their plans, and in their merit we ended up
with the State of Israel. Today, too, we have the same test. Thank God,
He has left us a bit of history to make.
The question is not whether we will pass the test. It is certain
that we will, contrary to some journalists who love to seek out those
individuals who may not be able to stick it out to the end. I am pained -
not angered - for those who don't have the strength to continue. I thank
them for every minute that they lived here and contributed to our
struggle for the Land. I know for sure that for every family who may want
to leave, if there are any, ten other families can be found who are
willing to come to replace them. I have no doubt of this, because I am a
great believer in this nation. Our nation has some amazing inner powers,
to the point that all those who rush to eulogize us always end up eating
their hat in the end.
* * *
Moshe Feiglin, a co-founder of Zo Artzeinu, is one of the heads of
the Jewish Leadership (Manhigut Yehudit) organization.
(From Arutz 7 Radio, November 18, 1998)
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25 Years Since the Yom Kippur War
JEWISH HEROES: TANK COMMANDER SHMUEL ASKAROV
Abraham Rabinovich
Israeli forces came within a hairsbreadth of being pushed off the
Golan Heights in the Yom Kippur War 25 years ago. Left by the nation's
leadership to face 9-1 odds, officers and men had to fall back on
instincts in the face of chaos.
Ten days before Yom Kippur, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, head of
Military Intelligence Gen. Eli Zeira, Northern Front commander Yitzhak
Hofi, and other senior military figures toured the Golan line. They were
briefed on a hilltop overlooking Syrian positions by Maj. Shmuel Askarov,
deputy commander of a tank battalion. At 24, he was the youngest deputy
battalion commander in the army and a fast-rising star.
He pointed out the large Syrian deployment to the east and described
the extensive exercises their tank units had been carrying out in recent
days. "War is certain," said the young officer. Dayan turned to Zeira for
a reply. "There will not be a war for another 10 years," Askarov would
remember him saying.
Facing the Israeli lines were five Syrian divisions with more than
45,000 men, 1,500 tanks and 1,000 artillery pieces. On the Israeli side
were 6,000 men, 170 tanks and 60 artillery pieces.
At noon on Yom Kippur, Maj. Askarov drove his tank to his office in
the Hushniya base, a few kilometers west of the front line, and left it
parked a meter from his door, like a favorite sports car, with the crew
nearby.
At 1:56 p.m., the Yom Kippur stillness was shattered by the drone of
planes and explosions. Even as the Syrian MiGs pulled away, artillery
shells started to tear into the Hushniya base and every other military
target on the Golan. Askarov was on his tank in a minute and heading at
full speed through the heavy barrage toward the front.
When he mounted the tank ramp alongside Bunker 111, he could see
nothing at first because the intensive shelling threw up clouds of dust.
When at last there was a lull, he was dumbfounded at the view. Emerging
from the dust cloud were hundreds of Syrian tanks moving toward the
Israeli line. Five tanks carrying portable bridges had already reached
the Israeli tank ditch -- five meters deep, five meters wide -- that ran
all along the line. Askarov managed to hit three that were within range.
Looking behind him, he saw that the six other tanks that were
supposed to be on the ramps were sheltering behind them. He called on
their commanders on the radio net to move up and begin firing, but got no
clear response. They all seemed to be in shock. Askarov ordered his
driver to reverse down the slope and brake alongside a tank commanded by
an officer. Despite the shelling, Askarov got out of his tank, climbed
the other tank and pulled out his revolver. "Get up there or I'll shoot,"
he said, pointing it at the officer's head. Within a minute, all the
tanks were on the ramp firing. Askarov understood that the shock of
battle can make good men freeze. As for himself, he had no doubt that he
would be hit. There seemed no way of not being swept away by this
inundation. The only question was whether he would be killed or wounded.
Within a short time, most of the tanks alongside him were hit and
their commanders killed. His own tank was hit four times but remained
operational. He kept moving from ramp to ramp in order to throw up dust
and create the impression of a larger force.
Askarov had chosen as his gunner the finest tank sniper in the
brigade, Yitzhak Hemo of Kiryat Shmona. Tank sniping is not a skill but
an art that can enable its practitioners to hit twice as many targets as
an ordinary gunner, even in the stress of battle. Within five hours,
Askarov would count some 35 tanks hit as well as a number of infantry-
carrying armored personnel carriers (APCs). It was Askarov who picked the
target and turned the turret, roughly aligning the gun. But it was the
gunner who did the final 10 percent of fine tuning that made the
difference between hit and miss.
Given the masses of vehicles passing under the guns on the ramp, it
was like shooting fish in a barrel except that in this case the fish were
shooting back. For the most part, the oncoming Syrian tanks simply
swerved around crippled tanks and continued past the bunker, heading for
the Israeli rear. Some, however, detached themselves to engage the tanks
on the ramps. About 7 p.m., Hemo hit a tank at 50-meter range that had
come up from the main track to the left of the ramp. Suddenly Askarov saw
another tank approaching 30 meters away on the service road leading up
from the UN post to the right. He swung the turret and shouted to Hemo,
who fired the same instant as did the Syrian gunner. Askarov was blown
out of the turret. Retrieved by men from the bunker, he reached Safed
Hospital within a few hours with wounds to his face and vocal cords that
enabled him only to whisper. He was operated on and told by the doctors
that he would be able to leave the hospital in two weeks. The young
officer, however, would be taking leave -- and returning -- much sooner
than that.
In Safed Hospital, Baruch Askarov, a high school senior, found his
brother Shmuel on Sunday afternoon lying in bed with his forehead and
throat wrapped in bandages. He could not talk louder than a whisper and
could not turn his head. Baruch had read an account in that morning's
newspaper of an officer hospitalized in Safed whose tank had destroyed
more than 30 Syrian tanks in the opening hours of the war. Even though
the article gave a different name, Baruch had recognized his brother from
the description and hitchhiked up from Tel Aviv.
During the day, Shmuel Askarov received visits and calls from rear-
echelon officers from his brigade. They reported an unending series of
disasters. The brigade, the 188th, had in effect been wiped out. Its
commander, his deputy, and the operations officer were dead; their bodies
had not yet been found. The remnants of Askarov's battalion -- 12 out of
33 tanks -- were cut off behind enemy lines at Tel Fares.
With a disaster of this magnitude looming, hospitalization was not a
luxury Askarov could permit himself. He reached his driver by telephone
and told him to bring a uniform. Early Monday morning, Askarov "escaped"
Safed Hospital and headed eastward in a jeep. Having no brigade to return
to, he got off at a large tank depot near Rosh Pina.
What was needed on the Golan, he reasoned, were tanks, mechanics and
crewmen. He found 150 men at the depot, some of whom had descended the
Heights on their own after their tanks were hit. Gathering them round and
speaking as loudly as he could, he said he was returning to the Golan and
wanted to take them with him. Every man was needed there. He had rounded
up four trucks at the depot, he said, to carry them. It seemed for a
moment that he had convinced the men to follow him, but then an officer
spoke up. "I'm a major and I ran away. You can put me in prison, but I'm
not going back to that hell." In the circumstances, that sounded to the
others more like the voice of reason than Askarov's plea for heroics.
Askarov drove off to the Golan with a solitary officer from the brigade.
His first stop was the headquarters base at Nafekh, which he was
relieved to find still in Israeli hands. On the basis of reports about
the last whereabouts of his brigade commander, he located the officer's
upended tank and found his body inside. One hundred meters to the rear
was the body of the deputy commander, who had abandoned his tank after it
had fired its last shell as Syrian tanks closed in.
Askarov drove from there to his battalion's rear base on the
Heights. It was filled with tank crewmen, mechanics, and damaged tanks,
but there was little activity. The men were dispirited and listless.
Askarov, a popular figure in the battalion, called the men together.
Despite his raspy whisper, he managed to transmit to them his
purposefulness and sense of urgency. The situation was desperate, he
said, and everything must be done to get tanks ready for battle in the
morning. Mechanics were soon swarming over the damaged tanks,
cannibalizing some in order to repair others. Askarov formed crews from
volunteers who readily came forward, men who lost their tanks during the
battle and were prepared to return to the front. Repairs went on
intensely through the night.
At one point, a colonel from Northern Command arrived and was
shocked at Askarov's physical appearance. He gave him a direct order to
return to hospital. "I'm commanding the brigade now," replied the young
major, "and I'm giving orders here." The staff officer relented.
Shortly before dawn, someone tapped Askarov hard on the shoulder.
It was Col. Yossi Ben-Hanan, who had been battalion commander until the
month before. He had been in Nepal on his honeymoon when he heard by
chance three days before that his country was at war. He had rushed back
as fast as he could and headed for the Golan. Askarov handed over command
of the force he had shaped. Their old battalion, destroyed in battle,
appeared to have emerged from the ashes.
Just as a sector commander was withdrawing from the line, his tanks
out of ammunition, the 13-tank force that Askarov had organized the
previous night arrived to take his place. Askarov took up position
alongside Ben-Hanan as the rest of the unit formed a battle line. They
began to move slowly forward, pushing the Syrians back.
The Israeli and Syrian tanks were whirling in a death dance, mixed
in with one another. Askarov hit a tank just 40 meters from him and set
it ablaze. A Syrian crewman leaped out, but Askarov had turned away to
scan the battlefield ahead for tanks. He heard Ben-Hanan shout on the
radio, "Watch out," but it was too late. The Syrian tank crewman had
fired a shot from his assault rifle that struck Askarov in the head. Ben-
Hanan killed the Syrian with a shell and ordered Askarov carried to a
field station.
Askarov was taken to Rambam Hospital in Haifa where he was examined
by four neurosurgeons. The bullet had entered his forehead and emerged
from the rear of his skull, damaging his brain. Three of the doctors said
it was hopeless and turned their attention to other casualties flooding
the hospital. The fourth doctor, Yitzhak Shechter, performed an eight-
hour operation. Askarov would recover. Though partially paralyzed and
impaired in speech, he would walk unaided, drive his own car, read
extensively, and enjoy an active social life. Today, after lengthy
rehabilitation, he works for the Defense Ministry.
Israel's recovery from the war's shattering opening reflected a
vigorous society that had both a coherent framework for survival -- an
efficient mobilization system and a well-trained army -- and an ability
to improvise in chaotic circumstances. As Avigdor Kahalani would note,
those who stopped the Syrian onslaught were not volunteers from elite
units but ordinary tank crews who represented a cross section of the
population. The nation had proved strong enough to survive the failures
of its leadership.
For Israel, the trauma of the Yom Kippur War is not a nightmare to
be forgotten but a national memory to be perpetuated. It offers a
standing reminder of the dire consequences of shallow thinking and
arrogant pride. But the war also remains a source of surpassing
inspiration deriving from the courage of those who, in a dark hour,
mounted the nation's crumbling ramparts and held.
(From _Jerusalem Post_ Magazine, 25 Sep and 2 Oct 98)
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FROM "PEACE NOW" TO ZIONISM
Amnon Lord, 46, was born in Kibbutz Ein Dor and lives today in
Jerusalem. His father came to Israel from Poland, his mother from Canada,
and they were among the founders of the kibbutz. His oldest brother was
killed in the War of Attrition [with Egypt - 1969-70].
"My kibbutz was part of the Hashomer Hatzair [Socialist] movement.
The kibbutz cancelled its Purim party in the 1950s upon learning of the
tragic death of Joseph Stalin, as did the other Hashomer Hatzair
kibbutzim, but it never abandoned Zionism."
He was a part of Peace Now and attended demonstrations and meetings
throughout the 1980s. After the army he left the kibbutz and studied
film in Boston, returning to Israel to make films and write scripts,
becoming a well-known Tel Aviv film critic with a regular column.
"In 1991 during the Gulf War, I remember a phone conversation with a
friend from my newspaper. He was hugging his baby in the most protected
part of his apartment and the Scuds were about to fall. He was
sympathizing with the bitter fate awaiting the Republican Guard troops in
Iraq, those Sons of Light who were fighting American imperialism, those
'revolutionary forces of the Third World' who were shooting missiles at
Zionism. I was shocked."
"According to the common outlook of those circles, there was no such
thing as the 'Zionist Left,' and that the sabra was a product of
colonialism, not an authentic figure. This meant that a Jew in the 20th
century had two possible choices of authenticity: either to be thrown
into the ovens or emigrate to the U.S., but if someone mistakenly made
his way to Palestine, to Eretz Israel, and gave birth to Hebrew-speaking
children, then they were products of colonialism. I was being asked to
totally reject the core of my identity."
"As a person of the Left, the recognition of the PLO was supposed to
be a very dramatic step - the price Israel had to pay to prevent terror.
I remember Likud supporters who would come up to us at our demonstrations
and tell us that if we give the PLO a state, it would continue the terror
or another group would arise to continue and even increase the terror.
Today it is obvious how much this expectation was fulfilled. Today it is
clear that a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria is an enemy state
that we ourselves created out of some mistaken belief by those who
thought their personal or international standing or the standing of
Israel in international diplomacy was more important than the basic
security of the public."
"I believe that all residents of the state, Arabs and Jews, are
entitled to the rights of full citizenship. But that doesn't mean you
need to create an enemy state next to Kfar Saba."
"To a great extent I grew up outside Jewish culture. But even during
my youth in the kibbutz there were moments of Jewish identity. During the
Pesach Seder, there was a point when everyone in the dining hall stood up
and sang the Song of the Partisans, since the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt was
begun on Pesach [led by Mordechai Analevitz of Hashomer Hatzair]. Today,
they no longer do this at the kibbutz. It seems to me that a big part of
the problem of the kibbutzim today is this spiritual death."
The following is an excerpt from Lord's newly-published book _Dudik
the Handsome_ (Keter Press):
"You and your friends turned certain circles in the universities,
the kibbutzim, and the press into the ideological arm of the Left. And
this Left, for all its being new and renewed, is painted with the same
color of the historical Left - the same Left influenced by Communism.
It's not the myths of Zionism that need to be destroyed, rather the great
myth of the Left."
"This is especially needed in Israel because here, more than any
place else in the world, there remains a very powerful lobby for the
ideas of the revolution, for Communism and Socialism, and all this new-
old identity with the 'Palestinian' cause."
"From someone who used to be (and may still be) a Zionist Socialist,
I would expect more restraint and much more modesty before attacking the
Zionist side of this duality. Zionism cannot be charged with crimes
against humanity, while in every place where Socialism - the horizon of
the Left - took power, it was guilty of terrible crimes against humanity,
from the Soviet Union to Cuba."
"It is even possible to make the argument that Zionism is not only
the only successful revolution, it is also the greatest of them all, and
the price in blood that it required was lower by every standard -
especially in contrast to the terrible bloodletting that has resulted
from European nationalism, the liberation movements of the Third World,
and Arab nationalism."
(From Sarit Yaluv, _Makor Rishon_ Magazine, 4 Dec 98, pp. 12-14)
**********************************************************************
INVESTING IN YASSER ARAFAT
Michael Kelly
Since July 1, 1994, the day that Yasser Arafat arrived to take
charge of Gaza, the international community has given the Palestinian
Authority about $2.5 billion in aid. In that time, to the confoundment of
confident predictions, life in Gaza became, for most people, even more
poor, nasty, brutish and short than it had been before the arrival of
President Arafat. In the past four years, wage rates in Gaza have fallen
50 percent and unemployment has risen to highs of 50 percent; currently,
it hovers at around 30 percent. The gross national product per
Palestinian has declined by 35 percent.
The number of Gazans legally working in Israel (where the jobs are)
has fallen from a pre-Arafat figure of 116,000 to as low as 23,000. The
percentage of goods manufactured in Gaza and marketed in the West Bank
(where the consumers are) declined from about 50 percent to 2 percent by
1996. In the first two years of Arafat's rule, one-third of Gazan
businesses folded. Foreign commercial investment in Gaza declined from
$520 million in 1993 to below $300 million in 1997. The number of
Palestinians living in poverty soared; one out of every four now lives
below the poverty line.
In President Arafat's considered opinion, all of this is the fault
of Israel, for its habit of closing off the Gaza Strip from time to time,
disrupting the flow of commerce. It is true that periodically stopping
the flow of goods and workers between Gaza and Israel has played an
important role in the decline of Gaza's health. But what President Arafat
was too diplomatic to mention was that Israel has a reason for its
policy. The closures have been in response to the very many -- 279
fatalities since Oslo -- terrorist attacks on Israelis by Palestinians
living under Arafat's rule. Neither did President Arafat see fit to note
that, in the past two years, the government of Binyamin Netanyahu has
greatly reduced the number of closures. Yet during the past two years,
the economy of Gaza has improved only slightly. Might there be some other
reason for Gaza's decline? Well, yes.
The other reason is that President Arafat has established in Gaza
and the West Bank a nasty, thuggish little kleptocracy run by and for the
benefit of President Arafat and his bureaucrats and gunsels and cronies,
without benefit of law or semblance of order. The Palestinian Authority
has yet to draft a criminal and civil code. What passes for law is brute
and capricious force, imposed by 41,000 members of seven separate police
forces -- police forces that may arrest without warrant and detain
without due process. The 41,000 are the muscle in an obesity of a
bureaucracy; the Palestinian Authority boasts no fewer than 80,451
employees, spread among 24 different ministries. Salaries for these
employees consume more than half of the entire Palestinian national
budget, which ran to $814 million in 1997.
Where does the rest of the money go? Almost all of it is stolen or
dribbled away. The Palestinian Authority's own auditors reported last
year that nearly 40 percent of the annual budget -- $323 million -- was
wasted, looted or misused. In President Arafat's regime, bribery is
endemic, services are nil, connections are everything, and might is the
only right there is.
This is the reality that inspires foreign investment to stay far,
far away from Gaza. But it isn't diplomatic to say that. Let's give the
old fellow a few billion more. Maybe he won't steal all of it.
(From _Washington Post_, 2 Dec 1998, via Israeli & Global News)
************************************************************************
NOT EQUAL
In early December, the week before President Clinton's visit to
Gaza, the PLO organized a wave of attacks on Jewish civilians throughout
Judea and Samaria. A ten-year-old girl in my daughter's fifth grade class
was cut by glass on her way to school after Arab schoolchildren from the
neighboring village were sent out to throw rocks at passing Jewish cars.
That evening, a well-meaning acquaintance happened to comment that:
"If I were Arab, I would feel as they do," balancing the Arab side as
equal to the Jewish side.
No. They are not equal. Arabs believe it is legitimate to try to
hurt Jewish kids. Jews don't try to harm Arab kids. Stabbing unsuspecting
hikers, shooting young couples driving home, blowing up city buses, and
throwing rocks at innocent children are not legitimate military actions.
Their perpetrators are murderers, not prisoners of war deserving to be
released at the end of the conflict, as the Arabs now claim.
* * *
HAVE YOU SEEN OUR NEW WEBSITE?
See lots of color photos of our world in Judea at:
www.virtual.co.il/clients/judea
* * *
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JUDEA Magazine is a bi-monthly electronic magazine produced and
transmitted from Judea, Israel, specializing in stories about the rebirth
of Jewish life in a tiny and unique corner of civilization. Mail address:
Judea Magazine, Yael and Mark Ami-El, Editors; Tekoa; D.N. North Judea,
Israel, Fax: 972-2-9964588. JUDEA Magazine is offered without charge on
the Internet. All material may be reprinted with attribution to JUDEA
Magazine and original source as cited. Comments are welcome by e-mail to:
amiel2@crosswinds.net
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Your comments and questions are welcome. Please reply to:
amiel2@crosswinds.net