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July 2, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The hallmark of a person

Abe Novick: Up, up, and aliya

July 1, 2009

Rabbi Avi Shafran: The Road Taken

The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta: Get into the holiday spirit with these Star-Spangled desserts

June 30, 2009

Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg: What makes a great parent?

Caroline B. Glick: Ideologue-in-Chief

June 29, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Beware of 'Caveat Emptor'

Steven Emerson: ACLU pushing for more money for Hamas

June 26, 2009

Rabbi Yoni Posnick: Learn the secret to a healthy marriage from a scriptural villain

Caroline B. Glick: Barack Obama vs. International Law

June 25, 2009

Rabbi Shimon Apisdorf: The Absurd Power of Truth

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 24, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Advancement of technology is a wake-up call for humanity

The Kosher Gourmet by Andrea Weigl: Summer on a stick: Making frozen treats can be easy, creative and fun

June 23, 2009

Martin M. Bodek: 'On Surnames': And so, We Begin

Caroline B. Glick: The Obama Effect

June 22, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Working for a corrupt firm

N. Richard Greenfield : Where are American Jews?

June 19, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Emotion v. intellect

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's rare opportunity

June 18, 2009

Jonathan Rosenblum: Sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkle's strip: Everything's Relative

June 17, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Language of Confusion

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Nothing pleases Dad more than a thick, juicy onion-smothered steak. Add home-Baked Potato Chips and …

June 16, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Career v. Careersism

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's losing streak and Israel

Richard Z. Chesnoff: ‘Palestinians’: Never Missing an Opportunity …

June 15, 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: How Judea and Samaria can become 'Palestine'

Daniel Pipes: Where Netanyahu's speech failed

June 12, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Some big thoughts about not acting so big

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's High Commissioner

June 11, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: Our historically challenged President

Mitch Albom: Beware the True Believers

Lewis Grossberger: What we learn from the new Hitler photos

June 10, 2009

Mort Zuckerman: What Obama and his advisors won't -- or refuse to -- grasp about Israel and the Muslim world

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky Lotsa pasta: Tips, techniques and (amazing) taste

June 9, 2009

Anne Bayefsky: Obama's stunning offense to Israel and the Jewish people

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: America's first Muslim president?

June 8, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Merchant must take responsibility for careless shopper?

Mark Steyn: A superpower that feeds on mediocrity cannot survive for long on leftovers from the past

Richard Z. Chesnoff: How do you say 'kumbaya' in Arabic?

June 5, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: In quest of spirituality

Caroline B. Glick: Obama's Arabian dreams

Charles Krauthammer: The Settlements Myth

June 4, 2009

Paul Greenberg: The War Comes to Little Rock

The Kosher Gourmet by Judy Hevrdejs: Splash it on! Tap your inner jazz musician and improvise when stirring up a vinaigrette

June 3, 2009

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Should terrible teacher be exposed?

Jonathan Rosenblum: The Israel Lobby: Missing in Action

June 2, 2009

Dennis Prager: The Speech President Obama Won't Dare Give in Egypt

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Pressure on Israel raises war risk

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 18, 2008 / 11 Adar II 5768

Is the honeymoon over between Arab militancy and the Palestinian cause?

By Youssef M. Ibrahim



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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | "My first boyfriend was a Palestinian," says Annette Bening, portraying a CIA operative enamored of revolutionaries in The Siege, a gripping 1998 movie about Palestinian terror in New York. "My father used to say they seduce you with their suffering."


Alas, they seduce no more.


Images of destroyed Palestinian homes, masked men shooting guns in the air, and processions of mothers pledging more children to martyrdom draw yawns, or anger.


When Hamas bulldozed Egypt's borders, unleashing a flood of half a million chaotically poring out into border towns and scooping up everything from kerosene to aspirin and eggs, the man-in-the-street reaction toward their Palestinian brethren was dismay at this primal attack. Hamas, in the chaos, shot nearly 50 Egyptian soldiers. Within days Egypt put taller and beefier walls back up, with foreign minister Ahmad Abulgheit vowing in a remarkable comment to "break the leg" of anyone illegally crossing. In 1970 King Hussein of Jordan unleashed his entire army onto Palestinian refugee camps in a yearlong civil war known as Black September. Last year in Lebanon the army fought Palestinians for four months in Tripoli, leveling their refugee camp of Nahr al Bared, where terrorists were domiciled.


Is the honeymoon over between Arab militancy and the Palestinian cause?


Almost. Unlike Palestinians, most Arabs have quantifiable dreams and recognizable social projects. Gulf folks are focused on getting seriously rich as their oil swoons over $100 a barrel, building mini-copies of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums alongside artificial ski slopes in their shopping malls and full branches of U.S. universities in their deserts. Poorer Arabs of the Levant or crowded populous lands with no oil such as Egypt, Morocco, and Yemen are trying to survive without Islamist coups. Regionally, concerns focus on the Iraq war, nascent Iranian hegemony, and the growing clashes of Muslims — Sunnis against Shiites.


Another part of the Palestinian predicament is the "Neverland" ordinary Palestinians are sinking into, venerating death cults as substitutes to social projects.


A grand illustration of the mindset came from Fawzi Barhoum, the chief Hamas spokesman. Standing amidst the rubble of bombed-out homes in Gaza the other day, he proudly declared Palestinians "have now gone from stone to rocket." As he spoke he was blissfully unconscious of crated streets and the lunar landscape surrounding him, crisscrossed behind him by donkey carts that constitute public transport. More fitting would have been "from donkey to stone age."


The Hamas-run republic of Gaza is a basket case. Jam-packed like a box of sardines with 1.5 million procreating at dizzying rates, it boasts the world's highest population density. Half its people live below $2 a day. All are dependent upon the kindness of strangers, mostly the U.S. and the UN, which pour in millions of dollars daily along with tons of food and drugs. Israel supplies power and fuel.


In 2006 I published an open letter op-ed addressed to my Palestinian brethren , imploring them to declare defeat and save what's left. Had they done so back in 1948 after their first "liberation war" against Israel they would have had their independent state.


Five wars later they live on a fraction of it. Glorious struggles are fine if they land someplace. But 60 years of highfalutin wars reduced that Palestinian homeland to a set of negative returns. If anything can still be carved out, it shall be far smaller. If truth were told, the deal Bill Clinton offered Yasir Arafat at that Wye Plantation in July 2000 after 20 days of exhausting mediation was startlingly generous, given the balance of power between Israelis and Palestinians.


It isn't going to get better with or without rickety homemade missiles.


As of now, the only viable Palestinian state looks pretty much like Gaza plus some desert land surrounding it. The West Bank, which could have been part of it, is fast disappearing as slices of salami allocated to Jewish settlements. Counting upon the world, including the Arabs, to be shaken by the injustice of it all is part of that Palestinian illusive Neverland.


Israelis will stop only if they have a deal parallel to the one they are creating on the ground. Time is of the essence. Until then, Palestinian institutions, youth, economy, and indeed sanity will continue in free fall.


Palestinian brothers: you are down and out, alone in a burnt-out landscape shrinking by the day. The question is: why?

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Youssef M. Ibrahim, a former New York Times Middle East Correspondent and Wall Street Journal Energy Editor for 25 years, is a freelance writer based in New York City and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.




© 2008, Youssef M. Ibrahim