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May 22, 2013

John Thorne: They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman

John Rosemond: 'Disciplinary math' adds up to parental successl

Warren Richey: Are prayers before public meetings OK? Supreme Court to decide
Rick Montgomery: Use of ADHD drugs as study aid raises concern on campuses

Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 convincing reasons you should keep carbs in your diet

Eoin O'Carroll: Scientists examine nothing, find something

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: This soup is made from one of the great pleasures of spring: A wonderful pairing of rosy color and earthy tang

May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting

May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel


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?

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

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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