Eye On Israel

[Rasputin]

Bush is the last person on Earth who needs to be reminded of what should be done to stop Iran. If there is one person I can trust, it's him. I trust his moral integrity, I trust his moral commitment and I trust his determination.

Do you think regime change is the only way to stop this?

I can think of many different measures. The guideline has to be that this government and the people of Iran must understand that if they do not accept the request of the international community, they're going to pay dearly.

So you wouldn't rule out the military option?

I think my words were clear enough.

If the international community does not act, would Israel consider taking military action?

It is absolutely intolerable for Israel to accept the threat of a nuclear Iran. I prefer not to discuss the Israeli options. Israel has many options.

When you look back at the war last summer, do you feel it reduced Hezbollah's military strength but built them up politically?

I think Israel had a strategic, military and political success. Unfortunately, before the war, we lacked what we thought we had -- deterrence. They were not afraid of starting a fight with us because they thought our reaction would be entirely different. Now if you ask [Hezbollah leader Hasan] Nasrallah if he would want to repeat it, I'm sure his answer would be definitely not.

I know for sure through different sources that Hezbollah was close to total surrender. Now the presence of the Lebanese army in the entire southern region, together with a robust international force, is very significant. It creates a reality entirely different to anything that existed before July 12.

[Syrian] President [Bashar al-] Assad is sending out suggestions that he would like to talk to Israel. Why wouldn't it be a good idea to explore those hints?

If Assad was serious, he would have stopped his total support of Khaled Mashal, the man directly responsible for daily terrorist actions against Israel. I would be happy to negotiate with Bashar Assad, but on the basis of a certain environment, where you stop your support of terror and of Hezbollah. Assad doesn't show any sign that he's ready to do this.

But you negotiated with [Yasser] Arafat when he was in Tunisia , and he was certainly a terrorist.

I think we learned something about negotiations of this kind from this experience. I don't expect my enemies to be wonderful guys. But I want them to come with clean hands when they come to negotiate. Bashar Assad doesn't come with clean hands. When he comes with clean hands, I will talk to him.

If the United States gets out of Iraq, how does that affect the security of your country?

If there is a premature pullout before Iraq has a robust government with a strong authority that can keep the country from collapsing into an internal civil war, America will have to think about the possible ramifications on neighboring Arab countries with moderate governments. How will it affect the stability of these countries against the radical forces that might flourish as a result of a premature pullout of America?

[Rasputin]

Jews who leave Israel for good

Every Jewish immigrant that enters Israel is unwittingly taking part in a continual referendum on its chances of survival. But many of those who enter Israel also choose to leave it.


For many of them, involvement in actively subjugating Palestinian refugees in the Occupied Territories and the pressure of living the Zionist ideology every day is just too much.

Igor Dzhadan describes his situation simply. He emigrated to Israel in 1990 but returned home in 2001, blaming what he called the country's "sectarian nature".

"I feel more comfortable in Russia. My life prospects wouldn't be worse than in Israel. I didn't like it. I'm used to operating in an open society where people don't ask you to what community you belong."

Dzhadan was twice required to serve in areas of heavy resistance in Bethlehem and Hebron. "I had to wait during operations to see whether there would be any wounded that I would have to treat... I saw dead bodies."

Boruch Gorin, head of the public relations department at the Russian Federation of Jewish Communities, finds similar sentiments among many of the tens of thousands of Russian Jews that continue to head home.

Dangerous place

Thousands complained of the pressure of living like a Zionist ideologue rather than as a human being. "Living in Israel is an ideology," he says.


Sharon welcomes an immigrant
already wearing army uniform


In the past month - and with much media fanfare - some 450 Jews decided to leave the safety of North America and France to live in what must be the most dangerous place for Jews in the world.

Crowds greeted the new arrivals at Ben Gurion International airport, some even had their hands shaken by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Such a warm welcome is easy to understand. "If the current population trends continue, it is estimated that Jews will be outnumbered by non-Jews in the territory that Israel controls within 10 to 15 years," the BBC reported in July.

But winning the population battle is proving impossibly difficult - particularly when more Jews are leaving Israel than moving in.

Net immigration

Official Israeli sources contain no consistent, annual information about rates of emigration from the country or profiles of those leaving.

Known within the Zionist ideological lexicon as yeridah, government statisticians do not even use the "e" word.

But in a presentation at the Association for Israel Studies in Jerusalem, Ian Lustick of Pennsylvania University has described as much as it is possible to know about emigration - given the lack of official data.

"It is quite likely that the real net immigration of Jews into Israel in 2002 was either near zero or negative," he said. And as the al-Aqsa Intifda continues, the figures are not likely to change.

With fewer than 22,000 immigrants registered for 2003, Lustick also believes only around 30% of these immigrants were classified by the government as Jewish.

'Missing citizens'

A major phenomenon is developing. New arrivals are deciding to leave almost as soon as they arrive. Of the 1000 Jews arriving from North America in 2003, half have now left to go back home.

"Before our eyes Israel is becoming ultra-Orthodox, nationalist and Arab. It is becoming a society that has no sense of a future"

Avraham Burg,
former speaker of the Knesset

Evidence for these "missing citizens" is easy to come by. The head of manpower for the Israel Defence Forces reported in mid-2003 that 34% of Israelis of conscription age were not serving in the army - a significant number of whom had "left the country prior to their recruitment and lived abroad".

In Haaretz, journalist Aluf Benn reported sharp increases in Israelis applying for citizenship papers at the German, Polish, Czech, Austrian and Slovakian embassies in Israel in 2002 and 2003.

Even a Market Watch poll commissioned by the newspaper Maariv found 20% of adult Israelis had recently considered living in a different country, and more than half of these "would like their children to grow up outside Israel".

Changing attitudes

In November 2003, Haaretz published a lengthy interview with Avraham Burg, the former speaker of the Knesset. The son of Interior Minister Yosef Burg, Avraham, had shocked many Israelis with an article he published in the International Herald Tribune entitled A Failed Israeli Society is Collapsing.

"When you ask Israelis today whether their children will be living here 25 years down the road, you don't get an unequivocally positive answer.

"You don't hear a booming yes. On the contrary. Young people are being encouraged to study abroad. Their parents are getting them European passports ... a whole society is living here that has no faith in its future.

"Before our eyes, Israel is becoming ultra-Orthodox, nationalist and Arab. It is becoming a society that has no sense of a future, no narrative and no forces to maintain itself."

Government line

Even Tel Aviv estimates that "Israeli citizens living outside the country" - that is, emigrants - now number between 450,000 and 900,000, depending on whether you count children born outside the country.


Immigrant youths are forced to
do unpleasant military service

According to representatives of the Central Bureau of Statistics testifying before the Knesset's Committee on Absorption, 270,000 Israeli citizens emigrated between 1990 and 2001.

In other words, a third of all immigrants in the same period have returned home.

But in January 2004, Yuri Shtern, chairman of the Knesset Interior Committee, asserted that these figures under-reported the problem.

He said the figures "did not include statistics for yeridah in the last two years, during which the number of those abandoning the country for Russia has increased very significantly".

Panic reaction

Drastic ideas to stem the tide include the wholesale conversion of Beni Menashe immigrants from India and Peruvian Indians to West Bank settlements as well as quick and easy conversion procedures for thousands of non-Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

Other suggestions are more traditional. Yisrael Harel, a veteran Gush Emunim activist and former editor of the Nekuda newspaper, published an article in April 2003 to propose "a solution".

The Egyptian and Jordanian governments, he suggests, should accept masses of Palestinian refugees and Israel must abandon the Gaza Strip and the heavily Arab areas of the West Bank.

"The Jewish majority between the Jordan and the sea is disappearing day by day, and without an absolute Jewish majority the State of Israel will not be able to survive for long.

"Security for an absolute Jewish majority is a crucial foundation for any plan ... every solution [to the Palestinian presence], that does not guarantee a Jewish majority in the land of Israel is no solution."

[Khorsheed]

Olmert urges Arab moderates to unite against Iran

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called on Tuesday for moderate Arab countries to unite against Iran and said the world must not wait any longer to thwart its nuclear ambitions.

"We have reached the pivotal moment of truth regarding Iran," Olmert said in an address to American Jewish groups.


Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acknowledges the crowd before addressing the United Jewish Communities 2006 General Assembly at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California November 14, 2006. (REUTERS/Danny Moloshok)
"If Iran achieves the ability to produce nuclear weapons, as we know it is seeking to do, we will enter a new era of instability unlike any the world has ever seen," he said. "We cannot afford to wait."

He said Israel "cannot tolerate those who challenge" its right to exist while actively seeking to develop "catastrophic weapons." But the Israeli leader stopped short of warning of any military moves against the Islamic Republic.

Olmert made the comments to the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities of North America a day after White House talks with President George W. Bush in which both men took a tough line against Iran's nuclear program.

"A coalition of moderate Arab countries can and must unite their common interest in preventing Iran from undermining stability in the Middle East," he said, without naming those states.

"This coalition must struggle against the dangers of radical Islam that manipulate the very source of Islam itself."

Olmert praised Bush for taking the lead in "preventing Iran's nuclearization" and said he spoke with the president on the issue at length.

"His determination to prevent this most serious of developments in unquestionable. But America must have the support of the international community if we are to successfully defuse this mortal threat," Olmert said.

Iran, whose president has threatened to wipe Israel off the map, says it is enriching uranium to generate electricity.

Israel, believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear power, has said repeatedly it wants to take a back seat to U.S. efforts to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons.

[zubin]

quite delusional

[mike435]

who
olmer lol

[zubin]

it just seems like this is going to make more division in the middle east; "moderates"....lol; what about the Arab people, what they don't count?

If so-called moderates, whatever that means, take Israel's side, then its the moderate wannabes against a whole half or majority of Arabs, us against them. That's old-school tactics for division which raises the potential for future bloodshed, and no peace in the middle east!

[mike435]

simple they dont count remeber all these counries are dictatoships


does it hurt the countries that care about stibilitym
eygept doesnt want to persue a nuke
jordan dosent want to

but if iran get a nuke than both egypt and jordan will want nike
sudi arabia will fallow

you see what happens right

[zubin]

what are you saying??? there's so many assumptions underlying that statement that its really hard to discuss anything. Its like a world of assumptions, so there, you proved my first post. like, what does so-called "dictatorship", which you haven't defined, have to do with anything? why should we even care about when it comes to foreign policy?? Come on Mike, I'm not in your brain.

[zubin]

I guess your rule of thumb is whoever is not Israel in the middle east is a dictatorship, right? Interesting definition if that's your definition.

[mike435]

were do see freedom in the region
i mean honestly man
of the major countries which is not curropt

that is not my rule of thumb but that is what seems evidant
the only democracy their that comes close to that of israel i think is HAMAS in the PA teritories

joubin i know you are allways trying to elevate to the truth but come on man

[mike435]

maybe hams in some cases is even better

iraq ight come close but it is so unstable i dont think it even counts

[zubin]

can you give me your definition of democracy? this stuff looks like a bunch of propaganda to me, unless you can define the major parts of your argument in some way.

do you care about the truth Mike or do you have a love for good old-fashioned propaganda? are you going to take the heroin or the healthy meal?

[mike435]

listen at the end of the day almost everything comes dow to defining the word justice
can you define justice

look lets go on simple thnings we know that democracy is not what iran has
it is somthing closer to what israel has


a government that is selected by the people for the people ussualy having the intrest of majority in mined with enfringing on minortys basic rights.

that is why i think hamas is even better than israel

maybe after hamas it is israel
israel is a government that is made by the people(coalition) for the people and acts on peoples majority with out infringing on minorities basic rights (example gay prades majority didnt like it but still wanted to allow it becuase people have rights)

listen you can reinvent the wheel everytime
i forgot what we even started to talke about

fine dont use dictatorship use a diffrnt word
you know man why dont you define it yea go ahead you define it and will base it on your definition you tell me what country is a ________ and what country is not i dont whant to use lables

[zubin]

at the same time you say Hamas is a more democratic institution than Israel. so doesn't that say something about Hamas that you missed in our previous discussion, namely that Hamas isn't forcing people to adopt any view or position against Israel but it reflects the will and exclamation of rights of the Palestinian people?

Please reconcile your contradictions. I really don't know what to think about you. At least I'm clear. I'm a perfectionist, mad-crazed, annoying, rhetorical logician of social discourse.

[zubin]

look lets go on simple thnings we know that democracy is not what iran has
it is somthing closer to what israel has

we can't just assume that. in fact, the opposite argument can easily be made. Iran comes from a revolution that is the expression of people's voice, even if it was not a quality voice. Israel is an occupier of rightful citizens.


Sure, let's go back to the original topic. essentially my argument is that Israel's behavior is destructive and childish as seen by comments consistently trying to divide the middle east and avoid peace. I simply ask that your response not be propaganda. I don't know if you ever read my post a long time ago. You never responded. I mentioned that I'm not interested in propaganda. Sorry and thank you.