• Don't Call Them Arabs - Ramadan in Istanbul
  Take religion. Unlike their Muslim brothers elsewhere, mainstream Turkish Muslims never relied on the Koran alone, or on interpretations of it by imams — past or present. Turks have a long history of incorporating local tradition into their religious practices, and local tradition in Turkey is light years from Wahhabi austerity or Shiite fanaticism.
  
  
• Special Times, Special Challenges
  We have so many troubles: national problems with our enemies from within and without; war and terrorism; spiritual troubles - a large part of our nation is far from Torah; sicknesses, economic problems, natural calamities, the water shortage, and more.
  
  
• Belgian Lawmaker Wants To Make "Example" Of Sharon
  A Belgian Senator said on Tuesday that he recently went on a fact-finding mission to Lebanon as part of his "convictions" that his nation's current prosecution of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on charges of genocide and war crimes should serve as an "example" for future such trials in Belgium.
  
  
• Arafat is the Problem
  Arafat has many last chances. In 1970, he was driven out by Jordan's King Hussein. In 1982, he was allowed to retreat under IDF guns in Beirut and set up shop in Tunisia. In December 1988, the US-PLO dialogue was opened after Arafat pledged to renounce terrorism, and in 1990 that dialogue was cut off when he was caught supporting terrorism again. Following the 1991 Gulf War, Arafat who had chosen the wrong side and once again seemed to be broke and finished, was saved by the 1993 Oslo agreement.
  
  
• Too Early to Celebrate
  There is no symmetry between the participants - there are no known Christian or Jewish terrorist organizations which indoctrinate and dispatch terrorists to blow themselves up among citizens of the other two parties to the declaration. The only ones which do are Muslims, and therefore Jewish and Christian religious leaders cannot equate themselves in that regard with Muslims. If anything, the Muslims alone ought to come up with that declaration, and not create the impression that all faiths have agreed to simultaneously desist from terror they did not commit.
  
  
• No Exit: When a Dream Dies
  Can anyone realistically envision Yasser Arafat in anything but that ridiculous uniform with the peaked kaffiyeh, his mouth ever murmuring the same propaganda while under siege in different redoubts? Can you see him as the leader of a small, peaceful state, worrying about the balance of trade, civil service pensions, garbage collection and all the mundane tasks that go with being a head of state instead of a guerrilla chieftain?
  
  
• Lying, Palestinian Style
  The check is in the mail. The dog ate my homework. Arafat had nothing to do with the Iranian weapons on the Karine-A. Just your average daily lies.
  
  
• Time for a Collective About Face
  Any explanation that conveniently separates the Palestinians from the terrorism is false. Such an explanation is proposed blindly, as if Palestinians do not "collectively" support the terrorists in their society, as if the Palestinians do not "collectively" celebrate the terrorists in their society, as if they don't "collectively" and actively create new terrorists in their society. It is proposed as if their textbooks do not "collectively" show Israel wiped off the map, as if their prime time television doesn't "collectively" urge young boys to strap on suicide kits and become martyrs, as if their radio stations don't "collectively" play songs like "I Hate Israel", as if they don't "collectively" work on crossword puzzles that refer to the "Palestinian port city" of Haifa. It is proposed as if their newspapers don't "collectively" publish the vilest anti-Semitic tripe since the Nazis and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. as if their spiritual leaders and muftis don't "collectively" exhort them "O Muslim, Oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!" and as if they don't "collectively" flock to gory art exhibits, like the one recreating the Sbarro pizzeria suicide bombing, to relive and relish the bloody murders and maiming of Jewish children.
  
  
• Time's Up: No More Chances for Terrorists.
  It's Munich, all over again, with Israel cast in the role of the brave little democracy about to be devoured by the fearsome tyrant while the West acquiesces and proclaims a new era of peace. I always marveled at the Europeans' ability to praise Hitler as a man of peace, and get terribly annoyed at Czechoslovakia for denying the poor man his richly deserved peace of mind...by existing in his Lebensraum. I'm getting to understand it better these days. The Europeans are more practiced at this form of self-deception than we, and so they've gone straight to the final chapter: Israel is the problem, we don't want this annoyance, so let's get on with it.
  
  
• Facing Unpleasant Facts in the Middle East
  The world is now well into the Post-Oslo era, in which the delusions and denials of reality that were the foundations of the "Oslo peace process" are at last being acknowledged for what they were. For those returning to the planet Earth from Fantasyland in the "Oslo" parallel universe, it behooves them and us all to bear in mind some of the unpleasant facts of life about the Middle East.
  
  
• The Oslo Mythology: Arafat's War Strategy
  The greatest diplomatic disaster of modern times has to be the so called "Oslo Peace Accord." It makes Neville Chamberlain's Munich agreement pale into insignificance by comparison. From its inception in 1993, it has been built on unrealistic wishes, myths and outright falsehoods. Even worse, the entire agreement was based on many false assumptions.
  
  
• Get the Word Out
  The Fourth Geneva Convention does not apply to Israel and its presence in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza district. The convention defines itself strictly in its second clause: "The present convention shall apply to cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party." Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, which Israel occupied in 1967, were not territories of a High Contracting Party.
  
  
• Confront Iranian Terrorism
  Last month, former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani put the lie to the idea that Iran's nuclear program is defensive in nature by openly speculating that Israel could be destroyed with nuclear weapons while the Islamic world could absorb any Israeli response. Then it emerged that Iran was already undermining the newly minted Afghan government and providing sanctuary to fleeing al-Qaida terrorists. Now Iran has been caught red-handed attempting to bring Palestinian terrorism to a new level.
  
  
• Ship Of Truth
  Arafat is shocked -- shocked! -- by these revelations. Comically, he has ordered an investigation. This will rival Hitler's investigation of the Reichstag fire. Palestine is a nasty police state where, if you make a sideways crack about Arafat in the men's room of the local cafe, you find yourself arrested within hours by one of Arafat's eight separate security forces. To believe that a $100 million arms shipment could have been made on anything less than Arafat's orders is to know nothing about the Palestinian revolution.
  
  
• Ship of Hate
  Anyone that continues, after this, to insist that there exists something else but a state of war between Israel and the Palestinians under Arafat, is my enemy. His deliberate blindness threatens my life. His willingness to overlook this shipment puts him with the forces of evil that ordered them, and those planning to use them. In this list, I include my fellow Israelis, those leftists still wandering around giving bad advice.
  
  
• Arafat's Ship of Death
  The most obvious significance of this enormous weapons cache is that Arafat's real intention is not only to escalate terrorist attacks (over two tons of explosives were found on the ship) but to move beyond terrorism. As military leaders and analysts have pointed out, the only purpose of the relatively long-range weaponry captured is to threaten Israeli population centers. Throughout the Oslo period until today, Arafat has been building a sizable army, in complete disregard for the personnel and weaponry limits imposed by the Oslo agreement.
  
  
• 'Arabian Knight' - Farah 'best friend Israel ever had'
  There are very few people who would risk their own lives to defend someone else's country – especially when that country is the state of Israel. But when Israelis are terrorized, murdered and lynched by their Arab neighbors, when the very existence of the Jewish State is in jeopardy, Joseph Farah may very well be the best friend Israel ever had – for as a believer in the Bible, he cannot "stand idly by the blood of his brother." Yet, remarkably, Joseph Farah is not a Jewish brother at all. At best he is a cousin. By definition, however, he should be an enemy – after all, he is an Arab, albeit an Arab American.
  
  
• Yasser Arafat's Exemplary Christian Spirit
  In his televised address he made clear to the world that he represents Christians as well as Muslim Arabs in the Palestinian Authority and then cried foul when the Israelis barred him from attending Mass in Bethlehem. This was, of course, a pathetic masquerade. Not only has Yasser Arafat done nothing to bolster and protect the rights of Arab Christians in the Palestinian Authority. He has embarked on a ruthless campaign to erode and dismantle their rights.
  
  
• Peres Wants Palestine
  "My proudest moment in my life was Oslo," he told the Australia/Israel Review in June 1997. By the time he made that statement, hundreds of graves already bore witness to the truth: that instead of bringing peace to Israel, Peres' agreement had let loose a whirlwind of bloodshed and death on the war-ravaged people the foreign minister calls his own.
  
  
• Restore the Temple Mount
  The Temple Mount has been one of the thorniest bones of contention in previous negotiations with the Palestinians, and it will presumably be so again should diplomatic talks ever resume. And a priori, even waiving the argument of possession, Israel has by far the strongest claim: It is Judaism's holiest site, compared to Islam's third holiest; it is the destination of all Jewish pilgrimages, whereas Mecca holds this honor for Muslims; it is referenced hundreds of times in the Bible, but not at all in the Koran. Yet by imposing this ban, which sends the message that Israel does not really care about the site, the government has severely undercut the Jewish claim. What are future negotiators supposed to say - that it is acceptable for Jews to be banned from the Mount, but we insist on being the ones to do the banning?
  
  

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