German Honor, Jewish Pride

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer is in Israel today, and while making the rounds of Israeli and Palestinian officials, he will reportedly stop at Yasser Arafat’s grave in Ramallah to pay his last respects to the late Palestinian leader.

There is something unseemly, and downright offensive, about Mr. Fischer’s planned graveside tribute to the founder of Palestinian terror – and it would be a shame if Israel allows the incident to pass by without comment.

True – Fischer would not be the first international dignitary to make a pilgrimage to Arafat’s tomb. UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw already holds that dubious distinction.

But in light of what Germany did to the Jewish people just six decades ago in the heart of Europe, I would think that Deutschland’s Foreign Minister has an added responsibility to be a little more sensitive about such things.

After all, whatever one may think of the wisdom of signing agreements with the Palestinians, no one can deny that Mr. Arafat was responsible for the deaths of more Jews than any other person since the Second World War.

Arafat was a killer, a mass murderer, an unrepentant terrorist who ordered the deaths of men, women and children. The very idea that Mr. Fischer would see fit to bow his head in respect at the grave of such a person is an affront not only to the victims of Palestinian terror and their families, but to the entire Jewish people.

If our leadership were guided by a semblance of national dignity and pride, they would not hesitate to show Mr. Fischer the exit. No people can tolerate such a slap in the face, and neither should Israel.

There are indeed many Germans who have done a great deal to atone for the actions of the previous generations, and we should not lose sight of that. But when Germany’s top diplomat sees nothing wrong with honoring a murderer of Jews, it just goes to show how quickly the lessons of the past are often in danger of being forgotten.

Shimon Peres' Business Card

The political drama unfolding in Israel over the past 48 hours is not only intriguing, but also highly instructive.

On Saturday night, the Likud and Labor parties reached a deal to form a national unity government, with the latter set to receive a total of 8 ministers and 3 deputy ministers in the new coalition (that’s not bad for a party that only has 21 members of Knesset – it means that over half the Labor faction can look forward to new ministerial posts).

Everything looked set for the deal to close, when one last sticking point cropped up: Shimon Peres’ new title. It turns out that Mr. Peres’ insistence on becoming a deputy prime minister who would serve as acting premier when Ariel Sharon is out of the country is legally problematic. According to Israel’s Basic Law: The Government, only one such position may exist, and Ehud Olmert of the Likud already holds it.

When the Likud then suggested that Peres accept a different title, such as deputy premier for the peace process, the Labor leader angrily rejected it, thereby holding up the formation of a new coalition government.

As of this writing, Labor and Likud parliamentarians are looking for a way to solve the problem, which might very well entail changing the law to grant Peres the title he so unashamedly covets.

Whether or not they succeed in doing so is beside the point, for in the past two days, Israelis have had a unique opportunity to see what it is that truly drives Mr. Peres – it is not ideology, nor even his ostensible desire for peace, but pride, pure and simple.

And for all his talk of the need for Labor to do everything possible to ensure the implementation of Sharon’s Gaza withdrawal plan, when it comes to the title he will bear on his business card, Peres knows where his real priorities truly lie.

And now, so do the rest of us.

The More Crowded, the Better

This morning, I spoke to a group from the Orthodox Union (OU), the US-based Jewish organization that is holding its annual convention here in Jerusalem at the Ramada Renaissance hotel.

While the OU is perhaps best known for the kosher certification that it provides to thousands of food items in the US and elsewhere, it actually does a great deal more – from Jewish education to political lobbying to combating anti-Semitism.

Betty Ehrenburg, who heads the OU’s Institute for Public Affairs, told me that they were initially expecting some 300 people to join them in Israel for the three-day gathering, but that more than 800 eventually signed up.

I can’t tell you how nice it was to see the hotel brimming with life, filled with tourists planning their daily outings to see parts of the country. Even the hotel staff seemed to be enjoying the hustle and bustle of it all (with the exception, perhaps, of the waiters at breakfast…)

In recent years, one of the most depressing sights for many Israelis has been the empty streets and cafes, bereft of overseas visitors afraid to travel to the “war zone” of the Middle East.

As a result, many of us here felt somewhat, well, abandoned, or even forgotten. After all, it is precisely when times are tough that friends are supposed to be there for you. And for the past several years, they weren’t.

But that, at last, finally seems to be changing. Over the Yamim Noraim (High Holidays), Jerusalem’s hotels were booked solid, as American Jews and others have begun to return, visiting Israel in ever greater numbers. El Al just announced yesterday that they are adding two more weekly flights on the Tel Aviv-New York route to accommodate the increase in traffic.

Whenever I speak to groups in Israel or in the US, someone inevitably asks what they can do to help the Jewish state. The answer, I think, should be obvious: come here, even if just to visit.

The fact is that Israel needs more tourists – so call your travel agent and start making those reservations. It may sound risque, perhaps even inappropriate, but I will say it nonetheless: we need your bodies, and we need them now!

Stop the Occupation!!

Officials in Jordan are displeased, to say the least.

Their voracious and land-hungry neighbor, known for its uninhibited use of military force, is busy occupying Arab territory. For decades, they have been unable to do little more than watch from the sidelines as dozens of square miles of their territory have been encroached upon. The occupier has been sending in a stream of settlers and building a growing number of facilities on the territory in question, all with the aim of strengthening their grip over this disputed piece of land.

Sound familiar?

Well, it turns out the “occupier” in this case is none other than… Syria. That’s right, according to a report in the Jordan Times, a Jordanian security delegation begins a one-week visit to Damascus today to discuss what is delicately described as “matters related to border issues between the two countries.”

It seems that even as the Assad regime has been busy clamoring for Israel to “return occupied Arab land”, they have quietly taken over 125 square kilometers of Jordanian territory along the two countries’ border, where they have built a series of farms and other structures.

And now, it seems, with Syria coming under mounting international pressure over its ongoing occupation of Lebanon(even the French are threatening to get peeved…), Jordan feels the timing is right to raise the issue of its own “occupied territories”.

But lest you feel too sympathetic for Jordan’s plight – the Jordan Times article also notes in passing that the Jordanians seem to be occupying a swathe (albeit far smaller) of Syrian territory as well.

So, in light of the above, I hope you’ll join me in declaring, for all the world to hear: Stop the occupation of Arab land, once and for all! Get Syria off of Jordanian territory, and Jordan off of Syria’s real estate, and help bring peace to the Middle East!

The Tools of Terror

It’s Thursday, the week isn’t over yet, but there has sure been an upsurge of anti-Israel violence in Gaza over the past few days:

* On Sunday, Palestinian terrorists killed five Israeli soldiers and wounded six others when they detonated a booby-trapped underground tunnel near a military outpost in Gaza. Upon hearing of the outcome of the attack, Palestinians in Gaza city celebrated by holding a march.

* On Monday, Palestinian terrorists launched seven mortar shells at various Jewish communities in Gaza, placed a bomb near an army position on the border with Egypt, and fired anti-tank rockets at soldiers based near the Gaza community of Atzmona.

* On Tuesday, Palestinians in Gaza fired two Kassam rockets at the Israeli town of Netiv Ha’Asarah in the southern part of the country, as well as at the Gaza Jewish community of Ganei Tal, where a foreign worker was killed and two others injured in the attack.

* On Wednesday, Palestinian terrorists again fired Kassam rockets and mortar shells at Jewish communities in Gaza and Palestinian gunmen wounded five Israelis in a shooting attack on the road from Kissufim to Gush Katif.

* Already this morning, Palestinian snipers opened fire on Israeli soldiers near the community of Nvei Dekalim, and mortar shells were fired at the Jewish community of Nisanit.

Under normal circumstances, a country that found its soldiers and civilians under a barrage of this sorts would respond forcefully and overwhelmingly, both to root out the terrorists as well as deter them from carrying out additional attacks. But Israel’s government, it seems, is far from normal, and its response to this onslaught of Palestinian violence has been remarkably feeble.

Basically, all that Israel has done is to bombard a Palestinian munitions factory in Gaza this past Monday which was used to manufacture weapons and explosives.

But this, of course, raises the obvious question: if the government knew about the existence of this factory beforehand, then why wasn’t it bombed previously? Why did they wait until after Sunday’s terrorist attack to go after it?

From the time Israel first learned of the factory’s existence, each day that passed was another day on which more tools of terror could be created for use against us. By failing to eliminate it immediately, the government was putting other considerations ahead of its most fundamental responsibility: protecting the people of Israel.

Worse yet, we have all become so accustomed to the Palestinian violence, and to the government’s lack of response, that we don’t even realize just how dangerous this situation is. For unless and until the terrorists are made to pay for their actions, they will have little reason to stop pursuing their lethal agenda.

It is time for all of us to raise up our voices loud and clear, and demand that the government take immediate military action to uproot the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza once and for all. Instead of talking about withdrawal, Israel should be fighting against the terrorists. That, after all, is the only way to bring about their defeat.