“Jerusalem Viewpoints
No. 503 4-18 Elul 5763 / 1-15 September 2003



TEN YEARS SINCE OSLO: THE PLO'S "PEOPLE'S WAR"
STRATEGY AND ISRAEL'S INADEQUATE RESPONSE
Joel S. Fishman

Israel and the PLO have been confronting each other according to completely different paradigms of conflict.

Since the late 1960s, the PLO has adopted a "people's war" paradigm that continued to guide its policies even after the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords.

According to the "people's war" paradigm, borrowed from Marxist-Leninist traditions in China and Vietnam, conflict is waged on both the political and military levels, but for militarily weaker guerilla groups, political conflict is more important, especially the delegitimization of an adversary and the division of his society.

Prior to 1993, Israel largely responded to the PLO militarily as a terrorist threat, but not politically. After 1993, with the PLO "renouncing" terrorism, Israel embraced the PLO leadership and ignored the signs that the PLO was still engaged in political warfare against it (incitement, reluctance to alter PLO Covenant, UN votes, textbooks). Israeli governments later complained about these symptoms of political warfare, without identifying the cause.

Established Israeli traditions place undue emphasis on the narrowly-framed military approach to the detriment of the political, which leaves Israel particularly vulnerable to broad-based strategic deception. Israeli policy-makers must reexamine the assumptions upon which they have based political and military policy over the last decade.




Misunderstanding the Enemy's Strategy
What is of supreme importance is to attack the enemy's strategy.
- The Art of War, Sun Tzu1

On September 13, 1993, the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Chairman Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White House Lawn. Shimon Peres for the State of Israel and Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) for the PLO signed the Declaration of Principles, while President Clinton, Secretary of State Christopher, and Russian Foreign Minister Kozyrev looked on. The purpose of the Declaration of Principles (DOP) was to initiate a peace process between the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. A decade has passed since that optimistic event, and Israel has suffered 1,080 casualties: 256 from the signing of the DOP in September 1993 to September 2000, and 824 from September 2000 until June 1, 2003.2 Proportionately to its population, this number would represent the equivalent loss for the United States of about 49,000 citizens. The human cost to Israel of the adventure of the Oslo Accords has exceeded the War of Attrition on the Suez Canal (1968-1970). A protracted condition of war has dealt a devastating blow to Israel's economy. It has permanently changed many lives and aggravated social tensions. These facts compel us to ask serious questions. Is Israel better or worse off for having entered into this arrangement? Has there been a policy failure? If we do not have peace, then what do we have, and where is it leading?

Israel's misfortune stems from a failure to understand the enemy's strategic goals and its choice of means and methods. In retrospect, it is clear that Israel's leadership has seriously underestimated its adversary's consistency of purpose and commitment. Speaking frankly and for the record, several members of the Palestinian leadership have stated that they entered into the peace process in bad faith.3 One example will suffice. The late Faisal Husseini (1940-2001), whom the media fondly designated a "Palestinian moderate," declared in an interview on June 24, 2001, in the Egyptian (Nasserite) newspaper Al Arabi, that the Oslo Agreements constituted a "Trojan horse," whose essence was deception. He said in clear language that the PLO had entered an agreement for the purpose of gaining a foothold in the Land of Israel from which it could wage a sustained guerilla war that eventually would destroy the Jewish state and replace it with an Arab Palestine. On this occasion, Husseini gave a faithful restatement of the Phased Strategy that the PLO adopted in June 1974. This program, known also as the Strategy of Stages, calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state in any part of the country that becomes available, if necessary through a negotiated process.4

You are dragging me into talking about what we refer to as our "strategic" goals and our "political" goals, or the phased goals [author's emphasis]. The "strategic" goals are the "higher goals," the "long-term goals," or the "unwavering goals," the goals that are based on solid pan-Arab historic rights and principles. Whereas the "political" goals are those goals which were set for a temporary timeframe, considering the [constraints of] the existing international system, the balance of power, our own abilities, and other considerations which "vary" from time to time.
When we are asking all the Palestinian forces and factions to look at the Oslo Agreement and at other agreements as 'temporary' procedures, or phased goals, this means that we are ambushing the Israelis and cheating them [author's emphasis]....
Our ultimate goal is [still] the liberation of all historical Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea, even if this means that the conflict will last for another thousand years or for many generations.5

Any intention of becoming "partners for peace" or a future good neighbor is not to be found here. It is noteworthy that this naked declaration of bad faith did not stimulate serious discussion in Israel nor did it have a lasting impact. On the one hand, Israeli policy-makers, by not taking such clear statements at face value, were in denial. On the other hand, the type of government that the PA has become may explain the occurrence of such statements. The PA is not a democracy but rather a totalitarian state in the making.6 Hannah Arendt has written that one of the characteristics of this type of regime is that, while it operates in many respects like a secret society, it is absolutely frank about declaring its true goals.7

Despite such disturbing events like the occasional bus bombing and the ongoing anti-Semitic incitement, it has been generally assumed that, with the signing of the Declaration of Principles in 1993, the PLO initiated a new era by renouncing terror, accepting the reality of Israel, and engaging in the constructive enterprise of state-building. Israeli and American leadership could not face up to the frequent recurrence of terror, regarding it as an act of nature, such as a thunderstorm or an earthquake, about which nothing could be done. One could not formally recognize the "inconvenient reality" of terror without calling into question the entire "peace process." Furthermore, coming to terms with reality would imply adopting a course of action other than maintaining the status quo. Because of this entrenched mindset and patterns of political correctness, one would hardly dare raise the possibility in public that acts of terror and violence perpetrated against Israel's civilians and society were an integral part of Palestinian strategy - the rule rather than the exception.

During the period that has been referred to as the "Total Liberation Phase" (1969-1974), the PLO culturally and politically found its place in the ranks of other socialist anti-colonial liberation movements.8 As Barry Rubin has pointed out, the organization wanted to wage a "people's war," following the example of Marxist-Leninist guerillas in China, Cuba, and Vietnam. He described the goals of this people's war and how the PLO understood its strategic goal at that time. The following statement is remarkably consistent with Feisal Husseini's views, expressed above:

The PLO's target in Israel, however, was not merely a government but the people themselves. Thus, since the PLO was at war with a society - not an army or simply the post-1967 occupation - every aspect and member of Israeli society was a legitimate target. The PLO's aim "is not to impose our will on the enemy," explained the PLO magazine Filastin al-Thawra in 1968, "but to destroy him in order to take his place...not to subjugate the enemy but to destroy him."9



Lessons of the Socialist Liberation Movements
The PLO looked to the examples of other liberation movements in its endeavor to find allies, expertise, and arms, particularly within the socialist world. The experience of China, Cuba, and Vietnam were of special importance. They drew inspiration from the Algerian revolutionary experience and received expert advice in presenting their case.10 Until they had consulted with the Algerians, the main Palestinian propaganda theme was "throwing the Jews into the sea." Under Algerian guidance, they introduced different terminology and themes. Further, although the French army had won the war against Algeria, "the Algerian victory over France was to a considerable extent achieved as a result of public opinion in France itself and in major NATO countries turning against the French in Algeria - in response to a remarkably skillful propaganda campaign carried out by the FLN."11 This was an example of the effective use of propaganda as a tool of political warfare (which resembled the Vietnamese model, described below). After the Six-Day War, Muhammad Yazid, who had been minister of information in two Algerian wartime governments (1958-1962), imparted the following principles to Palestinian propagandists:

Wipe out the argument that Israel is a small state whose existence is threatened by the Arab states, or the reduction of the Palestinian problem to a question of refugees; instead, present the Palestinian struggle as a struggle for liberation like the others.
Wipe out the impression...that in the struggle between the Palestinians and the Zionists, the Zionist is the underdog. Now it is the Arab who is oppressed and victimized in his existence because he is not only facing the Zionists but also world imperialism.12

During the 1970s and 1980s, the elite of the PLO developed close ties with the Soviet Union and with countries of the Eastern Bloc, such as the German Democratic Republic and Romania.13 The relationship between the PLO and the Soviet Union was somewhat different, because of Moscow's objective of penetrating and increasing its political influence in the region.14 Although the relationship between the PLO and the USSR dated from the 1960s, it was only in 1974 that the PLO formally opened an interests office in Moscow. In exchange for Soviet aid, the PLO extended its full support to Moscow, which later included public approval of the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.15 Many Palestinians received training in warfare, espionage, and indoctrination in Communist countries.16 One notable example, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), the current Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, received his doctorate from Moscow's Oriental College in 1982.17 While it may not be possible to ascertain the exact type of training each individual may have received in these socialist countries, their collective experience left them with commonly held views regarding military doctrine, which they continue to hold.

In 1970, while the PLO's relations with the Soviet Union "remained distant and marked with suspicion," China and Vietnam "reached out" to the PLO, inviting Yasser Arafat and Abu Iyad for a discrete visit. Zhou Enlai (Chou En-Lai) received the two in China and granted them his country's full support.18 In Vietnam, where they remained for two weeks, their gracious host was General Vo Nguyen Giap (b.1912), the master of insurrectionary warfare of his generation. It is reported that Abu Iyad asked the Vietnamese why public opinion in the West considered the Palestinian armed struggle to be terrorism, while the Vietnamese struggle enjoyed praise and support.

In response, the Vietnamese counseled the PLO to work for their goals in phases, which would conceal their real purpose, permit strategic deception, and give the appearance of moderation.19 They also coached the Palestinians on the manipulation of the American news media.20 Giap exhorted Arafat: "Fight by any method which can achieve victory.... If regular war can do it, use it. If you cannot win by classical methods, don't use them. Any method which achieves victory is a good one. We fight with military and political means and with international backing."21 With these words, General Giap described the essence of a people's war.

This was not the first high-level Palestinian visit to North Vietnam. In 1964, Fatah, before its takeover of the PLO, sent Abu Jihad, the man who would eventually head the PLO's military operations, to China and North Vietnam, where he studied the strategy and tactics of guerilla war; he testified that these visits affected his military thinking for years to come to such an extent that he later preached the need for "a people's liberation war."22 It is noteworthy that Fatah translated the writing's of General Giap into Arabic, as well as the works of Mao and Che Guevara.23 Similarly, the PFLP, which would also merge with the PLO, included the writings of Mao and Giap as part of the military training of their fedayeen in the late 1960s.24



People's War: Military Operations as an Adjunct to Politics
According to Stefan Possony, a highly influential American strategist, a people's war is a "clash of societies" which includes both political and military dimensions, having violent and non-violent manifestations. Possony had a significant influence on President Ronald Reagan, through his identification of the strategic vulnerabilities of the Soviet Union and how they could be exploited (see Appendix). His insight was that a "people's war is a political conflict, with military operations an adjunct to politics."25

The means and methods of a people's war are probably the finest available for asymmetrical warfare, which enable an insurrectionary movement to fight against a militarily superior adversary. It is a matter of vital importance that Israeli policy-makers understand its principles and operative doctrine, because it is this type of war which the Palestinian Authority has been waging against Israel. The signing of the Oslo accords brought no break with the Palestinians' violent past, but rather there was a distinct continuity of thought, goals, and tactics. In this discussion, special attention will be devoted to the subject of people's war and the evaluation of the relative strengths and weaknesses of each side.26



The Historical Background of a People's War
In order to understand the nature of a people's war, it is necessary to describe its origins and development. The doctrine of people's war rests on a foundation of Soviet military theory to which Asian thinkers added their own innovations and refinements. The successful application of this doctrine ultimately resulted in the victory of the Chinese Communists over the Nationalist Chinese and the birth of the People's Republic of China. A generation later, Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap, who defeated both the French and the Americans, made his own contributions.

Harriet Fast Scott and William F. Scott have analyzed Soviet (Marxist-Leninist) military theory and its special terminology.27 This body of thought provides a structured ideological framework that binds the main political objective to its military implementation. In Soviet theory, the broadest category of basic thought, called "doctrine," forms the ideological foundation from which policy and implementation are derived.28 Although this system of structured thought first was set in place in the early 1920s, it served as the basis of military theory even after the Soviet Union became a superpower with a large conventional and nuclear capability. While Soviet communism may not be a world force today, the legacy of its military doctrine is alive and well. The Soviet Unified Military Doctrine, which also reflects the influence of German military thought,29 runs on two tracks: political and military, with the political taking precedence over the military. Its major political objective, it should be recalled, was the victory of communism over capitalism.

When, in the 1920s, the Soviet Union exported this model of military doctrine, it was based on the idea of mobilizing the support of the urban proletariat. This approach did not work in China where this population group was very small, and the Nationalist government (KMT-Kuomintang), which had the advantage of a well-trained conventional army (with German advisors), was generally able to hold the important cities. After suffering serious losses in Hunan in August and September 1930, Mao Tse-tung made the "single most vital decision in the history of the Chinese Communist Party." He dropped the line laid down by Moscow in favor of a new approach.30 Unable to confront his adversaries by conventional means, Mao Tse-tung decided to mobilize the peasants, move the war to the countryside, and preserve his forces through mobility and retreat.

Mao advocated prolonged war because "there was no other reliable way to weaken and exhaust a stronger opponent."31 Here, the human dimension becomes paramount. Good strategy and tactics would compensate for relative weakness, and the contribution of a talented general could tip the balance. In contrast, the tendency in the West has been to consider military advantage in the form of hardware and firepower, which is not always a reliable indicator of real strength.32 Lin Piao (1907-1971), who until his death was Mao's designated successor, further developed the idea of people's war by advocating the application of its principles on a global scale, namely, laying siege to the world's capitalist countries by taking over the world's countryside. According to this view, North America and Western Europe represented the cities of the world, and Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the world's countryside.33

The Vietnamese, particularly under General Giap, remained within this basic tradition of guerilla warfare but were more pragmatic. Giap did not automatically accept the Chinese approach and ideological constraints.34 In a retrospective interview, he stated that guerilla warfare was only one aspect of people's war. In his personal understanding of the term, "A people's war is characterized by a strategy that is more than simply military. There is always a synthesized aspect to the strategy, too. Our strategy was at once military, political, economic, and diplomatic, although it was the military component which was the most important one."35

One of Giap's innovations was the manipulation Western news media in a manner that turned the freedom and vulnerability of open democratic societies to his advantage. He grasped that the impact of events viewed through the prism of the media could be decisive. For example, in 1954, only four percent of the French forces in Indochina were defeated at Dien Bien Phu. However, the shock of this setback in metropolitan France - as distinguished from the event itself - shattered domestic support for the French war effort.36 Although the 1968 Tet Offensive was a Vietcong defeat, and American casualty rates were relatively low, its manipulation in the American media had a strategic impact very similar to that of Dien Bien Phu.37 Further, General Giap adeptly utilized the medium of television (with the aid of eager American helpers) in order to undermine domestic American support for the Vietnam War. He said: "In 1968 I realized that I could not defeat 500,000 American troops who were deployed in Vietnam. I could not defeat the Seventh Fleet, with its hundreds of aircraft, but I could bring pictures home to the Americans which would cause them to want to stop the war."38

In this review of Marxist-Leninist military thought, we have noted the precedence of political over military doctrine. As noted above, the major political objective of the system that produced this type of warfare had been to ensure the victory of communism over capitalism. However, in 1988, the Soviet Union officially decided to repackage and disguise its major political goal. The faithful would no longer speak of the "class struggle." Instead, they would use a deceptively elegant new term for the same thing, the "struggle for peace."39



People's War and Its Operative Doctrine
In 1970, Stefan Possony described the characteristics of people's war as follows:40

People's war is a long drawn-out or protracted revolution. Its unavoidable duration is exploited by guerillas to bankrupt their opponents politically, morally, and economically.41...The most practical objective of guerilla warfare is to create chaotic conditions in the target country and prevent effective, efficient, and good government.

The key concept of a people's war is to build up dual power by means of guerilla warfare. Dual power means the existence of two sets of power institutions, authorities, and government-like administration functioning side-by-side competitively.

The transition of power from government No. 1 to government No. 2 is to be accomplished by withdrawing the loyalty of the population from the pre-existing government and bestowing it on the emerging government, while simultaneously providing it with legitimacy. This transition constitutes the revolutionary process.

Victory means that one or the other government prevails. Defeat means that one or the other government (or regime) disappears [author's emphasis]. The transfer of loyalty depends in large measure upon the success of violent guerilla operations.42

Some of its tactical methods include:

The use of propaganda to deprive its enemy of its legitimacy and outside support....Propaganda, especially if it is attended by conquest, is the prime method through which legitimacy is withdrawn and attributed to a new power elite.43 In this context, propaganda has a special purpose: "As the war appears and disappears from the news but for years continues to rage, world public opinion is being conditioned to accept rebel victory as inevitable and pre-destined."44
Destroying the enemy's economy.
Promoting anti-militarism and encouraging defections from the army, stimulation of desertion and mutiny.45
Mass terror as a "psychological" operation to weaken the enemy's forces and morale, and strengthen the guerillas.46
Securing intelligence and denying intelligence to the enemy.47

Beyond these specific tactics, there are several basic principles which an insurgent group must observe: 1) staying in existence; 2) modifying the pace of hostilities; and 3) securing and maintaining safe sanctuaries and mobility. The foremost aim of an insurgent force, whether it is violent or non-violent, is to avoid annihilation, for which purpose it must avoid visible organization, concentration, and battle. The insurgent force is not interested in speed, but in long-term survival and growth - it must reckon in decades.48 With regard to the pace of hostilities, "the war goes away and returns. Strategic management can be improved by alternating the centers of gravity, re-escalating and de-escalating, multiple diversions, changes of targets, and through concealment and propaganda."49



Manifestations of the Palestinian "People's War"
The present conflict with the Palestinians has the basic characteristics of a people's war. It is part of the original Phased Strategy. Based on an extended time-frame, its method is to defeat Israel by demoralizing its citizens and undermining its ability to fight, by attacking the rear (civilian society), destroying its economy, and promoting dissension in order to undermine its moral and social cohesion. Therefore, let us devote some attention to the varied effects of a people's war upon Israeli society and its ability to stand up to this type of insurrection.



The Use of Economic Warfare to Bankrupt an Adversary
While evidence of Israeli economic hardship appears daily in the news media, there is little awareness that the current adversity results only partially from the world economic crisis or local mismanagement, but rather has been caused intentionally. News reports warn of the collapse of the public health system and statistics show the rising number of unemployed. A decade ago, it was assumed that the "peace process" would foster ties of economic interdependence that would establish the foundation of future peace and prosperity. The Palestinian violence that began in September 2000 has had serious economic consequences, including the closing of businesses and factories, the near collapse of tourism, and the ruin of joint investment projects which were designed to provide a livelihood for Palestinian wage earners.50



Terror and Internal Mobilization
According to Possony, "terror is the second most important guerilla operation. Selective terror hits the enemy's muscles, nerves, and brain. The terrorization of the civilian population as a mass is aimed at achieving cooperation and support, and at obtaining recruits. Mass terror is a 'psychological' operation to weaken the enemy's forces and morale, and strengthen the guerillas."51

During the implementation of the Oslo Agreements in the 1990s, Israelis frequently complained about incitement in the Palestinian media and the hatred of Israel contained in Palestinian textbooks. From the perspective of a "peoples' war," incitement in the media and schools is part of the internal mobilization of Palestinian society for continuing long-term conflict and preparing it to make sacrifices associated with war. Palestinian incitement and schoolbooks were thus indicative of the intent of the Palestinian leadership to wage continuing conflict and were not simply an aberration of the peace process.

In fact, the process was accompanied by continuing terrorism. According to the Israel Defense Forces' spokesperson, from September 2000 until the end of June 2003, there were 18,000 terrorist events in Israel, including unsuccessful attempts52 - an average of eighteen attempts a day. If the illegal weapons shipments on the captured Santorini and Karine-A ships and other arms deliveries had reached their destinations, the Palestinians would have been able to neutralize the effectiveness of tanks and certain types of aircraft, and duplicate the missile threat under which the Hizballah has placed northern Israel.53 This worst-case scenario represents the real war from which Israelis have been sheltered thus far. While guerilla forces, making use of low technology, can and have scored decisive victories,54 the technological ability of the PA has been steadily improving.

According to plan, the building of a conventional army is the stage which follows guerilla warfare. The people's wars in China and Vietnam began as guerilla operations, but conventional armies ultimately finished the job. The PLO's 1974 Stages Strategy was based on the premise that in its final stage the PLO will induce the Arab states to join a wide coalition of conventional armies that will attack and vanquish Israel. This scenario repeated itself years later. Just before the 1982 Lebanon War, the PLO began organizing its units in southern Lebanon into regular military formations, indicating their readiness to shift from guerrilla warfare to conventional military organization.55 These Palestinian formations were to be a part of an Eastern Front coalition including Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. In the 1990s and today, television news programs show the PA forming such an army, this time under the pretext of building a force to fight against terror. The Palestinians have admitted to 39,000 in the Palestinian police, well above the 30,000 limit, and it is probable that the numbers are much higher. The commander of the Palestinian police in the West Bank was the same Haj Ismail who headed the PLO's military formations in southern Lebanon in the early 1980s. The Americans and Europeans have financed the project, and the CIA has provided expert training that ultimately was and may again be used against Israel in the Palestinian people's war. (In this respect, the precedent of America's training of Islamic fighting forces in Afghanistan should be borne in mind.)



Propaganda
The delegitimization of Israel has been a central motif of Palestinian propaganda in international bodies, such as the United Nations, starting with Yasser Arafat's first address to the UN General Assembly in 1974 and in the campaign to seek UN adoption of the infamous 1975 "Zionism is Racism" resolution. As mentioned above, the purpose of the propaganda struggle is the ultimate transfer of legitimacy from the State of Israel to the Palestinian state, namely, the process of "replacement." Indeed, in his first UN address, Arafat systematically attacked the legitimacy of Israel as a "racist entity" that was founded in the "imperialist-colonialist concept." He then proceeded to talk repeatedly about the legitimacy of the PLO.

This was reminiscent of a much earlier struggle that the Jewish people faced. The Church Fathers developed the principle of supersessionism, with the Church, the "New Israel," replacing the "Old Israel," namely, the Jewish people and religion which, according to their teachings, had become obsolete and its covenant, abrogated.56 The "Palestine Covenant," whose goal is to replace the Jewish state, is a hateful expression of recycled supersessionism. Ironically, while both Protestant and Catholic churches have rejected supersessionism and anti-Semitism, Palestinian agitators and apologists have become eager cultural scavengers. An extension of supersessionism may be found in Palestinian fabrications of a counterfeit historical narrative of the ancient and recent past in order to claim the legitimacy that rightfully belongs to the Jewish people.57

Finally, it was already clear in 1993 that the PLO was going to continue its political war to delegitimize Israel, regardless of any bilateral agreement between the two sides. Within three months of the signing of the Declaration of Principles in 1993, the PLO renewed its assault on Israel at the United Nations General Assembly with nearly twenty anti-Israel resolutions. For those pursuing a "people's war" strategy, negotiations are just an extension of continuing conflict and not an opportunity for two peoples to reach a new rapprochement. This process was epitomized at the UN Conference Against Racism at Durban (September 2001), where the supersessionist principle played a role in the larger Palestinian project to delegitimize Israel by eliminating references to the Holocaust and replacing them with Palestinian suffering under Israeli "Nazi-like oppression."58



Anti-Militarism
While peace movements reflect a legitimate expression of opinion in all democratic societies, the Israeli peace movement was of particular interest to the PLO. Each side, however, viewed the other party very differently. On many occasions, while Israeli peace movements sought to open a genuine dialogue to explore ways of ending the conflict, Palestinian leaders frequently admitted that helping those peace movements was a way of promoting anti-militarism and dividing the society of their Israeli adversaries. Mahmoud Abbas told Israeli Arabs after the outbreak of Palestinian violence, "If you want to help us, do it by providing supplies [to the PA] and by [holding] peace demonstrations with the Israeli peace movements.59



Securing Intelligence and Denying Intelligence to the Enemy
In the conduct of a people's war, an insurgent group must have excellent intelligence in order to operate effectively. The PLO has displayed resourcefulness in gathering intelligence and acquiring a sophisticated understanding of Israeli society.60 It used Israeli-Arab politicians, like Ahmad Tibi, as advisors to Yasser Arafat. PLO leaders maintain close ties with Israeli NGO's and former Israeli officials from both the civilian and military sectors. On many occasions, PLO leaders have received advice from these Israelis on how to deal diplomatically with Israeli governments. At the same time, they dealt ruthlessly with Palestinians suspected as "collaborators," who were frequently executed in public lynchings by groups like the Tanzim, in order to set an example.



Competing Loci of Authority
The PA has endeavored to undermine Israeli sovereignty via competing bodies of authority, most notably in the Arab towns and cities of the Galilee, areas under full Israeli sovereignty.61 Many have become unsafe for Jews and, for reasons of security, government agencies frequently cannot provide services.62 The wave of illegal construction in Jerusalem, organized in part by the Palestinian Authority, with the Saudis paying for the legal defense of the offenders, represents a similar challenge.63 Orient House served as the PA's quasi-municipal offices in eastern Jerusalem, enjoying a type of immunity and protected by its own guards, until closed by the Israeli government. It gave the PA a semi-official presence where foreign dignitaries could be received and contacts with Israeli sympathizers maintained.



Establishing Secure Sanctuaries and Building Mobility
The IDF has made considerable efforts to prevent the enemy from achieving secure sanctuaries and building mobility. Accordingly, the closing of Dahaniya Airport and the Port of Gaza, erecting the barrier fence, reducing the number of VIP passes for PA dignitaries, as well as the extensive use of roadblocks, have been and are crucial for Israel's security. Such defensive measures were not intended to inconvenience the civilian population but became necessary when Palestinian leaders did not honor their obligations.



Israel's Response to the "People's War"
While Israel has done remarkably well in facing the military challenge, its political performance has been lacking. Israel does not have a well-developed political tradition with regard to the conduct of affairs of state, including foreign affairs, often following Moshe Dayan's dictum that "Israel does not have a foreign policy. It has only a defense policy."64 Unfortunately, its enemies have taken advantage of this vulnerability. Its major weakness results from the absence of well-defined political goals and political talent to match its military capability. This situation derives in part from an out-dated view that security is primarily a military matter. Thus, while the PLO waged its struggle according to a "people's war" paradigm, which gave primacy to the political struggle with Israel over its terrorist campaign, Israel responded only militarily to the PLO until the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. After 1993, the Israeli government embraced the PLO because it declared its renunciation of terrorism, even though it was still committed to its program of political warfare against the State of Israel.

During the two decades which preceded Oslo, the PLO, with the coaching of socialist politicians such as Chancellor Bruno Kreisky of Austria, worked purposefully to acquire the attributes of political respectability. On November 13, 1974, Yasser Arafat addressed the UN; in July 1979, Kreisky received Arafat in Vienna as a chief of state; and, in December 1988, Kreisky, with the tacit support of the U.S. State Department, organized a meeting for Arafat with several American Jewish leaders in Stockholm.65 After 1993, Arafat became a frequent visitor to the Oval Office and in December 1994 he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. While Israel's prestige seemed to improve globally as well, this proved to be only temporary. The moment the PLO created an impasse in the negotiating process, Israel's diplomatic position worsened, while Palestinian achievements accumulated.

At the same time, Israel's political posture was weakened by two self-inflicted disabilities: the decision to stop defending Israel's case abroad and to downgrade the traditional relationship with diaspora Jewry. A decade ago, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres formally decided to end whatever information policy Israel may have had.66 As a result of this decision, Israel dropped its weak defenses, while the Palestinians made effective use of the considerable expertise and sophistication they had gained over the years. Seizing this opportunity, they intensified their own aggressive efforts to destroy Israel's legitimacy by using propaganda as a "method of political warfare."

Furthermore, the Oslo process resulted in denigrating the support and lobbying efforts of diaspora Jewry. It became conventional wisdom that the diaspora was no longer important for Israel, as leading Israeli author A. B. Yehoshua told American Jews: "We don't need you."67 Similarly, Dr. Yossi Beilin of the Foreign Ministry informed an American audience, "You want me to be the beggar and say we need money for the poor people. Israel is a rich country. I am sorry to tell you."68 This change of attitude showed neglect and contempt and helped erode one of the Jewish state's traditional pillars of political support. Nearly a decade later, Professor Steven Windmueller described the effects of this program of deconstruction:

Following the Oslo Accords, a [new] reality became significant. A number of Jewish civic and community relations' organizations began to dismantle the institutional infrastructures that traditionally lobbied for Israel. The effect of these structural changes in the mid-1990s can best be understood in the context of a whole generation of young American Jews unable to effectively articulate the case for Israel to their peers. Possibly more disturbing...is the corresponding decline in the levels of commitment on the part of this generation of American Jews, who are increasingly unwilling to view Israel as an integral component of their Jewish identity and focus for communal responsibility.69

An additional reason for Israel's political weakness may be related to the heavy representation of former generals in the political decision-making apparatus. Many of these men have neither served an apprenticeship in the civil service, business, academe, nor have acquired the skills, knowledge, experience, and accountability demanded of civilian political leaders. Having spent their adult lives waging war, some retired generals desperately want to conclude their careers as peace-makers, and some have tended to act unilaterally without consulting seasoned and experienced political figures. Occasionally, they have shown a serious disregard for the democratic process.

When dealing with the Palestinian challenge, Israeli policy-makers focused narrowly on military aspects of the threat they faced, like dismantling the terrorist infrastructure or collecting illegal firearms. However, Israeli leaders did not respond to the political challenge that the PLO posed with its continuing use of a strategy of stages. And while Israeli military intelligence repeatedly warned about Arafat's failure to dismantle Hamas and Islamic Jihad, until early 2001, any questioning of the PLO's intentions to reach real peace (as opposed to its sticking to the 1974 Strategy of Stages for Israel's eventual elimination) was seen as a minority view.70

Over the past decade, the great hope of most Israeli policy-makers has been to reach a settlement with the Palestinians at all costs, to prefer a "bad peace" to a "good war," even at the price of "painful sacrifices."71 It seems that they have considered a settlement to be a type of panacea. Further, Israel's policy, based on short-term improvisation, has not taken into account the likelihood of a "protracted conflict," while the doctrine of people's war makes skillful and deliberate use of the dimension of time. As a result, a decade later, Israel's human and economic capital has been considerably depleted, while the enemy has augmented its political and military strength. By following such a policy, Israel has also been put at a serious disadvantage by forfeiting much initiative to others, while Arafat and his organization have been following a plan and have demonstrated consistency of purpose.72 In this context, Hannah Arendt offers a valuable insight:

It has been one of the chief handicaps of the outside world in dealing with totalitarian systems that it ignored this system and therefore trusted that, on the one hand, the very enormity of totalitarian lies would be their undoing and that, on the other, it would be possible to take the Leader at his word and force him, regardless of his original intentions, to make it good. The totalitarian system, unfortunately, is foolproof against such normal consequences; its ingeniousness rests precisely on the elimination of that reality which either unmasks the liar or forces him to live up to his pretense.73

The role of the United States in Israel's current predicament must come under consideration. Writing just after the end of the Clinton administration and at the beginning of the Bush presidency, Barry Rubin described American policy which in the short term appears to be neutral, but over the longer term fails to advance the cause of peace and stability in the region:

In terms of long-term strategy toward the region, it is fair to say the United States has remained largely in what may be called a mediation-of-peace-agreements-mode despite abundant evidence that such agreements may not be achievable in the foreseeable future (and, if achieved, cannot be expected to be honored by the leaders with which Israel negotiates).74

The American policy of condemning the "cycle of violence," claiming to be "even-handed," and "pressuring both sides," represents a moral compromise and the propagation of a fiction necessary to keep a bad piece of business going. Although such things are never admitted publicly, the implied price of this approach could well be tolerating some "acceptable level" of Israeli civilian terror victims. The main beneficiary of this approach is the Palestinian Authority and not Israel, for the very basic reason that they are reaping the benefits of a fraudulent transaction. Just as the U.S. pressured Israel to accept Egyptian violations of the armistice agreement after the War of Attrition in 1970, namely, moving missile launching pads closer to the Suez Canal, the American administration has followed this paradigm with the Palestinians in the Oslo era.75



Oslo Gave the Palestinians a Territorial Base
We adopt the experience of another people to our own particular circumstances. The topographical conditions here are not the same as in Algeria or Vietnam. We should not leap beyond the limitations imposed on us by the military, material, and natural conditions, but we can overcome these limitations, and we shall do so if we adapt our strategy to them.
- Yasser Arafat, late 1960s.76

Since its early days, during the "Total Liberation Phase" (1969-1974), the PLO did not have the viable option of waging a sustained guerilla war against Israel. The main accomplishment of the Oslo accords was to give the PLO a territorial base that provided a viable option for waging a sustained guerilla war against Israel for the purpose of achieving its strategic objective. "Victory, in this contest," it should be recalled, "means that one or the other government prevails. Defeat means that one or the other government (or regime) disappears."77

In view of this new situation, it is necessary to reevaluate the basic assumptions of Israel's policy. The fact that Israel faces a people's war means that there is no "peace process" in the generally accepted meaning of the term, nor is a genuine settlement in prospect. There is no deal to be done. Instead, there is a condition of a protracted, decades-long war whose purpose is to weaken the Jewish state in order to destroy it. Negotiations and occasional pauses take place mainly as a tactic subordinated to the enemy's greater goal and to enable it to take territory without a struggle.78 As David Makovsky wrote, the consequences of this type of encounter, as in the case of the Taba negotiations, have been to raise the cost to Israel of a settlement in a future negotiation. This is called "moving the concessionary baseline."79 Such negotiations also provide the other side the opportunity to consolidate gains and the legitimacy of being in the company of respectable partners.

According to this analysis, Israel's policy-makers have seriously underestimated the determination and ability of the enemy and have viewed relative strength too much in terms of hardware. If one takes into account the opposing strategy with its integrated military and political doctrine, Israel's advantage seriously weakens. If Israel wants to assure its own survival, it must defeat the enemy's strategy and its people's war. Specifically, there is an urgent need to reassess the threat facing Israel and to prevent the enemy from augmenting its strength and implementing its strategy. Israel must meet the challenge by devising its own unified doctrine with clearly defined and stated political and military goals. Some of these should be: 1) to assure the survival of the State of Israel as a Jewish state and to protect its citizens; 2) to defend its legitimacy proactively, and; 3) to complete the process of integrating the Jewish state into the structure of the democratic world.



Appendix: The Strategic Thought of Stefan T. Possony
This essay has made extensive use of the writings of Stefan T. Possony (1913-1995), a little-known but extremely important American strategist. Born in Vienna in 1913, he received his doctorate there in 1930 in history and economics. He moved to Paris in 1938, the year his first major book, Tomorrow's War, was published, and he worked as a psychological warfare advisor to the French Foreign Ministry and as an advisor to the French Armed Forces. Advance units of the Gestapo briefly captured him when Paris fell, but he escaped, fleeing across the Pyrenees and then to the United States in 1940, where he initially worked at Princeton University alongside Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Studies. Possony studied a broad a range of twentieth-century problems, including communism, psychological warfare, and strategic targeting.80 During the Second World War he was aware that Nazism would be defeated, and that communism was the next challenge. He played a key role in the process of influencing Emperor Hirohito to agree to Japan's surrender, thus overruling the military caste of Imperial Japan. While Director of International Studies and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he was affiliated from 1961, his ideas of space-based systems of anti-missile defenses and the use of directed-energy weapons from space caught the imagination of then Governor Ronald Reagan of California, who adopted them when he was elected president in 1980. (Possony and his coauthor, Jerry Pournelle, a writer of science fiction, published The Strategy of Technology which directly inspired the Strategic Defense Initiative.81) One of Possony's protégés, Richard Allen, became National Security Advisor to Reagan in 1981. He was the contact for Possony in the White House.82 (White House Chief of Staff and later Secretary of State Gen. Alexander M. Haig, Jr., was another former Possony protégé.) President Reagan adopted Possony's view that the U.S. and the West should use their technological supremacy to work for victory in the Cold War.83 Other Possony ideas are clearly recognizable in the Reagan administration's comprehensive strategy for the deconstruction of the Soviet Union.84 His analysis of insurgent warfare and communist military doctrine has been of particular relevance here.

* * *

The author wishes to acknowledge the kind help of: Gregory Copley (Defense and Foreign Affairs Publications, the International Strategic Studies Association, Washington, D.C.); Cecil B. Currey (Lutz, Florida); Rivkah Duker Fishman; Manfred Gerstenfeld; Raanan Gissin (Prime Minister's Office); Amnon Lord; Zvi Marom; Moshe Yegar; Jerry Pournelle (Los Angeles); Michelle Ben-Ami, Librarian, American Jewish Committee, Jerusalem; staff of the American Cultural Center, Jerusalem; and Linda Wheeler, Reference Librarian, Hoover Institution (Stanford, California).

* * *

Notes
1. Sun Tzu, Art of War, Samuel B. Griffith, tr. and ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 77.
2. http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0cc40. Between September 29, 2000, and June 1, 2003, Magen David Adom treated a total of 5,456 casualties as follows: 688 killed, 478 severely injured, 685 moderately, and 3,605 lightly injured, among them 11 MDA staff members; http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0ia50.
3. E.g., Arafat's speech of May 10, 1994, in a Johannesburg mosque. Yossi Melman, "Don't Confuse Us with the Facts," Haaretz, August 16, 2002. Also, Yael Yehoshua, "Abu-Mazen: A Political Profile," MEMRI Special Report 16 (April 30, 2003).
4. Yossef Bodansky, Arafat's "Peace Process," ACPR Policy Paper 18 (1977):4.
5. http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP23601.
6. The PA has not held general elections since 1996. The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, signed in Washington on September 28, 1995, specifies in Chapter I, Article III, Paragraph 4: "The Council and the Ra'ees [President] of the Executive Authority of the Council shall be elected for a transitional period not exceeding five years from the signing of the Gaza-Jericho Agreement on May 4, 1994." It should be noted that in January 1996 Arafat was elected by a majority of 87.3 percent, which was exactly the same percentage as the January 1947 Communist election victory in post-war Poland. After he took power in 1959, Fidel Castro also promised democratic elections in three years.
7. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2nd ed. (New York: Meridian Books, 1959), p. 378.
8. Hussam Mohammad, "PLO Strategy: From Total Liberation to Coexistence"; http:/pij.org/site/vhome.htm?g=a&aid=4282. See also Gerard Chaliand, The Palestinian Resistance, trans. Michael Perl (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972).
9. Barry Rubin, Revolution until Victory? The Politics and History of the PLO (Cambridge, Mass.: H.U.P., 1994), p. 24.
10. Raphael Danziger, "Algeria and the Palestinian Organizations," in The Palestinians and the Middle East Conflict, Gabriel Ben-Dor, ed., (Tel Aviv: Turtledove, 1979), p. 348.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid., pp. 364-365. See particularly the subsection, "Some Diplomatic and Propaganda Techniques," of Richard Pipe's chapter, "Some Operational Principles of Soviet Foreign Policy," in M. Confino and S. Shamir, The USSR and the Middle East (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1973), pp, 18-20.
13. See Baruch Hazan, "Involvement by Proxy: Eastern Europe and the PLO, 1971-1975," ibid., pp. 321-40.
14. See Ion Mihai Pacepa, "The Arafat I Know," Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2002.
15. Neil C. Livingston and David Halevy, Inside the PLO (New York: Morrow, 1990), p. 141.
16. Yuval Arnon-Ohana, The PLO: Portrait of an Organization (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv, 1985), p. 107. "Muhammad A-Sha'ar, PLO representative in Moscow, declared in February 1981, 'many hundreds of Palestinian officers at the rank of division commanders have graduated Soviet military academies.'"
17. See "Palestinian Leader: Number of Jewish Victims in the Holocaust Might be 'Even Less Than a Million...'," MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis Series 95, May 30, 2002; http:memri.org/bin/opener.cgi?Page=archives&ID=IA9502.
18. Abu Iyad [Salah Khalaf] with Eric Rouleau, My Home, My Land, trans. Linda Butler Koseoglu (New York: Times Books, 1978), pp. 65-67.
19. Ibid., 69, and Yossef Bodansky, "Arafat's 'Peace Process,'" p. 4. In June 1974, the PLO adopted the "Phases Program/PhasedPlan" in a series of resolutions at a meeting of the Palestine National Council held in Cairo. Bernard Lewis, "The Palestinians and the PLO; A Historical Approach," Commentary 59 (January 1975):45, 48.
20. Abu-Iyad, p. 69, as quoted by Yossef Bodansky, p. 4.
21. Al-Dustur (Amman, Jordan), April 14, 1970, quoted by Cecil B. Currey, Victory at Any Cost; The Genius of Viet Nam's Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap (Washington: Brassey's, 1997), p. 277. See also Joseph Farah, "Vietnam All Over Again in Mideast?" WorldNetDaily, December 17, 2002; http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30025.
22. See entry of Khalil al-Wazir in Guy Bechor, ed., The PLO Lexicon (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense, 1991), p. 90. See also "Biography of Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad)," Encyclopedia of the Palestinians, Philip Mattar, ed. (New York: Facts on File, 2000).
23. Y. Harkabi, "Al Fatah's Doctrine," in The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict, Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin, eds. (New York: Penguin Books, 1991), p. 395.
24. Chaliand, The Palestinian Resistance, p. 158.
25. Stefan T. Possony, People's War; The Art of Combining Partisan-Military, Psycho-Social, and Political Conquest Techniques (Taipei: World Anti-Communist League, 1970), p. 85 [Hereinafter, P.W.].
26. See Sun Tzu, Art of War, p. 84, "Offensive Strategy," verse 31: "Therefore I say: 'Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.'"
27. Harriet Fast Scott and William F. Scott, eds., The Soviet Art of War; Doctrine, Strategy and Tactics (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1982. For a modern and recent history of the Soviet Union, see Mikhail Heller and Alexandr Nekrich, Utopia in Power; The History of the Soviet Union from 1917 to the Present, trans. Phylis B. Carlos (New York: Summit Books, 1986).
28. Marshal A. A. Grechko has defined military doctrine as "an officially accepted system of views in a given state and its armed forces on the nature of war and methods of conducting it and on preparations of the country and army for war." Scott, Soviet Art of War, p. 4.
29. Mikhail V. Frunze (1885-1925), who became chief of staff of the Red Army in May 1924, had described the Unified Military Doctrine in a publication that first appeared in June 1921. Scott reports that he had been strongly influenced by the writings of the German generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, ibid., p. 28. See also, "Some Soviet Techniques of Negotiation," in Philip E. Mosely, The Kremlin in World Politics; Studies in Soviet Policy and Action (New York: Vintage, 1960), p. 40. Mosely wrote in 1951: "Through Lenin and Stalin, Soviet thinking has fully absorbed the Clausewitz maxims that national strength and strong alliances determine the effectiveness of national policy in peace, and that in war one must never lose sight of the aims of policy for which it is waged."
30. Mao Tse-tung on Guerilla Warfare, trans and ed., Samuel B. Griffith (New York: Praeger, 1961), p. 16-17, and Art of War, p. 47. Mao and Chu Teh, with whom he founded the Red Chinese Army, made this decision together.
31. Stefan T. Possony, A Century of Conflict (Chicago: Regnery, 1953), p. 235. With regard to this principle, Mao drew on the thinking of Mikhail V. Frunze and Mikhail N. Tukhachevsky, Marshal of the Soviet Union (1882-1945).
32. Scott, Soviet Art of War, p. ix.
33. "Lin Piao on "Strategy and Tactics of a People's War" (1965), in Martin Ebon, The Life and Writings of China's New Ruler; Lin Piao (New York: Stein and Day, 1970), pp. 228-29. This passage may be found in Lin Piao's key policy statement, "Long Live the Victory of the People's War!" (1965). Sun Tzu had written: "The worst policy is to attack cities. Attack cities only when there is no alternative." Art of War, p. 78. See also Conor Cruise O'Brien's comments on Lin Piao, On the Eve of the Millenium; The Future of Democracy Through an Age of Unreason (New York: Free Press, 1994), p. 138.
34. Currey, Giap, pp. 319-21. For historical background, see Ho Chi Minh, "The Party's Military Work among the Peasants; Revolutionary Guerilla Methods," in Armed Insurrection, A. Neuberg [pseud.], ed. (New York: St. Martin's 1970), pp. 255-71. This title was first published in 1928 as Der bewaffnete Aufstand.
35. "Interview with Vo Nyugen Giap, Viet Minh Commander," http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/peoplescentury/episodes/guerillawars/giaptrasnscript/html.
36. Currey, Giap, p. 204.
37. "While in Hanoi, Abu-Iyad was also educated about the strategic impact of the 1968 Tet Offensive - a major military defeat of the Vietcong and North Vietnam that was transformed into a major strategic victory of Hanoi through the sophisticated exploitation and manipulation of Western, particularly American, media and public opinion." Yossef Bodansky, "Arafat's 'Peace Process,'" p. 4.
38. Raanan Gissin, "Low Intensity Conflict with High Resolution: Can We Win?" Justice 31 (March 2002):15-16.
39. David Binder, "Soviet and Allies Shift on Doctrine," New York Times, May 25, 1988.
40. Stefan T. Possony, People's War.
41. Ibid., p. 86.
42. Ibid., pp. 87-88. "In this sense, a people's war is less a seizure of power than a building of revolutionary power and the gradual weakening, perhaps the destruction, of the anti-revolutionary establishment, notably its armed might" (ibid., p. 39).
43. Ibid., p. 44. For background information on the subject of propaganda, see E. H. Carr, "Propaganda in International Politics," Oxford Pamphlets on World Affairs 16 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1939); and Philip M. Taylor, "Propaganda from Thucydides to Thatcher," http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ics/arts-pt1.htm.
44. P.W., p. 44.
45. Anti-militarism includes breaches of military discipline, disobedience, desertion, and mutiny, ibid., p. 34.
46. Ibid., p. 21. See Richard Pipes, "Some Operational Principles of Soviet Foreign Policy," pp. 13-15.
47. Ibid., p. 22.
48. Stefan T. Possony, Waking up the Giant (New Rochelle: Arlington House, 1974), pp. 679-80. "All the guiding principles of military operations grow out of the one basic principle: to strive to the utmost to preserve one's own strength and destroy that of the enemy." Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, vol. 2 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), p. 81.
49. P.W., p. 45.
50. Amos Harel, "Major General Yaakov Orr," Haaretz, July 13, 2001. See J. S. Fishman, "The Broken Promise of the Democratic Peace: Israel and the Palestinian Authority," Jerusalem Viewpoints 477, May 1, 2002.
51. P.W., p. 21. "Propaganda is indeed part and parcel of 'psychological warfare'; but terror is more. Terror continues to be used by totalitarian regimes even when its psychological aims are achieved; its real horror is that it reigns over a completely subdued population....Propaganda, in other words, is one and possibly the most important instrument of totalitarianism for dealing with the non-totalitarian world; terror, on the contrary, is the very essence of its form of government." Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, p. 344.
52. "Zochrim et Mitchell Techilah?" ["Remember Mitchell at the Start?"] Mekor Rishon, June 27, 2003 (Hebrew).
53. During the Oslo years, the Palestinian leadership was in material breach of the military clauses of the interim agreement, seeking to import weaponry like SA-7 shoulder-fired, anti-aircraft missiles and manufacturing Qassam rockets. The Karine-A weapons ship contained a ton and a half of highly potent C-4 explosives, long ranger mortars (120 mm), and 20 kilometer-range katyusha rockets (122 mm). Dore Gold, "Defensible Borders for Israel," Jerusalem Viewpoints 500 (June 15-July 1, 2003).
54. "For the remainder of his life, Giap would laugh at a small joke which Ho Chi Minh made about the outcome of the battle. 'At Dien Bien Phu,' Ho chuckled, 'Giap lost not a single tank or airplane.'" Currey, Giap, p. 204.
55. "In the four years leading up to the 1982 war [in Lebanon], it [the PLO] proceeded to upgrade its forces in the south in terms of weaponry and numbers, and transformed them into something closer to a regular army." Rashid Khalidi, Under Siege: PLO Decision-Making During the 1982 War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986).
56. For a definition of supersession, see James Carroll, Constantine's Sword; the Church and the Jews (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), p. 633, n. 1.
57. On anti-Jewish teachings of Palestinian Christian leaders, see Yitzhak Sergio Minerbi, "Palestinian Christians Ignite Religious Controversy" (Hebrew), Kivunim Hadashim 8 (April, 2003):70-82.
58. Anne Bayefsky, "Terrorism and Racism: The Aftermath of Durban," Jerusalem Viewpoints 468 (December 16, 2001).
59. "Abu Mazen in Gaza: Stop the Armed Operations," MEMRI, Special Dispatch 449, December 2002.
60. For an example of the activities of Peace Now in monitoring and reporting on Jewish settlement activity, see Aviv Lavie, "No Mountain Too High," Haaretz Magazine, June 20, 2002, pp. 8-11.
61. See, for example, Etgar Lefkovits, "Five Held for Trying to Reestablish Jerusalem PA Security Force," Jerusalem Post, August 19, 2003.
62. Moshe Katz, "It is Also Dangerous Here," Mekor Rishon, Yoman Shevi'i, July 4, 2003 (Hebrew).
63. Justus Reid Weiner, "The Global Epidemic of Illegal Building and Demolitions: Implications for Jerusalem," Jerusalem Viewpoints 498 (May 15, 2008).
64. Conor Cruise O'Brien, The Siege (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), p. 508.
65. Sten Anderson disclosed Kreisky's role in altering Swedish policy in favor of the PLO at the end of 1974 and in involving American Jews in talks with Arafat. Moshe Yegar, Neutral Policy - Theory versus Practice; Swedish-Israeli Relations (Jerusalem: W.J.C., 1993), pp. 153-54.
66. Yoram Hazony, The Jewish State; The Struggle for Israel's Soul (New York: Basic Books, 2000), p. 66.
67. Jerusalem Post, April 5, 1996, quoted by Steven T. Rosenthal, Irreconcilable Differences? (Hanover: Brandeis, 2001), p. 175.
68. Washington Post, February 20, 1994, quoted by Rosenthal, ibid.
69. Steven Windmueller, "September 11: Its Implications for American Jewry," Jerusalem Viewpoints 492 (February 16, 2003). One result of the process described above was that many young Jewish individuals possessing a strong sense of social justice and idealism but weak ties of identification were left vulnerable to the approaches of pro-Palestinian groups which targeted them for recruitment.
70. Lt. Col. Jonathan D. Halevi, "Understanding the Breakdown of Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations," Jerusalem Viewpoints 486, September 15-October 1, 2002. In the original Hebrew version of this article, that appeared in the IDF military affairs journal Maarakhot 383, May 2002, it is noted that this analysis was written on the basis of an IDF document called "The Other View," which the author prepared in August 2001.
71. In contrast, Harold Nicolson, author and diplomatist who was a member of the British Delegation in Paris after World War I, wrote, "it is a bad peace which settles nothing. We must see to it, therefore, that at the end of this war [WWII] we do not make a bad peace. We must learn from past experience."Why Britain is at War (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1940), p. 113.
72. "In a post-Camp David whirlwind diplomatic tour, Arafat stopped in Jakarta on August 16, 2000, where Indonesia's former president, Abdurrahman Wahid, urged him to end the conflict with Israel. The reply? 'Arafat confessed to me that in a hundred years, Israel will disappear. So why hurry to recognize it?'" Yediot Ahronot, May 10, 2002, as cited by David Makovsky, "Taba Mythchief," The National Interest (Spring 2003):128.
73. Hannah Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism, p. 384.
74. Barry Rubin, "From One U.S. Administration to the Next; Similarities and Differences in the Push for Arab-Israeli Peace," AJC Israel/Mideast Briefing (July 3, 2001).
75. Dr. Steven Plaut, "The Third Worst Middle East War," (November 27, 2003); http.//chronwatch.com/features/contentDisplay.asp?aid=961.
76. Danziger, "Algeria and the Palestinian Organizations," p. 348.
77. P.W., pp. 87-88.
78. "Such negotiations are not originated by revolutionists for the purpose of arriving at amicable arrangements with the opposition. Revolutions rarely compromise; compromises are made only to further the strategic design. Negotiation then, is undertaken for the dual purpose of gaining time to buttress a position (military, political, social, economic) and to wear down, frustrate, and harass the opponent." Griffith, Mao Tse-tung on Guerilla Warfare, Introduction, p. 16.
79. David Makovsky, "Taba Mythchief," pp. 119-29.
80. "His work in the field of strategic targeting was pioneering. Before that, almost all targeting in air warfare was considered a tactical function." "Stefan Possony; Pioneered Air War Strategy in WWII," Los Angeles Times, May 3, 1995.
81. "American defense policy at the time was one of deterrence by the development of overwhelming offensive force which would make either side think twice before deploying it. This was appropriately named mutually assured destruction (MAD). Possony argued that this strategy was insufficiently flexible. 'To stay ahead in the decisive technological war,' he wrote, 'The United States must strive for a real”

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Last Update: 04/09/2003 22:29

IDF soldier killed in Jenin; Al-Aqsa takes responsibility

By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service



The militant Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, affiliated
with Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed
responsibility for the Thursday ambush killing of
an Israel Defense Forces soldier near the West
Bank flashpoint city of Jenin.




The soldier was later identified
as 20-year-old Sergeant Gabriel
Uziel from Givat Ze'ev, who
served in the Golani Brigade.
He was laid to rest at 6 P.M.
Thursday at Mount Herzl
cemetery in Jerusalem.

Hours later, an IDF officer was
lightly wounded by gunfire near

the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, close to
the Israel-Egypt border, Army Radio reported.
The officer was taken to hospital for
treatment, the report said.

In the early morning incident, gunmen opened
fire on a group of IDF infantry troops in the
city, critically wounding Uziel. He received
emergency treatment at the site of the
shooting, but died en route to a hospital in
Israel. There were no reports of other
casualties. IDF troops mounted a search for the
gunmen.

A member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades said in
a phone call to the Reuters news agency that
its gunmen carried out the ambush, the latest
incident in an upsurge of violence. Israel
Radio later reported that the Islamic Jihad's
armed Al-Quds wing had also claimed
responsibility.

Palestinian militant groups called off a truce
last month after Israel killed a Hamas leader
in Gaza following a suicide bombing on a
Jerusalem bus in mid-August that left 21 dead.

The early morning shooting was one of a number
of attacks on IDF soldiers in the territories
overnight. There were no inuries in the other
incidents, which included the hurling of a bomb
at an IDF force near the Nablus-area village of
Jaba'a.

Also Thursday, IDF forces in the West Bank
arrested an Islamic Jihad activist said to have
been planning to carry out a terrorist attack
in the next few days, Army Radio reported.

IDF allows entry of 18,000 Palestinian workers
Prior to the Thursday shooting, Defense Minister
Shaul Mofaz and IDF Chief of Staff Moshe
Ya'alon approved a range of confidence-building
measures and steps aimed at easing the plight
of the Palestinians.

Among the measures approved was the entry into
Israel of a total of 18,000 Palestinian
workers, an unusually large number in the
context of the three-year uprising, during
which Israel sharply curtailed the number of
entry permits that at one time had reached the
tens of thousands.

On Wednesday, 10,000 Palestinian workers and
1,000 merchants were allowed to enter Israel
from the Gaza Strip. This was the first easing
of entry restrictions since a total closure was
clamped on the territories following the
suicide bus bombing.




Sergeant Gabriel Uziel, 20, who served in the Golani Brigade, was killed in Jenin Thursday morning. (Reproduction)









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...Or don't repond to my post!”

“...please learn how to condense long-winded cut-n-pastes, ok?...

...Or don't post at all!"”

“Yeah. Don't "repond" if you can't spell!

/genius”

“...I'll do as I please Buddur. You're just angry because I have a difference in opinion with you, that's all. Too bad. I wonder if TODAY'S gereration has the attention span to actually read something or do they just make ridicious remarks like Buddur makes. Not too bright of a guy to say the least. I personally find reading to be most enlightening and informative but some people perfer drunkeness and stupidty I perceive. That's a real shame.”

“If you desire true insight into this dickhead's point of view, simply read Mein Kampf and wherever you see the word 'Jew' substitute 'Palistinian'.”

“...I thought YOU put me on your ignore list? I guess my topics are of such the nature to even move you to respond. Funny isn't it. Are YOU still seething over my last post? "Anger resteth in the bosom of a fool" God tells us in his Holy Word.

Still crying about those Palestinians? You must have some serious blinders covering your eyes. How can some defend the actions of such killers is beyond me. But of course I realize YOU have NO real solutions but spew YOUR hatred of me on these boards. I sure sign of your negative personalty disorders I perceive. Please learn to be more pleasant in the future. Are we connecting tilt?? I sure hope so. Have a nice evening nonetheless. I wish you the best inspite of your hatred.”

“Abridged version for Buddur;

Jew/Arab kills Arab/Jew
Repeat forever”

“Myths & Facts Online
Arab/Muslim Attitudes Toward Israel
By Mitchell G. Bard

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The desire for peaceful relations between Jews and Arabs sometimes leads people to overlook public comments by Arab officials and media publications that are often incendiary and sometimes outright anti-Semitic. Frequently, more moderate tones are adopted when speaking to Western audiences, but more accurate and heartfelt views are expressed in Arabic to the speaker's constituents. The following is just a tiny sample of some of the remarks that have been made regarding Israel and the Jews. They are included here because they demonstrate the level of hostility and true beliefs of many Arabs and Muslims. Of course, not all Arabs and Muslims subscribe to these views, but the examples are not random, they are beliefs held by important officials and disseminated by major media. They are also included because one of the lessons of the Holocaust was that people of good will are often unwilling to believe that people who threaten evil will in fact carry out their malevolent intentions.

Anti-Semitism
Blood Libel
Fabrications of Abuses
Holocaust Denial
Peace
Phased Plan & the Destruction of Israel
Sanctioning Violence




Anti-Semitism
“They [the Jews] try to kill the principle of religions with the same mentality that they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Mohammed.”

— Syrian President Bashar Assad at May 5 welcoming ceremony for the Pope
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, May 6, 2001


“It is not a mistake that the Koran warns us of the hatred of the Jews and put them at the top of the list of the enemies of Islam. Today the Jews recruit the world against the Muslims and use all kinds of weapons. They are plundering the dearest place to the Muslims, after Mecca and Medina and threaten the place the Muslims have faced at first when they prayed and the third holiest city after Mecca and Medina. They want to erect their temple on that place....The Muslims are ready to sacrifice their lives and blood to protect the Islamic nature of Jerusalem and al-Aksa!”

— Sheikh Hian Al-Adrisi,
Excerpt of address in the al-Aksa mosque, September 29, 2000

“The Jews are Jews, whether Labour or Likud, the Jews are Jews. They do not have any moderates or any advocates of peace. They are all liars. They are the ones who must be butchered and killed. As Allah the Almighty said: 'Fight them.' Allah will torture them by your hands and will humiliate them and will help you to overcome them, and will relieve the minds of the believers. ... Our people must unite in one trench, and receive armaments from the Palestinian leadership to confront the Jews. ... Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Whenever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them — and those who stand with them — they are all in one trench, against the Arabs and the Muslims — because they established Israel here, in the beating heart of the Arab world, in Palestine. They created it in order that it be the outpost of their civilization — and the vanguard of their army, and to be the sword of the West and the Crusaders, hanging over the necks of the Muslim monotheists, the Muslims in this land. They wanted the Jews to be the spearhead for them...”

— Dr Ahmad Abu-Halabia, a member of the "Fatwa Council"
appointed by the Palestinian Authority and the
former acting Rector of the Islamic University in Gaza,
delivered in the Zayd bin Sultan Nahyan mosque in Gaza
on October 13, 2000, the day after the lynching of the Israeli
reservists in Ramallah, and carried live on Palestinian television

“Thanks to Hitler, blessed memory, who on behalf of the Palestinians, revenged in advance, against the most vile criminals on the face of the earth. Although we do have a complaint against him for his revenge on them was not enough.”

— Columnist Ahmad Ragab
Al-Akhbar (Egypt), April 18, 2001

“All weapons must be aimed at the Jews, at the enemies of Allah...whom the Koran describes as monkeys and pigs, worshippers of the calf and idol worshippers. Allah shall make the Moslem rule over the Jew, we will blow them up in Hadera, we will blow them up in Tel Aviv and in Netanya in the righteousness of Allah against this rif-raff.....We will enter Jerusalem as conquerors, and Jaffa as conquerors, and Haifa as conquerors and Ashkelon as conquerors...we bless all those who educate their children to jihad and to Martyrdom, blessing be he who shot a bullet into the head of a Jew.”

— Sermon broadcast on Palestinian Authority television, August 3, 2001

“All signs unequivocally prove that the conflict between the Jews and the Muslims is an eternal on-going conflict, even if it stops for short intervals.... This conflict resembles the conflict between man and Satan.... This is the fate of the Muslim nation, and beyond that the fate of all the nations of the world, to be tormented by this nation [the Jews]. The fate of the Palestinian people is to struggle against the Jews on behalf of the Arab peoples, the Islamic peoples and the peoples of the entire worlds.”

— Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda quoted in The New Republic Online, October 30, 2001

“O God, the Jews have transgressed all limits in their tyranny. O God, shake the ground under their feet, pour torture on them, and destroy all of them.”

— Sheikh Abd-al-Bari al-Thubayt, June 7, 2002, sermon at the Holy Mosque of Medina, broadcast on official Saudi television

“The Jewish nation, it is known, from the dawn of history, from the time Allah created them, lives by scheme and deceit.”

— PA Communications Minister, Imud Falouji
Palestinian television, August 8, 2002

“We know that the Jews have manipulated the Sept. 11 incidents and turned American public opinion against Arabs and Muslims....We still ask ourselves: Who has benefited from Sept. 11 attacks? I think they (the Jews) were the protagonists of such attacks.”

— Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef in Assyasah (Kuwait)
translation from Saudi magazine 'Ain-Al-Yaqin, November 29, 2002




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Blood Libel
“The Talmud says that if a Jew does not drink every year the blood of a non-Jewish man, he will be damned for eternity.”

— Saudi Arabian delegate Marouf al-Dawalibi
before the UN Human Rights Commission
conference on religious tolerance
December 5, 1984

“During this holiday [Purim], the Jew must prepare very special pastries, the filling of which is not only costly and rare –– it cannot be found at all on the local and international markets....For this holiday, the Jewish people must obtain human blood so that their clerics can prepare the holiday pastries....Before I go into the details, I would like to clarify that the Jews' spilling human blood to prepare pastry for their holidays is a well-established fact, historically and legally, all throughout history. This was one of the main reasons for the persecution and exile that were their lot in Europe and Asia at various times....during the holiday, the Jews wear carnival-style masks and costumes and overindulge in drinking alcohol, prostitution, and adultery.....”

— Dr. Umayma Ahmad Al-Jalahma of King Faysal University
Saudi government daily Al-Riyadh, March 10, 2002

“Christian Europe showed enmity toward the Jews when it transpired that their rabbis craftily hunt anyone walking alone, [tempting] him to enter their house of worship. Then they take his blood to use for baked goods for their holidays, as part of their ritual.”

— Columnist Dr. Muhammad bin S’ad Al-Shwey’ir, Al-Jazirah
(Saudi Arabia), September 6, 2002




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fabrications of Abuses
“[Israeli doctors] use Palestinian patients… for experimental medicines and training new doctors.”

— PA Health Minister, Riyadh Al-Za'anoon
Al-Ayam, July 25, 1998

"Israel carries out a clear policy of annihilating our people and destroying our national economy by smuggling spoiled foodstuff… not fit for human consumption, into PA territories…. Israel did not change its strategy, which aims to kill and destroy our people, rather it began counting on means other than bombs, missiles and planes. These measures are distributing and smuggling spoiled foodstuffs… into the PA territories."

— PA Deputy Minister of Supplies, Abd Al-Hamid Al-Qudsi
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, August 22, 1998

“Our people have been subjected to the daily and extensive use of poisonous gas by the Israeli forces, which has led to an increase in cancer cases among women and children.”

— Suha Arafat, wife of Yasser Arafat
November 11, 1999, during a Gaza appearance
with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Holocaust Denial
“...Lies surfaced about Jews being murdered here and there, and the Holocaust. And, of course, they are all lies and unfounded claims. No Chelmno, no Dachau, no Auschwitz! [They] were disinfection sites... They began to publicize in their propaganda that they were persecuted, murdered and exterminated... Committees acted here and there to establish this entity [Israel-Ed.], this foreign entity, implanted as a cancer in our country, where our fathers lived, where we live, and where our children after us will live. They always portrayed themselves as victims, and they made a Center for Heroism and Holocaust. Whose heroism? Whose Holocaust? Heroism is our nation's, the holocaust was against our people... We were the victims, but we shall not remain victims forever...” [emphasis added]

— Dr. Issam Sissalem, history lecturer, Islamic University Gaza,
PA TV broadcast, November 29, 2000

“The issue of the holocaust rises again. It defies disappearing over its half-century because the Zionist propaganda has converted it into a means to produce political and economic benefit, besides exploiting it for the advancement of occupation and settlement...”

“A recently published book by an American researcher, discusses the holocaust. Employing scientific and chemical evidence, it proves that the figure of six million Jews cremated in the Nazi Auschwitz camps is a lie for propaganda, as the most spacious of the vaults in the camp could not have held even one percent of that number.”

— Hiri Manzour in the official Palestinian Authority daily,
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, April 13, 2001

“One of the Jews' evil deeds is what has come to be called 'the Holocaust,' that is, the slaughter of the Jews by Nazism. However, revisionist [historians] have proven that this crime, carried out against some of the Jews, was planned by the Jews' leaders, and was part of their policy...These are the Jews against whom we fight, oh beloved of Allah.”

— Sermon broadcast on Palestinian Authority television, September 21, 2001



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Peace
“Unless the Palestine problem is settled, we shall have difficulty in protecting and safeguarding the Jews in the Arab world.”

— Syrian delegate, Faris el-Khouri,
New York Times, February 19, 1947

“The Arab world is not in a compromising mood. It's likely, Mr. Horowitz, that your plan is rational and logical, but the fate of nations is not decided by rational logic. Nations never concede; they fight. You won't get anything by peaceful means or compromise. You can, perhaps, get something, but only by the force of your arms. We shall try to defeat you. I am not sure we'll succeed, but we'll try. We were able to drive out the Crusaders, but on the other hand we lost Spain and Persia. It may be that we shall lose Palestine. But it's too late to talk of peaceful solutions.”

— Arab League Secretary Azzam Pasha,
September 16, 1947

“[A]ll our efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Palestine problem have failed. The only way left for us is war. I will have the pleasure and honor to save Palestine.”

— Transjordan's King Abdullah,
April 26, 1948

“The representative of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday that they were not the attackers, that the Arabs had begun the fighting. We did not deny this. We told the whole world that we were going to fight.”

— Jamal Husseini before the Security Council,
April 16, 1948

“This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”

— Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League,
May 15, 1948

“I am not solely fighting against Israel itself. My task is to deliver the Arab world from destruction through Israel's intrigue, which has its roots abroad. Our hatred is very strong. There is no sense in talking about peace with Israel. There is not even the smallest place for negotiations.”

— Egyptian President Nasser,
October 14, 1956

“Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united....I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation.”

— Syrian Defense Minister Hafez Assad,
May 20, 1967

“Arab policy at this stage has but two objectives. The first, the elimination of the traces of the 1967 aggression through an Israeli withdrawal from all the territories it occupied that year. The second objective is the elimination of the traces of the 1948 aggression, by the means of the elimination of the State of Israel itself. This is, however, as yet an abstract, undefined objective, and some of us have erred in commencing the latter step before the former.”

— Mohammed Heikal, a Sadat confidant and editor of the semi-official Al-Ahram,
February 25, 1971

“The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live.”

— PLO spokesman Mahmud Abbas ("Abu Mazen"),
Falastin a-Thaura, March 1976

“Saddam, you hero, attack Israel with chemical weapons.”

— Palestinians marching in support of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait,
(Associated Press, August 12, 1990

“Let us work together until we achieve victory and regain liberated Jerusalem.”

— Yasser Arafat,
Baghdad Republic of Iraq Radio Network, November 16, 1991

“I have always rejected normalizing relations with (Israeli) women....They always invite me to their functions and I categorically refuse because I hate Israel.”

— Suha Arafat, wife of Yasser Arafat,
Saudi Arabian women's magazine, Sayidaty, quoted by AP, May 3, 2001

“We will not give up a single grain of soil in Palestine, from Haifa, and Jaffa, and Acre, and Mulabbas [Petah Tikvah] and Salamah, and Majdal [Ashkelon], and all the land, and Gaza, and the West Bank....”

— Dr Ahmad Abu-Halabia, a member of the "Fatwa Council"
appointed by the Palestinian Authority and the
former acting Rector of the Islamic University in Gaza,
delivered in the Zayd bin Sultan Nahyan mosque in Gaza
on October 13, 2000, the day after the lynching of the Israeli
reservists in Ramallah, and carried live on Palestinian television

“We will not arrest the sons of our people in order to appease Israel. Let our people rest assured that this won't happen.”

— Chief of the PA Preventive Security in the West Bank, Jebril Rajoub,
Islamic Association for Palestine, June 9, 2001

“...Allah willing, this unjust state...Israel will be erased; this unjust state, the United States will be erased; this unjust state, Britain will be erased...Blessings to whoever waged Jihad for the sake of Allah...Blessings to whoever put a belt of explosives on his body or on his sons' and plunged into the midst of the Jews...”

— Sermon by Sheikh Ibrahim Madhi
a few days after Yasser Arafat's cease-fire declaration
PA Television, June 8, 2001

“We said from the beginning that there is no ceasefire for the settlers.”

— Fatah leader, Ziad ibu-Aid,
International Herald Tribune, June 20, 2001

“Didn't we throw mud in the face of Bill Clinton, who dared to propose a state with some adjustments? Were we honest about what we did? Were we right in what we did? No, we were not. After two years of violence, we are now calling for what we rejected.”

— Nabil Amr, ex-minister in the PA cabinet,
Quoted in the Jerusalem Report, October 21, 2002

“Just as Ramallah, Gaza, Nablus, and Jenin are Palestinian cities, so are Haifa, Nazareth, Jaffa, Ramle, Lod, Beersheba, Safed, and others Palestinian cities....The Zionist Jews are foreigners in this land. They have no right to live or settle in it. They should go somewhere else in the world to establish their state and their false entity...They must leave their homes...We do not believe in so-called 'peace with Israel' because peace cannot be made with Satan. Israel is the greatest Satan.”

— Palestinian Christian cleric Father 'Atallah Hanna,
sermon in the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Jerusalem, January 19, 2003


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Phased Plan & the Destruction of Israel
“The Palestinian people accepted the Oslo agreements as a first step and not as a permanent arrangement, based on the premise that the war and struggle on the ground [i.e., locally against Israeli territory] is more efficient than a struggle from a distant land... for the Palestinian people will continue the revolution until they achieve the goals of the '65 revolution...”

— PA Minister of Supply Abd El Aziz Shahian,
Al Ayaam, May 30, 2000.
[The "65 Revolution" is the founding of the PLO
and the publication of the Palestinian covenant that
calls for the destruction of Israel via an armed struggle.]

“Our people have hope for the future, that the Occupation State ceases to exist, and that it makes no difference [how great] its power and arrogance...”.

— PA Minister of Communications, Amad Alfalugi,
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, November 18, 1999

“When we picked up the gun in '65 and the modern Palestinian Revolution began, it had a goal. This goal has not changed and it is the liberation of Palestine.”

— Salim Alwadia Abu Salem, Supervisor of Palestinian Political Affairs,
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, January 20, 2000

“I want to say that this is our Palestine, from Metulla [Israel's northernmost city] to Rafiah [Southern border] and to Aqaba [Israel's southernmost point], from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea; whether they want it or not.”

— Dr. Jareer Al-Kidwah, advisor to President Arafat,
PA TV broadcast, November 29, 2000

“If we agree to declare our state over what is now 22 percent of Palestine, meaning the West Bank and Gaza, our ultimate goal is the liberation of all historic Palestine from the River to the Sea...We distinguish the strategic, long-term goals from the political phased goals, which we are compelled to temporarily accept due to international pressure.”

— Faisal al-Husseini,
Al-Arabi, June 24, 2001

“Israel is much smaller than Iran in land mass, and therefore far more vulnerable to nuclear attack.”

— Former Iranian President Ali Rafsanjani,
quoted in Jerusalem Report, March 11, 2002

“We defeated the Crusaders 800 years ago and we will defeat the enemies of Islam today.”

— Nazareth Deputy Mayor Salman Abu Ahmed,
quoted in Jerusalem Report, March 4, 2002


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sanctioning Violence
“The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aksa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.”

— The fatwa (religious edict) issued by Osama bin Laden in 1998


"We decided to liberate our homeland step by step... this is the strategy... we say: 'should Israel continue – no problem. And so we honor the peace treaties and non-violence, so long as the agreements are fulfilled step-by-step. [But] if and when Israel says 'enough,' namely, 'we will not discuss Jerusalem, we will not return refugees, we will not dismantle settlements, we will not withdraw to the borders,' in that case it is saying that we will return to violence. But this time it will be with 30,000 armed Palestinian soldiers and in a land with elements of freedom. I am the first to call for it. If we reach a dead end we will go back to our war and struggle like we did forty years ago."

— PA Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Nabil Sha'ath,
interview with ANN television (London), October 7, 2000

"Violence is around the corner, and the Palestinians are willing to sacrifice even 5,000 casualties."

— PA Justice Minister Freih Abu Middein,
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, (PA) August 24, 2000

"The Intifada will continue until the achievement of our national goals."

— PA Finance Minister Muhammad Al-Nashashibi,
Al-Ayyam, October 10, 2000

"The Intifada is a means of popular struggle in which all parts of the people take part in order to realize the internationally recognized legitimate rights of the Palestinian people... This is the goal of the Intifada... The use of violence, the struggle and martyrdom... used by people to achieve their rights."

— PLO representative in Washington, Hassan Abd Al-Rahman,
TV MBC, October 10, 2000

"The Intifada should be continued and escalated."

— The head of the Fatah organization in the West Bank, Marwan Al-Barghuthi,
Al-Jazeera TV (Qatar), October 11, 2000

"The Palestinian people are in a state of emergency against the failure of the Camp David summit. If the situation explodes, the Palestinian people living in the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority are ready for the next fierce battle against the Israeli occupation. ... The next Intifada will be more violent than the first one especially since the Palestinian people now possess weapons allowing them to defend themselves in a confrontation with the Israeli army. ... the Lebanese experience of wiping out the Israeli occupation from southern Lebanon gave the Palestinian people the needed moral strength and added to their spirit of armed struggle."

— A "senior security figure" in the Palestinian Authority,
Kul Al-Arab, July 14, 2000

“The issues of Jerusalem, the refugees and sovereignty are one and will be finalized on the ground and not in negotiations. At this point it is important to prepare Palestinian society for the challenge of the next step because we will inevitably find ourselves in a violent confrontation with Israel in order to create new facts on the ground. ... I believe that the situation in the future will be more violent than the Intifada.”

— Abu-Ali Mustafa of the Palestinian Authority, July 23, 2000

“Hamas has tens of martyrs who are willing to carry out attacks against Israeli targets. An operation of such martyrs exceeds that of the Arab armies who fought the Hebrew state. The importance of the weapons of such martyrs is no less than the importance of nuclear weapons.”

— Khaled Mash'al, head of the Hamas Politbureau,
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (PA), June 24, 2001


“We are teaching the children that suicide bombs make Israeli people frightened and we are allowed to do it....We teach them that after a person becomes a suicide bomber he reaches the highest level of paradise.”

— Palestinian “Paradise Camp” counselor speaking to BBC interviewer,
quoted in Jerusalem Post, July 20, 2001

“I promise that the number of shootings at the occupation will increase to 500 to 1,000 shooting [incidents] per day....The Palestinians have trained themselves to attack the Israeli tanks and explode their bodies that will be loaded with a belt of explosives, as part of the preparations for a possible Israeli attack in the Palestinian territories....The current intifada differs from the previous one because it is armed and the Palestinians are fighting inside their territory and from it.”

— Deputy Commander of Force-17, Muhammad Dhamrah (a.k.a., Abu Awdh),
Al-Hayat, August 17, 2001

“The suicide bombers of today are the noble successors of their noble predecessors...the Lebanese suicide bombers, who taught the U.S. Marines a tough lesson in [Lebanon]....These suicide bombers are the salt of the earth, the engines of history....They are the most honorable [people] among us.....”

— Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (PA), June 24, 2001

“I do not think that a Muslim would let an Islamic homeland like Palestine, and Jerusalem, remain in the hands of the Zionists, who plunder it and damage its holy sites, without the owners of the land having the right to defend themselves. All I said is that this oppressed people that was expelled from its home has the right to become a human bomb and blow himself up inside this military society.”

— Sheikh Yussef Al-Qaradhawi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood,
Al-Jazeera TV (Qatar), September 16, 2001

“Our efforts to continue the Intifada and resistance will persist until we achieve our right of return, and our independence, with Jerusalem as the capital.”

— Ahmad Sa'adat speaking at a press conference after becoming leader of the PFLP,
Jerusalem Post, October 4, 2001

“Resistance is legitimate and those who give up their lives do not require permission from anyone....We must not stand in the way of the intifada and jihad [holy war]. Rather, we must stand at their side and encourage them.”

— Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Akrameh Sabri,
Al-Hayat, December 7, 2001

“With God´s help, next time we will meet in Jerusalem, because we are fighting to bring victory to our prophets, every baby, every kid, every man, every woman and every old person and all the young people, we will all sacrifice ourselves for our holy places and we will strengthen our hold of them and we are willing to give 70 of our martyrs for every one of theirs in this campaign, because this is our holy land. We will continue to fight for this blessed land and I call on you to stand strong..”

— Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat,
speech at a rally in Ramallah, December 18, 2001

“O God, destroy the tyrant Jews. O God, deal with the Jews and their supporters. O God destroy them for they are within your power.”

— Saudi Sheikh Usamah bin-Abdallah Khayyat
sermon from the Holy Mosque in Mecca broadcast on Saudi government television, July 12, 2002

“We have examined our options and our path, and we have chosen the path of slaughter, by acts of Jihad, Istshahad (suicide) and resistance of every form, side-by-side with our brothers in the Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and all the other Palestinian resistance groups, until the liberation of Palestine and the return of the refugees.”


— Part of a warning posted on the web site of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades,
the military arm of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization, August 7, 2002

“If they go from Sheba'a, we will not stop fighting them. Our goal is to liberate the 1948 borders of Palestine...[Jews] can go back to Germany or wherever they came from.”

— Hezbollah spokesperson Hassan Ezzedin
New Yorker, October 14, 2002

“If they [Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”

— Hezbollah leader Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
Lebanon Daily Star, October 23, 2002

“The Jewish-Crusader coalition will not be safe anywhere from the fighters' attacks. We will hit the most vital centers and we will strike against its strategic operations with all possible peaces.”

— Attributed on Al-Jazeera TV to al-Qaida spokesman SuleimanAbu Gheith
December 8, 2002

“The jihad and suicide bombings will continue — the Zionist entity will reach its end in the first quarter of the current century. It is therefoer up to you [Muslim holy fighters] to be patient — the Hamas takes upon itself the liberation of all Palestinian land from the sea to the river in the Rafah [in the south] and until Rosh Hanikra [in the north].”

— Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin
Al-Ayyam, December 28, 2002








--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sources: Foreign Broadcast Information Service
Ha'aretz
Israeli Foreign Ministry


Jerusalem Post
MEMRI
Near East Report
Palestinian Media Watch
Various news sources

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SEE how "good" your Arab "friends" are. Take a good LOOONNNGGG look tilt. I'm not trying to be a bad person but open your eyes for once. I'm trying to actually be nice to the guy.”

“"Boring, Sydney, phuckin boring."

DUDE! Sid and Nancy is like the all time best movie! A great drinking game is to watch it and every time they say "C u n t or t w a t" everyone has to drink. LOL!”

“Dood - you need to get back to carrying my phuckin beer. What's up with dat? Noobie, carry my 12, or I'll put a cap in yo a s s !”

“GEEZ! If you (even remotely) think that anyone has the time, patience or desire to read such looooooong posts, Ohio Hiker, then you give us waaaaay too much credit.

Get a clue, dood!”

“Hate is the Choice We Reject - Sherri Mandell
Camp Koby and Yosef, which my husband and I created in the wake of our son's murder, this summer hosted almost 600 Israeli children who lost parents or siblings in terror attacks, or who themselves had been injured. At Palestinian summer camps, children are singing songs of hate, songs that will fill these children's hearts for decades. There is a chasm between the Israeli and Palestinian cultures, and though some want to ascribe it to politics, the tragic truth is that no political solution can dampen the flames of hatred that have been kindled in Palestinian society. Israelis are working to cope with their pain. Palestinians nurture theirs, inflame it, and worship it. The writer is the author of The Blessing of a Broken Heart. (Jerusalem Post)

Since everyone crys about the "poor Palestinians" and how bad Israel supposibly treats them, I hope you take a good look at this. Nigal, I'm very disappointed with you seeing YOU are not standing up for Israel along with me, and all you can talk about is drinking and getting drunk. Shame on you. I don't even pretend for a second to be Jewish or hide behind the facade of Judaism. I believe in Christianity and I fully respect the Covenant God made with Abramham, Issac and Jacob.”

“and look who shows up with all the troll threads poping up. your a real piece of shyt dude!”

“The sheltered workshop must have let out for the day!”

“It's like trying to carry on a conversation with a wall. Geobeet, go back to your fried chicken dinner, it's getting cold by now and I know how YOU hate cold fried chicken!

Mapleleaf, is LapleMeaf YOUR alter ego, your other "self"?”

“HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa”

““Nigal, I'm very disappointed with you seeing YOU are not standing up for Israel along with me,”

When and where did I say I didn’t support Israel? Cut and paste it or shut your piehole. Just because I don’t chose the path of ignorance and chose to support YOUR position means I’m not standing up for Israel? I fully support the untying of Israel’s hands to hunt these dogs down and kill them (I have stated this before). Just because I don’t support the removal of all Israeli Arabs doesn’t mean I’m “for” the Pali’s or against Israel. Learn to read chap.

“and all you can talk about is drinking and getting drunk.”

Where does this come from? Yes I like to have a few beers but make it sound like I’m a frat boy or something.

“Shame on you. I don't even pretend for a second to be Jewish or hide behind the facade of Judaism.”

Neither do I. I have stated over and over that I AM NOT JEWISH NOR AM I JEW. I am a Noahide. Do you even read my posts?

“I believe in Christianity and I fully respect the Covenant God made with Abramham, Issac and Jacob."

You say you respect the Covenant yet above you call Judaism a “façade”? You’re showing your ignorance again mate. Shame on YOU.”

“...Nigal, I'm very disappointed with you seeing YOU are not standing up for Israel along with me,
Ohio Hiker
03:45:47 PM
09/05/03

JUST WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU D