magazine+israel-kurd+1+

1 First No. June 2009

ISRAEL-KURD

ISRAEL-KURDissue no: 1Published by Avras establishment once in two months

Israel will open it’s embassy in

Baghdadpage:23

Specialist in Geopolitics and

NationalSecuritypage:23

Americaand

Israel

The Israel state and

Kurdistan

Th history of Jews Kurdish girl

486

Dawed Bagestani:Dr. Jaza Tofiq Talib:

2First No. June 2009

ISRAEL-KURD راستگۆده نگی راسته قینه ی ئازاد


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4..........................................................................................................Israel state and the Kurdistan

6....................................................................................................The history of Jews Kurdish girl

8.......................................................................................................................The Jews and Kurdish

11.........................................................................................Language between Kurdish and Jews

13.........................................................................The Jews spread out through Kurdistan and...

15.......................................................................................The role of Jews in the history of Iraq

20.............................................................Israel from ideological cheating of regional nations

23.............................................Dawed Bagestani: Israel will open it’s embassy in Baghdad

27.............................Dr. Jaza Tofiq Talib: Specialist in Geopolitics and National Security

34..................................................................Lion’s Den: A rapid and harsh turn against Israel

36.........................................................................................................................The Shield of David

39............................................................The War in Gaza: Dismantling the Palestinian Issue

43..........................................................Iraqi general tells of Arab armies admiration for IDF

48...........................................................................................................................America and Israel

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Editorin Chief:Dawed Bagestani

Managing Staff:Mawlud AfandMajeed Khalil

Rawand Hawrami

political Advisor:Tanya Kurdi

Contact:+964 750 405 2788

[email protected]

Design:Foad Yousefi

In this issue


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Israelis are incensed that in spite of repeated denials, many Kurds blame them for play-ing a part in the abduction by Turkish agents

in Nairobi of the Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.

While most Kurds are Muslims, there are also a number who are Jewish. Most of them - about 50,000 - now live in Israel. The Kurdish-Jewish community is an ancient one, possibly dating back to Babylonian times. It was naturally set apart from other Kurds by religion, but in most other respects integrated into the broader Kurdish community.

Kurdish Jews have a number of distinctive traditions. Uniquely among Orthodox Jews one of their greatest religious leaders was a woman. Asenath Barazani, who lived in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, studied along side her father and eventually inherited his position as head of an eminent Talmudic college. She went on to write a notable interpretation of the Book of Proverbs.

Of the Kurdish Jews, Yitzhak Mordechai is much the most successful. He served as Israel’s defence minister until January, when he was sacked by Benjamin Netanyahu. Kurds have gen-erally been looked down on as less intelligent and sophisticated.

In contrast with their jaundiced view of Kurd-ish Jews, Israelis have tended to hold the Kurd-ish people as a whole in high regard. Even after Kurdish guerrilla chiefs vowed to strike against Jewish targets, Israeli chat-shows were full of politicians expressing sympathy with the Kurd-ish plight. As a stateless people without power-ful friends, the Kurdish situation is similar to the one Jews were familiar with for centuries.

To emphasise the closeness of the ties between the two peoples, old photographs of the legend-ary Kurdish leader, Mustafa Barzani, embracing Moshe Dayan have been dug out of the archives and repeatedly shown on television.

In the past, Israel has helped the Kurds. Ac-cording to a former director-general of the Israeli foreign ministry, this was part of a strategy that sought alliances with other non-Arab nations in the region. Pro-Kurdish feelings were also rein-

forced by the assistance the Kurds provided in the 1950’s when Iraqi Jews were fleeing to Israel.

Israel’s clandestine relations with the Kurds were officially acknowledged in 1980 by Men-achem Begin, the prime minister at the time. He confirmed that Israel had sent the Kurds not only humanitarian aid but also military advisers and weapons. Even today, the state-owned Is-raeli communications company Bezek transmits broadcasts on behalf of the Kurdish democratic Party in northern Iraq every evening.

Israel state and the Kurdistan

Kurdish soldiors in Israel


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The last thing Israel needs is to add 5 million Kurds to the ranks of its enemies. Israel has been at pains to persuade the Kurds that Mossad really did have nothing to do with Ocalan’s capture.

Following the attempt by a Kurdish mob to storm the Israeli consulate in Berlin, which re-sulted in three Kurds being shot dead, the head of Mossad, Efraim Halevy, took the unprece-dented step of publicly dissociating Israel from the capture of Ocalan. Mossad does not usually

comment publicly on intelligence matters, but Halevy, a British-born nephew of the late Isaiah Berlin, released a statement categorically deny-ing any involvement.

While Israel has forged an alliance with Turkey, this is directed at containing the threat that both face from Syria, Iraq and Iran. Since the angry recriminations that followed the help Mossad

gave to the Moroccan royal family in the 1960’s, when a Moroccan opposition leader in exile was abducted in France, it has been a strict policy that the Jewish state will not risk its own agents on behalf of any other country.

Turkey knows this, and Israel has scrupulously avoided involvement in what it views as an in-ternal Turkish conflict. In fact, Mossad believes that the Italians or Ocalan’s former backers, the Syrians, may have betrayed him and then spread

charges against Mossad as misinformation.

From The Spectator Scribe: Israel’s friend-

ship towards the Kurds does not mean that she cannot be an ally of Tur-key. Nor does it mean that Israel must sym-pathise with the PKK in their pursuit of terrorism in the region. It is a po-litical minefield that Is-rael must steer clear of.

Moreover, it is in Is-rael’s long-term interest to find a solution to the long-standing Kurdish problem satisfactory to

the Kurds who deserve no less attention than the Palestinians. Such a solution can take the form of a Kurdish national home in north Iraq, and full autonomy for the Kurds in neighbouring coun-tries.

The land of Turkey belongs to the State of Tur-key and it is wrong to think that some people liv-ing on parts of it can opt for a separate state.


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Iraq’s ancient Jewish community has virtually disappeared, a casualty of the conflict that con-tinues to divide the Middle East. For the last 50 years, Iraq and Israel have been sworn enemies, part of the broader Arab-Israeli conflict. Most of the ancient Jewish community in Iraq emigrated en masse in 1951. But unlike their Arab counter-parts, Iraqi Kurds tend to be less suspicious of their former Jewish neighbors. And some Jewish Kurds have begun making discreet return visits to Kurdistan.

Now Lana, 28, is a citizen of Israel who speaks Hebrew and Kurdish fluently. Last year, she re-turned for the first time since her emigration to live in Kurdistan with her new husband, Hano, an Iraqi Muslim Kurd. The couple asked that their

full names not be used for fear of reprisal.“I didn’t think twice about marrying a Jewish

woman,” Hano said. “My parents always told me stories about how much they liked their old Jew-ish neighbors.”

Unlike the Arab majority in central and southern Iraq, the Kurds of northern Iraq don’t see Jews or Israel as enemies. In the 1960s and 70s, Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency provided equipment and training to Kurdish rebels who were battling the government in Baghdad. To this day, locals call a neighborhood of old sagging brick houses in the Kurdish city of Suleymaniyah, Jewlakan.

In the former Jewish quarter of Suleymaniyah, Haji Abdullah Salah, an old Kurdish shopkeeper, says it was a sad day when almost all the Jews

THE HISTORY OF JEWS KURDISH GIRL

It was 1994, and Saddam Hussein had recently lost control of northern Iraq.

Rival Kurdish militias were battling each other to fill the power vacuum.

In a closely guarded emigration, Lana’s fam-ily — and a dozen other Kurdish families of Jew-

ish origin — traveled over land to neighboring

Turkey in a trip organized and financed by Israel.


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left town.“The government ordered them to leave

at that time, and they shouldn’t take any-thing except their own clothes,” Haji Ab-dullah recalls. He says that the last Jew in Jewlakan was a man they called Shalomo, who stayed behind long after the other Jews had left. Locals say Shalomo died in Suleymaniyah a few years ago.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, a small number of Kurdish Jews has been making discreet return visits from Israel to the land of their birth. Kak Ziad Aga, 71, says a Jewish classmate from his childhood recently got a warm welcome during a return visit to the Kurdish town of Koya Sinjak. It had been 50 years since he’d seen his classmate.

Ziad Aga says he doesn’t see any prob-lem in allowing Kurdish Jews to come back to Kurdistan, but the subject is ex-tremely sensitive for the Kurdish authori-ties, who are frequently accused by Arab media and Iraqi insurgent groups of col-laborating with Israel. The Kurdish lead-ership denies the charges.

Despite the difficult history for Kurdish Jews, Lana says she’s proud of her mixed heritage. “Above all, I consider myself a Kurd,” she says. “An Israeli Kurd.”

(Because of intense interest in the Israe-li-Palestinian conflict, NPR makes avail-able free transcripts of its coverage.


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The work is based on old and recent manuscripts, printed texts, folk lit-

erature, and spoken registers. It has an extensive introduc-tion, including a brief history of the Jewish dialects, observa-tions on orthography, phonol-ogy, morphology, semantics, and other related grammatical features, that will serve the us-ers well. The source for each word gleaned from manuscripts (found in libraries of Columbia University, Jewish Theological Seminary, the Hebrew Univer-sity, Jerusalem, and private col-lections), and printed texts, lit-erary Midrashic texts, and Bible translations, is indicated in the dictionary, including a context quotation(s) when necessary.

A special effort was made to trace the origin of each and every word, be it native (classi-cal Aramaic/Syriac), or a loan-word (Arabic/Hebrew/Persian/ Kurdish/Turkish /European). The number of Persian-Kurdish

The Jews and Kurdish

1) An Anthology of the Folk Literature of Kurdistani Jews/by Yona Saber, New Haven and London (Yale University Press), 1982. 2) A Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dictionary/By Yona Sabar (UCLA) (forthcoming)


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loanwords is especially significant, since the his-tory of Persian influence on Aramaic (lexically and grammatically) is very long, beginning with the adopting of Aramaic as the official language of the Persian empires (around the 5th century BCE), through Babylonian Tal-mud period, and going on till our own times.

Aramaic and Persian/Kurd-ish have been intertwined for almost 2500 years. The Dic-tionary will be useful for scholars of Neo-Aramaic as well as clas-sical/Talmudic Aramaic and Syriac, Semitic languages, Jew-ish languages, and other Near Eastern languages in general. It is the first scholarly dictionary of Jewish Neo-Aramaic, and is intended to be a lin-guistic monument to the community that spoke it for many centuries until its emigration to Israel.

Kurdish and Israeli relationships

Hence, Kurds must feel that they are allied with the Israeli’s Jewish majorities, moreover, they also must not feel Israeli’s being persecuted anymore and they are absolutely the upper class. Where as Kurdish Muslims are being persecuted by the Arabs and Persian Muslims and always

make them low – class.The relations between Israelis and Kurds are in

such a poor condition as there is mush less re-search about it. (Due to the lack of relations se-cret and resources)

In this case, those directions and reactions and stimulus to push the Kurds to go to Israeli, we will take each parts of Kurd-istan separately which have been suffering neigh-boring colonies and shed light on it. Even though, the relations are progressing well at the moment.

Due to this evidence of the emergence and

the performance of this relation, here we will try to take the other parts of Kurdistan individually, However, before entering into the matter, it is necessary to illustrate some points that are related to Kurds and those relationships.

First, Kurds’ perception of neighboring coun-tries where Kurdistan in hand of them, is the perception of an occupied and oppressed nation towards their colonies, as Kurds consider those countries as Kurdistan occupiers spiritually and national senses.

At the same times, this idea comes into Kurd’s intellect which is made by the occupiers. To be-lieve that Israel had split up their country, besides


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the western imperialistic policies in (sikes beko’s treaty) are the events that led them up to this day. They are looking for these treaties which Israel got established, those were reasons for splitting Kurdistan and they have been prohibited from getting their right of self- determination, special-ly (sikes beko’s treaty) in 1916 which is a part of terrorizing Kurd’s rational thoughts and destroy-ing the academic of Kurd’s history. In addition, Most of the Kurdish organizations are still domi-nated by left wing and made them feel the deter-mination as those nations which are facing new imperialism from Arab, paresis and others.

When those who have been taking advantage of Kurd’s benefit for years, are those knowledgeable teachers of mongolism who have taught Kurdish individual up to now that became the common enemy to every sides over years.

Most of the Kurdish organizations waved aside those Israeli try which are about to make sectari-anism in the region or by taking advantage of the non- democratic treatments that have been facing Kurds by their invader governments, this made Israeli and its interests be settled in that area .the consider that Israeli always planning to fight a war in the region whether in Israeli’s interests or the interests of other countries, that is why they blame Israel for letting Arabs , Persians and Turks rights to attack the Kurds. This is taken via using chauvinistic mentality and pushing those countries to oppress Kurds and ignoring their rights. On the other hand, it supports those reac-tions from Kurds and tries to widen them. Kurd

as an obsolete nation of the region, it is possible to solve international issues as Israel likes. The more Israeli intervention to back up Kurd’s prob-lems, the more Arabs, Persians and Turk’s hatred increases towards Kurds. Further more fantasiz-es the images of the Kurdish-Israel life in Israel through its mass media.

Hence Kurds must feel that they are allied with the Israeli’s Jewish majorities, more over, they also must not feel being persecuted any more and they absolutely the upper class. Where as Kurd-ish Muslims are being persecuted by the Arabs and Persian Muslims and always make them low- class. While invader countries say that Kurdish-Israelis were not given national rights by Israel, when the can not tell us one of their dissenting voice. Some of the Israeli spokesmen, among them (shesmt Rine) the former Israelis p[rime minister in the Madrid’s meeting in 1991 for the middle –east peace, he mentioned as another nation as Palestinians and took Kurds as an example who don’t have any right of self- determination ,that is why we never stick to the right performance of the Palestinians. those spokesmen blamed the Islamic countries including Arab and Kurd were split between them, where by try and find itself by obvious increase in giving those rights, more over , it gives present to the Arabs not to ask. The Kurds had a strong relationship with the struc-tural nation of Israel itself, how ever Arab coun-tries were always opposed to any relations with Israel. More over (Jamal Abdul Nasir) says that the Kurds are the second Israel.


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Language between Kurdish and Jews

The Kurdish and Jewish people in the Middle East have been living next to each other peacefully for the last thousands of years. Has there been any cultural and linguistic exchange between them? In this issue

we will look at some of the relevant issues.


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Professor Saber`s paper in this issue looks at some of the interesting loan words from Kurdish and Iranian languages into

babay talk of Jews in Iraq. The article motivated us to have a complete issue devoted to the lan-guage and contact between Jews and Kurds.

The experience of Jews in setting up the He-

brew language academy and their orga-nized effort during the last 100 years to revive Hebrew is a useful example for Kurds. The problems they have faced and their solutions to them can be used for Kurdish too. one article in this issue gives more details of a book on Hebrew language planning.

The Kurdish Jews friendship organi-zations have already been formed and new ones are forming. The Yedidut - in this issue - is one of them which was established in 1993. The Kurds in Isra-el and their generation need books and Kurdish material to learn Kurdish.

Starting with this issue, we have add-ed a new column on Kurdish idioms. The idioms selected for this issue are about Jews and their prophet in Kurd-ish literature.

Among other news in this issue is a seminar on Kurdish-Armenian rela-tions which deserves a seperate issue in KURDICA. Armenian, Hebrew and Kurdish have faced danger of annihila-tion and extinction among the family of languages. The president of endangered languages, Dr Nicholas Ostler will be giving a talk in the NATO conference

for lesser studied languages to be held in July 2000 in Turkey. Whether Kurdish is classified by NATO or Turkey as lesser studied alongside Armenian and Hebrew is not clear, but we hope that Nicholas will not forget in his talk that Kurdish is an endangered language in Turkey.


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The Jews spread out through Kurdistan and their role in the economy and society until

the coming of the religion of Islam


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As reference before, the Jews came to the ar-eas of Kurdistan at three different times. As time went on, they moved throughout the areas and villages of Kurdistan. Shoulder to shoulder with the Kurds, the Jews lived, gathered food, and sought after provisions for life. They became ac-customed themselves with Kurdish tradition in the trading of wheat and barley, sewing, fishing (43), shepherding, and agriculture (44).

In this way the Jews became a part of a wealthy and powerful class. They were ultimately able to bring the tribal princeship of Hidyab under their control (45). Historically, the tribal princeship of Hidyab was known as the city of Hawler. This shift of power took place as a result of concurring historical events. In the year 231 B.C. the battle of Kukila took place in Hawler between King Akhmini and Alexander the Great during his con-quest. At that time, Hawler was the largest city in the region and had a large fortress surrounding the city (46).

According to ancient reference materials, the priceship of Hidyab was controlled by a Kurdish family. At this time, the local Kurdish population had their own religion. As many other surround-ing groups, they followed the religion of Zard-esht. From 347-336 B.C., this princeship was under the control of the empire of Firpi. Later, in the first century A.D., this princeship became in-dependent under the authority of the Persians. At that time, Anzahag became the king of Hidyab, and was able take a large land and spread his bor-ders wide (47). He was able to unite and govern all of the Kurdish areas. Later, Monobaz succeed-ed Anzahag as king. His family is thought to have ruled for many years (48).

Monobaz continued to rule until the year 36 A.D. After Monobaz, his son, Inrag I, came to power. Inrag, along with most of his tribesmen took on the Jewish faith for themselves, and as a result his kingdom became a center for Juda-ism (49). Surprisingly, Ahmad Susa claims that the Hidyab was originally Jewish, and they were well known for being Jews. By what evidence does he make this claim? If you look in detail at what he says, you will see that there are ap-parent contradictions. Because in another place he says, from 36-115 A.D. a Jewish family was in power over the Hidyab (50). Ahmad Susa did not bother to think about who ruled this Kurd-ish princeship before 36 A.D. Early on in history, the Kurds settled in Hawler and were well known in the region. This evidence is sufficient as even the Arabs admit that Ahmad Susa was actually Jewish. In 60 A.D., Monobaz’s brother came to power following Inrag, the King of Hidyab. In this way this tribal leadership remained under the control of Jews until 115 A.D. (51).

Later, the princeship of Hidyab battled with the Romans. Despite a strong defense, they were unable to hold off the Roman advance. As a re-sult, Emperor Trajan of Rome took control of the Hidyab. However, some years later, they re-gained control under Inrag II. Due to the com-ing of Christian missionaries to this region, the Hidyab became Christians (52).

After the destruction of the Sassanid (Persian) empire and the coming of Islam, the Kurds wel-comed Islam and became Muslims. A number of Jews and Christians also became Muslims, while many of them remained a part of their own reli-gion (53).


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THE ROLE OF JEWS IN THE HISTORY OF IRAQ

Sociologist Philip Mendes asserts that before the anti-Jewish actions of the 1930s and 1940s, overall Iraqi Jews “viewed themselves as Ar-abs of the Jewish faith, rath-er than as a separate race or nationality Additionally, early Labor Zionism mostly concentrated on the Jews of Europe, skipping Iraqi Jews because of their lack of in-terest in agriculture. The re-sult was that “Until World War II, Zionism made little headway because few Iraqi Jews were interested in the socialist ideal of manual labor in Palestine.” (Simon, Reguer, and Laskier.


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During the British Mandate from 1918, and in the early days after independence in 1932, well-educated Jews played an important role in civic life. Iraq’s first minister of finance, Sir Sassoon Eskell, was a Jew, and Jews were important in developing the judicial and postal systems. Re-cords from the Baghdad Chamber of Commerce show that 10 out of its 19 members in 1947 were Jews and the first musical band formed for Bagh-dad’s nascent radio in the 1930s consisted main-ly of Jews. Jews were represented in the Iraqi parliament, and many Jews held significant posi-tions in the bureaucracy which in mny cases led to resentment by the Iraqi population.

In the 1930s, the situation of the Jews in Iraq deteriorated. Previously, the growing Iraqi Arab nationalist sentiment included Iraqi Jews as fel-low Arabs[citation needed], but these views changed with the introduction of Nazi propa-ganda and the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian Mandate. Despite protestations of their loyalty to Iraq, Iraqi Jews were increasingly subject to dis-crimination and harsh laws. On August 27, 1934 many Jews were dismissed from public service, and quotas were set up in colleges and universi-ties. Zionist activities were banned, as was the teaching of Jewish history and Hebrew in Jewish schools. Following Rashid Ali’s pro-Axis coup, the Farhud (“violent dispossession”) pogrom of June 1 and 2, 1941, broke out in Baghdad in which approximately 200 Jews were murdered (some sources put the number higher), and up to 2,000 injured -- damages to property were esti-mated at $3 million. There was also looting in many other cities at around the same time. Af-terwards, Zionist emissaries from Palestine were sent to teach

According to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Sa’id, ”The Jews have always been a source of evil and harm to Iraq. They are spies. They have sold their property in Iraq, they have no land among us that they can cultivate. How therefore can they live? What will they do if they stay in Iraq? No, no my friend, it is better for us to be rid of them as long as we are able to do so.” (A. al-Arif, p. 893) In 1948, the country was placed under martial law, and the penalties for Zionism were increased. Courts martial were used to intimidate wealthy Jews were detained, Jews were again dismissed from civil service, quotas were placed on univer-sity positions, Jewish businesses were boycotted (E. Black, p. 347) and Shafiq Ades (one of the most important anti-Zionist Jewish business-men in the country) was arrested and executed for allegedly selling goods to Israel, shocking the community (Tripp, 123). Additionally, like most Arab League states, Iraq forbade any legal emi-gration of its Jews on the grounds that they might go to Israel and could strengthen that state. How-ever, intense diplomatic pressure brought about a change of mind[citation needed]. At the same time, increasing government oppression of the Jews fueled by anti-Israeli sentiment, together with public expressions of anti-semitism, creat-ed an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty. “With very few exceptions, only Jews wore watches. On spotting one that looked expensive, a police-man had approached the owner as if to ask the hour. Once assured the man was Jewish, he re-lieved him of the timepiece and took him into custody. The watch, he told the judge, contained a tiny wireless; he’d caught the Jew, he claimed, sending military secrets to the Zionists in Pales-tine. Without examining the “evidence” or ask-


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ing any questions, the judge pronounced his sen-tence. The “traitor” went to prison, the watch to the policeman as reward.” (Haddad, p. 176).

By 1949, the Iraqi Zionist underground had become well-established (despite many ar-rests), and they were smuggling Iraqi Jews out of the country illegally at a rate of 1,000 a month (Simon, Reguer, and Laskier, p 365). Hoping to stem the flow of assets from the country, in March 1950 Iraq passed a law of one year dura-tion allowing Jews to emigrate on condition of relinquishing their Iraqi citizenship. They were motivated, according to Ian Black, by “economic considerations, chief of which was that almost all the property of departing Jews reverted to the state treasury” and also that “Jews were seen as a restive and potentially troublesome minority that the country was best rid of.” (p.91) Israel was initially reluctant to absorb so many immigrants, (Hillel, 1987) but eventually mounted an airlift operation in March 1951 called “Ezra and Ne-

hemiah” to bring as many of the Iraqi Jews as possible to Israel, and sent agents to Iraq to urge the Jews to register for immigration as soon as possible.

From the start of the emigration law in March 1950 until the end of the year, 60,000 Jews registered to leave Iraq. In addition to continu-ing arrests and the dismissal of Jews from their jobs, this exodus was encouraged by a series of bombings starting in April 1950 that resulted in a number of injuries and a few deaths. Two months before the expiry of the law, by which time about 85,000 Jews had registered, another bomb at the Masuda Shemtov synagogue killed 3 or 5 Jews and injured many others. The law expired in March 1951 but was later extended after the Iraqi government froze the assets of departing Jews, including those who had already left. Dur-ing the next few months, all but a few thousand of the remaining Jews registered for emigration, spurred on by a sequence of further bombings


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that caused few casualties but had great psycho-logical impact. In Operation Ezra and Nehemiah, some 120,000 Jews were airlifted to Israel via Iran and Cyprus.

The true identity and objective of the master-minds behind the bombings has been the subject of controversy. A secret Israeli inquiry in 1960 found no evidence that they were ordered by Is-rael or any motive that would have explained the attack, though it did find out that most of the wit-nesses believed that Jews had been responsible for the bombings. The issue remains unresolved: Iraqi activists still regularly charge that Israel used violence to engineer the exodus, while Is-raeli officials of the time vehemently deny it His-torian Moshe Gat reports that “the belief that the bombs had been thrown by Zionist agents was shared by those Iraqi Jews who had just reached Israel Sociologist Phillip Mendes backs Gat’s claims, and further attributes the allegations to have been influenced and distorted by feelings of discrimination

Journlist Naeim Giladi’s position that the bombings were “perpetrated by Zionist agents in order to cause fear amongst the Jews, and so pro-mote their exodus to Israel” is shared by a num-ber of anti-Zionist authors, including the Israeli Black Panthers (1975), David Hirst (1977), Wil-bur Crane Eveland (1980), Uri Avnery (1988), Ella Shohat (1986), Abbas Shiblak (1986), Mari-on Wolfsohn (1980), and Rafael Shapiro (1984). In his article, Giladi notes that this was also the conclusion of Wilbur Crane Eveland, a former senior officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who outlined that allegation in his book “Ropes of Sand”.

The affair has also been the subject of a libel

lawsuit by Mordechai Ben Porat, which was set-tled in an out-of-court compromise with an apol-ogy of the journalist who described the charges as true.

Iraqi authorities eventually charged three mem-bers of the Zionist underground with perpetrating some of the explosions. Two of those charged, Shalom Salah Shalom and Yosef Ibrahim Basri, were subsequently found guilty and executed, whilst the third was sentenced to a lengthy jail term. Salah Shalom claimed in his trial that he was tortured into confessing, and Yosef Basri maintained his innocence throughout.

Gat reports that much of the previous literature “reflects the universal conviction that the bomb-ings had a tremendous impact on the large-scale exodus of the Jews... To be more precise it is suggested that the Zionist emissaries committed these brutal acts in order to uproot the proper-ous Iraqi Jewish community and bring it to Israel However, Gat argues that both claims are con-trary to the evidence. As summarized by Men-des:

Historian Moshe Gat argues that there was little direct connection between the bombings and exodus. He demonstrates that the frantic and massive Jewish registration for denaturalisation and departure was driven by knowledge that the denaturalisation law was due to expire in March 1951. He also notes the influence of further pres-sures including the property-freezing law, and continued anti-Jewish disturbances which raised the fear of large-scale pogroms. In addition, it is highly unlikely the Israelis would have taken such measures to accelerate the Jewish evacua-tion given that they were already struggling to cope with the existing level of Jewish immigra-


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tion. Gat also raises serious doubts about the guilt of the alleged Jewish bombthrowers. First-ly, a Christian officer in the Iraqi army known for his anti-Jewish views, was arrested, but ap-parently not charged, with the offences. A num-ber of explosive devices similar to those used in the attack on the Jewish synagogue were found in his home. In addition, there was a long his-tory of anti-Jewish bomb-throwing incidents in Iraq. Secondly, the prosecution was not able to produce even one eyewitness who had seen the bombs thrown. Thirdly, the Jewish defendant Shalom Salah indicated in court that he had been severely tortured in order to procure a confession. It therefore remains an open question as to who was responsible for the bombings, although Gat suggests that the most likely perpetrators were members of the anti-Jewish Istiqlal Party. Cer-tainly memories and interpretations of the events have further been influenced and distorted by the unfortunate discrimination which many Iraqi Jews experienced on their arrival in Israel

Many years later, the Zionist emissary Yehu-da Tager stated that while the main bombings were carried out by the Muslim Brotherhood, later smaller attacks were staged by Yosef Beit-Halahmi, on his own initiative, in an attempt to make it seem as if the activists on trial were not the perpetrators

Iraqi Jews left behind them extensive property, often located in the heart of Iraq’s major cities. A relatively high number found themselves in refu-gee camps in Israel known as Ma’abarot. Most of the 10,000 Jews remaining after Operation Ezra and Nehemiah stayed through the Abdul Karim Qassim era when conditions improved, but Anti-Semitism increased during the rule of the Aref brothers and later the Ba’ath Party era, culminat-ing in the 1969 public hanging of 14 Iraqis, nine of them Jews, who were falsely accused of spy-ing for Israel, which led to the departure of most of the remaining JewsThe remainder of Iraq’s Jews left over the next few decades, and had mostly gone by 1970. By 2004, fewer than 100 Jews remained in the country, and debate over the Iraqi constitution has included whether Jews should be considered a minority group, or left out of the constitution altogether. In October 2006, Rabbi Emad Levy, Bagdad’s last Rabbi and one of about 12 members of the Jewish community remaining in the city, compared his life to “liv-ing in a prison”. He reported that most Iraqi Jews stay in their homes “out of fear of kidnapping or execution

Present estimates of the Jewish population in Baghdad are seven or eight. Among the Ameri-can armed forces stationed in Iraq, there are only three Jewish chaplains.


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Majeed khalil

A reading for losing experiment of kurd from diplomatic relations with Israel. Kurd is a na-tion only not losing nationally. even all indi-

viduals were faced defeated and illiterate logic world-ly and psychologically. from this survey we expose Kurdish diplomatic deal side and losing historical opportunity for being a nation from ideological cheat-ing of turkey, Arab and Persian from those times that Israel entity was established, new experiment from being a nation started, the mechanism of being Israel to a nation is visible mechanism. Israel from working on this national merits, working thousand years a go on historical, religious and cultural specialty. it could separate from outside, at the same time, for producing co-existence and co-politics. it’s diplomatic nations has been growd from Israel’s political idea. it’s spe-cific national and separation. it didn’t mean isolation.

according to modern diplomatic institute survey at Newyork in (2008) this proved, Israel has the largest relations with it’s outside.

This experiment of Israel at the region is an experi-ment on the fundamental of improving the way to the welfare and takes benefit from historical experiment. A nation keeps it’s relations with outside rather than isolation. these two conditions isolation and perpetual relations are ready in Israel’s government. Israel through-out fifty and sixty years of struggle doesn’t affect under any regional nation. Israel doesn’t repeat any regional experiment. it’s relations taken from it’s society and interests. Israel in front of religious, clas-sical and feudal nation, faraway from it’s culture and also in front of those nations which are imperialist and non-developed such as saudirabia, Egypt, Jordan and Syria. these non-developed nations could not af-fect on Israel just a little bidmean while, it’s compo-nent of the society is different entities. it is composed of Russia, kurd, morocco and foreign entities. this was a different circumstances for not living together and class struggle but which secular idea could gath-er these different entities under the Jew’s religion, which creative idea was done this and conveyed Bi-ble from tragedy in to lively today’s people. philoso-phy of Bible with ready of religion is the Newest secular practice. this co-life is a new experiment at the region talking on this scope is unthinkable and impossible from the point of view Kurdish research-er. How Israel has been carring out diplomatic exper-iment of (Psmark, Prussian kafoor and Italy success fully. How would Neglect outside it self that knows it’s highbours are enemy in front of it. How would

Israel from ideological cheating of regional nations


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Israel see Tzar Alexender’s relation and sacred Rus-sia treaty from the map of Christianity for relations. these are taken from the human beings. if it is possi-ble, we should take benefit from them. because Kurd-ish nation was inattentive from diplomatic and exper-iment of human being in treating with outside. Kurds continually could not be taken benefit from new ex-periment. if Kurds could be taken one idea never re-turn to it’s source. those Kurds are on the religion of shii they didn’t accept shii’s religion from it’s source, even accepted shii religion from Irani shii religion. even till now most of (lurs) this is a group of people in Iran that in fact are Kurdish. most of the inhabit-ants of (Krmashan), (Ilam) and (Khanaqin) have the bias for Arab and Persian rather than Kurds even in the turkey, (Ali’s) did the same in (Anadol) on the hands of (safavids) became (Ali) on the hands of (sa-fiadini hili) red hat became (Alii) Only for the sake of politic they became (shii) to the nation’s political idea. so partition had a deep root in the Kurdistan for seven centuries. on the other hand, Kurd defines soil, water and modern idea regionally, the experiment definition of Judaism, Bible and their politics are ac-cording to modern time, even the concept of secular-ism is different in Israel, they have their definition that is different from other nations. but Kurds could not recognize Israel’s ex-periment. an experiment proved that they have been successful in the past. the concept of being a nation in definition of (sati Al Hasiri, Najib, Mahfooz and Aflaq), or from definition of (Ak-hoon) and it was taken from Islamic fundamen-talism authority. Mean while Kurds were com-

munist. they became the left on the hands of turkey, Arab and Russia at the same time, they don’t define the left for the Kurdish nation Kurds which became the left from the south of Kurdistan we understood from (Ahaliya group). Kurds recognized the left from Baghdadi and Basrai student in the south of Kurdis-tan which from Paris and soviet like Arab accepted the left. this experiment was at that time which the second world war took place. from this time left to the Kurd. this was the overcoming of the left idea in the Iraqi communist party and communist party that it’s authority is under the control of Kurds but Arabs had been resigning and increasing it’s relation with the west. they had left bad things for the Kurds. by this they harm Kurds in all the aspects of life. be-cause Kurdish mind was understood that relation and communication with the Israel and the west is the treatment with the occupier. the occupiers like (Arab , Turkey , Pahlawi Persian and Akhoondi) told us re-lation and treatment with Israel is like treatment and relation with imperialism and occupier. because Isra-el occupied Palastine but Kurdish individual careful-ness is not at that level till now say Israel is a new experiment and also you occupied us from reaching transactions and wide political relations with the world. if this is allowed Israel has a wide transactions

and relations with the out-side it self. mean while it has a good relation and transactions with Arab and Islamic nations. why it is not allowed and taboo do that like a Kurdish. if it is allowed for Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabic have relations with occu-pier. why it is not allowed for a nation that don’t oc-cupy us. it will be taboo


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and not allowable for Kurds to do the same with Is-rael. this idea shows the simplicity of Kurds through-out seventy years. from those times that turkey has a good relation with Israel. those times turkey wants to make Israel to be turkey’s leader in all aspects of life. Kurds were the strongest point of communist. Linin, Mowtsi, Tonkhu and Anwar khoja from the southern east of turkey more than twenty one Kurdish party were playing with communist concepts and Mosko’s worshiping. mean while mosko had a good relation with sulaiman Dimiril and Islamic justice party, this Kurdish trying was not preserve communism in tur-key from classification of society, feudalism and reli-gions Kurdish reason. they directly took up the left’s idea from turkey. the Turkish left party wore the necklace of the left party and ultimately they escaped from the left’s idea, they created a good relation and alliance with Israel and America. this was the secret of this idea that Kurd should not have an entity in turkey. Kurds without consideration of preacher, feu-dal and Kurdish tribe and also without consideration Barzani’s nationalism accepted the left, accepted to be called unbeliever. but didn’t accept to have a rela-tion with Israel and America. is the treaty of mosko for annihilating Kurdish movement is wide and com-prehensive or Israel treaty? Israel has no interests that Kurd doesn’t have a nation. on the contrary, Kurdish occupation means strengthening their enemies. be-cause today’s relation with Israel don’t need imagina-tion and attentive, it is to be outside the education of Arabization, Persian and toranization, understanding Kurd from Israel is to according to education chan-nel. that some actions and Kurdish behaviors are proud and literary. from Israel those for sometimes they occupied Kurdish area and then Neglect us. Af-ter that from a distance, they were saying greet for the Kurdish area as like how the Russian Jew’s would play a vital role by Russian policy till now. as like the Jew’s of morocco, the west, Africa and America in

Israel has a power in Israel. Kurdish Jew’s should do the same for changing all the aspects of life in Israel. because Kurd must not understand the world from the point of view regional nations and Arab Nations and it should not have any hindrance in front of any ideological relations.An ideological should be taken from logic. if Arabs have a relation with Israel and also have a secret relation, they call this they should find a mutual point. How our leader visit Korea, Chi-na and Kuwait, at the same time they can visit (Tala-viv). if Israel is a different from our religion the same is true for China and Korea. if it is proud for our leader to hold a press conference with Kuwait presi-dent we should be proud for doing the same with Is-rael. Halabjai’s Barzani’s and Anfal (living people to be buried) should know that all this events took place with the help of Arab leader in bombardment of hal-abja and anfal not Talaviv. Kurd should know every thing as it’s like and according to it’s interests nor ac-cording to regional nations or occupiers. if Kurdish leader accepted occupation and bias for one nation or side. Kurdish thinkers should not accept this. Kurdish thinkers should have a broad mind to treat with it’s outside. today we must have A Kurd that knows He-brew like those Kurdish know Persian, Turkey and Arabic language. Kurd should be careful, has a care-ful relation with Israel. it is right that has a source like quran and returning the right for being existence of Israel and Jew. this is different in quran from Nasr, Saddam, Ahmadi Najat and Maliki’s comments. that is the research and commentator, in the opposite side we have quran, that is the Negotiable table. all proph-et’s Neighborhood with Jew at that time is a good Neighborhood. this should be a part of our culture. if the prophet visits the Jew and has the Jew’s neigh-bour why it’s taboo and not allowable for Kurd to do the same with Israel.

T:husen hamamin sofe


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Dawed Bagestani: Israel will open it’s embassy in Baghdad

For ten years he was in Abu-Ghrib prison, before that he was the general director of (Naz-aha- human rights) organization in Mosel. He’s known as an engineer of Kurds-Israelis relation. In this interview he talks about Iran, turkey, Kurds and east Kurdistan’s parties:

When we first met him, he greeted us very warmly. He has sacrificed sixty years of his life for his people and has had an active role in every political game inside Kurdistan; he’s been very active in normalizing relation between the political parties. In edition he was a pivotal figure in ending Kurdish civil war. He’s also known for being the engine of Kurds-Israelis relationship and finally he’s a very good man for journalists.

Bagestani in this interview with “Israel “ magazine, he talks about Kurds and Israelis rela-tionship and Israelis support for Kurdish parties and the opening of Israelis embassy in Iraq:

Dawed Bagestani was born in 1947 in Bagestan province in north Kurdistan. He graduated university in turkey on foreign relations. Furthermore he was editor-in-chief of (Maf) “rights” magazine and T.V channel in Duhok city.


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Klil: is their any truth to those whispers that say Israel supports Kurdish parties against Iran?

Dawed Bagestani: No, it’s not true; it’s all Iran’s propaganda. Unfortunately when a Kurd-ish movement rises they say U.S or Israel supports them. All those propagandas are done by Iran. In my opinion until now U.S hasn’t got a suitable poli-cy toward Iran, and now after the departure of Bush we will see the proper policy toward Iran, there is those talks that with the arrival of barak obama, all the opposition parties will get their support, in my view obama will use smarter policies toward Iran.

Klil: Do you think Obama will support Iran or not?

Dawed Bagestani: he will not support them, but he’ll use serious thoughts against Iran. Obama is desperate to prove himself to Americans and the people of U.S have said that bush made a few mis-takes. A few years back “Sharon” told bush: sadd-am regime isn’t the problem; you must start with Iran not with Iraq, because you can end saddam’s government in 24 hours, so it’s essential to begin with Iran”, but Bush didn’t listened to Sharon’s advise, but I think Obama will work on this issue more smartly.

Klil: if the Kurds go forward with their policy which is to discreet themselves from U.S and it’s allays in the region, will they be successful or will they fail?

Dawed Bagestani: the thing I think about it’s this: in the beginning there must be Kurds, and they must be united, and after that all the other countries will support the Kurds, and not only in Iraqi Kurd-istan, even in other parts of Kurdistan, but there is a fundamental condition and that is the Kurds must have one voice and know their geographic value and understand the benefits of the world in their

region. And if the Kurds work with those mecha-nisms and understand that entire thing, they will not need their enemy.

Isolating from U.S is impossible, it means you can’t be far away from U.S, and that’s because of few reasons and one of them is: if we want it or not, U.S in five or ten years time will still be the major power in the world. Maybe after that some other countries like china, India and Russia share those powers, but as we always say “the lion will always be the U.S”.

Klil: Kurds as one of the nation in the Middle East, historically always been in exile and now the Kurdish youths are still leaving the country and hasn’t got the passion for their country, in your view what is the factor behind this issue?

Dawed Bagestani: unfortunately the civil war left a bitter experience on Kurdish youths, further-more the situation of those youths who has finished their study and are unemployed, is not a good situ-ation, and you look and see a teacher who gets 200- 300 hundreds dollars a month and then see a pesh-marga who gets 400-500 hundreds dollars a month, that’s unhealthy situation. Also this influences the society and the life of those people as well. Sure Peshmarga force is a big thing and it must be pow-erful, but we can’t sacrifice education and culture and our thinking for this.

In my opinion that unevenness is must be solved and regional government and Kurdish parliament must focus on those fields more. The love for your nation is formed when I can have my say and make decision and have role in the society, you can’t have twenty people who make all the decisions and prevent those youths from working, because they are this country’s future, there are a lot of neglect-ful acts, especially when the Kurds don’t admit that they are against the Turks, Persians and the Arabs, despite that they still look at the Kurds as their en-


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emies. They don’t want to you to be famous and live and they do policies on those lines of think-ing. May be we aren’t strong enough to answer them back, but we can work in a lot of fields. For example when two rosters fight, one of them wins and the other one losses, but none of them can’t fight again even the winner too, because he’s too tired to fight again, if we die, we still be able to not let the enemy sleep comfortably. Lets say there are about thousand or two thousand Syrian Kurds live in south Kurdistan also about same number of Iranian Kurds are here, if each month we give them 2-3 hundred dollars, that won’t do any harm and it won’t be disadvantage for Kurdistan’s economy, in a same time we will help and support those people and make them at home. If you want to use nation-alism policy you have to know how to influence people, you can’t have people in your country feel as a foreigner. For nationalism policy, the nation must be smart and understand its needs. At the be-ginning I believe the forces from other parts must

stop until we and Baghdad clear the air and the is-sues of khanaqin, Shangar, Kirkuk and other cities and towns is solved, those issues are very impor-tant. I hope Kurdish leadership and Kurdistan’s po-litical forces especially in south Kurdistan, because their situation are much better than the other parts of Kurdistan focus on those issues and give serious thoughts on those matters.

Klil: those parties in Kurdistan who are semi- re-ligious, think U.S and it’s allays are invaders and heretics, but after libration process the conditions of people’s life has being better, is the presence of U.S and it’s allays in Kurdistan been disadvantage or not?

Dawed Bagestani: in general I don’t know what their thoughts are. This question raises another question and this is: did they want saddam still be in charge in Kurdistan? And this matter is far away from the truth. Kurds is Muslims nation and every village which has about twenty people live in it, has

Israel embassy in India


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two mosques, but if you see the Arab villages with the same number of population, you don’t see any mosques. We can’t afford to make new and bigger enemies for ourselves, just because we are Mus-lims, we don’t have time for those situation to make stronger enemies for ourselves. I believe they are making a mistake on this matter. When the Kurds were being slithered and berried alive, where were those Mullahs? What did they said? What was their reaction? I think some of the neighboring countries are supporting this idea to cover up the Kurdish is-sue.

Klil: In this point of time, are the Kurds able to form a relation with Israel? Do you believe the opening of Israel embassy in Iraq, will help those relations?

Dawed Bagestani: until now we are still part of Iraq, our foreign policy is the same our defense policy is the same. If Israel formed a tie with the Kurds, the relation between Israel and Iraq will suffer. I believe the relation with Israel and Israel issue and the opining of Israelis embassy, needs more time, and just as I said before, those issues need a few more months and all will be solved and the relation between Israel and Iraq will get better and Israel will open it’s embassy in Baghdad. Iraq is a member of Arab league. The decision of Arab summit in Beirut was that Saudi and Jordanian king were agreed on making peace with Israel. I believe there are two regions in Golan Heights, which Syr-ia is ready to give it to Israel. In my opinion Kurds shouldn’t be quick to form a relation with Israel, as I said before if we want it fast, they wouldn’t want it, but there will be time that this relation will start automatically and will divide Kurdistan from Iraq. If Iraq and Israel formed a tie, this tie will be made with Kurdistan as well, because Kurdistan region is part of Baghdad government, that’s my opinion.

Klil: let’s say those relations has already begun, in that point what will Kurdish leadership and it’s people’s reaction will be toward this relation?

Dawed Bagestani: that won’t be a problem for Kurdish leadership, may be to some extent they have some problem politically, because they think about neighboring countries. But Kurdish people will be ready for that, because of those long terrible years where they suffered a lot, and if Kurdish lead-ership are ready to take steps toward forming a tie with Israel, Kurdish people won’t have any prob-lem and they won’t be against this relationship.

Klil: so do you think Kurds and Israelis will be allayed?

Dawed Bagestani: I will say one thing, and that’s, in this point of time, forming a relation with Israel, won’t benefit the Kurds. In the same time Israel isn’t thinking about making a tie with the kurds, they are thinking about bigger and more im-portant matters.

Klil: on the PJAK issue, there are wide spread whispers that Israel supports them, is there any true to that, and if there is a relation between those two sides, how do you, see those relations?

Dawed Bagestani: those issues are exaggerat-ed in the media. When an Israeli official meets with PJAK leader, it doesn’t mean they have a tie or Is-rael supports them. They are not true and Iran wants to make those issues big, and as we see Iran kills Kurdish youths in the name of PJAK. If U.S and Israel had supported Iranian kurds they wouldn’t have been like this, because the kurds inside Iran are ready and the government is under a lot of pres-sure and has a lot of problem, even KRG hasn’t got a strong tie with Iran, the situation isn’t like those, which is seen and written in the media.


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Dr. Jaza Tofiq Talib: Specialist in Geopolitics and National Security«We must extend the academic endeavors among

Kurds that are dealing with Israel entity»

Israel has a special entity in terms of Culture, History and Politics, an entity in the zone which possesses changeability. This entity has been portrayed variously by the surrounding Ideology, Politics and Consid-eration but its geopolitics in the region shows a contradic-tory portray and future. It is possible that the Map of Israel is seen as it is by every Kurdish individual. An image which is dif-ferent compared to all the images drawn by the method of Arabic Ideology and previous suppressing power against us. A real and un-touched image should be given to the world around us.


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Dr. Jaza Tofiq Talib, specialist in Kurd-ish Geopolitics and National Security,

gave us numerous contemporary and aca-demic explanations about Israel and Kurd

*What barrier have the components of geopolitics made in Israel Diplomatic Re-lationship in the region, or what develop-ments they have made?

-Historically, Israel Government was officially formed in 1948. Israel Government was recognized by the world superpower countries, firstly by The United States of America and secondly by the Union of Soviet Socialist of that time, but it has been se-verely confronted by Islamic and Arabic world. It is claimed that this Israel Government formed on Arabic Palestine land. This was a unilateral idea. According to Arabs idea, Israel has invaded an Ar-abic land and formed and official National Israel government. This had been a common idea from 1948 until nearly 1960s. But in 1980s, these chains and shackles broke. During these thirty years, it has been forbidden to talk about Israel and Jews negatively or positively. This made a big reaction inside people because Israel has been a government which is why people had relationship with it espe-cially from Europe, Africa and Southern America. Why they had relationship with it. Sometimes, the relationship does not correspond with principles but it corresponds with interests. Accordingly, Is-rael became a rich government. It became a devel-oped government in terms of Military; people put too much pressure on interest. They may not agree with Israel Ideology but at the sometimes, the in-terest maintain the relationships. Formally, Islamic and Arabic world have never been in these rela-tionship. There were numerous battles between the

Arabs and the Jews from 1948 till 1980s because it was claimed that the Jews had occupied Arabic land. There were fighting in 1950s and 1960s but these collisions did not have any result. The aim of the battle was not achieved because Al-Qudis could not be liberated; the Arabic lands were not recov-ered. On the contrary, the Arabic countries were the first suffered severe loss in these battles.

The Arabs had more sacrifices; more lands were occupied from the Arabs. For Example, Syria and Egypt tried to liberate Al-Qudis but Syria lost (Jo-lan) and Egypt lost Sina Peninsula. These are cases of some wars. Sometimes ago was the 30th An-niversary of Camp David Treaty ratified between Egypt and the Jews. James Carter was president of USA, Anwar El Sadat was president of Egypt and Mnabir Bign was Israel Prime Minister. Anwar El Sadat removed that chains and shackles. Egypt was the biggest Arabic country in terms of demography, history and civilization. Egypt tried very hard to liberate Al-Qudis in 40s, 50s, 60s and tried harder in 1970s to liberate Al-Qudis by military operation but all these attempts were in vain. On the contrary, Egypt suffered a huge lost and it encountered mili-tary and economical damages. This forced Anwar Al Sadat to visit Tel Abib in the early of 1980s. This visit ended in ratification of a peace treaty between Israel and the biggest Arabic country. According to this treaty, Egypt can regain its occupied land peacefully which was Sina Peninsula. This treaty has been going on for nearly 30 years. Egypt, which can be symbolized as the biggest Arabic country, as the biggest African country, as a country which owns the Holy Azhar and magnified symbol of Ar-abs, became the pioneer for the other countries to follow on. Especially, the Non-Arabic countries like Greece, Spain and majority of the Social Govern-ments of that time followed Egypt. They thought that the biggest Arabic country has diplomatic rela-


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tionship with Israel and why should not we have it meanwhile we are neither Arab nor Muslim. Before this treaty, most of these countries were standing against Israel but after they normalized their eco-nomic, diplomatic and political relationship with Israel. Day after day, more countries recognized Is-rael progressively. This pushed the Arabic countries to have informal relation with Israel. For Example, morocco country which is located from the end of African continent and has no boundaries with Is-rael and it is not related to the problem directly. As it is seen, morocco has an informal relation with Israel from that time. Many times, Israel Prime Minis-ter or Foreign Minster has visited morocco and met King Hassan of that time. This motivated a neighbor-ing country like Jordan to have diplomatic relation-ship with Israel in 1990s. Ratification of treaty be-tween Israel and Jordan had a bigger resounding, firstly because Jordan shares a border with Israel and sec-ondly Jordan possesses ho-liness. The name of Jordan comes from the monarch of Jordan Al-Hashemite. Hashemite is the same tribe

of the Prophet Muhammad. How come the tribe of Prophet Muhammad ratified treaty with Israel and has commercial, economical, and even military relationship with Israel?! This broke the barriers more effectively.

*Except these relations, it was mentioned that there is a unilateral idea in Israel, inside the people, how far this unilateral idea is near to a subjective idea?

-The Jews are not the accused and if they are, don’t mix up Jews and Jewish government. There might be some people who have mistreated the Arabs and the Muslims. The basis of the problem is not known yet. One can not say that Al-Qudis belongs to Islam as how it can not be said it belongs to the Jews and the Christians. If we think reli-giously, we are Muslim. We all know the fact that the first divine religion is of the Jews then Christianity and then comes the final which is Islam led by the prophet Muhammad. Although I am not a mullah and this is not made by people. If someone


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owns a little grasp on this issue, he will realize that all these things are true. Is there anyone who does not know that the Jewish religion is the first divine religion?! This shows that the existence of the Jews in Al-Qudis is old historically. The existence of the Christianity is old also and the existence of the Is-lam is old too but its history is more recent. This signifies that the Jews had been there. This should be taken into consideration if a fanatical Jew says that Islam had no existence or a fanatical Muslim that Jews didn’t exist in Al-Qudis. That is why this unilateral opinion. This issue needs geographical and historical discussion. Therefore Jewishness is a divine religion. I must respect it as a Muslim.

*Lets talk about the Kurdish issue. It is said that Kurd comes the third place in Is-rael community. How far Kurdish public opinion has information on the basis of the issues or what are the reason behind that the people don’t have information?

-First, let’s deal about why people don’t have such information. This is like peoples i n -formation on Newroz Festival. Mil-lion of people have gone on a picnic and they have one week off yet they don’t know about the origin of Ne-wroz. Historically, the Jewish issue is worse than this. It is said “the Jews are bad people, they are un-believer, and they have occupied Al-Qudis”. They know nothing more, how they are unbeliever? No one knows. On the contrary, the Jews own a divine religion. I must respect it as a Muslim. My religion advises me to have more respect for all those who possess divine religion than those who are unbeliever. These are left un-

explained. One must not talk about both negatively and positively.

*What is the role of government?-Who was government? Was it Iraqi govern-

ment? Was it Arabic government? Whatever was said about Israel was not about Israel. If one looks closely at the map, it is not typed Israel but written Jewish Entity.

*How are the understandings of Kurd-ish Oppositions and the Kurdish political parties that work undercover or publicly?

-They don’t have good academic understand-ing. The understanding is superficial both on Islam on Jewishness because they have gone through a banned subject. They must not be talked about neither negatively or positively. If ones interviews most of the Islamic and secular high ranks and re-quests for information on Israel, they don’t know the population and the area of Israel.

*Why they don’t know meanwhile the news talks about Israel daily?

-Where do you get the news? Do you get it from the Arabic

channels and Al-Jazeera? Kurd-ish people don’t get the news

from CNN.

*If the Kurdish understand-ing was academic, then what positive effect it would have on Kurd?-Anyone, who does not have an

academic understanding, will face some mistakes against one’s enemy or friend. Let’s take Israel as a sample for this. Israel has a rule which advises

“They have not yet got such sophistica-tion that legitimates and motivates them to study Israel, China or any other country.”


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“Know your enemy”. This indicates that Israel knows its enemies well and knows its friends as well. But we don’t know who our enemies and friends are academically.

*What are the blunders that Kurd has done for not un-derstanding Israel?

-Kurd has faced many mistakes. If one looks close at the Kurdish Liberation Movement from the reign of the late Qazy Muham-mad till the blessed Barzani and the nowadays revolution, he can find out these mistakes. Regarding our literature, we have regarded Israel as invader and our enemy and this was for the sake of Islam or false impression? Nobody knows who is behind this, this came from Islamic discus-sion, Arab discussion. Then why these attacks don’t exist in Israel Newspapers and the gulf countries. I read and follow the gulf newspapers (Qatar, Bah-rain, Emirates…etc), these countries stick to Arab dignity and dignity of Islam. In spite of that, they have not made such big attack on Israel. They might have mentioned Israel as enemy but not so roughly. We should have understood Israel academically if it was supposedly our enemy. People randomly say “Israel is bad”, why it is bad? I don’t know. These should have been explained. Enemy is different ac-cording to religion, nation and interest. If one looks at America and the former Union of Soviet, he will find out that they were deadly enemy against each one in terms of Ideology…etc, but they had mutual economical interest.

*Why there are no attempts in the Kurd-ish educational centers to understand that

issue?-Still they find it religiously forbidden to deal

with this. They have not yet got such sophistica-tion that legitimates and motivates them to study

Israel, China or any other country. If something is religiously forbidden like Adultery, it is not religiously forbidden to study and gain Master Degree about it academically and scientifically.

*In the educational cen-ters wherein religion is not upper hand, sophisticated people don’t have such un-

derstanding.-Our conception is superficial because it has not

jumped out of the limited framework not because it is forbidden or sinful but because we couldn’t have bypassed these obstacles. For example, in Egypt, there is Israel Center Education. When I was a stu-dent in College of Literature in Baghdad, there was a big building next to our college in Babulmuazam and it was written Center of Palestine Education on it. It was so-called Center of Palestine Education but they were studying the positive and negative aspects of Israel. I don’t know why Kurd does not study; it is because it is near to us geographically. Israel is not so far from us to makes it unworthy of studying. On the contrary, the games played in Middle East are like Dominos. A part of the issue between Palestine and Israel relates to Lebanon and Lebanon relates to Kurd, a part of Kurd relates to PKK and the other part relates to Iran. As Kurd, we can take benefit from studying the root of the problems.

*For example, there will be an attempt in

“The Kurds does

not own the courage

that the Arabs has

to discuss on Israel

meanwhile they have

direct problem with

the Jews. “


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resurrecting the Yazidis who are Kurd and Yazidi is a Kurdish religion, or the Alawis who are considered to be originally Kurds. Why nobody says that these Jews are Kurd and they are habitant of there, why they don’t own a role? Have the Kurds there made an attempt?

-There is a fear which is a religious fear; the Kurds there have made some attempts. When Internet and satellite became common during these years, we can see them celebrating Newroz Festival. They made demonstration when Abdulla OJalan was captured, they made demonstration for Halabja but here there are no steps.

*Why don’t the educational centers make facilitation for Kurdish students in terms of studying?

-It is righteous and I find it very useful to make this happen. Israel as country that has problem, I have some Master and Doctorate Dissertation on Israel made in Baghdad. One of them is about geopolitics of Israel made in the 70s. Perhaps, the Kurds does not own the courage that the Arabs has to discuss on Israel meanwhile they have direct problem with the Jews. It is not only Israel and Jewsih problem that Kurd does not study, moreover, Kurd does not study the problems that are like the problem of Kurd. For example, Cyprus which is like Kurdistan, there are no attempts to understand Tamil and Keshmir prob-lems. Israel is nearer and more effective to us. This is the critics against the Kurdish Academic centers, Kurdish sophisticated, Kurdish Media, even the re-ligious and secular ranks. Why should not I have such information? Make no mistakes that the Kurd-ish Academic students don’t have digit information on Israel and Palestine. The old information that has been buried in our minds from 40s must not be

discussed anymore. The Republic of Islamic, Iran which is the biggest Islamic republic in the world, has Center of Israel study. Iran owns two Jewish and two Zardshti Parliamentarians. No one could ever have told that Iran is against religion. On the contrary, Iran is the first Islamic country to have Jewish Parliamentarians.

+ Why have the Kurds in Turkey fought against Israel and never had relationship unlike the Kurds in Iraq who have had some relationship with Israel?

-If one pays attention closely at Abdulla Ojalan and PKK, he can realize that PKK has had more relationship with Syria and Syria has stood against Israel and the Jews. Willy nilly, Syria has been against Israel and shown its bad deeds. Moreover, it was Syria expelled Abdulla Ojalan and he flew to several countries and then he was kidnapped. Perhaps, this resulted from Ojalan’s relation with Syria and Lebanon. It seems this had advantages and disadvantages.

*Why the Iranian Opposition has not made such relations?

*Perhaps, they don’t have geographical relation with Israel so that they can take benefit from. Let’s not forget that Iran and Israel don’t have strategic enmity. If one observes Persians as Iran and Israel, it can be found out that these two countries have technical and ideological war but they don’t have strategic war. If one checks history out carefully, he can find out that there is a kind of emotion between the Jews and the Zardashtis. This is an impres-sive relation. The relations between Iran and Israel maintained impressive till Imam Khumaini came to power. Therefore, it is true that there is minor at-tack between them but this is not a strategic attack. Probably, this is a political purpose. This slight


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attack will decrease by ratifying a treaty between America and Iran. I believe the enmity involves the Arab rather than the Islamic Republic of Iran.

*Why doesn’t Kurd have such awareness to have relationship with Israel meanwhile it has relation with Korea, Turkey…etc.?

-It is clear that the government must have the economical relationship; Iraq, Southern Korea and Turkey have Political, diplomatic and economical relationship. Kurdistan Regional Government can make relationship with Israel through the Embassy of Iraq in other countries but still it could have nei-ther political nor economical relationship with Is-rael so that the Kurds can make such relationship. Perhaps, there are some Jews in Iraq and there is no doubt that Israel Espionage exists in Iraq but still there is no direct relation.

*Do you believe that if a Kurdish leader makes a press conference in Israel, this will have a positive effect?

-I find it the useful for the highest point of inter-est for the Kurd to have relationship with Palestine and Israel. Most of the Islamic countries do this. Turkish Prime Minisiter, who is an Islamic indi-vidual, visited Israel and met Israel President then he went to Palestine and met Hamas and Mahmud Abbas. Egypt, which is the biggest Arabic country, arranges meeting in Israel. It is not religiously sin-ful to meet the Palestinians and the Jews for a good purpose not for an evil purpose. We have brought many the Chinese and Korean companies inside our country. Religiously speaking, it is sinful to have relationship with the Indian because they worship bull but the Jews worship God. This is more legiti-mate religiously. I am not talking about the govern-

ment which is performing some violent action; the Jewish people have not done these violent actions. Therefore, it is not sinful if the leaders visit Pales-tine and Israel.

*While there is no such readiness to have such relation and on the other side Kurd is defined as the Second Israel in the region. Has this definition came from the Arab or where?

-There is no doubt this came from the Arab media. Then why nobody defines Dafor and South of Su-dan which is separated as the Second Israel?! This came from the Arab Media that talk baseless like Al-Jazeera Channel. There are Jewish channel and Commercial center in Qatar but they have never presented a program to show that Israel Commer-cial Center exists in Doha and Israel flag is sway-ing. This is the Media Agreement.

*What is your final statement?-I would like to spread out the idea that it is not

sinful to have relation with Israel and Palestine es-pecially in the academic studies. The pros and cons of such academic studies must be shown to all. The importance of this problem and the solutions must be studied so that we can take benefit from its ad-vantages. It is possible to study this in the media, the Universities and the educational institutions because it is not sinful and religiously forbidden. Egypt, Iran and even the Palestinians study this. In Pakistan, people study Israel and Palestine. I do ap-preciate you for opening such subjects.

Translated by smko Mustafa salah


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As expected, however, the gloves came off im-mediately thereafter, with a series of tough American demands, especially Secretary of

State Hillary Clinton’s insistence on May 27 that the Netanyahu government end residential building in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. This prompted a defiant response. The governing coalition chairman pointed out the mistake of prior “American dictates,” a minister compared Obama to pharaoh and the Gov-ernment Press Office director cheekily mock-admired “the residents of Iroquois territory for assuming that they have a right to determine where Jews should live in Jerusalem.”

If the specifics of who-lives-where have little strate-gic import, the Obama administration’s rapid and harsh turn against Israel has potentially great significance. Not only did the administration end George W. Bush’s

focus on changes on the Palestinian side, it even dis-regarded oral understandings Bush had reached with Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert.

AN ARTICLE by Jackson Diehl of The Washington Post captures this shift most vividly. Diehl notes, based on an interview with Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestin-ian Authority, that by publicly and repeatedly stress-ing the need for a without-exception freeze of Israeli building on the West Bank, Obama has revived a long-dormant Palestinian fantasy: that the United States will simply force Israel to make critical concessions, whether or not its democratic government agrees, while Arabs passively watch and applaud. “The Amer-icans are the leaders of the world... They can use their weight with anyone around the world. Two years ago they used their weight on us. Now they should tell the Israelis, ‘You have to comply with the conditions.’

Lion’s Den: A rapid and harsh turn against Israel

The much-anticipated meet-ing between Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu on May 18 went off smoothly, if a bit tensely, as predicted. Everyone was on best be-havior and the event excited so little attention that The New York Times reported it on page 12.

By DANIEL PIPES


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Of course, telling the Israelis is one thing and getting their compliance quite another. To this, Abbas also has an answer. Expecting that Netan-yahu’s agreeing to a complete freeze on building would bring down his coalition, Diehl explains that Abbas plans “to sit back and watch while US pressure slowly squeezes the Israeli prime minister from office.” One PA official predicted this would happen within “a couple of years” - ex-actly when Obama is said to expect a Palestinian state in place.

Meanwhile, Abbas plans to sit tight. Diehl explains his thinking: Abbas rejects the notion that he should make any comparable concession -such as recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, which would imply renunciation of any large-scale resettlement of refugees. Instead, he says, he will re-main passive. “I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements,” he said. “Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality... the people are living a normal life.”

Abbas’s idea of “normal life,” one should add, is also largely provided by Washington and its allies. West Bank Palestinians enjoy by far the highest per-capita foreign aid of any group in the world; at just one “do-nors’ conference” in December 2007, for example, Abbas won pledges for more than $1,800 per West Banker per year.

As Diehl tersely concludes, “In the Obama administration, so far, it’s easy being Palestinian.”

EVEN IF one ignores the folly of focusing on Jerusalemites adding rec-reation rooms to their houses rather than Iranians adding centrifuges to their nuclear infrastructure and even if one overlooks the obvious coun-terproductivity of letting Abbas off the hook - the new US approach is doomed.

First, Netanyahu’s governing coalition should prove impervious to US pressure. When he formed the government in March, it included 69 MKs out of the Knesset’s 120 members, well over the 61 minimum. Even if the US government succeeded in splitting off the two parties least committed to Netanyahu’s goals, Labor and Shas, he could replace them with right-wing and religious parties to retain a solid majority.

Second, the record shows that Jerusalem takes “risks for peace” only when trusting its American ally. An administration that undermines this fragile trust will likely confront a wary and reluctant Israeli leadership.

If Washington continues on its present course, the result may well be spectacular policy failure that manages both to weaken America’s only strategic ally in the Middle East even as it worsens Arab-Israeli ten-sions.

The writer is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distin-guished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.


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Report: LESLIE SUSSER

Jerusalem

At around 11 o’clock on the morning of April 7, a Blue Sparrow missile designed to mimic an Ira-nian Shihab 3 was fired over the Mediterranean. The visibility was poor, and the Blue Sparrow had radar-evading capabilities the Shihab does not yet possess.

Yet within seconds it was destroyed by an Ar-row 2 anti-missile missile launched from the Pal-

mahim base south of Tel Aviv. For the first time ground crews employed two

radar systems in tandem - an enhanced version of the Israeli Green Pines and the American X-Band, capable of tracking a baseball 4,600 kilometers (2,900 miles) away. The test, the 17th of the Ar-row system, was closely coordinated with Israel’s American partners in the development of the Ar-row. But there were also guests at the Palmahim base from an unnamed European power, indicat-ing growing concern over Iran’s nuclear drive and its capacity to target European capitals.

The Shield of David


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The test, says Uzi Rubin, former director of the Arrow project, was an outstanding success. “I am not only talking about the kill. Everything around it worked exactly according to plan,” he tells The Jerusalem Report. The big innovation, the incor-poration of the X-Band, was possible because, at American insistence, the Arrow had been care-fully designed from the outset with a capacity to assimilate American technologies at every phase. So when the X-Band arrived in Israel last year, deployed mainly in the south and operated ex-clusively by American crews, it was easily inte-grated in the evolving Arrow system. “I am not at liberty to speak about this in detail, but I can say that what the X-Band was tasked with it handled superbly well,” Rubin asserts.

Two weeks after the successful Arrow test, Defense Minister Ehud Barak revealed that he intended to order the Vulcan Phalanx C-RAM (counter rocket, artillery and mortar) system from

the United States. If the Arrow is at the high end of Israel’s anti-missile range, designed to protect the country against high-flying long-range ballis-tic missiles, fired, say, from Iran 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) away, the Phalanx is at the very low end, meant to shoot down short-range Qassam rockets and mortar shells, fired from Gaza even less than three kilometers (two miles) away.

Made by the American Raytheon company, the Phalanx consists of a sophisticated radar system to track and target incoming rockets or shells, and a 20-millimeter multi-barreled high-speed Ga-tling gun, which fires streams of between 3,000 and 4,500 armor piercing bullets a minute, to shoot them down. The big advantage of the Pha-lanx is that unlike any Israeli system currently in the works, it is effective against mortars: it has shown in Iraq that it can shoot them down and give a 20-second warning to people about to come under mortar attack. At $15 million it is relatively


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cheap, and also inexpensive to operate as it fires bullets rather than costly rockets.

The disadvantage of the Phalanx system is its “small footprint”: it can defend only a relative-ly small area. According to IDF estimates, five would be necessary to protect the small city of Sderot on the Gaza border. An even bigger snag is that so far the U.S. has been unwilling to sell the Phalanx to third parties, taking up all Ray-theon can produce for its own use, mainly against insurgents in Iraq. Barak hopes to persuade U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to divert one Phalanx system to Israel for deployment this win-ter, and more later if it meets Israeli needs in the Gaza theater.

The Arrow and the Phalanx reflect the changing nature of the military threat to Israel.

Rather than planes, tanks or suicide bombers, today an estimated 50,000 missiles of all siz-es and trajectories in potential enemy arsenals could target the country. Indeed, for the Iranians, the Syrians, Hizballah and Hamas, the missile or rocket has long since become the weapon of choice. The result has been an evolution in Israeli military doctrine, ushering in “active missile de-fense” (AMD) systems, designed to shoot down incoming shells, rockets and missiles, as an inte-gral part of military planning.

Barak advocates what he calls a “multi-layered” missile defense, with a combination

of complementary systems affording protec-tion against attacks from just a few kilometers to over 1,000 miles. Ideally, the Phalanx would cover threats up to around 12 kilometers; the Iron Dome, being developed by Israel Defense Industries’ Rafael and scheduled for operation-al deployment early next year, would deal with Qassams and Katyushas fired from between 4

and 40 kilometers; the American-made Patriot Advanced Capabilities or PAC-2 already in op-eration, and David’s Sling (a.k.a. Magic Wand), being developed jointly by Rafael and Raytheon and scheduled for deployment in 2012-13, would meet medium-range threats like the Iranian-made Fadjr 3 and 5, Zelzal 2 or the Syrian Scud-C from 40 to several hundred kilometers; and the Arrow, which could also provide cover against the Zelzal or the Scuds, would take it from there for longer-distance missiles, like the Shihab.

Barak sees the creation of an anti-projectile shield around Israel as a “strategic goal.” Not only would it protect civilians and strategic in-stallations, but the knowledge that their missiles might be intercepted could deter potential aggres-sors from using them.

An effective missile shield could also give Is-raeli policy-makers added options: For example, they might feel more confident about withdraw-ing from the West Bank if they believed strategic installations like Ben-Gurion Airport were ade-quately protected against rocket attack.

Indeed, Barak has said if peace talks with the Palestinians bog down, he would advocate unilat-eral withdrawal from the West Bank, once a reli-able system for intercepting short-range rockets is in place.

If all goes according to plan, all the AMD layers should be in place by 2012-13. But how effective will the ambitious missile shield be? Will it be able to handle multiple rocket or missile attacks? And what of the costs? Critics point out that while Palestinians can make a Qassam rocket for about $1,000, each Iron Dome “Tamir” interceptor will cost an estimated $45,000 - not to speak of the $215 million for development of the system.


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Shaul Levy and Idan Barir

The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza marked a significant milestone in the history of Arab liberal-critical writing. The Palestinian issue was no longer sacrosanct, as analysts expressed sharp criticism of the Palestinians in general, and Hamas in particular. Although such views had been voiced in the past, it seems that the war and its outcomes have encouraged many Arab liberal intellectuals to hang their

dirty laundry in public, and say what they had not dared to say previously.

The War in Gaza: Dismantling the Palestinian Issue


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The history of Arab liberal-critical writing is a lengthy one. Its roots date back to the late 19th century, and reached its heyday

in monarchal Egypt during the first decades of the 20th century. By the mid-1950’s, however, the advent of Arab military regimes and revolu-tionary ideologies rendered the public sphere off-limits to contrary voices, and forced intellectuals and critics underground.

The Arab liberal voice returned to the public sphere at the beginning of the 1990’s, following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the triumph of Western liberal-democracies over communism, and in conjunction with the Gulf War. But it was not until the be-ginning of the 21st century that this trend became significant, in response to the 9-11-01 at-tacks and subsequent al-Qa`ida terrorism in the West, and even more importantly, in Arab and Islamic countries. The profound regional upheaval caused by the 2003 American war in Iraq and toppling of Saddam Husayns regime further reinforced the incentive to engage in critical analysis of Arab society.

One of the main subjects treated by Arab liberal writers was the threat posed to Arab societies by Islamist radical philosophy and fundamental-ist movements. In this respect, liberals and ruling regimes were like-minded re-garding their fears of theocratic ascendancy. It is of no surprise, therefore, that movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, which were

deemed as embodying the Islamist threat, were the first to be targeted by the liberal critique. An-other issue addressed by Arab liberal critics was the Iranian-Shiite-Persian threat from the east, a threat deeply rooted in the historical and cultur-al consciousness of the Sunni Arab world. Irans infiltration and involvement in war-torn post-Saddam Iraq, as well as its support for Hezbollah activities in Lebanon, raised the old Arab fear of Irans ‘export of the revolution’ to new heights.

One issue had remained virtually untouched by critical liberals, namely the Palestinian question. The Pal-estinian cause had traditionally been presented by radical Arab authoritarian regimes as the rea-son for maintaining a constant state of war with Israel, thus requiring Arab society to be permanently mobilized behind the ruling elites. Consequently, little or no criticism of the Pal-estinians was voiced in the Arab world, particularly once the PLO attained Arab international legitimacy as their sole legiti-mate representative.

The January 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections brought an end to this quietude. The rise to power of a democratically elected Islamist movement, the first such occasion in the his-tory of the Arab world, seems to have changed Arab attitudes

towards the Palestinian issue as a whole. Hamas now became ‘the sum of all fears’ for Arab re-gimes and liberal intellectuals, combining the im-mediate threats of an Islamist fundamental regime

“Hezbollah and Hamas […] put their societies, their lives, deaths, eco-nomic situation and edu-cation in second priority, and so they manage to tri-umph over piling mounds of dead bodies […] They are anti-movements and counter-movements that succeed, by definition, in ruining what currently exists but do not succeed in building what is to re-place it.”


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and Iranian penetration into the heart of the Arab world with its most sacred cause, Palestine.

The 2006 war in Lebanon marked an important step in the redrawing of the new power balance in the Middle East. Arab and Islamic forces have aligned according two distinct axes: the ‘Radical Axis’, supported by Iran, and the ‘Moderate Axis’, led by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and in opposition to Iran’s efforts to extend its influence. For Arab liberals living in the Moderate Axis countries and abroad, this situation offered an opportunity to critically address the dangerous developments and threats facing the region without incurring the opprobrium of their own governments.

But it was not until the June 2007 Hamas mili-tary coup in Gaza that the lines were truly drawn.

Moderate Arab regimes and liberal intellectuals faced a new reality in Palestine in which Hamas, directly backed up by the Islamic Republic of Iran, appropriated the Palestinian cause. From that moment on, the formerly sacred and untouchable issue was sacred no longer. In an article entitled “Dismantling the Armed Resistance Culture”, Qatari scholar Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari wrote the following:

“Hamas has planned from the very beginning to separate Gaza and to expel the Fatah movement away. Some writers’ enthusiasm in supporting Hamas

and its mythic resistance makes them turn a blind eye on the crimes Hamas has committed against their adversaries and the death of 145 peo-


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ple [...] What is the reason for the fierce advocacy for Hamas, even it has committed mistakes and shed the sacred Palestinian blood in vain?”[1]

Israels war against Hamas in Gaza during De-cember 2008-January 2009 took the Arab treat-ment of the Palestinian issue to new levels. On the one hand, ending the war and bringing the Palestinian tragedy to an end through a diplo-matic solution was deemed crucial, not only for Palestinian welfare but also regarding many of the regions other major problems. On the other hand, Hamas, now the preeminent player in the Palestinian arena, provided a worrying example of how an Islamist regime might conduct itself, and was serving as a proxy for Iranian penetra-tion into the Arab heartland. Ending the war with an agreement might have given Hamas, its pa-trons and its protagonists a sense of triumph, a divine victory which in turn would have caused a chain reaction of rising Islamist movements in the Moderate Axis states.

Hence, a wave of liberal criticism burst into the open during and after the war. In other words, the Israeli attack, brought upon Gaza by Hamass re-jection of an extension of the six-month calming (tahdi’a), encouraged Arab liberals for the first time to publicly vocalize their harsh criticism towards Hamas and to settle accounts regarding Hamass failure to advance the Palestinian cause. In an article entitled “The Proof of Victory”, Lebanese intellectual Hazem Saghiya wrote the following:

“Hezbollah and Hamas […] put their societies, their lives, deaths, economic situation and edu-cation in second priority, and so they manage to

triumph over piling mounds of dead bodies […] They are anti-movements and counter-move-ments that succeed, by definition, in ruining what currently exists but do not succeed in building what is to replace it.”[2]

In an article published during the third week of the Gaza war, Palestinian scholar Dr. Ahmad Abu Matar said the following:

“The conflict between Hamas and Fatah does not have any relation to a national liberation of any kind or to the establishment of a Palestinian State on all the 1967 territories, as long as Hamas activists enjoy their rule over the Gaza Strip and full control of it, amid a dictatorial and oppres-sive seclusion of everyone disagreeing with their policies [...] The Israeli occupation has turned for a moment more merciful than the Hamas’ Al-Tanfidhiyya executive arm...”[3]

In conclusion, the increasing alienation from the Palestinian cause, the outcome of many years of marking time in the peace process, endless and costly violence and incompetent leadership, all seemed to have emerged emphatically during the war in Gaza. Arab liberals no longer bore their criticism in silence and displayed considerable equanimity in treating critically this once-sacred issue. Though not representing the mainstream ‘Arab street’ opinion but an intellectual, elitist point of view, the Arab liberals’ big challenge now is to find a way to harness their criticism in a manner that can contribute to a constructive and rational discourse that may eventually rescue the Palestinians from their political and military pre-dicament.


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Iraqi general tells of Arab armies admiration for IDF

By Amir Oren

This week Benjamin Netanyahu gave a reason to believe - finally - that he’s right about something, if the reports are true: that Barack Obama is determined to oust him from of-fice. Netanyahu clearly hopes Obama will take a firm stand against North Korea’s Kim Jong-il and Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khameini. But if the U.S. president surrenders to Netan-yahu on construction in the settlements, what chance does he have against Pyongyang and

Tehran?


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If Netanyahu gives in, the current Israeli gov-ernment will fall, because his natural coalition partners back “natural population growth,”

which requires building in the settlements. Also this week, 3,000 to 4,000 Israelis were

killed, and nearly 10,000 were injured in a com-puterized war game conducted by the army’s Home Front Command. The scenario for the practice drill that took place on Sunday is not un-founded. It is enough for moderate Arab regimes to be swept out of office, for old army alliances and plans to be revived, and for soldiers to be dis-patched from countries that do not border Israel.

Concentrating on the Palestinian arena, with all its importance and proximity, ignores Israel’s biggest threats. A Palestine squeezed between Is-rael and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is one thing; its usefulness is greater than its potential damage. A Palestine bordering on a hostile Jor-dan, with bellicose Iraq and Iran at its back, at the vanguard of a renewed eastern front against Israel, is another thing entirely.

Maj. Gen. (res.) Uri Saguy is a former head of military intelligence who led the team that held talks with Syria in 2000. He often says the four crucial regional factors are neither Arab nor Pal-estinian. Saguy is talking about the Americans, Iranians, Israelis and Turks. He knows much more than he is saying, and has a strong influence on the two central security figures, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi and MI head Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin.

Ashkenazi is perceived abroad, especially in Washington, as representing the army’s constant presence in Israeli policy. Under his guidance, the army’s planning division charts Israel’s security interests, as opposed to its “national interests,” a vague term that encompasses politics, ideology and religion.

Ashkenazi hasn’t changed in the prime minis-terial transition from Ehud Olmert to Benjamin Netanyahu; and the defense minister, Ehud Ba-rak, also hasn’t changed. The Saguy-Ashkenazi school, veteran Golani Brigade fighters willing to return the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for peace, gives top importance to nudging Bashar Assad, now weighing the possibilities of Iran on his right and the west on his left, to join the mod-erate camp.

Finding the links A fascinating book, “Saddam’s War,” explains

the link between these spheres. The book, re-cently published by the Pentagon’s National De-fense University press, was authored by three American experts. They spoke at length with Iraqi Gen. Ra’ad Hamdani, former commander of the second battalion of the Republican Guard Corps in the 2003 war in the Gulf, and one of Saddam Hussein’s favorite officers. The authors followed research methods used after World War II, in which German generals were interviewed in order to learn what they saw as the strong and weak points of the different political and military apparatuses involved in the war.

Hamdani participated in all of Saddam’s wars, and survived all the purges, in part because he led a unit that included a protege of the young of-ficer Qusay, the ruler’s son. The U.S. is primarily interested in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, with an emphasis on learning about Iran as a current and possible future enemy, and its instigation of lethal sabotage against American forces in Iraq. Hamdani says the Iranian army has improved since the Khomeini period, and now is similar in nature to the Iraq army of 1990, but, lacking the ability to maneuver tank battalions, it prefers to use small units of foot soldiers and specializes in


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training organizations like Hezbollah. Hamdani’s experiences as a cadet in the Jorda-

nian military academy during the Six-Day War, and as a junior officer in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, provide further evidence that, until their defeat in June 1967, the Arab regimes, armies and peoples assumed they could destroy Israel. In six days this feeling turned into humiliation at their armies’ defeat, awareness that their governments had failed, and admiration for the Israeli army.

“For us, the Israeli generals were the professors,” especially in the use of armored vehicles, and in penetrating enemy lines, Hamdani says in the book.

Before the 1973 war, Hamdani says, all Iraqi first lieutenants like him learned the names of Is-rael Defense Forces generals and reviewed their backgrounds and military deeds. “I had seven or eight books in my tent all about the Israeli train-ing, preparations and weapons ... Everybody was


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interested in learning about our enemy,” he says. In 1972, Hamdani’s brigade moved from Jor-

dan to Iraq, along with the rest of the 3d Armored Division, and trained for a long time in the desert, in an imitation of Israeli training, Hamdani says. The contempt preceding the 1967 war had turned into the shock of defeat, which turned into a de-sire for revenge, which brought about the 1973 war. The Israeli army’s ability to recover from its first losses in the 1973 war convinced the Arabs that Israel was much stronger than they had be-lieved, Hamdani said.

The 1967 defeat goaded the Arab armies, in-cluding Iraq’s, to become more professional. Rulers did not entirely stop advancing uneducat-ed and unskilled officers for personal and politi-cal reasons, but there was a serious overhaul. One of the conclusions reached by the Iraqi army was that it must, like the armies of Egypt and Jordan, rid itself of the slow and laborious British army model. After World War II, the Arabs imitated the British and lost; the Israelis adopted the Ger-man army model, making lightning strikes and responding flexibly to developments, and won.

The investment in improving the army’s capa-bilities paid off in October 1973, in the tactical and logistical success of the Iraqi contingent, which surprised the IDF by moving from Baghdad to the Golan and immediately entering the fighting, Hamdani said. While not all the details are cor-rect, it is true that the Iraqi forces contributed to restraining a counterattack by the IDF, which had approached Damascus, and thereby prevented the fall of Syria. The achievement encouraged Iraq to examine its faults, “among them a consider-able deficiency in technological knowledge - a direct result of the deficiencies in the educational

systems of the Arab world,” and to try to correct them, Hamdani said.

Until its defeat in 2003, this remained the Iraq army scenario: the basis of its planning and train-ing for the next war, a clash with Israel on the borders of Syria or Jordan. As a student in army colleges at the end of the 1970s, Hamdani trained repeated for war with the only enemy: not Iran, but Israel. The armored brigades, a multidivision-al force, stood at the ready.

Training for Israel, ready for Iran Hamdani says preparations to face the IDF im-

proved the Iraqi army’s fitness and granted it an advantage in its first battles alongside the Jorda-nians. The Iraqis had formed specialized units based on the Israeli model, and tried, unsuccess-fully, to imitate the Israeli air force in surprise assaults on Iranian air bases. The Iranian army, with its American equipment, including Phantom jets, was unfit and untrained, and was seen by the Iraqis as similar but inferior to but their main enemy - “half an IDF.” Iraq, ever since Saddam denounced Sadat’s peace agreement with Israel as treason, was eager to go to war against Israel, defeat it, and win precedence in the Arab world.

After the Iraq-Iran war, Saddam planned to bring his Republican Guard to Jordan or Syria in order to attack Israel. Saddam was convinced he could destroy Israel and even bragged about it in “many meetings,” Hamdani said.

The encounter with the American army, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in the summer of 1990, made Hamdani change his mind and ad-mire it even more than the Israeli army. He was impressed by the disciplined soldiers and officers in their battle vests and helmets in the fiery des-


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ert heat on the Saudi-Kuwait border, and by their mighty technological superiority.

The armies of Saddam and Ayatollah Khomei-ni were not the mirror image of the American army, but rather an inverse, because the leaders of Baghdad and Teheran gave more weight to ex-tremism, national or religious, and measured suc-cess by the number of losses, just as was done in the first World War. This method, which encour-aged commanders to carry out mass slaughters and to under-report casualties, caused failures in battle, among other things; headquarters were not asked to send reinforcements when the true situa-tion was being concealed.

And then came the use of chemical weapons, by both sides. This information is a cold shower for anyone willing to bet on Iran’s unwillingness to use weapons of mass destruction, either because it will also be struck hard in return or because it might harm Palestinians. The fear of hurting Muslims, including civilians, did not stop the Ayatollah (or Saddam), and neither did the loss of hundreds of thousands of civilians, soldiers and militia members. Iranians against Iraqis, and both or either against Israel, are not exactly the Americans fighting the Soviets.

Hamdani describes Khomeini, at the head of the Iranian forces’ chain of command, as being “like the Pope during the Crusades.” Coordina-

tion improved under Khameini, but the expecta-tion of complete obedience to a religious com-mand takes a toll on the army’s professionalism and administration, which is even more vulner-able to being paralyzed by air strikes.

Hamdani’s interviewers conducted detailed war games with him - the Iraqis or the Americans against Iran - and these chapters read like a guide to the next war. Iran is concerned about attacks on many of its 30,000 essential sites, and does not have enough surface-to-air missiles to protect them, Hamdani says. Well before the first shot, it is worthwhile to exploit inter-ethnic tensions and the weakened loyalties of the younger generation to the revolutionary regime.

The conversations with Hamdani provide rare witness to the seriousness of America’s prepara-tions for a military clash with Iran, at the instiga-tion of either side, but do not prove that Wash-ington will be dragged into such a fight for the benefit of a third party, such as Israel.

Ehud Barak set out for meetings at the White House and the Pentagon this week to convince the Obama administration to provide essential equip-ment in the event of a military campaign against Iran. There is no knowing whether approval will be granted, when the time comes, but any way you look at it, what Israel must give in return is clear, no matter who leads the government.


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America and IsraelEdwin Black

Many supporters of Barack Obama who are also supporters of Israel— from both the Jewish and Christian communities—are now wondering whether their faith

in America’s charismatic new president was misplaced on this key issue.


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At the core of the queasiness is the Obama Administration’s sudden publicly stri-dent approach against Israel. Secretary

of State Hilary Clinton has become the Admin-istration’s chief megaphone for the new policy, fond of publicly scolding Israel on settlements. «The president was very clear,” she stated, “when Prime Minister Netanyahu was here. He wants to see a stop to settlements—not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions. We think it is in the best interests of the effort that we are engaged in that settlement expansion cease.

That is our position. That is what we have com-municated very clearly, not only to the Israelis but to the Palestinians and others. And we intend to press that point.”

At first, many Obama devotees simply muttered quietly about the harsh public tone taken against Israel. It began at the level of the “close listen-ers,” those who follow the minute-to-minute de-velopments and promulgations of the Arab-Israel dynamic. Eventually, the national leadership be-gan verbalizing concern as well, and then local leaders joined in. If leadership jitters continue,


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the rank-and-file from among Israel’s supporters could begin distancing themselves from Obama’s Mideast policy and even joining the loyal oppo-sition on a range of issues. One seasoned Wash-ington correspondent quipped, “It has not yet reached the Jimmy Carter level.”

The first articles reporting the jitters began ap-pearing weeks ago in mainstream Jewish media outlets such as the JTA and the Forward. Indeed, the latest reporting by veteran JTA Washington correspondent bears the headline, “Some Israeli, U.S. Officials move to keep the volume down.” Kampeas’s current article quotes an email from the White House to Jewish Council for Public Af-fairs, the umbrella body for public policy groups. «While we may have some differences of view with Israel at the moment over settlements,” the White House email explains, “we are trying to work through them quietly, professionally, and without rancor or ultimatums, as befits a strong relationship with an important ally. We are confi-dent we can do that.»

The present clash functions at a number of domestic and interna-tional levels—some of them con-tradictory, and all of them granu-lated.

In many minds, the harsh new policy was presaged May 5, 2009 at the recent American Israel Pub-lic Affairs Committee annual pol-icy conference. “You’re not going to like my saying this,” declared vice president Joe Biden, “but do not build more settlements, dismantle existing outposts, and allow the Pales-tinians freedom of movement based on their first actions, its access to economic opportunity and

increased security responsibility. This is a «show me» deal—not based on faith—show me.” That was day one of the new policy.

After the much anticipated May 18, 2009 White House summit between Obama and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the differences quickly became apparent. First, Netanyahu would not commit to a two-state solution. Second, he re-sisted the idea of freezing settlements. The White House made it clear that both policies were indis-pensible. Netanyahu did not budge.

Then came the public scolding, primarily from Secretary of State Clinton. She has regularly re-peated her refrain. In a June 5, 2009 press confer-ence with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Da-vutoglu in Washington, she countered any Israeli suggestion that a verbal agreement existed that allowed some “natural growth” in settlements. “There is no memorialization of any informal and oral agreements,” Clinton said. “If they did occur, which of course people say they did, they did not become part of the official position of the

United States government.” Obama himself has emphasized,

“We will say in public what we say in private to Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs.”

The entire matter places Israel supporters in a torn situation. Start with the two-state solution. Un-til the recently elected Netanyahu government, standard Israeli dip-

lomatic parlance accepted the two-state solution. Heading up a right-wing coalition, Netanyahu has refused to repeat those words, especially in the face of continued Palestinian stagnation on the peace process. This follows from the Israeli

Netanyahu knows this history even if

the Twitterized White House does not


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realization that for decades it has debated peace proposals with itself and that the Palestinian lead-ership’s most predictable word is still the word “No.” In facing the facts of Palestinian author-ity (with a small “A”), half of it is stagnated on the West Bank with the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority at the helm, while the other half in the form of Hamas is engaged in the worst type of regime-sponsored terrorism from Gaza. A hard-bitten realist like Netanyahu wonders when the other side can bring itself to use the “yes” word. Peace and borders could have been achieved at any time during the past half century if the Arab side would have allowed it to happen. The origi-nal “Three No” concept adapted by the Arabs after Israel’s independence—No Peace, No Rec-ognition, No Negotiations—has been replaced by a new Orwellian “Yes to Peace with Israel” so long as Israel shrinks to a militarily indefensible border, and then demographically transforms it-self from a Jewish State to a “formerly Jewish state” flooded with Arabs residents from around the globe who have a historic claim to Palestine. Hence, Israel; would no longer be a Jewish State but a future Lebanon. Parenthetically, the mil-lion Jewish citizens expelled penniless by Arab regimes in the 1950s would continue to be a for-gotten footnote.

In this discussion, false history becomes funda-mental. Arab Palestine was never an Arab national territory. The land was owned and controlled not by peasants from generation to generation, but by Ottoman sultans from generation to generation—sultans who became more interested in selling a sphere of interest to the German Kaiser than al-lowing the residents to achieve self-government. Turkey only turned over the land titles to the Pal-

estinians in May 2005 during a personal visit by then-Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Er-dogan. The Turkish general directorate had for decades held 500,000 original title deeds in 254 volumes in the Land Registry Presidency building in Oran, Ankara. These covered the main cities previously governed by the Ottomans including: Jaffa, Nablus, Jenin, Gaza, and Jerusalem. Turk-ish rights in Palestine were seized by the League of Nations following World War I.

On the other hand, Jewish land deeds obtained through legal purchase and other forms of le-gitimate registration were meticulously kept as a sovereign right since the early twentieth century when the London-based Zionist Organization be-gan the move to legally settle in Palestinian pur-suant to international law.

The very concept of Arab nationalism was a twentieth century invention mainly of Christian Lebanese seeking reforms against Istanbul—the so-called “Young Turks.”

The much-disputed tug of war between British and French wartime lies and seductions to both Arabs and Jews about Palestinian nationhood are well-known. But all of them, from the McMa-hon correspondence to the Balfour Declaration are just pieces of paper with no force in inter-national law or common sense. The real nation building was done in the 1920 and 1930s long after the ink dried on those illusory imperialistic promises and suggestions. Indeed, the only real bi-national agreement that matters was the one signed by Faisal and Chaim Weizmann in Janu-ary 1919 agreeing to trade Arab sovereignty in Syria for Jewish nationhood in Palestine. But that agreement was spoiled by the French a year later when oil interests thwarted Arab nationalism with


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massacres and political backstabbing to achieve Western oil imperialism in the Middle East. By the way, it was in that year, 1920 that the Jihad against the West began—decades before Israel ever existed.

The rest is just unhappy historyFriction on settlements is equally problematic.

Many of Israel’s core supporters in the United States and many Israel citizens simply abhor the settlements. But by castigating Israel so publi-cally, the Obama Administration has created a veneer of support for settlements that would oth-erwise not exist in the Jewish community. Hence, the reaction is not about settlements, it is about treating Israel like a pesky client.

Israel has shown its willingness to dismantle set-tlements on a dime. It destroyed Yamit and many

others when it gave back the Sinai to Egypt. It re-linquished precious Taba across from Eilat when the last international juridical appeal accepted a disputed Turkish cartographic reference that ruled out Israeli control. The Jewish State pain-fully pulled its own citizens kicking and scream-ing out of Gaza and evacuated the territory com-pletely only to see it become not a greenhouse of development but a hothouse of terror.

The problem with settlements comes down to one word: “borders.” There are no borders. Until the Palestinians can draw a line on a map and stick to it, Israelis will continue to push down the hill, across the hill and up the next hill both by natural increase and by deliberate political design. What in America is simply “suburban sprawl” becomes an international breach in Jerusalem—precisely because there is no border.


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Moreover, if a border agreement were made with the Palestinians, who would it be with. Hamas? The Palestinian Authority? How long would it last? One side or the other would declare it null and void before the last serif dried.

Create a border and the settlements stop instantly

Israeli supporters are also rankled by bizarre

Obama moral equivalencies, many of which were repeated in the recent Cairo speech. For ex-ample: the Holocaust was bad but so are check-points. Checkpoints throughout the West Bank are admittedly almost as bad as what we experi-ence at the airport every day, although caused by the same factor: terrorism. The Holocaust on the other hand victimized six million innocents. In-cidentally, the oil that ran the Nazi war machine was energetically supplied by the Arab States,

mainly Iraq via Lebanon. The Arab community participated in the Holocaust by almost univer-sally siding with the Nazis. They excuse this by saying the real enemy was Britain. The axis of Berlin and the Mufti of Jerusalem is well-known. Islamic divisions fighting with the Third Reich were under the direct protection of Himmler. The White House buys into the traditional false his-tory that the Holocaust was an exclusively Euro-

pean event. A few days ago, Jews of Iraqi descent observed the anniversary of “the Farhud.” The White House may not even know what the word “Farhud” means until after they read this article.

Indeed, the Obama administration has not yet discovered that a plurality of Israeli citizens is actually of Arab descent. They are the men and women of Jewish faith who formerly dwelled for many centuries before Islam as citizens of what


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became Arab lands. Libya, Iraq, Egypt and many others in the Arab League expelled their Jewish citizens penniless for no other reason than their religion. The idea was to create a demographic time bomb of destitution in Israel. But unlike the Arab world, Israel assimilated refugees as full citizens. These Jews of Arab descent now rule much of Israel. They are originally Arabs, but of Jewish faith.

Another bizarre equivalency is linking the cur-tailment of settlements and stopping Iran’s nu-clear threats against Israel. It is hard to read the balance sheet between a few doublewide trailer homes or even a complex of townhouses on the West Bank and nuclear annihilation. The com-parison seems self evident. One seeks to create a mushroom patch, the other seeks to create a mushroom cloud.

The growing queasiness among Obama sup-porters who also support Israel was only mag-nified by Obama’s recent speech to the Muslim World. Clearly, the speech was courageous and exquisite. No one does better than Obama in ca-tering to a crowd and uplifting it. He acknowl-edged that Western oil imperialism waged a war of hegemony against Arab peoples. That is true. He praises what needed to be praised about Arab scholarship over the centuries. In that, he got it half right when he stated: “It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navi-

gation; our mastery of pens and printing.” Muslim scholars did excel at coastal navigation as raiders and traders, and at algebra to help in their magnif-icent architecture. The word algebra itself comes from the Arabic al-jabru and invokes the concept of balancing, hence equations. But Obama got it wrong—and this is a relevant wrong—when he added “our mastery of pens and printing.”

Surely, writing was a Babylonian invention. But the Middle East was virtually devoid of printing presses until the twentieth century. The Turks maintained a staff of some 90,000 scribes to com-mit to paper only what was authorized—legal rul-ings, regulations, and religious writings as well as the Koran. For decades after World War I, the Arab world controlled the printing press as a to-talitarian tool, generally deploying it to afflict its domestic and foreign enemies and foster group hatred. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is still the biggest seller in the Arab world.

Obama has achieved one thing. He has launched the rocket of “even-handedness” that the Arab World has been calling for. His Cairo speech is heralded far and wide in the Arab and Muslim worlds. If that momentum results in some last-ing peace with Arab cooperation, the jitters are worth enduring. If it only encourages greater in-transigence by Arab negotiators and longer stale-mate, then Barack Obama will not have brought “change” but proved that some that some things never change.


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Haifa(ֵחיָפה); is the largest city in northern Israel and the third largest city in the country, with a population of about 267,800. The city is a seaport located on Israel’s Mediterranean coastline in the Haifa Bay, about 90 km north of Tel Aviv, and is one of the country’s major indus-trial centers.


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זהו פרסום העוסק בתרגום ומחקר מדעי בנושא יחסי ישראל והכורדים

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