Originally posted in August 2008

Across the Gaza Strip, Palestinian children signed in to summer camps this month not to swim, play and learn about nature, but rather to be indoctrinated with hatred for the Jewish people and to be instructed in the methods of terrorist warfare.
Ynet reported that between Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the groups are hosting around 50,000 Palestinian children at some 400 camps throughout the small coastal territory.
Children participating in the camps are required to memorize passages from Koran, and are then taken outside to train with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and Kassam rocket launchers.

View full article

Originally posted in July 2008

I've written about the world's collective amnesia" when it comes to the so-called "root causes of the Middle East crisis."
The conventional wisdom today suggests the new state of Israel in 1948 was to blame for the creation of the Arab refugee problem.
The mantra is repeated endlessly by U.S. State Department apparatchiks, Israel's enemies around the globe and even by well-meaning, guilt-ridden Jews.
The entire Middle East peace process is based on this notion - that repatriation of Arab Palestinians in a new homeland of their own will solve the conflict.

View full article

Originally posted in June 2008

It is difficult to find a more neglected story than the relative satisfaction of Palestinian Arabs living in Israel as is revealed from a recent Harvard Study. (Palestinians Arabs (including those living in greater Jerusalem) constitute 20% of the population). Aware of inconvenient polls which reveal that Palestinian living in Israel are vehemently opposed to becoming citizens of Palestine, the researchers did their best to lower the satisfaction number by phrasing the question so as to receive the most negative number. They asked Palestinian Arab if they would rather live in Israel or in any other country in the world.
Let yourselves go, dream away, they researchers seemed to be say. Fantasize. How about living in Dubai, in Britain or the US?
What a disappointment. Israel's Arab citizens refused to play along. The vast majority of them insisted that like Israel best.

View full article

Originally posted in May 2008

As Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary, there are voices raised accusing Israel of victimizing the Palestinian Arabs and "running them out" of the Jewish state. Ironically, some 1,300,000 Arab-Israeli citizens live and work in Israel. They worship freely in mosques from Haifa to Gaza and from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Arab-Israeli citizens enjoy full civil rights, study at Israeli universities, serve in the Knesset, every department of the Israeli government and even in the armed forces. Meanwhile, the 4,000,000 Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza and in refugee camps in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are largely victims of their own making.

View full article