28 July 2014
Huffington Post: Dear Stephen Harper, Eid Mubarak
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/shahla-khan-salter/dear-stephen-harper-eid-mubarak_b_5625566.html
Dear Prime Minister Harper,
In the past month the world has witnessed thousands suffer in Gaza, Iraq and Syria, forced to flee their homes and/or face massacres. We have watched ISIS terrorists take over huge swathes of land in Iraq and head into Syria, killing thousands and implementing cruel and barbaric laws. And we have witnessed Israel bomb Gaza while Palestinians, including many children, have been injured or lost their lives.
The non-profit I represent, Universalist Muslims, alongside our partners -- other small, inclusive, egalitarian, Muslim community organizations -- around the globe, speak out for all who suffer, demanding justice and human rights for everyone, regardless of faith and target the oppressive policies of all those instituting them, regardless of grounds.
As a result, I have written to you in the past seeking help for: Christians in Pakistan, Shia minorities throughout the Muslim world, Canadians imprisoned in Iran, women stranded in Saudi Arabia and many others.
Most recently I asked you to speak up for Raif Badawi, a secularist and Saudi human rights defender, sentenced to 1000 lashes, 10 years in jail and a fine of approximately $260,000. A Saudi court convicted Mr. Badawi of insulting Islam because he published a website in which he asked Saudi Arabian authorities the reason it fails to allow women rights, Christians churches and continues to enforce medieval apostasy laws. Since Mr. Badawi's arrest in 2012, other Saudi human rights defenders have been imprisoned by the Saudi authorities as well, including his lawyer, head of the Saudi Human Rights Monitor, Waleed Abulkhair. Recently, Mr. Abulkhair was sentenced to 15 years in jail for the "crime" of "undermining the regime." It is reported by human rights organizations that Saudi Arabia is using its new policy, which mandates that all unbelievers are terrorists, to quash dissent.
You may have heard of Mr. Badawi from Canada's UN Human Rights Council delegation. It may have not made the headlines here, but recently Canada was one of a few countries, who demanded that the representative from The Centre for Inquiry, a US non-profit NGO, be allowed to raise Mr. Badawi's case there, after a motion to block was made by Saudi Arabia, who is surprisingly also a member. Mr. Badawi's case has also been raised in public statements by NDP MPs, such as Pierre Luc Dusseault and Wayne Marston.
But you have made no public statement at all respecting Mr. Badawi, notwithstanding that his wife, Ensaf Haider and their three children live here in Canada and badly need your help.
Why not? Is it because Canada needs Saudi oil? Is it because we need the jobs created by manufacturing light-armoured vehicles for Saudi Arabia?
Are you afraid to offend Saudi Arabia, Prime Minister Harper?
Perhaps that is a risk worth taking.
After all, Saudi authorities and their friends in the Gulf have allowed the world to become a more dangerous place by failing to stop a few of its citizens from bank rolling terrorist organizations, including ISIS. And last week ISIS marked the homes of Christians in Iraq, whose families have lived there for two thousand years, outrageously demanding they convert, vacate or be killed. Do you believe the values of ISIS differ from those of the authorities of Saudi Arabia? Hardly. - So why stay silent?
One reason for my concern, Prime Minister Harper, is that like you, I am a parent. And in case you have not been advised, what is happening to children in the region right now is the worst nightmare of any parent. My heart goes out to parents like this Syrian mother:
(Zein-Al Rifai/AFP)
Children have paid the price in Syria and continue to in that country, with at least 8,607 children killed since the war began in 2011. They have been murdered in Iraq for more than a decade and will continue to be killed in greater numbers, once again under the regime of ISIS. (It is estimated that more than 5,000 people have been killed by ISIS already this year.)
And most recently, the world has watched in horror as the bodies of children are lifted from the rubble in Gaza.
The world grieves while children bear the brunt of the carnage throughout the region.
And, what compounds our grief is that most world leaders are doing nothing to save them.
We must do more in the name of humanity Prime Minister Harper. It is sad that Canada has taken so few refugees from Syria, since 2011. And your recent statement that Israel has a right to defend itself, in light of that country's atrocious actions and policies, inspires no one, except those who are blind to the humanity of children and their parents.
Prime Minister Harper, I love Canada. We are blessed to raise our children here.
But the world is small and interconnected. It means we must speak out and remain on the side of compassion and love, even if at times, there is a price.
After all, we must not be selective in our humanity.
Eid Mubarak.
Dear Prime Minister Harper,
In the past month the world has witnessed thousands suffer in Gaza, Iraq and Syria, forced to flee their homes and/or face massacres. We have watched ISIS terrorists take over huge swathes of land in Iraq and head into Syria, killing thousands and implementing cruel and barbaric laws. And we have witnessed Israel bomb Gaza while Palestinians, including many children, have been injured or lost their lives.
The non-profit I represent, Universalist Muslims, alongside our partners -- other small, inclusive, egalitarian, Muslim community organizations -- around the globe, speak out for all who suffer, demanding justice and human rights for everyone, regardless of faith and target the oppressive policies of all those instituting them, regardless of grounds.
As a result, I have written to you in the past seeking help for: Christians in Pakistan, Shia minorities throughout the Muslim world, Canadians imprisoned in Iran, women stranded in Saudi Arabia and many others.
Most recently I asked you to speak up for Raif Badawi, a secularist and Saudi human rights defender, sentenced to 1000 lashes, 10 years in jail and a fine of approximately $260,000. A Saudi court convicted Mr. Badawi of insulting Islam because he published a website in which he asked Saudi Arabian authorities the reason it fails to allow women rights, Christians churches and continues to enforce medieval apostasy laws. Since Mr. Badawi's arrest in 2012, other Saudi human rights defenders have been imprisoned by the Saudi authorities as well, including his lawyer, head of the Saudi Human Rights Monitor, Waleed Abulkhair. Recently, Mr. Abulkhair was sentenced to 15 years in jail for the "crime" of "undermining the regime." It is reported by human rights organizations that Saudi Arabia is using its new policy, which mandates that all unbelievers are terrorists, to quash dissent.
You may have heard of Mr. Badawi from Canada's UN Human Rights Council delegation. It may have not made the headlines here, but recently Canada was one of a few countries, who demanded that the representative from The Centre for Inquiry, a US non-profit NGO, be allowed to raise Mr. Badawi's case there, after a motion to block was made by Saudi Arabia, who is surprisingly also a member. Mr. Badawi's case has also been raised in public statements by NDP MPs, such as Pierre Luc Dusseault and Wayne Marston.
But you have made no public statement at all respecting Mr. Badawi, notwithstanding that his wife, Ensaf Haider and their three children live here in Canada and badly need your help.
Why not? Is it because Canada needs Saudi oil? Is it because we need the jobs created by manufacturing light-armoured vehicles for Saudi Arabia?
Are you afraid to offend Saudi Arabia, Prime Minister Harper?
Perhaps that is a risk worth taking.
After all, Saudi authorities and their friends in the Gulf have allowed the world to become a more dangerous place by failing to stop a few of its citizens from bank rolling terrorist organizations, including ISIS. And last week ISIS marked the homes of Christians in Iraq, whose families have lived there for two thousand years, outrageously demanding they convert, vacate or be killed. Do you believe the values of ISIS differ from those of the authorities of Saudi Arabia? Hardly. - So why stay silent?
One reason for my concern, Prime Minister Harper, is that like you, I am a parent. And in case you have not been advised, what is happening to children in the region right now is the worst nightmare of any parent. My heart goes out to parents like this Syrian mother:
Children have paid the price in Syria and continue to in that country, with at least 8,607 children killed since the war began in 2011. They have been murdered in Iraq for more than a decade and will continue to be killed in greater numbers, once again under the regime of ISIS. (It is estimated that more than 5,000 people have been killed by ISIS already this year.)
And most recently, the world has watched in horror as the bodies of children are lifted from the rubble in Gaza.
The world grieves while children bear the brunt of the carnage throughout the region.
And, what compounds our grief is that most world leaders are doing nothing to save them.
We must do more in the name of humanity Prime Minister Harper. It is sad that Canada has taken so few refugees from Syria, since 2011. And your recent statement that Israel has a right to defend itself, in light of that country's atrocious actions and policies, inspires no one, except those who are blind to the humanity of children and their parents.
Prime Minister Harper, I love Canada. We are blessed to raise our children here.
But the world is small and interconnected. It means we must speak out and remain on the side of compassion and love, even if at times, there is a price.
After all, we must not be selective in our humanity.
Eid Mubarak.
Clip of Ami Ayalon in Gatekeepers and The Mosaic Institute:Given the current situation in Israel and Gaza, we are reminded of some of Ami Ayalon's words when he visited the Mosaic Institute in the Winter of 2013.
Ami Ayalon: 040 and 1.11
The Mosaic Institute shared a link.
Given the current situation in Israel and Gaza, we are reminded of some of Ami Ayalon's words when he visited the Mosaic Institute in the Winter of 2013.
http://goo.gl/FIQ7A1
http://goo.gl/FIQ7A1
Truthdigger of the Week: Yuval Diskin
Source: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/truthdigger_of_the_week_yuval_diskin_20140726?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+Truthdig+Truthdig%253A+Drilling+Beneath+the+Headlines
Truthdigger of the Week
By Alexander Reed Kelly
Truthdigger of the Week
Truthdigger of the Week: Yuval Diskin
Posted on Jul 27, 2014
Yuval Diskin speaks during the 10 Years to the Geneva Initiative: Leading the Way to Peace conference in Tel Aviv in 2013. AP/Dan Balilty
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Every week the Truthdig editorial staff selects a Truthdigger of the Week, a group or person worthy of recognition for speaking truth to power, breaking the story or blowing the whistle. It is not a lifetime achievement award. Rather, we’re looking for newsmakers whose actions in a given week are worth celebrating.
Imagine if FBI founder and notoriously malicious snoop J. Edgar Hoover pronounced the views of 1960s antiwar protesters and other dissidents correct. Now set imagination aside and read this July 24 interview with Yuval Diskin, the former director of Israeli internal security service Shin Bet.
At the start of the third week of the Israeli government’s air and ground campaign against Hamas in Gaza, Diskin, who served as the head of Shin Bet from 2005 to 2011, criticized right-wing President Benjamin Netanyahu and his hawkish allies for reacting belligerently to the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teens in mid June, and more generally, failing to pursue a peaceful relationship with the two-tiered unity government in charge of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
“Israel should have been more sophisticated in the way it reacted,” Diskin told Spiegel Online interviewer Julia Amalia Heyer. “We should have supported the Palestinians because we want to make peace with everybody, not with just two-thirds or half of the Palestinians.”
Netanyahu pronounced Hamas responsible for the abduction of teenagers Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah three days after they went missing June 12. The conclusion may have been premature. Hamas denied responsibility for the kidnappings and no evidence came forth from Israeli intelligence to support the claim. (A BBC journalist later tweeted that an Israel police official said Hamas did not direct the attack.)
An ongoing insistence on Israeli exceptionalism maintained by force cannot produce long-standing peace between Israelis and Palestinians, Diskin argued. “I would warn against believing that the Palestinians are peaceful due to exhaustion from the occupation,” he told Heyer. “They will never accept the status quo of the Israeli occupation.” Instead, their passion for resistance will increase. “When people lose hope for an improvement of their situation, they radicalize. That is the nature of human beings. The Gaza Strip is the best example of that. All the conditions are there for an explosion,” he said. Later in the interview he added: “Real security can only be achieved through peace. Israel, despite its military strength, has to do everything it can in order to reach peace with its neighbors.”
The point is impossible to miss. In Diskin’s view, his peers in Israeli leadership bear significant responsibility for Palestinian behavior. Recently deceased American political scientist Chalmers Johnson, author of a number of historical studies on the dynamics of imperial power, termed spontaneous and inevitable resistance to indiscriminate applications of state force “blowback.”
Why does the ruling Likud Party persist with policy that is certain never to produce peace? Partly, Diskin answered, because the existence of a common enemy is a source of political power. He believes for example that Iran is not Israel’s “real problem,” and rather than the problem being the Palestinians themselves, he very carefully talks about the “conflict with the Palestinians.” Combined with the occupation of the West Bank, the conflict is “the biggest security risk for the state of Israel,” Diskin argued. But Netanyahu holds steady on a more vague enemy like Iran. “And of course he has derived political profit from it. It is much easier to create consensus about the Iranian existential threat than about an agreement with the Palestinians,” he said. Others in power similarly seek to maintain only their short-term political strength. They “are acting irresponsibly; they are thinking only about their electorate and not in terms of the long-term effects on Israeli society,” Diskin noted. And they are putting their fellow citizens at increasing risk in the process.
Diskin does not absolve Palestinian leaders of blame. For a peaceful resolution to the conflict, he said “we need commitment on the Palestinian side and the acceptance of the Middle East Quartet conditions”—a set of principles of coexistence outlined by the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia and opposed by Hamas. Diskin made his career leading an institution engaged in violent confrontations with people he policed, but his interview gives the impression of a man committed to the safety and well-being of both Israelis and Palestinians. It is a rare and urgently needed display of inclusiveness among the Israeli leadership. And he is not alone. “There are plenty of people within Shin Bet, Mossad and the army who think like I do,” he said. That appears to include 50 reservists who criticized the current operation in Gaza and the military itself in an open letter this week. It also includes all surviving six former leaders of Shin Bet, as was shown in the 2012 documentary “The Gatekeepers.”
But the composition of values in the military and government is moving rightward, becoming more extreme and violent in the direction of exclusive, self-contained jingoism. “[I]n another five years, we will be very lonely people. Because the number of religious Zionists in positions of political power and in the military is continually growing,” Diskin contended.
For representing the old Israel of progressive secular values and speaking up for all sides, we honor Yuval Diskin as our Truthdigger of the Week. Hear him talk in a clip from “The Gatekeepers” below.
Imagine if FBI founder and notoriously malicious snoop J. Edgar Hoover pronounced the views of 1960s antiwar protesters and other dissidents correct. Now set imagination aside and read this July 24 interview with Yuval Diskin, the former director of Israeli internal security service Shin Bet.
At the start of the third week of the Israeli government’s air and ground campaign against Hamas in Gaza, Diskin, who served as the head of Shin Bet from 2005 to 2011, criticized right-wing President Benjamin Netanyahu and his hawkish allies for reacting belligerently to the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teens in mid June, and more generally, failing to pursue a peaceful relationship with the two-tiered unity government in charge of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
“Israel should have been more sophisticated in the way it reacted,” Diskin told Spiegel Online interviewer Julia Amalia Heyer. “We should have supported the Palestinians because we want to make peace with everybody, not with just two-thirds or half of the Palestinians.”
Netanyahu pronounced Hamas responsible for the abduction of teenagers Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah three days after they went missing June 12. The conclusion may have been premature. Hamas denied responsibility for the kidnappings and no evidence came forth from Israeli intelligence to support the claim. (A BBC journalist later tweeted that an Israel police official said Hamas did not direct the attack.)
The point is impossible to miss. In Diskin’s view, his peers in Israeli leadership bear significant responsibility for Palestinian behavior. Recently deceased American political scientist Chalmers Johnson, author of a number of historical studies on the dynamics of imperial power, termed spontaneous and inevitable resistance to indiscriminate applications of state force “blowback.”
Why does the ruling Likud Party persist with policy that is certain never to produce peace? Partly, Diskin answered, because the existence of a common enemy is a source of political power. He believes for example that Iran is not Israel’s “real problem,” and rather than the problem being the Palestinians themselves, he very carefully talks about the “conflict with the Palestinians.” Combined with the occupation of the West Bank, the conflict is “the biggest security risk for the state of Israel,” Diskin argued. But Netanyahu holds steady on a more vague enemy like Iran. “And of course he has derived political profit from it. It is much easier to create consensus about the Iranian existential threat than about an agreement with the Palestinians,” he said. Others in power similarly seek to maintain only their short-term political strength. They “are acting irresponsibly; they are thinking only about their electorate and not in terms of the long-term effects on Israeli society,” Diskin noted. And they are putting their fellow citizens at increasing risk in the process.
Diskin does not absolve Palestinian leaders of blame. For a peaceful resolution to the conflict, he said “we need commitment on the Palestinian side and the acceptance of the Middle East Quartet conditions”—a set of principles of coexistence outlined by the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia and opposed by Hamas. Diskin made his career leading an institution engaged in violent confrontations with people he policed, but his interview gives the impression of a man committed to the safety and well-being of both Israelis and Palestinians. It is a rare and urgently needed display of inclusiveness among the Israeli leadership. And he is not alone. “There are plenty of people within Shin Bet, Mossad and the army who think like I do,” he said. That appears to include 50 reservists who criticized the current operation in Gaza and the military itself in an open letter this week. It also includes all surviving six former leaders of Shin Bet, as was shown in the 2012 documentary “The Gatekeepers.”
But the composition of values in the military and government is moving rightward, becoming more extreme and violent in the direction of exclusive, self-contained jingoism. “[I]n another five years, we will be very lonely people. Because the number of religious Zionists in positions of political power and in the military is continually growing,” Diskin contended.
For representing the old Israel of progressive secular values and speaking up for all sides, we honor Yuval Diskin as our Truthdigger of the Week. Hear him talk in a clip from “The Gatekeepers” below.
Clip of Yuval Diskin from Gatekeepers and SPIEGEL: Ex-Israeli Security Chief Diskin: 'All the Conditions Are There for an Explosion'
Source: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-former-israeli-security-chief-yuval-diskin-a-982094.html
Ex-Israeli Security Chief Diskin: 'All the Conditions Are There for an Explosion'
REUTERS
In an interview with SPIEGEL, Yuval Diskin, former director of Israel's internal security service Shin Bet, speaks of the current clash between Israel and the Palestinians, what must be done to achieve peace and the lack of leadership in the Middle East.
- SPIEGEL: Mr. Diskin, following 10 days of airstrikes, the Israeli army launched a ground invasion in the Gaza Strip last week. Why now? And what is the goal of the operation?
Diskin: Israel didn't have any other choice than to increase the pressure, which explains the deployment of ground troops. All attempts at negotiation have failed thus far. The army is now trying to destroy the tunnels between Israel and the Gaza Strip with a kind of mini-invasion, also so that the government can show that it is doing something. Its voters have been increasingly vehement in demanding an invasion. The army hopes the invasion will finally force Hamas into a cease-fire. It is in equal parts action for the sake of action and aggressive posturing. They are saying: We aren't operating in residential areas; we are just destroying the tunnel entrances. But that won't, of course, change much in the disastrous situation. Rockets are stored in residential areas and shot from there as well.
SPIEGEL: You are saying that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pressured to act by the right?
Diskin: The good news for Israel is the fact that Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and Army Chief of Staff Benny Gantz are not very adventurous. None of them really wanted to go in. None of them is really enthusiastic about reoccupying the Gaza Strip. Israel didn't plan this operation at all. Israel was dragged into this crisis. We can only hope that it doesn't go beyond this limited invasion and we won't be forced to expand into the populated areas.
SPIEGEL: So what happens next?
Diskin: Israel is now an instrument in the hands of Hamas, not the opposite. Hamas doesn't care if its population suffers under the attacks or not, because the population is suffering anyway. Hamas doesn't really care about their own casualties either. They want to achieve something that will change the situation in Gaza. This is a really complicated situation for Israel. It would take one to two years to take over the Gaza Strip and get rid of the tunnels, the weapons depots and the ammunition stashes step-by-step. It would take time, but from the military point of view, it is possible. But then we would have 2 million people, most of them refugees, under our control and would be faced with criticism from the international community.
SPIEGEL: How strong is Hamas? How long can it continue to fire rockets?
Diskin: Unfortunately, we have failed in the past to deliver a debilitating blow against Hamas. During Operation Cast Led, in the winter of 2008-2009, we were close. In the last days of the operation, Hamas was very close to collapsing; many of them were shaving their faces. Now, the situation has changed to the benefit of the Islamists. They deepened the tunnels; they are more complex and tens of kilometers long. They succeeded in hiding the rockets and the people who launch the rockets. They can launch rockets almost any time that they want, as you can see.
SPIEGEL: Is Israel not essentially driving Palestinians into the arms of Hamas?
Diskin: It looks that way, yes. The people in the Gaza Strip have nothing to lose right now, just like Hamas. And this is the problem. As long as Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood was in power in Egypt, things were going great for Hamas. But then the Egyptian army took over and within just a few days, the new regime destroyed the tunnel economy between Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula, which was crucial for Hamas. Since then, Hamas has been under immense pressure; it can't even pay the salaries of its public officials.
SPIEGEL: All mediation attempts have failed. Who can stop this war?
Diskin: We saw with the most recent attempt at a cease-fire that Egypt, which is the natural mediator in the Gaza Strip, is not the same Egypt as before. On the contrary, the Egyptians are using their importance as a negotiator to humiliate Hamas. You can't tell Hamas right now: "Look, first you need to full-stop everything and then we will talk in another 48 hours."
SPIEGEL: What about Israel talking directly with Hamas?
Diskin: That won't be possible. Really, only the Egyptians can credibly mediate. But they have to put a more generous offer on the table: the opening of the border crossing from Rafah into Egypt, for example. Israel must also make concessions and allow more freedom of movement.
SPIEGEL: Are those the reasons why Hamas provoked the current escalation?
Diskin: Hamas didn't want this war at first either. But as things often are in the Middle East, things happened differently. It began with the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. From what I read and from what I know about how Hamas operates, I think that the Hamas political bureau was taken by surprise. It seems as though it was not coordinated or directed by them.
SPIEGEL: Netanyahu, though, claimed that it was and used it as a justification for the harsh measures against Hamas in the West Bank, measures that also targeted the joint Hamas-Fatah government.
Diskin: Following the kidnapping of the teenagers, Hamas immediately understood that they had a problem. As the army operation in the West Bank expanded, radicals in the Gaza Strip started launching rockets into Israel and the air force flew raids into Gaza. Hamas didn't try to stop the rockets as they had in the past. Then there was the kidnapping and murder of the Palestinian boy in Jerusalem and this gave them more legitimacy to attack Israel themselves.
SPIEGEL: How should the government have reacted instead?
Diskin: It was a mistake by Netanyahu to attack the unity government between Hamas and Fatah under the leadership of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israel should have been more sophisticated in the way it reacted. We should have supported the Palestinians because we want to make peace with everybody, not with just two-thirds or half of the Palestinians. An agreement with the unity government would have been more sophisticated than saying Abbas is a terrorist. But this unity government must accept all the conditions of the Middle East Quartet. They have to recognize Israel, renounce terrorism and recognize all earlier agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.
SPIEGEL: The possibility of a third Intifada has been mentioned repeatedly in recent days, triggered by the ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip.
Diskin: Nobody can predict an Intifada because they aren't something that is planned. But I would warn against believing that the Palestinians are peaceful due to exhaustion from the occupation. They will never accept the status quo of the Israeli occupation. When people lose hope for an improvement of their situation, they radicalize. That is the nature of human beings. The Gaza Strip is the best example of that. All the conditions are there for an explosion. So many times in my life I was at these junctions that I can feel it almost in my fingertips.
SPIEGEL: Three of your sons are currently serving in the Israeli army. Are you worried about them?
Diskin: And a fourth is in the reserves! I am a very worried father, but that is part of it. I defended my country and they will have to do so too. But because real security can only be achieved through peace, Israel, despite its military strength, has to do everything it can in order to reach peace with its neighbors.
SPIEGEL: Not long ago, the most recent negotiations failed -- once again.
Diskin: Yes, and it's no wonder. We have a problem today that we didn't have back in 1993 when the first Oslo Agreement was negotiated. At that time we had real leaders, and we don't right now. Yitzhak Rabin was one of them. He knew that he would pay a price, but he still decided to move forward with negotiations with the Palestinians. We also had a leader on the Palestinian side in Yasser Arafat. It will be very hard to make peace with Abbas, but not because he doesn't want it.
SPIEGEL: Why?
Diskin: Abbas, who I know well, is not a real leader, and neither is Netanyahu. Abbas is a good person in many respects; he is against terror and is brave enough to say so. Still, two non-leaders cannot make peace. Plus, the two don't like each other; there is no trust between them.
SPIEGEL: US Secretary of State John Kerry sought to mediate between the two.
Diskin: Yes, but from the beginning, the so-called Kerry initiative was a joke. The only way to solve this conflict is a regional solution with the participation of Israel, the Palestinians, Jordan and Egypt. Support from countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and maybe Turkey would also be necessary. That is the only way to consider all the demands and solve all problems. And we need more time, at least five years -- and more to implement it step-by-step.
SPIEGEL: Why isn't Netanyahu working toward such a compromise, preferring instead to focus on the dangers presented by an Iranian nuclear bomb?
Diskin: I have always claimed that Iran is not Israel's real problem. It is this conflict with the Palestinians, which has lasted way too long and which has just intensified yet again. The conflict is, in combination with the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the biggest security risk for the state of Israel. But Netanyahu has made the invocation of an existential threat from Iran into his mantra, it is almost messianic. And of course he has derived political profit from it. It is much easier to create consensus about the Iranian existential threat than about an agreement with the Palestinians. Because there, Netanyahu has a problem with his electorate.
SPIEGEL: You have warned that the settlements in the West Bank may soon become irreversible and that it will make the two-state solution impossible.
Diskin: We are currently very near this point of no return. The number of settlers is increasing and already a solution to this problem is almost impossible, from a purely logistical standpoint, even if the political will were there. And this government is building more than any government has built in the past.
SPIEGEL: Is a solution to the conflict even possible anymore?
Diskin: We have to go step-by-step; we need many small successes. We need commitment on the Palestinian side and the acceptance of the Middle East Quartet conditions. And Israel must freeze at once any settlement activity outside the big blocks of settlements. Otherwise, the only possibility is a single, shared state. And that is a very bad alternative.
SPIEGEL: Mohammed Abu Chidair, the teenager murdered by Israeli right-wing extremists, was recognized as being a victim of terror. Why hasn't Israel's security service Shin Bet been as forceful in addressing Israeli terror as it has with Arab terror?
Diskin: We invested lots of capabilities and means in order to take care of this issue, but we didn't have much success. We don't have the same tools for fighting Jewish extremism or even terrorists as we have when we are, for example, facing Palestinian extremists. For Palestinians in the occupied territories, military rule is applied whereas civilian law applies to settlers. The biggest problem, though, is bringing these people to trial and putting them in jail. Israeli courts are very strict with Shin Bet when the defendants are Jewish. Something really dramatic has to happen before officials are going to take on Jewish terror.
SPIEGEL: A lawmaker from the pro-settler party Jewish Home wrote that Israel's enemy is "every single Palestinian."
Diskin: The hate and this incitement were apparent even before this terrible murder. But then, the fact that it really happened, is unbelievable. It may sound like a paradox, but even in killing there are differences. You can shoot someone and hide his body under rocks, like the murderer of the three Jewish teenagers did. Or you can pour oil into the lungs and light him on fire, alive, as happened to Mohammed Abu Chidair.... I cannot even think of what these guys did. People like Naftali Bennett have created this atmosphere together with other extremist politicians and rabbis. They are acting irresponsibly; they are thinking only about their electorate and not in terms of the long-term effects on Israeli society -- on the state as a whole.
SPIEGEL: Do you believe there is a danger of Israel becoming isolated?
Diskin: I am sorry to say it, but yes. I will never support sanctions on my country, but I think the government may bring this problem onto the country. We are losing legitimacy and the room to operate is no longer great, not even when danger looms.
SPIEGEL: Do you sometimes feel isolated with your view on the situation?
Diskin: There are plenty of people within Shin Bet, Mossad and the army who think like I do. But in another five years, we will be very lonely people. Because the number of religious Zionists in positions of political power and in the military is continually growing.
About Yuval Diskin
AP
27 July 2014
Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information: Israel/Gaza round #3 - Afternoons with IPCRI
Source: mass emailing
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So Here You Go Profilers - Another Sample
My academic account (as was the case with my personal account) is often inundated with spam accounts.
Some of them are clearly troll accounts that I believe are a direct result of my decision to attend graduate school outside of the USA.
So here is the latest spam. And before I blocked it I am doing a call out to profilers (globally).
You don't need to respond, but let this be an exercise in learning - yet another one.
Once trust in a relationship is gone there are ways to get it back just involves patience, time and a true desire to get it back
Highlife music originated from Ghana.
21 Surprising Things You Might Not Know About Mickey Mouse - http://bit.ly/1scRdHK pic.twitter.com/c2miWGVyQW
Dimples are a turn on.
Nobody is afraid of saying I love you, they are all afraid of the answer.
Destiny budget “Nowhere Near” $500 Million, Bungie says.
Amazon is getting serious about gaming, hiring Portal and Far Cry designers.
Don't love someone because you have sex with them. Have sex with someone because you love them.
The Mali Federation was a country in linking the French colonies of Senegal
and the French Sudan for only two months
in 1960.
Infamous's Cole joining SF x Tekken.
A great way to communicate sometimes is to just listen. It's more about what's right not who's right
Forgiving is letting it go, not storing it to use for ammo in the next argument
Sometimes u have to let them go not because u don't care but to see if they care enough to come back
A second chance doesn't mean anything if u haven't learned from ur first mistake
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