More on Debunking 6-Day War Myths & SAS (Sudden Amnesia Syndrome)

Amazingly, reports continue to circulate out of the Western Press (BBC, Economist, Financial Times, New York Times, New Yorker, etc.) that the Six Day War could have been avoided had Israel not acted rashly; that Israel was militarily far superior to its Arab neighbors, that Nasser was only bluffing; about the only argument I haven't heard yet is the post-modern one of 'disproportionate force.' Rest assured that if Israel's stunning victory over three Arab armies had taken place today, accusations of war-crimes and unnecessary force would already have been levied against her. More commentaries below--db

The Most Justified War - Yoel Marcus

As Ha'aretz's correspondent in Paris before the 1967 Six-Day War, I was at the Israeli Embassy when half a million people rallied in the streets to show their solidarity with Israel. There was a sense that the Arabs were about to wipe out the Jewish state. On television, people saw Egyptian troops marching into Sinai; they heard Nasser's warmongering speeches. Ahmed Shukeiry, the secretary of the Arab League, declared that the Jews of Israel would be sent back to the countries they came from and native Israelis would be slaughtered. What those now denouncing the 40th anniversary of the "occupation" do not understand is that the Six-Day War was the most justified war Israel ever fought - because it knocked out of the Arabs' heads the idea that Israel could be destroyed by force. (Ha'aretz)

Amid General Amnesia - Hillel Halkin
It's a curious thing: Although the map that was changed by the Six-Day War had been in existence for less than 20 years, starting with Israel's War of Independence in 1948, and more than twice as many years have gone by since then, that map of the Middle East continues to be regarded by the world as the "right" map, while the map that replaced it is considered a temporary aberration that needs to be canceled or reversed. Similarly, the world has forgotten what the pre-1967 map was really like. Far from being demarcated by clear and accepted borders, it showed Israel separated from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon by mere armistice lines, frontiers created by the ceasefire that ended the 1948-1949 war and considered temporary by all Arab countries, not one of which recognized Israel and all of which looked forward openly to its destruction - an easily imaginable eventuality in view of the fact that these frontiers narrowed to a few miles' width along the Mediterranean coastal plain where Israel's population was most concentrated. It is no longer remembered that immediately after the June 1967 war, Israel was ready to return nearly all of the land conquered by it in return for peace and was answered by a monolithic Arab refusal to negotiate, accompanied by a partial recommencement of hostilities by Egypt in the 1968-1970 "War of Attrition." The history of the 1967 war and what came before it has been so successfully written by the losers that the winners' account is scoffed at incredulously today even by supposedly knowledgeable people. (New York Sun)


Urge is Still to Erase the Jewish State
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/318604_amotz06.html
By AMOTZ ASA-EL
The Six Days War, which broke out 40 years ago this week and left the Arab world, the Jewish people and the international community stunned, still boggles the mind.
The fighting -- in which Israel debilitated three armies and conquered the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai, the Golan and ancient Jerusalem in less than a week -- has made Israel's enemies distort its causes and effects.
Here are the facts, the way I recall them as a third-grader in Jerusalem. As Independence Day ended, news broke out that the Egyptian army had crossed the Sinai Peninsula and camped along the Israeli border. By the weekend, we were besieged, as Egypt blockaded the Red Sea and expelled United Nations peacekeepers from Gaza, while Jordan and Syria deployed along our northern and eastern borders. One hundred million people, armed, trained and inspired by the Soviet Union, were ganging up on a country the size of New Jersey with a population smaller than Tennessee's.
It was a casus belli by any dictionary definition. Yet today Israel's detractors conveniently begin the story from the actual fighting of June 1967, which indeed began when we Israelis extracted ourselves from the shooting range where we were to be sitting targets and pre-empted the marksman aiming his barrel into our collective forehead. Israel initiated but only tactically. The strategic initiative -- the brazen, unprovoked choice to wage war -- was Arab.
No rewritten history will make Israelis forget the course of events as we experienced them. We won't forget the anxiety on the faces of the adults -- mostly Holocaust survivors -- as war approached. We won't forget how every day we learned of another diplomatic failure to undo the siege, how we filled sandbags and placed them on windowsills to the sound of Hebrew broadcasts from Cairo Radio that promised to "throw the Jews into the sea" -- which was meant, and taken, , literally.
Today, the ultimate anti-Israeli slogan shared by British liberals, Russian fascists, Gazan zealots, Iranian Mullahs and Lebanese pseudo-patriots is "end the occupation." Gullible Westerners conclude that Israel's enemies merely want it tamed, that characters such as Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, Hassan Nassrallah or Haled Mash'al are merely challenging its policies, not its right to live.
But they are. As they themselves concede when asked explicitly enough, to them not only the conquests of '67, but even Tel Aviv is "occupied Palestine," just as to them all U.N. resolutions about the Mideast are binding except the original one, the one that said that not only the Palestinians, but the Jews, too, deserve a state.
Had it not been for the obsessive urge to erase the Jewish state, there would have been no occupation to decry today. For the problem with the Six Days War in the eyes of Israel's enemies is not the occupation that followed it nor, of course, the belligerency that preceded it, but the victory that defined it and constituted one of the swiftest blows liberty ever dealt autocracy.
Had the occupation been their problem with post-1967 Israel, Israel's enemies would have even celebrated its successive election of leaders such as Rabin, Barak, Sharon and Olmert who each sought to end the occupation. Sad to say, all four saw Israel's enemies prove unreconstructed despite them, as the newly unoccupied Gaza's shelling of Israel, within its internationally recognized borders, demonstrates daily.
There's nothing new about this tunnel vision. In 1967 Israel offered a land-for-peace deal, but the Arab states announced they would never make peace, recognize or even just talk with Israel. With that kind of rigidity, the Arab states maneuvered the Palestinians into Israeli occupation. Then as now, they could have chosen peace.
A lot has changed since 1967.
Egypt and Jordan made peace with Israel, the East Bloc unraveled, and a million Soviet Jews arrived in Israel. However, in Tehran, Beirut, Damascus and Gaza, the blind hatred is alive and well, even if it now cleverly manipulates Western disdain for such terms as "occupation."
Had a passer-by wondered in May 1967, "Why are you filling sandbags?" we would have answered: "We have no choice." Four decades on, when you hear Israel's enemies decry occupation, remember: They have a choice, they can have peace, yet they have war, and the reason they war in 2007 is the same reason they had it in 1967: It's what they want.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Amotz Asa-El, formerly the Jerusalem Post's executive editor, is now its senior columnist; http://www.middleisrael.com/

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Revisionist Historians Eschew Inconvenient Truths of Israel's Existential Vulnerabilities

While revisionist historians are having a field day on the 40th Anniversary of the 6-Day War, it is useful to go back in time and remember what was really going on in the Middle East back in May-June 1967. Some of the experts debunk popular current mythology below.
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Arabs Planned to Destroy Israel in '67 - Steve Linde
Those who call the Six-Day War a disaster or a Pyrrhic victory overlook the fact that Israel wasn't destroyed, historian Michael Oren said Monday. Oren said his research of documents in Arab countries had revealed clearly that the Arabs had planned to destroy Israel.
"The biggest myth going is that somehow there was not a real and immediate Arab threat, that somehow Israel could have negotiated itself outside the crisis of 1967, and that it wasn't facing an existential threat, or facing any threat at all," said Oren, who is a senior fellow at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at Jerusalem's Shalem Center and author of Six Days of War: June 1967. He noted that this was the premise of Tom Segev's book, 1967: Israel, the War and the Year That Transformed the Middle East. "What's remarkable is that all the people alleging this - not one of them is working from Arabic sources.
What's behind the myth, Oren argued, is "a more pervasive, ongoing effort to show that Israel bears the bulk, if not the sole responsibility, for decades of conflict in the Arab world, and that the Arabs are the aggrieved party.
(Jerusalem Post)

Lessons of the Six-Day War - Ariel Cohen
Today the world will commemorate the 40th anniversary of Israel's victory in the Six-Day War. Forty years later, however, Israel's very existence is challenged again. Now more than ever, Israel is the proverbial canary in the Middle East coal mine, the litmus test of Arab and Muslim attitudes to the world beyond the Land of Islam. It is not the "Israeli occupation" but the rise of extremist Islamist forces that constitute a global threat and are central in Middle East destabilization.
Today the threat is not only Arab -- it is also Iranian. It is not secular nationalism and pan-Arabism, but Islamist. It is both extremist Shi'a, as expressed by Iran and Hezbollah, and militant Sunni, articulated by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Moslem Brotherhood, and increasingly, al Qaeda-affiliated organizations in Gaza and Lebanon.
Forty years ago, the threat was classically conventional. Today, Israel and the United States lack strategy and doctrine to defeat the whole spectrum of threats, from the suicide bombings and Qassam rockets of Hamas and Fatah, to the improvised explosive devices in Iraq and the short range Iranian-supplied Katyusha rockets of Hezbollah. The threat is also unconventional -- from Syrian chemical weapons-armed rockets, to the Iranian nuclear weapons program. It is not the "Israeli occupation" but the rise of extremist Islamist forces that constitute a global threat and are central in Middle East destabilization. Israeli, European and U.S. policymakers and generals still think in terms of nation-states and conventional armies. The global jihadi movement, its political leaders, paymasters, recruiters and propagandists recognize no national borders.
The writer is senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. (Washington Times)

No Pyrrhic Victory - Bret Stephens (Wall Street Journal)
It is often said today that the Six-Day War humiliated the Arabs and propelled the region into future rounds of fighting. Yet only a few days before the outbreak of the war, Iraq's then-President Abdul Rahman Aref saw it as "our opportunity...to wipe Israel off the map," describing the war as the Arabs' chance "to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948."
It is said that the Palestinian movement was born from Israel's occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Yet the Palestine Liberation Organization was already in its third year of operations when the war began.
To read some recent accounts, a more sagacious Israel could have followed up its historic victory with peace overtures. In fact, the Israeli cabinet agreed on June 19, 1967, to offer the Sinai to Egypt and the Golan to Syria in exchange for peace deals. In Khartoum that September, the Arab League declared "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it."
On June 5, 1967, Israel was a poor, desperately vulnerable country, which threw the dice on its own survival in the most audacious military strike of the 20th century. It is infinitely richer and more powerful today, and sure in its alliance with the U.S. If these are the fruits of Israel's "Pyrrhic victory," it needs more such of them.

Remaking the World in Six Days -
Michael Oren
In six intense days of fighting that began on June 5, 1967, Israeli forces saved their country from an imminent existential threat, defeated three major Arab armies and almost quadrupled the territory under their country's control. Compare, for example, Israel's diplomatic and strategic situation on June 4, 1967: The country was surrounded by Arab states bent on its destruction, utterly isolated and outgunned. Egypt alone had five times as many soldiers as Israel, and 10 times the tanks. Beyond the Middle East, Israel faced an inimical Soviet bloc that generously armed the forces of Egypt, Syria and Iraq, as well as the animosity of China and India. Though generally friendly, the United States still refused to sell weapons to the Israelis, who remained militarily dependent on France. Worse yet, on the eve of the war, the French concluded that they had more to gain from Arab oil producers and abruptly switched sides, imposing a total arms embargo on Israel. Having begun the conflict with Arab guns pointed at all of its cities, Israel concluded the war with its own troops in artillery range of every neighboring Arab capital - an achievement that convinced Arab leaders of the impossibility of destroying the Jewish state by conventional means. Israel, as a result, was eventually able to reconcile with Jordan and to trade territory captured in the 1967 war for a peace agreement with Egypt. Most significantly, the U.S., which previously regarded Israel as a friendly country but one that impaired its relations with the Arab world, suddenly realized that the Jewish state was in fact a regional superpower, forging an alliance with Israel that has remained robust ever since. Michael Oren, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, is the author of Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East. (Los Angeles Times)

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Desperation, Moderation, Madness, Morality & the West

On the eve of the 40th Anniversary of the 6-Day War, we are once again being bombarded by articles, videos, advertisements, and relentless sound bytes that speak of Palestinian "desperation." Alan Johnstone, the BBC reporter who has been held hostage by Palestinian kidnappers since the 12th of March, recently spoke of the "absolute despair" of the Palestinians and attributed this desperation to 40 years of Israeli occupation, "supported by the West." One can forgive Mr. Johnstone his utterances since he is no doubt spouting these accusations under extreme duress, ordered by his terrorist handlers to say whatever they want to be said, so they can get their "message" out to the world. But the same cannot be said for the free reporters of the BBC, who night after night emphasize that Mr. Johnston has given "a voice" to the Palestinian people. Oddly, what he is now saying under duress is not all that different from what his fellow BBC reporters say quite willingly on a regular basis. "It is that everything that is wrong in the ME and the wider Muslim world is the result of aggression or 'heavy-handedness' by America, or Israel or Britain..."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jsessionid=J41CQO5M12QFVQFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/opinion/2007/06/02/do0201.xml Charles Moore:
'What if Israel Had Abducted BBC Man?'

Although the "desperation" argument has been debunked time and again; see "Aspiration, not Desperation." http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/000763.php, it is trumped as the "be all, end all" explanation for all ills of Palestinian society.
In a superb lte in the Times Saturday, Jonathan Reich puts it most eloquently, and I will quote him in full. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/02/opinion/l02palestinian.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fLetters
"We have constantly heard the mantra that Palestinian desperation is pushing Palestinians toward extremism and that the solution is to empower moderates by making concessions. But the concessions are only viewed as weakness by the extremists who gain more power, while the moderates, who frequently are engaged in terror, whine for more concessions. If Palestinians are desperate, it is time for them to look in the mirror and ask why their own media promote violence, why their society has no due process, and why their educational system continues to teach hate. They need to ponder why a group of people that receives more aid per person than any group on earth continues to have no credible economic system or rule of law. If Jihadists are gaining power, it is not the fault of the West or Israel. The root cause of the conflict is accountability."

Is is desperation that prompts a society to extol the virtues of martyrdom to kindergartners? Or does it rather reflect a society that has lost its moral compass?
Gaza Kindergarten Graduation Theme: "Death for the Sake of Allah!" (MEMRI)
Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV aired a report of a graduation ceremony for the kindergartens of the Islamic Association in Gaza on May 31, 2007. The boys shouted in unison: "Allah Akbar. Praise be to Allah. What is your path? Jihad. What is your most lofty aspiration? Death for the sake of Allah."

And what does it say about us that we continue to excuse, absolve, explain, and rationalize this kind of behavior that can only be understood as collective child abuse? Where is the moral outcry from all the human rights advocates who are so quick to cast blame on Israel?
As long as the West continues to give a pass to this kind of moral indecency, rushing to please/appease rather than fighting to maintain universal standards for human rights, little progress can be expected. To paraphrase Ambassador Dennis Ross,
Peace will come to the ME when Arab political culture moves from Victimhood to Accountability and Responsibility.
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More on the battle for Universal Human Rights--This Time from Palestinian NGO!

It is saddening to see the increase in violence against Palestinian women but it is heartening to see a Palestinian NGO bringing these heinous crimes to light. We must continue to demand that universal human rights are respected everywhere. To re-quote Nonie Darwish,
"Though the Middle East is a complex region with many ancient variables, customs, differences and animosities, we must apply a universal concept of human rights, women's rights and minority rights to all countries on the globe -- with no exceptions for any religion or ideology.Those Americans who stood up for these rights in the '60s -- and still do today -- are the natural allies of moderate Muslims in our struggle against Middle East religious and political tyranny. Stand with us now."
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MAAN NEWS AGENCY---------------------------
Palestinian NGOs reveal rising rates of so-called 'honour killings'
Date: 28 / 05 / 2007
Ramallah - Ma'an -
A forum of Palestinian organizations which fight anti-women violence published on Monday a report about killing Palestinian women under the guise of so-called family honour. The report covered 3 years from 2004 to 2006
During this period the number of women killed increased from 14 to 32, with the ages of the victims ranging from 12 to 85. Of the 32 victims, 30 of the murdered girls were Muslim. In 17 cases, the perpetrators were brothers, while in 5 cases, fathers killed their own daughters..
http://www.minbuza.nl/ and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, Danish International Development Assistance (DANIDA), http://www.um.dk/da.. Ma'an News Agency Commitments-1. To supply 24-hour news, for free, in Arabic, en, and Hebrew for local, regional, and international readers and media professionals. 2. To produce news items on political, social, economic, cultural, and sports events. Our on-line News agency reports the facts and delivers high quality pictures. MNA is known for being reliable, objective, accurate, balanced, and informed. Ma'an News Agency
Objectives-
1.to offer to the Palestinian and international communities independent and professional Palestinian news;
2. to promote democracy in Palestine through media, freedom of exNewsion, freedom of the News, and pluralism of the media;
3. to increase Palestinian media credibility in the international scene by producing objective and professional news; Ma'an News Agency Offices and Staff-MNA has two offices: the main office is located in Bethlehem with a sub-office in Gaza City. The Bethlehem office employs the equivalent of 31 full-time employees (six of which are administration) while the Gaza office has seven. MNA employs a total of 14 reporting correspondents that work throughout Palestine: 12 in the West Bank and 2 in Gaza. Sixteen hired photographers work under MNA: 12 in the West Bank, 2 in Gaza, and 2 in Israel.
All writers, reporters, and photographers work under the Chief Editor Nasser Laham. Mr. Laham worked as chief editor for Al Arabi Magazine as well as two local TV stations in Bethlehem. He was previously a correspondent for the Lebanese satellite channel NBN, the Radio of Qatar, and the Iran News Agency. Currently he also performs as the key anchor of a popular daily TV news program broadcasted on the Ma'an Network TV Stations, which translates every day at 8pm the Hebrew evening news into Arabic. Ma'an News was founded by Mr. Raed Othman. Mr. Othman worked for ten years as the head of the Bethlehem T.V. and is now the General Manager of the Ma'an Network. He is also currently the General Director of the Ma'an News Agency

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Brave Arab-American Woman Speaks Out

It takes a special kind of person to look reflectively within, love one's people, and still have the courage to speak out against their transgressions. And this is not armchair bravery. Nonie Darwish's is done at great personal risk, ostracism, and condemnation from many in her community.

Nonie encourages all who value freedom to stand alongside her in the struggle for women's rights, minority rights, and universal human rights in countries around the globe.

"Though the Middle East is a complex region with many ancient variables, customs, differences and animosities, we must apply a universal concept of human rights, women's rights and minority rights to all countries on the globe -- with no exceptions for any religion or ideology.Those Americans who stood up for these rights in the '60s -- and still do today -- are the natural allies of moderate Muslims in our struggle against Middle East religious and political tyranny. Stand with us now."

Nonie Darwish is the author of Now They Call Me Infidel. She founded Arabs for Israel, an organization of Arabs and Muslims who reject terrorism and promote constructive self-criticism and reform.

We are indeed fortunate to have her voice and to be able count her as a friend.

David Brumer



SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/317680_arabfems30.html

U.S. women can help Arab feminists
By NONIE DARWISH

GUEST COLUMNIST
As a teenager in Cairo in the mid-1960s, I watched with admiration those Americans who stood up for progress, minority rights, civil rights and women's rights, and who fought against extreme and archaic values. You became role models for me. I passionately followed your causes.
Now I need your help and support in a different cause: the struggle of Arab feminists, progressives and reformers for equal rights and individual freedom in Muslim countries, especially for women.
American women TV reporters have taken to wearing head covers in moderate Arab countries that do not enforce Islamic attire. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi wore a scarf in secular, Baathist Syria. By complying with the practices that radical Muslims force on women even in secular Muslim countries, those American women unknowingly undermine the cause of Arab feminists and can even be seen as lending tacit support to radicals. They need to understand better the culture in which they are operating.
Many Muslim women refuse to wear the Islamic head cover because they never did so in the majority of Muslim countries, where this practice was never enforced. But the radical Muslims are trying to intimidate Muslim women to cover themselves. Incidents of acid thrown in the faces of girls who do not wear head covers have been documented. All the women in my family in Egypt, myself included, have never worn the Islamic head cover.
I lived for 30 years in oppressive dictatorships and police states where most of the women around me had undergone the horrific procedure of clitoridectomy. Many more had to make peace with their inferior status.
Like most immigrants, I came to America, in 1978, to escape tyranny and enjoy freedom. I anguished as I looked the other way when I saw the suffering of my people on TV. I heard of death threats and intimidation against Arab feminists and reformers, including Ghada Jamsheer from Bahrain, Nawal El Saadawi from Egypt and even the late Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, who was stabbed in Cairo in 1994 by a radical Muslim. I was thankful to be living in America.
But I can no longer look the other way. A group of moderate Muslim women has decided, from the relative safety of America, to stand up for change in the Muslim world. Our goals are:
To achieve equal rights for Muslim women and minorities living in Muslim countries.
To assure freedom of religion, speech and the press.
To establish separation of mosque and state.
To end hate speech in the schools, mosques and government-sponsored media.
To realize peace with Israel.
As a reformist of Arab-Muslim origin, it hurts me to see some well-meaning Americans sympathize with and appease the oppressive radicals of my culture. Islamists do not represent the hope and future of the Middle East, but the oppressive past.
We modern-day Arab-American moderate women now turn to the type of Americans I admired as a teenager in Cairo for experience, help and support. We are this decade's freedom fighters.
It would be easier for us to ignore the old country; to blame conditions in our homeland on outside factors, historical injustices or last century's imperialism. But those who want real change don't look away or blame others; they take on the challenge and responsibility of implementing change.

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Still Waiting for Pyschological Breakthrough

As long as the "Occupation" refers to the entire land of Israel in the minds of so many in the Arab world, and not to land Israel acquired after the 1967 War, peace will remain a chimera. Former Chief of Staff, Moshe Ya'alon rightly points out that
the increase in global terrorism and jihad that the world has witnessed over the past decade has little to do with Israel's victory in the Six-Day War of 1967, but rather is a result of "the success of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the failure of Arab leaders to provide their people with new ideologies and solutions to their problems." One might add that the inconclusive results of last summer's Lebanon War have only emboldened Islamists, who once again believe that Israel can be defeated militarily.
We must enlist the aid and support of the rest of world in defeating this scourge that threatens not just Israel, but free and pluralistic societies all over the globe.
"The way to defeat global terrorism is not by solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but by defeating jihadist regimes and their organizations by all means, including political and economic, while not excluding military means as a last resort."
DB


Ya'alon: No peace until Arabs recognize Israel
Etgar Lefkovits,
JPost
May. 28, 2007
The refusal of the Palestinian leadership to recognize Israel's basic right to exist as an independent Jewish State is the main obstacle to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, former chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Moshe Ya'alon said Monday.
"Today, I do not see the possibility of being able to settle the conflict without defeating the regimes and terrorist organizations that still hold the idea of destroying Israel," Ya'alon said at a briefing sponsored by Jerusalem's Shalem Center marking 40 years since the Six Day War.
"You cannot defeat them by withdrawal and by disengagement," he said.
The former army chief, whose possible entry to the political arena is expected to have a major impact, opposed Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, a view which led to his falling-out with then-prime minister Ariel Sharon.
"Until 1995, I thought we might have a Palestinian partner to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on a two-state solution, but I do not think this way anymore, based on the experience of the last decade," he said.
Ya'alon said that while in Israeli and Western discourse the word "occupation" referred to land acquired by Israel in 1967, in Arabic discourse, occupation meant "the entire Land of Israel."
Ya'alon argued that the increase in global terrorism and jihad - which he has previously called "a clash between civilizations" and "World War III" - was not the result of Israel's victory in the Six Day War, but has come primarily to due to the success of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the failure of Arab leaders to provide their people with new ideologies and solutions to their problems.
"The way to defeat global terrorism is not by solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but by defeating jihadist regimes and their organizations by all means, including political and economic, while not excluding military means as a last resort," he said.
Ya'alon headed the IDF from 2002 to 2005 and is credited with quelling the surge in Palestinian terrorism that began in September 2000. He is currently a distinguished fellow at the Shalem Center's Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies in Jerusalem.
In a separate address, Michael B. Oren, author of the award-winning Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East and a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, also said the overwhelming majority of the people in the Middle East refused to recognize the State of Israel.
"When you have... a conflict, it only takes a spark to ignite regional confrontation," he said.
"Today, such a war could take six minutes with the arsenals our enemies have," he said.

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"Hot House" review in new edition of 'Congress Monthly'

Congress Monthly is not available yet online so I am re-posting with additions from the journal at the bottom, including info on when & where the film will be available for viewing. My review is in the new edition, Jan/Feb 2007 (seems they're an issue behind).
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"Hot House" by Shimon Dotan: A Review
Approaching the miasma that is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict can be a daunting and thankless job. Wading into that treacherous fog requires a steady focus and a sure hand. In Hot House, a new documentary and winner of The World Cinema Documentary Competition Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, Shimon Dotan demonstrates that he is more than up to the task. Already recognized as a seasoned film artist with a number of dramatic movies to his credit, Hot House showcases Dotan’s smooth transition into the realm of the documentary.Hot House offers us a rare glimpse behind the bars of several Israeli jails where Palestinian are detained. There are nearly 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails today. Most Israelis regard these “security prisoners” as murderers and criminals. In contrast, for most Palestinians they are seen as freedom or resistance fighters, heroes, and even martyrs. Their crimes range from assaults on fell ow Palestinian “collaborators,” to aiding and abetting terrorists, to carrying out or masterminding terror attacks.The film begins with fade-overs of one prisoner after another appearing in long steel ensconced corridors, announcing their names and their sentences. Many are serving multiple life sentences, in keeping with Israel’s custom of matching the number of victims murdered with the number of life sentences the perpetrator or accomplice of those attacks is serving (It should be noted that Israel does not have a death penalty—an exception was made for Adolph Eichmann in 1961).From the early moments of the film, methodical pans across the cells and down the sparse corridors, synchronized with carefully chosen close-ups and the clinking and clanking of steel suggest that we are in the hands of mature film artist. Dotan proceeds to paint a picture of what life inside these jails is like for the prisoners, and what makes them tick. He enquires into the mindset of t he inmates, gently probing their perspectives on the topical issues of the day as well their more encompassing world views. Dotan proves to be a master of unobtrusiveness, asking simple and open-ended questions. We learn that many of the prisoners are well-educated, often having studied in Israeli universities prior to their incarceration. Others are auto-didacts, reading widely while serving their time, sometimes tutored by fellow inmates. Palestinian prisoners pride themselves on their knowledge of Hebrew, the mother tongue of their keepers.The prisoners speak freely and openly, with some notable exceptions. Some see the very real possibility of someday living side by side with their Jewish neighbors, in separate, mutually agreed upon states. Others voice their inherent distrust of Jews, and see peace between the two sides as unrealistic; at best, highly unlikely.Interestingly, the Israeli authorities decided years ago to separate the rival Palestinian factions, with the adherents of the two major parties, Fatah and Hamas, housed strictly among their own. This has minimized frictions and reduced violence among inmates to remarkably low levels (part of this is also due to strictly enforced discipline and loyalty within ranks). The prisoners are allowed certain amenities, such as permission to cook according to their own cultural/culinary preferences in their own cells. Many shots inside those cells revealed very decent accommodations by prison standards. Cells were often adorned with colorful rugs, mats and wall-hangings, neatly arranged by the prisoners. Other segments of the film showed prayer halls with ample space for the prisoners to freely practice their faith. And aside from books, newspapers and journals, television was also readily available. Many of the interviewees attested to their keen interest in developments in the outside world. Viewers saw how the prisoners got regular infusions of news from Israeli television and print media, as well as Palestinian.Both Fatah and Hamas maintain internal leadership within the prisons. They, and the rank and file of their respective movements had the opportunity to voice an array of opinions. Through the first half of the film, there were moments when I longed for Dotan to be more demanding of his interviewees. I was concerned that they were getting a pass on too many dubious pronouncements, like the oft repeated sound byte that if not for the ongoing occupation, they would no longer have any reason for resistance, as they put it. I yearned for Dotan to challenge them further, press them, or at least to provide the uninitiated of the audience with a larger context, for example, that the occupation was on the verge of extinction back in the Oslo years and most decisively in 2000 at Camp David (and later at Taba), if not for Palestinian intransigence.But as the film progressed, I understood that Dotan was wise to employ restraint. While refraining from entering the fray himself, he gave free rein to his interviewees. It was left to the audience to judge the merit-or speciousness-of the prisoners’ claims. Dotan remained a largely invisible force in the film’s physics. At one point, in his interview with a major Hamas leader, he asks about the party’s willingness to accept the 1967 borders as viable boundaries. Dotan reminds the Hamas leader that he has he has been quoted as retracting that acceptance. The leader acknowledges that he has changed his mind, cackles for several chilling moments, and then after his ominous laughter subsides, he pauses and says something to the effect of, ‘in the future we will see what will be.’Then, towards the end of the film, there is an interview with a female Hamas prisoner that is also quite revealing. The woman, a Palestinian television news anchor at the time, drove a suicide bomber to Yaffa Street in Jerusalem in August of 2001, where he carried out a horrendous bombing in a crowded Sbarro Pizzaria at lunchtime. Sixteen people were killed in the attack, and many more wounded. The prisoner’s testimony was eerie for its cold-blooded detachment. A vacuous smile rarely left her face. When Dotan quietly asked her if she knew how many children had been killed, she volunteered that she thought the number was three. He corrected her, noting that the actual number was eight. She seemed perversely delighted to hear this, and smiled again, saying, “really?”Hot House presents glimmers of hope and as in the two above depictions, forebodings of despair. No doubt, both sides in this ongoing and tragic conflict will find things to both applaud and criticize. But Dotan was wise to let the prisoners (and to a much lesser degree, Israeli prison authorities) present their unexpurgated points of view. The viewer is free to draw his or her own conclusions, secure in the knowledge that he has not been manipulated by the biased leanings of the filmmaker. While this is not an easy concession for one like myself, who worries that too many of the uninitiated will not know enough of the history of this tragic conflict to make balanced and fair-minded judgments, in the end I’ll hesitantly make this concession to the greater good of neutrality.Of course, much of this may prove moot, given that internecine violence continues to eat at the body and soul of Palestinian society. Still, films like Hot House hold fast to the best hopes for the future, when the two sides can once again sit down and contemplate their intertwined fates.

David Brumer is a media analyst, writer, and consultant on Middle Eastern Affairs. In 2005, he received "Congressional recognition for excellence in public diplomacy in support of Israel" on behalf of his work with The Israel Project. He also works as a geriatric social worker and psychotherapist.

Hot House will be shown on HBO later this year. In addition to playing at numerous Jewish Film Festivals, it will also be shown at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in NYC in June, 2007. For further distribution information, contact arik@almafilms.comDirector: Shimon DotanScreenwriter : Shimon DotanExecutive Producer : Arik Bernstein Producers : Arik Bernstein, Yonatan Aroch, Dikla Barkai, Shimon Dotan Coproducer : Danny Rossner Cinematographers : Philip Bellaiche, Shai Goldman, Hanna Abu Sada Editor : Ayala ben Gad Music : Ron KleinDirector's Bio:Shimon Dotan was born in Romania, grew up in Israel, and is currently working in Canada, Israel, and the United States. Dotan, a fellow of the New York Institute of the Humanities at NYU, is an award-winning filmmaker with 10 feature films to his credit. His film The Smile of the Lamb received the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Fil m Festival and the award for best director at the Israeli Academy Awards. Dotan has taught filmmaking at NYU, Tel Aviv University, and Concordia University in Montreal.Film ContactArik BernsteinAlma Filmsarik@alma-films.com

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