Of Kurds And Arabs: Beyond Ignorance…The Allegedly Free Press
                                                                                                                 by Gerald A. Honigman



     Now, where's the Presidential candidate who will not act deaf, dumb, and blind on this timely issue...the candidate who will demand for Kurds in one, sole state what they support for Arabs in almost two dozen others?

 

     If it was just another State Department travesty, I could accept it.

    After all, I’m used to the Foggy Folks doing such things as fighting President Truman over his supporting Israel’s very rebirth; concocting latter day Arafatian Fatah “good cops” to force down Israel’s throat (knowing that on the issue of a permanent Jewish Israel, Abbas’s boys totally agree with the Hamas “bad cops”); demanding that Israel itself supply weapons to Fatah--which has as much, if not more, Jewish blood on its hands than Hamas--only to see such things as yeshiva students later massacred as a result; setting up equivalency standards whereby murderer and those in pursuit are placed on the same moral plane; and so forth.

     The Arabists who wield too much say at Foggy Bottom have played such games for well over a half century now.

     Demanding a second, not first, state for Arabs within the original 1920 borders of the Mandate of Palestine (Jordan, sitting on the lion’s share of the land, carved out in 1922), the State Department has no problem pressuring Israel to make one suicidal concession after another so that Arab state # 22 may arise.

     One of the latest issues involved Arab students (“Gaza Fulbright Scholars”) Secretary Rice wanted Israel to allow to come to America to study. Reports stated she was fuming over Israel’s reluctance to grant this request for these particular students.

     Guess what…? Turns out State has now also “seen the light” on this matter (connections to terror groups, etc.). Don’t expect any apologies, however.

     What’s worse, in all the decades I’ve closely followed the Middle East, I can’t recall any Foggy Folk “fuming” over anything Arabs did--be it blowing up Jewish teens in nightclubs, students on buses, mothers and babies in pizzerias, gassing and massacring Kurds, Assyrians, Copts, black Africans in the Sudan, or Berbers in the rest of North Africa, and so forth. Nonetheless, Baker, Rice, Dulles, etc. fume/fumed a lot over Jews, however.

     No doubt, America needed oil, and--like many other nations--did what it could to make nice to those who would one day be controlling the spigots. Many of the latter are Arabs. Not to mention that long before former Secretaries of State James Baker made $$$ millions and Condoleezza Rice had a Chevron oil tanker named for her, other Foggy Folks, under cover of the flag, also prospered via that oil spigot.

     So, that brings me to the real problem of this current article…the press.

     As with the Foggy Folks, I’m sure there are bright people in the print and other media. So, the problem cannot simply be due to ignorance…which makes it much worse.

     Furthermore, far too few of us have written of this problem--as glaring as it is--and far too many  academics have shamed themselves by indulging in such hypocrisy as well.

     The problem I’m speaking of is the double standards the press constantly uses when covering the Arabs’ quest for state # 22 versus the plight of some thirty-five million stateless Kurds.

     A free press is one of the cornerstones of a true democracy…yet ours routinely acts like it takes its cue from the State Department when it comes to the Middle East. State has the same animus and set of Arab-colored glasses when it comes to Kurds as it has with Hebrews. As just one of numerous examples, when--as National Security Advisor--Dr. Rice spoke at the U.S. Institute of Peace on August 19, 2004, here's some of what she said about the birth of Arab state # 22:

     The President believes that the Palestinian people (Arabs) deserve not merely their own state, but a just and democratic state that serves their interests and fulfills their decent aspiration.

     She later went on to say something to the effect that there would be no greater cause than the birth of Palestine.

     Now contrast this with how, on this same occasion, she simply brushed off a question regarding a Kurdish referendum on independence (which showed that at least 80% of Kurds wanted this) with the following disdain:

     …It's the role of leadership to convince people that they really ought to stay in the same body.

     Sucking the Arab oil teat quite well since leaving office, James Baker led the Baker-Hamilton Commission (Iraq Study Group) for President Bush not long ago and proposed similar shaft the Kurds ideas. The list, unfortunately, goes on and on.

     We’re supposed to expect better of our press, but it has mostly behaved as if the Foggy Folks are its mentors.

     Countless editorials and op-eds have been written on behalf of the birth of Arab state # 22--knowing full well that Arabs of either stripe have no intention of living peacefully with a Jewish neighbor--regardless of its size. A visit to either good or bad cops’ maps, textbooks, websites, and so forth soon reveals this.

     Yet I still have not  seen the press editorial calling for the birth of Kurdish State # 1...or even for meaningful Kurdish autonomy. The same papers who call Arabs who blow up buses “militants” have no problem calling the PKK in Turkey “terrorists.” Why the double standards? Where’s the courage of a free press to confront such injustice?

     Are there problems associated with addressing the aspirations of tens of millions of repeatedly used and abused native, stateless Kurds?

     Sure, but no more--indeed less--than with those associated with the creation of Arab state # 22.

     I have written of this many times before, such as in State Department Math...
http://www.krg.org/articles/detail.asp?rnr=77&lngnr=12&anr=6589&smap=. Keep in mind that Kurds were indeed  promised such a state in the north of Mesopotamia after World War I but were shafted by…guess what?

     British petroleum politics and Arab nationalism.

     A united, Arab-controlled Iraq was created instead in all of the former Mandate of Mesopotamia.

     Among other places, you can find my work on this (while a doctoral student) on Paris’s acclaimed Institut d’Etudes Politique (Science Po) recommended reference list:
 
    http://bibliotheque.sciences-po.fr/produits/bibliographies/question_kurde.htm

     Keep in mind that all the Kurds are asking for is meaningful autonomy within a federated Iraq--far less than what they truly deserve. But to have the former, they must secure their finances as well. And that brings me to the press again…

     Recently, just days apart, my local paper carried photos and articles supplied by the Associated Press (July 29th and August 3rd).

     One showed a “Palestinian” (Arab) boy with “The Dome Of The Rock Mosque” in the background.

     The overwhelmingly vast majority of the time, what’s missing from such reporting to mostly unaware readers is that that mosque was deliberately built--after the Arabs’ own imperial conquest of Israel in the 7th century C.E.--on the Temple Mount of the Jews. Using this case as an example, the most you’ll read is that the place is holy to three faiths and such.

     The second piece, by the AP’s Robert Reid, was entitled, “Kurdish Demands Over Kirkuk Spur Protest.”

     The Kirkuk and Mosul region is where the second half of Iraq’s major oil deposits are located. After the Brits got a favorable decision on the Mosul Question from the League of Nations in 1925, the abortion of promises of independence to the Kurds became complete.

     Now, if Israel captured Arab oil fields, Judaized the area, and so forth, the whole world would have a hissy fit. Actually, it did develop the Abu Rodeis oil fields in the Sinai, captured as a result of the ‘67 War started when Egypt blockaded Israel at the Straits of Tiran. Subsequently, in return for a very cold peace (the arms and explosives coming into Gaza to kill Jews are entering largely via Egypt), Israel gave up its chance at energy independence by returning the whole shebang to Egypt.

     Now, apply this to Iraq.

     Why is it okay for Arabs and Iranians to control 'their' oil, but not so for Kurds?

     And please don't respond--as that second article did--that Kirkuk is composed of mixed nationalities (largely due to Saddam's forced Arabization of the area).

     Kirkuk is as Kurdish as Londonistan--er, I mean London-- is British…despite all of those other nationalities now living there. Iran's major oil fields are in its western province of Khuzestan…but that area has been known as Arabistan for centuries…Guess why?

     There is no doubt that Kurds lived in the area of the Mosul and Kirkuk oil fields for millennia before a Turk or Arab even knew it existed. As Hurrians, Kassites, Medes, Guti, and so forth, they were neighbors of the Jews. As for the presence of some Turkmen as well, recall that, besides Turkey, there are a half dozen other Asiatic Turkic states as well. It’s the Kurds who are still lacking a national liberation…

     We Americans take pride in our sense of fair play.

     We can’t do much about the State Department’s shameful shenanigans--except elect strong  Presidents (as with Truman )--while making sure that both the latter and Congress also strongly receive our messages.

     But we can demand that our press lives up to the source of pride it should be for any free nation--let alone America--which calls itself a true democracy. It should not simply become anyone’s virtual mouthpiece.

     Sadly, when it comes to the Middle East, reading the news today is like reading a State Department press release…like those we’ve seen above.

     That’s not what a free press is supposed to be about.

                       Forget About Ali Baba and Sinbad...

                                               Obama’s Example For Israel…Change

                                                                                                 by Gerald A. Honigman



     Israel has a very important lesson to learn from Barack Obama…and it better do so quickly.

     I checked out Obama’s official website, Obama For Change, and here’s what’s highlighted:

     With the right leadership, and a change of attitude and focus, Barack Obama brings a new viewpoint to discover solutions to the problems at hand.

     It's about time...It's about change.

     Exactly.

     Now, I’m a registered Independent voting for John McCain, but certainly my own country needs a good dose of proper change…in how we get energy, as just one example. McCain knows this as well.

     Certainly, if this idea is important for America, it is even more so for Israel.

     Jews and/or Israel have been undergoing change imposed from the outside for centuries.

     In the 19th century, the Reform movement emerged among Jews who--among other things--were determined that the days of the imposed ghetto, degradation, and such (from which Napoleon had freed them) should never return.

     Assimilation was the name of the game--to the point of recommendations to change the Sabbath to Sunday. The idea was to rid themselves of their identities as Jews. Henceforth, they would just be Frenchmen, Russians, Poles, Germans, etc. of the (much diluted) Jewish faith…not German or French Jews.

     Sounded reasonable--if not a bit pathetically nauseating--no?

     Too bad the Germans, Poles, French, and so forth didn’t see things this way.

     Modern political Zionism, leading to the resurrection of the state of the Jews, arose because--in perhaps the most enlightened of nations in the 19th century--France--the most vile anti-Semitism proved to be alive and well, targeting even the most assimilated of Jews--whom Alfred Dreyfus, of the infamous Dreyfus Affair, symbolized. And it flourished amongst the intelligentsia as well as the rabble.

     Another assimilated Jew, Theodore Herzl, was a reporter from Austria covering Captain Dreyfus’s railroaded trial. Shocked to the core at seeing mobs shouting such things as “death to the Jews,”  he later wrote, Der Judenstaat--The Jewish State.

     So much for that change…

     It was as if G_d was saying, “ Israel will be reborn--whether you Jews like it or not!”

     In the Jews’ quest for normalcy, they bent over backwards in the pursuit of modern political Zionism to create a state like all others…somewhat reminiscent of the Reform movement’s motivations, but on a national scale.

     Now, don’t get me wrong, not all saw things this way. Religious Zionists saw G_d’s hand in all of this…the Hebraic prophecies unfolding as planned. I agree. And they too had many supporters.

     But most of  the Zionist leaders who came to rule both pre-state and post-‘48 Israel also deluded themselves into believing that the rest of the world would forget that Israel was the Jew of the Nations.

    Well, since Auschwitz, it’s not proper--in at least some circles--to be “anti-Semitic.”

     No problem…

     Utilize absurd double and  moral equivalence standards, and replace anti-Zionism for anti-Semitism, and the age-old animus now remains kosher.

     All other peoples can demand national liberation except the one people who needed it the most…the condemned to wandering “G_d-killers” of the Christian West and the “slayers of Prophets and Jew Dogs” of the Arab/Muslim East.

     Being the oldest, still existing victims of imperial conquest, the Jews were expected to simply remain that way.

     Seeking to gain acceptance in an “Arab” world which sees them as sons of apes and pigs, too many Jews then continued to pursue this change even further in pursuit of a “post-Zionist” Israel.

     Again, recall one of the key motivations of the Reform movement…What can we do to change ourselves so we’ll gain acceptance from the Gentiles?

     Unfortunately, ignorance of one’s enemies has characterized too many of those who have called the political shots in Israel. The very idea that dhimmi Jews (or Kurds or Berbers or Copts or black Africans, etc.) should demand political rights in what Arabs consider to be purely Arab patrimony and the Dar ul-Islam is laughable to anyone truly familiar with this subject.

     Add to post-Zionism a continued movement away from the idea of Israel as a Jewish State, and you have the mess Israel now finds itself in.

     So, so much for those changes as well.

     Therefore, guess what?

     It’s time for Israel to try another type of change…a return to its proud roots.

     It’s time for Israel to stop trying to alter itself to be accepted by others.

     The values of Jews became the moral guidelines for much, if not most, of the modern world; and, despite its imperfections, Israel is still that light unto the nations the Bible asked it to be.

     The national liberation of the Jewish people in the land in which they have thousands of years of continuous history--Zionism--ranks as noble as any of such movements can be. If Arabs can have almost two dozen states--conquered and forcibly Arabized from mostly non-Arab peoples--then why not one resurrected state for Jews?

     No, Israel has nothing to cover up for…certainly nothing to revise its very being. If compared with the same set of lenses to the “Arab” world (rarely done), Israel should indeed be canonized. Indeed, as I write this article, black Muslim African refugees fleeing Arabs from Darfur are fleeing to Israel.

     What’s needed now is change--but done the right way…

     There are Jews in Israel who still have the sense of justice, passion, and compassion of Golda, Ben-Gurion, Jabotinsky, and Begin. Where are they?

     Where are the leaders who will insist that Israel no longer trade live, captured, rabid butchers for the bones of dead Jews--regardless of how nice they make it sound? Where are the leaders who will institute a quick death penalty for such “heroes?” Better yet, why are they taken alive?

     Where are Israeli leaders who will insist on “peace for peace” instead of “land for peace?” It’s obvious that the latter has not worked…it’s only brought closer to fruition the Arabs post-’67 “destruction in stages” plans for “their” kilab yahud--Jew dogs. Think Gaza…the same will happen after a total Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, aka, the “West Bank.” Not to mention the Golan. Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ben-Gurion Airport, the Knesset, and so forth will receive what Sderot gets daily now.

     Where is the change which will bring new Israeli leaders who will insist that Israel get a reasonable territorial compromise granting it real borders to replace former, UN-imposed,  suicidal Auschwitz/armistice lines a la UNSC Resolution 242? America’s United Nations’ representative in ‘49, Ralph Bunche, openly stated that those lines were never meant to be Israel’s permanent borders.

     The Arabs will never play ball, you say…

     Of course they won’t. So what?

     They don’t accept a 9-mile wide Israel either. Think about what other nations have done thousands of miles away from home in the name of their own national security and interests. 

     Israel must do what it must do to thrive--not just survive.

     Demanding reasonable territorial compromise merely undoes the injustice created by the Arab invasion of a nascent Israel in 1948 and the mostly armistice lines--not borders--which emerged as a result. Those lines simply marked the points at which a half dozen invading Arab armies were turned back. As would become all-too-common later on, the UN only got involved after the Jews turned the tide and had the Arabs on the run…not before, to stop the Arabs’ initial aggression.

     Where are the new Israeli leaders who will tell the State Department’s next James Baker or Condi Rice, when he or she insists on such things as Israel supplying its enemies with weapons (which were then used to massacre Jews in yeshivas, etc.), to go fly a kite?

     Where’s the change which will bring to the fore proud Zionist Jews who will draw the lines beyond  which no further retreat will be allowed--regardless of who is twisting the arms, turning the screws, and increasing the heat from across the sea?

     If it means losing American aid, then so be it. My prediction is that such games will backfire big time on any White House which lowers itself this way.

     Millions of fair-minded people will not expect the sole, resurrected Jewish State to sacrifice itself on the petroleum greased altar of international hypocrisy so that Arabs can get their 22nd state--and second, not first, in the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine. Jordan sits on almost 80% of that territory.

     So, as a solid McCain supporter (despite some concerns ), I’m now hoping that Israelis will do some real soul searching and take a cue from the Obama camp.

     Replacing Olmert with someone of similar ilk will accomplish nothing but a continuation of the sort of change we’ve explored earlier…the change that gave Israel its first military defeat, handed over a live Samir Kuntar, and so forth. The latter’s head needed to have been parachuted onto Hizbullah’s headquarters.

     That Condi loves Tsipi Livni should send another disturbing signal as well.

     Israel must get itself new leaders, at all levels, who will place the overall Zionist forest ahead of individual, parochial trees which hold fragile coalitions together. Olmert should have been dumped long ago.

     The change that Israelis must insist upon may very well determine if the Jews’ long-awaited, reborn state will continue to even exist.

     Hamas and Fatah’s Abbas refuse to recognize a Jewish Israel. Abbas’s “moderates” just sung praises to a returning butcher--Kuntar--who murdered a father while his 4-year old daughter watched and then beat her skull in with his rifle butt against a rock until she too was dead.

     In short, the type of change that Israel must have will bring forth leaders who will know how to better address such things. And for those who care, it’s time to do all that’s legally and humanly possible to see to it that this happens sooner rather than later.

 
                                666--The Mark Of The Beast...One Jew's Interpretation

Gerald A. Honigman
How Did We Let It Come To This?
By Gerald A. Honigman
www.MichNews.com
Jun 17, 2008

     I received a phone call this morning from a friend. Ron wanted me to listen to Chabad’s Jewish radio program in town, where the plight of Sderot’s children would be discussed…the town in the Negev that’s under constant bombardment by Arabs years after Israel’s total withdrawal from adjacent Gaza. The plan evidently involves moving the kids elsewhere, out of harm’s way.

     Like many other Diaspora Jews, I’m also deeply concerned about the resurrected Jewish State. But Israel itself has been making serious blunders over the last few decades--and, especially, the past several years--which greatly exacerbates its situation.

     Something about this rubs the wrong way… big time.

     I know, it’s easy for me to be brave when it’s not my own town in Florida being targeted. But it goes far beyond this…

     The Arabs have always planned to make life so unbearable for Jews in Israel that they’d want to abandon the Zionist dream.

     When a pressured Prime Minister/General Ariel Sharon came up with his controversial unilateral withdrawal plan for Israel from Gaza a few years back, many of us had mixed feelings. One of our main fears was that it would just bring Arab terror that much closer to Israel proper, while caving into yet another step in the Arabs’ post-’67 War destruction-in-phases plans for Zion. We instinctively knew that Arabs would not take advantage of this to begin a state-building process for their 22nd state and second, not first, within the original 1920 borders of the Mandate of Palestine (Jordan created from almost 80%of this back in 1922).

     Yet, we hoped we would be proven wrong.

     After all, David Ben-Gurion himself looked to Israel’s own NegevDesert as a major area for a growing Jewish population, not Gaza--despite the latter being used as an invasion route to attack Jews from since the days of the Pharaohs.

     Sad to say, the Arab leopard does not change its spots, and the whole area--despite scores of millions of non-Arab Kurds, Berbers, Copts, Jews, black Africans, and so forth--is still regarded as “purely Arab patrimony.”
 
     Episodes such as the Gaza withdrawal only confirm the success of the overall Arab game plan for the region. The Arabs’ ANFAL campaign against Kurds in Iraq and genocide against black Africans in the Sudan are just a few of many other examples.

     So, back to Sderot...

     I’m all for building strong defenses and shelters to try to keep the town’s citizens as safe as possible from Arab mortars, rockets, and such. But evacuating Jews in Israel proper because of Arab terror is a line which I believe will lead us down a very dangerous slippery slope. Today Sderot, tomorrow Ashkelon, and so forth as Arab missiles gain in range and power.

     Jews should not be the ones having to do the evacuating…

     Imagine, as Presidential hopeful John McCain has said himself, that it was an American border town in Arizona, Texas, or elsewhere being subjected to this terror.

     Would the world expect an America, which dwarfs Israel, to evacuate its own land, or would it expect the aggressors to halt their destructive, murderous behavior? Certainly Mexico has its grievances with America…McCain and President Bush’s home states were once part of that country.

     Now, what do you think we--or any other nation--would do (have done) under such circumstances?

     Okay? So now here’s the plan…

     Since Prime Minister Olmert’s crew lacks the backbone (and a few other analogous body parts) to spell it out and carry it through (letting the Arabs’ good buddies in the American State Department dictate most of Israeli policy instead), let me propose that a major, well-advertised , televised news conference be held to which many of the world’s leading media and diplomats will be invited. It will be broadcast live, all over the world carried by radio too, in many different languages, will explain much of what I have already covered above, and will be delivered by a handsome orator with the talent of the late Abba Eban. Yep, the John F. Kennedy factor won’t be ignored either.

     After this general overview of the situation Israel faces, the following will next be stated…

     My friends...Please understand that Israel would love nothing more than to be able to live in a true, mutually respectful, peace with our Arab neighbors. Unfortunately, the problem has never been how big Israel is, but that Israel is. For this problem, there is no compromise solution, and poll after poll conducted amongst Arabs has shown this to still be the case. Continuous unilateral Israeli concessions only convince Arabs of Israel’s weakness and the success of their own long term strategy for Israel’s demise.

     In light of this, and in consideration of the current main Arab target of terror, please note the following…

     Sderot will not undergo any evacuations.

     If evacuations are called for, then they will not be those of Jews.

     We will soon be delivering to our Arab neighbors one last call for them to begin their own # 22 state-building process,  rather than continuing to persist in their quest to destroy our one, tiny, sole state. Gaza was a test of what the future might hold…and the Arabs have flunked it--pure and simple.

      If, as we fear, they ignore our plea and continue to wage terror, destruction , bodily harm, and murder, then we will be forced to respond to these open acts of war the way others have and would respond.

     Indeed, we have been far more patient than any other nation regarding those who openly seek our destruction. And, in this, the Hamas-led Arabs only differ in timing with those led by Abbas’s Fatah…by the latter’s own words. The quarrel between the two factions is largely about who will control the billions of dollars that will be pouring in from abroad--not over acceptance of a permanent Jewish neighbor.

     Those ruling Gaza were openly elected by that Arab population--the same population which shields them as they launch their terror. Furthermore, the same situation awaits us in Judea and Samaria, aka the “West Bank,” unless a reasonable territorial compromise is arrived there as well. Secretary of State Rice might wish us to believe otherwise, but it is our children in the line of fire--not hers.

     Let it be known that the next act of Arab terror launched against us will be met by the following sequence of events. We will not pursue tit-for-tat or targeted responses any longer, for those have proven to be virtually useless.

     When the next mortar or rocket lands, we will proceed as follows:

     We will drop by air--as we’ve done elsewhere before--numerous warnings, in Arabic,  to the Gaza population. Unlike Arab terror, we will let Arabs know where not to be in advance.

      They will be told that two days following the next terror attack will be answered by a massive artillery bombardment of the entire width of the area in Gaza from which mortars or rockets may be launched from. This is similar to what America calls its Powell Doctrine. The two-day grace period will provide time for Arab evacuation of the area. Note also that we put ourselves at risk by doing this, with the probability of being subjected to massive foreign pressure, and so forth.

     Because of the latter, it has also been discussed that we carry out our plan according to the Arabs’ own  rules, and launch our response unannounced--without telegraphing our plans or punch. Unlike our neighbors, however, we cannot get ourselves to behave as such.

     The day afterward the artillery assault  will bring a massive aerial bombardment.

     As the Perfidyand other clauses of the Geneva Conventions openly state, warring parties cannot use their civilian populations as human shields, and when they do so, this will not remove such locations as legitimate targets…Any civilian casualties will thus be on the Arabs’ own shoulders.

     Article #51/7:
           The presence of the civilian population shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attack...

     Article #58b:
            The parties to the conflict shall...avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas.

     There will be no massive infantry invasion, subjecting Jewish soldiers to the deadly surprises Arabs think they have in store for them.

     After the bombardment, a fifteen-mile buffer zone will be created which will be a mine field, posted for all to see and keep out of.

     If terror continues after our initial responses, we will repeat the above process, extending the mine field, and so forth.

     Next…

     We advise our Arab foes to forget about crying to their hypocritical friends in the United Nations, the American State Department, and elsewhere. We have already displayed a patience far beyond what any of those folks would display themselves given the same circumstances which we have daily faced.
     
     Finally, we are holding this news conference today because we truly hope that we will not have to put these plans into motion.

     But we refuse to put up with the murder and destruction any more.

     Now, I will open the floor to questions from this distinguished audience…

 

Copyright by Gerald A. Honigman (honigman6@msn.com)