"Settlements are a key to...the Settlement"

by Alex Maistrovoy

September 22, 2007 - According to last reports, Olmert has agreed to hand over Biblical Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians and dismantle most of settlements there.

There is not something new. On the contrary, it's routine attempt to get rid from "occupied territories". Last decades this desire has turned to a fixed idea of the Israeli establishment. It tries to realize it by any means: from the formal agreement to unilateral departure.

They hope to appease Arabs. However in the reality dismantling of settlements not only will not approach the peace, but will make the peace …impossible. Settlements are not an obstacle to the peace. On the contrary they are …the indicator of whether peace is possible in the Middle East.

The core of the problem in the Middle East isn't settlement activity, boundaries, refugees, Jerusalem, or terror but that most Arabs -- not only in Saudi Arabia and HAMAS, but Egypt and FATH too - refuse to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish State. They refuse to recognize the legality of the Jewish presence here, if it is not more than a group of inoffensive ultra-orthodox Jews. They refuse to see in Israel the fulfillment of the prophecies, inscribed in sacred books of all monotheistic religions, including Koran, and don't want to see any link between the Jewish State and the Kingdoms of David and Solomon. And what is more, they deprive Jews of their history and connection with Aretz Israel altogether, declaring that Jerusalem Temples are "fiction", and calling Jews descendants of Kyzars, African Berbers, etc. Israel is thus transformed into a "colonial project" and a "malignant tumor in Arabic world."

Islam is unwilling make long lasting peace with such an "artificial" formation. Only a temporary settlement -- a "hudna" -- is to be considered.

Real peace will be established only when Arabs acknowledge: Jews lived in this land three thousand years ago, prayed, waged wars with their enemies and listened to their prophets; there are Jewish sacred places and sepulchers in these lands.. They should acknowledge that roots of Jewish people are in Judea, Jerusalem and Samaria. They should acknowledge that Jews have full rights to live here altogether with Arabs, like equal and free people.

Even if political control in a particular area is turned over to Arabs, Jews should be able to live here like Arab-Muslims and Arab-Christians live in Jerusalem or Nazareth -- under Jewish rule, but near their sacred places, on the land, which they believe to be their own holy land. The moment the Palestinian rulers and spiritual leaders are ready to recognize political and religious legality of Jewish settlements in their state will mean that conflict is exhausted on a basic level. If Arabs recognize the right of Jews to live in Judea and Samaria, they'll recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state and it will open way to real peace. So their attitude to settlements is a litmus test of real attitude of Arabs to Jews and to the peace.

And vice versa, if Palestinians do not recognize the right of Jews to settle in Beit-El, Hebron, Gush-Ezion, Elkana or Alon-Moreh it will mean that they refuse to recognize any right for Jews in Promised Land generally. And they agree to compromises in order to weaken their enemy and gain time -- as Prophet Mohammed did to Kureish tribe, as Palestinians did once, signing Oslo Treaty.

And all the more so: if Israel begins to destroy the settlements on a massive scale in Judea and Samaria, Palestinians will consider it not only their victory, but their supreme license to continue in their campaign to destroy the Jewish State.

It will mean that the "Zionists" are not only stepping back but that they themselves don't believe in their destination, their right to live in this land and have their own state. And then, for Arabs at least but for many others as well, the fall of Israel will be only a question of time.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Alex Maistrovoy is a political columnist for "Novosty Nedely", a Russian newspaper published out of Jerusalem.

Persecution Watch: Freed South Korean Christian Missionaries Talk About Their Days in Captivity under the Taliban

September 13, 2007 - After nearly a month in captivity in Afghanistan at the hands of the Taliban, the surviving Christian missionaries from South Korea were freed on August 29. Several of the survivors are beginning to tell accounts of their days in captivity under what was once known as radical Islam's most brutal regime.

In the following article, several of the hostages spoke of being tortured and repeatedly-beaten by the Taliban for refusing to recite the "Islamic Prayer of Conversion". Assuming they resisted, these champions of the faith were certainly lucky to escape with their lives. If past were prologue, they likely would not have been so fortunate.

Read the article in its entirety.

Arab Double Standard, Part II: Arabs Caught Destroying Temple Artifacts

September 12, 2007 - Those pesky Arabs are at it, again. It seems there is no end to the extent to which Arab Muslims in East Jerusalem will go to completely obliterate any historical record, artifact and/or antiquity that brings credit upon the factual, historically-cohesive truth of a Jewish presence in Jerusalem--a presence predating Islam, and the Arab people, by nearly 1,500 years.

Although it is only now gaining steam in the media, their most recent attempt at this began weeks ago, when, as an international community turned a predictably-blind eye, the Muslim religious "authority"--the Waqf--an entity whose sole purpose is to purge the Temple Mount of anything non-Muslim, bulldozed trenches from the north side of the Temple Mount all the way to "that little, golden bullet in the sky"--the Dome of the Rock. In so doing, these Arabs--these "Palestinians", as it were--once again set themselves apart as pathological hypocrites. If you will recall, it was these very same people who willfully and expediently transformed themselves into a violent mob in response to Israel's repair efforts at the Temple Mount's Mugrabi Gate, earlier this year. It should also be said that the bridge on which Israel made said repairs was in danger of collapsing, and so existed as an extreme, safety concern. This, however, did not stop the infusion of hundreds of angry, Arab Muslims onto the Temple Mount, claiming Israel was seeking to destroy their "holy" site at the Al Aksa. Their assertions were as nonsensical as they were baseless. Ever quick to label Israel as the "aggressor", the United Nations wasted absolutely no time in their formal admonishment of Israel for "endangering the spirit of mutual respect" and called upon the Jewish state to cease and desist their repair efforts "...until such time as the will to dialogue prevails once again."

Earlier this week, WorldNetDaily uncovered a photograph of a massive trench dug by the Waqf on the Temple Mount. The photo reveals, rather clearly, that Jewish artifacts--among which is believed to be a section of the Second Temple's outer wall--recently uncovered by the Waqf have been destroyed by their tractors operating under the guise of electrical repair facilitators. This has enraged Israeli archeologists who know the unspeakable, historical value of such antiquities.

Even more insidious, the Israeli government is blocking the Israeli archaelogists from examining and confirming the damage.

Read the article in its entirety.