A vote for Mitzna is a vote for Sharon by Tanya Reinhart 8:53pm Sun Dec 22 '02 Just over a month ago, Mitzna appeared to offer a new hope to Israeli politics.  He was even perceived by some as the potential Israeli de Gaulle.  The hope that many attached to Mitzna was that a third alternative is possible as well, following the model of Lebanon - an immediate withdrawal from the territories that most Israelis are willing to evacuate (all of Gaza and about 90% of the West Bank), and the opening of serious negotiations over the rest.  But by now, it is obvious that a vote for Mitzna is a vote for Sharon.  print article Yediot aharonot December 22, 2002. The original article is attached (Hebrew-English). A vote for Mitzna is a vote for Sharon Tanya Reinhart This is an extended version of a column in the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot, December 22, 2002. Just over a month ago, Mitzna appeared to offer a new hope to Israeli politics.  He was even perceived by some as the potential Israeli de Gaulle.  Throughout all the years of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, the Israeli political system has managed to generate only two alternatives: eternal negotiations while preserving the occupation and expanding settlements - the Oslo model of the Labor party, or slow elimination of the Palestinian people - Sharon’s model.  The hope that many (including myself ) attached to Mitzna was that a third alternative is possible as well, following the model of Lebanon - an immediate withdrawal from the territories that most Israelis are willing to evacuate (all of Gaza and about 90% of the West Bank), and the opening of serious negotiations over the rest.   But by now, it is obvious that a vote for Mitzna is a vote for Sharon.  Sharon and Ben-Eliezer are already planning the next unity government. The Labor primaries on December 10th abided by Ben-Eliezer's call that the party "must elect a list that speaks to the center and a little bit to the right" (Ha'aretz  staff, Ha'aretz  December 10, 2002).  As summed up  in Ha'aretz, "the Labor list looks like a victory for Ben Eliezer over Mitzna. Fuad’s supporters, from Sneh to Avital, from Shiri to Hertzog and from Ronen Tzur to Orna Angel pushed out Mitzna’s adjutants, Beilin, Reshef, Yossi Katz and Yael Dayan. Perhaps only one part of the equation is correct. Mitzna didn't exactly go out of his way to assist those who rallied round his flag, while Ben Eliezer, who is still licking his wounds from the battle for the leadership for the Labor Party, toiled night and day to help a long list of candidates, but primarily to castigate Beilin..." The outcome is "a list even Sharon could lead" (Yossi Verter, Ha'aretz , December 11, 2002) The exclusion of Yossi Beilin from the Labor’s list is often interpreted in the Israeli media as just a matter of a personal conflict between him and Ben Eliezer. Here is just one example for the theme that repeated itself in all papers: "Beilin is another story. One of Labor’s favorite sons, who in 1999 made it to second place in the list, was yesterday purged from the party. He has no one to blame but himself" (ibid). But what was this conflict about?  Beilin demanded that Labor step out of the unity government, and even managed to gather substantial momentum in the party for this move, which finally forced Ben-Eliezer to resign from the government.  Ben Eliezer and the Labor officials view Beilin as the one responsible for the unneeded nuisance of elections. As a first step towards returning to the unity government, they found it necessary to eliminate this source of trouble.  In accomplishing this, they were not even worried about the potential loss of votes that will follow Beilin, who moved to the competing party Meretz. Their own seats in the next government are guaranteed, regardless of how many votes Labor will get. Indeed, Ben Eliezer circles are talking openly about returning to Sharon’s government. But this is not the only implication of the exclusion of Beilin and his circle from the Party list. Beilin is also the symbol of the Oslo road, which has been associated until now with the Labor party.  As the Israeli media summarized the matter, in the Labor primaries, the party dissociated itself officially from the Oslo conception.  I too have objected to the Oslo road, which I view as the establishment of an apartheid regime.  But there is still a huge difference between the Bantustans which Rabin and Beilin founded in the occupied territories and the prison camps constructed by Sharon, aided by Barak and Ben Eliezer, or between the Oslo apartheid, and "transfer".  In dissociating itself from Oslo, Labor places itself in the Sharon camp. There are still those tempted to believe that despite his party, Mitzna could manage somehow to pull Israel out of the territories. But the fact of the matter is that Mitzna has been at least a passive partner to the expulsion of Beilin and the shift to the right in the Labor party. "In a transparent effort to situate himself at the center of the political map, and not at its extreme left, Mitzna said this week [of late November] that he was not Yossi Beilin. For this reason, apparently, he did not reject the possibility of the establishment of a national unity government after the elections... Mitzna also aspired to depict himself as a tough fighter against terrorism and stressed his conclusion that the Palestinians, and not anyone in Israel, are to blame for the hostilities that have been going on since September, 2000" (Uzi Benziman, Ha'aretz , Nov 29, 2002). While Mitzna just abstained from any support for Beilin in the Labor primaries, his close aids were more explicit: "Sources in the party identified with Mitzna said that they didn't want Beilin, who is one of those responsible for the Oslo Accords, to win a high place on the party’s Knesset list, since this could be used by the Likud in its propaganda. "Beilin is too independent," said the sources. "It is difficult to navigate him, to tie his hands up. His initiatives, such as the negotiations with [Palestinian Information Minister Yasser] Abed Rabbo, could cause us great damage," they added. "There is no doubt that Beilin is a very intelligent person, one who is talented and skillful. On the other hand, the world can’t be run according to him" (Yossi Verter, Ha’aretz, December 04, 2002.) In front of our eyes, the Israeli de Gaulle is turning into a new Ehud Barak. He is surrounded by former aids of Barak who run his campaign, and this campaign starts looking like an exact copy of Barak's 1999 campaign. As Uzi Benziman reported in Ha'aretz  already at the end of November, "Mitzna said that his generous offers to the Palestinians, which adopt the Clinton plan from Camp David, depend on reaching an agreement that will put an end to the conflict. Only on this condition will he agree to an almost total withdrawal from all the territories, the division of Jerusalem, the dismantling of all the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. (Ha'aretz , Nov 29, 2002).  This is precisely the text of Barak with his "generous offers".  What blew up the Camp David negotiations was Barak's insistence (opposed by Beilin at the time) that the Palestinian side declares ‘end of conflict’, under the conditions dictated by Israel, and without solving the problems of the big settlement blocks, Jerusalem, and the right of return. What was new and inspiring in Mitzna's original platform was precisely the idea that Israel can withdraw from most of the territories prior to any "end of conflict" declaration, which can only be reached in subsequent negotiations over these remaining difficult problems. But by now, all that Mitzna promises is to take us back to Barak's point of departure. If, as to be expected, the Palestinians would again reject this demand, Mitzna "is thinking in terms of a tough unilateral separation in which Israel will be the one to decide the line of withdrawal, in accordance with demographic and topographic considerations, and will see itself as free to send the IDF into the territories of the Palestinian Authority (or state) at any time to fight terror" (ibid). Under this scenario, Mitzna adds nothing regarding the evacuation of settlements. Thus, Mitzna appears to have returned to Barak's 'separation' plan, in which a fence will be built around the Palestinian prisons, isolating them from Israel and from each other (as happened already in the Gaza strip). This is the plan that Sharon has been actually executing energetically the last few months, without Mitzna's help.  To make sure Mitzna will not err in reciting Barak's text, the Labor primaries added to its top list of candidates Barak's closest aid - Danny Yatom - who composed for Barak the "White book" against the Palestinians already in October 2000. The roll which Ben Eliezer and Sharon designate for Mitzna is to convince the Israeli majority that wants to get out of the settlements, that it is impossible to do this now, because the Palestinians are not willing to accept an 'end of conflict'. Barak had a sweeping success in conveying this message following the Camp David summit, but after two difficult years, his achievements are beginning to deteriorate, and the majority opposing settlements has even grown from the traditional 60% to 72%(1).  Now it would take a fresh dove, like Mitzna, to convince the majority again that there is ‘nobody to talk to’ on the Palestinian side. The right wing "National Unity" party has coined the slogan that will be the mantra of the coming elections:  "You can determine who will be in Sharon’s next government - Mitzna or Liberman [- their own candidate]".  But there is also a third choice:  a strong opposition on the left. ======== (1) The polls are consistent on this, though one has to apply some scrutiny in digging up the results from the language that surrounds them. E.g. reporting on the latest poll of the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research at Tel Aviv University, Prof. Ephraim Ya'ar and Dr. Tamar Hermann write that "regarding evacuating settlements in Judea and Samaria only 20 percent are prepared to evacuate all the settlements including the large blocs in a situation of advanced negotiations, and a similar number oppose the evacuation of any settlements. Fifty-two percent are prepared to evacuate remote and isolated settlements, but not the large blocs" (Ha'aretz , December 10, 2002). If we look just at the numbers, what this text means is that there are 20% of the Jewish Israelis who are willing to dismantle ALL settlements. (This is the hard core of the Israeli left.) In addition, 52% are willing to dismantle all settlements except the large blocks, which would enable evacuating 90% of the West Bank.  These figures combined, there is a majority of 72% for dismantling the settlements on 90% of the West Bank.  Miraculously, 71% of the participants in that poll believe that Sharon is going to evacuate these settlements eventually. This reflects Sharon’s elections propaganda. Reading the polls, he has released several declarations hinting a vague willingness to do so in the future.  In any case, if Mitzna and Labor wanted to evacuate settlements, it is not the Israeli majority that stops them. http://www.tau.ac.il/~reinhart www.tau.ac.il/~reinhart add your comments Source file

trust sharon by jacob 7:55pm Thu Dec 26 '02 print comment ...why not trust sharon to bring peace to iseael and to the palestinians.look nothing else is working. why not trying bringing the pals. to their knees. really make them so miserable that they will go for peace instead of this war ,which brings only misery.a constant pressure killing their terrorist leaders one by one, cut off outside help, wreck as much havoc on their heads as possible, useing checkpoints, more dogs. 500 more dogs will keep them from attacking settlers.clamp down on suicide bomb senders, and paymasters.let them live as rats in sewers. they will give in and look for a deal. then we make as fair a deal as possible, help them rebuild, then treat them with good will. then maybe just maybe. we then can get along, add your comments

What year is it? by Gentile 11:43pm Thu Dec 26 '02 print comment Jacob is thinking this is some fairy tale. Or even worse, Berlin 1939. add your comments

Remember . . . by David 5:16am Mon Dec 30 '02 print comment As if the Palestinians aren't suffering enough already? The more the Palestinians are made to suffer, the more they will resist, and with more violence. Violence on both sides turns the moderates on the other side into extremists. I'm a Jew. I was struck by this passage from the weekly Parsha: "The more they [the Jews] were oppressed, the more they increased and spread out, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites."." [Exodus 1:12] Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, Jacob. -David add your comments

any ideas? by tali 2:50am Wed Jan 1 '03 print comment berlin 1939 led to the death of 6 million jews. barely breathing, the survivors came to israel. only to be met with a full scale war from all of their arab neighbor countries. and the war keeps going, becuase certain militant groups have a goal that we have all heard so many times: kill all the jews. remove israel from the map. its just funny how all you poeple think that the core of arab extremism is in poverty. that a bad life makes a man leave his family with a bomb strapped to his chest. but its not about poverty. the men who bombed our world trade centers were middle class saudis. they weren't poor. they had another core: hatred. you should try to fight that instead of blaming Israel for everything that happens to it. maybe have israeli-palestinian youths come together to make a plan for the future on how to remove hostility within education and media. have them urge leaders to stop terrorism from both sides. i don't know. but don't just demand israel's giveaway of the territories. that won't help. add your comments

Cried Tears by 6:06am Wed Jan 1 '03 print comment Tali, The pictures we have all seen of burned holocaust victims are in actuality the burned victims of the Dresden Massacre perpetrated by the Allies with the help of World Jewry. you may find this site informative. http://www.louisbeam.com/dresden.htm add your comments

tears by jacob 8:11pm Wed Jan 1 '03 print comment ....mr tears.....the only problem was ,.that they did not to to all of germany, as they did in dresden,take that and stick it up your nazi craw. add your comments

So your plan is to KIll EVERY PALESTINIAN by AND BOMB THE HELL OUT OF GERMANY 12:18am Thu Jan 2 '03 print comment So your plan is to KIll EVERY PALESTINIAN AND BOMB THE HELL OUT OF GERMANY? add your comments

They Must Pay For It by Tova Schlifman 5:43am Thu Jan 2 '03 print comment Israelis do not need Tanya Reinhardt or Knesset. We need psychiatrists. We need a ship with psychiatrists. Maybe ten ships. Maybe we need more. Let's say two psychiatrists and two male nurses for every Talmudic serial born racist and serial born killer. In 20-s and 30-s our international Jewry tried to break the normal, steady life of provincial German people. Because of that our relatives ended in the gas chambers. Where are we going to end - thanks to crazy Sharon - during the war with innocent Arab peasants whose land we have stolen?.. add your comments

D*** a** Jacob by John Veldhuis 10:40am Thu Jan 2 '03 print comment What you suggest has already turned out not to work, but turned Israel instead into a semi-democratic apartheid state. add your comments

Tali by John Veldhuis 10:55am Thu Jan 2 '03 print comment "barely breathing, the survivors came to israel" Or more correctly, despite the British government, they were smuggled into Palestine, where amongst others they were used as an excuse by organistations like Menachem Begin's Irgun to commit acts of terrorism on Arabs. add your comments

You all spout nonsense by Peter Kropotkin 7:05pm Thu Jan 2 '03 print comment It is amazing the nonsense that runs on this site, coming from every direction. The poor helpless Israelis and the poor perfect peasant Palestinians. Blah blah blah. Don't you all figure that it is more complicated than this, more interesting than the black and white picture you all paint. Enough nonesense...get some depth and quit spewing out bullshit slogans. add your comments

Peter Kropotkin by kl 10:19pm Thu Jan 2 '03 print comment Why don`t you present your own picture, with depth n` all? add your comments

Stupid Left, Satanic Left by The Truth 8:14am Sun Jan 12 '03 print comment It is impossible to understand politics in the world today without grasping the fundamental fact that there exist two different Lefts. I propose that the two be referred to by everyone as the Stupid Left and the Satanic Left. The two are very different, although they work together. People who are part of the first are simply stupid people. People who are part of the second may in fact be quite shrewd, but are evil and nefarious. There is no third type of leftist. Over time, the Stupid Left has been losing its numbers, as many Stupid Leftists either become smarter or morph into Satanic Leftists, and so desist from being mere Stupid Leftists. So a process of selection is occurring whereby the strength of the Satanic Left within the overall Left grows. The anti-American demonstrations we have been witnessing in Europe and the United States are attended by both kinds of Leftists, although they were organized by Satanic Leftists. Both the Stupid Left and the Satanic Left demonstrate together against the United States, in favor of Saddam Hussein, in favor of destroying Israel and in favor of Palestinian terrorism. But they do so for different reasons. The Stupid Left really thinks that if the U.S. leaves Iraq alone, Saddam will refrain from developing weapons of mass destruction. The Satanic Left supports Iraq precisely because it knows that Saddam will develop them — and will use them. The Stupid Left is anti-American because it thinks people in America are oppressed, poor, mistreated and that America is an evil country. The Satanic Left is anti-American precisely because it knows the opposite is the case. The Stupid Left hates America because it thinks America promotes evil, oppressive regimes around the world. The Satanic Left hates America because America gets in the way of the evil, oppressive regimes that the Satanic Left promotes. The Stupid Left denounces capitalism and globalization and supports communism because it really believes that people are poor and oppressed under capitalism but free and happy under socialism. The Satanic Left denounces capitalism and supports communism precisely because it knows that the opposite is the case. The Stupid Left does not know that communism produces gulags. The Satanic Left supports communism precisely because it produces gulags and also because the Satanic Leftists presume they will be placed in charge of the gulags. The Stupid Left wants a Palestinian state because it thinks that such a state will pursue peace alongside Israel. The Satanic Left wants a Palestinian state precisely because it knows such a state will launch a war of destruction against Israel and endless atrocities against the Jews. The Stupid Left thinks Israel mistreats Arabs. It does not know that Arab regimes mistreat Arabs. The Satanic Left knows Israel does not mistreat Arabs and Arab regimes do. It wants Israel destroyed not because it thinks Israel is unjust, but rather because it hates Jews. The Stupid Left opposes Israeli armed force being used to suppress terror because it thinks that terror can be resolved through dialogue and negotiations. The Satanic Left opposes Israeli armed force being used to suppress terror because it supports terror against Jews. The Stupid Left is convinced that most Arabs seek peace, are moderate and decent people, and have a legitimate grievance against the West. The Satanic Left supports Arab aggression and terror precisely because it knows this is not true. The Stupid Left thinks that Palestinian leaders and Arab nationalists are progressive and liberal. The Satanic Left supports the same people precisely because it knows they are fascists. The Stupid Left is under the impression that Arab states have elections and freedom and enlightenment. The Satanic Left supports Arab regimes because they want to destroy Israel and murder Jews. The Stupid Left thinks the West should not place its Arab residents under surveillance because they are decent people and loyal to their adopted countries. The Satanic Left opposes such surveillance because it wants more Bin Ladens. The Stupid Left thinks that Israeli settlements are an obstacle to peace. The Satanic Left wants the settlers evicted or killed because they are an obstacle to the Palestinians destroying Israel. The Stupid Left thinks the Middle East conflict is about Arab human rights. The Satanic Left knows the Middle East conflict is about suppressing Jewish human rights. They support this suppression. The Stupid Left thinks the Middle East conflict is about land and borders. The Satanic Left knows it is about Israel`s existence. The Stupid Left thinks Israel is a discriminatory, apartheid country. The Satanic Left wants Israel destroyed so that the Arabs can impose an apartheid regime directed against the Jews and any other non-Moslems. The Stupid Left believes it is trying to reform and change America. The Satanic Left wants to destroy America. The Stupid Left thinks socialism works. The Satanic Left wants socialism because it knows it does not. The Stupid Left thinks it is opposing racism. The Satanic Left`s fundamental urge is to impose its own mode of racism and anti-Semitism on the world. The Stupid Left thinks Zionism is a form of racism. The Satanic Left supports anti-Zionism precisely because it is a form of anti-Semitism. The Stupid Left chooses its political positions on the basis of the desire by leftists to make their mommies and daddies mad. So does the Satanic Left, but they really hate their parents. The Stupid Left says it favors equality. The Satanic Left favors transferring power to itself so that it can oppress others. The Stupid Left supports Marxist groups all over the world because it thinks these are non-violent and favor pluralism. The Satanic Left supports them because they know these are violent and totalitarian. The Stupid Left thinks animals should be treated like humans. The Satanic Left thinks humans should be treated like animals. The Stupid Left wants socialism because it thinks that people will not have to work under socialism and because it thinks that leftists will have a lot of friends under socialism. The Satanic Left wants socialism because Satanic Leftists will not have to work under socialism while they turn everyone else into slaves, and because they`ll get to shoot their friends. add your comments

The Socialism of Fools by Bash Leftist Nazis 7:29am Tue Jan 14 '03 print comment Hatred of America - the Socialism of Fools By Michael Gove The Times Online (UK) | January 14, 2003 Tony Blair appears to have set himself his toughest task yet. Neither reforming public services nor maintaining economic stability compares in difficulty to the mission he took on yesterday. For a Labour politician to confront anti-Americanism is to set himself up in opposition to the dominant ideology of the contemporary Left. Knocking America off its superpower pedestal has long supplanted taking control of the commanding heights of the economy as the idea which holds the Left together. Forget Clause Four. That was a dead red letter. It’s opposition to Uncle Sam which is the glue in the Left coalition, the brew which puts fire into bien-pensant bellies, the opium of radical intellectuals. And the crack in Osama bin Laden’s pipe. Anti-Americanism provides the drumbeat for the protesters who march at every significant left-wing rally. Whether the protest is nominally against war, global capitalism or environmental degradation, the real enemy is Washington. Every significant Left intellectual, from Harold Pinter through Dario Fo to Gore Vidal and Noam Chomsky has made criticism of the American imperium his defining belief. But Yankee-phobia now extends far beyond the protest march and the academy. The German Social Democrats and Greens put opposition to US foreign policy at the heart of their, successful, re-election strategy last autumn. The Liberal Democrats here have made criticism of US policy towards Iraq the single biggest dividing line between themselves and the Blair Government. The cultural popularity of anti-Americanism, particularly among Britain’s intelligentsia, is striking. The surprise publishing hit of last year was Why do people hate America? by Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies, a work which set out to reassure readers that hatred of America was more than a rising sentiment, it was a moral duty. The top of the UK bestseller list is Michael Moore’s Stupid White Men, a furious polemic against US foreign, domestic and economic policy by one of its own citizens. The widespread prevalence of anti-Americanism, the cachet accorded to its advocates, the reflexive sniggering triggered by any favourable mention of America’s President, all make opposition to this trend unpopular. But vitally necessary. For Yankee-phobia is, at heart, a dark thing, a prejudice with ugly antecedents which creates unholy alliances. And, like all prejudices, it thrives on myths which will end up only serving evil ends. It is a myth that America is a trigger-happy cowboy state over-eager to throw its weight around, a myth that America seeks to use its undoubted military power to establish an exploitative empire, and a myth that America thrives by impoverishing and oppressing other nations. A trigger-happy starter of wars and provoker of enemies? The truth is that the US has been painstakingly slow to involve itself in foreign conflicts. It hung back from involvement in Bosnia and Kosovo until it was clear that Europe could not manage alone. It refrained from dealing properly with al-Qaeda when that network attacked US embassies in 1998 and, even after 9/11, it waited until a huge international coalition had been assembled before striking back. In Iraq, it refrained from finishing off President Saddam Hussein in 1991 out of deference to its Arab allies. And with North Korea, it has practised diplomacy in the face of nuclear provocation since 1994, out of respect for its regional allies. Even now, in dealing with the dangers posed by Iraq and North Korea, the diplomatic route is followed out of deference to others. An imperial exploiter? The truth is that America seeks to disentangle itself from anything which smacks of neocolonial occupation. It is anxious to bring the boys back home from the Balkans and Afghanistan. The real criticism of weight is that the US should do more on the ground to help failed states rebuild, as it did in Japan and Germany after the Second World War. Which takes us to the myth of America the locust state, the predator on the poorest nations of the Earth. The truth, as the US writer Charles Krauthammer has pointed out, is that America’s influence for good in suffering states is directly measurable in three very different examples. After the Second World War three devastated nations were divided. In each case one part of a culturally unified nation fell under America’s political influence. And in each case — South Korea versus North, West Germany as against East, Taiwan as opposed to Communist China — the territory which took the American path enjoyed greater freedom and prosperity. Why then do the myths of America the Hateful take such powerful hold? Because anti-Americanism provides a useful emotional function which goes beyond logic and reaches deep into the darker recesses of the European soul. In centuries past those on the Left who wished to personalise their hatred of capitalism, who sought to make it emotionally resonant by fastening an envious political passion on to a blameless scapegoat people, embraced anti-Semitism. It was the socialism of fools. Which is what anti-Americanism is now. It should not therefore be surprising that those on the populist Right who share the Left’s antipathy towards the US are those, like the Austrian Freedom Party or the French National Front, who are heirs of anti-Semitic traditions. Nor should it be remarkable that the other tie which binds these allies of new Left and old Right together, the thread linking those such as George Galloway and Jörg Haider, is their hostility to Israel. Both America and Israel were founded by peoples who were refugees from prejudice in Europe. Europe’s tragedy is that prejudice has been given new life, in antipathy to both those states. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael Gove writes for the the Times (UK). add your comments

Thankyou by A gnat 5:20am Thu Jan 16 '03 print comment I imagine all the gnats in the world are now so well informed and happy, after the awe inspiring reductionist analysis of "The Truth" and Michael Gove. Dont need to work the small brain too much anymore. add your comments

Friends of Tanya: by Progressive 8:31am Wed Jan 29 '03 print comment Impossible Family Dynamics of Islam By Nonie Darwish FrontPageMagazine.com | January 29, 2003 Marriage and divorce laws in Islam have a profound effect on the family unit and consequently on Moslem society as a whole. I personally lived in and witnessed many Moslem families and saw the impossible family dynamics resulting from these laws. I realized that a woman finding herself happy and secure in a Moslem marriage happens rarely and only through extraordinary good luck. I will explain why this is so. The family unit is comprised of a father, mother and children. This is the nucleus that societies are made up of. The source of all loyalty in the family is the loyalty between the husband and wife. The healthy relationships extending out beyond the marriage depend to a large extent on what kind of bond the couple has. The way religion regulates the holy relationship between a man and the woman in matrimony is crucial in forming the secondary relationships in the family unit and what kind of extended family dynamics are built on it. The husband and wife relationship will ultimately shape the kind of society that is the end result. Religions bring rules and codes of behavior that stabilize this unit for the benefit of society. The Judeo-Christian religion stresses one man / one woman in marriage where the nucleus of loyalty is clear between a husband and wife. Genesis 2:24 says "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." Note the singular form of the word ‘wife.’ Islam on the other hand allows women only one husband but men up to four wives, and that changes the dynamics of everything. That right of the man, even though many Moslem men choose not to exercise it for many reasons, has a devastating impact on the healthy function and the structure of loyalties of the Moslem family. There are chronic social ills and tragedies stemming from this single right, accorded to men by Allah, and demonstrated in practice by the prophet Mohamed. The husband according to Islamic law has the right to divide his loyalty between four women and his children from all of them. Islam asks men to be fair and just among the wives and to treat them all equally. In practice, when the inevitable conflicts of marriage occur, many Moslem men resort to a second wife (or threat thereof) as their ‘solution’ instead of working out the problem with the first. Men do not even have to use their rights for the damage to happen. By allowing Men to be ‘loyal’ to up to four wives, the stage is set for women always to distrust their husbands in the Moslem world. That distrust extends also to other women since any of them could shamelessly become an eligible ‘bachelorette’ for the husband. If the husband stays married only to his first wife, then it is a sign of his generosity and good graces. She should thank her lucky stars and be eternally grateful to him and his whole family, as she becomes the envy of other women. However, in the back of her mind she is always in fear. A Moslem wife cannot demand her husband’s loyalty to herself alone, and she is threatened by single women in a way that no Christian wife is threatened by her husband’s mistress. Under Islamic law, a second wife (and third and fourth) is legally equal to the first in every way, including inheritance. This is very different from an affair in the Christian West where the mistress has no rights and is discouraged by religion and society from any advances to or from a married man. A single Moslem woman with an eye on a married man often can say: "He is a man and can use his rights and our marriage will still be blessed by God, just as that of the first wife. It is his right as a man to have both of us!" Thus relationships among women in Moslem countries also become strained and hostile. There are little relationships between women outside the family or clan. There is constant fear of envy and the evil eye as well. As a child I often heard women begging their husbands after a fight not to marry another woman. "Go ahead and have affairs" they say, "but please never marry another." They are afraid of another wife and children who will be regarded as equal by law and society. Moslem women, when their husbands earn more money, have to worry about him being able to afford a second wife. I remember hearing a Moslem woman advising her friend: "spend your husband’s money as fast as you can before there is extra for another wife!" Moslem men very often keep the first wife in the dark about the second wife and often his own family and some of his close friends know about it and cover up for him. Women in the Islamic world frequently discover, after the husband’s death, another wife and children they never knew existed, with whom they now have to share the inheritance as equals! Divorce in Islam is accomplished by the husband repeating the phrase "I divorce you!" three times. That’s it! It almost harkens back to a pre-literate, tribal era. When I was a child, we had neighbors who were very distinguished physicians, both husband and wife, with two teenage sons. One day the wife came to my mother crying because she had discovered that her husband had been married for years to one of his young attractive patients and already had a child with her. When she confronted him with her discovery, his response was "What do you want? I am within my rights." She begged him to divorce the other woman. He refused. She told him "then you have to divorce me", thinking he would back down. He called her bluff; the next day he divorced his wife of 20 years! Women, on the other hand, have no equivalent right to divorce their husbands. I remember being 21 and having a new woman friend aged 23. She was like me, living with her parents and she confided in me that she had been married to a man 5 years earlier and when she asked him for divorce because she was unhappy he refused. He then retaliated by sending her back to her family and married another woman with whom he had a couple of children. He could divorce her in a minute if he wanted, but she had to go through years of court procedures with no success and finally her family had to bribe him with a hefty amount of money to divorce her. In addition, Moslem men have the right to marry non-Moslem women; Moslem women have no right but to marry Moslem men. That causes a gap of availability of men to Moslem women. The result is a larger number of unmarried Moslem women who have fewer and fewer population of Moslem men to choose from. On the other hand, Moslem men often find it easier to marry a non-Moslem foreigner, with whom he does not have to give a dowry, follow strict family courtship rules and no wife family to bother him and look after her interests. Moslem Women have to juggle this impossible web of harm and deceit as a result of men’s religious right to have more than one wife and easy divorce. All these laws skewed towards Moslem men leave women in a very weak position, but that injustice does not come free of cost to men, and has a devastating impact on every aspect of Moslem society. The issue is not just that it is unfair to women; it is much worse than that and has many unintended, damaging consequences to the healthy upbringing of children. Women’s loyalty to their husbands is completely undermined, and many Moslem women shift their loyalty to their first born son and their own family. The son becomes her man and her defender, very often against his own father. Frequently a wife’s father or brother will settle disputes with her husband. The unit of loyalty in the Moslem world is then transferred from Husband and Wife to Mother and son, mother and her family, husband and other wives, and husband and his own family who cover up for his second, third or fourth marriage. Thus the whole social structure is disrupted. Women in the Middle East often go by their son’s name such as Om Mohamed, meaning "Mother of Mohamed" or Om Ali, "Mother of Ali". That becomes their identity. It is not ‘Mrs. Husband’ but ‘Mother of Son’. In the Moslem world the relationships between Mother and daughter-in-law are especially very strained and bizarre. Very often a Moslem mother-in-law, who herself transferred her loyalty to her son, suddenly becomes very powerful and very threatened by the marriage of her sons. Mothers often choose the son’s wife. Wife has to please mother-in-law and often serve her more than mother-in-law’s own daughters. This is one way to guarantee husband’s blessings and influence him not to marry another woman. Very often Mother-in-law might encourage the son to marry another woman if the daughter in law is not obedient enough. If this all seems confusing, that’s the whole point! It’s a disaster! Moslem weddings are not a very holy event. There is the traditional virginity check of the bride among the less educated classes, the exchange of the dowry between the groom and father of the bride and the belly dancers that lead the bride and groom to the bedroom. As a teenager I saw in an old Hollywood movie a church wedding ceremony. I was very touched by the marriage vows, especially when the Husband promises to love, honor and cherish his one wife only, "till death do us part". I thought, "That must be very civilizing to men". That scene struck me deeply and I wept over the beauty of the words that are the basis of the Judeo-Christian family. It was very comforting and calming and formed a great foundation to society. Even though I was a very young teenager, I asked my mother after the movie "How come we don’t have weddings like that?" Her answer missed the point: "We do have very glamorous weddings too", as if the issue was glamour or romance. I nagged her, without even comprehending why: "No we don’t have weddings like that!" I now look back at my innocent mind that was seeking comfort from the impossible family dynamics created by Islam. In my opinion one of the greatest contributions of Judaism and Christianity to humanity and the order of things in Western civilization is the idea of one man, one woman joined in holy matrimony, which resulted in a far superior society and stable social order. Even though Islam is supposedly rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the commandments and exhortations for monogamy seem to have been completely lost in the desert culture of Mecca. I remember as a child secretly telling myself "I want a Christian wedding" and when I grew up, I did; I married a Christian. Mind you, the ceremony was simple and modest, and my husband and I had to flee to the USA. We were fortunate not to be denounced to the authorities by the ordinary visa office clerk, who, like everyone else in the society, considered it her business to enforce the religious virtue of every other citizen. There is a large number of Moslem women married to Christians in the West. Many of them live in fear of being exposed in the old country. According to Islam these women are no longer Moslems. Without the USA many Moslem women would have been killed in their own countries for marrying a non-Moslem. In Islam a man’s honor resides in the virginity of the women in his family. Arabic movies always show unmarried women being killed because they are no longer virgins, even if they were raped. That is the singular lesson of life that every Moslem girl grows up with. I do very much value a conservative attitude in the bringing up of both girls and boys to wait until marriage, and I did apply that to myself and the upbringing of my children. Traditional Christianity and Judaism value the same thing. However, Islam took this to the extreme level of killing girls that loose their virginity, like getting rid of a used tissue! It does not matter how or why it happened. That could be looked into later. I personally knew of a couple of instances of such ‘honor killing’. To cite one example, my family once had a new maid who was about 17 or 18 years old. My mother noticed the unthinkable, that the girl came to us pregnant. She did not have it in her heart to send the girl back to her family since she was certain to be fatally harmed. When my mother asked the girl who the man was, she told my mother it was her previous boss whose wife threw her out when she discovered her husband’s obvious rape! When the girl was getting close to delivery my mother sent her to some government facility for her delivery. A few months later my mother learned from the agent that brought her to us that the girl’s family took care of the family disgrace and said something to the effect that the girl had been killed! I will never forget this girl’s face and I still weep over her. That story is still imprinted in my memory, thanks to the "Religion of Peace". While Islam murders girls who have premarital sex, regardless of circumstances, it glorifies sex in the bringing up of boys. The Islamic culture gives freedom to boys to have sex prior to marriage and to indulge in many sins not allowed to girls. I often wondered who the girls are that Moslem boys go with? These must be the ones that Islam will take to Hell. The Moslem culture is full of contradictions that my young mind could not comprehend growing up. Everything seemed to revolve around sex. The sexual aspect of anything is number one; Clothes, a look by a woman, a laugh, a smile, etc. I felt that I am always looked upon as a sexual object, a piece of meat that has to always be on guard not to tempt men. Western women who marry Moslem men, discover after the marriage ends and after it’s too late, the sad situation they are left with. In Islam, the father has the right to the children after a certain age. Very often these men take their children and go back to their home country to be wed to the new wife without even thinking twice. We all heard of the horror stories and they are all true. Even after death, in the Paradise of Islam women are given the short end of the stick. The idea of Heaven is a carnal man’s dream and a woman’s nightmare. A woman in Islam’s Heaven is supposed to be servicing men’s sensual desires together with about 70 other virgins! The maximum on earth is four at a time but heaven becomes extra generous to Moslem men. Heaven is a giant brothel! Is that what Moslem women are looking forward to after death? Thanks, but no thanks! I believe that the Arab/Moslem world has lost its moral equilibrium and has a long road for reformation. Arabs/Moslems have to truly re-examine their divorce and family laws to create a better context for married couples to have a happier and healthier life. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ms. Darwish is an American of Arab/Moslem origin and a former editor and translator. Her e-mail is noniedarwish@hotmail.com add your comments

Tanya is a Twit by Tanya's Codpiece 7:25am Thu Jan 30 '03 print comment Why the Media Habitually Side with the Palestinians By Erick Stakelbeck FrontPageMagazine.com | January 30, 2003 I’ve finally figured out why the media habitually sides with the Palestinians against even the slightest Israeli movement. As Frank Sinatra might have said after reading the script for The Manchurian Candidate, "They’ve been brainwashed, baby." And I think I know just when it happened: The date: September 30, 2000—the earliest stages of the current Palestinian Intifada. The setting: A dank, windowless basement somewhere deep in the West Bank. Twenty Western journalists are kidnapped from their hotels and brought to this dungeon-like hovel, where they’re injected with a powerful brainwashing drug obtained by the P.L.A. courtesy of Iraq. Yasser Arafat, his bumpy face illuminated by a single bare light bulb dangling from the ceiling, sizes up the weak Western devils seated before him and breaks into a yellow-toothed grin. This is his moment. A French cameraman tries to scream, but all that comes out is a whimper. Resistance is futile. Arafat: "Repeat after me, infidels!" Journalists (zombie-like): "Repeat after me, infidels." Arafat: "You will go back to your pitiful countries and report the following, each and every day for as long as I let you breathe: The Israelis are nothing but Zionist aggressors occupying what is and always has been Arab land. The Jews are the true terrorists! " Journalists: "The Israelis are nothing but Zionist aggressors…" Okay, so I exaggerated a bit. (Isn’t that the Middle Eastern way?) But somebody call Hollywood, because I think we’ve got ourselves a movie. We could call it The Moroccan Candidate, or maybe The Boys From Bethlehem. We could even get has-been filmmaker Oliver Stone to direct. After all, Stone just wrapped a fawning documentary about Arafat entitled Persona Non Grata (to go along with his pro-Castro piece, Commandante, that premiered last weekend at the Sundance Film Festival), and was recently quoted in the New York Post as saying "I can see why suicide bombers feel the way they do. Israel doesn’t belong in the West Bank." Never mind that said suicide bombers are the reason the Israelis occupied the West Bank in the first place. With befuddled Leftists like Stone wielding media influence, it’s no wonder that in the case of the Palestinian refugees, Arabs have managed to perpetrate what author Hal Lindsey calls, "one of the most colossal lies in the history of mankind." In his book, The Everlasting Hatred: The Roots of Jihad, Lindsey writes: "For some reason, the whole world has swallowed unbelievable products of the Arab propaganda machine…The record shows that migrant Muslims came from other Arab lands to areas of Palestine that were reclaimed and developed by Jews in order to get jobs. It was afterward that they began to claim that Jews displaced them from land that had been in their families for hundreds of years." The vast majority of today’s Palestinians are descendants of people who immigrated to Israel in the 19th and 20th centuries. In fact, some Muslims came from as far away as Bosnia-Herzegovina to reap the benefits of the Jewish revitalization of the Holy Land, which had become a malaria-ridden wasteland under centuries of Ottoman rule. Yet, as Lindsey states in his book: "These same poor Muslims who benefited from the Jewish jobs later charged the Jews had stolen their land, which had been in their families since time immemorial…The West has bought this lie without questioning its veracity." A particularly noxious example of the Western media’s gullibility in regards to the so-called Palestinian plight appeared in the January 8 edition of the Philadelphia Daily News. A four-page photo spread entitled "Cycle Of War" was featured prominently in the paper, which prides itself on being the type of liberal progressive rag that litters far too many of America’s newsstands. Despite its title, "Cycle Of War," portrayed anything but a mutually recurring conflict between two opposing sides. Rather, the eleven full-color photos showcased in the spread amounted to no less than a ringing endorsement of the Palestinian cause. The photos were taken in the West Bank city of Nablus, and a more slanted view of the Middle East crisis you aren’t likely to see this side of Al-Jazeera television. Jennifer Midberry, who took the photos and also wrote the short article preceding them, says that she "studied in Jerusalem in spring, 1999 and grew fond of Israel and Jewish culture." Her snapshots, however, which purport to show "life under Israeli curfew and its toll on children," tell quite a different story. Here are brief descriptions of four of the more incendiary pictures, along with the captions that accompanied each: —A shirtless, bloodied Palestinian teenager lies on the ground, writhing in pain. The caption beneath his picture reads, "Hossam Katawi, 16, is treated after being shot in the chest while throwing stones at Israeli tanks." I hate to be cynical, but something tells me there is a bit more to this story than what we’re getting from the Daily News. —A group of Palestinian teens and young men run from an Israeli tank after pelting it with stones. "We know the stones don’t do anything to the tanks," offers one of the teens. "But what can we do? It is our only defense." Here’s an idea: put down your rocks and tell your parents to demand the immediate resignation of Yasser Arafat. Then maybe the suicide bombings will cease and the Israeli tanks can leave. —A forlorn-looking young boy stares into the camera from a huge hole that has been blown into the side of his house. The caption reads, "Salah Bushcar stands in the rubble of his family’s home after it was demolished by Israeli forces in retaliation for a suicide bombing carried out by Salah’s brother, Osama Bushcar." Which explains the Israeli "occupation" in a nutshell. —A group of elementary school students is shown leaving a school building, which is surrounded by rubble. "One-third of the term has been canceled because of the curfew," reads the caption. "So teachers will not be able to complete all of the material in the curriculum." This would bother me much more if the curriculum didn’t include textbooks that explain how Jews use the blood of young children to make matzo at Passover. And let’s not forget the popular kids’ program that glorifies suicide bombing. I could describe the remaining photos, like the one where an ailing Palestinian boy lies in a hospital bed "after being shot in the ankle by Israeli Defense Forces for playing outside after curfew," but you get the idea. The most ironic part of this piece is that it was published just three days after a horrific suicide bombing in Tel Aviv killed twenty-two Israeli civilians. As stated previously, the article appeared on January 8, but I decided to wait two weeks to write this column in order to gauge Daily News readers’ reaction. As expected, their response was intense and varied. But for me, the following excerpt from one of the letters sums things up perfectly: "Israel must continue to defend its citizens until a more trustworthy hand is extended from the Palestinians. As the late Golda Meir said, ‘there will never be peace until the Arabs learn to love their children more than they hate ours." Now that would make for a great movie. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- add your comments

I love Tanya by John Veldhuis 11:50am Thu Jan 30 '03 print comment Hey Stackelback, Sorry, abductions are a trademark of the Mossad. The rest of your story is to ridiculous to give serious thought, and resembles all the myths, lies and spin we have been fed since Israel was founded. Suicide bombers are a creation of the occupation. Not the other way around. Please go back to the Likud propaganda offices. add your comments

fydiuhg by kjhihg 7:08am Thu Feb 13 '03 print comment News Flash! Tanya Reinhart has decided to get a female circumcision to show her solidarity with women in the Moslem World!! add your comments