It becomes more apparent that with each passing year, the Arab-Israeli conflict seems to get an additional facelift in the media headlines. Many notable news sources seek to demonize Israel in the most "objective" manner possible, concentrating always on angles irrelevant to the real sources of conflict. Subsequently, when foreign journalists come to Israel with their notebooks, pens and preconceived notions, there is very little chance that their audience back home will have the opportunity to understand the conflict in an unbiased way. So much misinformation and shoddy reporting place Israel and her citizens in a very vulnerable position.
On the day that the settlement freeze expired, CNN featured the following headline in big bold lettering on its news site: "Palestinians: We fear Violent Israeli Settlers." The article focused on one Palestinian family, using them as the only example to support the story's sensational title. What the article did not point out was that that for many Palestinians, settlement construction is a major part of their livelihood and that many are currently out of work due to the freeze. Even more sadly, stories highlighting friendly relations that do exist between Israeli settlers and Palestinians, rarely appear in western media networks. The first West Bank team in Israel's amateur American football league, which includes Israeli settlers and Palestinians, has largely been ignored by most mainstream news outlets including CNN.
This sort of misrepresentation of the conflict is further strengthened with such articles, as "Why Israel Doesn't Care About Peace" published in Time on September 2. The author, Karl Vicks, writes that "The truth is that Israelis are no longer preoccupied [with peace]," rather they are busy "making money and enjoying the rays of late summer." Photos of Israelis smoking hookah on the Ashdod beach appear alongside the article. Vicks bases his argument primarily on two Israeli real-estate agents, Eli and Heli from Ashdod, whose viewpoints he uses to represent the opinions of close to six million other Israeli Jews.
But media networks aren't the only ones assigning wrongful and misdirected blame as to who is at fault for Mideast tensions; government officials are also echoing their sentiments. Former US President Bill Clinton recently seized the opportunity to also assign blame on Israelis, but to a more specific sector -- the Russian immigrant population in Israel. Clinton told US press that Israeli Russians "are the hardest-core people against the division of the land," and "present a staggering problem" to peace.
In truth, the staggering problems facing the Middle East peace process have nothing to do with Israeli Russians, nor with the settler community.
The obstacles have all to do with the rising nuclear power of Iran and the republic's fervent financial and military support of terrorist organizations in Gaza and Lebanon as well as in other areas across the world.
Without the financial support of Iran, Hamas's network could not exist and keep Gaza under its hold. With a $540 million budget for 2010, of which Iran provides the largest share, Hamas's connection with Ahmadinejad's government is rooted not only in money but in guns as well.
On a military level, Iran provides Hamas fighters with top military training and instruction from the commanders of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Islamic Republic also engages in delivering weapons in single components to the Sinai, paying the Sinai Bedouins for transferring the weapons through the Gaza tunnels.
The outcome that results from a strong Iran-Hamas relationship was demonstrated this past summer when Egyptian police took control of nine weapons caches across hideouts the Sinai Peninsula. The weapons caches, which were hidden in Rafah city and the port city, Al-Arish, were about to be smuggled into the Gaza Strip.
Nearly 200 anti-aircraft missiles, 90 artillery shells, 200 bullets of varying sizes and anti-tank landmines, machine guns and ammunitions were among the weapons found according to the Palestinian Ma'an news agency. Egyptian security also seized 100 kilograms of TNT explosives from a hideout in a Rafah cemetery as well as 500 smuggling tunnels. The large number of missiles indicates that Palestinian terror groups in Gaza may possess a higher number of projectiles than originally assumed.
Both Iran and Syria continue to be the chief sources for weapons bound for the Gaza Strip, as Hamas builds a stockpile of rockets targeting close to one million Israelis in range.
But readers of the Newsweek article (June 1), "Gaza is about Butter, Not Guns," by Dan Ephron, would have gained a completely different understanding of this situation. Ephron highlights what is in his view, are the economic benefits that Israel elicits from the blockade, while completely downplaying any security threats that Gaza terror groups pose to Israelis.
And the threats are very real. This past September alone, the number of Gaza rocket attacks on southern Israel sharply increased, with close to 20 Qassams and mortar rockets fired at residential areas in the western Negev and Ashkelon. One rocket struck between two day-care centers on a southern Israeli kibbutzin the morning on September 12, right before children were scheduled to arrive. No one was injured although one nursery sustained damages.
As articles blaming Israel for failed Mideast peace continue to stream into the headlines, it is clear that the Mideast reality will continue just as it always has-- with Iran as an increasingly mobilizing force. With statements like that of Ahmed Jaabari, the leader of Hamas' military wing, who threatened a wave of violence intended to derail the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks just two weeks ago, Israelis have no choice but to prepare themselves for war. For Israel, terror and war are always a few steps behind peace, whether mainstream media chooses to document this angle or not.
Anav Silverman, a native of Maine, writes from Jerusalem, Israel where she is an educator at Hebrew University's Secondary School of Education. She also works as an international correspondent at Sderot Media Center: www.SderotMedia.org.il.
Follow Anav Silverman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SderotAlert
Iran Admits It Could Pull Nuke Trigger on US, Israel
The Problem is not with the people who are stealing land with the help of an army and dramatically growing in size and population every year. Not the people who systematically torment Palestinian women and children in order to encourage them to leave the area, as is shown in multiple videos in Sharmine Narwani's latest article here, but rather the problem is in Iran. It's Iran's fault, and not the settlers. I hope that is clear.
The fact that the settlers are in violation of the Geneva Convention is of no matter, the real problem lies in Iran, which apparently, the authors of the Geneva convention failed to see, when they condemned settling occupied territory.
You know the housing crisis, here in the US? Don't be angry at the government or the banking industry, that is really Iran's fault as well.
You see how that works? violently enforced, constantly growing settlements, that can only persist and grow with the assistance of a brutal and crippling occupation, are not the problem. Fanatical, violent, ultra nationalist settlers who will tell you plainly they intend to take every inch of land there are not the problem. Its ALL Iran's fault. So give up, leave it alone. It's too big and complicated for your simple mind to comprehend, so just walk away. Get it?
2nd time
It is unbelievably awful.
Articles which willfully choose to ignore the snarling mad dogs of the "home team" should be cheerfully ignored.
For Israels neighbors and the rest of the world, accepting Israel as a valid and viable state and accepting the occupation as legitimate are two very different and separate policies.
If Israelis want the world to accept them as a state and also accept a permanent occupation as a measure of "viability" Israel will always be disappointed and will never have peace and security. Ever.
F & F x100!
Comment by jollyelle
“Is this article for real?
The settlements provide employment for the Palestinians? Tell that to the IDF who shot and killed this man trying to get "to work" following the same route he has for the last 15 years. Now a family of five is fatherless”.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/03/izzedine-kawazbeh-palestine-israel_n_748659.html”
Comment by useraccess
“Anav, Could you be more biased in writing this article? What a surprising position from a Jewish person teaching at a secondary Hebrew school in Jerusalem. Yes, the Palestinians love building your settlements the same way a person stranded in the desert likes to drink his own piss to stay alive. You give them no other choice”.
Comment by Cynthia Rays
“Has the author stood at a check point with Palestinians trying to get to work? Has she seen them forced to remove their shoes and stand in the rain or under the broiling summer sun for hours? Has she seen soldiers pointing guns at a mother trying to take her child to the doctor as her children watch? She doesn't seem to notice that some Palestinians are living in tents on the street while Jewish settlers from Brooklyn with armed guards take over their homes. Has she not noticed the wall that has confiscated the Palestinian's land and olive trees so that settlers can speed by on their own highway”?
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"The first reason was the timing of the deal. In contrast to other periods, such as 1982 peace agreement with Egypt, DeclarationOfPrinciples negotiated inOslo came at a time when Israel's Jewish/Zionist identity was being challenged by postZionism [Zionist selfdoubt]
"The second was that Oslo process directly affected Zionist mission of settlement in GreaterIsrael articulated by GushEmunim&endorsed by LikudGovernments.
"Finally, the Oslo process meant a change in the Zionist belief in selfdefense."
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and,
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"The Oslo process amplified debate about contemporary Jewish identity in Israel. This occured because peace process affected issues seen as an integral part of national identity and because issues of JewishZionist identity inIsrael have become intertwined with definition of left&right. Research has shown that gap between religious&nonOrthodox widened as a result of Oslo process."
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So,Oslo failed because, "In absence of a post-peaceZionist vision, Rabin&Peres let Oslo process become identified with goals of the secular materialistic postZionism."
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So, it all failed because Zionists were afraid that as "NORMAL" Mideast nation, Israel would no longer be a magnet for DiasporaJews to ZionistRight. Settlements are unpopulated and fear is that, with peace, Jews will cease giving to &coming to live in Israel. ZionistRight is afraid of peace because it's afraid of losing Jewish support. We're stuck in fight between Zionism&DiasporaJews.
One of the worst articles I've ever read on Huffington Post. Could have just uploaded a JPG of someone pointing a finger.
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/301/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4861
Modify this sentence a bit:
"...that for many Jews, [IG Farben/Siemens/Krupps] is a major part of their livelihood and that many are currently out of work due to the Allied bombings."
Yes, there is a great possibility that Israelis and Palestinians can share a better future for their children and grandchildren if each live in two states living in peaceful coexistence with each other. Settlements are the biggest obstacle to a true Palestinian state. You'll find scores of Israeli politicians who will also agree with this glaring fact.
I included the AIPAC connection.