Posted on Friday, July 28, 2006 - 11:43 pm:

Last update - 05:50 29/07/2006
Woman shot to death at Jewish Federation building in Seattle
By News Agencies

At least six people were shot, one fatally, on Friday when a gunman opened fire at a Jewish organization in downtown Seattle, authorities said.

Police said they had arrested a single suspect in the shootings, but did not immediately identify the man. Several streets in the area were cordoned off and police could be searching for another suspect, according to media reports.

Amy Wasser-Simpson, vice president for planning and community services at the Jewish Federation told The Seattle Times that a man got through security at the building and told staff members: "I'm Muslim American. I'm angry at Israel," then began shooting.

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Police said they had also found a car belonging to the man, who was not immediately identified, and were searching it for explosives and evidence. A handgun had been found at the scene and was taken into evidence.

"We think this is a lone individual acting out with antagonism toward the organization," said David Gomez, assistant special agent in charge of counterterrorism for the FBI's office in Seattle.

Police, who first responded to reports of shots fired and a possible hostage situation at the center shortly after 4 P.M., said they were "taking every precaution" in searching for explosives and additional suspects and were monitoring the city's synagogues and Jewish organizations.

Authorities did not offer a motive for the incident and it was not immediately clear if the shooter was targeting women. Police said there were about 10 people in the federation's offices at the time of the shooting.

"We have five victims, all female, ranging from their early 20s to 40s, who have been brought to Harbor View (Medical Center)," hospital spokeswoman Pamela Steele said.

"They have sustained wounds to the knee, groin, abdomen and arm. Three of the five have been taken to the operating room," she said.

The shooting took place at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, which had organized a large rally last weekend to demonstrate support for Israel in its fight against Hezbollah.

The extent of the victims' injuries was not immediately known. A SWAT team was searching the downtown building Friday for any other possible victims or shooters, police spokesman Rich Pruitt said.

"People got shot, some of our co-workers," Patti Simon said in a phone interview, her voice shaking. "I just got back from Israel and made it out of there a half hour before the rockets started."

Simon, who sells advertising for the federation's newspaper, was working on the first floor when she heard screaming, shots and what sounded like furniture crashing on the floor above.

"We heard this horrible screaming on the floor above us and shots," the 52-year-old said. "We didn't know what was happening."

Simon called up to her co-workers on the second floor, but got no answer, so she called the police and fled the building.

One person shot in the abdomen and another shot in the arm were being taken to Harborview Medical Center, KING-TV reported.

Police blocked off several city blocks to investigate. Simon said the federation building has security.

"Somebody must have lied their way in," she said.

Posted on Friday, July 28, 2006 - 11:55 pm:

Justified, essential and timely
By Avraham Tal

Buthaina Shaaban, the Syrian minister of expatriates and a close adviser to president Bashar Assad, said last week that his country would not tolerate a situation in which Damascus would be in the range of Israeli artillery. She warned that Syria would take action if the Israel Defense Forces deployed within 20 kilometers of the Syrian border.

While Damascus is not prepared to countenance the presence of another country's artillery so close to its border, even though that country poses no threat to its security, Israel is supposed to make peace with 13,000 rockets and missiles threatening half of its territory and with the fact that this threat is coming from a terrorist organization that controls Lebanon and which takes orders from no one - except the dark regime in Iran, which seeks to wipe Israel off the map. And some Israelis wanted this situation to perpetuate itself.

Why did Hezbollah invest so much time and energy in creating a network of rockets and missiles that is the densest in the world (at least in terms of weaponry per square kilometer) After all, its leaders knew that Israel would never threaten Lebanon, and would never cross the Blue Line, the international border that both Israel and the world recognizes, unless provoked by Hezbollah.

One explanation is that this network was intended to deter Israel from intervening should Iran, busy developing its nuclear capability, be threatened. Another explanation: this is the basic phase that will prepare the stage for an offensive attack on Israel, supported by Iran, that is intended to liquidate the Jewish state - what its enemies call the "Zionist entity."

Some experts, both authentic and wannabees, argue that Hezbollah "has no Israeli agenda." Does such a claim hold water? Even in the movement's early days in 1980, its leaders - such as, for example, spiritual mentor Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah - declared that the "Zionist entity" had no right to continue to exist. In an article in The New York Times this week (July 21), Ted Koppel writes about his meeting, a few weeks before the war, with Sheikh Nabil Qaouk, whom Koppel refers to as the commander of Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon: "When Sheik Qaouk talked about Israel and Hezbollah, his organization's ambitions were not framed in purely defensive terms. There is only harmony between Hezbollah's end game and the more provocative statements made over the past year by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president. Both foresee the elimination of the Jewish state."

Nonetheless, there are those who genuinely believe that the confrontation - or, at least, the present showdown - could have been prevented. How? Through appeasement. Had Israel released Lebanese prisoners - as Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah demanded - and, if that concession had not satisfied him, had Israel handed over to Lebanon the Shaba Farms area - known in Israel as Har Dov and which is formerly Syrian territory - would Hezbollah have dismantled its missile network and avoided any provocations along the Israeli border? Hezbollah would then have come up with other pretexts: for example, a demand for the return of the Shiite villages in the northern Galilee whose inhabitants fled or were banished in 1948; or, for example, the demand that Palestine must be liberated not only to fulfill the goal of a jihad(holy war), but also to provide homes for Palestinians currently living in crowded refugee camps in Lebanon who are a thorn in that country's side.

And eventually Hezbollah (installed as Lebanon's formal regime), in collaboration with Iran, would have launched a war of annihilation against Israel. Should the confrontation with Hezbollah have been delayed until Iran had already acquired nuclear weapons? If Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz went into full gear given Nasrallah's provocative action and intelligence assessments of senior IDF commanders, they did the right thing at the right time.

Contrary to what the critics are arguing, the IDF is not fighting a small guerrilla organization. It is dealing with a trained, skilled, well-organized, highly motivated infantry that is equipped with the cream of the crop of modern weaponry from the arsenals of Syria, Iran, Russia and China, and which is very familiar with the territory on which it is fighting. In such a showdown, even when you have tanks and fighter planes, the going is very slow, and, sadly, you must also pay a heavy price in terms of casualties.

One of the claims being made by critics is that Israel is serving the interests of "American imperialism," and that our children are shedding their blood in the name of those interests. Is there no limit to malicious cynicism? There is a genuine congruence of Israeli and American interests in the war against world terrorism. Without America's political, economic, military and moral support, Israel would never have been capable of waging its war of survival against the evil axis of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, and in the face of an indifferent world.

Some 2,500 critics of the war demonstrated Saturday night, claiming Israel was repeating the mistake of the first Lebanon war. However, that war achieved its goal, and in an impressive manner: the Palestine Liberation Organization's removal from Lebanese soil. Deviation from, and expansion of, that goal plunged Israel into the Lebanese quagmire, where we remained for 18 years. Does anyone genuinely believe that Israel will repeat that mistake in 2006?

The more vocal critics include, on the one hand, many naive individuals who believe that a weak-kneed policy of appeasement for dealing with blood-thirsty terrorists can guarantee Israel's continued survival and, on the other hand, a not inconsiderable number of genuinely evil people who pray for Israel's liquidation, whether through its transformation into a binational state or through its annihilation. Those who find it hard to believe that such evil people exist should read between the lines of the statements made by Arab Knesset members, and should listen to the sermons of muezzins in Israeli mosques (for example, one in Shfaram last Friday, who, as quoted in Maariv on July 25, declared: "We back Nasrallah's struggle").

Posted on Friday, July 28, 2006 - 11:59 pm:

A proxy war
By Joschka Fischer

Haifa, Beirut and many other Lebanese and Israeli towns and villages are under fire. Who would have thought this possible a few weeks ago? Across the globe, the reaction to the images of destruction and death in Lebanon, but also in Gaza and Israel, has been one of abhorrence.

The current war in Lebanon is not a war by the Arab world against Israel; rather, it is a war orchestrated by the region's radical forces - Hamas and Islamic Jihad among the Palestinians, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Syria and Iran - which fundamentally reject any settlement with Israel.

Conflict was sought for three reasons: first to ease pressure on Hamas from within the Palestinian community to recognize Israel; second to undermine democratization in Lebanon, which was marginalizing Syria; and third to lift attention from the emerging dispute over the Iranian nuclear program and demonstrate to the West the "tools" at its disposal in the case of a conflict.

Moderate Arab governments understand full well the issue at stake in this war: It is about regional hegemony in the case of Syria with Lebanon and Palestine and, on a wider level, Iran's hegemonic claim to the entire Middle East. Yet the war in Lebanon and Gaza could prove to be a miscalculation for the radicals. By firing missiles on Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, a boundary has been crossed. From now on, the issue is no longer primarily one of territory, restitution or occupation. Instead, the main issue is the strategic threat to Israel's existence.

The rejectionist front has underestimated Israel's determination and capacity for deterrence. It has proved there is no way back to the status quo in Lebanon, and it revealed Iran's hegemonic aspirations to the entire world. The folly of this is readily apparent, because it doesn't require much imagination to see what the Middle East would look like if an Iranian nuclear umbrella were shielding the radicals.

This miscalculation will become obvious as four developments unfold:

Israel avoids being sucked into a ground war in Lebanon;

* UN Resolution 1559 - which requires the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon with the help of the international community - is enforced and a return to the status quo rendered impossible;

* today's de facto "anti-hegemon" coalition, comprising moderate Arab countries (including moderate Palestinians), is transformed into a robust and serious peace initiative; and

* the Quartet, led by the United States, becomes actively engaged for a viable solution and provides the necessary political, economic and military guarantees to sustain it over time.

Israel has a key role to play here. Twice, it withdrew its troops unilaterally behind its recognized borders, namely from southern Lebanon and Gaza. Both times, Israel's land-for-peace formula resulted in land for war. Now, with the existence of Israel under threat, peace with its Arab neighbors seems a more distant prospect than ever.

I believe today's war in Lebanon can open up a new opportunity for peace. The sooner the guns are silenced in Lebanon, the better. But let's not forget the war's starting point: the clash within Hamas over whether to recognize Israel. And let's not forget the attitude of moderate Arab governments toward this war and to the hidden intentions of those who sought it.

Israel's security makes a restructuring of Lebanon's internal organization and a guarantee of Lebanon's state sovereignty nonnegotiable. Now is the time to play the Syrian card and bring President Bashar Assad onto the path of normalization. With the Golan Heights, Israel has the key element in its hand. Without Syria, Iran would be alone. Iraq, too, would profit from such a development.

Finally, things are not as hopeless for the Palestinians as they may seem. In Israel's prisons, a consensus has developed among leading Fatah and Hamas Palestinian inmates on accepting a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. This new Palestinian realism must be supported. But there can be no way past the historic date of June 1967 (for both sides).

How then, will Israel define its security in the future? Currently, Israel emphasizes massive deterrence, but it would be well advised to utilize the political and diplomatic possibilities presented by this war and take the initiative from a position of strength to offer a comprehensive peace to all those who are ready to recognize its existence and permanently renounce violence, not just in word, but also in deed.

Now is the time to think big! This applies not only to Israel and its neighbors, but to the U.S. and Europe as well. This war offers a chance for lasting peace. We must not let it slip away.

Joschka Fischer, a leader of the Green Party for nearly 20 years, was Germany's foreign minister and vice chancellor from 1998 to 2005.

Posted on Saturday, July 29, 2006 - 12:18 am:

Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University in Montreal. A native of Queens, New York, he received his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from Harvard University. A couple of months ago he published "Why I am a Zionist." Later this year, Troy will publish a book on Hillary Clinton.

Troy is writing from Israel - he even spent some days in Haifa, where rockets fell in the past two weeks killing and wounding Israelis. He will write about the war, Zionism, America's involvement in the Middle East and other topics. You can send your questions to rosnersdomain@haaretz.co.il.

...

Hi Professor Troy,

... My question: Why is it is so hard for Western governments, other than the U.S., to support Israel?

This time it seems rather obvious. It is terrorist organizations in southern Lebanon and Gaza, yet Western governments consistently try to be "balanced," as in morally equate the Israeli government with terrorist organizations, no matter what the circumstances. Or, as in Canada, Prime Minister Harper is facing huge criticism for his stance, when he did support Israel.

Also, how can there be a cease-fire at all if Hezbollah doesn't agree to one?

Thanks, take care,
Jacqui


Dear Jacqui,

[Y]our question about Western governments is excellent but complicated. For starters, this should not be a left-right issue. Anyone who thinks being pro-Israel and anti-terror is incompatible with liberalism distorts liberalism - that is not the liberalism of Thomas Jefferson, John Stuart Mill, Martin Luther King, Jr. or John Kennedy.

And while there is room to debate the rights and wrongs of Israel's military moves - compared to other sovereign countries' attempts at self defense after being attacked, how can a freedom-loving Western democrat support Hezbollah? Hezbollah killed 241 Marines in Lebanon, murdered dozens of civilians in Argentina, and has waged a pointless war against Israel, despite Israel's UN-legitimized withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000.

Of course, debating Israel's "proportionality" in responding, while ignoring such precedents as NATO's bombing in Kosovo, at least acknowledges Israel's right to respond when Hezbollah terrorists ambushed Israeli soldiers, kidnapping two, and slaughtering eight young heroes with promising lives ahead.

I know many Jews are quick to attribute Europeans' irrational anti-Israeli hostility to anti-Semitism. And the ghost of anti-Semitism looms when countries hold Israel to higher standards of behavior than they hold themselves, or when countries violate core ideals - such as a revulsion against terrorism or autocracy - to support the Palestinians or attack the Jewish state.

Still, we should consider two other factors. For starters, play the numbers game. The Arabs have the population numbers and the petrodollars. What we should do is marvel at the moral grandeur of BOTH Democratic and Republican administrations - as well as Canada's Stephen Harper - for nevertheless supporting Israel.

Finally, there are deeper ideological phenomena which I address in my book. Modern European democracies have shown an appalling tendency to be soft on dictators. One explanation is what I call "the Great Inversion," wherein many Baby Boomers overcompensated for the genuine sins of colonialism and racism by overly romanticizing the Third World. These boomers indulged in a reverse racism, assuming those deemed to be "the oppressed" could never do wrong. If the typical 1950s elites were blind to the excesses of whites in power, their rebellious, self-righteous children were blind to the excesses of the non-white and the powerless. This resulted in, among other things, Yasser Arafat's inexplicable popularity in Europe, the ability of so-called progressive forces to overlook the racism, sexism, and homophobia of the Palestinian Authority, among other Arab regimes, and many Europeans' peculiar zeal for bashing Israel and the United States while excusing the many crimes of Islamicist terrorists, Third World dictators, and the like.

And you're right, it will be hard to have a ceasefire without Hezbollah's agreement, and Hezbollah probably needs to be crushed to agree to it, which is one of the reasons why Israel must crush Hezbollah.

Gil

Posted on Saturday, July 29, 2006 - 4:06 pm:

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It is not surprising that some Lebanese Muslims are hostile to Israel, given the long history of violence against civilians on both sides (e.g. the massacre at the Sabra and Shatila camps).

The right to self-defense does not extend to terrorizing the neighborhood. Moreover, if Israelis can speak of "crushing Hezbollah" to achieve a lasting peace, is it really surprising that others might speak of crushing Israel to achieve the same effect?

There are no "good guys" and "bad guys" in this conflict, any more than there were between the Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland.

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