And the World Is Paying

Despite the fact that the Palestinians are receiving aid at a scope that other countries can only dream of, they are still pitied. Their wretchedness has turned into an industry.

Ben-Dror Yemini,
Maariv11/1/2007 16:44

According to world opinion, the Palestinians are the most wretched and oppressed people on earth. This is the one national group that best fits the victim definition. An endless number of publications deals with their wretchedness and poverty. Not to mention to decades-long refugee status. Here, too, the connection between facts and publicity is loose.
The first article in the series, “And the World Is Silent - A Homemade Genocide,” published in the Rosh Hashana supplement, examined the mass murder that Arabs and primarily Moslems perpetrate against Moslems and Arabs, compared with the relatively minimal number of Arabs killed in general, and Palestinians in particular, in the framework of the dispute with Israel. The second article in the series, “And the World Is Lying,” which was published in the Yom Kippur supplement, dealt with manipulation of the Palestinian refugee problem: even though about 40 million people have experienced population exchanges for the purpose of creating states with a national, ethnic or religious identity, only the Palestinians of all the tens of millions, have remained refugees.
This article will examine the myth of Palestinian misery. The Palestinians are, indeed in a bad situation. No one disputes that. The question is whether this is a self-inflicted Palestinian product for which the Palestinians are responsible, or it is international harassment, primarily American or Israeli.
The myth, which is cultivated by the "forces of progress," says that, naturally, the United States is the root of all evil. Not only does it have an "unbalanced policy," it is also the oppressor of the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people. And Israel, of course, is worsening the general oppression. Is that really so?
While the Palestinians have acquired a place of honor on the world’s list of wretchedness, well oiled public-relations have turned them into a nation of victims. The facts are different in essence from the myths and the plethora of academic and journalistic publications that are perpetrating a mass fraud on world opinion.
Misery pays. It has turned into an industry. The world opens its pockets. The “great Satan,” the country most hated by the Palestinians, the United States, which vies for precedence only with Israel, the “small Satan,” is the country that has helped the Palestinians since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 more than any other country in the world. Not Saudi Arabia alone, and not the Gulf states, separately or together. Not the countries of Europe, who donate separately and not even the European Union.

Shower them with dollars and they will spit back on you
These are the facts: according to a report by the World Bank, from 1994 to 1998, the United States was the largest contributor to the Palestinians. The figures are no different in the following years, but the 1990s, which ended with the Intifada, are particularly important. It is true that Israel receives more aid. The military aid stems from strategic reasons and this is not the place to discuss them. Most of it, in any case, assists American industry, because Israel must spend the money only in America. With regards to the economic aid, in recent years it has become marginal and it is less than the aid given to the Palestinians.
In everything pertaining to per capita aid for the purposes of Palestinian development welfare, they receive far more aid than the aid given, for example, to Egypt. But the myth repeatedly claims that the Palestinians are the "victims," that they must be given more and more because that, perhaps, will convince them to want peace and to abandon terrorism.
According to the World Bank Report, in the above mentioned years, Washington contributed close to $345 million, compared with the European Union, which contributed $298 million. Japan is also at the top of the list, with a contribution of $306 million during those years. (Even India!!! managed to scrape together some $1.5 million !!!)
The American contribution is actually much bigger: during those years, just like during all the past few decades, the United States has been the largest contributor to UNRWA the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for refugees, which is assisting the Palestinians. UNRWA’s annual budget was close to $300 million a year during that period. Out of that amount, $600 million were sent to the West Bank and Gaza. Even by a multiyear calculation, from 1994 to 2004 the United States is in first place, with $1.3 billion in aid. After the U.S. comes the European Union - 1.11 billion, then Japan - 0.53 billion. Here, too, these amounts do not include the contributions to UNRWA and the "Dawa" (the “charity”) which is used in large part to fund terrorism. We must remember that Hamas operated another, separate fund raising channel, some of which actually went to welfare, education, health and publicity infrastructures, and some of which went to strengthening the military arm and terrorists activities.
Billions have been given to the Palestinians. This money could have led to tremendous change in the Palestinian economy. This money, excuse the cliche, could have turned Gaza into Beirut (except that Hizbullah would turn Beirut into Gaza). But the Palestinians chose another path. The world rained dollars on them and the Palestinians responded with criticism. They were not the oppressed of the world, but rather the pampered of the world. Most of the inhabitants of Africa, who are suffering a lot more, can only dream of aid at the magnitude that was given to the Palestinians. There is poverty in the world. There is exploitation. There is oppression. But the Palestinians are not at the top of the list. They are far from that. They have never suffered from hunger. Their distress is mostly of their own devise.

They chose struggle over prosperity
Back before the Oslo Accords, money was flowing to the Palestinians. 1992 was a peak year for the Palestinian economy. The GDP per capita reached $1,999, and the actual GNP per capita was $2,683. The gap stems from supplements from foreign sources: some came from the UNRWA budget, some was transferred from Palestinians working abroad who sent money, and a significant part came from the work performed by many Palestinians in Israel.


A member of the Israeli security forces displays weapons seized from a Fatah terror cell on their way to kidnap Israelis in 1971.



Theoretically, if not for the terrorism, which forced Israel to impose closures and curfews, the Palestinian economy in the 1990s would have turned into one of the leading economies in the Middle East, after Israel. That is the point in time during which the secret talks were being held in Oslo, after which, following the signing of the Accords, the great flow of international aid to the Palestinians began. But these were also the years of large waves of terrorism. The Palestinians preferred struggle to prosperity. During those years, countries like Yemen, Chad and Nigeria, for example, had per capita GDPs of about $1,000 and they were not the poorest countries in the world. These were the years in which there were African communities of millions, in Congo, in Sudan, in the Sahara, which became refugees. But the international community abandoned them. The black people of Africa, of course, did not create terrorism and did not present a strategic threat. The moral conscience of the world in general and of the West in particular is activated in a very selective manner: via the television screen, by threats of terrorism, by the danger of a rise in oil prices. So the far greater suffering of tens of millions of black people in Africa is ranked much lower than the far lesser suffering of the many fewer Palestinians.The distress of the Palestinians is apparently their most successful industry. This is distress that both perpetuates itself and serves as the basis for more and more payment demands. What is it for? Not for building infrastructures. Not for building an improved education system. Not for rehabilitating the hundreds of thousands who are living in refugee camps (none of them in tents, however). The money went to three main objectives: perpetuating the political situation and the wretchedness; purchasing weapons and materiel for terrorism; and for corruption, by paying enormous amounts that went constantly into the pockets of cronies and hangers-on, such as the millions of dollars that went into the bank accounts of Yasser Arafat in banks around the world, and the coupons clipped by the heads of the Palestinian Authority from almost every economic development deal in the territories.

The supreme objective: Wiping Israel off the map
Israel is not innocent of mistakes, but all Israel's mistakes are dwarfed by the Palestinian liability. Living under an occupation is no great joy, and criticism of the occupation in general and of the settlements in particular, is legitimate. More than legitimate. We are not dealing with theory, however, but with facts: huge sums of money that were given to the Palestinians went down the drain. And the opportunities to win independence and prosperity were rejected in favor of the supreme objective: wiping Israel off the map.
The main turning point was, of course, the Oslo Accords. The entire world volunteered to help the Palestinian Authority, which was established following the Accords. The Palestinian Authority did, indeed, grow and blossom. The big money began to flow. But the Palestinians themselves did not enjoy the fruits of peace. Quite the opposite. They went into an economic decline.Various research entities present contradictory data on the changes in the per capita GNP or the purchasing power of the Palestinians before and after the Oslo Accords. But even the contradictory data shows consistent lines: on the one hand, there was an astonishing, unprecedented flow of funds to the Palestinian Authority, and on the other hand, along with the enormous flow of funds, there was also a drop in per capita GNP. The explanation is simple: after the Oslo Accords, there were several waves of terrorism which led to a series of closures. Fewer and fewer Palestinians worked in Israel. But then the change came. In 1997 there was a turning point and the Palestinian economy began to recover. The Palestinians began to feel the benefits of peace. According to Palestinian data, from 1994 to 2000 there was a real increase of 36% in the GDP. And yet, despite the dramatic improvement, the recovery was short-lived and
ended with the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000. Again, the chance for prosperity was destroyed. Again, the Palestinians chose the path of violence. This is an important point in time. The violence broke out precisely after Israel extended to the Palestinians the most generous offer in the history of the conflict between the two nations. The myths of "Palestinian suffering" and of the "horrors of occupation" are inconsistent with reality.

Far from last place in suffering and poverty
Firstly, the uprising began after two years of the waning of the terrorism and the rise of the economic prosperity. Secondly, those were the days when the Palestinians had a Palestinian state in hand. It began at the Camp David summit, where Ehud Barak, Prime Minister at the time, offered something that no Israeli leader had dared propose before him. It continued under the guidance of Bill Clinton and the essence was a Palestinian State along the 1967 borders with the exception of minor border adjustments of a few percent, including substantial parts of Jerusalem, and exchanges of territory, as compensation for the Palestinians.
And how did the Palestinians respond? This is how Bandar bin Sultan, the highly influential Saudi ambassador in Washington at that time, describes the events of that historic day, January 2, 2001: bin Sultan was sitting with Arafat at the Ritz Hotel before he went into the meeting with Clinton. Bin Sultan told Arafat that this was an historic opportunity, that he had the support of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and most of the Arab world, and that if he refused the proposal, "It would be a tragedy, it would be a crime." It did not help. Arafat went to Clinton and said: "No." Arafat did not want a Palestinian state. Arafat did not want prosperity. Arafat did not want an end to the occupation. Arafat wanted war."
Israel was forced to respond in order to protect itself from the enormous wave of terrorism. Yes, Israel made mistakes. But all of its mistakes are dwarfed, we must repeat, by the Palestinian intransigence against ending the occupation and the conflict, and the refusal to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
We will continue with the facts. The flow of funds for economic aid and human development, to prevent hunger, is supposed to be in accordance with the state of the needy community. Were the Palestinians the neediest community? Comparative data show that the Palestinians are far from last place in poverty. While the GNP was not at Western levels, even among the Muslim or Arab countries the Palestinians are not the last on the list. The Human Development Index for 2003 places the "occupied Palestinian territories," as the Palestinian Authority is defined there, in the 102nd place out of 180 countries. Since 2003 represents one of the low points, at the height of the intifada, and since the GNP during the 1990s was far higher, we can assume that the Palestinians’ ranking during the 1990s was higher. And in any case, even in the dire situation of 2003, the Palestinians were ahead of Algeria (ranked 103) Syria (ranked 106) Egypt (ranked 116), Morocco (ranked 126), Yemen (ranked 156) and certainly most of the countries in Africa and some of the countries of South America.The Palestinians are ranked high in human development, relative to other Arab states, even though the GNP is lower than in those countries. And yet, a comparison of GNP and the international aid, relative to other countries and relative to the size of the population, yields an amazing result: the Palestinians received the greatest amount of aid in the world. Actually, it has been a decade and a half that the Palestinians have been far from being the poorest, yet they received the most.
The figures tell the story. For example, from 1994 to 1998, the Palestinians in the territories received more than $2.6 billion in aid from the donor countries, and another $600 million through UNRWA, but that is only part of the picture. An enormous number of Palestinian NGOs received support from many funds, primarily European. Additionally, "charity organizations" sent money, mainly to entities that engaged in terrorism and/or religious activities. The money came from Muslims in America and Europe, from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. The cumulative amount each year comes to hundreds of millions of dollars. Comparative data for 2003 shows an even more surprising picture. While the poverty-stricken Yemen received external aid of $30 per capita, each person in the Palestinian Authority received $470. Even in absolute terms, this is distorted. Egypt received external $1.286 billion in aid while the Palestinian Authority received $1.616 billion in aid. It is superfluous to say that the population of Egypt is 73 million and the Palestinian population is only 3 million.This is not the end of the Palestinian audacity - an audacity in which American support, both economic and political, is met with ingratitude. In 2003, among other things following the terrorist bombings, Washington decided to make its aid to NGOs around the world conditional on the signing of an agreement under which the recipient does not support terrorism. We should clarify that this was the policy vis-a-vis every entity in the world and not just the Palestinians. However, some of the Palestinians did not like that. They wanted both money and support for terrorism. An internal debate developed, with the expected nationalistic rhetoric. The radical elements prevailed and at the beginning of June 2004, the Palestinian legislative Council passed a resolution rejecting the American conditions.The Palestinians wanted both aid and the option to funnel that aid to finance terrorist activities or to entities that support terrorism. Why? Because of the Palestinian "national honor," which includes supporting terrorism, was more important than accepting American aid.

Weapons are more important than welfare, education and prosperity
Three researchers - Michael Keating, Anne Le More and Robert Lowe - edited a comprehensive book of articles on the aid, called “The Case of Palestine: Aid, Diplomacy and Facts on the Ground,” which was published in 2005. The three will never be accused of being overly sympathetic to Israel. However, two clear facts emerge from the book: first, that the Palestinians have received the greatest amount of aid since World War II, not just in absolute terms, but also taking into account the adjustment for the various indices. And, in effect, relative to the number of inhabitants, the Palestinians have received more aid than the Marshall Plan, which was designed for the recovery of Europe after the Second World War. Second, in the words of the book, "Aid may have been part of the problem rather than the solution, and massive international aid has not prevented the decline of Palestinian society."As usual with books of this type, it is also full of allegations against Israel, such as the claim that the aid contributed to perpetuating the occupation (how does that fit in with the Palestinian intransigence in refusing a Palestinian state and the Clinton initiative?), but if we relate solely to the data - of the World Bank, of the International Monetary Fund, of research institutes - they tell the full story.
Throughout the territories there are now tens of thousands of privately held weapons which are not part of the weaponry of the Palestinian security forces. The price of a rifle, according to type and production year, ranges between thousands of shekels and thousands of dollars. When we talk about Palestinian distress, it is also worth remembering Palestinian priorities, both national and private: weapons are more important than welfare, education, and prosperity. Money is not the problem. The problem is the preference for weapons.
If the Palestinians had been fighting the occupation - they would have had an independent Palestinian state long ago, very close to the 1967 lines. But the Palestinians have made every effort to convince public opinion in Israel that the goal is not the end of the occupation. The Palestinian goal was and, for many, still is - the end of the State of Israel. Fantasy has overcome reality.
Like the dream that has been nurtured about the right of return, which only increased the misery of those who have been forced to remain refugees, so the dream of the destruction of Israel has only increased the wretchedness of the Palestinians. The blame is not theirs alone. The blame also belongs to their propaganda agents in the West. The blame belongs to the propaganda agents who treated them like oppressed wretches and not like people with equal rights who should be held responsible for their actions. There is no other explanation for the fact that since the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians in the territories alone have received $5.5 billion, if we do not take into account additional sources that are not mentioned in the official reports. This comes to about $1,300 per capita. Just for the sake of comparison, under the Marshall Plan, every European received only $273 (after adjustment for the index). The Palestinians deserve to receive this aid. They have many good reasons. However we can now see what happened to this vast amount of money. It was spent on corruption and the Fatah movement was removed from the government. It was spent on weapons at the encouragement of the central government and the result is social breakdown and anarchy. And above all, the blame rests on those who helped the inflow of this enormous amount of money without making the Palestinians undergo a process of withdrawal from their futile dreams of destroying Israel. The result is mainly the continued destruction of Palestinian society.

Now consider all the aid the Palestinians have been receiving over the years - they should not be looting their own government and police buildings. Nor should their children. Still...

Moreover, they could and should have built some playgrounds for their children instead of letting them play in, on and around blown-up cars. Not to mention that these wrecked-vehicles could easily become death-traps. Where are their responsible, loving parents?

These vehicles were destroyed in the Fatah-Hamas fighting. Please do not even think of mentioning IAF missile strikes (double or otherwise).

And the World is Lying - The Plight of the Refugees
Ben-Dror Yemini,
Ma'ariv 1 Oct. 2006 (in Hebrew)

This is the second article in a series of investigations of the unique standards applied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the international community and world media. Part I of the series ("And the World is Silent" - 22 Sept. 2006) dealt with the world's silence in response to mass murders by Arabs of their fellow Arabs and Moslems. That silence is of particular significance in light of the constantly reiterated charge that Israel is implementing genocidal policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians - yet this particular genocide is purely fictional. As shown previously, the number of Palestinian casualties inflicted by Israel is trivial compared to the magnitude of casualties inflicted in other ethnic or religious conflicts around the globe. Part II focuses on the unique treatment of Palestinian refugees, by the UN and the international community, compared with the refugees generated by other ethnic and religious conflicts over the course of the last century.
Let us begin with a well-known story. In a country that formerly belonged to the Ottoman Empire, a large Moslem minority continues to reside. There is no love lost between the majority and minority populations, rather a long history of conflict, ripe with mutual hostility . Eventually the majority population forces a large contingent of the minority Moslem population to relocate to a neighboring country with a majority ethnically identical Moslem population.
No, this story is not about Israel and the Palestinians. It is the story of the Moslem Turks in Bulgaria. Nor is it a story from 200 years ago. It took place at the end of the 1980's. Three hundred thousand Moslems were pressured into fleeing Bulgaria. Not forced, just pressured.
If the reader has never heard of the "right of return" of ethnic Turks to Bulgaria, or of any international organizations devoted to their plight, to their suffering in refugee camps, nor read thousands of articles on the subject, the explanation is simple: they are not Palestinians. Nor is the case of ethnic Turks in Bulgaria an isolated one. In the course of the last century, tens of millions of people fled their native lands in the wake of religious or ethnic conflict and redrawal of international borders.

A world full of refugees
Population exchanges have been considered throughout history down to the present as the optimal solution to religious and/or ethnic conflicts. Less than one century ago, Norwegian geographer and statesman Fridtjof Nansen was awarded the 1922 Nobel Peace Prize, in international recognition for designing, initiating and implementing the population transfer between Greece and Turkey.
This does not mean that we are in favor of transfer. Times have changed. Even international moral standards and circumstances have changed. Not every biblical solution is applicable in this day and age. Supporting transfer will no longer win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Entire communities have had no choice but to leave their home country or hometown and relocate. Were the world to impose a "right of return" similar to that advocated for the Palestinians to other instances of population transfer, millions of Moslems would have to move back to India, and millions of Hindus to Pakistan. Entire populations of the Balkan states would have to be reshuffled. Old conflicts that had been laid to rest would be rekindled.That is why no international body advocates the return of Moslems to Greece or Bulgaria, ethnic Greeks to Turkey or Germans to the Sudetenland, etc. And for a very good reason: implementing the right of return to these millions or people would result in the collapse and breaking up of several European states, and the entire continent would be subjected to an endless bloodbath.

The right of return is our winning ticket for the destruction of Israel
Luckily, the world is sane – it does not impose the bloodbath and destruction of Europe and Asia Minor. But there it ends. When it comes to the Palestinians, the world flips. New sets of rules are in order. Whatever holds true for any other conflict in the world cannot apply to God's little acre, which just happens to be the tiny acre of the Jews.
Rules developed for other nations that have been the subject of mass population transfers - India, Pakistan, Turkey, Greece, Czechoslovakia, and dozens of others - suddenly no longer apply when it comes to Israel. Then the world calls for new criteria, which are quite the opposite of what has been accepted thus far. And even then the efforts of entire international organizations focus on one issue alone: the worldwide propaganda campaign devoted not to alleviating the plight of Palestinian refugees but to perpetuating it. Some support the Palestinian "right of return" out of good-hearted naiveté. But many others have a different agenda. Their purpose is not the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the destruction of Israel. As one of Yasser Arafat's closest advisors, Sahar Habash, once commented, "The right of return is our winning lottery ticket for the destruction of Israel." We shall not dwell on the great migration of peoples recorded by history. Nor are we going to demand that the Arabs who invaded Asia, Africa and Europe return to their homelands. Nor, for that matter, are we going to ask the white conquerors of Africa to move back to Europe and America, in spite of their having raped and plundered those lands foreign to them, not to mention the crimes against humanity committed in so doing.
We are only going to examine some of the population exchanges during the last hundred years, due to their similarity to the vast numbers of displaced people in Israel and the neighboring Arab countries: expulsions, fleeing and willing relocation on both sides.

UNRWA's objective: to perpetuate the Palestinian refugee status
Between 600,000 and 800,000 Arabs left Israel and headed for the neighboring Arab countries, while a similar number of Jews fled their Arab homelands and moved mostly to Israel. This was part of a global population shift not unlike that seen in other parts of the world when new states were created on the basis of ethnicity or religion. Millions of people were sometimes involved in such transfers. Not one person out of these millions is still a refugee. Not even those who made it to Israel. This title is reserved for a single category: the Palestinian refugees.
And this is where the application of the double standard comes into action: the existence of two U.N. bodies for dealing with refugees. The United Nations decreed that the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) deals exclusively with Palestinians, while the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) is charged with responsibility for all other refugees around the globe. The mission of the UNHCR is to help refugees begin a new life. As a consequence of its activities tens of millions of former refugees do no longer qualify as "refugees" when they gain citizenship in their new host countries. Thanks to UNRWA, the number of Palestinian refugees continues to expand rapidly, as its one and only purpose is to perpetuate the refugee status of the Palestinians.
There are two official definitions for the term refugee. According to UNRWA's definition, any Egyptian, Jordanian, Lebanese, or Syrian citizen whose primary place of residence between June 1946 and May 1948 was within Israel's 1949 armistice lines is classified as a refugee, even if he was only temporarily in the country in search of work. Thus, a mere two-year stay in mandate Palestine ensures anyone an eternal place on UNRWA's refugee list.
An ordinary refugee has to meet a number of criteria in order to qualify for UNCHR assistance. According to the all-encompassing UN definition, those integrated in a new country, where they become active members of society, are no longer refugees. By contrast, not a single Palestinian has ever lost his refugee status. There are hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees or their descendants who are citizens of Jordan. Yet as far as UNRWA is concerned they are still refugees. So are several Lebanese government ministers. Why? Because a unique and far more expansive definition of refugee is applied to Palestinians. Palestinian refugees are treated differently than other war refugees.
And there is more. Everywhere else in the world only those who fled their previous place of residence are classified as refugees, but not their descendants or other relatives. With respect to Palestinians, however, refugee status is transmitted from generation to generation - it is hereditary. Indeed. Even if one's children never set foot within Israel's 1949 armistice lines and are as wealthy as Bill Gates, they are still classified as refugees.
The special treatment of Palestinian refugees by the U.N. is not meant to solve the plight of Palestinian refugees but to perpetuate it. As the number of those classified as refugees grows year by year, the only consequence is making any solution of the underlying Palestinian-Israeli conflict practically impossible.

Population Exchanges
The Palestinians were not the only ones to be uprooted by the fighting between Israel and the invading Arab armies in 1948-49. As a result of anti-Jewish rioting in Arab countries in the wake of the war, between 600,000 and 800,000 Jews fled the Arab lands where they had lived for centuries and even millennia. Most of those refugees came to Israel, where they were absorbed without assistance from the international community. Such population exchanges are common following major religious or ethnic strife all around the world. Any place else in the world, the exchange of populations between Arabs fleeing Israel - i.e., the area within the 1949 armistice lines - and Jews fleeing Arab lands would have been the end of story.

Population Shifts in the Balkans
With the exception of the Indian subcontinent, no area of the world has experienced more widespread population shifts over the last century than the Balkan states. From the beginning of the first Balkan War in 1912 to the wars following the dissolution of Yugoslavia, between seven and ten million people were uprooted from their homes on the basis of ethnic identity. It is estimated that in the two Balkan Wars between 1912 and 1915, 250,000 Bulgarians, 150,000 Greeks and 200,000 ethnic Turks were expelled to their ancestral homelands. World War II brought about even more significant population shifts. Three-quarters of a million Serbs fled their homes in the course of the war, and another quarter million were forced into labor brigades in Bulgaria and Hungary. After the conclusion of the war, 300,000 Bulgarian nationals returned to Bulgaria from areas which had been under Bulgarian rule prior to the war. At the same time, 200,000 Hungarians emigrated from Transylvania to Hungary. A similar number of Hungarian nationals were forced to leave their homes in Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. The 1920's brought another significant wave of population transfers between Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria, pursuant to the signing of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne between Turkey and the Entente Powers. The major transfer was that of 1.5 million ethnic Greeks from Turkey to Greece, and 500,000 ethnic Turks from Greece to Turkey. In addition, 80,000 Bulgarians were transferred to Greece. Not all ethnic Greeks (who were Christians) left Turkey for Greece, and not all ethnic Turks (who were Moslems) left Greece for Turkey. But the stated purpose of the population exchange was the creation of religious and ethnic homogeneity. It was Fridtjof Nansen, who won the Nobel Peace Prize, for initiating, planning and implementing the transfer. Events connected to World War II brought further population transfers to the Balkans. After a pro-Nazi government took power in Croatia, thousands of Serbs fled the country. In addition, after Hungary took control of Transylvania, 200,000 Romanians fled Transylvania for Romania.

The world media favored turning Serbs into refugees
The next major wave of population shifts in the Balkans came about as a result of the ten year long warfare that followed the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, after Tito's death in 1991. Following fighting between Croatia and Serbia, 250,000 Serbs were expelled from regions that remained in Croatian hands. According to the peace treaty signed between Croatia and Serbia, a procedure was established for Serbs to reclaim their former homes. In practice, however, few Serbs succeeded in exercising their right to reclaim their former homes. Serbs returning to Croatia encountered job discrimination and various forms of harassment. Most found their homes occupied, and even when they successfully asserted their rights in Croat courts, the courts' orders were rarely executed. In short, whatever sort of "right of return" exists for Serbs, it has proven largely ineffectual. And that is so, even though historic tensions between Serbians and Croats are far lower than those between Palestinians and Israelis. Moreover, 200,000 ethnic Serbs pose no demographic threat to Croatia, with a population of 4.4 million people. Nor have Serbs been subjected to a massive propaganda campaign since 1995 calling for the elimination of Croatia, as Palestinians have been vis-à-vis Israel almost since the outset of the Oslo process.

No right of return in the Balkans
A survey of Western newspapers at the conclusion of the fighting between Serbia and Croatia reveals a general acceptance of the need to create ethnically homogeneous states by means of an exchange of Serbs and Croats. That was more or less the leading position of the New York Times on the issue. In renewed fighting in 1999, 800,000 ethnic Albanians were expelled from the Serbian province of Kosovo. Most of those were subsequently returned to their homes after NATO's military intervention. In the meantime, 150,000 Serbs, fearing Albanian retribution, fled Albania. An equal number of Serbs fled Kosovo, after NATO's intervention, for the same reason. Hundreds of thousands more people became refugees over the course of a decade of fighting in the former Yugoslavia, including an estimated 170,000 Croats who fled Serbia. Some of those refugees fled from one newly created country to another; others fled from one region to another within a single country like Bosnia-Herzegovina. Of the 7-10 million Balkan refugees over the course of less than a century, some became refugees as a result of deliberate efforts at ethnic cleansing, some as a consequence of military action, and others pursuant to treaty. The common denominator of these population shifts, however, is that they all led to increased religious and ethnic homogeneity. And that process was accepted by the international community as necessary in order to prevent far greater bloodshed Only in the case of the Serbs, who were allowed to return to Croatia, was there any recognition of a right of return. And even in that case, that recognition remained almost purely theoretical.

12 million German refugees absorbed in just a few years

Poland - Ukraine
After World War II, Poland's eastern border was set at the so-called Curzon Line, which had first been proposed as the border between Poland and the USSR in 1919 by British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon. At that time, however, Poland, succeeded in pressing further demands, and under the Treaty of Riga signed in 1921, its eastern border was set on average 200 kilometers to the east of the Curzon Line. The movement of Poland's border westward after World War II led to a total of 1.4 million Poles and Ukrainians crossing the border in opposite directions: ethnic Poles returning westward to Poland and ethnic Ukrainians moving eastward to the Ukraine. Just as in the Balkans, the basis of that transfer was the preservation of ethnic and religious homogeneity.

Germany - Eastern Europe
At the Potsdam Conference after World War II, the Allies met to discuss the post-War administration of Germany, including the fate of ethnic Germans who had settled throughout Eastern Europe and southern Russia over several centuries. The German majority in the Sudetenland had been the pretext for Hitler's demand, at the Munich Conference, for German annexation of the Sudetenland at the expense of Czechoslovakia. After World War II, the Allies were eager to remove any future pretexts for further German expansionism. As a consequence, it was decided that millions of ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland, Romania, Hungary and Poland - many of whom had never been Nazi supporters - be repatriated to Germany "in an orderly fashion." Between 12-16 million ethnic Germans were moved against their will. Some of the ferries carrying the refugees back to Germany were torpedoed. According to some German sources, many Germans were killed in the process of transfer to Germany. Yet just a few years after this mass exodus, there was not one German refugee still in a refugee camp or with refugee status. The fate of those repatriated is nowhere to be found on the public agenda today in Germany, with the exception of one fringe group BdV (Federation of Expellees) that deals with the issue. The consensus in Germany today is that the refugees have no rights - not to restitution and not to return to those areas in which their ancestors lived for centuries.

India-Pakistan
14 million refugees settled successfully
Though Moslems and Hindus joined together to secure India's independence from Great Britain, as independence drew near religious tensions between Moslems and Hindus flared, though religion was only one of the many dividing lines between different sectors of the population. Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of the struggle for Indian independence, envisioned a single state composed of Hindus, Moslems and Sikhs. The British, however, opted for the creation of two states - one majority Hindu and the other overwhelmingly Moslem - to avoid a bloody war between Hindus and Moslems. As a result, British sovereignty over the Indian subcontinent ended in August 1947 with the creation of two states: India and Pakistan. The creation of two states - one overwhelmingly Moslem and the other predominantly Hindu - resulted in a massive population transfer. More than seven million Hindus and Sikhs transferred from Pakistan to India and a similar number of Moslems left India for Pakistan. Many massacres were perpetrated in the process of these population exchanges. Estimates of the number of those killed range from 200,000 to 1,000,000. Today Pakistan is almost entirely Moslem, while India, with almost a billion people, is home to roughly 160,000,000 Moslems. The two countries have lived in a constant state of tension almost since their creation. Much of that tension is focused today on the Kashmir region of India, which abuts Pakistan, and which has a majority Moslem population. Though the creation of India and Pakistan resulted in over 14 million refugees, the absorption of whom placed enormous burdens of the fledgling states that took them in, today not one person still classified as a refugee as a result of that massive population transfer.

Armenia- Azerbaijan
UNHCR helps Armenian refugees, but refuses to touch Palestinians
The break-up of the Soviet Union brought about the formation of new countries and rekindled old ethnic and religious tensions. Chechnya Moslems, who were exiled to other regions of the former Soviet Union during the Stalin era, suddenly returned to Chechnya, and ignited a movement seeking independence from Russia. More closely related to our topic is the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. The majority of Azerbaijan is Moslem, but within Nagorno-Karabakh, the majority of the people are Armenian Christians. In 1988, this semi-autonomous region sought to be joined to Armenia. That request triggered widespread killings of Moslems in Armenia and Armenians in Azerbaijan. The fighting ended with a ceasefire in 1994, but the conflict gave rise to one million new refugees: 740,000 Moslems fled Armenia for Azerbaijan, and 360,000 Armenian Christians fled Azerbaijan for Armenia. One other interesting detail: Armenia made an effort, in conjunction with UNHCR to absorb its Christian brethren seeking refuge in Armenia. By contrast, the Moslem refugees to Azerbaijan still languish in refugee camps, unabsorbed and unintegrated into Azerbaijan. In that way, the Moslem refugees resemble the Palestinian refugees, many of whom still live in fetid refugee camps nearly sixty years after they became refugees.

The refugee tragedy of Sudan
Sudan has been plagued in recent years by a series of vicious ethnic conflicts: between Moslem Arabs and black animists in the South, and between Moslem Arabs and black Moslems in the Darfur Province, respectively. As a consequence of the warfare between non-Moslem blacks and Arab Moslems, 75,000 blacks were expelled to the neighboring states of Senegal and Mali, and an equal number of Arabs sought refuge in Mauritania in the late '80s and early '90s. Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed are making a concerted effort to rid Darfur of its black population and impose an Arab majority. This is not your run of the mill population exchange. The ethnic and religious cleansing and genocidal policies have resulted in the killing of 200,000 – 400,000 blacks in Darfur. The atrocities committed in the name of the Arab-dominated government in Darfur are creating huge numbers of IDP (internal displaced persons), while three to four more millions have been forced to flee their homes, some into neighboring Chad.
Though both victims and perpetrators in Darfur are Moslems, to date there have been no protests in the Arab world against the ethnic cleansing and genocidal policies being pursued by the Janjaweed against black Darfurians. The Arab-dominated government in Khartoum continues to resist intervention by the U.N. and African peacekeepers, and to do everything possible to prevent them from putting and end to the ongoing atrocities in Darfur. Sudan holds the infamous record of producing the highest numbers of refugees in the world these days.

Cyprus refugees forget about hatred in refugee camps
The population of Cyprus is 80% Greek and 20% Turkish – a remnant of the Ottoman Empire. In response to a threat by the majority Greek population to unite the island with Greece in 1974, Turkish forces invaded the island. As a result of the invasion, Cyprus was divided into two halves: one Greek and the other Turkish. Two hundred thousand ethnic Greeks moved to the Greek-controlled half of the island, and 50,000 Turkish Moslems moved to the Turkish part of the island.
This is not the time and place to draw a comparison between the Cypriot Greeks and the Palestinians: the Greeks did not start the war, did not threaten to drive the Turks into the sea or wipe Turkey off the map. They were victims of the Turkish aggression and violence. Moreover, a Turkish statal entity has been created, unrecognized yet by the world community.
From the time of the partition of the island, the Greek half has flourished - there are no refugee camps, no terror, and no incitement of terror against the Turks, despite the fact that Turkey settled 100,000 more Turks on the Turkish-controlled half of the island (in violation of international law) and brought in tens of thousands of soldiers to maintain its military regime. In contrast to the Greek half of the island, the Turkish half has experienced severe unemployment and a stagnant economy. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan devised a far-reaching proposal to reunite the island in 2004, but in a national referendum, the Greek half of the island rejected the plan. Nevertheless, the U.N. plan does provide an interesting insight into the international community's view of the "right of return" in general. The plan did not hint at a general right of return of those who had fled their homes upon partition of the island. Only Greeks over 65 years old were granted anything like a right of return, and even then, only on condition that they do not exceed 10% of the total Turkish population, and no more than 20% in any particular area. Had Israel accepted such a proposal, it would have had to export Palestinians rather than bring them back for the simple reason that Palestinians already constitute over 10% of Israel's population.

The world turns turns their back on refugees – unless they are Palestinians
The number of refugees (except the Sudanese) during the last century totals approximately 38 million people. International organizations estimate the number of people displaced by the communist regime in the USSR alone to 65 million. The unending civil warfare in Congo and Somalia generate unknown numbers of refugees who remain mostly uncared for. There is no special UN agency to address their needs. They would certainly benefit from the attention the Palestinians garner, but except for a few low-budget relief agencies, the world looks away. They simply fall under different categories and are left to fend for themselves, as the international mass media takes little interest in their suffering. Unlike the Palestinians, they simply do not make the headlines. The Palestinian refugee numbers are growing larger every year thanks to clever manipulation.
Of all the tens of millions of refugees generated by religious and ethnic strife, however, only the 700,000 Palestinians who fled their homes in Israel in 1948 - most of them at the urging of their leaders - remain a "problem" for the UN-led international community nearly sixty years later. All over the world, the same pattern prevails. Those who have been expelled or forced to flee from areas in which they were part of a religious or ethnic minority to areas or countries where
their religious or ethnic group is the majority have been absorbed by their co-religionists or those of the same ethnicity.
That is what happened when Israel absorbed 600,000-800,000 Jews from Arab lands after the creation of the state. And this is what has happened everywhere else in the world. The two Germanys absorbed ethnic Germans after World War II; India took in Hindus fleeing Pakistan, and Pakistan received Moslems fleeing India. That too should be the fate of the Palestinians. They should be absorbed in an independent Arab state of Palestine to be established one day alongside Israel, not instead of Israel. Only the Palestinians (and Moslem refugees to Azerbaijan) depart from the general pattern of absorption by those who share their religion and ethnic identity. The Palestinians were never absorbed by their Arab co-religionists in the countries bordering Israel. They faced both de facto and de jure discrimination in many of those countries. Today hundreds of thousands of those who left Israel in 1948 and their descendants still languish in refugee camps nursing their bitter historical grievances and constituting a permanent attack force to be unleashed against Israel. The Arab states deliberately maintain the Palestinians in their pitiable state. The international community is also complicit in the process. Rather than helping the Palestinians out of their refugee status, UNRWA and international donors have frozen the Palestinians in that status. That holds true not only for those who fled Israel in 1948, but for all their descendants in perpetuity. In lieu of applying medicine, the Palestinians' "benefactors" have only rubbed salt on their wounds - sometimes for their own purposes and sometimes with good intentions. The day that the international community desists from applying a double standard to the Palestinians will be a day of rejoicing for them. On that day, they will stop being political pawns and be on the way to gaining their independence. Of the tens of millions of refugees created by World War II and the grant of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947, all lost their refugee status, as far as the international community is concerned, decades ago. And the possibility of those former refugees returning to the lands of their birth would strike the international community with horror, for an attempt to do so would only unleash old ethnic and religious conflicts. We might as well discuss the return of North America to its original native inhabitants. Only with respect to the Palestinians does the "right of return" continue to be discussed. Not just discussed, but to be the subject of thousands of books, articles, and documentaries. That "right" is never placed in the context of comparable cases of other refugees around the world. Sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians dwarfs that for other peoples who have suffered far worse fates, and who are far less complicit in their fate. The exodus of Palestinians from what is today Israel took place only because five Arab armies invaded Israel immediately after its declaration of independence. And the Palestinians could have had their own independent state a long time ago. Instead, they have chosen to focus their energies on the destruction of Israel. The black farmers of the Darfur province of Sudan constitute just the most blatant current example of the disproportionate sympathy for the Palestinians. The U.N. estimates the number of those killed by Arab Moslem militias at 400,000, while another two to three million people have fled their homes, as a consequence of a concerted effort at ethnic cleansing. And yet it is the plight of the Palestinians that continues to be portrayed as the greatest injustice perpetrated by man against his fellow man in the world today. International humanitarian aid to the Palestinians is by far of the greatest magnitude than that directed towards any other people. (That will be the subject of our third investigation.) Meanwhile the black farmers of Darfur are left to cope as best they can.
The international community has long acknowledged the rule that religious and ethnic homogeneity serves as a deterrent to the most vicious of conflicts. For that reason, Turkish Moslems will not return to Greece nor Greeks to their former homes in Turkey. Sometimes history must be forgotten if peace is to be maintained. Judea and Samaria is the historical homeland of the Jewish people. Yet we do not advocate Jewish rule of that area today, for it is home to another people. But just as Arabs dwelling today in Judea and Samaria have a right to national self-determination, so do Jews. And Israel is the only place in the world where Jews can exercise that right today. Those who call for the "right of return" for Palestinians would deny Jews their right to self-determination. Let us be clear. When we argue that Cyprus is the model for the solution of religious and ethnic conflicts, we do not mean that ethnic and religious homogeneity need not be absolute. There is room for an Arab minority in Israel, just as there is a Jewish minority in Morocco. We oppose with every fiber of our being the idea of transfer - either of Arabs from what is today Israel proper or from Judea and Samaria. Though ethnic cleansing has taken place many times in the past, and even though the results of such a policy have subsequently become part of the accepted status quo, we reject ethnic cleansing. Jews in Israel will not do to Arabs in Judea and Samaria what government-supported Arab militias are doing to their black co-religionists in the Darfur province of Sudan.
Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's paper "The Israel Lobby" has received deservedly warm approbation from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and has been featured prominently on neo-Nazi and anti-Israel sites. The main thesis of the paper is that a nefarious pro-Israel lobby has subverted American foreign policy in favor of Israel, and at great cost to American interests. The paper is a virtual compendium of the most malicious charges against Israel. Opposing facts and views are not even cited much less refuted. (For a detailed point-by-point refutation of the Mearsheimer/Walt thesis, the reader is invited to consult the posting by Professor Alan Dershowitz.) No accusation is too wild to lay at Israel's doorstep. For instance, the authors claim that Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in order to bring about Hamas' ascendance to power, and thereby end the peace process. Among the claims made by Mearsheimer/Walt is that there is strong support for transfer in Israel. Nowhere do the authors mention that no party advocating transfer has ever wielded any significant political power in Israel. It is interesting, however, that the same Mearsheimer who fumes against Israel for the popular support for transfer, wrote in a New York Times op-ed in 1993 that the only solution to the chaos in the Balkans was the creation of "ethnically homogeneous states." Needless to say, as Mearsheimer wrote, "Creating homogeneous states would require transferring populations and drawing new borders". We mention this little bit of hypocrisy only because it typifies the world's hypocrisy with respect to discussion of all aspects of the Palestinian refugee question. Had the world treated Palestinian refugees as it once treated German, Hindu, and Moslem refugees, the refugee problem would no longer exist. By treating Palestinians as a uniquely privileged class of refugees instead, through dozens of organizations supporting the Palestinian "right of return" and maintaining them as wards of the international community, they have only succeeded in perpetuating their plight. The determination that every country has the right to maintain ethnic or religious homogeneity and that refugees who are already located in places in which they belong to the religious or ethnic majority have no right of return, applies to Israel as well. That means that even though Judea and Samaria are part of the historical homeland of the Jewish people, the Jews have no right of return there just as the Palestinians have no right of return to Israel, even though that is their historical homeland. There must be one rule for the Germans absorbed in Germany, for the Hindus absorbed in India, for the Moslems who moved to Pakistan and, by virtue of this rule, the Jews have the right of return to Israel but not to Palestine, and the Palestinians have the right of return to Palestine but not to Israel. The absolute rejection of the right of return is a corollary of not only the international situation but also the right to self-determination. The Palestinians have such a right and the Jews have such a right. Anyone who demands the right of return for the Palestinians, and only for them is, in effect, rejecting the Jewish right to self-determination.
The international community, rather than Israel, is responsible for perpetuating the problem of the Palestinian refugees. Instead of dressing their wounds, it poked and probed. It utilized manipulation. The irony - and it is a very bitter irony - is that the double standard has only increased the suffering of the Palestinians. It has eternalized them in their suffering. It has prevented the resolution of their problem. The day the world abandons this double standard will be a good day for the Palestinians. It will be the first day on which the level of their suffering begins to recede. It will be the day on which they cease to be political pawns. For the sake of the Palestinians, for the sake of peace, that day should come.

December 11, 1947. This is a refugee camp set up to absorb Jewish refugees. They lived in tents. Cooking, washing, laundry were done outdoors. Location: Tel-Aviv's most fashionable location, nowadays that is.

November 5, 1950. Yigal Yadin (second left) , IDF Chief-of-Staff at the time , visiting a transition camp for Yemenite Jews airlifted to Israel in what is known as the audacious Magic Carpet Operation. Location Kessalon, close to Beit-Shemesh. Same as in the above picture, these people had to live in tents. They would have qualified as refugees. International aid offered to them amounted to zilch. Needlesss to say that they have all of them live in proper houses. You don't live in a tent, you're not a refugee. No Palestinian to-date lives in a tent. Most have running water and electricity, schools, businesses, etc. They study in universities (mostly the art of terrorism).

An amount of weapons is seen on display at an undisclosed location in Gaza, in this frame made from Palestinian Television, Friday, Feb. 2, 2007. Palestinian TV aired footage of dozens of rocket-propelled grenade launchers, rockets and assault rifles, as well as thousands of bullets that Abbas' presidential guard claimed was confiscated at the Islamic University, Thursday night. Fatah and Hamas gunmen attacked two universities and a radio station on Friday in the deadliest single day of their violent struggle to chart the course of the Palestinian people. (AP Photo / Palestinian TV). Ynet also has an interesting piece on Fatah's raid of this school of horrors, claiming that IDF corporal Gilad Shalit was held there for a while folloowing his abduction on June 26, 2006.

What kind of refugees are they, really? This kind?

Or this kind?

This little girl is re-enacting the Ramallah lynch of two Israeli soldiers in a Gaza kindergaten, while the little boys seen below are being indoctrinated into killing Jews and becoming terrorists, no, strike that, resistance fighters.

It really pains me to say this, but is the life of one Palestinian child killed accidentally by the IDF (accidentally is circumstantial, since they are cynically being used as human shields, or worse, KILLED by the grown-up terrorists) more valuable than the lives of thousands of African children dying of starvation, disease, neglect? It appears so. Why? you might ask. Well, because the media hates Jews and hates Israel. Pallywood can make the whole world point the accusing finger at Israel for such gross fakeries as the Dura child shooting, the Gaza beach incident, and so many more. But the world not only lets the Palestinians get away with such blatant child abuse, it is quick to accuse Israel of dire living conditions in Gaza and the West Bank that leave the Palestinians no choice but to fight back. By means of terror. Two things I can tell you: - malnourished they are not, armed to the teeth they are.

Those Who Are About to Pay the Price
Nadav Ha'etzni
Ma'ariv (Saturday supplement) 05.01.2007

In 1988 the Israeli government released Yiad Sawalha from Israeli prison as a good will gesture for Arafat's government despite his having been sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering alleged collaborators with Israel. Between his release and his target-killing by the IDF in 2002, he participated in killing and wounding several people, such as Zion Agmon, Adi Dahan, Elico Timsit, and 14 more Israelis injured in the Megiddo Junction bus bombing and here.

He was also responsible for murdering 14 other Israelis in the Karkur junction bus bombing.

Nasser Abu-Hamiyad, a Fatah member, was released as part of the Oslo agreement, despite having been sentenced to several life terms in prison. I met with Abu-Hamiyad in the mid '90's, following his release. I found a totally remorseless cold blooded murderer. To say nothing of a message of peace or hope. Indeed, shortly after his release, he was back in the business of butchering Israelis: shooting at Israeli cars, participation in the Ramallah lynch, responsible for killing a policewoman and wounding ten people in the Neveh-Yaakov (a Jerusalem suburb) bombing. In March 2002, together with Marwan Barghouti, the lefties' darling, he masterminded the Sea Food Market restaurant carnage in Tel Aviv. Among the victims - two dead: Eliahu Dahan and Yossi Havi - and 31 wounded. Barghouti was convicted for nine counts of murder, Abu-Hamiyad for seven life terms plus 50 years. Both of them are up for release under the prisoner exchange deal concocted by Ehud Olmert.

Similar to Sawalha and Abu-Hamiyad, thousands of convicted terrorists and murderers have been released under different deals since 1985. They were set free without the benefit of any kind of reasonable legal procedure. Their release was part of "good will gestures" extended by the Israeli leadership to the Palestinian terrorist organization, or part of sloppy exchange deals for the return of kidnapped Israelis or dead soldiers. We were told that releasing terrorists would bring about peace and security, strengthen our peace partners, and mainly save lives. Except that following their release, most terrorists resumed their criminal activities and went back to killing and wounding Israelis. At least half of those released under the Jibril deal returned to the killing fields".
According to the Jibril deal, 1,150 of the most dangerous murderers were released from Israeli jails in exchange for three Israeli soldiers captured during the (first) Lebanon war. The Israeli government was duly warned about the unbearable blood price about to be paid, but the pressure was overwhelming. Indeed, without delay, those who had just regained their freedom proceeded to establish the new terror infrastructure that brought about the second intifadah.
Indirectly, this exchange deal cost us dearly – the Palestinian uprising. But the really unbearable price was paid by the victims and their families: all the terrorists released under this agreement were directly responsible for murdering and maiming hundreds, perhaps thousands of Israelis.
One of those terrorists, Jihad Alamrin of Gaza, was serving a life sentence when he was deported to Jordan, as part of the exchange deal. There, instead of rotting away in a jail cell, he founded the Islamic Jihad gangs which he dispatched to perform endless terror attacks. He returned to Gaza in 1996 only to be appointed senior officer in Arafat's own army. His task was to organize terrorist groups – thus he founded the Al-Aksa martyrs brigades. Among his victims – first sergeant Asher Zaguri and first sergeant Moshe Peled. The trail of murders he was responsible for since 1985 came to an end in 2002, when the IDF target killed him. Meantime, Alamrin alone was responsible for the deaths of many more soldiers than the three released under the Jibril deal.
Therefore, I find it very hard to understand the terminology favored by the government officials and senior journalists at the present time. More obscure dealings meant to bring about more dangerous actions are presented as "optimistic". Details concerning such wheelings and dealings are called "progress". Optimism and progress for whom? Certainly not for those who are about to pay the price – those who already count as dead men walking in our midst thanks to the intended deal. Certainly not for the rule of the law, which is just about to be wiped out.
Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levi once wrote: "This is not the first time that certain signed agreements force State of Israel to release terrorists responsible for sowing death and destruction in our midst. In the wake of each and every release of this kind, the hearts of many tremble with anticipation that, at long last, one may see the desired change and those pardoned would not resume their terrorist ways, and that perhaps they might even serve as good will ambassadors who might spread the idea of peaceful co-existence. Yet I believe there is no need to define this hope, or better said delusion, as totally unfounded."
Except that the Supreme Court as well as the Israeli public are jointly responsible for the victims to come. So far, the Supreme Court has not blocked such release deals, while the Israeli public turns a blind eye to the criminal activities planned by the government. The reports about the monster about to be released have not caused even the tiniest protest, to say nothing of a hunger strike. This silence will exact a heavy personal price from thousands of people, while all of us will lose more and more of our ability to carry on and preserve our society and our country.

This is 19-year-old David Biri. He was the first victim of the second intifadah. I work with one of his aunts, I know his parents and some of his cousins and uncles. My spouse works with his father and one of his uncles and knows most of his family. In this country, surrounded by genocidal maniacs, what happened is that he stepped out of his vehicle to help a family wounded in a terrorist attack, and was killed by the second charge, denotated on purpose by the rabid terrorists who were lying low and waiting for their next victim. He was just another IDF soldier who did not live to celebrate his 20th birthday.