Pictures and firsthand account from UC Berkeley today

Damn, those puppets have to be heavy!

Close up of the sign from the puppet...

In fairness, I'll show the hecklers that were trying to cause a conflict. Notice how all the corporate media is feeding on it while thousands of people behind them chant for justice in Palestine.

The occupation began...

Inside, looking out...

Meanwhile, outside, a massive rally rages on in solidarity with those inside the hall, as well as those in beseiged Palestine.

Student traffic was redirected by the local cops, the only ones allowed to bring firearms and other weapons onto campus. Hopefully the symbolism isn't lost on people when traffic is rerouted from the scene of an event. Life ceases to opperate normally in a warzone. You can't go to class, you can't go to the store for food. You can't get medical supplies... You can't get water... things people need to survive. Even if they aren't involved in the conflict.

After sneaking back in to film the action, the police announce that it's time to leave or face arrest.

The occupation refuses the orders to disperse... just as Israel refuses it's illegal and immoral occupation of Palestine today.

another angle of the settlers...

Oops! Guess I pressed my luck... 6 Officers grab me as I turn around and escort me to booking hall. I'm more than glad to take a hit for Palestine any day of the week, although I wish I could've recorded the other arrests.

FREE PALESTINE! END THE OCCUPATION!

You say that there were people supporting israel trying to disrupt your demonstration...I was there and it was the group of people trying to remember the Holocaust that were showing the respect that the day reserved. SJP decided to make a mockery of the Holocaust. Your campaign for divestment did nothing. The campus does not care and will not listen to a millitant group of lawbreakers. After seeing this today, I have already put my check in the mail to my pro-Israel Senators. Free Israel From Terror.

Booking hall...

After I was ejected, I saw that the rally was still going very strong...

The crowd watched the arrests from outside as the rally continued.

Spirits were high. There was dancing...

... singing...

... and more speakers and chanting.

Even when it started to rain, the rally didn't quit. We cheered on as the rest of the students were arrested and taken to booking hall.

That's it for the photos. I'll upload some video after dinner.

beautiful - good job for not letting the right-wingers provoke you.

Good work covering the demo, going inside at Wheeler, and getting busted to get the story! Looking forward to more of it!

Peter

There are over one and a half million Palestinean refugees in Jordan and hundreds of thousands in Lebanon. Jordan has far more refugees than in the West Bank and Gaza. Why doesn't SJP protest these two countries who do not provide health care or education to these Palestineans? Their governments believe that they cannot absorb these individuals into their socities. SJP only protests Israeli policy because they are an anti-semetic organization. Their hatred of Israel reveals their hatred of Jews since they cannot even stand up against Arab countries who are committing far worce atrocities against the Paletineans. Free Israel From Terror.

This stupid Zionist obviously has a great deal of trouble with spelling because he does not read. On the front page of every newspaper is the news of Israel's invasion of the West Bank and Gaza (the latter is now being attacked by Israel). The refugees were originally made such in 1948, when Israel kicked 750,000 people off their land in Palestine. The beneficiary and supporter was US oil imperialism. The urgency to this protest is that with a 24-hour curfew in the West Bank for over 12 days affecting 1 million people, there is a great possibility that 1 million people will die due to lack of food, water, electricity and medical care. This is a massacre, a genocide, that is being paid for by US tax dollars. We all had better protest such a horror.

I joined in the protest and marched with the crowd to Wheeler Hall. All was going very well until we got there. When one of the speakers started praising the "bravery" of the Palestinian suicide bombers and calling on more suicide bombers to step forward and "place fear in the hearts of the Jewish settlers", I got a queezy feeling in my stomach and hoped it was just one speakers opinion. As the other speakers voiced the same sentiments, I got up and left. I noticed several others did too. I see no point in protesting for peace by calling upon people to give their lives to kill others. I would be happy to participate in a protest for the Palestinian people that called for peaceful solutions. This one called for murder.

I heard nothing of the sort, but I did hear about solidarity with the Intifada. There is this little thing called occupation that has been going on for a very long time (I've heard differing times from 34-50+ years). Occupation is where an army of another country controls everything in your country. This means that they've been living under FOREIGN military law for this long. I believe, as do quite a few people in the movement, that the Palestinians have the right to fight back against this oppression.

This is why we show our solidarity with the Intifada. Intifada means "struggle" not terrorism. Just because they do not have apache helecoptors to fire their missiles they are considered terrorists. Just because they do not have F-16's to deliver their bombs they are called terrorists. If you think for a moment that Isreali bombs and missiles (that are being fired from U.S.-supplied gunships) are not being dropped on civilian targets, you need to read some of the firsthand accounts comming in from the area.

Most of these firsthand accounts can be viewed on Jerusalem Indymedia.

Until the Occupation ENDS we will continue to support the struggle. It really is simple, and I don't think it's so hard to understand. We're not condoning attacks on civilians on either side, but we do support the Palestinian's RIGHT to throw off oppression, just like in South Africa.

So if someone said something about the suicide bombers, I wouldn't be surprised because we do support the Intifada. However, personally I wish there COULD be a fair fight. But that just isn't possible unless the U.S. starts giving millions of dollars a day to aid Palestine, and supplying them with tons of gunships and weapons.

I would ask a few questions of the student above who 'got sick' at the mention of the suicide bombers.... How else would you have them fight back against 30-50 years of foreign military occupation? Do you think they don't have a right to fight back? Do you think that Israel is not targetting civilians just like Palestine?

There is a very distinct line between what is going on in Palestine, and what happened on 9/11. That is that Osama isn't directly representing a country or specific people that are struggling against oppression. (Ok so the entire middle east, but that doesn't count in my book. He's just way far out there and doesn't get my support.) Yet the Palestinians are merely continuing a struggle that has gone on for decades by whatever means they have available, which is very crude weapons consisting of stones, bodies, and a few guns and explosives that require hand-delivery.

How would you suggest they fight back with no military to speak of? Or do you think they have a right to? Would you fight back if Israel occupied your country for many decades? When does revolution become acceptable? How many Palestinians need to be murdered in cold blood for you to support their struggle for freedom? How many attrocities need to be committed before people understand that Palestine will LIVE FREE OR DIE!

Free Palestine! End the Occupation!

"This one called for murder."

Just to directly answer this, no it did not. It called for supporting the JUSTIFIED struggle of the Palestinians to throw off the oppression of many decades of occupation.

Intifada = Struggle

In this struggle, many people are dying and it is unfortunate. But let us not let this divert our attention from the facts. This is a revolt against an illegal and immoral occupation by Israel. In any revolution there is bound to be bloodshed, but let us not let that blind us from the facts.

This is a struggle for freedom. Free Palestine!

"Thousands of people ... "


ahh, yes, good old hyperbole.

One thousand seemed like a high estimate, police said more like 800.

How can you be trusted when you get simple things so wrong?

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become
a monster.

Funny how we don't see big anti-suicide bomber protests in these universities, you can very clearly see on whose side they're on.

Please, spare me the "resistance" excuse for the Palestinian violence, I lived under an opressive dictatorship and we never resorted to violence, specially not against civilians who disagreed with us.

The brain washing being imposed on Palestinians and the lack of responsible leaders who don't even want to bother forming a real government, are clear indicators that this is a society that really need internal reform before settling their issues with Israel.

The sad thing is, Palestinians don't realize how convinently they're being played by the Arab regimes, and these "protestors" fall into their trap too. Notice how we don't see marches about Arab's countries mistreatment of Palestianians and people who dare opposed the local dictator.

Where was the protests over Kuwaits expulsion of the Palestinians ? Where is the large protests over the Taliban's repression of their people ? C'mon people, we can see thru you, you are mostly either anti-Semites and most of you are just anti-establishment nobodies who just want to "revel" against something.

Just pray that next time a suicide fanatic blows himself or herself up you won't be in the crowd. They don't care who they kill.

I was interested the other day when I heard that the de facto Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, made a statement which was received by many in this country as if it were a statement of fact, as if it were something new, a concept for peace in the Middle East that no one had ever heard of before. I was kind of shocked that it was so well received by many people who had been down this road before.

I suggest to you that what Crown Prince Abdullah talked about a few days ago was not new at all. He talked about the fact that under the Abdullah plan, Arabs would normalize relations with Israel in exchange for the Jewish state surrendering the territory it received after the Six Day War, as if that were something new...

[But] there isn't anything new about the prospect of giving up land that is rightfully Israel's land in order to have peace. When it gets right down to it, the land doesn't make that much difference, because Yasser Arafat and others don't recognize Israel's right to any of the land. They do not recognize Israel's right to exist. Yasser Arafat and others don't recognize Israel's right to any of the land. They do not recognize Israel's right to exist.

I will discuss seven reasons why Israel is entitled to the land they have and that it should not be a part of the peace process. If this is something that Israel wants to do, it is their business to do it. But anyone who has tried to put the pressure on Israel to do this is wrong.

We are going to be hit by skeptics who are going to say we will be attacked because of our support for Israel, and if we get out of the Middle East -- that is us -- all the problems will go away. That is just not true. If we withdraw, all of these problems will again come to our door. I have some observations to make about that.

But I would like to reemphasize once again the seven reasons that Israel has the right to their land.

1) ARCHEOLOGY

The first reason is that Israel has the right to the land because of all of the archeological evidence. All the archeological evidence supports it. Every time there is a dig in Israel, it does nothing but support the fact that Israelis have had a presence there for 3,000 years. The coins, the cities, the pottery, the culture -- there are other people, groups that are there, but there is no mistaking the fact that Israelis have been present in that land for 3,000 years. It predates any claims that other peoples in the region may have.

The ancient Philistines are extinct. Many other ancient peoples are extinct. They do not have the unbroken line to this date that the Israelis have. Even the Egyptians of today are not racial Egyptians of 2,000, 3,000 years ago. They are primarily an Arab people. The land is called Egypt, but they are not the same racial and ethnic stock as the old Egyptians of the ancient world.

The Israelis are in fact descended from the original Israelites.

2) HISTORY

The second proof of Israel's right to the land is the historic right. History supports it totally and completely. We know there has been an Israel up until the time of the Roman Empire. The Romans conquered the land. Israel had no homeland, although Jews were allowed to live there. They were driven from the land in two dispersions: One in 70 A.D. and the other in 135 A.D. But there was always a Jewish presence in the land.

The Turks, who took over about 700 years ago and ruled the land up until about World War One, had control. Then the land was conquered by the British. The Turks entered World War One on the side of Germany. The British knew they had to do something to punish Turkey, and also to break up that empire that was going to be a part of the whole effort of Germany in World War One. So the British sent troops against the Turks in the Holy Land.

One of the generals who was leading the British armies was a man named Allenby. Allenby was a Bible-believing Christian. He carried a Bible with him everywhere he went and he knew the significance of Jerusalem. The night before the attack against Jerusalem to drive out the Turks, Allenby prayed that God would allow him to capture the city without doing damage to the holy places.

That day, Allenby sent World War One biplanes over the city of Jerusalem to do a reconnaissance mission. You have to understand that the Turks had at that time never seen an airplane. So there they were, flying around. They looked in the sky and saw these fascinating inventions and did not know what they were, and they were terrified by them.They dared not fight against a prophet from God, so Allenby captured Jerusalem without firing a single shot.

Then they were told they were going to be opposed by a man named Allenby the next day, which means, in their language, "man sent from God" or "prophet from God." They dared not fight against a prophet from God, so the next morning, when Allenby went to take Jerusalem, he went in and captured it without firing a single shot.

The British government was grateful to Jewish people around the world, particularly to one Jewish chemist who helped them manufacture niter. Niter is an ingredient that was used in nitroglycerin which was sent over from the New World. But they did not have a way of getting it to England. The German U-boats were shooting on the boats, so most of the niter they were trying to import to make nitroglycerin was at the bottom of the ocean. But a man named Weitzman, a Jewish chemist, discovered a way to make it from materials that existed in England. As a result, they were able to continue that supply.

The British at that time said they were going to give the Jewish people a homeland. That is all written down in history. They were gratified that the Jewish people, the bankers, came through and helped finance the war.

The homeland that Britain said it would set aside consisted of all of what is now Israel and all of what was then the nation of Jordan -- the whole thing. That was what Britain promised to give the Jews in 1917. In the beginning, there was some Arab support for this action. There was not a huge Arab population in the land at that time, and there is a reason for that. The land was not able to sustain a large population of people. It just did not have the development it needed to handle those people, and nobody really wanted this land. It was considered to be worthless land.

Mark Twain -- Samuel Clemens -- took a tour of Palestine in 1867. This is how he described that land. We are talking about Israel now. He said: "A desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds. A silent, mournful expanse. We never saw a human being on the whole route. There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country."

Where was this great Palestinian nation? It did not exist. It was not there. Palestinians were not there. Palestine was a region named by the Romans, but at that time it was under the control of Turkey, and there was no large mass of people there because the land would not support them.

This is the report that the Palestinian Royal Commission, created by the British, made. It quotes an account of the conditions on the coastal plain along the Mediterranean Sea in 1913. The Palestinian Royal Commission said:

"The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track, suitable for transport by camels or carts. No orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached the Yavnev village. Houses were mud. Schools did not exist. The western part toward the sea was almost a desert. The villages in this area were few and thinly populated. Many villages were deserted by their inhabitants."

That was 1913.

The French author Voltaire described Palestine as "a hopeless, dreary place." In short, under the Turks the land suffered from neglect and low population. That is a historic fact. The nation became populated by both Jews and Arabs because the land came to prosper when Jews came back and began to reclaim it. If there had never been any archaeological evidence to support the rights of the Israelis to the territory, it is also important to recognize that other nations in the area have no longstanding claim to the country either.

Did you know that Saudi Arabia was not created until 1913, Lebanon until 1920? Iraq did not exist as a nation until 1932, Syria until 1941. The borders of Jordan were established in 1946 and Kuwait in 1961. Any of these nations that would say Israel is only a recent arrival would have to deny their own rights as recent arrivals as well. They did not exist as countries. They were all under the control of the Turks.

Historically, Israel gained its independence in 1948.

3) AGRICULTURE

The third reason that land belongs to Israel is the practical value of the Israelis being there. Israel today is a modern marvel of agriculture. Israel is able to bring more food out of a desert environment than any other country in the world. The Arab nations ought to make Israel their friend and import technology from Israel that would allow all the Middle East, not just Israel, to become an exporter of food. Israel has unarguable success in its agriculture.

4) HUMANITARIAN

The fourth reason I believe Israel has the right to the land is on the grounds of humanitarian concern. You see, there were 6 million Jews slaughtered in Europe during World War Two. The persecution against the Jews had been very strong in Russia since the advent of communism, and before then under the Czars.

These people have a right to their homeland. If we are not going to allow them a homeland in the Middle East, then where? What other nation on Earth is going to cede territory, is going to give up land?

They are not asking for a great deal. The whole nation of Israel would fit into my home state of Oklahoma seven times. They are not asking for a great deal. The whole nation of Israel is very small. It is a nation that, up until the time that claims started coming in, was not desired by anybody.

5) STRATEGIC ALLY

The fifth reason Israel ought to have their land is that she is a strategic ally of the United States. Whether we realize it or not, Israel is an impediment to certain groups hostile to democracies and hostile to what we believe in, hostile to that which makes us the greatest nation in the history of the world. They have kept them from taking complete control of the Middle East. If it were not for Israel, they would overrun the region. Israel votes with America in the United Nations more than England, Canada, France, Germany -- more than any other country in the world.

They are our strategic ally. It is good to know we have a friend in the Middle East on whom we can count. They vote with us in the United Nations more than England, more than Canada, more than France, more than Germany -- more than any other country in the world.

6) ROADBLOCK TO TERRORISM

The sixth reason is that Israel is a roadblock to terrorism. The war we are now facing is not against a sovereign nation; it is against a group of terrorists who are very fluid, moving from one country to another. They are almost invisible. That is whom we are fighting against today. We need every ally we can get. If we do not stop terrorism in the Middle East, it will be on our shores.

One of the reasons I believe the spiritual door was opened for an attack against the United States is that the policy of our government has been to ask the Israelis, and demand it with pressure, not to retaliate in a significant way against the terrorist strikes that have been launched against them.

Since its independence in 1948, Israel has fought four wars: The 1948 War of Independence, the 1956 Sinai campaign, the 1967 Six Day War, and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In all four cases, Israel was attacked. They were not the aggressor. Some people may argue that this was not true because they went in first in 1956, but they knew at that time that Egypt was building a huge military to become the aggressor. Israel, in fact, was not the aggressor and has not been the aggressor in any of the four wars.

Also, they won all four wars against impossible odds. They are great warriors. They consider a level playing field being outnumbered 2-to-1.

There were 39 Scud missiles that landed on Israeli soil during the Gulf War. Our president asked Israel not to respond. In order to have the Arab nations on board, we asked Israel not to participate in the war. They showed tremendous restraint and did not. Now we have asked them to stand back and not do anything over these last several attacks. We have criticized them. We have criticized them in our media. Local people in television and radio often criticize Israel, not knowing the true facts. We need to be informed.

I was so thrilled when I heard a reporter pose a question to Secretary of State Colin Powell. He said: "Mr. Powell, the United States has advocated a policy of restraint in the Middle East. We have discouraged Israel from retaliation again and again and again because we've said that it escalates the violence. Are we going to follow that ourselves?"

Mr. Powell indicated we would strike back. In other words, we can tell Israel not to do it, but when it hits us, we are going to do something.

But all that changed in December when the Israelis went into Gaza with gunships and into the West Bank with F-16s. With the exception of last May, the Israelis had not used F-16s since the Six Day War. And I am so proud of them because we have to stop terrorism. It is not going to go away. If Israel were driven into the sea tomorrow, if every Jew in the Middle East were killed, terrorism would not end. You know that in your heart. Terrorism would continue. It is not just a matter of Israel in the Middle East. It is the heart of the very people who are perpetrating this stuff. Should they be successful in overrunning Israel -- which they won't be -- but should they be, it would not be enough. They will never be satisfied.

7) BIBLICAL RIGHT

I believe very strongly that we ought to support Israel, and that it has a right to the land, because God said so. In Genesis 13:14-17, the Bible says: "The Lord said to Abram, "Lift up now your eyes, and look from the place where you are northward, southward, eastward and westward: for all the land which you see, to you will I give it, and to your seed forever... Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it to thee."

That is God talking. The Bible says that Abram removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar before the Lord. Hebron is in the West Bank. It is at this place where God appeared to Abram and said, "I am giving you this land" -- the West Bank. This is not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the word of God is true.

CONCLUSION

The seven reasons, I am convinced, clearly establish that Israel has a right to the land. Eight years ago on the White House lawn, Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. It was a historic occasion. It was a tragic occasion. At that time, the official policy of the government of Israel began to be, "Let us appease the terrorists. Let us begin to trade the land for peace." This process continued unabated up until last year.

Here in our own nation, at Camp David in the summer of 2000, then-Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak offered the most generous concessions to Yasser Arafat that had ever been laid on the table. He offered him more than 90 percent of all the West Bank territory, sovereign control of it. There were some parts he did not want to offer, but in exchange he said he would give up land in Israel proper that the PLO had not even asked for. Barak even spoke of dividing Jerusalem. Arafat stormed out of the meeting.

And he also did the unthinkable. He even spoke of dividing Jerusalem and allowing the Palestinians to have their capital there. Yasser Arafat stormed out of the meeting. Why did he storm out of the meeting? Everything he said he wanted was offered there. It was put into his hands. Why did he storm out of the meeting? A couple of months later, there began to be riots, terrorism. The riots began when now-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon went to the Temple Mount. And this was used as the thing that lit the fire and caused the explosion. Did you know that Sharon did not go unannounced and that he contacted the Islamic authorities before he went and secured their permission to be there? It was no surprise.

The response was very carefully calculated. They knew the world would not pay attention to the details. They would portray this in the Arab world as an attack upon the holy mosque and use it as an excuse to riot. Over the last eight years, during this time of the peace process, where the Israeli public has pressured its leaders to give up land for peace because they are tired of fighting, there has been increased terror.

In fact, it has been greater in the last eight years than any other time in Israel's history. Showing restraint and giving in has not produced any kind of peace. It is so much so that today the leftist peace movement in Israel does not exist because the people feel they were deceived. They offered a hand of peace, and it was not taken. That is why the politics of Israel have changed drastically over the past 12 months. The Israelis have come to see that, "No matter what we do, these people do not want to deal with us... They want to destroy us."

That is why even yet today the stationery of the PLO still has upon it the map of the entire state of Israel, not just the little part they call the West Bank. They want it all.

We have to get out of this mindset that somehow you can buy peace in the Middle East by giving little plots of land. It has not worked before when it has been offered.

These seven reasons show why Israel is entitled to that land.

I know one of the people on the booking team in this picture. Two fingas and one love.

You people are full of it. You pretend to be so into politics from your cushioned position of the world but you make no real difference to the world.

Real dumb to get arrested just to get a "news" story. Get a police record just to "get the story." Way to go!

We ought to face squarely the origins of the Palestinian descent into barbarism. In July 2000, Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak made a peace offer that stunned Israel and the world: Israel would re-divide Jerusalem -- would turn over large pieces of its ancient capital to the same people who had destroyed its synagogues, desecrated its cemeteries, and banned Jews from entering when they last ran the show. Arafat rejected the offer. Then in September 2000 the new wave of murderous violence began, supposedly triggered by Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount.

In short, the Palestinian response to Israel's generous peace offer was, "Drop dead." How could that possibly have happened? A trick question -- because the obvious but wrong answer is so close to the right one that it's hard to tune the right one in. You have to fiddle the dial back and forth. Yet the difference between the two is crucial. The "lesson of appeasement" is not that appeasement is futile. Appeasement is not futile, it is dangerous. Israel's enemies claim that Israel herself provoked the ongoing Palestinian pogrom, and in a sense they might well be right. Outlaws interpret an openhanded offer as weakness, not generosity. They interpret weakness as an incitement to violence. You can goad a dangerous animal to attack by threatening or by shrinking back. Unless you want to fight, the only safe maneuver is to stand still.

Everyone knows about Munich, September 1938: Britain and France generously donate a big slice of Czechoslovakia to Hitler, in exchange for "peace with honor," "peace in our time," and the Brooklyn Bridge. Many people know about the Kristallnacht pogrom, November 1938: Germany's approach to the Jews turns from mere oppression to bloodthirsty violence. Kristallnacht was "triggered" by the murder of a German diplomat by a deranged Jew. But some (not all) historians point out the obvious: A leading cause of Kristallnacht was Munich itself. Hitler read the Munich agreements as a proclamation by England and France stating: "We are weak; you have nothing to fear; do what you like." Appeasement doesn't merely fail to prevent catastrophe, it provokes catastrophe.

The analogy is not close, just close enough. Israel is no Czechoslovakia and was not sold down the river. Barak made his offer freely and in good faith. But to a significant number of Palestinians, the offer obviously said: "We are weak; you have nothing to fear; attack." Appeasement doesn't merely fail to prevent catastrophe, it provokes catastrophe.

Now everything has changed, and we are only gradually coming to grips with the implications. Evidently the whole world is outraged by Israeli settlements on the West Bank. Even before the new violence, the world's outrage was hard to swallow. Some Israelis live among Arabs in settlements on the West Bank, some Arabs live among Jews in "settlements" (otherwise known as towns and cities) in Israel proper. What's the difference? The Israeli settlements are new, the Arab ones old. But if old settlements are legitimate and new ones aren't, what are all those mosques doing on the Temple Mount? Some European journalists refer to the great Temple Mount plaza as the "supposed" site of ancient Israel's holy temple -- as in, "that beat-up white shell on the hill in mid-Athens is supposedly the 'Parthenon.'" The plaza was expanded to its current enormous size by King Herod of Judea during the final years of the last century B.C.E. During the peace talks two thousand years later, in July 2000, a Palestinian negotiator helpfully explained why Barak's offer of control but not legal sovereignty over the Mount had been rejected: "We can't sell our Haram to the Jews," even though (he forgot to add) they built it. (Arabs refer to the Temple Mount as the Haram.)

"New" and "old" depend on your point of view. Jews have as much right as anyone to settle on the West Bank. But it long seemed to me (as to many other American Jews) that, leaving right and wrong out of it, the settlements were causing Israel more grief than they were worth and ought to be stopped. But everything has changed. Who in his right mind could still believe today that to stop building new settlements (or even to abandon old ones) would appease the Palestinians? On the contrary: Such a move is likely to be dangerous, as Barak's offer turned out to be. Palestinians don't want to live peaceably among Israelis.

We now know what Palestinians want, and what they think of Israelis. After all, what exactly is the point of sending killers to massacre children at random? What do you accomplish? You impose hatred. You ask Israel, in effect: What do we need to do to make you all (not some of you; everyone) hate us? To make you unable to look at a Palestinian without revulsion? To force you eventually to take the terrible step of setting up enclaves where Arabs are banned? Palestinians don't want to live peaceably among Israelis; the natural conclusion is that they think about Israelis as they choose for Israelis to think about them.

Everything has changed, including (for many of us) our ideas about Islam. We ought to have paid more attention to the latest developments. We now learn that suicide bombers are told to expect a heaven full of comely virgins as their next assignment. To the suicide-murderers, those waiting virgins are real as dirt. The killers call themselves "martyrs," but in their own minds they are the next thing to sex criminals. "Pardon me, sir or madam, do you know why I plan to murder your child? Because the authorities are offering me great sex -- and, after all, I don't get many opportunities."

People who think this way are shielded from view, up to a point, by their own sheer evil. They are painful to contemplate. We instinctively look away, as we do whenever we are confronted with monstrous deformity. Nothing is harder or more frightening to look at than a fellow human who is bent out of shape. And moral deformity is the most frightening kind by far. How can Muslims of good faith allow such people to call themselves Muslim? But they do allow it. What does that mean? And is it possible that we have located here, in this inspiring vision of heaven as a whorehouse, the most loathsome idea in the history of human thought? This is the civilization that condemns "licentious" America?

And what is Israel to do? Kill terrorists? Lock up incipient terrorists? Fine, but not enough. Develop the Palestinian opposition also. People who say there is none can't be serious. Among all those mothers and fathers of children who have become suicide-murderers, not one? Not one who believes: "The 'leaders' who did this to my child must be stopped"? Of course you don't dare say such things in the territories. But surely (one optimistically assures oneself), Israeli intelligence could locate a few such families if it tried, and if they were removed to safe ground and protected. "Safe ground" couldn't be Israel or America, or the credibility of this new opposition would be fatally compromised. But it could be Europe. (Khomeini preached the Iranian revolution from France.) Those few families would be mere people, not "leaders," not politicians. But prospective leaders and politicians would come. Being (as a rule) without passion themselves, they are drawn by passion. The Palestinian leadership would try hard to silence these families and their followers, but the message would get through: Our barbaric leadership is destroying us.

But what of Europe? Not long ago I picked up a copy of Le Monde, which reports on the recent meeting where work was started on a constitution for Europe -- the goal being to allow Europe to campaign, as the equal of any great power, "pour affirmer ses valeurs," to assert its values; and you can't help but wonder, exactly what "valeurs" are we talking about? Indifference? Complacency? Spiritual exhaustion? "European values" (certainly "French values") has come to sound like "Palestinian moderates" -- a contradiction in terms. To any instance of Western man -- American or not, Jew or gentile, male or female -- Europe's spiritual collapse is heartbreaking. It is strange but true that the only European country one can picture (by the remotest stretch of the imagination) cooperating on the sly with Israel to help create a Palestinian opposition is Germany - or maybe, if the Untied States made an issue of it, Britain.

THERE ARE LARGER questions about Israel's role in the World that have been pressing for years, but nowadays seem to grow more acute by the hour. The axioms that underpinned Zionism have been turned inside out. Modern Israel was conceived as a safe haven for Jews. It had other reasons for existing -- but safety, and the dignity that only comes with safety, were Zionism's emotional mainsprings. In recent decades, though, especially sine the end of Soviet tyranny, the safe-haven idea has lost cogency like an unwound watch running down. In the last few years, Israel has started to look (on the contrary) like the most dangerous place for the Jews in the world -- if we exclude the small Jewish communities that still exist in Arab countries. Israel must change the way in which it explains itself. (Yoram Hazony made essentially this claim in his seminal "The Jewish State" of 2000.)

When we look at Israel today, it is crucial that we not allow Palestinian barbarism to distract us from another part of this picture: the everyday heroism that lights the whole place up from end to end. A large proportion of Israelis have relatives or connections abroad, mainly in the United States, and they could run to safety if they wanted to. Who would blame them? Who would even have the theoretical right to blame them? But overwhelmingly they have chosen to stay and stand fast. The whole population, man, woman, and child, is holding (is refusing to abandon) a dangerous forward position under fire. It's hard for Israelis to praise Israeli courage, but Americans ought to.

Why do they do it? Partly for powerful negative reasons. It isn't easy to leave home; and many Israelis are determined that Jews will never again be driven from their homes into alien lands by thug mobs. But there is more to Israel than resolve in the face of a uniquely tragic history. Israel still pays its way using the world's only emotional currency denominated entirely in negative numbers. It needs a new currency with positive markings.Israeli thinkers have talked enough desert; it is time to talk lava.

Israeli thinkers ought to speak less about the tragedy (or the ordinariness) of Israel's 3,000-year history, and more about its luminous greatness; ought to talk up the nation's brilliant prospects, and the central role it has played from Moses to Wittgenstein in creating and molding Western civilization. They don't like to talk this way, but they ought to steel themselves and do it anyway. "The Jew is a desert region," Wittgenstein wrote, "but underneath its thin layer of rock lies the molten lava of spirit and intellect." Israeli thinkers have talked enough desert; it is time to talk lava. Much of the world is at a spiritual lowpoint right now, dragging its belly on the ground. Israel has known before what to do about that. Israel has addressed the whole world and wrought spiritual revolutions, and ought to do it again now.

>They used swasticas at UCB

>one of the speakers started praising the "bravery" of the Palestinian suicide bombers



Never happened.

I am quite curious as to whether the post "They used swasticas (sic) at UCB" was actually contributed by representative Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, or whether the author merely saw fit to borrow the good congressman's words. One wonders what bizarre accident might have brought Rep. Inhofe, whose speech on the genetic and strategic justifications for "greater Israel" can be found at http://thatsrich.com, to woo the anarchist voters of Oklahoma.

They are extremely brave. They are simply misguided. Instead of killing women and children, they should be killing soldiers.

i dont know how can you believe a lay that you had made and now you are trying to convince us and yourself.the palestine problem had started frome a long time by england who give the jewish palestine a present for them but the problem that palestine was not a isolated place without people so how can it be .israel is a country which was built on the bodies of palestinian children who were killed by israelian terrorists who made lot of massacre as dear yasin,kofor kasem,hefa.yafa,elled,and all the cities of the occupaied land in the 1948.a lot of bad things happened to my people in the past and now i can not tell you all the history because you can ask and you will know the truth if you just look closer come and see what is happening here .finally i can help you,to knw the truth and after all before you ask what will happen to the suicied bombers as you say ask your self why do they do that thing what is happening there which make lot of youths kill thereselves .and not all of the palestinians who are now defencing there lands are moslims ,but also christians are by there side ,and i am one of the palestinians refegies christians girls.