Home
In this issue
June 17, 2013

Rabbi Simcha Weinstein: Black to the Future: American Apparel Gets Biblical

Patrik Jonsson: Minnesota Nazi: How did Nazi hunters miss Michael Karkoc?

Kate Irby, Ali Watkins, Trevor Graff and Kevin Thibodeaux: All the ways you're being watched
Don Lee: G-8 meeting will test NSA leaks' effect on U.S. influence

Patrik Jonsson: Fort Hood shooting: Judge nixes Nidal Hasan defense strategy. What now?

Stacey Burling: Why the stigma for migraine sufferers?

The Kosher Gourmet by Lisa Abraham: Does it work? 5 new kitchen gadgets put to the test

June 14, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: A spiritual budget: Religious economics and being a ruler

John P. Martin: Hitler insider's missing diary found

Matt Pearce: NSA surveillance disclosure could affect court cases
Peter Tinti: US bounties changes strategy on (Wild, Wild) West African jihadis

Daniel Pendrick, M.D.: Memory loss? Old age may be the least of it

Lauren F. Friedman: But it's all natural! Should we have an instinctive preference for herbal remedies?

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Streisand and Alicia Keys in Israel; "Girls" Stuff; Mel Brooks, Another TV special; Superman (who is Jewish) returns --- Israeli plays his mom

The Kosher Gourmet by Sharon K. Ghag : Bored with salad? Bling it up a bit (4 effortless recipes that will result in a 'WOW!')

June 12, 2013

Stephanie Hanes: Little girls or little women? The Disney princess effect

Fred Weir: In tweak to US, Russia would 'consider' asylum for Snowden

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: What's so special about Omega-3 supplements?
Morgan Housel: What newspapers were saying when you should have been buying

Pete Spotts: How cockroaches evolved so as to bypass 'roach motels'

The Kosher Gourmet by Anjali Prasertong: Deep-dish cookie: Warm, gooey and a little over the top

June 10, 2013

Joseph A. Slobodzian: Faith healing and third degree murder: Thorny legal case
Lindsay Wise: Few options for online users to avoid spying, experts say

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: There are plenty of nutritional food bargains out there
Harvard Health Letters: Can bariatric surgery control diabetes?

Zach Murdock: Superglue helps doctors save infant's life

The Kosher Gourmet by Celebrated chef Mario Batali : As good as grilling gets: Rib eye with dry mushroom spice rub

June 7, 2013

Rabbi David Aaron: Beating jealousy

Caroline B. Glick: Wounded . . . and dangerous

Clifford D. May: Al Qaeda vs. Hezbollah
Harvard Health Letters: Fighting back against allergy season

Kimberly Lankford: Grandparents who use FSA to cover grandkid's braces and other must-know info

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom:J ewish Tony Nominees/Tony Awards; Jewish Teen Actor In Sci-Fi Flick; Jewish singer in "Voice" finals

The Kosher Gourmet by Anjali Prasertong: A tart filling so good it might not make it to the crust

June 5, 2013

John Rosemond: Mom, Dad: Talk More and listen less

Kristen Chick: Egypt court sentences 43 pro-democracy workers to prison

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: Mushrooms Have Medicinal As Well As Culinary Value
Morgan Housel: Why you never learn from your investment mistakes

Don Lee: In China, kindergarten rivalry takes deadly turn

The Kosher Gourmet by Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan: 30-Minute Coq au Vin isn't a dream

June 3, 2013

Molly Hennessy-Fiske: Military judge to consider letting Fort Hood shooting defendant represent himself

Richard A. Serrano: Pvt. Bradley Manning's WikiLeaks trial also a test for government

Mark Trumbull: Have degree, driving cab: Nearly half of college grads are overqualified
Kim Lankford: What to do when long-term care insurance premiums rise

Deborah Netburn: Study: Adults' mouth bacteria may help babies

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Contestant on 'The Voice'; Will Smith's 'Jewish movie family'; Bravo Gives Long Island Jews the Jersey Shore Treatment; Magicians and More

The Kosher Gourmet by Bill Ward: How to be as refined as the wines at a wine tasting

May 29, 2013

Andrew Connelly and Helene Bienvenu: The Little Synagogue that Refused to Die

Dennis Prager: The 'Muslims-Killed-by-the-West' Lie

David Clark Scott: Open war on teachers?
Morgan Housel: If you know only five things about investing, make it these

Sara Reardon: AGenome detectives change the donation game

Deborah Netburn: A one-way ticket to Mars? 78,000-plus and counting apply by video

The Kosher Gourmet by Bev Bennett: CHEDDAR AND CHERRY MUFFINS --- your mouth is already watering

May 24, 2013

Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: When I didn't so 'humbly disagree'

Caroline B. Glick: Thank you, Hafez al-Assad

Diana West: From the Brooklyn Bridge to London
Morgan Housel: Why spotting bubbles is so much harder than you think

Environmental Nutrition editors: NuVal labeling to the rescue?

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Memorial Day: Jews Serving and KIA in War on Terror; Liberace Bio-Pic; Jew Wins "Survivor"; Shalom, Dr. Brothers; More

The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen: HIDE THESE FROZEN TREATS FROM THE KIDDIES!: Sangria pops; Irish cream pudding pops; mango Lassi pops

May 22, 2013

John Thorne: They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman

John Rosemond: 'Disciplinary math' adds up to parental successl

Warren Richey: Are prayers before public meetings OK? Supreme Court to decide
Rick Montgomery: Use of ADHD drugs as study aid raises concern on campuses

Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 convincing reasons you should keep carbs in your diet

Eoin O'Carroll: Scientists examine nothing, find something

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: This soup is made from one of the great pleasures of spring: A wonderful pairing of rosy color and earthy tang

May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting


Jewish World Review Nov. 18, 2004 / 5 Kislev, 5765

No seeds for Middle East peace

By Suzanne Fields


http://www.jewishworldreview.com | When my father died a decade ago an American friend planted 100 trees in Israel as a memorial: "For life, for hope, in honor, in memory." Even before Israel became a modern state in 1948, Jews from all over the world contributed money to plant trees in Israel as a gesture both practical and sacramental.


As a little girl, I urged my parents' friends to drop coins in a blue and white box that sat in our foyer for contributions to plant trees in Israel. "We can make the desert green," I told them with the earnestness of a child. At our synagogue we were told that every planted tree was touched by human hands. That was important after 6 million Jews had died in the Holocaust. The trees symbolized fertility, growth and replacement. Tradition told us that trees were originally planted in ancient days as commemoration of the first temple in Jerusalem.


Seen from the air, Israel is a plaid of fields and forests of green, claiming a promise for the future. What a pity that Muslims have no such promise for the state of Palestine. With the death of Yasser Arafat, the world is reminded of how his ideology of hate was as dry and as barren as the infertile desert. He delivered only terror, suicide bombers, death and destruction, soaking the land with blood. No flowers bloomed.

Printer Friendly Version

Email this article


Mr. Arafat professed that what he wanted to plant were seeds of peace, and gullible if well-meaning judges gave him the Nobel Peace Prize, a gesture of hope in the face of bitter experience. His deathbed became a scene of farce, with speculation not on what the Palestinians could do with the money he had collected over the years but how much his spoiled wife could spend in the shops of Paris. The estimates of the money Mr. Arafat had put away in Swiss and Caribbean bank accounts ran to the hundreds of millions of dollars.


The Palestinians stuck in the miserable refugee camps were always instruments only of Mr. Arafat's power. Better for him that the Palestinians should live in poverty than in a state where they could flourish and prosper. Palestinian poverty became a public-relations weapon.


The generous offer made at Camp David in 2000, the best his people could ever expect — 97 percent of what he had asked, by one estimate — was turned down in an exercise of breathtaking cynicism. Cruel though he was to the Israelis, his abuse of power was even more hurtful to his own people. He deprived them of a peace delivered through politics unaccompanied by death and destruction. He nevertheless manipulated world opinion with a boffo performance before a world eager to be manipulated.

Donate to JWR


"The very fact of his longevity gives the lie to Arafat's contrived image of noble weakness," observes Mario Loyola in the Weekly Standard. "He survived in a political landscape of thugs and murderers because they all knew that he was one of them. A weak man would not have survived." When leftist students here and in Europe were left as rebels without a cause with the end of the Vietnam War, the Palestinians replaced the Viet Cong as romantic revolutionaries. Hatred is a powerful narcotic for intellectuals, particularly those who live comfortably in the embrace of the campuses. Anti-Semitism lost its cachet at the end of World War II, but anti-Zionism neatly replaced it beneath what Bernard Lewis, the Middle Eastern scholar, called "the veil of respectability." Although anti-Zionism is not always the equivalent of anti-Semitism, sometimes it is. Mr. Arafat manipulated that, too. In 1975, a year after he addressed the United Nations with a pistol strapped ostentatiously to his hip, the delegates adopted a resolution declaring that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination." In 2001, 3,000 non-governmental organizations at the United Nations World Conference on Racism declared Israel to be a "racist apartheid state" and guilty of "war crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing," deleting all clauses that opposed anti-Semitism.


At Mr. Arafat's death Jacques Chirac, the president of France, celebrated him as "a man of courage and conviction," showing no shame in a country where Frenchmen are still being exposed as having willingly participated in the Holocaust.


The man of "courage and conviction" planted no trees, but poisoned a generation deprived of a hope for peace.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


Comment on JWR contributor Suzanne Fields' column by clicking here.

© 2004, Suzanne Fields. TMS