Stop the Presses!At the last moment, we added these four pages to the Levitt Letter, beginning with Zola's message below. Dear Friends, How's this for a bargain? Arguably the finest American tour of Israel (ours!), typically costing $3,299 and attended by two busloads of pilgrims, can be yours for $2,699, and it will be almost like a private custom tour. I refer to our upcoming Hanukkah/Christmas excursion to Israel, which at this moment has only twelve people signed up! The logic here escapes me, since what's going on in Israel is extremely localized, and tours go nowhere near the areas of unrest. As a matter of fact, many tours are proceeding as usual, and there's not a single report of any pilgrim even seeing or hearing any of the action. The current casualty rate is approximately the same as it is in New York City, yet people still visit there (at a much higher price for a 10- or 14-day trip). Obviously, we would not send our passengers (and I would not send my dear wife) into any situation of discomfort of any sort. It puts me in mind of the tour we took during the Persian Gulf War. We had 37 hardy pilgrims sign up during the time the missiles were falling on Tel Aviv. I had made the point that our group doesn't even tour Tel Aviv, and besides, Dallas, where I live, had a casualty rate 20 times that of Tel Aviv at that time! Those 37 pilgrims had the tour of a lifetime. They had the finest hotel rooms and the best seats in every restaurant and the most gracious service on earth! At a time when virtually everyone in Israel stood when an American soldier entered a restaurant, our people were equally honored for their solidarity with God's country. I really do mean this. It would be a fine witness to our hoteliers, restaurateurs, land agents and drivers, and a testimony to all Israel if we could bring a decent-size group at a time when some others are canceling altogether. It would be a testimony to your friends that you go where you go with God, and that the Promised Land is one of the safest countries on earth, even now. Please think about this possibility between now and our closing date. Probably you could sign up for this tour just before it, because there are plenty of empty seats and empty rooms available. And on top of that, I would like to meet you, and I will personally see off this tour at Newark Airport. Once again, our guides and drivers and all of our people on the ground in Israel assure us that the land is perfectly safe. We are hearing stories of how CNN and the other networks cooperate with the Palestinians to try to make this localized ghetto rioting seem like some sort of war, but in reality, all of the sites that we visit are absolutely secure, and we receive information on the minute as we travel. Here are the details of the tour, and I hope to see you at Newark Airport on December 11. Our Deluxe Tour of Israel is December 11-21, and it visits all the major Biblical sites, such as:
You can add an extension to Petra, the "rose-red city half as old as time," carved directly into the mountains of Jordan. You will stay in a luxurious resort in Eilat, the southernmost city of Israel on the Red Sea. Due to time zone differences, you can pray in the Shepherds' Fields of Bethlehem on Christmas Eve and still spend Christmas Day at home with your family! Call Tony or Becky during office hours at 214-696-9760 for more information, or call 1-800-WONDERS anytime for a full-color brochure.
—Zola
Why the Media Obsession With Israel?
So why does what's happening in Israel almost invariably get more attention in the media than all the rest put together? Jesus was born there. According to the Bible, Moses saw it dimly across the Jordan. Muslims believe that the prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven from the Dome of the Rock. It's got history. It's a journalist's dream and easy to cover. The beaches are beautiful. The babes in bikinis on the beaches are beautiful. Tel Aviv has a night life. The distinguished Jerusalem Post is an English language newspaper. Ha-Aretz, the so-called New York Times of Israel, publishes an English edition. It's pretty safe; more Israelis have been killed in automobile accidents than by Palestinians since the beginning of Intifada II. Your byline gets on the front page; your face gets on the evening news. Would you rather be posted in Riyadh? Cairo? Benghazi? It's easy to be an expert. Israel is a free country with a free press offering a wide array of opinion. In recent years, the Israeli intellectual left has presented a full menu of pro-Palestinian revisionist history. (It is a condition familiar to Americans who lived through the Vietnam War.) When the Palestinians spontaneously throw stones and firebombs in spontaneous demonstrations, the international press bureau chiefs are spontaneously called in advance. It's hardly necessary. Over the years, Israel has provided police radios to correspondents. This is not how the game is played in Baghdad, nor Damascus, nor Algiers. Journalists don't get to see the stone-throwers; anyway, in those countries stone-throwers have a low life expectancy. In fact, of the 22 nations in the Arab League, stretching from Mauritania to Oman, covering about 4,000 miles, there is no truly democratic government, the only such region in the world. This imbalance in the public relations war should sound familiar. It's a pretty good match with the positions of the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Scenes of horror were on television every night from Vietnam. But screens were blank about what the Soviets were doing in Afghanistan. And, in Israel, to whose advantage does this work? Until the 1967 war, it helped Israel. I liked the voice-over: "Brave Jewish settlers surrounded and attacked by Arab armies, fighting to survive, and winning." I believed it then and still do. But Israel's 1967 victory gave the Palestinians the underdog card, and they have played it masterfully. Now the intense media coverage works against Israel. Israelis worry about "hasbarah," or public relations. I believe Israel is right in the current conflict. Prime Minister Ehud Barak almost gave away the store at Camp David. Yasser Arafat said he wants it all, which he won't get. A month ago, Ariel Sharon, with prior agreement from the Palestinian Authority, took a legal (if provocative) stroll on the Temple Mount. With 12-year-old boys pushed forward as human sacrifices to stark television footage, the Palestinians got their groove back, attacking Israeli border checkpoints. Round One of the war for "international public opinion" apparently went to Mr. Arafat. One prize was an obscenely tilted U.N. Security Council resolution, voted on by such peaceful democratic stalwarts as China, Namibia and Mali. America, with uncharacteristic gutlessness, abstained, in part to prevent terrorism, and got the terrible tragedy of the U.S.S. Cole anyway. Two other U.N. resolutions singled out Israel alone for the violence, leading U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke to say the General Assembly is "a forum to beat up on Israel." Much inflamed, the "Arab street" jumped up and down, increasing the international "need to do something." Fifty synagogues were torched and trashed in France. But suppose I'm wrong; suppose Israel is wrong. Or suppose that the whole situation is just a close call, where power determines outcomes as it has since time immemorial, and as it has in the history of every nation now extant. If what is going on in Israel were happening in most any other of the 26 limited but severe conflicts, 78 lesser conflicts, 15 genocidal campaigns and 178 violent political struggles, it would not be big news. Chances are you'd never hear about it.
So, for now, the public relations offensive is working against
democratic Israel. Free countries have many advantages, but not all of
them. This is a bearable disadvantage, just as it was for democratic
America during the Cold War. Remember the outcome of the Cold War.
Our eye-witness "emergency" report
10-26-00 Thanks for contacting me to see if I'd arrived safely. In fact, everything has gone wonderfully so far. While I have been to Israel often enough to know that the terrible news we see on television doesn't always mirror the reality of being here, I have to say that that is more true than ever this time. I'm finding that the atmosphere in Israel is totally business—and life—as usual. In fact, today the big item for discussion was the recent flooding in Tel Aviv. I heard a hundred times more about that during the course of the day than I did about anything to do with Arafat, Barak and the peace process. If I had any doubts about coming to do these stories, they were allayed in the El Al lounge at the airport, where I observed the same array of passengers that I always see making this trip...business people...elderly couples going to visit their children...families traveling with babies. In fact, the little boy who sat next to me on the flight was making his first trip to Israel to attend his cousin's bar mitzvah. Carmel Forest, the spa where I am staying, is filled to capacity with vacationing Israelis who all seem to be having a great time. Haifa, where I spent the afternoon, was as chaotic and lovely as always. The restaurants there were full. The sidewalks were packed with people simply going about their daily lives. There were the usual bevies of brides posing for their wedding photos in the Bahai Gardens. The commuter rush hour traffic was as heavy as ever. In fact, if I didn't know from television that there was isolated trouble in places like Gaza and Ramallah, I certainly wouldn't know it from being here. I'm having a wonderful time.
All the best,
To our readers:
Foreign Desk
Thanks,
911, Palestinian Style
Israel Radio correspondent Nissim Keinan reported on Sunday evening that
he observed the situation at the Karnei checkpoint. "At one point
Israeli forces shot straight up into the air to scare away the mob.
Now, even though the soldiers shot straight up in the air, hitting no
one, four Palestinian ambulances came up to the crowd with sirens
wailing for the benefit of the cameras and proceeded to evacuate a few
fake wounded. The only people who were actually wounded while I was
there were shot later as they were throwing firebombs. And they were
hit by sharp shooters."
Food for thought...To The Jerusalem Report: No doubt we will still hear a great deal about whether Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount was a provocation or merely an Israeli citizen exercising his right of free access to a holy shrine (Cover Story, Oct. 23).
In the long term, however, once we have put the orgy of orchestrated violence behind us, Sharon has done us a great service. He has shown us the kind of freedom of worship or access non-Moslems can expect if ever a petty dictator is given control over the Mount, even if shared or "international." Only under Israeli sovereignty has there been complete freedom of access and worship for all. Thank you, Ariel Sharon, for opening our eyes.
Dr. J. Frankl
When I read my recent Jerusalem Report magazine (November 6), I was prepared to be put off by this columnist, who usually takes an extreme peacenik view. But even he, like other Israeli leftists, has been turned off by the recent Palestinian rioting, and he has written an editorial with which I substantially agree. —Zola Time for SeparationI have one clear conclusion from the madness of the past few weeks. No matter what the future holds, be it war or peace, at the end of the day what is needed is a separation between them and us. Israel on one side of the border, Palestine on the other. Divorce, not marriage. There are serious assessments out there that see Yasser Arafat unilaterally declaring a state in the not-too-distant future. Until now Israel and the United States have opposed such a move. I think it is time to reconsider. It will be easier to deal with a state, bound by international law, protocol and convention than with the quasi-liberation movement we are dealing with now. It would place the Palestinians on an equal footing from a negotiating point of view and give them clear enemy status, if the past few weeks are indicative of what the future may hold. Instead of opposing unilateral declaration, Israel and the United States should tacitly encourage it. The move would allow Israel to respond by unilaterally deciding where the border should be, consolidate those territories it wants to keep and abandon those areas of the West Bank and Gaza it can do without. The border would reflect Israel's defense needs against the possibility of a combined Arab attack from the east, minimize the Palestinian populations left in Israel and maximize the incorporation into Israel of Jewish population centers in the West Bank. The border would be defended on the assumption that it was a hostile border until the signing of a peace treaty between the two states, whenever that happens and if it ever happens, whereupon economic and other cooperation could begin that, hopefully, would change the future nature of the border. The violent and sudden nature of the clashes between the two sides has made it clear that immediate and total separation is necessary. There are too many Israeli targets inside Palestinian territories at present, all of which constitute potential flash points. These have to be minimized. Equally, those areas considered assets that are currently under attack and threat have to be better protected. It is better to do so from within a border than outside it. It is also clear that Palestinians should not be working in Israel. They constitute a security threat in times of tension, such as now when we are all waiting for the next bus to explode; they are unreliable, their presence on the job being dictated by events over which they have no control, and they constitute potential victims of mob violence or random arrest when the bombs do go off. If there was a declared state of Palestine, Israel would no longer be responsible for its water and electricity supplies, would not have to pay social benefit payments to its citizens, nor be involved in any aspect of Palestinian life. Israel would consolidate within itself, take care of its own problems and, at the same time, continue to strive for a compromise agreement with its Palestinian neighbor. The problem facing Israel is not whether Arafat declares his state or not, but to what line does this country want to withdraw when he does. Much work on this subject has been done over the years and particularly over the past few months, with the general consensus being that the Gaza settlements, some outlying settlements on the West Bank, and Hebron, should all logically be abandoned. [Strategic, close-in settlements], the Jerusalem suburbs, Ariel and the high ground above the Jordan Valley should all be kept. Though it would make sense to be rid of most of East Jerusalem, it makes more sense to retain the entire city as a future bargaining chip for peace. That done, Israel could start dealing with its own very real problems, critically the issue of Israeli Arabs, consolidate its efforts into improving education and closing social gaps and get down to the business of living a normal life. Continued symbiotic relations with the Palestinians, the lines between us amorphous and unclear, are a recipe for future disaster. The time for separation, agreed upon or unilateral, has never been more apparent. We all know what should happen. Unfortunately, we also know our politicians. The chances of them getting together to do the necessary, of being able to overcome their parochial differences for the national good, are slim indeed. The violence of these past weeks has been incredibly destructive for all involved, but there is a lesson to be learned and an opportunity to be gained that could lead to a more stable environment between the sides. We should simply get out of each other's lives, agree not to agree for the present, cooperate where necessary but get on with our own lives until we are ready to live together. Arafat needed his war of liberation and got it. Now that he is
liberated, it is time for Israel to liberate itself from an untenable
situation.
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Copyright © 2000 by Zola Levitt Ministries, Inc., a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. All rights reserved. Brief passages may be quoted in reviews or other article. For all other use, please get our written approval.
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Indonesia, population 210 million, is in shambles, possibly facing total
anarchy. A civil war is raging in Sudan. AIDS is decimating
sub-Saharan Africa. There are violent separatist movements in France.
In Columbia and Venezuela, it is a question whether the gangsters are in
charge, or the government. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein is the government,
the whole government. Robert M. Steele says there are 26 limited but
severe conflicts, 78 lesser conflicts, 15 genocidal campaigns and 178
violent political struggles. That's normal.
What is certain so far is that in the short term, Yasser Arafat
derived a great deal of benefit from it; it enabled him to unleash a
round of violence that would, he hoped, undo the damage of his
intransigence in the U.S.; and at the same time strengthen his hand in
any future negotiations or wring more concessions—if given the
chance.