Argentina is a very large country on the southeast of South America, running from the polar south to the tropical north. The population is very European in ancestry, with roughly half being pure-European in background, and another large section being mostly European in background.
It has a large Arab population (9±%), but which is intermarried and assimilated into the country’s larger demographic This is because it is heavily Maronite (Catholic) Lebanese who assimilate well.
Interestingly, Argentina has around 180,000 Jews – the seventh largest Jewish population in the world – and they can be politically active.
What our detractors refer to as ‘settlements’ are no threat to peace. Others must recognise that we are part of the solution
Catherine Ashton, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, is a vocal critic of the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. Referring to them as “settlements”, she claimed last week that they “threaten to make a two-state solution impossible” and called on Israel “to immediately end all settlement activities beyond the green line, including East Jerusalem”. Obviously, Ashton has never visited a “settlement”, like almost all of her colleagues in the international diplomatic high echelons. Nevertheless they consider themselves experts on the matter.
One notable exception is the former US president Jimmy Carter, who visited Gush Etzion in 2009. Carter is well known for his harsh criticism of Israel, considered by many as sheer hostility towards the Jewish state. So shocked was he by the reality on the ground, he stated: “This particular settlement is not one that I envision ever being abandoned, or changed over into a Palestinian territory.” The contrast between Carter’s statement and Ashton’s reminded me of a recent statement by Israel’s finance minister, Yair Lapid: “I used to have so many opinions before I learned the facts.”
In 2009 I was invited to meet Tony Blair, the special envoy of the quartet (the UN, US, Russia and the EU) for the Middle East. At the end of our conversation I invited him to visit the communities whose future we had just discussed. He declined, saying: “I can see them from my helicopter.” “From the helicopter,” I replied, “you can’t see the faces, look into the eyes and understand their aspirations.” Blair, like many of his peers, continues to fly over our heads.
More than 360,000 Israelis live in almost 200 communities across Judea and Samaria, with 200,000 more in East Jerusalem. That’s more than half a million people. Our endeavour stands on solid moral ground.
This week marks 46 years since the agonising days of June 1967, when the Arab world physically tried to annihilate Israel. We defeated them and liberated the strategic hills that overlook 70% of Israel’s population. If partition of this contested land was ever the just solution to the conflict, it ceased the moment one side refused. It was not a mere rejection: they launched repeated assaults to take it all by force. Returning Israel to its indefensible nine-mile waistline would once again place us in mortal danger, while rewarding the aggressor.
• Dani Dayan’s article turns logic on its head and is an example of the old technique of hoping that if you say something often enough, in this case “solid moral ground” (five times) it will be believed. The settlements are a blatant – and under international law illegal – occupation of land belonging to someone else. Apparently, according to Dayan, the fact that over half a million live there makes them legal. Apparently looking into the eyes and faces of settlers would make the settlements legal.
Apparently the right of Jews to live in certain places is inalienable because they are cradles of Jewish civilisation. On this argument there would have to be hundreds of population exchanges throughout the world – many of claimants who occupied lands far more recently than Jews occupied Palestine.
Joseph Cocker
Leominster
I do NOT see the settlements as a violation of International Law; but I do see new settlements as a violation of the OSLO ACCORDS – which I think Israel should never have agreed to. In fact, I think Israel should ditch OSLO.
The OSLO ACCORDS prohibit unilateral actions. New Settlements are unilateral actions.
I do not mind if Israel builds new settlements; but Israel should stop the pretense of abiding by Oslo, when in fact it also violates Oslo – the Arabs violate OSLO all the time.
So OSLO should be ditched.
That being said: I think Israel should:
1) Pay young, landless Arabs to leave
2) Slowly enfranchise the remainder over time
3) Annex Judea and Samaria
In the end, the International Law argument used by Israel’s critics is flawed.
That does not mean that everything Dani Dayan asserts is right; but it means the International Law argument used by Israel’s critics is flawed.
Dayan is trying to justify the settlements to a hostile world. He should forget about that.
I cannot tell a Jew he does not have a right to settle the land. I can tell a Jew that he shouldn’t abuse the Arabs on the land – and sadly, some Jews do abuse the Arabs.
However, let’s be honest. The Arabs are often worse.
Settlements are not contrary to International Law, but they are contrary to OLSO. Since neither side obeys OSLO, OSLO should be declared dead.
This guy, Dr. Edgardo Rubén Assad is an Argentina citizen who spends half the year in Iran. He is considered an Iranian operative in Latin America, and he has been denied enterance into Mexico.
He is now publically denying the Holocaust.
What I find troubling, however, is hid middle name, Rubén (Reuben) , with his reddish beard. His first name is Edgardo (Edgar).
Edgar?! Edgar Reuben Assad for a Shi’a Muslim?!
If he were born Shi’a we would expect a Shi’a name. Maybe Mohammed, or Hassan, or Jihad, not Edgar. Edgar?! Certainly not Edgar Reuben.
Frankly, his name, and appearance point to his being of Jewish origins.
Catholics – and 85% of Argentina is Catholic – usually have Christian names. Names which come from saints. Pedro (Saint Peter), Pablo (Saint Paul), Miguel (Saint Michael), Jorge (Saint George), etc. Edgar is decidedly neutral. A Jewish person would give a name like Edgardo to his child, which would indicate assimilation into a Latin culture, but not Christianization. Rubén (Reuben), while not necessarily indicating a Jewish identity, is a very common Jewish name.
Add in his auburn red beard, which is not uncommon among Ashkenazic Jews, but very uncommon among Lebanese.
I have to wonder if this guy is not a self-hating ethnic Jew. I wonder if his birth name is Edgardo Rubén, and he adopted the name Assad upon his conversion. Argentina has a very large Jewish community. At the middle of the century, it was even larger.
The official story is that he is the son of Lebanese immigrants to Argentina.
Okay!
But 90% of all Arabs in Argentina are Christian. Most, not all, of the Lebanese immigrants to Argentina were Christian.
Moreover, from the 1960s to the 1970s, Jews started fleeing Lebanon. Argentina would have been good place to go, just then.
Something does not look right here.
I could be wrong; maybe Edgardo is a bona-fide Shi’a. But look at that hair and beard. The guy looks more North European than the son of Lebanese Muslims.
Add in his name: Edgardo Rubén Assad.
This guy is dangerous, and merits watching; but something is not right with this story.
That aside, Israel and the USA, should be working to stop Iranian penetration into Latin America.
I will be trying to find out more about this guy; but this whole story sounds odd.
1) His name sounds funny.
2) His appearance look North European.
3) Why wouldn’t Argentina just suspend his passport, and not let him out of the country?
MOISÉS VILLE, Argentina — At its height in the 1940s, this outpost on Argentina’s grasslands had four synagogues for a population of 5,000, a theater for Yiddish-language acting troupes, a newspaper filled with feverish debates about the creation of the state of Israel and saloons where Jewish gauchos galloping in from the pampas could nurse a drink alongside fellow cowhands.
Now, Moisés Ville, founded in 1889 by Jews fleeing the pogroms of the Czarist Russian empire, has only about 200 Jews among its 2,000 residents. The last regularly functioning synagogue lacks a rabbi. The Hebrew school halted classes this year because of the dwindling number of Jewish children. Some of the last remaining Jewish gauchos have swapped their horses for Ford pickup trucks, and they now ponder the future of their way of life.
This guy, Dr. Edgardo Rubén Assad is an Argentina citizen who spends half the year in Iran. He is considered an Iranian operative in Latin America, and he has been denied enterance into Mexico.