Two years ago I had been watching reruns of the Fifth and
Sixth season of the "West Wing", rebroadcast on
the Israeli cable "Yes" TV channel. And I had written this Blog entry
at that time and I was amazed at some of the things that were written and acted
out Leaders of the EU, US President Obama and Secretary
of State Kerry should take heed of of
the dialogue which is out of date but some still very
rings true today. It is amazing how on the Arab side nothing has changed. The
hate is still the same as mentioned in Abba Eban’s famous quote after the
Geneva Peace Conference with Arab countries (21 December 1973); “The Arabs
never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
The story of the fictional Palestinian – Israeli Peace
Initiative begins with episode 21 from
the fifth season filmed in 2003(?), written by Peter Noah and directed by Christopher Misiano,; before the Israeli one sided "Disengagement
of 2005" from the Gaza Strip and the brutal taken
over by Hamas in the Gaza Strip in 2007.
The character Donna - Donatella Moss - is
sent on a congressional fact-finding mission with Admiral Fitzwallace and a few
congressmen to the Middle East .
Just as they enter the Gaza Strip they encounter an IED -a
road side bomb which kills Admiral Fitzwallace and two Congressmen DeSantos and
Korb. The then
Democratic President Bartlet, sounding strong as Republican George Bush or a Ronald Reagan Republican type of US president states:
President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet:
What do we know? - Roadside bomb, detonated by cell phone. They knew
they were targeting Americans. The black Suburbans are
well-known. Up to now, that's been advantageous U.S.
officials have long been off-limits to Palestinian terror attacks. What's striking is no claim of responsibility. They usually can't take
credit fast enough Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad. All
announced they had nothing to do with this. They don't
wanna wake up to a cruise missile for breakfast.”
Donna is seriously injured in the terrorist car bombing.
Three Americans are killed. And as President Bartlet is
considering targets for military action, the staff struggle to deal with the tragedy emotionally. The most realistic part of the
episode takes place as we are given this 2003 version
flashback view of "Life
in Gaza" where we learn through Donna about
the conflict between the Israelis and "Falestinians" through an
"Irish" photojournalist introduces her to a
"Falestinian" "Electrician" by the name of “Ashraf” from Gaza.
Episode Dialogue: Voice Over-
“When you get out of the hotel and into the streets what hits you about Gaza isn't the overcrowding and poverty. You've been briefed about that. What strikes you is something else. Idleness. (When I served there in the late ‘70s it was the stench that struck me) The sense of a people waiting, but with no expectation. It's hard to convey.
Colin (speaking to Ashraf) I'd like you to meet someone.
Colin: Ashraf Monsour, this is Donna Moss.(Please
note the name Monsour is an Egyptian name)
Donna: Hi.
Colin: Miss Moss is with the American government
delegation.She'd like to understand Gaza
better.
Ashraf: (Replying in bad English) I am not an
employee. I'm electrician.
Colin: (Speaking to Donna) Ashraf works in construction
in Israel.
Ashraf: I am not an employee.(Ashraf attempts to
explain here that he does not live on the dole from the
Palestinian Authority) and that he is unemployed because....
Ashraf: I
don't
Colin: The Israelis closed the checkpoints after a suicide
bombing. Last week.
Donna: Right.
Ashraf: I can't work to feed my family.
(Asharaf’s friend comments in
Arabic “Better you should be one of them pointing at a poster
of a “Shahid-Martyr”)
Ashraf: He says I should become one of them.
Donna: What's it say?
Ashraf: "The glory of eternity for our martyrs.”
Colin: The Palestinian Authority pays 2000
U.S.dollars to the families of "martyrs.”Plus 150 a month until the last child leaves
home.
Ashraf: I wish to work. These
martyrs, These martyrs take food out of my children's mouths.
Colin: When it's open, 19,000 Palestinians a day pass
through the Erez checkpoint to work jobs in Israel .”
To recap: In the
dialogue from this scene we learn that the "ordinary Falestinian" in
the post Oslo Accords period works not in
"Falestine" (Gaza ) but in
Israel . He
tells Donna that he is not a member of the
"Falestinian" Authority- run by the Nobel Peace Prize winner
Yasser Arafat. That he Ashraf the “ordinary Falestinian”, is a person living on
the UNWRA dole from US and foreign aid. That he, the
“ordinary Falestinian”, cannot enter Israel
to work because a suicide bomber had committed an
atrocity and the Checkpoints that would have been open to
allow him to work and feed his family were closed due to Arafat's secret prompting of suicide bombing attacks.
That "IF" he were to be a "Martyr" =
suicide bomber his family would receive $2,000 (in actuality
it was $20,000) dollars from "Falestinian"
Authority plus his wife and children $150 each a month until age 18.(This is still true until today)
Continuing in the episode we see Donna and the
photojournalist in their hotel room watching the video of
a Palestinian suicide bomber on “Palestinian Authority Television".
Donna: Shes so young
Colin: “Yeah Suicide bombers often leave these
videotapes behind.
Donna: What's she saying?
He backs up the tape and translates for Donna.
Colin: Um... "It was always my wish to turn my
body into deadly shrapnel to knock on the door of heaven
with the skulls of Zionists.God gave me two children who I love so"
Donna: She had children?
Colin: Oh, yeah.One and 3.
Donna: Her husband had no idea she was planning to do
it?
Colin: Here. Families of suicide bombers get showered
with gifts. It's customary at the funeral to hand out
sweets.
Donna: It's unimaginable.
Colin: Well, you don't have to imagine it, do you?
It's real.”
Now do you know WHY? we built the security wall. Now
back to 2003…..
Donna [Voice Over]
Getting in and out of the Israeli settlement of Kfar Durom requires a military
escort. 500 mortar shells have landed there in the last three years. Duringout pre-dinner break, I met an Israeli settler family. Two days before,a mortar round had exploded in their kitchen.
"CUT TO: EXT. - HOME - GAZA - DAY" Supposedly a
scene shot in a an Israeli "Settlement" in the
Gaza Strip before the "Disengagement" Donna and Colin are talking with an Israeli man and woman.
Israeli Mother: It came through the roof. Israeli
Father: One half hour later, my wife would have been
giving breakfast to our children. Israeli Mother: Four others have fallen around the house.
Colin: See, when the Palestinians get a hit, what
they do is secure the launchers,
and that way they can make sure and repeat the strike.
Donna: You must live in constant fear.
Israeli Mother: Our soldiers will find the mortar.
Israeli Father:
You replace the tile roof with concrete and pray.
Donna: In Israel
there's talk of giving up these settlements.
Israeli Mother: God wants us in this place. It is our
divine, moral obligation to be here.
Israeli Father: If we give in to the Arabs, they'll
take more and more, and eventually we'll all end up in
Tel Aviv.
Israeli Mother: And then they'll take that.
Donna: All of this... it doesn't make you want to
leave?
Israeli Father:
This is the more safe environment.
And there is a scene where the script writers include this
conversation with an Israeli soldier:
"Yossi" an Israeli
Soldier: “Once, we're sent to dismantle an illegal settlement. The settlers punch and kick us.A woman bit my arm so hard, she drew
blood. My own people.
Colin: Yossi
spent some time guarding the settlement in Kfar Darom.
In 2005 Israel
forcibly ejected Israeli residents from their homes in Gaza
in the hopes that the world would see that Israel
will sacrifice for peace. And what have we received in return?
More than 13,000 rockets and mortar rounds fired at innocent civilians in our towns and cities.
In regards to the disengagement. The words from the dialogue
of Episode 2 Season Six at Camp David, we have this
exchange written in 2004 where the fictional Israeli PM Zahavy,
His Israeli Defense Minister Massar, The Palestinian Josh are sitting around a table, talking.
Israeli PM Zahavy: And the removal of our forces from
the territories would create a power vacuum. How are we
to prevent rocket attacks from Palestinian-controlled areas.
Palestinian Mukarat: It would be our responsibility
to gain control over our militants.
Israeli Defense Minister Massar: We've tried that before.
Palestinian Mukarat: You've never given us enough
time to assert ourselves before you come rushing back in
with your tanks.
In this excerpt from the dialogue we hear the constant lame and feeble excuse
of the Palestinians to prevent terrorism which is quoted:
Palestinian Mukarat: They've done everything in their
power to undermine moderate leadership. Don't they
understand when the blow up leaders of Hamas with bombs, all those
Palestinian homes, they only make them stronger? Boys and girls, they no longer
want to be doctors, teachers, engineers. Now, they all
want to be martyrs.
When the Palestinian Chairman "Farad" calls to
offer his condolences to President Bartlet what “prophetic*”
statement does the Presidents Secretary of Defense say in the War Room?
Leo: Condolences?
Toby: Let's see what he has to say about it in Arabic
for domestic consumption.
Secretary of Defense Hutchinson: He knows who did it.
Barrow: I'm sure that's what the Israelis will say.
Secretary of Defense Hutchinson: They've lived thirty
years with this guy's track record.Harper: The Chairman's
control over Gaza is not absolute.
*Hamas has a strong power-base there.
And this conversation between "senior" White House
Staff: Will Bailey Deputy Communications Director,
Claudia Jean "C.J." Cregg Press Secretary, Charlie Young, Personal Aide to the President ,Kate Harper Deputy National
Security Advisor, Toby Ziegler Communications Director
and Leo McGarry, Chief of Staff.
Will: Israel
is not the problem.
C.J.: The settlement, the wall...
Charlie: Israel
didn't just blow Americans up.
C.J.: I'm not saying there's equivalence.
Will: Israelis don't talk about driving the
Palestinians into the sea.
Harper: Some do.
Will: Oh, come on.
C.J.: Ever heard the phrase "Greater
Israel"?
Leo: Not from anyone serious.
Harper: One reason some people say nothing can happen
till these guys are gone is the feeling they both may be stuck in old attitudes or
assumptions. There was a time when Palestinians and all Arabs wanted to drive
Jews into the sea, but some would argue that time's past.
Will: Listen to some Arab broadcasts.
C.J.: Rabble-rousing to distract their street.
Harper: I'm not sure any credible Arab leader truly
expects Israel 's
demise anymore,
not even the Chairman.
Leo: Don't be so sure.
Harper: Well,
there's a view that...
Will: Don't keep saying "Some argue" and
"There's a view." Can we restrict it to
your view?
Harper: Okay.
Palestinians are no longer fighting to destroy the Jewish state. They're fighting for a state of their own, a revolutionary struggle
against an occupying force, and revolutionaries will
outlast and out-die occupiers every time.
Will: I don't know if that's more simplistic or
naive.
Toby: It's tribal. It can't be solved. It's
Hatfield and McCoy and there is no end.
Here is what is said about the “Peace Process” before
Ehud Olmert’s better deal that was also refused in an
exchange between Leo McGarry and President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet:
Leo: The peace process? The Israelis handed the
Chairman the deal of the century in Taba five years ago -
he started smuggling Katyusha rockets into Gaza
on fishing boats. There is no long-term. The Israelis are
right: there is only one way to bring stability to this
region and we should be out there with them digging ditches and putting up
barbed wire.
President Bartlet: The fence?
Leo: It's a realistic solution.
President Bartlet: It's a land-grab.
Leo: There's no alternative! - There's no partner for
peace.”
Toby Ziegler Communications Director: Last time, Israel
offered up Gaza , half of Jerusalem , Temple
Mount
Back in the time of the filming the show in 2003 of the
story of the total corruption
of the “Palestinian Authority” and Hamas was not well publisized.
While visiting the wounded Donna Moss in the Hospital in Germany Josh Lyman is called to meet with a representative of the
Palestinians.
Palestinian: Hamas grows stronger every day.
Josh Lyman: Because of frustration with Israel.
Palestinian: Yes, but even more because of what Hamas
can offer the Palestinian
people. Food, education, health care.
Josh Lyman: But doesn't the Palestinian Authority...
Palestinian: The Palestinian Authority lines its own
pockets. Chairman Farad cannot... will not change, and
he's willing to pull the temple down on his head. But there are
other, more reasonable men, who with help could affect
change, challenge Hamas.
Josh Lyman: Moderates?
Palestinian: I tell you this in the strictest of
confidence. I bring word from Prime Minister Mukarat of Palestine .
He is concerned with the ongoing situation, and he feels the time has come for opening a new line of
dialogue with Israel and your country; a line of dialogue that does not include
Chairman Farad.
And then there is this Liberal Leftist American poke at the
Bush presidency in this exchange between
the fictional characters Leo McGarry Chief of Staff and Kate
Harper Deputy National Security Advisor:
Kate Harper: American intervention is responsible for
propping up nearly every dictator
in the Middle East.
Leo McGarry: And look where that's gotten us. Sir,
it's time to focus on the terrorist
elements who have declared war against us.
Kate Harper: We're at war with the plague of jealousy
and hatred and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the
index patient. Shouldn't that be our focus?
And for the people of Israel
a special message from the “Yordim” Israeli expatriates and Jewish writers of Hollywood :
Leo McGarry:
You know on May 13, the day before Israeli Independence Day, the TV stations screen the name of every soldier who has fallen for
the country. A name flashes
on the screen for a second or two, then the next name
appears. You go to bed,you get up, the names are still
flashing. It takes 24 hours. That's how they observe Memorial Day.
President Bartlet: Yeah, and they keep firing
missiles into Gaza , we start
encouraging it,
how long until that broadcast last 48 hours? Or 72?
Then there is the exchange between the "Irish"
photojournalist and Josh Lyman:
Colin: Looks like your boy's got himself into a bit
of trouble.
Josh: My boy?
Colin: Bartlet.
Josh: He's been President Bartlet for six years; he
hasn't been a boy for about 50.
Colin: Israelis are never gonna meet with Farad. Why
should they? They've got him
surrounded in the West Bank . What
does Bartlet think they're going to do, knock on the door
of his compound and say, "I'm so sorry about the tanks and stuff, but
would you like to pop over to America
and have a nice wee chat and sort this out?"?
Josh: Where
are you from?
Colin: Belfast.
Josh: You guys are really the model on how to work
things out over there.
Colin: Yeah, we are, actually.
Josh: The Israelis have every right to protect
themselves from terrorists.
Colin: They don't occupy a force to oppress...
Josh: They're citizen soldiers trying to keep their
sisters from getting blown up
on a bus.
Colin: You Jewish?
Josh: Why? You anti-Semitic?
Colin: Anyone who thinks the Palestinians have a
point is anti-Semitic.
Josh: And anyone who thinks the Jews don't after
being chased and exiled and persecuted for centuries is either an idiot or a
fool, probably both.
And then there is this exchange between President Josiah
Bartlett and the Israeli PM Zahavy on the phone:
President Bartlet: It's a show of good faith on
Chairman Farad's part; an example of his renewed
willingness to address the peace process. Mr. Prime Minister, the territories
are undermining your legitimacy as a modern Democracy and
sapping your moral authority in the eyes of the world.
Israeli PM Zahavy: Farad is beholden to the very
forces that wish to push us back into the Sea Israel
for Palestine.
President Bartlet: Sir, you cannot hold yourself out
as the Promised Land while occupying the territories and
oppressing other peoples.
Israeli PM Zahavy: Our Arab citizens enjoy the most
freedoms of any Arabs in the Middle East. Palestinians
are oppressed as opposed to... We don't stone women who refuse to wear head
scarves in Tel Aviv.
At the fictional negotiations at Camp David
: Palestinian Chairman Farad, Israeli Ambassador to the USA Shira Galit , National Security Advisor
Kate Harper, and several other people are sitting at a
table and are talking.
Farad: A million Palestinians were being forced from
their homes, their...
Galit: Closer to 700,000, and they weren't expelled.
They left after being urged to do so by our...
Farad: We were being terrorized by Zionist troops who
were threatening to torch every Arab village in the...
Galit: You
accepted the Partition Plan in '47. Not a single Palestinian would become a refugee...
Kate: If I might interrupt...
Farad: The Palestinians were being massacred. Even
Israeli historians admit this.
Galit: It was war, only three years after the
Holocaust. If we had lost there would have been another
wholesale slaughter of Jews.
BASKETBALL COURT - CAMP
DAVID
Will: The Israelis will return the territories but
they want a military presence.
Toby: The Palestinians don't get how it's going to be
their house if it comes furnished with Israeli tanks.
Josh: Have you mentioned Germany ?
We've had troops there for 50 years.
Toby: They asked how many British troops were still
stationed in Philadelphia after the
American Revolution.
Josh: Plenty. But they were, you know, shackled to
the wall.
President Bartlet: What about settlements?
Kate: The Israelis are hinting they'll abandon
everything in Gaza but they want
75%
of the West Bank settlements to
remain. Mukarat (the TV Palestinian fictional President)
might go for it if he gets land in exchange.
President Bartlet: Sounds promising.
Kate: Only
Mukarat wants twice as much as Israelis say the settlements sit on.
Abbey: How's he justifying that?
Kate: Says
Israelis took the best land. Wants two-for-one in exchange.
President Bartlet:
Dismantling terror?
Will: Israelis want Farad to renounce terrorism. But
in Arabic on Al Jazeera. They want more than a promise to
disarm Hamas. They want it before they leave.
President Bartlet: What do the Palestinians say? -
Toby: That Farad's renounced terrorism.
Josh: Is that
why he calls for the blood of a million martyrs in all his speeches?
Will: I thought that was a problem with the
interpretation.
President Bartlet:
Right of return?
Kate: Farad wants the right of return to apply to all
Palestinians. The Israelis are understandably concerned
about 3 million Palestinians moving back in.
Josh: Gallop
did some polling in the West Bank . Found that, while
refugees wanted the right to come back, most wouldn't.
Will: That's great. Then they won't be disappointed.
Meanwhile at the fictional Camp David
"Peace" negotiations Israeli Ambassador to the USA
Shira Galit has a heated exchange with the Palestinian Chairman Farad
Galit: The Palestinians only became refugees when our
Arab neighbors refused to accept them. 800,000 Jews
were similarly expelled from Arab nations. 600,000 of them were resettled in Israel
Kate: Madame Ambassador, you bring up the issue of
compensation. Would Israel
be prepared...
Farad: We are not asking for money. We want the right
of return.
Galit: We can't allow 3 million refugees the right to
freely reenter.
Farad: Of course not! Since the 19th century, Zionist
leaders have advocated a
transfer of Arabs out of Palestine.
Galit: We can not accept an unlimited right of
immigration. If the Arab population
hadn't been uprooted (?)- no Jewish state could've
arisen.
Farad: So it was right for Palestine
to be cleansed of its native population to establish a Jewish
state? We are prepared to sacrifice, but not to formalize
our dispossession."
 |
| Fawzi al-Qawuqji |
The following dialogue could have been taken directly from
the "Palestine Loss" web site. It is the
typical "Nachba" dialogue that only gives the “Falestinian” version
of what occurred. There is no mention that none of this
would have occurred if the ex Waffen SS members of the
Arab Irregulars forces of the Arab Liberation Army (Jaysh al-Inqadh al-Arabi) Fawzi al-Qawuqji had not begun butchering the mainly Orthodox Jewish residents of Safed. It
is also interesting that when the script was written it supposedly is the
fictional Palestine Chairman Farad who relating “his” life story and it is
similar to the true story of the real current Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud
Abbas.
Kate: "Chairman, I know how difficult it would
be for you to appear to be abandoning the principle.
It's not reasonable to ask that Israelis allow an unlimited
number of refugees to return.
Farad: I was born in the city of Zefat .
Do you know Zefat? It's in the mountains of upper
Galilee. I was 8 years old when the British left. There
were 52,000 Arabs in Zefat. Only 1300 Jews. Within a
month, the Haganah had taken over the city. My eldest sister, Amira, was killed. The body of my brother, Aziz was found hanging from a
burned cypress tree. We fled to Syria
lived in tents, ate United Nations handouts and surplus American cheese. I still remember the view of the valley from the roof of our
house. The smell of the pomegranates. The sound of
children playing in our orchard.
The home of my father, of my aunts, my uncles. They are now
art galleries and bed-and-breakfasts.
Will I get to go home, Miss Harper?
Kate: No, sir. Probably not."
In the narrative of the conflict of the Middle
East we are constantly exposed, as in the scene above, of the
terrible consequences of Arab hatred towards the Jews during the foundation of Israel .
The imagery of “Deir Yassin” and the massive rout of the seven Arab League
armies by the defiant Jews in the “Nachba” (Catastrophe) of 1948 has been
poured onto the world media since 1974. The once proud imagery of Israel as the
brave David fighting a massive Goliath has been brushed aside by Pro
Palestinian and Liberal haters of Isarel and Zion after Arafat’s 1974 UN
Speech.
It is due to this that the writer of the “West Wing” failed
to put in a similar narrative from a European Holocaust
survivor(s) who after losing his/her family and home fled Europe to Israel, the
story of Jewish residents of the Old Quarter of Jerusalem or the Gush Etzion
Block or the story of a wealthy Jewish family from Iraq
who were stripped of their property and money by the Moslems and kicked out or barely fled with their lives. This lack of showing the full
narrative only shows how messages are played out in Hollywood.
Upon Negotiating Jerusalem
President Bartlet is on the terrace at Camp David
talking with Palestinian Chairman Farad.
President Bartlet: Shared sovereignty of Jerusalem
is the only realistic approach.
Palestinian Chairman Farad: No. If anyone led you to believe
we could agree...
President Bartlet: Mr. Chairman, do you really want
to see your people oppressed for another generation?
Shared custody of the city and its holy sites is the only...
Palestinian Chairman Farad: Why do you continue to support
Israel ? Hatred
of America grows because of this, and not just in the Muslim countries.
President Bartlet: I've done more to support the
Palestinian cause than anyone who's ever sat in my chair.
Palestinian Chairman Farad: The Haram Sharif, the Dome
of the Rock, stands on the site where the prophet
Mohammed landed in his divine journey from
Mecca to Jerusalem.
President Bartlet: Mr. Chairman, there isn't a single
member of your delegation who doesn't think turning down
the offer of a Palestinian homeland in 1947 was lunacy,
a colossal mistake. Please, do not make the same mistake
today.
Next scene: President Bartlet is walking along a path with
Israeli PM Zahavy: and they are talking about the status
of Jerusalem.
President Bartlet: The general principle would be
that Arab areas are Palestinian and Jewish areas are Israeli; Israeli sovereignty over the
Western Wall, Palestinian sovereignty over the Haram.
There would have to be a firm commitment from both parties
not to excavate under the Haram or behind the wall, of course.
Israeli PM Zahavy: You have
kept us here for five days, negotiating contriving little things
we did not want to do but we have tried, struggled to find a common ground because we value your friendship and that of the United States;
but I have taken a solemn oath before God and my people
not to give up Jerusalem. I told that on the first day. I told you.
Israeli PM Zahavy begins gesticulating with great fervor
to try to get his point across to Bartlet.
Israeli PM Zahavy continues: And yet you continue to
talk and to talk; you have not been listening. Mr.
President, my right eye will fall out, my right arm will fall off before I ever
sign a document giving up Jerusalem.
I wonder just how much of this "script" will be repeated?
