Elder of Ziyon Daily News

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• Mike Wallace interviews Abba Eban, 1958
• Yet another gas pipeline explosion in Egypt
• Hamas: No elections this year, maybe next year, not our fault

Mike Wallace interviews Abba Eban, 1958 Posted: 08 Apr 2012 10:00 PM PDT After CBS' Mike Wallace died Sunday, it is illuminating to see this combative 1958 interview he held with Abba Eban. Wallace pressed Eban about Israel's "aggression" in 1948 and demanded how Israel could justify holding onto the 1949 armistice lines! Many people today believe that those 1949 armistice lines were considered "international borders." They were nothing of the sort, and this interview shows where Israel was reminded over and over again at the time that those armistice lines were temporary and fragile. It is also instructive to see how Israel's critics were saying then that Israel could not possibly survive economically, mirroring arguments that were made before Israel was born and those made years after this interview. Israel is still here, those critics are not. Wallace also echoes the Walt and Mearsheimer argument that US friendship towards Israel was at too high a cost compared to what it could lose from the Arab world, showing again that the constant kerfuffles created by Israel's critics are hardly original. Finally, Wallace quotes a Jewish anti-Zionist, reform rabbi Elmer Berger, echoing the charges made today ("Israel-Firsters")  that Israel demands loyalty from world Jewry at the expense of their own countries. It seems that even then Jewish critics of Israel gained much fame and fortune for their opinions among certain crowds - and yet they and their hate are soon forgotten, to be replaced by newer editions of the same old arguments. (Berger praised the Soviet Union's treatment of its Jews and supported the Arab side of the 1967 war.) Eban does very well in this interview. Wallace comes across as being hostile towards Israel's very existence.

Yet another gas pipeline explosion in Egypt Posted: 08 Apr 2012 08:15 PM PDT From Reuters: An explosion hit the Egyptian pipeline carrying gas to Israel and Jordan on Monday for 14th time since the uprising against President Hosni Mubarak began last year, security sources said. The blast took place in the northern Sinai at the entrance of the Mediterranean coastal town of Al-Arish. Residents in the city told Reuters they had heard the sound of the explosion. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks on the installation that crosses the increasingly volatile Sinai Peninsula. Security in Sinai was relaxed after the fall of Mubarak in 2011 as the police presence thinned out across Egypt. The pipeline has been shut since an explosion on February 5. Do you think that the saboteurs care in the least that these explosions hurt their fellow Arabs in Jordan more than they hurt Israel? Egypt promised to set up a new pipeline to Gaza to run its power plant in the next few months; I don't know if  that pipeline would be affected by these repeated explosions as well, but my impression is that the explosions have been occurring on the Port Said-El Arish segment, which affects both Israeli and Jordanian gas. Which means that it would affect gas to Gaza as well. In a couple of years Israel should be getting enough gas from the massive Mediterranean fields under its control, so we'll see then if Jordan and Syria ask for Israel to export gas to them!

Hamas: No elections this year, maybe next year, not our fault Posted: 08 Apr 2012 06:39 PM PDT A Hamas spokesman confirmed what everyone already knew - that planned elections for a unified Palestinian Arab government are not going to happen anytime soon. Salah Bardawil, member of Hamas' political bureau, said that he does not see any elections happening this year, and he blamed Fatah for that. He claims that only a small percentage of the agreements between Hamas and Fatah in the Doha Declaration were implemented, that West Bank voters are in fear of voting according to their true feelings or to campaign for any non-Fatah candidate, that American and Israeli pressure are causing Fatah to drag its feet, that if Israel doesn't allow Jerusalem Arabs to vote than the voting cannot go forward, and a host of other excuses. Absent from his list was the fact that Hamas has not yet allowed the elections office in Gaza to start doing its work in determining who can vote. The reality is that neither Hamas nor Fatah are willing to take the chance that they will lose the power they have over Gaza and the West Bank, respectively. The entire idea of unity was an attempt to forestall popular uprisings against both parties, so they cooperated just enough to calm down their people. Amazingly, so far their cynical fake cooperation has managed to do exactly that.

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