Syrian rebels down jet, take video of bloodied pilot Why U.S., Israel should welcome Palestinian move at U.N.

Should Israel welcome Palestinian bid?

Rabbi Michael Lerner says those who want Israel to be secure should welcome the Palestinian Authority's decision to seek observer status.

Syrian rebels down jet, take video of bloodied pilot

By Ashley Fantz, CNN

November 28, 2012 -- Updated 1901 GMT (0301 HKT)

Suicide bombings devastate town near Damascus

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NEW: Rebels say they downed a Syrian fighter jet, footage shows them bandaging pilot
NEW: At least 45 dead in blasts in loyalist village near Damascus, opposition group says
NEW: Fact-finding team on ground in Turkey, which borders Syria
The small town of Jaramana has been a haven for pro-government Syrians

Are you there? Share your photos and videos but stay safe.

(CNN) -- Syrian rebels appear to have scored a major victory Wednesday.

Fighters who have been trying for nearly two years to topple President Bashar al-Assad and his sizeable military tell CNN that they have shot down three military aircraft in the past 24 hours in the city of Aleppo.

Rebels posted two videos online to support their claims, including footage showing them bandaging a bloodied and moaning pilot.

CNN's Arwa Damon is inside Syria and went to the scene of one of the crashes.

She said locals rushed to the site and picked apart the aircraft, stuffing its parts in bags. Damon and her crew saw what appeared to be an engine on a cart hooked to a tractor. Cheering children were piled on the tractor as it drove away.

Other video shows rebels carrying an unconscious man wearing what looks like a military pilot uniform. Off-camera, someone says, "Here is the pilot who was shelling houses of civilians! The heroes of Darret Ezza shot down his plane!"

The video of the downed helicopters could be related to rebels seizing a key Syrian Air Force headquarters more than a week ago. The Assad regime has depended on the Air Force for much of the war to fight the rebels.

Video appears to show rebels coming upon a large cache of missiles at this particular headquarters, which CNN believes belongs to the Air Force 46th brigade. The rebels told Damon there were about 300 missiles in total, but only about half of them are operable. Many of them could be Soviet-era, and al-Assad kept the tube and trigger component of those weapons in separate locations to prevent their use should they wind up in the hands of his enemies. About half of the weapons, however, appear to work and the rebels told Damon they intend to use them.

Rebels also apparently posted a video of them demonstrating how to use the operable weapons.

Meanwhile, in another major incident in the country's capital Damascus, at least 45 people died and 120 were wounded in two car bombings in Jaramana, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday. The Interior Ministry had conflicting numbers, reporting 34 dead and 83 injured.

Women and children were among those killed, the observatory said.

Jaramana, a small town surrounded by fields, has provided a refuge for pro-government Syrians displaced in the civil war.

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The Local Coordination Committees of Syria reported a nationwide death toll of 90 for Wednesday, including the people it said were killed in Jaramana.

State media did not give a nationwide toll.

At the same time the car bombs went off, two explosive devices simultaneously detonated in the al-Nahda and al-Qerayyat neighborhoods, both of which are in the Damascus suburbs. Officials did not provide a casualty count in those areas.

Jaramana residents are a mix of Christians and the Druze, the latter a minority offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Government officials blamed the attacks on terrorists, a term Syria routinely uses for rebel fighters and extremist elements in the country.

How did the Syrian crisis begin?

What started as security forces cracking down on mostly nonviolent protesters has spiraled into a civil war between pro-government forces and the rebels, including the Free Syrian Army.

About 40,000 civilians have been killed since the first protests 20 months ago against President Bashar al-Assad's government, according to the opposition Center for Documentation of Violations in Syria. And more than 380,000 Syrian refugees have fled to neighboring countries, creating humanitarian challenges abroad.

CNN cannot confirm claims by the government or the opposition because of government restrictions that prevent journalists from reporting freely within Syria.

Turkey's role

Turkey asked NATO Wednesday for Patriot missiles to bolster its air defenses against its southern neighbor, with which it shares a 822-kilometer (about 511-mile) border.

A letter to NATO included the "formal request" that the alliance send "air defense elements," according to a Turkish government statement that cited "the threats and risks posed by the continuing crisis in Syria to our national security."

The statement added that the NATO Council would convene "shortly" to consider the matter.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a Twitter post that the request would be considered without delay. A fact-finding team is on the ground in Turkey, according to Lt. Col. Jay Janzen, a spokesman for Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.

"The fact-finding teams include experts from the nations that have shown their willingness to offer Patriots as well as Turkish officials and a few NATO experts," he said.

Turkish officials have emphasized that any deployment of the Patriot missiles would be purely for defensive measures. President Abdullah Gul said earlier this month that Turkey has no intention of going to war with Syria.

A NATO official who is not authorized to speak on record to the media told CNN that fact-finding team now in Turkey includes military personnel from Germany, the United States and Holland, the three countries that have available Patriot missile batteries.

The official also indicated that those batteries could be deployed dozens of kilometers away from the border fence.

"No decisions have been made about the location and numbers of Patriot batteries in Turkey," the official said.

The official said he doesn't believe "there will be an imminent threat from this deployment escalating the conflict between Turkey and Syria."

"By contrast, I think it will demonstrate a deterrence effect," the official said, "and make it clear that NATO is prepared to defend Turkish territory and Turkish population."

Palestinians push for U.N. status

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Syrian rebels down jet, video pilot

Syrian rebels down jet, take video of bloodied pilot

Syrian rebels say they have shot down three military aircraft in the past 24 hours in Aleppo, as a double car bombing near Damascus kills dozens of people. FULL STORY

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iReport: Are you there? | CNNArabic.com
Why U.S., Israel should welcome Palestinian move at U.N.

By Rabbi Michael Lerner, Special to CNN

November 28, 2012 -- Updated 1933 GMT (0333 HKT)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, on November 21.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Rabbi Michael Lerner: Israel cannot achieve security by dominating Palestinians
- He says the powerful should show more generosity to the relatively powerless
- Israel, U.S. should support Palestinian move for nonmember state status at the U.N., he says
- Lerner: Hamas serves Netanyahu's aim of marginalizing the Palestinian Authority
Editor's note: Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun: A Quarterly Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, chair of the interfaith Network of Spiritual Progressives and rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in Berkeley, California. He welcomes feedback: rabbilerner.tikkun@gmail.com
(CNN) -- Israel's security can only be assured when its neighbors believe that it is no longer oppressing the Palestinian people but instead living in peace and harmony with them.

The de facto strategy of past and present Israeli governments of seeking security through domination and by pushing Palestinians out of their homes, or allowing right-wing religious fanatics to create settlements throughout the West Bank to ensure that no Palestinian state could have contiguous parts, has not and cannot work to provide safety for Israel.

Israel's fate and its well-being are intrinsically linked to the well-being of the Palestinian people. It's time for the powerful to show generosity to the relatively powerless.

So those in the U.S. and Israel who want Israel to be secure should welcome the Palestinian Authority's decision to seek observer status as a nonmember state in the United Nations. The authority has agreed to return to negotiations with Israel without conditions once that status has been granted. The goal is creation of a state living in peace with Israel in borders roughly approximating those of the before than 1967 war, with minor border changes mutually agreeable through negotiations.

Rabbi Michael Lerner

So who opposes this? Hamas, Israel and the U.S.

News: 'Cruel paradox' for Palestinians

Why Hamas? Because Hamas' strategy is to keep their area so powerless that the Palestinian people will turn away from support for the secular and peace-oriented and nonviolence-committed Palestinian Authority. So the last thing Hamas wants is for the Palestinian Authority to win popular esteem by being seen as having "delivered" a real tangible accomplishment to the Palestinian people in the form of statehood.

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To the extent that even observer status is a step in that direction, powerful elements in Hamas want to undermine it. In fact, Hamas consistently tries to undermine the Palestinian Authority. That explains why it has been so unwilling in the past years to stop its war crimes against Israeli civilians by sending (thankfully, mostly inefficient) missiles toward Sderot and other parts of southern Israel. But even as they fall short of their targets, Hamas manages to create fear and trauma for millions of Israelis.

Why Israel? Because the Likud-Beiteinu dominated government does not want a Palestinian state to emerge that would limit the ability of the Israeli settlers to expand their hold on much of the West Bank. So while they sometimes talk about a two-state solution, they have in mind a tiny state that would not be economically or politically viable.

Its strategy: Insist that it cannot negotiate seriously with the Palestinian Authority on creation of a state because the authority cannot control Hamas. With that reasoning, they ask how can Israel be expected to work with the authority on terms for a peace treaty that would actually be viable? And then simultaneously, Israel strengthens Hamas in various predictable ways.

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Its first move in this direction was to pull out of Gaza militarily without negotiating for the Palestinian Authority to take over control there, de facto leaving Gaza in the hands of Hamas. If the pull-out had been done in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, there would have been no missiles and hence no "proof" that giving up land to the Palestinians would only increase Israeli vulnerability.

To keep any substantial Palestinian state from developing, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has managed, in the latest Gaza war (whose cease-fire is for the moment holding) to strengthen Hamas. It allowed Hamas to show that it can fight back against Israeli assault in contrast to the Palestinian Authority who, Hamas points out, has gotten nothing in return for the past five years of complete non-violence and security cooperation with the Israeli Army (IDF).

Netanyahu is not stupid, and this is an intended outcome.

The shelling of Israeli sites killed five people. Israeli bombing killed 150 Palestinians. Yet the air raids and missiles aimed at Israel again stimulated the latent post-traumatic stress disorder among Israelis that leads so many to vote for right-wing parties against their own best interests out of fear of the Palestinian people, most of whom would like to live in peace with Israel.

(Palestinians told me when I visited a few weeks ago that the ongoing trauma of the occupation is so present it can't become post-traumatic).

What the violence meant

As long as Hamas is seen as the main face of Palestinians, even centrist and left-wing Israelis will support militarism rather than peace compromises.

Why the U.S.? The Obama administration gave a green light to Israel's attack on Gaza, refused to support calls for an immediate cease-fire and has now joined Israel in opposition to upping Palestinian status at the U.N.

The most charitable explanation is the Obama team believes the Netanyahu government will never negotiate a reasonable deal with the Palestinians and so has turned its attention to trying to gaining leverage with Israel to stop it from dragging the U.S. into a war with Iran. And for that, it's willing to ditch the Palestinian Authority, even though it certainly knows that the authority might soon collapse unless it can deliver something real for its people.

In my recent book, "Embracing Israel/Palestine" (North Atlantic Books, 2012), I show that Israel will be safe when it becomes famous not for its power but for its spirit of generosity and open-hearted caring for the Palestinian people.

I've outlined how a Marshall Plan to eliminate poverty in Israel and the surrounding states would totally change the political dynamics and create the preconditions for lasting peace. A similar path would make the U.S. far more popular and far more powerful around the world. But this strategy of generosity will take a major paradigm shift in the consciousness of Americans and Israelis, and for the moment, that seems unlikely. But it's worth fighting for.

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