The events of this week, which opened with eight Israeli terror victims being buried at the same time as Israel was placed on trial at The Hague for trying to defend itself from terror, have about as much in common with reality as a painting by Salvador Dali.
There is something surreal in the spectacle of thousands of Israelis and our supporters marching through the streets of a Dutch city holding pictures of our terror victims as Israel is libeled in a show trial produced and directed by our murderers.
There is something surreal about the picture of gowned judges marching into a courtroom to hear arguments about how a law is broken when Israel attempts to prevent more of its citizens from being murdered by terrorist armies.
There is something surreal about the televised footage of Avi Ohayon – whose two small sons Ohad and Matan and ex-wife Revital were gunned down in their home by a Fatah terrorist – begging cameramen to take his picture with their photographs.
And there is something grotesque about the fact that the British and Swedish governments are paying the salaries of the Palestinian "lawyers" who stand before a kangaroo court and claim that Israel is breaking a law, any law, in trying to prevent more children and mothers from sharing this fate. . . . .
[T]he latest State Department Human Rights Report, [r]eleased Wednesday, ... finds both Israel and the Palestinian Authority guilty of countless human rights abuses. Of course, it is balanced.
Of course, it duly notes that the PA security services have themselves conducted terror attacks against Israeli civilians. Yet aside from condemning every action Israel has taken to combat terrorism and thereby equating actions aimed at protecting Israeli citizens with terrorism, the report does something even more offensive.
The report very sensitively gives the names of a dozen or so Palestinian children who died during Israeli assaults against Palestinian terrorists who used these children for cover.
Yet, grotesquely, while the names of Palestinian children are listed, the report provides not one name of any Israeli victim of Palestinian terrorism. Not the Ohayon children, not 14-year-old Abigail Litle who was murdered on a bus on her way home from school and not the names of hundreds of other Israeli men, women and children who were murdered last year.
By naming Palestinian victims while not giving names of Israeli victims, the State Department report follows in the path of the general climate that has gripped us for the past 40 months. This general climate is characterized by the dehumanization of Israelis and Jews by the international community.
This dehumanization prevents anyone from ever seeing the victimization of Israelis. By balancing condemnations of Palestinian terrorism with condemnations of Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, our critics, even those among us, are cheapening the value of our lives.
By arguing that Israel abuses human rights when it defends itself against an enemy which has declared its aim as genocide, the State Department, like the UN, the EU, the foreign media and international human rights organizations, is creating a false reality where Israel is not fighting a war against an enemy bent on its physical destruction. Rather, Israel is simply being mean.
As if the perfidy of its human rights report wasn't enough of a jolt for us, the next day the State Department also saw fit to criticize the IDF operation Wednesday in Ramallah where our forces seized some NIS 40 million in terror funds.
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement opposes attacks on Israeli civilians and supports a “peaceful struggle” with Israel, according to a draft resolution released following a three-day meeting.
The Fatah Revolutionary Council, grouping Arafat and other leaders of the main Palestinian movement, was to publish a final statement Saturday night, council member and Telecommunications Minister Azzam al-Ahmad said.
According to Ahmad, who read to reporters extracts of the proposed resolution, the FRC “had been clearer and more precise concerning its political position, and more precise on the subject of military operations.”
“The council believes that the peaceful struggle is our path, while maintaining our right to self-defense, in view of the establishment of a Palestinian state up to the borders of June 4, 1967, alongside the state of Israel on the basis of the vision of (US) President (George W.) Bush and the Arab peace initiative,” he said, reading the draft text.
The FRC, a key Fatah decision-making body, “totally refuses and condemns operations against civilians” and underscores “the necessity of putting an end to the violence on the two sides and of reaching an agreement on a single political language,” he read.
Questioned about reports indicating the disbandment of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which claimed responsibility for the deadly suicide bombing attack on a Jerusalem bus on February 22, Ahmad said that “all the Fatah members are obliged to respect the movement’s resolutions.”
Little Green Footballs http://littlegreenfootbal ls.c... has a post of two photos of the same man carrying the same Palestinian boy into a hospital, with a very conspicuous head bandage and red smears on his hands, but no apparent obvious injuries. And two different names and ages for the boy.
[image]rsheinfield_679912 461.jpg[/image]
Ten-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Faqih is brought into Rafidiyeh hospital in Nablus after he was shot in the head when Israeli troops opened fire at stone-throwers in the northern West Bank village of Beit Umrin, 20km north of Nablus. Palestinian security sources said an Israeli army jeep entered the village just as the school day finished and a group of children began throwing stones at them, the soldiers opened fire, hitting the 10-year-old boy in the head, they said.(AFP/Jaafar Ashtiye) http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...
[image]rsheinfield_968922 234.jpg[/image]
Palestinian Mohammed Abdel Qader, 11, who was wounded during clashes with Israeli forces in the village of Beit Imreen is carried into the hospital in the West Bank city of Nablus, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2004. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...
Some 50 gunmen belonging to Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, raided the offices of the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation in Khan Yunis Saturday night, demanding that they be employed by the Palestinian Authority security forces.
This is the fourth incident of its kind in Khan Yunis in recent months. The Fatah gunmen have on previous occasions gone on a rampage inside the headquarters of PA Governor Hosni Zu'rub.
Witnesses said the armed activists who stormed the offices of the PBC ordered all the employees to leave, demanding that Zu'rub fulfill his promise to absorb them in various branches of the security forces.....
The attack on the PBC offices coincided with a similar raid on the offices of the PA's Land Authority in Gaza City. At least 20 heavily armed policemen and security officers surrounded the building before storming it and threatening to shoot the workers. The attackers demanded that the PA allocate land for building new houses for their families, claiming that Arafat had approved their request.
In the last three and a half years, though, Stora's perspective has changed. Since the beginning of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000 and the subsequent rise of Ariel Sharon to the premiership of Israel, France has suffered what is widely considered the worst epidemic of anti-Jewish violence since the end of the Second World War, much of it at the hands of young Muslims. According to S.O.S. Vérité-Sécurité, an anti-Semitism watchdog organization, 147 Jewish institutions -- schools, synagogues, community centers, businesses -- have been attacked. There have been reported instances of rabbis being assaulted. Secondary schoolteachers, under pressure from Muslim students, have canceled classes on the Holocaust. On the last Saturday of January, during a concert attended by the wife of President Jacques Chirac, a Jewish singer called Shirel was heckled by a group of French North African youths, who shouted: ''Filthy Jew! Death to the Jews!'' ....
Although the frequency of anti-Jewish incidents is said to have abated somewhat in the past year (thanks in part to more vigilant policing), many French Jews remain frightened, angry and dispirited. In 2002, the number of French citizens emigrating to Israel more than doubled from the year before to over 2,000....
Most European intellectuals insist on a distinction between even the fiercest criticism of Israel and an endorsement of anti-Semitism. Recently, however, this distinction has blurred. During demonstrations in May 2002 organized by France's mainstream antiracist organizations, protesters shouted anti-Semitic slogans and tried to attack a couple of passers-by whom they believed to be Jewish. Veteran leftists like Stora, who find themselves and their children confronting a new and very real anti-Semitism, feel abandoned by their former comrades. ''For 15 years,'' she said, ''I was a militant in the Communist Revolutionary League. We fought for the rights of women, homosexuals, immigrants. In the 80's, we were at the forefront of the antiracist movement.'' In 1990, she noted, after the desecration of a Jewish cemetery at Carpentras -- presumed to have been the act of European-born neo-Nazis -- 100,000 people marched in protest in Paris, with the Socialist president Francois Mitterand leading the way. Yet today, when synagogues are firebombed, she complained, the left is silent because the anti-Jewish violence is perceived as coming from radical Muslims, whose cause the left has adopted as its own. ...
Three Palestinian teenagers dispatched by Islamic Jihad and Fatah's al-Aksa Brigades to shoot Israelis in Afula were arrested by security forces at Jalame near Jenin last Thursday.
They were identified as Tarek Abu Mahsen and Yaffer Hussein, both [b]14[/b], and Ibrahim Suafta, [b]16[/b]. Judea and Samaria police said the youths are all residents of Tubas, northeast of Nablus. The two younger boys were sent by Islamic Jihad and Suafta by Fatah.
The three told investigators they were willing to be killed for the sake of the cause. They were armed with homemade rifles they were to use in the attacks when they were apprehended.
The parents of only one of the youths expressed outrage at the fact that Islamic Jihad is recruiting such young children.
OH YES. I'M SURE THEIR PARENTS ARE SUPRISED AND ALL BROKEN UP ABOUT THEIR LITTLE TERRORISTS. NOT.
Palestinian Qadar Dababaat, 38, mother of Jaffar, 12, who was arrested by Israeli security forces, looks at pictures of her late brothers Kasem, right, and Ayman, left, both militants killed during the recent Israeli-Palestinian conflict, at the family house in the northern West Bank village of Tubas, Sunday, Feb. 29, 2004. Israeli forces arrested three Palestinian youths Thursday, including Jaffar, when they tried to cross a checkpoint with makeshift guns, an Israeli police spokesman said. The boys said they planned to shoot people in the northern Israeli city of Afula, just across the line from the West Bank. (AP Photo/Mohammed Ballas)
[i]Forget about a Palestinian state by Efraim Inbar[/i] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1077957465476&p =1006953079865" title="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1077957465476&p =1006953079865" target="_blank"http://www.jpost.com/servlet/...
Sharon's proposal for unilateral withdrawal from Gaza challenges the widespread conventional wisdom favoring a negotiated two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [b]Despite the fact that a large majority of Israelis favor partition, they are also quite aware that the Palestinians are incapable of establishing a political entity living peacefully next to the Jewish state. [/b]
[b]Moreover, it has become increasingly clear that a two-state settlement is elusive because of the Palestinian national movement's inability to establish a state and maintain it.
Next to Israel lies a sick society led by a pathological national movement. It is a society that produces suicide bombers that have become a role model in kindergartens and schools. Recent pronouncements by Yasser Arafat on the occasion of Fatah Day, as well as statements from many other nationalist figures in the Fatah camp, laud those "shaheeds" while clinging ferociously to the ethos of "the right of return" for the refugees. [/b]
[b]Palestinian Islamists, drawing the support of about a third of the Palestinian people, do not, of course, foresee any coexistence with a Jewish state. Official Palestinian incitement against the Jews, who are blamed for all Palestinian misfortunes, will inevitably turn a Palestinian state into an irredentist one, that is, a state dissatisfied with its borders and intent on using force to achieve territorial aggrandizement. [/b]
The liberal belief that replacing poverty with affluence would moderate the Palestinian political agenda is unlikely to be tested. It is doubtful that the corrupt economic system established by Arafat could produce widespread economic benefits.
Massive foreign aid rendered in the previous decade generally failed to filter down to the masses. Moreover, the high rates of economic growth needed to match the high fertility rate of the Palestinians (among the highest in the world) are very improbable, and will actually doom the Palestinians to even greater poverty in the near future.
[b]Thus the impoverishment of Palestinian society, coupled with a very high level of hatred toward the Jewish state, would guarantee the continuous existence of a very hostile community. [/b]
The proposition that statehood inevitably produces responsible behavior – a doubtful belief, considering the number of leaders who have led their states into the abyss – will also remain untested because the Palestinians have already proven their inability to build a state.
[b]GIVEN THE opportunity of self-rule in 1993, the Palestinians have established a corrupt, inefficient, lawless and authoritarian political system. Its main failure has been in the area most critical to state-building – monopoly over the use of force. [/b]
The existence of many armed militias defies central authority and preserves a fractured Palestinian community. What we see in the territories is another example of a failed state.
Even with the best intentions and much territorial largesse there is nothing Israel could do to bring about a Palestinian state any time soon.
[b]Unfortunately, then, Israel is left with only one option: unilateral measures to minimize the repercussions of living next to a rather young and poor population indoctrinated to hate their Jewish neighbors and with relatively easy access to weapons. Nothing Israel can do will spare it the need to deal with extremely hostile neighbors ready to pay a high price for acting on their hatred.
Israelis have to get used to the idea that there is no peaceful solution in sight – only interim measures to manage the conflict. If they want to have a state, there is no choice but to continue to fight Palestinian terrorism for decades. [/b]
Eitan Kukoi, 30, and his wife, Rima Novikov, 27, were gunned down by terrorists as they drove on the Hebron-Beersheba road between Eshkolot and Sansana near the Green Line on Friday night.
Gunmen ambushed them from the roadside, then approached the vehicle, continuing to shoot the couple to ensure they were dead before fleeing to a waiting car and back into the West Bank, said police.
The two are survived by their two-year-old daughter, Michelle.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades both claimed responsibility for the murders, saying two gunmen were involved in the attack. A statement issued by the PFLP said the attack was a response to Israel's "massacre" of the Palestinian people, and vowed to continue attacks in Israel.
Kukoi and Novikov, who lived in Livna-Shani, a settlement near the Green Line, were on their way to a birthday party in Ashdod. They had left their daughter at home with her grandmother.
[image]rsheinfield_374146 423.jpg[/image]
AS USUAL, THE VARIOUS TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS CONTROLLED BY ARAFAT WERE CRAWLING ALL OVER EACH OTHER TO CLAIM THE "CREDIT."
“I completely rule out that Israel would dare direct any military strike at any Iranian facilities,” Ali Shamkhani said.
“But if Israel one day commits such military folly against Iran, I can promise you that (Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon, assuming he stays alive, will appear on television screens and announce that he regrets this folly. ... He will suffer and scream out in pain,” Shamkhani said.
Shamkhani was speaking to reporters at the end of his two-day official visit to Lebanon.
[i]Iraqi Council Weighs Return of Jews, Rejecting It So Far[/i] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/28/internatio nal/middleeast/28CONS.html" title="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/28/internatio nal/middleeast/28CONS.html" target="_blank"http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 27 — For several weeks, members of the Iraqi Governing Council have been trying to decide whether they should allow tens of thousands of Iraqi Jews who fled the country in the 1950's and in later years to return. So far, the answer appears to be no.
Late last year, the council approved proposed legislation that would have allowed thousands of Iraqis who fled or were expelled from the country to reclaim their Iraqi citizenship — unless they were Jewish, council members said. The proposal did not specifically mention Jews, they said, but it contained language that would have kept in place the revocation of citizenship of tens of thousands of Jews by the Iraqi government in 1950.
"My feeling is, as long as the Palestinian problem exists, as long as there is a state of war, then we should not allow the Jews to return," said Muhammad Bahaddin Saladin, a member of the Governing Council. "The minister of defense in Israel is an Iraqi Jew. Should we let him return?"
[i]Poll: U.S. Public Favors United Jerusalem - Herb Keinon (Jerusalem Post)[/i] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1077768897104" title="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1077768897104" target="_blank"http://www.jpost.com/servlet/...
[b]52% of the American public would be more likely to support a presidential candidate who is in favor of a united Jerusalem and defensible borders for Israel[/b], while 13% said these positions would make them less likely to support such a candidate, according to a poll conducted Tuesday among 1,000 respondents by McLaughlin & Associates for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
[b]73% agreed that: "Under a future Arab-Israeli peace agreement, Jerusalem should remain under Israeli sovereignty with freedom of religion for Christians, Muslim, Jews and all other faiths," while only 9% disagreed.[/b]
Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center, said, "The most astounding element of the survey is the massive, across the board support for Jerusalem remaining united under Israeli sovereignty when the question makes reference to religious freedom."
"Most Americans probably feel that were Israel to give up holy sites to the Palestinians, it would be like turning it over to the Taliban."
When asked whether they "agree with the position that in any future peace agreement Israel should be entitled to defensible borders, or do you agree with the position that Israel should be forced to return to the boundaries of 1967, when Israel was eight miles wide at its narrowest point and came under attack," [b]54% said Israel should have defensible borders, while 16% said it should be forced to the 1967 lines.[/b]
[b]58% said they became more sympathetic to Israel's struggle against terrorism following the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., [/b]while 24% said the attacks made no difference, and 13% said the attacks made them less sympathetic.
PALESTINIANS INTIFADA-ING THEMSELVES INTO DESTITUTION
Leaving aside the moral bankruptcy of massacring innocent passengers on a commuter bus to make a political point, the wave of violence known as the intifada that began in September 2000 has been an unrelieved disaster for the Palestinian cause. Palestinian extremists have succeeded in causing their enemy much misery, killing 463 Israelis in 110 suicide bombings - the most sustained and ruthless terrorist campaign any nation in history has endured. But, apart from making Israeli mothers weep, the campaign has gained nothing for the Palestinian people except more poverty and misery. (Toronto Globe and Mail)
Currently, life on the West Bank is dreadful - poverty is rampant, unemployment is epidemic. It wasn't always that way. Under Israeli rule from 1967 to 1993, the West Bank's economy was among the fastest growing in the world thanks to burgeoning commerce between Israelis and Palestinians. Where there had been not a single institution of higher learning, by the early 1990s there were seven universities in the West Bank. While billions of dollars in foreign aid have poured into PA coffers, employment and income have fallen. (Townhall.com)
PALESTINIANS STONE JEWISH WORSHIPERS AT WESTERN WALL
On Friday Palestinians on the Temple Mount "started rioting" at the end of Friday prayers and stoned worshippers at Judaism's Western Wall below. Stones crashed onto the section of the Western Wall plaza where women pray, but no worshippers were injured. Police spokesman Gil Kleiman said, "Hundreds of Muslims threw rocks and rioted....Police entered the Temple Mount." Police said three officers were lightly hurt. (Ha'aretz)
[i]Notice how this Reuters story about the Temple Mount is scrupulous about pointing out that this area is “one of Islam’s holiest shrines” yet doesn't mention that the Temple Mount is the holiest site of Judaism. And note how that sentence is carefully constructed to blame Israel for “heightening tensions,” rather than the rioting, stone-throwing Palestinians.[/i]
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli police stormed the square outside the al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites, to confront stone-throwing Palestinians on Friday amid heightened tensions over Israel’s West Bank barrier.
[b]Obeida Khalil is getting out of Israeli prison soon, and this young female terrorist is looking forward to committing mass murder as soon as she gets the chance: [i]‘I wanted to be a martyr and kill Israeli soldiers’[/i]. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne... She says “kill Israeli soldiers,” but her definition of “soldiers” is rather broad; it includes Israeli children.[/b]
“Yes, [b]I will do it again [/b]if I can,” said Obeida Khalil, 27. “When I put the suicide explosives belt on I felt very happy, very content. I was angry when they caught me because I was not able to be a martyr.
”I wanted to be the first female martyr and to kill as many Israeli soldiers as possible. I chose the bus station because my brother blew himself up there.“
There have been seven female Palestinian suicide bombers. Two of them alone have claimed 25 lives. Another 24 bombers, including Khalil, have been stopped before they could strike.
Speaking to The Telegraph in her cell in HaSharon prison near Netanya, Khalil, a member of Islamic Jihad from the village of Beit Wazan, near Nablus, said she had been pushed to act because of the Israeli occupation and the ”murder“ of her fiance.
”Four days before our wedding, he went up on the roof and he was shot dead by an Israeli helicopter. If we had been married, then I would have had children. I would have done other things for the jihad besides being a martyr.
“But before he died we had discussed being martyrs by blowing ourselves up together. With the help of God, we said, maybe both of us would do it and then we would be together forever.”
Khalil is one of 74 female Palestinian prisoners kept in a special wing at HaSharon. It is divided between prisoners linked to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement in one segregated group and Hamas and Islamic Jihad inmates in the other. They are kept locked up 21 hours a day in tiny shared cells and allowed three hours exercise in the wing’s central yard. One prisoner had a baby and will be allowed to keep him until he is two.
Kaiera Sa’idi, 26, serving a life sentence for driving a suicide bomber, said she knew what she was doing might mean she would never see her four children again. “But I felt it was my duty and I believe God will take care of them.”
Most of Khalil’s time is spent reading the Koran, doing needlework and preparing what she feels she must do when released. Arrested 20 months ago, Khalil is serving a five-year sentence. Relatives are not allowed to visit because several family members have been suicide bombers.
Her mother, she said, understood why she wanted to kill herself. [b]“Every Muslim wants to be a martyr. It was in me before I was born. [/b]The Israelis took my land and our state was conquered.
”People in Europe do not understand us but if they lived in Palestine they wouldn’t ask questions about why we do what we do."
[b]Although Khalil wanted to blow up soldiers in her planned attack in Tel Aviv she said it was legitimate to kill Jewish children because one day they would serve in the Israeli army.[/b]
"Saudi Arabia, normally a byword for stern and puritanical sobriety, is preparing to show the world its jollier side by issuing visas to tourists," reports London's Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/int...,3604,1156620,00.html "At present they are issued only for employment, pilgrimages and other approved visits, and can be difficult to obtain. Tourist visas will be introduced within a few weeks, officials quoted by the daily Arab News in Jeddah said."
Visas will not be issued for the following groups of people:
* An Israeli passport holder or a passport that has an Israeli arrival/departure stamp.
* Those who don't abide by the Saudi traditions concerning appearance and behaviors. Those under the influence of alcohol will not be permitted into the Kingdom.
* There are certain regulations for pilgrims and you should contact the consulate for more information.
* Jewish People
DARN, AND I WAS SO LOOKING FORWARD TO ATTENDING THIS SPRING'S BEHEADING FESTIVAL.
[b]UPDATE: [/b] THE SAUDIS HAVE UPDATED THEIR WEBSITE TO REMOVE THE EXPLICIT REFERENCE TO THEIR BARRING JEWS. HOWEVER, THE ORIGINAL CAN BE VIEWED HERE: http://216.239.53.104/search?...:IERUoQYboT8J:www.sauditourism.gov.sa/sct/indexlist.php%3Fcatid%3D39%26mainca t%3DTravel_Tips+&hl=en&st art=1&ie=UTF-8 and here: http://homepage.mac.com/cfj/....
DOES ANYONE DOUBT THAT JEWS ARE STILL BARRED FROM THE COUNTRY?
[i]The Human Rights of Israelis - Anne Bayefsky[/i] http://www.suntimes.com/output/otherviews/cst -edt-bayef25.html" title="http://www.suntimes.com/output/otherviews/cst -edt-bayef25.html" target="_blank"http://www.suntimes.com/outpu...
[b]A November report from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan detailing the harm to Palestinians said to result from Israel's security fence does not describe a single terrorist act against Israelis. The human rights of Israelis are not part of the equation. [/b]Suicide bombing violates these rights and freedoms of Israelis derived from international treaties: the right to life, freedom from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, equality, freedom from persecution, security of the person, health and well-being, safe working conditions, protection of the family and the child, education, an adequate standard of living, and self-determination, as well as freedoms from incitement to violence, religion, movement, and association. Israelis are subject to crimes against humanity, attempted genocide, and an effort to accomplish ethnic cleansing. (Chicago Sun-Times)
[b]TODAY, THE NEW YORK TIMES SPECULATES WHETHER [i]JEWISH CONTROLED [/i]HOLLYWOOD WILL BOYCOTT MEL GIBSON BECAUSE HE MADE A MOVIE THAT SOME SEE AS ANTI-SEMITIC. THE TIMES THEN MAKES THE POINT THAT [i]JEWISH CONTROLED [/i]HOLLYWOOD WILL PROBABLY FORGIVE MEL BECAUSE HIS MOVIES BRING IN $$$$. AGAIN, IF THIS ARTICLE HAD BEEN PRINTED IN A CONSERVATIVE PUBLICATION, THE WORLD WOULD BE SCREAMING THAT THE ARTICLE IS ANTI-SEMITIC. [/b]
[i]New Film May Harm Gibson's Career By SHARON WAXMAN[/i] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/movies/26G IBS.html" title="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/movies/26G IBS.html" target="_blank"http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 25 — Mel Gibson's provocative new film, "The Passion of the Christ," is making some of Hollywood's most prominent executives uncomfortable in ways that may damage Mr. Gibson's career.
Hollywood is a close-knit world, and friendships and social contact are critical in the making of deals and the casting of movies. Many of Hollywood's most prominent figures are also Jewish. So with a furor arising around the film, along with Mr. Gibson's reluctance to distance himself from his father, who calls the Holocaust mostly fiction, it is no surprise that Hollywood — Jewish and non-Jewish — has been talking about little else, at least when it's not talking about the Oscars.
Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, the principals of DreamWorks, have privately expressed anger over the film, said an executive close to the two men.
The chairmen of two other major studios said they would avoid working with Mr. Gibson because of "The Passion of the Christ" and the star's remarks surrounding its release.
Neither of the chairmen would speak for attribution, but as one explained: "It doesn't matter what I say. It'll matter what I do. I will do something. I won't hire him. I won't support anything he's part of. Personally that's all I can do."
The chairman said he was angry not just because of what he had read about the film and its portrayal of Jews in relation to the death of Jesus, but because of Mr. Gibson's remarks defending his father, Hutton Gibson. Last week in a radio interview the elder Mr. Gibson repeated his contention that the Holocaust was "all — maybe not all fiction — but most of it is." Asked about his father's Holocaust denial in an interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC, the movie star told her to "leave it alone."
The other studio chairman, whose family fled European anti-Semitism before the Holocaust, was less emphatic but said, "I think I can live without him." But others said there would be no lasting backlash against Mel Gibson. "If the movie works, I don't think it will hurt him," said John Lesher, an agent with Endeavor. "People here will work with the anti-Christ if he'll put butts in seats." Mr. Lesher added, "He put his own money where his mouth is. He invested in himself."
As Mr. Lesher implied, Hollywood is also a place of businesspeople, and Mr. Gibson is a proven movie star, popular with audiences. There are few actors with that kind of bankability, no matter their personal views. Mr. Gibson is also a capable director. So some of the initial reactions to his film may fade over time.
[b]THIS AMAZING POSTING IS LIFTED FROM RICK RICHMAN'S BLOG ("JEWISH CURRENT ISSUES") AT[/b] http://rrichman.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_rrichman_a rchive.html#107747894268079620" title="http://rrichman.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_rrichman_a rchive.html#107747894268079620" target="_blank"http://rrichman.blogspot.com/...
[i]In his December 2003 speech http://www.cfr.org/publicatio... to the Council on Foreign Relations, John Kerry proposed appointing Jimmy Carter, James Baker or Bill Clinton as his envoy to the "peace process." According to The Forward http://www.forward.com/issues... , Kerry received "major grief for the Carter-Baker remarks from Jewish communal leaders who consider Carter and Baker to be pro-Arab and anti-Israel." But guess what? Just before the New York primary, we are told it was a staff mistake http://www.forward.com/issues... .[/i]
A top New York supporter of Massachusetts Senator John Kerry is saying that the candidate told him he made a "mistake" when he named former president Jimmy Carter or former secretary of state James Baker as possible Middle East envoys in a December speech at the Council on Foreign Relations.
New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said Kerry told him that he never intended to name the men in the speech, and that Kerry had blamed the insertion of the names on a staff mistake.
According to Silver, who endorsed Kerry last week, Kerry told him that when he discovered the names of the two men had been inserted into a draft of his speech by staffers, he had requested they be removed, but was told that the draft remarks already had been distributed to reporters, so there was no way to deliver the speech minus the names without causing a stir. . . .
"Kerry is saying, 'Look, this is a mistake.'"
[i]Really? A staff mistake? Let’s go to the videotape http://www.johnkerry.com/issu... and decide for ourselves. Here is what the staffers "inserted" in Kerry’s speech, based on the "As Prepared for Delivery" version that can be found on Kerry’s website. http://www.johnkerry.com/pres... [/i]
In the first days of a Kerry Administration, I will appoint a Presidential Ambassador to the Peace Process who will report directly to me and the Secretary of State -- and who will work day-to-day to move that process forward.
There are a number of uniquely qualified Americans who I would consider appointing, including: President Carter, former Secretary of State James Baker, or, as I suggested almost two years ago, President Clinton.
[i]But in the actual speech, based on the transcript on the Council on Foreign Relations website http://www.johnkerry.com/pres... , Kerry ad-libbed a little more:[/i]
In the first days of a Kerry administration, I will appoint a presidential ambassador to the peace process who will report directly to me and the secretary of State, and who will work day to day to move that process forward.
There are a number of uniquely qualified Americans among whom I would consider appointing, including President Carter, former Secretary of State James Baker or, as I suggested almost two years ago, President Clinton.
And I might add, I have had conversations with both President Clinton and President Carter about their willingness to do this, and I think they would welcome it and embrace it as a means of moving forward.
[i]In the question-and-answer session that followed, a questioner told Kerry it was "one of the finest foreign policy speeches I've heard" and asked him to "say a little bit more about this very interesting idea of presidential envoys . . . ."[/i]
KERRY: David, thank you for your comments on the speech. Look. Jimmy Carter, President Clinton, President George Herbert Walker Bush, Jim Baker.
I think Jim Baker made 14 trips there. I know he wasn't all that popular at the end of a number of them and there were some issues. But Larry Eagleburger, Brent Scowcroft. There's great talent out there with people who have been through this.
And it's astonishing to me that we are not picking up somewhere near where we left off at Taba . . . .
I was in the Middle East after September 11th. I met at length with President Mubarak, with Crown Prince Abdullah, with King Abdullah, with Prime Minister Sharon, with Arafat in the West Bank. All of them.
And every single leader, including our own ambassador, said to me, "Senator, where is General Zinni? Why isn't there a special envoy here? This is a moment of opportunity." . . .
And I believe that a special envoy of the quality of President Clinton or of President Carter, or a combination of people, bipartisanly, would have the ability to be able to raise the day-to-day diplomacy to a level that helps to give strength to those who seek peace.
[i]He met with Arafat. After September 11. After the Palestinians celebrated in the street over the deaths of over 3000 Americans http://homepage.mac.com/cfj/.... , After Bill Clinton blamed Arafat for the Oslo collapse. After George W. Bush refused to meet with Arafat. After Arafat had commenced a barbaric war against Israel. After that -- and in the midst of that -- he meets with Arafat.
And he came away from that meeting thinking the answer is to appoint Jimmy Carter as presidential envoy and start the negotiations with Taba.
[i]The Personal Toll of Terrorism in Israel by David Bedein[/i] On Sunday, I was behind the bus that was blown to bits in Jerusalem; my friend was inside. http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12336" title="http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12336" target="_blank"http://frontpagemag.com/Artic...
WELL, MEL'S FILM OPENED TODAY AMID CONCERN THAT IT COULD SPARK ANTI-SEMITISM. IN DENVER, A PENTECOSTAL CHURCH POSTED THE FOLLOWING ON A BILLBOARD ON THEIR PROPERTY: "JEWS KILLED THE LORD JESUS. SETTLED!" http://www.thedenverchannel.c...
[b]The Jerusalem Post catches John Kerry in a stunning political backflip. [/b] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1077608445534" title="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1077608445534" target="_blank"http://www.jpost.com/servlet/...
[b]Here’s Kerry’s statement today on Israel’s security fence:[/b]
“It is ironic that this act of terror takes place on the eve of consideration by the International Court of Justice of Israel’s security fence. The court does not have and should not accept jurisdiction over this case,” Kerry said in a statement released by his campaign Monday.
“Israel’s security fence is a legitimate act of self defense,” he added. “No nation can stand by while its children are blown up at pizza parlors and on buses. While President [George W.] Bush is rightly discussing with Israel the exact route of the fence to minimize the hardship it causes innocent Palestinians, Israel has a right and a duty to defend its citizens. The fence only exists in response to the wave of terror attacks against Israel.”
[b]Sounds good, right? Kerry the pro-Israel, anti-terror guy. Except that in October, he said this to Michigan’s Arab American Institute:[/b]
“I know how disheartened Palestinians are by the Israeli government’s decision to build the barrier off of the Green Line – cutting deep into Palestinian areas,” Kerry said. “We don’t need another barrier to peace. Provocative and counterproductive measures only harm Israelis’ security over the long term, increase the hardships to the Palestinian people, and make the process of negotiating an eventual settlement that much harder.”
IF A WESTERNER HAD MADE THESE STATEMENTS, HE'D BE CALLED A RACIST.
Mubarak and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah jointly rejected a US plan to democratize the Arab world . . . . Speaking in Riyadh, they agreed the Western model does not necessarily fit a region driven by Islamic teachings or Arab identity. www.debka.com
[i]Hezbollah paying bonuses for each death? Israeli official says group rewards organizers for every Jew killed [/i] http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=37281" title="http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=37281" target="_blank"http://www.worldnetdaily.com/...
[b]Terror organization Hezbollah rewards organizers of suicide bombings with monetary bonuses for each person killed in the attacks[/b], the head of Israel's parliamentary Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee said yesterday. According to a Dow Jones Newswire report, Yuval Steinitz says the Lebanon-based group has a pay-by-the-death policy.
Steinitz confirmed that Avi Dichter, head of the Shin Bet security service, testified before the committee yesterday and made the assertion about Hezbollah.
The bonus amounts to several hundred dollars for each individual killed in bombings, Steinitz told the news service. Steinitz said Israel is unsure how much money in total the terror group has paid to finance uprising-related activity in the Middle East.
According to the report, Palestinian militants have said [b]the size of payment is based on the size of the attack[/b], but that there is no fixed scale for victims. The news service says the terrorists normally received tens of thousands of dollars from Hezbollah for individual attacks. Other payments from the group go toward ammunition, cellular phone cards and other expenses.
The Palestinian terror groups and PA security organizations are working to "upgrade" explosives to include chemical agents, and are also investing efforts in producing weapons that can go over the security fence, Shin Bet head Avi Dichter said Tuesday.
The weapons threat from Gaza could "hasten a Defensive Shield operation" there to rout out terrorists and confiscate weapons, Dichter warned the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
In 2003, 210 Kassam rockets were fired from populated Palestinian areas in Gaza.
[i]The Left's Anti-Semitic Chic - By George Will [/i] http://jewishworldreview.com/0204/will_2004_02_25.php3" title="http://jewishworldreview.com/0204/will_2004_02_25.php3" target="_blank"http://jewishworldreview.com/...
The appallingly brief eclipse of anti-Semitism after Auschwitz demonstrates how beguiling is the simplicity of pure stupidity. All of the left's prescriptions for curing what ails society -- socialism, communism, psychoanalysis, "progressive" education, etc. -- have been discarded, so now the left is reduced to adapting that hardy perennial of the right, anti-Semitism.
[b]South Korea has one. So does Kuwait, Lithuania, Namibia, South Africa and India, not to mention Spain, Slovakia, and even the US.
What these disparate nations all have in common is that each one has built, or is in the process of building, a security fence along one of its borders, either to keep out smugglers, thwart infiltrators or simply control the flow of people and goods across its boundaries.
But unlike Israel they also share another conspicuous trait: none of their barriers has been threatened with condemnation by the International Court of Justice; nor have they received round-the-clock coverage on CNN. Each of these countries erected a fence for the simple reason that that is what states tend to do when they feel their interests are being threatened. [/b]
Kuwait's was put up for fairly obvious reasons, thanks to a once-hostile Iraq, while South Korea's barrier is intended to stave off a possible invasion from its communist neighbor to the north.
Lithuania saw fit to draw a line in metal along its border with Belarus, just as Namibia did to neighboring Angola, India has done with Pakistan, and the US to Mexico. Slovakia and the Ukraine are similarly demarcated, while Saudi Arabia recently considered building a fence along its border with Yemen.
And the list does not end there.
Five years ago, Spain spent more than $35 million erecting a 10-foot-tall fence around its North African enclave of Melilla, cutting it off from the rest of Morocco. It consists of two rows of barricades, hi-tech security cameras, fiber optic sensors and a road to accommodate police patrols. The Spanish government went to all this trouble to stem the tide of Moroccans seeking to cross the border illegally.
Hey, now doesn't that sound familiar?
Even South Africa, which so brazenly criticized Israel at Monday's opening hearing at The Hague, has invested tens of millions of rand in recent years to reinforce its own border fence along the Limpopo River, which delineates the boundary with Zimbabwe. The reason? To keep out cattle that might be carrying foot-and-mouth disease.
To which I cannot help but ask: Why is it ok for South Africa to keep out the cows, but not for Israel to bar entry to suicide attackers?
For goodness' sake, there is even a border fence stretching for some 10 miles between England and Scotland, and they haven't fought a war against each other for centuries.
NOR CAN it be argued that the problem with Israel's fence is that it is not on a recognized border. Pakistan is protesting an elaborate fence erected by India in disputed Kashmir. Yet the world does not cry that India is stealing "occupied Pakistani territory."
"The fence will be a permanent barrier to prevent militants from entering," the head of India's Border Security Force in Kashmir told the Washington Post last summer. "Why should we wait for them to come in and attack our people?"
With so many fences going up in so many places around the world, why then is it Israel, and only Israel, which finds itself in the dock over this issue? The answer, it seems, is quite simple: The world is essentially telling the Jewish state to roll over and die.
They criticize us when we actively defend ourselves through military means, and now they aim to condemn us for adopting passive measures such as putting up a lousy fence.
Take, for example, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Shortly after the Palestinians launched the present terror campaign in September 2000, Annan ascended the podium at the UN Security Council and called on Israel "to use non-lethal methods" when quelling outbreaks of Palestinian unrest.
And yet, when Israel proceeded to do just that by initiating construction of the security fence, Annan decided to lead the charge against it. In a report submitted to the UN General Assembly on November 24, 2003, he berated Israel for erecting the barrier, calling it "a deeply unproductive act."
So if Israel's use of military means against Palestinian terror is unacceptable to Annan, and he considers nonmilitary means such as the fence to be "unproductive" – how exactly does the secretary-general expect the Jewish state to protect its citizens?
Now don't get me wrong; I think the construction of the security fence is a pitiful substitute for an effective counterterrorism policy on Israel's part. Indeed, rather than encircling the perpetrators of terror, the government is fencing in their intended victims.
But that in no way gives the nations of the world the right to stand in judgment on the Jewish state. Were they to find themselves in a similar situation they would no doubt act to ensure the safety and security of their citizens. In truth, it is not that the fence incorporates parts of Judea and Samaria that troubles our accusers, nor do they really care about the inconvenience it might cause to some Palestinians.
What truly seems to disturb them is that it just might save some Jewish lives. And that, as far as they are concerned, is perhaps the most unforgivable crime of all.
[b]ALTHOUGH NO ISRAELI VICTIMS OF TERROR WERE NOT ALLOWED TO TESTIFY TUESDAY AT THE ICJ REGARDING ISRAEL'S SECURITY FENCE, CUBA, INDONESIA, BELIZE, MADAGASCAR, MALAYSIA, SENEGAL AND JORDAN HAD THEIR SAY. DID I MENTION [i]CUBA[/i] !!! [/b]
[b]JORDAN'S COMPLAINT? THEY DON'T WANT THE PALESTINIANS EITHER. ARAB UNITY. GOTTA LOVE IT.[/b]
Jordan's interests are harmed by Israel's security barrier because it will push more refugees into our country, argued Jordanian Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid Al-Hussein before the International Court of Justice at The Hague, early Tuesday afternoon.
[b][i]ADBUSTERS MAGAZINE [/i] :twisted: HAS TAKEN THE [i][u]BRAVE [/u][/i]STEP OF FINALLY BLOWING THE LID OFF THE RIGHT-WING (OR IS IT LEFT-WING THIS WEEK) JEWISH CONSPIRACY TO CONTROL U.S. FOREIGN POLICY. THEY LIST THE TOP 50 NEO-CONS AND CONVENIENTLY POINT OUT WHICH ARE JEWISH. NEXT WEEK, ADBUSTERS WILL BE RUNNING AN ARTICLE BY PAT BUCHANAN ON HOW THE HOLOCAUST IS A JEWISH FABRICATION CONCOCTED BY THE JEWISH CONTROLED MEDIA FOR THE BENEFIT OF DIAMOND MERCHANTS. [/b]
[b]AM I PISSED? ONLY BECAUSE I GOT LEFT OFF THE LIST. ISN'T ANYONE READING THIS BLOG??[/b]
Drawing attention to the Jewishness of the neocons is a tricky game. Anyone who does so can count on automatically being smeared as an anti-Semite. But the point is not that Jews (who make up less than 2 percent of the American population) have a monolithic perspective. Indeed, American Jews overwhelmingly vote Democrat and many of them disagree strongly with Ariel Sharon’s policies and Bush’s aggression in Iraq. The point is simply that the neocons seem to have a special affinity for Israel that influences their political thinking and consequently American foreign policy in the Middle East.
Here at Adbusters, we decided to tackle the issue head on and came up with a carefully researched list of who appear to be the 50 most influential neocons in the US (see above). Deciding exactly who is a neocon is difficult since some neocons reject the term while others embrace it. Some shape policy from within the White House, while others are more peripheral, exacting influence indirectly as journalists, academics and think tank policy wonks. What they all share is the view that the US is a benevolent hyper power that must protect itself by reshaping the rest of the world into its morally superior image. And half of the them are Jewish.
In an interview with the Palestinian daily al-Quds, Muhammed Dahlan, former PA Minister of Security, said: [b]"The Israeli withdrawal is a victory for us and we must celebrate it. Hizballah turned Israel's retreat from South Lebanon into victory. The withdrawal of the Israeli army from the Gaza Strip and some West Bank settlements is one of the most important achievements of the intifada. The withdrawal should take place without an agreement and with no political gains (for Israel). Sharon has decided to withdraw unilaterally, and this is cause for celebration."[/b] According to one PA official, Israel and the U.S. are demanding that Dahlan become the de facto commander of the Gaza Strip after the withdrawal. (Jerusalem Post)
[b]It's hard for the Palestinians to hide their satisfaction. Had Israel proposed an agreement on withdrawal from Gaza to them, they would have been required to give something in return. Now they are getting it for free. "For us, the withdrawal from Gaza will not come at the expense of anything else, and we certainly won't agree to give anything in exchange on the West Bank," [/b]said Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Sha'ath. The PA, together with the various opposition organizations, will try to turn the withdrawal into a Palestinian victory campaign, the likes of which hasn't been seen for years. The situation is characterized by a feeling of success that is gradually coming to include almost all the political activists in the West Bank and in Gaza. (Ha'aretz)
The Palestinian propaganda offensive against Israel in the Hague is being led by two lawyers - Michael Tarazi and Diana Butto, who are employed by Arafat's PLO and whose salaries are being paid by the taxpayers of Britain and Sweden via the Negotiations Support Unit (NSU).
The NSU, created in 1998 for technical assistance to the PLO and under its control, continues to operate even after the collapse of the Oslo framework and negotiations, primarily as an information and propaganda arm of the Palestinian Authority.
In an effort to garner public support for the security fence, a series of 30-second TV ads featuring mothers whose children were killed by suicide bombers began airing on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC in the Washington area last week, sponsored by The Israel Project (View the Ad: http://www.theisraelproject.o... ).
[i]Jewish school plaque destroyed [/i] www.jta.org
[b]A plaque on a Paris school building honoring the memory of Jews deported to Auschwitz was destroyed. [/b] Former members of the French Resistance arriving for a ceremony at the Japy Gymnasium in the capital’s 11th District on Monday discovered the plaque broken on the ground outside the school building. The plaque marked the deportation of the district’s Jews to Auschwitz in 1941 and 1942. Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe described the desecration as “disgusting and revolting.” He said a new plaque would be placed at the school as soon as possible.
The Paris municipality and the mayor of the 11th District have filed a police complaint.
IT IS OBVIOUS THAT NOAM CHOMSKY'S RABID (AND DISCREDITED) HATRED FOR AND BIAS AGAINST ISRAEL DISQUALIFIES HIM FROM PARTICIPATING IN CIVILIZED DISCOURSE CONCERNING THE JEWISH STATE. OBVIOUS TO EVERYONE EXCEPT THE NEW YORK TIMES, THAT IS. TODAY, THEY PUBLISHED ONE OF HIS ANTI-ISRAEL SCREEDS AS AN OP-ED, ONE DAY AFTER PALESTINIANS MURDERED A BUS FULL OF CHILDREN.
Yesterday morning, (Feb.22) a suicide bomber on a Jerusalem bus killed 8 Israelis ― including two teenagers on their way to school ― and injured over 60.
The attack was perpetrated by a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. While it is generally accepted that this terrorist group is connected to Yassir Arafat's Fatah party, HonestReporting www.honestreporting.com points out that most major news agencies continued to downplay that relationship in today's reports:
― Associated Press: "The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group [b]loosely affiliated with Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement[/b], claimed responsibility for the attack and identified the bomber as Mohammed Zool, 23, from the village of Hussan near Bethlehem." http://www.washingtonpost.com...://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6236 0-2004Feb22.html (free registration required)
― Washington Post: "Hezbollah television station Al-Manar reported that the bombing was carried out by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the militant group that [b]associates itself with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement[/b]..." http://www.washingtonpost.com...://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6160 7-2004Feb22.html (free registration required)
― CNN: "The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades ― the [b]military offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement [/b]― claimed responsibility for the blast in a statement." http://edition.cnn.com/2004/W...
― Agence France Presse: "The bombing, claimed by the radical Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, [b]an armed offshoot of Arafat's Fatah movement[/b]..." http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...
The evidence, however, clearly indicates that the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade is not some "loose offshoot," but rather has a direct and ongoing bond to the Fatah party, which holds a majority of seats in the Palestinian Parliament. http://www.pna.gov.ps/Governm... The Palestinian government, therefore, bears direct responsibility for the group's heinous terrorist acts:
▪ In November, 2003 a BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wo... investigation found that up to $50,000 a month was funneled by Fatah directly to the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. When BBC reported on today's attack, their terminology was consistent with these findings ― unlike the outlets above, BBC described the relationship between Fatah and the terrorists in an entirely accurate manner: "The militant al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, [b]part of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction[/b], has claimed responsibility for the suicide attack."
▪ Documents captured by the IDF http://www.intelligence.org.i... in 2002 indicated Fatah's [b]"systematic, institutionalized and ongoing financing"[/b] of the Al Aqsa Brigades, including a special allocation to the Bethlehem branch of the organization (the very group that dispatched today's bomber). After inspecting these documents, President Bush called for Arafat's removal in June, 2002.
▪ The leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Tulkarm told USA Today on March 14, 2002: "The truth is, we are Fatah, but we didn't operate under the name of Fatah...We are the armed wing of the organization. We receive our instructions from Fatah. Our commander is Yasser Arafat himself."
▪ Last week, British MP Jenny Tonge went to visit Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades' Bethlehem branch. BBC's Radio 4 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/t... carried a report in which the terrorists themselves admit they are "part of Fatah...the militant part." (Click here http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/t... to hear the report ― the statement regarding Fatah is about 2:50 in.)
This is not merely a semantic matter. The close ties that bond the Fatah-led PA to terrorist groups are the fundamental problem that prevents progress toward peaceful reconciliation. The dominant political party in the PA remains a direct sponsor of ongoing terrorism ― the ruling politicians and the terrorists are one and the same.
If media outlets fail to convey this, their readers and viewers certainly can't understand Israel's position in the raging debate over the security fence, which has reached the world court at The Hague.
This week, at exactly the same time Germany's Foreign Minister Joshka Fischer stood with Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel in Brussels to condemn Arab antisemitism, the prestigious Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation, flagship of Germany's ruling Social Democratic Party, funded a three-day conference in Beirut with speakers from Hezbollah and Hamas - two terrorist organizations who murder Jews and officially promote the horrific hate of the Blood Libel and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Conference participants included Shaykh Naeem Qasim from Hezbollah; Azzam Tamimi, from the Institute of Islamic Thought in London, who presents himself in the Arab press as a counselor to Hamas; Tariq Ramadan, from the University of Fribourg, a Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, notorious for his public incitement to antisemitism in France; Ibrahim al-Masri, vice president of Lebanon's al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya, a group linked by terrorism experts to al-Qaeda; and Munir Shafiq, a leading Hamas idealogue and former activist in Islamic Jihad. http://www.wiesenthal.com
WHAT WOULD ANY OTHER COUNTRY DO IN ISRAEL'S POSITION?
[i]Visiting U.S. Congressman Astounded by Israeli Restraint - Tal Yamin-Wolvovich and Arik Bender[/i] http://www.maarivintl.com/ind...
Israel's restraint is remarkable to visiting U.S. Congressman Gerald Nadler: "Any other nation on earth under attack as Israel is would have already begun bombing the Palestinian Authority. If this had happened in America, you would already see the B-52s in the air, blowing up the place where the terrorists were sent from. It is sheer hypocrisy on the part of those who say that Israel must not build the security barrier." (Maariv)
WASHINGTON - Former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for turning over control of most of the West Bank to Yasser Arafat's Palestinians, took his campaign for dismantling Jewish settlements to the highest reaches of the Bush administration on Monday.
Peres, at a news conference between meetings with Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, flashed his long-standing optimism that the Palestinians want peace with Israel and should be encouraged with territorial concessions.
In fact, he said "good news" was emerging all over the world, with Libya pledging to end its nuclear weapons program and Cyprus on a path to settle the island nation's 30-year division.
Peres said he was cheered by the proposals of his longtime political foe, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, to withdraw from Gaza and from part of the West Bank without any reciprocal moves by Palestinian leaders.
The pullback cannot stop there, Peres said. "Before long it will become a plan" for a deeper withdrawal, he said.
Palestinian Arab terrorists struck again in Jerusalem early this morning: [i]Palestinian Suicide Bomber Kills 8 in Jerusalem[/i] http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian suicide bomber killed seven people on a crowded Jerusalem bus Sunday on the eve of World Court hearings into a controversial barrier Israel says will ensure its security against such attacks.
Police said around 60 people were wounded in the blast, which turned the green number 14 bus into a charred skeleton at a busy intersection near the Inbal Hotel, where leaders of major U.S. Jewish organizations were meeting.
“People were screaming ‘mommy, daddy’. There were body parts everywhere including some hands and feet scattered outside the bus,” medic Reuven Pohl said.
The World Court begins hearings in The Hague Monday on the legality of the West Bank barrier that Israel says keeps suicide bombers out, but which Palestinians call a land grab.
The militant group al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for the bombing in a statement that called the barrier “a Nazi wall which will not stop us attacking.”
This is the second time that the 14 A bus line has been a target of terror attacks.
A Ministry of Education official said that 11 students were wounded in the attack. Psychologists and social workers arrived at schools around Jerusalem to speak with the students and provide support for teaching staff.
Yoram Levy, a teacher at the Gymnasia Rehavia High School, said that one of their students was killed in the attack, and that an additional 12 students were injured.
When the International Court of Justice in The Hague starts hearing complaints against Israel's security fence in the West Bank on Monday, India will be busy constructing a fence of its own.
[b]After 15 years of fighting in Kashmir that have left more than 65,000 dead, the Indians are using cement, razor wire, and electronic sensors to stymie a menagerie of Pakistani guerrilla forces.
"The fence will be a permanent barrier at the border to prevent militants from entering," the head of India's Border Security Force in Jammu and Kashmir told The Washington Post last summer. "Why should we wait for them to come in and attack our people?" [/b]
Parallels abound between India's barrier and Israel's – and to another case even closer to home as well.
[b]Saudi Arabia chafes at comparisons, but the security fence that it is building along the border with Yemen has all the elements of the one that Israel is erecting to frustrate suicide bombers in the West Bank: a barrier made mostly of chain-link fence that also includes concrete sections, cameras, and electronic surveillance equipment, designed to stop bloody infiltrations. [/b]....
Fences are becoming something of a fad. [b]A Zimbabwean official recently accused Botswana of creating "a new Gaza Strip" by erecting electrified fences along its borders to keep out livestock and refugees from three neighboring countries. [/b]
In the late 1990s, [b]the European Union funded fences to keep North African immigrants from streaming into the Continent through Spain. And the United States has spent over a decade constructing a mammoth, militarized, three-layer fence along the 3,200-kilometer Mexican border.[/b]
What sets the Indian and Saudi projects apart from most others – and makes them nearly identical to the Israeli one – is that they are being built on highly contested land, after years of tiresome conflict and often fruitless negotiations. . . .
PA Negotiations Minister Saeb Erekat is caught between condemnation for Israel's barrier, and justification for Saudi Arabia's. "Both nations have the right to self-defense," he told the Post, "but build [a barrier] on your own territory."
Saying that he approves of a fence to divide Israelis from Palestinians, but not Palestinians from each other, Erekat added: "In principle, I believe in bridges, not fences."
[i]Today, the International Court of Justice (hearing the Security Fence case) found a technicality to exclude the testimony of the very people the fence is designed to protect, the people who are the reason for the fence’s existence: the families of terror victims.[/i] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/...
The International Court of Justice in The Hague rejected Saturday the request of Israeli terror victims’ families to participate in the court’s hearing regarding the West Bank security fence, Israel Radio reported.
The court argued that the families do not represent a county and therefore should not take part in the hearing.
Fourteen governments and two organizations are to testify in the ICJ three-day hearing, beginning next week. Most of the legal testimonies will be against the fence.
[i]That's right, civilian terror victims can't participate, but Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and other "interested parties" can. Just disgusting.[/i]
The Hague Magistrate's Court rejected a petition by Mayor Wim Deetman, who sought to stop pro-Israel demonstrators from holding up pictures and names of the 927 Israeli terrorism victims since 2000 during protests there last week, according the Jewish Agency.
Speaking to the media, Deetman called the demonstrations "provocative." He also accused the Israeli Embassy of disturbing the peace and trying to fan the flames of an already volatile situation in the city.
The number of anti-Semitic incidents recorded in Britain last year rose by 7 percent compared with 2002, according to figures published Friday by a Jewish group, which blamed the increase on the Iraq war and tensions in the Middle East.
A total of 375 malicious acts aimed at the Jewish community or at individuals as Jews were reported to the Community Security Trust, a charity which advises and represents the Jewish community on anti-Semitism.
Incidents included the desecration of at least some 400 gravestones at an East London cemetery in May 2003, which the CST described as the biggest incident of its kind recorded in Britain.
The group said the number of annual incidents was the second highest since records began in 1984. The highest total recorded was 405 in 2000, which reflected the start of the second Palestinian uprising, the CST said.
[b]SEE ALSO: [/b]The London Guardian thinks reports of rising anti-Semitism in Europe are exaggerated. http://www.guardian.co.uk/els...,7792,1152717,00.html
76% of Americans have an unfavorable view of the Palestinian Authority compared with 15% favorable, according to a Gallup Poll conducted Feb. 9-12, 2004. Saudi Arabia is viewed unfavorably by 66%, compared with 28% favorably. Israel is viewed by 59% of Americans favorably and by 35% unfavorably. Egypt is viewed similarly to Israel, with 58% favorable and 32% unfavorable. Other results include Iran - 17% favorable, 77% unfavorable; and Libya - 25% favorable, 63% unfavorable. (Gallup Poll)
Israel may have sent the Hezbollah the wrong body. Kul Al-Arab reported that a [b]Lebanese family expecting the body Muhamed Biro, a drug dealer who died in an Israeli prison when he was 70, instead received the body of what appeared to be an Orthodox Jew[/b]. Now, the paper reported, [b]Hezbollah wants an additional 30 bodies as compensation for the mistake. [/b]The body was transferred to Lebanon as part of an exchange of 400 Arab prisoners for one live Israeli citizen and three dead Israeli troops. The Israeli army confirmed to Israeli news outlets on Friday that the case was under review, but said it had not heard of any new demands from the Lebanese terrorist group.
[i]Powell: Less terror equals more pressure on Israel [/i] www.jta.org
The United States cannot effectively pressure Israel to change its policies until the Palestinians crack down on terrorism, Secretary of State Colin Powell says. “We have to stop settlement activity; the president´s made that clear to the Israeli side” Powell said Friday in a speech to Princeton University. “We have got to get rid of the outposts. We have to make life better for the Palestinian people.” For that message to get across to the Israelis, Powell said, Palestinians needed to abandon terrorism. “It is difficult for us to achieve this goal and to put this kind of pressure on the Israeli side as long as terrorism is seen as a legitimate political act on the part of Palestinians. It is not; it can´t be, not in this post-9/11 age.”
[b]UPDATE: [/b] Powell blamed Yasser Arafat for sabotaging US efforts to stop Palestinian terror attacks on Israelis. "I put the blame squarely on Arafat," Powell said. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/...
[b]The Palestinian prime minister is threatening to resign [/b]unless Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat allows more transparency in how he pays security forces. Ahmed Qurei had a showdown with Arafat over the issue last Saturday, according to an account published in Ha’aretz on Friday. Qurei told Arafat that continued funding from the European Union depends on such transparency. Arafat has agreed to allow monitored payments to agents in security forces not under his control, but insists on paying agents who answer to him directly in cash. Greater transparency would stymie attempts by Arafat to circumvent P.A. moderates who want to crack down on terrorism. www.jta.org
MEMRI has published a mind-blowing list of the nations, corporations, and individuals who received quasi-legal “oil vouchers” from Iraq, given either as gifts or as payment for goods imported into Iraq in violation of the U.N. sanctions:
I, for one, am shocked, SHOCKED to see opponents of the war against Iraq prominently featured. And I thought the French and Russians were operating from conviction. I'm so naive.
[i]Americans love Israel — after eight [/i] www.jta.org
Israel is ninth on a list of Americans’ favorite foreign countries. According to a survey reported by Israel Radio on Thursday, Australia, Britain and Canada top the list.
The tiny Jewish community in Sweden is taking precautions in public, in the face of verbal and even physical abuse. While overt anti-Semitism remains rare, some Jews say they are using aliases and code to discuss Jewish subjects in public. Most of the 100-plus attacks last year were by Muslim immigrants. (Haaretz)
The EU promised at a high-level conference to clamp down on anti-Semitism -- a "monster" that Jewish leaders warned has returned with a vengeance to the continent that bore witness to the Holocaust.
The buildup to the day-long event was troubled, not least because of accusations by Jewish groups that the European Union executive is itself guilty of fostering anti-Semitism in Europe.
But figures including European Commission chief Romano Prodi, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Natan Sharansky banded together to denounce mounting attacks on Jewish targets in Europe.
"Anti-Semitism has returned. The monster is here with us once again," European Jewish Congress (EJC) president Cobi Benatoff told the conference.
"What is of most concern to us, however, is the indifference of our fellow European citizens," the Italian said.
[i]Report: EU panel finds Arafat did not fund terror[/i] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1077164219332" title="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1077164219332" target="_blank"http://www.jpost.com/servlet/...
A week after the German paper Die Weld reported suspicion is growing that money from PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's office was transferred to terror organizations, the French daily Liberation reported Wednesday that a report being prepared by the EU's anti-fraud unit (OLAF) will show no financial ties between Arafat and terror.
The paper reported that according to its sources the report will show that Arafat did not use the financial assistance from the EU to "help in any way to fund terror organizations like the Al Aksa Brigades."
The OLAF report on whether hundreds of millions of euros to the PA was misused, is slated to be released in March.
Following the Die Weld report, which also indicated OLAF investigators had authenticated documents Israel provided the EU linking Arafat to terror groups, OLAF released a statement saying it has "not finalized its investigation. Therefore, any conclusions attributed to OLAF are premature and are not confirmed by evidence."
A week before the United States release of Mel Gibson's controversial movie, The Passion of the Christ, the filmmaker's father has repeated claims the Holocaust was exaggerated.
Hutton Gibson's comments, made in a telephone interview with New York radio talk show host Steve Feuerstein, come at an awkward time for the actor-director who has been trying to deflect criticism from Jewish groups that his film might inflame anti-Semitic sentiment.
In his interview on WSNR radio's Speak Your Piece, to be broadcast on Monday, [b]Hutton Gibson, argued that many European Jews counted as death camp victims of the Nazi regime had in fact fled to countries like Australia and the United States.
"It's all -- maybe not all fiction -- but most of it is," he said, adding that the gas chambers and crematoria at camps like Auschwitz would not have been capable of exterminating so many people.
"Do you know what it takes to get rid of a dead body? To cremate it?" he said. "It takes a litre of petrol and 20 minutes. Now, six million of them? They (the Germans) did not have the gas to do it. That's why they lost the war."
Gibson's father caused a furore last year when he made similar remarks in a New York Times article. [/b]In a television interview with Diane Sawyer this week, Mel Gibson accused the Times of taking advantage of his father, and he warned Sawyer against broaching the subject again.
"He's my father. Gotta leave it alone Diane. Gotta leave it alone," Gibson said, while offering his own perspective on the Holocaust.
"Do I believe that there were concentration camps where defenceless and innocent Jews died cruelly under the Nazi regime? Of course I do; absolutely," he said. "It was an atrocity of monumental proportion."
[b]During his lengthy radio interview, Hutton Gibson, 85, said Jews were out to create "one world religion and one world government" and outlined a conspiracy theory involving Jewish bankers, the US Federal Reserve and the Vatican, among others. [/b]
A Palestinian Authority minister and a senior economist on Wednesday survived an asassiantion attempt during a visit to Jenin. Three masked gunmen belonging to Fatah's armed wing, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, opened fire on the two while they were eating at a local restaurant.
Health Minister Jawad Tibi and Mohammad Shtayyeh, managing director of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction, were in the city to attend the inauguration ceremony of a new hospital.
Both men escaped without injury, but two bystanders were injured, including a PA policeman. Witnesses said the assailants opened fire into the restaurant shortly after the two officials arrived at the place.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. The group has targeted several PA officials, including the former governor of Jenin, who was dragged into the street and beaten by gunmen. The group has repeatedly accused the PA of stealing foreign aid.
The Knesset secret services and intelligence subcommittee on Wednesday heard new details of Israeli businessman and reserve colonel Elhanan Tannenbaum's capture by the Hizbullah, and his subsequent return to Israel in the prisoner exchange deal with the Lebanese terror organization.
Following their meeting with Shin Bet Chief Avi Dichter, subcommittee members released a statement saying that the new revelations would "give anyone who cares about Israel's security sleepless nights."
The members of the secret services subcommittee, attached to the Knesset Defense and Foreign Affairs committee, unanimously called on law enforcement agencies to be given "all the conditions and means necessary in order to complete investigating Tannenbaum and reach conclusions in what appears to have been one of the most grave and worrisome affairs in the history of the country." They added that they would not rest, and not remain silent, until the entire case is cleared up.
The committee demanded an investigation into the circumstances of Tannenbaum's arrival in Lebanon, and what state secrets he divulged to his captors. Security services believe irreparable damage may have been done to the country's defense, Israel Radio reported.
Remember British Liberal Democrat MP, Jenny Tonge, who provoked outrage with her statement that if she were Palestinian, she might become a suicide bomber? http://www.4ni.co.uk/national...
Well, she's back in the news and making an ass of herself. Now she's not just sympathizing with suicide bombers; she's hanging out with them. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/mi...
"We met up with some al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terrorists after lurking guiltily in Manger Square waiting for them to arrive.
We were taken to a safe Christian house, where two bearded, shaded, skull-capped men, one with a black Kalashnikov, sat on a sofa near a huge wall hanging of Jesus the Good Shepherd.
They had heard about my remarks and were pleased that I understood the reasons why they were terrorists, even “proud” of me. This was spine-chilling. . .
We visited the family of a suicide bomber. The stories of indoctrination of little children right through their schooldays didn’t seem to apply here.
The brothers of Mohamed showed no signs of this and his mother claimed she had no idea her son was planning this until the al-Aqsa Brigade delivered his “memorial” picture taken before the mission. . .
It is certainly true that suicide bombers are regarded as national heroes here, but what else do they have - born out of despair and the desire to resist occupation, laced with religious belief.
Civilian targets are chosen because there is no way of getting at military targets."
Dr Tonge was asked whether, following those conversations, she could imagine herself putting on an explosive belt, travelling to a target and then detonating the explosives.
She said: “No I can’t frankly. But I can’t imagine the preparation and the paraphernalia. And also frankly I don’t think I would be brave enough, if I’m totally honest.
“But I still can understand the mixture of despair, resistance to an occupying force which always causes terrorists to pop up out of nowhere, and heavily laced with a religious belief or some indoctrination. I can still understand and put myself in the position of people who do it.”
Yasser Arafat and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei are arguing over the murky finances of the Palestinian government, with salaries for Palestinian security forces at the center of the dispute. A lack of progress on reforms was among the issues that led to the resignation of the previous prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas.
[i]The NY Times, Al Jazeera, and Holocaust distorters By Tom Gross[/i]
On February 16, 2004, the New York Times ran a story about Al Jazeera, titled "For Al Jazeera, Balanced Coverage Frequently Leaves No Side Happy." The same article ran in the NY Times-owned International Herald Tribune under the headline "Al Jazeera sees itself as an East-West 'bridge'" www.nytimes.com/2004/02/16/business/m edia/16arabtv.html
NY TIMES FORGETS TO MENTION THE HOLOCAUST DENIAL
The New York Times story is an example of how the paper subtly misleads its readers in regard to Middle East issues on an almost daily basis.
The Times piece contains gushing quotes about how "comprehensive and accurate" Al Jazeera strives to be, how it does not have any "ideological aim," how it is trying to "bridge the gap between the two ways of understanding the news in the East and the West."
It quotes Al Jazeera's managing director, Mr. Khanfar, saying: "We do not carry slogans or propaganda, not at all. We are just ordinary people with a love for journalism."
AND WHAT THE NY TIMES LEFT OUT
Just three days earlier, Feb 13, 2004, Al Jazeera's English-language website ran an article titled "A Look at The 'Powerful Jewish Lobby'" by Mark Weber, one of the world's leading Holocaust distorters and director of the misnamed Institute for Historical Review. Weber's article - much like Al Jazeera's content - is a subtle mix of genuine fact and outrageous slurs "about the danger of Jewish power." http://www.aljazeerah.info/Op...%20editorials/2004%20opin ions/Feb/13%20o/A%20Look% 20at%20The%20Powerful%20J ewish%20Lobby%20By%20Mark %20Weber.htm
Weber uses for his defense such Holocaust distorters as "Jewish scholar" Norman Finkelstein, citing the fact that Finkelstein has among other things accused "organized Jewry" of "extorting billions of dollars" from Germany and others. Because of this, Finkelstein predicts, "The Holocaust may yet turn out to be the 'greatest robbery in the history of mankind'."
International aid to Arafat has been cut in half because of suspicions of corruption and a Palestinian failure to show the money is being spent properly, Western diplomats and officials in the West Bank said Monday. Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad said aid from the EU, which used to run $120 million a year, had fallen to $80 million. He said all international aid to the Palestinians had dropped "by around half" over the last two years. Western diplomats said more than $50 million in EU aid was being held back until the PA paid salaries for its security services through bank transfers - rather than by cash that cannot be traced. (New York Post)
The European Union has finally started doing the right thing by cutting its funding of the hopelessly corrupt Palestinian Authority — but for all the wrong reasons.
Denying that any of its financial support has been diverted to terrorist activity, the EU is reducing its $120 million annual aid by one-third because of the continued lack of transparency of PA finances.
Not because PA Chairman Yasser Arafat has eschewed any prospect for peace and instead orchestrated a three and a half year terrorist campaign designed to kill as many Israeli citizens as possible, mind you, but because he didn't do so with "transparent" finances.
To the EU — dominated by governments like France and Germany who were content to continue allowing Saddam a free hand in torturing and slaughtering his own people — terrorism is just another form of political expression.
The EU is not reducing its funding because of the over 900 Israelis — most of them civilians — murdered since the start of the intifada in 2000. The EU is also not acting in response to the continued incitement drummed up the Palestinian media, almost all of which operates, to some degree, under the thumb of Arafat.
The Wall Street Journal has a story about a Reuters dispatch on Mel Gibson's controversial new movie, "The Passion of the Christ" http://story.news.yahoo.com/n... :
"In an interview with Reuters Television after he met Vatican officials, Abraham Foxman, U.S. director of [b]the Anti-Defamation League, an independent Jewish pressure group[/b], said the film portrayed Jews as bloodthirsty and vengeful."
The Journal points out that technically, the charaterization is inaccurate; the ADL is indeed, as Merriam-Webster defines the term, "an interest group organized to influence public and especially government policy but not to elect candidates to office." Although, primarily it's a civil rights organization fighting to end discrimination.
And pressure group is a pejorative term, and Reuters is anything but evenhanded in its application. In another dispatch http://in.news.yahoo.com/0306... , Reuters describes the hateful Council on American Islamic Relations as "an Islamic civil rights and advocacy group."
One would think that Amsterdam’s Anne Frank House, the shrine to the Holocaust’s most famous victim, would work to draw a historic and moral red line between the Shoah and the current Middle East conflict. Sadly, it turns out that the museum, established in the place where Anne and her family were hidden and ultimately betrayed to the Nazis, may have become the unwitting dupe of the insidious ”Jews = Nazis” (or it is just Israelis?) chorus. Not far from where Anne wrote her remarkable diary, museum visitors now are confronted with a photo exhibit juxtaposing pictures of the Fuhrer and the Israeli prime minister as well as a video clip of protesters waving posters of Hitler and Sharon.
The exhibit is part of the ”Out of Line” Exhibition, which the museum’s Web site describes as ”an interactive exhibition that deals with contemporary issues” — particularly, the clash of ”two fundamental rights: freedom of expression and the right to be protected against discrimination.”
How exactly are museum visitors supposed to balance these two competing ”rights” in specific regard to the exhibit marrying the pictures Hitler and Sharon? Is the clash between free speech right of extremists to express their anti-Israel, anti-Jewish bile and the right of Holland’s Jewish minority to be protected against ”hate speech” the pedagogical issue at hand? Maybe so, but the Anne Frank House provides no such guidance. In fact, its Web site, while showcasing contemporary controversies over neo-Nazis and rapper Eminem, discreetly fails even to mention that the ”Hitler-Sharon” comparison is part of the ”Out of Line” Exhibition.
As any visitor to the Wiesenthal’s Museum of Tolerance knows, we are not afraid to take on bigots, past and present, head-on, and to challenge visitors to examine their own beliefs — indeed, confront their own prejudices. However, to educate you must provide guidelines and context, which is precisely what the Anne Frank House fails to do in the case of its ”Hitler-Sharon” exhibit.
Just as Anne Frank’s family learned that there was no permanent sanctuary from the closing grip of Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, the Anne Frank House has to recognize that it also cannot escape from confronting the rising tide of anti-Semitism, often posing as ”anti-Zionism,” in contemporary Europe including Holland. It isn’t enough just to invoke, mechanically, pieties about balancing free speech and minority rights.
What the Anne Frank House needs to do is to challenge the beliefs — and the prejudices — of today’s Dutch at a time when [b]pro-Palestinian demonstrators regularly jolt Amsterdam with violent demonstrations, not just reviling Sharon and Israel, but chanting: ”Hamas, Hamas, all Jews to the gas.”[/b]
Yasser Arafat may be related to Jews, according to a PLO official’s new book.
Israel’s daily Yediot Achronot on Tuesday quoted “Yasser Arafat and the Zionist Solution for the Palestine Crisis” as claiming that the Palestinian leader’s father was born in the Moroccan village of Al-Kidwa and had family links to the large Jewish population there. The author, Razi Hussein, is the PLO’s legal and political secretary in Damascus, the newspaper said.
There was no immediate reaction from Arafat, who always has claimed to be a scion of the noted Al-Husseini clan of Jerusalem.
[i]Morocco cool on ‘right of return’ [/i] www.jta.org
[u]Morocco’s foreign minister said it is “impossible” for Palestinian refugees to return to Israel. [/u]Speaking in Rabat on Monday to a visiting delegation of U.S. Jews from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Taib Fassi Fihri said Arab countries have to be realistic in their demands for a “right of return” for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.
[u]Fihri also said he hopes Morocco and Israel could re-establish ties soon. [/u]After the Palestinian intifada began more than three years ago, Morocco closed its office in Israel “because of some decisions, good or bad, taken by the Arab League,” Fihri said. Fihri also reaffirmed Israel’s right to live in legitimate and secure borders.
[b]SEE ALSO: [/b] [u]Israel has the right to live in secure and recognized borders[/u], Moroccan Foreign Minister Taib Fassi Firhi told a delegation of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Rabat on Tuesday. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1076904434711" title="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1076904434711" target="_blank"http://www.jpost.com/servlet/...
St. Paul (Minn.) police believe prank-sters are behind a makeshift display that included plastic Santas and a "Cretin Rules" banner placed atop a Jewish temple on Summit Avenue over the weekend.
The staff at the Mount Zion Temple arrived early Monday to find the display. The message, apparently boasting nearby Catholic school Cretin-Derham Hall, was written on what appeared to be large connected bed sheets and hung upside down from the top of the temple.
A line of large plastic outdoor Christmas decorations sat on the sheets to keep the banner from blowing away. The figurines included Santa Claus, elves and Winnie the Pooh donning a Santa hat.
Officials with the temple as well as the Jewish Community Relations Council declined to comment.
Mental Floss magazine www.mentalfloss.com has an interesting article about the "wacky" (no pun intended) history of Jesus' foreskin in its current issue. He was Jewish and had a bris, the magazine explains -- in grave detail. Most random fact about Jesus' private parts: His foreskin was actually kept around for centuries, even shown on display (that is, until the church deemed it inappropriate in the early 20th century). It has since disappeared, purportedly stolen in 1983.
Best line about Joe Lieberman leaving the race for president according to Jewsweek Magazine: "It was a disappointing primary season for Lieberman. But on the plus side, his campaign was long, quiet, and depressing enough to qualify as a Jewish holiday." -- Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live commenting on Senator Joseph Lieberman dropping out of the race. http://www.jewsweek.com/bin/en.jsp?enPage=BlankPage&enDi splay=view&enDispWhat=obj ect&enDispWho=Article" title="http://www.jewsweek.com/bin/en.jsp?enPage=BlankPage&enDi splay=view&enDispWhat=obj ect&enDispWho=Article" target="_blank"http://www.jewsweek.com/bin/e...%5El1038&enZone=Articles& enVersion=0&
The American Jewish Committee is calling on Wesleyan University to condemn anti-Semitic intimidation on campus.
The call came after a conference seen as anti-Semitic was held on the Connecticut campus. Activism 102, sponsored by several pro-Palestinian groups, included divestiture and anti-Israel boycott strategies. In addition, anti-Semitic articles and a fake dollar bill containing swastikas were handed out, the group said. It is “bad enough that the conference treated the only Jewish state by a harsher standard than any other country on the globe, but it also exhibited overt and crude anti-Semitism,” said Matthew Scherzer, a local AJCommittee official. www.jta.org
[i]Prominent British Jews Targeted by Muslims and Far Right - Rajeev Syal (Telegraph-UK) [/i] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/1 5/njew15.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/0 2/15/ixportal.html" title="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/1 5/njew15.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/0 2/15/ixportal.html" target="_blank"http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne...
Prominent Jews in Britain are being targeted in a wave of anti-Semitic harassment by far-Right and Islamic fundamentalist organizations. The home of Lord Triesman, the former general secretary of the Labour party, has been attacked by Combat 18, the neo-Nazi group.
Uri Geller, the Israeli television personality, and Barbara Roche, the former Labour minister, have been the victims of graffiti and hate mail. According to police figures, Britain saw a significant rise in anti-Semitic incidents in 2003.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate in the Gaza Strip has called on its members to stop covering events related to the Palestinian Authority's security forces to protest against continued attacks on journalists.
The boycott, which goes into effect on Sunday, is also directed against the PA Ministry of Justice, which is accused of failing to take appropriate measures to punish the perpetrators.
The journalists were instructed not to cover the activities of the security forces or interview their commanders until tough measures are taken against those responsible for a spate of attacks on correspondents and newspaper and TV offices.
On Sunday, the journalists are expected to stage a sit-in strike outside the offices of the Gaza City prosecutor to demand an inquiry into three recent cases in which local journalists were targeted in the Gaza Strip. Last week some 200 journalists from the Gaza Strip declared a one-day strike to protest against the recurring attacks on their colleagues.
FIRST MONICA LEWINSKY, NOW THIS? JOHN KERRY IS ALLEGED TO HAVE HAD A TWO YEAR AFFAIR WITH A YOUNG INTERN. IS SHE JEWISH? I CAN'T TELL FROM HER NAME - ALEX POLIER -, BUT HER FIANCE'S NAME SOUNDS JEWISH AND HE'S FROM ISRAEL. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne... WHAT IS IT THAT POWERFUL GENTILES FIND SO IRRESISTABLE ABOUT JEWISH WOMEN?
Alex Polier, the twenty-four year old journalist who could end Senator John Kerry's hopes of becoming the next president of the United States is alleged to have had a two-year affair with the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. Last night the rumours were in danger of becoming a full-blown scandal.
"This is not going to go away," one American friend of Miss Polier said yesterday. "What actually happened is much nastier than is being reported." . . .
Miss Polier, a former intern who also spent some time in 1998 doing work experience at the Houses of Parliament in London, is in Kenya staying with Yaron Schwartzman, her fiance and a member of the country's fashionable young set. The couple have refused to make any comment on her alleged links with Senator Kerry, who is married to Teresa Heinz Kerry, an heiress to the food empire. . . .
Miss Polier, a journalist who once worked for Associated Press, is a graduate of Columbia University, New York. She apparently met the senator as she was beginning her media career. Miss Polier and her fiance were believed to be hiding yesterday at the Nairobi home of Mr Schwartzman's parents, who moved to Kenya from Israel.
Ahmad Nasser, Secretary of the Palestinian Legislative Council, delivered the following rant live on official Palestinian television: “Israel is Satanic offspring” and follows the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. http://www.imra.org.il/story....
Ahmad Nasser, Secretary of the Palestinian Legislative Council, as interviewed on PATV Feb. 6, 2004:
Nasser: “Israel is not deterred from anything. [i]Israel was established on the basis of theft. Israel, the State of Israel, is the Satan’s offspring, a Satanic offspring. Israel was founded on theft from the first moment. It was founded on the basis of robbery, terror, killing, torture, assassination, death, stealing land and killing people. On this basis, Israel was founded and will continue this way, never able to exist because its [Israel’s] birth was unnatural, a Satanic offspring, and cannot exist among human beings. . . . Only in this way can Israel exist. It is not capable of existing naturally as other nations in the world.”[/i]
Woman Interviewer: “The very existence [of Israel] is unnatural, is not logical. The root, the root itself is rotten.”
Nasser: “This state is based on racism, biblical concepts, death, killing and destruction ....”
Nasser (on the exchange of 400 Arab prisoners for one Israeli and three bodies of Israeli soldiers): “. . . We see that Israel is trying to delude the world, and delude the Arabs and the Palestinians psychologically - that one Israeli will be exchanged for a thousand Palestinians. Meaning - Israel is interested in planting among the Palestinian, the Arab or the world the concept of value - the value of a Jew and the value of an Arab. But it is not true...” [Interrupted]
Interviewer: “This concept appears in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that they [the Jews] are at a high level [of existence] and the rest are at a low level.”
Nasser: “. . . It [Israel] does all it can to take as many prisoners of war as it can, for example, 10,000 Arab prisoners in exchange for the release of a hundred [Israeli] prisoners of war. By this, Israel is trying to put a value on an Arab and a value on an Israeli or Jew . . . Israel is an aggressive country, a racist country, an ideologically hostile country, which hates all the goyim, all the foreigners. Israel is a Satanic offspring.”
THE PALESTINIANS SAY IT'S ALL ABOUT SETTLEMENTS. THEY SAY ISRAEL HAS TO DISMANTLE THE SETTLEMENTS. THEY SAY ISRAEL MUST DISMANTLE SETTLEMENTS BEFORE THE PALESTINIANS CAN THINK ABOUT SLOWING DOWN TERROR. SO WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE ISRAELIS START UNILATERALLY, UNCONDITIONALLY REMOVING THE SETTLEMENTS FROM GAZA? THAT'S RIGHT, THE PALESTINIANS OBJECT? WHY? BECAUSE IT'S NOT ABOUT SETTLEMENTS OR CONCESSIONS FOR PEACE OR CONFIDENCE BUILDING MEASURES. IT'S ABOUT DESTROYING ISRAEL.
THE ISRAELIS ARE SO SNEAKY, GIVING THE PALESTINIANS EXACTLY WHAT THEY'VE BEEN CLAMORING FOR. HOW DARE THEY!?
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei urged the United States on Saturday not to support a unilateral Israeli proposal to uproot most Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip, Reuters reported.
"It will be regrettable if the American administration supports unilateral steps," Qurei told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah after a Palestinian cabinet session. He said he would be "worried and upset" by such a decision. Palestinians want all Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank to be dismantled.
The United States ambassador to the European Union said on Thursday that anti-Semitism in Europe was nearly as bad as it was in the 1930s, a decade which marked a resurgence of anti-Semitic attacks all over the continent and culminated with the Nazi systematic extermination of millions of Jews.
Meanwhile, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana strongly denied that the EU's policies are either anti-Semitic or anti-Israeli, describing recent expressions of anti-Jewish sentiment in the EU as 'outrageous'.
Speaking at a dinner given by the American Jewish Committee to launch a Transatlantic Institute in Brussels, envoy Rockwell Schnabel said, "there is one issue that we [Europe and the US] can work on together. It is to overcome the issue of anti-Semitism which... is indeed - as I understand it and read - getting to a point where it is as bad as it was in the 30s."
“France works relentlessly to combat the scourge of anti-Semitism,” he told Yedioth Aharonoth in an interview days before a visit by Israeli President Moshe Katsav.
“Israeli criticism of anti-Semitism in Europe singles out France,” he said. “I am surprised at this. I am told that in the streets of Tel Aviv, in newspaper cartoons and in conversations, the image of France as an anti-Semitic country is gradually spreading. These caricatures deeply hurt French people.
”No, France is not an anti-Semitic country. But we must remain highly vigilant. With the government, we lead a tireless struggle against anti-Semitic language and acts,“ he said.
He acknowledged there has been a ”resurgence of anti-Semitic acts“ in Europe in the past three years, which he termed ”revolting and unacceptable“ and which he linked to the Middle East conflict.
”People of Muslim descent across Europe react to events in the Middle East, and more specifically to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is a fact."
The Bush administration, signaling a major shift of policy on the Middle East, has indicated that it may support Israel's new proposal for a unilateral withdrawal from parts of Gaza and the West Bank, according to administration and Israeli officials. A senior American official said that the administration is "taking a close look" at the policy. Embracing Sharon's plan would mean accepting the idea that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians are not possible, at least for now. "Our assessment is that the administration is very receptive to the plan of Prime Minister Sharon, on the basis that it is within the context of the vision of President Bush and also within the road map," said Ambassador Daniel Ayalon of Israel.
American officials say they are extremely concerned that they are not seen as walking away from the idea of a negotiated settlement or from pressure on the Palestinians to take charge of security in Gaza and the West Bank. However, increasingly, administration officials have said negotiations were impossible because of Palestinian recalcitrance. Martin Indyk, ambassador to Israel under President Clinton, said the Bush administration's challenge was "to get behind this plan and shape it to make it work to the benefit of an ultimate settlement." Israelis, he said, had given up on the PA because it had failed to stop terrorism. (New York Times)
[i]U.S. to Hit Syria with Sanctions - Janine Zacharia[/i] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1076559707378" title="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1076559707378" target="_blank"http://www.jpost.com/servlet/...
The U.S. plans to impose sanctions on Syria in accordance with the Syria Accountability Act, Secretary of State Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Thursday. Asked whether the U.S. intends to begin implementation of the Syria Accountability Act in the near future, Powell said, "Yes. We're examining now what sections of the act we want to use." Powell said Syria had not yet closed the offices of Palestinian terrorist groups or expelled Palestinian terrorist leaders from Damascus as the U.S. has demanded. (Jerusalem Post)
Secretary of State Colin Powell Thursday put blame for the impasse in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts squarely on Arafat, who he said is aware of those who are committing anti-Israel acts of terror but has failed to move against them. Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "I put the blame squarely on Chairman Arafat for his unwillingness to speak out, use the moral authority as a leader that everybody says he has, not just to occasionally give a statement condemning this, not only to condemn this kind of activity, but take action against those organizations that he knows is committing those acts."
Powell said he understood the frustration among Palestinians about Israeli policies, but these cannot be allowed to "serve as an excuse" for suicide attacks or other acts of terror. "The problem is the same problem that has been there for the three years that I have been working in this account. And that is terrorism, terrorism that still emanates from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other organizations that are not interested in peace, not interested in a state for the Palestinian people. They're interested in the destruction of Israel." (VOA News)
A recent example of National Public Radio's bias is its seven-part report on the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, "The Mideast: A Century of Conflict."
The carefully selected experts include eight harsh critics of Israel - four Arab radicals, such as the late Edward Said, plus four extreme left-wing Israelis.
To create an appearance of even-handedness, the panel also includes one American, a former pro-Arab official from the State Department, and three Jews sympathetic to Israel.
Zionism is condemned as a mere by-product of European imperialist nationalism, lacking any valid historical claim to the Holy Land.
The program also hides the fact that not only the Jewish national home was sanctioned by the League of Nations but that every Arab state came into being the same way.
In the post-WWI peace conference, the European victors and America reapportioned the Middle East territories of the disintegrated Ottoman Empire, crafting a deal whereby the Arabs were to be granted 99% of former Ottoman lands while 1% of the territories would be returned to the Jews.
Even this tiny territory was later partitioned, with more than 70% given to an Arab Kingdom of Jordan.
Microsoft’s latest update removes some “unacceptable symbols” from the Bookshelf Symbol 7 font included with Microsoft Office 2003. The “unacceptable symbols” include the Nazi swastika—and the Star of David. http://www.theregister.co.uk/...
While the public discussion focuses on France’s vaunted secularism, on women’s rights and the definitions of Frenchness, racism is a silent but powerful undercurrent propelling the debate.
It is an undercurrent that Sarah Aguado, a precocious 13-year-old, knows well. As the only Jew in a school with a large Muslim minority, she was repeatedly insulted and attacked and finally forced to flee.
Classmates called her a “dirty Jew.” One student slapped her and made a racist remark. Another asked whether her family in Israel “owned guns and killed Palestinians.” Sarah stopped eating and had nightmares, her mother said. Five weeks ago, mother and daughter moved to the south of France, where Sarah enrolled in a new school, relieved to exit the “catastrophic” situation.
As France’s National Assembly passed a law Tuesday banning head scarves and other religious symbols from the classroom, teachers and Jewish groups said that the larger problem of anti-Semitism in French schools remains deeply ingrained and would not be solved simply by banning religious headgear.
Anti-Semitism is so prevalent in some of the housing projects that ring Paris and other major French cities that “it’s become infused into the language,” according to Barbara Lefebvre, a history teacher at a French public school.
“Just about every week I see students in my class - where there are no Jews - insulting each other by saying, ‘Stop it, you Jew.’ Or ‘No, you can’t borrow my pen, it’s not yours, Jew.’ Or if their pen is broken they’ll say: ‘What’s wrong with my pen? It’s a Jew.’
”When you point it out, they say, ‘This is just a way of speaking.’"
Honestreporting www.honestreporting.com reports that The Toronto Globe & Mail had the following poll question on the homepage of its website earlier today (Feb. 12): Should all financial and political aid to Israel be cut off until a just peace with the Palestinians is in place? □ Yes □ No http://www.theglobeandmail.co...
After immediate protest from HonestReporting and other media monitors that the question itself contains blatant anti-Israel bias, the Globe & Mail changed the question http://www.globeandmail.com/ to include the option of cutting off aid to Palestinians.
That's a far more reasonable proposal ― a halt in PA funding is precisely what the EU's Anti-Fraud Office is presently considering, after evidence emerged that the PA has directly funneled EU 'political aid' funds to terror organizations. [b](SEE BELOW)[/b]
The European Union's anti-fraud unit (OLAF) believes documents Israel provided showing Palestinian Authority financial support for terror are authentic, Israeli diplomatic officials said Thursday.
The German daily Die Welt reported last week that suspicion is growing that money from PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's office was transferred to terror organizations, meaning that EU funds were used to help finance terror activities for the first two years of the current violence.
The EU budgeted some 10 million euros a month to the PA from the Fall of 2000, when the current violence erupted, to the Fall of 2002, when questions about usage of the funds forced the European Commission to stop payments.
The documents Israel provided were taken from Arafat's office during Operation Defensive Shield in March 2002 and transferred to the EU by the Defense Ministry.
IT'S NOT ENOUGH THAT THEY USE THEIR CHILDREN AS HUMAN SHIELDS OR SPECIFICALLY TARGET JEWISH CHILDREN FOR TERRORISM. THEY ALSO HAVE TO USE THEIR OWN CHILDREN AS DECOYS AND FOR TERRORIST RECONNAISSANCE.
IDF soldiers deployed near Rafah spotted 3 suspects Thursday morning in a restricted area attempting to cross into Egypt. The soldiers opened fire and, on reaching the site, discovered three children age 7 8 and 10. One of the children, who was lightly wounded, was treated on site by medics, and the three were then handed over for questioning.
IDF officials said it is not the first time that terrorist organizations use small children and youths as decoys or on reconnaissance, sending them to compile information on routes between Egypt and Rafah that can be used in the future.
Pope John Paul received Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei on Thursday, repeating his condemnation of the Israeli security fence, reports the Iranian IRIB news service.
"No one must yield to the temptation of discouragement, let alone to hatred or retaliation. It is reconciliation that the Holy Land needs: Forgiveness not revenge, bridges not walls," said the Pope in a brief address to the Palestinian delegation, following a five-minute private audience with Qurei.
Israel will not send a delegation to present oral arguments to the International Court of Justice in The Hague dealing with the security fence, a ministerial committee headed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided Thursday.
A statement put out by the Prime Minister's Office said the special ministerial committee set up to deal with the issue accepted the recommendations of an inter-ministerial steering committee not to take part in the hearing and to suffice with the written brief Israel presented to the court on January 30.
In that brief Israel said that the court does not have jurisdiction over the issue, and that what is at issue is Israel's fundamental right of self defense. Israeli diplomatic officials said that Israel does not want to send a team to present oral arguments so as not to lend legitimacy to the whole process.
AS I POSTED A FEW DAYS AGO, SAUDI ARABIA HAS PUT UP IT'S OWN SECURITY FENCE TO DEFEND ITSELF AGAINST TERRORIST INFILTRATION FROM KUWAIT. NOW INDIA IS PUTTING UP A FENCE TO DEFEND ITSELF FROM TERRORISTS. I'M SURE THE ICJ WILL TAKE UP THESE CASES NEXT........NOT
Saudi Arabia, one of the most vocal critics in the Arab world of Israel's "security fence" in the West Bank, is quietly emulating the Israeli example by erecting a barrier along its porous border with Yemen. The barrier is part of a plan to erect an electronic surveillance system along the length of the kingdom's frontiers involving fencing and electronic detection equipment, at a cost of up to $8.57b. Behind the plan is a deep-seated lack of trust in the Yemeni authorities' ability to arrest infiltrators before they make it into Saudi territory. (Independent-UK)
[i]Israeli FM: India Building Separation Fence to Block Terrorist Incursions - Herb Keinon (Jerusalem Post) [/i] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1076472406740&p =1008596981749" title="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1076472406740&p =1008596981749" target="_blank"http://www.jpost.com/servlet/...
India, which voted in the UN in favor of sending the security fence issue to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, has decided not to present oral arguments against the fence. One senior diplomatic official said India is worried that if the ICJ takes up the fence issue, the court will then feel free to take up India's conflict with Pakistan over Kashmir. India "has decided to take the same step and build a separation fence to prevent the incursion of terrorists into its territory. Therefore on this matter India may be able to understand better than others the need to build a barrier that will prevent those acts of terror and suicide bombings."
[i]Palestinian Terrorists Target Women, Seniors (International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya)[/i] http://www.ict.org.il/casualt...
An analysis of fatalities from 27 Sep 2000 to 10 Feb 2004 shows 277 Israeli female civilian deaths compared with 88 female Palestinian deaths. 221 Israeli civilians over age 45 were killed, compared with 80 Palestinians. People killed by actions of own side - Israelis 20; Palestinians 338.
[i]Rumsfeld: Israel "Would Prefer Not to Get Put in the Sea"[/i] http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20 040207-0432.html" title="http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20 040207-0432.html" target="_blank"http://www.defenselink.mil/tr...
Responding to a question Saturday about Israel and nuclear weapons, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, "Israel is a small state with a small population. It's a democracy and it exists in a neighborhood where many - over a period of time - have opined from time to time that they'd prefer it not be there and they'd like it to be put in the sea. And Israel has opined that it would prefer not to get put in the sea, and as a result, over a period of decades, it has arranged itself so it hasn't been put in the sea." (U.S. Defense Department)
A masked Hamas militant sets up a makeshift mortar launcher against Israeli forces, unseen, as Palestinian youths try to cover him from the sight of the forces during an incursion in a Gaza city’s neighborhood, Wednesday Feb. 11, 2004. Israeli troops moved into a neighborhood at the eastern edge of Gaza City early Wednesday, killing atleast 14 Palestinians and wounding at least 27 others in exchanges of fire, residents said, sparking the bloodiest fighting in Gaza in four months. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...
[image]rsheinfield_105051 8560.jpg[/image]
Palestinian militants exchange fire with Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip February 11, 2004. In their deadliest strike for months, Israeli troops killed at least 14 Palestinians in gun battles in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, in raids Israel said were to root out militants behind attacks on Jewish settlements. REUTERS/Str http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...
[b]SEE ALSO:[/b] [i]IDF: Gaza Terrorists Shoot From Among Women and Children - Amira Hass and Arnon Regular[/i] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/393641.html" title="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/393641.html" target="_blank"http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/...
During Wednesday's clash in the Sajiyeh quarter in Gaza City in which 12 Palestinians were killed, all of the dead were armed or preparing explosive devices, Army Radio reported. Many Gazans were infuriated that the Palestinian gunmen allowed youngsters and children to wander among them freely during the shoot-out instead of sending them home. Col. Yoel Strick, who commanded the IDF troops during the battle, said many dozens of armed Palestinians had participated. He also said many of them stood firing from among the women and children who had left their homes to watch the battle. Shortly afterward, Palestinians fired 10 Kassam rockets at Israeli targets within the "green line" and in Gush Katif, damaging one house. (Ha'aretz)
[i]Murderous Fantasies: Suicide bombers come from a neighborhood of make-believe. BY BRET STEPHENS [/i] http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110004681" title="http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110004681" target="_blank"http://www.opinionjournal.com...
In Israel, where I live and work, suicide bombings are commonly understood by the foreign press as acts of desperation by a people who have lost all hope for a better future. Ease the economic hardships of Palestinians and end the occupation, so the thinking goes, and terrorism will be deprived of its motive.
It's a convenient notion, which more or less excuses mass murder as the deeds of men who have been robbed of their property, pride and patrimony. But is it right? What if suicide bombings aren't an act of despair at all but something approaching the opposite: a supreme demonstration of contempt for everything Westerners hold dear, not least life itself? What if, too, suicide bombers are no poor-man's F-16 but a robust expression of confidence that the Palestinians are infinitely more ruthless than Israelis in what amounts to a zero-sum game?
Lee Harris believes that these are exactly the sorts of questions that we should be asking today, and not only about the war in the Mideast. In "Civilization and Its Enemies," he argues, brilliantly at times, that if you want to understand your enemy, you must understand him on his terms, not yours. . . .
If, for example, you think the Palestinian national movement headed by Yasser Arafat seeks only to form a state within the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, then the answer to the problem is to get the Israelis to make way. If, however, you think Palestinians are in the grip of a fantasy ideology, acting as the vanguard for a Muslim counterattack against a latter-day Crusader state, then granting a Palestinian state becomes a bit like allowing Hitler to march into the Rhineland: It perpetuates a fantasy that deserves to die.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed faction of the Fatah movement, said Tuesday it had killed Tahseen Abu Arkub, 50, of Ramallah, accused of collaborating with Israeli security forces. "We shot him dead with four bullets to the head and chest," an al-Aqsa representative said. (Reuters)
A Palestinian parliamentary committee is investigating whether Palestinian cement companies are providing Israel with cement for its West Bank barrier and have been selling concrete to Jewish settlements.
Israel's Channel 10 TV reported that the Al-Quds Cement Company - owned by Palestinian Prime Minister Qurei's family - has been providing the materials to help build the barrier.
Television footage also showed cement mixers leaving the Al-Quds company and driving to the Jewish town of Maale Adumim in the West Bank.
HERE'S AN INTERESTING ENTRY IN A BELGIAN BLOG (Live from Brussels http://brusselsblog.blogspot.... ). [i] Jews Not Allowed on the Subway in Brussels[/i]
"Today I read in the paper (Gazet van Antwerpen) that Jewish children going to the Athénée Maimonide Bruxelles http://users.belgacom.net/mai... , a Jewish school, are not allowed to take the subway at the nearby Lemonnier station anymore. Because of frequent attacks by 'muslim youths', the school board has decided that the kids are not allowed to use the station. One teacher said to the paper that the attacks follow current affairs, and have started when the 'second intifada' began. He also said hatred against Jews was something temporarily, and that it wouldn't take long for the situation to cool down."
[b]I'M [i]SURE [/i]THE SITUATION WILL COOL DOWN SOON. [/b]
PA SECURITY OFFICER: WE SCREWED UP. NOW GIVE US EVERYTHING
Terror attacks against Israeli civilians within the Green Line were a tragic mistake for the Palestinian people, the Palestinian Security Advisor said on Tuesday.
"As a matter of principle I think that this was wrong and I think that this was one of the mistakes of the Palestinians, to attack Israeli civilians or to make any kind of attacks inside the Green Line," Rajoub told a meeting of the AJC (American Jewish Committee) Board of Governors at the David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem.
"Israel and the Palestinians should work towards a comprehensive ceasefire from both sides, meaning they should stop all acts of violence and aggression and start bilateral engagement – a ceasefire and political negotiations", Jibril Rajoub told the Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
He repeated that he believes that militarizing the Intifada was a big mistake.
Rajoub said that both sides must realize that there is no military solution to the conflict. " The security approach failed", he stressed. "Now the two sides must sit down and talk to work out a ceasefire and resume negotiations to promote confidence on both sides", he added.
Despite his announcement of the Palestinian government's renewed commitment to the Road Map process, Rajoub took issue with the plan's first and most critical obligation for the Palestinians, namely, to stop the terrorism and then to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure.
"No matter what the Palestinians do for security, or don't do for security, the issue of security is nothing more than [President Bush's] slogan just to justify what Israel is doing," said Rajoub, who referred specifically to "the expansion of settlements," "confiscation of lands," and "policy of targeted assassinations."
Furthermore, Rajoub said that the security of Israel would never be attainable without first establishing Palestinian independence. "We cannot deliver security just for the sake of security; we will deliver it for the sake of the independence of our people," said Rajoub, who suggested that the future state's lines be drawn on those of the 1967 border.
"Mr. Sharon talks about the West Bank as Judea and Samaria, but, Judea and Samaria means that it's not Palestinian territory. [Sharon] should start by clearly stating that it is Palestinian territory and that he is ready to exchange it for security., Rajoub said. "I do believe it is up to the Prime Minister of Israel to decide whether we should remain in this vicious cycle of violence, or not. [Sharon] needs to recharge his batteries, reconsider his policies and conclude the right conclusion and the sooner the better for both the Israelis and the Palestinians."
According to Rajoub, Palestinian terrorism is a reaction to the peoples' absence of nationhood. "Fighting for us is not and will not be an end," he said. "It's a means to an end and that end is peace and security."
"As soon as there is a bi-lateral engagement; as soon as hope and future for the Palestinian people is renewed, those fundamentalists will be pushed in the corner," he assured the committee.
Rajoub said that bilateral cooperation is currently being hindered by the construction of the security fence. "The Israeli government wants to build a wall; it wants to make a separation, which will never result in security for the Israelis," he said. "Security is not a technical issue. Security is a political issue. Without simultaneously working on security and politics, I don't think that we can make progress."
WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 (JTA) — For Ariel Sharon’s government, Washington is a town where once unimaginable dreams can come true. The Bush administration is on board with the West Bank security barrier, officials who could once barely contain their impatience with Israel have shut out the Palestinians, and the president wants to learn more about the Israeli prime minister’s plans for unilateral disengagement from the Palestinians.
[i]Americans back Israel’s West Bank security barrier, a new poll says.[/i] www.jta.org
In the poll conducted for the Alliance for Research on National Security Issues, 68 percent of respondents agreed that “Israel has the right to take action to defend itself by building a security fence, even if many other countries disagree.” Fifty-seven percent said Israel has the right to continue building its fence even if the International Court of Justice — which is to consider the issue on Feb. 23 — rules against it. “The American people clearly recognize democratic Israel’s right to defend itself, not least by erecting a non-violent terrorism prevention barrier, and they will suspect the court’s objectivity if it rules otherwise,” said Frank Gaffney, deputy director of the alliance.
[i]A French court is investigating Yasser Arafat’s wife for suspected money laundering. [/i] www.jta.org
Suha Arafat, wife of the Palestinian Authority president, made a number of major transfers from accounts in Switzerland to Paris accounts in recent months, according to reports in the French weekly Le Canard Enchaine. The investigation follows a request from France’s Finance Ministry and the Bank of France and concerns about $10 million in transfers, the paper reported. Suha Arafat and the couple’s daughter have lived in the French capital since the beginning of the Palestinian intifada in 2000.
[i]Israel's Anti-Terror Fence: The World Court Case - Laurence E. Rothenberg and Abraham Bell (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)[/i] http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp513....
The UN General Assembly (GA) resolution asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for an advisory opinion is actually a request for an endorsement of an already-stated political opinion of the GA. The ICJ lacks jurisdiction over the case because the GA has dictated the desired result. The court is not authorized to make endorsements of the GA's political opinions dressed in legal garb.
The security fence is a necessary and proportional response to a campaign of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes by Palestinians. If the fence were built along the 1949 armistice line (the “green line”), it would not achieve Israel's legitimate security goal of protecting its citizens.
The “green line” from 1949 bounding the West Bank is solely a defunct military line demarcating the extent of the Transjordanian invasion of Israel in 1948. Indeed, at the insistence of Syria, Egypt, and Jordan, each of the armistice agreements of 1949 specified that the ceasefire lines were not borders and that neither side relinquishes its territorial claims.
The fence does not violate the Fourth Geneva Convention because the convention does not apply to the West Bank, a territory of disputed sovereignty to which Israel has the strongest claim, and which was not previously possessed by a legitimate sovereign.
Even if the convention applied, a fence that controls movement of civilians does not violate it; the convention permits occupying states to take necessary and proportional steps for security purposes.
The resort to the International Court of Justice by the PLO is itself a violation of the Oslo Accords. Under Oslo, any disputes must be resolved by negotiation between Israel and the Palestinians, by agreed-upon conciliation, or agreed-upon arbitration.
A fragmented array of heavily armed criminal gangs has turned the intifada on itself. As many as eight separate factions in Nablus lay claim to the title Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the radical offshoot of Arafat's Fatah movement. According to Palestinian legislator Moa'wah al-Masri, "For the past two weeks, the Palestinian police have gone through the motions of spreading out in the streets to create the appearance they have things under control. But people make fun of them. [u]Last week, one young man ran up to three of them and said: 'Be careful, the Israeli army is coming.' They dropped their guns on the spot, tore off their uniforms and ran away, terrified. There was no army coming, of course, but by the time they returned, their guns had vanished." [/u]Masri holds Arafat directly responsible for the lawlessness. "If he truly had the will to do something about it, he could have the situation under control within 24 hours." (Toronto Star)
[i]Bush Aims for "Greater Mideast" Plan [/i] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2402 5-2004Feb8.html" title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2402 5-2004Feb8.html" target="_blank"http://www.washingtonpost.com...
The Bush administration has launched an ambitious bid to promote democracy in the "greater Middle East" that will adapt a model used to press for freedoms in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The initiative, to be announced at the G-8 summit hosted by President Bush at Sea Island, Ga., in June, would call for Arab and South Asian governments to adopt major political reforms, be held accountable on human rights - particularly women's empowerment - and introduce economic reforms. (Washington Post)
[i]Palestinian Probe of U.S. Deaths Faulted[/i] https://registration.realcities.com/reg/login.do?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kansascity.com%2Fmld%2Fkansascity%2F news%2Fnation%2F7913604.htm
The State Department dismissed as inadequate Monday a Palestinian military inquiry into the deaths of three U.S. security officials killed in a roadside explosion last October in Gaza. Rhonda Shore, spokeswoman for the State Department's Department of Near East Affairs, suggested the inquiry would not be the serious investigation needed to find and punish those responsible. (AP/Kansas City Star)
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer Monday criticized the Palestinian military court that on Saturday began to try four individuals suspected of involvement in the attack. "If these people are in fact the suspects that should be tried, it ought to be done in a criminal proceeding and not behind closed doors," Kurtzer said. "We're not even sure that the charge sheet that has been put together reflects the gravity of the crime. The charges seem to implicate these individuals for involuntary manslaughter rather than what we would call first-degree murder."
Kurtzer also denounced the PA for the collapse of the road map peace process. "It failed because Palestinians had...not done enough to stop terrorism and had not done enough to uproot the terrorist infrastructure," he said. "A significant amount of American resources have been dedicated to the reconstitution of this mishmash of Palestinian security organizations that don't do security, but exist on paper. Many of the people involved in those organizations actually have resorted to terrorism in the past three and a half years, when in fact their mandate should be to protect the Palestinian people from bad guys and thereby also to stop the terrorism that affects the people of Israel." (Jerusalem Post)
A University of Pennsylvania assistant professor, Francisco Gil-White, has publicly claimed that his university administration intends to dismiss him from his post - all because of his pro-Israel, philo-Semitic and pro-Serbian views.
The assistant professor was told directly, and by a senior faculty member who is also a co-founder and co-director of the University's Solomon Asch Center, where Gil-White is a Fellow, "If you really feel that compelled by [your political convictions], you should resign your academic position, and move on to journalism."
As Professor Gil-White told Arutz-7 this week, he rubbed his colleagues and superiors at the Asch Center the wrong way ever since he reversed his previous pro-Arab position regarding Israel and Islamist terrorism. In addition, it will be recalled, Professor Gil-White was the sole faculty whistleblower who publicly confronted the University of Pennsylvania for partly funding the lecture of a blatant racist and anti-Semite as part of its Islam Awareness Week. The administration never voiced any official response regarding the issue.
Israel is working to reroute parts of its West Bank separation barrier to make it less burdensome on the Palestinians and more acceptable to the U.S., Zalman Shoval, a senior aide to Israel's prime minister, said Sunday. (New York Times)
Sources in the Defense Ministry said Sunday that the ministry is postponing the construction of the inside loops and eastern spurs of the security fence that would have encompassed Ariel, Karnei Shomron, and Kedumim. The amended route could make the fence more than 100 km shorter - cutting its cost by about $200 million and quickening the pace of construction. (Jerusalem Post)
[b]ACCORDING TO DEBKA www.debka.com, Saudi Arabia is building a security fence on its border with Yemen to curb the flow of terrorists, but rejects comparison with Israel’s border barrier, which Riyadh condemns.[/b]
The German newspaper Berlin Morgenpost reported Sunday on the initial results of the European Commission's Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) investigation into suspicions that $1.1 billion in EU aid to the Palestinians was used in an illegal manner. The initial report indicates that Arafat transferred much of the European aid money to various Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terror groups and to Palestinian officials.
Abdel Nasser Abu Shokeh, 37, head of Hamas's military wing in Central Gaza, was killed Friday in an explosion believed until now to be a "work accident." But Hamas now says an Arab Israeli who had supplied Shokeh with an army uniform gave him a model of Al-Aqsa Mosque as a gift. A few hours later, the model exploded, killing its new owner.
A leading Islamic Jihad operative, Aziz Mahmoud al-Shami, was killed Saturday in the Gaza Strip when a missile fired from an Israeli air force helicopter struck the car in which he was traveling. Shami belonged to Islamic Jihad's military wing and was involved in terror attacks for years, including the Beit Lid bombing attack in January 1995 in which 22 Israelis were killed. In October 2003, Shami was directly involved in a terror strike on Netzarim in which three IDF soldiers were killed, and he was planning another strike against Netzarim when he was killed. Israel government spokesman Avi Pazner said, "It is important for us to try to prevent terrorism before it occurs, and we thought we would save many human lives by eliminating him." (Ha'aretz)
[i]Saudi Fighter Pilot Recruited by Al-Qaeda for Suicide Mission Against Israel[/i] http://jcpa.org/daily/
Israel Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Dan Haloutz said Sunday that the Saudis arrested a fighter pilot who was recruited by al-Qaeda in order to crash his plane into Israel. Reportedly, bin Laden was behind the planned attack. According to intelligence reports, al-Qaeda is seeking to recruit suicide pilots for operations in Israel. As a result, in recent months Israel has turned to the U.S. to pressure Saudi Arabia to pull back its F-15 fighter planes that have been deployed at Tabuk airbase, 150 km from the Israeli border. (Maariv-Hebrew; 9 Feb 04)
Two Israeli Arab brothers, both members of the Balad political party and residents of Reina near Nazareth, were recently arrested by the Shin Bet and Israel Police. The suspicion: that they were setting up a terror cell on behalf of Hizbullah in order to perpetrate suicide bomb attacks in Israel. . . .
The affair proves that Hizbullah is working intensely to become more involved in terrorist activities in Israel by recruiting Israeli Arabs as well as Palestinians living in the Palestinian territories. With funds readily available, Hizbullah has already invested tens of thousands of dollars in attempts to establish terror cells.
Officials also stressed the growing involvement of the Fatah Abu Musa faction operating inside Israel, and the fact that Israeli Arabs travel under the guise of businessmen abroad to Lebanon, where they undergo military training.
Last month the Washington Post carried a story about Palestinians training for the Olympics http://www.washingtonpost.com...¬Found=true ; this report turned out to be only the first in a series of stories about Palestinian athletes which are part of a public relations campaign, mainly focusing on a young swimmer named Raad Aweisat.
Friday, Israel Insider reprinted an article from SwimInfo.com http://www.swiminfo.com/ , showing that almost every detail of these moving stories of Palestinian Arab athleticism was a LIE:
[i]’Palestinian Swimmer’ story doesn’t get off the blocks.[/i] http://web.israelinsider.com/bin/en.jsp?enPage=ArticlePage&en Display=view&enDispWhat=o bject&enDispWho=Article" title="http://web.israelinsider.com/bin/en.jsp?enPage=ArticlePage&en Display=view&enDispWhat=o bject&enDispWho=Article" target="_blank"http://web.israelinsider.com/...%5El3278&enZone=Culture&e nVersion=0&
Indeed, the story proved irresistible to news media around the world. It was picked up and either reprinted or elaborated upon in the Washington Post, London Times, New York Times, Guardian, Minnesota Star Tribune, Newsday and the Chicago Tribune, among many others. MSNBC picked it up, as did CNN and Reuters. It was reported in at least 60 countries in newspapers, radio, T.V. and on the Internet. At least half a dozen friends e-mailed the story to me from various points around the globe.
Inevitably, Raad’s plight and courageous fight were used to raise funds. The Palestine Monitor web site published an appeal by Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Maryland. “Help Raad, the Palestinian Olympic swimmer,” the group wrote, and “you will receive a tax-deductible notice in 4-6 weeks.”
Even the Voice of America was taken in. In a story written by David Schickert and broadcast on January 21, announcer Dave Byrd says: “Aweisat was practicing at the YMCA near his neighborhood in Jerusalem when violence broke out in September 2000.”
Echoing Sukhtian’s original story, he goes on to report: “The YMCA told Aweisat to either join the Israeli Swimming Federation, which as a Palestinian he did not want to do, or find somewhere else to swim. There was only a 17-meter pool in the area, located in the backyard of several connected homes. Aweisat’s father gathered nearby villagers together to lengthen the pool by digging until it reached an acceptable 25 meters.”
It is undeniably a great story. It trots out the usual villains - the big, bad Israelis, this time aided by the bureaucratic Christians. And it casts Raad, with his pure, apolitical, Olympic dream as the spunky victim.
The only trouble is: it’s dead wrong. None of the reporters or news media bothered to check out the allegations or interview a single official from the YMCA or Israeli Swimming Federation. If they had, they would have learned that almost every aspect of the story is either false or a misrepresentation of the facts.
News wire services love to show you pictures of Palestinian women crying. The NYT's front page is chocked full of 'em. YOU KNOW THEY'RE STAGED, RIGHT?!?!? Here's an actor posing for cameramen in front of Israel's security wall.
[image]rsheinfield_107562 0786.jpg[/image]
Photographers take pictures of a Palestinian woman as she cries next to the 8-meter-tall wall part of the barrier Israel is building to separate the outskirts of Jerusalem from the West Bank in the village of Abu Dis Saturday Feb. 7, 2004. Around a thousand Israeli and Palestinians rallied against the controversial security barrier that is meant, according to Israel, to keep suicide bombers out. Others condemn the barrier, which dips deep into the West Bank in some areas, as a land grab. (AP Photo/Enric Marti) http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/04 0207/481/xem10102071449" title="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/04 0207/481/xem10102071449" target="_blank"http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...
SEVERAL MONTHS AGO, PALESTINIANS MURDERED SEVERAL MEMBERS OF A U.S. DIPLOMATIC CONVOY IN GAZA. THERE WAS STRONG EVIDENCE THAT ARAFAT'S OWN "POLICEMEN" CARRIED OUT THE ATTACK. THE U.S. REPEATEDLY INSISTED THAT THE PA CARRY OUT A FULL INQUIRY. THEY DRAGGED THEIR FEET. THE U.S. THREATENED TO WITHHOLD AID. THE PA SCREEMED "BLACKMAIL." LOW AND BEHOLD, A COUPLE DAYS AFTER THE U.S. DECIDED TO GET TOUGH, THE PA NOT ONLY HAS MADE ARRESTS, THEY'VE STARTED A TRIAL! THIS IS A LONG ARTICLE BUT IT'S WORTH READING. THERE'S HYPOCRISY, TORTURE, CORRUPTION, GREED, MURDER, DUPLICITY... THE WHOLE PANOPLY OF ARAFATIAN HAM-HANDEDNESS.
[i]PA hastily opens trial in US convoy attack[/i] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1076141896929" title="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1076141896929" target="_blank"http://www.jpost.com/servlet/...
The Palestinian Authority on Saturday pressed charges against four Palestinians accused of involvement in an attack on a US diplomatic vehicle in the northern Gaza Strip on October 15.
Three Americans were killed and another seriously wounded when a roadside bomb was detonated by remote control as their vehicle passed.
The four are Bashir Abu Laban, 41, Muhammad Asaliyeh, 26, Ahmed Safi, 24, and Naim Abu Ful, 43. They were arrested by PA Preventative Security forces shortly after the attack.
PA security officials said they belonged to the Popular Resistance Committees – the only group that had claimed responsibility for the bombing.
The Popular Resistance Committees, an alliance of various Palestinian factions including Hamas, Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, later withdrew its claim of responsibility.
Palestinian journalists in Gaza City said they were surprised on Saturday morning to receive a message from the PA announcing the beginning of the trial of the four activists before a military court.
"Until now we have been told that the security forces were still searching for the culprits," said one journalist. "It's clear this is a play intended to appease the Americans."
The hastily convened trial was called days after the US complained that the PA had not cooperated fully in its investigation into the bombing of the convoy. PA National Security Adviser Jibril Rajoub accused the US of "blackmailing" the PA by pressuring it into pursuing the investigation and threatening to stop American financial aid to the Palestinians.
The three-judge panel, headed by Basel al-Jafarawi, convened in the PA police headquarters. "We are not criminals. We did not do anything," shouted two of the defendants to reporters at the start of the trial.
Military prosecutor Jamal Shamiyeh told the court that the defendants were accused of possessing explosive devices and planting them on a main road in order to detonate them against IDF tanks.
The judges said they could not understand why the defendants were brought before a military court when the charges against them are classified as criminal. They also expressed their surprise that no lawyers were representing the accused.
The defendants told the court that they were surprised by the decision to put them on trial. Muhammad Safi said he and his friends were informed about the trial only a few hours earlier. "Our families don't know about this decision," he added.
Codefendant Ahmed Safi said: "Before we talk about the issue of the lawyers, we want to know why we are here. We were tortured by the Preventative Security interrogators for no reason."
The court decided to postpone the hearing until February 29 to allow the defendants to hire lawyers and inform their families about the trial. The US Embassy in Tel Aviv declined to comment on the trial. A US diplomatic source said US officials had not received advance warning of the trial or been given any details on the defendants' alleged involvement in the attack.
On Thursday, the US advertised a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture of the killers in Palestinian newspapers. After the ads appeared in the newspapers, PA Chairman Yasser Arafat instructed the PA security forces to step up their efforts to arrest the perpetrators and bring them to trial.
The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) condemned the trial, saying it was astonished that the case was being heard by a military court even though the accused are not members of the security services and thus do not fall under the authority of the military judiciary.
"This can be only interpreted as another attempt to undermine the civil judiciary and its authority," said a statement issued by the center. "Military courts are not entirely different from state security courts, which the Palestinian Authority abolished in July 2003.
In addition, considering the case by a military court harms the Palestinian Authority, since it implies that the accused persons are members of security services."
The statement said the accusations submitted against the four lacked enough evidence, which is clear by the frequent usage of the word "may." It said the trial was organized quickly and the accused were informed about its time only a short period earlier, which was too late for them to hire lawyers during the court session, in violation of their right to a fair trial.
"In light of these notes, PCHR calls for transferring the case to the civil judiciary to preserve its authority and insure a fair and impartial trail for the accused persons."
Alarmed by a rise in the number of attacks on journalists, the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate and human rights groups have once again appealed to the Palestinian Authority to take stiff measures against perpetrators.
The journalists are also planning a one-day strike later this week to protest against the attacks, all of which have been carried out by Fatah gunmen.
Almost 400 members of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's ruling Fatah Party resigned Saturday to protest what they call corruption and bad leadership within the movement.
The former members sent a letter to Arafat and other movement leaders laying out their anger over corruption, mismanagement and a lack of direction in how the party is handling the conflict with Israel.
Referred to by one international law expert as "the best international lawyer in the world," James Crawford will pose a difficult challenge for the Israeli legal team at the upcoming hearing on the security fence at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Crawford is chairman of the Faculty of Law at Cambridge University and the former director of the Lauterpacht Research Center for International Law. The latter is now headed by Israel's counsel, Oxford law professor Daniel Bethlehem, who will square off against Crawford at the February 23 ICJ hearing.
Crawford, said to be very committed to the Palestinian cause, has represented several Arab and Muslim countries in past hearings before the ICJ. He was described by one legal journal as a "leading silk" in public international law. . .
Crawford . . . represented Jordan during the 1994 peace talks with Israel . . . Crawford represented Iran in a lawsuit filed against the United States over the destruction of an Iran-Air civilian jet by two US cruise missiles and the consequent deaths of the 290 passengers aboard in July 1988.
In a 2003 interview to Lumen, a publication of the University of Adelaide, Crawford asked about calls that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon should be tried for his actions in Lebanon in 1982, said that world leaders should be held accountable for their actions when they are suspected of war crimes. ...
In a letter sent to Downing Street and published in The Guardian in March 2003, Crawford, together with other international law professors called on British Prime Minister Tony Blair to not attack Iraq.
The International Court of Justice denied Friday that one of its judges gave a magazine interview last month in which he criticized Israel and the security fence.
On January 31, the weekly Egyptian magazine al-Ahram al-Arabi quoted ICJ Egyptian Judge Nabil Elaraby as stating that that Israel's justifications for the security fence "are feeble" and that Israel "could face punishment" if the court's opinion goes against it at the upcoming trail in The Hague on the fence.
"If the court rules that the wall is illegal, Israel will suffer noticeable harm from both the political and the public relations aspects," the magazine quoted the judge as saying.
The International Court of Justice, the highest UN judicial body, has been asked by the General Assembly to give a nonbinding opinion on the legality of the fence, Elaraby is one of 15 ICJ judges who will rule on the matter.
[i]Attacks on Palestinian Media Outlets (Committee to Protect Journalists)[/i] http://www.cpj.org/news/2004/PAT05feb04n a.html" title="http://www.cpj.org/news/2004/PAT05feb04n a.html" target="_blank"http://www.cpj.org/news/2004/...
On February 2, three masked Palestinian men carrying automatic rifles stormed the offices of the Ramallah-based Al-Quds Educational Television, according to assistant manager Haroun Abu Arrah. The assailants beat two staffers with rifle butts and fists. After the beating, two of the assailants went into another room and fired several rounds at some of the station's equipment, destroying computer screens and video equipment.
On February 3, employees of the recently established Gaza City weekly Al-Daar discovered that most of the computer equipment in the office had been destroyed by unknown assailants.
Editor-in-chief Hassan al-Kashif believes the vandalism came in retaliation for the magazine's editorial stance against official Palestinian corruption. Palestinian sources said Al-Daar - which is close to former Palestinian preventive security chief Mohamed Dahlan - may have been attacked because of internal political conflicts within Fatah.
[b]SEE ALSO:[/b]
[i]Palestinians Attack PA Police HQ in Gaza, Wound 13 - Arnon Regular[/i] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/391356.html" title="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/391356.html" target="_blank"http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/...
Palestinian gunmen Thursday burst into Palestinian police headquarters in Gaza City, beat up Palestinian police chief Maj. Gen. Ghazi al-Jabali - a personal appointee of Arafat, and then opened fire to cover their retreat, wounding at least 13 people, Palestinian sources said. Sources said the assailants were members of the PA Preventive Security Service (PSS) in Gaza acting on behalf of Mohammed Dahlan. The Gaza PSS is currently headed by a close associate of Dahlan's and is still considered his power base. (Ha'aretz)
[i]France Earmarks $18.6 Million for Security at Jewish Institutions (Reuters/Ha'aretz)[/i] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/390403.html" title="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/390403.html" target="_blank"http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/...
France has earmarked $18.6 million to help boost security for Jewish schools, synagogues, and offices threatened by recent anti-Semitic attacks, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday. "This is not just a problem for the Jews," he told the National Assembly. "Every time a Jew is attacked because he's Jewish, it's a stain on all of France." "We are determined to eradicate anti-Semitism in this country," he said.
[b]SEE ALSO:[/b]
[i]Katzav to visit France[/i]: France will host the first visit by an Israeli president in 17 years http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1076049821741&p =1008596981749" title="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1076049821741&p =1008596981749" target="_blank"http://www.jpost.com/servlet/...
The search engine Google introduced a Yiddish version. The popular search engine recently introduced a Yiddish search option, with Yiddish menus and messages. Users must have Hebrew or Yiddish language software on their computers, the New York Jewish Week reported. As for what Google means in Yiddish, a Columbia University professor has combined the terms “to look for” and “engine” to create “pfind-motor.” You can find Yiddish Google by clicking on the following link and adding a "/" to the URL (for some reason I can't get the link to work from the blog): http://www.google.com/intl/yi...
Prime Minister Sharon wants U.S. approval to expand large West Bank settlement blocs that are intended to be annexed once a permanent peace agreement is reached in exchange for evacuation of most settlements in the Gaza Strip and a few others in the West Bank. Sharon will justify the request due to the need to move some of the settlers from the evacuated areas to Ma'ale Adumim, Ariel, and Gush Etzion, which the previous U.S. administration had agreed would be included within Israel as part of the Clinton framework for a permanent agreement. (Ha'aretz)
[i]Tenet: Burden is on Arafat and Palestinians[/i] http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/02/05/tenet.transcript.ap/index.html" title="http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/02/05/tenet.transcript.ap/index.html" target="_blank"http://edition.cnn.com/2004/U...
CIA Director George Tenet said Thursday: "The burden here on Mr. Arafat and the Palestinians is considerable: They must prove that they're willing to sit side-by-side with the Israelis and engage in the constructive security arrangements that we fostered between 1998 and 2001. Unless we get a commitment to stop terrorism and to seriously talk about not just the aspiration of the Palestinian people but the security of the Israeli people in a way where we have two parties firmly committed to a common objective, we're not going to get anywhere." (CNN)
[i]Israel: UK report on Palestinian plight, biased[/i] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1075989458183&p =1008596981749" title="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1075989458183&p =1008596981749" target="_blank"http://www.jpost.com/servlet/...
A landmark report by Britain's bipartisan parliamentary Select Committee on International Development has called on the European Union to impose a trade boycott on Israel for its supposed systematic abuse of human rights and its deliberate destruction of the Palestinian economy.
A notorious far-right attorney called the Holocaust a lie and cursed the German legal system Friday at the opening of his trial in the Berlin State Court on charges of incitement.
Telhaug teaches immigrants Norwegian language and culture at the education center. Telhaug is not Jewish.
“I see it as the oldest religious symbol we have in our culture, because without Judaism there would be no Christianity,” Telhaug.
The principal of the school, Kjell Gislefoss, feels that the Star of David can also be interpreted as a political symbol for the state of Israel, and is afraid the star can provoke and offend students, for example immigrants from the Palestinian territories.
“The Star of David would be a symbol for one side in what is perhaps the world’s most inflamed conflict at the moment. Many have a traumatic past that they have escaped and then we feel that if they are going to learn Norwegian then they can’t sit an at the same time be reminded of the things they have traveled from,” Gislefoss said.
The Canadian Ambassador to Israel, Donald Sinclair, cancelled a condolence visit to the home of Yechezkel Goldberg who was killed in a suicide bombing in Jerusalem last week, since Goldberg's family lives in the West Bank.
Goldberg, from Betar Illit, was killed together with ten other Israelis when a Palestinian police officer blew himself up on a packed Jerusalem bus last Thursday.
Yechezkel's brother, Dr. Ron Goldberg, told the Jerusalem Post that his brother, who served in the Canadian armed forces, was a passionate Canadian and that the family was personally insulted by the ambassador's refusal to travel to the West Bank settlement.
THE ISLAMIC TRUST IS DESTROYING SECOND TEMPLE RELICS
The discovery of large stones endowed with architectural elements unique to the Second Temple period in the midst of a Muslim construction site on Jerusalem's Temple Mount show that the Islamic Trust (Waqf) is ignoring the Jewish history of the site, leading archaeologists charged this week.
"There is no doubt that these are motifs from the Second Temple period. It is the different elements of the decoration that show this, combined with the style of the artistic work," said Hebrew University archaeologist Eilat Mazar, referring to photographs taken secretly by an Israeli photographer in an area being renovated and turned into a large mosque.
Army Radio's Yossi Milshtein took a Waqf- and police-escorted tour of the Temple Mount two weeks ago and, disguised as a Palestinian, entered areas off limits to Jews and Christians armed with a camera and a video recorder. He said in the newly constructed mosque, he saw on the ground, next to a large red carpet, two large stones with a grape leaf design.
Milshtein said the grapevine-engraved stones were photographed near an area known as Solomon's Stables, which archaeologists say was constructed by King Herod between 40 and 30 B.C.E.
"The stones are located in the wall, a wall they rebuilt after conducting renovations there," he said. "They are using it on the bottom of the wall, at the very bottom. This is a scandal that it is just used as a supporting stone."
Milshtein's 10-minute video was obtained by the Jerusalem Post and showed "piles of new stone slabs and two tractors inside the Temple Mount compound, as well as mounds of strewn ancient boulders on the ground, some of which were near and in piles of garbage materials," the newspaper reported. "In the video, a section of the ancient entranceway to Solomon's Stables looks like it is on the verge of collapse," the paper said.
"There is no archaeological supervision [of the work] and no plan or survey to see what the real condition of the Temple Mount is", Mazar said. "The Temple Mount is neglected, and it's just a matter of time before it collapses," she warned.
[i]Egyptian Government Daily: Suicide Bombings are Legitimate Even if Children Are Killed [/i] http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD65804" title="http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD65804" target="_blank"http://www.memri.org/bin/open...
An editorial in the Egyptian government daily Al-Masaa praised suicide/martyrdom operations, and called on Palestinian organizations to not publish the names of the bombers so that their families' houses would not be demolished. The article focuses primarily on female suicide bombers, following the debate in the Arab media over Hamas's dispatching of Reem Al-Riyashi, a mother of two, to carry out the January 14, 2004 bombing in Gaza.
"We ask again, why do the various Palestinian organizations insist on publishing the name of everyone who carries out a martyrdom operation against the Zionist entity? We have no argument regarding the question of the legitimacy of these operations, because they are considered a powerful weapon used by the Palestinians against an enemy with no morality or religion, [an enemy] who has deadly weapons prohibited by international law, that is not deterred from using them against the defenseless Palestinian people. Even if during [a martyrdom operation] civilians or children are killed - the blame does not fall upon the Palestinians, but on those who forced them to turn to this modus operandi.
Ultimately, we should bless every Palestinian man or woman who goes calmly to carry out a martyrdom operation, in order to receive a reward in the Hereafter, sacrificing her life for her religion and her homeland and knowing that she will never return from this operation.
HonestReporting.com recently (SEE BLOG BELOW) noted the double standard of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which broke their policy against using the term 'terrorism' when they found 'Zionist terror'.
Star Tribune editors have recognized the problem with both articles critiqued by HonestReporting, and apologized. Regarding the January 21 article in which the Kach movement was described as a terrorist organization, but Hezbollah was not, Star Tribune deputy managing editor Roger Buoen said:
"I agree with your point that referring to the organizations in this way gave readers and unfair and unbalanced description of the two groups... That was a mistake because it created an imbalance in the portrayal of the two organizations. We have talked to the editor involved, and she understands the balance and fairness problem that the editing created."
And regarding the January 31 story which referred to 'Zionist Terrorists', editor Paul Walsh said:
"Quite simply, that was an oversight. A sharp-eyed editor should have changed that word."
www.honestreporting.com
(UPDATED) THE LESSON, AS ALWAYS, IS THAT TOM FRIEDMAN IS AN IDIOT
NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman blames Ariel Sharon today (Feb. 5) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... for everything that's wrong in the region. Alongside a number of distortions, Friedman claims Sharon is responsible for the failure of PA Prime Minister Abbas:
"[L]ast week, Mr. Sharon turned over 400 Palestinian prisoners to the Islamist Lebanese militia Hezbollah in a prisoner swap, something he was never ready to do with moderate Palestinian leaders."
This is patently false. On two occasions ― June http://www.japantoday.com/gid... and August http://edition.cnn.com/2003/W... , 2003 ― Sharon ordered the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, in what his administration specifically called 'goodwill gestures' to support Abbas and the road map peace process. Friedman's own NY Times http://www.charleston.net/sto... reported after the August release that it was "the largest of several Israeli prisoner releases in the past few months, and brought the number of those freed to almost 600."
MONEY QUOTE FROM TOM'S EDITORIAL: "Mr. Bush surrounded by Jewish and Christian pro-Israel lobbyists, by a vice president, Dick Cheney, who's ready to do whatever Mr. Sharon dictates, and by political handlers telling the president not to put any pressure on Israel in an election year--all conspiring to make sure the president does nothing."
Jews in Brazil’s major commercial city were warned that they may be under surveillance by unknown forces. The 60,000 Jews in Sao Paulo, who make up half of Brazil’s entire Jewish community, were told this week that they should be on alert for cars parked in front of Jewish institutions with people taking pictures and writing notes. Several such sightings have occurred since December. Jewish officials were urged to note details of the cars and their occupants.
LUCKY FOR THEM THEY MURDERED ALL OF US WHO LIVED IN LITHUANIA
[i]Fifth of Lithuanians dislike Jews [/i] www.jta.org
One in five Lithuanians say they dislike Jews. In a Jan. 30 poll in the Baltic nation’s leading newspaper, 31 percent of respondents said they felt positively toward Jews, while 20 percent had negative feelings and 55 percent were neutral.
THE PALIS SEEM TO HAVE THEIR DEFINITION OF "BLACKMAIL" BACKWARDS
THE PALESTINIANS SAY GIVE US LAND, GIVE US AID OR WE WILL KILL ISRAELI CHILDREN AND U.S. DIPLOMATS. THE U.S. SAYS, STOP KILLING OUR DIPLOMATS AND STOP TERRORISM OR WE WON'T GIVE YOU AID. NOW YOU TELL ME, WHICH ONE IS BLACKMAIL?
Jibril Rajoub, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's national security adviser, on Wednesday accused the US of blackmailing the PA by pressuring it to pursue an investigation into a roadside bombing that killed three Americans in the Gaza Strip on October 15.
The U.S. announced Thursday it would give up to $5 million to anyone who provides information that leads to the "conviction or arrest" of those responsible for an attack on a U.S. convoy in the Gaza Strip that killed three Americans on October 15. On Wednesday, top Arafat adviser Jibril Rajoub accused the U.S. of "blackmailing" the Palestinians by threatening to disengage from peace-making and stop U.S. aid unless they find those behind the bombing. (AP/Ha'aretz)
Two years ago, Alona Shaportova, 17, and a friend were at Tel Aviv's popular seaside Dolphinarium discotheque when a Palestinian wearing explosives and copper ball bearings blew himself up outside, killing 21 people, mostly teenagers, and wounding 100 others. Five ball bearings smashed into her head and face, her left eye was shattered, and the left side of her brain was torn away, leaving her paralyzed on the right side and mentally impaired for good. The blond-haired, blue-eyed girl, who once thought of becoming a model, now has a plastic prosthetic and a mop of curls that artfully cover the missing part of her head. In addition to about 500 Israelis killed in suicide attacks, more than 3,000 people have been burned, maimed, scarred, blinded, paralyzed, left hearing-impaired or with missing limbs. (Washington Post)
[i]North Korea Backs Palestinians in The Hague - Sefi Hendler and Eliel Shahar[/i]
Several countries have submitted statements to the International Court of Justice opposing Israel's construction of the separation fence on grounds that it violates human rights. North Korea is the latest. Other states opposing Israel include Cuba, Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Sudan, and Brazil. (Maariv-Hebrew; 5 Feb 04)
Iraqi security sources said Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda operatives have been advised by Palestinian insurgents from the ruling Fatah movement and Hamas on methods to launch suicide operations against the U.S. and allied military presence in Iraq. The methods include the choice of targets, use of explosive belts, and the infiltration of operatives. The Palestinian model was said to have been employed in the twin suicide strikes against Kurdish targets in Irbil on Sunday.
The late Col. Ilan Ramon will have a hill named for him on Mars. Seven hills on Mars were named after the crew of the ill-fated Columbia Space Shuttle, which included Ramon, Israel’s first astronaut. The names for the hills, located east of the landing site of the Mars rover Spirit, will go before the International Astronomical Union that approves names of celestial body names.
The Columbia crew died in February 2003 when the shuttle disintegrated upon re-entry to earth’s atmosphere.
[u]“The first thing we learned growing up was to hate Jews,” [/u]Walid recalled. “I’ll never forgot the first song I learned in school, ‘Arabs our beloved and Jews our dogs.’ I used to wonder at that time who the Jews were, but repeated the words with the rest of the kids without any knowledge of the meaning.”
Soon after the Six-Day-War his father transferred him to a school in Bethlehem “where I grew in the faith of Islam, in which I was fed the idea that one day a fulfillment of an ancient prophecy by the Muslim prophet Mohammed would come to pass,” recalled Shoebat. “The prophecy foretold a battle in which the Holy Land would be recaptured and the elimination of the Jews would take place in a massive slaughter. ‘The day of judgment shall not come to pass until a tribe of Muslims defeat a tribe of Jews,’ it said, ‘in Jerusalem and the surrounding nations’.”
It was not long before Walid’s education led him to get involved in various terrorist activities. He routinely stirred up riots and lynch mobs, throwing firebombs and rocks at soldiers and pelting Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall. He even beat an Israeli soldier, with the intent to kill, but the soldier escaped at the last second.
The transformation came in 1993, when a newly married Shoebat tried to convert his Catholic wife to Islam. “I claimed that the Jews had corrupted the Bible and were prophet-killers,” Shoebat said. His wife asked him to prove his claims to her so a determined Shoebat purchased his first Bible in order to show his wife the contradictions and corruptions introduced to it by the Jews.
“In 1993 I asked the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to reveal to me whether the Bible was indeed corrupted as I was taught or if it were the truth and the Koran was the false document,” Shoebat said. [u]Through parallel study of the Bible and the Koran he soon came to a logical crossroads: “Either the Jews had indeed changed the scripture – because how could God be on the side of evil people, or the Koran was false, and I was the evil one,” Shoebat recalled.[/u] “I then decided to examine the history from both sides – to weigh each sides. It was then that I began to see the spiritual link between the Jewish people and their land.”
Determined to let his people know what he knows, he soon began speaking to Muslim groups – demanding that they confront what Islam either always was – or has become. When confronted with what has become somewhat of a mantra since September 11th – that “true Islam is a religion of peace,” Shoebat responds, “I grew up there – I was there at the mosques, the ummahs and the religious schools. I know what is still being taught today in the textbooks and by the religious leaders – so my challenge to those who claim Islam is not the religion of terror we see today, is what have you done to stand against it and say ‘this is wrong’?”
“What the West does not understand about Islam,” Shoebat said on Tovia Singer’s radio broadcast, “is that Jihad has stages. If Muslims have the upper hand then Jihad is waged by force. If Muslim’s don’t have the upper hand then Jihad is waged through financial and political means. Since Muslims do not have the upper hand in America or Europe, they talk about peace while supporting Hamas and Hezballah. The whole idea of Islam being a peaceful religion emanates from that silent stage of Jihad."
[i]Gibson to Delete a Scene in 'Passion'[/i] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/04/movies/04P ASS.html?ei=5062&en=09c548fda 8db4d05&ex=1076475600&par tner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=pr int&position=" title="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/04/movies/04P ASS.html?ei=5062&en=09c548fda 8db4d05&ex=1076475600&par tner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=pr int&position=" target="_blank"http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0...
Mel Gibson, responding to focus groups as much as to protests by Jewish critics, has decided to delete a controversial scene about Jews from his film, "The Passion of the Christ," a close associate said today.
A scene in the film, in which the Jewish high priest Caiaphas calls down a kind of curse on the Jewish people by declaring of the Crucifixion, "His blood be on us and on our children," will not be in the movie's final version, said the Gibson associate, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The passage had been included in some versions of the film that were shown before select groups, mostly of priests and ministers.
"It didn't work in the focus screenings," the associate said.
[i]Iranian Diplomat Spied on Israeli Embassy in Nigeria (Reuters/SABC News-South Africa)[/i] http://www.sabcnews.com/world/the_middle_east /0" title="http://www.sabcnews.com/world/the_middle_east /0" target="_blank"http://www.sabcnews.com/world...,2172,73222,00.html
An Iranian diplomat is in Nigerian police custody on suspicion of spying on the Israeli embassy and other sensitive compounds in the capital Abuja, Israeli security sources said.
The Iranian was arrested on January 23 when staff reported him "staking out" the embassy. "A digital camera was found in his possession, with surveillance pictures of the embassy and several other international and local official buildings in the capital," a senior Israeli security source said.
Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Shimon Samuels of the Simon Wiesenthal Center reports on the recent "World Social Forum" in Bombay, India:
An Israeli backpacker added: "I am a good Israeli. I accept the Palestinian right to violent resistance." He was crushed by the response of Faisal from Tullkarm: "I know better Israelis; they are dead." http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1075730352541&p =1006953079865" title="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1075730352541&p =1006953079865" target="_blank"http://www.jpost.com/servlet/...
For the past three years, no matter how monstrous the Palestinian attack on Israeli civilians, the Minneapolis Star Tribune has consistently refused to apply the word 'terrorism.' One of the paper's editors explained their 'evenhanded' position in February, 2002:
"In the case of the term 'terrorist,' other words ― 'gunman,' 'separatist' and 'rebel,' for example ― may be more precise and less likely to be viewed as judgmental. We also take extra care to avoid the term 'terrorist' in articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because of the emotional and heated nature of that dispute."
Now, suddenly, the largest paper in Minnesota has discovered 'terrorism' in the Mideast. No, it wasn't the horrific murder of 11 men, women and children on a Jerusalem bus on Jan. 29. That was described yet again in Star Tribune wire reports as the work of a 'militant group'. http://www.startribune.com/st...
Here were the rule-breakers:
1) On Jan. 31, the Star Tribune ran a profile of a local priest, Michael Ovikian, who grew up in Jerusalem. The reporter describes Ovikian surviving the 1946 Irgun bombing of the King David Hotel (emphasis added):
"It was midday July 22, 1946. Ovikian was eating in the basement of the King David Hotel when [b]Zionist terrorists [/b]struck... The Brits had fortified the hotel's eight-story southern wing with barbed wire and tanks. But the [b]terrorists [/b]sneaked in the northern end dressed as delivery people, their milk cans filled with TNT."
So the Star Tribune, which has maintained a 'non-judgmental' refusal to call Palestinian terror by name, determined that the King David bombing http://www.us-israel.org/jsou... was, in fact, 'Zionist terror'. This, despite the fact that (unlike any Palestinian terror) the Irgun issued specific warnings of the impending strike against the British command at the hotel, and that civilians were not intentionally targeted.
2) The Jan. 21 edition of the Star Tribune carried an AP article on IDF anti-Hezbollah actions, accompanied by a photo of the IDF dismantling a West Bank outpost and synagogue. The photo caption was careful to point out that the "synagogue was dedicated to the memory and teachings of American-Israeli Meir Kahane, whose anti-Arab Kach movement is on the U.S. State Department list of terror organizations," but the article describes Hezbollah (which is on that same State Department list) as mere "guerrillas." Moreover, the Star Tribune edited out the following passage from the original AP article, which described American support for the Israeli reprisal:
"The United States blamed Hezbollah guerrillas for the escalation and cautioned Syria against giving support to the Lebanese militant group."
It seems that all the talk by the Star Tribune of sophisticated editorial policy was just a lot of hot air ― masking what is genuinely an anti-Israel double-standard.
A further indication of the double standard: The Star Tribune has a special section of its online edition devoted to world terrorism, which includes archived articles on terror threats and attacks in the US, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan - even Nigeria. But blowing up a Jerusalem commuter bus didn't qualify.
These latest blunders extend the Star Tribune's history of distorting the conflict. In 2002, after being caught red-handed, Star Tribune editors publicly admitted that the newspaper re-wrote wire service stories in a manner which radically distorted the meaning of a Human Rights Watch report on casualties in the Jenin refugee camp. The Star Tribune's own ombudsman called this an "embarrassing wart."
The State Department has removed from its budget request a requirement to list Jerusalem as an Israeli city on the passports of U.S. citizens born there. The requirement appears in the original White House-issued budget request to Congress on Monday. It reads, “For the purposes of the registration of birth, certification of nationality, or issuance of a passport of a United States citizen born in Jerusalem, the Secretary of State shall, upon request of the citizen, record the place of birth as Israel.” In its own request, however, the State Department runs a line through the requirement, crossing it out. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said he does not know why the section was deleted.
AS LONG AS THE DEMOCRATS DON'T NOMINATE LIEBERMAN...
[i]Getting out the Muslim vote: Sense of betrayal drives mobilization against Bush [/i] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4137092/" title="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4137092/" target="_blank"http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4... EXCERPT:
To the extent that the get-out-the-Muslim-vote effort succeeds, it will largely benefit the Democrats because it is energized by anger over the Bush administration's Patriot Act and what is perceived as an anti-Muslim bias behind the Iraq Iraq war and Israeli-Palestinian policy.
According to Nuom Fariz, a long-time citizen who was born in Jordan, this is the most political interest she's seen in the U.S. Muslim community since her arrival in 1973. She says the majority of Muslims are interested in Dennis Kucinich and Howard Dean. "But if it comes down to it, they will vote against Bush... The vote is heavy on our minds."
[i]Conspiracy theories of a Saudi princess[/i] http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD65304" title="http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD65304" target="_blank"http://www.memri.org/bin/open...
The above link will take you to a collection of writings by Saudi Princess Fahda bint Saud ibn Abd Al-Aziz. According to the Saudi press, the princess is "the daughter of King Saud and the historian of her father's reign."
Princess Fahda warns about conspiracies by "neo-conservatives" to control the world and by Israel to attack Saudi Arabia. She explains that her father, King Saud, set forth a plan of how the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and all Muslims today should deal with the "cancerous Zionist threat," and how to fight against U.S. propaganda campaigns. The princess is also reported to be the chairwoman of Saudi "charities."
Ariel Sharon announced a plan to evacuate most Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli prime minister confirmed the plan, first reported by the Ha’aretz newspaper on Monday, in remarks to his Likud Party faction. According to Ha’aretz, 17 of Gaza’s 20 Jewish settlements are to go, though Sharon didn’t give a time frame.
[i]Concert interrupted by anti-Semitism[/i] www.jta.org
A concert by an Israeli singer in France was interrupted repeatedly by anti-Semitic shouts. A group of youths shouted “Death to the Jews” and “Dirty Jew” at singer Shirel at the Saturday evening concert in Macon in central France, the Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism said in a statement. Shirel was performing in a fund-raising concert for Yellow Pieces, a charity that supports hospitals and is headed by Bernadette Chirac, the wife of the French president.
[i]Khatami Terms Tel Aviv as U.S. Capital [/i] http://www.iribnews.com/Full_en.asp?news_id=197659&n=31" title="http://www.iribnews.com/Full_en.asp?news_id=197659&n=31" target="_blank"http://www.iribnews.com/Full_...
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami told German television Saturday: "Israel's Zionist lobby decides a major part of American policy. I...feel sorry for the American nation because although its capital is Washington, its real capital is Tel Aviv." The Iranian president also reiterated that "historically as well as morally Israel is not a legitimate state." (IRIB News-Iran)
[i]Al-Qaeda Keeps Off Israel for Now - Jay Bushinsky (Washington Times)[/i] http://washingtontimes.com/world/20040131-113631 -7082r.htm" title="http://washingtontimes.com/world/20040131-113631 -7082r.htm" target="_blank"http://washingtontimes.com/wo...
Israeli intelligence officials believe that al-Qaeda has largely spared the Jewish state from terrorist attacks as part of a global plan to first destroy the U.S. and establish an Islamic empire before targeting Israel, based on intensive monitoring of al-Qaeda's operations, and statements and analysis of its leadership's beliefs.
Bin Laden and his followers have been under scrutiny in Israel since the late 1990s - at least two years before September 11.
Al-Qaeda's presence in the Palestinian territories today is limited to rank-and-file operatives, usually Palestinians or Jordanians, who maintain close links with Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
According to foreign ministry adviser Jonathan D. Halevi, al-Qaeda is waging jihad, or holy war, against the U.S. as "retaliation" for what it considers "the terrorist war waged by the U.S. against the nation of Islam."
[i]Miami Suit Seeks $20 Million from Palestinians for Terrorist Acts - Hilary Roxe (AP/Miami Herald) [/i] http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/ breaking_news/7838828.htm" title="http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/ breaking_news/7838828.htm" target="_blank"http://www.miami.com/mld/miam...
Moshe Saperstein, a U.S. citizen injured in a terrorist attack in Israel, and the estate of Ahuva Amergi, an Israeli lawyer killed by the same attacker, have filed a lawsuit in federal court in Miami, seeking more than $20 million from Yasser Arafat, five Palestinian groups, and other individuals accused of organizing, facilitating, and sponsoring attacks against Jewish civilians.
A U.S. law grants federal district courts jurisdiction in cases related to international terrorism, or in cases that violate international law or U.S. treaties.
Saperstein falls under the first case, Amergi under the second, the filing said.
Israel’s economy is in a bad way, inflation is getting higher and immigrants are flooding in from all over the world. Problems, problems, problems, but what should they do? So the Knesset holds a special session to come up with a solution.
After several hours of talk without progress one member, Yitzhak, stands up and says “Quiet everyone, I've got it, I've got the solution to all our problems. We’ll declare war on the United States.”
Everyone starts shouting at once. “You’re nuts! That’s crazy!”
“Hear me out!” says Yitzhak. “We declare war. We lose. The United States does what she always does when she defeats a country. She rebuilds everything; our highways, airports, shipping ports, schools, hospitals, factories and loans us money, and sends us food aid. Our problems would be over.
“Sure,” says Benny, another minister, “that’s if we lose. But what if we win?”
