[i]Presidential Candidate John Kerry Opens Door for Rival Sharpton to Address Democratic National Convention [/i]
Black Entertainment Television reports that in an interview to air Monday and Tuesday, Kerry says he wants Al Sharpton to speak at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. "If he wants to do it, I'd like him to do it. I think he'd do a terrific job. I think he'll add something." http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi...
Sharpton is best known for the racially charged Tawana Brawley rape hoax, and later he led marches against a Harlem store-owner during which, as Fred Siegel recalls, "picketers from Mr. Sharpton's National Action Network, sometimes joined by 'the Rev.' himself, marched daily outside the store, screaming about 'bloodsucking Jews' and 'Jew bastards' and threatening to burn the building down." In due course, someone actually did burn the building down, killing seven innocent people. http://www.opinionjournal.com...
[b]A new State Department report says Palestinian Authority security personnel, including senior officers, have assisted in terrorist operations. [/b]
The Patterns of Global Terrorism report for 2003 described the Palestinian Authority security services as “fragmented and ineffective” and suffering from corruption, infighting and poor leadership. The report highlighted the killing of three U.S. security officials in a diplomatic convey in the Gaza Strip and noted that a suicide bombing adjacent to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv suggests that Hamas may be trying to target foreigners.
The report said Iran encouraged anti-Israel activity, including funding and providing weapons for Palestinian terror groups. The report also found that Syria continues to provide support for Palestinian terrorist groups.
More than 100 Jewish tombs were desecrated at a cemetery in eastern France.
[b]Swastikas and other Nazi insignia were scrawled on 127 gravestones at the Herrlisheim-Hasttatt cemetery near Colmar on Thursday night.[/b] Slogans in praise of Hitler and the words “Juden Raus” — or “Jews Out” — also were painted on the cemetery gates. In recent weeks, a number of Jewish and Muslim graves have been desecrated across the Alsace region.
French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin condemned the acts as “odious and scandalous,” and ordered local authorities to clean up the graves. President Jacques Chirac promised a crackdown. “Anti-Semitism is contrary to all the values, principles and ideas of the republic,” he said.
[i]Al Qaida: Israel would be first [/i] www.jta.org
[b]Al Qaida would target Israeli cities if it had chemical weapons, according to a recording believed to be from the terrorist group. [/b]
A recording broadcast by an Islamic Web site and said to be by top Al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi admits that the group planned an attack in Jordan, but denies — as Jordanian authorities claim — that the attack would have involved chemical weapons.
[b]“God knows, if we did possess” a chemical bomb, “we wouldn’t hesitate one second to use it to hit Israeli cities such as Eilat and Tel Aviv,”[/b] the voice says in a translation published Friday by The Associated Press.
Many people are praising the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's conference on anti-Semitism, but in fact it was a toothless affair that failed to build tools to fight a rising sickness, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen writes. (Los Angeles Times)
CINCINNATI - A federal appeals court Friday upheld a judge's decision to strip retired autoworker John Demjanjuk of U.S. citizenship, saying the government has proved he served as a guard in Nazi concentration camps. . . .
"We find that the plaintiff, the United States of America, sustained its burden of proving through clear, unequivocal and convincing evidence that defendant, in fact, served as a guard at several Nazi training and concentration camps during World War II," appeals Judge Eric Clay wrote. "We concur with the district court that he was not legally eligible to obtain citizenship under the Displaced Persons Act of 1948." . . .
Demjanjuk (dem-YAHN-yuk), who came to the United States in 1952 and lives in Seven Hills, was originally accused in 1977 by the Justice Department (news - web sites) of being "Ivan the Terrible," a particularly sadistic Nazi guard who ran the gas chambers at the Treblinka death camp in occupied Poland.
Between 1942 and 1943, more than 850,000 Jews were murdered at Treblinka. Ivan the Terrible was a guard who herded the victims along the path to the gas chamber, hacking at his victims to speed them along.
Demjanjuk insisted he was the victim of mistaken identity.
He was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to be hanged in Israel. Demjanjuk eventually persuaded the Israeli Supreme Court to overturn his conviction based on new evidence that someone else was Ivan the Terrible.
He returned to his suburban Cleveland home in 1993 and avoided publicity. His U.S. citizenship, which had been revoked in 1981, was reinstated in 1998.
But the Justice Department renewed its case, arguing that Demjanjuk was a guard at death camps other than Treblinka. The government no longer tried to link him to Ivan the Terrible.
Keys to the new case were documents kept by the Germans and archived by the Soviet Union that prosecutors said showed Demjanjuk was guard number 1393 and assigned to several Nazi death or forced labor camps after he was trained at Trawniki in Poland.
His citizenship was revoked again in February 2002.
"You can't ever make serious progress against terrorism unless you deal with Israel. We are not dealing with Israel. We've backed away. We're afraid of the political consequences."
Pat Buchanan talking? No, in fact it was former New York governor Mario Cuomo. Furthermore, said Cuomo in an interview with the New Haven Register, the U.S. should tell Israel: "Up until now it was just you and the Palestinians killing one another - now you are killing us. Now there are people out there who are taking Israel as the provocation to terrorize us all over the globe - in the United States and elsewhere."
And Cuomo suggested that Israeli leaders be told that "you have a responsibility to all of us (and) we are going to be more assertive in dealing with you.... So let's sit down and talk."
[i]Double Talk: Saudi Diplomat's Charm Fails Him - Editorial[/i] http://signin.dallasnews.com/...://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/ opinion/editorials/storie s/043004dnedibandar.9c4fc.html
Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the longtime Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S., is by most accounts an extremely charming and capable man. But his social grace and diplomatic skill failed him the other day when Tim Russert of NBC News' Meet the Press questioned him about the Saudi government's connections to terrorism. Russert aired a jaw-dropping video of a Saudi government-sponsored telethon that raised $92 million for Islamic suicide bombers who blow up Jews in Israel. An increasingly exasperated Prince Bandar either denied the accusations or said they were part of the pre-Sept. 11 past. But Russert reminded him that the telethon occurred in April 2003. Should anyone be surprised if the American people consider Saudi Arabia part of the problem rather than part of the solution to the scourge of terrorism? (Dallas Morning News)
HEY PRES. BUSH, LET'S CUT OUT THE MIDDLE MAN AND KILL ARAFAT OURSELVES
The PLO's representative in Lebanon has warned the US that America will pay dearly if Israel were to assassinate PA Chairman Yasser Arafat.
America's interests would be in danger all over the world, Sultan Abu Einen said Friday.
"All our people all over the world will turn into time bombs if this thing happens," Einen said at a rally in the al-Rashidiya refugee camp in southern Lebanon.
More Arab Americans in key battleground states say they will vote for Senator John Kerry than for President George W. Bush in November, according to a new poll released Wednesday by the Arab American Institute.
In a three-way race factoring in Ralph Nader, 45 percent of those polled in Michigan, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania said they would vote for Kerry, 28 percent for Bush and 14 percent for Nader. Another 14 percent were undecided.
In a Bush-Kerry run-off, 49 percent chose Kerry and 30 percent chose Bush. Twenty-one percent were undecided. Kerry's percentage was down five percent from 54 percent in a similar poll in February.
"Basically the poll was taken after the President's appearance with (Prime Minister) Sharon and Kerry's immediate endorsement of the Gaza withdrawal," pollster John Zogby said when asked what may have caused the drop in Kerry's support.
Bush maintained his 30 percent support, Zogby said, because of core Republican backing in the community.
Interestingly, Nader, who is Lebanese-American and has put forth positions on the Arab-Israeli conflict and issues like civil liberties that are considered in-step with the community's views overall, dropped 6 percentage points from February, showing that if that slide continues, Nader may not weaken Kerry's support as some had speculated.
The voters "are deciding where to go," said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute and the brother of John, the pollster.
"There is still obvious displeasure with President Bush" but "not overwhelming support for Kerry yet," he said. "They're in Kerry's camp but not in love with him yet."
The numbers reflect a complete flip from the 2000 results. Then, in the same four states, Bush won 46 percent of the Arab American vote and Vice President Al Gore won 29 percent. Nader won 13 percent.
The drop in support for Bush reflected a disappointment in the community with Bush's handling of the Iraq war and other domestic issues.
According to the survey, which polled a total of 503 Arab Americans in the four states between April 22-24, 72 percent said they were disappointed with Bush's handling of the war and 67 percent rated his performance on the job as fair or poor. Only 30 percent said he was doing an excellent or good job.
Kerry holds a double-digit lead over Bush in four of five issues that the community rated of top importance - economy, health care, education and foreign policy. Only in combating terror did more voters prefer Bush.
When asked who would do the best job handling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 28 percent said Kerry, 19 percent said Bush, 21 percent said Nader and 32 percent none of the above.
The campaign for the Arab boycott of Israel expressed satisfaction Thursday that Iraq had pledged not to trade with the Jewish state and urged Europe to put economic pressure on Israel.
After four days of talks in the Syrian capital of Damascus, the campaign issued a statement that had more to do with Middle Eastern politics than the specifics of blacklisting companies which deal with Israel.
The commissioner general of the Central Boycott Office, Ahmed Khazaa, read out a statement saying that the meeting had discussed "Israeli attempts to penetrate Iraq" through deals offered by the US-led occupation forces.
Iraq "cannot but be against such attempts" by Israel to penetrate its markets, the statement said.
[b]Speaking to reporters, Khazaa said the Iraqi delegation had assured the meeting that the US-appointed Governing Council administration in Baghdad was "committed to the boycott rules and will not allow Israel to penetrate their territories in any form." [/b]
Sabah al-Imam, the head of the Iraqi delegation, had said Monday that there was no known Israeli trade with in Iraq, but he did not rule out the possibility that there might be some Israeli companies operating under different names.
US and German politicians were among the few who warned against the dangers of a new anti-Semitism, used to bash Israel, when they spoke on Wednesday to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
"It is not anti-Semitic to criticize Israel. But the line is crossed when Israel or its leaders are demonized or vilified, for example by the use of Nazi symbols and racist caricatures," said US Secretary of State Colin Powell before OSCE's conference on anti-Semitism.
COLIN, DON'T FORGET ABOUT USING A DOUBLE STANDARD WITH ISRAEL AND DEMANDING THAT IT TREAT TERRORISTS DIFFERENTLY THAN THE U.S. DOES.
A true dialogue on anti-Semitism in the 21st century must include Muslims as well as Christians and Jews, said Holocaust survivor, author, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel on Wednesday.
"We should have invited Islam as well," said Wiesel, as he spoke to the mostly top officials from the 55 countries of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He was one of the keynote speakers at the two-day conference on anti-Semitism held by the OSCE.
He noted that those present were of mostly of Christian and Jewish origin and that a Muslim presence was largely absent. "We should have invited the third partner; it's not too late," he said.
Most of the speakers at the conference shied away from speaking about the rising threat of anti-Semitism among extremist Muslims. But, Wiesel noted, in "certain Muslim countries, hatred of Jews is still part of the state's official policy. In school, children are taught to go out and kill Jews." .....
He added suicide bombings are "a crime against humanity."
He is particularly outraged by the way anti-Semites disguise themselves as legitimate critics of Israel.
Expressing solidarity with terror victims in Israel is now seen is scandalous and anti-Arab, he said.
Particularly contemptuous, he said, are efforts by anti-Semites from the extreme Right and Left to use Holocaust language within the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
"Now they are saying the Jews are doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis have done to them. The Jew in me finds that outrageous," he said.
"As a social disease and a theological scandal and a political perversion, anti-Semitism is clearly on the rise," he said. The problem is not limited to Europe, he said.
"I have to ask myself, if Auschwitz didn't kill the world of anti-Semitism, what can? What will?"
JERUSALEM - An interim legal report has found Israeli prosecutors lack enough evidence to charge Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a bribery scandal that has threatened to topple him, a television station said Wednesday.
[i]Russell Crowe backs Jewish school [/i] www.jta.org
[b]Russell Crowe offered to help rebuild a Montreal-area Jewish day school that was firebombed. [/b]
The actor, who was in Toronto making a film, offered the United Talmud Torah moral and financial support after the bombing earlier this month destroyed the school’s library. Crowe “was very upset at what had happened,” a school spokesperson told a Toronto newspaper.
His call “was a major morale boost for the whole school community.”
I DOUBT THAT MANY OF YOU READ THE COMMENTS POSTED UNDER THE ARTICLES I POST. YOU'RE MISSING SOME INTERESTING STUFF. FOR INSTANCE, IN RESPONSE TO AN INTERVIEW WITH HAMAS'S NEW LEADER I POSTED ON MONDAY 4/26, MICHAEL LERNER (OF TIKKUN MAGAZINE AND "POLITICS OF MEANING" FAME) POSTED THE FOLLOWING COMMENTS REGARDING ISRAEL'S TARGETED KILLING OF HAMAS LEADERS:
[i]The government of Israel is not acting in accord with any traditional Jewish religious principle. Judaism specifies that self-defensive violence (the law of the Roder or pursuer) only happens in the moment that you can actually see the person coming after you physically. It does not extend to your supposition that they might or that they once did or that they ordered someone else to hurt you.
Retribution later is ruled out—the person accused of murder must be brought to trial and there must be two witnesses who saw the act and WARNED the defendant that what he or she was about to do constituted murder (according to the Talmud). One might argue that the situation of contemporary terrorism provides a very different situation than any that was ever anticipated by the tradition, and therefore one is not bound by the tradition—but that would NOT be an argument for saying that Israel is acting the way it does BECAUSE of the tradition.
Moreover, it is not clear why one should say that the current circumstances are in principle different from what the tradition mandated. In the case of Hamas leadership, it is well known where they live, and Israeli forces could come to arrest them and bring them to trial. The killing of these people without trial is not necessary—it is a choice, and in my view, a choice that violates both the letter and the spirit of Judaism.[/i]
I REPLIED THE NEXT DAY:
[i]I am not a scholar on Jewish law. However, my understanding is that the rules regarding "self defense" that you site apply to conflicts between individuals, not countries/territories and certainly not territories at war with each other. It is my understanding that under Jewish law regarding war, Israel's actions are justified. After all, Israel is in a fight for its existence and is striking out in the most limited way possible so as not to harm bystanders against leaders who have ordered, organized and funded the killing of Jewish children in the past, are presently ordering the same, and will continue to do so in the imminent future.
Of course, Israel's actions are completely legal under civil/international law regarding war and self-defense. Do you think Israel should not have exercized anticipatory self defense in destroying Iraq's nuclear facilities in 1981 or Egypt's airforce in 1967?
Your reliance on Jewish law seems a little hypocritical to me as, based on your published writings, it appears that you reject Jewish law and adopt civil/U.S. law regarding abortion and gay rights. You can't have it both ways.
……....
Another thought. You[r] advocacy of "arresting" Hamas leaders instead of shooting them when they have declared war upon Israel and blown up Israeli soldiers and civilians smells of those people in our country who still cling to the failed policies of prior administrations (and some of our European "allies") and advocate treating the WAR on terror, not as a war but as a matter for the police.[/i]
IN FURTHERANCE OF THIS DISCUSSION, I NOTE THIS ARTICLE BY JOSHUA MURAVCHIK WRITING THE NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE. http://www.nationalreview.com... HE ARGUES THAT EUROPE, BY DENOUNCING ISRAEL FOR DEFENDING ITSELF AGAINST THE TERROR GROUP HAMAS, IS NOT ONLY ACTING IN A MORALLY CRAVEN FASHION BUT DEFYING INTERNATIONAL LAW:
[i]Each of these European states is a party to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. Unlike, say, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the genocide convention is a treaty, with the force of law. It is one of the oldest, and perhaps the most widely subscribed piece of international human-rights legislation, and arguably the one with the soundest legal foundation, codifying what the Nuremberg tribunal and the U.N. General Assembly in its very first session found to be existing customary law. Article One of the convention obligates every party "to prevent and punish" genocide as "a crime under international law." The convention goes on to define genocide as, inter alia, "killing" intended "to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."[/i]
AS THE WALL STREET JOURNAL NOTES:
[i]"Hamas seeks the destruction of the Jewish state, and its charter says it "regards itself the spearhead and the vanguard of the circle of struggle against World Zionism [and] the fight against the warmongering Jews." As Muravchik writes, this is "as clearly formulated a project of genocide as we have had since Mein Kampf.""[/i] http://www.opinionjournal.com...
[i]Powell: U.S. Not Prejudging Borders or Right of Return; West Bank Settlement Evacuation Just the Beginning[/i] http://www.state.gov/secretar...
Secretary of State Powell said Monday: "The President made it clear...that he was not prejudging any final status issue....At the end of the day, it is between the Palestinians and the Israelis to determine what they're going to do about armistice lines [and] right of return." "The President took note of certain realities on the ground that everybody realized are realities...but ultimately these realities, and what one does with these realities, will have to be negotiated between the two sides."
"Something fundamentally new has been put on the table. The Israelis are going to leave all of the settlements in Gaza and not destroy them on the way out. They will be there to be converted to ultimate use of the Palestinian people in Gaza." "With the evacuation of four settlements in the West Bank...that is the beginning of a process to see what else might be evacuated." (State Department)
UN special envoy to Iraq Lakhdar Brahimi's proclamation that Israel is "the great poison in the region" is no aberration. Assigning blame to Israel for the nonexistence of Arab democracy, the impoverishment of Arab populations, and the human-rights deficit throughout the Muslim world is standard UN policy. At the annual six-week meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, five resolutions were adopted condemning Israel, while a resolution condemning ethnic cleansing in Sudan, which has left 30,000 dead and 900,000 in deplorable conditions, was defeated. (National Review)
A survey of Attitudes Toward Jews, Israel, and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict in Ten European Countries by the Anti-Defamation League was released Monday in Berlin on the eve of an international conference on anti-Semitism convened by the OSCE.
Only 23% of those surveyed view Israel favorably, while 34% say they view Israel unfavorably.
15% say they sympathize with the Israelis in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while 24% sympathize with the Palestinians.
59% of European respondents view the current Israeli government unfavorably, while 52% view the PA unfavorably.
Only in Italy and the Netherlands do respondents sympathize more with the Israelis than with the Palestinians.
The data indicates that attitudes toward Israel have gotten progressively worse in the last two years. At the same time, sympathy for the Palestinians declined from 32% to 24% since 2002.
A Hamas suicide bomber blew up two armed Palestinians who tried to rob him at gun point in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas claimed the “stickup men” worked for Israeli intelligence, while Palestinian security forces said the two were ordinary thieves.
Rather than give up his explosives, the bomber detonated them, killing himself and the two robbers near the border fence between Gaza and Israel.
Palestinian security officials said the the gunmen were criminals who were involved in a car theft ring that brought stolen vehicles from Israel to Gaza.
Hamas said the bomber was on his way to try to infiltrate into Israel, accompanied by another Hamas member and a guide, when they were stopped by the armed men.
The robbers forced the bomber to lie on the ground and tried to steal the bomb, but the militant detonated it, killing all three. The other Hamas man and the guide escaped.....
Bowing to intense pressure from Mel Gibson’s father, Jews announced today that they would no longer control the world. In a press release, Jews stated, “Although we have thoroughly enjoyed the challenges of world domination for the last 300 years, we feel it's time for gentiles to take control of their own affairs. We plan to spend more time with our families and pursue other interests.”
Hutton Gibson stated he was pleased with the announcement, but expressed concern he was losing a scapegoat for all of his problems. He said he would be launching a search for a new minority group to demonize.
Many Jews expressed relief that they could give up burdensome responsibilities. Retired accountant Jerry Friedman, who controls all media in Montana, said, “I would just as well let the citizens of Montana manage their own TV and newspapers. Don’t get me wrong, Montana is a fine state. But it gets awfully cold, and there’s nowhere to get a good bagel.”
Attorney Allen Franks said he's glad he no longer has to manage Bulgarian monetary policy. “It was getting to be quite a hassle,” he said. “I already have a full time job and can’t even balance my own checkbook, let alone control the finances of an entire nation.”
Homemaker Judith Levine said she would “...miss the hustle and bustle of setting the international price for magnesium every day. But my son is about to be Bar Mitzvah'd, and oy! Such a party we're gonna have you wouldn't believe!”
Hollywood producer Sidney Greenbaum was pessimistic about the announcement. “Do you really think goyim know how to make movies?” he asked. “They'll all end up being high budget, technicolor snuff flicks if you leave things up to Mel and his kind.”
Comedy experts expressed concern that the business would suffer if Jews suddenly withdrew. According to one insider, “Take away all the Jewish comics and writers, and all you have left is Carrot Top. That’s not a world I want to live in.”
A potluck dinner in honor of Jews contributions to mankind will be held at the Hoboken Holiday Inn on April 3. All gentiles are welcome to attend. Participants will be encouraged to share an an offensive Jewish joke.
Unidentified gunmen broke the arms of Palestinian news photographer Jamal Arouri in Ramallah on Thursday. Arouri, 38, who also works for the PA daily Al-Ayyam, said two masked men carrying pistols pounced on him and clubbed him as he walked out of his car in front of his house.
Hassan Al-Azma, 29, was shot and killed by members of Fatah's Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades near Ramallah Sunday. Members of the terrorist group said they interrogated Azma for several hours, after which he confessed to collaborating with the IDF.
PAGING MR. ORWELL. MR. ORWELL, PLEASE PICK UP THE WHITE COURTESY PHONE.
Q: What are the conditions for a new ceasefire? KM: Let Israel withdraw first, and after that we will negotiate. This is our land, this is our natural right. [b]Q: A withdrawal to the '67 borders? KM: We consider this a positive step but we have the right in all Palestine. [/b](BBC News)
IRAQI'S HATE NEW FLAG WITH ONE COLOR FROM ISRAELI FLAG
[i]New Iraqi Flag Meets With Public Disapproval [/i] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4343 8-2004Apr26.html" title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4343 8-2004Apr26.html" target="_blank"http://www.washingtonpost.com...
BAGHDAD, April 26 -- It was supposed to be the perfect symbol for a new and unified Iraq: an Islamic crescent on a field of pure white, with two blue stripes representing the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and a third yellow stripe to symbolize the country's Kurdish minority.
But the new national flag, presented Monday after an artistic competition sponsored by the Iraqi Governing Council, appears to have met with widespread public disapproval here -- in part because of its design and in part because of the increasing unpopularity of the U.S.-appointed council.
In interviews in several Baghdad neighborhoods, a variety of residents expressed strong negative reactions to the flag, which was reproduced in most daily newspapers. [b]In particular, people objected to the pale blue color of the crescent and stripes, saying it was identical to the dominant color in the flag of Israel, a Jewish state.[/b]
CHECK OUT THESE ARABIC-LANGUAGE, PRO-ISRAEL, ANTI-JIHAD T-SHIRTS AND HATS FROM ROKEM NEEDLE ARTS. http://www.rokemneedlearts.com/abrahamicapparel/" title="http://www.rokemneedlearts.com/abrahamicapparel/" target="_blank"http://www.rokemneedlearts.co...
HERE'S THE STORY BEHIND THE SITE:
[i]The genesis of these designs started on the campus of Wayne State University, where my son, Moshe, is an engineering student. Talking with him and other Jewish students I discovered that identifiably Jewish students on that campus, for example those who wear a Kippah on their head or a Chai or Star of David pendant around their neck, know the Arabic word for Jew, al Yahud. Wayne State, located in Detroit, Michigan, not far from Dearborn, has one of the largest Arab and Muslim student populations of any American college campus and it seems that many Arab students like to mutter "al Yahud" at Jewish students as they pass by. Simply put, because of the aggressive attitude of Arabs, Muslims and others who support the 'Palestinian' cause, American campuses have become a hostile environment for Jewish students and other supporters of Israel.
Abrahamic Apparel is intended to provide some chizuk, support for those students and other Jews and supporters of Israel and allow them to show their Jewish pride and support for Israel in a language that literally the mutterers will understand.[/i]
HERE ARE A COUPLE OF EXAMPLES FROM THE SITE:
[image]rsheinfield_125932 4617.jpg[/image] "Am Yisrael Chai" - The Jewish Nation lives
[image]rsheinfield_108680 9191.jpg[/image] Israel Defense Force
[image]rsheinfield_968941 067.jpg[/image] "Ma Fish Falastin" - There Is No Palestine
Thousands of Palestinians converged Saturday on the Ramallah compound of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat to express their support for him following new threats against his life by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. A officials said Arafat was taking Sharon's threats very seriously in light of the assassinations of Hamas leaders Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi. In recent days Ramallah has been full of rumors of an imminent IDF raid on Arafat's headquarters.
[b]Jibril Rajoub, Arafat's national security advisor, warned that "the blood of Arafat will chase the Jews forever, the same as Christ's blood." [/b]
LET'S LEAVE ASIDE THE NASTY BLOOD-LIBEL, WHICH EVEN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH DISCREDITED AND REJECTED WITH VATICAN II FORTY YEARS AGO. HOW DO CHRISTIANS FEEL WHEN THE PALESTINIANS EQUATE ARAFAT AND JESUS? I DON'T RECALL JESUS ORDERING THE MURDER OF CHILDREN. ANY COMMENTS (BELOW) FROM CHRISTIAN READERS WOULD BE OF INTEREST.
Jordan’s royal family on Friday announced the engagement of King Abdullah II’s half brother, Prince Ali, to CNN reporter Rym Brahimi. The wedding will take place Sept. 7, the official Petra news agency reported.
Ali, 29, heads a special force that protects the monarch. He is the son of the late King Hussein from his marriage to Queen Alia, who died in a helicopter crash in 1977.
Brahimi is the daughter of the U.N. envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi. The engagement ceremony took place in Paris in the presence of Abdullah, Petra said.
LOOKS LIKE CNN IS REALLY IN BED WITH THE ARAB RULERS. BUT IT GETS BETTER. THE BRIDE TO BE'S FATHER? AS MENTIONED ABOVE, HE'S THE UN'S ENVOY TO IRAQ. WELL HE'S IN THE NEWS TODAY TOO! - FOR SAYING THAT ISRAEL IS "THE BIG POISON" IN THE MIDDLE EAST. http://story.news.yahoo.com/n... HEY, HOW DO I SEND THE BRIDE A GIFT?
Brahimi told France’s Inter radio on Thursday that Israeli policies toward Palestinians and Washington’s support for them hindered his search for a caretaker Iraqi regime that would take power on June 30 when the U.S.-led occupation ends.
“The problems are linked, there is no doubt about it,” said Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister. “The big poison in the region is the Israeli policy of domination and the suffering imposed on the Palestinians.”
Brahimi said his job was complicated by Iraqi perceptions of “Israel’s completely violent and repressive security policy and determination to occupy more and more Palestinian territory.”
Eckhard told reporters at his daily news briefing, “As a preliminary reaction I could say that as you know he is a former foreign minister of Algeria and therefore he brings to the table strongly held and strongly expressed views about the Middle East peace process.”
[i]Leading Egyptian Journalist: The Jews are Behind Every Disaster or Terrorist Act[/i]
In an article in the Egyptian government daily Al-Gumhouriyya titled, 'The Secret Israeli Weapon,' deputy editor Abd Al-Wahhab 'Adas accused the Jews of perpetrating all terrorism throughout the world, including the Madrid bombings. This http://www.memri.org/bin/open... contains excerpts from the article.
Israel no longer abides by the promise it made to the US not to harm Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told Channel 2 Friday. "I liberated myself of this promise before President [George W.] Bush," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in an interview with Channel 2.
The prime minister refused to elaborate on the significance of his statement and would not say whether Israel might expel Arafat of Ramallah or physically harm him. He also declined to elaborate on how president George W. Bush's reacted.
James McDonald, an American diplomat and the League of Nations high commissioner for refugees, believed as early as 1933 that the Nazis were considering the mass killing of Europe's Jews, a view he apparently shared with President Roosevelt, according to his previously unpublicized diaries. Richard Breitman, a historian of the Holocaust at American University, said that the McDonald diaries were not conclusive as to when the Nazis decided on the mass killing of European Jews, "but they remind people that the idea of killing Jews was there at the beginning of the Nazi regime." (New York Times)
President Truman threatened to break with Israel unless it allowed the return of some Palestinian refugees displaced in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, according to the diaries of a top U.S. diplomat that were recently unearthed by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
[i]Palestinian Gunmen Storm Jail, Free Suspects in Attack on U.S. Diplomats - Khaled Abu Toameh (Jerusalem Post)[/i] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/...
On Wednesday night, several masked gunmen stormed the PA's central prison in Gaza City and freed three out of four Palestinians being held on suspicion of involvement in the attack on a U.S. diplomatic convoy last October.
The suspects were tried in a PA court last month but were acquitted and ordered released; however, the PA refused to carry out the court order and continued to hold them in prison.
The raid on the prison is seen as a major blow to the PA security forces in Gaza.
According to the top American commander in Iraq, Lt.-Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the U.S. Army was recently given a highly specific military order: to kill radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. This order for extrajudicial killing is perfectly legitimate and lawful under the laws of war since al-Sadr is a combatant. He leads a militia that has declared war on American and coalition forces, as well as on civilians, both foreign and Iraqi. He is at the top of the chain of command, and it is he who presses the on-off button for the killings. There is no legal or moral difference between al-Sadr and Hamas leaders Yassin and Rantisi, terrorist commanders responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths. (Jerusalem Post)
OF COURSE, THESE TERRORISTS SHOULD NOT BE KILLED IF THEY PLAYED FOOTBALL AND KILLED THEIR FORMER WIVES (O.J.) OR IF THEY SLIP THEIR WEALTHY WIVES A COMA INDUCING NIGHTCAP (VON BULOW). DERSHOWITZ IS A MAN OF MANY CONTRADICTIONS.
The Rutgers University “entertainment” newspaper features this cartoon on its cover for Holocaust Remembrance “Week" They argue that it's "funny." Ha. Ha.
[b]UPDATE[/b]: WOOOOO. LOOK OUT. RUTGERS' PRESIDENT WANTS AN APOLOGY FROM THE STUDENT EDITORS OF THE NEWSPAPER. http://www.newsday.com/news/l...,0,1305243,print.story?coll=ny-ap-regional -wire NOW THEY'RE IN REAL TROUBLE. THAT'LL TEACH 'EM. I WONDER WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF THEY HAD INSULTED AFRICAN-AMERICAN LESBIAN VEGETARIANS? MY GUESS: SUSPENSION AND A WEEK OF CAMPUS WIDE SIT INS AND DIVERSITY/SENSITIVTY TRAINING.
REMEMBER THE OLSO AGREEMENT? REMEMBER HOW THE PLO PROMISED TO AMEND ITS CHARTER TO ELIMINATE THE CALL FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF ISRAEL? REMEMBER HOW ARAFAT SAID IT WAS DONE? REMEMBER HOW HE HAS CONTINUTED TO INSIST (AT LEAST TO THE GULLIBLE WESTERN MEDIA) THAT THE CHARTER HAS BEEN CHANGED?
GUESS WHAT? HE LIED. I KNOW; I'M AS SHOCKED AS YOU ARE.
[b]Farouk Kaddoumi, the PLO's hard-line "foreign minister," said Thursday that when Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat talks about the need to pursue the struggle against Israel, he is referring to the armed struggle. [/b] Kaddoumi said the armed struggle was the only way to force Israel to accept the demands of the Palestinians.
Kaddoumi's remarks were made in an interview with the Jordanian newspaper Al-Arab. [b]He admitted that the PLO charter, which denies Israel's right to exist, was never changed. [/b]
In response to a question what does Arafat mean when he talks about the continuation of the struggle, Kaddoumi, who is one of the few PLO leaders still living in Tunisia, said: "Yes, the national struggle must continue. I mean the armed struggle. In the past we abandoned our political parties in favor of the armed struggle.
"Fatah was established on the basis of the armed struggle and that this was the only way to leading to political negotiations that would force the enemy to accept our national aspirations. Therefore there is no struggle other than the armed military struggle."
Commenting on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, Kaddoumi said: "If Israel wants to leave the Gaza Strip, then it should do so. This means that the Palestinian resistance has forced it to leave. But the resistance will continue. Let the Gaza Strip be South Vietnam. We will use all available methods to liberate North Vietnam."
[b]Kaddoumi revealed that the PLO leadership has entrusted him with being responsible for the "portfolio" of supporting the Iraqi resistance against the US-led coalition forces in Iraq. "There is no doubt that the Palestinian revolution supports the Iraqi resistance and we have seen demonstrations in the occupied Palestinian territories in backing the intifada and resistance in Iraq," he said. "I'm in charge of this issue and I condemn the American position." [/b] Kaddoumi welcomed the establishment of an armed group in Iraq named after slain Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin, saying this would increase pressure on the US. He described the new anti-American group as an "excellent phenomenon."
Kaddoumi said that, [b]contrary to what many people believe, the PLO charter was never changed so as to recognize Israel's right to exist. "The Palestinian national charter has not been amended until now," he explained. "It was said that some articles are no longer effective, but they were not changed. [/b]I'm one of those who didn't agree to any changes."
Asked about US and Israeli demands to halt terror attacks as a condition for resuming the peace process, Kaddoumi replied: [b]"They can go to hell!" [/b]
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) - Yasser Arafat expelled a group of 21 members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades from his West Bank headquarters overnight, a leader of the “militant” faction told AFP.
“Yasser Arafat forced me and 20 of my comrades from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades to leave the Muqataa,” Ali Barghuti, one of the leaders of the organisation in the West Bank, told AFP on Thursday.
Arafat refused to comment directly on the allegation, telling reporters in Ramallah that “there is only one wanted man here. He was wounded during the last Israeli incursion”, in September 2002.
“If you want to see him, you can go inside” the Muqataa, he added without naming the man or confirming the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades’ claim.
Barghuti branded the expulsion a crime, arguing the armed group is affiliated with Arafat’s mainstream Fatah party.
“Arafat has abandoned us. It’s a crime, because we are above all members of Fatah and he should protect us,” he said.
“He has also caved into Israel which has threatened to attack the Muqataa.”
[i]Burg sorry for Israel’s actions [/i] www.jta.org
The former speaker of the Knesset apologized to the European Parliament for Israeli government policy.
Referring to recent events, notably Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantissi and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw unilaterally from the Gaza Strip, Avraham Burg on Tuesday told members of the European Parliament, “I apologize to you, because I find no words in which to come to defend the policies of my government. But at the end of the day, this is the democratically elected government of Israel.”
Burg presented the Parliament with the “Geneva Accord,” an unofficial Israeli-Palestinian peace proposal. Burg also called on Europe to get more involved in the process to balance the dominant U.S. role.
[i]Court rules for bomb victims’ relatives [/i] www.jta.org
An Israeli court ordered the Palestinian Authority to pay $16.2 million to six relatives of two Israelis killed by a suicide bomber.
Tuesday’s ruling would benefit the relatives of Ruth Peled and Sinai Keinan, who were killed in a May 2002 attack in Petach Tikva. The Palestinian Authority did not submit a defense in the case, saying it does not recognize the Israeli court’s authority to decide the case.
A lawyer for the plaintiffs said he would ask the court to put a lien on tax money that Israel transfers to the Palestinians each month.
[i]In France, Socialists bounce one of E.U.’s few pro-Israel legislators[/i] http://www.jta.org/page_view_...+drop+pro%2DIsrael+legisl ator&intcategoryid=2
PARIS, April 20 (JTA) — Francois Zimeray always knew that his outspoken support of Israel was going to land in him in trouble come election time, but even he was unprepared for such a stinging rebuke from members of his party.
While his chances for a realistic spot on the Socialist Party list for France’s Northwest region already appeared slim, Zimeray aides said the legislator was stunned after he was dumped from the list altogether at an April 17 meeting of the party’s national council.
Zimeray was the only member of the Party of European Socialists, the principal opposition party in the European Parliament, consistently to back demands for an inquiry into alleged Palestinian Authority misuse of European Union funds. As such, Zimeray had been publicly called to task by Socialists in his home region of Normandy, many of whom thought he was acting contrary to party policy.
Last year, party members publicly dissociated themselves from Zimeray’s comparison of Palestinian school textbooks to Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.”
[i]U.N. official blames Israel, U.S. for Iraq [/i] www.jta.org
A leading U.N. official blamed Israel and the United States for the deteriorating situation in Iraq.
The U.N.’s special envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, said Wednesday that Israel’s policy of “total repression” against the Palestinians was making “things difficult to sort out” in the region. “There’s no doubt that the great poison in the region is this Israeli policy of domination and suffering imposed on the Palestinians,” Brahimi said in an interview with the French radio station, France Inter.
It was also compounded by “the unjust support for this policy by the United States,” he said.
AT ISLAM-ONLINE.COM, ONE OF THEIR ISLAMIC SCHOLARS EXPLAINS WHEN IT IS PERMISSIBLE TO ROB JEWISH BANKS. http://www.islam-online.net/fatwaapplication/engl ish/display.asp?hFatwaID=113492" title="http://www.islam-online.net/fatwaapplication/engl ish/display.asp?hFatwaID=113492" target="_blank"http://www.islam-online.net/f...
Since Muslims are considered to be at war only with Israel, and this does not apply to other countries of the world, it is not lawful for them to rob banks in any country other than Israel even if the owners of these banks are Jewish or American.
So, Muslims may rob the Jewish banks within the occupied Palestine when they make sure that all the money of these banks belongs to the Zionist enemy. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) gave Muslims permission to rob a caravan belonging to the polytheists of Makkah when the Muslims were at war with them, and this was the cause of the first great battle in Islam, the Battle of Badr.
However, some scholars have a reservation about robbing the Jewish banks within occupied Palestine, for there are more than a million Muslims there who deal with these banks, whether voluntarily or under compulsion. According to those scholars, robbing these banks would also include robbing the deposits of our fellow Muslims who deal with these banks, which is not lawful in the viewpoint of Islam."
(UPDATED) THE PALESTINIANS: AGAIN MISSING AN OPPORTUNITY
An Israeli prime minister is unilaterally withdrawing from the Gaza Strip. A U.S. president has reaffirmed his commitment to a Palestinian state. The initial Palestinian response has been the usual fulminations. The most obvious reason is that Palestinian leaders do not handle reality very well. What part about the best current opportunity don't Palestinian leaders understand? (Houston Chronicle)
SEE ALSO: [i]Bush: Sharon deserves thanks [/i] www.jta.org
The world should thank Ariel Sharon for his planned pullout from Gaza, President Bush says. Bush told an annual Association of Newspaper Editors meeting in Washington on Wednesday that Sharon’s initiative would help create the conditions for a Palestinian state. “In my judgment, the whole world should have said: Thank you, Ariel; now we have a chance to begin the construction of a peaceful Palestinian state,” Bush said. He suggested that world leaders were reluctant to tackle the difficult Palestinian problem. “You know, there was kind of silence, wasn’t there, because the responsibility is hard.”
The old thinking that we need to be neutral between Israel and the Palestinians or that we need to maintain stability in the region by working with current leadership was shattered by 9/11. We learned in the aftermath of 9/11 that we cannot be neutral between "civilization and terror, because there's no neutral ground between good and evil, freedom and slavery, and life and death," as President Bush has said. And, we learned that anti-democratic governments, especially when fueled by Islamist or nationalist hatred, are anything but stable and will attack democracies.
To flood Israel with millions of refugees; to establish full statehood in the atmosphere of suicide bombs strapped to women and children who intend to blow up civilians throughout Israel; and to ask for a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the entirety of the West Bank would be to reward terrorism. That, we do no longer. (National Review)
Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday the Bush administration was determined to launch a Palestinian state next year and that any decision to keep Israeli population centers on the West Bank would require Palestinian consent. Powell said any decisions on fundamental issues - meaning borders and Palestinian refugees - "will be done ultimately with mutual agreement between the parties." Powell also sought to reassure anxious European governments who back the Arabs in demanding Israel retain none of the West Bank. He said after meeting with Javier Solana, the senior EU diplomat, that Palestinian approval was necessary on all big issues. (AP/San Francisco Chronicle)
[b]IN RELATED NEWS, ISRAEL DECLARED THAT THE PRESENCE OF PALESTINIANS IN ISRAEL REQUIRED ISRAELI CONSENT. FOLLOWING THE POWELL DICTATES (WHICH POWELL AIDES ARE CALLING THE "JUDENREIN PRINCIPLES") ISRAEL BEGAN WITH PLANS TO RELOCATE ONE MILLION ARABS TO DEARBORN.[/b]
GENEVA — The U.N. response to the death of Abdel Aziz Rantissi, and Sheikh Ahmad Yassin before him, exposes a disturbing fault line in the war against terror. Hamas has been declared a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, as well as the European Union, Canada, and Australia.
The 1988 Covenant of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, speaks for itself. It begins "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." It continues: "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors." Its violent message is invoked in the name of defeating the "plan of World Zionism" "embodied in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion." In Rantissi's words of July 2001: "I urge all the brigades to...target the Israeli political leaders and members of parliament..."; "the Hamas political leadership has freed the hand of the brigades to do whatever they want against the brothers of monkeys and pigs."
In plain language, the Hamas aim to obliterate the Jewish state is about pure, unadulterated antisemitism.
Rantissi himself (and others, such as Yassin) was named by the State Department as a "specially designated global terrorist." Last month the Bank of England froze the assets of Rantissi because "the Treasury have reasonable grounds for suspecting that...Rantissi, is or may be a person, who commits, facilitates or participates in" "the commission of acts or terrorism."
As soon as Rantissi took over the leadership of Hamas on March 23, 2004, after the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) killed Yassin, he called for further bloodshed, "The doors are wide open for attacks inside the Zionist entity."
Israelis keeping the grim statistics have counted at least 425 Hamas attacks killing 377 Israelis and wounding 2,076 in less than three and a half years of violence, including 52 separate suicide attacks. Hamas terrorists have blown themselves up among teenagers at a discotheque, families at a Passover seder, in restaurants, in a pedestrian mall, and on commuter buses. Only one day prior to Rantissi's death Hamas claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing which killed another Israeli.
The international legal framework, therefore, could not be clearer.
Rantissi was a combatant in a war. His killing was not "extrajudicial" because the legal term, by definition, applies only to individuals entitled to judicial process before being targeted. Combatants — including the unlawful combatants of Hamas who seek to make themselves indistinguishable from the civilian population — are not entitled to such prior judicial process. Furthermore, the manual on the laws of armed conflict of the International Committee of the Red Cross, states that civilians who take a direct part in hostilities forfeit their immunity from attack. Even beyond that, judicial process in these instances is not an option, since it would place both IDF and Palestinian civilians at much greater risk of harm.
The overriding legal limit on the conduct of war and the targeting of combatants like Rantissi is the rule of proportionality. In the words of the Geneva Conventions, an attack on a military target "which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life" is prohibited if "excessive." The likelihood of civilian casualties must be carefully considered prior to taking action.
With zero civilian casualties (the only deaths being that of Rantissi and two Hamas accomplices, one a bodyguard, the other his 27-year-old son), the Israeli action could not have been more precise, and hence, proportionate.
The United Nations response to the legality of the killing of Rantissi (and Yassin) is therefore enormously revealing.
U.N. condemns Israel's assassination of...Yassin...[E]xtrajudicial killings are against international law." On April 17, he used the identical words to condemn the "assassination of Rantissi."
Almost immediately following Yassin's death (along with eight others at least four of whom were also Hamas terrorists), on March 22, 2004, the U.N. Human Rights Commission convened a special sitting. This move was despite the fact that the commission was already in session, and at that very moment set to consider the only country-specific agenda item at the commission for the past 34 years — on Israel. The suffering of Yassin's victims, or the current genocidal plight of Sudanese in the Darfur region — reported by international agencies to involve 10,000 dead in the past year, and which may now have reached 1,000 dead per week — didn't move the commission to hold a special sitting. But they did see fit to schedule an extra three hours to denounce Israel over the death of one man — a man who personally instigated and authorized suicide bombing, ordered the firing of missiles at Israeli communities, and repeatedly exhorted his followers to "armed struggle" against Israelis and Jews "everywhere."
Having glorified the terrorist in particular, the commission went on to sanction terrorism in general. On April 15, the commission adopted a resolution, sponsored by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which aimed to condone suicide bombing by referring to "the legitimacy of the struggle [against] foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle" and the "right...to resist." The resolution passed by a large majority.
Shortly thereafter, resolutions which would have criticized Zimbabwe, China, and Russia (in relation to events in Chechnya) were either blocked by procedural maneuvers or voted down. The total tally of country specific votes coming from the 2004 Commission now stands at: Israel-5 Rest of the World-4 (the other states being Belarus, Cuba, Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Turkmenistan).
While those other country resolutions were being considered, the U.N. hosted a two-day meeting on Israel's security fence, April 15 and 16, directly across the hall from the commission. The juxtaposition was staggering. The same facilities were provided for a meeting on Israel as were provided for human rights on the remainder of the planet. And hours before the meeting ended on its second day, the "Final Document" — condemning Israel — was distributed to the public claiming to be based on discussions which had not yet occurred.
Sooner or later one can only hope a light will go on. Whatever superficial lip service is paid to the contrary, according to the U.N., Israel has no right of self-defense. Everything the U.N. does in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict — whether it be calls for the return to 1967's indefensible borders, declarations that Jerusalem is occupied territory, demands for the return of Palestinian refugees ending the Jewishness of the state, or efforts to isolate and demonize Israel as the worst human-rights violator in the world today — emanates from the standpoint that the Jewish side is not entitled to fight back.
[i]Swiss boycott ceremony in Israel [/i] www.jta.org
Switzerland boycotted a ceremony honoring a Swiss citizen who saved Jews during World War II. The country’s ambassador to Israel was ordered to stay away from Monday’s ceremony honoring Paul Grueninger because it was held in Pisgat Ze’ev, a Jerusalem neighborhood that came into Israeli hands during the 1967 Six-Day War. Grueninger is a former Swiss police commander who provided more than 3,600 Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis with false papers enabling them to seek refuge in neutral Switzerland. As a result of his actions, Grueninger lost his post as a commander and was treated as a criminal even many years after the war; he was forced to end his life in poverty.
The Swiss Parliament rehabilitated Grueninger in 1997 only after heavy pressure from U.S. Jewish groups and the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland.
[b]ISN'T IT ENOUGH THAT THEY WON'T RETURN GOLD (FILLINGS) AND ARTWORK LOOTED FROM JEWS BY THE NAZIS OR PAY OFF ON LIFE INSURANCE POLICIES OF THOSE WHO WERE MURDERED DURING THE HOLOCAUST?[/b]
Bill Clinton urged Israel to make a deal with the Palestinians. At a New York seminar on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict sponsored by Tel Aviv University and other groups, the former U.S. president said it’s “always quite comfortable to look at the faults of your adversaries,” but as the main power broker in the region, Israel needs to do what it can to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians.
Clinton praised Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip but said it is “only good if it works to re-engage the Arabs and the Israelis.” He added, “It’s no good making a deal with the United States; we don’t live in the Middle East.”
[b]YES, BILL. THE ONUS IS ON ISRAEL. NO NEED TO DEMAND THAT THE PALESTINIANS STOP MURDERING CHILDREN WITH CHILD BOMBERS. JUST REWARD THEM BY DEMANDING THAT ISRAEL MAKE CONCESSIONS. DID THIS FAT FORNICATOR LEARN NOTHING FROM ARAFAT'S ABUSE OF HIM AT CAMP DAVID?[/b]
[i]Kerry: I've got a 100% record on Israel[/i] http://www.jpost.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServ er?pagename=JPost/JPArtic le/ShowFull&cid=108234514 7422" title="http://www.jpost.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServ er?pagename=JPost/JPArtic le/ShowFull&cid=108234514 7422" target="_blank"http://www.jpost.com/NASApp/c...
US Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said Monday that he has a "100 percent record of sustaining the special relationship and friendship that we have with Israel." He also pledged to end "sweetheart relationships" with Arab countries that fund terror. ...
On Sunday, Kerry endorsed Israel's right to strike at Hamas leaders.
"I believe Israel has every right in the world to respond to any act of terror against it. Hamas is a terrorist, brutal organization. It has had years to make up its mind to take part in a peaceful process. They refuse to. Arafat refuses to. And I support Israel's efforts to try to separate itself and to try to be secure," he told NBC's Meet the Press.
"The moment Hamas says, "We've given up violence, we're prepared to negotiate," I am absolutely confident they will find an Israel that is thirsty to have that negotiation."
WASHINGTON, April 19 — King Abdullah of Jordan dealt a rebuff to President Bush on Monday, abruptly putting off his visit to Washington scheduled for later this week. Jordanian officials said the visit had become impossible in light of Mr. Bush's recent support for Israel's territorial claims in the West Bank.
A statement from Jordan said the king, who was in California on Monday and went home rather than to Washington, would not meet with Mr. Bush this week as planned.
It said the meeting would wait "until discussions and deliberations are concluded with officials in the American administration to clarify the American position on the peace process and the final situation in the Palestinian territories, especially in light of the latest statements by officials in the American administration."
A Jordanian official said the statement, in deliberately cool tones, was meant to send a message of displeasure.
For their part, administration officials said that the visit had to be put off because of "developments in the region" and that it would be rescheduled for May.
Jordanian officials made clear that King Abdullah, who was in California meeting with technology and entertainment industry figures, had been irked by Mr. Bush's declarations in his meeting last week with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and would therefore bypass Washington.
[b]IN RESPONSE, THE U.S. CUT OFF ALL AID TO JORDAN. WITHOUT U.S. SUPPORT, IT IS FEARED THAT JORDAN'S POPULATION (WHICH IS MOSTLY PALESTINIAN) WILL RISE UP AND TOPPLE THE HATED KING. ONCE A PALESTINIAN STATE IS DECLARED IN JORDAN, ISRAEL PLANS ON PUTTING ARAFAT IN A BOX AND DROPPING HIM FROM AN AIRPLANE IN AMMAN. AS MANY WILL RECALL, WHAT IS NOW JORDAN, WAS ORIGINALLY PART OF BRITISH MANDATORY PALESTINE. IT WAS SPLIT OFF FROM THE LAND ON THE WEST BANK OF THE JORDAN (WHAT IS NOW ISRAEL) AS A FUTURE PALESTINIAN STATE. THE HASHEMITE MONARCHS HAD A DIFFERENT IDEA.[/b]
"Hamas might have a crisis on its hands after losing its leaders," said senior Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh at the funeral on Sunday for Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who was killed on Saturday.
A leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade told Iran's state-controlled news agency that Hamas and Al Aqsa have been seriously hurt by the killings of key combatants.
"The Islamic and Arab world...expected the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas resistance movement combatants to take revenge for the bloodshed of martyr Sheikh Ahmed Yassin immediately, but [they] are unaware of the limitations and [the] amount of pressure imposed against the Palestinian combatants," he said.
The unnamed leader said that in the past month or so, Israel had killed "a unique Al Aqsa explosives expert, Ahmad Bade," along with "one of the most prominent activists of Hamas, Ali Allamah," and a Hamas military commander, Mahmoud abu-Audah.
Several other key Hamas operatives have been captured inside Israel, he added. Due to the difficulties of getting into Israel, he said, the only realistic short-term option was to attack Israeli targets within the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
A leading Arab expert on Palestinian militant movements said that Hamas also might be deterred by the fear that a large-scale attack inside Israel would provoke Israel to kill Arafat - whom Hamas now sees as its main protector. "It is mainly because of Arafat that Hamas is left unharmed by the Palestinian Authority's security services," said Nabil Khatib, a lecturer at Bir Zeit University.
[b]YESTERDAY, THE INDONESIAN REPRESENTATIVE TO THE UNITED NATIONS DEMANDED THAT ISRAEL STOP USING "WEAPONS AND BULLETS" TO DEFEND ITSELF AGAINST TERRORISTS. MAYBE THEY SHOULD USE FLOWERS AND PERFUME?[/b]
[i]Indonesia demands Israel does not use weapons, bullets anymore [/i] http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillatestnews.asp?fileid=20040420193050 &irec=1" title="http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillatestnews.asp?fileid=20040420193050 &irec=1" target="_blank"http://www.thejakartapost.com...
NEW YORK (Antara): The government demanded on Monday that Israel return to negotiations with Palestine and no longer use violence to settle heated disputes between the territories.
“Not with weapons and bullets,” Indonesian representative to the UN Rezlan Ishar Jenie emphasized while conveying the Indonesian government’s stance before an emergency session of the UN Security Council.
The session had been demanded by Arab nations following the assassination of Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi last Saturday.
“It is very important to stop killings of Palestinians because the action will merely cause revenge attacks,” Rezlan said.
“We convey our condolence to the Palestinian families and people.”
If you love goodness and hate evil, this is a tough time to stay sane.
Israel has killed Abdel Aziz Rantisi, the Hamas terror leader, and almost every nation in the world and the nations’ theoretical embodiment, the United Nations, have condemned Israel for doing so.
World leaders and the world organization have said almost nothing about Communist China’s ongoing destruction of one of the world’s oldest civilizations, Tibet. World leaders have said almost nothing about the Arab enslavement and genocide of non-Arab blacks in Sudan. But they convene world conferences to label Israel, one of the most humane and decent democracies on earth, a pariah.
In order to retain my sanity, I ask the reader’s indulgence as I use this column to express personal thoughts.
I have contempt for “the world.” I cherish and admire countless individuals, but I have contempt for “the world” and “world opinion.” “The world” has never cared about evils inflicted on human beings. The Communist genocides meant nothing to humanity. The Holocaust meant nothing. With almost no exception, the mass atrocities since World War II have likewise absorbed humanity less than the Olympics or the Miss World Contest.
IN THE U.S. WE RESTRICT THE TELEVISION STATIONS THAT NEWSPAPER COMPANIES CAN OWN. WE WORRY THAT SOMEONE MIGHT SEE JANET JACKSON'S NIPPLE ON TELEVISION. IN LEBANON, HEZBOLLAH HAS IT'S OWN T.V. STATION. THEY AIR CHARMING PROGRAMS LIKE THIS:
BEIRUT, Lebanon - [b]"The Mission" [/b][is] a game show running on Al Manar, the satellite television channel of Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese group. Contestants from around the Arab world compete each Saturday night for cash and the chance to win a virtual trip to Jerusalem. To heighten the drama, points won by the finalists translate directly into steps toward the holy city that are flashed onto a map of the region.
The show is a novel way for Hezbollah to promote its theme - that all Arab efforts should be concentrated on reconquering land lost to Israel, especially Jerusalem.
"Any program at this television station must present the idea that the occupation of Palestine must end," said Ihab Abi Nassif, a 28-year-old high school physics teacher who is the show's host. "That is the core issue, which is why we work day and night to keep it vivid in people's minds."
The game show, begun last fall, is a tad more subtle than the channel's other offerings outside its fairly straightforward news shows. The program [b]"Terrorists," [/b] for example, plays endless loops of film from Israeli attacks that killed civilians. [b]"Sincere Men,"[/b] drawing its name from a Koranic verse about the strength of the faithful when facing battle, profiles either Hezbollah fighters who undertook suicide missions or those in waiting.
"The Mission" follows a standard game show format, with contestants quizzed about history, literature, geography, science and the arts. But at least half the questions revolve around Palestinian or Islamic history, and at least one contestant is usually Palestinian.
"We wanted to put it into a form that would appeal to a wider segment of the population," said Ibrahim Musawi, a spokesman for Manar and the director of its English news. "It is not in an ideological or a direct way, but in an entertaining way."
Some critics label Manar pure propaganda. They suspect that Hezbollah's backers, Iran and Syria, use the relatively free speech of Lebanon to promote hatreds they would not dare pronounce at home.
"Its television programs show that the [b]Jews are bad[/b], the Europeans are bad, the Americans are bad," said Waddah Sharara, a sociology professor at Lebanese University. "I don't think that it is effective propaganda."
[b]WOW, A SHOW CALLED "TERRORISTS." SHOULDN'T THE NEW YORK TIMES SUGGEST THAT THE SHOW BE RENAMED, "MILITANTS"?[/b]
The Israel Defense Forces http://www1.idf.il/DOVER/site... has a list of Hamas attacks since September 2000. There have been 425 of them, which killed 377 Israelis and wounded 2,076--the equivalent, if you adjust for population, to roughly 17,100 Americans killed and 94,000 injured. The death toll is the equivalent of nearly six Sept. 11s.
THAT'S GOING TO BE A DOOZY OF A "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS" SALE
[i]Administration says it wants Hamas "put out of business"[/i] http://usatoday.printthis.cli...+-+Administration+says+it +wants+Hamas+put+out+of+b usiness&expire=&urlID=996 9464&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F% 2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fnews%2Fworld%2F2004 -04-19-us-mideast_x.htm&partnerID=1660
WASHINGTON (AP) — Responding to Israel's slaying of a Hamas leader, the Bush administration denounced the Palestinian group on Monday as a terrorist organization that should be "put out of business." Over time the Palestinian government should shut down Hamas and provide Palestinians with the social services that Hamas offers them, spokesman Richard Boucher said. . . .
Boucher said Hamas was a terrorist organization and Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who was killed in an Israeli helicopter strike on Saturday, was a leader of the group. Rantisi had assumed the post less than a month ago after a similar Israeli attack killed Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who founded Hamas with Rantisi.
"We especially consider groups that are actively blowing up people to be terrorist organizations," Boucher said. "We are looking for people to put Hamas out of business."
[i]Bush-Sharon Joint Understanding Against the Iranian Bomb - Shimon Shiffer (Yediot Ahronot-Hebrew; 16 Apr 04)[/i]
The U.S. and Israel are planning to tighten their intelligence cooperation in the context of the struggle against the Iranian nuclear program.
President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon held a private conversation on the subject, agreeing that if Iran succeeds in arming itself with weaponry of this sort, this will constitute a threat not only to the states in the region but also to America.
[b]President Bush stated during lunch with Sharon that "an attack on Israel is like an attack on the United States. This is what Israelis must know, and this is what the world must understand." [/b]
Hamas officials in Gaza announced Sunday that they have elected a successor to Abdel Aziz Rantisi, but declined to reveal his identity for "security considerations." However, various sources in Gaza identified the new leader as Mahmoud Zahar, a veteran Hamas official.
Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi, 56, was killed along with his son Muhammad, 27, and bodyguard Ikram Nassar, 35, when missiles fired from IAF helicopters slammed into his car not far from his home in central Gaza City on Saturday night.
Five other Palestinians were wounded in the attack that occurred just hours after a suicide bomber blew up at the Erez industrial zone north of the Gaza Strip, killing a border policeman and wounding three other Israelis.
"The Hamas has been dealt a heavy blow and is facing leadership problems but still has the capability to launch attacks," a security official told The Jerusalem Post.
Hamas chief Khaled Mashal told members of the terrorist organization in Gaza to choose a heir to Rantisi but not to announce his name so not to inform Israeli security forces who the new leader is, Channel One reported. Speaking on Al-Jazeera, Mashal promised that Hamas would avenge Rantisi's killing. He also called on Arabs and Muslims worldwide "to carry out their part in the war between Palestinians and Muslims on the one side, and the Zionist occupiers on the other."
On June 10 last year, Rantisi was lightly wounded when the six IAF missiles slammed into his car, killing his bodyguard and a Palestinian woman and wounding over 20.
After the IAF assassinated Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin last month, Rantisi declared himself Yassin's successor in the Gaza Strip after Khaled Mashaal in Damascus declared himself the overall head of the movement.
Security officials said Rantisi not only played an integral part in planning Hamas attacks against Israel, but incited violence at every opportunity, calling for the abduction of soldiers in order to secure the release of Palestinian prisoners incarcerated in Israel, and also called to continue the armed struggle against Israel until the Palestinians achieve their goals.
He also lashed out against the US. On Friday, in a statement that appeared on the Hamas Web site and responding to the US's open support for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan, he wrote "we should unite in resistance in retaliation to such an American aggressive position... we must stand up to the Americans and tell them that none of us will betray his own country by surrendering the right of return."
He also advised the Palestinian Authority to end its illusions about reaching a peaceful settlement with Israel and declared that Americans were the enemies of the Palestinian people.
A Palestinian refugee group blamed President Bush’s rejection of the “right of return” on Palestinian “peaceniks.”
The Committee for the Defense of the Rights of Palestine’s Refugees, an umbrella body of delegates from West Bank and Gaza Strip refugee camps, issued a statement Thursday blaming Bush’s position on the “unrealistic” attitude toward return exhibited by signers of two recent peace plans — the “Geneva accord” and the People’s Voice initiative — and a poll carried out by Palestinian researcher Khalil Shikaki, the Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported.
These moderate attitudes “served as a foundation upon which President Bush built his statements about the ‘right of return,’ ” the committee’s statement said. “Bush would never have taken this step had he not known that the Palestinian arena is filled with initiatives and ideas to repeal the ‘right of return.’ ”
[i]Report: If plan fails, Sharon goes [/i] www.jta.org
Ariel Sharon reportedly will resign as Israeli prime minister if he fails to win party support for his Gaza withdrawal plan. Ha’aretz reported Friday that Sharon’s son Omri warned fellow Likud Party members that his father would leave office if the party does not endorse the plan in a May 2 internal referendum.
While kids worldwide collect pictures of Hollywood stars or football champions, the craze in the West Bank city of Nablus is a sticker album depicting scenes of the bloody intifada. The Israeli media see the "intifada album" as part of an attempt to inculcate a "shahid (martyr) culture" in children.
The cover sports a picture of the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem with the words "Intifada album" written in flaming stones, and bears 229 numbered rectangles where the children have to stick the pictures. Since he launched the game at the end of 2003, Majdi Taher said that 40,000 albums and 12 million stickers have been sold. The stickers are sold in boxes shaped like tanks.
Last week, a small celebration rang out within the Iraqi Jewish diaspora - a global community of 125,000 people who had been stripped of their citizenship and near $200 million in property during a half-century mass exodus from Iraq.
Iraq's minister of Housing and Reconstruction had publicly declared that Iraqi Jews who were forced from the country have the right to demand compensation for their property left behind.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BUSH'S AND CLINTON'S APPROACHES
[i]Bush Erases the Clinton Parameters - Dore Gold (Institute for Contemporary Affairs/Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)[/i] http://jcpa.org/brief/brief3-...
President Bush's April 14, 2004, letter to Prime Minister Sharon represents a significant shift in U.S. policy, as compared to the Clinton Parameters advanced by the former president after the failed Camp David Summit of July 2000 and in subsequent months.
In his plan, Clinton provided conditional approval of settlement blocs, but insisted that there needed to be "territorial swaps" of land from pre-1967 Israel in exchange for any West Bank land Israel would retain. Bush does not insist on any land swaps involving Israeli territory.
Clinton spoke of Palestinian refugees finding homes in other states including Israel, while Bush states that Palestinian refugees should be settled in a future Palestinian state "rather than Israel."
The Clinton Parameters dropped the idea of defensible borders and replaced them with "security guarantees" including a proposed "international presence" in the Jordan Valley. In contrast, Bush refers to "defensible borders" in the context of preserving and strengthening "Israel's capability to deter and defend itself, by itself."
According to the Clinton Parameters, Israel's security needs "need not and should not come at the expense of Palestinian sovereignty or interfere with Palestinian territorial integrity." In contrast, Bush allows for Israel to continue to control airspace, territorial waters, and land passages in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank "pending agreements or other arrangements."
During the Clinton era, the signing of a peace treaty was supposed to produce security for Israelis. Under Bush, security must be achieved first, as a prerequisite for peace. Given the threats Israel still faces from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Yasser Arafat's own Fatah Tanzim, the approach taken in the Bush letter represents a significant improvement for Israel and for the prospects of a lasting peace.
A committee appointed by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger has been quietly probing allegations of bias and intimidation by faculty, particularly in Middle East studies. Jewish students have complained that some Middle East classes are unbalanced and that faculty members have used their authority to promote anti-Israel activism. "You have a substantial body of extremism in the Middle East studies at Columbia, and almost nothing else to balance it," said Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum. "We want to preserve a healthy atmosphere on campus," said Vincent Blasi, a Columbia Law School professor who chairs the committee. "We want to make sure that classroom time is not devoted to politics or preaching by professors." (New York Jewish Week)
THIS IS GETTING TO BE PREDICTABLE. PRESIDENT BUSH COMES OUT AND TAKES A HARD LINE AGAINST TERROR AND TELLS THE PALESTINIANS TO GIVE UP THE GREEN LINE AS A BORDER AND THE RIGHT OF " PALESTINIAN REFUGEES" TO OVERFLOW ISRAEL. THE NEXT DAY, COLIN POWELL CONTRADICTS THE PRESIDENT. IS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION DELIBERATELY SPEAKING OUT OF BOTH SIDES OF ITS MOUTH OR IS THE STATE DEPARTMENT A ROGUE ELEPHANT?
Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday: "When people take a hard look at what the President and the Prime Minister said, some things should leap out at them. One, for the first time, settlements are being evacuated and being turned over to others for use. Ultimately, these settlements in Gaza will benefit the Palestinian people who live in Gaza; settlements are being turned over. And four more settlements are being turned over or released, not being used anymore, in the West Bank. This is the beginning of a process....The key thing, the reason we support this so strongly, is because there will be the elimination of settlements." (CBC/State Department)
Secretary of State Powell said Thursday: "What ultimately will be decided with respect to return of refugees has to do with a negotiation between the two parties." (RAI/State Department)
IDF reservists arrested a Palestinian woman carrying a 25-kilogram bomb in a large bag at a roadblock set up near the entrance to Ariel early Thursday evening after receiving intelligence information of plans by terrorists from the Nablus area to launch an attack.
The woman was identified as Fatan Daraghmeh, [b]a 28-year-old mother of seven[/b] from Lubban Sharkiya near Nablus. She was affiliated with the Tanzim al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade.
[b]Palestinian sisters Aya, 3, is hugged by Riham, 9, posing with her father's handgun, at a food market in Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Helweh, in the south of the country. [/b] The Palestinian authority is enraged following US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) execution of a major change in policy yesterday and declaring that Israel could keep parts of the territory it captured and then settled after the 1967 Six Day War with the Arabs.(AFP/Joseph Barrak) http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...
[i]Arafat: No compromise on right of return [/i] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1081998807449" title="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1081998807449" target="_blank"http://www.jpost.com/servlet/...
The Palestinian Authority decided on Thursday to embark on a campaign to rally the world against the understandings reached between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and US President George W. Bush over the future of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The decision came amid reports that PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei was considering resigning from his post in protest against the deal. Qurei has threatened to step down in the past, and it was not clear if he was serious this time.
PA officials have reacted with fury to the deal, describing it as a "new Balfour Declaration." Some warned that the US support for Sharon's plan would unleash a wave of terrorist attacks against American interests in PA-controlled areas and the Arab world.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad officials dubbed the agreement as a US declaration of war on the Palestinians, calling for increased attacks against Israel.
The PA daily Al-Ayyam ran a red banner headline that read: "The Second Balfour Declaration – Bush Exempts Israel From Full Withdrawal From the Occupied Territories."
Another PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, said the American message to the Palestinians is, "We are pushing you towards despair."
[b]PA Chairman Yasser Arafat[/b], who held a series of meetings in his office in Ramallah with to discuss the repercussion of the deal, [b]declared that the Palestinians would continue the fight until they achieve all their rights, including the right of return for the refugees[/b].
[b]"The extremist Israeli rulers are wrong and so are those who support them and you know who I mean," [/b]Arafat in a televised speech to mark the 16th anniversary of the killing of his aid, Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad), in Tunis.
[b]Arafat urged Palestinians to defend their land, holy places, and Jerusalem. "Our fate is that we are the defenders of our land and our holy shrines and our rights, as well as the right of the refugees to return to their homeland," he said. [/b]
[i][b]He reiterated his threat to resort to violence against Israel[/b][/i] as long as it continues to occupy Palestinian territories. "Israeli crimes will be faced with more resistance to force Israeli occupiers and herds of settlers to leave Palestinian land," Arafat said.
He warned that, "Israel will not achieve security through occupation, arrogance and assassinating our leaders. The Palestinian people will never give up the goal of achieving freedom and independence and a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital."
[i]Former Al-Azhar Fatwa Committee Head Sets Out the Jews' 20 Bad Traits As Described in the Qur'an [/i] http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD69104" title="http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD69104" target="_blank"http://www.memri.org/bin/open...
On March 22, 2004 Sheikh 'Atiyyah Saqr, former head of the Al-Azhar Fatwa Committee who in the past issued a Fatwa declaring Jews "apes and pigs," was asked the following question this week in an online chat room: "What, according to the Qur'an, are the Jews' main characteristics and qualities?" The following is his answer:
Sheikh Saqr lists one positive trait of the Jews, and then 20 bad traits: fabricating; listening to lies; disputing and quarreling; hiding the truth and supporting deception; rebelling against the Prophets and rejecting their guidance; hypocrisy; wishing evil on people; feeling pain at others' happiness and feeling happiness at others' afflictions; rudeness and vulgarity; murder of innocents; mercilessness and heartlessness; breaking promises; cowardice; and miserliness.
In discussing these bad traits, Sheikh Saqr wrote, "We would like to note that these are but some of the most famous traits of the Jews as described in the Qur'an. They have revolted against the divine ordinances, distorted what has been revealed to them and invented new teachings which, they claimed, were much more better than what has been recorded in the Torah.
"It was [because of] these traits that they were not warmly received in all the countries where they tried to reside. Instead, they were either driven out, or lived in isolation. It was the Almighty Allah who placed on them His Wrath and [humiliated] them due to their transgression. Almighty Allah told us that He had sent to them those who would pour upon them rain of severe punishment that would last till the Day of Resurrection.
"All this gives us glad tidings of the coming victory of Muslims over [the Jews], as soon as Muslims cling to strong faith and belief in Allah and adopt modern means of technology."
READ ON BY CLICKING THE LINK ABOVE FOR MORE DETAILS OF OUR FAULTS
[i]Possibilities for Mideast Peace - George P. Shultz (Washington Post)[/i] http://www.washingtonpost.com...://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9758 -2004Apr13.html
Security for Israel is clearly essential for fruitful negotiations. So far nothing has worked. Those who seek to eliminate Israel have regarded efforts at Oslo, Camp David II, and elsewhere as proof that terrorism works and that every Israeli step toward peace is really a sign of weakness.
Now a security barrier is under construction. By means of a largely insurmountable obstacle to terrorist ambitions, Israel will once again have demonstrated that it cannot be defeated either militarily or by terrorist violence.
The confirmation of this fact is essential. When Palestinians face the fact that terrorism has become both ineffective and self-destructive, that realization may enable them to take a major step toward peace.
The war in Iraq has eliminated a rogue state that repeatedly acted to disrupt progress toward peace. Operation Iraqi Freedom is the keystone of an effort that is indispensable to international security: the transformation of the Middle East from repression and failure to responsive governance and economic opportunity.
[b]The conventional wisdom has it backwards: A solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a condition for positive change across the Middle East, but it can come as part of, and as a consequence of, that change. [/b]
YESTERDAY, I POSTED A STORY ABOUT THE ATTEMPTED BOMBING OF A NEW HOLOCAUST MUSEUM IN BUDAPEST. IT NOW APPEARS THAT A PALESTINIAN IMAN AND TWO SYRIANS WERE BEHIND IT AND THAT FUNDING CAME FROM SAUDI ARABIA. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ISRAEL. IT'S PURE JEW-HATRED.
Police in Budapest Tuesday arrested a 42-year-old dentist of "Palestine origin" who is the spiritual leader of the Islamic community in the city and suggested he was planning to bomb the city's Jewish museum. Two Syrians also were detained on related charges. Senior law enforcement officials in Hungary denied that visiting Israeli President Moshe Katsav was the target of the planned attack. Police Lt. Col. Attila Petofi said the suspect began making phone calls in November to friends "to get explosives," and on one occasion "he asked an acquaintance to use the explosive to blow up a Jewish museum." (Jerusalem Post)
The Islamist terrorists who bombed four trains in Madrid on March 11 also planned to blow up a house in Hoyo de Manzanares, about 40 kilometers northwest of the capital, used for meetings by Madrid's Jewish community, the Spanish daily El Mundo reported Tuesday.
SAY WHAT YOU WILL ABOUT SOME OF BUSH'S POLICY, HE HAS THE GUTS TO SPEAK THE TRUTH ABOUT ANTI-SEMITISM. DURING HIS PRESS CONFERENCE LAST NIGHT, HE WAS VERY EXPLICIT IN STATING THAT OUR ENEMIES ARE FASCISTS WHO WANT TO MURDER JEWS. THAT'S MORE THAN FDR COULD BRING HIMSELF TO SAY DURING THE HOLOCAUST.
President Bush told a news conference Tuesday: "The violence we are seeing in Iraq is familiar. The terrorist who takes hostages or plants a roadside bomb near Baghdad is serving the same ideology of murder that kills innocent people on trains in Madrid, and murders children on buses in Jerusalem, and blows up a nightclub in Bali, and cuts the throat of a young reporter for being a Jew." ....
"None of these acts is the work of a religion; all are the work of a fanatical, political ideology. The servants of this ideology seek tyranny in the Middle East and beyond. They seek to oppress and persecute women. They seek the death of Jews and Christians, and every Muslim who desires peace over theocratic terror." (White House)
(UPDATED) THE BEST PRESIDENT FOR ISRAEL SINCE TRUMAN
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and US President George W. Bush were meeting Wednesday in Washington, in what is seen as a historic summit between the two leaders.
In letters that will be exchanged at the meeting's start, Sharon will reiterate his support for the US Road Map peace plan and detail his disengagement plan, which includes the entire Gaza Strip and four settlements in the West Bank.
[b]Bush will specify that a final solution will take into account demographic changes in the West Bank and not rely entirely on pre-1967 borders. [/b] He will also mention the return of refugees to the Palestinian state.
According to American officials, Bush's declaration following the meeting will be based on and very similar to former President Bill Clinton's 2000 peace plan, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
Advisor to Sharon, Lior Horev, told Army Radio Wednesday that [b]Bush will reject the Palestinian right of return.
"This is a big deal," Horev said. "If you remember Clinton's wording, then he spoke of a private return of refugees to land within the Green Line. But now, that is over." [/b]
GUESS WHAT? ARAFAT AIN'T HAPPY ABOUT THIS. HOW MUCH POLITICAL CAPITAL DO YOU THINK HE HAS LEFT WITH BUSH (AFTER LYING TO HIM ABOUT THE KARINA A AND SANCTIONING THE KILLING OF AMERICANS)?
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat said Wednesday that possible US assurances that Israel could keep some key West Bank settlement blocs and not have to absorb Palestinian refugees would signal "the end of the peace process." http://www.jpost.com/servlet/...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush said on Wednesday that Israel has a claim on some West Bank land that Palestinians say is theirs, in a shift in policy that possibly has major implications for Middle East peace negotiations.
[b]Middle East Newsline has a report that Yasser Arafat personally authorized the terror attack that killed three Americans in a diplomatic convoy. [/b] http://www.menewsline.com/sto...
RAMALLAH [MENL] -- [b]The United States has determined that Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat approved an attack on a U.S. embassy convoy in which three Americans were killed in 2003.[/b]
U.S. diplomatic sources said a U.S. investigation into the bombing of the embassy convoy in the Gaza Strip in October 2003 pointed to a clear role by Arafat. The sources said Arafat granted approval to a plan to strike U.S. interests in PA areas.
Arafat, the sources said, did not draft or approve any details for a Palestinian attack. But they said Arafat agreed to a proposal relayed by a high-level aide for the Palestinians to "pass a message" to the United States.
According to the sources, a senior Arafat aide and member of the Fatah Central Committee left Gaza City for Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah in September 2003 to seek approval for a Palestinian attack on U.S. interests in the area. The Fatah official, described as a liasion between Arafat and Palestinian insurgents in the Gaza Strip, complained of U.S. policy toward the PA and Arabs.
The United States reportedly will not require Israel to leave all of the West Bank under any peace plan. Ha’aretz reported Sunday that President Bush would make the pledge in a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon when they meet in Washington this week. According to the newspaper, the U.S. undertaking not to require Israel to return to its pre-1967 border with the West Bank would come in exchange for a complete Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip, as Sharon is proposing.
The Washington Post has won itself sorry distinction in recent years as a publication that regularly skews its Middle East news - against Israel. A snapshot of coverage in March captures the problem. READ ON......
[i]The West Bank is Part of the U.S. War on Terror by Victor Davis Hanson [/i] www.victorhanson.com
We are blamed in the Arab world for whatever we do in seeking reconciliation over the so-called Palestinian problem. The latest jubilation in the street that broke out on news of Americans dying and corpses being desecrated in Iraq follows a continuous litany of macabre anti-American outbursts, Saddam's bounties to suicide killers, the murder of American diplomats seeking to offer fellowships to Palestinians, Hamas' warnings to extend their bombing campaign against Americans, and, of course, the wild celebration on reports of thousands of dead Americans on September 11. All this is the DNA of a true belligerent of the United States at a time of war. Americans are sick and tired of this poll and that survey warning us that we are not liked on the West Bank. Instead of yet another opinion sampling indicating Palestinian anger at the United States, what Palestinians need to peruse are several polls that reveal Americans' growing disgust with their methods and barbarism.
As a start of our new determination, we should insist on a complete travel ban to the West Bank. We must declare all representatives of the Palestinian Authority personae non gratae in the United States—folk at the present time not welcome in the United States, including and especially diplomats, journalists, students, and academics. Only when such elites and grandees see that there are consequences to their cheap slurs and venom on campuses and American television will they ponder their present relationship with the United States. If we are at war, surely we do not wish normal relations with a people and their quasi leaders who cheer our deaths and threaten more.
We should inform the Palestinians that they are now analogous to Albanians circa 1970 or, better yet, contemporary North Koreans, who now stay out of the United States and vice versa. No aid whatsoever, no travel, no direct ties until barbarism ceases on the West Bank. Americans can accept war, but what tires them are enemies who lob a bomb, scream on television, assassinate an occasional American, and then seethe, claiming that they collectively hate the United States—and yet want its attention, money, and aid. It is time to accept their animus and assume that in this war against fascism in the Middle East, Arafat and Hamas too are quite logically our enemies and should be put on notice concerning the dangerous wages of that new reality.
The Shin Bet and security forces succeeded in thwarting a number of suicide bomb attacks that were to have taken place inside Israel as well as others that were to have been launched against IDF forces and Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.
Security officials believe that terror organizations led by the Hamas will attempt to perpetrate attacks as Independence Day approaches in retaliation for the killing of spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin.
Over the past weeks, over 10 perpetrators were arrested, and 5 major attacks have been prevented, including 3 suicide attacks. In one case, a Balata woman was forced to carry out a suicide attack after being discovered cheating on her husband. Tahanni Khalil, 25 was arrested on March 18, and told investigators she intended to explode in Tel Aviv, thus cleansing her name.
In another triple attack, [b]terrorists were to attack a major city disguised as soldiers. And in another – a bomb was to be tainted with AIDS-infected blood that would infect all those not killed. [/b]
An assassination attempt on the life of Israeli President Moshe Katzav has been thwarted in Budapest, Israeli and Hungarian media reported Tuesday afternoon.
Hungarian police have apprehended three suspects of Arab descent, and will convene a press conference at 5:30pm Israel time to divulge more details. The three suspects are being questioned by Hungarian police. No group has taken responsibility for the plot.
Katsav arrived in Budapest Tuesday for a three-day offical visit to open the new Holocaust Museum of Budapest on Thursday.
Hungarian police said that the Arab nationals planned to blow up the new Holocaust museum in Budapest during its opening ceremony, Hungarian media reported. Hungarian media report that foreign security agencies tipped off their Hungarian counterparts some weeks ago regarding a threat on the president's life.
SALT LAKE CITY - Researchers say that Mormons have continued to posthumously baptize Jewish Holocaust victims into their faith despite a promise to discontinue the practice.
"We are very hopeful that we will be able to convince the church to stop," Ernest Michel, chairman of the New York-based World Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, said Friday. If not, Michel said, his group will consider other options, "possibly legal steps."
Church spokesman Dale Bills said in a statement Friday evening that church officials "do not know what may come of these discussions, but we welcome the involvement of any who seek to resolve amicably the concerns expressed by some of our Jewish friends."
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has long collected names from government documents and other records worldwide for posthumous baptisms. Church members stand in to be baptized in the names of the deceased non-Mormons, a ritual the church says is required for them to reach heaven.
The practice is primarily intended to give salvation to the ancestors of Mormons, but many others are included, since the church believes that individuals' ability to choose a religion continues beyond the grave. Non-Mormon faiths have objected to the baptisms.
"It's ridiculous for people to pretend they have the key to heaven," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. "And even if they say they want to do somebody a favor ... it's not a symbol of love. It's a symbol of arrogance."
In 1995, the Mormon church acceded to demands by Jewish leaders that the denomination stop posthumously baptizing Jews. But Helen Radkey, a Salt Lake City researcher, said on Friday that the process still hasn't ended.
She said she has found posthumous baptism records for 268 Dutch Jews killed in Polish concentration camps, which she described as a "small sampling." All the death camp victims, incorrectly listed in the Mormon database as dying in "Auschwitz, Germany," were posthumously baptized well after the 1995 agreement.
Mormon leaders reaffirmed the 1995 pact in December 2002, after Radkey found at least 20,000 Jews in the church's International Genealogical Index. The church says proxy baptisms have been performed for nearly every one of the 400 million names in the database.
MEET JOHN KERRY'S PROPOSED ENVOY TO THE MIDDLE EAST
ACCORDING TO JIMMY CARTER, THE ARAB WORLD HATES THE U.S. BECAUSE PRESIDENT BUSH IS THE PUPPET OF ARIEL SHARON. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2494559" title="http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2494559" target="_blank"http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/s...
Carter, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, also blamed what he called Bush's pro-Israel policies for engendering animosity against America.
"The prime source of animosity towards the United States is the lack of progress in dealing with the Palestinian issue," Carter said, adding that past U.S. administrations since Harry Truman's have maintained a "balanced position" in dealing with the rights of the Arab population within the Jewish nation.
"The present administration has not done so at all. We have been exclusively committed to the policies of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Israel, and have made no effort to try to have a balanced negotiating position between Israel and the Palestinians," Carter said.
"Israel has the right to build a fence to protect itself if it feels that's what it needs to keep the terrorists from getting into Israel," Secretary of State Colin Powell told a Senate appropriations subcommittee last Thursday. "We have expressed concern to the Israelis over time about the route of the fence and whether it intrudes too deeply into Palestinian territory more than is necessary for the legitimate right of self-defense. The Israelis have made some adjustments to the fence over time and they have taken the fence down in some places once they have had a chance to take a second look at the impact that the fence has had," he said. Therefore, the U.S. will not withhold loan guarantees as it had threatened to do last year. "At the moment, we don't have any plans to dock them over the route of the fence," he said. (MiddleEastOnline-UK)
[i]Jonathan Rauch of National Journal weighs in with a powerful column advancing the argument that Israel and America are waging essentially the same war against Islamist terrorists[/i] http://www.theatlantic.com/po... :
“What America is doing against Al Qaeda and what Israel is doing against Hamas are the same kind of thing, and that thing is not "extrajudicial killing" or "terrorism," but war. Denying that the war is a war has consequences--among them, reluctance to do what is necessary to win. A clever combatant knows that wars are won by many means (many of them nonmilitary) but that killing the other guy before he kills you is one of them. Is killing a Yassin or a bin Laden "extrajudicial"? Yes, but so is the war against militant Islamism. And our side didn't start it.”
[i]Further evidence can be found in the news from Iraq.[/i]
"Palestinian fedayeen fighters have joined the ranks of the rebel Mahdi Army militia in recent days, militia leaders here told The Jerusalem Post [last] Wednesday," the paper reports from Baghdad. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/...
[i]Back in the disputed territories, the Post reports:[/i] "hundreds of Palestinians marched in the streets of Ramallah [last] Wednesday to condemn the US and express their support for the resistance attacks against the coalition forces in Iraq." Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terror group, issued a statement welcoming the "intifada" in Iraq. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1081315302667&p =1078027574121" title="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1081315302667&p =1078027574121" target="_blank"http://www.jpost.com/servlet/... ,
A firebomb damaged the library at a Montreal Jewish elementary school on the eve of the Passover holiday last Monday, and police found anti-Semitic notes taped to the school's walls. Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin called the firebombing an "attack on freedom." Last month, B'nai B'rith Canada reported an increase in anti-Semitic incidents in 2003, with almost 600 cases of violence, harassment, and vandalism against Jews. http://www.canada.com/nationa...
[i]Bethlehem PA Governor's Bodyguard Was Jerusalem Bus Bomb Mastermind - Donald Macintyre (Independent-UK) [/i]http://news.independent.co.uk...
Abdul Rahman Makdad, 28, organized the February bomb on the number 14 bus in Jerusalem and the one just a month earlier which had killed 11 people on a number 19 bus. "I was responsible for the last two operations," he answered coolly. "I don't recall the numbers of the buses."
With the establishment of the PA in the wake of the Oslo accords, Makdad came to Gaza from Libya with Fatah's Palestinian Liberation Army, and then to Jenin, where he served in the Palestinian Security Services. He was transferred to Bethlehem where he became a bodyguard to the PA governor, and was in that job until he was arrested.
[i]Let My People Go: Iranian Jews Held Against Their Will - Pooya Dayanim [/i] http://nationalreview.com/voices/dayanim2004040 60853.asp" title="http://nationalreview.com/voices/dayanim2004040 60853.asp" target="_blank"http://nationalreview.com/voi... Since Islamic extremists took over Iran, the number of Jews there has dropped from 100,000 to 20,000. Eleven Iranian Jews who attempted to flee Iran between 1994 and 1997 by crossing the Iranian border with Pakistan never made it to the other side: They were detained by the Islamic Republic's goons. And their story has never been fully told. No concrete action or step has been taken by any government or international human-rights organization to give these Jews their freedom. (National Review)
[i]Former Terrorist: Expunging Hatred Will Take a Generation - Alyssa A. Lappen and Jerry Gordon[/i] http://www.frontpagemag.com/A...
On March 25, former PLO terrorist Walid Shoebat mesmerized a Wesleyan University audience as he described an attempted lynching when he and fellow Beit Sahour rioters attacked an Israeli officer. Shoebat worked as a PLO student organizer at Loop College in Chicago. To attract participants, his group advertised events deceptively. In Arabic a poster might announce "a fund raiser for the cause." In English, the same poster would invite students "to a Middle East feast with baklava and lamb." Shoebat said that even if the educational systems that mass manufacture hatred should be unexpectedly dismantled, Jew hatred could not be expunged from PA, Arab, or Muslim societies in less than a generation. (Frontpagemag.com)
An Israeli is making a killing by manufacturing memorial candles for assassinated Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin. Don Avni, a candlemaker from Mitzpe Ramon, said Monday that the Israeli airstrike that killed the terrorist leader last month saved his business. “Thanks to these candles, my factory managed to survive financially. The orders are massive,” Avni told the Ma’ariv newspaper, adding that the 3-foot-high candles bearing Yassin´s image were selling briskly in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. “It is absurd that because of Yassin my factory will not close down, but what can you do when the Israeli market is dead?”
A small group of American Jewish servicemen in Baghdad prepare for a Passover seder at one of Saddam Hussein's former presidential palaces. (Washington Post)
Sharon ... said Israel is no longer bound by a pledge to the United States not to harm Yasser Arafat, saying the Palestinian leader and the head of Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas, Hassan Nasrallah, are potential targets for assassination. ...
Regarding Arafat, Sharon said that three years ago he promised President Bush that Israel would not harm Arafat, but since then circumstances have changed.
"Arafat was [then] given red carpet treatment everywhere in the world. Today it is clear to the United States and to everyone just who Arafat is," Sharon said.
Israel and the United States are boycotting Arafat, charging that he is responsible for Palestinian violence.
On March 22, Israel assassinated Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin, and officials said Israeli forces would mete out similar treatment to others involved in the organization or execution of attacks against Israel.
Asked by Army Radio if that meant Arafat and Nasrallah were targets, Sharon replied, [b]"Whoever aims to kill Jews, whoever sends murderers to kill Jews, is marked for death." [/b]
Israel accuses Arafat of encouraging and financing attacks on Israelis. Nasrallah said earlier this week that his group will help Hamas avenge Yassin's death.
[b]Sharon said he had not sought American approval for any strike against Arafat or Nasrallah. "I didn't ask permission from anyone," he said. [/b]
[i][b]If the Passover Story Were Reported by The New York Times or CNN, by Daniel P. Waxman[/b][/i]
The cycle of violence between the Jews and the Egyptians continues with no end in sight in Egypt. After eight previous plagues that have destroyed the Egyptian infrastructure and disrupted the lives of ordinary Egyptian citizens, the Jews launched a new offensive this week in the form of the plague of darkness.
Western journalists were particularly enraged by this plague.. "It is simply impossible to report when you can't see an inch in front of you," complained a frustrated Andrea Koppel of CNN. "I have heard from my reliable Egyptian contacts that in the midst of the blanket of blackness, the Jews were annihilating thousands of Egyptians. Their word is solid enough evidence for me."
While the Jews contend that the plagues are justified given the harsh slavery imposed upon them by the Egyptians, Pharaoh, the Egyptian leader, rebuts this claim. "If only the plagues would let up, there would be no slavery. We just want to live plague-free. It is the right of every society."
Saeb Erekat, an Egyptian spokesperson, complains that slavery is justifiable given the Jews' superior weaponry supplied to them by the superpower God.
The Europeans are particularly enraged by the latest Jewish offensive. "The Jewish aggression must cease if there is to be peace in the region. The Jews should go back to slavery for the good of the rest of the world," stated an angry French President Jacques Chirac.
Even several Jews agree. Adam Shapiro, a Jew, has barricaded himself within Pharaoh's chambers to protect Pharaoh from what is feared will be the next plague, the death of the firstborn. Mr. Shapiro claims that while slavery is not necessarily a good thing, it is the product of the plagues and when the plagues end, so will the slavery. "The Jews have gone too far with plagues such as locusts and epidemic which have virtually destroyed the Egyptian economy," Mr. Shapiro laments. "The Egyptians are really a very nice people and Pharaoh is kind of huggable once you get to know him," gushes Shapiro.
The United States is demanding that Moses and Aaron, the Jewish leaders, continue to negotiate with Pharaoh. While Moses points out that Pharaoh had made promise after promise to free the Jewish people only to immediately break them and thereafter impose harsher and harsher slavery, Richard Boucher of the State Department assails the latest offensive. "Pharaoh is not in complete control of the taskmasters," Mr. Boucher states. "The Jews must return to the negotiating table and will accomplish nothing through these plagues."
The latest round of violence comes in the face of a bold new Saudi peace overture. If only the Jews will give up their language, change their names to Egyptian names and cease having male children, the Arab nations will incline toward peace with them, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah declared.
I'VE ALREADY POSTED ABOUT THE ARAB WORLD'S EMBRACE OF MEL GIBSON'S, "THE PASSION." IT'S ONE OF THE FEW WESTERN OR CHRISTIAN MOVIES THE ARAB DICTATORSHIPS HAVE FAILED TO CENSOR. ARAFAT GUSHED OVER IT, POINTING OUT THAT THE JEWS ARE KILLING PALESTINIANS JUST AS THEY KILLED JESUS. BELOW IS THE REACTION OF THE PALESTINIANS TO THE MOVIE:
The portrayal of a prophet in a film is forbidden under Islam. But many Palestinians, locked in conflict against Israel, say [b]they hope "The Passion" will rouse angry emotions against Jews by Christian audiences around the world.[/b]
"People are calling me from everywhere in the West Bank -- from Bethlehem, Hebron, Ramallah and Nablus -- to ask for copies of the movie," said the owner of a Gaza city video shop, which sells pirated copies of new release movies.
"It looked like more of a horror movie than a historical one," said one viewer, Mohammed Rezik Ahmed. Others thought it was not gory enough. "We believe Jesus suffered more in his life from the Jews than what we saw in the movie," said Hanna Anton.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat watched a preview of the film at his West Bank headquarters earlier this month. Aides said he found the film "moving."
But not all Palestinians were passionate about the film.
"It was nothing special but was simply something that will increase hatred against the Jews," said Ala, a librarian. (Additional reporting by Megan Goldin)
JUAN COLE, A PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN BLAMES ISRAEL FOR THE MURDEROUS BARBARITY OF THE THUGS OF FALLUJAH IN IRAQ. http://www.juancole.com/
"You put yourself in the shoes of an American military commander in Fallujah. He treats with the local clan leaders and Sunni clergy. He tries to get them on the side of the US. He faces hostility, but he is making some progress. And then Ariel Sharon sends US-made helicopter gunships to Gaza and has them fire missiles at people coming out of a mosque, killing 8 and wounding 24. One of the dead is a half-blind paraplegic Islamist named Sheikh Yassin. He could have easily been arrested, and had been in the 1990s. But he was incinerated in a piece of [b]state terror [/b]instead. And all of a sudden the people of Fallujah in Iraq are pointing their fingers at the American troops and saying, 'you did this. You gave Sharon the green light.' And all the commander's hard work in building bridges collapses over night. And four US security personnel are dead, and 5 US troops are dead, and the fighting flares up. [b]Thanks, Prime Minister Sharon. Thank you very much.[/b]"
READING THIS, YOU'D THINK YASSIN WAS JUST A SWEET LITTLE OLD MAN SITTING BY THE POOL IN MIAMI BEACH.
[i]Jews, Americans Top Targets in al-Qaeda Document[/i] http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&stor yID=4739987§ion=news" title="http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&stor yID=4739987§ion=news" target="_blank"http://www.reuters.com/newsAr...
[b]A strategy paper in the latest issue of a guerrilla warfare manual posted on a website sympathetic to al-Qaeda lists Jews, Americans, and Britons as main targets. [/b]"The lands of the infidels should be turned into hell...cells active globally should not set themselves any geographical limits," it said. [b]U.S. and Israeli Jews, followed by French and British Jews, were top human targets.[/b] Chief targets among Christians were Americans and Britons, followed by Spaniards, Australians, Canadians, and Italians. Entitled "Targets Inside Cities," the paper was signed by Abdulaziz al-Muqrin, whom Western intelligence agencies consider the leading al-Qaeda propagandist and financier in Saudi Arabia. (Reuters)
Ya'acov (Kobi) Zaga, 40, of Avnei Hefetz in Samaria, was murdered and his daughter Hanni, 14, suffered moderate gunshot wounds when a terrorist infiltrated the community shortly before 1 a.m. on Saturday morning. Sources in the Shin Bet confirmed that [b]the terrorist was released last week from a military prison[/b]. "The father went out the front of the house. He was armed with a gun and circled to the back of the house where he confronted the terrorist," said a security source. (Jerusalem Post)
In June 1967, Regina Bublil Waldman, then 19, received a phone call at work in Tripoli, Libya, from her frantic mother: "Don't come home. There's a mob outside the house. Find a place to hide."
Waldman is one of nearly 856,000 Jews who fled Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen in an exodus that began after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and ended about 1970. Today, only an estimated 5,000 Jews remain in Arab lands, most of them in Morocco.
"In its zeal and need to address the plight of Palestinians, the world allowed the plight of the Jewish refugees to fall by the wayside," said Stanley Urman, executive director of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, a New York-based coalition of 27 Jewish organizations.
Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) has introduced a resolution in Congress that would instruct U.S. envoys to raise the Jewish refugee issue every time the Palestinian refugee issue is raised as "an integral part of any comprehensive peace."
[b]See also[/b] [i]Senate Takes Up Issue of Jews Who Fled Arab Lands - Melissa Radler (Jerusalem Post) [/i] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1080707285067&p =1078113566627" title="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pag ename=JPost/JPArticle/Sho wFull&cid=1080707285067&p =1078113566627" target="_blank"http://www.jpost.com/servlet/... ; [i]Congressional Bills Introduced on Jews Displaced by 1948 War - Marc Perelman (Forward)[/i] http://www.forward.com/main/l...://www.forward.com/main/article.php?ref=perelman200403319 51
[i]Difficult for a Jew to Live in France - Linda Grant[/i] http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0" title="http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0" target="_blank"http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/...,3604,1182274,00.html
On the streets of Tel Aviv, French has now overtaken English as the most commonly heard foreign language, after Russian. "There are 600,000 Jews in France and four million Arabs. We are too small a population to live in France, we can't exist there any more. All the young people are leaving, some to Israel, some to America. We didn't imagine this problem 10 years ago," said Robert, a radiologist in the process of making the move from Paris. (Guardian-UK)
The number of anti-Jewish acts in France dropped in 2003 compared to the year before, but was still higher than any year in the 1990s, the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights said in a 650-page report that cataloged every recorded act of anti-Semitism and racism for the year. (AP/Ha'aretz)
[b]Hamas attempts to smuggle explosive belts into Israel inside children's toys, according to an indictment against a Hamas activist filed Wednesday in Nablus.[/b]
The man, arrested a month ago, told investigators that he received explosives from the terrorist organizations hidden in children's toys. He said that three weeks before his arrest, he was asked to bring an explosive belt into Jerusalem hidden inside a big teddy bear.
[i]Captured PA Documents Reveal Payment to Anti-Zionist Sect - Amir Rappaport (Maarivenglish.com)[/i] http://www.maarivintl.com/ind...
Documents captured in Arafat's headquarters show that [b]Rabbi Moshe Hirsch, the "Foreign Minister" of Neturei Karta, a religious sect that refuses to recognize the State of Israel, received $55,000 from Arafat just two months before Operation Defensive Shield.[/b]
Among the documents are receipts with Arafat's personal signature authorizing the transfer to Hirsch under the heading "ongoing expenses."
Hirsch is a member of the Palestinian National Council and served in the past as Minister of Jewish Affairs in the PA government.
[b]Federal judge David Martin has ruled that the PLO and its governmental entity must each pay more than $116 million in connection with the murder of Yaron Ungar, an American citizen, and his Israeli wife, Efrat, in a drive-by shooting in Israel in June 1996. [/b]One of their two children was in the car during the attack, but escaped unharmed. The plaintiffs have argued the PLO and PA should be held accountable for the Ungars' deaths because they provided a safe haven and operational base for the murderers. (AP/Providence Journal-Registration Required)
US president Bill Clinton's administration knew Rwanda was being engulfed by genocide in April 1994 but buried the information to justify its inaction, classified documents made available for the first time reveal.
The eastern wall of Jerusalem's Temple Mount is in danger of immediate collapse because of damage caused by the February 11 earthquake, a classified government report issued this week concludes. The report, written by the Israel Antiquities Authority, has been distributed to senior ministers by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's military attache, Brig.-Gen. Yoav Galant, officials said Thursday.
The classified report, details of which were first published in Yediot Aharonot, says that the earthquake damaged the eastern wall of the Temple Mount to such an extent that sections of the wall are liable to cave in on the underground architectural support of the mount, known as Solomon's Stables....
Wakf (Islamic Trust) director Adnan Husseini on Thursday said that the report over damage to the wall caused by the earthquake was "incorrect." "We do not understand how such a report could be issued since there is no problem due to the earthquake," he said.
The report comes as a team of Jordanian engineers continues to carry out repair work on a separate bulge on the southern wall of the Temple Mount, adjacent to Solomon's Stables. ...
Israeli archeologists say that the bulge on the southern wall was caused by the Wakf construction work at Solomon's Stables over the last decade, while a Jordanian report states that it was the result of the natural flow of rainwater over the centuries.
Israel maintains overall security of the site, while the Wakf is charged with day-to-day maintenance at the compound.
[b]In the late 1990s, the Wakf turned Solomon's Stables into the largest mosque in the country, that can accommodate 30,000 worshipers. Its excavation caused extensive damage to antiquities at Judaism's holiest site, which were unearthed and then heaped onto a garbage dump. [/b]
PARIS (Reuters) - Hatred of Jews and Muslims has taken root in France, with anti-Semitism behind most racist crime and hostility towards Islam on the rise, a national human rights commission says in its annual report. ...
"Anti-Semitic violence is taking root and getting worse," Thoraval said of the situation in France after presenting his report to Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. Anti-Semitic violence accounted for 72 percent of the hate crimes and threats registered in France last year, or 588 out of 817, the report said. In 2002, 932 of the 1,313 acts of racist violence were anti-Jewish. By comparison, France registered 614 racist and anti-Semitic attacks and threats in 1995, and 189 in 1990.
JERUSALEM - Israel might move against Palestinian leader Yasser :twisted: Arafat, who has been confined to his West Bank headquarters for more than two years, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Thursday.
Israel TV reported that Sharon made the comment in a series of interviews he gave for the upcoming Jewish holiday of Passover. The interviews are to appear in Israeli newspapers and on radio and TV stations Friday.
Sharon said that Arafat :twisted: cannot remain where he is forever, and it is not impossible that Israel will act against him in the future, Israel TV and another reporter present in the interviews said. The TV did not immediately broadcast excerpts of the interview.
What is a Jew? Those hoping to find out from a Google search are in for an unpleasant surprise. The first of 1.75 million entries that appear when you type "Jew" into the search engine is an anti-Semitic site.
This discovery by a New York real-estate developer, among others, has sparked a cyberspace showdown, and a bid to alter the situation by a small band of Internet experts.
While surfing the Web from his New York home, real-estate investor Steven Weinstock was shocked to find Jew Watch, filled with propaganda similar to that used by the Nazis. "At first I felt surprised, and then those feelings turned to shock," he said. ...
Weinstock has been working to get rid of the site. Last Saturday, he launched his own Web site, called Remove Jew Watch, containing a petition which received more than 3,000 signatures in its first 48 hours – 1,500 on Monday alone. He also wrote an e-mail to Google, demanding that it remove the site.
In an e-mail response, Google refused: "Unfortunately, no computer can assess the morality, tastefulness, or honesty of a site's content. Results are determined by computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page's relevance to a given query."
Emboldened by Google's refusal, Daniel Sieradski, editor of the Jew School, a site devoted to Jewish fringe culture, decided to take matters into his own hands. Using a method called Google bombing, which exploits a quirk in Google's algorithms, he hoped to raise another site to the No. 1 rank.
"I decided to issue a call to arms on my Web site," Sieradski said. "Within a week, my proposal caught the attention of other Jewish bloggers [keepers of Web-based diaries] in the US, Canada, and Israel."
Sieradski's efforts paid off. The Wikipedia encyclopedia listing for "Jew," which just a week ago held no rank on Google, rose to the fourth-highest entry. But Sieradski is still not satisfied.
Gen. Haj Ismail Jabber, commander of the PA National Security force, has been pocketing the salaries for 7,000 fictitious troops every month, according to an examination of payroll records. Some $2 million a month from PA funds was being paid to the general.
In addition, by using differing exchange rates, another half a million dollars a month went into his pocket.
This practice was ended on Thursday when, for the first time, the National Security forces will be paid their salaries through their bank accounts instead of in cash.
A terrorist of the Fatah Al Aksa Brigades' in Jenin who [b]planned to murder Israeli Ambassadors in Germany and China, poison water resevoirs, blow up a gas tank and bomb a wedding hall at Jerusalem's Hyatt Regency hotel [/b]was sentenced on Thursday in the Samaria Military Court to 18 years in prison.
Alam Khader Mahmud Koka, 23, from Nablus, was also given an additional three-year suspended sentence that will go into effect after he serves his initial term.
In reaching its decision, the court noted on Monday that none of Koka's intentions reached the planning stages or were close to being implemented.
CENSORSHIP IN THE ARAB WORLD IS STRICT. FEW WESTERN MOVIES ARE ALLOWED TO BE SHOWN. IT IS ALMOST UNPRECEDENTED FOR ONE WITH A CHRISTIAN THEME (LIKE MEL GIBSON'S "THE PASSION") TO EVEN BE DISCUSSED IN PRIVATE HOMES, LET ALONE SHOWN IN THEATRES. BUT "THE PASSION" IS BEING SHOWN UNCENSORED IN THE ARAB WORLD. SO WHAT GIVES? I BET YOU CAN GUESS.
Cairo -- Arab governments across the Middle East are bending or breaking their own censorship rules for "The Passion of the Christ,'' the Mel Gibson film that sparked fears of anti-Semitism when it was released in the West.
In Egypt, where the film opened to large crowds Wednesday, "it's getting a very special treatment," said Mustafa Darwish, a film critic and former president of the Egypt Censorship Authority.
So far, the film has been released uncensored in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
A longstanding ruling from Al Azhar University -- the ultimate spiritual authority for Muslims worldwide -- forbids the depiction of prophets in movies, and Muslims consider Jesus Christ a prophet. But authorities have made an exception for the controversial film depicting the final hours of Jesus' life. Only Kuwait has blocked its release, citing the ban on portraying prophets.
[b]"They (the censorship authorities) think the film is anti-Semitic. That's why they are giving it such privilege," Darwish said. [/b]
Across the region, the film is packing movie theaters. Lebanese President Emile Lahoud has seen the movie, as has Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who called it "moving and historical.'' An aide to Arafat compared the pain Jesus endured to the suffering Israel has inflicted on Palestinians.
