Nick Berg, an American from Philadelphia, was kidnapped and tortuously beheaded by Arabs in Iraq sometime in May. The murderers filmed the deed and proudly displayed the victim's severed head.
After killing six Israeli soldiers in an attack on an armored vehicle in Gaza on May 11, the Arabs near the scene of the carnage gleefully held aloft human body parts in front of rolling cameras. One of the Arab terrorists was later interviewed on film with what appeared to be a human head in front of him.
The week before, after shooting at Tali Hatuel's car, causing it to skid and stop, Arab terrorists walked over to the vehicle to finish the occupants off. They looked at the heavily pregnant mother and her four no-doubt frightened girls; the youngest was two years old. And then shot them all. At point-blank range. With sadistic satisfaction, they systematically murdered Tali Hatuel and her unborn son, as well as all of Tali's daughters - Hila, age 11, Hadar, 9, Roni, 7, and two-year-old Meirav.
In Fallujah in March, crowds of townspeople dragged four American civilians out of their vehicles, shot or beat them to death, mutilated their bodies, dragged them through the streets, suspended them from a bridge and burned them.
And they danced and cheered.
With their children.
In Ramallah in 2000, two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped, beaten, stabbed countless times, had their eyes gouged out, and were literally disemboweled and dismembered by an Arab lynch mob.
The people - and I use the term loosely - who carried out the initial beatings threw one of the victims down to the waiting mob, where his face was further crushed with stones, feet, fists and even a heavy metal window frame. One Jew was set on fire and dragged along the street as Arab onlookers danced and cheered. Some of the butchers celebrated their crimes with the victims' internal organs. One of the killers, famously captured on film, proudly displayed his blood-soaked hands to the cheering Ramallah crowd.
And it gets worse. In 2003, nearly two years later, Arab parents in Gaza cheered again when their little children dressed up as members of the Ramallah lynch mob, complete with hands painted blood red, for a kindergarten graduation ceremony.
According to a report by Dr. Michael Widlanski, an Israeli Arabic expert, the Voice of Palestine called the attack on the Hatuel girls "an act of heroic martyrdom". The targeted children and their mother, the PA radio reported only as "five settlers".
Among the participants at the funerals of the Hatuel family members was President of Israel Moshe Katzav. He said, "This day of blood will be engraved in our history. An earthquake has happened. No one in the world can stand apathetically by in the face of these acts by such evil people. Where are those who speak in the name of Allah?"
National Review contributing editor David Frum posed the same question in his May 12 "Diary" on NRO: "Where are the imams?" he asked.
Some of "those who speak in the name of Allah," Mr. President, were busy sawing Nick Berg's head from his body in Iraq. "Allah is great!" they shouted in triumphal glee as they killed their bound and helpless victim. The imams are in the mosques, Mr. Frum, waving swords and exhorting their followers to behead a Jew: "Allah willing, we will cut off his head! Oh Jews! Allah is great! Allah is great!" They are also in Saudi Arabian palaces, telling their subjects that they are 95% certain Zionists are behind Islamist terrorism. They are also writing for the Arab media, explaining that Jews are behind all the evil in the world. And they are even organizing soccer matches, Mr. President, honoring mass murderers.
This is the enemy. Don't look away.
[b]Perhaps when another rally is held in support of Iraqi "resistance" or "Palestinian liberation" somewhere in the world, counter-protesters can remind the ever-so-sensitive and progressive demonstrators of Nick Berg's scream of pain, or of two-year-old Meirav Hatuel cowering in her car seat, or of the Ramallah or Fallujah savages dancing with human entrails. [/b]
During the lynch of the two IDF soldiers who had taken a wrong turn into Ramallah in 2000, one of the Arab murderers paused in his savage beating to answer a cell phone belonging to one of the dying soldiers.
He told the worried voice on the other end of the line, "We are killing your husband."
There is a Talmudic dictum that states, "One who is merciful to the cruel, will ultimately cause cruelty to the merciful."
It seems to me that we, Israelis and Americans, have proven the Talmudic sages absolutely correct. Please, no more mercy.
The Bush administration has asked Israel to try starting negotiations with some Palestinian empowered to take responsibility for areas in Gaza evacuated by Israel, to try to prevent a takeover by Islamic fundamentalists. Some American officials have expressed reservations about a unilateral withdrawal that does not involve an orderly transfer of security responsibility to Palestinians on the ground. If extremists take control of the area evacuated by Israel in the first stage, this will be regarded as an Israeli failure that will further damage America's standing in the region. (Ha'aretz)
Egypt's readiness to take part in preserving security in Gaza derives, inter alia, from its fear that a Hamas-controlled Gaza would strengthen and encourage Islamic zealots in Egypt. Hamas in Gaza has always been a sort of Palestinian branch of the Moslem Brotherhood movement in Egypt. Most Hamas leaders studied in Egypt and maintained contacts with Islamic organizations there. Thus Hamas success in Gaza could influence and spur Egyptian Islamic organizations, which head the opposition in Cairo. (Ha'aretz)
At least 11 Palestinians who were arrested or abducted by various PA security services in recent years remain unaccounted for, according to a report published Sunday by the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens' Rights, a Palestinian human rights group.
The report is based on testimony provided by families of the missing detainees, who said they had been threatened by the security forces because of their insistence on pursuing the cases of their sons.
[i]Egypt tells Arafat: Reform or be removed - report[/i] http://www.jpost.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServ er?pagename=JPost/JPArtic le/ShowFull&cid=108597200 7772" title="http://www.jpost.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServ er?pagename=JPost/JPArtic le/ShowFull&cid=108597200 7772" target="_blank"http://www.jpost.com/NASApp/c...
Egyptian Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman has reportedly warned Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat to relax his grip on the reins of Palestinian power or face the possibility that Egypt and the US will cease to block Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from carrying out his threat to "remove" the chairman.
According to a report Monday in the pan-Arab Al-Quds-al-Arabi, Suleiman handed Arafat three demands:
First, to unite all the Palestinian security forces under one command authority, and into three components. These include the police, the Preventative Security Service (equivalent of Israel's General Security Service), and the Palestinian foreign security service (equivalent of Israel's Mossad).
Secondly, give PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei complete authority to conduct negotiations with Israel over Ariel Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan.
Thirdly, stand aside and accept a symbolic position and let others lead the Palestinian Authority.
If these demands are not met, the Egyptian-American shield saving Arafat's life may be removed, Al-Quds-al-Arabi reported.
When the webmasters at Hatzolah Jerusalem http://hatzolah.org.il/ discovered that a group of Arab sites had linked directly to one of the photographs on their web site -- as part of a sick little "slideshow" gloating over dead and grieving Jews -- they arranged a lovely surprise for the death junkies. A day later, the Einsteins who run these sites still haven't figured it out:
Lebanese LGF reader Photoblogger http://p_blog.blogspot.com/ provides translations of the comments at one of the sites linked above, gloating over the pictures of Israeli death and grief with vampirish delight:
1. Lifts the spirits and quenches the thirst
2. May God make them cry blood and make sorrow their constant companion
3. congrats brother, pictures that gladden the heart and quench the thirst. May god let muslims and islam win
4.god bless you brother, pictures that gladden the heart. may god let there remain not one of them.
6. thanks, brother, looking forward to see these scenes repeated every day soon god willing.
7.[cartoon of sharon cutting off arab's arms] even if you chop off our arms we will operate our suicide belt with our teeth
8.[photo of US and ISraeli flag bearers] the jews and crusaders aare alles in murder.
A FEW DAYS AGO, I PRINTED ITEMS ABOUT GENERAL ANTHONY ZINNI AND SENATOR FRITZ HOLLINGS STATING THAT AMERICAN JEWS PUSHED BUSH INTO WAR WITH IRAQ. THE ARAB PRESS IS HAVING A FIELD DAY WITH THIS.
It appears that the Iraqi swamp is growing wider and deeper. The idiots in the US administration are drowning in its mud, prompting American political and military leaders, both Democrat and Republican, to raise their voices, disclose facts and, for the first time perhaps, begin to call things by their real names.
The retired general and former chief of the CIA, Anthony Zinni, has accused high-level officials in the Pentagon of failing to prosecute the war in Iraq and of being unable to grasp its implications and dimensions. He demanded that the officials resign. On the CBS TV show, "Sixty Minutes," Zinni said without naming names: "Someone has ruined things and at this level and at this stage, it should be clear...Now, whose head should roll?" Zinni who served as chief of the CIA from 1997 until 2000 said that the Iraqi war plans and postwar plans were "our mistake from the beginning ...if you are secretary of defense, you are responsible for this, if you were responsible for the planning and implementation on the ground, if you were responsible for other non-military forces, non-political, economic, social or security forces and all others, then you bear the responsibility."
Zinni, a retired general, accused George Bush's administration of launching a war against Iraq in order to help Israel; he accused the top civilian officials in the Pentagon of abject failure. He said that it was time to change the prevailing situation or at least specify who would take responsibility for what is happening - specifically the Jewish officials in the Defense Department, Paul Wolfowitz, his assistant, Douglas Feith and the neoconservatives, who according to Zinni, have hijacked America's foreign policy. He went on to say that these individuals saw in the Iraqi invasion an easy means of controlling the situation in the Middle East and helping Israel. "They went so far as to create intelligence information that served their aims and interests. They must bear the responsibility."
Gen. Zinni accused extremist Jews in the government of "imposing a strategy full of holes on us and they must leave. If I were the head of a military organization with that performance record, I would have resigned. It is time for a change as the current path is leading us to Niagara Falls and I believe that it is time to question who is responsible for putting this plan into action. What has occurred is nothing but a fiasco." He stated that he didn't see the US in the region as bringing about positive democratic change but rather "as neocrusaders ... an occupying force."
[i]Muslim-Christian seminar bickers over inviting Jews[/i] http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/433481.html" title="http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/433481.html" target="_blank"http://www.haaretzdaily.com/h...
DOHA - A Vatican-led conference in Qatar on dialogue with Muslims ended with bickering over whether to allow Jews to take part in future meetings, because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Emir of the Gulf state had opened the seminar by telling senior Muslim and Christian religious leaders that Jews should also take part. "Perhaps it would be worthwhile widening next year's seminar to an Islamic-Christian-Jewish dialogue," Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani said in a speech delivered on his behalf on Thursday.
"That is the way to build a decent human life where love, tolerance and equality prevail for the good of mankind." But Arab clerics told a public forum late on Saturday, that Israel must end its occupation of Palestinian land first.
"Can there be a dialogue with Jews while they still occupy Palestinian land? Would that not consecrate the occupation?" asked Sheikh Abdel-Karim al-Kahlout, the Mufti of Gaza. A Syrian representative of the Greek Orthodox Church agreed.
"We at the Patriarchy of Antioch reject the principle of dialogue with Jews before all the inhabitants of Palestine regain their rights," Bishop Basilious Nassour said. The head of Vatican's Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, organizing the meeting which is held in Qatar every year, said the decision would be in Qatar's hands.
"It is better to try to talk together than not to talk at all, but I would agree that there are certain conditions for a dialogue to take place," Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald said, adding that the Vatican sponsors a separate dialogue with Jews.
The Norwegian national petrochemical workers union is calling for a boycott of Israeli products, reported Israel Radio Saturday.. Concurrently, the leader of Norway's centralist party – the country's largest opposition party – is calling for an international embargo on arms sales to Israel.
An explosion ripped apart a motorcycle in Gaza City early Sunday, residents said, killing three people - including a senior Hamas commander and his assistant.
Hamas charged that Israel was responsible for what it called a “dirty assassination crime” killing Wael Nassar, 38, a top Hamas commander, and his assistant, Mohammed Sarsour, 31, his assistant, and a bystander. The two Hamas leaders were on the motorcycle when it exploded, witnesses said.
It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion. Witnesses said they saw a flash in the sky and then the motorcycle exploded, indicating an Israeli missile strike. The residents said they did not see any Israeli helicopters in the sky, though they heard an unmanned Israeli plane.
Yesterday, Elizabeth Taylor, doyenne of the silver screen and Dame of the British Empire, launched legal proceedings against the descendants of a Jewish woman over the disputed ownership of a Vincent Van Gogh painting.
Ms Taylor was at the height of her fame in 1963, when her father paid £92,000 for the oil painting, View of the Asylum and Chapel at Saint-Remy, at a Sotheby's auction in London.
However, the great-grandchildren of Margarete Mauthner, who owned the painting in the 1930s, claimed it was looted by the Nazis when she was forced to flee Germany. They are demanding its return or a share of its sale proceeds,
In papers filed yesterday in Los Angeles, Ms Taylor insists she is the rightful owner of the artwork, which reportedly hangs on the wall of her LA mansion. "Plaintiff, a renowned motion picture star, philanthropist, social activist and resident of the State of California, brings this action seeking a declaration that she is the rightful owner of a valuable painting by Vincent van Gogh," reads the opening sentence of the lawsuit.
JERUSALEM (AFP) - A failed suicide attack on a busload of Israelis in the southern Gaza Strip killed a Palestinian militant and wounded two soldiers.
An explosives-laden jeep blew up Friday as it tried to ram the bus carrying some 40 Israelis to work at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. ...
A spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) said the attack was carried out by one man, named as Ahmed Abu Jammus, a member of the PRC’s armed wing, from Rafah.
Spokesman Abu Abir said the PRC, the Islamic Jihad’s Al-Qods Brigades and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, all had a hand in the attack.
A statement put out by the PRC later said, “the attack was carried out by the hero and martyr Ahmed abu Jammus, 22, from Rafah, a member of the Saladin Brigades, in response to the massacres by the Zionist enemy in Rafah.”
His vehicle was packed with 250 kilos (550 pounds) of explosives, it added.
[i]Report: Iran Establishes Suicide Bomber Unit to Strike Israel (ArabYnet-Hebrew/Registra tion required)[/i] http://www.ynet.co.il/NonReg/...,,,00.html?CG=US&HU=/articles/0 ,7340,L-2923023,00.html
[b]Iranian intelligence has established a unit charged with recruiting suicide bombers to be sent to Israel[/b], Iraq, and Lebanon, the London-based Arab newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported Friday.
The newspaper received a video cassette of the speech of a senior Iranian intelligence official speaking to students at al-Hussein University, where Revolutionary Guards are trained. In it, he warns that Iran has the capability to strike the U.S. and other Western countries: "We've looked at 29 sensitive sites in the West and we know how to hit them."
[b]AND G-D IS [i]NOT [/i]PLEASED:[/b] [i]6.2 Earthquake Rocks City in Northern Iran [/i] http://www.foxnews.com/story/...,2933,121198,00.html
Nearly four years of terrorism have failed to break the morale or undermine the resilience of the Israeli public, according to a survey by the University of Haifa's National Security Studies Center. The level of patriotism among Jews remains very high, with 87% saying in April that they love and are proud of their country. Some 88% of Israeli Jews said they viewed Israel as their home and had no intention of leaving. According to the head of the center, Prof. Gabriel Ben-Dor, these findings show that despite the fear and anxiety over the terror threat, the vast majority of the Jewish public is extremely patriotic, and the aim of the terrorists in trying to undermine morale and force people to leave has not succeeded.
The survey also showed that a relatively large minority of Israeli Arab Muslims, some 37%, said they love and are proud of Israel, while 68% said they would never consider leaving the country. (Jerusalem Post)
ARMED PALESTINIANS USING U.N. AMBULANCES FOR COVER
Israel channel 10 aired yesterday Inon Maga'l item showing armed Palestinians use UNRWA ambulances to flee undercover.
Photographs taken at the Gaza Zeintun neighborhood about two weeks ago, on the same night the first APC was exploded, clearly show armed Palestinians boarding a UN-marked ambulance with a UN flag, and flee the scene.
The reporter stressed that this was not a Palestinian Red Cross ambulance, known to have transported armored Palestinians since the outbreak of events, but rather a supposedly neutral ambulance of the UN.
UNWRAs commissioner general Peter Hansen is demanding Israel apologize for allegations made last week by defense minister Shaul Mofaz that UN ambulances had been used to transport IDF soldier body remains to terrorist strongholds, reported IBA news.
Hansen said a letter requesting proof from the Israeli government had so far met with no reply. Accordingly, Mofaz has no reason to believe there is any truth at all to the extremely unfortunate accusation being made against UNRWA, said Hansen.
Israeli police have uncovered a network that smuggled PA officers, including members of Arafat's elite Force 17 personal protection unit, into Israel in fake ambulances, and may also have smuggled terrorists into Israel using the same method. Police recently arrested an Arab with Israeli citizenship suspected of posing as an ambulance driver and illegally bringing into Israel dozens of Palestinians disguised as sick patients. The "patients" were hooked up to medical devices inside the ambulances and presented forged documents at Israeli checkpoints. Police recently raided a warehouse near Jerusalem in which commercial vehicles were transformed into ambulances. (Ha'aretz)
Some say that we are re-living the 1930s. I disagree. Today, the danger to Jews is far graver and more complex than it was in the pagan or medieval-Christian world, or during World War Two.
Today, anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli, and anti-American propaganda has gone global. It is visually masterful, technologically sophisticated, and available around the clock, especially in Arabic. Jews and Zionists can be seen holding a meeting of the (fake) Elders of Zion, (falsely) demanding that Jesus be tortured and crucified, committing (fake) massacres in Jenin, and stabbing non-Jewish children to death for their blood.
Old-fashioned Czarist-, Nazi-, and Stalinist-era anti-Semitic stereotypes (the Jews control the media and the banks and seek world domination), have been added to the pre-existing Islamic views of Jews as subhuman infidels. The mix is a hot brew of relentless hatred.
Jew-haters are creating a situation in which dare I say it? Yes, I must say it another mass murder perhaps even a Holocaust-like mass murder of Jews might be possible. Indeed, in my view, it has already begun, certainly not in America, and not yet in Europe but in Israel.
Today, Jews who live in the Jewish state a nation that was initially envisioned as the solution to the ceaseless persecution of the Jews are far more endangered than those who live in the Diaspora. Worse: The existence of the Jewish state is now being used to justify verbal and physical attacks against Diaspora Jews around the world and on campuses throughout the Western world. For example, Zionism is an increasingly dirty word on campuses. I am also told that among American teenagers, the word Jew is increasingly being used pejoratively.
Israel has served as the laboratory, or groundzero, in the terrorist war against the West. It is where the Islamofascists have perfected their experiments, their grisly, spectacular, and well-choreographed mass murders and their ingenious use of hijacked planes.
In my recent book, The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It, I was among the first to characterize the new anti-Semitism as an alliance between Islamofascist terrorists and politically correct western intellectuals. Both groups have remained morally blind to the slaughter of innocent civilians in Israel and America. Worse, they have blamed that slaughter on Israeli and American policy. In their frenzy to scapegoat Israel for all human suffering, these new anti-Semites have joined the United Nations, international human rights groups, and the media in failing to condemn the most horrendous human rights abuses in the world, including genocide.
RECENTLY, 60 MINUTES INTERVIEWED GENERAL ANTHONY ZINNI, MOST RECENTLY COLIN POWELL'S BROKER OF AN ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CEASEFIRE AND BEFORE THAT COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE US CENTRAL COMMAND FROM 1997 TO 2000 UNDER BILL CLINTON. ZINNI HAD SOME HARSH CRITICISM FOR THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND REGARDING THE WAR IN IRAQ.
Zinni is not comfortable just with criticism of how the war or post war effort was run. He needs to blame people, and he wants heads to fall. And he names names -- in particular the group he calls the neocons, naming five men: Doug Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby, Richard Perle, and Ellot Abrams, as the key ideologues who caused this war to occur. [b]And their real justification for pushing the US to war, we learn from Zinni, were not the three stated by the Administration -- weapons of mass destruction, terror links, or gross human rights violations.
Rather, it was to secure Israel, and to remake the Middle East in our image, a noble but unrealistic vision, according to the General. The fact that the named neocons are all Jewish, Zinni says, is accidental.[/b] He says this is irrelevant to him. But if it is irrelevant, why does he only provide the names of Jewish neocons? Are there no others? How Jewish is Jeanne Kirkpatrick or Bill Bennett? And what evidence does he have for his charge that the war was fought for Israel? Zinni never even touches on the three justifications the Administration offered for the war in the 60 Minutes segment. But Steve Kroft repeats the neocon slander, and the link to Israel, and names the Jewish names. This after all is the important part of the story. ....
None of this Jew-baiting is accidental. The road is being prepared for an ugly smear campaign against Jews and Israel. If the war is lost, then the American dead, and all the money spent, will be laid at the feet of a few Jewish political writers and government officials, most of whom are completely unknown to the vast majority of Americans, who can rarely name their Senators or Congressman. ....
The absurdity of the charge that the Jewish neocons led us to war requires one to believe that Dick Cheney, and Don Rumsfeld, and Condoleeza Rice are push-overs, without real views of their own, and they were therefore easily manipulated by the nefarious neocons. So Lewis Libby is the power behind Cheney, and Elliot Abrams the man behind Condoleeza Rice (how un-feminist to make this charge). Feith and Wolfowitz need only whisper in Rummys ear, and he marches soldiers off to war. And masterminding all of it from afar, is the Prince of Darkness, Richard Perle. Now we have all learned these last few years that Dick Cheney tells George Bush what to do, so there is no need for Zinni to link any of the neocons directly to Bush. ....
But the Jewish conspiracy charge is not accidental. Zinni, and his ilk do not have any serious hope that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld or Rice will resign. Rumsfeld seems to have weathered the attacks against him for now. But the underlings are more vulnerable, and so are the Jews.
For decades, Jews were not welcome in the State Department or intelligence agencies because of the professed fear by others in these agencies or departments that they would be a fifth column for Israel. The real problem of course, is that a fifth column already exists: generations of diplomats and politicians, in thrall to Arabia, who follow their government service by joining the Saudi sponsored think tanks, and Middle East institutes on campus, or as journalists penning the Arab party line.
This was considered a natural and positive (lucrative) phenomenon. Of course, keep these oily wallets open for the next generation. But these pesky Jews have upset the natural order. They are threatening the money train, and have hijacked foreign policy, all for Ariel Sharon, of course. So in the end, these attacks have a more insidious purpose: not just to tar the Jews in America, but to undermine support for Israel, by the malicious suggestion that Israel is really creating American foreign policy through its neocon strike force, and that Sharon is responsible for sending American boys off to die for Israel.
Israel is wiling to allow Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat freedom of movement in exchange for a promise to put a stop to terror attacks in the Gaza Strip, the London-based Dar al-Hayat newspaper reported on Tuesday.
According to the report, Israel passed this message to Arafat through Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who met with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Shin Bat chief Meir Dagan on Monday, prior to his meetings in Ramallah.
The City Council of Madison Wisconsin is considering a proposal to become a "Sister City" with the town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip: [i]Madison-Rafah Sister City Project[/i] http://www.madison-rafah.org/...
The resolution states:
[i]WHEREAS, a sister city relationship between the City of Madison and Rafah would foster deeper understanding of the traditions, values and cultural heritages among citizens of both cities; and
WHEREAS, [b]the mission statement of the municipal government in Rafah reflects a democratic vision that corresponds to the values of Madison's political leadership[/b], namely to "provide leadership and work with all of the citizens, existing neighborhood communities, all levels of government and international aid donors to build efficient, effective and participatory local government, deliver necessary services and make the vision of our people a reality"; and
WHEREAS, the communities of Madison and Rafah, despite many differences, share such common goals as developing green space, improving the environment, balancing urban growth with the preservation of farmland, and enhancing transportation networks...[/i]
Visiting U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos (D-Cal.) said Monday: "It is self-evident that if Egypt, with its huge military capabilities, would do its job to prevent the smuggling of weapons and if the Palestinian Authority had done its job to maintain security, then there would have been no need for such an incursion [into Gaza]." "It is self-evident that Egypt has all the capability to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza if it so desires to do so, just as Assad could stop terrorists from entering into Iraq if he so willed," Lantos said.
[b]"Arafat is a poison in the region...a plague and a pest [/b]who has contributed to the tragedy and suffering of Palestinians and Israelis for a long time," Lantos said. "His destructive, irresponsible, and monstrous behavior has brought death and destruction to his people and suicide bombings to Israel. The sooner he fades into oblivion the better off the region will be." (Jerusalem Post)
American Jewish leaders asked UN Secretary General Kofi Annan last week to appoint a special advisor on Jewish affairs to be his liaison with American Jewish organizations. According to a UN source, the Jewish leaders said they made the unusual request because Annan is surrounded by aides and advisors - many of them from Muslim countries - who are hostile to Jews, and they have therefore found themselves unable to access him. His Pakistani bureau chief is particularly noted in Jewish circles for avowed hostility toward Jews. At the meeting, the Jewish leaders also said that several of Annan's recent public statements have been one-sided and hostile to Israel. Annan responded that he is in a difficult situation. (Ha'aretz)
FRENCH POLITICIAN WANTS ARABS TO HAVE NUKES TO "CHECK" ISRAEL
There is, however, another serious imbalance for which we are in part responsible, namely the imbalance of forces. [b]I have no hesitation in saying that we must consider giving the Arab side a large enough force, including a large enough nuclear force, to persuade Israel that it cannot simply do whatever it wants. That is the policy my country (DF: i.e. France) pursued in the 1970s when it gave Iraq a nuclear force.[/b] We have now destroyed it. So we will carry on with our policy of imbalance and what is happening today is merely the annoying but inevitable result of our collective blindness and cowardice.
[b]While some people believe that suicide bombing results from desperation and oppression, there is no such link as a matter of fact or history. Suicide bombing is a tactic selected by privileged, educated, and wealthy elitists because it has proven successful.[/b] Why do these overprivileged and well-educated young men and women support this culture of death, while impoverished and oppressed Tibetans continue to celebrate life despite their occupation by China for half a century?
The answer lies in differences among the leadership. The leaders of Islamic radical causes, especially the Wahhabis, advocate and incite suicide terrorism, while the leaders of other causes, such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., advocated different means. The bombers accept death because they have been incited into a frenzy of hatred by imams preaching "Kill the infidels." The time has come to address the real root cause of suicide bombing: elitist incitement by certain religious and political leaders who are creating a culture of death and exploiting the ambiguous teachings of an important religion. (Jerusalem Post)
A troop of 11-13-year-old Jewish Girl Scouts in Scarsdale, New York, who were [b]warned by the national Girl Scouts against marching in uniform at the annual Israel Day Parade because it would be "insensitive to Arab Scouts," [/b]received a last minute okay, a troop leader said. [b]Though the national Girl Scouts urges its scouts to join parades of other cultures as a gesture of solidarity - such as Mexican pride, Hispanic heritage, and Asian New Year [/b]- it has told Jewish troops in the past that a parade for Israel is different because it is political and other parades are ethnic. (Jerusalem Post)
Israeli security officials last week thwarted a major Hamas suicide bombing aimed at Jerusalem, police announced Monday.
The bombing, which was suppose to take place last Sunday night or Monday morning in Jerusalem's Meah Shearim ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, was thwarted after police and the Shin Bet received pinpoint intelligence information that Hamas was planning on carrying out a major bombing in the city.
Following the alert, police set up spot checks at the northern entrances of Jerusalem and carried out other security measures to intercept the bomber.
Concomitantly, Jerusalem police arrested an 18-year-old Arab resident of the Old City suspected of involvement in the planned attack. During his interrogation, he told police that he had been enlisted by his cousin and was suppose to receive a 15-20 kilogram bomb and pass it on to the Palestinian bomber, who was supposed to come to Jerusalem from the West Bank city of Nablus.
At the same time, two Palestinian residents of Nablus, who live in northern Jerusalem, were arrested by police on suspicion of involvement in the bombing. During their interrogation, the two, who are vegetable merchants, told police that the bomb had been smuggled into Jerusalem inside a vegetable cart.
During a search carried out by police and the Shin Bet in northern Jerusalem, the bomb was discovered and safely detonated by police sappers.
NABLUS, West Bank Three members of the Hamas militant group were killed Sunday while handling explosives, Palestinian security sources said. The men had pulled their car up alongside an abandoned vehicle used to store their explosives, and the storage vehicle blew up while one of the militants was handling materials inside, the sources said.
Witnesses said the men had rushed to scene after police attempted to clear out the area due to suspicions about the abandoned vehicle. They said the men were hastily trying to gather the explosives when the blast went off.
An official IDF source confirmed Amir Orens' 21 May story this afternoon to IMRA that two Palestinian children who died in the Rafah procession incident were murdered by Palestinian gunmen and that the IDF photographed the shooting.
The official IDF source explained that the pictures have not been released to the media because information derived from the photographs would compromise security in the field at this time.
The following is a repeat of the excerpts from Oren's original article:
[i]Inside Track / Rafah is a nightmare, By Amir Oren Haaretz 21 May 2004[/i] www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/430200.html
... When the procession with armed men in its midst set out in the direction of the forces, (the commander of the Gaza Division, Brigadier General Shmuel) Zakaii tried to speak with the community leaders in Rafah. The head of the Liaison and Coordination Administration, Colonel Poli Mordecai, phoned Nasser Saraj, the head of the Civil Committee in the city. Had the Liaison and Coordination Administration sufficed, they would not have needed the tank commander. Saraj, a respected individual, formerly the director-general of the Ministry of Trade and Industry in the Palestinian Authority, listened to Colonel Mordecai's pleas, but took no steps to prevent the disaster.
When men obeyed the calls over the loudspeakers to turn themselves in to the IDF authorities (and to the intelligence people who wanted to question them), they were confronted by [b]members of the terror organizations, who opened fire on them and killed two children. A senior officer in Gaza reported yesterday that the IDF have in their possession pictures of this incident, of Palestinians killing their children. He expressed amazement as to why the army has refrained from publishing them.[/b]
[b]MADONNA has axed three gigs in Israel after terrorists threatened to kill her and her kids.[/b] The singer was terrified by a blitz of poison-pen letters. Madge freaked out when she learned of a terrorist plot to kill her two young children if she performed in Israel.
She first planned to defy the extremists but cancelled after the [b]unnamed Palestinian group [/b]mentioned details about Lourdes, seven, and three-year-old Rocco in a series of threatening letters.
A source said: The notes were unbelievably scary. Madonna is a strong woman but she freaked out when her kids were mentioned. At first she was prepared to go on stage anyway and hire extra security.
But she was not ready to take chances with her kids they are her whole world. The threats were sent to the singers offices in Los Angeles. They became more frightening as they displayed in-depth knowledge of the stars closest aides.
The situation in Israel has pushed American Jewry significantly to the Right, which means more Jews will vote Republican in this year's presidential elections than ever before, Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle told The Jerusalem Post Friday while on her first trip to Israel.
Herself a Jewish Republican, Lingle has her biases. But as a moderate, she knows that party ideology has its limits.
"I think there's been a big shift, and it's because of Israel and President Bush's support for Israel. While they may not agree with the president on a variety of things, and I don't agree with him on everything, the bottom line is he's a great friend of Israel, certainly among the closest to Israel of any president America has ever had," she said. "You may be a Democrat by your political orientation, but you have to agree that President Bush is supporting Israel at a very difficult time to support Israel, when our European allies are not being supportive, and yet he's willing to stand up for the country."
The Society of Fighters for Estonia's Freedom, which includes, among others, veterans of the Estonian 20th SS division, has initiated the opening of a monument to Estonian SS fighters who fought for Nazi Germany during WWII, Russia's Interfax quoted the Postimees newspaper as reporting on Saturday.
The initiators plan to install the monument in Tallinn's district of Maarjamae, about fifty meters away from a memorial in honor of the Soviet forces who fought in Estonia, in July this year, Interfax said.
Three large crosses are already installed at the site. The new monument is intended to include plaques bearing the names of 16 Estonian units that fought for the Wehrmacht. There will also be flagpoles, a plaque with explanatory text in four languages, and a cast-iron map of Estonia indicating the places where the SS units fought against the Soviet army, the Russian news agency reported.
In an attempt to get the foreign media to report what is actually happening on the ground in Gaza, the IDF's spokesman's unit pleaded with foreign news agencies to join IDF forces in their operations and see for themselves. By mid-week, the IDF had to admit that the attempt was an abject failure. Almost no one took them up on the offer. The foreign media is not interested in showing the truth. They simply want to criminalize Israel.
Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.) blasted the pro-Israel lobby on the Senate floor, but emphasized that he was not anti-Semitic.
The retiring lawmaker took to the floor Thursday to defend a column he wrote earlier this month, suggesting that the United States went to war in Iraq to benefit Israel. Several American Jewish organizations, including the Republican Jewish Coalition and Anti-Defamation League, have condemned Hollings column. [b]I dont apologize for this column, Hollings said. I want them to apologize to me[/b] for talking about anti-Semitism. Hollings also said, You cant have an Israel policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here, referring to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
[i]Jordanian Soldier Fires on Israelis at Allenby Bridge - Yoav Stern [/i] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/... A Jordanian soldier opened fire Thursday at a group of four Israelis at the Allenby Bridge border crossing between Israel and Jordan. There were no casualties. "We were waiting in the VIP room for our passports to be returned. A policeman came in and fired one bullet that missed us. His rifle jammed and he cocked it. Each time he pulled the trigger the rifle didn't fire and eventually there were about 30 bullets on the floor around him," said Israel Harel, one of the Israelis present during the incident. (Ha'aretz)
[i]Jewish supporters of John Kerry launched a Web site. [/i] www.jta.org
JewsforKerry.org, which is not affiliated with the presidential campaign of the Democratic senator from Massachusetts, will host content and discussion forums. It seeks to make the Jewish case for a Kerry administration. By encouraging American Jews to study the issues close to our hearts and integral to the 2004 campaign, we hope to create an environment for free discussion and genuine grass-roots advocacy, Web site staff member Isaac Brynjegard-Bialik said in a news release. WWW.JEWSFORKERRY.ORG
Sleiman Elmerhebi, 18, and Simon Zogheib, 18, were arrested last Friday and charged with arson and conspiracy in the firebombing of a Montreal Jewish elementary school on April 5. Elmerhebi's mother, Rouba Elmerhebi Fahd, 36, was also arrested and charged with being an accessory after the fact. All three are Canadian citizens of Lebanese origin. (Toronto Globe and Mail)
The suspects were former members of Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen paramilitary organization, the Iraqi security official said on condition of anonymity. Iraqi police arrested them on May 14 in a house in Salaheddin province, north of Baghdad. The province includes Tikrit, Saddam's hometown. . . .
The group that was involved in the killing of Berg was led by Yasser al-Sabawi, a nephew of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi security official said. . . . American officials have said they believe Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian wanted for allegedly organizing attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq on behalf of al-Qaida, personally carried out Berg's killing.
On Wednesday (May 19), two very similar incidents caused the death of 10 Palestinians in Gaza, and about 40 Iraqis along the Syrian border. In both events, local witnesses immediately claimed that military vehicles intentionally fired upon unarmed civilian crowds. In Gaza, the IDF immediately denied this; likewise in Iraq, US commanders firmly disputed it.
Responsible news coverage should have conveyed the disputed nature of the two unfortunate incidents. Yet while most media outlets were careful to express the US position prominently in the headline and opening sentence, that same balance was denied to Israel. The effect ― a worldwide suggestion that the IDF deliberately murdered innocent Palestinian protestors.
Honest Reporting www.honestreporting.com has an excellent discussion of this, with examples. But what did really happen in Rafah? You may be interested in reading the IDF's version (which few if any media outlets referenced).
Today's incident in Rafah is a very grave incident and the IDF expresses deep sorrow over the loss of civilian lives.
At no point in this incident was intentional fire opened in the direction of civilians.
A large procession of several hundreds demonstrators, [b]among them gunmen[/b], organized by the Palestinian Authority, left central Rafah along the main road towards IDF forces in Tel-Sultan.
As the crowd, with the gunmen among them, drew near IDF forces, a warning fire of a single missile was fired from a helicopter into an open area, not towards the demonstrators. In addition, flares were fired in the air to deter the crowd and to prevent endangering the demonstrators.
As this did not deter the crowd and they continued to converge on the troops, machine gun fire was opened towards a wall of an abandoned structure along the side of the road and then four tank shells were fired at this abandoned structure. It is possible that the causalities were a result of the tank fire on the abandoned structure.
The details of the incident continue to be investigated. It should be mentioned that the scene of the incident is an area of combat and an area of frequent exchanges of fire. [b]The road has been rigged with explosive charges planted by the Palestinians.[/b] The IDF has not yet cleared the road of these explosives. At this stage it is difficult to determine the cause of the civilian casualties.
The incident is being investigated thoroughly at this time. The IDF has approached the Palestinians and offered medical assistance, including the evacuation of the casualties to Israeli hospitals.
A leader of the armed wing of the radical Hamas movement has been killed in an Israeli air strike in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, it has been reported.
AFP news agency said the news came from Palestinian medical and security sources.
The body of 37-year-old Khalid Abu Anza, who was killed in the early morning, was recovered by medics in the evening, AFP reported.
Arab prisoners beaten and tortured, innocent bystanders killed by gunfire - another damning human rights report. But the difference this time is that the violence is being perpetrated by the Palestinian Authority, and the victims are its own people.
The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group report, partly funded by the Finnish government, claims Palestinian cities are in a state of near anarchy, with people on the payroll of Arafat's PA blamed for 90% of gangland violence.
It highlights numerous incidents of torture of prisoners and refers to the killing of civilians in gunbattles between Palestinian factions.
It is another blow for Arafat's organization, which was recently accused of misusing 134 million of EU funds.
[b]See also[/b] [i]The Intrafada: An Analysis of Internal Palestinian Violence (Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group)[/i] http://www.phrmg.org/intrafad...
[i]Palestinian Militants Try to Abduct Foreign Journalist (DPA/News24-South Africa)[/i] http://www.news24.com/News24/...,,2-10-1462_1529828,00.html
Palestinian militants tried to abduct a foreign journalist working for an American news outlet as he was reporting outside a hospital in Rafah, the Foreign Press Association in Israel said Thursday.
A group of men outside Rafah's al-Najjar hospital first engaged him in conversation, but then grabbed him and tried to bundle him into a car. Passers-by who heard the journalist's shouts managed to foil the kidnapping.
The Israeli army has repeatedly warned that it had intelligence information indicating that Palestinian militants planned to abduct foreign journalists.
A New York Times correspondent narrowly escaped a kidnap attempt by Palestinians while covering Israels extensive raid into the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, the newspaper said on Thursday.
James Bennet, bureau chief for Israel and the territories, said he was speaking on a cellphone in front of a Rafah hospital on Wednesday when a Palestinian he did not know came up, smiled and offered his hand, saying, Welcome.
When Bennet shook his hand, the man and another Palestinian grabbed him and tried to thrust him into an old Mercedes car that pulled up with its back door open, recalling kidnappings of foreigners by Muslim militants in wartime Beirut in the 1980s.
An abduction was averted only by police at the hospital, who ran to Bennets assistance in response to his struggle and cries. The men then jumped in the car and sped away, the correspondent said in his dispatch in Thursdays Times.
IT'S SUPREMELY IRONIC THAT THE PALESTINIANS TRIED TO KIDNAP JAMES BENNET OF THE NEW YORK TIMES. HE'S ONE OF THEIR CHIEF APOLOGISTS AND HIS ARTICLES ARE NOTORIOUSLY BIASED AGAINST ISRAEL. SEE HERE: http://littlegreenfootbal ls.c... AND HERE: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/...
[b]UPDATE II: [/b] SO WHO DOES BENNET BLAME FOR HIS ATTEMPTED KIDNAPPING? THE PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS? AH, NO. IT'S BUSH AND ISRAEL!!!! "Anger at Americans has been building here for three years over the Bush administration's perceived tilt toward Israel, the occupation of Iraq and, most recently, images of prisoner abuse in Iraq." http://www.timeswatch.com/art...
The U.S. allowed adoption of a UN Security Council resolution rebuking Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes by abstaining rather than using its veto power to kill the measure. James Cunningham, the U.S. deputy ambassador, told the council he abstained because the resolution did not touch on "terrorists smuggling weapons into Gaza through tunnels.'' "While we believe that Israel has the right to act to defend itself and its citizens, we do not see that its operations in Gaza in the last few days serve the purposes of peace and security,'' Cunningham said. (Reuters/New York Times)
[b]The Tel Aviv District Court on Thursday convicted West Bank Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti in the deaths of 5 people - four Israelis and a Greek monk. [/b]
[b]Barghouti was convicted of four of the 37 terror attacks he was charged with orchestrating[/b], including three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. In addition, he was convicted of membership of a terrorist organization.
The judges said that, even though it was clear Barghouti was involved in the other terrorist attacks, there was not enough concrete evidence to link him with the rest of the cases, as required by Israeli law.
The verdict stated that Barghouti, in his capacity as [b]commander of the both the Fatah-Tanzim and the al-Aksa Martyrs' Brigades in the West Bank[/b], he was responsible for all of the terror organizations' military activities.
It also said that, in this position "he was a [b]direct subordinate of Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat[/b]. His military actions were intrinsically connect to his political work, as secretary general of the Fatah in the West Bank and member of the Palestinian parliament."
[b]Members of the Fatah Al-Aksa Martyrs' Brigades said Thursday in response to the verdict that they would make kidnapping Israeli soldiers "their top prioroty". The soldiers will be used as bargaining chips to negotiate Barghouti's release, they said. [/b]
Commenting on the verdict, Justice Minister Yosef Lapid said: "We may have to consider putting Arafat on trial one of these days." ....
The prosecution asked the court to sentence Barghouti to five life-terms. Sentencing will take place on June 6.
In a rare move, Yad Vashem on Thursday criticized an Austrian newspaper for running a caricature that compared an IDF solider to a Nazi.
In the caricature titled "Then and Now," which appeared Wednesday in the Austrian newspaper Kleine Zeitung, a frightened Jew appears on one side of the cartoon, labeled past, as a Nazi soldier, with a swastika on his arm, bears down on him.
On the other half of the caricature, marked present, a small, frightened Palestinian child appears, with an Israeli soldier with a Star of David on his arm bearing down on him.
"The caricature is a classic expression of the new antisemitism... which diminishes the Holocaust and distorts both today's reality as well as that of the Holocaust," a press release issued Thursday by Yad Vashem read.
[i]Palestinians Responsible for Children's Death in Rafah[/i] http://www.ynet.co.il/NonReg/...,,,00.html?CG=US&HU=/articles/0 ,7340,L-2918614,00.html
The Palestinians claimed Tuesday that a young brother and sister were killed by IDF fire. However, a preliminary inquiry by the IDF indicates that they were apparently killed by a bomb placed by armed Palestinians. IDF sources said, "The bombs set by armed Palestinians next to the mosque and the school strengthen our estimation that the two were hurt by a bomb of this type."
IDF sources emphasized that the civilian population in Rafah also has suffered from the gangs involved in the smuggling tunnels, and some have even assisted Israel in revealing tunnels. "This operation is very important to the residents of Rafah," a senior officer said. (Yediot Ahronot-Hebrew)
Colin Powell has got some nerve. After a week in which 13 young Israeli soldiers had been killed by Palestinian terrorists, who then paraded the body parts of their victims through the streets of Gaza, the US secretary of state could find nothing better to do than to cozy up to the Palestinians and criticize Israel.
Shortly after arriving in Jordan this past Saturday, Powell met with the Palestinian leadership. Afterwards, he told reporters that he was pleased to have had a "constructive talk" with Palestinian premier Ahmed Qurei, along with "my colleague Nabil Shaath and so many other of my good friends from the Palestinian Authority."
His "good friends"? This is the same Palestinian Authority that has been waging a terrorist war against Israel since September 2000 and which is directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent men, women, and children. It is the same entity that Powell's own State Department, in its recently released report on Patterns of Global Terrorism, has linked to acts of terror against the Jewish state. And this is whom Powell considers to be his "good friends"?
Not only that, but in his remarks to the press, with a smiling Qurei standing at his side, Powell did not even bother to mention the horrific events of the preceding week. He did not see fit to condemn the Palestinians' vile desecration of Israel's dead, nor did he denounce their ongoing efforts to carry out attacks against the Jewish state.
Indeed, not once did Powell even mention the word "terrorism." As if that weren't bad enough, Powell followed up this appalling performance with an even more shameful one the next day.
Speaking Sunday at a news conference at the World Economic Forum on Jordan's Dead Sea coast, Powell slammed Israel for demolishing Palestinian structures in Gaza that have been used to stage attacks on Israel's soldiers.
"We know that Israel has a right for self-defense," Powell said, "but the kind of action they are taking in Rafah with the destruction of Palestinian homes, we oppose. We don't think that that is productive," he added.
That Palestinian terrorists use these very same houses to attack and kill Jews doesn't seem to move Powell one whit, nor does he seem troubled by the fact that his "good friends" in the Palestinian Authority utilize the area to smuggle in weapons from Egypt. On those issues, he is strangely silent.
And yet when Israel seeks to thwart such efforts by expanding the Philadelphi Route, as the area between Rafah and the Egyptian border is known, Powell suddenly finds his voice and lambasts the Jewish state for daring to defend itself. NEEDLESS TO say, this is hardly the first time that Powell has chosen to denigrate Israel.
Two years ago, while testifying before Congress, he outrageously accused Israel of trying to solve the Mideast conflict by killing as many Palestinians as possible. "Prime Minister Sharon has to take a hard look at his policies to see whether they will work," Powell said. "If you declare war against the Palestinians thinking that you can solve the problem by seeing how many Palestinians can be killed, I don't think that leads us anywhere" (New York Times, March 7, 2002).
In April 2001, after IDF troops entered Gaza to stop Palestinian mortar attacks against Sderot, Powell responded by rebuking Israel, saying that its actions were "excessive and disproportionate" as if there was something wrong in Israel's attempting to protect itself.
But what is truly remarkable about Powell's latest broadside over Israel's destruction of Palestinian homes in Gaza is its sheer unvarnished hypocrisy. After all, it was just 15 short years ago that a certain American general named Colin Powell oversaw the US invasion of Panama in late December 1989. In the initial days of the war, US forces bombarded the El Chorrillo neighborhood of Panama City, where the headquarters of the Panamanian Defense Forces were located alongside the homes of thousands of innocent civilians.
According to a report prepared by the UN Economic and Social Council, the result of the US attack on El Chorrillo was that "several blocks of apartments were totally destroyed, as a result of which their inhabitants were forced to seek alternative accommodation, often at a great distance from their former dwelling. Other buildings suffered severe damage."
By the UN's estimate, the homes of at least 2,723 Panamanian families, totaling approximately 13,500 people, were affected.
An April 7, 1991, the Human Rights Watch report was even more blunt, referring to "the devastation" of El Chorrillo and asserting that Powell's forces had "violated the rule of proportionality, which mandates that the risk of harm to impermissible targets be weighed against the military necessity of the objective pursued."
Now, isn't that ironic. The same Colin Powell who blasted Panamanians out of their homes 15 years ago to protect American troops now chooses to criticize Israel for doing the very same thing. Who does he think he's kidding?
But let Powell complain all he wants. Israel has no choice but to safeguard its citizens, regardless of what the secretary of state and his "good friends" the Palestinians might think.
(Columbia-AP) May 19, 2004 - [b]Senator Ernest Hollings is defending statements he made in a newspaper opinion article he wrote that said President Bush went to war with Iraq to protect Israel and appease American Jews.[/b] Read it on the senator's web site http://hollings.senate.gov/~hollings/opinion/2004506 A17.html
Hollings, a Democrat, refused to talk with The State newspaper in Columbia about the article on Tuesday, but his office released a letter the retiring senator sent a constituent as a statement.
Hollings wrote that he could provide quotes from Jewish leaders in the United States and Israel to support his position. Hollings says characterizations of his comments as "anti-Jewish" are ridiculous.
Hollings column appeared in three South Carolina newspapers earlier this month.
Abraham Foxman, president of the Anti-Defamation League, asked Hollings to retract his comments.
THIS ISN'T THE FIRST TIME FRITZ HAS STUCK HIS FOOT IN HIS...MOUTH: http://daily.nysun.com/Reposi...:ArticleToMail&Type=text/ html&Path=NYS/2004/05/17& ID=Ar01001
In 1981 he apologized after referring to a senator from Ohio, Howard Metzenbaum, who is Jewish, as the senator from Bnai Brith. In 1983 he apologized for referring to supporters of a senator from California, Alan Cranston, as wetbacks. In 1993 he prompted a furor with what he said was a joke about cannibalism and African diplomats who liked to travel to Europe. These potentates from down in Africa,you know,rather than eating each other, theyd just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva, he said.
[b]SEE ALSO:[/b] [i]You Must be Likud! Anti-Jewish rhetoric infects the West by Michael Rubin[/i] http://www.nationalreview.com/rubin/rubin2004051908 44.asp" title="http://www.nationalreview.com/rubin/rubin2004051908 44.asp" target="_blank"http://www.nationalreview.com... REGARDING THE CREEPING MAINSTREAMING OF ANTI-SEMITISM IN "RESPECTABLE" CIRCLES.
[i]The Official Website of Yasser Arafat: Pictures, His Human Side, and Daily Chores[/i]
The official website of President Yasser Arafat contains Arafat's official biography, a list detailing the "Human Aspect of Mr. President," Arafat's "Daily Chores," awards won, as well as an extensive photo gallery. For highlights of his website, please visit: http://memri.org/bin/latestne...
[image]rsheinfield_894439 575.jpg[/image]
YOU'LL BE INTERESTED TO KNOW THAT WHEN HE'S NOT SENDING PALESTINIAN WOMEN AND CHILDREN OFF TO MURDER ISRAELI WOMEN AND CHILDREN, HE "cares for all humanitarian issues including women and children. He strives to ensure a better life for the family, society and all humanity."
Col. Eyal Eisenberg commands the Givati Brigade, which lost six members last week in an APC explosion in Gaza. "In the midst of this operation, we assisted a Palestinian baby being born and evacuated an elderly woman who was injured and summoned a local ambulance for her. Terrorists ran and fired from behind the ambulance. Therefore, I do not want to make any comparison between our scale of values and theirs. If my soldiers can assist a Palestinian woman giving birth when six of their comrades have been blown to bits in the street but, at the same time, they fire at us from behind an ambulance, you must understand that we are at opposite ends of the scales of values." (Maariv International)
Unidentified gunmen in Ramallah last week opened fire at the offices of Jibril Rajoub, PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's National Security advisor, sources in the city said Tuesday. No one was hurt in the attack, the first of its kind against Rajoub. The sources said the attack on Rajoub's office came hours after a heated altercation with Arafat over the need to implement reforms in the PA security forces. …
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack on Rajoub's office, although some Palestinians in Ramallah said it was clearly linked to the standoff with Arafat. Similar attacks have taken place in the past against some Palestinians who squared off with Arafat or criticized him in public.
Jordan's King Abdullah has joined the chorus of Palestinian and Arab officials who are calling on Arafat to step down. Arafat ought to take "a long look in the mirror" and decide whether to step aside in the interest of his people, he said in an interview to the New York Times published on Tuesday.
Pressed in the interview about whether he agreed with US Secretary of State Colin Powell's criticism of Arafat as an "obstacle to peace," King Abdullah was quoted as saying, "I think Arafat needs to have a long look in the mirror to be able to see whether his position is helping the Palestinian cause or not."
A senior PA official reacted angrily to the monarch's remarks. "We wish to remind His Majesty that Arafat was elected in free and democratic elections," the official said. "If anyone needs to step down, it is Sharon, who is waging a war of genocide against the Palestinians."
Palestinian legislator and former minister Hanan Ashrawi has also lashed out at the current PA leadership, accusing it of failing its people. "There is a general stalemate," she said during a visit to the US. "We must have reforms. We can't say that we will hold elections and then do nothing about it. The old generation is not allowing the young guard to move ahead. The Palestinians are tired and they want to see a new leadership."
The former PA Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas, who is visiting Kuwait, criticized widespread corruption in the PA, saying "fat cats" were benefiting from the absence of transparency and accountability. He noted that he and other Palestinians who came out in public against the corruption were accused of treason and collaboration with the enemies of the Palestinians. "The calls to end the corruption and anarchy and build a civilian and democratic society are important steps that cannot be bypassed," he stressed.
Last week, the former Editor-in-Chief of the Saudi-owned daily Al-Hayat called on Arafat to resign in order to pave the way for a young leadership to take over. Khazen's call was made in an open letter to Arafat published in Al-Hayat, one of the Arab world's leading newspapers. He also accused Arafat of driving the Palestinian cause to a dead end.
"Our dear brother Yasser Arafat, I suggest that you resign," Khazen, who describes himself as a long time friend of the PA chairman, wrote. "You have done your best. It is time to give the wheel to younger hands."
Three people are in Kenyan police custody on suspicion of planning an attack on the Israeli Embassy in Nairobi. Police said Tuesday that a Kenyan, a Somali with an Australian passport and a Bosnian woman who also has Australian citizenship have been detained for suspicious behavior while trying to book a hotel near the embassy. The three have not been formally charged. Kenya has been on high alert for such plots since Al-Qaida terrorists blew up an Israeli-owned hotel and tried to shoot down an Israeli airliner in Kenya in 2002.
Tony Randall, the fastidious half of “The Odd Couple,” died Monday at age 84. Randall was born Leonard Rosenberg and was raised in Tulsa, Okla. An award-winning actor, he is best known as the neat-freak Felix in the TV version of the Neil Simon play, opposite Jack Klugman. In his mid-70s, Randall had children for the first time.
Czech police are investigating the desecration of a synagogue. Officials said unknown perpetrators carved fascist symbols and inscriptions in the shul in the town of Krnov after breaking into the property earlier this month. The case is the latest in a series of anti-Semitic incidents in recent months. Last November, the wall of a Protestant church in the town of Ostrava was spray-painted with the words “Jews to the Gas Chambers.” That incident followed the desecration of a Jewish memorial, also in Ostrava, which was defaced with Nazi symbols. No one has been arrested for the incidents.
Four people have been arrested over the beheading of American Nicholas Berg, Iraq sources say. The 26-year-old businessman's decapitated body was found 10 days ago in Baghdad.
His killing was shown around the world on the internet. The poor quality website video showed Berg dressed in orange overalls kneeling on the floor with his hands tied back.
There were five masked men behind him. One read a statement urging Muslims to take revenge over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers.
The masked men then pushed the American contractor to the floor and shouted "God is greatest" above his screams. His head was cut off with a knife and then held aloft. The website said the execution was performed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a top ally of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. It is not known if he was among the four people arrested.
WASHINGTON - Cheered with chants of "four more years," President Bush told a Jewish audience Tuesday that Israel "has every right to defend itself from terror" and that Palestinians must renounce violence and reject failed leaders.
Bush made only a passing reference to violence in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli helicopters pounded a refugee camp Tuesday and killed at least 12 Palestinians. "The unfolding violence in the Gaza Strip is troubling and underscores the need for all parties to seize every opportunity for peace," he said.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has called publicly for Israel to stop demolishing Palestinian homes and has questioned whether it helps make Israel secure, set up a meeting with Israeli Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who was in Washington for a speech to the pro-Israel lobby.
But at the United Nations, where the Palestinians are circulating a proposed resolution denouncing Israel's foray, the Bush administration is mobilizing to make it more balanced and refer to the smuggling of weapons via tunnels to Palestinian terror groups, a U.S. official said...
Both Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice have expressed concern about a recent Israeli offensive that has demolished homes in the Gaza Strip. Bush addressed the issue in one sentence, in which he called the violence troubling.
But he spoke strongly in support of Israel and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan for withdrawal of military installations and settlements from Gaza and parts of the West Bank although hard-liners in Sharon's own Likud party rejected the idea.
"The United States is strongly committed — and I am strongly committed — to the security of Israel as a vibrant Jewish state," Bush said. "Israel is a democracy and a friend and has every right to defend itself from terror."
He said the United States was committed to helping the Palestinian people establish a viable, democratic state but said, "Israel needs a truly responsible partner in achieving peace." Bush said Sharon's plan gives the Palestinians "a chance to take bold steps" toward peace.
"The Palestinian people must reject corrupt and failed leaders and insist on a leadership committed to reform and progress and peace," the president said. "They must renounce terror and violence that frustrate their aspirations and take so many innocent lives."
Palestinians said they have urged action to stop Israel's demolition of homes in the coastal strip and received a pledge that "the Americans will act now to stop what is going on in Rafah," Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said. Rice stopped short of confirming that, but said the United States repeatedly raised concerns with Israel that the demolitions of Palestinian homes were "not conducive" to peace.
[b]The CBC admitted it committed an editorial lapse by suggesting in a news report that Israel influenced the U.S. military to abuse Iraqi prisoners. However, the CBCs editor in chief, Tony Burman, denied that Canadas publicly funded broadcaster has an anti-Israel bias[/b], as some allege. This wasnt a case of willful distortion, Burman said in a statement. Instead, it was due to editorial lapses that somehow slipped through the system. Jewish groups had complained after the network broadcast a comment May 4 from former U.S. diplomat Eugene Bird that linked Israel to the prisoner-abuse scandal. Several groups have been waging a long campaign to get the network to improve its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
[i]Question: What do the Shiite extremist leader Moktada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army have in common with the extremist Jewish settlers in Israel? Answer: More than you'd think. Both movements combine religious messianism, and a willingness to sacrifice their followers and others for absolutist visions, along with a certain disdain for man-made laws, as opposed to those from God. The big question in both Iraq and Israel today is also similar: Will the silent majorities in both countries finally turn against these extremist minorities to save their future?[/i]
Friedman has long drawn outrageous comparisons between Israeli settlers and Palestinian terrorists, but he breaks new ground by bringing American victims into his twisted equation. Al-Sadr leads an armed movement attempting to drive Americans from Iraq by killing as many US soldiers as possible. Its members are attempting to impose their will by using shoulder-launched rockets and other weaponry, hiding themselves and their armaments in mosques, and firing at American troops from their religious havens.
How are the residents of Gaza, whom Friedman equates with the Mahdi Army, 'fighting' their battle? They utilized the democratic process to make their voices heard, mobilizing supporters to encourage members of the Likud party to vote against Sharon's plan.
This, Friedman disingenuously argues, is an appropriate comparison. The distortion is particularly damaging to a region starving for models of democratic process.
Comments to: letters@nytimes.com
AL QAEDA PLANNED TO BOMB ISRAEL'S AUSTRALIAN EMBASSY
Commonwealth prosecutor Ron Davies told the District Court in Perth Monday that British-born Jack Roche, accused of conspiring to blow up the Israeli embassy in Canberra, traveled to Afghanistan in early 2000 and met senior members of al-Qaeda, where they discussed targeting Israeli interests in Australia. After receiving training about explosives, he returned home to Perth and then traveled east where he videotaped the embassy. (ABC-Australia)
TWO PRO-PALESTINIAN GAY ORGANIZATIONS SHOWED UP AT A RALLY IN LONDON TO SHOW THEIR SUPPORT FOR THE "PEOPLE OF PALESTINE." THEY WERE PROMPTLY ATTACKED BY ISLAMOFASCISTS. THEY MARCHED IN THE DEMONSTRATION ANYWAY. COMING NEXT WEEK: FEMINISTS MARCH FOR THE "PALESTINIAN PEOPLE" AND ARE STONED.
OutRage and Queer Youth Alliance went to the protest march at Trafalgar Square to show their support for people of Palestine. But they also urged the Palestinian Authority to halt the arrest, torture and murder of homosexuals.
As soon as they arrived at the square to members of the two groups were surrounded by an angry, screaming mob of Islamic fundamentalists, Anglican clergymen, members of the Socialist Workers Party, the Stop the War Coalition, and officials from the protest organizers, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).
They variously attacked the gay activists as racists, Zionists, CIA and MI5 agents, supporters of the Sharon government and accused the gays of dividing the Free Palestine movement.
PSC organisers asked the gay activists to stand at the back of the demonstration, and when they refused blocked their placards with their own banners and shouted down the gay campaigners as they tried to speak to journalists and other protesters.
Most people at the Palestine protest expressed no hostility towards OutRage! and the Queer Youth Alliance. Some expressed positive support.
In the end, the gay groups were allowed to march in the demonstration. The two groups carried placards reading: Israel: stop persecuting Palestine! Palestine: stop persecuting queers!
We call on the PLO and Palestinian Authority to condemn homophobia, uphold queer human rights, and to order an immediate end to the abuse of lesbian and gay Palestinians, said OutRage! protester, Brett Lock.
Having experienced the pain of homophobia, we deplore the suffering inflicted on Palestinians by the Israeli government.
Another protester, Peter Tatchell, said: Gay Palestinians live in fear of arrest, detention without trial, torture and execution at the hands of Palestinian police and security services. They also risk abduction and so-called honor killing by vengeful family members and vigilante mobs, as well as punishment beatings and murder by Palestinian political groups such as Hamas and Yasser Arafats Fatah movement.
SOUTHERN SHUNEH, Jordan Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday blamed Yasser Arafat for blocking U.S. efforts to strengthen Palestinian security forces as a means of ending terror attacks on Israel.
Winding up his latest effort to push peacemaking forward, without any apparent concrete results, Powell also criticized Arafat for a statement the Palestinian leader made Saturday to his people urging them to "find whatever strength you have to terrorize your enemy."
"Mr. Arafat continues to take actions and make statements to make it exceptionally difficult to move forward" on peacemaking, Powell said at a news conference before returning to Washington from the World Economic Forum held at an isolated Dead Sea resort.
He said Arafat "refuses to allow consolidation of security forces" among the Palestinians, a key U.S. demand intended to curb terror attacks and motivate Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to push ahead with efforts to reach a settlement with the Palestinians.
Research on the social and psychological background of terrorists show they tend to be more prosperous and better educated than most in their societies, and no more religious or irrational than the average person. A study of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad suicide terrorists from the late 1980s to 2003 found only 13% were from a poor background, compared with 32% of the Palestinian population in general, according to a New Scientist report. Suicide bombers were also three times more likely to have gone on to higher education than the general population, Claude Berrebi, an economist at Princeton University, found. Ariel Merare, a psychologist at Tel Aviv University, said he changed his view that most suicide bombers were mentally ill after studying the background of every suicide bomber in the Middle East since 1983. (Sydney Morning Herald-Australia)
[i]Mofaz: Palestinians Smuggled Body Parts in UN Ambulances - Hanan Greenberg[/i] http://www.ynet.co.il/NonReg/...,,,00.html?CG=US&HU=/articles/0 ,7340,L-2916529,00.html
Defense Minister Mofaz said Friday that Palestinians smuggled parts of the bodies of IDF soldiers killed in the Philadelphia corridor Wednesday into their territory using UN and UNRWA ambulances. (Yediot Ahronot-Hebrew)
On Tuesday armed Palestinians threatened the lives of an UNRWA ambulance team (a driver and a paramedic) and forced them to transport an injured gunman and two of his armed colleagues to a hospital in Gaza City. "UNRWA condemns this action in the strongest possible terms; at no time and under no circumstances should armed men enter any UNRWA vehicle," a statement from the organization said. The army has witnessed a growing trend in the cynical use of Palestinian medical crews and ambulances by terrorist organizations that operate within populated civilian areas, use ambulances to transport weapons and fugitives, and seek refuge in hospitals in an attempt to evade inspection by IDF troops. (Jerusalem Post)
After a school-sponsored screening of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, Ms. Mahoney's 5th grade class from St. Christina of the Conception Elementary School had some questions. Of course they turned to the man who has all the answers. http://www.internationaljewis...
Some subway-card dispensing machines in New York City now offer Yiddish. MetroCard machines are offering Yiddish-language instructions at seven subway stops in Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn.
Hundreds of armed Palestinians continued Wednesday to use light weapons, snipers, and anti-tank weaponry against IDF soldiers in Gaza's Zeitun neighborhood. Five armed Palestinians were killed and another 35 Palestinians were wounded. Meanwhile, Palestinians collected remains of the six Israeli soldiers killed in Zeitun Tuesday and handed them over to the IDF. Talks on handing over the body parts were conducted with the help of Egyptian representatives in the Strip. (Ha'aretz/Jerusalem Post)
[i]Beheaded American Was Arrested by Iraqis as a Spy "Because of His Jewish Name" - Toby Harnden and Marcus Warren (Telegraph-UK)[/i] http://portal.telegraph.co.uk...
Nicholas Berg, the American who was filmed being beheaded, had been previously arrested by Iraqi police and held on suspicion of being a spy because he had a Jewish name and an Israeli stamp in his passport.
Berg was detained on March 24 for 13 days by Iraqi police. According to friends, Berg said he had been in Iraqi custody for just a few hours before being transferred to a U.S. military facility, where he was in a cell with Syrian and Iranian fighters.
He was released after his family filed a lawsuit in the U.S. saying he was being held illegally by American forces. ...
Hugo Infante, 31, a Chilean photographer who stayed at the Al Fanar, said he had met Mr Berg around April 6 when the American returned to Baghdad two weeks after saying he was going to Mosul on business for two days.
"He said, 'They arrested me because I had a Jewish last name and an Israeli stamp in my passport.' Then the Iraqi police put him with the US military because they thought he was a spy. Nick told me all this. He wasn't mad. It was just an adventure for him. He said, 'This shit happens. It was bad luck'."
In the Arab world, any indication that someone is a Jew or has links with Israel is potentially fatal, as Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was beheaded on video in Pakistan two years ago found out to his cost.
Mr Infante said Mr Berg had told him he had visited Israel with his family several times.
AS YOU CAN READ BELOW, YESTERDAY PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS DISPLAYED AND TOYED WITH BODY PARTS OF SIX ISRAELI SOLDIERS KILLED IN AN EXPLOSION. WHAT MAKES PEOPLE BEHAVE THAT WAY?
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Wednesday, "Some people still say that Palestinians act in this brutal and animalistic way because they are under occupation, but let us not forget that the lynching of Jews and the brutality against Jews and the bodies of Jews has been going on for over one hundred years. We all remember the Arab uprising in 1929 and Gush Etzion [where scores of captured Jewish soldiers were murdered] and all the outrages throughout the years." (Jerusalem Post)
[i]U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Syria[/i] http://www.washingtonpost.com...://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1908 7-2004May11.html
President Bush slapped sanctions on Syria Tuesday for supporting terrorism and interfering with U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq. The sanctions include banning U.S. exports to Syria except for food and medicine, prohibiting Syrian aircraft from flying to and from the U.S., and freezing certain Syrian assets. The practical effect of the new sanctions is mostly symbolic. Diplomatic relations will not be cut, no Syrian flights fly to the U.S., and Bush said he will waive the sanctions for products such as telecommunications equipment and aircraft parts. Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-NY), one of the sponsors of the sanctions law, said "it's only the beginning," adding that Syria will face even tougher sanctions if its behavior does not change. (Washington Post)
[i]American in Iraq Beheaded on Web Video [/i] http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?node=admin /registration/register&de stination=register&nextst ep=gather&application=reg 30-world&applicationURL=h ttp" title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?node=admin /registration/register&de stination=register&nextst ep=gather&application=reg 30-world&applicationURL=h ttp" target="_blank"http://www.washingtonpost.com...://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1904 8-2004May11.html
Nicholas Berg, of West Chester, Pa., 26, a businessman missing in Iraq since early April, was shown being decapitated by five masked Islamic militants in a video posted on the Internet on Tuesday. U.S. officials said Berg's body was found outside Baghdad over the weekend. The video attributed the crime to Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian accused of organizing attacks against occupation forces in Iraq. (Washington Post)
After one of the masked men read out a statement, they pushed Berg to the floor and shouted "God is greatest" above his screams as one of them sawed his head off with a large knife. (Reuters)
[b]Berg's father said his son was a practicing Jew and that "there's a better chance than not" that his captors knew it. "If there was any doubt that they were going to kill him, that probably clinched it, I'm guessing," he said." [/b] (FOXNews) http://www.foxnews.com/story/...,2933,119691,00.html
Following "over two months of intensive searches" for the burial site of missing IAF navigator Ron Arad the Hizbullah "successfully" found his remains in the Eastern Lebanese town of Nabi Shait, the pan-Arab newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat revealed Wednesday.
According to the report, Arad had been in the hands of Mustafa Dirani's Amal militia until 1987, when he was transferred by car to the Beka'a Valley in East Lebanon. Arad was sedated and placed in the vehicle's trunk, the paper reported.
Following the IDF's 1988 commando raid on Amal and Hizbullah in the Lebanese village of Meidoun west of the Bekaa Valley, Arad's captors, enraged by the loss of over 18 Hizbullah and Amal men in the operation, killed Arad in retaliation, the London-based paper published.
The two guards who killed Arad reportedly buried him in the Nabi Shait in the Bekaa, where he was being held.
YESTERDAY, I POSTED AN AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE REPORT FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL http://www.opinionjournal.com... CLAIMING THAT THE LAST SUICIDE ATTACK WITHIN ISRAEL OCCURRED LAST OCTOBER. THE SUBJECT OF THE POST WAS HOW THE SECURITY FENCE HAS CUT DOWN ON SUCH ATTACKS.
OOPS. IN FACT, THERE HAVE BEEN FOUR ATTACKS SINCE OCTOBER. http://www.israel.org/MFA/Ter...%20Obstacle%20to%20Peace/ Palestinian%20terror%20si nce%202000/Suicide%20and% 20Other%20Bombing%20Attac ks%20in%20Israel%20Since
Dec. 25, 2003 - Four Israelis were killed and over 20 wounded in a suicide bombing at a bus stop at the Geha Junction, east of Tel Aviv, near Petah Tikva.
Jan. 29, 2004 - Eleven people were killed and over 50 wounded, 13 of them seriously, in a suicide bombing of an Egged bus no. 19 at the corner of Gaza and Arlozorov streets in Jerusalem.
Feb. 22, 2004 - Eight people were killed and over 60 wounded, 11 of them school pupils, in a suicide bombing on Jerusalem bus no. 14A near the Liberty Bell Park.
Mar 14, 2004 - Ten people were killed and 16 wounded in a double suicide bombing at Ashdod Port.
"A Renowned Israeli Musician Condemns the Israeli Occupation and [b]Detonates [/b]His Prize to the Palestinian People"--headline, Palestinian Authority press release, May 11 http://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_e/i...
THIS IS FROM A SEATTLE TIMES REPORT ON THE LOCAL CONVENTION OF THE COUNCIL ON AMERICAN ISLAMIC RELATIONS http://seattletimes.nwsource.... :
Before giving [Rep. Jim] McDermott his plaque, Samia El-Moslimany, CAIR vice chair, announced "tremendous news."
She told the crowd that [b]the King County Democratic Party, meeting earlier in the day elsewhere within the Convention Center, had voted into its platform a commitment to "withhold U.S. tax dollars from Israel while it is in violation of international law."[/b]
"This is a memorable day," said El-Moslimany.
The anti-Israel statement was one of 235 amendments to the party's platform, according to Greg Rodriguez, King County party chairman. Reached at home last night, Rodriguez could not recall the exact wording, but said, "I would imagine that probably did get in."
[b]SIX ISRAELI SOLDIERS WERE KILLED WITH A ROADSIDE BOMB BY HAMAS TERRORISTS IN GAZA -- WHO THEN PROCEEDED TO TEAR THE CORPSES APART AND PLAY WITH THE BODY PARTS AS THEY TOOK PICTURES: [i]SIX SOLDIERS DEAD IN GAZA BATTLE [/i][/b] http://www.israelnationalnews...
Six Israeli soldiers are dead after their armored personnel carrier drove over a 100-kilogram explosive planted under the road in Gaza. Hamas terrorists gleefully displayed and played with the body parts in front of cameras.
In response, an Israel Air Force missile bombed a target in Gaza this afternoon, killing one and wounding three. Details are still sketchy. Prime Minister Sharon has called an urgent mini-security cabinet meeting for this evening at 8:30 PM.
This morning's attack that killed the six soldiers occurred towards the conclusion of a heavy battle waged in spurts in the Zeitun neighborhood of Gaza City. IDF forces entered the city on a mission to locate and blow up explosives labs, destroying at least two of them; several others of the 20 suspected labs were also located. The forces include combat helicopters, jeeps, bulldozers, and tanks, and additional forces were later brought in.
The Israeli forces remained in the area for longer than planned in a tireless effort to rescue the bodies. The families of the six have been notified, though their names have not yet been released for publication. The identification process took a long while, as the bodies were in very bad condition, and not all the body parts were found. The destroyed vehicle, which had a capacity of 12 soldiers but was carrying only six, was carrying large amounts of explosives.
[b]HAMAS/FATAH ARE NOW HOLDING THE REMAINS AS RANSON.[/b] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/... In a statement released by the Fatah, the organization claimed that they are in fact in possession of body parts and tat they are willing to return the remains if Israel fulfills their demands. Head of the Al-Aksa Brigades in the Gaza Strip Abu Ahmed said that his organization is in possession of the body parts and that they have informed Red Cross officials.
Al-Jazeera broadcast pictures of a head of one of the soldiers in the hands of Palestinian terrorists. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/04 0511/ids_photos_wl/r34252 94303.jpg" title="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/04 0511/ids_photos_wl/r34252 94303.jpg" target="_blank"http://story.news.yahoo.com/n... http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...
I'VE POSTED ARTICLES IN THE PAST ABOUT THE MORMON CHURCH'S SECRETLY BAPTIZING DEAD JEWS. THIS PRACTICE HAS CONTINUED DESPITE CHURCH PROMISES TO CEASE AND DESIST. JEWS WHO HAVE BEEN "BAPTIZED" INCLUDE MENACHEM BEGIN, ANNE FRANK, AND THE BAAL SHEM TOV.
NOW THE GOOD FOLKS AT THE "INTERNATIONAL JEWISH CONSPIRACY" http://www.internationaljewis... ARE STRIKING BACK AND DE-BAPTIZING MORMONS TO THIN THEIR RANKS. CHECK IT OUT.
[i]8 Palestinians hurt in Hamas-Fatah gunfight: Activists from rival groups clash during university election campaign[/i] http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=425435&contr assID=1" title="http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=425435&contr assID=1" target="_blank"http://www.haaretzdaily.com/h...
At least eight Palestinians were injured yesterday in the center of Nablus when a gunfight broke out between Hamas and Fatah activists.
It is believed to be the first incident of its kind since the start of the intifada.
The gunfight took place against the backdrop of elections to the student council of the Open Al-Quds University, based in the city's Rafadiyeh neighborhood.
Palestinian sources said it began as a brawl between Hamas activists, who were looking to set up a campaign booth on the university grounds, and Fatah youth, who wanted to stop them.
The brawl and shouting match soon turned into a knife fight, the sources said, adding a large group of Fatah activists then arrived on the scene and set fire to furniture and office equipment belonging to Hamas and Islamic Jihad opposition groups on campus. Shortly thereafter, the gunfight began.
Four of the injured sustained gunshot and knife wounds and were evacuated to city hospitals.
JUST A KID. NOT A HERMAPHRODITE; NOT DRESSED AS A WOMAN
RAMALLAH, West Bank A Palestinian teenager who decided against blowing himself up in Jerusalem caused panic in a West Bank security office when he went for help, officials said Monday.
Palestinian security officials said the young man appeared at their Ramallah office late last week and stripped off his jacket revealing an explosives vest with a detonation switch at his neck.
Fearing they were about to be blown up, five security officers scattered in all directions, shouting at the youth, who looked about 14 but was actually 18 years old. It turned out that the he wanted someone to disarm the explosives.
A short while later, an explosives expert arrived to defuse the bomb vest.
The young man, whose name was not released, told the officers he was recruited by the Islamic Jihad group in Jenin and was supposed to blow himself up in Jerusalem.
On the way, though, he had second thoughts. "I kept thinking of myself, of my family, and to be honest I don't want to die," one of the officers quoted the man as saying.
[b]NOTE THAT HIS SECOND THOUGHTS WERE [i]NOT [/i]BASED ON CONCERN FOR HIS POTENTIAL VICTIMS. HE STILL HAD NO COMPUNCTION ABOUT MURDERING WOMEN AND CHILDREN. [/b]
Here's some encouraging news from the Middle East: Agence France-Presse reports http://news.com.au/common/sto...,4057,9505279%255E1702,00 .html that [b]there hasn't been a single suicide bombing within Israel (as distinct from the disputed territories) in more than seven months--to be exact, since Oct. 4, when a Palestinian Arab woman massacred 21 Jews and Arabs at a restaurant in Haifa. AFP attributes the lull to the completion of the northern section of Israel's security barrier, which in particular has blocked access from Qalqilya, "which used to be adjacent to Israeli towns and was often used as a launchpad for West Bank militants."[/b]
So will Israel get credit for taking steps to end the cycle of violence? Don't hold your breath. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, though, the United Nations has just endorsed Israel's actions. A U.N. press release last Thursday http://www0.un.org/apps/news/... announces that "the United Nations is set to begin a slate of projects--including the construction [of] a new perimeter fence--to bolster safety and security measures at its New York Headquarters."
Quoting Palestinian sources in Ramallah, the Lebanese daily An-Nahar reported Sunday that Egyptian Intelligence chief Omar Suleiman is expected to visit Ramallah soon aboard an Egyptian military helicopter to transfer Arafat to the Gaza Strip.
A suicide bomb attack was thwarted with the arrest of a Palestinian woman, whom according to Palestinian reports is a hermaphrodite who goes by the name of Ahmed. Security forces arrested Amal Juma'a, 35, in the Askar refugee camp near Nablus on Sunday night.
Palestinian sources said Juma'a planned to carry out a suicide attack in Tel Aviv on Monday.
The 15-kilogram bomb Juma'a was to have used in the attack was blown up by Palestinian security officials who found it hidden inside a washing machine in one of the houses in the camp after they were contacted by Juma'as parents.
Palestinians claimed that in the past three years Juma'a acted as a courier and transferred bombs from one terrorist cell to another.
Both the Fatah's Al-Aksa Martyrs' Brigades and the Hamas were to have claimed joint responsibility for the attack.
Israeli security officials said they were unable to confirm the claims that Juma'a planned to launch an attack in Tel Aviv today saying she was still being questioned about her terrorist activities.
As to her gender, Israeli security officials said that while Juma'a's physical appearance was extremely 'manly' they were unable to confirm reports claiming she is a hermaphrodite.
TERRORIST COWARDS DISGUISED AS WOMEN ATTACK MOURNERS OF BABIES
At least three Palestinian terrorists opened fire early Sunday evening on several hundred mourners gathered at the Kissufim crossing, where Tali Hatuel and her four daughters were murdered [by terrorists] a week ago.
No one was wounded in the attack, but several people were treated for shock.
IDF soldiers fired a shell toward two suspected terrorists and soldiers shot a third suspect. Soldiers searching the area discovered the body of a Palestinian man dressed in women's clothing but found no weapon near his body. Officials said the search would resume at daybreak.
Eran Shternberg, spokesman for the Gaza Coast Regional Council, said several terrorists approached the road and opened fire. Soldiers and armed residents returned fire as men, women, and children lay on the ground and crouched near parked cars, seeking cover from the gunfire. A bulletproof bus drove up to the site and women and children boarded it as armed civilians with weapons stood watch.
The torturing of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghuraib prison by US occupying forces has shocked the world - but for most Palestinians they come as no surprise.
In fact, tens of thousands of Palestinians who have served time in Israeli prisons and detention centres see striking similarities between Israeli treatment of Palestinian prisoners and American treatment of Iraqi detainees.
In some cases, the torture technique or form of mistreatment is almost identical, some former Palestinian prisoners told Aljazeera.net.
Hisham Abd al-Razzaq is a Palestinian Authority minister in charge of overseeing and catering for more than 7000 Palestinian prisoners in Israel, many of them interned without charge or trial.
He believes that what the Americans are doing to the Iraqis amounts to a "carbon copy" of what the Israelis have been doing to the Palestinians.
"I am inclined to think that the Americans copied the Israeli techniques. I cant prove it in an objective manner, but the striking similarities are overwhelming."
Israel may be preparing to attack Iranian nuclear facilities within the year, according to US administration assessments reported on Army Radio Saturday morning.
Officials say that the attempt to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons has been discussed at various levels, as well as the effects such an attack would have on US military and political efforts in Iraq and in the Persian Gulf.
The UPI news service says President George Bush and Prime Minster Ariel Sharon recently discussed the subject at their most recent meeting. Following the meeting, Bush said it was inconceivable for the Middle East for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.
In Holland, this week marks Remembrance Day. This year's proceedings take place against the disturbing backdrop of a new wave of anti-Semitic violence that is sweeping not just The Netherlands but the whole of Western Europe.
In France and Germany, this new violent anti-Semitism has been around for almost a decade now. In Holland, however, violent incidents used to be just that: incidents, rare disturbances in an otherwise tranquil society. But lately, something is rotten in the land of Anne Frank.
In Amsterdam, a Turkish man, apparently mistaken for a Jew, was verbally abused and beaten up by two Arab immigrant youths. A Jewish retirement home was firebombed. Observant Jews no longer feel safe wearing yarmulkes in public. Anti-Semitic slogans appear on Jewish graves and synagogue buildings.
Even the Remembrance Day services themselves are no longer safe. In Amsterdam, Arab immigrant (mainly Moroccan) youths disrupted last year's proceedings by shouting slogans like "Hamas, Hamas, pump the Jews full of gas"; by burning a flag that had been lowered to half-mast; and by playing football with some of the commemorative wreaths. In a separate incident, guests at another memorial service - including a Holocaust survivor - were physically harassed by a gang of Arab immigrant teenagers.
Dutch politicians and social policy experts are gradually coming round to the view that this problem needs to be taken seriously. So far, however, their efforts at tackling it have been disappointing, to say the least. Perhaps their intransigence has something to do with the fact that it isn't their old b te noir, the extreme Right, that is behind this latest outburst of anti-Semitic violence. For as the Amsterdam-based Center for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI) has pointed out, the new anti-Semitism is overwhelmingly an Arab immigrant phenomenon. And even in post-Pim Fortuyn Dutch society, where anti-Islamism is now a mainstream political sentiment, accusing Arabs of anti-Jewish racist crimes is still a major taboo.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A laser beam under joint Israeli-U.S. development destroyed a long-range rocket for the first time in a test in the skies over the American Southwest, Israel's Defense Ministry said on Friday. Israel has sought an effective defense against ballistic missiles since 1991 when Iraq launched Scuds into the Jewish state during the first Gulf War. It has since developed the Arrow anti-ballistic missile with U.S. funding.
"This is a significant step forward," a ministry spokesman said of the test on May 4 of the "Nautilus" Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL) held at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
Israel sees the Nautilus as another potential countermeasure to possible ballistic attack by enemies, which would include most Arab states and Iran.
We thought it was finished. The ovens are long cooled, the anti-vermin gas dissipated. Yet current anti-Semitism is accelerating throughout advanced and sophisticated Europe - albeit under the rubric of anti-Zionism, and masked by the deceptive lingo of human rights.
The contemporary Big Lie concerns the Jews of Israel: they are oppressors in the style of the Nazis; they ruthlessly pursue, and perpetuate, "occupation" solely for the sake of domination and humiliation; they purposefully kill Palestinian children; their military have committed massacres; their government "violates international law"; their nationhood and their sovereignty have no legitimacy; they are intruders and usurpers inhabiting an illicit "entity," and not a people entitled as other peoples are entitled.
Yet the modern history of Jews in the Holy Land overwhelmingly refutes these scurrilities. It is the Arabs, not the Jews, who have been determined to dispose of a people's right to live in peace. The current roar of "resistance to occupation" is notoriously belied by the bloody Arab pogroms of 1920, 1921, 1929, 1936, and 1939, when there was no Jewish state at all, let alone any issue of "settlements." The 1929 attacks left Hebron, the site of an ancient and uninterrupted Jewish community, effectively Judenrein.
In 1948, Arab rejection of an independent Palestinian state under the UN partition plan led to the invasion by five Arab armies intent on crushing nascent Jewish sovereignty. The Arab war against the Jews of Israel continued through the terror incursions of 1956, the Six-Day War of 1967, the Yom Kippur attacks of 1973, and the fomented violence of 1987, the so-called first intifada. In short, for two-thirds of a century the Arabs have warred against a Jewish presence in "their" part of the world.
This is the history that is ignored or denigrated or distorted or spitefully misrepresented. And because it is a history that has been assaulted and undermined by world-wide falsehoods in the mouths of pundits and journalists, in Europe and all over the Muslim world, the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism has finally and utterly collapsed.
Israeli chess officials demanded Thursday that the World Chess Federation move this summer's world chess championships, after host Libya said it would bar Israeli players.
"We did not and will not invite the Zionist enemy to this championship," Mohammed Qaddafi, son of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, said Wednesday.
"We demand that it be held in a country that will accept every nation without discrimination," said Israeli Chess Association spokesman Yerach Tal. Tal noted that in Europe, Israel is ranked second in chess after Russia.
Arafat has fortified his Ramallah headquarters with piles of old cars and barrels of concrete, fearing an Israeli invasion is imminent, PA officials said Thursday. On Thursday, mixers poured cement into hundreds of blue barrels that were then scattered across the main courtyard outside Arafat's compound. Bulldozers also spread dozens of wrecked cars across the courtyard. "We are not going to carry out any operation, but [b]they are hysterical[/b]," said Prime Minister Sharon's spokesman, Ra'anan Gissin. (Jerusalem Post)
WHAT ARE THE CHANCES OF A JEWS SERVING ON THE SUPREME COURT OF AN ARAB COUNTRY?
Israel's Judicial Appointments Committee Thursday selected Acting Justice Salim Jubran for appointment to the Supreme Court. Jubran's selection was the first permanent appointment of an Arab Supreme Court justice.
Jubran, 57, was born in Haifa to a Maronite Christian Arab family. At 35, he was appointed a Magistrate's Court judge, in 1993 he was promoted to the city's district court, and he received a temporary appointment to the Supreme Court bench in 2003.
Vandals in the city of Verdun, in northern France, scrawled Nazi slogans and symbols on a memorial to Jewish soldiers who died in the World War I, Israel Radio reported Friday. The vandals drew swastikas and spray-painted the words 'Hiel Hitler' across the memorial.
The United States has stopped two water development projects in the Gaza Strip because of the Palestinian Authority's failure to find those behind a deadly attack on a U.S. diplomatic convoy seven months ago, an official said Thursday.
U.S. officials have expressed displeasure over the failure of Palestinian police to arrest those responsible for setting off a remote-control bomb next to a U.S. Embassy convoy in northern Gaza last year, killing three American guards, in the first fatal attack on U.S. officials there.
The projects, worth tens of millions of dollars, have not been officially canceled, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. However, bids will not be taken, effectively freezing them at an early stage.
Orthodox women have a lot of sex but low levels of sexual satisfaction, a new survey says.
The 382 Orthodox women in New York studied by the American Psychiatric Association follow Jewish laws in which husbands and wives do not have sex during menstruation and the week after, then undergo ritual cleansing in the mikvah before they resume having sex, the Forward reported. Despite these breaks, these Orthodox women have more sex than the average American woman.
But only 70 percent of observant Jewish women reported high levels of physical satisfaction and 72 percent reported high levels of emotional satisfaction, as opposed to 93 percent and 90 percent, respectively, for American women overall.
THE SAME SURVEY REPORTED THAT REFORM JEWISH MEN REPORTED THAT THEY DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE ALLOWED TO HAVE SEX WITH THEIR WIVES. "WHO KNEW?", MORRIS COHEN OF TEANECK N.J. RESPONDED. "THERE ARE GOING TO BE SOME CHANGES. BUT FIRST, I HAVE TO TAKE OUT THE GARBAGE, DO THE DISHES, MOW THE LAWN AND WEEP INTO MY PILLOW."
Israeli troops assassinated a senior Hamas leader near Nablus. Forces shot Imad Mohammed Janajra, 31, as he approached his village of Taluza, outside the northern West Bank city of Nablus late Wednesday. The army said Janajra had been involved in planning terrorist attacks. His death follows an initial attempt on his life last week in which soldiers mistakenly shot and killed a Palestinian doctor.
Also Wednesday, Israel released a co-founder of Hamas who had been in Israeli custody since March 2003. Mohammed Taha, 68, was freed at the Erez border crossing into Gaza, witnesses said. Israel has stepped up its assaults on Hamas leadership, and its not immediately clear why Taha was released, though charges were never filed against him.
In NPR's warped moral calculus, Tali Hatuel and her four daughters are in early graves not because Palestinian culture celebrates the mass murder of Jews but because Jews have no business living among Arabs. If NPR reporter Julie McCarthy had been reporting from Birmingham in September 1963, would she have blamed the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on the provocative "presence" of the four black girls who died in the explosion?
If the past decade - the era of the "land for peace" delusion - has made anything clear, it is that the more Israel concedes to the Palestinians, the worse Palestinian terror becomes. Abandoning Gaza will not make the Arabs more peaceful. It will simply strengthen their conviction that Israelis can be defeated through terrorism and make Gaza a more effective staging-area for attacks on Jews.
The only workable recipe for lasting Middle East peace is the difficult one of remaking Palestinian society from the bottom up. Of destroying its poisonous culture of violence, death-worship, and Jew-hatred. Of educating its people for democracy and tolerance. Of replacing its cruel and corrupt rulers with leaders genuinely committed to moderation.
Only when - only if - such a transformation takes place will the Palestinians be ready for statehood. To confer sovereignty on them now would be disastrous, a guarantee of violence for years to come. If there is one thing a regime that can call the execution of a mother and her four daughters "heroic" doesn't need, it is a reward.
German prosecutors Wednesday charged three women and two men with being members or supporters of a neo-Nazi organization that, they say, plotted to bomb the dedication ceremony last year at a new Munich synagogue. (AP/Ha'aretz)
The UN General Assembly is expected on Thursday to approve a resolution put forth by Nasser Al-Kidwa, the Palestinian observer to the UN, according to which the Palestinian nation has the right to self-determination and sole sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including East Jerusalem. (Ha'aretz)
[i]Sharon adviser floats new Mideast peace ideas Report: Israel would quit Gaza, hand over 89 percent of W. Bank[/i] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4...
JERUSALEM - Israel has presented to the United States and Europe ideas for a peace plan under which it would quit Gaza and hand over almost all of the West Bank except for major settlement blocs, a newspaper said on Thursday....
Under the reported proposal, which the newspaper said was to be portrayed as a European initiative accepted by Israel:
*Israel would pull out of all of the Gaza Strip and evacuate all of the 7,500 settlers in the area.
*The Palestinians would get 89 percent of the West Bank, with the rest, containing major settlement blocs, remaining in Israeli hands. The territory to be handed over would be far greater than anything Sharon has shown willingness to part with.
*Egypt would give the Palestinians a 230 square mile strip of territory inside its Sinai peninsula to relieve population congestion in Gaza.
*Egypt would receive 77 square miles of land inside southern Israel, and a tunnel would be built connecting the enclave to Jordan.
*The agreement would be signed at a peace conference convened by Egypt and with the participation of the president of the United States, European leaders and Russia.
It was not immediately clear whether Sharon had endorsed the ideas he allowed Eiland to float.
IN THE PROUD OLYMPIC TRADITION (1936, 1972) OF JEW HATRED....
Greek Olympic officials have not listed Jerusalem as Israel's capital city on the official website for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games ( www.Athens2004.com ).
The entry opposite the heading 'capital' is marked with an asterisk figure (*) instead.
A footnote, at the bottom of the webpage, reads: * Please visit the official United Nations website for further information regarding the capital of Israel.
The comment provides a web link to a United Nations fact file on Israel, which also doesn't list the Jewish State as having a Capital, but instead writes: "The position of the United Nations on the question of Jerusalem is contained in General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) of 29 November 1947."
Some months ago, the website had 'Jerusalem' down as the capital of 'Palestine', while Israel's capital slot was left empty. Following complaints lodged by National Union MK Arye Eldad with the Greek Embassy and Foreign Ministry, Israel's capital was entered as 'Tel Aviv', leaving the Palestinian slot blank.
In perhaps the most distorted coverage of the brutal murder of a pregnant Israeli mother and her four young daughters, NPRs Julie McCarthy blamed the victims for their own slaughter. In the atrocity in Gaza on May 2, the gunmen reportedly fired on the familys car from 20 yards away. When 34-year-old Tali, a social worker who was in her last trimester of pregnancy, lost control of the vehicle, the Palestinian terrorists approached the vehicle and executed Tali and her daughters Hila, 11; Hadar, 9; Roni, 7 and Merav, 2 one by one at close range. According to press reports, the younger children were still strapped into their car seats, the car was blood-soaked, and it took the ZAKA recovery crew a long time to extract all of the bullets and collect the body parts.
Julie McCarthys egregious statement on Morning Edition today came at the end of a report about Ariel Sharon's referendum loss on his disengagement" plan. McCarthy reported:
[i]"The settlers rallied support saying Israel was withdrawing under fire. [b]But there was ample evidence yesterday to show that their continued presence in Gaza is provoking bloodshed. [/b] Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian gunmen after the men ambushed mother and her four small daughters outside the Gaza settlement of Gush Katif. The family was shot and killed on their way to the Israeli city of Ashkelon where they intended to campaign against Ariel Sharon and his plan to uproot them from Gaza. Julie McCarthy, NPR news, Jerusalem." [/i]
McCarthys editorializing that the Jewish communitys continued presence in Gaza is provoking bloodshed is consistent with the Palestinian Authority view that the killing of settlers is a natural and legitimate outgrowth of the fact that Jews dare to inhabit territory that the Palestinians claim as their own. According to Ha'aretz, A senior Palestinian source said he thought there was no chance the Palestinian Authority would express reservations, since every settler was considered an integral part of the occupation against which action must be taken (Danny Rubinstein, 5/3/04).
Of course, though, there is no justification whatsoever within international law that justifies the killing of civilians simply because they live in territory which others claim as their own. Unfortunately, McCarthy's report suggests justification where there is none.
McCarthy further distorts the killing of the Hatuel family members by reversing the chronology of events. She states: Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian gunmen after the men ambushed a mother and her four small daughters outside the Gaza settlement of Gush Katif. Why is the Israeli response mentioned before the Palestinian murder? The result is that the defensive Israeli action is amplified while the Palestinians barbarous act is de-emphasized.
McCarthy's sanitized description of the Hatuels murder employs equivalent language to describe Israels shooting of murderers and the murderers butchering of young children and their mother. Thus, Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian gunmen, the men ambushed a mother and her four small daughters, and the family was shot and killed. From these indistinguishable descriptions, listeners would have no clue as to the brutality of the execution of a mother and four children whose bodies were riddled by dozens of bullets shot at point blank range.
[b]JAMES ZOGBY, PRESIDENT OF THE ARAB AMERICAN INSTITUTE (AND BROTHER OF THE DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER) MUST BE THE SPAWN OF GEORGE ORWELL AND GOEBBELS. [/b]
[i] Arabs and Muslims Are Victims of Anti-Semitism. [/i] http://arabnews.com/?page=7ion=0&article=44346&d=5& m=5&y=2004
There are, in fact, two anti-Semitisms. One has historically found expression in the hatred and vilification of the Jewish people; the other has manifested itself in the equally odious hatred and vilification of Arabs and Muslims.
A decade ago I was asked to speak on this subject at a special conference organized by Hebrew University. In light of the just completed conference, I offer a summary of my remarks.
Historically, the animus of anti-Semitism directed against both Arabs and Jews has been the same. It has been a largely Western Christian struggle against two Semitic civilizations one that it found living within its midst and that it saw as an internal threat; the other that it confronted as an external challenge but that it similarly defined as a threat to its survival.
Both Jews and Arab Muslims were perceived as threats their organizations, their wealth, and even their corporate identities were seen as damaging to the West. And the results have been devastating to both peoples. Both groups have suffered a history of vilification and both have endured campaigns of systematic violence.
Several years ago I did a study of political cartoons and other forms of popular culture, comparing the depiction of Jews in Czarist Russia and pre-Nazi Germany with that of the Arabs in the United States in the 1970s and 80s. In both content and form the treatments given to each were identical. The two most prevalent German and Russian depictions of Jews paralleled the two most common images of the Arabs projected in US cartoons. The fat grotesque Jewish banker or merchant found its contemporary counterpart in the obese oil sheikh, and the images of the Arab and Jewish terrorists differed only in their attire.
Both groups were uniformly treated as alien and hostile. They were accused of not sharing Western values and were both viewed as prone to conspiracy. They were both seen as usurpers of Western wealth and were defined as threats to Western civilization. Jews were associated with capitalist greed and anarchist violence and communism. Arab avarice was held responsible for runaway inflation, and they were seen as the main agents responsible for international terrorism.
In the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism against Jews is now recognized for what it is hateful prejudice. We have yet to learn this lesson when it comes to Arabs and Islam.
[b]THAT'S RIGHT, FOLKS. THE U.S. TREATED THE ARABS IN THE 70'S JUST LIKE THE NAZIS TREATED THE JEWS IN THE 30'S AND FORTIES! DON'T YOU REMEMBER?
THE ARTICLE GETS WORSE. CLICK ON THE LINK AND READ IT, IF YOU HAVE A STRONG STOMACHE.[/b]
[i]Why the Palestinians are in such a state, By Mark Steyn[/i] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/0 4/27/do2702.xml" title="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/0 4/27/do2702.xml" target="_blank"http://www.telegraph.co.uk/op...
There was an hilarious piece in the Washington Post on Sunday, under the plaintive headline, "Why Did Bush Take My Job?" The author was Saeb Erekat, and the job he claims Bush has taken from him is "senior Palestinian negotiator" with the Israelis. The other day, speaking in support of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, President Bush stated the obvious: it was "unrealistic" to expect a return to the armistice lines of 1949, and theres no point wasting time discussing the Palestinian "right of return" to whats now Israel, because its never going to happen.....
"Why did Bush take my job?" To be honest, Id forgotten whether or not Mr Erekat currently held it. Periodically he resigns from Arafats cabinet for some reason or another, but quietly returns to his post a couple of months later - "senior Palestinian negotiator" being the Palestinian equivalent of those ancient Cabinet titles Tony Blair can never quite get rid of.
Edward Heath, in his time as Lord Privy Seal, was once addressed by some foreign dignitary as "Lord Heath" and famously responded that he was neither a lord nor a privy nor a seal. The "senior Palestinian negotiator" is not "senior", speaks for no viable faction within either the dignified (Arafatist) or efficient (Hamas) parts of the Palestinian Authority, and hasnt negotiated anything in a decade.
He last resigned last summer, after Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian prime minister, went off to negotiate with Ariel Sharon and accidentally left his "chief negotiator" out of the negotiating team. I guess someone else was taking Mr Erekats job back then.
Mr Erekats real job is to look good in a suit and go on television and sound reasonable when, as on September 11, the excitable chaps in Ramallah are dancing in the street and singing the Arabic version of Happy Days Are Here Again. And he is, of course, "democratically elected", being presently in the ninth year of a five-year term. So Yasser keeps him around to do the CNN-BBC interviews when Hanan Ashrawi is washing her hair and they need someone to do the autopilot drone of "root causes", "desperation", "cycle of violence".
But, if Bush did "take my job", its because Erekat is not up to it. For 10 years, the world has been trying to give a state to the Palestinians and the Palestinians keep tossing obstacles in their path. The latest innovation was a suicide-bomber arrested with explosives bearing HIV-infected blood, the thinking being that anyone who survived would get Aids. Unfortunately, the heat of the explosion kills the virus. But, in his combination of depravity and incompetence, the "Aids bomber" neatly encapsulates the present state of Palestinian "nationalism". The only way the Palestinians will get any kind of state is if Israel and America inflict it on them and eliminate such lethargic middle-men as Mr Erekat.
A rabbi was attacked near his synagogue in the suburbs of Paris.
Rabbi James Mallul of the Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue in Creteil, south of the capital, was hit in the face and stomach by two men while walking to services Saturday evening with his son, the Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism told JTA.
In another incident, a swastika and Nazi slogans were scrawled on a synagogue in northern France. Members of the tiny Jewish community in Valenciennes filed a police complaint, and security has been stepped up outside the building.
Nine U.S. universities are objecting to new Ford Foundation rules designed to prevent grants from being used to assist terrorist groups.
Following a JTA investigation last fall of the foundations funding of radical anti-Israel groups, the foundation passed a new provision pledging to withdraw funding if any of a universitys expenditures promoted violence, terrorism, bigotry or the destruction of any state. The Rockefeller Foundation, another charitable fund, imposed similar restrictions. In recent days, however, provosts at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago challenged the new provisions, saying they could limit academic freedom, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Both foundations defended the new requirements and said they expect to resolve their differences with the universities, the paper reported.
[i]U.S. Retreats from Bush Remarks on Sharon Plan; Effort is Intended to Placate Arabs - Glenn Kessler[/i] http://www.washingtonpost.com...://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1475 -2004May4.html
The Bush administration on Tuesday joined in a high-level diplomatic statement that stressed that the key issues dividing Israelis and Palestinians must be negotiated by both sides, just weeks after President Bush pronounced that Israel could keep some West Bank settlements and Palestinian refugees should not resettle in Israel. U.S. officials and foreign diplomats described the statement as an effort by the Bush administration to repair the international damage from the president's remarks last month, which had drawn sharp criticism in the Arab world and from European allies. Secretary of State Powell said, "We are in conversation with our other Arab friends to see what assurances and comments they may need from us to make sure that they know that the president has not abandoned them." (Washington Post)
[b]See also[/b] [i]Bush tempers Israel pledge[/i] http://www.jta.org/page_view_...+tempers+Israel+pledge&in tcategoryid=5 Bitten by Israels notoriously unpredictable political culture, the Bush administration is shying away from the commitments it made to secure an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
[b]See also[/b] [i]Quartet Calls for Reorganized Palestinian Leadership, Transfer of Territory - Barry Schweid[/i] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin...
After a meeting on Tuesday at the UN, representatives of the Quartet (UN, U.S., EU, and Russia), including Secretary of State Powell, called for reorganizing Palestinian leadership to counter terror attacks on Israel and said territory evacuated by Israel should be turned over to the PA. They endorsed again establishment of a Palestinian state and "took positive note" of a proposal by Israeli Prime Minister Sharon to withdraw Israeli troops and all 7,500 Jewish settlers from Gaza - a plan that the Israel leader's own Likud political party rejected on Sunday.
Powell said Sharon's proposal, which the prime minister may revise in a bid to gain approval in Israel, is "an opportunity that ought to be seized." On Monday, a senior Bush administration official said Bush would not try to put Sharon's Gaza plan back on track. (AP/San Francisco Chronicle)
JERUSALEM - An Israeli military court on Tuesday indicted a 15-year-old Palestinian boy on charges of recruiting teenagers to become suicide bombers the first time such charges have been leveled at a Palestinian youth.
The court said Nasser Awartani recruited a 16-year-old who blew himself up at a military checkpoint and another teen who was caught with a bomb strapped to his body. Awartani was the key contact between youths in the West Bank city of Nablus and two militant groups, the court said.
Palestinian militant groups, especially around Nablus, have been trying to attract youths to attack Israelis, in the belief they are more likely to evade security checks. Some Palestinian intellectuals and educators have criticized the practice of enlisting young bombers. ...
The court said Awartani oversaw a recruitment network for the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, ferrying potential bombers to initial meetings with militants and helping them get ready for attacks.
He took the bombers to get haircuts before attacks, preparing for martyrdom and the afterlife, and helped them travel from place to place undetected, the indictment said.
Awartani was also accused of involvement in a highly publicized incident, in which Hussam Abdo, 16, was caught at a checkpoint outside Nablus wearing a suicide bomb vest. Soldiers forced Abdo to remove his shirt and cut off the bomb, an incident broadcast around the world.
The court also charged Awartani with recruiting Sabih Abu Saud at 16 the youngest suicide bomber in 3 1/2 years of violence who wounded one Israeli soldier when he blew himself up in November.
THE ARAB LEAGUE AND AUSTRIAN MUSLIM GROUPS ARE UPSET ABOUT VIENNAS PLAN TO NAME A CITY SQUARE AFTER THE FATHER OF ZIONISM, THEODOR HERZL. THIS MAY SURPRISE YOU, BUT THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE RELIGION OF PEACE ARE SAY THERE COULD BE TROUBLE IF VIENNA GOES AHEAD WITH ITS PLAN.
VIENNA, Austria - Plans to name a Vienna square after Zionist Theodor Herzl drew protest Tuesday from the Arab League, which urged city fathers to reconsider for the sake of continued "good relations" with the Arab world. ...
The Vienna mission of the 22-nation Arab League sent a letter to Haeupl expressing its "regret" at the decision to honor a man whose name "represents a sad memory for Arabs and Muslims."
The letter, which was dated April 29, also suggested the plan could lead to terrorism. "We believe that this plan is bad timing because of the tense situation in the Middle East and Iraq and therefore will not serve the cause of good relations between Austria and the Arab-Islamic world," said the letter, made available to The Associated Press. It contrasted the plan with the "clever politics that has protected Austria up until today from conflicts and problems." ....
With Austria moving from denial to acceptance of its part in the Holocaust over the past two decades, Vienna's decision to commemorate Herzl is the latest in a series of posthumous honors bestowed on the country's famous Jews.
Carna Amina Baghajati, a spokeswoman for Vienna's 120,000-strong Islamic community, also criticized the plan. She suggested a square be named instead for Mohammad Asad, the Austrian-born Jew who changed his name from Leopold Weiss, converted to Islam and went on to become an honored 19th century Muslim scholar.
[i]In outreach to Jewish community, Kerry stresses his ties with Israel[/i] http://www.jta.org/page_view_...+vies+for+Jewish+vote&int categoryid=5
WASHINGTON, May 3 (JTA) A Kerry administration would avoid the pressure other presidents have used to nudge Israel in peace negotiations, and would consult closely with the Jewish state before launching any new Middle East peace initiative. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, outlined his approach to Middle East peacemaking in an interview with JTA on Monday, the same day he launched his campaign to win Jewish votes with a major policy speech to the Anti-Defamation League.
Kerry has been working hard to mitigate the effect in the Jewish community of President Bushs extraordinary concessions to Israel last month, when the president recognized some Israeli claims to the West Bank and rejected any right of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel.
The Jewish vote could play a crucial role in 10 swing states in what is likely to be a close election this fall, and Kerry is on a fund-raising drive that needs a strong turnout among the Democrats broad base of Jewish donors. His ADL speech sounded a range of notes aimed at pleasing Jewish ears on civil rights, anti-Semitism and Israel.
For the entire 20 years that I have been in the United States Senate, Im proud that my commitment to a secure Jewish state has been unwavering; not even by one vote or one letter or one resolution has it wavered, Kerry said to the applause of the ADL audience. As president, I can guarantee you that that support and that effort for our ally, a vibrant democracy, will continue.
Thats a guarantee that Bush or for that matter, almost any of his predecessors easily could make. ....
Kerry also said his belief in a multilateral approach to foreign affairs did not apply to Israel. The multilateral community has always been very difficult with respect to Israel, and we have always stood up against their efforts to isolate Israel, he said. Kerry said his criticism of what he calls the Bush administrations unilateralism has to do with the administration of Iraq, environmental issues and containment of North Korea.
None of that changes my record being wary of the way the U.N. has been used as a sort of battering ram with respect to Israel, Kerry said.
Kerry reiterated his endorsement of Bushs recent statement of support for Israels disengagement plan from the Palestinians in exchange for Prime Minister Ariel Sharons commitment to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and a portion of the West Bank.
Right of return is a non-starter. We need to get a note of reality into these discussions, Kerry said.
Likewise, refusing to recognize the permanence of some settlements is disingenuous, Kerry said. ....
If elected, Kerry said, his first step with regard to the Middle East would be to consult with Israeli and U.S. Jewish leaders.
Im not about to go off on some grand design. Weve got to see where we are in terms of security, in terms of where is the government of Israel at that point in time, Kerry said.
He also backed off an earlier commitment to send a presidential envoy to the region. The people he proposed Clinton, President Carter or former Secretary of State James Baker angered some supporters of Israel.
Kerry also agreed with the policy of isolating Arafat, whom Israel and the Bush administration accuse of ties to terrorism.
Dozens of gravestones at a Montreal Jewish cemetery were defaced with swastikas and Nazi slogans. Police said there is no link between this incident and the firebombing last month of a Jewish day school.
Why is what's good for Cyprus not good for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? When the Turkish army invaded in 1974, approximately 200,000 Greek refugees fled south to the Greek section of the island. During negotiations for reunification, the Greeks demanded that all of the refugees and their descendents return to the Turkish section. The UN and EU did not accept the Greeks' demand to allow the refugees to return.
After the invasion, the Turks brought farmers from Turkey and settled them in northern Cyprus. During the negotiations, the Greeks demanded that the Turkish "settlers" return to Turkey, but the UN and EU supported the Turkish position and left the "settlers" and "settlements" in place.
In Cyprus, the basic assumption was that the new reality of refugees and settlers, which has been created in Cyprus during the last 30 years, was the decisive factor to be considered. President Bush's letter to Prime Minister Sharon was based on the same assumption, that preference must be given to "the new situation that has been created."
Furthermore, the EU did not make ratification of the agreement (which was rejected in a recent referendum) a condition for Cyprus to join the Union.
The PA released funds over the weekend that it froze in August last year belonging to Hamas-affiliated charity organizations. Palestinian sources said the transfer was a one-time gesture and did not indicate a general release of the millions of dollars belonging to Hamas charities currently frozen by the PA. (Ha'aretz)
Top leaders of Muslim-American organizations are being deposed as witnesses in a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of a Brooklyn-born teenager who was gunned down near Jerusalem eight years ago. Nathan Lewin, a Washington attorney, filed a $600 million civil complaint on behalf of David's parents, Joyce and Stanley Boim, in May 2000. It accuses several U.S.-based Islamic organizations, alleged Hamas supporters, and Muhammad Salah, a part-time teacher living in a Chicago suburb, of being "part of an ongoing conspiracy to promote Hamas and to raise funds in the U.S. for its terrorist operations." (Boston Globe)
BUT DID YOU GET OUR VALENTINE (IN THE FORM OF U.S. AID)?
The Bush administration has turned down a request by Jordan's King Abdullah II for a written statement this week that Palestinians would be compensated in a future peace accord with Israel, administration officials said on Monday. Abdullah is scheduled to visit the White House on Thursday. "There may be a letter, but not until after the visit," an administration official said. But he added that any letter would probably not contain the promises sought by the Jordanians. (New York Times)
FORMER US AMBASSADORS TO ARAB COUNTRIES ARE PUTTING TOGETHER A LETTER URGING PRESIDENT BUSH TO ABANDON ISRAEL AND SHOW MORE SUPPORT FOR THE TYRANNICAL, HATE-FILLED COUNTRIES THAT PAID FOR THEIR RETIREMENTS.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - [b]Former US diplomats and government officials are collecting signatures on a letter urging President George W. Bush to reconsider US support for Israel. [/b] The diplomats, some of whom belong to the American Educational Trust (AET), plan to release the text at a press conference in Washington on Tuesday. ...
The letter was circulated here after Bushs April 14 endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharons plan for an Israeli withdrawal from all of the Gaza Strip, but only six of 10 West Bank settlements.
Bush, for his part, had said Palestinian refugees could not expect to return to territory their families had occupied before 1948.
Your unqualified support of Sharons extra-judicial assassinations, Israels Berlin Wall-like barrier, its harsh military measures in occupied territories and now your endorsement of Sharons unilateral plan are costing our country its credibility, prestige and friends, the Financial Times quoted the letter as saying. ...
Early responses are staggering, the AET said in a brief statement Monday, adding signatories are united by their belief that the US government is heading toward great danger.
Our hope is that both political parties will take heed and listen to the voices of experienced diplomats, it said. The Financial Times said on April 30 that the letter had been drafted by Andrew Killgore, a former US ambassador to Qatar, and Richard Curtiss, former chief inspector of the US Information Agency. The newspaper said the missive was to have been sent to the White House on that date, but was held back to allow more former envoys to sign it. It reported that former ambassadors to Iraq, India, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates had signed the letter.
[i]Acid leakage results in apprehension of would-be bomber[/i] http://www.maarivintl.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&ar ticleID=6859" title="http://www.maarivintl.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&ar ticleID=6859" target="_blank"http://www.maarivintl.com/ind...
Police officers recently foiled a suicide bombing attack in Israel, it was revealed on Monday. However, a highly unusual chain of events led to his apprehension.
It appears [b]a leak in his bomb-belt caused phosphorus material to reach his skin causing such a severe burn that a hole was literally seen in the stomach of the would-be bomber.[/b]
Police forces who were recently on high terror alert in one of the cities of central Israel noticed a Palestinian running like crazy. They began a chase and soon detained him. At first they suspected that he ran because of the panic that suddenly gripped him when he noticed the large security deployment. However, it was then revealed that the reason for his detention was a severe burn in his stomach.
[b]The terrorist was rushed to a nearby hospital [/b]and for days suffered pain from the material that consumed his skin.
OH, THOSE EVIL ZIONISTS, RUSHING HIM TO A HOSPITAL TO ATTEND TO THE WOUNDS HE INFLICTED UPON HIMSELF TRYING TO MURDER WOMEN AND CHILDREN! WHERE IS THE HUMANITY?
IT TURNS OUT THAT THE PALESTINIAN "MILITANTS" WHO MURDERED A PREGNANT WOMAN AND HER DAUGHTERS IN COLD BLOOD THIS WEEKEND (SEE STORY BELOW) RECORDED A VIDEO OF THEIR CRIMES. http://www.israelnationalnews...
[i]It was also learned that the terrorists not only murdered the 34-year-old mother of four who was eight months pregnant along with her children, but then ran up to the vehicle and took a video of the results of their actions, filming the young victims as they bled to death.[/i]
To start, you have to appear non-judgmental about innocent Palestinian children being raised to become human bombs.
You must refer to those who send such children on suicide/mass murder missions as political leaders or, even better, as spiritual leaders. Call them militants if you must, but never terrorists.
To be thought of as pro-Palestinian, you must cite the plight of the Palestinian refugees as a key motivation for violence, ignoring the fact that there would have been no refugees had Israels Arab neighbors not launched a war to destroy the tiny Jewish state immediately upon its birth.
Indeed, Arabs who chose to stay in Israel are today Israeli citizens, as are their children, enjoying more freedoms than do the citizens of neighboring Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia or even Jordan. Disregard all this if you want to be seen as someone who cares about Palestinians.
Supporters of Palestinians must point to the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank as another root cause of violence. Avoid mentioning that it was a second Arab war against Israel that led to the seizure of those territories which, at that time, were not called Palestinian territories. Gaza was administered by Egypt and the West Bank by Jordan and no one demanded that they be turned them over to Palestinian sovereignty.
The Israelis captured the Sinai as well. That territory, several times larger than all of Israel, was returned to Egypt in exchange for a piece of paper promising peace. Forget these awkward details.
To burnish your pro-Palestinian credentials, even as you rail against the Israeli occupation, say nothing positive about Prime Minister Ariel Sharons plan to end that occupation entirely in Gaza and to withdraw Israeli troops and settlements from 85 percent of the West Bank. In Orwellian fashion, insist that Mr. Sharon is giving up those lands as part of a land grab.
While it is true that at Camp David in 2000, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered about 95% of the West Bank and Gaza, Yassir Arafat turned that offer down and initiated several years of terrorist attacks. Even so, Mr. Sharon has said hes willing to consider further withdrawal, to discuss permanent borders, though he wont negotiate with those dispatching terrorists. Dismiss all that as irrelevant if you want to be described as someone who sympathizes with the Palestinians.
What kind of culture produces human bombs, glorifies mass murderers, and supports humiliation-based revenge? According to psychoanalyst and Arabist, Dr. Nancy Kobrin, it is a culture in which shame and honor play decisive roles and in which the debasement of women is paramount.
In an as-yet unpublished book, The Sheik's New Clothes: The Psychoanalytic Roots of Islamic Suicide Terrorism, Kobrin, and her Israeli co-author, counter-terrorism expert Yoram Schweitzer, describe barbarous family and clan dynamics.
Clearly, only evolution of democracy and the elevation of women can begin to change such dynamics. Yet historically and theologically, Arab and Muslim culture strongly opposes both democracy and equality for women. This is why the battles to liberate Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East are so very difficult.
[i]Sharon Gaza pullout plan fails amid violence; Likud rebuff of withdrawal plan clouds Israeli PM's political future[/i] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4...
JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ariel Sharons Likud Party rejected his plan to pull out of the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank in a referendum Sunday, an embarrassing defeat for the premier.
The result left the future of Sharons unilateral disengagement from the Palestinians in doubt and his leadership in disarray. The outcome could precipitate a major political crisis a Cabinet reshuffle, a split within the party or even early elections.
With all the votes counted, opponents of the plan had 60 percent and supporters only 39 percent, Army Radio reported early Monday.
The premier, who had said he considered the polling a vote of confidence in his leadership, said he respected the results but would not resign. Close supporters said disengagement was inevitable, despite the referendum outcome.
Sharon said he would consult with party and government officials on his next steps and suggested he would continue to push ahead with his plan.
One thing is clear to me: The people of Israel did not want me to sit for four years with my hands folded. I was chosen to find a way to bring this nation the calm, peace and security that it so deserves, he said in a statement.
The White House said it still supports Sharons withdrawal plan and will soon consult with the prime minister on how to move forward.
[b]A pregnant mother and her four daughters were shot dead Sunday after two terrorists opened fire at Israeli cars traveling near the Kissufim Crossing at the entrance to the Gush Katif settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip. [/b]
[b]The dead were identified as Tali Hatuel, 34, eight months pregnant and her daughters Hila, 11, Hadar, 9, Roni, 7, Merav, 2 all from the settlement of Katif. [/b]The five will be laid to rest 6.30 PM on Sunday at an Ashkelon cemetery.
Two soldiers and an Israeli civilian were also wounded in the attack and were evacuated to Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheba. The IDF said that both of the gunmen, who arrived at the area by car, were killed in an ensuing firefight.
[b]The Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and Popular Resistance Committees claimed joint responsibility for the attack[/b], saying it was to avenge the assassinations of Hamas leaders Sheikh Yassin and Rantisi.
The two Palestinians who carried out the attack were identified as Ibrahim Hamad and Faisal Abu Naqirah both from Rafiah.
[b]Police said the white Citroen station wagon, carrying the family, spun off the road after the initial shooting, then the attackers approached the vehicle and shot the occupants at close range. The car was riddled with bullets, and the carpet inside was stained with blood.[/b]
[i]Later, the Saudi Press Agency quoted Abdullah as telling a gathering of princes in Jiddah that [b]Zionism is behind terrorist actions in the kingdom. I can say that I am 95 percent sure of that.[/b]
He said Zionism had misled some of our sons, but did not elaborate. [b]Anti-Israeli sentiment runs high in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Arab world because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[/[/b]i]
THAT LAST LITTLE EDITORIAL "NEWS" WAS INSERTED FOR YOU COURTESY OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. HERE'S HOW I WOULD HAVE WRITTEN THAT LAST SENTENCE: "ANTI-SEMITISM RUNS HIGH IN SAUDI ARABIA AND ELSEWHERE IN THE ARAB WORLD BECAUSE ARAB LEADERS HAVE PERVERTED THE TEACHINGS OF ISLAM TO EMPHASIZE DEMONIZATION OF JEWS IN ORDER TO PROVIDE A SCAPEGOAT FOR THEIR OWN PEOPLE WHO ARE BEING CRUSHED BENEATH THE JACKBOOT OF ARAB DICTATORSHIPS."
Maccabi Tel Aviv was crowned as the European Champion Saturday night after crushing Skipper Bologna 118-74 in the Euroleague final before a sold-out crowd of over 10,000 at the Nokia Arena in Tel Aviv.
Captain Gur Shelef asked Maccabi veteran Derrick Sharp to lift the trophy with him while thousands dressed in yellow roared, coach Pini Gershon - the first Israeli coach to take two European titles - screamed "this is great," and the speakers played Queen's "We are the Champions" with flags and banners waving from all directions.
The Israelis set a host of records of records on their way to their fourth European Championships, including the most lopsided win in Final Four history, erasing Maccabi's 101-67 drubbing at the hands of Barcelona in 1991. The 118 points also marked the most scored by one team in Final Four history.
