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[i]Saudi Officials Reinforce Crown Prince Abdallah's Accusation that Zionists Are Behind Terror Attacks in Saudi Arabia[/i] http://www.memri.org/bin/open...
At the Saudi embassy in Washington D.C. on June 2, 2004, U.S. and Saudi officials held a news conference to announce stricter Saudi government oversight of charitable organizations which have been accused of supporting terrorism.
The officials present at the press conference were Adel Al-Jubeir, foreign affairs adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Abdallah, E. Anthony Wayne, Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, and Juan Zarate, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Executive Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crime, Treasury Department.
The officials were asked by the media about comments made by Crown Prince Abdallah in reaction to the May 1, 2004 terrorist attack in Yunbu, Saudi Arabia, in which seven people were killed. On the day after the attack, Crown Prince Abdallah stated at a gathering of Saudi dignitaries that "Zionists" were to blame: "This is seduction. You all know who is behind it all. Zionism is behind it. It has become clear now. It has become clear to us. I don't say, I mean... It is not 100%, but 95% [certain] that the Zionist hands are behind what happened. But I tell you that you can be 100% sure that, Allah willing, this country will be victorious, whoever the faction that turns against it may be. But we are convinced that Zionism is behind everything. This has been established, I am not saying by 100%, but by 95%."
Adel Al-Jubeir responded to questions about the statement by comparing American critics of Saudi Arabia to Al-Qa'ida terrorists, and E. Anthony Wayne of the U.S. State Department also did not criticize Crown Prince Abdallah's remarks. The above link directs you to excerpts from the Saudi Embassy press conference, and other statements by high-ranking members of the Saudi royal family defending Crown Prince Abdallah's statement.
JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Ariel Sharon asserted that Irael had reached an understanding with the United States concerning Iran's nuclear weapons arsenal. Sharon told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Wednesday that he and President George Bush agreed to a series of strategic understandings concerning Israel's defensive posture in the Middle East. Sharon said the understandings were among the benefits offered by the Bush administration for the prime minister's pledge to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank.
[b]French sports officials are denying that the main tennis stadium for the French Open was a transit camp for Jews during the Holocaust. [/b]
It has been widely reported that Jews were held at Roland Garros during World War II. But French officials say that while political prisoners were held there, it was not a transit camp for Jews. The tournament, one of tennis’ four Grand Slam events, concludes this weekend.
[b]The Turkish prime minister likened Israel’s handling of the Palestinian uprising to the Spanish Inquisition.[/b] “Our forbears, at the height of their strength, opened their hearts to the Jews expelled from Spain during the Inquisition,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a Ha’aretz interview published Thursday, his first remarks to Israeli media since stirring up controversy last month by attacking the Sharon government´s security policies. “Today the Palestinians are the victims, and unfortunately the people of Israel treat the Palestinians the way they were treated 500 years ago.”
The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem did not immediately comment. Despite its pro-Islamic government, Turkey is a strategic ally for the Jewish state.
[i]Wartime Witch Hunt: Blaming Israel for the Iraq War - Dore Gold (Institute for Contemporary Affairs/Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)[/i] http://www.jcpa.org/brief/bri...
An insidious but steady drumbeat can be discerned over the last several weeks charging that the primary interest of the Bush administration in going to war against Saddam Hussein was to defend Israeli security interests. This newest wave is often more subtle but also far more mainstream than what was voiced in this regard just last year.
Yet from Israel's perspective, by 2003 the Iraqi Army had been severely degraded in both military manpower and equipment. Continuing UN sanctions had made Iraqi re-armament difficult and Iraq was clearly not Israel's primary concern. Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens concluded in August 2002 that in the immediate future, "the [missile] threat that Israel most likely will have to contend with" is that of Syria. He described the Iraqi capability as "relatively limited." During the same month, Israel's current chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, declared in Jerusalem that the threat posed by Iraq "doesn't make me lose sleep."
If prior to the Iraq War the Israeli security establishment was somewhat ambivalent about the extent of the Iraqi threat, there was one state that threatened Israel about which Israeli statements were unmistakably clear: Iran. Israel used language with respect to Iran that it did not apply to Iraq. Thus, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would call Iran "the main existential threat to Israel."
In other words, the American war against Iraq may have had an unintended side-effect of removing a secondary or tertiary threat to Israel, but not a primary threat.
There is something persuasive about Richard Clarke's thesis that in the case of Iraq, the dominant consideration was concern over the long-term stability of the House of Saud and the need for the U.S. to replace a shaky Saudi Arabia with an alternative friendly source of oil for the industrial West. Considering the widespread presence of al-Qaeda cells across virtually all parts of Saudi Arabia that now has become evident after repeated terrorist attacks in that country, this American consideration has been proven to be prescient. But this has absolutely nothing to do with Israel.
A recent Israel Center for the Treatment of Psychotrauma survey of young people in Jerusalem found that 50% had been exposed to a terrorist attack and that 20% had lost a relative.
Despite this, researchers found that Israeli children are "extraordinarily resilient" and that only 5% had developed full blown post-traumatic stress disorder.
The study found that young people living on settlements in the West Bank and Gaza were less susceptible to trauma despite being exposed to more frequent attacks
MEANWHILE, PALESTINIAN CHILDREN ARE STRAPPING BOMBS ON THEIR CHESTS AND WALKING INTO RESTAURANTS.
[b]The Palestinian Legislative Council Wednesday rejected a U.S.-sponsored demand that Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) refrain from transferring funds to individuals or groups that engage in terrorism. [/b] After the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) presented the pledge to NGOs in 2003, entitled "Certification Regarding Terrorist Financing." It includes a pledge that NGOs will not engage in activity with groups deemed as terrorist, such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades. (Jerusalem Post)
[i]Palestinian Security Forces on Strike in Gaza - Nidal al-Mughrabi (Reuters and Maariv International)[/i] http://www.reuters.com/newsAr...
[b]More than 100 members of the Palestinian security forces have gone on strike in Gaza over what they charged was rampant corruption among senior officers.[/b] The protesters took over a position belonging to the elite Force 17 in the central Gaza Strip on Tuesday.
They said senior officers of the National Security Forces were "pursuing their personal interests at the expense of the homeland" and had turned the security forces into "fiefdoms." The wives and children of some of the officers had been put on the payroll of security agencies.
The men claimed that their top commander, General Abdel Razak el Mujeida, is corrupt, and [b]complained that while low-ranking officers and enlisted men are ordered to oppose IDF incursions, the senior command leaves for safe areas, taking their families with them. They also accused the top brass of stealing their salaries and supplies. [/b]
I HOPE HERSH GOT A BIG BONUS FOR THIS, BECAUSE HIS LACK OF JUDGMENT JUST MAY COST MILLIONS OF ISRAELIS THEIR LIVES FROM A NUCLEAR ATTACK BY IRAN. WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED DURING WWII IF SOME "JOURNALIST" HAD ALERTED THE GERMANS TO THE FACT THAT EXPATRIOT POLES LIVING IN LONDON HAD BROKEN THEIR CODE? UNBELIEVABLE.
On March 2, 2004, investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh wrote in the New Yorker: "On a trip to the Middle East last month, I was told that a number of years ago the Israeli signals-intelligence agency, known as Unit 8200, broke a sophisticated Iranian code and began monitoring communications that included talk between Iran and Pakistan about Iran's burgeoning nuclear-weapons program." According to Hersh, the findings were also shared with U.S. intelligence services. (Jerusalem Post)
Peninsula Congressman and Iraq war advocate Tom Lantos abruptly pulled out of an appearance at City College of San Francisco's commencement this past weekend, fearing that if he showed up, caps and gowns would be overshadowed by pickets and protests.
Here's the story:
A couple of months back, City College Chancellor Phil Day met with Lantos back in Washington, D.C., to lobby for more funding. On the way out the door, Day extended a courtesy invitation for the congressman to attend the college's commencement exercises, if he happened to be in town over the Memorial Day weekend.
Something must have gotten lost in the translation, because the next thing anyone knew, Lantos was calling to say he'd be glad to give the commencement address. Unfortunately, Mayor Gavin Newsom had already gotten that invitation.
As a face-saving gesture, the school brass decided to honor Lantos with a "Friend of City College'' medal. That way he could at least share the stage with Newsom and even make some remarks.
Everything looked to be going smoothly until Thursday night, when[b] three very vocal faculty members and five students showed up at the college's Board of Trustees meeting to protest Lantos' appearance.
The litany of complaints against Democrat Lantos included everything from his unwavering Iraq war stance to his support for the Patriot Act to his "one- sided'' backing of Israel, including his recent handshake with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. [/b] One student warned the ceremony would be picketed if Lantos appeared.
"Our consciences wouldn't let us sit back,'' Allan Fisher, a union leader who teaches English as a second language at City College, said of the uproar over Lantos.
The next day -- at the urging of trustees -- Day was on the telephone with Lantos' staffers, warning them of possible trouble. "They decided that it would be in the best interest of all parties not to participate in the graduation ceremonies because it might detract from the atmosphere,'' Day said. "I give Tom Lantos and his staff a lot of credit for understanding the situation.''
To which Lantos' chief of staff, Robert King, added: "His feeling was that this ought to be about the kids who are being honored for the work they did -- not politics.''
YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED THAT I'VE DELETED A FEW COMMENTS POSTED TO MY ARTICLES. I'M ALL IN FAVOR OF LETTING PEOPLE WHO DISAGREE WITH ME HAVE THEIR SAY. I WELCOME THE BACK AND FORTH. HOWEVER, I DRAW THE LINE AT DEATH THREATS.
P.S. TO NUTBALLS: YOUR ARGUMENTS AREN'T HELPED BY APPLAUDING ADOLPH HITLER.
Orthodox Jews in New York have become concerned that the city's drinking water may not be kosher because it contains tiny crustaceans known as copepods. The organisms, which measure about a millimeter long, first came to the attention of Jewish leaders in Brooklyn two weeks ago, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
An Israeli produce company that exports kosher vegetables to New York alleged that its products had become infested with insects after being washed in the city's water, which is unfiltered. An examination of the water under a microscope revealed the copepods.
An intelligence officer told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday that there are some 10-20 weapons smugglers in Gaza who belong to the PA's security forces.
He also said there are preliminary indications of efforts to divert smuggling to areas other than Rafah as a result of the recent IDF operation.
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.
