ROSH HASHANA 5768 REFLECTIONS Posted by Yoram Ettinger, August 31, 2007.

The photo art above is by Fred Reifenberg. It is called "Reflect on This."

1. ROSH HASHANA commemorates the emergence of human being on the sixth day of creation. ROSH (Hashana) means in Hebrew "BEGINNING", "Head", "Chief". The Hebrew letters of ROSH are at the heart/middle of the Hebrew word for Genesis, "BERESHIT", which is the first word in Old Testament. Just like The Creation, so should the new year and our own actions, be a thoughtful (head-driven) -- rather than a hasty -- process. Rosh Hashana is celebrated during the Hebrew month of TISHREY, which means GENESIS in ancient Acadian. Rosh Hashana is referred to as "HA'RA'T OLAM" (the pregnancy of the world), and its prayers highlight the pregnancies of SARAH and CHANAH who gave birth to ISAAC and SAMUEL. NOAH -- who led the rebirth of humanity/world -- also features in Rosh Hashana prayers. 2. THE SHOFAR (ritual horn) is blown on Rosh Hashana, which is also called "YOM TE'ROO'AH" (the day of blowing the Shofar). Shofar is a derivative of the Hebrew word for ENHANCEMENT/IMPROVEMENT (Shipur), which is expected of human beings during the new year. A blow of the Shofar is intended to assemble the People and to awaken one's conscience and soul-searching, a prerequisite for improvement. Such a process requires HUMILITY, symbolized by the Shofar, which is bent and is not supposed to be decorated. The Shofar is the epitome of Peace-Through-Strength: It is made from the horn of a ram, which is a peaceful animal equipped with strong horns, in order to fend off wild animals. While the BLOWING of the Shofar is a major virtue (of one person), LISTENING to the sound of the Shofar is a major virtue as well (of the whole community). The Hebrew root of "listening" is the same as the root for SCALE and BALANCE (good deeds vs bad deeds), which is the zodiac sign of the month of Tishrey. The same root also applies to the Hebrew word for "ear", which contains the balancing mechanism in our body. Both Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are observed during the month of Tishrey. There are three types of Shofar-blowing, highlighting Liberty of human-beings and G-D's Kingdom (MALKHOUYOT), history/memory (ZIKHRONOT) and enhancement (SHOFAROT). They also commemorate the three patriarchs, the three parts of the Old Testament and the three types of human beings on judgment day (pious, evil and mediocre). The Shofar is blown 101 times, which is the numerical value (in Hebrew) of the name Michael, which was one of the names of Moses. 3. THE SHOFAR commemorates faith in G-D, optimism in face of adversity, the lessons of the almost-sacrifice of Isaac (thou shall not sacrifice human beings!), the gift of the Torah at Mt. Sinai (which was ushered in by the Shofar), spiritual and physical deliverance of slaves, destruction of the two Temples, ingathering of the Jews to the Land of Israel and the day of judgment. 4. THE POMEGRANATE -- one of the seven species blessed by the Land of Israel -- features during Rosh Hashana meals and in a key blessing on Rosh Hashana: "May you be credited with as many rewards as the seeds of the pomegranate." The pomegranate becomes ripe on time for Rosh Hashana and contains -- genetically -- 613 seeds, which is the number of Jewish laws (of Moses). It was employed as an ornament of the Holy Arc, the Menorah (candelabrum) and the Grand Priest coat, and is employed as an ornament of the Torah Scroll. The first two letters of the Hebrew word for pomegranate, RIMON, mean sublime and it is known for its crown. The pomegranate (skin and seeds) is the healthiest fruit: much iron, anti-oxidant, anti-cancer, decreases blood pressure, enhances quality of blood and cardiac and digestion system. A Hebrew synonym to a wise person: Wholesome like a pomegranate. 5. COMMEMORATION DAY ("Yom Hazikaron" in Hebrew) is one of the names of Rosh Hashana. One can avoid -- rather than repeat -- past mistakes by examining history. The more one remembers, the deeper are the roots and the greater is one's stability and one's capability to withstand storms of pressure and temptation. The more stable/calculated/moral is the head of the year (Rosh Hashana), the more constructive is the rest of the year. Rosh Hashana commemorates: The appearance of the FIRST HUMAN BEING on the sixth day of The Creation, The beginning of the CYCLE OF NATURE -- seed planting -- and equality of day and night; The opening of the Ark of NOAH following The Flood; The almost-sacrifice of ISAAC; The release of JOSEPH (who is buried in northern Samaria, Nablus) from Egyptian jail; The laying of the cornerstone to the Second TEMPLE; The three Patriarchs, ABRAHAM, ISAAC and JACOB were born during the month of Tishrey, which is called "The Month of the Strong Ones" -- Nature and Patriarchs; The two days of Rosh Hashana are dedicated to Abraham and Isaac and Yom Kippur (which ends the Ten Days of Repentance/Atonement, initiated on Rosh Hashana) is dedicated to JACOB; The Patriarch ISAAC and the Prophet SAMUEL were conceived, in Tishrey, by SARAH and CHANAH; 6. ROSH HASHANA IS A UNIVERSAL -- NOT JUST JEWISH -- STOCK TAKING (REPENTANCE) DAY (Yom Teshuva, Yom Hadeen in Hebrew), which is the first of the Ten Days of Atonement, culminating on Yom Kippur. A Hebrew word for atonement/repentance is TESHUVA, which also means spiritual and physical RETURN (to core values and to the Land of Israel). On Rosh Hashana one is expected to plan a "budget" for the entire year. The prerequisite for a wholesome "budget" is HUMILITY, without which one is incapable of objective "stock taking". The three Hebrew words, Teshuva (repentance/atonement), Shiva (return) and Shabbat -- derived from the same root -- constitute a triangular (personal, national and spiritual) foundation, whose strength depends on the level of Education and Commemoration. According to King Solomon, "The triangular cord cannot be broken." May past year's curses be over, and may we earn the blessings of the coming year! Ambassador Yoram Ettinger is a consultant on US-Israel relations as well as the Chairman of Special Projects at the Ariel Center for Policy Research. Formerly the Minister for Congressional Affairs to Israel's Embassy in Washington, DC, Ettinger also served as Consul General of Israel to the Southwestern US. He is a former editor of Contemporary Mideast Backgrounder, and is the author of the Jerusalem Cloakroom series of reports. Contact him at yoramtex@netvision.net.il To Go To Top

WHAT IS THERE TO CELEBRATE? Posted by Eli E. Hertz, August 27, 2007.

The Israeli media is busy reporting: "This November will mark 60 years since the famous and fateful UN partition vote that paved the way for Israel's cre ation. The Knesset plans to reenact the vote with fanfare. "The commemoration is to occur this coming November 29 (Thursday, the 19th of Kislev), when Israel's parliament will festively reenact the UN vote that took place exactly 60 years before. An invitation has already been proffered to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and the ambassadors of the 33 countries that voted in favor of the partition will also be invited." [IsraelINN.com] What is there to celebrate? In a statement to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), on October 2, 1947, the representat ive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine said the following about fairness, balance, and justice of the recommendation to partition Palestine: "According to David Lloyd George, then British Prime Minister, the Balfour Declaration implied that the whole of Pal estine, including Transjordan, should ultimately become a Jewish state. Transjordan had, nevertheless, been severed from Palestine in 1922 and had subsequently been set up as an Arab kingdom. "Now a second Arab state was to be carved out of the remainder of Palestine, with the result that the Jewish Nationa l Home would represent less than one eighth of the territory originally set aside for it. Such a sacrifice should no t be asked of the Jewish people.[1] "... 17,000,000 Arabs now occupied an area of 1,290,000 square miles, including all the principal Arab and Moslem ce ntres, while Palestine, after the loss of Transjordan, was only 10,000 square miles; yet the majority plan proposed to reduce it by one half. UNSCOP proposed to eliminate Western Galilee from the Jewish State; that was an injustice and a grievous handicap to the development of the Jewish State."[2] If the Partition Plan would have been implemented, it is likely to assume that the tiny state of Israel would be unable to repel any coordinated Arab assault. Jerusalem, according to the recommended plan, would not be the Capitol of a Jewish state - Jerusalem would have been internationalized. The Knesset and the Government of Israel should reconsider their venue: What should be remembered is that Israel's independence is not a result of a partial implementation of the Partition Plan. Resolution 181 [Also known as the Partition Plan] has no legal ramifications -- that is, Resolution 181 recognized the Jewish right to statehood, but its validity as a potentially legal and binding document was never consummated. Like the schemes that preceded it, Resolution 181's validity hinged on acceptance of the General Assembly's recommendation by both parties. Professor Lauterpacht clarified that from a legal standpoint, the 1947 UN Partition Resolution had no legislative character to vest territorial rights to either Jews or Arabs. In a monograph relating to one of the most complex aspects of the territorial issue - the status of Jerusalem - Lauterpacht wrote that any binding force the Partition Plan would have had to arise from the principle pacta sunt servanda [Latin, "treaties must be honored"], that is, from agreement of the parties at variance to the proposed plan. In the case of Israel, Lauterpacht explains: "... the coming into existence of Israel does not depend legally upon the Resolution. The right of a State to exist flows from its factual existence - especially when that existence is prolonged, shows every sign of continuance and is recognised by the generality of nations."[3] Reviewing Lauterpacht's arguments, Professor Julius Stone, a distinguished authority on the Law of Nations, added that Israel's legitimacy, or the legal foundation for its birth, does not reside with the United Nations recommendation to partition Palestine, which as a consequence of Arab actions became a dead issue. Professor Stone concluded: "... The State of Israel is thus not legally derived from the partition plan, but rests (as do most other states in the world) on assertion of independence by its people and government, on the vindication of that independence by arm s against assault by other states, and on the establishment of orderly government within territory under its stable control."[4] Resolution 181 had been tossed into the waste bin of history, along with the partition plans that preceded it. Instead, celebrate by reenacting the reading of Israel's Declaration of Independence; 5 Iyar 5708, 14.5.1948   Footnotes 1 Yearbook of the United Nations 1947-48. 1949. I . 13. December 31, 1948. See: http://www.mefacts.com/cache/html/un-documents/11270.htm. (11270) 2 Delivered by Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, October 2, 1947. 3 See: Judge, Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, Jerusalem and the Holy Places (London: The Anglo-Israel Association, 1968), page 52. 4 Professor Julius Stone (1907-1985), Israel and Palestine, Assault on the Law of Nations (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), p. 127. The late Professor Stone was recognized as one of the twentieth century's leading authorities on the Law of Nations. His work represents a detailed analysis of the central principles of international law governing the issues raised by the Arab-Israel conflict. He was one of a few scholars to gain outstanding recognition in more than one field. Professor Stone was one of the world's best-known authorities in both Jurisprudence and International Law. Eli E. Hertz, who is President of the Myths and Facts Organization. Contact him at the website: www.mythsandfacts.com. To Go To Top

SAUDIS, ARMS AND TERROR Posted by Daily Alert, August 31, 2007.

This was written by Robert Chamberlain and it appeared in the New York Post (www.nypost.com/seven/08072007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/saudis__arms__terror_opedcolumnists_robert_chamberlain.htm). Robert Chamberlain is an associate analyst at the Institute for Gulf Affairs, a Washington-based think tank focusing on the Persian Gulf Arab countries.

SAUDI Arabia is often touted as one of America's closest Middle Eastern allies. Indeed, the Bush administration is now negotiating a $20 billion arms deal providing the Saudis with America's best weaponry. The time, however, has come for the United States to challenge Saudi Arabia to act as an ally. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia has found itself in the news lately; a recent article in The LA Times reported that Saudi citizens comprise 45 percent of the foreign fighters in Iraq. Half of the suicide bombings are carried out by Saudi citizens, and of the 135 foreign fighters in American detention facilities, half are Saudi. This should function as a red warning light to American officials. But thus far, it hasn't. On July 27, The New York Times reported that some elements in Saudi Arabia are giving financial aid to Sunni groups involved in the Iraqi insurgency. Earlier this year, a close aide to the former Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki al-Faisal, hinted that Saudi Arabia would fund Sunni groups to protect them from the Shiite majority in the case of a precipitous American withdrawal. Instead of help from Saudi Arabia, we get high-ranking Saudi officials who encourage Saudis to find a way to join the insurgency in Iraq. In 2005, NBC investigative reporter Lisa Myers reported that Sheikh Saleh al-Luhaidan, a close ally of King Abdullah and the president of the Saudi Supreme Judicial Council, stated that those who can enter Iraq safely with the intention of raising the word of Allah won't be blamed. He also said that those who wish to fight the Americans need no permission from anyone, or need not be under a reputable leadership, but must dedicate their work to the sake of Allah. To date, al-Luhaidan remains in his post, with no action taken against him. Saudi Assistant Minister of Interior Mohamed Bin Naif has allegedly been helping Saudi citizens travel to Iraq to fight against American troops. Through him, elements of the Saudi government do indeed fight terrorism - by exporting Saudi terrorists to Iraq. This is ironic, because the Interior Ministry is supposed to be halting the flow of terrorists out of Saudi Arabia. And in November of 2005, 26 Saudi clerics, including 21 government clerics, issued a fatwa that called for Muslims to join in the insurgency in Iraq. None of these clerics has been punished, and they still remain in their posts. Perhaps even worse, King Abdullah himself called the American operations in Iraq an "illegitimate" occupation. Saudi Arabia also seems intent upon opposing Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as a puppet of Iran. According to the Times, Saudi officials even tried to provide documents alleging that al-Maliki had advised radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to "lay low" during the American surge. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilizad, protested to King Abdullah that the documents were forgeries. With Saudi officials acting in such a manner, it would only be logical for the Bush administration, at the very least, to push the government to clamp down on clerical fatwas calling for jihad against the United States and its Iraqi allies. Or even better, perhaps the Bush administration could urge the Saudi government to take a good, hard look at Saudi citizens with one-way tickets to Syria and Jordan. The Bush administration has done little to pressure the Saudi government to stem the flow of fighters to Iraq (via Syria and Jordan). The Saudis have taken some measures to stem the flow, but these are often weak, and fail to do much. These measures seem especially ironic in light of the fact that Saudi officials are encouraging Saudi citizens to fight in Iraq. It's time for the administration to take off the blinders when assessing their bilateral relations with the Saudis. The United States should threaten the Saudis with the prospect of losing the recently announced $20 billion arms deal unless the Saudi government shuts the faucets of terror and extremism spewing suicide bombers and fatwas. The Saudi networks of recruiters and financiers shipping thousands of Saudi suicide bombers and terrorists to Iraq and the world must be brought to a halt. The Saudi government must be forced to arrest clerics issuing pro-insurgency fatwas. Any Saudi official who aids or abets terrorism should be dealt with severely, meaning he should lose any official position and be punished with a harsh prison sentence. Most important, the United States must pressure the Saudis publicly; back-door assurances have not worked since 9/11. The Daily Alert is sponsored by Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and prepared by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). To subscribe to their free daily alerts, send an email to daily@www.dailyalert.jcpa.org To Go To Top

MSNBC'S ABRAMS HITS CNN'S AMANPOUR FOR DEFENDING ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM Posted by Ellen Horowitz, August , 2007.

This was written by Brad Wilmouth and it appeared August 28, 2007 on NewsBusters http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2007/08/28/ msnbcs-abrams-hits-cnns-amanpour-defending-islamic-fundamentalism

On Monday's MSNBC Live with Dan Abrams, host and MSNBC General Manager Abrams attacked CNN's series God's Warriors for "a defense of Islamic fundamentalism and the worst type of moral relativism," and as "shameful advocacy masked as journalism," quipping that series host Christiane Amanpour "avoided getting bogged down in objectivity." Abrams further took exception with Amanpour for comparing those who support Israel's defense strategy to Muslim terrorists: "Christians and Jews, for example, who support Israel's strategy for self-defense are just as much God's warriors, according to Amanpour, as the Islamic radicals who blow themselves and others up in an effort to destroy the world as we know it." (Transcript follows) After contending that Amanpour attempted to "understand" violent Muslim fundamentalists without trying to "understand" evangelical Christians and Israelis, Abrams played a clip of Amanpour in which she "blames the warrior Jews" for the anger of radical Muslims. Amanpour: "Muslims, like people everywhere, abhor terrorism. The small minority who resorts to violence is symptomatic of something many of us have failed to understand: the impact of God's Jewish warriors goes far beyond these rocky hills. The Jewish settlements have inflamed much of the Muslim world." Abrams soon brought aboard Muslim author Asma Hasan, Air America host Reverend Wilton Gaddy, and terrorism analyst Steve Emerson for a discussion of the topic, during which Emerson labeled the CNN series as "the most unfair series" and "the most dishonest series on television that I've seen in my 20 years of reporting or covering terrorism." Emerson further criticized Amanpour for not showing examples of violent Muslim extremists in Europe such as the Madrid and London bombings, and for portraying Jews and Christians as "demons." Emerson: "I thought that, in part, the actual dogma of this series actually focused mainly on Jews and Christians as being the demons, and in fact, one could accuse her of actually engaging in anti-Christian and anti-Semitic behavior by the selection of facts she chose to choose." Abrams showed a clip of Amanpour speaking to Christian youth leader Ron Luce of Teen Mania Ministries during which she contended that campus rules prohibiting female students from wearing short skirts and prohibiting male students from using the Internet without supervision reminded her of "totalitarian regimes," and compared the female dress code to what the Taliban did. Amanpour: "But that's what the Taliban said. They kept women in their house because men couldn't be trusted around them." Below is a transcript of relevant portions of the Monday August 27 MSNBC Live with Dan Abrams: DAN ABRAMS: For the past week, CNN has been proudly promoting and then celebrating its series called God's Warriors, presumably a look at radicals of different religions willing to fight for their cause. My take: I think it's fair to say it was not what it claimed or promised to be. CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: So we're not here lobbying for or advocating for or drawing conclusions, either political, religious or ideological- ABRAMS: Oh, yes they did. CNN should have called it what it was: a defense of Islamic fundamentalism and the worst type of moral relativism. For each of three nights, CNN devoted two hours to the, quote, "warriors" of each religion: Jewish, Christian and Muslim. But rather than distinguish between Islamic terrorists who utilize fierce violence to achieve warped goals, and the merely fiercely religious or even just those who fiercely believe in the state of Israel, Christiane Amanpour avoided getting bogged down in objectivity. Christians and Jews, for example, who support Israel's strategy for self-defense are just as much God's warriors, according to Amanpour, as the Islamic radicals who blow themselves and others up in an effort to destroy the world as we know it. A handful of the most radical of the Jews and Christians who can almost all be identified by name are highlighted. The violent Islamic fundamentalists are, quote, "understood," with no comparable effort to "understand" the evangelical Christians or Israelis. Amanpour even offers an explanation for the angry radical Islamists. She blames the warrior Jews. AMANPOUR: Muslims, like people everywhere, abhor terrorism. The small minority who resorts to violence is symptomatic of something many of us have failed to understand: the impact of God's Jewish warriors goes far beyond these rocky hills. The Jewish settlements have inflamed much of the Muslim world. ABRAMS: She takes Jewish and Christian political movements, even Jewish lobbyists in Congress, and lumps them in with God's warriors, thereby equating them with the radical Muslim warriors, the quote, "much feared and little understood." Maybe most troubling, much of the warrior Muslim program highlights not the warriors themselves, but claims of discrimination against Muslims. AMANPOUR: Geneive Abdo is the author of Mecca and Main Street. She says that since 9/11, the majority of American Muslims feel they're singled out for suspicion and surveillance by the government and by ordinary people. Imam Fawaz Jneid, leader of a mosque in the Hague, believes Muslims are under attack, victims of religious discrimination. ABRAMS: What does that have to do with the warriors? She portrays Muslims as victims, while accusing evangelical Christians of playing the victim. AMANPOUR: The religious right would have you believe that there's no mention of God anywhere in our public sphere. It's on the currency. JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN Legal Analyst: It's on the currency, and they say because it's on the currency, there's nothing wrong with it being in the schools, or in the courthouses, or in the Capitol. AMANPOUR: But they also play the victim somewhat. ABRAMS: This series was well-produced and successful, but also shameful advocacy masked as journalism. We have opinionated hosts here on MSNBC who offer opinions on a wide range of topics, including me, but I admit it when I'm advocating. In the end, this was exactly what she said it wasn't: lobbying, advocacy, and an effort, intentional or not, to have people draw particular conclusions. ... Before we talk about some of this other stuff, Asma, what do you think about the comments that I just made? [ASMA HASAN, Author of Why I Am a Muslim] ABRAMS: A little history lesson for you. I covered the Oklahoma City bombing trial, and you talk to any of the prosecutors who prosecuted the case. In the end, they don't believe that it was part of some militia effort. So that's just fiction, and that's the problem here. The facts are so important. HASAN: But didn't Timothy McVeigh say in writings from prison that he didn't like how the government was treating Christians, how they were restricting Christians? ABRAMS: Yeah, he didn't. He didn't. That's right. That's right. That's the beauty of this. Steve Emerson, the beauty of this is they highlight throughout the CNN piece, they highlight identifiable people, Christians and Jews, who've been arrested and convicted of various crimes. And they lump it in, and they claim this is all one big religious fundamentalism. STEVE EMERSON, Terrorism Analyst: Right. It's so contrived, I thought that I was watching Al-Jazeera. The treatment of radical Islamic fundamentalists were given kid-glove treatment. They explain the Muslim Brotherhood as a peaceful movement. They explain jihad as a peaceful internal struggle. I mean, this was inverting reality on its head. And when they described terrorism, they could only explain it in terms of Muslims being the victims, not being the perpetrators. I felt that, I was really, I felt that the viewer here was really dishonestly treated here. And as far as the treatment of Jews and Christians, when Christian lawyers went to law school, they were called, demonized as "God's warriors." And when Jewish supporters of Israel lobbied for Israel, they were demonized as somehow causing riots throughout the Middle East. This was the most unfair series and, I think, the most dishonest series on television that I've seen in my 20 years of reporting or covering terrorism. ... ABRAMS: Reverend Gaddy, let me ask you this. Let me play this piece of sound for you where, again, Christiane Amanpour compares some of the fundamentalist Christians to the Taliban. And I want to ask you if you think this is a fair comparison. AMANPOUR: On campus, students must follow a strict set of rules. When I, you know, read that women have to wear skirts of a certain length and guys aren't allowed to, you know, go on the Internet unsupervised, I mean, I think, you know, totalitarian regimes. RON LUCE, Christian youth leader: No, it's about learning to have disciplines that communicate purity, you know. The skirts' length are to keep guys from, you know, any man on the planet could be distracted, and we don't want to unintentionally create distraction. AMANPOUR: But, Ron, that's what the Taliban said. They kept women in their house because men couldn't be trusted around them. ABRAMS: Fair comparison, Reverend Gaddy, between a dress code and the Taliban? [Reverend WILTON GADDY, The Interfaith Counsel] ABRAMS: And they back it up, again, we're not just talking about individuals who we can name, but there is a large and significant movement of fundamentalist Islam, which I think ends up being minimized by equating this all. I'm sorry, Asma, I interrupted you before. [HASAN talks about international criticism of Jewish settlement expansion] ABRAMS: Okay, but that's fine. That's fine. But that doesn't address, look, I'm not going to have debates about the settlements here. I'm debating the bias, the overt bias of this CNN series. ... ABRAMS: Steve Emerson, I want to play you this piece of sound. It's a final one. ... And this is again suggesting, let's listen, and then we'll talk about it. AMANPOUR: Across Europe, Islam is the fastest growing religion, the number of Muslims tripling in the last 30 years. This increased Muslim presence and violence like the Van Gogh murder play into the hands of right-wing politicians, like Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament. ABRAMS: All right, Steve Emerson, again, "play into the hands," the Muslims as the victims, again, throughout this whole piece. EMERSON: Exactly. She didn't mention the Madrid bombings, she didn't mention the two London series of bombings, she didn't mention the number of attacks in Europe, throughout Europe. She didn't mention the vast amount of Wahabist radical Islamic influence and supporters in the United States. She omitted all of that in an attempt to bring the perpetrators who she claimed were right-wingers or Christians or Jews. I thought that, in part, the actual dogma of this series actually focused mainly on Jews and Christians as being the demons, and in fact, one could accuse her of actually engaging in anti-Christian and anti-Semitic behavior by the selection of facts she chose to choose. ABRAMS: Reverend Gaddy, go ahead. [GADDY] ABRAMS: Well, I can tell you this, CNN is listening to this segment, so maybe they will hear you loud and clear on that and make up for what I think was really well done but ultimately shoddy journalism. Ellen W. Horowitz is an author who lives in the Golan with her husband and children. To Go To Top

THE NEWEST WAR HAS ALREADY BEEN WON Posted by Michelle Nevada, August 31, 2007.

As I sit here typing, the newest warrior in a religious war of sorts is kicking and punching and moving within me. As yet unborn, this tiny person represents the best hope for the future of Judaism, as do the new lives that are coming before and after. This child will be raised in a religious Zionist home, encouraged to be a part of Israel and the Jewish people, encouraged to pursue Torah, encouraged to marry Jewish and raise a family, encouraged to learn and grow and prosper. This child, like its many siblings, will find love and comfort in our traditions and our people, and will be surrounded with Jewish books, Jewish friends, and Jewish life. Even more importantly, this child will be joined by thousands upon thousands of Jewish friends who will be raised with the same important guiding principles: the newest draftees in a war of demographics. It�s a war we are already winning, at first whispered among us -- as if saying it too loudly might somehow break the magical power of which we were beginning to become aware, and then spoken of in tentative terms: perhaps, if things keep going this way, Israel will find itself a majority religious nation . . . . Now, as the headlines are beginning to build, as the newspapers and news shows are beginning to be more and more aware, and as the secular government ministers begin to speak with more and more panic about their inability to keep the state from it�s religious roots, the parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles of this demographic force are beginning to smile outright. We aren�t ready to boast, or cheer, or go into the streets -- yet. We are still waiting for the inevitable last throws of secularism to try to push its weight around and eliminate our advantage, importing large numbers of non-Jews, attempting to give away strategic lands -- doing anything to maintain their illusion of power. We look with sadness upon the last throws of their backward rein where they kowtow to terrorists and sacrifice our land and our people to the great idol of "peace." We have seen how "peace" has stood, like a graven image, unable to move or speak, while our living G-d still gives us hope and promise of returning to our Holy places and reclaiming our Holy land. We know there is a lot of pain to come, but we also know the slow unrelenting mass of religious children are headed their way, and there isn�t a whole lot they can do about it. It has been going on for years. The secular public has been having fewer and fewer children, valuing life-style over life. The Reform and Conservative streams of Judaism in the US and Europe have been intermarrying, assimilating, and losing their Zionist ideals. As Reform and Conservative synagogues see their numbers decreasing over the years, religious Jews see their congregations growing. The religious public--still in love with the land of Israel; still yearning for our holy places; still dreaming of a land where Torah is important; and still understanding that without Israel, we are a lost people--have made aliyah; moved to Yesha, Jerusalem, Hevron, and Tiberias; sent our children to religious schools despite the great sacrifices we�ve had to make; defended the land; and established Hesder Yeshivas where we integrate Zionism and Torah. Even when we can�t make aliyah, we send our children to Israel to study and to serve. And, all the while, all over the world, religious Jews have been growing in numbers. We have a high birth rate because we value life. Our numbers are increased by a great number of newly religious Jews, and a steady stream of sincere converts, who also value life and have many children. Now we see news stories of how the IDF�s officers are 40 percent religious , how secular teaching colleges are facing shortages of students while religious teaching colleges have more students than they know what to do with . We see less tolerance for anti-Jewish secular policies like stores open on Shabbat, the sale of pork, the disruption of religious volunteers in Israeli schools, and the ejection of Jews from Jewish lands. We are not yet a majority in Israel, but we know the time is coming soon . We see the way that organizations like "Peace Now" try to remove us from our land, and we see that soon their complaints will lead not to abandoning the "territories," but to annexing them. We see in Gaza how abandoning land does not lead to peace; it leads to war. We see how abandoning Torah does not lead to success; it leads to failure. So, listen good Peres, Tamir, Beinish, and Olmert: your time in power is short. Soon our children will be in your seats, they will be making the decisions, and they will bring glory back to Israel in the only way it can be found: through G-d. It�s something you can�t stop. It is already upon us. The demographic war is one you have already lost and will continue to lose -- with each and every tiny foot-blow and tiny punch of new Jewish lives. Michelle Nevada is a religious Jew from rural Nevada. Contact her by email at Michelle_Nevada@yahoo.com To Go To Top

THE AMANPOUR GOSPELS Posted by Phyllis Chesler, August 31, 2007.

Dhabah Almontaser, the nearly anointed principal of Brooklyn's madrassa and CNN's fully annointed Christiane Amanpour both agree that in Arabic, "Intifada" means a "shaking off." Amanpour gave an example of how to use the word by saying that "Palestinian (terrorists) were (merely) shaking off the Israeli Occupation;" Almontaser, when challenged about the infamous tee-shirts, said that "Intifada-NYC" referred to young Muslim girls "shaking off oppression." In November of 2005, Fox's O'Reilly showed live footage of the French Intifada as it raged in Paris. According to WorldNetDaily, Saudi billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, (aka Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin AbdulAziz AlSaud), who owns 5-6% of the Fox News Channel, personally called Rupert Murdoch and asked him to change the offensive (but accurate) caption: "Muslim Riots" to the less offensive (and less accurate) "Civil Riots." Within thirty minutes, the Prince had his way. To paraphrase New York Post columnist Cindy Adams: Only in America kids, only in America. Our fine Saudi prince also owns shares in Times-Warner/AOL/CNN, which he first acquired in 2002. According to Forbes, the London Guardian, and other media outlets, in 2002 the Prince "claimed to own 1.4 billion in AOL stock...in 2003 he bought another 450 million of AOL stock." God knows what he owns now. (Yes, he's the very Prince whom Presidential hopeful Rudy Guiliani humiliated when he refused to accept his ten million dollar donation for humanitarian aid immediately following 9/11). Has bin Talal's ownership influenced Amanpour's highly touted, highly slanted, and highly tedious three part series "God's Warriors?" I have no inside information here but I doubt that any overt bribes were involved. Amanpour dresses in safari-like bush jackets but they are never grungy, and are in fact glamorous in color and fit. She is no Oriana Fallaci, no Susan Sontag, but is probably the best CNN has to offer in terms of Talking Heads who presumably think. To those unfamiliar with Amanpour's background, she lived in London (still does), attended schools in America, and her husband, James Rubin, is Jewish. He once worked for former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright--another Jew who did not know she was one. After watching Amanpour's segment on the Jews, I was disheartened and outraged. How long will people have to suffer Big Lies on our screens and be forced to react defensively, only after the fact? How much Saudi money might really be involved in CNN's series? In addition to bin Talal, we do know that the Saudis have been buying up shares in the Western media, (UPI for example), influencing curriculum on campuses, and in some instances, buying certain journalists outright. (There is a scandal about this still under wraps in Europe right now. Stay tuned for an update). Amanpour, whose father is a Muslim Iranian, her mother British, and who spent the first eleven years of her life in Teheran, set out to portray Jews as religiously driven terrorists, illegal land-grabbers, and fat-cat American lobbyists with dual loyalties. She interviewed former President Carter and John Mearsheimer (but not anyone of stature who can easily rebut what they say). Both men believe that Israel is an apartheid state and that the Zionist lobby controls American foreign policy. (See CAMERA'S excellent point by point refutation of Amanpour). Amanpour makes sure to track down Israelis who have advised the government that "settling an occupied land" violates the Geneva convention and international law (such as Theodore Meron); the Jewish Israeli lawyers who defend Palestinians and who often successfully, challenge the Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes. She has female settlers on camera who allegedly say that they believe Palestinians should be killed or expelled. She shows the security wall at its ugliest without context and she focuses on individual Palestinians who are indeed being seriously harmed by its creation. (No, she does not show the Jews being blown up, week after week, in a non-stop series of 9/11s that might explain the desperate need for such a tragic but strategic structure). In my no doubt alarmist and paranoid view, she is trying to position American and world Jewish support for Israel as essentially equivalent to American and world Muslim support for Hamas and for other Muslim terorrist organizations who also engage in humanitarian aid and social service projects. Just as the leaders of the Holy Land foundation are being tried as supporters of terrorist organizations in America today, Amanpour's portrayal of Jewish support for an allegedly "illegal," "racist," or "apartheid" Jewish "settler state" with a "handful of Jewish terrorists" may now lead to simiilar attempts to shut down American-based fundraising for Israel and to dampen Congressional support for military foreign aid to Israel. Perhaps Amanpour does not envision this at all but merely wishes to show that there is terrorism on both sides of the divide. But this is not true. While there is indeed a "handful" of "Jewish terrorists" or ideologue of Jewish reprisals, (Meir Kahane, Baruch Goldstein, Yigal Amir, and the Jewish Underground are named), such figures are just that--a handful, and their attempts at indiscriminate violence have either been prevented or immediately and seriously punished by the Israeli government. Further, Amanpour fails to draw the right conclusions from what she does show on camera. In every instance, Israeli government officials, including former Shin Bet and IDF spokesmen are the ones who prevent Jewish terrorists from striking, who arrest and imprison them when they commit violence, who sentence them to between 7-15 years in jail or to life sentences. There are no posters all over Israel glorifying their violent deeds as there are on the West Bank for their shahids and shahidas and in the no-longer occupied Gaza strip. Israeli textbooks and television videos do not sing their praises in Israel as is the case among the Palestinians. It gets worse. She views the Muslim claim to Al Aqsa and the Temple Mount, not as equal to but as superior to the ancient Jewish claim. She fails to draw a single conclusion from the fact that Muslims did not--and still do not--allow non-Muslims access to their holy Jewish or Christian religious sites although Jews guarantee that access to all religions. So, there I was, licking my wounds when I turned on the TV to see Amanpour's second segment. Amanpour has never met an Iranian or for that matter a Muslim whom she does not like; yes, even the terrorists and one fundamentalist imam in "the holy city of Quom" receives only a flirtatious wag of her finger when he rather cheerfully admits that women are not allowed to do certain things and are condemned to other things--but that's for their own good, to protect them. She is warm with him, much less warm with his so-called Israeli counterparts. She opens her segment on Muslim Warriors with a charming, well-spoken, highly westernized young man, Ed Husain, who was deceived, or who rebelled and became associated with a terrorist group in his native London. Once he realized that they are killing innocent people, even children, he backed away. He has written a book about leaving Islamism. Ed Husain does not represent most Muslims who at best, remain silent and who do not condemn Islamist imperialism, religious fundamentalism, or America- and Jew-hatred. There are a handful of Muslims who criticize Islam openly. Many are tortured, killed, forced into exile, impoverished, live in hiding, publish under psedonyms. Her interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali was very, very brief --no more than a minute altogether. On the contrary, she kept returning to former nun Karen Armstrong whose views on Jews, Israel, and Zionism are anti-Semitic with a vengeance. Armstrong also defended veiling and compared it her own habit as a nun. (Stay tuned for more to come about this). As to women? Amanpour does not tell us any stories of honor killings or women who avoided being honor-murdered but instead focuses on a happy, modestly veiled Muslim-American woman who describes how her choice to "cover" is denigrated and held suspect in America. Each and every portrait of a Muslin or of a Muslin terrorist's family presents soulful, thoughtful people, perhaps a bit "different" than you and I but still human, likeable, charming--maybe even made of better stuff than you and I in the west who crave material posessions, display female bodies, allow men and women to intermingle in sexually charged ways, drink alcohol, and refuse to live in a God-centered world. Amanpour is worse than all the others (writers mainly) who have been blasting Judaism and Christianity but mainly in order to be able to also blast, but in a lesser way, Islam. The thesis is that we are all guilty, all to blame, that each religion is clannish, "different," its texts support violence, its extreme followers are but a handful, nothing for the world to worry about. These are all false assumptions and outright lies. I will be posting my views of Amanpour on God's Christian Warriors tommorrow. CHRISTIANS ALSO WANT A CALIPHATE. THE GOSPELS ACCORDING TO CHRISTIANE In her three part series, Amanpour is far more combative and confrontational with both Jewish and Christian religious leaders than she is with Muslim leaders. She is warmer, softer, more "at home," with even the most extreme of Islamist leaders, perhaps even more respectful, than she is with their allegedly Jewish or Christian counterparts. Amanpour completely fails to make the distinction between Islamists who teach hatred of infidels and women and who blow infidel and Muslim civilians up (as well as honor-murder their own women); Israelis who are under perpetual terrorist seige and who are trying to defend themselves against Islamist attacks; and conservative Christians who are trying to moblize votes, change laws, or win hearts and minds with words, not bombs (although she certainly has lots of footage of the bloody bombings at abortion clinics--bombings I personally abhor and mourn--as do many Christians). Amanpour wants us to like Muslims--even the most extremist among them. They are human, prick them will they not bleed? But she does not want us to like Christians or Jews, especially those who are Zionists. Amanpour does not seem to show the same respect towards conservative Christians who wish to dress modestly, remain chaste until marriage, and avoid a secular culture of rampant pornography and rape as she shows their far more extremist counterparts in the Islamist world or than she shows, at great length, one well-spoken Muslim-American woman who decides to "cover." In one instance, Amanpour accuses Ron Luce, a Christian leader of teenagers, as being like the Taliban. He actually answers Amanpour in a rather charming, disarming way. She will not be moved. Amanpour herself takes no stand on what Luce says about an American secular and popular culture which allows virgin teenager America to be raped on the sidewalk as we pass by without stopping or caring. Perhaps Amanpour can't forgive these "radical" Christians their support for Israel, their "Zionism." She presents Pastor John Hagee (together with the late Jerry Fallwell) as Doctor Strangeloves. Hagee, by the way, sees Iran as a threat to America and Israel. As he speaks of his Christian love of Zion, Amanpour cuts to a presumed Israeli air attack againt innocent civilians, replete with weeping, civilian Arab women. Amanpour again returns to former President Jimmy Carter--this time to have him tell us that he had to break with evangelical Baptists over their sexist position on women in the church. Carter who believes that Israel is an "apartheid" state and whose library has been hugely funded by the Saudis is the new feminist in town. Amanpour has a definite political agenda--no less so than the Christian conservatives whom she attacks for daring to conduct "stealth politics, under the radar" when they engage in Christian voter drives. Amanpour wants to put a Democrat in the White House. She wants someone there who will move against the so-called Israel Lobby and who will finally stop funding Israel. She wants our next Commander in Chief to engage in nicey-nice diplomacy with Iran. She wants Americans to stop fearing that every Muslim might be a terrorist and to start accepting a parallel Islamic/Islamist universe right here on our own soil. Yes, our ethnically super-trendy, British-accented war correspondent really wants exactly this. And she wants us to see that such right-wing Christians are no different than Islamists, including Bin Laden, who want a world Caliphate. (We are all the same, all cultures are equal, remove the mote from your own eye before you judge anyone else, etc.) To accomplish her goal, Amanpour presents Christian conservatives as truly scary, as mounting a Crusader-like Army against liberal secular America--but not necessarily a violent war against terrorist Islamism. Amanpour exploits America's hottest domestic issues (abortion and gay marriage) in order to accomplish her own foreign policy aims. By the end of her third and final segment we are meant to fear and loathe the Christian conservative right far more than we are meant to fear or loathe Amanpour's Amadinejad whom --incredibly--she never accuses of funding Hezbollah's terrorist work abroad. What she mainly shows us in Iran are Shi'a Muslims at prayer, engaged in theatrical-religious rituals. We do not see them funding and masterminding Hezbollah as it takes down civilian (and Christian) Lebanon, lays seige to Israel, blows up the Jewish Community Center in Argentina. She shows us the child-martyrs (one estimate has 850,000 dying in the Iran-Iraq war) as themselves true believers as opposed to victims of sadistic adult handlers. Her third segment is one long running advertisement for a Democratic candidate for the next Presidency. She is electioneering as hard as she accuses the Christians of doing. Dr. Phyllis Chesler is the well known author of classic works, including the bestseller Women and Madness (1972) and The New Anti-Semitism (2003). She has just published The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for Women's Freedom (Palgrave Macmillan), as well as an updated and revised edition of Women and Madness. She is an Emerita Professor of psychology and women's studies, the co-founder of the Association for Women in Psychology (1969) and the National Women's Health Network (1974). She is currently on the Board of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and lives in New York City. Her website is www.phyllis-chesler.com. To Go To Top

HAARETZ EDITOR TELLS UN THAT ISRAEL IS AN "APARTHEID STATE" Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 31, 2007.

This is a UN Watch Briefing: Danny Rubinstein of the Israeli Haaretz newspaper editorial board used the World Zionist Organization to fly himself to a UN conference yesterday in Brussels where, according to a UN summary, he accused Israel of being "an apartheid State." Rubinstein was billed as the top speaker tonight at a Zionist Federation event in London, part of a series celebrating Israel's upcoming 60th anniversary. According to British community insiders, the World Zionist Organization paid for Rubinstein's return travel from Tel Aviv and -- unaware of the remarks he would make -- for his stop-over to address the UN event in Brussels. In addition, the London federation was reportedly to pay him an honorarium of U.S. $1500. It was suddenly announced this afternoon, however, that Rubinstein's appearance has now been canceled. The quote from Rubinstein's remarks was confirmed by several sources attending the 2-day conference organized by the UN's Palestinian division at the European Parliament in Brussels. Like a wolf in sheep's clothing, the UN conference describes itself in innocent language but in fact promotes a hardline agenda that runs contrary to the balanced principles of the Middle East peace process-whose Quartet sponsors, ironically, include both the European Union and the United Nations. That a leading Israeli journalist -- presented by the UN as a member of the Haaretz editorial board -- would participate and grant legitimacy to a Soviet-era enterprise born out of the "Zionism is Racism" canard, whose sole aim is to assault Israel morally, legally and financially, was disturbing enough. But that he would full-throatedly join the jackals, calling Israel an "apartheid state," is a scandal. The article below is called "UN Palestinian Conference at European Parliament is "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing." http://www.unwatch.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c= bdKKISNqEmG&b=1316871&ct=4338489 For additional informatio, call 41-22-734-1472

Geneva, Aug. 30, 2007 -- A conference organized today and tomorrow at the European Parliament in Brussels by a UN Palestinian committee contravenes the principles of the Quartet-sponsored Middle East peace process, said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based monitoring organization. The objective of the conference, according to its sponsor, the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, is to support Israeli-Palestinian peace. Yet the conference program and list of speakers reveals a one-sided focus on blaming and coercing Israel, said Neuer, and contravenes the balanced principles of the Road Map framework in which Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are now negotiating. "The conference is a wolf in sheep's clothing," said Neuer. "The UN Palestinian division portrays its event as building bridges, but they excluded anyone representing Israel's position, so these are bridges to nowhere." Palestinian presenters include activists like Raji Sourani, who justifies Hamas attacks as "resistance," and Jamal Juma, who describes Israel as a "colonial racist apartheid state." Also speaking at the conference will be Leila Shahid, Palestinian envoy to the EU and cousin to late PLO leader Yassir Arafat, along with several other Palestinian officials. Other presenters from the Middle East and Europe either head or are closely tied to pro-Palestinian lobby groups, and campaign for boycotts and sanctions against Israel. The conference also invited a handful of selected Israeli presenters who are ardent advocates for Palestinian claims, such as Michel Warschawski, self-described as a "well-known anti-Zionist activist." According to Neuer, "by citizenship they may be Israeli, but only a scoundrel or a fool would imagine these token Israelis as representatives of their nation's point of view. The organizers deliberately excluded anyone who genuinely represents Israeli society, or who might dare to speak for Israeli human rights, for Israeli women maimed by Hamas rockets, Israeli children traumatized by bus bombings, Israeli forests and eco-systems burnt and destroyed by Hezbollah rockets supplied by Iran and Syria. All of this is completely erased from the conference narrative." The UN's Palestinian division is funded by a multi-million dollar budget, part of a sprawling infrastructure of anti-Israel committees and programs launched by the General Assembly in 1975 alongside its resolution declaring that "Zionism is racism." In the past six months, the division organized gatherings in Doha, Rome, Pretoria, and New York. UN chief Ban Ki-moon and leaders of the EU and the European Parliament must commit themselves to the goal of redirecting the division's budget to actually helping Palestinians, said Neuer, by building medical clinics and schools that teach peace in the West Bank and Gaza. "Instead of taxpayers from Europe and the U.S. paying for more destructive propaganda, these funds should be converted into ploughshares of hope. Tragically, the Arab regimes responsible for the Palestinian division's annual renewal seem more interested in preserving grievances than solving them. It is time for European and UN leaders to emphasize that anti-Israel propaganda and posturing are relics of the past -- and hurt the cause of peace rather than help the Palestinians." Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top

OLMERT OFFERS JUDEA, SAMARIA AND WILL DIVIDE JERUSALEM IN DRAFT ACCORD Posted by Bryna Berchuck, August 31, 2007.

The Sharon-Olmert bunch kicked 10,000 Jews out of Gaza two years ago and they have just begun to settle them into new lives. And it is going to cost many more billions before the damage done to the Gazan Jews is alleviated. Now they plan to kick out some 100,000 to 200,000 Jews from Biblical Israel! This is beyond insanity. The Jews are going to go from being the People of the Book to being the People of the Streets. Maybe if they're going to end up on the streets anyways, maybe they should start acting up now. Walking around the Knesset Building in a single file without stopping -- thus stopping traffic and having cars add some noisy honking. Singing with amplifiers outside Peres' home. Tracking the self-serving MKs who are letting Olmert's government destroy Israel, as long as they have their perks -- making disparaging remarks about these Olmert-enablers in rap mode. Lot's of things they could do. They could learn a few things from the Arabs, who have officialdom living in fear that they will riot at anything -- and it isn't an irrational fear, because the Arabs and their useful idiots (Lefts Marxist Israeli Jews, especially the Appease Now crowd) will indeed make media-worthy trouble at just about anything. And who is to receive Israel's heartland? The Abu Mazen Fatah and al Aqsa boys -- our "good terrorists". As an editorial in Asharq Alawsat pointed out: "The glaring farce today is that forces from the Hamas movement are the ones presently guarding the Israel-Gaza border, while al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and Fatah are the ones bombarding Israeli towns with missiles. As for Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the state of Gaza -- or rather, the head of the coup -- he gave a speech last Friday in which he stated that there is a local, Arab and international conspiracy that aims to undermine Hamas so as to ensure the failure of the Islamic model of governance." So while Hamas and Fatah are exploring ways to kiss and make up, Fatah's boss, abu Mazen, has the job of grumbling while Olmert hands him Israel's heartland (what the Mainstream Press calls the West Bank, so people won't realize it's what's been called Samaria and Judea since ancient times.) "What," Abbas will mutter. "Is that all you are offering? And you expect me to talk to you for so little? Let the Arabs refugees into Israel and maybe I'll give you 5 min." Oh, will nothing wake the Israelis up? Will they sleep through their own demise? This was written by Gil Ronen and it appeared today in Arutz-Sheva (www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123549).

(IsraelNN.com) Israel's government has agreed, in writing, to hand over 6,250 square kilometers of land -- the equivalent of its entire biblical and strategic heartland -- to an Arab terror state. So reports Dr. Guy Bechor, a leading expert on Arab affairs, who also supplies some of the details of the negotiations. Bechor reports, based on "leaks from the Palestinian side," that Israel has, in the past few days, presented Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas at least one draft of an "agreement of principles." The agreement calls for a state named Palestine to be established alongside Israel, and have a territory of 6,250 square kilometers: the equivalent of all of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. "Palestine" will be demilitarized. Most of the Jewish communities built in Judea and Samaria over the past 40 years are to demolished and their inhabitants expelled, according to the plan. The remaining communities are to be concentrated in small salients for which the Arab state will be compensated with additional territory elsewhere in present-day Israel. A passage of some sort will connect Gaza and Judea and Samaria. It will be under Jewish sovereignty and Palestinian administration. Israel agrees to redivide Jerusalem. Arab neighborhoods will be under Arab sovereignty and Jewish ones under Jewish sovereignty. Mention is made of "religious areas," but further details are not known as of yet. Each side will recognize the other's spiritual needs. The "refugee" question is not mentioned at all, and Bechor reports that this is the main sticking point. Abbas is insisting that Arabs descended from those who fled Israel in 1948 be allowed to return to Israel, at least in principle. Bechor says that Abbas and his men have gone over the draft and are not pleased; they know how to negotiate, he notes. In a recent interview with PA TV, Abbas said that "declarations of principles are a waste of time" and "useless." What the PA wants, he said, is a clear timetable for establishing Palestine, as well as an Israeli pullback, demolition of Jewish communities and "return of refugees" (i.e., the flooding of Israel with Arab citizens). The Arabs are hoping Israel will become more pliable in November, when an international diplomatic conference, sponsored by the US, is to be held in an attempt to hammer out an accord. An official close to Mahmoud Abbas, Mustafa Bargouti, said that the idea of a conference is "an Israeli trap" and that nothing will come of it. To Go To Top

GENERAL DAYTON TRYING TO REPEAT THE MISTAKE HE MADE IN THE GAZA STRIP Posted by Dr. Aaron Lerner, August 31, 2007.

As Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and PA leader Mahmoud Abbas try to work out some phraseology that will satisfy everyone (from Olmert's standpoint that "everyone" includes not only key foreign players but also key decision makers in the Israeli criminal justice system) while not cornering any key Israeli or Palestinian element with wording that explicitly crosses their mutually irreconcilable red lines, U.S. security coordinator in the territories, General Keith Dayton, is busy trying to repeat the mistake he made in the Gaza Strip. Except this time Dayton is pushing for disaster on a much grander scale. General Dayton filled the PA and affiliated armories in the Gaza Strip with weapons and ammunition fully confident that this would stop Hamas. It didn't. In retrospect he armed Hamas. Today he is pressing for a huge project to create yet another Palestinian army in the West Bank. And given that the definition of the Road Map's "dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure" appears to be "putting the terrorists on the PA payroll", this army will hardly be comprised by former choir boys. And we will face the consequences when things break down. And the odds are very good that they will. General Dayton has an alternative. Instead of pushing for five new Palestinian battalions throughout the West Bank, why not focus first on a model city -- or even better a model village? Provide that village with what General Dayton considers the ideal level of security resources with a clear set of quantifiable performance goals. Goals that include the confiscation and destruction of weapons, ammunition and other contraband in the village. If and when the model village project works out it can be expanded to a cluster of villages and if and when that works to other clusters and cities until ultimately the entire West Bank is transformed. That's if things work out as General Dayton hopes and expects. On the other hand, if reality is more powerful than General Dayton's hopes and expectations the project can be stopped well before its failure would leave us facing another five battalions of well trained and armed terrorists. Dr. Aaron Lerner is Director of IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis) and it appeared on the IMRA website today. Contact Dr. Lerner by email at imra@netvision.net.il and visit the website -- http://www.imra.org.il To Go To Top

HOW GAZA ARABS USE GREENHOUSES; SAUDI WOULD IMPOSE ISLAM; UNRWA COMPLAINS TO ABBAS' P.A. Posted by Richard Shulman, August 31, 2007.

GUILIANI DISAPPOINTING ON ISRAEL "It is not in the interest of the United States, at a time when it is being threatened by Islamist terrorists, to assist the creation of another state that will support terrorism." "'Palestinian statehood will have to be earned through sustained good governance, a clear commitment to fighting terrorism, and a willingness to live in peace with Israel, said Guiliani.'" (IMRA, 8/16.) From Guiliani one expects frankness. He said what the Bush administration says but puts off. Would he? He would not be in a hurry to set up another Islamic state as is the State Dept., but would he be firm with the State Dept.? My disappointment is his accepting the notion that Arabs are entitled to another Arab state, and that the Palestinian Arabs, who are not particularly different from the other Arabs in the region, are entitled to another Palestinian Arab state, again at the expense of the Jewish homeland. He should ask why. That vicious population deserves nothing. He also doesn't understand that Islam won't make peace with an infidel state. Such a state contradicts the basic principle of Islam. That principle is that once Islam has seized an area, as it once did ancient Judea, it is entitled to it forever. GUILIANI UNDERSTANDS JIHAD Conflict used to be by nation states. Now there is an amorphous assault on civilization. The challenge is based more on ideology. We need to strategize. The "realist" school of foreign policy would not fight Islamist ideology with our own. That forfeits a great advantage, failing to utilize our strengths. Understand that democracy follows good governance and not the reverse. We should not make a deal for the sake of having a treaty nor negotiate for the sake of negotiating. Successful negotiation requires national unity and strength to back it up! We must reform the State Dept. so it represents and presents American ideology to foreign countries. Judge our diplomats by their results! Although the UNO has some use, it has failed to help in every major dispute. We must understand the enemy and our own limitations, and not promise too much. We must reevaluate and rebuild our pared-down military refashion and expand NATO to meet the new, Islamist threat. (NATO is untrustworthy.) Our enemies are allowed to operate in many countries and are supported by some. They fight informally (but the ACLU thinks that makes them civilians). "Above all, we must understand that our enemies are emboldened by signs of weakness. Radical Islamic terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in 1993, the Khobar Towers facility in Saudi Arabia in 1996, our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the U.S.S. Cole in 2000. In some instances, we responded inadequately. In others, we failed to respond at all. Our retreat from Lebanon in 1983 and from Somalia in 1993 convinced them that our will was weak." We cannot rely upon mutually assured destruction as a deterrent. They would blackmail us with nuclear power (IMRA, 8/17). Guiliani's text as a whole is comprehensive, cogent, masterful. One can't see that from the portions newspapers selected. Does he mean what he said? Does he realize that the State Dept. is out to protect the Saudis and destroy Israel? GAZA ARABS USE SOME GREENHOUSES Most of the greenhouses with which the Jews in Gaza had built a marvelous agriculture and prospered, and which they left for the Arabs to keep thousands of people employed, instead were looted by the Arabs, destroyed, or used unsuccessfully and abandoned. The IDF discovered that one greenhouse was put to use. It hid the entrance to a tunnel being dug for infiltration into Israel to commit terrorism (IMRA, 8/15). TEARING THE VEIL OFF THE FACE OF COMMUNISM Germans were shocked. They read a document reprinted from the days of E. Germany. It ordered border guards to shoot people trying to flee at the border, even if women and children were among them. Germans had thought that Communism was a benign ideology that just didn't work. Some had nostalgia for the German Communist regime. The Communist Party was making a comeback (Prof. Steven Plaut, 8/17). I remember the common practice of shooting people trying to escape. Why didn't Germans remember it, or, if too young, have been taught about it? People living in a country may be ignorant of its worst problems. IDF PREPARES RESERVISTS' SUPPLIES The IDF has completed the first stage in upgrading the reservists' equipment. It filled warehouses with modern and ample equipment (IMRA, 8/17). It won't get to the second stage, because war will come, first. I think that many reservists won't make it to the warehouses, because either the warehouses will be bombed by Arab missiles or the P.A. and Hizbullah forces will sweep in and cut them down en route. Israel is making a grave error in not wiping out the P.A. and Hizbullah forces in advance, another in shipping arms to Fatah. MISSING THE POINT ON HEALTH CARE Candidate Guiliani accepts federal responsibility for Americans' medical care, but his plan could not solve the problem. He proposed a $15,000 tax credit for families to spend on treatment or keep if they minimized expenses (NY Sun, 8/17). Plans need an incentive to reduce medical costs. His plan wouldn't reduce government expense, since the credit stays the same. The plan depends upon people being employed and at relatively high wages. Tax rates now are calibrated to exempt the high proportion of the population that earns little. They would neither get the tax credits he is contemplating, nor afford private insurance. More of the taxpayers who would be eligible for the tax credits would not need them. The plan, like plans for giving certain Palestinian Arabs a state, is not thought through. SAUDI CLERIC WOULD IMPOSE ISLAM FOR OUR OWN GOOD A Saudi cleric declared that Allah decreed Islam for the whole world, and for its own good. He described the non-Islamic world as beastly immodest, literally filthy, and unhappy (IMRA, 8/17). There is too much immodesty here, for me, but it is contrary to Western faiths, too. The problem is not lack of Islam but lack of faithfulness. It is a minor problem compared to the oppression and backwardness that makes so many Muslims constantly enraged, frustrated sexually, violent, approving of deceit, and tolerant of slavery. As for filth, they have many water shortages and open sewers. My officer had been stationed in Morocco. A Muslim wearing a robe would squat on the sidewalk, and then arise, leaving behind a pile of feces. That was decades ago and may have been just Morocco. If Islam is so great, let it prove it, especially by example, and not depend upon force and deceit to gain ground. UNRWA COMPLAINS TO ABBAS' P.A. UNRWA complained to the P.A. that its employees in Judea-Samaria were detained and threatened, in an attempt to drag UNRWA into its civil strife. Endangering its employees may make its mission impossible (IMRA, 8/17). In Afghanistan and Iraq, the Islamists drive out foreign relief agencies. In the P.A., Islamists often attack foreigners who've come to help their people. Charity for Muslims is not appreciated and facilitates jihad. It also fosters a welfare mentality upon the recipients. Let the Muslims stew until they reform. Defend ourselves better and take care of our own people. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top

WASHINGTON POST, OTHER NEWSPAPERS WON'T RUN 'OPUS' CARTOON MOCKING RADICAL ISLAM Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 31, 2007.

This was posted by Forkum on the Cox and Forkum website (http://www.coxandforkum.com/).

A popular comic strip that poked fun at the Rev. Jerry Falwell without incident one week ago was deemed too controversial to run over the weekend because this time it took a humorous swipe at Muslim fundamentalists. The Washington Post and several other newspapers around the country did not run Sunday's installment of Berkeley Breathed's "Opus," in which the spiritual fad-seeking character Lola Granola appears in a headscarf and explains to her boyfriend, Steve, why she wants to become a radical Islamist. The installment did not appear in the Post's print version, but it ran on WashingtonPost.com and Salon.com. The same will hold true for the upcoming Sept. 2 strip, which is a continuation of the plotline. Click here to see the Aug. 26 "Opus" strip about radical Islam. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top

ISLAMIST WEBSITES TEACH HOW TO SET UP TERROR CELLS Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 31, 2007.

This comes from today's World Net Daily http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57395

Affiliation with al-Qaida called totally unnecessary to be part of holy war Although the U.S. government and much of the press still look for an al-Qaida connection before referring to domestic mayhem committed by Muslims as "terrorism," Islamist websites are teaching the opposite: There's no need for al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden or any other terror group or leader -- just the dedicated Muslim and his "gun and bullet." The Middle East Media Research Institute says the campaign, which gives detailed instructions on how to set up a terror cell, raise money to fund its operations and select Western targets, calls on every Muslim to "regard jihad as a personal duty and to take initiative to establish a jihad cell without waiting for recognition from al-Qaida." "For example, assassinating the American ambassador," the website instructions said, "takes no more than a gun and a bullet." The instructions are titled, "How to Join Al-Qaida, Form a Jihad Cell, and Select a Western Target." It is not clear when the instructions, which appeared this week, were written, MEMRI said, but they were produced by the "Al-Thabitoujn 'Ala Al-'Ahd" website, affiliated with al-Qaida in Egypt but currently inactive. Some of the instructions, MEMRI said, include: "You feel that you want to carry a weapon, fight, and kill the occupiers, and that it is our duty to call for jihad as much as to call for prayer. ... All that is required is a firm personal decision to fulfill this obligation, and participation in jihad and the resistance. ... "Do you really have to meet Osama bin Laden in person in order to become a jihad fighter? Do you have to be recognized by al-Qaida as one of its members to become a jihad fighter? If al-Qaida commanders should be killed, would the jihad be eliminated? What would you do if al-Qaida did not exist today? How is Osama bin Laden different from you? -- [yet] he managed to establish the world jihad organization. Who provided training to Osama bin Laden and Abdallah 'Azzam when they went to Afghanistan to become the first Arab jihad fighters? "The answers to these questions are the following: I don't have to meet Osama bin Laden to become a jihad fighter. Moreover, there is no need to meet even one jihad fighter to become one. Neither do I need recognition from al-Qaida. ... "As the first step, imagine that al-Qaida does not exist and that you are interested [in waging] jihad -- what would you do in this case?. � If you know any young people -- whether one, two, or more -- in your area, mosque, or university who are as dedicated and enthusiastic about jihad as you are, come to an understanding with them, and together form a cell whose objective is to help Islam and only Islam. ... "At first, your cell should have no more than five members, all absolutely trustworthy. � The cell must have a commander and a shura council. � The commander must clearly realize that he is Osama bin Laden to the cell members... "Each cell should have a source of funding. � When you have several members, you will [surely] find the funds for your cell. � Then you should buy weapons, make plans, brainstorm, plot your plans, monitor your enemy's important objectives, and study its moves. Set a goal; for example, assassinating the American ambassador -- is it so difficult? Is it [indeed] difficult for someone who has already crushed America in his home? "What is the difference between you and the hero of the New York attack, Muhammad Atta, who planned an action which even today shakes the world every time it is mentioned? Assassinating the ambassador takes no more than a gun and a bullet. One could disguise oneself as a peddler in order to tail [the target], which shouldn't cost a lot of money. ..." MEMRI also said the website instructed cells to maintain contact among themselves "but by no means in a direct or conventional way. What will unite you is the love of Islam and the motto 'There is no God but Allah.' You much meet once a month. ... You must not meet in the same place twice. � Personal meetings with a small number of people [must happen] once a week." And the cells should have two classes of members, "members who do not [act] openly and are not wanted by the authorities, and members who are wanted (who have been arrested in the past or on whom the intelligence apparatuses have a file). ... " The instructions provide that the "secret" members will do the intelligence work, raise funds and recruit new members, while "those who act in the open must perform the primary military operations such as assassinations. ..." "You must be aware that you have brothers everywhere, and that they are expecting the actions of you and your friends even if they don't know you in person or by name, ..." MEMRI said the instructions reminded. President Bush has warned Americans of the danger of such cells. Near the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, which killed about 3,000 Americans, he said terrorism sends "small teams of operatives to infiltrate free nations; they live quietly among their victims; they conspire in secret, and then they strike without warning." "In this new war," Bush said, "the most important source of information on where the terrorists are hiding and what they are planning is the terrorists, themselves. Captured terrorists have unique knowledge about how terrorist networks operation. They have knowledge of where their operatives are deployed, and knowledge about what plots are under way. "To win the war on terror, we must be able to detain, question, and, when appropriate, prosecute terrorists captured here in America, and on the battlefields around the world," he said. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top

HEVRON'S JEWS: GOV'T MUST RETURN JEWISH PROPERTY Posted by Hillel Fendel, August 31, 2007.

(IsraelNN.com) The Hevron Jewish Community has released a sharp, detailed report accusing the Israeli Government of breach of trust, abuse, and hostility towards the Jewish owners of Arab-stolen property in the City of the Patriarchs. Entitled "The State of Israel's Management of the Stolen Jewish Property in Hevron," the report was issued this month in honor of the 78th anniversary of the Hevron massacre. In August 1929, Arabs brutally murdered 67 of their Jewish neighbors in their homes and in the local yeshiva. The Jewish survivors were then removed from Hevron, leaving behind their homes and land to be stolen by the Arabs. Only after the 1967 Six Day War did Jews return permanently to reclaim their homes and property. They soon found, however, that doing so under Israeli rule was not to be as easy as they thought. The report begins by terming itself a "grave indictment" against those in the government who, "for decades have been exploiting their standing and have tried to apply their full influence to prevent the return of the Jewish properties to their owners, and to prevent the correction of the historic injustice of the 1929 pogroms." The report aims to "detail how, for a generation, the State of Israel has been betraying its mission as the representative of the Jewish Nation in the City of its Forefathers, with disdain, disregard and even hostility vis-a-vis its historic mission of rehabilitating the ancient Hevron community that was destroyed by Arab rioters..." In short, the report presents what it calls "a major failure of legal, historic and moral significance." What Happened When? The report's authors feel that a historic perspective is necessary, and Chapter One recounts the massacre of 1929, followed by the transfer of most of the property to Jordan's "Trustee of Enemy Zionist Property" in 1948. With no one to stop them, the Jordanians proceeded to: bulldoze the Jewish quarter's houses, stationing an outdoor market there; destroy and desecrate the Avraham Avinu synagogue, building atop it a sheep sty, garbage dump, and public restroom; and destroy and vandalize the ancient Jewish cemetery, using the gravestones for local construction. Parts of the property were rented out by the Jordanian Trustee to local Arabs, while other parts were ignored by the Trustee, and were simply taken over by private or public elements without being registered. "There is actually no proper and full registration anywhere of the stolen Jewish property in Hevron, because of faulty management by both the Jordanian conquerors and the Israel Trustee," the report states. Israel Takes Over From Jordan The Israeli Trustee received control of the property in 1967 following the liberation of the Biblical homeland areas of Jerusalem, Judea (including Hevron), Samaria, and more. "It now had a historic Jewish-moral opportunity to correct the injustice and restore Jewish life to Hevron -- but it did so only partially, despite repeated requests by both the original owners and the Jewish Community of Hevron that had received power of attorney to settle most of the properties." The function of the Trustee is to act in the best interests of those he is representing, the report states, and to ensure that the property does not remain desolate. "Yet Israel constantly and systematically did the opposite... For instance, regarding Hevron property that had been consecrated to a Jewish religious trust, the Supreme Court ruled that Israel could manage it as though it owned it. At the same time, regarding the Moslem Waqf properties in Judea and Samaria, the State does not intervene at all -- even when the Waqf works in tandem with terror organizations." The report says that by allowing many of the properties to remain vacant and desolate, it is abrogating its basic obligations as a Trustee: "The Trustee/State absurdly overlooks the Arab renters' obligations, while at the same time making extra sure their rights are not harmed... thus ignoring its obligations towards both the property (by leaving it vacant and desolate) and the owners (by not letting them move in)." Tel Romeida, For Example Two Jewish-owned plots of land (Bloc 34416, plots 52 and 53) at the heights of the Tel Romeida neighborhood stand adjacent to an IDF base and Jewish homes in the neighborhood -- yet the government bans Jews from setting foot there. The land had been rented to an Arab, but the contract was stopped by the Civil Administration in 2000. The Jewish Community of Hevron, granted power of attorney by the owners, has asked several times to be allowed to rent the land. In 2003, the IDF Central Region Commander agreed -- but to this day nothing has been done to allow the Jews to move in, and it remains desolate. At the same time, the State/Trustee also does very little to stop Arab infiltration and illegal usage of the area -- whereas Jews who have tried to enter the plots have been arrested and tried. This is a perfect example, the report states, of the government's hostile attitude towards the Jews of Hevron: "These plots have all the necessary conditions -- land owned by Jews who have given official power of attorney to the Jewish Community, no Arab 'third party,' security permits, and the submission of proper requests throughout the years -- and yet despite all, the property remains desolate, in clear violation of the owners' will." Moving into the Market The area now known as the Marketplace -- the part of the Avraham Avinu neighborhood that the Jordanians turned into an outdoor market -- is undisputedly Jewish-owned. After the IDF closed down the Jordanian market because of the security dangers it presented, and after it stood desolate for seven years, and immediately after the murder of the infant Shalhevet Pass by an Arab sniper terrorist, several Jewish families moved into the storefronts and turned them into their homes. This led to a drawn-out legal battle in which the State demanded to expel the Jews. The State's main claim was that families who moved in illegally should not be rewarded. The report notes the absurdity: "In the [State's] eyes, the 'sinners' who must not be rewarded are the Jews who acted in accordance with the owners' wishes and by their request -- and not the Arabs who murdered and threw out the Jews in 1929!" Ultimately, at the end of 2005, an agreement was worked out according to which the Jewish occupants would leave, to be replaced shortly afterwards by other Jewish families who would rent the buildings. The Jews fulfilled their end of the bargain -- but Attorney General Menachem Mazuz said the State need not fulfill its side, because of "legal and political considerations." After having been thus betrayed, two families moved back in to adjacent buildings -- and were brutally and violently removed by army and police forces earlier this month. This expulsion, the report states, is a "mocking symbol of the hostility and disdain that the State of Israel has for the stolen Jewish property," from several aspects: The eviction was not necessary, as the Supreme Court had ruled it permissible, not obligatory; it was meant only to impart a lesson that 'sinners should not be rewarded' -- when in fact it was clear to all that their requests to move in had been ignored for years, leaving Jewish-owned property vacant and desolate; it was done against two families that had left peaceably on their own in the past, based on a government promise that was not fulfilled; it was tremendously violent and destructive. The properties were turned into ruins -- in opposition to the Trustee's obligation to preserve the property, and as an indication that the government meant to ensure that no Jews ever live there. It was the first time since 1929 that a synagogue had been destroyed in Hevron -- and the destroyers were Israeli soldiers and policemen. Extra-Harsh The report also notes the State's extra-harsh approach towards Jews who wish to actualize their rights to the Jewish property -- especially in comparison with the forgiving approach towards Arabs who infiltrate into these areas. For instance, a Jewish teenager was caught sleeping in one of the refurbished apartments in the market area. The police arrested him and demanded that he be distanced from the area for 60 days, claiming, "The State affirms the existence of a policy, approved by the Justice Ministry, calling for extra precautions to ensure that the Hevron market area remains empty." The judge asked the State representative about the closure order placed upon the apartments for "security reasons": "Why do these security reasons necessitate only the closing of the apartments, yet allow people to walk by there? Is it more dangerous for people to enter the apartments than to merely walk by?" The State's representative answered, "This is the judgment of the Central Commander..." However, he did not add that the order was issued by the Central Commander at the behest of the Deputy Attorney General, Shai Nitzan, for the purpose of preventing Jewish entry into the storefronts. Conclusion: End the Israeli Trusteeship! Israel's hostile approach cannot be due to its opposition to Jewish presence in Hevron, the report states: "The government of Israel has recognized, ever since a Cabinet decision in 1980, the legitimacy of Jewish habitation in Hevron -- and even anchored this right in an international agreement, the Hevron Accord of 1997." "However," the report continues, "as the Trustee of the property, Israel relates to the Jewish owners as an enemy. This is an absurd and intolerable situation for anyone who sees Israel as the country of the Jewish Nation." The writers of the report therefore call upon the State of Israel to end its trusteeship immediately, "especially given the fact that in 1995, a peace treaty was signed with Jordan -- ending the state of war between the two countries, ending Israel's status as an 'enemy' vis-a-vis Jordan, and ending the need for Israel to fill the shoes of Jordan's Trustee of Enemy Zionist Property..." "Alternatively," the report concludes, "Israel's policy makers must instruct all the government echelons to immediately stop the systematic harassment and discrimination of the owners of the stolen Jewish property... The State must first repair the damage it did in the market property, and then begin corrective reverse discrimination, leading to the restoration of dynamic Jewish life in Hevron as it was before the pogrom of 1929." Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor at Arutz-Sheva To Go To Top

POLLARD'S PLIGHT. OUR PAIN Posted by Justice For Jonathan Pollard, August 31, 2007.

This was written by Dov Hikind (NY Assemblyman, D -- Brooklyn) and it appeared in The Jewish Press [NY] August 31, 2007.

There was a surreal sense to embarking on a pre-dawn journey to visit Jonathan Pollard in the federal correction facility in Butner, North Carolina. Daylight had not yet broached the horizon, and the gray stillness of the morning at 4:45 a.m. punctuated the gravity of the day's mission. It was a restless night for me: In the last 22 years of Jonathan's incarceration, I had read countless books and articles, researched his case, and been briefed by Rabbi Pesach Lerner, the Executive Vice President of the National Council of Young Israel. And now, I was going to see Jonathan, who had spent most of his life in confinement. After many years of advocating on Jonathan's behalf, through myriad channels, I wanted to look into his eyes, be with Jonathan and feel with Jonathan. There are some moments, when I contemplate the last 25 years, that have become for me the fulfillment of my destiny, the reason I was elected to public office. It may be reflected in the eyes of a constituent, a senior citizen who was on the verge of having their Medicaid benefits terminated. And it was echoed on July 31, with the crushing sound of steel electronic prison gates slamming behind us with jarring finality in the federal institution in North Carolina. Meeting with Jonathan was humbling, and it was a full 24 hours until I could integrate and process the experience. Jonathan's faith is immutable, and his love is unfathomable. He has been disavowed, deserted, and denigrated by his beloved Israel. And yet he yearns for her embrace. Initially, regrettably, the Jewish community distanced itself from Jonathan, but his infinite love for the Jewish people has not been tempered. We were escorted into the room with an intelligence officer accompanying the four of us: Rabbi Pesach Lerner, who has done more for Jonathan than anyone, apart from his wife, Esther; Dr. Joseph Geliebter; and Wolf Sender. And there was Jonathan Pollard. We rushed to embrace, and as we hugged and kissed, the solemnity of the moment, the purity of his love, was overwhelming. It was a profound rendering of the dignity of the mitzvah of pidyon shvuyim. Encased in steel, enclosed by razor-sharp barbed wire, for 2 � hours we spoke of what Jews have spoken about throughout the milennia: Israel, Torah, and the Jewish condition. Jonathan was fully read on my recent trip to Europe to survey the violent surge in anti-Semitism in England, France, Belgium, and Germany. His inspired analysis and grasp of the malignancy of European anti-Semitism was brilliant. Jonathan lead the conversation with an anthology of books he had read and was in the midst of reading with titles I have difficulty pronouncing. There are few minds like his, and fewer with a commitment of heart and spirit that is comparable to his. Keeping kosher in a federal penitentiary is truly a nisayon. It makes it that much more challenging that Jonathan is a Type 2 diabetic, and his condition is acute. The proper monitoring, diet, treatment prerogatives that would control his diabetes are not available to him. Rabbi Lerner bought Jonathan snacks from the vending machines, all inspected for the proper kosher certification. When Jonathan ate the offered chocolate pudding and peanut butter and crackers, one of our group commented that "this food is terrible for a diabetic." Jonathan wistfully answered, "But I'm hungry." I will never forget those words. Jonathan regularly forsakes a diet that would be better advised for his health, because of Kashrus issues. Jonathan acknowledges, "I know I broke the law, all I ask for is proportionality." The sentence Jonathan received was disproportionate and disparate to that of individuals convicted of a similar crime. Jonathan lives every moment to walk out of prison, to touch the soil of the state of Israel, feel her breath on his cheek, and be with his dear wife Esther. The 2 /12 hours vanished and our allotted time with Jonathan was over. It was a life-altering and life-affirming experience for me. I have met few people who match Jonathan's caliber of faith and commitment; it will stay with me forever. So many have risen to say that Jonathan has suffered enough. So many Gedolim. So many leaders. So many from the intelligence community. And now we must rise as a community and fulfill a mitzvah that is rarer than most: the mitzvah of pidyon shvuyim, redeeming the prisoner. Rav Elyashiv, Shlita and Rav Schteinman, Shlita have written letters to the President imploring George W. Bush to "grant clemency to Jonathan Pollard." James Woolsey, former Director of the CIA has said, "My view is that 20 years is enough� I think the close relationship between United States and Israel as fellow democracies is also a consideration, and at this point I think he's served long enough." Former mayor and presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani has said that Jonathan's sentence was unfair and "way beyond the sentences served by other people that have been convicted of the same offense." It is our generation that has been entrusted by God with Jonathan's redemption. Perhaps for a special zchus, perhaps we need more meritorious undertakings. And as we approach the Yomim Noraim, the High Holy Days, we repeatedly beseech God in our tefillos for His mercy. We need to evoke the merits of the heavens for Jonathan's redemption�. and our own. As long as Jonathan is in prison, we are imprisoned by our own failure to redeem him. We cannot rest until he is in his beloved Israel with his beloved wife. Now, through Yom Kippur, it is imperative that each and every one of us calls the White House to request the release of Jonathan Pollard. Make the call once every day between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. at 202-456-1414 or 202-456-1111 and take part in the mitzvah of pidyon shvuyim. In these very trying times, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and yours a K'siva V'chasima Tova. May the New Year bring with it comfort and peace and renewed hope and promise for all the Jewish people. COLOR NCYI FLYER: Urgent High Holiday Call-In Campaign for Pollard:     JPEG -- http://www.jonathanpollard.org/2007/082607.jpg     PDF -- http://www.jonathanpollard.org /2007/082607.pdf BLACK AND WHITE NCYI FLYER: Urgent High Holiday Call-In Campaign for Pollard     PDF -- http://www.jonathanpollard.org/2007/082607a.pdf Please call the White House for Pollard Today! 15 days to Rosh HaShana Please call the White House now! Tell President Bush to free Jonathan Pollard now! Send him home to Israel for Rosh HaShana! Telephone number: 1- 202-456-1414 or 1-202-456-1111 From Israel add your long-distance service provider code to the start of the USA number for example: 0121-202-456-1111 (Israeli codes: 001, 012, 013, 014, 018, etc) Reach Justice for Jonathan Pollard by sending an email to justice4jp@gmail.com To Go To Top FROM ISRAEL: LOWERING EXPECTATIONS Posted by Arlene Kushner, August 31, 2007. So, after all of the excitement and angst and fury, this is where we likely are with regard to "the peace process": According to the Post this morning, the US-sponsored summit in the fall may be only at the level of foreign ministers and may not involve heads of state at all. A major diplomat at the Russian Embassy here in Israel reported that he had been told this by US Ambassador Richard Jones. Israeli officials say they haven't been told at what level the conference will be held. It depends, clearly, on what sort of progress is achieved before the conference. Thus the push to get Olmert and Abbas to put together a pre-conference agreement -- that document stating principles. There's a move here to play it low key out of a desire to not look like idiots when nothing comes of the meeting. But an additional problem is that Saudi Arabia is less than eager to attend, and is more likely to be induced to do so if it's at a lower level. ~~~~~~~~~~ Meanwhile, Mahmoud Abbas isn't doing too well: "A Palestinian leader who feels safer in Jerusalem, Paris and Washington than in Nablus and Jenin will never be able to deliver." Thus begins Khaled Abu Toameh's report today, citing a senior Fatah official. Seems that (and this was a surprise to me) Abbas hasn't been in Jenin or Nablus was before the January 2005 presidential elections when he was campaigning. He's referred to jokingly as the mayor of Ramallah because the only time he leaves this city is to go abroad. "A visit to Nablus or a refugee camps in the West Bank remains out of the question, mainly for 'security reasons,'" one of his aides explained. All in all, Abbas is lacking popularity and credibility. Concludes Abu Toameh, "Given the current divisions among the Palestinians, the ongoing Hamas-Fatah power struggle, the growing mistrust of the US and Israel in the Arab world and Abbas's shaky status, it is highly unlikely that the PA chairman would be able to win the backing of a majority of his people for a US-backed deal." ~~~~~~~~~~ A brief word about the issue of African refugees coming into Israel via Egypt, as I suspect this is something that's making press in the US. Some of those who have come -- as I understand it, roughly 3,000 over time -- have been kept here in Israel (where there is discussion as to what to do with them) and some have been turned back to Egypt. The situation is vastly complicated -- far more complicated than would appear at first glance -- and exceedingly painful. In a nutshell, there is the feeling that we Jews here in Israel have a moral obligation to receive suffering refugees. And that perspective tugs at my own heart, without a doubt. It comes from the gut, in terms of who we are and how we are supposed to act. But -- while I believe mistakes have been made in handling them -- Israeli officials who respond differently are not necessarily being heartless and without compassion or sense of responsibility. When one hears "African refugee" one thinks first of Darfur, and this obscures the larger issue. For it turns out that less than 1/4 of those who have come here are from Darfur (most of whom have been kept), and just over 50% are from Sudan at all. The rest are from various other parts of Africa. Word has apparently gotten out that if you can get yourself to Egypt, and then over the Sinai border to the Negev, that's a wise move. But this could result in absolutely huge and untenable numbers arriving that we are simply not capable of coping with; we are a small nation with a host of problems and an African Jewish population (from Ethiopia) that we are still contending with absorbing. We cannot accept unlimited numbers of refugees, and that message must be delivered; there is talk about building a fence so that they cannot get into Israel. Then there is a further concern -- though there has been no evidence yet that this has been the case -- that active enemies of Israel from Africa might come with a refugee population. In particular there is concern about al-Qaida, which has an African presence. Part of the problem in handling this has been Egypt's reprehensible way of dealing with the refugees. From that perspective it is easy to understand why they'd prefer to jump the border and take their chances in Israel (and why our sensitivity is necessary). There was one obscene incident witnessed by Israeli soldiers at the border who saw a refugee killed. If some refugees are being returned to Egypt, acceptable conditions for them must be assured -- and apparently arrangements have been made with Mubarak. Beyond this, it is appropriate for the international community -- the UN High Commission for Refugees and various NGOs -- to be involved here. According to an Israeli Foreign Ministry official: "Given Israel's size and limited resources, it has taken significant measures. Israel is well aware of its responsibility as a sovereign state, but we cannot address this complex issue on our own." ~~~~~~~~~~ For about a month, Arabs on the Temple Mount have been digging with heavy equipment, creating a trench 1.5 meters deep and 400 meters long that they say is needed for new electrical cables. They are doing so with the acquiescence of the Israeli government and the Israeli Antiquities Committee. Independent archeologists from the Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount have become deeply disturbed about this and registered protest without effect. One of the most outspoken, Bar-Ilan University archaeologist Dr. Gabriel Barkai, then called a Jerusalem press conference, at which he explained that archeological ruins of inestimable value have been severely damaged by this work, while Israel is turning a blind eye. He is referring to a seven-meter wide wall that apparently dates to Second Temple times and was likely part of the Temple courts. An appeal to the High Court, to stop this work will be registered next week. The work is being done at night, which makes inspection more difficult. Why would Israel turn a blind eye? Because stopping the work would cause protest in the Muslim population and it's easier not to take them on. How despicable is this disregard for our heritage. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info To Go To Top PLEASE CALL THE WHITE HOUSE FOR POLLARD TODAY! Posted by Justice for Jonathan Pollard, August 31, 2007. COUNT DOWN: 11 DAYS TO ROSH HASHANA It's Friday August 31, 2007 B"H, the 17th of Ellul. There are 11 days to Rosh HaShana. Please call the White House now! Tell President Bush to free Jonathan Pollard now! Send him home to Israel for Rosh HaShana! Telephone number (Monday to Friday 9AM to 5PM): 1-202-456-1414 or 1-202-456-1111 Dialing from Israel: Add your long-distance service provider code to the start of the USA number for example: 0121-202-456-1111. (Israeli codes: 001, 012, 013, 014, 018, etc.) Hours for Israeli Calls: White House telephone lines are manned from 4 PM Israel time to Midnight, from Monday to Friday. Be sure to call before (6:29 PM ) candle-lighting on Friday afternoon. [To ensure a faster response, follow the instructions for "Rotary" telephones regardless!] Your calls put Pollard on the map! The Pollard Call-In Campaign spear-headed by the National Council of Young Israel last Spring put Pollard on the map in the White House. His name now appears on the list of subjects that all the White House phone operators are given to record the number of calls. Now, with G-d's help and massive participation in the mitzvah of pidyon shvuyim, let's get Pollard out of there, and home for the High Holidays! Amain! Please call now! The National Council of Young Israel ad and flyers for recirculation and reprinting to encourage participation in this urgent intiative are available from the J4JP web site. Please click on the link below for the format of your choice: COLOR NCYI FLYER: Urgent High Holiday Call-In Campaign for Pollard:     JPEG -- http://www.jonathanpollard.org/2007/082607.jpg     PDF -- http://www.jonathanpollard.org /2007/082607.pdf BLACK AND WHITE NCYI FLYER: Urgent High Holiday Call-In Campaign for Pollard     PDF -- http://www.jonathanpollard.org/2007/082607a.pdf Reach Justice for Jonathan Pollard by sending an email to justice4jp@gmail.com To Go To Top LEAD BY EXAMPLE Posted by Robert Turk, August 30, 2007. After today's news report that the government of Israel is prepared to relinquish control of the Temple Mount, it has now crossed a final line and must be removed by any means. The Bolsheviks that have ruled Israel for the past fifty nine years need to be stripped of their positions and tried for treason for crimes against the Jewish People. Throughout our long history as a people, we have always had traders willing to sell us out to the enemy for personal gain. Written into the declaration of independence of the United States are certain safeguards that protect its people from the abusive government. The preamble says That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. While Israel is not the United States, I say it is still a G- d given right for the people of Israel to abolish a corrupt and abusive government. As Jew's living in the Diaspora, it is our duty to help and protect our Jewish brothers and sisters in Israel from the abusive Olmert government whose intent is to destroy The State of Israel. I now call upon all Proud Jews and world Zionist organizations to put their differences aside and start making plans to help the brave " settlers " hold on to the land that our brave soldiers reclaimed. We also call on the proud and brave Israeli military to stand with those opposing an unlawful and ungodly so- called leadership. If you are strong enough make plans to go to Israel and stand shoulder to shoulder with our Brothers and Sisters. Please make plans. If you cannot go, then please make a generous donation to help defray the expense of the brave Jews who are willing to put their life on hold to stand by the land and people of Israel. I will lead by example and go to Israel as will most of our organization's leadership. If you are willing to make this historical effort, please send me an email. If you are unable to go and are willing to help defray the cost of those who want to go to Israel, please email me directly at chairman@bnaielim.org Robert Turk is Chairman of B'nai Elim. Contact him by email at chairman@bnaielim.org or call him at (860) 738-8872 To Go To Top MEARSHEIMER AND WALT FAIL TO CLEAN UP THEIR ACT Posted by Koira, August 30, 2007. This was published yesterday by Ira Stoll, Staff Reporter of the New York Sun, in www.nysun.com/article/61485. Professors John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government burst onto the national scene in March of 2006 with a Harvard "working paper" in which they wrote of the "unmatched power of the Israel Lobby." They charged, "Were it not for the Lobby's ability to manipulate the American political system, the relationship between Israel and the United States would be far less intimate than it is today.... AIPAC, which is a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on the U.S. Congress.... manipulating the media." At the time, the paper was praised by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and the American white supremacist David Duke, while widely condemned by the American Jewish community and a number of general interest publications, including The New York Sun. Next week, the two professors will publish a book-length expansion of their argument, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 484 pages, $26). In this latest iteration, the professors have tried to clean up their act -- but only on the surface. The "Lobby" has been revised to the lowercase "lobby." Gone in this new presentation is much of the inflammatory rhetoric -- the verb "manipulate," the term "stranglehold," the accusation that AIPAC is a foreign agent rather than an American interest group. The new version of this argument, with its stamp of approval from Farrar, Straus and Giroux, may be more acceptable for sale at a Barnes & Noble near you, for open discourse in the New York Times, on National Public Radio, and at the Council on Foreign Relations. But from beneath the surface, try though the professors may have to suppress it, what Messrs. Mearsheimer and Walt themselves define as anti-Semitism manages to poke through. The professors write that "anti-Semitism indulges in various forms of stereotyping and implies that Jews should be viewed with suspicion or contempt, while seeking to deny them the ability to participate fully and freely in all realms of society." They are at pains to emphasize that "the lobby is defined not by ethnicity or religion but by a political agenda." Then they proceed to jump in and do exactly what they say anti-Semites do. What are we to make of the professors' classification of the former governor of Vermont, Howard Dean, as a supporter of Israel in part on the basis that "Dean's wife is Jewish and his children were raised Jewish as well"? Or of the assertion that "Christian Zionists exert less impact on U.S. Middle East policy than the other parts of the Israel lobby do," because the Christians "lack the financial power of the major pro-Israel Jewish groups, and they do not have the same media presence"? Instead of the charge that the Jews or the "Lobby" are "manipulating" the press, the new, cleaned-up, book version of Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer asserts that, "If the media were left to their own devices, they would not serve up as consistent a diet of pro-Israel coverage and commentary." Left unexplained is exactly whose devices the press has been left to, if not their own. Discussing Elliott Abrams, an aide to President Bush, they quote an unremarkable passage from one of his books -- "there can be no doubt that Jews, faithful to the covenant between God and Abraham, are to stand apart from the nation in which they live. It is the very nature of being Jewish to be apart -- except in Israel -- from the rest of the population" -- and tutt-tutt, "This is a remarkable comment coming from an individual who holds a critically important position on Middle East policy in the U.S. government." Clinton administration aides who are American Jews come in for the same treatment. The authors describe Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk by approvingly quoting a Palestinian Arab who protested "negotiating with two Israeli teams -- one displaying an Israeli flag, and one an American flag." The professors protest that they are using the term "dual loyalty" not in its "earlier, anti-Semitic incarnation" but in "a neutral and nonpejorative fashion." It's an awfully fine distinction. To those with time-in-grade on this beat, there are jarring notes. What's with the notion that the Nazi Holocaust, as Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer write, "killed nearly six million Jews"? Not six million, as some but not all historians have found, but "nearly" six million, a distinction that, without discussing it, Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer seem strangely careful to maintain. They claim that anti-Semitic bigotry was widespread "until recently," but minimize its current surge in Europe. Statistics are piled upon statistics to dismiss the problem of anti-Semitism in France, with no mention of the fact that France's ambassador in Great Britain called Israel a "[expletive] little country" or of the fact that the number of French Jews each year who are fleeing France for Israel has more than doubled in recent years because of the anti-Semitism . Of the anti-Semitism among European Muslims, the authors assert that "some of it" is "provoked by Israel's behavior toward the Palestinians." It's a textbook example of the error of blaming the Jews for anti-Semitism rather than the anti-Semites. Genuine anti-Semites, such as the leader of Hezbollah, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who in 2002 said of Jews, "If they all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide," -- a quote omitted by the professors -- get stunningly favorable treatment in this book. Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer buy into the claim that Hezbollah's initial rocket attacks on Israeli towns last summer were intended not to kill Jews, but to divert Israeli attention from a kidnapping raid on Israeli soldiers. Sheikh Nasrallah preached, "death to America" and "each of us lives his days and nights hoping more than anything to be killed for the sake of Allah. The most honorable death is to be killed." These are but two more quotes omitted by the professors, who write that "it is impossible to make that case that the United States supported Israel" against Hezbollah "because it was the morally correct policy choice." They may think Israel had no moral high ground against Hezbollah -- they clearly do think that -- but to claim that such a case is "impossible to make" overstates it. If Hezbollah is practically benign, in the view of Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer, so too are Israel and America's other enemies. "Tehran has made several attempts in recent years to improve relations with Washington and settle outstanding differences, but Israel and its American supporters have been able to stymie any d�tente between Iran and the United States," they write. "Absent the lobby, there might already be a peace treaty between Israel and Syria." Israel's existence, they write, "is not in danger at present." Saudi Arabia, they claim, has offered to sign a peace treaty with Israel. "Remarkably, Iran has even offered to put its nuclear program up for negotiation and offered to work out a modus vivendi with Israel," they write. Israel's supporters in America doubtless wish the professors were right, but know they are not. Also apparent, even in this newly polished presentation, is the shakiness of Messrs. Mearsheimer and Walt's grip on the facts. They claim that terrorist attacks "do relatively little damage to Israel's economy." What of the fact that, amid a terrorism surge, foreign tourism to Israel declined to 718,000 in 2002 from 2.7 million visitors in 2000? They claim that "the Arabs were not attempting to destroy Israel" in the wars of 1948, 1967, and 1973, dismissing the assertions of Arab leaders to the contrary as "largely rhetoric designed to appease their publics." The implication of the qualifier "largely" in that sentence, undermining as it does their own claim, seems largely to have escaped the professors. The authors get a good ride out of the qualifier "largely" elsewhere in the book, too. "Unlike virtually every other country, Israel is largely immune from criticism on Capitol Hill," the professors write. The professors go on to name a long list of lawmakers who have criticized Israel, the country's supposed immunity notwithstanding -- Paul Findley, Lincoln Chafee, Charles Hagel, Earl Hilliard, Pete McCloskey, William Fulbright, Roger Jepson, Charles Percy, Nick Rahall. Others, such as David Bonior, are omitted. New to the book version is the claim that the Israel lobby is damaging not only American interests but also Israel's interests, a claim the authors repeat -- with a straight face -- again and again. Their concern for Israel's interests is touching, but it's a safe bet that the American Jewish leadership and the Israeli voters and elected officials ;have a more reliable judgment of what is in Israel's interests than do these two professors. The professors have their own view of American Jews, reporting with a tone of some exasperation that many of them "still believe that anti-Semitism is rife." That view is sure to be confirmed after reading this book. But one need not pass judgment on the motivations of Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer to reject their conclusions. One can even assess, as does David Remnick, writing in this week's New Yorker, that, "Mearsheimer and Walt are not anti-Semites or racists," while still finding fault, as Mr. Remnick does, with their unrelentingly negative depiction of Israel and mystifyingly rosy depiction of Israel's enemies. The professors blame the Israel lobby in America for nearly everything, from the failure of peace to break out between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs to the failure of peace to break out between America, Iran, and Syria. "In fact, the United States has a terrorism problem in good part because it has long been so supportive of Israel," they write. It's all too neat -- the Israel lobby as an all-purpose scapegoat, a catch-all to blame for everything from the Iraq War to al Qaeda. As Mr. Remnick put it, "Mearsheimer and Walt give you the sense that, if the Israelis and the Palestinians come to terms, bin Laden will return to the family construction business." It's not a useful argument for Middle East policymakers, but it is an illuminating one for those concerned about the state of both the American publishing industry and higher education. The authors conclude by noting ecstatically that "In November 2006, twenty-five peace researchers in Germany called for questioning the 'special relationship' between Germany and Israel,' because of Israel's actions against the Palestinians." That relationship is about to be eroded further by the publication of this book by the German company Holtzbrinck, through its imprint Farrar, Straus and Giroux. That these authors could propound these views from prominent perches at respected American universities is a sign of a decline in standards in American higher education. During World War II, Harvard and the University of Chicago threw themselves into the effort to defeat the Nazis. In the current war, at least two professors are calling not for a defeat of the Islamist terrorists but for appeasing them at Israel's expense. This book is long but it offers not a scintilla of evidence that doing that would advance either America's security or the cause of freedom. Contact Koira at koira@dbmail.com To Go To Top FROM ISRAEL: OUR PRIDE Posted by Arlene Kushner, August 30, 2007. The IDF is honoring its heroes from last summer's Lebanon War, and so some of the bravest are being featured in the media. The small sketches I offer here are evidence sure and clear of the caliber of the Israeli people. They are the best. Dr. Yehuda David, 53, an orthopedic surgeon, was on vacation when the war broke out. A major in the reserves, he hurried back and contacted the IDF. He is now being honored for his consistent dedication and self-sacrifice. He spent the entire war inside of Lebanon, carrying his 60 kg. pack -- filled with medical supplies -- on his back wherever he went; he treated some 50 soldiers. "I sign on for volunteer service," he said, "since if the soldiers are willing to give everything they can, I am also willing to give everything I can. After 2000 years in exile it is an honor to serve in the IDF." On the Friday night before one of the war's biggest battles, at Saluki, he assembled his battalion and suggested they light candles and recite the Shema before heading out to fight. ~~~~~~~~~~ Erez Ramati, also a doctor, was with his battalion at Saluki as well. He and his medics were treating the wounded from his battalion when he was informed that soldiers from another company also needed help. To get to them he had to run through an open area, directly exposed to Hezbollah fire. "There was no time for hesitating," he explained, since there were people who were wounded and they needed me. This was not about heroism or bravery but about doing what you need to do." ~~~~~~~~~~ I mentioned the other day the conference taking place under the auspices of the UN's Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. That it's turning out to be a bad scene is no surprise -- we knew it would be. B'nai Brith, which sent people from its Foreign Affairs Office, to monitor the proceedings, paints a dismal picture. "This is a conference of Israel-haters," said its director, Adam Mouchtar. What is perhaps most unsettling is that we're talking about Europeans: the European Parliament is hosting; European speakers have labeled Israel "apartheid" and called for a boycott. NGO-Monitor, based here in Jerusalem, reports that their "research has shown, non- governmental organizations funded and supported by the EU...are at the forefront of the political campaign to demonize and delegitimize Israel." ~~~~~~~~~~ Mahmoud Abbas, PA president, is not attending the conference but sent someone to make a statement on his behalf. In expressing hopes for a peace agreement with Israel, he alluded to the "inalienable rights" of the Palestinian people, which is, after all, what the committee sponsoring this gathering is dedicated to. A brief comment is in order, for the record: The Palestinian Arabs have NO inalienable right to a state. Don't be taken in on this. It's not a question of when they will exercise this right, with the right itself an acknowledged given. It simply doesn't exist, any more than the "right of return" for the so-called refugees exists. The Palestinians are a self-defined (or invented) group. I would like to say that they don't even exist as a people, but I recognize that they're created their own identity in recent decades; they've internalized it (and taught it to their children) and the world has bought it, so the argument becomes moot. What I can say is that they have no long history as a distinct people, and no long history in the land. Prior to 1948, the Jews in Palestine were called Palestinians and the Arabs called themselves Arabs. It's on the record for anyone who investigates this to see: They used to say they were part of the Arab nation or greater Syria. Many who today call themselves Palestinians came into Palestine as migrants with the influx of Jews in the years before the founding of Israel -- they came from places like Saudi Arabia and Jordan and Syria, looking for work, as Jewish development created jobs. Neither in language nor in culture are they distinct from surrounding Arabs. And while they have invented themselves and created the myth of the Palestinian people, it is a shallow thing, without deep national identity. This is why there are divisions between Palestinians groups: loyalty to clan or party comes before national loyalty. This is why they cannot get their act together -- forming a nation is not really their priority. The need to create a national identity was not intrinsic in a positive sense -- it was born in the main as a negative reaction to Jewish presence in the land. Compare this with the Kurds who have distinct culture and a strong national identity, and who long for establishment of a Kurdistan. (There is no UN committee for the inalienable rights of the Kurds, however.) ~~~~~~~~~~ Yesterday the IDF picked up in northern Gaza a 15 year old Palestinian Arab boy who had explosive devices that he was planning to use for a suicide attack. He is in custody. This is just one more instance of the terrorists making use of minors for their purposes. ~~~~~~~~~~ Not good news. Khaled Abu Toameh of the Post reports that Abbas has now appointed a special advisor on Jerusalem affairs, Adnan Husseini. This suggests that Abbas expects Olmert to negotiate the status of Jerusalem. I'll have more to say about this shortly. ~~~~~~~~~~ This isn't good news either: General Dayton, US security coordinator for the PA areas, has a peachy keen idea. He wants to institute five new Palestinian battalions in Judea and Samaria, complete with training and equipment supplied by the US (using the $80 million that's been allocated). This -- of course! -- is to strength Abbas. Does this take your breath away, as it does mine? He's been there, and done that, you see. In Gaza. And it was a colossal failure. The US is now smarting over the sophisticated weaponry and intelligence equipment that has fallen into Hamas hands because Fatah was quick to cut and run. And they want to do it again? On a bigger scale yet. What does one say about the intelligence, or the ability to grapple with reality, of someone who repeats what already failed so miserably, especially when the repeat performance, if it fails again, could be disastrous? This plan is in its early stages, and is supposed to progress slowly. If equipment is to be transferred to the PA, Israel will have to approve it. It would be foolish, I guess, to hope that our government will see so clearly the danger of this fighting equipment falling into the wrong hands and being turned on us (as ALL weaponry supplied to PA forces has ultimately been turned on us to some degree), that permission will be denied. Maybe if the IDF and intelligence forces are adamant? ~~~~~~~~~~ Meanwhile Olmert has said that what he hopes to achieve with Abbas is conclusion of a single page agreement on principles for future negotiation. The wording would be kept vague enough to avoid diplomatic pitfalls that would be brought about by anything too specific. Said Olmert: "I believe that we want and can make decisions, but the Palestinians have a number of groups, they have no stable democracy, and there is uncertainty about the government and their institutions..." Explaining further, he added, "We will not push [Abbas] toward any declarations that will be good at noon and cause us to lose everything by evening." This means no feet to the fire, no demands for taking our terrorism, nothing that the people would object to. Doesn't take the "process" very far. This is what Olmert calls a "political horizon." Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info To Go To Top IRAQI CLERIC MUQTADA AL-SADR SUSPENDS MAHDI ARMY ACTIVITIES Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 30, 2007. This comes from Cox and Forkum Cartoons website. This cartoon was originally posted on August 1, 2004, and is in our second book Black & White World II, which can be ordered at http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/000967.html along with our latest book. From FOX News: Iraqi Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr Suspends Mahdi Army Activities. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered a six-month suspension of activities by his Mahdi Army militia in order to reorganize the force, and it will no longer attack U.S. and coalition troops, aides said Wednesday. The aide, Sheik Hazim al-Araji, said on Iraqi state television that the goal was to "rehabilitate" the organization, which has reportedly broken into factions, some of which the U.S. maintains are trained and supplied by Iran. "We declare the freezing of the Mahdi Army without exception in order to rehabilitate it in a way that will safeguard its ideological image within a maximum period of six months starting from the day this statement is issued," al-Araji said, reading from a statement by al-Sadr. In Najaf, al-Sadr's spokesman said the order also means the Mahdi Army will no longer launch attacks against U.S. and other coalition forces. "It also includes suspending the taking up of arms against occupiers as well as others," Ahmed al-Shaibani told reporters. Asked if Mahdi militiamen would defend themselves against provocations, he replied: "We will deal with it when it happens." The order was issued after two days of bloody clashes in the Shiite holy city of Karbala that claimed at least 52 lives. Iraqi security officials blamed Mahdi militiamen for attacking mosque guards, some of whom are linked to the rival Badr Brigade militia. To Go To Top THE IRAN DOSSIER Posted by Koira, August 30, 2007. This comes from The Weekly Standard www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2007/08/the_iran_dossier.asp It was posted yesterday by Michael Goldfarb, editor of www.WorldwideStandard.com Kim Kagan has produced her latest Iraq Report for The Daily Standard, this one detailing Iranian activity inside Iraq over the last 15 months. The report is the most comprehensive document on this subject I've come across, and it includes a series of maps and other images that help illustrate the mechanics of Iranian influence in Iraq. I follow this stuff pretty closely, but I've never been quite clear on exactly what constitutes the "special groups" that MNF-I discusses so frequently, who finances them, what shape they take, etc. Kagan goes a long way toward clarifying this: The Qods Force and Hezbollah trained Iraqis in groups of 20 to 60 so that they functioned as a unit--a "secret cell" or "special group." The Iraqis returned to Iraq after their training, maintaining their group's organization. Thus, each "special group" in Iraq consisted of 20 to 60 Iraqis who had trained together in Iran in how "to use EFPs, mortars, rockets, as well as intelligence, sniper and kidnapping operations." These special groups could be combined into larger organizations. The director of the Amin Allah charity coordinated "more than 200 rogue JAM members" and "ordered them to conduct assassinations on local citizens and government officials who oppose the group's illegal activities." How about the Sheibani network we've heard so much about? By August 2005, Abu Mustafa al-Sheibani had developed an extensive "network of insurgents created by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps with the express purpose of committing violence against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq." Sheibani's group introduced into Iraq "'shaped' explosive charges," based on a model used by Hezbollah against the Israelis, and its fighters trained in Lebanon as well as Sadr City and "'another country,'" according to U.S. intelligence sources. An American military official in Baghdad explained that "the U.S. believes that Iran has brokered a partnership between Iraqi Shiite militants and Hizballah and facilitated the import of sophisticated weapons that are killing and wounding U.S. and British troops." An American Special Operations Task Force report claimed "the Lebanese Hizballah leadership believes that the struggle in Iraq is the new battleground in the fight against the U.S." Sheibani's group was estimated to include 280 fighters organized into 17 bomb-making teams and death squads. And on the effect of the surge on Iranian activities: In 2006, Coalition forces were also spread too thin to cover the lines of communication south of Baghdad. For example, only 200 soldiers from the Polish Division in Multi-National Division Central-South were stationed in Kut through spring 2007, detached from the bulk of their unit. Thus, smugglers could bring Iranian weapons without expecting interdiction along open routes in 2006. The surge of U.S. and Coalition forces, including the addition of another Division Headquarters, made it possible to begin interdicting weapons flowing along the major highways and the Tigris River. Multi-National Force-Iraq reinforced Kut with 2,000 soldiers from the Republic of Georgia, who arrived in July and August 2007 for operations that will commence in September. MND-C plans to use this brigade to search every truck coming along the highway through Kut. There's so much information in this document, it's hard to rip just a few items from the text. Still, for anyone trying to understand the role of Iranian forces in Iraq, and the complex networks the supply and sustain, "The Iran Dossier" is a must-read. Click here or on the image above right for the pdf. Download the Report from http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/IraqReport06.2.pdf Contact Koira at koira@dbmail.com To Go To Top CRACK DOWN ON GAZA NOW Posted by Besa Center, August 30, 2007. This was written by Efraim Inbar and it appeared in the Jerusalem Post (www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1188392492694&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull). The writer is professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University and the director of the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies. Write the Center at Besa.Center@mail.biu.ac.il When the radical Islamist Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in June, several commentators concluded that since the organization's primary concern was consolidating its rule, it would try to reach a long-term truce with Israel. In accordance with this rationale, Hamas would be more flexible on a deal to free the abducted soldier, Gilad Schalit, and would refrain from attacking Israel. Neither scenario materialized. In reality, Hamas is not signaling moderation, but continuous violent struggle against the Jewish State. The organization is waging a limited war against Israel and preparing for an escalation in the conflict. Kassam rocket attacks have intensified, and work continues on extending the range of the rocket. Infiltration attempts by terrorists into Israel have also grown. Palestinian mortars have even targeted the crossing points into Gaza used for transferring much-needed food and fuel into the Strip. Additional tunnels have been dug, and arms smuggling has reached a peak since Hamas took control of Gaza. Furthermore, Hamas sends hundreds of its men to Iran for advanced training. And Hamas has significantly enhanced its military capabilities across a range of areas.   WHILE ISRAEL has recently become slightly more active militarily in the Strip, it still shows unnecessary restraint. The fears that a large-scale ground attack in Gaza might be costly in casualties are exaggerated. It's an assumption which needs reassessment. Similar arguments were voiced against a large-scale invasion of Judea and Samaria before Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, and they were proven wrong. Gaza has yet to be subjected to an Operation Defensive Shield-like military treatment, and this is why the level of violence emanating from Gaza is so high. Moreover, delay in addressing the Hamas challenge might prove more costly in the future, as our experience with Hizbullah in Lebanon has clearly shown.   STRATEGICALLY, ISRAEL'S reluctance to commit troops in battle to deal with Hamas aggression signals weakness. The widespread perception within the Arab world that Israeli society is extremely sensitive to the loss of human life invites enemy violence. It was largely this perception that motivated the Palestinian terror campaign against Israel in September 2000. The "spider web" theory propagated by Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah -- that Israel's emphasis on the value of human life as well as its self-indulgent Western characteristics render it weak and vulnerable -- are also based on this view. Nowadays, in order to terrorize Israeli citizens, Gazans count on Israel's reluctance to employ land operations and attack targets in dense population areas.   ISRAELI POLICY should signal that life on the Palestinian side of the border will be invariably affected by Palestinian violence intent on deteriorating the quality of life on Israel's side of the border. Palestinian dependence on Israel for electricity and water supply should be capitalized on to impress upon the Palestinians that reciprocity is the name of the game. Israel has no obligation to the Palestinians if they are indiscriminately killing civilians and damaging valuable infrastructure. International law permits a military response, including artillery, aimed at the sources of fire, even if the fire is coming from urban areas. Israel should not hesitate to create a refugee wave by warning about impending fire on residential areas. Such tactics may result in a degree of Palestinian restraint. Moreover, the international atmosphere is very conducive to an Israeli strike on Hamas-controlled Gaza. Hamas is largely ostracized by the international community, which wants to help Mahmoud Abbas restore the authority of the PA to the Gaza Strip. Anything Israel does to weaken Hamas' grip on Gaza will be viewed with understanding. Abbas himself and his impotent coterie are quietly expecting that Israel will act to erode the control of the Hamas regime. Similarly, the so-called moderate Arab states will hardly be displeased if Hamas is weakened by Israel. The Hamas takeover of Gaza was a great shock for them as it encouraged Islamic opposition groups in their own countries.   FINALLY, the US may be expecting Israel to land a blow on the radical Islamic regime. Jerusalem failed to deliver a victory against Hizbullah in the summer of 2006 and can ill afford to be again seen as ineffective. Moreover, if the West is serious about establishing a united front against the Islamic Republic of Iran, Gaza is a good place to start. Regime change should not, however, be the goal of the inevitable Israeli military onslaught in Gaza. Israel can weaken Hamas, but it cannot impose an Arab ruler over the 1.5 million Gazans. It is beyond the power of Israel, or of any Western outsider, to influence the social and political dynamics of the Gaza Strip. Reoccupation of Gaza is, therefore, also not recommended. Israel's goal should be merely defensive -- to destroy Gazan capabilities to harm Israel. This means our temporary presence in all places where such capabilities are developed; their destruction and, after the evacuation of Gaza, systematic surgical strikes against reemerging terrorist cells. The model for Israeli military activity in Gaza should be the successful way Israel deals with the terrorist infrastructure in Judea and Samaria. To Go To Top CAMPUS WATCH AND CALIFORNIA'S MIDDLE EAST ACADEMIC RADICALS Posted by Liz Diego, August 30, 2007. This was written by Cinnamon Stillwell and it appeared in American Thinker (www.americanthinker.com/2007/07/ campus_watch_and_californias_m.html) Cinnamon Stillwell is the Northern California Representative for Campus Watch. She can be reached at stillwell@meforum.org. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it became painfully clear that if America was to become more engaged in the Middle East, it would need to develop a greater understanding of the area. Scholars of Middle East studies at our nation's universities were called upon to explain the religious, cultural and political dynamics of the region to students, journalists, and politicians Unfortunately, many of the leading academic lights in the field proved to be woefully unprepared for the conflict at hand and-much worse, were actively hostile to the interests of the United States and its allies. It was for this reason that in Sept. 2002, Middle East Forum director and Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes started Campus Watch (campus-watch.org), a project intended, as stated at its website, to "review and critique Middle East studies in North America, with an aim to improving them." Campus Watch has since focused its efforts on the West Coast, where no shortage exists of Middle East studies academics with problematic perspectives. Consider the following views publicly expressed by denizens of the ivory tower: "As far as I can tell, American empire is safe and secure, despite my best efforts to topple it (although Musab al-Zarqawi seems to be doing a good job in Iraq)." UC Irvine history and Islamic studies professor Mark LeVine "Israel is an 'apartheid state' and a 'colonial state,' but Hamas and Hezbollah are 'liberation movements.'" -- Diablo Valley College Middle East studies instructor Imam Amer Araim "America's military presence is metastasizing throughout the Arab world to the point of malignancy. Isn't it curious that Muslims are the ones under pressure to proclaim that their religion is the 'religion of peace'?" UC Berkeley Islamic studies professor Hamid Algar "You can't have a Palestinian state with its own rights, when you have 150,000 Jewish extremists sitting in the middle." -- UCLA history professor Gabriel Piterberg "It's about time that we have an intifada in this country that change[s] fundamentally the political dynamics in here. ...They're gonna say some Palestinian being too radical -- well, you haven't seen radicalism yet! -- UC Berkeley Islamic studies lecturer Hatem Bazian Unfortunately, such sentiments are par for the course at California colleges and universities where a culture of political correctness has allowed apologists for radical Islam to dominate Middle East studies. Instead of offering college students the historical basis and intellectual tools to help them better understand the realities of a changing world, far too many Middle East studies professors engage in indoctrination. The classroom has become merely a tool for pushing a political agenda. At the same time, students that dare to buck the prevailing orthodoxy often find themselves the victims of intimidation and suppression at the hands of their own professors and administration. Professors that diverge from the party line can also face ostracism and, at times, discrimination. In working to stem the tide of intolerance and academic dishonesty on California's colleges and universities, Campus Watch will inevitably run up against the sort of smears to which it has long been subjected. Critics often accuse Campus Watch of practicing "McCarthyism" or "censorship," but they couldn't be further from the truth. In reality, Campus Watch analyzes and critiques Middle East studies, employing specialists in the field, original research, and the largest archive of related news and information available on the Internet. Campus Watch holds no governmental power, nor does it control academic and financial decision-making at colleges and universities. Campus Watch takes no position on debates over tenure and, according to its mission statement, "fully respects the freedom of speech of those it debates while insisting on its own freedom to comment on their words and deeds." Only those who equate criticism with censorship could confuse Campus Watch with being anything other than what it is -- a participant in the free exchange of ideas. After all, rigorous debate should be the very essence of higher education. Yet in the rarified, insulated world of academia, professors arrogantly assert that they should be answerable to no one: Not even the taxpayers who foot the bill for keeping the universities running. In what other profession would such a demand for unaccountability be tolerated? Simply by shedding light on the discipline, Campus Watch is bucking that trend. Judging by the level of vitriol generated in response, its efforts are paying off. The state of Middle East studies should concern us all. And, lest one be misled, the issue at hand has nothing to do with political or religious affiliation. Rather, it's about the importance of providing students, politicians, and journalists with accurate and fair information on this most important of fields during this crucial time. The next generation deserves no less. To Go To Top IRAN MUST BE SUBDUED AT ALL COSTS! Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, August 30, 2007. To date, Western civil industrial powers, not to mention Eastern civil industrial powers, resist confronting Iran with force, deterred mostly by the consequential major disruption in oil supplies that would surely follow. The nuclear emerging Persian nemesis knows those civil nations will continue to react tepidly in response to its spinning centrifuges, applying sanctions with limited impact, lest their own oil addicted economies bear the brunt of a 'catastrophic' reduction in ever needed prehistoric energy supplies, not only from an invaded Iran but other Middle Eastern pushers likely to be involved in a terrorist inspired backlash, not to mention the unthinkable 'catastrophic' downward jolt to 'Big Oil's' balance sheets. Profit junky CEOs cannot bear even short term hardship bound to unleash the wrath of money-mad instant gratification obsessed stockholders, breathing fire and brimstone, in addition to the truly devastating collateral damage inflicted from Main Street to Wall Street as well as analogous worldwide venues. No doubt, twelfth Imam deluded fundamentalist Islamic Persian autocrats, frothing for that savior to arrive ridding the planet of the collective infidel i.e. everyone not mesmerized by their misogynistic Shiite faith, will not take a licking but keep on ticking much like the clock soon to be affixed to the fuse of a nuclear bomb set to detonate when the turbaned Dr. Strangelove cadre whimsically pushes the big hand and little hand together on the-you guessed it- number twelve, as in Imam. Could Tel Aviv be the first target in the crosshairs of those contemptuous perilously irrational characters? Nicolas Sarkozy, France's newly elected president, sees the radiating light, thus subtly, yet intrepidly, suggests his nation would not be opposed to military action directed at the mad Persians, a disastrous reaction he infers indeed to avoid a much greater disaster. Might we contrast such prescient analysis with the BBC's craven response to Al-Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, asserting 06/27/2007 on Lebanese television "if the Iranian missiles strike Israel, by Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square and dance with delight." This abominable Arab founded the pan-Arab daily in London in 1989, circulating its propaganda to about 50,000 readers, and is also a regular commentator on Sky News and BBC News. A BBC weak kneed weak minded spokesperson responding diplomatically oozed to the Jerusalem Post, "We should not automatically assume that academics and journalists from other organizations are impartial and make it clear to our audience when contributors are associated with a particular viewpoint.".... "The BBC is required to explore a range of views, so that no significant strand of thought is knowingly unreflected or underrepresented." .... "The BBC will sometimes need to report on or interview people whose views may cause serious offense to many in our audiences. We must be convinced , after appropriate referral, that a clear public interest outweighs the possible offense." Hello!!! Al-Bari Atwan said he would dance if Iran bombs Israel!!! Only a worm posing as a journalist would not blast such a statement. How many times might Winston Churchill turn over in his grave listening to such despicable drivel from the wretched communications network representing the fair nation he once brilliantly led? Then again, if indeed oil is thicker than blood, we must note that British Petroleum (BP) is extensively involved in Iran's chemical and commercial schemes, as well as IRNA, a joint gas exploration venture between BP and NIOC (National Iranian Oil Company) in Scotland, thus the BBC might be a tad hesitant to indirectly step on the toes of the British Isle's superpower corporation, latter day Persia's petrol partner , prominent member of the aforementioned fossil fuel fraternity A/K/A 'Big Oil'? After all, broadcast licenses can be revoked by a retaliatory government, perhaps itself bedded down with such deep pocket corporate types involved in that heartless industry. Therefore, let us tip our berets to France's esteemed President Nicolas Sarkozy, obviously a principled leader whose soul remains fully intact! U.S. President George W. Bush, more so than the newly elected French leader, robustly denounces those 'axis of evil' leaders of Iran, yet, along with erstwhile British Prime Minister and junior partner Tony Blair, as well as a few others, belied such rhetoric by their deeds. Resoundingly toppling 'Sadist Hussein' to its west, subduing the Taliban to its east, both of Sunni ethnicity, has substantially strengthened Shiite Iran. No doubt, Hussein and the Taliban were and are despicable, more than deserved a shock and awe pounding, however, without such predators neutralizing a more perilous Persian predator, the Middle East has been transformed into an unstable emerging nuclear bastion of terror with Armageddon potential. This seemingly unintended consequence, albeit baffling to comprehend how it might not have been predicted, should force all civil Western and Eastern industrial powers as well as all vulnerable Sunni regimes to aggressively act in concert against Iran, in effect bringing its fundamentalist Shiite leaders to their knees or 'wiping them off the map', yet that is not the case. Iranian influence, in fact, continues to spread into Hugo Chavez's Venezuela for one, still not causing Bush and his cronies to dust off an expanded version of the Monroe Doctrine and pounce before the cancer further metastasizes incredulously through their neighborhood to the south. Is a continuous flow of oil so essential that the Iranian lunatics will be allowed to amass a nuclear arsenal, threaten the security of all Muslim and non-Muslim nations, especially Israel, in its continental neighborhood and beyond, also supplying terrorist proxies like Hamas and Hizbullah with the means to ignite the mother of all wars? If the answer is yes or even perhaps, century twenty-one could morph into a dark age for all mankind. Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at larose@snip.net To Go To Top ABBAS REBUILDING WAR MACHINE; EUROPEANS REJECT BIGGER UNIFIL ROLE; ANTHONY CORDESMAN FLIPS Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 30, 2007. WHAT I THINK THE U.S. SHOULD GIVE ABBAS Paper shredders. Next time his forces surrender to Hamas, first destroy the intelligence files that Hamas and Iran use against everybody else. ABBAS REBUILDING TERRORIST WAR MACHINE Everything Abbas does boosts jihad. He gets Israel to release terrorist prisoners. He calls for outside arms, training, PLO troops, and exiled Fatah leaders to come in. Israel exiled them because of their terrorism. Israeli leaders think they strengthen Abbas against Hamas, which he helps more than he fights. They really strengthen Abbas against Israel, which he fights more than he helps. I think that the best way to boost Abbas would be to hoist him up a gallows. Most people are too stupid to see what Abbas and Israel are doing. Some think that Israel's leaders are too stupid to see what Abbas is doing. I think that Israel's leaders are too compromised to care what they are doing. HOW GOVERNMENT REALLY WORKS People usually accept the official version of how government works and official explanations of events. Barry Chamish doesn't. He investigates. He finds that officials are serving personal interests or dubious masters, but putting a good face on it. I recommend his books. He cites his evidence. Some of his conclusions are judgments based on enough evidence and knowledge of the people involved to posit a theory but not enough to constitute proof. Before one of his speeches, the host pressed him about proofs, and he was candid about which conclusions he had proof for. He has an entertaining but valid way of arguing by showing how ridiculous, not true to life, are some government explanations or excuses. WHY IDF RAIDS DO NOT STOP THE ROCKETS Let's review the arithmetic, again. Every day, the IDF raids Gaza. It captures or kills, say, 3 terrorists there. Then it releases hundreds of terrorists, of whom a portion resume terrorism. Even if the IDF eliminated all 3 a day, or 1,100 a year, Hamas, alone, has 13,000 armed men to draw on. Meanwhile, it controls a society that concentrates in recruiting for terrorism. Small raids are a poor but costly substitute for invading Gaza and disarming all. ARAB FAMILY EXCUSE The family of the young Israeli Muslim, who shot people in Jerusalem until he was shot dead, deny he initiated the violence. He was, they explained, a quiet fellow. The guards must have concocted a story about his seizing a guard's pistol, in order to justify their having murdered him, they asserted. Three terrorist organizations claimed to have arranged his attack (8/11). Israeli security films were screened, showing him to have seized the guard's pistol. The family was defaming the guards. Arab families express surprise that their offspring attack innocent people. They shouldn't be surprised. Their religion promotes hatred and war. They may think it is in the service of Allah, but nevertheless, their religion basically is intolerant and violent about it. Terrorist recruiters must say to vulnerable Muslim youth, a good Muslim is supposed to fight infidels. Why aren't you doing that? And so, Muslim youth suddenly go on the offensive. SNIPPING AWAY AT JEWISH SECURITY Some Muslims from the Hebron area and Anarchists Against the Wall cut about 30 yards off the security fence, before Israeli troops arrived. The vandals were not arrested (IMRA, 8/11). Crimes against national security are condoned by the Israeli government, because they are committed by Arabs and leftists, favored by the government. Imagine how harsh the arrests would be if a Jewish community, made to feel insecure by being fenced out of contiguous Jewish areas or fenced onto the low ground and being subjected to gunshots from Muslims in the hills, cut the fence! The same government and leftists who condone leftist and Arab criminality demand harsh punishment of Jews who do not cooperate in their expulsion from their own homes. The leftist argument is that Israel has a government of law, and the law must be obeyed or else. But the Left disobeys the law. CONGRESSMEN BELIEVE ABBAS Abbas assured visiting Members of Congress that he does not intend to share power with Hamas. That reassured them. They think that he is the answer to the problem, Arafat was the problem (Arutz-7, 8/15). He was Arafat's chief aide! Abbas has had negotiations with Hamas for the power-sharing that he told the Congressmen he opposed! Only naifs are reassured by jihadists. Apparently one can tell Members of Congress anything, and they'll believe it. BRITAIN STILL REDUCING ARMS SALES TO ISRAEL The British government determines what arms its private companies may sell to what countries. Its criterion for blocking arms sales is whether the arms would destabilize a region or repress human rights. It has stopped sales to various countries, mostly to Israel. It did not state why with any specificity (IMRA, 8/14). Since the Muslims are the aggressors and are arming as much as they can, any arms sold to Israel help stabilize the region. Arms sales to Israel preserve it from Islamic oppression, including in the Territories. The sale of major weapons such as airplanes, however, bear little relation to human rights in the Territories. Why doesn't Britain allow those sales? Appeasement? Revenge for having fought Britain for independence? EUROPEANS REJECT BIGGER UNIFIL ROLE Israel wants UNIFIL to be given more authority in Lebanon. One power would be to inspect towns, where Hizbullah stocks arms, and not just countryside. Another would be to open fire on Hizbullah operatives, not just fire back. European members of the UNO indicated they would vote against Israel's request. For one thing, it would be unsafe for UNIFIL (IMRA, 8/16). UNIFIL doesn't want to expand its mandate. Finding and confiscating Hizbullah rockets might prevent war on Israel, but that's no priority for UNIFIL -- firing on Hizbullah would be dangerous. UNIFIL is not in Lebanon to court danger. That might accomplish something. POPULATION DENSITY Manilla is 13 times as densely populated as Gaza, Calcutta,12 times, Cairo, 10 times, and Singapore and Hong Kong are 2 times as dense (Arutz-7, 8/15). Poor comparison: cities vs. an area that is not all urban. But people have the impression it has an urban density. It doesn't. NOT MORE HONORABLE IN GAZA "Honor killings" have increased slightly, in Gaza. Since the sentence for those found to have committed them is considerably less than for ordinary murder, some killers falsely call their crimes "honor killings." (IMRA, 8/15). The Muslim Arab sense of honor is: murder can be healthy, suspicion along justifies it, and deceit is desirable. ANTHONY CORDESMAN'S UNANNOUNCED DEFECTION Something happened to Anthony Cordesman's perspective. He is a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and Intl. Studies. He was a brilliant defender of Israeli security. The last few times he wrote about the subject, he has implicitly worked against Israeli security. In the August 16 New York Times Op.-Ed., for example, he supports the proposed US arms sale to Gulf States and arms gifts to Egypt and Israel. His arguments are debatable but reasonable. He is too bright to overlook serious points, but does. That suggests he no longer cares about Israel. He omits the crucial fact that both Egypt and S. Arabia are major enemies and neighbors of Israel, and that no country threatens Egypt. It's a serous omission not to acknowledge the risk to Israel of the arms to Egypt and S. Arabia. He claims, what I've heard before, that it's the free US arms that keeps Egypt from attacking Israel. He does not explain why that should be so. I think the free US arms keep Egypt capable of attacking Israel. He calls the bribery of Egypt keeping the peace. Some peace, if it requires bribery! TANKS OBSOLETE? Iran claims its new missile can pierce Israel's Merkava tank armor (IMRA, 8/18). Offensive measures and defensive measures have leapfrogged over each other since the beginning of warfare. Iran exaggerates its prowess. Is its tank claim true? I would not like to see industrialized countries brought down to the level of non-industrialized ones having less concern for the lives of their own troops and of innocents. U.S. VS. IRAN The Revolutionary Guards have become Iran's main army, because it is indoctrinated. It also runs many of Iran's government-owned industries. Now the US indicated that it is about to declare the Guards a terrorist organization. This declaration is intended to discourage some foreign countries from doing business with it. Some of them are expected to balk (IMRA, 8/16). The Guards were fomenting terrorism in Lebanon for years. It is difficult to imagine why the US waited so long. European countries that do business with it -- are these the ones that liberals criticize Bush for not lowering himself to their level? Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top TERROR'S PURSE STRINGS Posted by Bryna Berch, August 30, 2007. Seems like these days, terrorists get a cut of much of what we buy, from fake pocketbooks to a gallon of gasoline. This was an op-ed piece by Dana Thomas and it was published August 30, 27 in the New York Times (www.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/opinion/30thomas.html?em&ex= 1188705600&en=32ec0aa01c046b01&ei=5087). Dana Thomas, a correspondent for Newsweek, is the author of Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster. LUXURY fashion designers are busily putting final touches on the handbags they will present during the spring-summer 2008 women's wear shows, which begin next week in New York City's Bryant Park. To understand the importance of the handbag in fashion today consider this: According to consumer surveys conducted by Coach, the average American woman was buying two new handbags a year in 2000; by 2004, it was more than four. And the average luxury bag retails for 10 to 12 times its production cost. "There is a kind of an obsession with bags," the designer Miuccia Prada told me. "It's so easy to make money." Counterfeiters agree. As soon as a handbag hits big, counterfeiters around the globe churn out fake versions by the thousands. And they have no trouble selling them. Shoppers descend on Canal Street in New York, Santee Alley in Los Angeles and flea markets and purse parties around the country to pick up knockoffs for one-tenth the legitimate bag's retail cost, then pass them off as real. "Judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys shop here," a private investigator told me as we toured the counterfeit section of Santee Alley. "Affluent people from Newport Beach." According to a study by the British law firm Davenport Lyons, two-thirds of British consumers are "proud to tell their family and friends" that they bought fake luxury fashion items. At least 11 percent of the world's clothing is fake, according to 2000 figures from the Global Anti-Counterfeiting Group in Paris. Fashion is easy to copy: counterfeiters buy the real items, take them apart, scan the pieces to make patterns and produce almost-perfect fakes. Most people think that buying an imitation handbag or wallet is harmless, a victimless crime. But the counterfeiting rackets are run by crime syndicates that also deal in narcotics, weapons, child prostitution, human trafficking and terrorism. Ronald K. Noble, the secretary general of Interpol, told the House of Representatives Committee on International Relations that profits from the sale of counterfeit goods have gone to groups associated with Hezbollah, the Shiite terrorist group, paramilitary organizations in Northern Ireland and FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Sales of counterfeit T-shirts may have helped finance the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, according to the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition. "Profits from counterfeiting are one of the three main sources of income supporting international terrorism," said Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland. Most fakes today are produced in China, a good many of them by children. Children are sometimes sold or sent off by their families to work in clandestine factories that produce counterfeit luxury goods. Many in the West consider this an urban myth. But I have seen it myself. On a warm winter afternoon in Guangzhou, I accompanied Chinese police officers on a factory raid in a decrepit tenement. Inside, we found two dozen children, ages 8 to 13, gluing and sewing together fake luxury-brand handbags. The police confiscated everything, arrested the owner and sent the children out. Some punched their timecards, hoping to still get paid. (The average Chinese factory worker earns about $120 a month; the counterfeit factory worker earns half that or less.) As we made our way back to the police vans, the children threw bottles and cans at us. They were now jobless and, because the factory owner housed them, homeless. It was "Oliver Twist" in the 21st century. What can we do to stop this? Much like the war on drugs, the effort to protect luxury brands must go after the source: the counterfeit manufacturers. The company that took me on the Chinese raid is one of the only luxury-goods makers that works directly with Chinese authorities to shut down factories, and it has one of the lowest rates of counterfeiting. Luxury brands also need to teach consumers that the traffic in fake goods has many victims. But most companies refuse to speak publicly about counterfeiting -- some won't even authenticate questionable items for concerned customers -- believing, like Victorians, that acknowledging despicable actions tarnishes their sterling reputations. So it comes down to us. If we stop knowingly buying fakes, the supply chain will dry up and counterfeiters will go out of business. The crime syndicates will have far less money to finance their illicit activities and their terrorist plots. And the children? They can go home. To Go To Top THE REAL TERROR PAYMASTERS Posted by KAE, August 29, 2007. This was written by William F. Jasper of the John Birch Society (www.jbs.org). In 1972, the Kremlin decided to turn the whole Islamic world against Israel and the U.S. As KGB chairman Yuri Andropov told me, a billion adversaries could inflict far greater damage on America than could a few millions. In the quote above, Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, head of the DIE, the KGB's little sister in communist Romania, reveals a conversation he had with chairman Andropov, the Soviet leader. "We needed to instill a Nazi-style hatred for the Jews throughout the Islamic world," Andropov told Pacepa, "and to turn this weapon of the emotions into a terrorist bloodbath against Israel and its main supporter, the United States. No one within the American/Zionist sphere of influence should any longer feel safe." Gen. Pacepa, who defected to the United States in 1978, recounted this story in an August 24, 2006 article for National Review entitled "Russian Footprints." "According to Andropov," said Pacepa, "the Islamic world was a waiting petri dish in which we could nurture a virulent strain of America-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought. Islamic anti-Semitism ran deep. The Muslims had a taste for nationalism, jingoism, and victimology. Their illiterate, oppressed mobs could be whipped up to a fever pitch." Gen. Pacepa explained how this was put into operation: In the mid 1970s, the KGB ordered my service, the [Romanian] DIE -- along with other East European sister services -- to scour the country for trusted party activists belonging to various Islamic ethnic groups, train them in disinformation and terrorist operations, and infiltrate them into the countries of our "sphere of influence." Their task was to export a rabid, demented hatred for American Zionism by manipulating the ancestral abhorrence for Jews felt by the people in that part of the world. Before I left Romania for good, in 1978, my DIE had dispatched around 500 such undercover agents to Islamic countries. According to a rough estimate received from Moscow, by 1978 the whole Soviet-bloc intelligence community had sent some 4,000 such agents of influence into the Islamic world. Likewise, Anatoliy Golitsyn, one of the most important KGB defectors to come to the West, noted in his 1995 book, The Perestroika Deception, "Under concealed Russian guidance, the Muslims of the former Soviet Union . will seek to cooperate and ally themselves with Muslims in Iran and the Arab states while Russia maintains its open policy of cooperation and partnership with the West. In this way China openly and Russia secretly will jointly attempt to swing the balance of power in their favor in the highly strategic, oil-producing Arab/Iranian areas of the Middle East." A July 1997 article by Associated Press writer Anthony Shadid provides one measure of the impact of this Soviet KGB (and ongoing Russian FSB) strategy. The AP story, "Marxism Makes Way for Islam", profiles a number of influential Marxist-Muslim intellectuals. It begins with the observation that "on the bookshelf of Adel Hussein sits an odd collection for one of Egypt's leading Islamic thinkers." Titles like Socialist Integration, On Communism, and Planning in the U.S.S.R. by leading Marxists, notes Mr. Shadid, "speak more of class struggle than the hand of God." Like a surprising number of others across the Arab and Muslim world, Adel Hussein "is a one-time Marxist and nonbeliever who has turned to Islam, part of a new intellectual generation reshaping the religion." "I benefited from Marx in both theory and practice," Hussein told Shadid, "but now, Islam is my starting point and my framework." That doesn't mean he's abandoned Marx, however. "Hussein, for instance, says his goals have not changed", Shadid reported. "But he now sees Islam, through its ability to persuade and to mobilize, as the best tool." In other words, Islam for Hussein is a means to an end, and the end is a Marxist world. Adel Hussein, says AP's Shadid, is representative of a significant number of today's influential imams and mullahs. "In a jarring twist, they are the same thinkers who a generation ago drew the ire of religious Muslims because their Marxist disavowal of God was seen as the biggest threat to Islam", Shadid reported. "Today, they are often the public face of Islam -- writing in leading Arabic newspapers, speaking at conferences and on television talk shows, enjoying the support of many younger, more political Muslims interested in their attempts to rethink Islam's relationship to democracy, minorities and the West." Evidence for the existence of an ongoing Soviet/Russian strategic plan to foment and use Islamic extremism is very extensive and goes far to explain the inordinate hatred of Muslim fundamentalists for America and the West. Not only is al-Qaeda aligned with the Kremlin (see the article "Behind Islamic Terror"), so are the other major "Islamist" terror groups including PLO/al-Fatah, Hamas, and Hezbollah (see "Who's Who In Terrorism" below). Of course, none of those groups would amount to much if not for the immense assistance they receive from Iran and Syria, regimes that were primary client-state terror sponsors for the Soviets and continue in that role for Russia under Putin. Putin continues to build Iran's nuclear program and upgrade its long-range missile program, not to mention provide Ahmadinejad's regime with all of the conventional weapons that Tehran and its surrogate terrorists can use. Likewise for the longtime terrorist-sponsoring regime of Bashar al-Asad in Damascus. In January 2005, Putin welcomed President al-Asad to Moscow and forgave 73 percent of the $13.4 billion debt owed by Syria to Moscow. Then, a couple months later, he sold Strelet surface-to-air missiles to Asad and has been showering him with weapons. Moscow Masterminds In the 2005 action film Lord of War, Nicolas Cage plays Russian arms dealer Yuri Orlov, whose merchandise -- guns, tanks, grenades, missiles, planes, bombs -- spreads slaughter and genocide across Africa. The fictional Orlov is a portrayal of the real-life Viktor Bout, a "former" KGB officer who has built a global empire with his fleet of Soviet transport planes and helicopters and his unmatched access to a bottomless supply of Soviet armaments. It would be difficult to find a war, civil war, revolution, terrorist organization, dictatorship, coup, or attempted coup in Africa, the Middle East, or Central Asia over the past decade and a half that hasn't been fueled by Bout's deadly merchandise. Viktor Bout was for years the main arms supplier for the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He subsequently became a major supplier to the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance. While operating a dizzying array of companies and shell companies out of Belgium and the United Arab Emirates, Bout has always maintained a home base and safe haven in Russia. When the Belgian government issued an international arrest warrant for him in 2002, Bout fled to Moscow. "Asked if Bout was in the country when the arrest warrant was issued, the Russian foreign ministry said no, even though Bout was giving live radio interviews from studios in downtown Moscow," note Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun, authors of Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible. "The next day, officials grudgingly acknowledged he might be in Russia but said they had seen no evidence that he had committed any crime, and therefore could not act." According to Farah and Braun and other investigative reporters, Viktor Bout more recently has been running arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the forces of the radical Islamic Courts Union in Somalia. Bout's status as a private entrepreneur provides protective deniability to his bosses in the Kremlin -- including the top KGB/FSB man himself, Vladimir Putin -- but it is obvious that they are supplying him and protecting him so he can continue stoking the fires of terror and revolution that they have sparked and fed for decades. Incredibly, Western governments that verbally condemn Bout's sinister blood trade are more than willing to do business with his companies. For instance, the U.S. Defense Department has paid Bout's air transport companies millions of dollars to fly supplies into U.S. bases in Afghanistan and Iraq. As indispensable as Viktor Bout has been -- and is -- to the Kremlin's ongoing terror strategy, there are others who are even more important. One of the most important is Yevgeniy Primakov, the former KGB chief in charge of Middle East terrorism during the Cold War. Primakov has been at the pinnacle of Soviet politics for decades: Soviet Politburo member, former Russian Foreign Minister, head of the Russia Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), and Russian prime minister. Now he is Putin's right-hand man as a "private citizen." As head of the Russia Chamber of Commerce, he continues his role directing Russia's client terror states and terrorist groups while on commercial visits throughout the Mideast. In 2006, Primakov presided at the founding meeting of Russia's new forum for Muslim countries, the "Russia-Islamic World Strategic Vision Group." The new group held its first session in Moscow on March 27-28, attended by delegates from Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, and 12 additional Muslim states. Putin greeted the delegates. Significantly, the "statesman" who presided at the meeting was Primakov, a renowned Arabist who played a key role in formulating the Soviet Union's ties with the Muslim world during the cold-war era. Jihadist Hatred for America Is the ongoing Soviet/Russian propaganda and terror strategy really at the heart of the militant jihadist hatred directed at the United States? The overwhelming evidence would seem to answer resoundingly in the affirmative. After all, the jihadists should have good reason to view as enemies the regimes in Moscow, Beijing, and the Commonwealth of Independent States that have killed Muslims on a daily basis. In fact, the Soviet Union murdered over one million Muslim Afghans and made over five million of them refugees. Post-Soviet Russia brutally subjugated Muslim Chechnya, killing tens of thousands of civilians and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. The Soviet Union persecuted (and present-day Russia continues to persecute) tens of millions of Muslims in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan. The current openly communist government of Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan carried out the Andijan massacre of 2005, slaughtering as many as 5,000 Muslim civilians, with Moscow and Beijing both publicly voicing support for Karimov's action. Communist China has carried out a decades-long ruthless persecution of its Muslim Uighar minority. Communist regimes have forbidden study of the Q'uran, publicly burned countless copies of this sacred text of Muslims, imprisoned and tortured Muslim believers, and beaten Muslim clerics and then paraded them in public humiliation. Contrast that with the Western countries, where Muslims are granted full political and economic rights, can worship freely, and can obtain a Q'uran at any library or local bookstore. Yes, the jihadists have used our military presence in Iraq to fan the flames of hatred against the United States, but how about the communists? Do the jihadists hate America more than the non-Muslim communist states because we are uniquely decadent? It is true that Western post-Christian culture, especially as seen in popular fashions and through Hollywood's ubiquitous and depraved lens, is offensive to devout Muslims (as it is to devout Christians). But Russia is not pristine by comparison. Putin's Russia boasts one of the largest pornography industries in the world, featuring the most hard-core kiddie porn. Russia's mainstream media is much more salacious than its counterparts in the United States. Russia and the Muslim-populated (but non-Muslim-ruled) countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (C.I.S.) are also notorious for forced prostitution, gambling, and the production, consumption, and export of drugs and alcohol, all of which should earn them condemnation from the militant Muslim faithful. Instead, the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, al-Fatah, and other "Islamic fundamentalists", not only ignore the transgressions of their infidel sponsors in Russia and China and the cries of their persecuted Muslim brothers, but they regularly break bread with and publicly support the atheist persecutors of Islam. We in the Christian West should not kid ourselves -- as certain "liberals" would have us do -- into accepting the false proposition that Islam is perfectly compatible with our social-political system. It is not (see article "Religion By The Sword"). And we must not succumb to their arguments that we should accept new waves of Muslim immigrants. But neither should we allow ourselves to be further dragged into a military "clash of civilizations" (as we already are in Iraq and Afghanistan) by "Muslim" front men for our so-called allies in Moscow and Beijing. In his October 11, 2001 news conference, President George W. Bush characterized the new global conflict as "a war against all those who seek to export terror, and a war against those governments that support or shelter them." Striking the same theme, but with greater specificity, Weekly Standard editor William Kristol declared in a July 21, 2006 article, "Radical Islam Takes On Democracy, that "our focus should be less on Hamas and Hezbollah, and more on their paymasters and real commanders -- Syria and Iran." But why stop with the middlemen? The real paymasters and commanders aren't in Damascus and Tehran; they're in Moscow and Beijing, as they have been for decades. These paymasters and commanders are also patient strategists. They will not try to engage us in head-on military conflict when they can more easily wear us down by leading us into many "quagmire" conflicts with their surrogates. Who's Who in Terrorism PLO/al-Fatah. For nearly four decades, the PLO has been the largest, wealthiest, and most politically connected terrorist organization in the world . For most of that time, it was held in the firm grip of Yasser Arafat's iron fist. But Arafat was not the fierce, independent actor he posed as; he was completely dependent on the Soviet KGB and its surrogate Warsaw Pact intelligence services for arms, training, logistical support, funds, and direction. His KGB handlers included Vasali Samoylenko, Vladimir Buljakov, and Soviet "Ambassador" Alexander Soldatov. Arafat's closest friend and head of PLO intelligence, Hani Hassan, was actually an agent of the DIE, the Romanian subsidiary of the KGB. Former DIE chief General Ion Pacepa reported in a 2003 Wall Street Journal article: I was given the KGB's "personal file" on Arafat. He was an Egyptian bourgeois turned into a devoted Marxist by KGB foreign intelligence. The KGB had trained him at its Balashikha special-ops school east of Moscow and in the mid-1960s decided to groom him as the future PLO leader. First, the KGB destroyed the official records of Arafat's birth in Cairo, replacing them with fictitious documents saying that he had been born in Jerusalem and was therefore a Palestinian by birth. During the 1960s and '70s, Arafat and the PLO did not hide their Marxist ideology and openly proclaimed their solidarity with the Soviet Union, Communist China, Communist Cuba, and every other Marxist dictatorship. But in recent years, as communist-backed "Islamic fundamentalist" groups like Hamas have gathered more popular support, the PLO leadership has attempted to portray itself as authentically Muslim. It has adopted more religious rhetoric and used Muslim names and symbols, even naming Islam as the official and exclusive religion of Palestine in the 2003 Palestinian constitution. Since Arafat's death in 2004, veteran PLO hand Mahmoud Abbas has tried, unsuccessfully, to fill his shoes. Hamas swept to power in the 2006 parliamentary elections (winning 76 seats to Fatah's 43), and in June 2007 Hamas' military took control of the Gaza Strip in a series of gun battles through the streets of Gaza's cities that left 120 people dead and hundreds more wounded. Three of the four so-called Quartet of Middle East peace brokers -- the United States, United Nations, and European Union -- announced their backing for Abbas and the PLO and their rejection of Hamas. The remaining member of the quartet, Russia, has been playing both sides. During the last week of July, Mahmoud Abbas visited Putin in Moscow, seeking his endorsement. Putin gave it, but didn't rule out continuing negotiations and relations with Hamas. "I want to assure you that we will support you as the lawful leader of the Palestinian people," Putin told Abbas at their July 31 meeting. Hamas The Arabic acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya, or Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas is a Palestinian Sunni terrorist organization founded in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. One of Hamas' claims to infamy is its popularization of suicide bombing as a terror weapon, pioneering in recruiting females and children as suicide killers. Although posing as the ultimate in Islamic fundamentalism, like al-Qaeda it has a curious relationship with Putin's KGB/FSB. According to a March 2006 report by Axis Information and Analysis, "At present, five of the seven biggest Hamas websites are functioning from the territory of the CIS member-states. Three of these sites use services of the Russian providers.... There are two more smaller but rather well-known websites that are functioning from Russia's territory." This is especially noteworthy since the Putin regime has clamped down on all media and Internet access by its political opposition and all unapproved parties. Hamas' Internet sites, which have been so essential in building Hamas' stature, recruiting, and propaganda prowess globally, are clearly operating with Putin's approval. Russia does not include Hamas on its list of terrorist organizations. Not surprisingly, Hamas' political director, Khaled Mashal, has repeatedly affirmed the organization's close friendship with Moscow. Mashal presides over the Hamas "Politburo," which, in name, structure, and function, is much more in line with Marxist-Leninist than Islamist thought. Mashal has led Hamas delegations to Moscow for talks with Putin and has met with Putin and Yevgeniy Primakov, the KGB's top Middle East scholar, at other forums in Khartoum, Tehran, and Ankara. Although Hamas never provided any significant aid to its fellow Muslims who were being slaughtered by the Russians in Chechnya, it did, up until 2004, offer them rhetorical support. Since 2004, though, it has urged the Chechens to "heal the wound" and surrender in the interest of "a strong and integrated Russia." Hezbollah. In Arabic, Hezbollah means "Party of God." But there is little that is godly about the group, which has exploded in size, power, and influence since first coming to Western attention by bombing the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, killing over 300 Marines. It is supported chiefly and directly by Iran and has adopted the revolutionary theology and ideology of Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini. It also receives military aid directly and indirectly from Syria and Russia, as manifested by the weapons cases abandoned by Hezbollah after their rocket attacks on Israel last summer. The containers were clearly marked: "Customer: Ministry of Defense of Syria. Supplier: KBP, Tula, Russia." Sheikh Hasan Nasrallah, who has been General Secretary of Hezbollah since 1992, keeps in touch with Moscow through regular communications with Russia's Beirut embassy. This was confirmed in a 2006 interview with Russia's Ambassador to Israel, Mikhail Bogdanov. That is not the only channel by which Moscow and Beirut stay in touch. In a detailed 2005 report by Axis Information and Analysis, entitled Dangerous Liaisons: Covert "Love Affair" Between Hezbollah and Russia, author Michel Ebaz reports: Hezbollah's special operations unit ("Muntamat al-Jihad al-Islami" -- MJI or "Islamic Jihad Organization") emissaries have been active in Russia since the middle of the nineties. Residing in Moscow, Imad Hadj Hassan Salame heads this special operations unit. His men were an integral part of Hezbollah's international network for smuggling weapons to Lebanon. Yevgeniy Primakov's appointment in 1996 as Russia's Foreign Minister was a critical step in propelling the Hezbollah-KGB relationship forward. As the KGB's most experienced hand in Middle East terrorism matters, he was the perfect choice for insuring a smooth transition when the KGB transformed into the FSB. His official meetings in the 1990s with Lebanon's political leaders also provided him (and his assistant, Viktor Pasovaluk) with opportunities to meet secretly with representatives of Hezbollah. In the 2005 elections, Hezbollah and its allies in the Resistance and Development Bloc won 35 seats (27 percent) of the Lebanese parliament. Contact KAE by email at kew1@dbmail.com To Go To Top JEWS AND POWER BY RUTH R. WISSE Posted by Koira, August 29, 2007. This is a book review by Ruth Andrew Ellenson of Ruth R. Wisse's book Jews and Power (Nextbook/Schocken). It was published August 26, 2007 in The Los Angeles Times. Ruth Wisse is a professor at Harvard. Ruth Andrew Ellenson received the National Jewish Book Award for her anthology The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt. Wisse's book has a clear message: For Jews, morality without strength leads to disaster, and today that strength is in Israel In Jerusalem this summer, to mark the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War, the city's pale gold limestone walls are covered with banners depicting an abstract outline of the Old City and the number 40 displayed triumphantly by its side. In that war, Israel gained nearly all of the territory, including the West Bank and Gaza, that has been at the center of so much turmoil -- and also claimed the entirety of Jerusalem. At night, the Old City's entrance at Jaffa Gate -- which leads to many of the holiest sites in Judaism, Christianity and Islam -- is illuminated in lights showing the same logo. See it as triumph or tragedy, it is an indisputable declaration of Jewish power that glows like a flame over Jerusalem as darkness descends. Questions and complexities of Jewish power -- in regard to Israel but also throughout history -- are explored in Harvard professor Ruth R. Wisse's challenging, erudite and penetrating book, "Jews and Power." It is a book with a clear message. For Jews, morality without strength leads to disastrous consequences, and today that strength is based in Israel. This is a book, fiercely argued and compellingly written, with an agenda: to demonstrate why Israel is essential for Jewish survival and even for the survival of democracy. Wisse asserts that to believe otherwise is an act of naivet�. She argues that when Jews place pleasing others above their own well-being, they set themselves up to be history's whipping boy. Whatever good intentions might lie at the heart of such behavior, it is ultimately an act of self-sabotage. Wisse's assertion is direct -- are questions of moral empathy and cultural survival more important than saving your children's lives? As a perfect example of this quandary, Wisse opens with an anecdote about a small Jewish boy being harassed by Nazis. He is taken inside by his mother, who tells her child, bruised and beaten, not to fight back but to be a better man -- "za a mentsh" she tells her son in Yiddish, the language spoken by most Eastern European Jews for hundreds of years until it was all but wiped out in the Holocaust. The boy's story was told in postwar intellectual circles with pride, as an example of how seriously Jews took "the injunction to be fully human" -- to place one's good behavior over one's strength. And in Judaism the idea of tikkun olam, the healing of the world, is a central tenet of faith. But Wisse sees folly in this philosophy, and does not mince words in her stern warning to those who believe otherwise. "The obligation to be decent is complicated for Jews by the knowledge that other societies feel driven to eliminate them from the world," she asserts. "Those who aspire to be decent human beings would be morally obtuse to the point of wickedness were they to retell [this] story without considering its outcome ... That little boy in Warsaw could not have done his mother's bidding, because becoming fully human presupposed staying alive." It's a bit of a jolt, but a refreshing one, to see an academic -- as a group, scholars often pride themselves on seeing every perspective as valid -- take such an emphatic stance. Wisse shows no fear in these pages in saying exactly what she thinks, and you can't help but be impressed with her chutzpah, even if you totally disagree with her. While praising the bravery of Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president who signed the Camp David accords, she disputes the good will of his motives. "It was not out of regret for having killed too many Jews," she writes, "but with the realization that he could not kill enough to defeat them." It is that perceived deep hatred of Jews that informs many of Wisse's arguments. She even sees the ramifications of this hatred in Jewish achievement. Of the 12 Jews who have received the Nobel Prize in literature, only two wrote in Jewish languages: S.Y. Agnon (Hebrew) and Isaac Bashevis Singer (Yiddish). The others wrote in languages including English, French and Turkish. Until Israel was founded, Jews' chief power was in their resilience and adaptability in other countries -- not really a power at all -- and in the fervent hope that such achievements would make their worth irrefutable to the powers that be. Tell that to Paul Heyse, a German Jew who won that Nobel Prize in 1910. "This pride in sheer survival demonstrates how the tolerance of political weakness could cross the moral line into veneration of political weakness," Wisse observes. And, she notes, the odds only get worse from there. "An estimated 13 million Jews worldwide, about 4.5 million fewer than in 1939, try to win tolerance from more than 250 million Arabs, who have ties to more than 1 billion Muslims." According to Wisse, this is the crux of the debate among Jews over Israel. Whether to be "menschen" this time. Whether, upon being beaten up, to fight back. Herein lies the challenge of the book: What is the moral responsibility when those who have been victims gain power? Wisse would no doubt see this as exactly the type of question, while nobly intended, that has brought Jews so much tsoris ("trouble" in Yiddish) in the first place. And she does a convincing job in arguing that it is an act of hubris for any Jew to believe that Israel's security is not inexorably linked to his or her own. Yet to witness what is done in the West Bank and Gaza in the name of that security is to doubt the morality of such a stance, just as it is to see a suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv caf�. There is nothing amoral about having power, but how do Jews exercise power morally once they have it? "Jews and Power" makes no claim for objectivity, but it is an elucidating book. It will cause liberals to question their self-consciousness about Israel, since Wisse's argument about Jewish apologism challenges liberal ideas of victimhood. For conservatives, the book offers an intellectual understanding of what otherwise might seem to be only tribalistic loyalties. To have power may be transformative to the spirit of Judaism, so much of which has been defined by exile, but where those changes lead is still a question that burns as brightly as the lights that hang this summer over the Old City's walls in Jerusalem. Contact Koira at koira@dbmail.com To Go To Top PREVENTING THE FORMATION OF A TERROR STATE Posted by David Bedein, August 29, 2007. Background The Bush administration has determined that -- in order to serve its perceived goals in the Middle East -- a Fatah-led Palestinian state should be established in Judea and Samaria. To that end, the US government has communicated to Israel the need to withdraw its presence from Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, and is committed to providing aid and military training to Fatah. This US policy is predicated on the myth that Fatah is 'a moderate' entity that can be relied upon; it is willfully ignorant of all the evidence to the contrary: That Mahmoud Abbas was a deputy of Arafat, participated in terrorist supporting activities, and continues Arafat policies to this day. That Farouk Qaddoumi, who is to the far right of Fatah politically and totally rejects concepts of peace with Israel, currently controls the Fatah Central Committee and seeks even greater control within the party. That Abbas, as PA president, has been in league with and fostered support for terrorist entities such as Hamas. The culmination of a long Fatah history of cooperation with Hamas was the unity government. While that government disintegrated, there is solid evidence of a rapprochement being established now. That the Fatah charter to this day calls for the destruction of Israel via armed resistance, and that the PLO charter calling for Israel 's destruction was never actually amended in spite of the pretense that it had been. That after the Bush Administration supplied arms, ammunition and intelligence to Fatah this past year, under the specious premise that it would fight Hamas, it was forced to watch helplessly as Fatah surrendered its entire American arsenal in Gaza to Hamas. That the PA, even under the Abbas aegis, pumps out inciteful material -- in its textbooks and via its media -- that is anti-Semitic, denies the legitimacy of Israel and praises jihad. That Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, which the US Justice Department determined in 2002 was a terrorist organization, remains a part of Fatah. Members see Abbas as their leader and Abbas serves to protect this group, even incorporating its members into PA security forces. In the course of providing assistance and support to the PA run by Fatah, the US requires no quid pro quo and makes no demands: with regard to such matters as cessation of incitement, commitment to take out Hamas, or disbanding of/or total disassociation from Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades. The strengthening of Fatah and efforts to bring about a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria in reality serve to undermine the security of Israel (and also Jordan) and bring further instability to the entire area, including Iraq. Support for the terrorist-allied Fatah gives comfort to radical fiercely anti-Zionist and anti-American forces in the region; as was clearly the case when Israel left Gaza two years ago, a pullout from Judea and Samaria would provide terrorists with control of further territory from which to operate. This is neither in the best interests of Israel nor of the United States. The Bush policy is myopic and wrong-headed. Approaches to stopping the Bush policy 1) The US Congress remains overwhelmingly pro-Israel and dedicated to helping Israel when called upon to do so. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have expressed criticism of the Bush administration's continuing coddling of Abbas, especially in light of the collapse of the US initiative to bolster Abbas only six months ago, which resulted in the strengthening of Hamas. And the administration remains accountable to the Congress, especially to its operational subcommittees. However, because the government of Israel hesitates to challenge the Palestinian policies of the Bush administration, many members of Congress remain passive in their opposition to these policies; the truism about not wanting to be more Catholic than the pope applies here. Congresspersons are more likely to respond with vigorous opposition to the Bush policies if: they have solid, cutting-edge information on the issues; they hear from Israelis who are prepared to counter their government's passivity; and they are encouraged by their constituents to act. 2) Opinion-makers who have influence with the White House must also be approached. They too require solid, cutting-edge information on the issues and an opportunity to hear from concerned and knowledgeable Israelis. 3) Attempts must be made to alter US public opinion, which will in its turn have an effect on the White House, on Congress, and on opinion-makers. This should be done via providing cutting-edge information to key members of the press. All efforts must focus on the ways in which current policy is detrimental to US goals and best interests. Proposed Actions by our organization 1. Garnering of information. Drawing upon the services of top-notch, Arabic-speaking journalists and investigators, we will compile cutting-edge, solid documentation regarding the Palestinian Authority as a terrorist entity. As Hamas intentions remain a key to understanding the Palestinian situation, we will, from our satellite office in Sderot, monitor Hamas broadcasts coming from Gaza. 2. Sharing of this and other information. Utilizing a variety of channels, we will share acquired information with key Congressional staffers, key members of the press, and key opinion makers. To enhance efforts at disseminating the information, we will generate a website that will contain a wealth of information about the Palestinian Authority/Fatah -- both background and current, and put out a timely Internet newsletter in concise format. On a regular basis we will bring to Washington DC Israeli experts on the issues -- on the PA textbooks, on matters of security, etc. and hold briefings on Capital Hill. Additionally, we will hold press conferences to share significant information with journalists. The Center for Near East Policy Research has considerable expertise in these matters. 3. Applying appropriate pressure upon Congresspersons. We will mobilize the tens of thousands of American citizens who live in Israel -- and in particular in Judea and Samaria -- to reach out to staffers of their own Congresspersons as well as members of Congressional Middle East Subcommittees, to ask that they override Bush's coddling of the Fatah. What they will communicate is that helping Fatah is counterproductive to US interests and would only serve to facilitate an anti-American and ant-Semitic Islamist entity. This effort will be generated via Internet communication and town meetings. Americans in Israel will, in turn, be encouraged to generate support for this effort in their original communities, among family, friends and synagogues.   Budget: September 15-December 15, 2007 Three professional Arab-speaking journalists/investigators to monitor the PA media $25,000 Investigators to monitor Hamas broadcasts $ 2,000 Expenses -- stipend, travel, PR costs, etc. -- for bringing experts to Washington DC to do briefings for staffers of the Congress and for the media at the National Press Club -- in October, November and December $30,000 Writers/editors/translators to produce material based on information that has been secured, for Washington briefings and the Internet update $15,000 Technical expert to put up website and supervise the Internet newsletter $ 6,000. Administrative costs to the Center for Near East Policy Research Ltd. $ 5,000 David Bedein is Bureau Chief, Israel Resource News Agency (www.israelbehindthenews.com). He is with The Center for Near East Policy Research Ltd in Jerusalem. To Go To Top FROM ISRAEL: PROMOTING THE IMPOSSIBLE Posted by Arlene Kushner, August 29, 2007. And so, Olmert and Abbas met in Jerusalem yesterday. The rumors following that meeting flew fast and furious, and if one were to believe them one might be reduced to a state of rage. According to some sources Olmert agreed to share control of the Temple Mount, or, to give that control to the Palestinians, and that he concurred with the need to withdraw to the pre-67 lines. According to al-Jazeera, a document regarding these agreements was drawn up. Both sides denied this. There is talk about Olmert considering a request for PA control of three cities -- Ramallah, Nablus (Shechem) and Jenin, and for granting of "amnesty" to more wanted men. It is impossible to attest to the accuracy of all of these reports. What seems likely is that nothing in terms of the core issues was finalized and that, as claimed, only broad outlines -- principles -- were discussed. That doesn't mean Olmert wouldn't give away control of the Temple Mount, it just means he may not have had the opportunity to do so yet. (As to those "good will" gestures, undoubtedly there was talk about reducing checkpoints, freeing more prisoners, granting amnesty to others, etc. On the spot, unilaterally, Olmert would not have been in a position to do much more than say he would take these matters under advisement.) ~~~~~~~~~~ This continues to be my take: Olmert can do us a great deal of damage. He is setting unacceptable precedents and generating security risks. Additionally, just giving legitimacy to a terrorist entity is most unwise. And so his efforts towards establishing a Palestinian state at our border should be fought in every way possible; this is not a time for complacency. But at the end of the day I do not believe establishing a Palestinian state now is possible, whatever the intentions of Bush or Abbas or Olmert. Once again, the reasons why: There is no civic entity within the PA areas that can serve as the infrastructure for a state. They simply don't have their act together. The areas are without law and order, and are not under the control of the security forces/police. Fayyad admitted just days ago that as much as they want control of the cities of Ramallah, Jenin and Nablus, they are not ready to take them over yet. Abbas is incredibly weak, even within his own party. Farouk Qaddoumi, who is a right-winger opposed to peace with Israel, controls the Central Committee of Fatah and is bucking Abbas. Fatah itself is mind-blowing corrupt. There is no dynamic industry or entrepreneurship. ~~~~~~~~~~ But more significant than any of this is Hamas. Hamas control of Gaza presents the first problem. Is the PA the administrative authority for all Palestinians within Judea and Samara and also Gaza or not? Would a Palestinian state disenfranchise all those who live in Gaza? The quandary this situation poses has no easy solution. In any event, anyone who imagines that Hamas members are going to sit quietly and let Abbas negotiate peace with Israel had better think again. At the very least, they will generate terrorism and unrest that sabotages all serious negotiations. But I think they're going to do a good deal more: I think they're intending to co-opt Abbas and Fatah. There are two ways in which this can happen: through negotiations or violence. And Abbas is most assuredly aware of this. Hamas already has cells in Judea and Samaria and is eager to further weaken and then take down Fatah. The way out for Abbas is through reinstating the unity government. Just today, the Arabic daily Asharq Alawsat, cited by Israel Radio, announced that Hamas leaders have offered Fatah control of PA institutions and bases in the Gaza Strip. In return, they want the unity government and the PA parliament reinstated, and the PLO reformed (which undoubtedly means more control for Hamas). Hamas leaders declined to acknowledge this, however. And so, they're not quite there yet, but they're edging closer. Hamas actually launched a website for the national unity coalition government this week. ~~~~~~~~~~ For a clearer picture of what's happening with Hamas, see "How strong has Hamas become?" by Nick Francona of the Washington Institute: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1188197180384&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull ~~~~~~~~~~ Abbas was in Amman today and, with regard to Bush's proposed November conference, told King Abdullah, "If we go to a conference without clarity on a solution and without a declaration of principles within the framework of a work plan, I don't think that the conference will be beneficial." Interesting. No slowly working things through until the PA is ready. He wants instant state. Or could he possible want to shift the blame for things not working? ~~~~~~~~~~ Well, it happened, as it was bound to: Regretfully, three Palestinian children got in the line of fire when Israel was shooting at the site of a Kassam rocket launcher, and were killed. The Palestinians, of course, use this to full PR advantage and forge fictions about Israel deliberately shooting at groups of innocent children. The Israeli response is simple: It serves our fight not a bit to hit children and we try exceedingly hard not to. As one source put it, "the army makes every effort -- sometimes beyond proportion -- so as not to hurt civilians." However, "a Kassam launcher area is a battle zone, it is their territory, and they should make sure that no child or youth approaches the area." Of course, this is not what happens. "In many cases, upon investigating the incidents, we find that civilians were killed because the terror organizations sent them to the battle zone, because the terrorists were staying among civilians or carrying out a certain activity that endangered the civilians." What the IDF source admitted is that a risk is being taken with the lives of Israeli children every time a rocket launcher is not targeted for fear of hitting Palestinian civilians: that launcher, within minutes, might send another Kassam into Sderot. ~~~~~~~~~~ Moshe Ya'alon, former chief of staff and now with the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, has written an article,"Misinterpreting the Mideast," that appeared in the LA Times. In it he examines the four mistaken assumptions that diplomats and emissaries (notably Rice and Blair) bring to their work in this region, misconceptions that stand in the way of their making progress towards achieving regional peace: "Primary among them is the idea that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a prerequisite for stability in the Mideast. The truth is that the region is riven by clashes that have nothing to do with Israel" -- Sunni-Shia, nationalist-Islamist, etc. "The second misconception is that Israeli territorial concessions are the key to progress. The reality is that an ascendant jihadist Islam believes that it is leading the battle against Israel and the rest of the West. Given this dynamic, Israeli territorial or other concessions simply fill the jihadists' sails, reinforcing their belief that Israel and the West are weak and can be militarily defeated." There is then the misconception that "the Occupation" stands in the way of an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. "In the West, the term usually means the territories Israel conquered in the Six-Day War in 1967..." However, "the heart of the problem is that many Palestinians -- Fatah and Hamas, in particular -- and even some Israeli Arabs use 'Occupation' to refer to all Israel. They do not recognize the Jewish people's right to an independent state, a right affirmed again and again in the international arena." The forth misconception is that "the Palestinians want -- and have the ability -- to establish a state that will live in peace alongside Israel. But they are not being clear-eyed. "...A corollary of this...is the belief that economic development can neutralize extreme nationalism and religious fanaticism, thus clearing the way toward peace and security." http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-yaalon26aug26,0,123089.story? coll=la-opinion-rightrail Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info To Go To Top HONOR KILLING -- KEN TIMMERMAN'S NEW NOVEL Posted by Ken Timmerman, August 29, 2007. Honor Killing will sweep away many misconceptions Americans have been lead to believe about our security, and about our enemies. Israeli intelligence picks up the departure of a mysterious cargo ship from Iran, while half-way across the world, a Muslim-American girl is found dead in suburban Maryland. The two events appeared to be worlds apart. But they were not. Major Danny Wilkens, the U.S. government's top Iran analyst, becomes convinced that the cargo ship is part of an Iranian scheme to kill millions of Americans. But incompetent bureaucrats and a broken CIA force him to go outside the system, where he puts his career and even his marriage on the line in order to stop its relentless trajectory toward America. FBI Special Agent Michael Brannigan is perplexed by the "honor killing" of a Muslim girl. But it's only when his investigation is shut down by G-girl Joanna Greary that he discovers a sordid underworld of steamy sex, corrupt government officials, and local Muslim leaders who have exploited America's loose immigration laws for terror. In this fast-paced Washington novel of spies, faith, betrayal, and lust, New York Times best-selling author Kenneth R. Timmerman tells a story so chilling that it had to be kept out of the newspapers. Is there really a spy for the terrorists who has access to the highest reaches of the United States government, including the White House? Have our intelligence agencies become so bureaucratic and corrupt they can no longer act when a clear and present danger appears? Is Iran's master-terrorist at work today, probing our weaknesses? Is the American Muslim community giving shelter to deadly enemies? Timmerman takes us from underground hide-outs in Iran to beach-side bars in the British Virgin Islands, from the port of Maracaibo to a shoot-out in Dubai. He brings us smooth Mossad operators, CIA bumblers and a Persian beauty named Aryana, who uses a computer company in California as a front for clandestine operations inside Iran. As the Iranians get ever closer to our shores, readers are in for a surprising climax that may have many of them down on their knees. Prominent Middle East analyst, author, and former U.S. government official with more than two decades of experience in the underworld of terror, Kenneth R Timmerman has shared bunkers with Muslim terrorists under hostile fire, worked with freedom fighters from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, and been held hostage in a war zone. Some of his former contacts have been gunned down by Iranian government hit squads. His most recent work of non-fiction is Shadow Warriors: Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender, from Crown Forum. His first novel, The Wren Hunt, was published in 1982 and acclaimed by the author of The Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell. In 2006, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace prize for his work on Iran by the former deputy prime minister of Sweden, Per Ahlmark. Contact Ken Timmerman by email at timmerman.road@verizon.net and visit the website: http://kentimmerman.com/honor-killing.html To Go To Top MOSHE YAALON WEIGHS IN AGAINST PALESTINIAN STATE Posted by Hillel Fendel, August 29, 2007. Amidst continuing diplomatic efforts to form a separate state for the Arabs of Judea and Samaria, former IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon weighs in with words of warning against the initiative. President Shimon Peres, as well, foresaw the dangers of such a state nearly 30 years ago (see below.). Yaalon, writing in the Los Angeles Times over the weekend, notes "four main misconceptions that diplomats bring with them to Israel." Primary among them is the prevalent theory that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a prerequisite for stability in the Mideast. The truth is, Yaalon writes, that the region is "driven by clashes that have nothing to do with Israel. For instance, the Jewish state plays no role in the conflict between Shiites and Sunnis, between Persians and Arabs or between Arab nationalists and Arab Islamists." Interestingly, Yoram Ettinger, an expert on U.S.-Israel relations, recently released a paper (www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123346) negating this theory as well. The former liaison for Congressional affairs in Israel's Washington embassy brings proofs from recent history showing that general Arab antipathy to Israel predates, and is irrelevant to, issues relating to the Arabs of Judea and Samaria. Yaalon lists three other mistakes spurring on the pro-Palestinian state diplomats: Misconception 1: Israeli territorial concessions are felt to be the key to progress -- when in fact such concessions simply fill the sails of ascendant jihadist Islam, which believes it is leading the battle against Israel and the rest of the West. The concessions, therefore, merely encourage their belief that Israel and the West can be defeated. Yaalon lists the reults of Israel's unilateral withdrawals from Lebanon in 2000 and from Gaza in 2005: "Concerted terror wars, kidnapped Israeli soldiers, rockets fired at Israeli cities -- [which] made clear that the Mideast's central conflict is not territorial but ideological. And ideology cannot be defeated by concessions." Misconception 2: It is widely believed that Israeli sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria blocks agreement between Israelis and the Arabs of Judea and Samaria -- when in fact, "the heart of the problem is that many Palestinians... and even some Israeli-Arabs use 'Occupation' to refer to all Israel. They do not recognize the Jewish people's right to an independent state, a right affirmed again and again in the international arena." Misconception 3: Possibly most important, it is felt that the Arabs of Judea and Samaria want and can build a state that will live in peace alongside Israel. But in fact, the Palestinian Authority leaders -- specifically, Yasser Arafat and his deputy Mahmoud Abbas -- never used their powers to improve their subjects' living conditions. "Indeed," ex-Gen. Yaalon marvels, "Palestinian unemployment and poverty are worse today than they were before Arafat and his cronies assumed power in 1994." A corollary of this last misconception, Yaalon adds, "is the belief that economic development can neutralize extreme nationalism and religious fanaticism, thus clearing the way toward peace and security." David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, had a term for such believers -- including his prot�g� and current President of Israel, Shimon Peres: "naive Zionists." Yaalon notes that those who fit the above description must "demand that the Palestinians explain what they did with the $7 billion in international aid they received over the years... Why did Palestinian mobs destroy the Erez industrial zone, where Palestinians worked and ran businesses for decades, on the Gaza border? Why do they attack safe roads linking Gaza and the West Bank? Why is the Palestinian economy in shambles?" In fact, Peres himself, in a book he wrote in 1978 (Tomorrow is Now, Keter Publishers, Jerusalem; page 232), accurately outlined the dangers of a Palestinian state: "The establishment of such a [Palestinian] state means the inflow of combat-ready Palestinian forces (more than 25,800 men under arms) into Judea and Samaria; this force, together with the local youth, will double itself in a short time. It will not be short of weapons or other [military] equipment, and in a short space of time, an infrastructure for waging war will be set up in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. Israel will have problems in preserving day-to-day security, which may drive the country into war, or undermine the morale of its citizens. In time of war, the frontiers of the Palestinian state will constitute an excellent staging point for mobile forces to mount attacks on infrastructure installations vital for Israel's existence, to impede the freedom of action of the Israeli air-force in the skies over Israel, and to cause bloodshed among the population in areas adjacent to the frontier-line." Yaalon concludes his article with this advice for Western governments and their emissaries: Instead of pressuring Israel, they must "try to persuade the Palestinian leaders to commit to a long-term strategy premised on educational, political and economic reforms that would lead to the establishment of a civil society that cherishes life, not death; values human rights and freedom; and develops a middle class, not a corrupt, rich elite..." Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor at Arutz-Sheva To Go To Top ISRAEL WARNED US NOT TO INVADE IRAQ AFTER 9/11 Posted by Koira, August 29, 2007. This was written by Gareth Porter and it appeared yesterday in IPS News http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39051 Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in June 2005. WASHINGTON, Aug 28 (IPS) -- Israeli officials warned the George W. Bush administration that an invasion of Iraq would be destabilising to the region and urged the United States to instead target Iran as the primary enemy, according to former administration official Lawrence Wilkerson. Wilkerson, then a member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff and later chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, recalled in an interview with IPS that the Israelis reacted immediately to indications that the Bush administration was thinking of war against Iraq. After the Israeli government picked up the first signs of that intention, Wilkerson says, "The Israelis were telling us Iraq is not the enemy -- Iran is the enemy." Wilkerson describes the Israeli message to the Bush administration in early 2002 as being, "If you are going to destabilise the balance of power, do it against the main enemy." The warning against an invasion of Iraq was "pervasive" in Israeli communications with the administration, Wilkerson recalls. It was conveyed to the administration by a wide range of Israeli sources, including political figures, intelligence and private citizens. Wilkerson notes that the main point of their communications was not that the United States should immediately attack Iran, but that "it should not be distracted by Iraq and Saddam Hussein" from a focus on the threat from Iran. The Israeli advice against using military force against Iraq was apparently triggered by reports reaching Israeli officials in December 2001 that the Bush administration was beginning serious planning for an attack on Iraq. Journalist Bob Woodward revealed in "Plan of Attack" that on Dec. 1, 2001, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld had ordered the Central Command chief Gen. Tommy Franks to come up with the first formal briefing on a new war plan for Iraq on Dec. 4. That started a period of intense discussions of war planning between Rumsfeld and Franks. Soon after Israeli officials got wind of that planning, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon asked for a meeting with Bush primarily to discuss U.S. intentions to invade Iraq. In the weeks preceding Sharon's meeting with Bush on Feb. 7, 2002, a procession of Israeli officials conveyed the message to the Bush administration that Iran represented a greater threat, according to a Washington Post report on the eve of the meeting. Israeli Defence Minister Fouad Ben-Eliezer, who was visiting Washington with Sharon, revealed the essence of the strategic differences between Tel Aviv and Washington over military force. He was quoted by the Post as saying, "Today, everybody is busy with Iraq. Iraq is a problem...But you should understand, if you ask me, today Iran is more dangerous than Iraq." Sharon never revealed publicly what he said to Bush in the Feb. 7 meeting. But Yossi Alpher, a former adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Barak, wrote in an article in the Forward last January that Sharon advised Bush not to occupy Iraq, according to a knowledgeable source. Alpher wrote that Sharon also assured Bush that Israel would not "push one way or another" regarding his plan to take down Saddam Hussein. Alpher noted that Washington did not want public support by Israel and in fact requested that Israel refrain from openly supporting the invasion in order to avoid an automatic negative reaction from Iraq's Arab neighbours. After that meeting, the Sharon government generally remained silent on the issue of an invasion of Iraq. A notable exception, however, was a statement on Aug. 16, 2002 by Ranaan Gissin, an aide to Sharon. Ranaan declared, "Any postponement of an attack on Iraq at this stage will serve no purpose. It will only give [Hussein] more of an opportunity to accelerate his programme of weapons of mass destruction." As late as October 2002, however, there were still signs of continuing Israeli grumbling about the Bush administration's obsession with taking over Iraq. Both the Israeli Defence Forces' chief of staff and its chief of military intelligence made public statements that month implicitly dismissing the Bush administration's position that Saddam Hussein's alleged quest for nuclear weapons made him the main threat. Both officials suggested that Israel's military advantage over Iraq had continued to increase over the decade since the Gulf War as Iraq had grown weaker. The Israeli chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aharon Farkash, said Iraq had not deployed any missiles that could strike Israel directly and challenged the Bush administration's argument that Iraq could obtain nuclear weapons within a relatively short time. He gave an interview to Israeli television in which he said army intelligence had concluded that Iraq could not have nuclear weapons in less than four years. He insisted that Iran was as much of a nuclear threat as Iraq. Israeli strategists generally believed that taking down the Hussein regime could further upset an Iran-Iraq power balance that had already tilted in favour of Iran after the U.S. defeat of Hussein's army in the 1991 Gulf War. By 1996, however, neoconservatives with ties to the Likud Party were beginning to argue for a more aggressive joint U.S.-Israeli strategy aimed at a "rollback" of all of Israel's enemies in the region, including Iran, but beginning by taking down Hussein and putting a pro-Israeli regime in power there. That was the thrust of the 1996 report of a task force led by Richard Perle for the right-wing Israeli think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies and aimed at the Likud Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. But most strategists in the Israeli government and the Likud Party -- including Sharon himself -- did not share that viewpoint. Despite agreement between neoconservatives and Israeli officials on many issues, the dominant Israeli strategic judgment on the issue of invading Iraq diverged from that of U.S. neoconservatives because of differing political-military interests. Israel was more concerned with the relative military threat posed by Iran and Iraq, whereas neoconservatives in the Bush administration were focused on regime change in Iraq as a low-cost way of leveraging more ambitious changes in the region. From the neoconservative perspective, the very military weakness of Hussein's Iraq made it the logical target for the use of U.S. military power. Contact Koira at koira@dbmail.com To Go To Top NO PLAN TO PRESENT OLMERT-ABBAS UNDERSTANDING TO CABINET BEFORE TAKING IT TO INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE Posted by Barbara Sommer, August 29, 2007. This was written by Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director of IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis) and it appeared on the IMRA website today. Contact Dr. Lerner by email at imra@netvision.net.il and visit the website -- http://www.imra.org.il IMRA asked the following question this morning to an "Israeli Government Official": If Prime Minister Olmert develops some form of understanding of principles with PA head Mahmoud Abbas before the international conference will the Government vote on it before the international conference? The "Israeli Government Official", returned shortly thereafter with the following reply: "There is no such plan at this point to bring it before an additional forum for further discussion." Contact Barbara Sommer by email at sommer_1_98@worldnet.at.net To Go To Top LUTHERAN SILENCE RAPPED Posted by Simon McIlwaine, August 29, 2007. This article is called "No confusion, just silence from Lutheran group." It was written Dexter Van Zile and it appeared in The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle www.kcjc.com/articles/2007/08/24/opinion/opinion/ b.kcjc.opinion.silence.lutharan.group.prt Dexter Van Zile is a Christian media analyst for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. BOSTON -- When the General Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America met in Chicago earlier this month, it had an opportunity. It had an opportunity to express outrage over the failure of the Palestinians to take advantage of Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and show the world just how responsible they could be when Israel gave them something they've been demanding for decades -- territory of their own. Like virtually every other mainline church in the United States, ELCA has been telling the world that Palestinian violence and suffering is caused by the Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Under this logic, Israel's 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip should have been met with a reduction of violence against Israel and an improvement in Palestinian well-being. The fact is rocket attacks against Israel increased after the August 2005 withdrawal. So did the suffering. In June 2007, two months before ELCA's Churchwide Assembly, the Gaza Strip was the scene of an orgy of violence during which Hamas murdered members of Fatah in the street -- in front of their wives and children. When Hamas declared sovereignty over the Gaza Strip, it reaffirmed its commitment to Israel's destruction. How did ELCA's Churchwide Assembly respond to the events in the Gaza Strip? With a robust condemnation of Palestinian violence? With a ringing expression of disappointment over the failure of Palestinian leaders to take advantage of the opportunity given to them? Hardly. Instead, ELCA's Churchwide Assembly passed a "memorial" (resolution) that called on Lutherans to consider going out of their way to buy goods from Palestinian suppliers and to explore the feasibility of "refusing to buy products produced in Israeli settlements." In other words, two months after Hamas and Fatah gunmen battled it out on the streets and rooftops in Gaza, ELCA's Churchwide Assembly laid the groundwork for a boycott of Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Kaufen Nicht Bei Juden! ("Don't Buy From Jews!) has been replaced with a Kaufen Nicht Bei Settlers! (Don't Buy From Settlers!) -- on a provisional basis, of course. (Remember, the memorial only called for "exploration of the feasibility.") Exactly who is supposed to conduct this "exploration" is pretty unclear; John Brooks, director of ELCA's News Service, declared: "We don't have a committee looking into anything. It is simply a statement of possibilities." The likely result is that the legion of hardcore anti-Israel activists in ELCA and in other mainline churches will create a list of products manufactured by Jewish settlers in the West Bank and call on well-meaning Christians to boycott these products. These activists will use the memorial passed by ELCA's General Assembly as their mandate. In short, ELCA's so-called peace activists have been rewarded for their obsession with Israel's misdeeds, their failure to call attention to Palestinian violence and their refusal to acknowledge growing levels of anti-Semitism in the Middle East. A mainline Protestant denomination has made it clear, yet again, that Jewish sovereignty and the force used to defend it is the cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict -- not the Arab policy of rendering the Middle East Judenrein. No clarifications from ELCA's News Service or admonitions from Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson can change this reality. The language of the memorial gives them nothing to hide behind. The memorial includes not one word that would lead extremists in the Middle East to think ELCA objects in any way to the escalating campaign of violence, intimidation and defamation they have perpetrated against Israel since the denomination's Churchwide Assembly passed its "Peace Not Walls" memorial in 2005. There is not one word of criticism of Hamas's ongoing campaign of intimidation in the Gaza Strip. ELCA, which has spent decades decrying Palestinian suffering that it blames on Israel, remained silent when this suffering could not be blamed on Israel. Rev. Bruce D. MacLaughlin from ELCA's Northeastern Pennsylvania Synod expressed doubt over the resolution, declaring: "I fear that the language we have right now confuses the Jewish community about our support for them, and it sounds like we're speaking out of two sides of our mouth." The real question is not what ELCA's Churchwide Assembly is saying to the Jewish community, but what it has to say to extremists in the Middle East who call for Israel's destruction. On this issue, there is only silence. Simon McIlwaine is with Anglican Friends of Israel (www.anglicanfriendsofisrael.com). Contact him at Simon.McIlwaine@ormerods.co.uk To Go To Top SHARON'S LEGACY: GAZA; GOV. RICHARDSON'S CURE-ALL: TALKS; LATEST ANTI-ZIONIST PROPAGANDA Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 29, 2007. SHARON'S LEGACY The State estimates that it already has cost about $4 billion to evacuate from Gaza. Costs continue rising. None of the families ruined by that action has received the permanent housing promised by the government (Arutz-7, 8/10). The human toll was great. National security deteriorated. NO DUTCH SELF-DEFENSE AGAINST ISLAMISTS A Dutch organization helps people who cast off Islam. The founder was attacked by a Muslim youth. A Dutch legislator wants to ban the Koran for inspiring such attacks and Muslim immigration for providing the attackers. He denies that a significant wing of Islam is moderate. "...sections of the Koran 'call on Muslims to oppress, persecute or kill Christians, Jews, dissidents and non-believers, to beat and rape women and to establish an Islamic state by force.'" He wrote, "'Ban this wretched book like 'Mein Kampf' is banned! Send a signal to Jami's attackers and other Islamic radicals that the Koran cannot be used in the Netherlands as an inspiration or an excuse for violence.'" In response, a Dutch attorney filed a complaint for insulting a sector of the population, which there is a criminal offense (Arutz-7, 8/10). As I wrote, in some countries it is a crime to warn the country of its greatest current peril, however truthful one is. Why don't prosecutors apply the same law to Islamists, who regularly denounce other sectors of the population? UNIFIL MANDATE LIMITED UNIFIL is authorized to patrol northward from the Israeli border up to the Litani R. in Lebanon. The river is only 10 miles from the border. Hizbullah rockets fly further. Hizbullah is buying land just north of the river, and rebuilding its bases there, beyond reach of UNIFIL. Hizbullah then brings in Shiites to displace the Christian and Druze villagers. It bars entry to people it doesn't want. Besides thus preparing for renewed war, Hizbullah is setting up a state within a state, preparatory to taking over Lebanon (IMRA, 8/12). IRAN'S RATIONING RESPONSE TO SANCTIONS Anticipating foreign sanctions on imports of refined gasoline, Iran imposed rationing. Rationing failed to reduce consumption. Instead it led to a black market in gasoline, profiteering, riots, and looting. The government does not allow the media to discuss rationing, though it propagandizes for it. It discusses the potential benefit of rationing and not the suffering it causes (IMRA, 8/27). BLOOMBERG'S MADRASSA If students want to study Arabic, let their schools offer courses in it! There is no need for a separate school for it. Such a school is likely to become a madrassa. Its first proposed principal defended a prospective student who wore a t-shirt advocating "intifada." The proposed principal lamely excused the student as just wanting to improve New York. That phony excuse revealed the proposed principal either as too ignorant of Arabic to run such a school, or, more likely, as already getting into the jihad that the school is feared would promote. The fear is given credence by the school's advisory board having several Muslim clergymen on it. The ACLU did not recognize the church-state separation issue there, but one can imagine it suing a history school that had several Christian pastors on the advisory board (Daniel Pipes & Alicia Colon, NY Sun, 8/15, p.4). Mayor Bloomberg got mayoral control over the school system. This is how irresponsibly he acquits himself of that jurisdiction. He got taken n by the usual jihadist pretense at being moderate. He is incompetent at this, out of his depth. SOLE SALVATION IS BY MURDERERS & TORTURERS? Iran's Pres. Admadinejad said that the world's sole salvation would come from Islam (IMRA, 5/14). He heads a band of murderers, torturers, and oppressors, bankrupting his country. From such, salvation? They need salvation now. ARAB REFORMERS One recently praised the US for helping Abu Dhabi prosper. He praised Israel for certain successes (IMRA, 5/14). He did not venture to suggest that the Muslims stop considering Israel an enemy. CHINA & RUSSIA JOIN TO REBUFF U.S. China and Russia held war games with some formerly Soviet, Central Asian countries, supposedly for anti-terrorism. There were foreign observers, but the US was barred. This means the issue was not anti-terrorism but that China and Russia are working together, again, in a new Cold War. They are spending billions of dollars preparing for war, instead of curing the world's ills (8/14). Too bad our liberals don't see that China and Russia fuel and instigate strife. N. IRELAND NOT COMPARABLE TO ARAB-ISRAEL CONFLICT The Irish civil strife seems to have been resolved. Some people suggest that the Arab-Israel strife be resolved similarly, by negotiating with the terrorists there. The Irish solution is not a model for Israel. The differences are many and telling. The Irish conflict primarily was nationalist and territorial, but the Arab-Israel conflict primarily is religious. The Catholic Church did not support the IRA, but Islamic clergymen foment jihad. The IRA did not want to overthrow Britain, but the PLO wants to overthrow Israel. The IRA does not propose to chase the Protestants out of Ireland, but the PLO wants to chase the Jews first from the Territories and then from Israel. The IRA renounced its arms (though it may be holding back on surrendering them, in which case the issue is not resolved). The PLO and Hamas would not renounce their arms. The PLO and Hamas foster a death cult, whereas the IRA does not have suicide attacks (IMRA, 8/14). The jihadists are religious fanatics. The IRA is not. Besides, Israel did negotiate, but the Muslims believe in breaking agreements and do. People make up ill-fitting analogies. GOV. RICHARDSON: TALK ALL PROBLEMS OUT He is running in the Democratic primaries for the presidency. He wants the US to negotiate with Iran and N. Korea and find them face-saving ways to renounce nuclear weapons. He wants to negotiate with China and Russia to get peace and stability. He proposes US membership in the Intl. Criminal Court, although that court may well sue Americans and Israelis out of bias. He wants the US to get the Arabs to make peace with Israel, thereby depriving "the jihadists of their most effective propaganda tool." (The Koran is that tool.) Richardson thinks that means strengthening P.A. moderates. To reconcile with Muslims, he would close Guantanamo prison. The US should fight poverty, he says, because poverty is the basis of much terrorism. A Princeton economist retorted that poverty is found not the basis for the terrorist attacks (Ari Lamm, NY Sun, 8/15, p.6). N. Korea and Iran must have the world's craziest and most fanatical rulers. They would not renounce nuclear weapons, which give N. Korea influence and would give Iran an ability to conquer the world. Russia creates instability. I would try talking with Putin about bigger threats to him and to us in common, but he seems mired in the failed themes of the past. We have tried to negotiate with China, and got nowhere. Hankering after the Intl. Criminal Court must reflect the anti-Americanism of the radicals among the Democrats. Guantanamo is not the problem but the result of Islamic problems. The Arabs don't want peace with Israel. Someone who does not know the cause of terrorism is unfit to be President. I shudder when my friends suggest he is the best that the Democrats have to offer. I find him totally naive. EUROPEANS SETTING UP RELATIONS WITH HAMAS Britain and Italy want to help Hamas "develop" (Arutz-7, 8/14). Can't restrain themselves and their egos, thinking they can tutor Hamas (which hates them). Hamas studies them and devises tactics. The Europeans don't. Therefore, Hamas will manipulate the Europeans, not the reverse. Besides, the Europeans are so eager to seem to be world leaders and peacemakers where the US cannot get warring parties to make peace, that they do not penalize or withhold recognition, approval, and aid for long. LATEST ANTI-ZIONIST PROPAGANDA Anti-Zionist propaganda spreads like wildfire. How? (Muslims, among others, review almost every piece of news, and distort it so everything Israel does seems wrong and everything someone else does wrong seems to be "the" Jews' fault. They also review history, turning upside down the story of Zionism and jihad. They minimize crimes against the Jews and make the Arabs seem the victims of Zionism that actually benefited them. They fabricate a story of Palestinian nationalism parallel to the true story of Jewish nationalism, to deprive the Jewish people of sympathy and of justice. Theft of Jewish history.) For some time, the Arabs claimed that the formation of Israel was a catastrophe for them. Recently, the Israeli Far Left, especially Ilan Pappe, a Communist of Jewish ancestry who poses as an historian, took up the cry. Other leftists, as well as the less influential neo-Nazi web sites, publicized it. Israel's Education Minister made it part of the Israeli Arab curriculum. Thus her self-destructive multi-culturalism fosters divisiveness, not multicultural assimilation but Intifada. And from those leftists, the cry resonates among others. The claim would make Israel seem to have been founded on injustice and cruelty. The implication is that Israel should be dissolved in favor of the Arabs. Going further, people who deny the claim are called catastrophe-deniers, as if on a par with Holocaust deniers. This gives some patina of legitimacy to Holocaust denial and some impugning of its critics. The claim is false, as is anti-Zionist propaganda in general. The Arabs had usurped the Jewish homeland. Large numbers immigrated to take jobs Zionism created. The UNO proposed a separate state for both peoples (though Jordan already was a Palestinian Arab state). The Arabs refused. They wanted it all and they wanted to exterminate the Jews. They made war. They lost and ran. Why feel sorry for greedy, genocidal bigots? (Prof. Steven Plaut, 8/16). Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top POLICEMAN ASSAULTED TRYING TO STOP ILLEGAL TEMPLE MOUNT DIG Posted by Hillel Fendel, August 29, 2007. A policeman trying to stop an Arab tractor engaged in illegal Temple Mount excavations was assaulted -- and the police chief who arrived on the scene arrested no one. Officials of the Moslem Waqf (religious body) on the Temple Mount are digging there illegally, likely destroying precious artifacts from as early as the First Temple period. So say eyewitnesses and representatives of the Committee for the Prevention of the Destruction of Temple Mount Antiquities. Gideon Charlap, a top Jerusalem architect and Temple Mount expert, told Arutz-7 what he saw when he visited the Temple Mount on Tuesday: "The Arabs there are digging a deep north-to-south trench, up to a meter [1.1 yards] deep. It is being dug in the area that served during Holy Temple times as the Ezrat Nashim [the area known as the Women's Courtyard, though it was not reserved only for women -ed.]. The trench passes through three east-to-west walls, according to my calculations -- walls that probably served as separations for the Temple's offices and the like. This means that the destruction is tremendous..." "At one point during the digging," Charlap continued, "a policeman -- apparently a Druze -- tried to stop the work from going on, and actually entered the cabin of the tractor. A struggle ensued, and when the Arabs finally pushed him out, he actually stood in the trench and physically blocked the rest of the work!" "But instead of stopping the lawbreakers," Charlap related with incredulity, "he tried to 'calm down' the policeman!" Charlap said that at that point, the chief officer of the Temple Mount police station, Shai Alali, arrived on the scene. Charlap said he was unable to see how the story developed from there, "because our allotted time was over." Jews are permitted onto the site -- Judaism's most sacred anywhere in the world -- only four or fewer hours a day. Police Chief Shai Alali was unavailable for comment. Police spokesmen say they will look into the assault and illegal digging. The digging is taking place just east of the Dome of the Rock. Millennia of Artifacts -- Down the Drain Dr. Eilat Mazar, an archaeologist and a leading member of the Committee for the Prevention of the Destruction of Temple Mount Antiquities, spoke with Arutz-7's Hebrew newsmagazine about the desecration. "It is an untenable situation," she said. "Underneath the Temple Mount is a closed area, one that has barely been disturbed since the Destruction of the Second Temple. Anyone can realize that remnants of both the First and Second Temples are there, and can guess what damage is being done by the tractor. The most precious findings are just rolling around there and are available to be found -- and instead they have a tractor there! If I would try to work with a tractor at one of my digs, the Antiquities Authority would stop me immediately! With a tractor, it's impossible to make any type of careful examination of the earth and pieces being dug up." "We are a public, voluntary body that has taken upon itself to inform and warn the public about what is going on," Mazar said. "The Antiquities Authority acts as if it is fulfilling its responsibility to supervise -- but in fact all they have there is just one man watching but doing nothing. That is not supervision. It's just a deception to say that anyone is overseeing the wanton digging and desecration being carried out there against our greatest national cultural treasure." Asked if there has been any lull of late in illegal digs on the Temple Mount, Dr. Mazar responded negatively. "They have a clear goal of turning the Temple Mount into a place exclusively for Moslem prayer. In recent years, they have turned two giant structures -- at the Huldah Gate and Solomon's Stables -- into giant mosques, where none ever stood before... It is totally illegal; how can such violations of the law be allowed -- especially in such an important place for Jewish Nation? This is a top archaeological site, and the fact that it's not considered one of the Seven Wonders of the world is our fault, because we don't talk about it enough and certainly don't preserve it enough." Arutz-7's Uzi Baruch offered, "Perhaps it's because of the politically sensitive nature of the site?" Mazar answered, "Yes, it's a sensitive spot, but there's a big difference between acting wisely and delicately, on the one hand, and allowing wanton destruction and law-breaking, on the other hand. No good comes of simply turning the other cheek, trying to achieve quiet at any price, and not seeing the future. They want 'quiet now' and they want to appease the Waqf and everyone else -- everyone except for those who are concerned for Jewish culture." "The Antiquities Authority is responsible for preserving antiquities," says Dr. Mazar, "but it is not doing its job on the Temple Mount. The Prime Minister must take this job upon himself and make sure that the law is observed and that the Temple Mount remains an accessible cultural site not only for Moslems, but also for Jews and Christians." Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor at Arutz-Sheva To Go To Top PERFIDY Posted by Steven Plaut, August 28, 2007. On December 8, 1983, a child named Dani Katz walked to the street outside his parent's home in the Dania neighborhood of Haifa. He was 14. His parents were Holocaust survivors. Outside the home, he was kidnapped by a group of Arabs from the Israeli Galilee town of Sakhnin who held jobs in the Dania neighborhood. They took him to a cave near Sakhnin. There they tortured him in the most brutal and horrific way imaginable. They eventually murdered him. After murdering him they sodomized the corpse. They then left him there to rot. Police unraveled the crime and arrested the five murderers, who confessed and reenacted the crimes. They were tried in Haifa in 1985 and sentenced to life in prison plus 27 years (this to prevent their being released in case of bleeding heart shortening of sentence due to good behavior.) At one point one of the judges, Avraham Beizer (since retired), asked one of perps sarcastically what it felt like "to bang the boy," and later asked whether the sandwich had tasted good. (The murderers were caught in part because they left sandwich remains in the cave.) The perp's lawyer tried to get a mistrial over that. The lawyer for the accused was far-leftist Avigdor Feldman. Feldman has devoted much of his career to defending terrorists and traitors. He defended Mordecai Vanunu (nuclear spy), Marcus Klinberg (Soviet spy), Tali Fahima (was did jail time for helping her Palestinian terrorist boyfriend plan atrocities), Teddy Katz (Ilan Pappe's student who fabricated the Tantura massacre), and others. Feldman claimed the confessions of the five were coerced. The court investigated the charge thoroughly and found it to be false. After the conviction, and after a report by two Meretz members of the government criticizing use of confessions in trials, Feldman eventually lobbied the judicial system into giving his clients a new trial, at the order of Aharon Barak, the (now retired) Chief Justice and promoter of anti-democratic judicial activism in Israel. The new trial was held in Tel Aviv District Court. The perps were briefly put back on the street. They were again convicted in the new trial. The new judges noted the long string of lies and contradictions by the accused. Feldman appealed the new conviction to the Supreme Court, and the court rejected it unanimously. Some have conjectured that the murder was an initiation rite into a terror group. Some Israeli leftist groups have been rallying support ever since for the murderers (see for example in Hebrew only: http://hagada.org.il/hagada/html/ modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=3236 see also anti-Zionist journalist Tom Segev's comments: http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArtPE.jhtml? contrassID=2&subContrassID=3&sbSubContrassID=0&itemNo=548288) In 1982 a female soldier named Dafna Carmon was raped and murdered outside her home Two of the murderers of Dani Katz were also convicted of murdering her. They were also represented in that trial by Feldman. Some Arab Knesset members had been lobbying for the release of the murderers. The "appeals commission" of the Justice Ministry recently recommended that the five murderers have their sentences "shortened." Shimon Peres as President made it official, which means that they will be released from prison within the next few days. The article below is called "Peres Reduces Jail Terms of Israeli-Arab Terrorists." It was written by Ezra HaLevi and it appeared in Arutz-Sheva www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123523 See also www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/israeln/022699.html (IsraelNN.com) President Shimon Peres has decided to reduce the jail sentences of five Israeli-Arab terrorists. Three of the terrorists are serving for the brutal murder of Haifa Jewish teenager Danny Katz in 1983 and two for the rape and murder of IDF soldier Daphna Carmon in 1987. Katz, the son of Holocaust survivors, was kidnapped from near his Haifa home at the age of 15 by Arabs who worked at a nearby supermarket while on his way to visit a friend. He was beaten to death with sticks and then sodomized. He was found dead four days later in the Israeli-Arab village of Sakhnin. The men were sentenced to life in prison, plus 27 years. They will now be eligible for release in the near future following Peres's commutation. Peres made the move after meeting with Israeli-Arab MK Taleb a-Sana (Ra'am-Ta'al), who also urged him to grant a pardon to Suleiman al-Abed, who is serving time for the rape and murder of teenage Jewish girl, Chanit Kikus. Katz Family Livid Danny Katz's surviving brother Amnon lashed out at the new president Tuesday night, saying: "Peres has not even managed to warm the presidential chair yet and he's already releasing my brother's despicable murderers." Katz says that his brother's murderers have become a cause celebre in recent years for the extreme-left, who claimed that they confessed to the crime due to police pressure. The murderers were even granted a retrial based on those claims in 1999 -- but were found guilty again. Mira Katz, Danny's mother, pointed a finger at the media Wednesday morning, asking why there was no outrage at the injustice of releasing the murderers of children. "If they decided to free Yigal Amir, who murdered an old man, the media would not stop yelling about it. So why when they decide to free the murderers of youngsters are the media dead silent?" she told Army Radio. When taking office in July, Peres pledged he would seek to unite Israel's populace. Lapid Chides Hard-Left Yosef (Tommy) Lapid, former Justice Minister and leader of the defunct Shinui party chided the intellectual far-left for making an issue out of the conviction of Katz's murderers. Lapid told Voice of Israel government radio Wednesday that the murderers also were convicted of a previous killing, a fact omitted by the "intellectual left that saw the trial as a stain on the judicial system." Concerning repeated claims by leftists that the murderers' confession was forced and that there still is doubt concerning their guilt, Lapid maintained that it is unlikely that five different people would admit to a crime they did not commit. The terrorists won five retrials, including one order by the High Court. "No Jew ever received such consideration and mercy." Lapid said. Olmert Considering Allowing 'Nativity' Terrorists to Return PA Arab sources following Tuesday's meeting between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas said that the terrorists who took over Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity for 39 days in 2002 may be allowed to return to Judea and Samaria from their exile to Gaza and Europe, upon Abbas's request. The terrorists were responsible for the murder of 15 Israelis. Three elderly Armenian monks managed to flee the church at the time with the help of the IDF. One of the monks, Narkiss Korasian, described the Islamist terrorists' behavior to reporters: "They stole everything, they opened the doors one by one and stole everything... they stole our prayer books and four crosses... they didn't leave anything." The monks also told of beatings administered to several Christian clergymen held in the church by PLO gunmen. The terrorists, who were mostly Fatah men, are considered heroes among Muslims in Judea and Samaria and Abbas hopes that winning their return could increase his meager power-base. The return of the 26 terrorists would take place in October, as a gesture during the Muslim month of Ramadan. Editor's Note: A reader of the Arutz-Sheva article made this comment: 40. Peres -- the first Israeli spaceman A man for all seasons. Truely he lives on another planet. Read these and weep. Poor Israel -- why do you let this fool have power??? http://afsi.org/SHIMON/SHIMON2001/WhatShimonSays.doc http://afsi.org/SHIMON/shimon.htm http://www.gamla.org.il/english/peres/ http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2007/06/israels-new-president-in-his-own-words.html Sol, London (30/08/07) Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor at the Graduate School of Business Administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il To Go To Top SAUDI ARABIA: THE ISLAMIST CAGE Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 28, 2007. This article was written by Youssef Ibrahim and it appeared August 27, 2007 in the New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/article/61322 A former prime minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, recently declared he was returning home to try to regain power after six years of exile -- in Saudi Arabia. The day that the monster of Uganda, Idi Amin, was removed from power in 1979, he flew to a country where sanctuary as a Muslim African leader would be guaranteed upon his arrival -- Saudi Arabia. And in 1970, immediately following the death of an Egyptian dictator, Gamal Abdel Nasser, the leadership of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood movement returned home in droves to try to Islamize their native land -- after two decades in Saudi Arabia. Thus, Saudi Arabia ever expands its fundamentalist cage. Robert Baer, a 20-year veteran of the CIA and the author of Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude, has often described the Saudis as the world's primary financiers of terrorism, the source of much of Al Qaeda's leadership, and an incubating station for radical Islam. Though such activities have come back to haunt the Saudis and their allies in America -- Islamist terror struck home in 1995, 1996, and 1998 bombings, two American embassies were attacked in Africa, and the USS Cole was bombed in Yemen in the leadup to the attacks of September 11, 2001 -- the Saudi system continues to perpetuate the model. The reason, according to Mr. Baer and other Middle East analysts, is that Saudi Arabia runs on two currencies: the riyal and Islam. Neither Saudi society nor its ruling establishment can escape: All of its constituent elements -- from business and charity to religious instruction, law enforcement, and foreign relations -- rattle inside the cage of the country's fundamentalist obsessions: The Saudi flag contains a Koranic verse. The Saudi monarch wraps his authority in Islam as "the custodian of Mecca and Medina." Saudi foreign aid is based on building fundamentalist madrassas and mosques, supporting such fundamentalist groups as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, and spreading Koranic instruction worldwide. Arab and Muslim expatriate workers who have lived and worked in Saudi Arabia -- easily numbering 50 million over the last three decades -- return imbued with a model of militancy that duplicates an Osama bin Laden-style path toward jihad against their home societies. This vicious cycle mattered little when oil was cheap and the Saudis were a mere curiosity. But Saudi Arabia's power grew as it was transformed into a prime energy source in the 1970s, a huge financial influence in the 1980s, and an immense lobbying presence in the 1990s. By the late '90s, there were full-size mirror images of Saudi Arabia's stilted brand of Islam in Egypt, Pakistan, Somalia, the Philippines, Chechnya, Bosnia, and Kosovo, as well as among Muslim communities in Europe, Australia, and America. More mirror images are in the making. In one of his many interviews since leaving the CIA, Mr. Baer gave an interesting analysis of the elements that make for the creation and exportation of this model, describing Saudi Arabia as both hapless and evil. "They feel humiliated by colonialism, by the United States, by Israel -- call it what you want. They feel they are citizens or subjects of a country that has never fought a war, and yet spends so much money on defense. They're humiliated that they don't take the Israelis on, because their army is worthless. They sit around and they read the Koran. And they get on these Islamic Web sites, and they watch Al-Jazeera. And they go to the mosque." In other words, the Saudis do little except rattle around within the cage of their own fundamentalism. This deep confusion is reflected throughout the ruling family, which contains both princes who are Westernized -- in such vulgar aspects as drinking, womanizing, gambling, and wearing diamond-studded Rolex watches -- and others who leave a mosque only to enter a charity that nurtures madrassas turning out little bin Ladens. Their schizophrenia is exemplified in such global personalities as Prince Al-Walid bin Talal, a multibillionaire businessman who simultaneously invests his billions in America while funding both the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is the American chapter of the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood. In the end, the Saudis are just rattling around in their cage. A society with no social project except to produce more Muslims, deeper Muslims, better Muslims, ends up as one that produces Muslim fanatics and terrorists. Now, with oil prices having moved north of $70 dollar a barrel, a lot more trouble will be coming our way out of the Saudi cage. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top U.S. POLICING ISRAELI COMMITMENT TO STOP PURSUING FATAH MEN! Posted by UCI, August 28, 2007. This was written by Barak Ravid and it appeared August 23, 2007 in Haaretz. The U.S. security coordinator for the Palestinian Authority is checking whether Israel is upholding its agreement to stop pursuing Fatah militants in the West Bank, Haaretz has learned. A senior Western diplomat said that officers from Keith W. Dayton's team have been meeting with Palestinian security officials in several West Bank cities. "This is part of the activity to help the Palestinian security forces institute law and order," the diplomat said. On Tuesday, a group of Canadian officers visited Nablus, which is considered home to the largest concentration of wanted Fatah militants. The officers met with some Palestinian security officials there. Israel has agreed to stop pursuing 178 activists of Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. Some of the activists are suspected of shooting attacks and working with Hezbollah to organize terror attacks on Israel. The team is expected to draft an opinion on the Palestinians' request to expand the amnesty list. The Palestinian security officials told the officers that the wanted men are staying at the security forces' headquarters, in keeping with the agreement with Israel. They said special committees are examining how to place them in the Palestinian police or other security forces. The agreement was reached about a month ago at the conclusion of talks between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. A joint Israeli-Palestinian team is meeting to monitor the agreement's implementation. Under the agreement, Israel said it would not work to capture the 178 activists unless it had clear evidence that they were involved in terror attacks. In exchange, the Fatah activists agreed to hand in their weapons and spend their days at the security branches' headquarters. Israel said activists who maintain this behavior for three months would receive further alleviations, including greater freedom of movement within the West Bank. Dayton's officers also are discussing the Palestinians' equipment and training needs. The U.S. intends to increase its aid for Abbas' forces in the West Bank, especially the Presidential Guard and National Security, sources told Haaretz. UCI -- The Unity Coalition for Israel (http://www.israelunitycoalition.org) -- is "the largest worldwide coalition of Jewish and Christian organizations, with more than 200 groups representing millions of people dedicated to Israel. Though we have many different backgrounds, we have one common goal: A Safe and Secure Israel." "Israel is not just a Jewish issue. Millions of Christians resolutely endorse the principle of peace with security for the state of Israel. Because we work closely together and speak with a united voice, our message is being heard!" To Go To Top ARCHEOLOGISTS SLAM AUTHORITIES OVER MUSLIM DIG Posted by Bryna Berch, August 28, 2007. The way the Israeli Jews are behaving, you'd think it was an Arab country and the Jews have no rights and get no respect or consideration from the Arab rulers. So all they can do is wail when their precious antiquities are destroyed by the Arabs, who don't want any reminders that the history of the country is almost all Jewish history. When it wasn't Jewish, it wasn't a country -- I mean that literally. After the Jews were defeated by the Romans back some 2000 years, there was not an independent state in the Land of Israel UNTIL the Jews returned in large numbers in modern times. What is wrong with this generation of Israelis? When will they take control of their country and their Holy Sites? When the relics have been pulverized? How foolish can Olmert and the Secularists-In-Control be? Even if they don't appreciate that it is Jewish history being destroyed, I'd think they'd have respect for antiquities that belonged to any ethnic group. At the very least, they ought to see the Temple Mount as a major "tourist attraction," one that isn't available anywhere else. Isn't Livni the linguistically-challenged always going on about making Israel more of a tourist attraction? These jerks don't care about the foundations of their peoplehood and they are just plain dumb about how to attract people to Israel. This was written by Etgar Lefkovits and it appeared in the Jerusalem Post (www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1188197171632&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull) A group of Israeli archeologists on Monday renewed their blistering condemnation of the Antiquities Authority for authorizing Muslim officials to carry out a dig on Jerusalem's Temple Mount with tractors and other heavy equipment as part of infrastructure work to repair faulty electrical lines on the ancient compound. Israeli archeologists slammed the Antiquities Authority for permitting this trench to be dug to repair electrical lines on the Temple Mount. Israeli archeologists slammed the Antiquities Authority for permitting this trench to be dug to repair electrical lines on the Temple Mount. The work started last month on the northern section of the Temple Mount in the area of the outer courts of the ancient Jewish Temples with the approval of the Israel Police and the state-run Antiquities Authority, Israeli and Islamic officials said. Independent Israeli archeologists said that the work left a 100-meter-long and roughly 1-1.5 meter deep trench, and has damaged the site. "This is a barbaric action on the most sensitive place in archeology of the Jewish nation," said Bar-Ilan University archeologist Dr. Gabriel Barkai, a member of the Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount. Barkai said that work carried out at the site on Monday -- which eyewitnesses say was done with an Antiquties Authority official present -- was the most damaging to date. "If this was done with the Antiquities Authority supervision it is even worse, because the crime was done before our very eyes," he added. The non-partisan group of Israeli archeologists and intellectuals from across the political spectrum has previously lambasted Israel's chief archeological body for permitting the work at the site but Monday's damage prompted them to issue their harshest criticism of the state-run archeological body to date. "It is outrageous that the Antiquities Authority is taking part in an archeological crime by pretending they are supervising the site while they are in fact witnessing the crime as it takes place," said group spokeswoman Dr. Eilat Mazar, a leading Temple Mount expert. Antiquities Authority spokeswoman Dalit Menzin declined to comment on the issue. According to decades-old regulations in place at the Temple Mount, Israel maintains overall security control at the site, while the Wakf, or Islamic Trust, is charged with day- to-day administration of the ancient compound. Jerusalem police have said that in coordination with the Antiquities Authority they had given Islamic officials approval for the work. Wakf director Azzam Khatib said that the work followed an electrical shortage in the al Aksa Mosque. The Antiquities Authority, which by law is charged with supervising Israel's archeological sites, has in the past been criticized by the apolitical group of archeologists for overlooking large-scale Islamic construction on the site which resulted in archeological damage because of the political sensitivities involved. To Go To Top ABBAS OUTSMARTING HIMSELF? ACLU INCONSISTENCY; IRAN'S ECONOMY; HALKIN SWINGS HIS HATCHET Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 28, 2007. ABBAS MAY BE OUTSMARTING HIMSELF Abbas is rigging the next election against Hamas. He will combine the vote in Judea-Samaria and Gaza. Presumably, Fatah's larger majority in Judea-Samaria would cover Hamas' smaller majority in Gaza. This assumes that Fatah would retain its majority in Judea-Samaria. Since Fatah has not reformed, its corruption and lack of services continue to erode its popularity. Hamas' brutality cost it some support in Gaza, but it has restored order and provided more services. Services are popular. Abbas may be setting his party up to lose in Judea-Samaria. He would be outsmarting himself. NETANYAHU'S BEHAVIOR IN THE PRIMARY Benjamin Netanyahu tried various tricks to maneuver his primary rival, Moshe Feiglin, out of eligibility. He did keep Feiglin from attending Netanyahu's eventual victory speech, where the defeated candidate usually endorses the victor. Netanyahu said he wouldn't consort with Feiglin and "his ilk." He wants a court's help in expelling Feiglin from the Party. Netanyahu said he wants to bring "moderates" into the party. He did not define "moderates." He, himself is appeasement minded towards the genocidal Muslims. That is extremist, to me. I think that Netanyahu shows an ominous, undemocratic tendency, which is very Israeli. Considering that Netanyahu betrayed both Israel and Jonathan Pollard at Wye, where he agreed to territorial concessions to the Muslims and dropped his insistence on getting Pollard freed for it, Netanyahu can be harmful for Israel. Barry Chamish explains that he is a tool of the US and that Peres had Rabin murdered. He used that information not to get justice but to blackmail Peres into throwing the election to Netanyahu. Ironically, had he revealed the murder plot, he would have defeated Peres legitimately. Like Sharon, however, he is not firm against jihad, and no nationalist. FRIENDS OF ISRAEL CONFUSED Supposedly pro-Israel, a man I know suggests that the US force the two sides to make peace. He who hates the Saudi-loving Bush regime would expect it to play fair with Israel? It would demand concessions that give jihad a leg up. The US can get agreements signed, but can't make the Arabs honor them. He "understands" objections to Israel from the Arabs, who'd been living there 2,000 years. The Arab invasion came about 1,300 years ago, where Jews had been living for 2,000 years. The Muslim Arabs squeezed non-Arabs, non-Muslims out. NEW FACTION IN P.A.? In Ramallah, businessmen and academicians have formed a lobbying group they hope becomes a political party. Their party would offer an alternative to Fatah and Hamas, which focus on war. The new group cares about the economy, culture, music, and sports. The only political issue it addressed was unity of the two parts of the P.A., now split between Fatah and Hamas (IMRA, 8/12). This group did not repudiate jihad. How could it? Its members are Muslims. But the group sounds more pragmatic. If it built up the P.A. economy, it would be more popular and have more money for jihad. That is my nightmare: a democratically driven and more prosperous jihad. ONE-WAY FREE SPEECH IN ISRAEL A right-wing activist, Prof. Hillel Weiss, told the Israeli colonel in charge of expelling Weiss' family from their house in Hebron that he hopes the colonel's family drops dead. It was not a tasteful way to put it, but the professor had the right to condemn the colonel. Americans call that free speech. Apparently Israelis don't. The media and Defense Min. Barak want Weiss prosecuted. The head of his university is investigating whether to fire him (although he did not do anything untoward on campus or as an employee). His problem is not what he did or said, but that he is a right-winger. Israeli left-wingers don't get into trouble for doing likewise or worse. Leftist Israeli professors and Arabs praise terrorist murder of Jews, dismantle parts of the security fence, promote boycott of Israel, and even attack Israeli soldiers. Some of the Arabs call for the destruction of Israel and engage in espionage. All that, without being denounced by the media, Defense Min. Barak, and heads of universities. Universities hire and award tenure to people who lack credentials of scholarship, but are leftist (Prof. Steven Plaut, 8/11). ACLU INCONSISTENCY The ACLU draws a clear line between government and religion, except for Islam. It defended the U. of Michigan for installing footbaths in men's rooms, for Muslims to bathe in before prayer. There can be some accommodation with a religion so as not to exclude its members from participation. But ACLU gave as its primary reason for approval that the footbaths were secular, because non-Muslims could use them. As if that is just what the non-Muslims were waiting for! CAIR called objections to the footbaths "Islamophobia." It always does. Nonsense! (Prof. Steven Plaut, 8/14 from Wall St. J..) Accommodating only Islam, an imperialistic religion, helps it fasten its creeping grip on our society. IRAN'S ECONOMY It isn't only US pressure that keeps foreigners from investing in Iran's oil fields. Iran increases the risk to investors by destabilizing the region. Then it offers low returns to potential high-risk investors. Some foreign observers think that low foreign investment, high inflation, and domestic gasoline subsidies that exceed revenues will enable moderates to win Parliament. Not likely. Elections are rigged by the mullahs to keep moderates out, and in any case, Parliament is subservient to non-elected mullahs. It is unlikely that the regime will fall before it acquires nuclear weapons. Suppose the regime does fall. Would it be replaced by something better than what replaced the Soviet regime? The Russian people did not question the ideology that failed. It blamed disloyal officials and outside forces for bringing down the regime. The people still like Stalin and like Putin, who is restoring an imperialist foreign policy and a fascist domestic one. The West should strive to replace the Iranian regime with one that understands what was wrong with theocracy (IMRA, 8/13 from Caroline Glick). ISRAEL AGAIN TRYING TO HAVE P.A. RUN SECURITY The last time Israel turned security for Area B, the P.A.-run area in the Territories, over to P.A. security forces, members of P.A. security forces ended up driving cars stolen from Israel. More than 32,000 cars were stolen from Israel in 1997. Israel is trying it again (Sorry, lost source). Hold on to your cars! HOW BRITAIN MUDDLED IN BASRA Britain's defeated, residual force in Basra is under siege. Its military chief claims Britain's mission was a success. His mission was to enable Iraqis to run their city. After Saddam lost, about a hundred thousand Iraqi men came to the city, unimpeded by British forces, sizeable at the time. They organized themselves into Islamist militias, again unimpeded by British forces. They took over the city, running death squads, beating unveiled women, extorting from businesses, and usurping power at universities and hospitals, still unimpeded by British forces. Some allies, the British are! Pretending not to notice, Britain returned most of its troops, imperiling the rest. Now the city is run by Iraqis, the wrong Iraqis! Israel thinks that Fatah and Egypt are its allies against Hamas. But with money from Israel, Fatah paid Hamas' troops. It is negotiating another unity government with Hamas, hosted by Egypt, which lets weapons into Gaza for Hamas (IMRA, 8/11 from Caroline Glick). Reality is difficult for rulers to grasp. ALMOST A TEXTBOOK CASE OF HATCHET JOB Just before the Likud vote for party head, Hillel Halkin commented about the two contenders, the favored Netanyahu and the challenger, Moshe Feiglin. I thought it was misleading. Bear in mind his constant appeasement towards the Muslims, when weighing his judgment. He is correct in stating that "Moshe Feiglin has no real roots in Likud and joined it only a few years ago with the open intention of staging a hostile takeover. I find that misleading, because Likud has shifted towards appeasement, and Feiglin is trying to save the country by giving it a true party opposed to appeasement and the other corruption in the political system. He may have no roots in that party, but Netanyahu (and Sharon) and others betrayed it. As Halkin puts it, "Mr. Feiglin's view on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict make Mr. Netanyahu look like an extreme dove. (I object to that new, politically correct term for the conflict, making it seem narrower and the Arabs seem the underdog in what really is the Arab-Israel conflict and jihad.). Netanyahu is a dove in office but a hawk in a campaign. It's an old political trick. Halkin should not wield a politician's tricks against his readers. One of the characteristics of a hatchet job is an overly-extreme sounding summary of someone's program, without furnishing quotes, details, or evidence. Thus, Halkin writes that Feiglin's "views are rooted in Jewish religious belief and in a religious perspective, according to which the entire biblical land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people by a divine decree that must be implemented by any and all means." By "all means?" Feiglin has not recommended genocide. The Muslims have and do. That is by "all means." Halkin's secularist approach of accommodation to Muslim demands has been tried for decades, and failed. Feiglin belongs, according to Halkin, in the National Religious Party or National Union Party, whose voters mostly are Orthodox, but he states that those parties are too small for Feiglin. Well of course they are. One can't save Israel from them. But neither are they sufficiently nationalist. Both sell out for Cabinet posts and both approve of appeasement. Appeasement is folly, as we should have learned from experience with the Nazis, Communists, and Muslims. The very firmness of Feiglin is needed to save us from the infirmity of people such as Halkin, who keep wanting to give in the Muslims, who use concessions as a basis for conquering enemies. Whether there are faults to Feiglin, I don't know -- can't tell from Halkin's generalities about him, which are condemnatory without being specific. Halkin gives himself away by condemning the religious Right as being a danger to the republic. I think Halkin is a danger. "Bigotry and religious fanaticism are M. Feiglin's natural elements." What bigotry? None cited. I think that's libel and that Feiglin is no more fanatical than secularists, as Halkin is about ceding territory to the Arabs. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top ISRAEL: HOMELAND OF THE JEWS! THEOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY ARE COMPATIBLE Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 28, 2007. This essay was written by Gail Tenzer. The problem we are currently experiencing in Israel comes as a result of confusion in the minds of many Israelis, particularly those who were raised on Herzl's secular socialistic movement, as opposed to adhering to the Torah and Jewish Law. Israel was never meant to be a secular country just like any other. It was created as a homeland for the Jews. Our first challenge, therefore, is to define what it means to be a Jew. Then, we have to ask why the Jews were entitled to settle this particular piece of land as opposed to any other anywhere else in the world? In fact, prior to bringing Jews rescued from the Holocaust back to Israel, some secular Zionist leaders were entertaining establishing a new homeland in somewhere in South America or Africa (and I would recommend that current seculars should reconsider those places as a new homeland for themselves!) OK! So, now for the definition of a Jew! This is crucial! Although it is true that when dealing with discrimination, we don't define ourselves! Others do! However, as a people, within the context of a Jewish State, we must define ourselves. What do I mean? In Europe during the 1920s people were generally non-religious and by the time the Nazis came into power, many born Jews had become so secular, that they no longer considered themselves to be Jews at all. In some instances, the assimilation was so great that after a number of generations many people had no idea that they had Jewish roots. They certainly didn't define themselves as Jews. According to the Nazis, however, if somewhere in a person's past, a great-great-grandmother was Jewish, they were expropriated, forced to wear a yellow Star of David and taken away to a concentration camp to be exterminated with the rest of the Jews. Unfortunately, to this day, when someone applies to get a visa to visit Saudi Arabia, he has to fill out a form giving a genealogical history his ancestors proving that there are no Jews in the applicant's background. Apparently, we are defined as Jews, particularly by those who hate us and wish to exterminate us. On the other hand, using the same methods employed by the Saudis, it would be very problematic for us to define those born into other faiths as Jews on the basis of ancestry and as a result accord them the right of return, since we would be forced to accept most people whose last names end in ez from Spain and Latin America, for example, into Israel as Jews even though they were born for generations as Catholics for centuries since the Inquisition. So, the problem here is not to define who is or who isn't a Jew when it comes to racial, ethnic, national or religious prejudice, but rather a problem for all humanity to keep up the guard against the sort of radical xenophobia which leads to genocide, such as we are currently seeing in Darfur based on the religious intolerance of the invading Arabs Despite religious persecution, pogroms and finally the Holocaust, we clung to our Torah, customs and our desire to one day return to our Promised Land, where we finally could feel safe. In 1948, after the Nazis had succeeded in murdering 6 million of us, the State of Israel was reestablished by a UN Charter as a "homeland for the Jews"! To this day, Jews in the Diaspora still repeat daily: "Next year, in Jerusalem!" During all our years in exile, the Torah served as a constant reminder. And we passed this on to our children from one generation to another -- that some day we would return to our beloved homeland: Israel! The Torah gives us the deed to this land we call Israel -- not just any piece of land, but this particular piece of land. While attending university, I had problems with some of my political science professors who insisted that we Jews based our claims to the land on "Jewish Mythology!" This implies that the Torah is fiction, and thus, by natural deduction, our claim to the land also must be deemed fiction. There is an inherent danger in such an argument, and our enemies are using this argument well on the world stage to delegitimize us and ultimately once again attempt to run us off our land, the land G-d gave to us. The danger of turning the State of Israel into a secular nation rather than a theocracy, according to G-d's will in the Torah and His law, is that this kind of argument necessarily leads to an erroneous but convincing conclusion -- that the Arabs are right, and that we Jews came from Europe as alien invaders to occupy land that rightfully belongs to them. Unfortunately, it is precisely our own secular leaders, by denying the Torah and its validity -- thus denying the very document that gives us the Deed to the Land -- that are making the best case for our enemies! In essence, in doing so, the current Israeli leadership is in fact aiding and abetting the enemy -- anywhere else, considered to be an act of Treason. Under no circumstances can Israel be a secular pluralistic country like the U.S. So, this brings us back to the necessity of defining who is a Jew and who can legitimately claim to be a deed holder of the land. Seculars who deny the Torah are denying the Deed to the land and should not be allowed citizenship. By renouncing the Torah, they have renounced the Title and the Deed! Only those who accept the legitimacy of the Torah should be accorded citizenship and all the privileges that it entails: the right to vote and the right to hold office. Furthermore, it is quite obvious by the behavior of the secular population towards Israel's Jewish population, that they are indeed enemies of the Jews almost to the same extent as the rest of our enemies. As such, they are also enemies of the State of the Jewish people: the Land of Israel (so named by G-d in the Torah, when he gave us the land)! In this world, everybody knows that you cannot have your cake and eat it too. You cannot make an argument against being Jewish and simultaneously lay claim to Jewish lands, all the while, denying the very document that gives you title to that land. As far as democracy is concerned, the laws of the Torah and democracy are not incompatible as is the case with Islam, which means to submit. The world is quite prepared to accept that not every democracy in the world has to be a U.S. style Democracy. Unfortunately, at this point, Israel apparently no longer can be considered to be a democracy. Many Israeli citizens feel that they have had their freedom of speech or written expression suppressed. Some have spent time in jail for merely saying something against a powerful politician. Given other circumstances, however, Israel, can be a democratic theocracy. In fact, although it isn't apparent, the Laws of the U.S. are based upon the Laws of Moses, which are the Laws of the Torah. So, if the U.S. can be a democracy under these laws, so can Israel. The difference, however, lies in the fact that in Israel, in order to maintain the integrity of the State as a Homeland for the Jews, all citizens must by definition be Jews. This is precisely the problem we have with the current secular leadership who are in fact behaving like authoritarian rulers rather than democratic leaders and who have made it very plain that under no circumstances do they want the State to maintain its Jewish character, nor, apparently do they personally want to be considered as Jews! They want the State of Israel, the State the world established for the Jewish people as a homeland, to lose its Jewish identity and become a nation like any other nation-state. Well, there are a number of reasons why this cannot be! It is unrealistic to believe that Israel would continue to be a homeland for the Jews so they could return from wherever they may be fleeing persecution, and from wherever they may be driven out of next, if the State loses its Jewishness! If everyone gets the right to vote, given the existing enemy citizenry that never assimilated into Israeli society, who unfortunately are in office within the Israeli government despite the fact that instead of protecting the State of Israel they are sworn to destroy it -- without the necessity of fighting any wars, within a few generations, Israel would cease to exist altogether, unless in name only! The unassimilated populations would eventually take over the political system demographically and that would be the end of Israel. Coming back to the issue of democracy vs. theocracy, the world has accepted the fact that both Saudi Arabia and Iran are theocracies! Furthermore, the experience in Iraq has led American politicians to realize that if democracies can be established in Muslim countries at all, they will be different than democracies as we know them in the West. Furthermore, the concept of the nation-state is a relatively new political system and currently is being challenged by regional treaties etc. -- seemingly morphing into something other than a nation-state. I don't know what the new entity will be called or how exactly we will define it, but national sovereignty with well-defined borders seem to be melting away to create some sort of new political animal which embraces a number of cultures, languages, religions, currencies and giving way to regional rule. Countries seem to be giving up their sovereignty and adopting rules imposed by external regional entities in the name of trade. As a political scientist and an economist, I don't believe that this is prudent or that anything good will come out of the experiment. I believe that in the final analysis, we will find that regional rule and the surrender of sovereignty to various regional trade agreements will ultimately lead to more asymmetrical wars amongst factions that are not national in nature, but perhaps ethnic, ideological or shared interests, such as what we are experiencing with terror groups, war lords that are either involved in narco-traffic, illegal weapons trade, etc.! Most of the nation-states in the Middle East are relatively new in terms of world history and as such are still attempting to develop politically. The current Israeli government is based upon a perverse parliamentary system which has to rule by consensus, forming coalitions that are always falling apart. Elections are held to vote in a political party and not an individual. The "insiders" get to pick the leaders. This has led to an oligarchy of self-serving lifetime elites who mutually protect each other -- every last one of them having participated in some corruption or another. So, under the circumstances, it is very difficult to say whether at present Israel can be considered to still be a democracy at all. This brings us to a very disturbing question: if Israel is neither a democracy and nor Jewish, and as such, is no longer a homeland for the Jews, and if it has lost all references to anything remotely connected to the Torah, then what is it? What has it become? And, why does it still exist? If it is no longer a homeland for the Jews, and the current administration wants to change the right of return for Jews, why does it exist? What is its raison d'etre? Once the world starts thinking in this direction, we are in grave danger, indeed! Because what follows is: Absolutely, the Arabs are right! These are invaders from Europe, refugees from Hitler, who invaded this land, occupied it and ....! You know the rest! Well, I think we have had enough of these corrupt secular politicians. They would, in fact, do better and appreciate life more if they would move to a European country of their choice, to Australia, or even to the U.S. One thing is certain! They have absolutely no business being in Israel. The moment they deny the Torah and deny being Jewish, they need to leave! They are "The Enemy Within" (Michael Savage)! They have no feeling for the Jewish people, their plight or an appreciation of Jewish history. In fact, they go so far as to accept revisionist history and teach it at our most prestigious universities corrupting the truth with their lies, shamelessly. They have denied their own Jewishness and it is their problem to live with whatever others in the world want to define them as. But, they have denied their Jewishness and that should deny them the right to being citizens of a Jewish State, much less the power to lead it. They cannot change the very nature of what the world intended in creating the State of Israel to begin with. Israel was created by G-d first, on the basis of the Torah -- and on the basis of His Law. It is a theocracy whether these people like it or not -- and they have no right to change it. There are lands in Israel that Jews all over the world bought and paid for with their hard earned money so as to assure that were they ever put in a position where they would have to return, they would have a home to return to. These lands are private property, which were only entrusted to the State for administrative purposes. Giving someone the right to manage your store does not give him the right to sell it or give it away! That's stealing! And for that they should have to pay. No Prime Minister, President or whatever head of state we happen to have can give an inch of land away in any negotiations in return for any consideration. These lands are not theirs for the giving! By virtue of their office they cannot give away what they don't rightfully own. Just try to do this in the U.S. and you'll see how men will come out with their weapons and shoot at the first trespasser! So, if this is G-d's land promised to the Jewish people, then G-d's Law supercedes State Law and Jews are obligated to refuse to carry out any orders that go against G-d's laws! Am Yisrael Chai! Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top HIGH HOLIDAY CALL-IN CAMPAIGN FOR POLLARD KICKS OFF THIS WEEK Posted by Justice For Jonathan Pollard, August 27, 2007. The NCYI ad below calling on everyone to call the White House daily for Jonathan Pollard for the next few weeks during the period leading up to the Jewish High Holy Days, is going into about 20 American national, regional and community Jewish papers, this coming weekend (Aug 31st). Copies of the flyer have also been sent to Jewish Day Schools, Rabbis, community leaders. Jonathan Pollard needs your help! Please recirculate, reprint, repost the flyer. Get your family, friends, colleagues and organizations involved! Let's flood the White House with phone calls during this critical time! Tel: 202-456-1414 Tel: 202-456-1111 The National Council of Young Israel urges everyone to participate in the mitzvah of pidyon shvuyim, the good deed of redeeming a captive. Thank you! Rabbi Pesach Lerner Executive Vice President National Council of Young Israel 111 John Street -- Suite 450 New York, NY 10038 COLOR NCYI FLYER: Urgent High Holiday Call-In Campaign for Pollard:     JPEG -- http://www.jonathanpollard.org/2007/082607.jpg     PDF -- http://www.jonathanpollard.org /2007/082607.pdf BLACK AND WHITE NCYI FLYER: Urgent High Holiday Call-In Campaign for Pollard     PDF -- http://www.jonathanpollard.org/2007/082607a.pdf Please call the White House for Pollard Today! 15 days to Rosh HaShana Please call the White House now! Tell President Bush to free Jonathan Pollard now! Send him home to Israel for Rosh HaShana! Telephone number: 1- 202-456-1414 or 1-202-456-1111 From Israel add your long-distance service provider code to the start of the USA number for example: 0121-202-456-1111 (Israeli codes: 001, 012, 013, 014, 018, etc) Reach Justice for Jonathan Pollard by sending an email to justice4jp@gmail.com To Go To Top UN ANTI-RACISM CONFERENCE TURNS INTO BASHING OF WAR ON TERROR AND AMERICA Posted by Bethany Blankley, August 27, 2007. 22% of the meeting funded by American taxpayers New York and Geneva -- The UN today launched an anti-American and an anti-Jewish extravaganza on the first day of the Preparatory Committee Meeting for a 2009 UN anti-racism conference (PrepCom). The model is the infamous anti-racism conference held in Durban, South Africa, which ended three days before 9/11. Najat Al-Hajjaji, the representative of Libya was declared the Chairperson of the PrepCom. To add to the spectacle of a Libyan Chair of a human rights meeting, Cuba was acclaimed as a Vice-Chair and the PrepCom's Rapporteur. Iran and Pakistan were elected to serve on the organizing committee's inner circle, the Bureau. Anne Bayefsky, Editor of EYEontheUN, called the opening session of the UN meeting "a slap in the face to every state and non-governmental organization that really cares about equality and non-discrimination. American tax dollars funded 22% of this morning's meeting, chaired by Libya, and guided by Cuba, Iran and Pakistan, which also used the opportunity to undermine the ongoing fight to stop terrorism." Today, the Libyan Chairperson's opening remarks focused on the response to 9-11 as giving rise to "increased intolerance" and objected to the war on terrorism being used as "a pretext by some states." Egypt, on behalf of the African Group, lost no time in introducing "the continued occupation of Palestine" onto the agenda of Durban II, while lambasting the Danish cartoons as "incitement to racism" and denouncing "the defamation of religion." (The UN's "defamation of religion" resolutions are notorious for making mention only of Islam.) Iran -- a leading member of the UN planning committee -- lectured the world about terrorism and human rights. The diatribe included: "the pretext of a so-called war against terror, reflects the visible rise of contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia throughout the world especially against Muslims. ...The visible rise of Islamophobia with its most visible upsurge in the western countries, the reinterpretation and unlawful extension of the prohibition of visible signs of religion and culture in schools, the growing debate in some countries including at the level of political leaders that headscarf is antisocial and the selective profiling of people with an allegedly Islamic appearance." Syria, another state sponsor of terrorism according to the State Department, and at the forefront of attempting to redefine anti-semitism and denying the hatred of Jews, makes clear the controlling factions' Durban II agenda: "The events of 9/11 opened the doors to new forms of racism and racial discrimination. See how countries were invaded and destroyed on the pretext of war on terrorism and other pretexts. ...This surge in racism adopted new forms: Islamophobia and against Semitic people. Durban Review Conference is an opportunity for us to face this surge." Cuba, on behalf of the so-called "Non Aligned Movement," took immediate aim at the war on terrorism as a racist exercise: "the passing of anti-terrorist legislation that provide broad spaces to arbitrariness and the exercise of public authority on discriminatory and xenophobic basis, continue to be a matter of our concern." South Africa's representative argued, "It is important to contextualize the world since 9-11 as there have been dynamic changes. ...The Review Conference should identify contemporary scourges of racism, e.g. racial profiling in the fight against terrorism; incitement to religious hatred." Pakistan, on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, proclaimed Muslims to be the central victim of racism today, with Israel as the appropriate focal point for Durban II. "The most disturbing phenomenon is the intellectual and ideological validation of Islamophobia. It is regrettable that the world media has allowed defamation and blasphemy in this form. ... The conference should move the spotlight on the continued plight of the Palestinian People and non-recognition of their inalienable right to self-determination." Bangladesh decried the protection for "freedom of expression to the detriment of other freedoms, like religion," and objected to "Muslims portrayed in violence and terrorism in political discourse and media," and the "upsurge in Islamophobia in recent years." And this was only the opening morning of the first preparatory session. The original vision of the United Nations was "the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small" -- a far cry from the pretense of equality championed by the UN of the 21st century. "Equality will not be achieved by portraying the Jew or American as the global enemy of human rights," Bayefsky said. For more information please go to "Durban Watch" at EYEontheUN.org. EYEontheUN is the only independent UN accountability organization headquartered in New York dedicated to making transparent the UN's record on its fundamental promise -- to identify, condemn, and protect against human rights violations and confront and respond to threats to international peace and security. Bayefsky, Editor of EYEontheUN, is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust. Bethany Blankley is with the Hudson Institute. Contact her at bblankley@hudsonny.org To Go To Top IS INDIA BECOMING A FAILED STATE ON SOCIETAL FRONT? Posted by Ranjit Singh, August 27, 2007. I don't know how much India's booming economy is benefiting the common man, but on the societal front, our governments have surely failed him. A victim to crimes of all kinds -- quarrels and riots on petty issues, rapes, kidnappings for ransom and increasing incidents of terrorism -- a common Indian is now a scared lot. If crimes, conflicts, suppression of human rights and terrorism continue unabated, India would be branded as a failed state on Societal front. Just a few days ago, on August 25th, a twin blast in Hydrabad (at Gowkul Chat Bhandar and Lumbini Park), killed 42 and injured and injured 54. Next day, police claimed to have found 19 unexploded time bombs. Though the police have not made it known how, without arresting any one, they found out 19 bombs, yet, thanks to them, the cops have saved Hydrabad from the Mumbai Bomb Blasts of 1993. Just last month, we heard the last chapter of 1993 Blasts verdict with actor Sanjay Dutt's conviction of six years rigorous imprisonment. But most probably in this Hydrabad episode, we will not hear of any conviction even after 14 years. I am predicting this as I hear the police pointing its fingers, as usual, to somebody in Bangladesh and the Pakistan's ISI. On the higher level, the politicians are busy instigating, resorting either to blame game or hate speeches. No body is pondering as to how a few people from outside, not well-versed with our geography and locations, can perform a bloodbath, without the support of a fifth column lying scattered in towns and villages. TERRORISM -- A WAR ON INDIA. INDIA, A BIG LOSER Terrorism is a proxy war and like any war, their army cannot advance without their hired and well-financed fifth column. And they have advanced very much in India. The associated Press dispatch dated August 25 counted 9 major bombings in India, with 1993 Mumbai Bomb blasts as first. This, however, does not include recurring killings in J&K, attack on our Parliament, ULFA and Naxalite activities. Another report by Shankar Raghuraman(TNN dated August 27,07) tells us that "barring war-torn Iraq", India is the top most loser in human lives in terrorist attacks. Iraq lost 3,280 lives, we, Indians have lost 3,674 lives. I am sure the journalist has not included loss of human lives due to Kashmiri, ULFA, Naxalites and Khalistani terrorism. The following paragraph by the same journalist in TOI is worth pondering. "..when we looked in detail, at the worldwide numbers, we found India not only had the highest number of deaths after Iraq, but also the highest number of terror-related incidents and the injured among all the countries (again barring Iraq) -- more than all the war zones around the globe." I will request my readers to pause and read this paragraph again and ponder. WE TALK, NOT ACT. Is it not unfortunate? It is happening in a country that boasts of the Budhha, Nanak, viveka and the Gandhian non-violence. India is a lesson in governance. Ideology is good but better than that is the legislation that reflects that ideology. Still better than legislation is its implementation but the best is implementation with justice and without profiling. Unfortunately, we have stopped at Ideology. This is our biggest weakness. NON-ACTION STRATEGIES: It is high time for the Indians to think and decide if they would like to continue with status quo or mend the situation. And if correction to ensure a life with freedom is our goal, then we will have to ensure that both the governments and the people do their duty at their respective levels. We have been watching the governments' reactions and responses to the bloodbaths done with impunity. They point their fingers to foreign hands to avoid politically sensitive actions. Simultaneously, they resort to the culture of financial support to the victims and their kins to lessen mass anger. The governments should be compelled to unearth and eliminate the terrorists' fifth column, who could possibly the loose coalitions of petty criminals, rioters and hate mongers. It is time our intelligence shall watch those living beyond means and reach the dens of the killers. The governments need to make the persons entrusted with the job of protecting the people answerable for such incidents, with ministers and bureaucrats no exception. On the peoples' front, especially the NRIs in America, we have starting seeing a heartening posture by the Muslim community leaders to come forward and condemn killings. But as I have been always suggesting, condemnation strategy by community leaders and the suspicion -- strategy by the governments will not work; they have not worked so far. The terrorists don't listen to them and even if they listen, they don't care for them. They are carrying forward their own agenda, with the active support -- paid or voluntary -- of their agents. The NRI leaders shall write back home, to their friends, relatives and religious leaders of mandirs and masjids, not to shelter the fifth column, rather expose them. And we shall not take it as profiling, as the terrorists across the border may be Muslims but their fifth columns in India will definitely be a religious mix, consisting of petty criminals, youth looking for quick bucks and their likes. By not doing so, we will be destroying the secular fabric of our society and help the communal forces to widen the already existing divide between communities. The need of the hour is a joint action by the people and governments to unearth the fifth columns of terrorists, as this seems to be the only route to put a halt to their evil design. Friendly, Ranjit Singh TWO LETTERS OF CONDEMNATION 1. "Prominent Indian-American Muslims Condemn Hyderabad Bomb Blasts" August 25, 2007 Contact person: Dr. Shaik Ubaid. Tel: (516) 567-0783 Prominent Muslim Indian-American leaders, many of them hailing from the historic city of Hyderabad in India, condemned the twin bomb blasts in Hyderabad on Saturday August 25 as cowardly crimes against humanity. The leaders of the Indian diaspora in the US expressed their heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims. They demanded a thorough and transparent investigation from the Indian national and the state governments and apprehension of those who were involved in the bombings. They appealed to the Indians of all faiths to stay united and foil the evil designs of the perpetrators of bombings who wish to polarize the city and country. They announced that as always they will be joining hands with leaders of other religious communities, leftist groups, human rights organizations and other members of broad-based Indian American coalitions to show their solidarity with their Indian counterparts and to protect the pluralist ethos of India. According to the preliminary newsreports, in two near-simultaneous terror attacks, at least 36 people were killed and more than 50 injured in explosions at a crowded park and a popular eating joint. Twenty-six people died and 22 wounded when an explosion ripped through Gokul Chat Shop at Kothi locality at around 7.30 p.m., Andhra Pradesh Home Minister, K Jana Reddy, told reporters here. Six people, most of them from outside the State, were killed and 13 injured in another blast five minutes earlier in an open air auditorium in Lumbini Park near the State Secretariat in the heart of the city when a laser show was on, he said. Manzoor Ghori, Chairman, Indian Muslim Relief and Charities Dr. Shakhir Mukhi, President, American Federation of Muslims of Indian Origin Dr. Javed Akhtar, President, American Muslims Physicians of Indian Origin Dr. Khursheed Mallick, Indian Muslim Education Foundation of North America Saeed Patel, National coordinator, NRIs for a Secular and Harmonious India Habeeb Ahmed, Human Rights Commisioner, Nassau County, Long Island, NY Syed Azmathullah Quadri, Founding Chairman, ImanNet Dr. Syed Sohail Ahmed, Islamic Medical Association of North America Dr. Shaik Ubaid, Indian American Coalition for Pluralism 2. "IMC-USA condemns the multiple bomb blasts in Hyderabad, India" Date: 8/26/2007 1:31:00 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time From:media@imc-usa.org To: betterindia@aol.com NRI Muslims condemns the multiple bomb blasts and appeals to all communities for calm. Indian Muslim Council-USA (IMC-USA) (http://www.imc-usa.com), an advocacy group dedicated towards safeguarding India's pluralist and tolerant ethos, condemns the multiple bomb blasts in Hyderabad, A.P. and appeals to all communities to be calm and work together to dissect the source of such terror and remove this scourge of violence within India "Violence serves no cause, no religion and no community. Such barbaric acts only serve the agenda of anti-socials, fascists and extremists" Rasheed Ahmed, President of IMC-USA stated. He further added that "at times like these, the foremost need is to attend to the victims while urging the government to intensify efforts to identify the real perpetrators. It is a travesty of justice, that time and again such barbaric acts get politicized and in the process innocent people get victimized, while the real perpetrators of such terrorist activities stay at large." Rahmat Baig, Vice-President of IMC-USA stated that "it is tragic that such barbaric acts are occurring with a regularity. Only the time and place changes. We have been focusing on foreign sources and agents for a while without much success. We urge the government to investigate domestic sources as well in the light of revelation about Nanded and Malegaon blasts and incidents involving a number of fake-encounters." IMC-USA urges the State and Central Government to do its best to tend to the victims and their families. IMC-USA also hopes that a transparent and broad based investigation will be conducted to find the criminals and punish them to the fullest extent of the law. Contact: Zeeshan Farees E-Mail: info@imc-usa.org Think-Israel Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from: "Hyderabad Muslims irked by police visits to madrassas in wake of jihad bombings" Jihad Watch August 31, 2007 http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/017988.php In the wake of the jihad attacks that killed 30 people in Hyderabad, Muslims are irked once again -- but not by Muslims perpetrating such attacks. No, what has really upset them are police visits to madrassas. "Hyderabad cops visit madrassas, kick off a row," from IBNLive (thanks to all who sent this in): New Delhi/ Hyderabad: The Hyderabad police have ruffled feathers by visiting madrassas while investigating the August 25 twin bomb blasts in the city. Sources tell CNN-IBN the police are searching for a man called named Mujibur Rahman but authorities refused to comment if he is a suspect in their investigation. [...] "Madrassas is an educational institution; it is open to all. Raiding a madrassas in the dead of night will send wrong signals and create communal frenzy," Moulana Khalid Saifullah Rahmani, general secretary of the Deeni Madarsa Board, told the Deccan Chronicle newspaper. Wrong signal? Where should they look for clues to the bombing, then? In Hindu temples? And what about this "communal frenzy"? Is that a threat? Ranjit Singh is Managing Editor of Better India. Contact him by mail at betterindia@aol.com or visit the webiste: www.betterindiausa.com To Go To Top LIVING IN THE LAND Posted by David Ha'ivri, August 27, 2007. Ha'Aretz means "the Land" -- emphasis on "the." In Hebrew, we call our country Ha'Aretz, which means "the Land." There is a specific emphasis on "the" because, for us, it is the only land. The Jewish People are commanded to observe 613 commandments of the Torah. Since many of them (more than half) can only be carried out in the Land of Israel, a Jew living outside of "the Land" can not possibly observe our faith in its fullness. In other words, living in Israel under our own government is part of our religion. After the death of Moshe, the seven nations of Cana'an who dwelt in the land were conquered by Yehoshua and his army, and the first Jewish State in Israel was born. From that moment onwards, our people lived in an independent Jewish state. Our King Solomon built the holy Temple in Jerusalem, which was the center of our religious and cultural life for nearly a thousand years. The first Temple stood on the Temple Mount in our capital city Jerusalem for nearly 500 years, until it was overrun by the Babylonians, who slaughtered many and exiled most of the survivors. Our people were marched away in chains to foreign lands in the north, and there they "sat on the rivers of Babylon and cried while they remembered Jerusalem." (Psalm 137) But they did not forget and they did not give up hope. Two and a half thousand years ago, the first Zionists rose up and returned to our land, but they faced many challenges. They were predominantly poor, the land was burnt and overrun, and newcomers had settled in parts of the land. The returnees did the best that they could and rebuilt the Temple on the Mount that was named for it in Jerusalem. The Second Temple stood for over 400 years, until it was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 CE. Even after the destruction, though, throughout history, there has always been a Jewish presence in the land, even if at times the land was scarcely populated. Most of those who survived the destruction of the Second Temple were once again exiled, and from that time on the Jewish people wandered the four corners of the earth, never forgetting our homeland and never giving up hope to return and re-establish our independent country on our land. From that time, Jewish people -- wherever they were -- prayed three times a day to HaShem to return us to our land. Over those many long and painful years, the Jewish people remained scattered and persecuted. Expelled and made refugees, running from place to place, they we were unable to regather together as a single, unified nation. However, that all started to change about one hundred years ago. From that moment, the historical miracle of the regathering of the Jewish people in our historic homeland began. After nearly 2,000 years of exile, spread out all over the world, the Jewish people began to return to our land. Jews from Yemen to India, America to Morocco, Europe to Australia -- literally from the four corners of the globe -- gathered together in the Land of Israel. Our independent Jewish State was reborn. Between the beginnings of the Roman exile until today, various armies and peoples have passed though our land. At any given point in history, the country has been controlled by the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, the British and French Crusaders, the Ottoman Turks, the British (again), and only finally back to us. Naturally, with each passing nation and army, the make up of the general populace changed and was molded in accordance with the character of whichever marauding power was in control. Over the course of history, many Jews were killed, forcibly removed (or left of their own accord), whilst others stayed put. The demographics shifted along with the sands of time. One thing, however, remains certain: since our last exile in the year 70 CE until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 there was no independent state on this land. There were no independent kings or governments beyond those who were representatives of foreign rulers (i.e., the Ottoman Turks or the British Mandate). There never was a Palestinian state or king or government or even people, for that matter. The "Palestinian" idea only came into being less than a hundred years ago, as a local response by Arab squatters to Zionism, the return of the Jews -- the rightful owners of the land. Gaza and the "West Bank" of the Jordan River are part of our historic homeland and were liberated by the Jewish army (the IDF) as a result of the assault by neighboring Arab countries upon the Jewish State as it existed at the time, within its "pre-1967 borders." Had Egypt, Syria and Jordan not attacked Israel in June of 1967, the "West Bank" would still be occupied by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Gaza would still be controlled by Egypt and the Golan Heights would be in Syrian hands. But at the time -- giddy with power and convinced of certain victory -- the Arab nations all thought otherwise. They were sure that the power was in their hands to "drive the Jews into the sea" and bring an end to the Zionist dream. Baruch HaShem, they were wrong. They went to war and lost. And you know what happens when you go to war and lose? To put it quite bluntly: you lose. If the Arabs would have won, how many Jews do you think would be living today in Arab-controlled "Palestine"? Today, there are many Arab residents of the Jewish-controlled cities of Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem and many more. Contrast that with the fact that Jews are forbidden outright to live in any lands controlled by the Arab "Palestinian Authority." Those Jews who choose to do so are subject to all kinds of international and domestic pressures, and are often forcibly removed from those areas simply because they are Jews, whilst the government and international community coin terms such as "Disengagement" to whitewash what is a policy of anti-Jewish ethnic cleansing. Do you know that Jews are not even allowed to pass through many Arab-controlled areas? Now let the Arabs complain about apartheid against them. Our deed to the Land of Israel is the Torah itself. The incredible historical phenomenon of the regathering of our people and the rebirth of our language and culture -- all in line with the promises of the Torah and the visions of the prophets -- prove the Divine nature of our faith. David Ha'ivri, chairman of Revava, is also editor of Darka Shel Torah and Ideas in Action newsletters, and the publisher of books teaching Jewish pride and faith in HaShem. He has set a goal to put the Jewish people back on the footpath of our fathers, and build a proud and strong nation whose national policy is based on Jewish values. He can be reached by email at haivri@hameir.org or at his website: http://www.hameir.org/ This article appeared in Arutz-Sheva (www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7367). To Go To Top AN OPEN LETTER TO CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR FROM MAURICE OSTROFF Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 27, 2007. Though I no longer believe that we should, after the fact, go defend ourselves and explain, and explain and discuss and discuss what people like Christiane Amanpour and media outlet such a CNN will never want to accept, understand or correct, here is Maurice Ostroff's (Herzliya, Israel) PR-Hasbarah open letter to Christiane Amanpour after viewing her CNN "God's Warriors" despicably distorted Series. With kind regards, Nurit Dear Christiane Amanpour Your mammoth three-part documentary "God's Warriors" is certainly a magnum opus. And while I admire the sheer professionalism of your presentation, I do hope you will accept the following comments in the constructive manner intended. Please correct me if I err, but the program creates the impression that you do not see Islamic fundamentalist violence as more serious a threat than enthusiastic, or even zealous, devotion to Judaism or Christianity. This impression is confirmed by your responses to comments posted on CNN web site. For example in response to Regina Bowling of Charleston, who said she believes we are watching the gathering up of energy worldwide in the form of religious intolerance for the "perfect storm" of global holy war, you replied that you don't see right now the potential for global holy war. This despite 9/11, the London bombings and attempted bombings and other glaring incidents including the world-wide violence that erupted in the Danish Cartoon episode. The program also creates the impression that you believe there is no difference between God's Jewish, Muslim and Christian Warriors and that the Moral Majority and Evangelists are as dangerous as Islamic Fundamentalists. This was confirmed when you replied to Ms. Bowling that as long as people believe that only their holy book [Koran, Torah or Bible] or only their holy word matters and is relevant, then there will be no solution. (Words in parenthesis are mine). It was disappointing to find in a purportedly objective program that you injected your own views, demonstrating occasional lack of knowledge. For example when an Israeli settler said God says Jews must live in Hebron, you interjected that the West Bank was designated by the UN to be the largest part of an Arab state. Not only is this statement factually incorrect, it is out of context. May I ask whether you are aware that all Arab states rejected UN partition resolution 181 and that the West Bank was included in the area designated for encouragement of Jewish settlement by the Balfour Declaration and even endorsed in article 6 of the British mandate. In retrospect I hope you will agree that the use of the very few isolated incidents of Jewish terror attempts over the past 15 years, created the erroneous impression that a religious Jewish terror movement exists on a par with the violent worldwide jihadist phenomenon of indiscriminate death and destruction. Objectivity would require that you draw attention to the enormous difference between Islamic states which encourage terror and Israel which acts vigorously against attempts to engage in terror and where those very few Jews who did make attempts have been severely punished. The relevance of God's Warriors to the so-called Jewish lobby in the USA is flimsy indeed. It is difficult to accept your objectivity when you allow Jimmy Carter and Professor Mearsheimer to promote their controversial books that have been criticized by experts for blatant inaccuracies, without offering a balanced viewpoint from someone like Alan Dershowitz. Surely you, of all people know that the Jewish Lobby is but one of dozens of diverse influential lobbies, including the ACLU and the very powerful, well-funded Arab lobbies that are part of the Washington scene. Your repeated references to settlements as illegal are open to valid criticism. Obviously the most reliable sources from whom to seek clarification are the persons who played key roles in drafting the relevant resolution 242, namely British Ambassador to the UN, Lord Caradon, American Ambassador, Arthur Goldberg and US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, Eugene Rostow. All have agreed that settlements are legal. In an interview in the Beirut Daily Star on June 12, 1974, Lord Caradon stated: "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967 because these positions were undesirable and artificial." Professor Julius Stone, one of the twentieth century's leading authorities on the Law of Nations concurred that the Jewish right of settlement in the territories is equivalent in every way to the right of the existing Palestinian population to live there. What must deeply concern everyone interested in maintaining Western democracy is the danger that this widely advertised documentary diverts attention from the real threat of Jihad, by equating it with non-violent religious movements. Sorely missing from the entire series is any mention of the basic motivator of Islamic violence, the incitement to hatred emanating from state media as well as openly from mosques, not only in Arab countries but under the noses of European and British governments. As human beings, can we be unperturbed by the indoctrination of infants to become suicidal Warriors as shown in an interview with a three-and-a-half year old girl broadcast on Iqra? (See video clip at http://tinyurl.com/kz5of) It is sad that in your documentary which could serve to create a genuine better understanding of the violence generated by religious zealotry, the authoritative voices of many experts in the field were omitted. Among the many who would have added authoritative insight into the subject are Brigitte Gabriel, who lectures nationally and internationally about terrorism and who has issued an Urgent Warning to the West, Professor Salim Mansur the Muslim writer and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario, Steven Emerson the internationally recognized expert on militant Islamic terrorism and national security and Dr. Khaleel Mohammed, the Islamic law specialist and professor of Religion at San Diego State University. I attach for your information copies of articles by the late Eugene Rostow*. Your considered response would be appreciated. Maurice Ostroff Tel. +972 9 9595 261 http://maurice-ostroff.tripod.com and http://tinyurl.com/vnk9y * Read Professor Rostow's articles on the Jewish settlements here. Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top IS THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM WAKING UP TO REALITY? Posted by Professors for a Strong Israel, August 27, 2007. This statement issued: August 26, 2007 Contact Benjamin Svetitsky at bqs@julian.tau.ac.il or phone 050-551 8940 Following the unsurprising failure of the "disengagement" from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria, and the expulsion of the Jewish residents from their homes, some decision makers in Israel are beginning to voice doubts about these moves. Professors for a Strong Israel reminds the public that the expulsion was always a combination of folly and injustice. Are we now seeing an awakening in the judicial system? Judge David Gadol has ruled that the Disengagement Law is no longer enforceable, and that people cannot be prevented from returning to Homesh by this law. This is a step in the right direction. We congratulate the judge, and we conclude from his ruling that actions by the army and police to prevent the return to Homesh are illegal. To Go To Top FROM ISRAEL: DOSE OF REALITY Posted by Arlene Kushner, August 27, 2007. Avi Dichter, Minister of Public Security, today said on Army Radio that Egypt's failure to stop the flow of weapons into Gaza is tantamount to support for Hamas. "Any rational person -- Israel or Palestinian -- who witnesses the Egyptians' failure to act against arms smuggling can see that it is in their interest to strengthen Hamas." Well, good morning! Good to see a bit of honesty in this regard. For too long Egypt as a "moderate" state has been part of the prevailing myth here. There have been voices speaking out -- most notably Yuval Steinitz, who constantly declares that Egypt is not to be trusted -- but they have not been given the credence they deserve. When Condoleezza Rice shoved the Rafah agreement down our throats after the "disengagement," Steinitz warned that this was trouble because Egypt wouldn't carry its weight in the deal once we stopped monitoring the border: Egypt was supposed to stop smuggling of weapons into Gaza from its side of the Egypt-Gaza border. To that end, 750 Egyptian forces were permitted along the Philadelphi Route in what had been a demilitarized zone according to our peace treaty with Egypt. Now we begin to face the obvious: that it was for naught, an exercise in foolishness at best. If they wanted to stop the smuggling they could (Dichter says their intelligence is as good as ours in this area), and, in fact, they have slowed down efforts, which, Israeli officials say, is a major reason why Hamas has been able to bring in so much in the way of weapons and explosives. ~~~~~~~~~~ I had mentioned recently reports that Netanyahu was talking to Lieberman about running on a joint list in the next election. That may have seemed a good idea to Netanyahu, but as it turns out Lieberman was less than enthusiastic about it. There are ideological differences between the parties, he says, that would make joining forces impossible. ~~~~~~~~~~ Olmert and Abbas are due to meet again tomorrow, in Jerusalem. As Olmert persists in his dangerous and foolish policy built on air, what is there for me to say here? Comments after the meeting. ~~~~~~~~~~ According to the London-based paper, Asharq Al-Awsat, cited today in Haaretz, Israeli Arabs are attempting to mediate between Fatah and Hamas. The Israeli Arabs mentioned are with the Islamic Movement in Israel -- as its name implies, a radical group that regularly foments anti-Israel sentiment; the irony is that its members are Israeli citizens. Hamas is said to be considering initiatives that propose turning back security compounds and civil institutions in Gaza to Fatah, as a necessary precursor to reestablishing relations with Fatah. ~~~~~~~~~~ Defense Minister Barak, appearing for the first time since he took office before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said that there are signs of tensions with Syria fading. But MK Effi Eitam (NU) warned -- with considerable justification -- that we shouldn't be taken in by the calm. For Barak also testified that Hezbollah has more weapons now than it did before the war last summer. So what does it mean that Syria is "quiet" if it is sending weapons to Hezbollah at an accelerated rate? That weapons build-up is by way of preparations for renewed conflict. Our preparations for conflict, according to Barak, include: an active anti-rocket and missile system; an improvement in the IDF's maneuvering ability; an increase in the army's stamina regarding inventory and provisions; an increase in the number of training exercises using live ammunition; and the military's "long arm" -- its ability to operate deep within enemy territory. There is no doubt but that we will be in better shape when war comes again than we were last time. Whether these preparations are sufficient I am not able to say. What I do know is that the readiness to operate deep within enemy territory -- which was lacking last summer -- is critically important. As to Gaza, Barak indicated that he will give the IDF free reign to do preventative strikes. This too is an improvement over what was happening before, but still falls short of the major operation in Gaza that would require the approval of the political echelon. ~~~~~~~~~~ Hizb ut-Tahrir ("party of freedom"), an Islamist organization in Judea and Samaria, is currently recruiting thousands of people who have become disillusioned with both Hamas and Fatah. This group was originally founded in the 50s, but was dormant for some time; it has revived in recent years with a shift in the political situation. Dedicated to fostering loyalty to Islam and to the re-establishment of the Caliphate -- a unified religious state in the Muslim world if not beyond -- it advances an ideology that calls for the overthrow of Arab governments and the elimination of Israel, in order to prepare for that caliphate. Banned in many countries, it has (wouldn't you know it!) a strong and active presence in Britain. Israeli intelligence considers the group a cause for genuine concern. Col. Eitan Azani, deputy director of the Institute of Counter-Terrorism, says. "This is the factory that produces, at the end of the day, the jihadis that operate in global terrorism." ~~~~~~~~~~ Yesterday I wrote about a conference under the auspices of the UN's Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, which is about to be held in Brussels and which echoes Durban. It is not, I indicated, the only cause for concern. Let me here return to Durban and preparations under way for a Durban II conference to be held in 2009. It is a follow up to the horrendous conference held in Durban, South Africa in 2001. A week long series of planning meetings has now begun in Geneva to set the agenda for that 2009 conference, which is being dubbed an "anti-racism" conference. The meetings are chaired by Libya; the committee of 20 nations participating includes Cuba and Iran. Is it necessary to say more? Guess who they're going to decide the "racist" is? The governments of both Israel and the US are sending only low-level observers; activities at the conference will be carefully monitored. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info To Go To Top WHY MUST ISRAEL ALWAYS GIVE? Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, August 27, 2007. Isn't it rather curious the only nation asked to give up anything tangible in any Middle East peace negotiations is Israel? Israel's land mass is about two tenths of one percent the size of its surrounding mostly hostile Islamic Middle East neighbors, yet Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights, and the eastern part of her capital Jerusalem remain on the table. Furthermore, Israel is asked to give so-called Palestinian Arabs a right of return to Israel, yet no Islamic Middle East regime offers a similar right to Jews evicted from their lands. The Quartet of presumably fair minded neutral parties, the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations, expected to facilitate in any civil peace process, has yet to mention the aforementioned obvious disparity of treatment, and is more than willing to negotiate with Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, an abominable unrepentant Holocaust revisionist, indeed publishing a thesis in 1984 asserting Zionists collaborated with Nazis in the horrific genocide so the world would give Jews their homeland out of guilt, questioned whether gas chambers were used, and suggested the number of Jewish victims was but a fraction of what is documented. When the cards are so stacked against the beleaguered Jewish State, when intangible crumbs would be offered to her in any negotiations, recognition and peace, neither of which worth the paper they would be written on, indeed terrorist groups like Hamas and Hizbullah would never accede to such basic commitments, she would be worse than a fool to participate in such disrespectful folly. Let's get real! For starters, Israel must put herself in a strong position when dealing with her rough disingenuous neighbors. For one, Iran's perilously delusional president AhMADinejad declares Israel should be wiped off the map, in effect declaring war against the Jewish State. U.S. President Bush's preemptive invasion of 'Sadist' Hussein's Iraq has set the recent precedent for invading a sovereign nation believed to be a threat to other nations. No doubt, Shiite Iran boasts weapons of mass destruction and is on the verge of becoming a nuclear power, a much more likely threat than Hussein's Iraq to Middle Eastern mostly Sunni nations, and of course a dire threat to Israel based on rhetoric alone. It would be justifiable for Israel to overtly prepare to attack her sworn Persian enemy nation, yet a more prescient strategy would be to direct her war calculations and verbal assaults selectively on the government of Iran as well as its Revolutionary Guard, concurrently fomenting an exploited Western leaning youth culture, through a versatile Mossad, to take to the streets and bring down AhMADinejad and those contemptuous mullahs pulling most of the policy strings within their troubled regime. Israel could supply weaponry to revolutionary forces, much like Iran supplies weaponry to Hamas and Hizbullah. Without a doubt, Israel must not appear weak to her adversaries, thus feisty threatening rhetoric directed at Iranian leaders, active pursuit of a policy to in fact eliminate them from power, coupled with a few menacing Israeli warplanes soaring close to Iranian territory would certainly bolster her image, sending more than a few chills down a few heretofore swaggering Muslim spines. No doubt, the enemy of my enemy can sometimes be a temporary friend of convenience. Israel should engage with Middle Eastern Sunni nations, including Saudi Arabia, and build a common defense against the mad fundamentalist Shiite Persians, leaders of the dysfunctional Middle East's most dangerous regime. Perhaps the House of Saud would consider forcing a significant reduction in the per barrel price of oil, thus wrecking havoc to Iran's economy. AhMAdinejad and his crew must be stopped now before they become a nuclear power! Israel must lead the charge! Once Israel so asserts herself she will no longer be disrespected, she will no longer be expected to give and give with no tangible quid pro quo. Her point of view will be a lead talking point in any so-called peace negotiations. Ceding her land for peace, ceding her heritage for peace, will no longer be assumed, indeed will no longer be part of any negotiated package when nations attempt to stabilize, in fact civilize the Middle East. Terms like intifada will be perceived as describing criminal behavior, thus be unacceptable in any substantive discourse. No longer will apologists clutter rational mindsets with excuses for the despicable mutated act of homicide/suicide martyrdom. A strengthened confident Israel will no longer be viewed as an occupier of poor Palestinian waifs once she asserts her unwillingness to surrender her sovereign territory, justifiably secured in 1967 in the process of defending herself against aggressive Arabs attempting to annihilate her. Israel will point to Gaza, note its chaotic state, will condemn its so-called Hamas government for failing to subdue murderers from launching rockets into Israel on a daily basis with impunity, will decry her mistake of abandoning that enclave, and will emphatically declare 'Never Again'! When Israeli leaders at last reinvent their own self-deprecating states of mind, begin to defend the essential character of the nation they were elected to steward, and demand respect from other nations, the Jewish State will shine as a beacon of strength, hope, and prosperity for this emerging third millennium. Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at larose@snip.net To Go To Top ISRAEL AGAINST THE JEWS; HEBRON: OLMERT IS RUN BY PEACE NOW BUT SOLDIER WON'T EXPEL JEWS Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 27, 2007. CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES They came to an Israeli Army base in the guise of Jews. After singing with some soldiers, they talked about Jesus having been a Jew. Upon realizing that they were missionaries under false pretenses, the soldiers escorted them off the base. In Netanya, Jews have organized and go door-to-door, successfully revealing to naïve Jews that they had been visited by missionaries misleading them about their intentions. Recently, several missionaries attacked the Jewish truth squads physically. Their violence undermines their purported ideology (Arutz-7, 8/2). The sect should have been identified, so not all Christian groups are blamed for what that one does. It would be one matter if it stated its doctrine frankly. But it misrepresents itself and misleads about its doctrine being part of Judaism. Deceit does not engender trust but suspicion about the doctrine itself. P.A. POLICE AGAINST CRIME P.A. Police in Jenin apprehended and destroyed illegal fireworks, drugs, and 15 cars. IMRA remarked that the cars probably were stolen from Israel. In this campaign against crime, the police should have returned the cars (IMRA, 8/5). ISRAEL AGAINST THE JEWS The government is expelling Jews who moved into the old market place of Hebron. It offers them a deal, but they won't make deals with the government, after it tricked them the last time, to get them to leave. Now the government is moving the brutal Yassem police force to remove them violently (Arutz-7, 8/5). The government cheats Jews as much as the Muslims cheat the government. ANTISEMITIC PROPAGANDA IN ISRAELI THEATRE "The family of slain Hebron region IDF commander Dror Weinberg" went to see the state-supported play "'Hevron', which is being performed at the HaBima-Cameri theater in Tel Aviv..." "'The way they portray the settlers is exactly like the (way the) Nazis used to try to portray the Jews. They portray them as completely fanatical and without any sense of humanity, while creating emotional sympathy for Arab murderers.'" The message of the play is that serving there is unethical. Its ad suggests that the tiny Jewish settlement imprisons the Arab majority. That is imaginary (Arutz-7, 8/5). I remember a study finding that private theatres attract audiences, but publicly supported ones hardly do. The government wastes taxes that way, and subsidizes propaganda. Get government out of the arts! U.S. PERSECUTION OF ARABS An Iraqi living in the US was not allowed to board an airplane in the US until he covered his t-shirt, because that t-shirt had Arabic writing on it, although its message was innocuous (Joseph Goldstein, NY Sun, 8/10). A civil rights suit was launched. The media reported, it but some of the parties involved, especially the defendants, do not much state their version of what happened. Therefore, it is not clear who said and did what. I favor strong, purposeful measures against terrorism, Islamism, and Islam. This was not such a measure but counter-productive. It gives color to the Muslim claim of Islamophobia, although this hysterical airport reaction is minor and rare. The measure could not accomplish anything. It violated the passenger's civil rights. High time to develop a comprehensive war strategy. ARAB ATTACKS IN JERUSALEM An Israeli Arab youth attacked a security guard. In the ensuing gunfight, ten people were wounded, and the assailant was killed. "Mustafa Al Barghouthi, the secretary-general of the Palestinian national initiative, condemned the killing. "This incident just confirms the enormity of Israeli crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians." Responsibility was claimed by supposedly moderate Fatah and by the PFLP and Islamic Jihad (IMRA, 8/10 & 11). "Moderate" Fatah? I conclude the opposite. This incident is an example of the enormity of Islamic instigation against the Jewish people. I praise the killing and condemn the aggressor. To the Muslims, justice is whatever helps Islam, by whatever means. What a warped sense of justice and in behalf of a murderous cult! If there were "Zionist propaganda," it would mock the condemnation of self-defense. OOPS, BARAK THINKS ROCKET DEFENSE 18 MONTHS AWAY I thought it was pie in the sky, and it may well be, but Defense Min. Barak thinks a defense against incoming rockets can be put into operation in 18 months. It would cost $30,000 to destroy each rocket. To reduce costs, the system calculates and responds only if the rocket would strike a built-up area (IMRA, 8/9). Farmers in the field, beware! Barak refuses to distribute gas masks against Syrian poison gas, lest Syria think that means Israel plans aggression (IMRA, 8/13). How many defensive measures will he put off, for that reason? Without gas masks, Israelis invite Syrian attack, based on Syria's new strategy of bombarding the home front. EVALUATING UNIFIL Secretary-Gen. Ban is pleased with UNIFIL's "success" in Lebanon. Israel is, too, and wants to extend its mandate to patrol in towns. One sign of its success is that now the Lebanese Army patrols southern Lebanon (IMRA, 8/8). Leaders often won't admit a project failed until everybody knows it did. PM Olmert pretends it succeeded, because his regime sacrificed victory to get it started. It failed because Hizbullah rearmed and set up rocket-launchers in towns that UNIFIL doesn't, the Lebanese Army won't, patrol. Everybody looks the other way, and mistake this period of Hizbullah military build-up for peace. HAMAS SETS UP A NAVY Hamas has started a navy, though it lacks gunboats for now. It does have some ships. No doubt it is thinking up ways of attacking Israeli ships, perhaps from shore, or ways of attacking Israel by sea (IMRA, 8/9). Why doesn't Israel destroy the shore bases before they become difficult to beat? SYRIA'S PLANNED WAR Syria has been emplacing hundreds of heavy rockets, more advanced than Hizbullah's, along the Golan. They would be used to thwart any IDF advance, and could reach Tel Aviv. Syria wants to force Israel to accept its terms. For this kind of warfare, Syria has retrained all its units. It can initiate this war without going into an offensive formation, which procedure would give advance notice. Thus, it could start a war by surprise. Iran is trying to persuade Syria that Israel intends to start a war soon, and is itself persuaded that the US intends to attack Iran soon (IMRA, 8/9). The USSR falsely persuaded Syria, before. MORE ON HEBRON Responding to Peace Now petition, the Olmert regime has ordered a couple more storefront houses of Jews from their homes. A border patrol officer ordered his busload of soldiers (not under his command) to disperse the protestors. (No freedom of assembly in Israel.) The soldiers refused and threw him off the bus. Maariv reports that not 30 troops refused to assist the expulsion but hundreds refused. A movement of support is being organized. It quotes Ariel Sharon's 1994 letter urging refusal of orders to expel Jews from Hebron (Arutz-7, 8/9). I hope this is the beginning of a popular movement to stop anti-Jewish measures in Israel and to overthrow the regime before it gets Israel destroyed. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top PLEASE CALL THE WHITE HOUSE FOR POLLARD TODAY -- 15 DAYS TO ROSH HASHANA Posted by Justice For Jonathan Pollard, August 27, 2007. Please call the White House for Pollard Today! 15 days to Rosh HaShana It's Monday August 27,2007 BH 13th of Ellul. There are 15 days to Rosh HaShana. Please call the White House now! Tell President Bush to free Jonathan Pollard now! Send him home to Israel for Rosh HaShana! Telephone number: 1- 202-456-1414 or 1-202-456-1111 From Israel add your long-distance service provider code to the start of the USA number for example: 0121-202-456-1111 (Israeli codes: 001, 012, 013, 014, 018, etc) Your calls put Pollard on the map! The Pollard Call-In Campaign spear-headed by the National Council of Young Israel last Spring put Pollard on the map in the White House. His name now appears on the list of subjects that all the White House phone operators are given to record the number of calls. Now, with G-d's help and massive participation in the mitzvah of pidyon shvuyim, let's get Pollard out of there, and home for the High Holidays! Amain! Please call now! The National Council of Young Israel ad and flyers for recirculation and reprinting to encourage participation in this urgent intiative are available from the J4JP web site. Please click on the link below for the format of your choice: COLOR NCYI FLYER: Urgent High Holiday Call-In Campaign for Pollard:     JPEG -- http://www.jonathanpollard.org/2007/082607.jpg     PDF -- http://www.jonathanpollard.org /2007/082607.pdf BLACK AND WHITE NCYI FLYER: Urgent High Holiday Call-In Campaign for Pollard     PDF -- http://www.jonathanpollard.org/2007/082607a.pdf Reach Justice for Jonathan Pollard by sending an email to justice4jp@gmail.com. And visit the website: http://www.JonathanPollard.org RSS: http://www.JonathanPollard.org/rss.htm To Go To Top 'BLASPHEMOUS' BALLS ANGER AFGHANS Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 27, 2007. This was posted by Robert Spencer on Jihad Watch (http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/017904.php). The "blasphemous ball," May 2006 version. The balls were intended as a gift to Afghan cildren I predicted that this ball would cause trouble in May 2006, although the one pictured in the May 2006 story differs slightly from the one pictured in this BBC story: the Israeli flag pictured near the Saudi flag on the May 2006 ball seems to have been removed. But that, as this story shows, has not calmed hair-trigger tempers. This is by Alastair Leithead for the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6964564.stm). A demonstration has been held in south- east Afghanistan accusing US troops of insulting Islam after they distributed footballs bearing the name of Allah. The balls showed the Saudi Arabian flag which features the Koranic declaration of faith. The US military said the idea had been to give something for Afghan children to enjoy and they did not realise it would cause offence. The footballs were dropped from a helicopter in Khost province. Some displayed flags from countries all over the world, including Saudi Arabia, which features the shahada, one of the five pillars of Islam -- the declaration of faith. The words, which include the name of Allah, are revered, and Muslims are very sensitive about where and how they can be used. As Charles at LGF says (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=26818_ The_Dreaded_Balls_of_Blasphemy&only): "Sensitive," in this case, being defined as "prone to murderous rage." To show how sensitive they are to this extreme sensitivity, the BBC sensitively blurs the offensive segment of the ball in their photograph. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top GENEVA ACCORDS AND THE SET OF PRINCIPLES Posted by Ted Belman, August 27, 2007. The Geneva Accords are being elevated to government policy Eight months after the US invasion of Iraq and the announcement of the Roadmap, Yossi Beilin, the Oslo architect, and Abed Rabbo, launched their peace proposal after two and one-half years of work. It was to be known as the Geneva Accords. It was sub-titled Draft Permanent Status Agreement. Haaretz reported The plan, dubbed the Geneva Accord in tribute to the funding and support supplied by the Swiss Foreign Ministry, offers itself as a decisive solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, based on the plan drawn up by former U.S. president Bill Clinton after the breakdown in the July 2000 talks between former prime minister Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat. Fifty-eight former presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers and other global leaders, among them former presidents Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union and F.W. de Klerk of South Africa, issued a statement expressing "strong support" for the plan. Other world leaders who voiced their backing included King Hassan III of Morocco, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Clinton. Bush reacted by saying it "is productive, so long as they adhere to the principles [to] fight off terror, that there must be security, and there must be the emergence of a Palestinian state that is democratic and free." In other words, he stuck with the Roadmap. Others like Jimmy Carter, Colin Powel, Kofi Annan and the EU jumped right in. Ministers, right-wing MKs lambaste colleagues for attending Geneva ceremony MK Yuli Edelstein (Yisrael b'Aliyah) even submitted a complaint to the Knesset's Ethics Committee against those MKs who attended the ceremony. According to Edelstein, legislators Haim Oron, Roman Bronfman, Avraham Burg, Yuli Tamir and Amram Mitzna all contravened Knesset regulations by attending the ceremony. National Union lawmaker Uri Ariel said that the Geneva Accord is worse than the Oslo Accords for Israel. According to Ariel, the actions of the left-wing MKs could be seriously damaging for Israel and its citizens. He called on Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein to set up a commission of inquiry to look into their actions. The head of the settler lobby group in the Knesset, MK Yehiel Hazan (Likud), said that those behind the Geneva Accord "should be stopped by all legal means, before their wicked plan to sell off the Land of Israel." Hazan added that the agreement is "the piracy of people who are not living in reality." These Accords were fully analyzed by the JCSS. Its assessment is worth reading now. Essentially the Accords built on the Taba talks and attempted to bridge the gaps. One was Barak's refusal to cede sovereignty of the Temple Mount. In the Geneva document Israel renounces the symbol of sovereignty over the Temple Mount. In addition, the Geneva document does not mention the right of return. This was so because after two and a half years the negotiators couldn't agree on a compromise. Opposition in Israel was so strong that the Accords disappeared from sight. The Accords are now being resurrected in the form of an agreed set of principles. No surprise there. Shimon Peres, who was behind both the Oslo Accords and the Geneva Accords is now President of Israel. If you want to know what such principles will contain just read the Geneva Accords. In effect the Geneva Accords are now being elevated to government policy. Already we are told that Israel intends to cede sovereignty over the Temple Mount. You will recall that after Arafat walked out on Camp David and Barak's overly generous offer, talks continued at Taba. The Intifadah which Arafat launched ended the process temporarily. But it was felt by the left and by the diplomats in general that the gaps preventing agreement could be bridged. So Beilin, under the auspices of the EU and Shimon Peres continued discussions leading up to the Geneva Accords. Back then, Charles Krauthammer called them the Geneva Sellout. [..] The Israeli side, however, is led by Yossi Beilin, a man whose political standing in his own country is so low that he failed to make it into Parliament. After helping bring his Labor Party to ruin, Beilin abandoned it for the far-left Meretz Party, which then did so badly in the last election that Beilin is now a private citizen. There is a reason why he is one of Israel's most reviled and discredited politicians. He was the principal ideologue and architect behind the "peace" foisted on Israel in 1993. Those Oslo agreements have brought a decade of the worst terror in all Israeli history. Now he is at it again. And Secretary of State Colin Powell has written a letter to Beilin and Rabbo expressing appreciation for their effort, and is now planning to meet with them. This is scandalous. Israel is a democracy, and this agreement was negotiated in defiance of the democratically (and overwhelmingly) elected government of Israel. If a private U.S. citizen negotiated a treaty on his own, he could go to jail under the Logan Act. If an Israeli does it, he gets a pat on the back from the secretary of state. Moreover, this "peace" is entirely hallucinatory. It is written as if Oslo never happened. The Palestinian side repeats solemn pledges to recognize Israel, renounce terror, end anti-Israel incitement, etc. -- all promised in Oslo. These promises are today such a dead letter that the Palestinian side is openly bargaining these chits again, as if the Israelis have forgotten that in return for these pledges 10 years ago, Israel recognized the PLO, brought it out of Tunisian exile, established a Palestinian Authority, permitted it an army with 50,000 guns and invited the world to donate billions to this new Authority. Arafat pocketed every Israeli concession, turned his territory into an armed camp and then launched a vicious terror war that has lasted more than three years and killed more than 1,000 Israelis. It is Lucy and the football all over again, and the same chorus of delusionals who so applauded Oslo -- Jimmy Carter, Sandy Berger, Tom Friedman -- is applauding again. This time, however, the Israeli surrender is so breathtaking it makes Oslo look rational. A Palestinian state, of course. Evacuating every Jewish settlement in new Palestine, of course. Redividing Jerusalem, of course. But that is not enough. Beilin gives up the ultimate symbol of the Jewish connection and claim to the land, the center of the Jewish state for 1,000 years before the Roman destruction, the subject of Jewish longing in poetry and prayer for the 2,000 years since -- the Temple Mount. And Beilin doesn't just give it up to, say, some neutral international authority. He gives it to sovereign Palestine. Jews will visit at Arab sufferance. Not satisfied with having given up Israel's soul, Beilin gives up the body too. He not only returns Israel to its 1967 borders, arbitrary and indefensible, but he does so without any serious security safeguards. Palestine promises to acquire and buy no more weapons than specified in some treaty annex. This is a joke. Oslo had similarly detailed limitations on Palestinian weaponry, and nobody even pretended to enforce them. Last year, a massive illegal boatload came in from Iran on the Karine A. What did the world do about it? Nothing. Today, however, Israel still has control over Palestine's borders. Under Beilin, this ends. Palestine will be free to acquire as much lethal weaponry as it wants. And on the critical question that even the most dovish Israelis insist on -- that the Palestinians not have the right to flood Israel with Arab refugees -- the agreement is utterly ambiguous. Third parties (including among others the irredeemably hostile Syria and its puppet Lebanon) are to suggest exactly how many Palestinians are to return to Israel, and the basis for the number Israel will be required to accept will be the mathematical average! This is not a peace treaty, this is a suicide note -- by a private citizen on behalf of a country that has utterly rejected him politically. That it should get any encouragement from the United States or from its secretary of state is a disgrace. Krauthammer was right then. He is even more right now. In '05, Ariel Sharon warned us of painful concessions to come. In my article, "Painful Concessions", I warned, [..] There is a progression of events here that cannot be ignored and such events are all related. First Arafat rejected Barak's offer at Camp David. At Taba additional concessions were offered but went nowhere. Behind the scene negotiations continued among the interested parties. As a result of which the Saudi Plan was "released" through the NYT in the winter of '02 and endorsed by the Arab League shortly thereafter. In July of '02, Bush recognized the creation of Palestine for the first time. During the entire year, Israeli negotiators traveled to the US many times to negotiate details of the final plan and how to implement it. This all culminated in the release of the Roadmap in the spring of 2003, just after the invasion of Iraq, which was not unrelated. One might argue that Israel would not agree to the Plan unless and until Iraq was neutered. So perhaps it is not fanciful to suggest, as Condi and others do, that Iraq was invaded to protect Israel. Finally, the Geneva Accords were signed in early '03. They served to be a little more specific then the Saudi Plan. The "peace process" is like an enormous ship traveling with great momentum to a predetermined destination. Nothing Israel can do will stop it or alter its course. While Israel continues to debate the details, the ship continues, inexorably. So long as Israel travels the Roadmap it will not be able to avoid its destination. Nor can Israel get off the Roadmap. That is not to say that Israelis would not accept an end of conflict agreement along the lines of the Geneva Accords and the Saudi Plan when the time comes so long as it includes "normalization" and no return of refugees. Then, all they will have to worry about is whether the Arabs can be trusted. For me that's a no-brainer. Ted Belman is a Canadian lawyer and editor of the IsraPundit.com website, an activist pro-Israel website. Contact him at tedbel@rogers.com To Go To Top ENGAGE! MODERATE! SPLIT! Posted by Barry Rubin, August 27, 2007. Engage, moderate, and split -- that's the mantra for Middle East policy of the wrong-headed in many foreign ministries, newspaper editorial offices, universities, and other places where the rapidly growing international bad-ideas industry is centered. Yet nothing could seem more self-evident than these propositions. What could possibly be wrong with engaging radical forces, persuading them to change their ways, and breaking up their alliances? I'm glad you asked. Here is how these apparently obviously correct ideas are dangerous and even disastrous. 1. Engagement. Doesn't one need to talk to enemies? How else can you get them to change? Well, it depends on whom, how, and when. Here are some of the problems of just having a cozy little chat with Iran, Syria, or Hamas for example. First, what about history? If the past record shows that such efforts have failed it indicates that more such attempts are misguided and that other methods are needed. For example, the U.S. government sent numerous high-level delegations to Syria between 2001 and 2005 only to find that it was repeatedly lied to. This campaign only stopped when Syria's government murdered former Lebanese Prime Minister (and most popular politician) Rafik Hariri. As for Iran, Britain, France, and Germany spent three years engaged in diplomatic dialogue about Iran's nuclear program during which Tehran lied, broke promises, and did not fulfill commitments, all along working full speed ahead to get atomic bombs. The International Atomic Energy Agency has just announced a new timetable. Wow, that should scare Tehran! And of course this, too, will be flouted to be replaced no doubt by still another deal until the day Iran gets nukes. Second, there is the momentum of engagement. In order to enter into and sustain engagement, the Western party feels obligated -- and its radical interlocutor will keep pressing -- to provide proof of its good intentions in the form of concessions. Naturally, the radical side will give nothing since it will play the role of aggrieved party doing the democracies a favor by deigning to talk to them. As the process goes on, the Western side gives more and more while getting nothing in return. And at the end, there is no real agreement or change. The radical side doesn't have to shout out, "Sucker!" but it might as well do so. Equally, to keep talks going the Western partner feels constrained from taking tough action which might lead the radical party to walk out. If, for example, Hamas continues to commit terrorism, this would not be allowed to stop the flow of money or bring tougher sanctions since that would make them angry. Of course, if any action is taken, you can guess who will be blamed for the breakdown. This has been the story of many such engagements, for example the 1990s' Israeli-Palestinian Oslo peace process. Finally, there is how the radical side takes the engagement process as a victory, a sign that the extremists are winning and that the West is frightened and ineffective. This is precisely what the radical side's leaders say in Arabic or Persian to their colleagues and people. Meanwhile, the democratic side's credibility plummets and deterrence crashes, sparking more extremism and aggression. 2. Why is moderating the radical forces also doomed to failure? The basic answer is that they do not want to become moderate and why should they? This misconceived model is based on the view that Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hizballah, and radical Islamists generally are reluctant militants, forced to be so by misunderstanding (the West or Israel isn't really so horrible and means them no harm) or a lack of alternatives. In fact, the radicals take their stance based on a blend of true belief -- a deeply felt ideology based on a powerful world view -- and ambition. This is their route to power, money, and glory; to act in a contrary manner is to be a loathsome traitor. They are not, to say the least, easily persuaded, especially by people they hate and seek to destroy. Moreover, they think they are winning, an idea enforced by many experiences and often by the eagerness of the West to engage them in the first place. Only if they believe they are losing -- after the imposition of tough sanctions and other measures -- might they consider revising their strategies and tactics. And even the massive armed force used in Iraq shows that this is not so likely. Finally, even if someone wants to become moderate there is the little consideration of being murdered by one's colleagues. Sunni moderates in Iraq cannot make a deal because it is difficult to engage in politics when you are dead. 3. Splitting. Let's examine the Syria-Iran relationship. From Iran, Syria gets: --Lots of money. --A partner who shares its radicalism and wish to overturn the existing Arab regimes, drive out Western influence, and destroy Israel. --Islamic cover for a regime ruled by non-Muslims. --An ally with parallel interests in terms of anti-Americanism, fighting Israel, supporting Hizballah in Lebanon, and Hamas among the Palestinians. --Iran pays the bill for these groups so Syria gets a free ride. --Tehran provides strategic depth, protecting Syria against any Western or Israeli attack. To believe that Syria would desert this arrangement for a dependence on the mistrusted West and abandonment of its most valuable asset -- using an alleged imperialist-Zionist threat as excuse for the regime's failures and rationale for its survival -- is foolish. And parallel arguments could be provided, given space, for Iran's need to ally with Syria which, for instance, gives it a boost over the Persian/Arab (Syria is Arab) and Shia/Sunni (Syria is majority Sunni) barriers blocking Iran's ambitions to become the region's leading power. Engagement, moderation, and splitting sure sounds like a good strategy. But it is a very very bad one. Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and co-author of "Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography" and "Hating America: A History" (Oxford University Press, August 2007). His latest book is The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). Prof. Rubin's columns can now be read online at http://gloria.idc.ac.il/columns/column.html. Contact him at profbarryrubin@yahoo.com To Go To Top EXCHANGE OF LETTERS BETWEEN HEBRON JEWISH COMMUNITY AND CNN Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 26, 2007. This exchange took place before CNN's airing of Warriors of God. David Wilder is the spokesman of the Hebron Jewish Community. Jonathan Klein is President of CNN/USA. David Wilder writes: Following the screening of the CNN production "Warriors of G-d", including a 2 hour segment dealing with Judaism and Israel, I think it appropriate to post the following two letters, between myself and Mr. Jonathan Klein, President of CNN/USA. The two letter are, I think, self-explanatory. I must note that, following my 'revelation,' I notified a number of people who had, like myself, agreed to participate one way or another, with CNN. Some of them immediately ceased all contact with CNN and refused to take part in the program. Others decided to continue. Each person can draw their own conclusions. David Wilder Hebron From: Hebron [mailto:hebron@hebron.org.il] Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 5:44 PM To: 'public.information@cnn.com' Subject: Cnn production of Religion and politics -- produced by Andy Segal Importance: High Dear Mr. Klein, A couple of months ago I was approached by one of your Israeli correspondents about participating in a program produced by CNN, dealing with politics and religion in Judaism. He introduced me to Mr. Andy Segal, who is producing the program, and we had several lengthy conversations, first by phone, and later in person, here in Hebron, in Israel. Our conversations were quite open and frank -- I saw no reason to hide my suspicions about cooperating with CNN -- the network's reputation concerning Israel is less than positive. We discussed this at great length, and at one point Andy requested to center the program around Hebron and the Hebron Jewish community. Following much thought and conversations with colleagues of mine, I decided to refuse Andy's request, but did agree to participate in a more minor role in the program, basing our response to each request on its own merits. A couple of weeks ago Andy again made contact and we spoke of several possibilities. He was interested in speaking to a family which had experienced terror first-hand, and had chosen to remain in Hebron, despite their loss and the dangers involved. I decided to try to assist and introduced him to Mrs. Tzippy Shlissel, whose father, Rabbi Shlomo Ra'anan, was killed by terrorists in Hebron some eight and a half years ago. He met with her three times: first an introductory meeting, followed by an in-depth interview, and followed, earlier today, by a filmed interview and filming of the family, home, etc. So far so good. However. When we first discussed this project I asked Andy who was responsible for writing the script. He told me that he would be working on it, but there would be others involved. To the best of my recollection, my impression was that he was 'in charge' and for the most part, would determine the outlook of the script and would be 'on top' of the entire project. This afternoon, that illusion shattered when he mentioned to me that in a few months, the chief international CNN correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, would be coming to Israel and would probably also want to speak with Mrs. Shlissel. Almost in shock, I asked him what her role is in this project. He told me that she is the narrator. I asked if she would have anything to do with writing the script and was told that "I will write the first draft." "Will she have anything to do with writing the final draft?" "Yes." I then told Andy that had I known she was involved with this project I would not have had anything at all to do with it. I am personally familiar with Christiane Amanpour. A number of years ago (about 10 years ago) she interviewed me. I had the dubious pleasure to have her yell and scream at me on camera. She obviously wanted me to scream back, so as to show her viewers 'an extremist from Hebron' exploding on camera. I refused to play into her hands and answered all her questions with a relaxed, calm smile on my face. However, I never forgot the interview. I haven't been yelled at, on camera, by too many journalists. How can CNN produce an 'objective program' about Israel and religious settlers, when one of the prime elements of the program is known to be vehemently 'anti-Israel' and certainly 'anti-settlers,' so to speak? Her reputation is so blatantly prejudiced. For example: http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/ blog/2006/03/from-terrorism-to-trash-collection_28.html QUOTE: So when people ask: "Why did the Palestinian people elect a terrorist group?" The answer is because they see them as a lifeline. Each time I go to the Palestinian territory of Gaza, I am shocked by the reality on the ground. On a recent visit, I passed through a short tunnel from the First World in Israel and emerged into the Third World that is Gaza. The poverty there is among the worst in the world. Hamas officials told me they did not expect to win the election as overwhelmingly as they did. They say their main priority now is to meet the demands of the people for a better life. But that may be impossible, because Israel and the United States refuse to deal with Hamas and have already cut funding to the new Palestinian government. Posted By Christiane Amanpour, CNN Correspondent: 11:03 AM ET END QUOTE A woman who justifies and backs Hamas is going to deal 'fairly' with Jews in Hebron, or anywhere else in Judea and Samaria? She is going to present us as 'religious nuts and fanatics' who are endangering world peace. She is certainly not going to present anything that could be considered positive concerning us, our lifestyles or our beliefs. She is certainly not going to present a balanced, objective program dealing with religious Jews and Eretz Yisrael. I basically told Andy that I was out -- and wouldn't have anything more to do with the project. I put a rather large degree of trust in Andy -- I believed that he had the possibility to present an object, balanced program. However, I cannot have any trust whatsoever in Christiane Amanpour, whose reputation stands before her. Andy Segal told me that you are responsible for this project, that you initiated it. Without being presumptuous, I think it fair to demand that Christiane Amanpour be removed from this project. I cannot imagine that such a biased person could have anything to do with a project dealing with religion and politics in Israel. The results are a foregone conclusion, even before the cameras start rolling. The question is whether the program you are producing is to be an interesting objective account of religion and politics in Israel, or another CNN-produced Israel (settler)-bashing? I await your reply and hope, very much, to learn that Ms. Amanpour will no longer have anything to do with this project. Sincerely, David Wilder Spokesman The Jewish Community of Hebron From: Klein, Jon [mailto: Jon.Klein@turner.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2007 6:41 PM To: hebron@hebron.org.il Subject: Response to your email dated January 30, 2007 February 13, 2007 Mr. David Wilder Spokesman The Jewish Community of Hebron February 12, 2007 Dear Mr. Wilder, Let me begin by thanking you for your comments. I am sorry that the Jewish Community of Hebron has chosen not to be represented in our documentary. Our mission is to produce a program that goes far beyond what is normally seen in daily news broadcasts so that our viewers can better understand the people who risk their lives -- and their children's -- to live on land they believe is their birthright: Jerusalem and the West Bank. Our goal is not to find fault or fix blame -- but to simply understand. To that end, I believe that you are missing a prime opportunity to be heard, not only in the United States, but in 180 countries around the world, and I would ask you to reconsider. Regardless of your decision, I stand by CNN's reputation as a fair and impartial source of information. On conflicts as heated and long-standing as that between Israel and the Palestinians it is not surprising that "both sides" are at times unhappy with our reporting. We often hear that we are biased towards the other side, and that may be the surest indication of our impartiality. Christiane Amanpour is one of our most talented and prominent international correspondents, and she is supported by a team of our strongest producers. In fact Andy Segal, our senior producer, is one of the best. As you probably have discovered, Andy comes to the table prepared. He is fair, honorable and ethical -- a journalist who takes his work very seriously. He has produced a number of award-winning documentaries. Andy and his team are researching, producing and writing this documentary, and you can be assured that his reporting will shape the final program. As a spokesman for a prominent organization, I am sure you appreciate the need for others input before you represent the positions and views of Hebron's Jewish community. The same is true at CNN -- not only will Ms. Amanpour have input, but so will editors and executives, to insure journalist standards and practices are met. In the end a program like this will be fully vetted and sourced. I can honestly say that if you decide not to contribute to this program -- perhaps the fullest exploration of this issue ever seen on western television -- you may regret missing the opportunity to let millions of viewers understand your story. I hope you will reconsider your decision, but if not, you can be assured the program will meet the highest standards of journalism. Sincerely, Jon Klein Jon Klein President, CNN U.S. One Time Warner Center New York, NY 10019 Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top AL-QA'IDA'S FINANCIER IS NOW SAUDI AMBASSADOR TO WASHINGTON! Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), August 26, 2007. This is a August 10, 2005 New York Sun Editorial (http://www.nysun.com/article/18349). The links between Saudi Arabia and the September 11 terrorist attacks are not something we'd expect the desert kingdom to be trumpeting, but it has done just that by appointing one of its princes, Turki al-Faisal, as its new ambassador to Washington. It's an odd choice, to say the least. Save for diplomatic immunity, one could just as easily make an argument that Riyadh's newest envoy should, on arrival at Dulles Airport, be brought in for questioning by the authorities. Here's a brief resume: Prince Turki served as head of Saudi intelligence from 1977 until 10 days before September 11, 2001. As such, he was Riyadh's main contact with the Taliban in Afghanistan -- and thereby also with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. He admits to having met Mr. bin Laden a few times, according to "Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001," a Pulitzer-winning book by the Washington Post's Steve Coll. Mr. Coll writes that while the Saudis deny Mr. bin Laden was ever a Saudi agent, "it seems clear that bin Laden did have a substantial relationship with Saudi intelligence." The Saudi intelligence services, under the prince, also oversaw the funding of "radical Islamists in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere," Mr. Coll reports. One such Islamist was Abdullah Azzam, who "preached stridently against the United States" and helped found the terrorist group Hamas. The prince was named in a civil lawsuit filed in 2002 by September 11 families seeking $1 trillion from alleged financiers of Al Qaeda. The lawsuit notes that the testimony of a senior Taliban official who defected, Mullah Kakshar, "implicates Prince Turki as the facilitator" of money transfers from wealthy Saudis, "in support of the Taliban, al Qaeda, and international terrorism." The lawsuit also alleges that the prince was party to a 1998 agreement between the Saudis and the Taliban. In the alleged deal, the Saudis promised not to seek Mr. bin Laden's extradition or the closing of his terrorist training camps and would provide the Taliban with oil and financial assistance, in exchange for Mr. bin Laden promising not to try to overthrow the Saudi monarchy. The prince, in his role as head of intelligence, the lawsuit suggests, "was in a position to know the threat posed by bin Laden, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the extremist and violent perversion of jihad and hatred that the Saudi religious schools were fomenting in young people." The prince denied the allegations against him. But that denial has never been adjudicated by a jury. Prince Turki successfully persuaded Judge Richard Casey to dismiss the claims against him because they stem from his alleged actions when he was acting for the Saudi government, so he cannot be held accountable for them in an American court. One of the lawyers for the September 11 families, Michael Elsner, told The New York Sun that a letter has been filed with the court asking permission to appeal the dismissal. It may well be that Prince Turki was simply acting on behalf of the Saudi monarchy, but that only raises the bigger question of America's relations with the kingdom. The knowledge that 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were Saudis and that Saudi money and religious instruction helped finance and inspire the terrorists has already put the relationship between the kingdom and America in a precarious spot. Recent reports indicate that links between Saudi Arabia and terrorism continue to this day. The Sunday Telegraph reported this week that Saudi officials admitted that two senior Al Qaeda operatives in the kingdom -- both of whom are now reportedly dead -- "made money transfers and used coded text messages to communicate with suspected terrorists in Britain before last month's terrorist attacks in London." The Telegraph reported that one of the terrorists, Abdel Karim al-Mejati, was alleged to have been behind last year's terrorist attacks at Madrid. The Telegraph also reported last week that two men arrested for the July 21 attempted bombings at London were also linked to Riyadh. Hussain Osman called the kingdom on his cell phone just before he was arrested. Muktar Said Ibrahim, according to friends cited by the Telegraph, traveled to the kingdom for a few months in 2003 for a "training course." On American soil the Saudis are propagating a "totalitarian ideology of hatred that can incite to violence," according to an 89-page Freedom House report released in January. It was based on the study of more than 200 documents distributed in American mosques by the Saudi government. Muslims are reminded that it is a religious obligation to hate Christians and Jews. They are told that they must behave as on a mission behind enemy lines while living in the lands of unbelievers. They must make money and acquire knowledge to use either for jihad against the infidels or to proselytize them. Textbooks, Freedom House reported, also "propagate a Nazi-like hatred for Jews" and "avow that the Muslim's duty is to eliminate the state of Israel." There are no signs that the princes in Riyadh are ending their support for radical Islamists and terrorism -- let alone granting women equality, introducing democracy, and all the other reforms President Bush is demanding from other repressive countries. Prince Turki's own resume reads like a checklist of the many faults Americans find in the Saudi monarchy. That the prince is the most suitable candidate the Saudis can offer for ambassador is but another reminder of why the kingdom is a prime candidate for regime change. Sergio Tessa can be reached at Hadar-Israel@verizon.net. To Go To Top FROM ISRAEL: INVERTED REALITY Posted by Arlene Kushner, August 26, 2007. So many articles regarding our current situation come to my attention that, as interesting and informative as many are, it would be impossible for me to recommend them all without causing my readers severe overload. Yet some are of such critical importance -- provide a perspective that is so enlightening or historically relevant -- that they beg for attention. Such a piece is one just written by Dr. Joel Fishman, who is a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Fishman addresses "The Big Lie and the Media War Against Israel: From Inversion of the Truth to the Inversion of Reality." In his introduction, he explains: From the 1960s, inversion of truth and reality has been one the most favored propaganda methods of Israel's adversaries. One of its most frequent expressions has been the accusation that the Jewish people, victims of the Nazis, have now become the new Nazis, aggressors and oppressors of the Palestinian Arabs. Contemporary observers have identified this method and described it as an "inversion of reality," an "intellectual confidence trick," "reversing moral responsibility," or "twisted logic." Because Israel's enemies have, for nearly half a century, repeated such libels without being challenged, they have gradually gained credence. Since inversion of reality constitutes the basic principle of current anti-Israeli propaganda, it is important to understand what it is and how it works. This propaganda method is a product of Nazi Germany. It is totalitarian both in its methods, particularly the use of the paranoiac myth, and in the absolute solution it advocates. It totally denies all of Israel's claims and leaves no room for introspection and compromise. The piece that follows is sophisticated and worthy of attention. Please note the direct line from Nazi propaganda methods to the methods of Palestinians and other anti-Israel elements today. The process as described is frightening, and essentially anti-Semitic at its core. Fishman cites, for example, an article by Belfast journalist Leo McKinstry, who says, in part: "In a remarkable inversion of reality, Israel has become a pariah state because of its determination to defend itself. A grotesque double standard now operates, where murderous Arab terrorists are hailed as 'freedom fighters' yet Israeli security forces are treated as fascistic thugs. No nation has been more demonized than Israel. One recent survey across Europe revealed that Israel is now regarded as 'the greatest threat' to world peace, an utter absurdity given that Israel is actually the only democratic, free society in the Middle East. But such a finding reflects the strength of the hysterical anti-Israeli propaganda that fills the airwaves of Europe. No matter how much this anti-Israeli feeling is dressed up as support for Palestine, it is in fact profoundly anti-Semitic...." Read the full article at http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=3&DBID= 1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=253&PID=0&IID=1704&TTL= The_Big_Lie_and_the_Media_War_Against_Israel:_ From_Inversion_of_the_Truth_to_Inversion_of_Reality All of this is extraordinarily relevant today as we see growing anti-Israel attitudes within/actions emanating from the international community (about which more below). Fishman makes the point in his introduction that "Because Israel's enemies have, for nearly half a century, repeated such libels without being challenged, they have gradually gained credence." Without being challenged! It falls to all of us now to do the challenging in every venue that is possible, with great conviction and drawing on solid factual information. ~~~~~~~~~~ The European Parliament is scheduled to host this week, at its Brussels facility, a conference organized by the UN's Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. Now, it would be pertinent to begin by asking why the UN has such a committee. There is no parallel, for example, no committee on the rights of the Kurdish people, even though they are a real people whose rights have been trampled. But UN bias in this regard is old hat. The question here must be why the European Parliament is involved. Polish members of the European Parliament have declared intent to boycott the conference. One member, Bronis�aw Geremek, has written, "I saw the material prepared by the organizers... Although there is no official statement that Israel must be pushed down to the sea there, the choice of subjects and the attitude towards the problems shows that it will be a biased, conflict generating conference. Actually we can call it anti-Israeli." Another, Konrad Szymanski, said, "[The] UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People is a platform for activity of various extremists. According to the most of them Israel should disappear." NGO-Monitor in Jerusalem says this conference will be a rehash of the Durban Conference of 2001, which saw unprecedented levels of anti-Zionist rhetoric. (Fishman writes that "Durban became the scene of anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli speeches and agitation of a ferocity unknown since the 1930s.") The time for complacency is past. This particular conference may be one of the most egregious, but it is hardly the only cause for concern. ~~~~~~~~~~ With regard to the terrorist infiltration over the fence in northern Gaza yesterday, the IDF is now saying that the Palestinians have learned our defense systems. This is NOT good news, although hardly surprising. They've figured out how to best manipulate our defenses, and more of what happened yesterday can be expected. I do not consider the comment of the Commander of the Northern Gaza Brigade of the IDF to be comforting: "...our operational response is currently good." I.e., at the moment we can handle them. Nor would it be sufficient, as proposed, to add sensors to enhance the 9-ft high reinforced concrete wall, built at the time of "disengagement." My response to this is the same as my response was yesterday to the matter of maximizing Arrow defense against incoming missiles. It's not just defense we need here -- not simply an ability to respond to infiltrators. We need an offensive action, big time, that will weaken the whole terrorist infrastructure. Last night the IDF arrested two Palestinians who are believed to have helped those who came over the fence. And today the authorities have in custody six Palestinian youths who were also trying to climb over the fence. They are being interrogated because of the possibility that they were being sent to gather information for another planned attack; these boys were unarmed. ~~~~~~~~~~ The Deputy Chief of Shin Bet (Israeli security) reported to the Cabinet today that Hamas leaders from headquarters abroad -- which means Mashaal and company sitting in Damascus -- have given instructions for Hamas cells in Judea and Samaria to execute a major attack with massive casualties inside Israel. Hamas is frustrated at not having been able to achieve international legitimacy and is having difficulty running Gaza; all of this plays into their inclination to step up terrorism. As might have been expected, in recent weeks smuggling of arms and explosives into Gaza has grown considerably. Since Hamas took over, 40 tons of explosives has entered Gaza, which represents a full half of all the explosives brought in since the "disengagement" almost two years ago. The number of Kassam attacks is increasing, as is the number of shooting attacks. What is also of considerable significance is that an increasing amount of explosives and weaponry is being smuggled into Judea and Samaria since Hamas took over Gaza. (This report was not explicit but it is my understanding that material goes from the Sinai via the Negev.) So, with everything else, I must ask these pertinent questions once again: When will Olmert finally give the go-ahead for the major military action in Gaza that the IDF so wants to initiate to stop what's building there? How can Olmert or Bush even think about establishing a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria when there are Hamas cells there, with increasing amounts of weapons and explosives, and with Abbas either unable or unwilling to take out Hamas in this instance any more than he took out Hamas in Gaza? The notion of a militant Hamas there in Gaza and a "moderate" Fatah here in Judea and Samaria is unmitigated nonsense. Hamas is planning to overtake Abbas in Judea and Samaria. ~~~~~~~~~~ The answer to the second question is provided by Ephraim Halevy, former head of the Mossad, writing in The Jerusalem Post on Friday. He doesn't sanction the approach being taken, he describes it: "The powers-that-be...are now embarked on a major diplomatic and strategic endeavor the like of which has never been attempted in living history. It is an effort to craft the principles of a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict with the full knowledge that these principles, if agreed, cannot be translated into action-orientated implementation in the immediate future. "The political logic behind this initiative is that the clear political horizon that each and every Palestinian will be able to read and absorb will be so encouraging and attractive as to convince him/her to disavow any future use of force -- terror -- as an instrument in the struggle for statehood. Extremist Muslim groups will be marginalized and defeated by centralist-moderate forces that will assume effective control of Palestinian destiny." Does he anticipate that this will work? Indeed he does not. For this plan to succeed, Hamas would have to be marginalized and refrain from acting as a spoiler, and al-Qaida would have to be similarly quiescent. What is more, at the end of the day, Abbas and Fayyad would have to demonstrate a real, tangible possibility of creating "a viable, strong and powerful West Bank entity -- security-wise, politically and economically -- that will overshadow all its adversaries." In their dreams, will this happen! And yet Olmert and Bush and company continue to dream on. ~~~~~~~~~~ Iran has announced that it has begun production of a 2,000 pound smart bomb -- Qased, or Messenger -- that can be delivered by its aging F-4 and F-5 fighter jets in actions against its enemies. Iranian Defense Minister Muhammad Najjar said that very few nations in the world possess this sophisticated technology of guided weaponry. Clearly, this is not good news, but not as dire as it may sound at first blush. There is some question as to whether this is a legitimate announcement, as exaggerations from Tehran about its capabilities are not unusual; details regarding this bomb are not known. And, even if it is legitimate, it has been pointed out that this development is less serious than a new missile program would be because the delivery system has a limited range. The F-4 and F-5 fighter jets were provided by the US to Shah Pahlavi, who was ousted in 1979. Israel's position is that this is unsettling because it is indicative of Iran's military build-up and expansionist policies. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info To Go To Top HALF OF IDF'S NEW COMBAT OFFICERS ARE RELIGIOUS Posted by Gil Ronen, August 26, 2007. (IsraelNN.com) Half of the IDF's young combat officers are religious Jews, according to statistics published as the lead story Sunday in Ma'ariv, Israel's second largest daily newspaper. The report also says that about 40% of the cadets of the most recent Officer Course in BAHAD 1, the IDF's officer training school, were religious (this number refers to all officers, as opposed to just combat officers). "This says something very good about the sons of the religious Zionist movement," opines the writer of the piece, senior correspondent Ben Caspit. "They are becoming the IDF's backbone. Their presence in the army is several times larger than it is in the general population." "They give their entire soul" "Any way we look at it," he says, "it's about education." It is clear, he states, that "the religious Zionist movement's educational institutions continue to disseminate values, Zionism, Judaism and mission orientation. The religious youth is mission-oriented. [It sets out to] conquer the hilltops. Then to conquer the military service and the officership." The entry of the religious Zionists into the officer corps began after the Yom Kippur War, says Caspit, when Major Generals Yair Naveh and El'azar Stern entered service. "It continues with the pre-military academies, which send a sizeable percentage of their graduates to the Officers' Course." The "Hesder" yeshivas, he says -- the seminaries that combine religious study with a shortened army service -- do not contribute many officers. "They do everything willingly, with their entire soul," Caspit says of the religious Zionist soldiers. Alongside them one finds, he claims, many youths from the socialist-agricultural moshav and kibbutz movements, as well as soldiers from new-immigrant and lower-income families who see the military as a chance for upward social mobility. However, what Caspit refers to as "the First Israel" -- the middle and upper classes -- is no longer very visible among the officers. More and more of its sons either actively evade service, or opt for what he calls "a gray evasion" -- the employment of various tricks to serve less time, serve closer to home, and without endangering themselves. "They find all the ways in the world to fool the system, to see the IDF as some foreign element which is meant to curtail their personal advancement, independent thought, private ambition and other legitimate aspirations of 21st century man." Caspit sees this trend as a worrying one and calls for urgent action to raise the motivation of non-religious Israelis to serve and excel. He does not specify what this action might be. Socio-political ramifications Religious Zionists have often noted, in the course of political debates, that their youth plays a disproportionate role in the IDF, but secular Israelis have usually denied this. The article by Caspit, who is one of Israel's top journalists and the author of several books, including biographies of Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, can be seen as admission by a secular Israeli that the religious Zionists have been right on this subject. The statistics are important for Israeli society because the IDF is seen as the nation's backbone and its pride. Since the State of Israel was founded it has had five native-born Prime Ministers, four of whom were from the military: Yitzchak Rabin, Netanyahu, Barak and Ariel Sharon. Rabin and Barak both served as IDF Chiefs of Staff, Sharon was a Major General and Netanyahu had been an officer in an elite unit that was commanded by his brother, Yoni, a military hero who was killed in the rescue of passengers from a hijacked Air France jet in Uganda in 1976. Thus, traditionally, service as combat officers goes hand in hand with leadership potential. Another reason these statistics are significant is that many religious soldiers have been refusing orders to evict Jews from their homes in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. If half of the IDF's new officers are religious, this means that the refusal movement could indeed have a deep deterrent impact on the IDF and government when and if it decides to attempt additional pullouts from territory, as the movement's leaders claim. Gil Ronen writes for Arutz-Sheva. This article is archived at www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123492 To Go To Top BOOK ABOUT RETURN TO JEWISH FAITH TOPS BESTSELLER LIST IN ISRAEL Posted by Avodah, August 26, 2007. This is a news item from Arutz-Sheva (www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/132279). (IsraelNN.com) A fictional book about a secular women's return to Jewish faith is topping the bestseller list in Israel. The book Mikimi (Revive Me) is written by Noa Yaron-Dayan a secular broadcaster on Army Radio, and a television star on Channel 2 who left behind the lights and glitter of the media world a decade ago to become an observant Jew. In her debut novel, she uses her life story as the base for this fictional account of a sharp-tongued, hip television presenter who finds herself being attracted to the Jewish way of life. The protagonist, Alma, disconnects from her party life, from Tel Aviv, from the media world and begins the journey within. Alma and her secular partner, inadvertently find themselves attending the Jewish revival classes given by a follower of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav. This near-accidental encounter becomes a process of discovery that intensifies as the book unfolds -- the discovery of a brand-new spiritual world, through which everyday becomes transcendent and meaningful. But the transition to her new life is not a smooth one -- as she examines her doubts and weighs her choices every single day. Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com To Go To Top CALLING ALL PRO ISRAEL ACTIVISTS TO SERVICE! Posted by Yosef Rabin, August 26, 2007. Setting the agenda! The time has come to stop the madness and go on the offensive. It is time for the Jews to set the agenda when it comes to Arab -Israel issues. We must demand that the US recognize the Jewish Peoples eternal right to Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem, including Har Habayit (Temple Mount). We must also insist that the transfer of Arabs from the Land of Israel is the true way to peace. Starting Monday, August 27th we will begin a calling campaign to 4 major Jewish organizations, the Orthodox Union, Aguudas Yisrael and Young Israel and Religious Zionist of America. When you dial say, I demand that the Jewish leadership start pressuring the US government to 1, Recognize the legality of all Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem 2, Call for the transfer of Arabs from the Land of Israel We must set the agenda now! OU National Headquarters Eleven Broadway New York, NY 10004 212-563-4000 Fax 212-564-9058 OU Washington, DC 800 Eighth Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20001 Nathan Diament Director Tel: 202-513-6484 Fax: 202-289-8936 Agudas Yisrael Office 42 Broadway New York, NY 10004-1617 Phone: (212) 797-9000 National Council of Young Israel Office 111 John Street, Suite 450 New York, NY 10038 212-929-1525 fax: 212-727-9526 Religious Zionist of America Office 7 Penn Plaza, Suite 205 New York, NY 10001 Telephone (212) 465-9234 Fax (212) 465-9246 Contact Yosef Rabin at yosefrabin@yahoo.com To Go To Top JEWS AND ARMENIA Posted by Steven Plaut, August 26, 2007. One of the more bizarre controversies over the past few weeks has been over whether or not the Anti-Defamation League, under the helm of Abraham Fox, should denounce the "genocide" of Armenians by Turkey during World War I. At first the ADL was reluctant to denounce the "genocide," but it was coming under enormous media pressure (see /www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/ projo_20070815_bostom.2545880.html) for "hypocrisy" when denouncing Holocaust Deniers and their ilk while refusing to take a clear "moral position" on the mass deaths of Armenians during WWI. It started with a billboard campaign by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to combat bigotry and celebrate diversity ("No Place for Hate"). That sparked bitter resentment in Watertown, Mass., a Boston suburb whose 8,000 Armenian-Americans make up nearly 25 percent of the population. Local Armenians did not object to the initiative, but claimed that the ADL and its director, Abraham Fox, denied the ugly legacy of the World War I era Armenian "genocide." A gaggle of Jewish assimilationist liberals then chimed in as an amen chorus, denouncing the ADL for "hypocrisy." Some suggested the ADL was being pusillanimous because Israel does not want to upset Turkey. The rest of the mainstream media joined. Finally the ADL capitulated and issued a statement denouncing the "genocide" of the Armenians. Turkey itself phoned Shimon Peres and asked that Israel persuade the Jewish SWAT teams attacking Turkey over Armenians to cool it. The ADL fired the regional director who had triggered the mess (www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2007/08/ adl-and-the-armenian-genocide-regional-d/). Ugly comments about Jews being indifferent to the "genocide" of others filled the web. The problem is that all those people are demanding that Jews take a "clear moral" position on a matter that is not morally clear. Yes, hundreds of thousands of Armenians died during WWI, mostly from starvation. Was that a Holocaust? It certainly was nothing like the Holocaust either in terms of the dimensions nor in terms of the actual behavior of the Turks, often bad but not uniformly so (there were also serious Turkish efforts to provide relief aid to the Armenians). Since so much pseudo-history has been written about the mass deaths of the Armenians, I am reprinting here in full the first-rate and indeed the seminal piece on the fate of the Armenians, which appeared a couple of years back in Commentary Magazine. Those who believe they know what happened are invited to read it in full and find some surprises (a bit long but worth the read!). It's called "The First Genocide of the Twentieth Century?" and can be found at http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/lewy-firstgenocide.htm The following article by Prof. Guenter Lewy appeared in the Dec. 2005 edition of Commentary Magazine, a journal published by the American Jewish Committee since 1945. The term "genocide," coined in 1944 by the Polish-Jewish émigré lawyer Raphael Lemkin, was meant to describe Hitler's then-ongoing campaign to exterminate the Jews of Europe. But Lemkin's interest in this most heinous of crimes, what he and others would define as the planned effort to destroy an entire people or ethnic group, long predated the rise of the Nazis. Raphael Lemkin The atrocities that first drew him to the issue emerged from a different world war and a different context. They were the vicious actions not of Germans against Jews in the early 1940's but of Ottoman Turks against Turkey's Armenian minority in 1915-16. Today, however, the Armenian case remains controversial in a way that the Holocaust, outside the fevered confines of the Arab world, does not. Like every one of its predecessors since the rise of modern Turkey, the current government in Ankara vehemently rejects the charge of genocide, and has exerted strong diplomatic pressure against any attempt by outsiders to place the events of World War I in a class with Hitler's Final Solution. In this, the Turks have been seconded not just by pro- Turkish apologists but by a number of respected historians, including, most notably, Bernard Lewis, the dean of American Orientalists and an expert on Turkey. Against this view is the great tide of world opinion, from the official proclamations of various governments and religious bodies to the declared consensus of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Indeed, so strong is sentiment on this question that even now, nearly a century after the fact, the issue continues to color Turkey's dealings with other nations. On September 29, the European parliament in Strasbourg adopted a resolution demanding that, as a condition of admission to the European Union, Turkey acknowledge the mass killing of its Armenians during World War I as an instance of genocide. And even beyond the issue of what happened in 1915-16 and its relevance to Turkey's political situation today, the Armenian case continues to occupy a place of precedence in the litany of all subsequent instances of mass murder and "ethnic cleansing," including most recently the killings in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Rwanda in the 1990's and those in Sudan today. No one, it should be stressed, disputes the extent of Armenian suffering at the hands of the Turks. With little or no notice, the Ottoman government forced Armenian men, women, and children to leave their historic communities; during the subsequent harrowing trek over mountains and through deserts, large numbers of them died of starvation and disease, or were murdered. Although the absence of good statistics on the size of the pre-war Armenian population in Turkey makes it impossible to establish the true extent of the loss of life, reliable estimates put the number of deaths at more than 650,000, or around 40 percent of a total Armenian population of 1.75 million. The historical question at issue is premeditation that is, whether the Turkish regime intentionally organized the annihilation of its Armenian minority. According to the Genocide Convention of 1948, such an intent to destroy a group is a necessary condition of genocide; most other definitions of this crime of crimes similarly insist upon the centrality of malicious intent. Hence the crucial problem to be addressed is not the huge loss of life in and of itself but rather whether the Turkish government deliberately sought the deaths that we know to have occurred. The Armenians have lived in the southern Caucasus, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, since ancient times. In the early 4th century c.e., they were the first nation to adopt Christianity as a state religion. Much of their long history, however, has been spent under foreign rule. The last independent Armenian state (before the present-day, post-Soviet Republic of Armenia) fell in 1375, and by the early 16th century most Armenians were subjects of the Ottoman Empire. Under the millet system instituted by Sultan Mohammed II (1451-1481), they enjoyed religious, cultural, and social autonomy as a "loyal community," a status that lasted well into the 19th century. Though large numbers of Armenians settled in Constantinople and in other Ottoman towns, where they prospered as merchants, bankers, and artisans, the majority continued to live as peasants in eastern Anatolia. During the autocratic rule of Abdul Hamid II (1876-1909), the lot of the Armenians deteriorated, and nationalistic sentiment began to emerge. In June 1890, Armenian students in the Russian-controlled area of the Caucasus organized the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. Demanding the political and economic emancipation of Turkish Armenia, the Dashnaks (as they were known) waged guerrilla warfare against Turkish army units, gendarmerie posts, and Kurdish villages involved in attacks on Armenians. They operated from bases in the Caucasus and Persia and took advantage of eastern Anatolia's mountainous terrain. When, in 1908, the nationalist, modernizing movement known as the Young Turks seized power in Constantinople in a bloodless coup, the Dashnaks declared an end to their fighting. But the truce did not last. With Turkey's entry into World War I on the side of Germany and against Russia, the Armenians' traditional ally, the Dashnaks resumed their armed resistance. By April 1915, Armenian guerrilla activities had picked up momentum. Roads and communication lines were cut. Henry Morgenthau, the American ambassador in Constantinople, reported to Washington on May 25 that nobody put the Armenian guerrillas "at less than 10,000, and 25,000 is probably closer to the truth." Meanwhile, the Russian branch of the Dashnaks was organizing volunteers to fight the Turks on the Caucasus front. Most of these volunteers -- numbering 15,000, according to one Armenian source -- were themselves Russian subjects, exempt from military service, but some of them were Turkish Armenians who had crossed the border to join the volunteer units. Offers of help also poured in from the Armenian diaspora, from as far away as Western Europe and the U.S. In March 1915, the Dashnak organization in Sofia, Bulgaria, proposed to land 20,000 volunteers on the Turkish coast in the Armenian stronghold of Cilicia. That same month, the Boston-based Armenian National Defense Committee of America informed the British foreign secretary that it was making "preparations for the purpose of sending volunteers to Cilicia, where a large section of the Armenian population will unfurl the banner of insurrection against Turkish rule." It was hoped that the British and French governments would supply them with ammunition and artillery. Antranik Toros Ozanian Turkish fears of an internal revolt were exacerbated the following month by an uprising that took place in the city of Van. Close to the Russian border and in the heartland of historic Armenia, Van had long been a center of nationalist agitation. On April 24, 1915, the Turkish governor reported that 4,000 Armenian fighters had opened fire on the police stations, burned down Muslim houses, and barricaded themselves in the Armenian quarter. About 15,000 refugees from the countryside eventually joined the now-besieged rebels. Less than a month later, the insurgents were saved by the advancing Russian army, forcing the Turkish garrison to retreat. Whether the Van uprising was a rebellion designed and timed to facilitate the advance of the Russians or a defensive action aimed at preventing the already planned deportation of the Armenian community remains one of the points of fierce contention in the historiography of the time. [48] Commentary December 2005 When not tying down Turkish army units, the Dashnaks were of significant help to the Russian army itself (leaving aside the 150,000 Armenian subjects of the czar who served in its ranks). Deeply familiar with the rugged mountains of eastern Anatolia, the Armenian volunteers were invaluable scouts and guides. In one famous episode, the legendary Armenian military leader Andranik Ozanian met with General Mishlayevsky, commander of the czar's forces in the Caucasus, late in the summer of 1914, pointing out the routes through which the Russian army could advance on Turkey. Thus, as the Turks saw it, the Armenian people the world over had thrown in their lot with the Allied cause and were arrayed against them in a fateful struggle. Having come to consider the Armenians a fifth column, the Ottoman regime decided to take decisive measures to put an end to their treasonable actions. As Morgenthau reported to Washington in July 1915: "[B]ecause Armenian volunteers, many of them Russian subjects, have joined the Russian army in the Caucasus and because some have been implicated in armed revolutionary movements and others have been helpful to Russians in their invasion of the Van district, terrible vengeance is being taken." In the eyes of the Young Turks, however, the issue was not so much vengeance as national survival in a situation of extreme danger caused by serious military setbacks. The British had taken Basra in Mesopotamia and were moving toward Baghdad. The Allies had launched their assaults on the Dardanelles. Fearing the fall of the capital, the Turks were making preparations to evacuate the sultan and the treasury from Constantinople. Meanwhile, Russian troops were advancing into eastern Anatolia, and Armenian guerrillas were active in the rear of the Turkish army, threatening the very lifelines of the empire. Even if only a limited number of Armenians had actually taken up arms, the authorities in Constantinople understood themselves to be dealing with a population of traitors. Boghos Nubar Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of the war and at the Paris peace conference in 1919, the Armenians would make no bones about their contribution to the Allied victory. To the contrary: Boghos Nubar, the head of the Armenian delegation, asserted in late October 1918 that his people had in fact been belligerents, fighting alongside the Allies on all fronts; in particular, he wrote to the French foreign minister, 150,000 Armenians had fought in the Russian army and had held the front in the Caucasus after the Russians dropped out of the war in 1917. As Nubar would tell the peace conference on March 8, 1919, the Turks had devastated the Armenians "in retaliation for our unflagging devotion to the cause of the Allies." By means of such rhetoric Nubar was obviously hoping to win the support of the peace conference for an independent Armenia. But, the essential facts were correct as he stated them: the Armenians had indeed supported the Allies in a variety of ways. Ignoring warnings from many quarters, large numbers of them had fought the Turks, and the government, with its back to the wall, reacted resolutely and viciously. Although none of this can serve to justify what the Turks did to them, it provides indispensable historical context for the human catastrophe that ensued. There is no denying the dimensions of that catastrophe. The harsher methods employed by the Young Turks included the killing of Armenian notables in Constantinople and the eastern provinces. As for Armenian civilians, perhaps as many as 1 million were turned out of their homes. On a journey through the most inhospitable terrain, they routinely lacked shelter and food and were often subjected to the murderous violence of their government-provided escorts and the Kurdish tribesmen who occupied the route southward to Ottoman-controlled Syria. Massive numbers died along the way. Can we account for this tragedy without the hypothesis of a genocidal plan on the part of the Young Turks? Most authors supporting the Armenian cause answer in the negative. They cite foreign diplomats on the scene who, in the face of the large number of deaths, concluded that so terrible a loss of life could only be an intended outcome of the deportations. And yet such a conclusion once again ignores the immediate backdrop against which this horrific episode must be seen. If one of the main causes of the Armenian disaster was starvation, the Armenians were hardly alone in experiencing such deprivation. Severe food shortages were endemic to Turkey at the time. The military mobilization of large numbers of peasants in 1914, as well as the reckless requisitioning of their horses, oxen, and carriages, had made it impossible to bring in the harvest and left many fields untilled for the following year's crop. In the spring of 1915, Ambassador Morgenthau told Washington that the empire's whole domestic situation was "deplorable," with "thousands of the populace ... daily dying of starvation." In the late [49] The First Genocide of the 20th Century? spring and summer of 1915, the Ottoman provinces of Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria were devastated by a plague of locusts, creating famine conditions. To exacerbate matters, Allied warships had blockaded the coast of Syria and Lebanon, thus preventing the import of food from Egypt. Moreover, the food that was available in Turkey often could not be distributed. The country's few existing one-track railroads were overburdened, and shortages of coal and wood frequently rendered locomotives unusable. A crucial tunnel on the line toward Syria -- the famous Baghdad railway -- remained unfinished until late in the war. The resulting scarcities afflicted even the Turkish army, whose troops, as one German officer reported, received a maximum of one third of their allotted rations. In circumstances where soldiers in the Turkish army were dying of undernourishment, it is not so surprising that little if any food was made available to the deported Armenians. Indeed, the mistreatment of common Turkish soldiers, the subject of many comments by contemporaries, makes an instructive comparison with the wretched lot of the Armenians. Although "provisions and clothing had been confiscated to supply the army," wrote an American missionary in Van, "the soldiers profited very little by this. They were poorly fed and poorly clothed when fed or clothed at all." The Danish missionary Maria Jacobsen noted in her diary on February 7, 1915: "The officers are filling their pockets, while the soldiers die of starvation, lack of hygiene, and illness." Many had neither boots nor socks, and were dressed in rags. The treatment of Turkish soldiers who were wounded or sick was especially appalling. Those who managed to reach hospitals -- many never did -- perished in large numbers because of unsanitary conditions and a lack of basic supplies. Patients shared beds or simply lay next to each other on the floor in facilities that often lacked running water and electricity. Typhus, cholera, dysentery, and other infectious diseases spread rapidly. As Maria Jacobsen noted on May 24, 1916, a cholera outbreak in the city of Malatia was killing 100 soldiers a day. "The army there," she wrote, "will soon be wiped out without a war." The Turks experienced some 244,000 combat deaths during World War I. As against this, some 68,000 soldiers died of their wounds and almost a half-million of disease -- a ratio of non-combat to combat deaths almost certainly unmatched by any of the other warring nations. This terrible toll obviously does not excuse the treatment of the Armenians, but neither can it be simply ignored in any assessment of the general conditions against which they met their fate. Many of the Turkish deaths could have been prevented by better sanitary conditions and medical care. A government so callous about the suffering of its own soldiers was hardly about to show concern for the terrible human misery that would result from deporting a minority population rightly or wrongly suspected of treason. One of the problems bedeviling the Armenian side in this controversy is that no authentic documentary evidence exists to prove the culpability of the central government of Turkey for the massacre of 1915-16. In the face of this lack, Armenians have relied upon materials of questionable authenticity like The Memoirs of Naim Bey by Aram Andonian. The English edition of this book, first published in 1920, offers in evidence 30 alleged telegrams by Talaat Pasha, Turkey's minister of the interior, some of which order the killing of all Armenians irrespective of sex or age. But the book is considered a forgery not only by Turkish historians but by practically every Western student of Ottoman history. Similarly unreliable are the verdicts of Turkish military tribunals that in 1919-20 found the top leadership of the Young Turk regime, together with a special-forces outfit called Teskilat-i Mahsusa, responsible for the massacres of the Armenians. These trials suffered from serious deficiencies of due process; more importantly, all of the original trial documents are lost, leaving nothing but copies of some documents that were printed in the government gazette and the press. It is true that no written record of Hitler's order for the Final Solution of the "Jewish question" has been found, either. But the major elements of the decision-making process leading up to the annihilation of the Jews of Europe can be reconstructed from events, court testimony, and a rich store of authentic documents. It is doubtful that the Nuremberg trials would ever have achieved their tremendous significance in authenticating the crimes of the Nazi regime if they had had to rely on a few copies instead of on the thousands of original documents preserved in archives. Barring the unlikely discovery of sensational new documents in the Turkish archives, it is safe to say that no similar evidence exists for the tragic events of 1915-16. At the same time, a number of facts about the deportations argue against the thesis that they constituted a premeditated program for exterminating the Armenians of Turkey. For one thing, the large [50] Commentary December 2005 Armenian communities of Constantinople, Smyrna, and Aleppo were spared deportation and, apart from tribulations that also afflicted the Muslim populations of these cities, survived the war largely intact. This would be analogous to Hitler's failing to include the Jews of Berlin, Cologne, and Munich in the Final Solution. Moreover, the trek on foot that took so many lives was imposed only on the Armenians of eastern and central Anatolia, a part of the country that had no railroads. Elsewhere, and despite the fact that the one-spur Baghdad line was overburdened with the transport of troops and supplies, Armenian deportees were allowed to purchase rail tickets and were thus spared at least some of the trials of the deportation process. If, as is often alleged, the intent was to subject the exiles to a forced march until they died of exhaustion, why was this punishment not imposed on all? Similar variation can be found in the fortunes of other parts of the Armenian population. While many of the exiles were left to fend for themselves and often died of starvation, others were given food here and there. Some gendarmes accompanying the convoys sold their charges to Kurds who pillaged and murdered them, but other gendarmes were protective. In some places all Armenians, irrespective of creed, were sent away, while in others Protestant and Catholic (as opposed to Gregorian) Armenians were exempted. Many of the deportees succumbed to the harsh conditions in their places of resettlement, but others were able to survive by making themselves useful as artisans or traders. In some locations, not even conversion to Islam could purchase exemption from deportation; in others, large numbers of Armenians were allowed, or forced, to convert and were saved. All of these differences, of both treatment and outcome, are difficult to reconcile with a premeditated program of total annihilation. How, then, to explain the events of 1915-16? What accounts for the enormous loss of life? The documentary evidence suggests that the Ottoman government wanted to arrange an orderly process of deportation, even a relatively humane one, to gauge by the many decrees commanding protection and compassionate treatment of the deportees. But, leaving aside the justice of the expulsion order itself, the deportation and resettlement of the Armenians took place, as we have seen, at a time of great insecurity and dislocation throughout the country and in conditions of widespread suffering and deprivation among Turkish civilians and military personnel. The job of relocating several hundred thousand people in a short span of time and over a highly primitive system of transportation was simply beyond the ability of the Turkish bureaucracy. Many observers on the scene, indeed, saw the tragedy in this light, constantly citing the incompetence and inefficiency of the Ottoman bureaucracy. "The lack of proper transportation facilities," wrote the American consul in Mersina in September 1915, "is the most important factor in causing the misery." The German consul in Aleppo told his ambassador around the same time that the majority of Armenian exiles were starving to death because the Turks were "incapable of solving the organizational task of mass feeding." A lengthy memorandum on the Armenian question drawn up in 1916 by Alexander von Hoesch, an official in the German embassy, pointed to a basic lack of accountability: some local officials had sought to alleviate the hardships of the exiles, but others were extremely hostile to the Armenians and, in defiance of Constantinople, had abandoned them to the violence of Kurds or Circassians. Today, the stakes in this historical controversy remain high, and both sides continue to use heavyhanded tactics to advance their views. The Turkish government regularly threatens retaliation against anyone calling into question its own version of events, a threat made good most recently by its cancellation of an order for a $149-million French spy satellite after the French national assembly declared in 2001 that the killing of the Armenians during World War I was a case of genocide. For their part, the Armenians have also played hardball. When Bernard Lewis, in a 1994 letter to Le Monde, questioned on scholarly grounds the existence of a plan of extermination on the part of the Ottoman government, a French-Armenian organization brought suit and a French court convicted Lewis of causing "grievous prejudice to truthful memory." But there are also more hopeful signs, at least on the academic front. In the last several years, a number of conferences have brought together Turkish and Armenian scholars willing to discuss the events of 1915-16 without a political agenda. Turkish historical scholarship has shown signs of a post-nationalist phase, while some scholars on the Armenian side, too, now engage in research free of propagandistic rhetoric. Needless to say, such efforts have brought down accusations of betrayal, even treason, upon the heads of the offending historians; it would be foolish to expect genuine reconciliation any time soon. [51] The First Genocide of the 20th Century? All of which raises deeply troubling questions, not least about the role played by the Notion of genocide itself in perpetuating the almost century-old impasse between Turks and Armenians. For, once this charge is on the table, any sort of mutually acceptable resolution becomes extremely difficult if not impossible to achieve. As the Turkish historian Selim Deringil has written, both sides need to "step back from the was-it-genocide-or-not dialogue of the deaf" and instead seek a "common project of knowledge." If, then, we were to follow this advice, how best should we judge the Armenian tragedy? The primary intent of the deportation order was undoubtedly not to eradicate an entire people but to deny support to the Armenian guerrilla bands and to remove the Armenians from war zones and other strategic locations. For the Ottomans, painful experience with other Christian minorities during the Balkan wars (1912-13) had created extreme sensitivity to rebellion and territorial loss. Talaat Pasha, the minister of the interior, is supposed to have told the cabinet in 1915, "We have to create a Turkish bloc, free of foreign elements, which in the future will never again give the Europeans the opportunity to interfere in the internal affairs of Turkey." Ambassador Morgenthau reported being told on several occasions by Enver Pasha, the Turkish minister of war, that the government had to act forcefully against any community, however small, that was bent upon independence and was acting directly against the interests of the empire. For the human disaster subsequently endured by its Armenian population, the Ottoman regime certainly bears its due measure of responsibility, just as it does for general corruption, bungling misrule, and indifference to the suffering of its own population during World War I. And one can go further: with the benefit of hindsight, it is also possible to question whether the severity of the threat posed by Armenian revolutionaries justified the drastic remedy of even partial deportation. The Canadian researcher Gwynne Dyer may have put the case most appropriately in writing that, although Turkish allegations of wholesale disloyalty, treason, and revolt on the part of the Ottoman Armenians were "wholly true as far as Armenian sentiment went," they were "only partly true in terms of overt acts, and totally insufficient as a justification for what was done" to the Armenians. If both Armenians and Turks could accept this appraisal, even as a starting point for further discussion, they would reach an important milestone toward settling one of modern history's most bitter and longstanding conflicts. [52] Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor at the Graduate School of Business Administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il To Go To Top UNHOLY ALLIANCE SAUDI ARABIA, UNITED KINGDOM AND THE ISRAELI LEFT Posted by Ralph's Rant, August 26, 2007. My last article spoke about the Saudi Arabian involvement with the Carter Center for Peace. The previous article spoke about the British Government funding of various left wing Israeli leftist organizations. With the rising anti Israel sentiment and also growing Anti Semitic attacks around the world one does not have to look around very long to realize the answers lie with the Unholy Alliance between the Israeli and Left Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom. The tentacles of this alliance is worldwide and is spreading. The best way that the Saudi Government can spread their anti Israel fundamentalist opinion and hate is to spread their economic influence around the world in ways to influence public opinion such as universities where future leaders are sowed, and also foundations such as the Carter Center of Peace. Why have there been so many calls for boycotts and university actions? Well I am willing to bet that there is a Saudi money trail somewhere involved. That is my opinion. A wild opinion maybe not there are many instances where Saudi money is donated to universities and former people of power. These are links to three examples of Saudi donations. http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=1402008 http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/2336 http://web.israelinsider.com/Views/9896.htm Is it possible that the source of these boycott calls may have Saudi involvement somehow? Not sure don't have proof but it would be a interesting fact to investigate. If there was no Saudi money floating around would there be less Anti Israel incitement. By the Arabs no but by the rest of the world I am sure. The British governmental funding of Israeli Leftist organizations is also increasing the anti Israel activity around the world and increasing the legitimacy of Anti Semitism in the eyes of Anti Semites both in the UK and around the world. The Israeli Leftist also bear responsibility because they some receive foreign funding and are the tools for those foreign governments meddling in internal Israeli affairs. It is up to the Jewish community and the Israeli people to expose this meddling, and also to investigate funding of the Saudi government to influence the world against Israel and expose it. Contact Ralph by email at stargate_time@yahoo.com. And visit his website: http://ralphsrant1.blogspot.com This article is archived at: http://ralphsrant1.blogspot.com/2007/08/unholy-alliance- saudi-arabia-united.html To Go To Top SHIMON PERES HAILED AS PROPHET BY RIGHT-WING ORGANIZATION -- 30 YEARS AGO HE SAID... Posted by Fred Reifenberg, August 26, 2007. Check this out and see why I've always liked this guy -- NOT! I call my accompanying art-photo Political Prezzz. It was not part of the original article. This was written by Israel Insider Staff and it appeared today in Israel Insider (http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/11931.htm). A new ad campaign of a right-leaning Israeli organization is celebrating the prophetic powers of Israel's new president. Does this augur the birth of a messianic era of peace between former rival with right-wing lions lying down with left-leaning lambs? Or are they wolves in sheep's wool? The campaign by The Jerusalem Summit lauds Peres' predictive powers of thirty years ago, when he foresaw and warned of the dangers of a Palestinian State. After a teaser with bold headlines of "Shimon Peres Prophet," the link leads to the following statement and quotation. "The following is a chillingly accurate prediction made three decades ago, by none other than Shimon Peres, the nation's newly elected president. In it he foresaw, in precise detail, the dire perils that would result if Israel were to embark on precisely the policy he himself championed and which continues to advocate with passion:" 'The establishment of such a [Palestinian] state means the inflow of combat-ready Palestinian forces (more than 25,800 men under arms) into Judea and Samaria; this force, together with the local youth, will double itself in a short time. It will not be short of weapons or other [military] equipment, and in a short space of time, an infrastructure for waging war will be set up in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. Israel will have problems in preserving day-to-day security, which may drive the country into war, or undermine the morale of its citizens. In time of war, the frontiers of the Palestinian state will constitute an excellent staging point for mobile forces to mount attacks on infrastructure installations vital for Israel's existence, to impede the freedom of action of the Israeli air-force in the skies over Israel, and to cause bloodshed among the population. In areas adjacent to the frontier-line.' -- Shimon Peres, Tomorrow is Now, Jerusalem: Keter, 1978, p. 232." The ad continues with "Questions and Quandaries for the Concerned Citizen": The citizens of Israel, indeed the Jewish people as a whole, deserve, indeed should demand, an explanation for this dramatic shift in Peres's position -- from total opposition to a Palestinian state to total support for it. Of course one is entitles to change one's mind and Peres may indeed have had a change of mind. However one cannot but wonder: Why any rational individual would wish to change his/her mind from a position which proved to be so well-founded to one that proved to be so unfounded? What could have possibly induced Peres to endorse a policy which he previously rejected as too perilous to the security of the nation -- especially as all the perils he predicted did in fact materialize? Why would any responsible leader urge his people downs a path that he himself warned was disastrous -- especially as all the disasters he warned of did indeed occur? How can such conduct be reconciled with a genuine concern for the nation interest? And if it cannot, what conclusion should be drawn?" The Office of the President has not yet responded with a public comment on the annointment of the prophetic Peres. Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il To Go To Top IMPERFECT PEOPLE AND HIGH OFFICE Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDar), August 26, 2007. This was written by Shmuley Boteach and it appeared today in the Jerusalem Post www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1188128148432&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull. Boteach is about to launch 'The Jewish Values Network,' dedicated to the dissemination of Jewish values in the mainstream media (http://www.shmuley.com). Last week I spent time at the Christian Broadcasting Network headquarters in Virginia with Pat Robertson, who, amid some understandable disagreements on important issues, is not only a friend but, I believe, one of the best friends Israel has in the entire United States. In discussing the US presidential race, we focused on Rudy Giuliani, who is extremely popular in the Jewish community for his stalwart support of Israel and hard line on Islamic fundamentalism -- but somewhat less so among Evangelicals, given his two divorces. Indeed, many Christians have written to me that they cannot vote for Rudy for president because of their wish to uphold family values. They wish for me to concur. I cannot. In looking at how the two communities approach a candidate like Giuliani, we can discern important differences between Judaism and Christianity. When Rudy, as mayor of New York, announced his separation from his wife, Donna Hanover, at a hastily summoned press conference without first informing her, I wrote a column stating that, as a child of divorce, I had to protest the way the announcement was handled. Couples sometimes have to split up. But decisions as to the future of a marriage should be taken between husband and wife in concert, and with the children being informed before anyone else. And yet, my criticism of Rudy's actions as a husband had no bearing on my strong endorsement of his leadership as mayor. Here is why.   JUDAISM BELIEVES two things. First, that people are flawed, and that what is important, therefore, is struggle rather than perfection (hence, the name Israel which translates as "he who wrestles with God"). My Christian brothers and sisters believe that because people are sinful they must therefore accept the grace of Christ for salvation. But Jews believe that because people are imperfect they must therefore define their own righteousness by their willingness to struggle to do the right thing amid a predilection for doing otherwise. Inevitably, we will sometimes come up short. But wrestle we must. Second, Judaism believes that we flawed people must still devote ourselves to the public good and that the idea that our mistakes should keep us from positions of leadership is not only ludicrous, but deeply sinful. Should a philanthropist who cheats on his wife not feed the poor? Should a woman who is mean to her cleaning lady not be a doctor who can heal the sick? Yes, it would be wonderful if we were all more consistent. But we must strive to do good in one area even when we fall short in others.   WHEREAS CHRISTIANITY focuses on personal salvation, Judaism focuses instead on world redemption. In Judaism, the question of personal righteousness is always subordinate to that of communal improvement. In Judaism our goodness is defined not by faith, meditation and reflection, but by good deeds. The focus is on the community rather than on ourselves. The contribution one makes to the lives of others is much more important than how perfect one is in one's own life. My Christian brothers and sisters, amid their stellar record of charity and social services throughout the world, are still often fixated on the question of whether or not they are going to heaven. In Judaism such questions, rarely, if ever, come up. The real question is: Have you left the world in a better condition than you found it? The Talmud relates the famous story of how, as Rabbi Yochanan lay on his death bed, he cried out, "I don't know where I am going (to heaven or hell)." Now, how could such a righteous man not be sure as to whether he had earned a place in eternity? The Lubavitcher Rebbe explains that his confusion was due to having never once focused on himself. What he focused on throughout his life was on doing good deeds for others, and not whether he had become personally righteous in the process.   THE OTHER reason that the Jewish community has no real issue with Giuliani's divorces are the biblical heroes to whom we look up. Christians venerate Jesus, who is portrayed as perfect in the New Testament. When Christians ask, "What would Jesus do?" they are holding up a model of flawlessness which they seek to emulate. But in the Hebrew Bible our heroes are righteous men rather than perfect gods. They struggled to the do the right thing, but being men, they did not always succeed. Abraham is faulted for his parenting with regard to Ishmael. Jacob favored Joseph over his other children. Moses, the greatest of prophets, is punished with not being allowed to enter the promised land because he failed to sanctify God to the Jewish people at a critical moment in their history. Indeed, the fact that these men were not perfect is what makes them the perfect model for emulation. Like us, they struggled to do the right thing amid an inclination do otherwise. And it was in the context of their herculean efforts to act righteously when it didn't always come naturally to them that they became role models.   FEW IN the Jewish community believe that Bill Clinton's personal failures made him unqualified for the public position of president. His betrayal, with Monica Lewinsky, of his marriage did not mean that he could not do a great deal of good for the country. On the contrary, the principal Jewish criticism of Clinton was that he did nothing to prevent the genocide in Rwanda, when, as the most powerful man in the world, there were many remedies available to him to stop the indiscriminate slaughter of defenseless Africans. Finally, my Christian brothers and sisters define a hypocrite as someone who says one thing and practices another. But Judaism argues that this is not hypocrisy, but inconsistency. The hypocrite is he who says something and does not believe it even as he says it. Few of us, thankfully, are in that category. What we are, however, is inconsistent, believing strongly in family values, but not always being strong enough to live in accordance with those values. Sergio Tessa can be reached at Hadar-Israel@verizon.net. To Go To Top HIT AN ARAB, GET FIRED. HIT A JEW, GET PROMOTED. Posted by Shaul and Aviva Ceder, August 26, 2007. A policewoman filmed hitting an Arab at an IDF checkpoint last week was immediately suspended. The move has engendered disbelief amongst Jewish rights activists who have been trying for over a year and a half to suspend dozens of Israeli policemen filmed beating Jewish youths at the destruction of the Jewish town of Amona. Israeli Police Maj.-Gen. Mickey Levy, who was filmed beating Land of Israel activist Nadia Matar, was promoted in February to serve as next Deputy Commissioner of the Israeli Police Force. Absurd Justice. A civilian court has ordered an army officer to personally pay compensation. Lieutenant Tzvi Koretzky served two months in a military prison for the "negligent killing" of 16-year-old Mohammed Ali Zayd in October 2002. (Another example of the stupidity of the self-hating legal system! How many Jewish victims of Arab terror got compensation from Arab thugs?) Minister: Justice System Biased. Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann supported the right's contention that the justice system in Israel persecutes people who are not perceived as leftist enough. (It is a well-known fact that Israel's legal system, established during the Labour party dominance, is used to harass and persecute any opposition, especially from Zionists!) Pathetic Solution of Ugly Government! The Ministry of Education has decided to enable the children of Sderot to study in 'safety' by conducting all classes in the schools' bomb shelters. Food for Thought. by Steven Shamrak Israel would not need "a dramatic increase in USA aid" if the US and Russia stopped making money by supplying Muslim countries with weapons. So called aid is just a balancing act, to keep the business going. Please, stop doing Jews a 'favour'! UN Envoy: More Gestures to Abbas. The UN's Mideast envoy Michael Williams said he welcomes Israel's recent release of 250 Palestinian prisoners and the transfer of frozen funds to Mr. Abbas. But, he expressed concern that Israel has not taken further steps. (Ha, it is never enough! How many "gestures" Abbas has made toward peace with Israel? "Useless Nothing" at its best!) Abbas Condemns Israeli Military Action in Gaza. The PA President Mahmoud Abbas condemned Israeli military escalation in Gaza Strip, saying the recent attacks raise doubts about the Israeli government's peace intentions. The peace process, which the international community tries to revive, can not make any progress (like it is now) if the current Israeli policies and procedures continue, warned the statement. (No condemnation of rocket attacks from Gaza. Should Jews doubt PA 'peace intentions'? Only the delusional Olmert government does!) Ashkelon Gets Panic Button. The Home Front Command is allocating more than $100 million for the installation of a "panic button" system in pre-school nurseries and schools to make it easier to alert authorities in the event of a rocket attack on Ashkelon. Oil and gas pipelines and a giant electricity generating station are located in the port city. (Wouldn't the money be better spent by removing the threat of rocket attacks from Gaza permanently?) Syria Gets First Shipment of Russian SA-22's. According to Russian press reports, Moscow has begun delivering advanced SA-22 anti-aircraft missile systems to Syria. Damascus is to get between 34 and 50 of the systems, in a deal worth $900 million. Even Vikings Said Sorry. MORE than 1200 years ago, hordes of bloodthirsty Viking raiders descended on Ireland, pillaging monasteries and massacring the inhabitants. Danish Culture Minister Brian Mikkelson, who was in Dublin to participate in celebrations marking the arrival of a replica Norse longboat, apologised for the destruction: "In Denmark we are certainly proud of this ship, but we are not proud of the damages to the people of Ireland that followed in the footsteps of the Vikings." (There is no rush of apologies from the Vatican to Jews for the Inquisition and the on going anti-Jewish slur, nor regrets from UK, Spain, France, Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, Austria, Russia etc for conducting pogroms, deportation of Jews and participation in Holocaust.) Quote of the Week: "How much of the (rotten) fish did you eat?" "About half the portion," "The first bite was the restaurant's fault, but the second bite was your fault!" -- Rabbi Riskin about 'Peace process'. Gaza's Public Workers Paid to Stay Home. Gaza's public employees are getting paid on one condition: Stay home. Such is the irony of life in the Gaza Strip now that Hamas militants are firmly in charge. A rival pro-Western government in the West Bank is delivering salaries to most of Gaza's civil servants as long as they don't work. (UN's money 'well spent'.) Israel Enduring High-tech Brain-drain. As a result of government cuts to research and development, more then 25,000 Israeli high-tech workers have moved to the United States during the last seven years. The same budget cuts have resulted in 10 billion of lost export revenue. (There are funds for fake anti-terror policies that do not work, but not for the future of Israel!) Aksa Martyrs Brigades will not Honour Agreements with Israel. Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, announced it would no longer honour understandings reached with Israel, and called on its members to carry weapons. (It was expected. It did not last long, like any agreement before it!) Pass to self-Destruction. Israel's Cabinet extends the option of National Service to Arab Israelis. The Education Minister cut National Service options for Jewish girls. (The un-Jewish government made decision to train a "fifth column" to undermine and destroy Israel!) The budget that Education Minister Yuli Tamir intends to take away from female National Service volunteers who teach Zionism and Judaism in Israeli schools will be transferred to National Service programs in the Arab sector. Arabs Say 'No!' to Olmert's National Service Idea. Leaders of the Arab Israeli public said "la!" ("No!", not the first time) to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's initiative to have Arab youths perform national service. "The rights of the Arab public are not conditional on giving military services that serve the occupation". (Clearly, Arabs have never considered themselves as citizens of State of Israel, more as enemies of the state! Olmert's proposal just exposed another level of stupidity and blindness of Israel's politicians!) "Palestine: Partition and Propaganda" by David Singer US President George Bush and Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stubbornly and foolishly continue to push for the creation of an independent Palestinian State between Israel and Jordan, as Hamas and Fatah turn the proposed site for such a state -- Gaza and the West Bank -- into battlegrounds of blood, misery and privation for the Arab populations caught in their deadly crossfire. The 70th anniversary of the Peel Commission Report, released on 7 July 1937, presents a unique and impartial insight into understanding what the so-called "Palestinian problem" was -- and still is today -- really about. The Peel Commission recognised that there was an insoluble conflict in Palestine between the Arabs and Jews, necessitating the partition of Palestine into two independent sovereign states. There was no mention of a third interested party -- the "Palestinians" or "the Palestinian people" -- who also deserved a separate state. This "people" was the subsequent creation of skilful Arab propaganda in the 1950's and '60's in response to Israel's creation in 1948. The Peel Commission Report succinctly summed up the nature of the conflict in the following words: "An irrepressible conflict has arisen between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country. There is no common ground between them. Their national aspirations are incompatible. The Arabs desire to revive the traditions of the Arab golden age. The Jews desire to show what they can achieve when restored to the land in which the Jewish nation was born. Neither of the two national ideals permits of combination in the service of a single State." In 1937, there was no independent state called Jordan. It was then called Trans-Jordan, and it comprised 77% of the territory administered by Great Britain under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine -- the operation of which was specifically the subject of inquiry and consideration by the Peel Commission. The right of Jews to settle in Trans-Jordan pursuant to the Mandate had been "postponed or withheld" by Britain with the consent of the League of Nations from 16 September 1922, thus restricting the right of the Jews to reconstitute their national homeland in only the remaining 23% of Palestine. (The right of Arabs to settle the West bank of the Jordan River was not "postponed or withheld". On the contrary, Arabs were encouraged by the British administration to do so!) Contact the Ceders at ceder524@hotmail.com To Go To Top ISRAEL'S SECURITY WALL IS WORTHLESS Posted by Steven Plaut, August 26, 2007. Remember how often we warned here that the "Security Wall" would not provide security unless Israel also exercised military control over the territory on the OTHER side of the wall? The Pestilinians have a new high-tech breakthrough that makes the "Security Wall" completely ineffective. It is called a ladder! This article is called "Gaza Terrorists, One Fatah, Cross Security Wall With Ropes," and was written by Ezra HaLevi. It appeared today in Arutz-Sheva www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123482 (IsraelNN.com) Arab terrorists from Gaza successfully crossed over the Gaza security wall, causing nearby Jewish towns to be put under curfew until the armed men were killed.Sunday morning, 12 more infiltrators were caught -- though young and unarmed. At least one of the three terrorists who infiltrated Saturday was a member of Fatah; all were wearing IDF uniforms and were heavily armed. The three took advantage of heavy fog to use a rope and ladder to cross the much-touted security fence, which is being replicated in Judea and Samaria due to its purported effectiveness. To date dozens of Arab terrorists have crossed under the fence, through tunnels, including the terrorists who kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Shalit last year at Kerem Shalom. IDF Golani Brigade soldiers spotted the men and engaged two of them, killing them both. One IDF soldier was lightly injured in the fighting. Local Jewish residents of the western Negev towns of Netiv HaAsara, Nahal Oz and Yad Mordechai spent Sabbath morning locked in their homes due to the infiltration. Golani soldiers then combed the Gaza side of the fence, killing two other Arab terrorists in a shootout. It was reported that two men who had been manning an escape vehicle were arrested. It is unclear whether the men were Israeli-Arabs or PA Arabs that infiltrated earlier and returned to the area with a vehicle. 'Sophisticated' Rope and Ladder Northern Gaza Region IDF Commander Gen. Moni Katz told Yediot Acharonot that the terrorists had managed to get past the security fence using a "sophisticated device" and were on their way to a vehicle driven by two other terrorists, who escaped back into Gaza during the gunfight. Katz did not elaborate on the nature of the device that allowed the terrorists to enter through the fence. It has been speculated that the means by which the terrorists breached the wall were not at all sophisticated, consisting of ropes, pulleys and ladders, according to photos published in the major newspapers Sunday. But due to the government's heavy investment in the construction of an identical fence across Judea and Samaria the facts are being kept under wraps. Katz said the men were armed with assault rifles, several clips of ammunition, hand grenades and bulletproof vests. He admitted that due to the weather and the terrorists' method of crossing over the fence, "Until the moment they opened fire we did not know it was an infiltration." Fatah and Hamas? Army Radio reported that the attempted attack was sponsored by Hamas to cause the Erez Crossing to be closed, to sabotage the exit from Gaza of a number of Fatah-affiliated university students. The Popular Resistance Committee, a joint Hizbullah-style group made up of members of Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad, said its members carried out the infiltration. At least one Fatah terrorist was involved in the attack, though he was reported to have escaped back to Gaza. Islamic Jihad Terrorist Killed Border Police killed an Islamic Jihad terrorist attempting to carry out a suicide bombing and arrested two others near PA-controlled Tul Karem Saturday. The name of the dead terrorist was Tarek Melahem. Zadik Ouda, a senior Islamic Jihad terrorist, opened fire at the soldiers, who returned fire, wounding him. He was apprehended and arrested. A border police officer was wounded during the fighting. In Jenin, IDF soldiers and Border Police killed another senior Islamic Jihad terrorist, Ala Abu al-Said and his deputy Mustafa Atik Saturday. A third, unnamed terrorist was also killed in the gun battle. Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor at the Graduate School of Business Administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il To Go To Top GOD'S JEWISH WARRIORS ACCORDING TO CNN Posted by Jock Falkson, August 26, 2007. In its first comprehensive documentary on the terrorist phenomenon in the Middle East, CNN decided to cover the 3 major religions -- Jewish, Christian and Muslim. CNN's first presentation of God's Warriors which aired Wednesday, August 23, focused on the Jewish contribution. It turned out to be a pitiful search for virtually nonexistent Jewish terrorists. Amanpour and her researchers could only find this handful: Yigal Amir who killed Rabin; Dr. Goldstein who killed 29 Muslim worshippers; Another who served 7 years in an Israeli prison (whose name I missed). The blowing up of Bassam Shaka, the mayor of Nablus in 1980. Rabbi Kahane, who killed no one; And some nonentities who gave a lot of Israeli soldiers a bad time for carrying out orders to evacuate them from certain settlements. The 'rebels' used sticks and stones but killed no one. One must perhaps admire the gall of CNN in equating that pitiful number of Israelis which Amanpour has managed to dredge up with the uncounted thousands of Palestinian Arabs who undoubtedly qualify as terrorists for killing innocent Israeli civilians. Nor should we forget the hundreds of accomplices who plan, aid, abet, harbor and transport the murdering killers of our civilians. Or the millions of Muslims who glorify the killers. And the millions more who pray for Allah to exterminate Israel's Jews and wipe the Jewish state off the map." The Aipac Illusion Another of God's Jewish Warriors, according to CNN, is AIPAC*, the well known pro-Israel lobby. Amanpour is there to provide examples of the intense power of this organization which all Congressmen, she says, must obey, including the President. (*American Israel Public Affairs Committee.) While I do not take exception to the fact that Aipac has powerful friends on Capitol Hill, it is simply not true that Israel gets its way on account of Aipac's "notorious" power over the President and Congress. Entirely missing from the CNN allegation is the fact that the people of Israel and the USA hold many important and significant values in common. It should surprise no one that these underscore natural bonds of friendship. Like the fact that both share love of freedom and the pursuit of happiness. Nor do we glorify death. A majority of Muslims on the other hand love death and pursue Jihad with the fervor of zealots. Like secular education, technological progress, the never ending search for innovation, a free economy and a free press. The lack of these values have resulted in centuries of Muslim backwardness. Like disrespect for women's human rights and respect for "honor killings" and clitoridectomies. Islam cares not for government of the people by the people. What they want is a Caliphate dominated by Shariah law. Muslim states do not permit universal suffrage in the few states which permit limited voting. Our two states respect and practice religious tolerance, whereas Islam respects no other religion and wants nothing less than world domination. We respect and practice monogamy; Islam permits and practices bigamy, even child marriage. Nor do Muslim states have regard for equality before the law. Neither for women, Jews and other infidels. Nor do our two nations admire the inhuman punishments of stoning, decapitating, limb cutting and flogging. Nor do the US and Israel favor preaching and teaching hatred, and revenge by terrorist methods. (I have undoubtedly overlooked other common values.) Considering the many qualities both the US and Israel hold dear, why should anyone wonder at the friendship which has grown up between the two nations? Why Does The US Arm Israel's Enemies? AS to CNN's allegation that the power which Aipac has exercised which has resulted in US endangerment, the facts lead to quite opposite conclusions. That Congressmen and Presidents fear the power of Aipac, as the CNN documentary alleges, represents nothing more than shallow thinking. Some examples: The US has, since 1979, armed Saudi Arabia with military might far beyond its real needs. The total military aid supplied to date is over $40bn. Plus $25 bn non military aid. And still continues annually, to aid one of the richest nations on earth! Who was the enemy in 1979? Little ole Israel, with whom the Saudis have never even signed the cease fire of 1948. Did the US tremble at Aipac's ire? Or Israel's displeasure? Fuggetaboutit. The US continues to arm the Saudis and Egyptians with the most advanced aircraft and military equipment, forcing Israel to buy ever improved weaponry which will hopefully give us an edge should the Saudis, Egyptians and other Arab states decide to attack us again. The US has been arming Egypt with about $3bn annually since 1975. Who is Egypt's enemy? Little ole Israel, that's who. And Aipac's overwhelming power as portrayed by CCN's documentary matters to the US Congress and its Presidents little more than a camel's excretion. Self-interest Above All Did Aipac use its very best endeavors to prevent the Saudi and Egyptian rearming? You can bet they did. But overriding all else is the fact that the US looks to its own interests first. When the interests of our two nations converge, the champagne glasses clink. When they diverge the US doesn't give a fig for Aipac. Understandably, the US serves its own interests first. It matters little where the chips fall. US self interest always trumps Aipac and while Israel may be disappointed, she is seldom if ever surprised. One can hardly credit that CCN was not aware of this. Jock (Joshua) L. Falkson is a former South African advertising executive, now living in Israel. Contact him at falkson@013.net and visit his website: http://breasy.com/israeldefender/ To Go To Top IRAN ON U.N. ANTI-RACISM COMMITTEE MEETING IN GENEVA 27 AUGUST. A UN TRAVESTY AGAIN Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 25, 2007. A TRAVESTY ... The UN.. when does their lease expire in Geneva and in NYC? And the Taxpayer is as usual taken to the cleaners to fund this Travesty called UN ...... How much lower can the UN sink beneath its own weight of hypocrisy, oil for food scams, corruption, etc? This is simply another in a long list of reasons why we should have NOTHING to do with the UN.... What next? The Taliban on the panel!? As Goebbels said..... The charges and accusations (racism, e.g.) have to be constant, they have to be endlessly repeated, and (as per Goebbels) fact-truth-logic (or even the practice of the accusation by the accuser) do not matter with propaganda. Goebbels said that the only thing that matters is that the propaganda be effective and that the "stupid masses" believe it...... It's because the world is changing fast, good is becoming evil, evil is becoming good, and the grand plan played by Islamics around the globe has the world postured and practically convinced the West is the "racist", if not "Satan" himself. Our collective dhimmitude is allowing the table to turn. What "was", "is" no more. Iran on anti-racism committee Islamic Republic selected by UN for 'leading position' to plan anti-racism conference This was written by Yaakov Lappin and it was published in Ynet News (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3441314,00.html). Islamic Republic selected by UN for 'leading position' to plan anti-racism conference Despite its numerous calls for Israel's destruction, and repeated denials of the Holocaust, Iran has been selected by the United Nations for a leading position in a committee that will plan the 2009 UN World Conference against Racism. The planning committee, which will meet for the first time in Geneva on August 27, will be made up of an inner circle of 20 UN member-states, to be headed by Libya. The decision to include Iran in the committee has been slammed by UN watchdogs. "As a UN spokesperson against racism, Iran will invert totally the message and mission of the United Nations," Anne Bayefsky, senior editor of the New York-based Eye on the UN, said in a press release. "Iran is now poised to wrap itself in a UN flag as a lead agent of the next global conference against racism, Durban II," she added, referring to the 2001 UN conference on racism held in Durban, South Africa, which saw unprecedented levels of anti-Zionist rhetoric and calls for Israel's destruction. Speaking to Ynetnews, Bayefsky said that "the leading exponents of anti-Semitism, whether directed at Jews individually or the Jewish people and its state generally, continue to be provided a global platform at the UN. This is but one example of a broader phenomenon." "Eye on the UN has found that in 2006 the UN system as a whole directed the most condemnations for human rights abuses against specific states -- first towards Israel and fourth towards the United States. Iran was lower down on the list of UN human rights concerns," Bayefsky said, adding: "And yet the US taxpayer continues to pay a quarter of the bill for activities which demonize Americans and Israelis on a global scale." A spokesperson for the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights confirmed to Ynetnews that "Iran is one of 20 States who are members of the bureau of the Preparatory Committee," but added that "Iran does not occupy a leading role." When asked how a state which openly denies the Holocaust could find itself in such a role, the spokesperson said: "The Preparatory Committee is an inter-governmental body, meaning States were chosen freely to sit on the Prep-Com. It is the Member-States who decide." 'UN body hijacked again' Bayefsky explained that the structure of the UN's Human Rights Council has effectively been taken over by the countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), allowing Iran and Libya access to key roles. "The states were selected by the UN Human Rights Council and the Council is controlled by the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The majority of seats on the Council are held by the African and Asian regional groups and the OIC has a majority of seats on each of these groups. Western states do not have the votes to block this outrage and it is another example of the hijacking that has occurred of the UN's lead human rights agency," she said. Reacting to the statements of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of the Geneva-Based UN Watch organization, said that the UN had failed to explain how Iran had ended up on the planning council. "I think they are basically dodging the question," Neuer said. "To ask why Iran should be a member, and then to be answered that Iran is a member, is not an answer," he added. "This conference is turning into a wolf in sheep's clothing. The United Nations' government and diplomats do not think the way regular people think. They treat every country equally and do not use common sense principles. That attitude is contrary to the UN charter, which says members who act contrary to the charter's principles of supporting peace should be expelled," Neuer explained. "According many diplomats, this will be a fiasco in the making. And it should be noted there are African states that care about legitimate issues concerning racism and want those to be addressed. It's a shame that the Islamic states are intending on subverting this conference as they have done with the Human Rights Council and numerous other UN bodies," Neuer added. "The High commissioner (Louise Arbour) has to speak truth to power. The high commissioner should express her concern that once again a leading human rights entity at the UN is being headed by Libya with Iran in a leadership position, whatever the UN may say. It undermines any last vestige of moral credibility," he said. 'Israel's options limited' Asked what his advice would be for Israel on how to deal with the conference, Neuer said: "There is a limited amount of options for Israel. The analogy is to the UN General Assembly, where the numbers speak for themselves, and there is not much Israel can do to prevent certain resolutions." "The key thing is to work on Western states like Canada and the Europeans. Israel has to be vigilant, has to closely monitor diplomatic developments, and needs to engage with its Western friends and to make sure that the Europeans stand firm and refuse to appease the extremists," Neuer added. According to Bayefsky, "Israel needs to point continually to the dangerous role played by the UN in undermining the welfare of the Jewish state and its people. The veil of legitimacy of the organization as a leader in human rights protection must be lifted." Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top FROM ISRAEL: FOILED Posted by Arlene Kushner, August 25, 2007. Motzei Shabbat (After Shabbat) Early today two terrorists -- intent on a major "martyrdom" operation -- managed to infiltrate into Israel from northern Gaza but were shot and killed before they got far. The sort of infiltration they achieved was highly unusual, as there is a fortified fence across the area. Almost certainly with assistance from one or more persons on the other side, they utilized sophisticated equipment and relied upon a heavy fog in the area to help them slip through. Dressed as IDF soldiers, they were carrying explosives and a variety of weapons. It is believed they were headed for a Negev town. I never receive news like this without a prayer of gratitude that what might have been was averted. Incidents such as this one keep us mindful: They're out there, they're still trying to get us. ~~~~~~~~~~ Looking northward with regard to defense, Israel is expanding the deployment of its Arrow missiles. Anticipating that the next war -- whether with Syria or Iran -- will involve a huge onslaught of missiles, the Air Force has decided to place the Arrow -- which is capable of intercepting all of the operational ballistic missiles in Iran and Syria -- in a larger number of locations. A newer Arrow -- the Arrow 3 -- is currently under development; this missile intercepts incoming missiles at a higher altitude than the current missile. Additionally, a new, advanced version of the Patriot, which takes out lower altitude missiles, is to be put in place to serve as a third layer of defense. Additionally, the Defense Ministry recently made inquiries to the Pentagon regarding two American-made missile defense systems -- the Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) and the Aegis. Reportedly, there is heightened coordination -- with exercises being held -- between our forces and US forces in preparation for the possibility that the US might transfer equipment to Israel. My (layperson's) take: This preparation is, in one respect, reassuring -- we would be remiss if defense weren't being prepared to the maximum. But we'd be sorely mistaken in imagining that with this in place we are "protected." The key lies in offensive capability, about which, of course, nothing is being said. May it be as thoroughly prepared as our defenses. ~~~~~~~~~~ Returning to the political front... Binyamin Netanyahu, head of Likud, has reportedly approached Avigdor Lieberman, who heads Yisrael Beitenu, about running jointly in the next election. Netanyahu, eager to unify right-wing forces and looking to strengthen Likud with the Russian immigrant population here, has offered to save slots for Yisrael Beitenu on the Likud list. Lieberman was at one time associated with Likud. No agreements have been reached yet. Sources close to Netanyahu say that he is not willing to save slots on the Likud list for those who bolted from Likud for Kadima and are now thinking of returning. These individuals would have to take their chances in the Likud primary. There is considerable ambivalence within Likud about taking back those who walked away in favor of Kadima: suffice it to say they are neither respected nor trusted. ~~~~~~~~~~ From Arab news sources comes the report that Abbas definitely does not intend to run again for PA president when his term is over in less than two years. Abbas is embroiled in heightened tensions with Farouk Qaddoumi; he currently controls Fatah's Central Committee, which is rejecting Abbas's moves. Put simply, Abbas grows more and more impotent. Qaddoumi is most definitely not a "moderate" -- he declined to come to PA controlled areas with the signing of the Oslo Accords, preferring to stay in Tunis because he was against any peace treaty with Israel. His control within Fatah is a sign of things to come. With this comes indication that Salam Fayyad is being promoted by the US as a replacement for Abbas -- but resented by many within Fatah precisely because he is the "US candidate." ~~~~~~~~~~ Meanwhile, regarding Hamas... According to a London-based Arabic newspaper, al-Sharq al-Awsat, cited by YNet, Ghazi Hamad, spokesman for Haniyeh, has resigned his position because of his feeling that it was a mistake for Hamas to take over Gaza. He believes that Hamas should be making moves toward reconciliation with Fatah. And Mashaal today told CNN that Shalit is alive and well and that his release is being negotiated with Israel via Egypt. While according to Israel Radio, Islamic Jihad's military wing has announced that all of its activities, including launching of Kassams, will be coordinated with Hamas. ~~~~~~~~~~ The UN Security Council voted on Friday to extend the mandate of UNIFIL for another year, but had declined to expand the mandate of this international force of 13,600. It is supposed to assist the Lebanese army in deploying in the south of Lebanon to create a buffer zone free of Hezbollah forces, and has many restrictions placed upon it. Token recognition was given to Israeli concerns, with added clauses calling for the immediate release of kidnapped IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev without pre-set conditions, as well as condemnation of terror attacks against UNIFIL troops operating in the area. Without teeth, such clauses are totally meaningless. Do the terrorists attacking UNIFIL troops care if the UN has condemned them? They likely take it as a point of pride. As Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman pointed out, the flow of weapons from Syria continues and there is still a Hezbollah presence in the south. This is a joke. And yet our foreign minister -- who helped promoted this force in the first place last year as a way to resolve matters via "diplomacy" -- praised the action to extend the mandate. What makes this all more revolting is that this past week the UN special envoy to the Middle East, Michael Williams, was here and urged Israel to take "further steps" to strengthen Abbas. He thought we should start with more prisoner releases. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info To Go To Top GENESIS OF AN ANTI-SEMITIC STATE Posted by David Bedein, August 25, 2007. On the anti-Semitic laws and curriculum of the PA. Imagine, if you would, that a nascent nation-state, somewhere in the world, was in formation, and that it had taken on these features: * Its new constitution would not allow for any juridical status for Judaism. Jews would not even be allowed to live in the country. * Selling land to a Jew would be a capital crime. * The new school system would inculcate children to make war on the Jews. * Those who murdered Jews would become the national heroes of the new country. * Their designated head of state earned his Ph.D. on the thesis that six million Jews were not really murdered during World War II, and that the Zionists were actually allies of the Nazis. The reaction to such a news item would be an outcry from Jewish groups that monitor and react to anti-Semitism as a matter of policy. Yet, we have seen no outcry from these groups in the case of the proposed Palestinian state, even though it possesses all six characteristics listed above. Others have expressed their deep concern about the anti-Semitism of the nascent Palestinian entity. Four years ago, this reporter covered a briefing for a visiting United States congressional delegation provided by the Vatican representative to Israel. Archbishop Pietro Sambi warned US lawmakers that the new Palestinian Authority's approved state constitution, funded by USAID, provided no juridical status for any religion other than Islam in the emerging Palestinian Arab entity. The Papal Nuncio also warned that the Palestinian Authority (PA) had adopted Shariah law. Islamic nations that have adopted Shariah have mandated the absolute supremacy of Muslims over non-Muslims as matter of law. Archbishop Sambi provided our news agency with the PA constitution, with the hope that Jewish groups that monitor anti-Semitism would object to the US-funded Palestinian state constitution. It never happened. Archbishop Sambi initiated a study of the new PA textbooks, which the Vatican determined to be anti-Semitic in nature. And so, at the recommendation of Archbishop Sambi, the Italian government pulled its money out of the Palestinian Ministry of Education's textbook project. This past May, Dr. Arnon Groiss, a researcher at the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, made a presentation for European diplomats in Brussels showing how PA textbooks, instead of educating for peace with Israel, promote the violent struggle for liberation against Israel. From these textbooks, Groiss showed that the PA curriculum teaches the following fundamentals: * Jews are foreigners and have no rights in Palestine. * The Jews have a dubious, and even murderous, character. * Israel is an illegitimate usurper that occupied Palestine in 1948 and 1967. * Israel is the source of all kinds of evil done to the Palestinians. * Peace with Israel based on reconciliation is not to be sought. A violent struggle for liberation is encouraged instead. * The exact area to be liberated is never restricted to the West Bank and Gaza alone. * Jihad and martyrdom are glorified, and terrorist activities against Israel are implicitly encouraged. * The West is imperialist, aspires to world hegemony, directs a cultural attack against Islam and supports Israel. The list of accusations against Israel appearing in the new Palestinian Authority schoolbooks includes more than 25 items, including the following: * Israel contributes to Palestinian social ills and family violence. * Israel causes the increase of drug abuse cases in Palestinian society. * Israel pollutes the Palestinian environment. * Israel usurps Muslim and Christian holy places. * Israel strives to obliterate the Palestinian national identity and heritage. This reporter asked spokespeople of the Israeli Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Defense Minister if they would ask a new Palestinian state to cancel its anti-Semitic curriculum. The spokespeople for the Israeli government provided a clear answer: "This is not on the agenda." The spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert asked for the question in writing three weeks ago, confirmed that it was received, and will not respond. Questions were then posed to Jewish organizations who monitor anti-Semitism -- the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, B'nai Brith, the Anti-Defamation League, the Religious Action Center of the UAHC, the World Jewish Congress, the Institute for Public Affairs of the OU, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Each group was asked if they would request that the American and Israeli governments condition aid to the Palestinian Authority on the nullification of the anti-Semitic constitution and curriculum of the Palestinian Authority. The Simon Wiesenthal Center responded. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Director of the Wiesenthal Center, wrote: "You have raised an issue that was supposedly addressed during the Oslo process and unfortunately no Israeli government or US administration held the Palestinian leadership accountable. The current questions you raised are important enough that we will urge that the Global Forum on Antisemitism take it up...." Archbishop Sambi, now the Papal Nuncio in Washington, who has not been afraid to take a clear stand on the issue of official Palestinian anti-Semitism, should be asked to join that forum. As for the other groups, they should break their silence on this critical issue. David Bedein is Bureau Chief, Israel Resource News Agency. To Go To Top FORMER ARAB MK ACCUSED OF SPYING FOR HIZBULLAH. PRAISES THEM IN LEBANON Posted by Avodah, August 25, 2007. This come from the website of Yoni the Blogger -- http://www.yonitheblogger.com/ A former Arab MK accused of spying for Hizbullah during the Second Lebanon War last summer praised the guerrilla group Friday, saying it is now stronger than ever. Azmi Bishara, a once prominent Arab Knesset leader who has been on the run since June, made the comments during a tour of south Lebanon border villages, where he visited the graves of Lebanese war victims and met with their families. "Everybody envies the Lebanese for their resistance (Hizbullah) and its leadership, but I envy the resistance for its people," said Bishara, according to comments carried by the state-run National News Agency. Bishara also condemned Israeli attacks against Lebanese civilians during the fighting last year. "The massacres that were carried out by Israel were not a coincidence but were a strategic policy to frighten people," he said. He praised Hizbullah for its performance during the 34-day war last summer, which was triggered by Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross border guerrilla raid. "I am convinced that Israel has become incapable of attacking Lebanon again, and that is a very big achievement for the resistance," he said. "Hizbullah has rearmed itself in the last year and perhaps is now stronger than ever," he added, according to the NNA. He did not elaborate. Bishara left Israel in early June after being grilled twice by investigators and later resigned his Parliament seat. Police said he would be arrested immediately if he returns to Israel on charges of espionage for Hizbullah. Both he and Hizbullah have denied the accusations. He has said he is a victim of political persecution. Bishara has antagonized many Jewish Israelis over the years by meeting with some of Israel's bitterest enemies, including the leaders of Syria and Hizbullah. A Christian from the town of Nazareth who joined parliament in 1996, he frequently speaks out in favor of Palestinian rights. Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com To Go To Top CHRISTIAN TV SHOW OFF THE AIR -- THE MUSLIM PRESSURE GROUP CAIR IS RESPONSIBLE Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 25, 2007. This appeared today in World Net Daily (http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57310). Preacher says CBS 'caved' to demands of Islamic organization A CBS television station in Tampa, Fla., has announced it is taking the ongoing "Live Prayer with Bill Keller" program, on the airwaves since 2003, off after the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations complained of the religious views Keller expressed. CAIR-Tampa issued a statement that "WTOG-TV (CS44) dropped 'Live Prayer' after the station and its parent company CBS received a letter from and had discussions with the Islamic civil rights and advocacy group." "It's clear what happened. CAIR pressured CBS in New York to take us off. I have always dealt with the issues of the day from a biblical worldview on my program," Keller told WND. "[The Bible] calls Islam a false religion. They took great offense. CBS caved." Keller, who has been involved in controversy before, said the last show on the old station will be on Friday, Aug. 31, and the following Monday he will launch a morning program on a competing station. "We already had our new morning show in the works," he said. WTOG station manager Laura Caruso told the St. Petersburg Times the decision to end Keller's contract was a mutual decision and had nothing to do with complaints from individuals. But CAIR's leaders "say both local and network representatives assured them that the program would no longer air on the station after Sept. 11," according to the Times report. And Keller told WND he didn't go willingly. "I'm saying nothing now that I haven't been saying for five years," said Keller. "Ultimately, it was pressure by CAIR that intimidated these people into taking me off the air. It was not mutually agreeable. They told me they were taking me off the air, period." CAIR said it had asked earlier this month that CBS remove Keller's nightly talk show. CAIR-Tampa Executive Director Ahmed Bedier had told CBS chief Tom Kane as well as WTOG that he objected to the programming. "In the hate-filled program, 'Live Prayer with Bill Keller,' Islam and Muslims are referred to in the most vicious and bigoted of terms. For example on May 2, 2007, host Bill Keller said: 'Islam is a 1,400-year-old lie from the pits of hell. It's leading a billion peoples [sic] to hell ... those who follow this false religion will die and be lost for all eternity.' On the same program, he also said, 'The false religion of Islam is about hate, lies and death,'" the letter said. "It is our belief that anti-Islamic rhetoric like that used in 'Live Prayer with Bill Keller' is exactly the type of language that is likely to incite hate crimes against the American Muslim community," the letter said. When the cancellation was announced, Bedier said, "While we strongly support freedom of speech and religion, the public airwaves should not be used to promote hatred and bigotry. We commend WTOG-TV and CBS for rejecting any association with those who would demonize a minority group." Keller told WND that his new show, Live Prayer AM on WTTA (Ch. 38), will be in a slightly different format, with a few more guests. "But I will still be dealing with the news and events from a biblical worldview," he said. "That will remain the same." He began broadcasting on WTOG on March 3, 2003, and has done more than 1,170 shows so far, paying the station several hundred thousand dollars a year for the airtime used, he told WND. In an interview with the St. Petersburg Times, a CAIR spokesman claimed credit for the removal of the program. "They really based their decision upon our letter," Ramzy Kilic, CAIR's civil rights coordinator, told the newspaper. "They really did not know that Bill Keller was involved with this kind of anti-Muslim rhetoric." Keller, since beginning his Live Prayer Internet ministry in 1999, has criticized Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses as well as Scientologists. Earlier this year he earned the wrath of Americans United for Separation of Church and State when he wrote in a devotional that a vote for Mitt Romney, a Republican candidate for president who is a Mormon, is a vote for Satan. The activist group asked the Internal Revenue Service to begin investigating Keller for possible tax law violations. At that point, Keller laughed off the claims. "Let them come after me for making a spiritual statement about Mitt Romney. I would love that," he said. As WND reported earlier, while some evangelical Christians were defending the presidential candidacy of Romney from an attack by Al Sharpton, Keller took a step in the other direction. "If you vote for Mitt Romney, you are voting for Satan!" he wrote in a daily devotional sent to 2.4 million e-mail subscribers on May 11. Sharpton, the Democratic Party activist and former presidential candidate, had been widely condemned for singling out Romney's faith as an issue in the campaign. "As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways, so don't worry about that; that's a temporary situation," he said. Keller also said Romney wasn't a target; he was trying to expose the Mormon church, saying when LDS members talk of God and Jesus they are not talking about the God and Jesus of Christianity. Keller was a businessman convicted of insider trading in 1989, a crime for which he served more than two years in federal prison. After getting out, he received a degree in biblical studies from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and has been in full-time ministry ever since. He estimates he and his volunteers in the ministry have responded to more than 60 million e-mail prayer requests and helped introduce 190,000 people to Christ. Participants in a Times blog had a range of responses to the news that the television show was being dropped. "All I can say is ... Go Bill, tell it like it is ... God bless you," said Michele. "When did Bill Keller and the rest of our country lose the right to free speech," Added "G." "Each night he is just speaking what God, the God of the Bible says. Bill is not afraid to stand up for Jesus. Jesus says, 'I am the way, the truth and the life.'" "More Truth," added, "Poor, poor abused Muslims. The abuse they've had all because of the Billy Graham Organization attacking America on 9/11/01/ Muslims are so peaceful in the way they threaten to kill infidels." "JM4" had this to say: "CBS yielding to demands of a supposed 'civil rights organization' isn't surprising. It is surprising that there is no acknowledgement that CAIR is a federal unindicted co-conspirator in a terror related case in TX. Journalism at its finest! HA!" The writer was referring to evidence at the trial of the Texas-based Islamic charity Holy Land Foundation and five of its former organizers, who are accused of supporting Hamas. Prosecutors named the Council on American-Islamic Relations an unindicted co-conspirator in the case. "LOVE EVERYONE" added this: "In the name of Christanity, (sic) Jews are bad, God only lives in the south where he told them blacks should be slaves and hatred was okay. Christianity has killed more people than any other religion on earth. I choose to beleive (sic) in GOD not US Christianity." One exile is when they remove us from our land, but the spiritual exile is much more difficult; it is exile that takes place when the connection between the Nation and its land is forgotten. We all know what exile is. Exile is what happens to a person who was kicked off his land. But this is not the worst exile. It is possible to exile a nation from its land by force, but if the nation aspires to return, sets up days of mourning in memory of the exile, remembers each centimeter of its land, remembers its history in that land, remains faithful to the holy sites and its Forefathers burial ground and educates each generation from generation to generation to remember the land under any conditions, then this exile is never complete because the connection between the nation and its land was never entirely severed. Memory, education and longing -- all three are the methods to defend from the full force of the exile effect and they might preserve a nation until such time when it is possible to stop the exile and begin returning from it. If so, what is full exile? Full exile takes place when the linkage between the land and the nation is forgotten. If there is no memory of previous ownership, if there is no desire to return, if children are not told stories about the land, then the exile the enemy wished to impose on the nation, the disconnect between the nation and its land receives its full force. If a nation forgot the fact that it was exiled, then it is true exile. From the idea of the nation's collective memory loss comes the birth of true exile, stems surprising conclusion: A nation can be in exile even when it is living on its land. Like a person who suffers memory loss while he is sitting at home, a nation can lose its memory totally and in such a way that is cannot remember it arrived home. To remember Rachel This is Israel's situation today. The memory that remained in our collective conscious for two thousand years has gone through gradual erosion process and already cannot block the exile surge. Take for instance Rachel's tomb. From the Jewish Nation's emotional point of view there is no second to Rachel's tomb. Rachel's biblical life story; the description of the Prophet Jeremiah of her cry for her children being exiled and God's promise that they will still return to their borders; the generation after generation who visited her tomb and the magnificent burial estate Moshe Montefiore built for her in 1841 -- all are different expressions of the manner that kept us remembering Rachel's Tomb, in the Bethlehem olive orchards during the exile years. If you could, visit Rachel's Tomb today. Monstrosity of complicated walls; gun posts, gates and chains were built around it, as they were going to stop the invaders. The place has turned ugly. If you actually succeed in entering the place, the guards will not let you walk around freely because, they say, of the danger that lurks everywhere, even inside the maze of the high walls. Take your children to Rachel's Tomb. Try teaching them about our Foremother Rachel while you enter with them into this big jail fortress. You will not succeed because you will not be able to pass on to them the sense of value of the place. It is too ugly, too military, to frightening, for it to have any kind of attraction, physical or emotional. Only those who remember Rachel Tomb as it was could experience the emotional linkage to the place. If current conditions continue, the next generation will not remember Rachel Tomb and the exile from it will be stronger then it ever was during the last two thousand years. The way they exiled us from the physical Rachel Tomb, so Rachel Tomb is removed from our souls. The exile phenomenon exists everywhere, not only in Rachel's Tomb. Joseph Tomb in Shchem has been lost after it was destroyed by the Arabs and was neglected by Israel. Hebron, our Forefathers domicile and burial, more often than not, is on the verge of destruction. Temple Mount, the place of the two Jewish Temples, is systematically castrated from its history (not to speak about its future value). Judea and Samaria, the heart of the biblical land, are disconnected by a winding wall that hurts the land and partitions between our past and our legacy. It seems that the forces of exile spitefully attack the places where our collective memory is the strongest. Intellectual Exile Physical exile is one thing but intellectual exile, the memory disconnection is the final exile guillotine. The compelled forgetfulness infrastructure was laid during decades. The Jewish Nation historical linkage to its land was systematically wiped from the consciousness. At school many Jewish children learn to despise the Bible. They provide them with revisionist and anti Zionist version of history and the stories that could bring about the emotional linkage to places suck as Rachel Tomb are no longer taught. New jargon fills the void that is left in the young heads: Occupation, Palestine, peace and post Zionism. Our history is being wiped out and with it our connection to our land. This is not the first time there are attempts to cut off the memory of the Land of Israel among Jews. Prior of course were the two big exiles that took place when the Babylonians and Romans pillaged Jerusalem and sloughed the nation. Another event however clearly reflects what takes place today: the Jewish king Yerav'am ben Nevat was a villain who ruled the northern tribes during Israel's divided kingdom (10th century BC). He wanted to cause his subjects to forget King David dynasty that ruled in Jerusalem at that time. For that purpose, and as an alternative to the temple in Jerusalem, he built two pagan temples and guided his nation to go pray there. But the nation insisted to go on visiting the real temple. Yerav'am built manned barriers in order to stop his subjects from going up to Jerusalem and hoped that aggressive obstruction will cause them to forget the Temple. Two hundred years passed before this "separation fence" was removed but then it was too late; the nation indeed forgot! Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top US HEBREW SCHOOL ORDERED TO HALT HEBREW CLASSES Posted by Avodah, August 24, 2007. This comes from AP at www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1187779152826&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull A charter school has been ordered to temporarily suspend Hebrew classes while officials try to determine whether teachers are advocating the Jewish faith. Broward Schools Superintendent James Notter sent a letter to officials at the Ben Gamla Charter School in Hollywood on Wednesday advising them to halt Hebrew classes until the school board could further examine the curriculum. "If it comes up in the course of conversation, that is one thing but if it comes to promoting religion or proselytizing, we don't want it to happen," said Keith Bromery, a spokesman for the Broward schools. Ben Gamla is in its first week of operation as the country's first Hebrew-language charter school, but school founder Peter Deutsch, a former Democratic congressman, said he told teachers Thursday to halt the classes. He said he shared Notter's aim to ensure religion doesn't enter a publicly funded school. "His goal and my goal are really exactly the same," Deutsch said. The ban on Hebrew will extend at least until Sept. 11, when the board next meets. Until then, time that would have been spent on language instruction will be used teaching Israeli geography and Jewish history and culture. Deutsch said he believes the school has every right to continue Hebrew classes, but decided to stop them to ease concerns. Both he and school board member Eleanor Sobel, in whose district Ben Gamla is located, have described their efforts as "bending over backwards" for one another. Ben Gamla presented its curriculum to the board for a third time Tuesday, but Sobel said it still had religious overtones. "We're going into the fourth round now and maybe that's what it takes to get it right," she said. Ben Gamla, which has about 400 students in kindergarten through eighth grades, has generated controversy since it was proposed. Students follow state curriculum, but also were to take a Hebrew language course, and one of their core subjects -- math or physical education, for example -- was to be taught bilingually as well. School officials ran into tough opposition at Broward County School Board meetings when proposing Hebrew textbooks that included passages criticized as being too religious. Even the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Federation of Broward County have expressed church-state separation issues. Ben Gamla hopes to expand further in South Florida and to open schools in New York and Los Angeles. It takes its name from a Jewish high priest, serves kosher food, and its director is a rabbi. Without Hebrew classes, though, Deutsch said its most central component is missing. "It is kind of crazy -- the only Hebrew-English charter school in America doesn't teach Hebrew," he said. Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com To Go To Top PALESTINIAN STREET DEFIES WITHDRAWAL SUPPORTERS' ASSERTIONS Posted by Fred Reifenberg, August 24, 2007. This was written by Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director of IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis) and it appeared on the IMRA website yesterday. Contact Dr. Lerner by email at imra@netvision.net.il and visit the website -- http://www.imra.org.il Q17. As the Palestinian and Israeli prepare to engage in direct negotiations that would reach to a final solution to establish a Palestinian state, to what extent do you support or oppose each of the following: 2. Any land swap between both sides to reach a final settlement Strongly support 10.8 Somewhat support 27.2 Somewhat oppose 25.0 Strongly oppose 36.4 No answer 0.6 3. Declaring parts of East Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian State Strongly support 11.4 Somewhat support 19.0 Somewhat oppose 24.7 Strongly oppose 42.5 No answer 2.4 4. Allowing Israel to keep control of major settlement blocs inside the West Bank in exchange for equal Israeli land Strongly support 3.8 Somewhat support 13.6 Somewhat oppose 25.0 Strongly oppose 56.9 No answer 0.7 Jerusalem Media & Communications Center poll of a representative sample of 1,199 Palestinian adults in the West Bank and Gaza Strip carried out 16-20 August 2007.   Oops! That's not what the domestic and foreign withdrawal supporters keep on asserting the Palestinians will go for. President Bush, Secretary of State Rice, PM Olmert, FM Livni, Tony Blair, etc. are all confident, based on the handful of English speaking Palestinians they may have actually talked with, that a workable deal could be reached based on the very same ideas so clearly rejected by the Palestinian street. There are two responses to this reality: One is to commission polls with cooked questions to try to force more favorable results. The other is to take the omniscient approach and assert that it doesn't matter what the street thinks because they don't know what is good for them and will ultimately embrace a deal based on elements that they now reject. This is playing with fire. Because it means creating a sovereign Palestinian state, with everything that sovereignty means, with a built in set of grievances for a return to conflagration. On the other hand: Main reason behind feeling of concern 25% The economic hardship 28% The absence of security for my family 27% The internal power struggle 03% The Israeli occupation 03% Family problems 13% I have no concerns Near East Consulting poll of representative sample of adult Palestinians 11-14 August, 2007 Contrary to what the politicians say, the Israeli "occupation" is hardly the top concern of the Palestinian street. What does this mean? That the pressure for a sovereign Palestinian state relying on a house-of-cards arrangement is external and top down. Creative forms of autonomy remain the most viable "solution" for the foreseeable future. Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il To Go To Top HOW TO EFFECT CHANGE AT CNN -- HIT THEM IN THE POCKETBOOK Posted by Naomi Ragen, August 24, 2007. David Bedein wrote this: Dear Naomi CNN is thrilled if people from Israel write nasty letters TO CNN -- they will share that with their Arab and lefty viewers, and then they will write letters. As a former CNN radio corresondent in Israel, and as someone who has accompanied numerous CNN crews on a per diem basis over the past 20 years, I can attest to the fact that what bothers and hurts CNN would be to hit them where it hurts the most -- with their advertisers. You may quote what I am saying to anyone. Please ask those who viewed and taped the program to determine who the advertisers are. I suggest that one advertiser be targeted. That will drive them crazy at CNN more than anything else. You can use and apply this methodology to almost any media outlet hit then in the pocket book with their advertisers. Brachot Rabot DAVID BEDEIN CAMERA has thoughtfully provided an action list of sponsors. CALL CNN and leave a comment: 404-827-1500 Submit a comment on CNN's "report an error" form: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form6a.html?2 WRITE TO A SPONSOR whose ad ran during the "God's Jewish Warriors" episodes. Tell the company that you are disappointed that their product or service was associated with "God's Jewish Warriors," a program that bashed Israel and unfairly smeared pro-Israel American Christians and Jews as disloyal Americans. Express concern that they tarnished their reputation for integrity by sponsoring such a show and encourage them to redirect their advertising dollars to more journalistically professional networks. Urge them to speak to CNN about the program's lack of standards. Remember, be polite! They likely didn't choose which exact show their ad would appear in, but they can certainly chastise CNN for putting their ad in a shoddy show that angered their customers! Partial List of SPONSORS: INTEL Submit a comment on their Corporate Responsibility "Contact Us" form: http://www.intel.com/intel/finance/social/contact_us.htm Or call (408) 765-8080 and ask to speak to CEO Paul Otellini RAYMOND JAMES FINANCIAL SERVICES Submit a comment on their website: http://www.raymondjames.com/contact_general.htm Or call and ask for Chairman Tom James or President/COO Chet Helck: 727-567-1000 or 800-248-8863 ORKIN (Orkin Pest Control is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rollins, Inc.) Gary W. Rollins, CEO, President and COO Rollins, Inc., 2170 Piedmont Rd., NE, Atlanta, GA 30324 tel: 404-888-2000 Ask to speak to Gary Rollins (If unable to speak to, or leave a message for Gary Rollins, you can leave a message on their "Business Abuse Hotline," since their advertising department harmed Orkin's reputation by allowing its ad to run on "God's Jewish Warriors.") Business Abuse Hotline: 1-800-241-5689 I don't have an email for Rollins, but you may get his attention by writing to: investorrelations@rollinscorp.com BRINKS HOME SECURITY Call Michael Dan, CEO for Brinks Company Telephone: 804.289.9600 Email: info@BrinksCompany.com CIRCUIT CITY Call CEO Philip Schoonover: 804-527-4000 Other sponsors included: Salesgenie.com Direct TV Nasonex Verizon Wireless Volvo Hughes HSBC direct.com Sempro Wachovia Anheuser-Busch Centrum Silver Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. To Go To Top STOP GIVING THE NAZI HEIRS OUR HOLIEST OF HOLY, THE SYMBOL OF OUR POLITICAL SOVEREIGNTY Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 24, 2007. This was written by Tsafrir Ronen August 22, 2007 and it appeared in Arutz7 http://www.inn.co.il:80/News/News.aspx/165801. I translated it from the Hebrew. Wrong terminology should not be used! Our duty is to use accurate terminology! Enough of using the name Palestinians. Neither today nor ever has there been a nation or authentic people with such a name. If indeed there were, then, let us be honest, there would be no Eretz Yisrael -- the Land of Israel. With this preface, we must admit that we are not only engaged in a military war with tanks, guns, cannons, and rockets but also in a psychological war to maintain our identity -- the Jewish Identity with our ancient Homeland, the Land of Israel. Two thousand years ago, the Romans, in their attempt to severe our ties to our Land, tried to rob us of our identity by changing the name "Eretz Yisrael" to "Palestine." They renamed Jerusalem "Aelia Capitolina," a name that disappeared during the 1,300 years of the Islamo-Arab occupation of our Land, Eretz Yisrael. In fact, the Arabs were the ones to neglect using the Roman name of "Palestine." During their occupation, the Land had no name, and it was known as the southern part of what is today Syria. It is important to realize that at the beginning of the Arab occupation, 2.5 million people lived in the Land of Israel, which was considered to be the most densely populated area in the ancient world. In 1850, toward the end of the Ottoman Empire, only 250,000 people resided in our Land, which had been ravaged and made desolate for the 2,000 years as it waited for us to return. That was the Arabs only affiliation -- their only identification -- with this "territory." To us, Jews, it has been our national home for centuries. History has recorded the duplicitous tactics employed by the British during their Mandate here. Instead of facilitating the creation of the Jewish homeland with which they had been charged, Churchill appropriated 78% of that land and set up an Arab entity called "Trans-Jordan" -- known as "eastern Palestine." This was in direct contradiction to the wishes of the League of Nations, which in 1922 had unanimously assigned through the Mandate for Palestine that both sides of the Jordan River be used for the establishment of a viable Jewish state that included the Gaza Strip, Judea, and Samaria and what is today Jordan. It should be made abundantly clear that in the establishment of Trans-Jordan, Churchill had acted illegally and against the wishes of the League of Nations as well as against the wishes and trust of his own British government. In 1921, the British created the position of Mufti of Jerusalem. They appointed the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini to this position, and he was the most prominent Arab figure in Palestine during the Mandatory period. The British also promoted the Arabs to create their false identity! Later on, this Jew hating Mufti joined Hitler in his attempt via the "Final Solution" to destroy Zionism. Therefore, Arutz 7, please stop using this propaganda name our enemy invented! Please stop using our enemy propaganda terminology! Make a habit of NOT using the names Palestine or Palestinians, as it will continue bringing about our demise that is already underway! There are NO "Palestinians"! They are ARABS, some live in the Arabs countries and fights us from there, and some live in Eretz Yisrael and fight us from within, on our Land! Their language is Arabic, their religion is Islam, and they belong to the Arab world. They are living in Eretz Yisrael, NOT in Palestine, simply because, once upon a time, they conquered the land. If you/we continue to march on the path of their propaganda, you/we will end up believing that you/we reside in Palestine; that is, you are occupying their land and from Palestine you/we will be expelled. If indeed it is the country of the "Palestinians," then YOU, JEWS, have no place in this country. We already know that in their countries the Arabs practice Judenrein, the German term that means "clean of Jews," and Christianrein, "clean of Christians"! This is exactly what they want. For that matter, they keep using the word "Occupation"! A Nation cannot be an occupier of its own land, only an occupier of someone else's land. The Nation of Israel cannot be the occupier of Eretz Yisrael in the same way that the French nation cannot be the occupier of France. France is the French people's land the same way that Eretz Yisrael is the Jewish Nation's land! It is OUR Land! If you go on calling the land Eretz Yisrael, you will continue living here for an eternity because it is the Land of the Nation of Israel! End of story! Become the pioneers of this change of terminology effort and become the Israeli media! Call them by their name: Arabs! Call them Arabs who live in Judea and Samaria, or call them Arabs who live in Eretz Yisrael. This way it will be crystal clear to the world that they are the intruders, the invaders, the occupiers! It will be crystal clear to the world that it is NOT their Land! Using the enemy propaganda word "Palestinians," make them RIGHT: YOU inhabit their land, Palestine! You are not legitimate here; you are the invaders and the occupiers of someone else's land. This is exactly what they want the world to think, and many, including Jews, have already bought into the falsehood and lies! ENOUGH of the enemy's cancerous propaganda eating our nation and country alive. Also refrain from using the word Left/Leftists. From here on, we must call them DEFEATISTS! There are DEFEATISTS, and there are NATIONALISTS/PATRIOTS! We must stop using the term "Right Wing Activist"; this is a politically manipulated term. We are ALL the people of Eretz Yisrael. Yes, we are the people of Eretz Yisrael, and the defeatists think it is the Land that belongs to our enemy! Call them DEFEATISTS because the enemy's propaganda and their psychological war affected them and defeated them! They were convinced that Israel should now be called Palestine the same way that the Romans called it 2,000 years ago when they conquered the land and expelled and dispersed us! We cannot allow another expulsion of Jews from their homeland! SAY ENOUGH is ENOUGH! And MEAN IT! Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top THE RISE OF THE FANTASISTS Posted by Koira, August 24, 2007. This was written by Caroline B. Glick and it appeared today in Jewish World Review www.jewishworldreview.com Caroline Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. As the cliche goes, "A conservative is a liberal whose been mugged by reality." Like most cliches, this one exposes a larger truth. Namely, people often base their views on their fantasies of how the world should be than on the reality of how the world actually is. Following this line, the September 11, 2001 attacks can be seen as a large-scale mugging. After the attacks, the same American people that had ignored the threat of totalitarian Islam since the Iranian revolution first categorized the US as the Great Satan back in 1979, acknowledged the danger and recognized it was at war. The overwhelming majority of Americans supported President George W. Bush when he said that the US would fight to destroy all global terror organizations and take down the regimes that sponsor them. But even before the fires were put out in Lower Manhattan, voices from two quarters were already claiming that the US should stay in Dreamland. First, there were the radical leftists like Susan Sontag and Michael Moore who wrapped themselves in the banner of the human rights of the wretched of the Earth. They claimed that al Qaida was simply giving Americans their comeuppance for dominating the world through McDonalds and Levis. Next there were people like former presidents Carter and Bush's national security advisors Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, assorted university professors, and CIA analysts who wrapped themselves in the banner of realism. They claimed that American support for Israel is what brought the Islamic world to hate the country and kill thousands of its citizens by flying hijacked airplanes into buildings. In both cases, the fantasists ignored completely Osama bin Laden's declarations that his goal is to conquer the world in the name of Islam. They disregarded the political and cultural milieus marked by inexhaustible envy towards the West and the US that gave rise to al Qaida and its sister organizations. Rather than acknowledge the reality of real war with real enemies, both camps of fantasists argued that instead of slaying these twin dragons, the US should appease them by serving them Israel for lunch. These voices were relegated to the margins of public debate until the lead up to the 2004 presidential elections. Ahead of those elections, backed by George Soros's financial muscle, the fantasists had an enormous impact of the debate in the Democratic Party. Politicians who until then had supported the war generally and in Iraq particularly clamored to decry it. This week, two leftist institutions -- the Center for American Progress and Foreign Policy magazine -- published a survey of conservative, moderate, and liberal foreign policy experts. The results of the survey show clearly that while still a minority, the fantasists are far from marginal today. 14 percent of those surveyed believe that Israel is the US's least helpful ally. While unfortunate, this is far from the survey's most troubling result. The Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group's report, which was released last December recommended that the administration sell Israel off in order to buy Iranian, Syrian and Saudi cooperation in Iraq that could pave the way to an orderly American retreat from the country. �ber fantasists James Baker and Lee Hamilton asserted that if the US forces Israel to surrender the Golan Heights to Syria and Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem to the Palestinians, all will be well with Iraq. 88 percent of the foreign policy experts surveyed agreed with them. 53 percent of the experts, (38% of the conservatives, 59% of the moderates and 59% of the liberals), believe that the US should recognize Hamas. 47 percent, (29% of the conservatives, 49% of the moderates and 61% of the liberals), believe that the US should recognize Hizbullah. As for Iran, 68 percent of the survey's participants think that the Iranian threat can be contained through negotiations. Only 10 percent think that the US should attack Iran's nuclear facilities. Indeed, a significant minority is of the opinion that the world stands to benefit from a nuclear-armed Iran. A quarter of the conservatives, 29% of the moderates and 41% of the liberal experts claimed that Iran will behave more responsibly if it acquires nuclear capabilities. Only 32 percent think that Iran will attack Israel with nuclear bombs. Only 24 percent think it likely that Iran would transfer nuclear devices to terrorists. A brief look at recent statements by Iran's leaders and its terrorist vassals suffice to show how cut off these views are from reality. Last Saturday, Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei said, "America and its followers are stuck in a whirlpool and they sink deeper as time passes. A dangerous future is predicted for them." Wednesday Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signaled that Iran will share its nuclear know-how with others saying, "If nuclear energy is something good, all nations should enjoy it on the basis of law." In an interview with Britain's Independent, Iraqi Shiite terror boss Muqtada al Sadr admitted that his group trains with Hizbullah. Sadr said, We have formal links with Hizbullah. We copy Hizbullah in the way they fight and their tactics, we teach each other and we are getting better through this." On the occasion of the one-year anniversary of last year's war against Israel, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah told Iranian television that Hizbullah acts at Teheran's pleasure. "I am a lowly soldier of the Imam Khamenei. Hizbullah youths acted on behalf of the Imam Khomeini and sent their blessings to the Iranian people," Nasrallah said. On August 6, Osama Hamdan, Hamas's representative in Lebanon told al Kawthar television that Hamas is preparing for war not because expects Israel to attack, "but because the final goal of the resistance is to wipe this entity [Israel] off the face of the Earth. This goal necessitates the development of the capabilities of the resistance, until this entity is wiped out." Although President Bush insistently rejects the fantasists approach to world affairs, his current policies towards Iran and Israel reflect their views. Indeed the administration's policies towards both countries read like a page out of the Baker-Hamilton playbook. The administration maintains its slavish devotion to negotiating with Iran over its nuclear weapons program in spite of the fact that the diplomatic track failed demonstrably three years ago. It recently expanded its diplomatic offensive to include conducting direct talks with the Iranians on Iraq. Iran has responded to America's conciliatory stance by expanding its uranium enrichment activities and escalating attacks in Iraq. As to Israel, the Americans are pressuring Israel to conduct negotiations with Fatah towards an Israeli surrender of Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem. Such withdrawals would foment the rise of yet another base for global jihad run by Iran's Palestinian proxies in the center of the shriveled Jewish state. To advance this aim, the US pressured Israel to pardon some 178 Fatah terror fugitives and is now pressuring it to pardon another hundred. This is despite the fact that this week the Fatah terrorists announced they would renew their attacks on Israel. The Americans have pledged to renew training of Fatah's Force 17 militia. This week the New York Sun published an interview with Abu Yusuf, a Force 17 commander who admitted that previous US training sessions enabled Fatah to murder Israelis more effectively. Other Fatah leaders told the Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh this week that Fatah forces are openly cooperating with Hamas cells in Judea and Samaria. If the Americans want to know what will happen if their foreign policy fantasists take charge of their affairs, they have only to cast a glance at what is happening in Israel today. Because in Israel, the fantasists are firmly in charge of policy. With the twin goals of fostering peace and enhancing Israel's international standing, Israel's fantasist leaders are driving the country to the outer reaches of La La Land. In the name of peace, the Olmert government is conducting semi-secret negotiations with Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas. According to press reports Olmert and his colleagues are offering Abbas 92 percent of Judea and Samaria, the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, and land in the Negev which will connect Gaza to Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. Furthermore, according to press reports, the Olmert government is willing to accept Israeli responsibility for the fate of the Arabs who left Israel in 1948 and for their descendants. What this means in the real world is that Israel is seeking to extend Iran's control over Gaza to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and then to fill these Iranian enclaves with hostile foreign Arabs. In the interests of enhancing Israel's international cache, Israel is courting the UN which in the Olmert government's fantasy world is Israel's friend. To foster good relations, Sunday the government endorsed the extension of UNIFIL's mandate in south Lebanon despite the fact that UNIFIL's 13,000 soldiers did nothing to prevent Hizbullah's rearmament and reassertion of control over Lebanon's border with Israel over the past year. On November 29, the government is planning to have Israel's parliamentarians reenact the General Assembly's decision to partition the Land of Israel on November 29, 1947 and so promote the fiction that Israel owes its existence to the UN. The government has asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to preside over the session. In the real world, the UN is a hostile institution controlled by tyrannies that works actively to delegitimize Israel's right to exist. To this end, next week, the UN will convene two anti-Israel forums in Europe. First, the European Parliament will host an anti-Israel hate fest sponsored by the UN's Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. Second, in Geneva, the UN will convene the first planning session for its second anti-racism conference scheduled to take place in 2009. That the conference will be a reenactment of the anti-Semitic orgy of hatred which took place in Durban, South Africa in 2001 is made clear by the fact that Libya is chairing the planning session. Iran, Cuba and Pakistan are all members of the planning committee. Fantasies are alluring. Peddling them can even get you elected. But the majority of Americans who reject fantasy as a basis for making real world decisions should take heed of Israel's example. That example shows that despite the fantasists fervent efforts to smother it, reality never goes away. Sooner or later, it mugs you. Sometimes, all it does is pick your pocket. But the longer you ignore it, the more dangerous it becomes. Contact Koira at koira@dbmail.com To Go To Top NEED MORE WHISTLEBLOWERS; JUST CARRYING OUT ORDERS; WHAT WITHDRAWAL FROM JUDEA-SAMARIA MEANS Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 24, 2007. NEED MORE WHISTLEBLOWERS Treason and duplicity abide in the Israeli and US governments, seldom exposed. We need people to publicize inside information. In Israel, most of the media, being co-conspirators with the leftist regimes or fearing them, would ignore it. Right-wingers suspect that the alacrity with which Olmert caves in to US and Arab demands that he just had rejected is due to US pressure. Bush's motive is said to be get an Arab-Israel treaty, to secure an honored place in history. Over-eager, he is likely to accept anything, not a legitimate reconciliation. After he leaves office, the agreement would collapse. It has to. Where then, will be his place in history? At the time of signing, he will be glorified. A few years later, historians would realize he paved the way for the next war on Israel. The State Dept. motive is to please the Arabs and rescind Jewish sovereignty. DEPENDS ON WHOSE OX WAS GORED In the past, left-wingers declared they would refuse military orders to expel Arabs from illegally built houses and commit violence against those sent to enforce the orders. They also called on Israelis to refuse to fight in Lebanon and in the Territories. Now that Israel expels Jews from houses it (improperly) calls illegal, and some good Jews refuse military orders to expel Jews from them, left-wingers become self-righteously patriotic about it. They declare that refusals to obey orders are anti-democratic and must be punished. The Jews pay for their land but the Arabs often do not. Peace Now seeks more evictions and destruction of Jewish houses in Hebron. It does not urge similar action against the thousands of illegal Arab houses in Israel and the Territories. WHICH IS THE VIOLENT CULTURE? When deciding whether Jewish religion, Jewish secularism, or Arab Islam is the more violent, take into account that the Arab Muslims celebrate weddings by firing guns into the air, and religious Jews have the lowest crime rates. HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE ENEMY Assessing Muslims as if we were central to their development, someone told me today that the US radicalized them. For many decades, Islamists were preaching and setting up radical mosques and madrassas. Has that no effect, only the US has? How do we radicalize them? I was told it is because we support dictators. We have supported dictators elsewhere, but that didn't radicalize those nations. People make up explanations without foundation. THE SAUDI FACTOR Yiftah Shapir suggests that Israel not oppose the additional US arms for S. Arabia. He said that in the past, S. Arabia did not send serious forces against Israel, it would not want to antagonize the US, it needs stability there for its oil market, and Israeli objection would anger the US. Dr. Aaron Lerner finds it shortsighted not to factor in the Saudis. Omitting them when weighing the balance of power helps Israel make concessions to the Arabs. The Saudi air force now trains with Egypt's (IMRA, 8/7). In the past, S. Arabia could not field serious forces. Now it can. It is a significant factor, when added to other enemy forces. S. Arabia probably feels it can mend fences with the US, after displeasing it. On the other hand, destroying Israel would not displease the State Dept.. Factor that in! S. Arabia is itself unstable and engenders instability in many parts of the world. Mr. Shapir's rationale is deficient. A wise country prepares for the worst. JUST CARRYING OUT ORDERS? Thirty Kfir Brigade counter-terrorism experts refused their unit's orders to help evacuate Jews from the (otherwise empty) former Hebron wholesale market for what they consider a political move. They proudly protect Jews, not expel Jews. Peace Now called the refusal political (meaning ideological?). "Major General Shamni stated that 'this phenomenon endangers the foundations on which the IDF operates, being the people's army in a democratic state, which is obligated to carry out any mission given to it'". (IMRA, 8/6.) Not perfidious missions! Two Jewish families were forcibly expelled by Israel police from their homes in the former market. The police were brutal, but youths threw rocks at them. One police tactic was to pull down the panties of female protestors. Policy is supposed to be to have female police to handle female protestors. A difference between this struggle and that of a year ago is that now youths keep coming back and struggling again. They do not give up (Arutz-7, 8/7). I can't urge others to risk jail to preserve our homeland and nationality. However, it would be more proper for those soldiers to shoot Olmert, Peres, Barak, and Livni, than to brutally (they do it brutally, there) chase Jews out of their homes in Hebron. Since most power is in the hands of an antisemitic cabal, a small act of insurrection would be a green light for major persecution. Israel really needs a coup to restore Jewish control. Peres emphatically does not identify as a Jew (except for politics). He distinguishes between Jews and Israelis. PERES PEACE CENTER DOES SOMETHING The government explained to P.A. businessmen how to make use of the Israeli Port of Ashdod, through which they ship goods. In past years, the Peres Peace Center sponsored such seminars (IMRA, 8/7). This is the first time I heard of the Peres Peace Center doing something other than funneling money to Peres' fellow conspirators in the Rabin assassination. ISRAELI CONSERVATION PLAN Near Hadera, Israel, are 12,000 cows. Their manure releases methane gas, the premier greenhouse effect chemical. The Hefer Valley Cooperative Society, interested in conservation, has started a factory that converts the manure into electricity before the methane can be released. Plant operation uses less than a quarter of the electricity produced. The example is going to be emulated elsewhere in Israel (Arutz-7, 8/8). New York is running short of electricity, and as Democrats seek to tax it more, he City needs to utilize its own resources. I've often thought of New York City's organic garbage and sewage more as a gold mine than a cess pit. Our mayors did not think to exploit it. After writing that, I came across an entrepreneur who has begun creating fuel from garbage, which he calls a true "New York fuel." IN EGYPT, ISLAM DOMINATES CHRISTIANITY Some Christian converts to Islam in Egypt want to return to the faith of their birth. The Islamic penalty for apostasy from Islam is death, but to Islam is nil. The Egyptian courts refuse notions of freedom of religion and democracy, in this (IMRA, 8/8). In Christendom, apostasy carries no penalty. An American told me, today, that Islam is tolerant and Christianity is not. He spoke in slogans, myths, and false labels. People don't know our enemy. WHAT WITHDRAWAL FROM JUDEA-SAMARIA MEANS Defense Min. Barak thinks that withdrawal depends on (pie-in-the-sky) rocket defense. IMRA points out that it also means turning a broad swath of Israel into a shooting gallery not only for rockets but also for Muslims armed with rifles and RPGs (IMRA, 8/8). It also means forfeiting the core of the Jewish homeland, strategic depth, strategic highlands, and water to diehard enemies of the Jews. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top SDEROT KIDS WILL STUDY UNDER GROUND Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, August 24, 2007. Finally after years of being warned by the SHABBAK, Israel's notorious secret police, of the existence of a Jewish underground, it has finally been uncovered. This was written by Gil Ronen and it appeared today in Arutz Sheva (www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123480). (IsraelNN.com) The Ministry of Education has decided to enable the children of Sderot to study in safety by conducting all classes in the schools' bomb shelters. The decision, reports NRG, was reached in an emergency discussion convened Monday by the director of the Ministry's Southern District, Amira Chaim, with the local supervisors and security officers of Sderot. The town in Israel's Negev Desert is prey to daily shelling by Islamist terrorist gangs operating in nearby Gaza. Although the shelling began about seven years ago, it became much more intense after the 2005 Israeli self-destruction of Jewish communities in Gaza and military pullout (the Disengagement). While inaccurate, the rockets -- usually referred to as "Kassams" -- are an effective anti-civilian terror weapon and have caused fatalities, injuries and extensive damage in Sderot and other communities in the Gaza Perimeter. A special Ministry of Education budget, estimated at hundreds of thousands of shekels, will be devoted to turning the shelters into classrooms by installing air conditioners, ventilation devices, acoustic ceilings, lighting, carpets and steel doors in all of them. "The District Director has already asked me to order the air conditioners immediately," Miriam Sasi, the director of education in Sderot municipality, told NRG Thursday. "My estimate is that it will be possible to finish the refurbishing by the beginning of the new school year," she said. Sasi heads the special team created by the ministry for carrying out the project. The team also includes the Security Officer of Educational Facilities, Yehuda Ben-Maman, and Tzion Suissa, Sderot Municipality's Maintenance Officer, who have begun preparing the shelters for their new use. Sasi vehemently opposes the idea of busing Sderot's children to schools outside the range of Gaza rockets. She admits, however, that the plan will mean that school laboratories and computer classes will suffer, but says it will save lives: "I do not want to think what will happen if a Kassam falls near hundreds of kids who are waiting for a bus to take them to out-of-town studies." Sderot Mayor Eli Moyale concurs: "Transporting thousands of children to another town is madness. How can you run an education system like that. It's not happening anywhere else in the world and there is no reason for it to happen in Sderot." Minister of Education Yuli Tamir is scheduled to visit Sderot Friday and talk to representatives of the parents of Sderot's school children. She will present them with the alternatives for protection of their children, including busing. The possibility that the IDF take whatever action necessary in order to silence the Kassams will not be on the agenda, however. The parents have four core demands regarding any solution: Defense Minister Ehud Barak has to sign a document approving the opening of the school year. The government has to deliver signed promises regarding the construction of new schools. Parents who want to send their child to a school outside Sderot will receive permission to do so. Children studying in Sderot will be eligible for busing to and from school. The initial reader talkback items to the news suggest some of the problems the shelter plan entails: one says the solution is good for the short term, but asks what will become of children with respiratory problems, for example. Another talkback, written by a Sderot high school student, says the plan is shameful. "Why is it that only now, after seven years' suffering, did Madam Minister remember that we have bomb shelters?" he asks, and suggests that all of Israel's schoolchildren begin studying in shelters as a sign of solidarity with Sderot. A third reader mentions the danger of radon poisoning. Minister Tamir said Thursday that the High Court ruling with regard to the fortification of the schools makes it impossible to let the children begin the school year in the schools as they are now. The IDF's Home Front Command had instructed the ministry to let the school year begin as scheduled, and to make do with the "sheltered space" concept of protection, which involves running to a relatively safe part of the school when the missile siren sounds. The High Court, however, ruled that the "sheltered spaces" are an unacceptable solution. Fortifying the schools in a way that satisfies the High Court's demand will take close to a year, Tamir said. Aryeh Zelasko lives in Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem. He is Director of Sales and Marketing of Israel Visit (www.israelvisit.co.il) which provides information and an internet buying facility for American visitors to Israel. To Go To Top CNN AIRS 'ONE OF THE MOST DISTORTED PROGRAMS' EVER Posted by UCI, August 24, 2007. This was written by Aaron Klein and it appeared yesterday in World Net Daily www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57288. Aaron Klein, WorldNetDaily's Jerusalem bureau chief, is known for his regular interviews with Mideast terror leaders and his popular segments on America's top radio programs. JERUSALEM -- A CNN special series airing this week entitled "God's Warriors" -- produced and anchored by the network's chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour -- is "one of the most grossly distorted programs" ever aired on mainstream American television, according to a media watchdog report. "God's Warriors" takes up six prime-time hours on CNN this week, airing in three parts at 9 p.m. EST. It started Tuesday and concludes tonight. The first part of the series, "God's Jewish Warriors," compared Jewish and Christian "radicals" to Muslim supporters of suicide terror, presented anti-Israel commentators with no counterbalance, falsely labeled the West Bank as Palestinian land, and minimized Jewish rights to the Temple Mount -- Judaism's holiest site, the critics said. During Tuesday's program, Amanpour also conducted a friendly interview about Israel with former President Jimmy Carter, whose most recent book, "Palestine: Peace, not Apartheid," criticized the Jewish state's treatment of Palestinians. The book was slammed for a series of falsehoods and was widely labeled anti-Israeli by multiple media critics. "[The CNN series] is false in its basic premise, established in the opening scene in which Jewish (and Christian) religious fervency is equated with that of Muslims heard endorsing 'martyrdom,' or suicide-murder. There is, of course, no counterpart among Jews and Christians to the violent jihadist Muslim campaigns under way across the globe," stated the report by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. Amanpour's CNN documentary "God's Warriors" describes itself as focusing on religious fundamentalism among Christians, Muslims and Jews. Tuesday's segment started off comparing "Jewish terrorists" to that of Muslims, specifically focusing on the few instances of violence or attempted violence by religiously motivated Jews against Muslims. It told the story of Baruch Goldstein, an American-born Israeli physician who killed 29 Arabs in the West Bank city of Hebron in 1994. Goldstein's actions were widely condemned by Israelis and worldwide Jewry. The organization he was a part of was outlawed in Israel. States the CAMERA report: "While in reality Jewish 'terrorism' is virtually non-existent, the program magnifies at length the few instances of [Jewish] violence" comparing it to "violent jihadist Muslim campaigns" when indeed there is no such comparison "either in numbers of perpetrators engaged or in the magnitude of death and destruction wrought." Amanpour: Martyrdom 'quite noble' While discussing Islamic suicide attacks, Amanpour painted "martyrdom" as "quite noble." "To the West, martyrdom has a really bad connotation because of suicide bombers who call themselves martyrs," Amanpour stated. "Really, martyrdom is actually something that historically was quite noble, because it was about standing up and rejecting tyranny, rejecting injustice and rejecting oppression and, if necessary, dying for that." Amanpour's feature moved on to interviews with critics of Israel without providing pro-Israeli voices. The feature repeatedly falsely referred to the West Bank as "Palestinian territory." "It is also Palestinian land. The West Bank -- it's west of the Jordan River -- was designated by the United Nations to be the largest part of an Arab state," stated Amanpour. The West Bank contains some of Judaism's holiest sites and biblical Jewish cities, including Hebron, home to the oldest Jewish community in the world. The territory was recaptured by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War after Jordan, which controlled the West Bank, ignored Israeli advice to stay out of the conflict. The U.N. labels the West Bank as "disputed," not Palestinian territory. 'Pro-Israel lobbies against U.S. interests' Several guests, including former Sen. Charles Percy and University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer, who co-authored Carter's book on Israel, state in Amanpour's documentary pro-Israel lobbies in Washington force American lawmakers to support Jewish expansion in the West Bank and promote causes contrary to U.S. interests. Carter is interviewed claiming no American politician could survive politically while calling for cuts in aid to Israel unless the Jewish state ceases expanding West Bank Jewish communities. "There's no way that a member of Congress would ever vote for that and hope to be re-elected," stated Carter. Contradicting Carter's sentiments, CAMERA notes critics of Israel's West Bank policies have thrived politically, including Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd and Reps. James Trafficante, Dana Rohrabacher, Nick Smith, Fortney Pete Stark, Neil Abercrombie, David E. Bonior, John Conyers Jr, John D. Dingell, Earl F. Hilliard, Jesse L. Jackson Jr., Barbara Lee, Jim McDermott, George Miller, Jim Moran, David R. Obey, Ron Paul and Nick J. Rahall II, among others. Amanpour suggests West Bank settlements are the cause of Arab anger. "The Jewish settlements have inflamed much of the Arab world," she says. Multiple guests describe West Bank settlements as being the cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But CAMERA points out multiple Arab wars and acts of violence were waged against Israel long before the settlements were first established in 1967. "The Arab world was just as anti-Israel (actually more so) before the settlements were built," stated the CAMERA report. Documentary misrepresents Ronald Reagan Amanpour claims all U.S. presidents since 1967, including Ronald Reagan, deemed Israeli settlements "illegal." But U.S. policy did not deem settlements illegal. Amanpour quoted Reagan as stating, "the United States will not support the use of any additional land for the purpose of settlements." But the documentary failed to produce the rest of Reagan's quotes, in which the late president stated West Bank settlements are not illegal. "As to the West Bank, I believe the settlements there -- they're not illegal," stated Reagan. Amanpour minimizes Jewish rights to Temple Mount Amanpour moves on to holy sites in Jerusalem, where she minimizes Jewish rights to the Temple Mount -- Judaism's holiest site -- and exaggerates Islamic claims, critics said. Muslims say the Mount it is their third holiest site. "It was from here [the Temple Mount], according to Muslim scripture, that the Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven around the year 630. But Hebrew scripture puts the ancient Jewish Temple in the same location, destroyed by the Romans in the year 70." The Quran doesn't once mention Jerusalem. Islamic tradition states Mohammed took a journey in a single night from "a sacred mosque" -- believed to be in Mecca in southern Saudi Arabia -- to "the farthest mosque" and from a rock there ascended to heaven. The farthest mosque later became associated with the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The Jewish Temple is described throughout biblical sources as the center of religious Jewish worship. The Temple Mount compound has remained a focal point for Jewish services over the millennia. Prayers for a return to Jerusalem have been uttered by Jews since the Second Temple was destroyed, according to Jewish tradition. Jews worldwide pray facing toward the Western Wall, a portion of an outer courtyard of the Temple left intact. Amanpour interviews the Muslim Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who offers an Islamic perspective on the importance of the Temple Mount and Al Aqsa Mosque to Muslims, but no Jewish religious figure is presented to discuss the paramount religious importance of the Mount to Jews, noted CAMERA. Amanpour's feature also claimed a visit to the Temple Mount by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2000 instigated the Palestinian intifada which began that year, even though multiple intifada planners and Palestinian leaders admitted the violence was pre-planned and that Sharon's visit was used as an excuse. The intifada was launched after Arafat returned from U.S.-mediated peace talks at the Camp David presidential retreat during which the Palestinian leader turned down an Israeli offer of a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern sections of Jerusalem. "Whoever thinks the Intifada broke out because of the despised Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque is wrong...This Intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David negotiations," admitted Palestinian Communications Minister Imad Al-Faluji to an Egyptian daily newspaper. Arafat himself spoke of planning the intifada months before Sharon's visit, as did Marwan Barghouti, a jailed Palestinian parliament member and one of the chief architects of the intifada. Multiple senior terror leaders involved in intifada admitted during numerous WND interviews Sharon's visit to the Mount did not spark the intifada. The CAMERA report concludes: "Whether wittingly or not, Amanpour's program, with its reliance on pejorative labeling, generalities, testimonials, and a stacked lineup of guests, is a perfect illustration of classical propaganda techniques. Unfortunately propaganda is the opposite of journalism, the profession Amanpour is supposed to practice." UCI -- The Unity Coalition for Israel (http://www.israelunitycoalition.org) -- is "the largest worldwide coalition of Jewish and Christian organizations, with more than 200 groups representing millions of people dedicated to Israel. Though we have many different backgrounds, we have one common goal: A Safe and Secure Israel." "Israel is not just a Jewish issue. Millions of Christians resolutely endorse the principle of peace with security for the state of Israel. Because we work closely together and speak with a united voice, our message is being heard!" To Go To Top THE FUTURE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION DEPENDS ON TWO THINGS Posted by Koira, August 23, 2007. This essay was written by Joseph Rosenberger and it appeared today in the American Thinker (www.americanthinker.com/2007/08/the_future_of_western_civiliza.html) The current political squabbles in America between the liberal, socialist left and the moral capitalist conservative right are merely a skirmish line on the edge of two colliding civilizations. The combatants are not the free market, individual centric conservatives and libertarians vs. the Nanny State, socialist plantation liberal straw bosses. Not at all! The Elephant in the room is Islamofacism -- and President Bush and his brilliant General Pratreus, at the head of the greatest Army of our lifetime, are decisively engaged. What is at stake dwarfs the '08 elections topics of single payer medical care, unfunded social security, or our billions of dollars held by China and Saudi Arabia, for economic blackmail. Life as we know it -- the profound blessings of the Age of Enlightenment and the spectacular technological progress in the arts and sciences that resulted -- is, absent a courageous defense, doomed to be devoured in the maws of a barbarian Islamofacism if President Bush's war leadership fails. Militant Islam means to convert, enslave, or exterminate the infidel non-Muslim world, depending on the degree of resistance encountered. The Koran demands it, and militant Islamists are implementing it wherever they have the critical mass to enforce it. Secular pluralism and a democratically established Rule of Law will not survive, absent protectors that exercise lethal force to defend it. This should be the litmus test of who should be our next president, and no other. Islamofacism will be stopped by one of two ways, if it is stopped. The first possibility is secularly pragmatic and essentially Darwinian. The society -- Islamofacism or Western Civilization -- will prevail depending upon who imposes its will on its neighbors sufficient to expand its borders, increase its population, and accumulate treasure. This follows the tectonic civilization shift thesis of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Society . The rise and fall of one society or another reflects the simple equation of warfare, biology, and technology development. For example, Islamofascists, reproducing rapidly, brainwashing young boys with the militant texts of the Koran, raising battalions of kamikaze homicide bombers, cutting off hands and heads to maintain discipline and tribal cohesion, are overcoming a complacent West, spoiled, secular and imploding with negative birth rates. In fact, Islamists are reaching a tipping point in Europe, for example, nearing a critical mass in Spain, France, and Great Britain. We'll know for sure that the game's over when they burn down the idolatrous art museums in Paris. That Islam condemns half its population (females) to abject servitude and shows profoundly little ability to advance the frontiers of science and technology suggests an approaching dark age if left unchecked. The alternative, brighter future depends upon supplying General Petraeus with what he needs, funding the Surge all the way. The other scenario finds its roots in Judaism, already old a thousand years before Mohammed went into his desert caves. God declares in Psalm 137:5 "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, Let my right hand forget its skill!" This is the biblically-centered world view that abides by the ancient narratives, prophesies, and hopes. Everything depends on the choices of the righteous, and the mercy of God. In this scenario, the Land of Israel and the descendents of Jacob -- the Jews -- drive the future. Those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed. It is as plain as the green line -- the boundary of lush forests that illustrate the moral, civilized border of Israel, with the Islamist ineptitude of the West Bank. On one side, a flourishing earth; a barren mistreated desert on the other. The West must cast its lot with Israel. The more noteworthy characteristics of this world view include the resilient, compassionate and just Rule of Law, grounded in a correct interpretation of the Torah, upon which Western Civilization based its legal system. This scenario also includes the hope of the Messiah, one who will provide profound leadership and usher in an age of genuine peace. This is the same Messiah famously predicted by Jesus of Nazareth, coming when the Gospel of the Kingdom is preached to the ends of the earth. It is the same declaration, according to Chassidic Judaic history, repeated by the Messiah to Rabbi Israel, the Ba'al Shem Tov, in the 18th century during his soul ascent into the heavens during prayer. The Messiah said He would come with the Holy Torah would be proclaimed throughout the earth, essentially quoting Jesus, 1800 years later. In this scenario, folks, it ain't over until the Messiah says it's over -- and we must teach the world that essential, Godly morality. Would it be the Jews who rise to the occasion -- the Light unto the Nations. While Jews and Christians hope for the advent of the Messiah (may He come quickly in our day) the civilization-loving pragmatist must give no quarter to Islamofascist barbarians. We must also support Israel -- and the moral compass Israel symbolizes. The skeptic may not put much stock in the latter, but it very well may speed things up! Contact Koira at koira@dbmail.com To Go To Top HIGH STAKES GAME IN NORTHERN IRAQ Posted by Front Page Magazine, August 23, 2007. This was written by Kenneth R. Timmerman and it appeared today in Front Page Magazine (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=7F121344 -6BE8-4BF0-A865-DFBEA243A594). Kenneth R. Timmerman was nominated for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize along with John Bolton for his work on Iran. He is Executive Director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, and author of Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran (Crown Forum: 2005). Over the past week, with Iranian shells raining down on Iraqi villages in Kurdish areas along the border zone in the north, Iran's leaders have engaged the United States in a high stakes game that has gone virtually unreported in the elite media. Iran has massed thousands of troops along its northwestern border in preparation for a ground assault against Iranian Kurdish fighters who have sought refuge in the rugged Qanbil mountains in northwestern Iraq. On Tuesday, villagers found leaflets bearing the official Islamic Republic of Iran logo, ordering them to leave the area or face the consequences. "Our enemies, mainly the Americans, are trying to plant security hurdles in our country (Iran)," the leaflets said. "They achieve this through using agents in the areas of Qandil and Khanira inside the Kurdish region. 'The authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran will work on cleansing this area." Hundreds of Iraqis from the villages of Qandoul and Qal'at Diza, close to the Iranian border in the province of Sulaymanyah, fled as a result of the Iranian shelling, according to wire service accounts. Should Iran be allowed to carry out its planned attack, it would amount to an overt aggression against its neighbor. But the potential damage is far worse, because of the deep U.S. engagement in Iraq. A successful Iranian attack against opposition Kurds from the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (known as PJAK) based in Iraq, will strike a triple blow against America. Not only will the Iranians have violated Iraq's sovereignty, guaranteed until now by the United States; they will have shown that despite the presence of 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, the United States "can do nothing" against Iran, as the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, liked to say. Even worse: if the United States sits this one out, we will send a terrible message to Iranian opponents of the regime in Tehran that despite all our calls for "freedom" and "democracy" in Iran, we will not intervene to prevent them from being massacred, even when we have the opportunity and the forces in place to save them from certain death. And yet, unless Congress and the White House react immediately, that is precisely what is going to happen. An Iranian victory in northern Iraq will have far-reaching consequences, and will further embolden president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is engaged in political, military, and intelligence hardball with the United States on multiple fronts, including inside Iraq. Just last week, U.S. forces arrested another "high-priority" Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer in Baghdad, and accused him of funneling aid to Iraqi insurgents. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver announced the arrest on August 15, and said that coalition forces "will continue their focused operations against unhelpful Iranian influence interfering in Iraq." An unnamed U.S. official said that the Iranian Guardsman was responsible for smuggling explosively-formed penetrators, Katyusha rockets and other weapons into Iraq, and "had direct ties to senior militant leaders and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force." Another U.S. military spokesman. Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, told reporters in Iraq on Aug. 14 that Iran had recently provided 240 mm long-range rockets to insurgents in Iraq for attacks on U.S. forces. "The 240 mm rocket is a large-caliber projectile that has been provided to militia extremists groups in the past along with a range of other weapons from Iranian sources," Bergner said. Similar Iranian-made rockets I examined last summer in Haifa and in other northern Israel towns and cities had been fired against Israeli civilian targets by Hezbollah with warheads containing thousands of miniature ball-bearings, designed to kill and maim. On May 25, PKK guerillas in Turkey derailed a train bound for Syria from Iran, ostensibly carrying construction materials. When prosecutors went through the wreckage they found an Iranian-made rocket launcher and 300 rockets bound for Hezbollah in Syria, according to Turkish press reports. There is no way those weapons could have transited Turkey on the Turkish national railroad without someone in the Turkish government knowing what was going on. Iran is banking on its secret "entente" with Turkey -- to supply Hezbollah through Syria, and to smash the bases of each other's opposition Kurds in Iraq -- to deter the United States from any military intervention in northern Iraq. The Turks have been threatening for months to go after the PKK, who have tens of thousands of fighters training in camps inside Iraq, along the Turkish border. And so the Iranians have spread the rumor, which until now has been accepted at face value, that its own Kurdish dissidents (PJAK) are actually the Iranian branch of the PKK, which the U.S. has designated as an international terrorist organization. The State Department took Turkey's insistence that PJAK was allied with the PKK seriously enough that it refused to meet earlier this month with visiting PJAK leader, Rahman Haj Ahmadi, despite his open support for the U.S. military presence in Iraq and his identification with U.S. goals in the region. Both the PKK and PJAK have training camps in the Qanbil mountain range in northern Iraq. But because of the difficult geography, and their different needs, they inhabit "different sides of the mountains," Rahman Ahmadi told me in Washington. "The PKK doesn't need us," he said. "They have tens of thousands of fighters, and hundreds of thousands of sympathizers." But Ahmadi acknowledges that PJAK and the PKK cooperate to a certain degree, if only to prevent clashes between their own fighters. "The president of the Iraqi Kurdish Regional government, Massoud Barzani, also has an agreement with the PKK," he told me. "Does that make Barzani a supporter of the PKK?" This is not the first time the Turks have played us in Iraq. In 2003, on a flimsy pretext of domestic opposition, they successfully prevented the 4th Infantry Division from crossing Turkey to join coalition forces that liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein. We can sit by and allow Iran to violate Iraq's sovereignty, defy the U.S. military, and smash a significant Iranian opposition group on the slim pretext that Iran is "merely" seeking to punish its own rebels, just as Turkey. Or we can extend protection to the Iranian Kurds who have established training camps in the rugged mountains of northeastern Iraq, and inflict a double blow on Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps. Clearly, the Iranians believe they can thumb their noses at the U.S. military. For more than a week, they have conducted intermittent shelling of Iraqi Kurdish villages in the general vicinity of suspected PJAK bases. My Iranian sources tell me that the Iranians are hoping to expel PJAK from the area and replace them with Ansar al-Islam, the precursor group to al Qaeda in Iraq, "They want to send Saad Bin Laden, who is currently in Iran under Iranian government protection, into a new base inside Iraq," one source told me. Saad Bin Laden is Osama Bin Laden's eldest son, who is widely viewed as the heir to his terrorist empire, should his father die. He was given refuge in Iran shortly after al Qaeda evacuated its bases in Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks. PJAK is a natural ally of the United States. They seek to unite Iranians to overthrow the dictatorship of the clergy in Iran, and to work together to build a future secular democracy. We don't have to provide them weapons, or money, or training. But if we allow Iranian Revolutionary Guards troops to attack PJAK inside Iraq with impunity, we may as well pack up and leave -- not just Iraq, but the entire region. Because we will have no credibility left. If instead, if we seize this opportunity to smash an Iranian Revolutionary Guards offensive with massive force, we could send a message that will make Iran's leaders think twice before messing with us again. It's about time we made Iran's leaders pay a price for killing Americans and undermining America's allies. Here is a terrific opportunity to get that job done. To Go To Top ARABS, LEFT-WING EXTREMISTS UPROOT JEWISH VINEYARD Posted by Ezra HaLevi, August 23, 2007. Left-wing extremists and PA Arabs destroyed thousands of grape vines belonging to local Jews in Samaria Wednesday. Some one hundred Arabs and leftists, along with dozens of Arab TV crews certified by various news agencies, marched to a Jewish vineyard near the town of Dolev, northwest of Jerusalem, and proceed to systematically uproot and destroy thousands of young grapevines. The PA- appointed mayor of Ramallah took part in the march. Though the police and army had been forewarned that the Arabs and leftists were planning a provocation, security forces arrived only after most of the vineyard had already been uprooted. uprooted vines The vineyard's owner, Shlomi Cohen told Arutz-7 that 5,000 vines were uprooted by the vandals, who arrived Wednesday at noon. "They also burned pipes, irrigation equipment and sprinklers -- after fifteen minutes everything was charred." Cohen said that he was informed Tuesday evening that a group planned to destroy the vineyard. "We informed the army. I enlisted everyone I could, including the municipality and local security officers, but for some unclear reason the IDF did not arrive on time." One of the fires set by the rioters When the IDF did arrive, Cohen said, more than half the vineyard was already destroyed. "The army chased the vandals away, but did not arrest any of them," he said. "They didn't do anything to them. They just said [the police] would come investigate and that I could file a complaint, but in the meantime there have been no arrests." A view of Nachalei Tal, the area near the community of Nerya where the vines were uprooted Cohen has been growing grapes in Dolev for 12 years. The land on which the vineyards are planted is state land assigned to the community for agricultural purposes by the World Zionist Federation's Settlement Division. Cohen and his family have already replanted the uprooted vines that were able to be reused. Another one of Cohen's older vineyards; the grapes are purchased to make fine Israeli wines Although the 15th of the Hebrew month of Av (July 30) was the last day that fruit trees and vineyards could be planted before the Shemittah (sabbatical) year, the Cohens were permitted to return the roots to the ground from where they were uprooted. The IDF Civil Administration said it viewed the incident as "severe" and said it had "conveyed a strong message about the incident to the governor of Ramallah." The Civil Administration noted that the governor took part in the march, but argued that he "also worked to calm the situation and involve police." Police have yet to respond to questions about the incident faxed to the spokesman's office. MK Uri Ariel (National Union-NRP) has asked to convene the Knesset's Internal Affairs committee to address the police's failure to protect the farmer's vineyard from the rioters. "What happened to the swift response we get from the police every time they are called to act against the national camp," asked Ariel. "Why is the same swiftness not used against left-wing lawbreakers?" The Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria (Yesha) issued a statement on the incident, saying that given the prior warning of the expected riot, "[the council] views the security forces' inaction very severely...The culprits must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law -- whether they are Arabs, foreigners or left-wing extremists." The phenomenon of left-wing extremists, from both Israel, Europe and the United States, destroying Jewish vineyards and orchards in Judea and Samaria, though widespread, has rarely been covered by Israel's state-run media and has never appeared in foreign news agency reports. Go to http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/122107 for Arutz-7's coverage of a recent destruction of vineyards in Gush Etzion and go to http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/122339 for another incident in which local Jewish activists from Yesha communities successfully prevented an uprooting. Ezra HaLevi writes for Arutz-Sheva, where this essay appeared today. To Go To Top ABOUT THOSE PO' PALESTINIAN CHILDREN Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 23, 2007. Oh, about those po' Palestinian children who get killed in firefights when the terrorists fire rockets at Israel. It seems that a lot of them get hurt and killed when they run over to dance around rocket crews setting up to fire into Israel (often hit back by Israel within second), and also when they collect pieces of Kassam rockets that fall "short" inside the Gaza Strip. This is entitled "Abbas: IDF operations prevent progress in peace talks" and it was written by Yuval Azoulay, Yoav Stern and Mijal Grinberg, Haaretz Correspondents and News Agencies. (http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/896224.html). Hamas gunmen gathering on Tuesday in central Gaza for the funeral of six fellow militants who were killed in an IDF operation Monday. (AP) PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' office condemned Israel's military operations in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank on Wednesday, saying that the strikes make progress in peace talks impossible. "It is impossible to conduct a peace process, to advance negotiations and to achieve results as long as Israel continues with its policy of military strikes," said Abbas' office in a statement. The statement said that the IDF operations, which have killed 13 Palestinians since Monday, cast strong doubt on Israel's desire to make peace. Abbas' office called on the international community and the Quartet of Middle East mediators to intervene regarding these incidents and to halt Israel's military activities. Earlier Wednesday, IDF troops killed a Hamas militant in an air strike in the Gaza Strip early Wednesday, a day after two children and three militants were killed in similar Gaza strikes. Hamas identified the militant killed Wednesday as Yehia Habib, a senior field commander in Gaza City. Three other militants were wounded. Israel said it struck a group of armed men who had approached the border fence with Israel. The attack took place hours after troops killed a 9-year-old and a 12-year-old as they tried to collect Qassam rocket launchers. The children were killed on Tuesday the afternoon by an IDF tank in the northern Gaza Strip. The two were seen moving in a field near Beit Hanun toward rocket launchers immediately after Qassam rockets had been fired on towns in Israel. The rockets struck the area near Kibbutz Zikim, south of Ashkelon. There were no injuries or damage. Soon after the launch, an IDF force identified the source of the rocket fire, surveyed the area, and identified a number of suspicious figures near the launchers. A tank in the area fired a round, which killed the two children. Another child was seriously injured in the incident. "Children have no business being near Qassam rocket launchers," IDF officers said in a statement last night. They said it is possible that Islamic Jihad had hired the children to collect the launchers after the launch. This phenomenon had already been observed in other instances, the IDF officers said. The tank fired at the figures only after they were seen close to the launchers, IDF sources said. The only reason anyone approaches the launchers after rockets are fired is to collect them or reload them, the sources said, so there was no way to avoid shooting at the people near the launchers. "If these were children or youths, we regret the use that the terrorist groups are making of them," a statement from the IDF spokesman read Tuesday. An IDF source said that troops that had carried out the operation identified the figures next to the launchers as militants. "They were handling the launchers and they obviously hadn't come to slide on them," he said. "Every Palestinian, including the militants, knows that anyone who hangs around these launchers is endangering themselves." According to IDF analysts, Tuesday's rocket attack against Israel was carried out by the Jerusalem Battalions of the Islamic Jihad. They said that the militants fled as soon as the rockets were launched. "This is a cynical use of children but we are no longer surprised by anything we see. A 14-year-old child has already fired an RPG rocket against an IDF force, a grandmother aged close to 70 fired a light weapon against a Givati [Brigade] force recently in the Strip." What were these children doing there anyway? The militants fled immediately after the launch and then sent the children to collect the launchers," one of the sources added. In another Qassam rocket attack, against the western Negev, one rocket hit a kindergarten in Sderot, causing damage. No injuries were reported because the children are still on summer vacation and the kindergarten was empty. The second Qassam landed in fields. Palestinian militants have also fired several mortar shells at the western Negev, causing no injuries or damage. Earlier Tuesday, IDF troops killed three Palestinian militants near the security fence in the southern Gaza Strip, near Khan Yunis. According to the IDF, the militants were members of Islamic Jihad and were trying to carry out a shooting attack against Israeli targets near the fence. The army said the militants belong to a cell that had carried out such attacks in the past. The incident began when the vehicle the three were in was spotted and attacked from the air. The three managed to flee, but they were intercepted by an IDF force in the fields. A fourth militant was injured in the incident. A spokesman for Islamic Jihad said that the four were on a "jihad-related" activity. "The blood of our martyrs will be avenged," a statement read. IDF troops found three sniper rifles in searches of the area following the incident, the army said. On Monday night, Israel's Channel 2 television reported that six Hamas men killed in an Israeli attack earlier in the day were members of a sniper unit. The six militants were killed and another was wounded in an IDF rocket strike on a car traveling in the central Gaza Strip. In an incident in the West Bank city of Nablus early Tuesday, IDF troops shot and killed a Palestinian gunman. The soldiers operating in the Al-Ein refugee camp saw a Palestinian gunman who fired at them before they returned fire and hit him, the army said. The militant was identified as 38-year-old Nasser Mabrouk, a member of an offshoot of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top THE IRANIAN SYRIAN BOND MUST BE SEVERED Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, August 23, 2007. The United States won its preemptive war in Iraq when it toppled targeted enemy 'Sadist' Hussein. Period! However, to date, Uncle Sam's attempt at nation building has failed. These two concepts are distinct and should be treated as such. We note subsequent to the aforementioned victory, nuclear emerging Iran, a regime that rhetorically threatens Israel's very existence, a regime that disrespects Jews worldwide by belittling The Holocaust, and Syria have strengthened a bond that has lasted for decades, based on common enemies; yesterday 'Sadist' Hussein and Israel, today the United States and Israel. We further note Iran is autocratically governed by fundamentalist Islamic Persian Shiites, rulers of a mixed non-Arab Shiite populace, many of which ascribe to fundamentalist Islam, while Syria is autocratically governed by Allawite Arab Shiites, rulers however of a mostly secular Sunni Arab populace. Clearly, the continued United States presence in Iraq, amidst a sectarian bloodbath between Sunnis and Shiites, strengthens the resolve of Iran and Syria to strategically merge, arming proxies to fight the perceived 'Western Satin' in that war torn country. Yet, if not for their common Western enemy, these in many respects polar opposite Islamic nations would likely be supporting opposite sides in the Iraq civil war, thus would, in effect, be at each other's throats. Furthermore, Iran and Syria, both enemies of Israel, both profiteering from the extortionist per barrel price of oil, can afford to and do arm Hizbullah and Hamas, terrorist tormentors of the Jewish State. The unintended consequence of Uncle Sam overthrowing archenemy Hussein as well as subduing the archenemy Taliban, both of Sunni ethnicity, Shiite Iran's natural proximate enemies, again coupled with a spike in the price of extracted fossil fuel, a true bonanza for one of the world's primary suppliers of that addictive ever needed source of energy, has made the emerging nuclear power ever bolder, has allowed it to lock talons with its only Middle East ally Syria, in a quest to achieve dominance in that dysfunctional region. What if the planet's foremost superpower redeployed troops to the north, relocating in ever friendlier non-Arab Kurdistan? No doubt, an ever vigilant Uncle Sam would still remain in position to oversee his oil interests and guard the primacy of his ever vital petrodollar. Indeed, might Hussein have crossed a sacred line in the desert sand, trading Iraqi oil for Euros, disrespecting the greenback, miscalculating the mighty shock and awe reaction insuring his demise? There is absolutely no way the United States, without regard to political party in charge, would abandon the Middle East thus vital interests critical to the functioning of the planet's foremost economic power. Moving north would take American troops mostly out of harm's way, allowing Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis, bereft of referees, to duke it out with abandon, causing Iran to more aggressively support the majority Shiite populace, causing Syria perhaps with help from Saudi Arabia and other Sunni regimes to more aggressively support the minority Sunni populace, thus sever the bond between Iran and Syria, hopefully inciting popular mostly youthful revolutions among collective fed up exploited populations, basic services now in chaos, within those potential pressure cookers of discontent, at least in theory. Of course, Middle East oil shipments would be seriously disrupted in this scenario; there is no free lunch for the industrialized West and East. Chemotherapeutic strategies do challenge patients. Yet, is that worse than a formidable metastasizing Iranian Syrian axis-of-evil? Bursting a pernicious boil, in this case the autocracy of 'Sadist' Hussein, without purging its poisonous residue, in this case via a predictable Shiite Sunni perhaps full blown region wide civil war replete with mutated religiously justified homicide/suicide bombings, in this case with participants, especially Iran, on the verge of developing nuclear weapons but thankfully not quite there, will not cure Earth's perilously blighted anatomy. Would it be better to allow such nations to first build nuclear arsenals then fight this perhaps inevitable war, noting the fallout of that poisonous purging might very well more seriously threaten the health, perhaps kill, the patient, in this case civilized mankind lingering on the sidelines? Another more sanguine less sanguinary option would be to foment revolution, especially within Iran, by leaning especially on Saudi Arabia as well as other oil rich nations to drop the per barrel price of their prehistoric product. That would send Iran's economy into a tailspin, breed further discontent within its many youthful Western leaning citizens, hopefully lighting a fire that would lead to the overthrow of AhMADinejad and his contemptuous crew of mullahs, that insane bunch of nuclear trigger happy Islamic fanatics who would if they could blow the world asunder for the sake of a delusional twelfth Imam ever ready to swoop down, creating Shiite style Allahland on an infidel bereft Earth. Most importantly, if the United States stays the course in Iraq, even if overall security and stability seem to improve notwithstanding the sacrifice of so many more American lives, the world's less than prescient superpower will remain on a fool's errand, strengthening the bond between two dangerous enemies, bent on becoming nuclear powers and willing to share such weaponry with terrorist proxies worldwide, intending to dominate the Middle East, perhaps Europe, perhaps other regions, or perhaps even blow the planet up. Might a major reassessment be in order? Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at larose@snip.net To Go To Top FROM ISRAEL: A SPARK OF HOPE? Posted by Arlene Kushner, August 23, 2007. It's far far too soon to count on anything or to rejoice. But there is at least a small reason to hope. The Jerusalem Post today came out with an "exclusive": an announcement that at least 10 rebels in the Kadima party are planning to leave before the final Winograd report. According to this news, those members who want to depart feel that their futures will be sealed if they are still with Kadima when the damning Winograd final report appears; they want to situate themselves elsewhere before this happens. Some would return to Likud (and reportedly Netanyahu has spoken to a couple of MKs considering this). Some to Labor. Some would seek places for themselves elsewhere, such as Yisrael Beitenu. The sooner they depart, the greater their value to other parties. Reportedly some ministers in Olmert's cabinet are among those thinking of leaving. Predictions until now were that Olmert was safe until after the Winograd report, but the situation may have shifted. Let's see... ~~~~~~~~~~ I want to address here briefly anti-Israel positions that have become prominent in two places: The first involves the three part series on CNN hosted by Christiana Amanpour, "God's Warriors." The first segment, "God's Jewish Warriors" is biased against Israel and erroneous in its information. CAMERA (The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) calls it "one of the most grossly distorted programs to appear on mainstream American television in many years." I provide here the link to CAMERA so that you might read more about it: http://camera.org/index.asp?x_context=3&x_outlet= 14&x_article=1354 The second is a new book, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," by John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard, whose thesis is that US support for Israel is a liability and continues only because of the undue influence of the Israel lobby. Dore Gold, in a briefing paper -- "Understanding the U.S.-Israel Alliance: An Israeli Response to the Walt-Mearsheimer Claim" -- for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (which he heads) challenges this thesis. Gold explains the ways in which U.S. support for Israel benefits the U.S. http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT= 2&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=376&PID=0&IID= 1795&TTL=Understanding_the_U.S.-Israel_Alliance:_ An_Israeli_Response_to_the_Walt-Mearsheimer_Claim ~~~~~~~~~~ Muhammad Dahlan has returned to Ramallah this week after some six weeks away from the area. He will not return to Gaza, where Hamas has let it be known he is not welcome. Speculations vary as to what role, if any, he will now play in the PA/Fatah. Some see him as the direct challenger to Abbas. Others expect that he will try to reform the very corrupt Fatah. Myself, I never miss an opportunity to remind people that Dahlan is a terrorist and cannot legitimately be seen as a reformer. He ordered the attack on the school bus in Kfar Darom in 2000, and was connected to the Karine-A weapons ship. ~~~~~~~~~~ Two Kassams have landed in Sderot, one hit a home. State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss, after doing a tour of Sderot and neighboring areas, declared himself "very worried" about the safety of the children there with the start of school. He says the national government should be doing more to provide protection via bomb shelters and fortified roofs. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info To Go To Top YA THINK ISRAEL SCARES SYRIA? ISLAMIC DEAL-BREAKING; HASTY TROOP WITHDRAWAL MEANS DEFEAT Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 23, 2007. ISRAELIS FIRE ROCKETS INTO GAZA Tel Aviv technicians built homemade rockets loaded with organic food bought in Sderot, the town that Gazans bombard with explosives. The Israelis fired the rockets into Gaza. The eggs did not break open in flight. The exercise was intended to put a smile on the faces of the embattled Israelis in Sderot (Arutz-7, 8/3). Why organic? Why not loaded with pesticides and fertilizer, like the Arabs' produce sold in Israel? Why not just fertilizer? It might put more of a smile on Sderot residents' faces. CLAIMS ISRAEL RE-ESTABLISHED DETERRENCE ON GOLAN In the opinion of Guy Bechor, the large-scale IDF presence and maneuvering on the Golan has shown Syria that its bellicose threats do not intimidate Israel. Israel now has a Defense Minister who understands Syria, which now finds the Israeli Army on the Golan, poised not far from Damascus. Syria will have to let start the UNO trial of the Syrian regime in the murder of Lebanese leaders, risking its own downfall, rather than make war to distract from the trial (IMRA, 8/3 from YNET). Mr. Bechor gave no evidence that Syria has interpreted the IDF maneuvering as determination and that Syria will not instigate war. He reports no Syrian military moves away from the Golan, but Syria has been reported to be sending reserve officers to live on the Syrian side of the Golan, in preparation for war. Then there is the news of the Golan Druse setting up summer camps to teach allegiance to Syria. That means a host of fifth columnists willing to assist Syrian infiltrators, in Syria's planned war of attrition by terrorism. Bechor overlooks the continued and increasingly loud demands by the Olmert regime to appease the Arabs, including Syria. Among those appeasers is Defense Min. Barak. He understands Syria? He had ordered his troops into a Syrian ambush during the first Lebanon War. It was too foolish not to be sabotage. The same Barak later destroyed Israel's Lebanon ally and had the IDF, which was not losing against Hizbullah, flee from Lebanon, leaving heavy weaponry for Hizbullah. The Arabs must be much encouraged by Barak's ascension to the Defense Ministry instead of prison. S. ARABIA HAPPY ABOUT OIL PRICES S. Arabia celebrates the end of cheap oil. As energy consumers vie over sources, the price reaches new plateaus. S. Arabia can afford all its own development plans (IMRA, 8/3). The US had 30 years to prepare, but did not. MUSLIMS RENEGING ON AMNESTY-DISARMAMENT DEAL Israel and the P.A. agreed that a certain 178 Fatah terrorists would turn in their arms, and pledge not to fight against Israel; Israel would stop seeking them out, and if they behaved for three months, would delete them from the wanted list. Fatah later asked Israel to double the number terrorists in the deal. Israel wouldn't consider doing so, because half the 178 refused to turn in their arms and some refused the pledge. In response to Israel's standing pat, the men who pledged peace in return for amnesty threatened to void the deal to which they had agreed. The P.A. cites two other terrorist complaints. One is that the P.A. is not reimbursing them enough for weapons costing thousands of dollars. The other is that, if disarmed, they are afraid people would retaliate against them. Some Israeli politicians dispute the rationale for the deal -- "strengthening" Abbas -- because Abbas has done nothing to reduce terrorism (Arutz-7, 8/2). Abbas invited the 178 to join his forces and be issued new weapons. Then what do they mean, they are being disarmed and left without protection? No wonder the people are poor, if the men in many families spend thousands of dollars on weapons! The behavior of the Fatah men shows the bad faith in which Muslims deal, at least with infidels. They bargained for 178, half of them violated the deal. The group threatens to renege if Israel doesn't extend the deal to more men. This demonstrates the futility of negotiating and making deals with Islamists. It's typical Muslim behavior. After having made a ceasefire agreement with Israel for one part of the P.A., the terrorists threatened to void the agreement unless Israel extended it to the other part of the P.A.. Usually they violated ceasefire agreements, anyway. Fatah and Hamas made a number of ceasefire agreements with each other, and violated them all. Don't trust them! HAMAS STILL ON THE ATTACK Hamas is cracking down on its ally in Gaza, Islamic Jihad. The issue is the disarming of militias. Islamic Jihad refuses to disarm, as required by Oslo. Hamas also closed Fatah newspapers in Gaza, for opposing its rule. Hamas turned back government funds Abbas sent it, calling it a bribe. If Hamas had accepted it, then Israel, source of the funds would indirectly be financing Hamas (Arutz-7, 8/2). Hamas is tightening its control. I hope Islamic jihad fights back hard but gets liquidated. BRITAIN LETS U.S. GET UNDERSERVED POOR REPUTATION It is not US policy to torture prisoners at Guantanamo (though there was a period of abuse). Britons constantly hear "Interested parties" slander the US about this. Their government does not correct the notion but reinforces it by calling for the prison to be closed. It did not offer an alternative facility. Although all British citizens held there have been released, now Britain is demanding that the US release to it five detainees from Mideastern states who had resided in Britain. Prisoners have yielded intelligence that the US shared with Britain and helped prevent terrorist attacks in Britain. The government did not publicly thank the US for that. Other countries, including Britain, tend to be highly critical of the US. Meanwhile, Britain drew down its forces in Iraq so much, that the remaining ones in Basra are under siege, basically defeated (Daniel Johnson, NY Sun, 8/9, Op.-Ed.). Why should Britain care about probable terrorists who are not British citizens but formerly lived there for a while? It should say, "Good riddance!" JORDAN INTERFERES WITH MARKET ECONOMY As Jordan keeps constant the public's prices for subsidized commodities and services such as oil, rentals, college education, and water, the government loses more money. The real cost of the subsidized water used to irrigate banana plantations and livestock exceeds the value of the crops. Failing to make modest increases now means having to make drastic increases later. But the government is afraid to, just as it is afraid to fire redundant staff (IMRA, 8/6). Even authoritarian regimes are constrained, especially when their people are prone to violence. In a sense, the mob is a dictator ruling the government. OLMERT RISKS HIS COUNTRY MORE & MORE PM Olmert is notorious for entering meetings and for stating policy without thinking through the issues. Thinking is very difficult for some people, we should be understanding. But now he has been meeting with Abbas, no note takers or witnesses present. He can claim to have said anything there, without contradiction except by Abbas (who is in the same position). Olmert says he wants to establish P.A. statehood according to the Road Map, but the Map does not require agreement on final status issues before setting up a P.A. state, so any blunder (or sabotage of Israel) by Olmert could have disastrous consequences. Events could get out of control before Israelis realize it (IMRA, 8/6). This was true of the Gaza withdrawal. RISKS TO ISRAELI TRAVELERS Hizbullah intends to capture Israelis traveling abroad. "The most dangerous countries for Israelis currently are Jordan, Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Sudan and Somalia." Tourists have been attacked in the Sinai. Non-Arab Muslim parts of Asia are dangerous for Israelis, too. Beware of free excursions, generous gifts, last-minute meetings, and unaccompanied trips (Arutz-7, 8/6). I think that all Westerners should stay away from there. RUSSIA REOPENING BASES IN SYRIA Russia is attempting to rehabilitate its navy largely of spy ships. It is re-establishing bases in Syria, as part of its arms deal with Syria. Israel thinks the bases and ships will be used to spy on it (IMRA, 8/6). ISLAM VS. WOMEN Jordan endorsed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, but with some reservations. Islamists call the Convention anti-Islamic and criticized the government for not having more reservations (IMRA, 8/6). Will the feminists come out against Islam? Have you noticed that the Muslims approve resolutions either with their fingers crossed or with false "interpretations" of them? P.A. ADMITS CAN'T MAINTAIN SECURITY A P.A. leader admitted that P.A. police cannot yet maintain order in their cities, and can't repress terrorism (IMRA, 8/6). Only a short time ago, the P.A. criticized Israel for not turning over to the P.A. security control in all the Arab cities. Why can't they control their own people? Hamas has no forces in Judea-Samaria. The US gave P.A. forces thousands of rifles, training, and money. Suppose the P.A. could maintain order. Would it repress terrorism? Don't bet on it! The P.A. exists for jihad and graft. ISRAELI DENIAL & AFFIRMATION On 8/7, the offices of PM Olmert and Pres. Peres denied media reports that they had a plan to confer statehood on the equivalent of 100% of the land in the P.A.. On 8/7, however, aides of Peres confirmed the plan in process (IMRA). Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top THIS IS AN APPEAL FOR CONTRIBUTION FUNDS TO RECONSTRUCT CHOMESH Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 23, 2007. My Fellow Activists: THIS IS AN APPEAL FOR CONTRIBUTION FUNDS! If we do not lend a FINANCIAL helping hand, the political statement that "Chomesh First" makes will DIE! We cannot afford for the inept Israeli government to win! It will COST US THE COUNTRY! I am asking you to spread the word requesting help! "We did not take a foreign land or the property of strangers to us, but rather the Land of our forefathers which had been conquered in the past by enemies with no justice. And we, when we had the opportunity, repossessed the Land of our forefathers." (Letter to Antiochus in Damascus from Simeon Hasmonian) One picture says a 1,000 words! Returning to Chomesh is the first step towards saving the State of Israel. They are doing this for all of Am Yisrael -- The Nation of Israel. For the past thirty five days, Chomesh, Samaria has been filled with a zealous Jewish presence. It is one of many communities that were destroyed by Ariel Sharon's shameful, villainous, and despicable government. Thirty five days of Jewish heroism by Jewish youths living in tents amongst the ruins. From time to time, the police still come to harass them, but they are strong. They believe in the Land of Israel. Despite the conditions, for the past thirty five days, young men and women, even the pregnant ones, many of whom had been expelled from Chomesh, are residing on the land. They are not afraid of the truth. They are doing what is right. Nothing will stop them. Thirty five days of babies, children, and women voices can be heard in the hills of Chomesh and beautiful hymns of prayer for the rebuilding of the Land of Israel resonate. The thousands of soldiers sent to stop the re-establishment of a Jewish presence in Chomesh finally raised their hands in defeat and gave up! The military and the police now understand that the human spirit is stronger than military might! We salute these heroes! They are saving the dignity of the Nation of Israel and are giving us back the respect that was taken away from us! Le'hyiot Am Chofshi Be'artzenu! To Be A Free Nation In Our Land! Your help is vital! Please take an active role in saving Israel! Please send your donations by check: "Central Fund of Israel," subject line: "Hilltop Settlers" PO Box 15743, Beverly Hills, CA 90209-1743 USA Or by credit card: Secured Donation Form. See in the center of the page at http://ssl.org.il/veyarashta/default.asp Tax ID number: 13-2992985 To maintain the Chomesh First Project and realize the vision, the following expenses must be met: EXPENSES SHEET (ALL prices are in NIS (1 NIS is US$ 4.2): 1. Internet ads: 5,000 NIS (US$1,200) 2. Communications devices (when the army tried blocking the cell phones receptions) = 20,000 NIS (US$4,700) 3. Tents. Generators, food supply, water tanks, cooking facility, etc = 100,000 NIS (US$23,800) 4. Rental trucks, pick-up truck, tractors = 50,000 NIS (US$11,900) 5. Rental Donkeys and Mules (can be used at night in the mountains to bring supplies that will last for many days) = 10,000 NIS (US$2,300) -------------------------------- Total = 184,380 NIS (US$43,900) Transportation budget (separate) bussing @2,500 a bus; up to 100 buses = 250,000 NIS (US$60,000) Thanks you for your help. Any and all help is welcome! Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top THE COMING UN/EU ANTI-ISRAEL CONFERENCE Posted by Gerald Steinberg, August 23, 2007. For years, the United Nations and the European Union have provided major funding and assistance for radical Palestinian NGOs and their supporters, allowing them to exploit the rhetoric of human rights, "civil society," international law and peace to promote the opposite. An illustration of the damage that results from this combination is provided by the meeting, scheduled for the European Parliament in Brussels on August 30-31, to be run by the UN's Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. This committee is "the main UN forum where all NGOs interested in the Palestine issue can meet." The title is certainly high-sounding -- International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace. But, as noted by UN Watch, "the UN's Palestinian Division runs a tightly-controlled operation that accredits only anti-Israel NGOs and speakers. Without altering the virulently anti-Israel nature of their meetings, the organizers instead seek to mask their activities." Moreover, to add credence to their cover, they invite specially approved Israelis -- a select group of radicals who openly espouse hatred of Israel, claiming the license to do so because of their citizenship. THIS YEAR, for the first time, the exercise is gaining the legitimacy of sponsorship by the European Parliament. Topics include "The situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, and civil society response"; "Action by civil society organizations working in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem"; workshops on "Fortieth anniversary of occupation: Building on action taken by civil society"; and "Strengthening campaigns to end occupation, including grassroots campaigns against the wall, rallying around Bil'in" (the site of violent attacks organized by NGOs to provoke Israeli responses). The speakers list is secret, but in previous years it included Jeff Halper from the EU-funded Israeli Committee against House Demolitions (ICAHD), allied with Sabeel, a center for Palestinian liberation theology; Raji Sourani from the Palestinian Center for Human Rights; Michael Warschawski of the Alternative Information Center; and Jamal Juma Ja'afreh from the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign. To their credit, the Polish members of the European Parliament from different parties have announced that they will not participate. Bronis aw Geremek, a Polish MEP, was quoted by the Polish Web site, Europa21, as declaring: "Although there is no official statement that Israel must be pushed down to the sea... the choice of subjects and the attitude toward the problems show that it will be a biased, conflict-generating conference. Actually we can call it anti-Israeli." MEP Konrad Szymanski stated: "I am astonished that European Parliament allowed such activity to be placed in its building. If there is any activity against the conference, i.e., a petition signed by MEPs, I will be very glad to support it." THE ISRAELI government, led by the Foreign Ministry, has urged the EU and the UN to cancel sponsorship of such anti-peace activities. And Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik signed a protest letter to European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering, who is from Germany and is expected to be more sensitive to legitimizing propaganda and anti-Israel demonization. Ambassador the the EU Ran Curiel noted that the committee that uses NGOs "is an anachronistic product of the UN which was created in 1975, in the context of the infamous 'Zionism is racism' resolution revoked in 1991. Since it was founded, this committee has been engaged in one-sided propaganda activities which present only the Palestinian narrative, including the delegitimization of Israel, a UN member state." But Europe's support for such radical propaganda goes far beyond holding this fringe conference in the Parliament building. The EU funds numerous NGOs under programs for development assistance to the Palestinians, labeled "Partnership for Peace" or promoting human rights, that are at the forefront of the political war against Israel. The head of the EU-supported ICAHD, for example, speaks in favor of boycotts against Israel and demonizes Israel as an "apartheid state." Halper often appears with Naim Ateek, the head of Sabeel, who frequently invokes anti-Semitic themes, such as referring to "the Israeli government crucifixion system." (Halper and Ateek are on the program for a Sabeel conference scheduled for Boston in October -- more EU tax euros at work.) AS NGO Monitor reports detail, many additional anti-Israel political NGOs and activities are funded by the government aid and development agencies of Ireland, France, the UK, Belgium, Sweden, etc., as well as non-EU countries such as Norway and Switzerland. BADIL, for example, uses its European funds to oppose compromise on the Palestinian claims to a "right of return" -- one of the major obstacles to progress in peace negotiations. The central role of these groups -- along with the superpowers such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International -- in the political war against Israel was highlighted in the NGO Forum of the 2001 Durban conference on racism. This was so "successful" that the UN is planning another conference in 2009, and is holding a preparatory committee meeting in Geneva a few days before the session planned for the European Parliament. Both activities highlight the destructive activities of radical NGOs, and both conferences and the committees that promote them should be cancelled before they do more damage. Prof. Gerald M. Steinberg is the Executive Director of www.ngo-monitor.org, and heads the Program on Conflict Management at Bar Ilan University. This article was published today in the Jerusalem Post www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1187779135911&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter To Go To Top MINISTER YULI TAMIR (TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY) AND CLITORIDECTOMY Posted by Steven Plaut, August 23, 2007. Yuli Tamir Goes A-Snipping 9 Elul 5767, 23 August 07 09:58 "Back to Sanity" -- Arutz 7 Analysts (IsraelNN.com) http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Message.aspx/2274 Hold on to your -- er -- hats! Before pouncing upon me for posting a tasteless spoof, let me forewarn you that this is NOT a spoof. It is for real, and any nausea you feel should be directed against the actual cause, not your humble messenger. Nevertheless you can check it all out for yourself. It is there in black and white. Never mind that the Israeli mainstream media has hidden the story for the past 11 years, trying to protect the rep of the Labor Party's daffiest leader.. Israel's Minister of Education, Yael "Yuli" Tamir, has campaigned publicly for the common form of female mutilation in the Third World known as "Clitoridectomy." It means what you think it means. "Yuli" back in 1996 when she launched her campaign was a Professor at Tel Aviv University and had just joined Labor. Previously she had been Shulamit Aloni's sidekick in the "RATZ" party. She was in the news the past few weeks for proposing that Arab students in Israel learn from textbooks that portray Israel's very existence and creation as a "Naqba" or catastrophe. The "Boston Review" is a left-leaning political and literary quarterly in Boston, the sort "anarchists" read. In its summer 1996 issue it ran Tamir's own article entitled, "Hands Off Clitoridectomy." Its theme was that all those Westerners expressing revulsion at the practice of slicing up female genitalia in certain parts of the world are themselves evil insensitive chauvistic philistine racists. Westerners should stop criticizing and allow the Third World to carry on with its enlightened multicultural clitorectomies. She rants thus in the article (which appears at http://bostonreview.net/BR21.3/Tamir.html): 'In discussions about multiculturalism, clitoridectomy is now the trump card, taking over the role once played by cannibalism, slavery, lynchings, or the Indian tradition of Sati: "Is this the kind of tradition you would like to protect?" liberals ask embarrassed multiculturalists, who immediately qualify their cultural pluralism. Clitoridectomy defines the boundary between us and them, between cultures we can tolerate and those we must condemn.... 'Furthermore, it seems clear that Western conceptions of female beauty encourage women to undergo a wide range of painful, medically unnecessary, and potentially damaging processes -- extreme diets, depilation, face lifts, fat pumping, silicone implants. Of course, adult women do these things to their own bodies, and, it is said, their decisions are freely made. But would our gut reaction to female circumcision be very different if it were performed on consenting adults? It is not unlikely that girls at the age of 13 or 14, who are considered in traditional societies as adults mature enough to wed and bear children, would "consent" to the mutilation of their bodies if they were convinced that marriage and children were contingent on so doing. Many women who followed the tradition of Sati seemed to do it as a matter of choice.... 'But our own culture fosters false beliefs of a similar kind. According to Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth, some 75 percent of women aged 18-35 believe that they are fat, whereas only 25 percent are medically overweight.1 Still more heartbreaking is the fact that the majority of the 30,000 women who responded to a Glamour questionnaire preferred losing 10-15 pounds to success in work or in love. So the fostering of such beliefs cannot differentiate their culture from our own and explain our hostility to it....A fulfilling sex life is certainly one good, but there are others. ... 'My purpose, however, is not to justify clitoridectomy, but to expose the roots of the deep hostility to it -- to reveal the smug, unjustified self-satisfaction lurking behind the current condemnation of clitoridectomy. Referring to clitoridectomy, and emphasizing the distance of the practice from our own conventions, allows us to condemn them for what they do to their women, support the struggle of their women against their primitive, inhuman culture, and remain silent on the status of women in our society.' We have a suggestion for the Olmert government. Remove the worst embarrassment in the cabinet by performing a small procedure of SNIP-SNIP! Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor at the Graduate School of Business Administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il To Go To Top SCIENTISTS OPPOSE PERES' DEAD SEA CANAL SCHEME Posted by Gil Ronen, August 22, 2007. The World Bank has finished a series of public hearings on a project which will link the Red Sea in the Gulf of Eilat to the depleted and polluted Dead Sea, located between Israel and Jordan. The project, which calls for the digging of a canal between the two bodies of water, has been touted by President Shimon Peres as part of the "Peace Valley" scheme which he believes will bring Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and Israel closer together. But environmental groups and geologists quoted in an Al-Jazeera feature say the plan could damage three unique local ecosystems: the Gulf of Eilat; the Arava Valley between Eilat and the Dead Sea; and the Dead Sea itself. The opponents of the project say the political motivation of uniting Israel, Jordan and the PA behind one joint project has produced a climate in which the environmental effects of the endeavor are not being properly considered. Proponents say it will save the Dead Sea. The water level of the Dead Sea is dropping by an average of 1 meter per year. As a result, the unique ecology and the economic development in the Dead Sea region are in serious danger. Environmentalists have distributed a bumper sticker seen on many Israeli cars that reads "Save the Dead Sea." The World Bank says the $5 billion construction of a water conveyance system bringing salt water from the Red Sea would stabilize the Dead Sea's level and thus preserve tourism, agriculture and mineral extraction in the region. 'The Bank is refusing to listen' Clive Lipchin, director of research at the Arava institute for environmental studies, said, however, that the Gulf of Eilat "is already overdeveloped with 70 percent coral mortality on the Israeli side." "For the Arava Valley," he said, "the threat emanates from possible earthquakes which could cause a break in the canal and flood the valley with seawater, destroying agriculture and polluting the groundwater used by Israel and Jordan." "The most serious problem, about which very little is known," said Lipchin, "is the mixing of the waters -- the Dead Sea with the Red Sea. This is what is unique to the project and has never before been attempted. We simply cannot predict what the outcome will be," he said. Gidon Bromberg, Israeli director of Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME), said: "The Bank is simply refusing to listen to real alternatives that have been put on the table." One alternative to the plan proposed by environmentalists and local geologists includes channeling the flow of water in the north back to the Jordan River which flows into the Dead Sea. Over the past 50 years, the amount of fresh water the Jordan River has carried into the Dead Sea has decreased from 1.3 billion cubic meters annually, to just 70 -- 100 million cubic meters. This is because Israel, Jordan and Syria now divert 95% of the flow. As a result, "the culturally and historically important Jordan River has been turned into little more than an open sewage channel," FoEME said. FoEME's report on rerouting water back to the Jordan River predicts: "There would be a sizeable net environmental gain from rehabilitating the Jordan River and the Dead Sea with no negative environmental implications. This must be compared to the significant risks associated with the RDC [Red-Dead Canal] project. Dan Zaslavski, a former Israeli water commissioner, estimated that regenerating the flow of the Jordan River from the north to bring water to the Dead Sea will cost no more than $800 million, less than one-sixth of the estimated financial outlay of the RDC project. Earlier this year, Israel's President Shimon Peres said the "project of the canal, or the peace conduit ... is vital for the preservation of the Dead Sea, but just as much for peace and prosperity in the area." The World Bank's feasibility study regarding the planned project is expected to begin in September. In the 1980's and again in the 1990's, Israel considered a canal channeling water from the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea, but eventually shelved the plans due to financial doubts. The Red Sea -- Dead Sea alternative now being discussed is considered to be less worthwhile economically. This appeared in Arutz Sheva (http://www.IsraelNN.com). To Go To Top THE POINT OF CNN'S RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM SERIES Posted by Hugh Fitzgerald, August 22, 2007. Christiane Amanpour has at least one parent who was part of what one would have hoped to describe as the intelligent secular ancien regime. They were the people pushed out by Khomeini and his epigones, and therefore, one would have thought, comprehending the nature of Islam. Well, it turns out that not everyone who has fled Iran quite has that necessary understanding. Some like to pretend that Khomeini is a sport, when the real sport was the Shah and his father, in their de-emphasis on Islam, their emphasis on the pre-Islamic past of Iran, and their willingness to limit the power of the mullahs -- and, above all, to give the non-Muslims of Iran, the Christians, Jews, and Baha'is, reasonable security and even something akin to legal equality. But Amanpour does not realize that. Nor, in her aggressive climb through the media ranks, has she stopped to study Islam. She has not stopped to find out what happened to the Zoroastrians or what happens to them in Iran today. She has not stopped to find out why, even in the 20th century, a Jew could be killed for going out in the rain (where a drop might ricochet off him and hit an innocent Muslim with this raindrop of najis-ness, thus contaminating him). She might, that is, have begun with the history of Islam in Iran and considered the treatment of non-Muslims, and how Shah Abbas II overnight ordered the conversion of all the Jews and Armenians in an Iranian city (possibly Tabriz), and why the real, as opposed to the Iranian exile's dreamy fictional history of Iran, is full of such episodes. She might have gotten hold of E. J. Browne's work on Persian literature, and studied Hafiz and Sa'adi. She might have read Omar Khayyam, and come to realize just how un-Islamic he was. She might have read the Shahnameh of Firdowsi, and seen how his literary talent was put to work preventing the linguistic and cultural imperialism of the Arabs from successfully coming to damage and then overwhelm the Iranian culture. She might have done a special program on Islam as a vehicle of Arab cultural and linguistic imperialism, and used Iran as an example of one place where it did not succeed as it did elsewhere. Oh, there are many things that raw-boned massive Christiane Amanpour might have done, if she had allowed herself the leisure to think, and be something more than one more media star, one more mere reporter incapable of making sense of what she reports on. But she did none of it. She clawed and clawed to the top. She entered into a mariage blanc, a white marriage of grayish convenience, with James Rubin. She travels, she reports from here, she reports from there. She is like so many of them, with their fabulous salaries, their baseless self-assurance, their inability to convey anything difficult, anything that requires instructing us rather than feeding us visual and verbal pablum. If you have seen the presentation of those "Christian fundamentalists" (read: Fanatics), then you will observe how carefully the cameramen have captured those flags, and taken shots of hands uplifted in prayer or hallelujahs to make sure the viewer gets the impression of a Nuremberg rally, with these "Christians" heil-hitlering all over the place. Very carefully done, very artfully and deliberately done. She, Christiane Amanpour, is of course determined to make this group of Christians look as bad as possible, and then to convince us that they represent a huge number of people, and to do the same, when their time comes, to those wild-eyed fanatical Jews, those "Biblical settlers" who think -- imagine that! -- that the Land of Israel, that gigantic land, practically the size of Connecticut or is it Massachusetts, was given in a Covenant to the Jews. What a terrible thing, what a thing so utterly comparable, is it not, to the view in Islam that the entire world belongs to Muslims, and that they must by right dominate everywhere? Do you see a little something not quite symmetrical in her view, in her presentation, or that of her crew, so willing to play ball? Meanwhile, one wonders how she can stand herself. And why CNN so obviously insults us, in reducing the menace of Islam, the menace that only a fool could ignore, and the full scope of which, based on immutable texts, becomes clearer to the intelligent every day, to something like the non-existent menace from those wild-eyed Nurembergian Christians, with Amanpour as their recording Riefenstahl, or those crazy "West Bank" settlers, in their trailers, choosing to live among a million Arabs -- "Palestinians" -- who of course have every right to be there, because...well, isn't the Middle East the same thing as the Arab World, after all? Where do those pesky remnants of Jews, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Copts, Maronites, Mandeans, Yazidis, Armenians, and all the others come from? Why don't they go back where they came from? The "Arab World," the "Muslim Arab World" -- now that's more like it. That's just the ticket. Because, you see, Every Group Has Its Crazies. And those crazies, you see, are exactly alike, in what they want, and how they act, and the size of the demands they make on the rest of us. But exactly. That's the point of this series. You didn't think there was another point, did you? This was posted on Jihad Watch http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/017854.php To Go To Top CNN PRETENDS THAT JUDAISM, CHRISTIANITY, ISLAM ALL EQUALLY LIKELY TO INCITE VIOLENCE Posted by Jihad Watch, August 22, 2007. This essay was posted at http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/017846.php Just as my book Religion of Peace? confronts this very notion. Ms. Amanpour, I am available to provide for you an alternative view. "CNN explores religious fundamentalism," by David Bauder for AP: NEW YORK -- Christiane Amanpour's work on the documentary series "God's Warriors" took her directly to intersections of extreme religious and secular thinking. She watched, fascinated, as demonstrators in San Francisco accused teenagers in the fundamentalist Christian group BattleCry of intolerance in a clash of two cultures that will probably never understand each other. Understanding is what Amanpour is trying to promote in "God's Warriors," which takes up six prime-time hours on CNN this week. The series on religious fundamentalism among Christians, Muslims and Jews airs in three parts, 9 p.m. EDT Tuesday through Thursday. [...] "I'm not interested in drumming up false fears, or falsely allaying fears," CNN's chief international correspondent told The Associated Press by phone from France, where she added last-minute touches to the series. "I just want people to know what's going on." Amanpour traveled extensively over eight months to work on the series. The trips to Amanpour's native Iran are most fascinating. She explored the ancient roots of the conflict between Shiites and Sunnis, and talked with one of the country's most accomplished female politicians about how Muslim women are treated. Another segment tried to explain why so many devout Muslims are willing to give their lives to a cause. "To the West, martyrdom has a really bad connotation because of suicide bombers who call themselves martyrs," she said. "Really, martyrdom is actually something that historically was quite noble, because it was about standing up and rejecting tyranny, rejecting injustice and rejecting oppression and, if necessary, dying for that."... This is true in both Christianity and Islam. Amanpour fails to point out, however, that in Islam, but not in Christianity, a martyr is someone who kills for Allah, and is killed in the process (cf. Qur'an 9:111). One might forgive "the West" for getting this "bad connotation" in the face of the Islamic scriptural jihadists use to justify suicide attacks. "I did come away with a sense that we -- or those people who don't want to see religion in politics and culture -- if we don't look into it and see what is going on, we're in danger of missing it and not be able to react to it properly," she said. Ain't it the truth, Ms. Amanpour? Amanpour was one of the last reporters to talk to the Rev. Jerry Falwell. She interviewed him a week before he died about the legacy of the Moral Majority, the organization that thrust evangelical Christians onto the political stage. The segment on Christians explores BattleCry in some depth, digging at the roots of an organization that fights against some of the cruder elements of popular culture and urges teenagers to be chaste. In noting how girls at some BattleCry events are encouraged to wear long dresses, Amanpour asks the group's leader how it is different from the Taliban. Well, uh, Ms. Amanpour, one might note the absence of AK-47s, the lack of opposition to the education of girls, the absence of burqas, the absence of divine sanction for wife-beating, and sundry other things. Unless you're too blinded by political correctness to notice, as is evidently the case. In a non-judgmental way, she visits a family that is home-schooling its children and explores the influence of Evangelicals on the courts. Homeschooling is evil too? Sheesh. Over 9,000 terror attacks [have been] committed in the name of Islam since 9/11, and Christiane Amanpour is spending her time demonizing homeschoolers. Posted by Robert Spencer at August 20, 2007 7:27 PM To Go To Top PROJECTION: THE GREAT CIVIL WAR IN EUROPE Posted by Bryna Berch, August 22, 2007. This is another segment of a monograph on Islam and Sharia entitled "Islamization of Europe and Policies to Prevent It". It is written by an author whose pen name is No Sharia. On June 30, 2007, I posted a segment of the monograph -- "Foreign Policy Part B 12.3." No Sharia continues to fill in segments of the monograph. This one is a what if. If Europe wakes up while it still has the strength to confront Islam, this might be the result. It is Section 12.4.1 of the Monograph and is entitled "The Great Civil War in Europe." The evolving monograph can be found at http://www.islam-watch.org/NoSharia/Prevent-Europe-Islamization9.htm It is well-worth reading and pondering. No Sharia is well beyond the stage most of us are at -- still arguing about "moderate" Islam versus radical Islam. No Sharia stresses that the "goals of an Arab imperialism [are] aiming at the domination of Europe using islamification as a method." Islam Watch is a website run by a dedicated group of Ex-Muslims, who have made it their mission to tell "the truth about Islam." They put "Islam under scrutiny by Ex-Muslims." The Great Civil War in Europe The conflicts between islamists and other followers of traditional islam, which is the real islam, and non-muslims in various countries in Europe, grew during the first decades of the 21st century. The larger the muslim parts of the populations grew in various countries, the more radicalized (in this case: true to its doctrine) they became. No effective policies prevented that parallel muslim societies became strong in different parts of Europe, and forced the governments to make many concessions and give privileges to islamists. The political development in Europe therefore followed the process described in Part 1. The way in which individual governments made themselves free of the restrictions put on them by EU and its administration, was described in sect.12.3 p.14. After decades of protests and demonstrations, a number of violent acts against political adversaries including murders of political opponents, developed into frequent physical fights between islamists vs police and private militias, and later into firefights. The frequency of terrorist acts against the general non-muslim population increased. In some countries, this phase E (or ph. 5) of the islamisation process of Europe led to armed insurrections (phase F (also called ph. 6)) which grow organically from the demonstrations, conflicts, fights and terrorist acts. After a period, even heavy weapons were used, and the fights between islamists and the military and other forces soon developed into regular civil wars (phase G (also called ph. 7)). In the countries where this occurred, city after city were partly (or mostly) destroyed in the fighting. During the conflicts, it was discovered that the concentration of muslims to certain larger cities, and there often to parts of the cities, was a blessing. Few wars have been won by mainly occupying cities -- by static forces -- with few industries and no natural supply of food or other necessary resources. The fighting rapidly became very brutal, and a hundred Fallujahs appeared in Europe. The civil wars in various countries were extremely violent and cruel, and the destruction of the cities severe, when block after block had to be reconquered by the Europeans. In a few countries where socialists/social democrats and social liberals still held power despite electoral setbacks, the weak reactions of the governments led to the islamists gaining ground. This caused the governments to fall, and conservative/nationalist/classical liberal/libertarian parties took over the political power. However, at that stage these had -- like the French government after Dunkirk in 1940 -- great difficulties to stabilize the military situation, and it could be done only at a great cost in human lives. The larger parts of these countries were taken over by islamists. But in other countries, the strategic and tactical situation of the islamists generally deteriorated slowly after some months of fighting, and specially when regular European military forces were mobilized and trained. The shortage of heavy weapons and regular military knowledge of the islamists were only two factors. Their strategic and tactical thinking was often inadequate and couldn't compensate for a number of weaknesses of the muslim forces. The solidarity between most European nations was now strong; help was given by a number of countries with better domestic political situations; and in the end also American troops helped to crush the islamists. The American troops were specially helpful in countries where the islamists had nearly taken over the political power because of the weaknesses and mistakes of earlier governments. The help from muslim countries to the islamists was also often prevented to reach them thanks to the American forces surrounding Europe. An iron ring protected Europe against interventions from the outside. The centers of resistance were systematically attacked and subdued but it took much longer for the European forces to reconquer cities than for the American Marine Corps to conquer Fallujah in 2004. As a matter of fact, the tempo of the fighting, the treatment of prisoners etc hade many more similarities to the fight for Tammerfors in March-April 1918 (during the Finnish civil war) than to Fallujah in 2004. And the worse the atrocities carried out by the islamists became, and the longer the fighting continued, the more radicalized became the European population. As always, civil wars cause the most intense hatred between the parts of the population which fight each other. Granada II Soon after the first outbreak of hostilities between the Home Guard plus army units and the islamists, slogans like "Granada II", "Granada, not Palestine" were heard. They became more and more common and were soon incorporated among the goals of many non-muslim political organizations and parties. The people saying e g "Granada, not Palestine" had realized that the European policy regarding PLO and the Palestinian refugees during more than half a century had in reality only led to the preservation of a problem, and not to any kind of solution. No similar destructive so-called peace process could ever be accepted in Europe between muslims and non-muslims. The European public had at that point of time also understood the islamic policy of "hudna", a method -- a truce for a while -- used when islamists are weak, so they can regain their strength and then again fight for the islamisation of Europe. The socialists/social democrats and social liberals could not explain to the public why such a privilege should be given to islamists when these were weak. Most people understood that it was important to crush them when they had become weak, in order to be able to solve the problem for ever. So these slogans could be heard from the lips of an ever increasing number of Europeans. But other -- less drastic -- solutions were naturally also formulated. Contributing reasons A number of factors contributed to the dramatic radicalization of the attitudes of the European electorate. The fact that the dislike by the Europeans of the activities of many muslims had been suppressed by various laws for so long, led to a special intensity in the hatred of the islamists. The contempt and disgust for so many islamist thoughts, actions and rules had hardened during the earlier decades, and suddenly people were allowed to show what they really thought. The large number of terrorist acts during the earlier decades, and the atrocities during the armed insurrections and the civil wars in various countries, had also exhausted the patience of the tolerant European citizens. The refusal of so many of the so-called mainstream, or moderate, muslims, to accept any kind of responsibility for the muslims following what was said to be another interpretation of islam -- political islam/islamism -- and the general unwillingness of muslims to help the police and intelligence services to identify and find islamists, had revealed the emptiness of the claim that islam basically is a religion of peace and tolerance. Many moderate muslims just felt unable to act against islamists who, regarding so many issues, in reality have the full weight of the islamic doctrine behind them. To be a moderate muslim was in many cases revealed to be just a cultural habit easily discarded if the faith of the person for any reason became stronger. That many muslims didn�t act as citizens, instead of being passive or active allies of the terrorists, was more damaging to the cause of islam in Europe than anything else. Most people had during the earlier decades also understood the method to argue that the islamists and many other muslims employ, and how these rules are used in all discussions and dialogues with non-muslims. So e.g. a favorite method like the role of a victim of the brutal actions by non-muslims was no longer credible to Europeans. People understood that these muslims were instead victims of their own often primitive values and their interpretation of the religious doctrine. The growing understanding that the fight for Islam also -- to a considerable extent -- was a fight for the goals of an Arab imperialism aiming at the domination of Europe using islamification as a method, also mobilized the Europeans. To Go To Top EMBOLDENED BY IMPUNITY: THE HISTORY AND CONSEQUENCES OF FAILURE TO ENFORCE IRANIAN VIOLATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW Posted by Orde Kittrie, August 22, 2007. This paper is part of a Syracuse Law Review symposium issue entitled "A Nuclear Iran: The Legal Implications of a Preemptive National Security Strategy." The paper details how the Islamic Republic of Iran has flouted international law with impunity over the last three decades, a trend that has accelerated in recent years and become more dangerous with Iran's illegal pursuit of nuclear weapons. Part I of this paper reviews the history of violent breaches of international law by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The paper specifies which international laws have been violated by these Iranian government actions, reviews the evidence tying Iran to these acts, analyzes the surprisingly weak international reactions to these violations, and concludes that Iran has yet to be meaningfully sanctioned for any of these violations. Early violations of international law by the Islamic Republic of Iran included the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Teheran and its diplomats in 1979, and the Iranian-directed bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in 1983. In March 1992, Hizbollah, in coordination with the Iranian Embassy, bombed the Israeli Embassy in Argentina, killing twenty-nine. Another flagrant Iranian violation occurred in September 1992, when Iran assassinated four Iranian Kurdish dissidents in Berlin. A German judge ruled that the Berlin killings had been ordered by Iran's top political leadership, which included Iran's then and current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was Iran's President at the time and is currently Iran's third ranking official. In July 1994, at Iran's behest, a truck filled with explosives destroyed the Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 85 people. Remarkably, none of these flagrant violations of international law resulted in significant economic or other punishment of Iran. Iran has in recent years continued flouting international law with impunity. Iranian President Ahmadinejad's repeated urging that Israel be wiped off the map violates both Article 2(4) of the UN Charter and the Genocide Convention's prohibition of direct and public incitement to commit genocide. Yet no sanctions have been imposed. Iran is currently the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism, providing Hizballah and various Palestinian terrorist groups including Hamas with extensive funding, training and weapons. Iran's support for these groups violates several legally binding provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 1373. Iran's continued harboring of senior al Qaeda officials also violates Resolution 1373. The Security Council has neither condemned any of these Iranian violations nor imposed any sanctions in response to them. Part II of this paper examines the Iranian regime's ideology. It notes that while some have argued that President Ahmadinejad's statements calling for the destruction of the United States and Israel are not reflective of the overall Iranian leadership, similar calls have been made by Supreme Leader Khamenei and by Hashemi Rafsanjani, the current third-ranking official. Part III of this paper details Iran's violations of international laws relating to nuclear nonproliferation and analyzes the international community's hesitant and tepid response to those violations. In August 2002, the IAEA discovered an 18-year pattern of noncompliance by Iran with its obligations to report all its nuclear activities. Over those eighteen years, Iran had built major nuclear facilities without telling the IAEA, and without the IAEA detecting them. Yet the IAEA failed to formally report Iran's non-compliance to the Security Council until February 2006, three-and-a-half years later. Iranian officials have crowed about how the negotiations between it and the West during that time and since have bought Iran time to move forward with its nuclear program. On December 23, 2006, in Resolution 1737, the Security Council finally sanctioned Iran for its nuclear nonproliferation violations. Three months later, in Resolution 1747 of March 24, 2007, the Security Council responded to Iran's violation of the legally binding requirements of Resolution 1737 by slightly augmenting its sanctions on Iran. The paper finds that Iran's heavy dependence on oil exports and other foreign trade leaves Iran highly vulnerable to strong economic sanctions. Yet the sanctions imposed by Resolutions 1737 and 1747 are, as detailed in this paper, remarkably weak, too weak to coerce Iran into compliance, contain Iran's ability to advance its nuclear weapons program, or deter other states from following Iran's lead. The Resolution 1737 and 1747 sanctions are so weak because Russia, with support from China, refused to let the resolutions go forward until they were heavily watered down. Indeed, the sanctions' weakness stands in stark contrast to major Russian and Chinese transactions with Iran that were unaffected by the sanctions and thus represent leverage lost. With such weak sanctions and business as usual for the most important Russian and Chinese deals, it is no surprise that Iran has shown no signs of backing down from its nuclear program. As the paper describes, the international community has learned in recent years that comprehensive sanctions can stop both illicit nuclear weapons programs and terrorism. It was discovered, in the wake of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, that the IAEA's special inspections regime for Iraq, coupled with comprehensive Security Council sanctions, had destroyed Iraq's nuclear weapons program and kept it from restarting. Strong, universally implemented sanctions also induced Libya's government to forsake terrorism and completely and verifiably relinquish its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs. Yet the sanctions contained in Resolutions 1737 and 1747 are far weaker than the sanctions which stopped the Iraqi and Libyan nuclear weapons program. Indeed, the sanctions imposed on Iran by these resolutions are weaker than those the Council had previously imposed in response to many lesser threats to international peace and security. The paper concludes that so long as the international community continues to fail to hold Iran accountable for its violations of international law, Iran will continue to engage in such violations, with increasingly dangerous consequences. Orde Kittrie is a professor at Arizona State University College of Law in Tempe Arizona. Contact him at orde.kittrie@asu.edu. This is the abstract of an article published in the Syracuse Law Review, Vol. 57, p. 519, 2007. This abstract is archived at http://ssrn.com/abstract=991043; the site also provides download access to the article itself. To Go To Top CORRECTING MIS-LEADING DEMOGRAPHIC STATISTICS Posted by Israel Zwick, August 22, 2007. This was written by Attorney Elyakim Haetzni and it appeared in Arutz Sheva (www.IsraelNationalNews.com) August 8, 2007. I featured it on my website as an essay entitled, "Mis-Leading." (http://cnpublications.net/2007/08/09/path-to-self-destruction/). Why would a captain willfully run a ship aground? The American-Israel Strategic Planning Group, with leading members such as Bennett Zimmerman and Yoram Ettinger, has again publicized data contradicting the chilling picture that serves as the Left's rationalization of and excuse for the policy of withdrawals. In general, the picture is exactly the opposite of everything we assumed. There is a sharp decline in Arab birthrates and a constant rise in Jewish birthrates. In 1995, just 69% of all births within the Green Line were among Jews. In the first four months of this year, they have already reached 75.5% -- a 6.5% increase in 12 years. And one more sensational statistic: in 1969, the average Arab woman in Israel six more children than the average Jewish woman. That gap had shrunk in 2006 to 0.8; that is, less than one child. In 2006, 15,000 Arabs left Judea and Samaria and 10,500 left Gaza. Today, population growth among the Arabs in Judea and Samaria is less than that among the Jews within the Green Line. And the number of Arabs in Judea and Samaria is not 2.5 million -- as government experts and the Left claim, having just copied false data provided by the Palestinian Authority -- but 1.5 million. One million less. Logic suggests that this picture, which allays demographic fears, would alter the policy conclusions that required withdrawal and collapse. Yet, this does not occur, because the rule is that the Palestino-Jewish cult doesn't accept good news and it even keeps it from the public through its complete control of the media. The question is: Why? Why do they knowingly mislead themselves regarding proven facts? Why would a captain willfully run his ship aground? From demography to the IDF. It was reported in the Internet edition of Maariv on January 29 this year that when then-Chief of Staff Dan Halutz was asked, in an internal IDF consultation, why the ground offensive in the last war was so long in coming, he answered that he did not count on the troops. That is an earthshaking, senstaional item, almost unbelievable; yet, it disappeared from view -- because it was made to disappear. Similarly, a very unusual article, bordering on the unimaginable, appeared on the Internet. It was by Dr. Boaz Cohen, an historian and researcher who served in a reserve combat unit on the Lebanese border in June 2006, just before the war. He wrote that the IDF clearly relinquished Israeli sovereignty in exchange for "the Hizbullah quiet." They allowed Hizbullah to prepare mine fields and to point guns and rockets at us, as long as it was done within Lebanon's borders -- a ridiculous situation even under international law. Military operations were subject to the overriding concern of "quiet in the Galilee" to the point that the IDF was careful not to cause Hizbullah too many losses, so as not to heat up the front. The army promoted a codeword: "Zero targets." That is, the soldiers were pulled back from the border so that Hizbullah would not have targets for kidnapping. Border outposts were abandoned and patrols stopped traveling along the border's security road. In the town of Ghajar, the IDF left an empty position in the hope that a Hizbullah attack would focus on it. And that is, indeed, what happened. 40 Hizbullah fighters overran the outpost and dynamited the pillbox, and in the adjacent outpost they damaged vehicles, including tanks, vandalizing everything, and went on their way. The position was not booby-trapped, artillery was not fired at it, there were no ambushes, and the IDF suffered nine injuries. No one is asking why this has happened to the army. How has the IDF -- which we knew as aggressive, aware, preempting, proactive -- reached this disgraceful state of passiveness and defeatism, a state of mental retreat? No one has investigated the possible connection between leftist political ideology and the shoddy performance in the field. Maybe this is how it looks when an army has had its ideals, motivation and faith in the justice of its cause taken way. Maybe this is how it looks when an army is fed a leftist code of ethics and when its Prime Minister is "tired of winning"? Perhaps, in a society whose rulers, elite and media have internalized the messages of the enemy and, in large part, already identify with them, the army too cannot escape the rot. Perhaps, an army indoctrinated to believe that land is not important and is not worth fighting over will abandon outposts and roads within sovereign Israeli territory. No one is researching those connections because such an investigation may prove that it is impossible to halt the rot at any imaginary green line -- rot has a way of spreading until it destroys the entire organism. An army trained to effectively fight its own citizens, in the name of the holy egoism of the "now," temporary quiet and momentary comfort, will never know how to make distinctions. Why abandon and destroy Netzarim and N'vei Dekalim, but give one's life for Misgav Am and Kfar Giladi? And from here to the biggest question of all. Public Security Minister and former General Security Services (GSS) Director Avi Dichter testified before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in February 2004: "I foresee no change in Gaza as a result of the Disengagement... And I do not identify a possibility of chaos or that the Hamas will begin a process leading to the takeover of Gaza. Hamas... is wary of civil war... The Fatah-Tanzim apparatus is dozens of times bigger than Hamas, which understands that." Dichter said all of that in his capacity as head of the GSS, that is, as our eyes -- eyes that cannot see -- and everything, literally every word, came out backwards. The Disengagement led to chaos in Gaza and a takeover by Hamas, which was not wary of a civil war and which easily dispersed the Fatah-Tanzim. Currently, Dichter is an important and central minister in a government involved up to its neck in negotiations and practical preparations to repeat in Judea and Samaria exactly what they did in Gaza. Discussions are underway with the Americans and with Abu Mazen's people to reach, within months, an agreement-in-principle on a Palestinian state in 70-80% of the territory of Judea and Samaria, with historic Jerusalem as its capital, including "cleansing" the territory of Jews and the withdrawal of the IDF. Were Dichter to again appear before the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, it can be assumed that he would again claim that there is no concern of chaos in what he calls "the West Bank," and there is no concern that Hamas would take over, because Fatah-Tanzim is 10 times stronger. What will they tell the investigative commission that will be appointed when Beit Shean, Afula, Haifa, Hadera, Netanya, Herzliya,Petach Tikva and Tel Aviv are prey to Kassams and Katyushas? What will they say after Hamas does take over and, more so, when the murderers from the Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades -- after having used up the 100,000-shekel bribe they received for handing in their weapons at the entrance to the police station and receiving it at the exit -- return to terrorism under a new moniker? And how will they explain it when Fatah again collaborates with Hamas? How do they explain that, even now, Abu Mazen is paying thousands of Hamas officials in Gaza, including Ismail Haniyeh himself, from monies tranferred to him by the government of Israel? What moves those people to take their people, their nation and ultimately themselves down a path that may lead to destruction? No doubt this question will be investigated. Let it only be before the disaster, not afterwards. To Go To Top ISRAEL THREATENS TO STOP SUPPLYING GAZANS WITH ELECTRICITY IF THEY KEEP SHOOTING AT THE POWER PLANT Posted by Bryna Berch, August 22, 2007. I'll bet he won't stop electricity anytime soon. Just because the Arabs have declared war on Israel is no reason that Israel has to defend itself, is it? I'll bet if the Arabs keep on shooting at the power plant, he'll send them a message, something like "I mean it, you guys. You hit the plant again and I'll really stop electricity." and when they do it again, he'll say, "this is your last warning." And if Israel does ever stop supplying gas, electricity and material for Kassam bombers to the Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank, the traitor organization Peace Now (also written as Appease Now) will yell to the American State Dep't, who will send some 4th rank flunky over to yell at the Olmert government and Israel will begin supplying her enemies all over again. (IsraelNN.com) Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (Labor) has warned Hamas that he will turn off the electric supply from Ashkelon to Gaza if terrorists aim at the city's huge power plant. The Rottenberg generating station supplies 60 percent of Gaza's power, the minister stated. He pointed out that terrorists previously shot an Israel Electric Company employee while he was carrying out a repair on an electric line to Gaza. The Infrastructures Minister added that Israel is not involved with the transport of fuel for Gaza generating plants. He explained that the Palestinian Authority (PA) made a contract with the private Dor-Alon energy company to supply fuel and that last week's halt in deliveries was the firm's decision after receiving intelligence reports that a terrorist attack was imminent. To Go To Top CAIR BLAMES JUSTICE FOR ITS TROUBLES Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 22, 2007. This was posted by Robert Spencer on the Jihad Watch website http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/017861.php Audrey Hudson reports in the Washington Times about CAIR's ongoing attempts to be taken off the unindicted co-conspirator list. CAIR is crying "Islamophobia" at the highest levels now, claiming that the disclosure of the unindicted co-conspirator designation was "the vindictive attempt of the government to smear a group which has been critical of the government's actions in aggressively and selectively prosecuting Muslim groups or persons." So you see, if the government would just stop prosecuting Muslims, and drop CAIR's unindicted co-conspirator status, everything would be hunky dory -- except for the nettlesome fact that Islamic jihadists would have a more or less free hand. Isn't it funny how so many of CAIR's initiatives seem to end up with exactly that result -- most notoriously the Flying Imams' suit against air passengers who reported their suspicious behavior. But CAIR is evidently more concerned about the imams' hurt feelings than about the safety of both Muslim and non-Muslim air passengers from Islamic terror attacks on airplanes. If CAIR is truly a moderate group, it is at very least a singularly inept one. These guys are veritable Keystone Moderates. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) says it is suffering from a decline in membership and fundraising and blames the Justice Department for listing it as an unindicted co-conspirator in a case involving a charity accused of terrorist ties. CAIR is asking a federal judge to strike it as one of the more than 300 Muslim groups listed as unindicted co-conspirators in the government's case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which is currently on trial in Dallas. "The public naming of CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator has impeded its ability to collect donations as possible donors either do not want to give to them because they think they are a 'terrorist' organization or are too scared to give to them because of the possible legal ramifications of donating money to a 'terrorist" organization," CAIR said in an amicus curiae brief filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The brief cites reporting by The Washington Times about the organization's declining membership -- coverage that CAIR had previously denounced as a "hit piece." The Justice Department shut down the Holy Land Foundation and in 2004 indicted several of its top officers who are accused of raising $36 million from 1995 through 2001 for organizations and persons linked with Hamas, designated as a terrorist organization by the Clinton administration in 1995. The foundation raised $12.4 million after the designation that made such fundraising illegal, prosecutors say. The 42-count federal indictment accused the foundation's officers of conspiracy, providing support to terrorists, money-laundering and income-tax evasion. On May 29, the Justice Department made public a list naming 307 unindicted co-conspirators -- including CAIR -- in the case now being tried in the Dallas courtroom of U.S. District Judge A. Joe Fish. "The name of CAIR has been smeared by association with a criminal case that ostensibly involves the charitable funding of a 'terrorist' group," said the brief filed last week. The brief says federal prosecutors had no legitimate governmental interest in publicly releasing the names of CAIR and other unindicted co-conspirators. "Instead, the disclosure is the vindictive attempt of the government to smear a group which has been critical of the government's actions in aggressively and selectively prosecuting Muslim groups or persons," CAIR told the court. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top PERES HOLDS SECRET MEETING WITH PALESTINIAN CHIEF Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 22, 2007. This was written by Aaron Klein and it appeared in World Net Daily http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57256. JERUSALEM -- Newly installed Israeli President Shimon Peres has held a secret meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad at his official residence in Jerusalem, it was disclosed today during an interview with Al Jazeera. Israeli diplomatic sources told WND during the recent meeting Peres presented Fayad with a plan WND reported Peres quietly drafted for the Jewish state to evacuate and transfer to the Palestinians nearly the entire West Bank and several Arab Israeli cities located within territory that undisputedly is Israel's according to the international community. The West Bank is strategic territory that runs alongside Jerusalem and is within rocket range of Tel Aviv and Israel's international airport. It is home to many biblical Jewish communities and some of Judaism's holiest sites. Peres has also presented his initiative to top European Union officials, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and to top aides for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the past few weeks, after he took office as Israeli president last month, diplomatic sources in Jerusalem told WND. The official role of president here is limited largely to ceremonial matters; the president is not allowed to lead foreign policy. Olmert, Abbas, Fayad and the EU are mulling over the plan, said the diplomatic sources, who stated Olmert agrees with much of the plan's contents. Peres confirmed he had met with Fayad during an interview with Al-Jazeera slated for broadcast today. The Israeli president also told Al Jazeera he invited Abbas to meet with him. Peres' plan calls for Israel to hand 97 percent of the West Bank over to Abbas, with Israel retaining a small number of the territory's Jewish communities. In exchange for Israel keeping some land, the Jewish state will give the PA control of Arab Israeli cities north of Tel Aviv which, together with the evacuated West Bank territory, would amount to the equivalent of 100 percent of the West Bank. Diplomatic sources said aside from aides to Abbas and Olmert, Peres has presented his plan to European Union officials. Top EU diplomats in recent days told the media they want a U.S.-sponsored international conference scheduled for November to lead to negotiations on a final agreement with the Palestinians. That international conference and talk from the Bush administration the past few weeks has led many here to speculate the U.S. will push in the near future for intense Israeli-Palestinian negotiations leading to a Palestinian state. With a year and a half left in office, Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have been urging meetings between Abbas and Olmert to establish a framework for momentum leading to a breakthrough at November's conference. Olmert and Abbas have been meeting bi-monthly in summits brokered by the U.S. According to Israeli and Palestinian diplomatic sources, the meetings are being used by Olmert and Abbas to draft the outline of a permanent status deal ultimately yielding a Palestinian state scheduled to be aired in public at the November summit. Israel to give up Temple Mount? Palestinian negotiators drafting the agreement behind the scenes with Olmert's office have made clear they will not accept any final peace deal with Israel unless the Jewish state forfeits the Temple Mount, said a chief Palestinian negotiator, speaking on condition of anonymity. According to a report in Israel's Yediot Aharonot daily last week, Olmert is willing to discuss joint Israeli-Palestinian control over the Temple Mount complex. The report didn't state the positions of the Palestinian side on the issue. Asked by WND whether Olmert is willing to forfeit the Temple Mount in an agreement with the Palestinians, David Baker, a spokesman for the prime minister, had no comment. Already Olmert during the meetings has granted a number of security concessions to Abbas regarding increased Palestinian control of the West Bank. The Israeli prime minister last month granted amnesty to 178 gunmen from Abbas' Fatah organization who comprise most of the senior leadership of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the declared military wing of Fatah that is responsible for every suicide bombing in Israel the past three years. Olmert reportedly is considering granting amnesty to 206 more Brigades terrorists. According to Palestinian officials, the Israeli Prime Minister already informed the PA that Fatah gunmen are largely immune from Israeli anti-terror raids regardless of whether they are officially on Olmert's amnesty list. Also, Olmert is strongly considering removing hundreds of Israel Defense Forces roadblocks and checkpoints situated in strategic sites located throughout the West Bank. The IDF sees the checkpoints as crucial in helping stop terrorists, including suicide bombers, from infiltrating Jewish cities. As well, in a little-reported but major move, Israel last week started allowing armed Palestinian policemen to patrol areas in the West Bank that fall under Israeli security control according to the 1993 Oslo Accords. Security in the territory, referred to as Area B, is supposed to be ensured by the IDF, which still monitors the area but has allowed for an unprecedented stepped-up armed Palestinian security presence there. In response to the renewed momentum toward a Palestinian state, rabbis for the Yesha Council of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria -- the West Bank -- yesterday slammed the Israeli government for considering major concessions. The council released a statement expressing "concern at the irresponsible diplomatic moves being made during these days, the main point of which is the consent to the establishment of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria. These moves are founded upon irrelevant considerations of political survival, and are being made in total opposition to the opinion of the defense establishment." Peres overstepping his boundaries? When Peres assumed the role of president last month, political analysts and pundits here widely expected him to defy the limits of his office and take a hands-on role in Israeli diplomacy and policy making. According to Knesset sources, Peres is contemplating even asking lawmakers to officially expand the role of the president to include conducting foreign policy. During Peres' acceptance speech last month, he called for Israel to retreat from the West Bank. The next day, he called for direct negotiations with Syria, which is hosting top Palestinian terror leaders and supporting the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, which last summer launched thousands of rockets into Israeli population centers. Syrian President Bashar Assad warned several times the past few months his country is preparing for war. Peres, Israel's longest standing Knesset member, was considered the driving force of the 1993 Oslo Accords. The Peres Peace Center, headed by the new president, advocates the division of Jerusalem and Israeli withdrawals from the strategic West Bank and Golan Heights. Peres repeatedly has come under fire by critics for policies and plans many say would greatly undermine Israel's security if implemented. An official biography of the elderly statesman released earlier this year, entitled "Shimon Peres," revealed a draft agreement he hammered out with West Germany in 1961 to allow the creation of German military bases on Israeli soil less than two decades after the Holocaust. The biography also detailed a controversial plan Peres concocted to lease French Guyana from France and create an Israeli colony there at a time when the nine-year-old Israel was desperate for immigrants and struggling to establish itself. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top PLANTING TOMATOES ON A HILLTOP OVERLOOKING SHECHEM Posted by Moshe Dann, August 22, 2007. "Let's make a garden," my 22 year old daughter Ayelet suggested when I during my weekly visit to their little home in Yitzhar, a Jewish community in the Shomron, near the ancient city of Shechem, or Nablus as it's called today. Nestled in the valley between two mountains, Eval and Grezim, Shechem is the place where Jacob bought property, where Joseph is buried, and where Joshua built an altar and blessed the Jewish people shortly after they entered the Land of Israel, the Promised Land. It's also become a major center for Palestinian terrorism. "A lovely idea," I replied, bouncing between my two grandsons with chunks of watermelon and love. Every year in Detroit, where I grew up, my father planted tomato plants in our backyard. As we carefully tended the plants through the hot and humid summer, he taught us that we, too, could in a way be pioneers. "Now that's a tomato," he exclaimed proudly, holding up a very large one, his redemption of city life and a genetic thread to his Russian peasant roots. Ayelet led me to a patch of ground with thorny weeds and stones. "Here," she said handing me a shovel and pickax. 'Where's the earth?' I wondered. But trusting her instincts and hopes I began to dig, prying stones from their earthen womb, until the soil exposed itself, dark and merciful. Ayelet and her husband, Akiva and my grandsons live on a hilltop. From their place I could see the outskirts of Shechem to the north; to the west, the Mediterranean Sea shimmers on the horizon. In the valley below, the sounds of Arab children and street vendors swirl in the wind. The Promised Land, I thought, wasn't such an easy bargain as I dug into the unyielding ground. Turning the earth I suddenly noticed something unusual -- a small cube, a mosaic tile. Trained as a tour guide, I understood that this indicated the presence of someone from either the Second Temple (Roman) period or the Talmudic (Byzantine) period. At first I thought it was a fluke, but then I found more tiles, hundreds of them. Tile floors are unusual, usually a sign of luxury. Could it mean that someone important lived here? A few meters away, the rock surface had been chipped away to form a place where water was collected, perhaps a mikve (ritual bath), and nearby the rock had been carved out to form a place where grapes were pressed. Heaps of stones might once have been the walls of homes. A Jewish village, here on this hilltop? Tomato plants in the midst of an archeological site? I dug more, looking for evidence of life some two thousand years ago. I jug handle turned up, a few bits of pottery, but the mystery of this lost community remained hidden beneath the rubble, if at all. My grandsons watched me work, too young to help. Leaning against the shovel, I tried to show them how to dig, their tiny limbs straining with the weight of tools too heavy for them to hold. One day soon they will hold shovels and plows. When I can no longer lift the tools, they will dig, in their home, our land. A promise. In front of their newly built home, consisting of two old metal shipping containers connected by a roof, Akiva made a small cement porch. While still wet, Ayelet took some of the tiles we'd found and placed them in the floor, spelling out in Hebrew: Baruchim Haba'im -- Blessed are those who enter. Moshe Dann a former assistant professor of history at the City University of New York is a Jerusalem-based writer and journalist. This article was published August 15, 2007 in The Forwrd. To Go To Top FROM ISRAEL: OURS Posted by Arlene Kushner, August 22, 2007. I have returned from a few days in the north, including the Golan. Always when I am there, I am strengthened once again in my absolute conviction that this is ours and under no circumstances should be surrendered to Syria. This would be insanity, but then insanity abounds these days (about which more below). The only reassuring note I have found is the fierce opposition of the defense establishment to turning over Shaba Farms, which is on the edge of the Golan. In 2000 we withdrew from southern Lebanon to the international line (the Blue Line); the fact that we had done so and were no longer on Lebanese territory was confirmed by the UN after careful assessment. Shaba Farms was considered part of the Golan -- from our perspective part of land we had annexed; from an broadly international perspective, an issue between us and Syria at most. Hezbollah claimed this as Lebanese territory, for this provided the rationale for continuing to attack us: we were "occupiers." But now the UN has had a change of mind and is leaning towards honoring a Lebanese demand for this area; international pressure is being put upon us to withdraw from the area to strengthen the Lebanese government. Secretary General Ki-Moon is sending surveyors to review the lines. The IDF says that to withdraw would set a precedent that is dangerous for Israel's security. ~~~~~~~~~~ The Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades -- which is Fatah -- is saying they will no longer honor the "truce" that was arranged between Israel and the PA. This initially involved IDF "amnesty" for a list of 178 Brigades people who were on a wanted list: the IDF would no longer go after them, and in return, the people on the list were supposed to turn in their weapons and sign a piece of paper renouncing terrorism. The Palestinians then said there was a second list of 110, and while this hasn't been confirmed by Israel, the broader sense that had begun to emerge was that we were going to be cutting the Brigades slack across the board. Now, according to the Brigades, two people on the list who were supposed to have been given amnesty -- Iyad Bisharat and Ahmed Abu Jalboush -- were arrested by the IDF. My best information is that Bisharat was on that first list and Abu Jalboush on the second. At any rate, there was never a moment of doubt in my mind about the fact that if these guys were arrested, there was a reason. We know that they are not honoring their commitment to renounce terrorism. And, indeed, what I've learned at long last from an unofficial source is that they were shooting at the IDF. What was incredible today is the lengths I went to simply to find out if they had weapons on them when arrested and why they were arrested. Numerous phone calls to the Ministry of Defense got me no where and I was told to be in touch with the Prime Minister's office. But my communication with PMO representative David Baker yielded next to nothing: Security, he reported, had no comment other than to say that "continuous steps will be taken to prevent terror from being perpetrated whenever and wherever possible." Why the stonewalling? Is it not in Israel's best interests from a PR perspective to show that there was reason why these particular Brigades members were arrested? The answer I have obtained, from an unofficial source, is that this refusal to comment reflects a severe conflict currently on-going between the political echelon and high members of the IDF: Olmert and company, eager to pursue "negotiations" with the PA, would prefer to ignore the "occasional lapse" in the agreement and pretend that all is going marvelously. The IDF is adamant that operations to stop terrorist operations must continue and thus are acting without political sanction. Thus the desire to keep it low key. And thus Defense's insistence on throwing it in the lap of the prime minister's office. G-d bless our IDF officials, who not only have their heads screwed on properly but are insistent upon acting. And Olmert and company? Here is a piece of the insanity referred to above. One must ask WHY? If the Palestinians cannot be trusted and will continue to perpetrate terrorists acts, WHY would he cut them slack and move ahead in dealing with the PA? Because he has an agenda and will advance it at all costs. This is the inescapable conclusion to be drawn. We have hardly seen the last. ~~~~~~~~~~ The rumors continue to fly fast and furious and there is no way to pin down what is real and what is not: rumors, that is, regarding those purported negotiations going on between Olmert and Abbas. Of late we have "information" from President Shimon Peres that there is an attempt to complete an agreement before the "summit." And there have been reports of Olmert's willingness to compromise on control of Har Habayit. I spoke with one very well informed individual who confessed that he was also unable to pin down the truth of the various rumors but said that his understanding was that, at most, a very vague, short document was to be the outcome of these "negotiations." Vague, so that each side could claim to have achieved what he wanted. (Makes sense since Abbas demands exceed anything Olmert could deliver.) Following this would be the inevitable arguments about what was agreed upon. In a nutshell, in spite of how sickening this is, it is exceedingly unlikely that a Palestinian state will evolve from what's going on. Abbas is so weak and ineffectual, that in the end even someone like Olmert, ready to turn a blind eye, will have to confront certain realities regarding terrorist actions that Abbas cannot control. ~~~~~~~~~~ This is what Olmert ultimately will not be able to ignore: According to Khaled Abu Toameh, reporting in the Post in the beginning of the week, high level PA security officials have admitted that they have been unable to block a Hamas presence in Judea and Samaria in spite of their best efforts. Hamas's military arm, Izaddin al-Kassam, has become "very active" in particular in Samaria, near Nablus, where it is creating new cells and attacking IDF patrols. "We are going after the wrong guys," a PA official said. "We are detaining journalists, university students and low-level political operatives. Meanwhile, Izaddin al-Kassam is establishing secret cells and acquiring more weapons." They are also recruiting Palestinians from Judea and Samaria. PA security has been unable to secure adequate information on these Hamas operations in spite of serious concerns that what is going on now is the first move towards overthrowing Abbas. A Hamas cell was found in the Bethlehem area that was said to be taking orders directly from Hamas leadership in Syria, but was released because of insufficient evidence. Additionally, according to Abu Toameh, there are unconfirmed reports that Jabil Rajoub, a close confident of Abbas met with Mashaal in Damascus in an attempt to resolve the Fatah-Hamas rift. ~~~~~~~~~~ Our undeclared, low-level war with Gaza persists. Rockets are still being launched at us, and we are still taking limited actions inside of Gaza. In one action today, the Air Force struck at a group of armed men in Gaza, killing a high level Hamas commander. Earlier three Islamic Jihad operatives were taken out. Yesterday, in the north of Gaza, Israel targeted a team loading a Kassam rocket. Following this operation, two children were killed. They were seen going into the field right after a rocket had been launched -- they had been sent, as is routinely done by the terrorists, to retrieve the launcher and were killed by an exploding shell. The response of Abbas was to call Israel's actions "a massacre which cannot be justified. This escalation casts doubt on Israel's real intentions regarding the peace process, which is first of all expressed in halting all violent activities, attacks and assassinations." He said the peace process cannot advance if Israel continues "the occupation regime and its army are fully responsible for the escalation and the shedding of innocent people's blood in order to provoke retaliation and provide the Israeli occupation army with an excuse to commit more crimes." Note that Abbas is defending Hamas in Gaza, and attacking Israel for taking action against Hamas and other terrorists. Not a word about Hamas needing to stop all rocket launchings. I wonder how Olmert swallows this. ~~~~~~~~~~ The US State Department is about to begin training security officers for the PA. In spite of everything, they're going to do this. According to Aaron Klein, writing for the NY Sun, a senior Fatah militant has admitted that if it were not for previous assistance and training provided to PA forces by the US, they would not have been so successful in the Intifada that began in 2000. "I do not think that the operations of the Palestinian resistance would have been so successful and would have killed more than one thousand Israelis since 2000 and defeated the Israelis in Gaza without these trainings," said an officer in Abbas's Presidential Guard. "All the methods and techniques that we studied in these trainings, we applied them against the Israelis." Olmert, you see, does not have a monopoly on insanity. The US State Department is apparently working according to a philosophy that says, "If it doesn't work, don't abandon it, do more of the same." ~~~~~~~~~~ Caroline Glick's column in yesterday's Post, "Israel's Reeducation Minister," is enough to make you weep. If you're a Zionist, that is. Glick is writing about Education Minister Yuli Tamir, who is a founding member of Peace Now and is injecting that agenda into the school curricula. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1187502425556 &pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull ~~~~~~~~~~ Barry Rubin has written a most instructive column, "The Middle East's titanic battle." Radical Islam, he says, has now reached a critical mass and presents a threat to every Arabic speaking country. The battle is, and will be for years to come, between Arab nationalism and Islamism. This, and certainly not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is the central theme at the core of every conflict in the Middle East. The Islamist cause is championed by Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas. The parties have mutual goals and ideologies, and their cooperation is not likely to be split apart. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid= 1187502416994&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info To Go To Top REJECT PROPOSED TENURE FOR NADIA ABU EL-HAJ, AVOWED REVISIONIST OF JEWISH HISTORY IN ISRAEL Posted by Warren A. Manison, August 22, 2007. You are probably aware of the controversy surrounding the tenure decision on Nadia Abu El Haj at Columbia/Barnard. El Haj has written one book in which she flatly denies the existence of the ancient Israelite kingdoms, the connection of contemporary Jews to any ancient Jewish people in the near east -- however defined, and even states that Herodian Jerusalem was not Jewish. Ms. El Haj is entitled to advocate the destruction of the State of Israel. She is not entitled to publish fiction, call it history, and expect to receive tenure. If you know anyone who is an alumnus of Columbia University, please forward the following to them and appraise them of the upcoming battle at Columbia to grant tenure to an anti-semite Palestinian following on the footsteps of the late Edward Said. Background material can be found at: http://www.nadiaabuelhaj.com/ http://www.greycat.org/papers/archaeo.htm http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/25976.html http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/008510.shtml http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/20070814ElHajbarnard.html phdiva.blogspot.com/2007/05/nadia-aby-el-haj-and-use-of-evidence.html Below is the letter I wrote to Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University. It would also be useful for you to sign the petition against El-Haj's Tenure. You will find it at http://www.petitiononline.com/barnard/petition.html From: wmani@juno.com To: Bollinger@Columbia.edu Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 23:09:44 -0400 Subject: Proposed tenure status for Nadia Abu El-Haj President Lee Bollinger Columbia University New York, New York Dear Mr. President: It is surprising that Columbia University would once again allow itself to be embroiled in a controversy regarding a member of its staff. A number of years ago, it was Edward Said. Today, it is Nadia Abu El-Haj, authoress of a book -- "Facts on the Ground". In both cases, Columbia permitted its name to be used to further the unethical practice of demonizing the only democratic country in the Middle East -- Israel. May I quote from the Columbia University Faculty Handbook that states, "irreversible damage can result from breach of academic commitment to truth in investigative activities... lack of integrity in conducting basic or clinical investigations involving dishonesty, knowing misrepresentation of data, and/or violation of accepted standards can destroy public trust in the academic community as a whole and in our own institution in particular; it can shatter individual careers; it can undermine sensitive relationships between investigators, students, and the public." El-Haj has violated these basic principles by writing a book that misrepresents the facts, makes false charges not supported by any evidence on the ground, and surreptitiously quotes unnamed sources for her "information". She has lost any claims of objectivity and honesty and her request for tenure MUST be rejected. It would take volumes for me to rebut much of what is in her book, but some particularly egregious revisionism cannot go unchallenged. 1) El-Haj flatly denies the existence of the ancient Israelite kingdoms, the connection of contemporary Jews to any ancient Jewish people in the near east -- however defined, and even states that Herodian Jerusalem was not Jewish. She ignores: recordings in ancient Assyrian and Babylonian script referencing the Jewish people: Roman documentation identifying Herod, a Jew, as the King of the Jews installed in Jerusalem; archaeological evidence of King David including his 3,000 year old palace and tomb plus his Psalms in use throughout Christianity and Judaism; and even ignores Koranic references to the early Jewish prophets preceding Muhammad. 2) El-Haj accuses Israel of bulldozer tactics to create a Jewish presence where there never was one. She ignores that archaeologists from all over the world have uncovered troves of evidence of Jewish history; ignores that rough treatment of archeological remains through bulldozers are inimical to any discovery; and, cannot explain how and why Israel would use bulldozers to create a false history. Her distorted picture of Israeli archaeological practice is not simply a matter of confusion over technical terms, but a conscious strategy of ideologically-motivated misrepresentation. 3) Like her counterparts in the Palestinian Authority, she denies the existence of a Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount. In fact, there are carbon dated artifacts clearly identifiable with the 2nd Temple built in the 6th century B.C. and destroyed in 70 A.D. by the Romans as recorded by Josephus. She ignores that Jesus Christ walked on the grounds of the Temple; ignores that Jesus was born a Jew, lived a Jew and died a Jew; and ignores that if Jesus did not exist, therefore, Christianity does not exist and we all know this is not true. Her zeal to flagrantly demonize and illegitimate the State of Israel has negatively compromised her intellectual ability. To grant her tenure would, in my opinion, be a demeaning reflection on Columbia University and contrary to the Faculty Handbook guidelines quoted above. I ask that you use your influence to prevent this from happening. To Go To Top ARABS KILL ARABS -- NO HRW COMPLAINT; OLMERT IS DELUDED; TIME TO HOLD NEW ISRAEL FUND ACCOUNTABLE Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 22, 2007. CONSTANT JULY 4 CELEBRATIONS IN P.A.? Human rights organizations have condemned and counted statistically Israel's attacks on cars and houses in the P.A. as attacks on civilians. Of course, we know that Israel has, to the extent of those raids, lliquidated terrorists en route to raids of their own. Do the protestors suppose that the alternative, a full-scale IDF assault and house-by-house disarmament would lessen civilian casualties? It would be more effective and end the war if not the Islamic bellicosity. Many of the protested attacks result in secondary explosions. The Israeli missiles strike cars ferrying explosives and houses storing them. Were those facilities being used for military purposes, or were they firecrackers for July 4 celebrations? ASYMMETRY IN ISRAEL-P.A. PUBLIC STATEMENTS The P.A., Arabs make demands upon Israel and offer nothing. Israeli leaders demand nothing and offer much. Implication: Israel owes the Arabs something. Actually, the Arabs attempted genocide against the Jews and made war constantly. Morally, the Arabs owe Israel much. Were the Israeli regime patriotic, wise, and sane, it would explain this. Some world, in which aggressors are thought to have the high moral ground! AS MANY CASUALTIES FROM ISRAELI POLICE? Police preventing protestors from staying in houses that the government wanted to expel Jews from in Amona, Judea-Samaria, were so brutal, that they sent hundreds of youths to the hospital for head injuries and other wounds. It would take the Arabs a year to inflict that many casualties. The Israeli police are doing the Arabs' job for them. Lawsuits for damages are being filed and one was awarded, so far. Police authorities tried to cover up for their brutes. The Left, which includes the major media, hardly protested against the brutality, JIHAD KILLS ARAB CHILDREN BY MISTAKE Again, rockets fired at Israeli civilians fell short and killed some Arab children in Gaza. There was no comment about it from within the P.A., no admission and no condemnation (Arutz-7, 8/7). Cold-blooded, that cult of death! Watch for condemnation by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. They care about Arab civilians, don't they? IRAN & N. KOREA TO BOOST TIES They have congratulated each other on working to bring down the "great tyranny" the US), and will increase their mutual cooperation (IMRA, 8/9). Mutual cooperation sounds to me like longer-range missiles and more a-bombs. I think that Iran and N. Korea are two of the most menacing tyrannies on earth, N. Korea being the worse for its own people. A PRIME MINISTER WITH DELUSIONS While the Lebanon war still was raging, PM Olmert declared victory. He claimed to have eliminated Hizbullah's infrastructure, changed the face of the Mideast, and shown by example that Israel could withdraw from Judea-Samaria. Within hours, Hizbullah launched its biggest missile barrage of the war. Apparently, Hizbullah's infrastructure still could deal Israel blows, the Mideast hadn't changed, and the war, a result of a previous Israeli retreat, does not validate further retreat. Even the Israeli media pointed out some of his lies. That was a year ago. Olmert still is in office and still is lying about that war and embarking upon unrealistic diplomacy. He seems to crave getting his picture taken with Saudi leaders, which is why he doesn't demand that they stop boycotting Israel. He still wants to cede Judea-Samaria and let the Arabs bisect Israel, in order to connect the two parts of the P.A. (which is dangerous and may amount to disconnecting the two parts of Israel!). Also craving US approval, Olmert seems ready to drop objections to the US sale of weapons Israel cannot defend against, to S. Arabia, subverted by Al Qaida. Defense Min. Barak (who withdrew the IDF from Lebanon) has further delusions. He proposes to build in three years a system for defending against all types of missiles. It couldn't be done in three years and, indeed, could not defend against thousands of missiles coming at once. But on the basis of that illusion, he proposes to withdraw from Judea-Samaria and the Golan. (Barry Chamish said his withdrawal and his blunders in the first Lebanon war really were designed to embarrass a Likud regime and he like Olmert and Peres wants Israel destroyed.) The problem is that the regime, with a mere 9% approval rating, does not care what the people think and staves off new elections. The politicians think of their positions are careers, not responsibilities. The leaders are weak and antagonistic to Jewish values and democracy. The public doesn't demand enough of them (IMRA, 8/4 from Natan Sharansky). IDF REFORM The IDF finds some immigrants from Western countries qualified for needed, high-level work. The Army plans now to make use of the recruits' skills, instead of just assigning them to clean bases (IMRA, 8/3). Years ago, a conservative think tank in Israel had suggested that, among many reforms civilian and military. The study's emphasis then was on making better use of reservist recalls, which are disruptive personally but not very productive nationally. That would apply to the IDF as a whole, not just for Western immigrants. ANOTHER FIFTH COLUMN IN ISRAEL One children's summer camp for Druse was started on the Golan. More are planned. The camp feature various enemy flags, slogans in behalf of Israel's enemies on every side, the Syrian national anthem, and pledges to help "liberate" the Golan from Israel (IMRA, 8/2) and into Syria, a repressive, poverty-stricken country that itself badly needs to be freed. Although Israel is accused of ethnically cleansing acquired territory, despite the historical record to the contrary, and despite that being the record of its Arab enemies, here in the Golan was an opportunity to clear out a potential fifth column but Israel failed to do so, by inducement or by force. Now it is paying the price. Why allow camps to prepare people for insurrection? International law bans removing native populations by force. But international law did not envision the kind of strife and hardship that such populations make, engaging in jihad. HOW MUCH MAY MUSLIMS HIDE BEHIND GARMENTS? The West is confused and in flux over Muslim dress. Some jurisdictions ban certain Islamic garments, others ban different ones, and still others ban none. Muslims seek special privileges in the West; they should be denied. But people do have freedom of religion and of expression (though conservative or radical Muslims intimidate women into wearing some garments that stifle their individuality.) Daniel Pipes suggests allowing modesty without excess. The excess has been used, like outlaw masks on the old western frontier, to hide the identity of robbers and terrorists. Terrorists tried to conceal themselves in women's dress, to escape. Garments with only slits open for the eyes impede identification. "Nothing in Islam requires turning females into shapeless, faceless zombies; good sense calls for modesty itself to be modest. The time has come everywhere to ban from public places these hideous, unhealthy, socially divisive, terrorist-enabling, and criminal-friendly garments." (Pipes #789, 8/2.) FANTASTIC SAUDI ARABIA One city there had 149 degrees F. in the sun and 127 in the shade (IMRA, 8/4). TIME FOR NEW ISRAEL FUND (NIF) TO BE ACCOUNTABLE "The largest chunk -- one-third -- of the NIF's annual budget goes to more than 20 organizations that claim to promote "civil rights" for Israel's Arab minority." "But these NGOs use the money to demonize and delegitimize the concept of Jewish sovereignty and equality among the nations. Some, such as Adalah and Mousawa, submit papers to the United Nations accusing Israel of apartheid. They also refer to Zionism as racism, and distribute an alternative constitution for Israel that would abolish the concept of a Jewish state. The NIF is responsible for "empowering" the most radical Israeli Arab voices and giving them the resources to dominate the discussion at the expense of moderate leaders." "Misguided NIF policies also support radical groups such as Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, and the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, whose head, Jeff Halper, supports the most virulent boycott promoters, such as Naim Ateek. And after funding Tel Aviv lawyer Shamai Leibowitz -- who supports economic sanctions against Israel and the creation of a bi-national state west of the Jordan River -- NIF officials quietly admitted that they don't endorse his views, but they didn't apologize for this error, and the damage was done." "For these and other reasons, the time for an open debate on the NIF is long overdue. NIF donors should be able to listen to different Israeli views and decide how best to use their considerable funds." NIF is trying to revise Israeli society in accordance with its (radical) agenda, regardless of what Israelis want. Donors are starting to question where the money really goes (IMRA, 8/4). They aren't told of the radical agenda. NIF does not donate to protect Jewish rights from the Muslims and the State. It collects money under false pretenses. The same subversive purpose is behind EU subsidies to radical Israeli groups, usually Arab ones. If Israel were patriotic, it would ban the donations as facilitating jihad. SECURITY COUNCIL CONCERN IN LEBANON The Security Council expressed "grave concern" about Israeli planes flying over Lebanon to monitor arms smuggling to Hizbullah in preparation for another war by terrorism, just "concern" over that smuggling, and merely "noted" the fighting by Islamists against the government of Lebanon (IMRA, 8/4). Backwards! Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top PALESTINIANS SEND CHILDREN TO RETRIEVE ROCKET LAUNCHERS AFTER ATTACKS ON ISRAEL Posted by Daily Alert, August 21, 2007. This was written by Yuval Azoulay, Yoav Stern and Mijal Grinberg and it appeared in Ha'aretz http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/896224.html Hamas gunmen gathering on Tuesday in central Gaza for the funeral of six fellow militants who were killed in an IDF operation Monday. (AP) PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' office condemned Israel's military operations in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank on Wednesday, saying that the strikes make progress in peace talks impossible. "It is impossible to conduct a peace process, to advance negotiations and to achieve results as long as Israel continues with its policy of military strikes," said Abbas' office in a statement. The statement said that the IDF operations, which have killed 13 Palestinians since Monday, cast strong doubt on Israel's desire to make peace. Abbas' office called on the international community and the Quartet of Middle East mediators to intervene regarding these incidents and to halt Israel's military activities. Earlier Wednesday, IDF troops killed a Hamas militant in an air strike in the Gaza Strip early Wednesday, a day after two children and three militants were killed in similar Gaza strikes. Hamas identified the militant killed Wednesday as Yehia Habib, a senior field commander in Gaza City. Three other militants were wounded. Israel said it struck a group of armed men who had approached the border fence with Israel. The attack took place hours after troops killed a 9-year-old and a 12-year-old as they tried to collect Qassam rocket launchers. The children were killed on Tuesday the afternoon by an IDF tank in the northern Gaza Strip. The two were seen moving in a field near Beit Hanun toward rocket launchers immediately after Qassam rockets had been fired on towns in Israel. The rockets struck the area near Kibbutz Zikim, south of Ashkelon. There were no injuries or damage. Soon after the launch, an IDF force identified the source of the rocket fire, surveyed the area, and identified a number of suspicious figures near the launchers. A tank in the area fired a round, which killed the two children. Another child was seriously injured in the incident. "Children have no business being near Qassam rocket launchers," IDF officers said in a statement last night. They said it is possible that Islamic Jihad had hired the children to collect the launchers after the launch. This phenomenon had already been observed in other instances, the IDF officers said. The tank fired at the figures only after they were seen close to the launchers, IDF sources said. The only reason anyone approaches the launchers after rockets are fired is to collect them or reload them, the sources said, so there was no way to avoid shooting at the people near the launchers. "If these were children or youths, we regret the use that the terrorist groups are making of them," a statement from the IDF spokesman read Tuesday. An IDF source said that troops that had carried out the operation identified the figures next to the launchers as militants. "They were handling the launchers and they obviously hadn't come to slide on them," he said. "Every Palestinian, including the militants, knows that anyone who hangs around these launchers is endangering themselves." According to IDF analysts, Tuesday's rocket attack against Israel was carried out by the Jerusalem Battalions of the Islamic Jihad. They said that the militants fled as soon as the rockets were launched. "This is a cynical use of children but we are no longer surprised by anything we see. A 14-year-old child has already fired an RPG rocket against an IDF force, a grandmother aged close to 70 fired a light weapon against a Givati [Brigade] force recently in the Strip. What were these children doing there anyway? The militants fled immediately after the launch and then sent the children to collect the launchers," one of the sources added. In another Qassam rocket attack, against the western Negev, one rocket hit a kindergarten in Sderot, causing damage. No injuries were reported because the children are still on summer vacation and the kindergarten was empty. The second Qassam landed in fields. Palestinian militants have also fired several mortar shells at the western Negev, causing no injuries or damage. Earlier Tuesday, IDF troops killed three Palestinian militants near the security fence in the southern Gaza Strip, near Khan Yunis. According to the IDF, the militants were members of Islamic Jihad and were trying to carry out a shooting attack against Israeli targets near the fence. The army said the militants belong to a cell that had carried out such attacks in the past. The incident began when the vehicle the three were in was spotted and attacked from the air. The three managed to flee, but they were intercepted by an IDF force in the fields. A fourth militant was injured in the incident. A spokesman for Islamic Jihad said that the four were on a "jihad-related" activity. "The blood of our martyrs will be avenged," a statement read. IDF troops found three sniper rifles in searches of the area following the incident, the army said. On Monday night, Israel's Channel 2 television reported that six Hamas men killed in an Israeli attack earlier in the day were members of a sniper unit. The six militants were killed and another was wounded in an IDF rocket strike on a car traveling in the central Gaza Strip. In an incident in the West Bank city of Nablus early Tuesday, IDF troops shot and killed a Palestinian gunman. The soldiers operating in the Al-Ein refugee camp saw a Palestinian gunman who fired at them before they returned fire and hit him, the army said. The militant was identified as 38-year-old Nasser Mabrouk, a member of an offshoot of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The Daily Alert is sponsored by Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and prepared by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). To subscribe to their free daily alerts, send an email to daily@www.dailyalert.jcpa.org To Go To Top SLURS AGAINS JEWS AND CHRISTIANS ARE FINE. JUST DON'T RILE MUSLIMS Posted by Naomi Ragen, August 21, 2007. Friends, Journalist Tom Gross brings to our attention the continuing anti-Jewish, anti-Christian bias of the BBC, whose website defends anti-Semitic remarks as "freedom of speech", but immediately removes anything anti-Muslim. And took a week to remove disgusting remarks about Christianity. His article is from http://media.nationalreview.com/post/?q= ODNjOTlkYzgxMmU4YTExZGQ3NzA0MDkyMzhhOTYzNGE Shocking. Naomi BBC forced to remove Jesus "bastard" slur from its website, but anti-Semitic comments remain While regularly censoring criticism of Islamic extremism, the BBC allows highly offensive slurs about Christians and even more so about Jews, to remain on its website for weeks at a time, points out the (London) Daily Mail. But now, after a campaign by the Daily Mail and its sister newspaper, The Mail on Sunday, "The BBC has been forced to remove statements from its website referring to Jesus as a 'bastard'." The remarks about Jesus were left as part of a discussion about the death of the Archbishop of Paris. However, the BBC editors have allowed anti-Semitic comments posted by the same person who wrote the Jesus "bastard" remarks, to remain. Among those still up by him on the BBC's publicly-funded, award-winning website are "The jews in much remembered concentration camps had even better qualitity of freedom that these palestinians have". The Daily Mail wanted to test whether the BBC would disallow remarks critical of Muslims, while allowing anti-Semitic remarks. So one Daily Mail reader posted: "No one can surpass the Muslims for denial of their role in Terrorism and Suicide bombing." The post was "almost immediately deleted by the BBC," reports the Mail. The Mail points out that the BBC has, by contrast, allowed "anti-Semitic posts" to remain on its website for over a month now. Among these is: "Zionism is a racist ideology where jews are given supremacy over all other races and faiths. This is found in the Talmud... which allows jews to lie as long as its to non-jews." Even after the official Board of Deputies of British Jews wrote a polite letter to the BBC pointing out that the comment had been lifted from a notorious 19th Century anti-Semitic text, "The Talmud Unmasked," which is still sold by neo-Nazi booksellers in London, the BBC has refused to remove it, citing freedom of speech. The Daily Telegraph today runs a lead editorial criticizing the week-long refusal of the BBC to remove the Jesus "bastard" remark and says that the BBC's continuing refusal to make public the independent Balen Report (which is widely rumored to reveal anti-Israel bias verging on anti-Semitism in some BBC Mideast coverage) is "disgraceful". See: Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist and journalist who lives in Jerusalem. She can be contacted at www.naomiragen.com, where you can subscribe to her newsletter. To Go To Top TV AIRING FOR ISLAM'S STORY OF CHRIST Posted by Simon McIlwaine, August 21, 2007. This was written by Riazat Butt and appeared in The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/ 0,,2151358,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=11 There was no manger, Christ is not the Messiah, and the crucifixion never happened. A forthcoming ITV documentary will portray Jesus as Muslims see him. With the Koran as a main source and drawing on interviews with scholars and historians, the Muslim Jesus explores how Islam honours Christ as a prophet but not as the son of God. According to the Koran the crucifixion was a divine illusion. Instead of dying on the cross, Jesus was rescued by angels and raised to heaven. TV airing for Islam's story of Christ Riazat Butt Saturday August 18, 2007 The Guardian There was no manger, Christ is not the Messiah, and the crucifixion never happened. A forthcoming ITV documentary will portray Jesus as Muslims see him. With the Koran as a main source and drawing on interviews with scholars and historians, the Muslim Jesus explores how Islam honours Christ as a prophet but not as the son of God. According to the Koran the crucifixion was a divine illusion. Instead of dying on the cross, Jesus was rescued by angels and raised to heaven. The one-hour special, commissioned and narrated by Melvyn Bragg, is thought to be the first time the subject has been dealt with on British television. Lord Bragg said: "I was fascinated by the idea ... Jesus was such a prominent figure in Islam but most people don't know that." He denies the programme will divide communities. Raised as an Anglican, he describes the documentary as thoughtful and well researched. "I hope it will provoke among Muslims the feeling they are included in television." The director and producer, Irshad Ashraf, said the film was an attempt to shift the focus away from extremism to the spiritual side of Islam. "Jesus is loved and respected by Muslims and he's one of the most important prophets in our religion." Representatives from mainstream Anglican and Catholic organisations were invited to take part in the film, to be broadcast on Sunday, but nobody was available, Mr Ashraf said. Philip Lewis, the Bishop of Bradford's aide on inter-faith matters, urged believers on both sides to take advantage of a "worthwhile contribution to understanding a complex issue". However, Patrick Sookhdeo, an Anglican canon and spokesman for the Barnabas Fund, which works with persecuted Christians, accused broadcasters of double standards. Mr Sookhdeo, who was born a Muslim and converted to Christianity in 1969, said: "How would the Muslim community respond if ITV made a programme challenging Muhammad as the last prophet?" The Koran's denial of Jesus's divinity was "unacceptable". "On the last day the Koran says Jesus will destroy all the crosses. How can we praise that?" Simon McIlwaine is with Anglican Friends of Israel (www.anglicanfriendsofisrael.com). Contact him at Simon.McIlwaine@ormerods.co.uk To Go To Top ZIONIST GOVERNMENT WANTED Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 21, 2007. The Nation of Israel has irreconcilable differences with PM Ehud Olmert and FM Tzipora Livni and Co. who must be replaced with a true Zionist government Israel PM Ehud Olmert and FM Tzipora Livni are a disastrous case of leadership inaptness. More so, they are suffering from a terrible mental disorder even a psychiatrist cannot treat. They are dangerous to ALL Jews and MUST be locked away in a facility, bound in a straight jacket. The only basis for the State of Israel's existence is the Zionistic vision that reconnects the Jewish people to their country after thousands of years of political independence absence. Today, the entire government of Israel is post Zionism, post-Judaism, post-nationalism, post-patriotism. They are however, pro-Arabs, pro Arabs state(s) on the Land of Israel, pro-the total annihilation of Israel. Why they are called the government of Israel, only God can tell us; human sense cannot figure this one out. This article was written by Dr Ron Breiman, who is a past chairman of Professors for a Strong Israel. It was published March 11, 2007 in Ynet News http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3375100,00.html In the past 15 years, Israeli leaders have replaced Zionist vision with 'two-state vision' What priorities does the State of Israel need on the brink of its 60th anniversary? The Kadima prime minister indeed claimed that a leader did not have to have an "agenda" (as this is referred to in the media lingo) and that his job is merely to manage (and we can only bemoan such management.) Yet is it possible to manage without objectives and an agenda? Reality speaks for itself: The absence of vital management components is conspicuous, particularly when this is joined by denying and forgetting the Zionist vision and replacing it with the "two-state vision" in Olmert's and Livni's hollow and repetitive slogan. The only basis for the State of Israel's existence is the Zionist vision that reconnects the people to its country after thousands of years with the absence of political independence. The way to realizing this vision is through the concentration of the people of Israel in the Land of Israel. Therefore, immigration and absorption are the most important national missions. It is sad to see the various immigration absorption ministers insulted when they are appointed to this post and watch them pass their time at this important ministry doing nothing and waiting for an opportunity to be promoted to a more senior post, such as foreign minister for example. True Zionist leadership would have placed the Zionist vision -- immigration, absorption, and settlement at all parts of the country in general and particularly in the Galilee, Samaria, Judea, and the Negev desert -- at the top of the national priority order, rather than the "peace vision," which is unfeasible in our generation or the "two-state vision," which is a recipe for eliminating the Zionist vision. True Zionist leadership would have turned the Immigration Absorption minister into the most senior and challenging post. True Zionist leadership would have dealt with developing the environment, economy, tourism, and higher education, and would have made sure to spread the population throughout the western Land of Israel not only in the coastal plain. Government leads Israel to bankruptcy True Zionist leadership would have advanced settlement activity instead of planning evacuations. There is no message that is more negative to a Jew who considers moving to Israel than the forceful expulsion of Jews in their own country, on the orders of the Israeli government. In 1937, when the Jewish community in the country was 20 times smaller than it is today, the British Peel Commission proposed that Jewish immigration be limited to 1,000 per month, that is, 12,000 per year. Seventy years later, with a powerful country, military, and economy, Israel makes do with this level of immigration per year and nobody views this as a failure or problem that requires a change in the national priority order. In hedonistic Israel, the phrase "changing priorities" refers to undermining Zionist settlement activity and promoting the vision of the other nationality, the enemy. In the State's first years, and under a Zionist leadership that knew how to present challenges, set objectives, set a personal example and demand efforts and sacrifice, we witnessed immigration and settlement that turned the newly born country into a wonder and model of admiration. In the past 15 years, under a leadership that abandoned the Zionist vision and replaced it by the empty gods of "peace," "new Middle East," and the placing of the individual ahead of the collective and arrogance above our roots, Israel distanced not only from the Zionist vision, but also from the slogan of a "country that is fun to live in," and has turned into a subject of ridicule both at home and abroad. The current government's conduct led Israel to bankruptcy in all areas. The time has come to replace it with a Zionist government that will place true Zionist values at the top of its agenda and be tested according to them. Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top SHOUT: DANGER! Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 21, 2007. Please share with others... Shalom, My malediction came for a reason. Undoubtedly, the repeated expulsions are the defeat of the Israeli military and the entire Jewish Nation. I do not want to bring up here deep rooted religious feeling of sin and punishment. I assume you are familiar with the poet Hayyim Nahman Bialik and his song "If you soul has to know," where he deals with the Jewish strength during the pogroms and claims that the spark that came out from the Jewish study halls (Beit midrash) due to Torah learning is the strength of the Jewish Nation. The entire IDF strength, the undergrounds and Zionism all came from perseverance under any and all conditions. I feel a terrible sense of betrayal and slap on the face and the punishment is so very great. The synagogues that were burned in Gush Katif, the bodies of the dead that were removed from their graves, and the study halls, all destroyed and burned by Jews. I call on the Jews loyal to their uniqueness as a Jewish Nation to establish the loyal Jews' Jewish Histadrut (Federation), a federation that will elect the suitable leadership and will include anyone who wants to be counted in. After all how it is possible that the holy flock, threatened with a total expulsion by its government, from the President down to the very last villain turning fascism to be their highest moral value, will continue accepting this as if it is decree from above. After all the entire Golan Heights and YESHA are threatened with expulsion, the religious people with spiritual uprooting and every living creature on this Land is threatened with annihilation. Isn't time the Jewish Nation will define its identity and its spiritual goals and vision and will stick by them? I call on Moshe Feiglin and everyone who thinks that a party will save him or her from this government to think again. All right, who ever wishes to wrestle within the existing framework, like the MFDAL Party that always says "we will influence from within," I cannot tell he or she not to go on with their battle. Perhaps, at the end, the systems will implode and inner political powers will manage to unite and influence. Actually, I am not talking about political victory; I am talking about the pride not to belong to a framework that wants to destroy you and the RIGHT to pray to G-d (Ha'kadosh Baruch Hoo) without any professed to be national bodies that are nothing but a vermin. With blessings, Professor Hillel Weiss (Distributing this letter is permitted) The essay below is by Professor Hillel Weiss and was published August 18, 2007. It was translated from the Hebrew by Gail Tenzer. My freedom is very dear to me. So is my tenure at the University. But there is something even more valuable. I'm only thinking about (Jonathan) Pollard. An entire nation betrayed him with the exception of a few that continue to incessantly fight for him. I am not easily frightened. We have too many examples in history of individuals who have sacrificed their souls for a cause. True freedom is to be subjugated to G-d and all the rest is nonsense. The Jews and all settlers of the region are threatened by annihilation. Should only one front, either Northern or Southern come under a planned missile attack, it will bring the civilian population of the country to an immediate halt. This halt will shake up the military capabilities of the State of Israel. And what if these attacks were to be coordinated on several fronts simultaneously? And what if new factors were to be added to the overall attack? An attack on one of the fronts is expected momentarily anytime now until it occurs. Israel cannot react because of the self-imposed limitation "not to carry out a pre-emptive strike!" Israel needs to justify any pre-emptive attack, as it did in the second Israeli Lebanese campaign. Meanwhile, for the last year and a half, Israel has unilaterally relinquished her intentions of re-entering the Gaza Strip, and abandoned Sderot and the security road blanketing Gaza despite officially published reports that Hamas' arsenals and military capabilities have grown to supersede the weapons capabilities of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Indeed, the war in Lebanon was a unique opportunity that wasn't properly exploited, counter to the Winograd Commission's opinion. Olmert was absolutely right to start an immediate attack, but he was doomed to fail because his goal was not to win, but rather "consolidate". The upper echelon of the IDF was already rotten. Those who received awards in this war are sacrificial lambs to the Peace process and are paying the price with their lives. Why did Olmert act for "consolidation" -- because his desire to expel Jews, is stronger than any desire for battlefield victory. The YESHA settlers are making the average Israelis nuts more so than the Jews are irritating the Gentiles. As long as the settlers are not eliminated, as long as Jerusalem is not partitioned, and the Temple Mount is not surrendered, as long as the Jews don't stop chanting the "Shema Yisrael, " the Lefties will not be appeased. If the reader thinks that I'm involved in scaring and terrorizing them, I invite the readers to read my first article which I wrote during Rabin's administration in September 1992, in the "News" publication, where I had a column on the subject of the expected nuclear development and proliferation in the region that would result from the Peace process. Yair Sheleg, a journalist who interviewed me after this article was published, called me "scare mongerer." A year prior to Oslo I wrote another article entitled "I am the Enemy of Peace." In this article I proposed offers be made to the Religious Zionist movement that they nominate a religious candidate for the office of Prime Minister and allow non-religious Jews to join as members of the religious party. From the time those ideas were rejected, in 1996 I worked together with Moshe Feiglin, and I wrote one year prior to the Gaza Disengagement that we may expect 12,000 missiles from Hezbollah in the North and another 12,000 missiles from the Gaza Strip. But what I write here about the threat to Israel is banal, since 1 million Israelis have already acquired European refugee passports that will not help them to leave. They will be suddenly find themselves trapped and won't have a chance to use the passports. For the time being, the IDF is executing the policies of both the Government and the Prime Minister, despite the fact they are lacking in both standing and/or public approval. The Prime Minister can continue selling all of the Land of Israel and its security without Parliamentary or Governmental approval. Reference is made to habeas corpus (The writ of habeas corpus has historically been an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state action) in the Supreme Court of Israel by me and Moshe Feiglin against Ehud Barak in the year 2000. The policy the IDF is executing today as sub-contractor is to: "Beat up the Jews and Save Russia!" and the responsibility is shared by the IDF commander. I have publicly apologized for my cursing several times in radio transmissions (Radio 103 and Radio "Kol Chai"). However, another journalist told me: "You already apologized last week! Why are you apologizing again?" Well, my apology doesn't interest them. They want my blood. My colleagues and I are standing fast to defend ourselves against the Lefty Jihad against the Jews and with G-d's help, we will prevail. When I cursed, I did qualify it by saying that "...if they did not do Tshuva..." (or...if they did not repent!) I was accused of being crazy and a psychopath by the Democratic leadership such as Amnon Dankner and the elders of the Religious Kibbutzim, who could not forgive me for my despising them in 1963. I decided to sue them by going first to the Rabbinical courts and then to the Civil Courts, if the court of the Sanhedrin will permit me to do so. Under the present circumstances, I'm proud to be called "Meshuga." (Crazy in Hebrew) Thus has written Uri Tsvi Greenberg in his song: "He was crazy!" Yes, there are periods that an honest man should be placed in prison. Because of the darkness of this period, the entire nation of Israel must gather and have an introspective debate to understand how critical the current situation is and what direction its future should take. Even the sale of YESHA and the retreat from the Golan Heights will not be sufficient as long as one Jew continues to exist, or as long as the memory of the State of Israel and the presence of Jews that were in the State of Israel exist. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lybia and Pakistan, together with 70 additional nations of the world with their monotheistic beliefs and modern offshoots are lying in wait for Israel's destruction. But the toughest enemy is right here at home. Just as we have external enemies that physically threaten the Jewish nation, a spiritual enemy exists in many Western universities as well as in all of the Israeli universities, and he has a strong hold at Bar Ilan University. This enemy threatened Professor Kove with a writ of habeas corpus to the highest judicial court to erase the name of the religious university and its charter. This enemy stated that the university could not be called a religious university because it discriminates by its very name against the recruitment of lecturers that are not religious and the name goes against the principles of a democratic state and the mere fact that a religious university was, is and still remains to this date, contrary to their thinking of academic freedom in their mind. Now, what is the meaning of academic freedom and the value of freedom of speech and the value of democracy? I don't know how the president of the university will satisfy this controversy, which in my opinion succeeded, in destroying the immoral ideas of those who signed the petition against me. As a result of Rabin's assassination, Bar Ilan University has been turned into a place of threats, blackmail and political terror. A good example of this is the threat made by gangsters connected to the security forces that the university would not benefit from the attendance of thousands of soldiers as students, unless I am fired. I could not explain the terrible damage being done in Western universities during decades past by adopting a curriculum that destroyed human culture. This will be a subject for researchers and writers who survive the upcoming battles. The neo-Marxist powers have taken over the universities and thus have taken over the entire Western Civilization, armies, and courthouses. In the olden days of warfare we used to call it the treason of the intellectuals and to this day, it continues to be fashionable in intellectual circles which cooperate by confusing the codes of thinking in science and knowledge. I met important professors and young lecturers at a meeting in Australia with professors from the US telling us of the threats and terror at the universities made to whoever doesn't subscribe and accept the feminism or post-colonialism beliefs that were developed by an anti-Semite, Eduard Saied. The toxic theories of Michele Fakou have become the basic requirement to be admitted to any discussions in human science. Everything is post. There is no future, no truth! There is discrimination carried out by spiritual terror that translates into material terror in any discussion that concerns teaching. And of course, the universities are inviting and catering to the extreme Left and have seminars with the monstrous groups that are bent on erasing the memory of the Jewish nation. Since Rabin's assassination, and as a result of it, Bar Ilan was forced to cut the democratic rights of the university Senate, empower the President and appoint committees for hiring new lecturers. It is true there are strong materialistic rewards for surrendering and allowing one's soul to be sold and that this represents thousands of millions of dollars in contributions, in building new institutions, in traveling to international meetings, in sending out news releases to the newspapers. But what happens to the soul. Do you think that all this money will succeed in benefiting the school? In my opinion this strategy, gentlemen, will not succeed! I don't know how the campaign against me will end. But I have to say that the misbehavior of the Israeli authorities with Pollard and his betrayal put a very high price to pay for the concept of "misiruth nefesh" (self sacrifice for a cause). Pollard is already sitting in jail for 22 years and gave his soul to protect the nation of Israel and was betrayed by her. Now everybody can see the mistakes made by the U.S. in Iraq because they did not listen to the warnings made by Pollard. There is no sin that goes unpunished. Today, because the mighty USA is being squeezed and losing its fight in Iraq, it is very difficult for it to attack Iran. Israel has been cast aside. The nation of Israel is dependent on a very shaky partner. We should learn the lesson that Pollard has taught us after his betrayal. And it wouldn't surprise me if the champion of democracy will eventually be forced to accept a dictatorship. Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top [FATAH] AKSA MARTYRS BRIGADES: WE'LL NO LONGER HONOR AGREEMENTS WITH ISRAEL Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 21, 2007. Wait a minute; .... "no longer honor" -- which would imply that they were honoring something until now -- when in fact many of the gunmen didn't even go through the motions of handing in one of their weapons for show.......... so realistically it should read .......... Aksa Martyrs Brigades: We'll honor NO agreements with Israel, and we never did..... This was written by Khaled Abu Toameh and it appeared in the Jerusalem Post www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1187502437453&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, announced Tuesday it would no longer honor understandings reached with Israel, and called on its members to carry weapons to defend themselves against the IDF. Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades gunmen march in Nablus. (Photo: AP ) "We call on all our members who handed over their weapons to the Palestinian security forces to report to their commanders so that they can be issued new weapons," said a leaflet distributed in Ramallah. The group said the decision was made after the IDF arrested two Fatah gunmen who had been given amnesty by Israel in line with understandings reached between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Israel agreed last month to stop pursuing some 270 Fatah fugitives on condition that they surrender their weapons and sign a pledge to refrain from terrorist activities. Earlier this week, the PA said Israel had "pardoned" another 110 Fatah fugitives in the West Bank -- a claim that Israel denied. The latest leaflet is seen as a challenge to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's efforts to dismantle the Aksa Martyrs Brigades and other Fatah-linked armed groups in the West Bank. According to the group, Israel on Monday night arrested Iyad Bisharat and Ahmed Abu Jalboush, two Fatah gunmen whose names had appeared on the first list of pardoned fugitives. "We call on all our members to display caution and not to be deceived by the so-called amnesty from Israel," the leaflet read. "We will no longer honor the agreements that were reached with Israel over the issue of the wanted men. We won't hand over our guns. This is a lie designed to split the Palestinian resistance." The group said it had previously warned against the "plot" aimed at confiscating the weapons of Aksa Martyrs Brigades members in the West Bank. "The Israeli enemy does not respect any commitments or agreements," it said. The Fatah group also criticized PA Prime Minister Salaam Fayad's government, holding it responsible for the arrest of its two men. "Fayad must clarify his position vis-`-vis the arrest of our men, whose names had appeared on the list of wanted men who received amnesty," it said. An Israeli official said in response that such a move by Fatah's military wing would only escalate violence. "Israel expects the Palestinian Authority to take proper steps to root out terrorism against Israel, and to work with Israel to chart a more promising future for both sides," an official in the Prime Minister's Office said. "Incitement such as this only serves to ratchet up the situation, and would only harm the chances for progress between both peoples." The IDF declined comment. Herb Keinon contributed to this report. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top IMITATING SOLOMON OVER JERUSALEM Posted by Delta Vines, August 21, 2007. I've written my opinion once again...this time about "playing G-d" (or in this case "Solomon), in relation to Jerusalem. Hope you find it of interest! Please feel free to share the link with others, as well. http://tsofah.blogspot.com/2007/08/imitating-solomon-over-jerusalem.html In a continual development of negotiations, rules, laws, and relocations -- Israel is taking on a different face. This is a face without Hebron, which is as Jewish a place on earth as is Jerusalem. This is a face without most of Judea and Samaria. This is land that the scriptures tell us is the heart of the homeland of Israel. It is in danger of being negated away. This is a face in danger of being without the heart of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount once again. No access will even be allowed to the Western Wall in which one remembers there was once a Temple to the One True G-d shining forth His Shekinah for the world to see. It is in danger of changing the face of the existence of G-d's covenant with His People. (not the covenant itself) Jerusalem of G-d or ...? These negotiations are in danger of cutting Jerusalem in half, leaving Israel without the Old City, without the Jewish and Christian holy sites, and without the Mount of Olives. The wisdom of One Greater than Solomon knows that to offer a division of the city will cause a true mother to cry out. Instead one posing as Solomon (the U.S./Bush/Rice/Blair) and those posing as the mothers (Olmert and Abbas) eagerly wait for this division. Never mind the gruesome event will result in death for the child Jerusalem. We must all be evenly given a share, even if we are not entitled to it. Parts of newer Jerusalem have experienced attacks in the recent and not so recent past. The aftermath of multiple suicide/homicide bombings on Ben Yehuda Street resulted in boarded up shops throughout for a time. Now it's streets have come back to life, bustling once again with activity. With the stroke of a pen, that progress may change. Sitting just outside of Damascus Gate in the Moslem Quarter is Skull Hill, site of Gordon's Calvary. This "face" has been altered by the pavement of a road which obscures the "mouth". Fortunately, the adjoining gated Garden protects the Garden Tomb. Nearby is the cave complex known as Zedekiah's Cave. This is where it is believed that King Zedekiah ran from the Babylonians and was captured at the exit near Jericho. (2 Kings 25) The Mt. of Olives, Garden of Gethsemane, the archeological remains of the Palace in which King David lived, and tombs of various prophets, kings, and sanhedrin are all in the area being considered to be given to Moslems in the division of Jerusalem. But there is one place that is most important to the Jews...and that is the Temple Mount. The Moslems have shown time and again they deny any Jewish identity with Jerusalem. The Hurva Synagogue was destroyed in Jerusalem when Jordan had the city (and Judea/Samaria) under it's control. The Tomb of Joseph was destroyed in 2000 and rebuilt by the Moslems as a Moslem site. The ultimate change of the historic face of Jerusalem is this: All archeological and historical evidence of Jewish identity will be destroyed when placed under Moslem control. And so it has been attempted on the Temple Mount. Now Israel has opportunity to regain or relinquish the Temple Mount to the palestinians in the negotiations of two states and borders. If it's possible for Israel to agree to hand the Temple Mount to the palestinians, then it should be possible for Israel to have the Temple Mount back. Of course, there would be Islamic outrage, denials, and blame on Israel for taking "palestinian land" when doing so. Since the world finds reason to criticize Jews for taking possession of land already given to them, it will do so when it comes to the Temple Mount. This will not be a popular decision with the world. Yet Israel needs the Temple Mount, to remind all of the sovereignty of the Lord G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Instead of negotiating land away, the leaders of Israel need to help the palestinians negotiate land for a state from Jordan...land that was once Palestine. Let G-d alone be worshipped on His Holy Mountain! The wisdom of Solomon is this: Don't divide the child, don't offer to divide the child, but give the child to the rightful mother. Who would that be? It is not to the government of Israel, not to a Prime Minister who thinks nothing of giving the land away, and not to any number of religious sects should the City be given. Jerusalem belongs the Lord G-d Himself who has said it is HE who holds title to the land. G-d has given the land to His Chosen people who worship Him and Him alone. The wisdom G-d gave Solomon would see Israel totally united, and it's sentinels on guard. It would see a leader who defends Israel. One who doesn't despise it's birthright. For this child Jerusalem is not only of man, it is the city of G-d, where his name is physically and forever inscribed in the hills and valleys surrounding. George Bush, Condi Rice, Tony Blair, and Ehud Olmert, and Abu Mazen: no matter those you imitate, G-d knows who you really are.... .... And you ain't Him! Contact Delta Vines at delta_vines@sbcglobal.net or visit her website at http://tsofah.blogspot.com To Go To Top RUSSIA SENDS MISSILES TO SYRIA Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 21, 2007. This was written by Fred Weir and it appeared in MOSCOW -- Russia began delivering 50 anti-aircraft missiles to Syria yesterday. An ally of Moscow throughout the Cold War, the Syrian regime is a key supporter of both Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Pantsyr-S1E anti-aircraft missiles are part of a $900 million contract signed earlier this year between Syria and the Russian state arms firm, Rosoboronexport. Russian observers believe that about 10 of the weapons, which are extremely accurate at short range, could be transferred to Iran. But President Putin's government denied any possibility that the missiles could be re-exported. Israel has accused Moscow of allowing Syria to transfer Russian anti-tank missiles to Hezbollah -- which were used against Israel last summer. Last month, the Moscow liberal daily Kommersant reported that Russia may sell advanced fighter planes to Syria. The Kremlin appears increasingly willing to arm countries opposed to American "hegemony." As well as reasserting Russia's status as a great power, it also creates commercial opportunities. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top ARABS SAY 'LA!' TO OLMERT'S NATIONAL SERVICE IDEA Posted by Avodah, August 21, 2007. [Background: Arab Israelis vote but have been exempt from serving in the army. Yesterday, Nissan Ratzlav-Katz of Arutz-Sheva wrote: "On Sunday, the cabinet voted to establish a government body in the Prime Minister's Office assigned to facilitate National Service -- volunteering through civilian organizations -- for youths who do not serve in the IDF. The decision, the first of its kind, projects an additional 500 National Service volunteers every year."] (IsraelNN.com) Leaders of the Arab Israeli public said "la!" ("no!") Tuesday to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's initiative to have Arab youths perform national service instead of military service. "The rights of the Arab public are not conditional on giving military services that serve the occupation," the leaders said after meeting to discuss the initiative. The meeting, which took place in Nazareth, was initiated by leaders of the Arab political parties and included the head of the Northern Wing of the Islamic Movement, Sheikh Raad Salah. The Arab leaders said that even asking Arab youths to serve in civilian capacities was a form of discrimination against them, and constituted service "in the rear lines of Israel's security apparatuses." Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com To Go To Top FATAH MILITANT: U.S. TRAINING WAS KEY TO INTIFADA'S SUCCESS Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), August 21, 2007. This was written by Aaron Klein and it appeared in the New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/article/60989 RAMALLAH -- American-run programs that train Fatah militias were instrumental in the "success" of the Palestinian intifada that began in 2000, a senior Fatah militant told The New York Sun. "I do not think that the operations of the Palestinian resistance would have been so successful and would have killed more than one thousand Israelis since 2000 and defeated the Israelis in Gaza without these [American] trainings," a senior officer of President Abbas's Force 17 Presidential Guard unit, Abu Yousuf, said. America has longstanding training programs at a base in the West Bank city of Jericho for members of Force 17, which serves as de facto police units in the West Bank, and for another major Fatah security force, the Preventative Security Services. This weekend diplomatic security officials announced that the State Department will begin training Force 17 again this year in an effort to bolster Mr. Abbas against Hamas, which took over the Gaza Strip in June when the terror group easily defeated American-backed Fatah forces in the territory. Under an agreement signed this month by Secretary of State Rice and Palestinian Arab Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Force 17 officers are slated to take course work and conduct VIP protection exercises under the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security. The new training program aims to help the Palestinian Authority "deliver security for the Palestinian people and fight terrorism, build confidence between the parties, and ultimately help to meet the security needs of Palestinians and Israelis alike," a State Department press release said. The training program, which includes courses in the use of weapons, paid with $86.5 million in funding granted to the Palestinian Authority by Congress in April. Many members of Force 17 and the Preventative Security Services also openly serve in Fatah's declared "military wing," Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which took credit along with the Islamic Jihad terror group for every suicide bombing in Israel between 2005 and 2006. The Brigades is responsible for more terrorism from the West Bank than any other Palestinian Arab organization. Abu Yousuf, the Force 17 officer, received American training in Jericho in 1999 as a member of the Preventative Security Services. He is a chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Ramallah, where he is accused of participating in anti-Israel terrorism, including recent shootings, attacks against Israeli forces operating in the city, and a shooting attack in northern Samaria in December 2000 that killed the leader of the ultranationalist Kahane Chai organization, Benyamin Kahane. After the Kahane murder, Mr. Yousuf was extended refuge by Yasser Arafat to live in the late Palestine Liberation Organization leader's Ramallah compound, widely known as the Muqata. Mr. Yousuf still lives in the compound. Prime Minister Olmert last month granted Mr. Yousuf amnesty along with 178 other Brigades leaders reportedly in a gesture to Mr. Abbas. Speaking during an interview for the upcoming book "Schmoozing with Terrorists," Mr. Yousuf said his American trainings were instrumental in attacks on Israelis. "All the methods and techniques that we studied in these trainings, we applied them against the Israelis," he said. "We sniped at Israeli settlers and soldiers. We broke into settlements and Israeli army bases and posts. We collected information on the movements of soldiers and settlers. We collected information about the best timing to infiltrate our bombers inside Israel. We used weapons and we produced explosives, and of course the trainings we received from the Americans and the Europeans were a great help to the resistance." Mr. Yousuf said the training included both intelligence and military tactics. "In the intelligence part, we learned collection of information regarding suspected persons, how to follow suspected guys, how to infiltrate organizations and penetrate cells of groups that we were working on and how to prevent attacks and to steal in places," he said. "On the military level, we received trainings on the use of weapons, all kind of weapons and explosives. We received sniping trainings, work of special units especially as part as what they call the fight against terror. We learned how to put siege, how to break into places where our enemies closed themselves in, how to oppress protest movements, demonstrations, and other activities of opposition." Mr. Yousuf seemed to anticipate criticism for speaking publicly about the training. He's not "talking about U.S. training in order to irritate the Americans or the Israelis and not in order to create provocations," he said. "I'm just telling you the truth." Sergio Tessa can be reached at Hadar-Israel@verizon.net. To Go To Top THE WAR BETWEEN JEWS AND JEWS Posted by B'nai Elim News, August 21, 2007. This was written by Professor Paul Eidelberg, President of the Foundation For Constitutional Democracy. He can be reached by mail at 244 Madison Avenue, Suite 427, New York, NY 10016, Tel: 212-372-3752, and by email at Constitution@usa.net The Babylonian Talmud (Pesachim 49b) states that Jewish ignoramuses are greater anti-Semites than gentiles. The Zohar (Exodus 7b) declares that in the "end of days," certain wicked Jews will become the allies of Israel's enemies. Such Jews have become Israel's ruling elites. Although they comprise a small (ultra-secular) minority, they control the major levers of power in this country. And they do so while intoning the mantra of "democracy." It was precisely such Jews that foisted the Oslo or Israel-PLO Agreement on Israel. The same kind of Jews enacted and implemented the policy of "unilateral disengagement" -- a euphemism for treason. Lest I be accused of "extremism," let us recall some facts, beginning with Yossi Beilin, Shimon Peres's erstwhile "poodle." Backed by Peres, once known as the nation's "saboteur," Beilin initiated secret negotiations (then illegal according to Israeli law) in 1992 which led to the Oslo or Israel-PLO Agreement of September 13, 1993. Fast forward to December 1, 2003. Even though he was no longer a member of the Knesset, Beilin, together with such prominent Israeli officials as former Labor chairman Avram Mitzna and former Knesset speaker Avraham Burg, signed the Geneva Accord with Yassar Abed Rabbo, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Executive Committee. (In the U.S., Beilin and his Labor colleagues would have been incarcerated for violating the Logan Act, which prohibits non-government officials from negotiating with foreign powers. They might even have been indicted for treason for violating Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution.) The Geneva Accord is a non-governmental proposal ostensible intended to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Accord gives the "Palestinians" almost all of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, drawing Israel's borders close to what existed before the Six-Day War of June 1967. In return for removing most of the Israeli settlements in these areas and giving Palestinians control of the Old City of Jerusalem including the Temple Mount, the Arabs would limit their so-called right of return to Israel to a number specified by Israel's government. The present writer doesn't know when the Beilin/Mitzna/Burg/Rabbo negotiations were initiated. Perhaps it was before Israel's January 2003 election, since Labor leader Mitzna campaigned on a policy of "unilateral disengagement" from Gaza. Also, it may not have been a coincidence that in was in December, when the Geneva Accord was publicized, that Likud Prime Minister Ariel Sharon publicly adopted Labor's policy of "unilateral disengagement" as the centerpiece of his Government. Be this as it may, those surrendering Jewish land, or intending to surrender Jewish land, to Israel's enemies are prima facie guilty of committing acts defined as treason by Israel's Penal Law, specifically: 1. acts which "impair the sovereignty" of the State of Israel -- section 97(a); 2. acts which "impair the integrity" of the State of Israel -- section 97(b); 3. acts under section 99 which give assistance to an "enemy" in war against Israel, which the Law specifically states includes a terrorist organization; 4. acts under section 100 which evince an intention or resolve to commit one of the acts prohibited by sections 97 and 99. Eminent Israelis signed scholarly petitions to the Supreme Court challenging the legality of the Government's withdrawal from Jewish land. The court nonetheless dismissed the petitions as involving "political" as opposed to "justiciable" issues. Strange, since Aharon Barak, then court's president, had decreed, even before Oslo, that "everything is justiciable." Unbeknownst to the public, that decree (or dictum) made the Supreme Court the supreme law-giver and virtual master of Israel. Indeed, that decree heralded not only a judicial coup d'�tat, but also the subtle judicial management of a one-sided civil war -- a war waged by the Left against Jews who want to preserve Israel as a Jewish commonwealth and the Land of Israel as the eternal birthright of the Jewish people. This war became rather obvious when the Sharon Government, sanctified by Barak's ruling that Gaza (as well as Judea and Samaria) is "belligerent occupied territory, expelled 8,000 Jews from Gush Katif and turned over this Jewish land to Israel's implacable enemies. At stake in this civil war is nothing less than the soul or identity of the Jewish people. This war, to reiterate, is being waged by Jewish anti-Semites against Jews who more or less identify with the Jewish heritage. Refer again to the passages of the Talmud and Zohar cited at the outset of this article. What complicates this civil war is that these Jewish anti-Semites, having control Israel's Government and the national treasury, have enticed unwary and half-hearted Jews -- religious and non-religious -- to collaborate with them in the war against Judaism. Unknown to the world, the war now going on between Jews and Jews in Israel is the basic reason why Israel's Government did not, and has not, declared war against the Palestinian Authority, whether led by Fatah or Hamas. Moreover, and unknown to the world, it is precisely this war between Jews and Jews that has made Israel subservient to Washington. Indeed, if the Jews of this country were united and armed by the wisdom and power of the Torah, they could and would be invincible as well as the greatest blessing to mankind! Contact B'nai Elim News at news!@bnaielim.org To Go To Top ACADEMICS COUNTER BRIT'S BOYCOTT; DEMOGRAPHY; BUSH'S BROKEN PROMISES; LIBEL LAW PROTECTS LIBEL Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 21, 2007. ACADEMICS COUNTER BRITISH BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL More than 10,000 professors have rejected the British college teachers union's boycott of Israel. The 10,000 vow not to participate in any academic event from which Israeli academics have been excluded (IMRA, 8/1). There is a conscience! Thanks to Prof. Alan Dershowitz for organizing it. MORE SYRIAN PREPARATION FOR WAR Syria secretly warned Israel that if it continued to refuse to negotiate, it would initiate a war of attrition on the Golan. To that end, it is settling reservists on its side of the Golan (IMRA, 8/2). Israel should have kept more of the Golan for strategic depth, not return it. From the Golan, Syria had attacked Israel before. HIZBULLAH CONFESSES A Hizbullah officer told Israeli TV that just before the ceasefire, Hizbullah was running low on food, water, arms and morale. He said another 10 days of that, and Hizbullah would have had to surrender to Israel. Instead, Israel accepted a ceasefire. Foreign Min. Livni boasted of having obtained the ceasefire, but it preserved the terrorist organization. Now Hizbullah is ready to renew the war. The officer also admitted firing rockets at Israel from within urban Lebanese areas (a war crime), knowing that this would cause Lebanese civilian casualties. Hizbullah was afraid to fire from unsettled areas, because the IDF would swiftly spot and liquidate them there (Arutz-7, 8/1). Israeli governments do what benefits the country's enemies. That is their talent. It is not as if they are unaware of it. The Right foretells their mistakes. Some people want to end a war as soon as possible, but with Syria, that is the prelude to more war and killing. HAMAS MAKING USE OF INTELLIGENCE COUP When Abbas' P.A. police stood aside and his Fatah fled from Hamas attacks in Gaza, Hamas captured Fatah's intelligence files. Hamas has released some, to demonstrate Fatah corruption. The files attest to payoffs, financial favors for favored officials, tax scams, etc.. When the impoverished Arabs in Judea-Samaria see enough of that, they will have enough of Fatah. Fatah responded by asking Hamas to account for funds from Iran and Qatar (sorry lost source). EGYPTIAN EXCLUSIVENESS A bus of Israeli Arab tourists returning from the Sinai crashed. Was it terrorism, as the passengers claim, or a fraud by passengers hoping to cheat the government of Israel of revenues reserved for victims of terrorism? Egypt refused to let Israeli medical people rush in to help the Arab victims. The victims denounced the government of Egypt or favoring terrorism and suggested it learn about human rights from Israel (Arutz-7, 7/31). JORDAN REJECTS REPUTED ISRAELI  INVITATION Jordan categorically rejected a purported Israeli invitation to patrol Judea-Samaria. Jordan called it an Israeli attempt to keep the P.A. Arabs from taking care of themselves (IMRA, 7/31). Muslims think in terms of plots. They call the Harry Potter books a Zionist plot to twist their minds. How much did the books twist their minds? Considering their backwardness and violent intolerance, maybe they need a shaking up. I think Jordan's decision wise for it, good for Israel, and bad for jihad. DEMOGRAPHY DAWNS ON ISRAEL The government suddenly realizes that a large proportion of Jewish youth in Israel will be Ultra-Orthodox. These youth mostly study until past draft age. That means a rising proportion of the country does not work at what will benefit the economy. Thus both army and economy lose. The government is devising schemes to get more of that sector into jobs earlier. Some of these schemes are not likely to work. But they recognize that many feign to be Torah scholars in order to get draft exemptions. Defense Min. Barak noted that employers fire some reservists, so as not to lose work time while they are in the service, universities don't coordinate the timing of exams with the timing of military recalls, etc.. Soldiers increasingly feel that the country is not behind them and that they are suckers (IMRA, 7/31). Why not end the IDF hostility to religious Jews? IRAQI REFUGEE BURDEN ON JORDAN & SYRIA About two million Iraqi refugees are in Jordan and Syria. Jordan says it no longer can afford the 750,000 there. It wants the US to pay for them (IMRA, 7/31). Why don't the oil states pay? ARAB MUSLIMS ABUSE PRIVILEGES Israel let imprisoned terrorists study for matriculation and let the P.A. send proctors for exams, under rules for security. Guards caught the prisoners and proctors in widespread cheating, especially as stand-ins for other people and taking forbidden classes in name-calling anti-Zionism and in chemistry (perhaps bomb-making). Prison authorities had to suspend the matriculation (IMRA, 7/31). Never a word of praise is heard for the many services that Israel renders the Arabs. Does the media withhold praise lest it cancel out their effort to demonize Israel as oppressive towards the Arabs? BUSH'S BROKEN PROMISES 2001: The US would do whatever it takes to help Taiwan defend itself from Chinese aggression. China continued to amass coastal forces. Meeting with the leader of China, Pres. Bush chastised Taiwan for holding a referendum on a missile defense (although the US pushes for a missile defense in eastern Europe). 2002: The US would not support P.A. statehood "until its leaders engage in a sustained fight against the terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure." 2003: The US promised Japan about N. Korea, that it would "not settle for anything less than the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of nuclear weapons program." 2004: The US would crush the Kurdish terrorists in Iraq. 2004: The US would support democratic movements in the Mideast. It said nothing as Egyptian police arrest, beat, and sodomize political protestors. The State Dept. revoked the visa of a P.A. banker scheduled to testify before Congress about P.A. corruption. The US had promised to try to get a Libyan reformer released, but will meet with Ghadaffi anyway. (The US subverts Israel.) Those are the real Bush lies. They prompt allies to shrink away and enemies to test our resolve. Turks now hate America (Michael Rubin, IMRA, 7/31). E.U. & UNO VS. ISRAEL The E.U. is sponsoring a UNO conference of NGOs billed as promoting peace. In past conferences, the participating NGOs and their speakers all promoted propaganda against Israel and armed conflict with Israel (IMRA, 8/1). EGYPT'S BORDER-CLEARING As reported earlier, Egypt is planning to clear housing within 150 meters of its border with Gaza. That would help reduce arms smuggling concealed by houses, but the distance is too short to be very effective. Expanding the cleared area so that tunnels would be obvious and easily destroyed would make the cost of tunneling from further away extravagant. It turns out that the cost of clearing the housing is relatively small. Much more could be afforded, to make it, say, 1,000 yards, even if Israel or the US has to pay for it. The cost of doing so would be much less than the fortune that the US wants to sink into the coffers of Fatah terrorists and get a degradation of security. Egypt may be criticized for not suggesting the extension. Israel deserves criticism for not suggesting it. It should suggest this as a way of helping Egypt meet its treaty obligation to stop arms smuggling. A byproduct would be better housing for the relocated residents. Let Egypt explain why it would not be willing to do this! (Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 8/2.) LIBEL LAW USED TO PROTECT LIBEL Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) invited the director of JihadWatch, Robert Spencer, to address it on "The Truth About CAIR," (an Islamist organization that claims to advance repressed Muslim rights but seeks to repress resistance to Islamist encroachment on everyone else's rights) at Georgetown U.. CAIR sent YAF a letter threatening to sue it for having as a speaker what it called a well-known bigot and defamer, and to sue him for slander. If offered no evidence in support of its claims. It just demands blackballing him. The Middle East Forum has offered to have its legal unit defend both possible defendants. This legal unit was set up to protect researchers on terrorism from physical and legal intimidation (MEF News, 8/2). No evidence offered by CAIR. Who then is the bigot and defamer? SEC. RICE UNREALISTIC She praises Abbas as moderate and for disarming terrorists. But polls, whose findings were shown in the news brief, reveal that his people are the most extremist Muslim population. IMRA has reported the disarmament as a charade, for the P.A. issues them new weapons. Now it seems that many terrorists won't hand in their weapons (IMRA, 8/2). Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top MY ENEMY'S ENEMY Posted by Kae, August 20, 2007. This essay is by Melanie Phillips and appeared on her website (http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1605). 'My enemy's enemy is my friend' is a principle that has always underpinned Realpolitik. It is extremely stupid. My enemy's enemy may also be -- my enemy. Saudi Arabia is supposedly our ally against al Qaeda. While it may well be the case that it has been useful to us in providing intelligence and so forth, it is also the intellectual and religious fount of al Qaeda. Having created this monster, Saudi then found to its dismay that it turned into its own most bitter attacker. So Saudi fights al Qaeda terrorism inside its own borders, but sees no reason to cease funding and promoting jihad against the rest of the world. Now Saudi sees an even bigger threat to itself from Iran. On the 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' principle, the US is taking advantage of that to try to use Saudi as leverage against Iran. The US also seems to think that 'solving' the Israel Arab impasse will help defeat Islamist terror (which is, of course, precisely the wrong way round); or maybe President Bush is merely desperate to leave as his legacy a peace deal between Israel and the Arabs (dream on). Whatever. Either way, there is now a US/Saudi love-in going on. So the US has just given it a whopping $11 billion arms deal, and Saudi has graciously indicated that it may attend the Middle East peace conference the US is organising for the autumn which will consider, we are told, a revival of the Saudi Middle East 'peace plan'. People are hailing the prospect of Saudi sitting down with Israel as a breakthrough. It should be seen instead as the US forcing Israel to embrace a scorpion. The so-called 'peace plan' by Saudi -- which has never recognised Israel and which forbids Jews to enter its own territory -- requires Israel to return to the 1967 border, which is in fact the 1949 armistice line otherwise known as the 'Auschwitz border' because it would leave Israel undefended against genocide. Which is, of course, the intention. The other arm of the Saudi pincer of peace is the demand for the return of the so-called Palestinian 'refugees' (they are as much refugees as I am a refugee from Poland from whose harsh and anti-Jewish environment my grandparents fled in the early years of the last century) which is tantamount to the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. Which is, of course, the intention. It is obvious that Saudi Arabia is making only rhetorical and deeply dishonest gestures to convey the impression that it is a serious player in the 'peace process'. The Jerusalem Post has pointed out what Saudi Arabia could do if it was really serious about peace with Israel: the Saudis and other Arab states can take serious steps to dismantle the monster they created and continue to feed: the Arab-Israeli conflict. Attending a conference would be nice, but it is substance that matters. The key substantive things they can do is to stop their diplomatic warfare against Israel, drop their illegal trade boycotts, combat the rampant anti-Semitism in their countries, and start openly breaking it to the Palestinians that their 'right of return' can only be to a future state of Palestine, not to Israel. Of course Saudi won't do this. Indeed, the idea that Saudi is anything other than the enemy of civilisation is ludicrous. Power Line quotes Dore Gold, head of the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, who points out that based on Israel's 2003 intelligence assessment, 50 to 70 percent of Hamas's budget derives from Saudi Arabia. Gold also told YNet : Several years ago, Israel received reports of the interrogation of al-Qaeda captives who admitted that their organization had penetrated the Saudi Arabian air force, and that it was planning to take control of several Saudi F-15s based at Tabuk in north Western Saudi Arabia, near Eilat, and fly the fighter planes into sky scrapers in Tel Aviv, Gold said. 'From the pattern of past al-Qaeda attacks in Saudi Arabia, many western observers have concluded that elements of the Saudi national guard colluded with the attackers. Which only further substantiates Western concern that al-Qaeda has penetrated different branches of Saudi Armed forces.' Saudi also turns out to be heavily involved in Iraq -- and guess what, not on our side. A few days ago the New York Times , no less, reported that the US is angry at Saudi Arabia's counterproductive role in the Iraq war. Counterproductive? You can say that again. They say that beyond regarding Mr. Maliki as an Iranian agent, the Saudis have offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq. Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow... The American officials in Iraq also say that the majority of suicide bombers in Iraq are from Saudi Arabia and that about 40 percent of all foreign fighters are Saudi. Officials said that while most of the foreign fighters came to Iraq to become suicide bombers, others arrived as bomb makers, snipers, logisticians and financiers. American military and intelligence officials have been critical of Saudi efforts to stanch the flow of fighters into Iraq, although they stress that the Saudi government does not endorse the idea of fighters from Saudi Arabia going to Iraq. On the contrary, they said, Saudi Arabia is concerned that these young men could acquire insurgency training in Iraq and then return home to carry out attacks in Saudi Arabia -- similar to the Saudis who turned against their homeland after fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Bush administration's relationship with Saudi Arabia has deteriorated steadily since the United States invasion of Iraq, culminating in April when, bitingly, King Abdullah, during a speech before Arab heads of state in Riyadh, condemned the American invasion of Iraq as 'an illegal foreign occupation.' A month before that, King Abdullah effectively torpedoed a high-profile meeting between Israelis and Palestinians, planned by Ms. Rice, by brokering a power-sharing agreement between the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and the militant Islamist group Hamas that did not require Hamas to recognize Israel. While that agreement eventually fell apart, the Bush administration, on both occasions, was caught off guard and became infuriated. But Saudi officials have not been too happy with President Bush, either, and the plummeting of America's image in the Muslim world has led King Abdullah to strive to set a more independent course. The administration 'thinks the Saudis are no longer behaving the role of the good vassal,' said Steve Clemons, senior fellow and director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. The Saudis, in turn, 'see weakness, they see a void, and they're going to fill the void and call their own shots.' So angry is the US with what Saudi has been doing to destabilise the region and back Israel into a corner that it is rewarding Saudi with an $11 billion deal -- and inviting it to discuss Israel's future existence. Madness. Contact Kae at kew1@dbmail.com To Go To Top US SURVEY RAISES EYEBROWS IN JERUSALEM Posted by Avodah, August 20, 2007. This was written by Herb Keinon and appeared in the Jerusalem Post http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1187502427210&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull A survey by a respected journal showing that 15 of 108 foreign policy elites in the US believe Israel does not serve US national security interests has raised eyebrows in Jerusalem. It precedes the publication in early September of a book by two US professors slamming the Israel-US alliance. Nicholas Burns, the US undersecretary of state for political affairs, center, and Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer, left, shake hands as Foreign Ministry Director-General Aharon Abramovitch looks on during a news conference in Jerusalem on the US aid package to Israel. The journal, Foreign Policy, on Monday published its "terrorism index," co-sponsored by the Center for American Progress, asking a bipartisan group of former "secretaries of state, national security advisors, senior White House aides, top commanders in the US military, seasoned intelligence professionals, and distinguished academics" a variety of questions having to do with US national security issues. When given a list of US allies and asked to choose the one country that least serves US national security interests, 14 percent of the respondents picked Israel. Russia led the list, with 34% saying it least served US interests, followed by 22% who said Pakistan, 17% who selected Saudi Arabia, and 5% each for Egypt and Mexico. The journal billed the respondents as America's "top foreign-policy experts." Forty-five of the respondents described themselves as Democrats, 24 as Republicans, and the rest as Independents. One diplomatic official in Jerusalem, while acknowledging that 14% is a considerable minority, said he was still worried by the trend. "Considering the closeness and importance of our ties with Washington, this is something we need to watch," he said. The official said that while in the past the notion that the US alliance with Israel harmed US interests was a belief relegated to individuals on the far right, such as Pat Buchanan, and the far left, like Noam Chomsky, this survey indicated that the idea was gaining prominence among the elites. This idea is starting to make it into the mainstream, the official said, citing as an example a paper published last year by University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer and Harvard University's Stephen Walt arguing that the US was willing to "set aside its own security" to advance Israel's interests because of AIPAC and the Israel lobby. Walt, incidentally, was one of the participants in the Foreign Policy survey. The official expressed concern that this trend will likely pick up steam with the scheduled release early next month of a book by the two, which, according to press reports, argues that with the end of the Cold War, "Israel has become a strategic liability for the United States." The official also expressed concern that more US policy elites were buying into the notion that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the source of Islamic terrorism and anti-Americanism around the world. The Foreign Policy survey bore this out, with 51% of the respondents saying that creating peace between Israel and the Palestinians would be "very important" to "addressing the threat of Islamist terrorism worldwide." Another 24% said solving the conflict with the Palestinians would be "somewhat important," and only 25% said it would have little or no impact on Islamic terrorism worldwide. Regarding Hamas, a majority of the respondents came out against the current US policy of isolating Hamas, with 53% saying that engaging moderates inside Hams would be in the US's best interests, and only 17% backing the current Bush administration policy of isolation. The respondents' replies to a question about what Iran would do with a nuclear capability were also somewhat surprising. Sixty-seven percent said it was either "somewhat unlikely" or "very unlikely" that Iran would build weapons to "wipe Israel off the map." Even as Foreign Policy published its survey on Monday, the Financial Times released a poll that showed Israel was no longer viewed in large parts of Europe, and in the US, as a threat to global security. Less than half a percent of the respondents in Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany and the US listed Israel when asked, "Which one, if any, of the following countries do you think is the greatest threat to global stability?" These results contrasted mightily to a controversial poll carried out in 2003 by the European Commission, in which more than half of those asked said Israel posed the "biggest threat to world peace." In Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany, the US -- according to the Financial Times survey -- led the list of countries threatening global stability. In the US that distinction was shared by Iran and North Korea. The poll was conducted by Harris Interactive among 6,398 people between August 1 and 13. Contact Avodah at Avodah15@aol.com To Go To Top UAE FATHER OF 78 EYES NEW BRIDES FOR CENTURY TARGET Posted by Dr. Milton Fried, August 20, 2007. DUBAI (Reuters) -- A one-legged Emirati father of 78 is lining up his next two wives in a bid to reach his target of 100 children by 2015, Emirates Today reported on Monday. Daad Mohammed Murad Abdul Rahman, 60, has already had 15 brides although he has to divorce them as he goes along to remain within the legal limit of four wives at a time. "In 2015 I will be 68 years old and will have 100 children," the local tabloid quoted Abdul Rahman as saying. "After that I will stop marrying. I have to have at least three more marriages to hit the century." The United Arab Emirates newspaper splashed its front page with a picture of Abdul Rahman surrounded by his children, the eldest of whom is 36 years old and the youngest of whom is 20 days old. Two of his current three wives are also pregnant. Abdul Rahman said his large family lived in 15 houses. He supports them with his military pension and the help of the government of Ajman, one of seven emirates that comprise the UAE, which includes the Gulf trade and tourism hub of Dubai. Islam allows men to marry up to four women at a time, though most marry only one. The UAE is a Muslim country but is home to migrants from around the world. Contact Milton Fried at docmiltfried@mindspring.com To Go To Top SYRIA IS OUR ENEMY: WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSE TO THEIR ACTS OF WAR AGAINST US? Posted by David Meir-Levi, August 20, 2007. Dear Mr. President, If Mr. Lieberman knows about Syria's aid to el-Qaeda, then surely you must know too. If you know about Syria's complicity in killing our men in Iraq, and killing tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, then why do you hesitate to implement your own doctrine? You said it well shortly after 9/11. Terrorist attacks are an act of war against us, and must be countered in a manner that is appropriate for our nation's response to an act of war against us. A country that harbours and trains and funds and deploys terrorists is a terrorist country. That country's aiding and abetting and sheltering and funding and arming and deploying terrorists against us is also an act of war against us. Such a country is our enemy. That country's acts of war must be countered in a manner appropriate for our nation's response to an act of war against us. Syria is such a country. Syria is our enemy. Syria is housing and harbouring and training and arming and funding and deploying thousands of terrorists who attack our troops and our allies. Where is your response to Syria's multiple acts of war against us? david meir-levi menlo park, CA This next is called "Al Qaeda's Travel Agent." It was by Joseph Lieberman and it appeared as an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Lieberman is an Independent Democratic senator from Connecticut. Damascus International Airport is a hub for terrorists. The United States is at last making significant progress against al Qaeda in Iraq--but the road to victory now requires cutting off al Qaeda's road to Iraq through Damascus. Thanks to Gen. David Petraeus's new counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, and the strength and skill of the American soldiers fighting there, al Qaeda in Iraq is now being routed from its former strongholds in Anbar and Diyala provinces. Many of Iraq's Sunni Arabs, meanwhile, are uniting with us against al Qaeda, alienated by the barbarism and brutality of their erstwhile allies. As Gen. Petraeus recently said of al Qaeda in Iraq: 'We have them off plan.' But defeating al Qaeda in Iraq requires not only that we continue pressing the offensive against its leadership and infrastructure inside the country. We must also aggressively target its links to 'global' al Qaeda and close off the routes its foreign fighters are using to getinto Iraq. Recently declassified American intelligence reveals just how much al Qaeda inIraq is dependent for its survival on the support it receives from the broader, global al Qaeda network, and how most of that support flows into Iraq through one country--Syria. Al Qaeda in Iraq is sustained by a transnational network of facilitators and human smugglers, who replenish its supply of suicide bombers--approximately 60 to 80 Islamist extremists, recruited every month from across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, and sent to meet their al Qaeda handlers in Syria, from where they are taken to Iraq to blow themselves up to kill countless others. Although small in number, these foreign fighters are a vital strategic asset toal Qaeda in Iraq, providing it with the essential human ammunition it needs to conduct high-visibility, mass-casualty suicide bombings, such as we saw last week in northern Iraq. In fact, the U.S. military estimates that between 80% and 90% of suicide attacks in Iraq are perpetrated by foreign fighters, making them the deadliest weapon in alQaeda's war arsenal. Without them, al Qaeda in Iraq would be critically, perhaps even fatally, weakened. That is why we now must focus on disrupting this flow of suicide bombers--and that means focusing on Syria, through which up to 80% of the Iraq-bound extremists transit. Indeed, even terrorists from countries that directly border Iraq travel by land via Syria to Iraq, instead of directly from their home countries, because of the permissive environment for terrorism that the Syrian government has fostered. Syria refuses to tighten its visa regime for individuals transiting its territory. Coalition forces have spent considerable time and energy trying to tighten Syria's land border with Iraq against terrorist infiltration. But given the length and topography of that border, the success of these efforts is likely to remain uneven at best, particularly without the support of the Damascus regime. Before al Qaeda's foreign fighters can make their way across the Syrian border into Iraq, however, they must first reach Syria--and the overwhelming majority does so, according to U.S. intelligence estimates, by flying into Damascus International Airport, making the airport the central hub of al Qaeda travel in the Middle East, and the most vulnerable chokepoint in al Qaeda's war against Iraq and the U.S. in Iraq. Syrian President Bashar al Assad cannot seriously claim that he is incapable of exercising effective control over the main airport in his capitalcity. Syria is a police state, with sprawling domestic intelligence and security services. The notion that al Qaeda recruits are slipping into and through the Damascus airport unbeknownst to the local Mukhabarat is totally unbelievable. This is not the first use of the Damascus airport by terrorists. It has long been the central transit point for Iranian weapons en route to Hezbollah, in violation of United Nations Security Council sanctions, as well as for al Qaeda operatives moving into and out of Lebanon. Now the Damascus airport is the point of entry into Iraq for most of the suicide bombers who are killing innocent Iraqi citizens and American soldiers, and trying to break America's will in this war. It is therefore time to demand that the Syrian regime stop playing travel agent for al Qaeda in Iraq. When Congress reconvenes next month, we should set aside whatever differences divide us on Iraq and send a clear and unambiguous message to the Syrian regime, as we did last month to the Iranian regime, that the transit of al Qaeda suicide bombers through Syria on their way to Iraq is completely unacceptable, and it must stop. The U.S. government should also begin developing a range of options to consider taking against Damascus International, unless the Syrian government takes appropriate action, and soon.   RESPONSIBLE AIR CARRIERS should be asked to stop flights into Damascus International, as long as it remains the main terminal of international terror. Despite its use by al Qaeda and Hezbollah terrorists, the airport continues to be serviced by many major non-U.S. carriers, including Alitalia, Air France, and British Airways. Interrupting the flow of foreign fighters would mean countless fewer suicide bombings in Iraq, and countless fewer innocent people murdered by the barbaric enemy we are fighting there. At a time when the al Qaeda network in Iraq is already under heavy stress thanks to American and Iraqi military operations, closing off the supply line through which al Qaeda in Iraq is armed with its most deadly weapons--suicide bombers--would be devastating to the terrorists' cause. Simply put, for the U.S. and our Iraqi allies, defeating al Qaeda in Iraq means locking shut Syria's 'Open Door' policy to terrorists. It is past time for Syria to do so. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com To Go To Top FARAH: SHOULD THE US THREATEN TO NUKE MECCA? Posted by Maria Sliwa, August 20, 2007. In today's highly controversial article entitled "Nuclear Terrorist Deterrence", WorldNetDaily founder Joseph Farah asks: Should the U.S. Threaten to Nuke Mecca? Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist. His latest book is "Stop The Presses: The Inside Story of the New Media Revolution." He also edits the online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business. The article is archived at http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57225 America's nuclear arsenal maintained an uneasy peace for 50 years during the Cold War. The leaders of the nuclear-armed Soviet Union knew beyond any shadow of any doubt that a nuclear attack on the U.S. -- perhaps its only hope for defeating its archenemy -- would lead to an all-out nuclear counter-attack and the virtual destruction of its "workers paradise." The policy was called MAD, for mutually assured destruction, but there wasn't anything crazy about it. Until Ronald Reagan came along with his idea for an anti-missile strategic defense, this kind of nuclear deterrence was the only thing that saved the U.S. from certain attack. The Cold War may be over, but the nuclear threat to the U.S. is not. * Russia, despite many arms-control agreements designed to make us safe, still maintains a nuclear arsenal large enough to destroy the U.S. many times over. * China is another growing nuclear power with the capability of destroying some major U.S. cities. * North Korea and other rogue nations are rapidly developing the capacity to target the U.S. with nuclear-armed missiles. But all of those nation-state threats are mitigated somewhat by the concept of MAD as well as the very primitive stage of a missile defense program begun under Ronald Reagan. The real potent threat, though, comes from enemies who would never consider firing a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile. The threat some experts and high-ranking government officials say is a virtual inevitability comes from nuclear-armed terrorists who covertly detonate one or more bombs after sneaking them into the U.S. How do we reduce the likelihood of a catastrophe of that magnitude? Some suggest we can leave it up to the Department of Homeland Security, a bloated bureaucracy responsible for welcoming into this country millions of unidentified, undetected illegal aliens, any one of whom could be involved in what al-Qaida calls its "American Hiroshima" plot. Others suggest the answer is to fight nuclear proliferation, yet that idea is the equivalent of putting a nuclear genie back in a bottle. Dr. A.Q. Khan of Pakistan probably put the final nail in the coffin of that policy prescription. Only Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., and a GOP presidential candidate, among elected officials, has put forth the proposition that its time to make deterrence work for us, again, like it did with the Soviet Union. Tancredo says we need to find that deterrent soon or face the inevitability of a nuclear 9/11. I agree. The nuclear terrorist threat today largely comes from radical jihadists. Though they are sometimes seemingly stateless players who don't seem to put much value on their own lives, I have never believed these maniacs are invulnerable to real-world threats and immune to consequences. There are so-called holy places and population centers they don't want to see destroyed. There are nations and cities they don't want to see vaporized. There are strategic sites they don't want to see turned to glass. I want to join my courageous friend Tom Tancredo today in publicly urging a national dialogue to identify those targets. It is not pleasant business. But neither will be a nuclear attack on the U.S. We are talking about preventing an unthinkable nightmare scenario that is, as Tancredo and George Bush and Dick Cheney and many others have suggested, all but assured without a specific deterrence prescription. It is important for our enemies to know what the costs will be for an attack on the U.S. It shouldn't be a secret, any more than it was a secret to the Soviet Union. Osama bin Laden, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the other Hitlers in headscarves who have sworn to bring the U.S. to its knees need to be told, in no uncertain terms, what the consequences of a nuclear or radiological attack on America will mean to them, their people and their so-called holy sites. Here are some of the targeting ideas that need to be considered: * Mecca * Medina * Tehran * Qom * Karbala * Kufa * Najaf * Damascus Perhaps all of the above. Because of the nature of terrorism, it is often difficult to determine who is responsible. Therefore, targets need to be identified that will serve as deterrents for both Shiites and Sunnis. Sunni terrorists like bin Laden will need to understand that a nuclear attack on the U.S. will mean destruction of both Sunni and Shiite targets. Shiite terrorists like Ahmadinejad and his proxies in Hezbollah need to comprehend both Sunni and Shiite targets will be destroyed. I know I will be pilloried for making these suggestions today. Understand it is not because I want to see Islamic cities destroyed by fire and brimstone. It is because I want to see U.S. cities spared from destruction. Deterrence works. It is proven. Without it, I fear, we are inviting the deaths of millions of American civilians. If you'd like to sound off on this issue, please take part in the WorldNetDaily poll. Contact Maria Sliwa at msliwa@sliwa.com To Go To Top A JEWISH MOTHER'S GUIDE TO END TIMES Posted by Fred Reifenberg, August 20, 2007. Are lunatics and inmates from an insane asylum considered on the same level? Love when people come from nowhere, and agree with my thinking and statements. The article below is by Ellen W. Horowitz, who is an author who lives in the Golan with her husband and children. I've added one of my photo artworks of a young father and his young son. Hybrid hydras have smashed all that is sacred. "No weapon engineered against you will succeed...." -- Isaiah 54:17 Those words from last week's Haftarah comforted this mother who sits in a leaderless country run by lunatics; with Iranian-backed Syria literally looming on my horizon and my sons assigned to combat units. The Jewish unity needed to ensure victory, security and sanity seems eons away. America's liberty crusade through the Middle East has been turned into a shop-'til-you-drop arms extravaganza for peace, with headlines blaring: "US military deals with Mideast promote stability." There's talk of war, but our army is preoccupied with desecrating the city of our forefathers (Hebron); while those affected are so pained as to blaspheme our army. The Jewish unity needed to ensure victory, security and sanity seems eons away. Nu? So what else is new? Some warn of global warming and others of nuclear winter. Through it all, I pray that my family will remain firmly planted on the ever-shifting Syrian-African rift. Armageddon is not on my mind -- but Redemption always is. I believe the words of the Prophets are true, but I know that whereas good prophecies will be actualized, the bad ones can be overturned by human endeavors. I know that battles can be fought in the Heavens, rather than on earth. I anticipate miracles, but I've got a few gerrycans of water and extra blankets stored in the corner -- just in case. "Bible thumping" is something I do before Pesach -- while cleaning book shelves in search of random crumbs. "Doomsday" is what my youngest kid will face if he brings another stray cat into this house. "Tribulation" is what I went through two weeks ago as I tried to keep my children, the goats, dogs, cats, chickens, birds and rabbits cool through an incredible heat wave. "Rapture" is what I felt when the temperature broke, leaving me -- and a stressed-out air conditioner -- alone. And when I'm alone, domestic and international difficulties never fail to invade my bliss. As a creative religious woman, living in the Holy Land, I confess that I've toyed with numerous spiritual scenarios and various political and military options. But I have never entertained thoughts of a Biblically based Christian-Jewish merger against Islam. I'm grateful for remaining fairly lucid, despite the chaos (with regards to this issue, many have not). Not long ago, a person could have gone through a lifetime without having heard of the term "eschatology". "Judeo-Christian" described a cultural tradition within the framework of Western civilization; it was not a religion. What exactly is "Islamo-Fascism," if not a newfangled term for an ancient problem called "Amalek"?  "Rapture" is what I felt when the temperature broke. A corrupted fusing of faiths, ideology and political interests has produced some mutant relationships -- born in sin -- which have infringed upon the independent belief systems of Judaism, Islam and Christianity. These hybrid hydras have smashed all that is sacred by trespassing the boundaries that have ensured civil society. Retired Israeli General Shimon Erem is now described as "an early mobilizer of Judeo-Christian anti-Islamofascism" who feels compelled to warn the US "that it must quickly end its indifference before it ceases to be a society of Christian ideals." (You won't find that stuff in the annals of IDF protocol.) Rabbi MK Benny Elon broke historic Jewish precedent by appealing to missionary leaders to convert Muslims to Christianity, and by inviting missionaries to become an integral part of the Jewish State's political process. Israeli academic and Director of The Jerusalem Summit, Dr. Dmitry Radyshevsky, calls for a Christian restoration of Europe, and for Christians and Jews to unite "politically and spiritually" in the face of radical Islam. He believes "Jews and Christians are one tree, with the Jews forming the roots and the Christians the branches...." Rabbi Shlomo Riskin's Jerusalem Post editorial ran roughshod over his rebbe's staunch position opposing interfaith dialogue. Perhaps Rabbi Riskin was unaware that those evangelical leaders he praised are actively promoting a Messianic Jewish (Hebrew-Christian) restoration in Israel. I believe his understanding of theological grafting -- which touched him -- is incomplete. I'll go out on a limb and suggest that not only does the metaphor of a grafted Judeo-Christian olive tree constitute a prohibited union; but that any Jew who adheres to, advocates, or entertains this belief is dabbling with avodah zarah (literally, "strange worship"). In order to understand just how forbidden this concept is for Jews, you can delve into Rambam, consult with your rabbi, or simply read the following quote from the website of the youth division of the ICEJ (International Christian Embassy): Ephesians 3, vs. 6 -- "This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus." When Islamic Jihadi meets Christian Crusader over the future of the Land of Israel, and the amen choir is made up of religious Zionists, Knesset members and sundry Jewish national leaders, where does that leave concerned Jews who may not be Torah literate or textbook Zionists, but who possess beating Jewish hearts, a natural aversion to alien theology, and an overwhelming sense of terrestrial responsibility? Do we just dismiss them as godless liberals and saw off that branch in order to make room for faithful Christians? Grafting 50 million Evangelicals onto the far-right branches of our now-lopsided tree means we stand to lose a few good roots -- and lose ourselves when that tree topples. And what about the rest of the forest -- the rest of humanity? "G-d fearing" used to be associated with responsibility, accountability and foresight"G-d fearing" used to be associated with responsibility, accountability and foresight. Reciting Biblical verses verbatim and creatively interpreting prophetic writings was never a prerequisite to walking with G-d or being a great leader. The most disappointing aspect of our current voluntary liaison with the cross, is that we stand to surrender an essential part of ourselves -- and our universal role. It was Jews who had shown the world how to temper and refine religious zeal with wisdom. We were able to transport heavenly concepts into an earthly domain by channeling the inspiration into concrete, productive, ethical, responsible and compassionate behavior and action that was universally accepted. We never felt comfortable with the gushing "hallelujah crowd," because, for us, religious experience had always been personal, intimate and non-intrusive. We were to win converts by sanctifying G-d's name, serving as outstanding individual and collective examples. At the end of the day (as opposed to "the end of days"), Israel's Left will have to foot the bill for initiating Oslo and the upheaval that ensued. However, the Zionist camp could have it worse. In our desperation and isolation we knowingly forged a forbidden relationship and initiated programs that caused spiritual destruction and gross erosion of the fences built around the Torah. In an historic Biblical reversal, it seems we have tried to sell our birthright to some clean-shaven, faithful preachers in exchange for the opportunity to rake in some needed tourist bucks, secure influence in Washington, and to pass the burden of caring for our own peoples' humanitarian needs on to ready and willing Christians. Without immediate correction, we may have to call this epic chapter in Jewish history, "Esau's revenge." Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il To Go To Top DEFAMING ISRAEL AS APARTHEID Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 20, 2007. An Internet writer named Daniel Bernard reproduced "Land of Apartheid" by Stanley Heller. Called a "report," it ignored the Israeli side and Arab culpability. It's not a report but a diatribe. Mr. Heller was a guest of the Christian Peacekeepers in Hebron, whom he described as a group that escorts some of the 25,000 Arabs in the Israeli sector, to protect them from the 400 "settlers." Who are those 400, able to intimidate 25,000, super-Jews? This indicates Peacekeeper bias, since the Arabs have made many attacks on the Jews and the Jews, very few attacks on the Arabs, but the peacekeepers don't try to protect the Jews. My Israeli news services have cited incidents in which other foreign peacekeepers come there to interfere with Israeli Army counter-terrorism and self-defense and egg on the Muslims. In any case, some of what Heller states is what the Peacekeepers told him. Hearsay by interested parties lacks credibility. Either confused or attempting to confuse, Heller fabricates some of his claims of apartheid by counting the P.A. Arabs as part of Israel, as an Israeli responsibility for equal treatment. The Arabs wanted autonomy and got it. They wanted Israel to let them take care of themselves. Then don't hold Israel responsible for them. Now the P.A. is responsible for its own hospitals. But a poorly provisioned hospital in the P.A. is his basis for impugning Israel. If the P.A. cared for its own people instead of for crusade and embezzlement, the standard of living for Arabs in the Territories would not have fallen so much below what Israel had raised it too. Where is his credit to Israel for having elevated it before? A way of defaming Israel is to pile on exaggerated accusations against it in emotional terms, and to omit the history and reasons for what happened. There follow many examples. As if Jewish discrimination against Arabs, Heller refers to "unrecognized villages" of Arabs in Israel. Israel has peculiar and inefficient procedures and is bureaucratic. Hence it does not recognize certain villages of Jews in Judea-Samaria, because they did not get through the last of the many stages of permission, though they got enough to start. Arabs squat and build illegally on public land and ignore municipal planning, and yet Heller deems them entitled to the municipal services that their lawlessness makes more expensive and less deserving. Yes, thousands of houses are slated for demolition. Slated. Very few get demolished. The designation is mentioned to imply that Israel plans wrongdoing wrong. Why did Israel slate Arabs' houses for demolition? Heller doesn't say. I will. They were built illegally. Sometimes they were built on stolen public or private land or without permits, interfering with planned roadbeds and without inspection for safety, etc.. Foreign Arabs financed many of them, placed strategically to block building by Jews or to facilitate terrorist attacks. It is part of the Arab attempt to take over Israel. Some of those houses are in Israel and some are in the Territories. Israel has a right to demolish them. People such as Heller shamefully oppose demolition and the government hasn't the courage or patriotism to demolish them. The result is that Israel is condemned for what it rightfully should do. By keeping silent, Israel misses the opportunity to show what crooked scofflaws its enemies are. Without explaining the background critical to understanding the situation and whose fault it is, Heller oversimplifies the P.A.'s economic problem, apparently blaming it all on the security fence, which he calls the "apartheid wall." He does not refer to the policy of fencing for security (which I think misconceived, for I prefer action against the Arabs to hiding from them behind a fence that can be circumvented). If he did, he would have to acknowledge that the Arabs are violent and vicious, and, contrary to what he asserts, not fit to live with. They are too intolerant. If they didn't commit terrorism, there might not be a fence. Unfortunately, the fence serves the anti-Zionist Israeli regime as a means of making a de-facto cession of territory to the Arab enemy. By the way, Heller does not admit that the Arab Muslims are the enemy of Israel. And so he claims that the fence cuts off people in Jerusalem suburbs from their relatives and keeps their garbage from being picked up. He does not cite enough specifics to evaluate his claims. He is too loose with facts and vague about statistics and proportions. That is suspicious. Perhaps he just doesn't know. Where he doesn't specify, critics cannot check and rebut his claims. The fence runs close to the edge of the Territories. There is no attempt to impose hardships upon the Arabs. The fence has been sited so as to make hardships for the Jews. It cuts some Jewish communities off from others and from Israel. It subjects others to attack by Arabs on nearby hills, while fencing in the Jews. The Arabs complain that it cuts off people from their fields; it does bisect some Jewish municipal boundaries. The fence makes economic and travel hardships for all. That is only a fraction of the economic hardship resulting from terrorism and Arab rule. Arab terrorism had been ruinous for many Jews and forces many to travel in indirect routes, taking much longer. Heller notes an Israel travel ban against Arabs on certain roads sarcastically as settlers finding it unacceptable to have to share the roads with Arabs. That is deceitful of him. Arabs around Hebron, a city whose Jews he accuses of attacking the Arabs, and elsewhere in the Territories, regularly throw stones and firebombs, shoot at, and drive into Jews who share the roads with them. The limited separation was not because the Jews were apartheid-minded, but because the Muslims were! Hazy, non-quantified accusations of unfair practice as routine and extensive, are leveled against Israel as, for example, having driven out Arabs in the 1947 war. The Arabs embarked upon genocide, because they were most apartheid-minded. The Jews asked them to stay in peace. Before and during that war, most of the Arabs fled. A few in strategic places from which they were harassing, or could menace, the Jews, were driven out. The Arabs drove out Jews, when they could. That is not mentioned, nor is the Arab threatened to massacre all the Jews. That is not mentioned either. Some historical account! I think that Israel should have driven all the Arabs out. That would have spared it thousands of subsequent casualties and prevented most terrorism. For the Arabs, the main economic hardship is that their leaders divert most of the public funds to war on the Jews and to their private accounts, extort from businesses, set up monopolies for themselves, and fail to enact business law by which businesses can run in orderly fashion. Arafat refused a free sewage treatment plant, lest he would have to share it with Jews. Israel did withhold some P.A. excise taxes, as stated, but the reason is that the P.A. spent them on terrorism, which factual explanation Heller omitted. Not fair to blame Israel for that! The resulting hardships are the Arabs' own fault. I don't know whether one accusation be true or false. Heller claims that Israel mostly does not lease land to Arabs. He is not specific. Does he mean lease or sell, by the government or by the Jewish National Fund? The Jewish National Fund is a private organization that is not supposed to sell off land to Arabs, because Jews contributed to it for their own national development, because the colonial masters or Arab landowners would not sell to them. Now the Arabs are bidding again to take over the country, so Israel would be wise to deny Arab access to more land, to clear them from land illegally taken, and to rescind their citizenship. Claims elsewhere that in Jerusalem, Israel denied Arabs building permits, and that that is why Arabs build illegally there, were false. When Jews try to live in Arab villages, as my own, idealistic cousin tried to do, they get harassed out. The apartheid-minded Arabs are driving the Jews out of Jaffa and certain other mixed cities. The P.A. made it a capital crime to sell real estate to Jews. It is a complex picture. Heller draws the wrong conclusion. His most vicious canard is about "Jewish settlements at war with the Palestinian (Arab) neighbors. Left to themselves, Jewish villages have proved good neighbors. But led by Israeli and foreign leftists, Arabs are making war on Jewish villages. For years they threw stones and fired guns at passing Jews, and, particularly in Israel, burned down forests. Now they are destroying crops of the Jews, while falsely complaining it is the reverse. They have been caught at the attempted deception. Lately they have set crops afire in the hope of burning down the houses of the Jews. P.A. doctrine, whether of Fatah or of Hamas, approves of attacks on Jews as "resistance." Proof: thousands of Arab terrorists have been arrested and convicted. As for depicting the Jew-expelling Israeli government as plotting against the Arabs, let Heller explain why Jews who defend themselves, even if only by warning shots against Arab thieves, vandals, and cutthroats, get arrested and their assailants do not! Heller pours his most acidic venom on the Jews of Hebron. I guess it is instinctive, because the Jews there are Orthodox, Hebron is Judaism's second most holy city and its original capital, they are few in number, yet they are holding out against constant Arab attack and Israeli harassment as a symbol of Zionism and resistance to the Israeli anti-Zionist drive to evacuate from that core area of the Jewish homeland. After mentioning the Arab massacre of dozens of Hebron Jews in that city in 1929, and the Arab and British expulsion of the rest of the city's Jews, Heller refers to Jewish attempts to resettle there as a "brutal project." He puts it baldly that religious fanatics are taking over Hebron Arabs' houses. What is a "religious fanatic?" Remember, the Arabs there tend to follow Hamas. They are religious fanatics, wanting to murder religious rivals! The Jews just want to reclaim what legally belongs to them and to live in peace. Heller fails to indicate that they are buying, for a second time, property stolen in that 1929 expulsion from the Jewish people and some of the incoming Jews' direct ancestors. Why doesn't Heller observe that if Hebron Jews entered the P.A. sector of their own city, they likely would be lynched. Jews don't lynch Arabs. Some of the property referred to is not housing but abandoned stores. Heller might mention that the modern Hebron commercial area is elsewhere, but in its war on Israelis, the P.A. forces some Arabs to remain in those seldom frequented stores, to block Jewish re-entry. One could not tell from Heller's account that the Muslim Arabs have declared war on the Jews. Daniel Bernard has done a disservice in relaying libel, blood libel. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top PAP(PE) SMEAR; PRO-ARAB GROUP LOSES SLAPP SUIT; LEBANON IN SDEROT Posted by Steven Plaut, August 20, 2007. 1. Thanks to Boris Celser for this brilliant comment. The "books" by anti-Semite lecturer Ilan Pappe, including those alleging Israel conducted "ethnic cleansing" of Arabs, should be known as PAP SMEAR! The latest Pap Smear is discussed here: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid= 1186557466176&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull 2. Unlike Israel, SLAPP suits lose in the US!! "Yale Press Prevails In Suit" by Paul Bass August 15, 2007 2:33 PM New Haven Independent www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2007/08/ yale_press_wins.php A group called KinderUSA had sued the Press for a book that accuses the group of being a front to raise money for the terrorist group Hamas in order to skirt U.S. laws. KinderUSA filed suit against the Press in L.A. on April 26 over the publication of Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad. The suit also targeted the book's author, Matthew Levitt; and the Washington Institute for Near East Studies, where Levitt works. The suit claimed that Levitt fabricated facts about the charity's role in funding money to terrorist groups abroad. Yale Press struck back, filing a so-called anti-"SLAPP" motion. SLAPP stands for "Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation." The term refers to a tactic, often employed by corporations, to muzzle public criticism by filing libel or slander suits against critics that have no legal basis, but that can cost thousands or tens of thousands of dollars to defend. California has an anti-SLAPP law designed to counter such lawsuits. Click here to read a summary of the law; it enables targets of SLAPP suits to file motions to require SLAPPers to prove they have a viable case. If not, the SLAPPers have to pay the target's legal costs. Yale Press -- along with Levitt and his foundation -- filed such a motion in this case. And they hired a top-tier First Amendment lawyer, Floyd Abrams, signaling their intention to fight back. After that motion was filed, Kinder withdrew its suit. KinderUSA's suit focused on pages 151-2 "and the respective footnotes" in Levitt's book. The section of the book describes how the U.S. shut down American-based charities accused of funneling funds to terrorist groups like Hamas and al-Qaeda, charities such as the Holy Land Foundation. The complaint quoted from the pages in question: "Even after the closure of the Holy Land Foundation in 2001, other U.S.-based charities continued to fund Hamas. One of the organizations that has appeared to rise out of the ashes of the HLFRD is KinderUSA." The group claims that the accusation is false. In the book, in a subsequent part not mentioned in the lawsuit, Levitt states that two leaders of KinderUSA were also involved with HLFRD: KinderUSA Executive Director Dalell Mohmed served as a project director at the previous organization, and KinderUSA founder Riad Abdelkarim as a governing board member. Both people were deported from Israel on suspicions of ties to Hamas, Levitt's book reports. Levitt (pictured) writes and speaks widely, including on national TV, about terrorism and front groups for organizations that carry out suicide attacks, like Hamas and al-Qaed. A former U.S. Treasury official, he worked on shutting down American funding pipelines to foreign groups identified by the government as sponsors of terrorism. The KinderUSA complaint also deemed as false Levitt's statement that "the formation of KinderUSA highlights an increasingly common trend: banned charities continuing to operate by incorporating under new names in response to designation as terrorist entities or in an effort to evade attention. This trend is also seen with groups raising money for al-Qaeda." The complaint charges that a related footnote falsely ties two KinderUSA officers to a discussion of al-Qaeda "without informing the reader that there is no allegation that KinderUSA is tied to al-Qaeda." KinderUSA describes itself on its website as "a group of physicians and humanitarian relief workers... believing that all children are born with fundamental freedoms and are entitled to the rights of survival, health, and education. KinderUSA puts into action programs to ensure these rights are not forgotten." The site cites relief work with children in Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. In a press release, KINDER Board Chairwoman Laila Al-Marayati claimed the book "will take food out of the mouths of hungry children in Palestine that so urgently need our help." Her group's complaint sought $500,000 in compensatory damages, plus unspecific punitive damages and legal expenses. It also claimed that "Yale University Press did not conduct any fact-checking" in connection with the book. "Of course, the book was vetted," Yale Press chief John Donatich responded at the time the suit was filed. "We took it through peer review, as with all our books." 3. Cowardice begets cowardice: "Lebanon in Sderot" by Uzi Dayan August 19, 2007 Ynet News http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3436550,00.html Major General (Res.) Uzi Dayan is chairman of the Tafnit movement and a former National Security Council chief Sderot and its vicinity have experienced another stormy week. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who visited the city with Holocaust survivor Tom Lantos, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that "in Israel we live under a constant barrage of Qassams." Well, not in the whole of Israel -- only in Sderot and vicinity. Sometimes it is reported in the press and sometimes it is not. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who also joined the tour, pledged to fund the fortification of the community center. If the State doesn't help, philanthropists will do the job -- if not Gaydamak, then Ellison. Defense Minister Ehud Barak was quoted as saying that Mahmoud Abbas is unable to "deliver the goods" and that a diplomatic settlement with the Palestinians is a fantasy. It's true. So what's to be done? Keep talking about removing the checkpoints. And again this morning, there was another brief and routine report that Qassam rockets "landed" in Sderot. No injuries were reported. What are we waiting for? For the moment that a rocket hits a kindergarten, heaven forbid? Terrible sense that there is no leadership And thus, three failures that characterized the Second Lebanon War are repeating themselves, live from Sderot. Decision-making: Then, they didn't understand that it was war and acted based on shortsighted impulse, whereas today they are unable to make clear-cut decisions with well defined missions, as required in a state of war for all intents and purposes. Deploying the military: Then, they didn't know how to deploy a large and powerful ground force, which wasn't even called up on time. Then as now, a large army is lying around idly, awaiting orders that are not forthcoming. The home front continues to be abandoned: After years of Qassam rocket fire in the Gaza region (to date, over 2,500 Qassam rockets were fired on Sderot alone,) there are still more than 1,500 unfortified houses, most places of work do not have an adequate solution, and educational institutions in the area are unprepared for the opening of the next school year. Then as now, the sovereign is "chalking up points" by announcing that it "will not fortify itself to death." So for your information -- the entire investment in fortification doesn't reach a single percent of the overall defense budget. The failures of the last war and their continuation today leave us with a terrible sense that there is no leadership; that there is no direction and no responsibility. We should do what we were not smart enough to do during the Second Lebanon War -- win. Take control of Egyptian border Yes, there is a military response to the two key strategic objectives facing us: Preventing fatal Qassam rocket fire on the residents of Sderot and vicinity and preventing Hamas from becoming Hizbullah number 2 within a short timeframe. To this end, the Gaza Strip should be isolated and we should intensify targeted killings, economic pressure and operations against Hamas. Forces should be deployed into areas from which rockets are being fired, the Philadelphi Route should be re-occupied, and we should take control of the Israeli-Egyptian border, which we should not have left in the first place. The humanitarian issues that would emerge as a result of these policies should be dealt with sensitively, but we should make it clear that we too have a humanitarian problem -- our abducted soldiers. This military response must be used in order to give the residents of Sderot and its vicinity the security that every citizen is entitled to, but also to restore the sense of security of Israelis who are asking "how can we depend on a leadership that failed us in Lebanon that cannot provide an answer to the Qassam fire and deal with the Iranian nuclear threat?" Indeed how? Everyone -- from Sderot to Ramallah and Damascus, Hamastan and Tehran -- is waiting for the answer to this question, which should come out of Jerusalem and constitute a key element of our policy regarding the Palestinian issue. Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il To Go To Top ISRAEL TO GIVE UP TEMPLE MOUNT? Posted by David Ben Ariel, August 19, 2007. I know from firsthand experience how Muslims deny Christians the right to pray upon the Temple Mount. I was taken into "protective custody" to save me from militant Muslims for merely trying to read my Bible and pray in peace upon the site of the holy temples. Later I was deported from Israel for highlighting the plight of the Temple Mount under Nazi-Muslim occupation on trumped up charges that were later reduced to another fabrication: "visa violation." May the Israelis, Jews and Christians worldwide, stand up for our religious rights upon the Temple Mount and refuse to be dhimmis. This article is by Aaron Klein, chief of the World Net Daily Jerusalem Bureau, and it appeared August 17, 2007 in World Net Daily http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57195 Palestinians say no agreement unless Olmert forfeits holiest site in Judaism JERUSALEM -- Palestinian negotiators drafting an agreement behind the scenes with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office have made clear they will not accept any final peace deal with Israel unless the Jewish state forfeits the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site, WND has learned. According to a report in Israel's Yediot Aharonot daily yesterday, Olmert is willing to discuss joint Israeli-Palestinian control over the Temple Mount complex. The report didn't state the positions of the Palestinian side on the issue. A chief Palestinian negotiator, speaking to WND on condition his name be withheld, said yesterday, "there can be no agreement with Israel unless we get complete sovereignty of the Mount. Once Palestinian control over the [Temple Mount] is fixed, then we will make assurances for Jewish visits to the site." The chief negotiator said aides from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization have been hammering out the parameters of a final status agreement for presentation in November at a U.S.-backed international summit regarding the Middle East. Issues already discussed between Israel and the Palestinians reportedly include the division of parts of Jerusalem and debates regarding permanent borders between Israel and the PA. The November international conference and talk from the Bush administration the past few weeks has led many here to speculate the U.S. will push in the near future for intense Israeli-Palestinian negotiations leading to a Palestinian state. With a year and a half left in office, President George Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have been urging meetings between Abbas and Olmert to establish a framework for momentum leading to a breakthrough at November's conference. Olmert and Abbas have been meeting bi-monthly in summits brokered by the U.S. Asked by WND whether Olmert is willing to forfeit the Temple Mount in an agreement with the Palestinians, David Baker, a spokesman for the prime minister, had no comment. Jews, Christians barred from praying on Mount The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism. Muslims say it is their third holiest site. The First Jewish Temple was built by King Solomon in the 10th century B.C. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The Second Temple was rebuilt in 515 B.C. after Jerusalem was freed from Babylonian captivity. That temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire in A.D. 70. Each temple stood for a period of about four centuries. The Jewish Temple was the center of religious Jewish worship. It housed the Holy of Holies, which contained the Ark of the Covenant and was said to be the area upon which God's "presence" dwelt. The Al Aqsa Mosque now sits on the site. The temple served as the primary location for the offering of sacrifices and was the main gathering place in Israel during Jewish holidays. The Temple Mount compound has remained a focal point for Jewish services over the millennia. Prayers for a return to Jerusalem have been uttered by Jews since the Second Temple was destroyed, according to Jewish tradition. Jews worldwide pray facing toward the Western Wall, a portion of an outer courtyard of the Temple left intact. The Al Aqsa Mosque was constructed around A.D. 709 to serve as a shrine near another shrine, the Dome of the Rock, which was built by an Islamic caliph. Al Aqsa was meant to mark where Muslims came to believe Muhammad, the founder of Islam, ascended to heaven. Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Quran. Islamic tradition states Mohammed took a journey in a single night from "a sacred mosque" -- believed to be in Mecca in southern Saudi Arabia -- to "the farthest mosque" and from a rock there ascended to heaven. The farthest mosque later became associated with the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Currently under Israeli control, Jews and Christians are barred from praying on the Mount. The Temple Mount was opened to the general public until September 2000, when the Palestinians started their intifada by throwing stones at Jewish worshipers after then-candidate for prime minister Ariel Sharon visited the area. Following the onset of violence, the new Sharon government closed the Mount to non-Muslims, using checkpoints to control all pedestrian traffic for fear of further clashes with the Palestinians. The Temple Mount was reopened to non-Muslims in August 2003. It still is open but only Sundays through Thursdays, 7:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., and not on any Christian, Jewish or Muslim holidays or other days considered "sensitive" by the Waqf. During "open" days, Jews and Christian are allowed to ascend the Mount, usually through organized tours and only if they conform first to a strict set of guidelines, which includes demands that they not pray or bring any "holy objects" to the site. Visitors are banned from entering any of the mosques without direct Waqf permission. Rules are enforced by Waqf agents, who watch tours closely and alert nearby Israeli police to any breaking of their guidelines. 'Secret' plan would give Palestinians West Bank The talk of behind-the-scenes negotiations follows a WND report earlier this week stating newly installed Israeli President Shimon Peres has quietly drafted a plan for the Jewish state to evacuate and transfer to the Palestinians nearly the entire West Bank and several Arab Israeli cities located within territory that is undisputedly Israel's according to the international community. The West Bank is strategic territory that runs alongside Jerusalem and is within rocket range of Tel Aviv and Israel's international airport. It is home to many biblical Jewish communities and some of Judaism's holiest sites. Peres has presented his initiative to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and to top aides for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas the past few weeks, after he took office as Israeli president last month, diplomatic sources in Jerusalem told WND. The official role of president here is limited largely to ceremonial matters; the president does not create foreign policy. Olmert is mulling over the plan and agrees with much of its contents, the diplomatic sources said. Peres' plan calls for Israel to hand 97-percent of the West Bank over to Abbas, with Israel retaining a small number of the territory's Jewish communities. In exchange for Israel keeping some land, the Jewish state will give the PA control of Arab Israeli cities north of Tel Aviv which, together with the evacuated West Bank territory, would amount to the equivalent of 100 percent of the West Bank. Already during his bi-weekly meetings with Abbas, Olmert has granted a number of security concessions to Abbas regarding increased Palestinian control of the West Bank. The Israeli prime minister last month granted amnesty to 178 gunmen from Abbas' Fatah organization who comprise most of the senior leadership of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the declared military wing of Fatah that is responsible for every suicide bombing in Israel the past three years. Olmert is reportedly considering granting amnesty to 206 more Brigades terrorists. According to Palestinian officials, the Israeli Prime Minister already informed the PA that Fatah gunmen are largely immune from Israeli anti-terror raids regardless of whether they are officially on Olmert's amnesty list. Also, Olmert is strongly considering removing hundreds of Israel Defense Forces roadblocks and checkpoints situated in strategic sites located throughout the West Bank. The IDF sees the checkpoints as crucial in helping stop terrorists, including suicide bombers, from infiltrating Jewish cities. As well, in a scantily-reported but major move, Israel last week started allowing armed Palestinian policemen to patrol areas in the West Bank that fall under Israeli security control according to the 1993 Oslo Accords. Security in the territory, referred to as Area B, is supposed to be ensured by the IDF, which still monitors the area but has allowed for an unprecedented stepped-up armed Palestinian security presence there. In response to the renewed momentum toward a Palestinian state, rabbis for the Yesha Council of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria -- the West Bank -- yesterday slammed the Israeli government for considering major concessions. The council released a statement expressing "concern at the irresponsible diplomatic moves being made during these days, the main point of which is the consent to the establishment of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria. These moves are founded upon irrelevant considerations of political survival, and are being made in total opposition to the opinion of the defense establishment." David Ben-Ariel is author of "Beyond Babylon: Europe's Rise and Fall." Contact him at http://www.beyondbabylon.blogspot.com/ or email davidbenariel@earthlink.net To Go To Top REFORM HERETICS Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), August 19, 2007. This was written by Rabbi Levi Brackman and it appeared today in Ynet News http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3439155,00.html Rabbi Levi Brackman is executive director of Judaism in the Foothills and the author of numerous articles on a whole range of topics and issues, many of which can be found on his website (http://www.jitf.org). We are currently witnessing the beginning of the end of the failed experiment called Reform Judaism The Reform Movement is in the midst of an identity crisis. According to a Jewish Week article last week, this summer guest musicians came to Kutz Camp, the Reform movement's teen leadership camp and led a jazzed-up version of the evening prayers. One by one, 40 campers in their mid-teens got up and walked out. They wanted a more traditional service, they later explained. It seems that this is a culmination of much change that has taken pace in Kutz Camp. Everything about the camp reflects the Reform Movement's irreverence for tradition: the food is "kosher style" rather than kosher proper, rituals are sidelined and prayers are jazzed up. However, according to the Jewish Week, camp director Reform Rabbi Eve Rudin said that some Reform youth attending the camp are interested in making it really kosher. "We first started seeing kids lay tefillin two or three years ago," she said. "Certainly we saw it last summer. It's a handful of kids. Tzitzit are more widespread; quite a few kids are wearing them." So the elite Reform youth are getting interested in religious ritual, demanding kosher and turning their back on "innovative" types of prayer services. This growth from within the Reform Movement removes the raison d'�tre of Reform Judaism. Abraham Geiger (1810-1874) and Samuel Holdheim (1806-1860), who founded Reform Judaism, had one major concern in mind: how can Judaism remain relevant in the modern world, where Jews have been emancipated from the ghetto and shtetl? Their response was that Judaism needed to be modernized if it was to survive. They thus changed around the synagogue: they took away the mechitzah (separation between men's and women's seating), moved the bimah to the front and brought in the organ. They felt that this made Judaism less distinct and more modern -- in fact, they modeled their synagogues on Protestant churches. In addition they did away with most rituals, and prayer services were held in German rather than the traditional Hebrew. By modernizing Judaism in this way they hoped to make it relevant to the modern, emancipated Jew and thus salvage it from certain demise. Judaism's peaceful death So in fact Reform Judaism was not meant to be an ideology; it was a response to a perceived problem that modern societies posed to traditional Judaism. Unfortunately that response has failed on a number of levels. Statistics show that, instead of saving Judaism, Reform just allows it a more peaceful death -- this has been proven in a study by Antony Gordon and Richard Horowitz, which shows that where there are 100 Reform Jews today, there will be only 10 within four generations. The premise that traditional Judaism could not survive modern, open-minded ideas and philosophy turns out to be incorrect too. The biggest proof of this comes from within the Reform community itself. The fact that members of the Reform Movement's teen leadership group, brought up in the midst of liberal American culture, are returning to tradition is testament to the fact that traditional, ritualized Judaism is compatible with modernity. Perhaps most surprising, however, is that at the end of the Jewish Week article, Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, was quoted as saying, "If you take it all (rituals) upon yourself as an obligation rather than as a choice, you've reached the point at which you're no longer a Reform Jew." It is strange that the higher echelons of the Reform Movement are now feeling the need to define people out of its ranks. For the first time we have people defined by the leadership of the movement as Reform heretics, who can no longer be considered Reform Jews. Beginning of the end This was not how the founders of Reform envisioned it. In order to preserve Judaism, they wanted to be as inclusive as possible. We have now come full circle and Reform Judaism itself is losing some of its finest members to traditional Judaism. Now they feel the need to define their boundaries. To quote Kutz Camp director Eve Rudin, "This is about the Reform Movement coming to terms with the fact that there are boundaries, and what those boundaries may be." Incredibly, instead of being happy that traditional Judaism can in fact thrive in a modern, liberal culture, the Reform leadership is working to stop its members from joining traditional Judaism by threatening to exclude them from the movement they were born into. Clearly, Reform Judaism has lost its very reason for existing. Undoubtedly, what we are witnessing is the beginning of the end of a failed experiment called Reform Judaism. The leaders of the movement have realized this and are thus taking desperate measures to save what is, in fact, a sinking ship. Sergio Tessa can be reached at Hadar-Israel@verizon.net. To Go To Top WINDOW DRESSING -- THE ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN "PEACE PROCESS" Posted by Barry Rubin, August 19, 2007. Is there a window of opportunity for Israel-Palestinian peace right now? Let me put it this way: in diplomatic terms, looking through the window is worthwhile but, in analytical terms, I don't think anyone is going to be able to climb through it. The problem of the current situation poses two typical issues which often bedevil -- but could be used to clarify -- Middle East issues. The first is the logical versus the real; the second is the diplomatic versus the analytical. Let us begin by what to outsiders seems a logical evaluation of the current situation. It goes something like this: Fatah and the Palestinian Authority (PA) it controls in the West Bank are in serious shape. Hamas has seized the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian infrastructure has been devastated. There seems to be no progress toward peace or an independent state. Given this crisis it is logical that the Fatah leadership, headed by "President" Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who seem to be moderate men, pursue a new course. They can enforce stability on the West Bank and discipline on their own forces. They can use the aid money they are getting from international donors to improve their people's situation, build schools and hospitals, and create a viable economy. And they can make peace with Israel to obtain a Palestinian state. They can say to the Palestinians: Hah! See how we deliver and Hamas does not! We have brought you all these benefits and so naturally you must support us. Happy ending. Curtain falls. Standing ovation from the audience. Good reviews in the media. Nobel prizes to follow. The problem here is that this approach treats Palestinian politics as a black box without examining its inner workings. Or, to put it another way, this interpretation is totally logical but has no connection to reality. It is worth remembering, by the way, that this is precisely the framework that was used to justify the Oslo peace process in the 1990s. Yasir Arafat and the PLO were cornered, threatened with extinction. An offer to save them by moderating them would be eagerly accepted. And once Arafat actually had to administer people -- providing jobs, fixing roads, collecting garbage -- he would naturally be moderated and channels toward a comprehensive peace agreement. True, Abbas is more flexible and less extreme than Arafat but he is far weaker, also. He himself has reportedly admitted that his regime cannot stop terrorist attacks on Israel from the territory it supposedly controls. Fatah is so fossilized, factionalized, and corrupt that it is not capable of changing course. Nor does most of the leadership want to do so. They would prefer to steal aid money rather than use it effectively. And they don't want to be considered traitors to the cause by pursuing moderation. There is no chance of their agreeing to a peace accord ending the conflict. One can only hope that they would do easier things like blocking attacks on Israel or ordering their media to stop inciting terrorism. Even that modest expectation is likely to be disappointed. All this brings us to the second issue. The above analysis argues that all the massive diplomatic effort being waged right now is going to fall on its face. Does that mean it should not be tried at all? In diplomacy one can try things one believes will fail if they serve some purpose and do not undermine other interests. At present this means holding talks with Arab states to try to encourage them to make some effort toward peace and reduce tensions; and with PA-Fatah to see if any progress can be made toward a political solution to the conflict. There are also some more immediate goals at stake: helping Fatah survive because it is preferable to Hamas though the gap may be narrow than often acknowledged; and to press it to block terrorism from the West Bank and reduce anti-Israel, pro-terrorist incitement in the media and institutions it controls. Additional reasons for pursuing diplomacy include showing that Israel and the West wants an equitable peace and perhaps laying a basis for long-term efforts. Yet this kind of thing requires balance and a strong sense of skepticism, based on the analysis that full peace is unlikely for decades and that Fatah's drive toward political suicide seems unstoppable. This requires: --Not fooling people into thinking that peace is close or that there is even a good chance of achieving it. --Politicians not making fool of themselves by racing around to create peace blueprints, conferences, and financial give-aways which will fail in a humiliating manner. --Not pretending that Abbas is a great man of peace or that Fatah is a collection of moderates. --Not recyling the myth that peace is dependent on Israel offering more and displaying more expressions of guilt or empathy. --And not making dangerous concessions or taking risks to "build confidence" or prove one's benevolence. Ironically, offering to save Fatah leaders from bloody extinction (or at least a luxurious exile paid for by foreign aid) is not being used to press them toward reform and moderation. Rather it is being cast as Fatah doing the Americans or Israelis a favor by accepting their help without any requirement to change its behavior. The way this crisis is being handled -- even though the basic idea of the strategy makes sense -- makes it more likely that peace plans will be forgotten, money wasted, casualties multiplied, and the world even more misled about the nature of a conflict which is kept going by Palestinian intransigence. Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and co-author of "Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography" and "Hating America: A History" (Oxford University Press, August 2007). His latest book is The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). Prof. Rubin's columns can now be read online at http://gloria.idc.ac.il/columns/column.html. Contact him at profbarryrubin@yahoo.com A version of this article was published in the Toronto Globe & Mail and another in the Jerusalem Post. To Go To Top EGYPTIAN CLERIC TEACHES KIDS IT'S OK TO LIE Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 19, 2007. From a children's program on Egypt's Al-Nas TV, Egyptian cleric Mahmoud Al-Masri instructs children on the times when it is appropriate to lie: to a wife, to Jews, and to reconcile two arguing Muslims. (Courtesy of MEMRI TV.) See the video at http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1519.htm Mahmoud Al-Masri: We should not teach our children to lie, because it is forbidden. But there are three types of lies that are permitted. Let me tell you what they are. [...] The first, my dears, is lying to the wife in matters of the heart. You are not married yet, but Allah willing, you will be one day, and then you will know what I'm talking about. The wife always likes her husband to say sweet things to her: "I love you," "I'm crazy about you," things like that. All the forbidden things he used to say before he was married -- he should say them now, when they are no longer forbidden. The wife always likes to hear emotional stuff, in order to feel stability in life. The wife does not want money. She wants sweet words and emotions. Sometimes, the husband reaches the point where he gets tired of his wife, and can't stand her, and doesn't want to see her anymore. The same goes for the wife -- she can't wait for the day that Allah will take him away from her. So what should we do in such a situation? In order to preserve the Muslim family, the Prophet Muhammad allowed the husband or wife to lie to one another -- but only about matters of the heart, mind you. About what? Children: Matters of the heart. Mahmoud Al-Masri: Matters of the heart. If the wife asks her husband: "Do you love me, Abu Muhammad?" He should say: "Of course I love you, honey. How could anyone not love you?" He might not love her at all, but when he says: "I love you," she feels happy and stable, and feels that this is still her home, and that these are still her children and her husband. Right? But if he were to say to her: "The Prophet has forbidden lying, so I cannot tell a lie -- I hate you, I want to kill you, and get rid of you..." Can they possibly continue to live together after this? No. That's why the Prophet Muhammad said: "You are allowed to lie to your wife, but only about matters of the heart." He is not allowed to lie to her about money, or about his comings and goings, and so on. No -- only about matters of the heart. "Do you love me?" "I'm crazy about you, my life, you are a part of my heart. If you opened my heart, you wouldn't find anybody there but you." You should say such things that will make her happy and fix matters. That, my dears, is the first kind of lies that are permitted. What lies? Children: Permitted lies. Mahmoud Al-Masri: Permitted lies. There's no such thing as a "white lie" or a "black lie." No, there are exceptions. My dears, the second kind is lying to the enemy in times of war. What does this mean? For example, somebody joins the army, and a war breaks out, between us and the Jews, for example. He is captured by the Jews, who ask him: "Where do you keep your weapons, where is your artillery, and where are your airplanes, and so on?" He knows, but what will happen if he tells them the truth? He will destroy his country, right? So what should he do? If, for example, he knows that the tanks are at Heliopolis, he should say they are at Hilwan. Is he lying or not? Children: Yes. Mahmoud Al-Masri: But it is permitted, in order to defend his country. Do you get it, my dears? So this is the second kind of lies that is permitted. The third kind is in order to reconcile two rivals. What does that mean? What's your name? Ahmad: Ahmad. Mahmoud Al-Masri: And what is yours? Mahmoud. Ahmad quarrels with Mahmoud, and the two are mad at each other, After the show, they might got out and hit each other. What should we do? We take Ahmad aside, and say to him: "Ahmad, you are mad at Mahmoud, but Mahmoud loves you very much, and keeps saying: I love Ahmad very much and don't know why he's mad at me. I want to make up with him, and if I was sure he would agree to make up with me, I'd tell him I love him very much." And then you go to Mahmoud and say to him: "Why are you mad at Ahmad? Ahmad praises you, and loves you very very much." Did I lie to him? Yes, I did. But is this lie permitted or forbidden? Children: It's permitted. Mahmoud Al-Masri: How come? Because we are reconciling two Muslims. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top US EXPERT SAYS ISRAELI HASBARA NEEDS WORK Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 19, 2007. This was written by Alex Kogan and it appeared August 12, 2007 in the Jerusalem Post www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1186557428862&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull "The Jewish community in the US today is facing multiple challenges, starting with deterioration in centrality of Israel to its world view because of strong pressure of extremist leftist forces that view the Palestinian issue as a part of their politically correct menu," Ariel Cohen, Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow has told The Jerusalem Post. A member of the Council of Foreign Relations, International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, and Association for the Study of Nationalities, Cohen, who often testifies on Capitol Hill and appears on major TV channels around the world, handles an impressive portfolio, which includes international energy security, Russia and Eurasia, and the Middle East. Cohen noted that many young Jewish students in the West have a hard time publicly advocating for Israel, or at least viewing the Arab-Israeli conflict realistically in the context of the onslaught of jihadi forces in the Middle East and beyond. "With the rise of Hamas the struggle against Israel is a part of the global jihad against free societies and democracies. There is a continuous failure of both Israeli "hasbara" (advocacy) and of American Jewish education to communicate very basic issues of dealing with Israel's history Israel's struggle for survival. Moreover, Israel's security predicament is often viewed through the prism of 'occupation,' not the current confrontation between the forces of radical Islam (both Shi'ite and Sunni) and the existing regimes in the region, and the onslaught against western and American interests on the Middle East," Cohen said. Cohen sees Israel's foreign policy lacking in several strategic aspects. "First of all, after the debacle of the Second Lebanon War, Israel's deterrent capabilities are no longer viewed as a sure thing by its enemies. Very little is done to rebuild this absolutely vital element," he said. Secondly, Israel is not conducting information warfare as a part of general strategy to ensure survival of the Jewish state. Israeli spokespeople are not well trained and their message is often too curt and blurred. I am talking about information warfare in the West in the Middle East, and even when it comes to explaining to the Israeli population of some very basic things -- why are we here, why do we have to be here... That there was no "Naqba" (disaster) as extremist revisionist historians and their anti-Zionist fan club want us to believe. These issues are no longer self evident, as they were in 1948 and in 1967. The third important aspect is lacking of any strategy in Israel's foreign policy. The acceptance of Saudi/Arab League plan is the sign of that. If you read it carefully, it talks about the return of the so-called 1948 refugees into Israel proper. This plan is very dangerous; it does not recognize any border changes which are necessary for Israel's defense and survival. The Saudis claim this plan cannot be altered. So Israel is virtually negotiating itself out of existence. It must be remembered that peace processes in the Middle East worked only when there were breakthroughs of recognition. These were the cases when the Egyptian President Sadat came to Jerusalem and King Hussein of Jordan was ready to start openly negotiating with the State of Israel. Nothing of the kind came from Saudi Arabia so far, despite Israel's invitations. At this point Israel should declare that assumptions of the Oslo agreement and the Saudi initiative are no longer valid and no longer of interest. The country should attempt to negotiate a new platform that includes recognition of Israel, diplomatic ties, cessation of any anti-Israeli activity and propaganda", Cohen said. In addition, Cohen stressed that Israel is in need of strategic allies and here, paradoxically, while the attitude of the European countries is critical towards the Jewish state, it finds support in somewhat unexpected places. India and China are good examples, but moderate Muslim states of the ex-Soviet Union are of high importance also. Among these countries Kazakhstan stands out, as it demonstrated exemplary relations with Israel. President Nursultan Nazarbaev works to promote interfaith harmony, and Israel's relations with his country can constitute a model of Israel's relations with Muslim states. This country is interested in chairing the OSCE in 2009 and is striving to improve relations with Europe and US. The West has important interests to cultivate relations with Kazakhstan", Cohen said. Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top THE TIME IS NOW, AMERICA Posted by Avodah, August 19, 2007. This is by John W. Cassell and it appeared in Arutz-Sheva http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7350 John W. Cassell is a retired law enforcement officer and prosecuting attorney. He served during the Vietnam War in the Strategic Air Command of US Air Force and is the author of five novels on the American counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s and several short stories. What do you offer a suicide killer not to kill? Jack Engelhard's recent article on Messrs. Dubner and Levitt ("Bad Brain Day for 'Freakonomics' Author," www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7330) was thought-provoking on many levels. Before pressing on to what bothers me most about this bizarre world of political self-delusion we in America appear to live in these days, I want to say that at least Mr. Levitt should be especially ashamed. My G-d, Levitt, are you not a Jew? Do you not trace your heritage to the Levites? In the name of the six million of the Jewish people who died in the ovens of another terrorist just two generations ago, how can you possibly even appear to condone the actions of people who have, in the most public and persistent ways, continually said they intend to visit the same fate yet again on us, the people of the so-called civilized world? Does nobody live in gang-infested neighborhoods anymore? Has everybody in the United States capable of making any noise lost touch with the nature of psychotic hoodlums? From Adolf Hitler to Saddam Hussein to Billy the Kid to Bonnie and Clyde to your neighborhood gangsters -- they are all the same. They don't react to killing like you do. For them, watching a mother plead for the life of her children is almost a sexual experience. At the same time, they are honest to a fault. When they say they're going to kill you, they mean it. When you remember how those people died on 9/11, how they've been dying in Europe and all over Iraq ever since, you'll readily recall it was by suicide killers. Just think a moment: What do you offer a suicide killer not to kill? How do you stop a suicide killer? By the "expressed displeasure of the international community"? [Hysterical laugh break.] Back to the gang infested neighborhood -- and I grew up in one, so if you didn't, then listen close. The only way you keep a psychotic hoodlum from attacking you is if you convince him he's going to die and he doesn't want to. But a suicide killer wants to die, so the only way to stop a suicide killer is to kill him first. It's just that simple. Think about it. That said, let's now look at one of the travesties of the dismal legacy of the worst president in modern times: James Earl Carter. Now, mind you, the Civilized World gave him the Nobel Peace Prize, but, as events both before and after, have demonstrated, the Civilized World, yet again, was wrong. What Carter started doing with his peace prize machinations was what this country has been all too adept at doing ever since -- abusing what is probably the greatest ally we ever had: Israel. Before we get to the real tragedy of all this, let's return to the Arabs. Does anyone doubt Al-Qaeda intends to massacre the Jews as soon as we stop pinning them down in Iraq? Does anyone doubt that was Saddam's intention? After all the years since Carter began the policy of telling Israel "you won't have a friend in the world if you don't do what we say," can anyone doubt that the Palestinian Authority has no intention whatever of living side by side with Israelis in peace? "Okay," you say, "but you are tarring the entire Arab world with the same brush. That's not fair." Isn't it? Point to one Arab state today whose leaders loudly condemn acts of terrorism against Israel. Point to one Arab country whose police interdict terrorist plots to be launched against Israel. Point to one Islamic leader who condemns Jihad against the Jews. Just like the families in that gang infested neighborhood -- or the Christians in Nazi Germany, for that matter -- the very best of them stand mute, letting the terrorists use their lands; many others doing much more. A bullied Israel now must face rocket attacks on her people coming from the very lands we made her give back in the name of peace -- Adolf Hitler's peace, Neville Chamberlain's peace -- while gaining absolutely nothing in return from the Arab world, except promises of genocide from some and complicit silence from the rest. So, I say this: With our young men and women now killing Al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq and Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan every day, it's time for the United States of America to go forthrightly a few steps further; to look these gang-infested neighborhoods of the world in the eye and then say: "Even a dummy can smell the blood of the dead Israeli women and children our bankrupt policies in the past have helped murder. We're sorry, Israel. We're sorry for every inch of land bought and paid for with the blood of the very best of Israel's youth that we bullied you into giving back. We say we're at war with terror; well, from here on out, we're not going to hypocritically continue to exempt from that war, sub silentio, the oldest most longstanding victims of it. Any Jewish settlements left in the conquered territories stay where they are. Any attack on Israel is an attack on the United States." It would be a welcome change -- not being hypocrites. Most of the Arab states hate our guts anyway. And if there are any truly peaceful, non-genocidal Islamic kingdoms and republics out there in those gang-infested neighborhoods, then let them so state -- and truly join in the war on terror with all the help we can give them. But not another inch of Israeli lands. It's the Old Mr. Goodwrench commercials all over again, folks: pay me now or pay me later. At least if we pay the piper now, we'll still have the best ally we ever knew at our side. If we keep forcing Israel to pay for our armchair liberalism and squeamish, giggling foreplay with the enemies of Judeo-Christian civilization, as Mr. Levitt attempts, the next time they come for New York we won't get off with 3,000 dead. After all, our troops will have long since been pulled from where they now kill terrorists on a daily basis, and our Islamic fundamentalist friends, with their billions of petrodollars and universal support in the Arab lands, will simply change the killing fields to America. Right now, the Islamists fear the IDF, and rightly so. Only frightened Israeli politicians and their American tormentors can defeat the IDF. But Israelis can't continue to survive our terrible gaffes forever. The time is now. Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com To Go To Top LEFTIST JERUSALEM POST EDITOR AMOTZ ASA-EL: DON'T LEAVE JEWISH JNF LAND TO ARABS Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 19, 2007. Changes are on the horizon: in closer proximity than we think! The Crazy leftists liberals are catching on! Amotz Asa-El, former executive editor of the Jerusalem Post also known to be a strong left-wing supporter of the Oslo Accords and Yasser Arafat, and acknowledges that he "publicly called for a compromise even on Jerusalem," has totally reversed himself! These are two articles. The first has excerpts from an Op-Ed called "Israeli Arabs reject Jewish state." The second is From the ZOA and is entitled, "Former Jerusalem Post editor: don't lease Jewish JNF land to Arabs." Excerpts from an Op-Ed called "Israeli Arabs reject Jewish state" by Amotz Asa-El August 7, 2007 JTA http://www.jta.org:80/cgi-bin/iowa/news/print/ 20070807opedasael.html An Israeli columnist argues that in recent years it has become clear that by a two-state solution, Israel's Arabs mean two states for Palestinians. The endless duplicity: The Israeli Arab leaders hail Western values only when it helps undermine the Jewish state, but otherwise do not believe in them. The Israel Arab communities' elected leaders are attempting to hammer away at the idea of a Jewish State. They demand the abolition of the Law of Return, seek the alteration of the national anthem and hide behind a seemingly innocent agenda like the quest for a country of all its citizens. The Israeli Arabs have participated in terror attacks including driving suicide bombers to their destinations! Israeli Arab leaders are for now identifying with and actively assisting Israel's enemies, and we Jews have yet to consolidate our grip on the country our parents have built, so that in the future no Jew will be landless." The time has come to CHANGE their status (they are Israel's 5th column) and the way we treat them! "Former Jerusalem Post Editor: Don't Lease Jewish Jnf Land To Arabs" Zionist Organization of America News Release www.zoa.org August 17, 2007 New York -- Amotz Asa-El, former executive editor of the Jerusalem Post and presently a lecturer at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, wrote "the Jewish National Fund (JNF)'s mission statement remains morally valid and strategically vital." This mission statement essentially states that JNF private land purchased by contributions from Jews during the last hundred years will be leased to Jews. Asa-El, who had been a strong left-wing supporter of the Oslo Accords and Yasser Arafat, and acknowledges that he "publicly called for a compromise even on Jerusalem," has totally reversed himself and now says that the "Arabs' real aim is Israel's extinction." (At a Zionist Organization of America [ZOA] Mission to Israel, Asa-El, during a panel discussion with Yossi Klein Halevi and Jonathan Rosenblum, acknowledged that ZOA was right in opposing Oslo.) He adds that "while we pro-Oslo Israelis were devising two states for two peoples, our Arab counterparts, on both sides of the Green Line, were contemplating two states for one people: the Palestinians. ..an increasing number of Israeli Arabs have participated in terror attacks including driving suicide bombers to their destinations and in some cases performing the bombings themselves, which at the same time, the Israel Arab communities' elected leaders are attempting to hammer away at the idea of a Jewish State. They demand the abolition of the Law of Return, seek the alteration of the national anthem and hide behind a seemingly innocent agenda like the quest for a country of all its citizens." "The tactics deployed in this well-crafted assault are as simple as they are cunning: diversion and deceit. The diversion is in the systematic changing of the subject from the real aim, which is Israel's extinction. The deceit is in that all this crusading energy disappears once one leaves Israel's borders. They fail to demand rights and freedoms for those living under Arab rule throughout the Middle East. "In other words, Israeli Arab leaders hail Western values only when it helps undermine the Jewish state, but otherwise do not believe in them." "There was a time when Israelis like me honestly believed in the imminent emergence of a new Middle East, one where people, goods, capital and ideas would transcend borders as naturally as they do in North America and Western Europe. We have since been disillusioned -- by Middle Eastern despotism, Palestinian violence and Israeli Arab deceit. "The day when we Israeli Jews can roam the Middle East as freely as Italians roam Europe, and purchase real estate in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia or Syria as freely as New Yorkers do in Ontario has yet to arrive. Worse, the effort to deprive us of what land we have has yet to abate." "Now one can say, 'but Israeli Arabs are Israeli citizens and I so much want to say, 'Gosh, that's so true.' But the truth is that Israeli Arab leaders are for now identifying with and actively assisting Israel's enemies, and we Jews have yet to consolidate our grip on the country our parents have built, so that in the future no Jew will be landless." Asa-El added that we must understand "this context in which the attack on the JNF comes." ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, "More and more people and organizations are coming out in support of JNF and the Israeli Knesset position that private JNF land bought by Jews for Jews must remain in Jewish hands. That was the contract JNF had with the Jewish people for over one hundred years. That's why we put our money in the famous blue and white JNF pushkes -- to help enable and induce more Jews to emigrate to Eretz Yisroel where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived and where Kings David and Solomon once ruled. Israeli Arabs can and do lease any Israeli public lands in Israel, despite our knowledge that Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco and other Arab countries are helping fund the purchase of Israeli lands in eastern Jerusalem, the Galilee and elsewhere. ZOA strongly praises Ronald Lauder, former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Irwin Hochberg, past chairman of the UJC -- Jewish Federation of New York and past national campaign chairman of Israel Bonds; the distinguished MidEast scholar and Director of the MidEast Forum, Dr. Daniel Pipes, Amotz Asa-El of the Shalem Center; National Council of Young Israel and others for supporting the Israeli Knesset vote.   "JNF's land should be leased to Jews" By Morton A. Klein and Irwin Hochberg August 10, 2007 "We urge Abe Foxman of the ADL and Rabbi Eric Yoffie of the Reform movement, and the Labor Zionists (Ameinu) and Peace Now and the New Israel Fund and Leonard Fein to stop criticizing the Israeli Knesset, which voted 64-16 to support JNF's position. We urge ADL's Foxman and Reform's Yoffie and the others to reverse their position and support the right of Jews to hold onto private Jewish land in our holy Jewish country of Israel; just like the Catholic Church and the Muslim WAKF in Israel does what it wishes on their private land. "It's also perplexing that when Israel did discriminate against Jews by forcibly removing only Jews, not Arabs, and their families from their homes, schools and businesses in Gaza and Northern Samaria, Abe Foxman, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, Ameinu, Peace Now and Leonard Fein openly supported that exercise in real discrimination and enormous human suffering placed on own brothers and sisters in Gaza who are still suffering today because of Israel's broken promises to them. Almost no families are in permanent homes, one half are unemployed, there has been a dramatic increase in divorces and emotional problems among the children and adults since their forced transfer and eviction, many have still not received full compensation for their destroyed homes, farms and businesses. Why is there silence by the ADL, Reform movement, Peace Now, Ameinu, etc., about the injustice toward and horrific plight of these Jews, yet these same groups find their voices when it comes to Israeli Arabs, and other non-Jews?" Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top THOUGHTS OF AN ISRAELI CHRISTIAN ARAB; POLICY OF DEFEAT; ANOTHER DELUSIONAL; FORGED ACCUSATION Posted by Steven Shamrak, August 19, 2007. "Thoughts of an Israeli Christian Arab." by Solly Ganor I had conversation with an Israeli Arab construction boss by the unlikely name of Francis who was in charge of building a villa near our house in Herzelia. He told me: "Your bungling war against a few thousand Hezbollah fighters which you should have crushed no matter what, considering the importance of the outcome, has created a completely new situation, not only for this area, but globally. Your inept leadership totally misunderstood the importance of winning this war." "The Americans, the Europeans, and even you Israelis really don't know what it is all about, do you? During the last generation hundreds of thousands of children have been taught all over the Moslem world in Madrass schools to become martyrs for Allah in order to kill the infidels. These youngsters not only are ready to do it, but are actually in the process of doing it. Bombs are going off all over the world killing and maiming thousands of people, not only on 9/11 in the US, in London Madrid and Bali, but in Africa, India, Bangladesh, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and many other places. The first signs of the Islamic Tsunami is already here, but the West doesn't understand, or doesn't want to understand what is coming." "Now is the time to stop them, not only because they are developing nuclear bombs, but because Iran has become the base for all Islamic terrorist. They supply money, men, and weapons to Islamic terrorist around the world, quite often through their diplomatic mail. Billions of petro-dollars that are pouring into Iran are being funnelled into terrorist organizations world-wide. They believe, and perhaps rightly so, that the West will do nothing to stop them in achieving their goals." "Well, you Israelis, should better prepare yourself for another round against Hezbollah. It will not be long in coming. It depends on the Iranians to give the word. This time you will have to destroy Hezbollah no matter what the cost may be." If only Jews and the Israeli government would listen! Policy of Defeat. The IDF announced Saturday it will reopen the Karni crossing even as terrorists in Gaza continue their attacks on Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert continues to add concessions to the Palestinian Authority, this time granting amnesty to 110 PA terrorists. Food for Thought. "Israel does not apologize!" -- One of many lame justifications from 'nice' Israel-haters I have received. Do we hear apologies from UK or Spain for deporting Jews or for Turkey's genocide of Armenians? Have any Arab/Muslim countries apologized for supporting terror? Dear anti-Semites, please, do not preach humanity and morality to the Jews, look in the mirror first! One Sane Politician in America. American Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has bucked the party line of successive US administrations and come out against the establishment of a Palestinian state. "Too much emphasis has been placed on brokering negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians -- negotiations that bring up the same issues again and again. It is not in the interest of the United States, at a time when it is being threatened by Islamist terrorists, to assist the creation of another state that will support terrorism." (For Israel, there is never a good time for the idea of another Arab state on Jewish land! But still "at a time"?) Gaza a Major Threat to Israel. Senior Israeli military officials say the government ignored their warnings of what would happen to Gaza following the 2005 withdrawal. Hamas is believed to have at least 13,000 men under arms in Gaza. The force has been trained by Hizballah and Iranians. The group has also reportedly moved a huge quantity of advanced weapons and high-grade explosives into Gaza since Israel surrendered control of the strip, including Katyusha rockets, advanced anti-tank missiles and shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles. Fight of Mad Dogs. PA media are reporting clashes between Hamas and the Doghmush clan in Gaza City's al-Sabra neighbourhood. The powerful clan, which held journalist Alan Johnston, was hired out as mercenaries by both Fatah and Hamas, but has resisted Hamas efforts to disarm it. Hizbollah Buys Land to Attack Israel. Hizbollah is buying up large tracts of land, north of the Litani River, owned by Christians and other non-Shias in southern Lebanon as the militant group rebuilds its defences in preparation for a new war with Israel. With no harassment from the 13,000 United Nations peacekeepers. Stupidity Unlimited Co. IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi elicited enthusiastic applause from a largely Druze audience week ago when he told the crowd that in the next life, he wants to be a Druze. l is home to 5.4 million Jews. Last year it became the world's largest Jewish community, passing the U.S. with its estimated 5.3 million Jews. (Assimilation, Christian evangelic assault, anti-Israel propaganda, national apathy and basic lack of understanding of what Jewishness means, nationhood -- not just religion, is tearing our people apart!) Arafat's Doctor: His Blood had HIV. Late PA chairman Yasser Arafat's blood contained the deadly HIV virus, Arafat's personal physician, Dr. Ashraf al-Kurdi, told Jordanian media over the weekend. Another Delusional. Tony Blair stepped into his new position as Quartet Middle East envoy with hopes and dreams: "Just imagine for a moment if this process were moving forward again, just think how much hope there would be." (Only affirmative and decisive action by Israel against her enemies can end the conflict!) Is India a New Partner? India will launch Israeli spy satellite called TechSar, weighing about 260 kg. It is likely that some of the secret images will be made available to India. The Indian Space Research Organisation are tight-lipped about the nature of the mission. Solar Power for Italy. An Israel-based electric company has completed construction of Italy's first solar power station. The 50-kilowatt plant is part of an order for a nationwide network of solar power stations, to be completed in five years. Forged Accusation. by Sivani, (Israeli girl from www.MySpace.com) Racist ideologies use the differences between peoples, such as race, religion, gender, economic status, etc., as an excuse to oppress, discriminate, and deprive people of their natural and most basic rights. Zionism, on the other hand, sought and gained for the Jewish people the ability to rule themselves, which is a basic right shared by every nation. In the Diaspora, Jews where either oppressed by others or depended on the whims of the majority in the countries where they lived. The whims often turned into persecutions and pogroms. The accusation that Zionism is racism is motivated by a simple reasoning: After the Holocaust, it became unacceptable and ineffective to call Jews a subhuman race. In the face of those horrors traditional anti-Semitism was seen as barbaric and primitive. Present day anti-Semites (a k a anti-Zionists) are trying to stick to the state of Israel the false accusations of "Racism", "Apartheid" and "ethnic cleansing" in order to deny Jews their inherit and most basic right for self-rule and self-determination, the right of every nation to be free. Not all criticisms of Israel are anti-Semitism, but anti-Zionism denies basic rights to Jews. Anti-Zionists commit an act of discrimination -- Racism! Steven Shamrak was born in the former Soviet Union (USSR) and participated in the Moscow Zionist "refusenik" movement and currently lives in Melbourne, Australia. He publishes internet editorial letters on the Arab-Israeli conflict. He can be reached by email at StevenShamrak@gmail.com To Go To Top "DO NOT FOLLOW THE MAJORITY TO DO EVIL" Posted by Professor Paul Eidelberg, August 19, 2007. Some years ago I came across an essay "The Jewish Government" by Rabbi Meir Kahane (z"l). Commenting on Exodus 23:2 -- "Do not follow the majority to do evil" -- Rabbi Kahane said that "transgressing a law passed by the evil is a mitzvah." He explains as follows: A majority which contests Torah law, the only law of the Jewish People, is no majority. Those who contest Torah law are lawbreakers when they decide to oppose the law of the Jewish People and to forbid that which is required and to require that which is forbidden. It is they who undermine the rule of law and disturb the peace. It is they who bring tragedy and Divine punishment upon the Jewish People. If the government or a Jewish king establishes a law or decree against Torah law, the laws of G-d, we are duty-bound to reject it. The issue here is not Jews rebelling against the government and breaking the law, but Jews seeking to uphold the law and rebelling against a government which breaks the law and tries to keep Jews from living by it. It is forbidden to obey a governmental decree or law which opposes G-d's Torah, and obviously, it is forbidden to aid ... sinners in implementing it. [Maimonides, the] Rambam wrote [in the Mishneh Torah] (Hilchot Rotzeach 12:14): "Whoever makes a blind man stumble by giving him inappropriate advice; or gives strength and encouragement to sinners, blind people who do not see the way of truth due to the desire in their heart, violates a negative precept: "Do not place a stumbling block before the blind" (Leviticus 9:14). According to Rabbi Kahane, the verse "Do not follow the majority to do evil" warns us not to give verbal encouragement to sinners and not to befriend allies of injustice, as it says in Isaiah (8:12): "Do not treat as a coalition that which this people calls a coalition." "A coalition of the wicked is no coalition, and there is no force to any law or decision or decree of a wicked government which opposes the Torah. It is a mitzvah to resist them, and it is absolutely prohibited to accept the evil majority's decision." Rabbi Kahane goes on to say: "... the principle that Dina D'Malchuta Dina, 'The law of the government is law,' is no issue here. No kingdom or government, Jewish or non-Jewish, has any right to nullify a mitzvah or to pass a law opposed to our holy Torah, and if they do so, their edict has no force...." We thus see in the Torah and its commentators the basis for civil disobedience if not rebellion! Let us not be deceived or anesthetized by the democratic principle of majority rule. The American Declaration of Independence proclaimed that "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive" of man's unalienable or God-given rights, it is the duty and "Right of the people to alter or abolish it." "Any" form of government obviously includes a democracy. The American founding fathers well understood that a majority can be as unjust as a minority; indeed, they feared majoritarian tyranny. We should thus be doubly concerned about any Israeli government that would leave the fate of our Jewish brothers and sisters in Judea, Samaria, and the Golan Heights to a "majority" vote in a national referendum. We have already witnessed the crime perpetrated by the State against the Jews of Gush Katif -- a crime "justified" in the name of majority rule. Yes, a Knesset majority enacted the Evacuation Law implemented by the State -- its army and its police. That law clearly revealed the conflict between the State and the Torah. Is it futile to repeat the words of the great Alfred North Whitehead: "xThe Jews were the first people not to worship the State"? Is it futile to declare that above the laws of the State are the laws of G-d? How we have fallen! Kahane, Whitehead, and Jefferson -- a rabbi, a philosopher, and a statesman -- they saw the light, whose source is the Torah. That light is being extinguished in the unJewish and pseudo-democratic State of Israel. Professor Paul Eidelberg is President of the Foundation For Constitutional Democracy. He can be reached by mail at 244 Madison Avenue, Suite 427, New York, NY 10016, Tel: 212-372-3752, and by email at Constitution@usa.net To Go To Top MUSLIMS WERE IN AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS! AT LEAST, THAT'S WHAT THEY SAY Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 19, 2007. This item was posted by Robert Spencer on Jihad Watch (http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/017826.php). "Islam in America before Columbus" by Hisham Zoubeir appears this week in the Muslim Weekly, but actually it has been making the rounds for years, and can be found on many Islamic sites. Zoubeir claims that there is archaeological and linguistic evidence for a pre-Columbian Muslim presence in North America. I don't know of any scholarly refutation of the claims he makes, and for all I know they could be true, although they recall Khrushchev-era Soviet propaganda about how the Russians actually were the first people to do just about everything. Zoubeir's article may seem to many to be simply an exercise in chauvinistic overreaching until one realizes that to some Muslims who take his claims seriously, America is now Muslim land -- and Islamic law stipulates that Muslims possess by right any land that once formed part of the House of Islam; this is a key element of the claims to Israel and Spain put forward by Hamas, Al-Qaeda, and others. Chauvinistic overreaching, yes, but quite possibly with a political agenda. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top ISRAEL HAS 2 JUSTICE SYSTEMS, NOT 1; POLITICAL PERSECUTION; GOING TO SYNAGOGUE MAKES YOU LIVE LONGER Posted by Steven Plaut, August 19, 2007. 1. It is official. Even Minister Friedmann concedes there are two justice systems that operate in Israel: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123409 "Justice Minister: Justice System Biased" 5 Elul 5767, 19 August 07 01:51 by Gil Ronen(IsraelNN.com) Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann supported the Right's contention that the justice system in Israel persecutes people who are not perceived as leftist enough, in an interview to Haaretz. Friedmann delivered a long, crushing critique of the Supreme Court in the interview. Among other things, he said the court should not have intervened on security matters such as the route of the security barrier; the law preventing "family unification" between Israeli Arabs and Arabs from Judea, Samaria and Gaza; the IDF procedure in which a local Arab is used as a shield when knocking on doors of suspected terrorists' homes, and the timetable for fortification of buildings in Sderot and the Gaza Perimeter. He said that the State Prosecution is too eager to press charges against public figures, and noted the examples of former minister Aharon Abuhatzira, as well as Aryeh Deri, Reuven Rivlin and Avigdor Lieberman. As for the case against Chaim Ramon, his predecessor in the Justice Ministry: Friedmann says it was "not even a borderline case, but a sub-borderline case," and hints that the prosecutors' views may have affected their judgment. Of the five cases mentioned above, only one -- Ramon -- is associated with the left wing Ashkenazi-secular elite. Abuhatzira and Deri are Sephardic and religious, and both represented Sephardic-religious parties. Reuven Rivlin was about to be appointed Justice Minister when he was served with an indictment he was exonerated from years later. The case against Avigdor Lieberman was dragged out for seven years before it was dropped. "I am not talking about bribery cases, about a heavy and clear cut case with real evidence," Friedmann explained to his interviewers, who asked him whether he believed the prosecution behaved conspiratorially. "I am talking about borderline cases. When the prosecution has such wide latitude of action, even if the prosecutor is simply behaving as his conscience dictates, and especially if he is influenced by his attitude towards that public figure. then [the public figure] is treated differently. If he is a person who belongs to one category then he is treated one way, and if he belongs to a different category then he is treated differently. This is a very unhealthy situation." Asked whether he is sure that this mode of action is used with people who are "disliked," Friedmann said: "I do not know. It is clear that the right wing feels that they are treated more severely." "We need to select judges with a different judicial attitude from the one that is currently prevalent in the Supreme Court. The judges currently in office are from a certain milieu, they live in their milieu and they don't see the public." Friedmann noted retired Judge Menachem Elon as a positive example of a judge who did not favor "judicial activism" like the current court does, and was more moderate. Judge Elon is a religious man, and his son, Benny Elon, is an MK for the National Union / National Religious Party. Minister Friedmann himself, an Israel Prize winning professor of law, is considered to hold political views that are left of cente   2. After the Rabin assassination and in the wave of leftist McCarthyism against freedom of speech that followed, a Haifa teacher was fired for refusing to teach "Rabin's Legacy," meaning the North Korean style indoctrination in the Oslo approach, hailing it as unchallengeably brilliant and correct. The matter continues to drag on, years later: Teacher claims political persecution By Elie Leshem Aug. 12, 2007 19:43 Yisrael Shiran, a teacher who used to be the principal of the Moria-Barkai School in Haifa, on Sunday submitted a petition to the High Court of Justice demanding that he be allowed to return to his former position following a sharp plummet in the achievements of students at the school. In 2000 Shiran won a lawsuit against the Education Ministry after he was unlawfully suspended from his post for statements to the effect that studies dedicated to the Rabin assassination should not necessarily include the study of his "heritage". Shiran claimed that while the assassination itself was considered a reprehensible act by almost all Israelis, Rabin's actions, and especially the signing of the Oslo Accords, were not embraced by a broad enough consensus to warrant its inclusion in the curriculum of all Israeli schools. Yuli Tamir Then transportation minister Yuli Tamir and Aharon Zbeida, head of the Haifa district in the ministry of education, wished to suspend Shiran following his remarks, launching what Shiran's lawyers call "a personal and political smear campaign" against him. According to the current petition, when the Moria-Barkai School expressed their wishes that Shiran return to "rescue" the school, Zbeida put his foot down and prevented the school from hiring him. According to Shiran's lawyers, since 2000 Shiran has continued to teach in many schools- without encountering any objections on the part of the Education Ministry. Shiran's lawyers claim that many parents to students in the school have pulled their children out of the institution, with many more threatening to do so, following the Education Ministry's decision to prevent his return. "The education minister and the Haifa district are jeopardizing our children's education for the sake of.a personal and political settling of scores against an outstanding teacher," Shiran's attorney, Nitzana Darshan-Leitner, said. "If the ministry had no objection to his employment in the Orot Etzion School in Efrat.then it can have no objection to him being employed by a school in Haifa." "In the past, Tamir has attempted to obtain personal gain from the teacher's objection to the teaching of the Oslo Accords," she added. "The teacher, [however], was cleared of all allegations, and was allowed to return to his job after he was awarded compensation." "The time is ripe for the Education Ministry and [Tamir] to learn a lesson in good citizenship and just proceedings," she said.   3. We knew that all along: Attending Synagogue makes you live longer, says academic journal in Europe: http://www.springerlink.com/content/f2044j2v77318842/ ?p=66a80b5f48f447d988d5c8381b5755f7&pi=0 "What really matters in the social network.mortality association? A multivariate examination among older Jewish-Israelis" European Journal of Ageing Springer Berlin/Heidelberg ISSN 1613-9372 (Print) 1613-9380 (Online) Issue Volume 4, Number 2 / June, 2007 "Synagogue attendance is seen to promote survival mainly through its function as a source of communal attachment and, perhaps, as a reflection of spirituality as well. " Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il To Go To Top THE PSYCHE OF BETRAYAL Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 18, 2007. For many years, many months, many days we dealt with the arrest and the incarceration for life of Jonathan Pollard. An article written by Tsafrir Ronen in Yesha News (http://yeshanews.com/?id=56190 in Hebrew) sheds a new light on this sad case. I found it was imperative to translate the article and share it with all of you. Israelis Who Betrayed Pollard Now Betray Their Country A traitor is always a traitor; the anti-Zionist Left have a deep rooted betrayal trait. Over time, Pollard's case turned to be the betrayal in Pollard's case. Pollard passed information about Iraq and the preparations she was making to destroy Israel. Pollard did not spy for the enemy, rather passed information, the Americans were obliged, in an agreement they had in place with Israel, to pass on to Israel. The American lied to Israel, they betrayed the strategic treaty they had with Israel and Pollard knew it. The American revenge on Pollard was so great because he discovered they betrayed Israel and what they were hiding from her. Apart from Netanyahu in the Wye River Accords, there was not one leader in Israel that had the courage to stand up and demand the release of Pollard. The conclusion from the succession of events over a period of time is that the ideological Left contains a deeply rooted betrayal mentality. For example, 112 members of Knesset signed a petition calling for the USA to release Pollard but neither Sharon nor Olmert took the document to the United States. They preferred to appease the master -- the Congress -- rather than demand justice for Pollard. Pollard represents our collective conscience. Any person with conscience and loyal to the Jewish Nation, who saw the information that was gathered and would have not warned Israel, would have been betraying his nation. Therefore Pollard must be seen by any free person anywhere in the world as a freedom hero, not a spy. Passing the information did not intend to harm the United States, rather to save Israel. After all, the US conquered Iraq because of this very same information -- weapons of mass destruction. This is the way the ideological Left is rewarding the State of Israel. The chief traitor of Pollard is Shimon Peres who passed to the American the documents that allowed them to sentence him to life in jail without the possibility of parole. Peres, who often celebrates in shiny halls full of alcohol with his EU peers, is well accepted in the world because of his betrayal in his nation and for him allowing the Trojan horse, a militia of terrorists in the guise of governmental authority, to enter the land so they can destroy Israel. The anti-Semites love those who do the work for them. One cannot ask for much from a person who escaped military service during our Independence War. This man was a traitor from an early age. He is a dodger, a crook, a liar, and today he is the President of the State of Israel... Others followed...Ehud Barak, who ran away from Lebanon to please the derelict media and some Left wing organizations, thus he abandoned and betrayed his allies -- the South Lebanon army -- whom fought and died to defend Israel. He brought on us the catastrophe of Hezbollah. The question that must be asked is: who will sign treaties with us after Ehud Barak betrayal? When the fundamental betrayal psyche exists, then everything is allowed. Barak also betrayed Pollard and during his last days Clinton made sure to pardon his friend, the fugitive financier Marc Rich but he left Pollard to rot in jail. Barak betrayed everyone many times over. He betrayed the Nation of Israel when he wanted to hand to Islamo fascists the Holiest of Holy -- the Temple Mount. He betrayed his friends in the case of the Associations and the fighters who died in Ze'elim...he betrayed anyone who was with him. Therefore one is not at all surprised to know that Barak did not lift a finger to save Pollard. His deeply rooted betrayal psyche is internalized so strongly it is almost without a trace. Sharon, who forgot all of his values, cheated and betrayed his constituents and the Land of Israel, snored with scorn when someone mentioned Pollard. Olmert who escaped military service and studied at the university as if he was doing his military service, in fact was a deserter. There is no child in Israel who does not know what kind of an empty, sly, crafty and a crook is at the head of the State. One cannot expect from a man negotiating with enemy to save Pollard. So what do we have today? A president and Prime Minister who did not serve in the military of a country that has to live by the sword and its leadership must set a minimal personal example (do remember this expression?). Ehud Barak is the Minister of Defense, who was elected due to a colossal deceit and fraud and with the help of the Arabs voters' lobby. He is the one who cheated and evaded in the Associations' case and with another minister, Buzi Hertzog, kept silent during police investigations. The man that any child recognizes how irresponsible is his behavior. How he betrayal on his allies, brought about the last war in Lebanon as well as the Oslo War that broke in the year 2000. Let us not mention Peretz, the empty, reckless and miserable one. They all have a common denominator: they all betrayed the historical Land of Israel. They all want to give away to the enemy the cradle of our homeland, Zion. Pollard can wait. With such a pile of betrayal and traitors, with the deputy Prime Minister, the reckless Chaim Ramon, and the Kadima cadre of traitors who betrayed their constituents and changed party without blinking an eye lid, there is no surprise Pollard you are still waiting. This is a fundamentally corrupt group with betrayal mentality roots who betrayed their constituents, the public, the Jewish Nation, Zionism, their allies, the soldiers, and the settlers; whom have they not betrayed yet? But let not your heart worry, Jonathan. You are dear to us. Soon there will be a great change in Israel and Zionism will return to power. The traitors will go to where traitors go! And when we are in power, you, our brother Jonathan, will return home! Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top SHEIKH RAED SALAH, THE ISLAMIC MOVEMENT IN ISRAEL: "TEMPLE MOUNT BELONGS TO ISLAM FOR ETERNITY!" Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 18, 2007. When late Moshe Dayan handed the keys to Temple Mount to the Muslim Waqf he was simply hasty and lacked ANY Jewish sense or vision! Dayan's action was a devastating, derived from his total lack of comprehending, or ignoring, Jewish history. The absurdity and foolishness of this government is over the top! We will not allow the Nazi heirs to have under their control OUR Holiest of Holy that symbolizes our national sovereignty. Have this government gone totally crazy? Do we need the permission of these sub humans, Islamo-Nazi Arabs to come to visit our Temple Mount? Now Israel will have to sacrifice a great deal of Jewish blood in the effort of returning the Holiest of Holy Temple Mount to her ownership. To begin with, when next elections come, the cadre of the defeatists must be driven out from the government! This next is from Arutz Sheva in Hebrew http://www.inn.co.il:80/News/News.aspx/165803 Sheikh Raed Salah, the leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel: "Temple Mount belongs to Islam for eternity!"He blames the "Israeli occupation establishment "for attempting to divide Temple Mount between Jews and Muslims by force. "The sovereignty of Temple Mount is in the hands of Islam forever." He said. Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top POLAND PULLS OUT OF EU ANTI-ISRAEL CONFERENCE Posted by Koira, August 18, 2007. This was written by Tom Gross and it appeared August 16, 2006. It is archived at http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000886.html> Defying the anti-Israel (and in the case of some anti-Semitic) sentiment among European politicians, Poland has announced it is withdrawing from an anti-Israel conference due to be held at the European Parliament at the end of this month. The conference has been organized by the EU in conjunction with a United Nations body called "The UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People," which is infamous for its diatribes against Israel. Working groups include one on "how to increase the resistance against Israel". Resistance is the term used by Palestinian terror groups to describe suicide attacks on Israelis. The president of the Israeli Knesset, Dalia Itzik, has sent a letter to the President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Poettering, asking that the European Parliament not host the conference but Poettering has not replied to it. Meanwhile Polish MEPs from all Poland's main political parties have said they will boycott the conference and called on the event to be cancelled. "I have seen the materials prepared by the organizers and I will not take part in such a biased, anti-Israeli event," said one Polish MEP, Bronislaw Geremek. Konrad Szyma�ski, another Polish MEP, said: "Israel's objections are fully justified. According to most of the extremists from this UN committee Israel and its people should disappear. I am astonished that the European Parliament is allowing such activity to be placed in its building." Israel has welcomed the decision by Poland, which historically has a record of anti-Semitism. Contact Koira at koira@dbmail.com To Go To Top GOING TO COURT Posted by Salah Choudhury, August 18, 2007. Salah Choudhury is a journalist, columnist and publisher of Weekly Blitz. He was arrested at the airport in his native country -- muslim Bangladesh -- because he was on his way to Israel to attend a writer's conference. He spent 17 months in jail and is now standing trial. If found guilty, he can be executed. Today is 19th of August 2007. I shall start for court at 9:00 am as the court begins at 10:00 am. Generally the judge 'loves' to keep me waiting in the court for 5-6 hours. So, even if there is no trial (By the Grace of God), I will not be back from the Court before 3-4 pm. My lawyer Advocate S N Goswami just told me that, according to rule, The trial court cannot proceed with the trial as the matter is still Pending with the Appellate Division. Anyway, he said, we never know, what Bangladeshi court will do with my case, as they feel a kind of over-enthusiastic in proceeding the trial. Email him at salahuddinshoaibchoudhury@yahoo.com To Go To Top POOR OLD MUSLIMS -- THEY GET INSULTED -- WE GET BEHEADED Posted by Fred Reifenberg, August 18, 2007. The Pope says that jihad violence is against God's nature, and officials fear that in response, Muslims enraged by this insult will commit...jihad violence. A. Muslims murder 3,000 innocents? in New York and..... expect no criticism. B. Muslims murder 202 tourists in Bali and............expect no criticism. C. Muslims murder 333 schoolchildren and their teachers in Besla and .......... expect no criticism. D. Muslims murder 292 innocents, mainly Kenyans and Tanzanians at two US Embassies.......... and expect no criticism. E. Muslims murder 241 US and 58 French peacekeepers in Beirut and .......... expect no criticism. F. Muslims fire 4,000 Katyusha rockets into Northern Israel killing over 50 innocent civilians and........ expect no criticism. G. Muslims murder 52 in London and? 191 in Madrid and....... expect no criticism. H. Muslims murder 200 in Mumbai and................ expect no criticism. I. Muslims behead Western hostages in Iraq, Buddhist monks in Thailand and Christian schoolgirls in Indonesia and.............. expect no criticism. J. Muslims murder 500,000 in Darfur and................. expect no criticism. K. Muslims regard Jews as 'sons of pigs and monkeys', and vow to nuke Israel and................... expect no criticism. L. Muslims force women to wear hideous sacks, stone to death women for getting raped and for leaving the home unescorted, engage in honour killings of sisters and daughters for unapproved dating, and..................expect no criticism. M. Muslims danced in the streets and handed out sweets to their kids to celebrate the 9/11 atrocity, and................... still expected no criticism. N. Since 9/11 Muslims have killed over 26,000 and wounded over 50,000 in terrorist attacks worldwide since 9/11 and................ expect no criticism. Since 9/11 Muslims have committed terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Chad, Chechnya, Dagestan, Denmark, East Timor, Egypt, England, Eritrea, Ethiopia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ingushetia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Jordan-Iraq, Kabardino-Balkans, Kenya, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Gaza-Palestinian Authority, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Somalia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Arab Republic, United States, Uzbekistan and Yemen, and......................... STILL expect no criticism. Muslims have carried out over 5,800 fatal terrorist atrocities since 9/11 and countless thousands since Islamic conquest began in 623 AD and expect no criticism. But if a Pope dares to tell the truth about Islam or Danes publish cartoons about Mohammed, then let the outpourings of Islamic hate and outrage begin. And, by some twisted reach of logic, the arrogant bastards demand the Pope issue an apology. Listen to Newt Gingrich on our "Phoney War." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN9cqtJTvF4&mode=user&search Some of his quotables: --------------------- "We don't have a peace process. We have a surrender process" "We're in a global conflict with a force that wants to destroy us." "We don't reorganize our beaucracies so they are effective." Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il To Go To Top WHAT GOOD ARE THE TREATIES WE SIGNED WITH EGYPT AND JORDAN? Posted by Fred Reifenberg, August 18, 2007. What good are the treaties we signed with Egypt and Jordan? a- to prevent war?....they won't b- to normalize relations between Jews and Arabs?.....they won't c- to cooperate in developing the area for the good of all? Show me some results. We have a state of war with Syria, and there's practically no difference than the state of so called peace with the others. What dream did I miss....PEACE, or maybe piece...........and what about the rest of the world....all over again, with their ignorant, hateful antisemitism, which has existed far too long, and serves no practical purpose except harms helpful relationships. Think of the left and some churches, and mainly Islam clearly stating and proving by actions and words, they wish to conquer the world and make all infidels slaves. This is from Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNationalNews.com). http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/131834 (IsraelNN.com) A Yediot Achronot journalist, who had been covering a music festival was thrown out of a press conference, after she tried to ask a question of one of the performers. The reporter, whom organizers of the press conference did not know was Israeli, stood up to ask a question of Nancy Adjmi, one of the performers of the Jerash Festival. The question was posed in broken Arabic, with the Yediot reporter stating her affiliation and nationality. At that point, witnesses said, a near-riot broke out among other Arabic journalists in the room, and the Yediot reporter left the room, fearing for her life as a mob began advancing on her. "The question was out of place at a time [when] the wound of the Lebanese people is still fresh from the attacks of the Israeli army on Lebanon last year," said a spokesperson for Adjmi, who added that if the Jordanian journalists hadn't intervened by having the Israeli journalist kicked out, [Adjmi] would have left the press conference." Contact Fred Reifenberg by email at freify@netvision.net.il To Go To Top UK LIB. DEMOCRAT JENNY TONGE AT IT AGAIN -- BLAMES ISRAEL FOR EXTREMISM Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 18, 2007. Britain has an endless supply of nutters, Ken Livingstone, George Galloway, Jenny Tonge, the loony left unions, and the list goes on and on. The British are the very last one to talk ... They are the cause of some of the worst problems that the world is facing today.... Their colonies in the past..... and NOW their appeasement to Islamic fascism. This is called "UK peer blames Israel for extremism" and it is by Jonny Paul www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=2&cid=1186557467352&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull An Israeli scholar has firmly rejected comments by controversial UK Liberal Democrat politician Jenny Tonge, who recently accused Israel of driving the Palestinians to their current impoverished situation and claimed that this issue was being used to fuel Islamic extremism. "Ever since 1948, Palestine has been used as a battle cry and a propaganda weapon for Islamists worldwide," she said in a speech in the House of Lords last month. "I have witnessed this in some African countries and, more recently, in Bangladesh. Palestine is what the West does to Muslims. That is the message. The Palestinians have been brought to their knees. A cultured and well-educated society with high skill levels has been reduced to a Third-World country. The statistics are there for all to see." Tonge also alleged that the IDF was disrupting school exams in Nablus, resulting in a generation of illiterate and unskilled Palestinians. "Even education is being destroyed as children are terrorized by raids on their schools," she said, claiming that the products of such a system would be "capable of very little except low-wage labor. The economy cannot be rebuilt unless Israel changes its policies." But Dr. Jonathan Spyer, research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, disputed such assertions, which he said betrayed an "appalling ignorance of Islamist movements. Radical Islam is a political idea, some of whose proponents use the method of terrorism. This idea sees world events as shaped by a struggle between the forces of authentic Islam, and those of the non-believers. It uses a long list of supposed Muslim grievances as a way to mobilize support," he told The Jerusalem Post. He noted that al-Qaida had been formed to overthrow the Saudi Arabian government in opposition to the US presence there in the 1990s. "Al-Qaida hardly mentioned the Palestinian issue prior to 2001." "The idea that this trans-national idea, which feeds off many local issues, is somehow 'traceable' to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and would be settled by the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel -- an outcome which the Islamists in any case reject -- is an absurd one. It's used by people like Tonge in order to hold Israel to blame for radical Islam's war in the West." Baroness Tonge was sacked as a member of Parliament and as the Liberal Democrat spokeswoman in 2004 after expressing support for Palestinian suicide bombers. Daniel Seaman, director of the Israeli Government Press Office, told the Post on Thursday that at a recent meeting in Jericho, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas told Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that the PA could not control Hamas. "Any disruption is down to the extremists of Hamas who are operating in the area. Israel is operating in the area to protect its citizens. If exams are being disrupted, this is unfortunate. However, exams can be retaken. Lives cannot be brought back," Seaman said. Tonge also questioned how things could get better. "The new government talks of rebuilding the economy in Palestine and of getting the Palestinians back to work, which is very welcome, but how will they do that with road blocks, checkpoints and Bantustans divided by settler-only roads?" she asked. "I am not anti-Semitic, but I am appalled by the racist, apartheid state of Israel. I use the word 'apartheid' in its literal sense; it means separation, because that is what is going on." Tonge was challenged by Labour's Lord Parry Andrew Mitchell, who took exception to her labeling of Israel as an apartheid state. "Perhaps we have all forgotten what an apartheid state was like," he said. He added that Israel "has an Arab Minister in the government and in the cabinet. There is no ban on races mixing with each other. If you go to any hospital in Israel, you will see Arabs, Israelis and Druze, whether they are being treated or whether they are doctors and nurses." In particular, the Weizmann Institute, of which I am the UK chairman, has Arabs and Arab professors who mix closely [with Israelis]. 'Apartheid' is a very dangerous word; it has all sorts of meanings, and it is absolutely untrue to say that of Israel." "The family that stones together" by Barbara Sofer http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename= JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1079498072537 which excuses terror as justifiable frustration. British MP Jenny Tonge expressed this attitude, saying she understood Palestinian frustration and suffering, and might blow herself up as well ... [Emphasis added.] Iranian parents and children vacation by pelting Israeli positions with stones in southern Lebanon. As author of Kids Love Israel, Israel Loves Kids, a family travel guide, I'm always eager to get updates of new tourist opportunities in the region. Hence, a recent report forwarded to me by Tom Gross was of particular interest. The Lebanese Daily Star newspaper, in a report by Mohammed Zaatari, described 90 Iranian tourists who had arrived for a family trip to Syria. Among them were lawyers and university professors, their spouses and children. The rule for success in family tourism is to get the kids involved. That usually means limiting lectures and maximizing activities: crawling inside an ancient tunnel instead of hearing about its construction features. And so it was on this family tour to Syria. In an act of ultimate togetherness, the Iranian parents and children gathered to "pelt Israeli positions with stones at the Fatima Gate border during a visit to the Southern region." What fun! Family trips engender strong memories, cherished stories told and retold at family gatherings. I cringe to imagine Iranian families sitting on a couch with their albums, reminiscing about the day they all stood together and stoned the Jews. Among the most frustrating aspect of our conflict is our enemies' eagerness to infect their next generation with hatred and scapegoating. Instead of solving problems, everything that goes wrong in their countries is our fault. We understand that indoctrination is a goal of rigid, totalitarian governments, but the stone-the-Israelis tour didn't take place in a regime-run elementary school. It was a family vacation, with well-healed, university-educated parents. How much more potent is the hate-message when it's inculcated in the family. Even before the current three and a half years of violence, a Venezuelan plastic surgeon who'd arrived in our area on a humanitarian mission to Gaza reported on this indoctrination of hate. The doctor had arrived with a medical team that traveled the Third World to repair cleft palates and disfiguring facial injuries. In Gaza, they'd seen facial scars typical of burns caused from tipped cooking pots in crowded kitchens. But there was one difference. When the surgeons asked how the injury was caused, in every other country the kids reported spilled cooking kettles. In Gaza, even the smallest child claimed that "the Israeli soldier pushed me," even though the scars clearly came from home accidents. The plastic surgeon wondered if the kids had been coached or if they suffered from group hysteria. I've never discovered the answer.   WITH THE sad history of Palestinian parents' encouraging their children to dress up as terrorists, their family album portraits of children in the garb of bombers, the summer camp chants of hate, and the ubiquity of posters honoring mass murderers, need we be surprised that an 11-year-old was dispatched on a murder mission this week? French author and psychiatrist Daniel Sibony, speaking recently at a Jerusalem conference, claimed that terrorists' effective strategy is first to attack brutally, and then to make the West feel guilty for trying to protect itself. We have, for instance, the poor Palestinian syndrome, which excuses terror as justifiable frustration. British MP Jenny Tonge expressed this attitude, saying she understood Palestinian frustration and suffering, and might blow herself up on a bus if she were a Palestinian. This strategy transforms murder into a legitimate form of protest. Even the most vehement espousers of this dangerous doctrine would be hard-pressed to paint those affluent Iranian tourists as the oppressed masses. What they do share with the Palestinians is their determination to pass on anti-Zionism. JENNY TONGE AND HER PAST: http://gabriellegoldwater.com/2004/feb/britishmp2.html Viewpoint: Palestinian suicide attacks By Jenny Tonge MP In Jerusalem The British MP travelled to Israel ... Addresses to use: UK MP Jenny Tonge tonge@cix.co.uk and http://www.jennytonge.org http://gabriellegoldwater.com/2004/jun/15_06.html in the media of MPs Oona King and Jenny Tonge upon their return from a Christian Aid mission. Tonge said of suicide bombers: "If I had to live in that situation..." Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top THINK Posted by Qasim Shahzad, August 18, 2007. HI WHICH U RIGHT IT IS NOT TRUE COZ ISLAM IS A TRUE FAITH IN UR ISLAM U EAT PEG, DRINK, AND FUCKING TO GIRLS, AND THERE IS NO LIMITS OF WOMEN AND MEN, SO ISLAM RESRICT US FOR THESE THINGS COZ THIS IS THE WORNG WAY AND IN UR FAITH U R FREE TO DO THIS......BOTH OF U CHRISTAN AND JWESH SO ISLAM IS THE ONE AND ONLY FAITH WHICH IS THE PURLY NATURAL AND PURE WHO RESTRICT U ANY BAD THING WHICH IS UN NATURAL... AND IF U SAY THAT GOOD IS HAPPY WITH COZ U R DOMINATED AND VERY ADVANCE THEN I SHOULD SAD THAT U LEARN VERY VERY MUCH IN OUR QURA COZ QURAN IS A BOOK WHO PUSH TO HUMAN DO SOME THING AND A BOOK OF HUGE KNOWLEDGE ABOUT EVERY THING BUT MULSIM DOSE NOT LEARN PROPERLY THAT IS THE BIG MISTAKE Qasim Shahzad can be contacted at muhammad_kasim@hotmail.com To Go To Top HE PREDICTED THE TERRORIST ATTACKS -- AND WAS IGNORED Posted by Fred Reifenberg, August 18, 2007. I've added one of my photo creations. It's called Night Driver. A week ago, I was able to attend a dinner with Juval Aviv -- the Israeli agent who the movie "Munich" was about... He was Golda Meir's bodyguard and she appointed him to track down and bring to justice the Palestinian terrorists who took the Israeli athletes hostage and killed them during the Munich Olympic Games. Tonight he shared information that EVERY American needs to know but our government has not shared. His bio is below, his book is "Staying Safe" and I suggest you buy and read it. First, I am going to share what he discussed in regard to the Bush Administration, 9/11 and Iraq and then I will share his predictions for the next attack on the U.S. -- and he predicted the London subway bombing on the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox News stating publicly that it would happen within a week. O'Reilly laughed and mocked him saying that in a week he wanted him back on the show and unfortunately, within a week the terrorist attack occured and Juval Aviv gave intelligence (via what he had gathered in Israel and the Middle East) to the Bush Administration about 9/11 a month before it occured. His report specifically said they would use planes as bombs and target high profile buildings and monuments. The Administration ridiculed him and refused to respond (Congress has since hired him as a security consultant -- but still the Administration does not listen to him). Within a month 9/11 occured. He didn't agree with going into Iraq -- said it didn't make sense if we wanted terrorists responsible for 9/11 (and also he believes in Golda Meir's approach which was to bring justice to the terrorists but do not take down civilians -- killing civilians only creates more terrorists -- but similar to Bush, Israel's subsequent leaders were not as insightful as Golda Meir) -- however, when we did decide to invade Iraq we should have learned from Israel's past mistakes. He very articulately stated that Israel's greatest mistake against their war on terror was to invade the West Bank and Gaza and stay there... He said they should have done the proven anti-terrorist strategy which was "Hit and Leave" instead of "Hit and Stay." Now we are stuck in Iraq and it is worse than Vietnam -- Iraq is the U.S.'s West Bank/Gaza. He doesn't think we will ever be able to truly leave because even when we are able to pull our troops back we will still have to go back regularly which will keep us quagmired. We should have hit hard and left immediately -- or actually, we shouldn't have gone in at all... Now for the scary stuff.... He predicts the next attack on the U.S. is coming within the next few months. Forget hijacking airplanes because he says terrorists will NEVER try and hijack a plane again because the people on the plane will not go down quietly. Aviv believes our airport security is a joke -- we are being reactive versus looking at strategies that are effective. 1) our machines are outdated. They look for metal and the new explosives are made of plastic 2) He talked about how some idiot tried to light his shoe on fire -- we now have to take off our shoes, a group of idiots tried to bring aboard liquid explosives -- now we can't bring liquids on board. He is waiting for some suicidal maniac to pour liquid explosive on their underwear and light up in a plane or in the terminal and then we will all have to travel naked! 3) We only focus on security when people are heading to the gates, he says that if a terrorist attack targets airports in the future, they will target busy times and on the front end when people are checking in. It would be easy for someone to take two suitcases of explosives, walk up to a busy check-in line, ask a person next to them to watch their bags for a minute while they run to the restroom or get a drink (and I have done that for people myself) and then detonate the bags. BEFORE security even gets involved. Israel checks bags before people can enter the airport. Now, back to his predictions: He says the next attack will come in the next few months and will involve suicide bombers and non-suicide bombers in places that people congregate: Disneyland, Las Vegas, Big Cities (NY, SFO, Chicago, etc...) and there it will be shopping malls, subways in rush hour, train stations, casinos, etc.. as well as rural America (Wyoming, Montana, etc...). The attack will be simultaneous detonations around the country (they like big impact) in 5-8 cities including rural areas. They won't need to use suicide bombers because at largely populated places like the MGM Grand in Vegas -- they can simply valet park. He says this is well known in intelligence circles but our government does not want to alarm Americans. However, he also said that Bush will attack Iran and Syria before he leaves office (we are being prepared for that! and I have to wonder if we are not hearing about this impending attack so America will support attacking Iran and Syria?). In addition, since we don't have enough troops Bush will likely use small, strategic nuclear weapons regardless that the headlines the next day will read "US Nukes Islamic World" and the world will be a different place to such an extent that global warming will be irrevelent. These are not conspiracy theories or crazy rantings. This is the man (and we have all heard/read that the Bush Administration was warned about 9/11 prior to it happening) who did the warning. He travels regularly to the Middle East and he knows his stuff. On a good note -- he says we don't have to worry about being nuked -- he says the terrorists who want to destroy America will not use sophisticated weapons -- they like suicide as the frontline approach. He also says the next level of terrorists will not be coming from abroad, but will be homegrown -- having attended our schools and universities -- but will have traveled frequently back and forth to the Middle East. They will know and understand Americans but we won'tunderstand them -- we still only have a handful of Arabic and Farsi speaking people in our intelligence networks and we need that to change he said... What can we do? From an intelligence perspective he says the U.S. needs to stop relying on satellites and technology for intelligence but follow Israel, Ireland and England's example of human intelligence both from an infiltration perspective as well as trust citizens to help. We need to engage and educate ourselves as citizens but our government treats us like babies and thinks we can't handle it and will panic He did a test for Congress recently putting an empty briefcase in 5 major spots in 5 US cities and not one person called 911 or sought a policeman to check it out. In fact, in Chicago -- someone tried to steal it! In Israel an unattended bag or package would be reported in seconds with a citizen shouting "Unattended Bag" and the area cleared slowly, calmly and immediately by the people themselves. concerned.... He also discussed how many children were in preschool and kindergarten after 9/11 without parents to pick them up and theschools did not have a plan. Do you have a plan with your kids, schools and families if you cannot reach each other by phone? If you cannot return to your house? If you cannot get to your child's school -- do they know what to do? We should all have a plan. He said that our government's plan after the next attack is to immediately cut-off EVERYONE's abiltity to use their telephone, cell phone, blackberry because they don't want terrorists to be able to talk to one another -- do you have a plan if you cannot communicate directly with those that you love? Again -- I recommend his book, "Staying Safe" and I also recommend we heighten each other's attention now for the inevitable.... In fact, this week the Today Show began with a segment that Al Qaeda was resurfacing -- the same kind of action on the Pakistani border occurred before 9/11... It is scary, but we do not have panic, we just need to be aware.... Unfortunately, the Bush Administration has not been helpful and we can not change things until 2008. However, remember that when you vote.... Juval Aviv holds an M.A. in Business from Tel Aviv University and is President and CEO of Interfor, Inc., an international corporate intelligence and investigations firm. Juval Aviv is President and CEO of Interfor, Inc. Based in New York with offices around the world, founded in 1979, Interfor provides foreign and domestic intelligence services to the legal, corporate and financial communities and conducts investigations around the world. In addition, Mr. Aviv serves as a special consultant to the U.S. Congress and other policy makers on issues of terrorism, fraud and money laundering. A leading authority on terrorist networks, Mr. Aviv served as lead investigator for Pan Am Airways into the Pan Am 103-Lockerbie terrorist bombing. He was featured in the recent film, Munich, as the leader of the Israeli team that tracked down the terrorists who kidnapped the Israeli Olympic team. Interfor's services encompass corporate due diligence, litigation support, fraud investigations, internal compliance investigations, security and vulnerability assessments. Since its inception, Interfors asset investigation services have recovered over $2 billion worldwide for its clients. Before founding Interfor, Mr. Aviv served as an officer in the Israel Defense Force (Major, retired) leading an elite Commando/Intelligence Unit, and was later selected by the Israeli Secret Service (Mossad) to participate in a number of intelligence and special operations in many countries in the late 1960s and 1970s. While working as a consultant with El Al, Mr. Aviv surveyed the existing security measures in place and updated El Al's security program, making El Al the safest airline in business today. Most recently, Mr. Aviv wrote Staying Safe: The Complete Guide to Protecting Yourself, Your Family, and Your Business,(2004,HarperResource). He has been a guest on ABC Nightline, FOX News, CNN, BBC Newsnight, ZDF (German National Television) and RAI (Italian National Television) and has been featured in numerous articles in major magazines and newspapers worldwide Contact Fred Reifenberg at freify@netvision.net.il To Go To Top NISO, NADIA AND OTHERS Posted by Bryna Berch, August 17, 2007. The Jerusalem Post was as virulently left as the other Israeli news media. Then for a few years it went centrist and slightly even right and then it swung back to its mum-mum position -- on the left. But it's worth reading its remarkable women columnists: Caroline Glick and Sarah Honig. Both write very well, both are articulate, both are sensible, and both have something to say. The media has made much of an intemperate remark made a Bar-Ilan professor just because his daughter and her family were being kicked out (probably illegally) from their home, thanks to Olmert's "Protect an Arab first" policy. Wouldn't you be upset? But why make such a big deal out of it? I've said worse for much less a cause. And the Israeli journalists didn't get upset when Arab MK's made intemperate AND traitorous remarks about Israel to their Arab constituency. But Sarah puts it into perspective by widening the window to examine some of the intemperata on the left. This is by Sarah Honig and it appeared today in the Jerusalem Post www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid=1186557466184&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull Incredibly, some pretty consequential things happened while Israel's left-leaning media rocked and rolled to Prof. Hillel Weiss's discordant and tasteless tunes. The compelling diversion, amplified so assiduously, diminished all else -- even revelations that funds Israel irrationally remitted to the PA were transferred from Fatah's "good terrorists" in Ramallah to Hamas's "bad terrorists" in Gaza. Surely officialdom's folly cannot rival the riveting professor. Never known as prudently diplomatic, Weiss let loose a cacophony of curses when approached by a Ynet reporter after his daughter, son-in-law and six grandkids were forcibly evicted from their Hebron home. Weiss resorted to vocabulary that wouldn't be countenanced by the overwhelming majority of those who deeply deplore the expulsion of Jews only because of their Jewishness from indisputably Jewish property. The fact that said holdings were wrested from a veteran Jewish community by means of unprovoked mass-slaughter, sadism and rape 78 years ago doesn't confer title-deeds on the perpetrators' equally genocidal offspring. The reporter who approached Weiss was no babe in journalism's woods. It's no secret to anyone in the trade that if you're after cutting comments, Weiss is your interviewee. It's no different from seeking out the wildest-eyed most bizarre-looking settler/self-certified rabbi/self-proclaimed messiah to represent the National Camp collectively for credulous news-consumers. The more outlandish the remarks and the more oddball the delivery, the easier to tar an entire serious school of thought and caricature it as lunatic. It's an old ruse but it works only one way. The late Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz is still revered as the Left's towering mentor -- not despite his penchant for characterizing Israeli soldiers as Judeo-Nazis, but precisely because of it. Hebrew University Prof. Moshe Zimmerman likened Jewish youngsters in Hebron to Hitlerjugend, crack Israeli commando units to the Waffen SS, Israeli soccer enthusiasts to Third Reich crowds and even the Bible to Mein Kampf. Former OC Military Intelligence and Ben-Gurion University president Shlomo Gazit equated the crocheted skullcap to Nazi insignia. Israel's effusively liberal academic institutions pride themselves on tolerating free speech, no matter how repulsive. The exception is Bar-Ilan University, Weiss's employer. BIU fired preeminent military historian Dr. Uri Milshtein because he dared criticize Yitzhak Rabin's War of Independence record and even publish (pre-assassination) an in-your-face book about it.   THE TEACHING tenures of those who portray renascent Jewish sovereignty as racist are safeguarded. Only the most vehement post-Zionist excesses are indulged. Different strokes for different universities and different professors. But this isn't exclusively academia's affliction. Israel's chronically amnesiac citizenry managed to totally overlook Lt.-Cmdr. Niso Shaham's recent promotion to the post of Jerusalem District deputy police chief. For those who may have forgotten (not unexpectedly, because tendentious scribblers and broadcasters hardly harped on the issue), here's a brief reminder. During the pre-disengagement mass rally in Kfar Maimon, then-Negev District commander Shaham affected his most macho pose for the TV crew that filmed him, well aware that the orders he barked to several young subordinates would be widely broadcast. That suited him perfectly -- televised exposure might impress the Sharon family of his limitless loyalty to their cause. A hefty professional advancement seemed in the bag. And so hectored Niso for all to hear: "I want arrests and I tell you to use water-cannons unconditionally. Don't call me. Go for the water-cannons. Shit upon them," -- the protesters. "They should burn. Don't reassess -- use water-cannons and clubs. Hit them hard on the lower parts of the body. Work as you know how. I'm an expert in handling these haredim." Niso went on to boast before the entire watching nation that he's braver than his own superiors, who advised him not to charge into Kfar Maimon. Niso's reply: "I'm not some whore who opens her legs and waits for someone to come in. You can bank on my ability to open their [the demonstrators'] legs. I'll f**k their mother's mother. Now go tell your buddies... not just a few beatings. I'm telling you all this to spare you the need to seek authorization." Later, under pressure and to avoid greater repercussions than a feeble reprimand, Niso issued a wan statement of regret, claiming he was overwrought. That -- unsurprisingly -- sufficed last month for a three-justice High Court panel to reject petitions against his new appointment. The petitioners wondered what the reaction would have been were Niso's expletives directed at Arabs rather than haredim. But the court condemned the petitioners for "seeking to ostracize a valued police officer because of one slip of the tongue, for which he tendered apology." Panel-member Justice Ayala Procaccia, incidentally, kept a 14-year-old girl incarcerated without formal charges for 40 days for participating in "an illegal assembly" pre-disengagement. She judged that the child needs "re-education." So much for the fairly balanced scales of justice. Legal equity and press impartiality in this country being what they are, no wonder Niso's promotion failed to generate headlines or enrage the masses. What if Niso shouted his obscenities to fawningly gain attention and attendant favors? What if he ordered wholly unwarranted corporal punishments for folks he was sworn to protect? Niso was a man wielding power, unlike those our opinion-molders relish targeting -- such as Women in Green co-chair Nadia Matar. Her pre-disengagement sin was writing (not screaming on TV) to Disengagement Authority director Yonatan Bassi that his role resembles Judenrat acquiescence to Nazi expulsions of Jews, with the reservation that Judenrat collaborators were coerced. That earned her scathing censure and well-orchestrated odium. She beat moves to prosecute her for her letter, but lower court rulings were overturned on state appeal and she again faces trial. Idealistic Nadia remains abhorred public enemy number-one. Vulgar Niso is the court-approved guardian of democracy and law. To Go To Top SALAAM FAYAD, HERO OF ISRAEL Posted by David Haimson, August 17, 2007. This was written by Caroline Glick and it appeared today in the Jerusalem Post www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=3&cid=1186557474056&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull Sometimes terror doesn't have to pay. Reports last week that Fatah Prime Minister Salaam Fayad had paid the annual salaries of members of Hamas's army in Gaza caused US Congressman Eric Cantor to shoot off a livid letter to Fayad. Cantor, the third-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, had just returned from leading a Republican Congressional delegation to Israel and the Palestinian Authority where he met with Fayad in Ramallah. He wrote: "Without further explanation from you, I will feel compelled... to forewarn my colleagues in the Congress that any visits with your government offer little value toward bringing peace and security to Palestinians and Israelis. Furthermore, I will help lead opposition in Congress to any proposed call for additional US taxpayer dollars being sent to the Palestinian Authority." Cantor has good reason as an American to be angry at Fayad. Hamas forces in Gaza, which are trained and commanded by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, constitute a key member of the axis of global jihad against which the US is fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and throughout the world. By strengthening Hamas, Fayad is not simply harming Israel. He is acting in a manner that strengthens the axis as a whole. And so he is harming US national security interests. In defending his move, Fayad initially claimed that the payment was a regrettable error caused by a computer glitch. In his updated story, Fayad claimed that a Hamas agent in his Ministry of Finance was responsible for the move. Fayad's excuses naturally raise the question: If Fatah opposes Hamas, why are all the names and bank account numbers of Hamas's soldiers conveniently located in Fatah's Ministry of Finance's computer files? Aside from that, it is hard to believe that Fayad objected to paying the jihad forces. Since Hamas took over Gaza in June, Fayad has regularly paid the salaries of Hamas legislators, civil servants in Hamas's government, and Hamas terrorists imprisoned in Israeli jails. Moreover, Fayad's assertions that Fatah opposes Hamas are hardly believable given that Fatah is engaged in intense negotiations with Hamas toward a reunification of their forces. Wednesday, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas stated openly that he seeks to reconcile with Hamas. In his joint press briefing with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso, Abbas called for a "return to national unity." He said, "The split [between Judea and Samaria and Gaza which happened] as a result of Hamas's coup is temporary and will be removed." The fact that Fatah is itself a jihadist terror group also helps explain why it has no problem paying the salaries of Hamas's terror army. The inconvenient truth of Fatah's commitment to terror was brought home this week with the indictment of Fatah legislator and deputy commander of its General Intelligence militia Jamal Tirawi. Tirawi is accused of dispatching the suicide bomber who blew up at the Coffee Shop cafe in Tel Aviv in March 2002. He is also accused of training and commanding other terrorists who carried out suicide and shooting attacks against Israelis. Tirawi's indictment was further evidence that Fatah undermines US interests. As Aaron Klein reported Wednesday in World News Daily, as deputy commander of Fatah's General Intelligence militia, Tirawi held extensive contacts with US Security Coordinator Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton and received US weapons. But of course America is not Fatah's primary victim. IDF forces, which engaged Hamas's army in southern Gaza this week, reported that Hamas today is a much more formidable foe than it ever was before: It fights much like Hizbullah, it has advanced arms and equipment and is organized in disciplined units. Since Fayad paid these forces with funds that Israel transferred to him, it could have been expected that the Olmert government would be joining Cantor in condemning him. But, in yet another sign of the government's strategic dementia, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni rushed to Fayad's defense. Speaking to a visiting delegation of Democratic congressmen, Olmert and Livni insisted that Fayad was telling the truth when he said that his payments to Hamas's army were the result of a computer glitch. As Representative Steny Hoyer told The Jerusalem Post, Olmert, Livni and the US consul general in Jerusalem, Jacob Walles, all "said they believed that this was a clerical, bureaucratic mistake, not a conscious effort to help Hamas. "In light of the fact that Israel's foreign minister, Israel's prime minister and our consul general all agreed on that fact, Mr. Fayad's representations had more credibility with us when we brought it up with him," Hoyer concluded. ON THE most basic level, it is deeply disturbing that Olmert and Livni are acting as Fatah's public relations team. But beyond that, their insistent support for Fatah demonstrates that they fail to understand or reconcile themselves to three basic facts. First, Livni and Olmert show that they are incapable of accepting that Fatah is Israel's enemy. Their commitment to appeasing Fatah and establishing a Palestinian state is so strong, that they cling to it even when Fatah's inherent hostility is staring them in the face. Second, they fail to understand the potential impact of Cantor's letter on US policy toward the Palestinians. In defending Fayad against Cantor's rebuke, Livni and Olmert made clear that for them, there ought not, and indeed, cannot be a US policy toward the Palestinians other than Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's policy of pressuring Israel to give land, money, statehood and guns to the Fatah terror organization. Finally, by supporting Rice's policy of appeasing Palestinian terrorists, Olmert and Livni ignore the fact that both Israel and the US are treating the Palestinian jihad in a manner that completely contradicts the US's strategy for contending with the forces of jihad everywhere else in the world. In stark contrast to the administration's embrace of Fatah and Palestinian statehood, everywhere else in the world, the US works to defeat terrorists and deny them control of territory. The fact that the current US-Israeli policy toward Palestinian terrorists is antithetical to the Bush administration's overall strategy for fighting terror is reason enough to expect that many Americans might not believe that Rice's support for Fatah and Palestinian statehood advances US interests.   ALTHOUGH OLMERT and Livni refuse to see any of this, Rice herself openly acknowledges that hers is not the only possible view of the Palestinian jihad against Israel. Last month, in a conversation with members of Congress, Rice explained that she feels compelled to devote her energies to creating a Palestinian state quickly because she cannot trust that the next administration will see the situation as she does. The strongest voices calling for the US to apply the same policies toward the Palestinians that it applies to terror forces throughout the world are heard in President George W. Bush's own Republican Party. Former New York mayor and Republican presidential frontrunner Rudolph Giuliani has been the strongest Republican voice calling for change. In an article published this week in Foreign Affairs, Giuliani supported Bush's view that the aim of the US war is to destroy both the global terrorist movement and its radical Islamic-fascist ideology. But Giuliani expressed deep misgivings regarding Bush's actual policies, which he believes have been inconsistent and insufficiently strong. Giuliani makes his call for consistency most clearly in his discussion of the Palestinians and Israel. In his words: "Too much emphasis has been placed on brokering negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians -- negotiations that bring up the same issues again and again. It is not in the interest of the United States, at a time when it is being threatened by Islamist terrorists, to assist the creation of another state that will support terrorism." He added, "America's commitment to Israel's security is a permanent feature of our foreign policy." By so couching his argument, Giuliani made clear that, from his perspective, there is no difference between the jihad against Israel and the jihad throughout the world. As a result, in his view, the US should align its policy toward the Palestinians with its policy against jihad everywhere in the world. While Giuliani has been the most candid in his critique of Bush's policy toward the Palestinians, his views are not out of sync with the general tenor of the Republican presidential debate. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former senator Fred Thompson have similarly made clear that they believe the US must be more forthright and consistent in fighting the war.   THE REPUBLICAN debate should be signaling two things to Israel. First, it shows that there is a reasonable chance that in January 2009 Israel will be greeted by a US administration that does not share the Olmert government's enthusiasm for appeasing Palestinian terrorists. Second it indicates that as the 2008 elections draw nearer, the Republican candidates may force Bush to dampen his support for Fatah. Rice may not be able to force her way to the finish line. Here in Israel, after Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu's stunning victory in the Likud leadership primaries Tuesday, we are also moving into pre-election mode. Israeli voters will expect Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the Labor Party leader, and Netanyahu to present their visions of where Israel should be going. Since Barak owes his primary victory to Labor's Arab voters, no one expects him to give up on his commitment to Palestinian statehood. But Netanyahu is a different story. It would make perfect sense for the Likud to base its electoral platform on recognizing that Fatah is Israel's enemy, and by rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state. And Netanyahu is better qualified than any politician to convince Israeli voters to support such a reality-based platform. In addressing Iran's nuclear weapons program, Netanyahu recognized that there is a strong coalition in the US that is eager to act more forcefully to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons than either the Olmert government or the Bush administration. Netanyahu wisely supported these forces and helped them to pressure the administration to intensify its efforts to stop the Iranians. One consequence of that pressure was the administration's decision this week to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization. As Cantor's letter and Giuliani's article make clear, there also is a strong coalition in the US that is willing to recognize that Fatah is a member of the enemy camp and to accept that a terror-supporting Palestinian state would harm US national security interests. Yet, as Steny Hoyer made clear, only Israelis can stand at the helm of such a coalition. Israelis and Americans alike must hope that Netanyahu will embrace his duty to lead that coalition. [Editor's Note: Two comments to the original article in the Jerusalem Post.] 33. If I was deaf, dumb and blind I would have bet my last dollar, if there were any takers in the world. Arthur Rosen -- Canada 08/18/2007 12:28 They are playing the media real good and hoodwinking the world, but the boys are still whacking them good in Gaza and Judea and Samaria as we gaze into real-time cyberspace. HA HA HA. I suspected Abbas would be another Yasser. Fayad proved it. Soon as I saw Fayad's sour punim. I had a feeling. Muslims divide themselves to conquer unlike the romans but just like some other underworld organizations learned to do for MM. One Group makes buddy, buddy by day, and sends the angel of death at night. 28. Fatah and Hamas are playing "good cop, bad cop". The "coop" in Gaza was pre-planned and staged. Mashaal and Abbas cut a deal. Skip Kelley -- USA 08/18/2007 04:11 Abbas said all the right things -- he was very believable -- and we gave him a lot of money. They then paid their soldiers a year's worth of wages and held their mercenary armies together with the money we gave them. They have been "working" us, and we have been really stupid. Mr Olmert, please find the courage to see the world the way it really is. Contact David Haimson at DvHaimson@aol.com To Go To Top ABBAS TO HAMAS: 'RETURN TO NAT'L UNITY' Posted by David Haimson, August 17, 2007. Following conciliatory signals from Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to Hamas, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office warned Wednesday night that any Fatah-Hamas unification would lead to a breakdown in the diplomatic process with the reconstituted PA. Speaking to reporters after a meeting in Ramallah with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso, Abbas -- for the first time since Hamas's takeover of Gaza in June -- seemed to soften his stance toward the Islamist movement, calling on it to "return to national unity." Abbas's remarks were interpreted by Palestinians as an appeal to Hamas to resume talks with his Fatah faction. Hamas immediately welcomed Abbas's statements and invited him to talk to the movement's leaders in the Gaza Strip. "The split that happened [between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip] as a result of Hamas's coup is temporary and will be removed," Abbas said. "The Palestinian people are opposed to this separation because we want a united and independent Palestinian state." Abbas said he would continue to work toward reuniting the Palestinians. "We will also continue to support our people in the Gaza Strip, because this is our responsibility," he said. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said in a statement that any Fatah-Hamas unification would lead to a breakdown of the diplomatic process, and that the PA chairman was "well aware" of this position. Olmert, according to his office, told Abbas as much at their meeting last week in Jericho, and government officials have said that the progress Israel had made with the PA over the last two months would end if Hamas once again joined the government. Israeli officials quoted Abbas as telling Olmert at their meeting that he would not conduct a dialogue with Hamas, despite pressure from a number of Arab countries to do so. In another sign of rapprochement between Hamas and Fatah, the Fatah-controlled PA security forces in Bethlehem released nine Hamas members on Wednesday who were arrested last month on suspicion of trying to establish an armed Hamas group in the West Bank. Farid al-Atrash, a lawyer representing the Hamas detainees, said a PA court ordered their release, and that the court's decision was endorsed by PA Prime Minister Salaam Fayad. A Hamas spokesman in Gaza City welcomed Abbas's remarks as "positive" and expressed hope that the PA chairman would visit the Gaza Strip for talks with Hamas leaders on ways of resolving the crisis. Abbas's conciliatory remarks come amid reports that Fatah and Hamas are holding secret talks. Sources close to Hamas said several Arab and Islamic countries were involved in mediation efforts. The sources said the Hamas leadership in Syria was conducting secret negotiations with some senior Fatah leaders over ways of ending the dispute before Ramadan, which begins in mid-September. Meanwhile, Abbas, at the press conference with Aso, thanked Japan for providing the Palestinians with $20 million in financial aid. The Japanese minister announced that his government was planning to give half of the sum directly to the PA and the other half as humanitarian aid. Following the meeting in Ramallah, Aso went to Jericho for a meeting with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, PA negotiator Saeb Erekat and Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdelelah al-Khatib to discuss a proposed joint economic project. At the meeting, heavy on symbolism but short on substance, the leaders agreed to hold a meeting of experts in October to push the project forward. The Japanese-initiated plan is to set up an agro-industrial park in the Jordan Valley, with goods and products from that park to be transported to a Jordanian distribution center for shipment to the rest of the Arab world. During the meeting at the city's Intercontinental Hotel, Livni said the park would contribute to the development of an "independent and viable Palestinian economy." She said that this project could open a potentially huge market for the PA in the Arab world. Erekat, meanwhile, told reporters after the meeting: "This is not a substitute for a meaningful peace process between the two parties that will lead to a two-state solution." Contact David Haimson at DvHaimson@aol.com To Go To Top AN EMAIL FROM A JEWISH FEDERATION CEO TO ME, AND MY RESPONSE Posted by Buddy Macy, August 17, 2007. Below -- the email I received from the Chief Executive Officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston, Lee Wunsch, followed by my response. Aug 14, 2007 Buddy -- I just picked up your voice mail message regarding Federations and Sederot.[ed. note: Sderot] ...Before you make accusations about what Federations are not doing for the people of Sederot, I suggest you get your facts right. Click on this link to read about the several million dollars that have been allocated to Sederot. [ATTENTION: Please do not open the link, below: my computer received a virus threat alert upon clicking on it. To obtain the information from the link, go to ujc.org. -- bm] http://ujc.org/local_includes/downloads/19260.doc Lee Wunsch Chief Executive Officer Jewish Federation of Greater Houston 5603 S. Braeswood Blvd. Houston, TX 77096 Office: 713-729-7000, ext. 303 Mobile: 713-826-2785 Fax: 713-721-6232 Email: lwunsch@houstonjewish.org Dear Lee, I clicked on the link within your email, but there was a virus detected. I started reading some of it before losing the attachment ($1.55 million for summer camps, etc.). I am extremely disappointed with your response to my voice message. Instead of looking at the big picture, you were defensive, acting as if my complaints were inaccurate, unwarranted and frivolous. Sderot has been a target of rocket attacks from Gaza for seven years. During the past several months, the frequency of attacks has intensified dramatically. The lives of its residents are at risk. Yet, there is a dreadfully inadequate number of fully functioning bomb shelters in the city! Tragically, there have been several deaths from the attacks, as well as more than a few injuries. Beyond the physical pain and destruction, is the pervasive emotional toll the terror is taking. THOUSANDS of the city's residents have been psychologically traumatized. Several weeks ago, I watched ten of the children from Sderot perform in a play about the terrible situation in the city, including the constant warning sirens, the 15-second rush to safety, etc. At the end of the performance, all of the girls started crying; they had to go back to Sderot the next day, and once again become human targets! Several million dollars is NOTHING to UJC; especially, compared to the several HUNDRED million raised through the IEC (to help victims of the war, including -- and significantly so -- the people of Sderot!!!)! UJC is giving peanuts to the people of Sderot; you should be embarrassed by its relative inaction and silence. Besides giving relatively nothing to help Sderot businesses and for the repair of destroyed homes and community facilities, UJC is doing practically nothing to lessen the risk or ease the suffering of the men, women and children of Sderot. Taking the kids on a camping outing for a week or two just doesn't cut it!!! On the other hand... The Evangelical Christian community, under the stewardship of Ben Kinchlow and Earl Cox, has embarked on a 16 MILLION DOLLAR CAMPAIGN TO HELP SAVE JEWISH LIVES. Working with Operation LifeShield (http://operationlifeshield.com/), its goal is to supply DOZENS OF TRANSPORTABLE BOMB SHELTERS to Sderot and other towns in the western Negev. (Please see: http://www.charleston.net/news/2007/jul/22/ local_advocate_promote_bomb_shelters_is11069/ and http://www.israelalways.org/press.html.) I am extremely grateful to Ben, Earl, Jodie Anderson and the Christian community for their tireless work on behalf of the Jews at risk in Israel. Where is UJC???? [Editor's Note: Or read about LifeShield below by clicking here.] In addition to its lack of support for the people of Sderot, why is UJC not demanding that the Israeli Government order the IDF to destroy the enemy in Gaza? No other country in the world would absorb more than one rocket attack, before acting to eliminate the threat and the risk to its citizens and property. Through its silence -- its tacit acceptance of the Israeli Government's inaction -- UJC is aiding and abetting the loss of life in the Negev. It is time we secure Jewish leaders in America who have the moral courage and sechel (Yiddish for "g ood sense; common sense; judgment; good understanding") to act appropriately. Shame on UJC and the Conference of Presidents. Lee, speak out now, or remain a part of the problem. Most sincerely, Buddy Macy 973-785-0057 Contact Buddy Macy by email at vegibud@gmail.com To Go To Top STEP 1: TROOPS LEAVE IRAQ -- STEP 2: JIHAD WAVE SPREADS FAR AND WIDE Posted by UCI, August 17, 2007. This was written by Peter Wehner and it appeared on the Townhall.com website. Peter Wehner, former deputy director to the President, is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. As we approach next month's report by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, the debate about Iraq will intensify. One key point of discussion will be a threshold question: How important is Iraq in the larger war against Islamic extremism? Is Iraq a central battleground in the fight against jihadists, or a distraction? Many leading political figures seem to believe Iraq is almost incidental to the wider struggle. In the August 7 Democratic debate in Chicago, for example, Senator Barack Obama said this: "I want us to fight on the right battlefield, and what that means is getting out of Iraq and refocusing our attention on the war that can be won in Afghanistan." In a June 3 debate, Governor Bill Richardson said he would "move them [troops from Iraq] to Afghanistan to fight al Qaeda." And in the June 14 issue of The Politico, we read this: "[Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid again told Bush that it was 'time to transition the mission in Iraq' in order to refocus attention on Iran and, more specifically, Afghanistan, which both Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have called the real central battlefront in the war on global terror." The problem with this view is it constitutes wishful thinking of a high order. Whether we like it or not, whether we wish it were the case or not, Iraq is a central battleground in the war against Islamic extremists. The jihadists, and al Qaeda in particular, have made it so. They have declared their intentions time and again -- and they have backed up their intentions with savagery. Osama bin Laden has himself said, "The most important and serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War, which the Crusader-Zionist coalition began against the Islamic nation. It is raging in the land of the two rivers. The world's millstone and pillar is in Baghdad, the capital of the caliphate." Bin Laden has also said this: "The whole world is watching this war and the two adversaries; the Islamic nation, on the one hand, and the United States and its allies on the other. It is either victory and glory or misery and humiliation." And this: "I would like to tell you that the war is for you or for us to win. If we win it, it means your defeat and disgrace forever as the wind blows in this direction with God's help." And this (in a message to Muslims in Iraq): "This is a war of destiny between infidelity and Islam." Ayman al-Zawahiri, the ideological leader of al Qaeda, has put these conflicts within a larger context. In his words, "The war with Israel is not about a treaty, a cease-fire agreement... national zeal, or disputed borders. It is rather a jihad for the sake of God until the religion of God is established. It is jihad for the liberation of Palestine, all Palestine, as well as every land that was a home for Islam, from Andalusia to Iraq. The whole world is an open field for us." And in a letter to the late leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, the Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Zawahiri wrote this: "So we must think for a long time about our next steps and how we want to attain it, and it is my humble opinion that the jihad in Iraq requires several incremental goals: The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq. The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or emirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate -- over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq ... The third stage: Extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq. The fourth stage: It may coincide with what came before: the clash with Israel, because Israel was established only to challenge any new Islamic entity." We are dealing with an enemy that believes, in the words of bin Laden, "Death is better than living on this earth with the unbelievers among us." The al-Qaeda Charter, for all its malevolence, has the virtue of clarity. It states, "there will be continuing enmity until everyone believes in Allah. We will not meet [the enemy] halfway and there will be no room for dialogue with them." As if to reinforce the point, an al-Qaeda training manual says this: "Islam does not coincide or make a truce with unbelief, but rather confronts it. The confrontation that Islam calls for with these godless and apostate regimes, does not know Socratic debates, Platonic ideals nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine-gun." We best take them at their word. Iraq and Afghanistan are separate theaters in a larger global struggle. The United States can leave Iraq before a decent outcome is attained -- but if we do, the wider war will not end; it will only intensify -- but with the United States in a substantially weaker situation. An American defeat in Iraq would reinforce the impression among jihadists that the United States is the "weak horse," that when bloodied we will flee, and that in the end, their will is simply stronger than ours. And if the critics have their way and deny General Petraeus the time he needs to help bring about a decent outcome in Iraq, the jihadists will be right. UCI -- The Unity Coalition for Israel (http://www.israelunitycoalition.org) -- is "the largest worldwide coalition of Jewish and Christian organizations, with more than 200 groups representing millions of people dedicated to Israel. Though we have many different backgrounds, we have one common goal: A Safe and Secure Israel." "Israel is not just a Jewish issue. Millions of Christians resolutely endorse the principle of peace with security for the state of Israel. Because we work closely together and speak with a united voice, our message is being heard!" To Go To Top WOULD ISRAELI CONCESSIONS DISMANTLE THE SYRIA-IRAN AXIS? Posted by Yoram Ettinger, August 17, 2007. Enclosed you'll find the 206th edition of "Straight From The Jerusalem Cloakroom", which examines the proposition that a giveaway of the Golan Heights would ostensibly pacify Syria, dismantle the Syria-Iran axis and moderate the Mideast. The two previous editions examined the "Impact of the proposed Palestinian State upon vital US interests" and the proposition that the Palestinian issue is, supposedly, the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Should you wish to review previous editions and OpEds on issues of national security and overseas investment in Israel, please visit The Ettinger Report: http://yoramettinger.newsnet.co.il. Shabbat Shalom and may we heed a lesson of this week's portion of the Torah ("Shoftim"), comparing human beings to trees, and urging mankind to be as humble and as appreciative of roots as are trees, Yoram The assumption that an Israeli giveaway of the Golan Heights would pacify Syria, dismantle the Syria-Iran axis and moderate the Mideast is intriguing, but is it consistent with Mideast reality? 1. SYRIA'S ALLIANCE WITH IRAN HAS BEEN STRATEGIC, LONG-TERM AND NOT TACTICAL, SHORT-TERM. It constitutes the most critical element in Damascus' national security policy, internally and externally, regionally and globally, financially and commercially, militarily and diplomatically. UNLIKE THE TACTICAL NATURE OF THE GOLAN HEIGHTS, the Syria-Iran axis relates directly to the very survival of the Ba'th regime in Damascus. 2. DAMASCUS' TOP NATIONAL SECURITY PRIORITIES are bolstered by its ties with Shite Iran, which shares most of Damascus' priorities: (a) Buttressing the DOMESTIC power base of the minority Alawite Ba' th regime, which is oppressing the Sunni majority; (b) Enhancing Syria's posture in LEBANON, which is perceived as western Greater Syria; (c) Expanding their collaborative anti-US terrorism in IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN, aiming also to dislodge US presence in the PERSIAN GULF; (d) Supporting Syria in its conflict with TURKEY over the future of the Hatay/Iskandrun region (claimed by Syria) and over the Euphrates water; (e) Advancing Syrian INTER-ARAB leadership aspirations, especially versus historical rival, IRAQ; (f) Facilitating a potential Syrian control of JORDAN, which it perceives as southern Greater Syria; (g) Strengthening Syrian GLOBAL clout vis a vis Russia, the US, China and W. Europe; (h) Improving Syrian financial position and providing credit for some of its MILITARY ACQUISITIONS; (i) Supplying Syria advanced military systems and dual-use technologies; (j) Expanding and upgrading Damascus' TERRORIST NETWORK. 3. DAMASCUS' TOP PRIORITIES ARE IRRESPECTIVE OF THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT, the Palestinian issue, the settlements policy, Israel's overall policy, a Golan Heights giveaway or Israel's existence. 4. A SYRIA-IRAN STRATEGIC COOPERATION agreement was concluded on July 19, 2007 as a follow up to a March 10, 2007 protocol on defense cooperation: $1BN Iranian aid to acquire 400 T-72 Russian tanks, 18 Mig-31s, 8 Sukhoi bombers and Mi-8 helicopters; Iranian plants to be built in Syria for the production of medium range missiles and missile launchers; supply of Iranian surface-to-surface missiles, tanks and armored personnel carriers; training of Syrian military personnel in Iran; transfer of Iranian nuclear and chemical technologies (the reliable Al-Sharq Al-Awsat daily, London, July 21, 2007). 5. A SYRIA-IRAN STRATEGIC COOPERATION agreement was concluded in June 2006 in the footsteps of the Feb. 2006 8th session of the Higher Iran-Syria Joint Commission: Iranian funding of Syrian military purchases from Russia, China and Ukraine; training of Syrian navy personnel in Iran; Iranian military aid to Hizballah via Syria. For more data on the Syria-Iran axis, please see Turkish Weekly, Aug. 15, 2007. 6. HIGH LEVEL SYRIA-IRAN MEETINGS have recently taken place in the areas of military, intelligence, ideology, diplomacy, espionage, dual-use technology, science, industry, infrastructures, agriculture, etc. 7. A GOLAN HEIGHTS GIVEAWAY would feed Syrian strategic goals, enhancing Syrian regional profile, enabling Damascus to redeploy a few armored mechanized divisions away from the Golan to the Jordanian and Turkish frontier, thus undermining vital US interests. DISMANTLING THE STRATEGIC DAMASCUS-TEHERAN AXIS would require Syria to ignore its top national security priorities, threatening the survival of the Ba'th regime. It would require Syria to stop being Syria. P.S. Randy Travis: "I've got some oceanfront property in Arizona, and if you'll buy that, I'll throw the Golden Gate in for free." Ambassador Yoram Ettinger is a consultant on US-Israel relations as well as the Chairman of Special Projects at the Ariel Center for Policy Research. Formerly the Minister for Congressional Affairs to Israel's Embassy in Washington, DC, Ettinger also served as Consul General of Israel to the Southwestern US. He is a former editor of Contemporary Mideast Backgrounder, and is the author of the Jerusalem Cloakroom series of reports. Contact him at yoramtex@netvision.net.il To Go To Top OLMERT TEAM NEGOTIATING OUTLINE OF FLYING ELEPHANT Posted by Dr. Aaron Lerner, August 17, 2007. "Phase II starts after Palestinian elections and ends with possible creation of an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders...through a process of Israeli-Palestinian engagement, launched by the international conference." This is called "A Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (aka the Roadmap)" and it was first published April 30, 2003. It would appear that the Olmert team is already hard at work negotiating the outline of a sovereign Palestinian state with the goal being to work out the broad brush strokes in time for the international conference this autumn. This at a time that it is ever more clear just how incredibly dangerous it would be to inject a sovereign Palestinian state into the neighborhood. Outlining the details of a viable, stable and peaceful Palestinian state is no more a realistic an exercise today than debating the configuration of wing inserts for an elephant. Neither can fly. But the problem is that while no one is going to stake anyone's life on Dumbo's avionic viability, this is hardly the case with regard to the discussions of a sovereign Palestinian state. To make matters worse, the Roadmap provides for the possibility of this flying Dumbo state before final status issues are finalized and without necessarily even requiring Israel's consent (through the use of a novel phrase to describe the process: Israeli-Palestinian "engagement" rather than "negotiations"). While it is certainly possible that the entire exercise ends up with nothing more than some photo ops to serve the interests of the participants in other venues it would be irresponsible to ignore the potential of this process to foist a flying Dumbo state on the Jewish People. This is no time for complacency. Dr. Aaron Lerner is Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis). Contact him by email at imra@netvision.net.il and visit the website -- http://www.imra.org.il To Go To Top OHIO STATE PROFS GO "TRUTHER" Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 17, 2007. This was written by Patrick Poole and it appeared today in Front Page Magazine www.FrontPageMagazine.com (www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=E3E12C47-9FB7- 47B8-9AB7-8DDD98B05B92). Patrick Poole is an author and public policy researcher. He also maintains a blog, "Existential Space," where he writes on a number of cultural, political and religious issues. Two of The Ohio State University's most prominent scholars demonstrated how low higher education has sunk by appearing at a panel on "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid by Jimmy Carter" co-sponsored by a local group that promotes the view that the World Trade Center towers were not brought down by two terrorist-controlled planes on 9/11, but through a nefarious US government-controlled conspiracy. One of the Ohio State scholars, John Mueller, the Woody Hayes Chair for National Security Studies, might be familiar to readers from a FrontPage article last year, "Ohio State Prof: What Terrorist Threat?", and for his book published last November, Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them, where he argues that al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist organizations pose no danger to America because the odds of being killed in a terrorist attack are greater than being struck by a meteoroid. The other Ohio State scholar on this panel, John Quigley, is currently the Presidents' Club Professor of Law at the Moritz College of Law. A Harvard-educated scholar on the Soviet Union and comparative law, he has now adopted the Palestinian cause as a focus of his studies and identifies Western intervention as the cause of the present troubles in the Middle East. In a 2006 Florida Law Review article, he finds that Osama bin Laden is really an anti-colonial fellow traveler: "Bin Laden framed his anti-United States arguments in the language of Islam, but he was voicing the same anti-colonialist sentiments that had been directed against France and Britain in the early 20th Century." And in a 2005 Hastings International and Comparative Law Review article, Quigley argues that negotiation and diplomacy between Israel and the Palestinians is outmoded, and that a solution should be imposed on the Israelis in accordance with his interpretation of international law: "The displaced Palestinians should not have to lobby for their right of return vis-à-vis Israel or vis-à-vis the Palestinian leadership. The right is guaranteed by human rights norms. Just as a state that tortures is obliged to desist without being cajoled and without negotiation, so a state that refuses to repatriate is obliged to desist, namely, by repatriating." The panel held at Ohio State was co-sponsored by Columbus 9/11 Truth, an organization that also recently sponsored the all-day Truth Film Festival, which screened several 9/11-related documentaries, culminating in previews of 9/11 Press for Truth and Improbable Collapse: The Demolition of Our Republic, films described by a local paper with the following premises: These pictures have been cannily selected to lay the groundwork for the more controversial claims in the festival's last two entries: 9/11 Press for Truth, which suggests a government cover-up after the World Trade Center disaster, and Improbable Collapse: The Demolition of Our Republic, which tries to scientifically prove that the buildings could not have been brought down by two jet planes alone. The other primary co-sponsor for the Ohio State panel was the Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which provided the two additional panel participants: Ahmad Al-Akhras, the CAIR national vice chairman, who moderated the event; and Abukar Arman, CAIR-OH board member who joined Mueller and Quigley on the discussion panel. Both men have been the subjects of recent FrontPage profiles: Al-Akhras for his vocal support of convicted and deported terrorists ("Hometown Jihad: Getting By with a Little Help From His (Terrorist) Friends"); and Arman, for his published support of terrorist organizations ("Hometown Jihad: The Somali Terror Apologist Next Door"), which resulted in his removal from a Central Ohio Homeland Security oversight board ("Terrorist Sympathizer Tossed from Homeland Security Panel"). A subsequent CAIR press release stated that 90 people attended the event. When examining the writings of both Mueller and Quigley, it is easy to see why they would find common cause with fringe groups like Columbus 9/11 Truth and CAIR-OH. That both men hold prominent endowed positions at Ohio State (my alma mater) gives proof that academic freedom is alive and well on our college campuses. And so is academic extremism. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top FROM ISRAEL: DUPLICITY, DUPLICTY Posted by Arlene Kushner, August 17, 2007. News has broken that Olmert and Abbas have been meeting to work out a framework for the "core" issues of refugees, Jerusalem and borders before the conference proposed by Bush takes place in November. This ran first in Yediot Ahronot, which cited sources close to Abbas. This is the same Olmert, you understand, who said he would not discuss these issues yet. And, of course, he's talking to Abbas, who promised he'd have nothing to do with Hamas and yet is meeting with them. It's Abbas's growing interaction with Hamas that takes the edge of this whole business, because it seems likely to make everything fall apart. PA prime minister Fayyad has denied the Yediot Ahronot report. He says there are no "backchannel" negotiations, although core issues are beginning to be discussed. According to YNet, in his meeting with Hoyer and other Congressman in the delegation this week, Olmert said that an agreement, which was in the works, would not be implemented yet. In truth, even if they are talking, it is highly unlikely that Abbas and Olmert are close to an agreement that could be implemented. Abbas will hold out for his terms. Even the maximum Olmert might offer would not be something Abbas could sell to his people, especially as they have become more radicalized under Hamas influence: control of eastern Jerusalem, return to pre-'67 lines and right of return remain sacred principles for the Palestinians. It is a mistake to think that Abbas will moderate in negotiations. It was Arafat's refusal to budge on issues of refugees and Jerusalem that halted the negotiations in 2000, in spite of the huge package Barak was offering; and, which is little noted, Arafat's deputy, Mahmoud Abbas was at his side making the same demands. I do not believe a Palestinian state will evolve from this. But I think it heads us in a bad and dangerous direction that sets worrisome precedents and diminishes Israeli rights. In the short-run, it also creates security risks. As Aaron Lerner points out, this is no time for complacency. We must be on our guard for dangerous possibilities. http://imra.org.il/story.php3?id=35679 The irony here -- and it's a bitter irony -- is that Abbas and company have done absolutely nothing to merit this sort of negotiation that we're in such a rush to offer. Abbas's biggest achievement is not being Hamas. ~~~~~~~~~~ According to a Peace Index poll taken in July, 53% of Israelis are opposed to substantial withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, even if major settlement blocs are kept in place. ~~~~~~~~~~ US Under-Secretary of State Burns, who is here, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Israel, to provide us with a military package worth an unprecedented $30 billion over 10 years. This was designed, at least in part, to buy us off with regard to the military aid that the US proposes providing to Saudi Arabia, as well as to promote a qualitative military edge for Israel. Meetings are being held between Israeli and US officials to determine what Israel will be permitted to buy from the US (money given goes towards buying this equipment -- over 75% must go back to the US in purchases) and what the Saudis will be prevented from purchasing. Aaron Lerner has made the comment that Egypt is doing a substantial weapons build-up that can only be aimed at Israel, and that this should also be taken into consideration. ~~~~~~~~~~ Please know that there is likely to be a hiatus in these postings of some four days. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info To Go To Top RUSSIAN NAVAL PORT IN GAZA? Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, August 17, 2007. Recently Hamas in Gaza announced the formation of a "Naval Unit", despite the fact that they have no Navy. Russia is desperately looking for a Naval port in the Meditteranean, to challenge American control of the seas, among other reasons. Syria has an older port used by the Soviets years ago and, no doubt, will upgrade to today's standards for the new Russia in the Syrian cities of Tartus and Latakia. A Russian port in Syria is vulnerable to any Syrian-Israeli war, as it is part of the Syrian military infrastructure. A port in Gaza is less vulnerable as everyone will know it belongs to Russia. Of course, Russian troops, missiles and tanks would be stationed there "to protect the port". And, of course, Hamas terrorist infrastructure would be built up adjoining the Russia port, to shield Hamas from Israeli attack. Russia has already established a sea presence in Lebanon, using Russian Chechen Muslims, calling them engineers but, in fact, establishing a deeper working relationship with the Muslim Arab Palestinian Jihadists. Obviously, it would be in America's interest to have Israel immediately bomb the coast of Gaza (as part of the war on terror and Al Qaeda infiltration into Gaza), to establish that area as an American target -- before the Russians build a port there. They can then pay the Israelis to retake the Gaza Strip -- before the Russians establish a sea presence, using Gaza as another port -- in addition to the one in Syria. If the Israelis just retake Gaza, world pressure could make them give it up again. If Israel bombs Gaza -- with the permission of America and so that everyone knows that Gaza is an American target -- then the Israelis will be thanked for "doing America's job on the ground", which saves American lives as well. Putin's Russia has always wanted a strong presence in the Mediterranean Sea which will cause America enormous problems, especially since Putin seems to be returning to his KGB Cold War days with some modifications. No doubt, Putin would also like to return to the previous Soviet position with Egypt before American aid pushed them out of favor. The Port of Alexandria could start receiving "friendly" visits for Russian shipping, especially when Mubarak inevitably loses control to the Muslim Brotherhood. In brief, between an incompetent Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the Administration of President George W. Bush, with too low a vision of its crucial importance, the Mediterranean Sea could become home to a Russian fleet. The big question is: Will America be able to act fast enough? Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). Contact him at gwinston@gwinston.interaccess.com To Go To Top AS LONG AS THEY ARE KEPT IN CHECK Posted by Zeev Shemer, August 17, 2007. The fable goes something like this: A scorpion (an Arab) once asked a frog (a Jew) to help him cross over to the other side of the river. The frog, not being a fool refused, saying, "what if you suddenly decide to sting me?" "That is foolish," answered the scorpion, "I would also drown and then I would never be able to reach the other side." The frog not feeling as threatened acceded to help the scorpion out. Half way down the river the scorpion stung the frog. As the poison began killing the frog it turned to the scorpion in amazement and asked why it had done such a thing. "I can't help it; after all, I am scorpion" it replied. Arabs or I should say Muslims are very fragmented throughout the world, especially in the Middle East. Most of these groups are involved in violent murderous sprees one against the other. The Sunnis kill Shiites, the Kurds kill Sunnis, Lebanese kill "Palestinians", Hamas kills Fattah, Hezbollah kills Arab Christians, and the same type of rivalry occurs among the Saudis, Yemenites, Turks, Serbs, Chechnyans, African Muslim tribes and others. Arabs kill Arabs, but Israeli leftists expect they will come to like Jews (sic) and that is why Israel they say must concede to Arab demands. Olmert, Barak and company strive day-in and day-out to turn scorpions into frogs. The unsettled debate of nature versus nurture cannot and should not be played out in Israel, where the price in blood for both Jews and Arabs has been so steep. There is nothing romantic, moral, ethical, supreme, nor commendable about the current government's behavior in Israel. The blunt support of Arab causes, the expulsion of Jews from their homes and businesses, the appointment of Arabs to positions of power such as the directorship of the Jewish National Fund, the Western Galilee Hospital, etc. are guilt-ridden and futile attempts to change the nature of the scorpion. The Israeli left did not protest the grotesque military and financial support of Russia to Iran; The enormous military sale of weapons and technology from the US to Saudi Arabia, the UN's blind eye in Lebanon while Hezbollah rearms. The truth is not all Israelis believe Arabs will become friends of the Jews. Most probably understand that a scorpion will always be a scorpion, but the leadership has the support from the hundreds of thousands of Israelis whose primary concern is to prevent Israel from becoming a Theocracy. Their paranoia is so extreme that they will empower their bitter Arab enemies as long as religious Jews are kept in check. More Arab terrorists are set to go free from Israeli jails. More money will be funneled into the PA and the Hamas led system in Gaza. More funds will be lost in the support of terrorists such as Abbas and all in the name of compromise and "peace". All of this, as long as religious Jews are kept in check. In Israel Arabs will continue to build without permits anywhere and everywhere they please. Rockets will continue to fall; rocks, shootings and stabbings will not end. Jewish cities and towns will continue to overflow with Arabs, and Israelis who foresee the chaotic future ahead will continue to beg for visas out of here. "We can change the nature of a scorpion! We are Israelis, there is nothing we cannot do" that is this government's foolish message, and so the mistake of Oslo, of Gaza, of Jericho of Jordan and Egypt withdrawals will continue. The solution is to separate from these fools, to create an independent Judean State in the West Bank. Sounds crazy? It might, but is there an alternative? Christians came up with the unnatural concept of turning the other cheek; ironically it is the liberal Jew who has master such an un-Jewish art; whatever it takes as long as the religious Jews are kept in check. Contact Ze'ev Shemer by email at zeev.shemer@yahoo.com To Go To Top PRIVATE LAND BOUGHT FOR JEWS BELONGS TO JEWS Posted by Morton A. Klein and Irwin Hochberg, August 17, 2007. The JNF has a contract with its Jewish donors. There has been criticism of the clear decision of Israel's democratically-elected Knesset, voting overwhelmingly, by a margin of 64 votes to 16, to approve the first reading of a bill reaffirming that all lands belonging to the Jewish National Fund (JNF) should continue to be leased to Jews, in accordance with the terms of its charter. We agree with the Knesset and reject the critics who regard it as unacceptable that the JNF should be able to allocate its land to Jews only. Their criticism misconceives the function and purpose of the JNF, a body funded by private donations to purchase and develop land for Jewish settlement. The critics do not seem to understand that JNF land is private land, not state-owned public land. For over 100 years, Jews from around the world put their small change and small bills into the well-known blue and white JNF boxes in homes, schools and synagogues. Jews understood there was a sacred promise that their money would buy land in Eretz Yisrael for Jews to emigrate there and build a Jewish state in our ancient, Biblical homeland, where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lived, and where Kings David and Solomon once ruled. This was the contract, the promise, the covenant between the JNF and the Jewish people. During its century-long existence, from the time of Turkish and later British rule, the JNF has been involved in the legal purchase and reclamation of 250,000 acres of largely uninhabited, malaria-ridden swamp lands and desert that no one wanted or could live on. The JNF eliminated disease, rendered the land fit for habitation and agriculture, planted 220 million trees and built many reservoirs. There is increasing pressure now to lease parts of this private land (constituting about 10% of Israel) to Israeli Arabs, although they already have the right to lease public Israeli state land (about 70% of Israel, the remainder, like JNF land, being in private ownership). We disagree. No one would dream of telling private land owners like the Catholic Church or the Muslim Wakf to whom they can lease their land. Moreover, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported on "some cases where Jews attempted to move into non-Jewish neighborhoods... that have been vigorously protested by non-Jews, saying they should be allowed to maintain ethnically and culturally distinct communities." It seems clear that this JNF contract with its Jewish donors must be respected. That's why the Knesset voted to reaffirm that all private JNF land continue to be leased to Jews. Additionally, there are many laws, institutions and practices in Israel that we all support that promote and protect the Jewishness of the state, such as the Aliyah laws, the Jewish education in schools, the Jewish-starred flag and the national anthem, Hatikvah, which speaks of the Jewish soul. As Philadelphia's Jewish Exponent editorialized, "The land in question is not mere real estate. JNF property is the inheritance of the entire Jewish people.... JNF policies should stand." In the late 1800s, the Jews rejected settling in Uganda because it lacked any historic or religious connection to Jews. The Exponent added, "JNF's task is building homes for a nation that has no other haven." Indeed, Holocaust survivors, former Soviet and Ethiopian Jews, Argentinean and French Jews, and Jews from Arab countries are among the millions of persecuted and oppressed Jewish immigrants who have come to Israel. q Those who say the above Knesset law proves that Arabs suffer discrimination in Israel are speaking nonsense. Like Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs are members of the cabinet, Knesset and law courts; they are consul-generals and attend Israeli colleges, medical and law and graduate schools. They have full voting rights, citizenship, medical insurance and pension plans. One of the few differences is that they are not required to perform military service, but that is hardly a case of discrimination; rather, it shows great sensitivity to Israeli Arabs. In fact, if the Blacks of South Africa had enjoyed the same rights as the Arabs in Israel, discrimination would never have been a serious issue there. It is also surprising that those organizations opposed to this bill are not on record in condemning genuine racism and discrimination in the practices of many Arab states. In the Palestinian Authority, as well as in Jordan and other Arab states, it is illegal to sell any land to Jews under punishment of death. Saudi Arabia, in addition to such practices, bans any expression of religion other than Wahhabi Islam. There are no churches or synagogues, or even non-Islamic religious services, permitted by Saudi law, and women are prohibited from driving cars. Where are the critics when it comes to genuine human rights abuses in Arab states? Why, instead, do they seek to limit the rights of Jews to lease privately owned land in Israel purchased for that very purpose? The ZOA agrees with Ronald S. Lauder, President of the JNF, that "[this] Knesset decision reaffirms the vision and the dream of Theodor Herzl and the millions of Jews over the past 106 years who contributed and participated in the rebirth of a Jewish nation after 2,000 years. The land of Israel is part of the very existence of the Jewish people from as far back as Abraham. We are a people linked to our land. Now and forever." This Knesset bill is one step towards securing this precious legacy and it deserves the support of all American Jewish organizations. Morton A. Klein is the National President of the Zionist Organization of America. Irwin Hochberg is Vice-Chairman of the National Board of the ZOA, past Chairman of the Board of the UJA Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York and past National Campaign Chairman for Israel Bonds. This article appeared in Arutz-Sheva (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7343). To Go To Top ISLAMO FASCISM AWARENESS WEEK -- IT'S ABOUT TIME Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 17, 2007. Islamists have been spreading hate against Infidels, Jews and Israel on many U.S. university campuses. Now there is going to be planned responses to their hateful activity, thanks to the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Contact jefrey@horowitzfreedomcenter.org. Read about it and pass it on. We are now planning what will be the largest campus demonstrations ever staged by conservative students for October 22-26. We are calling the event Islamo Fascism Awareness Week. We already have student coordinators on 150 campuses and we are hoping that the event will touch close to 200 universities and colleges across the country. We are offering these campuses a full menu of activities including panel discussions on the origins and implications of Islamo Fascism; keynote speakers such as former Sen. Rick Santorum, Christopher Hitchens, Robert Spencer, and Nonie Darwish; and a showing of the uncut version of ABC's milestone docudrama "The Path to 9/11," and other documentaries about the threat of radical Islam, including Obsession and Suicide Killers. In addition we are working with our student coordinators to organize protests at women's studies departments which have been shamefully silent about the violent oppression of women in the Muslim world, and to stage a memorial for the international victims of jihad. Among the campuses already committed to major activities during Islamo Fascism Awareness Week are Columbia, UC Berkeley, Penn State, Temple, Penn, Emory, UC Irvine and Ohio State, This Week has the potential to be a major news event as well as a transforming political experience for our college students. Details on the event will appear in subsequent Newsletter updates. If you want further information or would like to see your alma mater or a school of special interest added to our list of targets, please call Jeffrey Wienir at jeffrey@horowitzfreedomcenter.org. This is our chance to bring the truth about the war on terrorism to campuses dominated by an unholy alliance between pro jihadists and the hardcore left. Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top UNO HARD TO REFORM; IDF CONDONES TERRORISM BY "MODERATES" Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 16, 2007. CONTRADICTION IN UNO PRACTICE The US and UNO have designated the International Islamic Relief Organizations as a front for Al Qaeda. The UN Economic and Social Council has awarded the same group consultative status (Russell Berman, NY Sun, 8/6, p.5). UNO HARD TO REFORM The new head US Ambassador to the UNO, Khalizad, may be too quiet to achieve any reform. "At Turtle Bay, public exposure of scandals frequently helps, while behind-the-scenes attempts at 'reform' always fail to promote any overhaul of the United Nations." (Benny Avni, NY Sun, 8/6, p.7). The prior Ambassador, Bolton, kept a high profile and started some reform, but was dropped before he could do much in that mismanaged and corrupt agency. U.S. GIVES REASON FOR ARMS SALE TO GULF STATES Offering greater means of fighting against Iran and Al Qaeda promotes regional stability (IMRA, 7/31). The US assumes that S. Arabia would use its arms against Iran and Al Qaeda. Suppose it uses them against other Gulf States and against Israel? Then the sale would promote regional instability. IDF CONDONES TERRORISM BY "MODERATES" Using guns, bombs, arson, and rocks, Arabs attacked Israelis in Judea-Samaria, while the Prime Minister appointed by Abbas, supposedly a moderate, upheld "resistance" operations against Israel. Around Hebron, Arabs have been setting Jews' fields afire, hoping to burn down their towns. "Last week, one of the Arab fires destroyed irrigation and water supply systems, as well as sections of a vineyard and an olive grove." "Following the fifth such fire at various places around the town in three weeks, residents see the bright side: 'They can't burn much more, since it's already burnt,' say Ayelet HaShachar Cohen and Irit Albert. 'One of the recent fires mainly burned the Arab olive groves, anyway.'" ""The army comes out when there is a fire, but they take no action at all in actually investigating who did it and trying to catch them. This is in clear contrast to how they act if a Jew does something -- he is immediately taken to the police station in Ariel and held there. The contrast is just astonishing." (Arutz-7, 7/31.) The government is anti-Zionist. The more it fails to enforce the law against the Arabs, the more it encourages lawlessness. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top STATE-OF-THE-ART EDUCATIONAL NURSERY IN GUSH ETZION Posted by Hillel Fendel, August 17, 2007. This comes from Arutz-Sheva (www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123396). (IsraelNN.com) A new and unusual kindergarten opening up this school year is the common ground for the efforts of idealistic pioneers in Judea and a former Ukranian legislator. With the help of former Ukranian parliament member Alexander Feldman, a young husband-and-wife couple in Tekoa, in eastern Gush Etzion, is opening a state-of-the-art educational nursery for toddlers. The new nursery is loftily named Malkhut David (the Kingdom of David), and founders Yehoshua and Tehila Malinski in fact hope to imbue their young students with King David's special qualities. "The Talmud tells us that King David possessed six special traits," Yehoshua explained, "namely, beauty, physical strength, courage, wisdom, musical ear and spirituality. Our youngsters will have teachers who will teach them the basics of Judaism, music, literature, and even math and sports. We will have nurses trained in reflexology, and more." The Malinskis are both from the former Soviet Union, but they met and married here in Israel. Both are highly-qualified licensed teachers, and long dreamed to open a kindergarten. They encountered many obstacles, but now are on the verge of seeing the realization of the dream. Some ten children are already signed up, and more are expected from both Tekoa and neighboring communities. Tekoa is home to some 4,000 Zionist-oriented Jews, both religious and non-religious, and both Sabras (born in Israel) and newcomers from the former USSR and other countries. The cost is, according to Yehoshua, significantly less than a normal day care program. "We will be charging only 1,100 shekels a month," he said, "compared with 1,600 and even 1,800 shekels in other programs." How is this possible? Thanks to the help of Alexander Feldman, a former Ukrainian parliament member -- he plans to run again for office -- who seeks out philanthropic causes to support in Judea and Samaria (Yesha). Feldman has said that he sees the Jewish population in Yesha as Israel's avant-garde. Strong Support for Yesha "Without Alexander Feldman's support," the Malinskis say, "it is doubtful whether we could have been able to open Malkhut David. We view his support as of utmost importance not only to us, but to the entire people of Israel, as the future of any country lies in its growing generation." Feldman is known as a defender of civil rights in and out of the Ukraine, of both Jews and non-Jews. The chairman of a subcommittee for civil rights, serving both Jews and other minorities, he recently made headlines with his warning against "certain politicians and journalists" not to encourage "anti-Semitic hysteria." His warnings followed racist slurs after a poisonous chemical spill in western Ukraine alleged to be by a Jewish-owned company. Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor at Arutz-Sheva To Go To Top MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD PHONEBOOK CONFIRMS THAT MUSLIM AMERICAN SOCIETY IS BROTHERHOOD'S BABY Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 16, 2007. This is archived at http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/017785.php At 8:15 AM PDT today I'm scheduled to debate Esam Omeish of the Muslim American Society on the Laura Ingraham Show, which I have done before, so I thought that some might find this report illuminating -- the MAS is a Muslim Brotherhood entity, and the Muslim Brotherhood is the direct forefather of Hamas and Al-Qaeda, as well as a leading proponent of the Islamic supremacist, pro-Sharia imperative. "Muslim Brotherhood Phonebook Confirms that MAS is Brotherhood's Baby," by The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT): As the terror-support trial of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) continued today, FBI agent Lara Burns testified that a phonebook found at the home of Ismail Elbarrasse -- un-indicted co-conspirator and former assistant to HAMAS leader Musa Abu Marzook -- listed the names and numbers of the Muslim Brotherhood leadership in the United States. On the first page of the phonebook under the title" "Members of the Board of Directors" were fifteen names. Among those names are Ahmad Elkadi, Jamal Badawi, and Omar Soubani: the founding incorporators of the Muslim American Society (MAS). This evidence confirms Counterterrorism Blog contributor Matthew Levitt's expert testimony that MAS is the representative of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States, and is substantiated by a 2003 Chicago Tribune article that outlined the history of MAS. Ahmad Elkadi, who told the Chicago Tribune that he was the leader of the Brotherhood in the U.S. from 1984-1994, worked with Mohammed Mahdi Akef, head of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood since 2003, to advocate for the founding of MAS. According to the Tribune report, Akef and Elkadi pushed for more openness for the Muslim Brotherhood through MAS. Akef himself "says he helped found MAS by lobbying for the change during trips to the U.S." In fact, MAS does not deny its Muslim Brotherhood foundations. In 2004, then-Secretary General of MAS Shaker Elsayed stated to the Tribune that "Ikhwan [Brotherhood] members founded MAS..." Elsayed even went so far as to admit that about 45 percent of MAS's active members belong to the Brotherhood. Federal officials have confirmed this, noting continued ties between MAS and the Muslim Brotherhood. A senior Muslim Brotherhood official in Cairo, Mohamed Habib, seems to explain MAS' motivations for espousing Brotherhood ideology while simultaneously distancing itself from the movement that birthed it: "I don't want to say MAS is a [Brotherhood] entity. This causes some security inconveniences for them in a post-Sept. 11 world." Yes indeed. Here Daniel Pipes notes that "Esam Omeish, the president of the Muslim American Society, acknowledges that MAS has been influenced by the 'moderate school of thought prevalent in the Muslim Brotherhood' and makes no effort to refute the article's premise that MAS has in mind 'the goal of an Islamic state.'" Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top ROBERT SPENCER OF JIHAD WATCH SPEAKS OUT: CAIR DEFAMES ME Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 16, 2007. You will find this on http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/017792.php CAIR is so bent on defaming me that it has resorted to lying about me on national television, endorsing ludicrous libelous screeds full of fevered fictions fashioned by felons, and siccing its lawyers (who also defamed me) on a group that dared to have me speak even before I had said a word. And now we have this from CAIR's "American Muslim News Briefs" for today. In it, CAIR asks me some questions. Unlike Ibrahim Hooper, who hung up on me when I tried to ask him questions, I will answer them: ROBERT SPENCER'S WEBSITE SUPPORTS EXPULSION OF EUROPE'S MUSLIMS -- http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/017779.php QUESTIONS FOR ROBERT SPENCER: 1. IS IT 'JIHAD WATCH' OR 'DER ST�RMER'? It's Jihad Watch. 2. WHO IS THE MYSTERIOUS 'HUGH FITZGERALD'? Vice President of the Jihad Watch Board and Jihad Watch columnist. 3. DOES ROBERT SPENCER CALL FOR A SIMILAR EXPULSION OF U.S. MUSLIMS? Since Hugh Fitzgerald did not call for the expulsion of all European Muslims, but only of -- as you can see from the excerpt below -- "jihadists and Sharia supremacists," the question itself is manipulative and leading, rather like "When did you stop beating your wife?" Hugh hasn't done what they say he has, so I can hardly do something "similar." In any case, no, I don't support the expulsion of U.S. Muslims. Here is the excerpt CAIR quotes from Hugh's article:[1] In 1970 there were 15,000 Muslims in the Netherlands. There are now one million. They are causing now, and they have caused, a situation for the indigenous Dutch (and of course for other, but non-Muslim immigrants, such as Vietnamese Buddhists, Hindus from India and even Indonesia, and Chinese of Confucian or Christian or other persuasion) that is far more unpleasant, expensive, and physically dangerous than it would be without that quite unwelcome, quite unnecessary, and deeply dangerous Muslim presence. That presence is one that the Muslims themselves recognize as being one behind what they are taught to regard, and most do regard, as enemy lines, the lines of the Infidels. Those countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands that pride themselves on their easygoing tolerance ought to realize that it is a false tolerance, even a diseased tolerance, to continue to tolerate in one's midst a permanent danger to real -- i.e., Western -- tolerance. Western tolerance is based on the Western enshrinement of individual rights. That does not include tolerating those who cling tenaciously to a doubly totalitarian Belief System, that offers a Complete Regulation of Life, and a geopolitical plan that justifies, by any instruments available and effective (and not merely qitaal, or combat, or its variant "terrorism"), the removal of all obstacles to the spread and dominance of Islam everywhere, and everywhere a situation where Muslims rule. Benes and Masaryk were wise, tolerant, advanced statesmen, two who belonged to an older and better educated generation. They had no hesitation in implementing the Benes Decree(s) of 1946, and in banishing the Sudeten Germans who had proved to be such a threat. For them, for the Czechs, Germany lay prostrate, but they were not about to take another chance. And no one at the time, and no one since, has thought what the Czechs then did was immoral -- save for a handful of German revanchists and those who have a particular soft-spot, one that deserves to be examined, for the treatment of Germans after the war. Why should the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, and the other countries of Europe not recognize a similar permanent danger in their midst, in the presence of jihadists and Sharia supremacists? And if Germany was prostrate in 1946, the world of Islam is hardly prostrate today. Rather, it feels itself stronger than ever, thanks to that ten trillion dollars in OPEC money received since 1973, along with all the aid, a disguised Jizyah, that is received, almost as tribute, by Muslim states and nascent statelets that have no oil or gas, but are able to count on the foreign aid that the Infidels provide. Study the threats, and the intelligent response to recognized threats, in the not-so-distant past. And now, since CAIR is asking questions, I have a few questions for CAIR: 1. Hugh wrote that the presence of jihadists and Sharia supremacists was a danger to non-Muslims in Europe, and that the jihadists and Sharia supremacists should be expelled. Does CAIR disagree with this -- in other words, does it want jihadists and Sharia supremacists to remain in Europe? If so, for what purpose? Does CAIR wish to state on the record that a nation has no right to expel those whom it has determined are a risk to national security? 2. Hugh wrote that European countries should recognize the danger of jihadists and Sharia supremacists in their midst. But CAIR mischaracterized this in its Defamation Brief as a call to expel all Muslims from Europe. Is CAIR then saying that all Muslims are jihadists and Sharia supremacists? 3. Hugh referred to the Benes Decree, which was a post-World War II step by the government of Czechoslovakia to expel ethnic Germans from the country, as part of attempts to ensure that there would be no recrudescence of the Nazi exploitation of those ethnic Germans -- which had led under Hitler to the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and the loss of its sovereignty. The Benes Decree was not protested or condemned by anyone -- not the UN, not the US, not the Soviets. Is CAIR thus putting itself on record as opposing postwar anti-Nazi efforts by the Czech government? And if so, isn't that ironic in light of CAIR's defamatory attempt to link Jihad Watch to the Nazis, above? 4. The expulsion of large numbers of people for national security reasons, and large-scale population exchanges, have numerous historical precedents. The Benes Decree was just one of many post-World War II dislocations of peoples. Another was the massive population exchange of Hindus and Muslims that accompanied the creation of what are today known as Pakistan and Bangladesh. Does CAIR oppose the creation of Pakistan and Bangladesh? Does CAIR oppose the later expulsion, in all cases for stated reasons of national security, of 400,000 Palestinians by Kuwait, more Palestinians by Libya, and one million Yemenis by Saudi Arabia? Does CAIR believe that the UN and international human rights bodies were wrong not to oppose or condemn most of these large-scale measures? Then there were the expulsion of Egyptians by Iraq; the expulsion of Moroccans by Algeria and Algerians by Morocco; the expulsion of Egyptians (as well as the already mentioned Palestinians) by Libya when Libya and Egypt were at loggerheads; and any number of smaller, unreported expulsions. Arabs have behaved this way toward non-Arab Muslims, moving them about at a government's whim, and subjecting them to pressures that would cause them to leave the country. Look at what happened to the non-Arab Kurds of Iraq, about whom not a single Arab Muslim state or spokesman uttered a syllable of sympathy. Look at the mass murder of the black African -- i.e., non-Arab -- Muslims of Darfur, with, again, not a syllable of sympathy. Not a single expression of horror by the Arab League or any Arab state or Muslim Arab group. Would CAIR care to make such an expression? 5. What is the exact nature of CAIR's relationship with the terrorist group Hamas? Is there active collaboration between the two organizations? What did Ibrahim Hooper mean when he said that CAIR doesn't support Hamas and Hizballah publicly?[2] Does CAIR support them privately? What is the nature of this support? Does this have anything to do with CAIR officials' repeated refusal to condemn Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups? That should do it for now. Once you get those done, Ibrahim, feel free to ask me more questions, and I will cheerfully answer them. I may also have a few more for you. Footnote 1. http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/017779.php 2.  http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID= {C1447041-FDA3-4B5A-BCC7-72EC1A1CBC35} Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top BEFORE AND AFTER -- THE OBLITERATION OF THE SHALHEVET NEIGHBORHOOD Posted by Hebron Jewish Community, August 16, 2007. For each pair of picture, the one on the left was taken when the Jews had possession. The ones on the right are how the Shalhevet neighborhood looked when the Jews were dispossessed. Special meeting of Knesset Subcommittee dealing with expulsion from Shalhevet neighborhood Yesterday a subcommittee of the Knesset Defense and Foreign Affairs committee, chaired by Kadima MK Otniel Schneller met for over four hours, discussing last week's expulsion of two families from the Shalhevet neighborhood (the 'Shuk') in Hebron. A number of interesting facts were revealed during the session. Perhaps most important was the committee's recommendation: At the present, following expulsion of the 'squatting families' who were 'illegally occupying' the structures, the government should now allow legal residency of the site by Jewish families. The committee also recognized that it is possible to find a legal solution to allow Jewish residency of the site. The committee members agreed unanimously that property upon which the old Arab market buildings are situated is Jewish-owned land, of which Hebron's Jewish community has legal title. They also accepted the fact that the Supreme Court did not order expulsion of the families from the building, rather the court removed any legal impediments that could have prevented their expulsion. It was definitively stated that the expulsion was executed solely for political reasons. The Israeli prosecutor's office was the driving force behind the expulsion in order to prevent 'illegal squatting.' A Knesset Member told the committee that he had first-hand information that former chief prosecutor Edna Arbel, presently a Supreme Court Justice, agreed to arrange legal occupancy of the buildings by Jewish residents, and saw no legal problems that could prevent such residency. Committee chairman Otniel Schneller told the committee that the agreement signed between Hebron's Jewish community and General Yair Golan a year and a half ago, was approved by both his immediate superior, Commander of the Central Region General Yair Naveh, and higher political echelons, including the cabinet. It will be recalled that the agreement called for Hebron residents to voluntarily move out of the buildings, whereby the government would allow them to 'legally' return within a few months. That agreement was voided by present attorney general Manny Mazuz, saying that General Golan was unauthorized to conclude such an agreement. The general was officially reprimanded by IDF chief of staff, Dan Halutz, despite that fact that the agreement was approved by both is immediate boss, higher-ups in the defense ministry and the Israeli cabinet. Schneller also told of a document prepared by the prosecutor's office which, dealing with the legality of Jewish presence in the former Arab market, concludes that the Israeli custodian for abandoned property (which presently has legal jurisdiction over the buildings) must 'take into consideration the desires of the property's owners' when determining the usage of the structures.' Civil Administration officials had suggested that the buildings be leased to the community, however this suggestion was rejected by former attorney general and present supreme court justice, Eliyakim Rubenstein. Schneller also told that legally, the previous leaser's contract (in this case, Arab renters) could be voided if they had an alternative place of business. The prosecutor's office officials admitted that the market had been reopened on the Arab-controlled side of Hebron. Former Hebron police chief, presently deputy commander of police in Judea and Samaria Ali Zamir, testified that the expulsion could be defined as 'passive resistance' and that most of the protesters were not violent. He also determined that the demonstration was not totally illegitimate. In conclusion, the committee decided to recommend to the Prime Minister and Defense Minister that Hebron residents be allowed to legally move back into the buildings in the Shalhevet neighborhood. A Hebron spokesman issued the following statement: The Knesset subcommittee yesterday confirmed all that Hebron community leaders have been saying for months and years: This is our land and our property, and we have a legal, legitimate right to live here. We made an agreement in January 2006 with General Yair Golan and carried through on our obligation, vacating the buildings within 48 hours. The government, despite it's initial agreement, reneged and broke that agreement. Attorney General Menachem Mazuz's claims that 'there is no legal solution to Jewish residency at the site' is fictitious and false, based not upon law, rather upon his own politics, which do not recognize the legitimacy of Jews living in Hebron. We call upon the Israeli government to: 1. Immediately allow Jewish families to return to the abandoned buildings in the Shalhevet neighborhood of Hebron. 2. Renovate the apartments destroyed by Israeli security forces for absolutely no reason whatsoever. 3. Reimburse the families expelled from their homes for the thousands of dollars of damages incurred during the expulsion. 4. Fire attorney general Menachem Mazuz, whose work ethics are founded upon politics rather than law. 5. Erase the 'black mark' on General Yair Golan's official record. He should not have been reprimanded; rather he should be praised for having reached an agreement which prevented serious violence in Hebron. You can contribute directly to The Jewish Community of Hebron, POB10, Kiryat Arba-Hebron 90100, hebron@hebron.org.il, 972-2-9965333 or write to The Hebron Fund, 1760 Ocean Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11230, hebronfund@aol.com To Go To Top THE ROAD TO DURBAN II Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 16, 2007. A second "UN conference on racism" is planned for 2009 in Durban. Genocide advocate Iran will get a leadership role. This is by Eye on the UN and it is archived at http://jjri.net/articles/114-Alert-The-road-to-Durban-II.html The world's most notorious state exponent of anti-semitism -- Iran -- is being given a seat on the UN committee planning a 2009 UN anti-racism conference. This conference is billed as a review of the implementation of the 2001 UN conference against racism which was held in Durban, South Africa. The infamous Durban Conference is remembered for its broadcast of anti-semitism from a global platform under a UN banner and with UN blessing. Now Iran is being placed in a position to drive the agenda of Durban II. Other members slated to take their place on the so-called Bureau for the Durban Preparatory Committee (Prep Com) are Libya -- the Chair, Cuba and Pakistan. The Prep Com will meet for the first time in Geneva, August 27, 2007. BACKGROUND -- DURBAN I, September 2001 The first UN Durban Racism Conference, which ended September 8, 2001 -- three days before the terrible events of September 11th -- was a notorious outpouring of hate and anti-semitism directed at Jews, Israel and the United States. It was a global soapbox for terrorists and their sympathizers the world over. The Durban Non-governmental (NGO) Forum, held in association with the government conference, adopted a declaration labeling Zionism as racism and deleted proposals on protection from modern forms of anti-semitism. At the NGO Forum, the only session on anti-semitism was shut down by a mob screaming "you are killers;" a news conference by Jewish NGOs from all over the globe who were attempting to bear witness to the hate was cut short by another mob, and the display and distribution of copies of anti-semitic literature akin to that of Nazi Germany was openly tolerated. The government conference which followed permitted the daily distribution of material drawing direct links between Israelis and Nazis. Material reading "fight racism, not Jews" was confiscated by security officials. Ultimately, the government conference adopted a Durban Declaration which singled out Israel as the world's one and only racist state. As Anne Bayefsky, editor of www.EYEontheUN.org and participant in the Durban conference wrote shortly thereafter, the legacy of the racism and anti-semitism of the Durban conference extends far beyond the halls and conferences of the UN: "The Durban World Conference on Racism...revealed the intimate connections between anti-racism politics and a key platform in the terrorist agenda, namely, the delegitimation of Israel and the legitimation of terrorism against its citizens. The Durban phenomenon was repeated in the aftermath of September 11 as allegations of racism and displays of anti-semitism abounded from terrorists, apologists of terrorism in the media, and at the 2001 UN General Assembly deliberations on terrorism. The linkage between racial hatred and terrorism is a phenomenon which democracies ignore at their peril. Durban uncovered racism as a real root cause of terrorism, a motivation which the terrorist seeks to camouflage by the accusation of racism itself.The World Conference Against Racism became a forum for racism. Human rights was used not as a facilitator for communication but as a weapon of political interests antithetical to human rights protection. A large group of states sought to minimize or exclude references to the Holocaust, redefine or ignore anti-semitism, and isolate the state of Israel from the global community as a racist practitioner of apartheid and crimes against humanity. The vestiges of Jewish victimhood were to be systematically removed by deleting the references to anti-semitism and the Holocaust, to be displaced by the Palestinian victim living under racist, Nazi-like, oppression.The hate literature distributed during the NGO conference included caricatures of Jews with hooked noses, Palestinian blood on their hands, surrounded by money, and Israelis wearing Nazi emblems. At the Government Conference, there was daily distribution by NGO participants of literature reading "Nazi-Israeli apartheid," while inside the drafting committees, states such as Syria and Iran objected to the inclusion of anti-semitism or the Holocaust on the grounds that anti-semitism was a "complicated," "curious," and "bizarre" concept, and reference to the Holocaust would be imbalanced or "favoritism." ... ..... "The dangerousness of the Durban rhetoric and its program of action were immediately evidenced by the events of September 11 and their aftermath. Political actors and commentators continued to weave the same distorted pattern which Durban purported to legitimize. At the UN, which was seized throughout the fall 2001 General Assembly with the subject of terrorism, Arab states pressed the Durban racist strategy in response to September 11. A successful war against terrorism demands clarity of the target, and the Durban result threatens its identification." In 2007, after six years of a world poisoned by the Durban 2001 legacy, Iran continues to develop its nuclear weapons program while advocating genocide against the Jewish state -- with the UN taking no meaningful action to stop it. On the contrary, now Iran can wrap itself in a UN flag while at the helm of the next global conference against racism, Durban II. LEAD UP TO "DURBAN II" The decision to repeat Durban was taken by the UN General Assembly on December 19, 2006. The resolution sought: "to convene in 2009 a review conference on the implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action to be conducted within the framework of the General Assembly, making use of the three existing and ongoing follow-up mechanisms, and to this end requests the Human Rights Council to undertake preparations for this event and formulate a concrete plan by 2007 for the review conference; and to provide updates and reports on this issue on an annual basis to both the Secretary-General and the General Assembly." This resolution followed a vote of the Human Rights Council on December 8, 2006 by which the African Group of states forced through a resolution -- against the wishes of all Western European states and others (34 in favor, 12 against and 1 abstention) -- setting up the preparatory infrastructure for Durban II. The Council resolution names the Council itself as the conference preparatory committee, grants the Council the power to elect a Bureau, and calls for meetings three weeks in 2007 and two weeks in 2008. One specific inclusion in the Human Rights Council resolution reveals the direction its supporters intend it to take. In inviting different UN bodies to contribute to the new preparatory committee's work, the resolution singled out only two of the UN's many Special Investigators or Rapporteurs -- the Special Rapporteur on Racism and the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief. No mention is made, for example, of the rapporteur on promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. In other words, accusations of Islamophobia and objections to the Danish cartoons will be on the agenda. Freedom of expression will not. AUGUST 2007: DURBAN PREP COM MEETS IN GENEVA The first session will begin with Iran and company, as members of the Bureau of the Prep Com of the Durban Review Conference, taking their seats. With Iran's election to the Bureau, the racists will be the UN spokespersons against racism, and the message and mission of the United Nations will have been totally inverted -- again. Here is what the Iranian member of the Bureau can contribute to an anti-racism conference: Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadenijad has called for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map and has backed up this threat already by arming terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah.Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadenijad has called the Holocaust a "myth" and in 2006 sponsored a Holocaust cartoon exhibition. Serious ongoing Iranian human rights abuses abound. In addition to Iran as a Bureau member, Libya will be the Chair of the Prep Com's Bureau. Libya is a country with one of the world's worst human rights records and its chairmanship of the former Commission on Human Rights was both a disgrace and a significant factor in its ultimate demise. Looking at all Bureau members, they will be: African Group: Cameroon, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Senegal, South Africa. Asian Group: Indonesia, India, Islamic Republic of Iran, Pakistan. Latin American and Caribbean Group: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba. Eastern European Group: Armenia, Croatia, Estonia, Russian Federation. Western European and Others Group: Belgium, Greece, Norway, Turkey. Some of these Bureau members are totalitarian countries. Many have used the UN in the recent past as a platform to promote terrorism, defend states guilty of genocide and demonize Jews and Israel repeatedly. The following statements provide a glimpse into their plans for Durban II: Libya -- chair of the Durban Prep Com -- comparing Jews to Nazis at the Fourth Committee of the General Assembly on November 8, 2006: "...the practices of the Israeli forces in the Occupied Palestine Territories reminds us of the massacres that were made in the last century. And here we need psychologists and therapists to interpret the repetition of the victim for the same criminal acts, the repetition of the same victim to be exposed as the same criminal acts to which it was -- One of the Arab settlers said -- and I quote -- 'I have an impression that those who perpetrate such barbarian acts against the Palestinian people are the remnants who committed similar acts against the Jews in Europe.'" Libya, calling for the end of Israel as a Jewish state at the General Debate of the General Assembly, September 25, 2006: "The only solution...is to guarantee the return of all Palestinian refugees to their lands and to establish a democratic state on the land of historical Palestine..." South Africa, voting against a draft resolution on the Burma/Myanmar totalitarian regime, January 12, 2007, Security Council: "I regret to inform the Council that South Africa will vote against the draft resolution on Myanmar." South Africa on the problematic "Jewish character" of Jerusalem, at the Emergency Special Session on the security fence, December 15, 2006: "Israel continues its policy of the de-Palestinization of Jerusalem....action of the Israeli government is designed to ensure that Jerusalem assumes a predominantly Jewish character..." Indonesia, in defense of the government of the genocidal government of Sudan at the Special Session of the Human Rights Council on the situation of Human Rights in Darfur, December 12, 2006: "...the Government of Sudan is cooperating with the Council...The situation in Darfur...is complicated, multi-dimensional, and involves many actors and groups. It encompasses tribal conflicts; conflicts between farmers and herders; and conflicts between political interests..." Indonesia blaming the "campaign against terrorism" and free speech for religious intolerance, while at the Third Committee of the General Assembly, September 22, 2006: "...the present predicament in which the global community finds itself with regard to the way different religious and cultural denominations perceive one another, arises from a state of confrontation. This confrontation is exacerbated by a sense of injustice and persecution which feed essentially on the raft of measures introduced in the campaign against terrorism...we agree with cautions against unlimited freedom of expression and the risk it presents of inhibiting the balance that international norms seek to establish between freedom of expression and religious freedom. Only and specifically by maintaining this balance can the prohibition of the incitement to religious and racial hatred...be guaranteed." Pakistan excusing violence against Israelis at the Third Committee of the General Assembly, November 7, 2006 "...the legitimacy of the struggles of peoples for self-determination cannot be compromised by tarnishing it with the tarbush of terrorism." Pakistan on the importance of fighting free speech with the same "zeal" as fighting terrorism at the Third Committee of the General Assembly, November 6, 2006: "Hate speech against manifestations of religious and cultural practices must be condemned with the same zeal with which the fight against terrorism is being pursued." Cuba blaming the West for the racist genocide being perpetrated by the Sudanese government at the Special Session of the Human Rights Council on the situation of Human Rights in Darfur, December 12, 2006: "The grave human rights and humanitarian situation in Darfur, Sudan...is a complex and delicate situation with deep roots in the colonial past, in the artificial divisions crated in Africa by ancient metropolis, in the structural poverty caused by centuries of exploitation and plundering, and in current economic and geostrategic interests of the great superpower. In addition to these elements, there is a persistent campaign of discredit and exaggeration orchestrated against the Government of Sudan with the clear aim of encouraging the hegemonic pretensions of the West. Cuba can attest to the tireless efforts of the Government of Sudan to face this crisis..." Cuba, accusing Israel of planning genocide at the Third Special Session of the Human Rights Council on November 15, 2006: "It is evident then that an entire population is being a victim a true genocide, deliberately planned and carried out as a state policy." Cuba legitimizing terrorism against civilians at the Sixth Committee of the General Assembly on October 12, 2006: "A Comprehensive Convention on international terrorism has to guarantee a clear distinction between terrorism and the peoples' legitimate struggle for their independence and in defense of their right to self-determination." Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top DOCTORS GIVE IN TO MUSLIMS Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 16, 2007. This was written by Tom Fullerton and it appeared August 13,2007 in the Daily Express (UK) http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/16309 DOCTORS and health workers have been banned from eating lunch at their desks -- in case it offends their Muslim colleagues. Health chiefs believe the sight of food will upset Muslim workers when they are celebrating the religious festival Ramadan. The lunch trolley is also to be wheeled out of bounds as the 30-day fast begins next month. But staff and politicians branded the move political correctness gone mad and warned that it was a step too far. Bill Aitken, the Scottish Conservative justice spokesman, said: This advice, well-meaning as it may be, is total nonsense. It is the sort of thing that can stir up resentment rather than result in good relations. The new guidance comes in the wake of the failed terror attacks on Glasgow and the death of suspect Kafeel Ahmed, 27. Health chiefs in Lothian and Glasgow will give all employees time off to pray and to celebrate Eid, which marks the end of Ramadan. But Greater Glasgow and Clyde as well as Lothian NHS boards also issued the advice, warning workers not to take working lunches, and said all vending machines should be removed from areas where Muslims work. One senior consultant said: "What next? Are we going to have advice on how to deal with Catholics during Lent? This kind of thing does more harm than good." The guidance, which was sent round many organisations, was produced by Glasgow consultancy Meem, which advises on Muslim issues and counts the Scottish Parliament among its clients. Naeem Raza, a senior consultant with the firm, said he was thrilled that the health boards had formally adopted the guidance. He added: "The idea is to get faith in the workplace out in the open. "In the current climate, people need to understand where communities are coming from and what people are feeling. "After the Glasgow attack this is very important. This is about educating people and making them more aware and more confident when dealing with issues surrounding the Muslim community. "People have stopped talking over the garden fence and we need to break down the barriers so that people can talk comfortably to each other. "It would never stir up resentment. Faith is an important issue. Why not have guidance on all of the issues that affect us, including different faiths?" Health chiefs defended their use of the guidance and said it was important to promote a positive and tolerant culture at work. A NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde spokesman said: "As a large organisation we recognise that many of our staff, patients and visitors will be participating in Ramadan." We have therefore made information available to our staff to raise awareness of Ramadan and help to answer any questions they may have. NHS Lothian said: "We have recently agreed a quality and diversity strategy and as a responsible and pro-active employer we will continue to promote a positive culture which recognises and respects diversity both in our workforce and in the people we serve." Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top OBSOLETE GREAT POWER STRATEGIES; "MODERATE" JORDAN DEFAMES ISRAEL; THE ZEAL BEHIND JEW BEATING Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 16, 2007. ISRAEL HAS A "PARTNER?" Haim Ramon contends that Israel can make major concessions, i.e., withdrawals, because in Abbas, Israel has a"partner," but he admits that he cannot expect to make a deal with Abbas beyond the withdrawals. Then why bother? What does that mean,"partner?" It means that Abbas talks less bellicosely and everyone pretends he is moderate. Since a final peace deal cannot be made, nothing is accomplished. Abbas contributes nothing to the partnership. He amounts to a stalking horse for Hamas, but in any case is a dedicated jihadist. OBSOLETE GREAT POWER STRATEGIES Mankind is polluting what little resources it has left. It is developing the power to destroy civilization. The strategies that brought us this low continue to bring us down, but it raises some leaders' egos. Those leaders rule for their faith or for themselves, not for their people or with consideration for others. China moves the most deliberately, if not the most inscrutably towards its undeclared long-term goals, nailing down for itself the world's raw materials. Just as it inflicted tens of millions of deaths politically, now its careless industrialization inflicts deadly disease upon millions and not only in its own country. Fortunately, it is taking steps to reduce pollution as it develops industry. The traditional great powers are consumed with notions of great power status. Some West Europeans base their policy on jealousy of their US successor and not of the looming Chinese, Russian, and possibly Iranian successors of the US, all of whom would be less benign towards them. The US lacks a comprehensive strategy for maintaining its power to police the world, something no one else will do and we sometimes do wrong. US politicians are too busy keeping their offices to study the economy and try to nurture it. They would rather tax and spend for transient popularity. Russia squanders its new wealth rebuilding global power. Thus it depicts its alliance with Syria, that got it permission to open two naval bases in Syria, as re-establishing its global presence. What does it need a"global presence" for? Well, Russians like a strong government and a strong country. Strength for what? What a weak country it really is, however much it may devise destruction for Israel. The Russian people are dying out -- AIDS, alcohol, pollution, and too few children. Muslims are moving in. How short would be Putin's glory! The familiar, old rivalries and the old orgies of mutual destruction no longer can be absorbed and forgotten, on this worn-out planet. BEYOND JIHAD Syria ejects solid waste unprocessed. Waste floats down the river into the sea, where it highly pollutes Turkey, by sea turtle nests. Turkey tries to clean the beaches, but the medical and other waste keeps coming (IMRA, 7/28). Islamist Syria and Islamist Turkey have agreed to cooperate on various matters. One was for Syria to relinquish territorial claims to that Arab-populated area of Turkey. Here is a neglected matter that requires Syrian action. SYRIAN SHORTAGES Syrians have shortages of drinking water, electricity, and cooking gas. The UNO and OPEC plan to spend $120 million in Syria to increase potable water supplies. That will spare a similar amount, as if to help Syria pay Russia for jet fighters. Foreign aid to aggressors bolsters their war. It is misguided (IMRA, 7/28). JORDAN DEFAMES ISRAEL Jordan's Royal Commission Of Jerusalem Affairs accused Israel of"aggression" against Jerusalem, an"open assault on the holy sites" and a plot to tunnel under al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount. It warned that these acts prevent peace. It asked Quartet Envoy Blair (who is supposed to be restricted to the P.A. infrastructure and economy) to intervene with Israel (7/28, IMRA). The opposite is true. The Arabs dig and build illegally and dangerously on the Mount. Israel ignores the illegality but warns about reckless building that weakens the Mount and the structures on it. Israel does not work under or adjacent to the Muslim temples. Israel has shown its plans to the Arabs. The Arabs know the charges are false. Truth doesn't matter to them. They take advantage of their followers' credulity to rile them up; they take advantage of the media's antipathy towards Israel to keep silent about Muslim defamation; and they take advantage of the failure of leaders such as Blair to declare Jordan's charges utterly false and that illegal Muslim building endangers Jewish artifacts and keeps the Muslims bellicose. The media and the US fail to point out that these accusations are generations old, but the mosque is unharmed. Europeans may be taken in by Muslim demagoguery, since their media repeat Arab charges, inducing Europeans to consider Israel dangerous. The Commission's claims offer a rare view into the fanaticism that moves Muslim states deemed by appeasement-minded Westerners as moderate. Islam, whether as practiced by Islamists or non-Islamists, calls Israeli self-defense and even existence,"aggression." That is behind its charges of aggression. Let it denounce Islamic terrorism (i.e., warmaking) for endangering peace! DEFENSIVE WEAPON? One of the weapons systems that the US wants to sell to S. Arabia and other Gulf states is the Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM). The system turns ordinary bombs into"smart" bombs. As Dr. Lerner puts it,"a mediocre pilot who might not have either skill or the will to approach a target and hit it can carry out a precision bombing against any fixed target." "Even if you think the current regime is fantastic, who will rule S. Arabia in 5 years? Hamas today has all kinds of weapons that Washington supplied to 'moderate' Abbas in the Gaza Strip." (IMRA, 7/28.) According to IDF officials,"the Americans agreed to 'delete' part of the ability of the smart bombs, such that they could not hurt Israel, and to demand that the Saudis do not deploy them at the Tabuk air force base next to Eilat." S. Arabia, however, trains its army for war against an enemy just east of the Suez Canal. That would be Israel, not Iran (IMRA, 7/29). Certain short-range anti-aircraft missiles have been called defensive, too, but that is misleading. ("Egypt has invested many billions of dollars of American aid on American weapons systems that would enable it to quickly move its forces under the cover of mobile anti-aircraft missile systems in an invasion of the Jewish State." IMRA, 7/29.) The JDAM works against fixed targets, such as Eilat's airfields. That is not defensive. Is S. Arabia a threat to Israel? Yes, S. Arabia already has missiles aimed at Israel, and I haven't heard of any aimed at Iran. Saudi promises to the US not to add fuel tanks to their jets and not to station them near Eilat were broken without penalty, as the new sales offer shows. Egyptian and Saudi forces carry out joint exercises. Egyptian military doctrine also considers Israel its enemy. Why is the US arming it for war against another country, when its security problem is internal? ARAB ROADBLOCKS IN P.A. Now that Fatah defends its Judea-Samaria areas from Hamas, it erects roadblocks (IMRA, 7/28). The Israeli Left does not complain that this interferes with Arab travel. International organizations do not complain that this impedes the P.A. economy. Do roadblocks only by Israeli defense forces seeking to protect Jewish cities from Muslim terrorists hamper Arab travel and impede the P.A. economy? OLMERT'S LATEST ADVANCE IN PLAN TO DESTROY ISRAEL Now he is thinking of allowing into Judea-Samaria units of the Jordanian Army. If he wanted to safeguard Israel, he would not let an Arab army (and from a country that a couple of times tried to conquer infidel Israel) be minutes away from his own country's capital (IMRA, 7/30). By the time Israelis would realize what a blunder this was, the Jordanians would have killed hundreds of thousands of Jews in Jerusalem and in Judea-Samaria. After having lost all those Jews, the state would be finished. Better some IDF unit mount a coup against the Olmert regime and associated traitors. The proposal is not logical, either. Israel has kept terrorism down by keeping its own troops there, as contrasted with UNIFIL and Egypt, which let terrorists arm. In Judea-Samaria, Hamas has agents but no forces. Abbas does not need foreign help. Then why offer foreign troops? First, it would be an excuse for Israeli troops to depart and abandon the patrimony there. Second, it would be an opportunity to get enemy troops close to Israeli population centers, especially of the settlers and the capital. THE ZEAL BEHIND JEW-BEATING IN ISRAEL Israel advertised in the former USSR for immigration whoever had a Jewish grandparent. In came hundreds of thousands who were not Jewish under Jewish law, who had no connection with Judaism, who were antisemitic, or who forged their documents. The former Interior Minister of Ukraine, who helped lead the democracy movement, also was a director of an antisemitic newspaper. (Democracy has its dark side.) He secured an Israeli passport, in case he needed to make a fast exit. Many Russians joined the police assigned to keep Jewish protestors from resisting expulsion and from blocking demolition of their houses. "One of the protestors said to one of them, 'Come on, brother, we didn't come to fight each other' -- to which the policeman answered, 'I'm not your brother, you dirty Jew.'" (Arutz-7, 7/30.) "Jewish grandparents" diluted the right-wing vote. Pretext? No wonder they beat up Jews with zeal, in Israel. IRAN'S ARMS DEAL Iran supposedly is buying 250 Russian bombers with tanker planes that can refuel in mid-air (IMRA, 7/30). How do we recognize Iranian planes overhead? Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top FINALLY... GAZA GREENHOUSES ARE PUT BACK IN USE Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 16, 2007. This comes from the Gateway Pundit website http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/ In August 2005, American Jewish philanthropists contributed $14 million to buy former Gaza settlers' greenhouses for Palestinians as a gesture of good will as Israel pulled out of Gaza. Immediately upon the withdrawal of Israeli settlers from Gaza the Palestinians proceeded to loot dozens of greenhouses, walking off with irrigation hoses, water pumps and plastic sheeting in a blow to fledgling efforts to reconstruct the Gaza Strip. But after months of sitting dormant the Palestinians are putting the greenhouses back to use. IMRA reported: IDF forces discover terrorists' tunnel in northern Gaza Following information received from the ISA and intelligence sources, the Golani Infantry Brigade, assisted by combat engineering and armored forces, operated yesterday in the northern Gaza Strip. The joint forces uncovered a tunnel intended for infiltration into Israeli territory with the intention of carrying out a large-scale terror attack. The tunnel was dug from inside a greenhouse used for harvesting tomatoes, which is located merely 700 meters from the security fence. The discovery of the tunnel and the prevention of the attack were made possible by the IDF's continued activity in the area. IDF soldiers stand beside the tunnel in a PA Arab tomato greenhouse (Photo: arutz-sheva) Tunnels are increasingly employed as a means to infiltrate Israel in order to execute terrorist attacks against civilians, and for the purpose of smuggling weapons and illegal contraband. IDF activity -- which is routinely conducted in search of tunnel networks -- is designed to thwart the development of such means of terrorism. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top DEBATING ISLAMIC TERRORISM WITH A LIBERAL RADIO HOST Posted by Chuck Morse, August 16, 2007. Liberal talkmeister Leslie Marshall invited me on her radio program, August 14, to challenge my reference to "Islamic terrorists" in an article I wrote for the Providence Journal entitled Standing up to Islamic terrorism implying that I am anti-Muslim. She inanely argued that Hitler had not been referred to as a "Catholic terrorist." This contention, echoed by one of her callers, reveals contempt for Christianity all too often found bubbling below the surface on the left. bin-Laden and his radical followers proclaim themselves to be true Muslims, a claim that the vast majority of Muslims fortunately reject and one that runs contrary to more peaceful Islamic traditions. Hitler, while born a Catholic, was hardly the leader of a radical Catholic or Christian movement. Rather, Nazism, like Communism, was a radical secular socialist movement that rejected Judeo-Christian conceptions of God and morality and sought to subordinate Christianity while attempting to annihilate Judaism. Taking umbrage over my reference in the article to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as apologists for Islamic terrorism, Marshall proceeded to disclose, on the air, that she had spoken at one of their events. The chilling charge that to criticize Islamic terrorists would disparage all Muslims is the exact tactic being employed by CAIR as they seek to silence critics of a radical Islamic movement that deliberatly kills innocent people. In 1993, Omar Ahmad, co founder of CAIR, was picked up on an FBI surveillance tape at a Hamas meeting explaining that the IAP, widely viewed at the time as a Hamas front, could not, for political reasons, admit to supporting Hamas. The CAIR co-founder proceeded to discuss how the Hamas agenda could be cloaked and advanced. The American people are, by and large, not anti-Muslim as evidenced by the restrained and tolerant reaction on the part of the vast majority of the American public, with a few scattered exceptions, to the attack on 9/11. Anyone with a half a whit knows that to criticize Islamic terrorists would have no more to do with being anti-Muslim than criticizing Nazism would have been anti-German during World War II. Marshall became outraged when I buttressed my charge that CAIR is a lap-dog for terrorists with quotes from Democratic Senators Charles Schumer and Barbara Boxer. Senator Schumer had stated that "we know (CAIR) has ties to terrorism...intimate links with Hamas." In discussing a decision to rescind an award given to a CAIR official, Senator Boxer stated "To praise an organization (CAIR) because they havent been indicted is like somebody saying 'I'm not a crook'." In scolding tones, Marshall informed me that I was now talking to her, not Shumer and Boxer, dropping the fact that she had interviewed Senator Schumer previously, that this was her radio show, and that her show is nationally syndicated as opposed to my radio show which is scheduled to start in September on WEIM, Fitchburg, Mass. Her lack of humor grew progressively into an ugly diatribe. I realize that some talk show hosts think that conflict boosts ratings but this is not an issue that should lend itself to careerism. With Islamic terror cells amongst us, one most recently found plotting a shoot-out at Fort Dix in New Jersey, radio commentators might consider focusing more on understanding and identifying the nature of the enemy rather than on scoreing cheap points with manufactured issues. Furthermore, It would be appropriate for radio personality such as Leslie Marshall to consider whether she is being used as a useful idiot in the service of an organization that supports those who seek to harm this nation. Chuck Morse is a talkshow host on 1320 AM WARL. Contact him at ChuckMorse@clearchannel.com or visit his website: www.chuckmorse.com To Go To Top EHUD BARAK'S CAMPAIGN JINGLE FOR 2008 Posted by Steven Plaut, August 16, 2007. As you know, Ehud Barak, the "most decorated Israeli general," who dropped 4000 katyusha rockets on northern Israel last summer when he ordered Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, is again running for Prime Minister. As the head of the Israeli Labor Party. Barak is desperately looking for a new campaign jingle. Being a helpful bloke -- I thought I would help him out. To understand it, you need to recall Barak's declaration in 1998 that if he had been born an Arab he may well have become a terrorist. [If you think I invented that citation, check out CNN here: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0306/25/se.13.html and also this: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Ehud%20Barak ] My proposed campaign song for Reb Ehud is based on the wonderful "If I Were a Rich Man", from Fiddler on the Roof. (Unfortunately Tevye is NOT running for Israeli Prime Minister this year). Ready? Here goes! "Dear God, you so made many, many cowardly people. I realize, of course, that it's no shame to be a coward. But it's no great honor either! So, what would have been so terrible if I had a small dose of gumption?" (music) If I were a terrorist, Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum. All day long I'd biddy biddy bomb. If I were a Hamas man. I wouldn't have to work hard. Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum. If I were a biddy bomber bum, Yidle-diddle-didle-didle BOMB. I'd have a big tall house with virgins by the dozen, Right in the midst of Gaza town. A fine tin roof with real al-Qassams below. There would be one long rocket just going up, And one even longer coming down, And one more leading nowhere, just for show. I'd fill my yard with chicks and turkeys and other Labor chiefs, For all the town to see and hear. And each loud "cheep" and "squawk" and "honk" and "quack" Would ring like a Qassam in my ear, As if to say "Here lives a tanzim man." If I were a terrorist, Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum. All day long I'd biddy biddy bomb. If I were a Hamas man. I wouldn't have to work hard. Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum. If I were a biddy bomber bum, Yidle-diddle-didle-didle BOMB. The most important men in town would come to fawn on me! They would ask me to be appeased by them, Like Shimon Peres the Kind. "If you please, Reb Ehud..." "Pardon me, Reb Ehud..." Posing problems that would cross a tanzim's mind! And it won't make one bit of difference if I answer war or peace. When you're me, they think you really know! If I were a terrorist, Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum. All day long I'd biddy biddy bomb. If I were a Hamas man. I wouldn't have to work hard. Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum. If I were a biddy bomber bum, Yidle-diddle-didle-didle BOMB. Lord who made the lion and the lamb, You decreed I should be what I am. Would it spoil some vast eternal plan? If I were a ter-ror-ist!!! Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il To Go To Top FROM ISRAEL: POLITICS Posted by Arlene Kushner, August 16, 2007. August 16, 2007 The Likud primary was held on Tuesday and Binyamin Netanyahu walked away with 73% of the vote; opponents Moshe Feiglin and Danny Danon (chairman of World Likud and a newcomer to the race) received 23% and 3% respectively. Feiglin -- who's been pumping to achieve control of Likud -- considers this latest figure a sort of victory for his position. My own take is that, while Feiglin represents certain nationalist principles that I respect, he makes statements that are unrealistic (and seem just foolish) and, with his emphasis on religion, has not a snowball's chance in hell of winning a national election in this nation that has a secular majority. To place him in control of Likud would be to ensure a win by Labor (most likely) or Kadima. There are those who believe that Feiglin's increasing strength within the party will pull Netanyahu to the right. But others (among them Aaron Lerner of IMRA) believe that Netanyahu will react by moving left in an attempt to disassociate himself from Feiglin in the minds of the voters. Certainly Netanyahu is making every attempt now (and he plays tough) to diminish Feiglin influence within the party. ~~~~~~~~~~ Is Netanyahu true to the principles of Likud, and can he be counted upon to maintain a nationalist position? There is no guarantee of any of this. He understands the issues, of this I am certain. But he is capable (has a history) of caving under pressure and is distrusted in many circles. But this is who we have right now: unless something radical changes, our best bet to take down Kadima/Labor in the next election. The composition of his coalition would be key to keeping him honest. I deeply regret that the right wing has not gotten its act together to mount a significant challenge in an election -- but they may yet play a role as coalition partners. I note here that MK Aryeh Eldad, a man of integrity with nationalist principles, is on the verge of moving out of Moledet and heading a new party that is in process of forming. ~~~~~~~~~~ And what of the elections? Now that he's won the primary, Netanyahu is calling upon Barak to fulfill his commitment to bring the Olmert government down (after having a chance to serve as defense minister, that is). Barak associates are saying that he won't act until the final Winograd Report -- which will be highly critical of Olmert -- comes out. But Olmert is a wily politician -- as slick as they come. The report was due out this fall, already a postponement from this summer. Olmert is petitioning for the right to come back to the Winograd Committee to re-testify. This is a stalling tactic that may delay the release of the report by some months. ~~~~~~~~~~ On Tuesday I attended a press conference here in Jerusalem with 17 Democratic members of Congress brought in a delegation by AIPAC. It was not a reassuring experience. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer speaks at the press conference Congressman Steny Hoyer, speaking for the group, explained that they felt there was great cause for optimism. The delegation had just returned from meetings in Ramallah and was impressed that there was now leadership in the PA opposed to terrorism, willing to communicate that opposition to the people and to vigorously act against it. It had been Arafat who was the stumbling block, you see. Surely they were talking about a different PA from the one I know. In questions I, at least, secured from Hoyer the acknowledgement that words from the PA will have to be verified in terms of action: I'll be watching for that verification. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, was asked by one journalist how he, as a Muslim, sees the tensions in the Middle East. Well, replied Ellison, he wouldn't make too much of the Sunni-Shia differences. The bottom line is that everyone wants a future for their children, the opportunity to live in a safe community, and retirement benefits for their seniors. If we can get all groups to agree on this he explained, we "don't have to sweat the other stuff." Really. He said this. I came away astounded by what absolute babes in the woods these Congresspersons are, without a clue to what's going on here. That hopeful naivet�, unfortunately, can do us harm. I list here the Congresspersons who were present and their districts. I encourage those of you who live in one of these districts to communicate with your Congressperson on the issues. Steny Hoyer (MD-15th); Jason Altmire (PA-4th); Shelley Berkly (NV-1st); Steve Cohen (TN-9th); Joe Crowly (NY-7th); Keith Ellison (MN-5th); Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-8th); Gene Green (TX-29th); Phil Hare (IL-17th); Paul Hodes (NH-2nd); Nick Lampson (TX-22nd); Jerry McNerney (CA-11th); Tim Mahoney (FL-16th); Patrick Murphy (PA-8th): Albio Sires (NJ-13th); John Tanner (TN-8th); John Yarmouth (KY-3rd). ~~~~~~~~~~ The stance of this group makes the position of Rudolph Giuliani, Republican presidential candidate, all the more cause for celebration. Writing in the scholarly journal Foreign Affairs, Giuliani says: "Too much emphasis has been placed on brokering negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians -- negotiations that bring up the same issues again and again. It is not in the interest of the United States, at a time when it is being threatened by Islamist terrorists, to assist the creation of another state that will support terrorism... "Palestinian statehood will have to be earned through sustained good governance, a clear commitment to fighting terrorism, and a willingness to live in peace with Israel." ~~~~~~~~~~ Well, here we have the inevitable: In a press conference in Ramallah yesterday (with the Japanese foreign minister), PA president Abbas called on Hamas to "return to national unity." "The split that happened as a result of Hamas's coup is temporary and will be removed," he said. "The Palestinian people are opposed to this separation because we want a united and independent Palestinian state." Hamas, of course, greeted these words warmly and has invited Abbas to Gaza for talks. Apparently in a gesture of "good will," PA security forces (Fatah) yesterday released nine Hamas members who had been arrested last month on suspicion of trying to establish an armed Hamas group in Judea and Samaria. ~~~~~~~~~~ An underground tunnel leading from northern Gaza towards Israel was discovered this week; not yet completed, it had been dug to 700 meters of the border with Israel. Its entrance was hidden by a greenhouse but security forces secured intelligence that exposed its existence. The plan of Palestinian terrorists was to complete it beneath an Israeli site and then pack it with bombs that would be detonated under that site; terrorists may also have been intending to use it to get operatives inside of Israel for attack. There seems little doubt that while this one was discovered many others exist. ~~~~~~~~~~ As bad as Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza are -- and as much as we will have to contend militarily with forces in Gaza -- they do not represent our greatest threat: Iran does. Indirectly, Iran has its finger in all that Hezbollah and Hamas do, but I am referring here to a direct threat. And the news on that front is unsettling. Yahya Rahim Safavi, Commander-in-Chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, has just delivered a speech in which he detailed the capabilities of his weaponry: They have, he said, missiles that can travel 1,500 miles, which means they can reach Israel. This is not a surprise; he was apparently referring to the Shahab-3 missile. But he added that they had missiles capable of penetrating the armor of the Israeli Merkava tank. Safavi also directed threats towards the US, with regard to Iran's capability of taking out all US ships in the area. The US is on the verge of declaring the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group. ~~~~~~~~~~ The UN Security Council mandate for international forces under UNIFIL to operate inside of Lebanon is up for renewal, as a year has passed since the force was put into place under Resolution 1701. Israel is requesting that the mandate be expanded so that UNIFIL might be more "proactive" -- with UNIFIL's field of operations enlarged to include towns and cities, and permission given for the members of the international force to shoot at Hezbollah before they've been fired upon. Indications from European nations is that this request will be turned down. Perish the thought that the international community should take a real role in blocking Hezbollah. Meanwhile, Hezbollah is actively buying from Christian and Druze owners -- reportedly at highly inflated prices -- land north of the Litani River. This region, marked by rugged terrain, is perfect for Hezbollah's guerilla-type combat and is situated beyond the range of UNIFIL operations. There they are actively involved in fortifying positions for fighters and stockpiling weapons. This is not an action being taken for defensive purposes, you can be sure. Hezbollah possesses Katyusha rockets that can reach Israel even from north of the Litani. ~~~~~~~~~~ The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Subcommittee on the West Bank has voted to ask Olmert and Barak to authorize Jewish residence in Mitzpe Shalhevet, the market place in Hevron from which two families were just evicted. "We asked the government to give this building back to the community," said MK Otniel Schneller, who chairs the subcommittee and is a member of Kadima. I find myself returning again and again to this subject because it has such underlying significance for the future of the state and there is so much misrepresentation about what is transpiring. Not only were 3,000 forces (three thousand!) sent to evict these two families and their supporters, they deliberately destroyed the homes following eviction, homes on which the Jewish community of Hevron had spent many thousands doing renovations. There have been charges made that the residents of Hevron see themselves as not part of Israel, but what I see is the opposite: that the officials of Israel would read out the residents of Hevron. This response now from the Knesset subcommittee is thus most encouraging. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info To Go To Top ABBAS SEEKS UNITY WITH HAMAS, BREAKING PROMISE TO US CONGRESSMEN Posted by Avodah, August 16, 2007. This was written by Ezra HaLevi and it appeared in Arutz Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com). (IsraelNN.com) Just days after promising US lawmakers that his Fatah movement would not reconcile with Hamas, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is inviting the Islamist movement to kiss and make up. Abbas called on Hamas to "return to national unity" following his meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso Wednesday. "The split that happened as a result of Hamas's coup is temporary and will be removed," Abbas said. Hamas welcomed Abbas's statements and invited him to negotiations in Gaza. Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com To Go To Top DUTCH BISHOP TO CHRISTIANS: PRAY TO ALLAH TO MAKE PEACE WITH MUSLIMS Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 16, 2007. One needs to ask The Netherlands, and esp. Bishop Tiny Muskens, What next Bishop? You want us to call Christian churches, and Jewish Synagogues; 'mosques' ... praying towards Mecca 5 times a day? But then again -- why would anyone want to listen to someone from the Netherlands when people are fleeing there for fear of radical Islam? This article is called "Bishop urges Christians to call God 'Allah'" and it appeared yesterday in World Net Daily http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57178 Catholic churches in the Netherlands should use the name Allah for God to ease tensions between Muslims and Christians, says a Dutch bishop. Tiny Muskens, the bishop of Breda, told the Dutch TV program "Network" Monday night he believes God doesn't mind what he is called, Radio Netherlands Worldwide reported. The Almighty is above such "discussion and bickering," he insisted. Muskens points to Indonesia, where he served 30 years ago, as an example for Dutch churches. Christians in the Middle East also use the term Allah for God. "Someone like me has prayed to Allah yang maha kuasa (Almighty God) for eight years in Indonesia and other priests for 20 or 30 years," Muskens said. "In the heart of the Eucharist, God is called Allah over there, so why can't we start doing that together?" Bishop Tiny Muskens (Courtesy Radio Netherlands Worldwide) Muskens thinks it could take another 100 years, but eventually the name Allah will be used by Dutch churches, promoting rapprochement between the two religions, he said, according to Radio Netherlands. However, a survey published today in the Netherlands' largest newspaper, De Telegraaf, showed 92 percent of the more than 4,000 people polled oppose the bishop's view, the Associated Press reported. Some letters to the paper were filled with ridicule for the bishop. "Sure. Lets call God Allah. Lets then call a church a mosque and pray five times a day. Ramadan sounds like fun," wrote Welmoet Koppenhol. The chairman of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, Gerrit de Fijter, told the Dutch paper he welcomed any attempt to "create more dialogue," according to the AP. But he said, "Calling God 'Allah' does no justice to Western identity. I see no benefit in it." A Muslim spokesman, for Amsterdam's union of Moroccan mosques, said Muslims had not asked for such a gesture from Christians, the AP reported. Tensions with the Netherlands' 1-million-strong Muslim community have been high since the 2004 murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by a Muslim avenging a film critical of Islam. Last week, politician Geert Wilders talked about banning the Quran, shortly after the head of a group of former Muslims, Ehsan Jami, compared Islam's prophet Muhammad with al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Muskens made similar remarks several year ago about using the name of Allah, Radio Netherlands reported. He also suggested replacing the national Christian holiday Whit Monday -- celebrated the day after Pentecost -- with an Islamic religious day. The bishop also has offended Muslims, saying in 2005 Islam was a religion without a future because it has too many violent aspects. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top MUSLIM MURDER OF UK NON-MUSLIM IS NOT A CRIME ACCORDING TO SOME UK MUSLIMS Posted by David Meir-Levi, August 16, 2007. This is called "The Rise and Fall of a British Muslim MP" and was written by Vasko Kohlmayer. It appeared today on Front Page Magazine (www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=164080AB-0CF9-4706- ACAD-7D23DF3F3B4C). The election in May of 1997 of Mohammad Sarwar, a Pakistan-born Muslim, to British Parliament was hailed as a momentous event in British history. Taken as a sign of cross-cultural tolerance, Sarwar's success was seen by many as an important milestone on the country's road to becoming a truly multicultural society. Eager to assert his Muslim identity from early on, Sarwar took the oath of office on the Koran, bucking a centuries' old tradition of pledging allegiance to the Queen. Ever mindful of the sanctity of that Holy Writ, Sarwar insisted that the book be placed inside a protective envelope so as not to be accidentally "touched by one not of the faith." Ten years on, Mohammad Sarwar has announced his intention to resign his seat. His decision comes after a two-year long campaign of death threats and abuse that made him fear not only for his own life but also for those of his children and grandchildren. Many will be surprised to learn that this campaign of intimidation was not carried out by some native racists or extreme British nationalists, but by Sarwar's fellow Muslims. But we can only fully appreciate the full import of this affair when we learn what has so enraged his co-religionists. The troubles of Mohammad Sarwar began on the morning of March 14, 2004, when a group of five Muslim men were cruising around Glasgow looking for a white male to kill. Eventually, they zeroed in on Kriss Donald, a slightly-built schoolboy. Suspecting what lay in store, the boy pleaded with his captors as he was being bundled into a waiting car: "Why me? I'm only fifteen." Having failed to evoke their pity, Kriss was taken on a 200-mile round trip while his tormentors were looking for a house in which to kill him. As he lay bound on the floor of the car, he was subjected to brutal torture, which included castration and repeated stabbing. Unable to find a suitable house, the kidnappers drove to a garbage dump where they doused him with gasoline and then set him on fire. Despite all the torture he had endured, Kriss Donald was still alive and tried to crawl into a muddy hollow to extinguish the flames. When a walker found his body the next morning, he thought it was a mutilated animal carcass. Within days the police arrested two of the perpetrators; the other three managed to flee to their relatives in Pakistan. It soon became clear that getting them back would be no simple task as there was no extradition treaty between the two countries. It was at this point that Mohammad Sarwar, in whose constituency the murder took place, intervened. He traveled to Pakistan and used his contacts to arrange for the murderers to be sent back to Britain. Once returned, they were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Although most people appreciated Sarwar's efforts, many of his fellow Muslims saw things otherwise. They unleashed a campaign of abuse that featured death threats by torture not only against him but also against his children and grandchildren. This is how Mohammad Sarwar described this experience in an interview earlier this year: Life is not the same, to be honest with you, since I brought them [the three murderers] back. I was subjected to threats. I was told they wanted to punish my family and make a horrible example of my son -- they would do to him what they did to Kriss Donald. I received threats to my life, to murder my sons, to murder my grandchildren. Even though he has been reluctant to admit it publicly, his associates revealed that it was fear of reprisals that made him decide not to seek re-election. This would make Mohammad Sarwar the first British Member of Parliament in modern history to be forced out of office by intimidation. But apart from being an infamous first, the story of Mohammad Sarwar stands as a dire warning of the dangers posed to the West by its rapidly growing Muslim population. To grasp why, we need to keep in mind that Westerners have long ago relinquished force as a way of settling internal differences. No matter how passionately we feel about our convictions, we resolve our disputes through public debate. Instead of using physical violence, we seek to triumph in the realm of ideas and at the ballot box. In addition to providing a safe environment for the adjudication of differing points of view, this method of governance has proven exceptionally conducive to progress. Since the lives and rights of all are strenuously protected, there is no fear of proposing new and creative ways of dealing with difficult issues from which the most appealing can be chosen via the democratic process. This approach, however, is foreign to many Muslims, who have little tolerance for opposing points of view. Hostility to non-Muslims that can be found in Islamic texts further produces disturbing attitudes on the part of many of Islam's followers. The most alarming one is that anybody who holds contrary ideas is either to be silenced or killed. The concepts of jihad and fatwa -- the bald-faced murder of those perceived to be opponents of Islam -- are the direct expression of this frame of mind. This way of thinking has unfortunately also come to define many Muslims' view of politics. Unsurprisingly so, since Islam does not allow for any meaningful distinctions to be made between the religious and political spheres, and as a result many Muslims employ the same methods against their political adversaries as they do against their religious ones. The coercion, gagging and murder of their opponents have thus become part and parcel of their political activism. If such Muslims behaved in this fashion only in their own lands, there would be less reason for alarm. The problem is that many of them retain their ways even after immigrating to western countries. And once they gather there in sufficiently high numbers, they often present a destabilizing influence. The story from Glasgow Central -- where Muslims managed to remove a democratically elected public official by means of the crassest form of intimidation -- should give us an idea of the seriousness of this problem. Equally alarming is the obvious lack of moral conscience on the part of Sarwar's critics. Let us not forget what enraged his Muslim censors: it was his bringing to justice three vicious killers for the brutal murder of an innocent child. Only a depraved mind could ever think that this was an act undeserving of condemnation and severe punishment. Yet Sarwar's castigators obviously thought otherwise and by their actions made it clear that they would have preferred for the crime to go unpunished and the murderers remain free. It is becoming increasingly obvious that many followers of the Islamic faith lack two qualities essential for the successful functioning of western societies: a sound moral conscience and respect for those who hold opposing points of view. Those who still harbor doubts about this need only to contemplate the downfall of Mohammad Sarwar. By doing right, he ran afoul of his own Muslim constituency. Most ominously, this story is only a portent of more dire things to come. As the West's Muslim population continues to expand, incidents of this kind are bound to become more frequent. The question is whether western governments can summon the will to do something about it. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com To Go To Top A VITAL MESSAGE FROM TSAFRIR RONEN TO THE NATION OF ISRAEL Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 15, 2007. This essay by Tsafrir Ronen has been translated from the Hebrew. Nation of Israel, Listen The secular kibbutz community would have not participated in the insane and cruel political assignment to expel Jewish families from their home in Hebron. It is clear that this action only purpose is to destroy Jewish existence in a part of the Land of Israel; meaning, destroying another kibbutz(s)?! In my opinion, not only the kibbutz members' soldiers would have refused the order, they would have shot at anyone trying to destroy another kibbutz(s)! This is utter stupidity; we are not talking about disobeying an order, rather an obviously illegal order and one does not obey illegal order! It is illegal to destroy the Jewish existence in the Land of Israel; it is against our Bible and Torah; it is against following our commandments -- mitzvah -- to settle the land of Israel, the mitzvah of Zionism, and the mitzvah to do all that we came here to do: to return the Jewish Nation to his land, to his home! The Nation of Israel, open your eyes, and your brain! And if order them to rape women? To eat pig's meat? Would the Rabbis tell them that they must obey such order and disobedience is not allowed? What happened to you the Nation of Israel? Have you turned to loggerhead, moronic robots? Is the destruction of Israel of a lesser crime than raping women or eating pig's meat? Tsafrir Ronen Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top HOW COULD IT HAVE HAPPENED? Posted by Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis, August 15, 2007. I am writing this article en route to New York from Budapest. Whenever I visit Hungary and pray at the grave sites of my ancestors who were all gedolim, tzaddikim, righteous holy souls who dedicated their lives to the service of G-d and led their people with love and devotion, I am overwhelmed by one thought -- how could it have happened? How could that magnificent Jewish community have disappeared? How could they have wiped out six million of our people overnight? As our car wended its way through the shtetlech of Hungary, I gazed out of the window......I saw the scenic landscape, I saw the peasants and their modest, but well-kept houses, many of which were once homes where the light of Shabbos illuminated the darkness and the sweet voice of Torah was heard. No matter where I looked, in my mind's eye, I saw only our people. In every hamlet, in every community, there were yeshivas, batei midrashim -- shuls, Jews, who despite their poverty managed to rise above their wretched existence and create lives of nobility and goodness. And now they are no more.... How could it have happened? Our car made its way along the winding bumpy road, but once again, I saw only our people -- the elderly, the babes, the children, the men, the women, the sick and the strong who were forced to march to the sound of the dogs barking and the strident shouts of Juden, Schnell! Schnell! -- "Quick! Quick!" I know, because I too marched on those roads. How could it have happened? How is it that the world was so blind? How could six million people have been forced from their homes, marched to the railroad stations, stuffed into cattle cars and fed to the flames of the crematoria? How could the parents and grandparents of those decent looking people whom I saw through the window of our car have allowed this to happen? And more, how did the freedom loving nations of the world, bastions of democracy, remain silent? How did they allow that satanic monster, Hitler, to take over the world? As much as I was there, as much as I lived it, I still cannot come to terms with it. Oh yes, I am aware of the teaching of our Torah -- Esau soneh es Yaakov -- "Esau hates Jacob" which tells us that even among the best of nations, there lie dormant seeds of anti-Semitism which, in an instant can be fanned into open hatred, or at best, apathy in face of Jewish persecution. Oh yes, I am aware that our destiny is such that we cannot rely on anyone but the Almighty G-d, that we cannot trust any man or government regardless of how ardently they espouse the laws of justice and freedom. But the Jewish people aside, why didn't these nations stop Hitler for their own sake? Why was France, the country of liberte, egalite, and fraternite, and England, which prides itself on being champions of justice, and of course, our own United States, the bedrock of democracy, stop this evil before it destroyed tens of millions of people? After WW II, Winston Churchill himself declared, "There was never a war in all history easier to prevent by timely action -- Hitler could have been stopped without a single shot being fired " -- So why wasn't he? In retrospect, the answer becomes obvious. In the post WW I era, people were war weary -- the mood of the day was pacifism -- "peace at any price", engage in dialogue and negotiate. So, when Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich in 1938 and proclaimed "We shall have peace in our time" and to prove it, he waved a worthless piece of paper that he had signed with Hitler, he was cheered and celebrated -- the free world was only too happy to believe him. And I don't even make mention of the League of Nations upon which people relied to find civilized solutions to world conflicts and render war obsolete. Hitler read the sentiment of the day and sensed that no one would stop him. To test the waters, in 1936 he sent his troops into the Rhineland in violation of two international agreements, and when he saw that no one cared, he solidified his plans to take over the world. You might well ask, why do I now write of all this? Don't we have enough problems today without going back to 1936? But there is an eerie parallel between that which occurred yesterday and that which is unfolding before our very eyes, and if we do not learn from the lessons of our past, then, G-d forbid, we will see it repeated in our own time. Today, Iran is building up its nuclear capacity. It is 1936 all over again -- Iran can still be stopped, but alas, it doesn't look like any of the nations of the world are so inclined. Global jihad, the conquest of the civilized world in the name of Allah is the goal, not only of Iran, but of all radical Islam. But America and freedom loving countries are battle weary. The mood once again is pacifism. Talk and negotiate is once again the mantra, and incredibly, this attitude is prevalent in Israel as well. Yes, talk to Iran and Syria despite the fact that it is Iran and Syria who are fomenting the terrorism. Yes, shower the Saudis with billions of dollars worth of the most advanced military technology and disregard the fact that the most vicious terrorists have been bred and nurtured in that country and that these weapons can very well end up in the hands of those who would aim them at Israel and the United States. Embrace the Palestinians and disregard their open avowal to annihilate the Jewish State. Disregard their indoctrinating small children in the "art" of killing Jews; disregard the call of the ayatollahs who glorify the shaheed (those who kill "Jewish infidels" while committing suicide). Yes, turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to it all lest reality shatter that much vaunted illusion of peace. The extent to which this blindness has overtaken the free world is evidenced in many ways. Just consider England, were the "M" word (for Moslems) must be avoided when referring to terrorists. Never mind that it was Moslems who maimed, terrorized and killed British civilians; never mind that it's Moslems who continue to terrorize their homeland -- the "M" word must be avoided. This avoidance emanates not only from the intelligentsia and the halls of academia, but from government leaders as well. Newly elected Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Lord Mayor of London, Ken Livingston (whose disdain of Israel is well established), have all called for this political correctness. Nor is this blindness limited to England. It has become politically correct in the United States as well. Not one of the democratic presidential candidates has acknowledged the threat of Islamic terrorism that menaces our free world. Nor has the media been more responsible. Consider the New York Times and discover how the use of the "M" word is conveniently glossed over when reporting acts of terrorism, or consider Hollywood's new film about Daniel Pearl, which admittedly, I did not see, but of which I read the reviews that reported that. Daniel Pearl's heart rending words "I am a Jew" moments before he was savagely decapitated, are missing from the film -- as if it never happened, and mind you, this, despite the admission of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, an El Qaeda leader, one of the masterminds of 9/11, declaring, "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl in the city of Karachi, Pakistan....For those who would like to confirm this, there are pictures of me on the internet holding his head." Instead of portraying this anti-Semitic barbaric murder, the film compared Daniel's predicament to that of the prisoners at Guantanamo! Tragically, our Israeli government is blind as well. And yet, if anyone should know the truth, it is they. But our Israeli government leaders are more interested in preserving their political positions than in serving their people. They refuse to recognize that that which transpired in Gaza, in Gush Katif, is unfolding today in Sderot; they refuse to acknowledge the fiasco that was last summer's war in Lebanon, and they refuse to concede that not only was the war a dismal failure, but today, Hizbollah has rearmed and once again has an arsenal of missiles poised against Israel. Turning a blind eye to this ominous reality, they are now offering to give away Yehuda and Shomron and parts of Jerusalem. They try to convince the Israeli public that with the Hamas takeover of Gaza, it is important to buttress Fatah and create a Palestinian state for them. How can they not understand that while Fatah and Hamas may hate each other, they hate Jewish infidels even more and are committed to the establishment of Islamic law and the elimination of the Jewish State no matter what it takes? This same theology holds true for Shiites and Sunnis as well as for all radical Islamists and is the glue that cements them. Only a blind person could fail to see it. Only a deaf person could fail to hear it, and yet, the free world remains silent. How much different is this from Hitler's vision of eliminating all undesirables and establishing Aryan supremacy in the world? Hitler was not stopped, and the world paid a terrible price -- but nuclear weapons in the hands of Ahmadinejad and his ilk, could, G-d forbid, create a catastrophe far more devastating than that which Hitler unleashed. Who and how will we stop them? It certainly will not happen by turning a blind eye to reality, by Israel releasing vicious, deadly terrorists, by giving away her land, or by releasing additional millions to fatten Fatah's coffers or by endorsing a curriculum for Israeli Arab school children which labels the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, a Nakba -- a "catastrophe". Alas, we who are blind, who refuse to see, who refuse to hear, who refuse to act and heed the call of our G-d given heritage, are the catastrophe. Rebbetzin Jungreis founded the Hineni Organization. "Hineni means, Here I am. It was the response of all the patriarchs and prophets of Israel to the call of G-d, and signals total dedications and commitment to Jewish life." This essay is archived at http://www.hineni.org/rcolumn_view.asp?id=317 To Go To Top ASSIMILATION IS A DESTROYER OF THE MIRACLES Posted by Steven Shamrak, August 15, 2007. Being a Jewish single guy, I went to a lecture "Why marry Jewish?" with the over-optimistic hope of meeting a nice Jewish girl. During an hour of a well-prepared speech, the presenter, Doron Kornbluth, mentioned several reasons why intermarriage generally, and for Jews in particular is not a good idea. He offered many non-confrontational ideas of how to keep Jews from marrying out. Suggestions ranged from focusing on Jewish religious education, nudging to financial bribery of the kids. The fostering of Jewish national pride and Jewish national education were omitted from his speech, most likely, in fear of offending any converts or their offspring in the audience. Why would they be offended, when Jews are talking about preservation of the national, religious, historical and spiritual identity of Jewish people, if they had embraced it? Every day Jews pray for the "righteous converts". How many truly righteous converts do you know? The were no suggestions for teaching kids about the history of the Jewish people, concepts of Jewish unity and Jewish land, famous Jews and their contributions to the cultural, scientific and technological evolution of our planet. Zionism was not even brought up at all! Contrary to common belief, the idea that being a Jew means just a religious observance is only two hundred years old. It had emerged when the loyalty of the Jews was questioned during time of Napoleon. Religious leaders at the time, quite justifiably fearing persecution from the megalomaniac French emperor, gave ambiguous answers about who are the Jews, nation or religion. However Judaism is quite specific about the national character of the Jewish people. It is written in Torah: "and nation was born" at Mount Sinai. Several times it is stated that it is obligatory for a Jew to marry Jew. Nothing has changed and must not be changed just because on the surface modern society looks more tolerant and accepting toward Jews or the need for some elderly Jews, mostly Holocaust survivors, to feel illusionary comfort that their grandchildren are still remaining Jewish. Quite often we hear: "My parents were Jewish" or "I am not religious, therefore I am not Jew!" The first question parents ask their kids when they hear the heart-breaking news "Mum/Dad my special one is not Jewish", is "will he/she convert?" Conversion, in spite of the fact that, in accordance with Jewish law, marriage must not be the reason for it, has become another convenient supermarket item. Parents use it now to hide their deep inner pain, bitterness, disappointment and fear of losing their kids. Instinctively, they know that their Jewish family flame has been extinguished! With assimilation rate over 50%, a non-Jewish notion that being a Jew is only a religious obligation, which does not work in a predominately secular society. We are losing people to mixed-marriage, secularisation and ignorance. Most rabbis, Jewish leaders and Israel's officials are under pressure from bogus political correctness. They do not pay attention and promote Jewish nationalism, patriotism and 'Eretz-Israel', the land of Israel. Jewish people are losing their purposefulness in life to disillusionment and apathy! There were 4 million Jews, almost 9% of the population, in the Roman Empire two thousand years ago. After the WW2, there were 12 million Jews worldwide. Sixty years later, the Jewish population has increased by only less than 2 million. Most nations during this period have doubled or even quadrupled their numbers. Assimilation is not violent like the Inquisition, pogroms or the Holocaust, but it is deadlier and the damage it brings is irreversible. One of the miracles of the world is that one nation with its number less than 0.2% of the world population has made a contribution to humanity disproportional to its number. In spite of our achievements we are still fearful to say loudly and openly "I am proud to be a Jew!" Why are Italians, Greek, Chinese, Russians and other nations unapologetically proud of their national heritage and sense of belonging. But not Jews! The Jewish concept of the "Chosen people" is about responsible leadership. It is not about being better than others or putting others down, like many other people do. Jews also have an obligation to self and must have a sense of healthy self-appreciation and respect, especially when it is well deserved and long overdue! The biggest miracle is that after 3,300 years, the Jewish people still exist. Many great nations has come and gone. But if, in this 'friendly' and politicly correct environment, we do not teach our children and grandchildren Jewishness, not solely religion; if we remain silent while they are marrying out; if we allow people like Prese, Olmert, Barak and other self-hating Jews squash out national spirit from inside, there will be no more Miracles! Steven Shamrak was born in the former Soviet Union (USSR) and participated in the Moscow Zionist "refusenik" movement and currently lives in Melbourne, Australia. He publishes internet editorial letters on the Arab-Israeli conflict. He can be reached by email at StevenShamrak@gmail.com To Go To Top TWO ARTICLES COMBINED EXPLAIN THE "SUDDEN JIHAD SYNDROME" Posted by David Meir-Levi, August 15, 2007. Too bad that the NYPD study authors (summarized by Reuters in the first article below) did not read the MEMRI article (bottom). These two articles together explain what Daniel Pipes calls the 'sudden Jihad syndrome'. If a local Muslim, an otherwise nice normal friendly good-hearted well-balanced honest reliable guy, gets depressed or stressed out or has trouble fitting in or feels angry about something or develops identity issues, well....he has a host of Muslim terrorist leaders via internet sites and preachers in mosques and other ordinary Muslims like cab drivers or hookah smokers, to tell him that Allah tells him to blame all on the infidels and to retaliate against the infidels....any infidels, anywhere, any time, in any manner. There is a problem with Islam. "NY police commissioner: Internet is 'the new Afghanistan'" By Michelle Nichols and Edith Honan Reuters_News@reuters.com NEW YORK (Reuters) -- The Internet is the new battleground against Islamist extremism because it provides ideology that could radicalize Westerners who might then initiate home-grown attacks, New York police commissioner Raymond Kelly said on Wednesday. 'The Internet is the new Afghanistan,' Kelly said, as he released a New York Police Department (NYPD) report on the home-grown threat of attacks by Islamist extremists. 'It is the de facto training ground. It's an area of concern.' The report found that the challenge for Western authorities was to identify, pre-empt and prevent home-grown threats, which was difficult because many of those who might undertake an attack often commit no crimes along the path to extremism. The report identified the four stages to radicalization as pre-radicalization, self-identification, indoctrination, and jihadization, and said the Internet drove and enabled the process. Radicalization could be triggered by such things as the loss of a job, the death of a close family member, alienation, discrimination, and international conflicts involving Muslims, said the report by senior NYPD intelligence analysts. 'Much different from the Israeli-Palestinian equation, the transformation of a Western-based individual to a terrorist is not triggered by oppression, suffering, revenge or desperation,' it said. 'Rather, it is a phenomenon that occurs because the individual is looking for an identity and a cause and unfortunately, often finds them in extremist Islam,' said the report 'Radicalization in the West: The Home-grown Threat.' While the September 11 strike on the United States by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network was planned overseas, the report said the attacks had helped proliferate and accelerate radicalization, especially in the West. 'More importantly, 9/11 established the current trend of committing an act in the name of global jihad as a natural culmination of full radicalization and the ultimate responsibility for the fully radicalized jihadist,' it said. But starting the radicalization process does not mean everyone will progress to 'become a terrorist.' 'Individuals who have been radicalized but are not jihadists may serve as mentors and agents of influence to those who might become terrorists of tomorrow,' said the report, which analyzed five home-grown U.S. attack plots. It says Europe's failure to integrate second and third generation immigrants into society, both economically and socially, had left young Muslims more vulnerable to extremism. While economic opportunities in the United States are better and the country's Muslims are more resistant to Islamist extremism, they are 'not immune to the radical message.' 'The powerful gravitational pull of individuals' religious roots and identity sometimes supersedes the assimilating nature of American society,' the report said. "Online Islamist Forum Hosted in Texas Posts Guide for Kidnapping Americans" MEMRI -- The Middle East Media Research Institute August 15, 2007 No. 1680 http://www.memri.org/bin/opener_latest.cgi?ID=SD168007 The popular Islamist-jihadist forum www.alhesbah.org, hosted by RealWebHost in Texas, U.S., recently posted an anonymously written document from 2003 titled "The Excellent Summary of the Rules of the Art of Kidnapping Americans." The 60-page guide describes each stage of the kidnapping, explaining how to select the target and then how to follow him, seize him, transport him to a safe location, and hold him there, as well as how to conduct negotiations. The guide also explains how to execute the hostage should negotiations fail. The following are the details: The guide begins by enumerating goals that a kidnapping can achieve, including the release of prisoners, extraction of information from the hostage, weakening the enemy's morale and creating deterrence, raising international awareness of conflicts in which the kidnappers' organization is involved, blackmailing the enemy for money, and generating anti-government sentiment in the hostage's country of origin. In the section dealing with selecting a target, the guide recommends choosing someone of importance to the enemy (such as a high-ranking military officer or a prominent businessman). However, he should not be a physically strong person who can put up significant resistance. In order to ensure that the operation goes smoothly, it is recommended that he be knocked out with tranquilizers. As for the kidnappers, the guide states that they should be devout and in good physical condition. In addition, they must be familiar with the locale, and must be able to disguise themselves and to blend in with their surroundings. The guide gives various scenarios and explains how to deal with them -- for example, what to do if the target enters a building or turns around suddenly while being followed. The guide states that, ideally, the kidnapping should be carried out at night, and in an isolated spot. Next, the guide explains how to transport the hostage to the hideout. It recommends using a vehicle of a type that is common in the locale, and that it be prepared by removing the handle on the inside of the door where the hostage will sit. As for the hideout itself, it must be a large apartment with several exits, and the hostage must be kept in a windowless room. The apartment must not be on a road where there are checkpoints. The last section of the guide deals with the demands stage, and states that after stipulating their demands and setting a deadline, the kidnappers must conduct negotiations using a mobile phone registered under a false name, or else a pay phone (a different one for each call). The guide also explains that if it becomes necessary to execute the hostage, this is best done by hanging or poisoning rather than by shooting. This is because soldiers regard death by shooting as an honorable death, and because shooting leaves considerable bloodstains at the scene. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com To Go To Top MY NEW YORK TIMES PROBLEM Posted by Phyllis Chesler, August 15, 2007. This appeared today in FrontPageMagazine.com. Once upon a time, I only read and wrote for the most radical, left, and feminist media on the face of the earth. Reluctantly, suspiciously, I read just one establishment, "grown up" paper: The New York Times. After all, it was my home town paper and being as provincial as most Manhattanites, I somehow still believed (you learn this from the drinking water) that the Times covered issues in an objective, sophisticated, and leading-edge way. I still subscribe to and read the Times but never first and sometimes not at all. (I love how they cover weddings and usually check their obituaries). But duty calls and, as a culture warrior on the front lines, so to speak, I have to read the Times. But now, I first read The New York Sun, Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, Commentary, Middle East Quarterly, the American Jewish media, the online Israeli and Middle Eastern papers and then check about twenty five other internet websites beginning with FrontPage and Pajamas Media in order to steel myself for the ordeal of reading The Paper of Record--yes, the same paper which buried news of the Holocaust on its back pages; the one which today, chooses, positions, and captions photos in such a way that over time, its readers have come to believe that Israel is really an "apartheid" nation state and that every single Palestinian, including the suicide killers, their handlers, and their billionaire funders are barefoot, unarmed, and innocent victims of Israeli and Jewish aggression. Just the other day--on precisely August 11, 2007, what fresh outrage blinded me and caused me to reach for my blood pressure medication? There, right on the front page of the Saturday Times was a photo four columns wide and five inches high. It was not about the American miners who were, at the time, heartstoppingly, tragically trapped in Utah. It showed us a lonely man (Camus' existential stranger-hero, perhaps Kafka's lonely civilian facing a nameless bureaucracy) on a long, long road surrounded by a high wall. The article was captioned: "A Segregated Road in an Already Divided Land." One more time, the Israeli attempt to defend itself from terrorist attacks by building a security wall and, incredibly, in this instance, to also allow the West Bank Palestinians (those who do not comprise the 1.2 million who live in Israel proper as Israeli citizens) to travel from Ramallah to Bethlehem without checkpoints, without being stopped, without having to deal with Israeli soldiers. One might think that congratulations were in order. Nope. In fact, the pull quote read: "A Lack of Exits Will Keep Palestinians Out of Jerusalem." I do not recall any similar pull quotes about how Jews or Christians are not allowed to practice their religions in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or even at their own holiest sites in Muslim-held territory. And, as Paul Berman has brilliantly pointed out, the Times has glamorized fascism in its overly gushing reviews of the work of Tariq Ramadan, the grandson of the founder of The Muslim Brotherhood, who now teaches at Oxford University and is published by their distinguished press. When Islamic jihad intensified against Israel in 2000, I began to meticulously document such media biases. I wrote articles, delivered speeches, lost old friends and colleagues but made new ones for doing so. I counted myself one lucky woman when HonestReporting, Camera, and Memri emerged to do just this both systematically and splendidly. Let me note that because the Times is still so large it can afford to throw bones, offer scraps, to cover their considerable moral nakedness. Thus, the paper has also published inspired, "corrective" reportage by Nicholas Kristof, Christopher Caldwell, and David Brooks--even occasionally by Thomas Friedman on the subjects of Islamic gender and religious apartheid and about the Middle East. And, let me admit: I still read their Sunday Book Review which, although it chose not to review my last two books, (a "first" for me, but a very educational experience), still remains essential reading. But, the book reviews in the New York Sun, Wall Street Journal, and Weekly Standard are now also essential reading. Here's the problem: Despite all the ongoing critiques, the Times remains a major cultural gate-keeper. If a film, opera, ballet, concert, or book is reviewed in its pages--the work exists. Otherwise, the work and its creator are rendered almost invisible. A good review in the Times (and I have had two front page Sunday book reviews, appeared on the cover of their magazine, been interviewed and published in their pages hundreds of times), inevitably leads to book sales, lecture and media requests, larger publishing advances, and invitations to much-talked about parties. It does more than that: It ensures that your ideas are made available to a large number of people. If this is true about culture, imagine the influence the Times wields by its coverage of war, politics, foreign policy or the Presidency. I don't think the bias or the influence of the mainstream media will change any time soon. And, it may get a lot worse with the increasing Saudi purchase of shares in American media. However, there is cause for hope. I am banking on the internet to effectively compete with such mainstream media. Most people under 30 turn to the internet for their news, not to hard copy newspapers--or so my son and various polls tell me. This, more than the cancellation of subscriptions by irate readers, is probably the primary reason that circulation has fallen at the Paper of Record. And now, having gotten this off my chest, I am ready to face the Paper of Record for today. Dr. Phyllis Chesler is the well known author of classic works, including the bestseller Women and Madness (1972) and The New Anti-Semitism (2003). She has just published The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for Women's Freedom (Palgrave Macmillan), as well as an updated and revised edition of Women and Madness. She is an Emerita Professor of psychology and women's studies, the co-founder of the Association for Women in Psychology (1969) and the National Women's Health Network (1974). She is currently on the Board of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and lives in New York City. Her website is www.phyllis-chesler.com. To Go To Top VIEW FROM SDEROT OF THE LIKUD PRIMARY Posted by Yrachmiel Elias, August 15, 2007. Bejamin Netanyahu beat out his chief competitor in Likud, Moshe Feiglin. This analysis was written by David Bedein, Bureau Chief, Israel Resource News Agency. He analyzes why some groups did not vote for Feiglin -- he calls it the Israeli WASP problem. Early figures from the LIkud Primaries today indicate that incumbent Likud Party Chairman Benyamin Netanyahu, whose c.v. also mentions the fact that he graduated Cheltenham High School in June 1967, was re-elected as the Likud party head with 73% of the vote. Netanyahu, who has served as deputy Foreign Minister, Foreign Minister and Prime Minister of Israel, beat off a passionate challenge by "Jewish Leadership" Likud faction chairman Moshe Feiglin, who received 23% of the vote, while another challenger, World Likud chairman Danny Dannon, garnered 4% of the vote. Feiglin carried out his campaign, with support of a homogeneous Orthodox group of 150 or so Likud "Jewish Leadership" central party members who campaigned throughout the country, with a platform that called for stronger reaction to Arab attacks, while calling for a nation state that would be grounded in God and traditional Jewish values. This reporter spent Likud primary election day in Sderot, a small working class town comprised of primarily Sephardic Jewish Israelis who live on the new civilian front line of Israel, now under daily rocket attacks from Gaza, facing additional problems of economic depression and wanton neglect from the Israeli government, which refuses to provide appropriate protection to schools, appropriate repair of shelters and appropriate military response to population centers of Gaza which host the rocket launchers who have terrorized the population of Sderot and the Western Negev over the past seven years. With Moshe Feiglin posters plastered throughout Sderot, and with anger against every aspect of the Israeli establishment in every corner of the city, the question posed to Sderot Likud members was simple: Will you support Feiglin, who is indeed calling for a stronger response to the attacks that are plaguing the city? The answer that was almost universally expressed on the lips of Sderot voters was that "Feiglin is not one of us...Why did he not put people from Israel's development towns who are not Orthodox, not Ashenazi, not middle class, on his list"? Indications are that people from Sephardic working class towns who could have provided a swing vote for a Feiglin victory felt that Feiglin did not reach out to them and did not speak their language. In other words, people of Sderot and similar towns identified Moshe Feiglin as an Israeli WASP -- a White Ashkenazic Sabra with Protexia. [Protexia is the Israeli term for someone who has "pull" with the Israeli establishment] The lesson to be learned: Any future challenger to Likud party leadership must rid himself from any such Israeli-style WASP image. In terms of the person with the ultimate elitist WASP attitude, after Likud primary elections were being announced at the Likud party elections, Netanyahu's staff forbid Feiglin, Dannon and their supporters from entering Likud Party headquarters where Netanyahu gave his victory speech. In the words of Israel Broadcasting Authority political analyst Hanan Krystal, "this is an indication that Netanyahu will work to expel his opposition from the Likud party". Until recently, the Likud led the polls as the likely party that will win the next Israeli election and form the next Israeli government. Contact Yrachmiel Elias at YrachE@hashkem.org To Go To Top GAZA TUNNEL SMUGGLERS GROW UNDER HAMAS Posted by Bryna Berch, August 15, 2007. This was written by Kevin Frayer and it appeared in the Guardian www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6849405,00.html. The Guardian together with BBC are a couple of the reasons the Brits are so anti-Jewish. Even when they try and write a straight and informative story about the Arabs, they have to silly-it up. It's ridiculous to say, as in the first para that tunneling is "an antidote to their growing isolation..." They have been digging tunnels for years -- even when every week some delegation came to visit Arafat and figuratively kiss his ring. Also, "... with Israel imposing a strict closure ... more smugglers are taking a piece of the action..." is not correct When Israel didn't come in and blast the area and when Egypt turned a blind eye, it was not so risky to do tunneling, so more and more tunnels were built. Frayer partially contradicts himself when he notes how long tunnels can take -- tunneling isn't the response to some recent checkpoint closure. What is important that he talks about how much money it costs to build a tunnel, implying they are substantial -- as they are. The media has always given the impression that these were small little tunnels. I wished he'd also mentioned that some of these are 30 ft high and you can bring some large pieces of machinery in. Remember Rachel Corrie? She was living with an Arab family whose house was the exit point of a tunnel. A real peaceniker she was. RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Gazans are finding an antidote to their growing isolation: digging tunnels under their border with Egypt to smuggle everything from weapons to cigarettes to people. A group of smugglers recently gave an Associated Press photographer rare permission to accompany them as they dug one tunnel. In underground darkness with stifling heat and limited air supply, the diggers painstakingly removed sand and rubble as they crawled through cramped spaces carrying portable lamps and homemade tools. The southern Gaza town of Rafah has long been a key conduit for underground weapons-smuggling -- mostly controlled by a handful of local clans. With Israel imposing a strict closure of Gaza's borders in the wake of Hamas militants' violent seizure of the coastal territory in June, more and more smugglers are taking a piece of the action. The stakes are higher than ever. Smugglers find themselves pursued by Israel, which fears militants' growing arsenal; by Egypt, which is under growing pressure to crack down on tunnel diggers; and by Hamas, which does not oppose tunnels but wants to control them. The diggers, who refused to give their names and wore masks to shield their identities, said today's tunnels must be deeper and longer than ever before to avoid detection. The tunnels often take weeks or months to dig, and the tunnelers sleep where they work to avoid getting caught. Tunnelers smuggle machine guns, rifles, ammunition, explosive devices, grenade launchers and other munitions. Cigarettes, drugs, gold, automobile parts and people also move through the shafts. The AP was not allowed to see what goods were moving through the tunnel. Some are only wide enough to carry in contraband no larger than a rifle, pulled through with a rope. Others, such as the one seen by AP, are big enough for a person. Still, once inside there's not enough room to turn around, so every 100 yards or so, a wider space is bored to enable a change of direction. Israel estimates there are dozens of tunnels. They range in length from 100 yards to a half-mile. They begin and end in unlikely places: under the floor tiles of kitchens, inside bedroom closets or animal pens, in the nooks of abandoned buildings. People who allow their dwellings to be used for tunnels are paid. Runners said it is now most profitable to smuggle in goods such as cigarettes rather than weapons because Hamas has prohibited ordinary citizens and rival militants from carrying arms. "After they (Hamas) took over and started controlling who can have weapons, nobody wants them any more. So why should we bring them in?" said one smuggler. Other tunnels, however, are squarely in Hamas' hands -- and Israeli officials say arms smuggling by the militant group is going strong. Smuggling has a long history in the area. Egypt once used a camel corps to intercept aboveground Bedouin caravans, but for years now has relied on vehicle patrols. During Israel's withdrawal from Sinai, smugglers buried Mercedes and other vehicles in the desert sand so they could retrieve and sell them after Israel withdrew from the territory, without having to pay Egyptian taxes. Gaza's tunnels are a major frustration for Israel, which has carried out dozens of raids to destroy them, often killing both militants and civilians. "The Hamas terror organization continues to busy itself with the smuggling of huge quantities of weapons for use against Israel. These tunnels continue to be the main source of the weapons supplies to Palestinian terrorists," said Israeli government spokesman David Baker. Tunnelers said Hamas has been trying to take over existing tunnels for its own smuggling -- showing little tolerance for freelance runners. In an interview, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum denied the existence of tunnels in Gaza. "Israel is claiming there are tunnels just to spoil the relationship between us and our brothers in Egypt," he said. Smuggling a person through a tunnel can cost up to $10,000, depending on their importance or whether they are wanted by Israel, the smugglers said. Runners say the process of bringing a person from Egypt involves intricate planning and coordination with the other side. "He's handed to someone there. He stays over at that person's place, and then we bring him in at night at an agreed time," said a smuggler. Depending on the length, width and sophistication of any given tunnel, they can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $200,000 to build. That cost is the biggest incentive for smugglers to move as much contraband as possible. Profits, too, can be high, with more than a few Gaza millionaires created by smuggling. One tunneler said the shaft he was digging would take four months to complete and that he expected to earn $12,000 for his efforts -- a fortune in impoverished Gaza. To Go To Top GIULIANI SAYS PALESTINIAN STATE WOULD SUPPORT TERRORISM Posted by Ezra HaLevi, August 15, 2007. American Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani has bucked the party line of successive US administrations and come out against the establishment of a Palestinian state. "Too much emphasis has been placed on brokering negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians -- negotiations that bring up the same issues again and again," the former New York City Mayor wrote in a paper published in Foreign Affairs magazine. "It is not in the interest of the United States, at a time when it is being threatened by Islamist terrorists, to assist the creation of another state that will support terrorism." Giuliani did not rule out the eventual establishment of such a state, but warned against the push by President George W. Bush and embattled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to quickly establish a state in Judea and Samaria ruled by Fatah. "Palestinian statehood will have to be earned through sustained good governance, a clear commitment to fighting terrorism, and a willingness to live in peace with Israel." Giuliani also took a swipe at the United Nations, saying America should have "realistic" expectations about the effectiveness of an organization he says has made itself "irrelevant" to the resolution of the past half-century's conflicts. "The organization can be useful for some humanitarian and peacekeeping functions, but we should not expect much more of it." Saying the war with "Islamic fascism" will be a lengthy one, Giuliani explained that: "The Terrorists' War on US was encouraged by unrealistic and inconsistent actions taken in response to terrorist attacks in the past. A realistic peace can only be achieved through strength." This was written by Ezra HaLevi and published in Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com). To Go To Top PERES' 'SECRET' PLAN WOULD GIVE AWAY BIBLICAL ISRAEL (THE WEST BANK) TO THE PALESTINIAN ARABS Posted by Lee Caplan, August 15, 2007. I like to remind every one at Peres' past; some think he's senile, but others as myself, think he's a traitor to the Jewish State. Peres should be told to move away from the window of politics and be grateful no one has sued him yet, or worse. He has done enough harm. This was written by Aaron Klein of World Net Daily's Jerusalem Burea and it archived at http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57146 JERUSALEM -- Newly installed Israeli President Shimon Peres has quietly drafted a plan for the Jewish state to evacuate and transfer to the Palestinians nearly the entire West Bank and several Arab Israeli cities located within territory that is undisputedly Israel's according to the international community, WND has learned. The West Bank is strategic territory that runs alongside Jerusalem and is within rocket range of Tel Aviv and Israel's international airport. It is home to many biblical Jewish communities and some of Judaism's holiest sites. Peres has presented his initiative to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and to top aides for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas the past few weeks, after he took office as Israeli president last month, diplomatic sources in Jerusalem told WND. The official role of president here is limited largely to ceremonial matters; the president does not create foreign policy. Olmert is mulling over the plan and agrees with much of its contents, the diplomatic sources said. Peres' plan calls for Israel to hand 97-percent of the West Bank over to Abbas, with Israel retaining a small number of the territory's Jewish communities. In exchange for Israel keeping some land, the Jewish state will give the PA control of Arab Israeli cities north of Tel Aviv which, together with the evacuated West Bank territory, would amount to the equivalent of 100 percent of the West Bank. Diplomatic sources said aside from Abbas and Olmert, Peres has presented his plan to European Union officials. Top EU diplomats in recent days told the media they want a U.S.-sponsored international conference scheduled for November to lead to negotiations on a final agreement with the Palestinians. That international conference and talk from the Bush administration the past few weeks has led many here to speculate the U.S. will push in the near future for intense Israeli-Palestinian negotiations leading to a Palestinian state. With a year and a half left in office, Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have been urging meetings between Abbas and Olmert to establish a framework for momentum leading to a breakthrough at November's conference. Olmert and Abbas have been meeting bi-monthly in summits brokered by the U.S. Already Olmert during the meetings has granted a number of security concessions to Abbas regarding increased Palestinian control of the West Bank. The Israeli prime minister last month amnesty to 178 gunmen from Abbas' Fatah organization who comprise most of the senior leadership of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the declared military wing of Fatah that is responsible for every suicide bombing in Israel the past three years. Olmert is reportedly considering granting amnesty to 206 more Brigades terrorists. According to Palestinian officials, the Israeli Prime Minister already informed the PA that Fatah gunmen are largely immune from Israeli anti-terror raids regardless of whether they are officially on Olmert's amnesty list. Also, Olmert is strongly considering removing hundreds of Israel Defense Forces roadblocks and checkpoints situated in strategic sites located throughout the West Bank. The IDF sees the checkpoints as crucial in helping stop terrorists, including suicide bombers, from infiltrating Jewish cities. As well, in a scantily-reported but major move, Israel last week started allowing armed Palestinian policemen to patrol areas in the West Bank that fall under Israeli security control according to the 1993 Oslo Accords. Security in the territory, referred to as Area B, is supposed to be ensured by the IDF, which still monitors the area but has allowed for an unprecedented stepped-up armed Palestinian security presence there. In response to the renewed momentum toward a Palestinian state, rabbis for the Yesha Council of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria -- the West Bank -- yesterday slammed the Israeli government for considering major concessions. The council released a statement expressing "concern at the irresponsible diplomatic moves being made during these days, the main point of which is the consent to the establishment of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria. These moves are founded upon irrelevant considerations of political survival, and are being made in total opposition to the opinion of the defense establishment." Peres overstepping his boundaries? When Peres assumed the role of president last month, political analysts and pundits here widely expected him to defy the limits of his office and take a hands-on role in Israeli diplomacy and policy making. According to Knesset sources, Peres is contemplating even asking lawmakers to officially expand the role of the president to include conducting foreign policy. During Peres' acceptance speech last month, he called for Israel to retreat from the West Bank. The next day, he called for direct negotiations with Syria, which is hosting top Palestinian terror leaders and supporting the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, which last summer launched thousands of rockets into Israeli population centers. Syrian President Bashar Assad warned several times the past few months his country is preparing for war. Peres, Israel's longest standing Knesset member, was considered the driving force of the 1993 Oslo Accords. The Peres Peace Center, headed by the new president, advocates the division of Jerusalem and Israeli withdrawals from the strategic West Bank and Golan Heights. Peres repeatedly has come under fire by critics for policies and plans many say would greatly undermine Israel's security if implemented. An official biography of the elderly statesman released earlier this year, entitled "Shimon Peres," revealed a draft agreement he hammered out with West Germany in 1961 to allow the creation of German military bases on Israeli soil less than two decades after the Holocaust. The biography also detailed a controversial plan Peres concocted to lease French Guyana from France and create an Israeli colony there at a time when the nine-year-old Israel was desperate for immigrants and struggling to establish itself. Contact Lee Caplan at leescaplan@yahoo.com To Go To Top HAMAS TV'S CHILD STAR SAYS SHE'S READY FOR MARTYRDOM Posted by Koira, August 15, 2007. This comes from http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20070814/wl_mcclatchy/ 20070814bcmideasthamas_attn_national_foreign_editors_ytop;_ylt= Ap294XOpUIkqUFil8Qaahsus0NUE. It was writen by Dion Nissenbaum and appeared on Yahoo News yesterday. GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Saraa Barhoum picked at the buttons on her pink bellbottom jeans as she twisted on a chair inside the bustling new Hamas television headquarters. The afternoon light bounced off the sparkly outlines of butterflies on her frilly top, and a colorful hijab framed her 11-year-old face. Saraa wants to be a doctor. If she can't, the young star of Hamas television's best-known children's show said, she'd be proud to become a martyr. Saraa says little Jewish girls should be forced from their homes in Israel so that Palestinians can return to their land. With the show's producer helpfully offering written tips during an interview, Saraa didn't get into how she hopes to die for her cause, be it suicide bombing, fighting the Israeli military or some other way. She carefully sidestepped any suggestion that she's subtly calling for the destruction of Israel. "Israel says that we are terrorists," Saraa said minutes before an interview with her was interrupted by an errant Israeli airstrike that slammed into an apartment building on the adjacent block. "But they are the ones that must stop their attacks against us and our kids." Saraa is the sweet face of "Tomorrow's Pioneers," a weekly, hour-long Hamas television children's show best known for bringing the world a militant Mickey Mouse look-alike and then having him killed off by an Israeli interrogator. With her jarring mix of innocent charm and militant rhetoric, Saraa is at the center of the militant Islamist group's increasingly sophisticated campaign to become the dominant force in Palestinian politics. "Hamas is fighting a political war for the hearts and minds of the West Bank and Gaza Strip," said Robert A. Pape, a University of Chicago political science professor and the author of "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism." "They are trying to show that they are the true heart-and-soul of the community, all the way down to an 11-year-old-girl," Pape added. Since it went on the air last year in the Gaza Strip, the Hamas-funded al Aqsa television has gained momentum and expanded its audience to include the West Bank. Taking a lead from Hezbollah's al Manar television station in Beirut, Hamas is using al Aqsa to promote its agenda and challenge its rivals, in this case Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his fractured Fatah allies. During its decisive June military showdown with Fatah in Gaza, Hamas used its television station to broadcast footage of Fatah leaders joking with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other Bush administration officials. The message was clear: Fatah is in bed with America. After Fatah lost Gaza to Hamas, Fatah forces laid siege to al Aqsa's offices in the West Bank and arrested several employees. The station, which operates with a license from the Palestinian Authority, also features religious lessons, cartoons, advice shows and militant music videos. One video hailed a female suicide bomber whose young daughter vows to follow her mother's example. "Tomorrow's Pioneers" sparked an international furor in April when it began featuring Farfour, the Mickey Mouse look-alike who sounded more like Iran's firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than a Disney character. Mustafa Barghouti, then serving as the Palestinian Authority's information minister, called the show a "mistaken approach" to helping Palestinians and tried unsuccessfully to force the show off the year. The Israeli government and activists who monitor Palestinian programming accused Hamas of poisoning the minds of young children with the show. After two months, Farfour was beaten to death on the show by an Israeli interrogator. Nahoul, a larger-than-life bee, is now carrying his message. "A lot of people in Palestine have died as martyrs, and lots of Palestinians hope to be martyrs," Saraa said of Farfour's demise: "This is one of the ends." Asked if she hoped one day to be a martyr, Saraa instinctively nodded her head. "Of course," Saraa said. "It's something to be proud of. Every Palestinian citizen hopes to be a martyr." Saraa helps deliver similar messages to Palestinian children from a Hamas TV set filled with colorful numbers and pictures of kittens. During the show, Saraa fields calls from Palestinian children who warble songs about Islam, liberating Jerusalem and finding answers in the barrel of a machine gun. On one show, she cut off a caller who was singing about surrendering herself, presumably to God's will. "We don't want to surrender," Saraa told the caller. "We want to resist." The show has provided new fodder for Israeli activists, who say that Saraa is the true face of Hamas, an extremist group that's using an innocent front to conceal its real agenda. Hamas television officials defend the show, saying it's designed to help young children connect with their country and their God. Israel and the United States both have pressured the Palestinian Authority to change school textbooks, radio shows and television programming that are seen to be fueling anti-Israeli hatred. On the show, Saraa offers moral lessons to viewers and urges them to do what they can to fight Israeli occupation. After some prodding in an interview, Saraa offered a personal message for Israeli girls her age. "They have to leave," she said. "This is our country. They kicked us out and stole our happiness. This is a natural result." Within minutes, an explosion hit the building, rattling windows and sending Saraa and the staff rushing outside. At first, no one was sure if it was an accident or an Israeli airstrike. Then, it became clear that the blast was caused by an Israeli missile that missed a car filled with militants and slammed into an empty bedroom on the top floor of a three-story apartment building. Standing outside the Hamas building with her producer protectively putting his arm around her shoulders, Saraa looked pensive and anxious. Hamas camera crews and an ambulance rushed down the block. Saraa kept quiet and gazed down the street. The coached revolutionary rhetoric disappeared. Instead, she looked like any frightened young girl caught up in events beyond her control. Then, after it was clear that no one had been killed in the airstrike, Saraa and her producer headed back upstairs to prepare for the next episode of "Tomorrow's Pioneers." Contact Koira at koira@dbmail.com To Go To Top CALLING FOR A GLOBAL CALIPHATE IN RAMALLAH Posted by Koira, August 15, 2007. This below was written yesterday by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz for Arutz Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com). An international movement that has made the Islamic call for a worldwide Caliphate its trademark held a conference in Ramallah on Saturday. With this conference, Hizb Ut-Tahrir Al-Islami (the Islamic Liberation Party) has formally established a Palestinian Authority branch in the Global Muslim empire which is the only way to liberate Muslims. PA media reported that the event was attended by thousands of participants under the banner, "Caliphate: The Coming Force". The movement said that the establishment of a Caliphate, a global Muslim empire, is the only way to liberate Muslims from "racism," "degradation," and "occupation." Hizb Ut-Tahrir leader Ata Khalil Abu Al-Rashtha said that the Ramallah gathering was the first of its kind in the PA. Al-Rashta is a civil engineer from Hevron region. According to the PA-based Ma'an news agency, the first of two lectures delivered at the conference addressed the many conflicts around the world that involve Muslims. The speaker set forth the idea that Caliphate is the only solution to "rescue" Muslims from their various local predicaments. The second lecture, titled "Media and the Issue of Caliphate" suggested that Muslims should make sure the Caliphate and discussion of global Islamic rule is the first priority of the media. The Caliphate, the speaker argued, was imperative to Muslim unity. According to the Hizb Ut-Tahrir website, "Hizb Ut-Tahrir is a political party whose ideology is Islam. Its objective is to resume the Islamic way of life by establishing an Islamic State that executes the systems of Islam and carries its call to the world". The organization was founded in 1952 in Jerusalem. Ultimately, Hizb Ut-Tahrir wants to see a Caliphate, accepted by the Muslim masses, that spreads Islam in the world through daa'wa (persuasion) and jihad. Until that point, the group focuses on educating Muslims about its goals, spreading these views among others in their countries and causing un-Islamic governments to disintegrate. Arab regimes thus consider Hizb Ut-Tahrir a particular threat, as the group's ideology states that "the reality is that all the Islamic lands are currently a House of Faithlessness, for Islam is no longer implemented over them; thus, Hizb-ut-Tahrir adopted the transformation of this House into a House of Islam. With regard to determining whether a household is Islamic or not, this is not dependent on whether its inhabitants are Muslims or not, but rather on what is implemented in terms of rules and on whether the security of the House is in the hands of the Muslims or the infidels". In Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, the regimes have killed or imprisoned dozens of Hizb Ut-Tahrir members. The group is banned completely or partially in several Arab and Central Asian countries, as well as in Russia and Germany. In the United Kingdom, a ban has been proposed due to Hizb Ut-Tahrir's anti-Semitic teachings from Islamic sources. Hizb ut-Tahrir, active worldwide, now has its main base in Western Europe with large Caliphate has been promoted by other Islamic groups and individuals in Israel, contingents operating in central Asian Muslim countries and in China's Xinjiang province. The message of a global Caliphate has been promoted by other Islamic groups and individuals in Israel in the past. In March of 2007, while addressing a mass rally, senior Hamas leader and former PA official Mahmoud A-Zahar reiterated his organization's fundamental position advocating the complete obliteration of Israel and the worldwide rule of Islam. In February 2006, chairman of the combined United Arab List and the Ta'al parties in the Knesset, Ibrahim Sarsour, said, "Rule on earth, at least in Arab and Muslim land, should be implemented by the Caliph. We believe in Islam and in the Caliphate and not in separation between state and religion" In September of the same year, the leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel declared that a new Caliphate will soon arise, with its capital in Jerusalem. Contact Koira at koira@dbmail.com To Go To Top RADICALIZATION IN THE WEST Posted by Gary Bauer, August 15, 2007. This was on the MEP Forum http://mep-forum.blogspot.com/2007/08/gary-bauer.html During the recent debate over immigration reform, I raised the question of why we were not looking more seriously at the values we were importing into this country through a failed immigration policy. Yes, the focus on the southern border and our lack of border security was certainly a valid concern. But there were other valid concerns that were completely ignored in that debate. For example, when Muslims who have been in this country for decades are arrested for plotting to kill our soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey, I think it is legitimate to ask questions about our immigration policies. When the New York Times writes articles about polygamy being practiced in America by adherents of Islamic teaching, it is clear that our American values are being challenged. When New York City opens a school for Arabic-speaking students, assimilation is not taking place. When over a thousand Somali immigrants take to the streets demanding Sharia law in Minnesota, the "melting pot" has clearly broken down. A report being released today by the New York Police Department's Intelligence Division entitled "Radicalization In the West and the Homegrown Threat," only adds more urgency to this debate. According to ABC News, "U.S. law enforcement officials have identified more than two dozen 'clusters' of young Muslim men in the northeast United States who are on a path that could lead to homegrown terror." Brian Jenkins, a terrorism expert with the Rand Corporation who participated in the report, said, "The threat is real; this is not some bogey man we are creating here. There are individuals who are proselytizing, inciting angry young men to go down this path." The report notes that while Al Qaeda is a danger to America, the most significant threat posed to our homeland security is the spread of its militant ideology by Al Qaeda followers through various "radicalization incubators" -- mosques, bookstores and prisons. In June, a similar threat assessment by the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security also identified prisons, universities and religious/cultural institutions as places where "radicalization in New Jersey appears to occur." Slowly, perhaps too slowly, official Washington is connecting the dots. Chuck Colson has for years been sounding the alarm against the expansion of Saudi-funded Wahabbism in our prisons. The same is also true of many mosques. Anti-Americanism, fueled by political correctness and multiculturalism, has been rampant on university campuses for decades. Anti-Semitism is also on the rise, and a recent poll of college professors found that a majority admitted to harboring "unfavorable feelings" toward evangelical Christians, while only 22% expressed similar feelings about Muslims. (See our May 7th report.) It's no surprise that jihadists flock to our "institutions of higher learning" where the "tyrants of tolerance" have adopted "Hey, hey, ho, ho Western Civ has got to go" as their unofficial motto. To be sure, the enemy is here. According to press reports last week, American, British and German intelligence officials are working to track down individuals identified in encrypted email chains used by the plotters who tried to attack London and Glasgow in July. According to one official, "Because of the London and Glasgow plot, we now know that communications have been made from Al Qaeda to operatives in the United States. This plot helps to connect a lot of stuff." (Yet the Left howls in protest when the president tries to update our antiquated surveillance laws.) I was reminded yesterday of a quote by Albert Einstein: "The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." He witnessed Germany's descent into chaos firsthand and fled. What might he say about America's "silent majority" today as we face the evil of Islamofascism? If America falls, there will be no refuge, no place to flee. As Abraham Lincoln said, "We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth." Gary Bauer is President of the American Values Organization (http://www.ouramericanvalues.org/). Contact him at gary.bauer@mail.amvalues.org To Go To Top MENTAL RETARDATION AN ARAB PROBLEM?; ARAB GOAL OF WORLD CONQUEST STILL STRONG; PRAISING ABBAS FOR CHARADE Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 15, 2007. MENTAL RETARDATION A SERIOUS ARAB PROBLEM An Arab tried to stab some Israeli soldiers in the Gush Etzion area of Judea-Samaria. About to shoot him, a soldier was afraid he might hit a comrade. Instead he clubbed the assailant, who later died from it. Arab "sources" claimed that the assailant was mentally retarded and wasn't near the soldiers. The IDF pointed out that his mental condition did not reduce his menace (Arutz-7, 7/26). If he weren't near the soldiers, they would have shot him. When an Egyptian policeman shot Israeli tourists in the Sinai, the Arabs claimed he was emotionally disturbed. When a Jordanian soldier shot Israeli visitors to a peace park, his countrymen claimed he was mentally disturbed. In both cases, the murderers were not referred to a mental hospital and the public lionized them. I think the excuse is phony. Otherwise, one has to suppose that mental disturbance and retardation is a serious Arab problem. On the other hand, the IDF managed to let loose one or two mentally disturbed soldiers to shoot at Arabs. The result was to paralyze public opposition to appeasement of the Arabs, once when Netanyahu was Prime Minister. In Russia, it seems that once again, dissidents are considered, by definition, mentally disturbed. Pres. Putin has revived the practice of placing bothersome critics in mental institutions and then plying them with "medicine." We in the US have one such case. Jonathan Pollard spent his first few years of solitary confinement in a mental ward, under conditions that would make most people need such a ward. He perseveres. I admire that in him. Who really is emotionally disturbed? SYRIA OCCUPIES PART OF LEBANON According to an American NGO, Syria occupies 177 square miles of Lebanese territory. That is more than ten times as much as the 12 square miles that the UNO now says Israel occupies of Lebanese territory. Israel denies that it is foreign territory. Syria uses the 177 square miles to smuggle arms to Hizbullah. Claiming that Israel has Lebanese territory, Hizbullah (which is not nationalist, hypocritically) makes war on Israel. It does not make war on Syria, to liberate the occupied Lebanese territory. Neither is there much publicity or objection to Syria's incursion (Prof. Steven Plaut, 7/25 by Bret Stephens in Wall St. J.). OLMERT'S PROCEEDING BACKWARDS PM Olmert proposes to negotiate the easier aspects of (undeserved) P.A. statehood, omitting the thornier aspects such as borders, Jerusalem, and refugees (and terrorism and bigotry). Before he discusses the latter, he may withdraw from large parts of Judea-Samaria. That is like a clothier giving customers coats and suits to take home, and asking them to come back tomorrow to discuss the price. Not only is Olmert giving away (the Jewish people's patrimony and) bargaining chips, he is making possible Muslim sovereignty because the withdrawal would be big enough. They'd get a state without dropping demands on refugee-flooding, borders, and terrorism. Being sovereign, they could promote terrorism without interference from the IDF. After all, the Muslims were not made to dismantle terrorism as Oslo prescribed, and Olmert and the US do not seem inclined to demand it in advance of concessions to the P.A.. War would become likelier (Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 7/26). War would become worse for Israel. The P.A. could build up a war machine undisturbed. It could coordinate with and invite in foreign Muslim armies. Imposing Oslo, Rabin and Peres operated the same backwards procedure. They offered concessions without first getting the Muslims to dismantle terrorism or agree on major issues. The major issues continued to serve as their pretext for war. AMERICAN STYLE EDUCATION POPULAR AMONG THE ARABS The Arabs claim to be setting up American style higher education in their own countries, though it isn't certified. They don't like US foreign policy, but they do like its type of education. (Thousands come to the US to study, too.) A Kuwait professor called that style education a force for peace (IMRA, 7/26). What force for peace? I notice arms races, not a waning of Islamic belligerence. SUICIDE BOMBING LOSING POPULARITY IN MUSLIM WORLD So the poll shows. What the poll doesn't show is why. Daniel Pipes finds the reasons not encouraging: (1) Islamists increasingly employed suicide bombing in Muslim countries. Muslim residents detest it. Terrorists become unpopular as a result; and (2) Islamists usually cannot win power by that method. They find that via politics, as in Turkey, they can (Pipes #788, 7/26). The objection is to the means. Hatred and the goal of world conquest remain. LIBYA SEEKING A-BOMBS? Libya proposes to construct a nuclear energy plant for desalination. Having steady sunlight, it could turn to solar energy. Critics suggest that the plant is an excuse for eventually developing nuclear weapons, based on the knowledge gained from civilian development (IMRA, 7/27). NEW P.A. PLATFORM Abbas has set out his platform for Israel. It has been hailed as moderate. He doesn't explicitly approve of armed "resistance" to Israel but for "national opposition to the occupation." The difference is semantic, his magic words to downplay his belligerency, so Israel and the US can pretend he's making peace. The platform also calls for a "just" and agreed-upon resolution to the refugee problem "on the basis of UN resolutions." What the Muslims mean by "just" is to flood Israel with Arabs so that they can take over Israel. The Muslims consider Israel to be occupiers in the state of Israel, itself. Meanwhile, Haim Ramon wants a "massive withdrawal from the West Bank in return for a 'general outline' of a final agreement. Ramon opposes trying to go into details before the massive withdrawal." He said if they discuss details of final borders and refugees, "there won't be a deal" (IMRA, 7/27). If no deal because Muslim demands would be irreconcilable with Israeli entitlements and security, then the Muslims retain their motive for war. (Jihad can't be negotiated away.) Israel would have given up territory that is Jewish historically, legally, and religiously, without getting peace and a resolution of the conflict. Withdrawal would be pointless and counter-productive. Why do Israel's leaders propose it? Ideologically stupid and anti-Zionist, too. PRAISING ABBAS FOR NOTHING, ON DISARMING MILITIAS Herb Keinon and Yaakov Katz of the Jerusalem Post see as "positive signs" that in Judea-Samaria, P.A. police have collected the arms of terrorist militiamen. The militiamen are not charged with their crimes, and are taken off Israel's wanted list. This arrangement will be used to justify turning over security control of certain P.A. cities to the P.A.. Dr. Aaron Lerner finds this just another one of the over-optimistic interpretations of Arab actions, bruited in order to bolster appeasement of the Arabs. The round-up is phony. The P.A. keeps the terrorists' weapons but promises them new ones and jobs in the security forces! (IMRA, 7/27.) The terrorists who created insecurity would be in charge of security. Freed to terrorize! Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top TWO ESSAYS ON ISRAEL'S SURVIVAL Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 15, 2007. NOTHING HAS CHANGED SINCE 1995. A war -- not civil disobedience -- against this government is the only way to save the Land of Israel, the State of Israel. Read these essays. "We are facing an existantial crisis" by Professor Paul Eidelberg Professor Paul Eidelberg is President of the Foundation For Constitutional Democracy. He can be reached by mail at 244 Madison Avenue, Suite 427, New York, NY 10016, Tel: 212-372-3752, and by email at Constitution@usa.net To the People of Israel: You know that we Jews are facing an existential crisis. You know that this crisis is not merely the result of our external enemies. You know that this crisis is also the result of our mendacious and treacherous Government, a Government that cries, "Peace, peace," knowing there is no prospect of peace whatsoever with Israel's jihadic enemies. You know that this Government, which justifies its perfidy in the name of "democracy," is a subtle form of tyranny which, contrary to your safety, your judgment, your sense of justice, has deliberately pursued a policy of self-restraint vis-a-vis Arab murderers. You know that this Government, without public debate, that is, without consulting you, has released thousands of Arab terrorists as "confidence building measures" to the Palestinian Authority, the successors of the Nazis. You know all-too-painfully and the Government knows, without really caring, that many of these terrorists have gone on to kill more of your loved ones. But what you may not know is this: Your Government's policy of self-restraint is intended to condition you to absorb murderous blows, to brutalize you, to demoralize you, so that you will acquiesce all the more readily in the surrender of Judea and Samaria, the heartland of the Jewish people. Know, therefore, that this Government constantly employs the mantras of "peace" and "democracy" to deceive you, to disarm you, to prevent you from rising up and putting an end to this tyranny. Let me therefore convey to you the words of that great American patriot, Thomas Paine: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. "A Time For Peace, And A Time For War" by Bernard J. Shapiro (1995) Bernard J. Shapiro is the executive director of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies and the editor of The Maccabean Online and the Freemanlist. Contact the Center at Freeman Center For Strategic Studies, P.O. Box 35661, Houston, Texas 77235-5661. Phone or Fax at 713-723-6016 [This article was the cover editorial in the August 1995 issue of THE MACCABEAN.] We find all the expressions of horror at the recent Rabbi's ruling concerning a soldier's obligation to avoid abandoning army bases and settlements to terrorists, to be hypocritical, self-serving, and unfortunate. The Israeli government is in rebellion against everything that Israel, Zionism, and Judaism are all about. They are the ones causing the rift in the body politic and they will be totally responsible for any resulting violence. When will the Nationalist Camp realize that we are "at war already" with the PLO supported tyranny that rules Israel? At what point will Israelis realize that the CIVIL WAR they fear, IS ALREADY TAKING PLACE AND THEY ARE LOSING? Why don't members of the Nationalist Camp understand that FORCE is being used by only ONE side and that is the government. The monopoly on power must be broken or there is no hope. Under the Nazis, the Jews of Warsaw numbered over 500,000. They were depleted with regular deportations aided by Judenrats (Jewish leaders). The Revolt in Warsaw began when the Jewish population was down to 50,000 (or 90% murdered). At what point is it OK to rebel? When is civil disobedience OK? When is civil war a better course than suicide? All throughout history there have been rebels and loyalists. History is usually written by the victors but truly there is seldom a universally accepted moral standard as to what is a proper rebellion and what is not. We can say with absolute certainty, however, that the Jewish return to Zion and our struggle today for Eretz Yisrael are more righteous than any other struggle for national liberation in the history of the world. Conditions in Israel may have passed the period where civil disobedience would be effective. A massive outpouring of Israelis prepared to get arrested in civil disobedience would have stopped the Oslo Suicide Pact a year ago. Now, it appears that only force of arms may save the country. The government plan to post soldiers in every settlement in YESHA is nothing more than a TROJAN HORSE. They will be there to give the Jews a FALSE sense of security thus nipping in the bud attempts by YESHA to achieve the military means necessary for self-defense. Some will be spies and agents to seize and confiscate Jewish arms. At the right moment they will be withdrawn and the terrorists will be in charge. Jews will have a choice: being massacred or abandoning their homes. Their ability to defend themselves will have been thwarted by the government in collusion with the terrorists. Following my five weeks of research in Israel, I spelled out (May-June 1994 issue of THE MACCABEAN) the nature of this inevitable conflict: THE PRIMARY INHERENT FLAW IN THE OSLO AGREEMENT THAT WILL LEAD TO MILITARY CONFLICT 1. The Palestinians expect and will demand that every Jew be removed from their areas of control including the whole of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. 2. The Jews of YESHA not only plan to stay in their homes but will fight for them militarily. This obviously conflicts with #1. I also stated: "The number of Jews in YESHA is about 144,000 Today in 2007, 270,000 not counting Jerusalem suburbs). Not counting women, children, and men over 50 leaves about 40,000 [ today, at least double that amount] men capable of resisting a PLO armed force. These men are all IDF veterans and reservists with army issue UZI's or M-16 with at least two clips (30 rounds per clip) of ammunition per gun. All Jewish villages are on the hills with a commanding view of the area. The Arab villages control the roads creating a strategic situation similar to the pre-state fighting of 1947-48. During my visit I toured the whole area, and emphasized the need to get past the shock of the government's disregard for their interests and make serious preparations for the coming battles." A year and a half has passed and since that report and events are playing out exactly as I predicted. Arafat's PLO terrorists will soon take over Judea and Samaria under Phase Two of the Oslo Plan. The military struggle is about to begin in earnest. If anyone believes this to be unlikely, stay posted and we will see how the future plays out. The Jews of YESHA should not leave their physical well- being to the good graces of Arafat or Rabin. The Jews of YESHA must not be passive pawns in the political surrender of their homes. They must fight the Arabs, where necessary, to maintain their travel, water, and land rights. When the Israeli government retreats, leaving them behind PLO battle lines, they must be prepared to go on the offensive militarily to secure safe contiguous areas of Jewish control. The defeatist Israeli leaders, who have surrendered our Jewish rights to Eretz Yisrael, should be told that there are still proud Jews in YESHA who will give up neither their inheritance from Abraham nor their right of self-defense. Exercising one's right to self-defense is a moral imperative. There is a lot of hypocritical talk coming from the government about the danger of Jew fighting Jew. These warnings are coming from the likes of Yitzhak Rabin who delighted in shooting Zionist (Betar) teenagers swimming to shore after his forces sank the Altalena in 1948. These same hypocrites are putting the Jews of YESHA in life threatening peril. They care nothing about Jewish lives! Should the Jews of YESHA be forced into military combat -- most likely against Arabs, but, G-d forbid, perhaps also against Jews -- they would be fully justified. They will be fighting for the security of Israel and the future destiny of the Jewish people. These brave Jews would be continuing the long tradition of Hebrew Warriors, including Joshua, David, the Maccabees and Bar Kochba, who fought against all odds to save their people and their country. The glorious Hebrew Warriors who defeated five Arab armies in 1948, three in 1967, and two in 1973 must not surrender their Jewish homeland to an evil terrorist, who delights in killing Jewish babies. The Brave Heroes of Zion must not limit themselves to passive civil disobedience. Freedom sometimes needs to be secured through the barrel of a gun. If it is considered patriotic to die fighting Arabs for Israel's survival, then it is just as patriotic to fight against Jews who would lead Israel to destruction. While such internal Jewish fighting would be dreadful, it is a consequence of the government's disregard for the security and well being of its citizens. At this great time of trial and apocalyptic threat, the safeguarding of the future of the Jewish people's right to Eretz Yisrael must take precedence. MAY THE ALMIGHTY WATCHMAN OF ISRAEL PROTECT HIS PEOPLE FROM THE DANGEROUS POLICIES OF THE LABOR [Today Kadima & Labor] GOVERNMENT. MAY HE LIBERATE HIS PEOPLE FROM CRUEL TYRANNY AND RESTORE ZIONIST RULE TO JERUSALEM. Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top BARAK SAYS DEFENSE IS OUT. BUT THAT'S ONLY IF YOU LET HIM CONTINUE TO MISMANAGE! Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 15, 2007. Israel, you get what you paid for! You elect them knowing they will destroy you! If you want your team to win -- your nation to be saved -- you have to get in the game! Bring down this government! This is what happens when a nation recycles 'drek' politicians. Recycled into the Defense Minister Position and given a second chance to destroy Israel, Ehud Barak appears to be much less capable of handling his post but he is meaner, using fascistic techniques against his own nation! In democracy, it is 'for the people by the people'! When thousands of Israelis will die, who should Israel blame? The blame is totally on Israel's citizenry for allowing Barak and the like bureaucrats, who dislike the Land of Israel to mismanage the State of Israel to a possible oblivion! This was written by MK Arieh Eldad. No one disagrees: Syria has powerful chemical weapons and missiles capable of reaching every part of Israel. Despite this fact, Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided this week that the defense bureaucracy would not distribute gas masks and similar protective gear to Israeli citizens. The Israeli army, the National Security Council, and the Knesset Security and Defense Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Preparedness -- whose members are provided with the background information to all decisions -- all recommended that the masks and equipment be distributed. But, as reported by the media, Barak "does not want to upset the Syrians." This is akin to refusing to put bars on one's windows in a crime ridden neighborhood "so as not to upset the thieves." Unhappy Syrians are of course not what is worrying Barak. Rather he believes that distributing the equipment will signal Syria that Israel is preparing its citizens for a war that it is planning, a signal which of itself may cause Syria to launch a pre-emptive war. Is there a basis for these calculations by Barak? Of all the wars that Israel has fought, have the Arabs opened even one because they were convinced Israel was about to attack them? Before the Six Day War, Russia provided false intelligence to Egypt and Syria that convinced them that Israel intended to attack. But even then, it was Israel who started the war. Months before the Yom Kippur War, Egypt engaged in extensive exercises anticipating the precise maneuvers they would use during the war. Egypt's intention was to turn the exercise into an actual operation if Israel did not respond. Israel drafted its reserves and the exercise did not turn into a war. On Yom Kippur, however, Moshe Dayan and Golda Meir refused to draft the reserves even though it was clear Egypt intended to start a war, and we all know the results. Deterrence is the backbone of Israel's military strategy. Were Israel to be unsure of whether to publicly announce that it was arming itself with offensive weapons capable of destroying the Syrian forces on the Golan Heights, the reasons not to publicize such information would be understandable; even though it would bolster our deterrence, it might be interpreted as an intentional provocation. But when Barak refuses to supply the country's citizens with protective gear, a measure that cannot kill a single Syrian, he is taking a risk that the enemy will read his stripping us of protective gear not as a declaration of peace but rather as a temptation to attack. An enemy may be less inclined to attack with chemical and biological weapons if it knows Israel is protected, for the punishment it would receive for such an attack would be extreme. It would risk using such weaponry only if it knows that it can cause us serious damage. What decision would Barak take if he knew that Hizbollah or Hamas had such weaponry? Would he, under those circumstances, too, refuse to protect our citizens? Does he believe the Syrians love us more than those they sponsor, fund, equip, train, manage, and allow to operate terror headquarters in Damascus? In the recent Lebanese War, Israel refrained from attacking Syria despite Syria's responsibility for Hizbollah's Katyusha rocketry. The United States clearly signaled us and the European countries hinted that they would not condemn Israel for punishing Syria. But Olmert and his government preferred to lose the war against Hizbollah and not to strike at the key target: Syria. Syria's Assad learned from the war in Lebanon. Not only is Israel unable to fight a guerilla organization, and not able to commit to an all out war for fear of casualties, but it is afraid to strike at Syria without direct provocation. All these lessons learned by Assad may encourage him to supply the terrorist organizations with chemical or biological weapons with which they could deal Israel an awful blow -- without any risk to Assad at all. In the past, the defense establishment has proposed an alternative to protective gear being in the hands of the citizens at all times: collecting and upgrading the gear and distributing it at a time of need. This alternative is workable only if we know several weeks in advance about a Syrian intention to attack. But Israel's citizens are aware that its various intelligence sources disagree widely about the enemy's intentions, and we really do not know what the Syrians' plans are. Since we do not have precise information but only estimates and guesses, he who is taking a great risk -- and not because of a lack of means but only "to avoid upsetting the Syrians" -- is playing with the lives of tens of thousands of people. Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top GETTING NOISY OUTSIDE THE PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE Posted by David Ben-Ariel, August 14, 2007. This appeared yesterday on the Blog Critics Magazine blogcritics.org/archives/2007/08/13/151753.php The original has live links to additional material. Ruvy was born in Brooklyn and lived in Minnesota for a number of years. There he managed restaurants and wrote stories. He moved with his family to Israel where they now reside. He is also published by the Root & Branch Information Service and by Jewish Indy. I stand guard at the prime minister's office building during the cabinet meetings that take place every Sunday. As a uniformed volunteer, I do not get to handle demonstrators. I may be a police volunteer, but I'm not a cop. At least that's the policy. Last week, arriving at the street where the prime minister's office building is, I could hear the demonstrators a block away, standing at my normal position near the exit to the Bank of Israel. So I told the Shabaknik, a secret service type, a kid in his twenties hefting an M16, that I was a volunteer and wasn't supposed to handle demonstrators. He pointed to a shady area to stand under, and I basically watched him do his job -- searching cars and clicking a clicker that raised a barrier and allowed them to enter the street where the prime minister's office building is located. Last week, I had to listen to demonstrators from the north of the country, angry over their treatment during the Lebanon War, furious at how the government ran away under the Katyusha assault of HizbAllah, and even angrier over the way the government had abandoned them afterwards. Repeatedly, they screamed, "Where were the ministers?" "Where were you when we needed you?" Repeatedly, they made the point that in the twelve months after the war, the government had done nothing to make them whole, had done nothing to compensate them their losses, and that the government ministers hadn't even visited the north. Their basic message was "Time's up! We're here to settle accounts with you and we won't rest till you are thrown out of office!" All this I absorbed from repetitive screaming in Hebrew over about four hours. I should point out that this was a relatively small crowd, maybe thirty to fifty people all tolled, but they had one noisy megaphone, and there were at least as many cops and Border Guards as there were demonstrators. Frankly, I felt useless there. But I could gauge the anger, hatred and resentment against the regime; it is deep and strong, an abiding hatred that comes from a justified sense of betrayal. This week, when I arrived at about 09:00, I could again hear demonstrators -- again at my position near the Bank of Israel. My partner, a grandmotherly lady who has been a volunteer for a long time and who used to work in the prime minister's office building, was sitting there accompanied by a number of shotròt, policewomen. So, it appeared, this time I was going to have to handle demonstrators in spite of policy. I shrugged my shoulders. The majority of the demonstrators were sitting in wheelchairs and were protesting cuts in funding for cripples who suffered polio and other diseases and injuries. They made up for the limits on their mobility with their noise. They had gotten a friend to bring his tow truck, outfitted with huge speakers and a generator, and they used a mike to scream at Olmert to come down from his cabinet meeting and look the people he was screwing over face to face. They were much louder than the demonstrators had been last week -- though they used some of the same techniques. They played the "color red" alert used to warn of Qassam and Katyusha rockets. The demonstrators had used this device last week to make the sheltered prime minister and his fellow ministers hear what it was that the residents of the north had to deal with last year (and what the residents of S'derot have to deal with still). But the big difference was that these folks did not have a pre-recorded message they played over and over again. Each individual took the mike and called upon Olmert to show a little courage and come down from his comfortable chair in the meeting room to sit with them in the plastic chairs outside the Bank of Israel. Over and over again, they drove home the point that the cuts made by the government and the niggling increase in allowance for crippled people was a scandal -- a shame. One women made me glad that she was not my wife. Her screaming was something no husband should have to endure. Handling the demonstrators turned out to be no problem. They could see a sympathetic person in me, one restrained in what he could say because of the uniform, but evidently someone who understood their problems and treated them with dignity. I guess that puts me a few degrees above the politicians they were condemning. One politician actually came down and spoke with them. MK Eli Yishai, Minister of Industry, Trade, and Labor, as well as Deputy Prime Minister, reassured the crowd of people that the government would do what it could to treat them justly He promised them that Shas, the political party he heads, would veto the budget in its present form. It turned out that the demonstration, part of the bickering over the State Budget for 2008 -- which must pass if the cabinet is to stay in power, was a sign of trouble that was reflected in the Cabinet meeting itself. Transport Minister Mofaz walked out of the Cabinet Meeting over the proposed budget cuts Olmert felt forced to make. Later in the day, Eli Yishai, who had spoken to the demonstrators, also left the meeting. The Pensioners Party, an ally of Labor, has said it will veto the budget. Finally, the Histadrut national labor union will order a general strike if changes are not made to the 2008 budget and Economic Arrangements law passed Sunday morning by the cabinet, according to Army Radio. But the point here is that the screaming is getting habitual. The dissatisfaction with the fool in office grows daily no matter how he wiggles and squirms, talking about this line of garbage or that. His popularity is at the point that only his wife, daughter and immediate flunkies really want him in office. Everybody else is trying to ditch him with minimal damage to themselves. It is only the fear of the damage that ditching him might do that is keeping Ehud Olmert's rear end warming the prime minister's chair in Israel. Otherwise, he is as good as gone. When the missiles of the Arabs and Iranians fall here in the near future, he will be. David Ben-Ariel is author of "Beyond Babylon: Europe's Rise and Fall." Contact him at http://www.beyondbabylon.blogspot.com/ or email davidbenariel@earthlink.net To Go To Top BGU POST-ZIONIST PROFESSOR EQUATES NAQBA WITH HOLOCAUST; CLEANSING THE ACLU Posted by Steven Plaut, August 14, 2007. 1. Ben-Gurion University is host to many of the worst anti-Israel extremists, tenured traitors, "New Historians", and "Post-Zionists" in Israel academia. Some openly call for Israel to be annihilated. Unlike other universities where such people are repudiated by the institution officers and officials, at Ben Gurion University they are celebrated and endorsed by the university officers as fine scholars and sensitive peace lovers. This has earned Ben Gurion University its frequent nickname, the "Bir Zeit of the Negev." BGU is so obsessed with hiring and promoting anti-Israel extremism that it sometimes trashes academic standards of scholarship altogether. While Ben Gurion University is also home to many serious researchers and to some departments that are scrupulous in maintaining serious academic quality, it hosts academics who endorse law breaking and terror, who call for Israel to be boycotted, and who denounce Israel as a Nazi apartheid regime. University officials there have never been bothered by any of that. In fact, they celebrate their Post Zionists as heroes! Among the many extremists at BGU is Professor Dan Bar-On, a "Post-Zionist" professor of psychology who used to be Dean of Social Sciences at BGU. Writing in the pro-Palestinian Middle East Times of April 27, 2007 with an Arab co-author, Bar-On mimics so many of the vogue radical haters of Israel in drawing moral-historical comparisons between the Nazi Holocaust of Jews in World War II and the "Naqba" (catastrophe in Arabic), the fashionable nonsense term that is often used by such people when describing the "sufferings" of Arabs when Israel was first created. Bar-On, who was active in the movement to organize mutiny and insurrection among Israeli soldiers until Israel capitulated to the demands of the Far Left, writes: The Yad VaShem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem and the ruins of Deir Yassin may be in geographical proximity, but a world apart in the psyche of Jews and Palestinians. While the first commemorates the systematic mass extermination of European Jews under Nazi occupation prior to and during World War II, the second marks the village where Palestinians were massacred at the hands of Jewish extremists in April 1948, and symbolizes Palestinian dispossession and their struggle for self-determination....Israeli Jews have generally refused to take even partial responsibility for the Nakba (the Catastrophe) that befell the Palestinian Arabs in 1948. Such an acknowledgement, in their mind, creates a moral obligation for the Right of Return or its equivalent, thereby undermining their majority in the State of Israel....It may be not a coincidence that the new exhibit of Yad VaShem in the form of a deep mountain tunnel opens up unwittingly toward the hill where Deir Yassin was once located. That, for sure, was not the intention of the architect. It takes a new kind of courage to recognize the symbolic importance and implications of both Yad VaShem and Deir Yassin in order to go beyond them and envision a better future for both Israelis and Palestinians. He has been arguing that the Holocaust and "Palestinian suffering" in 1948-49 are moral equivalents for many years. He signed a statement claiming Israel was about to perpetrate genocidal atrocities against Arabs the moment Allied forces invaded Iraq, but never apologized when this proved completely false. Elsewhere he writes: "Some of the aggression that the Jews did not exercise against the Germans, they are expressing against Palestinians." He has been active in producing and promoting textbooks that present the historic falsehoods that comprise the anti-Israel "narrative" as at least as valid and true as actual history. For example, terrorists were always described also as freedom fighters. 2. "Cleansing the ACLU" Dow Jones Reprints http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118705410302696737.html The latest battle of religion in the public square is unfolding in Dearborn, Michigan, a city with one of the highest Muslim populations in the country. At the University of Michigan's local campus, administrators have recently refitted several school bathrooms to include small footbaths in the corner -- an accommodation for Muslim students who must perform ritual washing as part of their daily observance. The issue has more than a few of the usual suspects trying to explain their way out of their usual positions on the separation of church and state. The Detroit chapter of the ACLU has scrambled to find a way to recuse itself from the matter, claiming that the footbaths qualify as secular since they could be used by non-Muslims, and therefore don't cross the group's usual bright church-state line. Further, the ACLU explains, the university's decision to take on the $25,000 expense was motivated primarily "by health and safety" because some students didn't like washing their hands in the sinks after others students had washed their feet. If that hadn't been the case, the group says this religious accommodation would surely have merited greater investigation and criticism. Uh-huh. This is the same ACLU chapter that in 2005 objected to a high-school wrestling coach saying a prayer with his team before meets, calling the action "inherently coercive." And the ACLU of Michigan is already on the defensive for its non-action this time. In a letter explaining its silence regarding university footbaths, the ACLU notes that it "has often come to the defense of other religions when the state has attempted to interfere with their religious expression." The letter even includes a list of cases in which the group has defended Christian clients. Too bad none of the examples prove much of a parallel to the current recusal over state recognition of a religious practice. Truer to form was the Council on American Islamic Relations, which immediately hollered that objections were all a case of Islamaphobia, and fear that the university was going to become "Islamified." But that's a hard assertion to prove in an America that frequently goes 10 rounds over the sight of a Christmas creche in the public square. CAIR's invocation of American bigotry has become so reflexive that we wonder if its spinners even bother to rewrite their press releases. For our part, we see no reason to object to University of Michigan's gesture to some of its Muslim students. Freedom of religion has never meant freedom from religion, and making it easier for people of different backgrounds to practice their faiths is a perfectly American thing to do. Many schools have chapels on campus, a fact that bothers very few. And few places object to kosher offerings in school cafeterias -- an accommodation for Jewish students causing no inconvenience to others. A university is entitled to some discretion in how it serves its student body. Let's hope the ACLU takes this case as an opportunity to cleanse itself of inconsistencies. SP: The ACLU has been the main group in Michigan DEFENDING affirmative action apartheid. See also http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q= ODM0NzliZGQyYTI0YmYxMjk5ZDkyMGNjMDgxYjkxZjI= 5. Nice piece: Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il This appeared in Arutz-Sheva www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/1#2265 To Go To Top UK BLOCKS ISRAEL ARMS DEALS Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 14, 2007. This was written by George Conger Jerusalem Post Correspondent from London www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1186557440717&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull The British government has blocked almost one third of British military exports to Israel this year, citing possible threats to regional stability and fears the equipment might facilitate human rights violations. According to official figures, the value of UK military sales arms to Israel declined by one third last year, and has fallen by a drastic 75 percent since 2005. "There is evidence that the British government's export control policy to Israel may have been tightened up," said Parliament's new 2007 Strategic Export Controls report, issued by the Quadrapartite Commission, which comprises representatives from four ministries. The change in policy, said the report, reflects a convergence of government attitudes with its own official guidelines. The report comes amid a period of uncertainty in Anglo-Israeli relations. While the new prime minister, Gordon Brown, has voiced public support for Israel and has appointed several pro-Israel MPs to cabinet positions, he has also promoted a leading critic of US and Israeli policy, former UN deputy secretary-general Mark Malloch Brown, to a key Foreign Office post. Outside of government, the opposition Liberal Democrat party has called for a rethinking of arms sales to Israel, while in May the UK's Legal Services Commission, the state agency that provides funding for attorney's fees for indigent defendants, agreed to underwrite the costs of litigation brought by a Palestinian man in a British court seeking a ban on arms sales to Israel. The August 7 Quadripartite Committee report largely praised the government's overall handling of strategic exports but warned that the rapid pace of technological change and rising threat of terrorism required increased state vigilance. "Any gaps in the legislation could have serious consequences for the UK," it concluded. However, it criticized as "unclear" the British government's policies on arms sales to Israel. While the "case-by-case" approach gave the government a "flexibility" that allowed a "latitude to adjust policy without the need for public explanation," its arms sales policies towards Israel were "neither transparent nor accountable," the panel found. The committee asked that "the government explain its policy on licensing exports to Israel, Jordan or other countries in the Middle East and that it explain whether it has adjusted its policy since 1997 as events in the Occupied Territories and Middle East have unfolded." "We further recommend that the government explain how it assesses whether there is a clear risk -- that a proposed export to Israel might be used for internal repression," it said. Statistics published by the committee showed that arms exports to Israel totaled 14.5 million pounds last year (about $29 million), compared to 22.5 million pounds in 2005. Between 1997 and 2006 Britain granted Israel 1561 Standard Individual Export Licenses (SIELs) valued at 113 million pounds. During the same period it authorized 626 SIELs valued at 136.5 million pounds for shipment to Jordan. However, over the last 10 years, 190 application for military sales to Israel have been prohibited, comprising 11 percent of all applications for sales of military equipment. During the same period, only two such applications were rejected for military and restricted goods bound for Jordan. The British government reported it had approved 37 military SIELs to Israel in the first quarter of 2007 valued at 1.5 million pounds, a rate that if held constant throughout the year would cut British sales to Israel by three quarters since 2005. The UK also blocked 11 SIELs to Israel in the first three months of 2007: three for airborne guidance systems, four for information security systems and equipment, one for munitions, one for fire control equipment, one for electronic components, and one for specialty aluminum alloys. Three SIELs for the sale of radar and avionics guidance systems to a third country for use in aircraft destined for the IAF were blocked this year also. The 14 rejected SIELs violated various "Consolidated EU and National Arms Licensing Criteria," the Foreign Office stated, citing concerns the shipments would not respect "human rights and the fundamental freedoms in the country of final destination," would worsen the "the internal situation in the country of final destination;" and would harm "regional peace, security and stability." One SIEL was denied due to the "behavior of the buyer country with regard to the international community; in particular its attitude to terrorism, the nature of its alliances and respect for international law," while concerns the equipment would be "diverted" for non-approved uses or "re-exported under undesirable conditions" were cited in rejecting three SIELs. The Foreign Office said in its annual human rights report to Parliament that "progress on improving the human rights situation" in Israel and the territories had been "limited." Testifying before the committee on March 15, foreign secretary Margaret Beckett stated that the Foreign Office kept a "close eye" on the uses made by the IDF of British military equipment. The then-foreign secretary said: "If we discovered that equipment had been sold to Israel and was being used contrary to agreed terms, we would regard that with grave concern and we would make sure we did not issue licenses for such equipment in the future." Beckett said at the time that Britain's total arms sales to Israel were slight. "I believe something like 0.1% of Israel's total arms imports comes from the United Kingdom, and we have not sold main equipment like tanks or artillery or warships to Israel since 1997," she said, noting the Blair government had "visibly conformed" to EU guidelines not to sell equipment that might harm regional peace, security and stability in the Middle East. During last year's Second Lebanon War, the leader of the opposition Liberal Democrat party urged the government to review its arms sales to Israel. Sir Menzies Campbell said the government "must now comply with its own arms export rules and institute an immediate suspension of all UK arms exports to Israel." Pressure is also being exerted through the courts to end arms sales to Israel. Last November, Public Interest Lawyers, in cooperation with the Palestinian rights group, al-Haq, filed suit against the British government on behalf of Saleh Hasan of Bethlehem. Hasan claimed the sale of military goods to Israel violated British export guidelines and contributed to his "oppression" as a Palestinian by Israel. Phil Shiner, head of Public Interest Lawyers, stated the crux of their case was whether the British government had met its own criteria about what it can and cannot do in terms of arms exports where there is a risk of internal repression in another country. In May, a spokesman for the Legal Services Commission said Hasan's lawsuit was receiving legal aid as a test case. "The fact that applicants may live abroad is not a factor under the legal aid scheme," he told The Times. "The key is whether the case involves issues of English law and will be tried in this jurisdiction." The case is scheduled for a court hearing in October. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top THE UNHOLY TRINITY AND OSLO REDUX Posted by Isi Leibler, August 14, 2007. Only a few weeks ago our erratic prime minister was still assuring the nation that for the time being no further unilateral withdrawals were under consideration. Yet a recent report in Haaretz outlined a comprehensive new "peace" formula virtually indistinguishable from the 2002 Saudi plan, incorporating wide ranging concessions to the Palestinians which President Shimon Peres had submitted to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert immediately upon assuming office. Of course, in line with standard procedures related to such trial balloons, the Prime Minister's office ritualistically denied that any such plan had ever been considered. However Beit Hanassi reportedly confirmed the existence of the plan and even expressed confidence that it would be endorsed by the Americans and Europeans. Peres was the principal architect of the disastrous Oslo Accords, but his new proposal extends far beyond his original failed plan. It recommends that Israel forego the Israeli interpretation of UN Resolution 242 and accept the bitterly contested Arab-Soviet-French interpretation which demanded Israel's total withdrawal from all the territories beyond the Green Line, effectively ceding to the Palestinians 100 percent of the territories captured in 1967. The major settlement blocs amounting up to 5% of the area would be retained in "exchange" for equivalent territory agreed to by the Palestinians. Jerusalem would be divided with its holy sites being administered by all three faiths. The Peres plan also proposed that the Palestinian flag should fly over the Temple Mount. The formula includes the standard mantras relating to security requirements and a need to formulate a "creative" declaration relating to the Arab refugee "right of return." By basically accepting a return to the 1967 lines, supposedly described by the late Abba Eban as the "Auschwitz borders," the Peres plan forfeits the April 2004 assurances provided by President George W. Bush to former premier Ariel Sharon and conclusively jettisons any meaningful concept of "defensible borders."   THE REPERCUSSIONS of previous unilateral territorial concessions were obviously ignored. They include the outbreak of the first wave of suicide bombings in the wake of Oslo; the failed Clinton-Barak negotiations with Arafat which led to the second intifada; the catastrophic Gaza unilateral disengagement which transformed Israeli citizens in Gush Katif into refugees in their own land and facilitated the subsequent Hamas takeover in Gaza, and the ongoing bombardment of Sderot. In a nutshell, the evidence clearly demonstrates that, without exception, every Israeli retreat under fire has emboldened jihadists into intensifying the violence. It is simply mind boggling that at a time when utter chaos prevails among the Palestinians, such a bizarre proposal could even be contemplated. But it is even more disconcerting that a newly elected president, whose prime obligation is to remove himself from the political arena and act as a unifying rod for the nation, reportedly considers it appropriate to launch such a controversial and highly divisive proposal as his first initiative in office. It surely augers ill for the future of the already battered image of the Presidency if it is now to be crassly exploited as a launching pad for promoting an incumbent's personal political agenda.   OLMERT'S JERICHO meeting with Abbas indicates that contrary to statements from his spokesmen, he is indeed proceeding in the direction of the Peres recommendations, and clearly determined come what may to move speedily toward awarding Palestinian statehood to the corrupt Fatah leaders. To expedite this, Olmert capitulated on the one crucial Road Map clause which even the Quartet had hitherto refused to concede to the duplicitous Palestinian leaders. He dispensed with the requirement that the PA uproot the terrorist infrastructure as a prerequisite to further Israeli concessions. Instead he facilitated transfers of arms to Fatah which will invariably ultimately be employed against Israelis and undertook to release more terrorists. He also took pride in having granted amnesties to the IDF's most wanted murderers who brazenly announced in advance, that far from retiring, they were being promoted to leadership positions in the so-called Palestinian security structure. To top it off, Olmert undertook to consider endorsing the return to the West Bank of the bloody terrorists expelled from the region after the 2002 siege of the Church of the Nativity. No concern was expressed that Hamas would almost certainly take control of Judea and Samaria once the IDF withdraws from the area. And in what sounded like black humor, Olmert's spokesman stated that Abbas "promised" that despite ongoing pressure from the Arab League, the PA would not contemplate joining forces again with Hamas. Yet within 24 hours, Fatah and Hamas functionaries were reportedly conducting secret talks designed to overcome their differences. It was also disclosed that of the NIS 400 million recently provided by Israel to Fatah "due to a computer error" a substantial proportion was transferred to Hamas to pay the salaries of their "security forces" and provide cars for their legislators.   CLEARLY, THE Americans are desperate to create a united Sunni bloc to neutralize the growing Iranian led Shi'ite threat and believe this can be facilitated by displaying progress on the Israel- Palestinian front. But one could surely have expected responsible Israeli leaders to resist implementing such concessions without considering the implications on their own security. Moreover, how can a nation possibly contemplate such dramatic policy changes with potential existential implications, without undergoing a thorough internal debate to ascertain the views and obtain approval of the people? Why are such crucial initiatives leaked via favored media outlets instead of being formally initiated and debated in the Cabinet and the Knesset? This is surely not how a genuine democracy functions. To make matters worse, since the Second Lebanon War, the Knesset no longer represents the views of the nation. The current government is an amalgam of the shattered Kadima ruling party with no coherent political stance, a discredited Labor Party, Shas, an opportunistic hawkish inclined religious party, and a purportedly extreme right wing Yisrael Beiteinu party.   BUT WORST of all, who would be leading such a grotesque replay of the Oslo Accords? None other than an unholy trinity of the greatest failures in Israeli political life! Shimon Peres the architect of Oslo; Labor leader Ehud Barak, whose unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon paved the way for the disastrous Lebanese war and whose impulsive overnight concessions to Arafat led to the intifada; and finally, our failed former right-wing Prime Minister Olmert, zig zagging and lurching in different directions in a desperate effort to retain power and become the darling of Peace Now. Are the people of Israel going to stand idly by and allow this failed trio to lead them into yet another, probably more devastating unilateral withdrawal? It is surely time for Kadima, Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu Knesset members still retaining any semblance of decency and integrity to stand up and revolt. They are fully aware that the majority of their constituents are strongly opposed to any further destructive unilateral initiatives. Before the die is cast, they must declare to Olmert enough is enough, withdraw support from this government, and demand immediate elections. Isi Leibler chairs the Diaspora-Israel relations committee of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and is a veteran international Jewish leader. ileibler@netvision.net.il This appeared in the Jerusalem Post www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1186557444183&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull To Go To Top OPEN LETTER TO CONGRESS: LOCAL JIHADISTS IMPERIL OUR RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH Posted by David Meir-Levi, August 14, 2007. Dear members of Congress, Some of you have been enraged by President Bush's anti-terrorist actions which, in your opinion, put at risk our citizens' right to privacy. But all too many of you are silent in the face of a far far greater danger: the jihadists among us who are working hard to destroy our right to free speech. It is time to consider some changes to our tort laws and our legal definitions of slander. Muslim political action groups and mega-wealthy individuals are exploiting these laws to curtail American free speech, and to intimidate anyone who might be thinking about publishing, or staging, something which might in some way be offensive to Muslims, or at least to some Musims. Permitting Muslim forces inside of our society to silence our freedom of speech undermines the cornerstones of our nation's freedoms. Just as appropriate legislation thwarted the 'flying imams' in their attempt to use the law suit weapon as a way to silence airline passengers who find Muslim flyers doing suspicious actions, so too can carefully crafted legislation thwart the likes of bin-Mahfouz -- oil-rich Arabs who have the wealth necessary to file law suit after law suit against anyone and any institution which does not please his palate. Unless something is done to prevent such Muslim abuse of our courts, and such blatant Muslim intimidation of literary and academic institutions, we are at risk to become a nation of dhimmi, cowering and self-censoring lest we incur the wrath of the Saracen among us. Any thoughts? David Meir-Levi Menlo Park, CA This was written by Diana West and is called "Promoting jihad,targeting free speech." It appeared August 13, 2007 in Jewish World Review http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0807/west081307.php3 http://www.JewishWorldReview.com: Remember when we heard that if only our leaders had known how to 'connect thedots,' the September 11 attacks could have been prevented? After nearly six years without a similar attack, the government has learned much about detecting the outlines of jihadist terror plots before they take shape. As aresult, and after all the aggravations and humiliations of what I still hope are temporary safety procedures, our security has remained essentially intact.But can we say the same thing about our freedoms? At this point, I must interrupt this column to apologize to all leftists settling in for a juicy tirade against the Patriot Act, wiretaps for terrorists, or the sufferings of sensitive poets in residence at Guantanamo Bay. It is not the Bush administration's efforts to protect us from 'terror' (more maturely known as jihad) that compromise our freedoms, it is jihad itself. And the basic freedom to discuss, analyze, debate, imagine, and, therefore, resist jihad is now under unprecedented assault. Consider the following events. -- On or about July 30, Cambridge University Press surrendered to a libel suit brought in British court by Khalid bin Mahfouz over the 2006 book,'Alms for Jihad,' which identifies the Saudi billionaire as a supporter of al Qaeda. The publisher apologized for allegations documented by the authors, paid damages and promised to destroy all unsold copies of the book, and to request libraries and universities, even in the United States,to destroy their copies. -- On Aug. 1, Chauncey Bailey, editor of the Oakland Press, was murdered. Mr. Bailey had been investigating what sounds like a black Muslim crime family operating out of Your Black Muslim Bakery, and its connections to crime in the Oakland area, where, not incidentally, Muslims associated with the bakery have used violence against liquor stores, a la Taliban, to enforce aspects of Islamic law. A 19-year-old Muslim bakery employee has confessed to the crime. -- Also on Aug. 1, the Web site, Radar, recounted a familiar tale of Hollywood woe -- a screenplay project terminated by a producer before completion. But this one had a post-September 11 twist. The screenwriter, Jason Ressler, maintains that his screenplay, 'DoveHunting,' a thriller with a Saudi prince for a villain, was terminated after the producer he was working with, Mark 'March of the Penguins' Gill, received a massive infusion of cash from backers including, well, a Saudi prince: Sheikh Walid al-Ibrahim, an owner of al-Arabiya network and a brother-in-law of the late King Fahd. Mr. Gill denies politics affected his decision. -- On Aug. 2, the Young America's Foundation was threatened with legal action by lawyers for the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations(CAIR) if the conservative student group didn't cancel a scheduled talk on CAIR by best-selling author and Islamic expert Robert Spencer. To be sure, neither the redoubtable Mr. Spencer nor the student group buckled under CAIR's bullying, and, to date, CAIR's threats have not materialized. Indeed, both Mr.Spencer's resolve and Young America's Foundation response -- 'CAIR can goto hell and take their 72 virgins with them' -- are an inspiration. -- There's even a bright spot in the Cambridge disgrace. The two American authorsof 'Alms for Jihad,' J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins, were not sued; just the British publisher. For this protection, we can probably thank courageous Rachel Ehrenfeld, terror expert and author of the 2003 book, 'Funding Evil.' When Miss Ehrenfeld was sued in 2004 by the same litigious Saudi billionaire in British court (he has brought or threatened suit 36 times on similar grounds), she refused to accept the premise that a British court should have jurisdiction over an American writer's American-published book. She took legal action in U.S.courts, where, to date, her case is finding protection for American writers from British law. We can take heart from such victories. But these individual acts of courage will only amount to gallant sacrifices if they aren't upheld as victories over a jihadist effort to shut the rest of us up to curb everybody's freedom to name the Muslim billionaires behind global jihad, to investigate the thuggery of an Islamic city gang, to create thrillers about Saudi terror-princes, to speak outabout CAIR's jihadist links and more. In other words, these are the new dots that urgently need connecting. And what connects them all, from street violence to legal intimidation, is the chilling effect they each bring to bear on the free and unfettered investigation,analysis and assessment of Islam and jihad. David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com To Go To Top THE SIDE OF SAUDI ARABIA YOU WON'T SEE ON TV Posted by Michael Travis, August 14, 2007. This essay comes from the Pedestrian Infidel website http://pedestrianinfidel.blogspot.com/search/label/Saudi%20Arabia and features the story about the Saudia Arabian student who tried to do a good deed. The original story first appeared in Arab News. From the "no good deed goes unpunished" department You're a student in Saudi Arabia. You see an old lady in obvious medical distress. You decide to: a. Ignore the old hag and continue on your way b. Attempt illicit sexual congress with her as soon as the opportunity presents itself. c. Take her to the hospital and make sure she gets proper medical attention. d. Spend your life behind bars regretting your altruism. e. Both (c) and (d). If you answered (e), you are correct, since Saudi Arabia's "Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice" (a.k.a. the Muttawa) believes that your choice will prevent (b), which apparently is the expected behaviour of all males in that country. Take this case in point. It appeared in www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article= 99378&d=6&m=8&y=2007: Nigerian Lands in Jail for Helping 60-Year-Old Woman in Riyadh A new convert to Islam, fired with zeal to do a righteous act, had no idea that he would pay a heavy price for helping a sick woman, one that has landed him 50 days and counting behind bars. The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice found him guilty for committing a crime: Being in the presence of a woman who is not a relative (a so-called "illegal state of seclusion"). Arab News tried several times to contact Ahmed Al-Jardan, spokesman for the commission, but phone calls were not returned. A written fax sent to the commission's main center asking for comment was also ignored. Ibrahim Mohammed Lawal, a Nigerian student of Islamic studies at Badiya Islamic Center in Riyadh, learned that his neighbor, a 63-year-old woman, was indisposed and needed medical attention. So he took her to various hospitals in Riyadh, including the Riyadh Medical Complex at Shumaisy, all of which refused to treat her. It was only after the intervention of Sheikh Fawaz, director of Badiya Islamic Center, that the Badiya Hospital admitted the case. Despite the charitable act Mohammed ended up in detention, accused of immoral behavior because he was neither married nor related by blood to the elderly woman. Speaking to Arab News on phone from his cell in the Malaz prison, Mohammed said that after the woman received treatment and after he returned to Riyadh after three days in the Western Region, he was arrested after checking up on the woman's health. In the woman's apartment were three other women related to her. "I was glad to note that the lady was making steady progress," he said. "While we were chatting, there was a knock on the door. When this lady opened the door, four or five Saudis, whom I had seen outside the building before, barged in. They accused me of being alone with the woman unrelated to me and suspected my intention behind this visit to her apartment." Mohammed said the Saudis identified themselves as members of the commission and took him and the three women into custody and later to Malaz prison. [...] But before Mohammad can go anywhere, he has to figure out why he is in prison and how to get out. Mohammed, who embraced Islam recently, said he was unable to understand the reason behind his continued detention."I wanted to do a good thing for a woman who was sick, and this is what I get in return," he said. "I lost the support of my family in Nigeria, where my wife and children are upset with me -- and here I am languishing in prison." Clearly, Mr. Lawal has only himself to blame. He should have understood how harmful his behaviour was. Although leaving the old woman to her own devices might have caused her death, this pales in comparison to the moral sinkhole that his lewd and lascivious behaviour would lead us into. Of course, given that the muttawa would rather see schoolgirls burn to death than be seen without their proper garb, truly devout Muslims should be okay with all this, secure in their 'virtue'. This was posted by The Anti-Jihadis Contact Michael Travis at michaelmgr@gmail.com To Go To Top EHUD BARAK'S NEWEST PLANS FOR CAPITULATION; TWO CHEERS FOR THE CHAREIDIM! Posted by Steven Plaut, August 15, 2007. 1. For those who suffer from the delusion that there exists a new Ehud Barak, one different from the Prime Minister who ordered the cowardly capitulation by Israel to the Hizbollah in 2000 resulting in 4000 rockets landing on Northern Israel last summer, think again. As current Minister of Defense in the Olmert junta, and as head of the Israeli Labor party, Barak is still determined that Israel capitulate its way and appease its way to peace. How do we know? Consider the statement of strategy written in Haaretz today by Ehud's senior advisor on Palestinian affairs (can be read at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/893538.html ). How to achieve peace, asks the expert? Well, Israel has to remove all security checkpoints and roadblocks that interfere with the ability of the terrorists to transport bombs, guns and murderers and then it must halt altogether any targeted assassinations of terror leaders. And if it does all that, the Palestinians will be feeling so friendly and grateful to Israel that they will support the moderates in Ramallah and then peace and lemonade will prevail! He adds: "We know that the real reason Israeli citizens are exposed to terrorists is not the non-completion of the fence or the number of roadblocks, but rather the refusal by Jewish settlers and their military-political lobby to allow the full inspection of every vehicle and person entering Israel from the West Bank." See that? The settlers cause terrorism! Let us recall that Ehud Barak nearly destroyed Jerusalem in 2000 by trying to turn it over to the barbarians. He almost moved Syrian tanks up to the shores of the Sea of Galilee. This is the same Barak who once claimed that he would be a terrorist if he had been born an Arab. Meanwhile -- for more on Barak's cowardice: See P. David Hornik's article in Front Page Magazine http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID= A29672F0-201F-4BBD-8AC1-A6D598F89A74 2. "Ultra-Orthodox Jews deliver a population boom to the West Bank" By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/893357.html Children playing Monday in the ultra-Orthodox settlement of Modi'in Ilit (Nir Kafri). The settler population is growing twice as fast as the rest of the country every year, and the ultra-Orthodox community is responsible for approximately half its annual growth, according to Haaretz's analysis of Interior Ministry figures for 2006. In the last year, the settler population has grown by 5.45 percent, from 260,932 to 275,156. Without the ultra-Orthodox community the West Bank settlements' growth is 3.7 percent, only a little more than the natural growth the settlements would see, which stands at 3.5 percent. The growth rate in the ultra-Orthodox Beitar Ilit and Modi'in Ilit is higher than most places in Israel. Modi'in Ilit's population, some 40,000, grows annually by about 11 percent (this year it has grown by 12.5 percent). Beitar Ilit's population, some 35,000, grows annually by some 10 percent -- five to six times more than Jerusalem and Tel Aviv's population growth respectively and twice as much as the growth of many other settlements. By the end of June, 72,106 people -- more than a quarter of the West Bank settlers -- were concentrated in Beitar Ilit, Modi'in Ilit and Kochav Yaakov, another ultra-Orthodox settlement, according to Interior Ministry figures. Most of the ultra-Orthodox settlers -- young couples or young families with numerous children -- do not live in the West Bank for ideological reasons. They moved to the settlements due to the soaring real estate prices in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of Jerusalem and Bnei Brak, which created an acute housing shortage. The local authorities predict that in 10 to 15 years Betar Ilit's population may consist of some 17,500 families totaling some 100,000 residents. Today the town has 5,828 occupied housing units, 1,102 units are under construction and another 5,800 are being planned. Modi'in Ilit has 6,800 occupied housing units and its population is expected to reach 150,000 in the near future. The ultra-Orthodox rabbis sanctioned living in these settlements in view of the housing shortage, but they also assumed these territories would be annexed to Israel sometime in the future. Yankel, about 30 years old, was born in Jerusalem and lives in Beitar Ilit with his six children. When he reached marrying age, he could not afford an apartment in Jerusalem. A few years ago, with the help of his parents and a mortgage, he purchased a four-room apartment in the town for $115,000. A few months ago his brother also married, left Jerusalem and moved next door to Yankel. Their parents are now considering moving to Beitar Ilit as well. Yankel is a teacher. His wife and sister-in-law found high-tech jobs, as have many ultra-Orthodox women in recent years. His brother found work driving children to school. Every year 60 new classrooms open in Beitar Ilit, where the children make up 63 percent of the population. In Jerusalem, by comparison, the children make up 45 percent of the population. Some 48 babies are born in Modi'in Ilit weekly -- some 2,700 a year -- and every year an average of 57 new first-grade classes open. Between the end of June 2006 and June 2007, the number of settlers in the West Bank grew by 5.45 percent. Last year the growth of the ultra-Orthodox population made up 40 percent of the increase in the settlers' numbers, and this year its contribution is bigger. Beitar Ilit and Modi'in Ilit are in the settlement bloc earmarked to be annexed to Israel, according to this government and the plans of previous ones. Before retiring, former GOC Central Command Yair Naveh signed an order joining Beitar Ilit's area with Jerusalem's municipal area. Ilit, the region's busiest transport company, makes some 400 trips to and from Jerusalem daily. Modi'in Ilit, which is on Highway 443 between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, is also near Highway 6 and will be on the future Tel Aviv-Modi'in-Jerusalem railway line. [Editor's note: Olmert is planning to kick many of these 275,156 Jews out of their homes. As well as many of the 200,000 Jews who live in eastern Jerusalem. His incompetent government hasn't yet settled the 10,000 Jews from Gush Katif in Gaza yet they make plans to throw more Jews into the street.] Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il To Go To Top PRAGER HAS MEMORABLE DIALOGUE WITH FOUAD AJAMI, NOTED EXPERT ON MIDDLE EAST POLITICS Posted by UCI, August 14, 2007. DB: You're listening to the Dennis Prager Show, I'm speaking to one of the most thoughtful observers of the Arab world, Professor Fouad Ajami, A-j-a-m-i, professor at the Middle East Studies program at Johns Hopkins University. His book, The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, The Arabs and the Iraqis in Iraq. He has traveled there six times, does not stay inside the--what he calls, the "Bubble"--and has a tremendous amount to say. DB: I was asking you right before the break Professor Ajami. You are in a Middle Eastern Studies program obviously. FA: I am. DB: I would say 90 percent, and that may be conservative, of your colleagues are anti the war in Iraq. FA: Right. DB: What is going on in Middle Eastern Studies programs around the country? FA: I think you've--you are, like the deep, and I don't say this to flatter you--you like the deep issues, the deep currents rather than the surface of things. There was a man who died I believe three years ago and his ghost and his spirit and his work dominate Middle East Studies even though he was not in Middle East Studies and that's the late Edward Said... DB: Yup. FA: Professor at Columbia. By the way, I probably lived about--since I live in New York City--about ten blocks from him and Said was a very talented and a very passionate man and a very radical man. And he believed in--the ideas of Edward Said have come to dominate Middle Eastern studies in a way that the idea of the great orientalist Bernard Lewis do not dominate Middle Eastern studies, for Middle Eastern Studies today ironically has more of the spirit of Edward Said than it does the spirit of--and the talent, and the craft--of Bernard Lewis. Bernard Lewis, 91 years of age, one of the great scholars of our time and of this last century is basically an outsider to Middle Eastern Studies. I mean, I am an outsider to Middle Eastern Studies, but forget me I'm not that large a figure. Bernard is unique, but they are invested--they romanticize the Arab street. They're invested in Arab radicalism and they believe in American guilt fundamentally. They believe that our country is responsible for the ills and the decay and the maladies of the Arab world. DB: It's such a clear answer, it would be as if--to put it in another way--it would be as if Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky dominated American Studies. FA: That's absolutely right. DB: But unfortunately, they do. (Laughs) FA: You know, the academy has become, once-up-a-time, in the new industrial state, I'm thinking of the late John Kenneth Galbraith, the university was part of the political and economic order. It was woven into the political and economic order. That's how we fought Cold War; That's how life was in the 50's and the 60's. And then there became the separation between the academy on the one side and the corporate and political world, and the world ordinary Americans on the other. And the academy has grown indulgent and I believe in many ways quite irrelevant to the real nature of political life in this country. It's very radical and hence the way it is. DB: Look, they, the universities invite Ward Churchill to lecture. FA: Of course, I mean... DB: A man, to remind my listeners, a man who--a professor at Colorado University--who said that the people killed in the World Trade Center towers were little Nazis. FA: That's exactly right. DB: 'They deserved it!' FA: Ward Churchill is, at this level, if you will, of derangement in many ways, but look--yesterday I was reading the New York Times and there was an article about the psychology of 'Martyrdom' and the psychology of terrorism. And one Middle East scholar in a perfectly good institution at Georgetown University said, when asked about how these perpetrators of terror justify killing of children, he said 'Well, you know, it's a bit like the Pentagon justifying collateral damage.' He didn't think about it. He made immediately this kind of moral equivalent between the killers and the people who are justifying murder, on the one hand, and our officers, these decent men and women that you and I know and maybe relatives of viewers, definitely relatives of mine--two young lieutenants, one of them in Iraq, one of them in Texas are in the military--and here's a decent person, a decent academic who has no problem equating the terrorists and those who give fatwas in favor of terror on equating them with people in the Pentagon. DB: I have had on my show David Price Jones on a couple of occasions -- FA: He's a good man. DB: I'm sorry? FA: He's a good man. DB: His take, the closed circle, his take on the Arab world is very depressing. FA: Yes. DB: And it boils down to, among other things, there is an adulation of power removed from moral considerations. FA: Right. DB: Do you agree with that? FA: Well, I don't know if I would put it this way. I mean, I think that it is--I know David and I know his work and he's reviewed my books favorably and so on. There is a lot I agree with him on. I think what there is in the Arab world is belligerent self-pity. This is a term -- DB: I love that! FA: Right. DB: Belligerent self-pity. FA: Right. DB: B.S.P. FA: Yeah, exactly. DB: (Laughs) FA: There is this incredible belligerent self-pity. And it's self-pity on the one hand and this kind of aggression, this floating aggression. There is disappointment in Arab life. The theme of Arab history if you will is disappointment. That paralyzing and humiliating gap between what the Arabs think they're entitled to and their place in the world. And I think this has poisoned a life and the more they dwell on their history and prettify it and exaggerate how brilliant it was and how great it was, the more they look at their sordid present and they become very despondent. But you know I don't despair. I mean I've written a vitally (?) eulogy of the great Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz who I had the honor to know, the Nobel Laureate -- DB: Nobel Laureate, yeah. FA: Exactly. I mean, you look at--even in Iraq, you go to Iraq and you see the poets and the writers and so on. And I think there is a fight in Arab life between the forces of modernity, of secularism, of decency, of restraint and the forces of belligerent self-pity and then there are these very clever dictators in place: the House of Sa'ud, the House of Mubarak, the House of Assad in Syria, et cetera, and there are very skilled, we have to grant them credit. I mean -- DB: God Al Mubarak. FA: Yeah, exactly. DB: (Laughs). Now if--let me then address that. If Mubarak did in fact say, 'You know what, folks, I realize this is a little silly that I keep getting 90 percent of the vote, so we'll have a real election here and everybody can run, including the Islamists.' What would happen in Egypt? FA: Well, I don't really know, because I think what happens in these countries is that between the Islamists on one side and the dictators on the other side, there is a wonderful Arab expression, it says, 'These forces, the dictators and their Islamist rivals, they eat the green on the drive. They leave nothing in the middle. They leave nothing in the middle.' I have some hope for Egypt. Egypt, by the way, I mean you have 75 million people. You have a country which has been exposed to the world since Bonaparte invasion to the foreign world to the West in 1798. You have a dream, this kind of Sisyphean struggle in Egypt for modernity and progress, and I think these dreams have died under this Pharaoh, under this man Mubarak. DB: We continue with Professor Fouad Ajami. I will talk to him about the president's visit yesterday to Albania, a 70 percent Muslim country which may love President Bush than any country in the world and utterly supports the War in Iraq. 1-8-Prager-776, if you'd like to ask this scholar about the Arab Middle East you're invited to call in--you're most invited to read his book just published in paperback, The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, The Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq. I'm Dennis Prager, we continue. DB: I rarely do this, but I think -- I think -- that you will understand Iraq a little better after hearing me speak to Professor Fouad Ajami. Professor Ajami is the...is Professor of the Middle East Studies at the Middle East Studies Program, Johns Hopkins Universities' School of Advanced International Studies. And he is author of the just come out in paperback, The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq. He himself was born in Lebanon, came to the United States...what were you, sixteen or eighteen? FA: About eighteen. DB: Eighteen years of age. FA: Many years ago, yes. DB: How many...I'm sorry? FA: Many years ago. DB: Many years ago. Alright, I won't ask the exact number; it's not really important. Did you think at sixteen that you would be a professor at a distinguished American university? FA: No, not at all. I had this dream of...you know, like many, many young Arabs -- and dare I say many young people in many Arab countries, many third-world countries -- I had this dream, this idea, of America. And, of course, Beirut was so deeply and thoroughly Americanized. It was in the shadow of the Untied States. It'd been so since the 1860's, when the American missionaries went and established the American University of Beirut. So we grew up at the...somewhere within the reach of America, culturally and politically. Our diet was cowboy movies; our culture was part of America and part of the Arab world itself. DB: By the way, did you learn English while you were a child in Lebanon? FA: I did learn English. And one of the advantages of, I suppose...or the challenges, or the requirements of living in living in a small country on the Mediterranean is that you have to learn foreign languages. So most Lebanese were...they had to learn Arabic, they had to learn English, they had to learn French in some combination. And they had to learn...they could decide whether English was their first language of...foreign language of choice, or French was their first language of choice. So it was English. DB: By the way, just as a matter of serendipity, I am curious. Were you in Lebanon in 1974? FA: I was in Lebanon in 1974 on a short visit... DB: Oh, okay. FA: ...Because I had been away from the country for a long time... DB: I see. FA ...And I had gone in '74 and '75. And in '75, of course, there happened the... DB: The civil war. FA: ...The beginning of the civil war. DB: Yeah. I was there in '74. That was my one visit to Lebanon. FA: Well, that was before the fall, shall we say. DB: Yes, I know. I had a great time in Beirut. It was a different world then. FA: You should go again. It will be okay. DB: Oh, I would love to. Absolutely. And I read Arabic, though I don't speak it, and it's...so it's wonderful to be in an Arab country. Alright, let's talk about your book and let's talk about your take on Iraq. If there were an election tomorrow...not an election, a plebiscite before the Iraqi people: "Do you want American troops to all leave Iraq next month?" What would the vote be? FA: Well, Dennis, you ask a very good question. And I think that the public opinion polls would say, "We want America to leave." The real vote in the voting booth would be overwhelmingly for America to stay. The Iraqis, like people in the neighborhood, they have to partake of the standard anti-Americanism. But all Iraqis -- dare I say Kurds, Sunni, and Shiite (and particularly even the Sunni Arabs; I'll talk about them) -- they want, and they're eager to have America stay because they know they're not ready to stand on their own. DB: Okay. I have argued this as well, though it comes with greater authority from you, obviously. Why, then, do we not do this plebiscite in order to shut up all the critics around the world and in America about our being there: "Well, the Iraqis don't want us." Why don't we have this plebiscite? FA: I wish we were, Dennis. I mean, you ask a very good question. I wish we were. Look, I've been in Iraq seven times, and I have seen Iraqis...how lucky can one be. I think I'm the only...I may have been one of the very, very few people who were admitted into the...an audience with the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the reclusive leader, the Shiite Cleric in Nejev. So from Sistani on down to my drivers in Iraq, I have talked to Iraqis over the last three years in their homes, I've talked to them in Arabic, I've talked to them quietly, I've talked to their leaders. And there is enormous gratitude for America and a strange, odd reluctance for people to own up to that gratitude. Believe me, I have lectured them, I have shouted at them to just make them say in public what they say in private. But there is this...this is one of the ways and the mysteries of that culture. DB: Well, I'll tell you. I will use the...whatever influence I have, which is -- I don't overstate and I don't understate -- in pushing to have such a plebiscite. I think nothing would be more effective to the critics around the world. Look, you are getting the BBC's view. You are getting the New York Times' view. But you are not getting the Iraqi peoples' view. FA: Yes, exactly. It's a noble war. I mean, I have always insisted on this, and I think part of the theme of this book is the nobility of this war. And the nobility of this war came to me hanging out in the shadow trailing General David Petraeus when he was Commander in Mosul, then when he went back to Baghdad to train the Iraqi forces, then when he went back to Baghdad as the overall Commander. I've traveled in and out of the many, many of the Iraqi cities. I never stay, by the way, in the "bubble," in the Green Zone. I go outside the Green Zone. And I think the nobility of this war is basic to it, and I think we've had a hard time explaining to people, and explaining to our own people, as we know...I think the public opinions bear this out. This war has become an orphan in the court of public opinion, and I think we've had a hard time explaining why we're there and explaining the nobility of the... DB: Okay, then I want you to explain to me something closer to home. Why are we told -- and the vote in the last election showed it overwhelmingly in 2000 -- Arab-Americans voted Republican, they voted for George W. Bush; they tend to have more conservative values than liberal values... FA: Yes. DB: ...Then, because of the Iraqi War, have turned tremendously against him. So how...you are an Arab-American. How do you explain that? FA: Well, I...personally, I am a great...I'm a believer in this president, and I want our listeners to know: some two weeks ago, I think maybe even less than two weeks, I went into a briefing with President Bush and Vice-President Cheney for well over an hour and a half. I do have fair access to the National Security Council and I do understand what this president is doing. And I think what he's done is he's brought to this Arab world -- which is addicted to failure, addicted to trouble -- he brought them a message of hope and he sacked this terrible regime in Baghdad. Now, Arab-Americas; you're absolutely right. I mean, you reminded me of this, I had forgotten this. They were very excited about the election of George W. Bush... DB: Yes! FA ...They did not like Gore, they did not like Lieberman, and they thought that the election of Bush and Cheney was all for the good. I wonder about them. I wonder whether they are more just simply given to the fashionable anti-Bush sentiment, that maybe deep down they understand what this campaign of freedom, for example in Lebanon and Iraq, is all about. I have to say that most Lebanese -- both Lebanese-Americans and Lebanese in Lebanon -- are deeply grateful for the gift of liberty given them by George W. Bush. Had it not been for him there would have been no Syrian departure from their own country. So I think maybe it's mixed. It's a mixed picture. DB: Do you ever get to address Arab-American audiences? FA: I think it would be fair to say...as in speeches, no. Do I...you know, I write... DB: Yeah but not in...you see, no one would have more authority than an Arab-American professor to tell...to say to fellow Arab-Americans, "What's going on with you?" FA: Well, I'm afraid they would not invite me, because the so-called...the activists have their own world and believe in their own politics. What you do have is you have ordinary men and women with their kids -- often young kids, fourteen, fifteen years old -- they stop you. They talk to you about what you said on Dennis's show, or on Lou Dobbs, or on CBS, or Charlie Rose, or what you wrote in U.S. News, or what you wrote in your book. And they agree with you, but they're very intimidated because these activists, in fact, are the ones who drive these organizations. And they're given to the standard anti-Americanism and they're given to the standard kind of...basically second-guessing of this administration. The Iraqis really don't need the approval of the Arab-Americans. I mean, they know what their country is about and they know what this war has been about. And they know they've been given this very difficult gift of freedom. Complicated, but a gift nevertheless. DB: Now, talking about another group that is anti-the War in Iraq, it's overwhelmingly your fellow professors around the country in every Middle Easters Studies program. FA: Yes. DB: [Chuckles] Oh, do I love your "yes." It was the yes of deep sadness. FA: Yes [Chuckles]. DB: Alright, when we come back I'd like you to explain that to us. And how do they react to you? This is another phenomenon along with the Arab-American one. I'm speaking to Fouad Ajami, professor of Middle East Studies program at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. His book based on his six trips to Iraq and his thorough knowledge of the Arab world, The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq. 1-8-Prager-7-7-6, the Dennis Prager Show. DB: This is a conversation that I wish all Americans could hear. As I speak to professor Fouad Ajami, widely published in the major papers of the country, professor of Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. His book is just out in paperback The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq. And...we're talking about the Arab world; talking the war in Iraq -- which he believes, as I have said to you folks, but I think he has more clout in this arena. Aside from being himself from an Arab country and an Arab-American, he has visited Iraq six times since the invasion and he believes, as I do, that if there were a plebiscite, most Iraqis would, in fact, vote that America not leave today, that the world that is presented to us by the BBC and the NY Times is a distorted one indeed. And... and one argument for that being a distortion is the president's reception yesterday in Albania. Here you have the one Muslim country in Europe, and even the NY Times said the man was adored there like no where else in the world. FA: How right you are Dennis. Because in fact, someone once described anti-Americanism as a weapon of mass distraction. You know... DB: Weapons of Mass Distraction -- God, I love your phrases. FA: Yes, by the way, it's a fraudulent force. You know, people tell you anti-Americanism is on the rise. But our country is besieged by millions of immigrants who are crashing through the doors, through the windows, through the cracks- so there is clearly something immense here. Here is the record of America, which I always point out to fellow Arabs and Muslims when I travel to Iraq or Kuwait, or when I go to any Arab country...here, it is very simple, in 1991 America went to war on behalf of Kuwait. In 1995, American power rescued the Bosnian Muslims of Sarajevo from extinction. In 1999, we rescued another Muslim population -- the Kosovar. In 2001-2002, we liberated the people of Afghanistan from a reign of theocracy and tyranny the likes of which the modern world has not seen. IN 2003, we decapitated the Iraqi regime. Five campaigns, under three American presidents, on behalf of Muslims, I mean... DB: ...And even may I add, and uhh.. it hurts me to give Jimmy Carter any credit, but we boycotted the Olympics in Moscow because of the invasion of Afghanistan FA: exactly...you're exactly right. DB: So our record of fighting on behalf of Muslims is unparalleled in the world. FA: Absolutely, and here is the frustration that I truly feel. I think...if you go and meet with Arab liberals and maybe one can ask the question that the merciless Stalin once said about the Pope and how many divisions the followers of liberalism have. Not many. But many many Arabs, when they are not within earshot of people listening to them, and when people are not asking them public opinion, loaded public opinion poll questions, they will acknowledge the benevolence of American power -- from Kuwait in 1991, to Iraq, we have been... we have been enhancing American liberty. Look at Lebanon, it fell into a great "Syrian Prison" in 1976, and in 2005, the Syrians race to the border afraid only of George W. Bush. They would have never relinquished the hegemony in Lebanon without the threat of American power. This too is also part of the American record. DB: Yes, but of course is never acknowledged. FA: no no no you can't, you know, it's illicit. By the way, Arab society is about the illicit. By and large, the role of the illicit in Arab life, you know, the hidden- the things that are known but never stated or named. So, what is stated and named is the anti-Americanism, what is illicit and understood is the reliance of that world on American power and American protection. So, even if you go to a place like Kuwait, now and then, a trendy Kuwaiti, an avant-garde Kuwaiti or two will say, the requisite anti-Americanism. But you know, they owe their liberty to America, they would have been part of Sadam Hussein's big penal colony had it not been for America. DB: Alright, when we return in a moment with professor Fouad Ajami teaches Middle at John Hopkins University. I will ask about him the role of honor and face in Arab society. And I'll explain when we come back- his book, The Foreigner's Gift and you're listening to the Dennis Prager Show. DB: You're listening to the Dennis Prager Show where we do talk about everything in life and nothing is more urgent than understanding the Arab world right now and few people, I think, can lead us in that direction like my guest, Professor Fouad Ajami. His latest book is The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq, Professor of Middle East Studies, Johns Hopkins University. Before I talk about Arab, the concept of face, which I think it's 'waj', is that the word? FA: Right, 'waj'. DB: Yeah. Before I talk about that I want to tell you where I learned it and you're perfectly free to tell me I shouldn't have read it or I shouldn't have thought it was a great book but I thought that the Arab Mind by Rafael Patay was a profound book. FA: Right. It's a very, I mean...I had a hunch that you were going to say it and it's a very, you know, like a lot of stereotypes it catches some things and it misses a bit. I mean we understand, I've always kind of simplified things for my students, much to their distress by saying they're guilt cultures in the world and they're shame cultures and the cultures of the west, and to be guilt cultures, the cultures of the east, of Japan, of the Arab world are cultures of shame and cultures of faith. I think that rather than...in a way what that stereotype catches is the condition of the societies rather than, you know, what they are about, the condition. And I think because the Arab world has faired so poorly, because it hasn't really, because it didn't have a successful industrial revolution of it's own, because people live within proximity of each other, because they can't move. You know, we have this great open country here with great mobility, you start one place and then you reinvent yourself somewhere else. There is no reinvention in that world and I think the concept of honor and faith becomes of great importance. I mean there's no use denying it. DB: I'd like to give one example that has just haunted me and that is the Egyptian denial of the Egyptian pilot bringing down the Egypt Air airplane just a few years ago. It is overwhelmingly obvious that he committed suicide and mass murder at the same time, but the Egyptian government will not allow that to be ever said FA: We are synchronized. If I tell you how much anger I felt about that episode, how much rage I felt toward the Egyptians and how deeply I believed that this was in many ways a prelude, by the way, to 9/11. You know, here is this pilot with frustrations, with personal failures. He takes a plane, plunges it into the Atlantic, and we know of all his troubles, and yet the Egyptians insisted time and again, time and again, without any shame, without any hesitation, that the suspicions that swirled around this pilot were not true. There is something about the regime, it's something Egyptian perhaps, it's something also about despotism under Mubarak, it's something about the condition of the civic life of that once proud and literate country. Something has gone array in Egypt and that episode you mentioned which I believe was in 1999, if I remember it right, I think it told everything. FA: In my opinion it is, and it's amazing you've just... I actually wrote a piece about it and never sent it in because it was so angry. I was asked by the New York Times, those were the days when the New York Times used to ask me to write for them, to write something about Egypt Air and it was the great episode. It told us so much about the regime, so much about that belligerent self-pity that we talked about before. They were angry, they were proud, they would not admit that this man took this plane down. It's an amazing ...I mean in effect they defended him in the face of overwhelming evidence of what troubles he was having. DB: I must say, on a personal note you said we are in sync. I have rarely felt so much so with a guest in my career. FA: Thank you DB: Well, it comes from my heart and my mind FA: Thank you DB: I want to ask you about the most difficult, I guess part, of this whole equation, is the role of Islam here. FA: Yes DB: What would you answer if you were in my shoes when callers have asked me since 9/11, Dennis is Islam a violent religion? What would you answer? FA: Well, I would just say the following and remember I just should declare myself on, in answering this question. I grew up in a Muslim Shiite family. They were not religious; they were deeply secular but deeply deeply fond of Islam. Like in my case, for example, I don't pray, I don't fast but likewise there are so many things about me, which are so deeply Muslim. I don't drink, I don't eat pork, there are lots of things that are innately and thoroughly Muslim and I always equate myself, I find tremendous synergy with Zionists who were irreligious but they were culturally Jewish and I think this is the way I would define myself. FA: What I would say about Islam, because you know, there is something, there is so much attachment on my part to the faith of my mother, you know my mother spent a lifetime going to Shiite shrines from Lebanon to Syria, to Iran, to Iraq. I would say the following, There is a group, there is a minority but very powerful and very very passionate and I think extremely self-righteous that has gotten hold of Islam, twisted it for their own purposes. Their Islam, for example the Jihadists, is deeply anti-American, is deeply anti-Shiite, is deeply misogynist against women. So there is a kind of minority which has taken Islam. By the way, these people make a distinction between what they call Muslim and Islamists and they believe the Islamists are the pure children of Islam. They've taken it upon themselves to speak for Islam and to claim it. I've always said, I will define my faith my own way; I will never give these people my claims to my own religion. So I think there is a very strong minority, all the way from Indonesia in the east, the furthest point of Islam, to Morocco in the west on the Atlantic, from Casablanca the furthest western point of Islam. This minority is deadly, it's violent, it's hostile to reason, hostile to moderation, and we can't run away from that and we can't deny it. DB: All right, we'll have a final segment and I must say that with great sadness. I have been wanting to speak to professor Fouad Ajami for quite some time and it's even beyond my expectations. His book, The Foreigner's Gift, we continue on the Dennis Prager Show. DB: My guest is Professor Fouad Ajami, one of the-- truly one of the most significant hours I think I've ever broadcast and I try to make every one of the hours very significant. And he is a professor at Johns Hopkins University, Middle East Studies. He himself is an Arab-American, originally from Lebanon. Well, I guess I have to end with one more issue on the Islamic World. Where can we, outside of the Muslim world--or even you for that matter, who share our values--where can we look for optimism? FA: That's a--it's always important to remember that. It's always important not to confine these countries to this permanent state of confusion and retrogression. And I like one thing that President Bush once said in one of his seminal speeches on-- that he delivered before the National Endowment for Democracy in November 2003. It's an amazing speech where he said we shouldn't succumb to the soft bigotry of low expectations and we do this in our own affirmative action. This expression is similar to us. We should not confine them to the soft bigotry of low expectations. We should think that liberty could come to Arab and Muslim lands. We can look to many places. I tell you something. Even as the bombs and the explosions go on in Iraq, there is something in Iraq. I mean, I've gone to Najaf to the Shiia holy city and, in a small lane in the souk-- you know, close to the shrine of Imam Ali, the greatest shrine in the Shiia world-- there is Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani living in a simple house, a rented house; he owns no property, by the way, and a man of exquisite moderation, a man who abhors violence, a man who believes in liberty, a man who believes in Democracy, a man who rarely speaks in public. He has his pronouncements; he has his agents speak for him. On every issue that came up in the last so many years, whether within Iraq or in the Muslim world, he has been forthright in his defense of liberty, in his defense of peace, in his defense of modernity. So you look around the Muslim world and there are pockets of hope. There are pockets of reason. Some people like Dubai because they think it's an oasis of commerce. It's not exactly my kind of place. I don't think it defines anything for the Muslim world because it's more like a shopping mall but there is something there. There are-- there is this emergence of hope in Lebanon... DB: Well, let me just say this because of the time. You, yourself, just embody a sense that there is hope. FA: Well, thank you. Thank you Dennis, really. I'm honored to have been on your show and thank you for a discussion I thoroughly enjoyed. I came to hock books and I learned in the process. DB: I will treasure that the rest of my life. Thank you, sir. UCI -- The Unity Coalition for Israel (http://www.israelunitycoalition.org) -- is "the largest worldwide coalition of Jewish and Christian organizations, with more than 200 groups representing millions of people dedicated to Israel. Though we have many different backgrounds, we have one common goal: A Safe and Secure Israel." "Israel is not just a Jewish issue. Millions of Christians resolutely endorse the principle of peace with security for the state of Israel. Because we work closely together and speak with a united voice, our message is being heard!" To Go To Top PEACE NOW IN THE ARCTIC CIRCLE? Posted by Boris Celser, August 14, 2007. The Arctic is not anyone's Promised Land. In response to the Russians planting their flag under the waters of the Arctic Ocean, the Canadian government, hardly a military superpower, announced this week that it will establish two military bases in the north, in order to maintain its claims to sovereignty over the area and its underwater riches. Last I heard, the Arctic was not anyone's Promised Land, but Canada, the United States, Russia, Denmark and Norway would disagree with me. A huge territory, Arctic distances are measured in hundreds of miles (in Israel, they are measured in centimeters). Can anyone state why the United Nations, the European Union and the Vatican aren't calling Canada to task for its show of military muscle to safeguard its interests? Will the Norwegians be supportive of a new set of Oslo Accords to ensure the vast Arctic land is shared? Will the British send Tony Blair to mediate, or are they jealous that there remains an empire in the world where the sun never sets -- albeit only in summer? The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva will not single out any of the five countries for special treatment and permanent investigation, since they have bigger fish to fry. Will George Bush and Vladimir Putin be interested in five peoples living side-by-side in peace? Given the distances and the small number of inhabitants, it doesn't seem like a very hard task; a lot easier than forcing Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds to live together, or Jews and the 40-year-old Palestinian nation. Where are the Arctic Policy Forum and MJ Iceberg now? Do they mind that some Eskimos may have to be kicked out of their igloos? They will have to be moved if they're considered Arctic Jews. Tradition calls for expulsion. On the other hand, the five nations in question could simply decide, Arab style, that the Eskimos never existed. They are not a distinct nation, just like the Palestinian Arabs are just Arabs; and with no Eskimo Jews around, there is no need to create a sixth terrorist -- sorry, "oil-rich" -- nation in the area. The above solution also eliminates any possibility that a Holy Totem ever be rebuilt on the disputed Totem Mount, the place where, allegedly, Santa Claus's reindeer landed on the way to the North Pole. Will this five-nation Arctic League, obviously in a league of its own, allow other countries to claim sovereignty and share the wealth? After all, in Antarctica these far away northern nations have scientific outposts and don't recognize the sovereignty of the southernmost countries. But no one has been expelled there -- because there are no Jews. It's good for peace not to allow Israel to set up a base in the Arctic or in Antartica. She will be accused of creating a nakba for the polar bears and penguins. Both species' females had better vote with their wombs now. Whether or not Israel is the Promised Land, why do so many Jews there, surrounded by 300 million Arabs in a territory second only to Russia, still want to divide up a microscopic land? Why do they want to divide their capital? Why do they kick their own people out of their homes? Why do they behave in a way that makes them the laughingstock of the world? The Israeli media hitches a ride with the politicians, and the ordinary citizen is brainwashed since birth. Will the Ministers of Education of Canada, US, Russia, Norway and Denmark approve a curriculum at taxpayers' expense to teach the "other side," the Eskimo nakba, in school (even though they students are all Eskimos themselves)? Defense Minister Ehud Barak has called on Bar-Ilan University to fire Prof. Hillel Weiss simply for cursing an officer in charge of "disengaging" his daughter from Hebron. And Hebron was mostly given away to Yasser Arafat by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who was afraid of Bill Clinton's curses. Prof. Weiss apologized -- for what? -- but he didn't act on his curses. How come it is not right for a Jew in a so-called democracy to curse someone and no more, but religious Arabs stand on the Temple Mount in the heart of Jerusalem and shout, "Death to the Jews! Kill all Jews!" and nothing happens to them, even when the Jews actually get killed as a result? In Ehud Barak's case, it is easy to explain. He does not consider the Temple Mount Jewish or Israeli territory, since, as Prime Minister, he offered it to Arafat. Arafat snubbed him by refusing the offer, so now, back as Defense Minister, Barak goes after vulnerable Jews to avenge his wounded pride. Just as men who are abused by their bosses and peers at work subsequently go home and show their wives and children who is boss. The abused tend to protect their abusers, so the Israeli people are likely to vote for Barak to lead them again. Why do Israelis put up with this state of affairs? Why has Israel chosen to falsify its own history? Is this socialism? Zionism? Post-Zionism? Corruption? Plain madness? Santa may have to take sides in the Arctic dispute, but he can fly away if need be. The Mediterranean Sea may be warmer than the Arctic Ocean, but Israelis may have to swim if they don't stop believing in a beardless, fat, old man from Sycamore Ranch and his Jerusalem elves bringing gifts out of season. It's easy to tell a fake -- the real Santa always returns home with an empty bag. At a time when Obama may take power and Osama is still at large, can Canada take over Israel's original moral role and use its geographic location in order to stop Allahbama and Allahska from building a pipeline of evil and taking over the Arctic's oil from moderate Russia, Norway and Denmark? It's the stuff of Oilywood in the tundra... Boris Celser is a Canadian. Contact him at celser@telusplanet.net This article appeared today in Arutz-Sheva as an opinion piece (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7338). To Go To Top SHOULD ISRAEL TAKE RISKS FOR PEACE?; WATER'S STRATEGIC VALUE IN ARAB-ISRAEL CONFLICT; ISRAEL'S NOTIONS OF LEGALITY Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 14, 2007. SHOULD ISRAEL TAKE RISKS FOR PEACE? Asserting that Israel is strong enough to take risks with the P.A., PM Olmert said he is ready to discuss P.A. statehood in principle. What kind of government risks thousands of lives again, after finding that those risks were in vain, before? Islam has no place for genuine peace. What does Olmert mean, Israel is strong enough? Although Israel won most of its wars, they were close and the US did not let Israel finish off the enemy; the enemy recovered. Israel might not recover, next time. Its people are discouraged by government appeasement and failure to defend them now. The enemy is getting advanced weaponry against which Israel has no defenses; Syria plans to launch thousands of missiles at Israel, and wipe out many towns and military bases. I think that Olmert is willing for the people of Israel to take great risks, because he is part of the Far Left that doesn't care about Israel and even hates it. He could live abroad on his crooked millions, but the masses could not. I'D LIKE TO KNOW Some foreign countries are starting to disengage their currencies from the dollar. European suppliers twice recently raised the price for the sunglasses I bought, because their Euro rose against the dollar. I don't know why the dollar falls. My newspaper, which is pro-Bush, asserts that the US economy is doing well, although soon the baby boomers will break the budget. After all, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid already consume 40% of the budget, and the soon-to-retire baby boomers will require much more spending, from many fewer workers. My newspaper does not explain what causes the "weak dollar," what are its consequences, and what would be its remedies. Is this a national issue that threatens American ability to pay for self-defense? If you know, please send me an explanation. THE THEORY OF U.S. FORCING ROGUES TO BE ROGUES Shortly after the US proposed to sell S. Arabia advanced weapons, Iran bought advanced weapons from Russia. A young man suggested that the Saudi deal motivated Iran, and the US created an arms race. No, the Saudi deal was in response to Iran's pre-existing arms race. His contention sounds like the false argument that the US (then friendly to Cuba) forced Communist Castro to be anti-US. Better question: If the US "may as well" sell arms to enemy Arabia, because otherwise someone else would do so and profit, why not to enemy Iran? HOW THE TIMES PUTS IT IS HOW YOU UNDERSTAND IT Bosnia plans to expel the Arabs who fought for its independence and stayed on. "Western officials and local politicians, mostly the Muslims' former opponents, have accused the former fighters of promoting radical Islam and damaging Bosnia's reputation in the process." Western intelligence services and their Bosnia counterparts also claim they have uncovered two major plots in the past six years by Islamic extremists in Bosnia to attack Western targets. One of the Arabs challenges the expulsion with the question, if he and his colleagues were so bad, why did the government not move against them years earlier? (Nicholas Wood, 8/2, A3.) That is not a news report, but an opinion report. Instead of facts, we are given the opinions of parties labeled as interested. That is how many Times articles are written. Facts illustrating the influence of the Arabs in making the country more Islamist are particularly needed in discussing that influence. My understanding is that Bosnian Muslims were moderate. S. Arabia told them they must follow its (more extreme version of Islam. S. Arabia set up mosques there with Arabic styles and Islamist imams. Bosnians found the Arabs distasteful. The Arabs ran drugs and planned terrorism. There is the real story, not taken up by Mr. Ward. The challenge by the Arab would sound less reasonable, if an opponent answered. My newspaper style was to juxtapose opposing views, as if a debate. In this case, someone from the government might explain why the government waited. The delayed reaction to the Arabs does not mean the Arabs were welcomed before. It may mean that the government didn't feel powerful enough to expel them. Who knows? Reform often takes years. IDF THINKS ARABS NOT ABOUT TO GO TO WAR It claims that Syria hasn't redeployed its missiles, so it is not about to go to war (IMRA, 7/25). Hizbullah is building up its military strength, so it would want more time before returning to war, too (Arutz-7, 7/25). How long would it take Syria to redeploy its missiles? GAZA PURGE CONTINUES Hamas still is kidnapping dozens of Fatah men in Gaza, beating them, and denying them medical treatment (IMRA, 7/ PERES THINKS EVERYONE AGREES WITH HIM Pres. Peres told the heads of Egypt and Jordan that all Israelis agree that peace means sovereignty for both the P.A. and Israel. No, most Israelis do not want sovereignty for the P.A.. (Peres and his coalition are afraid to test his assertion by holding new elections.) The people know that sovereignty would hasten war. Olmert wants to discuss and boost statehood without resolving the difficult issues and without the P.A. complying with its prior, anti-terrorist obligations. That means they might be propelled into sovereignty without ceasing their warfare and without covering issues that they could use as a pretext for war (IMRA, 7/25). WATER'S STRATEGIC VALUE IN ARAB-ISRAEL CONFLICT Although the New York Sun's policy is pro-Israel in general, its sources from a British newspaper and the Associated Press are not and columnist-editor Halkin is appeasement-minded. Usually, the newspaper does not develop the case for Israel. Mitchell Bard did (Aug. 1), on the strategic value of water, and therefore of the lands over, and guarding, it. In that arid climate, water is scarce and deprivation of it is deadly. Here is Mr. Bard's case. Droughts, population increase, and pollution have reduced the supply of water. (Israel took over Gaza in 1967. It found the Arabs had over-pumped the aquifer, rendering it too salty to drink. Israel restored it.) The P.A. ruined it again. What Bard calls "territorial compromise" would put half of Israel's water supply at similar risk. This is a real risk, since Syria said Israel has no right to water, and Syria's previous attempt to stop water from flowing through the Golan into Israel, where it constitutes a fourth of Israel's supply, was a cause of an earlier war. Israel's current leadership nevertheless wants to relinquish the Golan to Syria. Syria plans to repopulate the Golan, meaning more consumption and pollution. Another quarter of Israel's water supply is partially located in Judea-Samaria. A sovereign P.A., even if benign, would draw much of that away. Already, Arabs are illegally over-pumping water there. The P.A. allows sewage and water pollution, which gravity moves into Israel. Israel is trying to alleviate its shortage with desalination plants. "The plants are expensive, take a long time to build, use a lot of energy, and will not supply as much water as Israel will need. They also make tempting targets for terrorists." The article is thoughtful. It makes neglected but critical points. I wish Bard wouldn't call the cession of Jewish territory "compromise." The Arabs wouldn't cede anything they have, and remain unrepentant enemies. They don't compromise, they steadily take. The Jewish people already lost 79% of the territory Mandated, when Britain took Transjordan away from it. RICE SAYS ISRAEL MUST END "OCCUPATION" Misquoting Pres. Bush, Sec. Rice said Israel must end its "occupation" of Judea-Samaria. He had not stated this is US policy. She said Israel's future is in the Negev and the Galilee (Arutz-7, 7/26). Note she didn't include Israel's future as being also in the Golan, a major part of Israel's watershed. Rice and Bush are Christian Evangelists, but of the replacement school that is hostile to Zionism. She misuses the term "occupation" making Israel seem wrongfully in what really is its core homeland. The Hebrew past was in Judea-Samaria; its future should be there, too, behind the defensive mountains atop one of its main water supplies. If Israel hadn't withdrawn from Gaza, she would have said it must end its "occupation" of Gaza. But Israel did withdraw. Now the Gazans are rendering towns in the Negev unsafe and deserted. What future is there, as the Arabs close in because Israel is pulling back? Do you suppose that the Sec. of State doesn't know that Israel's presence is not an occupation and that Israel has a right to the Territory? ISRAEL'S NOTIONS OF LEGALITY The government of Israel erected and designated the route of the security fence so that it not only shuts out some Jewish communities, but truncates others. For example, it excludes a hill within the official municipal boundaries of Efrat. Nearby is the Arab city of Bethlehem. The government does much to weaken Israel and strengthen the Arabs against it. In protest, hundreds of patriotic and observant Jews climbed up the excluded hill, which the government calls an "illegal" outpost (Arutz-7, 7/26). Excluded, it would be taken over by the Arabs, who then would be near enough to Efrat to commit terrorism there. I think that is the purpose of the government. Thus while the government of Israel is accused of sympathizing with the settlers and helping them to enlarge "settlements," actually, the government maintains a stifling control over Jewish towns in Judea-Samaria and cuts off land from them. What is illegal about building within one's town? Israel has a strange notion of illegality. It lacks a Bill of Rights and Constitution. Its Attorney General illegally nullifies legislative and executive acts except when illegal, and its Supreme Court usurps legislative power. Its justice system represses objection by Jews but lets Arabs break the law en masse with impunity. The government intrudes into people's private lives, requiring permits for almost everything. Beware, the US is getting like that, led by Democratic politicians! When Britain illegally barred Jews from Palestine, it called the clandestine Jewish immigration "illegal," in order to defame it. Don't get taken in. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top SCHOOL PHOTOGRAPH Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 14, 2007. A cartoon by Roger Latham To Go To Top AUSTRALIAN RESIDENT MUSLIMS: ADAPT OR LEAVE Posted by Michael Travis, August 14, 2007. The boxed material contains quotes collected via email from Australian government officials about Sharia law and Muslim extremists in 2005. Both it and the "Origins:" essay come from the April 4, 2006 Snopes website http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/australia.asp CANBERRA AUSTRALIA: Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia, as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks. A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to Australia at a special meeting with Prime Minister John Howard, he and his ministers made it clear that extremists would face a crackdown. Treasurer Peter Costello, seen as heir apparent to Howard, hinted that some radical clerics could be asked to leave the country if they did not accept that australia was a secular state and its laws were made by parliament. "If those are not your values, if you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you," he said on national television. "I'd be saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing people in Australia, one the Australian law and another the Islamic law, that is false. If you can't agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy, and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to go to other country which practices it, perhaps, then, that's a better option," Costello said. Asked whether he meant radical clerics would be forced to leave, he said those with dual citizenship could possibly be asked to move to the other country. Education Minister Brendan Nelson later told reporters that Muslims who did not want to accept local values should "clear off". "Basically, people who don't want to be Australians, and they don't want to live by Australian values and understand them, well then they can basically clear off," he said. Separately, Howard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying he supported spy agencies monitoring the nation's mosques. Background: The July 2005 London Tube bombings raised domestic terrorism concerns in countries with large immigrant Muslim populations, such as Australia. The following month, Australian prime minister John Howard held a two-hour summit with moderate Muslim leaders in Canberra to work on a national strategy for addressing intolerance and the promotion of violence, during which issues such as the curriculum of Islamic schools and suggested measures for vetting imams were discussed. The Christian Science Monitor noted of the event: As other governments have found, however, deciding who represents the Muslim community can be a delicate matter. Large sections of the youth, as well as conservative and more critical clerics, have been left out of Howard's summit -- meaning some of the government's more aggressive proposals may meet resistance. But the groups who attended the meeting hailed it as a successful first step in an ongoing dialogue. "We determined along with the prime minister that there must be more communication between the government and Islamic schools where it comes to teaching common values like democracy, fairness, tolerance and so on, and radicals will be reacted to, whenever they make inflammatory remarks," says Ali Roude, the acting president of the New South Wales Islamic Council. "It's much worse for us now, because 7/7 showed the world that the enemy is to be found within" instead of 9/11 when the terrorists were all foreigners [said the spokesperson for Lebanese Muslims in Australia]. "Now they are suspicious of all of us, and it's very serious, but the prime minister is only playing politics." But some Muslims here have a growing sense that they are being defined within the media by the voices of the extremists, and that an intervention by the government and moderate Muslims to counter such elements would be useful. "So far it was OK to do your own thing. But if the media is focusing on the extreme elements, we need to do something about it," says Chabaan Omran, a senior member of the Federation of Australian Students and Youth, an organization that gives religious advice and teaching to young people. "Muslims need to interact more with mainstream Australia." This might sit well with recent calls from ordinary Australians asking Muslims to assimilate. But Mr. Omran is worried about the connotations of the word "assimilate," and talks more of "positive integration without undermining our religion." Prime Minister Howard also publicly announced his intent to have Australian intelligence agencies target mosques and Islamic schools in an effort to "stamp out homegrown terrorism and extremists": Prime Minister John Howard said on top of trying to promote Australian values in Islamic schools, the Government would monitor what was said in certain schools and mosques to ensure they did not foster terrorism. Asked whether he was prepared to "get inside" mosques and schools to ensure there was no support for terrorism, Mr Howard was blunt. "Yes, to the extent necessary," Mr Howard told Southern Cross radio. "I have no desire and nor is it the Government's intention to interfere in any way with the freedom or practice of religion. "We have a right to know whether there is, within any section of the Islamic community, a preaching of the virtues of terrorism, whether any comfort or harbour is given to terrorism within that community." The issue of the integration of Muslims into Australian society prompted controversial remarks by some Australian cabinet ministers, such as this exchange between Treasurer Peter Costello and host Tony Jones on the Lateline television news program on 23 August 2005: TONY JONES: Now, over the past 24 hours you've been repeating the notion that migrants, evidently Islamic migrants, who don't like Australia, or Australian values, should think of packing up and moving to another country. Is that a fair assessment? PETER COSTELLO: What I've said is that this is a country, which is founded on a democracy. According to our Constitution, we have a secular state. Our laws are made by the Australian Parliament. If those are not your values, if you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you. This is not the kind of country where you would feel comfortable if you were opposed to democracy, parliamentary law, independent courts and so I would say to people who don't feel comfortable with those values there might be other countries where they'd feel more comfortable with their own values or beliefs. TONY JONES: It sounds like you're inviting Muslims who don't want to integrate to go to another country. Is it as simple as that? PETER COSTELLO: No. I'm saying if you are thinking of coming to Australia, you ought to know what Australian values are. TONY JONES: But what about if you're already here and you don't want to integrate? PETER COSTELLO: Well, I'll come to that in a moment. But there are some clerics who have been quoted as saying they recognise two laws. They recognise Australian law and Sharia law. There's only one law in Australia, it's the Australian law. For those coming to Australia, I think we ought to be very clear about that. We expect them to recognise only one law and to observe it. Now, for those who are born in Australia, I'd make the same point. This is a country which has a Constitution. Under its Constitution, the state is secular. Under its constitution, the law is made by the parliament. Under its Constitution, it's enforced by the judiciary. These are Australian values and they're not going to change and we would expect people, when they come to Australia or if they are born in Australia, to respect those values. TONY JONES: I take it that if you're a dual citizen and you have the opportunity to leave and you don't like Australian values, you're encouraging them to go away; is that right? PETER COSTELLO: Well, if you can't agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to go to another country which practises it, perhaps then that's a better option. TONY JONES: But isn't this the sort of thing you hear in pubs, the meaningless populism you hear on talkback radio? Essentially, the argument is if you don't like it here, you should go back home. PETER COSTELLO: No. Essentially, the argument is Australia expects its citizens to abide by core beliefs -- democracy, the rule of law, the independent judiciary, independent liberty. You see, Tony, when you come to Australia and you go to take out Australian citizenship you either swear on oath or make an affirmation that you respect Australia's democracy and its values. That's what we ask of people that come to Australia and if they don't, then it's very clear that this is not the country -- if they can't live with them -- whose values they can't share. Well, there might be another country where their values can be shared. TONY JONES: Who exactly are you aiming this at? Are you aiming it at young Muslims who don't want to integrate or are you aiming it at clerics like Sheikh Omran or Abu Bakr both from Melbourne? PETER COSTELLO: I'd be saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing people in Australia, one the Australian law and another the Islamic law, that that is false. It's not the situation in Australia. It's not the situation under our Constitution. There's only one law in Australia. It's the law that's made by the Parliament of Australia and enforced by our courts. There's no second law. There's only one law that applies in Australia and Australia expects its citizens to observe it. Likewise, Education minister Dr. Brendan Nelson offered his opinion that those who do not accept and teach Australian values should leave the country: Dr Nelson says those who do not accept and teach Australian values should "clear off". One of the recommendations at Prime Minister John Howard's terrorism summit was for Islamic schools to be encouraged to denounce extremism and teach about Australian traditions and culture. The Minister says it is important for all groups to be integrated into the Australian community, whatever their religion. "If you want to be an Australian, if you want to raise your children in Australia, we fully expect those children to be taught and to accept Australian values and beliefs," he said. "We want them to understand our history and our culture, the extent to which we believe in mateship and giving another person a fair go, and basically if people don't want to support and accept and adopt and teach Australian values then, they should clear off." The individual statements attributed to Australian government officials included in the e-mail reproduced at the head of this page are thus essentially accurate, but the selectively-quoted excerpts of controversial material from different news stories create the misleading overall impression that Australia enacted a formal policy to force some Muslim groups out of the country. The statements quoted were part of the public debate over an issue that flared briefly in the immediate aftermath of the London Tube bombings, then quietly subsided. Last updated: 4 April 2006 Contact Michael Travis at michaelmgr@gmail.com To Go To Top FROM ISRAEL: IMBALANCE Posted by Arlene Kushner, August 13, 2007. Before I leave the issue of Hevron and the rights of Jews to live there, I would like to present this food for thought: Why is it that people on the left are concerned with our attending scrupulously to Arab rights but have no concern about Jewish rights within areas that they perceive as Palestinian? The terms "apartheid" and 'racist" are used erroneously with regard to Israel. But the Arab world broadly -- and certainly Palestinian Authority areas -- are places where these terms do apply. Even if -- and this is an "if" I do not subscribe to -- one believes that Hebron should be under Arab control completely and all of Judea and Samaria should be turned into a Palestinian state, why should this preclude Jewish rights to live on Jewish owned land in Hevron? Look at the difference, please: When we acquired control of Har HaBayit, the Temple Mount, we made it available to the Muslims -- we didn't banish them from the place. (What's regrettable is how they've abused this generous act.) Yet there are a great many people, including liberal Jews, comfortable with the idea that Muslims should banish Jews from the Cave of Machpelah, the Tomb of the Patriarchs, even though it's a place of enormous Jewish sanctity and part of the Jewish heritage. They have the notion that it has to be exclusively Muslim. The severe injustice of this mindset rankles. ~~~~~~~~~~ This is an example of precisely how badly the Muslims have abused our generosity in allowing them continued access to the Temple Mount; A Muslim summer camp for some 4,000 children has been run on the Mount by the Islamic Movement. The goal of the camp was to teach the children "to be connected to the Al Aksa Mosque and to protect it with their bodies." ~~~~~~~~~~ Syria is back in the news again and what's being reported is not positive. Now it's being said that, in spite of Olmert's attempts to be reassuring, Syria is convinced that Israel intends to start a war and is preparing accordingly. The Syrians observed Israeli operations during the war last summer and have planned their capabilities in response to what was learned. A senior military source has been cited as saying that Syria has acquired the world's most sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles from Russia. That's in addition to its huge arsenal of missiles which would hit our north and all the way down to Tel Aviv. Channel 10's military analyst says that Defense Minister Barak's intention, should we be faced with war with Syria, would be to launch a swift and strategic ground assault deep into Syrian territory. As time passes, this scenario seems less a question of "if" than of "when." ~~~~~~~~~~ There was a terrorist attack in the Old City of Jerusalem on Friday that has caused a stir in a variety of ways. One Ahmad Mahmoud Khatib, an Israeli Arab, grabbed the gun from a security guard at the Ateret Kohanim Yeshiva, and then ran through the streets shooting back at a second guard who pursued him --causing injury to 10 bystanders and the guard before he was shot dead. Some witnesses claimed that he was shot after he had fallen down to the ground. Arab MK Ahmed Tibi then made the same charge. His family refused to believe that he was capable of doing what it was claimed he had done and there were acquaintances who said the story was made up to cover Khatib's murder by the guards. What followed this furor was a definitive finale: First, the Galilee Liberation Group, an Israeli-Arab terror organization, claimed responsibility for the attempted terror attack. They said they had sent Khatib. Then -- surprise! -- the police released a video tape of the whole thing, and indeed it shows that Khatib had grabbed a gun and shot a security guard. ~~~~~~~~~~ Some 1,000 Israeli Arabs attended Khatib's funeral. One of them was MK Jamal Zahalka, who refused to believe the evidence of the video tape and said, "We don't recognize the right of the settlers, the guards, and the security services to be in Jerusalem, which is occupied land." ~~~~~~~~~~ Senior IDF officers are increasingly concerned about the military build-up in Gaza and are becoming less reticent about expressing those concerns. One official referred to what's going on in Gaza as "a security pressure cooker," implying that it's only a matter of time before things explode. What the officers are seeing is that Hamas is preparing for confrontation with Israel. Some draw a parallel with what happened with Hezbollah last year: for six years we knew what was happening with regard to arms build-up, yet failed to respond. They warn that waiting makes the situation more dangerous. The difference between now and our situation with Hezbollah is that "[now] the IDF is prepared for a wide scale operation in Gaza. "The ball is now in the political echelon's court." Neither is Judea and Samaria outside this situation. Warned Brig.-Gen. Shlomo Brom, "There are still active terror cells there, that have decided to lay low for the meantime, but could definitely become violent should the situation in Gaza change." ~~~~~~~~~~ According to PA officials, Abbas has decided to hold elections within the next six months, including in Gaza. Hamas, of course, is still saying they won't permit this. What is more, Ahmed Yusef, a political adviser to Haniyeh in Gaza, said that Hamas was holding secret talks with Fatah leaders to resolve the situation, with Abbas having authorized certain Fatah persons to negotiate on his behalf. Abbas, he explained, was keeping the talks on "low flames" to see if he could secure anything from the Americans or the Israelis. While Fatah is denying this furiously, it sounds just about right to me. ~~~~~~~~~~ Dore Gold, head of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, has written a piece, "The dangers of 'peace' making," for The World Street Journal. We tend to think, he says, that trying to make peace can't hurt, but indeed it can. "...mishandling the Israeli-Palestinian issue," he says, "can exacerbate the threat of radical Islam, especially if it deepens the sense in radical Islamic circles that their military efforts have paid off. "...The errors of past Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking have not been cost-free. They have real consequences in terms of loss of life and a deepening conflict. These initiatives do not halt the assault of radical Islam against the West. In fact, if mishandled, they can make it far worse." http://opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010461 ~~~~~~~~~~ A correction: In my last posting I spoke about tax money released by Israel that ended up going to Hamas. I'm confident that everyone reading it knew that my figure of $400 released was in error. The correct amount is 400 million shekels. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info To Go To Top NO PUSHOVERS Posted by Moshe Feiglin, August 13, 2007. Draft evasion starts in kindergarten. And what did you think? That there wouldn't be draft evasion? When you organized the peace rally in the square and Yitzchak Rabin and Shimon Peres hugged the great, leftist draft dodger Aviv Gefen, what message did you think you were sending Israel's youth? Did you really think that the soldiers would continue to respect the IDF? And when you hugged the head of the Organization to Liberate Palestine (from us) -- in other words, when you adopted the justice of our enemy's claims -- what did you think? Did you think it would motivate our youth to enlist? And when you degraded, scorned, expelled and destroyed the very people who, more than anyone else, embodied love of our land and self-sacrifice for it, what message did you think you were sending to the new recruits? And when you totally confused them with an "ethical code" that maintains that the life of the enemy is more important than their lives, what did you think? That you were motivating them to fight? And when, with "progressive enlightenment," you drafted women to combat units, what were you thinking? That only the enemy would stop taking you seriously? Did you really think that the soldiers would continue to respect the IDF? And when you deleted the concepts "enemy" and "victory" from the army lexicon, did you think that you could continue to rely on youthful energy alone? And when, time and again, our sons put their lives on the line to capture terrorists and then you release them, what do you think? That they won't ask themselves why they should continue to risk their lives? And when they discover that the guns that shot at them are Israeli weapons that the IDF supplied to the terrorists, what do you think that does to the soldiers who just "won" the battle? Do you think it motivates them to continue? And when you elect a prime minister whose two sons dodged the draft and left Israel, what type of claims can you possibly make against other draft evaders? And when you elect a president who declares that he hates history and that he is an "Israeli" whose battle is against the Jews, what do you think? Are you looking for ambition? For a spark in the eyes? Are you looking for youth with motivation to enlist? Then start telling the kindergarten children about Abraham. Teach them how to say the quintessential Jewish verse, Shema Yisrael. Most of today's soldiers to not know the rest of the words of this verse, which, for over 3,000 years, supplied the Jewish People with all the energies and ambitions they needed. Explain what they are fighting for. Then you will see their ambition. Take the school children on a class trip to Jerusalem, Hebron, Rachel's Tomb, Shiloh and Shechem. Take them to Joshua's altar on Mt. Eval. Open the Bible and let them connect with their forefathers, who lived here 3,300 years ago. Teach them what a special nation we belong to. Connect them to their heritage, their culture, their nation and their homeland. Explain what a tremendous tradition they perpetuate. Explain what they are fighting for. Then you will see their ambition. But you don't want to do that. You want to disengage -- from the Land and the people faithful to it, from history, from your identity, from your faith and from everything that justifies our presence in the land. And then you want to be protected by the self-sacrifice of the youth. There is a limit to how much you can rely on the natural will of every young person to give and to be part of the common effort. At a certain point, he will no longer be interested. Now, we have reached that point. Israel's youth are not pushovers. If you don't have serious answers, they won't enlist. Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) is a group of people inside the Likud party who want to see Israel adopt a more Jewish character. Moshe Feiglin, its cofounder, has emphatically said he does not want a theocracy, but he does want a State based on Jewish values. The Manhigut Yehudit website address is http://www.manhigut.org. To learn more about Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) and to read their plan for Israel's future, visit www.jewishisrael.org. Or contact Shmuel Sackett, International Director (516) 330-4922 (cell) To Go To Top GOVERNMENT DECEPTION; ISRAELI EDUCATION FOR INSURRECTION; MODERN CHRISTIAN MARTYRS Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 13, 2007. WILL IRAQI TERRORISM BE CONTAINED? I guess terrorists in Iraq don't carry passports and can't afford travel. Otherwise, if the US withdrew its troops before the government of Iraq were ready to defend itself, and the terrorists took over, they would set out to conquer new horizons. Their goal is a regional and then global caliphate, not just in Iraq. You don't think that's their goal? Then what are they fighting for? After having deposed Saddam, coalition troops would have been glad to go home. Then up rose the insurgents, largely Islamist. They kept the US troops from leaving. WHERE BLAIR HEADQUARTERS Tony Blair, Quartet representative to build up the P.A. non-militarily, wants his headquarters in Jerusalem. Why there -- his mission is outside? Because: (1)Some UNO offices are there? (2) It's safer there? Or (3) He wants to help subvert Israel by doing P.A. business in Israel? I think the answer is all three. Given the hostile UNO's non-recognition of Jerusalem as Israeli, a self-respecting Israeli government would expel the UNO offices from Jerusalem. When will Israel get a self-respecting government? GOVERNMENT DECEPTION During George Bush's presidency, liberals discovered that government deceives. They still don't realize how much we operate under false notions, that this did not begin with Bush II, and that some accusations against him are deceptive. Leftists deliberately distort history to promote their ideology. My textbooks exaggerated the nobility of the US as noble, but contemporary ones exaggerate its ignobility. An earlier example of presidential deception was set by the leading liberal, FDR. He held a couple of phony refugee conferences, so Britain and the US could seem not to be ignoring the Jews' persecution. I've mentioned other illusions about how much democracy countries have, whether enemies are "moderate" or allies, negotiation works with fanatics, and Islam is a religion of peace. New ones are being fostered about poverty being pervasive (it's more imported) and economic inequality being a problem. IRAN Russia stopped building Iran's reactor, for lack of payment. Within a couple of years, Iran's regime may fall, due to mismanagement that spreads poverty and to oppression. But suppose Russia forgives some of the debt and Iran doesn't fall? UNIFIL ACTION & HIZBULLAH REACTION Patrolling undeveloped areas where Hizbullah had bunkers from the prior war, UNIFIL destroyed some bunkers and confiscated the weapons found in them. Hizbullah's major reaction was to transfer short-range rockets to the dozens of mostly Shiite villages near the Israeli border. Consequently, Israel threatened to flatten those villages, after warning residents to flee, if war resumes. Hizbullah attacked and killed six Spanish peacekeepers (IMRA, 7/22). Israel should warn villagers now. If Israel waits until war, Hizbullah would keep firing rockets until the deadline. The enemy probably realizes, however, that Israel constantly threatens harsh retaliation, but rarely fulfills its threats. Israel would be wise to suspend all the negotiations that the US wants it to make, while it campaigns against Hizbullah violations of the truce. Such an action would require dedication to the Jewish state, independence from the gentiles, and an understanding of public relations. Israel's leaders lack all three qualities. Typically, they fail to prepare public opinion. They are humane, but the world condemns them as inhumane to Muslim war criminals and pressures Israel to forfeit its military victory. Will UNIFIL now search Shiite villages? HAMAS TV Hamas TV programs for Arab children call the Jews murderers of Arab children and proclaim the duty of Muslims to kill Jews. Children respond in anger that "the Jews" killed Farfur, a mouse cartoon character on Hamas TV (IMRA, 7/22 from Palestinian Media Watch). ISRAELI EDUCATION DEPT. Israeli Education Min. Tamir approved the Arab version of Israel's founding. Arab children in Israel will be taught by the State that the founding of the State was a tragedy for the Arabs and that Israel took "their land." Upon hearing of her approval, Arabs then demanded autonomy over the whole curriculum and the introduction of Arab poetry (sorry, lost source) which is bigoted and inciting to violence. Concessions to the Arabs bring more Arab demands. Her decision guarantees that the Arabs become even more of an embittered fifth column. Is she crazy to encourage a sizeable minority to consider the State its enemy? Filled with Jewish self-hatred, Tamir is part of the leftist cabal that is taking down the Jewish state. Yes, she is more than appeasement-minded. The appeasement-minded leftists think that they can reconcile with the Arabs. She is working against reconciliation and for insurrection. She is a traitor. CHRISTIANS PERSECUTED IN IRAQ "Last month, a Chaldean priest, Ragheed Ganni, and three sub-deacons were murdered by Islamist terrorists in Mosul, Iraq. Before being executed, they were informed that they would be spared on the condition that they converted to Islam. All refused. Ganni was one of many Iraqis killed since 2003 for no reason other than their Christian identity. Additionally, thousands of Christians have been expelled from their homes, extorted, harassed, beaten, raped and ordered to covert to Islam, spawning a frantic and ongoing exodus." The Christian way of life has lost its vibrancy there. Other minorities are being persecuted, too. Those who take over Iraq probably will blame the persecution on "occupation," and not reform themselves (IMRA, 7/22 from Lebanon Star). Islamic doctrine is humiliate Christians, not kill them. Contemporary Islamists are more intolerant and cruel than even their religion calls for. NEW SPIES AGAINST U.S. GET LIGHTER SENTENCE A former FBI analyst and Marine, who worked in the White House, and an agent of the Philippine government, were caught after having spied for years, in behalf of a planned coup against that government. They received sentences of 10 and 6.4 years, respectively. That contrasts with the life sentence given Pollard. Again, he is treated worse. Why? (IMRA, 7/23.) UPRISING IN LEBANON BEING PUT DOWN The Lebanese Army continues to shell the (probably Syrian) gunmen holed up in a Palestinian Arab refugee camp in Lebanon. The gunmen attacked Lebanese outside the camp, and the battle was joined. Most of the residents fled. From 40,000, their number has declined perhaps 99%. The Army does not let supplies in. The world does not mind this attack on a Palestinian Arab "refugee" camp) because the attackers are not Israelis (sorry, lost citation). WHAT ROLE, LEBANESE ARMY? A high-ranking IDF officer said publicly that Syria has restocked Hizbullah's armory, with the full knowledge of the Lebanese Army (IMRA, 7/24). The Lebanese Army was supposed to help prevent the arms smuggling, but did nothing to stop it. It collaborates with Hizbullah. Nevertheless, the UN duped Israel into a truce on the basis of the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL stopping Hizbullah. PM Olmert wants foreign troops in Judea-Samaria, and some US leaders suggest arming the Lebanese Army more. First check their loyalty. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top ISRAEL AS A SPONSOR OF TERRORISM Posted by Zalmi, August 13, 2007. Here's an interesting take on our leaders' appeasement policy by David Bedein, Bureau Chief, Israel Resource News Agency. The Fatah organization, the mainstream body of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), was launched in 1964 by the Arab League with one purpose in mind: To foment rebellion of Palestinian Arabs against the state of Israel. After Palestinian Arabs living in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza came under Israeli rule after the 1967 war, PLO incitement of Palestinian Arabs against Israel began to take shape. In 1980, the PLO was officially declared by Israel to be an illegal terrorist organization. But Israel was open to a change in that definition, in the interest of peace with the Palestinian Arab people. In 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres signed the Declaration of Principles (DOP) between Israel and the PLO together with Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas of the PLO. The DOP stipulated mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO and required the PLO to cease and desist from terrorism and for the PLO to nullify its call for Israel's destruction. The Israeli Knesset ratified the DOP a week later. However, what received little attention was the fact that the PLO did not ratify the DOP due to lack of a quorum. Pinchas Inbari, the only Israeli correspondent covering the PLO Headquarters in Tunisia at the time, broke the story of the PLO non-ratification of the DOP However, the rest of the Israeli media did not report that the PLO never did ratify the accord, while the Israeli government acted as if they had done so. Yet, since the PLO did not ratify the DOP, it and Fatah were not stricken from the Israeli law as a terrorist entity. The other concrete commitment made by the PLO was that it would officially cancel the PLO Covenant, which called for Israel's destruction. On two occasions, the Palestinian National Council (PNC) gathered to discuss the PLO Covenant; on neither occasion did it cancel the covenant. However, the government of Israel has consistently acted as if the PLO ratified the DOP and cancelled the covenant. Over the coming week, the PNC once again convenes. This reporter asked Israeli officials if they will demand that the PNC finally ratify the DOP and cancel the covenant. The Israeli spokespeople would not answer. PLO spokespeople, however, made it clear that the PLO is not being asked by Israel to ratify the DOP or cancel the PLO covenant. The PLO therefore remains a terrorist entity. That means that the decision of the government of Israel to arm Fatah technically makes the Israeli government an official sponsor of a terrorist entity. While the Bush administration concurs with Israeli support of the Fatah, the March 2002 U.S. designation that defines the Fatah al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade as a terrorist organization has not changed. Under U.S. law, any government that aids and abets an organization defined as a terrorist entity will forfeit aid and assistance. In other words, the Israeli government, in a move to placate the U.S. administration, may undermine its own support base with lawmakers of the U.S. Congress Contact Zalmi at zalmi@zalmi.net To Go To Top REALISM, NOT PESSIMISM, AND CERTAINLY NO ROOM FOR OPTIMISM Posted by Gerald A. Honigman, August 13, 2007. Shocking... Yet another State Department Arabist takes Jews to task for wanting to survive the Foggy Folks' less than friendly--if not downright hostile--"peace" (of the grave) plans. We'll return to this later... First, imagine, for one moment, that the entire territory of the United States was reduced to the size of New Jersey. Rather than being separated from any real or potential enemies by thousands of miles of oceans as it formerly was, this new, constricted America is still surrounded by the rest of the same territory that was the old America...but that land now consists of enemies dedicated to mini-America's destruction. Next, picture that the animosity of the enemies America faces has nothing to do with its size --for America is now indeed tiny--but is based on their belief that Americans have no historical or political right whatsoever to the land. Our enemies, instead, claim all of the area--including America--as purely their own patrimony. Next, picture that mini-America with 6 million Americans, surrounded by hundreds of millions of enemies who would like to have it for dinner, has a powerful, friendly nation across the sea from which it gets most of its support--militarily, financially, and so forth. The problem is that America's friend also has deep connections to America's far more numerous and wealthy enemies. The friend wishes that America would be more "pliable" so that it could further its standing with them for many reasons--not the least being the enormous amount of money being made by government employees, courtesy of those above deep connections, as they move through the revolving doors of government and business. There are, of course, strategic and other reasons as well. The dilemma here is that just supporting a viable, independent America is enough to make America's enemies its powerful friend's enemies as well. Okay...Welcome back to reality. The above, of course, is the relationship between Israel and America reversed. On August 10th, an Israeli newspaper quoted former Prime Minister, now Defense Minister, General Ehud Barak, as saying that Israel would not withdraw from the West Bank before finding a solution to Palestinian Arab rocket attacks, "which will take between three to five years." Commenting on others' wishful thinking about a "quick peace," Barak then added, "the Israel public reacts sanely in not believing such fantasies ... for it is not possible to envisage a separation with the Palestinians before finding the means to protect the population against shootings" from rockets or missiles. Consider, please, that after Israel totally withdrew from Gaza--while it was still under the "moderate" Abbas' control--towns in southern Israel proper were hit non-stop by Arab rockets, mortars, and so forth. Consider also that the Arab intifada was launched under Fatah's watch--not Hamas'--and the Arafatians did nothing to stop the blown buses, teen nightclubs, restaurants, and other barbarism deliberately targeting the most innocent. Not only did they not stop it, but they were often a party to the atrocities themselves. Next, think about this... When it comes to the subject of a Jewish Israel, there is no disagreement between Fatah and Hamas on this subject--despite the whitewashing and cover-ups that the State Department has been doing in Arafat's and his successors' names for decades now. So, Israel is faced with a Hamas openly calling for its destruction and Abbas' Fatah Arafatians adhering to their destruction in phases and Trojan Horse strategies for Israel's elimination. Abbas has never changed the platform he ran on for Israel's destruction (but by "more acceptable" means), and the schools, mosques, camps, television stations, newspapers, maps, websites, and so forth look no different than Hamas' when it comes to the acceptance of a Jewish State as a permanent neighbor. On the contrary, Israel's disappearance or non-existence is the perpetual message in all of Fatah's outlets. After Abbas' Fatah got the boot from Gaza recently, it then had to start the sweet talk up once again to gain additional American support. Since it doesn't take much to get the Foggy Folks to squeeze the Jews (they opposed Israel's rebirth in the first place and have often been nasty to its mere basic interests ever since), the full court press was indeed short in the coming, with a weak-kneed Israeli leadership bearing the brunt. And this time, Israel's alleged "best friend," President George W. Bush, was leading the charge. With a long term good prognosis for Iraq not likely, Dubya would like a success he could point to in the region as he leaves office. The birth of Arab state # 22--and second, not first, Arab state in " Palestine" (Jordan sitting on about 80% of the original 1920 Mandate)--would do nicely...for many reasons. Enter Ehud Barak... Ironically, this is the same guy whom President Carter--aiming to redeem his own presidency--squeezed at Camp David and Taba not long ago to give away the store. Luckily, Arafat refused. But, here we are again a bit later--yet with virtually the same scenario. Abbas has so far proven to be nothing more than Arafat in a suit. He too "condemns"--wink, wink--blowing Jews apart while funding those who do so and having his own Fatah folks take part. He plays the good cop/bad cop game well with State Department assistance. And for such "moderation" -- he still refuses to give up on his demand to overwhelm Israel with millions of alleged "returning" jihadist refugees, talks only of a hudna/cease fire, refuses to confront Arabs who terrorize Jews, and so forth-- Prime Minister Olmert (the other Ehud) & Co. have turned over arms and military equipment, released terrorists, given up territory, provided funds, further exposed Jews to Arab terror, etc., etc., etc. When Barak commented that Israel should not be rushed to a virtual retreat to its miniscule1949 armistice lines existence before it developed better means to deal with attacks that will likely be launched from new territory scheduled to be turned over to Abbas, he was simply stating the facts that the most na�ve of the na�ve could understand. What Defense Minister anywhere faced with such realities Barak is confronted with would plan differently? Would America be so trusting of an enemy with such a proven deadly, rejectionist record? Well, after Barak responded as we've read above, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (she already has an oil tanker named for her...all hail the petrobuck!...just ask, among many others, former Secretary of State James Baker) had her man at Foggy Bottom do the typical Arabist dirty work. Tom Casey issued an insulting diplomatic slap calling Barak's comments "overly pessimistic." Can you ever recall a Foggy spokesperson issuing such a slap to one of the feudal Arab oil despots--even after 9/11 and all of those Saudi homicide bombers? Not good for business...if ya know what I mean. Again, many a Foggy Folk and other government official has eventually benefited from the Arab oil spigot...including the Bush family. Finally, read General Barak's comments again. Where's the pessimism? He is a seasoned Israeli military leader who knows his enemies far better than any Foggy Arabist does. Would Casey allow Dulles Airport, the White House, Pentagon, and such to come within range of rocket fire from an enemy dedicated to our destruction and which has constantly launched missiles at us in the past--even after extensive unilateral concessions were made to them? How about, perhaps, Casey's own kids--would he bare their necks so optimistically given the nature of the enemy Israel faces? What evidence does Casey provide that the Fatah leopard will change its murderous spots? We've heard the empty sweet Arafatian tune before. Excuse after excuse after excuse has been made for them. Meanwhile, Abbas' boys have been reported to be currently renegotiating deals with Hamas and paying Hamasniks with money recently released to Abbas by Olmert under Washington's pressure. What evidence does Casey have of a Fatahstan which will fully recognize a Jewish Israel and finally change its charter which calls for Israel's destruction? Or a Fatahstan which will ever teach acceptance instead of the joys of martyrdom to its children? None. None at all... But the Jews, in a nation the size of New Jersey, will continue to be squeezed anyway, and this time it won't be just places like Sderot in the Israeli Negev under fire, but Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and most of Israel's population and industry which are located in Israel's narrow 9-16 mile wide waist that will be under attack. Realism, Mr. Casey...not pessimism. And certainly not optimism. Yet, only if the latter was truly available, would the core concessions Israel is being forced to make make any sense. As many of us have written, this whole thing has the stench of Munich 1938 about it, with Chamberlain's sellout of the Czechs to Hitler to supposedly achieve peace for our time. Unfortunately, none of this matters right now with the folks running the show in Washington. So, what will it take to wake the Israeli public up from its dangerous slumber? A great Hebrew sage, Rabbi Hillel, proclaimed a few thousand years ago, "if I am not for myself, who will be? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?" Israel has bent over backwards to make critical concessions to those who still seek its destruction anyway. It's time for the first part of Hillel's message to at last be taken seriously. Honigman Archive Gerald A. Honigman is a Florida educator who has done extensive doctoral studies in Middle Eastern Affairs. He has created and conducted counter-Arab propaganda programs for college youth, has lectured on numerous campuses and other platforms, and has publicly debated many Arab spokesmen. His articles and op-eds have been published in dozens of newspapers, magazines, academic journals and websites all around the world. Visit his website at http://geraldahonigman.com/. To Go To Top LAW AND ORDER Posted by Moshe Dann, August 13, 2007. My letter to editor in today's Jerusalem Post Haim Waxman argues that soldiers should not question commands. "Orders are orders," he insists. Although opposed to Jews living anywhere in YeShA (which he calls "occupied Palestinian land"), he adds that he served, albeit reluctantly. Waxman is profoundly wrong. Ordering the IDF to evacuate Jewish communities and destroy homes and property directly violates the IDF's Code of Ethics. Check the official website: (www1.idf.il/DOVER) "The goal of the IDF is to protect the existence of the State of Israel and her independence, and to thwart all enemy efforts to disrupt the normal way of life in Israel." When the IDF is used for political, rather than military purposes, although that may be "legal," it may be immoral. If the objective is a military target, preventing terrorism, protecting citizens, winning a battle against our enemies, there is no basis for refusal to serve. But who is "the enemy" in Jewish communities and how are they a threat to our well-being and security? Using the IDF to carry out a highly controversial government policy, like evacuating Jews from their homes, especially by force, has no military purpose. The misuse of our soldiers in such actions, therefore, is a direct blow to our Israeli democracy and to our army itself. The "our" is critical. The IDF is a citizen army. Soldiers are conscripted; they serve with pride and without question. The IDF's strength and character are rooted in their mission to protect us. Its morale depends on the fact that we are proud of their sacrifices we support them wholeheartedly. Their battlers are ours -- and their losses. We pray for and celebrate them because they are us. The purpose of the IDF is to defend its citizens, not to destroy their homes. If the government wants remove Jews from their homes and destroy them, it should be done by a special force -- voluntary and paid -- not by the IDF. Enforcing Law and Order is the job of the police. Moreover, comparing fighting terrorism is not the same as evicting Jews from their homes. The comparison is obscene. "The rule of law is the foundation of democracy," as Waxman writes, not because it is law, but when it expresses the will of the people, when it stands for justice. It is the obligation of every citizen, in the army and without, to oppose injustice, to decide what is right -- and to follow his/her conscience. Civil disobedience is not only essential to our political system, it is the basis of our humanity. It should not be denied to soldiers -- especially when they are ordered to carry out blatant political decisions which have no military (or humanitarian) purpose, demanded by a government which has little popular support. Contact Moshe Dann at moshedan@netvision.net.il To Go To Top TSAFRIR RONEN -- A SHINING "STAR" ABOVE ISRAEL'S GLOOMY SKIES Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 12, 2007. I used to shy away from politics and politicians because they represented egotism, deceit, and unfairness -- qualities I despise. But when Israel began heading down a path of political, military, and social tumult, I could no longer standby silently and merely watch. So began my journey as an "activist." My activities have focused squarely on Israel. The country needs lots and lots of help. For this reason, I undertook my own blog in order to offer more critical commentary about world affairs. I have written numerous articles and issued my opinions. I have met political speakers and attended other relevant events. Unfortunately, the more active that I have become the more callous I feel about the world we live in. I have grown more skeptical, and so I have come to wonder if the United States will ever have another Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan and if Israel will ever have another King David or Golda Meir. Along the way, I have befriended many likeminded activists, people who care greatly about Jews and Israel. Many of these people are understandably frustrated by world politics in general and by Israel in particular. One such individual is Tsafrir Ronen. Now, I'm not one to stand in line for autographs nor am I star struck. But in Tsafir Ronen I see a glimmer of hope for Israel. Before I met him, I was terribly anxious about Israel's state of affairs. While my anxiety still remains, some of my faith has been restored in knowing that Israel has a Tsafrir Ronen. I can again believe that leaders such as Ronen can halt Israel's downward spiral. Where current leaders are tearing Israel apart at the seams, a leader like Ronen can offer the nation a bright future once more. Why am I so impressed by Tsafrir Ronen? That Tsafrir Ronen is a "kibbutznik" should provide some insight. He cherishes his wife and his three beautiful daughters. He's a bit shy, yet forceful in his opinions. Ronen is compassionate and possesses keen foresight. Simply put, he is an honest man with integrity. He thinks clearly and speaks his mind without fear of political correctness. He does nothing for personal gain. Tsafrir Ronen is not a politician. He is a leader who believes that Israel is the Land of the Jewish Nation. He takes loving pride in his country and will not sell her to the enemy, to the wolves. He is the kind of leader who will put the interests of his nation well before any career aspirations, as should always be the case but too rarely is. Israel does not need another self-serving politician. The Jewish nation requires a clear-thinking, patriotic leader. Tsafrir Ronen is just such an individual. If the State of Israel gets behind a person of his caliber, the nation can be saved. With kind regards, Nurit Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top U.S. PRESSURE ON ISRAEL FOR A PALESTINIAN STATE FORESEEN Posted by Hillel Fendel, August 12, 2007. Larry, Curley and Moe -- The Three Stooges As the US, Jordan, the PA and others prepare for a high-level Middle East summit in November, a squeeze on Israel to agree to a Palestinian state just kilometers from Tel Aviv is feared. PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) has met in recent days with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and with Jordan's King Abdullah, reportedly discussing plans for the upcoming Middle East summit. The summit is the brainchild of U.S. President George Bush, and is scheduled to be held three months from now. Some Israelis fear that it will mark the climax of a heavy series of pressures upon Israel to agree formally to the formation of a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. "With a quiet and densely-packed timetable," writes IDF Col. (res.) Moti Yogev, "the US Administration is cooking up, together with Prime Minister Olmert and Abu Mazen, very fateful plans for the State of Israel. The US will apply very heavy pressure on Israel to agree to understandings that will form the basis of the declaration of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria within just two months." Yogev explains that the Bush Administration is working under the pressure of the 2008 elections. "By then," Yogev posits, "Bush plans to hit the Iranian nuclear infrastructures. This is why he is in such a rush to give the Palestinians and the moderate Moslem states fat weapons deals and a Palestinian state -- in order to silence them in anticipation of the planned attack on Iran." "Bush has partners," Yogev continues, "Abu Mazen and Olmert, and the common denominator for all of them is their unpleasant political situation, which is prodding them to take steps they hope will improve their standing." Shteinitz Opposes Summit MK Yuval Shteinitz (Likud) told Arutz-7 this morning that the summit is something that must be strongly opposed: "This summit could well lead to a Palestinian state, with clear Hamas and Iranian influence, right on the doorstep of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Ben Gurion International Airport. Even if it just serves as a small support for this idea, the summit is something that we must not allow." Shteinitz served as head of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the previous Knesset. Though plans are proceeding apace for the summit to be held, several major stumbling blocks remain -- including the refusal of Saudi Arabia to announce its participation, and the questionable status of Abu Mazen. Conflicting reports abound as to whether Hamas and Fatah are on the road to peace between them or to a resumption of hostilities. If the latter, then Abu Mazen could find himself a target of assassination; a statement by Hamas elements accuses him of "launching a war against Hamas together with the Zionist occupation forces." In addition, a group of influential businessmen in the PA is considering starting a new party, which Abu Mazen said he "supports." A Dangerous Israeli Commitment Yogev says we must be very far from complacent, however: "[Israeli Cabinet ministers] are again working, trying to give between 70 and 90% of Judea and Samaria to the PA for a state. True, some say the present government does not have the political strength to pull it off. But what is now on the agenda is just a signature on a 'declaration of principles' for the establishment of a Palestinian state. Even if the implementation is put off, it will still be an international Israeli commitment, and this is very grave. In addition, if it is marketed as a way of saving Israel from the Iranian nuclear threat, it will be very hard to convince the average Israeli of the dangers of abandoning most of Judea and Samaria -- despite what has happened in Gaza." The only way to stop this, Yogev writes, is for the "nationalist, religious, Zionist camp to wake up, unite as one, and work together... We have the strength to declare firmly that the Land of Israel belongs to the People of Israel, and that any thought of giving it to 'moderate' murderers is immoral and will not bring peace or security." Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor at Arutz-Sheva To Go To Top TERROR ATTACK IN JERUSALEM'S OLD CITY CAUGHT ON VIDEOTAPE Posted by Bryna Berch, August 12, 2007. This is by Israel Matzav and it appeared on his website: http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2007/08/ terror-attack-in-jerusalems-old-city.html As many of you have heard already, there was a terror attack in Jerusalem's Old City on Friday. An 'Israeli-Arab' from the Galilee grabbed a security guard's gun, shot the security guard, and then engaged in a gun battle with another security guard on a crowded street in the Old City's bazaar. The terrorist was killed and ten people were wounded, including the security guard whose ammunition was stolen. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, we were treated to claims that the guards had 'over-reacted' and the terrorist's family claimed he could not possibly have carried out the act of which he was accused. But the 'Palestinian' terror groups rushed to take credit for the attack carried out by 29-year old Ahmad Mahmoud Khatib of Kafr Manda, who was survived by his pregnant wife and baby daughter, and they have apparently 'backed up' their claims: Shin Bet investigators raided Khatib's village on Friday and arrested a number of residents in order to check whether he had operated on his own or had been sent by an organization. Over the weekend, three Palestinian organizations -- the military wings of Fatah, the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -- claimed responsibility for the attempted terror attack which they referred to as "a military operation" in Jerusalem. A joint statement issued by Martyr Abu-Ali Mustafa Brigades (PFLP's military wing), the al-Quds Brigades (the Islamic Jihad's military wing) and Fatah's al-Aqsa Brigades, said that a photo of the "shahid" (martyr) would be presented shortly. On Saturday evening, a poster showing Khatib above the Dome of the Rock and the Koran was released, hailing him as "the martyr of al-Aqsa". Well what do you know? The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades of 'moderate' 'Palestinian President' Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen, the people who were granted immunity from pursuit by dhimmi Prime Minister Ehud K. Olmert, have carried out another terror attack. Khatib's family claims that he would never do such a thing (the fact that Israel routinely destroys terrorists' homes might have something to do with that claim): Khatib's acquaintances and relatives of the terrorist said that they were surprised to hear about the incident he was involved in, during which he snatched the gun of one security guard before exchanging fire with another guard. According to the acquaintances, "He was a quiet and introverted person, who was incapable of raising his hand on anyone. People cannot believe what is being said here, that he snatched a security guard's weapon. He is simply a person who is incapable of doing such a thing." They added that his family was "normative, quiet and respected." The family's acquaintances said that as far as they knew, Khatib told other residents who arrived with him in Jerusalem that he planned to stay in the city for the afternoon prayer and return later. "Many people from our community go to pray in Jerusalem on Friday. It is a very central city for us," one of the acquaintances said. "We are shocked to hear what happened, particularly when the family has yet to receive any clear information. They are waiting to hear from the police what really happened, and are waiting to see when the funeral will take place." Many of those who arrived at the family's home on Saturday claimed that Khatib was "killed for nothing" as he did not try to carry out a shooting attack. According to the acquaintances, the incident was made up by the two security guards in order to avoid murder charges. "The guards are the only ones who say that he tried to snatch the weapon. There is no evidence for that, and he can no longer testify and defend himself. It's a shame that the police fell for it, as did the Shin Bet apparently. We are now calling it first-degree murder." Well, we can go to the videotape taken by security cameras and you can all decide for yourself whether Mr. Khatib was trying to murder innocent people (Hat Tip: Lawhawk). It shows the Israeli Arab assailant grabbing a security guard's pistol and shooting him repeatedly at close range. http://www.jpost.com To Go To Top IF ISRAEL CEDES TERRITORY, RADICAL ISLAM WINS Posted by Koira, August 12, 2007. This was written by Irving Matzav and it was published on his website: http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2007/08/ if-israel-cedes-territory-radical-islam.html Former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Dore Gold writes today that Israel ceding territory to the 'Palestinians' will not bring peace -- it will whet the appetite of radical Islam for even more. It should be remembered that in the 1990s, the U.S. and its allies addressed many political grievances of the Islamic world in Kuwait, Somalia and especially in Bosnia. In the Arab-Israeli sector, the Clinton administration devoted more time to Arab-Israeli diplomacy than most of its predecessors, with the 1993 Oslo Accords, the 1994 Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty, the 1997 Hebron Agreement, the 1998 Wye Agreement, and finally the attempt to reach a permanent-status agreement at Camp David in 2000. But al Qaeda only grew in strength. There were attacks in Saudi Arabia in 1995, East Africa in 1998, Yemen in 2000 and finally 9/11. In other words, there was no correlation between U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to ameliorate the grievances voiced by radical Islamic groups and the appeal of al Qaeda. What the Gaza pullout showed, however, was that mishandling the Israeli-Palestinian issue can exacerbate the threat of radical Islam, especially if it deepens the sense in radical Islamic circles that their military efforts have paid off. Today, leading Western diplomats have been praising the Arab League Peace Initiative--based on the 2002 Saudi Plan--which calls on Israel to fully withdraw to the pre-1967 lines (i.e., leave the Golan Heights and entire West Bank) in exchange for "normal relations" with the Arab world. The Saudi Plan re-divides Jerusalem. This proposal goes well beyond the requirements of peacemaking envisioned by the United Nations in Security Council Resolution 242 (November 1967), which did not demand a complete Israeli pullback. The Arab Initiative also goes far beyond the letter of assurances sent by President Bush to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on April 14, 2004, which guaranteed Israel's right to "defensible borders" in the West Bank (and hence precluded the kind of withdrawal envisioned by the Saudis). But what if Israel were to feel pressured by the U.S. and its partners--and it conceded its right to defensible borders at the upcoming Middle Eastern peace conference by agreeing to the terms of the Arab Initiative? Gaza provides a preview. For example, if Israel left the Jordan Valley, its strategic barrier in the east, this would create a new security vacuum. This would not only undermine Israel, but would pose a threat to Jordan, which has already suffered from Iraqi al Qaeda over the last few years with suicide bombing attacks in Amman. Jordan would become the new forward base for Jihadi groups moving against Israel. Two years ago, Israel discovered that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the late leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, had already set up cells for this purpose in the Jordanian city of Irbid. Even before the implementation of such far-reaching concessions, serious destabilization could easily erupt. Today, the main reason why Mahmoud Abbas and the remains of his Fatah movement retain power in the West Bank is not their popularity. Observers forget that Hamas also won the Palestinian elections in the West Bank in 2006. However, in contrast to the situation in Gaza, the Israeli Army is fully deployed in strategic areas of the West Bank and could intervene in minutes if Hamas tried to execute a Gaza-style military coup to topple Mr. Abbas. One of the diplomatic proposals that has been on the table since 2002 is to get Israel to withdraw from its current deployment to the lines it held on September 2000, presumably with international guarantees. If Israel were to agree to this idea, it would be hailed by the Western powers as a vital step towards the achievement of an Arab-Israeli peace. But it would also, under present conditions, set the stage for a complete Hamas takeover in the West Bank as well and create a huge victory for radical Islam. Forty years ago when U.N. Resolution 242 was drafted, its architects understood that peacemaking required balance. Israel would have to compromise, but its diplomacy should not undermine the delicate strategic balance in the Middle East with a radical pullout that would leave it excessively vulnerable. Effective diplomacy today requires striking the same careful balance--seizing opportunities for real peace, but granting Israel its right to defensible borders. Pushing Israel back to the pre-1967 lines will not satisfy al Qaeda, nor will it bring peace. Right now, what the Palestinians need is help to build a stable civil society with governing institutions that work, not a return to the ceremonial diplomacy of the 1990s. The errors of past Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking have not been cost-free. They have real consequences in terms of loss of life and a deepening conflict. These initiatives do not halt the assault of radical Islam against the West. In fact, if mishandled, they can make it far worse. For those who still can't get it, the conflict between Israel and the 'Palestinians' is not about territory. When the 'Palestinians' and their Arab brethren who created them accept fully the existence of a Jewish state on the land of the State of Israel, there will be no more wars and no more bloodshed. Unfortunately, that is not going to happen in this generation, and given the way the 'Palestinian Authority' is educating the next generation, it's unlikely to happen in the next generation either. So long as the 'Palestinians' still aspire to drive Israel into the sea, and regard the creation of a 'Palestinian' state reichlet as a step in that process, Israel must vigilantly guard its security and not take risks that will endanger Jewish lives. Contact Koira at koira@dbmail.com To Go To Top DANGER -- CONSCRIPTED ACADEMICS Posted by Steven Plaut, August 12, 2007. For many years Israel has operated with a dual justice system, in which there is one set of court and police procedures for leftists and another for anyone else. Under the dual system, leftist treason is protected speech, whereas criticism of leftist treason is libelous and criminal. In addition, for many years the courts in Israel have been under the hegemony of the anti-democratic "school" of judicial activism, led by now-retired Chief Justice Aharon Barak, which holds that non-elected judges may not only perpetuate their hegemony over the courts by controlling the selection of new judges, but may also override and veto laws passed by the elected representatives of the people of Israel. Essentially, judicial activism means that "sensitive" judges can just make up the law as they go along based on their moods. Prof. Robert Bork, Professor/Judge Richard Posner, and others have denounced Israel's Supreme Court as the most imperious, frivolous, and anti-democratic in the democratic world. The courts have long been out of control, imposing arbitrary rulings on the country, micro-managing and micro-dictating military decisions, trumping the Knesset in matters of religion, dictating such things as where Israel's security fence must go, down to the centimeter, creating "gay marriage", and so on. It was the Supreme Court decision of 1992 forcing Israel to reverse the expulsion of over 400 Hamas terrorist leaders to Lebanon that ultimately brought the Hamas to power in Gaza, and indirectly produced the daily rocket blitz upon Sderot. A few months back, in arguably the only really great decision Ehud Olmert ever made as Prime Minister, a new Justice Minister was appointed, the brilliant law professor Daniel Friedmann. (See this: http://www.jewishpress.com/page.do/20684/ The_End_Of_Judicial_Tyranny_In_Israel?.html) While Olmert was no doubt acting on the basis of his own agenda, Friedmann is just the man needed for the job. Dedicated to overturning the system of judicial tyranny and judicial activism long imposed anti-democratically upon the country, dedicated to cleaning up the courts and the process of judicial appointments, dedicated to restoring appointment of judges via some sort of accountable and democratic process, Friedmann has also enraged the entrenched Left, including of course the Tenure Left. (see http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1170359807169 &pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull) The Left has always celebrated the fact that under "judicial activism", friendly judges could impose the Left's agenda on the country in spite of the irritating fact that the majority of the country and of the Knesset opposes that agenda. The Israeli media, under the near-hegemony of the Left, have been foaming at the mouth and attacking Friedmann nonstop ever since his appointment. Within the Israeli legal community, there are essentially two "camps" these days: the "Judicial Activists," including the Left, now centered around the new Chief Justice Dorit Beinish, Aharon Barak's protege, and those who oppose them and support Friedmann, academics of integrity. The civil war within the legal community is getting uglier. A few days ago, a group of law professors published a nasty petition against Friedmann. It was signed by professors at the two most leftist law schools in the country, that of Tel Aviv University (where, in spite of the fact that Friedmann had taught there, non-leftist opinion is extremely rare and leftist indoctrination common) and the University of Haifa (just slightly less leftist). 14 law dons in all signed so far. Haaretz had trouble controlling its glee. It forgot to mention though (but other papers, including Yediot Ahronot, DID mention), that these 14 included "conscripted academics" include people with a personal agenda. It turns out that the two professors who initiated the petition (Ariel Porat and Ayal Benveniste) are not only close chums of Beinish, but were among the judicial activists that Beinish was lobbying to get appointed to the Supreme Court as judges. Friedmann would hear nothing of those appointments, so the two are now trying to recruit other academics to demonize and smear Freidmann in the press. They denounce Friedmann for "threatening the integrity of the Israeli judicial system" and for being himself a threat to democracy. That is laughable. The real threat to Israeli democracy and the integrity of its legal system is judicial tyranny. And its conscripted academics. Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il To Go To Top HIZBOLLAH BUYS FRONTIER LAND TO ATTACK ISRAEL Posted by Koira, August 12, 2007. This was written by Charles Levinson in Chbail, Lebanon, and it appeared August 8, 2007 in the Sunday Telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/12/wmid112.xml. Hizbollah is buying up large tracts of land owned by Christians and other non-Shias in southern Lebanon as the militant group rebuilds its defences in preparation for a new war with Israel, The Sunday Telegraph has been told. Hizbollah is buying land beyond the reach of the UN The land grab is thought to be driven by the Iranian-backed guerrillas' efforts to rearm themselves and fortify the strategically important ravines north of the Litani River, just north of the front line in last year's 34-day conflict with its Jewish neighbour. Here, Hizbollah has been free to press forward without harassment from the 13,000 United Nations peacekeepers and 20,000 Lebanese army troops who were deployed south of the Litani as part of the ceasefire agreement that ended the conflict. Just south of the Litani, the UN is conducting hundreds of patrols each day in a bid to keep Hizbollah weapons out of the area, but the peacekeepers' mandate ends at the river. The Lebanese army, meanwhile, is about 50 per cent Shia and seems to be turning a blind eye to Hizbollah activities north of the river. In these rugged gorges, the group appears to be readying for round two with Israel, and many fear it is not far off after the inconclusive end to last year's war and reports of -Hizbollah rearming. The area's forested wadis, or valleys, make ideal terrain for Hizbollah's brand of guerrilla warfare and, just 10 miles from the border, are within rocket range of Israeli cities. The Shia encroachment into a mixed area of Christians, Shias and Druze Muslims threatens to disrupt Lebanon's delicate sectarian balance, which is already teetering after three years of political tumult. "Christians and Druze are selling land and moving out, while the Shia are moving in. There is an extraordinary demo-graphic shift taking place," said Edmund Rizk, a Christian MP for the area until 1992. On a scenic, sparsely populated ridge, the farming village of Chbail was once Christian. Today, the land belongs to a wealthy Shia businessman with alleged ties to Hizbollah. Its new residents are recent Shia transplants from the Hizbollah-controlled south. Entry to the village is forbidden to outsiders -- not by the Lebanese army that technically holds sway here, but by the chabab, the plain-clothed, bearded youths who act as look-outs in Hizbollah territory. "The village is closed for security reasons," said a youth who had recently moved from a Hizbollah-controlled area near the regional capital, Tyre. Like many neighbouring hamlets, Chbail has steadily decayed ever since civil war broke out in 1975. Fleeing first Palestinian guerrillas, then invading Israeli soldiers, and finally Hizbollah, villagers steadily migrated to seek better lives in Beirut or overseas. While The Sunday Telegraph was at Chbail's outskirts, a rust-coloured Volvo station wagon rolled in, piled high with wooden building beams. A dozen or so other young men with dirt-caked fingernails came and went freely. On the wadis' western edge, a metal sign strung across an unmarked dirt track erased any doubt about what, or rather who, now lies beyond. "Entry forbidden. Hizbollah area," the sign read in Arabic. The closure was manned by a pair of teenage gunmen in olive green fatigues, armed with walkie-talkies and AK47s. The buy-up of land in Chbail and half a dozen Druze and Christian villages is said to be the work of a wealthy Shia businessman, Ali Tajeddine, who made his fortune trading diamonds in Sierra Leone before returning to Lebanon and starting a successful construction company. Squat and bearded, Mr Tajeddine keeps a Hizbollah charity box in the waiting room of his Tyre office. He is believed to be a major player in Hizbollah's massive reconstruction programme called Jihad al Bina, or the Building Jihad. During an interview, Mr Tajeddine fidgeted nervously as he denied any connection with Hizbollah. He said his projects at Chbail represent just a fraction of the dozens of developments he is building throughout Lebanon. But his distinctive arc of land-buys around Hizbollah's new stronghold has triggered alarm among the district's Christian and Druze leaders, who say he is using Iranian funds to buy land from destitute villagers at up to four times the going rate. Druze sheikhs have responded by forbidding the sale of land to Shias and wealthy Christians have been asked to buy property in the area to stem the Shia tide. In Chbail and two neighbouring Christian villages, Mr Tajeddine has already bought 200-300 acres of land, according to the mayor, Kamil Fares. "There are new people coming," he said. "Shias have moved into apartments belonging to Ali Tajeddine. But we're poor. What can we do?" In the Druze village of Al Sreiri, the mayor, Hafed Kiwane, told a similar story. "We have nothing here, so it was good to see money coming into the area, but now we fear there are suspicious motives," he said. Among the Hizbollah settlements is the fledgling village of Ahmediyya, where a billboard in Hebrew warns Israeli invaders: "Do not enter!" Dozens of housing units have been built here in the past year. A supermarket is open for business, and 10 Shia families have moved in so far. Among them is project foreman Mohammad Atwa, 51. As two men photographed The Sunday Telegraph's car, he said: "The rockets of the resistance showed us there was someone to defend us." Critics fear that Ahmediyya will further stretch the Shia reach to the north-east, as part of a grand scheme to create a strip of Shia-controlled land connecting the south to Hizbollah's other power centre in Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley. "It is part of Hizbollah's plan to create a state within a state," said Walid Jumblatt, a Druze leader. He also pointed to the four-lane road being built to connect the Hizbollah stronghold of Nabatieh in the south to the western Bekaa. Banners openly proclaim the source of the road's funding: "510km of new roads paid for by the Iranian Organization for Sharing in the Building of Lebanon". Contact Koira at koira@dbmail.com To Go To Top TIME TO GO BACK TO THE ORIGINAL STORY -- HOW WE LOST HEBRON Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 12, 2007. It is time to remind the short memory masses that the original story began when Bill Clinton forced the Jews out of Hebron stealing our Forefathers, historical and biblical town, the cradle of our existence from Bibi Netanyahu, then Israel PM, who, Clinton abused and exhausted until he broke his political will and he relented. The question is: what did Israel get back for leaving Hebron: NOTHING! Shouldn't the nation be shouting from rooftops?! YES, they should! Since we got nothing for giving up everything, we want Hebron BACK. We gave up a place most dear to the Jewish Nation because Bill Clinton needed to have his Nobel Prize at all costs, any costs, not his costs, Israel's costs. He also needed to leave some kind of legacy behind, any legacy! To achieve his myopic goals, Clinton did not give a hoot about Israel's security or future. He knew that the Israelis will give up on their land and Arafat will never deliver his promise. But to him it was all a show, a movie in the making and he was the Star. We now know that Bibi got really hoodwinked; he and the entire Nation of Israel. It is time for Bibi himself to come forward and say that he gave Hebron away even though he promised not to do so; he did it after Clinton broke his arms in three places and threatened him not scream of pain. Hebron was a bargaining chip when Clinton promised Bibi that Arafat will give us, Israel, peace for that. Where is that peace that America promised Israel so many times? WHERE?! Where is that peace, Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Kofi Anna, the EU, all the traitors, haters of Israel promised? They never meant it to happen. Why should they? After all they are just politicians not the world's peace makers! Where is the peace, Bibi? Why don't we hear your big mouth? Why is it not open now? Is it because you know we had enough of you too?! Why the current leadership of Israel is working on behalf of her enemies? What will be their gain? A piece of real estate in Amman? What happened to your souls the Left and the Elite? Your lost souls are lost forever! Why the nation of Israel allows the plague called Olmert, who is despised by the entire nation and everyone else, to go on being free to systematically destroy the country and break the spirit of the nation? God almighty, do we ask for much? We want Hebron back, NOW! Wake up the Nation of Israel and ROAR! Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top NOT SO TRIVIA-L FROM THE GAZA STRIP ETC Posted by Fred Reifenberg, August 11, 2007. This below comes from Irene Kadmon. Contact her at irenehkadmon@yahoo.com Today I'll just mention a few things from Israeli news programs, which I'm sure aren't in any media headlines abroad. First of all, there is now a new method of getting prison sentences reduced in the Gaza Strip. It has been introduced as a new "reform". Prisoners are encouraged to study and memorize as many chapters of the Koran (their Holy Book, like the Bible for us) and in return their jail sentences are reduced. If they learn one chapter by heart they get one month taken off, but five chapters equal one whole year. We saw on TV (Palestinian TV) how busy most of the prisoners are now studying. And while on the subject of Holy Books, you probably don't know either, that bringing Bibles or Christian crosses into Saudia is also an offense in that country, and if tourists are found carrying these items, they will be taken away from them. And if they smuggle them in and are caught, they'll be punished. So much for freedom of religion in Saudia, where there is not even one church or house of prayer for any other religion apart from Islam. I wonder what the Saudis or any other Islamic land would say, if the Koran were forbidden to be brought into other countries? And whilst on the subject of religion, I would like to mention a Polish priest by the name of Rev. Tadeusz Rydzik who runs a radio station in his country called "Radio Maryja" (Maria), which is constantly broadcasting antisemitic remarks. And whom did this priest meet with last week -- yes, the head of the church, Pope Benedict XVI himself! And now a few words about a great number of Israeli Arabs, mostly their leaders, who when talking about a "Two state solution" for the area, mean "Two States for the Palestinians". Although they have full equality before the law here, right of expression, freedom, ownership and such they demand even more. But it seems that all their crusading energy disappears when it leaves Israel's borders. They don't demand similar rights and freedoms for those living under Arab rule in the Middle East, because if they were as outspoken in those countries, they'd be arrested at once. They sure wouldn't want to go and live in the Palestinian country they want formed, life there would be much harder for them and less democratic, not that they have much belief in democracy. Israeli Arab leaders hail Western values only when they help undermine the Jewish State, but otherwise don't seem to believe in them. Enough for today. Shalom from Irene Contact Fred Reifenberg at freify@netvision.net.il To Go To Top NEW PARTY FOR ANNEXATION OF TERRITORIES Posted by Avodah, August 11, 2007. This was written by Aaron Magid and it appeared in the Jerusalem Post www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1186557422373&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull New Jersey-native Yechiel Aaron has decided to start a new political party to advocate for the annexation of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. Lashuv (Return) represented a "return to our ways of strength," he told The Jerusalem Post over the weekend. "It is the return to where we care more about God, our country and our people." Aaron, who immigrated to Israel with his family two years ago and lives in Hashmonaim, near Modi'in, would not provide the names of those running on his party list, only saying that he had many supporters around the country and in the United States. Lashuv would be fairly right wing on the Palestinians and the diplomatic process, but offered some interesting twists on economic policy, he said. Asked how he would deal with the millions of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, he said that if they observed Israeli law they would be provided with citizenship after a 25-year waiting period. Aaron has little trust in Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. "Abbas is not interested in peace" Aaron said. "He would be happy if the Palestinians killed us all." Unless all the IDF soldiers in captivity were immediately released, swift punishment should be implemented, he said. In the case of Cpl. Gilad Schalit, being held in the Gaza Strip, Aaron calls to shut the flow of all electricity and water in Gaza, irrespective of the consequences for the civilian population, followed by a military strike to bring Schalit home. Aaron's economic policy is a bit more centrist. A major part of his platform is a significant cut in income and value added tax to stimulate the economy to allow "people to automatically have more money to put back into our economic system," he said. "People will be able to spend more, expand more and hire more. This is a key economic full circle that has never been understood here." He also backs providing food and shelter for all Israelis. However, Aaron was not clear on how he would pay for these programs while at the same time lowering taxes, other than cutting certain unnamed programs and lowering Knesset members' salaries. When Aaron began registering his party, he ran into a number of obstacles. After accumulating the necessary signatures, filling out the paper work, and paying the NIS 1,800 fee, Interior Ministry officials said he needed to pay an additional NIS 72,000, a requirement that was not in the registration book provided by the Knesset, he said. Aaron is still trying to collect this money from his supporters. Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com To Go To Top FROM ISRAEL: GETTING IT STRAIGHT Posted by Arlene Kushner, August 11, 2007. Last I wrote I addressed the impropriety of using the IDF for actions against citizens of Israel. Now I want to look directly at the serious error of pulling those who moved into the marketplace -- Mitzpe Shalhevet -- out of their homes at all. It's ideology and politics that fuels it -- although the impression is lent that it's about law (i.e., they're on the premises "illegally"). Long ago I learned about the ways in which problems can be cited to present an impression of illegality, when in fact, if there were good will towards the venture, those glitches could be fixed without a second thought. No where is this more the case than with Mitzpe Shalhevet. Eighteen months ago, as the residents of the market were to be evicted the first time, an Israeli court recommended that the homes be leased to those residents with full legality but the attorney general, Mazuz, refused. Then at the moment of eviction, representatives of the IDF negotiated a deal, in writing, with the residents: If they left quietly, arrangements would be made to allow them to come back with full legality. Mazuz then said the IDF did not have jurisdiction to make such a deal and voided it. He could have chosen to honor it, especially as the residents left in good faith based on this agreement. Those promoting this current action -- Olmert, Barak, Mazuz and others -- have, in my opinion, totally lost their way. They have forgotten, if they ever knew, who we are and why we are here. Looking back over their left shoulder at Peace Now, which is a prime instigator of what's going on, they ignore Jewish heritage and Jewish rights. ~~~~~~~~~~ A leftist, self-declared secularist, Yehuda Litani, has written a piece about Hebron in YNet. His statements are egregiously off the mark. My concern is not that he differs with me ideologically, but that he presents a skewed picture that represents the residents of Hevron as instigators and trouble makers who stand in the way of peace. People wishing to live in a place that is part of our Jewish heritage are represented as the enemy of Israel and the stumbling block to peace. A few examples suffice. "...more than 160,000 Palestinians live in divided Hebron...alongside several hundred Jewish settlers who over the years have taken over markets, houses and shops based on the argument of "return of Jewish expropriated property.'" Well, let's get a few things straight. This IS a case of Jewish expropriated land. For millennia Jews lived in Hevron, and were banished only after the massacre of Jews by Arabs in 1929. The British, for purposes of convenience and in betrayal of their mandate, forcibly moved out the Jewish survivors -- who had to leave property behind and were not compensated. Apparently Litani is neither pained nor angered by this historical injustice. In 1967 we secured control of Hevron, and the movement started to re-establish Jewish settlement in the area that had been Jewish before 1929. As to "taking over" homes, etc., in instances where there had been Arab ownership dating from post-'29, buildings have been purchased for use by the Jewish community. This is the case with Beit Hashalom. In other instances, property had legally reverted to ownership by the Israeli government. This is the case with the buildings in the market -- the Arabs have no claim on them, and they stand on land that has been documented as privately Jewishly owned for centuries. What is more, in 1997, we acted the "good guys" and as part of Oslo we turned over to the PA a full 80% of Hevron. All of what goes on with regard to rebuilding the Jewish neighborhood of Hevron takes place within the 20% that is under Israeli control. And yet Litani, ignoring Jewish rights, sees the Jews as interlopers and troublemakers. He says more: "Following ongoing pressure by the settlers, the Tomb of the Patriarchs -- a Muslim mosque in every sense -- has been turned into a Jewish synagogue and into a sure source of tension...Abraham's burial place, the father of Yitzhak and Ishmael, has become -- with the active help of the Jewish settlers and Palestinian terrorists -- one of the most malignant sites in the Holy Land." That he should see the Tomb of the Patriarchs -- the Cave of Machpelah, where our patriarchs are buried and which has been venerated as a holy site and place of prayer by Jews for millennia -- as "a Muslim mosque in every sense" is an outrage. It became a Muslim mosque because Jews were banished, not because we voluntarily gave it up. And here again he misrepresents. There are separate areas of the Machpelah for Jewish prayer and for Muslim prayer -- it is BOTH a mosque and a synagogue today. In fact, there are certain days when, by agreement, Jews are not allowed in because Muslims are celebrating a holiday. But this is not enough for Litani, who would prefer we relinquish our heritage completely. Most telling is the phrase: "with the active help of the Jewish settlers and Palestinian terrorists..." So he acknowledges that terrorism is at work here -- that the move by Arabs is not legitimate. And yet he does not know how to respect those settlers who are brave enough to take a stand against this and to claim what is ours. He sees the stubborn insistence of the settlers in making this claim as source of tension -- better we should relinquish what is ours and make the Arabs happy. That's how we keep the "peace." Sad, indeed. What's sadder still is that there are members of the government who espouse similar thinking. They have all lost their way, and it is a great danger to the nation. I fear that what is true for Hevron may be true for Jerusalem as well. The Temple Mount is the Jewish site of greatest sanctity, but Muslims claim today that it is theirs. In the spirit of "keeping the peace" Olmert and ilk might see fit to relinquish this as well. There can be no peace for us unless we are clear on who we are, what our heritage is, what our rights are, and stand strong for these. What I ask of each of you, please, is to hold fast in your mind to the facts. When you encounter the sort of thinking that Litani advances, view it with a critical and dubious eye. ~~~~~~~~~~ Remember the report put out by the PA claiming that all but three members of Al Aksa Brigades have, as promised, turned in their guns? That was a report that I, along with many others, found it impossible to take at face value. Well, WorldNetDaily has elaborated: Seems these guys all have two or three guns, and they turned in one of them. And, according to WND, there's more to the story: Two members of the Brigades were stopped at a checkpoint outside of Nablus recently. They were found to have been smuggling a large quantity of bullets from Jenin to Nablus. One of them was on the list of those who had been granted "amnesty" and kept saying that arresting him would "blow up" relations with the PA. The soldiers on duty checked with superiors and then released him. An IDF spokesman said: "We make our arrests in accordance with the directives of the political echelon and the different agreements with the PA." A very irritated security official said, "We now have a situation in which a terrorist organization has been given a get-out-of-jail-free card -- literally." He indicated that this was not the first time someone on the list for "amnesty" had violated the agreement. How stupid can this get? ~~~~~~~~~~ Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat is now insisting that Olmert promised, in his meeting with Abbas, to promptly make public a list of large number of major roadblocks that Israel is going to remove. Of course, we don't really know what Olmert said to Abbas because it was a closed door meeting with only the two of them present. All manner of things can be claimed. My own guess, based on common sense and precedent in such matters, is that Olmert said he would take it under serious consideration or bring it to the proper venues for approval. He is not in a position to unilaterally remove these roadblocks, especially as both security forces and members of his own coalition are opposed; security forces are quite adamant. ~~~~~~~~~~ Ehud Barak -- head of the Labor party and defense minister -- has come out on the record as being against any major removal of roadblocks because of security concerns, no matter what Olmert may have said. According to Yediot Achronot, Barak, in "private conversation" said a great deal more: That any notion of peace with the Palestinians now is "fantasy" because Abbas and Fayyad were not capable of controlling the situation and matters would fall apart. In fact, he was reported as saying that Fatah and Hamas are the same and that the peace process is just "air." This is good, if he said it. It's so right-wing that a member of the right-leaning Yisrael Beitenu party congratulated him on his stance. That alone may have induced his backtracking. An advisor denied that he had said these things, and he subsequently claimed himself solidly for peace with the Palestinians but realistic. But it's clear that he is not optimistic about the possibility of peace because of another widely quoted statement attributed to him: That we cannot consider withdrawal from Judea and Samaria for another three to five years, as that is when a missile interception system would presumably be ready. This is the terribly foolish part of his position. If he knows that pulling back will give the Palestinians latitude to launch weapons at us, the proper position on behalf of Israel should be that there will be no pulling back, at least until terrorist infrastructure is defeated -- by the PA or by us. This notion of enveloping ourselves inside a protective cocoon instead of taking out the enemies at our periphery is very bad indeed. It represents a lamentable shift in official Israeli thinking. ~~~~~~~~~~ How's this for incredible: Earlier this summer, as part of the "good will" actions to "strengthen" Abbas, Olmert decided to release $400 in custom and tax revenues that had been collected but not turned over to the PA when it functioned as a unity government that included Hamas. Now the sole stipulation was that this money not go to Hamas. It has gone to Hamas. It was transferred directly into the bank accounts of 3,500 members of Hamas security forces in Gaza, to cover their salaries for a full year. At first, the claim was that it was a "computer error." When that didn't play very well, they arrested a key official in the finance ministry, saying he was bribed to do this. This isn't making PA prime minister Fayyad look very good. He has been touted as the cleanest of them all (or at least was, until recently Hamas revelations of improprieties that occurred when Fayyad was finance minister for Arafat). Will our people ever learn? Hamas people are saying this proves that Fatah considers them legitimate after all. ~~~~~~~~~~ The Jerusalem Post is reporting that Fatah and Hamas have already renewed cooperation in several quarters, including health and education. Depending on the day of the week and the hour of the day, it's possible to pick up various reports on tensions, rivalries between the factions, but reports are also surfacing about movement within the PA to encourage reunifying of the factions. ~~~~~~~~~~ The shifts in reports regqarding war with Syria tend to be confusing. One day there is likely to be war, the next day not. The official public assessment by Israeli intelligence is that there won't be a war, but according to an analysis by Ron Ben-Yishai it's more complicated than this and there is genuine concern in Jerusalem about Syria launching a very large-scale Hezbollah type war. See his complete piece: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3435543,00.html Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info To Go To Top COALITIONS, REAL AND IMAGINARY Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 11, 2007. Caroline Glick describes the imaginary coalition partners of the US and Israel (www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1186557411424&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull). Building and maintaining coalitions is one of the most difficult tasks of a nation at war. On the one hand, a state must ensure that its coalition partners share enough common goals and interests to ensure that their cooperation is effective. On the other hand, a state must constantly weigh the political and diplomatic benefits of maintaining its coalition against the price it must pay in terms of military effectiveness by delegating responsibility to others. The price of maintaining coalitions is starkly exposed by the British military's failure to rein in radical Shi'ite forces and Iranian influence in Basra, the Iraqi port city and oil hub. The question of whether having coalitions advances a nation's interests at all is brought to bear in Israel's diplomatic and strategic handling of its relations with the Palestinians and of the emerging situation in southern Lebanon. Tuesday, a US intelligence official was quoted by the Washington Post saying, "The British have basically been defeated in the South." The Post article goes on to explain that the British "are abandoning their former headquarters at Basra Palace, where a recent official visitor from London described them as 'surrounded like cowboys and Indians' by militia fighters. An airport base outside the city, where a regional US Embassy office and Britain's remaining 5,500 troops are barricaded behind building-high sandbags, has been attacked with mortars or rockets nearly 600 times over the past four months." The British defeat in Basra was eminently foreseeable. Immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003, some 100,000 Iraqi exiles who had lived in Iran since the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s entered the city. Under the command of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, during their time in exile, these Iraqis had organized a number of militias, including the Badr Brigade, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa party, as well as several smaller militias. Muqtada el-Sadr's Mahdi Army, although Iraq-based, was also supported by the Iranians. These Iranian-backed forces were the most organized groups in the city in the chaos that engulfed Basra after the regime fell. Capitalizing on their organizational advantage, the groups volunteered to serve in the police and security services the British were raising to run the city. So it came to pass that within a short period of time, radical Shi'ite forces, backed by Iran, successfully took over Basra. This radical Shi'ite takeover precipitated a reign of terror and intimidation in the city. As freelance reporter Steven Vincent chronicled before he was murdered in Basra in August 2005, the militias instituted a Khomeinist regime in the city, replete with death squads, generally comprised of off-duty policemen, which executed hundreds of civilians they accused of ties to the Ba'ath Party; the brutalization of women caught unveiled in public; the takeover of Basra's university and hospitals; and the extortion of businessmen in mafia-like protection rackets. All the while, the British turned a blind eye to the devolution of the city into an Iranian enclave. In an interview with the BBC, Air Chief Marshall and chief of the British Defense Staff Jock Stirrup made clear that Britain never considered it its business how post-Saddam Iraq developed. Insisting that the British mission in Basra has been a success, Stirrup allowed that one's judgment of the British mission depended on "what your interpretation of the mission was in the first place." As he put it, Britain viewed its mission as limited to getting "the place and the people to a state where the Iraqis could run this part of the country, if they chose to." British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government is keen to withdraw Britain's remaining forces from Iraq in the fall. Given Britain's performance in Basra, a British withdrawal would probably advance rather than harm the US's strategic interests in Iraq. And yet, for all the difficulties that the British forces in Iraq have created for the Americans (and for the Iraqis who are interested in living in a free society), there is no doubt that both countries perceive themselves as strong allies. To this end, the Americans refrain from publicly criticizing the British military's dismal performance. For their part, the British have made clear that they will withdraw their forces in a manner that will minimize embarrassment to the US. THE ANGLO-AMERICAN alliance is a clear example of a true, but problematic partnership. In contrast, the Olmert government's representations of Fatah and Egypt as Israel's coalition partners against Hamas on the one hand, and the UNIFIL forces as Israel's coalition partner against Hizbullah on the other hand, are a sham. The Olmert government's policies towards Hamas today are driven by its presumption of a partnership with Fatah and Egypt. The government asserts that both Fatah and Egypt share Israel's goal of limiting Hamas's power to the Gaza Strip in the short run and overthrowing the jihadist movement in the long run. But reality tells a different tale. This week, we learned that the $100 million that Israel transferred to Salaam Fayad's Fatah government last month was used to pay the annual salaries of soldiers in Hamas's army in Gaza. Then too, this week it was reported that far from eschewing Hamas politically, Fatah is engaged in intense discussions with Hamas towards the establishment of a new Hamas-Fatah government. Far from cooperating with Israel in weakening Hamas, Fatah is actively maintaining Hamas's strength. Then there is Egypt. Although successive Israeli governments have insisted that Egypt is a moderating force on Palestinian society, for the past seven years, Egypt has worked steadily to strengthen Palestinian terror forces against Israel. This state of affairs is most blatant in Egypt's embrace of Hamas through its hosting of Palestinian "unity" talks for the past seven years, and in its facilitation of the weapons flow into Gaza through Egypt. That Hamas itself views Egypt as an ally rather than a foe was made abundantly clear this week when Hamas leaders offered to transfer control over security forces' headquarters in Gaza to Egypt as a first step towards reconciling with Fatah. Then there are the UNIFIL forces in Lebanon. Speaking to Kadima party members Wednesday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert bragged that the security situation in northern Israel and southern Lebanon has never been better. Olmert added, "The commanders of the international forces say so, too." In this statement, and in countless similar statements he has made over the past year, Olmert has presented UNIFIL as a friendly force which shares Israel's goal of neutralizing Hizbullah. But here, too, reality tells a different tale. During last summer's war, UNIFIL directly assisted Hizbullah by reporting IDF troop movements in real time on its Web site. Since the war ended, UNIFIL forces have done nothing to prevent Hizbullah's massive rearmament. Under the protective cover of UNIFIL forces, Hizbullah has reasserted its control over the villages in the South and prevented their Christian residents who fled during the war from returning home. Hizbullah's unqualified control over south Lebanon is attested to by foreign visitors who report that they must receive Hizbullah travel permits in order to enter south Lebanon. Then too, this week Lebanon's An Nahar newspaper reported that Hizbullah was moving to extend its independent telephone network to the south. Needless to say, UNIFIL has taken no action to prevent any of this. UNIFIL's treatment of Hizbullah demonstrates that like Fatah and Egypt, UNIFIL does not construe its interests or goals in a manner that adheres to any Israeli interests or goals. Indeed, UNIFIL's assessment of its goals and interests are antithetical and hostile to Israel's national security interests. Yet Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and their cabinet colleagues consistently represent UNIFIL as an ally and have worked fastidiously to strengthen it. During the ceasefire negotiations last summer, the government insisted on enlarging the UNIFIL force and extending its mandate. After the war ended, in the interest of strengthening UNIFIL, the government made no effective protest against UNIFIL's inclusion of forces from countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, whose governments are allied with Iran. UNIFIL's mandate expires on August 31. Next week the UN Security Council is scheduled to convene to extend its mandate for another year. Rather than acknowledge UNIFIL's institutional hostility towards Israel, the Olmert government supports the extension of its mandate. As The Jerusalem Post reported this week, the government even hopes that UNIFIL's renewed mandate will empower it to increase its presence in Lebanese villages -- as if there is any chance that UNIFIL would use its widened role to fight Hizbullah. DUE TO the rampantly anti-American atmosphere in Britain and to Britain's refusal to view the threat that Middle Eastern rogue regimes pose to its national security in the same way as the US perceives the threat, there have always been tensions in the countries' alliance that have led to their starkly different strategies in Iraq. The main reason that these divergent strategies receive attention today is because the US military's recent successes in Iraq make Britain's failures impossible to ignore. The administration changed course in Iraq because domestic pressure forced it to acknowledge that its previous course was failing. So indirectly, it was public pressure on the administration that exposed the operational disparity between the British and the American militaries. The exposure of this disparity is now forcing the administration to contend with the fact that the coalition with Britain is not as useful as it had hoped. No doubt, as a result, the US military will soon be forced to operate in Basra regardless of whether the British remain in Iraq or withdraw. Sadly, in Israel, the Olmert government refuses to acknowledge, let alone respond to domestic criticisms of its mishandling of the situation with the Palestinians and its mismanagement of Lebanon. Rather than acknowledge that Fatah, Egypt and UNIFIL share none of Israel's national interests, the government continues to embrace them and hopes that no one will notice that its imaginary coalition partners endanger, rather than advance Israel's national security. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top SELECTIVE OUTRAGE Posted by Steven Plaut, August 11, 2007. Ok, folks, fast current events quiz. Question: When is it a felony to yell "Drop Dead" at a cop? Answer: When the person yelling is an anti-Left Israeli professor. No, not THIS anti-Left Israeli professor; **I** do not yell at Israeli cops. The professor in question is Hillel Weiss, a controversial fellow who teaches Jewish literature at Bar-Ilan University (http://www.biu.ac.il/faculty/hillelweiss/ ). Weiss is active in the decidedly anti-Left "Professors for a Strong Israel" (as am I) and in pro-settler and "rightwing" protest groups. He was in the news last year for being involved in a group calling itself "Sanhedrin," which threatened to issue religious rulings against those who participated in the expulsion of Jewish settlers. (Had they carried out their threat, there was an off-chance that some officials might have been denied an aliya to the Torah if any synagogues were to take the pronouncements seriously.) In another matter, Weiss was cited in the press calling for "Acts of Pinhas" with regard to the Gay Pride Parade in Jerusalem (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3322901,00.html ), and the prosecutor investigated whether this might have been intended to be a call to violence. (As far as I know, nothing came from the interrogations of Weiss in the matter.) The amazing part of that episode is less the McCarthyist interrogations by the police of Weiss than the fact that anyone in the Israeli prosecutor's office knew what an Act of Pinhas was. A few days ago Weiss was "overheard" (caught by news camera) cursing out a Colonel in the Hebron brigade of the Israeli army when the colonel was engaged in evicting some Jews from a home in the city. Weiss told the Colonel to drop dead. Actually, he was a bit more lurid in his cussing than that, wishing the colonel to be the source of mourning for his own mother and that the colonel's wife be a widow and his children orphans. It all amounted to "Drop Dead." Now you might question the good taste of those comments, but should they be a felony? Should Weiss be prosecuted and fired from his job at Bar Ilan University? Well, if you share the Haaretz viewpoint of what constitutes free speech, you will agree that Weiss is a felon, but if you have any sense of democracy and freedom of speech, you will not. The President of Bar Ilan University, who never quite got around to firing the OTHER professor there who made headlines this year -- for endorsing medieval blood libels against Jews (Ariel Toaff), set up a campus committee of inquisition to see if Weiss deserves to be fired for his "crime." No Bar Ilan sanctions were ever implemented against Toaff, and Toaff was allowed to retire and draw his nice pension. Meanwhile Weiss became overnight the right-winger that the Israeli media and politicians most love to hate (www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3435555,00.html ). Ehud Barak, now again head of the Israeli Labor Party, demanded legal actions against Weiss (www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3436030,00.html ). The newspapers are calling for Weiss' defenestration. The police and Attorney General are planning to crucify Weiss (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3435555,00.html ). The Jerusalem Post claims Weiss will be probed (www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ ShowFull&cid=1186557410145), and I hope for his sake it is not the same way my doctor does it. Now putting aside the questions of taste in the specific words chosen by Weiss in what appears to be a moment of temper and hotheadedness, just what did Weiss do that was so terrible? The media moghuls rolling their eyes and beating the tables with their shoes are demanding action again Weiss, but they are exactly the same people who have never had a word to say about far-leftist professors in Israel endorsing terror, cheering when Palestinians murder settlers, justifying terror, promoting boycotts of Israel, and so on. The late Professor Baruch Kimmerling regularly justified terrorist atrocities against Jews. No reactions from the media. Nor have they ever called for legal actions or sanctions against Arab politicians or other Arabs who publicly endorse terror, call on Israel to be annihilated, deny the Holocaust, or in some cases engage in espionage. SO the outrage being expressed in such elegant posturing by these people is highly selective. Ehud Barak's sudden interest in academic extremism in Israel would be much more convincing if he had ever spoken out about the trashing of academic standards in Israeli universities in order to hire and promote leftist traitors and seditious post-Zionists working for Israel's destruction. What about those Israeli leftist professors who not only curse police and soldiers but regularly attack them violently at "anarchist" demonstrations. Prof. Anat Matar from Tel Aviv University, to name but one, has been arrested for assaulting police. Why does Barak have nothing to say about that? Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il To Go To Top INTIMIDATION CAMPAIGN Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 11, 2007. This was written by Kenneth R. Timmerman and it appeared yesterday on Front Page Magazine www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=5BF85463-9D54-4999- 890C-07B15CCDD780 Kenneth R. Timmerman was nominated for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize along with John Bolton for his work on Iran. He is Executive Director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran, and author of Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran (Crown Forum: 2005). Contact him by email at timmerman.road@verizon.net and visit his website: www.KenTimmerman.com What could the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) possibly have in common? CAIR founders had close ties to Hamas, Palestinian Sunni Islamic extremists. NIAC and its main spokesman, Trita Parsi, have become apologists for the regime in Tehran, which exports a rival Shiite brand of Islamic extremism. Sunnis and Shias. We all know the story. They hate each other worse than Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants. Right? Well, no. As I pointed out in Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran, Sunnis and Shias get along just fine when it comes to killing Americans and killing Jews. Similarly, CAIR and NIAC get along just fine when it comes to opposing the Bush administration policies in Iraq, Iran, and the greater Middle East. But they share much more than just an ideological affinity. They also share publicists in the redoubtable David Fenton. Fenton Communications has repped the likes of Cindy Sheehan, moveon.org, and CAIR. And now, they have added NIAC to their client list, as this recent NIAC press release shows. (One wonders how much of the grant monies NIAC boasts it has received from the National Endowment for Democracy, the Open Society Institute, the Kenbe Foundation, and the PARSA Community Foundation have gone to paying publicists, Congressional lobbyists, and fund-raisers). And that's not where the similarity between CAIR and NIAC stops. The two groups have also launched energetic campaigns to intimidate their critics and the organizations that help those critics air their views. CAIR's latest intimidation campaign against Robert Spencer has gotten considerable attention. NIAC's campaign against its chief critic, Hassan Daioleslam, has not. In April, Daioleslam published in these pages a detailed investigative piece that exposed the origins of NIAC and its ties back to Siamak Namazi, a member of the "regime's inner circle" and a big player in the Iranian oil industry. Their plan to establish an Iranian-American lobby "to create a balance between competing Middle Eastern lobbies" (specifically, AIPAC) dated from 1999, Daioleslam revealed, when Parsi and Namazi presented a paper on the subject at a conference in Cyprus sponsored by convicted felon Hossein Alikhani, Ever since his release from a U.S. prison on charges of violating U.S. anti-terrorist sanctions, Alikhani has been seeking ways to get U.S. sanctions lifted. As a reward for his activism, he was recently awarded the deed to the U.S. embassy in Tehran by the Iranian regime. One of the key goals of the new Iranian-American lobby recommended by Parsi and Namazi was -- surprise-surprise -- to convince Iranian-Americans that sanctions on Iran were "counterproductive." They have worked relentlessly ever since to win converts to their cause, from former Rep. Bob Ney, the convicted felon from Ohio, to Rep. Dennis Kucinic, a Democrat presidential contender. Daioleslam unearthed damning information on Trita Parsi cohort Siamak Namazi and exposed the role his Atieh companies in Tehran have played in brokering international investment in Iran's oil and gas industry. NIAC responded with a statement on their website, accusing Daioleslam of being "a Marxist Mujahedin-e Khalq (MKO) supporter." (That, by the way, probably qualifies as slander, given that the MEK is on the U.S. list of International Terrorist Organizations, making membership a crime. Daioleslam eventually put out a statement denying any connection or sympathy with the MEK, noting that the only "proof" offered by NIAC was the fact that one of his articles was picked up by an MEK website.) Rather than address the points raised by Daioleslam (and in an earlier article, by me), NIAC created straw man arguments, accusing the two of us of advocating for war with Iran. The Voice of America's Persian Service took interest, and sought to organize a face-to-face debate between Hassan Daioleslam and Trita Parsi. Daioleslam accepted the challenge, but Parsi never responded, despite repeated invitations sent to him by VOA producers by phone and by email. The show eventually aired in June without Parsi. By all accounts, it was a devastating blow to the pro-Tehran lobby. On June 19, NIAC got an Iranian-American lawyer in Rockville, MD, Afshin Pishevar, to send a letter of complaint to the director of Voice of America, Danforth Austin, and to the VOA office of public affairs. The lawyer claimed that "VOA made no effort to contact Dr. Parsi directly," which VOA producers tell me is demonstrably false, and that the Roundtable discussion violated VOA's charter which states that "views of a single party must be challenged by the interviewer if alternative opinions are unrepresented." In the very next sentence, the lawyer stated that the show's host, Bijan Farhoodi, "made significant efforts to present his own understanding of the view of the missing party in the discussion, even though he had access to NIAC's detailed rebuttal of Mr. Daioleslam's false accusations to rely on. Although he briefly mentioned the rebuttal during the program, Mr. Farhoodi did not challenge a single accusation made by Mr. Daioleslam." Gee, let's see if I understand this correctly. NIAC's Trita Parsi ducks calls from VOA producers to appear on the show, then has a lawyer criticize VOA for not having him on. And then the lawyer criticizes VOA further because they only "mentioned" NIAC's rebuttal, which was no rebuttal at all and in fact failed to address any of the factual points raised by Daioleslam about the ties between NIAC founders and the Tehran regime. But this is only the beginning. Following this letter, NIAC's lawyer demanded that VOA essentially ban Daioleslam from the airwaves, which they did. To my knowledge, Daioleslam has not been invited back on VOA since June 10. Once these bullying tactics paid off, NIAC then boasted on its website that it had "taken legal action" against VOA and "against proponents of US-Iran war who have waged a defamation campaign against NIAC." It was a stunning example of the Big Lie technique. NIAC has taken no legal action. It has filed no lawsuit. It has not gotten a U.S. court to issue a "cease and desist" order. And yet, that is the impression it seeks to create. "NIAC Makes Progress in Defamation Case with VOA Persian," its website blares. Many pro-regime bloggers have picked up on it and are spreading it across the blogosphere, just as they spread the earlier slander that Daioleslam (and me!) are MKO members. The statements have also been picked up by a website notorious for being a mouthpiece of the Iranian intelligence ministry, MOIS. The only problem is, there is no Defamation Case. Period. Nada. As Omid Biniaz notes at the American Thinker, "Iranians would welcome the opportunity to hear Mr. Parsi, under oath, explain his relation with Tehran and a potpourri of felons close to them." Fat chance. The real story here is about Voice of America. Why has VOA caved to a poorly-written letter from a lawyer who can't afford an office in downtown Washington, DC, that is packed with hyperbole, misstatements, and outright lies? Rather than allow groups such as NIAC to continue operating in the dark, it's time to shine the light of day onto their activities. And it's time for Voice of America to show some backbone. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN PERSIAN GULF COUNTRIES Posted by Morteza Aminmansour, August 11, 2007. Data are from the Amnesty International Report. Powerful governments and armed groups are deliberately fomenting fear to erode human rights and to create an increasingly polarized and dangerous world. Through short sighted, fear-mongering and divisive policies, governments are undermining the rule of law and human rights, feeding racism and xenophobia, dividing communities, intensifying inequalities and sowing the seeds for more violence and conflict. During 2005 some of the world's most powerful governments were successfully challenged, their hypocrisy exposed by the media, arguments rejected by courts of law, and repressive tactics resisted by human rights activists. After five years of backlash against human rights in the "war on terror", the tide appeared to be turning. Nevertheless, the lives of millions of people worldwide were devastated by the denial of fundamental rights. Human security was threatened by war and attacks by armed groups as well as by hunger, disease and natural disasters. Freedoms were curtailed by repression, discrimination and social exclusion. This Amnesty International Report documents human rights abuses in 150 countries around the world. It highlights the need for governments, the international community, armed groups and others in positions of power or influence to take responsibility. It also reflects the vitality of human rights activists globally, whether in local initiatives, international summits or mass demonstrations. Outraged by continuing human rights abuses and inspired by hope, Amnesty International members and supporters around the world campaign for justice and freedom for all. Middle east is known for human rights abuses in the last 50 years. The lives of millions of people are devastated by the denial of fundamental rights in the countries with oil that could practice the basic elements of democracy which included also free speech and political reform. Here are some reports of these abuses in the Persian gulf countries: Bahrain: People were arrested in connection for expressing their opinion. Recently security police arrested human rights activists appeared before a court on charges that seemed to be politically motivated. The Ruler of this unelected and undemocratic country does not allow his own people free speech in any form. Security forces used excessive force in many cases to disperse demonstrators in the capital al-Manama. Police and security elements practice detention and torture without permit. A government which hesitates to observe the basic tenets of human rights and justice. The political leaders and upper class Society that regularly and ridiculously disobeys the judicial verdict. The suffering of the inmates of the prisons under inhuman condition. The hypocrisy, arrogance and brutality of the Police and law enforcement agencies. The harsh experiences of the expatriates under this autocratic framework In May the UN Committee against Torture considered Bahrain's report on its implementation of the UN Convention against Torture. The Committee regretted the government's five-year delay in submitting the report. However this report is provided by the Rulers of the country and does not reflect the truth, the Committee expressed concern about the continuing "lack of a comprehensive definition of torture" in Bahraini law; the "provision of blanket amnesty to all alleged perpetrators of torture and other crimes by Decree 56 of 2002"; and the "lack of redress available to victims of torture". It urged the government to adopt legislation to prevent and punish violence against sexual abuse and of women (which is very common in this tiny country), including domestic violence, and to amend Decree 56 to "ensure there is no impunity for officials who have perpetrated or acquiesced in torture and other cruel and inhuman or degrading treatment". There is no real general election in this country. UAE: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a federation of seven Emirates established in 1971. None has any democratically elected institutions. Before British intervention, the area was notorious for its pirates and slave trade and was called the Pirate Coast. The Emirates is one place where the court is a farce, where the judiciary is just eyewash, and the prisons diabolical. Shame on a country that has no respect for the law they themselves made. No general elections; however, citizens may express their concerns directly to their leaders through traditional consultative mechanisms, such as the open majlis, or council. A consultative body, the Federal National Council (FNC), consists of 40 advisors appointed by the Dictator emirate rulers for two-year terms. The civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of the security forces. Prison conditions generally does not meet international standards; prison conditions varied widely from emirate to emirate, and some rural prisons were overcrowded and are kept in very bad living conditions. Although the small Shi'a minority enjoyed commercial success, there are no Shi'a in top positions in the federal government. Several political suspects were detained and held incommunicado at undisclosed locations, in some cases for months without letting these family members to visit them. Recently many political prisoners were alleged to have been tortured and at least one person, a foreign domestic worker, was sentenced to flogging. An application submitted in 2004 to establish an independent human rights organization was still not granted. Although the law prohibits arrest or search without reasonable belief and evidence, but the government did not always observe these provisions in practice and try to ignore. There were many credible reports that security forces failed to obtain warrants in many cases. Indefinite detention and torture of prisoner in some cases without charge are permitted upon judicial review. Political suspects were detained incommunicado and without charge for several months. Political detainees were mostly held by State Security (Amn al-Dawla) officials, apparently on suspicion of holding Islamist views or calling for political reforms, although no reasons were given for their arrest. They were held in solitary confinement and denied visitors. The UAE's foreign policy, much like its domestic politics, has been defined largely by border disputes and the politics of the individual emirates. Currently the UAE has territorial disputes with three of its immediate neighbors: Iran, Oman and Qatar; in the past, it has clashed with Saudi Arabia as well. The most serious such conflict, however, is the long-standing dispute with Iran over three Iranian islands: Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs. Since 1992, this dispute has come to define the UAE's entire relationship with Iran. Iran claims that Britain took the islands from Iran and gave them to the Arabs in the nineteenth century. Iran has now built an airstrip, substantially increased its military presence (from 700 to 4,000 troops), and has opened a university. The Iranian islands dispute has also caused serious friction within the UAE. Abu Dhabi has been careful to maintain some contact with Iran because of the large number of Iranian expatriates in the UAE and because of Iran's proximity. Discrimination against women: Women continued to be subject to discrimination under UAE laws, including the nationality law. This specifies that women, unlike men, cannot pass on their UAE nationality to their children if their spouses are foreign nationals. These children, in consequence, suffer serious restrictions on their residency, employment and education rights. They are considered migrant workers for employment purposes and required to pay higher fees for higher education. There is broad legal and societal discrimination against women. Shari'a, or Islamic law, governs the personal status of women, but civil law governs their activities in the civic and commercial sphere. The government was generally not effective in enforcing women's rights and protecting women from abuse. Domestic abuse against women was a pervasive problem, with one study in February indicating that as many as 66 percent of all women permanently residing in the UAE had been subjected to domestic abuse. Almost 34 percent of respondents age 18 to 30 claimed to have been abused by a family member, and over 50 percent of respondents said that they witnessed their mothers being abused in the home. The Country Oman: Scores of people were arrested in connection with calls for political reform. Most were released without charge; many of them were tried and sentenced to prison terms but released under an amnesty. The head of state commuted a death sentence imposed in 2004 for murder. Other government critics who also called for political reform were arrested during the year, including two prisoners of conscience. According to the Amnesty International report: torture and ill-treatment/Possible prisoner of conscience were reported in the last few years. Omani laws and practices continued to discriminate against women in a number of important respects, including personal status, employment and participation in public life. Domestic violence and raping women remained a concern and the government is not able to protect women against their partners violence. Women are especially vulnerable to sexual abuse also inside the family. Qatar: Up to 6,000 members of a Qatari tribe were arbitrarily deprived of Qatari nationality. Women faced discrimination under a range of laws and practices. At least 19 people remained under sentence of death. As many as 6,000 members of the Al-Ghufran branch of the Al-Murra tribe were deprived of Qatari nationality between October 2004 and June 2005 on grounds, believed to be spurious, that they were nationals of other countries. Some were reportedly forced to leave Qatar to seek resettlement in neighboring countries, or detained and tortured, despite guarantees in the new Constitution against the deportation of Qatari nationals. There are no democratically elected institutions or political parties. There are no general elections; Kuwait: Women gained the right to vote and stand for political office under a new electoral law, which took effect on 16, May. Under the law, women are required to abide by Sharia (Islamic law) when voting or standing for election. Migrant workers, who constitute a large part of Kuwait's workforce, protested against working conditions, non-payment of wages, arbitrary pay cuts, ill-treatment, unsatisfactory living conditions, and non-renewal of residence permits. The authorities said they were considering changes to the country's labor laws to improve conditions for migrant workers, but did not take any action to correct and protect Migrant workers from further discrimination. Women migrant workers in domestic service were especially vulnerable to sexual abuse because of discriminatory legislation and practices, and the exclusion of domestic workers from the protection of labor laws. They suffered gender-based violence, including rape by employers or their associates, and had little recourse given the prevailing climate of impunity for perpetrators of crimes against migrant domestic workers. Saudi Arabia: Killings by security forces and armed groups escalated, exacerbating the already grim human rights situation. Scores of people were arrested for suspected links with armed opposition groups but little information was available about their legal status or conditions in detention. Women remained subject to extensive discrimination in law and practice, and inadequately protected against violence in the home, there were no signs of reform. Migrant workers also faced discrimination and abuse at work and in the society. Many men and women were executed, almost all of them did not get fair trail. Suffering gender-based violence is very commend in this country. The exclusion of women from participation in the municipal elections was widely criticized by women's rights activists. The government said that there were not enough qualified women to administer women-only registration centers and that not all women had identification cards needed for voting. In response to the criticisms, the Head of the Elections Committee said that he expected that women would participate in future elections. Death penalty: * Political Prisoner were executed even though they had served their prison sentences and been subjected to corporal punishment. Neither they nor their families were aware that they were at risk of execution, and they had not had access to consular or legal assistance. * Suliamon Olyfemi, a Nigerian, remained under sentence of death. He had been convicted of murder after a trial in November 2004 during which he had no legal representation or translation services from Arabic, which he did not understand. * Defendants (also political prisoner) in capital cases often do not have legal representation and are not informed of the progress of the proceedings. There was concern that some defendants (political prisoner) were convicted and sentenced to death solely or largely on the basis of confessions obtained under duress, torture or deception. Several diplomatic missions again expressed concern that authorities in UAE failed to provide consular notification when their citizens were detained or arrested. Source: The United Arab Emirates Report (Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor March 8, 2006) Reports on Human Rights Practices in the UAE' (2005) Amnesty international report 2005-2006 Contact the author at moryamin@yahoo.com To Go To Top OPERATION LIFESHIELD Posted by Michael Travis, August 10, 2007. The Mission and Vision of Operation LifeShield Living with the constant threat of terrorism is the daily plight of the Israeli people. However, since the enemies of Israel are determined to continue the terrorism, every possible alternative must be taken to provide a shield for the protection of innocent, law abiding, men, women and children who's only crime that makes them a target of the terrorists is that they exist and are an obstacle to the absolute dominance and power the terrorist seek to achieve. There is no country whose citizens understand the physical and psychological burden of terrorism hanging over their lives more than the Israelis'; the Israelis' have lived under this constant threat even during the ceremony declaring their statehood in May 1948. Yet, as courageous as Israel's people are to continue to live their normal daily lives under these conditions; fear of terrorism must never become a way of life. A part of that fear is the knowledge that there is not always a place to go to seek protection from the shrapnel that rips through most anything near the point of impact. It is this fear that LifeShield directs its products to remedy. It is this fear that will never be eliminated as long as random missiles are unexpectedly falling from the sky, but can be assuaged with the knowledge that a LifeShield, a safe haven in time of attack, is close enough to secure protection from the exploded projectiles that are meant to find any human and permanently maim or kill. LifeShield's founders know that they cannot bring peace with the terrorist, nor can they provide total security for the Israeli people. But they seek to fill a gaping hole in the security and civil defense requirements for soldiers, men, women, and children pursuing their daily lives; and provide peace of mind in the absence of peace. LifeShield's mission is to provide those desperately needed shelters that are strategically placed throughout the public areas of Israel, and give each Israeli citizen a chance to find adequate shelter within that narrow window of time, when the warning siren is sounded and the impact of the missile. Terrorism is a constant threat of random acts of violence most often perpetuated by unguided rockets being indiscriminately fired from out of site locations to fall from the sky upon any unsuspecting target. The element of surprise is the major ally of terror. An early warning siren system is in place over most of Israel. This siren pierces the normal sounds of a busy day at school or work, when a terrorist rocket is heading toward a point of destructive impact. Yet no matter when or where, there is precious little time to find a safe place of protection from the rocket's deadly payload. The unsophisticated nature of the rockets makes the statistical odds of a direct hit on any structure significantly small. However, the statistical odds of anyone within the range of the thousands of shrapnel being badly hurt or killed are extremely high. The facts are that the majority of people are maimed or killed by flying shrapnel rather than by direct hits of flying rockets and mortars. The Israeli's have built many air raid bomb shelters over the years throughout the country; however the majority are underground or in designated areas within specific buildings in the community. These shelters are effective but do not provide any protection in the open public areas where people are found while going about their daily lives and routines. A LifeShield can serve multi-purpose functions. They are transportable above ground structures that are strategically deployed as per the safety requirements of any specific town or city. The LifeShields can be redeployed to other locations in the city as security needs change. The LifeShields are stand alone structures that are placed near school playgrounds, sports fields, or parks. They are also placed in areas around the cities where people are moving about, shopping, working, and playing. In addition to the shelters, LifeShield bus stops are designed to shield waiting passengers and pedestrians, including the routes used by children to walk to and from school. The imperative point is that sufficient LifeShields are placed throughout the communities ensuring that when a warning siren sounds shelter and safety are close at hand. Operation LifeShield Program LifeShield was formed in 2007 for the specific purpose of providing as many transportable LifeShield protective structures as possible. The goal of Operation LifeShield is to save lives and prevent bodily injury to innocent men, women and children. Terrorist missiles do not discriminate; they are just as harmful to men, women, children, Israeli citizen, foreign tourist or visitor, of any race, national origin, religion, or social status. There is no simple or single solution to provide the maximum possible security for innocent people within Israel from terrorists; but every possible solution that can save a single innocent life, or prevent the maiming of a single innocent person, or that adds to a general sense of well being and peace to Israeli citizens, must be taken. Another important goal of Operation LifeShield is to minimize as much as possible the traumatic effects of citizens being closed up in overcrowded poorly ventilated public shelters for days and weeks at a time. The psychological damage and trauma caused by such situations is especially prevalent in children who suffered through it during the Lebanon War in the summer of 2006. By providing LifeShield shelters throughout the public areas like parks and pedestrian areas, people can be outside even during military crisis going about their routines knowing safety and shelter are close at hand. The founders of LifeShield are lifelong dedicated entrepreneurs that have established several successful business entities over the years. The genesis of LifeShield comes from a decision of these two successful businessmen to leverage their love for Israel and their knowledge and experience to develop real estate/custom home building into premier resort development in Northern Israel. The Lebanon War of the summer of 2006 broke out during the research stage of the first building development project. During volunteer work of distributing food and other desperately needed items to the shelters in northern Israel this much more important need for structures to shield innocent men, women, and children from the immediate threat of loss of life and limb was clearly revealed to them. This opportunity to save innocent lives and help provide much needed peace of mind to fellow Israelis was the motivating impetus to put all other business endeavors on hold and invest their own experience, efforts, and capital to launch Operation LifeShield. Operation LifeShield is now a registered non-profit organization in both the United States as well as Israel. Shep Alster, Co-Founder -- a successful twenty seven-year career in the distribution of entertainment software products began at age twenty-one with the acquisition of Northeastern United States exhibition rights for motion pictures. This successful venture lead to Shep becoming a pioneer in the video rental business, owning one of the first chain of video stores in New York through most of the 80's. The success of this retail venture and his entrepreneurial spirit to understand all sides of his business lead to the forming Video Brokers International (VBI) a venture on the distribution side of the video business, selling opening inventories and catalog titles to major and independent retailers Displaying a knowledge of and expertise in both the retail and wholesale side of the consumer video business Shep was one of the country's first merchants to sell videos directly to consumers. In the late 1980's, he created "Box Office Hits," which established and maintained retail mass-market video centers in supermarkets and drug store chains. In 1989, he established Video Game Swap Meet, an innovative business for the acquisition and distribution of pre-owned video games and video movies. In 1990, he merged Video Brokers International with Video Liquidators to become the largest reseller for distressed inventories of entertainment videos and music CDs in the United States. Shep is also the CEO of Licensing Ventures, Inc., a merchandising and licensing company for mass distribution of entertainment properties and technology to operate the used entertainment software retail and Internet business. Shep is also the Director of the Jeff Weltman Memorial Fund; a trust operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, literary and educational purposes. Since 1991 Shep has been a member of a New York Friars Club a fraternal organization made up of entertainment executives and performers. Shep and his family moved from the United States to Israel out of his passion to be a part of Israel and join his long time friend Josh Adler in the new resort development business in Northern Israel. Josh Adler, Co-Founder -- an ambitious determined individual that does not turn away from a challenge, and has leveraged that strength into serial entrepreneurial successes. Josh left the comfort of his hometown and family in America thirty-one years ago to make Israel home, and after a very short period of acclimating to Israel he joined an IDF combat infantry unit, since personally serving his time, Josh has six beautiful children; three children that have, are currently, or will be shortly be, serving in IDF units as well. Josh founded and built one of the largest importers of American windows, doors, and construction materials to the home construction market in Israel. The success of the importing business lead to adding a services extension of the business which would install many of the building products imported. This import business was a casualty of these terrorists he is now working to protect others from, when in the fall of 2000 the first "intifada" broke out and greatly reduced demand for these imported materials, Josh decided to close the importing business. As the home building business began to rebound Josh decided to focus on the building business and not rebuild the import business and he became one of the most respected high end custom home builders in the Jerusalem region of Israel as First Class Ltd. Josh had decided to undertake new resort development ventures in Northern Israel when he and co-founder Shep discovered the needs for strategically deployable above ground shelters and agreed to temporarily suspend other business pursuits to build Operation LifeShield. Manufacturing Relationship A strategic relationship has been secured with a firm in Israel that deals in construction and road building. This relationship ensures the regular supply of raw materials, man power and manufacturing facilities for the product line. LifeShield has secured a signed agreement with Orpaz to be the primary manufacturer of the LifeShield shelter at their facilities. The contract with Orpaz places the responsibility for manufacturing the LifeShield units to LifeShield specifications and under an approval process of LifeShield contracted third party certified engineers. The manufacturer has the capacity to manufacture and store shelter units to the current projected first year demands. LifeShield has other facilities and sufficient access to increase workforce and substantially increase the manufacturing and storage capabilities if demand surges beyond projections. LifeShield has not yet contracted with a manufacturer for the LifeShield bus stops. Three price quotations for the bus stops have been submitted to LifeShield and the pricing of this item is based on those quotations. Arrangements can be made with multiple manufacturers to produce the bus stops if large amounts of the product are needed in a short amount of time. LifeShield shelters in the production process.Shelter Specifications LifeShield shelters are structures designed as above ground units for easy ingress and egress. They can be strategically deployed around the cities and public facilities to provide life saving shelter. The structure is designed by structural engineers to exacting standards required by civil defense authorities and IDF Home front Command; and has received certification to compliance with these standards. Certification from the IDF Homefront Command: IDF Homefront Command Lifeshield Shelter IDF Homefront Command Lifeshield Certification Pedestrian/Bus Stop certification Each unit is inspected by independent professionals during the various phases of the manufacturing process and again before deployment to the destination of service. These inspections are conducted by certified licensed concrete inspection laboratory structural engineer licensed electrician This process insures that no unit is placed into service until it is capable of providing the LifeShield protection the name of the product denotes. Air Raid Shelter -- These structures are designed to provide an immediate short-term LifeShield for individuals to run into when the air raid warning siren sounds the notification of an incoming missile. The structure will provide safety from the explosion and flying shrapnel projectiles and within minutes of the attack it is usually safe to leave. There are approximately fifteen LifeShield units ready for delivery and deployment at any given time. The shelter specifications are: 3.4 x 3.8 square meters (approximately 130 square feet) Hold approximately 30 people during an air raid emergency Height -- 3.0 meters (10 feet) Weight -- Approximately 42 tons Wall and ceiling thickness -- 12 inches of steel reinforced concrete Special military approved armored steel door/window set Exterior and interior lighting Electrical outlets Phone/cable hook-ups Prep for electrical generator hook-up Exterior -- covered with aesthetically pleasing crème colored stucco Transportable to different locations as safety requirements dictate Serially numbered and matching serialized certification Safely prevents penetration of bullets, shrapnel, and bomb fragmentation Reduces chances of injury form explosion concussion Can withstand direct hit of some types of missiles. These claims are based on the certification to IDF Home front Command standards; no independent tests have been conducted. LifeShield Pedestrian/Bus Stop Shelters -- Public transportation is the major means of getting around within the country of Israel, so thousands of people are standing exposed in open areas waiting for their bus, taxis etc. These structures provide both a typical covered open area for waiting, but add the protection of an attached enclosed area where people could quickly enter for protection should an air raid warning siren sound. As these bus stops are deployed along the main streets, they also provide protection to any pedestrian walking along those streets during a rocket attack. This includes school children, on their way to and from school and any citizen out shopping, going to work, or just going for a stroll. Information on LifeShield Pedestrian/Bus Stop Shelters and specification: This new life saving product is a completely functional and aesthetically pleasing bus stop/rest bench designed by LifeShield architects and engineers in coordination with the IDF Homefront Command. It is approved and certified by them. The LifeShield Bus Stop will provide safety and protection from bullets, shrapnel, and even direct overhead hits of a kassam missile. It includes an inner room for complete protection from all sides. It also provides shelter from the natural elements as any other bus stop. The bus stop was designed to be deployed along public bus routes, school bus routes, walking routes to schools/kindergartens, busy streets and pedestrian areas, shopping districts/markets, etc.; thereby providing life saving protection to commuters, drivers, children and any civilian caught out in these areas during a missile attack. Another major function of the LifeShield Bus Stop is to reduce, as much as possible, the trauma and negative psychological effects associated with being closed up in an overcrowded and poorly ventilated shelter for days and weeks at a time. Deployed on the main streets and parks, LifeShield Shelters make it possible for civilians and especially children to carry on with a normal routine during abnormal times knowing that safety and shelter are close at hand. LifeShields are transportable and can easily be redeployed to other areas as municipal and security needs change. The LifeShield bus stop compliments the LifeShield shelter that was designed to provide life saving protection by being deployed in public areas such as sports fields, parks, playgrounds and open air markets, as well as next to "soft" public structures such as kindergartens, youth clubs, senior centers and Synagogues; buildings that have no shelter or protection of any type from missile attacks. The LifeShield bus stop specifications: All concrete is B-30 grade (inspected). All structural work is inspected and certified by a licensed engineer. Bus stop is designed to prevent death or injury from bomb/missile shrapnel and light arms fire. Inside facing of ceiling is covered by "Flexdek" sheeting (ceiling is designed and certified to withstand a direct hit of a kassam missile) The bus stop walls are made of 20 cm. thick steel reinforced concrete. The floor is made of 20 cm. thick steel reinforced concrete. The ceiling is made of 30cm. thick steel reinforced concrete. All exposed concrete is painted with special concrete paint (colors to be decided by municipality). Flexdek is painted with special Superlac paint. Waiting area includes seating bench/s made of steel and fiberglass/plastic. Interior lighting is included (to be hooked up by municipality to city infrastructure). Electrical grounding cables are installed. Preps for advertising board lighting are included (x3 boards to be installed by others). All required safety signage and lighting is included. Lifting cable anchors are included. (for delivery/transport) Roof waterproofed and is sloped to rear for rain drainage. Prep for bus route number/destination sign is included (sign supplied by others). width -- approx. 4.50 meters depth -- approx. 1.95 meters height -- approx. 2.35 meters inner room -- approx. 3.00 sq. meters (protected from top and all sides) Outer waiting area -- approx. 3.5 sq. meters (protected from top and three sides) The bus stop has been approved and certified by the IDF Homefront Command. The first LifeShield Pedestrian/Bus Stop was completed and dedicated on July 9 through the generosity of Earl Cox and Ben Kinchlow. The demand for this product became apparent during the Israeli war with Hezbollah in the summer of 2006, when many Israeli citizens were forced to stay in public shelters for days or weeks. Most of the current shelters lack functional toilet or shower facilities. Due to that, people had to leave the safety of the shelter and in most cases return to their homes to use the bathroom facilities and then return to the shelters. During the War, many people were injured and some were killed by exploding missiles when caught outside on their way to or from toilet and shower facilities outside of the protection of the shelter. shelterIDF Home front Command would like to see above ground facilities placed next to existing underground shelters where individuals can ascend the shelters stairs and step into a facility that is protected and then descend back into the shelter. LifeShield has not yet manufactured any of these units, however we know there is a pent-up demand for the product, as explained above. The designs have been approved by the IDF Homefront Command. IDF Homefront Command LifeShield restroom plans Strategy The strategy of the LifeShield is to provide the best product possible with available materials that are cost effective to facilitate the mass deployment of the structures throughout Israel. Every effort is made to assure the shelters can provide the maximum protection based on the current most imminent threat to the citizens from the terrorist attacks. LifeShield will continue to work with civil defense experts, structural engineers, IDF Home front Command to build shelters to the latest specifications and requirements, to maintain the IDF Home front Command certification for each product line. The focus of LifeShield is to provide free standing structures designed to provide a temporary shield of protection for innocent men, women, and children unwittingly caught in open spaces when unexpected incoming ordinances threaten their lives and personal safety. Operation LifeShield's founders believe that LifeShield Pedestrian Shelter/Bus Stops should be placed alongside every bus stop on a city by city basis. Deployment will begin with the cities facing the most imminent danger. By completing the deployment of a whole city we will be changing the process by which emergency response procedures are carried out. Citizens will be provided with an awareness that in the event of a red alert, they could run to protection within one city block. The following is an example of municipality requests to blanket their cities: Name of municipality Amount of LifeShield Pedestrian Shelter/Bus Stops Requested Sderot 47 Kiryat Shmona 52 Nahariya 64 Eshkol Regional Council -- Gaza Israel Border 28 13 All of the above towns stated that they would like more bus stops than they currently have, in order to protect other pedestrian areas that currently do not have anything. Example of a written request for LifeShield Pedestrian Shelter/Bus Stops Current State of Emergency LifeShield will move rapidly to set the standards that will define this as an emerging answer for the security needs of the Israeli citizens. Naturally, it would be wonderful if there were no need for the forming of this program or the making of the LifeShield. However, this is a civil defense and national security need that has gone unfulfilled for many years. This fact of not addressing the requirements for many years has created an EMERGENCY SITUATION. The solution is limited only by the inability of the government to pay for these shelters. LifeShield research and discussions with town and city mayors around the country as well as IDF Home front Command indicates an immediate need of thousands of LifeShields for the public. Although it is clear to the founders of Operation LifeShield that it is the responsibility of the Israeli government to fulfill these needs, we feel that it is our duty and within our power to assist the innocent civilians of the Israeli Homefront towns and cities. Fundraising Strategy Earl Cox and Ben Kinchlow are the Operation LifeShield spokesmen in the United States. Earl Cox has been called by God to publicly stand for and bring aid to Israel. He has received recognition from many in Israel as well as in the USA for his efforts through personal work, radio broadcasts, and editorials. The Israeli Prime Minister has named Earl "the voice of Israel to the world." During his travels, Earl has seen first hand the rocket attacks, suicide bombings, and terrible damage and devastation these events bring. Arab terrorists are doing all they can to destroy the State of Israel and the Jewish people. Rockets from Gaza and Lebanon are continuing to fly into villages and towns while Israeli civilians are trying to live normal lives. Earl and his partner, Ben Kinchlow (former host of The 700 Club), have committed themselves to help provide portable bomb shelters and protective bus stops to these communities by bringing together Jewish Rabbis and Christian Pastors to help raise the awareness of the need of increased security for Israelis. The fund raising strategy is focused on an international program which uses media exposure to develop the urgency of meeting the tremendous emergency need for these LifeShields. Media public relations events with local political, government, and military officials have taken place and will continue to do so. An extensive names list of critical individuals will continue to be compiled and a direct fund raising campaign will keep them notified of each announcement and a reminder of the growing threat necessitating the emergency action. Internet solicitation has been utilized in addition to traditional print media to a broader audience and more cost effectively reaches the target donor. LifeShield has retained Koteret, a media relations firm directed at the local and worldwide Jewish community. We are working with "friends and supporter of Israel" through the Jewish and Evangelical Christian communities. LifeShield has contracted with White Dove Communications, a media relations firm. Their primary focus is the Christian community. We have launched fundraising efforts within the United States and created strong relationships within communities to secure donations from both organizations and individuals. Every LifeShield is dedicated with a ceremony and plaque acknowledging the donor participants. The efforts include a media and direct marketing campaign based on the urgency of meeting this emergency civil safety requirement. These communities have been faithful supporters of Israel and donated millions of dollars over the years for many needs within Israel. We are in the process of assembling an American Executive Advisory Board with high profile members from these communities serving and lending their name and support to the fund raising efforts. Sample Press Release from WDC Media LifeShield will focus on building relationships with the larger organizations within the targeted communities to secure immediate donations, and commitments to secure additional donations on an ongoing basis. These immediate donations will be leveraged into media events that will be used in the on-going campaign to encourage other participants. Operation LifeShield is also a "grassroots" campaign for smaller organizations and individuals with smaller donations. We have accomplished this with the use of public speaking, direct requests, and Internet fundraising. Fundraising Goals by year, starting now $16,000,000 -- $14,000,000 -- $12,000,000 -- $10,000,000 -- $8,000,000 -- $6,000,000 -- $4,000,000 -- $2,000,000 Unit Deployment Goals by year, starting now: 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 2 17 Summary Operation LifeShield was created to save lives and provide protection for the innocent Israeli men, women, and children living their lives but unprotected when caught out in the open during a terrorist missile attack. The co-founders have completely dedicated their efforts and capital to making this program successful. It is unfortunate that a demand for shelters exists; however the need has been unanswered for many years and has recently become much more urgent with the continual growth and dispersion of population and the increasing use of launched ordinances by the terrorist organizations. This plan outlines very conservative projections for the need and deployment of the LifeShields, and takes into consideration none of the circumstances that would significantly accelerate this emergency. At this time terrorist missile activity is increasing again. The changing political landscape in Gaza and the threat of imminent war in the north emphasizes the need for LifeShields to be placed throughout the State of Israel. Costing of LifeShield Pedestrian Shelter/Bus Stop Pedestrian/Bus Stop Shelter Donation required per unit - $18,000 Manufacture - $11,000 Delivery/Installation - $2,200 Structural Engineer and Concrete Inspections - $450 Plaques and Dedication Expenses - $350 Maintenance for two years (optional) - $600 Fees to professional fundraisers/ non profit organization - $1,000 Total costs per unit - $15,600 Prices include VAT Amount per unit retained for administrative expenses - $2,400 -- Manufacturing costs, delivery, and administrative expenses will be adjusted downward with volume orders and/or critical mass deployment 19 LifeShield Shelter in place in Sderot Donation plaque Shelter being deployed Costing of LifeShield Transportable Air Raid Shelter LifeShield Air Raid Shelter Donation required per unit -- $36,000 Manufacture -- $18,335 Extra finishes (interior painting, ceramic tile flooring, generator prep, a/c prep) -- $2,850 Delivery/Deployment -- $5,000 Maintenance for two years -- $1,000 Electrical/Structural Engineer Inspections and Concrete Inspections -- $500 Plaques and Dedication Expenses -- $350 Fees to professional fund raisers/ non profit organization -- $2,000 Total -- $30,035 Prices include VAT Amount per unit retained for administrative expenses -- $5,965 Manufacturing costs, delivery, and administrative expenses will be adjusted downward with volume orders and/or critical mass deployment These LifeShield Shelters weigh over 40 tons and in order to be delivered require special trucks which are limited in number in Israel. The crane is extremely expensive and must be rented by the day. The crane can deliver 3-4 shelters a day which could potentially lower the cost of delivery by $800 per LifeShield. Examples of numerous request letters which Operation LifeShield has received for LifeShield Shelters or LifeShield Pedestrian/Bus Stop Shelters (more request letters and samples of Operation LifeShield support letters can be viewed on the website): Contact us at 15 Yad Harutzim St., Jerusalem 93420 Tel: 02-672-4090 Fax: 1532-671-0590 Contact Michael Travis at michaelmgr@gmail.com To Go To Top ISRAELI AGENT TESTIFIES IN TERROR CASE Posted by Michael Travis, August 10, 2007. In the months prior to the attacks of 9-11-2001 a small group of Israeli investigative journalists, myself included, tried to alert the US authorities and the American people to the very real threat of attack by Jihadis living in the USA. Our warnings, and those of the Israeli government fell on deaf ears. The American most interested in our evidence was Mr. Jay Kaiman, the director of the ADL's Atlanta office. Mr. Kaiman accused me personally of being "hateful towards Muslims", and threatened to have me arrested by the FBI (interesting idea......the FBI has no authority in Israel). On a visit to Israel just before the Sept.11th attacks, Mr.Kaiman and [dis] honest Abe Foxman "reported" me to the Israeli police.........................they laughed in their faces and recommended that they "mind their own business". Then came the World Trade Center attacks. August 2007 is very reminiscent of August 2001. All the threats and indicators are being ignored. Law enforcement resources are being squandered on P.R. boondoggles, and the only real and effective investigations are being carried our by a tiny handful of unpaid but motivated investigative journalists. If America had listened in 2000-2001, the Holyland Foundation would have been closed down BEFORE 9-11. "Israeli agent testifies against Muslim charity in U.S. in terrorism funding case" Associated Press http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/09/america/ NA-GEN-US-Muslim-Charity-Trial.php DALLAS: Prosecutors and lawyers for a Muslim charity accused of funding terrorists clashed Thursday over whether jurors should see documents that Israeli soldiers seized during raids of Palestinian organizations. An Israeli agent testified about the documents during the trial of five leaders of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. The agent was not identified, and before he testified the courtroom was cleared of spectators except the families of the defendants. Spectators were allowed in another room to listen to the proceedings. Prosecutors believe the documents seized by Israeli soldiers will show that the Holy Land leaders knew they were sending millions of dollars to groups controlled by Hamas, which is illegal because the U.S. government calls Hamas a terrorist organization. Defense attorneys tried to cast doubt on the authenticity and significance of the documents, which included pamphlets, brochures and posters that are presumably pro-Hamas. Jurors didn't see the documents because the judge had not ruled by late Thursday on whether to allow them into the case. In filings before the trial, prosecutors said documents seized from the security offices of the Palestinian Authority contained information on Hamas' funding, including from Holy Land. Defense lawyers suggested that the evidence did not meet the standards for trial in a U.S. court. Linda Moreno, one of the defense lawyers, asked the Israeli agent whether his soldiers had warrants when they raided Palestinian charities called zakat committees, orphanages and the Palestinian Authority. Prosecutors objected, and Federal District Judge A. Joe Fish upheld their protest. "You're not contending that the Fourth Amendment applies outside the United States, are you?" Fish asked Moreno, referring the U.S. Constitution's protection against unreasonable search and seizure. The judge said he did not see the relevance of whether the soldiers had warrants. The charity officials are charged with aiding a terrorist group, conspiracy, money laundering and tax counts. Prosecutors say Holy Land sent more than $12 million (8.7 million euros) to groups controlled by Hamas under the guise of humanitarian aid from 1995 until the charity was shut down in December 2001. It is an important case in the Bush administration's anti-terrorism prosecutions, and President George W. Bush personally announced the freezing of Holy Land's assets. The trial's first three weeks have been dominated by the testimony of an FBI agent who described financial records, videos and wiretapped phone conversations that show links between the Holy Land defendants and Hamas officials. Defense lawyers say prosecutors are dragging out events from the late 1980s and early '90s, when it was still legal to have contact with Hamas. Testimony was scheduled to resume Monday. This is a rush transcript from "Hannity & Colmes," August 9, 2007. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. RICH LOWRY, GUEST CO-HOST: This has been introduced as evidence in the trial against the Holy Land Foundation. The man on the right, playing the part of a Hamas activist, is Mufid Abdul Qatar. He's a defendant in the trial, and the half brother of Khalid Mashaal, the Hamas supreme commander in exile. In the skit they say, quote, "You want to scare me by saying that Hamas is after me in every place? Hamas did not do anything. This is the work of intifada." So what does this mean for the trial? Joining us now is terrorism expert Steve Emerson. Steve, as always, thanks for being with us. STEVE EMERSON, TERRORISM EXPERT: Sure. LOWRY: Steve, as far as I can tell, these skits seem to be classic incitement, anti-Semitic propaganda, urging people on to kill Jews in the name of the intifada. EMERSON: Well, they're pretty horrifying. They took place in the United States and they were skits put on by the Islamic Association for Palestine, which was a sister organization to the group that's on trial, the Holy Land Foundation. And the person who makes the statement, "I am Hamas and I'm going to kill Jews" is Mufid Abdul Qatar. He's one of the defendants. And though it takes place in the late 1980s, the fact of matter it goes directly -- it's directly relevant to the mindset of those that are on trial today. It's like a pedophile who's on trial. If a pedophile says, in years before his trial that "I want to rape children," that's relevant to the mindset. And in this case, the defendant, as well as the organization, clearly indicate their desire to carry out genocide against Jews. LOWRY: So Steve, what does that do to the line of defense? In particular, the Holy Land Foundation says we were just supporting Palestinian charities and wow, it's really too bad that some of this money may have made it into the hands of bad actors? EMERSON: Well, I think it puts a definite lie to that claim, because here you have one of the defendants, an official of the Holy Land Foundation, who actually blurts out and says, "I am Hamas." And in the very end of this skit, which is pretty horrifying, the -- Abdul Qatar actually kills the Jew. And you can actually hear children in the audience laughing and applauding. LOWRY: Yes, that's disgusting. Steve, tell us a little bit about Hamas, because there are people out there who will make excuses for them, will say Hamas is a duly elected part of the government and the Palestinian Authority, so Hamas isn't that bad. EMERSON: Well, they have been duly elected, but Adolph Hitler also got elected through democratic means. I mean, they are a terrorist organization that carries out vicious killings. They use the cover of social services to legitimize themselves. But it would be the equivalent of saying that David Duke is legitimate simply because he teaches remedial education. He's still a racist. That's the premise of his organization. ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: It's actually similar to what these guys are saying, Steve. I agree with Rich that it's absolutely despicable speech. It is, however, free speech. But let me ask you this. The prosecution in the case, in the Holy Land case, they have to prove that $12 million that went to help Palestinian families was intended for terrorists. That's the burden of proof that they have to meet to get convictions, correct? EMERSON: That's one of their burdens. But they also have to prove that the organization itself that was raising the money was the equivalent of Hamas and therefore, that the money -- automatically was going to the Hamas organization. And I think by introducing videos like these, and these are just the first of several videos that will be introduced. It shows the mindset, the identity, and the direct relevance of these... COLMES: We have other videos here, and I understand the link you're making between the videos and the despicable speech and perhaps the intent of some of the people involved. But, again, in a court of law, they have to prove that, intentionally, they want to have that $12 million go to terrorists and not just to families to help for charity. And by the way, you've got about $14 million, according to OMB Watch, sitting in frozen funds, frozen by our Treasury Department, sitting undistributed to the poor. Wouldn't that money be better spent for its intended target, to help poor families? EMERSON: Well, first of all, the fact is you do have to prove that the money went to Hamas and went particularly for the killing of Jews or Israelis or Americans or even moderate Palestinians. But I think that the case can be made and will be made that the charities to which the Holy Land Foundation made contributions were Hamas charities. And they, in turn, distributed the money to the families of martyrs, guaranteeing annuities to the suicide bombers. So I think they have made the case and they will continue to make the case. As far as the undistributed money, my belief is that money should go to the victims of Hamas terrorism, not to the other people. LOWRY: Steve, we have to leave it there. Thanks so much for joining us. Watch "Hannity & Colmes" weeknights at 9 p.m. ET! "More Gleaned from Holy Land Trial Exhibits" by Douglas Farah www.douglasfarah.com/article/233/more-gleaned- from-the-holy-land-foundation-exhibits.com The government exhibits in the Holy Land Foundation case in Dallas, Texas, bear close reading. These public documents, collected by the NEFA Foundation and others give a pretty clear picture of the Muslim Brotherhood structure, motives and aims in the United States and more broadly. The first thing the exhibits lay out is the organic, granular link of the Brotherhood to the organizations in the United States such as MSA, NAIT, ICNA and others (CAIR was not founded when most of these were written, but is an unindicted co-conspirator in the case as well, and named as a Brotherhood entity). A second is that there is a military component and strict security measures to keep the Brotherhood out from government scrutiny. In Exhibit 003-0089, a Brotherhood leader, Zeid Al-Noman of the Executive Office, gives a brief history of the Brotherhood in America to a gathering of Ikhwan, and then takes questions. One questioner asks; "By 'securing the group' do you mean military securing? And, if it is that, would you explain to us a little bit the means to achieve it?" Answer: "No. Military work is listed under 'Special Work'.'Special Work' means military work. 'Securing the group' is the Groups' (Muslim Brotherhood) security, the Group's security against outside dangers. For instance, to monitor the suspicious events which exist on the American front such as Zionism, Masonry etc. Monitoring the suspicious movements or the sides, the government bodies such as the CIA, FBI etc., so that we find out if they are monitoring us, are we not being monitored, how can we get rid of them. That is what is meant by 'securing the group.'". "FBI Raids Two U.S. Muslim Charities on Eve of Holy Land Trial" http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/3937/1/{category_id} On July 24, the Goodwill Charitable Organization (GCO) of Dearborn, MI, was added to the Department of Treasury's Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list for alleged ties to Hezbollah. As a result, the group's assets have been frozen and U.S. citizens are barred from conducting any transactions with the organization. The office of Al-Mabarrat Charitable Organization was also searched and files removed, but the organization was not designated as a supporter of terrorism and continues to operate. The designation and raids occurred the same day as opening arguments in a high profile criminal trial involving a Muslim charity, the Holy Land Foundation. It appears the government relied on information from a former Treasury official whose credibility has been challenged in at least two instances. The Treasury Department's press release said GCO functioned as a "Hizballah" front organization, reporting to the leadership of the Martyrs Foundation in Lebanon. It went on to say, "Hizballah recruited GCO leaders and has maintained close contact with GCO representatives in the United States. GCO has provided financial support to Hizballah directly and through the Martyrs Foundation in Lebanon. Hizballah's leaders in Lebanon have instructed Hizballah members in the United States to send their contributions to GCO and to contact the GCO for the purpose of contributing to the Martyrs Foundation. Since its founding, GCO has sent a significant amount of money to the Martyrs Foundation in Lebanon." A spokeswoman for the FBI in Detroit told USA Today that "JTTF [Joint Terrorism Task Force] removed paper files from GCO office but no arrests were made." It appears the government relied on information provided by a controversial former Treasury official, Matthew Levitt, who has made broad allegations about ties between Islamic charities and terrorist organizations, often without citing supporting sources. Levitt is the director of the Stein Program on Terrorism, Intelligence and Policy at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Over a two-year period, he testified in congressional hearings three times and repeated the same information about GCO and other charities. In the transcript of an April 2005 House International Relations Subcommittee on Europe hearing titled "Islamic Extremism in Europe," Levitt stated, "According to a declassified research report based on Israeli intelligence Hezbollah also receives funds from charities that are not directly tied to Hezbollah but are radical Islamist organizations and donate to Hezbollah out of ideological affinity. ... The report cites many such charities worldwide, including four in the Detroit area alone: The Islamic Resistance Support Association, the al-Shahid Fund, the Educational Development Association (EDA) and the Goodwill Charitable Organization (GCO)." The testimony was repeated in a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing on May 25, 2005, titled "Terrorists, Criminals and Counterfeit Goods" and a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe hearing on June 20, 2007, titled, "Adding Hezbollah to the EU Terrorist List." Levitt's testimony cites a June 2003 study from the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center of the Center for Special Studies (CSS) in Israel. According to its website, the center is an "NGO dedicated to the memory of the fallen of the Israeli Intelligence Community" and focuses on issues concerning intelligence and terrorism. Because current law does not allow GCO to see all the evidence against it, or to present evidence on its own behalf, the accuracy of the CSS information used by Levitt is not likely to be tested. Levitt's credentials as an expert have been challenged on at least two occasions. Kinder USA filed a libel suit against him and Yale University Press in May over allegations in Levitt's book about Hamas that Kinder USA has ties to terrorism. According to the Dallas Morning News Levitt's testimony as an expert witness in the current criminal trial of leaders of the Holy Land Foundation was challenged by defense attorneys, who noted that he did not visit grassroots charities in the Palestinian territories he claimed have ties to Hamas, and instead relied on second-hand sources. The JTTF raid on the Al-Mabarrat Charitable Organization seized files, but the group was not designated as a terrorist organization and its assets were not seized. The Detroit Free Press reported that Al-Mabarrat has a significant presence in the community through fundraisers and the placement of donation boxes at Dearborn mosques and restaurants that read, "Orphan's happiness depends on your donation." The raid left many Muslims in the Dearborn area "confused about the government's actions. Al-Mabarrat is still allowed to operate, though agents hauled away its documents and computers, making it difficult to function." "American-Owned" and Jihad Inn: Who Owns Your Hotel?" By Debbie Schlussel TIME Magazine has an article claiming that American motel owners are racist for advertising their motels as "American-owned." Like many 7-Elevens, many American motels across America are owned by Indian immigrants and their relatives. There numbers are so significant that there is an Asian American Hotel Owners Association, which is urging motel owners to refrain from using "American-owned." Their association President, the very-Indian-named Fred Schwartz, is claiming that those who use it "are trying to prey on peoples' prejudice under the gusie of patriotism." But that's bunk. Most of these Indian motel owners are naturalized U.S. citizens and many of their kids who run and have even inherited the hotels are born U.S. citizens. Why are they afraid of the "American-owned" label that they, presumably, can truthfully use for themselves? And if they are not U.S. citizens, not Americans, it's hardly an issue of racism and prejudice, since, again, there are plenty of Indians who are American citizens. Who knew that saying you are an American is suddenly a verboten "expression of racism"? I guess it's the new manifestation of "no-tell motel." For the record, I have nothing against Indians and, in fact, patronize plenty of Indian businesses, including a 7-Eleven owned by my friend, Anil Kumar. I admire Indians' entrepreneurial spirit. And, in general, Indians are among the few who mostly understand the Islamic problem and the Jihadist threat. They see it every day in their native India, where 100 million to 150 million Muslims among a billion people are creating extreme problems of intolerance, violence, and havoc daily. But there are one or two hotel chains that I will never patronize specifically because of who owns them and what they did, and it has nothing to do with Indians: The Four Seasons Hotel chain is owned in significant part by Saudi Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal (and his buddy Microsoft's Bill Gates), the man who offered then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani $10 million right after 9/11, so long as America changed its policy toward Israel. He blamed Israel for 9/11 and has been a funder and supporter of Palestinian terrorism. If you don't want to fund Palestinian terrorism, then don't stay there. That's why my friend, producer Sandy Frank--who was a good customer of the hotel chain--will no longer stay there. He knows that the dollars he pays there for a hotel room end up in Prince Al-Waleed's pocket and, then, "The Martyrs'" pockets. Just after 9/11, Al-waleed (in kafir) offered Guiliani a check for millions. Giuliani had the moral courage to refuse the blood money. Al-Waleed Owns The Four Seasons Hotel. *Then, there is the Intercontinental Hotel chain. I won't pay for a room there, either. When Jordan controlled the old city portion of Jerusalem, it allowed the hotel chain to build its Jerusalem Intercontinental Hotel atop a centuries-old Jewish cemetery and Jewish graves. That Jordan allowed this is no shocker--they hate Jews. That a hotel chain had no problem with it is unconscionable. And they will never get a dollar from me. Not from you either, I hope. (The hotel went on to become a major meeting place for P.L.O. terrorist operatives to meet, have coffee, and plan murderous attacks on innocent Jews.) Remember: Cross The Four Seasons and The Intercontinental Hotels off your list. "OUTRAGE: Michigan Gov. Picks Islamofascist Who Defrauded Medicaid to Oversee Medicaid" By Debbie Schlussel Islamofascist Fox Now "Guarding" Infidel Medicaid Henhouse Yesterday, Crain's Detroit Business reported that Ismael Ahmed, Founder and Executive Director of the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, was picked by Michigan's liberal Democrat Governor Jennifer Granholm to head the State of Michigan's Department of Human Services. Readers of this site are familiar with Ahmed because I've written a great deal about him. The former head of Jesse Jackson's Michigan Presidential campaign, heads a Muslim-dominated agency that defrauds Medicaid by helping bring pregnant Muslim women from all over the world to America and giving them phony Social Security numbers to use so they can defraud Medicaid and have you--the taxpayers pay thousands of dollars to cover the deliveries of their babies. Plus the babies get U.S. citizenship. Granholm knows a lot about this because she was Michigan Attorney General in December 2002, when agents of her office and the FBI raided ACCESS in connection with a Medicaid fraud investigation her office oversaw. That's why it was strange when she hired her friend, Ahmed, to Co-Chair her Gubernatorial Transition Team, since she knew of Ahmed's organizations involvement in this scam. (She's since appointed him as a Regent of Eastern Michigan University.) BUT, that she hired Ahmed to now oversee Michigan's disbursements of Medicaid--now as the new Director of the Michigan Department of Human Services--is even more outrageous. Trite but true, it's exactly like hiring the fox to guard the henhouse. It's also disturbing because Ahmed's agency used thousands of government job-training funds to train Al-Qaeda terrorists to get commercial driver's licenses and hazardous material hauling certificates. And his agency used government money to sponsor the University of Michigan Divestment (from Israel) Conference. Imagine what Ahmed will do with access to and control over Michigan's giant budget for everything that falls under "Human Services." Make no mistake. Michigan's top Republicans aren't clean in this either. Current Michigan Attorney General and Republican Mike Cox carefully waited until Muslim women defrauding Medicaid left the country before he issued bench warrants for their arrest. He did that, so he would never actually have to arrest them, interview them, and go after ACCESS and the other malefactors involved in this ... and offend Muslims. He's been vying for extremist Muslim Arab votes and believes they are the route to his becoming Governor when term-limited Granholm leaves office after 2010. He appeared on FOX News Channel's "O'Reilly Factor" to gush all over himself for issuing these empty warrants and lied to Bill O'Reilly, claiming that the people who turned these women in were "Arabs," themselves, "from the community," implying they were also Muslims. In fact, none of them are--all Infidels of non-Arab extraction. And what's worse, Cox issued the warrants, despite Justice Department requests not to, tipping off targets. (An incompetent, stupid former Assistant U.S. Attorney gave him the documents and information.) But rather than do the right thing for a proper investigation, he needed his time to shine in the "O'Reilly Factor" sun. After all, he wants to be Governor and, then, President. To date, Cox done nothing to stop the Medicaid fraud at Ismael Ahmed's ACCESS, which continues and has throughout his five years as Michigan's chief law enforcement official. He is as culpable as Granholm in the wholesale giveaway of U.S. citizenship and tax-paid Medicaid dollars in Michigan to those who--surprise! surprise!--share the same religion as the 19 hijackers of September 11th. The Muslim Honor Killing Hollywood Doesn't Want You to See by Debbie Schlussel Schlussel writes: Thanks to David Lunde/Lundesigns for Technical Assistance w/ The Image To update an old Mark Twain (and Benjamin Disraeli) quote, there are lies, damned lies, and Hollywood scripts. Sometimes the lies are not what is in the script, but what is removed under pressure from whining, politically correct interest groups. These days, those groups are primarily Muslim and Middle Eastern. Honor Killing Scene Deleted From "ICE, The Movie" a/k/a "Crossing Over" Muslim groups have successfully gotten scenes--accurately depicting them as terrorists and murderers--removed from scripts or changed to another, more acceptable nationality. Brilliant blogger Sultan Knish drew my attention to the latest such cave-in: " Crossing Over," starring Harrison Ford and Sean Penn and produced by the Weinstein Brothers. I've been writing extensively about this movie and have a copy of the original script. Muslim Iranians were upset that a scene portrays them committing an honor killing. Late last week, they succeeded in getting it removed from the film. No worries, though, about the anti-Semitic scenes in the movie. Those remain. The Weinsteins and Writer/Director Wayne Kramer are Jewish, and we can't expect them to cave on those the way they did for the "more worthy" Muslims. It's politically correct to attack Jews, not so--these days in Hollywood--to attack those who attacked us before and on 9/11 and repeatedly try to again. In the movie--about immigration, illegal aliens, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents--Hamid Baraheri is a Muslim Iranian ICE agent in his early forties. Predictably, he is Hollywood's version of a kind, decent, hard-working, loyal American agent, much unlike the real-life Muslim federal agents, many of whom have been the subject of insubordination and tipping off targets in federal terrorism investigations. But Baraheri's brother, Farid, murders his sister, Zahra, in an honor-killing, and ICE Special Agent Hamid Baraheri is in on it. After all, Zahra is dating non-Muslim men and sleeping with a Latino. An honorable Muslim family cannot allow her to live and continue to shame them with her existence. And though you will never get to see that scene, my spies in Hollywood got me the script, so I'm reposting the scene below (scanned from the script). HERE IS THE MUSLIM HONOR KILLLING SCENE, recently deleted from the "Crossing Over" script: In their successful campaign to get the scene removed, Iranian Muslims whined that Iranians don't commit honor killings. But they should tell that to the Iranian Supreme Court, which--only four months ago--acquitted a gang of six men who brutally murdering a woman because she was holding hands with a man to whom she was engaged. And there have been many other instances of honor-killing in the country (including here and here). To claim that Iranians don't commit honor killings is like saying Americans don't eat at McDonalds. It appears that the part which most offended Muslim Iranians was not the honor killing itself, but the invocation of the name in the script that we all know comes with most honor killings: May Allah have mercy on your soul. Of course, even that was a sanitized version of what happens at Muslim honor killings. Usually there are no well-wishes for Allah's mercy on the "dishonorable" victim. Instead, it's the general, Allahu Akbar [Allah is the Greatest/Greater, as in "Greater" than other gods], asserting the "godliness" of the despicable cold-blooded murder. Since the honor-killing is a theme discussed in several scenes toward the end of "Crossing Over," one wonders whether it will be sanitized out completely from the movie, which has already wrapped filming. That's a likely bet. The Weinsteins say they removed the scene because: While we believe strongly in freedom of expression, we also believe in the importance of constructive dialogue between artists and the communities they seek to portray. Apparently they and Wayne Kramer had no dialogue between their own community of fellow co-religionists because these scenes remain: * Gavin Kossef, a Jewish illegal alien Hebrew Teacher (who barely knows Hebrew) from South Africa, and the Israeli principal of the L.A. Jewish school where he teaches discuss their plan to openly defraud Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) officials so he can get U.S. citizenship and keep teaching at the school. This is phony, since there are no shortage of U.S. citizens trying to get jobs at Hebrew schools. And unlike him, they can actually speak Hebrew. * Gavin is sleeping with an illegal alien Australian actress who is also sleeping with a CIS adjudicator, so she can get citizenship. After one of their sex-scenes, she throws a Siddur (Jewish prayer book) at his naked body, while she gets dressed. Ask yourself: Would this scene remain in the movie if it was a Koran being thrown? Trust me, if this guy doesn't know Hebrew and is sleeping around with a gentile actress, he ain't carrying around a Siddur (it's in Hebrew). * The CIS adjudicator assigned to Gavin's case doesn't believe he knows Hebrew, that he is lying to get a special skills visa (as I said before, Hebrew-speaking is not a "special skill"; Enough Americans speak it to keep the Hebrew schools running). The adjudicator brings in a rabbi, Rabbi Yoffie, to hear Gavin sing a Hebrew song or prayer. Gavin hasn't a clue and sings something completely jumbled and non-sensical. Yet, the "trusted Rabbi" lies to the adjudicator, saying Gavin did well, and bingo, he's approved. Yes, Muslim imams never do this, but Rabbis are defrauding immigration all the time. Right? That's despite report after report from Homeland Security and Congress that MUSLIMS--not Jews, not any other religion--are fraudulently obtaining special visas for "religious workers." But, hey, it's Hollywood. Who cares about facts? And while we're discussing facts, there are the "facts" of Writer/Director Wayne Kramer that remain in question. He recently became a U.S. citizen, and as Sultan Knish (who gave me a lot of background on Kramer) points out, Kramer says the script is based on his own life: "I've lived every step of the way in the screenplay. The average American citizen does not understand how hard it is to get status in America." The director said the immigration issue is much bigger than people crossing the Mexican border illegally. For that reason, his script also examines "how the system works and who are the people caught up in it and forced to do fraudulent things." Sultan Knish notes that like, Gavin Kossef, the Jewish South-African character who defrauds Immigration officials to get citizenship, Kramer is also a Jewish South-African. And Sultan Knish raises another point: It's also listed elsewhere that Kramer had malaria back in South Africa. Is malaria a condition that bars immigrants? Did he lie about it? Is Wayne Kramer "Gavin"? Did he fraudulently obtain citizenship? If so, his citizenship application can be re-opened and he can be stripped of it and deported. Based on this horrid PC movie, that would be just desserts. But don't hold your breath for ICE and CIS--the two largest Homeland Security agencies--to even care. Their "leadership" is too busy doing more important things, like recruiting new Muslim agents to honor-kill their sisters. Contact Michael Travis at michaelmgr@gmail.com To Go To Top TERRORIST CAUGHT RED-HANDED THEN RELEASED Posted by Marilyn Cytryn, August 10, 2007. Israel lets him go because he's on prime minister's amnesty list This was written by Aaron Klein and it comes from World Net Daily and is archived at http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57079 JERUSALEM -- Israel yesterday captured an Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades member while he was engaging in terror-supporting activity but let him go after it was determined he was on a list of wanted gunmen granted amnesty by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, WND has learned. Part of the amnesty deal required the 178 terrorists -- all of whom are members of the Brigades, the declared "military wing" of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah's organization -- to sign a document stating they will not engage in terrorist activity and that they would restrict their movements to the city in which they reside for three months. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades took responsibility along with Islamic Jihad for every suicide bombing in Israel the past three years. The amnesty agreement reportedly was made as an Israeli gesture to Abbas' and to bolster Fatah against Hamas in the West Bank. The incident in question occurred last night at 8:30 p.m. Jerusalem time when the Israel Defense Forces stopped what security sources said were four suspicious Palestinians entering the al-Badin checkpoint outside the northern West Bank city of Nablus.) Two Palestinians were immediately let go when it was determined they were civilians, but the two others -- known Brigades members -- were detained after they were found to be carrying large quantities of bullets security sources said were being smuggled from the city of Jenin to Nablus. According to security sources, the Brigades members normally reside in Nablus and had left the city and purchased the bullets in Jenin. They were captured upon trying to reenter Nablus. In line with the amnesty agreement, the one terrorist on the list had pledged to restrict his movements and remain in Nablus. The sources said the listed militant told the IDF repeatedly he was on Israel's amnesty list and that arresting him would "blow up" relations with the PA. After consulting with superiors, the IDF released the Brigades member on the amnesty list but arrested the other gunmen. Asked to comment, the IDF did not deny the incident: "We make our arrests in accordance with the directives of the political echelon and the different agreements with the PA," said an IDF spokesperson. An Israeli security official told WND this isn't the first time Brigades members granted amnesty violated their agreement to refrain from terrorism. He said the military is aware of one incident last month in which a Brigades gunman on the list shot at Israeli forces. "We now have a situation in which a terrorist organization has been given a get-out-of-jail-free card -- literally," the official fumed. Last month, Olmert granted amnesty to 178 Fatah militants who comprise much of the senior leadership of the Brigades. Israel issued documents for the Fatah fugitives to sign, pledging their resignation from any so-called paramilitary organizations and promising to refrain from terror activity. The wanted militants also were required to turn in their weapons, spend a week in a PA holding area and restrict their movements to the area in which they reside for three months. After a three-month period, they would be allowed to move freely throughout the West Bank. Since most wanted militants have been confined to their residential areas the past few years anyway due to the threat of Israeli operations, the deal effectively grants them freedom of movement for the first time. In exchange, Israel will not conduct anti-terror operations to capture the wanted militants. According to statements by Palestinian officials and reports by the media, most terrorists turned in their weapons in line with the deal. A widely circulated AP article this past weekend quoted a senior Palestinian security official stating "all but three Al Aqsa members have surrendered their weapons and sworn off violence, as part of the arrangement." But calls Monday to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades members who received amnesty yielded a much different story. Abu Yousuf, a senior leader of the Brigades in Ramallah, told WND most Brigades members turned in one of several pieces of weaponry they possess. He said most Brigades members have two to three guns, including one to two personal weapons and one assault rifle issued by the PA, since the majority of Brigades members are also members of Fatah's security forces. "It's true Brigades members turned in one of their weapons as a symbolic act, but they kept the others," he said. Yousuf is suspected of shooting at Israeli forces operating in Ramallah. He carried out a shooting attack in northern Samaria in December 2000 that killed Benyamin Kahane, leader of the nationalist Kahane Chai organization. Ala Senakreh, overall chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the West Bank and one of the terrorists granted amnesty, told WND the one weapon he turned in to the PA is "easily accessible." "It's close by and available to me anytime I need an additional weapon," he said. Senakreh said aside from "protecting" himself from Israel, weapons were also needed for protection from rival clans and members of Palestinian families of suspected "Israeli collaborators" killed in recent years by the Brigades. "We killed several collaborators, so now I am a walking target. What if one of the family members tries to take revenge?" he asked. Kamal Ranam, chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Ramallah, laughing, said he is still armed. Not all Brigades members even signed their amnesty deals. Nasser Abu Aziz, the No. 2 leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Senakreh's main deputy, told WND he will not sign the agreement, calling the deal "an Israeli trick." "I am sure this is part of an Israeli conspiracy against our fighters," Aziz said. Meanwhile, according to senior Palestinian officials, Olmert officials said the prime minister would strongly consider granting amnesty to 206 more Fatah gunmen, mostly Brigades members, who haven't yet officially received amnesty. Some of the 206 are senior Brigades commanders, but most are mid-level militants. Asked to confirm the report, David Baker, an Olmert spokesman, did not reply with an answer as of press time. Israeli diplomatic officials said amnesty wasn't yet granted to some of the 206 militants because of the militants' connections to the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. But seven senior terrorists granted amnesty by Olmert last month previously told WND on the record they serve as conduits for their terror group's relationship with Hezbollah, and, according to Israeli security officials, the most important Brigades leaders who serve as Hezbollah conduits already received amnesty. Won't 'look with a microscope' Regardless of whether Olmert grants amnesty to the remaining 206 militants, according to Palestinian officials the Israeli prime minister already has given de facto immunity to the entire Brigades terror group and to all Fatah fighters in the West Bank. "We were directly told Fatah fighters will not be targeted regardless of official amnesty," the Palestinian official said, speaking on condition his name be withheld. One senior Palestinian diplomat close to Abbas said officials from Olmert's office pledged to Palestinian leaders the Jewish state would not "look with a microscope" at whether Brigades members keep the agreement. "Olmert's team told us they will not look into the disarming process with a microscope for single problematic cases. They said they will look at the macro not the micro level. Israel said if some wanted guy was still acting (committing attacks against Israel), they won't explode everything just for that," said the diplomat, speaking on condition his name be withheld. Contact Marilyn Cytryn at amcytryn@netvision.net.il To Go To Top TERRORIST CAUGHT RED-HANDED THEN RELEASED Posted by Hillel Fendel, August 10, 2007. Shortly after 11 AM not far from the Old City of Jerusalem's Jaffa Gate, an Arab terrorist grabbed the gun of a guard in a building belonging to Yeshivat Ateret Cohanim. The Arab managed to shoot at the legs of the guard, while another guard opened fire and killed the Arab. Nine other passersby were hurt in the incident as well, some by bullet grazings and others as they fell while running away. The guard and two passersby sustained moderate wounds. The wounded were taken to two Jerusalem hospitals. Details of the incident were not immediately made clear, and reports of stabbing victims were circulating for a short while afterwards. Ateret Cohanim, headed by Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, was founded in 1978 in what is known as the Moslem Quarter in the heart of the Old City. It is located in the historic Torat Chaim Yeshiva on HaGai St., just opposite the Temple Mount. In its best years, the prestigious Torat Chaim Yeshiva had about 300 students from all over the world, including the late Rabbis Tzvi Pesach Frank, Tzvi Yehuda Kook, Yitzchak Herzog and Aryeh Levin. It was founded in 1886 by Rav Yitzchak Winongrad of Poland. The yeshiva was forced to disband in the wake of the 1936 Arab riots, and the building and its contents were entrusted to an Arab watchman who faithfully preserved it until the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967. The yeshiva was the only one of some 80 synagogues and yeshivot that was not destroyed by the Jordanians during their 19-year control of the Old City. Ateret Cohanim is now home to some 150 yeshiva students and also spearheads the return of Jews to their homes in the Moslem and Christian Quarters. Many of the students live in dormitories, apartments or small homes in these areas. Hillel Fendel is Senior News Editor at Arutz-Sheva To Go To Top FROM ISRAEL: OUR IDF Posted by Arlene Kushner, August 10, 2007. I want to return here to the issue of soldiers who refused to participate in evicting Hevron residents from the marketplace, Mitzpe Shalhevet. The story as it was widely presented, was that 30 soldiers refused, but when they were threatened with disciplinary action, some 20 relented. Those who remained adamant in their refusal were very swiftly disciplined -- they were jailed for 28 days and removed from their combat units. (Arutz Sheva says the numbers were much higher and that many were quietly reassigned to duty such as washing dishes and kept out of the eye of the media.) Following the incident, a rash of op-eds appeared that criticized the soldiers and lamented the break-down of essential discipline in the IDF: orders are orders and orders must be obeyed. If these soldiers can refuse orders here, went the thinking, other soldiers who don't want to participate in other actions -- don't want to serve in Judea and Samaria or go on forays into Gaza, whatever, will be inspired to similarly refuse and then everything will fall apart. But there is an essential fallacy in this thinking and another side to this story. The issue here is whether Jewish soldiers in the Israeli army should be enlisted to enforce a political decision that requires taking action against other Jews. The IDF is the "Israel defense force." Its role is to DEFEND Jews, and it should be asked only to act against our enemies. Involving the IDF in any other sort of action is illegitimate. Whether or not what was done in Hebron was itself either legal or moral, the sort of political operation that took place there should have been executed only by police. ~~~~~~~~~~ The soldiers who refused were almost all religious. There is a tremendous irony in that. For religious boys opt for combat units in greater proportions than other segments of our society. They make the best soldiers, in the main, because they are fiercely dedicated to the land and what they are defending. There is nothing slipshod or lackadaisical about their attitude towards being soldiers; statistics show them to be among the bravest and most competent. But what was being asked of these boys here went against the grain of their ideology: they were more than ready to defend Israel at any cost but not to evict Jews from their homes (or, I would add, to destroy or dismantle synagogues or religious houses of study). For the powers that be to persist in this approach is to demoralize some of the best soldiers we have. And that is downright stupid. There were, among the boys ordered to participate, some who live in Judea or Samaria. They know their families might be next. How can you ask them to participate without doing damage to their spirit? I understand there was even one soldier whose family had been evicted from Gush Katif. Where was the thinking, that he should have been ordered to help do this to others? I lay the blame here on the political leaders, beginning with Ariel Sharon. He set a precedent with the use of the IDF for the "disengagement." This tore the nation apart and had a tremendously negative effect on some of the soldiers who participated. I have placed on my website photos of soldiers crying -- in one case, an officer sobbing -- over what they were told to do in Gush Katif. Please, take a minute to look at these photos: click here. Then ask yourself if -- aside from it being inhumane -- a policy that promotes this response is a smart policy when we are a beleaguered nation and must have a strong, motivated and invigorated defense force at the ready. I understand that our weak performance in Lebanon last summer was partly because of how the soldiers had been used in Gush Katif. There was the factor of demoralization, but also a lack of preparation because soldiers had been trained for evacuation of Jews instead of defense. The situation was so egregious that money was dedicated to such things as special new uniforms for some of the forces going into Gush Katif, but supplies were lacking a year later for those going into Lebanon to defend the nation. The people in charge who set up this scenario had lost their way, their vision of what we are about. Painfully, painfully is this so. For the dimwits that are in charge now to continue this policy, when it's clear that we face difficult days ahead, is indefensible (excuse the pun). I applaud those who had the courage to say "no." It's time for us to recall who we are and what we are about, before it's too late. Still more to follow on this and related subjects after Shabbat. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info To Go To Top PALESTINIAN ISSUE -- THE CRUX OF THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT? Posted by Yoram Ettinger, August 10, 2007. This is Straight from the Jerusalem Cloakroom $205 US policy-makers have contended that the establishment of a Palestinian State would resolve the Palestinian issue, which is -- supposedly -- the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Really? 1. The 1948/9 War was conducted, by the Arab countries at the expense of Palestinian aspirations, in order to occupy the strategic sliver along the Mediterranean. Egypt conquered the Gaza Strip, prohibiting Palestinian national activities, expelling Palestinian leadership. Iraq occupied Samaria, transferring it to Jordan, which occupied Judea, annexing both Judea & Samaria to the Hashemite Kingdom, and coining the term "West Bank." Syria occupied and annexed the Hama area in the Golan Heights. The Arab League outlawed a provisional Palestinian government. 2. The 1956 (Sinai) War was triggered by Egyptian-sponsored Palestinian terrorism (intended to assert Egyptian control of the Negev), by the Egyptian-French-British conflict over the Suez Canal and by Egyptian support of anti-French elements in North Africa. 3. The 1967 (Six Day) War erupted in response to Egypt's blockade of Israel's southern (oil and commerce) waterway, Egypt's violation of the Sinai demilitarization, the Egypt-Syria-Jordan Military Pact, aimed at Israel's destruction, Syrian shelling of Israeli communities below the Golan Heights and Jordanian shelling of Jerusalem. Israel's 1967 control of Gaza ended a nightly curfew in Gaza, which was imposed by Egypt, in order to prevent Palestinian national activity. 4. The 1969-70 War of attrition along the Suez Canal took place irrespective of the Palestinian issue. 5. The 1973 War (the most recent Arab-Israel war) was initiated by Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq, independent of the Palestinian issue. 6. The 1982 PLO-Israel War in Lebanon (pre-empting a grand scale PLO assault on northern Israel) was not transformed into an Arab-Israeli war. The Arab League delayed its emergency session for 2.5 months until the PLO was expelled from Beirut! Arabs shed much pro-Palestinian rhetoric -- not blood -- for Palestinians! 7. The 1987-1992 First Intifada was not transformed into an Arab-Israeli war. No Arab military-financial support; only rhetoric. 8. The 1994-2007 Oslo-triggered Palestinian terrorism has not been transformed into an Arab-Israeli war. US and W. Europe financial aid to the PA has exceeded Arab aid! 9. The Arab-Israeli conflict was not triggered by the Palestinian issue. The Palestinian issue has not been the "crown Jewel" of the Arabs. A Palestinian State would undermine vital US interests: exacerbating global terrorism, dooming the Hashemite and Persian Gulf moderate regimes, promoting radical regimes, providing a Mediterranean platform to Iran, Russia and China and intensifying oppression of Palestinian Christians. Ambassador Yoram Ettinger is a consultant on US-Israel relations as well as the Chairman of Special Projects at the Ariel Center for Policy Research. Formerly the Minister for Congressional Affairs to Israel's Embassy in Washington, DC, Ettinger also served as Consul General of Israel to the Southwestern US. He is a former editor of Contemporary Mideast Backgrounder, and is the author of the Jerusalem Cloakroom series of reports. Contact him at yoramtex@netvision.net.il To Go To Top BUSH'S KRUPKE MOMENTS Posted by Michael Travis, August 10, 2007. Finally! What we hear on a daily basis "outside" of the USA, is getting some press within the Republic. Taking the Ubber-Liberal, Anti-Israel/Hate traditional America stance has been the hallmark of this Administration since day one. Unfortunately the MSM� has heavily censored news reports made available to our citizens. Now, apply a little critical thinking to the "conditions that cause 19 kids to be lured onto airplanes" statement. As we all know, the "root cause" of all problems on this Earth is..........THE JOOZ and IZREAL!!!!!!!!! That's the code that Bush, Baker, Condi, Powell & Co. have been speaking all along. This was posted by Michael McAuliff yesterday in the New York Daily News (http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2007/08/bushs_krupke_moments.html). Right: Mohamed "kid" Atta The neo-cons hate such talk but President President Bush did it for at least the fifth time today, as he went off on the root causes and sociology and such behind the "19 kids" who hijacked the planes on 9/11. At his White House news conference, Bush said "It matters to the security of people here at home if we don't work to change the conditions that cause 19 kids to be lured onto airplanes to come and murder our citizens." Last April 20, in East Grand Rapids, Mich., Bush said "I happen to believe that, kind of, managing stability doesn't address the root cause of the problems that caused 19 kids to get on an airplane and kill 3,000 of our citizens." He made similar comments in Ohio, Georgia and California. Which leads The Mouth to believe that, kind of, it sounds a lot like what the "Jets" sang about hapless "Officer Krupke" in "West Side Story:" Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke, You gotta understand, It's just our bringin' up-ke That gets us out of hand. Comments Depends On The Definition Of ... -- by: sarabeth 10 hours ago ... people here at home if we don't work to change the conditions that cause 19 kids to be lured onto airplanes to come and murder our citizens. (Kids? Your Presidentiality, Mohammed Atta was 33 when he plowed that plane into the WTC.) ... 1115.org -- http://www.1115.org "Forces of Moderation, Reasonableness and Good" 9 hours ago by The Reverend It matters to the security of people here at home if we don't work to change the conditions that cause 19 kids to be lured onto airplanes to come and murder our citizens. Pay close attention to the words chosen by this president. ... Blog of Mass Destruction -- http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/blog_mass_destruction Just Another Vacation from Reality by Eugene Robinson 1 hour ago by Snuffysmith Bush said we have to stay in Iraq to "change the conditions that caused 19 kids to be lured onto airplanes to come and murder our citizens" -- and that's the heart of the matter. Forget for a moment that Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do ... Snuffysmith's Blog -- http://snuffysmithsblog.blogspot.com/ JUST SOME KIDS WHO WERE LURED ON AN AIRPLANE hours ago by Mary Ellen It matters to the security of people here at home if we don't work to change the conditions that cause 19 kids to be lured onto airplanes to come and murder our citizens. Excuse me? 19 KIDS??? Lured onto planes? ... THE DIVINE DEMOCRAT -- http://divinedem.blogspot.com/ On his game 21 hours ago by nuke It matters to the security of people here at home if we don't work to change the conditions that cause 19 kids to be lured onto airplanes to come and murder our citizens. The first question one has to ask on Iraq is, is it worth it? ... Nuke's news and views -- http://nukegingrich.wordpress.com Accountability 9 Aug 2007 by The Heretik ... Al Gonzales, and the Iraqi government and turn that into a declamation on the need for the universality of freedom and conditions that caused 19 kids to be lured onto airplanes to come and murder our citizens. ... The Heretik -- http://theheretik.us -- References Horseman Pass By10 hours ago by Dan Walter As Eugene Robinson points out in the Washington Post, "Bush said we have to stay in Iraq to "change the conditions that caused 19 kids to be lured onto airplanes to come and murder our citizens." "The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it...in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah." -- OSAMA bin LADEN -- 1998 "Say to those who disbelieve: You shall be vanquished, and driven together to hell; and evil is the resting-place. (Qur'an 3:12) And guard yourselves against the fire which has been prepared for the unbelievers." (Qur'an 3:131) Contact Michael Travis at michaelmgr@gmail.com To Go To Top GOV'T KOWTOWS TO 'PEACE NOW' TO THROW JEWS OUT FROM THE HOLY CITY OF HEBRON Posted by Bryna Berch, August 10, 2007. The Arab-aiding Peace Now will not be content until they kick the last Jew out of the holy city of Hebron. Why are they focused on Hebron? Hebron was Israel's first holy city, before King David made Jerusalem his capitol. So naturally they want to destroy the connection of Jewry with Hebron. Meantime they are also working to disbar Jews from more and more areas in Jerusalem -- they claim that the Arab squatters -- the Arabs who came in from Sudan and Egypt and Yemen when Jordan controlled eastern Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967 -- who are living tax-free and rent-free in Jewish property are the "real owners." And that property includes the Temple Mount, which they treat as their own. They are systematically destroying Jewish artefacts on the site of the Jewish Temple. Moreover, with the help of a lily-livered government that is more afraid of Peace Now than they are of their patriotic citizens, the Arabs prevent Jews from praying there. What I don't understand is why the Israeli populace isn't up in arms. Can you image what would happen if outsiders tried to chase the Arabs out of Mecca or Medina? Come to think of it, Medina was a Jewish town before it was conquered by Mohammad's troops. Now that the Arabs will be able to illegally take over Hebron, thanks to the connivance of the Peace Now organization, it would be only fair to give Medina back to the Jews as a place for the Jews of Hebron to live. Whatcha think? This is called "More Eviction Notices in Hevron" and was written by Ezra HaLevi. It appeared yesterday in Arutz Sheva (www.IsraelNationalNews.com). On the heels of the forced eviction of two Jewish families from Hevron's Shalhevet neighborhood -- four more Hevron families living in the area have received eviction notices. In response to a petition by Peace Now, Israel's Civil Administration has issued expulsion orders against four Jewish-held storefronts in the "triangle" marketplace area of the city, located in close proximity to the area where two Jewish families were expelled by the IDF on Tuesday. Like the wholesale market, the triangle marketplace was built by Hevron's Arabs on top of the ruins of the city's Jewish Quarter after the city's Arabs murdered nearly all Jewish residents during the 1929 pogroms. "Two years ago, the IDF, guided by the military prosecutor and state prosecutor, drafted a defense plan for Hevron's Jewish community, whose aim was to reduce to a minimum the number of closed Palestinian stores in the area of the Jewish community while minimizing the danger to the Jews' security. The plan was approved by all the professional and political echelons and was presented to the Supreme Court. The stores that Peace Now is now seeking our eviction from, are part of the tiny number of stores that will never be opened -- in which six Jewish families now live." The Jewish Community of Hevron has appealed the expulsion orders, and a hearing on the matter will be heard in two weeks. Until then, the order is on hold. Rabbi Ordered to Vacate Hevron With Trailer Rabbi Danny Cohen, a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary to Hevron, received an eviction notice demanding he remove his mobile prayer structure from the city, WorldNetDaily reports. Cohen teaches Torah and organizes prayer quorums for Hevron residents from his mobile trailer, which he parks in Hevron's Jewish neighborhood. He told Shturem.net, a Chabad news site, "We were compelled to buy this mobile unit because it is forbidden to erect new structures in Hevron and now they want us to move his too. "In Hebron one can witness outright discrimination. While Arabs have been building as much as they want, Jews are forbidden to build even the smallest structure. This mobile unit is not a permanent building and still the authorities ordered the emissaries not to use it in the city," Cohen said. Activists to Visit Hevron, Show Support A "Chizuk" (strengthening) trip to Hevron is planned for Friday, coordinated by the Women in Green movement. "We must go to our brothers and sisters in Hevron, give them support and say to them: 'We are with you,'" a Women in Green statement reads. Activists plan to go to the city's Avraham Avinu neighborhood with cakes for the adults and candies and toys for the children. Convoys of private vehicles will set out at 9 AM from the parking lot at the Gush Etzion Junction. For more information, call 050 577-7254. To Go To Top FBI: CAIR PART OF MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD ORGANIZATION Posted by America's Truth Forum, August 10, 2007. This comes from American Congress for Truth, P.O. Box 6884 Virginia Beach, VA 23456. Contact them at member@americancongressfortruth.org or at their website -- http://www.americancongressfortruth.org In testimony Tuesday, FBI Agent Lara Burns reported before the jury in the Holy Land Foundation trial that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was listed as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee, right alongside HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine, and the United Association for Studies and Research. Agent Burns further testified that CAIR received money from HLF -- a claim that Nihad Awad blatantly denied in a congressional testimony in September of 2003. Burns also said that both Omar Ahmed and Nihad Awad, CAIR co-founders who today serve as CAIR's chairman emeritus and executive director, respectively, were also listed as individual members the Brotherhood's Palestine Committee in America. Awad and Ahmed are further connected to the Palestine Committee based on their positions as president and public relations director of the IAP, a Hamas front group that was responsible for the dissemination of propaganda, and has since been closed down as a result of a multi-million dollar civil judgment in a trial involving the murder of an American teenager by Hamas terrorists. CAIR, which touts itself as America's premier Muslim civil rights organization, was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial. Burns' testimony so far has placed both Ahmed and Awad at a 1993 Philadelphia meeting where the Hamas members and supporters discussed a strategy to kill the Oslo Peace Accords, which threatened to marginalize Hamas. The group also discussed ways to improve Hamas fundraising in America. Government testimony regarding the role of CAIR reflects the prosecution's attempt to prove that the Hamas network in America was established through the Palestine Committee, or what the indictment called "a sub-group of active Muslim Brotherhood members of Palestinian origin." The leader of this Committee was Musa Abu Marzook, a Specially Designated Terrorist since 1995, and Hamas' current Deputy Political Bureau Chief. Through this committee, a number of organizations were established to promote Hamas politically and financially, including HLF, IAP and UASR. What is the Palestine Committee In 1988, the head of the Palestine Section (a.k.a. the Palestine Body) of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Levant came to America, where he met with fellow Muslim Brothers and established the Palestine Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood in America. This is revealed in a 1991 letter seized from the home of unindicted co-conspirator Ismail Elbarasse. An October 1992 internal memo (also seized from Elbarrasse's home) explains: Palestine is the one for which Muslim Brotherhood prepared armies -- made up from the children of Islam in the Arab and Islamic nations to liberate its land from the abomination and the defilement of the children of the Jews and they watered its pure soil with their honorable blood which sprouted into a jihad that is continuing until the Day of Resurrection and provided a zeal without relenting making the slogan of its children "it is a Jihad for victory or martyrdom." The Palestine Section of this memo explains the founding of the Section and notes that Palestine Committees were being established all over the world: At the end of the seventies, the Shamm [Levant] Countries Movement opened a new section which was called "The Palestine Section" to oversee the affairs of the Ikhwan inside the Occupied Territories. It was considered the liaison between the followers of the Movement inside and outside. In the beginning of the eighties, the Islamic action for Palestine experienced distinguished leaps. At the inside level, groups and apparatuses were formed to confront the Zionist enemy and they carried different names then such as "The Palestinian Mujahedeen" and other names. At the outside level, a number of associations, Islamic youths and students unions were formed to ally [sic] the masses in order to render the Palestinian cause victorious. The memo calls on the Palestine Committees, to work to "increase the financial and the moral support for Hamas" to "fight surrendering solutions," and to publicize and focus on "the savagery of the Jews." The amended bylaws attached to the 1991 letter explains that the Palestine Committee in America will be composed of the heads of the following organizations and committees: 1. Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) 2. Occupied Land Fund (OLF, which later changed its name to the HLF) 3. United Association for Studies and Research (UASR) 4. Rehabilitation and Coordination Committee 5. Political Work and Foreign Relations Committee 6. Money and Investments Committee CAIR was not created until 1994 which explains why it is not listed here. The remarks at the end of the bylaws note that the International Shura Council (leadership council) directed them to achieve eight goals. Among them were: -"Collecting of donations for the Islamic Resistance Movement from the Ikhwan and others." -"Bringing to the media light the case of [HAMAS founder] Sheik Ahmad Yasin and his ailing condition." -"Making use of what relationships the Ikhwan have in all fields and gatherings to serve the cause." Additionally, the internal memo notes that the president of IAP was a member of a section affiliated with the executive council. This establishes that these organizations, including IAP, were members of the Palestine Committee established by the Muslim Brotherhood, and that their leaders sat on the Committee. In another development yesterday, prosecutors introduced a wiretap conversation between defendants Shukri Abu Bakr and Ghassan Elashi, in which they discussed IPT Executive Director Steven Emerson. Emerson first uncovered the ties between HLF and HAMAS in his 1994 PBS documentary, Jihad in America. In the Aug. 2, 1995 call, Abu Bakr and Elashi discuss a Dallas Morning News editorial concerning U.S. plans to extradite Hamas political leader Musa Abu Marzook, who had been arrested while entering the country at John F. Kennedy airport in New York on an Israeli request that he face murder charges there. Elashi reads from the editorial, which called for Marzook to be deported, but not to Israel. To release him, the editorial said, would send a message that America offers refuge to terrorists. According to a government transcript of the call, Elashi invokes Emerson's name after the editorial: "Sadly, Arab and Islamic organizations in America are perceiving the action against Mr. Marzook as 'anti-Islam' and 'anti-Arab.'" "He says 'sadly,'" Elashi repeats. "Doesn't that bring you to Steven Emerson?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah," Abu Bakr responds. "Don't be surprised if Steven Emerson is the one who wrote it." Elashi also expresses concern that the Morning News "is referring to us in a way or another" when it mentions the FBI has noted terrorist cells were operating in North Texas. The trial continues Wednesday with the cross examination of Agent Burns by defendant Abdulrahman Odeh's lawyer. Contact America's Truth Forum by email at staff@americastruthforum.com To Go To Top LEFTIST SUBVERSION IN ISRAEL; EVEN WHEN CONGRESS MEANS WELL; ISRAELI BRUTALITY REWARDED Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 10, 2007. YOUTH GANGS IN ISRAEL A politician named Burg brought into Israel masses of gentiles from the former USSR (many, antisemitic) and from Ethiopia. They now form 60% of the underage prisoners in Israel. Burg has left Israel, which he says should be destroyed. Apparently, anti-Jewish immigration was his contribution to bringing down the Jewish state. Yossi Sarid did his share. His Far Left party, Meretz, appointed an Arab to the Jewish National Fund (JNF, to which Jews donated money to buy land in the Jewish homeland in behalf of the Jewish people). Now he is calling for a strike against the JNF unless it gives land to the Arabs, which would defraud the Jewish people of its donations. The JNF recently allowed Arabs to build illegally on land in Jerusalem owned by Jews but which Peres advocates be given away to the Arabs. Thus Israel creates anti-Zionist "facts on the ground." The same leftist group releases hundreds of terrorists, although they know that a significant proportion resume terrorism (Barry Chamish, 8/1.) Formerly, the figure cited for recidivism was 50%, but now the figure quoted is 17%. In any case, since those Jewish leaders act destructively towards Israel in other ways, and they know that releasing prisoners does much harm and no good, perhaps they release prisoners for the same reason, to undermine Zionism. US Jewry mistakenly supposes that its leaders and Israel's are pro-Jewish. HAMAS VS FATAH Hamas still is arresting members of the Fatah in Gaza; Fatah still is arresting members of Hamas in Judea-Samaria (IMRA, 7/21). Sometimes Israel releases lesser prisoners or prisoners from certain factions. Recently, however, it released leaders of Fatah and of Fatah-affiliated PFLP. The released PFLP) leader condemned the releases as discriminatory and as unfair because Israel sets the criteria for release (IMRA, 7/21). See that what Israel calls goodwill gestures invoke ill will? Israel was just being prudent before (before PM Olmert released high-level terrorists, thereby reviving their slowed-down organizations). Under no obligation to release any, Israel has a right to decide which it is safest to release. Under international law, it is obliged not to release them. Terrorist leaders have no right to demand anything. Both Hamas and Fatah want Israel to free terrorist prisoners. Perhaps Israel should. Let it send Fatah prisoners to Gaza, and then when Hamas is done with them, send Hamas prisoners to Judea-Samaria. It would save Israel a lot of money and grief. Unfortunately, Israel's government seems to solicit grief. YOUTH GANGS IN ISRAEL A politician named Burg brought into Israel masses of gentiles from the former USSR (many, antisemitic) and from Ethiopia. They now form 60% of the underage prisoners in Israel. Burg has left Israel, which he says should be destroyed. Apparently, anti-Jewish immigration was his contribution to bringing down the Jewish state. Yossi Sarid did his share. His Far Left party, Meretz, appointed an Arab to the Jewish National Fund (JNF, to which Jews donated money to buy land in the Jewish homeland in behalf of the Jewish people). Now he is calling for a strike against the JNF unless it gives land to the Arabs, which would defraud the Jewish people of its donations. The JNF recently allowed Arabs to build illegally on land in Jerusalem owned by Jews but which Peres advocates be given away to the Arabs. Thus Israel creates anti-Zionist "facts on the ground." The same leftist group releases hundreds of terrorists, although they know that a significant proportion resume terrorism (Barry Chamish, 8/1.) Formerly, the figure cited for recidivism was 50%, but now the figure quoted is 17%. In any case, since those Jewish leaders act destructively towards Israel in other ways, and they know that releasing prisoners does much harm and no good, perhaps they release prisoners for the same reason, to undermine Zionism. US Jewry mistakenly supposes that its leaders and Israel's are pro-Jewish. HAMAS VS FATAH Hamas still is arresting members of the Fatah in Gaza; Fatah still is arresting members of Hamas in Judea-Samaria (IMRA, 7/21). Sometimes Israel releases lesser prisoners or prisoners from certain factions. Recently, however, it released leaders of Fatah and of Fatah-affiliated PFLP. The released PFLP) leader condemned the releases as discriminatory and as unfair because Israel sets the criteria for release (IMRA, 7/21). See that what Israel calls goodwill gestures invoke ill will? Israel was just being prudent before (before PM Olmert released high-level terrorists, thereby reviving their slowed-down organizations). Under no obligation to release any, Israel has a right to decide which it is safest to release. Under international law, it is obliged not to release them. Terrorist leaders have no right to demand anything. Both Hamas and Fatah want Israel to free terrorist prisoners. Perhaps Israel should. Let it send Fatah prisoners to Gaza, and then when Hamas is done with them, send Hamas prisoners to Judea-Samaria. It would save Israel a lot of money and grief. Unfortunately, Israel's government seems to solicit grief. INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS Federation representatives visited the P.A.. It then lectured the Muslims and the Israelis on their duties to the Arabs. It did not suggest to the Muslims that they cease terrorism against Jews (IMRA, 7/21). Its demands in the name of ethics are hypocritical. It doesn't care about human rights, but only about helping Muslims (do what, conquer Jews?). EVEN WHEN CONGRESS MEANS WELL Members of Congress find the Administration's rationale for the arms sale to S. Arabia and the arms gift to Egypt and Israel unconvincing. They doubt that the conventional weapons would deter Iran from continuing to develop nuclear weapons. They suggest that the weapons be defensive only. Defense Dept. officials point out (correctly) that there is no such thing. Sec. Rice said the US is working with those states to support "moderation and reform." PM Olmert supports the deal, out of solidarity with the US against Iran and for moderation. In defense against (but note, not in denial of) accusations that S. Arabia finances opponents of the Iraqi regime, Rice said that S. Arabia helps keep terrorists from entering Iraq. What arms are being offered? The US won't say, yet. A Congressional aide said the deal includes for Egypt the AIM-9X missiles, which Israel previously had lobbied the US against sending to Egypt, lest it shift the military balance (Mark Manzetti & Helene Cooper, NY Times, 7/31). The US works with moderate regimes? It refuses to sell Israel the Stealth bomber. S. Arabia promotes war against the US and Israel, and the new missiles it would get would enable it to fire accurately at Israel, which admits it has no defense against it (IMRA, 8/1 from ZOA). Even when Congress means well, it is bemused with erroneous notions of moderates and defensive weapons. Iran's non-nuclear weapons are a menace to the region. The US has tried to shift the balance against Israel. EGYPT FINALLY PROPOSES TO STOP ARMS SMUGGLING For months, IMRA pointed out that all Egypt had to do to stop arms smuggling was demolish the houses, that can conceal tunnels, up to 500 meters from the border. Egypt did demolish houses up to 50 meters from it. Finally, Egypt announced a compensation package for the Bedouin living up to 150 meters away. The Bedouin complained about the amount offered and rioted (IMRA, 7/22, 8/1). INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS Federation representatives visited the P.A.. It then lectured the Muslims and the Israelis on their duties to the Arabs. It did not suggest to the Muslims that they cease terrorism against Jews (IMRA, 7/21). Its demands in the name of ethics are hypocritical. It doesn't care about human rights, but only about helping Muslims (do what, conquer Jews?). EVEN WHEN CONGRESS MEANS WELL Members of Congress find the Administration's rationale for the arms sale to S. Arabia and the arms gift to Egypt and Israel unconvincing. They doubt that the conventional weapons would deter Iran from continuing to develop nuclear weapons. They suggest that the weapons be defensive only. Defense Dept. officials point out (correctly) that there is no such thing. Sec. Rice said the US is working with those states to support "moderation and reform." PM Olmert supports the deal, out of solidarity with the US against Iran and for moderation. In defense against (but note, not in denial of) accusations that S. Arabia finances opponents of the Iraqi regime, Rice said that S. Arabia helps keep terrorists from entering Iraq. What arms are being offered? The US won't say, yet. A Congressional aide said the deal includes for Egypt the AIM-9X missiles, which Israel previously had lobbied the US against sending to Egypt, lest it shift the military balance (Mark Manzetti & Helene Cooper, NY Times, 7/31). The US works with moderate regimes? It refuses to sell Israel the Stealth bomber. S. Arabia promotes war against the US and Israel, and the new missiles it would get would enable it to fire accurately at Israel, which admits it has no defense against it (IMRA, 8/1 from ZOA). Even when Congress means well, it is bemused with erroneous notions of moderates and defensive weapons. Iran's non-nuclear weapons are a menace to the region. The US has tried to shift the balance against Israel. EGYPT FINALLY PROPOSES TO STOP ARMS SMUGGLING For months, IMRA pointed out that all Egypt had to do to stop arms smuggling was demolish the houses, that can conceal tunnels, up to 500 meters from the border. Egypt did demolish houses up to 50 meters from it. Finally, Egypt announced a compensation package for the Bedouin living up to 150 meters away. The Bedouin complained about the amount offered and rioted (IMRA, 7/22, 8/1). HAMAS RECRUITING, ARMING, & TRAINING It now has 13,000 troops in Gaza (Arutz-7, 7/22). It builds up its army, while Israel's leaders say that that front is quiet, as if the danger from there is not growing. The danger is growing, though quietly. PM OLMERT CONTRADICTS HIMSELF PM Olmert still claims that Israel cannot hold onto the Territories, lest the Arab population swamp it. That fear has been proved groundless. The demographic statistics cited have been disproved. Dr. Aaron Lerner points out that in any case, if the Arabs had autonomy, they would not vote in Israel, so would not pose a demographic threat. Meanwhile, Olmert is letting into Judea-Samaria Palestinian Arabs from Iraq (Arutz-7, 7/22). He often refrains from raiding the Arabs, lest their hostile civilians get hurt, and does not defend against their missile attempts to kill his innocent civilians. U.S. UNIONS DENOUNCE BRITISH BOYCOTT A British university union resolved to boycott Israeli universities. The American labor unions denounce that boycott. They recognize it as simply defaming Israel, in the guise of advancing human rights (IMRA, 7/22). Good for American unions! The Arabs repress human rights severely. Why don't the British unions boycott the Arabs? If those unions don't know of this repression, how free are they that they are so uninformed? Most people are uninformed about Israel's real repression of human rights, the rights of its Jews. However, that wouldn't interest Britain's leftist unions. POLICE BRUTALITY REWARDED The Jerusalem Post headline, "Court okays promotion of police officer who insulted settlers," is misleading. He was filmed urging his subordinate to beat up protestors against Jewish outpost demolition in Judea-Samaria. The headline should have stated his worst offense, promoting brutality. Police again removed their name tags, confiscated camera chips, and beat protestors, recently, saying any complainant should identify the offending officers (IMRA, 7/24) HAMAS RECRUITING, ARMING, & TRAINING It now has 13,000 troops in Gaza (Arutz-7, 7/22). It builds up its army, while Israel's leaders say that that front is quiet, as if the danger from there is not growing. The danger is growing, though quietly. PM OLMERT CONTRADICTS HIMSELF PM Olmert still claims that Israel cannot hold onto the Territories, lest the Arab population swamp it. That fear has been proved groundless. The demographic statistics cited have been disproved. Dr. Aaron Lerner points out that in any case, if the Arabs had autonomy, they would not vote in Israel, so would not pose a demographic threat. Meanwhile, Olmert is letting into Judea-Samaria Palestinian Arabs from Iraq (Arutz-7, 7/22). He often refrains from raiding the Arabs, lest their hostile civilians get hurt, and does not defend against their missile attempts to kill his innocent civilians. U.S. UNIONS DENOUNCE BRITISH BOYCOTT A British university union resolved to boycott Israeli universities. The American labor unions denounce that boycott. They recognize it as simply defaming Israel, in the guise of advancing human rights (IMRA, 7/22). Good for American unions! The Arabs repress human rights severely. Why don't the British unions boycott the Arabs? If those unions don't know of this repression, how free are they that they are so uninformed? Most people are uninformed about Israel's real repression of human rights, the rights of its Jews. However, that wouldn't interest Britain's leftist unions. POLICE BRUTALITY REWARDED The Jerusalem Post headline, "Court okays promotion of police officer who insulted settlers," is misleading. He was filmed urging his subordinate to beat up protestors against Jewish outpost demolition in Judea-Samaria. The headline should have stated his worst offense, promoting brutality. Police again removed their name tags, confiscated camera chips, and beat protestors, recently, saying any complainant should identify the offending officers (IMRA, 7/24) Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top HUNDREDS OF RABBIS SLAM OLMERT AS 'ANTI-JEWISH' Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), August 10, 2007. After destruction of synagogues, yeshiva, removal of Jews near holiest sites This was written by Aaron Klein and appeared on World Net Daily (WND) (http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57084) JERUSALEM -- group of hundreds of prominent Israeli rabbis today issued a statement calling Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's recent actions "anti-Jewish" and "hostile to Judaism." The rabbis were referring to a series of moves the past week in which the prime minister directed his security forces to bulldoze a synagogue near Judaism's third holiest site, destroy another synagogue near Judaism's second holiest site, boot a rabbi and his mobile yeshiva from Hebron -- the world's oldest Jewish city -- and forcibly remove two Jewish families from a Hebron Jewish market. Olmert's actions are "anti-Jewish and hostile to Judaism in spite of the fact that he speaks Hebrew and dwells in the Land of the Patriarchs," read a statement by the Rabbinical Congress for Peace, a coalition of more than 350 Israeli rabbinic leaders and pulpit rabbis. One of the synagogues destroyed this week was constructed so Jews can pray at Joseph's Tomb, Judaism's third holiest site, believed to be the burial place of the biblical patriarch Joseph -- the son of Jacob who was sold by his brothers into slavery and later became the viceroy of Egypt. The other synagogue, the mobile yeshiva and the two Jewish families were located near Hebron's Tomb of the Patriarchs, the second holiest site in Judaism and the believed resting place of the biblical patriarchs and matriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah. The rabbis commented: "Our Sages tell us that there are three places in Israel that absolutely no one can contest its legal Jewish ownership because the Bible clearly records the sale and purchase of these places by Jews. One is the area around the Cave of the Patriarchs as written in Genesis 23:16-18: "And Abraham weighed out to Ephron the money that he had mentioned -- four hundred silver shekalim in negotiable currency. And Ephron's field and the cave within it and all the trees in the field, within all its surrounding boundaries, was confirmed as Abraham's purchase." The second place is Joseph's Tomb; as written in Genesis 33:19, "For one hundred kesitah. And Jacob bought the parcel of the field from the children of Hamor." The third is the Temple Mount; as recorded in Chronicles 1: 21:25, "David gave Ornan for the place gold shekels weighing six hundred." "How ironic and painful it is that precisely these three places that the nations of the world never thought of wresting from Jews, the Jews by their own volition give it up and say it belongs to the Arabs," the rabbis said. The rabbis reference to the Temple Mount was in response to rules imposed by the Israeli government that restrict non-Muslim visits to the site to certain hours on weekdays and deem illegal any Jewish or Christian prayer on the site. Muslims visits to the Temple Mount are largely unrestricted, and they can pray in any of the site's major mosques. Olmert's government earlier this week mobilized 3,000 soldiers who forcibly evicted two Jewish families from a Jewish market in Hebron. The government maintains the families' residency in Hebron was illegal, since their arrival wasn't coordinated with the Israeli military. The families say they moved in after the military reneged on an agreement. The families' eviction was widely regarded in Israel as the opening salvo of more planned major evacuations of Jews living in the West Bank's biblical Jewish communities. The structure, now converted to small, two-story apartments, was built in 1929 after Arab riots temporarily forced Jews from Hebron -- the first time the city was without a Jewish presence in over 2,500 years. For more than 30 years, a sign was posted on the market boasting in Arabic that the structure was built on stolen Jewish property. Arab merchants illegally set up shop at the market but were asked by the Israel Defense Forces to leave after a series of clashes broke out in the mid-1990s. Even though the market was stolen by the Arabs, Hebron's Jewish community purchased the market from its original Arab occupants in 2001. In January 2006, Jewish families took up occupancy to strengthen Jewish ties to the area following the murder of an infant by a Palestinian sniper, yards away from the market. The market, integrated within the Hebron Jewish community, is adjacent to several Jewish apartments and Jewish municipal buildings. It is not located in an Arab neighborhood. It doesn't require any additional protection from IDF soldiers already patrolling the area. Despite the original property owners' recent signing over of the market to Hebron's Jewish community, as well as Israel's Supreme Court ruling that the structure was Jewish-owned, the government considers the occupancy of the marketplace illegal, saying families living inside did not negotiate their arrival with the IDF. Following a standoff with the army last year, the Jews who had moved into the market decided to leave, reportedly after receiving promises from military officials they could return a few months later, after the court systems -- which deemed the property Jewish -- worked with the IDF to verify the legality of the Jewish residence. But Israel's attorney general overturned the Supreme Court decision and declared the residents cannot move in. Still, two Jewish families recently moved back. Israeli security forces removed them Monday. Aside from evicting the two Jewish families, Israeli forces, acting on orders from the government, destroyed a synagogue in the area, since the structure was not built with a government permit. Israel also ordered a rabbi out of Hebron because his mobile yeshiva was not Last week, Israeli forces also destroyed a synagogue near Joseph's Tomb, Judaism's third holiest site, since that synagogue, like the one in Hebron, was built without a government permit. While rampant illegal construction in Arab sections of Hebron remains largely unregulated, the Israeli government strictly enforces construction regulations in the city's Jewish sections, which are cordoned off to about 25 percent of Hebron's territory; the rest of Hebron is Arab. Olmert's decision to single out for evacuation two Jewish families living in Jewish sections of Hebron has been called into question by religious leaders here. WND previously revealed the Israeli government has allowed Palestinians and the United Nations to build illegally on hundreds of acres of Jewish-owned lands in Jerusalem purchased by the Jewish National Fund, a U.S.-based Jewish organization, using Jewish donors funds solicited for the purpose of Jewish settlement. Tens of thousands of Palestinians live on the Jewish-owned Jerusalem land, which was recently isolated from Jewish sections of Jerusalem by Israel's security barrier. WND also previously reported the city of Jerusalem, under orders from Olmert, deleted files documenting hundreds of illegal Arab building projects throughout eastern sections of Jerusalem housing tens of thousands of Palestinians, according to a report by the Jerusalem Forum, which promotes Jewish construction in the city. Sergio Tessa can be reached at Hadar-Israel@verizon.net. To Go To Top BRIBERY SUSPECTED IN HAMAS SALARY SCANDAL Posted by Bryna Berch, August 9, 2007. So get this. Israel unfreezes PLO money and gives it to the "good" terrorists -- that's Abbas and Fatah this month. And somehow the money grows legs and hops over to the "bad" terrorists, Hamas. And we've been told time and again these guys hate each other. Yet the money winds up where it wasn't supposed to. "It was promised to Israel that the money would not reach Hamas," wailed an Israeli official. The Israeli gov't must have an I.Q. of 60 -- collectively. Or they think we do. This was written by Ali Waked and it appeared in Ynet News http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3435777,00.html Bribery suspected in Hamas salary scandal Senior employee at the Palestinian Authority Finance Ministry arrested on suspicion of accepting Hamas bribes to illegally transfer salaries to 3,500 members of Hamas security forces A senior official in the Palestinian Authority Finance Ministry is suspected of illegally transferring yearly salaries to 3,500 members of the Hamas security forces, in violation of Fatah policy since Hamas' forceful takeover of the Gaza Strip in June. A top Palestinian official told Ynet that following an investigation into the incident headed by the Palestinian finance minister and Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad, Finance Ministry employee Yusef al-Zumur has been arrested. Members of Fayyad's government are accusing al-Zumur of being behind the "error", which led to the transfer of millions of dollars to Hamas' special forces. The Palestinian Finance Ministry however vehemently denied that the transfers were for such a high sum. At first the Palestinian administration believed the transfer resulted from a computer glitch, yet a probe of the incident concluded otherwise. It has not yet been decided whether al-Zumur alone will be indicted or whether the investigation will continue in search of additional suspects. The incident threw the Palestinian echelons into turmoil because it was proof of unauthorized cooperation between senior Fatah officials with Hamas. Similar incidents apparently led to Fatah's collapse and Hamas' coup in the Gaza Strip earlier this summer. 'Not a mistake' "There couldn't have been a mistake here," a senior Palestinian source told Ynet. "There are three CD ROM's for salaries in the Finance Ministry -- one for security forces not suspected of being in Hamas, one for clerks employed before Hamas entered the government, and one for clerks and security forces appointed by Hamas. The last group should not get their salaries, and therefore it's hard to believe that the money was transferred to the banks by accident." Earlier Thursday Ynet reported that Fayyad set up an inquiry committee and that disciplinary steps were likely to be taken against several Palestinian Finance Ministry officials, and some may even be dismissed for incompetence. Now however it appears that the case is a criminal one and Hamas bribed Finance Ministry workers to attain the money. One of the main sources of the money which reached Hamas forces was the roughly $400 million in taxes that Israel transferred to the PA this summer, which had been frozen when Hamas entered the government. The United States and Europe have also thawed their boycott of the PA and renewed the flow of money to Fayyad's administration. Officials in Jerusalem said they viewed the incident with great severity. "It was promised to Israel that the money would not reach Hamas. According to the explanations we got from the PA, the money was handed over by mistake. We are looking into the affair," an official said. To Go To Top UKRAINIAN JEWS PETITION FOR POLLARD RELEASE Posted by Justice For Jonathan Pollard, August 9, 2007. This is from today's JTA http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/103529.htm Ukrainian Jews are calling on the United States to pardon Jonathan Pollard. A group of Ukrainian Jewish activists meeting Monday in Kiev with William Taylor, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, presented a petition signed by more than 10,000 people seeking the commutation of Pollard's life sentence. The U.S. naval analyst pleaded guilty to spying for Israel and was sentenced in 1986. Ukrainian Jews believe the punishment was out of proportion to those for similar crimes. The delegation that met with Taylor was headed by Yaakov Dov Bleich, the chief rabbi of Kiev, and Jewish leader Dmitry Vilensky. Reach Justice for Jonathan Pollard by sending an email to justice4jp@gmail.com To Go To Top AIDING THE ISLAMIC CONQUEST; OVERSTRETCHED US CUTS AID TO ISRAEL Posted by Michael Travis, August 9, 2007. I really hate to repeat myself so often........but........Americans must awake from their slumber and understand that the United States Government has spent a TRILLION DOLLARS funding Middle-Eastern terrorists whose aim it is to murder every Jew in Israel, every Christian in the Middle-East, and bring about the absolute destruction of the United States. This has been a bi-partisan effort. Bush 41 paid billions of dollars, and handed over billions more in sophisticated military equipment to the terror supporting regimes of Syria, Iran, Egypt and Pakistan in 1991. Bill Clinton airlifted 65,000 hardened Tunisian terrorists and their leader Yasir Arafat into Israeli lands........and used the CIA and US Army to train their murderous cadres. With the able assistance of the Jordanian King, Clinton also arranged the release of Sheik Yassin, the "Spiritual leader" of the Hamas terror organisation. At that time [1997], the Hamas membership in the West Bank and Gaza numbered under 20 individuals.........today it can field over 75,000 American trained fighters. In 2004, after thousands of innocent Israeli women and children had been murdered in their beds, on the streets and buses of their cities, the IDF sent Sheik Yassin to Paradise. The "International Community" was not amused. Sheik Yassin Then there is George W. Bush. The President has borrowed over one trillion dollars from Chinese banks to finance his efforts to install an Islamic fundamentalist government in previously secular Iraq. He has imposed a Koranic Constitution on the Iraqi people that has resulted in the murder and/or expulsion of millions of Christians from their historic homelands. Bush's insistence on creating a Shiite government in Iraq has resulted in the expansion of Iranian power and influence by a degree undreamed of by the crazed mullahs in Tehran. The President's statements and policies regarding Syria and Lebanon have clearly outlined a vision of Iranian-Shiite control of a Bush designed "Shiite Crescent" that spans the territory from Iran to Lebanon. Supposedly this new "Region of influence" would correct the post WW2 divisions that left the Saudis and their SUNNI followers with 88% of the Islamic lands (Dar al Islam) in the Middle-East. In reality this idea has emboldened the most militant of Islamists, both Sunni and Shiite, and will lead to an inevitable nuclear holocaust. Clearly impaired by "the hubris syndrome", Bush has also demanded the immediate creation of a PLO-HAMAS Terror-State on Israeli land, and in June echoed those demands with a call for an Al Qaeda-Terror Nation in the middle of Europe (Kosovo): [During his June visit to Albania, US President George W. Bush clearly rejected an "endless dialogue" on Kosovo. "At some point in time, sooner rather than later, you got to say 'enough's enough, Kosovo's independent'," Bush said.] Meanwhile back in America........the Administration have worked tirelessly to promote Islam in the United States while imposing new restrictions on the practice of Christianity. The Islamic conquest of America is nearing it's final stages. If American Christians remain apathetic, their 1st graders will enter middle-school as Muslims. The story below was written by Damien McElroy and Tim Butcher in Jerusalem. America has been forced to withhold funding from its key ally in the Middle East amid the strain of paying for its expensive military campaign in Iraq. Insurgents fire off a battery of 49 rockets aimed at an American military base in Baghdad Washington had promised Israel a substantial increase in its financial support to bolster it against Iran. But US officials decided to amend their pledge because of escalating costs, including the need to spend $750 million (�375 million) to fly thousands of armoured troop carriers to Iraq to protect troops against Iranian-made roadside bombs. The Pentagon has come under intense pressure to speed up deployment of the new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle (MRAP), which boasts a V-shaped hull and a raised chassis and is proven to withstand a range of explosive projectiles common in Iraq. The army has ordered 8,000 MRAP vehicles at a cost of $12 billion. But a request by the Pentagon for an emergency transport budget illustrates the increasing danger faced by troops on the ground. Officials said extra funds would be used to get 3,400 MRAPs to Iraq by the end of the year. The diversion of funds has caused a budget shortfall in Israel that forced Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, to convene an emergency cabinet meeting yesterday. Officials discussed ways of dealing with the �250 million deficit in next year's budget, which Israeli commentators said would result in austerity measures. More worryingly for Israel, there are fears the shortfall will have a significant impact on the ability of the country to defend itself as military training and procurement are cut back. The tension over the delayed American money has tarnished relations between the two countries, which were boosted only last week when Israel confirmed it would enjoy a surge in American defence aid of 25 per cent over the next 10 years. US forces claimed yesterday to have killed 32 suspected Shia terrorists and taken 12 prisoner in an operation involving air strikes on Baghdad's Sadr City district. They said the militia members killed belonged to a group accused of smuggling weapons and facilitating attacks on Americans. However, regional satellite television channels claimed that women and children, not fighters, were killed in the raid. America is under tremendous pressure to clamp down on Iran's allies in Iraq. Lt General Raymond Odierno, the US operations commander in Iraq, said Iran-backed attacks rose to 99 last month in response to American efforts to clamp down on Shia militias. The pressure American forces are under in Iraq was further illustrated when they released photographs of insurgents setting up a battery of 49 rockets aimed at a US base outside Baghdad. One serviceman was killed and 15 others injured in the attack that followed. United Nations staff yesterday unanimously voted against an expanded UN presence in Iraq. Their protest came a day before the Security Council is due to agree a resolution broadening UN involvement in the country. The UN scaled back its operations after the bombing of its Baghdad headquarters in 2003 killed its envoy and 21 other staff. The organisation's staff association said it could not put up with "the unacceptably high level of risk to the safety and security of UN personnel". Contact Michael Travis at michaelmgr@gmail.com To Go To Top HURRAY FOR OUR SOLDIERS -- IDF EVICTION REFUSAL MORE WIDESPREAD THAN REPORTED Posted by Lee Caplan, August 9, 2007. These two stories were written by Ezra HaLevi and published in Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com). "IDF Eviction Refusal More Widespread Than Reported" by Ezra HaLevi The bus driver of the Duchifat Battalion soldiers who were sent to Hevron after some of their comrades refused told the story of the group's growing ire at the situation. The unreported story emerged Wednesday of the fate of the rest of the Duchifat Brigade who did not refuse orders and boarded the bus to Hevron to provide security for the eviction. The bus, having been blocked by parents and activists both in the Jordan Valley and in Gush Etzion, was once again blocked by activists and residents at the entrance to Kiryat Arba. They stood in the road and refused to move. Border Police Commander Raphael Ben David, stationed in Shechem but in Hevron by chance, stopped his vehicle and, together with his driver, tried to disperse the protesters by force. When he saw that he was not succeeding, the officer boarded the bus of Duchifat soldiers and asked that the soldiers and officers disembark and assist him. "Instead of complying, nearly all the soldiers on the bus began to yell at him that they had no intention of helping him because they are not taking part in the evacuation, and that he has no right to disperse the demonstrators on his own and they refuse to help him," the bus driver later told Chaim Cohen, part of a group of activists from Givatayim who came to oppose the eviction. "They soon threw the Border Police officer off of the bus. He exited, clearly humiliated, and once again began struggling with the demonstrators -- this time using clear violence. Bystanders said he grabbed the wrist of a mother-of-12 and flipped her over. She landed on her shoulder and was badly bruised." Meanwhile, bystanders reported that the soldiers on the bus made makeshift signs expressing support, displaying them through the bus's side windows. Cohen, part of a group of activists calling themselves the "Givatayim Settlers" (Givatayim is a notoriously leftist suburb of Tel Aviv), said the bus driver approached him later in the day and asked where he could find a tour of Hevron, as he had never been there before. Cohen obliged and relayed the story that the driver, who was clearly impressed, told him. Maariv: Public Refuser Only Tip of the Iceburg The Maariv daily, in its front-page story Wednesday, reported that "hundreds of soldiers refused and were reassigned to washing dishes, cleaning tents or helping in the mess hall by their commanders -- out of the sites of the cameras." The report stated that the soldier who objected to taking part in the Hevron eviction were not just religious hesder students, but many others as well. Posters, Leaflets Praise Soldiers' Refusal The Committee For Saving the Nation and the Land, a Chabad-run activist group, has posted fliers across the country and will distribute them in synagogues this Sabbath proclaiming: "'That excel in strength, that do his commandments' [Psalms 103:20] These soldiers are worthy of being written up in gold in the history of the people of Israel as heroes of Israel. With your actions you shall save the Jewish community in Judea and Samaria and save the people of Israel from all who seek to destroy it." The group is planning a large rally in support of the soldiers. Campaign of SMS Support Supporters of the refusers have published the names and phone numbers of some of the soldiers, encouraging supporters to send them text messages letting them know that there are people who believe they did the right thing. All numbers can be dialed from outside Israel by dropping the first zero and replacing it with 011 972: * Chaim Cohen, Duchifat commander from Gush Katif: 054 568 4882 * Maor Cohen, Duchifat commander from Ofakim: 052 470 3670 * Netanel [supporters wrote: "secular fighter," indicating that contrary to media reports, the soldiers were not all yeshiva students obeying the dictates of their rabbis --ed]: 0547-669.399 * Meir Buzaglo: 050 859 2905 * Nati Abugani: 054 766 4399 * Sgt. David Sayad: 052 536 0636 "Third of Israelis Support Soldiers' Refusal" by Ezra HaLevi A third of Israelis and a majority of Likud voters support IDF soldiers refusing to obey orders to evict Jews from their homes and withdraw from parts of the Land of Israel. Earlier this week, dozens of soldiers of the Duchifat Battalion refused to take part in the expulsion of two Jewish families from the marketplace in Hevron. According to a poll carried out by the Dialog Polling Agency for Haaretz newspaper, 30% of the Jewish public in Israel support IDF soldiers refusing any orders related to the expulsion of Jews from their homes. Less than half of the respondents said they were actively opposed to the refusal of orders by the soldiers. Broken down by political party, 54 percent of Likud voters supported refusal as well as a whopping 75% of Shas voters. The poll was overseen by Professor Camil Fuchs of the Statistics and Operations Research department at Tel Aviv University and queried 477 people. *Sharon Call For Hevron Refusal Circulated* An old essay by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon his being circulated via email lists and blogs. Readers are told to read its content and are informed that Ariel Sharon wrote it on April 15, 1994: "It wasn't easy for me to come out with a public call last week to Israeli residents to oppose the evacuation of Jews from Hebron. Hebron is Jerusalem, NOT Yamit. "I called for passive, non-violent resistance against the declared intentions of the government in Hebron. It was only because I am convinced that the security and inalienable rights of Jews in every part of Eretz Yisrael will be irreversibly eroded if the government carries out its plans in Hebron, that I decided that we must arise and passively resist the uprooting of Jews from Hebron. And if, G-d forbid, the government does carry out its intention, it should know, in advance, that we will return to Hebron. [...] "For most of my life I have obeyed orders as well as issued them as a soldier and commander in the IDF. Therefore, I am aware of the absolute importance of the duty incumbent on every soldier to carry out the legal orders, in order to preserve the military system which defends us. "At the same time, warning must be given, that if the Israeli government dares to uproot Jews from the heart of Eretz-Yisrael -- a situation will develop in which the military will eventually have nothing to defend except itself, and will ultimately fall apart and disintegrate. After all, the IDF was organized to defend the Zionist settlement drive, which was threatened from the start as a result of Arab aggression, even before we returned home to Hebron. It was only with tremendous pain that we were able, in 1948, to retain part of Jerusalem. "If the government uproots the Jews of Hebron, it will be uprooting a vital cornerstone of the IDF -- which is indispensable for the defense of all parts of Israel. Therefore, although every soldier and commander must obey the legal orders of the government, so too, must every citizen in a democratic country ask himself what he is supposed to do when he is convinced that the policy of the government endangers him, his future and his family. [...] "Every Jew must feel as if he is personally going to be ousted from Hebron. Each one of us must understand that if we will not stand up to stop the uprooting of Jews from Hebron, we may very well -- in the future -- be uprooted from Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beer Sheba or from any other place. "In contrast to the days of exile, it is not only the right, but the obligation of every Jew, in a Jewish democratic state, to stand up and warn his government, through passive resistance, of the disaster that it is bringing upon all of us. What Jews could not do in Germany and Poland before their extermination, they must do in their own country. They have to rise en masse and resist." Contact Lee Caplan at leescaplan@yahoo.com To Go To Top SAUDIS SUE FOR SECRECY Posted by Rachel Ehrenfeld, August 9, 2007. This was written by Rachel Ehrenfeld, who is the director of the American Center for Democracy. It was published today in the New York Post (www.nypost.com/seven/08082007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/ saudis_sue_for_secrecy_opedcolumnists_rachel_ehrenfeld.htm). August 8, 2007 -- THE Saudis' efforts to keep a veil of secrecy over their support for al Qaeda and Hamas got a shot in the arm last week, as a British publisher opted to suppress a controversial book on the financing of terror. Facing the mere threat of a lawsuit from Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz, Cambridge University Press agreed to pulp all the unsold copies of "Alms of Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World," issue a public apology to Mahfouz and pay his legal expenses and substantial undisclosed damages. The prestigious publisher -- the world's oldest publishing house -- had carefully vetted the book before publishing it last year. Yet now it has asked more than 200 libraries worldwide to pull the work off their shelves. Bin Mahfouz never sued the authors, J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins, both U.S. citizens, who had provided their publisher with all the sources to back their allegations that bin Mahfouz, his family and his former bank, the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia, funded Hamas and al Qaeda. Yet Cambridge University Press still caved -- and even asked the authors to join its apology to bin Mahfouz. (They rightly refused.) Since March 2002, bin Mahfouz has sued or threatened suit in England at least 36 times against those who've linked him to terrorism, including many American authors and publications. Everyone settled with bin Mahfouz -- except me. He sued me in London in January 2004, shortly after my book "Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed -- and How to Stop It" was published in the United States. I refused to acknowledge a British court's jurisdiction over a book published here; the court then ruled in bin Mahfouz's favor by default. It enjoined British publication of "Funding Evil," awarded bin Mahfouz $225,900 in damages and expenses and ordered that I publicly apologize and destroy the book. I still refuse to acknowledge the British Court and its ruling. The data in both "Alms for Jihad" and "Funding Evil" is all well-documented by the media and the U.S. Congress, courts, Treasury Department and other official statements. Further corroboration comes from French intelligence officials at the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE), as reported in the French daily, Le Monde. For example, the DGSE reported that, in 1998, it knew bin Mahfouz to be an architect of the banking scheme built to benefit Osama bin Laden, and that both U.S. and British intelligence services knew it, too. British libel law favors suits such as bin Mahfouz's, so I chose to fight his false claims here in America. I've sued him in a New York federal court, seeking a declaration that his English default judgment is unenforceable in the United States and repugnant to the First Amendment. Prominent civil-liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate described it as "one of the most important First Amendment cases in the past 25 years." On June 8, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously declared my case is "ripe" for hearing in a U.S. court, noting that the case has implications for all U.S. authors and publishers, whose First Amendment rights are threatened by foreign libel rulings. That ruling thus established that all U.S. writers and publishers sued in the United Kingdom for libel can ask U.S. courts to rule the foreign decisions unenforceable here -- provided they have jurisdiction over the person who sued for libel overseas. (The New York Court of Appeals will hear arguments on that issue in my case this fall.) These important legal rulings have weakened bin Mahfouz's ability to threaten or sue U.S. authors and publishers; they're likely why bin Mahfouz failed to sue Burr and Collins in London. Bin Mahfouz and fellow Arabs alleged as terror financiers, known as "libel tourists," have made the English libel bar rich, leading the London Times to declare Britain the "libel capital of the Western world." English lawyers now refer to the "Arab effect" to describe the surge of English libel actions by wealthy, non-resident Arabs accused of funding terrorism. Of course, U.S. legal actions can't change British laws. But judging by the impact my case has had already, one can hope that U.K. writers and publishers would demand changing their libel laws, to allow the freedom of responsible publications without the fear of intimidating, expensive lawsuits. To Go To Top ANOTHER ARAB STATE? Posted by Ramy Dishy, August 9, 2007. From the buzz of lately news, one get the impression that the path to Holy grail, and the solution to all the Middle-East problems, will be found in the formation of another Arab state in the Middle-East.. What is interesting is what President Bush definition of that Arab state, when he conceived the Idea in the 2nd of May 2002 speech. He describe that state as follow: "A Palestinian state must be based on the principles that are critical to freedom and prosperity, democracy and open markets, the rule of law, transparent and accountable administration, and respect for individual liberties and civil society" A long and detailed list indeed. But going through the file of the existing Arab state, which of that group the so called Palestinian state should compare to? Which of these state President Bush has chosen as an example? Which existing Arab state answer the qualification he is expecting the new Arab state, that he call Palestine? Creating a new Arab state that had no historical existence, is a move to be debated, justified, as it will create a legal, irreversible fact, when the exercise and the experience of Oslo proved beyond any doubt that this entity, the spearhead of the entire Arab world, means one and only one thing, the elimination of the state of Israel. 1] Did the events following the Oslo agreement prove that returning land to the PA, entrusting them with arms, resulted in the intended plan? A peaceful coexistence? 2] Since taking control of most of the Arab population and 40% of Yehuda, Shomron and whole of Gaza, did that authority educate their new generation to be productive, peaceful citizens that will be our next door neighbors, or a new generation of hateful and vengeful terrorists and suicide bombers? 3] Will that new Arab state, with international recognition and legitimacy, be possible to 'correct-reverse' in any way, short of actions that will contravene every international law, and tie up Israel, our children and grandchildren to an impossible and perpetuated warfare that will never end, and bring to mind Ben-Gurion statement in 1948 'of crying for generations'. 4] Is there any historical precedent, of a nation that cooperated and agreed to a condition that may bring its own destruction? 5] Can anyone foresee, predict ANY GOOD of creating another Arab dictatorship, when its only raison-d'etre is and will be the destruction of the only state of the hated Jews? A debate and an answer are in order. Ramy Dishy lives in Thornhill, Ont. Contact him at clement32@sympatico.ca To Go To Top AMERICA IN PERSPECTIVE; IRAN: IMPERIALISM, MISSIONIZING, NUCLEARISM; INTL. ATOMIC ENERGY ILLUSIONS Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 9, 2007. AMERICA IN PERSPECTIVE Helicopter hovering overhead, they came at dawn. Police dashed out, rifles in hands. "Put your hands on your heads, or I'll blow your f.... heads off!," ordered one. Was this at a drug dealer headquarters or a Muslim compound, where armed resistance might ensue? No, Muslims would be treated with more respect. This was at an Eastern Orthodox monastery in Texas, where they don't like priests in robes. The police searched like vandals, throwing a cross on the floor, breaking things without having to pay compensation, and strewing other things about. Here is the background. The monastery offered some boys a period of spiritual training, including camps where religion was a way of life. They also hoped to help straighten a wayward boy. His mother, a "new age" devotee, was considered by my source to be unstable. She alleged molestation of her son. My source, who knows those monks, considers the charge fraudulent. Texas is back in the stage when states automatically believed child accusers, though children's memories play tricks, and interrogators sometimes manipulated children into making false accusations. In this kind of case, evidence usually is lacking, but juries tend not to consider "reasonable doubt." They convicted a couple of monks. Then the mother launched a civil suit and won a million dollars. Since then, laws have been passed allowing for confiscation of convicts' property and making sentences longer, one way by not allowing sentences for the prosecutors separate counts to be served concurrently. As I described some time ago, jail in Texas would be life-threatening. Another boy, now grown up, recently made a similar allegation against all the monks there when he was. He seeks both a large sum and the property. The State also covets the property, vying with the accuser for it. Justice gets lost in the urge for loot. (In the Inquisition, Church and Crown divided up citizens' property. Henry the Eighth's divorce from the Catholic Church was the pretext for seizing Church property. Child molestation is a grave offense, but so is false accusation of it. Here also are elements of bigotry, excessive police force, disrespect for people's property, greed for money and property, and low standards for convicting people. I feel privileged to live in the country millions struggle to enter, but we need to reform the systems of justice, education, and health. Failed ideologies don't teach children. Many people aren't covered by insurance, so Democrats propose a system that covers everybody but delays or fends off treatment. Doctors don't learn how harmful and useless most medicines are and how harmless and useful nutritional supplements and proper living are. Agribusiness poisons the soil instead of nurturing it organically. DEMON RAMON Chaim Ramon is interjecting himself in all phases of negotiations and withdrawals. Whereas the appeasement-minded government is inclined to move slowly, Vice-PM Ramon energetically tries to speed up foreseeable disaster. MUSICAL CHAIRS WITH TERRORISTS Isn't it comical, but tragic, that while Israeli security forces are arresting terrorists in Judea-Samaria and Gaza every day, the government plans to release hundreds at-a-time of the worst ones! LET'S TEST THE USE OF EU MONITORS IN JUDEA-SAMARIA The Olmert regime has proposed that the EU or other foreigners take over peacekeeping duties from the IDF in Arab towns of Judea-Samaria. It isn't peacekeeping that the IDF does, it's counter-terrorism. Before bringing those foreigners in, why not try it in Gaza and Lebanon, to get an idea whether it would work in Judea-Samaria? Oh, I forgot, it was tried in Gaza and Lebanon. In Gaza, the EU monitored the gate to Egypt. Through that gate, tons of explosives were brought in, regardless. Then the EU personnel had to flee to Israel. In Lebanon, UNIFIL came in, blocking Israeli forces from destroying Hizbullah and allowing Syria to rearm Hizbullah. In both places, war will resume soon. Why can't people learn from mistakes? When Israel is involved, it often isn't just a mistake but antisemitism. "TORRESD" REPORTED GRAVE DESECRATION NARROWLY Screenname "TorresD" reported to a newsgroup that Israeli troops desecrated some Arab grave sites. He included the IDF answer that since the terrorists fight in civilian areas, such problems are bound to occur. I found the emotional tone, however, weighed against Israel, because Arabs complain at length, whereas the IDF gives terse replies. I think he should have provided context. The context is: (1) The Muslims fight any way they can, more by war crimes than not. They deliberately fortify or fight from civilian areas, to get the benefit of human shields and of their collaborators among the supposed civilians. If the Israelis refrain from counter-attack, the jihadists enjoy free shots at them; if Israelis counter-attack, then the Arabs complain that Israel harmed civilians or gravestones. (2) The Muslims set out to desecrate Jewish graveyards and other holy sites. With them it is no accident of war. They are responsible for the desecration on both sides. ARAB DEMANDS WHAT ISRAEL SHOULD "You have to give Dr. Saeb Erekat credit for having the chutzpa to argue that 'the credibility of the peace process lies in the implementation of already signed and suggested proposals and treaties' -- this when there are tens of thousands of illegal armed forces and tens of thousands of illegal weapons -- and that's just counting the 'moderates' that President Bush thinks are fantastic folks who should be rewarded with even more weapons. And these same 'moderates' have been using those and other weapons during the course of the Oslo experiment to murder Israelis." "These are people who were never serious about the so-called peace process and aren't serious now -- but it doesn't seem to matter. They haven't even admitted that they violated the agreements all these years." Abbas admits only that some terrorism doesn't work, for now (IMRA, 7/18). BUSH -- STILL WASTING MONEY ON TERRORISTS Pres. Bush is "making the same mistakes as Pres. Clinton and the late PM Rabin made when they promoted the false premise that Yasser Arafat was a moderate peacemaker who would make peace with Israel if Israel made major concessions. Pres. Bush is now promoting the false premise that M. Abbas is a moderate peacemaker who is able and willing to make peace if strengthened with a better police force, more U.S. funds to the tune of $190 million and $228 million in loan guarantees, and major Israeli concessions. As with Arafat, U.S. and Israeli concessions and funding are not being made contingent on Abbas and the PA fulfilling their 14 year-old signed agreements to stop terrorism, arrest terrorists and end incitement to hatred and murder in the P.A.." "President Bush wrongly claims that the Arab states have 'put forward a plan recognizing Israel..." "Bush also made the same repeated demand of Hamas/Fatah compliance with no consequences even hinted at if his demand was not heeded. Despite a rising chorus of experts saying Palestinian statehood would simply mean establishing another terrorist state, Bush is pushing that idea as a panacea, ignoring the fact that Iran, Syria and North Korea are states, yet their cultures are not peace-loving and supportive of the West. He also welcomed the 2002 so-called Arab Peace Initiative, rather than rejecting its departure from the terms of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSC) 242, which every American president since Lyndon Johnson has supported." Abbas is no moderate and doesn't reject terrorism. He doesn't disarm terrorists. "It is Abbas and Fatah who have all along controlled, and retain control today, over the content of Palestinian (P.A.) textbooks and the media, both of which promote hatred of Jews, Israel, Christians and America" (IMRA, 7/18 from ZOA.) BEWARE SUNNIS! Iran threatens to "liberate" the Gulf sheikdoms. Considering them within the Persian sphere, it wants their large Shiite populations under its aegis. After all, the advisor to the Supreme Ruler of Iran wrote, those states were set up by imperialists. He calls Bahrain a district of Iran and the sheikdoms illegal. Iran builds up conventional and non-conventional forces and sends missionaries into Sunni countries (but especially into Syria, whose Shiite-like minority holds sway). Although the Sunnis consider Shia a heresy, they have favored the Shiite assaults on Israel. Shouldn't they consider Israel a potential ally against a Shiite takeover? (IMRA, 7/20.) Iran was an empire, itself. In Bahrain, Shiites are held down by the Sunni minority. But Iran holds down large non-Persian and non-Shiite minorities. Iran is sounding like Saddam, who called Kuwait a province of Iraq. Most rulers use their country's taxes for their own wishes, rather than to benefit their people. INTL. ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY (IAEA) ILLUSIONS The head of the IAEA sees some slowing of the rate of military nuclear development in Iran as hopeful. He also discusses some issues with Iran that even if resolved satisfactorily, do not mean that Iran would stand down from military development. Iran's statements all are defiant on such matters. An underlying flaw in the IAEA process is that it works with declared programs and materials. Iran does not declare them all! (Cheaters don't!) The IAEA fosters false hopes and undermines the efforts of countries to bar Iran's nuclear bomb development. Those few countries cannot get a large international coalition to deal with Iran seriously (IMRA, 7/21). Any slowing of Iranian nuclear weapons development probably is related to Russian technical problems. This is another instance in which international institutions and internationalism harbor evil and let aggressors build up. The US should act in concert with a few reliable allies, if possible, and unilaterally, if necessary. The Democrats' pressure on Pres. Bush to negotiate until it is too late is misguided and would doom us. ISRAEL TO P.A.: PROVE YOUR ANTI-TERRORISM CAPABILITY Then the IDF would turn over security to certain P.A. cities (IMRA, 7/20). So it says now. Israel often makes the right denials, then caves in. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top WHAT CONSTITUTES AN ILLEGAL ORDER? Posted by Ezra HaLevi, August 8, 2007. Rabbi Elyakim Levanon, the head of the hesder yeshiva in Elon Moreh, called Tuesday for a public discussion of what constitutes an illegal, and therefore refusable, order. "Everyone agrees that refusing orders is an awful thing," he said, "and everyone agrees that there are certain orders that a soldier is required to refuse. The question is where to draw the line." The rabbi argues that the whole debate over whether or not to refuse orders is superfluous, as the classification of an immoral order is taught to every IDF soldier in basic training, as the IDF's conscious effort to differentiate itself from the functionaries of the Nazi army who had said they were "just following orders." The example given in basic training is that of the Kafr Kassem affair, in which soldiers opened fire on Israeli Arab farmers who were violating a curfew, but were doing so because they had not been around to hear its declaration. The soldiers were held accountable in court despite their have been following orders. The principle offered, however, is purposely vague, instructing soldiers that an illegal order is one "which a black flag waves over it." According to Rabbi Levanon, a frank discussion must be had about whether only the killing of civilians falls under the rubric of an illegal order or whether aiding the enemy, negating the Zionist project or violating clear Torah principles constitute such as well. Left-wing authors and politicians have often stated that if an order is given to expel Arabs from their homes, they would not only refuse but use violence to oppose it. Famed author Amos Oz once declared "we will lay down on the roads, block the crossings, and blow up the bridges to stop the transfer of Arabs." In 2004, 185 prominent lawmakers, IDF officers and public figures signed a declaration calling for refusal to take part in withdrawals from parts of the Land of Israel. Signers included Meir Har Zion of the famed IDF unit 101, former Prime Minister's Office director-general Yossi Ben Aharon, writer Naomi Frenkel, Ezra Cohen and the father, brother and uncle of Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu. Rabbi Levanon believes the red line was crossed in Gush Katif, at Amona and in Hevron. "The expulsion of Jewish families from Hevron on Tuesday was clearly beyond the boundaries set by the Torah as well as by human logic," he said. The rabbi says a public discussion is necessary because the justice system cannot be trusted to dictate such values as it has demonstrated systematic preference and bias in the past. "The court has become the greatest cause of civil strife in the state. It's impossible for hundreds of thousands of people to have their mouths shut by a court order." With regard to the actual act of refusal, Rabbi Levanon says that Monday's refusal of elite IDF soldiers of the Duchifat Brigade to take part in the Hevron eviction was not necessarily even connected to the legality or morality of an order. "One of the commanders who was tried [for refusing to take part in the Hevron eviction] was [himself] expelled from Gush Katif," he said. "Is it practical to request from someone who is today [two years later still] living in a caravan in Nitzan, whose family was kicked out of their home, to expel others from their homes? Everyone agrees that if he requests, he should be accommodated. The fact that he had an unwise commander should be looked into." Rabbi Levanon warned against trying to "strangle" an ideology. "Such a move," he warned, "will only result in finding that ideology in the prime minister's office instead." Claim That "Rabbis Ordered Them to Refuse" False Some of the soldiers of the Duchifat Brigade who refused to take part in the Hevron eviction were students in the Otniel Yeshiva, whose Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Re'em HaCohen is a vocal critic of refusal. HaCohen, whose brother Gershon HaCohen commanded the implementation of the Disengagement, told Yediot Acharonot Monday night that despite press reports, the rabbis who the soldiers consulted with actually tried to convince them not to refuse orders. "But we are talking about soldiers being sent to evacuate people they grew up with." Three of the commanders who refused orders attended HaCohen's yeshiva in Otniel. One was from Neve Dekalim, one from Kiryat Arba and one from Ofakim, in the Negev. Many of those who refused orders during the Disengagement, most notably Avi Bieber, cited their conscience rather than any religious ruling. Yesha Rabbis Praise Soldiers The Yesha Rabbis' Council of Judea and Samaria issued a statement of support for Hevron's residents and the IDF soldiers who refused to take part in their eviction. "We support and strengthen the pioneers of Hevron who are waging a just and moral struggle against a corrupt and amoral government," the statement reads. "We bless the Israeli soldiers that obeyed the command of their Jewish hearts and did not take part in the expulsion." The rabbis said that both the residents and the soldiers would in the end be victorious. "With self-sacrifice and faith they will overcome the weakness and defeatism of the government of Israel." Ezra HaLevi writes for Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNN.com). This article appeared today. To Go To Top ANTI-SAUDI TIDE RISES IN IRAQ Posted by Bryna Berch, August 8, 2007. If you read the article by Yiftah Shapir called "The Saudi Arms Deal," (August 7, 2007) here, you'll see Bush has trivialized selling the Saudis some major weaponry. It's just one of a bunch of articles out there that are trying to make us believe the weaponry is no big deal, nothing to worry about. Talk about schizophrenia! We're supposed to forget that the 911 boychicks mostly came from Saudi Arabia and that many of Arabs stirring up trouble right now in Iraq have trekked in from Saudi Arabia. Sure the Iranians are making political capital of this, but they couldn't if the Saudis were NOT making trouble. This was written by Sam Dagher and it appeared in the Christian Science Monitor (http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0809/p01s05-wome.html?page=1). Rasheed Abou-Alsamh contributed from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Iraq's leaders use a Shiite holiday to shift attention from Iran to its Sunni neighbors. Baghdad -- Shiite Iraqis began arriving here this week for a mass pilgrimage Thursday to a revered imam's shrine. Much of the city is now locked down, closed off to protect the nearly 1 million faithful expected to pay tribute in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Kadhimiya. But not only is this march to honor Imam Musa al-Kadhim in a Shiite Muslim rite, it has become a show of newfound power and defiance in the face of hard-line Sunni suicide bombers who continue to wreak havoc in their communities. This year's pilgrimage also comes amid an unprecedented wave of anger toward Saudi Arabia. Government and religious leaders here charge that the neighboring kingdom is doing little to stem the flow of its nationals to Iraq to wage "holy war" on Shiites. The Saudi backlash is being fueled by Iraqi media reports and Shiite leaders' condemnations of apparent fatwas, religious rulings by Saudi muftis calling for the destruction of Shiite shrines in Iraq. But some Saudi Arabian analysts say this is a way for Baghdad's pro-Iranian leaders to steer attention away from Tehran's involvement in Iraq and toward its Sunni neighbors. In spite of questions about their authenticity, the fatwas are stirring up much of the Shiite community and is indeed coloring this year's pilgrimage. "It is going to be the pilgrimage of defiance in the face of these fatwas that desecrate the imams and call for the destruction of their shrines," says Hazem al-Araji, a leader in the movement of firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. "Every Shiite that venerates the imams must say to the mufti [Sunni cleric] that we will defend the imams with our blood," he says. As pilgrims began arriving Tuesday, the image of seventh Shiite Imam Musa al-Kadhim in shackles hung on banners over the neighborhood of Kadhimiya. The imam was poisoned about 1,200 years ago. His persecution resonates deeply in Iraq today as Shiites try to hold onto unprecedented political gains while being viewed with suspicion in the Sunni Muslim world, especially in Sunni-led Saudi Arabia where Shiites are seldom allowed to openly practice their religion. "So far, the Saudi attitude in particular, and the Arab one in general, has been negative toward the political process in Iraq," says Ridha Jawad Taqi, an Iraqi Shiite parliamentarian. "If they want nothing to do with us then we will just look for friends elsewhere." Further fanning the flames of anti-Saudi public sentiment is the outrage expressed over an incident that Mr. Taqi says took place Sunday in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, when a group of Iraqi Shiites, including his son, were roughed up by Saudi security forces. "They noticed they were Shiites because one of them was wearing a black turban so they rounded 12 of them up and beat them up with batons including my son Amir," he says, adding that his son plans to sue Saudi authorities, who have not publicly commented on the incident. Several Saudi experts who track fatwas online denied the claims of the most recent one regarding Shiite holy sites. Ayed al-Dosari, a contributor to the United Arab Emirates-based Saha bulletin board, known for its extremist Sunni views, posted an article Wednesday calling the Iraqi claims "a lie" to "stoke the flames of discord." Some analysts charged Iraq's Shiite politicians with trying to deflect from intense US pressure on Iran regarding its alleged support of extremist militias in Iraq responsible for the death of US troops. Nibras al-Kazimi, an analyst reached in Istanbul,Turkey, says that the stepped-up anti-Saudi stance reflects frustration with what some see as Saudi Arabia's standoffish attitude toward the influx of its citizens to fight in Iraq. "It's partly overreacting, and Saudi bashing will build political capital for some," says Mr. Kazimi, who is a visiting scholar with the Washington-based Hudson Institute. "But there is also an element of vilifying the Saudis and picking a fight because people have had enough." A senior US military officer speaking under the condition of anonymity told the Los Angeles Times that Saudi nationals compose 45 percent of foreign fighters in Iraq who actively target US forces and that 50 percent of Saudi militants come to Iraq as suicide bombers. But Saudi-based analyst Adel al-Toraifi has a different take: "I think it is radical Shiite elements loyal to Iran and Syria who are doing this to blame the Saudis so as to take the pressure off themselves from the Americans." On Wednesday, US and Iraqi forces killed at least 30 militiamen that were facilitating the transport of explosives into Iraq from Iran and sending Iraqis to Iran for "terrorist training," said the US military. Twelve other members of what the US calls "Special Groups" were arrested in a overnight raid in Sadr City, the Shiite slum in Baghdad. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki arrived in Tehran on Wednesday to discuss security and economic cooperation with Iran. Business, diplomatic, cultural, and religious ties are rapidly deepening between both countries. Mr. Maliki even vowed Monday to crack down on the Mujahideen-e Khalq Organization, an Iranian dissident group once nurtured by Saddam Hussein during his long war with Iran's clerical regime but is now under the protection of US forces in Diyala Province northeast of Baghdad. One Saudi fatwa allegedly called for the destruction of the mausoleum of Imam Hussein in Karbala, south of Baghdad. The violent death of the third imam and his companions in battle against the caliph's army in AD 680 marked the schism between Sunnis and Shiites. The intensity of the standoff over the centuries tended to track regional political upheaval. And Iraq authorities are taking the threats seriously, especially in light of the bombing of the twin minarets at the Askariya shrine in Samarra north of Baghdad in June that followed an attack on its dome in February 2006. A three-day ban on vehicle traffic starting Wednesday has been imposed in Baghdad with extra checkpoints springing up all over the city. In Kadhimiya Tuesday, the emphasis was on displaying faith. Tents were set up all along the main market street leading to Bab el-Mrad (Gate of Need), the entrance of the dazzling shrine with its glistening twin golden domes and its four minarets. In one tent, Mahdi al-Kadhimi and his fellow Kadhimiya merchants have stacked bags of rice and beans that will be used to cook free meals for the weary pilgrims, many of whom traveled for days on foot from all over Iraq. Distributing food, water, and tea to pilgrims is considered a blessed act. Giant speakers fill the air with the sound of Shiite laments intended to infuse spirituality and fervor to the occasion. A wooden cage with dangling chains, and mannequins posing as Abbasyid-era sentries, standing guard is supposed to replicate Imam al-Kadhim's time in captivity. He is depicted bearded and shackled in a colorful banner pinned to the inside of the cage. All of these visual displays of Shiite faith and its veneration of shrines are considered acts of blasphemy by puritan Sunni Islam that reigns in Saudi Arabia. "To each his own," says Mr. Kadhimi shrugging off talk of the new Saudi fatwas. At the shrine's gate, police search everyone. In addition to government forces, Sadr's militiamen play an important role in securing the area. Heavily armed men in black shirts and military style khaki pants roam the streets. Mr. Araji, the local leader who was once detained by US forces, says they are not from the movement's Mahdi Army militia but are personal guards of visiting parliamentarians from the same movement. On Sunday, an altercation between one of these armed men and an Iraqi soldier degenerated into a firefight that killed a woman pilgrim, according to Araji, who was caught in the crossfire. As pilgrims approach the inner sanctum of the shrine with its vast marble esplanade many, entranced by the moment, fall down on their knees in tears. Adel Said and his wife hold the hands of their little children. "These anti-Shiite fatwas are not new, they have been around for hundreds of years, I think some people may be agitating to stir up trouble for political gains," says Mr. Said, who plans to come again to the shrine on Thursday without his family as part of a massive procession that will leave Sadr City to the east on foot at dawn. To Go To Top FROM ISRAEL: EXPOSED Posted by Arlene Kushner, August 8, 2007. It was evident for some time, if one looked closely and read the signs: Fatah and Hamas were going to re-establish communication and try to patch things up. There have been reports in the Arab press for some days -- the most significant report I saw (unconfirmed) was that a secret deal has already been reached between the factions. Yesterday Prince Saud made an official statement that there could be no peace negotiations for the Palestinians unless the factions first came to an understanding. And now it has made Israeli press. In fact, several things made Israeli press today in rapid succession: First, that officials of Hamas and Fatah have revealed that they've been conducting secret talks. Shortly after that came news that Hamas's Mashaal announced that he has asked Yemen to work on securing an understanding between the factions. And former (Hamas) PA prime minister Haniyeh declared that he would step aside if this would help reconciliation. Then more: Fatah officials told The Jerusalem Post that several Arab nations were involved in the mediation, and that while talk was still in early stages, meetings were being held in a variety of venues -- Cairo, Damascus, Beirut and several Gulf state capitals. ~~~~~~~~~~ I had written the other day about the Palestinian forked tongue and I cannot imagine a more fitting description for how Abbas is behaving than this. These talks didn't start yesterday. And yet he has been functioning under the pretense of not having anything to do with Hamas and has eagerly awaited the concessions and the money that will "strengthen" him in his fight against Hamas. In fact, the PA has just released a new "wish list" that includes armored cars, jeeps, machine guns, several thousand rifles plus millions of rounds, bullet-proof vests, stun grenades and additional combat gear. They have indicated that they need this to stay strong in Judea and Samaria, and were hoping to make purchases from Egypt and Jordan with US money. I cannot speak for what actually went on at the meeting between Abbas and Olmert on Monday, but Olmert came away insisting that Abbas said he would have nothing to do with Hamas. And even now Abbas is playing it to the hilt: He is insisting that what Hamas did in Gaza was very bad and that he absolutely would not talk to them unless they reversed the current situation. Sorry, Mahmoud. It's too late for that, because your own people in Fatah have admitted there is already talk with Hamas. I would like to believe that the world might learn a lesson from this, with regard to trusting Palestinian officialdom. But I know better. The world doesn't want to learn this lesson. ~~~~~~~~~~ I confess: I am fascinated as to how this will play out. Does George Bush know yet that he has egg on his face? Or Condoleezza? Will that doomed "peace conference" be touted anyway? Will Blair, in his new role that mandates strengthening Abbas, insist that he hears no evil and sees no evil? Will there be a way to "reinterpret" Hamas so that it becomes acceptable? Or will Western officials throw up their hands in surrender and admit that forging a "peace based on a two-state solution" is an impossibility in the current climate? ~~~~~~~~~~ And Ehud Olmert? Where does this leave him? Yesterday, reports -- which the prime minister's office absolutely and most vociferously denied -- surfaced, most significantly in Haaretz, regarding a possible plan for peace with the Palestinians that Olmert was considering: It would have permitted settlements to remain on 5% of Judea and Samaria with land from within the Green Line (in Arab areas) given to the Palestinians to compensate. ~~~~~~~~~~ And what of our vaunted defense minister, Ehud Barak? He says that having technological defenses against missiles is a prerequisite to pulling out from Judea and Samaria. This is clear? He is acknowledging that pulling out would make us the target of attacks. But rather than saying we shouldn't pull out if this is the case, he says we must first make certain we can defend ourselves. Hopefully, this issue will become moot. But such a take, by a military man, is incomprehensible to me. ~~~~~~~~~~ Well, it took many hours, and it was ugly, but the authorities have removed the two families, and their many supporters, from their homes in the former market place, now called Mitzpe Shalhevet, in Hebron. A handful of religious soldiers refused to participate. They have now been disciplined and removed from combat units. Their actions have sparked a considerable debate in this country, to which I hope to return at a later date. In my article about the situation, I provided background, which I found people welcomed. Please, if you would like to learn even more, and have a clearer picture, visit the Hebron page on my website for a review of Hebron's history and an explanation of what the Jewish community there copes with: http://www.arlenefromisrael.info/hebron/. There are several basic points to be made here. Hebron is historically a Jewish city. And to this day we have rights there. The notion that the presence of the Jewish community there is a stumbling block to peace or makes life hard for the Arab population is simply erroneous. To Go To Top TOP 10 DOUBLE STANDARDS ON THE MIDDLE EAST Posted by Simon McIlwaine, August 8, 2007. We are advised that attempts are being made to silence one of Radical Islam's harshest and bravest critics: the Freedom Center's Robert Spencer. Robert Spencer assures us he will not be silenced! Read him at http://www.jihadwatch.org The essay below comes from the August 4, 2007 Judeosphere Website: http://judeosphere.blogspot.com/2007/08/double-standards-double-fun.html (1) Christian fundamentalists who support Israel are religious fanatics; Jewish fundamentalists who oppose Zionism are individuals of deep religious and moral conviction. (2) Comparing Israelis to Nazis is a poignant political statement; comparing Saddam Hussein and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler is a gross distortion of history with the intent of demonizing foreign leaders and justifying imperialist military campaigns. (3) Palestinian nationalism reflects the inherent right of all people to self-determination; Jewish nationalism is an archaic form of tribalism and racial supremacy. (4) Criticizing academics that legitimize hateful stereotypes of African-Americans and Arab-Americans is a proper response from minority groups who oppose racism; criticizing academics that legitimize hateful stereotypes of Jewish-Americans is an attempt to stifle free speech. (5) Iran has the right under international law to pursue nuclear power for peaceful purposes; any other country that pursues nuclear power is endangering the environment and increasing the risk of nuclear proliferation . (6) Jews who cite the lessons of the Holocaust as a rationale for opposing Israel are moralists; Jews who cite the lessons of the Holocaust as a rationale for opposing authoritarian regimes in places like Yugoslavia and Iraq are neocon warmongers. (7) Israeli policies are said to be tantamount to "genocide"; accusations of genocide in Darfur are a Zionist plot to divide the Muslim community. (8) The war on terrorism is driven by Islamophobia; the "new anti-semitism" is a myth created to deflect legitimate criticism of Israel. (9) Efforts to oppose anti-semitism on college campuses undermine academic freedom; academic boycotts against Israel infringe upon academic freedom but serve a greater good . (10) Burning flags with Muslim symbols is desecration; burning the Israeli flag and the Star of David is political protest Simon McIlwaine is with Anglican Friends of Israel (www.anglicanfriendsofisrael.com). Contact him at Simon.McIlwaine@ormerods.co.uk To Go To Top AT LONG LAST, GOOD NEWS: A NEW SPIRIT IS BLOWING IN THE NATIONAL CAMP! Posted by Lee Caplan, August 8, 2007. This was written by Nadia Matar of Women in Green. A few moments ago I came home from the marketplace in Hebron, where the forcible expulsion of two Jewish families and their supporters took place this morning. These houses legally and morally belong to Jews. As is well known, the Olmert-Livni-Peres-Peretz-Barak government has no time to deal with Arab terror or the Kassam rockets on Sderot. The problem of the massive and illegal Arab construction in Jerusalem, Galilee, the Negev, and Judea and Samaria does not concern this government. All those issues are secondary and unimportant. In the run-up to the "suicide conference" in September, the Olmert government must prove to US president Bush and Condoleezza Rice that it is capable of expelling Jews from their land. Adults and youth, all lovers of Eretz Israel, who had come from all over the Land, defended for hours the houses earmarked for destruction, and refused to vacate alleys of the Avraham Avinu Hebron neighborhood. I left the marketplace disguised as a very heavily pregnant ultra-Orthodox woman. I did so because I was told that the police had received photographs of various people for whom they are "searching," and that they were going from door to door to find them. As the rumor had it, my picture, too, was "starring" in their photo gallery. I felt as if we had returned to the time of the British Mandate. Thanks to my disguise, I managed to leave, and I hurried to write this article, in optimistic spirits: Dear friends -- at long last, there is some good news! Today, we can definitely proclaim, before the whole world: the national camp has raised its head, and, at long last, dares to bark, and even to bite! What began at Amona, continued at Homesh and at the Eitam Hill: thousands of Jews blatantly disregard the government's illegal orders and are not afraid to breach the ring of the violent Yassam (Special Patrol Force). They valiantly struggle to return to the areas that the government abandoned to the enemy (Homesh), and to save the places that are planned, G-d forbid, to soon be handed over (Eitam). This new spirit that blows in the hills of Judea and Samaria reached a new high yesterday with the announcement by dozens of soldiers proclaiming: "Expelling Jews? No, no! We will not participate anymore in the crime of expulsion!" And that was not all! The parents of these heroic soldiers came to encourage their children, and were not afraid to lie under the wheels of the busses, to try and prevent soldiers from taking part in the expulsion. In other words: all that we expected would happen in Gush Katif and in northern Samaria, but unfortunately, did not take place, is finally happening now. And today, when it took thousands of security forces almost eight hours to expel Jews from two old buildings, we said to ourselves that this is the tikkun (corrective measure) for what did not happen in Gush Katif and Northern Samaria. If our "leaders" had organized a resolute opposition for every house in Gush Katif and Northern Samaria, as we saw today in Hebron, we could have prevented the destruction of so many Jewish communities. The struggle today is between this new spirit in the national camp, a spirit that can be defined as a "proud Jewish spirit", a spirit loyal to the people of Israel, the Land of Israel, and the Torah of Israel, against the "spirit of Oslo", the anti-Jewish spirit of all those in power who want to surrender to the Arab enemy, and even to destroy the Jewish nature of the State of Israel. We should not be surprised by the terrible violence that we witnessed today. Blows, dragging people on the hard stone, in some cases violating any semblance of modesty and arrests, all are only a small part of the methods employed by Olmert's Bolshevik regime to try and repress this renewed Jewish spirit. We must make certain that our public will not be deterred. We must ensure that this spark of "proud Jewish spirit" will spread throughout the entire Israeli Public and become a conflagration of love and loyalty for the People and the Land. And so, technically, the security forces, who acted so brutally today, succeeded in destroying the houses in the marketplace. But we are the victors! As Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, said: "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty!" And now, finally, we are witnessing the beginning of the People of Israel's exodus from the tyranny of the Left for Jewish liberty. May it be His will that we all have the strength to persevere! * * * * * WOMEN IN GREEN CHIZUK (strength) TRIP TO HEBRON THIS FRIDAY MORNING, AUGUST 10 There is no other way to describe what the Olmert government did in Hevron on Tuesday, than calling it a POGROM. Not only were the people violently beaten up, but all the stores in the shuk and the Shalhevet Pass Kollel were completely destroyed. (See link to pictures below). The belongings of the two families expelled from their home were destroyed. Whatever was not destroyed was thrown onto trucks and dumped in another area in Hevron. WE MUST COME TO OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN HEVRON, GIVE THEM CHIZUK AND SUPPORT AND SAY: WE ARE WITH YOU! Women in Green together with the Efrat-Gush Etzion action committees call upon all to come this Friday, August 10th. to Hevron. We will go to the Avraham Avinu neighborhood and bring cakes for the adults and candies and toys for the children. We will drive there in a car convoy. Meet at 9:00am at the Gush Etzion parking lot below the gas station. For more details call Nadia 050-5500834 or Anita 050-5777254. For pictures of the Olmert pogrom against the Jews of Hevron: http://www.hebron.org.il/hebrew/gallery.php?id=238 http://www.hebron.org.il/hebrew/gallery.php?id=237 For the Arutz 7 MUST READ articles about what happened in Hevron and the terrible violence and cruelty by the Olmert government against the Jews please go to: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123302 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123297 Contact Lee Caplan at leescaplan@yahoo.com To Go To Top HAS ISRAEL LOST ITS SOUL? Posted by Michael Freund, August 8, 2007. Israel's leadership has lost its way -- far more profoundly than many had imagined. From turning their backs on Ethiopian Jews waiting to be rescued, to moving to deport refugees fleeing the carnage in Darfur, Israel's current government has lost touch with its Jewish soul and with basic human values. As I argue in the column below from the Jerusalem Post, this is the real reason to fear for the country and its future. In recent years, I've grown increasingly worried about the future of Israel, as the country's leaders appear to have lost their senses entirely. Fumbling and bumbling from one disaster to the next, they inspire little confidence in their ability to grapple with the challenges that lie ahead. But now, to be honest, I'm even more concerned, because I think that many of our leaders have lost their souls, as well. Take, for example, Meir Sheetrit, who was recently elevated to the powerful post of Interior Minister in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's cabinet. Though the ink is barely dry on his appointment, Sheetrit has already made a series of statements that are as shocking as they are callous, and which say a great deal about the decay of values that has taken place among our political leadership. In an interview in the Jerusalem Post last week, Sheetrit reiterated his call for an end to the aliya of the Falash Mura from Ethiopia, declaring with nary a hint of shame, "Who needs them?" That is how a minister in the government of Israel dares to speak about 18,000 human beings, all of whom are descendants of Ethiopian Jews forced to convert to Christianity a few generations ago, many against their will. The Falash Mura now wish to rejoin the Jewish people, and we have an opportunity to save them and to bring them back home. A broad spectrum of prominent people, ranging from Israel's Sephardic Chief Rabbi to Canada's former Minister of Justice to the head of the Reform movement, have all called for their restoration to Zion, but that doesn't seem to move Mr. Sheetrit one whit. "We are creating a hell of a job for ourselves because of political correctness or trying to be nice," Sheetrit said, insisting that, "We need to take care of the future of Israel and this aliya will never finish." Reading these words should shake us all to the very core of our being. Instead of viewing the immigration of our Ethiopian brethren as a blessing from Heaven and the fulfillment of the vision of the Prophets, Israel's Interior Minister prefers to kvetch. Sheetrit asserts that efforts to bring back Ethiopia's "lost Jews" somehow distract us from "taking care of the future of Israel." But he has got it precisely wrong. What he fails to realize is that the two are intimately connected and can not -- no, must not! -- ever be separated. FOR IF Israel ceases to concern itself with rescuing Jews in distress, then it has undermined the very foundation of its existence. We might as well then just close up shop, go back to the Diaspora, and hope for the best. And yet, even this self-evident truth seems to escape our inimitable Interior Minister, who went on to say that he thinks it is time for Israel to become a "real state" rather than a "committee of the Jewish people." Having lived here for over 12 years, I too would finally like to see Israel start acting like a "real country," in more ways than one. But Sheetrit's effort to strip away the Jewish and Zionist core of national policy is simply repugnant and distressing. It speaks volumes about just how far our present government has strayed from everything the Jewish people hold dear. They view Jewish history as a burden, and Jewish destiny as something to be mocked. No wonder the country is adrift, unsure of where it is headed or even why it should continue to struggle for its existence. Sheetrit and his ilk are indifferent to the fate of the Falash Mura, even though they are Jews. But their indifference does not stop there. It extends to the refugees from Darfur as well, hundreds of whom now face deportation to Egypt, where they face the possibility of prison or even death. Israel is a country of seven million people. Is it really too much to expect that we might give refuge to a few hundred stragglers fleeing genocide and torture? When Menachem Begin was premier, one of his first acts in office was to grant entry to a group of 66 Vietnamese boat people escaping persecution back home. ON JUNE 10, 1977, an Israeli cargo ship sailing toward Japan had rescued the refugees after their vessel began taking on water. The refugees were fed and taken care of, and Begin humanely decided to take them in. Over the next two years, Israel welcomed an additional 250 Vietnamese refugees, giving them citizenship and a new home, in what Begin later told US president Jimmy Carter was "a natural act to us" in light of the Jewish people's history of wandering. But even the concept of "welcoming the stranger," which is so fundamental to Jewish practice and belief, has now become foreign to those holding the reins of power in our land. They don't want Falash Mura Jews from Ethiopia, and they could care less about the fate of Christians from Darfur in Sudan. What kind of leadership is this? The answer, sadly, is clear. It is a leadership that has lost touch not only with the most elementary sense of Jewish pride, but even with the most basic values of humanity. "Zion shall be redeemed through justice," the prophet Isaiah foretold. "And those who return to her through righteousness," he added. Therein lies the key to our future -- to act justly and to uphold virtue. That is what will ultimately bring about our longed-for redemption. But men such as those who are currently in charge are so disconnected from faith and from decency that our deliverance has never seemed so far off. And that is why I fear so much for the future of this country. And so too, I think, should you. Michael Freund served as an adviser to former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. This appeared today in The Jerusalem Post 8, 2007 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1186066407138&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull To Go To Top HEBRON -- HISTORY AND PRESENT CRISIS Posted by Janet Lehr, August 8, 2007. Hebron, a pawn to recent Israeli governments, unknown and certainly unvisited by most Israelis, it is in reality the crown jewel of Israel -- How could it be that it is today under siege, not by Palestineans but by Olmert's forces? HEBRON IS TODAY'S AMONA mattot.arim@gmail.com wrote: GOOD MORNING, RIGHTWING VOICES Please call the 2 rightwing ministers about what's going on in Hebron. Mention that you have not heard them voicing their opinion in the media against repeating Gush Katif scenarios, this time in Hebron: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3431720,00.html http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/615/424.html Avigdor Liberman's Office: tel. 02 6547100 fax 02 6547101 Eli Yishai's Office Fax 02-6662255; Tel 02-6662909 Please forward any interesting replies straight to mattot.arim@gmail.com; hebron.mail@hebron.org.il; The Jewish Community of Hebron / P.O. Box 105, Kiryat Arba 90100 Israel/ Tel: 972-2-9965333; Fax: 972-2-9965304 / info@hebron.com and to janetlehr@veredart.com Also, please click on the above 2 articles and add talkback comments at the bottom. Our politicians NEED to know how upset you are and yes, they DEFINITELY read (and count) talkback. mattotarim-subscribe@eretz.org Lee Caplan writes: I would like to suggest that we bombard the Israeli Consulate with phone messages deploring the efforts being made to evict Jews from their homes in Hevron. You could mention how incredible you find it that Israel can spare so many soldiers for a mission like this (and others dealing with expelling Jews from parts of Israel), while at the same time not having enough manpower and resources to deal with the real enemy! You could also mention that there better not be a repeat of what happened in Amona here or that you will think twice about helping Israel in the future! For further information on Hevron and/or to donate to Hevron, please see www.hebron.org.il Also, please contact Minister Avigdor Lieberman and tell him to help the 14 helpless children who are being threatened with eviction from their homes Avigdor Liberman's Office numbers are: tel. 02 6547100, fax02 6547101. spokeswoman Irena's cell phone number 054-8077410 From the US, dial 011-972-2-6547100(1 if fax) and/or 011-972-54-8077410 Using the above cellphone number you can even send an SMS -- such as 'Evette Do Not Let Govt Evict 14 Jewish Kids in Hebron. Toda, Yosi, Holon THANK YOU FOR HELPING 14 HELPLESS LITTLE KIDS. Call now 02 6547100 -- fax now 02 6547101 -- SMS now 054-8077410 1.THE HISTORY OF THE JEWS IN HEBRON, AND OF THE PRESENT CONFLICT by Arlene Kushner with historical detail added by Janet Lehr Background On July 7th 2007 a large army and police contingent evicted two Jewish families from a marketplace in Hevron just days after 60 Combat solders of the elite combat unit (Dukhifat) refused orders to forceably remove these Jews. The market stands on Jewish land. It was purchased, in front of Arab witnesses, in 1807 by Rabbi Haim Bajaoi, at a time when there was a thriving Jewish Quarter in the ancient city; the five dunams he purchased were adjacent to the Quarter and dedicated to the use of the Jewish community. Jews disappeared from Hevron in 1929, after a horrendous Arab massacre (instigated, it should be noted by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Muhammad al-Husseini, who was Arafat's mentor, some sources say he was Arafat's Uncle). Those Jews who survived were moved out by the British, who then controlled the area under the Mandate for Palestine: It was easier to remove them than protect them. Hebron is the first Jewish city in the land of Israel, home of our patriarchs and matriarchs -- Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Sarah, Rebecca and Leah. It is located 32 km. (approximately 18 miles) south of Jerusalem in the Judean hills. King David ruled from Hebron for more than seven years before moving the capital to Jerusalem. Jews have lived in Hebron almost continuously for thousands of years. At Tel Hebron, commonly known as "Tel Rumeida," artifacts were discovered dating to the era of the Patriarch Abraham. "L'Melech" (King) seals, 2,700 years old, inscribed with the word "Hevron" in ancient Hebrew were uncovered there by archeologists. Hebron is first mentioned in the book of Genesis (13:18), where Abraham is found pitching his tent. Later when Sara, his wife, dies -- in Kiryat Arba that is Hebron, Genesis 23:2 -- he buys a field and the burial cave of Machpela for her (Genesis 23:9, 17-20). Numbers 13-22 states that (Canaanite) Hebron was founded seven years before the Egyptian town of Zoan, i.e. around 1720 BCE In fact all the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and -- three of the four -- mothers, Sara, Rebecca, and Leah lived there, and were buried there in the Cave of Machpela. According to a Jewish tradition -- Adam and Eve are also buried there. It was so important to Jacob, that seeing his end nearing, he called his 12 sons to gather around him, and promise that when he dies, they will leave Egypt to bring his body back to Hebron for burial (Genesis 49:29-31). What nation has such a clear link to its progenitors, where they lived, died, and are buried? Hebron continued to be an important and holy site to Jews. In fact, so much so that one of Jacob's great-grandsons -- Levi's grandson and Kehat's son -- was named Hebron (Numbers 3:19). Moses and Aaron had an Uncle Hebron. After the exodus from Egypt, when Moses sent the 12 spies to check out the land, one of them Calev, took a little detour to Hebron to pray at the family tomb -- the Cave of Machpela (Numbers 13:22). Later, King David established Hebron as his first capital city. "In Hebron he reined over Judah seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem he reined thirty three years over all Israel and Judah" (Samuel II 5:5). Clearly Hebron and Jerusalem are intertwined in the Jewish people's historical memory. Hebron is mentioned 87 times in the Bible, and is the world's oldest Jewish community. Joshua assigned Hebron to Caleb from the tribe of Judah (Joshua 14:13-14), who subsequently led his tribe in conquering the city and its environs (Judges 1:1-20). As Joshua 14:15 notes, "the former name of Hebron was Kiryat Arba..." Following the death of King Saul, God instructed David to go to Hebron, where he was anointed King of Judah (II Samuel 2:1-4). A little more than 7.5 years later, David was anointed King over all Israel, in Hebron (II Samuel 5:1-3). The city was part of the united kingdom and -- later -- the southern Kingdom of Judah, until the latter fell to the Babylonians in 586 BCE. Despite the loss of Jewish independence, Jews continued to live in Hebron (Nehemiah 11:25), and the city was later incorporated into the (Jewish) Hasmonean kingdom by John Hyrcanus. King Herod (reigned 37-4 BCE) built the base of the present structure -- the 12 meter high wall -- over the Tomb the Patriarchs. The city was the scene of extensive fighting during the Jewish Revolt against the Romans (65-70, see Josephus 4:529, 554), but Jews continued to live there after the Revolt, through the later Bar Kochba Revolt (132-135 CE), and into the Byzantine period. The remains of a synagogue from the Byzantine period have been excavated in the city, and the Byzantines built a large church over the Tomb of the Patriarchs, incorporating the pre- existing Herodian structure. Jews continued to live in Hebron after the city's conquest by the Arabs (in 638), whose generally tolerant rule was welcomed, especially after the often harsh Byzantine rule -- although the Byzantines never forbade Jews from praying at the Tomb. The Arabs converted the Byzantine church at the Tomb the Patriarchs into a mosque. Upon capturing the city in 1100, the Crusaders expelled the Jewish community, and converted the mosque at the Tomb back into a church. The Jewish community was re-established following the Mamelukes' conquest of the city in 1260, and the Mamelukes reconverted the church at the Tomb of the Patriarchs back into a mosque. However, the restored Islamic (Mameluke) ascendancy was less tolerant than the pre-Crusader Islamic (Arab) regimes -- a 1266 decree barred Jews (and Christians) from entering the Tomb of the Patriarchs, allowing them only to ascend to the fifth, later the seventh, step outside the eastern wall. The Jewish cemetery -- on a hill west of the Tomb -- was first mentioned in a letter dated to 1290. The Ottoman Turks' conquest of the city in 1517 was marked by a violent pogrom which included many deaths, rapes, and the plundering of Jewish homes. The surviving Jews fled to Beirut and did not return until 1533. In 1540, Jewish exiles from Spain acquired the site of the "Court of the Jews" and built the Avraham Avinu ("Abraham Our Father") synagogue. (One year -- according to local legend -- when the requisite quorum for prayer was lacking, the Patriarch Abraham himself appeared to complete the quorum; hence, the name of the synagogue.) Despite the events of 1517, its general poverty and a devastating plague in 1619, the Hebron Jewish community grew. Throughout the Turkish period (1517-1917), groups of Jews from other parts of the Land of Israel, and the Diaspora, moved to Hebron from time to time, joining the existing community, and the city became a rabbinic center of note. In 1775, the Hebron Jewish community was rocked by a blood libel, in which Jews were falsely accused of murdering the son of a local sheikh. The community -- which was largely sustained by donations from abroad -- was made to pay a crushing fine, which further worsened its already shaky economic situation. Despite its poverty, the community managed, in 1807, to purchase a 5-dunam plot -- upon which the city's wholesale market stands today -- and after several years the sale was recognized by the Hebron Waqf. In 1811, 800 dunams of land were acquired to expand the cemetery. In 1817, the Jewish community numbered approximately 500, and by 1838, it had grown to 700, despite a pogrom which took place in 1834, during Mohammed Ali's rebellion against the Ottomans (1831-1840). In 1870, a wealthy Turkish Jew, Haim Yisrael Romano, moved to Hebron and purchased a plot of land upon which his family built a large residence and guest house, which came to be called Beit Romano. The building later housed a synagogue and served as a yeshiva, before it was seized by the Turks. During the Mandatory period, the building served the British administration as a police station, remand center, and court house. In 1893, the building later known as Beit Hadassah was built by the Hebron Jewish community as a clinic, and a second floor was added in 1909. The American Zionist Hadassah organization contributed the salaries of the clinic's medical staff, who served both the city's Jewish and Arab populations. During World War I, before the British occupation, the Jewish community suffered greatly under the wartime Turkish administration. Young men were forcibly conscripted into the Turkish army, overseas financial assistance was cut off, and the community was threatened by hunger and disease. However, with the establishment of the British administration in 1918, the community, reduced to 430 people, began to recover. In 1925, Rabbi Mordechai Epstein established a new yeshiva, and by 1929, the population had risen to 700 again. Our community offices are in a neighborhood founded in 1540 by Jews exiled from Spain in 1492. Jewish presence in Hebron came to an abrupt end only in August 1929, when Arab riots led to the murder of 67 Jews and the wounding of 70. All survivors were exiled from the city by the ruling British. Following the riots, massacre and exile in 1929, a small group of Jews returned to Hebron in 1931. About thirty families, principally women and children, lived in the city until just after Passover, 1936, when they were forcibly expelled by the British. In the 1920s and the 1930s there was no Jewish state, no Jewish army, no Jewish ability to truly defend themselves. Today, 78 years later, we have Jewish police, Jewish military, a Jewish government, a Jewish state. It seems that they prefer not to follow in the footsteps of the first Jew, Abraham, who, being commanded by G-d to "Lech Lecha" to "Go" to walk the land, the length and width of Eretz Yisrael, did just that, stopping only in Hebron, making this city his home, the first Jewish city in the Land of Israel. Rather, the Israeli state, using all of the resources available to such a sovereign body, prefers to follow in the footsteps of the Mufti and the British. The Mufti slaughtered people. Very clearly, Amin el Husseini's goal was the expulsion of Jews, starting with Hebron, and reaching Jerusalem, and other cities in Israel. He wanted Jews out, and cared not how it happened. He had plans to annihilate all the Jews living in Eretz Yisrael following Rommel's expected invasion of Israel during World War Two. He met with Hitler in Berlin in the 1930s and clearly discussed more than formation of the Muslim Brigades, which fought against the allied forces in Europe. In 1948, the Jordanians occupied this area; an Arab market was established on the land that Bajaoi had purchased. During the Jordanian occupation, which lasted until 1967, Jews were not permitted to live in the city, nor -- despite the Armistice Agreement -- to visit or pray at the Jewish holy sites in the city. Additionally, the Jordanian authorities and local residents undertook a systematic campaign to eliminate any evidence of the Jewish presence in the city. They razed the Jewish Quarter, desecrated the Jewish cemetery and built an animal pen on the ruins of the Avraham Avinu synagogue. Following the 1967 Six-Day War, Jews again had access to the first Jewish city in Israel. It must be clearly understood: when returned to Hebron in 1967, Jews did not occupy a foreign city; rather, they came back home. In 1968 Jews officially came back to Hebron. The day before Passover in April, 1968 a group of families arrived at the Park Hotel in Hebron. The proprietor rented them half of the kitchen, which they promptly koshered. The women and children slept in the rooms; the men and boys slept in the lobby and on the floor. It was the first Jewish Pesach in Hebron in decades. Moshe Dayan, then Minister of Defense, arrived in Hebron shortly after Passover. Following several weeks of discussions he offered the group two choices: either be forcibly removed from the city, or go live in the Hebron military compound, several kilometers outside the center of the city. This building, originally a British police station, had been transformed into the Israeli military Headquarters of Judea. It was not overly conducive to a civilian lifestyle. Dayan must have expected that the young families, including women and babies, would soon throw up their arms in frustration at the poor living conditions and leave of their own accord. Dayan was partially correct. The group did eventually leave. But first they lived in the military headquarters for two and half years, until the first neighborhood of the newly founded Hebron suburb, Kiryat Arba, was completed. There was, however, a yearning to return to Hebron, to Beit Hadassah, to the 450 year old Jewish Quarter, home of the ancient Avraham Avinu Shul, to reside adjacent to Ma'arat HaMachpela. Attempts were made, again and again, all leading to failure. Only in 1979, when Menachem Begin was Prime Minister, did a group of 10 women and 40 children succeed in setting up house in the basement of the old medical center, Beit Hadassah, in the middle of the city. Living in adverse conditions for close to a year, these women and childen became the nucleus of Hebron's renewed Jewish community. In 1980, following the murder of six young men outside Beit Hadassah, the Israeli government finally gave official recognition and authorization of Hebron's Jewish Community. When Israel secured control of Hevron in 1967, the Arabs were permitted to continue to operate the market -- even though they were on privately owned Jewish land. This was so even after Jews moved back into the city, into the old Jewish area, known as the Avraham Aveinu neighborhood. Twelve years ago, for security reasons, the IDF evicted the Arabs who maintained the stalls in the market. The market stood empty. By 1998, as part of the Oslo Accords, Israel had pulled out of 80% of Hevron, but the 20% that remained in Israeli hands included the Avraham Aveinu neighborhood and the adjacent market place. In March of 2001, a one-year old child, Shalhevet Pass, was shot point-blank in the head by an Arab sniper who had positioned himself in the area of the empty market. The Hevron Jewish community then decided that a Jewish presence there was necessary. They invested many thousands of dollars in converting the old market stalls into small apartments. Nine Hevron families moved in, and a religious study hall was established. This area was named Mitzpe (outlook) Shalhevet, in memory of the child. Once the Jewish residents moved in, Arabs went to court claiming the buildings. The attorney general responded that the Arabs had no further claim, but that the Jewish "trespassers" would be evicted; the court accepted this and made no additional ruling. Eviction orders were issued by the attorney general's office. ~~~~~~~~~~ Before eviction could take place, the Jewish community appealed. Then the court ruled that the land was privately owned by Jews (the family of Rabbi Bajaoi had produced papers and indicated their desire that the Hevron Jewish community use the land). However, they also ruled that the market stalls, which had been put up by Jordan, were captured property that legally fell under the jurisdiction of the Israeli government. The court recommended that the structures be leased by the government to the residents of Mitzpe Shalhevet. Attorney General Mazuz refused, determined to "punish" those who had used this property without permission. He pushed for eviction. Eighteen months ago, when that eviction was about to take place, there was a gathering of protestors and violence seemed imminent. Crisis was averted when IDF officials on the scene -- headed by General Yair Golan -- negotiated a compromise with the residents, saying that if they moved out peacefully, legal Jewish occupancy of the market would be expedited and Jews from Hevron would soon be permitted to move in. Based on this agreement, the residents moved out voluntarily. Subsequently, Attorney General Mazuz voided the agreement, saying that the IDF had no right to negotiate it. Mitzpe Shalhevet stood empty. The Hevron Jewish community petitioned the Israeli government several times to be permitted to rent the remaining structures left in the market place but their request was consistently denied. The Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs was off-limits to Jews for 700 years. During that time Jews, (as well as Christians), were not allowed inside the 2,000 year old Herodian structure atop the Caves of Machpela. Today we are told by Hebron's Arab Mayor and deputy mayor that should the Palestinian Authority ever regain control all of Hebron, again this holy site will be closed to anyone not Moslem. There are those who are skeptical. How then, can one explain what happened to Joseph's Tomb in Shechem. According to the Olso Accords this holy site was to remain accessible to Jews. However, following the killing of an Israeli soldier at the tomb, was forced to abandon it. The result was the total destruction of the building which was burned to the ground. And if the Arabs had their way, Kever Rachel would have long ago been turned over to the Palestinian Authority. The only reason that Ma'arat HaMachpela is still accessible to Jews is because there is a permanent Jewish presence in the city. The disappearance of the Jewish Community of Hebron would be tantamount to abandoning our Patriarchs and Matriarchs. Could any Jew, be they religious or secular, dream of abandoning the Fathers and Mothers of our people? Current events This brings us to the current crisis. Recently two families grew tired of the waiting, and the failed promises, and moved back into Mitzpe Shalhevet. And once more the government is out to remove them. "We've been fooled too many times," the families are saying, "This time we're not going peacefully." The community is mindful of the fact that the court had provided a way out with its recommendation, and the government refused to take it, preferring confrontation. Defense Minister Barak is making the decision in this regard now. Responding to pressure from the left (and mindful, undoubtedly, of elections coming up before too very long) he has decided to take action against these two families. What makes this even more shameful is that the representatives of seven factions within the Knesset had appealed to Barak to not go this route. Last month they wrote a letter to him: "We are marking 78 years since the 1929 riots, you are faced with a fateful decision concerning one of the sites which represents, more than anything else, the murder and the thievery [committed upon] the Hebron Jewish community of those days: the site of the 'shuk' [market place] in Hebron, where presently several families are living...We are dealing with Jewish-owned land, which was stolen as a result of the terrible slaughter. It is incumbent on the government to act to return the stolen property as would be expected in relationship to stolen Jewish property anywhere in the world. "We the undersigned, chairmen of various parties in the Knesset, turn to you with this request to refrain from expelling these Jewish families living in the 'shuk' and to study alternative ways to resolve Jewish quarters at this site, legally... "The residents of Hebron prevented violence and conflict...when they voluntarily moved out of these homes, based upon promises that they would be allowed to return, honoring and respecting promises of representatives of the state, IDF officers. This type of approach is to be encouraged and rewarded, not discouraged... "For all the above reasons, we request, that you order that the issue of Jewish residency in the 'shuk' be studied seriously, and that in any case, you prevent, for the time being, any eviction of Jewish residents from the site." Barak's decision, then, is shameful. I titled this posting "Essential Errors," and without a shadow of a doubt, what Barak is doing qualifies in this respect. 2. BUILDUP TO GOVERNMENT ORDERED EVACUATION OF JEWS FROM JEWS PROPERTY IN HEBRON By Aaron Klein August 3, 2007 http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56981 Jews to be forcibly removed from Judaism's oldest city With hundreds of thousands of arabs in illegal outposts, PM directs forces against 2 families JERUSALEM -- Fresh from ordering security forces to destroy a synagogue built by Jews to pray near Joseph's Tomb, Judaism's third holiest site, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert now has directed his forces to forcibly evict two families that moved into a market in Jewish sections of Hebron, the oldest Jewish community in the world. The evictions are scheduled for Monday. Israel says the occupation of market by the two families is illegal since their arrival wasn't coordinated with the Israeli military. The market in question, now converted to small, two-story apartments, was built in 1929 after Arab riots temporarily forced Jews from Hebron -- the first time the city was without a Jewish presence in over 2,500 years. For more than 30 years, a sign was posted on the market boasting in Arabic that the structure was built on stolen Jewish property. Arab merchants illegally set up shop at the market but were asked by the Israel Defense Forces to leave after a series of clashes broke out in the mid-1990s. Even though the market was stolen by the Arabs, Hebron's Jewish community purchased the market from its original Arab occupants in 2001. In January 2006, Jewish families took up occupancy to strengthen Jewish ties to the area following the murder of an infant by a Palestinian sniper, yards away from the market. The market, integrated within the Hebron Jewish community, is adjacent to several Jewish apartments and Jewish municipal buildings. It is not located in an Arab neighborhood. It doesn't require any original additional protection from IDF soldiers already patrolling the area. Despite the original property owners' recent signing over of the market to Hebron's Jewish community, as well as Israel's Supreme Court ruling that the structure was Jewish-owned, the government considers the occupancy of the marketplace illegal, saying families living inside did not negotiate their arrival with the IDF. Following a standoff with the army last year, the Jews who had moved into the market decided to leave, reportedly after receiving promises from military officials they could return a few months later, after the court systems -- which deemed the property Jewish -- worked with the IDF to verify the legality of the Jewish residence. But Israel's attorney general overturned the Supreme Court decision and declared the residents cannot move in. Still, two Jewish families recently moved back in, and Olmert's government immediately ordered that they be evacuated by Monday, even threatening that the families may need to reimburse the IDF for the costs of their evacuation. Shlomit Bar-Kochba, who was among those who agreed to vacate in January 2006, moved back into the market with her husband and eight children. She told the Jerusalem Post she was shocked by the interest of the Olmert government in her move. "We didn't think it would interest anyone that we returned," she said. "I thought it doesn't interfere with anyone. We came back very quietly. We didn't make noise or celebrate." "The agreement was that we would leave in January, and shortly they would allow us to return," she said, explaining that when the agreement didn't come to fruition months later, her family decided not to wait anymore. It seemed illogical to her, she told the Post, that the government was upset by their presence some 10 months later, explaining no additional security was required and that her home sits on land owned by Jews. Hebron is home to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, believed to be the resting place of biblical patriarchs and matriarchs. Jews lived in Hebron for thousands of years. There are accounts of the trials of the city's Jewish community throughout the Byzantine, Arab, Mameluke and Ottoman periods. In 1929, as a result of an Arab pogrom in which 67 Jews were murdered, the entire Jewish community fled the city, with Hebron -- including the market -- becoming temporarily devoid of Jews. Olmert's decision to single out for evacuation two Jewish families living in Jewish sections of Hebron has been called into question by religious leaders here. While Jewish construction projects deemed illegal in Jewish cities in the West Bank are regularly bulldozed or evacuated by the government, Olmert's office has taken no action against hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in illegal outposts in the West Bank and Jerusalem. WND previously exposed the Israeli government has allowed Palestinians and the United Nations to build illegally on hundreds of acres of Jewish-owned lands in Jerusalem purchased by the Jewish National Fund, a U.S.-based Jewish organization, using Jewish donors funds solicited for the purpose of Jewish settlement. Tens of thousands of Palestinians live on the Jewish-owned Jerusalem land, which was recently isolated from Jewish sections of Jerusalem by Israel's security barrier. WND also previously reported the city of Jerusalem, under orders from Olmert, deleted files documenting hundreds of illegal Arab building projects throughout eastern sections of Jerusalem housing tens of thousands of Palestinians, according to a report by the Jerusalem Forum, which promotes Jewish construction in the city. Aryeh King, chairman of the Jerusalem Forum, said Jerusalem municipal workers told him they were instructed by Olmert's office to ignore illegal Palestinian construction in Jerusalem. "Ehud Olmert gave the order not to deal with the problem and not to put Israeli security forces to the duty of taking down the illegal Arab complexes," said King. "Senior municipal workers told me Olmert said not to bother with the illegal Arab homes because eventually eastern Jerusalem would be given to the Palestinian Authority." Joseph's Tomb synagogue destroyed by Israeli forces Olmert's ordering of the two families to be forced from the Hebron Jewish market comes just days after the prime minister ordered his security forces to destroy a synagogue used by Jews to worship near Joseph's Tomb, Judaism's third holiest site and the believed burial place of the biblical patriarch Joseph -- the son of Jacob who was sold by his brothers into slavery and later became the viceroy of Egypt. Under the 1993 Oslo Accords, which granted nearby strategic territory to the Palestinians, Joseph's Tomb was supposed to be accessible to Jews and Christians. But following repeated attacks against Jewish worshippers at the holy site by gunmen associated with then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat's militias, Prime Minister Ehud Barak in October 2000 ordered an Israeli unilateral retreat from the area. The tomb is located near the modern day West Bank city of Nablus, or biblical Shechem. Currently, Jewish pilgrimage to Joseph's Tomb is legal only several times per year in convoys protected by the Israel Defense Forces. Still, some Jews regularly attempt clandestine visits to the holy site. Jewish students last year built a structure on the West Bank's Mount Gerizim, which is just outside the tomb area. The structure was used as a synagogue and was constructed on the Mount so Jews can pray and study Torah as close to the tomb site as possible. Dozens of Jewish students congregated daily at the makeshift synagogue. But Olmert's office and Israeli government officials deemed the structure -- which they refused to call a synagogue -- illegal since it was built without a government permit. On Monday, under direct orders from Olmert, the Israel Civil Lands Administration destroyed the structure. The Torah describes how Jacob purchased a land plot in Shechem, which was given as inheritance to his sons and was used to re-inter Joseph, whose bones were taken out of Egypt during the Jewish exodus. Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, are also said to be buried at the site. As detailed in the Torah, shortly before his death, Joseph asked the Israelites to vow they would resettle his bones in the land of Canaan -- biblical Israel. That oath was fulfilled when, according to the Torah, Joseph's remains were taken by the Jews from Egypt and reburied at the plot of land Jacob had earlier purchased in Shechem, believed to be the site of the tomb. Modern archeologists confirm Nablus is the biblical city of Shechem Yehuda Leibman, who until the Israeli retreat from Joseph's Tomb in 2000 was director of a yeshiva constructed there, explained, "The sages tell us that there are three places which the world cannot claim were stolen by the Jewish people: the Temple Mount, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Joseph's Tomb." There is evidence suggesting for more than 1,000 years Jews of various origins worshipped at Joseph's Tomb. The Samaritans, a local tribe that follow a religion based on the Torah, say they trace their lineage back to Joseph himself and that they worshipped at the tomb site for more than 1,700 years. Israel first gained control of Nablus and the neighboring site of Joseph's Tomb in the 1967 Six-Day War. The Oslo Accords signed by Arafat and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin called for the area surrounding the tomb site to be placed under Palestinian jurisdiction but allowed for continued Jewish visits to the site and the construction of an Israeli military outpost at the tomb to ensure secure Jewish access. Following the transfer of control of Nablus and the general area encompassing the tomb to the Palestinians in the early 1990s, there were a series of outbreaks of violence in which Arab rioters and gunmen from Arafat's Fatah militias shot at Jewish worshipers and the tomb's military outpost. Six Israeli soldiers were killed and many others, including yeshiva students, were wounded in September 1996 when Palestinian rioters and Fatah gunmen attempted to over take the tomb. Eventually, Israeli soldiers regained control of the site. The Palestinians continued to attack Joseph's Tomb with regular shootings and the lobbing of firebombs and Molotov cocktails. Security for Jews at the site increasingly became more difficult to maintain. Rumors circulated in 2000 that Barak would evacuate the Israeli military outpost and give the tomb to Arafat as a "peacemaking gesture." In early 2000, the Israeli army began denying Jewish visits to the tomb on certain days due to prospects of Arab violence. Following U.S. mediated peace talks at Camp David in September 2000, Arafat returned to the West Bank and initiated his intifada. During one bloody week in October 2000, Fatah gunmen attacked the tomb repeatedly, killing two and injuring dozens, prompting Barak to order a complete evacuation of Judaism's third holiest site on Oct. 6. Within less than an hour of the Israeli retreat, Palestinian rioters overtook Joseph's Tomb and reportedly began to ransack the site. Palestinian mobs reportedly tore apart books, destroying prayer stands and grinding out stone carvings in the Tomb's interior. Palestinians hoisted a Muslim flag over the tomb. Amin Maqbul, an official from Arafat's office, visited the tomb to deliver a speech declaring, "Today was the first step to liberate (Jerusalem)." One BBC reporter described the scene: "The site was reduced to smoldering rubble -- festooned with Palestinian and Islamic flags -- cheering Arab crowd. ..." Palestinians on Oct. 10 began construction of a mosque on the rubble of the tomb's adjacent yeshiva compound. Workers painted the dome of the compound green, the Islamic color. In a WND exclusive interview, Tariq Tarawi, a Fatah lawmaker who in 2000 served as chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group in the vicinity of the tomb, said the Palestinians would "never" allow Israel to rebuild a yeshiva or synagogue at Joseph's Tomb. The Brigades carried out most of the attacks against the tomb site. "A yeshiva is an institution," said Tarawi. "An institution can be the beginning of claiming rights and these claims can bring once again the Israeli army to establish a base in the place, and we can not accept this. If the Jews try to build a yeshiva, we will shoot at them." 3. OVER 60 COMBAT SOLDIERS IN THE IDF HAVE REFUSED TO AID IN THE FORCED EVACUATION OF JEWS FROM A JEWISH SETTLEMENT IN HEBRON Troops refuse to evacuate Hebron families As thousands of police officers, soldiers prepare to evacuate two Jewish families from Hebron wholesale market on Tuesday, 30 yeshiva students from Duchifat Battalion announce they will not take part in evacuation after consulting rabbis Efrat Weiss. (YNET Published: 08.06.07, 11:01 / Israel News http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3434206,00.html). Thirty yeshiva students serving in the IDF have announced that they will not take part in the evacuation of two Jewish families from the Hebron wholesale market after consulting their rabbis. The story was first reported by Army Radio. The soldiers, from the Kfir Brigade's Duchifat battalion, were slated to replace a Border Guard force on Tuesday and take part in the forced evacuation. Following their protest, their commanders sat with them and explained the importance of the mission. The potential "refusniks" were also told that those who will not carry out the mission will be treated severely by the army. IDF officials clarified that the soldiers have so far not declared that they will not get on the buses to the Hebron market and are continuing their regular training. Meanwhile, a special fund headed by an American millionaire has spread the word among troops in Hebron that a soldier who will refuse an evacuation order will receive a financial award of hundreds of dollars. If a soldier is tried over refusing an order he could receive $600. Among those involved in the initiative are extreme right-wing activists Baruch Marzel, Avigdor Eskin and Itamar Ben-Gvir. Non-violent side The two Jewish families entered two stores owned by Palestinians in the Hebron wholesale market about eight months ago. Members of the Jewish settlement expressed their anger over the planned evacuation, which is expected to be carried out by thousands of soldiers and police officers. "The talks have reached a dead end," said Noam Arnon, a member of the Jewish settlement. "How can we talk with the threat of expulsion in the air? When there is such a threat, one cannot advance anywhere." According to Arnon," This property is Jewish property. There was an agreement with former Judea and Samaria Division Commander Brig-Gen Yair Golan, which was accepted by the prime minister. "There is a legal, acceptable proposal which can be implemented, and the plan is that the families who entered will leave, but that Jews will stay in the area in one way or another," he told Ynet. Arnon is referring to an agreement reached about a year and a half ago, when nine families who entered stores in the Hebron market left during one night, preventing a confrontation. "I hope no one is looking for this confrontation," Arnon said, declaring that the settlers planned "a determined and non-violent struggle." He clarified that "the violent side is not us. The one who orders an evacuation is the violent side, and this confrontation is unnecessary. We will do all we can not to break the rules." 4. HEVRON JEWS AWAIT EXPULSION FORCES by Hana Levi Julian August 6, 2007 (IsraelNN.com) Families are going about their daily affairs. Children play outside their homes, with crayons and coloring books, in what was for centuries a graceful Jewish Quarter in the holy city of Hevron. A long-skirted woman, hair covered with a scarf, is washing the floor of her home. You'd never know that 3,000 police officers, soldiers and Yassam SWAT teams are waiting for the word to pour into the area in hundreds of buses -- to evict two families, and an undetermined number of supporters who plan to stand together with them. The plan is reminiscent of the 2005 Disengagement operation in which 12,000 government forces expelled some 8,000 Jews from 25 communities in northern Samaria and the Gush Katif region of Gaza. It brings to life the memory of the government-ordered "evacuation" of activists protesting the destruction of nine empty buildings in a planned neighborhood outside the community of Amona, carried out by thousands of Yassam police. Many were mounted on horses, which in some cases were used to trample the protestors. It is not known whether the Yassam will bring their horses Monday night. Jewish-owned Land The land on which the Hevron market stands is Jewish-owned, purchased in 1540 by Rabbi Malkiel Ashkenazai, a refugee from the Spanish expulsion in 1492. For centuries, it provided a haven for Jews, who went about their daily affairs then too, until their slaughter by Arabs in 1929 and the exile of those who managed to stay alive. Jewish-owned property, houses and synagogues were left empty as residents fled for their lives. The Jordanians who took control of the area transformed one section of the lovely Jewish Quarter into an open air market after that massacre. A synagogue in the beautiful Avinu Avraham neighborhood, as it is called, was turned into a goat yard. Hevron, liberated by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, gradually became home to Jews once more, although its Arab residents were allowed to continue to operate the market and sell their wares. Jews from Hevron as well as those from nearby Kiryat Arba did their weekly shopping in the open air market -- until 12 years ago, when the IDF decided to evict Arab store owners from the market in an effort to curtail the spiraling anti-Jewish violence. From then until recently, the Hevron marketplace stood empty of Arabs as it once stood bereft of its Jewish owners. "Interestingly enough," observes community spokesman David Wilder, the IDF Chief of Staff at the time was none other than Maj.-Gen. Ehud Barak, who supported the action ... " Jewish Residents Return to the Jewish Quarter-turned Market Eleven Jewish families decided to return to live in the former Jewish Quarter, renovating the stalls and creating apartments instead, until they were persuaded to leave by IDF officials who promised they could return with a bona fide legal status. The promise withered away when the Attorney General Menachem Mazuz ruled that the army officials had not been authorized to make the agreement. A year and a half later, nine of the families are still waiting for the government to make good on its original deal. But two families decided to wait no longer and several months ago, returned to their homes in the Jewish Quarter-turned market, now empty. And Barak, today the Defense Minister and chairman of the Labor Party, this month ordered the expulsion of two families who returned to build their homes on the Jewish-owned property. The showdown between the two families that refuse to leave their homes, and the 3,000-strong government security force, comprised of Border Police, IDF soldiers and the Yassam special force, is expected sometime late Monday night. Residents and Security Forces Wait Tensely "We have stated publicly numerous times," Wilder told Arut-7, "our goal is not violence... I would call this more civil disobedience. It's a question of not giving up, not getting up and walking out on your own two feet." The record of past Yassam-operated evictions is not encouraging. Some 200 people were injured by Yassam forces, several critically, during the government evacuation of protestors from a new Amona neighborhood in which nine structures stood empty in various stages of completion. Yassam forces have not been gentle during other government-ordered expulsions either. "We know what happens when the Yassam come in," said Wilder dispassionately, "with their hard rubber batons and other types of equipment," but he was equally clear that the Yassam would not scare the Jews out of Hevron. "We expect them to invade the neighborhood sometime in late evening. Maybe it's a fitting day, the day when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, in PA-controlled Jericho, to discuss giving land away to the Arabs," said Wilder. "They will expel us whenever they want to. But we are not going any place. The buildings are not going anyplace. We will eventually live in these buildings," he added with quiet confidence. And the prospect of beatings and other violence by Yassam police? "The level of violence will depend on them." 5. "GOVERNMENT FORCES COMPLETE EXPULSION OF HEVRON FAMILIES" by Hana Levi Julian (www.IsraelNN.com) The expulsion of two families from their homes in the Shalhevet neighborhood, built on the site of the former Hevron marketplace, was completed late Tuesday morning. Three thousand Border Guard officers, Yassam special forces and IDF soldiers forcibly evicted the families as well as hundreds of their supporters in an operation that began in the wee hours. Three young protestors were the last holdouts in a cement bunker which was eventually breached by an IDF Search and Rescue unit. Eyewitnesses reported that the IDF demolished all of the homes built in the neighborhood. Media reports said the IDF first brought in a moving company to remove the families' possessions prior to the destruction, adding that the soldiers loaded the items on to the trucks. Police removed windows and doorposts as well, in an effort to block efforts to return later to the homes. Hevron Jewish community spokesman Noam Arnon told Arutz-7 that despite the eviction, the struggle for the Hevron marketplace, built atop the ruins of the city's old Jewish Quarter, is not over. "We will return to the Shalhevet neighborhood and the families will be back in their homes," he vowed. Activists at the scene charged that the destruction of the homes was an act of vengeance in retaliation against the determined struggle they waged against the expulsion of the two families who lived in the neighborhood. They also expressed bitterness that the army had secured a permit to destroy the buildings prior to the expulsion. Army officials had promised permits a year and a half ago to the eleven families who lived in the neighborhood, saying they would be allowed to return with legal status on the condition they left the premises peacefully. Nine of the families cooperated with the government officials, believing they would make good on their end of the deal. Attorney General Menachem Mazuz quickly voided the promise after they moved out, saying the army officials had no authority to make the agreement. [video:122917] Thirteen activists were arrested during the expulsion, accused of attacking police and throwing stones. In addition, 15 police officers and 25 activists were hurt in the melee, most with light wounds. Three police officers were taken to hospital for treatment. Activists flung oil at the Yassam forces during the expulsion, following up by spraying water at the officers and then throwing gasoline and flour, damaging the apartments as well. The activists also locked and welded shut the doors to the homes. One of the leaders of the Hevron community, Orit Struk, reportedly asked the activists to stop fighting with the expulsion forces. The protestors stopped hurling rocks at the police after Struk's announcement. The IDF Home Front Command's Search and Rescue Unit, usually reserved for natural disasters and building collapses due to missile strikes and other forms of terrorism, was drafted by eviction forces to remove the activists from a bunker built in a third apartment in the neighborhood. The three youthful activists who refused to leave the sealed room, according to Army Radio, were shirtless and exhausted. Reporters peered in the tiny window built into the bunker to speak with the youths, who remained steadfast in their efforts to resist the expulsion until forces managed to penetrate the walls. Engineers worked for more than an hour to find a way to open the bunker without harming the young protestors, due to concerns that using cement-cutting saws would create sparks could ignite oxygen tanks that were placed inside the bunker. Professors for a Strong Israel strongly condemned the expulsion efforts. "We are dealing with stores that were built on the ruins of Hevron's Jewish Quarter, whose residents were murdered and their property looted exactly 78 years ago, said a statement by the group. "The expulsion of Jews once again from property that is Jewish is the fulfillment of the intentions of the rioters who sought to uproot any Jewish presence in Hevron as the first step in ridding all of Israel of Jews." Police broke into the home of the Bar Kochba family in the wee hours of Tuesday morning as thousands of security officers began forcibly removing the more than one hundred activists barricaded inside. "There is serious violence going on here," activist Nadia Matar told Arutz-7 early in the morning. "There are no female soldiers or police to handle female activists and they are being very violent with us." Female activists reported that male Yassam officers deliberately tore the clothing off the women who resisted the forcible eviction. One activist said she assumed the move was an accident when the pants she was wearing beneath her skirt were pulled down by a Yassam officer as she was violently pulled out of the Bar Kochba home. "But when I saw that the same thing was being done to my friends, I realized this was some sort of sick tactic," she said. Similar incidents came to light during protests against the uprooting of Jews from Gaza and Northern Samaria in 2005 and following the violent demolition of houses by Yassam officers at Amona in February 2006. Matar told Arutz-7 "they took me and beat me outside the house, but I managed to escape due to the chaos." She was later removed from the scene by police. Activists had surrounded the neighborhood with barrels, barbed wire and burning tires in an effort to prevent the expulsion forces from entering the area, named for a 10-month old who was murdered several years ago by a Palestinian Authority terrorist sniper. Teenagers climbed to the roofs of buildings in the market and reportedly hurled eggs, light bulbs and rocks at the government forces. Police climbed to the roofs after them. "Despite the fact that they will succeed in removing these two families we truly see a new spirit in Judea and Samaria in the struggle for the Land of Israel," said Matar, who had maintained an upbeat attitude during the struggle between activists and police. "We won't leave the marketplace voluntarily," a determined Gershon Bar Kochba told reporters early in the operation. Bar Kochba is the head of one of the two families who were the targets of the expulsion. "The struggle will be resolute, but non-violent," he vowed. It will be the police forces, not the residents, who determine the level of violence. We do not intend to use violence." 6. HEVRON STANDS FIRM: FOOL US TWICE, NOT A CHANCE Arutz Sheva August 5, 2007 The Jewish community in Hevron says it has been tricked one too many times and will neither negotiate nor leave the Hevron marketplace willingly. "We agreed to a negotiated deal a year and a half ago," says spokesman David Wilder. "We kept our side, they reneged -- this will not happen again." Wilder is referring to the old marketplace adjacent to Hevron's Avraham Avinu neighborhood, where nine families and a yeshiva were located prior to an agreement reached with the IDF in 2005. "The community was given a firm promise, in the form of an agreement with the commander of forces in Judea and Samaria, General Yair Golan, that following our voluntary exit from the homes, families would soon be allowed to 'legally' return," Wilder explained. "That was a year and a half ago. The agreement was voided by Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, using the excuse that Golan was not authorized to make the agreement. This, despite the fact that the General was on and off the phone with his bosses in the Defense Ministry during the meeting with Hebron representatives in order to receive their OK to the compromise." Hevron officals say they are once again being promised that if they leave willingly a quiet return to the marketplace will be arranged in the future. A similar episode took place with the Beit Shapira house -- which remains sealed and empty to this day. "We've been through that one too many times," Wilder said. "The property is Jewish property. A military appeals court recommended that the buildings be leased to the Hebron Jewish community. This too was rejected. What more do they want?" The answer to Wilder's query seems to be in the buildup of troops and Yassam riot police around the region in recent days. The two families living in the neighborhood in question, the Bar Kochbas and Yahaloms, say they are not going anywhere, despite claims by security officials that they will be charged for their own eviction. Activists say Defense Minister Ehud Barak's plan is to close off the roads leading to Hevron Monday morning and then begin an extremely violent eviction that will placate Peace Now and others pressuring him from the left. The public is encouraged to converge upon Hevron ahead of the deadline. "Accommodations will be provided -- just bring a sleeping bag and provisions, if you can," a protest coordinator told Arutz-7. Seven Faction Heads Against Expulsion The chairmen of seven Knesset factions, many of them part of the government, wrote to Defense Minister Ehud Barak last month, saying, inter alia: "We are marking 78 years since the 1929 riots, you are faced with a fateful decision concerning one of the sites which represents, more than anything else, the murder and the thievery of the Hebron Jewish community of those days: the site of the 'shuk' in Hebron, where presently several families are living...We are dealing with Jewish-owned land, which was stolen as a result of the terrible slaughter. It is incumbent on the government to act to return the stolen property as would be expected in relationship to stolen Jewish property anywhere in the world. "We the undersigned, chairmen of various parties in the Knesset, turn to you with this request to refrain from expelling these Jewish families living in the 'shuk' and to study alternative ways to resolve Jewish quarters at this site, legally... "The residents of Hebron prevented violence and conflict similar to the occurrences in 'Amona' when they voluntarily moved out of these homes, based upon promises that they would be allowed to return, honoring and respecting promises of representatives of the state, IDF officers. This type of approach is to be encouraged and rewarded, not discouraged... "For all the above reasons, we request, that you order that the issue of Jewish residency in the shuk be studied seriously, and that in any case, you prevent, for the time being, any eviction of Jewish residents from the site." The ketter was signed by Yoel Hasson (Kadima), Meir Porush (UTJ), Uri Ariel (National Union-NRP), Gideon Saar (Likud), Robert Ilatov (Yisrael Beitanu), Ya'akov Margi (Shas) and Moshe Sharoni (Pensioners). Lieberman Key to Prevent Expulsion Political activists believe that Yisrael Beiteinu's Avigdor Lieberman can prevent the expulsion if presented with enough public pressure. Lieberman's office number is 02-654-7100 and fax 02-654-7101. His spokeswoman Irena's cell phone number is 054-807-7410 (add 011 972 and drop the first zero from outside Israel). EPILOGUE "Terrorists attack IDF soldiers in Jenin" (Israel National News) http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/131183 Arab terrorists detonated an explosive device in the vicinity of IDF soldiers operating in Jenin. No injuries were reported. In Shechem, terrorists opened fire on an IDF unit early Monday morning. A captain was hit and lightly wounded. Three wanted terrorists were arrested during army operations in Shechem overnight. Another five were arrested near Ramallah and Hebron. Janet Lehr is editor/publisher of a daily e-mail called "Israel Lives." She can be contacted at janetlehr@veredart.com To Go To Top ISRAEL HELPS THE ARABS; MORAL RESPONSIBILITY; FOREIGN AID AND OIL COERCION Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 8, 2007. ISRAELI VICTIMS OF P.A. TERRORISM MAY SUE P.A. After four years of stalling, the Supreme Court of Israel finally ruled against the P.A., with which it has an ideological affinity, and in favor of victims of Muslim terrorism, towards whom it has an ideological aversion. The P.A. defense against suits for damages was that it is sovereign. The Court correctly ruled that Oslo did not confer statehood (IMRA, 7/17). Winning an award and especially collecting are another matter. Appeasement-minded governments, such as those of the US and Israel, favor financing terrorists over the safety and compensation of their own citizens. When aggrieved groups sue, the State Dept. intervenes and usually persuades other agencies not to release funds awarded. In the case at question, Israel has possession of P.A. funds. I proposed as policy that those funds should be turned over to the victims of P.A. terrorism. It was a travesty that foreign agencies donated taxpayer funds to that "kleptocracy" in jihadville. WHAT DO TERRORISTS THINK OF THEIR ARMS TURNOVER? Besides belonging to a terrorist militia, they either belong to, or are about to join the official police forces. Paid thousands of dollars for turning in their unofficial weapons, they turn around and take out official, perhaps better, weapons from the armory. They also get taken off Israel's list of wanted. That means that Israel will not do much more anti-terrorist raids. Indeed, the IDF General Staff ordered the field commanders not to make any raids without its permission. What terrorists think of the turnover and pledge not to pursue terrorism? They call it a "joke" -- they sign the pledge because Abbas asked them to. It makes him look good, and yet he thereby strengthens terrorism enormously. Israeli foreign policy has been a "joke" since at least 1993, from the Arab point of view. It has been a criminal disaster from the Israeli people's point of view. The mastermind of this mindless policy is Shimon Peres, at the peak of his power. He controls the Labor Party and the Kadima coalition, admitted he will abuse the non-powers of the Presidency, and has the media, universities, and the politicalized security forces behind him (IMRA, 7/16 from Caroline Glick). Woe be the Jews, governed by an antisemite! ISRAEL HELPS THE ARABS Undaunted by pesticides, rats plagued Jordanian date farms. Israel showed the Jordanians how to bring in barn owls to prey upon the rats. Full date harvest! Safer environment (IMRA, 7/20). The Jews are not the enemies of the Muslims. If only the reverse were true! RELYING UPON FATAH LEADERS UNWISE Israel relied or expected to rely upon two Fatah leaders to fight against Hamas. One is Muhammad Dahlan of Gaza; the other is Marwan Barghouti. Both are terrorists who promoted joint Fatah-Hamas missions. Dahlan boasted of having protected Hamas gunmen from Israel. It is unwise to rely upon Fatah leaders, whose doctrine resembles that of Hamas (IMRA, 7/29), Israel also relied upon Arafat and Abbas, both of whom took no serious action against Hamas. Both promoted the same doctrine as Hamas. IRAN PREDICTS WAR THIS SUMMER That's my interpretation. The Pres. of Iran said he hopes that the heat of summer coincides with burning the region's enemies (IMRA, 7/20). His hope is his proxies' command. He commands regional aggression. His statement amounts to a warning/boast that his forces will launch their attacks this summer. Hold your breath for the next few weeks. WHAT IS ONE'S MORAL RESPONSIBILITY? The Danish government announced it was giving an award to a citizen for his study of the Danish Friekorps on the eastern front in WWII. Nazi Germany recruited legions from occupied states, that being one of them. The author, Erik Haaest, is a Holocaust denier. He also calls The Diary of Anne Frank a "swindle." The Simon Wiesenthal Center protested against the award. It demanded that Denmark rescind it and punish those responsible for it, lest it promote antisemitism (Prof. Steven Plaut, 7/20). The Center's complaint is not about that book but about the author' s other action. Suppose the book were worthy. Should its creator be denied a reward for being otherwise anti-scholarly and bigoted? Put another way, should awards for achievement be restricted to those with some decency of character? Going beyond rewards, what about employment? Should people be fired for exhibiting bigotry (or professors for lack of academic integrity) outside the job? Would people be fired for lack not of academic integrity but of political correctness? Tenure was designed to protect against that. Unfortunately, political correctness is used in granting and denying tenure. People get picked on for slips of the tongue or for unpopularity. ON U.S. FOREIGN AID INCREASE You've heard that the Bush administration wants to increase military aid to Israel, apparently in part to offset the huge arms sale to S. Arabia that some Members of Congress would like to cancel. What shall we make of this deal? In defense of the Saudi sale is that it garners business for the US, rather than let it go to foreign rivals. It is said that the rivals cannot match the quality of US weaponry. If true, then better to let the Arabs have inferior weapons. That question must be settled for the deal to be credible. A similar notion is that S. Arabia must be armed against Iran. First, S. Arabia has more arms than it can absorb into its military. Second, this is the same notion about Abbas, that he must be armed against Hamas. In the end, his men or Hamas turn those arms against Israel. The arms are used for aggression. The notion is similar, because S. Arabia has become a frontline country against Israel. It formed an alliance with Egypt, has missiles aimed at Israel, and in violation of previous arms deals extended the range of its planes and keeps them near Israel. Most criticism is of the notion that S. Arabia is an ally that needs to be armed. It is not an ally but one of our main enemies. It dispatches most of the jihadists whom our forces are fighting. Some criticism is that the government may fall to Islamists who would use our weapons to conquer other countries. Not focused on by the media is the increase in military subsidy of Egypt. Subsidizing Egypt's military is based on the same false notion that Egypt is a moderate state. It officially is Islamist, but its leader is more cunning than to appear belligerent. Nevertheless, the US has built up in Egypt a force capable of invading Israel through the Sinai, that the US got Israel to return to Egypt. It is one thing to compensate Israel for arms sales to S. Arabia. It is another thing to give arms free to Egypt. What for? There never was any justification for taxing ourselves to give Egypt tens of billions of dollars for making war. The State Dept. has some secret policy we need to know about, considering how often its policies fail. OIL TENTACLES AROUND EUROPE Iran and Russia are making all sorts of deals to run pipelines through various countries to Europe and India. Russia already has used is position as supplier to coerce European policy. It would become too easy for Russia or Pakistan (on the way to India's supply) or Iran to shut off the flow for political reasons. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top ARIEL SHARON IN 1994: DON'T USE IDF TO UPROOT JEWS FROM HEBRON Posted by Professor Eugene Narrett, August 8, 2007. Ariel Sharon wrote this article on April 15, 1994 in the The Jewish Press. He said "Israel Is Being Used As A Guinea Pig for The Oslo Peace Experiment." It wasn't easy for me to come out with a public call last week to Israeli residents to oppose the evacuation of Jews from Hebron. Hebron is Jerusalem, NOT Yamit. I called for passive, non-violent resistance against the declared intentions of the government in Hebron. It was only because I am convinced that the security and inalienable rights of Jews in every part of Eretz Yisrael will be irreversibly eroded if the government carries out its plans in Hebron, that I decided that we must arise and passively resist the uprooting of Jews from Hebron. And if, G-d forbid, the government does carry out its intention, it should know, in advance, that we will return to Hebron. I have no doubt that the Jews in Israel and abroad feel that the government of Israel has lost its sense of Jewish-Zionist direction. The mere thought of sending IDF soldiers to evacuate Jews from Hebron is clear proof of this. Jews feel, justifiably, that the fate and future of the State of Israel is being threatened. For most of my life I have obeyed orders as well as issued them as a soldier and commander in the IDF. Therefore, I am aware of the absolute importance of the duty incumbent on every soldier to carry out the legal orders, in order to preserve the military system which defends us. At the same time, warning must be given, that if the Israeli government dares to uproot Jews from the heart of Eretz-Yisrael -- a situation will develop in which the military will eventually have nothing to defend except itself, and will ultimately fall apart and disintegrate. After all, the IDF was organized to defend the Zionist settlement drive, which was threatened from the start as a result of Arab aggression, even before we returned home to Hebron. It was only with tremendous pain that we were able, in 1948, to retain part of Jerusalem. If the government uproots the Jews of Hebron, it will be uprooting a vital cornerstone of the IDF -- which is indispensable for the defense of all parts of Israel. Therefore, although every soldier and commander must obey the legal orders of the government, so too, must every citizen in a democratic country ask himself what he is supposed to do when he is convinced that the policy of the government endangers him, his future and his family. This question is a particularly burning one, with regard to the security of the Jewish state which is increasingly being jeopardized as the government continues to give the PLO a hold on our land by undermining and uprooting Jews from their homes. Every Jew must feel as if he is personally going to be ousted from Hebron. Each one of us must understand that if we will not stand up to stop the uprooting of Jews form Hebron, we may very well -- in the future -- be uprooted from Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beer Sheba or from any other place. In contrast to the days of exile, it is not only the right, but the obligation of every Jew, in a Jewish democratic state, to stand up and warn his government, through passive resistance, of the disaster that it is bringing upon all of us. What Jews could not do in Germany and Poland before their extermination, they must do in their own country. They have to rise en masse and resist. Professor Eugene Narrett is the author of hundreds of articles, columns and reviews on politics, American culture and the arts. He writes often on subjects relating to Israel and Judaism. His new book is WW III: the War on the Jews and the Rise of the World Security State, (www.lightcatcherbooks.com 2007). Contact him by email at culturtalk@aol.com and visit his website at www.israelendtimes.com To Go To Top THE SAUDI ARMS DEAL Posted by Bryna Berch, August 7, 2007. I suggest you read the article below, if only it is one of the most stupid analyses you will ever see. It downplays Israel's concern that the Saudis acquire a huge amount of precision weaponry, weaponry that will only be used against Israel. First, it's downright weird that the author sees selling these deadly weapons as a sort of bribe to keep Saudi Arabia our friends and go along with our policy in Iraq. Do we have a policy in Iraq? And will we need to supply them with new weapons when we change our "policy" in two months? Trying frantically to get-out-of-Iraq is not a policy. Then the sale is treated like some token gift that shows that America is committed to the security of Saudia Arabia and the oily Gulf States. Well, America is definitely committed to a steady supply of oil -- and Saudi Arabia has bought and cultivated many friends in the USA, many of whom are in the State Dept and in politics. Nevertheless, should there be an efficient and rapid coup and takeover of Saudi Arabia, after an initial period of blather, we might well go along with the new regime. Look at how we're talking about talking to Hamas -- and they have nothing we want. I take that back. The current American administration is committed to a Palestinian State for some inscrutable reason, and if Hamas can be persuaded to keep a low profile for a couple of months, maybe Bush and his flunkie Olmert can push through this nut idea. What is ignored by the author is that, second to Iran the Saudis are the major financial supporter of the terror-war against the West and have an excellent distribution system for getting funds to those who put up mosques and schools to teach their vicious form of Islam. It will not be hard for them to use their distribution know-how to get their weaponry to fighters such as Hezbollah that wage war against Israel. Come to think about it, the Bush administration and the democrats also ignore this. Dr. Aaron Lerner of Independent Media Review and Analysis (IMRA) is more diplomatic than I. He writes: "Why is it so important to ignore the potential impact of the Saudi military (whose air force regularly practices with Egypt)? One reason may be that when you engage in bean counting to estimate the military balance between Israel and its neighbors that an unfavorable balance discourages Israelis from embracing withdrawal. Keeping the Saudi armaments out of the count helps keep the numbers looking "safe" for "risks for peace". The article below was written by Yiftah Shapir and it appeared today in INSS Insight, No. 27 On the eve of the departure to the Middle East of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Bush Administration announced its intention to expand substantially its military assistance to the region. The proposed plan includes the sale of up to $20 billion of weaponry to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. The Administration also plans to balance this arms sale with an expanded package of security assistance to Israel worth about $30 billion over the coming decade. Aid to Israel thus far has been growing every year, in accordance with an agreement reached in 1996, and will amount to $2.4 billion in FY 2008. Thus, the new package represents an increased of about 25%. Simultaneously, the Administration announced that it will extend military assistance to Egypt for another decade at the current level of $1.3 billion per annum. Unlike Israel and Egypt, which receive their weaponry in the form of grants, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states will pay for their equipment. The arms sale to Saudi Arabia has been in the works in Washington for several months but the only item specifically mentioned has been JDAM bombs -- GPS-guided bombs of the type used by the Israeli Air Force in the second Lebanon war. However, JDAMs are relatively inexpensive weapons; the price tag for several thousand would only amount to a few million dollars. Thus far, American spokesmen have refused to provide details on the rest of the package. Sales are apparently planned, not only to Saudi Arabia but also to the other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) -- Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman -- but there is as yet no firm information. Nevertheless, the $20 billion price being mentioned seems to refer only to sales to Saudi Arabia, for what senior Pentagon officials implied are air defense systems, anti-missile defenses, radar systems, early warning aircraft, and naval vessels. For Saudi Arabia, the United States has never been the sole arms supplier. In addition to American equipment, the Royal Saudi Air Force operates British Tornado aircraft and the Saudi Navy relies largely on French-built vessels. Last year, Saudi Arabia also signed a huge deal with Britain for 72 Typhoon advanced combat aircraft. The main purpose of the Administration is to use the arms sales to strengthen the commitment of the Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, to America's grand strategy in the region. The Administration wants Saudi Arabia to support its policy in Iraq and especially to refrain from supporting extremist Sunni Islamist organizations -- throughout the world and particularly in Iraq. At the same time, military assistance to the Gulf states sends a strong signal to Iran by emphasizing American commitment to the security of those states. The criticism voiced in Tehran following the Administration's announcement indicates that this signal was clearly understood. Two other reasons lie behind the latest American initiative. One concerns the American response to renewed indications of Russian desire to influence developments in the Middle East. Evidence of that emerged in recent months in reports of large Russian arms deal with Syria and Iran and of a possible return of the Russian Navy to the Mediterranean, based on access to Syrian port facilities in Tartus and Ladhakia. The second is directly connected to the global arms market: the U.S. Administration is providing open support for American defense industries in the face of fierce competition by other large suppliers. In the Gulf region, this primarily means competition with British, French and, to a lesser extent, Russian manufacturers. In the particular case of Saudi Arabia, it may even involve a hope of getting the Typhoon deal canceled. Implications for Israel Israeli spokesmen were quick to react against the Saudi arms deal even when it only involved the JDAMs and they warned that the supply of precision munitions to Saudi Arabia would violate America's promise to preserve the IDF's qualitative edge and would constitute a strategic threat to Israel. Two senior Israeli officials went to Washington to lay out Israel's claims before the Administration. They made two central points. The first was that while Saudi Arabia currently might not constitute a threat to Israel, its regime is not stable and could be replaced by an extreme anti-Israel successor. If that were to happen, the precision weaponry would give it a significant advantage which Israel could not counter. The second point was that simply violating the principle of preserving Israel's qualitative edge would damage its deterrent, which rests to a considerable extent on that American promise. In fact, Israel's apprehensions appear to be overblown, notwithstanding the fact that the prevailing ideology in Saudi Arabia has been exceedingly hostile to Israel since it came into existence. Apart from sending symbolic representatives in past wars, the Saudis have never actually acted against Israel. And in array of serious threats to Saudi basic interests, Israel hardly figures at all. Moreover, the Saudi interest in preserving good relations with the West and ensuring the flow of oil actually requires tranquility on the Israeli front. Even a different regime, no matter how radical it might be, would find it difficult to ignore these realities. Israeli objections to previous Saudi arms deals have also been raised and rejected -- because of America's special interest in its relationship with Saudi Arabia. Again on this occasion, in the face of Administration determination, excessively virulent Israel opposition would only have produced anger in Washington. So on this occasion, Israel chose instead to temper its response. In return, it will now receive an upgraded security assistance package of its own. To Go To Top TERRORISTS DUPE ISRAELIS ON WEAPONS DEAL Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 7, 2007. This was written by Aaron Klein, the World Net Daily Jerusalem bureau chief. It is archived at http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57034 Reports claim arms turned in, but leaders boast they're fully equipped TEL AVIV -- Most members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorist group granted amnesty last month by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have not turned in their weapons despite of media reports to the contrary, while some haven't even signed their amnesty contracts, WND has learned. Part of the amnesty deal required the 178 terrorists -- all of whom are members of the Brigades, the declared "military wing" of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization -- to disarm and to sign a document stating they would not carry out terror attacks. Meanwhile, Palestinian diplomatic officials yesterday said Olmert told them he would strongly consider granting amnesty to 208 more Al Aqsa Brigades terrorists and would study allowing the return to the West Bank of senior terrorist leaders deported in 2002 after they barricaded themselves in Bethlehem's Church of Nativity five years ago. The Al Aqsa Brigades took responsibility for every suicide bombing in Israel the past three years. Statistically, the Brigades carried out more anti-Israel terror attacks emanating from the West Bank since 2005 than any other group, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Last month, Olmert granted amnesty to a list of 178 Fatah militants WND reported comprise most of the senior leadership of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Olmert's office issued documents for the Fatah fugitives to sign, pledging their resignation from any so-called paramilitary organizations and promising to refrain from terrorism. The wanted militants also were required to turn in their weapons, spend a week in a PA holding area and restrict their movements to the area in which they reside for three months. After a three-month period, they would be allowed to move freely throughout the West Bank. Since most wanted militants have been confined to their residential areas the past few years anyway due to the threat of Israeli operations, the deal effectively grants them freedom of movement for the first time. In exchange, Israel will not conduct anti-terror operations to capture the wanted militants. According to statements by Palestinian officials and reports by the media, most terrorists turned in their weapons in line with the deal. A widely circulated AP article yesterday quoted a senior Palestinian security official stating "all but three Al Aqsa members have surrendered their weapons and sworn off violence, as part of the arrangement." But calls yesterday to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades members granted amnesty yielded a much different story. Abu Yousuf, a senior leader of the Brigades in Ramallah, told WND most Brigades members turned in one of several pieces of weaponry they possess. He said most Brigades members have two to three guns, including one to two personal weapons and one assault rifle issued by the PA, since the majority of Brigades members are also members of Fatah's security forces. "It's true Brigades members turned in one of their weapons as a symbolic act, but they kept the others," he said. Yousuf is suspected of shooting at Israeli forces operating in Ramallah. He carried out a shooting attack in northern Samaria in December 2000 that killed Benyamin Kahane, leader of the nationalist Kahane Chai organization. Ala Senakreh, overall chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the West Bank and one of the terrorists granted amnesty, told WND the one weapon he turned in to the PA is "easily accessible." "It's close by and available to me anytime I need an additional weapon," he said. Senakreh said aside from "protecting" himself from Israel, weapons were also needed for protection from rival clans and members of Palestinian families of suspected "Israeli collaborators" killed in recent years by the Brigades. "We killed several collaborators, so now I am a walking target. What if one of the family members tries to take revenge?" he asked. Senakreh's cell, along with the Islamic Jihad terror group, is suspected of directing all suicide bombings in Israel in 2005 and 2006. Kamal Ranam, chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Ramallah, said he turned in his cousin's old pistol and still is well-armed. Not all Brigades members even signed their amnesty deals. Nasser Abu Aziz, the No. 2 leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Senakreh's main deputy, told WND he will not sign the agreement, calling the deal "an Israeli trick." "I am sure this is part of an Israeli conspiracy against our fighters," Aziz said. The Brigades' failure to keep their side of the amnesty deal is well-known to the Israeli security apparatus. Members of the Israel Defense Forces military intelligence unit said they complained to Olmert's office in recent days, explaining most of the Brigades members did not disarm. But according to senior Palestinian officials, Olmert officials said the prime minister would strongly consider granting amnesty to 206 Fatah fighters, mostly Brigades members, who haven't yet officially received amnesty. Some of the 206 are senior Brigades commanders, but most are mid-level militants. Asked to confirm the report, David Baker, an Olmert spokesman, did not reply with an answer as of press time. Israeli diplomatic officials said amnesty wasn't yet granted to some of the 206 militants because of the militants' connections to the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. But seven senior terrorists granted amnesty by Olmert last month previously told WND on the record they serve as conduits for their terror group's relationship with Hezbollah, and, according to Israeli security officials, the most important Brigades leaders who serve as Hezbollah conduits already received amnesty. Olmert grants entire terror group de facto immunity Regardless of whether Olmert grants amnesty to the remaining 206 militants, according to Palestinian officials the Israeli prime minister already has given de facto immunity to the entire Brigades terror group and to all Fatah fighters in the West Bank. "We were directly told Fatah fighters will not be targeted regardless of official amnesty," the Palestinian official said, speaking on condition his name be withheld. Olmert yesterday held a historic meeting with Abbas in the Palestinian-controlled West Bank town of Jericho. The meeting marked the first time an Israeli prime minister has visited PA areas since the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000. The meeting took place under heavy security. Olmert told Abbas he would push for the establishment of a Palestinian state as "fast as possible." "We have decided to expand the scope of the negotiations between us in order to advance mutual understanding and formulate the framework that will allow us to move forward toward establishing a Palestinian state," Olmert said. The statements came in spite of grave concern from the Israeli security establishment that the Hamas terror group will soon attempt to take over the West Bank as it did in Gaza in June. A number of Hamas officials pledged in recent interviews their group would stage a coup in Gaza. According to Israel's Haaretz daily, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad reportedly warned senior Israeli officials during recent meetings that Fatah security organizations are unable to assume control of cities in the West Bank. Fayad reportedly said that Abbas' security forces are unable "to impose law and order in the West Bank at this time." Israel may allow exiled senior terrorist leaders to return During yesterday's meeting, Olmert promised to consider Abbas' request for the return to the West Bank of dozens of senior terrorists who took refuge in the Church of the Nativity to avoid a pending Israeli anti-terror operation in the city. The Nativity Church is one of the holiest sites in Christianity. According to Israeli security officials, Olmert is likely to grant the request, which has already been studied. They said of all the exiled Fatah terrorists Abbas wants returned, only one, Jihad Jaara, the former Al Aqsa Brigades chief is Bethlehem, would likely not be allowed back. Jaara, who is regularly interviewed by WND from exile in Ireland, carried out dozens of attacks and was responsible for orchestrating several suicide bombings. The senior terrorists who may return include: * Ibrahim Moussa Salem Abayat Abayat was born in 1973 and served as the chief of the Fatah Tanzim terrorist organization in Bethlehem. He boasted about orchestrating and participating in shooting and mortar attacks on the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo and on Jewish-used Bethlehem bypass roads. According to Israeli security officials, Abayat was involved in the following deadly terror attacks: Sept. 20, 2001, shooting attack on an Israeli vehicle near Tekoa, in which Israeli Sarit Amrani was murdered; July 16, 2001, detonation of an explosive charge on the Beit Safafa-Talpiot bridge inside Jerusalem; Jan. 15, 2002, abduction and murder of Avi Boaz, a U.S. citizen residing in Israel. Feb, 18, 2002, detonation of a car bomb at the Zaim checkpoint, resulting in the death of an Israeli policeman; Feb. 25, 2002, shooting attack at an Israeli vehicle close to the Tekoa junction in which Israelis Avraham Fisch and Aharon Gorov of Nokdim were killed and Tamar Lipschitz, in an advanced stage of pregnancy, was wounded; March 2, 2002, shooting attack at a vehicle south of Jerusalem, in which dental technician Devorah Friedman, mother of four, was murdered; June 14, 2002, murder of Israeli intelligence officer Yehuda Edri. * Ibrahim Mohammed Salem Abayat Abayat, born in 1961, was an operative of both the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Hamas. Israeli security officials tell WND Abayat's apartment was used to make bombs. They said he financed terrorist shootings and planned attacks against civilians in Jerusalem. Abayat also was personally involved in shooting at Gilo and at the IDF in Bethlehem. * Abdullah Daoud Mohammed Abdullah Khader Daoud, born in 1962, served as the head of the Palestinian Authority's General Intelligence apparatus in the West Bank city of Nablus and as a senior Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades leader. He is accused of providing assistance and instructions to senior Fatah Tanzim operatives. He operated a terrorist cell in Nablus and took part in several attacks, including a Feb. 25, 2002, attack in which two men were murdered and a pregnant woman was severely wounded. * Mohammed Said Atallah Salem Salem, born in 1979, was a senior Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades commander. Israel says he was directly involved in the following attacks: January 26, 2002, dispatch of a suicide bomber to the Talpiot neighborhood in Jerusalem; Feb.18, 2002, detonation of a car bomb by a suicide bomber on a Maale Adumim road, killing an Israeli policeman; March 2, 2002, suicide bombing in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood of Jerusalem killing 11 Israelis, among them four children, and wounding dozens more; and the March 29, 2002, suicide bombing of a supermarket in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Kiryat Yovel in which an Israeli security guard and a teenage Israeli girl were killed in the attack and about 12 more were wounded. * Mohammed Fouzi Mohammed Muhaneh Muhaneh, born in 1980, was an Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terrorist. He served as a member of Fatah's Special Forces and received U.S. training. Muhaneh has been involved in numerous attempts to carry out terrorist attacks in the Bethlehem area, which have included shooting and mortar attacks at military and civilian targets. Israel says Muhaneh used his U.S. training to provide members of his terrorist cell with personal training and instruction in the use of firearms and taught them how to produce and use pipe bomb attacks. * Rami Kamel Eid Kamel Kamel, a resident of Bethlehem, was born in 1980, and, according to Israel, was one of the primary Al Aqsa Brigades terrorists behind shooting attacks and mortar fire directed against civilian residents of southern Jerusalem. He carried out systematic sniper and mortar attacks against Gilo as well as shooting attacks against Israeli civilian and military vehicles on the Bethlehem bypass roads. Kamel took part in the murder of an IDF truck driver, Sgt. Max Hazan, Oct.2, 2000, at point-blank range and was personally involved in a Feb. 11, 2001, shooting attack against an Israeli civilian vehicle south of Gilo in which Israeli civilian Tzachi Sasson was murdered. * Khaled Mohammed Abd el Hamid Abu Najimeh Abu Najimeh, born in 1968, was a Brigades leader based in Bethlehem responsible for a number of fatal terrorist attacks, including a Jerusalem suicide bombing that killed an Israeli woman. He dispatched two suicide bombers to attack an Israeli soccer game, but the terrorists detonated their charged before reaching their objective. * Annan Mohammed Hamis Tanjeh Tanjeh, born in 1978, was a Bethlehem-based Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades leader responsible for carrying out shooting attacks against a Jerusalem tunnel route, against Gilo and IDF forces around Bethlehem. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top THE NEW COUTURE IN THE GAZA STRIP; AN HONORED GUEST AT A BARMITZVAH Posted by Fred Reifenberg, August 7, 2007. No comment from me.....Irene says it all ! Since the Hamas take-over from Fatah in the Gaza Strip of about a month ago, something seems to have happened to the female population there too. A large step backward to the dark ages for Arab women due to fanatic Islam. No woman will now leave her house without wearing those long loose robes which hide their figures and of course head and/or face covering. They do this, as now they live in fear for their lives. During this last month over ten Arab women were murdered, mostly by their own relatives, for offending their "honour", but not for any terrible deed they had committed, but for what they call "lack of modesty". I saw a short film about life in the streets of Gaza on TV, not one woman could be seen wearing western clothes, or without all those scarves covering their head or face. The men however, continue to wear western clothing as they wish. So what else is new there in the Gaza Strip? Certainly nothing new to do with the rocket shooting, the Kassams continue to be launched into Israel on a daily basis, mostly into that poor town Sderot, yesterday one even falling into the yard of a kindergarten there. Sorry, on the subject of Kassams I seem to be repeating myself constantly, but then the Arabs do so too! And now to end my blog with something more pleasant. A thirteen year old boy celebrated his Bar Mitzva in Jerusalem a few days ago, and who do you think was his guest of honour? No, you can't possibly guess that -- no one famous, no politician, no sportsman, singer or entertainer. This guest was an American Jew in his thirties, who three years ago donated one of his kidneys for a transplant for this boy, who would no longer be alive today if not for that "gift". Tears filled my eyes when on TV I saw those two embracing, and heard the words of the American donor "We are blood brothers", as he hugged and kissed him again. Shalom from Irene Contact Fred Reifenberg at freify@netvision.net.il To Go To Top THE PINOCCHIO PEACE PLAN Posted by Sergio Tessa (HaDaR), August 7, 2007. This was written by Tzvi Fishman, who before making aliyah was a Hollywood screenwriter. He has co-authored 4 books with Rabbi David Samson, based on the teachings of Rabbis A. Y. Kook and T. Y. Kook. It was published as an opinion piece in Arutz-Sheva. (IsraelNN.com) Olmert and Bush and Rice and Peres and Barak and Mohammed and Moishe and all the other Pinocchios have come up with another Pinocchio Peace Plan to sell Judea and Samaria down the drain. Get ready to listen to all of their promises and lies, and the millions of Pinocchio news reports and political commentaries and editorials and interviews and media hype that will follow. They will give their plan a fancy new name, but it's all the same garbage of "territories for peace" and a "Palestinian State" and the "final solution" to the problem of the fanatic settlers who are the "real obstacles of peace." You have to give them credit for trying. They never give up. Plan after plan. Lie after lie. Perhaps there are still na�ve readers out there who want to give these Pinocchios the benefit of the doubt and say that they really mean well, and that they are just trying to find a fair solution to the conflict for the benefit of everyone, but that they don't know what to do -- well I can save the people of Israel the agony of going through another one of their doomed fiascos and all of the innocent Jewish lives it will cost. The situation resembles a story by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov that goes something like this: There was once a simple peasant who had a lot of worries and problems. Nothing seemed to go right. Whatever he tried, he couldn't make a living. Once dreamed that there was a great treasure under a bridge in Vienna. He traveled the long distance on foot and by wagon to Vienna and stood near the bridge, trying to figure out what to do. He did not dare search for the treasure by day, because of the many people who were passing by. After a while, a police officer passed by and asked, "What are you doing, standing here and thinking so much?" The peasant decided that it would be best to tell the truth and ask for help, hoping that the officer would share the treasure with him. So he told him the entire story. The officer replied, "You Jews are concerned only with dreams! I also had a dream, and I also saw a treasure. It was in a small village, in a small house, under the cellar." The officer then proceeded to describe the exact village and the exact house where the peasant lived. Without saying a word, the peasant rushed home, dug under his cellar, and found the treasure. The point is that the peasant had the treasure all along. But to find it, he had to travel to Vienna. Rabbi Nachman taught that this is also true in serving G-d. Each Jew has the treasure, but in order to find it, he must travel to the tzaddik. In our case too, the Nation of Israel has had the treasure all along. The key to all of our problems has been in our hands, right before our eyes, for thousands of years. Our treasure is the Torah. When we abandon all of the Oslo Plans, and Disengagement Plans, and Pinocchio Peace Plans, and follow the Torah's Plan, then our problems will come to an end. We will have peace and prosperity, and lasting triumph over all of our enemies -- just like the Torah promises. Here are a few of the platforms of the Torah Plan, as set forth in the book of Devarim by Moshe: ECONOMY: The Israeli economy will be run according to the guidelines of the Torah, as it says: "And it shall come to pass, if you hearken diligently to my commandments which I command you this day, to love the L-rd your G-d and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, that I will give you the rain of your Land in due season, the early rain and the late rain, that you may gather in your corn, and your wine, and your oil (Devarim, 11:13). FOREIGN POLICY: Relations with the world will be conducted according to the directions of the Torah, as it says, "Keep the commandments and do them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, who shall hear all of the statutes and say, `Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people... that had G-d so near to them" (Devarim, 4:7). JUSTICE: The Justice system shall be according to Torah law, as it says, "Judges and officers you shall appoint in all thy gates, which the L-rd thy G-d gives thee, throughout thy tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment... Justice, only justice, thou shall pursue, that thou mayst live and inherit the Land which the L-rd thy G-d gives thee" (Devarim, 16:18-20). EDUCATION: The Education system shall be according to the Torah, as it says, "And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart, and thou shall diligently teach them to thy children" (Devarim, 6:6). WELFARE: The Welfare system shall be according to Torah law, as it says, "If there be among you a poor man, one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in the Land which the L-rd your G-d gives thee, thou shalt not harden thy heart, nor shut thy hand from thy poor brother, but thou shalt open thy hand wide to him, and thou shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need in that which he lacks," (Devarim, 15:7). DEFENSE: The Defense establishment will be run according to the dictates of the Torah, as it says, "For if you shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you to do them, to love the L-rd your G-d, and to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him, then the L-rd will drive out all these nations from before you, and you shall possess nations larger and mightier than yourselves, (Devarim, 11:22-23). HEALTH: The Health system will be administered in light of the wisdom of the Torah, as it says, "And the L-rd will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knewest, upon thee, but will lay them upon all of those who hate thee," (Devarim, 7:15). ARABS IN ISRAEL: Relations with foreigners in the Land who refuse to accept Jewish sovereignty over all of Eretz Yisrael will be according to the Torah, as it says, "Thou shall make no covenant with them, no show mercy to them," (Devarim, 7:2). Enough with all the Pinocchios and their lies. It is time we returned to the Torah. Sergio Tessa can be reached at Hadar-Israel@verizon.net. To Go To Top STANDING UP TO ISLAMIC TERRORISM Posted by Chuck Morse, August 7, 2007. FRAMINGHAM -- ORGANIZATIONS that apologize for Islamic terrorists on a regular basis, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), are engaging in character assassination when they equate honest criticism of Islamic extremism with anti-Muslim or anti-Arab prejudice. The charge is as ridiculous as it would have been to claim during World War II that criticizing Nazism was anti-German, or during the Cold War that criticizing communism was anti-Russian. In case the apologists haven't noticed, the United States, the Western democracies, and, for that matter, more moderate Muslim states and peoples around the world are defending themselves against an aggressive enemy. That enemy is the forces of Islamic terrorism. It should be obvious that criticizing those who are trying to kill us -- and, in fact, have already killed many of us because we refuse to submit to their control -- has nothing to do with the ethnic background of the killers, and everything to do with their actions. A case in point is an attempt by CAIR to seek damages from US Airways for ejecting a group of six bearded imams who publically chanted "Allah Akbar" before boarding a passenger jet in Minneapolis last November. While this would be part of a prayer for moderate Muslims, for an Islamic terrorist such an utterance would be the equivalent of Nazis' shouting "Heil Hitler!" before gassing a group of Jews. (Hijackers shouted "Allah Akbar!" as they seized the passenger jets on Sept. 11, 2001, turning them into missiles.) After boarding the plane, the imams, rather than sitting at their assigned seats, sat in locations of the plane that were reminicent of positions taken by the 9/11 hijackers. According to the police report, an Arabic-speaking passenger spoke to one of the imams, who expressed radical views. Under such circumstances, people boarding American airplanes have a right to be concerned. Yet I saw the executive director of the Foundation for Arab-American Leadership, Dr. Hussein Ibish, chortling and sneering the other night on the Fox News show Hannity and Colmes in response to concerns expressed by Stop the Madrassa Coalition representative Sara Springer over a planned opening of a public school in Brooklyn that would be dedicated to the teaching of Arab language and culture. I'm sure that such a school would be fine in more peaceful times, but is it not reasonable and proper, in these less than peaceful times, to be concerned and vigilant? We are struggling to survive as a nation and as a people, and many have already lost the fight. How many children lost one or both of their parents on 9/11? The Department of Homeland Security is telling us to expect more mass murder in the coming months. Yet groups such as CAIR are shutting down our ability to identify the nature of the enemy by harassing and suing those who dare to speak of it. An example is talk show host Michael Graham, who resigned from his Washington radio gig rather than apologize for remarks he made about Islamic terrorism. His station was threatened with a lawsuit by CAIR. Today, Graham is back on the air in Boston, but for how long? Indeed, the fear is in the room. For more information, please check out the excellent Web site www.anti-cair-net.org. Chuck Morse is a Boston-area radio-talk-show host, author, columnist and former Republican congressional candidate. Contact him at ChuckMorse@clearchannel.com This article is archived at http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/27129.html To Go To Top HECK NO, WE WON'T GO Posted by Rabbi Lazer Brody, August 7, 2007. "Mutiny", famous photo by Jim Coyne (1966), of the 101st Airborne Division troops in Tuy Hoa, Vietnam. Back then, a whole battalion of America's best paratroopers told their commanders what to do with their stupid orders. Orders from the Pentagon filtered their way from the fat-cat after-shave smelling brass all the way down to battalion level in South Vietnam. The brass wanted to look good in the media. Back then, Vietnam was still a popular war, and most folks viewed the far away reports like a football game: If on a certain day "only" 18 American soldiers were killed, but they succeeded in Killing 40 Vietcong, then the USA wins the day's "game", 40-18. Most of the time the Americans lied about the body counts, and added noncombatant civilians to the stats of supposedly dead communist insurgents. The 101st was supposed to capture a "strategic" hill that had no strategic value other than victory propoganda. It was supposed to be an easy piece of real estate to grab from the locals. But, the Vietcong -- who had all the American plans down to a detail, with superb intel and an the advantage of home turf -- laid a classic guerilla ambush, and an entire company of the 101st was wiped out. The Pentagon was pieved, and with no intel and not an iota of what was happening in the field, the brass ordered the 101st to retake Tuy Hoa. The enlisted men of 2 or 3 companies -- all draftees -- refused. If I'm not mistaken, this famous mutiny triggered the grassroots anti-Vietnam war movement in the USA. The men of the 101st didn't refuse orders out of ideology. They just didn't want to get sent home in a body-bag for nothing. When told to take the hill, the enlisted men told the officers (after censoring), "Heck no, we won't go!"   Why does history point an accusing finger at the entire German nation for the holocaust? Simple -- the rank and file German soldier was more than happy to shoot a Jew in the head or push him into the gas chambers. Not only did the entire German nation condone the holocaust, they willfully and readily carried out their orders, moral or not.   A group of dedicated religious Israeli soldiers from a crack combat unit has now been incarcerated for 28 days for their refusal to participate in exiling Jewish people from Jewish property in the holy city of Hevron, only a few hundred meters away from the Machpelah Cave, the holy gravesite of our forefathers and mothers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah. Nothing is above the law of Torah. Any government in Israel that violates the Torah has no legitimacy. To be sure, a soldier can't decide on his own what is in accordance with Torah and what's not. But, if the religious leaders of this generation say that a command is immoral or against Torah -- as in the case of the Kfir regiment insubordinates refusal to drag Jews out of their homes in Hevron yesterday -- then refusing a command is the order of the day. Sometimes, one has to be a conscientious objector and say "Heck no, I won't go." Today, the mutineers of the 101st are considered heroes. After Moshiach comes, the Kfir regiment mutineers will be considered heroes too. Rabbi Lazer Brody has a B.A. in Agriculture, and is a veteren of the IDF. After surviving a near-suicidal mission to Beirut during the Israel-Lebanon conflict of 1982, Brody became a baal-tshuva and left his mountaintop farm to study Torah in Jerusalem, leading to rabbinical ordination. Lazer Brody dedicates his time to Jewish Outreach, and particularly to spreading the teachings of Rebbe Nachman of Breslev around the globe. Brody's third book -- his first in English -- is "The Trail to Tranquility", published by Llumina Press, and available at www.llumina.com. Brody's newest book, "The Garden of Emuna", is a translation of Rav Shalom Arush's best-selling "B'Gan Ha"emuna". Contact him at rabbi_lazer@yahoo.com. This article is archived at http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/2007/08/heck-no-we-wont.html To Go To Top US PUNISHES INNOCENT, PROTECTS GUILTY; ISRAEL TO LET DANGEROUS TERRORISTS LOOSE; US CONDEMNS SYRIA, NOT EGYPT Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 7, 2007. U.S. SYSTEM PUNISHES INNOCENT, PROTECTS GUILTY Six Muslim prisoners and a Hindu have accused jail guards of beating them. The government is not helping pay legal costs for a guard who denies the allegations. He couldn't afford to refuse a deal with the prisoners to testify in their behalf, if they drop the charges against him (Joseph Goldstein, NY Sun, 7/26, p.4). For lack of funds, presumably innocent people plead guilty and testify against other presumably innocent people! Some legal system we have, in which enemies of the country (not necessarily in this case, but it illustrates the possibilities) have funds to impose injustice or evade justice. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Prof. Steven Plaut have reported about anti-Zionists silencing poorer opponents by suing them for libel in jurisdictions that require the burden of proof on defendants (and sometimes truth is not a defense). THE MUSLIMS OF JUDEA-SAMARIA Almost two-thirds of them oppose Fatah wanted men handing in their weapons in return for Israel taking them off the wanted list (IMRA, 7/29). The disarmament is phony -- the P.A. reissues them arms. They are a people warranting collective punishment. HAMAS NOT POPULAR IN GAZA Hamas lost much popular support for its violent takeover in Gaza. If Fatah reformed, it would win elections, if Hamas allowed them (IMRA, 7/15). ISRAELI AIRPORT IN DANGER Israel advises Ben-Gurion airport not to let planes land on the most distant runway. To land on it would require planes to fly low over Arab villages in Judea-Samaria. Doing that would subject them to shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. During renovation of other runways, however, Israel has been using the distant runway (IMRA, 7/29). If the airport becomes too hazardous, Israel falls. VATICAN WARNS OF ISLAMIZATION Urging Europeans to return to their Christian roots, the Pope's adviser warned that Islam is trying to take over Europe. He defended the Pope's having linked Islam and violence as trying to break through naivete (NY Times, 7/27, A6). The record on Islamic violence is clear enough. ISRAEL'S OFFER TO PARDON FATAH FUGITIVES 1. "...wanted terrorists use their weapons and terror teams to fight opponents of Mahmoud Abbas instead of murdering Israelis". 2. "The wanted terrorists can openly prepare for operations to ostensibly kill" terrorists. 3. "If their teams are identified murdering Israelis the wanted terrorist could simply distance himself from the identified team member." 4. "...since it is the position of 'moderate' Abbas that 'collaborators' should be killed, the wanted terrorists will apparently be allowed to murder Palestinians (Arabs) who provide Israel with information indicating that the wanted terrorists continue to engage in activity against Israel." "Under the plan Israel essentially forfeits the ability to stop the most dangerous terrorists in the W. Bank." (Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 7/14). WHAT PROTECTION SHOULD JOURNALISTS HAVE? A cameraman for Al-Aqsa TV was wounded by Israeli raiders in Gaza. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) cites the Geneva Convention against Israel. For example, PCHR admits that the cameraman did not wear the journalist's uniform that helps identify non-combatants, but said that the IDF should have realized his status by his carrying a large video-camera. The IDF explained that journalists with Hamas are considered Hamas operatives. In this case, the cameraman was separated from the other journalists and was with the gunmen. PCHR calls that politics (IMRA, 7/15). Hamas uses journalists in its battles to advance terrorism by propaganda, psychological warfare, and military review of combat. I consider them fair game. PERES' INAUGURAL SPEECH He referred to his Jewish roots, prayed to God, complained that "they" killed Rabin and lamented Sharon's illness (IMRA, 7/15). He betrays his Jewish heritage, masterminded the assassination of Rabin, and, if I recall, left Sharon feeling ill after a solo visit with him. Sharon felt sicker after a solo visit with Olmert, who had him sign a paper authorizing Olmert to take over while Sharon would be incapacitated for the scheduled operation. Then came medical malpractice so flagrant as to appear to have been ordered. FRANCE FINANCES AGITATION AGAINST ISRAEL The French government directly and indirectly subsidizes d P.A. NGOs. "Many of these NGOs, which claim to promote human rights, democracy, and development are in reality engaged in intense political advocacy campaigns directed against Israel, in contravention of French governmental funding guidelines." The P.A. NGOs complain falsely and emotionally that Israel violates Arab rights, and ignores the true Arab violations of Israeli rights. They condemn Israeli self-defense and call for political action against Israel. For example, they demand that Israel relinquish at least part of Jerusalem, to make a P.A. capital. That's a political demand, not a promotion of welfare (IMRA, 7/15 from NGO Monitor). The article provides numerous examples to buttress its charges. HAARETZ MISLEADS ISRAELIS The newspaper emphasized that the terrorists to whom Israel granted amnesty "turned in their guns." (IMRA, 7/15). This is misleading. Other news sources explain that most of them then join the P.A. security forces, which issue them weapons. THE "SURGE" It took a few months to install the surge. Within a month, it achieved striking results. It did not solve the whole problem. It could not be expected to. What it does is make some areas safe and give the government of Iraq time to build up forces capable of defending the country from terrorists. After only a month, some Members of Congress want to reverse the surge and reduce the standing forces. Those are the same Members who criticized the Administration for not bringing in sufficient troops (Michael Rubin, MEFnews, 7/17, from testimony before Congress). WHAT TO DO ABOUT HAMAS TORTURERS? The Palestinian Center for Human Rights observed marks of torture on the bodies of members of Fatah released from detention in Gaza. It demands that the crimes be investigated and the perpetrators punished (IMRA, 7/17). Gaza is ruled by Hamas. Who will investigate and punish members of Hamas who committed those crimes? Complaints, okay, but its demands are ridiculous. WHY PRISONER RELEASE CONTRA-INDICATED "For released prisoners, terror is livelihood, a way of life, their honor and self determination. Moreover, those released within the framework of a prisoner deal must prove that they have not changed; they must reaffirm their status, and the only way to do so is by means of perpetrating terror acts against Israel." (IMRA, 7/17.) RESULT OF NOT DEMANDING P.A. COMPLIANCE The P.A. never had to comply with its agreements. Israel kept making more agreements with the Arabs, for the Arabs to violate. "When Hamas seized the armories of the PA and its affiliated Fatah forces in the Gaza Strip they found them to be full of missiles, rockets and other equipment that the PA had no business possessing in the first place." Whatever the P.A. confiscated from its men in the name of disarmament, it kept. Whatever arms the West provided to the P.A. was in addition to the confiscated and private arms. Photographs showed terrorists turning in their arms, but not of the P.A. destroying what was turned in. Since compliance is not required of the P.A., it remains a farce, a monstrosity, and a greater danger (Dr. Aaron Lerner, IMRA, 7/19). WHAT THE P.A. & ISRAEL CALL A SECURITY PLAN The two governments plan to transfer security for some major cities in Judea-Samaria to the P.A., as soon as certain terrorists have been disarmed (IMRA, 7/19). But they don't get disarmed. They join the very forces planned to take over security there. Since the purpose of the Abbas's P.A. is to promote jihad while enriching the leadership, such a plan is criminal. Why doesn't Israel try letting the P.A. take over security in Gaza first, to find out whether this would work? Oh, I forgot. Israel did. The result is thousands of rockets fired into Israel and a huge military buildup in Gaza, ready to break out when Iran gives the word to Hamas, Hizbullah, and Syria, if not also to S. Arabia and Egypt. U.S. CONDEMNS SYRIA ARMS SMUGGLING The US asserted it had evidence that Syria smuggles arms into Lebanon to destabilize it (and to prepare Hizbullah for renewing the war with Israel). Dr. Aaron Lerner notes that the US does not condemn Egypt for allowing arms to be smuggled into Gaza for renewing the war with Israel (IMRA, 7/19). Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top SWIFT COURTS MARTIAL CONVENED FOR IDF HEVRON EVICTION REFUSERS Posted by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz, August 7, 2007. (IsraelNN.com) Five combat soldiers who refused on Monday to take part in the planned operation to evict two Jewish families from their homes in Hevron were already sentenced Monday night to 28 days confinement to their base. They face a monetary fine, as well, and will likely be removed from combat duty altogether. It is unclear how many other soldiers actually refused or avoided the Hevron eviction orders, but as of Monday night, the IDF is trying only twelve soldiers for insubordination. The sentences thus far handed down are lighter than the active jail time called for by many left-wing politicians. On the other hand, soldiers who refused orders during the 2005 unilateral withdrawal and mass evictions from Gaza and northern Samaria ("Disengagement") were often allowed to return to their units later on. The courts martial were convened Monday night and heard the first of several cases of Duchifat Battalion soldiers who refused to carry out orders related to the eviction of two Jewish families from their homes in Hevron's Shalhevet neighborhood. The soldiers, including at least two squad commanders, refused orders they received on Monday morning to secure a road leading to Hevron ahead of the planned forced evictions. An IDF spokesperson said that only 12 soldiers refused orders outright, but reports from the field indicate that a total of almost 30 soldiers said that they would not actively carry out the relevant orders. "The IDF is trying to hush up and hide the phenomenon of refusal of orders," according to a well-known right-wing activist and resident of the Tel Rumeida neighborhood in Hevron, Baruch Marzel. "It is much more widespread than is being reported. We are talking about scores and possibly hundreds of soldiers who are interested in various degrees of refusal." The father of one of the Duchifat refusers seemed to confirm Marzel's assertion during an interview with Arutz Sheva Radio. According to the soldier's father, Moshe Rosenfeld, the refusal to take part in the Hevron evictions actually began with the entire Netzach Yehuda battalion of the Kfir Brigade. Netzach Yehuda is a combat unit made up exclusively of Haredi and national-religious soldiers. When the eviction-related mission was subsequently assigned to Duchifat, 13 soldiers of the unit quickly obtained "sick leave" furlough passes rather than explicitly refuse to execute the orders. Activist Attorney Aviad Vissouly announced Monday that he is prepared to represent, free of charge, any IDF soldiers indicted for refusing orders relating to the forced eviction of Jews from Hevron's Shalhevet neighborhood. In the past, Vissouly has successfully defended Land of Israel activists arrested in connection with protest activities. Nadia Matar, a Director of the Women in Green activist movement, praised the refusal of dozens of elite IDF soldiers to take part in the eviction of Jews from the Shalhevet neighborhood. "A new spirit is finally expressing itself in Judea and Samaria," Matar said. "A spirit that dares defy the evil leftist Olmert government; a spirit that says not all orders are legal -- we are willing to send our sons to the army to fight the Arab enemy, but not to fight Jews!" This was published in Arutz-Sheva http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123296 To Go To Top THE ETERNAL FLAME OF HEBRON Posted by David Wilder, August 7, 2007. Beginning early Monday night the Hebron Jewish Community switched gears, moving into full-speed expulsion mode. The community had been gearing up for the planned expulsion for a few weeks, while at the same time conducting talks with various political and legal authorities in the Knesset and Defense ministry. Months ago the Hebron leadership authorized former Justice Minister, attorney Ya'akov Neeman to present a compromise solution to the issue at hand. The Avraham Avinu neighborhood was founded by Jews exiled from Spain in 1540. This was the central Jewish community in Hebron for almost 400 years, until the 1929 massacre abruptly decimated the community, with the survivors of the pogrom expelled by the occupying British forces. Land adjacent to the Jewish Quarter was purchased by Rabbi Haim Bajayo in 1807 on behalf of the community. Following the 1929 expulsion, Hebron Arabs constructed a market place -- the Hebron "shuk" at this site. This market operated thru the 1990s -- 2000s, being closed in stages by the Israeli Defense Forces for security reasons. The leases on the building expired and Hebron leaders requested to rent them. All requests were denied by the Israeli custodian for abandoned property, under whose auspices the buildings fell. Following the murder of 10-month old Shalhevet Pass in March, 2001, Hebron residents moved into these empty structures and slowly transformed them into beautiful apartments, nine in number, as well as a Beit Midrash (Torah Study Hall) in Shalhevet's memory. They lived in these apartments for five years, during which time the issue revolved in the Israeli courts, in an effort to remove us from the buildings. A military appeals court recognized the community's ownership of the land and recommended that the buildings be leased to the Jewish community, however this recommendation was rejected by the state Attorney General Eliyakim Rubenstein. After the expulsion from Gush Katif, the prosecutor's office decided to finally evict families from these apartments also. The day prior to the planned expulsion, community leaders met with General Yair Golan, commander of forces in Judea and Samaria, who offered them a deal. If the community would agree to voluntarily leave the apartments, the government would allow families to 'legally' return within a few months. Following a debate and vote in the middle of the night, the community accepted the deal. The next day the families moved out. A few days later the Attorney General, Menachem Mazuz, publicly announced that 'there had never been a deal.' He later changed this, stating that there had been an agreement, but General Yair Golan was unauthorized to finalize such a deal and it was null and void. This, despite the fact that Golan conducted numerous conversations with his superiors in the Defense ministry during the meeting with him in order to receive authorization to conclude the agreement. Ten months ago two of the families who had agreed to move out of their homes, moved back in. Left with nowhere to live, and realizing that the agreement would never be honored, they decided enough is enough. With community backing, they returned to their abandoned homes. A few weeks ago the Supreme Court ruled that the government had the authority to again expel them, should they want to. The Israeli prosecutor's office, together with the 'Civil Administration' immediately issued expulsion orders. The families, with community support, refused to again leave voluntarily. Yesterday the expulsion orders were executed. Hundreds of people came to Hebron to support the families and community. They filled the two family's apartments, as well as a third vacant apartment in the complex. The security forces numbered well over one thousand, including police, border police, the riot squad, and soldiers. At about 6:15 in the morning they attacked. The doors to the apartments had been welded shut, so it took them some time to break in. People in the apartments offered no violent resistance, but just about everyone had to be dragged out. Where no cameras present, riot squad forces utilized excessive force, beating people and dragging them by their necks. A number of people were injured and necessitated medical treatment. Youngsters and elderly were brutally dragged out of the neighborhood, as it had been declared a 'closed military zone.' Within about two hours the apartments were vacant of people. The security forces then began destroying them, literally tearing the apartments apart. Beautiful homes were left in ragged ruins. Amongst the rooms destroyed was the study hall/synagogue built in Shalhevet Pass' memory. All that was left was the eternal light, left hanging from the ceiling. Ironically, this, more that anything else, represents the mood of Hebron's Jewish community. On the one hand, we have faced tremendous adversity and demolition. The site of people's homes in ruins is sickening. On the other hand, we know that the city of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, the city where David began the Israelite monarchy, is an essential, eternal element of the Jewish people, which can never be extinguished. True, there are those who would desire to exterminate us, literally. A veteran, respected Israeli journalist/commentator, Yaron London, said during a television show that the IDF shouldn't have wasted so many soldiers to evict families from their homes. Rather, they should have sent in a small unit and shot the resistors, 'reawakening the spirit of the Altelena.' http://news.nana10.co.il/Article/?ArticleID=505495& TypeID=1&sid=126 However, we know that that the light of Hebron, the light of Avraham Avinu, the light of Eretz Yisrael, cannot and never will be doused, not by politicians, not by police and not by bullets. Nothing can destroy the eternal flame of the Jewish people, certainly not the everlasting glow of the holy city of Hebron. David Wilder is spokesman of The Jewish Community of Hebron. You can contribute directly to The Jewish Community of Hebron, POB10, Kiryat Arba-Hebron 90100, hebron@hebron.org.il, 972-2-9965333 or write to The Hebron Fund, 1760 Ocean Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11230, hebronfund@aol.com To Go To Top THE DE-JUDAIZATION OF ISRAEL Posted by Avodah, August 6, 2007. This was written by Tamar Yonah http://webmail.aol.com/29047/aol/en-us/suite.aspx?app=mail Is it the need to be loved, the desire for acceptance, or the personal greed for power and big bank accounts that is steering this country into the depths of the abyss? The leaders in our government are steadily steering Israel off course of being a Jewish State. How can it be that our Prime Minister: * Frees convicted terrorists -- not to free our soldier who is still kidnapped, but to boost the status and build up of Mahmoud Abbas, a holocaust denier and the head of a terror organization? * Transfers guns and bullets to the terrorists * Wants to uproot almost a quarter of a million Jews out of their homes in Judea and Samaria. * Wants to 'converge' and make Israel's borders smaller and less defensible. * Allow the immigration into Judea and Samaria of 41 Iraqi arabs claiming to be Palestinian refugees * Destroys Jewish settlements and outposts (Amona, etc.) How can it be that our Government Ministers seem to want to castrate the IDF and bring in foreign troops to patrol our borders and keep the peace? Isn't one of the reasons we established the Modern State of Israel, so that we would have our own army, and never ever have to rely on the nations of the world to protect us again? * Avigdor Liberman wants to bring in international forces to secure and stabilize Gaza. * Chaim Ramon wants to bring in NATO to protect Israel * Tzippi Livni?s Foreign Ministry wants to install international forces in the south. * Call for Nato Troops -- Whatever happened to using our own military and depending on our own army? Why have we given our security over to nations that have no love or allegiance to Israel? Shimon Peres wants to uproot the Jews of Judea and Samaria and turn it over to Arab terrorists. How will he do it when the residents of YESHA are some of the most motivated and idealistic jews in Israel? He knows they will most likely not accept reparations from the Israeli government to do so, just as the families of Gush katif attempted to stay on their land. Peres was quoted as saying in an interview in 1995 when he was the Foreign Minister, 'I have no problem with what will happen in Yesha. We will withdraw the army and then let's see what happens. They (the Jews) will either run away immediately, or the Arabs will massacre some, and then we'll see what happens.' Is this a representative of the People? A man who seems not to have a problem that families in YESHA get massacred in their communities? ...This is our president today. And now we have the African Moslem refugees from the Sudan region of Darfur, being absorbed into Israel. 4,000 refugees have been taken in, and they are growing at a rate of 300 more every week, or 1,200 every month. According to someone I visit in the Ashkelon prison, the inmate says that darfur refugees are being brought to the prison, housed, fed, and then shipped out to kibbutzim to be absorbed into Israeli society, eventually to be given Israeli citizenship. (How many more votes does this mean for the Left?) I cannot verify his information, but I do know they were being brought to the prison there, and the guards let me bring in English teaching books for the refugees, as they had a problem communicating because of the language barrier. My heart goes out to these people who are running from a violent area that some say is a genocide against them, but is there no place on the whole African continent that can absorb them better? A place where they share a similar African culture, or a place where they share the same religion and feel more at home? Why aren't the EU and the rest of the richer Western Nations pumping money into the welfare of these refugees? Why aren't they helping other African entities to absorb these people? Instead, they pump hundreds of millions of dollars into the corrupt Palestinian Authority. Our leaders can't find money to re-settle our own refugees from Gush Katif. They are still rotting in make shift trailer homes. Our own Holocaust survivors have to march in protest, because they can't even afford their medicines that they need in their old age, and our leaders can't seem to find the funding for them. But we have the means to absorb 300 Sudanese Moslems every week? None of these Sudanese refugees are Jewish, and none of these people want to become Jews. Why is israel absorbing Moslems, when Egypt and much of the African continent is Moslem? The Moslems hate Israel. They have no interest in Israel remaining a Jewish State. In fact, it would be the opposite case, that they would vote for Israel losing it's status as a Jewish State, and instead see it become a state of its citizens. Is Israel being watered down of its Jewishness? Is the government doing this on purpose? Is this just another brick in the wall to attempt to make way for Israel to join the EU and to de-Judaize Israel so she will fit in with the International Community's Global vision? A very strange article was written about the Moslems from Darfur, with one of it's Sudanese officials claiming that the refugees are being encouraged already back in the Sudan to come to Israel. It's hard to believe, and I myself find it difficult to absorb. However, I shall provide links to show that perhaps indeed, there is a sinister attempt to de-judaize the character and make up of Israel. See article about: Moslem African Sudanese absorbtion into Israel. See: Non-Jewish Russians absorbtion into Israel. See: Russian tourists to enter Israel now without visas, See: Olmert's bringing in of 'Palestinian Arab refugees' from Iraq, to Israel. The entry of these groups into Israel who are not Jewish and do not have an interest in seeing Israel as a Jewish State, being encouraged to come to Israel, while the Jewish Agency breaks ties with Nefesh B'nefesh because they are bringing too many 'religious' Jews to Israel on aliyah, should raise eyebrows. Additional news headlines imply pressure on the JNF to forfeit Jewish land bought with Jewish money from 'pushkas', (Jewish charity boxes) to the Arab enemy. Ramon and Liberman want to bring in NATO troops, Olmert wants to bring in Jordanian and Egyptian troops. Are we are witnessing a concentrated erosion of Jewish presence and values in Israel. Are we witnessing a pull to make Israel into a state just like any other state? If indeed this is the case, what would be the motives of our leadership to bring on such a situation? Is this just another brick in the wall to attempt to make way for Israel to join the EU and to de-Judaize Israel so she will fit in with the International Community's Global vision? Please click on these links, it will show you the news articles written on the interest to bring Israel under the EU, and Israel's leadership who are more than willing to do so. For some of our leaders, it would be a dream come true. It all comes down to 'following the money trail' and that leads us to international trade, treaties, deals, free trade areas, casinos, and lots of money to be made if the right people jump to get the monopoly on the right contracts. Guess who was Israel's 'Minister of Trade' before he became Prime Minister? Ehud Olmert. Trade leads us to common trade laws and trade blocks, which leads us to entering into treaties with (perhaps) the EU, which leads to Israel conforming to EU standards. So, what IF Israel has to give up her Jewish identity in order to fit in and assimilate? Give up land, feed it to the oil rich Arab kingdoms, kick out and destroy the religious Zionist settler movement, besmirch and demonize the Haredim and all the other Torah observant Jews, and make Israel a secular 'state of her citizens'. Do away with Israel's law of Return for Jews, do away with anything Jewish pertaining to Israel. Relegate it to small pockets that are weak and nostalgic. After all, we all know there is NO room for Jewish values and Jewish identity in the EU, or in a world that despises G-d and His laws. Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com To Go To Top RAUL HILBERG DIES Posted by Steven Plaut, August 6, 2007. My first thought when hearing that Raul Hilberg had died (www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2007/08/05/ holocaust_scholar_dies/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+Globe+West) was that alas now I will never get to punch him in the mouth. Hilberg of course was a leading Holocaust historian, one often mindlessly dubbed by the media "The Dean of Holocaust Studies," whatever that means. Hilberg had once done important work on the Holocaust. There is a big HOWEVER, with a capital H. Hilberg in recent years had become an apologist and lobbyist on behalf of Neo-Nazi pseudo-scholar Norman Finkelstein, and had repeatedly endorsed Finkelstein's hate-filled "books" and rants against Jews and Israel. Hilberg had been trying to help Finkelstein get tenured at DePaul University, and may well have died this week of a broken heart after Finkelstein got canned. (Well, aside from having cancer.) Hilberg had also been increasingly mouthing anti-Israel rhetoric in recent years (e.g., http://groups.google.com/group/misc.activism.progressive/msg/ 11422bc0c6981f00?hl=en) Why would the "Dean of Holocaust Studies" go out streetwalking for Norman Finkelstein? Part of the story may have been that he was far more upset that the "Jewish Establishment" did not give him the respect he thought he deserved. Alan Dershowitz suggested to me a more plausible explanation though. Hilberg in recent years was obsessed with engaging in a personal vendetta against Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, a prominent historian of German and of anti-Semitism. Hilberg evidently thought Goldhagen was stealing Hilberg's own thunder. He attacked Goldehagen endlessly and viciously, in an ad hominem way. Because Norman Finkelstein also attacked Goldhagen, Hilberg decided to endorse the Fink, in his own Vermont application of the Middle East.s slogan holding that the enemy of my enemy being my friend. Hilberg in his last years seemed to have been far more angry at the "Jewish Establishment" than he was at Neo-Nazis and anti-Semites. Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments -- both seriously and satirically -- on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Or write him at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il To Go To Top PM: ISRAEL, PA TO EXPAND TALKS ON ESTABLISHING PALESTINIAN STATE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 6, 2007. [Dr. Aaron Lerner of Independent Media Review and Analysis (IMRA) says: A deadly combination? Prime Minister Olmert has a track record in policy making of shooting from his hip based on a micron thin depth of thinking (as point man for the retreat from Gaza he openly admitted he was clueless what would happen after the retreat but didn't care) and now he is engaging in a series of meetings with Mahmoud Abbas without any witnesses -- no one to even take notes. Now Olmert spokesman David Baker can say that Olmert did or did not discuss something at the meeting but since Olmert was alone with Abbas Baker only knows what Olmert says he said -- not what Olmert necessarily said. A reminder: the Roadmap doesn't require agreement on the final status issues before a sovereign Palestinian state is formed. And while the pundits keep saying this is all just rhetoric there is no telling who may grab the opportunity in this "process" to call the shots.] This article was written by Avi Issacharoff and Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondents www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/890318.html Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas at a meeting in the West Bank on Monday he would push for the establishment of a Palestinian state as "fast as possible." In a Jericho meeting with the PA chairman, Olmert refrained from setting a schedule, but said statehood would be achieved by adherence to the internationally brokered road map to Middle East peace, and through mutual understanding. "We have decided to expand the scope of the negotiations between us in order to advance mutual understanding and formulate the framework that will allow us to move forward toward establishing a Palestinian state," Olmert said. Monday's meeting marked the first time an Israeli prime minister has visited the Palestinian Authority since the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000. The meeting took place under heavy security. Palestinian Presidential Guard officials and Shin Bet security service VIP officers held a number of meetings in recent days to lay the groundwork for the security at this historical meeting. While Olmert did not present a timetable, he declared that he has no intention to stall for time on the issue of Palestinian statehood. "Our mutual goal is to realize the shared vision between us and [U.S. President George] Bush regarding the establishment of two states for two peoples who live side by side in security and peace. We want to achieve this as soon as possible," Olmert added. Olmert also mentioned that the basis for negotiations "will continue to be the road map, which is acceptable to both sides." The prime minister was referring to a peace plan proposed by the Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators -- the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia -- that calls for an independent Palestinian state. During the meeting between the two leaders, Abbas told Olmert that Israel's release of the 255 Palestinian prisoners last month had a positive effect on the Palestinian people, and requested the release of additional prisoners in the coming weeks. Olmert said he would consider Abbas' request. Abbas also called on Olmert to allow the return to the West Bank of militants whom Israel deported in 2002. The militants, who had barricaded themselves in the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem five years ago, were told they would be arrested if they returned to the West Bank, and consequently dispersed in Gaza and Europe. Olmert agreed to consider this request as well. Both sides agreed the meeting had been constructive, but made no announcements of significant progress. "Abbas did not come to the meeting with a magic wand, and neither did Mr. Olmert," Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said at a post-meeting press conference. "There is an agreement on a series of meetings to discuss the issues, including the establishment of a Palestinian state," he added. David Baker, an Olmert spokesman, said the leaders did not discuss the core issues of the conflict or conduct negotiations. "Both sides decided to expand the contents of their discussions in order to advance the understandings ... to allow further progress to be made for the establishment of a Palestinian state," Baker said. "I came here in order to discuss the fundamental issues outstanding between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, hoping that this will lead us soon into negotiations about the creation of a Palestinian state," Olmert said at the outset of the talks earlier Monday. The aim of the meeting between the two was to prepare for a U.S.-led regional summit on peace between Israel and the Palestinians to be held in Washington in November. "The purpose is to achieve the maximum possible mutual understandings on a two-state solution prior to the summit in the fall and in a way that will not endanger the entire process," a senior political source in Jerusalem said Sunday. The aim is to stabilize Abbas' rule in the West Bank so that the PA will be able to carry out its commitments, particularly on the security front. Abbas and Olmert picked up where their previous talks, initiated at their meeting in Jerusalem two weeks ago, left off. The talks focused on an "agreement of principles." Baker said the meeting was a signal of Israeli good will, adding that Olmert intended for it to be a productive meeting to enable progress with the Palestinians. Both sides said ahead of the talks that the meeting would also deal with easing daily life in the West Bank, including the removal of some of the checkpoints erected after the outbreak of the second Intifada in 2000. The meeting between the two leaders was restricted to the press and photographs were allowed only at the beginning. Fayad: PA not ready to assume security control Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad told senior Israeli officials during recent meetings that the Palestinian Authority's security organizations are unable to assume security control of cities in the West Bank. Fayad said that the PA's security forces are unable "to impose law and order in the West Bank at this time." During meetings with senior Israeli officials, the interim Palestinian prime minister and his interior minister, Abd al-Razek al-Yihiya, made it clear that the PA's security cannot at this time assume control of West Bank cities. Among those to whom this message was conveyed recently was Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top IS THERE NO OTHER POLICY EXCEPT FOR A FAILED ONE? Posted by Dr. Steve Carol, August 6, 2007. The recent announcement of a planned U.S. $20 billion sale to Saudi Arabia and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates -- and the new, U.S. three-line deployment strategy, is being discussed and questioned globally. However, once again we are witnessing the repackaging of old wine in new bottles, except that this time the wine is vinegar. Major components of the proposed sale and strategy have been tried before by the U.S. and failed. In 1970, as part of the "Nixon Doctrine", the United States introduced the concept of relying on "regional influentials" to safeguard American interests in the wide area of the Middle East. Assigned to this role was Iran, under the Shah, whose task was to protect the Persian Gulf region. Second was Israel that was to watch over the Eastern Mediterranean area and Suez Canal. The third was Ethiopia, under Emperor Haile Selassie, that was assigned the task of safeguarding the southern approaches to the Red Sea. Arms aid was given to all three nations. In all three cases, the policy failed. The Shah faced unrest that resulted in a revolution that toppled the pro-American Pahlavi dynasty in 1978-1979. All of the American military equipment, much of it top of the line at the time, fell into the hands of the Islamic republic. Israel suffered the shock of military setbacks and subsequent diplomatic reversals that were the immediately result of the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Ethiopia faced civil war, drought and revolution that swept from power the Imperial monarchy, and replaced it with a Marxist regime, where again American aid fell into the hands of that anti-Western regime. The policy of relying on "regional influentials" did not work in the 1970s. It will not work now. Saudi Arabia has but one goal first and foremost, to preserve the House of Saud. It will not be a "deputy U.S. policeman" to block and, if necessary, combat Islamic Iran's air force, any more than the misguided U.S. policy of hoping that the Palestinian Fatah organization will control militant Hamas. To further complicate and make matters worse, the U.S. will offer Egypt $13 billion as part of the arms package. The Egyptian armed forces, largely equipped with U.S.-made weaponry thanks to US aid totaling over $70 billion since 1979, trains for a war against the named "enemy" -- Israel. According to the Congressional Research Service, Egypt purchased $6.5 billion worth of foreign weapons in the years 2001-04, more than any other state in the Middle East. In contrast, the Israeli government bought only $4.4 billion worth during that period and the Saudis $3.8 billion. If Egypt is at peace with Israel, what are all those weapons for? The answer to the question lies in Egyptian war doctrine which still views Israel as Egypt's main, if not its only, enemy. In view of these facts, for what purpose does Egypt need an additional $13 billion to fund sophisticated top-of-the-line aircraft? Let one not forget that despite the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, the Arab League's 1948 declaration of war to liquidate the state of Israel remains in force. Egypt is a member of the Arab League and subscribes to its decisions. In an attempt to resuscitate the failed policy, the U.S. has added another failed strategy to the mix. As a sweetener to Israel (to swallow the bitter pill of a massive arms sale to the Arab states) and in order to get Congressional and Israeli approval to this pending deal, the U.S. administration has promised Israel an additional $30 billion in military aid over a 10 year period. While Israeli Prime minister Ehud Olmert was quick to praise the 25% US military aid increase as an important boost to Israel's security, President Bush indicated that he could not guarantee this aid level beyond 2009! So much for 10 years of increased aid. Appeasement-minded Olmert added that President Bush had promised him Israel's qualitative military edge in the region would be preserved. This may be wishful thinking on Olmert's part, since the U.S. is now inclined to sell the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter-bomber to the Saudis, while only "considering" such a sale to Israel. In recent tests, an Israeli pilot using an F-22, engaged and defeated six F-15s in mock combat. The F-15 is the current top plane in the Israeli Air Force. Olmert, no doubt, is putting into practice Israeli President Shimon Peres' infamously quoted statement that "It's a great mistake to learn from history. There is nothing to learn from history." (Maariv, May 23, 1996). The Israeli Prime Minister has forgotten and ignored his nation's history. In 1970, the United States and the Soviet Union brokered and guaranteed a cease fire that ended the 1,000 day War of Attrition (1967-1970). The Soviets and the Egyptians broke the agreement on the very first night it went into effect. To pacify Israel, the U.S. gave Israel more monetary aid and additional aircraft, much as it is promising now. The U.S. move was costly to Israel. The Israeli Air force witnessed 49 of its best planes shot out of the sky in the first two days of the Yom Kippur War. The additional American funds evaporated as the staggering costs of the war, both in life and expense, dramatically escalated. So Israel has had the experience of an American "pay off" to acquiesce to an American-Arab arms deal. Also of importance in the pending U.S.-Saudi deal is a Saudi commitment to keep the new warplanes and missile systems away from Israel's borders. Don't hold your breath on that promise. A similar Saudi pledge offered in the 1990s for US F-15 warplanes was never kept despite reminders from Washington. The planes were housed at Tabuk close to the Jordanian border, Israel's Red Sea port of Eilat and its Negev bases. Ultimately, Israel informed Riyadh through Washington that Tabuk would not be immune from attack in a fresh all-out Middle East conflict. All of this does not even begin to address the question as to how good an ally Saudi Arabia is. The arms deal was promoted despite the fact that Saudi Arabia was unhelpful to the U.S. in Iraq, opposed to U.S. policy in dealing with the Palestinians, and was unable or unwilling to stop suicide bombers reaching Iraq. Thus the new U.S. proposed arms sale to Saudi Arabia is fraught with peril. Is there no other policy the U.S. Administration can pursue other than a failed one? Dr. Steven Carol is Professor of Modern Middle East history (retired) and official historian of The Middle East Radio Forum www.middleeastradioforum.org. He lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. To Go To Top FROM ISRAEL: ESSENTIAL ERRORS Posted by Arlene Kushner, August 6, 2007. This morning here in Israel YNet ran a piece on the upcoming meeting between Olmert and Abbas. It provided almost a template of errors in thinking with regard to what's going on. (Not YNet errors, but errors of those involved.) Primary is this: "Israel and the US have both been working to strengthen Abbas so he can realize his authority over the Palestinian territories and combat terror. The objective is to prompt Abbas to reach a settlement with Israel." Prompt Abbas to reach a settlement? That is a mistake of major proportions. Whenever I read something like this I am reminded of the exceedingly pertinent advice of Prof. Moshe Sharon, who says negotiations with the Arabs should be conceived of as a bazaar -- a marketplace. If Israel and the US want Abbas to do certain things more than Abbas wants to, then the cost of getting him to do these things is high. Too high. This is the point everyone seems to miss. Abbas and his government and those he governs (and I use that term loosely) have to really want a peaceful state with a civic society established next to Israel. They have to want it enough to be willing to make sacrifices to get it. This is simply and incontrovertibly not the case. ~~~~~~~~~~ An Israeli official was quoted thus, "we've...just handed over a vast sum of money, released prisoners, provided military aid and authorized outside military aid. We conceived a very handsome package and it bore results, stabilizing Abbas." Huh? Abbas is stable? The explanation is that in spite of pressure on him to do so, Abbas has not fallen in again with Hamas. "He understands that going back to Hamas' embrace is a death-blow to the political process." I would not be so certain of any of this. What matters to Abbas more? Having a state in Judea and Samaria, or having interaction with fellow Arabs in Gaza? Yes, Abbas is making all of the right noises regarding his absolute refusal to talk to Hamas, but this is for Western ears. And the West -- eager to hear this and refusing to remain mindful of the Palestinian propensity for a forked tongue -- buys it. Just days ago I discovered on an Arab website a report that says Fatah and Hamas have already met secretly and forged certain agreements. I have not been able to confirm this -- at least not yet, but it would not surprise me if this turned out to be so. And even if it turns out to be true that there's been no contact in recent weeks between Fatah and Hamas, I remind you of the report yesterday from Israel military intelligence that says there will be fighting between Fatah and Hamas in Judea and Samaria soon. Prime Minister Fayyad has told Israeli officials that the PA is not ready to assume control of Palestinian cities. The security services in the PA have not gotten their act together. No matter how you look at it, Abbas is not stable. ~~~~~~~~~~ And so what was the result of the meeting today between Olmert and Abbas in Jericho? Olmert began with a statement about the goal of the meeting being to "create two states for two people as soon as possible." One has to wonder what Olmert's intent was here. "Possible" is not going to be any time soon. Abbas made his anticipated requests regarding removal of checkpoints, more humanitarian aid, and amnesty for additional terrorists, and Olmert agreed to consider them. Questions regarding Palestinian institutions and issues of Israeli security were apparently discussed as well. What was not discussed were the "core" issues of borders, Jerusalem, settlements and refugees, as much as Abbas was eager to put these on the table. There were great photo ops. And the two agreed to talk again, to work towards "normalizing ties," and to ultimately discuss "fundamental issues." Over in Gaza, former PA prime minister Haniyeh said that the meeting in Jericho was a "public relations gimmick that would yield nothing." It looks a bit like that from where I sit, as well. ~~~~~~~~~~ A large army and police contingent is preparing today to evict two Jewish families from a marketplace in Hevron, where they took up residence recently. The likelihood of violence is great. It is important to set the record straight with regard to this painful -- and shameful -- situation, as so much disinformation is being circulated: This market stands on Jewish land. It was purchased, in front of Arab witnesses, in 1807 by Rabbi Haim Bajaoi, at a time when there was a thriving Jewish Quarter in the ancient city; the five dunams he purchased were adjacent to the Quarter and dedicated to the use of the Jewish community. Jews disappeared from Hevron in 1929, after a horrendous Arab massacre (instigated, it should be noted by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Muhammad al-Husseini, who was Arafat's mentor). Those Jews who survived were moved out by the British, who then controlled the area under the Mandate for Palestine: It was easier to remove them than protect them. In 1948, the Jordanians occupied this area; an Arab market was established on the land that Bajaoi had purchased. When Israel secured control of Hevron in 1967, the Arabs were permitted to continue to operate the market -- even though they were on privately owned Jewish land. This was so even after Jews moved back into the city, into the old Jewish area, known as the Avraham Aveinu neighborhood. Twelve years ago, for security reasons, the IDF evicted the Arabs who maintained the stalls in the market. The market stood empty. By 1998, as part of the Oslo Accords, Israel had pulled out of 80% of Hevron, but the 20% that remained in Israeli hands included the Avraham Aveinu neighborhood and the adjacent market place. The Hevron Jewish community petitioned the Israeli government several times to be permitted to rent the remaining structures left in the market place but their request was consistently denied. ~~~~~~~~~~ In March of 2001, a one-year old child, Shalhevet Pass, was shot point-blank in the head by an Arab sniper who had positioned himself in the area of the empty market. The Hevron Jewish community then decided that a Jewish presence there was necessary. They invested many thousands of dollars in converting the old market stalls into small apartments. Nine Hevron families moved in, and a religious study hall was established. This area was named Mitzpe (outlook) Shalhevet, in memory of the child. Once the Jewish residents moved in, Arabs went to court claiming the buildings. The attorney general responded that the Arabs had no further claim, but that the Jewish "trespassers" would be evicted; the court accepted this and made no additional ruling. Eviction orders were issued by the attorney general's office. ~~~~~~~~~~ Before eviction could take place, the Jewish community appealed. Then the court ruled that the land was privately owned by Jews (the family of Rabbi Bajaoi had produced papers and indicated their desire that the Hevron Jewish community use the land). However, they also ruled that the market stalls, which had been put up by Jordan, were captured property that legally fell under the jurisdiction of the Israeli government. The court recommended that the structures be leased by the government to the residents of Mitzpe Shalhevet. Attorney General Mazuz refused, determined to "punish" those who had used this property without permission. He pushed for eviction. Eighteen months ago, when that eviction was about to take place, there was a gathering of protestors and violence seemed imminent. Crisis was averted when IDF officials on the scene -- headed by General Yair Golan -- negotiated a compromise with the residents, saying that if they moved out peacefully, legal Jewish occupancy of the market would be expedited and Jews from Hevron would soon be permitted to move in. Based on this agreement, the residents moved out voluntarily. Subsequently, Attorney General Mazuz voided the agreement, saying that the IDF had no right to negotiate it. Mitzpe Shalhevet stood empty. ~~~~~~~~~~ This brings us to the current crisis. Recently two families grew tired of the waiting, and the failed promises, and moved back into Mitzpe Shalhevet. And once more the government is out to remove them. "We've been fooled too many times," the families are saying, "This time we're not going peacefully." The community is mindful of the fact that the court had provided a way out with its recommendation, and the government refused to take it, preferring confrontation. Defense Minister Barak is making the decision in this regard now. Responding to pressure from the left (and mindful, undoubtedly, of elections coming up before too very long) he has decided to take action against these two families. What makes this even more shameful is that the representatives of seven factions within the Knesset had appealed to Barak to not go this route. Last month they wrote a letter to him: "We are marking 78 years since the 1929 riots, you are faced with a fateful decision concerning one of the sites which represents, more than anything else, the murder and the thievery [committed upon] the Hebron Jewish community of those days: the site of the 'shuk' [market place] in Hebron, where presently several families are living...We are dealing with Jewish-owned land, which was stolen as a result of the terrible slaughter. It is incumbent on the government to act to return the stolen property as would be expected in relationship to stolen Jewish property anywhere in the world. "We the undersigned, chairmen of various parties in the Knesset, turn to you with this request to refrain from expelling these Jewish families living in the 'shuk'and to study alternative ways to resolve Jewish quarters at this site, legally... "The residents of Hebron prevented violence and conflict...when they voluntarily moved out of these homes, based upon promises that they would be allowed to return, honoring and respecting promises of representatives of the state, IDF officers. This type of approach is to be encouraged and rewarded, not discouraged... "For all the above reasons, we request, that you order that the issue of Jewish residency in the 'shuk' be studied seriously, and that in any case, you prevent, for the time being, any eviction of Jewish residents from the site." Barak's decision, then, is shameful. I titled this posting "Essential Errors," and without a shadow of a doubt, what Barak is doing qualifies in this respect. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info To Go To Top THE GAZA STRIP AS A HOTHOUSE FOR AL QAEDA Posted by Koira, August 6, 2007. This was written by Jonathan Dahoah-Halevi and it is archived at www.omedia.org/Show_Article.asp?DynamicContentID= 2496&MenuID=603&ThreadID=1014010 Ismail Haniyeh is trying to con the West when he says Hamas is not aiding Al Qaeda The Gaza Strip under Hamas rule has turned into a hothouse for Palestinian terror organizations and a base for an Al Qaeda offshoot that goes by the name of "the Army of Islam." Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, like other Hamas leaders, is trying to deceive the Western media by repeatedly denying Hamas is assisting Al Qaeda, either directly or indirectly. "There is no Al Qaeda in the Gaza Strip and talk of Gaza becoming a foothold for Al Qaeda invites international hostilities, "Haniyeh told Reuters (July 15, 2007). Haniyeh's comments are diametrically opposed to the current reality in the Gaza Strip. The Hamas movement is well aware of the growing power of the Al Qaeda offshoot and is troubled by the fact that quite a few in the Hamas military arm and even in its leadership have begun to embrace the global outlook of Al Qaeda. Assumption of responsibility for attacks against Israel were published even prior to the unilateral disengagement by Israel from the Gaza Strip (August 2005) and furthermore the the Army of Islam even takes open pride in taking orders from the leadership of Al Qaeda abroad. In an interview on the Ilaf website (July 17, 2007), Abu Ashour, the right-hand man of Army of Islam leader Mamtuz Doghmush, said the organization "embraces the principles in which Al Qaeda believes" and supports the establishment of an Islamic state in Gaza and the liberation of Palestine. He noted Al Qaeda sends money to finance the activity of the Army of Islam, as well as conveying directives for action. Ashour believes "the decision to kidnap Alan Johnston was made by Al Qaeda 'on the outside' and the decision to release him also arrived from 'outside' in order to avoid bloodshed." Abu Ashour also revealed the Army of Islam was established in the Gaza Strip 30 years ago. "At first the Afghans arrived in order to spread religious awareness," he said, referring to Arab fighters who had fought in Afghanistan. "All the Afghans belonged to Al Qaeda and we called them by their noms de guerre. We established the popular resistance committees due to the corruption in Fatah...later on Mamtuz Doghmush established the Army of Islam due to disputes among the committee heads." One of those very same "Afghan" fighters is Kattab al-Maqdesi, whose real name is Ahmed al-Mazloum, a resident of the Al-Darej neighborhood in Gaza. He studied Islamic law in Pakistan, spent time in Afghanistan, attended 40 of Osama bin Laden's lectures and then returned to the Gaza Strip to continue jihad against Israel. He took part in the terrorist attack at the Karni Crossing in January 2005 (a joint attack by Hamas, the Resistance Committees and a faction of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades) and in the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit (a joint attack by Hamas, the Resistance Committees and the Army of Islam). Likewise he was part of the group that executed Moussa Arafat, the commander of the military intelligence apparatus in the Gaza Strip (over 2000). Today al-Maqdisi serves as a spokesperson of the Army of Islam and is one of the organization's senior leaders. The ties between Hamas and the Army of Islam are apparent in the agreement between the two organizations, which led to the liberation of kidnapped British journalist Alan Johnston. In recompense for the Army of Islam's agreement to liberate Johnston, the Hamas movement transferred to the Army of Islam (this according to a source close to the Army of Islam as quoted in Al-Quds Al-Arabi on July 5, 2007) $5 million and more than a million Kalashnikov bullets, and the Army of Islam received recognition from Hamas as a legitimate jihad organization. Furthermore it was agreed that neither organization would disclose joint operations they had carried out in the past. The validity attached to this Hamas policy was well expressed by Moussa Abu Marzouk, the deputy of Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, in a conversation with a journalist from Al-Hayat following his meeting with Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad in Damascus (July 19, 2007). "When Hamas came to power," noted Abu Marzouk, "the entire PA became a fighting authority in the sense that the fighters [mukawaymun] were no longer subject to arrest or liquidation, for Hamas had made the resistance [i.e. armed struggle] legitimate." In other words Abu Marzouk confirms that the Gaza Strip has become a hothouse for global Islamic terror. The Army of Islam, an offshoot of Al Qaeda in the Gaza Strip, enjoys freedom of action under Hamas rule. Contact Koira at koira@dbmail.com To Go To Top ISRAELI ECONOMY THRIVING; BRITISH VIEW OF RELIGION; SOME FATAH ALLIED WITH HAMAS Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 6, 2007. IRANIAN CHERNOBYL LIKELY The same company that built the Chernobyl reactors built the Iranian ones. Iran wanted the Russians to use modern designs and safety features, but the Russians know only the grossly incompetent Russian ones. International sanctions make it more difficult to upgrade safety -- Iran can draw only on Russians monitor for safety, i.e., monitor themselves. An Iranian argues that safety is too important to let politics intervene. He contends that improving safety would not facilitate military development but could save innocent lives from radioactivity that would be blown into other countries. An Iranian nuclear scientist already has died from fluoride gas (IMRA, 7/12). Bad enough accidents might spare innocent people from bombs. The US should make sure. Let it blow up the nuclear plants with conventional bombs. MUSLIMS BACK TO DESTROYING JEWISH ARTIFACTS With permission from an Israeli official who is not an archeologist, Muslims have been ploughing up more earth on the Temple Mount. The debris may contain Jewish archeological artifacts. They get destroyed this way (Arutz-7, 7/12). The Muslims did this before. Why does Israel allow this? Through anti-Judaism or cowardice. ISRAELI CIVIL DEFENSE PROBLEM The shelters that were renovated during the recent war with Lebanon have been looted (IMRA, 7/12). ISRAELI ECONOMY According to Israel, in the past year its industrial output grew 37%, the highest in the world, and its inflation of 1% was the lowest in the world (IMRA, 7/13). (Then why does it cut the military budget?) BRITISH VIEW OF RELIGION Most Britons think that religion in Britain is good, Islam is a religion of peace, and that recent terrorist attacks and arrests hurt its reputation but do not change their attitude towards it (IMRA, 7/13). The terrorism demonstrates that Islam is not a religion of peace. Britons had better become suspicious of it or be attacked more. ISRAEL DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO SAY "NO" After the UNO had determined that the Sheba Farms area was not part of Lebanon, but Hizbullah still claimed it for Lebanon, the UNO asked Israel permission to review the boundaries. Thoughtless, as usual, Israel gave it permission. The UNO may have changed its decision, now asserting that the area is part of Lebanon. The reversal, if confirmed: (1) Justifies the pretext Hizbullah had been using for making war on Israel as "resistance;" (2) Invites foreign pressure on Israel to withdraw from more strategic territory and to bring war closer to Israel's cities; and (3) Sets a precedent for the Arabs to raise new territorial claims against Israel and for the UNO to support them. The government of Lebanon, of which Hizbullah is part, demands the territory. The US supports the regime, and therefore supports its demand. (Where is the fabled US support for Israel? Actually, the US is supporting Hizbullah.) Israel still doesn't understand its mistake in agreeing to a UNO re-study of that territory. Neither had it or has it analyzed the Security Council Resolution on Lebanon that raised Hizbullah to the level of a legitimate belligerent and injected UNIFIL forces into Lebanon. How will Israel deal with UNIFIL forces in the coming renewal of war in Lebanon? (Caroline Glick, IMRA, 7/13.) SOME FATAH ALLIED WITH HAMAS A faction of Fatah allied itself with Hamas in Gaza. It participated in the arrest and beating of regular Fatah men (IMRA, 7/13). Why not ally with Hamas? They all are Islamists. Abbas did nothing to discredit Hamas. He has no real difference with it other than the spoils of office. ABBAS REPRESSES REAL MODERATES (IMRA, 7/13.) He keeps them from trying to become significant. FRANCE WARNS ISRAEL ON HIZBULLAH Hizbullah is holding a high-level meeting in France. France has been tipped off that Israel is planning to kidnap some attendees, to use in exchange for Israeli captives. France warned Israel against operating on French soil, lest it harm French-Israel relations (IMRA, 7/14). Does having Hizbullah operate in France enhance French-Israel relations? Israel ought to protest against the meeting. France should arrest those terrorists. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top TROOPS REFUSE TO EVACUATE HEBRON FAMILIES Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 6, 2007. This article was written by Efrat Weiss and it was published today in Ynet News www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3434206,00.html Thirty yeshiva students serving in the IDF have announced that they will not take part in the evacuation of two Jewish families from the Hebron wholesale market after consulting their rabbis. The story was first reported by Army Radio. The soldiers, from the Kfir Brigade's Duchifat battalion, were slated to replace a Border Guard force on Tuesday and take part in the forced evacuation. Following their protest, their commanders sat with them and explained the importance of the mission. The potential "refusniks" were also told that those who will not carry out the mission will be treated severely by the army. IDF officials clarified that the soldiers have so far not declared that they will not get on the buses to the Hebron market and are continuing their regular training. Meanwhile, a special fund headed by an American millionaire has spread the word among troops in Hebron that a soldier who will refuse an evacuation order will receive a financial award of hundreds of dollars. If a soldier is tried over refusing an order he could receive $600. Among those involved in the initiative are extreme right-wing activists Baruch Marzel, Avigdor Eskin and Itamar Ben-Gvir. Non-violent side The two Jewish families entered two stores owned by Palestinians in the Hebron wholesale market about eight months ago. Members of the Jewish settlement expressed their anger over the planned evacuation, which is expected to be carried out by thousands of soldiers and police officers. "The talks have reached a dead end," said Noam Arnon, a member of the Jewish settlement. "How can we talk with the threat of expulsion in the air? When there is such a threat, one cannot advance anywhere." According to Arnon," This property is Jewish property. There was an agreement with former Judea and Samaria Division Commander Brig-Gen Yair Golan, which was accepted by the prime minister. "There is a legal, acceptable proposal which can be implemented, and the plan is that the families who entered will leave, but that Jews will stay in the area in one way or another," he told Ynet. Arnon is referring to an agreement reached about a year and a half ago, when nine families who entered stores in the Hebron market left during one night, preventing a confrontation. "I hope no one is looking for this confrontation," Arnon said, declaring that the settlers planned "a determined and non-violent struggle." He clarified that "the violent side is not us. The one who orders an evacuation is the violent side, and this confrontation is unnecessary. We will do all we can not to break the rules." Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top NEVER SAY DIE: YESHA ACTIVISTS IN HEVRON, HOMESH, ARIEL, EITAM Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 6, 2007. The time has come for action! The mistake of the disengagement has hit the Israeli public down deep in their Jewish soul. While the religious community spirit was shattered into pieces, the secular Zionists took over and are holding the 'Chupah poles.' They have been carrying on the struggle for all Jews. Mistakes were made and the time to reveres them is now. 'Chomesh First' is the beginning or the return of Jews to the ruins of the communities in northern Samaria and Gaza. Time to rebuild the destruction as well as it is time establish new communities. As of yesterday, August 5, 2007, Chomesh is a Jewish community again. The Army gave up harassing the people returning home to Chomesh. Now the soldiers help, by bringing food and water to the people in Chomesh! The army is with us not against us! This is great victory for the Jewish Nation. We now count 20 days of continuous Jewish existence in Chomesh! Friends, WE NEED TO URGENTLY HELP the Chomesh Community. They need to build 15 prefabricated homes and money is in short supply. It is a must they put down permanent foundations and this must be done fast; REALLY FAST. Yesterday fifteen families announced that they are going back for good and will settle in Chomesh. They need ALL the help they can get and we ask the entire Jewish world for fast action: $150,000 is required for infrastructure, homes, a vehicle and miscellaneous. Please let us know that you can help. For more information and to arrange to send contributions please call Tsafrir Ronen, Israel World Television: +972-52-235-8440 Thank you, Once again, we have done it before and we can do it again: Am Yisrael Erevim Zeh La'zeh! The article below was written by Hillel Fendel and it appeared in Arutz-Sheva http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123282 (IsraelNN.com) 120 people spent yet another Sabbath in Disengagement-destroyed Homesh, Hevron residents brace for a violent eviction, and cyclists ride from Tapuach to Ariel. With Israeli and US government officials trying to give the impression that a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria is all but a done deal, many members of the vast Jewish population of these areas refuse to allow any locations to be closed off to Jews. In the past two weeks alone, Yesha activists have turned Ariel and Homesh in the Shomron, HaEitam Hill near Efrat, Hevron, and Nisanit in northern Gaza into flashpoints of idealism -- resulting in clashes with the security forces. This past Sabbath, over 100 people camped out in Homesh, one of the four Jewish communities destroyed in 2005 by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the Disengagement expulsion/evacuation plan. Unlike Jewish Gaza, which was handed over to the control of the Palestinian Authority after Israel's unilateral withdrawal, northern Shomron still remains under full Israeli control. A core group of families, backed by a large organization named Homesh First, has made it its goal to return to and rebuild Homesh. They point out that the Disengagement has been proven to increase security dangers from Gaza, and that turning land over to Fatah-Hamas control in Samaria will do the same. Several mass ascents have been made to Homesh, including a march this past Chanukah, a three-day resettlement attempt in March, an Independence Day march, and a Six Day War anniversary march. The latest attempt, however, is in a totally different league than these short-lived affairs, and has been ongoing for close to three full weeks. One youth who spent this past Sabbath there told Arutz-7, "The Border Guard units come every once in a while to try to throw us out, but we have advance scouts and we know when they're coming; they know they can't really get all of us down, because most of us run to the hills... We can't yet build anything permanent, except for a synagogue in a half-way fashion; we have been staying in tents up until now... The goals has been reached, however: It is clear that there can be, is, and will be a Jewish presence in Homesh." Terrorism Victim's Widow Targeted Former and future-hopeful Homesh resident Limor Sohn Har-Melekh, one of the leaders of the campaign to return to Homesh, was nearly arrested by police today in her home in Carmel, south of Gush Etzion. The police demanded that she accompany them without her four-month-old son. The Almagor Terror Victims Association charged that this was an attempt to harass her because of her involvement in the Homesh campaign, including notably her daily updates heard by phone, and demanded an end to this harassment. In the event, her neighbors in Carmel surrounded her home and did not let the police approach it, and the police ultimately left empty-handed. Limor saw her first husband, Shuli Har-Melekh, gunned down by Palestinian terrorists in August 2003 near Maaleh Michmash. Seven months pregnant at the time, Limor was also wounded in the attack, and her baby was delivered by Caesarian section several hours afterwards. The couple's other child, 1-year-old Ya'ir, was not with them at the time. Limor later remarried, and the couple merited to have a brit milah [ritual circumcision] ceremony for their eight-day-old son at Homesh itself, during one of the first mass ascents to the site earlier this year. Hevron and Eitam Residents of Hevron are bracing for a violent eviction of two families from Jewish-owned property. The army has deemed the area a closed military zone, but supporters are continuing to stream to the area in an attempt to deter the army from evicting them. Nine families agreed to leave the area voluntarily last year, with the understanding that they would be allowed to return later; the government later overruled the army and reneged on this agreement. The eviction is expected to take place on Monday. The level of violence will be determined by the police, the residents say. Atop Eitam Hill, at the northern approach to Efrat in Gush Etzion, 200 people gathered today to protest the intention to exclude from Jewish territory a site that had already been earmarked for 2,500 Jewish housing units. Some ten days ago, police put a violent end to a Jewish protest at the site. Bicycles from Ariel A less controversial event took place on Friday when some 15 youths from the central Shomron community of Tapuach took off by bicycle on a road largely traveled by Arabs. They cycled westward to Ariel, some ten kilometers (six miles) away, protected by the town's youth coordinator, David HaIvri. The youths then took a swim at the Eshel HaShomron pool just outside Ariel, a short walk away from the gravesite of Moses' successor, Joshua bin Nun. Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top FATAH: HAMAS FORCED CHRISTIAN PROFESSOR TO CONVERT TO ISLAM Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 5, 2007. This was written by Khaled Abu Toameh and it appeared in the Jerusalem Post www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1186066387589&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull Fatah officials in Ramallah claimed over the weekend that Professor Sana al-Sayegh, who teaches at Palestine University in Gaza City, was kidnapped by Hamas militiamen who forced her to convert to Islam against her will. The officials said the president of the university, Dr. Zaher Khail, had assisted Hamas in kidnapping the professor. They added that senior officials in the office of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh played a major role in forcing her to convert to Islam. "She was forced to convert to Islam against her will," the Fatah officials said. "She was kidnapped and held for two weeks during which time she was not allowed to contact her family." Sayegh is the dean of the Science and Technology Faculty at Palestine University. She has represented the university at numerous conferences around the world over the past few years and is considered one of the most prominent experts in her field. According to the Fatah officials, she went missing in late June. When her family's attempts to find her failed, they sought the help of Haniyeh's office. Two weeks later the family was summoned to a meeting with some of Haniyeh's aides, who were accompanied by the professor. The office of deposed Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh allegedly played a major role in the forced conversion of Professor Sana al-Sayegh. Photo: AP At the meeting, which was held at the home of Hamas official Rafik Makki, the family was told that the professor had converted to Islam and married a Muslim man. When the professor's stunned mother asked her if this was true, she nodded her head, murmuring: "Yes, God has guided me through the right path." The mother later claimed that her daughter made the statement under threats from Hamas gunmen who were in the room. The Hamas officials are also reported to have shown the family a document signed by the professor indicating that she had converted to Islam and married a man named Izz al-Arab Awur. But the family claims that the man told them that he never married the professor. Several attempts by the family to arrange a meeting with Haniyeh to find out the truth failed. At one point, said a relative, they found the professor's car parked outside Haniyeh's office. "When we told them that we wanted to see her, we were ordered to leave immediately," he recounted. "We were told that we could take her car and go away. But we told them that we didn't come to get the car, but Professor al-Sayegh." Leaders of the tiny Christian minority in Gaza City who requested a meeting with Haniyeh to solve the problem were also turned down. Some 3,000 Christians live in the Gaza Strip. Following the Hamas takeover of the Strip, many of them have expressed their desire to leave. The board of directors of Palestine University confirmed Sunday that Sayegh had converted to Islam, but denied that the university was linked to the case in any way. "We won't allow anyone to exploit our name in political disputes," it said in a statement, referring to the Hamas-Fatah power struggle. "The case of Professor al-Sayegh is a personal one and does not reflect the policy of the university." Hamas officials strongly denied that they had forced the professor to convert to Islam and accused Fatah of spreading lies designed to undermine Hamas's credibility. The officials said that Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar met with Sayegh, who told him that she had converted out of her own will to marry her colleague, Awur. Ala Aklouk, a senior Muslim cleric in Gaza City who was entrusted by the Haniyeh government to look into the case, said the professor converted to Islam of her free will. "She was too afraid to inform her family that she had converted to Islam," he said. "So she asked me and other officials to inform her family. She also made it clear that she had no intention to return home unless all her family members converted to Islam." Aklouk claimed that the professor did not convert because she wanted to marry a Muslim man, but because she "really believed in Islam." "If you sit with her, you will feel as if you are sitting with a devout Muslim woman and not a Christian," he said. "She abandoned a good and easy life for the sake of Islam. She challenged everyone and did what she was supposed to do -- become a devout Muslim." Hanan Matar, a female activist working for the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights, said she met with the professor over the weekend and heard from her that her decision to convert to Islam was not related to her marriage to a Muslim man. She said the professor was wearing the hijab and "behaved like any religious Muslim woman would." Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top TRANSFERRING (JEWISH) IDENTITY TO THE ENEMY Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 5, 2007. There is much to cry about what is going on in Israel. In my opinion, the Israeli government is doing a great job for Hitler. No country in the world had ever systematically destroyed her population homes, livelihood as well as broke their spirit as the Israeli leadership has been doing these past 25 years. When will it end? Will it end with Hitler's fantasy of the Final Solution to be executed the non else that the Jews themselves, by the Israeli leadership and Israel Left and elite? The Israeli government and leadership is the worst tragedy ever happened to the Jewish Nation after the Holocaust. This was written by Tsafrir Ronen and is called "Transferring (Jewish) Identity to the Enemy -- Destroying the Jewish life and existence in Hebron (Chevron) means the transfer of Jewish National Identity to Islam. " This was translated from the Hebrew. We must ask Manny Mazuz, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert and the entire Left: do they want to destroy the Jewish existence and the Jewish spirit in Hebron (Chevron)? Tell us the truth. Uprooting two Jewish families is not the real objective. Even a child knows that the objective is to destroy the existence of the Jewish Nation in Hebron will be followed by the destruction and existence of the Jewish Nation in its historical -- Eretz Yisrael -- Land of Israel. This is the real meaning of the crusade that Mazuz, Barak and Olmert embarked on the Jews in Hebron. No other significance or other meaning. After all, there is no property dispute we are speaking about. The property belongs to the Sephardic Jews, given to those who renewed Jewish life in Hebron. While the European governments are returning properties that belong to Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, in Israel, in Hebron the place where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the nation's Forefathers who granted us the nation, are buried, precisely here the Israeli judicial establishment is fighting to destroy Jewish existence. If, as a nation, we do not have the right to Hebron, than the entire world has the right to ask if, as a rule, what is our entitlement to Eretz Yisrael-the Land of Israel? On the same very day when we mark seventy eight years to the devastating murder and robbing the Jews who lived in Hebron of their property under the sympathetic eyes of the British who encouraged the carnage, the Sodomizing, lunatic Israeli government decided, without a case or reason, to forcefully expel the Jews from Hebron. This act of expulsion is a violation of the agreement between the army and those renewing the Jewish life in Hebron and is nothing but a nasty, villain and foolish act. The Hebrew army is executing the destruction and the deportation of the Jews from the place that if not for it there would have been no Jewish Nation. However, if it was simply wretchedness, so be it. One day there will be someone to bring to trial those who are busy destroying Zionism. But here we are speaking about historical and national destruction of the right of Jews to return to Zion. The destruction of the right of one hundred years ago that was named: the Zionist Movement. The urge to destroy and the impulse to extinct Jewish existence is beyond all comprehension and is bordering total madness. The question is why?! Here we need to approach the soul searchers and diagnose this mental illness. Why the Left is so hostile toward Hebron -- the place without is we would have not been a nation? Why the Left organizations with their psychological terror focus so much on Hebron? After all, if it was not for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, buried in the Cave of Machpelah -- the cave in Hebron, we would have not become a nation and the wonderful story of the ancient nation that survived till today would have not been written. The Left must understand that if we give Islam, at our own free will, our national identity, the place where our Forefather are buried, then with our own hands we will destroy our national determination. Who is the Jewish Nation without Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? We waited for 2000 years to return to Zion so that the Israeli army is ordered to destroy our presence and existence in Hebron? After all, we are not speaking about Roman, Byzantine, muslim, Mameluk or Ottoman army, but the Israeli army! Is there is greater insanity than that?! What characterizes the nationalistic definition of a nation is its connection to its national symbols. If the Americans will give to Islam their Lincoln Memorial or the Statue of Liberty in New York to build a mosque there for the purpose of "making peace," any kid will say that the Americans have gone crazy and they are on the way to be destroyed as a nation. The Cave of Machpelah -- the cave in Hebron defines the identity of not only of the Jews as a Nation but also the world's entire civilization. Though the Cave of Machpelah belongs to us only and our Forefathers are buried there, it is clear to the entire Christian world that the way there is no New Testament without the Old Testament and without Abraham's monotheism, that gave birth to the Hebrew faith and the Israeli Nation, there would be no Christianity. Without the Bible and the Bible Nation, without the Jewish Nation, its Bible and the Bible Land, there would be no Christianity. Handing out Hebron to the muslims means handing out our Bible Land to Islam and letting go of our deepest national identity and the recognition of our ownership to the Bible. Giving Hebron to Islam is murdering the soul and spirit of the Jewish Nation. Forcing to leave Hebron is an irreversible act of giving our national identity to the enemy. If Hebron belongs to the muslim, then there is no more Jewish Nation. It is way beyond the two Jewish families that Barak, Olmert and Mazuz want to expel. It is a national catastrophe that will cast calamity on the future of the nation. These two families are not the pioneers representing themselves, rather, they represent millions of Jews all over the world and their uprooting is the uprooting of the entire Jewish Nation. This is the exact meaning! The time has come to announce to Benny, Olmert and Barak that with their crazy and irresponsible actions the yare destroying the existence of the Jewish Nation in Eretz Yisrael-the Land of Israel. They are working to destroy the unwritten constitution of the State of Israel, which is Zionism. Without the Jewish Movement to return to Zion, the Zionist Movement, the State of Israel would have not been established. Uprooting the families in Hebron is a symbolic act of uprooting the Jewish Nation from Zion. The meaning of uprooting the Jewish existence from Hebron is the destruction of Jewish identity of Hebron. It is not a matter of law enforcement act, as the government is attempting to present and drug the nation with, in the most vile, national demonization propaganda, rather an act that stands against the Return to Zion Movement, against the Zionist Movement. This is an act that sticks a knife in the existence of the Bible, in the Land of the Bible, where our story was written, where our kings ruled, where our prophets spoke their Prophecies, where our spirit was formed and to where we yearned for two thousand years. The time has come to say loud and clear that we no longer recognize them as a legitimate government. They do not represent the yearning of generations to return to Zion nor the Jewish nation in the Diaspora. They are no longer Zionists and with their actions to destroy the Jewish existence in Eretz Yisrael-the Land of Israel, they exclude themselves as part of the Nation of Israel. We will not allow you to go on. Your actions are a declaration of war against the Jewish Nation in Israel and the Diaspora. The act of uprooting two families from Hebron from building that was built by the Jordanians on the ruins of the homes of murdered, raped and expelled Jews is severe and horrific. It is not about two families only. With your actions you say that you will not allow Jews to live in Hebron. You will not allow Hebron to ever gain its Jewish identity but you will allow the Arabs, who are freely and clearly building a political structure its goal is to put an end to the possibility of Jews setting roots in the Land of Judea. With your actions you joined the Arab enemy that is coming to annihilate the Jewish existence in Eretz Yisrael-the Land of Israel and this is how history will remember you. With your actions you have turned to be the greatest enemy of the Zionist Movement its meaning is the return of Jews to Zion. Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top HAMAS MANIPULATES THE WEST Posted by Aramy, August 5, 2007. This was written by Melanie Phillips and it appeared http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=529&print=1 Shortly after the release of Alan Johnston from Gaza the website of Conflicts Forum, a group advocating engagement with Islamists and which is run by the former MI6 officer Alastair Crooke, posted a fascinating transcript. Under the title 'Hamas briefing', it was a conversation between Michael Ancram, the former Tory Northern Ireland minister, and Osama Hamdan, a senior representative of Hamas, which took place secretly in Beirut in June while Johnston was still in captivity. Hamdan suggested Fatah was behind the kidnap -- in particular, Fatah's security minister Mohammed Dahlan -- and said it had three times thwarted Hamas attempts to rescue Johnston. 'The most important thing,' he said, 'is that our people know him [Johnston] well, they know him well. I've talked yesterday to our [person there in Gaza], he saw him dozens of times, not in public, he visited him in his office ...they respect him.' Mr Ancram, who says this was his third meeting with Hamas since last autumn, claims he was acting purely from his personal belief in talking to them. He had approached the controversial Crooke to facilitate these meetings simply because he had the necessary contacts in Beirut. Nevertheless, his encounter with Hamdan has been used by Conflicts Forum to promote the cause of Hamas, which has been enormously boosted by its role in getting Johnston freed. According to Hamas -- an account uncritically swallowed by the Western media -- Johnston was kidnapped by a criminal Gaza gang, the Dagmoush family, also known as the Army of Islam, which was said to be at odds with Hamas and to have possible links to al-Qa'eda. Hamas eventually made a deal with the Army of Islam's principal protagonist Mumtaz Dagmoush and Johnston was escorted out of captivity by jubilant Hamas officials, with the British Foreign Secretary's praise ringing in their ears and the Western media now falling over itself to promote their cause. But this account is highly improbable. The claim that Hamas was unconnected with Johnston's kidnappers is wrong. The evidence points instead to an elaborate piece of manipulation, with Hamas using the kidnap to open a line of communication with Britain (as its Gaza leader, Ismail Haniyeh, boasted last week). The government not only sanctioned an informal visit to Britain by a senior Hamas official, Ghazi Hamad, but the UK Consul-General in Jerusalem, Richard Makepeace, met Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza to ask for his help in freeing Johnston. In doing so, the Western embargo on contact with Hamas was broken -- an important step in Hamas's strategy of gaining international legitimacy, and integral to its plan to undermine Mahmoud Abbas, take over the West Bank and further its goal of Islamising the region. The Hamas claim that Dagmoush conspired with Dahlan and Fatah elements to kidnap Johnston is highly implausible. Instead, it is much more likely that Dagmoush operated with the knowledge and at least tacit approval of Hamas. To understand how this may have worked requires some grasp of the byzantine Palestinian terror networks, of their tactic of operating through front organisations, and of the fact that they may be feuding and allying with each other simultaneously. Dagmoush is a commander in a Palestinian umbrella terrorist group called the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), at whose core are Gaza's criminal clans. Although its early attacks were sponsored by Yasser Arafat and the 'Fatah Tanzim', the PRC has traditionally hired itself out to the highest bidder. After Arafat's death in 2005 it forged a strategic alliance with Hamas which provides it with funding, training, arms and ammunition. The PRC has often served as a front for Hamas, which has outsourced to it numerous terror operations against both Israel and Fatah. As with the kidnapping of Alan Johnston, these operations have afforded Hamas several levels of plausible deniability. The PRC was established in 2000 by various ideologues including a terrorist called Abu Samhadana. Its armed wing was behind the October 2003 bombing of an American convoy in Gaza. Before the Israelis killed him last year, Hamas offered Samhadana the position of security minister. After he was killed Dagmoush took over the PRC's armed wing, rebranded it the 'Army of Islam' and identified it with Sunni extremist factions. Last year a PRC leader, Abu Yussuf al Qoqa, admitted that his organisation was 'fully co-ordinated' with Hamas, aided it in practical and political matters and identified with its Islamic ideology. Since 2005 the PRC/Army of Islam has been attacking Fatah on behalf of Hamas. On 7 September 2005, under the leadership of Dagmoush -- with assistance from senior Hamas operatives -- the PRC murdered Moussa Arafat, Fatah's former commander of military intelligence in Gaza and Mahmoud Abbas's special adviser. When al Qoqa was killed last year, the PRC blamed Fatah and Dahlan. Last year, it announced the establishment of a special unit to assassinate Dahlan; and recently Dagmoush claimed that he and Hamas had planned to assassinate Dahlan on at least five occasions. The PRC, Army of Islam and Hamas also acted together in kidnapping the Fox News television crew last year and the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who has now been handed over to the sole keeping of Hamas. Since the PRC has acted as Hamas's hit-squad against Fatah and Dahlan, Dagmoush would hardly have kidnapped Johnston at their behest. That event seems instead to be but the most spectacular in the series of co-ordinated PRC/Hamas operations carried out under the aegis of the Army of Islam. A Hamas spokesman, Ayman Taha, has acknowledged its past co-operation with the Army of Islam, but claims that ended after Shalit's kidnapping. There are certainly tensions between them -- Dagmoush himself has claimed that Hamas failed to deliver on its promises to him. But since Johnston was so close to Hamas it is naive to think that Dagmoush would have kidnapped him without receiving at least tacit approval from his powerful patron. And although Hamas said immediately it knew who was holding him, it did nothing for many weeks -- although its closeness to the Army of Islam enabled it to stop them killing him. It was Hamas which had everything to gain from the ordeal of Alan Johnston, its friend whom the BBC was about to transfer out of Gaza anyway -- and its strategy has worked brilliantly. Not only did it open communication with Britain, but the idea of negotiating with Hamas is now gaining traction fast on both sides of the Atlantic. This agenda is being pushed by organisations such as Conflicts Forum, whose director Alastair Crooke is now a constant media presence. Material posted on the Conflicts Forum website -- whose slogan is 'Listening to Political Islam, Recognising Resistance' -- openly promotes Hamas itself. Thus in June it claimed of the Gaza coup: 'This is not an Islamic revolution but simply a political party attempting to defend itself against the militia of an unelected warlord backed by foreign powers. Not only is life returning to normal, people are now breathing much easier.' No mention of the inhuman savagery of Hamas, the way it bound the hands and feet of its opponents and hurled them off the top of tall buildings. Crooke himself, the former Mid-East adviser to the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, Javier Solana, has long been a pivotal figure in the dubious business of treating with Islamic terrorists. The Israelis captured in Gaza a transcript by Hamas of a secret meeting he had in 2002 with its founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. In this transcript -- which Crooke has claimed is inaccurate -- he drew a distinction between 'terrorism' and 'resistance', expressed his appreciation of Hamas for its welfare programmes and for being an 'important political factor' and said, 'The main problem is the Israeli occupation.' Behind Crooke lies in turn a swelling chorus, led by UK and US former intelligence officers, urging the West to 'engage' with the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood (of which Hamas is one branch) on the basis that since they are not all committed to violence they are a potential ally against al-Qa'eda. This is absurd. While there are undoubtedly differences between them, the Islamists form an unbroken continuum of fanatical religious war against the West. Their strategy involves both terrorism and non-violent cultural aggression -- a fact the establishment, obsessed by its belief in 'divide and rule', refuses to grasp. Moreover, the idea that the West has not 'engaged' with Hamas is a fantasy. The International Crisis Group reports that since 1991 there have been repeated unofficial contacts with Hamas by the EU and even the US. Yet these have failed to modify Hamas's core aims of annihilating Israel and Islamising the region. The real purpose behind bringing Hamas in from the cold lies in a fundamental shift in global strategy. In the US, gripped by despair over Iraq, 'realist' isolationism and appeasement are on the rise. Secular Arab states, horrified by the collapse of nerve in the one power which might save them from the Islamists, are now looking for deals with radical Sunnis to counter the greater threat of Shiite Iran. The emerging EU/American strategy is to help that process, gambling that the Sunni Islamists will fight the Shiites rather than topple secular Arab governments. The wooing of Sunni Hamas is the West's opening gambit. This strategy is lethally ill-judged. It fails to recognise that, despite all the splits between Islamist factions, they are united by a common project of Islamising the world. The most likely outcome of this suicidal Western approach will be the further radicalisation of Arab and Muslim society, the toppling by Islamists of secular Arab regimes and a strengthening of the global jihad. This most dangerous development has been given an enormous boost by the way the Johnston kidnap has been manipulated -- no small thanks to the BBC itself. Since Johnston's release, the BBC seems to have turned itself into a vehicle for Hamas propaganda. Alastair Crooke has been given airtime granted to no other lobbyist, in interviews and one-off programmes giving him unprecedented opportunity to push his views. This is the BBC whose other Gaza reporter Fayed abu Shamala reportedly told a Hamas rally in 2001 that the BBC was 'waging the campaign of resistance/terror against Israel shoulder-to-shoulder together with the Palestinian people'; and whose Middle East bureau editor, Simon Wilson, has acknowledged that he met Hamas leaders in Gaza and Damascus to discuss Johnston's fate -- meetings about which the Foreign Office was closely consulted. Now that same BBC, along with a shadowy intelligence establishment and panicky politicians, is promoting 'engagement' with Hamas. But this is a terrorist outfit committed to the destruction of Israel and the Islamisation of the West. The Johnston kidnap represents a turning point in the war to defend the free world. It is not a turn in the direction of victory. Contact Aramy at aramy964@gmail.com To Go To Top THE BASEBALL CAP JEWS Posted by Ari Abramowitz and Jeremy Gimpel, August 5, 2007. Understanding anti-Semitism in American academia. Question:There is a growing initiative in the US for Christians students to advocate for Israel on campus. Why does it seem like the Jewish students are not advocating themselves? -- Anonymous If you see a group of dignified suit-clad men walking down the streets of Paris wearing awkwardly positioned Yankees caps, it is a safe bet that they are Orthodox Jews. The Orders to refrain from publicly expressing one's Judaism is cause to be concerned about the future. universal warning meted out to Jews in France is not to display any outward signs of Judaism for fear of vicious and unprovoked attacks, which have been commonplace in many places throughout Europe. Logic would dictate that the comfort level of wearing a kippah, or yarmulke (skullcap), is an accurate yardstick for anti-Semitic sentiment, and orders to refrain from publicly expressing one's Judaism is cause to be concerned about the future of Jews in that country. By that standard of measurement, it is time for American Jews to be concerned; if not yet in the entire country, then, for now at least, on college campuses. Universities throughout America are the fastest growing hotbeds of anti-Semitism in the country. While the traditional outright Jew-hatred is out of style and politically incorrect, the new mask with which this old hatred has disguised itself is hatred of the Jewish state, which is no less vitriolic and venomous. These haters are zealous, energized, and equipped with sound-bites full of hypocritical indictments, perverse distortions and twisted lies. Many religious Jews on campuses throughout America are throwing up their hands and putting on their baseball caps as well. "They are just not up for the fight," one student explained. Considering that the students of today are the leaders of tomorrow, the hate spewing forth from the lunchrooms to the classrooms of US universities may very well be the harbinger of a bleak future for American Jewry. Our rabbis explain that we should not view the difficulties and challenges in our lives as punishments, but rather as a perfectly tailored education, explaining "a person is measured in the manner that he measures others. Samson pursued the desire of his eyes and therefore lost his eyes at the hands of the Philistines; Absalom was haughty about his hair and was therefore hung by his hair...." (Tractate Sotah 8b) King Solomon explains in Proverbs that "a fool doesn't desire understanding." It is therefore incumbent upon us to search for this elusive understanding and to discern how this fermenting plague of hatred we face in American academia is for our growth and benefit. The fact that liberal academics are at the forefront of these attacks should raise some eyebrows. Universities, colleges and establishments of higher education should theoretically be bastions of free thought and exchange of ideas; yet, it is from these very institutions that the loudest boycotts and most hateful sentiments emanate. Liberalism supposedly stands for individual rights and equality of opportunity; yet, these progressive "liberals" vilify Israel, one of the most liberal democracies in the world, in favor of governments that not only prohibit women from voting, but routinely condone honor killings and legalize the violent abuse of those unfortunate ladies who lose track of time and burn supper. Freedom of anything is unheard of in these countries, and many of these liberals would be killed the minute they stepped foot in the countries for which they march. We should not view the difficulties and challenges in our lives as punishments. Adding insult to injury, American Jewry has historically been overwhelmingly liberal, and many of the honest would even confess theologically liberal, as their liberalism often replaces their Judaism as the religion of choice. As we have so often seen throughout history, it is with the very idols that we have created that G-d disciplines us, revealing their inherent emptiness and futility, as well as what He desires of us. What is most telling, however, is the strategy of the assault. The main attack is not about roadblocks or separation barriers, but about Israel's very right to exist. The beauty of the attack on the fundamental legitimacy of the Jewish state is that we are being forced to articulate a defense. The majority of advocacy training that the relatively few students with the will to fight receive exclusively defends Israel's establishment with secular political explanations involving various United Nations resolutions and international treaties. Nearly 60 years down the road, however, these defenses not only don't assuage the attacks, but they don't even satisfy the Jewish students themselves. Crediting Harry Truman and the United Nations with the rebirth of the Jewish State after two thousand years of exile elicits lukewarm interest in these Jewish students, which is dwarfed by the vicious fervor of their adversaries, causing them to sit this fight out, taking the kippah off and putting the patriotic school cap on. Students are starting to realize that, while these secular defenses are valid, they are nonetheless incomplete. Unfortunately, no one is coming to their aid and giving them the education and understanding for which they so clearly thirst. If Jewish students don't understand that Israel is their historical homeland, their Biblical birthright, and an integral part of their Jewish identity, then the battle is lost. If Jewish students don't understand that their right to the Land of Israel is based on the Torah, then we are destined for defeat. The preeminent Biblical commentator, Rashi, explains that the Torah begins with the creation of the world in order to establish G-d's ownership and His right to bestow the Land of Israel to the Jewish people according to His will. If the students don't know whether they believe this themselves, then it is time to investigate the existence of G-d and the veracity of the claim that the Torah is Divine. It is these questions that we are supposed to be asking, and we should be unrelenting in our pursuit of their truthful answers. It is with the very idols that we have created that G-d disciplines us. The Jewish people are charged with the task of being a "light unto the nations." This does not merely mean we should invent vaccines and technology, but that we should provide morality, truth and an awareness of G-d to the world. The prophet Havakuk declares that "the Earth will be filled with the knowledge of HaShem's glory, as the waters cover the seabed." (2:14) With perfect Divine justice, the void that we have left by not fulfilling our role as teachers of truth to the world has been filled by professors shamelessly teaching lies. Only when we pursue our right to Israel to its logical conclusion can we possibly understand why G-d has used this mechanism to discipline us. There is no reason to allow these "liberal" haters to dictate the language and terms of the debate -- we must penetrate to the very root of the matter and teach them why Israel is truly ours. Only then can we proudly defend our homeland and fulfill our mission as the Jewish People. Only then will the baseball hats come off. Jeremy Gimpel and Ari Abramowitz host "A Light unto the Nations" on Israel National Radio. Jeremy and Ari are also the founders of "Shema Israel -- A Light unto the Nations," an organization dedicated to strengthening the emotional and spiritual connection of people around the world to the Land of Israel. To Go To Top JERUSALEM LOWERING EXPECTATIONS OVER PEACE TALKS Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 5, 2007. But then again we are talking about a group of people with the attention span and planning horizon of a six year old. OK, an average six year old. There are some exceptional six year olds. The Road Map provides for the possibility of forming a sovereign Palestinians state in temporary borders in an interim stage before there is an agreement on the thorny final status issues. With the Olmert team jumping into talks without requiring first Palestinian compliance and an international conference on the horizon -- also without the Palestinians ever complying -- we could be a lot closer to a sovereign Palestinian state than meets the eye. While Israelis continue to bend over backwards explaining that the major concessions they want to make are to the benefit of the Jewish State rather than a cost, the Palestinian leadership has the bargaining sense to proclaim that they don't even want a sovereign Palestinian state before all the final status issues are resolved. That's right -- Abbas has created a situation under which he has to be "paid off" for accepting a sovereign Palestinian state. And what better "pay off" than yet even more money and weapons along with indefinite postponement of Palestinian compliance? Below is the essay written by Aluf Benn, Ha'aretz correspondent. It is archived at www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/889715.html Seven years after the failed Camp David summit, and six and a half years after negotiations ended with the Taba talks, Israel has started talking with the Palestinians on a peace agreement again. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Jericho on Monday is supposed to launch dialogue on the future Palestinian state. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave the parties their homework during her visit last week: to reach an agreed-on diplomatic formula by November's Washington summit and to continue confidence-building gestures. Veteran negotiators in the current government -- President Shimon Peres from the Oslo days, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak from Camp David -- are, not coincidentally, much more skeptical than Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni regarding the chances of renewing the process. Peres is said to believe Gaza is lost to Hamas, and that any arrangement must involve Jordan, too. Barak says Hamas and Fatah both want the same thing, but differ in their methods. Minister Haim Ramon, who has had thousands of hours of negotiations with the Palestinians, stands somewhere in between, with his partial convergence plan and his call to give dialogue a chance. During Rice's recent visit, her hosts heard a new term: "fundamental issues." Behind closed doors, she was more interested in practical action like the rehabilitation of the Palestinian security forces and removing roadblocks, and talked less concretely about the stages that will bring about a Palestinian state. Jerusalem was busy lowering expectations, and Olmert's bureau said the leaders were not seeking to formulate an "agreement of principles," but rather "agreed-on principles" -- which is the same thing, but less frightening. The bureau cautioned diplomatic correspondents not to get their hopes up. Nevertheless, Rice heard a different tune this week in Jerusalem and Ramallah. Olmert agreed to a proposal raised a year ago by Rice and Livni to talk to Abbas and Palestinian moderates. Olmert calls it "principles" to emphasize that implementation is far-off and doubtful. And Salam Fayad's appointment as prime minister has given Washington hope that something has changed for the better among the Palestinians. Experience teaches that the real bargaining will begin only in the days and hours running up to the summit, when Olmert and Abbas are already on their way to Washington. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top RIGHT OF RETURN IS A TWO WAY STREET Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, August 5, 2007. Right of return is a two way street. So-called Palestinians, led by Mahmoud Abbas, remain adamant the State of Israel must allow descendants of Arabs, presumably forced to leave Israel when the Jewish State was founded indeed sixty years ago, entry into the Jewish State carte blanche, making it less Jewish, not at all considering the more than obvious fact that Israel's land mass, two tenths of one percent the size of its surrounding mostly Muslim mostly anti-Semitic Middle East neighborhood, is virtually the only place within that mostly dysfunctional region Jews are welcome and might live as Jews. Furthermore, more than one million Jews, over the course of time, were forced to leave their homes, booted out of mostly all those 'lovely' Muslim regimes, some evictees with barely the shirts on their backs; yet their descendant's right of return is never mentioned. Might a politico or two within the so called Quartet, featuring America, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations, in addition to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert point that out, or are the cards always to be stacked against disrespected Israel, a nation always held to a -- different and less favorable standard? If perchance any doctrine of fairness is to be implemented, a giant leap for mankind especially in the course of any future Israeli-Arab negotiations, a Jewish right of return to Muslim lands must be emphasized as a pre-condition when and if negotiators insist on a Palestinian right of return. Constructive dialogue relies on equitable proposals being crafted for all involved parties. Any arguments to the contrary are hypocritical. On the other hand, let's get real! Since, a Jewish right of return would surely be a non-starter throughout the Arab world, a Palestinian right of return would thus have to be removed from consideration. All compensatory claims would also have to be dropped for both sides. Once the logistical nightmare of attempting to effectuate any right of return for Arabs and Jews is taken off the table, prescient Israeli negotiators should address a widely held but false claim that Israeli forces occupy Palestinians. Do the majority of Arabs in presumably 'occupied' Judea and Samaria, land justifiably secured by Israel in a defensive war, disrespectfully referred to as the West Bank, really want IDF forces to abandon them, thus allow Hamas to seize control shooing comparatively weak Fatah forces like gnats, institute a misogynist sharia law over the region, demand obedience to a fundamentalist anti-secular Islam, in effect change their lives for the worse? Do the majority of Arabs want to live in squalor like most of their Gaza counterparts, diminishing a standard of living that now is considered not so bad within the Arab world? The IDF acts as a protector of Jewish citizens as well as moderate Arabs, not an occupier of poor Palestinian waifs as many might suggest. Furthermore, how many Jews evicted from Muslim nations dwell in refugee camps? Would Jewish culture ever accept such a fate? Isn't it about time so-called Palestinians, their ancestors presumably displaced by Jewish Israelis, got their collective act together, abandoned the incomprehensible and disgraceful notion that after six decades they might live in refugee camps scattered throughout territories surrounding Israel, and begin to live like productive human beings? Aren't such Arabs a trifle ashamed that Israel boasts a high standard of living, has contributed so much to science and other technologies, remains a flourishing first world democracy attracting outside investors such as Donald Trump and Warren Buffet, even though she must struggle daily to protect herself from hostile Muslim neighbors, some even willing to blow themselves up while screaming 'God is Great', while such 'refugee Arabs' continue to live in squalor after six decades and their families remain hopelessly dependent on the kindness of Western strangers, euphemistically called relief agencies, for hand outs? Aren't such 'refugee Arabs' tired of metaphorically consuming fish yet not learning to become fishermen? Shouldn't such observations be discussed at any Middle East peace conference? Israeli movers and shakers, especially Olmert as well as his foreign minister Tzipi Livini, presumably representing the best interests of Israel more so (perhaps?) than their to date less than auspicious Kadima party, must demonstrate resolve and reinvent themselves, seizing the reins of any peace negotiations they may enter in the near future. Their presumed outside partners, especially U.S. Secretary of State Condi Rice, at the behest of U.S. President George W. Bush, has her and her boss' own legacies to edify and would not necessarily promote Israel's true interests if indeed they believed any peace settlement was possible. America, as well as the Quartet's, co-sponsor of the concept peace at any price to Israel, ostensible infatuation with Mahmoud Abbas, a well-dressed talker who would not walk the walk in any peace arrangements, more than suggests Israel must not be a shlamazel follower of any manipulated peace process. The Quartet's current spokesman former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in line with American counterparts and the others, indeed puts all his eggs in a straw basket provided by Abbas. Yet, Mahmoud 'the forked-tongue smoothie' is a many decade understudy of former corrupt billionaire Yasser Arafat, Arab leader with a personal agenda, ever fearful any peace deal would cease the flow of diverted Euros, meant for 'impoverished Palestinians, into his bulging stash. Lest we forget, Mahmoud has yet to apologize for and renounce his abominable thesis, authored in 1982 published in 1984, as a young adult not an 'impetuous' youth, entitled 'The Secret Connection Between The Nazis and The Leaders of the Zionist Movement', asserting Zionists collaborated with Nazis during World War II, knowing perpetration of The Holocaust would cast guilt over a shocked world thus insure the nation of Israel would be granted to Jews as a compensatory homeland. Furthermore, the Jew-despising Abbas raised doubts concerning the existence of gas chambers during this horrific genocide as well as asserted less than one million Jews were exterminated, again victims of that Zionist-Nazi plot. How in fact can Olmert, Livini, or their supporters presumably representing the State of Israel, even consider dealing with this so-called Palestinian 'moderate' with a background reeking of anti-Semitism? Are they that dense? Are they that desperate? Ceding land secured in a defensive war, ceding in effect heritage, ceding the very nature of a nation for any promise of peace reliable or not (in this case emphatically not), is ceding that nation' s honor thus worthwhile future. Israel's current or future leadership must not travel down that emasculating dishonorable path no matter what! Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at larose@snip.net To Go To Top HE WHO WANTS PEACE SHOULD PREPARE FOR WAR Posted by Doris Wise Montrose, August 5, 2007. This was written by Arieh Eldad. Thus spoke the Romans. We often appear to have forgotten this ancient rule. Thus Israel was caught sleeping on the eve of the Yom Kippur War and again in last summer's Lebanese War. Because of our intense desire for peace on our northern border, we closed our eyes to Hezbollah's arming and entrenchment. Our army was not prepared for the war in Lebanon -- as the war's outcome made clear. But even more than these two examples, we should focus on the lessons of the summer and fall of 2000. In July of that year, Ehud Barak and Yassir Arafat held peace talks sponsored by U.S. President Clinton. The Camp David talks collapsed because of the Arabs' refusal to accept even Barak's munificent, some would say suicidal, proposals (97% of the territory, with a compensatory section of the Negev thrown in to make up for the remaining 3%, and a division of Jerusalem). At the time Arafat returned to Ramallah and ordered his forces to begin the second Intifada. Had Barak understood that the Arabs interpreted his proposals as a sign of extreme weakness, and therefore as an incentive to engage in that little bit of additional terrorism that would complete the collapse of the State of Israel, he would not have offered Arafat the next phase of the Palestinian's phased plan, but Barak did not understand, and, moreover, did not prepare for the possible result of failed peace talks: war. The army did chatter much about it being a low-level conflict, but in the course of a year and a half did not succeed in preventing the mass murder in our streets. Only after Barak was replaced by Ariel Sharon, and after over a thousand of our people had been killed, and after the Seder night atrocity in the Park Hotel, only then did Israel open Operation Defensive Shield in the spring of 2002 and begin to fight the Arabs as necessary. Defensive Shield was a turning point in the second Intifada because only then did Israel realize that it was necessary to fight the Arabs in Shechem and Jenin rather than in shopping malls in Netanya. A lesson must be learned from these events. Israel is again preparing with gusto for the previous war and Israeli soldiers are training now for the way they should have fought the Hezbollah, but Olmert's spins about "peace with Syria" and peace conferences with the Palestinians and Arab states in the fall place Israel in serious danger of a multi-front war if and when these talks collapse. The peace talks are bound to amount to nothing even if Israel should agree to willingly commit suicide and establish a Fatah state in Judea and Samaria, which will become a Hamas state as soon as Hamas chooses to fight. Olmert, despairing of any possibility of staying in office, may well agree to this. He may take similar risks with the Syrians. For a worthless piece of paper he may retreat from all of the Golan including the shoreline of the Kinneret. If he doesn't agree, a war of the October 2000 type is expected. Is Israel ready for such a war with Olmert at its head? Olmert is the most egregious failure and most corrupt prime minister Israel has had, who in the last war proved that he cannot make a correct decision and when he does make decisions he doesn't understand their meaning or implications. Opinion polls after the war showed that only 3% of Israelis had confidence in Olmert. If we take into consideration that 10% of the adult population is hearing impaired, and above the age of 65, 1 out of every 3, we can assume that the 3% who supported Olmert simply did not hear the question correctly. Is Israel ready to take on the existential danger of a war with a leader who cannot be counted on? Whose peace efforts, too, are nothing more than "spin" by promoters and P.R. men and corrupt officials seeking ways to prolong their time in power? Considering that Olmert's American partner to the peace conference trap is a U.S. president who has not managed to win in Iraq and who is seeking a feather in his peace-cap before he leaves the public stage, why would we choose to take advice from someone who has failed in both war and peace? Considering that Hamas won the Palestinian elections thanks to the foolishness of the U.S. State Department and the White House, who insisted on allowing this terror organization to run in democratic elections, maybe we should more carefully examine their new proposals, which are to determine our fate. Considering that our Palestinian "partner" is Abu Mazen, who failed to protect even his own office in Gaza when faced with Hamas and who has been unable to take any practical step at all, who is irrelevant as a leader, perhaps we should not take this train plummeting to the depths with Olmert as conductor. Contact Doris Wise Montrose at doriswise@sbcglobal.net To Go To Top FEEDING THE SNAKE Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, August 5, 2007. Remember feeding a mouse to a snake in your high school Science class? You pick it up by the tail and, as it squirms, you drop it into the snake's cage. The snake is coiled up in the corner watching his meal, flicking his forked tongue in and out, testing the air and then it slowly uncoils and slithers toward his prey. When I see America's Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice carrying out the Bush-Baker plan to convene a Regional/International Conference with the various Muslim Arab countries, I think that the State Department plans for Israel to be the sacrificial mouse for the main course. Condi picks up the wriggling Olmert (Israel current incompetent Prime Minister) and drops him into the arena. Olmert is a pathetically stupid mouse who bites his nails and doesn't know that he and all of Israel are to be the main course in a High State banquet for the Islamists. Israel was selected as the edible mouse (not Kosher) during the 1981 Madrid Conference, arranged by then Secretary of State James Baker III and his accommodating Jew-Boys, Dennis Ross, Aaron Miller and Dan Kurtzer. Olmert and his cadre of incompetents seem to be unable to recognize their peril -- even to the point of being enthusiastic over being the center of attention at the coming "banquet". Regrettably, as in the fable of the Pied Piper of Hamlin, he is leading the people, not over a cliff but straight into the maw and belly of the Muslim snakes, that is "states". Olmert is said to be "growing into the job" except from a mouse he has grown into a sewer rat (since sewer rats are larger and more repulsive than alley rats). Can we rid ourselves of this wicked Pied Piper in lock-step with Rice, Baker and the Arab snakes (states)? Why must the Jews of Israel allow an un-Jew like Olmert to lead them to a terrible death? Better the Jews gather and importune G-d with a proper "Pulsa Denura" prayer asking for G-d to reach down and simply take him and his gaggle of Leftist betrayers out of this world. There are many ways that this could be accomplished without a Jew raising his hand if G-d intervened. Perhaps G-d could arrange what happened to Korach and his supporters. The ground simply opened and swallowed Korach. Or Olmert and his cohorts could join Arik Sharon in adjoining beds, staring at the ceiling in a vegetative state! Imagine! The entire ward could be filled with traitors to the State, all paying their dues for treason as they join Sharon. Olmert and his rodents seem unable to recognize their peril even to the point of being enthusiastic about appearing in a grand International Conference -- dedicated by Rice and Baker to Israel's demise. Somehow, they don't recognize that it will be Israel alone in front of a Kangaroo Court of the world's nations -- especially the most hostile, Muslim states. I would have no problem if Olmert, Peres, Barak and the Kadima crowd have elected to offer themselves up in ritual suicide. I would even write a pleasant eulogy to their passing down the long gullet of the Muslim Arab snakes. I would NOT however, tolerate that the people of Israel would also be sacrificed with Olmert and his fools. It is interesting to see that Israelis seem unable to learn from past experiences, either with the Muslim Arabs or with the insidious Arabist State Department. For the State Department the Saudis can do no wrong -- even as Saudis send terrorists into Iraq to kill Americans. Remember that of the 19 suicide airplane bombers of 9/11/01, 15 were from Saudi Arabia and 4 were Egyptian. But, the Bush Administration, knowing that the Saudis are sending terrorists to Iraq still wants to sell them billions of dollars worth of America's most advanced weapons. In Israel they keep re-cycling the same politicians after the last scandal had died down. Ehud Barak is back despite his craven retreat from Lebanon and his begging Arafat to accept his offer of 97% of the Israeli territories liberated in 1967. Peres is back again in a very high position as President, where he has already stepped out of the usual ceremonial role held by Israeli presidents and has begun making Israeli foreign policies meetings and decisions NOT within the president's job. This is after he sacrificed so many lives lost and Israelis maimed for his treasonous secret Olso Accords. Olmert stays in office after he and Sharon fed the snake the 21 communities of Gush Katif/Gaza and 4 communities from North Samaria by evicting 10,000 Jewish men, women and children who had made the desert green and flowering. Now Gaza is a Global Terror Base, as we and many other military analysts predicted. Instead of dragging Olmert out of his office for misfeasance and malfeasance, he is being allowed to negotiate another Gush Katif type evacuation from Judea and Samaria -- with the Golan Heights, Jordan Valley and those parts of Jerusalem which were occupied and desecrated by Jordan for 19 years from 1948 to 1967. When one backtracks through all these gestures, all the agreements promptly violated by the Arab Muslims, all the prisoner releases -- all we see are failures. These failures cost hundreds of Israeli lives. Regrettably, none of those Israeli leaders were indicted and tried for engaging in everything from treason to perfidious judgement, which caused the unleashing of dedicated enemies' forces to savage our own people. I suspect that, if Israel was not currently being driven by ideological Leftists who want desperately to de-Judaize themselves and their country -- who hate the Land given to the Jews in perpetuity by G-d -- who hate their own Jewishness, and who are also those who offer the Jewish people as sacrifices -- then Israel would be a normal country. These miscreants should have been arrested, tried and convicted for crimes against the State and crimes against humanity and their own people. How is it that incompetent, corrupt men and women are allowed to use their flawed judgement to make momentous decisions on the fate of their nation -- merely out of the thoughts within their own heads? No checks and balances exist to save the Jewish people and the Jewish State. Why are these mis-begotten leaders able to sacrifice their people? Why do we let them? Such weak minds are targets of opportunity for American and European Arabists searching for the weakest of our people. Everyone, be they from the Right or the Left must understand that they and their families would be slaughtered in a millisecond IF the Muslim states are allowed to reach the Jewish population. The Bush Administration's State Department shames decent Americans by following a doctrine not unlike the years of World War II. Now this shameless Administration, knowing the Muslim "Jihadists" (Holy Warriors for Islam) cannot be appeased, have started the process of betraying a loyal ally. Recruiting well-known Jewish Leftists who are eager to betray the Jewish nation of Israel is not difficult. The pro-Arab State Department, themselves anti-Israel and pro-Arab knew who to recruit in Israel who would betray the Jewish nation. As an American or an Israeli (not a politician) would you trust your lives to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Iran and/or any in the Arab League? That is what Bush, Rice and Baker want Israel to do. These politicians have pressed Israel to release terrorists who have been arrested at great personal peril to the Army and the Police. These terrorists have been tried and convicted for crimes that endanger the security and sovereignty of the Jewish people and the Jewish nation. 80% of those convicted terrorists who have been released from jail have returned to organizing and committing acts of violent terror. In fact, they consider prison their Super Academy for learning how to deliver Terror to the civilian people. They have proven themselves to their Terror Organizations by attempting (and succeeding) to kill and maim Jews. Bush, Rice and Baker find no embarrassment in becoming co-conspirators with the goals of Hezb'Allah, Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, PFLP, Tanzim, Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades, etc. and all the Muslim and/or Arab nations who have pledged to drive the Jews into the sea or to wipe them off the map. Americans are a proud, honorable people -- as are most in the American Congress. Unfortunately, the greedy politicians emanating from the State Department, hungry for oil and other resources, as well as the cash flow that comes from doing business with the oil-rich Muslim countries, are NOT representative of the American people. Feeding the Snake is the mark of corrupt, amoral bureaucrats who have risen high and are actually making and controlling America's foreign policy. They disgrace the word "American", the American people and the nation of America. Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). Contact him at gwinston@gwinston.interaccess.com To Go To Top HEBRON JEWISH COMMUNITY RESPONDS TO POST DISTORTIONS Posted by Eye on the Post, August 5, 2007. Dear Friends: On July 26 the Washington Post published another huge, front page story depicting Hebron's Jewish residents as intruders and troublemakers who cause a major disruption in the lives of its Arab residents and have little in the way of legal, religious or historical rights to the city. Much like its article in the recent past attacking the Jewish legal, historical and religious claim to a right to reside throughout Jerusalem's Old City, the unwritten but logical inference the Post's reporter and editors want their readers to draw is that Jews ought to get out of Hebron and leave it Judenrein. We noted then and we note now that this is a racist and apartheid view of the way the region should be. But it is a racism that serves to exclude only Jews. Post reporters and editors would avidly defend the right of Arabs to live among Jews throughout Israel. Indeed, the Post's opinionated wailing over the incidental separation of Arabs and Jews caused by the security fence is illustrative. But at the same time Post editors and reporters are unceasing in their criticism of Jews for attempting to live securely among Arabs. The article on Hebron omitted vital historical and legal information, downplayed the right of Jews to reside there and distorted the context of events in both the distant and recent past. The Post's article on Hebron has caused an outcry among most Jews familiar with the history and significance of Jewish claims to a right to have their religious sites respected and to live near them peacefully in Hebron. The community of Hebron itself has spoken out against the distorted writing of Scott Wilson, the Post's correspondent in Israel and the disputed territories. Scott Wilson, the Post's correspondent in Israel and the disputed territories, habitually slants his reporting and misleads his readers. David Wilder, the Hebron Community's spokesperson, has written a letter to the Post, which deals with many of the specific incorrent statements in the Post article. You can read Wilder's article on the July Blog-Ed page. Below are two letters to the editor responding to Scott Wilson's article.   Our Alerts are distributed to many thousands of people both within and outside of the Washington Post's immediate print distribution area. The Post is proud of its reputation worldwide as a leading news source and will not make an effort to improve its reporting about Israel unless it knows that its reputation is in danger. You can help us by spreading the word of the Post's opinionated and agenda driven reporting by continuing to forward our Alerts to as many people as you know who are interested in seeing that Israel is treated fairly by the press. You are welcome to provide the Post with your opinion of the quality of its reporting about Israel. In doing so, please do not copy our Alerts or even portions of our Alerts, because we often share our analyses with the Post, and the language will be recognized. Even if you send only a two or three sentence original expression of your opinion to the Post, it will count. Be polite and be temperate in your letters so that you will not give The Post an easy excuse to ignore you. Letters can be sent to: Bo Jones, Publisher & Chief Executive Officer, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC, 20071 (email: JonesB@washpost.com). Donald Graham, Chairman, same street address (email: GrahamD@washpost.com). Leonard Downie, Executive Editor, same street address (email address: DownieL@washpost.com) Philip Bennett, Managing Editor, same street address (email address BennettP@washpost.com) David Hoffman, Assistant Managing Editor for Foreign News, same street address (email address HoffmanD@washpost.com) Keith Richburg, Foreign Editor, same street address (email address: RichburgK@washpost.com) Deborah Howell, ombudsman, same street address (email address: ombudsman@washpost.com) Please BCC feedback@eyeonthepost.org with your letters and email. Land Ownership And History Omitted From Post's Story On Hebron -- "Jews Hold Valid and Recorded Deeds to Much More Land Than That On Which They Currently Reside" To: Letters, The Washington Post From: Jonathan C. Javitt, M.D., M.P.H. Date: July 26, 2007 Subject: Scott Wilson's Article on Hebron, July 26 In describing the Jewish claim to the right to live in Hebron, the Post's Scott Wilson acknowledges the 4,000 year old religious claim to the city as the burial site of the Jewish patriarchs and the location of Judea's first capital city. ("In Divided Hebron, a Shared Despair, Palestinians and Jewish Settlers in West Bank City Struggle for Existence," Thursday, July 26, 2007, A01) However, he somehow forgets to mention the far more recent and legally-enforceable Jewish title to land in Hebron. The city was settled in 1492 by Jews fleeing the Spanish inquisition, who purchased vacant land and built the entire downtown tract from a tolerant Moslem regime. The Jewish community grew and thrived for centuries under Ottoman rule as Jews (including members of my family) fleeing the pogroms of Eastern Europe settled there and lived in peace with their Arab neighbors. Ironically, they refused the protection of the emerging Jewish defense forces, relying on the continued tolerance of those neighbors. Radical Islamic forces arose during the British mandate and made Hebron their first target, staging pogroms that murdered 67 members of the Hebron community and which resulted in the forced evacuation of the remainder by the British. The properties currently occupied by Jewish settlers represent a fraction of those to which Jews hold valid and recorded deeds, dating back to the Ottoman empire. The Post owes its readers both sides of any story. From: Leo Rennert To: Scott Wilson, Washington Post Editors and Ombudsman Date: July 26, 2007 [Leo Rennert is a journalist and former White House correspondent] Hi Scott, Your lengthy, front page article, "In Divided Hebron, a Shared Despair," doesn't exactly set a standard for fair reporting. While you describe the difficult living conditions of both Palestinians and Jews, you heavily tilt the scales against the latter. You describe Jewish residents as "settlers," neglecting to give readers an insight into the lengthy Jewish presence -- about 3,000 years or more -- in Hebron. Nor do you fairly deal with the respective religious claims of Muslims and Jews. Let's start with history -- old and new -- that's absent form your article: Hebron is the oldest Jewish community in the world. It was Israel's first capital. King David was anointed there and reigned there for seven years before he proceeded to Jerusalem. The Jewish presence in Hebron precedes the advent of Islam by eons. There was an almost continuous Jewish presence in Hebron for about 2,000 years AFTER the Roman conquest -- right on through the Byzantine, Arab, Mameluke and Ottoman periods. Hebron did not become "Judenrein" in modern times until a series of pogroms culminating in an especially brutal mass murder of 67 Jews in 1929 when what remained of the Jewish community was forced to flee. Israel's victory in the 1967 war restored a relatively brief absence of Jews in Hebron. Now, let's deal with religious claims to Hebron, which you and the Post badly mangle and misrepresent: The key shrine in Hebron is the Cave of the Patriarchs. The Book of Genesis gives a very detailed account of the first real estate transaction in biblical history. Abraham, the patriarch of both Jew and Muslims, bought it from a Hittite landowner, cash on the barrelhead, as a burial ground for himself and HIS JEWISH DESCENDANTS. What you fail to point out is that the Cave of the Patriarchs is far more sacred to Jews than to Muslims. Why? Because there are 3 generations of patriarchs and matriarchs buried there -- all of them progenitors of the Jewish people. Muslims trace their tie to Abraham through his son Ishmael. Ishmael is NOT buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs. But besides Abraham, the cave contains the tombs of five more exclusively Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs, none of whom bear any connection to Muslims. They are Abraham's wife Sarah (a matriarch only to Jews; Ishmael was born to Hagar); Abraham's son Isaac, his wife Rebecca, Isaac's son Jacob, and his wife Leah. No wonder that the Cave of the Patriarchs is Judaism's second holiest shrine (after the Western Wall in Jerusalem) but does not rank anywhere near the top of sacred Muslim shrines (it's certainly not in the same league as Mecca, Medina or the Temple Mount in Jerusalem). But you and the Post brush all this biblical history aside and actually make it seem that the Cave of the Patriarchs is HOLIER TO MUSLIMS THAN TO JEWS! For one thing you give precedence to Muslim religious claims when you refer to it as the Ibrahim Mosque and, in the only reference to why this is such a holy place, you write that it's "sacred to MUSLIMS AND JEWS (note the sequence), who believe Abraham, Isaac and other biblical figures are buried in grottos beneath it." Muslims might disagree with you when you toss Isaac into the equation since he's NOT part of their family tree. The denigration of pre-eminent Jewish religious claims is even more pronounced in the front-page graphic of Hebron, which pinpoints the location of this holy shrine in bold letters as the "Ibrahim Mosque" and in less eye-catching type as the "Tomb of the Patriarchs." Thus, as far as the article and the graphic are concerned, you and the Post relegate Hebron's sacred status for Jews into a second-class, rear-of-the-bus category. Given the precarious and often hostile co-existence of Israelis and Palestinians in Hebron, the implicit message of your article is that, since there are so many more of the latter than the former, it's the Jewish "settlers" who are the basic problem and getting them out of Hebron (so it would again become Judenrein) is the only solution. Not going to happen. Any realistic solution has to start with Hebron's transcendent religious significance -- to both sides, but more so to Jews. Clinton and Netanyahu tried to solve the problem with a division of the city as a mainly Palestinian place with a small, protected Jewish enclave -- AND WITH SEPARATE AND EQUAL ACCESS TO JEWISH AND MUSLIM WORSHIPPERS AT THE CAVE OF THE PATRIARCHS. That it hasn't worked as well as one might have hoped, I grant you. But the real obstacle, which you totally ignore, is that there is a long history of Arab and Palestinian intolerance when it comes to Jewish religious shrines. From 1949 to 1967, when Jordan ruled both Hebron and the Old City of Jerusalem, Jewish worshippers were denied access to the Western Wall and the Cave of the Patriarchs. During the same period, Jordanian forces desecrated several centuries-old synagogues in Jerusalem, using some of them as barns for their cavalry horses. Jordan dug up Jewish tombstones on the Mt. of Olives and used them to pave a road. Palestinians in the 1990s during the Oslo heydays when they had control over major cities in the West Bank desecrated Joseph's Tomb in Nablus and used Rachel's Tomb near Bethlehem for target practice. With that kind of history, is it any great surprise that a major IDF presence is needed in Hebron to protect Jewish access to the Cave of the Patriarchs? Widespread anti-Semitic incitement in Palestinian media also doesn't help generate confidence that a Palestinian takeover of all of Hebron would allow unimpeded Jewish access to the Cave of the Patriarchs. But instead of getting to the nub of the problem, you prefer to tilt your article toward the plight of the Palestinians, ending with an up-close, personal description of a Palestinian funeral of a 67-year-old shepherd shot by IDF forces as they came looking for his son and were attacked ("accosted" as you put it) by family members, one of whom even tried to snatch a soldier's gun. Why the IDF wanted this 18-year-old you never bother to inform readers, although it might put the incident in a more objective light. Instead, you prefer to play on reader's emotions with a final paragraph of poetic empathy for Palestinians, which you seldom if ever show for Israeli Jews: "Men and boys bore Yehiya's wooden stretcher up the hill, pausing to allow mourners to kiss his face. Some held Hamas flags, and the angry chants celebrating martyrdom carried down to the soldiers at the settlers' new home. Then, after tipping the body into the dry ground, the men wandered back down the hill into the divided city." Perhaps one of these days, you'll find time to do a similar, heart-breaking article about mourners in Sderot after some of the thousands of Qassam rockets that have rained down on this Israeli town kill a few more of its residents. Your Hebron piece conspicuously points up your persistent disinterest in the pain and personal tragedies of Israeli families. Eye On The Post is a grass roots organization monitoring the Washington Post's coverage of Israel and Jews. Their website address is http://www.eyeonthepost.org or write info@eyeonthepost.org To Go To Top WHEN YOU GIVE YOUR FINGER TO AN ARAB HE OR SHE WILL ASK FOR YOUR ENTIRE HAND! Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 5, 2007. When you give your finger to an Arab he or she will ask for your entire hand! The 178 wanted terrorists Israel has stopped pursing are again threatening to murder Jews! Why? All because Israel refuses to stop pursuing another 206! Any surprise! Why?! Israel is consistently strong-armed into making gestures of "good will" in exchange for NOTHING less than an empty promise of words. Consequently, the Arabs have nothing to lose in breaking their word, better yet demanding more and more and more. When will Israel's (no) leaders finally learn that the only meaningful consideration is one that requires concrete action which cannot be retracted? What Chutzpa. Israel do us all a favor: do not incarcerate the terrorists you catch them; trial them for murder and execute them ! This is called "PA Sources: Terrorists Liable to Lose Amnesty" and was written by Hillel Fendel. It comes from Arutz-Sheva and is archived at www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123266#replies (IsraelNN.com) The 178 wanted terrorists Israel has stopped pursuing are again threatening to murder Jews -- all because Israel refuses to stop pursuing another 206. A "senior Palestinian Authority military source" has said that the recent agreement regarding wanted Fatah terrorists between the PA and Israel is "in danger." This, because Israel refuses to consider expanding the deal before the existing aspects take full effect. The agreement in question was finalized less than three weeks ago, when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to grant conditional amnesty to 178 wanted Fatah terrorists in exchange for their promise to stop terrorism. If, after their promise, they in fact refrain from terrorism for three months, their names are to be taken permanently off the "wanted" list. Among the terrorists entitled to make this deal are Zekarya Zubeidi, long wanted for his terrorist activity against Israel, as well as almost the entire senior leadership of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group -- the organization that has claimed responsibility for every suicide bombing in Israel over the past three years. Now, however, after Israel has rejected a PA request to add another 206 wanted terrorists' names to the list, the terrorists threaten to cancel the entire deal. So reports a high-placed PA military figure to Ynet. Israel explained that it cannot consider expanding the agreement while about half of the terrorists originally offered amnesty have still not deigned to return their weapons, as demanded by the agreement. The PA source explained that the terrorists are concerned that giving up their guns might leave them defenseless against other Arabs they have attacked in the past. In addition, they would like a full return on the money they paid for the weapons. It was originally reported that the PA had earmarked tens of thousands of shekels for each gun returned, but apparently this is not sufficient. "There is no doubt that the wanted-terrorists agreement is liable to collapse, and other security understandings with it," the source said. The purpose of the agreement, from Prime Minister Olmert's standpoint, was to "strengthen" PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas in retaining popular support and in his struggle against Hamas. Many Israelis do not accept this strategy, however. Cabinet Minister Avigdor Lieberman of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, for instance, said, "You can't strengthen someone who is a zero. Abbas has done nothing to deserve these gestures. Has he arrested wanted terrorists, or collected weapons, or fought terrorism? A zero always remains a zero." Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top FROM ISRAEL: REALITY CHECK Posted by Arlene Kushner, August 5, 2007. Palestinian areas of Judea and Samaria will soon become areas "of violent clashes" between Fatah and Hamas. This is according to Brig.-Gen. Yossi Baidatz, Head of the Research Division at Military Intelligence, who provided a briefing to the Cabinet today. He said Fatah forces were trying to control Hamas but were ineffective and depended on the IDF. So this is the reality. The question, then, is whether anyone -- Bush, Rice and Olmert included -- really believes a state can be fashioned from this. ~~~~~~~~~~ Rice may be acting as if she thinks she can pull this off, but according to Aluf Ben of Haaretz, behind closed doors she's focusing on practical issues, such as revamping PA security forces, and not on stages for bringing about a state. According to the Haaretz analysis, here in Israel it's negotiating novices Olmert and Livni who are most optimistic about making something happen. Those -- even those well to the left who are ideologically predisposed to a state -- who have "been there, done that" are skeptical now: Peres says Gaza is lost and Jordan must be involved (which means no Palestinian state as it has been envisioned during the Oslo period), and Barak, who offered Arafat a state in 2000, says Fatah and Hamas want the same thing but differ in their methods. ~~~~~~~~~~ Martin Indyk, who served as US ambassador to Israel under Clinton and was around when Arafat said no to a state in 2000, stated the other day that he believes the Bush administration, in the year and some months that remain to it, does not have the time to forge a peace deal: "I hope that's not their plan. If so, they'll drive it to a bad end. It's bad to set artificial deadlines. "I was burned by that. To try to push to a [full] agreement in the final year of the administration is precisely what George Bush criticized Clinton for doing. It would be ironic indeed if Bush wound up doing it himself." Ironic indeed. The Palestinians, says Indyk, "don't have the institutions or the capabilities to be responsible partners" to a final status deal. He's on the mark with all of this. What's bad news is his solution: Some 10,000 international forces to help train the Palestinians and do joint operations with them. We do not want 10,000 international troops in Judea and Samaria. This is a recipe for disaster. And look how effective international forces in Lebanon have been. Indyk's parting shot is simply laughable: Bringing in foreign troops could gradually restore Israeli confidence in the viability of a "partnership" with the Palestinians. Does he not see the flaw in his reasoning? If the Palestinians need 10,000 outside troops to do what they should be doing, why would this restore confidence in them? This sort of thinking is endemic among those eager to cut the Palestinians slack. ~~~~~~~~~~ And so the charade goes on. Tomorrow Olmert and Abbas will be meeting in Jericho to discuss "principles" that are preliminary to negotiations. Abbas says that this meeting must be one of "substance and not merely protocol." ~~~~~~~~~~ Today PA security officials had an announcement. It involves that group of some 180 Al-Aksa Brigades members to whom we were going to offer amnesty (going to stop pursuing) if they relinquished their weapons and foreswore terrorism. Well, the PA is saying that all but three on the list have now surrendered their weapons. Call me an old cynic, if you wish, but, quite simply: I don't believe it. Or, let's say that either this is a fiction, or a pretense -- with these guys being convinced to temporarily hand in their weapons with a promise they'll get them back. Why am I so cynical? Well, cynicism is, broadly, the proper frame of mind to adopt when dealing with the Palestinians. But in this instance the logic of the situation positively cries out for cynicism. Just days ago Israeli security was saying some 50% of those on the list had not turned in their weapons. But now Abbas is to meet with Olmert. And guess what he intends to ask for? MORE Al Aksa Brigades people to be given amnesty. The number is 206, I believe. And how could he ask, if the first group wasn't cooperating? So, perhaps he talked the malingerers into going with the plan temporarily so that more of their brothers might reap the benefits they will be reaping: no surprise raids by the IDF in the middle of the night. Clearly, do not count on all of these Al Aksa guys having sincerely renounced terrorism. This is a reality check. ~~~~~~~~~~ Last night the Israel air force took out two vehicles in southern Gaza, thereby foiling a major terrorist attack in the planning. One of the vehicles carried Islamic Jihad operatives and a large number of explosive devices including suicide belts. Also reality: They're still out there, still trying to get us. And we must thank Heaven every day for the vigilance of our forces, who stop them before they succeed. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info To Go To Top CAIR DIRECTOR ATTENDED HAMAS MEETING -- MADE EARLIER DENIAL Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 4, 2007. This appeared in World Net Daily http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57003 CAIR director attended Hamas meeting After denial, evidence on Nihad Awad surfaces in terror-funding trial Despite a previous denial, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations -- which regards itself as the leading U.S. Muslims civil rights group -- participated in a three-day summit of members of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. The evidence surfaced at the trial of the Texas-based Islamic charity Holy Land Foundation and five of its former organizers, who are accused of supporting Hamas. Prosecutors named the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, an unindicted co-conspirator in the case. According to Steve Emerson's Investigative Project on Terrorism, FBI Special Agent Laura Burns testified Thursday that the "Nihad" listed in documents related to the 1993 meeting of Hamas members in Philadelphia was Nihad Awad. CAIR is a spinoff of the defunct Islamic Association for Palestine, or IAP, launched by Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook and former university professor Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to provide services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Awad served as the IAP's public relations director. Nihad Awad with then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush Several CAIR staffers have been convicted on terrorism-related charges, and CAIR founder Omar Ahmad -- also an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case -- allegedly told a group of Muslims they are in America not to assimilate but to help assert Islam's rule over the country. In 2003, Awad was confronted about the Philadelphia meeting during a deposition for a civil rights lawsuit, the Investigative Project on Terrorism noted. Initially Awad said he didn't think he attended, but when pushed, he replied, "I don't remember." A videotape from a 1994 seminar at Miami's Barry University captured Awad acknowledging, "I am in support of the Hamas movement." CAIR officials have refused to condemn Hamas by name after it carries out a bombing attack. The Philadelphia meeting took place just after a White House ceremony that formalized the Oslo Accords, which sought to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. FBI agents listened in on the meeting, the Investigative Project on Terrorism said, and concluded the two-dozen men present were Hamas members or supporters who sought to kill the peace accord. The men tried to hide their true agenda, according to FBI reports, by agreeing not to use the word Hamas in private conversations. Previously available evidence shows Awad was at the 1993 Hamas meeting, according to the Investigative Project on Terrorism. The idea for the meeting was discussed in a telephone call recorded by the FBI on Sept. 14, 1993 between Ahmad, then president of the IAP, Shukri Abu Bakr, president of the Holy Land Foundation and now on trial, and Abdelhaleem al-Ashqar, executive director of a Hamas-linked charity Al Aqsa Educational Fund. The men mentioned "Nihad" in the conversation, referring to his work in "media." At that time, Awad was the spokesman for the IAP. Abu Bakr refers to a Dallas Morning News story that quotes "Nihad." On the day of the meeting the paper published a story that extensively quoted Awad. Among other evidence was transcripts released in U.S. v. Marzook et. al. confirming "Nihad LNU (Last name unknown)" spoke at the Philadelphia meeting. In March, the House Republican Conference urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to cancel an event hosted on Capitol Hill by CAIR, calling the group "terrorist apologists." CAIR's regular meetings with the Justice Department and FBI have prompted complaints from case agents, who say the bureau rarely can make a move in the Muslim community without first consulting with CAIR, which sits on its advisory board. CAIR has conducted "sensitivity" and cultural training with federal agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and with the military. In June, a senior Department of Homeland Security official from Washington guided CAIR officials on a behind-the-scenes tour of Customs screening operations at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in response to CAIR complaints that Muslim travelers were being unfairly delayed as they entered the U.S. from abroad. Last year, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., withdrew an award she gave to a local CAIR official, saying she was concerned about some statements by CAIR leaders. CAIR says its aim is "to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding." To Go To Top "THE TIME WE WENT UP TO CHOMESH" -- BY TZVIEL SHEFER Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 4, 2007. To all of Tsafrir Ronen (new) friends and those who support a Jewish State... All that is wrong in Israel in one poem...Metaphor...perhaps... "The Time We Went Up To Chomesh" By Tzviel Shefer As we went up to Chomesh, Hamas became to ruler of the Palestinian Autonomy As we went up to Chomesh, the Gay parade took place in Jerusalem As we went up to Chomesh, Israel elected a New President who received A Nobel Prize for Peace together with that murderer of Jews, Arafat As we went up to Chomesh, they built a wall between Israel and Samaria As we went up to Chomesh, the IDF lost the war in Lebanon As we went up to Chomesh, the man who was responsible to the loss of the war in Lebanon became Israel Defense Minister As we went up to Chomesh, they built permanent borders control posts in all the entrances to Yesha [the umbrella organization of the various municipal councils of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria] As we went up to Chomesh, the new Arab Minister was sworn in As we went up to Chomesh, the Gush Katif refugees began their third year of no home and no job As we went up to Chomesh, a group of people told us they are our leadership, of course without asking us As we went on going up, again and again, to Chomesh because our leaders told us that it is so important And as we arrived to Chomesh we raised the flag that on the forehead of the soldiers who dragged us from Gush Katif And as we arrived to Chomesh, again, people -- without tassels -- spoke to us from a stage and swallowed every word they said with avidity But what is important it that finally we arrive to Chomesh and finally Chomesh will be ours For a day, for two weeks exactly the way we wanted it to be And everyone will say that we won As we went up to Chomesh, we discovered that no one cares that we went up to Chomesh As we went up to Chomesh, our state told us that we are the enemy As we went up to Chomesh, the UN passed a resolution on establishing a Palestinian State As we went up to Chomesh, the (Israeli) government decided to evacuate Samaria But it is not important, because we finally arrived to Chomesh But it is not important, because Chomesh will be finally in our hands For a day, for two weeks, The way we want it to be And everyone will say we won When we went down from Chomesh All of a sudden we discovered that we have nowhere else to go! Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top IT'S TIME FOR A DEBATE ON THE NEW ISRAEL FUND Posted by Gerald Steinberg, August 4, 2007. This appeared in Canadian Jewish News August 2 2007 (www.cjnews.com/TOPScnCJN/images/stories/eCJN/Aug_2_TOR_eCJN.pdf). In response to my CJN column on "How the Diaspora can help fix Israel" (Feb. 8, 2007), which included a brief comment on the New Israel Fund, Isser Dubinsky, president of NIF Canada's board of directors, and Jay Brodbar, NIF Canada's executive director, wrote a long letter singing the praises of their organization and rejecting the image of "an aging-hippie projection of American Jews involvement in the Civil Rights era." One month later, the Harvard Crimson carried a news story headlined "New Israel Fund lawyers compare Bedouins' plight to U.S. civil rights movement." If the shoe fits. In its almost 30-year history, the NIF has become one of the most wealthy and powerful Jewish institutions in Israel and the Diaspora -- in that sense, it's a huge success. But like other power brokers, NIF officials systematically reject constructive criticism. As a result, mistakes are compounded until the organization reaches a crisis. As mail from NIF donors to me and NGO Monitor (of which I am the executive director) demonstrates, an increasing number of people are asking questions about how their money is being used. But with at least 150 groups receiving grants at any time, it's difficult for anyone to get a general picture of the NIF, or to understand how its decisions are made. Some of these grants and projects are strictly charitable, such as assistance provided to communities in northern Israel to overcome the impact of last year's war. However, much of the NIF's budget goes to highly political activities designed to change Israeli society according to a particular design. Some Israeli board members who are central in selecting the NGOs and projects are fringe politicians and activists who use the money to impose their agendas after being rejected at the ballot box. As a result, in this sense, many Israelis have an image of the NIF that is anti-democratic, arrogant and dangerous -- as a body that comes from the outside and mysteriously gives large sums of money to a few activists. Unlike government programs that are subject to public debate and accountability, most Israelis have no recourse when the NIF promotes an agenda to which they strongly object. And most NIF donors are shielded from this perception. The largest chunk -- one-third -- of the NIF's annual budget goes to more than 20 organizations that claim to promote "civil rights" for Israel's Arab minority. But these NGOs use the money to demonize and delegitimize the concept of Jewish sovereignty and equality among the nations. Some, such as Adalah and Mousawa, submit papers to the United Nations accusing Israel of apartheid. They also refer to Zionism as racism, and distribute an alternative constitution for Israel that would abolish the concept of a Jewish state. The NIF is responsible for "empowering" the most radical Israeli Arab voices and giving them the resources to dominate the discussion at the expense of moderate leaders. Misguided NIF policies also support radical groups such as Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, and the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, whose head, Jeff Halper, supports the most virulent boycott promoters, such as Naim Ateek. And after funding Tel Aviv lawyer Shamai Leibowitz -- who supports economic sanctions against Israel and the creation of a binational state west of the Jordan River -- NIF officials quietly admitted that they don't endorse his views, but they didn't apologize for this error, and the damage was done. For these and other reasons, the time for an open debate on the NIF is long overdue. NIF donors should be able to listen to different Israeli views and decide how best to use their considerable funds. The NIF is an important institution that should help cement the relationship between Israelis and Diaspora Jews. With realistic goals and by encouraging valid criticism and open debate, the NIF can play a constructive role. In this spirit of co-operation, I urge Dubinsky and Brodbar to forgo the polemics and standard letters to the editor and join me and other Israelis in public discussions on how best to realize our shared goals. Prof. Gerald M. Steinberg is the Executive Director of www.ngo-monitor.org, and heads the Program on Conflict Management at Bar Ilan University To Go To Top POLLARD SCREWED AGAIN! Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 4, 2007. B'nai Elim Blogmaster's two shekles worth: I think that the conviction of someone spying for the People's Republic of China and stealing sensitive military secrets and equipment to enhance China's military capabilities is a superb peace of work. Where my stomach turns is the Plea-bargain that gets this putz only two years behind bars. Think about it...this guy Ming gets a lousy 2 years for giving military secrets to a proven adversary of the U.S. and the West. Pollard gives some intelligence information about Arab troop movements to Israel, and he gets life in prison. What's wrong with this picture?! Write your Congressman and Senator; Jonathan Pollard's life depends on it. This comes from the Department of Justice, United States Attorney Scott N. Schools, Northern District of California, http://sanfrancisco.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/2007/sf080207a.htm CONTACT: Natalya LaBauve, Natalya.LaBauve@usdoj.gov Shabbat Shalom FORMER CHINESE NATIONAL CONVICTED FOR COMMITTING ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE TO BENEFIT CHINA NAVY RESEARCH CENTER IN BEIJING AND FOR VIOLATING THE ARMS EXPORT CONTROL ACT First Conviction in the Country Involving Source Code Under the Arms Export Control Act WASHINGTON -- Xiaodong Sheldon Meng, 42, formerly a resident of Beijing, China, and resident of Cupertino, Calif., pleaded guilty yesterday to violating the Foreign Economic Espionage and violating the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), announced Assistant Attorney General for National Security Kenneth L. Wainstein and Scott N. Schools U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California. The defendant entered into a plea agreement whereby he pleaded guilty to Count Five (EEA) and Count Seven (AECA) of a superseding indictment that had been filed on December 13, 2006. Count Five charged that Meng violated the EEA by possessing a trade secret belonging to Quantum3D, a San Jose company by whom he was formerly employed, intending and knowing that this possession would benefit a foreign government, instrumentality, or agent, namely the People's Republic of China ("PRC") Navy Research Center. The trade secret at issue, known as "Mantis," is a Quantum3D product used to simulate real world motion for military training purposes. Meng installed a demonstration unit of Mantis on the PRC Navy site. Meng also altered Mantis to make it appear as if it belonged to ORAD, Meng's new employer, a competitor of Quantum3D based in PRC. This altered version of Mantis was included as part of the demonstration project in the PRC. Count Seven charged that defendant Meng knowingly and willfully violated the AECA and ITAR when he exported "viXsen" source code, a Quantum 3D product that is a designated defense article on the United States Munitions List, and for which Meng had no Department of State export license. viXsen is a visual simulation software program used for training military fighter pilots. United States Attorney Scott N. Schools noted that this prosecution is the result of a nearly three-year joint investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) Unit, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) -- Office of Investigations, as well as Customs & Border Protection (CBP). The Department of State and the Department of Defense also provided valuable assistance on the case. "This conviction, the first in the nation for illegal exports of military-related source code, demonstrates the importance of safeguarding our nation's military secrets and should serve notice to others who would compromise our national security for profit," said Assistant Attorney General for National Security Kenneth L. Wainstein. "This case is the latest evidence of the Department's enhanced investigative and prosecutorial efforts to keep America's critical technology from falling into the wrong hands." "One of ICE's top priorities is ensuring that U.S. military products and sensitive technology does not fall into the hands of those who might inflict harm upon America or its allies," said Julie L. Myers, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for ICE. "These items, such as the proprietary source code stolen and altered by the defendant in this case, are controlled in the interest of national security. We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners and industry to enforce U.S. technology export laws." "The economic -- and often national -- security of the United States rests largely upon a foundation of technological superiority, and to maintain that superiority our trade secrets must be protected with the fervency with which we guard other vital interests," said Charlene B. Thornton, special agent in charge of the FBI's San Francisco office. "The successful prosecution of Mr. Meng is a blow to those who seek to circumvent the long and costly process of research and development to gain a technological advantage through lies, deceit, and theft; it is a victory in the struggle to ensure the economic security of Silicon Valley and the United States." Quantum3D, Inc. has cooperated fully in the government's investigation. A company official noted that the company "believes that enforcement of export and trade secret laws is critical to the functioning of our industry and we're pleased to work with the government in these efforts." The U.S. Attorney's Offices in the Northern District of Alabama, District of Minnesota, and Middle District of Florida also joined the plea agreement as some of the conduct in the case occurred in those jurisdictions. Defendant Meng is scheduled to be sentenced before United States District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose on January 23, 2008, at 10:00 a.m. Meng is currently out of custody on $500,000 bond. Under the terms of the plea agreement, the maximum term of imprisonment is twenty-four months. Meng also is subject to a maximum fine of $500,000 on the Economic Espionage Act conviction and a maximum fine of $1,000,000 on the Arm Export Control Act conviction, and a three-year term of supervised release. However, any sentence following conviction would be imposed by the court after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18 U.S.C. #3553. Mark L. Krotoski is the Assistant U.S. Attorney prosecuting the case out of the CHIP Unit of the United States Attorney's Office with the assistance of Legal Tech Lori Gomez. Prior Economic Espionage Prosecutions: According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Meng case is the second conviction and only the third case charging violation of the Economic Espionage Act (EEA) of 1996, under 18 U.S.C. � 1831. Both EEA convictions have been obtained within the last nine months by the CHIP Unit in the Northern District of California. The first economic espionage indictment was returned on May 8, 2001, in the Northern District of Ohio in United States v. Okamoto and Serizawa. (For more information: www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/Okamoto_SerizawaIndict.htm). The second economic espionage indictment was filed on December 4, 2002, by the Northern District of California CHIP Unit in United States v. Fei Ye and Ming Zhong, CR 02-20145-JW. The first EEA convictions, involving defendants Ye and Zhong, were obtained on December 14, 2006. Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top THE ARAB CATASTROPHE THAT WAS CAST ON THE LAND OF ISRAEL Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 3, 2007. The Arabs-muslim conquerors were not, but for one thing, any different from their predecessors: they did not settle the land. Rather, they made it uninhabited desert. At the turn of the 7th Century, at the eve of the Arab-muslin invasion, there were millions of people living in Land of Israel and it was considered as one of the most densely populated regions in the world. During the Islamic era gradually it was emptied of its inhabitants to the point where, at the turn of the 19th century only quarter of a million people were left living there. The land suffered humongous destruction -- the most ever known in human history -- which spoke volume about the political character of Islam and indirectly about the origin of the Arabs living in the Land of Israel. Their origin cannot be from any of the muslim conquerors because none of them settled and remained on the land. They ruled and controlled their occupied land by remote control from afar: from Damascus, Bagdad, Cairo, or Istanbul. Among all the muslim conquerors, the one who protruded in their cruelty, the most, were those who came from the Arab lands, that is the Arabs, from an ethnic-territorial point of view. The ruination the Arabs brought about the Land of Israel was only part of a wide phenomenon that encompassed all the countries they conquered. Once can find reference to the above in the writing of the 14th century famous muslim historian, Ibn Chaldun (1332-1406), who claimed that when the Arabs from the desert occupy flourishing and developing countries, those countries die up fast and total ruination prevails. Currently we can see the demise of Europe with its on-going growing Muslim population, with the least of positive contribution. Britain Islamized the world, and thus brought about destruction to vast world territory. Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top JEWISH PSYCHOSIS: AUTHENTIC MIDDLE EAST FLAVOR IN ARAB WORLD PRESS Posted by Bryna Berch, August 2, 2007. Wow! What's the world coming to when a protect-the-arabs-firster toe-the-party-line leftist like Ami Isseroff critizes an Arab and the lying Arab press! He posted this on the Israel News and Commentary Weblog of the Zionism-Israel Center. Contact them at info(at)Zionism-Israel.com The article is archived at http://zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2007/07/ jewish-psychosis-authentic-middle-east.html I am reluctant to write this article. On the one hand, I know that rightist extremists are going to exploit the sad facts for their own ends. On the other hand, the anti-"Zionists" will quote what I write here (out of context as usual) as proof of "Jewish Zionist Islamophobia." However, the cup runneth over with bile. I am tired of being inundated with the flood of intellectual effluvia that spews forth from the sewers of official Arab world publications. These concoctions often have what can be politely described as "authentic Middle Eastern flavor." Middle Eastern food is famously redolent of savory flavors and exquisite odors: mint and sesame, hel and kusbarah, garlic and onion, the smoke of open fires, and occasionally, though less discussed in polite company, camel and donkey excrement and similar odors. If you are lucky, you have a wonderful culinary experience from your Middle Eastern repast. If you are not so lucky, you may be hospitalized. The kind of cooking you are apt to find in Middle Eastern media is likely to make you very ill indeed. The flavor and aroma of Middle Eastern journalism, too often tends in the direction of the camel dung, bad sanitation, rotten eggs and spoiled meat of racism and xenophobia, rather than the kusbarah and hel and fresh ground Turkish coffee of original and imaginative thought. The American and other governments take care that the public who cannot read Arabic generally do not see and taste some of the more extravagant "cuisine" prepared in the kitchens of Middle East media: Jews capturing Christian children to make matzoth from their blood, a TV series about the workings of the Elders of Zion and their Protocols, sermons about Jewish sons of dogs and Christian sons of pigs, promises to fly the flag of Islam over London, and bring about a world without America. For reasons related to oil greed and the stupidity of diplomacy, the United States subsidizes several Middle East regimes very heavily. The US government, and the US Middle East academic establishment, would be sorely distressed if Americans were too aware of the sort of regimes and societies that their tax dollars subsidize. As a result of its peace treaty with Israel, Egypt enjoys an annual aid grant of about $2 billion. Despite horrendous poverty, most of this money is spent on buying armaments in the United States. Egypt is not a very democratic society. You can be put in jail for hinting that elections are fraudulent, or for criticizing the government too strongly. The press is tightly controlled as well. Nothing is published that the government would not want to be published. Arab countries have, in addition to their Arab language media, a small English language press that is in large part for external consumption. Journals like Arab News, Al Ahram and Jordan Times put "respectable" faces on the regimes of their countries. They allow a bit more criticism of the government, and somewhat less racism and vitriolic American diatribes. Additionally, there are journals like As-Sharq Alawsat run from London, that reflect more Westernized points of view. However, even in the English language journals, we can sample a great deal of the Middle Eastern journalistic cuisine. We can find manufactured events, such as the bombing of Baghdad with nuclear weapons, and Israel injecting Palestinian children with AIDS, and opinions based on those tales of the 1001 Arabian Nights. Egypt's Al Ahram is essentially a government -- controlled newspaper. The editor serves at the will of the government. According to the terms of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, Egyptian media and government are supposedly enjoined from incitement against Israel. Here is a taste of the authentic Middle East that appeared recently in Al Ahram English weekly. It is by no means atypical of the fare they serve up each week. You can find this treat, at ahram.org.eg/2007/855/op2.htm. Behold, a work of Islamic art! A veritable souvenir of the desert! A tome worthy of the tomb of a Pharaoh and of the utterances of the Islamic sages! The introduction reads: How long will Jewish psychosis be tolerated, even vaunted, and its brutal consequences ignored, asks Issa Khalaf. It gets better from there. If you like anti-"Zionism" as expressed in Mein Kampf, you will love Issa Khalaf. This is what psychiatric expert Khalaf has to say about Israel and the Jewish question at http://www.zionism-israel.com/jew.htm>: The Zionist programme to overtake the land and empty it of its indigenous people is so relentless and uncompromising, so openly implemented, so strikingly lacking in decency and humanity, that I'm trumped for categories to explain it. No question, history is replete with examples of inhumanity, of fantastical, violent ideological projects imposed by the state or by one group over another, of ruthless dislocation and expulsions.... I'm inclined to think that the worst is brought out in the American imperial impulse by Zionist organisations... Apparently, nothing short of complete surrender will satiate Jewish Israelis and the organised American Jewish community, who've managed to make US Middle East policy an extension of themselves and render synonymous in the American mind and institutions US and Israeli needs and interests -- and even then the Palestinians or Arabs will not appease them... The Holocaust, always replayed and pushed on Western publics, is corrupted and appropriated by narrow ethnic imperatives. A persecuted people persecuted no more seem to have lost their senses, so fossilised are they in their Shoah, the culminating event of Jewish history. Compassion, remorse, guilt for the Palestinians eludes them... How long is one to extend sympathy to Jewish psychosis in the face of this obvious self-righteous folly?...There is perhaps nothing more noxious than Jewish assumption of morality in the context of obscene inhumanity towards victimised Palestinians. No, I don't believe Zionist Jews who unqualifiedly support Israel can speak with authority on this issue, despite the illusion of a superior Jewish morality. But these may not be the only categories to comprehending Zionism's unmitigated inhumanity to Palestinians and other Arabs... The mangled psychological, theological, cultural facets of the encounter between European colonials and indigenous peoples are known. There is also that Jewish political tribalism, one whose roots extend deep into the past, whose fundamentalist holy men justify the taking of Arab life, the killing of Arab children, in juxtaposition to the superior sanctity of Jewish life and Jewish children.... As I've previously argued in this newspaper, in the face of such power and influence -- and as truly tenuous, illusory and counterproductive this power may ultimately be -- rationality is all but lost. Dr Khalaf must've extended his sympathy to Jewish psychosis for a long time, we are sure. Of course, Dr. Khalaf never heard that Palestinian Arabs are treated for free in Israeli hospitals, or that Israeli soldiers who harm innocent Palestinian Arabs face military courts. He does not know that there is an Israeli peace movement, stabbed in the back and the heart each day by Islamist terrorists and racist hate mongers like Dr. Khalaf. When was the last time a Fateh or Hamas "soldier" was tried for harming innocent Jewish civilians? Dr Khalaf, having expressed his opinion of the Jewish people in a manner reminiscent of Hinkel in "The Great Dictator," next turns to the gentle Arabs of Palestine: The Palestinians are strikingly unburdened by the pathologies of their oppressors, not least of all because they do not reciprocate their occupier's widespread racism...unlike their tormentors, they've not lost their humanity and essential decency, their acceptance of their enemy's humanity, their cultural generosity of spirit and life, their respect for the sacredness of all life, their sanity. I can't imagine that Palestinian soldiers would cruelly and coolly remain unmoved -- devoid of an abiding sense of rescue -- by a Jewish mother dying in her house as her children watched in fear and horror.[a reference to an imaginary "Jewish-Zionist" "atrocity" of the type regularly offered up by the Arab press.] Ah, the angelic Palestinians! Consider the statement "The Palestinians are strikingly unburdened by the pathologies of their oppressors." Is it not a culinary delight of intellectual travesty? Khalaf has a poor imagination. He can't imagine Palestinian Arabs blowing up dozens of people in discotheques. He cannot imagine the Hamas Mickey Mouse and the Hamas Bee that teach children to blow themselves up for Palestine. He cannot imagine the 16 year old sent across a checkpoint with a suicide bomb. He cannot even imagine the Hamas literally butchering a Fateh man and sending the "steaks" to his family, or throwing people from rooftops after shooting them in the knees. Khalaf cannot imagine the Palestinians who killed 14 year old Kobi Mandel by breaking his head with rocks. Palestinians, like Dr. Khalaf, are all angelic. Khalaf cannot hear the Imams calling "Kill the Jews wherever you find them" either. Not all Palestinians are like that, but many of them are. In a recent poll, over 70% of Palestinian Arabs living in the Palestinian territories supported suicide bombings in "some cases" to "defend Islam" -- the highest percentage of any Muslim nation. Palestinians living in Jordan don't support suicide bombing so fervently. They were not born that way. They were educated to it by people like Dr. Khalaf. Genocide of the Jews is the official policy of the Hamas, who are in charge of Gaza these days. Dr. Khalaf's culinary masterpieces are not the product of Middle Eastern culture alone. Khalaf has a PhD in political science and Middle East studies from Oxford University. Khalaf is not alone at Al Ahram, this week or any week. In his three part series, Hassan Nafaa serves up his version of Zionism to his readers: "Zionist strategy for dividing the Arab East." The plat du jour is described as follows: In his third article on Zionist thought, Hassan Nafaa* reveals how Israel has always wanted the East and northern Arab states to collapse. You can read the rest at ahram.org.eg/2007/855/op1.htm. We should not confine ourselves to Al Ahram. Saudi Arabia is about to be the recipient of a shower of sophisticated American weaponry. Satellite guided bombs that may one day be returned to Israel and other gadgets are included. Saudi Arabia has benefited from an estimated $10 billion annual U.S. expenditure on deployment of the Seventh fleet for many many years. In return, the oil rich country is happy to export terrorism to Iraq and Islamism to anywhere in the Middle East. Americans get a good deal. The Saudi government publishes a show piece English language newspaper available on the Web, Arab News. Here are some samples of Saudi journalistic cooking, even more legendary than the Egyptian dishes. A headline reads: "Protocols of the Elders of Neocons" by Hussein Shobokshi. In this classic, now a tiny bit dated, Shobokshi wrote: In this weekly telephone report Paul Wolfowitz expressed his anxiety to Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister about the situation in the Middle East. "How are you doing?" asked Wolfowitz. "OK,OK," answered Sharon, "but you must go to Syria." Wolfowitz pondered, "this will be tougher to get the president's okay on." Sharon could not help but scream, "He does not know Damascus from Des Moines, Iowa. Move it Paul. You can always tell him that this man of peace thinks it's kosher," concluded Sharon with a hysterical laugh. Of course, Sharon never encouraged the US to attack Iraq or Syria. How ironic it would be if the Saudi Arabian regime is eventually toppled by Syrian and Iranian subversion! Here is another gem from one Tanya Hsu, who is based in Riyadh: We have suffered such that we have the right to make the rest of the world pay (even though organized Zionism officially declared war on Germany in 1933, long before Hitler's Final Solution). Because we are victims... We know that Zionism is an atheist Marxist creation using Judaism as its weapon; that we were founded upon terrorism and our leaders became Israel's prime ministers and Nobel Peace Prize winners; that less than 10 percent of Jews worldwide supported the Zionist cause for decades until World War II. We know that the crimes committed by Hitler equally affected Communists, gypsies, the handicapped, and political prisoners. That does not matter -- we are special. The rest of the world will not touch us because they are terrified of the label "anti-Semite". The anti-Zionists can always find something wrong with Zionism. Either it is atheistic and Marxist as above, or else it is the cult of messianic religious fanatics. Read it all here: arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article= 75752&d=4&m=8&06. Isn't this regime just the right recipient for advanced US weaponry? Hsu, apparently a Muslim, is considered an "expert" on the Jewish problem in Saudi Arabia, and in some US academic circles, where she is an honored participant in academic fora. The aroma and flavor of Middle Eastern cuisine is infectious, especially when it is backed by huge grants to Middle East studies departments. Do not think for even one second that these authors and these journals and these writings represent all of Arab thought and writing in general, or that I am suggesting that all Arabs or Muslims are racist psychopathic liars. However, there is a lot of this and much worse in Arab world media, especially where the regime controls the media. What you see in the media is the result of directed policy. The "good guys" are intimidated and ignored, and the ones we see in the media are elevated to the role of "educators." They have the role once fulfilled by "agitprops" in Soviet society: to make sure that everyone understands the party line and does not deviate from it. Some authors are rarely seen in the pages of Al Ahram or Arab news. You won't find Amar Abdulhammid, a Syrian expatriate, there, but you will find him at his various blogspots and Web sites, like Amarji and Tharwa writing about democracy and decency and peace. Amar Abdul Hammid's writings are banned in Syria of course. Tarek Heggy is sometimes published in the Egyptian press, but more often then not you can find his essays in English here, and his Arabic writing here: http://www.tarek-heggy.com/. You can find more and different commentary at Web sites like Middle East Transparent. There are also some decent and wonderful people writing in As Sharq al-Awsat, which is published from London and doesn't have to put up with creatures like Tanya Hsu. Most of these writers are not too sympathetic to Israel, and are certainly not "Zionists." They have a point of view that may be unpleasant for some of us to hear, but for the most part they are not racists, and they do not invent Western and Jewish demons and whine about the angelic Palestinians, and do not beat out the monotonous anti-"Zionist" war tattoo found in some of the government media. A friend who lives in a certain country to the northeast of Israel wrote that the Middle East could be a wonderful place if we could combine Jewish know-how and Western society with Arab resources, but alas, he laments it will never happen. You won't see his writing in Syrian official media any time soon. But the point is, there are many people like my friend out there, in the vast territories of the Arab world. It could happen, if it was made clear to Arab regimes that they have to give at least equal time in their media and in their societies to voices of reason and reform. To Go To Top DEEPLY DISTURBING NEWS FROM THE ISRAEL-EGYPT BORDER Posted by Barry Shaw, August 3, 2007. Egyptian soldiers shot and killed four Sudanese refugees at close range as they approached the border from Egypt into Israel. In recent months several sudanese have managed to infiltrate into israel where they received medical and humanitarian attention while their status was examined. Many reported rape and murder by egyptian military personnel as they tried to walk between war-torn Sudan and Israel. On wednesday night Israeli soldiers witnessed the cold blooded execution at close range by Egyptian solders of defenceless Sudanese refugees close to the border with Israel. Female israeli soldiers, using night vision devices, identified several refugees approaching the border fence and alerted Israeli troops who arrived at the scene within a few minutes in an army jeep. But Egyptian soldiers also discovered the refugees and fired on them killing two and wounding a third. a fourth refugee ran toward the fence and an Idf soldier reached out to try and pull him to safety inside Israel. At that point two Egyptian soldiers arrived and began pulling the refugees legs back into Egypt. the Israeli soldier eventually lost his grip of the refugee who was pulled away by the Egyptian soldiers. "They were aiming their loaded weapons directly at us. I was afraid they were going to shoot us," he reported. The Egyptians then carried the refugee several meters away from the fence. they then began to beat this refugee and the other wounded man to death within sight of the shaken Israeli soldiers. This incident was videoed by idf tape and is in the possession of Israeli channel 10 television. a channel 10 spokesperson said that the channel preferred not to air the tape so as not to cause a diplomatic row with egypt. Egypt gives lip service about playing an active role in the peace process. The truth is that Egypt wantonly allows for the wholesale and public smuggling of money, explosives, weapons, terrorists between Gaza and Egypt. While permitting armed and trained terrorists in and out of the Gaza strip via Egypt, they shoot and club to death innocent refugees trying to flee islamic persecution. Channel 10 tv, the Israeli government, and the international community must not remain silent over this Egyptian crime against humanity. At the risk of damaging Israeli-Egyptian relations (which is a very one sided partnership), justice cries out that this crime must not be covered up, and that the perpetrators not go unpunished. [Editor's Note: As reported in Arutz-Sheva, "One IDF soldier stated, 'We heard them crying and screeching in pain until they died.'"] Barry Shaw made aliyah from Manchester, England, some 25 years ago with his family. He spent eleven years on various kibbutzim, ending up at Mishmar HaSharon, the same kibbutz that served as home to Ehud Barak. He now lives in Netanya. He writes the "View from Here" columns from Israel. To sign up to receive his emails, contact him at netre@matav.net.il To Go To Top JEWISH PRISONERS' SAGA: SHLOMI BARRED FROM BROTHER'S WEDDING Posted by Hillel Fendel, August 3, 2007. Hundreds of Arab terrorist prisoners are home free, but 25 Jewish security inmates remain in jail. One of them was even banned from his brother's wedding last night. Shlomi Dvir was sentenced in 2002 to 15 years in prison for his role in a failed bombing of an Arab school. He and his two co-defendants claimed the bomb was never meant to go off, but the court, in its role as arbiter of intentions, ruled that this was only an oversight on their part. "The court entered the realm of 'intentions' by saying this [placing an empty battery] was done accidentally," their lawyer claimed at the time. For his crime, Dvir has been allowed to leave prison only one time in the past five years -- a few-hour leave when his baby daughter was born. The Dvirs have four other children. Shlomi's request to attend his younger brother's wedding Thursday night was advanced by several Knesset Members, but the Prison Service refused to even respond until Thursday morning. The Council of Families of Jewish Security Prisoners stated, "Thursday morning, the day of the wedding itself, Shlomi received an official letter from the Minister of Public Security, Avi Dichter, in which Dichter forbids his release for his brother's wedding for unclear 'security reasons.'" Council sources say that over the past few days, family members and MKs tried to intervene on Shlomi's behalf, but to no avail. It is of import to know that Shlomi's brother Shachar, who is also in prison on similar but lesser charges, was permitted to attend the wedding. Shlomi is imprisoned together with Ofer Gamliel, father of seven who was also sentenced to 15 years, and Yarden Morag, father of four who was sentenced to 12 years. They are all residents of Bat Ayin in Gush Etzion. Demand: Release Jewish Prisoners The Council continues to reiterate its demand that "Minister Dichter and the Israeli government act to release the 25 Jewish nationalist prisoners who acted out of a security crisis." Some 450 people were murdered by Palestinian terrorists in the year 2002 alone. "And until they are released," the Council states, "they must be afforded at least the most elementary rights such as vacations, regular visitations, permission to go to weddings and the like that are given with no disruption to the other prisoners." The Almagor Terror Victims Association notes that in the past weeks, four Jordanian terrorist murderers have been released to Jordan, 255 Palestinian terrorists have been freed, dozens of wanted Fatah terrorists were allowed to find "refuge" from Hamas in Ramallah, and another 178 have been removed from Israel's wanted lists (conditional on their cessation of terrorism). "Palestinian terrorists should not be freed before their sentences are over," Almagor says, "but if they have been released, then Jews should be freed to. There are only 25 Jewish prisoners... Experience has shown that 0% of Jewish security prisoners return to terrorism when freed, compared with 80% of Arab terrorists... Former President Ezer Weizmann set a precedent nearly 10 years ago when he accepted a list of Jewish prisoners submitted by the Honenu legal-rights organization and agreed that just because they do not have supporters who kidnap soldiers for ransom purposes doesn't mean they don't deserve the same consideration Palestinian terrorists get." This was written by Hillel Fendel, senior news editor at Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNationalNews.com). To Go To Top THE 'ALTALENA' SEQUEL Posted by David Haimson, August 3, 2007. This was written by Sarah Honig and it appeared in the Jerusalem Post www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1185379010702&pagename= JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull On the (Hebrew calendar's) second anniversary of the callous sacrifice of existential security interests for political expediency, Uri Yarom's Kenaf Renanim is must reading. It puts into context the viciousness of disengagement, the ongoing demonization of its victims and the indifference to their anguish. Yarom -- the decorated commander of Israel's first helicopter squadron -- is the salt of this country's earth, especially as he suitably hails from the left side of its great and definitive political divide. That lends him ultra-respectability and credibility. In 2001 he included in his autobiographical book (p. 71) an eyewitness account of what he saw on June 22, 1948, as the IZL arms ship Altalena blazed off Tel Aviv. The men on board -- mostly idealistic Holocaust survivors intent on joining their reborn nation's struggle for independence -- dove into the sea under a hail of gunfire. Some were hurt, but the bullets still kept coming, even though the boys flailed desperately among the waves. Yarom was a youthful Palmah soldier under the command of Yitzhak Rabin, who eagerly orchestrated and diligently oversaw the attack on the Altalena. Yarom, who cannot be suspected of pro-Revisionist bias, recalled: "The wounded were being lowered off the boat. From the shore people started swimming toward them to offer help, but from the hotel and nearby houses indiscriminate shots were aimed at the helpless wounded and at those who swam to rescue them! I'll never forget that fellow wearing a blue shirt done up with a white cord [the Hashomer Hatza'ir uniform], who directed the snipers to their targets and pointed to each head that bobbed above the water's surface. His eyes flashed with hatred as he egged the sharpshooters on with his shouts, spotted their quarry and encouraged them to get the swimmers. My heart shuddered within me. Before my eyes was waged a war between brothers! Jews are shooting Jews -- in order to kill!"   A MERE three years after these lines saw print, another Hashomer Hatza'ir fellow smelled blood -- once more of reviled political rivals. Outspoken Meretz Knesset member Avshalom Vilan told Haaretz on August 20, 2004 -- exactly one year pre-disengagement, when the catastrophic scheme was already in high gear -- that "we must fight extremist settlers by all possible means... if need be we'll open fire... we'll shoot to hit... the sovereign authority must announce that in order to preserve itself, it too is ready to kill." His was a request for an Altalena reenactment. When Israel was little more than a month old, besieged by genocidal enemies and fighting for its very physical survival, its founding fathers subordinated everything to settling political scores and ridding themselves of domestic competition, even if it meant destroying vital, irreplaceable weaponry. Fifty-seven years later, their successors would put settling political scores above fighting implacable terrorists. The expulsion of 9,000 settlers (still mind-bogglingly not resettled) could only be countenanced and perpetrated against those pronounced beyond the pale of political tolerance. It's the mindset which rendered the harrowing Altalena tragedy possible. The analogy was drawn by none other than those who fervently clamored for an Altalena sequel. On January 21, 2005 would-be Labor Party leader Ami Ayalon -- excessively conciliatory toward hostile Arabs -- hectored against the settlers and advocated resorting to physical force. He menacingly declared that "in the life of every state and nation there's more than one Altalena." The threat was flagrant. The murder of Altalena's 16 innocents had been justified by the same mantras about "upholding the rule of law and the government's democratic legitimacy" that were brandished -- just as tyrannically and ruthlessly -- against Gush Katif. The official anti-Altalena line harped on the bogus pretext of an insurgency-that-never-was, consistently omitted to mention that on June 1, 1948 the IZL signed an agreement to disband, that on June 15, 1948 it informed the government of the Altalena's (delayed) arrival, that negotiations ensued (though not completed) about how the extraordinarily valuable arms the Altalena carried were to be distributed within the IDF, that the government directed the ship to dock at Kfar Vitkin, that the Altalena followed instructions, but that its men were surrounded, entrapped and attacked. Several neutral mediation attempts and compromise proposals bordering on IZL capitulation were scornfully rebuffed by David Ben-Gurion. The Altalena, now ferrying Menachem Begin, escaped the violent Kfar Vitkin siege. It ran aground in Tel Aviv. From shipboard Begin called out by megaphone: "Soldiers of Israel, cease fire! We brought you weapons. Come and take them." The answer was a shower of bullets in what soon emerged as an elaborately contrived assassination attempt. Yet the establishment's account depicted the cannon which defeated the Altalena as "holy, worthy of being stationed at the entrance to the Third Temple," in Ben-Gurion's words. Like today's vilified right-wingers, Begin already then hankered after left-wing acceptance. He believed, with schlemiel naivete, that he won governmental cooperation and backing -- just like the settlers sent to Gush Katif by none other than Rabin. Precursor Altalena and its Gush Katif replica were crushed by antagonists disdainfully undaunted by the specter of civil war. Decades post-Altalena, Shimon Peres told Begin that Ben-Gurion had been misled in the affair. Grudging contrition is already audible post-disengagement, but exhortations for another Altalena/disengagement remain ever-strident and ever-dangerous because Israelis remain gullible and their memory malleable. Hagana commander Eliahu Golomb prophetically warned Begin, pre-Altalena, when they conferred on October 31, 1944, that "it doesn't matter who fires the first bullet in a civil war. The propaganda apparatus is in our hands. We will direct history's chroniclers. You will always be singled out as the instigators of civil conflict." Like the Altalena, disengagement incontrovertibly proves Golomb's perceptive astuteness. The more things change the more they stay the same. Contact David Haimson at DvHaimson@aol.com to receive emails with direct links to articles on Israel that are well-worth reading. To Go To Top TALKS UNDERWAY BETWEEN HAMAS, FATAH AND OTHER FACTIONS OVER FORMATION OF SECOND UNITY GOVERNMENT Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 3, 2007. While the U.S. and others pour weapons, equipement and money to beef up the "moderate" PA "security forces" (aka "moderate gunmen"?), talks are being held to absorb the Hamas gunmen into the PA "security force". This comes from the Ma'an News Agency www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=24501 Bethlehem -- Ma'an News -- High-ranking Hamas sources revealed to Ma'an on Friday that contact and dialogue have been established between Hamas dignitaries and Fatah representatives, in addition to the president's office alongside the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine PFLP and the Palestinian People's Party PPP, in order to set the basis of bringing to an end the state of division in the Palestinian arena. The same source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, stated that intense consultations were being conducted between figures from Hamas, Fatah, the PPP, the PFLP and the Palestinian National Initiative. Among those who met were Ghazi Hamad from Hamas, Jibreel Rajoub from Fatah, Bassam Salihi from the PPP, Abed ar Raheem Mallouh from the PFLP and Mustafa Barghouthi, representing the Palestinian National Initiative, in addition to former minister of education, Nasser Addin Ash Shaer. They arranged to establish a national government of independent figures, to last for 9 months, or one year and a half. The security services will be restructured, and the security HQs will be turned over to President Abbas. The sources added that the conveners discussed the presidential decrees which were issued by the Palestinian president during the violent takeover of the Gaza Strip. The suggested proposals are to entrust Palestinian national committees to take care of the security headquarters, due to the absence of security service members in the Gaza Strip. Furthermore, two security services will be formed only, the police and national security, as the Palestinian arena "does not need several security services with over 80,000 members". The Executive Force might well also be assimilated into the police service, in order to avoid having any security service with a factional affiliation. It was agreed that the Palestinian National Security Council will be activated, "according to the right standards". Many of the former security members will also be absorbed into the ministries and other governmental institutions. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top JEWS ATTEMPT TO SALVAGE THEIR HOMES FROM FLOUNDERING COMPANY Posted by Bryna Berch, August 3, 2007. Peace Now pretends it wants to do good for the Jews as well as the Arabs -- after all, it calls itself a Jewish organization. Yet they ignore that the land belongs to Israel by international law and history as well as by right of conquest. (They must believe in right of conquest, because they always take the side of the Arabs -- and the way the Arabs got control of Jerusalem and the land of Israel was by conquest in the 7th Cent. A.D.) The Peace Now gang has in its wisdom decided that Samaria and Judea (the West Bank) must be Arab. So they ignore law and right. They ignore any and all illegal building by the Arabs. But this new tactic beats all! They created legal problems for the Heftziba builders -- they froze the sale of hundreds of apartments for a year causing a reduced cash flow -- and used that to disrupt the lives of hundreds of Jews who bought the apartments. They won't even respect their staying till after the Sabbath. They are intent on making the lives of these people miserable because they believe that the land belongs to the Arabs -- I guess they've never read the documents that allocated the land to Israel by international law. Of course, they believe that the land belongs to the Arabs -- they aren't ashamed that their previous vocal claims that the Arabs owned the land were proven very, very wrong -- as shown by the statistics they accepted. They are very strong in defending the Arab squatters in eastern Jerusalem who live in Jewish houses that they never bought and for which they don't pay rent or taxes. Peace Now has lot of (Arab?) money and uses the same tactic the Hamas-affiliated CAIR does in America -- they use the legal system to sue and sue and sue to ruin anyone they want to destroy. Peace Now is disgusting. I've heard it suggested we should turn the tables and bankrupt Peace Now with law suits -- they misrepresent facts and they jeopardize Israel's security. Moreover, they've monitored Jewish settlements from the air and by an odd coincidence, weaknesses they spotted just happened to be used by Arab infiltrators very soon after. Curious. This was written by Hillel Fendel, senior news editor at Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNationalNews.com). A construction company is in financial straits, dozens of apartments are taken over -- and Peace Now says: Jews must leave The Heftzibah Construction Company suddenly faces bankruptcy, one of its top executives tried to commit suicide, and hundreds of home-owners may find themselves on the street. But Peace Now is interested in only one thing: "Get those Jews out of there!" The reference, in this case, is to hundreds of hareidi-religious families that, over the course of Wednesday night, broke into the apartments they paid for, but may lose if the builders go bankrupt. How it All Began Among the many financial problems facing the Heftzibah Construction Company is a series of recent Supreme Court rulings, instigated by the radical left-wing Peace Now organization, that forbid continued construction on a very large housing project between Modiin and the Green Line dividing pre-1967 Israel from Judea/Samaria. The new project, in Matityahu East, was supposed to be for 3,000 units, but after only 500 were sold, a Peace Now suit led the Court to order a halt to all activity. Of the 500 that were sold, only 70 had previously moved in, leaving 430 families having paid hundrededs of thousands of shekels each, but unable to move in to their new homes. In addition, the 70 families already living there have been forced to live under frozen construction-site conditions. This has been the situation for a year and a half now. The suit brought by Peace Now -- an organization that is dedicated to eradicating Jewish presence from Judea and Samaria -- showed that various technical/legal glitches plagued the process of receiving the construction permits. For instance, a zoning change was publicized in Hebrew newspapers, but not in Arabic ones. As Jewish land rights activist Betzalel Smutrich told B'Sheva's Ofrah Lax last month, "The Supreme Court is supposed to protect citizens from the authorities that stick to the dry law and procedure. But the Supreme Court has long forgotten its function... The Arabs were not even hurt here; the original plan was legally approved, and the revised plan did not change the area being built. So why all the hubbub?" Another source close to the case said, "True, the buildings weren't built at the same angle called for by the plan that was originally approved -- but to say that this means there were severe construction violations? If there's a problem with 10% of the buildings, then at least approve the other 90%!" But the Supreme Court, at Peace Now's behest, did not do so. After a year and a half of legal troubles, it appeared that the families' plight was nearing a legal solution -- and then came the news that Heftzibah, the builders, might be facing bankruptcy. Over the course of Wednesday night and Thursday morning, many families from various locations besieged the company's Jerusalem offices -- while many others made their way to the Matityahu East apartments they had long ago paid for and to which they were denied entry, and broke in. Their goal: to establish their rights at the possibly soon-to-be-contested properties. The mass take-over was apparently organized in advance. Apartments built by Heftzibah but not yet fully approved for occupancy were also taken over by their owners in Beit Shemesh, Beitar Illit, and elsewhere. Heftzibah is in the process of building 5,000 apartments around the country, many of which have already been purchased. Hundreds of families -- many of them in Matityahu, but also many in other locations -- now face the prospect of losing hundreds of thousands of shekels each. Heftzibah officials and Housing Minister Ze'ev Boim have expressed words of support and said they would try to solve the problems, but this has not comforted the threatened families. Heftzibah has not filed police complaints against the squatters, though the police say they're prepared to take action if called upon to do so, depending on the extent of the problem. Peace Now, however, is very concerned at the taking of the law into private hands, and the organization's Secretary Yariv Oppenheimer had this to say about the situation: "The police must evict the squatters from the [Matityahu] apartments now, even before the Sabbath." To Go To Top JEWS FORCIBLY REMOVED FROM JUDAISM'S OLDEST CITY Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 3, 2007. Just remember who gave away Hebron to the enemy in the first place! That was Bibi Netanyahu. After giving away Hebron, Mr. Netanyahu's own mother asked him what his brother Yoni had died for. [Yoni Netanyahu died in the raid on Entebbe in 1976 while rescuing Israeli hostages.] One brother loved the land and died for it; the other didn't seem to care and gave it away. When Netanyahu gave away 80% of Hebron to Arafat, the least he could have done was to transfer 100% of the Arabs out of the 20% and create a security zone where it would be possible to prevent any attacks upon Jews. This was not a matter of diplomacy. It was a matter of life and death. Thus it should have been of the highest priority. Where are the voices of the REAL would-be leaders? Is there a contender for leadership who has the courage to express his interest in protecting the safety of his citizens other than to repeat the cliche "peace with security" "land for peace". Israel has nothing remotely resembling either peace or security. It is all lies. We like the words, but the music is off key. If Israel has NO real candidates ...those who are even thinking of taking back the country from those who are trying to take it from Israel then Israelis have in fact nothing to vote for in the future, nor any possible ally in America. Think clearly ! This was written by Aaron Klein and it appeared in World Net Daily http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56981 Jews forcibly removed from Judaism's oldest city With hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in illegal outposts, PM directs forces against 2 families JERUSALEM -- Fresh from ordering security forces to destroy a synagogue built by Jews to pray near Joseph's Tomb, Judaism's third holiest site, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert now has directed his forces to forcibly evict two families that moved into a market in Jewish sections of Hebron, the oldest Jewish community in the world. The evictions are scheduled for Monday. Israel says the occupation of market by the two families is illegal since their arrival wasn't coordinated with the Israeli military. The market in question, now converted to small, two-story apartments, was built in 1929 after Arab riots temporarily forced Jews from Hebron -- the first time the city was without a Jewish presence in over 2,500 years. For more than 30 years, a sign was posted on the market boasting in Arabic that the structure was built on stolen Jewish property. Arab merchants illegally set up shop at the market but were asked by the Israel Defense Forces to leave after a series of clashes broke out in the mid-1990s. Even though the market was stolen by the Arabs, Hebron's Jewish community purchased the market from its original Arab occupants in 2001. In January 2006, Jewish families took up occupancy to strengthen Jewish ties to the area following the murder of an infant by a Palestinian sniper, yards away from the market. The market, integrated within the Hebron Jewish community, is adjacent to several Jewish apartments and Jewish municipal buildings. It is not located in an Arab neighborhood. It doesn't require any original additional protection from IDF soldiers already patrolling the area. Despite the original property owners' recent signing over of the market to Hebron's Jewish community, as well as Israel's Supreme Court ruling that the structure was Jewish-owned, the government considers the occupancy of the marketplace illegal, saying families living inside did not negotiate their arrival with the IDF. Following a standoff with the army last year, the Jews who had moved into the market decided to leave, reportedly after receiving promises from military officials they could return a few months later, after the court systems -- which deemed the property Jewish -- worked with the IDF to verify the legality of the Jewish residence. But Israel's attorney general overturned the Supreme Court decision and declared the residents cannot move in. Still, two Jewish families recently moved back in, and Olmert's government immediately ordered that they be evacuated by Monday, even threatening that the families may need to reimburse the IDF for the costs of their evacuation. Shlomit Bar-Kochba, who was among those who agreed to vacate in January 2006, moved back into the market with her husband and eight children. She told the Jerusalem Post she was shocked by the interest of the Olmert government in her move. "We didn't think it would interest anyone that we returned," she said. "I thought it doesn't interfere with anyone. We came back very quietly. We didn't make noise or celebrate." "The agreement was that we would leave in January, and shortly they would allow us to return," she said, explaining that when the agreement didn't come to fruition months later, her family decided not to wait anymore. It seemed illogical to her, she told the Post, that the government was upset by their presence some 10 months later, explaining no additional security was required and that her home sits on land owned by Jews. Hebron is home to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, believed to be the resting place of biblical patriarchs and matriarchs. Jews lived in Hebron for thousands of years. There are accounts of the trials of the city's Jewish community throughout the Byzantine, Arab, Mameluke and Ottoman periods. In 1929, as a result of an Arab pogrom in which 67 Jews were murdered, the entire Jewish community fled the city, with Hebron -- including the market -- becoming temporarily devoid of Jews. Olmert's decision to single out for evacuation two Jewish families living in Jewish sections of Hebron has been called into question by religious leaders here. While Jewish construction projects deemed illegal in Jewish cities in the West Bank are regularly bulldozed or evacuated by the government, Olmert's office has taken no action against hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in illegal outposts in the West Bank and Jerusalem. WND previously exposed the Israeli government has allowed Palestinians and the United Nations to build illegally on hundreds of acres of Jewish-owned lands in Jerusalem purchased by the Jewish National Fund, a U.S.-based Jewish organization, using Jewish donors funds solicited for the purpose of Jewish settlement. Tens of thousands of Palestinians live on the Jewish-owned Jerusalem land, which was recently isolated from Jewish sections of Jerusalem by Israel's security barrier. WND also previously reported the city of Jerusalem, under orders from Olmert, deleted files documenting hundreds of illegal Arab building projects throughout eastern sections of Jerusalem housing tens of thousands of Palestinians, according to a report by the Jerusalem Forum, which promotes Jewish construction in the city. Aryeh King, chairman of the Jerusalem Forum, said Jerusalem municipal workers told him they were instructed by Olmert's office to ignore illegal Palestinian construction in Jerusalem. "Ehud Olmert gave the order not to deal with the problem and not to put Israeli security forces to the duty of taking down the illegal Arab complexes," said King. "Senior municipal workers told me Olmert said not to bother with the illegal Arab homes because eventually eastern Jerusalem would be given to the Palestinian Authority." Joseph's Tomb synagogue destroyed by Israeli forces Olmert's ordering of the two families to be forced from the Hebron Jewish market comes just days after the prime minister ordered his security forces to destroy a synagogue used by Jews to worship near Joseph's Tomb, Judaism's third holiest site and the believed burial place of the biblical patriarch Joseph -- the son of Jacob who was sold by his brothers into slavery and later became the viceroy of Egypt. Under the 1993 Oslo Accords, which granted nearby strategic territory to the Palestinians, Joseph's Tomb was supposed to be accessible to Jews and Christians. But following repeated attacks against Jewish worshippers at the holy site by gunmen associated with then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat's militias, Prime Minister Ehud Barak in October 2000 ordered an Israeli unilateral retreat from the area. The tomb is located near the modern day West Bank city of Nablus, or biblical Shechem. Currently, Jewish pilgrimage to Joseph's Tomb is legal only several times per year in convoys protected by the Israel Defense Forces. Still, some Jews regularly attempt clandestine visits to the holy site. Jewish students last year built a structure on the West Bank's Mount Gerizim, which is just outside the tomb area. The structure was used as a synagogue and was constructed on the Mount so Jews can pray and study Torah as close to the tomb site as possible. Dozens of Jewish students congregated daily at the makeshift synagogue. But Olmert's office and Israeli government officials deemed the structure -- which they refused to call a synagogue -- illegal since it was built without a government permit. On Monday, under direct orders from Olmert, the Israel Civil Lands Administration destroyed the structure. The Torah describes how Jacob purchased a land plot in Shechem, which was given as inheritance to his sons and was used to re-inter Joseph, whose bones were taken out of Egypt during the Jewish exodus. Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, are also said to be buried at the site. As detailed in the Torah, shortly before his death, Joseph asked the Israelites to vow they would resettle his bones in the land of Canaan -- biblical Israel. That oath was fulfilled when, according to the Torah, Joseph's remains were taken by the Jews from Egypt and reburied at the plot of land Jacob had earlier purchased in Shechem, believed to be the site of the tomb. Modern archeologists confirm Nablus is the biblical city of Shechem Yehuda Leibman, who until the Israeli retreat from Joseph's Tomb in 2000 was director of a yeshiva constructed there, explained, "The sages tell us that there are three places which the world cannot claim were stolen by the Jewish people: the Temple Mount, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Joseph's Tomb." There is evidence suggesting for more than 1,000 years Jews of various origins worshipped at Joseph's Tomb. The Samaritans, a local tribe that follow a religion based on the Torah, say they trace their lineage back to Joseph himself and that they worshipped at the tomb site for more than 1,700 years. Israel first gained control of Nablus and the neighboring site of Joseph's Tomb in the 1967 Six-Day War. The Oslo Accords signed by Arafat and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin called for the area surrounding the tomb site to be placed under Palestinian jurisdiction but allowed for continued Jewish visits to the site and the construction of an Israeli military outpost at the tomb to ensure secure Jewish access. Following the transfer of control of Nablus and the general area encompassing the tomb to the Palestinians in the early 1990s, there were a series of outbreaks of violence in which Arab rioters and gunmen from Arafat's Fatah militias shot at Jewish worshipers and the tomb's military outpost. Six Israeli soldiers were killed and many others, including yeshiva students, were wounded in September 1996 when Palestinian rioters and Fatah gunmen attempted to over take the tomb. Eventually, Israeli soldiers regained control of the site. The Palestinians continued to attack Joseph's Tomb with regular shootings and the lobbing of firebombs and Molotov cocktails. Security for Jews at the site increasingly became more difficult to maintain. Rumors circulated in 2000 that Barak would evacuate the Israeli military outpost and give the tomb to Arafat as a "peacemaking gesture." In early 2000, the Israeli army began denying Jewish visits to the tomb on certain days due to prospects of Arab violence. Following U.S. mediated peace talks at Camp David in September 2000, Arafat returned to the West Bank and initiated his intifada. During one bloody week in October 2000, Fatah gunmen attacked the tomb repeatedly, killing two and injuring dozens, prompting Barak to order a complete evacuation of Judaism's third holiest site on Oct. 6. Within less than an hour of the Israeli retreat, Palestinian rioters overtook Joseph's Tomb and reportedly began to ransack the site. Palestinian mobs reportedly tore apart books, destroying prayer stands and grinding out stone carvings in the Tomb's interior. Palestinians hoisted a Muslim flag over the tomb. Amin Maqbul, an official from Arafat's office, visited the tomb to deliver a speech declaring, "Today was the first step to liberate (Jerusalem)." One BBC reporter described the scene: "The site was reduced to smoldering rubble -- festooned with Palestinian and Islamic flags -- cheering Arab crowd. ..." Palestinians on Oct. 10 began construction of a mosque on the rubble of the tomb's adjacent yeshiva compound. Workers painted the dome of the compound green, the Islamic color. In a WND exclusive interview, Tariq Tarawi, a Fatah lawmaker who in 2000 served as chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group in the vicinity of the tomb, said the Palestinians would "never" allow Israel to rebuild a yeshiva or synagogue at Joseph's Tomb. The Brigades carried out most of the attacks against the tomb site. "A yeshiva is an institution," said Tarawi. "An institution can be the beginning of claiming rights and these claims can bring once again the Israeli army to establish a base in the place, and we can not accept this. If the Jews try to build a yeshiva, we will shoot at them." Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top HEBRON AND DARFUR Posted by David Wilder, August 3, 2007. A few days ago I toured with an American family from California. A fifteen-sixteen year old youth asked me the same question any number of times during the two hours we spent together. I don't know if I was able to satisfactorily respond to his queries. When we were at Beit Hadassah and I described how the women and children living there were surrounded and lived under siege, he asked, "What, Arab police surrounded them?" My response was, of course, "no, Jewish police." "But why would Jewish police do something like that?" he asked. When I told them the story of a little boy with a tooth-ache who was sent from Beit Hadassah to nearby Kiryat Arba to the dentist, who upon returning to Beit Hadassah wasn't allowed back in, he again asked, "An Arab guard wouldn't let him in?" And of course again I answered, 'no, a Jewish guard." "But why would a Jew do that to a child?" When we arrived at the Shalhevet neighborhood, the 'shuk,' and I related to them the events leading up to next week's planned expulsion of two families from that site, again he piped up, "Arabs are going to throw you out?" And of course I responded, 'no, Jews are going to expel us.' He looked at me with astonishment, his eyes wide, filled with question marks. "I don't understand. What does the Israeli government care about two families in the Shalhevet neighborhood in Hebron? Why are they going to forcibly expel families? How can they do that?!" Very good questions, coming from a young man, first time in Hebron. I have trouble giving him a good answer. Not that I don't know the answer. The question is, how to express it, so that it will be comprehensible. Yesterday Hebron marked the 78th anniversary of the 1929 riots and massacre during which 67 Jews were slaughtered and over 70 injured. The Washington Post article, which I responded to last week, stated that the survivors 'fled.' This is, of course, a lie. The survivors were expelled. They weren't expelled once. They were expelled twice. First in August, 1929 following the riots, and then again, in the spring of 1936. A large group of families desired to return to Hebron, but were prevented from doing so due to 'political considerations' determined by the Jewish leadership at the time. However a group of some 30 families did move back to Hebron in 1931, and lived in the city until a few days after Passover in 1936. At that time the British again expelled them, saying that the Mufti was inciting, there was going to be trouble, and that the British police wouldn't be able to protect them. They threw them out with the clothes they were wearing, but nothing else. That was the end of a Hebron Jewish community until our return in 1967. It was, for all intensive purposes, the first time in almost a thousand years that Hebron had no Jewish population. In the 1920s and the 1930s there was no Jewish state, no Jewish army, no Jewish ability to truly defend themselves. Today, 78 years later, we have Jewish police, Jewish military, a Jewish government, a Jewish state. It seems that they prefer not to follow in the footsteps of the first Jew, Abraham, who, being commanded by G-d to "Lech Lecha" to "Go" to walk the land, the length and width of Eretz Yisrael, did just that, stopping only in Hebron, making this city his home, the first Jewish city in the Land of Israel. Rather, the Israeli state, using all of the resources available to such a sovereign body, prefers to follow in the footsteps of the Mufti and the British. Ah, you ask, the Mufti? The Mufti slaughtered people. How can you compare the Israeli government to Haj Amin el Husseini, a Jew-hater whose incitement led to the 1929 riots? Very clearly, Amin el Husseini's goal was the expulsion of Jews, starting with Hebron, and reaching Jerusalem, and other cities in Israel. He wanted Jews out, and cared not how it happened. He had plans to annihilate all the Jews living in Eretz Yisrael following Rommel's expected invasion of Israel during World War Two. He met with Hitler in Berlin in the 1930s and clearly discussed more than formation of the Muslim Brigades, which fought against the allied forces in Europe. And our government, where are they? Are they defending their people? Where are they today, as Kasam rockets continue to fall on Sderot? Where were they last year when rockets fired from Lebanon blasted northern Israel? How are they, at present, preserving not only the physical entity of the State of Israel, but also its heritage, its history, its essence? Yesterday, the new-old Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, effectively declared war on Hebron's Jewish residents, and seemingly on all Jews living in Judea and Samaria. Barak received first-hand information from high-ranking legal advisors within the administration that the families do not have to be expelled from their homes, that there is no court ruling compelling forced eviction of the families, and that there are legally viable alternatives to the expulsion which could be acceptable to both sides. (One of Hebron's ranking legal advisors, former Justice Minister Ya'akov Neeman offered such a compromise, labeled the "Neeman plan" months ago, on behalf of the community, but the compromise was rejected for reasons not specified.) Despite this information, despite the chance to avoid what could turn into an ugly clash, Barak prefers to flex his muscles and show the country what he's made of: Black uniforms, hard-rubber batons, tear gas, and lots of force. Blood, sweat and tears. ('Settler blood and tears, or course!) (The last time such a decision was taken, the result was Amona). A year and a half ago, nine Hebron families and a Torah study hall voluntarily left these homes in order to prevent what could have been an extremely violent situation. The community was given a firm promise, in the form of an agreement with the commander of forces in Judea and Samaria, General Yair Golan, that following our voluntary exit from the homes, families would soon be allowed to 'legally' return. That was a year and a half ago. The agreement was voided by Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, using the excuse that Golan was not authorized to make the agreement. This, despite the fact that the General was on and off the phone with his bosses in the Defense Ministry during the meeting with Hebron representatives in order to receive their OK to the compromise. Again we've been told that 'we can talk about the shuk after the families leave.' We've been through that once, once too many times. Not again. The property is Jewish property. A military appeals court recommended that the buildings be leased to the Hebron Jewish community. This too was rejected. What more do they want? The answer to that seems very clear: they are looking for blood. Jewish blood. Shades of the Mufti -- shades of the British; blood and expulsion. Not by Arabs and British, rather by Jews. Astounding. And very sad. One of this morning's headlines in the Ynet News internet news site proclaims: 63 MKs demand that Israel not expel refugees from Sudan. [http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3433224,00.html] So now I have a new idea. Let's bring those refugees to Hebron and let them live in shuk. That way nobody will dare touch them. Unless, of course, they convert. Once they're Jewish, watch out. Then, for sure, they'll face expulsion: not from Israel, but from the Shalhevet neighborhood in Hebron. David Wilder is spokesman of The Jewish Community of Hebron. You can contribute directly to The Jewish Community of Hebron, POB10, Kiryat Arba-Hebron 90100, hebron@hebron.org.il, 972-2-9965333 or write to The Hebron Fund, 1760 Ocean Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11230, hebronfund@aol.com To Go To Top CYBERWAR HEROINE; REACTION TO THE LEBANON WAR Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 3, 2007. SANCTIONS ON IRAN "Mr. Brown, holding his first Downing St. press conference, said he believed sanctions aimed at persuading Iran to halt uranium enrichment were working, but he predicted a swift new UN Security Council resolution aimed at increasing pressure on Pres. Ahmadinejad." (NY Sun, 7/24, p.7.) He believes the pulled-punch sanctions are working and the dilatory allies of Iran on the Security Council will swiftly increase pressure on Iran? If sanctions were working, would Iran keep forging ahead with nuclear development, boasting of defiance? More likely the forces of appeasement are working on PM Brown. TURKEY GOES ISLAMIST The Islamists won a large majority of the parliament, adding control of it to that of the presidency. They have ended the secular state there (Hillel Halkin, NY Sun, 7/24, Op.-Ed.). Another commentator suggests that those Islamists have become moderate. He thinks that Turkey now is a shining example of compatibility between Islam and democracy. He didn't wait to see what the Islamist party would do with its new-found power. He accepted as a genuine change the party's semi-restraint so as to present itself to the electorate as non-extremist. But in various ways, it was subverting the old order. Subversion is suspect. Let's see how well the majority treats the religious minority. That's the real test of democracy, elections, less so. CYBERWAR HEROINE An ordinary American citizen reacted to 9/11 by learning Arabic and trolling Islamist web sites. She discovered that Islamists use the Internet both to radicalize masses of Muslims into willingness to attack us and to arrange terrorist operations. She also found out that federal agencies did not check those sites. On her own, she identified and implicated a number of terrorist plotters, some of whom had infiltrated the US military. Based on her evidence, the FBI arrested some plotters, preventing their attacks. Our government needs to be more imaginative and do such checking on it own (MEF News, 7/11). The US lacks a strategic concept of the world war. Neither does it understand which Muslims are Islamist. It is slower to adapt its methods than is the enemy. Ironic that the US, which leads the industrial revolution, is slower to adapt modern methods to modern warfare than are the backward Muslims. REACTION TO THE LEBANON WAR Having observed Israel's poor performance in Lebanon and foolish under-reaction, the US now treats Israel as if a liability. The US government supports Hizbullah's claim to Mt. Dov-Sheba Farms, wants Israel to arm Abbas' Fatah, and is appeasing Iran (Caroline Glick, IMRA, 7/13). The State Dept. is anti-Zionist. Israel has been correcting wartime errors (but still restricts IDF funds and mission). Olmert shields himself from criticism, not his people from rockets. His regime has not distributed gas masks, not prepared hospitals to operate under rocket fire, and has not implemented a clear public shelter policy (IMRA, 7/11). Israel has not been correcting much wartime error. One reason is that Olmert claims he won it and Israel is safer. If Israel won, it doesn't have much to correct. Another reason is that it still thinks it is in a peace process, in which concessions bring peace. They facilitate war. Israel's goal should be security. Failing to recognize the strategic connection of its enemies' axis, Israel lets each one build forces individually, as if they won't work in concert, though they do. (I include Egypt in that axis.) Another problem is Israel's loss of self-reliance. It expects the Arabs, NATO, or the US to protect it. (They are hostile to it.) The IDF has improved tactical training, though its under-trained and under-equipped troops defeated Hizbullah each time. Their difficulties were operational and strategic. During the war, it initiated battles aimlessly. Afterwards, it shut its commanders' school on operations. It retains the failed strategic concept of almost sole reliance upon the air force that, for one thing, can't get at all the bunkers, and for another, can't stop a salvo of thousands of missiles. It shuns the use of ground troops, lest its use imply that the war is pervasiveness. Based on those false premises, Israel helps prepare Fatah for war (on Israel), rather than condemn Fatah for having helped to kidnap the Israeli soldier, letting Hamas take over Gaza and turn weapons supplied by the US and Israel against Israel, and not changing its ideology of jihad (Caroline Glick, Op. Cit.). ARAB REACTION TO ISRAEL The IDF estimates that Iran can start producing nuclear weapons in about half a year. It also finds that the Muslim world interprets Israeli withdrawals (and timidity) as indication that it could destroy Israel soon. NATO advised Israel it is on its own, vis-à-vis Iran's nuclear facilities (Arutz-7, 7/11). Israeli goodwill is deadly to its own people. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top ISRAELI SPY RECALLS SECRET MISSION SAVING ETHIOPIAN JEWS Posted by Daily Alert, August 2, 2007. This was written by Dan Williams and it appeared in Reuters-Washington Post. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/ 2007/07/31/AR2007073101741.html JERUSALEM (Reuters) -- While other Israeli spies spent the early 1980s stalking Arab foes through Europe, Gad Shimron was deep in Africa on a secret mission to save lives. Thousands of Ethiopian Jews had fled the Eritrean conflict to neighboring Sudan, only to be stranded in teeming camps. Shimron, then a young Mossad operative, was sent to the Muslim state to find a way of spiriting the refugees away to Israel. The resulting mission, codenamed Brothers, became a modern Zionist legend. For Shimron, it was a high-wire mix of the humanitarian and the hazardous about which, a generation on, he has written a book with rare acquiescence from Israel's censors. "The feeling is that Sudan was one of our finest hours, the enlistment of an entire defense establishment for a truly altruistic purpose," Shimron, now 57, told Reuters in an interview promoting the English edition of Mossad Exodus. "We're the only Westernized country to have brought out Africans in order to liberate, rather than enslave them." Other groups of Africans have been invited to leave their countries in emergencies, but this migration aimed to resettle the Ethiopian Jews in their ancestral homeland. Tens of thousands moved to Israel in Brothers and other, less clandestine operations. Their community in Israel now numbers 100,000, its integration at times hampered by state bureaucracy and allegations of racist discrimination. But when Shimron and a small Mossad team flew to Khartoum in 1981, posing as entrepreneurs from a Swiss travel firm, they had the blessing of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin -- himself a Polish refugee from the Nazi Holocaust. The Mossad had bought a defunct resort up the coast from Port Sudan, which Shimron and his comrades renovated and staffed with locals. It was a front, yet proved to be surprisingly successful, drawing foreign scuba divers and sport fishermen. "Most Mossad operations lose money, but we found ourselves making a small profit. We had to come up with all sorts of excuses to get away for our real work -- parties in Khartoum, stocking up on provisions, that sort of thing," Shimron said. From 1982 to 1984 the Israelis, receiving radio instructions from Tel Aviv, shuttled between the resort and inland areas where they had located 8,000 Ethiopian Jews. Traveling by night over potholed roads 440 km (260 miles) long, ever conscious of the fact that they were in a country deeply hostile to the Jewish state, the Mossad men took hundreds of refugees to a beach rendezvous where they were collected by Israeli naval commandos and ferried to their new national home. "I still remember how they looked in the back of those trucks -- emaciated, dressed in rags, the old and the infants among them clinging to others for support. But they gazed at us with complete trust and they never complained," Shimron said. There were many problems. Shimron's partner was arrested by Sudanese security forces, escaping from their compound through a window. On another occasion, one of Shimron's trucks -- empty at the time -- was pulled over by police. Shimron discovered to his dismay that the truck's previous user had run a checkpoint. "Luckily, the cop in question had a very macho imagination, and claimed to have shot up the truck when it refused to stop. I pointed out the lack of bullet holes in the vehicle and he had to let me go," Shimron said. Such mishaps, and the halting pace of the sea evacuations, persuaded Israel to try something more dramatic. Top Khartoum officials were bribed to look the other way as Israeli cargo planes flew to desert bases, picking up the remaining refugees. Israel was later to bring in another 22,000 Ethiopian Jews in airlifts known as Operation Moses and Operation Solomon. Assimilating the new arrivals from Africa has not been without setbacks. Some complained of being abandoned to a life on the poor fringe of Israeli society. The discovery of a Health Ministry policy of dumping blood donated by Ethiopian immigrants -- for fear of contamination, officials said -- sparked riots. Yet thousands of Ethiopians, many hard put to prove their Jewish descent under the stringent standards set by the Orthodox rabbinate, still await permission to move to Israel. Israeli authorities say that by the end of 2008, all those who are eligible will have made the move. "The Ethiopians I have stayed in touch with have no regrets about 'coming to Zion', despite the difficulties," Shimron said. The Daily Alert is sponsored by Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and prepared by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). To subscribe to their free daily alerts, send an email to daily@www.dailyalert.jcpa.org To Go To Top ARABS ON THE FENCE Posted by Daily Alert, August 2, 2007. This is an Op-Ed piece from yesterday's Jerusalem Post. In Egypt on Tuesday, after meeting with the foreign ministers of six Gulf states, Egypt and Jordan, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told reporters: "There clearly is concern... in the region that the US will somehow withdraw precipitously from Iraq or in some way that is destabilizing to the entire region." Yesterday, Gates and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held meetings in Israel. In addition, after US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad obliquely criticized Saudi Arabia for not acting constructively in Iraq, the Saudis announced that they would attend a regional summit with Israel later this year, and would consider renewing full diplomatic ties with Iraq. The Rice-Gates mission, in other words, is revealing tremendous dissonance between old policies and new realities, along with tiny corrections to reduce the gap. On the one hand, the Sunni-led Arab states are united in their concern over the rise of Iran and are begging the US not to run from Iraq, which they believe would allow Teheran to fill the ensuing vacuum. On the other hand, they are adjusting their policies minimally in an effort to deflect criticism, without fundamentally changing outdated approaches that run counter to their own interests. This is most evident with respect to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Arab states, not the Palestinians per se, we must remember, created the Arab-Israeli conflict. These states played a major role in tipping the scales toward radical Palestinians before Israel's establishment, invaded Israel in 1948, and created the PLO in 1964, when Gaza, Judea and Samaria were held by Egypt and Jordan. For the last 60 years, including during the heyday of the peace process in the mid-1990s, most Arab states have continued to wage diplomatic warfare against Israel, maintaining their trade and diplomatic boycotts. Several months ago, for example, the Arab states broke with the international consensus and fought Israel's inclusion in the International Red Cross, even though they were being asked to simultaneously include Israel and "Palestine" in this purely humanitarian organization. All of this is painfully anachronistic. The new reality is that rejectionism has completely boomeranged against the Arab states. Iran has all but completed a hostile takeover of the anti-Israel camp, which now consists mainly of Teheran's proxies and allies -- Syria, Hizbullah, Hamas and al-Qaida. The supposed intractability of the Arab-Israeli conflict directly serves Iranian ends, and therefore directly threatens the Sunni-led Arab states. The Arab states cannot have it both ways. They want the US to be successful in its confrontation with Iran, but the US is hamstrung and distracted by the war in Iraq and the Arab conflict with Israel. They cannot urge the US to act while barely lifting a finger to remove impediments to action that are largely of their own making and certainly within their power to ameliorate. In addition to helping instead of hindering the US in Iraq, the Saudis and other Arab states can take serious steps to dismantle the monster they created and continue to feed: the Arab-Israeli conflict. Attending a conference would be nice, but it is substance that matters. The key substantive things they can do is to stop their diplomatic warfare against Israel, drop their illegal trade boycotts, combat the rampant anti-Semitism in their countries, and start openly breaking it to the Palestinians that their "right of return" can only be to a future state of Palestine, not to Israel. None of this should be seen as a bridge too far, but rather as basic steps that must be taken. Nothing less is required to start reversing the current negative momentum, which favors Iran, and shift it to where it should be, with the United States. Egypt and other Arab states can complain and cajole about the Iranian threat all they want, but this is meaningless without concrete actions that materially help the US and Europe turn their focus to where it indeed needs to be, on Iran. Bolder action from the US and Europe on Iran would help shift the Arabs in such a constructive direction -- much more than large arms sales -- since the more the US looks like the winning side, the more likely the Arab states are to climb off the fence and join in support. The Arab states, however, should realize that they already have much more to lose from risking an Iranian victory with their timidity than from helping the US out of its current quasi-paralysis. The Daily Alert is sponsored by Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and prepared by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). To subscribe to their free daily alerts, send an email to daily@www.dailyalert.jcpa.org To Go To Top THEY BURNED MY TREES Posted by David HaMeir, August 2, 2007. This article was originally written by Rabbi Meir Kahane in 1989, as a response to the widespread arson of huge areas of Jewish-owned woodland in Israel (which still continues to this very day). However, the overall message that the Rav conveyed in this article is relevant on a far broader scale than just this one aspect of the struggle for the Land of Israel. In fact, as you will see, this article contains a message of constant relevance to us in our current situation. The article appears on a new site featuring articles by Rabbi Meir Kahane. It is at http://www.kahane.hameir.org/ I was depressed yesterday. Very, very sad. For I knew that they had burned my trees. As a child I had saved my money so carefully so that I could buy those trees and know that they were planted. And now they are burned. They must be burned. It is not logical that a million trees would be burned down and none of mine among them. No, they are burned. Every week Iwould come to school and bring a nickel. And with that nickel I would buy a special stamp. A Jewish National Fund stamp. And every week I would paste that stamp on the figure of a tree which was part of a JNF poster, and which had twenty "leaves" on it. Each weeek I would paste my stamp on a leaf and at the end of twenty weeks, I had a tree! My Tree! And I did this for years because I was a good boy -- a good Jewish boy. And I bought many trees. My trees. My Jewish trees. And now they burned them. The Arabs and their intifada. Last year, within the sovereign State of Israel, that independant State which makes me so proud because it does not let anyone push it around -- the Arabs burned 1.15 million trees. Some of my trees had to be among them. And I was sad. But then I saw an advertisement by the Jewish National Fund which made me happy again and made me proud to be a Jew know that the Jewish National Fund does not let anyone push it around. The JNF placed an ad that let the Arabs know that we are not the Jews of old. No one burns our trees. Well, not exactly. What the JNF said was that if the Arabs burn our trees, we will show them: We will plant even more trees than they burned. Anything they can burn, we can plant better. If they burned 1.15 million, we will plant that much and ten million more -- fully 11.5 million! I was so happy. I ran to the bank to convert my money into nickels to buy leaves each week and plant new trees. I was so happy that the JNF had this wonderful idea until I me my neighbour. I never liked him. He is always so cynical and a killjoy. When I told him of the brilliant JNF idea to plant ten times the amount of trees that the Arabs burned, this dour wet-towel said: "And what if they burn those? Will we plant 110 million trees the next time? And why should Jews have to pay again and again for trees that Arabs burn? Why not throw them out of the country? Why do we allow them to stay in the country if we know that they will burn our forests? And why should I be a sucker to help pay the fat salaries of JNF executives who see this as a golden opportunity for a Madison Avenue-type campaign that will keep their salaries going? If the JNF wants money from me, let them demand that the Arabs be thrown out so that I will know that I pay for a Jewish tree once." I never liked my neighbour. He is so cynical. He is so logical. Contact David HaMeir at weekly@hameir.org To Go To Top ISLAMIC EDUCATION FOR ALL UK PLAN WOULD MOVE TOWARD 'RELIGION OF STATE' Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 2, 2007. This is a news item from World Net Daily (http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56973). A new government study is being condemned by the Christian ministry the Barnabas Fund because its proposals would move closer to imposing Islam in the United Kingdom as "a religion of state." Among the proposals from the study being considered for implementation is the provision by universities for Islamic studies for all students. The report was initiated by Bill Rammell, the minister of state for higher education and lifelong learning, officials said. He appointed Ataullah Siddiqui, senior research fellow at the Islamic Foundation, to write it. The Barnabas Fund, in an analysis, said the report "signals another step toward the Islamisation of Britain and its education system" "Should this report be implemented, education will be handed over more and more to Muslims who will train and shape the next generation," the analysis said. The Barnabas Fund, which works primarily with Christians in Muslim-majority environments by channeling money from Christians, through Christians to Christians for projects developed by local bodies of believers, said the appointment of Siddiqui, at the outset, signaled a problem. "It is well known that the Islamic Foundation is an Islamist institute founded by high ranking members of the Pakistani Islamist party, Jama'at-I Islami," the group said. "However, in answer to questions in the House of Commons about possible links between Ataullah Siddiqui and Jama'at-i-Islami, Rammell stated that 'Dr Siddiqui has assured me categorically that he has no links to the Jamaat-e-Islami Party.' ... This reveals that Rammell does not understand how Islamists use dissimulation (taqiyya) to hide their real goals while claiming to be moderate and liberal," the analysis said. Among the other recommendations are that universities should employ Muslim scholars to teach Islamic theology, all universities must employ Muslim chaplains and provide Muslim prayer rooms, Islamic Student Societies should be better recognized and encouraged, and universities should cooperate with Islamic schools and colleges to break down the divisions between British society and the Muslim community. The study also recommended Islamic studies should be linked to job opportunities such as teaching, chaplaincy and Islamic banking, and guidance should be given to all universities on Friday prayers, Ramadan and halal food. The Barnabas Fund said it's simply a demand for a "privileged position for Islam in the universities." "It would seem to aim at transforming Islamic studies in Britain into a Muslim monopoly, a Muslim enclave in which the vast majority of staff and students are Muslim. It is implied that non-Muslim scholars cannot teach Islam because they do not unquestioningly accept its basic premises regarding the revelatory nature and divine authority of Quran and Hadith." If that happens, the teaching faculty soon would be limited to Muslim and Islamist lecturers, the group said. "It is most likely that censorship would develop, affecting choice of staff, teaching methods and acceptable subjects for research and publication," the group said. It's a part of the larger goal, the Barnabas Fund said. "The aim is to expand Islamic domination into all spheres. The whole system of Western academic education must, say the Islamists, be recast and remolded on Islamic lines as it is tainted by Christian and pagan influences." "Implementing these recommendations, as the British government has promised to do, would be likely to narrow the scope of university Islamic studies and make them more intolerant and radical," the critique said. The organization said one of its goals is to inform and enable Christians in the West to respond to the growing challenge of Islam to the church, society and mission. Reports said the government already has pledged several million dollars to universities in order to boost Islamic studies. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top DEMOGRAPHIC THREAT? NONSENSE Posted by Avodah, August 2, 2007. This was written by David Rubin and it appeared in Jerusalem Post. 'Anyone who believes that Israel can maintain its current hold on all the West Bank is living in a dream." These confident words were spoken by embattled yet defiant Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, as he addressed a recent gathering of Jordan Valley farmers. One might think that with the obvious Iranian and Hizbullah threats hanging over Israel's head and the ominous warnings of a senior IDF officer regarding the Hamas buildup in Gaza, Olmert would be placing his focus elsewhere. Nonetheless, the issue of the demographic threat to Israel caused by its presence in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) has returned to the front pages. In order to judge this issue rationally, avoiding the emotional diatribes frequently launched by those on both sides of the issue, it is crucial to examine the facts. As Olmert rightly emphasizes, "Everyone understands that the State of Israel can't exist without a Jewish majority." His convergence/realignment plan for unilateral withdrawal from Judea and Samaria was based specifically on this perception, the problematic reality of a tiny Jewish population living among a large and rapidly rising Palestinian Arab population. Only by relinquishing control of these territories would Israel be able to maintain its Jewish majority. This has been the widely accepted solution to the demographic threat to Israel, having massive support, almost across the political spectrum. The problem, however, is that this view is usually accepted with very little questioning and far less analysis. The demographic argument of those who advocate Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, whether unilateral or negotiated with our peace-loving neighbors, ignores both the steady high birthrates of the Jewish population in Judea and Samaria and the ongoing and increasing emigration of the Arab population from those areas. Furthermore, the media rarely notes that the reports of massive Arab population growth have been deliberately exaggerated to serve Arab/Muslim political interests. By closing our eyes to these simultaneous trends, we are simply supporting Hamas/Fatah propaganda and lies, intended to destroy the Jewish state. YORAM ETTINGER, who headed the Israeli research team in a major demographic study carried out in 2005, has pointed out that Israel is not losing the demographic race and emphasized that "there is no need to retreat from Jewish geography in order to secure Jewish demography." Furthermore, the true demographic threat for Israel is not in Judea and Samaria, but in regions like the Galilee, with its large and growing Arab majority, or in secular Tel Aviv, where large families are unfortunately not the norm. As Prof. Dan Meyerstein, president of Ariel College, has pointed out, the birthrate in Judea and Samaria is "crazily higher than the rest of Israel" -- 4.4 children, as opposed to the national average of 2.8. No, the real demographic threat for Israel lies not in the "West Bank," but within pre-1967 Israel, and it is there that Prime Minister Olmert should be focusing his attention. The optimistic and idealistic Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria don't need the encouragement of government subsidies to have large families, and the many Jews who emigrate from Israel every year are greatly underrepresented in their numbers. In their large and growing population, they express their belief in both the Jewish past and future by settling the historic heartland of Israel, despite the current overwhelming political pressures to do the opposite. Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com To Go To Top OLMERT GREETS RICE WITH FURTHER CONCESSIONS FOR DESPITE DISCOVERY OF PALESTINIAN FRAUD Posted by Avodah, August 2, 2007. This is from the DEBKAfile. World War 1 Italian carbine It has come to light, according to our military sources, that the weapons handed in two weeks ago by 168 Fatah-al Aqsa Brigade terrorists in return for immunity from Israel military pursuit were World War I vintage Italian carbines left behind by Turkish troops when they quit the country in 1917 and Mauser rifles from the 1930s. None of the terrorists surrendered their personal side-arms according to their pledge. The furious demand from Israeli commanders that the government tell the public how it was conned was turned down by prime minister Ehud Olmert and defense minister Ehud Barak. They were deaf to the arguments that the amnestied Palestinian terrorists remain fully armed and able to resume attacks at any time and that Palestinian leaders, who refuse to admit to the fraud, have nothing but contempt for their agreements with Israel. Nonetheless, DEBKAfile's Jerusalem sources reveal that Olmert plans to inform US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice when they meet Wednesday, Aug. 1, of two new concessions for Abbas' Fatah regime. 1. Israel will for the first time permit officers of the Palestinian Badr force, which is part of the Jordanian army, to enter the Was Bank. Each entrant must be personally cleared by President Bush's security coordinator Gen. Keith Dayton. Olmert refused Abbas' request to admit the entire Badr force. 2. Israel will waive special permits for Palestinian officers and men traveling to Egypt and Jordan for military training. DEBKAfile's sources report that the IDF and Shin Bet are against this concession because it denies them the resource for keeping track of the travelers and leaves them free to build contacts with outside terrorist agents. Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com To Go To Top THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION IS FOLLY BASED ON FOLLY Posted by Avodah, August 2, 2007. This was written by Hugh Fitzgerald, who is an American lecturer on politics and language, with particular reference to Islam and the Middle East. This article originally appeared on the JihadWatch.org website on July 28, 2007. Find out about Muslim views on war and peace. Mahmoud Abbas, smarting from Fatah's defeat in Gaza by Hamas, is now cleverly out for a full-court "peace" press. He knows George Bush has only eighteen months left, plus the mess in Iraq, which will remain a mess whatever the American administration now does. And Bush is apparently incapable of welcoming the internecine strife, or at least divisions, sectarian and ethnic, that were made inevitable by the removal of Saddam Hussein's iron grip, and that if allowed to fester, can only divide and demoralize, and thereby weaken, the camp of Islam and Jihad. But Bush and Condoleezza Rice and Co. are desperate for a "victory." And whenever a "victory" is needed, it's Peace Process Time in the Middle East. That's always good for all kinds of sentimentality, exaggerated false hopes, and studied inattention to the dismal facts; including the central fact -- the unavoidable fact, the absolutely critical fact -- of Islam and the impossibility of Arab Muslims ever, ever conceivably accepting the permanence of the infidel (and what's still worse, Jewish) state of Israel. Peace treaties between Muslims and non-Muslims are always truce treaties, to be broken at the earliest opportunity. Yet, American and Israeli leaders refuse to read and find out about Muslim views on war and peace. They pretend that Majid Khadduri and everyone else who has studied the Law of War and Peace in Islam never wrote what they wrote. Has Rice ever read, has the State Department ever circulated, the description by Khadduri of such treaty-making? Has Bush, has Dick Cheney, have any of them read about and grasped the significance of the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyyah that Muhammad made with the Meccans in 628 CE, then broke as soon as he could (in 630 CE), following his own prescription that "war is deception"? Only a fool, a willful ignoramus, at this point, could seriously believe that further concessions by Israel will lead to, or could possibly lead to, a permanent peace. It isn't possible. Only deterrence keeps the peace between Israel and all those who are conducting Jihad against Israel, whether they are waging jihad by qital (combat), by terrorism, by the economic pressure (the money weapon) of boycotts, or by demographic pressure (those huge Arab families, so rapidly and deliberately out-breeding the Jews). It is only darura, that is, the principle of "necessity," that can conceivably keep the peace. Right now it is necessity, darura, that causes Mahmoud Abbas, that corrupt collaborator with Yasser Arafat, to do his best to imitate a mild-mannered casper-milquetoast of an accountant. And a foolish and desperate Ehud Olmert, and a desperate and foolish Bush, for their own personal reasons, wish to arrive at an agreement, any damn agreement. Where are the sensible heads in Israel and America, the people who understand, or can be made to understand, the principles of Muslim treaty-making, and the clear doctrines of Islam on this score? It is a fantastic idea to believe that Israel yielding more territory to the Arabs can do anything at all save whet Arab appetites for more. So many mistakes in Iraq and elsewhere can be attributed to ignorance about the texts, tenets, attitudes and atmospherics of Islam. Now the biggest mistake of all, the one that has been repeatedly made by successive Israeli governments, may be repeated again, unless the informed and the un-swayable come to the fore. Bush will get his little "victory" and Olmert his, but, in fact, these victories will endanger, possibly mortally, the people and state of Israel. The Israelis do not deserve that. They do not deserve a government, or so-called "friends" elsewhere, willing to force upon them a "two-state solution" that makes no sense, and that flies directly in the face of the commands and demands of Islam. Abbas and the Slow Jihadists of Fatah want that infidel aid in the biggest way. They also want, as a first step, as much of the West Bank as they can get. And with such permanently hopeful and uncomprehending naifs as now rule Israel (Olmert at the helm, and his second-in-command Haim Ramon, who was such an enthusiast for the destruction of Israeli villages in Gaza, some built decades before the State of Israel came into existence, and finally, the terminally confused Tzipi Livni), Abbas knows that the next year, when these people are still (unaccountably) in office, and when Bush will be desperate for a "victory," will bring him even more infidel aid. All the Arabs have tacitly agreed to be as outwardly full of sweet reason as they can until the Muslim populations have another few years to be fruitful and multiply all over Western Europe. Oh, they know exactly what they are doing. They are playing for time, stalling for time, in reaction to the shock of discovering that many in the United States, and even in Western Europe, are beginning to wake up. And they are doing so despite the army of Western hirelings and the careful infiltration and takeover of so many "sources of information," such as academic centers and departments devoted ostensibly to the study of Islam and the Middle East. Right now the Saudis, for example, are all reason and light -- see recent issues of Aramco World (always a good indicator). See also the letters campaign from supposedly aw-shucks down-home American-as-apple-pie Muslims. See the barrage of Op/Eds, from Tariq Ramadan's serpentine hiss on up, or down, telling us that "European Islam" or "American Islam" will be so very different from the other kind -- the kind one sees all over the Lands of Islam, and always has seen. Of course, no one ever satisfactorily explains just how this "European Islam" or this "American Islam" will be different from the Islam we have always seen. It will be based on the same immutable texts of Islam, those studied at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, by the Islamic scholars of Saudi Arabia, and by those mullahs and ayatollahs now running the Islamic Republic of Iran. The texts are always the same, whatever the emphasis. They are the same ones read and memorized by Muslims everywhere over the past 1,350 years. They are right now, temporarily, engaged in an act of smiles and wiles. And Mahmoud Abbas is no different. His goal remains, as of course it must remain, the disappearance of an Infidel sovereign state in the midst of Dar Al-Islam. If he has to lie, briefly, to get it, of course he will. And even if, for some reason, he was not meretricious, but had had a conversion on the non-road to Damascus, it would mean nothing. Other Muslims, who do take their Islam seriously, would follow him. The decisions to be taken by the likes of Olmert and Bush are momentous. They may decide whether the Jewish state, built by the Jewish people -- who had to wait 2,000 years to rebuild the Jewish commonwealth -- will live or die. If it dies, they will get no second chance. And the world's Christians, too, will be unlikely to have free access to Jerusalem. The hearts and minds of Muslims will not have been "won," but rather, will swell with an ominous triumphalism that will be dangerous for what of the non-Muslim West remains. The "Two-State Solution" is a folly based on folly. Clearer minds and purer hearts are needed, in the government of Israel, and in the government of the United States. Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com To Go To Top THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SHUK HAS BEGUN Posted by Hebron Jewish Community, August 2, 2007. Aharon Gozlan, Moshe Kastel, Shlomo Slonim and Ya'akov Kastel -- family members of 1929 murder victims Today, the 78th anniversary of the 1929 riots and massacre in Hebron, which left 67 dead and the surviving population expelled from the city, Defense Minister Ehud Barak personally decided to expel two more families from the city, from their homes in the Shalhevet neighborhood (the shuk). The Hebron Community council expresses deep pain and protest at the desecration of the memories of the 1929 victims and the continuation of forced expulsion, this time not by Arabs, rather by Jews, expelling their brothers. According to information received by the community, about 1,000 police, riot squad forces and soldiers will execute the expulsion late Sunday night -- early Monday morning. The community calls on anyone to whom Hebron and Eretz Yisrael are important to, to flock to Hebron as early as this coming Saturday night, following Shabbat, in order to take an active role in the protest and struggle. Most likely Israeli security forces will close all roads leading to Hebron sometime Monday, so it is important to arrive as early as possible. You can contribute directly to The Jewish Community of Hebron, POB10, Kiryat Arba-Hebron 90100, hebron@hebron.org.il, 972-2-9965333 or write to The Hebron Fund, 1760 Ocean Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11230, hebronfund@aol.com To Go To Top THE JEWS' RESPONSIBILITY Posted by William Blesch, August 2, 2007. President Bush and Condoleeza Rice have done it again. They have pushed for a "Two-State Solution" to the Middle East "problem". It seems they, along with the rest of the world have forgotten that there was a virtual civil war amongst the so-called "Palestinians" and Gaza was taken over by the terrorist group Hamas. Fatah, that moderate Arab group that moderately wants to drive Jews into the sea has control in Judea/Samaria, the Biblical heartland of Israel. It seems the Bush Administration has forgotten that the kingdom of Jordan was originally established as the original "Palestinian" State. And now the U.S. State Department has endorsed the Saudi Arabian "peace" plan of 2002 which calls for Israel to retreat to its pre-1967 borders. It is becoming apparent that the U.S. is leaving its claims of friendship for the Jewish nation along the road-side of expediency. It is no longer in vogue to be a supporter of the Jews' right to the land that the Bible -- which both Jews and Christians believe is the inspired Word of God -- claims was given to the descendants not just of Abraham...but of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Ishmael was never part of the equation when it comes to the Land of Israel. Oh! But then the so-called Palestinians do not claim to be descended from Ishmael. They claim to have sprung from the seed of the original inhabitants of Canaan. (Who, by the way were not Philistines either.) Those Canaanites who lived and remained after the Hebrews conquered the area after leaving four-hundred years of slavery in Egypt eventually intermarried with the Hebrews and became a part of the ethnic group that became Israel. The Philistines were interlopers from across the sea...and they were not Semitic peoples. If the truth were told, the descendants of Ishmael are the only true Arabs. The modern day definition of who is an Arab being anyone born and raised speaking Arabic not-withstanding. The so-called "Palestinians", if the truth were told are a mix of Egyptians (Not Arabs) since Egypt existed well before Abraham, and descendants of Babylonian peoples from Iraq. (These peoples are all called Arabs now because the Arab tribes, under the Islamic fervor of Jihad waged war across the region and won. Once Islam was forced on these peoples, Arabic became the dominant language, Arabic culture became the dominant culture, and hence...today these peoples call themselves Arabs.) But, I digress.... As I was saying above, the United States is casting off its former support of Israel. Once again, the U.S. State Department along with the Bush Administration is calling vocally for the dividing of land God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The foolish, head-strong, very unpopular, ultimately unwise leadership of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is threatening Israel's very existence through making "gestures of appeasement...bending on such issues as the so-called "Palestinians" right of return, making no efforts to make certain Jews in Israel are safe from either terror attacks or a possible coming war with Syria, and all the U.S. seems capable of is patting Olmert on the head like the good, whipped dog he is, while taking all the good bones from his dish and giving them to the rabid, slavering maw of the Islamic forces within the Greater Israel area. (Indeed, the U.S. has become an appeaser of evil in the entire Middle East and has begun humbling herself, not to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob...that God that the U.S. founders found it necessary to invoke even upon all currency of the nation...but to Islam, and the demon god Allah. What is the answer for Jews in the United States? Shall we moan and groan to our Congressmen who by and large care nothing for what really happens? Do Jews leave the fate of their brothers and sisters in Israel up to the decisions of the Gentiles? In reality, the future and fate of the Israelis and Jews inside the United States is not truly the responsibility of the Gentiles of any nation. If a Gentile is a Christian or a Noahide, it is their God given responsibility to bless Israel in order that they be blessed. But, it is the responsibility of the Jew to do what God would have the Jew do...and that is to no longer make his home in the lands of exile. It is the responsibility, and right of the Jew in North America, Europe, and all the corners of the world in which the Jew has lived for thousands of years to now come to the home which God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the beginning. It is the Jew's birthright, and one which God has sprung into being in our days. It is the responsibility of Jews outside Israel to make the decision to make the inside of Israel his home. It is then the responsibility of the Jew to seize the gifts God has given and to never give one inch to those who have no Promise from God regarding those gifts. God has given Ishmael his own gifts...the Land of Israel has never been one of them. The gifts God has given the Jew, are not gifts given to any other people (lest people think I am being unfair...consider the continents of the Earth...all the land outside the Land of Israel belongs to the rest of the World...they are gifts given by God to the peoples of the Earth, all Non-Jews...why should they covet Israel?) It is the responsibility of the Jew, like King David, to place all his trust in HaShem, and stand before the Goliaths of the world...all those nations who condemn, who cry out in anger that the Jew has a home, who shove, and bully, and dictate...and say "The borders of the Biblical Israel are our borders once again. You may live anywhere outside these borders...you are welcome as our guests. But this is our Land." And to the Jew's enemies say "The borders of the Biblical Israel are a line in the sand. Do not cross it. You may come that far, but no further." Then, like David, collectively the Jew must take his sling and with five smooth stones stand and defend the beautiful present HaShem has given. Contact William Blesch at dawntreader3@yahoo.com or go to his website at www.willblesch.blogspot.com To Go To Top NEW 'UNIVERSITY' STATUS FOR ARIEL COLLEGE ANGERS EDUCATION MINISTER TAMIR Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 2, 2007. This was written by Haviv Rettig and it appeared yesterday in the Jerusalem Post www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename= JPost/Page/IndexPhoto&cid=1167467744929 The College of Judea and Samaria in Ariel has received temporary university status, upgrading its status from that of a college, the institution announced on Wednesday. The announcement immediately drew an outcry from Education Minister Yuli Tamir, who questioned the legality of the change. The 7,600-strong college said that it received approval to begin an expansion meant to turn it into Israel's sixth university and -- together with the Weizmann Institute and the Technion -- the country's eighth academic research institution. Its new name -- the Ariel University Center in Samaria -- is the result of formal proceedings in the Council for Higher Education of Judea and Samaria (CHE-JS) and approval of the Non-Profit Registrar at the Justice Ministry, according to the institution's executive committee chairman Yigal Cohen-Orgad. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert quickly welcomed the announcement, a Prime Minister's Office spokesperson told The Jerusalem Post, adding that Olmert "was happy about the government decision [in 2005 to expand the college], and thinks the strengthening of the Ariel college strengthens both the settlement blocs and higher education in Israel." Tamir, however, called the announcement "misleading" and said the prime minister had been misinformed. "The announcement misleads the public and is completely opposed to the decisions of the Council for Higher Education and its Planning and Budgeting Committee," read a statement from Tamir. "It is also in opposition to the opinion of the IDF commander in Judea and Samaria, and to that of Justice Ministry officials dealing with the issue." Approval did not come from the Council for Higher Education, but from the Council for Higher Education of Judea and Samaria, over which Tamir has no jurisdiction. Since Israel never legally annexed the West Bank, the state's statutory bodies -- of which the CHE is one -- have no jurisdiction there. For this reason, the CHE-JS was created in 1992, and operates under the authority of the IDF's Central Command. "The education minister is mistaken," a representative of the college told the Post. "The authority given by the Higher Education Law over an academic institution in Ariel belongs to the CHE-JS. Therefore, it's exceedingly strange that the minister should speak this way, and probably comes out of her poor knowledge of the law." The approval of the CHE-JS followed the recommendation of the six-member Altshuler Committee headed by CHE-JS chairman and Ben-Gurion University Prof. Amos Altshuler. Other sources close to the college told the Post that Tamir was "obviously politicizing" a purely academic issue. A college legal adviser added that in any case Tamir had no authority to stop the expansion -- not now nor at any time in the future. Even so, a representative for Tamir said: "The move has to be coordinated with the [CHE's] Planning and Budgeting Committee, and the High Court of Justice has already ruled [in February 2007] that OC Central Command must approve the change. Neither of these have happened." OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Yair Naveh has reportedly ordered an inquiry into the legality of the move. The change approved by the Altshuler Committee is not a permanent one, but a temporary university status that will be sustained for three to five years, during which it will be recognized as a university and could develop its academic programs to the level of a university. At the end of that trial period, college administrators hope, the institution will be granted the status -- and funding -- of a full public university. The law, through the CHE and the CHE-JS, limits the activities of academic institutions, giving licenses to use the word "university" or "college" only after certain criteria are met, including the variety of fields taught and the scope of research conducted at the institution in question, the granting of graduate degrees -- which must be separately approved in their own right -- the presence of appropriate laboratories and libraries, cooperation with foreign academic institutions and proper administrative organs. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top IF IT LOOKS LIKE A DUCK... WHY SUICIDE BOMBERS CAN NEVER BE FREEDOM FIGHTERS Posted by Louis Rene Beres, August 2, 2007. We Jews know a terrorist when we see one. Surely we don't need the elegant refinements of international law to help us distinguish a suicide bomber from a freedom fighter. If it looks like a duck...Nothing could possibly be easier to understand. Still, from a practical standpoint, legal distinctions can often be quite helpful. What is obvious to us about terrorism is certainly not obvious to many others. Even after a monster in human form walks into an Israeli school, mall, or bakery and blows up innocent human beings within range, many in the "civilized" world will somehow find merit in the mayhem. Indeed, more often than we may care to admit, the journalists and pundits as well as ordinary observers will respond in partial or even full defense of the murderer. For them, terrorism has become just another form of revolutionary violence, and revolution, they presume, is always romantic and fundamentally good. Just ask almost any university professor, even in Israel. But terrorism, especially suicide bombing, is never authentic revolution and it is never good. From the standpoint of authoritative international law, suicide bombers can never be considered "freedom fighters." Jurisprudentially, there is simply no cause that can ever warrant the intentional mutilation and murder of civilians. By even the unwritten and merely customary standards of civilized human behavior, these actions are always criminal. Supporters of barbarous Palestinian violence against Israeli citizens always claim that the insurgent Arab force is directed against an "occupation," and thus warrants "any means necessary." In law, this claim is altogether baseless and incorrect. Even where the use of insurgent force may actually be justified -- and this is certainly not the case with Palestinian terrorism -- deliberate attacks upon noncombatants are always illegal. There is no more sacred principle of law and justice than the imperative to protect the innocent. "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." Although repeated again and again, this contrived mantra has absolutely no grounding in law. There do exist very precise and settled legal criteria that distinguish the terrorist from the freedom fighter. According to international law, any insurgent who willfully causes the explosive incineration of men, women and children at lunch or at prayer or at a wedding ceremony or on a bus or at a shopping mall or at a bakery is a terrorist -- period! It is true that certain insurgencies can be judged lawful. Yet, even these insurgencies must conform to the laws of war. The ends can never justify the means. Wherever an insurgent group resorts to unjust means, as in the recent case of a blown-up family bakery in Eilat, its actions are unpardonable. How shall we judge precisely when insurgent force is just or unjust? The determinable standards that must be applied are known in law as just cause and just means. These two standards, and these two standards alone,allow us to differentiate lawful insurgency from terrorism. National liberation movements that fail to meet the test of just means are not protected as legitimate. Leaving aside the unsupportable argument that Palestinian organizations satisfy the legal standards of "national liberation", it is abundantly clear that they do not meet the just means standards of discrimination, proportionality and military necessity. These formal criteria, long applicable under the Laws of War, have been applied to all insurgent organizations by the common Article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and by the two protocols to these Conventions of 1977. They are now directly binding upon all combatants by virtue of both customary and conventional international law, and -- according to article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice -- by "the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations." Under law, the ends can never justify the means. As in the case of war between states, every use of force by insurgents must be judged twice, once with regard to the justness of the objective (the avowed Hamas/PA objective is a Palestinian state built upon the charred ruins of Israel) and once with regard to the justness of the adopted means. A Palestinian organization that deliberately targets civilians with an expressed intent to maximize pain and suffering can certainly never claim to be "freedom fighters." Ironically, as it continues with its present "surge" in Iraq, the Bush Administration still supports the idea of a "Road Map" to peace in the Middle East. Oddly enough, all American and European supporters of a Palestinian State continue to presume that it will somehow be part of a "two-state solution." These smug supporters of Oslo-redux maintain that a 23rd Arab state will simply exist side-by-side with the existing Jewish State. Significantly, this curious presumption is dismissed everywhere in the Arab/Islamic world. Terrorist crimes, as part of a broader category of harms called crimen contra omens (crimes against all), mandate universal cooperation in apprehension and punishment. As punishers of "grave breaches" under international law, all states are expected to search out and prosecute, or extradite, individual terrorist perpetrators. In no circumstances are any states permitted to characterize terrorists as "freedom fighters". This prohibition is especially pertinent for the United States, which incorporates all international law as the "supreme law of the land" at Article 6 of the Constitution, and which was explicitly formed by the Founding Fathers according to the timeless and universal principles of Natural Law. Palestinian terrorists are not "freedom fighters." They are "common enemies of mankind" who exceed all moral and legal authority in their persistently cruel attacks. Until July 7, 2005, British newspapers had always referred to such murderers as "militants," but when the al-Qaeda allies of Islamic Jihad and Hamas launched suicide attacks in London the media in Great Britain abruptly changed their vocabulary. Once the victims were Londoners, the perpetrators quickly became "terrorists." If it looks like a duck.... Although obvious enough to us, the rest of the world often finds it convenient to confuse suicide bombers with freedom fighters. It follows that the unassailable criteria of international law do have their distinctly proper place in distinguishing one from the other, and that the architects of Israeli foreign policy would now do well to understand and to publicize these criteria. Louis Rene Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of many books and articles dealing with terrorism and international law. He is Strategic and Military Affairs columnist for The Jewish Press. This article appeared yesterday in the Jewish Press (http://www.jewishpress.com). www.jewishpress.com/page.do/22698/%3Ci%3E If_It_Looks_Like_A_Duck...%3C%2Fi%3E_Why_Suicide_Bombers_ Can_Never_Be_Freedom_Fighters.html To Go To Top ILLEGAL ALIEN "CONTRIBUTIONS" TO THE U.S. Posted by Betty, August 2, 2007. This is the 2006 (First Quarter) INS/FBI Statistical Report on Undocumented Immigrants CRIME 95 % of Warrants in LOS ANGELES are for ILLEGAL ALIENS 83 % of Warrants for MURDER in Phoenix Arizona are FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS 86 % of Warrants for MURDER in Albuquerque New Mexico are for ILLEGAL ALIENS 75 % of those on the most wanted list in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Albuquerque are ILLEGAL ALIENS 24.9 % OF ALL INMATES in California detention centers are Mexican Nationals here ILLEGALLY 40.1 % of all inmates in Arizona detention centers are Mexican Nationals here ILLEGALLY 29 % (630,000) Convicted ILLEGAL ALIENS felons fill our state and federal prisons at the cost of $1.5 Billion Annually 53 % Plus of all investigated burglaries reported in California, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and Texas are perpertrated by ILLEGAL ALIENS 50 % Plus of all gang members in Los Angeles are ILLEGAL ALIENS 71 % Plus of all apprehended Cars stolden in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California were stolen by ILLEGAL ALIENS or "Transport Coyotes " 47 % of cited / stopped Drivers in California have NO License, NO Insurance, and NO Registration for the vehicle of that 47 %, over 92 % were ILLEGAL ALIENS 63 % of cited / stopped Drivers in Arizona have NO License, NO Insurance, and NO Registration for the vehicle of that 63 %, over 97 % are ILLEGAL ALIENS 66 % of cited / stopped Drivers in New Mexico have NO License, NO Insurance, and NO Registration for the vehicle Of that 66 %, over 98 % were ILLEGAL ALIENS BIRTHS 380,000 Plus "ANCHOR BABIES" were born in the U.S. in 2005 to ILLEGAL ALIEN PARENTS, making 380,000 babies automatically U.S. Citizens 97.2% of all costs incurred from those births were paid for by American taxpayers. 66 % OF all births in California are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal whose births were paid by taxpayers HOUSING 300,000 plus illegal aliens in Los Angeles Country are living in garages Nearly 60 % of all occupants of HUD properties in the United States are illegal aliens. TV & RADIO STATIONS 14 out of 31 TV stations in L.C. are Spanish only16 out of 28 TV stations in Phoenix are Spanish only 15 out of 24 TV stations in Albuquerque are Spanish only 21 radio stations in Los Angeles are Spanish only 17 radio stations in Los Angeles are Spanish only 17 radio stations in Albuquerque are Spanish only SCHOOLS 34% plus of Arizona students in grades 1-12 are illegal aliens and 24% plus are non-English speaking 39% plus of California students in grades 1-12 are illegal aliens and 42% plus are non-English speaking In Los Angeles County, 5.1 million people speak English -- 3.9 million speak Spanish SOCIAL SERVICES 43 % of all Food Stamps issued are to illegal aliens 41 % of all Unemployment Checks in the United States are to illegal aliens 58 % of all Welfare payments in the United States are issued to illegal aliens Less than 2 % of illegal aliens are picking crops but 41 % are on welfare POPULATION Over 70% of the U.S. annual population growth (and over 90% of CA, FL, and NY) results from immigration EMPLOYER PROFITS The estimated profit to U.S. corporations and businesses employing illegal aliens in 2005 was more than 2.36 trillion TAXES 62 % of all "undocumented immigrants" in the U.S. are working for cash and not paying taxes, predominantly illegal aliens are working without a green card The cost of immigration to the American taxpayer in 1997 (last known calculation by Professor Donald Huddle, Rice University) was a NET (after subtracting taxes immigrants pay), $70 Billion per year. [What are the 2006 costs?] The lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) for the average illegal alien is $55,000 cost to the American taxpayer in a 5-year span. You personally pay $11,000 every year to illegal aliens. JOBS (per Center for Immigration Studies -- September 2006): Between 2000 and 2005, 4.1 million immigrant workers arrived in the U.S., accounting for 86% of the net inrease in the total number of employed persons (16 & older), the highest share ever recorded in the U.S. Of the 4.1 million, between 1.4 and 2.7 million are estimated to be illegal aliens. Also, between 2000 and 2005, the number of young (16 to 34) native-born men employed declined by 1.7 million -- at the same time, the number of new male immigrant workers increased by 1.9 million. [Do you still believe the gov't employment rate stats?] ACTION: Please share this data with elected officials, particularly those who spew the PCBS about all the "contributions of illegal aliens to our society" AND "our economy would collapse without them"! However, NONE of this will matter IF our borders are not secured OR Pres. Bush succeeds in abolishing them (via his SPP, NAU, NAFTA Hwy), and illegal alien murders, drug smugglers and terrorists continue to be welcomed into our country Contact Betty at bibleroots@frontiernet.net To Go To Top LIBEL SUIT LEADS TO DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS Posted by Michael Travis, August 2, 2007. This was writen by Gary Shapiro, Staff Reporter of the New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/article/59706 Cambridge University Press has agreed to destroy all unsold copies of a 2006 book by two American authors, "Alms for Jihad," following a libel action brought against it in England, the latest development in what critics say is an effort by Saudis to quash discussion of their alleged role in aiding terrorism. In a letter of apology to a wealthy Saudi businessman, Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz, Cambridge University Press acknowledged that allegations made in the book about his family, businesses, and charities were "entirely and manifestly false." The publisher wrote, "Please accept our sincere apologies for the distress and embarrassment this has caused." The press also published a separate apology on its web site (http://www.cambridge.org/about/apology.htm), and wrote that it would pay substantial damages and contribute to legal costs. A press release by Sheikh Mahfouz's London-based law firm, Kendall Freeman, said Cambridge University Press was also writing to over 200 libraries around the world asking them to withdraw the book from shelves. The total press run was about 1,500 copies. The director of the Middle East Forum, Daniel Pipes, noting that Sheikh Mahfouz has been successful in as many as four prior lawsuits against authors, said that Cambridge University Press's apology had "ominous implications" into researching the financing of terrorism. A professor at Emory University, who won a libel suit in Britain brought against her and Penguin, Deborah Lipstadt, likewise told The New York Sun that this action by Cambridge University Press was a "frightening development." She said that it seemed to her that the Saudis were "systematically, case by case, book by book" challenging anything critical of them or anything that linked them to terrorism. She said that she could not think of any publisher that would now accept a manuscript critical of the Saudis. "This affects not only authors but readers," she said, adding that "ideas are being chased out of the marketplace." The director of the New York-based American Center for Democracy, Rachel Ehrenfeld, said that Cambridge University Press "capitulated" and "didn't even try to fight." Sheikh Mahfouz sued her for her 2003 book "Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed -- and How to Stop It." Rather than contesting the case in Britain, Ms. Ehrenfeld has taken to the American courts. In June, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in her favor, finding that if an American writer is sued for libel in a foreign court, that person can appeal to an American court to request that a British decision not be enforceable here. Libel law in England is more advantageous to the litigant than is American law, which has stronger First Amendment protections. One co-author of "Alms for Jihad," Robert Collins, who is a professor emeritus of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told the Sun that he could not comment until he heard from Cambridge University Press. The other co-author, a former a former State Department employee and intelligence analyst, J. Millard Burr, told the Sun that their book mentioned Sheikh Mahfouz 13 times, and in no place had they labeled him a terrorist. He said that within a week of Cambridge University receiving a letter charging defamation, he and his co-author prepared and sent supporting documents to Cambridge University Press. The authors were not themselves named parties in the suit. In the apology letter, which is dated July 30, the intellectual property director at Cambridge University Press, Kevin Taylor wrote to Sheikh Mahfouz saying the co-authors relied on a so-called "Golden Chain" document that "has been long discredited as a reliable source." Mr. Burr told the Sun he disagreed that such document has been discredited, and said the document was used in a trial in Chicago. The U.S. office of Cambridge University Press was unable to respond by press time. But the Chronicle of Higher Education yesterday quoted Mr. Taylor saying "these were very serious charges" and there had already been at least two other British High Court rulings supporting Sheikh Mahfouz's position on such matters. Another similar case in America involves KinderUSA, a charity that is suing Yale University Press, charging that a book published last year by Michael Levitt called "Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad" (2006) linked the non-profit to support of terrorism. Mr. Burr said of his co-authored book now, "Buy it, if you can find one," since it was now a collector's item. The press release from Sheikh Mahfouz's law firm said he would donate the money from the settlement to the United Nations Children's Fund. Forbes magazine lists the sheikh's fortune at $3.1 billion, much of which derives from a sale of National Commercial Bank to the Saudi government in 2002. Contact Michael Travis at michaelmgr@gmail.com To Go To Top OLMERT APPROVES AMERICAN PLAN FOR BIG NEW PALESTINIAN TOWN ON WEST BANK Posted by Avodah, August 2, 2007. This is from the DEBKAfile To be situated 20 km south of Nablus and 35 km north of Ramallah on the road linking them, the town is planned for 30-40,000 Palestinian inhabitants in the first stage, expanding in the second to 70,000 ten years hence. It will be located in Area B under Israeli security control. Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has kept the project, which represents a major strategic restructure of West Bank geography, under his hat. He did not submit the American plan to the cabinet, or even the security-political ministerial forum, before giving the go-ahead to the visiting US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, Wednesday night, Aug. 1. DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources report that the new town site will encompass the Palestinian villages of Kablan, Ozrin and Odela and straddle Trans-Samaria Highway 505 opposite Tapuach junction. The US planners intend the new town to provide territorial contiguity between Nablus and Ramallah. At the same time, it will cut off Israeli villages in the Jordan Valley from the settlement blocs in Samaria. The new Palestinian urban entity, which our sources reveal Olmert first learned about in his talks with President Bush on June 19, will be the first Arab town to go up in the region in 1,500 years, since the foundation of Ramleh. During his White House visit, Olmert learned that the Americans regard the Palestinian town as a primary project for consolidating Mahmoud Abbas' government. It is designed to provide tens of thousands of jobs for West Bankers, whose unemployment rate has soared to 70 percent since the Palestinian uprising was launched against Israel in 2000. American town planners and architects hired by the US government have prepared initial diagrams after secret visits to the site. During her current tour, Rice showed the plans to the Israeli prime minister, Abbas and Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad. The problem still outstanding is financing. It was hoped that the Saudis would put up part of the initial investment for the foundations. When he brokered the Mecca accord for a Palestinian unity government earlier this year, the monarch pledged $250 million in aid to the Palestinians. However, this hope was dashed, when King Abdullah flatly refused to hear of aid to the Abbas regime in his talks with the US secretary in Jeddah Tuesday. Contact Avodah at avodah15@aol.com To Go To Top TRIAL EXPOSES CLOSE FINANCIAL TIES BETWEEN HOLY LAND FOUNDATION (HLF) AND MARZOOK Posted by Koira, August 2, 2007. FBI Agent Laura Burns' testimony continued Wednesday morning, as prosecutors introduced bank records to expose close financial ties between the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) and HAMAS leader Musa Abu Marzook, (in the news today for denouncing a planned September peace conference between Israelis and Palestinians) as well as the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), and Infocom -- all U.S.-based who acted on behalf of HAMAS. Payments by Marzook to HLF started in 1988 and ended in 1992, a year when Marzook transferred two $100,000 payments to HLF within ten days. Agent Burns testified before the jury that during this time, Marzook was not employed. Lead prosecutor Jim Jacks introduced evidence showing that Marzook also transferred over a one million dollars to UASR, IAP and Infocom, as well as tens of thousands to the defendants Mohammad El Mezain, Shukri Abu Baker, Ghassan Elashi during this same period. HLF itself also paid almost $250,000 to IAP between 1989 and 2001, and over $400,000 to Infocom between 1990 and 2001.*** While HAMAS was not officially designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government until 1995, prosecutors are seeking to establish the longstanding ties between HLF, HAMAS, and its organs inside the U.S.   ***IAP and HLF signed an agreement titled "Annual Ramadan Fundraising Program Agreement" to take place during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. This agreement, occurring between January 10 and February 10, 1997, includes a twenty-five city fundraising tour for HLF conducted by the two groups. HLF agreed to compensate IAP $40,000 for the use of its contacts and branch offices throughout the US. The "Ramadan Agreement" was part of the document discovery in Boim, et. al. v. QLI, et. al., a civil lawsuit in which the family of slain teenager David Boim won a $156 million judgment against various US based HAMAS-linked individuals and organizations, including HLF. Contact Koira at koira@dbmail.com To Go To Top EXTENDING EGYPTIAN PLAN FOR CLEAR ZONE ON GAZA BORDER Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 2, 2007. This comes from Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director of Independent Media Review and Analysis (IMRA). Its website address is http://www.imra.org.il There's good news. The Egyptians are planning to bulldoze a 150 meter clear zone along their border with Gaza in an effort to stop the smuggling into Gaza. That's a start. A small one albeit. But a step in the right direction. And there is even better news. The cost of the current operation is so apparently miniscule (the Associated Press reports payments of compensation of $1,800 for a home and 15 acres) that a budget of $5 million would be enough to compensate everyone within a kilometer of the border at a rate many magnitudes greater (and thus less subject to local resistance). What a bargain. That's chump change as compared to the $80 million US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wants to invest in the "moderate" PA gunmen (aka "security forces"). It is not only a cheap solution. It is probably the only workable one given the Olmert team's refusal to send troops to the retake the Philadelphi Corridor and the innate inability of third parties to effectively monitor and stop the smuggling. Adding a 1,000 meter sterile zone on the Egyptian side would radically change the nature of the tunneling operations. The cost, manpower and equipment needed to run a tunnel spanning such a distance is magnitudes greater than the current tunneling operations, making these projects considerably easier to detect. Would Egypt go for extending their 150 meter project to 1,000 meters? That's not the operative question. The operative question is why Israel isn't suggesting it -- or even offering to bankroll it. Let the Egyptians explain why they are unwilling to implement a project that would facilitate their compliance with their treaty obligations. A project that, if implemented properly, would not only help facilitate regional stability but also improve the lives of Egyptian Rafah residents relocated into new and more spacious accommodations. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top WE LOVE YOU, OUR HOMELAND -- OHAVIM OTACH MOLEDET Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 2, 2007. This article is by Batya Dagan and is called "As I see it from here." This is a translation from the Hebrew. (http://www.shalomla.com/news/News%20Articles/ DispFormtemp.aspx?ID=538) Tsafrir Ronen is a media man and genuine Zionist. He is very tired of the lies and deceit, the myths and fables that are spread in the Arab world by the Arabs about Israel and the Nation of Israel's connection to and ownership of the land. Worse, it is the heritage of the Left in Israel that is playing the same loud and strident music. Tsafrir wants us to relearn the true history of the region, our history. Learn it from the correct and truthful sources not from murderers and pillagers standing above us with axes in their hands attempting to steal our land, Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel). Let us begin with the first enormous lie, Palestine and the Palestinian lie. There was never Palestine or a Palestinian; never! There are Arabs who in search for work came to the region from all corners of the Arab world. They came to work for the Jews; what a terrible disgrace. The Palestinians are not the heirs of the Philistines of Philistine who came from Europe. Are the Arabs the heirs of the Greek seamen? Who besides those who hate Israel or have a veil covering their brains would buy such fable? The Romans, who expelled the Jews living in Israel from their homeland, gave the Land of Israel this contemptible name (Palestine). Their hate for the Jews and for Judaism was so great that they took revenge against them and the name of their country. The Jewish Nation was formed into a nation in the 14th century B.C., two thousand years before Islam appeared on the map to turn the world into the loathsome place it is today. The Jewish Nation inhabited their land until it was exiled. However, some Jewish population always lived in the Land of Israel. In 635 A.C., the Arabs conquered the land of Israel and held it for only twenty-two years. So before we go on, if the years on the land are the determining factor, who was living on the land longer and to whom does the land belong? King David built Jerusalem. Mohamed never polluted the land of Jerusalem with his presence. For 3,000 years, Jerusalem was the capital for the Jewish people. The city was never the capital of the Arabs or Muslims. Even the Jordanians, after occupying the land for nineteen years, never dreamt of making Jerusalem an Arab capital. Jerusalem is mentioned in the bible (the Old Testament) approximately seven hundred times. Is she mentioned in the Koran? Not one time! Jews pray towards Jerusalem. The Muslims pray towards Mecca with their behind towards Jerusalem. Is this the way one treats one's own holy city? At the end of the nineteen century, Jerusalem was inhabited mostly by Jews. There were a very few Arabs living there and a larger number of Christians. End of story. In 1882, during the Turkish rule, the Turks stated that 141,000 Arabs in total were living in the Land of Israel. With the Jewish Aliya, which means ascension, the Jews returned to Israel to dry the swamps and to start building. The Arabs came in search of work that Jews provided. The catastrophe happened in 1922, when the "great" (but in my eyes shamefully insignificant) Winston Churchill robbed the Jews of the land east of the Jordan River. Moreover, he forbade the Jews to live there in their forefathers' historical and biblical land. Here is the place to remind the reader that all the tragedies of the Middle East originate from foolish, anti-Semitic Britain. At present, poor Iraq is paying the price for what the British did during their rule in the region. They put together a country consisting of three groups of people who have no common denominator, who hate each other, and who cannot live together in harmony. Surprisingly, the fascinating story of Mozley Amin, a member of the Arab Defense Committee, written prior to the WW II era, is unknown. He suggested that all the Arabs living in Palestina leave and scatter amongst their brothers in the Arab world (as far as I am concerned, this suggestion is still good, and I will be glad to see it executed), thus leaving more room for the Jews living in the Arab countries to emigrate to Israel. Rather unknown facts: Saudi Arabia was established in 1913 by the British. An ancient country?! Ha! Lebanon was established in 1932 and Syria in 1941 (and this cholera is the proprietor of the Golan Heights? A failure of a country has a claim to the heights?). Jordan established its borders in 1946 and Kuwait in 1961. Wonderful countries with long histories! The malfunctioning Arabs called the State of Israel, established in 1948, "a new county." But if they meant to cancel its legality by referring to it as new, then we might as well chuck most of the Middle East into the Mediterranean Sea. All of it is illegal! The Jews made a mistake by agreeing to the division of their land. But what have they not done to get rid of the British and to become the owners of their homeland? Of course, the seven Arab countries refused to accept the United Nations decision and went to war against Israel but lost. Those who do not know: The one who loses land in a war he started loses that land for good. But this is not the case with us. Here it is all upside down. The Arabs are the parasites of the Zionist/Jewish enterprise. They came to look for work, and they stuck around like owners. Tsafrir asks if the Cubans who fled to Miami are now the owners of Miami. Are the Mexicans, who arrived to the USA illegally, like a thieves in the night seeking work, now entitled to claim rights as US citizens? Is America theirs? Even though Jordan conquered parts of Jerusalem and Judea, no one recognized it as a conqueror besides England (surprise!) and Pakistan. And what happened during the course of WW II? When the Jews knocked on the doors of the British mandate, the British did not allow them into their own land but did allow many Arabs to enter for the purpose of increasing their numbers in the Jewish land. They stopped selling land to the Jews or sold it at terribly expensive, exorbitant prices. They reneged on all agreements. And what about the future? Tsafrir explains that the government must annex more land but not the enemy on it, unless it is not an enemy. They will have to show loyalty in return for full citizenship. One must understand that the Nation of Israel is not a conqueror or occupier of its own land. The Arabs are the occupiers who penetrated the Jewish entity. They must be expelled. To call Jews "occupiers" it is a linguistic crime and sinful twist of the truth. The entire land belongs to us to the very last centimeter; it is the land of Jews. And we will return to Chomesh and even to Gush Katif. All that is ours we left behind because our leader went crazy and lost his mind! He thought that there would be peace and that we would have a country if we give our land to the enemy. Who ever heard of such a thing? Think for a moment, what if Bin Laden promised you peace if you gave him New York?! Jews belong in Judea and in Samaria (Shomron). The Arabs do not belong there. The time has come for them to take a hike because they are not capable living there in peace and in good neighborly harmony. As for the laughable "refugee" situation, there is a fast and successful solution for them. Cancel UNRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration). The moment there is no UNRA there will be no money for the refugees. They will have to go find work. Let them do what all good citizens of the world do in order to eat breakfast. One more point: All the communities in Judea and Samaria make up the security belt of Israel, protecting city dwellers and sun bathers on the beaches. There are hundreds of thousands of Jews living in Judea and Samaria. Someone must remind Olmert that this land is not his land, and he has no right or permission to give a millimeter of it to ANYONE! In general, the time has come for him to do us all a favor and remove his presence, which is endangering the security of the nation. Perhaps he can leave the county all together. In my opinion, he has lost his right to breathe the holy air of the Land of Israel, the land he wants to give away to the enemy in return for what he dares with chutzpa to define as peace. Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top FROM ISRAEL: HOT AIR Posted by Arlene Kushner, August 2, 2007. It's hot air, all right. Foul hot air, but air none the less. Consider all of the following: Abbas, who cannot get his act together and couldn't run a nation if it were handed to him on a silver platter, has told Condoleezza Rice that he is prepared to issue a "declaration of principles" jointly with Olmert. "Declaration of principles." Apparently this is supposed to mean outlining "the contours of a future Palestinian state, " without taking on the hot issues such as final borders and the refugees. So precisely which "contours" are being referred to here? And there's more: Abbas assured Rice that, "We are continuing our efforts to improve the security situation." This is really really hot air. ~~~~~~~~~~ Let me tell you how Abbas is improving the security situation. Remember the roughly 180 Fatah Al Aksa Brigades members to whom we had agreed to grant amnesty (i.e., refrain from pursuing)? They were supposed to sign agreements to renounce terrorism and hand in their weapons. But now it turns out that some 50% of them haven't turned in their guns. (I bet no one reading this is surprised.) The PA had wanted to enlarge the list by another 206 people, but Israel is saying that right now there's nothing doing. And an Al Aksa representative is talking about having no obligation to keep the peace if that list isn't enlarged. You can see where this is going, and it will be all our fault, won't it? ~~~~~~~~~~ Saudi Arabia's much vaunted willingness to attend a Bush-inspired peace conference was actually a tad qualified: Only if it is to discuss matters of substance and not just be a talking shop. Said Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal: "Should we get an invitation to attend the conference we will look at it very closely and very hard." Additionally, the prince said the kingdom was "astounded" by US criticism of its Iraq policies. "Astounded," is it? Astounded perhaps that someone had the nerve to criticize them? ~~~~~~~~~~ Then we might look at a statement put out by Olmert's office, saying that he has paid close attention to the statements of Prince Saud, and that he "shares the same approach, that the International Meeting will be serious and meaningful..." Well, that's not quite what the prince said, was it? But how nice of our prime minister to agree with the Saudi foreign minister. Sort of. ~~~~~~~~~~ I might go on in this vein almost indefinitely. My point, simply, is that a lot appears to be happening, but that not much is. Rice may stand on her head in her efforts to bring a Palestinian state into being, but it does not mean it will happen. (This is my note of hope, even as I think we must continue to oppose her strenuously.) ~~~~~~~~~~ My own vote for the hottest hot air would go to everyone who refers to the PA as moderate. A recent survey has revealed that Palestinians are more radical than Muslims from Kuwait, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco or Lebanon. Amongst these other groups, less then 10% of the population (in some instances a little as 2% or 3%) think that "suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets are often justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies." Among Palestinians, 41% think so. http://imra.org.il/story.php3?id=35515 Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info To Go To Top BUSH SAYS P.A. ARABS WANT PEACE. THEY SAY...; ARAB ETHNIC CLEANSING IN DARFUR; EXPORTING JIHAD TO THE WEST Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 2, 2007. DON'T PUNISH A WHOLE PEOPLE, DO PUNISH A WHOLE PEOPLE When discussing the shutting of the main exchange point of trade between Gaza and Israel, people say, "Don't punish a whole people for what a few do." That means, send the goods in under Hamas fire, and shore up rule by Hamas, which sees to it that rockets blast into Israel. In other words, don't punish a whole people when it is the Arabs, but do punish a whole people when it is the Jews. Israel should explain and if necessary tell off the people who admonish it against what it calls collective punishment. Of course, it isn't what a few Muslims do. Tens of thousands of terrorists are harbored in Gaza. Not only is the regime embarked on an anti-Jewish mission, the whole people is. Punish them as a whole! Take retribution against them and make them leave, so they would have to leave the innocent Israelis alone. SOME DEMOCRATS' FAKE SYMPATHY FOR TROOPS For a couple of years, the need for combat troops in Iraq was met largely by re-deploying the same reservists more than customarily. Now, alleging sympathy for those over-exploited troops, some Democrats in Congress suggest prohibiting them from too many tours of duty. The politicians know that that would prevent the US from carrying on the war. I think that that indirect anti-war measure in the name of troop welfare is dishonest. The honest remedy would be to raise more troops, so we have enough for their missions present and future. Defining the mission is a separate issue. Sabotaging the mission is disgraceful. OBAMA SHOULD DROP OUT Sen. Clinton hedged, but she called candidate Obama na�ve for promising to meet with all the rogue dictators in his first year. Indeed he is; a greater fool there cannot be, assuming he meant it and wasn't just dissembling to induce voters to suppose he had anything new and better to offer. Clinton failed to explain well enough why he was na�ve. Our fanatical enemies are too stooped in evil to resolve problems; they look for ways to engender problems for us. BUSH DIDN'T ALIENATE EUROPEANS Britain reaffirmed its solidarity with the US. Germany refused demands of kidnappers that it withdraw troops from Afghanistan. It is considering sending more, as a healthy response. Bush did try to work with Europe. IS LIBERALISM ENLIGHTENED? Hillel Halkin thinks Shimon Peres better suited to the presidency of Israel than to elected office, because there he cannot do as much harm as when he dragged Israel into "the disaster of Oslo." Peres's Utopian statements about how Jews and Arabs should get along would harm nobody. He would "represent the enlightened Israel that liberal opinion around the world considers him to be a beacon of." (NY Sun, 7/17, Op.-Ed..) Liberalism no longer is enlightened. It favors unions over workers, denounces self-defense, and toadies to Islam. Liberal European opinion likes Peres because that self-hating Jew opposes Jewish nationalism and self-defense. Peres assumes the Arabs are peaceful now. His statements would do harm, because they undermine Israeli resolve and reinforce foreign anti-Zionism. As President, he has the power to pardon Israel's enemies. Since he doesn't work within the law, the safest place to put him into is not the Presidency but a prison. BUSH SAYS P.A. ARABS WANT PEACE. THEY SAY... More than half the residents of the P.A. told pollsters that they want the rocket bombardment of Israeli towns to continue (IMRA, 7/11). That's a vote for war, terrorism, war crime. That's their "vision." Pres. Bush and the other appeasers should have their own eyes examined. ISRAELI PREPARATION FOR WAR By the end of September, the IDF expects to have re-equipped its reserves with better weapons and equipment. By the end of the year, the IDF expects to have re-trained its troops (IMRA, 7/11). But within August or September, Syria is expected to start a war with Israel. Should Israel ask Syria to wait for the end of the year, for the IDF to be ready? RESULT OF ARAB ETHNIC CLEANSING IN DARFUR The government of Sudan has brought 30,000 Arabs from neighboring countries into the villages cleared of non-Arabs by the marauding militia. The newcomers were issued Sudanese citizenship. This is to deter refugees from trying to return to the homes from which they were forced out for no reason (Prof. Steven Plaut, 7/19). But within August or September, Syria is expected to start a war with Israel. Should Israel ask Syria to wait for the end of the year, for the IDF to be ready? EXPORTING JIHAD TO THE WEST S. Arabia exports radical imams to the West. Many don't know the local language and don't care about Western principles of freedom. They come here to set up mosques and madrassas that preach war on the West and incite followers to terrorism. Most Western countries let them enter and stay. France has been expelling some, and with good reason. The US government patronizes those imams. Let the West follow and expand upon France's example (Youssef Ibrahim, NY Sun, 7/19). Moshe Feiglin, erstwhile leader of Likud, wrote that we're losing the war because we don't identify whom we should fight. AL-AHRAM CRITICIZES "MERCHANT OF VENICE" Egypt's daily criticized the producers of an Arabic version and publicity for "The Merchant of Venice." The Egyptian version piggybacks European antisemitism onto differences with Israel and (false) charges about al-Aqsa mosque. This makes the struggle with Israel one against Jews (IMRA, 7/11). Either way, the Arabs are in the wrong, but the struggle always was religious, though the Arabs exploited some Jews who would weaken Israel for them. How unfair that a biased, fictional, personal account from centuries ago is used to smear a whole, contemporary people. If journalists had decency, courage, and imagination, they would note the decades of accusations against Israelis for plotting against the mosque and point out that Israelis never took action against that mosque. The Arabs should be challenged to stop fabricating accusations, and to start being pleased that Israel is tolerant of Islam. For Muslims to be under infidel protection, however, offends their sense of superiority, so they wouldn't acknowledge it. Besides, they make war by propaganda so much, that they rarely admit anything good about their enemies. Islam depicts its enemies as totally evil. They do this to justify evil deeds against those enemies. Al-Ahram's stand is surprising. HOW TO STOP MUSLIM INFILTRATION "You know how Israel's government whines that there is nothing it can do to keep Palestinians (he means Arab Muslims, and not Jews, from what was the Land of Israel, a.k.a. Palestine) infiltrating Israel through the Gaza security fence or even sabotaging it? Well, yesterday the Hamas showed how it can be done. When some Palestinians approached the Kerem Shalom checkpoint to pass into Israel, the Hamas opened fire on the Palestinians with mortars." (Prof. Steven Plaut, 7/11). Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top THE LOOMING HAREDI DISASTER Posted by Isi Leibler, August 1, 2007. There is now a long-overdue recognition: the erosion of Jewish identity in the curriculum of the dominant secular school system is having disastrous repercussions. In their frenetic zeal to promote universalism, secular educators have diluted Jewish heritage to a minimum. Even the Bible, which once occupied a central place in secular Zionist education, has largely disappeared. Combined with growing hedonism and consumerism this has begun to undermine the faith of some youngsters in the sacred values of the nation. This phenomenon manifests itself in the increasing brain drain of young Israelis emigrating to greener pastures. It is also reflected by a number of popular entertainers who shamelessly boast of having evaded the draft. In spite of our minister of education who is besotted with post-modernism, many Israeli leaders are now conscious of the urgent need to restore Jewish and Zionist values in the school system. But regrettably this problem among the secular is now being dwarfed by a more immediate crisis arising from the demographically exploding haredi sector, whose political leverage peaked simultaneously with a failed government willing to virtually sacrifice anything to retain power. This was evidenced in the passage of recent legislation obligating municipalities to provide equal funding to haredi schools, including those affiliated with movements even more extreme than Shas and Aguda, who brazenly exclude obligatory secular core curriculum subjects. Nobody seems unduly concerned that the state is effectively financing the molding of citizens destined for a life of impoverishment and total dependence on welfare. Paradoxically, the children of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Western countries are obliged and do take part in secular core curriculum studies prescribed by their governments. The statistics relating to this problem signal an even more alarming phenomenon. Currently the high haredi birth rates (considered a boon for Israel) have created a situation in which children from haredi families today comprise 22% of all first Israeli first-graders. This is virtually double the proportion which prevailed 10 to 15 years ago. No society in which almost a quarter of its members are destined to become parasitical burdens and impoverish the majority can indefinitely sustain itself. Never in the history of the Jewish people has such a bizarre situation prevailed. In the past, exceptionally gifted Torah scholars were funded by philanthropists to lead a life of learning. But even in the shtetl, where poverty was endemic, religious Jews accepted earning a livelihood as a prerequisite to their well-being and dignity. There is an equally frightening parallel to this. In 1948, in what was subsequently proven to be one of his greatest blunders, David Ben-Gurion agreed with Rabbi Avraham Yeshaye Karelitz -- known as the Chazon Ish -- to exempt all yeshiva students from conscription. At the time only 400 were involved. This year that number -- which obviously includes many who could never be considered serious students -- has mushroomed to well in excess of 50,000 and will continue to rise. The Tal Law was introduced with the laudable objective of reducing haredi draft evasion and encouraging participation in the work force. It failed abysmally. Over a four-year period only about 500 yeshiva students were drafted and minimal numbers opted for legal employment. Yet the government once again buried its head in the sand and without weighing the consequences, extended the law for another five years. But the worst has yet to come. Currently haredim account for 11 percent of draft exemptions. However, unless the system changes, when today's haredi first-graders turn 18, they will comprise nearly a quarter of the entire draft. Should that happen, aside from the additional physical burden on those drafted, the psychological implications for the nation will be devastating. Instead of representing a badge of honor, military service will be regarded as applicable only to hapless freiers or "lower-class people." What is now a marginal but growing phenomenon among secular elites, celebrity draft-dodging, could become infectious and lead to widespread efforts to evade the draft. That would surely be disastrous for the Zionist vision. Who is responsible, and what can be done? Setting aside a miserable political system which encourages politicians to prostitute themselves in order to retain office, the principal responsibility rests with haredi rabbis and heads of yeshivot. Many of them have yet to reconcile themselves with the obligations of living in a Jewish state. There are no genuine halachic grounds to justify draft evasion. Far from promoting pacifism, Judaism is in fact explicit concerning the obligation to support a righteous war. Maimonides proclaims that even a groom at his wedding banquet is obliged to participate in defense of the nation. But the primary reason that haredi rabbis so vehemently oppose the draft is a fear of exposing their followers to the outside world. They even have the gall to proclaim that the role of haredim is to "pray for the nation" -- a none too subtle attempt to rationalize why non-observant Israelis and religious Zionists (who also pray) should fight and die for them. Their attitude is reminiscent of the ultra-Orthodox European rabbis before the Shoah who urged their followers not to leave Europe. Their attitude today could ultimately bring about an historical disaster of equal magnitude. The negative attitude toward earning a livelihood is equally bizarre. Our sages from the time of the Mishna consistently upheld the virtues of labor and maintaining a family livelihood. There is of course a substantial minority of haredim who do earn livelihoods and a number who also serve in the IDF. Some of them initiated efforts to create training centers and colleges for training haredim for employment in the computer and electronics industry. Regrettably, few rabbis encouraged their followers to take advantage of such opportunities. Moderate religious Zionists, who in the past served as bridges to secular Israelis, should assume a leading role in this matter. Their children all serve in the IDF, are highly motivated and renowned for exemplary conduct and contribute -- far out of proportion to their numbers -- in combat units and as officers. In leading the campaign, they can demonstrate that far from conflicting with Halacha, army service and contribution to the defense of the nation is a mitzva. They can relate to the haredi Nahal unit, which has performed admirably and provide reassurances that the IDF will ensure that religious observance is respected. They will avoid the haredi-bashing of bigoted anti-religious parties, like the now-defunct Shinui, and be constructive, even highlighting the positive aspects of haredi life which secular Israelis could emulate. Hopefully they will also gain the support of the hitherto silent haredim who are fully aware of the catastrophe that will inevitably impact on them and the entire nation unless these trends are reversed. Isi Leibler chairs the Diaspora-Israel relations committee of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and is a veteran international Jewish leader. ileibler@netvision.net.il To Go To Top U.S. WRITERS PROTECTED BY FIRST AMENDMENT LEGAL PRECEDENT Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 1, 2007. This comes from the American Center for Democracy. Dr. Ehrenfeld's Case Benefits Other Journalists. Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld is the founding director of the American Center for Democracy (ACD). A research institute, the ACD works to inform decision makers and the public as to the ideological underpinnings, political objectives and modus operandi of terrorists and terrorist sponsoring states. Exposing the sources and methods of terrorists' funding, the ACD seeks to prevent the undermining of the democratic process in Western countries and subversion of liberal efforts in the Muslim and developing world. Contact Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld by phone at 212-399-4246 or by email at ehrenfeld@acdemocracy.org NEW YORK, New York, July 31, 2007 -- The legal precedent established in Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld's case against Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz has already protected two U.S. authors from a British libel lawsuit. Like Ehrenfeld, U.S. journalists J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins wrote on terror financing. Cambridge University Press published their book Alms for Jihad. Although bin Mahfouz sued Cambridge for libel after the precedent in Ehrenfeld's case, he did not threaten or sue Burr and Collins. Burr and Collins were immunized by a ruling in the Ehrenfeld case. On June 8, 2007, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals justices unanimously found that Ehrenfeld's case merits hearing in an U.S. federal court -- and ruled that the case also has implications for all U.S. authors and publishers, whose First Amendment rights are threatened by foreign libel rulings. Thus the ruling established that all U.S. writers and publishers sued in the U.K. for libel can ask U.S. courts to rule the foreign decisions unenforceable here. In the Ehrenfeld case, the Second Circuit panel also ruled against bin Mahfouz on June 27, 2007, unanimously denying his request to reconsider their decision on the case's merit for trial in the U.S. On June 28, the New York Court of Appeals -- the State's highest court, agreed to hear arguments on jurisdiction in the fall of 2007. These rulings have weakened bin Mahfouz' ability to threaten or sue U.S. authors and publishers. Cambridge University Press offered bin Mahfouz a comprehensive apology and substantial damages, according to an agreement read in the U.K. High Court on July 30, 2007, and promised to publish a detailed apology on its website and contribute to bin Mahfouz' legal costs. However, the U.S. authors cannot be challenged in the U.S. for their accurate report. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top "TAFT HARTLEY" IN ISRAEL -- HOW TO DEAL WITH THE GENERAL STRIKE PHENOMENON Posted by Yoram Ettinger, August 1, 2007. This article appeared in YNet News July 31, 2007. The conclusion of the most recent Histadrut -led general strike reflects a severe Israeli disease: Short-term solutions at the expense of long-term national interests. These short-term solutions have not solved labor disputes, which threaten Israel on a daily basis; they have papered-over the disputes, thus fueling numerous strikes, looming ahead. The menace of a general strike has become an Israeli brand, threatening Israel's trade credibility, eroding its governance capabilities and taxing the Jewish State, economically, diplomatically and security-wise. The systematic threat of general strike is a by-product of weak and visionless executive and legislature. A primary challenge facing Israel's Cabinet and Knesset is not the resolution of a specific labor problem, but the formulation of a long-term, systemic, legislative solution, which would impose steep penalties upon violators of agreements, would minimize reckless abuse of the right to strike and would entice genuine labor-management negotiation. Why would labor unions conduct genuine negotiations if general strikes prove to be a most effective tool to achieve their aims?! The frequent use of general strikes, as a key tool in settling labor disputes in a particular sector of Israel's economy, has transformed General Strikes into a form of Economic Terrorism. Just like terrorism, it has been directed deliberately and systematically at the populace, in order to advance the interest of a particular sector. Just like terrorism, General Strikes aim to undermine the confidence of citizens in the capabilities of their government, while injuring people's security, income, freedom of movement, vital government services, tourism, and export and import, which constitute a key source of employment and income. In 1946, the US faced a similar challenge, as a result of a series of general strikes, which highlighted excessive power by labor unions, while severely taxing the US economy and the well-being of the people. Consequently, Congress enacted the "Taft-Hartley Act" (Labor-Management Relations Act), overriding President Truman's veto. The act allows the president to appoint a board of inquiry to investigate labor disputes, whenever the president assesses that a strike would endanger national health or safety. The president can ask the Attorney General to seek a federal court injunction to block or prevent a strike, and the court can order an end to a strike (by issuing a restraining order), or order the parties to the dispute to refrain from a strike, and attempt to settle their differences within an 80-day cooling-off period. "Taft-Hartley" also prohibits secondary strikes, sympathy strikes or boycotts, limiting any strike to a particular employer. It provides the president with the power to maintain order in certain emergency situations, such as a strike which threatens to paralyze an entire industry at the expense of national safety and well being. "Taft-Hartley" created a disincentive to general strikes and an incentive to a genuine negotiation. US presidents have invoked the act 35 times, averting the wrath of 33 general strike work stoppages. For example, in October 2002, President Bush requested that the Federal District Court in San Francisco issue a court order halting the lockout of US sea ports, lest they undermine national security and economic recovery. Twenty-nine ports reverted to normal activity following an 11 day strike. Strong executive and legislature are not driven by short-term solutions to strikes; they initiate legislation, which deter violators of labor-management agreements, encourage genuine negotiation, minimize the need to strike and avert economy-paralyzing general strikes, which terrorize the public at large. They should introduce legislation, which protect the right to strike against a particular employer, but prevent damage to the overall market and the population at large. A prerequisite to the passage of such legislation in Israel would be a dramatic overhaul of Israel's political system, which would highlight the power of the constituents (primarily) and their representatives in the Legislature, constrain the clout of interest groups, demand full accountability (to constituents) by the legislature and by the executive, introduce a US style separation of powers, checks and balances and full independence of the Legislature and would require district-winner-takes-all bicameral elections. Only a revolutionary transformation of the current Israeli political system will facilitate long-term policy formulation, improve governance capabilities, enhance Israel's trade credibility, snatch labor-management relations from its current low ebb, remove the general strike machete from Israel's neck and upgrade substantially the economy, security and global standing of the Jewish State. Ambassador Yoram Ettinger is a consultant on US-Israel relations as well as the Chairman of Special Projects at the Ariel Center for Policy Research. Formerly the Minister for Congressional Affairs to Israel's Embassy in Washington, DC, Ettinger also served as Consul General of Israel to the Southwestern US. He is a former editor of Contemporary Mideast Backgrounder, and is the author of the Jerusalem Cloakroom series of reports. Contact him at yoramtex@netvision.net.il To Go To Top JEWISH JIHAD IS BETTER Posted by Steven Shamrak, August 1, 2007. Many Muslim mullahs, imams and terrorist chiefs have been igniting their followers by the word "Jihad" -- Holy War. Even the leaders of some Muslim countries are not able to resist temptation. Their true intent is a war against everything that is un-Islamic. Any infidel, not just Jews, any non-Islamic country is a target. Even Muslim countries that allow some flexibility, freedom and personal rights that are not inline with hard-core Islamic doctrine are considered as a blasphemous and also are targeted. Sometimes, in order to disguise the actual aggressive nature of Islamic Jihad, Muslim leaders say that they are misunderstood. They say that Jihad has nothing to do with terror and the desire for world domination by Islam; rather it is a call for the inner struggle of an individual Muslim. Little do they know that the concept of "inner struggle" is a deep spiritual idea of Judaism and Jewish spiritual teaching. Every year Jews celebrate the exodus from Egypt. Most Jews celebrate Pesach (Passover) as the freedom Jews had obtained from physical slavery in Egypt, some 3,300 years ago. Not many remember or know that the Passover reminds us that internal freedom of mind and spirit is even more important. Unfortunately, even so many years after the creation of the independent Jewish State, many Jews are still living in inner mental slavery. We are constantly living under the fear of "THEM": "What will they think?" "This is current reality, they will not allow us to..." -- these are the questions that continuously sabotage our efforts to obtain true sovereignty and end endless torture or Arabs' terror that is unleashed on Israel and is artificially fostered by international hypocrisy. We neglect our own right to the unity of Jewish land. Our right to self-determination is forgotten and regularly abused. Our right to live in peace in our own country is non-existent! At the same time many Jews support the fictional people -- 'Palestinians', who were created for one reason only -- to destroy Israel! It is time for the Jewish people to shake off the "Mitzraim" (internal slavery) and declare our own Jihad! This is the fight against self-doubt, self-hate and lack of self-respect. We must unite the Jewish nation, get rid of our enemies and reunite our land! Only when we start to believe in ourselves will the respect from 'THEM' follow. As you can see, Jihad is good when it is properly used. So, let's start a Jewish 'Jihad'. It will be good for us! Steven Shamrak was born in the former Soviet Union (USSR) and participated in the Moscow Zionist "refusenik" movement and currently lives in Melbourne, Australia. He publishes internet editorial letters on the Arab-Israeli conflict. He can be reached by email at StevenShamrak@gmail.com To Go To Top THE SAUDI CONNECTION Posted by Stephen Schwartz, August 1, 2007. ALMOST SIX YEARS after September 11, 2001, and more than four years since the beginning of the U.S.-led intervention in Iraq, the American government and media have begun to admit something every informed and honest Muslim in the world has known all along. That is: the "Sunni insurgency" in Iraq, as well as 9/11 and certain acts of extremist Sunni violence inside Iraq before then, are consequences of the official status of the ultra-fundamentalist Wahhabi sect in Saudi Arabia, Iraq's southern neighbor. Saudi Wahhabi clerics have preached and recruited for terror in Iraq; Saudi money has sustained it; the largest number of those who have carried out suicide bombings north of the Saudi-Iraqi border have been Saudi citizens. Does this sound obvious and familiar? Perhaps to regular readers of The Weekly Standard and The Daily Standard, which have reported frequently on the Saudi connection to terror in the Iraq war since the phenomenon first appeared. But the truth is finally seeping out elsewhere. On Friday, July 27, the Washington Post and the New York Times reported on the links between Saudi Arabia and the Wahhabi terror in Iraq, employing their usual cautious and polite language when dealing with the desert kingdom. The Post ran a Reuters rewrite of the Times reportage, casting the problem in terms of Saudi distrust for the Shia-led Iraqi administration of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and the resulting difficulties facing Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates as they visit the Saudis this week. Seven paragraphs down, the story quoted the Times about the real issue: "the Saudis had offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq and U.S. officials were increasingly concerned about its close Arab ally's 'counterproductive' role in Iraq." "Counterproductive" is a euphemism for Saudi state subsidies to Wahhabi clerics who demand the genocide of Shia Muslims, urge young men to go north and sacrifice themselves to that end, and preach eulogies after their deaths. It is also a diplomatic way to describe the official Saudi policy of ignoring financial contributions by rich Saudi citizens to support Wahhabi terror in Iraq. Others might call such behavior acts of war rather than merely "counterproductive." The Times itself, in an article by Helene Cooper, further noted, "Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow." Administration officials, the paper reported "spoke on the condition of anonymity because they believed that openly criticizing Saudi Arabia would further alienate the Saudi royal family." Then came the bald truth: "the majority of suicide bombers in Iraq are from Saudi Arabia [and] about 40 percent of all foreign fighters are Saudi. Officials said that while most of the foreign fighters came to Iraq to become suicide bombers, others arrived as bomb makers, snipers, logisticians and financiers." Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal has "revealed" information about the Al Rajhi Bank, one of the kingdom's main financiers of Wahhabism, most of which has been available in print for several years. The "fresh" disclosures include the role of the Al Rajhi Bank in facilitating Saudi extremist operations. But the Journal admits that the Al Rajhi name appeared on a document many Westerners were loath to take seriously, the "Golden Chain" roster of al Qaeda donors seized by Bosnian authorities in Sarajevo, and handed over to the U.S. government in 2002. Yet even the Journal seems not to have noticed that the Al Rajhi financial system's Suleiman Abdul Al-Aziz Al Rajhi also created the SAAR Foundation, an object of the federal raid known as GreenQuest, which struck a nest of Islamist entities in Northern Virginia in 2002. Why has there been so little media interest in the role of Saudi money and influence in Iraq and elsewhere? The best explanation is media cooperation with the official U.S. preference for the "quiet, behind-the-scenes influence" that one administration after another has defaulted to in dealing with Saudi problems, and which the Saudis exploit to continue their deceptive ways. Saudis and Iraqis, even with own imperfect media, are much better informed. Here is what they have been reading. * On July 25, the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan reported on 61 Saudis held in Iraqi jails. The inferred charge was terrorism. * The day before, Al-Watan described an uproar over Saudi clerics advocating the destruction of Shia holy sites in Iraq. According to Iraqi sources, the Wahhabis have specifically called for the destruction of the shrines of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, in Karbala, and of Caliph Ali, the prophet's son-in-law, in Najaf--the two most sacred Shia sites. As also reported in Iraqi media, students at the Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, located in Riyadh and known as the "terrorist factory," have organized activist groups and sent members streaming north to join the onslaught on Iraqi Shias. * On July 17, the Grand Mufti or chief Islamic cleric of the Saudi kingdom, Abd al-Aziz Al Ash-Shaykh, cautioned Saudis not to go to Iraq to engage in terror, and said that "those who mislead young Muslims, calling them to jihad, refuse to send their own sons to participate in the same conflict." * On July 16, the Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat quoted the comment of Prince Nayef, the Saudi interior minister who wriggles like an eel on this issue, that Saudis lured to participate in the Iraq terror are "brainwashed teenagers." The same day, the Saudi daily Al-Hayat interviewed U.S. Treasury undersecretary Stuart Levey, who argued that financing terror in Iraq is no different from contributing to al Qaeda elsewhere. * And the day before that, on July 15, the Wahhabi website Al-Sahat posted a list of Saudi terrorists recently killed in Iraq, with names, addresses, and dates and places of their demise. This, too, is merely the beginning of a long inventory of such information reported in the Muslim world. Nobody can say the Saudis, Iraqis, and other Muslims do not know who organizes and supports the Wahhabi terror in Iraq. None of the recent "revelations" should come as a suprise to anyone. In 2002, The Weekly Standard reported on the Al Rajhi financial network and terrorism; in 2003 on the Saudi injection of Wahhabi radicals into Iraq, including Saudi media publicity about their deaths in defense of Saddam Hussein and on Saudi involvement in combat against the U.S.-led coalition at Falluja; in 2004 on general Saudi support for terror in Iraq, and yet more on the Saudi involvement in the fight for Falluja. One question remains: How many more American and Coalition soldiers, as well as innocent Iraqis, will be killed before the Saudis are compelled to end their support for terrorism in Iraq? Stephen Schwartz is a frequent contributor to The Weekly Standard. The original article appeared July 30, 2007 in the Daily Standard http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/ 000/000/013/937fxvva.asp?pg=1 The original article has live links to additional material. To Go To Top FROM ISRAEL: SNAKE IN THE GRASS Posted by Arlene Kushner, August 1, 2007. When it comes to twisting arms, Condoleezza Rice is a world champion, and right now she's on a roll. In Saudi Arabia, at the beginning of her current Middle East tour, she managed, after all, to get the ruling regime to say they would participate in the US-inspired peace conference in the fall. Rice and Secretary of Defense Gates, who is traveling with her, then made a showing at Sharm el-Sheikh for a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Gulf Co-operation Council. At the press conference at the end of the meeting, she participated in a joint communiqu� with Egypt, Jordan and six Persian Gulf states that recognized the Arab initiative as one of the foundations for Middle East peace. Her duplicity is breathtaking. The Arab initiative calls for return to pre-67 borders, return of "refugees" to Israel, and a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. She would gladly sell us down the river if she imagined this would motivate the Arabs to help extricate the US from Iraq. ~~~~~~~~~~ Currently she's here, and meeting with various officials. More arm-twisting. Her goal while in Israel is to get Olmert to make more concessions to "strengthen" Abbas and advance "peace." Or, as one official put it, to move "to the next level," which, we've been told, means that Washington is eager to "expand the range of things discussed" between Olmert and Abbas. Explained an Israeli official, "They're more than testing the waters. The Americans are trying to see how much they can expand the envelope of 'political horizon.'" Not surprisingly, the US government has been very pleased with recent Israeli government indications of a willingness to pull out of major parts of Judea and Samaria. Now it's a question of just how far Olmert will go. ~~~~~~~~~~ I'm waiting, and will wait a very long time, for balanced arm-twisting, with Rice insisting that Abbas has to really dismantle the terrorist infrastructure and stop incitement. ~~~~~~~~~~ Said President Shimon Peres today: "When Condoleezza Rice arrives in the region she brings hope and freshness, this time more than ever." He declared that because of Rice we are now closer to peace with the Palestinians than ever. If this weren't so terribly pathetic, it would be funny. A quintessential "alternate universe" statement that shows total lack of awareness of what's happening on the ground. When Rice arrives in the region, my blood pressure goes up several points. ~~~~~~~~~~ Remember all of the material and data that Hamas seized from Fatah in Gaza when they took over? It was inevitable that this would be used to weaken Fatah, and, while it has taken time, indeed, the process is under way. Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar has just released to the Arabic press evidence of the corruption of the PA under Fatah. There will be more to follow, but the documents released now primarily show bribes, payoffs and similar improper use of funds authorized by Yasser Arafat from 1994 -- 2004. There was $40,000 given to a Fatah official for his son's wedding, artwork worth $66,000 given to someone in Paris, etc. Most damning for the current situation is that fact that some of these "improprieties" took place while Salaam Fayad, currently PA prime minister, was serving as finance minister under Arafat. Fayad is routinely touted as the cleanest of the PA officials. Fatah offered two defenses. First, they claimed that the documents were forged. But Arab journalists who were permitted to exam the documents indicated that they seemed quite legitimate, as, I am quite sure they are. Then a Fatah spokesman charged Hamas with not being able to account for monies it had received. This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, if ever there was one. Even if Hamas is guilty of corruption (and all indications are that Hamas is considerably less corrupt than Fatah), this does not remotely absolve Fatah. What I'm interested in is how the international community will continue to justify support for a Fatah-run PA in the face of such documentation. This, most certainly, is just the beginning. Contact Arlene Kushner at akushner@netvision.net.il and visit her website: www.ArlenefromIsrael.info To Go To Top U.S.-ARAB JOINT STATEMENT BACKS 1949 SUICIDE BORDERS FOR ISRAEL Posted by Lee Caplan, August 1, 2007. This is from Arutz-Sheva (www.IsraelNationalNews.com). (IsraelNN.com) The Bush administration has continued to erode its previous pro-Israel stance and joined in an Arab statement Tuesday night backing the Saudi 2002 Initiative. The plan calls on Israel to hand over all of Judea, Samaria and Gaza to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and to allow the immigration of more than five million Arabs living in other countries. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has announced that the Saudi plan can serve as a basis for negotiations, and the United States previously has stated that Israel should retain large populated areas. However, Tuesday night's statement at Sharm El-Sheikh omits any conditions obstructing the Saudi plan. The statement was made at the conclusion of meeting between Foreign Ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Egypt, Jordan, and the U.S. It states their "commitment to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" on the foundation of United Nations resolutions "and the Arab Peace Initiative, to end the occupation since 1967 and establish a Palestinian state that is viable and contiguous and living in peace and security with all its neighbors." The declaration also states, "Participants denounced all acts of violence and called for law and order under the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza." No specific mention was made of terrorist attacks against Israel. Rice to Arrive Wednesday, Push 'Next Level' of Gestures (IsraelNN.com) United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will arrive in Israel on Wednesday for a 24-hour visit. Rice will ask Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to continue making "gestures" to Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, one U.S. official said, and will tell him to move the gestures "up to the next level" in order to "strengthen the moderates." U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will accompany Rice on her trip. Rice and Gates will arrive from Saudi Arabia, where they met with Egyptian leaders and the Gulf Cooperation Council. Contact Lee Caplan at leescaplan@yahoo.com To Go To Top BUSH ADMINISTRATION WRONG TO SEEK $20 BILLION ARMS SALE TO JIHAD-SUPPORTERS Posted by ZOA, August 1, 2007. Bush Administration won't sell Israel new stealth bomber but wants to sell the Saudis cutting edge weaponry. New York -- The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has described as "deeply mistaken" plans announced by the Bush Administration to conclude a $20 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia on account of continuing Saudi support for Islamists waging jihad against Israel and the West, its lavishing of funds on Islamist institutions disseminating hatred of Jews and other non-Muslims and rewarding suicide bombers who murder Israelis. The arms package is expected to include Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) -- a low-cost guidance kit that converts existing unguided free-fall bombs into accurately guided "smart" weapons. The arms package for Saudi Arabia would also include satellite-guided bombs. Israeli defense establishment officials have warned that the sale of satellite-guided missiles to Saudi Arabia has the potential to constitute a strategic threat to the state of Israel. According to these experts, these advanced weapons would grant Saudi Arabia the capability to accurately fire missiles at strategic sites and installations in southern Israel. A senior Israeli Defense Ministry official has disclosed that "We do not have a way to defend ourselves against this weapon." The official also warned that the Saudi regime could be toppled and the advanced American weaponry fall into the hands of worse extremists. Senior defense officials also said that the JDAM sale to Saudi Arabia was still enough to destabilize the strategic military balance in the Middle East (Jerusalem Post, July 30). Discussions last month in Washington between an Israeli Defense Ministry delegation, led by Defense Ministry Diplomatic-Military Bureau head Amos Gilad and Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan, head of the IDF Planning Directorate, and Pentagon officials to see if the package could be changed left the Israelis dissatisfied. Further, an Israeli request to acquire the F-22 stealth bomber -- a plane that can avoid radar detection -- in order to retain Israel's qualitative edge was also turned down. Another Israeli official said that "We were told that the plane's sale was currently off the table. It does not look like that will change under this administration." The proposed arms package also includes a 25% increase in U.S. military aid, from an annual $2.4 billion to $3 billion a year, guaranteed for 10 years, plus an additional $13 billion for Egypt in the same period. Members of Congress vowed yesterday to oppose any deal to Saudi Arabia on grounds that the kingdom has been unhelpful in Iraq and unreliable at fighting terrorism. King Abdullah has called the U.S. military presence in Iraq an "illegitimate occupation," and the Saudis have been either unable or unwilling to stop suicide bombers who have ended up in Iraq. New York Sun journalist Youssef Ibrahim reports that "Senior American officials expressing 'frustration with the Saudi government' and accusing it of both 'significant efforts to undermine the Iraqi government' and 'obstructing a number of other American foreign policy initiatives.'" Ibrahim also notes that the 1987 founding of the terrorist group Hamas, whose leaders once resided in Saudi Arabia, was overwhelmingly a Saudi-financed project undertaken by Islamic charities, including those of Sulaiman Al-Rajhi, a reclusive Saudi octogenarian with a personal fortune of $12 billion and his own Islamic bank with 500 branches in Saudi Arabia and a few more around the Muslim world. According to the CIA, Mr. Rajhi's organizations have acted as conduits, financiers, and facilitators for a wide variety of Islamic terror groups -- from al-Qaeda to Hamas -- for about 20 years now. Also, half the terrorists killed by the Lebanese army in the ongoing siege at the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp in Lebanon, which began in May, have turned out to be Saudi jihadist fighters, while 40% of foreign terrorists killing Iraqi civilians and American servicemen in Iraq are Saudis (New York Sun, July 30). Additionally, Saudi Arabia also does not permit basic human rights, like freedom of religion. No religion other than Wahhabi Islam is permitted to be practiced, churches and synagogues are forbidden in the kingdom, women are not allowed to drive cars and Jews are excluded from medical and construction projects in the country. Dr. Mordechai Nisan, Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has recently written in a monograph, Saudi Arabia's jihad in the Middle East and the World: Implications for the US and Thoughts for American Policy, that "It is Saudi Arabia, more than Iran or al-Qaeda, which is the primary promoter of global jihad in our times. Israel is a target of relentless Saudi ambitions. A revision of Washington's traditional policy towards Saudi Arabia is the issue to be considered." Under the law, the president is required to formally notify Congress of an impending arms deal, and Congress then has a 30-day window to pass a Joint Resolution of Disapproval. Standing yesterday in front of the Saudi Consulate in New York, Congressmen Anthony Weiner and Jerrold Nadler condemned Saudi Arabia as a sponsor of terrorism unworthy of American military support and that they would introduce legislation to oppose it as soon as Congress is officially notified. Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) also joined Weiner in pledging to introduce a joint resolution of disapproval to block the deals when Congress is formally notified. At least seven other Members of Congress have expressed support for a Joint Resolution of Disapproval (New York Sun, July 30). Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY) has also expressed deep concern about the proposed package (Haaretz, July 30). Congressman Roy Blunt (R-MO) has indicated that there is much concern about the proposed deal and that getting it through Congress will be a challenge for the Administration. Criticism of the proposed Saudi arms deal from legislators: Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY): "The folly of this arms deal is beyond belief. Saudi Arabia is the no. 1 exporter of terrorism in the world today. They are not our friends. We cannot trust how they will use their arms... We don't have to give them high-tech weapons which may be turned against our friends or us" (New York Sun, July 30). Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY): "They are paying the bills for the suicide bombers. It is not an accident that 15 of the 19 suicide attackers here on our soil were Saudis. looking for the moderate Arab state might be akin to looking for the unicorn" (New York Sun, July 30); "The reputation of the Saudis has taken quite a beating since 9/11, and despite the fact that the administration has done everything to portray them as part of the moderate Arab world, members of Congress of both parties are increasingly skeptical" (Washington Post, July 29). "Saudi Arabia should not get an ounce of military support from the U.S until they unequivocally denounce terrorism and take tangible steps to prevent it." (Press release, May 24). Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee: "This is not a sale at Macy's that you go in and buy a bunch of stuff. There are a complex set of relationships behind it, and while it's very desirable to have the Saudis and others recognize that Iran is an existential threat, there is also a degree of responsibility that they have to show on broader U.S. foreign policy interests" (Washington Post, July 29). Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY): "We have grave reservations that this arms sale to Saudi Arabia could allow weapons to slip into terrorist hands" (New York Sun, July 30). ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, "The ZOA opposes this proposed arms package for Saudi Arabia in the strongest terms and praises the efforts being made by Representatives Engel, Lantos, Maloney, Nadler, Weiner and Wexler. The ZOA praises their activism on this issue. Saudi Arabia's record in funding and disseminating Islamist hate ideology worldwide and its support for terrorist groups that murder Israelis is something for which it has never been held to account. At a bare minimum, therefore, it is incumbent upon the United States to withhold advanced technology that would affect the military balance between Israel and the Arab states. While the ZOA strongly supports the increased levels of military aid for Israel proposed in this package, the Saudi arms package is an entirely separate issue that must be judged on its own merits -- and these are completely lacking. "Saudi Arabia has not behaved like a US ally that deserves this level of support and friendship from the United States. We should not forget that Saudi Arabia is not playing its part in fighting regional terrorism, because it continues to disseminate its extreme Wahhabi ideology in mosques around the world. Nor is it promoting Arab-Israeli peace. The Saudi so-called Peace Initiative demands massive Israeli concessions before the Arab states would even take any steps to recognize Israel and live in peace with her. Moreover, Saudi Arabia threatened Israel with war if it failed to agree to the terms of its Initiative, the Saudi Foreign Minister, Saud al-Faisal, even stating that " [If Israel does not agree to the offer, it will be placing its future] in the hands of the lords of war" (Washington Times, March 29). This is clearly not a state fostering peace or fighting terrorism. "To proceed with this sale in effect simply tells the Saudis that we believe that their policies and conduct are satisfactory and that they need make no move towards fulfilling their commitments to America as an ally. In this context, it is worth noting that Saudi Arabia lied in November 2005 to the US in promising to drop its economic boycott of Israel, something which it has actually admitted to have continued since that date. Therefore, proceeding with this sale essentially tells the Saudis that they will not be held accountable for their words and deeds. Moreover, no one has suggested that Saudi Arabia is likely to be attacked by Iran or needs it for its legitimate self-defense. That being the case, why are we selling these weapons to Riyadh? "Selling sophisticated high-tech weaponry to Saudi Arabia will seriously reduce Israel's qualitative military superiority over Arab states that do not accept her existence, which the United States is pledged to uphold and is therefore inconsistent with both American and Israeli interests." The Zionist Organization of America (www.zoa.org), founded in 1897, is the oldest pro-Israel organization in the United States. The ZOA works to strengthen U.S.-Israel relations, educates the American public and Congress about the dangers that Israel faces, and combats anti-Israel bias in the media and on college campuses. Its past presidents have included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Rabbi Dr. Abba Hillel Silver. To Go To Top RICE DOWNPLAYS SAUDI PLANS, BUT WANTS THEM AT CONFERENCE Posted by Gabrielle Goldwater, August 1, 2007. This is from the MidEast News Source -- The Media Line (editor@themedialine.org). Although U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice downplayed the importance of whether or not Saudi Arabia would be at the American Mideast peace summit, there is no escaping the fact that the kingdom's participation is critical for the Bush administration. So important is a Saudi presence, that the administration has been tap dancing over whether it qualifies as a nation that accepts Israel's right to exist -- a stated pre-condition for attendance when plans for the conference were announced. Some pundits have gone so far as to suggest that the $20-billion arms deal for Saudi Arabia and five other Gulf states was at least in part an inducement for attendance at the Bush summit. But knowing how important the conference is to President George W. Bush as he searches for a major foreign policy achievement as his term wanes has given the Saudis serious bargaining chips in the form of their demands concerning the summit. Accepting those demands could place the U.S. in direct opposition to Israel. The Saudis are insisting that the conference agenda include the issues the Israelis prefer to paper over until there is solid achievement in-hand. These include the so-called "right of return" for Arab refugees, the status of Jerusalem, a total removal of Israeli communities in post-1967 territories and the borders of what will constitute a Palestinian state. Some are suggesting that the Saudis not only want these hot topics on the table, but also want some advance indication that their positions will be accepted when all is done. And some in the pro-Israel camp see this as the nightmare scenario: where the Bush administration's interest in a perceived Mideast "success" outweighs its concern for Israel's stated needs and exercises its "right-of-weight" to get its way. Gabrielle Goldwater lives in Switzerland. Contact her at III44@aol.com To Go To Top THERE'S NO BASIS FOR A SUMMIT Posted by Moshe Feiglin, August 1, 2007. Yesterday, the US Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice, on behalf of the Bush Administration, called for a Middle East peace summit using the 2002 Saudi-sponsored Arab "Peace Plan" as a framework. This Saudi plan calls for the Arab League to normalize relations with Israel after the Jewish State retreats to the pre-1967 borders and accepts five million "palestinian refugees". Manhigut Yehudit's position is that giving up these divinely-given lands (which include Judaism's holiest site -- The Temple Mount) is completely unacceptable. Additionally, these concessions will make Israel strategically defenseless and will demographically change Israel into an Arab-majority state. The proposed peace summit is based on a plan that seeks the destruction of Israel. In contrast to Israeli Foreign Minister Tzippy Livni ("Israel can not afford to miss this opportunity"), Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak -- Moshe Feiglin (candidate for Prime Minister of Israel) will end the destructive course that America is proposing. This is one "opportunity" that Israel must miss. Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) is a group of people inside the Likud party who want to see Israel adopt a more Jewish character. Moshe Feiglin, its cofounder, has emphatically said he does not want a theocracy, but he does want a State based on Jewish values. The Manhigut Yehudit website address is http://www.manhigut.org. To learn more about Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) and to read their plan for Israel's future, visit www.jewishisrael.org. Or contact Shmuel Sackett, International Director (516) 330-4922 (cell) To Go To Top ISLAM/ISLAMO FASCISM IS THE PROBLEM OF THE ENTIRE FREE AND THE NOT SO FREE WORLD Posted by Nurit Greenger, August 1, 2007. The soonest the world comes to grip with the idea that Islam is not the problem of Israel or Jews the better off it will be. Islam has been the enemy of the "good" world for decades. Islam will remain the enemy of the future free-moral and cultural world for eternity until it finishes it off. Since its inception the list of those Islam killed and/or chased out of countries is endless. The following groups must now join together and fight the devil: In its conquests by the charb -- the Islam sword -- killed millions Islam was Hitler's best supporter. Fatah, Iran and Syria are the extension of Nazism The Jews were persecuted and then expelled from all 22-Arab countries The Coptic Christians were persecuted by the Muslims and most had to leave Egypt The Armenians: in 1919-to-1922 the Muslim Ata Turk murdered 2,500,000 Armenians The Maronite Christians were persecuted by the Muslims in Lebanon Christians were persecuted by the Muslims in Indonesia The Hindus were persecuted by the Muslims in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan The Indonesian Christians were persecuted by the Muslims The Chechen War in Chechnya was a blood bath involved Muslims The Serbian Christians were persecuted by the Muslims All those Islam had done them harm and injustice must get together now together tell their story and defend the Free World Contact Nurit Greenger by email at 4nuritg@ca.rr.com. Visit her blog: http://ngthinker.typepad.com To Go To Top A WINDOW INTO THE CULTURE OF SHAHADA Posted by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, August 1, 2007. Sheikh Salah Shehadeh A recent article in the Hamas newspaper, commemorating the anniversary of the death of the commander of its suicide terror branch, is a window into the culture of Shahada, martyrdom for Allah. Sheikh Salah Shehadeh, the commander of the Al-Qassam Brigades suicide terror branch of Hamas, was killed by an Israeli air strike five years ago. He is credited with creating the current military infrastructure of the Al-Qassam Brigades, which has killed hundreds of Israelis. Its targets were almost exclusively civilians -- 30 people at the Park Hotel in Netanya at Passover in 2002, 21 young people, mostly teenagers, at the Dolphinarium nightclub in Tel Aviv in 2001 and 15 Israelis at the Sbarro pizza parlor in Jerusalem in 2001, to name just a few of the group's massacres. A July 23rd article marking the anniversary of his death in the official Hamas newspaper, Al-Risalah, reveals the ways in which he organized and encouraged those he sent on suicide missions. The article says that from the moment he was released after 20 years in an Israeli prison, he dedicated his life to organizing the Al-Qassam Brigades and uniting disorganized efforts into a single military-style operation. He encouraged his men to innovate, and as soon as he saw that a particular type of action would serve this movement -- such as the firing of Qassam rockets from Gaza into Israel -- he made this part of his strategy. Sheikh Salah made a point of being with his men at crucial moments, even two days after he was married. When he sent off a suicide bomber, he would sit with his fellow terrorists until it was time for "parting from the Shahada-seekers," and wait for the announcement that the operation had been carried out. As soon as the attack was confirmed, he would personally go to the family of the suicide bomber to inform them of the operation, bless them and say, "Peace has come." Suicide bombing at Park Hotel, Netanya, on Passover night, March 27, 2002: 30 killed, 140 injured, 20 critically The article also shows the way Hamas members see their success in Gaza -- first as a victory against Israel after the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, then as a victory against the Fatah leadership: "Gaza was purified twice. The first time from the occupation... and the second time from the tails of the occupation and its agents." Finally, it emphasizes that the life of a single individual is not as important to the Islamic movement as "values and a way." According to one of Sheikh Salah's colleagues, the fact that the leader educated thousands of budding terrorists makes up for the fact that he wasn't alive to see Hamas's success in Gaza. The following is an excerpt from the article: Headline: On the fifth anniversary of his death as a martyr -- the blood of Salah Shehadeh lit the lights of victory and ability Allah is his goal, the prophet is his leader, the Quran is his law, and the Shahada [martyrdom] is his wish...He has just been released from prison and immediately returned to Jihadist work...he did not rest a moment from developing and improving the military action... Al-Risalah newspaper met with the residents and with the wife of Sheikh Shehadeh and with Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri... The resident Tamer said: "Today we are reaping the fruits that the general commander of Al-Qassam planted when Gaza was purified twice. The first time from the occupation a year and a half ago, and the second time from the tails of the occupation and its agents, who were satisfied to be chess pieces in the hands of the enemy," and said that he would have wanted Sheikh Salah to witness those two events, "but it was enough for him to die as a Shahid [martyr]"... and said: "The Islamic movement is not built on people but on values and on a path," and he clarified that the absence of Sheikh Shehadeh is compensated by the thousands of students who were educated by him... The resident Yamen Abu Hasanayn said that Sheikh Salah was characterized by initiative, responsibility and skepticism... "He organized the military action and developed it in a time when there was heavy pressure on military work by the cursed Oslo leadership." And said: "He encouraged the men to innovate... if he saw that a certain action served the military apparatus he adopted it, as happened with the first Qassam rocket firing... Dr. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas official, said: "...after he was released from prison where he served 20 years, he turned right away to military action, and worked to organize the military chains of the movement in one apparatus and develop it until it reached where it reached, that is 'The Shahid Az Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades'... He built this apparatus in a structured way, so that it could last and get to this level." Al-Risalah turned to Majdah Kneyta, the second wife of Sheikh Salah, whom he married two months before his death as a shahid... Um Abd Al-Rahman [the wife] remembered how Sheikh Salah was assiduous for action for Allah... He refused to stay in place without acting, especially at a time when he was wanted by the occupation... He would go out every day and meet with the men and operate in the territory. "And, for example, when he would part from the Shahada-seekers [martyrdom seekers -- suicide bombers] he would go up to them and stay with the men, and when it was announced that the operation [was done], he would go, himself, to the house of the shahid and inform them [the family] about it and bless them..." Two days after his wedding, he went out to meet the men. She said: "He always made sure to purchase weapons, and if he found a bullet, he would take it and tell them: 'This is a trust, and we need every bullet'... [then his second wife said:] He always persisted in carrying out the deeds of the messenger of Allah [Muhammad]... in every thing, in eating and in drinking and in action." And she said he always persisted in parting from the martyrdom-seekers and blessing the messenger... and would stay up until he got word of the operation, and said: Now 'peace has come.'" -- [Al-Risalah, July 23, 2007] Itamar Marcus is director of PMW -- Palestinian Media Watch -- (http://www.pmw.org.il). PMW is based in Jerusalem. Barbara Crook, a writer and university lecturer based in Ottawa, Canada, is PMW's North American representative. To Go To Top TERRORIST RELEASE ALREADY A FAILURE; SUB-STANDARD ISRAELI POLICE; AL-QAEDA IN GAZA?; ISRAEL TREATS ARABS AS BETTER THAN JEWS Posted by Richard H. Shulman, August 8, 2007. TERRORIST RELEASE ALREADY A FAILURE Fatah terrorists are sign a pledge disavowing terrorism. Right after signing it, one of the leading terrorists was asked if he would continue attacking Israel. He said he would, if Israel gives him a reason to or if it escalates the combat (Aaron Klein, NY Sun, 7/16, p.7). This happened before. Israel should have stopped it. Israelis are debating whether releasing the 250 terrorists would induce those who hold an Israeli prisoner to release him. They also are debating whether it would help Abbas, allegedly a moderate (IMRA, 7/8) but actually an extremist. "Fatah will reportedly offer amnesty to terrorists who join the security forces, offering them a salary and the ability to keep their weapons in return for loyalty to Abbas and Fayyad. The terrorists who join the forces will presumably receive American military training together with the rest of Fatah's armed groups" (Arutz-7, 7/8). Is that the action of a moderate? No Israeli goodwill gesture ever induced a corresponding gesture from the Muslims. They have no goodwill for people they deem evil. Islamist terrorists don't work the way the Israeli government supposes. When the enemy is nice to them, they don't reciprocate. They think the enemy is weak. Certainly the Olmert regime is mentally and morally weak about national security. The release of terrorists demonstrates it. So does the appointment of Ehud Barak as Defense Minister. He runs from the Arabs. Notice that he is issuing the troops sneakers! (One of my rare sarcasms.) By releasing the 250 without getting anything in return, Israel ceded a bargaining chip. I don't approve of lopsided exchanges anyway, but giving enemies something for nothing forfeits even the chance of bribing them with the releases. Terrorists complain that not all were released! Hasn't it occurred to the Olmert regime that the terrorists who are holding the Israeli are rivals to those whom Israel is releasing? Hamas holds the Israeli, and Israel releases Fatah men in the hope they would fight Hamas. Should Hamas be grateful for that, and release the Israeli? Daft! Killing the 250, and threatening to kill 250 a week, might work. I don't know. The pledge to give up terrorism is on the honor system. But the terrorists have no honor, by our standards. They must be laughing at the naivete of any Israelis who take their pledges seriously. The terrorist interviewed intends to return to terrorism. After all, the Muslims always find Israel doing something wrong when it defends itself. When Israel lets adverse conditions build up while restraining itself (needlessly) against Islamic attacks, and mounts a larger offensive, then the unrestrained terrorists complain that Israel is "escalating ISRAELI PROSECUTORS STILL EVADING New allegations of PM Olmert's corruption keep arising, with strong evidence. Police and prosecutors duly investigate. They have quite a dossier on him. But they don't bring charges. He is, after all, a left-winger, same as the Attorney-General. He toes the leftist line on appeasement. The country overwhelmingly finds him an unqualified blunderer, but the political system delayed people's disillusionment with him and fends off their ability to depose him. Over in Israel, they call that system "vibrant democracy." "BLACK SUNDAY" I just saw the 1977 movie, "Black Sunday." It was a gripping drama about a Black September attempt to murder tens of thousands of Americans, to coerce the US into abandoning Israel. The moderator said that political correctness nowadays would not permit a film to pose Palestinian Arabs as such terrorists. You may recall that, to avoid blame, Arafat lied that Black September was not part of his organization, Fatah (now falsely called "moderate"). The movie emphasized the Arab claim that Israel expelled "the Arabs" in 1948, by mentioning it twice and no refutation. Fact is, almost all left on their own. Only a relatively few were expelled. Those mostly lived where they could command key roads or sensitive border areas. The plot involved a score of murders before the planned mass-attack. It hardened my attitude towards the Palestinian Arabs and Muslim terrorists. It is one thing for police to identify themselves to non-terrorists, but I disapprove of police policies of: (1) Identifying themselves, giving terrorists an opportunity to open fire on them; (2) Not letting marksmen shoot at a terrorist holding a hostage, while he continues murdering other people; and (3) Police or Israeli agents taking fatally long to draw and fire. I concluded that Israel should not provide any services to the Palestinian Arabs. Let them flee or perish! They weren't a good people before Arafat, but when he took over P.A. schools and mosques, he indoctrinated them in jihad. Now they are common enemies of mankind. I think that the only wrong Israel did to those Arabs was in imposing Arafat upon them. Some people try to depict the Jewish people as common enemies of mankind, but they are lying or misleading, every day writing new calumnies. One sounded reasonable, until he complained about anti-Jesus writing in the Talmud. My understanding is that the Talmud carefully avoids commenting about Jesus. You can understand that to have done so in Europe would have risked death. Judaism doesn't recognize him as the "messiah." He didn't meet its definition. ARABS & PEACE It's an oxymoron. The Arab states play no part in attempting to get peace in Sudan and Lebanon (IMRA, 7/17). They do play a part in stimulating the wars there. The same e-mail news states that the Arab Gulf States made a half-trillion dollar surplus last year. See what they do with their money! UNO BRIEFLY OUT OF HIBERNATION Controlling Gaza, Hamas allows terrorists to attack the gates to Israel, from which food is shipped into Gaza, and to attack Israel through the gates. In self-defense, Israel has had to bar movement through them. To prevent outright starvation, it opens some up for food trucks. Nevertheless, supplies in Gaza are dwindling. In a rare condemnation of Muslim Arabs, UNRWA demands that Hamas halt the terrorism that is harming its people (IMRA, 7/8). Don't blame Israel for Arab suffering. Meanwhile, Secretary-Gen. Ban warned against a precipitate (really, premature) US withdrawal from Iraq. Pres. Bush is not used to having the Secretary-General agree with him. The UNO is like a bear that occasionally emerges from hibernation briefly, then returns to it. SUB-STANDARD ISRAELI POLICE Two Israeli security guards were convicted. They had been called to protect residents of a village in Judea-Samaria from about 20 Arab men who were approaching them with apparent hostility. The guards were said to have fired warning shots. Implication is that that is what they were charged with. Apparently, in Israel it's a crime for Jews to defend themselves. Police did not follow proper procedure. They did not put a lineup nor check whether the guns had been fired shortly before. They had no explanation (IMRA, 7/9). Israeli guards should be authorized to shoot to kill. This is war. Is it that when the Israeli government is framing Jews, it does not follow standard forensic procedure? The judges mostly are compliant. Forensic standards were not followed in the Rabin assassination, either. ISRAEL PREPARES FOR WAR War looms over Israel. Will Syria fire its many chemical explosives? The Olmert regime is cutting the defense budget, again (IMRA, 7/9). Is it increasing its undertaker budget? AL-QAEDA IN GAZA NOW? So says Abbas. Israel bears some responsibility for allowing it. PM Olmert withdrew the IDF, enabling Hamas to organize and arm, unobstructed. Olmert said it didn't matter what happened there after the withdrawal (IMRA, 7/10), Abbas bears much responsibility. He allowed Hamas to organize and arm, and did not order his P.A. police to help his Fatah against Hamas. If he had reformed his party's corruption, his party might have won the election in the first place. INTELLIGENCE EXPERTS DISAGREE They disagree on whether Iran's hosting of senior al-Qaeda leaders "represents a policy of the regime in Tehran or the rogue actions of Iran's Quds Force, the terrorist support units that report directly to Iran's supreme leader." "Iran and al Qaeda do not have to like one another." "They can hate each other, they can kill each other, their ultimate goals may be against one another, but for the short term Iran can unleash al Qaeda on the US" (Eli Lake, NY Sun, 7/17). The Supreme Leader is the head of the government. He controls the Quds Force. It is not a rogue operation. In any case, what Quds wants, Quds gets. It wouldn't matter if it were a rogue operation. Dictatorships often work with one enemy against another. In Iraq, Iranian agents help terrorists from both sects fight against each other. The theory is that to take over Iraq, Iran first tries to break down its government and society. Then it would pick up the pieces. IRAN ON THE OFFENSIVE Iran was going to wait for Pres. Bush's tenure to expire. Finding his political power spent, Iran has gone on the offensive. It has opened new fronts in Iraq, so it can claim credit as regional leader. It stops foreign ships and captures their sailors. Its nuclear plant, erected in an earthquake region by the builders of the Chernobyl plant, is expected to pollute the water desalinated by Kuwait. The regime's proposed Islamic labor code deprives workers of all rights. Workers oppose the regime, so do women, active in NGOs, and the regular armed forces. Professional associations have emancipated themselves from the regime. The Shiite clergy hate the regime, too, as non-Islamic. Iraq is doing much better -- Shiite and Kurd refugees are returning, though some Sunnis still are leaving, small businesses are arising, and farmers export food to Iran. Iraq has a Constitution and holds free elections (IMRA, 7/10 from Amir Taheri). A US withdrawal would lead to an Islamist reign of terrorism and more imperialism. BUSH'S CURRENT APPROACH TO THE P.A. In 2002, Pres. Bush said that for US support, the P.A. must "embrace democracy, confront corruption, and firmly reject terror." After the Hamas take-over of Gaza, he is lowering his requirements so as to endorse Abbas, who has met none of the 2002 requirements (and done nothing towards meeting them). Despite the Muslims acting in bad faith, Bush asks Israel to take down checkpoints, as if that won't risk its security. (It always increases terrorism). Bush still asks Arab states to recognize Israel, send Cabinet members to visit it, and stop inciting their people to hate Israel. Who thinks the Arabs will do that? He depicts Hamas as "murderers in black masks and summary executions." He contrasts that with Abbas as wanting a peaceful state. "In reality, many Fatah members are themselves 'murderers in black masks' who engage in 'summary executions.'" (NY Sun, 7/17, Ed..) He should withhold aid. They should pay Israel reparations for their aggression. Bush's current approach was predicted. When a President cannot achieve much in broad foreign policy, he tries to attain fame by pressuring Israel to make fatal concessions and by politely urging the Arabs, after years of their not listening before, to end the terrorism that defines them. Then he would pretend to have made peace, anticipating that hostilities would not break out until his successor is in office to get the blame. Pres. Bush has given up on Iraq and Iran, even though the US is succeeding in Iraq. We can thank the Democrats for turning a potential victory in Iraq into an ominous defeat. HAMAS BLOW TO ISRAEL & ITS PEOPLE In an economic blow to Israel, Hamas has banned Israeli produce from Gaza. Calling such shipments a "conspiracy" against Gazans, Hamas fires upon the main crossing point to keep trucks away. Israel has sent trucks of other food through other gates, but the ban will impoverish Gazans' diets (IMRA, 7/10). Israel treats the Arabs better than they treat each other or anybody else. OIL RAISES FOOD PRICES The era of cheap food has ended. Much farmland is being switched from growing food for human consumption to fuel and to feedlots for animals, as poorer people switch to animal protein (IMRA, 7/10) though richer people would be healthier switching to vegetable protein. Governments that subsidize food won't be able to afford to. But they allow development of automobile traffic instead of mass-transit. Mankind screws up. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com To Go To Top   Home Featured Stories Background Information News On The Web