TRANSFER OF ARABS IS THE ONLY SOUND SOLUTION FOR PEACE! Posted by Ruth and Nadia Matar, September 30, 2003.

For many years now, Arafat, through his educational system, has inculcated Arab children with hatred of Jews. He has been extraordinarily successful. Aided and abetted by his daily Arab propaganda network directed both to adults and children, Arafat has effectuated a hatred against Jews that is irremediable. He has innovated suicide bombings of civilians, honoring, even posthumously, the maker of bombs and suicide bombers. Generations of children growing up in the Palestinian Authority school system have had ingrained in them that killing Jews is desirable. This inclination has become an integral part of Arab culture. As a result, 1200 Jews have been killed, and literally many, many thousands maimed for life. Arafat promises those who die in suicide bombings to be instantaneously rewarded. He labels them "heroes." There have been so many children growing up with this orientation, that no "true peace" between Jew and Arab can ever be realistically obtained. That Arabs in the future will live side by side in peace with Jews, does not square with the facts, nor with the daily murder of Jews by Arabs. The Road Map, sponsored by the European Union, the U.N., and Russia, as well as U.S. Secretary of State Powell and President Bush, has not taken reality into consideration. The Road Map is essentially the Saudi Arabian solution to the Mid-East problem, and as such is one sided and basically unfair. Radically new thinking is required in order to have peace in the area. Transfer of Arabs from the Holy Land is, without a doubt, the best solution. Once upon a time, that concept was looked upon with disfavor by "liberals." Whereas, they saw no difficulty in transferring Jews out of their homes in historical Judea and Samaria, as far as Arabs are concerned, that was taboo. Yet the fact remains that the Promised Land was promised by G-d to the Jews only. This fact is recognized even in the Koran. Most Arabs came into the Holy Land from surrounding Arab lands within the last 100 years. Transfer could be made to Jordan where the majority of the population is made up of so-called Palestinian Arabs. Or they can be sent back to many of the Arab lands from which these Arabs originally emigrated to Israel. Fair payment can be made to those Arabs who agree to leave the Holy Land. Arabs who wish to remain, can do so, provided they agree to be a citizen of a Jewish State. The United States and the E.U. would have to play a major role in this enterprise. Both of them have been anyhow pouring substantial monies into the area; their monies could be used more effectively for the purpose of resettling Arabs. Transfer would require the cooperation of many of the surrounding Arab States, something with which Arab governments have heretofore not had a very good track record. However, if the U.S. and the E.U. brought sufficient pressure, that problem could be overcome. What is needed is a determination to bring peace to this important area of the world, and there is nothing more logical and simple than to allow for a vibrant democratic Jewish State living peacefully with its neighbors. Transferring Arabs out of the Holy Land not only complies with G-d's Promise, but will definitely assist in making this desired goal possible. The authors founded Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), a grassroots activist group based in Jerusalem. The group's website address is http://www.womeningreen.org

WILL ISRAEL ATONE? Posted by Beth Goodtree, September 30, 2003.

On Yom Kippur Jews around the world atone for their sins. It is a day for individual prayer, reflection, and forgiveness. But it does not have to be limited to the individual. Israel, meaning both a nation and all Hebrew peoples, is a candidate for atonement too. Over the years I have witnessed a growing phenomenon: that of Jew-bashing by other Jews. For the most part, this form of hatred stems from two sources; curiously, diametrically opposed to each other, yet united by their ignorance and intolerance. Given the climate of the post-9-11 world, both groups feed into a culture that promotes murdering Jews, themselves included. The first group consists of those Jews who hate Israel. Andrew Shapiro, Noam Chomsky, the Sulzbergers, Tom Segev all fall into that category to a greater or lesser degree. And most recently, there is the group of writers who want to prosecute the Israeli military for defending its citizens. While many of these people claim not to hate Israel, their behavior says differently. Adam Shapiro is the Jewish student from Brooklyn who came out in support of genocide bombings and praised Arab terrorism. Noam Chomsky, while saying he has nothing against Israel, writes hateful and frequently inaccurate treatises often quoted by hate groups as examples of why Israel and the Jews must be destroyed. The Sulzbergers are the family that runs the NY Times. When covering Middle East events, they do so with such bias that one might think the victims of terror deserved their fate or that Israel carried out a military offensive without provocation. Meanwhile, Tom Segev is an Israeli historian who travels around the world defending Hamas and other Arab terrorists by comparing these murderers to Menachem Begin and Yitzchak Shamir, thus feeding into global anti-Semitism. And finally, there are the prominent Israeli writers who want Israeli air force commander Dan Halutz to face criminal prosecution for the raid that killed Hamas leader Salah Shehada and 14 others in Gaza City in July. Apparently they are putting the lives of genocidal monsters above that of innocent fellow Jews who would be future victims if not for that raid. Criticizing Israeli policy is one thing, but when that criticism endangers the lives of Jews or fuels anti-Semitic acts, it is nothing less than hatred disguised as free speech or liberal leanings. Aiding and abetting people who would see the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of the Hebrew people, either by word or deed, is akin to assisting in genocide. Such behavior begs for atonement. Then there are the Jews who criticize other Jews for their lack of "appropriate" observance. One's observance or lack thereof is between the individual and HaShem. When one Jew publicly criticizes another Jew about their form of Judaism, they only assist the anti-Semites by giving them fodder for their hatred. By their criticism, they are contributing to the downfall of all Hebrew peoples. The next candidate for atonement is Israel as a nation, or rather as a government. This past year has seen the Israeli government commit not mere blunders, but actual transgressions against the very people it is obliged to protect. Most recently, the Israeli government decided to release hundreds of dangerous criminals despite many warnings about such a move. Since their release, there have been a number of genocidal attacks on Israeli citizens perpetrated by the recently freed prisoners. The latest was a home invasion last week where a 7-month old baby and its father were murdered. All those government officials, especially Ariel Sharon, are complicit in all these deaths, for they were not merely foreseeable, but predictable. No matter what external pressures are put on the Israeli government, the safety and welfare of her citizens must be paramount or the government is working with the enemy by default. Also, the Israeli government recently lessened an assault designed to eliminate a chief terrorist with a history of planning and executing genocidal attacks. The reason? Because some of the terrorist's friends and family were in the vicinity. This terrorist then launched a series of attacks that killed scores of Jewish families. When the Israeli government is more concerned with an enemy's relatives than it is with its own citizens, the Israeli government has become the enemy of its own people. It needs to not merely atone, but to change its behavior. Meanwhile, aside from being a governing body for the citizens living there, the Israeli government is unique in that it is the representative of all Hebrew people and the guardian of all Jewish heritage, past, present and future. This puts an exceptional burden on the Israeli leaders, but one that they must be willing to bear lest they betray all Judaism. The current government seems to be oblivious to this responsibility. By banning Jews from their holy sites, allowing Muslims to destroy any evidence of a Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, and negotiating away land and historical sites that belong to the Hebrew people, the Israeli government has shirked its responsibilities and betrayed the people it is supposed to represent. So will Israel, as a people and a country, atone? I pray that it will and thus be written in the Book of Life for all eternity.

TREASON DU JOUR Posted by Steven Plaut, September 30, 2003.

"Yesh Gvul" (means "There is a Limit/Border") is an Israeli treasonous leftist organization, whose raison d'etre is the organizing of mutiny and insubordination in the military, urging soldiers to refuse to serve and follow orders. It is hailed as a great movement of patriotism and heroism by the very same leftists who foam at the mouth if some settlers try to erect a "settlement" on some empty piece of state-owned land some place in Samaria without the government's permission. THOSE settlers are criminals, violating the law in an anti-democratic manner, and should be tossed in the klink. Anyway, Yesh Gvul, joined by several members of Israel's Literary Left (Sami Michael, Amos Keinan, Natan Zach), have filed a petition with the Attorney General to open an investigation into the assassination of Hamas Mega-Terrorhoid Salah Shahada in July 2002. As you recall, Israel leveled the Gaza building in which the nazi was cowering, and along with him there died in the raid his own children plus some innocent civilians, several of them children. As a result, Isdrael has since been using toy mini-bombs to off the terrorists lest the boom upset the world's media, minibombs that fail to do the job. Naturally, the Israeli Left did not adopt the position that people who do not like Palestinian children getting killed should insist that Islamofascist terrorists not hide amongst them, or that Palestinians stop engaging in mass murder of Jews so that Israel will not have to hunt them down. Instead, the Israeli Leftists have been whining that this assassination represented some sort of human rights atrocity by Israel. Unlike the US whacking the two sons of Saddam. The Leftists would rather that Israel take no military actions at all against the terrorists and simply sit back and allow them to mass murder Israeli children riding buses. Gosh, you think maybe the PLO, which sits back and protects the rights of all terrorists to take cover among civilians, might be the REAL culprit responsible for the deaths of any Palestinian civilians? That is an imponderable, screams the Left. The Left's "logic" is very simple. The only way they wish for Israel to fight terrorism is through complete capitulation to the demands of the terrorists. The Yesh Gvul traitors and their literary fellow travelers are threatening Israel that if the Attorney General does NOT investigate the "crime", they will petition international bodies like the World Court in the Hague and demand that THEY indict Israel. (Alas, Belgium seems to have abandoned its amusement activity of putting the world's politicians on trial in its courts.) The Israeli Attorney General is himself a leftist, and, while he is not quite ready to accede to the demands of the Yesh Gvul traitors, he did volunteer that he himself opposed the assassination of Shahada. Which is just what we all need to know - the personal political biases of the Attorney General himself whose job is to enforce the law and not set Israeli defense policy. Speaking of calls for investigations, how about if we all call on the Attorney General to investigate who exactly is funneling all that cash into the coffers of the Yesh Gvul Treason Organization! The Israeli Minister of Defense declares that the actions of the 27 air force officers who have declared mutiny and insubordination because they oppose Israel's "occupation" are encouraging the terror organizations. Marwan Barghouti, the PLO Uber-terrorist now on trial in Israel for mass murder, demands the court refuse to continue with his trial and instead follow the example being set by the air force officers for peace. But I think he is missing the point. Of course they are encouraging the terror organizations. But that is because the entire Israeli Left is part of an Axis of Evil that unites Jewish leftism with Islamist fascism.

ARAFAT AND 13 PA LEADERS SPONSOR SOCCER TOURNAMENT HONORING TERRORISTS Posted by by Itamar Marcusm, September 30, 2003.

A major soccer tournament glorifying arch terrorists is underway in the Palestinian Authority [PA]. While terrorist glorification is not unusual in the PA, this tournament is striking because it is sponsored very prominently by the heads of the PA, including Yasser Arafat; Saib Arikat; Gibril Rajoub; the Minister of Sport - Abdul Fatach Hamal; the Mufti of the PA Ikrama Sabri; and 10 other senior PA officials. Each of the 24 soccer teams is named for a terrorist or other Shahid [the term of supreme honor designating "Martyrs" - those who died in the combat with Israel] including some of the most infamous murderers. Among those honored are Yechya Ayash, the first Hamas bomb-belt engineer, who initiated the suicide bombings; Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist woman who hijacked a bus killing 36 in 1978; Abu Ali Mustafa, the Head of the Terrorist Popular Front; Az Adin Al Kassam, the name of the suicide bombers' wing of the Hamas; Raid Carmi, Commander of the Suicide Bomber wing of Fatah, the Al Aqsa Brigades, in Tul Karem; Hassan Salame, Black September terror group, involved in the Olympic massacre of Israeli athletes; Abu Jihad, PLO leader; Thabit Thabit, Head of the Tanzim terror group in Tul Karem; Jamal Mansour of Hamas; Salah Khalif, PLO leader; Salah Drowza of Hamas; Kamal Adwan PLO leader. [Al Ayyam, Sept. 21, 2003] Presenting terrorists as heroes and role models is common practice in the PA. In January, the Palestine Media Watch (PMW) reported on the soccer tournament for 12-year-old boys named after Abd Al Baset Odeh, the suicide terrorist who killed 30 at the Passover Seder in April 2002. As stated, this event is significant as Yasser Arafat and 13 PA leaders have prominently put their names behind this. In addition, it is at the very time the PA is actively courting world leaders to continue promoting the Road Map, based on the premise that the PA has reformed and now rejects terrorism. Itamar Marcus is the director of PMW. Its website's address is http://www.pmw.org.il

EVERY P.A. LEADER IS A "MODERATE" UNTIL PROVEN OTHERWISE Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 30, 2003.

The State Dept. is trying to get a P.A. state established. The P.A. has drafted a constitution, however, that submits to Islamic law that renders non-Muslims second-class citizens subject to a special tax, and that calls for stoning adulterers and amputating limbs of thieves (except for Arafat and cronies, of course). The State Dept. neither objects nor comments (Prof. Howard L. Adelson, Jewish Press, 9/19, p.54). The Road Map has failed, but Pres. Bush, running for re-election, won't admit it. Unable to uphold the fiction of Arafat as a moderate, and then of Abu Mazen as a moderate, now the US is pretending that Qurei is a moderate. Having claimed that the "moderate" Mazen couldn't combat terrorism unless Israel made concessions that foster terrorism, the US now claims that the "moderate" Qurei can't combat terrorism unless Israel makes concessions that foster it. After the ceasefire turned out to be phony and a ruse for rearming the P.A. terrorists under Mazen, Qurei now demands that Israel submit to such a ceasefire or he won't take the job of Prime Minister. Pres. Bush goes along with that, to give the appearance of making progress. Bush is a captive of the Road Map. Israeli leaders think that they must go along with what the US wants. They anticipate praise for doing so. PM Netanyahu expected it when he gave away most of Hebron, but found himself facing new US demands, once Hebron was mostly off the table. He was paid the wages of appeasement. The basic problem is that Muslim Arabs consider themselves never to have lost a war. They never surrender. They just make an armistice, letting their enemies call them treaties, until the balance of power shifts from the enemy to them. Thus peace cannot be made with the Arabs (Emanuel Winston, Jewish Press, 9/19, M1). Victory over the Arabs must be decisive and rougher than what modern people deem palatable.

SAVE NO'AM FEDERMAN's LIFE! Posted by Eallan Hirshfeld, September 30, 2003.

[Noam Federman is a right-wing activist and former Kach spokesman, who has been acquited 35 times in the 14 years the police have accused him of various alleged underground 'actions' against Arabs. He was again jailed in May 2002, accused of being the 'mastermind' behind a new 'Jewish terrorist underground, which was accused of planting an explosive near an Arab school in eastern Jerusalem.' However, the indictment against him only accused him of supplying weapons to one of the other suspects. A court ruling remanded Federman to jail without bail. He appealed and in June 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that there was little proof of his participation in the 'terrorist activities' and he could not be considered dangerous to the public. He was then put under house arrest until recently. Now, he has again been arrested and placed under a 3-month administrative detention. Yesterday, Federman called on the state to charge him with a crime if there is evidence against him or to release him. A few days ago, his wife, Elisheva, told Arutz-7's Yosef Zalmanson, "They all know that he is not guilty of anything, and the proof is that they've had plenty of opportunities to convict him and haven't been able to do so. They know that if they brought him to trial, nothing would stick. He just finished 18 months of house arrest; do they really think he was carrying out terror from his home?" ] Action must be taken before a wonderful Jew is murdered before our very eyes. Yes murdered by our own right wing/Shabak Government. They couldn't pin any thing on him so they placed him under house arrest for a year (try it for a week!). When that did not work, erev Rosh Hashana they arrested him and our Defence Minister (nothing else to do) signed a 6 month administrative detention order! Now where have they placed Noam Federman? In the Ashmort lock up (Beit Lid junction). This place is reserved for security prisoners, i.e., the most dangerous Arab murderers. There are no prayer facilities etc etc. Before they get some one to do him any harm please contact any one you know to have him transfered to a prison with a Torani section. This is a matter of Pikuach Nefesh, HELP! What is all the fuss about? He wrote a booklet called "Know your Rights." Worthwhile reading if you live in Israel.

A TALE OF TWO LEADERS Posted by Yashiko Sagamori, September 29, 2003.

Even the very worst of our enemies possess some redeeming qualities. Hitler, for instance, made the trains run on time. In a more recent example, the two sons of Saddam Hussein who should've been captured, given a fair trial and hanged for their crimes or, possibly, spared in exchange for some important information, chose to take their destiny into their own hands and died fighting a battle they knew they could not win. I can offer you at least two reasons why good qualities of our adversaries should be acknowledged. First, we are supposed to be the good guys, and good guys are supposed to be fair. Second, good qualities make our enemy stronger, so we should be aware of them to better defend ourselves. That's why, when I heard President Bush call Chairman Arafat a "failed leader," I began comparing the two leaders and their accomplishments. Yasir Arafat became a leader of a terrorist organization at the time George W. Bush was still a teenager. In 1967, after Egypt, Syria and Jordan suffered their devastating defeat in the Six Day War, they decided to delegate the task of destroying Israel to Arafat. With their support, Arafat expanded his organization by co-opting the entire Arab population of Gaza, Judea and Samaria into the PLO, instantly turning it into the biggest terrorist organization that had ever existed. Since then, he has been carefully and ruthlessly weeding out every hint of opposition, which eventually resulted in practically unanimous support for him among his subjects. He has ruled for murder and by murder, but the political consequences of his murders were calculated with subtlety so meticulous that even the bloody trail the man left wherever he went could not impede his most important achievement. His most important achievement to date is the successful promotion of his terrorist organization as a nation that has been deprived of its ancestral land by brutal Zionist invaders. He patiently and skillfully maneuvered international public opinion into accepting him as a legitimate leader of that mythical nation. He even led Israel, his main enemy and intended victim, into agreeing, in principle, to grant him statehood on parts of Israel's land. The astonishing scale of his success allowed the New York Times to describe the Israeli security fence in an article published on September 17, as a "barrier dividing what [Israel] considers its land from Palestinian territory." That example demonstrates how easy it is for Arafat's followers, including the aforementioned newspaper, to cross the line dividing the truth from what our enemies would like us to believe. What makes this accomplishment an even greater feat is the fact that most people he had to deal with - US Presidents and Secretaries of State, Israeli PM's and Foreign Ministers, European leaders, all kinds of misguided human rights defenders, the assorted UN mob, and so on - were born and educated long before the myth of the "Palestinian people" was invented. They all knew the truth, but it didn't stop them from following Arafat's lead. What is especially remarkable about his leadership style is that he has never lied about his genocidal intentions. The PA Charter spells out its purpose - the destruction of Israel - in most explicit terms. During the Oslo years, Arafat was subjected to tremendous pressure by President Clinton to amend the Charter. He never did. He never caved in. In fact, he has never caved in during his entire career. When Clinton, in pursuit of his ignoble Nobel Prize dream, pushed him into a corner, Arafat issued a written promise to amend the offending clause. But the PA legislature, which is the sole power that can amend the Charter, has never convened to consider the measure. Arafat has been routinely issuing statements in Arabic that contradicted promises he had made earlier in English. Many times he was caught; many times he was pressured to repeat in Arabic what he had said in English. He always managed to convey his true meaning to his mob, as if the victory sign that he so readily flashes to crowds and cameras were an Arabic equivalent of crossed fingers. Never has Arafat or his PA done anything that might have been interpreted as a sign that he was negotiating in good faith, that peaceful coexistence with Israel might be acceptable to him under any conditions whatsoever. What passed for negotiations with him was nothing but explicit blackmail: give us whatever we happen to be demanding at the moment or we will continue killing you. And the killings always continued, whether his demands were met or not. Come to think of it, how could it be otherwise? What could the "Palestinians" possibly offer? What do they have that might be of any value to Israel - or anyone else? Israel has a single demand: stop the war. None of Israel's many conciliatory gestures have ever been reciprocated. None whatsoever. And despite that, the international community has continued providing Arafat and his terrorist organization with political and financial support. In addition to being one of the worst mass murderers in modern history, Arafat proved himself an extremely successful thief as well. It is a well known although little advertised fact that he has embezzled several billion dollars from the moneys sent from all over the world to support his destitute subjects. And here is another sign of his great leadership: not a single European government, not even the government of the United States has ever considered stopping their financial support of Arafat's terrorist organization. They all keep sending him money, knowing that whatever he does not steal, will be used to finance terrorism against Israel. In 2000, he once again proved his outstanding leadership at Camp David where he did not allow himself to be lured into statehood at the price of abandoning his genocidal war against Israel. He literally, physically ran away from Barak's unbelievable offer whose generosity surprised even Bill Clinton and his Secretary of State, Madeline Albright. Madam Secretary used the occasion to demonstrate that her last name had not been awarded to her on merit: she ran after Arafat, yelling to the guards to close the doors before he had a chance to escape. Fortunately, Arafat ran faster and the incident did not deteriorate into a brawl. Arafat went home to Ramallah and started an intifada that is still going on today. Once again, he easily manipulated public opinion around the world into believing that the blame for it lay with Ariel Sharon because of his visit to the Temple Mount. It didn't matter that Sharon was exercising the most basic right of any citizen of any sovereign country to move freely within its borders. It didn't matter that Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount, including every little detail of the timing and entourage, had been coordinated with the Waqf. It didn't matter that even if Sharon's visit to Temple Mount had constituted a provocation, Arabs had a choice to react on it or ignore it, and even if they decided to react, they still had an option - purely theoretical of course, since we are talking about Arabs here - of doing it in a nonviolent manner. On November 6, 2000, the New York Post quoted Mahmoud Abbas saying that the intifada was not a spontaneous popular response to Sharon's "provocation," but had been planned by the PA for months in advance. In other words, it was in the works while Arafat was enjoying himself at Camp David with Clinton and Barak. The life of Arabs in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria hasn't been pleasant even during the best of times. The intifada resulted in a virtual collapse of whatever used to pass for society among them. Despite all their suffering, the people calling themselves "Palestinians" have remained fiercely loyal to Arafat. According to every opinion poll ever conducted among them, they wholeheartedly support Arafat and his cause - the destruction of Israel. They gladly sacrifice their own children's lives to that cause. They happily send their children to school and summer camps where they are turned into suicidal maniacs. Isn't it a sure sign of truly great - albeit evil - leadership skills to have not just your own people but the entire world follow you, regardless of the truth, contrary to common sense and against their own interests? Mr. Bush's own Administration has proved that it was out of its league competing with Mr. Arafat's leadership skills. When, frustrated by his blatant refusal to support the American efforts to end the war, the United States forced elections in the PA, Arafat ran practically unopposed and won effortlessly. When later the United States refused to talk to him, he named his puppet Mahmoud Abbas Prime Minister and watched his enemies making fools of themselves talking to the puppet as if it had any real power. Finally, when Arafat replaced the old puppet with a new one, Mr. Bush called him "a failed leader" and immediately suggested that he would be willing to deal with Arafat's new "government" if only it included Muhammad Dahlan and Nabil Amr. In other words, President Bush condemned Chairman Arafat's leadership style precisely because the latter refused to do the former's bidding. Am I missing something here? I don't think so, but I am afraid President Bush is. So, here we have two leaders. One of them heads a terrorist organization. He has been openly and consistently pursuing the same vision - the destruction of Israel - throughout his remarkably long, remarkably difficult and remarkably bloody career. He has been patiently, lovingly preparing a new Holocaust, and the majority of people in supposedly civilized countries, have supported him throughout his struggle. Although he has used doublespeak generously whenever the situation called for it, he never veered away from his goal and never misstated it. Usually, his lies are so artless, so obvious, that they could only succeed with those who badly want to believe him against all evidence. That's because they are designed not to trick his supporters but to give them an excuse, no matter how transparent, to continue their support. The utter contempt implicit in such an approach has never deterred his followers in Europe, America, and even Israel. The other one is the president of the only remaining superpower on the planet. His predecessors were often called leaders of the Free World, but this time that unofficial title somehow has failed to stick. He is the Commander-in-Chief of a military force whose budget exceeds the combined military budgets of all the other nations of the world. During his watch, his country suffered the most devastating attack it has ever seen in its entire history. Instead of using the awesome power at his disposal to protect his country and restore peace in the world, he didn't even dare to honestly identify the enemy. Instead, he clumsily attempted to recruit new allies among his sworn enemies - and failed, predictably. As a result, we are now in the middle of a war that's not going too well - not because the US Armed Forces are not succeeding in achieving the goals set before them, but because their Commander-in-Chief has failed to set meaningful goals. He antagonized most countries that had traditionally supported the United States. Desperate to please his opponents, he betrayed Israel - the only sincere ally the United States has left in the whole world - and did it with crudeness that mercilessly exposed his gaping lack of professionalism and direction. Although American taxpayers provide 25% of the United Nations budget, he has lost the last vestiges of leadership the United States had had in that utterly failed, corrupt organization, united mostly by it's members' opposition to the U.S. and hatred towards Israel. His pursuit of globalization has resulted in the heaviest job losses this country has seen in recent decades. He is presiding over the worst economic decline since the Great Depression. His only real achievement - the tax cut - is far too insignificant in scale to turn the economy around and help the hurting families. Presented with a precious opportunity to work with a Republican majority in both Houses, he has been helplessly pushing ideas lifted from the Democrats' agenda, paving the way for the Democratic party to snatch the power out of his weak hands and lead this country in the direction Hillary Clinton had set for the previous tenant of the White House. And do you know what is the worst aspect of President Bush's failures for the American voters? That come November 2004, there will be no one better to vote for. So, which of the two leaders has really failed?

HOW THE INTIFADA STARTED Posted by Leo Rennert, September 30, 2003.

On the third anniversary of the Palestinian intifada - with no let-up in sight - readers deserve more than the revival of a discredited myth about its inception, i.e., that Ariel Sharon's walk on Jerusalem's Temple Mount triggered the uprising after a "breakdown" of negotiations at Camp David ("Palestinians Demonstrate For Arafat," Sept. 29). Several aides to Arafat, the real instigator of the intifada, confirmed over the last three years that Sharon's presence on the Temple Mount was a pretext, but not the cause, for resumption of Palestinian violence against Israel. Arafat spent millions to import weapons. Former President Clinton and his chief U.S. mediator, Dennis Ross, hold Arafat responsible for rejecting a statehood plan that would have given Palestinians what they often say they want - the Gaza Strip, virtually the entire West Bank and half of Jerusalem. A growing number of Palestinian critics, largely ignored by the Western press, have come to the same conclusion about Arafat's massive miscalculation. There's overwhelming evidence that Arafat nixed the deal and gave terror groups inside and outside his security forces a green light to kill Israelis because he would not abandon his jihadist dream to recover Israel as well.

WHERE ARE THE MEN? Posted by Ellen W. Horowitz, September 29, 2003.

A lot of us try to tie-up loose ends on the personal front before Yom Kippur. We attempt to cover old debts, purchase overdue wedding gifts and mend friendships. Usually there's a sense of relief when we finally take care of that unfinished business. However, trying to go into a New Year carrying this overwhelming load of national baggage is impossible. So I have an idea... When the 5764 express to Oslo pulls into the station, I suggest that we all load our collective Jewish luggage onto the train, but refuse to board. You may have to kiss that baggage goodbye, because I'm going to do all I can to bomb the tracks. Israeli pilots, move over! Even though I have vertigo and doubt if I could fit my rather wide girth into a cockpit, I'm ready to fly. How many g's can this mother take? Well, I figure that the blood pressure changes and decrease in the flow of oxygen to my brain that I undergo every time I have to absorb the news of yet another terrorist atrocity is the equivalent to the rapid nose dive of any modern fighter jet. You letter-signers from the IAF are a disgrace to an already embarrassed nation. We have far more respect for the guys on the frontlines - you know those security guards who protect the entrances to our offices, stores, hotels and places of entertainment. They're far more sensitive and benevolent than any of you elite "humanitarian" psuedo-heroes. I was hanging out with one of them the other day in Jerusalem and watched as he lovingly pet and fed a stray cat. Like a little kid, he proceeded to describe to me, in great detail, the various stray animals of the neighborhood and how he takes care of them. I could have sworn that I was holding a conversation with Forest Gump and yet, I felt so safe. I doubt this security guard had the technical brains to maneuver an F-16, but he was doing a good job of protecting the inhabitants of the building, as well of the rest of the living creatures in the area. Move over fighter pilots, Israel has new heroes! You guys get to push the buttons in your hi-tech flying toys, but that unsophisticated guard may get an up-close and personal look at the whites of a terrorst's eyes before he gets a chance to pull a trigger. But I have no doubt that he would fight tooth and nail (literally) to stop an attack. This puts a whole new spin in the concept of "separating the men from the boys." It seems that in another curious twist of fate, our naive children, young men and quite a few women have inherited the chutzpah that you elitists have misplaced (maybe you left it in the hotel room when you took your last European vacation?). Where are the men? Are Jewish men so removed from their basic survival instincts that they refuse to take-up arms when their women and children are being slaughtered like sheep? Where is the rage? At the onset of Oslo, the Israeli Right had a well-organized, highly effective protest movement in place. The people had a voice and the Knesset members heard us-whether they wanted to or not. Yes, three years into the clamorous demonstrations, there was a devastating political assassination -under highly controversial circumstances. But, have we relinquished our G-d given (some would say democratic) right to express ourselves because of the miserable failings, and scheming of Israel's internal security and political apparatus? It's the ultimate in tragic irony that we're afraid to return to the streets in protest because somebody might get hurt? If only our leaders cared for us, like we care for our leaders. Where are our leaders? What really happens to our former heroes once they sit in the Prime Minister's chair? Years ago, when this mess began, my husband used to infuriate me when he would would interrupt my urbane, westernized political rantings with his very crude Israeli explanations. "A small U.S. envoy sits under the Prime Minister's desk with a nutcracker..." You know, I think he's right. Sharon is more concerned with commitments to President Bush than he is about his obligation to protect and lead his own people. He's willing to watch his citizens go up in flames, rather than risk inflaming the region and jeopardizing America's vital interests. According to the Jerusalem Post, in a pre-Rosh Hashana Yediot Ahronot interview, Sharon admits to having once promised George W. Bush that he would not harm Arafat. Sharon also said that it is "very difficult to guarantee that if you grab and take him, he will not be harmed. In any event we will have to take American considerations into account. It is possible that their estimation that this will cause them problems in the Middle East is correct..." That quote may contain the answer to a disturbing question that still stumps the scholars. Nothing angers me more than the ongoing prattle that takes place in academic circles as to why the allied forces didn't bomb the tracks to Auschwitz. When all of this is over (it will eventually end and there will be better days for our people in the Land of Israel) and while we're still calculating the final body count and assessing the damages, a lot of murmuring male voices will make themselves heard via electronic and print media. Everyone from Jewish day school rebbes to Swedish diplomats will ponder the big question. I can just see holocaust survivor turned politician, Tommy Lapid rehashing with talk-show icon and son, Yair Lapid, as to "why we didn't bomb the tracks to Oslo." Meanwhile... every Diaspora Jewish leader of all of the has-been American/Israel advocacy group, that once successfully championed the slogans "we are one" and "never again," will be encouraging "soul searching." What these community leaders fail to understand is that Jewish America buries more Jewish souls in a day then Israelis bury bodies in a year. Some of us won't be tuning-in to the blabber, as we'll be too busy picking up the pieces and recreating and rebuilding a vibrant Jewish State. That's a lot to bite off and chew before the Yom Kippur fast. But when Jewish blood is at stake, some of us loathe the very thought of being stoic and accepting. Ellen Horowitz lives on the Golan Heights with her husband and six children. She is a painter, writer and co-founder of helpingisrael.com. She can be contacted through her website http://www.artfromzion.com

DEREK PRINCE: LOVER OF GOD, LOVER OF ZION Posted by Dutch W. Griffin, September 29, 2003.

This was written by the Jerusalem News Wire (JNW) editorial staff, and appeared in JNW September 28, 2003. About six weeks before he died Wednesday, globally renowned and beloved Bible teacher and Christian author Derek Prince told a visiting US Senator international developments today indicated that God was busy restoring Israel and judging the nations of the world. This affirmation of Prince's belief in the centrality of Israel to events shaping our lives was shared with hundreds of believers and fellow lovers of Zion who gathered in a Jerusalem church Friday for a glorious funeral service to send the 88-year-old Briton "home." After the service, the worshippers followed the coffin through the busy pre-Rosh Hashana city streets to a quiet Christian cemetery in the heart of western Jerusalem, laying Prince's body to rest just meters from where the most recent 'suicide' bomb attack took the lives of seven Israeli Jews. Prince saw in Islam's virulent hatred of Israel a major force being used to push Jews and Christians closer together after centuries of animosity, suspicion and fear. Revelation in Jerusalem "The pastor, teacher and author, who considered Jerusalem his hometown, was discharged from the British Army and re-entered civilian life in the ancient city at the end of World War Two, four years before Israel's national homeland was reborn. One night in 1946, while standing near the Mount of Olives, he had been awakened to the integrality of the land and people of Israel to the Bible, and consequently to himself as a Bible-believing Christian. As he described it, he realized that "geographically, the Bible is set in the land of Israel; historically, its theme is the people of Israel." Detached from this geographical context, countless historical and prophetic passages of passages of Scripture were "meaningless." The destiny of Israel and the Church   Among the more than 45 books authored by Prince on a wide variety of subjects of interest to Christians were "The Last Word on the Middle East" (Derek Prince Ministries, USA, 1982), and "The Destiny of Israel and the Church" (Word Publishing, Milton Keynes, 1992). In the latter he writes: "Christians from Gentile backgrounds owe their entire spiritual inheritance to Israel. One appropriate way for them to acknowledge their indebtedness is to stand by Israel in the midst of their present pressures, and to uphold them with faithful intercession." Prince saw that the anti-God forces in the world, including Islam, were being used to push Christians and Jews closer together after centuries of animosity and persecution. While many Israelis and Jews in the United States have commented recently on the strength of support for Israel that exists today in the evangelical Christian world, especially since the outbreak of the Oslo War (Al-Aqsa intifada) Prince already noted back in 1982 that: "The State of Israel ... is beginning to realize that its firmest and most influential friends today are found among Bible-believing Christians worldwide." Israel the watershed   Prince believed that the restored nation of Israel was a watershed, a line of separation between nations, and that God would judge nations on whether they stood with His restoration purposes for Israel, or opposed them. "Rulers and nations will determine their own destiny by how they respond to what God does for Israel," he wrote. "God has revealed clearly in His Word that He intends to restore Israel, and that He requires all other nations to cooperate with His purpose. Any nation that rejects the revelation of God's Word has, in effect, rejected God Himself, and must suffer the consequences." God is judging the nations   According to a close friend of Prince's who spoke during the funeral service Friday, US Senator Sam Brownback had visited the then ill-weakened man in his Jerusalem home about six weeks ago, and asked him how he understood what was happening in the world today. Struggling to get the words out, Prince had finally managed to answer: "God is restoring Israel. And God is judging the nations." Jerusalem Newswire is an independent Jerusalem-based, Christian-operated news service providing daily coverage and commentary on events in and relating to Israel. For more news, commentary and analyis, visit Jerusalem Newswire (http://www.jnewswire.com).

ARABS ARE STILL STEALING ISRAELI BEEHIVES Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 29, 2003.

Israel's 450 beekeepers manage 80,000 hives. Since the hives are widely dispersed, the keepers cannot watch all. Arabs are stealing hives in large numbers. So great is this theft, that many keepers either no longer can get insurance or find the premium beyond their means. The most afflicted areas are nearest the Green line. It takes only a few minutes (absent those supposedly evil checkpoints) to drive the swag over the Green Line and into the P.A. (which generally lets in enormous amounts of stolen property, theft being a major Arab industry). The beekeepers have had to move the remaining hives away from the Green Line. In fact, the whole dairy and crop industry that used to exist there have been so ravaged by constant Arab rustling and other thefts, that it has withered. The thieves have trained beekeepers to handle stolen hives. Sometimes, however, their objective solely is economic warfare. Hence the many hives found chopped up, rather than missing. Years of productive effort and investment are destroyed in an instant. (Israel tries to build up the P.A. economically, while the P.A. tries to break Israel down, economically. Israel's policy-making is misguided. It vindicates the Talmudic warning, "If you are merciful to your (irreconcilable) enemies, you'll be cruel to your friends.") Israeli police found 350 stolen hives inside a truck. At $500 apiece, the Arabs had expected to make $175,000, for just a few hours of theft. Another time, a moshav security guard came upon a group of Arabs stealing beehives. They all fled except the driver, caught licking honey in the truck. He was ready to turn states' evidence against his collaborators, but the prosecutors closed the case, alleging "lack of public interest." When beekeepers produced proof about widespread theft in one area, the police told them they had to switch the border guards to where Arabs were killing each other. Beekeepers have been forced to patrol their own property, while the police "are busy protecting the Juarish Arabs..." Judges usually sentence convicts to only three months. The Beekeeper's Council would like that multiplied (MEPF, 9/18 from Miriam Gardner, American Yated Neeman). As the US demands, Israel transfers funds to the P.A., while the P.A. wages economic warfare against Israel. That is an example of inhumane US policy and neurotic stupidity on the part of Israel. Imagine the crime wave if there were two states "side-by-side!" At least P.A. villages do not now extend up to every part of the Green Line, and Israeli police can raid the P.A. to recover some hives. Between what Arafat's Arabs steal from Israelis, and what Arafat steals from his people and foreign donors, thievery is the P.A.'s major industry. The wholesale P.A. theft of livestock, equipment, cars, and computers, that is driving Israeli agriculture out of border areas, makes "P.A." unofficially stand for Pirates Autonomy. One answer is to deduct the costs of Arab crime from excise taxes remitted to the P.A.. Better would be to eliminate their autonomy, remove them from the area, reclaim the Jewish patrimony there, and regain secure borders. The leftist Israeli prosecutors bear indirect guilt. Not only do they impose low fines on Arab criminals engaging in economic warfare against Israel. They often refuse to prosecute the thieves. Their allegation of "lack of public interest" is a poor excuse. It encourages Arab criminals. That same allegation is the phony excuse for not prosecuting the Rabin government's agent provocateur, Avishai Raviv, whose crimes against democracy were among the most subversive.

THE MARTYR OF JOSEPH Posted by Steven Plaut, September 29, 2003.

[This article is reposted exactly three years after the events in question took place.] On Rosh Hashana, 2000, Madhat Yusef became a martyr to the Oslo "peace process" and the policies of the Israeli government of Ehud Barak. Madhat was a nineteen year old Druse soldier serving in Israel's border patrol. He was murdered by PLO bullets, but allowed to bleed to death by the government of Israel. Like many in his Druse town of Beit J'an, Madhat served in the same border patrol in which his father had previously served his country for 25 years. And like American Jews who work on Christmas Day to allow their countrymen to celebrate their holidays, Madhat was doing guard duty at Joseph's Shrine in Nablus/Shechem on the Jewish New Year when he was murdered by PLO stormtroopers sent out by Yassir Arafat. Joseph's Tomb is a shrine in the center of Nablus. The town lies between the Mountain of Blessings from the Bible, Mount Grizim, and the Mountain of Curses, Mount Aival. In the Bible the Israelites are evenly divided between the two mountains by Moses so that future Jew will feel that he is in the center between the two, that the fate of the entire nation is in the balance and depends on his own individual behavior and actions. In the middle, between the two mountains, is the shrine where the bones of Joseph lie, carried to the Promised Land by the Israelites according to Joseph's last will and testament, all as documented in the Bible itself. In this glen, Ehud Barak tipped the balance on Rosh Hashana 2000, toward cowardice and national suicide. According to the Oslo Accords (the formal written ones, not the de facto ones where Israel makes endless appeasements for peace and the PLO wages war) it is agreed that Joseph's Tomb in Nablus, like Rachael's Tomb near Bethlehem, should remain in Israeli control and under Israeli sovereignty. The PLO pledges freedom of access and respect for Jewish religious shrines. In reality, Joseph's Tomb has become a sort of Jewish Alamo. It is the scene of daily violence by the PLO. Jews take their lives in the hands to go there. A handful of courageous yeshiva students stay there, guarded by some soldiers and border patrolmen. The students have refused to listen to Israel's Lobotomized Left, urging that they abandon Joseph's Tomb in order to avoid "provoking" the poor Palestinians with their presence. The students live under permanent siege, and PLO "police" routinely attack people trying to enter or leave the shrine. Things are not much better at Rachael's shrine. It is all an indicator of what Jews can expect to happen at the Western Wall if Israel's Left ever has its way and the Old City of Jerusalem is handed over to the PLO. For years the PLO has sought to ruin Jewish holidays with violence. Two years ago Arafat decided to send the Jews a Succos holiday greeting in the form of a pogrom, launched after Israel had decided to allow Jews to visit an old Maccabee Tunnel near but not under the Temple Mount. Arafat fabricated a story of how the Jews were endangering the Al-Aqsa Mosque and polluting it with their proximity, and ordered his stormtroopers to open fire. Purim has for years been the open season for Arab atrocities, including bombings. And this year (2000) Arafat decided to order pogroms on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. It was all a part of the "Al-Aqsa intifada" as it was officially named by Arafat. For years we have been saying in this corner that the entire Oslo "peace process" will produce, instead of peace, nothing but the metastasis of violence from the "territories" into pre-1967 Israel, where Israeli Arabs will be radicalized, nazified, and will turn to terrorism. The Rosh Hashana pogrom proved how correct this prognosis is. The official excuse for the pogrom was that Likud leader Arik Sharon had gone for a walk on the Temple Mount, where the two Temples of the Biblical era once stood. Jews are only allowed to visit the Mount as tourists. They are not allowed to pray there and even silent lip-movement by a Jew can get him arrested. There was not a serious danger that Sharon was about to pray there, as it is doubtful he knows how. The control over the Temple Mount had been turned over to the PLO at the start of Oslo. Before that it had been administered by Jordan ever since Moshe Dayan abandoned any attempt to exercise Israeli sovereignty over the most sacred ground in the world for Judaism. The pathetic government of Yitzhak Shamir had ordered that all Israeli flags be removed from the vicinity of the Mount to avoid offending Moslem hypersensitivities. The Mount is de facto under PLO sovereignty and flies the PLO flag. At Camp David, Barak had offered formally to recognize PLO sovereignty over the Temple Mount, along with turning over nearly the entire West Bank to the PLO Reichlet. But Barak had balked at granting an unlimited "right of return" into Israel for Palestinian "refugees," which the PLO was demanding. As a result, Arafat was looking for an excuse to launch pogroms. He has been taught in Pavlovian manner over the past decade that the best way to get concessions from Israel is through violence. On Friday, Erev Rosh Hashana, the PLO-paid and PLO-appointed preachers of the Al-Aqsa Mosque ordered Arabs to attack Jews randomly, to "protect" the Mosque that no one was threatening. Some violence had begun when Arabs attacked Jews on the Thursday before Rosh Hashana weekend and sent 25 Israeli policemen to the hospital. Then on Erev Rosh Hashana, the pogrom was officially launched at Arafat's command and quickly spread into Israeli Arab towns, lasting throughout the holiday weekend. Throughout the Galilee and also south of Haifa, Israeli Arabs blocked roads, attacked Jewish picnickers and motorists, assaulted police. In Nazareth, the town of the Christian Prince of Peace, Arabs screamed "Kill the Jews" and attacked any Jew they could find. Violence broke out in the Negev Bedouin town of Rahat, a hotbed of anti-Semitism. There were violent riots in Jaffa, in effect the downtown of Tel Aviv. Jews in more remote settlements or rural positions were told to stay home and not venture out onto the roads. It was as if 1947 had returned, where the entire Jewish population was under siege. Molotov cocktails were tossed at Rachael's Tomb. The Jews praying at the Western Wall were twice evacuated due to assaults by the pogromchiks. At the Neve Dekelim settlement, those praying in the synagogue had to grab weapons and sit at the windows when the synagogue was attacked. Seventy policemen in Jerusalem were sent to the hospital. Near Kalkiliya an interesting event occurred. There, "joint patrols" between the PLO and Israel are supposed to be carried out under an Oslo agreement. On the eve of Rosh Hashana, a jeep full of PLO "police" was patrolling alongside a jeep of Israeli border patrolmen. Suddenly the PLO Gestapo fired point blank into the Israeli jeep and murdered Yossi Tabje in cold blood. Tabje was a 27 year old Jew from Ethiopia. His mother had died in Ethiopia when he was three years old, after which he came to Israel with his brothers under Operation Moses. He had served in the army as a paratrooper and had been awarded the Presidential medal for heroism. He was due to be married shortly. He was a brother in blood of the Druse border patrolman Madhat Yusef, on duty in Joseph's Tomb. (It will be interesting to see if the assimilationist-liberal organizations in the US, like the Reform RAC or like the ADL, will have anything to say about this hate crime and racist murder of a black man by the PLO.) But perhaps the worst violence was at Netsarim, a small isolated settlement south of Gaza City. Under the Oslo Accords, the PLO agreed to respect Netsarim and protect it from violence. In reality Netsarim has become the Stalingrad of Oslo. It is the subject of yet another "controlled carnage" agreement, of the sort Israeli politicians so love. (Similar agreements long operated in Lebanon.) Under this "agreement" the PLO organizes daily violence and siege of the Jewish men, women and children in Netsarim, and just as long as things do not get "too far out of hand," Israel sits back and allows the violence to occur. The problem is that every so often the PLO-led violence at Netsarim DOES get "out of hand." An Israeli soldier was murdered outside the settlement last week (2000). Over the holiday weekend, the PLO ordered that Netsarim be stormed. PLO "police" were openly leading the pogrom and firing at the Israeli troops with the machine guns they received from Israel. The Jews returned fire for a change. In the crossfire, some of the pogromchiks were pacified to death. Now as it turned out, a French film crew was on the spot and captured footage of a 12 year old Palestinian boy being shot to death outside Netsarim, while his father was wounded. The world media had a new poster child and the PLO had a new martyr myth. What exactly happened there? Muhammed Adira and his father were minding their own business while standing in the midst of a mob of pogromchiks attacking Israelis with machine guns and Molotov cocktails. The father of the 12 year old boy insists they were merely out shopping for a (stolen?) car, and surely everyone knows that Arabs routinely go shopping for cars next to Netsarim in the midst of pogroms. Anyway, the Israeli Commander of the Gaza Battalion insists the boy was hit by bullets fired by the PLO's stormtroopers (later confirmed by a German camera crew and others). No doubt CNN and Haaretz will neglect to mention this irrelevant detail. In any case, the boy may have died because the ambulance trying to evacuate him was fired upon and its driver killed. The PLO has a long track record of firing at ambulances. No one seriously thinks Israeli troops have ever shot at an ambulance. Meanwhile the Lobotomized Left was showing how it could stick to its blinders even in the midst of anti-Jewish pogroms. The police, led by leftist officers and commanded by Professor of McCarthyism Shlomo Ben-Ami (himself later crucified by the Orr Commission - SP), said the pogroms were all the fault of Arik Sharon. As usual the Jewish victims of Arab violence are to blame. Most of the rest of the Left chimed in amen. The US State Department agrees that Sharon is completely to blame. Haaretz ran editorials and Op-Eds blaming the whole pogrom on Arik Sharon's stroll. I have little doubt that if it were printing in the 1940s, Haaretz would run daily banner pieces about the sufferings of SS officers killed by savage partisans and the tribulations of their poor children. Peace Now ran an obscene ad saying that not only was Sharon responsible for the pogroms over Rosh Hashana, but also of course for the Sabra and Shatilla massacres in Lebanon (in which Arabs killed Arabs). The Haaretz "reporter" Amira Hess, self-styled "expert" on Arabs although she speaks no Arabic, who recently called in the San Francisco area for the eradication of Israel, wrote a "news report" claiming that Arafat had not ordered the pogrom and it was all because "things got out of his control." Barak's government adopted the same line. Such things always remind me of those people who insist Hitler never ordered any atrocities against Jews, wished them no harm and it was all the work of his underlings who were out of his control. But let us return to Madhat Yusef defending Joseph's Tomb from the Philistines. Whose name in Arabic means Joseph. Under siege in the Israeli Alamo in Nablus. The PLO stormtroopers at the direct orders of Arafat firing into the shrine. Yusef is badly wounded by a PLO bullet. The medics do what they can for him. They radio out for help. There is a large Israeli military base atop the Mount of Blessings nearby, on Mount Grizim. But Ehud Barak has issued orders. Israeli troops are to do nothing to "provoke" the Palestinian savages. They are to cower and hide, much like they are ordered to do at the Lebanese border. They are to do everything to avoid situations wherein they might be required to use their weapons. They are to wait for our PLO "peace partners" to restore order. Yusef's comrades desperately dial out for help. The base nearby has tanks and APCs that could be used, if necessary, to disburse the pogromchiks and open the road to the Alamo, allowing Yusef to be evacuated and rescued. But the army has its orders from Barak, the head of the post-Jewish and post-survivalist "peace government." It sits back. It does nothing. The same Israeli military that rescued the 250 hostages being held in Entebbe suddenly cannot rescue a single Druse soldier bleeding to death in Nablus. Mathat Yusef is lying on the floor. He lies there for hours while the Israeli army sits back waiting for the same PLO "police," who are firing into the shrine, to restore order. Like Will Travis, Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, in his Alamo Yusef simply bled to death. Remember his Alamo!

THE ISRAELI LEFT: LOVE THINE ENEMY, HATE THY BROTHER Posted by Ariel Natan Pasko, September 29, 2003.

There they go again. The air has just cleared, people have just calmed down after the last wave of terrorist bombings, and Israel's lemmings are driving toward the precipice again. After recently going to meet Yasser Arafat at his Ramallah compound to show solidarity with him and act as "human shields" to protect him from any Israeli action; the Israeli far-Left has begun what they call the opening of a "street campaign" in the coming months. A group called Peace Now (why not peace last Thursday?) and a few thousand protestors gathered on a Saturday night at "ground-zero - " Rabin Square in Tel-Aviv - to call for Israel to uproot the Jewish settlements in Yesha, Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank") and Gaza and an end to the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The Peace Now demonstrators also denounced the Sharon government's policy of "Targeted Killings," assassinating leaders from Hamas and the other terrorist groups, saying the policy creates an endless cycle of violence. All blood is red, and I guess Israel's lemmings can't tell the difference between the blood of innocent Israelis cut-down in the "act" of living their lives, and the blood of sociopathic murderers, whom Israel targets in self-defense before they can kill innocent Israelis again Returning to the darkest day's of the Left's slander campaign - initiated by Yitzhak Rabin himself - against the pro-Land of Israel forces, former Labor Party Member of Knesset Yael Dayan revived the theme of "settlements vs. the poor." She emphasized the economic cost of the settlements, saying that the government was still pumping huge amounts of money into them, while other Israelis were going hungry. She pointed out that each year 5,000 children in the country slipped below the poverty line. What has she done to help them? Other than to try to impoverish other Israelis and their children of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza by forcing them out of their homes and into the street? Why didn't she suggest cutting government monies spent on the museums, theaters, concert halls, dance companies, sports contests, and other secular-western cultural activities that the elites of the Left, labor's worker committees, and kibbutzes benefit from in disproportionate numbers, receiving tickets at government-subsidized prices? Has she ever suggested that the Kibbutz Movement - about 110,000 people - repay the Israeli government the tens of billions of shekels the government has laid out over the years to cover the Kibbutz Movement's debts? Why did the Israeli taxpayer have to help the economically inefficient darling of the Left? Most of that debt was incurred, to keep up the Kibbutz Movement's standard of living - which is above that of the average Israeli - while failing economically. Where's the Left's outrage about that, while other Israelis were going hungry? The left-wing Haaretz newspaper just released a "special report" about the amount of money, some 45 billion shekels, Israeli governments from the Left & Right have spent on "settlements" since 1967. But whereas most of the money spent on the Kibbutzes was simply for "creature comforts," money spent on Jewish communities in Yesha was for basic infrastucture; much of it would have had to be spent anyway, developing areas for Jews to live in, even within the "Green Line" pre-1967 Israel. But don't worry, you can count on the Israeli Left to obfuscate that also and try to "prove" how expensive "settlements" have been. Has anyone seriously contemplated the costs of moving "settlers" - i.e. the almost 250,000 Jewish citizens in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza - back within the pre-1967 Auschwitz borders? Forget the housing costs, a sizable figure itself. What about the other infrastructure costs, including education, the costs of economic dislocation, and health care? Who says that it will save the government money to move Jews back into the 1967 borders? Has anyone seen a serious study with real analytic data to back up the Left's utopian claims? It's not much different than the Left's original claim that "peace" was just around the corner, if we all accept the Oslo dream. Israel just needed to revive Arafat from political death, bring him and his terror crew into the country, reward him with a base of operations, and the Messiah would be soon be coming. We've all seen how well the Left's claims worked out there. It just never quite worked out the way they imagined, and it won't this time either. The Left in Israel is hell-bent on squashing the settlement enterprise and ending Jewish control over it's historic heartland in Yesha, whether it brings "peace" or not, whether it saves the government money or drives it further into the red. So it doesn't matter if facts aren't on their side, anything to divert the attention of the masses away from their failed "peace" policies and against the Jews of Judea and Samaria passes muster with them. Their demagogic behavior reminds me of October 2002, during the height of the Left's previous hysteria campaign against settlements, when far-left Meretz MK Yossi Sarid said, "All of the settlements were created by law-breaking and violence, and I hope the spread of this cancer will end quickly. The outposts are worse than suicide bomb belts." Similar to MK Sarid's remarks, then Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg (Labor) called the people at the Gilad Farm in Samaria, "Jewish Hamas." Just because they were protesting the expulsion of people from their homes on legally owned Jewish land, that for political (that is to say, leftist) purposes, the Sharon government found convenient to expropriate, they're called "Jewish Hamas"? They are "Worse than suicide bomb belts"? MK Avraham Burg (Labor), no longer Knesset speaker, is up to it again. He recently turned to Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein with the intention of filing criminal charges against the "Forum of Rabbis for the Jewish People & the Land of Israel," numbering some 500 religious leaders. The rabbinic organization has released a statement that the Israeli government does not enjoy popular support for its policies vis-a-vis the Quartet's Road Map plan nor particularly for any steps towards the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The Road Map negates Torah law explained the rabbis, and as such, anyone contributing to advancing the Road Map agenda is guilty of violating the Torah commandment of "You must not stand idly by your brother's blood," because of all the terrorism that has taken almost 1,200 lives during the "peace process." Rubinstein stated that the written proclamation does not constitute a violation of Israeli law. He then added that following the release of the proclamation by the rabbinic organization; he met with some of the more "influential" rabbis, warning that they must tread carefully since their words may spark civil disobedience or violence. But Burg prefers to continue to try and suffocate any opposition to the Left's "peace dreams." In a similar vein, ultra-leftist Meretz MK Zahava Gal-On just asked the Attorney General to look into a recent Jerusalem Post editorial she says had "words of incitement to murder" in it. The Jerusalem Post editorial said, "The world will not help us; we must help ourselves. We must kill as many of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders as possible, as quickly as possible, while minimizing collateral damage, but not letting that damage stop us. And we must kill Yasser Arafat, because the world leaves us no alternative." Where is Freedom of the Speech? Where is Freedom of the Press? When was it ever "incitement to murder" to call for the death of the enemy in wartime? Only in Israel, only on the Bolshevik Left. Labor Party leader MK Shimon Peres has been celebrating his 80th birthday recently. Peres told an international peace symposium held as part of his 80th birthday celebrations, "I believe it was right to give [Yasser Arafat] the Nobel Peace Prize because he did three things that no other Palestinian leader did," Peres told a round-table discussion which featured three other Nobel laureates. "He declared publicly that he recognized the State of Israel; no other Palestinian leader dared do that so publicly. Second, he said he would abandon terrorism, and third he agreed that peace would be based on the borders of 1967 and not 1948." At the peace symposium, Peres said that Arafat made a mistake by failing to dismantle terrorist groups opposed to peace with the Jewish state. "He spoke against [them], but did not act against them," Peres said. There, you have Peres' total whitewash of Arafat and the Palestinian Authority: ignoring Arafat's involvement in illegal arms smuggling, such as the Karine A arms boat affair; Arafat's funding - as head of Fatah - Marwan Barghouti's Fatah-Tanzim and Al-Aksa Brigades terrorist activities; and Arafat's general incitement to violence, regularly calling for "Jihad, Jihad, Jihad," i.e., killing Jews. According to Peres, Yasser "spoke against [them], but did not act against them." Lies, lies, lies... During the Left's slander campaign against "settlers" last October/November, just before the Labor Party created an excuse to walk out of Sharon's National Unity Government and call for new elections - which Sharon and Likud later won - MK Yossi Sarid said the settlers had started a revolt that the government had to destroy. "If the settlers' revolt is not crushed, it will be the end of democracy," he said. Similarly, then Agricultural Minister Shalom Simchon (Labor) said that the actions of the "right wing," in reference to the protests against expelling people from Gilad Farms, "endanger the existence of the State of Israel." Really? Over 850 people killed and thousands injured from terrorist attacks in the last three-years alone, don't endanger the existence of the State of Israel? Arafat's War, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizbollah, Syria, Iran, they don't endanger the existence of the State of Israel? Only a bunch of idealistic kids on a barren hilltop somewhere in the middle of the historic Jewish homeland endangers the existence of the State of Israel? A telltale sign of how sick the Left in Israel has gotten, can be seen in this more recent example, some participants at the Saturday night rally reported that a number of people in the crowd booed when the Israeli national anthem, "Hatikvah," was played at the close of the demonstration. So much for their intellectual consistency, honesty, and concern about the Israeli Right and Jewish settlers "destroying" the State of Israel. The leftists clearly couldn't care less. This article appeared on Front Page Magazine (http://www.frontpagemagazine.com) September 26, 2003.

URGENT! SAVE ARIEL Posted by Mike Evans, September 29, 2003.

I have just returned to Jerusalem from meeting with the mayor of Ariel, Ron Nachman, a dear friend. We talked at length about the safety and security of the more than 17,000 residents of his community. The U.S. and Palestinian Authority are demanding that Israel erase Ariel from the map. The United States will deduct $250 million from U. S. loan guarantees to Israel, if construction on the security fence around Ariel does not meet U. S. criteria. I need your help to end this outrageous policy that once again rewards terrorists. Please add your signature to the Letter of Support for Ariel now! Click Here Israel's foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, has flown to the U.S. to meet with Secretary of State Colin Powell on this issue. The eleven-member Israeli Security Cabinet that includes former Prime Minister and now Minister of Finance Benjamin Netanyahu, and former mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert, now vice prime minister (and my dear friends) will vote shortly on this matter. This is an outrageous situation. Brothers Dbir Anter, 13, and Noy Anter, 12, were killed by al-Qaeda operatives. They lived in Ariel! Their little sister, Adva, was seriously wounded in the same attack. Ariel is in the heart of Israel, twenty-five miles east of Tel Aviv. It has four elementary schools, three middle schools, a high school, and a college with over six thousand in attendance. We must protect these innocent victims of past terror from future attacks. Please show your support of Ariel now. This is the only email you will receive on Ariel. Add your voice to our plea that President Bush stand up to the State Department and "just say no." Show your support to the Israeli Cabinet urging them not to allow the U. S. government to pressure them to abandon the precious residents in Ariel. Safety and security must come before appeasement of terrorists. Bethlehem was abandoned to Arafat and the PA. It is now a war zone. Palestinian Christians, sixty percent of the population, have been so persecuted by the Muslims that they have been driven from the city. Arafat's appetite will not be satisfied with a bite of land here and there, but only by devouring the entire Bible land. A simple fence around Ariel is not politics - it is protection and preservation. It will save hundreds of lives. All the nations fighting against Ariel will vanish like a dream! Those who are attacking her walls will vanish like a vision in the night. (Isaiah 29:7) Please forward this urgent plea to everyone you know. Let's keep it going around the world. You could help save thousands of lives. If America forces Israel to cave in at Ariel, then Jerusalem will be next. For the sake of the children, Mike Evans is the founder of the Jerusalem Prayer Team, which is based in Euless, Texas. Dr. Tim LaHaye, Mrs. Anne Graham Lotz, Dr. Pat Robertson, Dr. Adrian Rogers, Mr. Pat Boone, Dr. John Hagee, Dr. Jerry Falwell, Mr. Bill McCartney, Ms. Kay Arthur, Rev. Tommy Tenney, Dr. A.R. Bernard, Dr. Stephen Olford, and Dr. Jay Sekulow are just a few of the more then 300 Christian Leaders who are part of the Jerusalem Prayer Team. The website address is http://www.jerusalemprayerteam.org

EGREGIOUS ERROR IN NEW YORK TIMES' EDWARD SAID OBITUARY Posted by Leo Rennert, September 29, 2003.

It is puzzling why, in its obituary of Said, the Times starts by accepting at face value his claim that he spent his childhood in Jerusalem and that he and his family were exiled to Cairo when Israel gained independence. Only 11 paragraphs later is there a mention that his story was exposed as a fabrication. Although born in Jerusalem during a family visit, his birth certificate lists the Saids' residence as Cairo. Except for other occasional visits to Palestine, he grew up in comfortable surroundings in Egypt. Does it matter? You bet. As a scholar, Said shot to prominence with a theory that the West victimized colonial people not only militarily and politically but also culturally. To dramatize this total victimhood, he turned himself into its poster child - torn from his roots, sent into exile, haunted by memories of paradise lost. But once he faked his own biography, what is one to assume about the intellectual honesty of the rest of his work? When challenged about his family's actual roots, Said fibbed once more by falsely claiming that he never tried to make himself the issue. Three years ago, he again skirted the truth when a widely published photograph showed him hurling a stone at Israeli soldiers across the Lebanese border. Calling it a "symbolic gesture," he said he didn't even know he was being photographed. Later, Agence France Press confirmed the photo was supplied by none other than Edward Said. Such twisting of the truth usually has consequences for reputable scholars. But Columbia gave him a free pass - a generosity the university did not show when an earlier faculty member, Charles Van Doren, was exposed for starring in a rigged quiz show. Van Doren got an unforgiving boot, while Said continued to pile up academic honors.

MUTINY AND POLITICS Posted by Steven Plaut, September 29, 2003.

The latest project of Israel's Treasonous Left is organizating mutiny in the Israeli Air Force. 27 pilots have signed a petition declaring they will not follow orders if ordered to strike at Palestinian terrorists. They claim they are unwilling to operate where civilians are. They are unwilling to undertake "targeted assassinations." They prefer that Israeli children by mass murdered on buses than their having to dirty their morally pure hands. The only problem is that the terrorists are where civilians are. Mutiny such as this is subject to 15 years in prison although the government and the leftist Attorney General are unlikely to prosecute. If every Israeli soldier only followed orders when those orders happened to appeal to his political prejudices, the country would be fully disarmed, then destroyed and the Jews placed in cattle cars, evidently what the Left seeks. Lest anyone think the 27 are simply squeamish about Palestinian "civilians," they placed an ad in today's papers, no doubt financed by the New Israel Fund, which has never passed over the opportunity to finance Israeli treason. It declares that the pilots are really engaging in mutiny because they oppose the "Conquest." The "Conquest" is the code word used by the mindless Left for Israeli presence of any sense in the West Bank and Gaza and it represents a "conquest" about as much as does the French presence in Alsace or the American presence in Florida. In general, when an Israeli uses the term "conquest" one should immediately assume that the person is a moron and that absolutely nothing the person has to say about anything at all is worth listening to. But the Force Force Traitors and mutineers are instantly the icons of the Caring Left, including Haaretz, and are being hailed by the Jews-for-a-Second-Holocaust, as well as by the Islamist fundamentalists to whom they are allied, and the Eurotrash. Meantime, Israel is hard at work on yet another of those famous capitulations to the Lebanese terrorists. In this case Israel will release oodles of jailed terrorists in order to get the Hizbollah to release the bodies of three soldiers they kidnapped AFTER the Barak WIthdrawal from Lebanon and have evidently murdered, as well as one civilian. For the past 3 years Israel never retaliated againmst any Hizbollah violations or attacks, including the kidnapping in question, claiming it would put the three POWs in jeopardy. Now it appears they were murdered anyway, yet Hizbollah villages have STILL not had their parking congestion problems solved by the Israeli army. The civilian in question is one whose story is unclear. The Hizbollah claimed he was a spy, but apparently he was not, and one rumor here has it he was in Lebanon on a foreign passport for something criminal. Now the Israeli politicians are marketing the upcoming deal, which by the way is likely to IGNORE the plight of missing POW Ron Arad altogether - putting hundreds of terrorhoids back on the streets who will no doubt then take up quilting. It is marketing it by claiming that Jewish tradition demands working to get captives released by paying ransom. Of course it would be nice if Israel's politicians ever actually checked out Jewish sources and traditions before trying to conscript them for political folly. In fact, Jewish sources are quite explicit that NO ransom may be paid for release of hostages if it is excessive, lest it lead to future extortion, and in any case no ransom could be paid if it involved releasing murderers who will murder again once released.

RESERVE PILOTS REFUSE TO BOMB CIVILIANS Posted by Seymour Ginsburg, September 29, 2003.

Noted in the Sun Sentinel, and the New York Times in blazing headlines, "pilots of the Israeli Air force signed a letter refusing to fly missions which would kill Palestinian civilians or serve in the West Bank or Gaza during the 'occupation'." These 27 pilots and peace reservists should be made to pick up the body pieces of Israeli citizens murdered by such peaceful organizations such as Hamas, Hezballah, and Jihad. They should be permitted to help doctors take out the nails, spikes, razors and other sharp metals in the bodies of civilian women, children and others from bombs placed on buses, in cafes, near schools and on street corners. Thank God these peace-at-any-price people are so few in number the press they get is out of proportion to the main population. I wonder why we hear of no Palestinians refusing to fight. It must be every single one of they agrees with the Palestinian agenda. So much for freedom of the press in the West Bank and Gaza.

INEVITABLE DISOBEDIENCE Posted by Moshe Feiglin, September 29, 2003.

[This week a group of IAF pilots wrote a letter to the IAF commander declaring that they refuse to attack targets in the "territories."] Another seam in the Israeli social fabric came apart this week. The boastful slogan coined by former Air Force Commander Ezer Weizmann: "The best men become pilots - and receive the best girls," reflected the elite of Israeli society - the IAF pilots. And now they have given a slap in the face to this society by declaring: "You are not moral." What do people want from the pilots? If the State of Israel has abandoned the elimination of the leadership of the Hamas terrorist organization in order not to harm "innocent people," why shouldn't the pilots do the same? Morality isn't confined to a specific position. Why is Defense Minister Mofaz's morality better that that of the pilots? The State of Israel arose on the basis of a set of values that inevitably led a thinking person to reach the views expressed in the pilots' letter. The guilt does not lie with them but with that set of values. In fact, those who signed the letter did us a favor, by forcing us to examine for ourselves our basic moral assumptions. What gives a soldier in a checkpoint in Kalandia the right to check the bags of a local Arab? Not to shoot him, just check his bags? The amazingly simple answer is: the ownership of the country. If this is our country, then we have the full right to be there and check anyone suspected of threatening our sovereignty. I have the right to ask a person wishing to stay in my home to identify himself, and I have the right to employ force against him if he refuses to leave. But if this is not our country, we have no right to invade the lives of the residents. The State of Israel has declared that the heart of the country, the land of the Bible, the cradle of the Hebrew nation, is not ours, but that we have conquered it. In this we have destroyed the fundamental moral argument. If so, how can the state justify its violent activities in the "territories" (even before mentioning the colonialism of the neighborhoods of Gilo and Ramot in Jerusalem). Israel says that these are acts of self-defense. We have to check the trunk of the Peugeot or make targeted attacks on terrorist leaders because they are killing us. The moment they stop, we will also do so. In other words, our moral right is derived from the right of self-defense. But this is a very weak argument. First of all, they claim that they are killing us because we are occupying their country. Until we leave, taking the last of our dead with us (as Mahmud Darwish said) we cannot make the claim of self-defense, because we are the attackers. Secondly, the Israeli principle of self defense is based on the Western/ Christian principles of morality, in which self defense is permissible only for the weak against the strong. You cannot eliminate those who do not directly present a threat to you. You cannot defend yourself while at the same time killing women and children weaker than you. These two principles, on the one hand the (lack of) sovereignty, and on the other hand, the Christian war morality, form the current basis for the moral ethic code of the IDF. The State of Israel has itself adopted the principles that leave no alternative to thinking, principled people, who wish to be honest with themselves, other than to disobey orders. Until a revolution takes place in the ideological basis for the existence of the state, until we return to our basic Jewish principles, we cannot say that this is our country, and we cannot free ourselves from the bonds of Christian morality when trying to defend ourselves. The result will be that Jewish children will die instead of Arab children, Israeli society will continue to disintegrate, and the IDF will rely on "robot" soldiers after it has lost the best of its combatants.

WHEN AN IDF PILOT DOES NOT BOMB A CIVILIAN TARGET WHICH PROTECTS TERRORISTS, IDF TROOPS DIE ON THE GROUND Posted by David Bedein, September 29, 2003.

On Thurday morning, September 25th, 2003, the IDF surrounded a home in the UNRWA Al-Bourage refugee camp in Gaza, where an armed Arab terrorist leader was holed up. The IDF did not call in an air raid on the house, since a family was there, acting as human shields for the terrorist. Instead, an IDF infantry unit led a ground assault on the home. As the ground assault commenced, the Arab terrorist opened fire and killed one of the Israeli soldiers, Sergeant Avihu Keinan, age 22, of Shiloh. Six other Israeli soldiers were soldiers were also wounded. Other IDF troops returned the fire and killed the terrorist. When the troops entered the house where the terrorist had been hiding, they discovered an impressive arms cache, which included a complement of Kassam rockets and rocket launchers. All this occurred on the same day that 27 reserve pilots of Israel's Air Force publicized a petition in which they declared that they would not participate in any air raids on Arab civilian targets. The petition was widely circulated among hundreds of Israel's reserve pilots by two groups called "Yesh Gvul" and "Courage to Refuse," which have received more than $250,000 from the Shefa Fund in Phi ladelphia over the past two years. The brochure distributed today by "Yesh Gvul" offers financial support for any Israeli soldier who will refuse Israeli army service anywhere beyond Israel's 1949/67 cease-fire line. Avihu Keinan's father pointed to Israel's policy of hesitating to bomb civilian targets that host terrorists as the reason for the death of his son. Yisrael Medad, Shiloh resident, provided the following moving account of Avihu Keinan's funeral: "The last person to speak at the funeral of Avihu Keinan HY"D was his father, Moshe. Moshe opened by saying that he promised that he would not break down and cry and hoped that he would honor his son by keeping his composure. He recalled that the previous evening, the Air Force Commander, in response to the letter of several pilots who will from now on refuse to participate in bombings of "civilian" targets, noted that the IDF was the most moral and ethical army in all the world. Moshe Keinan rejected that. He said that it was this policy that had killed his son. If the IDF commanders who get their orders from the Minister of Defense and the Government of Israel, prefer the deaths of Jewish soldiers, our own children, over the children of our enemies, then this is not moral. He demanded that 270 Captains, 270 Majors, 270 Colonels, 270 Generals all inform the Minister of Defense Mofaz, that they too are willing to put their insignia and ranks on the table. They must demand to be permitted to put an end to this violence. The Government of Israel must know that the army is unwilling to sacrifice soldiers only to be called the most moral army in the world. He asked rhetorically, is this the way the French, the British or the American army acts? He then finished by singing a Yiddish lullaby which he had sung to Avihu when he was a baby (Moshe Keinan is a Chazan, a member of Tel Aviv's Cantorial Choir scheduled to tour the USA and Canada in a few months): "Mein yingeleh...Mein tayareh  (My young one, my cherished one)" David Bedein is Bureau Chief, Israel Resource News Agency, Beit Agron International Press Center, Jerusalem, Israel. Its website address is http://www.israelbehindthenews.com

PERSON OF THE YEAR Posted by David Wilder, September 29, 2003.

The Jewish New Year, Rosh HaShana, is marked quite differently from January first. Whereas the latter is celebrated in Times Square, at gala parties, and the like, most of Rosh HaShana is spend in the synagogue. According to the Jewish calendar, a new 'day' begins at sunset, and so it is that we commenced our year on Friday night with evening prayers. Following the short service, each family returned to its home and began the first festive meal of 5764 (counting from the creation of the world), with the traditional 'signs' or symbols of the New Year, beginning with an apple and honey, while reciting the prayer "May it be G-d's will that we should have a good and sweet year." The next morning, (and the following day too) many Jews spend between five to six hours at the synagogue, reciting numerous prayers, while looking back at the past year in retrospect and looking ahead to the new year with expectation. I participated in early morning prayers at Ma'arat HaMachpela, the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs. It's difficult to characterize one's own prayer, but I found my worship to be troubled. Reflecting on the past year was very painful. For many years, while living in Kiryat Arba before moving to Hebron, I prayed at the same synagogue with my friend Rabbi Eli Horowitz, sitting one row behind him. Year after year I would not only see his prayer, but in many cases actually sense it, especially during the High Holy days of Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur. I was only a few months ago that Rabbi Eli Horowitz and his dear wife Dina were cut down in their apartment, murdered while eating their Sabbath meal on a Friday night. This Rosh HaShana his image seemed to be constantly before my eyes. One Saturday morning, during prayers, a friend of mine said something to me about the year starting off with a "bang." When I asked him what he was talking about he looked at me with surprise and asked, "What, you don't know?" When I shrugged he added, "Negahot - a terrorist infiltrated last night, started shooting, and killed two people." Just as we were sitting down to eat on Friday night, so too, Eyal and Sarah Iberbaum, together with neighbors Shai and Shira Abraham, with some other guests, were dipping an apple in honey. The Iberbaums and Abrahams live in Negahot, about ten miles south-west of Hebron. A community of over thirty families, Negahot faced tremendous hurdles in the past few years as a result of the Oslo Accords because the main approach road to the community was transferred to Arafat and the PA. When the Oslo War began three years ago that road was cut off to Negahot's families, who could then enter and leave their community only from the west. Hebron's archivist, Shlomit Gadot, who lives in Negahot, could get to her office here in Hebron only after a two hour drive, as opposed to the twenty minutes it would take before the main road was closed. Yet, despite the difficulties and terrorist activity in the area, the community continued to thrive. Not only didn't people leave, rather, new families moved in. Negahot families began building permanent houses, allowing them to move out of temporary 'caravan' homes. Eyal Iberbaum, 27 years old, had served in Negahot while still in the army, and after marrying a year ago, brought his bride to live in this beautifully scenic community. The Iberbaums, together with his neighbors, the Abrahams and some other guests, welcomed the New Year with hope and expectation for a happy, sweet, and good year. It was just after nine o'clock when their dinner was interrupted by sharp knocking at the door. Eyal asked twice, "who's there" but received only a garbled, unclear answer. When he slowly opened the door, weapon in hand, a twenty-one year old terrorist from a nearby Arab village opened fire with an automatic rifle, killing Iberbaum. A guest in the house quickly shot at the terrorist, preventing him from entering the home. The terrorist, standing outside, started blasting his rifle at the 'caravan' home, whose walls are constructed of plasterboard. As a result of this shooting, seven month old Shaked Abraham, infant daughter of Shai and Shira, was hit in the chest. Her father, an ambulance driver, together with his wife attempted to resuscitate their daughter, to no avail. She died in their arms. Two other guests were slightly wounded. Soldiers serving in Negahot quickly arrived at the site and within two minutes killed the Arab attacker. It was later learned that the murderer, Mahmoud Hamdan, was recently released from an Israeli prison after serving thirteen months because he planned to blow himself up in a suicide attack against Israelis. An Arab gets a year in jail for attempted murder, is released, and then fulfills his wish by killing a baby and a 27 year old man on the eve of the New Year. At the end of every year, it is customary in certain circles to crown a 'person of the year.' I spent some time thinking about who is my 'person of the year.' In the end, I decided that my choice is not one particular person - rather it is a collective - Am Yisrael, living in Eretz Yisrael - the people of Israel, living in the Land of Israel - they are my 'person of the year.' Sure, people like Rabbi Eli and Dina Horowitz, Shaked Abraham and Eyal Iberbaum. Not only them though - but also Eli and Dina's children, Shaked's parents, and so many others, who have been afflicted by Arab terror which has left hundreds and thousands of dead and wounded. These are the people who are continuing to live - who are not giving up, are not leaving their homes, and have not despaired of their dream. These are the people of the year - and they are not just in Yesha (Judea, Samaria and Gaza). They are from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and Hadera and Haifa, Eilat and Shlomi - continuing to live - to dip an apple in honey, wishing each other a happy, sweet and good New Year, despite the difficulties, despite the pain. This is the real Am Yisrael which has returned home - to our eternal home, our only home, Eretz Yisrael. With blessings from Hebron, with blessings for a happy and better New Year, from all of Hebron's men, women and children. David Wilder is spokesman for the Jewish Community of Hebron. Its website address is http://www.hebron.org.il

TERRORIST' BABY VICTIM IS BURIED TODAY Posted by Jules Segal, September 29, 2003.

Shaked (pronounced ShahKED) Avraham, the 7-month-old baby who was murdered in her home in Negohot on Friday night by a Palestinian Arab terrorist, was buried this afternoon in Kfar HaRoeh, near Hadera. Eyal Yeberbaum, 27, who was also murdered in the attack, was buried in his original hometown of Rehovot late last night. "A chilling aspect of this story," related Negohot's security officer Yuval Levinger this morning, "is that the terrorist was just freed two months ago from Israeli prison in the framework of the gestures towards Abu Mazen - even though it was known that he had been planning to carry out a terrorist attack. And so, a few weeks later, he carried it out." The murderer, a member of Islamic Jihad, had little difficulty making his way into the community, as "bureaucratic difficulties" have left it with no perimeter fence. He approached the caravan of Eyal and Sarah Yeberbaum, who were hosting Shai and Shira Avraham and their baby Shaked for the Rosh HaShanah holiday. Upon hearing a knock on the door in the middle of the meal, they repeatedly asked who it was, and suddenly bullet fire sprayed the room through the door. Eyal and the Shaked were mortally wounded, and the terrorist then began to fire on other caravans nearby, wounding two other residents. Finally, an armed resident from another caravan came out and was able to shoot and kill the terrorist, ending the carnage. The baby's father, an ambulance driver, attempted to resuscitate his seven-month old, but was not successful. Shaked is at least the seventh baby under one year old to be murdered in the ongoing Oslo War of terrorism against Israel. The others were Shalhevet Pass, 10 months old, of Hevron, in March 2001; Yehuda Chaim Shoham of Shilo, five months, hit by a large rock in June 2001; nine-month-old Aviyah Malka in March 2002 in Netanya; Tif'eret Sarah Shilon, nine months, who was one of nine people, including her father and maternal grandmother, who were murdered outside Emanuel in July 2002; and two babies - Shmuel Zargari, 11 months, and 3-month-old Shmuel Taubenfeld of the United States - murdered in the #2 bus bombing last month. Negohot, a growing Yesha community of 31 families - 19 families moved in over the past two years - is situated on the east-west highway between Kiryat Gat and Hevron. Though physically closer to Hevron, its only road to the Jewish Southern Hevron Hills communities passes through PA-controlled Area A - leaving it more "connected" with the pre-1967 areas near Kiryat Gat.

SECOND GUESSING G-D Posted by Rebbetzin Esther Yungreis, September 25, 2003.

In my last column I wrote of the anguish and sorrow that fills the hearts of our brethren in Israel nowadays, and I wrote of the all-too real curses that are enumerated in parshat Ki Tavo. There is one curse however, that at first glance, may be difficult to understand, but if you take a moment to think about it, you will realize how poignantly it speaks to us: "And it shall be, if you will not hearken to the voice of the L-rd your G-d to observe and perform all His commandments and all His decrees that I command you today, then all His curses will come upon you and overtake you." (Deuteronomy 28:58). The word "overtake" is puzzling, but upon closer scrutiny, we have to conclude how prophetic these words have proven to be. We have a long history of trying to second guess G-d's word. There are always those who rationalize that the tragedies that befall us are totally unrelated to our abandonment of Torah and mitzvos. They reason that these curses are just so much superstition, and if we would just do "such and such," then all our problems would be resolved. But throughout our long and torturous history, no matter how clever a formula was concocted, no matter how confident we were that this time, we would find a way to neutralize the irrational hatred that surrounds us, the curses always overtook us. Just consider some of the events of the last century and you will see for yourself the sad reality of this prophecy. A Jew by the name of Karl Marx convinced his followers that hatred in the world stemmed from jealousy between the haves and the have-nots, and that it was these economic disparities that rendered the Jews scapegoats. And so, he founded communism, a system that would guarantee the perfect distribution of wealth, a system in which everyone would have an equal share. Many Jews sacrificed and died for this cause. They truly believed that communism would usher in a new era of fraternity and brotherhood. Who would have believed that this very same communism, would not only fail, but would give birth to the most vile and brutal persecution of the Jewish people. - "Alas, the curses shall overtake you..." Theodore Hertzl, a secular Jew from Austro-Hungary, the founder of political Zionism, was convinced that the cause for anti-Semitism was the lack of a Jewish homeland. He was so assimilated that he even expressed willingness to accept Uganda as a substitute, but since Uganda was not to be had, he settled on Palestine. Who would have believed that fifty one years after the founding of the Jewish homeland, that homeland, would become the butt of hatred. "We have nothing against Jews, it is the Israelis and Zionists that we despise," is the politically correct mantra of the new anti-Semites. - "And the curses shall overtake you..." The Reform movement in Germany was founded on the belief that anti-Semitism was provoked by the special Jewish way of life that distinguishes Jews from gentiles. If only Jews would shed their traditions, their mannerisms, their distinct garb, their myriad archaic commandments and enter the enlightened world - if only they would be like all other people, anti-Semitism would cease to exist. Jews gave up their faith, their Torah, and proudly swore their allegiance to "Fattersland uber alles" - "Germany, the Fatherland - above all." Who would have believed that it would be from that very same enlightened, civilized Germany that the most satanic evil ever to be visited upon our people would emerge. - "And the curses shall overtake you.." The events that I described are not from our distant past - rather, they are of today, and we are all familiar with them, but there are still those among us who believe that they can relinquish Torah and mitzvos without consequences - that the curses that we encounter in life are totally unrelated to our lack of observance and our abandonment of the Covenant. They truly believe that all our problems would be resolved if we would just adopt "yet another formula." While the embers of the flames of Auschwitz were still glowing, the advocates of this philosophy found yet another prescription to once and for all eradicate the scourge of anti-Semitism. They scurried to Rome and prostrated themselves before the Pope to inaugurate the dawn of a new era - "Dialogue" The rationale behind this was quite logical. The silence of the Church and its support of the Nazis in Catholic Europe was due to a lack of communication. But now, bridges of understanding would be built. "Dialogue" would be the new antidote for the deadly virus of anti-Semitism. But then came 1967 - the Six Day War, and once again, the balloon burst. As Israel was threatened by annihilation, her leaders appealed to the world community and to the Church, but the nations remained silent as did Rome. The proponents of dialogue tried to call in their cards, but their investment had failed. Rome not only remained indifferent to the plight of the fledgling Jewish state, but lent its sympathy and support to those who were bent upon her destruction. Recently, the age-old blood libels have re-surfaced in contemporary garb. A prince of the Church, Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Meridiaga, who is the Archbishop of Honduras and who, according to Boston Globe reporter James Carrol, is one of a small number of likely candidates to succeed Pope John Paul II, reportedly stated that the accusations of sexual abuse in the Church are a Jewish fabrication! You might wonder how he arrived at such a brilliant conclusion, but then again, how did his predecessors throughout the centuries conclude that Jews slaughtered Christians children and used their blood to make wine and matzoh for Passover' Nothing changes - just the names and the places. Still, you may insist that we are living in the twenty-first century. People cannot just make outlandish irrational accusations built upon a pack of lies. But obviously, they can, and there are myriad people out there willing to embrace them and declare them to be truth. The Archbishop propounds that the Jews were seeking revenge on the Church for its pro-Palestinian/anti Israel stance and most importantly, also wanted to divert attention from the atrocities that they are perpetrating against the Palestinians, so they fabricated this story, and proof of its Jewish origin is that The Boston Globe, owned by the Jewish Sulzberger New York Times family, was the first to break the story. Therefore, it stands to reason that this is a Jewish conspiracy. Now it's one thing for the Cardinal to make such preposterous and virulent accusations, but it is something else again for Rome to remain silent and not call the Cardinal to task. Once again, despite years of dialogue, despite good-will gestures and kow-towing to Rome, the curses have overtaken us. Let us now" consider the tragedies that are befalling us in Eretz Yisroel - the constant barrage of terrorist attacks that result in almost daily carnage. Why do the Arabs hate us so? Why are they bent upon killing us? Why are they obsessed with shedding Jewish blood? Why do they wish to see us dead? Why do they want to eradicate the Jewish State? Once again, our secularists, who deny G-d's Hand in our history have convinced themselves and others that there are valid reasons for all this hatred, reasons that can be overcome: The Arabs suffer from poverty, they live under abysmal conditions, they lack educational and job opportunities, the Palestinians have become refugees, and they need their own state. Who, if not we, should empathize with that? Let's give them what they need, let's give them the land, let's give them financial aid, let's give them the arms to create their own police force. It was this thinking that prompted Israeli leadership to legitimize Arafat and put white gloves on his bloody hands. It was with this thinking that Israel convinced Washington to no longer regard Arafat as persona non-grata, but to accord him all the honor of a diplomat. It was this Israeli thinking that enabled Arafat to win the Nobel Peace prize, and it was this thinking that prompted Israel to sign the Oslo Accords. Oslo would herald a new dawn in Jewish-Arab relations. Israel and her neighbors would enjoy open borders and together build a model state. Israel gave up chunks of her G-d given land, supplied Arafat and his cohorts with funds and weapons, and taught them how to prepare for the establishment of their own state. Who would have believed that that Oslo pact would open the doors to the must brutal and bloody period in the history of the young State, that the arms that Israel gave would be turned against her own sons and daughters? And today, ten years down the road, we are further from peace than ever before. Not only are our borders not open, but now we have to build "fences" to protect ourselves from the killers who live next door. What will it take to awaken those who are still asleep, those who after thousands of years of history still cling to the illusion that we Jews can be like all other nations - that the laws that apply to them can apply to us as well? What will it take to make our assimilated brethren understand that our destiny, our very breath is ordained by HaShem, that we are Mamlechet Kohanim, a priestly kingdom, Goy Kadosh, a holy nation, destined to be a light unto the world, and because of that, there is only one formula, one road map for us and that's the road map that was charted at Sinai. All else is doomed to fail, for otherwise, - "... the curses will overtake us." May HaShem grant that this year of 5764 will usher in a new era of tshuva - return to G-d and His Torah, for that is our only power, our only means of survival, our only antidote to the curses. "If only My people would heed Me, if Israel would walk in My ways, in an instant I would subdue their foes and against their tormentors turn My hand." (Psalm 81). May I take this opportunity to wish all our readers and K'lal Yisroel a gamar chasima tova. Rebbetzin Yungreis heads the Hineni Heritage Center located in New York City. Its website address is http://www.hineni.org

WE ARE HERE! Posted by Ellen W. Horowitz, September 25, 2003.

In order to help us Israelis digest our overwhelming holiday shopping bills, most supermarkets offer a bit of sweet compensation in the form of a receipt which entitles the depleted shopper to a "gift." So while my husband went to load the car, I waited for the head clerk to return to the counter with the Rosh Hashanah bonus. Usually it's a bottle of wine or, at the very least, a small gift-jar of honey. This year I was handed a small package of margarine - an obvious and rather ominous sign of the times. Dumbfounded, I returned to the car with a bittersweet complaint. "Honey, look. It's not even butter!" But when my husband flashed his endearing smile, it took me back. When I was a student, attending an overseas summer program at Tel Aviv University, I would often visit my soon-to-be husband and his brother in their modest apartment in Hertzlia. They were always gracious hosts and would share their meals with me, which consistently consisted of bread and margarine - there was rarely anything else. I was too in love to complain (when you're in love, everything tastes good). But, I couldn't help but wonder how it was that these guys looked far more strapping and wholesome than their well fed American counterparts. That same summer we went camping in the Sinai, our supplies consisted of bread, margarine and water. I didn't complain or need anything else, as I was awe-struck with the majesty of the desert (when you're captivated, everything tastes good). That must have been the secret behind the mann in the desert. As long as the Jewish People were in love, awe-struck and captivated, we didn't need anything else. Ahhhhh, to be young again. I think I speak for at least a few of us when I say that the last three chaotic years have sapped a bit of our strength and youthful optimism. We should look forward to this New Year, because it presents us with an opportunity to rediscover inspiration, clarity and hope. But still, I have my concerns with regards to whats in store for us in 5764. After a year of little sleep (I wrote this piece at 4 AM), I'm afraid that I'll fall asleep this Rosh Hashana. It happens every year. Throughout the last several years, I rarely takes naps during the day and am easily awakened at night - as if on high alert. But come Rosh Hashanah, I listen with great concentration to the shofar service - only to be hounded by irresistible drowsiness throughout the rest of the day. So this year I've begun to peruse my bookshelves in search of inspiring works that are sure to keep me going. I've chosen the teachings of scholarly giants like, Rabbis Hersh, Soloveitchik, Dessler, Kook, and Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss. I am not being irreverent. Horton Hears a Who is a must-read Rosh Hashana classic (it's also a short book with lots of pictures). Anybody who doesn't think so is probably either a shirker -like that little twerp in apartment 12-J, or a renegade mayor of our small speck of dust - who prefers to attend gala birthday celebrations rather than tend to their responsibilities in an hour of crisis. (NOTE: If you just lost me, you had better borrow the book. Things will become remarkably clear - I promise.) So, when I start to feel drowsy and the formal prayers and commentaries no longer hold my attention, I'm going to go back to a simpler time - and sit down to a cup of tea, and challah with margarine (and a touch of honey). Then I'm going to recapture my youthful optimism by delving into the prophetic wisdom of Dr. Seuss. I'll join the rest of the Whos in Who-ville in the hope that, this coming year, our cries of "We are here!" "We are here!" "We are here!" "We are here!" will be both heard in the heavens and understood here on earth. Wishing all of Our People a truly peaceful and comforting 5764. Ellen Horowitz lives on the Golan Heights with her husband and six children. She is a painter, writer and co-founder of helpingisrael.com. She can be contacted through her website http://www.artfromzion.com

NATION BUILDING Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 25, 2003.

The Bush administration announced it would withhold some loan guarantees if Israel builds beyond the 1967 border, redlining the Jewish Quarter, French Hill, Ramat Eshkol, and the Mount Scopus-Hebrew University-Hadassah Hospital areas of Jerusalem. Israeli construction there is not prohibited by international law or by the Oslo accords. Arabs in the Territories are building ten times as fast as Israelis, and mostly illegally. The P.A. encourages this illegal building in an attempt to influence negotiations about final borders. Instead of reducing aid to the P.A, the Administration plans to boost that aid from $100 million to $215 million (IMRA, 9/17 from ZOA). Instead of securing the Jewish nation, the US is engaged in Palestinian nation-building. Problem is, whereas US nation-building in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq was preceded by defeating the aggressors and terrorists, in the P.A. the terrorists still run everything. Who will defeat them? Israel. Eventually, Pres. Bush will get Israel to defeat the terrorists and then secure the area not for Israel but for Israel's Arab enemies. This cruel irony is anti-Zionist. Israel does the US's dirty work, ultimately redounding against Israel and the US. Before Arab autonomy, Israel spent a fortune building networks of schools, roads, water, electricity, and health. What a mistake! Peres and Rabin gave out ammunition and money with which, to their surprise but not to the Right's, the Arabs attacked Israel. The answer is for Israel to conduct not a war on terrorism that leads to an enemy state, but a war on the Palestinian Muslim Arabs, that leads to a Zionist fulfillment.

AN OPEN LETTER TO AVRAHAM BURG Posted by Arthur Cohn, September 25, 2003.

Dear Avrum, I know you - within our long-time family friendship - for many years. I never commented on any of your political statements when you gave them to Israeli newspapers. However, your article "A failed Israeli society is collapsing" is especially disappointing because it was not only published in Israel, but also abroad in the "International Herald Tribune," "Le Monde" (Paris) and "Suddeutsche Zeitung" (Munich). Under these circumstances I cannot restrain myself from reacting to it. I must protest against your level of argumentation and the style of your essay. Your way of presenting issues is irresponsible, undemocratic and lacks basic honesty. It ignores all the great values which are the basis of the Jewish State up to this day. In very general accusations - which are characteristic of the whole article - you say that the Israeli nation (!) today rests on a "scaffolding of corruption." No word about Israel being a state with a most developed judicial system and courts which are open to all parts of Israeli society (Arabs included) in order to supervise justice in the State of Israel and to fight corruption in all its manifestations - a tiny state surrounded by totalitarian governments which are not bound by the rule of law. No word about the vast majority dedicated to Israel without any personal corruption whatsoever. No word about the tremendous job done in Israel with the huge immigration from Russia and Ethiopia. No word about the thousands of volunteers fulfilling a wonderful task for all underprivileged people - from handicapped children to helpless aged persons. No word about the free press of Israel which detects openly any irregularities within the Government and its branches. No word about the unlimited devotion to Israel's security even by regular citizens who endanger their lives in order to minimize the destruction done by terror acts. You write that settlements are "run by an amoral clique of corrupt lawbreakers." The settlements were built since 1967 with the help of the Israeli government (Labor and Likud alike) and even their political opponents know that most of the settlers are great idealists. Far from being corrupt and amoral, they are loyal citizens. It is one thing to advocate removal of settlements, and another to demonize the settlers in such an unjust way. How can you ignore the Jewish historic approach in your analysis of events? One example: Tens of thousands of Arabs worked for many, many years in Israel. Their entry to Israel started to be made difficult only after terrorists were smuggled in with the workers. To speak about the Palestinian difficulties with the roadblocks without mentioning the reasons which brought them about is morally questionable. What is even worse: You invent the lie that Israel has "ceased to care about the children of Palestinians." You describe all of Israel as an inhuman entity and cause with this statement irreparable damage to Israel's moral image. As you surely know, the truth is the opposite: Despite the Palestinian children being educated to become genocide murderers and despite their being abused as shields for terrorists, Israel does whatever possible to avoid unnecessary damage to the lives of Palestinian children. Examples: The deaths of 23 soldiers in Jenin which were sacrificed in order to avoid a massive attack on the civilian population. Another recent example: Israel could have last week killed the main heads of the Hamas movement in Gaza, but refrained from using a stronger bomb in order not to endanger too many civilians. I don't know any other nation in the world which would act with such moral considerations even in their fight against frightfully inhuman terrorists. "We must remove all the settlements - all of them" - what an odd, unreflective statement! If Israel has no rights in the disputed territories gained through the '67 war, how will you react to the request of the Palestinian prime minister that Israel has to go back to the 1948 borders and quit the "occupied territories" of the Independence War? And how will you morally reject the PLO argument, taught in the Palestinian schoolbooks, that all of Israel is "occupied" territories? Can it be historically justified that Israel leaves Hebron, Gush Etzion or even great parts of Jerusalem, so that a future Palestinian state becomes 'judenrein' while now, in Israel, there live more than a million Arabs with political rights? Never in your article do you mention 'peace' (perhaps you don't believe in the possibility of a peace treaty after the Barak experience), but you still expect - in a most irresponsible way that Israel go back to the 'Auschwitz' borders of '67, even without a permanent peace process. Your appeal to  Israel's friends abroad, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, presidents and prime ministers" to influence the road Israel is going on is a clear undermining of Israel's democracy. Now, that you and your party are a minority, you appeal to political forces outside Israel to interfere in Israel's affairs. Who would believe that this undemocratic view is expressed in a call from a man who was speaker of the Israeli parliament? "The Arabs, too have dreams and needs." The majority of Israel would like to assist the Arabs to fulfil these needs. But as long as their dream is "to kill Jews wherever you find them," Israel cannot be expected to assist them in making this dream reality. It is truly unbelievable that a man of your position should have no hesitation, as a Jew and as a Zionist, to weaken the struggle of the Jewish People in Israel with an article full of generalizations, platitudes and baseless accusations, not mentioning with one word the high level of Jewish values and humane behaviour kept alive in the State of Israel, despite the brutality used by its neighbours during all the years of its existence. An old Jewish saying states that one of the greatest sins is to humiliate another human being in public. It is your right (and perhaps even your duty) to publicize your political views, but I am afraid that with your irresponsible article in significant publications worldwide you transgressed this basic rule by humiliating the People of Israel in a most unqualified, ugly manner. Arthur Cohn is a national film producer whose productions include "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis," "Central Station," and "One Day in September."

ELON MOREH Posted by Ken Heller, September 25, 2003.

Dear Friends: Pinchas Fuchs, a long time resident and leader at the eastern Samarian community of Elon Moreh (founded in 1975), will be visiting New Jersey in November during his short stay in the States. I visited Elon Moreh during my trip to Israel last year and was impressed with the progress they have made in terms of housing, education and various emergency projects they have been determined to see through to fruition. I was also struck by the fact the you can actually look down into Shechem (now called Nablus, a major center of terror). It is also important to note that there have been deadly terrorist infiltrations into Elon Moreh in the past several years. They still need a great deal of help in order to complete their various projects in a timely manner. I belong to American Friends of Elon Moreh because I have made several contributions to the community in the past including when I was there. Would you also be able to help? Security conditions can still be improved upon and they are working to complete a large library which will also serve as a conference center and a simcha room. If you would be interested in supplying your financial assistance, please make your check out to: American Friends of Elon Moreh and mail it to: Americans for a Safe Israel, PO BOX 459, Huntingdon Valley, Pa. 19006 Thanking you in advance for your concern and assistance and wishing you again a wonderful New Year, one that brings peace, comfort, sweetness and health to you and all of Am Yisrael.

A HIGH HOLIDAY WISH: DECONDITION PALESTINIAN ARAB SOCIETY FROM INCULCATED HATRED Posted by David Bedein and Daphne Burdman, September 23, 2003.

At a time when the public debate continues as to whether Arafat, Abu Ala or any other PLO leader may lead the nascent Palestinian Arab entity, the time has come to consider a much more serious issue: Whether Palestinian Arab society must first experience a total metamorphosis - something like the De-Nazification that the Allies forced upon Germany after World War II. Any Arab leader who continues to ascribe to the philosophy of the PLO will not be capable of aspiring to peace and reconciliation in the Middle East. Let us say there's another peace declaration between the Palestinian Arabs and Israel, either as a result of a negotiated peace, or after a capitulation by the Palestinian Arabs to successful Israeli military action. The rabid hatred of Israel presently manifested by Palestinian Arab society at large will obviate against any possibility of a successful peace process. In view of the absence of an effective, neutral coalition similar to the Allied coalition after WWII, it is essential to start considering the format of reconstruction within any future Palestinian Arab entity which will be brought into existence. The following parameters are posited as cornerstones of the reconstruction process: - Criminalization of incitement to violence and preaching of martyrdom. - Consideration of "Nuremberg-type" trials. - Psychological deconditioning from hatred and violence. - Democratization. - Establishment of a body representing Moderate Islam to perform as Consultants and Administrators in conjunction with secular officials, both Palestinian Arabs and non-Palestinian Arabs. NOTES: Palestinian Arab society has been imbued with profound hatred by deliberate programming through all available means, including societal communication, formal education within the schools, extensive well-coordinated official Palestinian Authority media programs, and messages from the mosques inspired by political (militant) Islam. Establishment of a future peace between the Palestinian Arabs and Israel, will therefore require considerably more than "dismantling the terrorist organizations." Such dismantlement is an essential first step, which of necessity must be followed by a 2-pronged simultaneous program consisting of (1) deconditioning from hatred, (2) massive societal reconstruction. 1.Palestinian Arabs, but most particularly Palestinian Arab youth, have been conditioned to hatred of Israel, Israelis and (to a somewhat lesser extent) of the U.S by programs (described elsewhere) which employ highly sophisticated psychological methods and which thereby tap profound underlying psychological processes. It is therefore essential that psychological deconditioning, which uses similarly designed mechanisms, must be utilized to undo this profound conditioning to hatred, and must form an integral part of any reconstruction program. This will be a long and arduous process. It will be established in the schools, and in the media. Educators as well as psychologists will need to be closely involved in establishing and refining such programs. 2. Essential factors in Palestinian Arab societal reconstruction will include: A. Active education about true democracy, development of a flourishing civil society, development of an active middle class with incorporation of entrepreneurial aspects, equality of women, a legal constitution which reflects contemporary aspects of democratic jurisprudence, the rule of law, due process, and human rights, and which recognizes freedom of religion and separation of "Church" and State. In accord with concerns about "one man, one vote, one time," some authorities indicate that implementation of elections per se must needs be delayed until the democratization process is well advanced and has been seen to be successfully employed by community groups etc. at a local level. B. Constantly ongoing active inputs, both consultative and administrative, from prominent and respected Islamic Moderates, both secular and religious, will be indispensable and essential at all phases of education and democratization. C. Massive repair and development of the Palestinian Arab nation by a contemporary "Marshall Plan" will be essential, running concurrently with the above programs. In order to permit development of the above processes, and drawing on the successful experiences of the post World War II programs, all forms of incitement to, teaching of, and, preaching of, violence for political ends, must be criminalized in Palestinian Arab society. Trial by due process and strict enforcement of legal sentences will need to be implemented. The holding of Nuremberg-type trials will need to be strongly considered for designated war criminals. This will involve intense legal and political discussion. It is to be remembered that: Strict monitoring will be essential at all stages in view of the unfortunate history of (I) Consistent non-compliance by the Palestinian Authority, which is an outgrowth of the PLO. (II) Monitoring agencies who have failed to monitor for various reasons including holding the autonomy of developing nations as a sacrosanct principle, or who have abused their prerogative. Such agencies include the E.U., the UN and UNRWA. Current international attitudes present a considerable problem in terms of the commonly accepted interpretations of "just wars" and deprivation theory as the basis for hatred and terrorism. Recognition of issues raised above will be necessary in terms of gaining international allegiance. It is highly likely that sophisticated psychologists and psychiatrists have been responsible for formulating the existing programs within the P.A. of indoctrination to hatred, violence, martyrdom, and "suicide bombings." Here is the goal: To facilitate a post-PLO Palestinian Arab society, which will be dedicated to its citizens healthy progress and success in the context of a peaceful, productive, fruitful, permanent relationship with Israel. David Bedein is Bureau Chief and Daphne Burdman, M.D., is Psychiatric Research Analyst, Israel Resource News Agency, Jerusalem, Israel.

WALL IN TEMPLE MOUNT COMPOUND COLLAPSES Posted by Bryna Berch, September 25, 2003.

This is in today's Arutz Sheva (http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com). It is shameful that a Jewish Government in a Jewish State would ignore what the Arabs have been doing on the site of our Temple. The Arabs in 1967 hoped just to be allowed to pray on the site. Instead, the Israeli Government generously (and stupidly) gave them control and they responded by destroying Jewish artifacts from biblical times. Now they are destroying the site itself. One side of a wall in the Temple Mount compound - completely visible to worshippers at the Western Wall - collapsed on Tuesday, uncovering an area of some 40 square meters of dirt and fill. The wall belongs to the Islamic Museum on the Temple Mount, a building to the right and above the worshipers at the Western Wall, identified by a small gray dome. Archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar, a member of the Committee to Prevent the Destruction of Temple Mount Antiquities, said that the collapse is connected with the illegal construction works being carried out on the Temple Mount by the Moslem Waqf. Speaking with Yisrael Medad on Arutz-7's "Freedom of Broadcast" program, Dr. Mazar said that these works have been ongoing for many years without supervision by either the Planning and Construction authorities or the Antiquities Authority. "No one is concerned about preserving the ancient compound," she said, "nor has anyone mapped, surveyed or buttressed the hollow areas under the Temple Mount and under the mosques... It is frightening to think of this collapse, and of what could happen in the future when many tens of thousands of people visit the Temple Mount, and tractors and trucks - and all of this atop hollow areas that have never been professionally checked. This collapse should be a warning bell. If a catastrophe occurs, the whole world will blame Israel." She said that opening the compound to Jewish visitors is "just the beginning; pressure must be exerted in order that the supervisory authorities do what they are supposed to. The press must get involved in this cause." Photos of the collapsed wall can be seen at .

STRETCHING THE TRUTH IN PEANUT LAND Posted by Gerald A. Honigman, September 25, 2003.

President Jimmy Carter is at it again. He either loves living in a make believe world or is deliberately telling non-truths. He has access to too much information to blame it on ignorance or naivete. Pardon me if I don't sound too respectful, but the man has been shown to be a blatant hypocrite and, despite delusions about his own self-worth (an argument could be made that Camp David occurred despite him, not because of him), an outright menace to the survival of a viable Jewish State. In his most recent blast of hot air in the September 23, 2003 Washington Post (The Choice For Israelis), he again proclaimed that the occupied territories and settlement issue were the main causes of Arab resentment and thus the violence as well. Surely he's aware of poll after poll taken among Arabs that have shown that if Israel withdrew completely from those disputed areas, the Arabs would still reject Israel's right to exist. It's not how big Israel is but that Israel is that's the problem - and he knows this. And he knows about the offers made by Barak and Clinton at Camp David 2000 and Taba. Yet he insists on prodding Jews to take suicidal chances and forsake security measures with a bloodthirsty enemy he wouldn't dream of asking others to do. Surely he knows that the PLO was formed in 1964 - before Israel was in the territories. And surely he knows that nothing has changed in the Arab mindset since then or before. Mr. Carter sees the Palestinian Authority websites, maps, schoolbooks, hears the imams calling for death to the Jews, etc. He knows full well that the proposed 23rd Arab state - the second one to be created within the original borders of Mandatory Palestine as Britain received it on April 25, 1920 - plans to replace Israel, not live side by side with it. It's no accident that at the summits leading up to the "Roadmap," Ahmed Qurei'- newest Arafatian chief marionette - went on record as opposing the use of "Jewish" along with "State of Israel." And these folks still insist that Israel, after being made to return to its 9-mile wide, pre-'67 armistice line existence, then agree to absorb millions of real or alleged descendants of Arab refugees. The half of Israel's Jews who were refugees themselves from so-called "Arab" lands doesn't seem to register with him. At the close of hostilities after the invasion by Arab states of a nascent Israel in 1948, those fragile U.N.-imposed Auschwitz - I mean armistice - lines made Israel a constant temptation to its enemies. Most of Israel's population and industry lies in that narrow waistband. Mr. Carter knows full well that you need a magnifying glass to find Israel in a map of the region - a microscope for a map of the world. He dares to bring up U.N. Resolution #242 to support his position for Israel's departure from the territories. While he's a bit more careful in his wording this time, he still implies that a virtually total withdrawal is required. Nations have acquired territories thousands of miles away from home in the name of their own security, but Mr. Carter can't seem to figure out that Israel's 9-mile wide, artificially-imposed existence (the '49 armistice lines were never meant to be final borders) was a travesty of justice in desperate need of rectification. Whatever the size, shape, etc. the proposed 23rd Arab state might eventually be, it must not come at the expense of security of the sole, miniscule state of the Jews. In the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War Israel was forced to fight after it was blockaded at the Straits of Tiran and other life-threatening hostile acts, U.N. Resolution #242 most definitely did not demand that Israel return to the status quo ante bellum. The architects of that resolution such as Eugene Rostow, Arthur Goldberg, and others have all stressed quite the contrary. It called, instead, for the creation of secure and recognized borders to replace those fragile post-'48 armistice lines. Most of Israel's settlements have been built on strategic high ground areas for this reason. Even with these left in place, Israel's width goes from 9 miles up to perhaps around twenty in that waist bordering the West Bank/Judea and Samaria. Most people in America drive further just to go to work. Any "Roadmap" discussions must continue to take this into account. Those currently involving the path of the security fence are particularly relevant. While compromises are in order, Carter's demands, advice, or whatever on this issue are not. He speaks of the territories as if Palestinian Arabs (many of whom were newcomers - settlers - themselves in Palestine) had exclusive rights there. Contrary to popular current protestations, these are not occupied Palestinian Arab lands. Leading scholars such as William O'Brien, Rostow, and others have pointed out that these lands were non-apportioned areas of the Mandate, and all residents - Arabs, Jews, etc. - had the right to live there. Indeed, Jews had lived and owned land in Judea and Samaria until their earlier massacres by Arabs. And Mr. Carter knows this too. As he does the writings of the so-called moderates like the late Faisal Husseini whose goal was/is still a purely Arab Palestine from the River to the Sea. Indeed, the "moderates" of the good cop/ bad cop game the Arabs have played to gain concessions from the Jews speak in terms of temporary, meaningless concessions to the Jews as the Trojan Horse that will be used to deliver the final prize, Arafat's modern professed version of the "Peace of the Quraysh." The latter were the pagan tribe the Muslim Prophet, Muhammad, made his temporary truce with until he gained the position and strength to deliver the final blow. Talk of a new "truce" with Arafat falls into this same category. It's time to call it what it is. Mr. Carter's constant demand that Israel cave in to such above hogwash is nothing short of hostile intent on his part towards the Jewish State. He expects no others to bare their necks so freely to their sworn murderous enemies as he does Jews. When I see Mr. Carter show the same concern over the plight of some thirty million perpetually victimized stateless Kurds as he does for creating a 23rd state for Arabs (on the ashes of Israel...but fear not, he'll give a proper southern gentleman's eulogy), I might listen to him again. For now, his hypocrisy and double standards vis-?-vis Jews and Israel simply make him a spokesman for the Arab cause.

ISRAEL HAS NO OBLIGATION TO CREATE ANOTHER ARAB STATE Posted by Jules Segal, Septemer 24, 2003.

Mr. President: I am a staunch supporter of many of your policies including your decision to enter Iraq and remove a corrupt and nefarious regime. However, your recent speech at the United Nations made references to the conflict between the Arabs and Israel with which I cannot agree. You stated that the Palestinian people deserve their own state. * Why? and how have they come to "deserve" ... ? * What about the Jews born in what was then Palestine? * Will they belong to this Arab "democracy" without being classed and ostracized because of being Jews? * Jews have been to that "movie" too many times through history! There are already four states in what was known as Palestine: Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel. There is no room for another, especially one predicated on the destruction of another country - Israel. The Arabs in Israel and the Greater Biblical Land of Israel, Judea and Samaria, are free to move to any of the Arab countries in the region. if they wish to live in a country void of Jews. They can pick almost any of the Arab countries in the region. Even compensation could be advocated. But, If they want to live in Israel they must learn to live in peace and accept the facts - of a Jewish State's existence! You also stated that Israel must work to create the conditions that will allow a peaceful Palestinian (Arab) state to emerge. what's that all about? When it suits the world we are allowed to be our "brothers" keepers and after we have done our "keeping," it's OK for the "brothers" to return to their terrorism! Israel has no obligation to help nor create a state that by definition will exclude Jews [conceivably also Christians] from within its borders. Nor does it have an obligation to help create a state that will not allow Jews the right to access their places of heritage and practice their religion. Another Arab state in Palestine is superfluous and there is no need for Israel to help create another enemy territory. I urge you to support Israel and the right of Jews to live through-out the Greater Biblical Land of Israel, Judea, Samaria and Ghaza.

ANALYSIS OF SUICIDE-BOMBING Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 24, 2003.

A "NY Times" Op-Ed analysis of suicide bombing led, as always, to the Times' position that Israel should withdraw from Yesha. Political science teacher Robert A. Pape, reached that conclusion from statistics. Since almost half those bombings were by the secularist Tamil Tigers, he deduced that suicide-bombings are not religiously motivated. Experience has shown him that gradual concessions fail to appease nationalist striving, and invasions aggravate them. Therefore he proposes that Israel withdraw behind a wall and the US withdraw the UN, immigration screening, and energy independence (9/22). Some of his ideas are sensible, some are not, and some are vague. Terrorism is broader than suicide-bombing, so Prof. Pape should not be side-tracked by that one method. The UN is malign, incompetent, and corrupt. It can solve little. What does he mean by improving immigration screening? I'd eliminate visiting by certain nationalities and immigration by all. Energy independence is a partial goal, though eminently worthy. The full goal should include so much conservation and renewable energy, that the price of oil declines enough to keep the Arabs from buying much weaponry. It's not invasion that aggravates nationalist hostility. It's occupation. Perhaps we should invade periodically to eliminate military forces and weapons of mass-destruction and the laboratories that produce them, but not stay. That requires more thought. The author must be uninformed about Islamist terrorism. Islam is a religion of war against infidels; radical Islamists also war on their own Muslim governments, to "purify" them. They assemble from many countries to fighting jihad all over the world. When Americans and Englishmen go to Afghanistan and Iraq to fight against Americans and Englishmen, they do so for religious and not nationalist reasons. Iran has no nationalist grievance against Israel, but it subsidizes the Lebanese Islamist terrorists war on Israel. Ultra-religious S. Arabia spreads terrorism by financing radical mosques and madrassas everywhere. Their doctrine is to put loyalty to religion above loyalty to nationality. Nationalism? The Arabs hardly have it now, and certainly lacked it when the Arab-Israel conflict started. The Arabs were persecuting Christians and Jews centuries before there were other nationalities besides the Jewish one. The western Palestinian Arabs are not a nationality. Their leaders admit pretending to be, so as to impress Westerners, who think in terms of nationalism. An Israeli withdrawal from Yesha would not satisfy the Arabs, because they want to expel the Jews from Israel, too. Antisemitism, demagoguery, and greed underlies Arab aspirations about the Territories and Israel, as well as the Islamic injunction to recapture every area that the Muslims ever controlled in the past, regardless of by what means they controlled it. The PLO plan is to use the Territories for warring on Israel. Leaving them Yesha, the key Jewish patrimony that Pape cavalierly suggests Israel abandon, would exacerbate the problem. It would facilitate a Holocaust, by depriving Israel of secure boundaries.

CHILDREN OF JERUSALEM VICTIM'S FUND Posted by Michael D. Evans, September 24, 2003.

Greetings from Jerusalem! The funds that you and the Jerusalem Prayer Team members have donated to help victims of terrorism are being presented to victims and agencies here in Jerusalem. I have been visiting hospitals and ministering to some of the victims of terrorism. The days are not long enough to visit and pray with each of them. We drove to the home of Noga Cohen just days ago! You will remember Mrs. Cohen, because many of you sent email messages to be delivered to her and her family. The three Cohen children (ages 8, 9, and 12) were victims of a bus ambush several months ago. Each of the two younger children lost a leg, and the oldest daughter lost both legs. She is now out of the hospital, and wants to go back to school, but there was no way for her to do that. She had to be carried everywhere. I am so pleased to be able to report to you that the Jerusalem Prayer Team was able to purchase an electronic wheelchair for her. It will take her everywhere...even across sand. I also presented over 1000 love letters from JPT members. Mrs. Cohen cried when she realized that Christians really loved her and her children. Thank you so much for your gifts that have enabled us to help the Cohen family. Give your best gift now to help other terror victims now. I visited two victims of a terrorist attack at Hadassah Hospital. On the same floor with the victims was a wounded terrorist. Members of the hospital staff had saved his life, and he was receiving the same care and attention as his intended victims. At Mount Scopus Hospital, I visited with the deputy director of the hospital. I asked him what the hardest aspect of his job was. He replied, "We treat the Arabs here. We treat hundreds of them that we bring in and treat them at no charge. The most difficult day is the day that a terrorist attack happens. When it comes on television all the Arabs are shouting and clapping and screaming with joy as they see a bus blown up, people dying. They are in our hospitals; we're treating them, and they are rejoicing [because of the murder of Jews.]" We must pray for an end to this murderous spirit of anti-Semitism, and for the peace and safety of the Jewish people in the Bible land. I will return to Jerusalem in early October, and want to be able to take another significant gift to help victims of terrorism. There are many more children like the Cohen children who need our help. Please make your contribution today to the Children of Jerusalem Victims' Fund. Jerusalem Prayer Team PO Box 910 Euless, TX 76039 817-268-1228 Mike Evans is the founder of the Jerusalem Prayer Team, which is based in Euless, Texas. Their website address is http://www.jerusalemprayerteam.org

PA SOCIETY'S UNIVERSAL SUPPORT FOR SUICIDE BOMBERS Posted by Itamar Marcus, September 24, 2003.

Background. Two weeks ago, PMW reported that Palestinian Authority [PA] social organizations and NGOs [Non-Governmental Organizations] were refusing to sign a US required anti-terror clause, which states that the beneficiary organization will not transfer any money to terrorists or terrorist organizations. During these past two weeks the opposition to the US is growing more organized as 26 organizations gathered in Bethlehem to publicly declare they would not sign the US anti-terror clause, while an even larger gathering is being planned. [See below] It is also interesting to note that condemnation of the US anti-terror conditions is spreading in the Arab world. "Egyptian intellectuals promised to organize a media campaign [against the US demands] ...They rejected the American document that established a condition and link between funding and signing. The Assistant to the Director General of the Arab Organization for [Human Rights] promised to raise the issue with other Arab countries and other Egyptian organizations." [Al Hayat Al Jadida Sept. 22, 2003] It is also ironic that on the very same page in the PA daily, right under the article repeatedly attacking USAID, is an advertisement by USAID offering scholarships to Palestinian students for study in the US. [Page 5, Al Hayat Al Jadida, Sept. 22, 2003] Commentary and Analysis. There is far reaching significance to this collective refusal in the PA to sign the anti-terror clause, as their refusal not only defies US policy, but challenges a most fundamental premise regarding PA society. The common premise is that the general PA population rejects the murder of civilians through suicide terrorism, which would isolate suicide bombers on the fringe of PA society. However, when the entire organizational infrastructure, including social workers, psychologists, medical organizations and all social welfare organizations, refuse to sign an anti-terror declaration, it points to a PA society unified in their support for suicide bombers. This has important ramifications as much international policy, including the Road Map and the attempted isolation of Arafat, is based on the premise that Arafat and those supporting terrorism represent a fringe element, and their isolation would bring about an intrinsic and presumably permanent change in PA policy. However, if the entire society supports terrorism, as the NGOs stand indicates, Arafat's isolation and replacement would not indicate a change of substance, and certainly not an intrinsic and permanent change. The following is the news article that appeared in the PA daily Al Quds. Title: "The representatives of 29 NGOs [Non- Governmental Organizations] in the Bethlehem district reject the USAID document concerning support of the 'terror.' Our people are the victims of the terror." "In the headquarters of the Social Workers and Psychologists Union in Bethlehem, a meeting took place with representatives from 26 NGOs ... [to] discuss the American Development Agency USAID document. [The US document] ... forbids aid to projects belonging to Palestinian agencies and organizations that support terrorism and assist it both directly or indirectly... Without signing this commitment, the funding will be stopped Mohammed Halil Al-Laham, Head of the Popular [Welfare] Service Committee in the Al-Dehisha refugee camp, said that the proposed document by USAID is clear intervention in the affairs of the civil society institutions. The response to this document should not be ambiguous nor hesitant, it should be rejected clearly... Wijdan Al-Aza from the Working Woman's Society... demanded the rejection of any conditional funding or any foreign funding that does not respect not only the beneficiary Palestinian institutions, but also the legitimate goals of the Palestinian people, based on international legitimization. In coordination with the Civil Society Institutions and with the NGOs, Daod Bishara, a member of the legislative parliament, called to coordinate positions regarding this document and its conditions and to hold a general conference in the Palestinian territories in order to take a united position regarding this subject. At the end of the meeting, that was run by Adnan Ita from the Christian Youth Society and by Nabila Al-Dikak from the Social Workers Association, the participants decided to have a follow-up committee that would lead to another expanded meeting, and study the recommendations, with a remark that all those present stated their objection to signing and cooperating with [the terms of] this document. Present at the meeting were also representatives from the District Headquarters and the Palestinian Ministry of Interior and from the Intelligence apparatus. In the same context, the Emergency Committee of the National and Islamic Forces in the district held a meeting, during which all the Civic Society Institutions were called to refuse to sign this document... " [Al Quds, Sept. 23, 2003] This is a "Palestinian Media Watch Bulletin." It's website address is http://www.pmw.org.il.

HIGH HOLYDAYS - HERE AND THERE Posted by Judy Lash Balint, September 24, 2003.

Studies show that certain Jewish rituals are widely observed, even by assimilated or secular Jews. The most popular tradition is attendance at a Passover seder, but a close second is showing up to Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services. If it's no longer to observe the religious tradition of personal stock-taking and repentance surrounding the high holydays, then it's to take part in the gathering of the tribe. A time to see and be seen and catch up on family and community gossip. There's often more action in the courtyard or driveway of a synagogue than inside. I grew up in a modern orthodox community in Northwest London in an era when the congregation hired nearby cinemas and church halls to accomodate the "overflow" of three time a year members who wouldn't dream of staying away during Rosh Hashana or Yom Kippur. Even if they only sat in their seats for half an hour, they felt they had earned the right to criticize the chazan, the rabbi's speech and the rebbitzen's Yom Tov attire when they arrived home. Still, few drove to shul because of the proximity of a number of synagogues in the area. As teenagers, we would shul hop. Groups of teens decked out in their holiday best would traipse through the streets of suburban London neighborhoods going from one shul to another to find our friends, flirt and compare our trendy new outfits. Meantime, regular life went on all around us--other kids were in school, the postman delivered mail, shops were open and traffic zoomed past. The atmosphere was distinctly un-Yomtov like. In the U.S where I spent many years, things were pretty much the same, except here, with larger distances between the far-flung suburban Jews and their temples, driving to shul was the norm, except in orthodox communities. Diaspora rabbis know that this is the only time of year they're likely to see many shul members, so they try to pack in as many sermons as humanly possible. The speeches are generally variations on a predictable theme--why don't I see you here more often? High holyday services in the Diaspora tend to be formal affairs with seating charts and an emphasis on how many aliyot to the Torah can be sold to help finance the coming year's budget. In Israel things are very different. Firstly, in the weeks leading up to the holidays there's an atmosphere of anticipation and preparation. Supermarkets extend their hours and run honey cake specials. The outdoor markets are filled with seasonal fruits such as bright scarlet pomegranates almost bursting with seeds, fresh figs and dates. Stalls with Yizkor (memorial) candles and Rosh Hashana cards full of glitter pop up on street corners. Little work gets done as the general answer to all office questions is, "After the holidays.." On the spiritual plane, even Israel TV gets into the act. On the Saturday night before Rosh Hashana it's traditional to recite the Selichot prayers of penitence. Channel One runs a live broadcast of the prayers of a congregation in Jerusalem's Bayit Vegan neighborhhod. Ashkenazic Jews generally start the one hour prayers at midnight, and then every night through Yom Kippur. Sephardim go through the Selichot ritual in the early morning hours every day from the first day of the Hebrew month of Elul until Yom Kippur. In many neighborhoods the cry of the synagogue gabbai (official) yelling out, "Selichot, selichot," at 4:45 a.m every day to waken the faithful marks the beginning of the holyday season. Regular activities grind to a standstill in the early afternoon before Yom Kippur, as buses stop running and stores close to allow families to eat a festive meal before the start of the fast at around 5pm. The clatter of dishes and pots and pans can be heard through every open window. Although my neighborhood is mixed, made up of religious and secular people, (only two of the six families in my building are observant) it seems from my informal survey that the statistics are accurate--more than 85 per cent of Israeli Jews fast on Yom Kippur. In fact, non-religious Jews here do more than just fast on the holiest day of the year. My computer fix-it man, a secular American immigrant, tells me he's going to the mikvah (ritual bath) before Yom Kippur. Mark, who never wears a kippah, has never been to the mikveh before, but was persuaded by a friend that this was part of the Yom Kippur preparation. Last year, a group of secular Tel Avivians took part in a Tashlich ceremony at the beach on Rosh Hashanah, symbolically casting their sins into the Mediterranean. On Kol Nidrei night, the night before Yom Kippur, Israel's streets are traffic free. A tradition among secular Israelis is for kids to use the quiet streets to try out new bikes and roller blades. Families sit on their balconies people-watching with no TV or radio noise to distract them. Among the observant, almost everyone, men and women, dress in white on Yom Kippur. Men in white shirts and the women in simple blouses or dresses--far from the fancy dress code found in most US synagogues. The atmosphere is quiet and serious. Those who do attend services are regulars and are there to pray. Israel's equivalent of the three times a year Jew is most likely to be found relaxing on the beach in Tel Aviv. Judy Lash Balint is a Jerusalem based writer and author of "Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times" (Gefen), http://www.jerusalemdiaries.com

ISRAEL DIARY - BIRTHDAY WEEK Posted by Barry Chamish, September 24, 2003.

While Israel disintegrates, Shimon Peres threw a birthday bash for himself at much public expense. Little did he know that he provided an opportunity to awaken a nearly defeated people by wrecking his celebration. But would the people exploit their moment? The signs were hopeful on Sept.19/03 when the left-wing newsmagazine Yerushalayim published a huge expose of the proceedings. Not only was the public forced to pay the salaries of 1200 police officers assigned to secure the Peres' party, it was also made to pony up for the civil servants assigned by Likud cabinet ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert who had been working for six months on the orgy; not to mention whatever it costs to feed and entertain the guests at the President's house. All pretty scandalous stuff but the really big scandal was the fraudulent rental of the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv by Peres staff for the 1100 guests. Normally the hall rents for 31,000 shekels, a reasonable sum for the facility. But Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai pressed his city council to defer all costs, based on a request sent on the stationery of the Ministry Of Regional Affairs. That was Peres' last government office, but the problem is he hasn't been Minister Of Regional Affairs for over two years, and in fact, the ministry doesn't even exist anymore. So how did Peres' spokesman Yoram Dori explain away this minor piece of buncoism? "We made a mistake." Well he fessed up, so all is forgiven...Unless someone actually submits a request to the State Comptroller to investigate the con, it looks like it will be. But if someone does demand an investigation, Peres' staff will be there to save him. Asked about the irregularities, Dori explained, "This is a surprise party. Shimon doesn't even know what we're planning for him." The challenge then was to trick Shimon into changing his plans for the evening and shocking him that all his friends would do such a nice thing without him suspecting a thing. But crime has its own price and in Peres' case it was those hard to ignore no-shows. For weeks the birthday boy organizers had promised a glittering array of arriving Hollywood celebrants like Steven Spielberg, Barbara Streisand and Naomi Campbell. None of them showed up. The only star who did was the long faded Kathlyn Turner, and who noticed? Shimon began his two day festivity by placing a wreath at Rabin Square to the man he murdered, Yitzhak Rabin. The irony was apparently not lost on the Rabin family, none of whom showed up for his celebration. And they were joined by nearly the full roster of the leadership of the far left including Yossi Sarid, Yael Dayan and Avraham Burg. They were furious that the organizers weren't from Peres' own party but were Olmert and Sharon from the enemy camp. To them, this signified that there was no political opposition in the country. Why they asked, would the birthday be not only sanctioned and paid for by Sharon but actually organized by him and his camp? The answer is that the outside power elite ordered Sharon to boost Peres' standing and pay for it. The prestige of Peres and Oslo was at stake and while they would supply Clinton, Anan, Mandela and Gorbechev, Sharon had darn well better be prepared to make sure this con job worked. But it didn't. The biggest embarassment of all was that Mrs. Shimon Peres, Sonia, refused to join the festivities. Here is Dori's amazing explanation for her refusal to return the RSVP; "Sonia is a feminist and does things her way. She hates crowds but will be there in spirit." Needless to say, Dori chose not mention Peres' well known womanizing or long affair with Collette Avital. Nope, 80 year old Sonia wasn't coming in order to take a feminist stand. ... The rally ends and I walk to my car parked near the Mann Auditorium. I see the crowd is leaving so I take out my Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin banner and stood there. I'm amazed that I'm not seeing the creme de la creme of the Left emerging from the event but one after another from the Right and religious sectors. Here is Netanyahu's aide, there is Likud politico Avi Pazner, here comes Rabbi Meshi, the government's agent in the Haredi camp. And then Shas Party spokesman Yitzhak Sudri passes me. I say to him, "Sudri what were you doing in there? You know who murdered Rabin." He answers, "You did." In April 1997, I sat with Sudri in the office of Welfare Minister Eli Suissa. The minister had requested that Sudri inform me that the 1996 general elections were rigged. Peres was blackmailed over his leading role in the Rabin murder to lose the elections. That is what Sudri told me then and now he was spending his evening celebrating Peres. My, my, how the religious political sector has been corrupted! There were a half dozen protesters shaming the party-goers and one was Iris Cohen. I had received reports that she was instigating provocations among various anti-government movements and that she was considered an obvious Shabak agent-provocateur. But there she was, almost alone, doing the work that all of Israel should have been doing. I said to her, "Then you're for real after all?" I recant my previous claim. The Shabak has planted so many instigators among the resistance movements that you don't know who to trust anymore. She is so aggressive that she appeared to be one of them. Now I think she is actually real after all. The last person out of the hall is Greer Faye Cashman, the Jerusalem Post gossip columnist who has been grinding out pro-Peres puffery for years. I say to her, "Greer, I've been getting reports that you are being paid by Peres' PR agency to plant nice things about him in your column. Do you get money from them?" Highly flustered, she denied it. "Then," I queried, "Why are you always going to bat for him?" She ran away from me. The next day her report on the party had a different tone. Half the front-page article concentrated on the protests against the celebrations. One more tiny victory. When I go out and meet the public, I get information. One informant told me, "Get the tv films of the Rabin assassination night. I saw something important. The camera was aimed at Ibn Gvirol street and one of the crowd picked up a bullet clip wrapped in black tape. He gave it to a policeman. Whose clip was that? It wasn't Amir's." Another concerned Israeli took me aside and whispered, "This is inside information and it's accurate. There is a new policy in the Shabak. They think the settlers only suspect religious-looking Ashkenazim as agents, so they've switched to Sephardim mostly." Then attorney Menachem Koren-Weitz had a long conversation with me. "I knew there was a conspiracy before you did and here's why. I've been an attorney in criminal trials at the Tel Aviv Court building often enough to know the procedure. The building is designed to prevent the accused from having any verbal contact with anyone. When Amir was brought in for his hearing two days after the murder, all the regulations were lifted and he was allowed to say whatever he wanted to the media. All his public confessions then were a deliberate part of the coverup." Attorney Koren-Weitz also gave me career advice. He suggested I don't publicize my Hebrew edition of Save Israel! anymore. "Everyone is saying the Shabak gave you something to make you crazy. Stick with Rabin and forget the new book. It's too much for our people." I replied, "When I put out Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin the same people thought I was crazy then. Nine years later, half the country know I was right from the beginning. It'll take nine years, if we have them, but Save Israel! will be vindicated." A few days before, the influential newsmagazine Makor Rishon published a long cover story on my new book. The photographer was highly talented, the reporter not too bright. The result was precisely the sort of disbelief that Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin engendered. Selling New World Order conspiracy to a tired and unthinking Israeli public has its down sides but the truth will out this time, just as last. The birthday bash ends and I go home. At the protest rally, I'm told to turn on Channel One television at 12:15 for an unexpected surprise. Here, on government-owned tv is a one hour discussion of conspiracy with a well-respected host and three political scientists. They talk about the illuminati, the Jesuits, 9-11 and Rabin. They talk about me and show a clip of me lecturing. And the tone isn't angry or embarassing. The discussion includes admissions that some conspiracies are real. Without Save Israel published in Hebrew, and all the attention it has received, would this program have aired? Would Israelis have been given a new perspective on political reality? Another small victory. In time, they may all add up to actually Saving Israel. I now have a new lecture based on Save Israel! For those who have already invited me to their shuls and homes to present my Rabin lecture, reinvite me to hear: Save Israel - The Dirty Secrets Of Oslo. Write: chamish@netvision.net.il Let's all have a happy and, finally, truthful new year. The truth in Hebrew is at http://chamish.tsedek.com And: http://www.trumpetsounds.com/peres.html This article was shortened from the original.

DREAM MAKER OR DREAM WRECKER? Posted by Michael Freund, September 24, 2003.

Anyone who thought that wisdom necessarily comes with age ought to read the interview with Shimon Peres that appeared in this past Friday's Maariv. Unlike other politicians advanced in years, the octogenarian Peres, who celebrated his 80th birthday this week, showed few if any signs of having become a "statesman," with all the grace and geniality such a title implies. Instead, with characteristic hubris, the father of Oslo repeatedly refused to voice regret for the failed accords, and he was unwilling even to acknowledge the error of his ways. Not a word crossed his lips about the countless victims of his misguided policies, nor was there any expression of sympathy for those who had suffered as a result. Sounding like the tired and resentful politician that he has become, Peres launched into one his standard diatribes, singling out for abuse those who had warned all along that his foolhardy proposals would inevitably lead to disaster and bloodshed. Asserting that Oslo's opponents suffered from a form of "psychosis," Peres bitterly attacked them as "the greatest makers of mistakes in Israel's history." I'm no psychiatrist, but that sure sounds like "projection" to me. After all, Peres is the one who stripped Israel of vital strategic assets, undermined the nation's morale and sought to forcibly uproot tens of thousands of Jews from their homes, all in the name of pursuing his failed vision of "peace." With a record like that, he is hardly in a position to be pointing fingers. But perhaps the most revealing of Peres' remarks came when he addressed the issue of Eretz Yisrael HaShleimah, or "Greater Israel" as the media likes to call it. "The idea of Greater Israel has gone bankrupt," ,said Peres, asserting that there is no choice but to divide the land between Arabs and Jews. While Peres certainly knows a thing or two about intellectual bankruptcy (as his espousal of socialism and rejection of capitalism in the same interview make clear), his attack on "Greater Israel" is truly remarkable, if only because it is so terribly off the mark. Simply put, the idea of "Greater Israel" is the fulfillment of Zionism itself. It is the dream that the Jewish people have faithfully carried over the past 19 centuries, during the darkest hours of the Exile, to return to the cradle of their ancestral home, the Land of Israel. This idea nurtured the Jewish people throughout the millennia, giving them hope in the face of despair. Its validity rested on the promises of the Prophets, who long ago foretold Israel's exile and return. The solvency of "Greater Israel" (or insolvency as Peres would have us believe) has nothing to do with this or that political development, but it has everything to do with the aspirations and yearnings of the Jewish people. "Greater Israel" was alive and well in the 15th century, hundreds of years before the State of Israel was established, and it is alive and well today. Simply because Peres and his comrades succeeded temporarily in withdrawing from parts of the Land in no way undercuts the long-term legitimacy of the idea. Every national struggle, including our own, is fraught with ups and downs, advances and retreats. For Peres to think that his little experiment in withdrawal somehow extinguishes all of Jewish history and Jewish destiny is both the height of arrogance and conceit. Indeed, ironically enough, on the very day that Peres was celebrating his birthday, a news item in the Israeli media noted that a group of Jewish businessmen have succeeded in purchasing territory around Rachel's Tomb, on the outskirts of Bethlehem. And, according to the 2002 Statistical Abstract published by the College of Judea and Samaria, the Jewish population of the territories has more than doubled in the ten years since Oslo, experiencing unparalleled growth of 144 percent. This redemption of Jewish land, which is constantly taking place throughout Judea, Samaria and Gaza, is tangible proof that the idea of "Greater Israel" is far from dead or bankrupt. So long as there are loyal and believing Jews who remain faithful to our heritage, and who cling to our national patrimony with fortitude and determination, the dream of reclaiming the entire Land of Israel will never die. By declaring the idea to be bankrupt, however, Peres is showing himself for what he truly is: not a dream-maker, but a dream-wrecker, someone who has chosen to devote his remaining energies to tearing things down rather than building them up. But you can't just kill someone's dreams, and certainly not those of a nation as formidable as the Jewish people. As Menachem Begin once put it, "Faith is perhaps stronger than reality, for faith itself creates reality." And our faith in restoring Greater Israel remains as resolute as ever. So with all due respect, Mr. Peres, don't forget that the idea of Greater Israel predates you by thousands of years. And it will undoubtedly continue to endure long after you are gone. Happy birthday. The writer served as Deputy Director of Communications & Policy Planning in the Prime Minister's Office under former premier Benjamin Netanyahu. This article appeared today on the Jerusalem Post.

FIGHTING IN THE DARK Posted by Yashiko Sagamori, September 23, 2003.

Like a brick sinking in a cesspool, the US-led invasion in Iraq met virtually no resistance. Now the brick is about to hit the bottom, but the contents of the cesspool still haven't turned into anything even remotely benign. Apparently, this is not what the campaign organizers had in mind when they were telling the world about Saddam's forbidden arms and connections to Al Qaeda. Now they are at a loss what to do, and as a result the United States is begging the UN to take Iraq off its hands. What went wrong? Why, after two victorious campaigns against enemies of the United States, is the terror alert level still frozen in the middle of the scale? Why are we still bracing for another attack, knowing exactly who will deal us the next blow, just not knowing where or when? This wouldn't be the very first time the United States has failed to reap the political fruit of a military victory. Let's take a look at the Gulf War of 1991. Don't take me wrong: I was all for it. When it started, I was as enthusiastic about it as the next person. But now, 12 years later, I look back and ask myself: What was the real purpose of that war? You know the official answer: to fulfill the UN mandate to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. That's good. That's noble. Not as noble as the liberation of Israel from Arab occupation would be, but still noble. And yet, what's in it for me? More importantly, what's in it for more than 300 American families whose loved ones didn't come back from that war? Did they give their lives in Iraq defending their country? At this point, inevitably, someone should mention oil. But oil is a totally lousy excuse for the Gulf War. When I buy gasoline, I don't ask (although I probably should) whose oil it's made from. Suppose Saddam had been allowed to keep Kuwait along with all its oil. How would it affect me? The answer is, it wouldn't. Saddam would've been selling Kuwaiti oil just like he was selling his own - what else was there for him to do with it? Of course, it would've made him so much richer, and that would've been unbearably unfair, but still far less unfair than the needless death of an American soldier in some godforsaken desert. If freedom-loving Kuwaitis were so unhappy about being invaded by their Iraqi brothers, I wouldn't mind them fighting Saddam's aggression with all their might. I wouldn't even mind us supporting their valiant, patriotic effort by selling them some hardware and ammo: they could easily afford it, and it would've kept a few people in the US employed throughout Papa Bush's economic recession. If the Kuwaitis couldn't defend themselves, the matter should have been taken care of by the Arab League - it was an entirely internal Arab affair after all. And if the Arab League had once again demonstrated that Arab gallantry does not extend beyond the murder of the defenseless, the UN could've sent the blue helmets in and restored peace in the region. I do not see why American soldiers had to die - or American taxpayers foot the bill - defending the Al Sabah family. Let's ask the most obvious question: Besides the Al Sabahs, whose neck was George Bush Sr. really saving by his invasion of Iraq? Who would be next on Saddam's list? Who has the most oil in the world? Who has been the most reliable US ally in the region? Who is the most devoted supporter of our War on Terror? But of course: the Saudi royal family, the white-robed leaders of the Wahhabi sect, the faithful minders of Mecca and Medina, the ever vigilant keepers of the true-blue Islam, the inexhaustible financiers of jihad all over the world. Is that who our soldiers were sent to defend with their lives half the world away from home - the Saudi royals? Apparently, the Bush family is far less indifferent than I am in regard to the source of the oil we are burning in this country. For whatever reason, they prefer their oil to come from British-made Arab royalty. It has become even more obvious now that, despite all the evidence pointing at Saudi Arabia's leading role in the international Islamic conspiracy against Judeo-Christian civilization, the White House goes out of its way to find an excuse to praise the Saudi rulers for their role in the War on Terror. Why? I don't have an answer. Do you? Let us then take a hard look at our current War on Terror. The most efficient weapon used by our enemy is the suicide bombings. The most efficient weapon Japan used against us in WWII was the kamikazes. Nevertheless FDR did not declare a war on kamikazes: he declared a war on Japan instead. He was right: when you have to fight, you don't fight the enemy's weapon - you fight those who are trying to kill you with it. Terror is not the enemy. Terror is just a weapon. As long as we are fighting the weapon instead of the enemy, we are bound to lose. Declaring his war in the wake of September 11, President Bush miserably failed to identify the real enemy. Against all evidence, he emphatically stated, Islam is not the enemy." That's why our spectacular victories in Afghanistan and Iraq have failed to improve our homeland security even by a notch. That's why we got stuck in both places with no end in sight and no clue what to do with them. And while our military is tied up in Afghanistan and Iraq, the remaining members of the "axis of evil," North Korea and Iran, lead the nuclear arms race unimpeded and unafraid. Meanwhile our enemies don't even bother to camouflage themselves. On September 11, while hundreds of people were standing on windowsills of the Twin Towers deciding whether to jump or burn alive, a spontaneous celebration began in Moslem communities all over the world, from Cairo, Egypt, to Ramallah, Israel, to Dearborn, MI, to Patterson, NJ, to Brooklyn, NY. Elated Moslem crowds were dancing in the streets and passing sweets around. A friend described to me a scene she witnessed at the ObGyn waiting room of a Manhattan hospital where the TV was showing the tragedy live. Two heavily pregnant Arab women were happily laughing and clapping their hands while watching it. When the first tower fell, they hugged and kissed and began jumping up and down. Obviously, they weren't afraid to shake their fetuses lose in the process, proving once again that Golda Meir was right when she said that Arabs hate us more than they love their own children. The rest of those present didn't interfere: after all, America, even under attack, is still a free country. So, since the president has failed to name the enemy, let us do it and state the obvious. Contrary to his assertions, the enemy is Islam. Of course, there are all kinds of Moslems (just like there are all kinds of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Buddhists, Zoroastrians), and I am sure that most of them are perfectly agreeable people. The same, by the way, was equally true for Germans during WWII. But Nazism had to be dealt with, and mostly laudable personal qualities of individual Germans became tragically irrelevant. Regardless of the rich variety of Moslem personalities out there, there is only one kind of Islam, and it is certainly not a "religion of peace and love" as our useful idiots are trying to assure us. "Moderate" Islam exists only in Islamic propaganda. There are observant Moslems and non-observant Moslems. A non-observant Moslem makes his decision for him- or herself, just like God intended us to. An observant Moslem cannot abstain from jihad, just like an observant Jew can never enjoy bacon and eggs for breakfast, no matter how strong the craving. Islam proclaims jihad the most sacred duty of the faithful. That makes sense: the "Holy" Koran played the same role fourteen centuries ago as Mein Kampf did in the 1930's: both outlined the goals and ideology of conquest, mass murder and enslavement in the language most appropriate for their respective intended audiences. Observant Moslems, like loyal Nazis, have no choice but to follow the call. Religious scholars of various persuasions, Moslems and non-Moslems alike, will tell you that jihad is not really a war, that it is a deeply personal, internal struggle of a faithful Moslem striving for spiritual perfection. A documentary on Mohammad shown recently on PBS assured the viewers that the extermination of the Jews of Medina was not an act of anti-Semitism or genocide on Mohammad's part. And Hamas declared that the two "small" suicide bombings at the beginning of hudna did not violate it. It is your choice to believe your ears or your eyes. Moslem hostility towards the civilized world manifests itself in many various forms, but September 11 brought it out into the open, making it available to everyone's scrutiny. Instead of sympathy for the suffering of the victims, the attack prompted an especially vicious wave of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism among Moslems around the world. Even in countries like Pakistan whose leaders are opportunistic enough to pretend they are supporting us in this war, the population hates us with a passion they aren't even trying to mask. You want to get rich quick? Start exporting easily flammable American and Israeli flags into Moslem countries. One would think it would be in the best interests of the United States and Great Britain to isolate the emerging government of Iraq from the rest of the Moslem and especially Arab world. Instead, after some hard behind-closed-doors diplomacy, the United States achieved the acceptance of the Iraqi governing council into the Arab League. How is that a victory for us? The Arab League is an assembly of our sworn enemies. Arabs hate our guts! They use every opportunity to murder us! Why are we wasting our soldiers' lives and billions upon billions of dollars in Iraq if our government so readily gives away everything we win there? When the war was still in the future, Hosni Mubarak announced that attacking Iraq would be a catastrophe because it would destroy stability in the region. When I heard it, I thought proudly that President Bush was doing the right thing. What the Egyptian president euphemistically calls the "stability in the region" is the stability of feudal dictatorships, ruling dynasties without grace or nobility, and stagnant, corrupt societies that should've been outlawed long before Great Britain got a chance to enthrone tribal chieftains within randomly drawn borders. Stability in the region means the never-ending genocidal war of Arabs against Israel. Stability in the region means that the enemy is free to conduct jihad unmolested. Destroying that "stability" should've been the primary US goal in Iraq. Shutting down all Islamic institutions in the US should've been the highest priority of our new Department of Homeland Security. Instead, our government has done everything it could to avoid fighting the real enemy. Dozens of American soldiers have already paid for the White House's political games with their lives. Eventually, we will all have to pay the price for the cowardice of this Administration, both in the United States and Israel. Other essays by Sagamori can be read on http://www.middleeastfacts.com/yashiko.

TEN YEARS OF OSLO Posted by Ruth Matar, September 23, 2003.

Dear Friends, Naomi Ragen, the well known author, sent out the following email on September 19, two days before Peres' birthday celebration. She listed her subject as: "Let's wish Mr. Peres the birthday he deserves." "Well, I'm back. The terrible events that took place while I was away touched me in far off places, because wherever our bodies are, our hearts are always in Jerusalem. "I understand Shimon Peres is going to have a big, state-sponsored 80th birthday this Sunday, with invited guests including such friends of Israel as Bill Clinton. "I'd like to wish Mr. Peres a happy birthday, and to thank him for his continuing contributions to the people of Israel: "Thank you, Mr. Peres, for bringing back Yasir Arafat from Tunis, and for writing your book The New Middle East, to convince the Israeli public to put their lives into Arafat's hands. "Thank you, Mr. Peres, for again, and again, and again, backing up Yasir Arafat each time a terrorist attack killed our people, helping to convince Israelis, and the world, that Arafat wasn't responsible. "Thank you, for contributing more than any other person, to the ability of terrorist organizations to evade responsibility, to set up shop in Israel, causing the death of over eight hundred men, women and children, and the injury of thousands more. "Thank you, Mr. Peres, for paying Roed Larson, over $100,000, a prize from the Peres Center for Peace, for helping you to get a Nobel Prize. Before, during and after getting his prize, Mr. Larsen was notorious for his wonderful contributions to our area, including non-stop incitement against the Israeli people, government and armed forces. "Thank you, Mr. Peres, for being a true quisling, in a nation that has many; for never visiting a terror victim, for never taking responsibility for Oslo's disasters, for preening and congratulating yourself on your many achievements at the expense of our lives. "Because of you, thousands in Israel will never reach the age of eighty. Because of you many families will never be able to celebrate a loved one's birthday. "Those who would like to express their appreciation and good wishes to Mr. Peres, can join the following demonstration opposite his party in Tel Aviv, on Sunday, September 21 organized by Women in Green (who were right all along...)" Naomi We have been criticized by quite a number of people, especially in the leftist media, for holding a protest Rally where Peres' birthday party was held, and thus "raining on his parade." However, we felt that, as Shakespeare had Mark Anthony say in the famous funeral oration in "Julius Caesar": "The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones." Whatever good Shimon Peres has done, pales in comparison with the tragedy he has brought upon the Jewish People. Over a thousand people took part in a very meaningful Rally outside the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv on Sunday night. Shimon Peres had a dazzling birthday party inside - with all the rich and famous and powerful lauding him for his great "Achievements of Oslo." We, on the other hand, stood outside and mourned the 1,200 murdered and many thousands maimed for life, all because Shimon Peres secretly made agreements with an enemy organization bent on Israel's destruction. There were no cocktails served at our gathering. Nor was there any festive music. Only the Prayer "El Male Rachamim" (G-d full of Mercy) and pre-Rosh HaShana Shofar blowing, which is meant to "wake us from our slumber" and take time to get into the mode of introspection and reviewing our actions of the past year; and to repent both as individuals and as a nation. We had thirty speakers in all. We deliberately did not invite politicians but only leaders of grass roots groups opposed to giving away the Land. We also asked some family members of terror victims to speak. There was not a dry eye amongst us, when the father of 16 year old David Boim, who was murdered on his way home from school, said with tears in his eyes: "Parents should never have to bury their own children." The daughter of Rabbi Ra'anan spoke movingly about her father, who was murdered in Hebron by an Arab terrorist, who broke into their home while they were sleeping. Each speaker, after a very short address, read some of the names of the people murdered. After each name was read, all of us said in unison: "May Hashem avenge his blood." The demonstration was powerful and moving, but in no way depressing or hopeless, because we knew that we, outside the Mann Auditorium, represented the majority of the Jewish People, those who love their Land, their Heritage, and their People. Peres, after loosing the 1996 election to Binyamin Netanyahu, answered questions the day after in an interview with Ha'aretz: Interviewer: What happened in these elections?  Peres: We lost.  Interviewer: Who is we?  Peres: We, that is the Israelis.  Interviewer: And who won?  Peres: All those who do not have an Israeli mentality.  Interviewer: And who are they?  Peres: Call it the Jews. We are the "Jews" Peres spoke about. We're proud not to have the Peres mentality! In the name of all those who were killed and maimed, and all those who are alive and well and want to see Israel as a strong Jewish State - we vowed to make sure that the Jews will always have the upper hand and we vowed to save our country from Shimon Peres and the other Oslo criminals. That is why the singing of Hatikva at the end of our demo was loud, clear and strong. Hatikva, Israel's national anthem, means hope! We know that our message "The Land of Israel, belongs to the People of Israel, based on the Torah of Israel" is the only hope for the survival of Israel as a Jewish state. And we know that in the end, with God's help, this Jewish message is the one that will prevail. Shana Tova! With Blessings and Love for Israel,   Ruth and Nadia Matar The website address for Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green) is http://www.womeningreen.org. To contribute, go to https://host5.apollohosting.com/womeningreen/donation.html

SEEKING PRAISE, GETTING CRITICISM Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 23, 2003.

Israeli officials gear their policy to what they think would bring them praise, but for which they get criticism. If this failure puzzles them, they don't admit it. They keep on making the same mistakes. The explanation for the failure of their appeasement is simple. The people whose praise Israel seeks are no friends of it. They are undeclared enemies. Foremost is the traditionally anti-Zionist US State Dept. Sometimes the State Dept. might express satisfaction with some sacrificial act by Israel, an act that Israelis should condemn. Mostly, the State Dept. is displeased with the existence of Israel, itself. Israel cannot win its good graces. With each concession by Israel, the next requested concession moves up to the top of the State Dept. list. The US pressure that won the first concession, now moves to seeking another.

CONSEQUENCES JINSA Report #362, September 23, 2003.

Over the weekend, President Bush laid blame for the failure of American-led peace efforts directly on Yasser Arafat. Within hours, "Prime Minister" Abu Ala announced that Arafat is his boss and the US should deal with him as a full partner. The obvious American response should be to regard neither as a partner. It is time for the US to stop protecting the Palestinians from the consequences of their lousy choices of leadership and of policy. The best way would be for the US to support Israel's sovereign decisions about "settlements," the security fence and eliminating terrorist leaders. The Palestinians want Jews to forego building on land east of the 1949 armistice line in order that the land remain relatively empty just in case they some day decide to make a deal for the state they rejected in 1948. The State Department calls Israeli housing an "obstacle to peace." But the real obstacle is Arab unwillingness to accept a sovereign Israel and the Palestinian terrorism that accompanies that refusal. The US should tell the Palestinians that Israel cannot be prevented from building houses on land that is, after all, only the unallocated portion of the British Mandate, once occupied by Jordan and acquired by Israel in a defensive war in 1967. The Palestinians should have to decide whether they want to have a country or prefer to continue their rejection of the legitimacy of Israel. Israel should not have to wait for them. Likewise the fence. No one likes the fence - not Israelis, not Americans and not Palestinians. But the fence is a response to more than 850 Israeli deaths by terrorism, and Israel is entitled to determine how best to deal with that. The fastest way to stop the fence would be to tell the Palestinians that unless they stop the suicide bombers not only will the US not withhold money from Israel, but will instead FUND the fence. As the fence goes up, the Palestinians will have to decide whether they will end up behind it or take the steps that will obviate it. Israel should not have to wait for them. Likewise targeted killings. Palestinian terrorists violate the Geneva Convention by living among civilians, believing Israel either will not target them, or will kill enough civilians to evoke the wrath of the US. Their cynical use of their own people is appalling, but their calculation appears justified by the US response, which has been to criticize Israel. Instead, the US should be telling Palestinian civilians that the US cannot protect them, and while Israel will try not to kill them, in fact Israel cannot protect them either. Non-terrorist Palestinians will have to decide whether they want to continue sleeping next to terrorists or give them the boot. Israel shouldn't have to wait for them. [Terrorists don't get to decide anything ? they simply have to know that they will die.] This is not to punish the Palestinians. It is simply to make the consequences of Jew hatred and terrorism fall on those who hate and kill, and those who support them. Rather like the President's policy in Afghanistan and Iraq. It would be a bold stroke for the US and frankly, we doubt the State Department has the nerve. But we challenge the Administration, then, to tell us why Israel is threatened with the loss of American political and financial support for fighting terrorism on its streets while the Palestinians are protected from Israel's righteous wrath.

HIZBULLAH TIME WARP Posted by Honest Reporting, September 23, 2003.

Negotiations are underway between Israel and Hizbullah for a large-scale prisoner exchange. Israel is reportedly willing to release hundreds of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in exchange for Israeli businessman Elchanan Tannenbaum and the bodies of three missing IDF soldiers. Two news agencies took this opportunity to provide short - but misleading - synopses of the Israel-Hizbullah conflict. Agence France-Presse (AFP) states only that Hizbullah "was instrumental in the guerrilla war that led to the May 2000 Israeli troop pullout from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation." While this statement is factually accurate, it completely misrepresents the nature of the Israel-Hizbullah conflict by drawing upon an earlier historical period and encouraging an understanding of Hizbullah as freedom fighters. In fact, Hizbullah was formed in 1982 not merely to resist IDF presence in Lebanon, but to destroy Israel and extend radical Islamic control over the entire region, as stated in Hizbullah's official manifesto, and as repeated publicly by every Hizbullah leader for the past twenty years. Moreover, Hizbullah has continued to rain down Ketusha rockets on northern Israel even after the IDF's 2000 withdrawal from southern Lebanon. This, after UN secretary general Kofi Annan determined the IDF withdrawal to be " in full compliance with Security Council resolution 425." Just last month, an Israeli teenager in northern Israel was killed by a Hizbullah rocket. So why does AFP reach back to the earlier timeframe of IDF presence in Lebanon? This maneuver ignores the more germane and telling facts regarding Hizbullah's ongoing terror against Israeli citizens. The more relevant time frame to provide background for today's news report is post-Israeli withdrawal, when the actual Israeli prisoner and soldiers who stand to be released were abducted. Comments to AFP: contact@afp.com Associated Press (AP) summarized the conflict in a similar manner: Hizbullah merely "fought Israeli troops during the 1980s and 1990s in south Lebanon." In an apparent response to critical feedback, AP added an additional line in later editions: "Since Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah has occasionally shelled Israel and attacked Israeli troops because of a remaining border dispute." The "border dispute" justification mentioned by AP is Hizbullah's claim to Shabaa Farms, a region in the northern Golan Heights that even the UN recognizes to stand outside of any legitimate Lebanese claim. Shaaba Farms is clearly used by Hizbullah, therefore, as a mere pretext for ongoing anti-Israeli terror. By granting this pretext legitimacy, AP further obscures the ferocity of Hizbullah's actual campaign " to wipe Israel off the map. Comments to AP: feedback@ap.org Let's not forget that American officials consider Hizbullah one of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the world - one that has killed, over the past 20 years, more than 300 Americans, and served as model for world terror. As writer Jeffrey Goldberg states, "Al Qaeda learned the value of choreographed violence from Hizbullah."

ON THE NEW YEAR: CHOOSING LIFE Posted by Paula R. Stern, September 23, 2003.

On the eve of the Jewish New Year, Israelis are experiencing a sense of depression, as well as a sense of acceptance. We are smarter than we were last year, and more cynical. We have less faith in the world at large, but more faith in our own abilities to persevere. We are angrier than we were last year, but we are also more united and gentler with our own. We are a year older, a year wiser, and a year more isolated than we were before. We have lost our fathers and mothers, our sons and daughters, our grandparents, and doctors. We have lost our teachers and rabbis, our students and artists. We have lost a father the day after his son's wedding, and a father and a young bride the day before she was to be married. We have lost so much, and somewhere in the midst of all this loss, we have found ourselves again. Many have come here to live at a time when  normal" people would be running in the other direction. Israel is ours and we finally understand that it does not matter what the world says or does. We cannot change them, cannot convince them. We can only do what we must. Last year, we still believed there could be a peaceful solution, that a roadmap could be found to lead us out before we hit bottom. For the sake of peace, we thought last year. We would tear our land apart, divide our communities. We would cut our heart, divide our soul. We would sacrifice and achieve peace and, with that peace, retain access, if not ownership, to our history, portions of our land, places in our hearts. This year, we hit bottom. We buried our babies and those about to be born. We ached in places we didn't know we could hurt, cried tears we thought had long since been spent, and watched the blood flow in our land. And finally, across the political spectrum we understood that peace, the greatest of our dreams, our deepest hope, could not be attained through surrender, withdrawal, submission, and acceptance. The price they demanded was simply too high, too much. But more importantly, they were not prepared to pay equally, not prepared to even deliver on what we paid. This year, as in the two that preceded it, they attacked our buses, our cafes, our way of life. They ambushed our soldiers, our young. They kidnapped, stoned, bombed, lynched and tortured us. They desecrated our holy places, burned them, smashed them. They terrorized our roads and our cities. They tried to deny our connection with Jerusalem, attempted to write their history by rewriting ours. Lies, murder, deceit, betrayal. An arsenal of immorality was cloaked in their holy terms of martyrdom. But with the new year, comes rebirth. Fathers are raising their motherless infants. Wives that lost their husbands, are birthing their children in a final promise to hold on to the connection between the future and the past. Our planes flew over Auschwitz and we asked forgiveness to the millions who died there. We came 60 years too late, but it won't happen again. Maybe this time, this time, we will not cave in to the demands and the blackmail of others. Our greatest allies and our cursed enemies, all ask us to show restraint while our children cry that they cannot take it anymore, that they are afraid. We are learning to listen to our children. A new year is upon us. An anniversary of three years passing. Three years in which we have been hunted, while being accused of being the hunter. We have been bombed, while being accused of being the bombers. They tell us that we incite, we target, we kill. And yet each of our operations comes in response to their actions. We target killers who have sent their booby trapped sons into our midst drugged on the lies of future paradise. It is hard, after three years, to believe that there will suddenly be an end to this violence, that the day will come soon when we can put our children on buses and not force them to call, when we can leave them at bus stations and not hold our breathes, fearing that we will hear a boom as we drive away. But under the pessimism and the depression, as in the deepest months of winter, there is a blossom of hope and optimism beginning to grow. We will survive this. We have rededicated ourselves to the State. We will not surrender our rights to live here. So despite Cafe Hillel blowing up, we still had to search for a table when we went out to eat. Despite the number 2 bus being targeted, my daughter and son still have to stand on the ride home during rush hour. Despite the malls and stores that are being attacked, I still had to wait until the tourists had finished purchasing a whole load of presents before buying my husband his birthday gift. Our eyes were watchful as we ate in the cafe. My daughter was nervous on the bus, and the tourist asked if we weren't a little afraid to live here as she made her purchase. But we eat and drink, we ride the buses and we buy our gifts. In short, we live in our country because that is the choice we were commanded to make long ago. "I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both you and your children may live." (Devarim/Deuteronomy 30:19) As we prepare to celebrate the new year, the last year can be summed up simply as a choice made. We chose peace long ago, and that has not changed. But peace is not an option so long as Yasser Arafat, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah will not allow it. And so, in the absence of peace, we have chosen life. May we all be written into the book of life for the coming year, and may only our enemies know the sorrow they would inflict upon us.

WHAT YOU WON'T HEAR AGAINST THE WALL Posted by Eliezar Edwards, September 23, 2003.

This was in Arutz Shevah (http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com) today. When you think about it, first only the Leftists wanted the fence, to make a de facto boundary for the PA state they were promoting. Now, it's the Government. If the Government is pushing it, maybe it's because Sharon is afraid that the way the US is pushing a PA state, Israel won't have any piece of Samaria-Judea if it doesn't put in some territorial markers. Anyways, what Colonel Yogev says makes sense. Prof. Amnon Yogev of Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, a Colonel in the IDF reserves, explained to Arutz-7 today what he has against the counter-terrorism partition wall currently under construction in Israel: "If the current situation continues, where the IDF is on both sides [of the planned route of the wall], and the terrorists can produce, let's say, only 1-2 attacks a week - then of course obstacles and other means of warning can help. But if it becomes an ideology of separation - one that says that the Arabs will be on one side and we're on the other, and all attacks will be stopped at the fence - this is total nonsense... "If the wall is totally closed, and the IDF is only on one side of it, then the terrorists can prepare many more than 1-2 attacks and infiltrations a week. After all, the Arabs have 40,000 armed men inside! In such a case, the IDF won't have the manpower to go after all of them... "But I'm not only talking about terrorism. Some people talk about the fence as something that will divide the populations, and will obviate the need for strategic depth and for topographical advantages, and will enable us to live on our side of the wall happily ever after. This is total nonsense. "Unfortunately, the campaign for a wall started as a gimmick during the elections [earlier this year], and it gained momentum, and now you can barely hear a word against it in the media or elsewhere. People think that is the absolute truth, and are even demanding an investigative commission into why there is no fence; they think that if Iraq had built a wall, the Americans wouldn't have been able to win the war." Yogev mentioned in this connection the Bar-Lev Line that Israel built to ward off an Egyptian attack. The Bar-Lev Line was a series of 33 heavily fortified observation posts built after the Six-Day War atop sand ramparts 8-10 meters high along the east bank of the Suez Canal; it should be noted that then-IDF officer Ariel Sharon, already a recognized military hero, opposed it at the time. "The Egyptians penetrated and destroyed this line at 14 different points during the Yom Kippur War," Yogev said. "The only difference between this wall and Bar-Lev is that the current partition is much more flimsy... If the government wants to build it to stop an attack or two, fine - as long as the army continues to fight terrorism. But to throw away billions on it and say that it will end all our problems, that's ridiculous... True, [Gen.] Uzi Dayan is in favor of it - but only as a 'security fence,' not as a 'partition wall,' and he says that the IDF will have to continue to fight terrorism..." Asked about the example of Gaza, where the fence is apparently successful in stopping penetrations, Yogev said, "They send terrorists from Hevron, so why do they have to send them through the fence? And besides that, the topography is totally different, such that it would be much easier to infiltrate a fence/wall in Judea and Samaria than in Gaza..."

THE KISS OF DEATH Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 23, 2003.

Most of us recall the Biblical story of Ya'acov (Jacob) fleeing from Esau after he had traded Esau a bowl of pottage for Esau's birthright as first son. Esau swore vengeance and so Ya'acov left the land of his fathers. Years later, Ya'acov returned, expecting the worst violent treatment, even death, from his twin, Esau. But instead, Esau kissed him on the neck. Many scholars believe that Esau still wanted to kill Ya'acov and the 'kiss on the neck' was a barely restrained bite which could have torn open Ya'acov's throat at the jugular vein. Israel has been thus similarly 'kissed' by her enemies, some barely restrained - while others bit deeply - to the point of death. Ya'acov has once again returned to the ancestral home of his forefathers and mothers. The Greeting this time was open warfare and continual Terror attacks wherever and whenever Israel was vulnerable. After 7 wars* initiated by the Arab Muslims - which were miraculously won by the Jewish Israelis - the Muslim Arabs 'pretended' that they wished 'only' to kiss the Jews and thus convinced deluded dreamers like Shimon Peres and others of his ilk that Yassir Arafat, master of Terrorism since the 1960s (1) would, indeed, kiss him and the Jews in Israel. The word: 'naive' or even: 'stupid' would be insufficient to describe the secret, illegal dealings with Arafat for which Peres should, according to law, have been tried, convicted and imprisoned. After much such plotting, Peres and Yossi Beilin negotiated the Oslo Accords, forced them on Yitzhak Rabin (unless he was truly a co-conspirator) and the fatal kiss of death for 1476 innocent Jews, Americans and others was firmly planted on the necks of the Jewish people. Others played a vital role in this devious 'kiss of death'. The Europeans slowly drifted away from their guilt for the deaths of 6 million during the Nazi Holocaust when they helped by turning their Jews over to Hitler's killing machine. The Europeans continued to say the correct words but, underneath they were conspiring with the Arab Muslims and those Israeli Jews called Leftists to make "Judenrein" (Jew-free) the land promised to the Jews by G-d. Their words always came out like kisses but, their lips dripped with poison. America was Israel's only real friend - except for the Arabists in the U.S. State Department and some Presidents closely tied to Arab kings for the oil they sat on. These enemies of the Jews couldn't easily come out publically and say: "We hate you Jews because our friends, the Arab Muslims hate you!" So instead, they planted public political kisses but, out of the sunshine of public scrutiny, they tried to kiss Israel's neck with pointed teeth. President George W. Bush has issued a 'dead or alive' reward of $25 million for Saddam Hussein. When Israel wishes to eject Arafat, Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell, along with the Europeans, United Nations and Russia say "NO!" From Ram'Allah Arafat continues to issue orders for hideous but dramatic Terror assaults. Israel's detractors did plant a kiss of death on all Jewish Israelis who are yet to be murdered due to the cloak of protection provided by Bush, Powell, the U.N.(especially the U.N. Security Council, led by Syria - themselves the mirror image of Saddam's violent regime). When the U.S. vetoed the biased U.N. Security Council vote, Syria went directly to the U.N.'s General Assembly and, not surprisingly, gave the Arab Muslims and the Europeans the vote they wanted, namely, protecting the arch Terrorist, Yassir Arafat. That vote made sense since many of the voting nations themselves are led by dictators who rightfully fear for their own lives due to the cruelty with which they rule. Subsequently, Bush and Powell continued to threaten Israel with a reduction of the $9 Billion of promised loan guarantees for amount spent on the Wall of Separation which Israel is building in an almost futile effort to keep the Terrorists out of Israel's populations centers. But, while the threat is real, Bush makes speeches expressing his understanding for Israel's concern regarding Terror and Israel's right of self-defense. Then comes the practical 'kiss of death', wherein the threat tells Israel NOT to protect herself. Will the next kiss of death be a statement by the E.U., led by France and Germany, with the Quartet, to the effect that they are sending a NATO-led force (with or without America) to forcibly separate and patrol borders which they will establish for another Arab Muslim Palestinian State? Such a bastard State will become an even greater center for Terror indoctrination, brainwashing of children from the age of three, arms smuggling and manufacture, conspiracies to send Terror abroad to the Free West. The 'kiss of death' comes in different forms: *It comes as Peace Agreements like Oslo, Wye, Camp David... *It comes in one-sided 'cease-fires' (Hudnas). *It comes in assurances by 'friends' that they will co-sign such agreements - but, when the enemy breaks that agreement, the co-signer (America) has always abandoned the agreement. Recall when the Egyptians closed the Straits of Tiran, when Egypt moved SAM missiles into those positions given up by Israel under Henry Kissinger's 'kiss' agreement? Recall the U.S. co-signing of Oslo, followed by America virtually ignoring Muslim Arab Terror attacks for ten years? Recall the latest 'Hudna' cease-fire, which demanded that Israel keep to the Plan while Arafat and Abu Mazen blatantly ignored their obligations and Terror proceeded unimpeded with vicious homicide bus bombings and illegal arms smuggling? We Jews have the nasty habit of acclimating to the step-by-step deprivation of rights and loss of freedoms. Recall the Nuremberg Laws where Hitler step-by-step deprived the Jews of their civil rights and the Jews explained away each deprivation - figuring out how to make the best of each successive blow? For a long time Israel has become accustomed to being attacked in each of the named 7 wars, plus ongoing Terrorism. The people, and worse yet, the leadership have acclimated themselves to the frequent Terror attacks. It is 'Terrible' but, we Jews bravely bury our dead, wash away the blood and then (stupidly) proceed with business-as-usual. But, business should NOT be as usual. The Leftist-oriented Supreme Court of Israel, lead by Chief Justice Aharon Barak, acted as if the Muslim Arab Palestinian population was NOT a mortal danger and so they passed laws and tended to treat Jews under suspicion more severely than known Arab Terrorists. The High Court protected the Arab Muslim Palestinians as if they were a normal and non-hostile culture. Political leaders like Rabin, Peres, Ehud Barak, Bibi Netanyahu and now even the Great Warrior, Ariel (Arik) Sharon have always offered kind gestures to habitual Terrorists to please the American, Europeans and especially the Arab leaders whose countries sat on oil. But, each humane 'gesture' was merely viewed as Jewish/Israeli weakness and vulnerability, inviting more vicious attacks. However, Jews are easy when it comes to accommodation and forgiveness. Each little kiss is seen as the 'acceptance' we seek in the world of the 'others'. Observe Jewish leadership when they are invited to the White House or State Department for a little massaging and 'special' briefing. (For sure, it's special - usually not too truthful.) They are so proud; they can't wait to get back to their so-called followers to burble about the munificent treatment they received. But, of course, they never admit to anyone what they gave up in the name of the Jewish people. Observe the spokesmen for Sharon as they try to explain in an apologetic way why Israel attacked the Terrorists in Gaza, Jenin, etc. When we hear from Shimon Peres in his old country Polish accent, trying to make light of the attacks and even trying to justify the ever expanding cemetery of Oslo, we know that we have seen the most aberrant of the Left. Every time Arafat kissed Shimon, Peres grinned and accepted Arafat's poison lips as if he were being knighted by the Queen of England. (He was indeed knighted by a Queen, given Arafat's known predilection for little boys.) Clearly, Israel needs the equivalent of the French Revolution to clean out the old establishment who has betrayed the Jewish people for the kisses they received by our enemies and too often, our friends. There is no respect for the Jewish people at this time. We/They have succumbed to the self-interest of Bush-Powell-Rice, as well as Annan, Chirac, Schroeder, Putin, the House of Saud, the Husseins, Mubarak 'et al'. Granted Sharon sends out troops to placate the Jewish population so they won't kick him out of office. And he's building this ridiculous fence, too expensive and too ineffective. It won't keep out the real Terrorists and it steals money from the weakest social strata, the poor and disabled in Israel's population. But, the Great Warrior, Arik has not unleashed the IDF (Israel Defense Force) to "FIGHT TO WIN!!" as is necessary now. He mobilizes troops outside of Gaza with brief forays into this incubator of Terror but, does NOT finish the job like he did in his early days when he was a true fighter. Sharon seems to be on a tight leash to President George W Bush, who needs the pretense of his "Road Map" (a mighty accident waiting to happen), so Bush can seem as if he is succeeding so he can win the 2004 Presidential elections. Clearly, for NOT standing firm on Terror across the board, Bush will be a one-term President, like his father. For the observant Jews and Bible believing Christians, we know Bush has pitted himself against G-d with the arrogance of dividing the land of Israel and Jerusalem to give them over to a backward, primitive, pagan and murderous people. For Bush, there will be no G-dly forgiveness. I am reminded of Ambassador Joe Kennedy, crossing the ocean on a great ocean liner. A respected Rabbi tried again and again to see him. Finally, on the last day of the voyage he as allowed to meet with Kennedy. The Rabbi asked Joe Kennedy what he could do to help the Jewish children being murdered by Hitler which Joe Kennedy rejected. The Rabbi said to him, "If you are not interested in Jewish children, then your family will carry the burden." Thus, the Kennedy family, through Joe Kennedy (a supporter of Hitler), suffered many tragedies. Let's look at the Bush family, with Grandfather, Ambassador Prescott Bush, known to be a supporter of Hitler (2). Then President George Herbert Walker Bush carried on the tradition of supporting Jewicide (with the aid of his Secretary of State James Baker) - by pressuring Israel to make concessions against her best interests. Today President George W. Bush who, like his father calls the Saudi Prince his best friend, sides with the Saudis (15 of the 19 homicide hijackers of 9/11/01 were Saudis), and now issues orders to protect Yassir Arafat, the Master Terrorist of our day. One cannot help but wonder if this Bush dynasty will also be cursed by G-d, who promised this Land to the Jewish People and who stated: "I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you." NOTES *1948: War of Independence; 1956: Sinai Campaign; 1967: Six Days War; 1969-70: War of Attrition; 1973: Yom Kippur War; 1982: Peace for Galilee; 1991: Gulf War aka Desert Storm - plus ongoing Terror (low intensity warfare) for 120 years. 1. "The KGB'S Man (Yassir Arafat)" by Ion Mihai Pacepa WALL ST. JOURNAL 9/23/03 2. "The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People: 1920-1992" by John Loftus & Mark Aarons St. Martin's Press NY 1994

GREETING AT ROSH HASHANA Posted by Jay Feinberg, September 23, 2003.

Dear Friends, This is a reflective time of year - the seasons change and we celebrate the Jewish New Year. For many of us it will be a relief to say goodbye to the past year. But for those of us affiliated with Gift of Life, it was a year in which we saw countless life-affirming acts of generosity and courage. If you attended Gift of Life's annual gala this past June, you witnessed three bone marrow donors meet their transplant recipients for the very first time. Howard Jonas, the chairman of the IDT Corporation and this year's Gift of Life honoree, told us it was the best dinner he had ever attended! It was a truly spectacular and awe inspiring evening, especially when Ruthie Spector, sister of Bear Stearns president Warren Spector, met her life-saving donor! In reality, such donor-recipient meetings happen frequently in the amazing world of Gift of Life. Most take place quietly and in private, but all are equally joyous and moving. In a few weeks, those who attended the gala will receive a commemorative CDROM with videos and photos. I hope that any time you need a moment of joy and celebration, you will watch it and experience the thrill of knowing that you helped to make it all happen! If you were unable to attend this year's event, but would like to be on the mailing list for next year, please e-mail us at gala@giftoflife.org. We will be happy to send you a complimentary copy of the CDROM as well. The proceeds of this year's gala have already helped us enlarge the pool of potential donors, but we still need the resources to meet the ever-growing demands for our help. A contribution to Gift of Life is a wonderful way to commemorate birthdays, anniversaries and holidays, and it has never been easier and more convenient thanks to our newest online initiative, eGreetings. These unique animated cards were designed exclusively for Gift of Life by a team of Israeli illustrators, and are now available on our website at www.giftoflife.org for immediate use! We will be delighted to send an attractive acknowledgement card by e-mail or regular mail to anyone you would like to honor at Rosh Hashanah or at any other time throughout the year. Your support will advance Gift of Life's major programs, including bone marrow donor recruitment, patient advocacy and public education, giving help and hope to seriously ill children and adults around the world in desperate need of bone marrow transplants. Gift of Life's dedicated volunteer network and professional team are actively searching for donors for several patients in need, including four year old Bracha Naomi Mandelbaum from Jerusalem, and Sharon Steiff, a beloved teacher at the Maimonides School in Boston. Please include them in your prayers for a refuah schlema (speedy recovery). We at Gift of Life wish you and your loved ones a year of peace, prosperity, and good health. Chag Sameach! Jay Feinberg is the Executive Director of the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation, which maintains the Registry. Their website address is http://www.giftoflife.org.

U.S. MUST STOP UNDERMINING ISRAEL'S WAR ON TERRORISM Posted by Andrew Bernstein, September 23, 2003.

President Bush acknowledges that Yasser Arafat has "failed as a leader" and recognizes that his promises to fight terrorism are nothing but empty lies. So why does his administration oppose Arafat's elimination? If Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein were holed up in a compound surrounded by U.S. troops, is there any doubt as to what the outcome would be? Why is Arafat different? The answer is that the Bush administration continues to uphold the absurd contradiction of appeasing Palestinian terrorism while supposedly fighting the broader phenomenon of Islamic terrorism elsewhere in the world. According to Colin Powell, the result of Arafat's removal would be "rage throughout the Arab world, the Muslim world, and in many other parts of the world." But where is the rage - in this case a morally justified rage - of Mr. Powell and the U.S. government toward the terrorists who repeatedly murder Israeli civilians? America has failed to learn the full lesson of September 11, 2001: that appeasement only invites more and worse attacks. The atrocities of that day were merely the most egregious attacks against us by Islamic terrorists. They had kidnapped our diplomats in Teheran, murdered U.S. servicemen in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, bombed our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, attacked the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen - and for more than two decades we did nothing to defend ourselves. For the same reason that we reversed our policy of appeasement after September 11 and began defending ourselves with force, we should allow and encourage Israel to defend itself with force. For years the U.S. government has pressured Israel into suicidal negotiations with Palestinian terrorists. Israel had Arafat and the PLO surrounded south of Beirut in 1982, and was ready to eradicate them, but was restrained by President Reagan, who pressured the Israelis to allow Arafat and his organization safe passage to Tunisia. Despite the price paid in blood by innocent Israelis and Americans since, and despite Arafat's empty promises to fight Palestinian terrorism, the Bush administration continues to urge Israel to keep its troops out of the West Bank and to exercise "restraint." For several compelling reasons the United States must desist from restraining Israel. The death of Arafat and the destruction of murderous groups like Hamas and Hizbollah will eliminate terrorists who hate the United States. It will strengthen Israel, our sole ally in the area, who will no longer have to live with constant suicide attacks. And the demise of Palestinian terrorism will prevent the creation of a Palestinian state, which given the hostility to the West of Palestinian leaders, would only add another independent nation to those already supporting terrorism. There are also deeper moral reasons for setting Israel free to defend itself. The U.S. government needs to understand that more than Israel and America are under attack by terrorist organizations and regimes: Western Civilization is. At its deepest level, this is a struggle between two philosophies and two civilizations. Our murderous and tyrannical enemies are morally committed to their anti-Western ideology. Are we committed to our ideology? The terrorists know of our overwhelming military might - but they sense, too, our vacillating moral weakness. The U.S. government must fight this war in the name of the right and supremacy of Western Civilization, a culture vastly superior to Islamic culture in its ability to promote man's life on earth. Israel is the lone country in the Middle East that stands for freedom, individual rights, secularism, reason, science and prosperity. Every Arab government is a dictatorship - be it a monarchy, theocracy or military state. Only in Israel is there freedom of speech and of the press, freedom of religion and the right to private property. The honest, nonviolent Arab living in Israel enjoys far greater freedom than he would under any Arab regime, including Arafat's. Israel, as the sole Western nation in that region, must be encouraged to apply its military superiority to achieve victory over the terrorists. Urging the Israelis to destroy Arafat and to fight terrorists aggressively is good for the United States, both militarily and morally. We will then have an effective, trustworthy ally fighting by our side. More important, it will show the world that we are committed to the values of Western Civilization, that we will defend them to our last breath, and that we will not yield. Such uncompromising commitment to freedom and to Western values is a weapon far more powerful than any in our military arsenal. Andrew Bernstein, Ph.D. in philosophy, is a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute (www.aynrand.org) in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead."

SWEET AND SOUR LIVING Posted by Judy Balint, September 23, 2003.

This poignant piece from Dr Mike Cohen got lost in the shuffle of e mails about last week's twin homicide bomber attacks.Its sentiments are even more valid today as we approach Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Dr Cohen lives in Jerusalem. JERUSALEM, ISRAEL, Wednesday September 10, 2003 - "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," wrote Charles Dickens in his classic "Tale of Two Cities." Dickens was referring of course to the French Revolution and his eloquent yet simple description of that time has been used by many a writer to depict their own era as well. Here in Jerusalem, the term "al hadvash veal haoketz" (of honey and stingers) and "al hamar vhamatok" (of the sweet and the bitter) was coined by the closest Israel has to a national poet, Naomi Shemer (Jerusalem of Gold), as part of an amazingly soulful prayer to G-d, asking that He protect all that is dear to us, our children, our soldiers, our travelers, our homes and our souls. Last Friday, instead of being with my family, happily taking pictures as my first nephew celebrated his bar-mitzvah, I was standing at the Har Herzl National Military Cemetery waiting among throngs of special forces commandos in sharp dress whites. Airmen and women, seamen and women of all ranks and ages, and hundreds more in civilian attire had all gathered to mourn the loss of Sergeant First Class Ra'anan Komemi, age 23, from Moshav Amindav in the Judean mountains overlooking southwestern Jerusalem. Sgt. Komemi was no ordinary soldier, he was a beloved career military man and one of Israel's elitist of elite, the naval flotilla, known as Shayetet 13. Despite it being Israel's top naval commando unit, "The Shayetet" as it is known, has participated in hundreds of daring anti-terror operations on land since the Oslo War began almost three years ago. Sgt. Komemi was killed protecting his unit mate while on a search and destroy mission in Shchem. The burst of fire that killed Komemi cae as his team carefully searched a building in which the leader of the local Hamas terrorist organization was hiding. The forces could have just demolished the building with everybody inside and Komemi would still be with us, but Israel's strict military ethics call for the protection of all presumed innocents and their property, including those who may be harboring the terrorists. So the IDF Special Forces teams cleared the building of civilians and then went searching, floor by floor, door by door, room by room. As I, a Special Forces veteran myself, stood there at the funeral in Jerusalem the next morning, I could not help but jump, just like everyone else, as the honor guard cocked its weapons and fired in the air - BOOM!! (click click) BOOM!! (click click) BOOM!! With tears rolling down my cheeks (in Jerusalem, real men DO cry) the special tune of Naomi Shemer's song suddenly started playing in my mind. Was I losing it? Had I been to one funeral too many during this bloody and seemingly endless war? (Of course, even one is too many but still?) Why was a song running through my head at this moment of national grief? And why, for heaven's sake does Mrs. Shemer ask G-d to protect, among other things the honey and the stingers, the sweet and the bitter? As the young man's body was gently laid into the ground and the honor guard shots were heard filling the air from yet another funeral a few sections down, it hit me. I was humming to myself, because it helped make me feel even worse, but better, all at the same time. Allow me to try and explain. Ever eat too much of a good thing to the point where it no longer was the taste you craved? Of course you have, everyone has. So how do you fix it? If it was something sweet you have something salty (and vice versa) and then you get the original taste back with the next bite. Thus, says Shemer, honey can only be made by bees that carry a healthy stinger. Sweet can only be tasted if it comes after bland, and it tastes even better after bitter. Every happy event in Jerusalem, in Israel and in fact in every Jewish home is filled by happiness but tinged with some sadness. A missing grandparent, loved ones lost in the Holocaust, a friend who died of cancer, no family is without some tragic elements of sorrow. What Naomi Shemer is trying to tell us is that that is the way life is and that not only must we accept it, but we must embrace it and beg G-d not to take it away. Shemer is saying simply that if any Jew an become so callous as to not remember his or her history and those who helped shape it, it should be a sad day for all of us. We live a mixed life here in Jerusalem. We are privileged to live in the holiest city on earth, sometimes, in the hustle and bustle of daily life we may take that for granted and allow the sweetness to be dulled by quantity. But then, we are hit with something that makes us realize just how lucky we are to not only be alive, but to be alive to see and be a part of this improbable and implausible 20th Century Jewish and Zionist renaissance and to be doing so from the vantage point of Jerusalem no less! As I stood before the congregation to greet the Sabbath queen and lead services to start my nephew's bar mitzvah Shabbat, I decided to use Naomi Shemer's tune "al hadvash veal haoketz al hamar vhamatok al biteinu hatinoket shmor Eli hatov." Oh good G-d, protect the good and the bad and our little baby girl. I also took the extraordinary move of turning to the community to explain why I had chosen to use such a melancholy tune at the start of such a joyful occasion. The reaction of my sister's friends is one which I have to share with you. Not only did almost the entire community, to a person, come over after services to thank me for the "important thought provoking act," but the rabbi, and others who were praying at the Sephardic synagogue Friday night, came over to me on Shabbat morning to apologize for missing out. To those of us who live in Jerusalem, or anywhere else in this, the holiest of lands, this reaction hardly comes as a surprise. While trying to explain it to my cousin from abroad it became even clearer to me why my choice of tunes had become a communal topic of conversation. We have seen so much death and so much destruction here in the past three years, the past decade, the past century in fact, that we are sometimes afraid that we are numbing to the pain. I have learned that we seek out a face, a story, a familiar aspect, anything, to help us feel more, to feel deeper, to feel the rumbling, deep-rooted searing pain that we expect we should feel every time a Jewish soldier, police officer, fire-person or security guard loses their life trying to protecting ours. We know we want to feel it deep in our gut but how many times can we be stung by the same bullet and still feel it the same way? So, by seeking out someone who was there, someone who is related, someone who can help us shed the necessary and desired tear, we are not only doing that person a favor by mourning along with them, but we are doing a good deed for ourselves as well. We in Jerusalem need to cry. We need to cry out loud. We need to cry out in pain. Tomorrow is September 11. Two years have passed. Two long hard years. Bin Laden is still at large. Saddam is still at large. Arafat is still in charge. Yassin and Rantisi are still alive. I invite the whole western world, the whole sane world in fact to reach deep down, watch the reruns on TV. Find a firefighter or police officer to hug. Do something to make yourself cry. We in Jerusalem need to cry out loud and in pain, but tomorrow, everyone in the free world is in the boat with us. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" - yehi Shem HaShem Mevorach. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" - may their memory be a blessing to all of us. Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times (Gefen,2002) is available for purchase from www.israelbooks.com To subscribe to the Jerusalem Diary group, send an email to:jerusalemdiaries-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

ARAFAT: The KGB's Man Posted by Steven Plaut, September 22, 2003.

This was written by Ion Mihai Pacepa. Mr. Pacepa was the highest ranking intelligence officer ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc. The author of "Red Horizons" (Regnery, 1987), he is finishing a book on the origins of current anti-Americanism. The URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB106419296113226300,00.html The Israeli government has vowed to expel Yasser Arafat, calling him an "obstacle" to peace. But the 72-year-old Palestinian leader is much more than that; he is a career terrorist, trained, armed and bankrolled by the Soviet Union and its satellites for decades. Before I defected to America from Romania, leaving my post as chief of Romanian intelligence, I was responsible for giving Arafat about $200,000 in laundered cash every month throughout the 1970s. I also sent two cargo planes to Beirut a week, stuffed with uniforms and supplies. Other Soviet bloc states did much the same. Terrorism has been extremely profitable for Arafat. According to Forbes magazine, he is today the sixth wealthiest among the world's "kings, queens & despots," with more than $300 million stashed in Swiss bank accounts. "I invented the hijackings [of passenger planes]," Arafat bragged when I first met him at his PLO headquarters in Beirut in the early 1970s. He gestured toward the little red flags pinned on a wall map of the world that labeled Israel as "Palestine." "There they all are!" he told me, proudly. The dubious honor of inventing hijacking actually goes to the KGB, which first hijacked a U.S. passenger plane in 1960 to Communist Cuba. Arafat's innovation was the suicide bomber, a terror concept that would come to full flower on 9/11. In 1972, the Kremlin put Arafat and his terror networks high on all Soviet bloc intelligence services' priority list, including mine. Bucharest's role was to ingratiate him with the White House. We were the bloc experts at this. We'd already had great success in making Washington -- as well as most of the fashionable left-leaning American academics of the day -- believe that Nicolae Ceausescu was, like Josip Broz Tito, an "independent" Communist with a "moderate" streak. KGB chairman Yuri Andropov in February 1972 laughed to me about the Yankee gullibility for celebrities. We'd outgrown Stalinist cults of personality, but those crazy Americans were still na?ve enough to revere national leaders. We would make Arafat into just such a figurehead and gradually move the PLO closer to power and statehood. Andropov thought that Vietnam-weary Americans would snatch at the smallest sign of conciliation to promote Arafat from terrorist to statesman in their hopes for peace. Right after that meeting, 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. The KGB's disinformation department then went to work on Arafat's four-page tract called "Falastinuna" (Our Palestine), turning it into a 48-page monthly magazine for the Palestinian terrorist organization al-Fatah. Arafat had headed al-Fatah since 1957. The KGB distributed it throughout the Arab world and in West Germany, which in those days played host to many Palestinian students. The KGB was adept at magazine publication and distribution; it had many similar periodicals in various languages for its front organizations in Western Europe, like the World Peace Council and the World Federation of Trade Unions. Next, the KGB gave Arafat an ideology and an image, just as it did for loyal Communists in our international front organizations. High-minded idealism held no mass-appeal in the Arab world, so the KGB remolded Arafat as a rabid anti-Zionist. They also selected a "personal hero" for him -- the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, the man who visited Auschwitz in the late 1930s and reproached the Germans for not having killed even more Jews. In 1985 Arafat paid homage to the mufti, saying he was "proud no end" to be walking in his footsteps. Arafat was an important undercover operative for the KGB. Right after the 1967 Six Day Arab-Israeli war, Moscow got him appointed to chairman of the PLO. Egyptian ruler Gamal Abdel Nasser, a Soviet puppet, proposed the appointment. In 1969 the KGB asked Arafat to declare war on American "imperial-Zionism" during the first summit of the Black Terrorist International, a neo-Fascist pro-Palestine organization financed by the KGB and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi. It appealed to him so much, Arafat later claimed to have invented the imperial-Zionist battle cry. But in fact, "imperial-Zionism" was a Moscow invention, a modern adaptation of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," and long a favorite tool of Russian intelligence to foment ethnic hatred. The KGB always regarded anti-Semitism plus anti-imperialism as a rich source of anti-Americanism. The KGB file on Arafat also said that in the Arab world only people who were truly good at deception could achieve high status. We Romanians were directed to help Arafat improve "his extraordinary talent for deceiving." The KGB chief of foreign intelligence, General Aleksandr Sakharovsky, ordered us to provide cover for Arafat's terror operations, while at the same time building up his international image. "Arafat is a brilliant stage manager," his letter concluded, "and we should put him to good use." In March 1978 I secretly brought Arafat to Bucharest for final instructions on how to behave in Washington. "You simply have to keep on pretending that you'll break with terrorism and that you'll recognize Israel -- over, and over, and over," Ceausescu told him for the umpteenth time. Ceausescu was euphoric over the prospect that both Arafat and he might be able to snag a Nobel Peace Prize with their fake displays of the olive branch. In April 1978 I accompanied Ceausescu to Washington, where he charmed President Carter. Arafat, he urged, would transform his brutal PLO into a law-abiding government-in-exile if only the U.S. would establish official relations. The meeting was a great success for us. Carter hailed Ceausescu, dictator of the most repressive police state in Eastern Europe, as a "great national and international leader" who had "taken on a role of leadership in the entire international community." Triumphant, Ceausescu brought home a joint communiqu? in which the American president stated that his friendly relations with Ceausescu served "the cause of the world." Three months later I was granted political asylum by the U.S. Ceausescu failed to get his Nobel Peace Prize. But in 1994 Arafat got his -- all because he continued to play the role we had given him to perfection. He had transformed his terrorist PLO into a government-in-exile (the Palestinian Authority), always pretending to call a halt to Palestinian terrorism while letting it continue unabated. Two years after signing the Oslo Accords, the number of Israelis killed by Palestinian terrorists had risen by 73%. On Oct. 23, 1998, President Clinton concluded his public remarks to Arafat by thanking him for "decades and decades and decades of tireless representation of the longing of the Palestinian people to be free, self-sufficient, and at home." The current administration sees through Arafat's charade but will not publicly support his expulsion. Meanwhile, the aging terrorist has consolidated his control over the Palestinian Authority and marshaled his young followers for more suicide attacks.

ISRAEL, HIT SYRIA, NOT HIZBOLLAH Posted by Ariel Natan Pasko, September 22, 2003.

The time has finally come for Israel to take the gloves off and start to hit hard, for real. It's time for Israelis to get over their "Syrian Syndrome," that irrational deep-seated fear of Syria, dating back to the Yom Kippur War of 1973. The Syria of today might not be much different than the Syria of 1973, but Israel sure the heck is. Israel's military in 2003 is quite a bit more advanced, Israel's economy - while still a little slow - is exponentially ahead of Syria's economy. In fact by every measure of national power, Israel is well beyond Syria, the gap has grown not shrunk since 1973. So "get over it," Syria is a paper tiger, or more aptly put a "paper bag," or "basket case." Even after renewed attacks on Israel, why bother with Hizbollah? Why play Syria's and Iran's game? Why pretend that Hizbollah is calling the shots? Why give "immunity" to the real culprits? Put the blame squarely where it belongs, on Syria. One could try to blame the Lebanese government for not doing enough to tone down Hizbollah. The Lebanese military really should take up positions in Southern Lebanon and de-militarize Hizbollah. Israel has left Lebanese soil. Ask the UN; for once they support our position and agree with us. But alas, Lebanon is not an independent state. Lebanon is a puppet regime controlled by Damascus. So Israel needs to put the blame where it belongs; on the only power capable of reining in Hizbollah, of dis-arming them, of cutting off their flow of weapons from Iran, and of discouraging them from attacking Israel, i.e. Syria. About that last line, Syria uses Hizbollah to keep pressure on Israel. Hizbollah is Syria's proxy army against Israel. Notice the Syrian occupation army in Lebanon never attacks Israel. It's always Hizbollah, so that Syria can't be directly blamed for the attack. Well I'm saying, forget the small fry, BLAME SYRIA! First, the Israeli government should make it a cornerstone of it's foreign policy to raise the issue of Syria's continuing violation of UN Security Council Resolution 520, that calls on all foreign forces - including Syria - to leave Lebanon, at every diplomatic opportunity. What a joke that Syria sits on the UN Security Council, while it violates a Security Council resolution. No wonder, many people in the United States, Israel, and elsewhere hold the UN in such low esteem. And, Israel should more vigorously lobby Washington to "sit-on" Syria, till Syria gets out of Lebanon. Washington has been wishy-washy in dealing with Damascus. In the beginning of May, US Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Damascus and Beirut. After leaving Damascus, he said in a Beirut press conference that he and Assad discussed "all of the outstanding issues" that have hindered US-Syrian relations in the past. That included frank talks about Weapons of Mass Destruction; Syria's support for the Lebanese group Hizbollah; and closing the Iraq-Syria border "and keeping it sealed" to technology, fighters and wanted Iraqi authority figures, Powell said. He made it clear to Assad, that the US commitment to Middle East peace "would include Syria and Lebanon, and would include the Golan Heights." But, Powell made no mention of speaking to Assad about getting Syria out of Lebanon. Later, speaking in Beirut - notice not Damascus - Powell assured Prime Minister Rafik Hariri of US support for "an independent and prosperous Lebanon free of all - all - foreign forces." But the main focus of Powell's visit to Syria, it seems, was to prevent them from helping out Saddam's buddies, to 'give up the goods' i.e. WMD, to stop their support for terrorist groups - which they haven't - and to soften up their rejection of US Middle East Peacemaking efforts between Israel and the Palestinians - the road map - promising the Golan Heights, as a reward for good behavior, despite Syria's opposition to the US war in Iraq and despite their facilitation of 'volunteer fighters' to help Saddam. Little focus was put on getting Syria out of Lebanon and nothing has happened on that front since Powell's visit. Yet, on May 2nd - the day before Powell's meeting with Assad - in Washington, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) introduced the Senate version of the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003 S 982. The bill's purposes are to (1) halt Syrian support for terrorism; (2) end the Syrian occupation of Lebanon; (3) stop Syria's production of Weapons of Mass Destruction; and (4) hold Syria accountable for the illegal Syrian-Iraqi trade, which provided Iraq with the weapons that killed American troops. The House version of the Act was introduced on April 10. Both bills now have a solid majority of support in the US Congress. Sponsors and supporters of the bill claim it will weaken Syria's ability to wage wars, to threaten its neighbors, and to destabilize the region. So, there clearly is support for pushing Syria out of Lebanon emanating from the US Congress. Israel should remind Washington of that. Today, after the United State's victory in Iraq, and the inclusion of Iraqi Shi'ites in the Iraqi governing council, it would be hard for Hizbollah or Iran to portray the US as out to get the Shi'ites in Lebanon, just because they oppose Hizbollah. Ending the vicious Syrian occupation of Lebanon, and dis-mantling Hizbollah as a military force there, would also serve US and Israeli interests in putting a firm limit to Iran's influence in the area. This no doubt would have a positive effect in weakening Islamic Jihad - and to a lesser extent Hamas - in Damascus and Gaza. Iran is already on the American and Israeli agenda, due to it's closing in on real nuclear capability. Anything that weakens Iran's ability to "export" the revolution is good for the region and the world. Second, in blaming Syria's dictatorial regime for Hizbollah's attacks on Israel, the Israeli government should announce a new policy, of retaliatory raids against Syrian military positions in Lebanon. As I stated earlier, why should Syria be "immune" from the costs of its policies in support of Hizbollah? After annunciating this change in policy, of holding Syria accountable for Hizbollah attacks, the Israeli government should begin a policy of "graduated escalation" beginning with hitting Syrian positions in Lebanon. Everyone should remember the beginning of the Lebanon War in 1982, when Israel warned Syria to stay out of its way, but Syria didn't listen. When confronted, Israel shot down over 90 Syrian planes with just one loss. Today, Israel has significantly increased its military superiority over Syria from 1982. If Syria doesn't stop the Hizbollah attacks and prepare to end its occupation of Lebanon, the next phase would include selected targets in Syria itself. This "graduated escalation" would put the issue of the vicious Syrian occupation of Lebanon - since 1976 - and their support for Hizbollah terror against Israel on the top of the American, EU, and UN's agenda. Israel and the United States have to support a free and independent Lebanon, free of Syrian occupation, free of Hizbollah terrorism, free to return to its former glory. It's in Israel's interest, it's in Lebanon's interest, it's in the United States' interest, and yes, it's even in the Syrian people's interest. Ariel Natan Pasko is an independent analyst & consultant. He has a Master's Degree in International Relations & Policy Analysis. His articles appear regularly on many news/views, think-tank websites and in newspapers; they can be read at: www.geocities.com/ariel_natan_pasko. This article appeared as an Opinion piece on Arutz Sheva (http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com) August 12, 2003.

THE STORY OF RON ARAD Posted by Jules Segal, September 22, 2003.

Ron has been in captivity 6186 days. On 16 October 1986, Israeli navigator Lieutenant Colonol ron Arad bailed out of his plane on a mission in Lebanon and was captured by members of the Iranian backed Amal terrorist organization. Since then, Ron has been held captive by several such organizations, all of them extremist Shiite groups, all of them backed by Iran. He has been denied basic rights of POW's as set down in the Geneva convention. The international Red Cross has not been permitted to send or receive letters. While he was not in good health when he was captured, nothing is known of his present state of health, or, for that matter anything else about him. Iran claims to know nothing of the matter or of ron's whereabouts or condition. This untenable situation has existed now for well over a decade. The facts speak for themselves. But there is more. Ron is strong and he is a survivor, and this knowledge keeps hope alive. Nevertheless, we must not allow ourselves to lose sight of the suffering of Ron himself and of his family. Ron lives in isolation, loneliness and uncertainty, knowing nothing of what has transpired in these years within his loving, caring family. Let's look at his family. There is Batya, his mother, who experienced every day a mother's worst nightmare: a missing son whose condition is unclear. Is he in good health? Is he warm at night? Does he have enough to eat? Basic worries of any mother, but Batya has no answer. There is Tammy, his loving wife, whose courage personifies the interruption of the lives of a happy, loving couple. There is Yuval, fifteen month old when her father disappeared from her life, who recently celebrated her Bat Mitzva (at age 12) without her father, whom she knows only from pictures. Ron has not seen her grow from adorable to truly lovely. There are Chen, the elder of his two younger brothers, and his wife Lee, who now have two daughters of their own. And there is David, a mere boy. 17 years old when Ron fell into captivity, now married to Merav and the father of a baby girl. Ron knows nothing of this. He also knows nothing of the unflagging efforts to gain his freedom. This unthinkable situation must be stopped. Now! Everyone who is able to do so must join the efforts to obtain basic rights for this brave young man, and ultimately to gain his release. This humanitarian effort must be speeded up. International organizations must do everything possible to call Iran to account and end this tragic situation. No stone should be left unturned, no possibility should be overlooked. We must, everyone of us, join together in achieving this goal. [Editor's Note: This is from the September 24, 2003 Arutz Sheva online news: http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com] ARAD FAMILY SUES TO PREVENT DIRANI'S RELEASE The family of Ron Arad has filed a 100-million shekel suit in the Tel Aviv District Court against Mustafa Dirani - the man most responsible for the disappearance of the Israel Air Force navigator. If the suit is accepted, it will prevent the release of Dirani in the terrorists-for-Tenenbaum deal between that is currently being woven between Israel and Hizbullah. The exchange is said to involve an unspecified number of Arab terrorists and prisoners being held in Israel - some reports say that it will be between 300 and 400 - in return for abducted Israeli businessman Elchanan Tenenbaum and the bodies of three IDF soldiers. The three were killed by Hizbullah terrorists three years ago, shortly before Hizbullah kidnapped Tenenbaum. The Arad family claims that the two main Arabs to be released in the deal - Dirani and Sheikh Obeid - were abducted specifically to render them collateral for Arad. Israeli commandos kidnapped the two of them, in dangerous missions, in order to obtain either information on Arad - or Arad himself. One family member said today, "If Dirani is so important for the deal, then let him produce the information on the whereabouts of Ron Arad." Dirani actually sold the captured navigator to the Iranians, driving around Lebanon and Iran with Arad in his trunk. The family claims that Dirani's actions caused them immeasurable grief and harm, and led to the loss of Arad's tracks somewhere in Iran. "The money is not the point," Ron's brother Chen (pronounced with a guttural "ch") said, "but at this point this is the only weapon we have. We are at war against Dirani's release, and this is just the first step." The family of Elchanan Tenenbaum did not comment publicly on this news. Dirani himself has sued Israel for damages of over six million shekels to which, he claims, his abduction nine years ago entitles him. Chief Hizbullah terrorist Sheikh Nasrallah said publicly this week that he would "make all efforts" to obtain information on Ron Arad. Israel, however, is apparently not banking on this, and is willing to make the deal even before the information is obtained. Tenenbaum, who was abducted by Hizbullah almost three years ago, is not in good health, though his life is not endangered if he receives proper medical treatment. The suit states, "The family was caused damage because of the inhumane and repulsive actions and omissions that Dirani perpetrated on Ron Arad during a long period in which he was under his exclusive and absolute control." These actions included, according to the suit, imprisonment, neglect, deprivation of air and food, and more. Prime Minister Sharon met with the Arad family ten days ago, and explained to them the "ethical dilemma" that he is likely to face very soon if the terrorists-for-Tenenbaum deal goes through. Yonah Baumel, whose son Zechariah and two other soldiers have not been heard from since they were captured in the Peace for Galilee War of 1982, also has something against the deal in-the-works, in light of reports that Israel will release Syrian prisoners in the exchange. "Syria has always been assumed to be in possession of information on our sons," he told Arutz-7's Yosef Zalmanson, "so how is it that that information is not included in the deal?" Supporters of Jonathan Pollard demand that he, too, be released as part of the upcoming deal. "America would not refuse that demand," writes one supporter, "if that one requirement threatened to torpedo the entire prisoner swap. Israel should demand Pollard's release as part of the deal. It would allow America to get rid of Pollard, a political albatross, in a way that seems magnanimous." The Ron Arad website address is http://www.ron-arad.org.il. You can see pictures of Ron's family and sign the petition.

SEND JONATHAN POLLARD A ROSH HASHANAH CARD Posted by Dovid Ben Chaim, September 22, 2003.

Please send Jonathan a New Year's Greeting. His address is: Jonathan Pollard, 09185-016 FCI Butner, POB 1000 Butner, NC 27509-1000, USA

BANANA BOAT REPUBLIC Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, September 22, 2003.

A few of you out there in cyber-land get very annoyed when I refer to Israel as The People Banana Boat Republic of Israel. Read the following two items and judge for yourself. The first is by David Bedein, one of Israel's few genuine journalist and the second by Jan Willem van der Hoeven, the director of the International Christian Zionist Center. Both have proven themselves over the years to be accurate and insightful in their writings as well as truly concerned about the future of Israel. Israel has become a Banana Boat Republic not because the Americans forced it on us but because the Israeli ruling elite wanted it. This goes to the very roots of the Labor Zionist movement and history. Ben Gurion and his gang never wanted a truly independent State. They were maneuvering to be some sort of protectorate under the British Empire. They basically believed that an independent Jewish State was not possible. Even more frightening to them was that a truly independent Jewish State would have to be, well, Jewish. Not a pleasant prospect for a Stalinist like Ben Gurion. It is the same today as well. That is why we are constantly told how much we need America and American aid. Exactly why is never fully explained but the implications are always that without it we will suffer all sorts of terrible consequences. The truth is we do not need American aid. American friendship is a different issue. That is not the same as aid and is welcomed. US PROTECTS ARAFAT'S HEADQUARTERS FROM IDF INCURSION by David Bedein, Bureau Chief, Israel Resource News Agency, Beit Agron Int'l Press Center, Jerusalem (www.israelbehindthenews.com). As the debate ensues between the US and Israel as to whether or not Israel will capture, exile or kill Yassir Arafat, the credible Canadian-based Middle East Newsline reported on Monday that the US intervened to prevent the Israel Defence Forces from capturing and neutralizing the Muqata'a headquarters of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. Middle East News Line reported that the US State Department issued a directive to Israel to suspend plans to capture Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah over the weekend, even though Israel provided hundreds of captured documents to the US which prove that the Muqata'a is where the terror campaign against Israel is being planned and directed. Despite that, US Secretary of State Colin Powell and US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to suspend military plans against the Mukatta. An Israeli military force had captured a PA ministry about 300 meters from Arafat's headquarters and established a command post for the capture of the Muqata'a. The significance of such a planned tactical move on the part of the IDF is that the Muqata'a,is precisely where Arafat's terror campaign has been coordinated for exactly three years. It is at the Muqata'a. where Arafat has coordinated the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and all the PLO Armed groups under one command since October, 2000. That has resulted in more than 20,000 Arab terror attacks and the cold blooded murder of almost 900 men, women and children throughout Israel A rubric of US foreign policy is that all of the Palestinian Arab security agencies need to work under one command. It would seem that Arafat's coordination of all security services at the Muqata'a fulfilled that US policy directive, regardless of the consequences for Israeli citizens. The US has invested more than $100 million in the PA security agencies this year, under the premise that these funds would be allocated to forces loyal to former PA Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and Security Affairs Minister Mohammed Dahlan, neither of whom are any longer in power - so the funds have been diverted to forces loyal to Yassir Arafat. That leaves U.S. security personnel in a position of training and advising PLO armed forces who now coordinate terror attacks throughout Israel. The question remains: Is it too late to avoid an inevitable scenario where an American "advisor?" in the service of the PLO ?"security services" will be killed in a preemptive IDF attack on PLO terrorists? A BANANA REPUBLIC by Jan Willem van der Hoeven, Director of International Christian Zionist Center in Jerusalem (www.israelmybeloved.com). Israel's cabinet decides that Arafat will be removed - America tells Israel not to do it, and so, for the moment, Israel complies. Israel's security interests, including those highlighted by the numerous terrorist attacks inside and outside Ariel, dictate that at least that town should be inside the security fence, a fence that, if we are to believe the politicians, is in any case not yet meant to demarcate a political border. Venomously pressurized by the Palestinians, the US tells Israel not to include Ariel, and Israel wavers again. So who is Israel's government? Would any other gentile nation accept and comply with instructions from another country concerning their best security interests? After all the terrible suffering at the hand of the Palestinian terrorists - initiated by them with the evil encouragement of Arafat himself - Israel makes a mockery of that blood and pain to do again what these terrorist-inspired Palestinians tell the Americans to demand from Israel in their name - and may therefore exclude Ariel from the soon to be built security fence. Thus it will go on: no firm dealing with Arafat, no inclusion of Ariel, no united Jerusalem, no to retaining the Golan, no to most of the settlements - because America thinks it is unwise. And Israel will comply until it is too late to stand up for anything anymore - for the Palestinians will have won it all!

ISRAEL, WHERE ARABS BEAT JEWS AND JEWS CAN'T PROTEST IT Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 22, 2003.

Ramla, Israel, has a mixed population of Jews and Arabs. Parents warned their young daughter against going with Arab boys. She didn't listen. You know how it is - young people without experience or knowledge of life don't listen to protectors who have it. She took up with an Arab youth. Then, only 14 years old, she moved in with him. Soon he beat her up, but she thought he "really loved" her. The hospital believed his story that she had fallen. The Jews there would not dare accuse an Arab of physical abuse. When the beatings continued, she got in touch with the wife of a rabbi, who specializes in looking after Jewish girls captured by Arabs. When the girl made ready to leave, the Arab threatened to kill her parents as well as herself. The rabbi's wife came back and rescued her. The woman took the girl into a secret home used for that purpose. This is a religious place where the girls are genuinely loved by caring adults, trained to qualify for jobs, and helped to adjust to society. Adjustment works well enough so that about 60 girls a year find husbands from among the youth returning to religion in the special school run by the rabbi's son. Such youth often are found alienated, wayward, and purposeless. The rabbi's family restores them to normal contributors to society. We've reported about this phenomenon, though not about the home, before. Even if Jewish girls convert in Arab villages, they still are treated like the Jewish enemy. Some of the Arab husbands force the ex-Jewish women into prostitution. (So much for Arab family values! You see the Arabs' racist attitude? In their sadistic minds, they are humiliating the Jews as well as reducing their ranks. This is a form of terrorism.) The Israeli government does nothing about this. Nothing! Israeli police call it a marital problem, when the couple is formally married. If that 14-year-old girl returned home and got a restraining order against the Arab, he would not heed it. Israeli women who escape from brutal Arab villages cannot bring their children out with them, because Israeli judges claim that Islamic law applies. They do not explain how, in a clash between Jewish victims and Arab brutes, the law of the brutes must prevail in the Land of the Jews. The children are raised to hate the Jews. Schools and TV don't educate the Jews about how bestial the Arabs are, and that they are the enemy. That would be "racist," even though true. The worst sin in Israel is thought to be alleged Jewish "racism," while actual Arab racism is condoned. Schools and TV teach, instead, that the Arabs are the same as Jews and have equal rights. Young victims' only recourse is the rabbi's wife and like-minded religious people whose financial resources are not equal to the task. (To find out more information about her work, JTemple@netmedia.net.il) You might be interested in how Israeli Arabs, you know, the ones that the Orr Commision claimed have only a few helpers of terrorism, feel about terrorism. When some terrible bomb went off recently, Arab hospital patients, I was told, openly celebrated. They cheered upon hearing of that dozens of Jews were maimed. The Jewish nurses looked on in disbelief. Nevertheless, they continued treating the Arab patients (probably free, too). What would I do, if I were there? If I were a nurse, I wouldn't treat Arabs who celebrate the piratical murder of my people. Then I'd lose my job. If I saw Arabs trying to capture, by false seduction, Jewish girls, I would fight them. Then I'd lose my freedom. I am ashamed of Israel for letting its people be persecuted by fanatical enemies it foolishly allows to stay within. On the other hand, I am proud of that rabbi's wife who rescues the girls without losing her self-control. She is effective, a heroine, a paragon. What does one make of this? Modern, politically correct notions of tolerance and democracy are sick. Supposition that Israel is a Jewish religious theocracy is mistaken. While the Jews pretend that the Arabs are not their enemies, the Arabs aren't inhibited about denouncing the Jews as their enemies. The main problem is not Jewish mistreatment of Israeli Arabs but Israeli Arab mistreatment of Jews. A people should not have to live in its own country with another nationality that hates it, seeks to destroy it, and commits terrorism against it.

ISRAEL NEEDS A PUSH Posted by David Ben-Ariel, September 22, 2003.

Would God have the Israelis construct the Third Temple? Must we wait until they're perfect before they even lay the Cornerstone? By those stringent standards of self-righteousness, Israel would've never constructed the Tabernacle in the wilderness! Nor would David have dreamt for his son to utilize Israel to build the Temple! God instructed them on how to go about fulfilling His Will in this regard, and they were willing - in spite of their sinfulness. Those Jews and their leaders who returned from Babylon and finally built the Temple - AFTER BEING PRODDED BY HAGGAI AND ZECHARIAH - were also far from perfect (Ezra 9:1). But it didn't stop GOD'S PLAN. God's Purpose goes forward regardless of the failings of men. Thank God! And mind you, such a new Temple would not simply be the "temple of the Jews," as some have slanderously reported. Rather, it would become a "House of Prayer for ALL nations" (Isa. 56:7). If some can understand how Ambassador Auditorium, a concert hall in California, could formerly serve as "God's House," how can they be so proud and stubborn and blind to not RECOGNIZE that God would place His Name where He always has: on the TEMPLE Mount! (Zech. 1:16). Quit making excuses! God says He'll accept the Temple, so shouldn't we? (Hag. 1:8).It ought to be understood that since GOD has restored Israel to the Land, Israel must build the Temple. After all, IT IS A COMMAND. "And let them make me a Sanctuary that I may dwell among them" (Ex. 25:8). The Temple serves as a unifying national symbol, a central focus for the knowledge and worship of the true God (Micah 4:2). It encourages us to remember to keep the festivals of our God, and to send representatives to Jerusalem to celebrate before the LORD (Deut. 16:16; Zech. 14:16).But how can Israel reclaim the Temple Mount without starting a war? Presently that most holy site is under a militant Muslim occupation that forcibly forbids any Jew or Christian from praying or reading the Bible there. This shameful situation continues despite the fact that Israel supposedly guarantees "freedom of access" to the religious sites of all. Israel's "leaders" continue to look the other way as the Muslims practice such blatant religious discrimination daily. Israel must stop taking into "protective custody" those who seek to exercise their religious rights there, and instead REMOVE THE THREAT. I was arrested on the Last Great Day in 1995 to protect me from the mad Muslims! As written in a letter I had published in the Jerusalem Post: "The Temple Mount is not in our hands, because it is not in our hearts and minds. This is to the shame of our political and religious leaders. I doubt that Jews prayed for 2,000 years to return to Zion and pray at a wall." Of course, on an individual level we must welcome God into our personal lives, to find a loving home (Isa. 66:1-2). But on a NATIONAL LEVEL, on a physical plane, we need a physical building to serve as the "Embassy of the Eternal."

SHUK-THINK: Shikaki's "Refugee's Right of Return" Poll Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, September 21, 2003.

The Arab SHUK, market place, has always been a place of exaggerated statements, deceptive claims and out right thievery. When buying goods in the SHUK not only does one have to carefully count his change but his fingers as well after any transaction. Those who do not know how to play the SHUK game should not enter. This includes political and media "experts" as well. All public statements by all Arabs living within the reach of Arafat are made only with his approval and for his benefit. The notion that there could be any sort of independent presentation of facts from within Arafat's kingdom is naive to the absurd. Many in the Israeli media have, unfortunately, jumped on this survey as "proof" that a compromise can be reached. We owe Max Abrahms a YASHAR KOACH for exposing this blatant propaganda trick. [Editor's Note: Max Abrahms "The 'Right of Return' Debate Revisited"can be read among the Featured Articles, this issue of Think-Israel.]

HOW VIOLENT ARE ARABS? A Review of "Terrorist Hunter" Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 21, 2003.

This is my review of "Terrorist Hunter" by Anonymous, 2003, Harper-Collins, New York. Another reviewer thought the book disjointed by intrusions about the author's life. I found the author's story a useful exposition of the preparatory skills and emotions needed for her work. She tells us what it was like for a Jew in Iraq, how difficult it was to settle into Israel, what led her to the US, and how she researched the Islamist conspiracy. She infiltrated terrorist rallies in the US, in order to learn more in person. That, too, is a fascinating tale. She explains about Arab meetings, terrorist use of different names to disguise terrorist groups as charities, and how Al-Qaeda started. The cruelty of the Iraqi Arabs surpasses what most Americans imagine. They accept any lies against supposed enemies, and celebrate executions of them. Let that be a chilling warning! The dishonestly stimulated excitement in Muslim crowds and their waves of hatred right in the US, are not a mere difference of opinion or another way of worship. They are an insurgency in the making and a boost to existing terrorism. This sedition is a mass-movement. The Muslims here know where the money is going when they donate it to terrorist fronts. The speakers sometimes tell them outright. Why do we allow them to come and stay? The book builds up to a proven thesis that US government agencies did not learn their lesson from 9/11. The FBI remained incompetent. It never learned how to combat terrorism. Its approach is not suitable for that type of criminality. For years it refused to believe there was an Islamist conspiracy. More years passed before it started prosecuting it. The CIA covered up for Saudi financiers of international terrorism. The US still deals with states that are its enemies. The author traced the money and conspiracy to their Saudi source. She shows that this terrorism is not, as I used to think, a loose confederation. It is a tightly organized disguise of a Muslim Brotherhood movement, at least among the Islamists. They live and work together on it The White House still invites as its guests extremists whom it calls "moderate." The author witnessed such people, such as the director of CAIR, expressing hatred against the US and the Islamist goal of conquering "all of Palestine," meaning Israel, too. The American Muslim Council rallied a crowd in support of Hizbullah, which murdered many Americans. The crimes that the Islamist speakers falsely attribute to the Jews (not even just to Israelis) are the kind of atrocities actually committed by the Arabs. The Islamists have succeeded in hiding the extent of their conspiracy and their fanaticism from the President, although this book offers a corrective lens. We see how the terrorists exploit American tolerance and democracy to promote murderous anti-Americanism. Arab masses come to meetings already in an emotional lather, believe falsehoods about Muslims being persecuted, submit to the will of the preachers, and part with their cash. The Muslim groups all work together. Seemingly innocuous groups are not harmless. Scholars turn out to be terrorists. When one front is closed, another emerges. Muslim conferences were used to recruit terrorists. The author has been teaching to the US government the information, insights, and methodology that she developed, but some agencies ignore it. She exposed terrorist organizations before 9/11. There is some call to investigate why US security agencies failed to detect and deflect 9/11. Before 9/11, they were afraid of protest by all religious groups, if it investigated Islamists. Politics governed crime fighting. In addition, the US thought that terrorism was a Mideastern problem only, though there were a string of terrorist attacks against US facilities both foreign and domestic. Private investigators, such as the author, warned the government, but the government was not ready to listen. Thus Al-Arian of the U. of S. Florida was bringing convicted terrorists into the US, but he got people to claim he was legitimate. Fellow professors stood up for him, because the government would not disclose the evidence against him that the author shows is overwhelming. The author's insight into terrorism in the US is original and brilliant. Would that her understanding of Israel were not colored by her leftist ideology. She reiterates the leftist canard that the Right had photo-montages of Rabin in Nazi uniform. The infamous instance was arranged by Rabin's agent-provocateur to enable the media to smear the Right. Nor, upon reflection, is such a photo-montage undeserved. True, I would avoid comparisons to the Holocaust, lest it be trivialized and lest the Holocaust victims and survivors and children suffer painful reminders. Objectively, however, Rabin and the Oslo movement led by the Israeli Left and the US State Dept. raised up the Arab followers of the Nazis into a terrorist power that has murdered thousands of Israelis. The so-called peace process that Rabin permitted, and that the author favors, would enable the Arabs to murder another six million. That would be a second Holocaust. So perhaps the Left, which faked the photo-montage, should stop expressing righteous indignation against the Right for the photo-montage produced by the Left. At some time, there gets to be less excuse for otherwise informed leftists to perpetuate that fraud. There comes time for them to purge their own leadership for it and reform their own ideology. Whatever the Right has warned about the Arabs and claimed about the Left has proved true.

WHO IS FOOTING THE BILL? Posted by Ruth and Nadia Matar, September 21, 2003.

Going through the guest list of those coming to the 80th birthday party of Shimon Peres, one is struck by the fact that some of these names are blatant anti-Semites. Nelson Mendela, for instance, always has an anti-Israel position, but he has also adopted the anti-Semitic attitude of many black Americans. His stand at the South African Durban Conference is well known. Then there is Peres "guest" Kofi Annan, who as head of the U.N.always takes the Arab position on any question against Israel. Bill Clinton is not too far behind in causing harm to Israel, directly and indirectly. You could go on and on mentioning names from the guest list of foreign notables who are not friendly to Israel. They have one thing in common. Their relationship with Peres, does not preclude them from acting to hurt Israel, whenever the opportunity presents itself to do so. In other words, they have found in Peres the ideal Jew! They can continue in their anti-Israel and anti-Semitic behavior and point to their friendship with Peres as proof that they are not in any way anti-Semitic. "Some of my best friends are Jewish" they will proclaim, pointing of course to old man Peres as their prime example. Peres prefers the appellation of being a citizen of the world rather than a citizen of Israel. His international socialist philosophy fits well into his thinking in this regard. The truth is that Peres has never really considered himself a proud Jew. He never was really interested in understanding or learning about Judaism or any of its rich customs and traditions. That makes Peres an ideal person to acquire as a "friend" by these foreign dignitaries. He makes no demand on them for loyalty to Israel. He himself continually and openly downgrades Israel to U.S. Government officials and in the international media. He, moreover, praises his association and friendship with Arafat. Despite Arafat's intifada, and the suicide bombings encouraged by Arafat, Peres still continues to consider Arafat as one of his buddies and a "great leader" of his People; this despite U.S. President Bush's recent statement to the contrary. There are many unanswered questions about this so called "party." Who is paying for the plane fare of the guests, their stay at hotels, etc.? Is the one footing the bill the Government of Israel? And why during these difficult economic times? No one seems to want to respond, but the public in Israel is entitled to direct and unequivocal answers to these important questions.

AMERICAN REPERCUSSION TO PERES' BIRTHDAY PARTY Posted by Arlene Peck, September 21, 2003.

Funny thing happened on the way to meet a neighbor. I brought up the topic of a column that I had just read written by my publisher, Nissan Ratzlav-Katz. He wrote about the truly appalling display of disregard to the citizens of Israel because of the upcoming eightieth birthday party of Shimon Peres. I was delighted to read his message across the pages of Arutz Sheva, that while Israel is struggling to pay its bills and feed its citizens, Shimon Peres, in yet another example of his self-serving attitude, saw fit to give himself, at tax-payer expense, a glittering celebrity birthday party. In this cast of thousands of "A" list invitees ranging from Bill Clinton, former leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev and my heavens! even Barbara Streisand and Speilberg! I think that somehow Peres even managed to get that strong supporter of the Jewish people, Kofi Annan into its fold. Too bad Arafat wasn't there for another great photo-op hugging as we've seen so often in the past. He was probably too busy sending out more of his suicide bombers. It's not that I have anything against partying. I've partied with the best of them. But, folks, I have to admit, I think that it's more than a little tacky when all these special people are living it up and the people in beleaguered Israel are getting the tab. Now, folks, that's really not fair to BiBi who's the Finance Minister and doing his best to keep spending slashed to a minimum on mundane things like single mothers who are having their social welfare benefits cut. Or, when Hilton and Sheraton Hotels are cutting floors because tourism is down to a trickle. And all those hospitals are filled with victims of Arab terrorism because of Peres' secret and disastrous Oslos. Which reminds me? As a member of the "Hollywood crowd" where have those same Jewish celebrities been when it came to speaking out about the double-standard and violence their Jewish brothers in Israel have been forced to live under? I've seen Hollywood marches of Save the Whales, trees and ferrets. But, Jewish victims of Arab terrorism? Naw. Maybe these bleeding hearts were busy packing for their celebration with Shimon in a glittery and obsessive display of bad taste? Do you think? Which reminds me. About two years ago, I was asked to help produce a fund-raiser for one of Israel's organizations, AKIM, which supports handicapped children. AKIM is in dire need of support, as are most of the charitable and government agencies in Israel. I had the idea of doing a celebrity auction and was well on my way lining up movie stars who had committed to work as MC's, or to be "sold" the night of the event. The venue had been hired, bands auditions, etc. We were on our way. Then, abruptly, things were put on hold as the homicide bombings were in force and Jews in Israel, were dying. Dying because of Shimon Peres and his pal, Yassar Arafat. Everyone just thought it in 'bad taste' to continue and all plans were stopped. Folks, that was two years ago. Now, however, it seems that the situation is cause for celebration and it's "birthday or bust" Or, in this case, Bomb! When is comes to self-service, nothing seems to stop the serial loser, Peres. Tell me? As an ignorant American. Has he ever been elected or, have Mr. Peres' actions been the result of 'appointments?' Anyway, back to my neighbor. When I showed her the spread in the LA Times about Israel's celebration and, the outrage from the citizens of Israel at it being at tax-payer expense, she commented, "Hmmm, why is Israel asking American Jews to give donations or even our government for loans when they have the money for things like this?"

THE POST HAS A BIG PROBLEM LABELING TERRORISM TERRORISM Posted by Leo Rennert, September 21, 2003.

I sent this to Michael Getler, The Washington Post's ombudsman, who wrote a column today defending the Post's avoidance of "terrorism" in describing the killing of hundreds of civilians because to do so would take sides in a war of words between Israel and Hamas. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein: Whichever way you slice it, a terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist - except perhaps at the Post. Dear Michael: Orwell would be guffawing from his grave if he could read your Sunday column justifying the Post's avoidance of "terrorism" as applicable to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al Aqsa Brigades and other Palestinian terror groups. Let me explain why you're flat-out wrong, assuming words still have meaning. Let's start with a generally accepted definition of terrorism - i.e. deliberate, random attacks on civilians to spread terror in pursuit of political or ideological agendas. If you accept that definition, Pearl Harbor was not an act of terrorism since it was an attack on a military target. The U.S. rightly saw it as an act of war. Japanese kamikaze pilots were not terrorists because they too aimed at military targets. As for 9/11, it was both terrorism and an act of war - the former fits the attack on the World Trade Center; the latter on the Pentagon. But when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Post flinches. On the one hand, the paper's guidance says "terrorism is real and identifiable and we can identify it when that is appropriate." But then it takes a 180-degree turn that, in the Middle East, the term is to be avoided because it's mostly used to describe one side's assessment of the other. In other words, there is such a thing as terrorism but don't use the word in Mideast reports, except when you write about an Israeli accusing Hamas of being a terrorist group, or if you quote Hamas as describing Israel as a terrorist state. Put the "T" word in their mouths, not the Post. But then you realize you have a problem because the Post itself rightly labels Osama Bin Laden as a terrorist (even though he would reject the term) but not Hamas. And that's where your excuse becomes really lame. Because in making a distinction without a difference, you describe al Qaeda as being "only a terrorist network," while Hamas which you admit "conducts terrorism" (your words) is allowed to slip away from the "T" word because it also has territorial ambitions and conducts some social work. Now that's a bit too convenient and disingenuous. Because Osama, you see, also has territorial ambitions that go well beyond anything on Hamas' agenda. Osama wants al Qaeda to be the spearhead of a jihad to liberate the entire Muslim and Arab world from infidels, topple the Saudi and Hashemite monarchies and all secular regimes (to say nothing of little Israel) and install throughout the region (from Indonesia to Morocco) a ruthless theocracy. Moreover, some of his most faithful adherents would go even further and reclaim southern Spain and restore it to its past Moorish glory. And all those grand objectives are fueled by a fanatical belief that eventually Islam (Osama's brand) will rule the entire world. Now if that's not having territorial ambition, what is? But since you're already on a slippery semantic slope, you throw in a few other spurious arguments that also make one's eyes roll. Al Qaeda, you argue, launched a devastating "surprise" attack on the U.S., in contrast to Israel and the Palestinians which have been at war for a long time. Huh? There are many terrorism experts who will tell you that 9/11 did not come as a surprise because the U.S. had been under al Qaeda attacks for a decade (remember the first attack on the World Trade Center, the U.S. embassies in Africa and the USS Cole?) If we're still at war with al Qaeda 40 year from now, will that make them stop being terrorists? So since that argument might not work, you continue to distinguish Hamas from Osama because Palestinian terrorists are resisting Israel's "occupation" since the 1967 war - a "resistance" you maintain "that has now (!) bred suicide bombers." And that's where your entire thesis really goes kaput. Because you started out by saying that, in the Middle East, a term like terrorism should be avoided because Israel and Hamas use it to condemn each other; so the Post should step back and not adopt the vocabulary of belligerents. But that's exactly what you're doing when you blithely accept the Palestinian notion that there has been an Israeli "occupation" since 1967. Have you forgotten that in the late 1990s, under Oslo, almost all Palestinians were governed by the Palestinian Authority and that the Israeli Army had largely vacated the territories? Furthermore, Israel does not accept the term "occupied" territories because it implies that this was once land under Palestinian sovereignty. Israel argues that these have been "disputed" areas since the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. I'm not saying who's right or wrong. But how can the Post say it won't take sides when it comes to using the word "terrorism" because this might put the paper on Israel's side, but the Post then glibly accepts the Palestinian lexicon when it comes to describing Palestinian-populated areas? Also, what's with the timing factor of the breeding of Hamas terrorists? This happened just "now," according to you. Where have you been? Why don't you make a quick check of the Post's archives going back to the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics - and even before that? Furthermore, you also accept the Palestinian viewpoint when you flatly assert that Palestinian terrorism is the fruit of Israeli occupation. Israel, of course, would deny that and argue that "terrorism" is not a by-product of "occupation" since the Palestinians could have had their own state for the taking in 2000-2001 and the territories no longer were "occupied" anyway, but that Palestinian terrorism is the strategic choice of those who want to obliterate Israel altogether. Again, why if the Post is so intent on not taking sides does it accept the Palestinian version of events hook, line and sinker? Whether you like to admit it or not, the Post, by substituting "militant" for "terrorist" and describing the West Bank and Gaza as "occupied" territories, tilts toward the Palestinian side and against Israel. Words do have meanings - and consequences. What you seem to overlook is that throughout the 20th Century and now into the 21st, fanatical autocrats have twisted language to suit their political ends. Hitler, for example, rejected the notion that he was waging an offensive war when he invaded Poland. Not so, said Hitler. Poland first attacked Germany and Germany simply responded with defensive measures. Now, if you were the Post's ombudsman in 1939, would you or the Post have cautioned reporters not to describe the German-Polish conflict as outright aggression by Germany because, God forbid, this might be seen as taking sides between the conflicting versions of the combatants? Can you see now, for perhaps just a moment, how the Post, in trying to draw fatuously illogical distinctions, is embarrassing itself? If there still is such a thing as terrorism, why not let your reporters call it when they see it instead of straitjacketing them with endlessly contradictory "guidances?" Free use of Webster's might be a good start.

WHY THE DOUBLE STANDARDS? Posted by Gerald A. Honigman, September 19, 2003.

While the world's media still debates whether or not Arabs who deliberately blow up civilian busloads of innocents are militants or terrorists, Mr. Ignatius has no problem using the "T" word for Kurds. And while the same media insists that there be a 23rd Arab state, somehow 30 million stateless Kurds are still considered undeserving of one. David Ignatius of the Washington Post wrote on September 16, 2003 of the danger in playing America's Turkish card in Iraq. In the course of the article, when mentioning the Kurds, he referred to them only as terrorists or rebels. Now think about that for a minute. At a time when most media folks are still debating whether or not Arabs - who deliberately blow up busloads of Jewish innocents in buses, pizza parlors, teen nightclubs, etc. - are "militants" or "terrorists," folks like Mr. Ignatius have no problem using the "T" word for Kurds. Let's say, right from the start, that I support a strong Turco-American alliance, but it's not a good idea to have the Turkish military join us in Iraq. I'll get into this issue a bit later on. For now, consider the following: Just imagine if Israel was to say that under no circumstances would another Palestinian Arab state be permitted to be created (Jordan having been carved out, in 1922, of some 80% of the original borders of Mandatory Palestine as Britain received it on April 25, 1920). Could you envision the outcry around the world? Yet this is precisely what our friends, the Turks, have stated over and over again regarding the Kurds. And besides David Ignatius' comments, this has been echoed elsewhere as well such as in Thomas Friedman's March 26th article in the New York Times. Friedman advised that the Kurds should be told point blank, "what part of 'no' don't you understand? ...You Kurds are not breaking away." Nauseating. These are the same authors who, along with many others, have written volumes espousing the creation of that 23rd Arab state, While the Turks' nervousness over such a thought is understandable, their position (as well as Ignatius', Friedman's, etc.) is morally indefensible - if that means anything these days. We'll return to this issue as well later on. At this time, however, we need to take a good look at the plight of some 30 million perpetually used and abused Kurds. Think about all of the journalistic, political, and other energy which has been devoted to the creation of that 23rd Arab state. Now ask yourselves how much has been devoted to the plight of stateless Kurds? Think of Mr. Ignatius' and Mr. Friedman's comments for starters. For several decades now, in the study of Middle Eastern Affairs, some subjects have appeared to be taboo while others never seem to leave center stage. Perhaps one reason for this state of affairs lies in the perpetual quest for Arab petro-dollars by financially hungry academic institutions. Another possibly related reason has something to do with those who have hijacked an intolerant control of Middle Eastern Studies in academia. Israel, constantly in the spotlight's glare, is thus frequently picked apart (all in the name of "objective scholarship" of course), and every real and/or imaginary sin is repeatedly exposed for all to see and pass judgment upon. Indeed, many academics have taken the lead recently to single Israel out and treat it as a pariah in their attempts to have their institutions cut all ties to it. The mere suggestion that Pan-Arabism or Arab nationalism has problems with Jewish nationalism/Zionism for at least some of the same reasons it has had similar problems elsewhere--Berber North Africa, Lebanon, Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan, the Sudan, etc.--can elicit harsh rebuke. In the classroom, however, such subjects are more often than not simply not dealt with at all. Rare is the classroom, for example, that gets into a discussion of the "other side" of the Middle East refugee problem, the one half of Israel's Jews who fled Arab/Muslim lands as a result of the war Arabs launched against the nascent Jewish State. Even more rare is the class that puts the 1947 partition plan for Palestine into the broader context of another partition going on at the very same time between Hindus and Muslims over the Indian subcontinent. The double standard frequently reigns supreme, and while students are often left with the impression that one national movement holds a monopoly on evil and injustice, the other is in line for imminent canonization. Not surprisingly, therefore, revealing and provocative subjects such as Arab treatment of the Kurds have, until recently, simply been ignored. It took Saddam's gassing of them a little over a decade ago in Desert Storm to finally get some interest aroused...but not much. Yet these same voices, mostly silent on the decades' old subjugation and slaughter of Kurds, loudly protest that Arab nationalism has been eternally wronged because it has manifested itself to date - largely via conquest and forced arabization of other peoples and their lands - on "only" twenty-two states, including one on over 80% of the original Mandate for Palestine issued to Britain on April 25, 1920 and today known as Jordan. Some thirty million proud, much abused, and beleaguered people - still not in possession of one state let alone two dozen others - are thus simply disregarded in a grotesque display of moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy by the very same circles promoting an Arafatian state. What's even worse, outside of academia, an Arabist-dominated State Department perpetuates this problem for its own largely oil-tainted reasons. And most of the media engages in this double standard as well. The story of Kurdish nationalism is a depressing one when compared with that of other nationalisms in the Middle East. Arab and Iranian nationalisms, for example, are replete with events causing anger, frustration, setbacks, and the like, but their futures remain alive with the promise of a better tomorrow. Not so, however, for the Kurds...That is, not until recently. While great forces are still working against this - not the least being those at Foggy Bottom - the war in Iraq has the potential to, at long last, right an historic wrong. It is time... The Kurds are a native, non-Arab people who have lived in the Middle East for thousands of years. Their name derives from the ancient Guti (Guti-Gurti-Kurdi), conquerors of Babylon. They were the non-Semitic Hurrians of Mesopotamia and the Medes of Persian history. Their home covers mountainous regions now part of Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and other countries as well. But the heartland of ancient Gutium, the domain of later autonomous Kurdish mirs, had been in what is now - thanks to the British - Arab Iraq. The area around Mosul and Kirkuk, vast in petroleum deposits, was traditional Kurdish land. Add to this an ironic twist. While Syrian Arabs (as well as Saddam) like to sing praises to the medieval warrior Saladin's name, Saladin was, in fact, a Kurd who joined in the fight against Christendom's advances in the Middle East. Had he known what would be in store for his people at the hands of Syrian Arabs centuries later, he might have had second thoughts. A reading of the Kurdish nationalist Ismet Cherif Vanly's book, The Syrian 'Mein Kampf' Against The Kurds (Amsterdam 1968), gives some good insight into how Arabs have dealt with any and all potential rivals in the region. The Ottoman Turks controlled most of the Middle East for over four centuries. With the pending collapse of their empire, numerous peoples had their dreams for independence once again reemerge. President Wilson encouraged this himself in his famous Fourteen Points and his calls for self-determination for all former subject peoples. The Kurds were among those whose aspirations were addressed. The best and most reasonable chance for Kurdish independence was sacrificed, however, in the immediate post-World War I era on the altar of British petroleum politics and Arab nationalism. What was promised as "Kurdistan" became Arab Iraq instead. The odds against a favorable outcome to such aspirations grew immensely from then on. Among other things, Arab nationalists feared that if such a state arose it would become the focus of immigration for millions of Kurds living in Turkey and Iran. Arabs also wrote that they would see the birth of an independent Kurdistan as equivalent to the creation of another Israel, i.e. it would permanently separate lands from what Arabs claimed solely for themselves. In order to maintain any credibility in the strategically important Arab world, the British - who had recently switched from a coal to an oil-powered imperial navy - decided that they had to ignore previous promises made to the Kurds and included the oil-rich Kurdish areas in what was being formed as Arab Iraq instead. Britain decided that its long-term interests required keeping the Arab world as friendly as possible. Besides backing off from promises to the Jews in Palestine (including chopping off all of the land east of the Jordan River and handing it over to the Arabs in 1922 with the creation of the Emirate of Transjordan), this also meant passing another litmus test, the abandonment of the Kurds. A newly invigorated Turkish Republic under Ataturk and Iran's Reza Shah Pahlavi ruled out, respectively, the potential western and eastern options as well - despite numerous and continuing revolts in the former and the brief Mehabad experience in the latter. Rebellion in these areas represented/represent acts of desperation by a repeatedly exploited and abandoned people. In an era in which former victims of imperialism and oppression were struggling for recognition and gaining national rights, the Kurds were alternately tantalized with intimations of independence and crushed by the withdrawal of these promises at the very moment their realization appeared to be within reach. The explosive results were inevitable. "Rebels," indeed, Mr. Ignatius... Even more troubling for those of us who love America and care about what our nation represents to the world, the United States replaced Britain as the primary user (abuser') of the Kurds, using them to hammer away at our own enemies in the region, and repeatedly abandoning them to their own fate when our own immediate goals were reached. So, that brings us up to the present and our current problems with post(')-Saddam Iraq. We hear from the folks at the State Department that Iraq must not be dismembered because it will lead to instability in the region. Talk of a newly-created federal state prevails. Funny, these same foggy Bottom folks don't think twice about what the creation of a second Palestinian Arab state will do to both a miniscule, 9-mile wide Israel and a Jordan whose majority population is Palestinian Arab. Repeated partitions are legitimate for Palestine, but not even one is permissible for Mesopotamia/Iraq. There will be no "Road Map" for Kurdistan...What's wrong with this picture? The real reasons for our State Department not wanting this, of course, are quite different. One of the main issues is the same one that Britain had when it aborted an independent Kurdistan in the first place: fear of angering the Arab world. But think of what could happen if Mosul and Kirkuk's oil became part of a long overdue, friendly Kurdish State with America as its main ally... The other major concern is more noble and has to do with our friends, the Turks. With the collapse of their empire after World War I, when the dust finally settled, Ataturk pulled together a reinvigorated (if much constricted) Turkey. The eastern portion of what was left of the Turkish domain, however, largely consisted of Kurds, but the Turks had drawn their line in the sand and were not about to permit the dismemberment of any more of their territories due to a Kurdish nationalism frustrated with the loss of the one best chance it had at independence in Mesopotamia. So the Turks and Arabs (and others as well) have all harshly suppressed the aspirations of this stateless people. Additionally, Kurdish language, culture, and other aspects of Kurdish identity have been periodically outlawed. So here's our current challenge - if we can overcome the Arabists who too frequently call the shots at the State Department. We now have a chance to right an historical wrong. If Arabs can, after all, have twenty-two states, and very possibly a 23rd in the future, on lands mostly conquered and forcibly arabized from other, non-Arab peoples, how can thirty million Kurds be forced to forever remain stateless and usually at someone else's mercy? What will happen to America's Kurdish allies, who fought and died side by side with our troops to overthrow Saddam, when America leaves the area due to any number of potential reasons? Arabs will not hesitate to take "revenge" on this people whom they have a long history of massacring. Turks fear that an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq will cause and/or support a similar move to independence in the adjacent Turkish lands. This is, in reality, extremely doubtful. More likely - and with proper cultivation most probably - what will occur is that those Kurds (like those Greeks or those Jews or those Armenians, etc.) who wish to live in an independent state of their own will migrate to that state in northern Iraq. Indeed, Turkey stands to lose many of its own potential "problems" this way. The odds of that new state - born as a result of American and possibly Turkish assistance by dismantling Saddam's Iraq - purposely biting the hands that fed it are not very likely. Turkoman tribes in the north and Sunni and Shia Arabs in central and southern Iraq will have a loosely federated state as well, and a formula can be reached whereby the oil wealth can be shared - including with the Turks who feel that they lost the Mosul fields due to Britain's earlier influence with the League of Nations after World War I. It was good that the Turks said "no" to our using their border with Iraq as a springboard for our troops during the overthrow of Saddam. Part of the price tag for such permission would have likely been granting the Turks permission to occupy Iraqi Kurdistan...a moral nightmare...again, if that means anything these days. Talk of inviting Turkish troops to now "help out" in Iraq falls into this same mold. Since we went to war and once again called upon our strangely loyal friends, the Kurds, to assist us in ousting Saddam, we have to be sure that this time we hold the moral high ground. We've not done this before with them. Indeed, after President George Bush (senior) called on them to revolt against Saddam in Desert Storm, he watched and did nothing while these people were gassed to death by the thousands. Secretary of State's September 2003 visit to Halabja was thus a bit ironic. He was one of those who had a say in this earlier policy. Remember that the full force of America's war machine was nearby and could have acted...but didn't. And this was not the first time we abused them this way. It is time to right a long overdue historical wrong. This appeared on http://www.KurdishMedia.com.

DON'T CALL THEM PEACE PLANS Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 19, 2003.

WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN EXPECTED OF ARAFAT?  Having won the six-day war, Israel should have set the terms and secured its future. Instead, it treated its deadly enemies as equals. It negotiated at Madrid with Jordan over the territories remaining under the Mandate for a Jewish national home, as if Jordan already didn't occupy most of the Land of Israel. The Jordanians showed bad faith by letting representatives of the PLO participate in their delegation. Israel's Shamir regime betrayed its own people by winking at that violation of the official Israeli position not to negotiate with terrorists. It had tried to ignore those representatives, who claimed not to be PLO representatives, because it feared that otherwise the Arabs would not have negotiated. When Arabs refuse to negotiate, the West gives in to them. The PLO representatives, whom everybody pretended were not PLO representatives, made Israel a laughing stock, by running to confer with Arafat, whom Israel pretended was irrelevant, even back then. Later, under Oslo, Israel let Arafat return to the territories. What could it have anticipated from his presence but trouble? It let him entrench himself, mostly because he cleverly put off the election until he was entrenched. Delay is an Arab tactic that works well with impatient Westerners. The Westerners don't see through Arab procrastination. Westerners crave seeing things concluded. They hastily sign agreements that their totalitarian adversaries have no intention of keeping. In this case, Arafat won that election by hook and by crook. How could Israel have expected otherwise? Now Israeli and US leaders act surprised that things turned out poorly. Some still pretend that it was a free election. These are the ones who claim that Arafat has more standing than Abu Mazen, because Arafat was "elected." Do elections of Saddam, Assad, and Mubarik give those dictators standing? DON'T CALL PLANS PEACE PLANS!  Every time the State Dept. comes up with a plan for detaching territory from Israel and giving it to Israel's deadly enemies, people call it a peace plan. The State Dept. should know, as do the Arabs, that depriving Israel of defensible borders and strategic depth brings not peace but war. Not realizing where such plans are heading or what kind of society the Arabs have, other people believe that those plans called "peace plans" by the State Dept. are peace plans. They have no idea that the Arabs don't believe in peace and that these plans are part of their schema for conquering Israel. These dupes suppose that the Arabs must be like themselves, wishful for peace, willing to compromise, and able to bury the hatchet. They should not assume that the Arabs are like themselves or that a plan is a peace plan because it is called a peace plan. It is difficult to blame the ordinary citizen of a democracy for repeatedly falling for these deceptions, because his society does not produce informed citizens. How is he to learn from experience, when he has little base of information, and doesn't know what went wrong. The media blame Israeli intransigence, when the problem is Arab intransigence and bellicosity. DON'T CALL CONCESSIONS GOODWILL GESTURES.  Many concessions are called "goodwill gestures," without indication why. The Arabs accept the concessions but complain about the gestures. That hardly expresses goodwill. Just because the gestures are called goodwill gestures, doesn't mean they bring goodwill. Confirming the Arabs in their certainty of being right or at least on the path to victory, Israeli goodwill gestures only bring demands for more concessions. Let those who propose such gestures explain what the record of such gestures is (they bring ill will), why the current requested gesture would bring goodwill, and why no goodwill gestures are asked of the Arabs, though the Arabs are the aggressors and are the ones who express hatred of the other side. What goodwill do the Arabs show? What Arafat was cajoled to utter, cynics called "magic words," but he was dissembling, and Israel's enemies-who-pretend-friendship, such as the NY Times, seized upon those words as conciliatory.

OF JEWISH "TERRORISTS" AND PALESTINIAN "MILITANTS" Posted by Leo Rennert, September 19, 2003.

Ha'aretz is an English-language Israeli newspaper. To the Editor of Ha'aretz: In scanning you web-site today (Sept. 19), I came across the following headlines, one on top of the other: "4 IDF soldiers hurt in Jenin as troops enter second day of hunt for militants" "Settler charged with series of security crimes, involvement in terror cell" In Haaretz's lexicon, I gather, Palestinian terrorists are merely "militants," while Jewish vigilantes are labeled "terrorists." As a reader of the U.S. press, I'm used to the semantic kid-glove "militant" treatment accorded to Palestinian suicide bombers. But to justify this Orwellian twist, the New York Times, Washington Post and other American media decided to erase the the term "terrorist" altogether from their coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But to call a Palestinian terrorist a "militant," while labeling a violence-prone Israeli a "terrorist" is a new linguistic juxtaposition I hadn't come across before. For a second there, I thought I had landed on the web site of an Arafat broadsheet.

DEMYSTIFY IT: How To Defeat Suicide Terrorism Posted by Israela Goldstein, September 19, 2003.

This is an important article; it's written by Adam Wolfson. The religious orientation of the Islamists...breaks down deterrence. How do you deter someone who is willing, indeed eager, to die?...You cannot deter Islamic fundamentalists. Fareed Zakaria In the suicide terrorist we have met our match. Or so we are told. For 40 years, deterrence kept the Soviets at bay, dissuading them from attacking our cities. But deterrence is impossible, it is said, against religious zealots. How astonishing and inexplicable is their behavior! What unfathomable commitment they show! Surely, such fanaticism cannot be deterred. That's the conventional wisdom, but as is so often the case with conventional wisdom, it is mostly wrong. In a rigorously researched article for "The American Political Science Review," Robert Pape has examined every suicide-terrorist attack in the world from 1980 to 2001. There have been 188 such suicide attacks worldwide, ranging from Lebanon to the West Bank, from Sri Lanka to Chechnya, and from India to Turkey. From his survey research, Pape, who teaches political science at the University of Chicago, is able to explain much about this barbaric practice: He shows how suicide terrorism operates, and why it became a growth industry over the last several decades. His superb study should help dispel the widespread notion that suicide terrorism is somehow beyond comprehension, and beyond remedy. One of Pape's most important findings is that suicide terrorism is guided by clearly identifiable strategic goals. It is not a mere act of wanton cruelty, though it is certainly that. Nor is it an act of desperation by the dispossessed. Rather, suicide -attacks are nearly always carefully calibrated to accomplish the political goals of nationalists groups. Of the 188 suicide-terrorist strikes from 1980 to 2001, a whopping 95 percent were undertaken as part of an organized political campaign; that is, only 9 of the 188 attacks were unplanned. These statistics give us a clearer picture of what we're up against. The vast majority of suicide attacks are not the work of psychos; they are not the random and unpredictable acts of fanatics. We're not in the realm of trying to divine the dark psychology of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. Rather, suicide terrorism occurs, as Pape describes, in "clusters." And it is nearly always deployed as part of a larger political-military campaign. The psychology of an individual suicide terrorist might indeed be incomprehensible, but this is not the case of those who recruit, train, and outfit him. A suicide terrorist's handlers are not so eager to die, and there is little reason to believe that deterrence - if forcefully and consistently applied - will not prove effective against them. Pape uncovers another startling and vitally important pattern: Every suicide attack in the period under study was launched against a democracy. Hezbollah used this weapon to force the United States and France from Lebanon in 1983; Hezbollah and Hamas have used it repeatedly to force concessions from Israel; Tamil terrorists have used it against the Sri Lankan government; the Kurds against Turkey; the Chechen rebels against Russia; the Kashmir rebels against India; and perhaps most infamously, on September 11, al Qaeda launched its suicide-terrorist attacks against America. This is an extraordinarily important finding. Clearly, the terrorists have reached certain conclusions about our own "regime." They think we are "soft," and they surmise that democracies in particular are vulnerable to nihilistic coercion. And in this regard, the terrorists are, sadly, not entirely wrong. For another pattern Pape unearths is that suicide terrorism against democracies is effective. It is more destructive than regular terrorism - from 1980 to 2001 suicide attacks made up 3 percent of total terrorist attacks but produced 45 percent of all casualties - and that's not even counting the immense carnage of September 11. Moreover, suicide terrorism more often than not achieves its strategic goals. By Pape's accounting, of the eleven separate suicide campaigns from 1980 to 2001, six produced "significant policy changes by the target state toward the terrorists' major political goals." This bodes ill for the future, as Pape indicates: The main reason suicide terrorism is growing is that terrorists have learned that it works. Even more troubling, the encouraging lessons that terrorists have learned from the experience of the 1980s and 1990s are not, for the most part, products of wild-eyed interpretations or wishful thinking. They are, rather, quite reasonable assessments of the outcomes of suicide -terrorist campaigns during this period. So how should democracies respond to this new scourge? Pape argues in favor of beefing up homeland security. Good advice. But much more than that can and should be done. We need to see suicide terrorism for what it is; we need to demystify it. Suicide terrorists are not some other breed of men, unsusceptible to the usual tools of statecraft. As Thomas Hobbes once said of human cruelty: "That any man should take pleasure in other men's great harm, without other end of his own, I do not conceive it possible." The terrorists have their ends. Deny these - make sure that suicide terrorism does not pay - and it will surely lose much of its luster. Adam Wolfson is editor of The Public Interest. This article appeared on National Review Online (http://www.nationalreview.com), September 16, 2003.

SHIMON PERES' 80TH BIRTHDAY PARTY Posted by Ruth Matar, September 19, 2003. great

Ten years ago, on August 20, 1993, Shimon Peres celebrated his 70th birthday in Oslo, Norway. According to his book, "The New Middle East," he initialed "in the wee hours of the night" an Arab-Israeli Accord, which had been arrived at in utter secrecy. According to Peres this Norway setting was ideal. A close-knit group of Norwegian Government people made itself available for passing messages between Israel and the PLO. The group included Foreign Minister Jurgen Holst and his wife, Marianne, and the head of the Political Research Institute, Terje Larson and his wife Mona. When discussions began to intensify, this group spared no logistical or other effort to keep the momentum going and to maintain secrecy. Even Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin was initially kept in the dark about these secret negotiations. However, President Hosni Mubarak, Foreign Minister Ahmru Mussah, and adviser Osmah el-Baaz were privy to the fact that secret talks were underway. Extraordinary! The Egyptians knew that secret talks were being conducted, but Peres' own Government, and the Israeli People, were not so informed! But then, Peres has always had contempt for democratic procedures. Indeed, he boasts: "I may not know what the People want; I do know what is good for the People." (Jerusalem Post International Edition, December 23, 1995) The entire Oslo Process was brought about by stealth and deception on the part of Peres. He gave recognition to the world's then-leading terrorist as the legitimate leader of the Arabs living in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. He entered into peace agreements with the PLO, an organization committed to Israel's destruction. He gave this arch terrorist murderer, Arafat, guns and ammunition for a 'police force,' which he fantasized would prevent further attacks upon Israel's citizens. He surely is the first leader of a country to arm its professed enemy with the expectation of gaining security. The Arabs must have had a good laugh! They made fools out of those who negotiated the Oslo charade; they scored the first real victory against Israel since 1948. But Peres didn't have a clue as to the real intentions of the Arabs. He tells us in his aforementioned book "The New Middle East" how Abu Ala, a Senior PLO representative (presently Arafat's handpicked puppet Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority), smiled warmly at him. 'This agreement," Abu Ala said, "IS YOUR BIRTHDAY PRESENT" This "BIRTHDAY PRESENT" was, of course, the Trojan horse which Peres naively led into Israel's very midst. The ongoing Palestinian war of terror is a direct and inevitable result of these 1993 Oslo Accords - the worst blunder in Israel's political history. The decade of carnage and blood that Oslo ushered in, is still erupting all around us. 1,110 Israelis have been murdered and thousands have ben maimed for life since Shimon Peres accepted his 70th birthday present from the Arabs. But Peres refuses to admit any responsibility. In an article entitled "We Did Not Err" in Ma'ariv, the second largest newspaper in Israel, Peres writes: "THERE WAS NO SMARTER STEP THAN THE OSLO AGREEMENT..." Never mind that he has brought grief and sorrow to so many families who have lost loved ones or suffered serious injuries. Peres is incapable of admitting error and continues to inject his poor judgment on crucial issues of the day. He recently met with U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and sharply criticized Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for not fulfilling his pledges, including the dismantling of settlements. He also stated that Israel has not honored its promise to release enough Arab prisoners and that the Sharon Government is making a major mistake by not negotiating as long as there is terror. He stated that the political situation needs to be handled with "care and wisdom," something which he, of course, never did. Ten years after that handshake on the lawn of the White House Rose Garden, Peres defends Arafat and condemns Israel. Peres' way of handling the political situation has been to close his eyes and to refuse to face the tragic reality of his own making, which exists in Israel today. The Jerusalem Report in the May 1, 1997 issue reports an extraordinary remark of Peres with regard to peacemaking. "In Argentina, the home of the tango, you know that in order to dance well you have to close your eyes and let the romance begin? Peace is a romantic process.' This remark certainly illustrates how Peres lives in a dream world of his own. He has closed his eyes for the last ten years, while his so-called 'peace partner' has killed 1,110 innocent civilians and maimed thousands. Tragically, Peres is dancing the Tango completely by himself on the graves of our loved ones. Now Shimon Peres is celebrating his 80th birthday and is attempting to make this a national affirmation and recognition of his "achievements." Obscenely, Prime Minister Sharon has declared this a State sponsored and State financed event. Sharon who in the past has accused Peres of "Giving Away the Country" and "Dancing with a Murderer" has assigned four of his staffers to promote Peres' birthday celebration. He has also asked his Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom to provide an additional two of his staffers for the same purpose. 1,200 police are assigned to provide security for Peres' birthday bash. The Israeli tax payer, including the families of the victims of Oslo, will be forced to foot the bill for this two day extravaganza. Over 200 people from close to 45 countries have been invited, including Bill Clinton, Kofi Annan, Polish Prime Minister Alexander Kosniski, Michael Gorbachev, Helmut Kohl, Nelson Mandela, Steven Spielberg, Barbara Streisand, Naomi Campbell, etc., etc., etc. Israel is currently in dire straights economically. 20% of Israel's children are malnourished. The Government is reducing welfare payments, and the education budget; it is severely shrinking the basic basket of services covered by the health funds, and making drastic cuts in the defense budget. We are told that we have no money for even vital services. How is it then, that we have money to honor the one person, Shimon Peres, who bears the greatest responsibility for Israel's dire economic situation and the ongoing slaughter of Jews? Our organization, Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), would have liked to ignore Mr. Peres' birthday. We take no pleasure in raining on his parade. But our organization strongly feels, as does the majority of Israelis, that Oslo has been a tremendous failure. We would have liked to take no notice of Mr. Peres' birthday, but we cannot ignore our Government permitting this event to become an international affirmation of Oslo, and an international opportunity to approve the creation of a Palestinian State on our Land. World leaders and, shamefully, our own Government, will enjoy themselves at a dazzling party and pay homage to the main Architect of Oslo, Shimon Peres, who bears the greatest responsibility for the ongoing slaughter of the Jews. The rest of us will hold a Memorial Rally outside the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv where the festivities are taking place, to honor the memory of all those poor souls, who will never be able to celebrate another birthday. With Blessings and Love for Israel Ruth and Nadia Matar started Women In Green, an effective activist Israeli group, which lobbies against the Oslo "peace process" in its different manifestations. They are based in Jerusalem and their website address is http://www.womeningreen.org. To contribute, go to: https://host5.apollohosting.com/womeningreen/donation.html

THE ABAYUDAYA,THE JEWS OF UGANDA Posted by Sandy Rosen-Hazen, September 18, 2003.

Sjimon den Hollander wrote the following update/report: "bs'd Dear friends and supporters of the Abayudaya (the Jews of Uganda), After my trip to Uganda, I have not been able to write to you about my experiences yet, due to the many things that claim their time and attention too. In short, what I found was a wonderful community of sincere people, determined to join the Jewish people and to lead full lives in accordance with Torah and Halakha. There are surely a number of things that have to be learned still before an official conversion can take place, but their level of knowledge and observance is truly impressive. One of the things that struck me, was that when people of different families attached the mezuzot that I had brought to them as gifts to the doorposts of their houses, the majority of them actually knew the berakha "likboa mezuza" by heart! Our community in Uganda has adopted the name "She'erit Yisra'el" (Remnant of Israel); a very appropriate name considering the fact that discrimination, persecution and anti-Semitism have decimated the community in the course of many years. Now the climate has changed for the good, thanks to the appealing enthusiasm of these Torah-loving last Abayudaya, a number of families and individuals who before were forced to leave the community, are returning to the Jewish religion of their ancestors! Members of the She'erit Yisra'el community don't eat meat because there is no kosher butcher. However, now and then, they do eat tilapia-fish that is caught in Lake Victoria. Although the Abayudaya are all living in the area around Mbale, they live quite spread out in this large region. I mainly stayed in Putti, an area in the same region with quite a number of Jewish families. Putti has the oldest existing Ugandan synagogue, built in 1919 by the initial legendary founder of the community, Semei Kakungulu. Because the synagogue was built from branches and mud, only a few walls remain standing... On the same land is now a temporary synagogue, made of branches and reed walls, and next to this structure one can already see the first part of the foundation of what will be a beautiful new synagogue. Each brick for this synagogue is made by hand, and this process means a lot of hard work. However right now the progress of this construction is endangered because of lack of money. The first stage was financed by Dr. Wapnick z"l, but since his tragic passing away no donations have been made for the completion of the first stage. We are not talking about enormous amounts here. To complete the first building stage of the synagogue (the entire foundation and the lower parts of the walls) would cost about $1,500. To finish the rest of the structure costs an extra $6,000 to $7,000. After that come the doors, the seats, etc of course, but with a few thousand dollars, a lot could be done! My trip with Ruth de Jong, the Dutch photographer, was very exciting indeed. We found a store in Mbale where solar panels were sold. Because there is no regular electricity in Putti, modern solar energy techniques could provide a great way to supply the synagogue with electricity and light. We bought a small solar panel that provides enough electricity for one lamp. This was installed in the synagogue and it was the first introduction of electricity in the region, a modest first step! We had services during the whole week, but of course, the services on Shabbat in the temporary synagogue were the highlight of the week. Before Shabbat, members of the community travel to the site and spend the entire night and day there together, only to leave after the havdala service. This is to avoid traveling on Shabbat. It was wonderful to here "Lekha Dodi" sung in an African tune, and many other songs in Ugandan-composed melodies. And what an experience to lead the daily prayers, and then during the silent "amida," to hear the sound of distant drums! The Abayudaya-community has big plans: They want to build a whole Jewish yishuv (settlement) on the site: members will build their houses around the synagogue. There will be a Jewish school, a study center (Bet-Midrash) with library, and a house for guests. There is an option to purchase a well that will be used to construct a mikwe. There is also an urgent need for a medical clinic, and of course different industries have to be set up to create sources of income... It is of vital importance that the up growing generation has the opportunity to receive education, so that the community will be strong in the future and able to build itself up and support the weak among them. Therefore we have made it our responsibility to guarantee the payment of their school tuitions. Primary school children pay $6 every three months ($24 a year), (we are supporting 34 primary school children) Secondary school children pay $18 every three months ($72 a year), (we are supporting 13 secondary school children) At the advanced level they pay $26 every three months ($104. a year), (we are supporting 2 children at advanced level) Students at a trade school (construction, catering, tailoring, etc.) pay different fees, all around $75 for three months, (we are supporting 5 trade school students) University students pay about $700 twice a year, (we are supporting 3 university students) The school fees in total that have to be paid immediately, amount to $3,000.00 These fees for this new period are however due this week, and unfortunately we have not received sufficient donations to wire enough money to guarantee every child's and student's education. We hope that you will make donations of any amount to support the Jewish community of Uganda... one amazing thing about your donation to the Abayudaya-Project is the immediate effect every dollar has on the lives of these people. With $240 dollars, ten young children can go to school for an entire year! For $1,500 you can finance the foundation of an entire synagogue! We can do great projects for relatively small amounts of money. Also, every penny of your donation goes to the project. We don't hold back any money for administration. My trip to Uganda for instance, I paid myself. And soon we expect to have a way to even avoid the bank-fees for the wiring of money! Note that your donations are tax-deductible in the United States. Please write your checks to: American Sephardi Federation (ear-marked as: Uganda-Project) Mail to: American Sephardi Federation c/o Mazol Ustaev 15 West 16th Street New York, NY 10011 P.S. We are trying to set up a pen-pal network between Abayudaya Ugandans and American Jews. If you are interested, please e-mail us with your information: Name, age, gender, religious community, etc. and we will try to hook you up with one of the members. Any age is good. Most people in Uganda speak English, and if not there will be someone to translate back and forth. Thank you on behalf of the Abayudaya. This letter was shortened from the original.

A DEAFENING SILENCE Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, September 18, 2003.

While the question asked in the NY Sun piece is rhetorical, it still should be answered. Pollard was sent to jail because he was set up as the fall guy in a massive cover up that has only recently been exposed. He stays in jail because he is an unacceptable embarrassment to Israel's ruling elite who place their "relationship" to the Americans above the people of Israel. Finally, the reason the Liberal, civil rights establishment is silent is very obvious. Pollard is a Jew and worked to save Jewish lives. That is more than reason enough to make him persona non grata to the Liberals. http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=18289 Want to get rich? Collect a nickel from every one of the people who has been crying bloody murder about Attorney General Ashcroft and the Bush administration's use of "secret evidence" against alleged terrorists - but who hasn't uttered a peep abut the administration's refusal to disclose the secret sentencing memo in the case of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. Mr. Pollard, you may recall, is the American who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage on behalf of Israel. Pollard in 1987 was sentenced to life in prison. That was an unusually harsh punishment, coming as it did after a plea bargain and for acting on behalf of a nation that is, after all, an American ally. Judge Stephen Williams, in a 1992 dissent in an earlier Pollard appeal, referred to the government's breach of its plea agreement as "a fundamental miscarriage of justice" and likened the behavior of government lawyers to that of the witches in "Macbeth." Pollard and his lawyers were back in federal court yesterday (09/02/03) in Washington. Among the issues being argued was the right of Pollard's lawyers, who have the appropriate "Top Secret" security clearances, to get access to the classified documents that the American government filed with the sentencing judge before Pollard was sent down the river. The classified documents include portions of a 46-page declaration filed by the secretary of defense at the time of the sentencing, Caspar Weinberger. Mr. Weinberger publicly referred to Pollard's action as "treason," a charge that the Constitution prohibits the government from defining as anything other than levying war against America or adhering to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort. It was a charge of which Pollard was never accused. The American Civil Liberties Union, to its credit, filed a friend of the court brief siding with Pollard. On another issue before the court, on the statute of limitations and the habeas corpus right, at least one distinguished liberal, Professor Charles Ogletree of Harvard Law School, has signed a friend of the court brief backing Pollard, while another distinguished liberal, a former executive director of the NAACP, Benjamin Hooks, tried to sign on to the brief but was rejected by the court. Still, one has to wonder: Where is the New York Times editorial page and its liberal columnists? Where are Nat Hentoff and the Village Voice? Where's Bob Barr? Where are David Bonior and Rep. John Conyers and their allies in the organized American Muslim and Arab communities? The Nation Magazine? The National Public Radio crowd? They've all been writing and buying newspaper advertisement and holding rallies and giving speeches and introducing legislation and otherwise raising a ruckus about the use of secret evidence and tribunals in counter-terrorism cases and immigration proceedings. And doing so in cases that involve the real levying of war against America and adhering to its enemies. Pollard's actions were illegal and misguided, a point even he has admitted. But if the real issue for all these civil liberties advocates were strictly civil liberties, one would think they'd be eager to see Pollard granted the same due process rights that they are so eager to grant those who are accused of aiding the terrorists. In the case of Pollard, however, a perfect example of the abuse of secret evidence is greeted with a deafening silence. It gets to a point where people wonder why. This essay appeared in the New York Sun, September 3, 2003.

Posted by Israela Goldstein, September 18, 2003.

CHANCE FOR PA STATE HAS "EXPIRED" Prime Minister Sharon Now Opposes Creating A Palestinian Arab State, Journalist Close to Sharon Reveals. NEW YORK- A prominent Israeli journalist known to be a close confidante of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reports that in the wake of the latest Palestinian Arab terrorist massacres, Sharon now opposes creation of a Palestinian Arab state. Uri Dan, writing in Ma'ariv on September 11, 2003, stated that the latest attacks have convinced Sharon that the Palestinian Authority must "disappear from the map" and that "The Palestinian leadership will not get to see a Palestinian state - at least not in this generation. The chance that they were given has expired." Dan, accompanying Sharon back to Israel from the prime minister's official visit to India, wrote: "In India, the State of Palestine was buried" - an ironic reference to the famous statement by the Zionist leader Theodor Herzl, "In Basel [at the First Zionist Congress], I established the Jewish State." The ZOA notes that fifty prominent Jewish and Christian leaders, as well as former U.S. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, former Secretary of Education William Bennett, former U.S. Senators Connie Mack and Rudy Boschwitz, and former Republican presidential candidates Gary Bauer and Alan Keyes recently signed a full-page ZOA newspaper advertisement headlined "President Bush, creating a Palestinian Arab state means creating a new terrorist state." The ad appeared recently in the Washington Times, the Weekly Standard, the Israeli newspapers Ha'aretz and the Jerusalem Post, and Jewish newspapers throughout the United States. A national poll by McLaughlin and Associates earlier this month found that by a margin of 71% to 13%, Americans oppose the creation of a Palestinian Arab state.

ILLEGAL ALIENS AND AMNESTY Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 18, 2003.

When no one in particular is seen to have been robbed or assaulted, crimes are called "victimless." However, organized and mass "victimless" criminality actually victimizes many people and society as a whole. One such type of crime is prostitution, which spreads disease and helps engender more criminality, brutality, and demoralization of society. Another such type of crime is that of illegal immigration. Defective societies have a safety valve in the emigration of more enterprising but impoverished or persecuted members. But in sneaking in, the emigrants are exploited by gangsters. They now come in waves, with the same defective ideology and social attitudes of the Muslim countries they fled. They can overwhelm host countries with social problems and attempts to impose their intolerance upon the hosts. Living on the fringe of the host society, they sometimes lead impoverished lives socially as well as economically. Terrorists come in with the mass, and raise money and recruits from them by racketeering. They radicalize mosque members into enemies of their countries. Americans expect immigrants becoming patriotic citizens, but many Muslims become enemies. Some of the Mexicans may be alienated, and, if they become a critical mass, may subvert national unity. The host countries awake slowly to the growing trouble, partly because radical liberals have turned it into an issue of political correctness and perverse humanitarianism. There are individual, pathetic cases. Rather than treat them as exceptions to be humane about, immigration "reformers" exploit sympathy to undo our immigration law altogether. Another reason is that industry prefers having cheap labor. Like Gresham's law about coinage, wherein bad drives out good, cheap wage earners drive out moderate wage earners. Business stays afloat; natives sink. To get such people out of the fringes and avoid some of the social problems, a movement is stirred up periodically to grant the illegals amnesty. There also are drives to allow them various services, despite their not being entitled to them and a duty to deport them. The trouble with such amnesty is that it undermines the defense against illegal immigration. Deterrence is weakened by the expectation of getting in on the next drive for amnesty. One of the arguments for amnesty is that some of those people have been here for several years. Thus for having committed their illegality for several years, rather than just one, they are rewarded more than those who committed such illegality for one year. They are given opportunities to become citizens and vote for more immigration.

CHILD GUINEA PIGS Posted by Honest Reporting, September 18, 2003.

On Monday (Sept. 15), the IDF caught two barefoot Palestinian children - ages 8 and 10 - breaking through the security fence from Gaza. Why were they breaking through the fence? Agence France-Presse reports a cruel case of child abuse: "The boys had been sent to test the security capacity of the fence around the Kissufim area, the Israeli army said Monday." What AFP doesn't report, however, is the boys' statement that an Arab man from Gaza forced them to do it. "An adult told us to cross the fence, and if not, he would hurt us," the boys said. IDF officials said that terrorist elements sent the boys as "guinea pigs" to see how the IDF would react. AFP quotes the IDF that the boys were sent "to test the security capacity of the fence." But since there's no mention whatsoever of Palestinian agents (who would also be interested in testing the fence), the reader has no reason to consider that a malicious Palestinian sent the boys, and is left assuming Israeli guilt. HonestReporting does not wish to imply that AFP intentionally distorted this story. However, given the sensitive and volatile nature of the Mideast conflict, it is irresponsible for journalists to present facts in such a vague manner - in this case, falsely suggesting that Israel used two innocent boys for a cruel test of IDF readiness. Please write to AFP, requesting they clarify the matter in an official correction: contact@afp.com

MISDIRECTED ANGER JINSA Report #361, September 18, 2003.

After proclaiming Arafat untouchable and refusing to meet with him; after putting American interests ahead of toothless multilateralism by withdrawing from the ICC and the ABM Treaty; after beginning the deployment of missile defenses; after abandoning the law-enforcement approach to terrorism; after making specific the link between terrorists and the state apparatuses that support them; after launching a just war against an existential threat; after asserting the right to active self-defense in an era of new threats; after liberating millions of people in Afghanistan and Iraq from bestial repression; after proclaiming a democratic revolution for the part of the world most in need of one - the Arab and Muslim world - the President of the United States has let us down by directing his frustration with Palestinian terrorism at ISRAEL. It's bad enough that Israel buries its children on a regular basis, but now Israel will be punished for Palestinian terrorism. The President has made clear through the State Department the American view that: a) Palestinians will continue to receive American support for a state even as they continue to sponsor terrorism and refuse to undertake the democratic reforms once required by the President as quid pro quo for provisional support for independence. The death of American citizens in terrorist incidents will not be considered an impediment to this support; b) Regardless of the number of Israeli dead, Israel must continue to hold out the possibility of negotiations with terrorist groups and their allies; c) Israel cannot eliminate the Palestinian terrorist-in-chief, exile or threaten him. Nor can Israel eliminate terrorists who violate the Geneva Convention by hiding among civilians; d) Israel cannot apply non-lethal pressure on the Palestinians in the form of continuing work on items the Palestinians don't like, i.e., fences and houses. Israel will be penalized financially, but more importantly, Israel will be undermined by the understanding among its enemies that the US will protect them from Israel's righteous anger. Secretary Powell mentioned his fear of the "Arab Street." But the "Street" has been remarkably quiet about Afghanistan and sophisticated about Iraq. It is odd for JINSA to give the Arabs more credit than does the administration, but they seem largely prepared to deal with the consequences of a firm American defense of stated American interests. The President shouldn't let Mr. Powell's fear of Arabs make Jewish lives cheap. We're optimists by nature, otherwise we couldn't stand to be in this business. We have to believe that at the end of the day, the United States stands for the good, the right, the just, and the free. By and large, we aren't disappointed. But today we are. Israel deserves American support for hard decisions about security in the face of ongoing terrorism, not the misdirected anger of those who can't make the Palestinians pay for their depredations, and don't want Israel to.

15 THINGS I DON'T UNDERSTAND ABOUT THE MIDEAST PEACE PROCESS Posted by Rabbi Ephraim Shore, September 18, 2003.

1) If Palestinians want to live side-by-side with Israel, then why do all government logos and websites show Palestine encompassing all of Israel, with Israel nonexistent? 2) If a primary point of the road map is "confronting all those engaged in terror and dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure," then why do the Palestinians demand that Israel release thousands of terrorists from prison, an item not even included in the road map? Instead, shouldn't the Palestinians be arresting terrorists themselves? And shouldn't we be outraged that the two suicide bombers who murdered 15 Israelis on Sept. 9, 2003 (Hillel Cafe and Tzrifin bus stop) were among a group of Palestinian prisoners released by Israel this year? 3) If Israel is supposedly allowed to "take all necessary steps to defend its citizens," then why is Israel condemned for building bypass roads so drivers can avoid ambushes, condemned for building a fence to keep suicide bombers out, condemned for targeted killings of terrorist leaders, condemned for operating road blocks to screen for suicide bombers, condemned for clearing areas used for launching rockets, and condemned for keeping terrorists in jail? How exactly is Israel expected to defend itself? 4) When the PLO first demanded a state in 1964, it wanted every part of Israel except the West Bank and Gaza (which were then in the hands of Jordan and Egypt). Is it reasonable to assume that they now want only the West Bank and Gaza, or is that more likely a Trojan Horse - as Palestinian leader Faisal al-Husseini described it in 2001 as a first step to destroy Israel. 5) Why is the targeted killing of terrorists and their supporters lauded when done by the United States in Iraq, but not when done by Israel whose civilians face a daily threat of terror attacks? 6) Why has the United Nations passed far more condemnations against Israel than any other country - including Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Chechnya, Saudi Arabia, Liberia, North Korea, and China combined - while millions were massacred in these other places? And then how does the UN expect Israel to accept it as an impartial mediator? 7) Why - if the Palestinian Authority has little freedom of speech and freedom of the press, little religious tolerance, is oppressive of Christians and other minorities, is corrupt at all levels of government, and is rife with vigilantism - is the creation of a Palestinian state a favorite "liberal" cause? 8) Why - after Yasser Arafat has proven for 40 years to be one of history's most incorrigible terrorists, while loyally backing dictators like Saddam Hussein - does the European Union still strongly support Arafat's leadership? 9) Why does the media call it "terror" when Al Qaeda strikes at Western targets, but not when Hamas strikes at Israelis (or even American citizens in Israel)? 10) If the Palestinians truly want peace, why do their school textbooks vilify Israel and glorify suicide bombers? Why does the government-controlled TV station broadcast virulent anti-Semitic messages? Why do mosques regularly incite followers to jihad? Why are (UN supported) children's paramilitary training camps - masquerading as summer camps - named in honor of the most "successful" Palestinian terrorists (an indoctrination process that has resulted in 60-80% support for suicide bombings)? 11) Why does the world call the West Bank "occupied" if it never belonged to the Palestinians? [Jordan controlled the West Bank for 19 years after conquering it in a war of aggression. It previously belonged to the Mamelukes, the Crusaders, the Ottoman Turks, and then Britain.] 12) What other country would give control of its holiest spot (the Temple Mount) to another religion (which arrived 1,500 years later), and then permit them to systematically destroy ancient remains (to eliminate evidence of a 3,000-year-old Jewish presence) and allow that religious body to prohibit access to non-Muslims for three years? 13) Why does anyone doubt Israel's sincerity for peace, after offering 97 percent of the West Bank and Gaza in the Taba Talks 2001, and having given back the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt - a territory three times the size of Israel constituting 91 percent of the territory Israel took control of in the 1967 war? 14) Why does the world demand the uprooting of Jewish settlements - effectively making those areas "Judenrein" (empty of Jews)? Would anyone tolerate a similar form of ethnic cleansing whereby Israel does not allow Arabs to live in areas under Israeli control? 15) If, during Oslo, Israel gave tens of thousands of machine guns and 40% of the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians (giving them control over 97% of their population), in return for the promise that "all future disputes would be handled without violence," and instead Israel got 18,000 terrorist attacks that killed 845 and wounded 4,898 people, a collapsed economy, intolerable daily life for its citizens, and its holy sites desecrated, why is Israel again being asked to negotiate with that same Palestinian leadership, trust their future promises, and place its security in their hands? This appeared on the web site of PRIMER (Promoting Responsibility in Middle East Reporting) http://www.tampabayprimer.org

OSLO AND THE WORLD TRADE CENTER Posted by Moshe Feiglin, September 18,2003.

The Israeli media remarkably ignored the tenth anniversary of the Oslo Agreement. It would have seemed that the media couldn't have hidden such a fateful date from the public. It would have seemed that the media, that is constantly seeking fresh subjects to publicize, would have addressed the issue of the terrible decade that has elapsed and its significance. However, it appears that the persons pulling the strings in the Israeli media do not intend to set up a dock for the guilty, since clearly they would be allocated a place of honor there. September 13th passed just like any other day. No one in Israel stopped to draw conclusions, and the Oslo Agreements continue to demand their pound of flesh with an increasing appetite. But September 11th, the day when the WTC twin towers collapsed, was treated very seriously. September 11th does not threaten anyone and so Israeli citizens were presented with several programs containing scholarly analyses of the massacre in New York. One thing was hidden from both the Israelis and the Americans. Without September 13th there would have been no September 11th. The Oslo Agreement was also responsible for the collapse of the WTC twin towers. Without the despicable handshake between Rabin, Arafat, and Clinton on the 13th of Sept. 1993, the twin towers would not have collapsed on the 11th of Sept. 2001. It is customary to explain the Oslo Agreement as a peace agreement intended to end a physical conflict centering around the ownership of a piece of territory. This is just a smokescreen, but it seems that there is no alternative for the "cultured" public. Even the attack on the WTC twin towers, in which there is no territorial dispute in the background, and no war between armies and nations, was explained by the blind Western way of thinking by means of old examples of physical conflicts. Such conflicts can be comprehended from a secular viewpoint, and can be solved using our limited range of concepts. The Americans needed a country and an army to fight against, and Saddam Hussein supplied the goods. The Israelis needed a country and an army to make peace with, so they brought Arafat and invented for him a nation, an army, and a country. Both Israel and the US are afraid to confront the truth since they lack the cultural tools to understand it and therefore to face up to it. Even more serious, the cultural basis, the basic ethos on which Israel and the US were founded, is undermined and is liable to collapse if they were to understand the language used for fight against them. Israel and the US cannot permit themselves to wage religious wars, because this totally conflicts with their culture. They therefore flee to apparently rational areas, which are, however, totally irrelevant. US citizens are beginning to understand that the campaign in Iraq has not eliminated the threat of terror hanging over them, and Israeli citizens have already painfully understood that the invention of the Palestinian nation and state will not bring them peace. Our Western rationalism does not like seeking the meta-physical roots of the Oslo process and the Islamic terror. However, even those who are not prepared to consider issues that they cannot physically feel have to answer a single question for themselves. How did it happen that before the Oslo process there were no suicide bombers? The phenomenon of Moslem-Arab suicide is an unusual one in modern history. It is not right to compare this with the Japanese Kamikazes in the Second World War. There have always been soldiers who were prepared to give their lives during a war in order to achieve its aims. Even in Israel there have been quite a few examples of this. However, suicide as an ideology, which takes with it, as additional victims, women and children who do not represent a threat? This monstrous phenomenon only appeared after the Oslo Agreement. Most of the suicide bombing attacks could have been perpetrated even without committing suicide. The terrorist who blew himself up in the shopping mall near my home, in Karnei Shomron, could have placed the bag containing the explosives and left. He didn't do so because his death was an integral part of the act. The Japanese Kamikaze couldn't bring his Zero loaded with bombs onto the deck of the American aircraft carrier without committing suicide. *** Most people in the world believe in the Bible and know that "The Torah will come out from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." The world knows that the good tidings will come from this country. In Oslo the Jews agreed, for the first time in history, that this country does not belong to them but to the Arabs. After all, their tidings were of truth and would come from Jerusalem and conquer the entire world. In Oslo the Jews armed the Moslem Arabs with the most important weapon of all - the feeling that they were right. From a long time a world war has been waged under the surface between the unruly daughters of Judaism - Islam and Christianity - for domination of the world. Now that the Moslems have received from their "mother" the assurance that they are in the right, they have set out on a world Jihad armed with the most powerful, dangerous weapon. Obviously the Arab rabble, bearing the message of Moslem power and evil, is incapable of heralding anything other than death. However, in order to bring this belief to a state of awareness that makes people commit suicide it is apparently necessary to bring a theological, moral proof. Consequently the Oslo Agreement is needed. *** Jews make a practice of connecting dates and events. Both Temples were destroyed on the same date, and five grave events took place on Tamuz 17. These thoughts led me to check whether Oslo and the WTC twin towers attack actually took place on the same date, and not two days apart. I checked the Hebrew date of the two events and was disappointed. The Oslo Agreement was signed on the White House lawn on Elul 27, 5753, while the WTC twin towers collapsed on Elul 23, 5761. But I then came across an article by Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe, who reminded me of things I had forgotten. The signing ceremony on the White House lawn was a media presentation only. The agreements themselves were signed four days earlier. Arafat signed then a letter in which he recognized Israel's right to exist in peace and security, and condemned the use of terror and violence. Rabin on the same day signed a letter emphasizing the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian nation and accepted them as a partner in peace negotiations. The date was September 9, 1993. What was the Hebrew date? You've guessed right: just like the attack on the WTC twin towers, the Oslo Agreement was actually signed on Elul 23. Elul 23, 5753. Moshe Feiglin is a member of the Likud and a founder of Manhigut Yehudit, which promotes a strong Jewish identity for the Jewish state.

EXPEL ARAFAT - AND THEN WHAT? Posted by by Elyakim Haetzni, September 17, 2003.

What the Americans Really Want.  An imaginary scenario: The Americans allow Sharon to drop a one-ton bomb on the entire top brass of Hamas, killing them all and leaving Hamas with no leadership. Let's say we've also conquered the Mukata and expelled Arafat and his entire Oslo bunch back to Tunisia. Now what? Does this lead to the vision of Eretz Yisrael HaShleimah [Greater Land of Israel]? Is there even anyone in official Israel, with the Likud at its helm, who sees this as a realistic diplomatic option? Let's try to understand what the Americans were thinking when they allowed us to drop a (small) bomb on Sheikh Yassin, and what they will be thinking when they finally allow us to expel Arafat. The answer was stated by Condoleeza Rice in two words: "Nation-building." She explained: "We struck the Serbs, enabling us to build the Bosnian nation; we beat the Taliban and built the Afghan nation; and we will now build Palestine." In the meantime she has also managed to smite Saddam Hussein, enabling her to busy herself with building the Iraqi nation. But the Palestinian thing is missing something. After all, to build the Bosnian nation, NATO defeated the Serbs. And against the Taliban and Saddam, the U.S. Army stepped in. To build a democratic state here, Hamas terrorism must be smashed - and somebody has to smash it. Bush Needs a Terror-Free Area - for a Palestinian State!  After all, if George Bush would know that the choice here is between a Saddam-like Palestinian terror state and nothing at all, he would certainly give up on his Palestinian vision! So who's supposed to get rid of the Palestinian terrorists so that a "democratic" American-supporting Palestinian state can arise in fulfillment of the American dream? Unlike the Europeans, Bush is serious about terrorism - and in fact sees eye-to-eye on this issue with Sharon. For this reason, he needs a strong army to fight and smash Arab terror - not only in Iraq or Afghanistan, but here too. It's not for naught that "smashing the terror infrastructure" is the first station on Bush's Road Map. But he's certainly not going to send his own boys out to die on the streets of Shechem and Gaza - certainly not when they're already doing so in Iraq - so who's left to do the dirty work? Only the IDF. In other words, it's up to the IDF to clean out the area and pave the way for a Palestinian state. Using the Jews to Build a PA State  It won't be the first time that goyim use Jews as weapons by which to strike the Jews. But our blind Israeli leaders are imagining that they're fighting only on behalf of our security, without seeing that at the same time they're serving another purpose, namely, paving the way for the next stops on the Road Map: general elections in a terror-free PA, followed by an international conference declaring a PA state with temporary borders on Jan. 1, 2004 that will immediately be accepted into the United Nations. This entire vision is a nightmare for every Zionist Jew loyal to his nation and land. But many leftists realize that it's dependent now on the disappearance of Arafat - and that's why they're suddenly demanding his expulsion. They realize that only one last step is required in order to fulfill their historic task of building a "Palestinian" nation and a "Palestinian" state. Zionism: Building Two States?  This process began when Zionism planted within the Arab mixed-masses who lived here with no national identity a feeling that they are a people carrying the name of the land that was destined to be the Jewish national home - "Palestine." Then, in 1967, the Zionist army came and freed them from Jordanian rule - under which they never would have received independence. Israel then spent the next several decades building them up: giving them education and teaching them administration, and building networks of roads, water, electricity, and health. Under Jordanian rule, they left - but under Israeli rule, hundreds of thousands of them came back in order to work for us, and good ol' anti-Semitism granted them the world's admiration. And finally, for good measure, the Zionist movement equipped them with ammunition, military training [from the U.S.], and much money, with the terrorist consequences with which we are all-too familiar. Our saving grace is the fact that the left-wing is not united, and the Arabs, though a smart people, can't control their terrorism urge for even a few months, during which the Road Map could do all the work for them. The Americans, too: if they would think it through, they would allow Sharon to drop a large bomb, expel Arafat, and thus the IDF could fulfill the Bush vision, instead of that of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Amos. Fight - but for the Right Cause!  My intention in these words is not to recommend to the IDF not to fight. I wish rather to warn of the trap that intrinsic in the very words "war on terrorism." This phrase implies that we don't have a war with the Palestinian people, even though they are those who are activating the weapons against us. It implies that the war is merely against the virtual concept of "terror," as if it can be fought with no connection to the 120-year-old blood-filled national struggle between the Jews and the Arabs in this Land. Peres in Oslo and on the White House lawn, and Sharon in his speech in Latrun and in Aqaba, have placed us in a bind. We have no choice but to continue fighting against the Palestinian enemy and to kill its leaders, but we also have no choice but to ensure that our war be on behalf of the Land of Israel, and not for "Palestine." We must therefore define clear national goals for our war. We dare not lead to a situation in which the historians will write that the State of Palestine was established in the Land of Israel with the bodies of our dead. We must therefore break through the tunnel and see the light at its end - the light of Jewish sovereignty over all of western Eretz Yisrael. Attorney Elyakim Ha'etzni is a resident of Kiryat Arba, a columnist in Yediot Acharonot and B'Sheva and a former Knesset Member from the Techiyah party.

POWELL RECOMMENDS APPEASEMENT TOWARD TERRORISM Posted by David Holcberg, September 17, 2003.

Secretary of State Colin Powell declared this weekend that "The United States does not support either the elimination or the exile of Mr. Arafat." His reasoning? "There would be rage throughout the Arab world, the Muslim world, and in many other parts of the world." By that reasoning we should not have attacked Afghanistan, nor Iraq; nor should we try to kill Hussein, bin Laden and the Al Qaeda leadership. In fact, if we accept Powell's reasoning, we should immediately stop our war on terror - we don't want to further enrage those peaceful Islamic terrorists and their supporters, do we?

PEACE ONLY THROUGH ETERNAL TORAH Posted by Choni Davidowitz, September 17, 2003.

Many millions of words have been spoken and written by journalists, politicians, analysts and other opinion makers on how to solve the Middle East problem and bring peace to the Holy Land. Dozens of peace plans, and agreements have been have been submitted and signed but to no avail. In 1948 Jewish sovereignity was returned after 2000 years. Nineteen years later, after the 1967 war G-d returned the Holy City of Jerusalem in its entirety - including the Temple Mount. Yesha (Judea and Samaria) including Hebron with the Cave of the Patriarchs was also returned. Despite this divine miracle and being victorious in four wars against many arab armies thousands of Jewish lives have been lost. Not only soldiers but of late babies, children, mothers and fathers, bobbas and zaidas have been killed or maimed. Fifty five years on we stand to-day and ponder how it is possible that a Country whose people gave the world geniuses of finance and technology and created economic empires for Gentiles, the same people are unable to create economic stability in our own country? How is it that the same army which to-day is much stronger that defeated five Arab armies in six days and in 1973 were at the gates of Cairo and Damascus is incapable of dealing with a bunch of p.l.o hoodlums? The answer is that one who speaks about peace in the Holy Land without mentioning G-d understands NOTHING. One who speaks about solutions to problems and does not mention Torah is incapable of understanding the solution because he does not understand the problem. This is what is happening in Israel to-day. From a magnificent divine miracle we have turned into a state of confusion and despair. We must therefore realise that peace can only be attained with Jewish faith and Jewish Power. A fundamental principle in Judaism is the concept that G-d rewards and punishes "midda keneged midda" - (measure for measure) How do we understand this? "Tucked away in a corner" of the Torah is a verse :(Hazinu chapter 32 V 21) which is seldom commented on, but which speaks volumes regarding the situation as it is to-day. "They (the Jewish Govt) provoked me with a non-G-d (Washington?) angered me in their vanities - so I shall provoke them with a non-people (Beloh-am), with a vile nation shall I anger them." The commentary in the Chumash states that a Govt. which worships deities without Torah values, that country shall be punished by a nation without cultural and moral values, a non people that exists SOLELY to exact retribution against Israel. One does not need to be a genius to deduce that the arabs who are inflicting such vile retribution against the Jews at this time DO NOT WANT to live peacefully side by side with the Jewish People. They DO NOT WANT a state of their own, in fact the only reason they are in our land is to kill and maim Jews. If there is anyone who still believes that a "palestinian nation" ever existed, would they please be kind enough to answer when and where it was founded, what was it's form of Government and where were its borders - name at least one "palestinian" leader before arafat. What country ever recognised its existence and when? In what Library or Museum can we find any of its coins or history or artifacts. Obviously they are a non people as the Torah states. From the above it is obvious that to have peace in our land we have to deal with these non people according to Torah values. There are numerous passages in the Torah which insrtruct us on how to deal with this problem - the most explicit is found in: Parshat Massei (chapter 33 v52/56)which states : "You shall drive out the inhabitants of the land before you and settle in it - for to you have I given this land to possess it, but if you do not drive out the inhabitants before you those of whom you shall leave shall be pins in your eyes and thorns in your sides and they will harass you upon the land which you live and it will be what I meant to do to them I shall do to you." The portion then discusses the true biblical borders of the Holy Land given to the Jewish people. (Rest assured there is no mention of green lines, West Bank or "occupied territories.") Settling the land according to the above Mitzva is the easy part - the difficulty is the second half of the Mitzvah - expelling the arabs. This difficulty will be overcome only with Jewish faith and Jewish power. G-d will make this possible if Governments of Israel learn to govern the country based on Jewish principles and values. Nobody expects every Jew to become overnight repentants. The very fact that millions of Jews in Israel and the Diaspora who do not keep Torah and Mitzvot reflects specifically to desecration of their own personal lives. In Eretz Israel we have a situation in which the every Govt. both left and right have neglected basic Jewish laws. By disobeying these Mitzvot they have publically declared war on G-d and His Torah. By giving away or contemplating to evict thousands of Jews from their homes, shuls, yeshivas, schools and businesses and giving the land to the savages who murder our people is the ultimate desecration of G-d's name and holiness. Every Jew in the diaspora should know that by supporting such an action places him in the catagory of desecrating G-d's name. We should not in any way be influenced by the secular media nor rely on our own understanding for a solution - but put all our faith in the words of Torah. Zionism means that Israel is one entity and if a Jew cannot live everywhere in Israel then he cannot live anywhere. All Israel is holy. The Zohar states that Eretz Israel is G-d's bedroom where he interacts with the Jewish people, His chosen people and where others do not belong. They have no business being involved in the relationship between G-d and the Jewish people. This is especially true now when all that truly remains for the Jews all over the world is the tiny bedroom called Eretz Israel. To sum up the only solution to the Israeli arab conflict must be based on the principle "The Land of Israel is for the Jews, the arab lands for the Arabs."

NEW TERRORIST CONCERN IN U.S. Posted by Israela Goldstein, September 17, 2003.

These cities in America are being watched for terrorist activity. This article was written by Lisa Myers of NBC News. (http://www.msnbc.com/news/967753.asp?0cv=CB10&cp1=1). A dangerous terrorist group that was thought to exist only in Iraq is trying to make inroads in the United States, with a presence in some American cities, top U.S. law enforcement officials have told NBC News. When a massive truck bomb destroyed the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad last month, the U.S. military quickly named a prime suspect: Ansar-al-Islam - a terrorist group whose base in northern Iraq was bombed by the United States this spring. Ansar used to be a small, mostly Kurdish terror group, operating almost exclusively in Iraq. But in the last few months, experts say foreign Islamic fighters have flocked to its side. And now, senior U.S. officials tell NBC News, the group has expanded its reach - to America. "We do have an Ansar-al-Islam presence here in the United States," said Pat D'Amuro, FBI assistant director and one of the agency's top counterterrorism officials. "There's enough intelligence information that we know that gives us great concern." Senior U.S. officials tell NBC News that Ansar followers are under investigation in at least a half-dozen American cities - including New York, San Diego and Los Angeles. So far, law enforcement sources say there's no evidence Ansar is planning an attack in the United States. But they worry that, beyond recruiting and fund raising, some Ansar supporters may be casing potential targets. NBC News has learned that the United States recently pressed Norway to move against one man, Mullah Krekar, for his past role as Ansar's spiritual leader. Krekar said he is no longer involved with the organization. But in a March 2003 video from Insight News, he praised suicide attacks "It is very well," Krekar said in the video. "It is very good. It is very, very useful for enemy." While there is ongoing debate about Ansar's strength and connections, some argue it should not be underestimated. "These members can be activated to perpetrate an atrocity within the USA or Europe," said M.J. Gohel, a terrorism expert. The FBI is focusing on cities with large Kurdish populations. But given recent events in Iraq, officials say Ansar may well include Islamic extremists of any nationality.

TURNING THE TABLES ON THE UN Posted by Beth Goodtree, September 17, 2003.

While the UN has repeatedly shown its anti-Israel bias and Arabist taint, it does have one law in place that Israel can use to her advantage. The United Nations, like any other official institution, is only as credible as the enforcement of its own laws. This gives Israel a weapon to use against Yasser Arafat, as well as the members and supporters of all the other terrorist groups. It is also a means to combat the prevailing Arab stink that permeates every anti-Israel motion. In an ironic twist, the members of the UN Security Council, all being signatories of the Genocide Laws, are obligated to compel Israel to prosecute Yasser Arafat and his followers. International law, signed by most members of the UN, defines the crimes of genocide thusly: Article I: The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish. Because Israel is a signatory of the Crimes of Genocide Law, this first article obligates her to prevent and punish the perpetrators who reside within her boundaries. Since Yasser Arafat now resides on Israeli land, (said land, although in dispute, still belongs to, and is de facto administered by, Israel). Israel is obligated by UN convention to prosecute him as well as all members and supporters of other terrorist groups. Whether or not the Arabs now occupying Israeli land in Gaza and the West Bank have formally declared war or not, they can and must still be prosecuted according to law. Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Regarding Article II, the Arabs now occupying Israeli property have committed innumerable documented crimes of sections a through d. And lest anyone question section d, they have deliberately targeted and murdered pregnant women as well as women of childbearing age because they were Jews and because they were Israelis. Continuing on, Article III: The following acts shall be punishable: (a) Genocide; (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; (d) Attempt to commit genocide; (e) Complicity in genocide. Article IV: Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals. Article IV means that Yasser Arafat or anyone he appoints is not immune to prosecution. Regarding Article III, even as I write this, the Palestinian Authority is publicly inciting and facilitating further crimes of genocide. Now the following two articles must be read with care: Article V: The Contracting Parties undertake to enact, in accordance with their respective Constitutions, the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the present Convention, and, in particular, to provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III. Article VI: Persons charged with genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be tried by a competent tribunal of the State in the territory of which the act was committed, or by such international penal tribunal as may have jurisdiction with respect to those Contracting Parties which shall have accepted its jurisdiction. Taking these two articles in reverse order, Article VI along with Article I, demands that Israel bring action against Yasser Arafat along with all members and supporters of the terrorist organizations (Israel being the territory where they reside). Israel would merely be fulfilling her obligations to the UN by filing genocide charges against Yasser Arafat, as well as all members, funders (including official governments), and supporters of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al Aqsa, etc. As to Article V, Israel is in compliance since she has in place the judicial means to try and punish those guilty of genocide, the punishment being the only crime for which Israel can invoke the death penalty. It is time for Israel to comply with the genocide laws that she agreed to uphold. Meanwhile, most of the Arab/Muslim world, as signatories to these same laws, is obligated to enforce Israel's compliance. Incidentally, this would make the UN's most recent pronouncement that Israel was applying 'extrajudicial killings' null and void. All Israel must do is start prosecuting for the crimes of genocide, whether the defendant is present or in absentia. Once found guilty, any action Israel might take would no longer be extrajudicial. And the only thing the UN and Kofi Anan could do would be to praise Israel for her compliance with the genocide laws. Ain't life funny that way.

AN IMPOSED PEACE PLAN Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, September 17, 2003.

I'm posting an article written by Shmuel Neumann, Ph.D. It has some nice ideas. In fact this is a pretty balanced and politically realistic plan. Now, how do we get from the idea stage to the action stage? There are no lack of good ideas, many of them quite brilliant in fact. What I would like to see is as much genius invested into how to get power out of the hands of the Judenrat and into the hands of the Jews. Until we can do that, all the great ideas and plans will not change anything. There is an effort, fortunately, to actually format a strategy. It is called The Jewish National Assembly; "Correcting Israel's Failure of Leadership." Those interested in participating can receive more information from: Shmuel HaLevi, familyp@netvision.net.il. The assembly is being targeted for January 26+ and about 300 serious activists representing numerous organizations have joined in already. I, obviously, am not predicting that this alone will bring about the political changes we desperately need. However, what is important is that the goal is not to be a "talking shop" but to formulate concrete plans for political change. The collective political experience and understanding of the participants will be something quite awesome. I truly expect something to come out of this. Like I said, not the complete solution but the beginning of that solution. I was lost while on a cross-country trip. I stopped a farmer in Kansas and asked him how to get to a certain town. His response was, "You can't get thar' from here." Bush should have consulted that farmer before designing his Roadmap to Peace. You can't get thar' from here. Every algorithm that required reciprocity from the Palestinians failed. Now, the Europeans, ignoring all signposts along the way, are simply imposing a Palestinian state upon Israel. With the last dying embers of the Roadmap, Israel has to accept the bitter reality that negotiations are less than useless. Israel incessantly tried courting peace with the so-called Palestinians, making one painful concession after another, and one one-sided gesture after another, only to be made a fool of again and again. Israel cannot afford the luxury of inaction. Now that a negotiated peace is impossible, we must impose peace. An Imposed Peace Plan.  We can unilaterally give the "world" closure by ending the conflict in a very simple way: 1. The fiction of the Palestinians must be brought to an end. The so-called Palestinians are not Palestinian. They are Egyptian citizens residing in Gaza or Jordanian citizens residing in the West Bank. 2. Permanent resident visas may be granted to the Egyptian citizens living in Gaza and Jordanian citizens residing in the West Bank. Just as a Bulgarian citizen who wishes to remain in Israel can acquire permanent residency status if qualified, Egyptian citizens that want to remain in Gaza and Jordanian citizens that want to remain in Yehuda and Shomron can apply for a permanent residency visa. According to existing Israeli law, permanent residents can vote in local municipal, county and state elections. 3. Equal Application of Law: Israeli law must be equally applied to all residents, citizens and permanent residents alike; Jews and Arabs alike. Permanent residents that join a terror organization must have their visas revoked and be deported. The lawlessness of the Palestinian Authority must be brought to an end. Israeli law must apply to the permanent residents who live in Areas A and B. Egyptian and Jordanian Arabs who seek to emigrate from the West Bank should be permitted to freely emigrate. The Israeli authorities frequently deny these Arabs a pass to leave, citing illusory security precautions. Ironically, we have become like the Soviet Union that for decades withheld exit visas of three million Soviet Jews who sought to exercise their basic human right of emigration. We must insist upon equality under the law. Those Egyptian and Jordanian Arabs who wish to emigrate should be categorically permitted the equivalent of an exit visa. Furthermore, anyone who is either a security risk or participates in the violent overthrow of a government is routinely deported in every democratic country. Just as a Jewish, non-Israeli malcontent who foments racism or is guilty of incitement is deported to their country of origin, Arab malcontents must similarly be deported. The entire terrorist infrastructure from top to bottom must be deported. Finally, it is unconscionable that Jewish Israeli citizens forfeit due process rights if they live in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, where martial law rather than civil law prevails. Israeli citizens are imprisoned without charges, are prevented legal representation and contact with lawyers, etc. They are citizens and the same due process should apply to them on both sides of the Green Line. 4. All of Biblical Israel must be annexed. There is absolutely no justification in perpetuating the delusion that the West Bank is not Israel. Palestine was a name the Romans gave Israel when they conquered it in 77 CE. It was always a colony, first of the Roman Empire, then of the Ottoman Empire, and, after WW I, a colony of the British Empire. The British divided Palestine along the Jordan River: the East Bank, 80% of Palestine, was given to Arabs and renamed Jordan, and the territory of the West Bank of the Jordan River to the Mediterranean was returned to the Jews for a Jewish homeland. This became Israel - a mere fraction of its original size. In 1948, the Egyptians and Syrians attacked the new Jewish state, and, until 1967, Jordan illegally occupied the West Bank. In the Six-Day War, Egypt committed an act of war by blockading the Straits of Tiran and Israel used military force to remove the blockade. After the second day of the Six-Day War, Jordan attacked and the West Bank was restored to Israel. The United States takes the position that as Israel fired the first bullet, it technically attacked Egypt and therefore is unjustified in retaining Gaza. However, even the United States must agree that as Jordan attacked Israel, they have no legal claims to the West Bank. Israeli annexation does not need to be an overt action. Applying Israeli law to this region as it applies everyplace else will have the same effect. 5. Separate states in the West Bank and in Gaza must be established, just as the Sharon, Upper Galilee, Lower Galilee and Negev are separate jurisdictions within Israel, which could be defined as "states." They are free to pass additional state or municipal ordinances, just as any other state or municipality within Israel has that prerogative. 6. Buffer zones must be imposed to prevent the possibility of attack. In order to prevent Jews from being within range of snipers and bombers, clear a two-kilometer buffer zone around every Jewish holy site and tomb, around each Jewish community and along the roads in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Any Arabs that have houses and farms within these buffer zones who can prove ownership, with papers delineating the chain of title from the Ottoman, British and Jordanian records, should be compensated. Others are squatters who have no rights to this land. We must pool our resources to purchase all property in these buffer zones from the so-called Palestinians. From the standpoint of Israeli security, there will be no need for the security fence, but rather there will be sufficient buffer zones between populations. In the long run, the cost to the government in providing security to its citizens will be markedly reduced. From the standpoint of aliyah, the affluent, accomplished Jews of the world will be attracted to the scenic open space in this newly reclaimed land. 7. We can end the conflict simply by investing. By buying out just 1% of the Arab population in Judea and Samaria, Jews can reclaim 58% of the land, because 99% of the Arabs live in concentrated areas on the other 42%. We must flood the courts with motions to compel Israel to evict any so-called Palestinian who does not possess valid title to their land and homes. With so-called Palestinians confined to cantons, the option remains open for them to sell and find a better life elsewhere. The United Nations Charter gives them this right. Their right to emigrate is an inalienable basic human right. The so-called Palestinians are prevented from exercising their right of free trade by racist fatwas, or religious decrees, of Moslem clerics who issue a death warrant for any Moslem who sells land in Israel to Jews. In a country of law, this must not be tolerated. Ordering the death of the seller is conspiracy to commit murder, plain and simple, whether the terroristic threats are acted upon or not. The cleric must be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Palestinian web sites proudly display execution of land dealers, complete with video and pictures of the execution. 8. Homesteading. Undeveloped land in Judea and Samaria must be cultivated. Just as farmers may apply for agricultural land within Israel, either in joint co-operative projects, as in moshavim or kibbutzim, or in private farming ventures, permits to farm land in Judea, Samaria and Gaza that is owned by the Israeli government must be offered to Israeli citizens. For unowned land, Israel should copy the United States Homestead Act of 1867, permitting citizens to farm abandoned land and record ownership after a number of years. This would simply reinforce the existing Jordanian law that is in full force and effect in the so-called West Bank that permits farming abandoned property. In order for the homesteads to not become a burden upon the Israeli armed forces, homesteaders must be ex-soldiers with valid permits to carry firearms and who have proven ability to protect themselves from infiltrators. This law is certainly not in violation of the Geneva Convention when applied only to the so-called West Bank. One may debate whether Egypt's blockade of the Straits of Tiran in 1967 was an act of war. If it was, then even though Israel fired the first weapons, it was a defensive war. If it was not, then Israel's use of military force against Egypt was an offensive rather than defensive act. However, no one can debate Jordan's role. Jordan attacked Israel after the second day of the Six-Day War despite Israel imploring the Jordanians not to enter into the conflict. Jordan is unquestionably the aggressor in that war and their loss of the West Bank is permanent. The Geneva Accords definitely do not apply to this territory. As such, even the most extremist view that the Geneva Convention prohibits citizens of one country inhabiting the occupied territory of a conquered country, could only apply in Gaza. To be above reproach, the Homestead Act should at first be passed on so-called West Bank areas. Best Interests of the so-called Palestinians.  While implementing this plan will upset a handful of demagogues who corruptly abused their position of power, it is in the best interest of the so-called Palestinian people. Rather than remaining locked into an armed struggle that they can never win and rather than falling victim to fanatical, corrupt self-rule, this is the best accommodation they can hope to achieve. In the early 20th Century, their families moved to what is now Israel in the hopes of a better future for themselves. In the new Jewish state, there were jobs aplenty, education for their children and the promise of a modern democracy. Instead, they were turned into a scapegoat for the entire Arab world, forced into the role of oppressed refugees by their own crooked leadership, contained in poverty and exploited by the Western anti-Semitic media. This is their chance for freedom. Hundreds of thousands of so-called Palestinian Arabs have elected to relocate abroad. They want nothing more than a chance for a normal life. They want to live in an area free of tyranny, injustice and free from those who have exploited them for generations. They understand that were they to stay, they are condemning their children to a lifetime of poverty, abuse by the so-called Palestinian leadership, and anarchy. They do not want to become full-fledged Israelis, which in the future would require three years of army service from their boys and girls just like any other Israeli citizen. They certainly do not want to pay the high taxes that other Israelis pay. They want out. We should help them out.

RESPONDING TO ISRAEL'S ILLEGAL RELEASE OF TERRORISTS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE OR CIVIL RESISTANCE IN ISRAEL? Posted by Louis Rena Beres, September 17, 2003.

Soon, all over Israel, thousands of good citizens will actively protest Prime Minister Sharon's dangerous release of Palestinian terrorists. To the extent that these protests might involve violations of Israeli law, however minor, they would conform to the general meaning of "civil disobedience." But where they would involve no such violations - as, for example, in peacable demonstrations held outside the Prime Minister's residence in Jerusalem - "civil resistance" would offer a more accurate description. This distinction is legally and politically meaningful, and could prove helpful to all those who would now recognize and oppose the Prime Minister's misconceived gesture of "good will" to unreconstructed enemies of Israel. First, however, it is essential to point out that Israel's freeing of several hundred terrorists, including members of Hamas, is a serious violation of international law. Every state has a binding obligation, under this law, to prosecute and punish terrorists. It is codified in many different treaties, and is also an elemental part of the Nuremberg Principles: "Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment." Terrorism is a crime under international law. No government ever has any legal right to free terrorist criminals as an expression of "good will." International law presumes solidarity between states in the fight against all crime. Whenever an individual state violates this solidarity - as is currently the case with Sharon's terrorist releases - it implicates itself in a "denial of justice." This is true even when a particular terrorist release is backed by the United Nations or by a wider "Quartet" of powerful states and organizations. All states, even when they are conscientiously seeking peace, are unexceptionally subject to claims of "peremptory" rules. These rules derive from what is commonly called Higher Law or the Law of Nature. The obligation to seek out and punish terrorists is such a rule. Ironically, the origins of this Higher Law lie, of all places, in Ancient Israel. Now, what about impending protests by Israelis against their government's ongoing release of terrorists, a release in clear violation of international law? In its classic expressions, civil disobedience involves purposeful violations of domestic law for the purpose of changing such law. Those who engage in civil disobedience normally understand that they are "guilty" of particular infractions, even where the opposed rule is egregious (e.g., norms sustaining slavery or racial segregation) and where the intent of the infraction is manifestly noncriminal and clearly humane. Hence, civil disobedience defendants, even where the legitimacy of the courts themselves is denied, are ordinarily prepared to accept court- ordered punishment as the required and possibly reasonable price of their activities. Civil resistance, however, is another matter entirely. In the first place, although it may involve purposeful violations of domestic law, these violations are not conceived with a view to changing that particular law. (Protestors in Israel will not be seeking any particular change in Israeli law per se, but rather a reversal of very particular expressions of the country's current foreign policy). In the second place, civil resistance may not involve any violations of domestic law at all (as in the example of peaceful protests at the Prime Minister's residence), in which case the protestors will have no "guilt" or punishment to accept. Whether the target of the protest will be a change of national law or of national policy, there would be no utilitarian-based infractions and hence no legal price to pay for resistance. In the third place, individual protestors who would engage in nonviolent civil resistance activities to oppose certain expressions of Israeli foreign policy will be attempting to prevent the ongoing violation of certain settled principles of national and international law. Here, where there are no violations of any Israeli law, the protestors will not only be "not guilty" with respect to this law, they will also be fulfilling certain Nuremberg and other Higher Law expectations. Even where these nonviolent civil resistance activities would involve some (normally very minor) violations of Israeli law, such as the prohibitions against trespass, the net calculus of the protestors' actions will be that they are still distinctly law-enforcing. If, after all, the commission of trespass can bring attention to policies that threaten the state's basic security, the net legal benefits of the infraction will greatly exceed the net legal costs. Moreover, international law forms a part of every state's municipal legal system, and protest actions within states to support such overriding law are now not only permissible, but obligatory. In the United States, a traditional common law defense known as "necessity," which has also been incorporated into various state criminal codes, permits conduct that would otherwise constitute an offense if the accused believed such conduct was necessary to avoid a public or private injury greater than the injury which might reasonably result from his/her own conduct. Transposed to the Israeli context, where the greater public and private injury occasioned by the government's terrorist releases could include further terrorism, war crimes, crimes against peace, and even crimes against humanity, a necessity-type defense could be compelling in civil resistance cases. This is the case even if Israeli law recognizes no explicit form of "necessity" because this law must recognize the Higher Law principle from which the necessity defense derives. Significantly, the very idea of a Higher Law has its roots in Jewish Law. From its beginnings, Jewish Law has been viewed as an expression of God's will. Human legislators were responsible not to make law on their own, but rather to render their edicts compatible with discovered law. According to Talmud: "Whatever a competent scholar will yet derive from the Law, that was already given to Moses on Mount Sinai." In international law, the idea of a Higher Law is contained especially in the principle of jus cogens or peremptory norms. According to Article 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: "A peremptory norm of general international law...is a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of States as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of general international law having the same character." Regarding the lawfulness of civil resistance to the terrorist releases by Israelis, the Road Map does not require such releases. Even if it did, this requirement would be subordinate to peremptory expectations of law. Indeed, even if the Road Map were a formal treaty - which it assuredly is not - there would be no obligation to accept terrorist releases: "A treaty is void," says the Vienna Convention, "if, at the time of its conlusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm of general international law." The right of sovereignty in all states, and therefore also in Israel, rests upon the state's capacity to assure protection. Where the state surrenders such capacity, the very basis of citizen obligation must disappear. "The obligation of subjects to the sovereign," says the seventeenth-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, "is understood to last as long, and no longer, than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them." Can the Sharon Government protect the citizens of Israel? By its release of Palestinian terrorists, this government is now enlarging the prospect of further terrorism (including WMD terrorism) against these citizens. In consequence, hundreds or even thousands more Israelis can expect to be maimed or killed in their own land. Israel's ongoing release of terrorists violates the universal and binding obligation to punish acts that are crimes under international law. This means that Israel's citizens who would now support and sustain these releases are actually acting against international law, while those citizens who would oppose this policy within the proper parameters of civil resistance are actually acting in support of this law. These points should be kept in mind by all those who care about both Israel's physical integrity as a state and its essential commitment to democracy.* * NOTE: Since the day this article was published in late August, several suicide bomb attacks upon Israeli citizens have been undertaken by freed Palestinian terrorists. Louis Rene Beres lectures and publishes widely on Israeli security matters, often from an international law perspective. This essay appeared in the Jewish Press, August 22.2003.

THE STATE DEPARTMENT'S DUAL LOYALTY Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 17,2003.

"MIDEAST VIOLENCE THREATENS 'QUARTET' PLAN" was the NY Times headline for Sept. 11; my comments are in italics. The opposite is true: the Quartet plan unleashed Mideast violence. This violence does not threaten some plan; it threatens innocent Jews. In the eyes of Pres. Bush, however, there are no innocent Jews or guilty PLO terrorists, where Israel is concerned. Reporter Steven R. Weisman writes that "Pres. Bush appealed today, once again, for restraint on both sides. Yet with each attack and counter-attack, the Middle East peace plan championed by him is receding further from view." Is he implying that the counter-attacks against terrorists are as bad as the terrorist attacks against innocent Israelis? If Pres. Bush had a sense of morality, that man whose constant references to God seem suspiciously political, why does he urge Israeli restraint instead of full-scale destruction of Arab terrorism? Why is the Map a "peace plan"? Never explained yet! Never will be. At least, not honestly. Speaking up for Arafat, by advocating that negotiation go through Arafat, is "Edward G. Abington, a former State Dept. official who now is a consultant to the Palestinians" (Arabs). Many State Dept. officials become lobbyists for the anti-American PLO or Saudis. Did this disloyalty to their country begin upon their retirement and offer of a job from the Arabs, or did it originate in anticipation of such an offer while they still guided US policy and administration? A Saudi prince boasted that it did. That seems to me like the dual loyalty that Jews worry about getting accused of. But Israel is pro-US, so there is no inconsistency in US Jews' loyalty to Israel! Israeli leaders distrust the non-US members of the Quartet "as having a long history of playing down Israel's security concerns." "They don't just play down Israel's security concerns; they concern themselves with undermining Israeli security. The US is as bad but less obvious about it. Both the US and the EU pay for the terrorist autonomy and for defeatist groups in Israel. The Quartet urges Israel to retreat and not defend itself. It falsely accuses Israel of crimes like the ones that the P.A. commits and attempts. Reporter Steven R. Weisman, included Israeli officials' list of measures of goodwill and compliance with the Map: (1) Released more than 400 prisoners; (2) Let 18,000 more P.A. Arabs work in Israel; (3) Unfroze $450 million; (4) Suspended targeted killing in Gaza (until the Arabs violated its terms); (5) Withdrew from Bethlehem and Gaza; (6) Opened a major road in Gaza; (7) Lifted three major road blocks in Judea-Samaria; (8) Dismantled 12 unauthorized outposts; and (9) Held four meetings with Mr. Abbas. The Europeans called those steps begrudged, minimal, and tardy but the Arabs were attacking! The reporter failed listed no steps of compliance or goodwill by the P.A. (9/11, A8). There were none, but he might have noted that. Israel might have challenged the Quartet's integrity on that, as well as the notion that Israel should make concessions to win the goodwill of hate-filled families. Israel's "goodwill" steps facilitated the murder of more Israelis.

AWFUL Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, September 16,2003.

Jan van der Hoeven asks a good question. We can only assume that Ayalon was not appointed with the interests of Israel in mind. That is one of the disadvantages of being a Banana Boat Republic. The guys that own the boat pick the crew and they pick a crew that is good for them and not for the bananas. van der Hoeven writes: When I read (as reported by Melissa Radler in today's The Jerusalem Post) that Dr Sari Nusseibeh told the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations that PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat is "committed to peace," I am left wondering how in the world it was possible for former Israeli Shin Bet intelligence chief, Ami Ayalon, to make common cause with a dangerous and sophisticated deceiver like Nusseibeh, and to thus spearhead with him the juvenile, foolish peace plan which, if accepted, would spell the end of Israel. If people with such political blindness were among those who were assigned to watch over Israel's most sensitive security needs - also before and during the awful security blunder which accompanied the futile OSLO accords - then what can the ordinary, unsuspecting Israeli population expect when it comes to who really, really cares for their ultimate peace and security requirements? Aryeh Zelasko is an American who made aliyah and lives in Jerusalem. Jan Willem van der Hoeven is Director of the International Christian Zionist Center in Jerusalem. Its web-site address is www.israelmybeloved.com

END OF THE ROAD MAP Posted by Ehud Olmert, September 16, 2003.

It is with tragic irony--the kind that only the Middle East can produce--that Israel's cabinet has decided to expel Yasser Arafat so near the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo "peace" Accords. As the latest American diplomatic initiative, the "road map," is derailed by a resumed wave of suicide bombings, we Israelis are painfully aware that we have achieved little in these 10 years of direct negotiations with the Palestinians. Indeed, in a week in which 15 of our families are mourning their murdered loved ones and scores of others are pacing our hospital wards awaiting news of the wounded, the promises of the ill-conceived Oslo process seem as far off as ever. Thus, the cabinet concluded that Arafat's ongoing encouragement of terror and his obstructive machinations were preventing all progress in diplomatic negotiations. Although he was relegated to the sidelines, his malign shadow still hovered over the road map, leaving it no chance of advancing while the violence escalated. The cabinet understood that it was either Arafat or negotiations, and decided to vote in favor of the peace process. The timing of when exactly to remove the PLO leader is still under discussion and Israel's allies will undoubtedly be consulted in formulating a decision. At the time of the now famous White House signing ceremony, I had just left national politics and was serving as the mayor of Jerusalem. Like most of my former Likud colleagues, then in the opposition, I was fearful of the swift diplomatic path the government of Yitzhak Rabin had embarked upon. Giving recognition to the terrorist PLO, turning over land to armed guerrillas and shaking Arafat's hand seemed at best to be a perilous and naive endeavor. In my own private conversations with the Labor party leaders, I expressed my serious concerns over the dangers the Oslo Accords would bring to Jerusalem and to Israel, the lives and security that were being gambled with. Yet they assured the Israeli public that the entire process was reversible; that if Arafat and the PLO did not live up to their obligations, Israel reserved the right to take the necessary measures against the Palestinian leadership and the Israel Defense Forces would re-enter the conceded territory. Arafat, the Israeli architects of Oslo insisted, would have no choice but to impose law and security in the Palestinian Authority or witness everything he had achieved for the Palestinians being destroyed. I must confess, as ideologically opposed as I was to withdrawing from the disputed territory and negotiating with those with Jewish blood on their hands, I hoped in my heart that, despite the euphoria, the Israeli leadership had truly considered what it was doing and that an authentic regional peace agreement could be secured. The Oslo process wasn't the path I'd have led the country toward, but faced with a fait accompli we Israelis had no choice but to pray that the government showed wisdom in attempting it. Sadly, we now have our answer. The decade of carnage and blood that Oslo ushered in is still erupting all around us. The disastrous assumption that Arafat would fight the terrorist organizations on our behalf was a gamble which has literally exploded in Israel's face. The continuous march of peace initiatives from Cairo to Sharm al-Sheik to Wye to the Red Sea, from Zinni to Mitchell to Tenet, haven't succeeded. At the recent Red Sea Summit, in which I participated as a negotiator, we told our Palestinian counterparts that they had to choose between Hamas or us. They would have to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure or we would be forced to do it ourselves. It is apparent, after this new wave of suicide bombings, that the Palestinian leadership has cast its lot with the Islamic extremists. On a national level, we can no longer allow ourselves to believe in the myth that the moderates on the Palestinian side will be capable of mustering the political power and military support necessary to assert control over the terrorist groups. The roving bands of militias and lack of central leadership has reduced the Palestinian Authority today into something resembling Lebanon at the height of its civil war. Despite American and Israeli efforts to isolate Arafat, his malicious influence and control over the Palestinian leadership has not diminished in the least. His latest intrigues--the forced resignation of Mahmoud Abbas and the appointment as prime minister of his close associate, Ahmed Qureia--have once again struck a devastating blow to another peace effort. There is simply no pragmatic nor responsible Palestinian personality who can fill the leadership vacuum and confront Hamas and other terrorists. The latest round of failed diplomacy has shown that an enduring peace agreement cannot be built on the rotten foundation that is the current regime. Palestinian leaders will neither dismantle the terrorist infrastructure nor allow anyone else to do it. The alleged line that separated the Fatah forces from Hamas and Islamic Jihad can no longer be claimed to exist. Arafat is the CEO of a full-fledged terrorist organization and no less a danger than the Islamic extremist leaders whom Israel has finally targeted. Today all sides of the Israeli political spectrum have drawn the same conclusion: Israel will have to destroy the Islamic terrorist groups along with Arafat's Fatah guerillas. There can be no short cuts when it comes to eradicating the terrorist groups. Goodwill gestures have repeatedly come back to haunt us and we must now be prepared to finish off the task. The U.S. and other responsible democratic nations, engaged in their own wars against terrorist organizations, are slowly understanding that only an unrelenting battle will secure victory against this tenacious enemy. Oslo has taught us that there are no proxies to fight in our stead. If we are not prepared to undertake the task of dismantling the terrorist groups that infest the Palestinian Authority, our civilian population will continue to be targeted for murder. The first and foremost responsibility of our government is to remove the threat of Palestinian violence to our buses, cafes, schools and highways. Moreover, we have learned that to act with any mercy toward the perpetrators is to place our own civilian population in jeopardy. If Palestinian voices of moderation are capable of rising up and making themselves heard over the extremist roar, all Israelis will be very willing to continue the path toward peace. But for the moment we will place our trust in our own ability to confront the terrorists directly. And as the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana, approaches, tradition dictates that we review past mistakes and try sincerely to repent. The Oslo decade has shown us what is the incorrect and foolhardy way to try to make peace between Arabs and Jews. Armed with this new clarity, we can now attempt to rectify our errors--and set out down a safer, better-calculated road. Ehud Olmert is the vice prime minister of Israel and former mayor of Jerusalem. This article appeared in the Wall Street Journal yesterday.

THE PERFECT ROADMAP Posted by Janet Ann Suzuki, September 16, 2003.

The recent road map which was intended to provide peace and security was doomed to fail because it completely contradicts the Road Map provided by the God of Israel. Through the Prophets, The One True God spoke to the Ancient Israelites before entering The Promised Land. Both Moses and Joshua revealed the Road Map which the people were required to follow if they were to successfully take possession of the land called Canaan. According to The Scriptures, ALL THE INHABITANTS WERE TO BE DRIVEN FROM THE LAND BECAUSE THEY DID NOT WORSHIP THE GOD OF ISRAEL; AND ANY AGREEMENTS OR CONTRACTS WITH THE CANAANITES WERE FORBIDDEN. The Prophets warned the people that their faith, identity and safety in the land were at risk if these commandments were not obeyed. The people made a vow before entering their God-given land; and that vow was later renewed. They pledged to be faithful to the Road Map which had been passed down to the Prophets. However, according to The Scriptures, IN TIME, THE LEADERSHIP OF THE ISRAELITES DISREGARDED THE COMMANDMENTS AND ALLOWED MANY CANAANITES TO REMAIN IN THE LAND AND FORBIDDEN AGREEMENTS WERE ESTABLISHED. As a result, through influence, many Israelites began worshipping the pagan gods of the inhabitants and no longer acknowledged the commandments of The One True God. Do many Jewish people today outright reject the Road Map to peace and security which was conveyed by the Prophets or are they unaware of God s flawless directions because they have not been taught? Either way, the struggles of the Chosen People in relationship to faith, identity and security are ongoing. It is a foregone conclusion that The Nation of Israel will eventually be blessed with the peace and security she desires; BUT this will not happen until her people bow and renew the vow of their ancestors. The leaders of Israel have an awesome responsibility. It is imperative that they choose to focus on the Road Map revealed by the solid foundation of God s Word and not be influenced by the shifting sands of opposing opinions. These leaders must be willing and able to transfer their faith into action. The land was given to the Nation of Israel by The Almighty God Himself and, according to The Scriptures, His people must take possession of it and defend it; not negotiate it away. Without a doubt, the journey toward peace and security will be a difficult road; but the Chosen People must have faith that the Road Map provided by The Scriptures will ultimately prevail. The God of Israel, Who freed His people from Egyptian bondage; protected and provided for them in the wilderness; and miraculously entrusted them with a land of their own, is the same yesterday, today and forever. His commandments were recorded and preserved for all generations. His principles are absolute. RELATED SCRIPTURES (NIV) The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Genesis 12:1-3) "But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you will live." (Numbers 33:55) "Do not be afraid of them; the LORD your God himself will fight for you." (Deuteronomy 3:22) "Be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them." (Deuteronomy 4:9) "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14) "Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures." (Psalm 119:90) All your words are true; all your righteous laws are eternal. (Psalm 119:160) The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever. (Isaiah 40:8) Janet Ann Suzuki lives in Langley, B.C., Canada.

MY TRIBUTE TO SHIMON PERES Posted by Ellen W. Horowitz, September 16, 2003.

I finally found common ground with Shimon Peres. My youngest son and Mr.Peres are celebrating their birthdays on the same day. We're planning for a modest, but fun affair - complete with balloons and 'pin the tail on the donkey' (funny how the donkey I drew bears an uncanny resemblance to the Labor leader). Due to the overall economic situation, we will probably stick to a bit of ice cream and cake (no pizza this year). And the grave security situation has left me with a zero-tolerance level for excessive revelry - so seven friends of my soon-to-be (G-d-willing) seven-year old will be allowed to whoop-it-up for an hour and a half and conclude the festivities with a resounding rendition of 'Happy Birthday To You' (at which time the shy little guy will probably crawl under the table). Meanwhile, miles away from our home in the Golan, a gala celebration will be taking place. Yes, while unrelenting tears are flowing in a good part of the country, the champagne will be flowing in Tel Aviv and Herzlia Pituach. A star-studded list of celebrities like Barabara Streisand, Steven Spieberg and super-model, Naomi Campbell will join politicians like Bill Clinton and the current and former leaders of Germany, Poland, and Russia (to name but a few), for what promises to be a lavish event. While Bill Clinton sings Shimon's praises -to the accompaniment of Barabara Streisand and Achinoam Nini, most of us in Israel will remain at home and reminisce about 'The Way We Were' and how it used to be that 'On A Clear Day You Can See Forever.' Kudos to Women in Green who will will be protesting with their own rendition of the Streisand favorite, 'What Kind of Fool.' Regardless of ones political persuasion, I think most of us would agree that, in the present situation, it would be truly statesman-like if Peres canceled the happening and marked the occasion at home, over a quiet cup of tea, with Sonya. It's really not fair for me to compare my son's party with that of the grand statesman turned octogenarian. I mean my son, at the ripe old age of seven, has not yet had time to leave a noticeable imprint on the world, whereas a mere handshake orchestrated by Mr. Peres can cause the international community to erupt into applause, blood to flow and heaven and earth to quake. For a prime example, almost two years ago on November 16 2001, in a speech to the United Nations, Mr. Peres announced that in Israel "there is support for a Palestinian independence, support for a Palestinian state." At the time, the international press reported that Israel was angered and deeply troubled by the comments, and there were calls in the Knesset for Peres' resignation. But, Ariel Sharon managed to quell the uprising. I wrote a piece back then and feel that its recirculation would be a fitting birthday tribute to Shimon Peres. Listen up, Shimon. November 16, 2002 My Grandmother used to say a lot of great stuff. I've forgotten most of it, but I have retained a few choice phrases. "Honey, the world is upside down." Yeah, she'd comfort me with that one every time I'd visit her and complain about everything from an unfair teacher to some social injustice. As a young girl, I can't say that I ever shared her anxiety over a topsy turvy world, because I figured that I'd just fix everything when I got older. And you know, I tried really hard to make the world a better place. Some of my modest endeavors got off the ground, some fizzled out and a few boomeranged on me and caused utter destruction. Now that I'm in my forties and I watch as an envelope of powder can instill more anxiety on both an international and individual level than a barrage of cruise missiles, and a few barefoot guys on horseback can give a fleet of cobra helicopters a run for their money, I can stare up at the heavens with resignation and say, "Gosh, Nanny -you were right. The world is upside down." Trying to live right side up in an upside down world is fraught with difficulties. Maintaining one's sense of balance and equilibrium can be especially challenging and downright nauseating. So when I asked my husband to pick up some Tums at the pharmacy, I recalled how I would assist my Grandmother as she would frantically search for antacids in her purse. Shimon Peres, you give me heartburn. You don't represent me or the majority of this country. Living upside down gives me an occasional migraine, but it distorts your "vision." So let me try to clarify things for you. I've brought six children into this world. The labors that I've endured make any of your peace maneuvers and diplomatic gymnastics look like child's play. So listen up, Shimon - This Israeli mother will be washing several sets of army fatigues in the near future and I can assure you that there is nobody in this world who wants peace more than me. Furthermore, I feel fully qualified to inform you that I, along with the majority of this country, wish that you and your "peace partners" would just go away. Frankly, I found your presence at the U.N to be an embarrassment. Israel has seen some pretty grim days in that international arena, but we've also had some glorious moments. Like the time Chaim Herzog demonstratively ripped up the document equating Zionism with racism. What I would have given to storm down the aisle of the General Assembly and trash your speech. But I'll never get to play that role, as I'm too busy in the role of a mother in Israel desperately trying keep some sense of stability and order for her children in a world gone mad, and all because of people like you who will sell their souls and their country for a few rounds of applause. Which reminds me of the time that I didn't get the part that I wanted in the school play. With a wave of her hand, my grandmother would dismiss it and say, "Honey, it's all politics."

WEEPING INSTEAD OF DANCING Posted by Margy Pezdirtz, September 16,2003.

Jerusalem has been quiet today, traffic has been light and people are talking in subdued voices as though they are listening for the sounds of groaning, weeping and screaming as countless Israeli families throughout the land buried and are burring their dead. How many are there? I don't know - there were seven killed yesterday in Tel Aviv at the close of their day - there were six and maybe seven killed in Jerusalem as they sat quietly in the lovely Hillel Cafe on Emek Refaim in the German Colony. I look across the valley at the lights of the hotel on Kibbutz Ramat Rachel where there was to be dancing tonight. There is no dancing, unless of course, if you are an Arab living in Gaza. The lights in the hotel burn brightly, but they cannot pierce the darkness that must be engulfing the lives of the Appelbaum and Sand families. You see, the dancing that was supposed to take place this very evening was to have been in celebration of the marriage of Nava Appelbaum and Chanan Sand. Instead of dancing at a wedding, these innocent, beautiful, righteous families stood at a cemetery today and listened to the mournful sounds of people eulogizing the bride and her father, Dr. David Appelbaum. Instead of placing a wedding ring on her finger, the distraught bridegroom laid it on the shroud covered body of his beautiful bride and watched as his love, his happiness and his future was lowered into the ground and covered with earth. What can you say to this? What can you say to the widow and her remaining five children to ease their pain? Their father was a righteous man, a man of extreme goodness and virtue who took his daughter out for dinner and a father-daughter conversation on the eve of her wedding? This man - this father and husband and Torah scholar - was the director of the emergency room of Shaarei Tzedek Medical Center and had saved many lives, also victims of terror and hate. Now, he was the one being wheeled into the emergency room, his body torn beyond imagination. This man of peace had now entered into his own peace. What can you say to his children? What can you say to his "to be" son-in-law? There are no words of comfort that you can give. They are gone. The loss is unbearable. Tonight, they are weeping instead of dancing. Their hearts are not filled with joy, but torn to pieces by the hideous insanity of a people that want nothing more than to destroy goodness and mercy and righteousness. There were other funerals today. Many of them were soldiers, not killed in battle, but by simply standing at a bus stop waiting on the bus that would take them safely home to their loved ones. What were they thinking about when the murderer strode into that crowded bus stop and ripped apart the lives of their loved ones? Did they feel the bomb go off? Did they feel pain? I don't know; but, I do know their loved ones left behind are weeping tonight instead of dancing. Security throughout the country is the tightest I have ever seen it, but still insanity and hatred got through. So what is next? This is war! There can be no other statement but all out and out war. It is time for Israel to stand tall and tell America and other nations that would pressure her into dying slowly, bomb by bomb by bomb, to go find something else to do. It is time for Israel to say, "War is Declared!" Why not? Hamas did that today, and yesterday and the day before. Tonight, they are threatening to wreck havoc through all of Israel, in the homes and shops and schools and wherever they can. When the world cries STOP! it should be to Hamas and not to Israel. When the world cries "Give them their own state and then there will be peace" the only answer that applies here is, "They have a state - it is called Jordan." Israel needs to set about ridding The Land of the Amalekite, the Hittite and all of the other murderous generations that want Israel to die. As for America, it is time for us to mind our own business! We have our own terrorists to deal with - lets find and eliminate them and allow Israel to do the same. Lets square off with and eliminate Saddam and Osama and the other insane Wahhabist out there that are in such a rush to get to 'heaven' where they have 72 virgins waiting on them. Lets be benevolent and help them out by expediting their journey and in doing so, let us - the United States of America - butt out of Israel's right to defend and protect herself and her citizens. Israel IS a sovereign nation. Israel IS a democracy. Israel IS a God-ordained country. Let's let Israel and God take care of this country as only they know how to do it. It is time for the weeping over the loss of innocent Jewish lives to stop - it is time for the world to allow Israel to rejoice and dance again. The only way that can happen is for the world to BUTT OUT! Margy Pezdirtz is a Christian Zionist, who lives in Oklahoma City. She and her husband have taken a flat in Jerusalem for two years. years. As one of her friends says of her, "Rather than staying out of harms way, they are here, weeping with us, helping to strengthen our spirit."

ISRAELI ARABS AND THE ORR COMMISSION Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 16, 2003.

[The Orr Commission Report inquired into the deaths of 13 Israeli Arab rioters in September 2000, the start of Intifada 2.] By editorial and article, the Jewish Week (9/5) endorsed the Orr Commission report without critical examination and without citing any fact in support of its contentions. The weekly accepted the notion, and had Arab comments extrapolating from the notion, that Israeli discrimination against the Arabs and radical Israeli Arab leaders caused the Arab riots, and that the police then murdered some of the 'demonstrators.' Jewish nationalist comment was not included. The report warns against ignoring Arab grievances. The weekly ignored the permissiveness towards Arab lawlessness that encourages further Arab violence, especially the government's failure to give the police alternative means of coping with Arab mobs. The riots were not 'civil disturbances' but a combination of pogrom, sedition, and ramping up of a mood for insurrection. Indeed, the Israeli Arab rioting was coordinated with a P.A. uprising, so the real cause was jihad. There may be some Arab grievances, but the weekly did not cite any. I wouldn't count a vague claim that Israeli Arabs have fewer educational and job opportunities. Certain jobs cannot be entrusted to what, the newspaper would never admit, is the defeated Arab enemy. Newspaper and commission both lecture the police not to treat the Israeli Arabs as the enemy, but the Arabs are the enemy, have generally considered themselves the enemy, and in the stated riots and in a series of earlier ones, proclaimed themselves the enemy. I think the answer is to treat them more as the enemy and reduce their power to act against Israel. The editorial urges integration of the Arabs by 'affirmative action,' because, despite 'some Arab terrorism,' the Arab sector 'deserves fair treatment.' The panel called for an end to use of live fire in quelling civil disturbances, and it is noted that the police do not use live fire during Jewish demonstrations. I resent the false equating of Arab and Jewish demonstrations. Arab demonstrations are almost always violent; they don't need legitimate grievances to feel aggrieved. Their leaders lie to them about Jewish aggression against their people, and they take to the streets. The commission falsely assumes that the leaders are worse than the followers who elect them. The commission should have questioned why the Arabs were violent, since Jewish demonstrations usually are not violent. In the October riots, the Arabs attacked the police in such numbers and with such violence and vehemence that the police felt their lives in danger. The police use of live fire quelled the riots. For that, the police should have been commended. The Orr commission should have recommended full police staffing, training, and supplies and prompt quelling of Arab rioting in conjunction with P.A. uprisings. Instead, it recommended retraining police to be gentler with Arab mobs advancing on them. Right-wing demonstrations usually are peaceful and are legal. There is no need for the police to be violent with Jews. If that is called discrimination, rather than responding to the demonstrators' behavior, then the commission had the kind of left-wing Jewish guilt feeling that the Jewish Week is full of. Unfortunately, Israeli police often are violent against Jewish demonstrators with clubs. How come the Jewish Week doesn't recommend police training against that? p>Since I've discussed the issue of Israeli treatment of its Arabs before, I won't go deeply into it now. But there is a tendency to assume that because fewer Arabs become educated, and Arabs have incomes like the poorer Jews, they must be discriminated against. Actually, Israeli colleges already do discriminate in favor of Arabs. The Arabs don't pay. They don't meet academic standards. Prof Steven Plaut of Haifa U. has explained that Arabs don't enroll as much, and their larger families reduce per capita income. Of course, certain jobs require security clearance and the Arabs don't get veterans' benefits. Their not serving is a kind of discrimination against the Jews, but the Jewish Week ignores favoritism for the Arabs. Orr and the Jewish Week suppose that the Muslim Arabs are as motivated by economic concerns as are the Jews. That reveals a lack of understanding of the Arabs and failure to study their culture. What could be more patronizing than that? It also fails to see the real problem - Muslim Arabs cannot live in peace in another people's country.

PETITION TO RECALL THE PRIME MINISTER AND THE KNESSET Posted by Ken Heller, September 15, 2003.

Whereas the People of the State of Israel have consente d to create a government whose primary purpose is to provide for the defense of the People and the State,   And, Whereas, it is the inalienable right of the People to withdraw such consent when their existence and the existence of the State are in imminent peril,   And Whereas the present government and its Prime Minister do not represent the will of the People of Israel, in that: A series of plans of the surrender of Israel sovereignty and been proposed and have failed to provide peace and security, and Sovereign Holy Lands have been surrendered to sworn enemies of the state with nothing received in return, and The Holiest place in the history of the Jewish people has been ceded to sworn enemies and the right of freedom of religion abandoned, and The G-d given victories of the Wars of Independence and of survival have reverted to defeat and humiliation by the government?s fear and obeisance to the Nations, and The Holy name of the G-d of Israel has been disgraced by a government which worships the Nations and not its G-d, and. Thousands of weapons have been supplied to murderers in the vain hope that they and not the IDF will protect us from terror, The terrorist leader, Yasser Arafat, was resurrected, empowered and preserved from retribution by a government without plan or policy, and Hundreds of Jews have been murdered, thousands injured because of the weakness and confusion of mind of a government and a Prime Minister which have refused to retaliate effectively, and Because the Prime Minister has declared that there is no military solution to the threat to the existence of the State, and Because the armed forces of the State have been restrained, its members investigated and arrested for acts of retaliation against the enemy and its spirit broken, and Because the Government has arrested and detained those opposed to its policy, without the right of counsel, trial, bail or effective defense, and The government has released from detention, murderers and their accomplices to appease the sworn enemies of the existence of the State, and Because the Prime Minister acts without approval or consent of the Ministers, the Knesset or of the People, in a dictatorial manner, and Because the Economy is in ruin, poverty and crime are rampant, social and Political Justice absent and the spirit of the People defeatist, THEREFORE, The undersigned, citizens and residents of the State of Israel, fearful for their personal safety and for the viability of the State under its present leadership, Do hereby demand the recall of the Prime Minister and the Knesset, and The enactment of legislation implementing this petition and mandating general elections for the full Knesset and a separate ballot for the election of the Prime Minister and, For a Ballot Referendum on the question, "Shall the government of Israel commit itself to the destruction of the Arab terror organizations and all of its participants?" and For a mandatory ballot question, binding upon the Knesset, calling for a Declaration of War against the "Palestine Liberation Organization."

WHAT TO DO ABOUT MR. IRRELEVENT Posted by Eliezar Edwards, September 15, 2003.

Yasir Arafat is once again the military dictator of the so called Palestinian people. I would like to propose a set of procedures that will result in his effective political death, if not necessarily in his physical demise, desirable as that should be to all lovers of Zion. Arafat is effectively constrained to his headquarters in Ramallah. In the past few days, the IDF has occupied buildings in the immediate vicinity with a commanding direct view of the building. Their position makes Arafat's exit a certainty without Israel suffering the onus of his expulsion. What's to be done? All electricity and telephone connections should be severed immediately. Water, sewage, food supply should be continued. Continuous jamming of radio transmissions to and from the headquarters could be maintained on a 24 hour basis. Visitors to the headquarters should be limited to those bearing Israeli passports. Under this tight control, it will not be necessary to expel Arafat. He will be forced to leave, or lose control of the PLO. It would not be necessary to risk IDF soldiers lives to get him out and (if it is really that important) the onus on Israel is far less than if he had to be ejected. What then? As soon as Arafat leaves the compound he should be arrested as an enemy of the Jewish people. He should be held for indictment and trial on the same basis as Adolf Eichmann was tried, and by a set of rules and a court similar to that which resulted in Eichmann's execution. Hanging Arafat after a legal trial would seem to be the preferaable alternative to life imprisonment without parole, but that of course would be up to the court.

IS ISRAELI WITHDRAWAL A MAGIC BULLET? Posted by Leo Rennert, September 15, 2003.

This letter was written To the Editor of the Washington Post: Muhammed Tull, an engineer in the West Bank, writes movingly in Sunday's Outlook section about the plight of Palestinians. But he misses the mark when he pins all the blame on Israel's occupation and argues that Yasser Arafat would fade from the scene and make way for a two-state solution once Israel withdrew to the 1967 borders. Wish it were that simple. Arafat, however, has never flinched from his far more ambitious agenda to return to pre-1948 Palestine. Nor has he given up resort to violence in pursuit of that goal. In late 2000, Israel offered a Palestinian state on 95 percent of the West Bank the entire Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Arafat turned that down flat. In recent days, he renewed his call to mobilize millions of young would-be martyrs to lead a victory march to Jerusalem. Why not twin Mr. Tull's illusions with more realistic assessments by Palestinian writers like Twfig Abu Bakr, who wrote in Al-Ayyam that Arafat's "all-or-nothing" policy created the current "disaster which is evident in every alleyway and every street in our land?" Or Gen. Nasser Yussef, who was to become the new interior minister but was denied control of all security forces by Arafat. In a confrontation with Arafat, Yussef told him that the Palestinian revolution has failed "and that's entirely because of you." For his candor, Yussef was spat upon by Arafat. These Palestinians also deserve some notice in the Post.

TO KILL OR NOT TO KILL? THAT IS THE QUESTION Posted by Barry Shaw, September 15, 2003.

The world's double talk is harshly felt in Israel these days. What is legitimate for others is de-rigueur for Israel. After 9/11the world formed a coalition and went blasting villages and caves in Afghanistan is a desperate attempt to kill Osama Bin Laden. Monstrous bombs using pretty names, like daisy-cutters, were used to decimate huge swathes of the country. In Iraq, a tip-off could activate the coalition forces to drop 2000 pound bombs on a restaurant in the vain hope of killing Saddam Hussein. These actions were rationalized as part of the war of terror, and applauded by a Western world living in fear. The same courtesy is strangely lacking when applied to the ongoing suffering of an innocent Israeli population, and the monster who, for decades, has wreaked mayhem and death in the region. Yasser Arafat is portrayed as a cuddly, cartoon-like, revolutionary desperately trying to keep his irate people from doing the most dastardly, but understandable, deeds against those nasty Israelis. The truth, however, is much different, and far more sinister. Yasser Arafat has been responsible for the horrific deaths of more Jews than Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein together. This alone is enough to have justice brought to this mass murderer. And justice, the death of so many innocent lives, cries out for a sentence far stronger than exile. It is said that Arafat has become 'an obstacle to peace'. It is clear that the Palestinians present and future progress, and Israeli lives, have been ruined by this man's duplicitous actions. If it is true that the majority of Israelis and Palestinians agree on a two-state solution, it is Arafat that is preventing the two sides from achieving that goal. Who could have dreamed, following the Oslo Accords and the lead-up to Camp David, that this Nobel prize recipient would unleash the worst and most prolonged wave of terrorism? This month marks the grim anniversary of the famous White House hand-shake. It was clear from the pained expression on Yizchak Rabin's face that he was dubious then that this man could be trusted to deliver peace and cooperation in the Middle East. Someone once said that "hope is not a strategy." That was the cause of the downfall of Oslo, as well as Camp David and the Road Map. They were all based on the hope and wishful thinking that Arafat would renounce violence, would stop terror, incitement, and the philosophy and practice of 'shaheed' in return for concessions from Israel. The concessions began, but Palestinian terror only increased. Any future peace process cannot be based on hope. Neither can it be based on deception. Oslo, according to Palestinian leaders, was also based on deception. Faisel Al-Husseini, and Arafat himself, called the Oslo agreements a Trojan Horse designed to achieve an immediate objective as a step toward their long term aim of creating an Islamic state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea - read ' in place of Israel'. Until today their call for an end of the occupation is a coded message to their people for an end of Israel. They are not talking about a state of their own 'over there'. They are talking about a Palestinian state 'here', in Israel proper. Even the West's recently failed pin-up boy, Abu mazen, once described Oslo as "the biggest mistake Israel ever made." Israel was forced to recognise the P.L.O., a terrorist organisation, allow them in and give them control over the West Bank and Gaza territories, fund them, arm them, without getting anything back in return - except terror and death. The Palestinian leadership expected Oslo to bring about the fragmentation of Israeli society, pitting left and right in a downward spiral of recrimination. It looked as if they had succeeded with the murder of Yizchak Rabin by a deranged student, but they were wrong. In the main, the left and right in Israel has fused together to resist the violent Palestinian onslaught. There is, today, a more harshly pragmatic Israeli society. It is ready to make painful compromises for peace, but is also prepared to wreak painful justice on those who bring them death and destruction. They are soldily behind Arik Sharon, but that does not make them rabid right-wingers, nor fascists. A growing number, perhaps even a majority, would like to see Arafat dead, but that does not make them radical killers. They simply want justice to come to this dangerous killer, and by doing so allow the process to move forward. September is a significant month in Arafat's history. It was in this month, in 1970, that King Hussein expelled him and his P.L.O. terrorists from Jordan when Arafat made a move to take over the country. Remember Black September? It was also in September, 1982, that Arafat and his terrorists were thrown out of Lebanon, after they had destabilized that country. Yasser Arafat reaps death and destruction where ever he goes. But perhaps one of his greatest crimes has been the planned and deliberate poisoning of the minds and souls of the Palestinian children. As part of his reign of hate, Arafat instigated a program of incitement against Jews and introduced the philosophy of martyrdom in the name of his cause, namely the eradication of Israel. His children became his cannon-fodder, his future suicide bombers, in the greater Palestinian cause. This, surely, must rank as one of the world's greatest crimes against humanity, even out-doing the tragedy that Saddam Hussein inflicted on his own people. For it will take at least a generation to re-educate the next generation to become spiritually and emotionally normal people. The damage is deep, and the implications are that any foreseeable future Palestinian state must be treated with the utmost suspicion with such a deeply disturbed population. It is clear to the world that a Middle East peace process is going nowhere as long as Arafat lives. Isolate him, expel him, as long as he lives - and retains the adoration of his masses - no progress can be made. So what are the solutions? Israel could arrest him and put him on trial. There is a mountain of evidence of his direct involvement in terror and murder, not only against Israelis but also against Americans and others. Why should this criminal escape justice, when other tyrants have justice imposed on them? One implication is that his trial will become an international showcase for a man who knows how to impress a naive audience, an audience who still look on him as an underdog. One important question has not been asked, let alone answered. Assuming Arafat dies a natural death, what then? There will surely be a massive power struggle among the various Palestinian factions. It is reasonable to assume that well-armed and motivated organisations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad would win this battle for power. The result would mean that Palestine would become an Islamic terror state. Is that what the world really needs? Diplomats are attempting to come up with a formula, such as the road map, to prevent this from happening but this, surely, is unavoidable and it is Israel that will be forced to live with this consequence. Palestinian society must be placed in a position where they show the world, but mainly Israel, that they can face up to the terror philosophy and infrastructure within it's midst. To prove it they must, by actions not by words, forge a society that truly deserves statehood. Israel can help them start this process by removing the man who is the architect of death, martyrdom, and terror - Yasser Arafat. Yes, there will be passionate demonstrations, even violence, for a period, but we have violence and terror now, so nothing would have changed. World leaders tell Israel not to kill Arafat as this would inflame the Muslim world. Yet they pursue Bin Laden and Saddam with a determination, without caring that, by killing them, it would raise the ire of Islam. Perhaps the death of Arafat would have the reverse effect. He is not liked nor respected in Arab circles. He has his fair share of critics within his own society. Certainly, there will be an outcry and much beating of chests, but the death of Arafat will force the Palestinians to choose their future direction. It will be a defining moment in their history. The answer then is for a decisive Israeli Government to make the same rational claims as the US Administration did in Afghanistan and Iraq as their search goes on for their tyrants. Is Jewish blood cheaper than Christian blood? Why did they not choose to turn the other cheek when assaulted by Bin Laden, and threatened by Saddam? Why is that philosophy forced on us? Why is Arafat being preserved by the very nations that have declared a worldwide war to eradicate terror. Arafat is the founder of modern terrorism. Why is he emulated as a cute emblem when this man is evil? The answer is justice must be brought to Mr. Arafat, but this justice could be tinged with Jewish humanity. Let us give Arafat, and his killers, one last chance to seek an end to violence - as officially promised by Arafat ten years ago. Let the Israeli Government declare to the world, and to the Palestinians, that the result of the next Palestinian terror attack on innocent Israeli lives will result in a devastating attack on Arafat's headquarters. A couple of 2000 pounders dropped on Mukata should end the Arafat era once and for all. Let this be used, hopefully, as the deterrent that will stop terror, finally, in it's tracks. Maybe, just maybe, the Palestinian terror groups will realize that Israel is serious in it's threat and stop this mad campaign of death to Jews and the eradication of Israel. Maybe, just maybe, if a prolonged period of non-violence is allowed to fall on Israelis and Palestinians, an atmosphere conducive to instigating a peace process will be created.

A DEBATE ON AUTONOMY VERSUS STATEHOOD Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 15, 2003.

Dr. Aaron Lerner of IMRA and Prof. Gerald Steinberg exchanged views about the Professor's article in the Jerusalem Post urging PM Sharon to make "painful concessions" including PLO statehood. Prof. Steinberg advocated statehood to separate the two peoples, lest the Arabs urge democratic rule and prevail. Dr. Lerner replies that nothing is wrong with autonomy for Arab cities, whereas statehood presents a permanent and undeniable threat. (9/8). I think that each one's criticisms are correct and each one's proposal is incorrect. Statehood unquestionably would boost Arab war making capability and morale. Neither statehood nor autonomy as proposed, would end the demographic threat. Neither proposal rids Israel of its growing Arab population. If the P.A. population is allowed to expand on either side of the Green Line, it inevitably would exert pressure on Israel, as Arafat intends it to. The answer is to revise the autonomy proposal. Israel must not pay the autonomous Arab cities anything or let them earn anything in Israel. Then their number would diminish, as they move away. Israel should annex the major portion of Yesha, in which there is no Arab population. That would prevent PLO statehood and much expansion of the Arab population. Within Israel, the government should move against the illegal Arab aliens, illegal Arab seizure of land, illegal building, tax evasion, and rioting, ban their seditious political parties and mosque preachers, end Arabic as a national language, require national service by the Arabs, stop discriminating in favor of their college admission, and otherwise reduce their numbers and influence.

ALL OUT WAR IS THE ONLY WAY TO ACHIEVE PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST Posted by Jules Segal, September 14, 2003.

This was written by Nolan Finley of The Detroit News on August 24, 2003. With the blood of its children running through the streets of Jerusalem, Israel has no choice but to crumple the road map to peace and instead draft a battle plan for combating terrorism. Any hope for a political solution to the violence in the Middle East vanished in the bus bombing Tuesday, which killed 20 and maimed scores of others, many of them children. Television cameras showed the surviving youngsters, screaming and blood-smeared, stumbling away from the horrific carnage. Terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad competed for credit. There's only one way to deal with those who find glory in slaughtering children: Kill them. The bomber's wife said her husband died fulfilling his dream of martyrdom. The man had two kids of his own, and yet his life's dream was to die killing other people's children. You can't negotiate with that level of ignorance, hatred and religious insanity. Yet Israel, at the insistence of the United States, has come to the bargaining table. It has offered extraordinary concessions in the name of peace and taken good faith steps, including dismantling settlements and pulling back troops. But the peace process has failed again, for the same reason it always fails. The Palestinians are wed to terrorism, and real peace can not be bargained with a terrorist state. So Israel has no choice but to seek a military solution, to roll its tanks again across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinians blame their violence on Israel's oppression and brutality. But the truth is that Israel has not been brutal enough in the face of terror. Its answer is surgical strikes, targeted assassinations and a catch-and-release prisoner policy. Meanwhile, terrorist chieftain Yasser Arafat sits unmolested in Ramallah, and the leaders of the terrorist networks hold press conferences and rally crowds in village streets. Always, Israel's fist is restrained by the United States. But to end the violence, Israel must strike with terrible force. To be blunt, the Palestinians must be brought to their knees, made to feel the pain of allowing terrorists to act in their name. The path taken in President George W. Bush's road map to peace did just the opposite. It started the Palestinians toward statehood without forcing them to unstrap their bombs. Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat's puppet, says he risks civil war by disarming the terrorists. He must be warned that war is coming for certain if he doesn't. In past Middle East wars, Israel was reined in before it could achieve its final objectives. The conditions are different today. Egypt is a mess. Iraq is gone. Jordan and Saudi Arabia are in America's pocket. And there's no Soviet Union to pressure the United States to intervene. So Israel has a golden opportunity to launch its own version of a shock and awe campaign. It can drive the terrorists out of the territories, eliminate the threat from the Syrian-hosted Hezbollah along the Lebanon border and, if Iran chooses to join the fight, good - another problem checked off the list. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has played Washington's game. He's reached across the table, spoken words of conciliation, restrained his fury in the face of horrible provocation. It's time to let Sharon be Sharon. He's a warrior. And bringing peace to the Middle East is now a warrior's job. Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The Detroit News. You can reach him at nfinley@ detnews.com or (313) 222-2064.

ARAFAT'S 1973 KHARTOUM MURDERS Posted by Moshe Brodetzky, September 14, 2003.

[This account is on the http://www.mountnixon.com website, a website devoted to President Richard Nixon and maintained by Russ Braley. This account, which appears on the webpage http://www.mountnixon.com/khartoum.html, was written by Mr. Braley. The page also contains a graphic entitled "Chronology of Khartoum Incident" that shows the original memorandum. - MB] This web site draws some interesting e-mail and comment from knowledgeable people who read it. On February 10, 2002, I received a call from Jim Welsh in Oregon (James J. Welsh), who had noticed that I covered the PLO uprising in Jordan in 1970 (from which came Black September, Yasser Arafat's terrorist arm) and the October War in Egypt in 1973, and I did not believe Arafat's denial that his men had killed Major Robert Perry in Amman in 1970. Did I have any direct information on Arafat's 1973 murders in Khartoum, Sudan, of U.S. Ambassador Cleo A. Noel Jr., Charge George Curtis Moore, and Belgian diplomat Guy Eid? I had no direct knowledge. All I remembered off-hand was that Israeli intelligence had intercepted a radio-telephone call in which PLO boss Arafat ordered the murders. Not exactly, Welsh said. It was the National Security Agency that intercepted the calls, a series of them, but that had been suppressed. Welsh had recently left a NSA listening post on Cyprus where the calls were recorded and was at NSA headquarters. He was a Navy technician and NSA analyst, an Arabic speaker and expert on the PLO. A colleague on Cyprus called him to tell him of the first call on February 28, 1973, from a transmitter at Shatila refugee camp near Beirut. Shatila was for a time PLO headquarters, and in 1970 West German Communist terrorists had trained there - the East Berlin-backed Baader-Meinhof gang, or Red Army Faction. Their key members committed suicide in a West German prison when repeated hostage-taking vemtures failed to free them. A dozen years later, in September 1982, then-General Ariel Sharon invaded Lebanon in response to PLO attacks and drove to Beirut, forcing Arafat to flee to Tunisia, under protection of the Ronald Reagan administration. In three days in 1982, Sept. 16-18, 2,700 Palestinians by Red Cross estimate were killed in two camps, Sabra and Shatila, by Christian Phalange troops who were losing the civil war that the PLO arrival from Jordan had triggered in Lebanon. Sharon was blamed although Israeli troops stayed out of the camps. That intercepted February 28 message was from Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad), assistant to Arafat and head of Black September in Lebanon, to Khalil al-Wazir in Khartoum. Khalaf was No. 2 in Arafat's Fatah, a close friend since the two Egyptians were classmates in Cairo, where Arafat was head of the Palestinian Student League. The name Abu Iyad was notorious in 1973 as the overall leader of Black September when it sent a group to kidnap and murder 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games. Mohammed Oudeh (Abu Daoud) was the off-scene mastermind of the Olympics hostage taking, as he claimed in an autobiography published in France, and he lived on the run between countries for years before settling in Jordan, but Salah Khalaf was his superior. Khalaf was assassinated in Tunis in 1991 by bodyguards of the PLO's Abu al-Hawl, who also was killed that night. The gunman was believed to belong to Abu Nidal's organization, which was challenging Fatah for leadership of the Palestinians. Through the 70s, the PLO was an unruly coalition of competing gangs, and the revolt against King Hussein in 1970 was not so much directed at the king as it was Arafat's effort to shut out of an Irbid-based Palestinian nation the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine of Dr. George Habash and Waddia Haddad, which had upstaged Fatah with its multiple aircraft hijackings and was doing better than Fatah recruiting in the refugee camps. Waddia Haddad, the father of PLO terrorism who assigned the hijack teams, died of cancer in East Berlin's Charite Hospital. In the 1973 phone call, Abu Iyad was instructing Wazir in Khartoum to raid with eight Black September guerrillas the Saudi Embassy party for departing U.S. Charge George Curtis Moore, an Arabist popular with most Arabs, who was being replaced by Ambassador Noel, and to seize the Americans. Welsh belives that Wazir supplied the weapons, brought into Sudan in a Libyan diplomatic pouch - more wheels within wheels - but was not one of the eight murderers. Welsh said the NSA director, the late Air Force General Sam Phillips, was notified by Frank Raven, and a FLASH warning was sent to the State Department for relay to the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum. It may have been delayed at State (or at NSA) when someone in the bureaucracy downgraded its urgency. The next day, March 1, the eight guerrillas armed with pistols and what were described in a State Department cable as submachineguns (probably Kalashnikovs) took more than a half dozen hostages at the Saudi reception. News reports said they demanded the release of Sirhan Sirhan, convicted assassin of Robert Kennedy, and others jailed in Israel and Egypt. President Nixon refused to negotiate with the guerrillas. Sudanese President Jaafar Nimeiri, who had led an Arab League mediation team in Amman in 1970, was absent from Khartoum, held in Juma by bad flying weather. Nimeiri, a military dictator and strong PLO supporter, had been seeking good relations with the United States, and had proposed in 1972 to Secretary Rogers and Special Envoy Joe Sisco getting friendly Arabs, like the Saudis, Kuwsitis, and Libyans (!) to talk Answar Sadat into negotiations with the Israelis. State was responding to his gestures, and Nimeiri doubled the Sudanese interest section in Washington, so he was being treated with kid gloves. Abu Iyad telephoned the order to murder three of the hostages and release the others, saying "Remember Nahr al-Bard (translation: Cold River). The people's blood in Nahr al-Bard cries out for vengeance." The reference was to a terrorist camp raided by Israel 11 days earlier that killed the terrorists of the Munich massacre who had escaped the Munich shootout. Another recorded message on March 2 was from Arafat himself to Salim Rizak (Abu Ghassan), operational commander of the killers, to confirm that he understood that the code "Cold River" meant executing the hostages. Rizak reported that the executions already had been carried out. The murders were sadistic, 40 bullets fired into the three diplomats from near the floor level upward to ensure agonizing deaths, according to Inside the PLO, by Neil Livingstone and David Halevy (Quill/Morrow, New York, 1990). First the victims were told to write wills and farewell messages to their families, according to Holger Jensen, who was in Khartoum for AP. Another message from Arafat said "your mission is over," and instructed Rizak to surrender to Sudanese officials, which was done at six a.m. March 4. Two were immediately released "for lack of evidence" and six others were tried in June, convicted of murder, but later released to PLO custody and flown out of the country. Welsh said that the State Department had sealed or purged records at the National Archives, perhaps for reasons of state, but since he returned home and left NSA in 1974, he has felt increasing urgency to break his oath of secrecy. He felt he could not remain silent about the NSA evidence, especially after President Clinton invited Arafat to the White House, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright held hands with Arafat, and Hillary kissed Arafat's wife. He is certain that the tape recordings of the radio-telephone calls still exist, but no one will officially acknowledge them. In 1989 Senator Jesse Helms learned that the State Department was negotiating with the PLO, and in fact with Salah Khalaf, who had become a diplomat. Helms tried to get the Senate to adopt an amendment to prevent the United States from negotiating with the terrorist PLO. Welsh informed Joseph Farah, who published an extensive report on WorldNetDaily.com on April 17, 2001. Welsh also filled in the New York Post in December 2001 on the story that had been suppressed by the State Department and every President since Nixon. * * * In Spring 1973 the dominant news story in the United States was Watergate, as Gordon Liddy, Howard Hunt and the burglars on March 23 were sentenced to long prison terms and the focus of investigation narrowed to Nixon. Biographer Richard Reeves said on TV that by April 1973, Nixon knew he was finished. The Middle East story that year was the October War, launched by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and the OPEC oil boycott of the United States and The Netherlands (Europe's refinery center) by Saudi Arabia, whose King Faisal secretly had promised Sadat such support if his war went awry, according to Arnaud de Borchgrave, then of Newsweek. Sadat lost his war, then won anyway, when Menachem Begin gave him back the Sinai - "every grain of sand" - as Sadat demanded, but Sadat then was murdered, not by Israelis, but by the Muslim Brotherhood, his own people. Arafat, in Lebanon, played no role in the 1973 war and was a sideshow, all but ignored by a media concentrated on Watergate, while the Soviet Union, wounded by Nixon's opening to China, was a major player, first building Egypt's SAM missile sites that almost won the war, then being ordered out of Egypt by Sadat, then coming back in - if they ever left. The Nixon administration received little support from NATO allies when Nixon went to Israel's aid. Willy Brandt, West Germany's first Socialist chancellor, who had released the three surviving Black September killers of the Israeli Olympics athletes the year before, denied refueling rights for replacement aircraft Nixon was sending to Israel, so Phantom jets were refueled in the air over the Azores on their way to the Sinai. I had covered the 1972 Munich massacre for the New York Daily News in September 1972, when five Bavarian Police sharpshooters took on the eight terrorists with their 11 hostages at Fuerstenfeldbruck airport, and I also covered the release in October of three Black September guerrillas when Black September promptly hijacked a Lifthansa plane over Turkey with 23 aboard. The hijackers ordered the plane to Munich to demand the three killers' release, then on to Zagreb, Yugoslavia, wary of Bavarian police on the ground. Brandt's government flew the three killers to Zagreb by executive jet, where they joined the captive Lufthansa people and were flown to Mohammar Khadafi's Libya. The three freed killers were Ibrahim Masud Dudran, 20, Samer Mohammed Abdullah, 22, and Abdel Kadir Dnawy, 21. In February-March 1973, when the Khartoum atrocity occurred, William Rogers was Secretary of State, his authority somewhat undermined when he was cut out from the Nixon-Kissinger negotiations to open China. In September 1973, Kissinger became Secretary of State just in time to be faced by the October War and the surprise that Sadat and Syria's Hafez Assad had been able to keep secrecy in coordinating their attacks on Israel. Jim Welsh suspects that Kissinger suppressed the tapes, transcripts and documents relating to the Khartoum murders, although the information was withheld for months before he took over the State Department. In February 2002 I spent several days at the National Archives searching State Department and then NSC documents on the murder of Ambassador Noel, and concluded that Welsh was correct in saying the records have been purged. I was directed to four file-boxes in which Noel's material was archived, along with unrelated matters of that time frame. In two boxes there were file folders on Noel, each about one-inch thick, almost entirely messages of condolences and thank-you letters from Secretary of State Rogers acknowledging them. Deputy Undersecretary William Macomber Jr. headed a task force on Khartoum, but I found no task force reports in the Sudan boxes. (But there were Macomber documents in National Security Council box 666, labled Black September Organization, not pointed out by NARA.) I found only about a dozen telegrams on the Khartoum developments themselves, not the stack of paper I expected for an event of this magnitude, which was Page One on newspapers all over the world for a few days. The scanty documents of interest including one FLASH message reporting the hostage taking, and one SECRET State Department chronology of the event written on March 1, before the hostages were murdered, but no follow-up. One telegram outlined State policy as avoiding the use of force in any rescue attempt and stalling to wear down the terrorists. The few sheets of paper on the seizure of Noel, Moore, Eid, plus Saudi, Jordanian and Spanish diplomats, who were released, contained scraps of information, some contradictory. The chronology, for example, reports that the Spanish diplomat said the terrorists demanded that the United States turn over to them King Hussein of Jordan, which I do not remember seeing in news reports. It also said among terrorists demands was the release of German terrorists. (I covered the Baader-Meinhof gang, although my newspaper did not use much of my material, and Andreas Baader, Jan Carl Raspe, and Gudrun Ensslin did in fact kill themselves in prison after another aircraft hijacking in 1977 failed to release them, after Ulrike Meinhof killed herself a year earlier.) The archive also revealed that Noel and Moore were put on the telephone to the State Department, where they repeated the terrorists's demands, Moore giving a long list of Jordanian prisoners to be released, but two notes on these phone messages are one page each, appear incomplete, and did not mention either King Hussein or the Germans. I received good cooperation from Milton Gustafson at the State Department archives, who went out of his way to telephone me at home to say he had found Noel material in boxes classified under the heading PER as well as POL. I received little help from the National Archives' Nixon Project, where Dmitri Reavis, the Project member available, refused any cooperation. The Project director, Karl Weissenbach, whom I reached days later, said that the Nixon tapes I requested, March 1-3, 1973, by court order will not be released until 2004, but he would try to find other documents referring to Arafat's taped telephone orders. The Nixon Project, an archive within the National Archives created when Congress confiscated Nixon's papers, eventually produced three boxes containing Sudan folders, but they had been thoroughly purged. Normally an archivist delivers boxes within 45 minutes, but I waited an hour and a half for two of three requested boxes. The third box took two hours and a second request with the notation for the archivist to call the Nixon Project. The delayed National Security Council box had a Sudan folder with no files in it, only a sheaf of pages, each stating "This file has been removed." Missing were files labled 1-11, 22, 25-28, and higher numbers filed in 1974. Also missing were all the files in between these numbers, without removal slips. It looked like monkey business in the National Archives. On my own, I found NSC box 666. which contained several folders on Black September. Two folders were empty, except for withdrawal slips indicating at least 70 documents had been removed, including 25 CIA situation reports. One CIA report survived the purge, because it was enclosed in a message from Secretary of State Rogers sent March 13, 1973 to selected U.S. embassies, suggesting they circulate its information to foreign governments "orally only," due to its sensitivity. This lone CIA report shows that the CIA, Rogers, Sisco and many at State understood Arafat's connection. "Begin text. The Black September Organization (BSO) is a cover term for Fatah's terrorist operations executed by Fatah's intellgence organization, Jihaz al-Rasd. The collapse of Fatah's guerrilla efforts led Fatah to clandestine terrorism against Israel and countries friendly to it. Fatah's funds, facilities and personnel are used in these operations. There is evidence that the "BSO" operation in Khartoum was carried out with substantial help from Fatah's Khartoum office and applauded by Fatah radio stations in Cairo and Beirut. In addition, Fatah Deputy Chief Salah Khalaf, chief of "BSO," gets an independent subsity from the Libyan government. "For all intents and purposes no significant distinction now can be made between the BSO and Fatah. Four of Fatah's 10-man command, including Khalaf, the planner and director of the Munich and Khartoum operations, are identified as "BSO" leaders. Fatah leader Yasir Arafat has now been described in recent intelligence reports as having given approval to the Khartoum operation prior to its inception. "Arafat continues to disavow publicly any connection between Fatah and terrorist operations. Similarly, Fatah maintains its pretense of moderation vis-a-vis the Arab governments, a pose which most of these governments find convenient for their public position toward the Palestinian cause. It seems certain also that some elements within Fatah are opposed to terrorism, and the chaotic state of the whole fedayeen movement assures factionalism, power struggles, and unclear lines of command. Nontheless, the Fatah leadership including Arafat now seem clearly committed to terrorism. End text." State had the right idea in attempting to notify NATO and Arab nations that Arafat was behind the murders, but the method, word of mouth, banning any documentary proof, is weird. For NARA to continue to withhold so many documents and thereby protect Arafat borders on the criminal. I found no reference in the National Archives to a NSA telephone intercept, never officially acknowledged to exist, and although Isreal has repeatedly confirmed publicly it intercepted Arafat's orders, there is no reference to that information either. Welsh said his Freedom of Information requests have been denied. Welsh suggested that Arafat's ordering the Khartoum killings was suppressed to avoid further exacerbating relations with Saudi Arabia, which is credible because the United States took no action to retaliate against the Saudi oil boycott of the Nixon administration. There is no mention of the Khartoum murders nor of Ambassador Noel in the indexes of Nixon's RN or in Kissinger's White House Years. Saudi oil appeared decisive in the continued coverup of Arafat's murders, as the effects of the oil boycott contributed to the one-sided votes to impeach Nixon in the House Judiciary Committee. It was a warning to subsequent Presidents not to monkey with the Saudis. As a result, Arafat has for 35 years been the PLO's commanding extortionist, kidnaper, and murderer, and the worst calamity ever to befall the Palestinian people. President George W. Bush should break off relations with the Palestinian Authority so long as Arafat remains in charge, and the Justice Department should issue the long-suppressed subpoenas for Arafat on specific murder charges. Arafat's crew should be ordered out of this country, including his spokesman Hassan Abdel Rahman, who appears often on Fox TV mouthing such absurd charges as "Israel created Hamas," the terrorist group. Years ago I disputed with Rahman on a New York local TV show, I don't know what the United States should do about Saudi Arabia, which has financed Arafat for 35 years and other terrorists including Usama bin Laden all these years. Washington has considered the Saudi royal family moderate, and it had shared the Allah-given wealth more or less fairly with its citizens, but that is less clear with each year. It has not been in the interest of the United States to have a revolution in Saudi Arabia, certainly not a Marxist revolution, nor a fundamentalist Islamic revolution, nor a takeover by Iraq. However, the Saudi reaction to President George Bush Senior's rescuing their country when Iraq's Saddam Hussein seized Kuwait and then set its oil fields afire has not been encouraging. Gratitude is unknown to the present guardians of Islam.

U.S. DEMANDED TAYLOR'S EXILE FROM LIBERIA. WHY NOT ARAFAT'S FROM ISRAEL? Posted by Mark Alan, September 14, 2003.

Why does the US government force the tiny country of Israel - with its small, 5,000,000 person population, in a land the size of two Rhode Islands - to tolerate the presence of a blood-thirsty terrorist (Yasser Arafat) when it demanded as a pre-condition for military and political assistance in Liberia the deposition and exile of now ex-president Charles Taylor? The US should demand the permanent elimiation of Arafat's influence just as it is seeking to crush Sadaam Hussein's influence in Iraq. It is the same War and yet the US treats Israeli casualties like so many ants run over by a Humvee. America's complicity role in the murder of Jews in the Holy Land is disgraceful.

ONCE ARAFAT LEAVES, THEN WHAT? Posted by Eliezar Edwards, September 14, 2003.

This was in today's Israel National News online (http://www.IsrealNN.com). Sensible words. The government's dramatic Thursday night decision to "remove Arafat, but not now" continues to draw criticism. Unnamed government ministers from both the Likud and Shinui parties have been quoted as saying that the resolution "weakens Israel and proves that we can't make important decisions without American support." Leading PA figure and Arafat-loyalist Saeb Erekat warned today that Arafat will not agree to be expelled, such that the decision to expel him means to kill him. "If that happens," Erekat said today, "this will cause chaos in the PA areas, with militant groups taking over, and the first thing they'll do will be to come to my office and kill me and all the other Palestinian moderates." Erekat was part of Arafat's PLO group that was allowed to escape Beirut to Tunisia during the 1982 Peace for Galilee War; they were allowed to enter Israel in 1993 when the Oslo Accords were signed. GSS head Avi Dichter has joined the chorus of those who oppose expelling Arafat, saying it would be better to kill him. "Israel would face international pressure," Dichter is reported to have said in closed meetings last week, "possibly forcing it to surrender and allow him to return. Killing him would cause a few weeks of unrest, but afterwards Israel could breathe freely and the entire region would benefit from it." Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz and other senior defense figures agree with Dichter. The UN Security Council will convene tomorrow to discuss the possible expulsion of Arafat, after it called upon Israel yesterday not to expel the PLO leader. Arafat himself, the subject of large demonstrations of support in Ramallah once again yesterday, said that Israel is trying to liquidate the entire Palestinian Authority and thus to avoid fulfilling its obligations. Atty. Elyakim Ha'etzni of Kiryat Arba, a strong opponent of a PLO state, warned in B'Sheva this week that killing Arafat would lead precisely to that - a PLO state. The former Knesset Member explained that Condoleeza Rice said recently that the U.S. is engaged in "nation building," and that its goal in getting rid of the Hamas-Arafat terrorism is to make way for a Palestinian state. Ha'etzni writes, "The words 'war against terrorism are actually a trap, hinting that we don't have war with the Palestinian people - who are the ones who are actually using the weapon of terrorism against us - but against the virtual concept 'terrorism,' as if it could be taken care of independently of the 120-year-old national struggle between us and the Arabs here." Dr. Mordechai Kedar, a lecturer in the Arabic Department in Bar Ilan University and a researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, told Arutz-7 today, "Arafat may not have been relevant for us, but he always was for the PA. Even locked up in the Mukata, he gave the orders, whether by phone, emissaries or whatever. The public demonstrations supporting him show that he is their leader, while we fell victim to some wishful thinking." Arutz-7's Yosef Zalmanson notes that Kedar himself, along with other analysts, observed that Arafat was not always a beloved leader. In March 2001, six months after Arafat initiated the Oslo War, Kedar told Arutz-7, "Arafat's popularity in the Palestinian Authority is declining significantly... [He] now has the support of only 28%. In addition, 38% of the Palestinian youth are interested in immigrating abroad. They see that the fruits of the intifada are not exactly what they e! xpecte d... In many areas this intifada has brought them nothing but trouble, and so they want to send their leaders back to square one." Kedar says that expelling Arafat will not bode well for Israel: "We will be blamed, and the bad situation will not improve. He will give the orders from abroad, but they will be even more violent... He has to be held totally cut-off from phones, visitors, etc." The police began an investigation today against Uri Avnery and 30 extreme left-wing Gush Shalom members. They arrived in Ramallah to show support for Yasser Arafat, and said they would bodily protect Arafat against Israeli soldiers. The group may be charged with violating a military order not to enter areas under PA-control.

STATING THE OBVIOUS: On Blindness and Stupidity Posted by Yuval Zaliouk, September 14, 2003.

For three years now I have been stressing repeatedly that the failure of the infamous Oslo Accords was due to one simple fact: The Israeli negotiators, including Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin, had it in reverse: They agreed to land for peace instead of peace for land. Three years ago I was not yet the expert on the subject I am today, but I recognized the simple basic principal: One does not hand over tangibles before ensuring the receipt of proper consideration. Now comes this important article by Joshua Porath, professor emeritus of Middle East history at the Hebrew University. It was published as "Why Oslo Failed" in the Jerusalem Post, September 13, 2003. It sheds some new light on facts which preceded the Oslo signature, and clearly blames the failure of Oslo on the above mentioned simple fact. The recent so-called Road Map went even further than Oslo in its stupidity: It promised a Palestinian State in advance, and would you believe it: The Israeli government headed by Sharon agreed to it. Is there anybody among today's world leaders capable of learning anything from history? A recent film called Relentless, produced by Honest Reporting, clearly proves the points in this important article. I implore you to contact www.honestreporting.com and purchase the film. Here is the article on why Oslo failed (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1063266356024): Today it is already clear that the Oslo agreements have failed. I will demonstrate that the agreements were doomed to failure from the outset, although the Palestinians' behavior over the past 10 years contributed significantly to the magnitude of that failure. A very important and unknown fact should be borne in mind: The PLO became involved in the agreement on a formal level only at the very last minute. Until just a few days before the signing of the first agreement, negotiations were still going on with the representatives of the Palestine Delegation to the Madrid-Washington talks. That is what Yitzhak Rabin as the prime minister of Israel knew, and that is why in the draft agreement that had been prepared for signing, it was the Palestine Delegation rather than the PLO that appears as the party to the agreement. This is why until the last moment, the agreement did not mention the need to fight terror. Arafat forced the Israeli side to agree that the PLO - rather than the Palestine Delegation - would be party to the agreement under pressure of an ultimatum, threatening that if the PLO was not part of the agreement, there would be no agreement. This is also why at the very last moment, the draft agreement was changed, and the entire issue of the treatment of terror and the abrogation of the Palestinian Covenant was dealt with in such a clumsy fashion and worded so ambiguously. Rabin was not strong enough in those final days to reject the agreement when faced with this difficult reality. His consent to negotiate with the PLO (contrary to his position that Israel should conduct negotiations only with the representatives of the Palestinian territories because the PLO principally represented the Palestinian refugees and the demand for the right of return) did not constitute a radical turning point based on his realization that without the PLO there would be no agreement; it was the result of inability to withstand the pressure. This is evinced not only by the documents of those days; Rabin's close associates and those who were privy to the negotiations have also confirmed this central fact in public debates held since. It is the basic assumptions upon which the agreements were based that are the principal cause for their failure. Lacking a proper understanding of the Palestinian and Arab position, the Israeli side deluded itself that if the discussion on the fundamental issues (refugees and borders) were put off until the negotiations on the final settlement, and the two Oslo agreements were to deal only with interim agreements requiring extensive Israeli withdrawals, a favorable atmosphere would be created. This would make it easier to reach an agreement on the borders and enable Israel to resist acceding to the Palestinian demand to carry out the right of return of the 1948 refugees "to their homes and lands," as the Palestinians put it. What those conducting the negotiations for the Israeli side did not understand was that as far as the Palestinians and Arabs are concerned, all of Israel and the territories is rightfully theirs and that everything returned to them through the interim agreements would be only the beginning of the return of their "stolen property" in exchange for which Israel deserved nothing. Consequently, there was no chance of Israel receiving anything in return for what it had already given to the Palestinians. This is precisely why the negotiations should have begun with the issue of the refugees - the fundamental issue dividing Israel and the Palestinians - and that of Jerusalem, and culminated in a comprehensive settlement. Only after such a settlement was attained should Israel have moved on to the next stage, that of the territorial concessions, rather than the other way around. THE TERRITORIAL content of the second Oslo agreement was even more catastrophic. In it, Israel committed to withdraw from all the territories, with the exception of "Jewish settlements and military locations." A short time after the signing of this agreement, Rabin realized that he had in fact agreed to almost a total Israeli withdrawal. Dismayed, he regretted what he had done and made a public speech in which he provided his own interpretation of the term  military locations," saying that in his view this meant "any territory in which Israel has a "military interest." In this way, he considerably increased the extent of the territory that would remain in Israeli hands, but it is doubtful if this interpretation was faithful to the text itself. Thus, the two Oslo agreements required Israel to make significant withdrawals from the vast majority of the occupied territories without the Palestinians making any binding parallel concession of the right of return of the 1948 refugees to their homes and lands inside Israel. Clearly, no Israeli government could stand for that. The late Yitzhak Rabin, who was dragged into the entire matter and agreed to the first agreement with the PLO only at the last moment, attempted to change the direction in which things were moving a very short time before he was assassinated. However, the PLO was not satisfied with that. The way it dealt with the implementation of the agreements shows that it was in quite a bit of a hurry. Following the signing of the agreements, it behaved foolishly - completely contrary to all its commitments. This was due to its desire to step up the process of ejecting Israel from all the territories it occupied in 1967 and forcing Israel to accede to the return of the 1948 refugees to its territory, thereby destroying itself. The PLO immediately began smuggling in terrorists and arms into the territories. Upon his return to Gaza, Arafat personally smuggled in two terrorists and weapons. The Palestinian police force was twice as large as the agreements allowed and armed with a far greater number of weapons than Israel had supplied it with in accordance with the agreement. All Israel's confidence-building measures beyond those required by the agreements (trade, special dispensations for fishermen on Gaza's shores, permission to enter Israel for medical treatment, etc.) were exploited for this purpose. Israel did not even bother to ask for reciprocal confidence-building measures from the Palestinians to indicate they were indeed moving in the direction of peace. The Palestinian education and media continued to foster hatred of and animosity towards Israel, its culture and very existence as a non-Arab entity in the Middle East. The case of the abrogation of the Palestinian covenant, which was perhaps the only quid pro quo on the symbolic level that the Palestinians were required by the agreements to give Israel, was turned into a bad joke, which is now obvious to all. Many of the terrorists Israel released - who signed a written commitment to refrain from further terror against Israel - reverted to their old habits. Most important, it soon became clear - even to those so blinded that they refused to see this from the beginning - that the Palestinians had never relinquished their original demand: the return of all or part of the 1948 refugees and their descendants to their homes inside Israel, which would bring about the destruction of Israel. The pinnacle was perhaps reached on December 21, 1995, when Salim Zaanoun, the speaker of the Palestinian National Council, signed an agreement with chief of Hamas's political bureau, Haled Mashal, according to which Hamas would be permitted to continue its terror attacks ("resistance," as they put it) against Israel as long as the "Palestinian Authority would not be embarrassed." The agreement was presented at a press conference in Cairo and reported by all the Arab media outlets. Thus, openly and in full view, the Palestinians revealed their true intentions. Instead of condemning the agreement and revealing the real goals of those who signed it to the entire world, then prime minister Shimon Peres initially denied its existence from the Knesset podium, and afterwards kept mum about it. Instead of viewing it as a violation and voiding of the agreement, Peres allowed the Palestinian side to understand that it could continue its double game - on the one hand continuing to demand that Israel continue its withdrawals from the territories, while on the other, persisting in terrorism against it. There are those who say that Israel is no less, and perhaps even more, responsible for the failure of the Oslo Accords than the Palestinians because it did not halt the establishment and building up of the settlements. It must therefore be reiterated that nowhere in the Oslo agreements is there anything that expressly prohibits the establishment of settlements or requires that they be dismantled in part or in whole. I do not believe that it was wise politically or security-wise to establish most of them, certainly not the settlement in the heart of Hebron or in Sebastia in Samaria, for which the Labor governments and Peres are responsible, but they are not the reason why the Oslo process failed. The mistaken basic assumptions upon which it is based are.

JUSTICE IN ISRAEL Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, September 14, 2003.

This was an item in today's Arutz Shevah, Israel National News (http://www.IsraelNN.com). Israeli citizens who live in Gaza, Samaria and Judea (the West Bank) have been systematically harassed by the police for months. Except for Pas - father of the 10-month infant that was murdered by an Arab sharpshooter - and Shvo, they have all been released. Police Move Pass & Shvo to Hevron Jail Facility (IsraelNN.com) After spending about two months behind bars, police have now moved Hevron area residents Yitzchak Pass and Mati Shvo to a Hevron jail facility to facilitate visits from their wives and to permit them to remain in a facility with slightly improved conditions. The two are being held on suspicion of planning to perpetrate attacks against Arabs. What this really means is that after kidnapping, threatening and torturing these two innocent men, the SHABBAK could not get them to "confess" to anything. Why is there no outrage cry from all the professional bleeding hearts in Israel? Where are all the pro-YESHAH politicians? Not since the mass persecution of the Moroccan Jews has there been a human and civil rights violation on such a scale. Along with the dozen innocent men that were dragged off by the SHABBAK and thrown into their dungeons to be tortured and bitten by rats, there have been hundreds of others who have been harassed and threatened in order to "find evidence" of a Jewish underground. This of course does not include the years of systematic and illegal persecution of YESHAH residents before this. My hope is that not only those who have been arrested will seek justice for their illegal and immoral treatment but those who have been intimidated and threatened as well. A person who is not willing to defend his rights does not have any. Those who have always said that they will not go quietly to the slaughter now have a chance to prove themselves. Let all of those who have been victimized by the SHABBAK begin to scream and sue! Sue for criminal charges and sue for civil damages. Sue individually and sue as a group but sue. There are more than enough lawyer who will take on such cases.

THE IRONY OF PALESTINIAN SELF-RULE Posted by Leo Rennert, September 14, 2003.

Yassir Arafat doth protest too much when he accuses Israel of seeking to end Palestinian self-rule by removing him. Until 2000, when Arafat launched a wave of terror, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were under the rule of Arafat - but not under self-rule, at least in any accepted democratic sense. The notion that Arafat is a properly elected leader is a sham. When Arafat was allowed to return from Tunis under the Oslo accords, the Palestinians were obliged to honor a specific deadline for holding free, democratic elections. This never happened. Arafat waited more than twice as long before he allowed elections to proceed so as to give himself adequate time to first stamp out political opposition, shut down media dissent and take full control of security forces. Then and only then did he allow Palestinians to go to the voting booths. Why did the international community, including Israel, tolerate this autocratic charade in the mid-90s? Because, after the handshake on the White House lawn, many statesmen were still under the illusion that Arafat meant it when he solemnly pledged never to resort to violence again. Whether removing Arafat is wise can be argued - but not on the ground that it would eliminate genuine "self-rule."

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL AGAINST ISRAEL Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 14, 2003.

Amnesty International (A.I.) blamed Israel for the poor P.A. economy. It declared that the security wall causes difficult economic and social conditions for the Arabs there. Israeli checkpoints impose collective punishment on P.A. residents, who pay for 'the crimes of individuals.' Meir Rosen disputes A.I. claims that the settlements are illegal or that they are A.I. business. A.I. blames the Intifada on settlement, which even the Oslo Agreement does not demand be removed. It lashes out at checkpoints without mentioning their need to protect against suicide bombers who have murdered hundreds of Israelis. Indeed, only one sentence in the report defends Israel's right to protect itself (so long as it doesn't use methods that effectively protect it). What does wreck the P.A. economy? The EU gave the P.A. hundreds of millions of dollars. The money went for war (and graft), not for the people and the economy (Arutz-7, 9/8). The P.A. built nothing there except houses, and ran down the infrastructure that Israel left behind. Actually, Yesha Arabs deserve collective punishment. Most terrorists do not commit crimes as individuals. They are waging collective war, in which the whole society is mobilized one way or the other, all of a mind, and a total war like the Nazis, to kill the Jews off. What kind of an organization is A.I. that its harsh criticism is reserved for the victims of Arab aggression, and not for the fanatical, terrorist, jihadist Arabs, who commit atrocities? Why does it lament the wall and not the Arab criminality that makes a separation of the two peoples desirable to the ones who don't want the others to murder them? As for the notion that settlement brought terrorism, terrorism preceded the recent Zionist development in Yesha. That is a simple fact, but the biased A.I. does not deal in facts. It applies Western sociology to Eastern fanatics. Foolish! The Jerusalem Post compares A.I.'s pro-forma, half-page statement on the Palestinian (suicide bombing), in which no individual terrorists and political leaders are held responsible, and all the Israeli victims remain anonymous, with the 71 references and case studies supposedly documenting the suffering of Arab individuals and families. Many of the references came from the entirely discredited International Solidarity Movement, Palestinian Center for Human Rights, and official P.A. groups (IMRA, 9/10). Thus, A.I. does not know whether these Arab complaints have any basis, but, taking the word of known slanderers, it accuses Israel. That is worse than irresponsible. It facilitates terrorism. A.I. has made itself an adjunct to jihad.

OPPOSE U.S. AID TO THE TERRORIST PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY REGIME Posted by Avi Chekroun, September 13, 2003.

According to the New York Times (July 1, 2003), the Bush administration is planning to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in aid directly to the Palestinian Authority. This would represent a significant and disturbing change in U.S. policy - until now, the U.S. gave aid only to individual, non-PA building and social service projects in PA-controlled areas. Now it will be giving U.S. taxpayers' dollars directly to a corrupt terrorist regime. The aid package would begin with $300-million in CIA training and assistance, which will help build up the PA's terrorist "security forces." Additional direct aid to the PA could reach as high as $1-billion in the coming year. Tell President Bush what you think: President George Bush, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. 20500. Ph: 202-456-1111. Fax: 202-456-2461. e-mail: president@whitehouse.gov These are some of the points you may want to make: 1. PA Violates Road Map Conditions.  During the months since the proclamation of the Bush administration's "Road Map" plan, the PA has not adhered to the conditions listed in the Road Map. The PA regime under Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) has failed to halt all violence, arrest terrorists, confiscate their weapons, and stop inciting hatred and murder of Israelis in their school books, television, radio, newspapers, speeches, and religious sermons by PA-appointed clerics. The PA is continuing to teach its people that Israel has no right to even exist. The Road Map stipulates that the PA must "confront and dismantle the terrorist infrastructure," yet the PA has failed to take such actions as outlawing terrorist groups, shutting down their training camps, halting monetary payments to imprisoned terrorists and dead terrorists' families, and changing the names of streets and schools named after terrorists (including murderers of American citizens). 2. 76.7% of Americans Oppose Aid to the Palestinian Arabs  Public opinion polls have consistently shown overwhelming American public opposition to the idea of U.S. aid to the Palestinian Arabs. For example, a February 2003 poll by McLaughlin & Associates found that 76.% of Americans oppose the current U.S. policy of giving $150-million annually to the Palestinian Arabs; only 11.5% favor it. 3. Previous U.S. Aid Didn't Make Them "Moderate."  Despite the provision of more than $1-billion in direct and indirect U.S. aid to the Palestinian Arabs, including the Palestinian Authority, during 1994-2002, the PA continued to engage in terrorism and incitement against Israel, in violation of the 1993 Oslo accords, President Bush's June 2002 speech, and the April 2003 "Road Map" plan. 4. The CIA's Previous Training of PA Forces Didn't Make Them Peaceful.  Despite the provision of training and equipment by the CIA, the Palestinian Authority's police and security forces refused to take action against terrorists, and in many cases members of those forces themselves have engaged in terrorism against Israel. 5. Corruption in the PA Continues.  Despite protests by both the Clinton administration and Bush administration about corruption in the PA, including PA officials using humanitarian funds to purchase luxury apartments and automobiles for themselves and the disappearance of large amounts of foreign aid, such corruption in the PA has continued. Avi Chekroun is the chairman and founder of of the Internet Strategy Group (ISG), a strong pro-Israel advocacy group (see http://www.zoa.org). Hasbara.us works to strengthen U.S/Europe.-Israel relations, educates the public, Congress and Parliament about the dangers that Israel faces. It works actively to combat anti-Israel bias in the media and on college campuses. The web page address is: http://www.hasbara.us

EXILE FOR HIS UGLINESS? Posted by Steven Plaut, September 13, 2003.

Well, Sharon's government voted to expel the Man with the Pubic Hair on his Face from the Land of Israel. Sort of. No one expects Israel actually to act against His Ugliness any time soon. The Americans are already having conniptions, Mubarak of Egypt says murdering Jewish children is not terrorism at all so what is Israel beefing over. Well, let me put in MY two cents. I am completely against expelling Arafat. I am for killing Arafat. The reason is very simple. Israel was founded as the Jewish response to the Holocaust. Leaving alive a creature who has murdered hundreds of Jewish children makes a mockery of the Holocaust and makes a mockery of Israel's raison d'etre. It must be Israel's policy that in the post-Shoah era, no one can randomly murder Jewish children and live. Period. And if the State Department disapproves, tough. If Arafat were expelled, he would simply continue to order hits on Israeli children from Damascus or some other place where Israel could not touch him. He should be killed now and fed to the sharks. No shrine. No martyr. I repost here an earlier piece I did on September 29, 2002, in which I elaborated this theme. In those days, Arafat was in his headquarters in Ramallah under siege in Operation Defensive Wall: The Case for Killing Arafat ( The entire world seems engrossed with the fate of Yasir Arafat, as he sits perched in the ruined headquarters of his Palestinian Authority, looking down at his pursuers like a terrorist Rapunzel. And as the world contemplates the denouement of this drama, it seems that there is international consensus that Arafat - unlike Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein - must not be harmed physically. Even within Israel, it is almost impossible to find a single politician or commentator who suggests that Arafat should be killed. The working presumption of all is that the world will be outraged if Israel harms a whisker on Arafats cartoon-like face. Some politicians in Israel are proposing simply expelling Arafat. Others suggest he be allowed to run off to some Arab summit or other and then be prevented from returning. Nearly all of them are in intense anxiety lest an Israeli bulldozer or IDF soldier accidentally cause harm to befall the imprisoned arch-terrorist. All of which would be laughable if it were not so sad. The fact of the matter is that Arafat should have been killed long ago. Israel actually had opportunities to kill him, such as in the 1982 siege of Beirut, but decided to let Arafat go free at the time. Hundreds of Israeli lives have been lost due to that decision. September 13, 2001 might also have been an opportune timing. It is argued that the Palestinians will be outraged and go on a murder spree if Arafat is killed. But with Arafat alive, when he was directing the mechanism of an emerging Palestinian State, the Palestinians went on a barbaric killing spree. Was there any shortage of Nazi-like atrocities perpetrated by Palestinians while Israel was treating Arafat with red carpets and honor guards, as a statesman, and appeasing him with unbelievable concessions? And it is argued that the world will denounce Israel if it kills Arafat, and would demonize the Jews. But the world was denouncing Israel and demonizing the Jews as "Nazis" even when Israel was exercising "self-restraint" and self-abasement to degrees without precedent in human history. And when Ehud Barak offered Arafat absolutely everything at Camp David that the latter was publicly demanding, despite Arafat's having violated every single Oslo obligation to which he had ever committed, the entire world denounced Israeli "obstinacy  and "occupation." The world's reaction was to demonize Israel as being the "obstacle" to "peace." Western Europe and the developing world morphed into huge anti-Jewish Nuremberg Rallies. So what does Israel have to lose from killing Arafat? But there is a far more important reason why Arafat should be killed. Israel was created because in its absence Jews were mass murdered throughout history by savages, with impunity. Israel was created in response to the events of World War II. Israel was restored to independence so that never again could someone commit mass murders of hundreds of Jewish civilians and be left alive. Israel was created to be a mechanism to kill any future mass murderers, any future Nazis. Israel's basic existence must be to deny impunity to mass murderers of Jews. Arafat's stormtroopers have murdered hundreds of Jews, just since he signed the 1993 Oslo "Peace" Accord on the White House Lawn. To allow Arafat to walk is the same as conceding that Israel is willing to abandon its raison d'etre, that "Never Again" is just an empty slogan. To leave Arafat alive is to advertise to all that Jews are there for anyone with a grievance (real or imagined) to kill, that it is open season on them. It makes a mockery out of any program to deter terrorism. It denies the fundamental moral justification for Israel's rebirth.

EXPEL ARAFAT - TO THE NEXT WORLD Posted by Irwin N. Graulich, September 13, 2003.

Was giving Adolf Hitler the boot from Germany an option to bring WWII to an end? What the heck is wrong with those idiotic Jews running the Israeli government? Expulsion of Arafat to become a world renowned traveler throughout France, England, China and America does not seem like the appropriate solution for terrorism. You "expel" someone for shouting at a teacher or cheating on a test; not for murdering thousands of Jews. Perhaps Ariel Sharon should consider putting a dunce cap on good ol' Yasser and just making him sit in the corner. Expulsion as serious punishment for a terrorist mass murderer is absurd. The Israeli government has learned very little from history, although they must understand that terrorist icons will continue to run their empires from wherever they are in the world. Through the Internet, cell phones and mass media, Yasser Arafat would actually have an easier time pulling the terror strings from outside the West Bank. bin Laden had no trouble developing his elaborate crimes from the hills of Afghanistan, Islamic Jihad controls a vast network from Damascus, and other groups work quite well from Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. Giving Arafat a one way ticket out of Ramallah is the equivalent of handing him a bully pulpit to the world with unprecedented access. Within weeks, he will be spewing lies to Larry King on CNN about the atrocities committed by Israel and Ted Koppel will get his chance to show his fairness and courtesy for the good "Chairman." Extensive interviews on the BBC will follow some award of distinction from the French. Al Jazeera will simply turn over the station to him as Arafat attains the magical status of "the ultimate deported refugee." Since deportation during WWII brought Jews to gas chambers, the European mentality within the Israeli government considers the act of deportation as some sort of "punishment" for Arafat. However, in this case, deportation would actually be a coup and grand prize. Western democracies, especially America, seem to have great concern for the fallout from this expulsion, especially on the Arab street. Many people believe that efforts to stabilize Iraq would be greatly complicated. There must be a better way to deal with the "Arafat" problem. Would simply killing the "king of corruption," whose wife and daughter are presently spending in excess of $40,000 a week in Paris, be a viable option? No wonder they call themselves the "poor Palestinians!" The money trail leads to some of the finest boutiques in Paris. Arafat's death would not unleash anger in the Arab and Muslim world any more than the destruction of The Taliban in Afghanistan or Saddam in Iraq did. In fact, not a peep from the entire Arab/Muslim world when those final photos were prominently shown of Uday and Qusay at room temperature after some rather crude plastic surgery. The message was clear that America meant business. Expulsion will only give Abu Amar a greater stage on which to play. There are moments in history when a nation must forget the diplomatic risks associated with eliminating great evil. Israel faced this dilemma before The Six Day War and in bombing the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981. World criticism was unremitting, while the UN considered sanctions. America recently followed that same formula in Iraq and worldwide peace protests ensued. In the final analysis, it is clear that the means were justified and the world is now a much better place due to these military operations. It is only because of Israel that Yasser Arafat is alive today. Perhaps some brilliant Israeli military strategist was his guardian angel, realizing that it is actually Arafat who helped Israel, by personally keeping an independent Arab Palestinian state from being established. Although Arafat should thank Israel for his life, ultimately the world will be thanking Israel for his death.

PLEASE SIGN Posted by Jules and Margaux Segal, September 13, 2003.

This petition asks the United Nations to treat suicide bombings as war crimes and that those who inspire them be prosecuted by the International War Crimes Tribunal. The Call for UN & World Leaders to Prosecute Organizers of Suicide/Homicide Bombings, performing acts of terror against Civilians, as War Criminals, was initiated by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and written by Dr. Edward S. Beck. One million signatures are being sought for this petition. Click on the following and please take 10 seconds to sign. CLICK HERE If you can, please cut and send this message to other friends, of whatever faith, who might also agree to sign the petition.

TEACHING ISRAELI ARABS TO LOVE ONLY "PALESTINE" Posted by Itamar Marcus, September 12, 2003.

The following appeared last week in the Palestinian daily Al Hayat Al Jadida: "The teacher wondered how any Geography teacher in the Arab schools could convince his students that Safad [in Arabic] was changed to Zefat[Hebrew] and that Sefuriya [Arabic] had suddenly become Zipori[Hebrew.] He expressed the opinion that the students would rip up these maps and the teacher who would accept them would be considered a traitor... He was reminded of [a recent] distribution of Israeli flags... the students ripped them to pieces and threw them in the garbage..." These words wouldn't be surprising if they were said by any teacher in a Palestinian Authority [PA] school. However the person being quoted was an Israeli Arab teacher. The children ripping up Israeli flags were Israeli Arabs kids. The teacher who will not consider using a map showing Israeli cities in his classroom is an Israeli Arab on salary from the Israeli Ministry of Education. With the media focus this week on the Or Committee's criticism of Israel's police during the Israeli Arab riots, it was virtually forgotten why the police were shooting. It was October 2000. The Palestinian Authority had started war against Israel. Two days into the war thousands of Israeli Arabs throughout the Galil joined the battle on the side of Israel's enemies, supported vocally by Arab leaders and passively it seemed by the general population. They threw stones, firebombs, burned tires, killed one Israeli Jew and injured many others, as they closed down the main roads of the North for days. Israel, it seemed, had lost the allegiance of 20% of its citizens, who in a time of war, had sided with the enemy. How did it happen? While there certainly are many contributing factors, there is ample evidence that this transfer of allegiance was one of the prominent goals of the Palestinian Authority long before the start of the October 2000 War. The PA implemented a systematic and determined policy towards Israel's Arabs, especially the youth, targeting them continuously with the message that their identity and allegiance should be with the PA alone. At the PA initiative, there was a never ending agenda of PA - Israeli Arab meetings, contacts, educational programs, sporting events, conventions and cultural events that were being reported daily in the PA press and the message both explicit and implicit was always one of joint history, culture, and destiny. When the PA decided to have a "Miss Palestine" contest in 1999, they included Israeli Arabs girls. Moreover, they made sure that 6 out of the 10 finalist and the winner, were all Israeli Arabs. When they set up a national soccer team, the Coach was an Israeli Arab from Nazareth. There were numerous organizations and programs in the PA whose sole purpose was to promote this involvement and identity, including "Committee for Relations with 1948," "Children without Borders," "Contacts between the members of a United People," "Relations without Borders" - all of which had ongoing activities whose purpose was, according to the PA daily: "to increase the contact and affinity between the members of the Palestinian people in the West Bank, the 'Inside' [Israel] and the 'Gaza Strip'. [Al Quds, May 24, 1999]. In Arafat's office there was a special wing, called 'the Committee for Contacts with the Residents of Occupied Palestine'. Terms like 'Inside Arabs' and the 'Residents of Occupied Palestine' are all PA euphemisms for Israeli Arabs. The PA denied the possibility of the existence of an 'Israeli- Arab' writing in one 1999 editorial - "there can not be an Israeli Arab. How can the executioner and the victim be one?" [Al Hayat Al Jadida August 18, 1999] The PA was careful to send representatives to events that were internal to Israeli Arabs. Numerous graduation ceremonies in Jerusalem and the Galil had no representative of Israel's Ministry of Education but did have a PA representative: "A year end ceremony in a Jerusalem school was held in the presence of the PA Ministry of Education representative and the Palestinian national anthem was sounded." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 25, 1999] The opening gestures by the PA were actively accepted by Israel's Arab leaders who joined in urging Israeli Arab youth to reject any Israeli identity they may have considered. MK Azami Bashara, for example when campaigning in Israel, marched with tens of Israeli Arab youth holding PA flags. He explained on television that were they to lose their Palestinian identity, all that would remain would be their family and tribal identity, but not an 'Israeli-Arab' identity, because 'there is no such identity.' Speaking to Arab youth he said, "The blue card [Israeli ID card] you have in your pocket is not an identity card; it is a residence card." In the election campaign of 1999, the Israeli Arab leadership fought for the votes of Israeli Arabs by competing in their denial of an Israeli identity. Rowya Habibi, the daughter of Emil Habibi who was so Israeli he had been awarded the Israel Prize, said in a TV broadcast of the Arab -BALAD political Party: "They dressed us in blue and white clothes, the flag of Israel. I don't know, maybe they incarcerated my brain & they educated us to believe that we are Israeli Arabs. I had a confused identity, I knew it but I didn't understand: I am a Palestinian Arab." And a similar message in the Arab Hadash Party broadcast: "There are people who want to drive me crazy. On the one hand I am one of the Israeli Arabs and on the other hand I am one of the '1948 Arabs.' What nonsense, why should you determine who I am? I am a person, a Palestinian Arab, and they will not succeed in confusing me." The PA initiated the process of 'de-Israelizing' Israel's Arabs and found in them, willing partners. This happened openly, starting immediately after the establishment of the PA, under the eyes of the Israeli government who did nothing to try and preserve the allegiance of its citizens. Already in 1999 the PA had been so successful that Al Quds, a PA newspaper, summed up Israeli Arab attitudes in these words: "This state [Israel] is not their state, its interests are not their interests, its symbols are not their symbols, its policy is not their policy." [Al Quds, April 20, 1999] Tragically, even if this did not reflect all Israeli Arab attitudes then, it may well be the case in the not too distant future. Itamar Marcus is Director of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). To subscribe to PMW's reports, write: reports-subscribe@pmw.org.il

NO FORCED EXILE FOR ARAFAT - YET Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, September 12, 2003.

One of the nice points about the DEBKA FILE is that their predictions are pretty specific. So I guess we might be in for an interesting week. Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon came marching into an urgent cabinet meeting called on Thursday, September 11, over the latest terrorist crisis and Palestinian threats of escalation, determined not to give into ministers' and popular demands to deport Yasser Arafat. DEBKAfile's political sources report he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket as the session began and told the worried ministers in effect: There is nothing I want to hear from any of you. I have drafted my own resolution and you will approve it. What he read out was this: 'Arafat is an obstacle to peace and Israel will take action to create the conditions for his removal.' The ministers were not told what conditions, how the 'obstacle' was to be removed or when. Some read the text as a recipe for Arafat's deportation; others for doing nothing at all. None had any idea what they had voted for. In exactly the same way, last July, the prime minister forced through the Israeli cabinet a list of several hundred jailed Palestinians whom he had decided to release as a gesture of goodwill to the Palestinian ex-prime minister Mahmoud Abbas. This week, the same ministers discovered they had approved a list that contained at least three ticking bombs - two suicide killers from Rantis village near Ramallah who on Tuesday, September 9, murdered 8 soldiers at Tsrifin and 7 civilians at Jerusalem's popular Caf$(5!i(B Hillel, injuring close to 100 others. Number three was their controller, Luay Barghouti, whose kinsman, West Bank Fatah secretary Marwan Barghouti, is on trial before an Israeli court for ordering the murder of 23 Israelis. Arafat seized on the PR gift presented him by the Israeli cabinet. Surrounded by media crews, he grabbed a microphone and shouted: 'I'm not moving from here!' His followers took to the streets to shake their fists. Aside from the ado about nothing, what's Sharon's game plan? After all, Israelis have been reduced to a nightmare existence of constantly looking over their shoulders for Palestinian suicide killers who could be lurking at any street corner, school, bus or shopping center, restaurant or park. What was behind the sudden stationing of Israeli commandos and lookouts Thursday on tall buildings around Arafat's government headquarters in Ramallah? Twenty-four hours later, they climbed down and left. According to DEBKAfile's intelligence and counter-terror sources, the explanation is this: Israel is finally going to start hitting the men at the hard core of Palestinian terror, the terror chiefs assembled under Arafat's wing at his own offices in Ramallah. Until now, Israeli counter-terror operations focused on the Islamist groups, the Hamas and to a lesser degree the Jihad Islami. The Fatah, Tanzim, al Aqsa Martyrs' (Suicides) Brigades were barely scratched and the group sheltering in Arafat's headquarters was left untouched. The first actions may begin next week. Their initial targets will be three men who appear on a select Israeli list of 13 wanted terrorists. They are Kemal Ghanem, Khaled Shawasha and Jamil Tirawi - cousin of the notorious terror master Tawfiq Tirawi. They will be informed that their names have been added to the dark catalogue of Hamas terror activists relentlessly targeted for assassination. Wherever they may be, Arafat will no longer be able to protect them. The remaining 10 wanted terrorists will be taken out next. In the course of this offensive, Sharon intends to open talks with Washington to persuade George W. Bush that there is no other way but to remove Arafat bodily from the country. He will hold up the example of Liberia's ex-president Charles Taylor whose exit the United States demanded as the pre-condition for military and political assistance. If Bush were to declare that all US involvement in the Palestinian-Israel conflict is placed on hold until Arafat is gone, the Palestinian leader may go into voluntary exile. In other words, Sharon has concluded that exile cannot be forced on the Palestinian leader by Israel or the Americans; he must leave of his own volition. The prime minister has confided to his close aides his belief that this may happen when Arafat sees Israeli knocking over his company of terrorist activists one by one, just as the Hamas is being shorn of its active terrorist operatives. DEBKAfile's terror experts are far from certain that Sharon's newest stratagem will work. Taylor may have been persuaded it was time to leave, but Saddam Hussein turned down an American pre-war offer to go into exile and save himself and his family. Arafat is made of the same hard substance. This is a DEBKAFile Special Report (http://www2.debka.com/article.php?aid=564).

BETWEEN THE LINES OF THE TIMES Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 12, 2003.

[Email, September 10.] There is an unspoken deal between the Arabs and most news organs. The Arabs make slanderous remarks about Israel, which the media repeat without correction or inviting Israeli representatives to rebut and level charges of their own. Not only is the media unaccountable to 'the people' whom they supposedly serve rather than mold, but most Israeli representatives are unable or unwilling to make their case. They strive to appease the Arabs, who are stabbing them figuratively and literally. Failing to understand why the Arabs struggle, the leftists among them have assumed guilt towards the Arabs, who are the guilty ones, and oppose their own people. An example is in James Bennet's 4/5 column about Abu Mazen (NY Times, A3). Some of you might stop right here, feeling that since he resigned, he is yesterday's news. Not so. Technically, he stays in office until a successor takes over. The successor will likely be of the same cast, nominated by the same knave. The West will make a spectacle of themselves finding virtue in the new rogue in the same way as they did undeservedly with Abu Mazen. The 'Great Satan' persists. Therefore, most of what we learn about Abu Mazen will help us with his successor. Mr. Bennet quotes Abu Mazen as 'wanting to end any actions that isolated our just case' and gave 'cover to the Israeli Army.' He blamed Israel for the collapse of peace talks. 'I don't think that anyone in the world would disagree with me when I say that Israel is responsible for the situation,' Mr. Abbas said. Today Mr. Abbas criticized the Bush administration's policy of ignoring Mr. Arafat and said the administration had done too little to stop 'Israeli provocations' after the main Palestinian (Arab terrorist) factions announced at the end of June that they were suspending attacks against Israelis. They were out of ammunition, and needed a truce during which to replenish their stocks and develop more powerful weapons. They did not cease attacking. Israel was inhibited from counter-attacking, lest it seem to be breaking a truce. It took Israel some time, and a certain amount of blatant Arab violations, before Israel renewed its counter-terrorism. Therefore, that is not the talk of someone who wants to replace Arafat, crush terrorism and stop trying to conquer Israel. It is the talk of someone who still thinks the Arab imperialist and jihadist cause is just and who refuses to admit what terrible provocation is constant Arab terrorism, rather than an 'excuse' to the IDF to fight against the P.A.. Not the Israeli Army, not the Israel government, and not the Israeli people wish to fight any more than they have to. Israelis yearn for peace. The Arabs don't. One would not learn that from the Times. Quoted as having similar sentiments, 'Mr. Arafat is said by associates to believe that action against Hamas would create civil conflict without resulting in negotiating gains from the Israeli government' The Times' constant quoting of that refrain, unchallenged, tends to make it seem only natural. Natural? Why should the Arabs gain from negotiations after having launched a war? That is another question that the Times never asks. The refrain shows the PLO still following the advice of its former N. Vietnam advisors to alternate terrorism and negotiation, in order to promote the goals of the terrorists. Any doubt cast by the media is upon the beleaguered Israelis. Thus, the Israeli Army is continuing to operate about the W. Bank, raiding Palestinian (Arab) cities and towns in pursuit of accused terrorists Just accused? Come, come, Times, you know that there are tens of thousands of terrorists in a population that reveres their action against the Jewish state, and Israel knows who the terrorist commanders are. Out of about 240 lines and a picture, 6 lines were, 'Mr. Sharon's office declined to respond to that criticism. But a senior Israeli official described Mr. Abbas and Mr. Arafat as 'Siamese twins,' adding, 'If you try to separate them, both of them are gong to die.' See, Sharon's office declined to respond! Alas, Israelis talk in colorful phrases without making specific charges, such as that Abu Mazen has a terrorist record and should not have been thought to be the one to crush terrorism. It would be difficult for an Israeli to say that now, after Israel appeased the US by pretending that Abut Mazen would do just that. [Email, September 12.] Ahmed Qurei is accepting the post of Prime Minister on condition that the US restrain Israel's military and stops isolating Arafat. (No wonder Arafat nominated him!) In his first speech since being nominated, Qurei demanded that Israel end its best counter-terrorism methods but said nothing about disarming terrorists in the first place. The EU called him a 'man of peace.' (IMRA, 9/10.) Yes, peace by Israel, but not peace for Israel. And how does the Times describe Qurei? Bennet called the second Arafat deputy and long-time Fatah terrorist nominated as Prime Minister a 'pragmatist.' (Meanwhile, Israeli PM Sharon declared war only on Hamas, giving as his reason that Hamas wants to destroy Israel, James Bennet, 9/8, A1). There they go again, finding words of praise for an Arab terrorist. They pretend that he would make ethical reform and peace, and that the PLO is significantly better that way than Hamas. I say ethical reform, for what do we care about economic and democratic reform, when the Arab ethic is for bigotry and conquest. A P.A. with a stronger economy and democratic backing would all the more effectively strive for conquest. Better it stay corrupt and weak! Better that it not have a 'pragmatic' Prime Minister. The nominee, Ahmed Qurei, is known for advocacy of flooding Israel with so-called refugees, so as to take it over. Let Sharon declare war back on the whole P.A.! Arafat 'is regarded by Israel as a terrorist.' (Arafat is just 'regarded' as a terrorist and just by Israel? Does the Times not know of the mountain of evidence of Arafat's directing terrorism? It doesn't seem to know of anything bad about the Arabs fighting Israel.) The Times did point out the paradox of US policy: 'It wants whoever becomes PM to undermine the very man from whom he derives authority.' (And it prevents Israel from removing that man. Removal would solve the US problem.) Bennet dissembles when asserting that Arafat, Abbas, and Qurei share the same stated goals, a PLO state 'in all the W. Bank and Gaza Strip.' (9/9, A1.) Actually, Qurei suggested the proposed 1947 borders, which would give the Arab state half of Israel, too. The rest would be non-viable and easily conquered. Abbas first suggested that the Arab 'refugees' flood into Israel, which would enable them to take it over. Later he supposed that not many would come, but they should have the right to (which they might exercise), as if Israel created the dual refugee problem that the Arabs did. Arafat talks about Jewish cities in Israel as being Arab cities. Well, one wouldn't expect the Times' Jerusalem Bureau Chief to know such things as that. Those are negative towards the Arabs.

EVICTION PAPERS Posted by Arlene Peck, September 12, 2003.

I'm not a political or military pundit but some things are just so basic that I marvel that everyone doesn't see what's facing us. Sadly I watched the two-year anniversary of 9/11 and our entire country mourned. The talking heads on television spoke about the danger of Al Qaeda and how they are still a sinister force lying in wait to wreak more havoc. We speak of terrorists who want to pay a return visit to our shores and sometimes in the same breath, in the interest of being politically correct, the politician or newscaster will say how most of the Arab world is really made up of peaceful people and we're just being tormented by the 'bad ones'. Frankly, I disagree. I've realized for years that we, in the United States, Israel and the rest of the civilized world have a common enemy. The Islamic culture is a violent and barbaric one whose one goal is to bring an end to all that we hold dear - freedom being amongst them. It nauseates me when I hear morons who pass themselves off as leaders and, speaking before national audiences, gleefully report how Israel, in being one-half of the two-states-living-side-by-side solution, goes off into the sunset and lives happily ever after. It is also radical liberal Jews who have let this terrorism occur because of their pushing Israel to 'hold-back, give up and negotiate policies. Let them live with that now. There is no partner for us to negotiate with and the same holds ten-fold for Israel. Nobody in our State Dept is going to do any differently than they have in the past , which was to do nothing when Palestanian hoodlems invaded the Church of Nativity. Remember the world-wide headlines then? Again, when Josephs Tomb was being systemically destroyed by these same thugs the State Dept and the rest of the world remained mum. Two American citizens, (the doctor and his daughter) were brutality slaughtered days ago. Imagine if this had happened in the United States? The outcry would have been ear-shattering. But since these victims and others were in Israel at the time of their murders everyone just shrugs. Incidentally this isn't just a war against Israelis. It is a war against Americans as well; 48 Americans murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorist since 1993. Yet, if I were a betting person, I'd wager that the terrorists who planned this will be let free unless Israel kills them first. The State Dept web site only refers to them as "groups opposed to Middle East negotiations." At the risk of repetition in my columns I would like to say once again: the Palestinians have tunnel vision because they have one cause only. That is the complete and utter destruction of the Jewish State of Israel. What part of destroy don't the self-haters get? Many of my readers have written me asking how I would prevent such an occurrence. I know the enemy is illiterate and has little conception of reality. Yet, they do, I believe, understand power. They also comprehend that the constant flow of checks to the families of the "martyred" homicide bombers is all the more reason to continue their policy of targeting innocent Israeli civilians and picking them off at will. That can and should be stopped immediately. The government seems to be attempting that by stemming the flow of funds into the so-called  charities" which support these terrorist groups. But more has to be done. Far more. And this is the time. The United States and the rest of the world do not, and probably never will, accept as genuine the Arab vows to destroy the Jewish state. In fact, we have a common enemy. Islamic terrorists have the same plans for the rest of the Western world. I think the Jewish state finally realizes that they could negotiate and give until there is absolutely nothing left to give and their Palestinian neighbors still wouldn't be happy as the ultimate goal is to drive every last Jew into the sea. So, knowing that maybe now is the time to speak in a language that they understand. No more bombing of the leaders' houses. The entire neighborhood will be told that every "homicide" bombing will result in 10% of land that Israel had given them under the imbecilic Oslo Accords will be taken back. No more of the house-to-house warnings that result in the needless deaths of Israeli soldiers. This time, flyers should be dropped and they will be told that unless they revolt against and eliminate the evil and corrupt leadership who have been banking the millions sent to them by the world that they never received, all hell is going to break loose from Israel. They have a week to decide and rid the terrorists and physically delivering them to Israel or Israel is going to do it for them, en masse. Notify them that they have already lost 10% of the land that has been turned over. Then send every F-16 in the Israeli air force loaded with bombs to take out every public facility like radio, television, and newspaper offices. All electric and water pump stations, phones, all those little tunnels that they like to build for arms-smuggling and the warehouses they keep them in. You know, all those things that we in the United States did to win our war in Iraq. Remember, while we were destroying the infrastructure we dropped them food and blankets. I'm sure the Israeli government would do no less. Notify them that 10% will be cleared with or without their approval and/or negotiations and no cease fire they arrange at the United Nations will change their mind. Tell them that they have 22 other Arab brother nations who would surely love to accommodate them but they will have to be out or lose the lives of their children (who they harvest to be martyrs anyway). The choice is theirs. They have a week to eliminate Arafat and his harbored terrorists or they will get their wish and become a dead martyrs with seventy-two virgins waiting for them. However, let it be known that the physical bodies of these terrorists will be wrapped in pigskin and buried. This repossession, they should be told, will occur in 10% increments every time Israeli civilians are targetted by homicide bombers. Then the same thing can be repeated with each occurrence. There will be violent protests from Israel's enemies around the world but that is business as usual. The time has come to have immediate talks with other world leaders and remind them that 86% of these so-called Palestinians originally resided in Jordan. The time is overdue to sit down with the king of Jordan and remind him of that fact and offer to work with all those billions of dollars that have been sent by the EU and Arab nations and the United Nations to help the Palestinians which never saw the light of day and went immediately into the coffers of Arafat and his thugs. Remind him that this could be a dawning of a new day if there could be a city built in Jordan from all these past wasted billions of dollars like was done in Brasilia which is now the capital of Brazil. It could be done with Israeli technology and put all those unemployed Arabs to work building this beautiful city. The world should be reminded over and over of this fact. And that Israel has experienced 9/11 one time too many. ARLENE PECK is an internationally syndicated columnist, television talk show hostess. This essay appeared on Jewish Indy (http://www.JewishIndy.com) and on John Ray's blog as: http://foxhunt.blogspot.com/2003_09_01_foxhunt_archive.html#106343398158

ISREALI WITHDRAWAL FROM THE WEST BANK Posted by Leo Rennert, September 12, 2003.

[Written in response to a New York Times editorial: "Middle East Math." Twin suicide bombings in Jerusalem and near Tel Aviv claim 15 lives. The death toll from an earlier suicide bombing in Jerusalem rises to 23. But the only "radical course shift" recommended by the Times is for Israel to pack up and leave the West Bank. That may be an end-game solution. But only after Palestinians abandon their dream of destroying Israel, permanently abandon terrorism and genuinely embrace a two-state solution. At this point, Israel's unilateral dismantling of all settlements would mean nothing less than national suicide. It would be seen on the other side as the ultimate triumph of Arafat and terrorism. Besides, the U.S.-brokered road map requires only a settlement freeze as a first-stage move - and only if the Palestinian authority promptly dismantles Hamas and other terror groups. But why should Israel at this stage offer any concessions at all while its children are blown to bits by homicide bombers? The Times' Middle East "Math" just doesn't add up.

THE DEBATE BETWEEN THE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES Posted by David Holcberg, September 12, 2003.

After listening to the debate between the Democratic presidential candidates, one conclusion is inescapable: they couldn't care less about America's security. If they did, they would have criticized Bush - not for attacking Iraq, but for not also attacking Saudi Arabia and Iran. Not for failing to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but for failing to identify militant Islam as our ideological enemy. Not for going to war against the wishes of the United Nations, but for even considering U.N. approval. Not for spending too much on the war on terror, but for spending too little. Not for failing to prevent the September 11 terrorist attacks, but for failing to act forcefully enough to prevent the next ones. But if Democrats changed their rhetoric and criticized Bush for all the above they would have to embrace self-interest as the basis for American foreign policy. But then they wouldn't be proper leftists, would they? David Holcberg is with the Ayn Rand Institute of Irvine, California.

THE BRIDE Posted by Steven Plaut, September 11, 2003.

The wedding invitation stated that in the cities of Judah and the outskirts of Jerusalem, the voices of brides and grooms would still be heard. The Prophet had guaranteed it. The preparations for the wedding had reached their climax. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. The dress was ready, the menu finalized, all the guests invited. And so it was less than twenty four hours before the first guests would arrive and the band strike up the music. It was the bride's last evening as an unwed woman, and what better way than to spend it with Dad. Wise Dad. Dad, the brilliant doctor from the hospital who saves so many lives. Dad, who understands so much about life. SO many things to talk about with him, on this - the last evening before marriage. Perhaps advice for her new life after the hupa. Thoughts about grandchildren. The wedding ceremony in Judaism cleanses the bride and groom of all sins. They not only start a new chapter in their lives, but also a new ledger with God. Unblemished, pure. But the plans were altered, unexpectedly. She did not make it to the hupa. Neither did her Dad. The wedding had to be called off. An expected guest showed up, invited in by the Israeli political elite. She and her Dad were murdered. The politicians of the Labor Party had turned the suburbs of Jerusalem over to serve as launch bases for nazi terrorists. One blew himself up at the cafe in which she and Dad sat. Both were killed. With several others. Her bridal mikva (purification bath) consisted of her own blood. She was killed because the Israeli Labor Party and the useful idiots who served as their fellow travelers imported thousands of terrorists, bankrolled and armed them, converted the West Bank and Gaza into rocket launchpads and murder training bases. She was killed because Israel never took any action against the families of any of the PREVIOUS suicide bombers. Had the family members of the first suicide bombers been killed discretely or even deported, her wedding band would be playing this evening. Many other brides would also have survived and danced at their own weddings, instead of having their DNA scraped off the street. Had Ariel Sharon used a real bomb instead of a small toy bomblet when his intelligence services located the entire Hamas leadership earlier this week, the wedding guests might be dancing this very evening into the wee hours. WIth the double satisfaction that Israel was at last warring against the nazis in earnest. But Sharon was afraid to wipe out the murderers. The White House might disapprove if "innocents" nearby were hit together with the nazis, the same White House that annihilated the sons of Saddam along with innocent bystanders and put their photos on the front pages of the media. And this morning, the family members of her murderer have not been killed. They have not been deported. Their village has not been bulldozed. That would be politically correct. The Israeli government regards them as "innocent." The remains of her murderer will be turned over to the Hamas as usual to be honored, worshipped and sanctified, rather than buried in a pigskin in some anonymous landfill. And the cowardice of the Israeli government, its unwillingness to fight, its defeatism, its devotion to victory-through-weakness, its refusal to implement R&D = Re-Occupation and Denazification (the only thing that will stop the bride slaughterers), all guarantees one thing. She will not be the last murdered bride. The Israeli government guarantees she will throw the bouquet of flowers, so that many other prospective brides will be sacrificed as human sacrifices to the Oslo pagan goddess. The Israeli government CHOOSES this. Because the alternative to that scenario involves bad press and unpleasant public relations. This is her wedding invitation.

AMONG THE MURDERED: Dr. David appelbaum and his daughter Nava Posted by Jules Segal, September 11, 2003.

The tragedy of the Jerusalem attack was multiplied several-fold when it was learned that among the murdered were Dr. David Appelbaum and his daughter Nava. Dr. Appelbaum was the director of the emergency room of Shaarei Tzedek Medical Center, who dealt with hundreds of other victims of terrorist attacks and to whom his colleagues said "thousands owed their lives" - and his daughter Nava was to be married tonight. The two had gone to have a last pre-wedding father-daughter talk. Dr. Appelbaum had returned just a few hours earlier from the United States, where he had spoken about how hospitals should prepare for mass terror attacks. Dr. Appelbaum's wife and five remaining children gathered in the Shaarei Tzedek emergency room - "their second home," some said - upon hearing the news, and Chanan Sand, Nava's intended groom, broke down, requiring medical treatment. Doctors and nurses stood around crying, even as ambulances continued to bring in other wounded patients. They were barely able to absorb the fact that instead of going to the joyous wedding planned for tonight, they would be attending the double funeral of the bride and her father. Natan Appelbaum, the youngest son of the family, said that he had gone to sleep early "to be ready for the wedding," when he "suddenly awoke to the screaming sirens of ambulances, and I had a bad feeling." At those very moments, his father's colleague Dr. Yitzchak Glick, who arrived on the scene to deal with the wounded, was identifying one of the dead as Natan's father. "He was one of the '36 righteous men' of the world," Natan said. "His whole life was dedicated to saving lives." Dr. Yonatan HaLevy, director of Shaarei Tzedek, said that the hospital had suffered a grave loss, while other doctors spoke of a "great Torah scholar," a "sparkling personality," and a "model family man." Stories about Dr. Appelbaum began sprouting as soon as word of his death became known. It was said that he was always one of the first to go to an attack, and that he had developed improved methods for administering emergency treatment. He was also the founder of the Terem Emergency Clinic in Jerusalem, which now has chapters in Maaleh Adumim and Modiin. Chaim Ben-Daniel, a Jerusalem acquaintance, told Arutz-7 that the doctor stopped trimming his beard after the signing of the Oslo Accords "as a sign of mourning for what he knew was a tragedy for the Jewish People." As busy as his schedule was, "Dr. Appelbaum told me that he set aside one night a week to travel to Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh [near Ashdod] to study with his son." Prof. Moshe Spero, Dr. Appelbaum's brother-in-law, said, "Everything was ready for the wedding - and it turns out to be a mourning ceremony." Thousands of people, many of whom had prepared to attend Nava's wedding that very night, arrived at the Shamgar Funeral Home for the double funeral. The two were first eulogized by Nava's grandfather, Bar Ilan Prof. Rabbi Shubert Spero, who cried and spoke about his "beautiful granddaughter who performed her year of National Service with the most severely ill children." He stated that Israel, Jerusalem, and his family had suffered a tremendous loss with the deaths of the rabbi-doctor and his daughter. Rabbi Spero was followed by former Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, who said, "When I saw Dr. Appelbaum and his teacher Rabbi Aharon Soloveitchik, I saw a perfect example of a student honoring and serving his master." He spoke about the way Dr. Appelbaum combined the best of Torah study and the best of medicine; the deceased in fact gave a weekly Torah class in Midreshet Moriah adjacent to the hospital. Rabbi Lau further said that he saw the faces of the wounded in the #2 bus bombing light up when they saw Dr. Appelbaum. Other speakers were Tzvi Sand, father of the would-be groom, and two sons/brothers of the two victims. Chanan Sand, who was to have married Nava tonight, took the ring he had intended to place on her finger, and placed it instead atop her shrouded body as she was lowered into the ground. Today more than ever - Wear a pendant of the Greater Land of Israel with pride.

DID THEY TAKE A BUS FROM JAIL? Posted by Eliezar Edwards, September 11, 2003.

This was in Arutz Sheva (http://www.IsraelNN.com) today. Weren't we reassured by the Israeli Government that the Arabs let out of jail weren't terrorists? Hamas Suicide Bombers Were Released From Jail: The two Hamas suicide bombers responsible for this week's attacks in Jerusalem and Rishon L'Tzion were recently released by Israel, Arutz-7's Haggai Huberman reports. The two, residents of the Ramallah area village of Rantis, were taken into administrative custody last autumn and recently included in prison releases by Israel.

POWELL VETOS ISRAELI GOVERNMENT DECISION TO ACT AGAINST ARAFAT Posted by David Bedein, September 11, 2003.

This evening, Israeli intelligence provided evidence to a special session of the Israeli security cabinet which proved that Arafat has been directly responsible for months of terror activity, in coordination with the Hamas and the Al Aksa brigades of the Fateh. Such confirmed Israeli intelligence reports caused the Israeli government security cabinet to order direct military action against Arafat - to kill him or to deport him back to Tunis. However, Israel Government's IBA TV and IBA Radio reported within minutes of the Israeli cabinet decision that US Sec'y of State Colin Powell intervened to veto any IDF action against Arafat. Sources in the Israeli government quoted US state department sources as describing Arafat as "an American interest which is essential to the peace process and to stability in the region." Yet ever since President George W. Bush decided more than a year ago to deepen his involvement in the middle east quagmire, it had been the policy of the Bush administration to implement a middle east policy without Yassir Arafat. Bush went so far as to revoke the frequent flier tickets that Arafat had to the White House under Clinton. Yes, it had been the adamant Bush policy to do everything possible to ignore Arafat, to weaken Arafat, and to coordinate a policy with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of making Arafat into an "irrelevant" figure in the middle east negotiation process. And yet every step of the way in which Abu Mazen (remember him?) had been brought into the picture as prime minister, Abu Mazen made it quite clear that so long as Arafat is around, he will most certainly be running the PLO ship. Indeed, when Abu Mazen appeared before the US House International Relations Committee on July 24, 2003, the first question of Middle East Subcommittee Chairperson Ileana Ros-Leighten was very simple: "What is your relationship to Arafat?" to which Abu Mazen answered in clear, simple terms: "Arafat sent me. I am the representative of Yassir Arafat." It was as if Abu Mazen had expressed a Arabic version of Lincoln's famous adage that "you can fool some of the people some of the time." The masquerade of the US foreign policy supposedly ignoring Arafat came to an end after the August 19th Arab terror massacre in Jerusalem, in which twenty Jewish men, women and children were murdered. Following that massacre, US Secretary of State Colin Powell stood next to UN Sec'y Gen'l Kofi Annan and told the UN on August 21st that "I call on Chairman Arafat to work with Prime Minister Abbas and to make available to Prime Minister Abbas those security elements that are under his control." Powell made it a point to use the term "make available" - not "transfer," and dropped the key precondition of America's launching of the road map, with Arafat seemingly out of the picture and not in control of any armed forces. In other words, Arafat isn't out of the picture - and he was never out of the picture. Yet the pretext for the US resuming the military training of Palestinian security forces were that there were some PA security forces that were not beholden to Arafat. Well, that illusion is out of the way. Yet the US continues to train Arafat's militias in Jericho. And to further pour salt on the wound, Powell also declared to the UN on August 21st that he compared those who opposed a PLO state with those who conducted acts of heinous murder, concluding his remarks by saying that "The alternative is what? Just more death and destruction? Let the terrorists win? Let those who have no interest in a Palestinian state win? Let those who have no interest but killing innocent people win? No. That is not an acceptable outcome." And now that Powell has revived Arafat as the real and present PLO leader who carries all power, this will dash any notion that this is the "new leadership, not compromised by terror" that President George W. Bush spoke of in his seminal June 24th policy speech of last year. You cannot fool all of the people all of the time. Arafat has never left his leadership role and will never voluntarily do so - especially with his renewed US State Department support. You cannot fool all of the people all of the time. The question remains: Has the US Congress, which advises and consents the US Administration in matters of foreign policy, given its consent to US Secretary of State Colin Powell to keep Arafat in power? Has the US Congress indeed decided that Arafat is "an American interest which is essential to the peace process and to stability in the region." Time will tell on Capitol Hill. David Bedein is Bureau Chief of the Israel Resource News Agency (http://www.israelbehindthenews.com).

KILL - DON'T EXPEL - ARAFAT Posted by David Holcberg, September 11, 2003.

The Jerusalem Post's editorial calling for killing - not expelling - Arafat is right on target, even if years too late. Arafat has been a terrorist murderer for decades and deserves exactly the same fate as bin Laden deserves. While there has been no shortage of excuses and rationalizations to leave Arafat alone, the fact remains that no solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is possible with Arafat alive. Exiling him would be a mockery of justice and would not stop him from inciting further terrorism against Israel. Taking him out would not only advance the prospects for peace in the region but would show to every Palestinian terrorist that Israel means business and that the days of moral cowardice and appeasement towards its enemies are over; it would show that Israel will no longer cave in to "world opinion" or to pressure from American presidents. It is a shame that the Sharon and the Bush Administrations have still not decided to kill the murderer. As long as they remain oblivious to the need to carry out justice, the blood of innocent Israelis will not stop flowing.

ROAD SIGNS TO SEPTEMBER 11th Posted by Dr. Asher Eder, September 11, 2003.

The Sept.11 attack on the Pentagon and the Twin Towers was surprising to many in its two aspects: that it happened at all; and that it was carried out in breathtaking planning and in efficiency. This showed that it was masterminded not merely by fringe rascals. The fact that it happened, however, was surprising only to those who could not - or did not want to - read the map. It did not come as a lightning from a bright cloudless sky. Let's try to read the map, at least retrospectively. 1) The Arab/Islamic world has from its early days developed the idea that all the world would have to be converted to the denomination of Islam. This idea, although worked up from the Koran, is not backed by it: the Koran acknowledges Jewish Prophets (e.g. Elijah; Elisha; King David), and even pre-Abrahamic figures like Noah and Adam, as Muslim. In addition, the Koran quotes as a word from Allah that He willed to create different nations (peoples) each with its own specific ordinances and calls. In spite of that clear dictum, Muslim scholars and clergy [if I may be allowed to use that Christian term in our context] declared the world as divided into two realms: the realm of the Dar-es-Salaam identified as that part of the world where Islam rules; and the realm of the Dar-el-Hareb (literally the "rule of the sword") identified as the rest of the nations which are not yet governed by Muslim law but which would have to be brought to accept Islamic rule, and rulers, if necessary by war. The two major attempts made so-far in that vein, had failed: the first advance of the Muslim Arab armies towards Rome was thwarted in 711 by Charles Martelle; and the second attempt carried out by Turkish Muslim armies from the Balkans via Vienna was thwarted by Prince Eugene. But, as an age-old Arab/Muslim slogan has it, one has to make three efforts to achieve the goal, with the third being the decisive one... 2) Islam, once the leading world power culturally and militarily, began to decline with the destruction of its cultural center, Baghdad, by the Mongols in 1254. The military victory at the very same century over the Crusaders did not lead to political or cultural advances - on the contrary, the European powers gained the upper hand, so much so that they could subjugate even Muslim nations and treat them like colonies. When the European powers weakened themselves in WWI & WWII and the Turkish Empire collapsed, Muslim and Arab nationalistic movements could thrive and infuse new hope into their societies. 3) The Balfour Declaration of 1918 brought another, and decisive turning point: the attempt to establish a national Jewish home in the Land of Palestine (as the English called the land, taking up that ancient Roman term), that is, in the realm of what was considered "Dar-es-Salaam" since Khaliph Omar in the 8th century. While some Arab/Muslim leaders like King Feisal of Iraq and Sheikh Abdallah of Transjordan were ready to accept the Jews back in their ancient homeland, others under the lead of Mufti Amin el-Husseini gained the upper hand in their adamant and violent hostility against any return of the Jews. The newly established Arab League supported the Mufti's efforts on the political national and international level. In WWII Amin el-Husseini who had established close ties with nazi leaders, went to Germany, and called in 1943 from Radio Berlin to wage a Jihad against the Jews, and "kill them wherever you find them - this would be pleasing to Allah." He also raised two Muslim SS-divisions (from Muslims of the Balkan and of Southern Russia then under German occupation), in support of the German war efforts. 4) He was caught in 1945 by the French but instead of bringing him to trial together with other war criminals, they released him shortly after to Cairo. In co-operation with the Arab League, he was decisively instrumental in organizing the violent resistance against any immigration of Jewish refugees from Europe. In the ensuing civic war, his gangs fought against Jews and British alike - but England did not bring him to justice either. 5) The newly established United Nations, on behest of England as the Mandatory Power over "Palestine," debated the fate of the latter. In their famous Declaration of Nov. 29, 1947, their majority had voted to divide the Land of "Palestine," and establish therein a Jewish State besides an Arab Palestine State. 6) The Arab states, and along with them most of the other Muslim states, had not only voted against the establishment of a Jewish state - that is, a non-Muslim entity on a territory conceived to be part of the Dar-es-Salaam - they tried by all means to prevent Israel coming into existence: seven Arab states sent their armies in the war of 1948 against that newly established State of Israel. The Transjordanians succeeded in taking the so-called West Bank and East Jerusalem, but instead of establishing a Palestinian state, they incorporated these areas into their state, and re-named it The Kingdom of Jordan. Not abiding by a majority vote of the UNO; sending regular armies against one of its legally recognized member states; and annexing a territory against an UNO decision amounts to a plain defiance of the latter in these three points. The UNO swallowed that snub - the first one in a long chain of defiances to follow: a) the "Arab League" waged a propaganda and economic war against Israel (the notorious "Arab boycott" of Israel being one of their many actions). b) They organized and supported guerilla groups (now spoken of as terror groups) to undermine Israel from within, and openly proclaimed as their goal the destruction of Israel. Some groups hand out this war of theirs as the Muslim's religious duty, while others do it in the garb of national liberation movements. The most notorious among the latter is Arafat's PLO = Palestine Liberation Organization, a term coined for political conveniences mainly in the arena of international relations; while his (adopted) name Arafat is a highly charged religious term which as a nom de guerre serves to drive home the point to Arabic speaking Muslims. Although the PLO's charter defined the term "Palestine" as the territory stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, and thus included the territory of the State of Israel (meaning the elimination of the latter), Arafat and his PLO were -and are- widely supported by all Arab/Muslim states: financially, politically, propagandistically, etc - again in defiance of the UNO and against one of its member states, Israel. The UNO swallowed that as a given. c) What is more, when the PLO's chieftain, Yassir Arafat, was invited to address a UNO plenary session and showed up in uniform, brandishing an olive branch in one hand, and a pistol in the other - he was applauded, despite the threefold transgressions of the UNO Charter: (1) he was invited although he does not represent a recognized state; (2) the very name PLO advocates the elimination of a member state, Israel; and (3) no weapons are allowed in the UNO compound. 7) Besides the war of 1948, Arab states waged two major wars to destroy Israel (in 1967, and in 1973) but were never taken to account by the UNO which should have come forth in protection of Israel as one of its member states. By this inaction of theirs, along with the above mentioned ones, the UNO as such as well as its individual member states acknowledge de facto the Islamic concept of Dar-es-Salaam versus Dar-el-Hareb. This inaction with its implied acknowledgment brings even moderate Muslim states and individuals under the sway of Arafat and the likes of him. 8) Equally overlooked by the non-Muslim world are the "Proceedings of the Fourth Conference of the Academy of Islamic Studies." The Conference convened on behest of Gaml Abd-el-Nassr, then President of Egypt, in Sept. 1969 at the Al-Azhar University, Cairo. It outlined the rules for the Jihad to be waged against Israel. Support of Israel was denounced as a "challenge of Muslim peoples, a demonstration of enmity toward them and a total disregard of their sentiments" (pages 921, 924). The "Proceedings" of that Conference were published and distributed by Egypt's "General Organization of Government Printing Offices," Cairo 1970. At least thereby did the government of Egypt back the "Jihad" against Israel, as well as the declaration of any support for Israel as "enmity toward the Muslim people." 9) Lebanon is on the one hand treated as an independent nation, but on the other hand is not held responsible for allowing terrorist groups (first the PLO and other Palestinian groups; then Amal and Hizbollah) to operate from its territory against Israel. 10) Israeli soldiers and an American Jew could be taken hostages by those terrorist groups, but Lebanon is not held responsible, rather Israel is forced to negotiate with these terrorist groups (indirectly, with the help of third parties). For, as rumors go, Lebanon is under Syrian occupation. 11) Syria which attacked Israel in 1948; in 1966/7; and in 1973, is rewarded for this clever politics of hers with a seat in the Security Council - something which is denied to Israel for "technical reasons" (as Israel has not yet internationally recognized border lines, and therefore can be attacked till its disappearance from the map allows re-establishing the Dar-es-Salaam in the Near East). 12) Iraq's deputy prime minister, Mr. Aziz, could recently - that is, shortly before the USA and Britain toppled Saddam's regime - declare in a plenary session of the UNO that his country's support for Palestinian suicide bombers does not constitute backing terror, rather it should be understood as aiding freedom fighters - and he could go away with that remark without getting reprimanded. The UNO simply swallowed this remark of his. 13) The "Road Map" with its promise of an independent Palestinian State by 2005 must be conceived by the Arab/Muslim states as a proof that their politics of combining membership in the UNO with defying the core reason of its existence along with supporting all kind of terror groups has softened Israel and the USA (not to speak of Europe), and is paying out handsomely. If so, more terror attacks can be expected... 14) The above should not be understood as an attempt to declare the "West" free of any sin. Who in this world could claim to be without sin and guilt? And could "throw the first stone?" There are ways to solve our problems, and perhaps we will look for them once the situation deteriorates to the unbearable. The points raised above are only a few of the examples that could be offered, but they are sufficient to demonstrate that the UNO has become a travesty of its original purposes. True, General Secretary, Mr. Kofi Anan, recently said that the UNO would not allow Israel's destruction. Well spoken - but what backing do these words have? So far, these words of his are not backed by congruent actions. The UNO's very intention to create a Palestinian state on Israel's homeland, amounts to Israel's mutilation and ensuing destruction. If the struggle were a confrontation between two religions, it would perhaps be asking too much of the UNO to deal with it, as this would be beyond its capacity and raison d'etre as a political body. But the Arab/Israel conflict is a political confrontation, under the guise of religious motifs and in plain distortion of the Koran). It took the Sept.11 attack on the Pentagon and the WTC to awaken the USA, at least to some degree, to the harsh facts. But the UNO goes on, entangled in its dichotomy, apparently unaware that untruthfulness will eventually have its revenge on those who champion it. Dr. Asher Eder is Jewish Co-Chairman, Islam-Israel Fellowship Root and Branch Assoc. Ltd in Yerushalyim, Israel.

IT'S A WAR Posted by Yuval Zaliouk, September 10, 2003.

Dear friends, Here is today's Jerusalem Post Editorial of September 10, 2003: ENOUGH. I think it depicts the general mood in Israel which is: It's a war and needs to be fought as such. This has been my view for three years. The world will not help us; we must help ourselves. We must kill as many of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders as possible, as quickly possible, while minimizing collateral damage, but not letting that damage stop us. And we must kill Yasser Arafat, because the world leaves us no alternative. No one seriously argues with the fact that Arafat was preventing Mahmoud Abbas, the prime minister he appointed, from combating terrorism, to the extent that was willing to do so. Almost no one seriously disputes that Abbas on whom Israel, the US, and Europe had placed all their bets failed primarily because Arafat retained control of much of the security apparatus, and that Arafat wanted him to fail. The new prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, clearly will fare no better, since he, if anything, has been trying to garner more power for Arafat, not less. Under these circumstances, the idea of exiling Arafat is gaining currency, but the standard objection is that he will be as much or more of a problem when free to travel the world than he is locked up in Ramallah. If only three countries Britain, France, and Germany joined the US in a total boycott of Arafat this would not be the case. If these countries did not speak with Arafat, it would not matter much who did, and however much a local Palestinian leader would claim to consult with Arafat, his power would be gone. But such a boycott will not happen. Only now, after more than 800 Israelis have died in three years of suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks, has Europe finally decided that Hamas is a terrorist organization. How much longer will it take before it cuts off Arafat? Yet Israel cannot accept a situation in which Arafat blocks any Palestinian break with terrorism, whether from here or in exile. Therefore, we are at another point in our history at which the diplomatic risks of defending ourselves are exceeded by the risks of not doing so. Such was the case in the Six Day War, when Israel was forced to launch a preemptive attack or accept destruction. And when Menachem Begin decided to bomb the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981. And when Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield in Palestinian cities after the Passover Massacre of 2002. In each case, Israel tried every fashion of restraint, every plea to the international community to take action that would avoid the need for "extreme" measures, all to no avail. When the breaking point arrives, there is no point in taking half-measures. If we are going to be condemned in any case, we might as well do it right. Arafat's death at Israel's hands would not radicalize Arab opposition to Israel; just the opposite. The current jihad against us is being fueled by the perception that Israel is blocked from taking decisive action to defend itself. Arafat's survival and power are a test of the proposition that it is possible to pursue a cause through terror and not have that cause rejected by the international community. Killing Arafat, more than any other act, would demonstrate that the tool of terror is unacceptable, even against Israel, even in the name of a Palestinian state. Arafat does not just stand for terror, he stands for the refusal to make peace with Israel under any circumstances and within any borders. In this respect, there is no distinction, beyond the tactical, between him and Hamas. Europe's refusal to utterly reject him condemns Palestinians, no less than Israelis, to endless war and dooms the possibility of the two-state solution the world claims to seek. While the prospect of a Palestinian power vacuum is feared by some, the worst of all worlds is what exists now: Terrorists attack Israel at will under the umbrella of legitimacy provided by Arafat. Hamas would not be able to fill a post-Arafat vacuum; on the contrary, Hamas would lose the cover it has today. A word must be said here about the most common claim made by those who would not isolate Arafat, let alone kill him: that he is the elected leader of the Palestinian people. Even if Arafat was chosen in a truly free election (when does his term end?), which we would dispute, this does not close the question of his legitimacy. Whom the Palestinians choose to lead them is none of our business, provided it is a free choice, and provided they do not opt for leaders who choose terror and aggression. So long as the Palestinians choose such a leadership, it should be held no more immune to counterattack by Israel than the Taliban and Saddam Hussein were by the United States. We complain that a double standard is applied to us, and it is. But we cannot complain when we apply that double standard to ourselves. Arafat's survival, under our watchful eyes, is living testimony to our tolerance of that double standard. If we want another standard to be applied, we must begin by applying it ourselves.

10 YEARS OF OSLO Posted by Michael Freud, September 10, 2003.

Israeli police are on high alert, Palestinian terrorists have been firing mortar rounds at Ashkelon and Gush Katif, people are afraid to ride the buses, and Hamas is promising more violence - welcome to this week's tenth anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords. When Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat reached across the White House Lawn and shook hands back on September 13, 1993, guided toward each other by a beaming Bill Clinton, those in attendance burst into applause, their shouts of joy clearly audible on news footage of the event. But the roar of the crowd has long since abated, replaced by the deafening sound of explosions, terror and death. Oslo was quickly revealed to be a fool's bet, one in which the future of an entire country was placed into the hands of its unrepentant foe. Never before has a country so strong yielded so much to an enemy so weak, and never before has a government so brazenly endangered the fate of its own people. Behold the hard facts: in the ten years prior to Oslo, a total of 211 Israelis were killed by Palestinian terror, while in the ten years since the agreement, that number has risen to 1,110, an increase of over 426%. Oslo failed to bring peace, and it failed to put an end to Palestinian terror. It did not unify the nation, nor did it give birth to economic prosperity. Instead, Oslo's legacy can be found in cemeteries throughout the country, in hospital wards and rehabilitation centers, in the scars and prosthetic devices that its victims will carry with them forever. "History." the late historian Barbara Tuchman once said, "is the unfolding of miscalculation," and she might as well have been referring to Israel's dealings with the PLO. Although the Palestinians never lived up to their part of the bargain, Israel persisted in signing agreements with them. There was the 1994 Cairo Agreement, the 1995 Oslo 2 Accords, the 1997 Hebron deal and the 1998 Wye agreement. Refusing to acknowledge its error, Israel dug itself ever deeper into the hole, turning over more land, only to receive more funerals in return. The transcript of failure is extensive and heartbreaking, but it cannot be ignored. As far back as December 1994, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said, "Arafat is not taking enough action against Hamas. I would expect better results in the fight against terrorism" (The Jerusalem Post, December 6, 1994). And Shimon Peres, mastermind of Oslo, admitted back in March 1995 that, "Yasser Arafat must show more willpower, more character in his fight against terror. If he is too weak to do that or lacks the will, why should we negotiate with him at all?' But negotiate with him is exactly what Israel continued to do, and here we are ten years later, with Arafat still in control and Jews still dying. Yet even after the past decade's horrors, our government still doesn't get it. They now talk about expelling Arafat, but leaving the Palestinian Authority in place, as though installing a new 'godfather' will make the Mafia any less of a criminal organization. They still don't realize that the problem is not just Arafat or Abu Mazen or Abu Whoever, it is the existence of the Palestinian Authority itself, which is little more than a hothouse for terror, corruption and bloodshed. Remember, this experiment of establishing a Palestinian entity has not been going on for a year or two or three. It has been going on for a decade, for ten long and painful years, years filled with unprecedented suffering and violence. It is time to call it quits, to say 'enough is enough', and stop proceeding down a path that has failed again and again. Oslo is an experiment whose time has passed. Only a 'mad scientist' would be willing to press forward with it. The only way out of the current morass is for Israel to reassert full control over Judea, Samaria and Gaza, dismantle the Palestinian Authority and destroy the infrastructure of terror. It won't be clean, and it won't be pretty, but a government's first priority is to protect its citizens, not to appease international public opinion. At the root of Oslo lay a dangerous mix of defeatism, despair and gloom, which brought to power a government that was prepared to forsake our national patrimony. Oslo's practitioners were ready to withdraw from Jewish history, and undercut Jewish destiny, questioning our very right to be on this sacred soil. If the past ten years teach us anything, it should be that forgoing our Divine and eternal right to this Land inevitably leads to an erosion in our security and well-being. The two are inextricably linked, and we must no longer shy away from making this clear to the world. The first step toward healing this nation is to heal the rift in the Land, and to reclaim what is rightfully ours. We spent the past decade trying to divide it, and look where that has gotten us. The time for retreat is over. Now, let us move forward, and advance, and take back our Land, once and for all. The writer served as Deputy Director of Communications and Policy Planning in the Prime Minister's Office under former premier Benjamin Netanyahu.

WHAT ARE WE THINKING? Posted by JINSA Reports. September 10, 2003.

Part 1. JINSA Report #358: Apparently without notice to Congress, the Bush administration has permitted Saudi Arabia to base US-supplied F-15 aircraft at Tabuk airbase, less than 150 km from Israel. This abandons written assurances made by the Carter administration to Congress at the time of the sale and constitutes both a serious threat to and a potentially destabilizing provocation of Israel. The assurances provided by Secretary of Defense Harold Brown to Congress in 1978 were threefold. - The planes were defensive in nature. "It would be folly... to use the F-15 offensively... Not only would the F-15 be relatively ineffective in an offensive mode, and the risk of loss of the aircraft high, but its use away from Saudi Arabia would leave vital oil facilities, urban centers and military installations without necessary air defense cover." - Saudi Government assurances. "It has no aggressive intentions against any state, that it will use the F-15 aircraft only in furtherance of its legitimate self-defense, and that it will not employ the aircraft offensively... transfer the F-15 aircraft to any third country or permit the nationals of such country to train on the F-15 aircraft, serve as pilots, or otherwise to have access to the aircraft without the authorization of the United States." - The planes would be based far from Israel. "Assurance (has been) given to me and other United States officials by the Saudi Arabian Government that Saudi Arabia will base the F-15 aircraft, not at Tabuk, but at Dhahran, Taif and possibly at Riyadh or Khamis Mushait." For 25 years, these stabilizing assurances made the planes a relatively small part of Israel's threat picture. However, during the Iraq war the US ended the basing restriction in exchange for overflight rights for US planes and missiles. Israel has asked the US to make the Saudis move them back out of quick strike range. Whatever the US wanted from Saudi Arabia, it should not have been paid for in the currency of Israel's security or long-term commitments from the administration to Congress. For both reasons, Congress should insist on an immediate return to status quo ante or avail itself of the option presented by Secretary Brown. The Saudi government, he wrote, "assured us that they intend scrupulously to comply with these prohibitions and restrictions... However, should the assurances be violated, the United States can take appropriate action, including suspension of services and of delivery of spare parts and other military equipment. Without such services the usability of the F-15 would degrade rapidly." The same should be true if the US government violates its own assurances. Part 2. JINSA Report #359: So what if Saudi Arabia moves its US-origin F-15s to Tabuk Air Base, 150 km from Israel? So what if the administration changed its mind about a 25-year-old pledge to Congress? It isn't as if the Saudis have produced a lot of terrific pilots in that time. It isn't as if anyone seriously thinks the Saudi Air Force is going to go up against the Israeli Air Force. And if it is so foolish as to do so, surely no one thinks it could win. So what? The "what" is that as times have changed, the nature of the threat to Israel has changed and of the three main assurances provided in the letter to Congress from then-Defense Secretary Brown, only one continues to be relevant. First, he wrote, the Saudis would only use the plane defensively. "It would make no sense whatsoever for Saudi Arabia to acquire an aircraft with the characteristics of the F-15 with an idea of using it as a ground attack aircraft." Secondarily, the Saudi government assured the US that only Saudi nationals would fly the planes. As Americans painfully learned, the plane doesn't have to be used as a "ground attack aircraft" or as an aircraft at all. It can be used as a missile, and it wouldn't take many, or particularly well-trained people to affect great tragedy. And the question of Saudi-only pilots rings hollow, as Saudis were themselves chief among the September 11th hijackers. While by no means perfect, only time and space - at best the distance from a southern Saudi airbase rather than the northern base at Tabuk - offer even a minimal opportunity for the IAF to intercept and destroy a terrorist plane headed for Israel. Speaking this week at a conference in Israel on international terrorism, Israel's Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, told the audience, "We learned that al-Qaeda attempted to recruit Saudi pilots to use and F-15 or civilian plane for a suicide air attack on Israel, possibly from Tabuk." Could it happen? Surely we don't know. But knowing what we do know, it seems the height of indifference to Israel's security for the administration to have ended a policy that served everyone's interest, including the Saudi interest, for 25 years. Moving the front line north, added to uncertainty over the stability of the Saudi regime and the degree of Saudi participation in terrorism, will increase the nervousness of any likely target of Saudi-based terrorism - Israel, of course, but also American assets and allies in Iraq and the Gulf - and will require at least planning for fully justified pre-emption. Maj. Gen. Ya'alon said, "We are concerned about it and demand [the F-15 deployment] be changed." Congress should be concerned about it as well. Finally: Over the weekend, the EU added Hamas's "political and social wings" to the list of terrorist organizations, making it possible for European security organizations to fully cooperate with the US and Israel. The Jinsa Reports are published by the Jewish Institute For National Security Affairs (JINSA). The website address for the reports is http://www.jinsa.org/lists/subscribe.html

HOW LONG MUST WE CONTINUE TO BE TERRORIZED? Posted by Gary M. Cooperberg, September 10, 2003.

Ever since we were saddled with the Oslo agreement it seems that a veil of stupidity has fallen over even those who claim to be "right wing." Actually it began long before Oslo. It really began when the political hacks in this country first began to fear that Rabbi Kahane might attract a serious following. Much time, effort, and money were put into a consistent program designed to portray the rabbi as an evil "extremist." At one point the B'nai Brith Anti-defamation league was called in to create a complete defamation campaign to demonize the Rabbi in the Israeli media. The term "Kahanism" was coined as an equivalent to racism. As a result of this rabid hatred of one man who wasn't afraid to openly state the Truth of which the rest were deathly afraid, the political clique devoted tremendous energy to declare Truth to be falsehood. Despite the clear and obvious fact that Arab Islam cannot tolerate Jewish sovereignty anywhere in the Middle East, and we now see how many are prepared to sacrifice their very lives for this axiom, a holy principle was declared that, no matter what happens, we must live with our Arab enemies. Thousands of Jewish men, women and children have been brutally butchered in murderous attacks in our streets and marketplaces and still our leaders pretend that it is only a "few radicals" who are preventing peace from descending. Even today, should someone suggest removing our Arab population from our homeland, that person would be vilified as a "racist." Yet we are engaged in a deathly struggle which will never cease until either Jews or Arabs are taken out of the equation. Given the hideous axiom that we have no choice but to learn to live with our "neighbors," it is we who guarantee continued terror. There is no doubt that, among the vast majority of our enemies, there are some who would be willing to accept living under Jewish sovereignty in peace. But, as in all wars, innocent people suffer. To attempt to have a war in which no innocents are harmed is to make our own innocent population vulnerable to attack, which we can clearly see is already happening. When a brutal and vicious war is being conducted against us, there is no place for negotiation and compromise. In war there is only one rule: win. Unless winning is on the agenda we are inviting terror and self-destruction. We can win and we should win. For a government to decide not to win is to abdicate its responsibility to govern. It is criminal negligence in its lowest form. The most basic justification for a government to exist is to protect those whom it governs. When it fails to do this it has no justification to govern. Placing roadblocks all over the country may prevent some attacks or even most attacks. But it cannot stop terror as we can see even today. There is only one "peace plan" that will work. We must decisively defeat our enemies. All Arabs who call themselves "palestinians" must be driven from our homeland. Any physical resistance must be met with a brutal and deathly response. There is no other choice. Gary Cooperberg begain Project Shofar (http://www.projectshofar.org). He comes to the USA frequently on speaking tours about Zionist Redemption. To invite him to speak, contact him at gary@projectshofar.org. This essay originally appeared in the "Voice From Hebron."

ARAFAT STILL PULLS THE STRINGS Posted by Ruth Matar, September 10, 2003.

Here we go again. Musical chairs with Yasser Arafat turning the music on and off. Same old story with a new face. It doesn't matter who the Palestinian Prime Minister is, Arafat is still the one pulling the strings. Next in line now after Abu Mazen, who resigned after a power struggle with Yasser Arafat, is Abu Ala. Let me tell you about Abu Ala. Abu Ala, along with Abu Mazen, has been associated with Arafat almost since the founding of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1964. Abu Ala joined the leadership of the PLO in 1965, TWO YEARS BEFORE the 1967 Arab attack on Israel. This was a defensive war for Israel, and the L-rd gave us an incredible miracle - the repossession of our Biblical heartland, Judea and Samaria. The crucial question is: What were Arafat, Abu Mazen and Abu Ala et al planning to 'liberate' in 1965, when Judea and Samaria were still occupied by Jordan's King Hussein? The occupation of Judea and Samaria by Jordan, at that time, was only recognized by two countries, Great Britain and Pakistan! From the very beginning of the founding of the PLO, the goal was the annihilation of Israel by any means whatsoever. Arafat, Abu Mazen and Abu Ala are truly blood brothers and the Jewish Oslo architects, Peres, Beilin, and the rest, made the most horrendous, unforgivable mistake by believing that this Arab Murder, Inc. could or would promote peaceful co-existence. The future of an entire country was placed into the hands of its unrepentant foe. The ominous signs where there immediately after the signing of the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn. On the very evening after this signing, Arafat went on Jordanian television to reassure his followers that his goals had not changed despite his handshake with Rabin and Peres. Israel's leaders unfortunately wanted peace so badly, that they ignored all the dangerous signs, and imported the 'Tunisian Gang', with its leader Yasser Arafat; prominent amongst these murderers were Abu Mazen and Abu Ala. In the ten years since Oslo, since Israel made a pact with the PLO, 1,122 Israelis have been murdered and thousands have been maimed for life. 1,122 people murdered, in American terms, means 56,100 dead. Would the US stand for such terror? Should such terror be rewarded with a State carved out of what remains of the Holy Land after Britain in 1922 gave three quarters of it to a Hashemite tribal Chief, who then named this area Jordan? Now to Tuesday's Arab attacks on Israelis. Early yesterday morning my daughter-in-law and co-leader of Women in Green, Nadia Matar, averted a terror attack on children on their way to school. I have already sent you an email regarding this miracle. Later in the day, at about 5:55 PM, Israeli time, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a bus stop crowded with soldiers and civilians. The explosion ripped through the crowd, murdering eight and wounding fifteen, six of them seriously. At 11:15 PM, Israeli time, a suicide bomber detonated himself inside the entrance of a Cafe in central Jerusalem, murdering at least seven and wounding some sixty plus patrons, eight of them seriously. Was all this retaliation for the failed attack on Hamas leaders on Saturday night? The Israeli attack was on a meeting of Hamas leaders, which included Achmed Yassin himself, planning major terrorism against Israel. Why did this Israeli operation fail? Unfortunately, Sharon and Senior Defense Officials decided to use a SMALLER BOMB in order to reduce collateral damage. The hit was accurate, but destroyed only the third floor of the building where the meeting was held, allowing the Hamas terrorist leaders to escape virtually unharmed. Can you imagine President Bush ordering the use of a smaller bomb on a building where Saddam Hussein might be hiding? A senior official in Sharon's entourage in India said that Sharon - who was involved in the decision to use a smaller bomb to reduce collateral damage - does not regret his decision. It is widely believed that Hamas leaders would have been killed had a more powerful bomb been used! Maybe, if a more powerful bomb had been used, Dr. David Appelbaum, head of Shaare Zedek Emergency Room, would still be alive. His 20 year old daughter, Nava, who was with him in the cafe, was also murdered. Her wedding was supposed to have taken place today. Instead of dancing at a joyous wedding, the many friends of the Appelbaum family are going to a tragic funeral. It is said about Dr. David Appelbaum that he stopped trimming his beard after the Oslo Accords were signed "as a sign of mourning for what he knew was a tragedy for the Jewish People." Many articles have been written full of admiration for the Jews who 'carry on as usual' after every horrific terror attack. To do otherwise, these pundits maintain, would mean giving in to terror. The truth is exactly the opposite. Carrying on a normal life as if nothing has really happened is giving in to terror. It is time to call it quits, to say 'enough is enough,' and stop proceeding down a path that has failed again and again. I am now going to quote from an article in today's Jerusalem Post by my friend Michael Freund, Deputy Director of Communications & Policy Planning in the Prime Minister's Office under Binyamin Netanyahu. He has put into words exactly how the majority of us feel. "Oslo is an experiment whose time has passed; only a 'mad scientist' would be willing to press forward with it. The only way out of the current morass is for Israel to reassert full control over Judea, Samaria and Gaza, dismantle the Palestinian Authority and destroy the infrastructure of terror. It won't be clean, and it won't be pretty, but a Government's first priority is to protect its citizens, not to appease international public opinion. "At the root of Oslo lay a dangerous mix of defeatism, despair and gloom, which brought to power a Government prepared to forsake our national patrimony. Oslo's practitioners were ready to withdraw from Jewish history and undercut Jewish destiny, questioning our very right to be on this sacred soil. "If the past ten years teach us anything, it should be that forgoing our Divine and eternal right to this Land, inevitably leads to an erosion in our security and well being. The two are inextricably linked, and we must no longer shy away from making this clear to the world. "The first step toward healing this nation is to heal the rift in the Land and to reclaim what is rightfully ours. We spent the past decade trying to divide it and look where that has gotten us. "The time for retreat is over. Now, let us move forward, and advance, and take back our Land, once and for all." President Bush, in his recent prime-time address, to the American People, requested $87 billion from Congress for the continued fight against terror and the post-war transformation of Iraq. He also stated that some of those attacking American soldiers and their allies are 'foreign terrorists'. Strangely, President Bush did not mention them by name. However, it has been revealed that a large number of these 'foreign terrorists' are PALESTINIAN ARABS. During the war itself Arafat sent instructors to Iraq to train Iraqi suicide bombers. Why did President Bush omit telling the truth about the identity of these 'foreign terrorists'? Because he might have lost the support of many Americans for the 'Road Map to Peace' and the very idea to reward terror with a state carved out of the Holy Land? Dear friends: Deluge President Bush with letters and phone calls. The Oslo Accords and the Road Map, the whole so-called 'peace process,' is nothing but a Jew killing process. Demand of President Bush to cancel American support for the 'Road Map,' to take away the restraints on Israel to defend itself, and to actively stop this second holocaust.

WHERE WAS G-D? Posted by Beth Goodtree, September 10, 2003.

Each time there is a genocide bombing in Israel, people ask "How could G-d let this happen?" While the Arabs living in Gaza and the West Bank dance in the streets and chortle with glee, people ask "Where is justice? Where is G-d?" To those of us who are not genocidal terrorists or radical Islamists, G-d represents love, life, creativity and expansion. The Bible states that G-d created man in His image. This does not mean that we look like G-d, it means that we were endowed with the qualities of G-d - free will and creativity. The merciless attacks on Israeli citizens are acts of free will. The terrorists freely decided to murder as many innocent people as they could. Could G-d have prevented the attack? Of course. But when G-d created man, He set up some rules. The most important rule was that of free will. It means that He will not interfere with our decisions. What would G-d become if He broke His own rules when it suited Him? You know that answer as well as I do. Others ask "Why did G-d create evil?" In creating good, evil was a necessary side effect. How could there be good if there was no evil with which to compare it? Judaism teaches us to convert evil into good. It also tells us that sometimes we must experience evil to learn important lessons. Yet, in the wake of the most recent round of horrific attacks, many people question if this is possible. The answer is a resounding YES! If this current barrage of mass murder awakens the government to its failed policies that put the safety of "innocent Palestinians" above that of its own citizens by merely targeting one home or one car and using inadequate ordnance to do the job, then good has been achieved. If these recent attacks convince the government that there can never be a 2-state solution under the current climate, and maybe never at all, then evil has been turned to good. If this wave of bestial killings finally convinces the government that concessions and gestures of "good will" only fuel the murder of Jews, then good will have come from unfathomable evil. If this present round of genocide convinces the government that world opinion of its policies counts for nothing if its children are dead, then evil will have given birth to good. And finally, evil will be turned to good if the government recognizes that the Palestinian culture and whomever supports them, not just one small group such as the Hamas leadership, encourages genocide (either directly or indirectly) and therefore acts accordingly. So was G-d there during the most recent genocide bombings? You better believe it. G-d was there helping the people in the bus and the cafe and the bus stop escape the ensuing infernos. He helped the survivors of4$(6!B0$(5!B1(B these multiple homicides maintain their strength until they could reach safety. And He was with the guard who prevented the bomber from getting inside the cafe (on September 9, 2003). G-d was with the heroes who ran into the burning building, the bus, and towards the bus stop to save the victims. G-d was with the doctors, guiding their skillful hands to help heal the injured. He was with the families of the victims, helping them bear their immeasurable grief. Meanwhile, G-d was with the people who died, gathering and soothing their souls. And G-d was with all the people who looked on in stunned horror. And G-d wept with us. If you want to know where G-d is, just look into the faces and hearts of people around the world. Those who are sending help, sending their sympathies, sending their prayers. G-d is now more a tangible part of this world than ever before.

OUR GOOD FRIENDS, THE AMERICAN STATE DEPARTMENT Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, September 10, 2003.

There is an extreme dichotomy in America when it come to Israel. The American people have over the years been highly supportive of Israel while the American ruling elite has been equally hostile. Nowhere has that been more blatant than the US State Department. There have been all sorts of theories presented over the years to explain this and some ring true. What is important for us and Jews still in America is to stop fooling ourselves into believing that America is Israel's "Big Brother" and has our best interests at heart. We have all clearly seen that this is not the case. Anything the American Government has done for us, it has done because they perceived it to be good for them. If it also turned out good for us, well, most of the time they didn't mind. This is not something unique to America's relation to Israel but is their attitude to the rest of the world as well. Nor is it unique to America. In fact, about the only country in the world that does not act solely in its self interest seems to be Israel. I would therefore suggest that the real address for criticism in the mater of allowing Arab murderers and potential murderers to wander freely in Israel and the rest of the world is the Israeli Government.

ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF SEPTEMBER 11. Posted by Micki Lewis, September 10, 2003.

Jews, it is often said, are the canary in the coal mine of civilization. This sermon was delivered by Rabbi Harold Kushner in the year after the September 11 attack on the WTC, and bears repeating on this anniversary of the tragedy. Rabbi Harold Kushner of Temple Israel in Natick, Massachusetts is the author of two best sellers: "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" and "When Children Ask About God." You don't need me to tell you what a bizarre year this past year has been, what a troubled and troubling year. On Sept. 11, the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the first enemy attack on the continental United States since the War of 1812, the equivalent of Pearl Harbor happening in New York City instead of in far-off Hawaii. Not long after that, the situation in Israel deteriorated virtually by the week, almost to the point of all-out war. And if that weren't enough, there was a renewal of anti-Semitism in Europe and elsewhere on a scale not seen since the 1930s, not criticism of Israeli policies, not even dislike of Israel, but crude vicious Nazi-style anti-Semitism: Destruction of a 500-year-old synagogue in Tunisia; desecration of cemeteries in France, Germany, Italy and Poland; contemptible, totally loony accusations of Jewish involvement in the World Trade Center bombing, believed by otherwise intelligent people; the hijacking of a United Nations conference on racism in Durban, South Africa, turning it into an orgy of hatred for Jews and Judaism; vicious anti-Semitic harangues tolerated by the liberal community at the University of California at Berkeley; not to mention the condescending, oh-so-politically correct anti-Israel bias of the BBC and National Public Radio. It has been a hard year for those of us who love Israel and love Judaism. In fact, it has been a hard year for all of us who love decency and hate violence. This past year has compelled me to come to conclusions I didn't want to come to. For all of my years as a rabbi, I have believed and I have taught that Jews were no different from other people, that Judaism was different from Christianity and Islam but Jews had the same feelings, the same strengths and weaknesses, the same fears and dreams that Christians and Muslims have. I took issue with the Chabad rabbis who argued that Jewish souls are qualitatively superior to gentile souls. I opposed and discouraged interfaith marriage, not because I believed that Jews were better than non-Jews but because a family with two religions was likely to raise children with no religion to avoid arguments. But this year has persuaded me that Jews are in fact different. I find myself compelled to face the fact that the Jew plays the role for the world that the canary used to play for the coal miners. You've read about how the miners would take canaries with them into the mines because the canaries were extremely sensitive to dangerous gases. They responded to danger before the humans did. So if the miners saw the canaries get sick and pass out, they knew that the air was bad and they would escape as fast as they could. That's what we Jews do for the world. We are the world's early warning system. Where there is evil, where there is hatred, it affects us first. To be a Jew, whether we like it or not, is to be a magnet for hatred, for envy, for resentment no matter how unjustified, no matter how irrational. If there is hatred anywhere in the world, it will find us. If there is evil somewhere in the world, we will become its target. People overflowing with hatred for whatever reason, including self-hatred, make us the objects of their hatred. Timothy McVeigh, who blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, hated Jews though he could never have explained why. Leo Felton who was convicted in a Boston courtroom of trying to start a racial war by blowing up local landmarks, hated Jews though it is not clear if he ever met any. White supremacists who hate blacks hate Jews, too, and black extremists who hate white people hate Jews with special fervor, not because there is anything wrong with us but because there is something terribly wrong with them. Semi-literate peasants in countries as diverse as Russia and Malaysia blame Jews for ruining their economy, and unemployed college graduates from Egypt to Pakistan blame Jews for ruining their careers. This is the role we play in the world, not by choice but imposed on us by others, to be the miner's canary, to smoke out the bigots, the haters, the people who will be a menace to their communities if someone doesn't stop them, and we identify them early on by their hatred of us. Hitler attacked Jews before he attacked western civilization, and that should have alerted the world to what kind of person he was, but the world misread the signal. Muslim fanatics practiced their terrorist skills on Israelis before turning those skills on the rest of the world, but the world never understood the warning. When I see what Pat Buchanan or James Traficant have to say about Jews, or Jean Marie LePen in France or Jorg Haider in Austria, I don't have to look any further into their political philosophies. I know everything I need to know to consider them disqualified from public office. At the very beginning of the Jewish enterprise, God said to Abraham, go forth from your country, from your father's house, to the land I will guide you to, and be a blessing to all the nations of the world. I will bless those who bless you and curse him that curses you. Why would anyone curse Abraham when he is such a wonderful person who is going to be a blessing to the whole world? People who make their life's work studying the sickness of the human soul offer three theories, none of which is likely to make Israelis feel safer when they get on a bus, but perhaps they will help us understand the origins of the problem. One is captured in Maurice Samuel's remark that "no man loves his alarm clock." We don't like to be told that certain tempting, attractive things are wrong. We chafe at the restrictions of morality, and we resent the descendants of Abraham who remind us of what God expects of us. That is the only way I can understand Hitler's determination to murder all the Jews of Europe, even if it meant losing the war and seeing Germany destroyed in the process. Dedicated to the cause of death over life, committed to hatred rather than tolerance, he had to destroy the people who, in his mind, symbolized morality, tolerance and life. A second theory is that many European intellectuals, embarrassed by what educated Europeans did in the Holocaust, are desperately eager to exaggerate Israeli misbehavior because it lets them say, "You see, they're no better than we are. We can stop feeling guilty about what we did to them." And finally, the experts would tell us that there are people who hate themselves, often with good reason. They are not comfortable hating themselves, so they find someone as different from themselves as possible, and whatever they don't like about themselves they project onto this other person. They imagine it's this other person, not they, who has those terrible thoughts and habits. Sometimes they define the "other" racially, African-American or Asian. Sometimes by gender or sexual orientation, hating women or gays. And sometimes by religion and ethnic background, hating Jews as a way of not having to hate themselves. So much for analysis. What do we do about it? How shall we respond to this reluctant conclusion that, whether we like it or not, we are fated to be the world's early warning system, the perpetual targets of the messengers of hatred and evil in the world? My friends, we pray for a better year this year than last year was. Are there grounds for optimism? In my lifetime, I have seen the defeat of Hitler, the fall of communism, the creation of Israel, the repeal of racial segregation, the empowerment of women, the extension of the lifespan, the eradication of so many diseases. We have grounds for hope. When the war in Afghanistan began, a reporter asked an American general if he would ever be able to forgive Osama bin Laden for what he had done to us. The general answered, "Forgiving bin Laden is God's job. Our job is to arrange the meeting." In the same way, we might say, bringing about the downfall of bigots and terrorists is God's job. Our job is to live as Jews were summoned to live, not because it will make our lives easier, but because it will make our lives more meaningful, because it will bless the world as Abraham blessed the world, showing people what it looks like to live by God's word, and God knows this world could use that blessing. Our job, is to live as Jews were summoned to live, because we can't escape the fate of being a Jew. Generations before us have tried and failed - but we can claim the destiny of being a Jew; because when we do that, we discover how satisfying a truly human life can be.

ANOTHER WAY THE POST SKEWS ITS MIDEAST REPORTING Posted by Leo Rennert, September 10, 2003.

On Sept. 10, the Post reported the horrific twin suicide bombings in Israel which claimed 15 lives. The Post also reported in its story a statement from the new Palestinian prime minister expressing his regrets. But the Post FAILED TO REPORT that at the very same time there were celebrations in Gaza as Palestinians joyfully fired guns in the air and distributed sweets to express not only their approbation of these terror attacks, but their delight. So the pro-forma Palestinian expression of regret gets into the paper, but the real feelings of many Palestinians in the street are covered up. Yet, the Palestinian celebrations were widely reported by wire services, the Israeli news media and the New York Times among other, but not by the Post. There's a deeper issue about this omission, besides the Post's obvious inclination to downplay Palestinian atrocities, play up meaningless official condemnation and ignore real Palestinian grassroots feelings. What is really unforgivable is that in conveying a falsely charitable view of Palestinian terror tactics - in terms of where Palestinian society as a whole stands - you give readers the erroneous impression that if Bush only engaged more and if only the parties returned to the negotiating table and if only Israel made a few more concessions, there could be light at the end of the tunnel. What the Gaza celebrations (and this was by no means the first time there has been such rejoicing at the spilling of Israeli blood nor the first time that you skipped conveying that to your readers) really tell us how is that Palestinian terrorism is at the root of the problem and that no progress is possible not only as long as Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not confronted by the Palestinian Authority but, more importantly, that no progress is possible as long as wide swaths of Palestinian society rejoice at their terror tactics.

ISLAM'S FIGHT WITH DEMOCRACY Posted by Israela Goldstein, September 9, 2003.

This an article by Amir Taheri on a book written by one of Osama Ben Laden's close associates. Amir Taheri is an Iranian journalist and author of 10 books on the Middle East and Islam. "It is not the American war machine that should be of the utmost concern to Muslims. What threatens the future of Islam, in fact its very survival, is American democracy." This is the message of a new book, published by Al Qaeda in several Arab countries yesterday. The book's title is "The Future of Iraq and The Arabian Peninsula After The Fall of Baghdad." Its author is Yussuf al-Ayyeri, one of Osama Ben Laden's closest associates since the early 1990s. A Saudi citizen, Al-Ayyeri, also known under the nom de guerre of Abu Muhammad, was killed in a gun-battle with security forces in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, last June. The book is published by The Centre for Islamic Research and Studies, a company set up by Ben Laden in 1995 with branches in New York and London (now closed.) Over the past eight years the company has published more than 40 books written by Al Qaeda "thinkers and researchers" including militants such as Ayman al-Zawahiri, Ben Laden's number-two, and some Western converts to the organisation4$(5!90!91(Bs radical version of Islam. All-Ayyeri first made his name in the mid-1990s as a commander of the Farouq camp in eastern Afghanistan where thousands of "volunteers for martyrdom" were trained by Al Qaeda and the Taleban. Al-Ayyeri argues that the history of mankind is the story of "perpetual war between belief and unbelief." Over the millennia, both belief and unbelief have appeared in different guises. As far as belief is concerned, the absolutely final version is represented by Islam which "annuls all other religions and creeds." Thus, Muslims can have only one goal: converting the entire humanity to Islam and "effacing the final traces of all other religions, creeds and ideologies." Unbelief (kufr), however, has come in numerous forms and shapes, but with a single objective: to destroy faith in God. In the West, unbelief has succeeded in making a majority of people forget God and worship the world. Islam, however, is resisting the trend because Allah means to give it final victory. Al Ayyeri then shows how various forms of unbelief attacked the world of Islam in the past century or so, to be defeated in one way or another. The first form of unbelief to attack the Muslim world was "modernism" (hidatha) which led to the destruction of the caliphate and the emergence in the lands of Islam of states based on ethnic identities and territorial dimensions rather than religious faith. The second form of unbelief to confront Islam was nationalism which, imported from Europe, divided Muslims into Arabs, Persians, Turks and others. Al Ayyeri claims that nationalism has now been crushed in almost all Muslim lands. He claims that a true Muslim is not loyal to any particular nation-state. The third form of unbelief mentioned by Al-Ayyeri is Socialism, which includes Communism. That, too, has been defeated and eliminated from the Muslim world, Al Ayyeri asserts. Ba'athism, the ruling party's ideology in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, is presented by Al Ayyeri as the fourth form of unbelief to afflict Muslims, especially Arabs. Ba'athism, which is also the official ideology of the Syrian regime under President Bashar al-Assad, offers Arabs a mixture of pan-Arabism and socialism as an alternative to Islam. Al Ayyeri says Muslims "should welcome the destruction of Ba'athism in Iraq." "The end of Ba'ath rule in Iraq is good for Islam and Muslims," he writes. "Where the banner of Ba'ath has fallen, shall rise the banner of Islam." The author notes as "a paradox" the fact that all the various forms of unbelief that threatened Islam were defeated with the help of the Western powers, and more specifically the United States. The "modernising" movement in the Muslim world was ultimately discredited when European imperial powers forced their domination on Muslim lands, turning the Westernised elite into their "hired lackeys." The nationalists were defeated and discredited in wars led against them by various Western powers or, in the case of Nasserism in Egypt, by Israel. The West also gave a helping hand in defeating socialism and Communism in the Muslim world. The most dramatic example of this came when the US helped the Afghan Mujahedin destroy the Soviet-backed Communist regime in Kabul. And now the US and its British allies have destroyed Ba'athism in Iraq and may have fatally undermined its position in Syria as well. What Al Ayyeri sees now is a "clean battlefield" in which Islam faces a new form of unbelief. This, he labels: "secularist democracy." Al Ayyeri asserts that this new threat is "far more dangerous to Islam" than all its predecessors combined. The reasons, he explains in a whole chapter, must be sought in democracy's "seductive capacities." This form of "unbelief" persuades the people that they are in charge of their destiny and that, using their collective reasoning, they can shape policies and pass laws as they see fit. That leads them into ignoring the "unalterable laws" promulgated by God for the whole of mankind, and codified in the Islamic Shariah (jurisprudence) until the end of time. The goal of democracy, according to Al Ayyeri, is to "make Muslims love this world, forget the next world, and abandon Jihad." If established in any Muslim country for a reasonably long time, democracy could lead to economic prosperity which, in turn, would make Muslims "reluctant to die in martyrdom" in defence of their faith. He says that it is vital to prevent any normalisation and stabilisation in Iraq. Muslim militants should make sure that the US does not succeed in holding elections in Iraq and creating a democratic government. "If democracy comes to Iraq, the next target {for democratisation} would be the whole of the Muslim world," Al Ayyeri writes. The Al Qaeda ideologist claims that the only Muslim country already affected by "the beginning of democratisation" and thus in "mortal danger" is Turkey. "Do we want what happened in Turkey to happen to all Muslim countries?" he asks. "Do we want Muslims to refuse taking part in Jihad and submit to secularism which is a Zionist-Crusader concoction?" Al Ayyeri says, "Iraq would become the graveyard of secular democracy just as Afghanistan became the graveyard of Communism." The reason is that most Americans are afraid of death while the overwhelming majority of Muslims love to die for the glory of Allah. The idea is that the Americans, faced with mounting casualties in Iraq, will "just run away" as did the Soviets in Afghanistan. This is because the Americans love this world and concerned about nothing but their own comfort while Muslims dream of the pleasures that martyrdom offers in paradise. "In Iraq today, there are only two sides," Al Ayyeri asserts. "Here we have a clash of two visions of the world and the future of mankind. The side prepared to accept more sacrifices will win." Al Ayyeri's analysis may sound na$(5!o(Bve; he also gets most of his facts wrong. But he is right in reminding the world that what happens in Iraq could affect other Arab countries, in fact, the whole of the Muslim world.

CEASE FIRE THOUGHT Posted by Steven Plaut, September 9, 2003.

Just a small thought here. You know how the PLO announced today it will not resume any "ceasefire" until Israel promises not to shoot any "militants?" You know how the White House and State Dept keep insisting that Israel halt its targeted assassinations of militants? The BBC, CNN, and just about all the rest of the media think it is awful when Israel assassinated militants? Well, I am always willing to be of help. I hereby endorse the idea. Israel really SHOULD promise not to assassinate any militants. NO acticists either. And in exchange, it will start assassinating terrorists and nazis, by the truck load. Just a thought.

I DON'T KNOW WHO TO BE MORE ANGRY WITH Posted by Dutch Griffin, September 9, 2003.

Bush is shameful for not standing with Israel. I'd sure like to know who is pulling his strings. Regardless of what a lot of Jews believe, we've never had a worse president than Bill Clinton; however, we've never had a president make as big a mistake as Bush is making now. I saw him deliver his speech on television, he's a lifeless whimp in front of the camera. Someone said that Saudi Arabia has so much invested in the US, that they have us by our economic short strings. I don't know if that's true, but it would be pathetic. So what, then we turn around and blackmail Israel? This is going to haunt us later. How about Sharon, last I checked he's the Jewish PM of the Jewish state; but who's he protecting besides Arafat? Don't get me wrong, I think the IDF is doing a miraculous job - especially since one hand is tied behind their back; but the British were foreigners in Israel, and they fought the real Palestinians with more resolve than the Sharon government is showing today. You never saw anyone from the Irgun walking around with a rifle in broad daylight, just for that they would have been hanged. How many rifles did Barak give the Arabs? I want to like Sharon, I know he has the whole world breathing down his neck. However, I remember hearing a pastor speaking of Masada in the seventies say, "Today in Israel, they know if the whole world comes against them, then they'll have to take on the whole world." I think that is what Sharon has forgotten. Then there is Arafat, it's a good time to take him out (the only better time was anytime in the past). It would send a strong message to their next "diplomat." Too bad it's too late for diplomacy. Cancel the PLO's diplomatic license and send them packing! I remember from the beginning Arafat was allowed to harbor organized crime against Israeli beehives, farm equipment and automobiles. He has never been required to keep a single commitment, yet he's the only primary leader who is still active. On what basis can Israel hope that the situation will ever improve? I believe G-d has a plan, and that you are set apart for His service; but I'm very sorry your country has to endure this. I don't know why it is tolerated.

THE "MODERATE HUSTLE" IS IN MOTION Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 9, 2003.

Out of the belly of the State Department comes a prime directive to the media to characterize Yassir Arafat's quick pick of Ahmed Qurei (aka Abu Ala) as a "moderate." In order to keep President Bush's fantasy "Road Map" which is already on a heart-lung machine, the following has begun. A media push is on which includes blaming Israel for the failure of Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) and his resignation. This allows pressure to be put on Israel to give Arafat's man, Qurei, everything Arafat wants. Does anyone doubt that any man who sits at Yassir Arafat's right hand can be anything but a moderate? Anyone whom Arafat chooses must be his proxy and must take his orders. Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala) may speak a passable English in a calm manner and, like Abbas, have the facade of a decent man but one cannot be Arafat's Speaker of the Palestinian Parliament without having been Arafat's partner in planning terror. It seems clear to me that Qurei will get the same 'dry cleaning' that Bush and Company gave to Abbas. If we look back in the record, we see the days of scrubbing Arafat in an attempt to clean him up - which did not succeed. Then came Abu Mazen and now we scrub Abu Ala. President Clinton tried but the dirt remained. Shimon Peres snookered the Israeli people with Oslo by conspiring with Arafat and, in the end, the Israelis died in droves. But, Peres and Arafat received a Nobel Peace Prize for their flim-flam. One of the Nobel Committee, Kaare Christensen, quit in protest over what he considered a mis-use of the Nobel Committee for political purposes. Arafat's first order, through the mouth of Qurei was that he will 'only' take the job IF he receives assurances and support from America and for Israel to cease her attacks against Arab Muslim Palestinian terrorists. That's directly in line with Arafat's normal procedure when he is under pressure and his terrorists needed a breathing spell to re-group, re-arm and get ready for the next assault. Israel just went through a 'Hudna' (cease-fire), which gave Israel nothing but more deaths and destruction of her civilian population. Arafat expects Qurei's appointment to get the benefit of the doubt from the U.S. because President Bush is desperately in need of the appearance that he is succeeding with the so-called 'peace process'. Therefore, the U.S. must pressure Israel to stop attacking Hamas and always receive American tax-payers' cash that Qurei can spread around to the "poor" Palestinians. These dollars always end up in Arafat's hands or secret bank accounts, despite the Arabist State Department's telling us that all the monies are now accounted for in peaceful pursuits - according to Colin Powell, the U.S. Secretary of State. Powell has, indeed, added to his persona as a pacifist and an apologist for Arafat's on-going Terror. Bush is desperate for anything that looks like a 'winner' before the 2004 election campaign. His "Road Map" now looks like Road Kill. Not understanding Muslim Arab culture, Bush expected cheers from the Iraqis for rescuing them from Saddam. Instead, a steady stream of body bags is coming back to America which are no longer featured on the front page of the New York Times and other State Department media outlets. We don't see film footage of President Bush visiting the American wounded soldiers lest he call attention to the fact that American soldiers are being shot and bombed by Muslim Arabs, many coming in from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Chechnya, the Sudan, Iran, etc. Now, in addition to what has been rightfully spent on the Iraq War, President Bush has asked Congress for $87 Billion to re-build Iraq which may not be the last request for funds. Iraqi oil ought to be paying for the re-building of that country. Iraq and Afghanistan are soaking up the tax-dollars of the American Treasury with tax hikes to follow. But Bush still needs to clobber the Israelis into submission so that his friends, the Saudis, will be pleased and Arafat will have his Terrorist State. Bush needs a submissive Israel in order to create the impression of a major achievement, even if it is a false front - just like former President Clinton. Israel has been the only other nation to actually fight terror. The more Israel succeeds, the angrier Bush, Powell and the oil maggots become. They need to appease the Arab Muslims with the appearance that his Road Map was successful even if Israel must take a major loss. Israel has been sold out before - although this is not something one can get used to. As the 2004 elections get closer and the Bush approval ratings begin to fall like his father's did (who similarly betrayed Israel), Bush, Jr. will grow even more desperate. I have little doubt that Bush and Powell will increase the pressure for Israel to sacrifice herself for another Muslim Arab Palestinian State in Israel's heartland. Minimally, they will call for Israel to ignore terror and make more 'gestures,' like the release of terrorists so Arafat's puppet Abu Ala, will look good at Israel's expense. Perhaps Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will return to his old self and remember that no one will thank him for sacrificing the safety and sovereignty of the one Jewish State so that one man can be re-elected President. Recall that former Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu gave away most of Hebron, expecting applause and appreciation for the sacrifice. No applause - no appreciation but, they all said: "What else can you give us, kid." In the meantime, the pacifist General/Secretary of State Colin Powell is warning Israel about the long-term consequences of their battle against the terrorists and the terrorist infrastructure. Powell is telling the Israelis that, IF they kill Hamas leaders, they are creating more Hamas killers. I think that Powell brings up an interesting point. Since Israel has been attacked by terrorists and in seven wars for over 55 years, with thousands being killed in war and more thousands being killed in low intensity warfare, namely, terrorism. Shouldn't it be the Israelis whose children are left fatherless, who have a score to settle with Powell's Arab Palestinians? Is it only terrorists who remember their killers being killed? Or is Powell really saying that Arab Muslims can be counted on to keep killing no matter what so-called Peace Agreement is signed. The reason why there will never be peace from the Muslim Arabs is their belief that they have never lost a war. Their perception is that the enemy was temporarily stronger and they merely need a break in the hostilities to re-group, re-arm and recruit more fighters and the next phase of the battle must begin. If that means temporary agreements, armistice lines, meetings with the enemy to buy time - then it does not matter if it's 2 years or 200 years. As they say: "Kiss the hand of the enemy under you can cut it off." The idea of restraining Israel from killing the leaders, planner, bomb makers and homicide bombers because the Palestinians will get angry and only breed more terrorists can only come from the twisted logic of a confirmed Arabist. Does Powell really think that it is the liquidation of its killers that make Arab Muslim Palestinians want to kill Jews? Might it also be that the children from 3 and up are being taught to be Muslim Shahids (Martyrs)? We see children from 4 years old and up shouting in filmed classroom workshops of killing the Jews and the thrill of going directly to Paradise for this act. They are the programmed miniature candidates for suicide bombings. They are the 'Manchurian' candidates (programmed and brainwashed to kill) for the next century. They will be arising in Israel, America, Europe for years to come shouting "Ala Akbar" (God is Great!) and "Itbach Al Yehud" (Kill the Jews) as they blow up our Western civilization. Clearly, the motto: "No Arabs = No Terror" is accurate, given their desire to turn the world into one great Caliphate (an Islamic world of Shari'ah laws, dedicated to strict Islam). In this Islamist world, Jews and Christians have no role except as converts, slaves or dead. Mr. Bush, Mr. Powell, your advise to Israel is bad advise, selfish and dangerous. I said quite some time ago that I though you would be a one-term President, like your father before you, for turning against Israel. Remember that G-d said to Avraham, the father of the Jewish people that: "I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you." The propaganda machine at the White House and the U.S. State Department is running 24/7 to give Abu Ala the title of a "moderate" who is not taking orders from Arafat.

THERE'S NO RESPECT AND NO FRIENDS WITHOUT SELF-RESPECT Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 9, 2003.

Ignorant of history, each generation has to learn the hard way. Appeasement of the Nazis and imperialist Japanese cost millions of lives. Did the world learn its lesson? No, it appeased the Communists and then the Arabs. Appeasement of the Arabs has failed enough for its futility to be obvious. Does the Left learn that lesson? No. The US has broken its promises to Israel many times. Although the Arabs violate their agreements with Israel and the US, the US is even-handed about it. It criticizes both sides. It expects, however, only Israel to acquiesce. About compliance, it is not even-handed: The US asks of the Arabs but demands of Israel. Does Israel learn its lesson? No. It continues trusting the US government and calling particular Presidents great friends. Pres. Bush made a couple of good speeches and start a war on terrorism, assuring Israel that he understood its need for self-defense. To the Israelis, that meant he is Israel's best friend. To me, it meant that he was having Israel run in place, until he could work on a long-range dissolution of Israel. That is what he is doing now, with this Road Map. No matter how much Arab terrorism, and no matter what the Arab violations, the process goes on. Terrorists have nothing to lose. If they win militarily, they get what they demand. If they lose militarily, Bush keeps the process warm for them. The Jewish people don't have much time left to check their slide to oblivion. They had better awaken fast to reality. They don't know how to recognize friends and why they are picked on. They are picked on not only because of antisemitism, but also because they act guilty, by offering concessions to mortal enemies. They let themselves be picked on. There is no respect without self-respect. Mr. Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at ricshulman@aol.com.

OSLO'S LEGACY: A ROAD MAP TO NOWHERE Posted by Michael B. Oren, September 9, 2003.

On the evening of Sept. 13, 1993, I was working late in my Jerusalem office when I heard fireworks and drums. Peering out of the window, I saw that the festive commotion emanated not from the city's Western, Jewish side - which was totally silent - but from the eastern Arab sector. At precisely that moment, on the White House lawn, President Clinton was presiding over the "historic handshake" between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat. The scowl on Rabin's face and the smirk on Arafat's reflected the disparate moods in the two Jerusalems. While many Israelis cringed at the thought of dealing with a world-renowned terrorist, and feared the kind of peace he would deliver, Palestinians were flushed with the anticipation of victory and the return of millions of refugees. "We're in trouble," I thought. Ten years later, the trouble wrought by the Oslo Accords - so-called, after the city where they were mediated - has been incalculable. Instead of a "New Middle East" with peace between Israel and an independent Palestinian state, war has ravaged the area, devastating economies, killing and maiming thousands. Rarely has an agreement been so celebrated - Rabin and Arafat won Nobel prizes - generated such vast expectations, and occupied so many presidential days, only to utterly fail. Now, in the wake of Mahmoud Abbas's resignation as Palestinian prime minister, one must asked why. There are many answers, the most obvious of which is accountability. Israel was not held accountable for expanding its West Bank and Gaza settlements in excess of Oslo's proviso for their "natural growth." But while Israelis may have exploited the treaty's spirit, the Palestinians flagrantly disregarded its letter. No sooner had Arafat returned from Washington than he began smuggling explosives and weapons into the territories, harboring wanted terrorists, and educating Palestinian children to destroy Israel - all blatant breaches of Oslo. In the mid-'90s, Arafat's Palestinian Authority failed to stop and in some cases abetted the suicide bombers who killed hundreds of Israelis. Yet, in spite of these gross violations, neither Arafat nor his Authority was ever called to task. Advocates of Oslo equivocated that the Palestinians would comply with the accords but only after they had achieved statehood, and until then, they were too weak to clamp down on terrorism or even to cease incitement. The many Israelis who died in the interim were dubbed, perversely, "victims of peace." Another, subtler, reason for Oslo's collapse was the absence of mutuality. The accords called on both sides to "recognize their mutual legitimate and political rights," but while Rabin specifically recognized the rights of the Palestinian people, Arafat never acknowledged the rights or even the existence of a Jewish people. Had he done so, he would have accepted the Jews' claim to a permanent state in their homeland, and signaled his willingness to divide that land with them. Instead, he arrogated all of the land for the Palestinians and sought to transform Israel into a de facto Palestinian state through the mass repatriation of refugees. While "Palestinian people" and "Palestinian state" entered Israel's political lexicon, the words "Jewish people" and "Jewish state" never passed his lips. Privately, with President Clinton, he even denied that the Jews had historical ties to Jerusalem. The next factor undermining peace might best be called thuggery. Rabin believed that democratic Israel was incapable of taking the draconian steps necessary to defeat Hamas and other terrorist groups, and so sought a Palestinian partner free, he said, "of civil rights monitors and the supreme court." That partner was Arafat, a strongman whom the U.S. and Israel essentially hired to suppress other Palestinian thugs. The assumption that a corrupt Arab dictator would suit the Palestinians was racist, but also politically unsound. Arafat pocketed the millions of dollars in payoffs but made no serious effort to combat Hamas. Rather than reigning in terror, he increasingly engaged in it himself. The fundamental flaws in the Oslo process converged at the Camp David summit in July 2000, when President Clinton proposed to create a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, with its capital in Jerusalem. Prime Minister Ehud Barak accepted the plan but Arafat, refusing to share Jerusalem or to forfeit the refugees' return, rejected it. I remember that night again being drawn to my window by the sounds of Palestinians celebrating, this time the failure of peace. The lessons of Oslo could not be clearer, but have they been learned? The answer, judging from the U.S.-backed "road map" - a direct outgrowth of Oslo - must be no. Mahmoud Abbas, who Israelis and Americans hoped would depart from Arafat's ways, stated unequivocally that he had no intention of dismantling terrorist infrastructures as the road map mandated. Asked whether he recognized Israel as the Jewish state, he replied that he accepted Israel as the "Israeli state," and insisted on the refugees' right of return. It is singularly doubtful whether Ahmed Qureia, Mr. Abbas's apparent successor, or any other Palestinian can commit to ending terror or accepting the Jewish people and state. Faced with the failures of Oslo, administration officials must now ask themselves whether the Palestinians are today capable of assuming the burdens of accountability and mutuality - the bases of any viable peace. If not, alternative measures should be considered, including interim arrangements between Israel and local Palestinian leaders, efforts to ease the Palestinian population's plight, and support for Israel in defending its citizens. Such steps may succeed in tempering the violence and creating an environment conducive to future peace accords. Someday, perhaps, I will stand at my window and hear celebrations on both sides of Jerusalem, but for now I'd settle for silence. Mr. Oren, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, is the author of "Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East," (Presidio Press, 2003).

ARIK SENDS A SIGNAL Posted by Steven Plaut, September 8, 2003.

Once Again, the Beilinized government of Ariel Sharon has put avoiding a bad headline ahead of saving the lives of Jewish children. Once again Sharon has ordered the army to fight terror through cowardice and weakness. Once again Sharon has decided that it is more important to avoid bad Kodak moments and collateral damage involving innocent Palestinians than it is to save Jewish lives. Once again Sharon has chosen the alternative of scraping the DNA of Jewish children off the streets instead of the scraping of the DNA of nazi terrorists. The entire Hamas leadership, including the Nazi Sheikh Yassin and the arch-murderer Mohammed Deif, were meeting in the building in Gaza. The building could have been reduced to molecules of dust. Like the building the US annihilated when it thought Saddam and his offspring were present there. The timing could not be better the week of September 11 when the US is least likely to click its tongue at anyone offing terrorists. Instead, Sharon sent in a mini bomb. It really upset the Hamas terrorists because it caused some plaster to fall on them and the Sheikh got scratched. Sharon was worried about civilians in the building and next door. Sharon should have obliterated the entire neighborhood. The Hamas itself and Arafats militias allowing the Hamas to operate openly were NOT concerned about any nearby civilians. Dropping a toy mini-bomb reminds one of comic Yatzpens quip that Israel is trying to fight terror by dropping pieces of paper on which it is written kaboom, The Left of course would oppose dropping those pieces of paper list they alarm some innocent Palestinian children. And so to avoid the US wagging its finger, Sharon has placed thousands more of Israeli lives in danger by leaving the Hamas leadership breathing. The next bus to be blown up will be another sacrifice to Moloch by the Sharon government of cowards. Muhammed Deif, the master bomber of Israeli children, was allowed to escape yet another time, not the first time he escaped thanks to Sharons pusillanimous policies. He had earlier escaped a missile attack where a mini-missile with too little explosives managed just to wound him. As the ambulances and jeeps led away the Nazis who had escaped last night, with the film crews filming in real time, Sharon had another opportunity to finish the job. And just as he did when the ambulance was leading away Muhammed Deif the last time he was targeted, Sharon chose niceness over Israeli children, and refrained from taking them out. The government is today patting itself on the back for the nice signal it sent the Hamas. Israeli use of signaling rather than use of the military has so far resulted in 1300 murdered Israelis, many of them children.

PAT ROBERTSON: DIVIDING JERUSALEM WILL COST BUSH VOTES IN THE NEXT ELECTION Posted by Michael Freund, September 8, 2003.

These are excerpts from an interview conducted by Michael Freund with televangelist Dr. Pat Robertson in his office in northern Virginia and published in the Jerusalem Post, September 5, 2003. CBN, the global television network Robertson founded some four decades ago, reaches 180 countries in 71 languages, and is viewed by over 1 million Americans daily. The Jerusalem Post: Over the past 2000 years, the Jewish people suffered terribly as a result of persecution by Christians. Yet nowadays, some of Israel's most vocal supporters, particularly in the US, are Christians. Are we witnessing some kind of change in Jewish-Christian relations? Dr. Robertson: I am not sure the change is as dramatic as you think, it is just that now it is being noticed. Q: How do you explain that? Many Jews find that hard to believe. A: The first thing that we have to realize is that evangelical Christians take the Bible very seriously, so the Old Testament figures, who were all Jewish, are to them their heroes in faith. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron. The prophets. David. All these people are preached about, talked about, and discussed and become part of our evangelical culture. The other point that we have to keep in mind is that Jesus was Jewish, and all of the early apostles were Jews. There was a distortion of that fact in the Middle Ages, when the Catholic Church got rather extreme against the Jews, and Martin Luther did the same thing in the early days of the Reformation. But in terms of American evangelical Christianity we take it very seriously. Q: Some observers have argued that behind this support for Israel lies an ulterior motive, a desire to convert Jews, to entice them to become Christians. Shouldn't Jews be concerned? A: I really don't think so. Our organization, on an annual basis, has about 38 million people make decisions to accept belief in Jesus. 38 million. If that's the case, it would be a little silly to say, 'well you are spending all your time trying to entice a few thousand Jews to become Christians.' But I think there is a bond of kinship that has no ulterior motive at all. As a matter of fact, it is sometimes costly. It isn't easy for a person like me to be allied with Israel as closely as I am, because I have death threats from certain Muslim extremists, so this kind of thing puts you in risk of your life. Q: You mentioned the Bible. Now, the Bible states that G-d gave the land of Israel to the people of Israel as their eternal inheritance. But George W. Bush is trying to divide the land of Israel and create a Palestinian state. Do you think he is defying the Divine will? A: I don't think there is any question about it. I think he has made a terrible mistake. You know the prophet Joel speaks about those 'who divided my land,' that there is a curse on them. I think I would walk very, very softly if I were George Bush in this regard. I think he has been talked into this by the US State Department, by the European Community, by the Arabs, to take away Judea and Samaria, or what amounts to the Jewish homeland. I think he is making a terrible mistake. The crux will be when he tries to divide Jerusalem, because Yasser Arafat is not going to give up until he gets east Jerusalem as his capital, as that is a symbolic thing for the Arabs. If Bush is responsible for the partition of Jerusalem, he will be defying a prophecy of Jesus that is very dear to all of us. I think he's going to incur the wrath of the L-rd if he does that. I hope he doesn't, but there is certainly a lot of talk about it. Q: If Bush presses ahead with the road map and compels Israel to divide the land, do you think that American Christians in 2004 should take that into consideration when deciding whom to vote for? A: I think they will, but the problem is that the election is between two people. It isn't George Bush versus perfection, it is George Bush versus a liberal Democrat and the chances are that the liberal Democrat is as bad or worse on Israel than he is, and will be worse on a whole lot of other issues than he is. And so, in terms of the election in 2004, I don't think his moving ahead with this road map is going to cost him any votes. It may cost him favor with the King of Kings, but not necessarily with the electorate. But if he moves against Jerusalem, if he tries to partition Jerusalem, then I think Christian leaders across the country will rise up and speak out very forcefully against him, and it could hurt him in a close election. Q: As a Christian, how do you feel about the fact that Israel turned over Bethlehem with all of its important Christian shrines to Palestinian control? A: I was in Norway when Shimon Peres was there, working on those Oslo Accords. I wasn't aware of the momentous nature of what was being done, but I think Oslo was a tragic mistake. And I think Ehud Barak gave away the farm. He made concessions that were undreamed of, yet Arafat spit in his face and started the intifada. I think it was a terrible thing to give up not only Bethlehem, but Joseph's Tomb in Shechem (Nablus), Hebron and some of these cities which played such a large role in the early formation of Israel. To give them up to Yasser Arafat is unthinkable. Barak tried to do it, and I think he did so under the pressure of Bill Clinton and it was a mistake. Q: In your opinion, is the roadmap merely another reincarnation of Oslo? A: I think so. I think this road map is ill conceived, and I don't think it is going to survive. Just look what happened with Hamas and Fatah, Yasser Arafat's private little army, they are continuing to operate against Israel, as is Islamic Jihad. And recently, Hizbullah has been stirring up trouble in southern Lebanon and shelling Kiryat Shemona. I think there is only one way to deal with the situation - you guys have to go in and take over that territory. Establish martial law, disband the Palestinian Authority, begin to reeducate the children and take over the television and the radio so the propaganda stops. Then, over a period of years, see if Palestinians of good will can be put in office - people who can understand the situation. Because as long as Yasser Arafat is there, there is not going to be any peace. He is a terrorist. All he knows is killing. The Palestinian Authority has never built anything, they have failed to establish any economic infrastructure, they haven't provided jobs, they have wasted money, there has been theft and corruption and there has been oppression and torture of those who disagree with them. I mean, it's a terrorist state. How can Israel enter into partnership with people like that? Q: Why do you think Israel has refrained from dismantling the Palestinian Authority? A: The United States has held Israel back from doing what was needed. What was needed is to go in, like we went in to Afghanistan. They needed to go in and flush out this nest of terrorists and do the job completely. Not just a few little tanks surrounding Yasser Arafat's headquarters and all that nonsense. They need to get in there and clean up. That takes force, and it takes resolute courage and it also takes the cooperation of the United States. Unfortunately, they don't have that. The US holds them back from doing what they need to do. Q: In recent years, there have been reports about the persecution of Christians living in areas under Palestinian control. Are you concerned about that? A: Oh, yes. We have interviewed people on our television station, those who have been tortured, those who have gone underground for fear of their lives and for fear of being captured by the Palestinian Authority. There is no question that the Christians have suffered terrible persecution. Bethlehem was essentially a Christian town. To the best of my knowledge, that whole area has been cleansed of its Christian population. I don't know if they have been killed, resettled or forced to move abroad. I don't know where they have all gone, but now the population is essentially Muslim and it didn't used to be that way. Q: Do you think Israel does a good job making its case to the American public? A: (Laughs) It does a terrible job. They have the worst public relations of anything I can conceive of. They have got the truth but they have just such a hard time communicating it. Q: There have been a number of reports in recent months highlighting the Christian right and its growing influence in the Republican party and the White House. How much influence do they wield? A: I ran for President in 1988, and in the process I trained up to 300,000 people in precinct politics. When I got through, I organized the Christian Coalition and these people served as the cadre for the organization. I think over the years this group has been extremely effective in having an influence in the Republican party, particularly in terms of framing issues and supporting candidates...I think the big networks, the big newspapers, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, they are the ones that really have the influence. I think they are probably the dominant voices in our society. But I think evangelical Christians now have a significant voice, which is what I had hoped to see happen. Q: How should America deal with countries such as Saudi Arabia, particularly in light of all the recent revelations regarding Saudi complicity in September 11 and their sponsorship of terror? A: I think it is time that the cozy relationship between the leadership of our nation and the banking and oil interests has got to stop. We have got to recognize that the Wahhabis are vicious. We must tell the Saudis we are not going to stand for this anymore. You are exporting terror, you are funding terror, and you cannot do this anymore. We are protecting you, and we are not going to continue protecting you with our military umbrella if you are continuously undermining Israel, undermining other regimes around the world and trying to export this fanatical brand of Islam. You've just got to stop it. They are here operating in the United States, they are operating in Africa, in the Middle East, and they are trying to undermine Russia, as the Chechens are connected with that Wahhabi group. I mean it is a very dangerous thing and I think that we have to deal with it forcefully but so far there is nobody in our government that has got the will to do that. Q: How can American citizens, particularly American Christians, support Israel in this difficult time? What would you suggest that they do on behalf of Israel? A: The best thing is to discuss the legitimacy of Israel, the legitimacy of Israel's claims to the land on a Biblical basis. I think that for the American Christians, and for Israel itself, the strongest claim to integrity rests strongly in the Bible. The Land was given by G-d. It was won by conquest maybe around 1200 BCE. We are talking about a long history. I think we need to emphasize that these people [the Jews] are the Chosen People and that there is a prophetic significance in what is happening. These are our friends and we need to support them, especially Israel, as the only island of democracy in the whole Middle East. I think Christians need to speak out and I am not sure they are. Q: What about prayer? A: That goes without saying. The Bible says, 'pray for the peace of Jerusalem'. That is what I was taught as a little boy and we need to pray that G-d will bless His people, and that the Jewish people will be bless-able. But there is much of that which goes on. There is prayer and there is interest and there is love and there is concern but I think they have got to speak out. There is a terrible wave of anti-Semitism going around right now among the left and the Jews themselves must come together. There are many Jews who haven't made up their mind. There are many Jews in America who think Israel is a militaristic aggressor, I'm sure you know that. Jewish society needs to come together. Perhaps in Israel it is the same thing. I'm sure there is a debate going on there now, like 'let's get out of this territory, lets give the Palestinians everything they want, lets just give them the whole thing so that we can have peace, peace at any cost.' It is tragic. Patrick Henry said 'Is life so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?' And the only answer to that is: 'Forbid it, Al-mighty G-d!' That is what he said. And I think that life isn't that dear and peace isn't that sweet. But it is hard to convince people of that in today's world.

REWRITING THE LIES Posted by Beth Goodtree, September 8, 2003.

Words as weapons have altered people's thinking more than all the bombs ever exploded. They are so powerful that they have rewritten history and changed the course of world events time and time again. And now they are being used, quite successfully, to defeat Israel and the Hebrew people the world over. Take the term 'Palestinians.' For 2000 years, the only people known as 'Palestinians' were the Hebrews. Then along comes Yasser Arafat in the early 1960s, cobbles together a bunch of Arab rejects that no Arab country wants, and renames them 'Palestinians.' By stealing one simple name, this rabble, who never had a country or even a society, was turned into a quasi-legitimate people with a hijacked history stretching back millennia. (If nothing else, Yasser Arafat should be sued for identity theft.) So what to call this bunch of murderous, bloodthirsty Arab rejects squatting on Israeli soil? Someone suggested Palirabs; another 'Paliscum,' while some say simply to call them Arabs. Personally, I like the term 'Fakestinians.' I encourage everyone who is mad as heck that they stole the name 'Palestinian' from the Hebrew people to start calling them 'Fakestinian. It is accurate, descriptive of what they are - fakes, and denotes where they currently squat - Palestine. Then there are the misnomers 'militant' and 'freedom-fighter.' According to my online dictionary, the word 'militant' means a combatant engaged in warfare. Blowing up women and children riding in a bus, or eating lunch in a pizzeria, is hardly warfare. Nor is shooting civilians riding in cars, or invading the homes of families having a Sabbath dinner and mercilessly slaughtering them. These are all cowardly attacks by armed and trained Arab combatants upon innocent civilians, specifically targeting Jews and Israelis. Therefore, the term 'Arab Genocidists' is the only term that is factually descriptive. Meanwhile, 'freedom fighter' implies that someone is being enslaved or held captive. The Fakestinians are neither enslaved nor held captive. If they wanted to leave, I'm sure Israel would be more than happy to buy them a ticket to anywhere. Heck, even I'd chip in a few bucks and donate my second-best tongue-scraper to help them arrive at their new homes with nice-smelling breath. If anything, the Fakestinians are holding captive territory that belongs to Israel - said land having been won in a war of Arab aggression using overwhelming numbers to destroy tiny Israel. As to being enslaved, when they bother to work in Israel instead of bombing it, they get paid. To my knowledge, the only people these days who still practice enslaving others are the Fakestinian's Arab brethren and billion-dollar financiers, the Saudis. Taking into account their behaviors, and the fact that they aren't enslaved (except perhaps by Arafat, their own hatred, and Islamic propaganda), one term springs to mind. Since these Arabs are hostile combatants seeking to murder any Jew they can find, and since they do it in the name of Arab and Islamic purity, 'Arab Genocidists' also seems most appropriate. 'Occupied territory' is another term hijacked by Arafat and his Fakestinians. While that land is certainly occupied, it is Israeli land occupied by non-Israelis. But Arafat & Co. have brainwashed the world into thinking just the opposite. Therefore, changing it to 'Arab-occupied' land puts the spin of truth to that idiom. Finally, there is the media's favorite cliche 'suicide bomber.' Again, the purpose of these bombs is to murder and maim as many Jews and Israelis as possible. Suicide in this case is merely an added bonus, since these perpetrators believe Jewish blood will buy them a ticket to an eternal and divinely blessed debauchery in some perverted Islamic version of heaven. The correct term is 'genocide bomber,' since this describes the intent, the act, and eliminates any false notion that these people are merely sad and depressed. If the Fakestinians don't like these truthful and accurate terms that describe them and their behaviors, new terminology could be found under certain conditions. If and when they change their textbooks, rhetoric, and society to call Israel Israel and not a 'Zionist Entity,' when they call Israeli citizens Israelis and not 'occupiers,' when they call the babies, children, mothers and fathers they murder victims instead of 'legitimate targets,' when they acknowledge that there never was a country called Palestine or a society historically called Palestinian, except in reference to the Hebrew people, then maybe they will have earned the right to be called human, as opposed to 'genocidal-monsters-committed-to-the-overthrow-of-a-legally-recognized-country.'

ABU MAZEN RESIGNS Posted by Jinsa Reports #357, September 8, 2003.

"Perfume on a dirty neck" came to mind as Abu Mazen submitted his resignation to Yasser Arafat and the "rais" accepted it. Key to both President Bush's 24 June 2001 speech and the "Road Map" was the fact that the Palestinians needed "new leadership untainted by terror." Abu Mazen was neither, and his "Prime Ministership" was simply a way to make Arafat smell better to those, including the Administration, who still think Israel's war is something other than the war we fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. Those who are even now unwilling to let Israel sever the link between terrorists and the states* that harbor and support them. Whether Abu Mazen wanted to be a peacemaker is irrelevant. He never could have been. Whether Abu Mazen wanted to "dismantle the terrorist infrastructure" is irrelevant. He never could have. Whether Abu Mazen believed in a secure "two-state solution" is irrelevant. There never can be one as long as the money, the guns, the terrorist philosophy and the local and international legitimacy reside in Arafat. (Maybe not even then, but surely not until then.) The President made a point of asking our Quartet "allies" not to deal with Arafat, and they made a point of doing exactly that. The French, Germans, British and others publicly paid obeisance to Arafat and PA officials called Arafat "elected by the people." (Never mind that the election was rigged and the term ran out in 1999.) Bad enough. Ruinous, even. But the last straw, clearly, was the Secretary of State - the President's own man - calling on Arafat to "help" Abu Mazen control terrorism against Israel after the last bus bombing. Why didn't he just put a horse head on Abu Mazen's bedpost? Arafat remains in charge of the Palestinians because the world, apparently including Mr. Powell, wants him to be, not because Israel couldn't change the facts on the ground. Israel's hands are tied in a war for its own survival because the Quartet, and apparently the President, is irrevocably wedded to the dangerous notion that it is our duty to provide the Palestinians with a "real" state. But Israel can no more negotiate with the PA than we could with the Taliban or Saddam. The basic principle of the American - led war against terrorists and the states that harbor and support them is that the relationship is symbiotic. Terrorists need assets provided by governments that have legitimacy in the eyes of the international community, and terrorists provide an anonymous way for states to kill. You can try to kill individual terrorists and foil individual plots - and you have to - but you also have to dry up the sea in which they swim, the places they get money, weapons and training, and the places they hide when the gruesome deeds are done. How come America can and Israel can't? In many cases, the same countries that oppose the coalition in Iraq also oppose Israel's war. They don't understand the nature of the problem and maybe they never will. But the President does and we expect better from him - and from Mr. Powell. *No, the PA is not a state, but it has the necessary attributes of a state for the purposes of supporting terrorism, which is the relevant point. The Jinsa Reports are published by the Jewish Institute For National Security Affairs (JINSA). The website address for the reports is http://www.jinsa.org/lists/subscribe.html

IN THE WAR ON TERROR, WHO SPEAKS FOR THE ADMINISTRATION? Posted by Leo Rennert, September 8, 2003.

Secretary of State Colin Powell goes on television to urge Israel to show restraint in attacking terrorist leaders lest such actions spawn even more terrorism ("Restraint Is Urged In Attacking Hamas," news section Sept. 8). A few hours later Mr. Powell is followed on TV by his boss, President Bush, who delivers the opposite message: "Terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of military strength; they are invited by the perception of weakness." What is Israel to do? Follow Mr. Powell's advice, or Mr. Bush's? Or is terror in Jerusalem more benign than terror in Baghdad? Will the real Bush administration please stand up?

THE FOX NEWS INTERVIEW OF KOLA BOOF Posted by Staff, Atlantic Library, September 7, 2003.

[Saturday, August 23, 2003. Interview conducted by Rita Crosby for the Fox News Network. Transcript # 082305cb.262] COSBY: Our next guest is a poet, author, and activist. She is also, get this, the former mistress of Osama bin Laden, calling him a billionaire gangbanger. Kola Boof was kept under lock and key by bin Laden until he was, quote, tired of her and met another woman and she was able to escape to the west. Now in America, Kola still fears for her life. Her home country of Sudan has issued an fatwa, an edict for her death. And bin Laden told her he would like to kill her himself. She recently told her story to "Black Book" magazine. And Kola joins us now from an undisclosed location to talk about one of the most wanted terrorists in the world. Kola, thank you very much for being here. You have had an astounding life. And I want to first ask you, when you met Osama bin Laden - I was reading that you met him in 1996 at a restaurant in Morocco. What did you think of him? BOOF: I was very frightened of him. And - he's very tall. He's like 6 foot 6, you know, and his men came up to the date that I had and they told him to leave, and I was very terrified. I mean, he's a very terrifying man, but at the same time, back in 1996, he was very good looking, you know. He was - there was an erotic charge but at the same time I was very frightened because I liked the guy that I was dating. COSBY: And you were so frightened you ran back to your hotel room but he followed you. Tell us what happened? BOOF: Yes. He raped me that night, the first night that I met him. Yes. It was very terrible. COSBY: But then after that you became his mistress. Was that out of fear? BOOF: Well, yes. Also because of the climate of where we lived. I mean this is in Morocco. And so I can't just get up and run away. You know, there's nothing - woman are not protected. And so he - his men took me to Lamasan Arap (ph) which is in Stone Wall City, Koda'a Medina. And there's no way out on foot. And you know, he has guards. And you know, women don't have rights. COSBY: When you talked about him being sort of an animal, did he have many mistresses? Would he go out on a date or would he want to be intimate with you? BOOF: You know, Americans really don't understand what it's like over there so I am going to just - you know, we don't have a lot of time, so I am going to just say that, you know, he's charming but at the same time there's not a lot of respect for a woman's rights or what you are interested in or what you want. You know, also added to that is in that country he's considered white and I am considered black. And so it was - you know, Rita, it was just very, very terrifying for me. Also I am a very intelligent woman so I thought, well, I am going to make him fall in love with me, and that wasn't going to happen. COSBY: Did he ever talk about his very extreme fundamentalist views, his hatred toward America? BOOF: Well, of course. Of course he did. But you have to remember, I am born in Andaman, Sudan, and so I am completely surrounded by that kind of mentality anyway. We have slavery in my country. Many people have been murdered in front of me. I have seen slaves chained up to the back of houses by Arabs. I am half Arab. I was raised to hate America. I was taught in school, you know how you go to elementary school? On a daily basis they would teach us kids how to hate the American people and ... COSBY: But he was obviously so extreme. I mean to the point, look, he masterminded the attacks on American soil. Did you see that there was this obviously extreme capability about him and also a charisma to guide people to do this horrible act? BOOF: Yes, there was. He's a very brilliant man. Some of the most brilliant poetry I have ever read was written by Sami, who's Osama. But, he is a brilliant man. He is - like me, he was passionate, but he's a very violent man. He's like Hitler in a way, you know, it's who I would compare him to. And then it's like being the Ike Turner and Hitler combined. It was a very bad relationship. And he is a very passionate person who really believes that what he is doing is right. And it's very evil, though. For instance, he told me that he didn't want me to have tits. COSBY: We have got to wrap up, because we are going to a hard commercial break, but I definitely want to have you back on again, Kola. It is fascinating, and I am glad you escaped from him. Kola Boof is a poetess, now living in America. A Sharia Court has issued a Fatwa - a Death Sentence - against her for speaking out against Islam.

DANGEROUS IDEAS? Posted by David Ben-Ariel, September 7, 2003.

I've been blessed to have served as a lowly volunteer on eight kibbutzim throughout the Promised Land of Israel. One of them was Kibbutz Sdot Yam, home to the Hungarian-born Israeli heroine, Hannah Senesh. While there I read Hannah Senesh: Her Life & Diary, that included this interesting observation: "When anyone in Hungary spoke of Zionism five or even two years ago, Jewish public opinion condemned him as a traitor of Hungary, laughed at him, considered him a mad visionary, and under no circumstances heard him out." Thank God the few Zionists were able to transcend the bitter criticism of the short-sighted majority! Thank God that such "mad" visionaries saw their dream become reality: a Jewish Homeland. During my brief appearance before Israel's High Court, represented by Naftali Werzberger, to fight against an unjust deportation order against me (based on false allegations of involvement in a plot to blow up the Al-Aksa mosque later drastically reduced to another lie: "visa violation!"), the prosecution charged that I hold "dangerous ideas." I suppose the short-sighted prosecution would ban the Bible if he could since it contains the "dangerous ideas" that I believe in! What are those "dangerous ideas?" That the Promised Land is promised to Israel and not to Ishmael; that the Temple Mount must be restored as the TEMPLE Mount and respected as Judaism's holiest site; that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Israel. Because too many secular, Hellenist Jews have forgotten the sole purpose of a Jewish state - to serve as a safe haven to worship Israel's God - they've flirted with disaster and courted destruction. They've foisted THEIR dangerous ideas uopn Israel and have surrendered holy land to terrorists; have permitted the continued desecration of Judaism's holiest site (the Temple Mount, not the Western Wall!) by militant Muslims; have enabled the Amalekite "Palestinians" to undermine Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem; foolishly believe in a lying "peace" process that is leading to war and European occupation; and have chosen the murderer Herr Arafat to Meir Kahane, a rabbi and former Knesset member! Thankfully, because of the faithfulness of Israel's God, those Christian-Zionists and Jews who believe in the Bible's "dangerous ideas" know and take comfort in the reassurance that ultimately, apparently after great and unnecessary suffering - those down to earth ideas will be found to be IDEALS after all that will bless Israel and the whole world when finally implemented without apology or hesitation.

HOW THE PLO GETS THE BETTER OF ISRAEL Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 7, 2003

The PLO long has been waging a 'people's war.' Vietnam trained it to fight both militarily and politically. At first, the political conflict is more important, especially to delegitimize the adversary and divide his society. (Note that Israel largely is delegitimized and divided.) Israel responded to the PLO militarily but not politically. After 1993, Israel ignored the PLO's continued engagement in political warfare against it, as by incitement to violence against it. Israel complained about PLO violations of agreements, but did not realize that these violations were not isolated but deliberate strategy in war. Israel's narrow, military approach leaves it vulnerable to broad strategic deception. Israel should re-examine its own strategy (IMRA, 9/4) and its enemy's. That advice is correct but inadequate. It fails to state that Israel, that is, its Left, does not want to declare the Arabs, inside and outside of Israel, the enemy. Israel largely is ignorant of the issues in the Arab-Israel conflict, lacks pride in maintaining its own cause, and still dreams of making peace with a totalitarian, fanatical enemy that has no desire for peace. Its people have a naive belief in gentile goodwill and US friendship. No wonder Israel gets deceived!

A SIMPLE ANSWER TO A COMPLEX PROBLEM Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, September 7, 2003.

Dr. Lester Monroe of Hazard, Kentucky wrote this Letter to the Editor about the headline of September 7, 2003, "Powell: Next Palestinian leader must fight terror." To the Editor, I'm sure Arafat will agree to fight terror, in English, anyway. Has Mr. Powell asked Hamas or Islamic Jihad to fight terror? Maybe if he asks them nicely, they'll comply. While he's at it, maybe Colin could suggest to Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein to 'reign in terror.' I'm sure if he makes them a nice offer, they'll be glad to. When is he, and the rest of the media gonna get it? Palestine is only a symbol of pan-Islamic world dominance, and the arch enemy of mainstream Muslim philosophy is Ishmael's brother, Isaac, better known as the Tribe of Israel. Although world Islam insists that the west is the devil (even as they struggle to live there), the daily pounding of the Islamic media that Israel must be destroyed only enforces their embracing of anti-semitic protocols, and Hitlerian hatred. There are 50 Arab and Muslim countries, but the scapegoat of all their problems is Israel. It's all a lie. Maybe the answer to all the problems in the Middle East is really quite simple, as it is in that old favorite book, the Bible, where is simply states, regarding the enemies of Israel, "Remove them."

A SECOND EXPULSION Posted by Jan Willem van der Hoeven, September 7, 2003.

"Thus says the Lord: 'Because you have let slip out of your hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore your life shall go for his life and your people for his people.'" (1 Kings 20:42) Who would have guessed, when in 1982 former Prime Minister Menachem Begin allowed Arafat and his men to leave Beirut 'with their guns,' that this momentous blunder would lead directly to the killing and maiming of countless Israeli men, women and children and, at the same time, see this terrorist of all terrorists bestowed in OSLO with the prestigious Nobel Prize for Peace? Who would have believed it then, that this would be the result of his expulsion to Tunisia? And surely no-one would ever have conceived, on top of all this, that Arafat and his fellow terrorists would emerge victorious and in the end have the most ancient part of Israel pressed into their blood-soaked hands as a peace offering in which they would be welcome to form an independent, Muslim, Palestinian state of their own - a state for murderers? And yet, despite the horrendous hindsight realization of the first expulsion's bitter fruit, Israel's cabinet Ministers are contemplating doing this foolish thing again? What will Arafat's expulsion bring this time, if the first left such a devastating trail of blood? What short sightedness; what lack of courage from the Israeli leadership! What a wrong message to send, letting an arch murderer and terrorist go free while bringing to trial and prison those whom he sent to blow up Israelis in buses, market squares and other places. They can be tried, but their boss can go free and enjoy his life and, in whatever Arab country welcomes him, prepare for the next round of terror with the help of all his international friends, the Al Qaeda, the Hizbollah and others. And Israel will again have given him his freedom to do so! Incredible. Truly unbelievable! Everything that then followed his first expulsion, however bloody, will be nothing compared to what may come to Israel as a result of this second expulsion. Jan Willem van der Hoeven is Director of the International Christian Zionist Center in Jerusalem. Its website address is http://www.israelmybeloved.com.

HERE COME THE TROOPS by Barry Chamish, September 7, 2003.

For the past ten years I've been repeating the same message: The Oslo "Peace" process was a planned war process whose final goal was the occupation of Israel and, especially, Jerusalem, by the troops of the architects of the global takeover known commonly as the New World Order. Soon we will witness the fulfillment of still another logical prediction as Israel turns into another Bosnia, Afghanistan or Iraq and patrons of Jerusalem's outdoor cafes will see UN/US tanks rolling past their tables. The pattern is self-evident, yet Israelis continue to miss its significance. I'll let the items speak for themselves. U.S. considers international force to stop Israeli-PA war. WASHINGTON [MENL] - The United States has been examining the prospect of organizing an international force to stop the Israeli-Palestinian war. "We're not talking about another U.S. military deployment," an official said. "Instead, we're discussing a NATO-type heavily-armed combat force that would be based mostly on troop contributions from Europe. There has been some discussions and positive feedback from some of our European friends." (http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2003/august/08_27_1.html) U.S. Mulls International Force For PA. WASHINGTON [MENL]: - The United States has been examining the prospect of organizing an international force to stop the Israeli-Palestinian war. Officials said both the Bush administration and Congress have quietly discussed an effort to recruit at least one division of combat troops that would patrol the West Bank and Gaza Strip and enforce a Palestinian ceasefire with Israel. They said many in the administration and Congress have concluded that a Palestinian state can not be established without an international force that will impose a ceasefire in the region. "We're not talking about another U.S. military deployment," an official said. "Instead, we're discussing a NATO-type heavily-armed combat force that would be based mostly on troop contributions from Europe. There has been some discussions and positive feedback from some of our European friends." Officials said congressional leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, have supported the deployment of U.S. troops in the Palestinian areas as part of an international force. They said NATO and the international community would require at least a pool of 30,000 troops, aircraft and armored platforms to form a credible deterrent against Palestinian insurgency groups that operate in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. At any one time, about 10,000 troops would patrol the West Bank and Gaza Strip in cooperation with Israel and the Palestinian Authority. (Thursday, August 28, 2003) IMRA asks: What exactly could a heavily armed combat force sent by countries whose top priority is to keep on the good side of the Arabs do? Answer: Protect terrorists from Israeli security forces.

MAHMOUD ABBAS' RESIGNATION Posted by Leo Rennert, September 6, 2003.

Dear Mr. President: While almost everybody seems to be wailing that Mahmoud Abbas' resignation represents a terrible blow to your peace plan, I would suggest that you should actually welcome it as a salutary development that can get U.S. policy back on a more productive track. In voicing full confidence in Abbas' ability to be a worthy partner in the peace process, you lapsed into dangerous self-delusion, letting wishful thinking - instead of stark reality - guide your strategy. From the start, Abbas never measured up to your expectations. Arafat vetoed Abbas' initial cabinet selections and forced him to accept several Arafat cronies instead. Arafat never sought to muster popular support for Abbas. Just the opposite; he denounced the Aqaba summit as a sell-out and then refused to give Abbas full control over all Palestinian security services. While all this was happening, Abbas never showed any serious inclination to confront Arafat. Time and again, he threatened to resign, but then came crawling back to Arafat, granting him more and more respect and ultimate authority. Also, from the start, Abbas fell in line with Arafat's wishes by declaring that he would never take on Hamas and other terrorist groups, as required by the road map. Finally, in a desperate attempt to placate Arafat, Abbas caved in and named Saeb Erekat, Arafat's chief propagandist and an unreconstructed hard-liner during the Oslo years, as the Palestinians' chief negotiator with Israel - a perfect prescription guaranteed to doom any political agreement. When Abbas finally submitted his "final" resignation, he blamed everybody - Arafat, the Palestinian media, Sharon, you - except himself. Whether Abbas chose not to exercise adequate leadership in the pursuit of peace or was prevented form doing so is beside the point. The truth is that, for whatever reason, he didn't measure up and your trust in him was totally misplaced. Nor were Arafat and Abbas the only flies in this ointment. From the beginning, you warned that the road map would go nowhere unless Arab leaders effectively (not pretend) gave their total support to dismantling Hamas and other terrorist groups. They didn't; they let you down - big time. Nor did you get any real help from your Quartet partners - the U.N., the EU and the Kremlin - who all kept propping up Arafat, while you made it clear that there could be no peace or a Palestinian state while Arafat was still calling the tune and undermining Abbas. The only support you got was from the much maligned Ariel Sharon, who began withdrawing troops from Palestinian areas, releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, dealing man-to-man with Abbas, and starting to dismantle Jewish outposts - all designed to boost Abbas' standing. Obviously to no avail. But when your reflect on what's happened, Mr. President, you should consider yourself a lucky guy. It took eight years before Arafat finally knocked Bill Clinton for a loop by making him realize that Arafat had played him for a sucker. In your case, it took only four months to strip away illusions and reveal that Abbas was an emperor without clothes - not the "empowered" prime minister you imagined could displace Arafat. So now you have more time to recoup than Clinton did and to take the true measure of Palestinian leadership as long as Arafat remains the dominant player. I wish you well because I know your heart is in the right place.

POSTPONED DEMONSTRATION Posted by Ken Heller, September 6, 2003.

BECAUSE IT HAS BECOME MORE APPARENT THAT PRIME MINISTER SHARON IS TARGETING HAMAS LEADERSHIP FAIRLY CONTINUOUSLY AS WELL AS SEEMINGLY INCREASING THE SECURITY IN ISRAEL AND BECAUSE THE SITUATION WITH ABBAS' RESIGNATION LEAVES NO PARTY WITH WHOM THE UNITED STATES AND ISRAEL CAN NEGOTIATE, I AM OF THE BELIEF THAT THE "ROAD MAP" IS EFFECTIVELY DEAD. THEREFORE, THE PLANNED ANTI-ROAD MAP DEMONSTRATION SCHEDULED FOR SEPTEMBER 21ST WILL BE CANCELED. THOSE OF YOU WHO WOULD LIKE TO GO AHEAD WITH WHATEVER PLANS YOU ALREADY HAVE MAY OF COURSE DO SO. IF, HOWEVER, THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION DECIDES TO MAKE THE SERIOUS MISTAKE OF CONTINUING TO PRESSURE ISRAEL INTO LOOKING TO ARAFAT AS A "PEACE PARTNER", WE WILL RESCHEDULE THE WORLDWIDE DEMONSTRATION FOR AFTER THE HOLIDAYS AT THE END OF OCTOBER.

WHAT CAN WE DO WITH THE ARABS? Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 6, 2003.

Some people don't learn from experience. They are the ones who advise us to make arrangements with the Arabs. When one arrangement collapses, they propose another. It does not occur to them that no arrangement can succeed. What they propose would work if the Arabs were like themselves. The Arabs aren't. The Arabs don't react as Westerners suppose. They have different values and ways of thinking. Before one suggests how to deal with the Arabs, one needs to study Arab culture and behavior. Familiarity with Arab culture and behavior and the history of the problem under question should be elementary. Unfortunately, the Op-Ed pages of the 'NY Times' are filled with proposals for dealing with the Arabs, submitted by intellectuals who are more biased than informed. Goodwill gestures don't work with the Arabs, because they are brainwashed in bigotry. They cannot reciprocate with people they consider sub-human. Concessions don't work with the Arabs, because they consider them a weakness to be exploited by demands for further concessions. Compromise doesn't work with the Arabs, because jihadists accept what they are given, but refuse to keep their end of the bargain, if it involves reciprocal concessions. Truces don't work with the Arabs, who use them to build up for renewed warfare upon the truces' expiration or some pretext. The Arabs are expert at suggesting pretexts. Treaties don't work with the Arabs, because they don't honor them. Then what works? Force. Determination. Self-respect. And not making goodwill gestures, concessions, compromises, truces, and treaties. P.A. forces and private militias must be eradicated, the P.A. curriculum reformed, its media de-Nazified, its hope for detaching a piece of the Jewish homeland as a starting point in its war on the Jews dashed (as by attaching much of Yesha to Israel), its opportunity to work in Israel ended, and prior concessions rescinded.

A WARRIOR'S JOB Posted by Yuval Zaliouk, September 5, 2003.

I, among many Israelis, do not understand why it takes Israel's government so long to accept the glaring fact that Israel is in a total war with the Palestinians and why it is not acting as any country would at war? Is the reason world pressure? Is it Israel's and Judaism inherent humanity? I have been asking these questions for a very long time. There were many horrendous terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens in the last three years: The Dolphinarium, Park Hotel in Passover, countless busses, the Matza Restaurant in Haifa, to mention but a few. Some 900 Israelis (equal by ratio to 54,000 Americans) lost their lives. Were these attacks not enough to constitute a cause for a total war on the perpetrators? Here is one possible idea: Issue an ultimatum to hand over all weapons and explosives within 12 hours. Employ all the necessary forces to search house to house and furnish the necessary punishment to anybody found with forbidden materials. The following is an editorial on the subject by Nolan Finley, published by The Detroit News. You will find some answers in it for the above questions. Will this Editorial reach the desk and the mind of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon? With the blood of its children running through the streets of Jerusalem, Israel has no choice but to crumple the road map to peace and instead draft a battle plan for combating terrorism. Any hope for a political solution to the violence in the Middle East vanished in the bus bombing Tuesday, which killed 20 and maimed scores of others, many of them children. Television cameras showed the surviving youngsters, screaming and blood-smeared, stumbling away from the horrific carnage. Terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad competed for credit. There's only one way to deal with those who find glory in slaughtering children: Kill them. The bomber's wife said her husband died fulfilling his dream of martyrdom. The man had two kids of his own, and yet his life's dream was to die killing other people's children. You can't negotiate with that level of ignorance, hatred and religious insanity. Yet Israel, at the insistence of the United States, has come to the bargaining table. It has offered extraordinary concessions in the name of peace and taken good faith steps, including dismantling settlements and pulling back troops. But the peace process has failed again, for the same reason it always fails. The Palestinians are wed to terrorism, and real peace cannot be bargained with a terrorist state. So Israel has no choice but to seek a military solution, to roll its tanks again across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinians blame their violence on Israel's oppression and brutality. But the truth is that Israel has not been brutal enough in the face of terror. Its answer is surgical strikes, targeted assassinations and a catch-and-release prisoner policy. Meanwhile, terrorist chieftain Yasser Arafat sits unmolested in Ramallah, and the leaders of the terrorist networks hold press conferences and rally crowds in village streets. Always, Israel's fist is restrained by the United States. But to end the violence, Israel must strike with terrible force. To be blunt, the Palestinians must be brought to their knees, made to feel the pain of allowing terrorists to act in their name. The path taken in President George W. Bush's road map to peace did just the opposite. It started the Palestinians toward statehood without forcing them to unstrap their bombs. Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat's puppet, says he risks civil war by disarming the terrorists. He must be warned that war is coming for certain if he doesn't. In past Middle East wars, Israel was reined in before it could achieve its final objectives. The conditions are different today. Egypt is a mess. Iraq is gone. Jordan and Saudi Arabia are in America's pocket. And there's no Soviet Union to pressure the United States to intervene. So Israel has a golden opportunity to launch its own version of a shock and awe campaign. It can drive the terrorists out of the territories, eliminate the threat from the Syrian-hosted Hezbollah along the Lebanon border and, if Iran chooses to join the fight, good - another problem checked off the list. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has played Washington's game. He's reached across the table, spoken words of conciliation, restrained his fury in the face of horrible provocation. It's time to let Sharon be Sharon. He's a warrior. And bringing peace to the Middle East is now a warrior's job. Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The Detroit News.

HOW TO CELEBRATE SHIMON PERES' BIRTHDAY Posted by Ruth and Nadia Matar, September 5, 2003.

On Sunday, the 21st of September, the friends of Shimon Peres have decided to honor him on the occasion of his 80th birthday, at the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv. Former U.S. President Clinton will be there. Ordinarily, we would not inject ourselves into such an occasion. However, so much pain and suffering has been caused by Mr. Peres to Jewish families throughout Israel, that we feel compelled to act. The Oslo process has caused the deaths of some 1,500 Jews and the maimings of thousands of others. Peres has brought grief and sorrow to those families who have lost love ones or suffered serious injuries. Sadly, he shuns visiting the bereaved, and has become immune to their pain. What is even more disturbing is the fact that he is unrepentant. Mr. Peres is incapable of admitting error. Furthermore, he refuses to descend from the podium. He continues to inject his poor judgment on many issues of the day. These opinions are faithfully reported in detail by the leftist oriented media, both here and abroad. Peres' blindness and timidity towards Arab terrorism is well known. He has brought upon the Jewish People the catastrophe of Oslo, of which he is the architect. It is for this reason that Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green) feel justified to use the occasion of his 80th birthday as a means to broadly publicize the poor judgment Mr. Peres has shown in the past. Unfortunately, there are those who still cling to Mr. Peres to provide them with answers to today's complicated problems with the Arabs. The choice by them of Mr. Peres is a poor one. He consistently has been proven wrong in the past. Because of his vanity, he is unable to admit his grotesque past failures. There are those who point to Peres' major contribution to providing Israel with the deterrent atom bomb capability. Notwithstanding, Mr. Peres is a grave liability to Israel and threatens Jewish survival. Mr. Peres has a long record of identification with international socialism. He rarely identifies himself as a Jew or expresses his identification with a Jewish State. He has consistently shown extremely poor judgment with regard to the terrorist Arafat. Arafat is the father of international terrorism, yet Peres completely ignores that important fact. Moreover, he is prepared to make peace with the Arabs at any cost, despite their inhumane and barbaric tactics, and their different moral standards. We intend to take out ads in the Hebrew Press, to reach as wide an audience as possible, to warn them of the dangers that Mr. Peres represents. To ensure a large turnout for the demonstration, we need to provide busses from all parts of the country to come to the demonstration. We also need to have a professional sound system. We appeal to those of you who can help financially to cover the cost of such ads, and other necessary expenses, to send in your contribution, as soon as possible, to the Central Fund For Israel, c/o Women in Green, POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel. The octogenarian, Mr. Peres, has no words of wisdom for us. He has consistently been proven wrong in all his suggestions with regard to our relations with the Arabs. His advices represent a danger and menace to us all. They should be totally disregarded. That is our realistic view on Mr. Peres on the occasion of his 80th birthday. It is vital that you join our demonstration on the 21st of September, or at the very least, show your support for it. The authors lead Women In Green, an activist group of Israeli women, who were early critics of the Oslo Accords. The website address of the group is http://www.womeningreen.org

RUMSFELD CALL FOR HELP IS FIRST STEP IN VIETNAMIZATION POLICY IN IRAQ Posted by Mark Alan, September 5, 2003.

Donald Rumsfeld's high-profile appeal for assistance in Iraq closely followed by statements that security in Iraq must be implemented by Iraqis sounds very much like the Nixon administration's plan of "Vietnamization" in Vietnam where the US hoped to withdraw its bloodied troops and support South Vietnam from the air and sea. While I support the US effort to driver out the Baathists and to establish democracy in this region, I think that the US must not run away from the cowardly terrorist attacks against its troops. Instead, it should partition the country into ethnic nations (Kurds, Turkamen's, Shiites, Sunnis and even Baathists). And then instead of withdrawing American forces it should use brutal force against terrorists and, if they resort to suicide attacks, the murderer's FAMILIES. The US has just begun to taste what 10's of 1000's of Israeli families have tasted these past many years. Unfortunately, Israel cannot turn over its security to another people (as it tried to do with the Palestinian Authority) nor can it unilaterally withdraw since it would then be destroyed. In this War on Terror, America must accelerate this fight and, if necessary, expand it to Syria. The collapse of Syria will do much to pacify the Iraqi terrorists. The final piece of the puzzle is Iran. Success in destroying terrorism in the Middle East now - even at the cost of 100,000 American soldiers - if we are successful, will save the lives of countless millions of civilians. If we allow our allies to be over-run by the terrorists in the wake of an American retreat, the battle lines will shift to U.S. soil.

INVEST IN ISRAEL Posted by Deb Kotz, September 4, 2003.

[This is a talk that was given by Len Rosen of Lehman Brothers investment banking unit.] There has been a program going on advocating "buying Israeli"...buy Osem noodles or snacks, Tnuva cheese, Yarden or Carmel wines, Maccabee beer, Jaffa Oranges. And that is great, and very important, but I think perhaps it doesn't go far enough, so let me tell you about a few more ways to buy Israeli: 1. When you make a cellphone call, and the call doesn't go through, leave a voicemail. That's it. Or make calls just to leave voicemails. How is that buying Israeli? Because an Israeli company, Comverse Technology, main operations in Atidim, Tel Aviv, is the world's largest producer of voice messaging systems worldwide. Or send Text messages, SMS, or pictures, or send movie clips through your cellphones, OK, we can't do that yet, but they can in Korea, and Comverse's systems make that possible. And Comverse earned over $700m in revenues last year from those products, and their stock is up almost 50% so far this year. 2. Use more drugs. No, not what you're thinking. I mean prescription drugs. And when you do, have your doctor check the box that permits dispensing a generic version. Teva Pharmaceuticals of Petach Tikva is the world's largest manufacturer of generic pharmaceuticals. One out of every 16 prescriptions filled in the United States is for a Teva product made in Israel (or outside Israel but by Teva, an Israeli company). And they earned over $2.7 billion in revenues last year, and their market cap, at $15 billion is at an all time high. 3. What else. Try to hack a computer system, and it is more than likely that the firewall that will keep you out is developed by Checkpoint, market cap $5b, of Ramat Gan. Spend too much time talking on the phone and you will touch on the products of Amdocs, the world's largest provider of complex billing systems software for communications service providers, market cap $5-1/4 b, also of Ramat Gan. All buying Israeli. 4. The next time you are stuck on the phone with customer service somewhere, and you get a message that says "to insure proper service, this call is being recorded?" The two largest companies providing the systems that monitor those calls are Verint Systems of Tel Aviv and Long Island and NICE Systems of Ra'anana. And the way the systems work is that if they hear your decibel level go up, or the call goes on too long, their systems will detect that and shoot the call over to a manager the next morning to figure out what went wrong. So buy Israeli by yelling at a customer service rep. More on Verint: If you are a bad guy, and I know you're not, and you are communicating with other bad guys over your phone or cellphone or email, and the FBI figures out that it's your voice or that you've been talking about doing bad things, that's Verint's communications interception products. Its primary business is analytic software for homeland security. When they talk on the news about picking up chatter, that's Verint's products, When you are walking through the airport and the cameras are following you, the software that determines whether there is something suspicious going on and alerts the guards to look at that camera: Verint's digital security surveillance products. Given Imaging. Traded on Nasdaq. Anybody here ever had an endoscopy? No please don't raise your hands. But if you ever do, think about asking your doctor to use Given Imaging's product. The company has embedded a tiny camera in a pill that, when swallowed, examines the large intestine the way an endoscopy would - but without the discomfort associated with that procedure. Believe it or not this is derived from Military Technology...guided missiles. I'll leave that to your imagination. Israel fueled its high-tech boom in its infancy, when capital was hard to come by, by providing a unique assortment of state-funded R&D grants and investment benefits. However, the most important reason for Israel's extraordinary economic development is not related to the government but to the country's people. Israel's population is the most highly educated in the world, with 135 engineers for every 10,000 people in the work force. In comparison, the U.S., which ranks second in this regard, has 70 per 10,000. In addition, the 700-800,000 new immigrants who arrived in from the former Soviet Union contributed an enormously talented pool to the local work force. In 1999-2000, Israeli entrepreneurs raised $5.5b in venture capital, or $1,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. That was during the tech bubble of course, and since then investment fell off a cliff. But all those companies I mentioned earlier, Checkpoint, Amdocs, Comverse, came from that environment, Israel's entrepreneurial culture, the human capital that at its height had 26 companies out of Israel traded in the US worth over $500m, that created an environment where an optical equipment start-up called Chromatis sold to Lucent in 2000 for $4.5.billion, making a few very young people very very wealthy. Anyway, one more way to buy Israeli: watch a lot of TV. And get one of those cool flat panel display televisions. Because the leading company that makes the inspection equipment used to produce those displays is Orbotech, traded on Nasdaq, based in Yavne, Israel. Mkt cap $550m. There is an old Midrashic story about how during the siege of Jerusalem, the emperor Vespasian told Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai that at his request he would save one thing, and Yochanan answered "Ten Li Yavneh V'Chachameha," give me Yavne and its wise men. And that because of that the Jewish people were saved. Well, you can invest in these wise men of Yavne. And you can buy Israeli by watching the flat screen TV's that they help produce. And while you're at it, on your couch, snack on some Osem pretzels with Maccabee beer or Yarden wine. This article has been shortened from the original.

MIRACLES AND WONDERS Posted by Judy Balint, September 4, 2003.

Anita Tucker, Netzer Hazani, Gush Katif writes: Our government, the I.D.F., you and I - we all knew what the Hudna and the Roadmap plan was going to result in. Guess what? That which we all knew would happen actually really did happen. We all let it happen we didn't do enough to stop it. It feels like it is years ago that I wrote the following words to a friend. I wrote this on the 21 of August - I can't believe it. It feels like a lifetime ago - so much has happened since then. Aug.21 2003: "Last night we had a meeting of my Yishuv, Netzer Hazani, with the highest direct officer in charge of the southern Gaza Strip including us. This officer (introduced to us by his nickname Pinky) said that since the Hudna began, the Arabs have brought in an astounding amount of destruction equipment - bullets, rifles, bombs, rockets, mortars etc etc. He said a reliable measure of how easy or difficult it is to smuggle in weapons is the price of a Kalachnikof bullet in Gaza. During the period immediately prior to the Hudna, when he (the I.D.F.) was able to destroy every tunnel the enemy built and catch the smugglers, the price was very very high. Since the start of the Roadmap plan's 'Hudna,' smuggling of arms is totally free and open between Egypt and Gaza, as well as transporting it openly northward via our sole road out of Gush Katif open only to the enemy (we now use the bridge built above the 'smuggling road'-called the King's road in history books of old), the price of a bullet in the Palestinian weapon markets was then 22 Shekel a bullet. The price now is 11 Shekel a bullet." So the price of a bullet is now dirt cheap. This basically means that our lives have also become dirt cheap. The officer said that the I.D.F. is planning to use the rest of the Hudna [A.T.: While they aren't being permitted to do anything to prevent the terrorists from their endless efforts to kill us in cold blood, anyway] to send the I.D.F. troops out for training to prepare for the disaster they expect after the Hudna-"cease-fire-ha ha ha" - so we should know that right now regular troops stationed here are at a minimum (mostly reserves). Even now there is shooting and some rockets and mortars fired every day but the IDF is not being permitted by our government to respond at all as we are religiously abiding by this Roadmap Hudna. So, obviously there is no point in keeping too many troops here. What an "encouraging" meeting this was. Perhaps it is time to again speak about the future and all that again threatens us - World Islamic Terror. We would all prefer to be optimistic including me, but it is so difficult for me to forget these last three years as on every path I walk in the moshav I meet up with someone connected with a family that was either injured or killed. Normally most people block it out of their mind part of the time. But since I am talking to the USA groups and writing all these letters to the US I am reminded of all the gory details so often. Thank God I'm constantly reminded also of all the amazing miracles that we have been privileged to experience and the many more who are alive and full of faith. Two U.S. support missions came to visit us recently. I was tired of talking so much so I brought a group of our youth, who are on vacation now, to meet with these wonderful caring people who trouble themselves to come down here to let us know that people care and to learn about what is really going on here. Thank God for the youth who spoke so positively and injected us all with optimism - they all said they want to return to live here in Netzer Hazani when they "grow up" and when asked if they aren't afraid? They answered that when you live here you aren't afraid at all - it is only the people who come to visit that feel fear - so they invited them all to come and live here! Seeing these youth, who have personally seen such suffering caused by these Islamic terrorists, sitting together with these people who still have clear memories of 9-11 in N.Y.C. and Wash.D.C., made the caring and warmth between them fill the room in Netzer Hazani with light. Again the above was written a week and a half ago. Today Sept. 4: Only a day or two after we met with this officer, his depressing analysis of the situation started coming true. Endless bombs of all sorts and sizes were shot at the civilian population (Hirioshima? Vietnam?) in Gush Katif and in the surrounding kibbutzim and cities. Our main road out has been closed on and off due to terrorists wondering about on their way to try and kill Jews. Homes and public buildings were damaged, repaired and often damaged again within days. Miracle after miracle that God's mercy perpetrated, spared the lives of our friends and neighbors. For some reason that only God must know, Netzer Hazani was spared the anxiety and property damage of this first week of rockets mortars and bombs. We did hear the noise from afar and we did hear some shooting from afar. We basically ignored it so it wouldn't get louder or closer. Saturday night, Motzoei Shabbat, as all the men were coming out of the synagogue into our main plaza with all its colorful flowers blooming, located in between the synagogue and the Bnei Akiva (the 4th-8th graders) youth building, many young women stood around with their baby strollers and their young children running all around, awaiting their fathers to go home for Havdala - the end of the Sabbath. The 4th-to-8th graders together with their group leaders were awaiting the start of the Havadala in their building as they do this ceremony together every Saturday evening. Oh no! Dani, the group leader, forgot to buy a new bottle of wine as last week the one they've had for the longest time was finally finished. He had no choice but to send all the kids home to perform the Havdala ceremony with their families. Exactly one and a half minutes after our children slowly poured out of this building every person in the moshav heard the all too familiar launching whistles and then three huge explosions, one after the other - even louder than some we had heard in the past. I was in my house with two air-conditioners, two noisy fans and four even noisier grandchildren, and my daughter trying to get them into pajamas, yet we all heard the explosions and knew they had fallen in Netzer Hazani. Before the thoughts of who and how many may have been injured began running through our heads all the phones in the house rang at the same time. It was the familiar automated phone message from the head of the Netzer Hazani emergency squad (my son Amichai) with his calming tone of voice. "Shavua Tov, today is August 30 - the 3rd of Ellul, 20:02. Three mortars have just fallen and exploded in Netzer Hazani. One fell near the Bnei Akiva youth building - no one was injured. Please enter a secure area. I repeat, please enter a secure area [A.T.: an area with concrete ceiling, away from outer walls and windows]. Anyone who knows the location of the other two mortars are requested to notify us immediately (press appropriate # on phone)." After several more minutes, again all the phones in the house ring. Again Amichai's calming voice. "Shavua Tov! The date is .... the time is ... The first mortar exploded near the Bnei Akiva youth building. There was some damage to the building but no more, Thank God everyone is fine. The second mortar exploded between the homes of the families Oshri and Hadar with no damage, thank God. The third mortar exploded near the Dekel army base (located on the edge of the Netzer Hazani). Thank God no damage. Please remain in a secure area. Please remain in a secure area." A few minutes later a third call with the welcomed notice - "return to normal." By this time my husband and son-in-law had returned home from the synagogue and we all gathered together to say the Havdala prayer whose words were so very appropriate and expressed exactly what we all felt. We listened closely as my husband, Stuart sang out: "God is right here with us, he is always there for us to save us. I will always trust him and have no fear. He is the only one who saves me and from him I will get my strength. God's forces are the ones I give trust in as when we sincerely call out to Him he answers us. As the Jewish people have in the past, with God's help, seen light and joy and respect, in spite of their enemies attempts to destroy them, so we too, the Jewish people today, will soon see light and joy and respect." We then breathed deeply to enjoy the refreshing odor of the fresh herbs, enjoyed seeing the clear light of the multi wicked candle, tasted the wine and continued : " Thank you God for differentiating between the sanctified and the defiled, between light and darkness, between Israel and the nations, between this very special day and all the other days of the week. Thanks again for differentiating between the sanctified and the defiled." I added my own prayer of thanks to God for helping us to organize our thoughts and feelings by coordinating the time of saying the Havdala at the very moment we most needed these comforting words of King David. Sunday morning I went to see the trench the mortar bomb had carved when it fell and exploded only one meter behind the Bnei Akiva youth building in a small spot that "happened" to be sand and not concrete, so it was able to absorb most of the explosion's shockwave and it's consequential destruction, thus only one of the back windows of the building broke and the shrapnel that was planted in the bomb dug pits in the wall of the building. One youth, also standing there said to me, "I think God pushed the terrorists hand only slightly when he launched the mortar." Perhaps he is right. Had the terrorists not have missed by this meter, had it not landed on the patch of sand, had Dani not forgotten to buy a new bottle of wine... I met our local security chief, Yoram, standing there too. He was staring in amazement at the trench and the wallpits as if thinking, as well, of what, God forbid, might have been. Yoram told me that this was a new type post "Hudna" mortar bomb that is electrically launched, enabling them improved preciseness in aiming, and it has a much stronger explosive effect. When I returned home I opened the online newspapers to see if Netzer Hazani and our miracle were mentioned. Only a few of the Israeli papers mentioned that three mortars had fallen on Netzer Hazani. I couldn't find any mention of it in the foreign newspaper sites, as the Islamic terrorists had succeeded in killing innocent citizens in India, Iraq and several other countries. Perhaps that youngster was right about God pushing the terrorists launching hand slightly. Thanks again God. The Jerusalem Diarists are a group of Israelis who write on everyday life in Israel. "Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times" (Gefen,2002) is available for purchase from www.israelbooks.com. To subscribe to this group, send an email to: jerusalemdiaries-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

TARGETED KILLINGS: ARE THEY EFFECTIVE? Posted by Honest Reporting, September 4, 2003.

Over the past two weeks, six IDF helicopter strikes have eliminated 11 Hamas leaders in Gaza. The latest hit, on Monday (Sept. 1), killed Khader al-Husari, a senior Hamas operative who was at that very moment transferring weapons to be used in attacks against Israel. The al-Husari strike was the latest application of what Israeli Defense Minister Mofaz has termed "a new chapter" in Israel's battle against the terrorist organizations: "Since the Palestinian Authority is not acting against these organizations, we will take care of them." As frequently noted by HonestReporting, the media regularly construct a gross moral equivalence between these IDF missile strikes and Palestinian terrorists' indiscriminate murders of Israeli civilians - the media's "cycle of violence." As a result, IDF strikes are presented as not only unjustified, but also ineffective in achieving their desired goal. But in fact, recent events indicate that just the opposite is true - the targeted killings are working. Here's a summary of their recent effectiveness: 1) Deterrence: Hamas terrorists are now in hiding, rather than openly organizing more bombings of Israeli buses and restaurants. Hamas has released a statement to its members, urging them to turn off cellular phones, stay home, and never travel together. They are even encouraged to wear disguises, since, as the directive states, "you do not know who is following you. It could be the store owner, or your neighbor, or someone in a car." 2) Requesting another hudna: Over the last few days, Hamas leaders have sent messages to both the PA and Egypt in an effort to revive the hudna (tactical cease-fire). Apparently, only when the terrorists are feeling the heat personally do they weigh the cost of their ongoing terror against Israelis. 3) Separation from PA: Hamas is convinced that the Palestinian Authority assisted Israel in the recent wave of targeted killings - as one Hamas leader said, "It is clear to us that no one in Ramallah [PA headquarters] is crying over what happened in Gaza." The targeted killings therefore drive a wedge between Hamas and the PA, which is precisely what is called for in the road map as a positive step toward regional peace. 4) Collateral damage minimized: The unfortunate downside of the targeted killings is the loss of innocent lives, but IDF technology is becoming incredibly sophisticated in order to lessen injury to Palestinian civilians. Collaborators now dab the terrorists' vehicles with an invisible dye that is detected by sensors on Israeli helicopters. The IDF recently stopped using an American missile that caused excessive damage; cameras on the tips of the new, Israeli missiles allow for "real-time" aiming. As an IDF insider said, "We can abort up to a couple seconds before impact. On occasion the terrorist's face shows up on camera for final confirmation." 5) Dispelling the great Palestinian illusion: Finally, the targeted killings allow both peoples to pursue a true, lasting peace on the diplomatic level. As analyst Yisrael Neeman writes, "There are those who claim there is no military solution to the conflict with the Palestinians. There is no exclusively political solution either, but rather a combination of the two. Terror must be defeated and afterwards the political solution can be worked out. Only then will the illusion of defeating Israel disappear, allowing for the Palestinians to negotiate in good faith." Yet despite the clear strategic and diplomatic effectiveness of the targeted killings, Associated Press' recent assessment (Sept. 2) focused almost entirely on criticism of the approach. Entitled "Critics: Israeli Strikes Doing More Harm," the article quotes six pro-Palestinian spokespersons (and only one pro-Israeli) to repeatedly drive home its point: the IDF anti-terrorist strikes are "counterproductive," "extremely dangerous," "provoke more attacks," "add to resentment among Palestinians," "escalate [terrorist] responses," and are a mere "aspirin to cancer." Given our five points above, why is the AP article so one-sided in criticizing the targeted killings? You can send comments to: feedback@ap.org Michael Eisenstadt of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy summarizes well Israel's justification for targeted killings: "Were Israel to use massive force to snatch 'wanted men,' the result would undoubtedly be heavy casualties on both sides - but especially on the Palestinian side. Alternatively, relying only on arrests and passive defensive measures would likely lead to more mass casualty attacks in Israel...Israel's current approach - which employs 'targeted killings' as part of a comprehensive approach to fighting terror - has proven reasonably effective, averts escalation, and compared to other options available, entails fewer risks to innocent civilians. For this reason, as long as the PA is not fulfilling its obligation to arrest Palestinians involved in attacks on Israeli civilians, Israel will likely feel compelled to continue such activities." Honest Reporting comments on current media articles on Israel from the daily press. Their website address is http://www.HonestReporting.com.

WHY TERRORISM WORKS Posted by Irwin N. Graulich, September 4, 2003.

There was virtually no guilt trip for destroying the great cities of Nazi Germany, Japan or Korea, including the unfortunate victims of war known as "innocent civilians." Once upon a time democracies knew their enemies and were able to determine general target locations. There was no moral problem with bombing Berlin, Dresden, Hiroshima or Nagasaki, although they resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties. Yet today, when 5 civilian deaths are produced in Iraq or 2 Palestinians are wounded by rubber bullets, the event becomes a worldwide tragedy. Even worse, the targeting of a Hamas terrorist has become synonymous with assassinating a head of state. Why? How did terrorism manifest itself into freedom fighting and what are the reasons it has emanated from the Muslim world? When a once great civilization and religious culture fails miserably, it has only 2 choices. Go out of business or delude itself into believing it has not failed at all, by producing a new false reality of physical strength and spiritual greatness. Thus terrorism was born to compensate for a hatred of the good and successful, who are also superior in virtually every way. Muslim religious leaders are its major proponents because they see the flaws and fraudulence of their own belief system which is a frightening concept. The previously mighty, powerful Arab and Muslim world has fallen into the dustbin of history. It no longer produces anything of value, wisdom, discovery or progress. Those amazing Arabian armies of the desert have been reduced to the laughing stock of West Point studies, with the six strongest Arab nations together being totally decimated by a tiny Jewish nation of largely Yeshiva boys. Furthermore, this little Jewish state has become one of the leaders in scientific and technological breakthroughs, while the countries that retain a good portion of the world's oil wealth have trouble building a shopping center. Israel is a hard enough pill to swallow, but America's success cannot even fit into their mouths. As Western democracies progressed into the 21st century, much of Arab/Muslim civilization reversed course back into the 16th century. No more great Muslim warriors; no more medical breakthroughs; no more beautiful writings. The development of modern warfare has made every Arab and Muslim country the "butt" of military jokes. The well known videotapes of large battalions of soldiers crying and surrendering to the Israelis waving their hands in the air, or the "brave, great" Iraqi soldiers giving up to journalists during the Gulf War have become embedded into everyone's mind, especially fellow Muslims. Their dignity was destroyed and thus terrorism was born. However, there is something wrong with a mentality that is embarrassed because a tyrant like Saddam was defeated. Terrorism is a type of warfare where the perpetrators can truly never lose. Since terrorists are made up of many independent cells and events, there is no unified army to defeat and no flag to surrender. Even more incredible, the supportive local populations who most certainly have knowledge of or harbor them, become innocent civilians. Bomb factories, young men living in apartments with AK-47's and no jobs, people shooting rockets and machine guns blasting; yet the neighbors know nothing. Give me a break! The brilliance of terrorism is that it separates the population from its army so that the foundational populace is absolved of any sins. And thus you can now have a nation like Iraq being separated from Saddam's Baathist regime in which the Iraqis bear absolutely no responsibility, except for 55 people in a deck of cards. Unfortunately many Iraqis were part of the problem, but terrorism and a terrorist dictatorship has allowed them to hide. This strategy also entitles troublemakers to blame their rescuers for the entire predicament. Throw in the term "occupation or occupier" into the mix, and the total responsibility is cast on the morally decent savior, America. Terrorists have become great public relations propagandists. Unfortunately, wars throughout history have produced many civilian casualties. That is the nature of the beast. While innocent women and children were certainly killed in Allied bombings over Nazi Germany, the ultimate blame for their deaths was always understood to be Hitler and his evil henchmen. Leave it to the geniuses of "the religion of peace (sic)" to develop a new tactic that makes every Muslim an innocent civilian. Fighting terrorism has led to an immoral concept - the fighting of a compassionate war. Such an idea is a moral outrage. The nature of war and victory is to totally defeat the enemy and create an atmosphere of fear so that they do not rise up and shoot your soldiers or blow up UN officials having meetings. Of course, a moral nation does its best to minimize civilian casualties. However, terrorists have an uncanny ability to rewrite moral battles into genocidal atrocities like Jenin. Blaming decent democracies is the foundation of terrorism. Because no Arab or Muslim nation is a capitalist democracy where people can feel proud of their accomplishments, terrorism and the lies associated with it are designed to make their populations feel good. It was obvious that America would become the target of terrorism after Israel. After all, America and Israel are, according to the Islamic world, the only countries stopping world domination of Islam. The Arab and Muslim populations are desperate to believe that they have not lost every war, that they are not weaker than the Americans or God forbid the Israelis. That is why they believe the big lies. According to Adolf Hitler, your heart and your mind have to be open to believe, which is why there can be a museum in Cairo, Egypt dedicated to the Egyptian victory over Israel in the Yom Kippur war. America and Israel, represented by Christianity and Judaism, are the moral mirrors held up to the face of the Islamic world. They see our successes and our decency. They see how American soldiers treated Iraqi soldiers who were wounded. They see how some Palestinians are treated in Hadassah hospital and how a modern Israeli society has been built in only 55 years. America and Israel are just too superior morally, intellectually and technologically. No one could be that good or successful. Arafat, bin Laden, Saddam, the Ayatollahs, Assad, the Saudi ruling family, et. al. must all be saying, "We Muslims look like jerks. Let's destroy those despicable, morally high Jews and Christians. They make us all look bad. Wait, we cannot accomplish this goal. Let's use terrorism; it seems to be working." The author is a motivational speaker on morality, ethics, Judaism, religion and political issues. He is President and CEO of Bloch Graulich Whelan Inc., a corporate communications, marketing and branding company located in New York City. This article appeared yesterday on Jewish Indy (http.//www.jewishindy.com).

JONATHAN POLLARD Posted by Lee Caplan, September 3, 2003.

Shalom. I just got off the phone with Rabbi Pesach Lerner who is the executive vice president of the National Council of Young Israel. He has taken on the Pollard case as a mission, and he has probably done more for Jonathan than anyone else. He speaks to Jonathan on the telephone nearly every day, and he was present at the hearing yesterday. He said to me emphatically that now is the time that we have to keep the pressure on as the judge from yesterday's hearing deliberates. He said that we should contact our congressmen and senators and ask them to learn about the case, as learning the truth about the case can only lead one to the correct conclusion. He also said that we should call and meet with the Israeli consulate and demand to know why there was no official Israeli representative at yesterday's hearing; and that we should continuously badger them until they are forced to go to their superiors in Israel and tell them that we won't leave them alone. He also said that we should send letters to our congressmen and senators requesting that Jonathan's lawyers gain access to the secret sentencing documents that they have never been allowed to view. In order to do this, please go to the Young Israel website at Young Israel and follow the instructions exactly as they appear under An Urgent Request from Jonathan Pollard. He also said that we should keep Dovining for Jonathan and saying the special Tefilla for him that was composed by Hagaon Harav Mordechai Eliyahu Shlita, who is Jonathan's personal Rav. This Tefilla and a list of Tehillim to be said for Jonathan can be accessed at Tehillim under Current Feature Pages where it says Pollard Prayers and PDF Files Page. I don't know how many of you know this but Jonathan Pollard is very very ill. If he is not released from prison very soon, then he chas veshalom could die. Therefore, we are dealing here not only with a Mitzvah of Pidyon Shevuyim which is labelled in the Gemara as a "great Mitzvah," but also with the Mitzvah of Saving a Jewish Life, which is equated to saving a whole world. Therefore, let us take the opportunity now to do all that we can to help Jonathan Pollard. Even if we haven't acted in the past, we can make amends in this season of repentance and we can help Jonathan at this, the most criticial time, as the court judge (and most certainly the Heavenly Judge) deliberates. If we act, we can be certain that Hashem will bless our efforts and will help us to secure Jonathan's release from prison. Please act now to save Jonathan Pollard's life! Please forward this email on to all your lists and contacts, as this a Mitzvah which is incumbent on all Jews. Tizku Lemitzvos!

DISSECTING OP-ED PROPAGANDA: NY Times Excuses For The Arabs Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 3, 2003.

Arthur Hertzberg made the following points in a NY Times' Op-Ed (8/27). His remarks are in italics and are followed by my rejoinders. 1. There is a cycle of violence again. There never was. The Arabs never ceased violence and indoctrinating in it. Indeed, the recent IDF offensive killed enough commanders, cut off enough supplies, and monitored enough crossroads, to keep Arab attacks to a minimum, not to a cycle. Mr. Hertzberg is writing in stereotypes that unfairly assign equal responsibility for strife to the Israeli victims of Arab aggression. 2. This violence is gripping the Mideast. The whole Mideast? He means just Israel, as if Iraq were quiescent. He melodramatically overstates the importance of the Arab-Israel conflict and understates the Arab tendency to violence. 3. This violence sets back the US  "in its role as regional peace broker." The US is not a regional peace broker but a belligerent meddler that has helped the Arabs keep up war. 4. Diplomacy alone cannot secure a workable truce. If the US is to get a mere truce between Israel and the P.A., why not a truce with Al-Qaeda? Double standard. 5. Needed is US pressure on both sides. He thus insinuates that self-sacrificing Israel must be doing the wrong thing as to need outside pressure, when the Arabs are the aggressors in jihad. He suggests that the US dictate the solution! The US is as often the problem as the solution. Its foreign policy is counter-productive. It has neither the wisdom nor the decency to bring justice. One-sided, it excuses Arab violations. It already pressures Israel, the victim, but does not pressure the Arabs, the aggressors. 6. The conflict in the 1940's was "between the Jews and the Palestinians." Hertzberg's constant even-handed wording makes the Jews seem equally guilty and the conflict local. This narrowed scope evades the real problem, jihad. Actually, the Arabs were the aggressors, and in 1947, foreign Arab armies began invading. An accurate statement would be that the conflict is by a large part of the Arab world and Iran upon the Jews. 7. The most effective way to force a reduction of the violence on both sides is to take punitive economic measures. Implication: Israel should not defend itself. If Arab violence were stopped, Israel wouldn't have to defend itself. Punishing Israel, the victim of Arab aggression, typifies Hertzberg's even-handedness. 8. The US should deduct from aid to Israel the amount Israel spends on settlements. Why? Is US aid not to help Israel defend itself from Arab aggression and because Israel is a friendly state that saved the US tens of billions of dollars? US aid does not reflect friendship. It is to dictate Hertzberg's views? Hertzberg has decided that the two sides should not negotiate, nor should Israel defeat the Arab aggressors and determine a solution. Instead, the US should dictate a "solution," which is that Israel would cede its core historical homeland. Moreover, the US would force Israel to give up towns in its own homeland, that cost it billions of dollars to set up. In what way that would solve jihad, he does not say. He couldn't, because it wouldn't. How can a partial concession - Judea, Samaria, and Gaza - satisfy those who consider it their religious duty to take over all of Israel if not exterminate the Israelis? Hertzberg appears to have no inkling that such a victory would boost morale of anti-American jihadists. His policy is harmful to his own country as well as to Israel. 9. The penalty would raise "an outcry among some supporters of Israel, especially the ultra-nationalists." Not "ultra-nationalists," which he uses as a pejorative, but nationalists. Those who would give up the core of their homeland are not nationalists, as he implies, but appeasers. 10. The notion of transferring the Arabs or of making life so difficult that the Arabs would leave voluntarily, is "nonsense." Life has been difficult for them, but they have not gone away in large numbers. Yes they have. Current reports are about most of the population of Hebron having gone away. A couple of hundred thousand have left Judea-Samaria. Before that, hundreds of thousands had gone to Kuwait and S. Arabia, but were expelled. Arabs are migrants. More would leave if Israel were serious about not letting them have Yesha eventually. If Israel allowed no P.A. Arabs to enter Israel and the Jewish communities of Yesha, those Arabs, who produce next to nothing on their own, in a society that exists solely for war, would have to leave. Hundreds of thousands could be expelled from Israel and from the P.A. for being illegal aliens and terrorists, and could be imprisoned or denaturalized, with an option to emigrate, for being land thieves, illegal builders, and tax evaders. Illegal Arab building is not just a personal crime but part of the Arab war to take over Israel. It is subsidized by foreign Arabs for that purpose. 11. No Israeli government, whichever party might constitute it, can put up with the defiance of the Palestinian militants who keep reiterating that their ultimate aim is to push the Jews into the sea. He does not define "militants," but implies it is only Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Actually, the PLO endorses that ultimate goal. So does the whole P.A. society. That is what that society is geared for. Hertzberg's apparent unawareness of that key fact disqualifies him from discourse on the subject. How inadequate is his plan for the US and other countries to cut off financial accounts just of "militants?" 12. He gives himself an escape clause. If cutting off aid to the radicals does not work, then all but "basic humanitarian help" should be cut off from the P.A. Then "the two sides will have a common cause, to find ways of helping each other wage peace." That is just what Israel has tried to do for decades, without the hostile US media and State Dept. having the grace to recognize. Unfortunately, Israel cannot work with religious fanatics, such as the P.A. Arabs. Hertzberg's pretense that Israel has not been striving for peace is part of the slander that even-handedness comes down to. Not only is even-handedness unfair, it is phony. It is paid lip service, but as with Oslo, the pressure to comply falls only on Israel. Evenhandedness is a tool of anti-Zionism. It is used to malign Israel undeservedly. It also is used to take action solely against Israel under the pretense of also taking action against the Arabs. 13. The US must act now to disarm each side of the nasty things that they can do to each other. Having narrowed erroneously the Arab-Israel conflict from the Arabs to just the Palestinian Arabs, Hertzberg's scope excludes the harm that the other Arabs could do to Israel if the US weakened Israel, as Hertzberg vaguely suggests. Part of this enervation would be to eliminate its secure borders and strategic depth. Hertzberg's is a neat plan for the conquest of Israel in phases. Arafat has a similar plan! 14. The US can lead both parties to a more livable, untidy accommodation. (NY Times, 8/27, Op-Ed). He gives no sense of understanding what the conflict is about. Hence his proposals would not resolve it. Arab fanaticism and violence is the real problem. IMRA had some comments, too: 1. Hertzberg pressed for Israeli concessions, ignoring P.A. non-compliance and terrorism. 2. After admitting that the US cannot fight the terrorists itself, Hertzberg fails to urge Israel to. If the US hadn't kept pressing Israel not to defend itself vigorously, Israel would have won long ago. That would have saved more money than the US gives Israel. 3. Hertzberg ought to know that evil must be defeated rather than appeased. 4. If a pundit means for Israel to survive, then he would not propose a P.A. state (8/27). Remember, the Arab plan is to use such a state to help bring down Israel. Some peace plan!

WHAT TO DO WITH ARAFAT & CO. Posted by Beth Goodtree, September 3, 2003.

Now that the bloom is off the Roadmap, Israel's leaders have yet another chance to get it right. Let it not be said that G-d, like a loving parent, doesn't give His children more chances than there pips in a pomegranate. But one day that pomegranate is going to run out of pips and this might be the day. It is time to do what is right, and above all just, for the country of Israel and for Jewish peoples the world over. Lest anyone labor under the misconception that what happens in Israel doesn't affect Jewry world-wide, they need only look to current events to dispel such magical thinking. Anti-Semitic acts and violence against Jews worldwide has been at record levels since the start of the latest intefadah three years ago. It is on a par with the lead-up to the Holocaust. Why? Because the perpetrators look at Israel's lack of response and kow-towing to Washington's every burp and see it as weak, making the logical leap that violence against all Jews will be acceptable. What Israel does now will determine the fate of Jews the world over. It is time for Israel to stop pussyfooting and protect her own, instead of protecting her already tarnished and ridiculed image. The first and long-overdue step will be in dealing with Arafat. As has become obvious, keeping him in Ramallah and out of the official loop has actually benefited him. He still maintains power but at the same time, isolating him has turned him into every Islamist's dream, a martyr of 'those-evil-son's-of-apes-and pigs, the Jews.' So what would happen if he were expelled? Expelling Arafat would be at least as bad. He would then be a martyr who is free to operate, make contacts and access funds. He would be free to recruit terror and rally support. A really bad idea. But there is another option. It is one that everybody has been loath to consider out of fear that their worst nightmare might happen. Well, let me clue you in. Israel's worst nightmare is unfolding right now, all you need do is wake up and smell the flesh of burning babies on the #2 bus in Jerusalem. But there is an alternative. Arafat must be arrested and tried for the crimes of genocide and attempted genocide. Let him be put in solitary confinement without any privileges or visitors. There is overwhelming legal evidence to warrant such a move. On 13 October 2000, the official Palestinian Authority television station broadcast live a Friday sermon in the Zayed bin Sultan Aal Nahyan mosque in Gaza. Here is an excerpt: "Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews." At this time, Arafat was still the leader and therefore, responsible for any official broadcasts. Even the Palestinian Charter of 1968, while Arafat was also the leader, calls for Israel's destruction. Here is an excerpt from Article 15: "...aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine..." Israeli law regarding genocide defines it as the act or attempt to destroy a people based upon their religion, ethnicity or national origin. It further states that those who aid, abet or merely keep silent about impending attacks is equally guilty, as are members of a group whose objective is to target a specific group as defined above. Obviously, Yasser Arafat has been allowed to practice and espouse genocide for the past 40+ years. It is long overdue to try him for his crimes. The mothers, fathers, and babies are crying out from their graves for justice. Some may argue that arresting and trying Arafat for genocide would only create civil unrest. To those cowering weak sisters I say: What Do You Call the Past 3 Years? A Tea Party? There is already serious civil unrest, mostly fomented by Arafat. Time to remove the cause of this cancer. Others will say that if Arafat is arrested and tried, he will be martyred. Well, guess what - he's already been martyred by Israel's failed policy of isolation. At least if he's arrested and tried he can be held incommunicado and in isolation. He will never again be able to exercise his will or his genocidal intents. He will never again be able to direct any murderous and cowardly attacks. And lastly, some will object to this because it will create a power vacuum which might be filled by someone 'worse.' Again, this is not only a specious argument, (what is worse than someone dedicated to the genocide of the Jewish people?), there is a remedy for this objection.4$(6!B0$(5!B1(B Under Israeli law regarding genocide, every member of every terrorist group, every supporter, every person who aids and abets them, every individual who espouses genocide, and even those who keep silent about such planned acts is guilty. Also under Israeli law, political office does not confer immunity. Therefore, a list can be made and continuously updated, of criminals wanted for the crime of genocide. Anyone who surfaces as a leader who has participated in any way with the crimes of genocide or planned crimes of genocide, or promoted genocide, will be immediately arrested and tried. This will prevent all those who might be considered 'worse than Arafat' from rising to power. To Ariel Sharon and the Knesset I will put it bluntly. You have been given another chance to do right by Israel and Jewish people the world over. To paraphrase George Bush "You are either with us, the Jewish people, or you are with the perpetrators of genocide." Your legacies will be determined by whether you stood up and acted for the Jewish people or whether you prostituted yourselves, yet again, to world opinion. May you choose swiftly and well.

PA NGOs DEFY USA: Refuse to Sign Anti Terror Posted by Itamar Marcus, September 3, 2003.

The Palestinian Authority [PA] NGOs have defied the US, by refusing to sign a declaration that they will not use USAID grant money for terrorist purposes. They refuse to sign this declaration: "The beneficiary institution has not supplied, and will not supply in the future, any material or other form of aid to any individual or other body that is known or has any reason to be considered as a person or a body that incites, plans, supports, or is involved in any terrorist activities of any kind." (Trans from Arabic, Al Ayyam Aug. 25, 2003.) "Another appendix ... includes the names of Palestinian individuals and bodies that the United States considers to be terrorists, and therefore prohibits any cooperation with them such as the Hamas, the [Islamic] Jihad, the Al-Aksa Martyrs' Brigades, the Popular Front, the Democratic Front, etc." (Al Ayyam Aug. 25, 2003.) Organizations refusing to sign include the "Mizan" Center for Human Rights, "The Red Crescent" and the "Federation of Sanitation Activities." The refusal is based on the PA policy that refuses to see murder of Israelis including suicide bombings as terrorism. The current opposition to suicide bombings, as it is often stressed within the PA, is because of the negative political conditions that make suicide bombings politically detrimental, and not because suicide bombings are terror... The organizations say they do not want to be "captive to the funding conditions" set by the US. USAID policy in the past has had confusing components when it came to demanding PA compliance to US anti terror policy. PMW reported in August 2002 that a PA school receiving USAID funding was named after the terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, who had participated in the murder of 36, including an American. USAID response at the time was to cut off aid. However, the very next day the aid was reinstated, following a PA promise to change the name (Jerusalem Post, Aug. 11, 2002). However a week later PMW reported that the PA referred to a ceremony in the Dalal Mughrabi school (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, August 16, 2002). The following are texts from articles that have appeared in recent days in the Arabic press showing the uniform rejection by PA NGO's of the American terms. "Many experts and representatives of private institutions are warning against signing the document, which includes the conditions imposed by the American Development Agency, USAID, on funding Palestinian institutions. They explained that the civic organizations are not political institutions, and therefore the United States' demand lacks any legal validity, because it is of a political nature. They also emphasized that it is important to stand with the Network of Private Organizations which reject this document and to prepare a memo that will be signed by the private institutions and published in the press, and to take disciplinary steps against members of the Network of Private Organizations who violate the accepted policy [by signing]... "Senior officials and representatives of many institutions were present at the conference that was held at the hall of the Red Crescent Organization in Gaza. The director of the Red Crescent Organization, Dr. Chaider Abd Al-Shaffi, stated: 'The objective behind the message that was received from this American institution regarding financing and aid is well known. The basis of the rejection of the United States' request, is that our institutions are not political...' "'[Abdul Aziz Abu Qaraya, said] 'the position against this document that is emerging in the [West] Bank and in the [Gaza] Strip should be solidified, because it relates to all of the civic institutions, including [political] parties. The goal is to contend with this US provocation and its provocative conditions. This provocation indicates a pro-Israel political position.' "The representative of the Federation of Sanitation Activities, Dr. Rabah Mohana, stated: 'From the experience with the [US] Agency for Development, it emerges that we are talking about a destructive institution, because it creates a link with salary and administration in order to turn the organization captive to the funding conditions. The Agency for Development is subordinated to the U.S. State Department, and it executes its policies. In addition, it has no connection with private institutions, but in actual fact the agency executes American policy in order to damage civic institutions...' "The director of the 'Mizan' Center for Human Rights, attorney Issam Yunes, stated: 'There is no legal basis for this document. This document should be boycotted, including the local authorities, political parties and universities. These institutions should reject this document completely, as it puts them in great danger. We should publicize a list of any institutions that agree to the conditions in the document.' "Amar Sheban, the economist, called for the adoption of the position that was taken while the events took place in the Jenin refugee camp, when American aid was rejected." (Al-Hayat Al Jadida, August 28, 2003) "Yesterday the network of local Palestinian organizations conducted a meeting of civic institutions. The subject was the problem of the conditions imposed by the American Agency for Development USAID... following the rejection by Palestinian civic organizations of this step, since it imposes conditions upon funding of the Palestinian developmental institutions. "The network and the committee emphasized the refusal of the institutions [to accept] this appendix. They considered its content to be a clear violation of the Law of Charitable Organizations and Palestinian Local Staffs, section 1 of the year 2000, in which the institutions declared their absolute obligation to implement all of its clauses. They stated that the appendix in the joint agreement [with USAID] is a breach of the sovereignty of the local Palestinian activities, which could diminish the ability of this important sector to continue and participate in the development and growth of Palestinian society. "The committee and the network have made clear that the Palestinians have declared, on several occasions, their sweeping opposition to terror - and therefore the linkage between legitimate resistance and terror is considered non-suitable to the Palestinian reality." (Al-Quds, 28th August 2003) [Ed. note - All Palestinian terrorism, including suicide bombings, are included under the umbrella of "legitimate resistance."] "Needless to say, the signature of the Palestinian civic organizations on this appendix will place them in a great principal and practical dilemma... It is clear that the Palestinian civic organizations and the United States disagree fundamentally in their definition of terror and terrorist activities. The civic organizations distinguish between actions and activities for national liberation and terrorist acts as the latter are expressed through actions carried out by the forces of the Israeli occupation, which are definitely a type of state terror against an unarmed people... "We believe that the American Agency for International Development needs to reassess its decision regarding the signing of the appendix mentioned above, especially while the appendix and its content create a precedent to perpetuate the principle of conditional funding which contradicts the principle of independent local action" (Al-Ayyam supplement, "Local Activities," August 25, 2003)

EUROPE'S MOMENT OF TRUTH Posted by Michael Freund, September 3, 2003.

This Friday, the foreign ministers of the European Union will gather in Italy to ponder a vexing question that has long haunted the Continent: is paying for the murder of Jews a bad thing? Under pressure from the United States and Israel, the 15 member states of the EU are poised to decide whether to cut off completely the flow of funds to Palestinian terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. While the Europeans did include Hamas' so-called 'military wing' on their terrorist blacklist in December 2001, they have nevertheless allowed money to continue flowing into the group's coffers for 'social activities' (bingo for bombers, perhaps?). Apparently, the EU finds it hard to grasp that by permitting money to go to Hamas, they might actually bear responsibility for facilitating attacks against Israel. After all, they must be telling themselves, all those Euros are undoubtedly going to feed the hungry, since Hamas would never, ever do something terrible like divert funds towards violence, would they? Now, to most thinking people, this entire issue would qualify as a no-brainer. If an organization regularly dispatches people to detonate themselves on crowded pedestrian buses, then allowing them to conduct telethons would seem to raise certain, shall we say, moral difficulties. Indeed, when it comes to other groups, such as Al-Qaeda, the Europeans have applied a decidedly more consistent set of principles. In April 2002, for example, Spanish police arrested Ahmed Brahim, an Algerian citizen suspected of serving as Al-Qaeda's chief accountant in Spain, presumably because they consider the funneling of money to a group that perpetrates atrocities to be a crime. At the time, no one sought to differentiate between Al-Qaeda's 'charitable' work and its terrorist operations, and rightly so, because everyone understood that it was one and the same organization. Why, then, does a different standard seem to apply when it comes to Hamas and Islamic Jihad? The answer, I think, is three-fold. First, when it comes to the Middle East, the EU continues to be guided by a basic conceptual error. Their misplaced sympathy for the Palestinian cause runs so deep that they insist on clinging to the fiction that Palestinian terrorist groups are divided into 'military' and 'political' wings. Only by making such dubious distinctions can they justify their continued contact with what they perceive to be 'political' leaders, such as Yasser Arafat or Hamas' Sheik Ahmed Yassin, and thereby ensure for themselves a possible role in Middle East peacemaking. Thus, they persist with the lie, even though there is no evidence on the ground to support it. Take, for example, Sheikh Yassin, who serves as Hamas' penultimate political leader, regularly conducting talks on the group's behalf and deciding on the organization's overall strategy. At the same time, however, he also reportedly issues orders for carrying out terrorist attacks and incites his followers to wage holy war against Israel. Clearly, he is both a 'political' and 'military' authority for the group, demonstrating that there is no real division between the two. And even if the Europeans wish to harp on the fact that Hamas operates soup kitchens or medical clinics, such undertakings must be seen for what they truly are: an extension of the terrorist infrastructure. These programs naturally serve as recruitment centers for future terrorists, and help endear the terrorist groups to the local population, winning their support, encouragement and cooperation. To think otherwise, as many Europeans seem to do, is merely a denial of reality, and a self-serving one at that. The second reason behind the European failure to clamp down on Hamas and Islamic Jihad funding is political. It is hardly a coincidence that two of the countries which have shown the least enthusiasm for taking measures against these groups are France and Belgium, both of which have extensive economic ties with the Arab world and are home to large and occasionally restive Muslim populations. Neither country wishes to offend Arab public opinion, which is why they were willing to stick their necks out for Saddam Hussein, and now for Hamas. Finally, there is undoubtedly a more sinister element at work here as well, and it is good ol' fashioned anti-Semitism. How else can one explain that after a decade of wantonly murdering Jews, the fundamentalist fanatics of Hamas and Islamic Jihad continue to receive funding from Europe? What more would these groups have to do to earn the ire of the EU? Friday's meeting will be Europe's moment of truth, offering them an opportunity to demonstrate once and for all that Europeans will never again countenance playing a role, however indirect, in the killing of Jews. But for that to happen, the EU will have to discard its word games about 'military' and 'political' wings, and declare a comprehensive clampdown on the flow of all funds to groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. They should also use their considerable clout throughout the Arab world to press other countries on this issue as well. After shedding our blood so mercilessly just six decades ago, it is, I believe, the least they can do. The writer served as Deputy Director of Communications and Policy Planning in the Prime Minister's Office under former premier Benjamin Netanyahu. This essay appeard on the Jerusalem Post today.

EDITORS CONSIDER THE "T-WORD" Posted by Honest Reporting, September 2, 2003.

For the past three years, HonestReporting has led the campaign to demand that news agencies refer to Palestinian terrorists as "terrorists," and cease using euphemisms like "militants" and "activists." Amidst growing pressure from media monitors, newspaper editors are finally addressing this matter head-on. Last week, editors at two of Florida's largest newspapers - Manning Pynn of the Orlando Sentinel and Philip Gailey of the St. Petersburg Times - each boldly tackled the question: Why does my own news department refer to al Qaeda as "terrorists," and Hamas or Islamic Jihad as "militants," if all three of these organizations use mass murder of civilians to further their ideological goals (a paraphrase of the US State Department definition of terrorism; all three organizations appear on the State Department's official list of terrorist groups)? The two editors asked the same question, but reached startlingly different conclusions: 1) St. Petersburg Times' Philip Gailey: Defining terrorism: "For me, it's not a hard call. Acts of terror are committed by terrorists, and the horrific bus attack on Israeli civilians, like the dozens of suicide bombings that preceded it, was an act of cold, indiscriminate terror... I don't think militants set out to deliberately kill children." Remaining balanced: "I'm all for fair and balanced reporting...but I also believe that words do matter. And if the word 'terrorism' is to have any real meaning, then blowing up a bus crowded with women and children must be condemned for what it is: an act of terrorism." Effect on coverage: As noted on the website of Florida media monitors PRIMER, The St. Petersburg Times has not only followed Gailey's lead and begun using the term "terrorists" to describe Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but is even changing the language of incoming Associated Press and New York Times wire reports to meet their new editorial commitment to call terror by its name. 2) Orlando Sentinel's Manning Pynn: Defining terrorism: The term "terrorist," claims Pynn, only applies to al Qaeda, since the term "imputes to the person or organization being described the motive of trying to instill fear." Moreover, Americans were "so shocked" by 9/11 that they "almost universally applied the term 'terrorism' to what had happened." Pynn suggests, absurdly, that Hamas and Co. aren't trying to "instill fear" when they blow up civilian buses and restaurants. And the general degree of human shock, Pynn submits, is much lower when the innocent civilian victims happen to be Israeli - or Americans in Israel, for that matter. Pynn then makes the basic error of equating the Palestinians' intentional targeting of civilians with the collateral damage of Israeli strikes against terrorists. Says Pynn, sarcastically: "By that standard, of course, any nation at war could be labeled 'terrorist' when attacks take civilian lives." Remaining balanced: Pynn recalls that "the United States was not at war when it was attacked on 9/11; Israel and the Palestinians have been engaged in armed conflict for decades," and moreover, Palestinians are "resisting occupation." The use of the word "terror" in the context of Israel would therefore be "judgmental" and jeopardize "impartial news reporting" of an ongoing conflict. The logical counter-argument is articulated by Dr. Bruce Epstein of Florida: By substituting the word "militant" for "terrorist," a newspaper is no less "judgmental" - painting suicide bombers of packed restaurants and buses as legal, legitimate and even moral. Pynn also fails to recognize that even in the context of war, deliberate violence against unarmed and non-threatening civilians is illegal under international law, which treats terrorism as a separate, wholly immoral use of force. The Sentinel itself recognizes this when covering the ongoing Iraq war and the U.S. occupation of Iraq - on August 30, the Sentinel referred to the car bombing of an Iraqi mosque as the probable work of the al Qaeda "terrorist network." Why, according to Pynn's logic, did al Qaeda not suddenly become a "militant organization" when the US declared war on Bin Laden and occupied Iraq? Effect on Coverage: The double standard at the Sentinel persists - but it now bears the stamp of approval of the paper's Public Editor. Comments to Philip Gailey can be sent to: gailey@sptimes.com. Comments to Manning Pynn can be sent to: public@orlandosentinel.com Honest Reporting comments on current media articles on Israel from the daily press. Their website address is http://www.HonestReporting.com.

FIGHT ANTI-SEMITISM NOW Posted by Mike Evans, September 2, 2003.

I have seen firsthand the pain-filled faces of a precious grandmother and grandfather who were burned over almost their entire bodies. I've heard the story of the rabbi who was blown through a window during a suicide bombing. When he opened his eyes after the blast, he saw the trunk of the suicide bomber was lying next to him, yet the rabbi was alive. The last time I was in Jerusalem, my room was filled with grieving Jewish people who had lost loved ones at the hands of terrorists. I wept as they shared their stories of pain and heartache. One woman had manicured the nails on her beautiful 19-year-old daughter's left hand one morning. When she was summoned to the morgue later to identify her remains, the only means of identification was her daughter's left hand. Jews came to the land of Israel from all over Europe, Asia, Africa, North America and the islands of the sea in fulfillment of prophecy. They came to hide. They came for hope. They came to live. Little did they know that many of them were bringing their own babies into the world only to be destroyed yet again by anti-Semites. In Jerusalem, I held more than 60 children in my arms. Each child had lost a mother, father, brother or sister to terrorist violence. All of the children were victims of Anti-semitism. I wept as I blessed each of them, and thought about my own children and grandchildren who live in safety. Please sign the Defenders of Zion Petition today. Click Here Forward it to your friends, and ask them to keep it moving around the world. This new wave of Anti-semitism is not limited to acts of terrorism in Israel. Synagogues are being set on fire in France, in Belgium, in Russia. Five European countries have banned kosher food production. Holland, where this ministry restored the home of Corrie ten Boom's family who saved 800 Jewish lives during the Holocaust, is one of those who have banned kosher food production. Burning of synagogues and the ban on kosher food mirror events leading to the wave of anti-Semitism that swept Europe like a plague before World War II. Jew hatred is at its worst across the globe since the days of Hitler. It has infiltrated Canada, and France is an absolute hellhole of anti-Semitism. There are two bibles in the Arab world...one is the Koran, the other is Mein Kampf authored by the demon-possessed Adolf Hitler. Mein Kampf was dedicated to 16 people whom the author called "dead heroes who had faith in the resurrection of their people." He used his book to poison the minds of an entire continent. Six million Jews (including one million children) died at his hands in concentration camps. Please sign the Defenders of Zion petition today. Such blatant anti-Semitism must be stopped before it spawns even more blatant hate-inspired acts of violence. I was praying this morning about how I can get more Christians to stand in the gap for the House of Israel. The number "7" came to me. The Lord said, "Get seven friends to sign the petition." I can do that! I will do that! Then it hit me...if you will do that, and every Jerusalem Prayer Team partner will do that, the powers of hell will be shaken, and the windows of heaven will be opened. I am asking every member to join me in spending one hour in prayer for every Jerusalem Prayer Team member. Ask God to speak to hearts to accept this divine mandate, and pray that God will bless each one where it is most needed. Mike Evans is founder of the Jerusalem Prayer Team of Euless, TX. He is an award-winning journalist and author of the current bestseller: "Beyond Iraq: The Next Move," in which he argues that the U. S. should use its control of Iraqi oil to break OPEC, and use Iraq as a base for the war on terrorism.

ANTI ROAD MAP DEMONSTRATIONS TO CONTINUE Posted by Ken Heller, September 1, 2003.

ISRAEL IS IN DANGER! JOIN THE SECOND ROUND OF AN HISTORIC, WORLDWIDE, SAME DAY DEMONSTRATION AGAINST THE ROAD MAP AND IN SUPPORT OF AM YISRAEL. WE ARE LOOKING FOR PEOPLE WHO WILL BE ABLE TO ORGANIZE OR HELP ORGANIZE THEIR TOWNS AND CITIES REGARDLESS OF WHERE YOU LIVE. THE DATE IS SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 21ST BEFORE THE HIGH HOLIDAYS. THERE ARE ABOUT 4 WEEKS LEFT AND PLENTY OF TIME TO GET THE JOB DONE. WE CAN'T STRESS ENOUGH THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT. WE NEED TO COME TOGETHER AS ONE ON THAT DATE TO VOICE OUR SUPPORT LOUDLY AND UNASHAMEDLY FOR ISRAEL AND OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS LIVING THERE. WE MUST PROMOTE ISRAEL'S SAFETY AND SECURITY AND THIS IS WHY WE MUST FORCE PRESIDENT BUSH AND PRIME MINISTER SHARON TO SCRAP THE MAP!! IF INTERESTED, CONTACT KEN AT KJHNHA@AOL.COM Ken Heller is founder of  "Citizens Against Giving-up Eretz Yisrael," a grassroots, worldwide network of Jewish and Christian pro-Israel activists. He was a major organizer of the world-wide demonstrations on July 20th against the Road Map.

THERE IS NO 'PEACE PROCESS' Posted by Jan Poller, September 1, 2003.

There isn't and there has never been a "peace process" between the Palestinians and Israelis. There have been many "Peace Plans:" Rodgers, Baker, Mitchell, Oslo, Saudi and the Road Map, just to name a few. Every one of these plans had the same basic structure: Israel gives back land, the Palestinians get a state in the West bank and Gaza and the Arab world declares peace with Israel and establishes normal diplomatic and trade relationships and stop publishing anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli propaganda. Another common thing to all of these plans is that every one of them has failed for the exact same reason: the Palestinians in particular and the Arab world in general refuses to accept the planned outcome. If there was a real "peace process," you would expect the sides to move towards accommodation with each other. On one hand, you have Israel accepting the eventual emergence of a Palestinian state. It has made agreements with the Palestinians along those lines. Israel went so far as to give the Palestinian Authority 50,000 rifles to be used to control the "militants." Even Sharon (the supposed anti-peace warrior) has said that the Palestinians should have their own state. The Palestinians have done no such thing. Any concession is met with a demand for a new concession. Any movement towards peace, any lessening of the conflict, any turning over of territory, any visit by a peace seeking diplomat is met with an exploding bus or an exploding supermarket. But the real indication that the negotiations aren't a sincere "peace process" are the human sacrifices - the suicide bombers. What kind of a peace seeking society has mothers who take their own children, wrap them up in explosives, nails and rat poison and sends them out to die on a bus? What kind of a delusion is the world, and this Administration in particular, operating under that they do not see exploding teens or imams as a message of "NO! We do reject peace!"? This illusion only applies to Israel. No one says the same thing to the victims of the human sacrificial suicide bombers of Chechnya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kashmir, Bali, or the United States (9/11). The peace process isn't dead. It never existed except as an illusion.

ROBIN WILLIAM'S PEACE PLAN FOR AMERICA Posted by Andrea Simantov, September 1, 2003.

I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a viable plan for peace. So, here's my plan: 1) The US will apologize to the world for our "interference" in their affairs, past & present. We will promise never to "interfere" again. 2) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany, South Korea and the Philippines. Instead, we will station these troops at all of OUR borders. No more sneaking through holes in the fence to get in. 3) All Arabs have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave. We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of who or where they are. France would welcome them. 4) All future Arab visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 day visits unless given a special permit. No one from a terrorist nation would be allowed in. If you don't like it where you live, change it yourself, don't hide here. Asylum would not EVER be available to ANYONE. We don't need any more cab drivers. 5) No international "students" over age 21. The older ones are the bombers.If our international students don't attend classes, they get an "F" and it's back home, baby. End of discussion. 6) The US will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing non-polluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while. 7) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don't like it, we go someplace else. 8) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not "interfere." They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides, most of what we give them gets "lost" or is taken by their army. The people who need it most get very little, anyway. 9) Ship the UN Headquarters to an island some place. We don't need spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, it would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens. 10) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us "Ugly Americans" any longer. Now, ain't that a winner of a plan. "The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying, 'Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling, 'You want a piece of me?"

GENIUS AND EVIL Posted by Yashiko Sagamori, September 1, 2003.

While completing their final preparations to attack Iraq, the leaders of the coalition promised two things to the world: to preserve the territorial integrity of Iraq and to achieve peace in the Middle East. The former meant that Kurds, once again, would be denied their right of self-determination. The latter implies granting the right of self-determination to Arabs occupying Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. Here's an inevitable question: According to what logic must the ancient Kurdish people be forever denied a country of their own, while concentrated efforts of so many countries and international organizations have been directed, year after year, decade after decade, at promoting Arafat's terrorist organization to nationhood, at Israel's expense? If someone can provide an answer that does not, explicitly or implicitly, refer to anti-Semitism, I'd love to hear it. And while I am waiting, most probably in vain, for such an answer, I will ask another question, even more intriguing: Why have all those massive efforts resulted in exactly nothing? Why the so-called 'Palestinians,' despite every attempt by Israel's enemies to turn them into a nation, remain what they have always been since their inception in 1964 - a terrorist organization? Until the Six Day War in 1967, the term 'Palestinian' meant a Jew living anywhere 'between the river and the sea.' Successful efforts of Arab propaganda resulted in an Orwellian switch of the definition. Today's 'Palestinians' are simply Arabs who came from anywhere at all and settled on the land that belongs to Israel. This hardly makes them a people. However, the lack of common ethnic origin alone can hardly be used as a compelling argument against their right to a nation of their own. Nor does it explain the utter failure of all attempts to create such a nation. After all, the American people lack ethnic commonality to a much greater extent than Arabs calling themselves 'Palestinians,' and yet even the stupidest enemy of the United States would never deny that Americans are very much a people. Apparently, there is a powerful factor at work that unites proud descendants of those who crossed the ocean on the Mayflower 15 generations ago with those who flock into the United States today from Mexico City, Minsk or Madras, hoping to eventually receive a Green Card. That factor is known as the American dream - a vague term that applies to a vast spectrum of good things not really common outside the United States, from the freedom of speech and religion to a very real opportunity for everyone to earn a decent living for themselves and a bright future for their children. Israel, also being a country of immigrants, although in a very different manner than the United States, has a uniting idea of its own. The 'Israeli dream' is called Zionism. I will prudently abstain from any attempt to define it. Suffice it to say that Zionism manages to unite even those Jews who are unable to agree on the true meaning of the term. Does it mean that 'Palestine' is impossible due to the lack of a 'Palestinian dream'? Most certainly not. If the 'Palestinian dream' didn't exist, it could be invented. The problem is much worse. The 'Palestinian dream' does exist, and Arabs do not make a secret out of it: they dream of Israel's destruction. Today, as they did in Golda Meir's time, Arabs hate Jews more than they love their own children. Unfortunately, this is not a colorful metaphor. This is an exact description of the horrible reality of the Middle East. The intensity of Arab hatred of Jews exceeds the limits of human imagination. Arab mothers proudly send their children to die in exchange for a chance to murder a few Jews - in the street, on a bus, at a restaurant. I can't forget the short documentary shown last year in the news: a mother says good-bye to her son. Her farewell is terse and unemotional. She knows her son isn't coming back: that's how it's been planned. She shares her most cherished dream with the reporters surrounding her: she has nine more children; she hopes they will all follow in their elder brother's footsteps. The shaheed-to-be is dressed in a military uniform and armed with an M16. He is lanky and somewhat clumsy, like a teenager who grew up too fast and hasn't learned yet to be comfortable with his new body. He seems to be camera-shy, and the final kiss he plants on his mother's cheek comes out a bit awkward. His tense smile is shy and, I have to admit to myself, not devoid of charm. In a different setting, he could've been mistaken for a Jewish teenager. He is about to walk out of the frame and go to a nearby yeshiva. There, he will open fire and kill five students before someone shoots him dead. One should never underestimate the 'Palestinian dream.' Inspired by it, Islamic 'martyrs' will shed much Jewish blood. But it shouldn't be overestimated either, for it encompasses nothing positive, nothing constructive. It is devoted solely to murder and destruction. It is incapable of creating anything but a terrorist organization. To put it bluntly, the 'Palestinians' do not want independence. They do not want a country for themselves. They want to fulfill the mandate handed to them by the Arab world - the mandate to destroy Israel. That's why they never vied for independence until the Arab defeat in 1967. That's why in 2000, when their state was brought to them at Camp David as a surprise gift, they responded with a new round of war. That's why today, in the Kafkaesque context of the 'roadmap,' they substitute hudna for peace and bluntly refuse to confront terrorist organizations on 'their' territory: those organizations are as inseparable from the 'Palestinian' Authority as a barber-shop-neat puppet Abbas from his perennially unwashed handler Arafat. Building a nation requires genius. In one of Pushkin's less known works, Mozart and Salieri, Salieri bitterly admits that Mozart was a genius while he himself is not because 'genius and evil are two things incompatible.' This inherent incompatibility explains why there is no 'Palestine' today nor will be one in any foreseeable future. Attempts by international community to create a 'Palestinian' state can and do hurt Israel in many very real ways. But 'Palestine' will forever remain an insincere and, therefore, unrealized dream of anti-Semites. Yashiko Sagamori is a New-York based consultant in Information Technology. The author's webpage address is http://www.middleeastfacts.com/Articles/Yashiko/.

THE BALLAD-MONGERS OF JERUSALEM Posted by Professor Paul Eidelberg, September 1, 2003.

The latest Prime Minister would have us believe that he must adhere to the disastrous agreements of his predecessors. None but fools are deceived: he, too, genuflects to Washington. Despite the 800 Jews that have been murdered by the Palestinian Authority while he has been Israel's prime minister, he still regards that terrorist organization as a "negotiating partner," with which he is anxious to conclude the "final status" of Israel's heartland, as if he were some mighty god! And then there are his apologists. They are not appalled by his arrogance. He is simply a victim of circumstances. He is doing the best he can given a divided people and American pressure. Some admit he is not the stuff of which heroes are made, but we have "NO ALTERNATIVE." End of story. I prefer silence to apologetics. If we can do nothing more, then let us stand in silent awe at what is happening to the only homeland of the Jewish people. Nevertheless, suffer me to say a few words, however inadequate, about this Holy Land and its people. Would that my words were poignant enough to bring tears to your eyes. The Jewish People, dear reader, are the only people in world-history that remained a Nation even though they were expelled from their homeland and deprived of statehood. For 2,000 years the Jewish People, while scattered throughout the earth, never surrendered their title to Eretz Yisrael, and never ceased to hearken to these words of the Torah: "If thy outcasts be at the far ends of the heavens, from there will the Lord your God gather thee, and from there will He fetch thee; and the Lord thy God will bring thee back to the Land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shall possess it" (Deut. 30:4-5). This Land of Israel is like no other. Despite its remarkable fertility, this land remained desolate and neglected during these past two millennia no matter which foreign nation occupied or controlled this country. It were as if the land were silently waiting, waiting to be redeemed by its only rightful and worthy owners. And lo and behold, only when the Jews returned in significant numbers to this desolate land did the land burst forth in joyful abundance. Also Providential is this: none of the foreign nations - thirteen in number - that occupied or controlled the Land of Island ever established a state or even a provincial capital in this Chosen Land of the Chosen People. Had any done so, the Jews would never have been able to return to Eretz Yisrael and re-establish therein an independent Jewish State. Here we are given to understand why Arab tribes - nomads - have dwelled in the Land of Israel without ever establishing within its confines a distinctive culture of their own. Let all mankind know, therefore, that the Land of Israel, including its heartland Judea and Samaria, belongs eternally to the Jewish People. No transient Government, no transient Knesset, has any right, legal or moral, to barter away any part of this Holy Land to foreign entities and thus preclude future generations of Jews, wherever they may be in the Diaspora, from exercising their inalienable right to dwell in their God-given land. The agreements of Israeli Prime Ministers surrendering Jewish land to foreign entities will not endure, will never supercede the covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: "For God is not a man, that He should lie; nor the son of man, that he should change His mind. Should He promise and not fulfill it, or speak and not do it?" (Num. 23:19). Know well that the agreements Israeli Prime Ministers made with the PLO-Palestinian Authority are without any foundation and will eventually collapse like a house of cards. Suffice to consult the Prophet Isaiah 28:14-18. There the Prophet describes certain scorners of the Torah as the "ballad-mongers" of Jerusalem. Surely these "ballad-mongers" are glib politicians or phrase-mongers. They have made a "covenant with death" (brit et mavit, which the Targum translates as a covenant with terrorists!). They try to conceal the true nature of this covenant with fine sounding words like "peace" and "security." But the Prophet exposes what is hidden in the souls of these politicians: "We have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood have we hid ourselves." Hence the Prophet warns that the duplicity of these "ballad-mongers" of Jerusalem will not prevent disasters. Moreover, he prophesies: "Your covenant with death shall be annulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand ..." Yes, Jerusalem, the City of Truth, has become the City of Lies. But soon the liars will be no more and Jerusalem will flourish in Truth as in days of yore.

LIFT THE ENTRY BAN AGAINST BEN-ARIEL Posted by David Ben-Ariel, September 1, 2003.

As reported on the front page of The Jerusalem Post (Jan. 8, 1996), the Israeli GSS("FBI") sought my deportation for my alleged involvement in a plot to BLOW UP THE Al-AKSA MOSQUE! This travesty of justice occurred during the witch-hunt that followed Prime Minister Rabin's assassination. The Leftists were exploiting the death of Rabin to squash their legal opposition. Such Stalinist tactics were condemned by former Russian refuseniks and Prisoners of Zion. Thankfully, the regime of Shimon Peres was toppled with the election of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu. As a Christian-American member of the TEMPLE MOUNT FAITHFUL movement, I had been privileged to participate in their legal demonstrations during my 10-month stay in Jerusalem awaiting dual citizenship. Israeli television often showed me with my Jewish friends carrying Israeli flags throughout the Old City. I have also been published in The Jerusalem Post, The Traveller and other publications about the burning issue of the TEMPLE MOUNT. The Temple Mount suffers under a MILITANT MUSLIM OCCUPATION that forcibly FORBIDS CHRISTIANS AND JEWS FROM PRAYING OR READING THE BIBLE there. This despite the fact that both biblical Temples stood there, and it is the location where Jesus and His disciples taught and prayed. Israel has a law against such violent religious discrimination, but they're afraid to enforce it. Such shameful appeasement rewards the Muslim aggressors and punishes the innocent! The Temple Mount Faithful demands an end to this injustice. Meanwhile, the Muslim terrorists continue to destroy rich archaeological evidence upon the Temple Mount that proves JERUSALEM IS JEWISH! The world condemned the Muslim Taliban for blowing up a Buddhist idol, yet has remained deathly silent while JUDAISM'S HOLIEST SITE IS DESECRATED! In my book, Beyond Babylon: Europe's Rise and Fall, I've called for the Israeli government to exercise its biblical responsibility to BUILD THE TEMPLE. I wrote that book in the United States before any of this trouble. It clearly explains that I'm not calling for any individual to REMOVE THE MOSQUES, but rather expecting the GOVERNMENT to fulfill their historic obligations (if an "act of God" doesn't solve the problem first). I mentioned this to the police during my six and a half hours of night-time interrogation by six different men. Later I was imprisoned in Jerusalem's rotting Russian Compound (built by the Turks) for several weeks until my heartbreaking deportation (for highlighting the plight of the Temple Mount). As my attorney in Israel, Naftali Warzberger, has written, MY FUTURE IS LINKED WITH THE JEWS AND ISRAEL. That is why I'm confident justice will prevail. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D. Ohio) persistently presented this case of religious discrimination and political persecution before our State Department that turned a blind eye to the facts. (It's now evident why, since the former Consul General in Jerusalem, Edward G. Abington, Jr., is presently a paid lackey of the terrorist PLO! Talk about a conflict of interests that should be investigated!). Senator Mike DeWine (R. Ohio) has inquired on my behalf to return to Zion and was informed that the Israeli Ministry of the Interior has made the decision not to grant the visa and does not offer any information behind their decision. They have since written Senator DeWine that I will not be eligible for a visa until 2005! Gershon Salomon, chairman of the Jerusalem-based Temple Mount Faithful, assures me that a change is coming in Israel that will welcome me back and appreciate my efforts on behalf of Israel. It appears that change has already begun to take effect with Jewish prayer (and soon sacrifices) partially restored upon the Temple Mount. May Israel lift the entry ban NOW!

A FENCE OF NO DEFENSE Posted by Arno Weinstein, September 1, 2003.

The debate over the security fence currently under construction by the Israeli government is fundamentally flawed. Rhetoric is flying from those who endorse the building of the fence and those who oppose its construction. However, both sides ignore a solution that is far more practical and more in line with the Bush Doctrine. According to the Sharon government's position, any means necessary to stem the flow of terrorists from the territories gained in the Six Day War of 1967 is appropriate. The fence, from their point of view, is merely a security measure literally blocking access to major Israeli centers of population by Arab terrorists. For the Israelis, it is simple: stop the suicide bombers from making their way into 'Israel proper.' The idea of 'Israel proper' is the real difficulty for those who oppose the fence. They say that the fence is a de facto border. They object to the positioning of the fence as it winds its way through sections of land outside Israel's 1948 armistice line. They claim that the '48 lines, created after five Arab armies stormed into Jewish-held land upon the declaration of the State of Israel, have some magical resonance to them. Though never recognized as the official borders of the Jewish State, some objectors insist that the '48 markers consist of the maximum line to which Israel should exist. Others opposing the fence have never recognized Israel's right to exist in the first place, with or without borders. They insist that any barriers created by Israel inflict great damage to the Arab population and Arab sensibilities. They fear that the fence establishes facts on the ground that further ensure a permanent Jewish presence in the Middle East. Both sides have ignored the real issues bearing on the construction of a security fence. Just as the United States understands that the best way of dealing with terror is to conduct a serious offensive war on terror, so too must Israel. President Bush has stated time and time again that, regardless of the precautions taken on homeland security, the best way to defeat the terrorists is to crush them before they get the opportunity to commit their heinous crimes. President Bush insists that hunting down those who seek to harm Americans and American interests is the first and best way to ensure the safety of the homeland. The War on Terror is the central commitment of the Bush presidency. The president understands that the only way to end terror is to defeat the terrorists and those who give aid and comfort to them. As part of the Bush Doctrine, the United States has put blood and treasure into the battle against evil. Israel must do the same and the United States should, for its own purposes, not only support such a position, but encourage it. Israel needs to target terrorist leaders and eliminate them. Israel must break the infrastructure of the terrorist organizations by all offensive tactics necessary. This does not include a defensive security fence around the country. There might be some areas where it is proper to fortify a security zone with a barrier of a kind; however, encircling Israel in a self imposed wall is not the answer. This position opposing the fence in no way supports those screaming to have the fence stopped because the fence somehow grabs 'Arab land.' This notion of a 'land grab' is preposterous. Rather than objecting to the fence because it takes in too much land, the Israeli government ought to fear that such a fence takes in too little land. Are the lines drawn by the fence defensible should it come to war? Does the fence incorporate the historic lands of Israel? The single answer to these questions is a resounding 'no'. The long term effectiveness of the fence is non-existent and the short-term fix it poses is deadly. The fence allows the terrorists' war to drag on, because it excuses the Sharon government from taking the kinds of actions required to end it. As for those who object to the fence as unhelpful, inflammatory or whatever the fashionable adjective of the day might be, the question they must be asked is: why? The recent outrageous statements of Edgar Bronfman, the president of the World Jewish Congress, reflect the illogical reasoning of the U.S. State Department, certain elements in the White House and other Jewish leaders who are not only against the fence, but question the Bush Doctrine. Mr. Bronfman said the fence is 'potentially problematic' because the Arabs see it as a land grab. The president of the World Jewish Congress further stated, 'If the Palestinian suicide bombers only went to the settlements and told the whole world they [the settlements] were wrong, then the whole world would have had a case against Israel and there would be a two-state solution by now. Instead, they sent them into Israel proper, which is ghastly.' Suggesting the U.S. apply pressure on Israel to stop the fence and force the implementation of the so-called Road Map for peace in the Middle East, Mr. Bronfman and his fellow travelers have abandoned the Bush Doctrine. 'Israel proper' is a term used by Edgar Bronfman to delineate where it is acceptable to murder Jews. On one side of the line are Israelis whose murder is 'ghastly' and on the other side of the line are settlers whose murder bolsters a case against Israel. The sad news Mr. Bronfman fails to hear is that from the Arab/Muslim rejectionist point of view, all Israelis are 'settlers.' By engaging in this debate and incorporating the language of those who seek the destruction of Israel, Mr. Bronfman's position, and that of his supporters, displays weakness and a lack of reason that threatens the very existence of the Jewish State. While criticism of Mr. Bronfman's words were voiced by many, the counter-arguments failed to grasp the fundamental problems with both Bronfman's position and the stance of the Israeli government. If Israel would conduct, as it should, an all out war on the terrorists and those who support them, there would be no need to construct a security fence. Not only would this issue be irrelevant, but so would the accusation that Israel was 'land grabbing.' The issue of Israeli borders should be settled through this same offensive war. Israel should annex the territories gained in the Six Day War of 1967 (a war provoked by Arab nations because Israel held the borders of '48) and end the ongoing controversy of borders. After the defeat of the terrorists and those who support them, i.e., implementation of the Bush Doctrine, those who would today so viciously attack Israel as aggressors and land grabbers would be dramatically less in size. The answer to the security issues facing the United States and Israel is the aggressive War on Terror begun by the Bush Administration. The same intensity used to fight this war should be exercised by Israel and backed fully by United States. Arno Weinstein is the Executive Vice President and National Director of the American Friends of Israel's National Union (www.TheNationalUnion.com). The National Union is Israel's largest politically conservative voting bloc and holds two cabinet posts and seven Knesset seats. This essay appeared in Israel National News (INN) August 17, 2003. Its website is http://www.IsraelNN.com.

ANNOUNCING THE JEWISH NATIONAL ASSEMBLY Posted by Netzah Yisrael Lo Yeshaqer, September 1, 2003.

Far too many years have elapsed since the historic 1897 Zionist Congress and we call for a New Jewish National Assembly. It is time for the Nation at large to review the last 100 year's results and evaluate our future prospects. There is much to measure, consider and do. It is self-evident: The leadership, orientation, doctrines and policies in place since the inception of the new State of Israel have outlived their usefulness and failed. And not just failed, but allowed certain elements in the country to drive The Nation (repeatedly) to the abyss. The same cadre, or oligarchy, has been in "government" since 1948 (some much earlier), culminating in today's indistinguishable, irresponsible political melange. Therefore, it is imperative that this core be uprooted and replaced with true Jewish leaders and patriots before any further, perhaps irreparable, damage is done. Paralleling this crisis, a positive countertrend has emerged worldwide and in Israel: many serious, like-minded, yet dispersed, Patriotic Jews and Jewish groups have arisen representing, without representation, the vast majority of our people and our friends alike. This is a G-d-given gift and an opportunity that cannot be squandered. This great mass of proud Zionists must be focused and united into a powerful instrument for Israel's reconstruction that transforms her from today's beleaguered tragedy-driven nation to one that prospers and prevails. Above All, Action! The Executive of the Jewish National Assembly will coordinate the actions of Jewish and friendly groups and persons, leading to the approval of a Platform and Action Plan addressing the above conditions. The points of critical failure in Israel's governing modes will be exposed and arrested by setting in motion a National RECONSTRUCTION Plan. RECONSTRUCTION guided by the humanitarian principles inherent in our Sacred National Heritage along with new ideas synchronous with that Jewish Heritage. Consequently, and for that purpose, a great JEWISH NATIONAL ASSEMBLY will take place in Eretz Israel commencing on Rosh Chodesh Heshvan 'A, 5764, October 26-27, 2003. Where: Karmiel-Misgav, Eretz Israel Contact, travel and reservation information:  Shmuel HaLevi, familyp@netvision.net.il, before September 25.

 

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