A RARE LOOK AT SECRETIVE BROTHERHOOD IN AMERICA Posted by Tsila, January 31, 2006.

This article was written by Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, Sam Roe and Laurie Cohen, Tribune staff reporters and was published September 19, 2004 (www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/chi- 0409190261sep19,1,3910166.story?page=7&coll=chi-newsspecials-hed). Tribune foreign correspondent Evan Osnos, staff reporter Stephen Franklin and Hossam el-Hamalawy contributed to this report. [Editor's note: The Yusif Qaradawi discussed below is the same Yusif Qaradawi who founded Islam Online.net, which said about the furious reaction of Muslims to some Danish cartoons of Mohammad -- to view them click here. -- that "... while it is unreasonable to expect Europeans to overlook the cultural experiences of several centuries, it is equally unreasonable to expect one billion Muslims to take it for granted that free speech affords others a right to ridicule their religion, while staunchly protecting another religion from the same treatment." I wonder if the Muslim trashing of Joseph's tomb and their eradicating Jewish archeological finds from the Temple Mount are examples of the Muslim regard for other people's religion. (Note that the quote from Islam Online comes from Jeff Morley's column on world opinions on the topic of the day -- blogs.washingtonpost.com/worldopinionroundup/2006/01/ cartoons_that_o.html.]   A group aiming to create Islamic states worldwide has established roots here, in large part under the guidance of Egypt-born Ahmed Elkadi Over the last 40 years, small groups of devout Muslim men have gathered in homes in U.S. cities to pray, memorize the Koran and discuss events of the day. But they also addressed their ultimate goal, one so controversial that it is a key reason they have operated in secrecy: to create Muslim states overseas and, they hope, someday in America as well. These men are part of an underground U.S. chapter of the international Muslim Brotherhood, the world's most influential Islamic fundamentalist group and an organization with a violent past in the Middle East. But fearing persecution, they rarely identify themselves as Brotherhood members and have operated largely behind the scenes, unbeknown even to many Muslims. Still, the U.S. Brotherhood has had a significant and ongoing impact on Islam in America, helping establish mosques, Islamic schools, summer youth camps and prominent Muslim organizations. It is a major factor, Islamic scholars say, in why many Muslim institutions in the nation have become more conservative in recent decades. Leading the U.S. Brotherhood during much of this period was Ahmed Elkadi, an Egyptian-born surgeon and a former personal physician to Saudi Arabia's King Faisal. He headed the group from 1984 to 1994 but abruptly lost his leadership position. Now he is discussing his life and the U.S. Brotherhood for the first time. His story, combined with details from documents and interviews, offers an unprecedented look at the Brotherhood in America: how the group recruited members, how it cloaked itself in secrecy and how it alienated many moderate Muslims. Indeed, because of its hard-line beliefs, the U.S. Brotherhood has been an increasingly divisive force within Islam in America, fueling the often bitter struggle between moderate and conservative Muslims. Many Muslims believe that the Brotherhood is a noble international movement that supports the true teachings of Islam and unwaveringly defends Muslims who have come under attack around the world, from Chechens to Palestinians to Iraqis. But others view it as an extreme organization that breeds intolerance and militancy. "They have this idea that Muslims come first, not that humans come first," says Mustafa Saied, 32, a Floridian who left the U.S. Brotherhood in 1998. While separation of church and state is a bedrock principle of American democracy, the international Brotherhood preaches that religion and politics cannot be separated and that governments eventually should be Islamic. The group also champions martyrdom and jihad, or holy war, as a means of self-defense and has provided the philosophical underpinnings for Muslim militants worldwide. Many moderate Muslims in America are uncomfortable with the views preached at mosques influenced by the Brotherhood, scholars say. Those experts point to a 2001 study sponsored by four Muslim advocacy and religious groups that found that only a third of U.S. Muslims attend mosques. In suburban Bridgeview, Ill., some moderates say they quit attending the Mosque Foundation because the leadership became too conservative and dominated by Brotherhood members. Documents obtained by the Tribune and translated from Arabic show that the U.S. Brotherhood has been careful to obscure its beliefs from outsiders. One document tells leaders to be cautious when screening potential recruits. If the recruit asks whether the leader is a Brotherhood member, the leader should respond, "You may deduce the answer to that with your own intelligence." Islamic state a long-term goal Brotherhood members emphasize that they follow the laws of the nations in which they operate. They stress that they do not believe in overthrowing the U.S. government, but rather that they want as many people as possible to convert to Islam so that one day--perhaps generations from now--a majority of Americans will support a society governed by Islamic law. Muslims make up less than 3 percent of the U.S. population, but estimates of their number vary widely from 2 million to 7 million. Federal authorities say they have scrutinized the U.S. Brotherhood for years. Agents currently are investigating whether people with ties to the group have raised and laundered money to finance terrorism abroad. No terrorism-related charges have been filed. Former leader Elkadi, who has been questioned at length by federal authorities about the inner workings of the Brotherhood, says the group has served Muslims in the United States well. He personally helped establish an Islamic community in the Florida Panhandle, with a mosque, school and health clinic. And though he eventually lost it all--even his medical license--some Muslims still view him as a great Islamic leader. "Islam is for everyone," he says. "It's good for America, good for Muslims too. . . . It's good knowledge, and good knowledge should be available to everyone." Mohammed Mahdi Akef, head of the international Muslim Brotherhood, based in Egypt, lauds Elkadi and the activities of the U.S. Brotherhood. "They have succeeded in saving the younger generations from melting into the American lifestyle without faith," he says. "They have saved their children." Once one of America's most influential Muslims, Elkadi now spends most of his days in front of the TV in his two-bedroom condominium in Sterling, Va., across the Potomac River from Washington. Earlier this year he was diagnosed with a neurological disorder that affects motor skills, speech and memory. He often has difficulty expressing himself and seldom speaks more than two sentences at a time. Sometimes, he says, he smiles for no reason other than to try to remain cheerful. But on many days his memory is clear, and his statements about the major events of the U.S. Brotherhood have been confirmed by others associated with the group. Elkadi, a 64-year-old with a closely trimmed white beard, says he is willing to speak about the Brotherhood because he believes he has nothing to hide. Both he and his wife, Iman, 60, say they have devoted much of their lives to the Brotherhood, and Elkadi says the reason for that is simple: "It's genetic." Both of their fathers were early Brotherhood leaders in Egypt, where the group began in 1928 as an opposition movement to the British-backed Egyptian monarchy. Its founder and leader was schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna, who advocated a return to fundamental Islam as a way to reform Muslim societies and expel Western troops. The Brotherhood slogan became "Allah is our goal; the Messenger is our model; the Koran is our constitution; jihad is our means; and martyrdom in the way of Allah is our aspiration." When Egypt imprisoned and executed some Muslim Brothers in the 1950s, many members fled the country and helped spread the philosophy throughout the Arab world. The group's ideological voice became philosopher Sayyid Qutb, who abhorred Western values and believed the Koran justified violence to overthrow un-Islamic governments. Over time, the Brotherhood gained notoriety for repeatedly attempting to overthrow the Egyptian and Syrian governments and for spawning violent groups, including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian group Hamas. Today the Brotherhood remains based in Egypt, where it officially is banned but is tolerated. The group has renounced violence and now largely organizes political protests, runs professional unions and operates charities, providing social services that the government does not. Brotherhood supporters hold 15 of the 445 seats in the Egyptian parliament. And while Brotherhood activities vary from country to country, and chapters are officially independent, international leaders in Egypt say that all chapters are united in their beliefs and that the Egyptian office gives them advice. In recent months Akef, the international Brotherhood leader, repeatedly has praised Palestinian and Iraqi suicide bombers, called for the destruction of Israel and asserted that the United States has no proof that Al Qaeda was to blame for the Sept. 11 attacks. Iman Elkadi's father, Mahmoud Abu Saud, was particularly involved in the Brotherhood's beginnings in Egypt and remains well-known in the Arab world. An accomplished economist, he is widely regarded as a pioneer in Islamic banking, which requires that interest not be charged for loans. He also was jailed repeatedly for his Brotherhood activities. "My grandfather would tell me that if my dad didn't come home for dinner, he would send someone to check the jails," Iman Elkadi recalls. The Elkadi and Abu Saud families were linked in marriage in 1963 after Ahmed Elkadi, then a 22-year-old preparing to go into the Egyptian military, ran into his future father-in-law at a mutual friend's office. When the young Elkadi learned that Abu Saud had an unmarried daughter, he inquired about her. The father, familiar with the young man's family and its devotion to the Brotherhood, invited him to their home. Soon after, the families arranged for Ahmed and Iman to marry. The wedding was held in Cairo, in a grandparent's garden. Only relatives were invited, though others were keenly interested: Soon afterward, Egyptian intelligence officials called the couple in for questioning. Iman Elkadi says, "They asked my husband, `Couldn't you find anybody else to marry except Mahmoud Abu Saud's daughter?'" A mission in U.S. The Elkadis arrived in the United States in 1967, settling in the small Louisiana city of Monroe, where Ahmed Elkadi continued his medical training at a local hospital. By then the Muslim Brotherhood already was operating in the United States, though secretly. A U.S. chapter of the Brotherhood, documents and interviews show, was formed in the early 1960s after hundreds of young Muslims came to the U.S. to study, particularly at large Midwestern universities, such as Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. Some belonged to the Brotherhood in their homelands and wanted to spread its ideology here. But to protect themselves and their relatives back home from possible persecution, they publicly called themselves the Cultural Society and not the Brotherhood. Many young Muslim professionals joined, including Elkadi. One of his daughters, Mona, recalls that when she was a teen, she often fielded phone calls from women who did not know that their husbands were in the Brotherhood and wondered where they were on a given night. She says the husbands "put the fear of God in me about keeping this a secret. I'd get lectures from some of the men about how I was going to expose them." Not anyone could join the Brotherhood. The group had a carefully detailed strategy on how to find and evaluate potential members, according to a Brotherhood instructional booklet for recruiters. Leaders would scout mosques, Islamic classes and Muslim organizations for those with orthodox religious beliefs consistent with Brotherhood views, the booklet says. The leaders then would invite them to join a small prayer group, or usra, Arabic for "family." The prayer groups were a defining feature of the Brotherhood and one created by al-Banna in Egypt. But leaders initially would not reveal the purpose of the prayer groups, and recruits were asked not to tell anyone about the meetings. If recruits asked about a particular meeting to which they were not invited, they should respond, "Make it a habit not to meddle in that which does not concern you." Leaders were told that during prayer meetings they should focus on fundamentals, including "the primary goal of the Brotherhood: setting up the rule of God upon the Earth." After assessing the recruits' "commitment, loyalty and obedience" to Brotherhood ideals, the leaders would invite suitable candidates to join. New members, according to the booklet, would be told that they now were part of the worldwide Brotherhood and that membership "is not a personal honor but a charge to sacrifice all that one has for the sake of raising the banner of Islam." Mustafa Saied, the Floridian who left the Brotherhood six years ago, recalls how he was recruited in 1994 while a junior at the University of Tennessee. After Saied attended numerous prayer sessions, a fellow Muslim student took him to a quiet corner of a campus cafeteria and asked him to join. "It was a dream, because that's what you're conditioned to do--to really love the Ikhwan," Saied says, using the Arabic term for Brothers or Brotherhood. After he joined, he learned the names of other local members. "I was shocked," he says. "These people had really hid the fact that they were Brotherhood." He says he found out that the U.S. Brotherhood had a plan for achieving Islamic rule in America: It would convert Americans to Islam and elect like-minded Muslims to political office. "They're very smart. Everyone else is gullible," Saied says. "If the Brotherhood puts up somebody for an election, Muslims would vote for him not knowing he was with the Brotherhood." Saied says he left the group after several years because he disliked its anti-American sentiments and its support for violence in the Middle East. "With the extreme element," he says, "you never know when that ticking time bomb will go off." By the 1970s, Elkadi had moved to Missouri and, he says, become treasurer of the U.S. Brotherhood, collecting money from members from across the country. His wife was the unofficial bookkeeper, tracking who was behind on dues. Members were required to pay 3 percent of their income per year, with the money going to travel, books and annual conferences, the Elkadis say. The conferences were held under the Cultural Society name, usually in large hotels and always on Memorial Day weekend. They were invitation-only, with word spread through the prayer groups. Some years, up to 1,000 people attended; every other year, elections were held. While the U.S. Brotherhood was influential from its beginning--in 1963 it helped establish the Muslim Students Association, one of the first national Islamic groups in the U.S.--Elkadi thought the group could expand its reach. And when he was elected president in 1984, he vowed to do just that. Executing his strategy Elkadi had a strategy to make America more Islamic that reflected a long-standing Brotherhood belief: First you change the person, then the family, then the community, then the nation. By 1990, U.S. Brotherhood members had made headway on that plan by helping establish many mosques and Islamic organizations. Some of those efforts were backed financially by the ultraconservative Saudi Arabian government, which shared some of the Brotherhood's fundamentalist goals. Elkadi himself helped create several noted Islamic organizations, including the Muslim Youth of North America, which attempted to draw thousands of high school students to Islam by sponsoring soccer teams, providing scholarships and offering a line of clothing. He served as president of the North American Islamic Trust, a group that helped build and preserve mosques. Some of those organizations eventually would distance themselves from the Brotherhood. The Islamic Society of North America, the umbrella group for the Muslim Youth of North America and the Muslim Students Association, says Brotherhood members helped form those groups but that their overall influence has been limited. Groups that the Brotherhood helped form printed Islamic books, many of which were distributed at mosques and on college campuses. They included Sayyid Qutb's "In the Shade of the Koran" and "Milestones," which urge jihad, martyrdom and the creation of Islamic states. Scholars came to view his writings as manifestos for Islamic militants. "These books had questionable paradigms, especially a dichotomous division between `us' and `them,'" says Umar Faruq Abdallah, a noted Islamic scholar who heads a Muslim educational group in suburban Chicago. "It was very harmful. It helped to create a countercultural attitude in our community." Inamul Haq, professor of religion at Benedictine University in Lisle, Ill., says the U.S. Brotherhood pushed Islam in a conservative direction. "They were in a position to define American Islam. Since they were well-connected in the Middle East, they were able to bring money to build various institutions." Without the Brotherhood, he says, "We would have seen a more American Islamic culture rather than a foreign community living in the United States." In his own community, Elkadi practiced what he preached. After moving to Panama City, Fla., in 1979, he borrowed $2.4 million from a Luxembourg bank managed by his father-in-law, Abu Saud, the early Brotherhood leader, and built a large Islamic medical center just outside of town, real estate records show. Called the Akbar Clinic, the two-story brick building had a surgery center, an emergency room and dental, psychiatry, nutrition and acupuncture services. Inside the clinic, Elkadi set up a small mosque and an Islamic school. The school occupied several rooms on the second floor until the students became too loud and classes had to be moved to a trailer on clinic grounds. In many eyes, Elkadi was a true Muslim leader. "Everyone flocked to him whenever there was a problem," says Aly Shaaban, a Muslim leader in Panama City. "He was a father figure. He had this magnetism. You see his face and you just want to kiss his face." A life's work in ruins But things were beginning to unravel for Elkadi. By 1995 he had lost virtually everything he had worked for: his clinic, the school, his medical license and the presidency of the U.S. Brotherhood. First to go was the clinic. Elkadi had fallen behind on the bills, and by 1988 creditors had won thousands of dollars in judgments against him. To prevent a sheriff's sale, the Islamic bank in Luxembourg took over the property, and eventually it was sold to a drug rehabilitation clinic. But Elkadi faced an even more serious professional problem: Florida regulators started disciplinary action against him for performing unnecessary surgeries at a Panama City hospital and for doing major operations, including a mastectomy, at his clinic without proper precautions, such as an adequate blood supply. Regulators determined that Elkadi had performed unneeded stomach surgery on nine patients. The Florida Board of Medicine concluded that Elkadi "exhibited a total lack of judgment" and was "not a competent physician." The board revoked his license in 1992. At the time, Elkadi adamantly denied the allegations and accused Florida regulators of being "grossly unfair," according to filings with the state. By the mid-1990s, his problems deepened. Not only was he forced to close his now-overcrowded and dilapidated school because of financial difficulties, he learned that Brotherhood leaders wanted him out as president. It remains unclear why he lost his position. Current and former Brotherhood members say they do not know or that Elkadi simply was voted out of office. Elkadi and his wife say he was removed because he was not conservative enough. They say he had been pushing for women and other Islamic groups to be more involved in the Brotherhood, and some members did not like that. "For some members, it's a very ingrown type of mentality," Iman Elkadi says. "You work only among Muslims, don't contact non-Muslims, so that your work is limited to a small circle." She says the Elkadis believed that "the message of Islam is for everybody." Elkadi's daughter says he took this and other rejections hard. Elkadi now says he is not angry about his ouster and still loves the organization and its members. "They are good people because they follow Islam," he says. A change of face In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation's major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members. Some wanted the Brotherhood to remain underground, while others thought a more public face would make the group more influential. Members from across the country drove to regional meeting sites to discuss the issue. Former member Mustafa Saied recalls how he gathered with 40 others at a Days Inn on the Alabama-Tennessee border. Many members, he says, preferred secrecy, particularly in case U.S. authorities cracked down on Hamas supporters, including many Brotherhood members. "They were looking at doomsday scenarios," he says. When the leaders voted, it was decided that Brotherhood members would call themselves the Muslim American Society, or MAS, according to documents and interviews. They agreed not to refer to themselves as the Brotherhood but to be more publicly active. They eventually created a Web site and for the first time invited the public to some conferences, which also were used to raise money. The incorporation papers would list Elkadi--just months away from his ouster--as a director. Elkadi and Mohammed Mahdi Akef, a Brotherhood leader in Egypt and now the international head, had pushed for more openness. In fact, Akef says he helped found MAS by lobbying for the change during trips to the U.S. "We have a religion, message, morals and principals that we want to carry to the people as God ordered us," he says. "So why should we work in secrecy?" But U.S. members would remain guarded about their identity and beliefs. An undated internal memo instructed MAS leaders on how to deal with inquiries about the new organization. If asked, "Are you the Muslim Brothers?" leaders should respond that they are an independent group called the Muslim American Society. "It is a self-explanatory name that does not need further explanation." And if the topic of terrorism were raised, leaders were told to say that they were against terrorism but that jihad was among a Muslim's "divine legal rights" to be used to defend himself and his people and to spread Islam. But MAS leaders say those documents and others obtained by the Tribune are either outdated or do not accurately reflect the views of the group's leaders. MAS describes itself as a "charitable, religious, social, cultural and educational not-for-profit organization." It has headquarters in Alexandria, Va., and 53 chapters nationwide, including one in Bridgeview, across the street from the mosque there. Shaker Elsayed, a top MAS official, says the organization was founded by Brotherhood members but has evolved to include Muslims from various backgrounds and ideologies. "Ikhwan [Brotherhood] members founded MAS, but MAS went way beyond that point of conception," he says. Now, he says, his group has no connection with the Brotherhood and disagrees with the international organization on many issues. But he says that MAS, like the Brotherhood, believes in the teachings of Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, which are "the closest reflection of how Islam should be in this life." "I understand that some of our members may say, `Yes, we are Ikhwan,'" Elsayed says. But, he says, MAS is not administered from Egypt. He adds, "We are not your typical Ikhwan." MAS says it has about 10,000 members and that any Muslim can join by paying $10 a month in dues. But to be an "active" member--the highest membership class--one must complete five years of Muslim community service and education, which includes studying writings by Brotherhood ideologues al-Banna and Qutb. There are about 1,500 active members, including many women. Elsayed says about 45 percent of those members belong to the Brotherhood. MAS' precise connection to the Brotherhood is a sensitive issue, says Mohamed Habib, a high-ranking Brotherhood official in Cairo. "I don't want to say MAS is an Ikhwan entity," he says. "This causes some security inconveniences for them in a post-Sept. 11 world." Preserving Muslim identity Elsayed says MAS does not believe in creating an Islamic state in America but supports the establishment of Islamic governments in Muslim lands. The group's goal in the United States, he says, "is to serve and develop the Muslim community and help Muslims to be the best citizens they can be of this country." That includes preserving the Muslim identity, particularly among youths. MAS collected $2.8 million in dues and donations in 2003--more than 10 times the amount in 1997, according to Internal Revenue Service filings. Spending often is aimed at schools, teachers and children, the filings show. The group has conducted teacher training programs, issued curriculum guides and established youth centers. It also set up Islamic American University, largely a correspondence school with an office in suburban Detroit, to train teachers and preachers. Until 18 months ago, the university's chairman was Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a prominent cleric in Qatar and a spiritual figure of the Brotherhood who has angered many in the West by praising suicide bombers in Israel and Iraq. The U.S. government has barred him from entering the country since late 1999. He says that action was taken after he praised Palestinian militants. In the Chicago area, MAS has sponsored summer camps for teenagers. Shahzeen Karim, 19, says a camp in Bridgeview inspired her to resume covering her hair in the Islamic tradition. "We were praying five times a day," Karim says. "It was like a proper Islamic environment. It brought me back to Islam." At a summer camp last year in Wisconsin run by the Chicago chapter of MAS, teens received a 2-inch-thick packet of material that included a discussion of the Brotherhood's philosophy and detailed instructions on how to win converts. Part of the Chicago chapter's Web site is devoted to teens. It includes reading materials that say Muslims have a duty to help form Islamic governments worldwide and should be prepared to take up arms to do so. One passage states that "until the nations of the world have functionally Islamic governments, every individual who is careless or lazy in working for Islam is sinful." Another one says that Western secularism and materialism are evil and that Muslims should "pursue this evil force to its own lands" and "invade its Western heartland." In suburban Rosemont, Ill., several thousand people attended MAS' annual conference in 2002 at the village's convention center. One speaker said, "We may all feel emotionally attached to the goal of an Islamic state" in America, but it would have to wait because of the modest Muslim population. "We mustn't cross hurdles we can't jump yet." Federal authorities say they are scrutinizing the Brotherhood but acknowledge that they have been slow to understand the group. In 2002, customs agents stopped Elkadi at Washington Dulles International Airport and questioned him for four hours. They wanted to know who was in the Brotherhood, where it gets its money and how the Elkadis invested their money. A month later, agents came to Elkadi's home with similar questions. He recalls that he answered every one. Elkadi remains highly regarded in some Muslim circles. An article in 2000 in the MAS magazine praised him as a great Muslim in the ranks of al-Banna and Qutb. He and his wife say they hope the Brotherhood succeeds. After all, they say, everyone in the Brotherhood agrees on the main issue. "Everyone's goal is the same--to educate everyone about Islam and to follow the teachings of Islam with the hope of establishing an Islamic state," Iman Elkadi says. "Who knows whether it will happen or not, but we still have to strive for it." Brotherhood has grown in influence The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt more than seven decades ago, is among the most powerful political forces in the Islamic world today. 1928: The Muslim Brotherhood is formed in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna to promote a return to fundamental Islamic beliefs and practices and to fight Western colonialism in the Islamic world. Late 1930s: The Brotherhood starts forming affiliated chapters in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. 1948: The Brotherhood is implicated in the assassination of Egyptian Prime Minister Mahmud Nuqrashi, who had banned the group. Al-Banna denies involvement. 1949: The Egyptian government retaliates for Nuqrashi's assassination by killing al-Banna. 1954: A Brotherhood member tries to assassinate Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and fails. Nasser executes several of the group's leaders and incarcerates thousands of its followers. 1962: The Cultural Society is created as the first Brotherhood organization in the United States. Society members help establish numerous Islamic organizations, mosques and schools. 1966: Sayyid Qutb, a Brotherhood ideologue who urged Muslims to take up arms against non-Islamic governments, is executed by Nasser's regime. 1982: In Hamah, Syria, at least 10,000 people are killed by government troops suppressing an uprising by the Brotherhood. 1993: The Muslim American Society, initially based in Illinois and now in Virginia, is created to be a more public face of the Brotherhood in the U.S. 2001: The U.S. names Brotherhood member Youssef Nada and his Swissbased investment network, allegedly established with backing from the Brotherhood, as terrorist financiers. Nada denies any terrorist links. 2002: Tens of thousands of Brotherhood supporters fill the streets of Cairo during a funeral for group leader Mustafa Mashhour on Nov. 15. 2003: U.S. authorities investigating alleged terrorism funding describe Virginia businessman Soliman Biheiri as the Brotherhood's "financial toehold" in the U.S. Biheiri denies any terrorist links. 2004: The Egyptian government rounds up dozens of Brotherhood supporters, freezes members' assets and ousts one of its backers from parliament. Contact Tsila at tsilagroup@yahoo.com To Go To Top

A SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS OR WHAT NEXT? Posted by Walter Bingham, January 31, 2006.

The result of the election for the leadership in the Palestinian Authority's administered areas brought into sharp focus the defence of Israel as a priority that requires to be addressed urgently. The victory of Hamas should serve as a wake-up call for those who are currently conducting the political affairs of this country and the question arises, whether the present defence Minister Shaul Mofaz if fit to hold this important position in the face of the lies which he has repeatedly uttered recently on a number of important matters. In mid December, just two days after he said that he would not do so, Shaul Mofaz joined the Kadima Party and his resignation from Likud came just a few days after he said that politicians who switch from Party to Party:"... show a lack of stability and a lack of leadership" and after he criticised Kadima by saying:"...I don't think Kadima will show the proper determination to stand up for Israel's critical needs". And the defence of Israel is in the hands of this man. According to a report on Israel National News, Mofaz gave orders against actions such as buttressing towns adjacent to Gaza following the expulsion, so as not to lead to a perception that the disengagement might worsen Israeli security, which the former Chief of Staff predicted and which has indeed materialised. And the defence of Israel is in the hands of this man. There's more. MK's, Members of Knesset from across the political spectrum accused Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz of deceiving a Knesset agreement regarding a purported agreement between Israel and the P.A. the Palestinian Authority to run the Rafiah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, a border notorious for weapons and drug smuggling. At a session of the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, no less, Chairman Yuval Steinitz accused Defence Minister Mofaz, who has deserted Likud for Kadima, of lying to the committee in regard of the purported agreement to operate the Rafiah crossing. Mofaz told the Committee, that Israel had worked out a written agreement with the Palestinian Authority on operating the terminal. That agreement, brokered by the United States was reportedly designed to protect Israel's security interests at the terminal, without actually having an Israeli presence there. Now it appears that no such agreement has been signed. "The Rafiah agreement never existed" said the Chairman. "This is the most serious case ever of deception of the Knesset" he said. And the defence of Israel is in the hands of this man. In any other democratic country, such a liar would have been booted out long ago from a senior ministerial post; in fact from any government position. Anywhere else, a man of character would have resigned, but apparently not in Israel where integrity and honesty and sticking to the election promises are not in our current politicians' vocabulary. It is high time, for a change in the electoral system to bring about a representative parliamentary democracy, where prospective parliamentary candidates stand in a constituency for election by the people of that constituency and if they don't perform according to their election promises, they are out next time. Their job in the Knesset should depend on what they do - and not whom they know. The Knesset that was just dissolved, 'though known as the 16th, was in fact the 30th parliament since the founding of the State of Israel 60 years ago. That averages at 2 years per Parliament. Such a transient body is only the custodian of the country's landmass and wealth - for the period of its short tenure. It is in my view therefore a criminal act to dispose of any land, against the express wishes of a large percentage of the population if not the majority, - quite apart from the Torah perspective. I am certain, that former Prime Minister Sharon believed he was doing the best for the country; after all he was a brave soldier too. But his judgement was seriously clouded. We now know why; - and those reasons were kept from the people. A policy based on the promises of Mahmoud Abbas, the founder of Fatah, and the right hand of Arafat could only be instituted by a person whose capacity to reason clearly is affected, even if only slightly. Furthermore, the almost total submission to American pressure to serve her own purposes and not those of the sovereign State of Israel would have been resisted by anyone with pure and not corrupt intentions. As for the acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, it seems that he has few ideas of his own and is continuing the dangerous policies of Sharon. Yet, as I already said, any government is only a transient body for a short period of time, an acting caretaker of the affairs of our country, and therefore not entitled to dispose of tracts of our holy land. Its task is to manage it. But there are two more reasons why Ehud Olmert is acting totally undemocratically and against all principles of morality. Firstly, he became a temporary 1st Minister after and not before a General Election has been called, which does not allow him to change the country's status quo in the interim. Secondly, and more importantly, the party that he now represents has no legal right to govern, since it was not the one chosen by the people at the last General Election. It was Likud that was elected and during the latter part of Likud's term of office the party reconstituted itself at the whim of the Prime Minister to emerge in a totally different form as Kadima. It emerged after that metamorphosis - with different policies from those for which Likud was elected and it took power by what can only be described as a bloodless coup. A dirty trick; creeping in through the back door. The way I read it, as Olmert and those who changed to Kadima left Likud, then it should be Binyamin Nethanyahu the senior Likud member who should lead the interim government. But then logic, morals, a code of ethics and principled beliefs are not the hallmark of turncoats like those who change parties for the sake of gaining a better chance of a ministerial post. The policy of appeasement, which this government under Sharon and now Olmert are pursuing is leading to disaster. To hand over more territories and force more of our kith and Kin out of their homes to make a present to the Palestinian Arabs for having perpetrated terrorism against our population, that policy will invite more of the same because, - and forgive me for repeating what has been said a hundred times before, because such action will only be interpreted as a success for terrorism. I am old enough to remember when in 1939 the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from a meeting in Munich with the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. At the foot of the steps of his airplane he waved a piece of paper, bearing Hitler's signature and he declared proudly: 'Peace in our Time'. When Hitler was challenged for wanting to occupy the Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia, he promised that if he is given it - he has no more territorial demands. He got it and soon afterwards took the rest of Czechoslovakia followed by the same false promises. Then he marched into Poland. The world was prepared to sacrifice the area of the Saar adjacent to France, Austria and Czechoslovakia, thinking they gave land for peace, despite the fact that it was not their land to give. Neither is it anybody's right today, to want Israel to trade its soil to placate the Muslim world - in the mistaken belief that if the Israeli Palestinian conflict is solved, terrorism in the world will vanish. Do they not realise, that this conflict is only an excuse not the raison d'etre for world terrorism. The people of Israel are not prepared to be the sacrificial lamb for the glory of any World leader. We shall stand steadfastly together to prevent this disastrous plan of setting Jew against his brother and sister. It may well be, that the government is under serious pressure from the US and certainly from the European Union, but we are a sovereign power, autonomous and well capable to withstand the foreign leaders, who each seek to outdo the other - to go down in history as having brought peace to the Middle East. Where were they when Israel faced attacking Arab nations on three occasions? Did they send us help? And the one time when they did, in 1956, the Americans - sneezed and the British and French caught a cold. Today's actions against Israel by the European leaders are driven by their necessity to placate the Cocoo they have themselves invited into their nest. It is their desperate attempt to prevent a hostile takeover of their countries, - for it has been predicted that in less than 100 years time, Europe will be largely Muslim. On the one hand, I fear what sort of plan Olmert is hatching next, but on the other, I believe that a man who is weak enough to reverse his sincerely held and publicly declared conviction - within a year or two under foreign pressure, can be made to change again under the pressure of his own people. We in Israel must be vigilant and prevent a man-made erosion of our land. Fellow Jews and our Christian friends, in the Diaspora, G-d fearing or secular, must make their voices heard and impress on this and the next Governments, that Israel can't, - won't - and never will surrender its soil to anyone. One can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. Walter Bingham is a veteran journalist and broadcaster from London who made aliyah and now lives in Jerusalem. His weekly radio programme, Walter's World, can be heard on Israel National Radio.com. Contact him by email at walter@IsraelNationalNews.com To Go To Top

OLMERT AND LIVNI -- RUNNING FOR COVER Posted by Avraham Weissman, January 31, 2006.

Dear Friends The following charges (read the article below by Emanuel Winston) have been and are still being made - against Ariel Sharon and the inheritors of his policies - Ehud Olmert and the Kadima Party, its associates and allies. I know that at least - some of what has been reported below has also been reported by Israeli intelligence and Israeli news sources, for example that tons of new improved weapons, including longer range rockets have been brought into the Gaza Strip from Egypt, placing large areas of Israel within their range. There is also no doubt that the Hamas win throughout Palestinian Authority controlled areas is also a result of the retreat from the Gaza Strip ordered by Ariel Sharon and his associates in the LIkud Party and their allies in the Labor Party. - It is certainly a very serious (but was also a foreseeable) development. Democracy works when people are educated to respect their fellow human beings and their rights - including those that differ with them! It doesn't work when those who go to the polls have been educated to believe in "jihad" or holy war and violence against those who differ with their religious beliefs and customs, and who believe that their religion has the innate right to force itself on all others, and that they -- and only they -- have sovereignty rights in all of the Middle East. The US and Europe are and will continue to be the "big losers" in this latest development in so called Arab "Palestine," not just Israel. The US "make nice" policy toward the Palestinians and other jihadi Arabs has failed as "appeasement" of crime and criminal activity always does. How they empathized with the so callled "poor and suffering" Palestinian refugees, whose suffering were caused by Moslem Arabs themselves - and the Arab World in general.. US policy has too long been controlled by a policy of naive "expedience" (read "short term good" for some - at the price of "long term harm" toward freedom and free societies, ) expedience - toward Arab - Muslim "oil" power. Now there are those in the "free world" that are calling for US disengagement from Iraq and the Mid East - who are advocating the same thing "Chamberlain" advocated toward Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany in the 1930's. If they win, freedom and the free world will lose even more and the existential threat to the free world will grow! "Eternal vigilance" is only the initial "down payment" for living in freedom, the full price includes the willingness to defend it with all it takes! I hope the leadership in the free world learns from this latest development and reacts appropriately and soon, before oil power and its ensuing pollution damage the natural environment and the free world irreparably. This was written by Emanuel A. Winston. Emanuel A. Winston is member of the Advisory Board and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies.   Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has appointed Tzipi Livni as Foreign Minister. Olmert has assigned her the task of issuing cover-up statistics for "Kadima" on the Gaza/Hamas blunder. Livni issued a statement to the effect that "Israel (Sharon) opened the door of peace by abandoning Gaza and the Muslim Arab Palestinians slammed it shut." Perhaps, since Livni is not experienced in propaganda and disinformation, the pro-Arab State Department speech writers gave her a hand. After Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was incapacitated with a major stroke, Tzipi Livni and Ehud Olmert had to scramble to make the Gush Katif/Gaza withdrawal look like a wise decision, and that it wasn't their fault or that of their new Party "Kadima" that the Palestinians' election voted an overwhelming landslide for Hamas (the most violent of the Palestinian Terrorist organizations). Hamas got 74 seats, Fatah got 45 out of 132 seats. First, Olmert played a strong role in advising Sharon to abandon Gaza. Next, Sharon was advised repeatedly by Generals at the top of his Military and Intelligence staffs that leaving Gaza was a bad move and the Muslim Terrorists from all over the world would use the area as a staging base for attacks against Israel and the West. It became common knowledge on the streets of Israel that Sharon needed a substantial diversion from the Attorney General's numerous charges against him and his sons for illegal financial deals. So many illegal activities were surfacing, including a major exposé of a $3 million loan uncovered by the police that Sharon and all around him grew increasingly panicked. The sensationalistic drama of the Gaza withdrawal was a necessary diversion, merely for him to stay in office in order to keep his sons out of jail. Everything predicted by Sharon's military advisors and the different Intelligence Services has come true. Now Olmert and Livni, heirs to the Sharon cover-up and monumental blunders, needed to change the world's perception of history and their role in the blunders. As Gaza fills up with all the Muslim Arab Terrorist organizations, there is not even the pretense by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (nom de guerre Abu Mazen) that his Fatah can maintain control. Now Hamas will achieve full control of the Arab Muslim Palestinian government and put Hamas operatives on the payroll. These operatives have been well trained and armed - for Terror, not for Government. That may be short-lived, given that Abu Mazen has spent Fatah (his inner Terror organization) and the PA into bankruptcy. He paid out all the incoming monies from Israel (who still 'pay' the PA millions of dollars a month) America and Europe - the donor countries, to his own Police 'cum' Terrorists, lest they turn on him. As a result of Hamas winning a huge majority, the Fatah Police cum Terrorists have indeed turned against him as was seen on TV internationally when they rioted in Gaza and elsewhere after the election. Sharon's gamble didn't pay off as the area of Gaza has now become, as predicted, a mini-Terrorist state, armed to the teeth. Mountains of arms and terrorists flowed into Gaza from where they were stocked in the Egyptian Sinai Desert within days of Sharon evicting 10,000 Jewish men, women and children. This is the legacy of Sharon to the country and to Kadima, his one man party. Now that he is incapacitated (perhaps dead but kept alive on life support systems in a 'coma'), his whole house of cards has collapsed. Tzipi Livni, as Foreign Minister, under orders from Ehud Olmert, is now as busy as a cat trying to cover up its dropping on a tin roof. It just can't be hidden but, they are trying anyway. When Ehud Olmert, at the behest of the U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, allowed Hamas to be on the ballot, he displayed his weakness as a leader - in addition to his lack of knowledge of what was boiling over in the Palestinian communities.Being uninformed and wobbly on decision making, indicates both he and his Kadima Party are totally without substance. As is said, all the chickens have yet to come back to roost in Gaza. What Tzipi Livni is trying to cover up is the strength of the combined forces of the Muslim Terrorists now uniting under Hamas radical leadership. The Israeli people have yet to grasp what Sharon's "Disengagement" Plan has done to them. While Hamas has won and angered Fatah loyalists, they will soon coalesce into one mightier force. The Hamas leadership, speaking from Iran and Syria, has already proposed that the Hamas forces will be 'folded' into the Fatah forces to create one cohesive Army of Terrorists. All will operate under the umbrella of Islamic Jihad. Believe it, the sum will be greater than the sum of its parts. The Charters of both the Fatah (PLO) and Hamas will be merged into one document of purpose. Hamas has a Charter pledged to the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel. Fatah has its Charter which was never (I repeat: NEVER) been cancelled - which also pledges the destruction of Israel. And Fatah has its own fighting force called the Al-Aq'sa Martyrs Brigades. (Note! Both of the Charters are similar and can be read over the Internet.) The weapons, both in volume and quality, poured into Gaza in unimaginable tonnage when Sharon surrendered by retreating the soldiers and the Land made green by the 9,000 settlers. Here we find the assistance of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt who acted the enabler to supply weapons and explosive material which came from Iran and Syria and were stored in the Sinai Desert under Egypt's protection. The low-tech Kassem Rockets made in Gaza with a 5 kilometer range are being replaced with missiles of 17-27 kilometer range (11-16 miles) - which can reach most of Israel's dense population centers up to Tel Aviv. The vacuum created by Sharon by evacuating 500-600 Jews from the four communities in the Samarian mountains, also gives the Terrorists free access to battle bases and munitions storage depots from which to attack the center and north of the country. Even as the Hamas Palestinians pledge to destroy Israel as per the terms of their Charter, Olmert (Kadima), Amir Peretz (Labor) are promising more unilateral withdrawals from Judea and Samaria with Hebron on the immediate list and dividing Jerusalem - in effect, repeating the blunders of Oslo and Gaza. Israel will be truncated to an indefensible sliver - no longer a military asset to America - with her people put at great risk. Meanwhile, as Tzipi Livni is trying to cover up the Gaza abandonment and Hamas election blunders, Sec. Rice is doing the same thing in Washington. Here the coverup of a naive blunder is the belief that one can introduce American-style Democracy into Muslim Theocracies of the Arab/Muslim culture. President George W. Bush with the now incapacitated Sharon, unleashed the collective power of Global Terror in Gaza. The Terrorists simply voted themselves into power. Therefore, IF they voted, it is a democracy. Right?! In Egypt, at the insistence of Bush and Rice, the vote brought the Islamic Brotherhood, one of the oldest Islamic Terrorist Organizations one step closer to controlling Egypt and converting it into an Islamic-driven nation run by radical theocrats, holding the largest arsenal which was supplied by America with the gift of more than $60 Billion in annual aid over the years since Camp David. These American tax-payers' dollars bought those weapons, the best in America's high tech. America even assisted in developing Egyptian factories to build some of those most powerful weapons. To wit, then Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger gave Egypt a "turn-key" factory to produce America's top Heavy Battle Tank, the M1A1 Abrams. America supplied the parts, the money and the technicians to put them together. Try to imagine how much that money would do for America in jobs and money resources IF it was spent in American manufacturing. Who can forget the peanut farmer Jimmy Carter who with delusions of democracy dancing in his head, brought the Ayatollah Khomeini out of his exile in France back to Iran, toppling the Shah of Iran and losing the tons of weapons America had supplied to the Shah in his good days? Let us not forget Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres who brought Yassir Arafat and his Terrorists back from Tunisia, where they lived in ignominy, where they had been driven during the 1982 War in Lebanon - forgotten until Rabin, Peres and President Clinton resurrected Arafat, the Master Islamic Terrorist of our times. In all three cases, stupidity doesn't even begin to describe the results of not understanding the sub-culture of the Islam and Arabic civilization. No question that there will soon be a very massive war aimed at the Judeo-Christian civilization in the Free West. The only question is: Will the fighting start along the outer edges of Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley or will it be as Olmert and Peres have predetermined it, fighting with our backs to the Sea, shooting from the windows of the Shalom and Arieli Towers in Tel Aviv? It is a bad time for Israel to have naive Leftist leaders whose first methods of defense is retreat. Where are the strong leaders who make Israel's strength into our best deterrent? Contact Avraham Weissman at avna@bezeqint.net. To Go To Top

HAMAS VICTORY IS GOOD NEWS Posted by Deb Kotz, January 31, 2006.

I like Jacoby's column very much, but I'm still a pessimist at heart when it comes to the Mideast peace process. I'm afraid the world will accept Hamas after the shock of the election wears off, under the delusion that there's no other option. I say this because we all thought that the world would finally wake up when Arafat walked away from Barak's offer of more than 90% of the land. Instead, the world continued to blame Israel for the Palestinian plight and found justification for the PA terrorist war that followed. I hope, I hope, I hope to be proven wrong. I hope the world FINALLY sees the Palestinians for who they are: hell bent on the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people and completely unfit, at this point in time, to establish a democratic nation. I'd like to go back to being an optimist. Pessimism isn't in my nature. Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for the Boston Globe. Contact him at jacoby@globe.com This article appeared January 29, 2006 at www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/ 2006/01/08/bringing_faith_into_contempt/ WESTERN reactions to the outcome of the Palestinian election last week came in two varieties: highly negative and decidedly undecided. In the first category was Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who moaned that the Hamas defeat of Fatah was a "very, very, very bad result." In New York, the Anti-Defamation League pronounced the results "a tremendous setback." Others insisted that the significance of the election couldn't be known until Hamas decides whether or not to abandon its foremost objective: the liquidation of Israel. In the words of FBI Director Robert Mueller, "Hamas has a choice to make." It was a line echoed everywhere, from the British Foreign Office to the New York Times editorial page. Well, put me in a third camp: I think the sweeping Hamas victory is by far the best result that could have been hoped for. I say that not because Hamas is anything other than a blood-drenched terrorist group, but because its lopsided win is an unambiguous reality check into the nature of Palestinian society. And if there is one thing that the West badly needs, it is more realism and less delusion about the Palestinians. Some of that delusion was on display at the White House on Thursday, when President Bush painted the Palestinian election as a "healthy" exercise in civic reform: "Obviously, people were not happy with the status quo," Bush explained. "The people are demanding honest government. The people want services. They want to be able to raise their children in an environment in which they can get a decent education and they can find healthcare. And so the elections should open the eyes of the old guard there in the Palestinian territories. ... There's something healthy about a system that does that." Spare us, Mr. President. If a slate of neo-Nazi skinheads swept to power in a European election, would you say that the voters were seeking "honest government" and "services"? Palestinians are not stupid, and it insults their intelligence to pretend that when they vote to empower a genocidal organization with a platform straight out of "Mein Kampf," what they're really after is better healthcare. Islamist extremism isn't needed to fix Palestinian hospitals any more than fascism was needed to make Italian trains run on time in the 1920s. If Palestinians turned out en masse to elect a party that unapologetically stands for hatred and mass murder, it's a safe bet that hatred and mass murder had something to do with the turnout. By the same token, Hamas's new duties are not going to turn it into a moderate group of diligent civil servants. When violent Islamists win political power, their brutality and zealotry do not diminish. (See Khomeini, Ayatollah and Taliban, Afghan). The notion that Hamas now has "a choice to make" is just another example of the delusional thinking that is so pervasive when it comes to the Palestinian Authority. In his remarks on Thursday, Bush went on to say that he didn't "see how you can be a partner in peace if you advocate the destruction of a country as part of your platform" or "if your party has got an armed wing" and that Hamas is therefore "a party with which we will not deal." If that means that the Bush administration will shun the new Hamas government as it once shunned Yasser Arafat, well and good. But why was Mahmoud Abbas treated any differently? Like Hamas, Fatah -- the PLO faction Abbas and Arafat co-founded 45 years ago -- advocates Israel's destruction in its basic charter. Like Hamas, Fatah has an "armed wing" -- the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades -- that is guilty of horrific terror attacks. Fatah's emblem shows crossed rifles against a map of "Palestine" that depicts all of Israel; on the Hamas emblem, the map is the same, but the crossed weapons are swords. The only important difference between the ousted Fatah party and the incoming Hamas leadership is that for PR purposes the former sometimes pretended to accept Israel's right to exist, while the latter is openly and unabashedly committed to Israel's elimination. Yet that is why the Hamas landslide is good news. It will now be much harder to wish away the unpleasant fact that after a dozen years of PLO misrule, Palestinian society is deeply dysfunctional, steeped in hatred and violence. All but the willfully blind can now see that the Palestinian Authority is no "partner in peace." Until it is decisively defeated and thoroughly detoxified, the Palestinian people will never enjoy the blessings of liberty and decent governance. Ironically, the ascendancy of Hamas may have brought that day a little closer. Deb Kotz is an active member of the Brandeis Chapter of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and maintains an email list to distribute articles of interest to the local community. She can be reached at DebKotz@aol.com To Go To Top

HEBRON, POLLARD AND JEWISH ANTI-SEMITISM Posted by Women in Green, January 31, 2006.

This was written by Moshe Feiglin. Jews have a peculiar habit of attempting to escape their Divine mission. The Jew tries to imitate the non-Jews, to blur his identity and to flee the entire burden of being Jewish. But then anti-Semitism comes and brings the mirror close up to his face. No costume will help. You are a Jew. This creates a strange chain reaction. Non-Jews hate Israel because it is the state of the Jews. Israel refuses to recognize the fact that it did not mange to escape its Judaism. Instead of negating anti-Semitism, it simply joins in the fray in a futile attempt to deflect the hatred down the line to the religious Jews and the settlers. Last week in Israel we witnessed two blatant anti-Semitism issues that were entirely homegrown. In a virulent attack on Hebron's Jewish community, Israel's politicians and media unleashed the anti-Semitic specter against the firmly Jewish community reclaiming its heritage and property rights in the second-holiest city to Judaism. Tens of thousands of illegally built Arab homes do not threaten the "rule of law" in Israel. But when Jews with sidelocks and beards return to Jewish property in Hebron that was robbed from them after Arabs murdered the Jews there in 1929, it "threatens the very foundations of the State". Anti-Semitism has been a potent political weapon for centuries. If you want to prove that you are a strong leader, batter the Jews. Olmert learned this lesson well. Zero tolerance for the settlers! We'll teach them who is boss here! Batter the Jews and transform yourself into the beloved father figure, just like Sharon. Jumping on the anti-Semitic bandwagon, Police Chief Karadi prepared the public for the eventuality that the police will shoot at the settlers. The anti-Semitic winds are blowing harder in Israel than anywhere else in the world. A Prisoner of Zion in America? Jonathon Pollard has been in a cruel American prison for 21 years. Israel recruited him to spy in the US and to access vital information that our "great friend" chose to withhold from us. Among other things, this information pertained to plans to destroy Israel. It is possible that Pollard saved us all from evaporating in an Iraqi atomic mushroom cloud. The US was hostile enough to Israel to warrant Israel's activating a spy there to retrieve information vital to its survival. But the US is not hostile enough for the Israeli Supreme Court to recognize that after 21 years in prison, Jonathon Pollard is a Prisoner of Zion. Pollard made a naive decision. He sacrificed his liberty for his brothers in Israel in a country that just happens to be the ultimate Israeli dream. If we recognize the fact that Pollard is a Prisoner of Zion, we will be accusing America of being an enemy of sorts. We can do that with the USSR without getting confused. But if we even hint that America is adversarial toward Israel, what will we be left with? If America is our enemy, then who are we? Jews? So, the anti-Semitic reasoning goes, let Pollard rot another 20 years in prison and leave us alone... In Moshe Feilgin's new book, "The War of Dreams," he writes: "Two people fled from the FBI to the security of the Israeli embassy. One of them was an Israeli -- Brigadier General Aviem Selah, a high-ranking officer in the Israeli Air Force and Pollard's handler. The second was a Jew -- Jonathon Pollard. The Americans demanded that both be turned over to them. Israel extricated the Israeli despite heavy American pressure. But it threw the Jew outside the embassy gates. That is the whole story. Pollard is in jail because he is a Jew." Israel prefers that Pollard remain in jail because he holds us before an impossible mirror image. When push came to shove, a Jew saved Israel from the Americans. Only an Israeli can understand the destructive significance of this fact to the universal Western consciousness that the Israelis attempt to create for themselves. The last thing that the anti-Jewish Jews need is for Pollard to get to Israel and to start to talk. He must be swept under the rug -- deep inside the walls of the North Carolina penitentiary. Ruth and Nadia Matar established Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), an activist group of women based in Jerusalem. Their website address is http://www.womeningreen.org To Go To Top

DRY UP THE FUNDING Posted by Lawrence Uniglicht, January 31, 2006.

There is no one or cadre of nations that formally declares war on the civilized world through state sponsored acts of sadistic terrorism, yet several Islamic fundamentalist regimes such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Sudan substantially finance fanatics worldwide who perform such acts. Hence, such underwriters of homicidal/suicidal behavior that now imperil the health and safety of planetary populations must forthwith be put out of business despite the industrial world's obsessive desire to avail itself of the vicious viscous black gold reservoirs they possess. A Faustian covenant written in blood that allows these despotic criminals to prevail as long as their spindly talons loosen about fossil fuel faucets, continuously satisfying the energy needs of Earthly addicts, must be declared null and void. Organized armies of extorted aggrieved nations including but not limited to the U.S., Israel, Britain, and Spain, whose citizens having born the consequences of heinous barbaric homicidal acts, are ever justified in invading and confiscating the properties above and below ground of criminal governments as just compensation for such suffering. Furthermore, all monetary assets of such crime-controlled entities located outside their boundaries should be frozen without delay. Abetting criminally extreme acts including crimes against humanity can no longer be tolerated. Severing the primary sources of funding ever needed by perpetrators of destruction will no doubt impact heavily on their ability to function. Hand wringing pundits who for one denounce Israel yet unceasingly have slathered praise over poor bereaved presumably occupied Palestinian waifs will angrily oppose such a logical initiative. Of course ivory tower observers, impaired by skewed thinking, have not likely born proximate witness to deranged mesmerized Muslim militants shrouded in explosives. Such neophytes to the real world deserve no serious response, not comprehending the potential devastation wrought by but one crazed blown-to-bits-cadaver-in-progress strapped to a nuke. Dry up the monetary life-blood of these creeps now before metaphorical and actual human life-blood flows more copiously then all the black poison gurgling beneath the swollen buttocks of robed grim reapers raping the planet of its dignity and sanity. Lawrence Uniglicht is a career civil servant, working for the Social Security Administration. He advocates for the State of Israel with an American perspective. He writes, "Advocating for the disrespected underdog has been my passion, no doubt Israel falls into that category." Contact him by email at luniglicht@snip.net To Go To Top

ARAB "OUTREACH"STUDIES GUIDE OMITS ISRAEL HISTORY Posted by Avodah 15, January 31, 2006.

This was written by Ted Siefer and appeared in The Jewish Advocate (http://www.thejewishadvocate.com/this_weeks_issue/news/?content_id=812) January 30, 2006. A Harvard-affiliated center in Cambridge that provides seminars on the Middle East to Massachusetts public school teachers and students recommends materials that promote a stridently anti-Israel point of view, an Advocate investigation revealed this week Among the materials used by Harvard's Middle East Studies Outreach Center is the Arab World Studies Notebook, a 500-page binder of curriculum materials produced by the Middle East Policy Council and Arab World and Islamic Resources. MEPC receives direct funding from the government of Saudi Arabia, and AWAIR receives funding from Aramco, the Saudi state oil company. Critics of the notebook, including the American Jewish Committee, charge that it is riddled with inaccuracies and falsehoods. The notebook "appears largely designed to advance the anti-Israel and propagandistic view of the Notebook's sponsors," AJC said in a statement last year. Some of the problematic passages in the book cited by the notebook's critics include: In a chapter on American policy in the Middle East, one of the book's contributors writes: "The questions of Jewish lobbying and its impact on Truman's decision with regard to American recognition [of Israel in 1948] -- and indeed the whole question of defining American interests and concerns -- is well worth exploring." In a chapter called "The Question of Palestine," the book asserts that before the start of the 1948 war, "armed Jewish groups had driven much of the Palestinian population from their homes, thus capturing most of the Palestinians' land through acts of sheer terror and intimidation." In the section on Arab culture, one chapter is devoted to Jerusalem, described as an "Arab city" surrounded by high rises "built for Israeli settlers to strengthen Israeli control over the holy city." Israel is missing from a map of the Middle East; a map of Palestine encompasses the pre-1948 boundaries. Harvard's outreach center has used the notebook in department of education-sponsored teacher training institutes. The center is one of 18 Middle East centers around the country that receive federal funding under title VI of the 1958 Higher Education Act; each center receives about $500,000 a year, according to a report by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2005. The department of education stopped contracting with the Harvard center after 2002; however, the center still recommends the notebook as a resource for teachers and it is used in seminars it conducts in Massachusetts schools. Center director Barbara Petzen told the Advocate that the notebook is one of a "multitude" of sources it uses in teaching about the Middle East, and that it is not used in teaching about the Arab-Israeli conflict. But, Petzen stressed, almost any material on the Arab-Israeli conflict is bound to anger one side or the other. "As with any conflict in history, as historians our job is to look at multiple perspectives. I'm not an activist; I'm trying to understand the place we are at and how we got there," she said. Sandra Stotsky, a former commissioner with the Massachusetts department of education, wrote about the notebook and teacher training institutes put on by faculty from the Harvard center in a 2003 report titled "Stealth Curriculum: Manipulating America's History Teachers." For her, the lack of scholarly rigor in the notebook goes beyond a "slanted" version of the Arab-Israeli conflict. "This is not just a Jewish issue," Stotsky said. "It's a Christian and an American issue," she said, stressing that the notebook's editor, Audrey Shabbas, has also been taken to task by members of the Algonquin Indian tribe over a passage from the materials that claims Arabs had arrived in North America before Europeans and intermarried with members of the tribe. Shabbas, whom the Harvard center's Web site describes as a "respected educator," taught a teacher-education course on Islamic art at the center last year. Stotsky said that it's not hard to understand the allure of the notebook, which only costs $15 when schools also participate in a free workshop, funded by the MEPC. On its Web site, the council claims to have given workshops in 175 cities in 43 states. "Teachers figure, 'We've got to have professional development, this is a free workshop, so let's bring in Audrey Shabbas and the Arab Studies Notebook. There's no problem with it because it's clearly been vetted by Islamic scholars,'" Stotsky said. Another local organization that specializes in providing curricular materials and training to history and social studies teachers is Primary Source, a Watertown-based nonprofit that has put on workshops in more than 30 school districts around the state. Primary Source's Middle East studies program is closely linked to the Harvard center. It lists Barbara Petzen as a faculty member, and this fall the two organizations put on a series of adult education seminars together, including one titled "Palestine." The Arab Studies notebook is one of the resources available in the center's library of resources. Primary Source's Middle East studies program coordinator did not return calls for comment. Contact the poster at avodah15@aol.com To Go To Top

TU BSHVAT IS COMING. PLANT A FRUIT TREE IN ISRAEL Posted by Manhigut Yehudit, January 31, 2006.

Show your love for Israel on Tu B'Shvat (February 13th) by planting a fruit tree! From the comfort of your computer, join with thousands of Israelis as they plant fruit trees on this traditional day. Zo Artzeinu --"This is our Land" -- is once again spearheading its annual drive to plant fruit trees all across YESHA (Judea and Samaria) -- 7,000 fruit trees already planted! Order by clicking here. Connect to the Land Provide a livelihood for the Jewish families who work the fields Perform a mitzvah; "When you enter the Land, you shall plant all types of food trees" (Leviticus 19:23) Personalized, full color certificate mailed to all participants! Click here to plant. It's that simple. We can run a program for your school or organization! Many Yeshivot already participate. Call (516) 295-3222 Click here to watch a short video clip on tree planting in the Holy Land of Israel. Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) is a group of people inside the Likud party who want to see Israel adopt a more Jewish character. Moshe Feiglin, its cofounder, has emphatically said he does not want a theocracy, but he does want a State based on Jewish values. The Manhigut Yehudit website address is http://www.manhigut.org. To Go To Top

PA FISCAL CRISIS DUE TO TERRORISM AND ARAFAT Posted by David Meir-Levi, January 31, 2006.

Here is a letter that I sent to a bunch of newspapers. The one below to the Wall Street Journal compliements the author for noting in the article that the crisis is due to PA mishandling. So I can add the issues of terrorism and Arafat's graft. The same letter can be sent to newspapers that do not put this bit of info (PA has only itself to blame), but then you need an opening like " XXX's article omits a very important fact from the treatment of this issue:...." I encourage all of you to write to your local and national newspapers. they should get thousands of letters on this issue, especially if their article did NOT mention the graft and corruption and arafat's greed and the terrorism. david ml To the Editors, (238 words) Special thanks to Karby Leggett for "Hamas faces Crisis if Funding dries up" (WSJ, 1/31/06). The Palestinian people are in desperate need of foreign aid. BUT? The Palestinian Authority (PA) payroll is bloated, with 170,000 employees: an average of one government worker to every 18 Palestinians! The PA gave raises of up to 40% to its employees last year, prompted in part by armed terrorist employees shooting up government offices to punctuate their demands! The finance minister notes that there will be a very serious crisis if wages are not paid. Certainly! Because the terrorist employees will then shoot up more offices, and maybe shoot some officials. Most damning, from 1994 to 2004 Arab countries poured over $5,000,000,000 into the PA. The EU gave half of its total foreign aid to the PA every year. The USA gave c. $400,000,000 per year, but gave over $900,000,000 in 2005. Over the past decade, about 20% (c. $3,000,000,000!) went to Arafat's private accounts. Most of the rest went to fund his terror war against Israel. Almost none reached the Palestinian people. The PA's fiscal crisis is entirely of its own making. Last year Secretary Rice used the metaphor of the USA "birthing" the Palestinian State. Now we, its parents, don't like its behavior. What does the responsible parent do when the wastrel child behaves badly, squanders his allowance, and then comes whining for more? David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com To Go To Top

PARODY TRUE TO LIFE Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 31, 2006.

First we had eulogies for Sharon, for committing treason, which they called adherence to the Road Map for peace. Now the NY Times feeds its readers a ridiculous slant on the Hamas victory. I was about to speculate that it would not be long before the same people who got thousands of Jews wounded in the name of a phony peace process with Fatah, would find an excuse for doing the same with Hamas. Lo and behold, that same day, January 27, an Op-Ed essay proposed just that. Too bad! The Hamas victory would have been a blessing, if it were deemed unacceptable. Alas, the West will deal with the devil! Let us start with the 1/27 editorial. It called the Hamas victory a "step backward." As usual, it partly faulted Israel. It blamed Israeli "hardliners" for not having strengthened Abbas' political party by making concessions. How unfair, false, and misleading! First, it calls "hardliners" Israelis who retain some safety measures against the terrorism that Abbas supported. Second, Israel did make concessions, though often under US pressure. It did: (1) Shut down many checkpoints; (2) Withhold most retaliation and certainly did not methodically dismantle P.A. terrorism; (3) Continue paying funds into P.A. coffers; and (4) Allow thousands of P.A. residents to work in Israel. Thus the claim is false. Problem with the Times is that it is so biased against Israel, that in its eyes, Israel can never do enough for the Arabs and the Arabs never have to do anything for Israel. The Times is filled with excuses for the criminal Arabs and with recrimination for the excusable Israelis. The result of Israelis' restraint has been their murder by Arabs. It therefore is unfair and callous of the Times to expect one-sided Israeli concessions to Arabs who have broken all their peace agreements. The Times' continued faith in the redemption of those genocidal Arabs isn't so much unintelligent as part of its record of anti-Zionist bias. How misleading to claim the election is a step backwards, a blow to the "peace process." There is no peace process. There is a process of continual Israeli concessions to the Arabs, engaged in jihad against the Jews. Fatah is about as evil that way as Hamas. The Op-Ed, one of whose authors is from Harvard, rationalizes that Hamas fielded professionals as candidates and is "disciplined, pragmatic and surprisingly flexible." Although its charter and campaign demand the destruction of Israel, its campaign manifesto did not. It does not reject "useful" negotiations with Israel. Besides, this is the will of P.A. voters, democratic. Therefore, the West should deal with a Hamas government. Cutting off aid to it might bankrupt it, "further destabilizing the region." Qualities of political skill are not positive in a genocidal Party. Sure Hamas might negotiate, if it thought it could gain eventual domination. Islamists destabilize, so bankrupting them would help stabilize the region. Diminishing the Arab presence and increasing the Israeli presence in the Territories would reduce the force of jihad. That would be the Western goal, if the West could cease its appeasement and antisemitism. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. To Go To Top

TIFERET, ASAF, AND YISRAEL HY"D Posted by Shifra Shomron, January 31, 2006.

The names "Tiferet, Asaf, Yisrael HY"D" jump boldly out of a large sign fastened to a prefab shul here in the Nitzan Caravilla site. The thick white letters stare down at me from the depths of their engravement. I didn't even have to think twice. After all, Tiferet Tretner, Asaf Tzafira and Yisrael Lutati are not only engraved in a cold metal sign high up on a prefab shul in temporary Nitzan; they are also engraved deeply in our beating hearts. How can I forget those three vibrant youths severed from our midst so cruelly? Tiferet was killed by a mortar that smashed through the roof of the house; its sharp shrapnel pieces piercing her soft flesh. It was on the eve of Yom Kippur, the holy day when G-d puts the seal on our verdicts, and our government had once again committed the unforgivable sin of standing idly by their brothers' blood. Asaf was shot to death by the Arab workers near the hothouses of Rafiah Yam. In the midst of all the vegetation, a budding Jewish sapling was hewn down. Yisrael was a soldier, "killed in the line of duty". What a blank description that is of a handsome young man shot while protecting a Jewish community from enemy infiltration! We, the Gush Katif family, honored our fallen -- our heroes! Our youth built a wooden shul in their names. And they planted beautiful flowers around it. And they made a path that led from Neve Dekalim to the 'Tiferet Yisrael' shul. And these wonderful Gush Katif youths found themselves, for the first time in their young lives, confronting Jewish soldiers. Staying up all night -- so that the army wouldn't destroy this 'illegal outpost'. It was a rude awakening for the Gush Katif youth who had spent the winter baking cakes and serving soup to the soldiers. Yes, a rude awakening. And also a taste of what they would have to digest in the summer. Did we digest it? It was forced down our throats. And once again a shul carries the names of Tiferet, Asaf and Yisrael. Tiferet means glory. Asaf means gathered. Yisrael means the Jewish nation. May Hashem return the glory that has been gathered from the Jewish nation. And may their blood be avenged. Shifra Shomron is a young writer who was among the Jews expelled from Gaza. She now lives with her familly in temporary quarters. To Go To Top

EU BOLSTERS SYRIA; HAARETZ EXPOSED; SAUDIS TOWARDS EUROPEANS Posted by Richard H. Shulman, January 31, 2006.

EXPULSIONS CONTINUE S. Arabia and the P.A. are subsidizing a rash of illegal Arab building. They hope to influence the Israeli Supreme Court to move the security fence so as to allot more land to the Arabs, lest the fence inconvenience them. (This would reward Arab illegality.) Meanwhile, the government of Israel is demolishing what it calls "illegal" outposts by Jews. The outposts are houses on land bought by Jews before the State was established. They lie in what supposedly is one of the major settlement blocs that Sharon claimed he would preserve by virtue of abandoning other areas. Israeli Police and troops are treating non-violent Israeli opponents with their usual brutality against Jews (Arutz-7, 1/11). Israel has a statist notion of illegality that serves partisan purposes and not Jewish ethics. Sharon's Cabinet now is whittling away at the areas he only pretended to be preserving by sacrificing other areas. Israelis never should have believed him, but Israeli politicians and US Presidents find them gullible. E.U. POLICY TOWARD SYRIA Syria main trading partner is the E.U., which subsidizes it. The E.U. has not declared Hizbullah a terrorist organization (Sen. Bill Frist, NY Sun, 1/26, Op. Ed.). Most of my friends are critical of Pres. Bush, and urge him to coordinate his policy with W. Europe. W. Europe does not understand the Islamist menace. Unfortunately, Bush seems to be altering his policy to match Europe's. ELECTION OBSERVERS The EU sent hundreds of election observers to the P.A.. It declared its continued support for the P.A., because Abbas pledged peace (IMRA, 1/21). What is the point of assuring that the P.A. did not interfere in its election? Whoever won, the result is intolerance and war. How dangerous is the EU's pretense that because Abbas, who lauds terrorism, pledged peace, he isn't making war! Bet it wished he defrauded the election. AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE ON EVANGELISTS "Rabbi David Rosen, Israeli-based director of the American Jewish Committee's Inter-religious Affairs Department (and a founder of Rabbis for Human Rights) told Israel Radio that the Christian Evangelists were bad basically because they oppose Israeli withdrawals." (IMRA, 1/11). "Inter-religious?" He condemns a powerful pro-Israeli sect over a political difference. WHAT KIND OF A NEWSPAPER IS HAARETZ? "Israel's leftist daily Haaretz is in fact not a newspaper at all, but rather a propaganda advocacy sheet. It is the main Palestinian (pro-Arab) newspaper published in Hebrew. Its editorial positions resemble those of Israel's communist party in all matters except economics. (A bit strangely and inconsistently, it tends to be pro-market.) It reprints anti-Israel articles from all over the globe. It seeks out ways to bash Israel and delegitimize it. It has a 6% market share in Israel." "Haaretz's anti-Israel pieces are picked up all over the world, and international media like to proclaim it the 'Israeli New York Times'. Given the bias against Israel in both newspapers, there is something to the comparison but not what the people making the comparison have in mind." "The very worst Haaretz writers are Amira Hass, Gideon Levy, and Akiva Eldar, who have yet to hear about a mass murder of Jews about which they wish to express disapproval. The first two are openly on record favoring the dismantlement of Israel altogether as a Jewish state. Hass has been convicted in court of fabricating false libels against Israeli settlers. Hass, who does not speak Arabic, lives in Ramallah and is in the eyes of herself an expert on Palestinians and what they think, although (she) has never heard a single Palestinian cheer suicide bombings." "All three of these write anti-Israel columns for the pro-terror leftwing neo-Nazi web magazine Counterpunch." "Once every two weeks Haaretz allows a token non-leftist point of view to be expressed in the paper, roughly at the rate of one non-leftist article for every 150 anti-Israel leftist pieces. This is the Haaretz notion of pluralism." (essay by Prof. Stephen Plaut, 1/12). THE CLUE TO BUSH'S POLICY TOWARDS ISRAEL The main formulator of US policy towards Israel, and a key advisor to Pres. Bush, is the pro-Arab Under-Secretary Nicholas Burns. Sec. Burns thinks that all the problems of the Mideast derive from the Arab-Israel conflict. He is responsible for the US adoption of the EU policy of dialogue with Iran instead of striving for regime-change there and in Syria, of waiving sanctions against Muslim countries for human rights violations, of currying favor with the Arabs by pressuring Israel (Winston Mid East Analysis, 1/12). The Arabist State Dept. almost always prevails, to the detriment of the US. It is turning Bush into a Kerry. It must be cleaned out. SAUDIS TOWARD EUROPEANS Saudi TV frequently features Islamic law professor Sheikh Abd Al-Aziz Fawzan Al-Fawzan. He advised Muslims they are obliged to hate Christians (IMRA, 1/11). Contrast the Islamic way with this story from Brooklyn. A very poor Irish family lived near some Hasidim. The Catholic woman used to assist them on the Sabbath. One Christmas was particularly bleak for the Irish family, having no means to celebrate. The Hasidic family came over with gifts, so that the Christian neighbors could celebrate their most important religious holiday. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at richardshulman5@aol.com. To Go To Top

NEVER MISS THAT OPPORTUNITY....TO MISS THE OPPORTUNITY Posted by Arlene Peck, January 31, 2006.

I recall an old song that goes "What Can I say, after I say I'm sorry". Well, folks, I have been humming that tune a lot of late but it keeps coming out, "except I told you so!" For more years than I care to remember, I have been writing endless columns about the 'Big Lie' and the fact that what is trumpeted loudly, in every quarter, as 'the plight of the Poor Palestinians' was, in fact, a travesty caused by their own Arab brothers. I seem to recall I have also said once or twice that Israel is the prime candidate to take the fall. Frankly, I am neither unhappy nor even surprised at the state of affairs we have arrived at with the Hamas election victory. It's also no surprise to see these dysfunctional, macho savages, parading around Gaza, firing their guns aimlessly and pointlessly into the air, or at anyone unfortunate enough to cross their paths. Who can be surprised, seeing them begin the entirely predictable pattern of destroying themselves from within? The old adage concerning them, "The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity", could not be more true. You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear! For years, I have been told that Palestinians are an educated people. Pardon me if I remain unconvinced. Intelligent and articulate people of good will do not rampage through the streets, rioting and shouting, "Jihad, Jihad!", and "Death to Jews". I have been to Gaza a few times. If it were in the hands of anyone with a little sense, or an IQ higher than an eggplant, something could be made of it; something resembling an economic lifeline, like the most beautiful of resorts, for just one example. The sea and beachfront areas are superb. Except, even then, all the Palestinians excelled at was throwing stones at passing cars, burning tires and, oh yes, smoking that laughing water out of funny looking vases. But, when given the opportunity to demonstrate their sense of civic duty and pride, what do they do? How do they go about rectifying all those years of corruption Arafat and company blessed them with? Why, they vote in a known and violent terrorist organization, a group of people who, from their inception, embraced hatred, death and destruction as their only way of life. Their nursery schools and kindergartens, even their version of Sesame Street, carefully teaches their children, systematically, how to embrace death, so that, when they are old enough to grow up and murder innocent Jews, they can become martyrs. Having looked into Palestinian "schooling", I know this is the highest aspiration a child of this misfit and evil culture can aspire to. Their parents "harvest" children so that they can grow up and blow up. Now that some of them have grown up and come into political power, what happens now? Let's not beat about the bush! The future of Palestine has been laid out in its past. There is no hope coming from that quarter! For years, I have been making the point, wherever I can, that our government and the general population, just don't "get it". President Bush expounds endlessly about how these people just need "the vote". Democracy will bring out their true nature and there will be a miracle. Yeah, right! Well, they got it! - And now that the Palestinian Terrorist Party has won the elections, are they happy campers? I wonder if the Hollywood crowd which surrounds me, with their secular, leftist and very politically correct lifestyles, where a 'hug' and a crusade in the name of 'social justice' fixes every ill, are actually watching the debacle unfolding nightly on our televisions? Would it ever occur to them that this wanton, wholesale destruction was inevitable? And, this time, they can't even blame Israel. Hell, most of them couldn't even find Israel on the map. The level of some people's incomprehension - or is it duplicity?- is breathtaking, condoning and accepting the utterly evil premise of organisations like Hamas, something that even the worst anti-Semites in our State Dept and the United Nations have difficulty doing. Hamas is an international terrorist organization, a militant offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which in itself is another terrorist organization that calls for the total destruction of the State of Israel. There, that's simple, isn't it? It gets even easier when descriptions of Hamas, like this, are common currency: "Hamas militantly opposes all peace proposals that include a two-state solution and escalates its terrorist activities when peace negotiations make headway. Hamas denies the right of any Arab country or even of all the world's Kings and presidents to give up even a part of Palestine." So much for the planned hug-in the United States, the European Union and the United Nations have been attempting to foist onto the Jewish state, these past few years! Ah, no thanks guys, democratically speaking, we'll pass, thanks all the same! Hamas is not a newly emergent 'solution'. It is not a democratic party. It has simply usurped the democratic process for its own ends. They have been feverishly working, the past decade or so, towards TWO goals only, the total Islamization of Palestinian society and the total destruction of Israel. This is not a political party that has come into power, nor are they interested in political solutions. Neither do they harbour intentions compatible with any westernised understanding of democratic process. In short, using the word democracy in association with Hamas is a joke! Palestine, under Hamas, is a religious "nation", which lives for and by hatred, mass casualty suicide bomb attacks, and the murder of as many Israelis as they can manage. They have no other agenda. No Economic Policy was promoted pre-election. The entire 'dialogue', if you can call it that, was about power. That is all that interests Hamas. Their philosophy will make Iran look like a pussycat, when they implement their changes. The Sharia law, which is going to be enforced, will prohibit normal male/female interaction; music is going to be banned. G-d help you if you are homosexual, as they especially like to behead them. I cannot yet shake the memory of 'honour killings' brothers or fathers perpetrated on daughters they suspect of dishonouring them. This is about to become the norm, under Hamas, even the law of the land. They have managed to murder or chase out most of the Christian minority, but those who are still left may find themselves paying the dhimmi tax, yet another benefit for "unbelievers" in Islam. What right will we have to criticize them over these coming human rights abuses, when we endorse the authority that will bring all this about? None. In addition, that will be another "I told you so", far too late. 'Missing The Opportunity ' might not be confined solely to Palestinians, after all. Yet, despite all of this, despite the fact they have proudly declared themselves the enemies of Jews, of America and of civilized values, the Palestinians have declared with their 'votes' that they want no peace. Aid? That's another story. Jimmy Carter, who was the worst governor of my home state of Georgia before he inflicted himself upon the world stage, obviously believes that they are going to need our help. Lovely. This is a group of people who have wasted billions and billions of American taxpayers' money. Yet Carter has never changed his tune. He still hasn't found a terror group active against the Jewish state that he couldn't love! Unbelievably, he is on record, declaring, "We must continue funding PA President Mahmud Abbas." Ummm, why? It is sad when the senile cannot be stopped from shooting off their mouths. And, that goes for Peres also. It is going to turn interesting now. Bush is also on record, warning of a cut in funding. Yet, rumour has it that the State Department, with President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have found a way to approve funds to funnel American tax dollars into the Palestinian pockets. In the past, despite the will of Congress, they funnelled money through International Charities and Non-Governmental Organizations located in Gaza, Judea and Samaria. Shame some of that money couldn't find it way into Israel for the benefit of the victims of Arab terrorism. Several things about all this amaze me, not the least being that, once again, it is the "usual suspects" who are expected to kick the can: the USA, the European Union and the United Nations. What is it that makes them feel responsible? I don't, not for a long time. Probably because I added up the amounts given to Arafat over the years, and wasn't surprised to be told it was approaching 20 billion dollars. Maybe Suha Arafat could go to the secret vaults and take out some of the billions she is reported to have stashed away in her Paris shopping bag. I am also amazed that the Arabs, who have all the money in the world, especially now that oil is again at high levels, don't do anything to help their "Arab brothers", but sit back smugly, happy that the burden of aid falls on everyone else, except them! Amazing, that Saudi sheiks have seemingly unlimited funds to set up "Muslim Chairs" at American Universities, and are buying American real estate at the speed of light, but are too cash-strapped to help build the schools and hospitals 'Palestine' is going to need. And need them they will, because, if it were up to me, I'd make sure that Israel turned off the water, electricity, medical options, etc., and make sure they didn't get one damn thing more from her good heart. Hamas made no promises or statements to the Palestinian people about financial management and responsibility, so surely the responsibility is on us to exercise some! They are already pleading that they are on the edge of bankruptcy and cannot 'function' without more international funds. Since they have no export except terrorism, no infrastructure, and no industry to speak of, they're not going to be able to meet the payrolls of their 130,000 PA employees, mostly terrorists of one kind or another, let alone promote a better fiscal future for their 'nation'. Good! Maybe they might notice that their leadership is a present day Nazi party and the rest of the world might think twice about funding another Reich. Or Caliphate. It's already come back to bite them in the tush in Paris and a dozen other countries which once befriended them. And, let there be no mistake about it. Now that fanatical Islamic fundamentalists have won so overwhelmingly in Iraq, by their curious use of the "democracy vote?, and Palestinians have sold their soul to the world's primary terrorist group, we are all on the road to hell. Hamas has won convincingly in Gaza, on the West Bank and in many other locales in the so-called Palestine Authority. Now they have their hands out, demanding aid from the world to build their new state, and all their friends are waiting in the wings, expectantly. I have no doubt that their savage cohorts in Morocco, Iran, Tunisia, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, etc., are waiting with bated breath to see how the lunatic left feels about pushing through aid and congratulations, because they are now "one of us" in democracy. This is a terrorist state in the making. This is high stakes blackmail. Pay us, or we will continue to murder. It's that simple. It's that obvious. Palestine has always had all the elements of a terrorist state, only lacking in validation. Now that validation has come. Nothing will change because of this vote, but the character of that "nation" will now come increasingly to the forefront. These people cannot be negotiated with. Aid cannot, must not, be forthcoming and the only thing that can be done to them is to make certain of their destruction in the name of civilized society. That, folks, is something they understand. Hugs don't work with this group of 1.4 billion people. Power, yes, that they can comprehend and they must - now! Arlene Peck is an internationally syndicated columnist and television talk show hostess. She can be reached at: bestredhead@earthlink.net and www.arlenepeck.com To Go To Top

THROW THEM OUT Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, January 31, 2006.

Why are the people in the area allowing these saboteurs [the Yesha Council] to speak for them? Unless the residents clearly and unequivocally denounce them as outsiders who do not represent the people of the area in any way, these lackeys of the Junta will once again destroy any chance of success. Earlier we heard all sorts of grandiose rhetoric about Maccabees and not allowing their home to be destroyed. Now we are hearing the usual claptrap of the saboteurs about how THEY are trying to reach a compromise but the Junta isn't interested. So of course this means that the people whose home are about to be destroy must capitulate. Right? Does this all sound familiar? Isn't this what they did in Gush Katif? If the fact that the Junta is unwilling to abandon its venomous hatred of Jews is a reason for loyal Jews to capitulate seems a non sequitur to you, welcome back to reality. This comes from today's Arutz Sheva - IsraelNationalNews.com - http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=97637 and is called "Yesha Council: No Compromise, But Not Because We Don't Want One." (IsraelNN.com) The self-declared leadership of the struggle for Amona and the Yesha Council announced Tuesday afternoon that no agreement had been reached with the governmern regarding the permanent houses slated for demolition in the next 24 hours. "We would be happy if the other side was interested in arriving at a compromise, which is completely within its power to reach," a statement from the Yesha Council stated. "[Acting Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert wants a struggle and will receive one." Members of the council met with Olmert Monday evening in an attempt to reach a compromise with the new prime minister, who took office following Ariel Sharon's second stroke and the coma which followed. "We are repeating our call for all who care about the Land of Israel and who the State of Israel is dear to them to come, en masse, to Amona using any possible way." Aryeh Zelasko lives in Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem. He is Director of Sales and Marketing of Israel Visit (www.israelvisit.co.il) which provides information and an internet buying facility for American visitors to Israel. To Go To Top

US STATE DEPARTMENT AND POLITICIZED NGOS Posted by Dov Rabinowitz, January 31, 2006.

NGO Monitor is urging the US State Department to stop relying on politicized NGOs for its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. NGO Monitor's detailed reports on these NGOs show that they promote a political agenda -- including efforts to impose academic boycotts, and divestment -- at the expense of accurate analysis. NGO Monitor analyses of the NGOs quoted in previous editions of the "Israel and the Occupied Territories" section of the report show that these NGOs display a consistent anti-Israel political bias. The State Department report refers to its NGO sources as "reputable international organizations" and "credible NGOs." However, according to NGO Monitor, these NGOs have no independent research capabilities, provide insufficient documentation for independent verification, accept anecdotal claims from politically motivated groups or individuals, and discriminate between sources based on political agendas. In a letter to Paula Dobriansky, Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, NGO Monitor urged the State Department to refrain from repeating unverified allegations of politicized NGOs in future reports. The next report is scheduled for publication within the month. "Many of these NGOs are active participants in incitement," said Professor Gerald Steinberg, Editor of NGO Monitor. "They demonize Israel through false allegations of human rights abuses and selective citations of international law." Highly politicized NGOs found in the State Department Report include the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, B'tselem, Adalah, Christian Peacemaker Teams, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. For the text of the NGO Monitor letter to the State department go to: http://www.ngo-monitor.org/ Dov Rabinowitz is Communications Director of NGO Monitor. Contact him at communications@ngo-monitor.org To Go To Top

END THE OCCUPATION! Posted by Steven Plaut, January 31, 2006.

Iran is openly calling for Israel to be destroyed, claiming that Israel is an alien "colony" that "occupies" land that belongs to the Palestinians. And when was the last time that the lands of Israel formed a Palestinian Arab state? Well, never. On the other hand, there is another country under the illegal occupation of a foreign entity. I am referring of course to Iran. Iran is under the illegal temporary occupation of Iranians but it clearly should be restored to its legitimate Mongolian rulers! After all, if "Palestine" is eternally Arab because some Arab armies conquered it in the Dark Ages, why should not Iran remain permanently Mongolian after the Mongolians conquered it in the Dark Ages? Just to refresh your memory, the younger brother of Kublai Khan, Hulaku, captured Bagdad, on 5 Feb., 1258; and the Khalif, Al-Mustansir Billah, surrendered to the Mongol chief on 10 February. Hulaku was thus the founder of the dynasty of the Ilkhans of Iran, which included the following princes: Hulaku, until 1265; Abaka (1265-81); Nikudar Ahmed (1281-84); Argh.n (1284-91); Gaikhatu (1291.); Ba.du (1295); Ghazan Mahmud (1295-1304); Ghivas eddin Oljaitu Khudabendeh Mohammed (1304-16); Abusa.d Bahadur (1316-35); Mo.zz ed-dunia we'd-din Arpa (1335-36); Musa (1336); Mohammed (1336-38); Toogha Timur (1338-39); Izz ed-din Djehan-Timur (1339); Satibeg (1339); Suleimen (1339-44); Adil Anushirwan (1344-53). They were all destroyed by Timur (Tamerlane) or his successors. So after we in the West bomb the bejeebers out of the Iranian nuclear facilities, let us destroy the Iranian colonialist state and restore Iran to its legitimate rulers!Oljaitu Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments - both seriously and satirically - on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. Contact him by email at splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il To Go To Top

STRIP THE STRIPES? Posted by Batya Medad, January 31, 2006.

Things are getting stranger and stranger, or is the truth just coming closer to the surface? The Arab terrorist Hamas Party leader announced: The several conditions Zahar named included a demand that Israel change its flag. "Israel must remove the two blue stripes from its national flag," said Zahar. "The stripes on the flag are symbols of occupation. They signify Israel's borders stretching from the Euphrates River to the Nile River." Now, most of us just thought that they were like the stripes on the " Tallit."[1] (Thanks, Judith) This makes me wonder. The American flag has lots of stripes, actually thirteen to represent the original thirteen colonies/states. Six are white, and seven are red. Now, just to take this further according to Hamas leadership. The Israeli flag has only two blue stripes. If the stripes connote or symbolize "occupation," then America with 650% more stripes than Israel must be considered six and a half times more an occupier, or imperialist nation, than little Israel. And if we want to talk symbols, let's look at the colors. The Israeli flag is sky blue and white, while the American one has a dark, midnight blue and bright red with white. Israeli stripes are blue, the color symbolizing freedom, vigilance, perseverance, justice, prosperity, peace, and/or patriotism. But the American flag has red stripes, the color of war and violence. Let's put this all together according to the statement of Hamas leader, Zahar, just a little logic, please. Israel's flag, with a dominance of blue on white symbolizes a peaceful, just country, and that's even when if finds itself as an "occupier." While the United States has a flag with seven bright red stripes, which symbolize a violently aggressive imperialist society. I didn't say it; I just took Zahar's demand a little further... Batya Medad lives in Shiloh. She can be reached by email at Shilohmuse@yahoo.com or visit her website http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/ or go to http://www.shilo.org.il This is archived at shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2006/01/ strip-stripes.html To Go To Top

AN OPEN LETTER TO EACH MEMBER OF THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT AND MEDIA: THE WORLD IS WATCHING Posted by Paul Rotenberg, January 31, 2006.

An Open Letter to Each Member of the Israeli Government and Media As we in the Diaspora are listening closely to the difficult political decisions of how Israel will respond to the Hamas political victory, we are puzzled and troubled by the inexplicable priorities of the Israeli government. By your actions the Jewish families who are residing in the Avraham Avinu neighbourhood market of Hebron and nine families in the Amona neighbourhood on the edge of Ofra seem to be your most dangerous military threat. In the context of geopolitics, we are alarmed that the Israeli government is planning to deploy thousands of soldiers and police to Hebron and Amona. You are determined to evict these Jews families from their legally owned land. The families in Hebron live on land owned by the Jewish community of Hebron for over one hundred years before the massacre of 1929 and re-inhabited in 1975. The nine families of Amona also have legal deeds to their land and the government itself encouraged the residents to build their homes in Amona, and connected them to the electric and water infrastructures. They have been there since August 1995. Ten years ago when Arab-initiated violence in Hebron was at its high, the Israeli army decided to remove the Arabs squatters from the marketplace. Commander-in-Chief of the IDF, Maj. Gen. Ehud Barak supported this action. Several years later after 10-month-old Shalhevet Pass was shot to death by terrorists, the Jewish inhabitants of Hebron decided to re-inhabit the empty market that the Jewish community of Hebron owned outright, and began renovating the stores, turning them into livable apartments. The Jewish communities of Hebron and Amona have rigidly adhered to the rules, rules of property ownership, and applied for permits for their construction. May I bring to your attention that over 40,000 of the 120,000 Arabs who live in and around Hebron are squatters. There are thousands more in the Judean and Samarian Hills. They erected their homes with no legal purchase, no consent of the government, and aren't even required to pay property taxes. Nevertheless, they have remained in their illegally built homes with no consequences. There are to date, more than 7,380 court-ordered eviction notices against illegal Palestinian homes in Judea and Samaria (West Bank), but the Israeli government has never acted on them. In East Jerusalem alone, there are over 20,000 Arab buildings illegally constructed, and instead of moving to remove these structures acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has discussed, with the PA, legalizing that construction. This is an unacceptable double standard. Why are Jews who legally own their property and homes not allowed to stay while Arabs who have no title to land left alone? The Israeli government seems to have lost sight of its mandate. Do you, the government ministers, intend to expel the 100,000 plus illegal Arab residents of structures that have been built in your midst? We have heard that some of the Jewish property owners have no title to their land. In fact, these lands have all been legally bought and legally inhabited. We know that the plans were submitted and a good portion of the work that has been completed, has been finished with the help of the Israeli government and army. Only the last stages of the permits were withheld so that, on a technicality, the government can now say they are illegal. The residents have made every effort to fulfill all legalities. We turn to you to uphold the truth and to leave these residents where they are by finishing the last stage of permits so that they may live in peace and stability, in their homes, within the land of Israel. Paul Rotenberg Toronto, Canada Contact Paul Rotenberg by email at pdr@rogers.com To Go To Top

KIBBUTZ MEMBERS IN SUPPORT OF SETTLERS Posted by Women in Green, January 30, 2006.

This is a news item from www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3207626,00.html Kibbutz member: "These are pioneers of Hebron, just like the Kibbutz movement had pioneers; there's no difference between us" -- Miri Chason, YNet On the eve of plans to carry out the evacuation of the Amona outposts and settlers from the Hebron market, a surprising show of support has emerged for the embattled settlers: Kibbutz members and moshav residents, usually identified with the Left's wish to leave the territories, have aligned themselves with Hebron settlers slated for evacuation. They have organized a conference of support, to be held in Hebron on Tuesday. "At a time when they are trying to expel Jews from their legal land, there are 700,000 Jews and Arabs in the country who live in illegal homes and nobody cares. Why are they singling out the wonderful pioneers who live in Hebron." This sentence was said not by a right-wing person or senior official in Yesha, but by Tzafrir Ronen, one of the organizers of the conference of support and identification with the settlers by Kibbutz members, under the banner: The working communities and citizens of Israel are with the community of Hebron." "These are pioneers of Hebron just like the Kibbutz movement had pioneers," said Ronen. "There's no difference between us." Meanwhile, IDF Central Command Chief Yair Naveh signed restraining orders against 21 right-wing activists following suspicions that they will attempt to harm security forces and Palestinians during the course of the evacuation of the Amona outpost and the Hebron market. The IDF and police are preparing to carry out the clearance this week. They are expected to work along similar lines to the way the disengagement from Gaza was implemented. 'We won't abandon pioneers of Jewish Hebron' "These are wonderful people who are loyal to the country, but the media has turned them into animals," Ronen added. "The people who set up Kiryat-Arba and Gush Katif were members of the Labor party. The same is true of the settlements of the Jordan Valley, and communities in the Golan Heights. The youths don't know this, and they are ensuring that the youths remain ignorant of this. The first group of pioneers in Netzarim, for example, was from the Hashomer Hatzair (Zionist left-wing youth movement). I myself have seen how the police create provocation and the media just takes pictures. There's no way around it -- the media is political," he said. Organizers of the conference have announced that officers, academics, and religious leaders from various kibbutzim and moshav communities will attend. "We won't leave our friends, the pioneers of Jewish Hebron, alone against the malicious war launched against them," an advertisement for the conference said. "We'll strengthen them and be with them during the difficult hour because their struggle is our struggle." Ruth and Nadia Matar established Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), an activist group of women based in Jerusalem. Their website address is http://www.womeningreen.org To Go To Top

PROPOSED LEGISLATION REGAARDING THE TRANSFER OF FUNDS TO THE HAMAS-LED PA Posted by Buddy Macy, January 30, 2006.

To All Americans Against Terrorism: I urge you to support the drafting of the following proposed legislation: A new bill is being formulated in the U.S. Congress, in the wake of Hamas' election victory, that will make t