THIS PAGE WILL BE UPDATED NOVEMBER 1, 2003

 

A QUESTION OF TREASON Posted by Ken Heller, October 19, 2003.

This is an essay by Professor Paul Eidelberg on the 'Geneva Accords' gang. It has been reported that Labor Party leaders Amram Mitzna and Avraham Burg, together with initiator Yossi Beilin, are planning to sign an agreement with the PLO-Palestinian Authority "on behalf" of Israel. The agreement stipulates that the Temple Mount and most of the Old City of Jerusalem will come under Arab control. The Western Wall will remain Israeli, as will Zion and Dung Gates, but the other city gates will be under Arab control. Jews will be permitted, according to the agreement, to "walk freely" from Jaffa Gate to the Jewish Quarter. Furthermore, the cities of Ariel and Efrat, as well as most other Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza will be dismantled and evacuated, according to the agreement. All in all, 100,000 Jews would be evacuated from their homes, according to Beilin/Mitzna/Burg. The "agreement" is, of course, illegal, since only the government has the authority to initiate and enter into agreements with foreign entities. Moreover, such an agreement is an attempted coup d'etat. In fact, it is quite possible that the Israelis involved in this agreement have violated the law of treason. I refer to sections 97, 99 and 100 of the Penal Law. Four kinds of acts are prohibited by this law: 1. The category of acts which "impair the sovereignty" of the State of Israel section 97(a); 2. The category of acts which "impair the integrity" of the State of Israel - section 97(b); 3. The category of acts under section 99 that give assistance to an "enemy" in war against Israel, which the Law specifically states includes a terrorist organization; 4. The category of acts in section 100, which evince an intention or resolve to commit one of the acts prohibited by sections 97 and 99. The punishment prescribed in the Penal Law for the first three kinds of acts of treason is death or imprisonment for life. The harshness of the punishment emphasizes the seriousness with which the State of Israel views the crime of treason, which it seeks to prevent by the punishment it imposes upon offenders. Attorney General Eliakim Rubenstein should investigate, or be called upon to investigate, the matter and, if Messrs. Mitzna, Burg, and Beilin have violated the law of treason, they should be indicted and prosecuted. Leaving aside the question of whether Labor Party chairman Shimon Peres is behind this agreement - although this should be determined - what about the position of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon? By this I mean only the following: since the Prime Minister is sworn to uphold the law - and this applies to every Knesset Member and cabinet minister - is he not obligated to query the Attorney General for a legal opinion on the matter in question? If so, and if he fails in this regard, it may then be possible for private citizens of Israel to initiate a suit against the Prime Minister and/or the Mitzna/Burg/Beilin triumvirate before the Supreme Court. By the way, since the Supreme Court is very fond of extending its jurisdiction via the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom, should the Government enter into any agreement that requires the evacuation of Jews from Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, it should be challenged before the court as a blatant violation of the human dignity and freedom of these Jews. Even though the court will almost certainly dismiss such a suit, it should nonetheless be initiated. In any event, the Labor-Palestinian Authority "agreement" should also be exposed as a violation of basic principles of democracy, since it undermines the ability of the democratically elected government of Israel to fulfill its functions. If this "agreement" goes unchallenged in the courts, the country will sink into unmitigated anarchy. This will lead either to tyranny or to the end of Israel as a viable state.

THE GENEVA ACCORD - PURE SUBVERSION Posted by Eliezar Edwards, October 19, 2003.

This was written by Zalman Shoval and appeared in Haaretz today. When we were children, we played at "President, Deputy, Secretary" - just like a bunch of frustrated Israeli politicians from the left and academics nostalgic for the gay old days of Oslo, who met last week on the shores of the Dead Sea (a wonderfully appropriate locale for what they were dealing with), and made believe that they were conducting negotiations on the future of the State of Israel. In a meeting with a few representatives of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Fatah, they decided on a document - called "the Geneva Accord" - that is supposedly going to lead to a permanent status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. A fitting headline for the initiative: "Oslo is dead - long live Geneva." With respect to some of the details, a lack of clarity still prevails, but from what has filtered out via the media, the following picture emerges: -Israel will agree to "the return" of "only" several tens of thousands of Palestinians to its territory. The method is well-known: First you open a narrow crack in the door, and then you swarm in. In the meantime, one of the Palestinian participants has already announced, contrary to what the Israelis are saying, that officially the demand for "the right of return" has not been withdrawn. -Israel will relinquish its sovereignty over the Temple Mount. Of this Shimon Peres once said, "When Jesus Christ walked through the alleys of Jerusalem, he didn't see any mosques on the Temple Mount, but rather the Temple." -Most of East Jerusalem will also be handed over to Palestinian sovereignty. Though we will be allowed to keep the Western Wall, the Palestinians will control it from the heights of the Temple Mount and entry into the Wall Plaza will be subject to the supervision of Palestinian police. -Israel will return nearly everywhere to within the Green Line (the pre-Six Day War border). It will be allowed to keep settlements in the Etzion Bloc and around Jerusalem, but not in the strategic Jordan Valley. Ariel will be "transferred," as will other settlements. In other words, Israel will withdraw from the essential strategic territory that overlooks most of the coastal plain with its millions of inhabitants, and will have to give up its security border in the area that is most exposed to aggression and terror. Israel's return to its "narrow waist" from before 1967 stands, incidentally, in direct contradiction to the American interpretation of UN Security Council Resolution 242. On the face of things, there is no need to get upset, either because of the meeting or because of the peculiar initiative it engendered, and perhaps the government spokesmen are mistaken in giving it such exposure. Nor would it be illegitimate, if it were another one of the scores of meetings and discussions that are held in various forums, particularly among academics, in which ideas and proposals are debated. However, in the current case, a random group of people has the gall to conduct negotiations, ostensibly in the name of the State of Israel. In contrast to their Palestinian interlocutors, most of whom have official functions in the top Palestinian echelons, the Israelis represent only themselves. The motives of the Palestinian side, which is linked by its umbilical cord to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, are clear: First we'll let the Israelis make far-reaching concessions and then we'll raise further demands. This is how the "salami method" works, with Israeli help. No wonder, then, that the sides succeeded in reaching agreement. As an American government secretary once said: "When you give the other side everything it wants, there's no difficulty in reaching an agreement." This is not the first time that bodies on the Israeli left have subverted the legitimate government, and it is possible that this confirms once again David Ben-Gurion's observation that we have still not learned to act like a sovereign and law-abiding state. I can remember personally how, after the Madrid conference, in the Washington talks in which I participated as the Israeli ambassador and a permanent member of the delegation, the Palestinians suddenly stopped taking the discussions seriously. In retrospect it turned out that this was because of the initiatives that led to the Oslo agreements. Not only was Yitzhak Shamir's government tricked in this way. This is what the late Yitzhak Rabin wrote to Peres on June 7, 1993: "The contacts known as the `Oslo contacts' in the current situation constitute a danger to the continuation of the peace negotiations." The writer was Israel's ambassador to the United States and a Knesset member during the years 1970-1981 (first on the Mamlachtit list and then on behalf of the Likud), and from 1988 to 1990 on behalf of the Likud.

PALESTINIAN TERROR, AMERICAN BLOOD Posted by Jeff Jacoby, October 19, 2003.

Three Americans - John Branchizio, Mark Parson, and John Martin Linde - were murdered last Wednesday when Arab terrorists in Gaza bombed the diplomatic convoy they were riding in. News accounts immediately described the attack as a first - "an unprecedented deadly attack on a US target in the Palestinian territories," to quote the Associated Press. But Branchizio, Parson, and Linde were not the first Americans to be murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists. They were the 49th, 50th, and 51st in the past 10 years alone. A few hours after their deaths, the White House condemned  the vicious act of terrorism  that had killed them, extended "heartfelt condolences to the families,  and promised "to bring the terrorists to justice.  The families of the many previous US victims of Palestinian terror might reasonably wonder why there was no such presidential concern when "their" loved ones were massacred. The president did not vow to see justice done, for example, when Dr. David Applebaum and his daughter Nava died, on the eve of what was to be Nava's wedding day, in the bombing of Jerusalem's Cafe Hillel last month. Or when Cleveland native Alan Beer was killed in a Palestinian bus bombing in June. Or when four Americans - Marla Bennett of California, David Gritz of Massachusetts, Benjamin Blutstein of Pennsylvania, and Janis Coulter of New York - lost their lives in the bombing of the Hebrew University cafeteria last year. Or when Shoshana Greenbaum, a New Jersey tourist, was among the 15 innocents slaughtered in the horrific Sbarro pizzeria attack of August 2001. Or when, three months earlier, 14-year-old Kobe Mandell of Silver Spring, Md., was one of two boys stoned to death in the cave where Palestinian terrorists found them hiking. Or in April 1995, when Brandeis University student Alisa Flatow was murdered in a Gaza terror attack. Americans have been dying at the hands of Palestinian Arab terrorists for decades, yet the US government and media rarely if ever portray Yasser Arafat and his lieutenants as avowed enemies of the United States. The State Department does not demand the extradition of Palestinian killers of Americans, not even when the killers' identities and whereabouts are known. President Bush has never given the Palestinian Authority the same ultimatum he gave the Taliban in Afghanistan: Hand over the terrorists or be destroyed. Instead he issues incoherent declarations like the one he made on Wednesday - blasting the Palestinian Authority for refusing "to fight terror in all its forms," while assuring Americans that the US is "working closely with the appropriate officials" - i.e., the selfsame Palestinian Authority - to find and prosecute the terrorists responsible for the latest butchery. As if it isn't those very officials who have been aiding and abetting such butchery all along. To hear Bush tell it, the deeper tragedy of terrorist acts like Wednesday's is that they are "an obstacle to achieving the Palestinian people's dream of statehood.  What kind of state does Bush imagine would be created by the people who danced for joy on Sept. 11? How long is he going to keep up the pretense that terrorism represents a failure, rather than a core element, of Palestinian governance? Arafat and the Palestinian Authority were quick to distance themselves from the murder of the three Americans. But violence against Americans is routinely celebrated by the PA. "During the war in Iraq,  notes Itamar Marcus, the director of Palestinian Media Watch, "the PA actively endorsed the killing of Americans, and even produced a music video celebrating the deaths of US soldiers that was broadcast repeatedly on official PA TV." (An extensive compendium of anti-American hatred in the Palestinian media is posted at www.pmw.org.il.) For years, sermons preached in Palestinian mosques and aired on Palestinian radio and television have rhapsodized about inflicting pain on the United States.  Oh, Allah, destroy America, for she is ruled by Zionist Jews," proclaimed Sheik Ikrima Sabri, the Arafat-appointed mufti of Jerusalem, in one such sermon. "O God, destroy the Jews and their supporters... destroy the United States and its allies," implored Sheik Ibrahim al-Mudayris in another. And from a third, Sheik Ahmed Abu Halabiya: "Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country... Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them." A few months ago, Palestinian officials renamed the central square in Jenin after Ali Jafar al-Na'amani, the Iraqi suicide bomber who killed four US Marines at a checkpoint in Najaf on March 29.  That" is what Arafat and the Palestinian Authority think of spilled American blood. There is only one rational response to the murder of Branchizio, Parson, and Linde last week: the destruction of the Palestinian Authority, a network of killers masquerading as a government. If that doesn't happen, this much is sure: the 49th, 50th, and 51st Americans to lose their lives to Palestinian terror will not be the last. Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe. Go to http://www.jeffjacoby.com/subscribe.php to subscribe to his mailing list.

FAIR IS FAIR Posted by Yuval Zaliouk, October 19, 2003.

Dear friends, We are all being punched in the face by 57 Muslim countries who now blame tiny Israel and 8 million Jews for their troubles. Even Egypt, at "peace" with Israel and a recipient of US billions of dollars annually, concurs. The Europeans decided not to react to the outrage. That is, of course, typical. Instead of outrage and strong words, of the kind it occasionally uses against Israel, The New York Times wrote a luke-warm, matter of fact, editorial (oct 18, 2003). Very nice and very civil. To me it amounts to almost nothing. It's called "Islamic Anti-Semitism." Here it is, judge for yourselves. While all these blatant and dangerous developments take place, a group of Israeli ignorant fools decide to give up sovereignty over Temple Mount to the Palestinians in return for a "promise" of "peace" (maybe the same "peace" as with Egypt). Israelis will require a Palestinian visa to go through the Jaffa Gate. Here is what I say: The Jews will agree to give the Palestinians sovereignty over the holiest site for Judaism, if they will provide the Jews with sovereignty over Mecca. How does that sound? It is hard to know what is more alarming - a toxic statement of hatred of Jews by the Malaysian prime minister at an Islamic summit meeting this week or the unanimous applause it engendered from the kings, presidents and emirs in the audience. The words uttered by the prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, in a speech to the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference on Thursday were sadly familiar: Jews, he asserted, may be few in number, but they seek to run the world. "The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews rule the world by proxy," he said. "They get others to fight and die for them." Muslims are "up against a people who think," he said, adding that the Jews "invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so that they can enjoy equal rights with others." When Israeli officials noted that such talk brought Hitler to mind, the assembled leaders were mystified. Yemen's foreign minister said he agreed entirely with his Malaysian colleague, adding, "Israelis and Jews control most of the economy and the media in the world." The Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Maher, called the speech "a very, very wise assessment." Even the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, said the speech was "very correct." Perhaps the saddest element is just how impotent the representatives of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims feel. When Syed Hamid Albar, Malaysia's foreign minister, sought to contain the controversy, he explained that because of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Muslims feel "sidelined or marginalized," so please understand why they complain about the power of a tiny competing group like the Jews. Sympathy for the Muslims' plight must not be confused with the acceptance of racism. Most Muslims have indeed been shoddily treated - by their own leaders, who gather at feckless summit meetings instead of offering their people what they most need: human rights, education and democracy. The European Union was asked to include a condemnation of Mr. Mahathir's speech in its statement yesterday ending its own summit. It chose not to, adding a worry that displays of anti-Semitism are being met with inexcusable nonchalance.

BREAKING NEWS: ARAFAT TO RETIRE TO BOYNTON BEACH; CLAIMS LAND HELD BY JEWISH RETIREES Posted by Barbara L. Taverna, October 19, 2003.

(West Palm Beach)--In a move that has significantly altered the political landscape of the Middle East, PLO Chairman Yassir Arafat last Saturday announced his retirement and quickly moved to Boynton Beach, Florida. Almost immediately, Arafat claimed 58% of the land owned by Coral Lakes, Majestic and Palm Isles. He also laid claim to 42% of the assorted Valencia Communities and 37% of Cascades. Arafat, however, got more than he bargained for when he attempted to occupy the Clubhouse at Coral Lakes. His military incursion was met with fierce resistance by members of the Yiddish Club and Hadassah, who were holding a joint meeting in the MPR. at the time. Reports are still sketchy, but it appears that Arafat and his forces sustained serious casualties and had to abandon their attack when Hadassah members hurled Mah Jongg tiles at the Palestinian terrorists and members of the Yiddish Club hurled epithets, in Yiddish naturally. The European Parliament quickly denounced both the Hadassah and Yiddish group's inflammatory use of Mah Jongg tiles and insults, and decided to consider a proposal to send peacekeeping troops to Coral Lakes to establish "safe zones" for Palestinians. Arafat is going to appear before the General Assembly of the United Nations to urge the passing of Resolution 843, making ALL Jewish settlements in Boynton beach illegal. Hannan Ashwari has been invited by twenty American Universities to discuss the historic right of Palestinians to all the land now held "illegally by the Jews in South Florida." She says that the Palestinians have been forced out by the Jews since the 1940s, and the land rightfully belongs to them. She blames the Jews for converting the Florida swamps and the Ag. Reserve. into settlements, housing senior developments and malls that have destroyed the historic evidence for Muslim/Palestinia existence in Florida since 1000 BCE, 1600 years before Muhammed. Last report sighted Arafat and his guards in the Bed Bath and Beyond store in a Boca shopping center looking for pink flamingo bed sheets. Be on the alert. The Palestinians are known to gravitate to both tennis and shuffleboard courts, and it is well documented that they have a predilection for ceramics, bridge and canasta. Beware their motto. "Today Coral Lakes, Tomorrow the Polo Club."

YASIR ARAFAT: A POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY Posted by Bary Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin, October 19, 2003.

Our new book is called "Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography" (Oxford University Press, 2003, ISBN: 0195166892 HB). Yasir Arafat stands as one of the most resilient, recognizable and controversial political figures of modern times. The object of unrelenting suspicion, steady admiration and endless speculation, Arafat has occupied the center stage of Middle East politics for almost four decades. Yasir Arafat is the most comprehensive political biography of this remarkable man. Forged in a tumultuous era of competing traditionalism, radicalism, Arab nationalism, and Islamist forces, the Palestinian movement was almost entirely Arafat's creation, and he became its leader at an early age. Arafat took it through a dizzying series of crises and defeats, often of his own making, yet also ensured that it survived, grew, and gained influence. Disavowing terrorism repeatedly, he also practiced it constantly. Arafat's elusive behavior ensured that radical regimes saw in him a comrade in arms, while moderates backed him as a potential partner in peace. After years of devotion to armed struggle, Arafat made a dramatic agreement with Israel that let him return to his claimed homeland and transformed him into a legitimized ruler. Yet at the moment of decision at the Camp David summit and afterward, when he could have achieved peace and a Palestinian state, he sacrificed the prize he had supposedly sought for the struggle he could not live without. Richly populated with the main events and dominant leaders of the Middle East, this detailed and analytical account by Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin follows Arafat as he moves to Kuwait, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, and finally to Palestinian-ruled soil. It shows him as he rewrites his origins, experiments with guerrilla war, develops a doctrine of terrorism, fights endless diplomatic battles, and builds a movement, constantly juggling states, factions, and world leaders. Whole generations and a half-dozen U.S. presidents have come and gone over the long course of Arafat's career. But Arafat has outlasted them all, spanning entire eras, with three constants always present: he has always survived, he has constantly seemed imperiled, and he has never achieved his goals. While there has been no substitute for Arafat, the authors conclude, Arafat has been no substitute for a leader who could make peace.

FORD MONEY STILL Posted by Leo Rennert, October 17, 2003.

My letter to the Ford Foundation: "As if it weren't enough that Henry Ford spent tons of money to promote anti-Semitism and showed high regard for Hitler, does the Ford Foundation now have to compound his sins by funneling millions of dollars to NGOs that spread vicious hatred of Israel and seek to delegitimize the Jewish state - the only safe haven for Jews facing the kind of fate that Henry Ford had in store for them? It is nothing short of scandalous that you helped bankroll these groups at the infamous U.N. conference in Durban. One would have thought that, after Henry Ford's support of Nazi doctrines, the name 'Ford' would no longer be associated with such assaults on Jews." This is part 1 of a 4-part series by Edward Black and published in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=13328&intcategoryid=6). It reports that the anti-Israel activists at Durban were funded by the Ford Foundation. WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (JTA) In August 2001, thousands of human rights activists from around the globe gathered in Durban, South Africa, for a United Nations conference that participants hoped would address racial injustice plaguing humanity, from Rwanda to Sri Lanka to the United States. But after more than a year of preparatory conferences held in Iran, Switzerland, Chile, France and Senegal, it became clear to Israeli officials and Jewish organizational leaders that Palestinian non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, and their allies, had manipulated the agenda of the U.N. World Conference Against Racism into a focused indictment of Israel as an illegitimate apartheid, colonial and genocidal regime. Moreover, the proposed language of conference resolutions would deny or dilute the Holocaust and espouse an openly anti-Semitic stance. Many Western leaders, including U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, declined to attend what U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), a member of the American delegation to the conference, termed "a transparent attempt to de-legitimize the moral argument for Israel's existence." As expected, anti-Israel agitation, anti-Zionist propaganda and blatant anti-Semitism permeated the eight-day Durban affair. Posters displaying Nazi icons and Jewish caricatures, anti-Israel protest marches, organized jeering, inciting leaflets and anti-Jewish cartoons were everywhere, as was orchestrated anti-American agitation. A virulent resolution drafted by non-governmental organizations at the Durban conference declared Israel a "racist apartheid state" guilty of "genocide and ethnic cleansing." The spectacle was so noxious that Powell withdrew the American delegation. Who financed a number of the groups at Durban that printed and distributed these materials, purchased advertising and conducted workshops? "No one knew where the money was coming from to fund all these NGOs," remembers Judith Palkovitz of Pittsburgh, Hadassah general secretary and a delegate to Durban. "I assumed it was a foreign group - say Saudi Arabia." When asked, one Jewish communal leader after another, and several State Department officials, also guessed: Saudi Arabia. They were wrong. The Ford Foundation, one of America's largest philanthropic institutions - and arguably the most prestigious - was a multimillion-dollar funder of many human rights NGOs attending Durban. That is the conclusion of a two-month JTA investigation, involving interviews with dozens of individuals in seven countries, as well as a review of more than 9,000 pages of government and organizational documents. Ford - which was endowed with funds donated by Henry and Edsel Ford but no longer maintains any ties to the Ford Motor Company - has long been known as a funder of Palestinian causes. But most observers did not suspect the extent of the foundation's involvement in funding of groups that engage in anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic and pro-Palestinian activities both inside and outside the Middle East. With hundred of millions of dollars being pumped into Mideast NGOs by numerous private foundations here and in Europe, government and communal officials are raising significant questions about transparency, how the money in Palestinian areas is being used and whether funders such as the Ford Foundation are exercising proper controls. Increasingly, federal agencies concerned with fighting terrorism are asking: When money goes in one NGO's pocket, where does it go and whom does it benefit? The Jewish representatives at Durban "didn't understand the efforts, the financing and the organization that went into hijacking the conference," recalls Reva Price, Washington representative of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and a Durban delegate. "We knew we were walking into problems because of what happened in the early meeting in Teheran," Price said. "But we didn't understand how organized the opposition and what a well-financed campaign it was." Many Jewish organizational officials who participated in the long process complained that a key organization responsible for the methodical hijacking of the conference was the Palestinian Committee for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment, which operates under the acronym LAW. LAW officials took leadership positions on the Durban conference steering committees, conducted workshops and even sponsored a pre-conference mission to the West Bank and Gaza Strip for South African delegates, to convince them that Israel was an apartheid state. "LAW was instrumental in creating the anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic focus at Durban," confirmed Andrew Srulevitch, executive director of U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based group that monitors the world organization. But it was not just LAW. The Palestinian NGO Network, or PNGO, an umbrella organization of some 90 Palestinian NGOs, as well as many of its constituent groups, diligently became embedded in the conference bureaucracy that created the hostile environment at Durban. PNGO led the move to craft an NGO resolution that would "call upon the international community to impose a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state," including "the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, [and] the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, aid, military cooperation and training) between all states and Israel." Durban was not a one-time investment for the Ford Foundation - a major funder of LAW and PNGO. Indeed, through its Cairo office, Ford has extended more than $35 million in grants to some 272 Arab and Palestinian organizations during the two-year 2000-2001 period alone - the most recent years for which data is available - plus 62 grants to individuals that total more than $1.4 million, according to Ford's Web site, as accessed in mid-October 2003. Since the 1950s, the foundation's Beirut and Cairo offices have awarded more than $193 million to more than 350 Middle East organizations, almost entirely Arab, Islamic or Palestinian. Ford's Web site, at www.fordfound.org, offers detailed information about its Middle East grants. On the site as of mid-October, "Palestine" is frequently mentioned on its Mideast pages, but Israel's name is absent. Moreover, the Web site's shaded map of the geographical region from Egypt to Lebanon and Jordan blanks out over Israel's territory, even though Ford does make grants to both Jewish and Arab organizations in Jerusalem. Initially, despite more than two dozen requests by phone and in writing over a period of several weeks, the Ford Foundation's communications vice president Alex Wilde, deputy media director Thea Lurie and media associate Joe Voeller refused to answer any questions or clarify any issues regarding the foundation's funding of groups engaged in anti-Israeli agitation and anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist activity. However, after this investigation was completed, Wilde did send a six-page written statement, declaring, "We have seen no indication that our grantees in Durban or elsewhere engaged in anti-Semitic speech or activities. The Foundation does not support hate speech of any kind." Wilde added: "Some of our human rights and development grantees have certainly been critical of policies and practices of the Israeli government insofar as these discriminate against Palestinians or otherwise violate their rights, according to internationally agreed human rights standards and international law." "We do not believe that this can be described as 'agitation,' " the statement asserted. Both LAW and PNGO confirmed that their Ford funds were pivotal. "Ford has made it possible for us to do much of our work," a senior LAW official in Jerusalem said in an interview. Since 1997, LAW has been the recipient of three Ford grants, totaling $1.1 million, to engage in "advocacy" and participate at international conferences, according to LAW officials. A Ford Foundation official's check of the charity's confidential computer databases confirmed the information. Reached in Ramallah on her cell phone, PNGO program coordinator Renad Qubaj recalled her coordination of activities in Durban. "In Durban, for sure we published posters saying, 'End the occupation' things like that," Qubaj said, "and we published a study, had a press conference, organized our partners and protest marches." Asked about finances, she added, "Unfortunately we are very dependent on the international funds. Not just PNGO but all the Palestinian NGOs - 90 of them in our group. We get very little money from the Arabs - just needy family cases. Ford is our biggest funder." Allam Jarrar, a member of the 11-person PNGO steering committee network, and one who helped organize the events at Durban, explained that Ford money allows PNGO to have a global scope. "We do lots of international advocacy conferences and regional forums," Jarrar explained in an interview, "and we always try to represent our political view to Europe. We attended some women's conferences [in Europe], plus Durban." "Our biggest donations come, of course, from Ford," Jarrar added. "We have been in partnership with Ford for a long time - a real partnership, a real understanding of our needs. "Of course, when we go to an international conference, we try to get extra funds from one of their special budgets," Jarrar said. "Or sometimes the conferences' organizers, if they have their own Ford Foundation funding, they send us the finances to attend." From 1999 to 2002, PNGO received a series of Ford grants totaling $1.4 million, plus a $270,000 supplement, according to an examination of the Ford Foundation's IRS Form 990 filings, Web site databases and annual reports. PNGO continues to receive at least $350,000 annually from Ford, according to the data. LAW and PNGO were hardly the only Ford-backed groups at Durban. The conference was a major enterprise for the Ford Foundation. In a Ford Web site commentary written prior to Durban, Bradford Smith, Ford's vice president for peace and social justice, wrote that the conference's issues were "at the core of the Ford Foundation's mission since its inception." More than a dozen activist organizations - from Brazil to Sri Lanka - received well over $1 million in Ford grants specifically earmarked for the production of advertising materials, public meetings and advocacy at the Durban conference. "Does all this mobilizing, networking and drafting of statements have real impact on people's lives?" Smith asked in the statement. His answer: Yes, "because for years to come they [Ford grantees] and the foundation will work together to implement the [Durban] Conference Plan of Action." Since the Durban conference, LAW has continued its public crusade against Israel and Zionism, and PNGO, as well as many of its 90 members, continue organizing efforts to try Israeli officials as war criminals, boycott the Jewish state and label Israel a racist, illegitimate state that must be stripped of its Jewish identity. While a number of the Ford-financed organizations at Durban, such as LAW and PNGO, engaged in anti-Israel and anti-Zionist agitation, certainly many did not. Either way, Ford Foundation money, as intended, was a prime mover in the production of the advocacy pamphlets, posters, workshops and other materials at the conference that shaped the overall atmosphere. "I saw the Ford representative at Durban," remembers Palkovitz, the Hadassah delegate, who spotted him in connection with African American reparations issues. "There was no way to miss the anti-Semitism. The Ford guy would have to be blind. It was the most anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist stuff you ever saw. "I told the Ford representative I thought it was a mistake because the whole meeting was being hijacked," she related. "He disagreed. He said he believed what the conference was doing was correct." "We are struck," said David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, "by the scores of Palestinian NGOs funded by Ford, a number of which have deeply disturbing and troubling records on Israel and Jews." FUNDING HATE Series Part 1: Ford funded Durban activists Part 2: Ford's Mideast money trail Part 3: U.S. worries about transparency Part 4: Case study of a Ford grantee Edwin Black is the author of the newly-released "War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race" (Four Walls Eight Windows), which investigates corporate philanthropic involvement in American and Nazi eugenics. In May 2003, he won the American Society of Journalists and Authors' award for best book of the year for his previous book, "IBM and the Holocaust" (Crown Publishing, 2001).

B'TSELEM MONITORED Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 17, 2003.

B'Tselem considers itself an educator about human rights and their violation by Israel in Yesha. (It ignores the real and extensive violations of human rights by the P.A. against Arabs and Jews and by Israel against the Jews of Yesha.) It is more "openly political" than are other human rights organizations. It not only deals in human rights, it also campaigns against settlement policy, the fence, and "The Occupation." The Israeli Army cooperates with it, citing its reports in trying soldiers for human rights violations. The foreign media falsely portrays the IDF stereotypically as not cooperating on human rights. B'Tselem can be more accurate than the better-known foreign organizations, because it is based in Israel, understands the situation, and has researchers who speak Hebrew and Arabic. B'Tselem does not claim to be influencing the P.A. but only presumably informed Israelis, so it often omits background information. The parties to the violent Arab-Israel conflict reshape B'Tselem's news, to advance their agenda. (Israel rarely utilizes events to make propaganda against the Arabs.) When the less candid and less professional organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty Intl., Miftah, and Christian Aid partially quote B'Tselem, and omit the background, they paint an "inaccurate and sensationalized picture of popular dissent within Israel against the government, and distort Israel's human rights record as part of an international campaign of demonization and delegitimation associated with the UN. The less aware foreign audiences are not able to assess these reports that originated with B'Tselem. Thus B'Tselem serves those who seek to delegitimize Israel." (Does it object?) B'Tselem gets funding from Christian Aid, New Israel Fund, and European churches and states. Their contribution to an avowedly political organization that advocates an anti-Israel ideology is subversive (IMRA, 10/5 from NGO Monitor).

IT'S OFFICIAL: JEWS ARE SMARTER THAN MUSLIMS Posted by Beth Goodtree, October 17, 2003.

You gotta love these anti-Semites. Their hearts are so filled with hatred that it overwhelms the little common sense given to an amoeba and makes them admit to things they would never say if you threatened them with death. It hasn't yet been a month since the leading legal mind in the Arab world admitted that the Hebrew bible was fact. Of course, the man did this to justify suing every Jew in the world for a trillion gazillion dollars. But in his lust and greed and hatred, he overlooked the fact that by admitting the Bible was true and accurate history, we Jews could use him as our chief witness to reclaim the Temple Mount, all of Jerusalem, and parts of Syria, Jordan and other Arab countries. You'd think these haters would learn to keep their mouths shut so we wouldn't know their true agendas. But noooooooo. Along comes Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia's Prime Minister and Chairman of the Islamic Conference. In his haste to condemn the Jews, he actually praised them and condemned Muslims and Arabs. Here is some of what he said and what it implies. Quote: "(Jews) survived 2,000 years of pogroms not by hitting back, but by thinking." Translation: Jews are smart and Jews (including Zionists) are non-aggressive and non-violent. Quote: "We need guns and rockets, bombs and warplanes, tanks and warships for our defence." Translation: We are planning an all-out war on Jews and their western allies. Quote: "For well over half a century we have fought over Palestine. What have we achieved' Nothing. We are worse off than before. If we had paused to think then we could have devised a plan, a strategy that can win us final victory." Translation: We are non-thinking idiots spinning our wheels who have been defeated by a handful of Jews who actually use their brains. And we must change this to finally conquer the Jews. Quote: "The Muslims will forever be oppressed and dominated by the Europeans and the Jews." Translation: We are not responsible for our backwardness and lack of civilization. It is all the fault of the Jews and the Europeans. Quote: "We are actually very strong, 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them." Translation: Apparently, Dr. Mahathir Mohamed thinks that all Jews are out to eradicate Islam. He also thinks we Jews, small though our numbers may be, are a mighty power. Quote: "It cannot be that there is no other way. 1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews." Translation: (Along with the above) Muslims should unite to wipe out the Jews that the Holocaust didn't get. Quote: "The Europeans had to kneel at the feet of Muslim scholars in order to access their own scholastic heritage." Translation: I wish this would happen again. Quote: "They invented... human rights and democracy, so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so that they can enjoy equal rights with others." Translation: Jews were smart enough to invent human rights and democracy and they are not our equals and persecuting them is perfectly acceptable. Quote: "The Quran tells us that when the enemy sues for peace we must react positively. True the treaty offered is not favourable to us. But we can negotiate. The Prophet did, at Hudaibiyah. And in the end he triumphed." Translation: Sign any peace treaty they offer because we're never going to honor it. It is merely a tactical maneuver towards total conquest of our enemies.   Given the above statements, Dr. Mohamed has made it abundantly clear that Islam is at war with all Jews and Western civilization in general. But, he has also made statements that make him a candidate for prosecution under the "Crimes of Genocide" laws. Also, as chairman of the OIC, he has made such statements official policy and at the very least, the UN should kick them the heck out (they have an office there.) Also, every individual, group and country which fails to condemn Dr. Mohamed's speech is in fact giving their silent support and may thus be complicit in incitement to crimes of genocide. And lastly, I urge everyone to read Dr. Mohamed's speech in full to understand the depth of his vitriol and what he is asking the Islamic world to do. He has just issued a cry to unite and conquer, first the Jews, and then the Western world. He has also stated that signing any peace treaties is merely a tactical move designed to buy time before total conquest. Meanwhile, as of this writing, not a single one of the 52 member countries or their guests back-peddled in the very least on his anti-Semitic statements. There is never going to be a clearer wake-up call that isn't accompanied by blood.

EU FUMBLES OVER RESPONSE TO MALAYSIAN PM'S REMARKS Posted by Leo Rennert, October 17, 2003.

With friends like Chirac, who needs... This was in Haaretz today. BRUSSELS, Belgium - French President Jacques Chirac blocked the European Union from ending a two-day summit Friday with a harshly worded statement condemning Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's remarks about Jews a day earlier. Backed by Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis, officials said, Chirac objected to a few short sentences in a 19-page summit statement deploring Mahathir's comment at an Islamic leaders summit that "Jews rule the world by proxy." Foreign ministers Thursday night had drafted a text that said: "His unacceptable comments hinder all our efforts to further interethnic and religious harmony, and have no place in a decent world. Such false and anti-Semitic remarks are as offensive to Muslims as they are to others." Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told reporters Thursday night Mahathir's remarks were "gravely offensive." But when the paper was handed to EU leaders Friday morning, Chirac said there was no place in an EU declaration for a text of this kind, diplomats said. Other leaders agreed, although the Netherlands wanted the wording to stay in the declaration. The leaders then compromised by having Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, the summit host, criticize Mahathir at his closing news conference. The French Embassy in Israel issued a statement saying that Chirac condemned the Malaysian's prime minister's statements about Jews, but that the French President felt that the EU summit statement was not the appropriate place to express this. Officials said the draft text also would be issued as a separate statement and would be posted on the EU presidency website, http://ueitalia2003.it. Berlusconi told reporters Mahathir's comments about Jews undermine efforts to bring different religions closer. "All of our efforts must go toward a dialogue between the Western world and the Islamic world, between Christian religion and Islamic religion," he added. Britain summoned Malaysia's top diplomat in London on Friday to express concern about Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad remark that Jews rule the world, the Foreign Office said. Malaysian High Commissioner Mohammed Dato'Abdul Aziz was summoned Friday morning to meet Minister of State Mike O'Brien "to raise our concerns directly about Prime Minister Mahathir's speech," the Foreign Office said. "It's unfortunate that Mahathir chose to make these remarks which we regard as unacceptable. It's particularly regrettable that some of his positive and welcome messages, such as negotiation being the right path to peace and the futility of terrorism, have been obscured and overshadowed by racist remarks," the Foreign Office said.

THE GENEVA MISUNDERSTANDING Posted by Steven Plaut, October 16, 2003.

The Israeli Left continues to promote the "Geneva Understandings," the document produced by Yossi Beilin, the Mother Hen of the Oslo Massacres, together with a PLO terrorist leader and two numbskull Swiss professors whose ability to tie their shoes is in doubt. Israel's leftist anti-Zionist daily Haaretz touts the Misunderstandings day after day in banner front page headlines, as if this is a news story as opposed to a leftist media manipulation. Yesterday Haaretz crowed that the Geneva "deal" would require the PLO to consult Israel before doing any digging on the Temple Mount once it was under Palestinian sovereignty. Of course, the PLO has never paid any mind to Jewish sensitivities nor Israeli protests when tearing up the Temple Mount while it has been under ISRAELI sovereignty, but that is no reason why Haaretz should be skeptical! Today Haaretz insists that even if the Misunderstandings are NOT adopted as is, they will form the framework in which all future deals will be made. Israel will be unable to escape and evade them. (I fear Haaretz may be correct.) Haaretz also reports that a leftist law professor associated with the Left (see http://www.cmep.org/Shared%20JER/Haaretz%20jus.htm) has reviewed the document and she insists that there is language in it that implicitly cancels the Palestinian "right of return." So Israel should risk genocide because a leftist Israeli law professor thinks the document makes it illegal for the Palestinians to seek to destroy Israel after they get their state. And if they dare to war against the Jews after they get their state, the law prof plans to sue them. The Left is near-orgasmic over the "fact" that the PLO has proved itself a "peace partner" by agreeing to the Geneva Misunderstandings, and never mind that the Gargoyle of Ramallah has already rejected them because they seem to imply that the Palestinian "right to return" to its war for destroying Israel might somehow be rhetorically compromised in the Misunderstandings. Amram Mitzna, who led the Labor Party to its most massive defeat ever in the last elections, has conscripted himself as marketing agent for the Misunderstandings. Now in fact the Geneva Misunderstandings have already been denounced by the US, by Israel's government, by the Shinui Party of Tommy Lapid, and by Israelis in polls by a margin of at least two to one. (If restricted to Israeli Jews, then by a majority of at least five to one.) The Likud's Zalman Shoval in an Op-Ed calls them mere sedition for its own sake. Natan Sharansky writes a guest Op-Ed in Haaretz and announces that Israeli retention of the Temple Mount should always be placed BEFORE achieving peace! The Geneva Misunderstandings were formulated during "dialogue" in Geneva in which the Palestinians were represented by a PLO terrorist and also by Yossi Beilin, while the Jews had no representation at the negotiations at all. The bottom line is that the Misunderstandings consist of proposals for granting to the PLO everything it wants, including swaths of pre-1967 Israel, and including giving up any demands by Israel that "Palestine" be a democratic state, and in exchange for all that the PLO once again will announce that it will pretend to fight the terrorists. Gosh, now where have we heard THAT before? The main thing that the Geneva Misunderstandings prove is that the Israeli Left is still not weaned from its determination to cut itself off from reality, still lives in fantasy bubbles in which talking it out with nazi terrorists makes them peaceful, and still seeks to lead the country into national suicide, no matter how undemocratically this goal must be pursued. The Left's agenda is to impose on the country the "ideas" of the most extremist leftist 5% of the population, regardless of how the other 95% feel. The Campaign for the Misunderstandings also proves that no matter how incompetent, corrupt and cowardly the Likud is, the only current alternative in the Israeli political arena to it is the Concentration Camps being proffered by the Left. Haaretz has abandoned any pretense to be a newspaper reporting on the Misunderstandings, and is little more than a printed infommercial for them. Yesterday's paper ran as a "news story" on the front page a piece that began: "The political and statecraft initiative now belongs to the Israeli Left, after having been grasped by the Right during the past three years in the war with the Palestinians. Ever since Ariel Sharon's walk on the Temple Mount in September 2000, he and his ministers lost the leadership of public discourse." It went on to declare the Left the champion in the political arena. Gosh, what an objective umpire. And the idea that maybe the Palestinians should prove their intentions for once BEFORE implementing the Misunderstandings, such as by stopping the violence being perpetrated in, say, two or three West Bank cities? Intolerable! An insult and offense against Palestinian sensitivities and pride, thunder the camp guards of Beilingrad! Meanwhile, the previous successes of Yossi Beilin and his band of furry lemmings was on display this week in the fact that a 21st person died yesterday as a result of the suicide bombing of the restaurant in Haifa two weeks back, and also in the fact that it has been revealed that Israeli Arabs, not West Bank savages, were the ones who assisted and planted the suicide bomber in the Haifa restaurant. Of course, Beilin is convinced that once the Geneva Misunderstandings are implemented, such things will no longer be possible and also that the sea near Haifa will turn itself into tasty lemonade. And when has HE ever been wrong about anything?

DOING IT THE ARAB WAY Posted by Beth Goodtree, October 16, 2003.

Maybe the reason the Arab Palestinians hate Israel and Jews so much is because Israel treats them differently than their Arab brethren. If Israel were to deal with them in the same way, maybe there would be no problem with Arafat and his followers. Therefore, I propose that Israel begin dealing with them in exactly the same way as her Arab neighbors. Let's start with Arafat's people who occupy Lebanon. They have no legal status, are prohibited from practicing dozens of professions, lack any social security, are banned from acquiring real estate, and their freedoms of movement and association are restricted. It must be an acceptable way to deal with them because we have yet to hear a peep from the UN, the EU, Russia or the United States. Nor is Arafat and his gang of terrorists screaming for Lebanon to cut out a piece of herself and give it to them. Israel should follow the Lebanese example. Syria also deals with the Palestinian Arabs in a manner different from Israel. None of them has citizenship, they are denied the right to vote and they do not get Syrian passports. Sounds good to me. There isn't a single complaint from the international community and you never hear of any Palestinian Arabs blowing up busloads of Syrian families. Israel should treat them likewise. Egypt, Libya and Kuwait all have a unique way of handling the Palestinian Arabs. Kuwait expelled tens of thousands of long-term residents in the wake of the 1991 Gulf war. This left the Gazans among them, who carried Egyptian travel documents, with nowhere to go because the Egyptian government denied them entry. In 1995 the Libyan government demonstrated its displeasure at Arafat's peace negotiations with Israel by not renewing the one-year residency visas of some 30,000 Palestinians and began summary deportations. Expelling troublemakers or potential troublemakers is an acceptable practice in other Arab countries. Israel should start implementing this same practice, just as her neighbors have been doing. A good analogy would be if one had termites in their house, you wouldn't give them a portion of your house in exchange for the termites leaving the rest of the house alone. Those termites are never going to leave your house alone so the only option is to get rid of them. Also, Arab countries, as well as the Palestinian Arabs, insist on their territories being Judenrein. There are no impassioned cries of 'crimes against humanity' coming from Kofi Anan or the UN members, so this must be acceptable. Therefore, Israel should do likewise and make its territory 'Islamrein.' No jobs for Moslems, take over their properties, outlaw their religion (like Saudi Arabia does to any religion other than Islam), and use their headstones for urinals and paving blocks. Their mosques can be torn down and recycled into new settlement housing. It should work out fine since the UN never raised a single objection or resolution when it was done to Jews. Meanwhile, the Islamic Conference this week has called for a boycott of all Israeli goods, products, inventions, etc. It would seem only fair that Israel boycott anything Arab. And while Israel is at it, maybe they can help the boycott along a bit. Any new medical breakthroughs, in fact, all Jewish medical assistance should be withheld from Arabs. Maybe we can grandfather in such medical breakthroughs as the polio vaccine for starters. And while at the Islamic Conference, the Malaysian Prime Minister told a summit of Islamic leaders that "Jews rule the world by proxy" and the world's 1.3 billion Muslims should unite, using non-violent means for a "final victory." (Final solution maybe?????) This statement in particular strikes me as ignorant to the point of being tragically humorous. I looked at the latest statistics regarding world religions and the pie chart didn't even include Judaism because there are so few of us. In fact, there are 18 times as many traditional Chinese, (in a country that bans religion), as there are Jews. There's 35% more Juche's than there are Jews - and I never even heard of Juche. (Apparently, Juche is the only government-authorized ideology in North Korea, to the point of excluding all other religions. "Juche" means "self-reliance" in the Korean language. So how does that effect the cost of kim chee?) While I may have suggested that Israel do things 'the Arab way,' for Israel to remain Jewish it could not. Discrimination, stealing, lying, disrespect of others, murder, forced conversion and thievery are all the things which Judaism eschews. To do any of these things would condemn us as individuals and as a people. On the other hand, it speaks volumes about all the Arab/Islamic states that Israel must deal with.

RACE SPEECH IN MALAYSIA Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, October 16, 2003.

This article is from the Herald Sun. We should all be grateful to Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. It is not every day someone so openly and clearly tells the world what he thinks of Jews. Nor shows us the depth of the hatred Islam has for Jews. The Malaysian Prime Minister is not poor, he is not uneducated and he is not powerless. Furthermore, he is not rabble rousing his population in order to divert them from some problem or other. He truly and sincerely believes, based on the most fundamental teachings of Islam, that the Jews are evil and the source of all evil in the world. Now Yingeleh, do you think you can go and try to make peace with him? Think it might be a bit difficult? But Arafat and the Arab marauders in our neighborhood, they of course can become lovers of the Jewish people. MALAYSIAN Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has urged Muslims to wage war against Jews, saying arrogance would bring about the downfall of the Jewish people. The extraordinary comments prompted accusations in Australia that Dr Mahathir was behaving like Osama bin Laden, inciting terrorism and racial hatred. The controversial Malaysian leader told a major Islamic conference that "the Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews rule this world by proxy." Dr Mahathir claimed Jewish people "get others to fight and die for them," and said Muslims could fight Jews if they were smart. "We cannot fight them through brawn alone, we must use our brains also," he said at the opening of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) summit in Malaysia. "Of late, because of their power and their apparent success they have become arrogant. And arrogant people like angry people will make mistakes. They are already beginning to make mistakes. And they will make more mistakes. There may be windows of opportunity for us now and in the future. We must seize these opportunities." Dr Mahathir's comments drew strong condemnation in Australia from Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd, who accused him of Osama bin Laden-style incitement of terrorism. "Either Mahathir Mohamad has lost the plot completely, or this is a deliberate act of racial incitement," Mr Rudd said. "His comments of late sound more and more like the press statements of Osama bin Laden on the matter of the Jewish community than they do the reasoned statements of an international statesman. Mahathir Mohamad should pull his head in." Dr Mahathir is due to stand down as Malaysia's Prime Minister at the end of this month. Mr Rudd said the resignation could not come soon enough. "The sooner he leaves the political stage the better for this region and the rest of the world," he said. A spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer also rejected the comments, saying the Jewish people had made a tremendous contribution to the world over the centuries and had also suffered enormous persecution.

KILLING AMERICANS IN GAZA Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, October 16, 2003.

Did you see the Arab Palestinians Damage Control team go into action after the Palestinian Arab Muslim Terrorists bombed a convoy of Americans in Gaza? Saeb Erekat said: "Now the Israelis will say that it is dangerous for international troops, observers, whatever to be able to rely on 'Palestinian Authority' security." I cannot imagine why Erekat thinks that either Israelis, American or Europeans would think it would be dangerous for any foreign forces or civilians to be in Gaza, Judea or Samaria. Perhaps he was envisioning the daily murders by Terrorists in Iraq of American soldiers who came to rescue the Iraqis from the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein and his murderous sons - as well as all their cronies and co-conspirators. Perhaps he was contemplating the waves of radical Muslim Islamists, pouring into Iraq through Syria - coming from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, Chechnya, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Lebanon, Libya, including the Arab Palestinians and all other Terrorist organizations. I listened to former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Syria, Edward Djerejian current Director of the James Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. Djerejian expressed 'regret' over the killing of Americans by Palestinians in Gaza at the Erez crossing. He expressed his 'regret' in manner typical of James Baker. He indicated it was 'regretful' that, as a result of the killing of Americans by Palestinians, America was now "in the middle". Strangely, it was Arab Muslim Palestinian Terrorists who killed the Americans in the official and recognizable convoy and NOT Israelis - as some Arab Muslims might claim. Israel has always been reluctant to have foreign troops exposed to the kind of Terror Israel experiences daily. The main reason is that the biased U.N. and E.U. would blame the Jews for body bags returning to various airports under the full glare of the Media spin of the BBC and/or CNN implying that it was Israel's fault. For this and other reasons, Israel has always said: "We will fight our own battles." And: "Thank you for your offer of 'peace-keeping forces.' but, no thank you!" In many of my articles, I state plainly that Islam is at War with the West - particularly America and Israel. Nations such as France, England, Belgium, the Netherlands, et al have been flooded with Muslims, causing the Europeans to virtually side with the Muslim Terrorists, lest they start suicide bombings in their host nations. Nothing will stop the march of Islam toward Global Domination - short of a full defeat on the field of battle. Had Islam not been soundly defeated in France at the Battle of Tours in 732 C.E. after they had militarily conquered and expanded into Spain and half of France, all of Europe would today be under strict Muslim Shari'ah law. The armies of the West do not yet have the zeal of the Muslims of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and other Arab and/or Muslim countries. There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world today. The West has not yet begun to fight back with the vigor we had for a brief moment after 9/11. Protecting the American Homeland was a high priority because we felt the Terror attack of 9/11 in our guts. Now it has faded into words and policies until we are vulnerable to being hit again in a serious way. Neither Americans nor Israelis are a war-like people. Both go to war reluctantly and generally end it too quickly before their dedicated enemies are firmly defeated. Neither wishes to rule over others as conquerors but our enemies too often force our hand. We drag ourselves to war, often displaying foolish restraint when we should have gone for the jugular at the first signs of the enemies' plans. We look for good in the enemy, hoping it will surface and conquer the bad or evil inclination within it. We are usually too late, causing needless casualties as we reluctantly prepare for the oncoming war. Some may recall the American foot-dragging by then Chief of Staff Gen. Colin Powell during 1990, who took 6 months to get his act together and engage Saddam Hussein who had invaded Kuwait. Even then he wanted to embargo Iraq rather than fight Saddam. Not all Generals are true warriors. George Patton was a warrior General. Arik Sharon was once a warrior General. Among others, Powell was a pacifist General - then and now. Many of the American Presidents were reluctant warriors who put America and the rest of the Free West in jeopardy such as Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and, in a strange way, President George Herbert Walker Bush who, along with Powell and James Baker, had first armed and then allowed Saddam and his regime to escape punishment. As for trusting the Arab Muslim Palestinians or any Arab nation, whether called a dictatorship, a kingdom or a democracy - to keep peace treaties with non-Arabs or non-Muslims - they never will. The West will bribe them, cajole them, invite them to their capitals on a red carpet or to a Texas ranch for a cook-out but, in the end, the Muslim Arabs will never be true friends to the West, to the non-Muslim. Some think that the killing of Americans by Arab Palestinians is like crossing the Rubicon or some other 'red line' but, it was there all along. Remember the American hostages in Lebanon and Iran? On October 15th when Americans came to claim the bodies murdered in Gaza and investigate the bombing, they were forced to retreat under a hail of stones, iron bars and anything handy being thrown by the Arab Muslim Palestinian mob shouting in celebration of the Americans' deaths: "Allah Ahkbar" (G-d (Allah) is Great!). The U.S. has sent a team of FBI agents in to investigate the bombing and murdering of Americans. However, they have chosen to headquarter in Tel Aviv and NOT go to the murder site lest they too are attacked by the Arab Palestinian mobs and the Terrorists who make their base in Gaza. Israel wanted to clean out the Terrorists in Gaza a long time ago but were stopped by Bush, Powell and Condelezza Rice. Therefore, they bear some blame for the deaths of Americans by stopping Israel - just as President Bush, Sr. did in 1991 by preventing Israel from taking out Saddam's SCUD missile sites. 39 SCUDs fell in Israel, but one also hit a barracks in Dahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 28 U.S. Marines, February 25, 1991. I believe this deadly 'hit' is why Bush, Sr. ended the war too early, before eliminating Saddam, his Republican Guard and hidden weapons. It is too coincidental that on the very day the PLO blew up and murdered 3 Americans, President George W. Bush invoked a national security waiver to prevent sanctions from being levied on the PLO for a period of 6 months. Under the Foreign Relations Act of 2003, non-compliance with signed peace accords and continued use of Terrorism and violence would force the President to impose at least one of a menu of sanctions - unless he invokes a presidential waiver contained in the law. This waiver allows the PLO to keep its U.S. offices open and to use its funds in U.S. banks. This Terror is what the Israelis face daily. Since Oslo was signed on the White House lawn under the 'guarantee' of America, 1500 Israelis, including as many as 50 Americans, have been murdered in Terror attacks. Multiply that number by 55 (that would be equal to 82,500 Americans) to understand what that means in terms of the American population. And who is caring for the hundreds or thousands of Israelis wounded, many maimed for life? Remember that Yassir Arafat (who won a Nobel Prize for signing Oslo for peace) said in Johannesburg, South Africa that the Oslo Treaty was like the Hudaibiya Treaty. In the 7th Century Mohammed signed the Hudaibiya Treaty with the various tribes controlling Mecca for 10 years of peace so he and his people could enter Mecca. When he was stronger militarily, he came back, slaughtered all the men of the Jewish Koreish [also spelled Qurayzah] Tribe, sending the women and children into slavery. Then he and his later followers went on to conquer by the sword the rest of the Middle East, Spain and half of France until they were stopped and thrown back. The Muslims of today fervently believe that they are commanded by Islam to conquer any and all lands which Islam had ever controlled. President Bush, it is time to pull away from your daydreams and road maps. They have become nightmares and road traps for the Israelis and the free West. Let the Israelis fight the Arab Muslim Terrorists in a manner common to the region. Peace plans won't work until the Muslims experience a conclusive defeat. Then the victor can finally establish peace as America did with Japan and Germany. But, first the Muslims must know that they cannot defeat either Israel (whom they call the little Satan) or America (whom they call the Great Satan). If they defeat Israel, they will be further emboldened to continue their aim of world domination by conquering America. In the Middle East there is either victory or defeat with nothing in between and no peace until victory is achieved.

ISLAMISTS CALLED "EXPERTS" Posted by Richard H. Shulman, October 16, 2003.

"But some experts said the issue of the Bush doctrine merely provided convenient cover for the Administration to hold off on criticizing Israel." That point is elaborated on by "Shibley Telhami, Middle East scholar at the U. of Maryland" (Richard W. Stevenson & Carl Hulse, NY Times, 10/7, A13). A scholar ascertains and analyzes the facts. Prof. Telhami distorts them. He is one of many Islamists brought by the leftists (and often by Saudi donations) into academia. There they subvert American youth in behalf of America's enemies. Some leftist newspapers, such as the Jewish Week make a show of even-handedness by quoting a range of viewpoints. They disregard facts and misrepresent situations, in order to advance their view. It would be as if during the Cold War, the Jewish Week gave its readers a range of opinion, as if to be fair, by including a conservative view of the USSR, a liberal view, and Pravda's view. The inclusion of Pravda, dedicated to dissimulation, makes the discussion less fair. What to do about the USSR should have been debated within the democratic community. The totalitarian view was not legitimate, because it is not honest discourse but war by propaganda. The NY Times goes further. Most of the "experts" it consults are pro-Arab. It rarely brings in dissenting views or gives them enough space to be persuasive. It does not identify its consultants sufficiently for readers to know they are being propagandized unfairly and for appeasement.

A HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL PEOPLE? Posted by David Ben-Ariel, October 16, 2003.

On Simchat Torah (Festival of the Rejoicing of the Law/Last Great Day) I went up to the Temple Mount with my Bible to pray. Although I do not usually wear a kippa (skull cap), I took one with me. My first challenge was to pass the guards near the Temple Mount entrance; if they saw me with my Bible they would not let me enter. I silently prayed all the way up to the site where God's Temple stood twice, and will be rebuilt for a third and final time, that I would be able to go in. I got past the guards. You say Jewish guards prevent Christians and Jews from exercising their religious right to pray on the Temple Mount? That's right! Only Muslims have unlimited access to Judaism's most holy site. Only the Koran is permitted within. The Tanach (Jewish Scripture, known to much of the world as the "Old Testament") and Christian Scriptures (the New Testament) are forbidden. Yet Israel claims to respect the religious rights of all people. Israel has no law against Christians and Jews praying or reading scriptures on the Temple Mount. However, it does have an unwritten agreement with the Wakf (Muslim religious authorities) prohibiting this. No sign is posted, stating: "Warning! Christian and Jewish prayers are forbidden! Bibles not allowed inside by Muslim religious authorities. Proceed with caution!" I do not accept that Moslems have the authority to forbid me from reading appropriate Psalms or the New Testament account of Jesus celebrating the Water Libation Ceremony (Psalms 120-134, John 7:37). My question was, where should I read those passages? I ended up between the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aksa mosque, just to the right of the place where Moslems wash their hands and feet. I was on the other side of the raised platform there, if you face the Mosque of Omar. First, I nervously sat and read. Then I put on my black kippa, stood up and started to read for a few minutes until I became distracted by fears of being attacked by the Moslem guards. I sat down, took off my kippa, and continued to read. Then one of the Wakf guards noticed me and asked what I was reading. I replied, "Yes, it's my book." He took it from me and saw that it was a Bible. He demanded to know if I was a Christian or a Jew. When I told him I was a Christian, he asked me why I was wearing a magen David (Star of David). I did not feel obligated to explain that it was a gift from my mother and youngest sister, and told him, "Give back my Bible." He ordered, "You have to leave now!" Again I said, "Give back my Bible." When he refused, I demanded its return more loudly. He raised his fist as if to hit me and warned me not to raise my voice. This attracted the attention of some passing tourists, who gathered around us. I told them, "This thief has stolen my Bible!" The Wakf guard told me to leave again and threatened to hit me. He said he would give me back my Bible outside. Since there was no reason for him to confiscate it in the first place, I told him to return it to me then and there and I would go. At this point he radioed an Israeli policeman, who came running. The Israeli handcuffed my right hand, which I raised and showed to the assembled tourists, saying, "This is Israeli democracy!" I asked the Israeli repeatedly, "What law have I broken?" knowing that I had not broken any law, yet was being treated like a common criminal. I am shocked that Jewish police in the Jewish State help maintain Moslem domination of the Temple Mount by suppressing Christian and Jewish religious rights there. Is it the Temple Mount or the Mosque Mount? An Israeli policeman led me away. I told the bewildered tourists, "This is what happens to a Christian or Jew who wants to read the Bible where the holy Temple stood. This is what happens to Christians and Jews who want to pray where our prophets and patriarchs prayed, and where Jesus and his disciples taught." Why the exclusive religious rights for Moslems? And Israel wants to hand over control of Rachel's Tomb, Bethlehem and Joseph's Tomb to Moslem religious authorities?! Are they crazy or what? In the police station at the Western Wall Plaza, the officers wanted to know who else was with me. They were relieved to find that I was alone. (They should have known I was performing a mitzva [religious commandment]). The police said they arrested me for my own protection. I told them they should have arrested the Wakf guard who threatened me! Why not remove, once and for all, the threat of Moslem violence? Why reward Moslem extremists? The police laughed in disbelief when I told them I am a Christian and that my Bible includes the New Testament, which they returned to me. A Druze officer said, "But you must respect other religions." He remained silent when I asked, "Where was their respect for mine?" I explained that our Biblical goal is to enable everyone to come and pray on the mountain where God's Temple stood, and in the Temple when it will be rebuilt. It is prophesied to become a "House of Prayer" for all nations. The police told me I could return to the Temple Mount as a tourist - without my Bible. I said that I do not want to go up there only as a "tourist;" I want to pray there. When they asked me how many times I had been up there, I said "a thousand." They wrote that down in their report. They said I could make a short statement for the record. I said something to this effect: "Is it too much to ask during this 3,000th anniversary of King David's Jerusalem to peacefully read his inspired words on the Temple Mount?" When I left the police compound, one of the policemen told me I did a good thing. Once outside, I was met by some Jews who saw the incident and congratulated me. I pray that this unfortunate encounter will raise awareness of Israel's religious discrimination against Christians and Jews. The situation must change. It will when enough people cry "Basta!" (Italian for "enough!"). May the day soon come when Christians, Jews and Moslems can say: "My House shall be called a house of prayer for all Peoples." (Isaiah 56:7). The Bible says "Moreover, concerning the stranger, who (is) not of Your people Israel, but comes out of a far country for Your Name's sake. For they shall hear of Your great Name, and of your mighty hand, and of Your outstretched arm, and will come and pray toward this house. Hear you in heaven Your dwelling place, and do according to all that the stranger calls to You for, that all peoples of the earth may know Your Name, to fear you, as (do) Your people Israel, that they may know that Your Name is called upon this house that I have built." (I Kings 8:41-43) "And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord to serve Him and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants - everyone who observes the Sabbath - I will bring them to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon My altar, for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples." (Isaiah 56:6-7) "And it shall come to pass at the end of days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established at the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and peoples shall flow to it. And many nations shall go, and say, 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord...and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths,' for out of Zion shall go forth the Torah, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." (Micah 4:1-2) David Ben-Ariel is a Christian Zionist from Maumee, Ohio. This is a reissue of an article published several years ago.

PALESTINIAN ARABS CAN'T BUY LAND IN LEBANON Posted by Deb Kotz, October 16, 2003.

Where is the outcry from the Arab world over this? Where is the condemnation from the UN? This article is called "Lebanon drops legislation allowing Palestinian land ownership" and was written by the Jerusalem Post staff. A bill which would have allowed Palestinians to buy property in Lebanon has been withdrawn, prompting accusations of racism and discrimination, the Arabic Aljazeera network reported. An estimated 390,000 Palestinians live in Lebanon, half of whom live in camps. On Monday any hopes of ever owning their own property were dashed when Lebanese Parliament speaker Nabih Berri withdrew draft legislation which would have lifted a ban on Palestinian refugees from owning property in Lebanon. The current legislation forbids the acquisition of real estate by all non-Lebanese persons "who do not possess citizenship issued by a state recognized by Lebanon." "[Berri] withdrew from the agenda the bill presented by 10 deputies which aimed to amend a text banning Palestinians from acquiring real estate," the dean of the house Kabalan Issa al-Khuri told Aljazeera. "This subject is divisive among Lebanese," Berri said. "The acquisition by Palestinians of real estate would damage the Palestinian cause because that way the refugees would remain in Lebanon and never return to Palestine," he added. Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri believes that the time was not right to grant Palestinians living in Lebanon such rights, but that the "unjust" ban would one day be lifted, the Arabic network reported.

A MESSAGE FROM KAARE KRISTIANSEN Posted by Aryeh Gallin, October 16, 2003.

[ Mr. Kristiansen, the former Norwegian Nobel Committee Member who resigned from the Committee in 1994 when it awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Yasser Arafat, would like to bring to your attention his recent letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee Chairman calling on the Committee to publicly apologize for its Arafat award. His message is entitled "Slaughtering The Dove Of Peace" - AG] Oslo, Norway Thursday, September 11, 2003 Yassir Arafat's plot to get rid of his so-called "Palestinian Prime Minister", Mahmoud Abbas, has caused further deterioration in the Middle East crises that previously threatened the realization of the "Road Map". The dove of peace is already on the butcher's block. The unbelievable and cruel paradox is that the butcher who brandishes the axe is the very man who some years ago was awarded the most prestigious peace prize in the world: The Nobel Peace Prize. I am sorry to ascertain that, unfortunately, all the warnings that led to my resignation from the Norwegian Nobel Committee in l994 have come true. Arafat is not a peace loving pacifist but a war-monger and a butcher, an ill fortune, both for his own people and for his neighbors. I have since that time received many requests to take action in order to make the Norwegian Nobel Committee reverse its award and deprive that unworthy terrorist, Arafat, of the Nobel Peace Prize. Unfortunately, however, Dr. Alfred Bernhard Nobel explicitly prohibited this line of action in the Statutes of the Nobel Foundation. However, the present betrayal of the Nobel Peace Prize and its purposes is this time so extreme and so cynical that the Norwegian Nobel Committee is forced, out of consideration for political decency and for its own reputation, to find a way to distance itself from its award of 1994. The only way to obtain this is by publicly deploring the 1994 award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Arafat. I hereby urgently ask the Norwegian Nobel Committee and its Chairman to do so. KAARE KRISTIANSEN Former Norwegian Nobel Committee Member; Past President, Norwegian Parliament; Former Norwegian Minister of Oil and Energy; Founding Chairman, Jerusalem Embassy Initiative, Root & Branch Association, Ltd. Mr. Aryeh Gallin is President of the Root & Branch Association, Ltd. and a member of the Foreign Press Association in Israel.

TEMPLE MOUNT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN PEACE Posted by Linda Olmert, October 16, 2003.

This article was in Ha'aretz today It was written by Natan Sharansky, who is Minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs. There seems to be a conspiracy of silence with regard to the Temple Mount. My mother, may she rest in peace, taught me over and over when I was growing up: a person who has no respect for his own heritage can have no real concept of respect for the heritage of anyone else, and certainly can not expect anyone to respect him or her. Since the existence of the Geneva initiative was publicly announced on Sunday, there has been much criticism of the process that led to the agreement. Once again the same gang of Oslo blazers - a gang not even elected by an Israeli public, who instead denounced it and kicked it out of government and centers of influence for its "amazing successes" of the past. Once more the same gang is conducting negotiations on its own and committing Israel to far-reaching and irresponsible concessions. Criticism of the process, although it is correct and justified, is diverting attention from the central and more important contents of the agreement - and primarily from the relinquishing of Jerusalem. I remember a discussion in the Barak government, even before Camp David, in which Yossi Beilin tried to convince us that if we would only reach "some kind of agreement" on the Temple Mount, and give Palestinians the Christian Quarter of the Old City as well, the longed-for peace would come. I asked, why the Christian Quarter? What connection do the Palestinians have to the Christian Quarter? Beilin looked at me in surprise and said, what do you care? That's the Christians' problem. We'll achieve peace and let the Christian world worry about freedom of religion and access to its holy places. At the time I thought that this was a matter of disdain for the values of other nations and cultures. Beilin didn't mind sacrificing Israel's relations with the Christian world and risking the access of millions of Christians to places that are the cradle of their religion, so long as we could achieve the longed-for peace. (That assumed the Palestinians would respect religious freedom the way they respect other human rights). Today, after Camp David, Taba, and now the relinquishing of Temple Mount in the framework of the Geneva accord, I understand that Beilin's gang are not necessarily contemptuous of the values of other nations, they are contemptuous of all values. Of all, except one that is - peace. This gang seems to have forgotten, or hasn't yet understood, that as much as we long and hope for peace, it is not a value that stands by itself. It is an essential condition for the existence of a country that wishes to live, but it isn't the goal. It was not for the sake of peace that the State of Israel was established, and it was not because of peace that millions of Jews gathered here. Nor was it peace for which the Jewish people prayed for thousands of years. The Jewish people prayed for Jerusalem. Because of Jerusalem, the Jewish people returned to Israel from the four corners of the earth, for it they were willing to make all the necessary sacrifices. For that same dream of a thousand generations - "next year in rebuilt Jerusalem." It should be noted that if we totally relinquish every value for the sake of peace, we won't have peace either. Just as in the past, this time, too, the Palestinians will interpret such a relinquishing of what constitutes our very identity as a tremendous weakness that calls for war. The values symbolized by Jerusalem are not only religious in nature. One doesn't have to be religious to understand that without our historical connection to Jerusalem, without the link to the past, without the feeling of continuity with the ancient kingdoms of Israel for whom the Temple Mount was the center of existence, we really are foreign invaders and colonialists in this country. One doesn't have to be religious in order to understand that relinquishing the Temple Mount is a justification of the Palestinian argument: You have no right to exist in this country, you have no connection to it, get out of here. One doesn't have to be religious in order to understand that relinquishing the Temple Mount is not only relinquishing the past, it is primarily relinquishing the future. The future of all of us, here. The members of the Hovevei Zion Zionist movement were not religious - they were secular socialists who considered religion a degenerate and sick product of the exile. Despite that they fought with all their might against the Uganda Plan [a 1903 British offer to let the Jews build a homeland in Uganda]. It was clear to them that without a common past, without roots, the Zionist project had no chance of succeeding. Even today we must understand that without Jerusalem and without our historical roots the Zionist project will not be able to survive. Without Jerusalem Israel will become just another Jewish community, one of many in the world, like that of New York, London or Toronto - except more dangerous, less wealthy and less comfortable. It will not be the center of the Jewish world, not the focus of its existence - just one more community. And if that's the case, why continue to live in it? For what? In the name of what?

ARAFAT DELIVERS "SPECIAL TREAT" To HIS AMERICAN ALLIES Posted by Voice of Judea, October 15, 2003.

GAZA CITY (CNN) -- A bomb went off underneath a convoy carrying U.S. diplomats in Gaza on Wednesday, killing three American members of a security detail and injuring another, U.S. officials said. President Bush blamed Palestinian officials, saying they "should have acted long ago to fight terror in all its forms." Bush repeated calls for a Palestinian prime minister to be given control of all Palestinian security forces, and he blamed Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat for continuing to block reforms. The U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, said the United States was "shocked by this latest terrorist outrage." The convoy was carrying U.S. Embassy officials to Gaza to interview Palestinian students who have applied for Fulbright scholarships in the United States, Kurtzer said. It was carrying at least 12 Americans, according to Israeli sources. The four Americans victims were employed by the U.S. Embassy to provide security, Kurtzer said, and the FBI is sending experts to investigate. According to the State Department, a roadside bomb was triggered immediately after the Palestinian police cars in the convoy passed by, hitting the U.S. vehicle." Why was Mr. Kurzer the self-hating court Jew so shocked? Suddenly, the "Palestinian" sympathizer who understands Arab terror against Jews, is shocked and upset when it is Americans who are victims. Over one thousand Jews have been murdered by Arafatian terrorists, since the renewal of the latest wave of Arab terror. Now, after 4 Americans are killed there is an uproar? Mr. Bush points an accusing finger at the "poor Palestinians," for not doing enough to fight terrorism? The Americans just don't get it. The "Palestinians"" support terrorism and orchestrate the terrorism. Why in the world would they fight it? They manufacture it. And if anyone should be blamed for not fighting "Palestinian" terrorism, it is the Americans for holding Israel back and the Israelis for paying any attention to the Americans. The best thing that could happen to America and to Israel would be Israel smashing the terrorists and absolutely ignoring world opinion. In the end, the whole world suffers from Arafat's terrorists New peace plan? No thanks. Most Israelis are opposed to an unofficial "peace" plan drafted by left-wing extremist Israelis and "Palestinian" figures, a survey says. The poll of 500 Israelis, published Wednesday in the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot, found that 59 percent did not support the proposal, and 69 percent said such discussions should not be held without government approval. Thirty percent of Israelis backed the plan, which calls for the division of Jerusalem. Israeli government officials have slammed the "Swiss initiative," as the plan is being called, as misguided and undemocratic.

THE PATH TO SURVIVAL Posted by Kevin Bjornson, October 15, 2003.

There is debate concerning two state proposals for the eastern mediterranean area known as Israel/Palestine. First, we should define what is meant by "state." To quote from Gil Guillory (www.strike-the-root.com): "Government is the act or process of governing, especially the control and administration of public policy in a political unit." So, it is clear that government is an act or process, not an entity. Anyone who uses force or the threat of force is a governor. Neither is the "state" an entity; it is rather a particular type of relationship among governors, such that the use of force is organized, and legitimized through a moral code. Force can be organized and legitimized and still not be considered a "state". Only when such an organization has sufficient power to enforce a quasi-monopoly is it considered a "state". Might does not make right, but it does make the wielders of might eligible for membership in the "statehood" club. Legitimacy in this sense is merely in the eye of the beholder, and is not necessarily mean justice or morality in the objective sense. In other words, THE "STATE" IS THE APOTHEOSIS OF A STREET GANG. The principles of justice are not derived from opinion polls, but rather from the facts of reality and human nature. Moral principles are universal, and not dependent upon opinion, whether individual or collective. The natural laws of humans are properties of human nature, which is rational animality. Therefore, no group which organizes force can have moral legitimacy from faith-based opinion, but rather only from the application of logic to experience. If we observe all human societies and how they are organized politically, we may apply logic to extract the common characteristics. This is how the common law, or the law in common to all city-states, was derived in ancient Italy. From the characteristics of this common law, we may apply further logic and arrive at an approximation of the jus naturale of humans. Any creation of a state derived from a unique religious perspective is in violation of jus naturale, because by definition it violates the common denominator principle of common law. People are free to violate the natural laws of humans, just as they are free to drink too much or eat fatty foods. But, this should be a matter of contract only, not justly enforceable outside of that. Only the common law can be legitimately enforced to non-signers of the state contract. If Jews want to have a Jewish state in Israel, that is their right to do so, but it is not rational and not legitimately enforceable against those outside the contract. If a non-signer of the contract with the Jewish state violates the common law, the Jewish state may enforce the common law but not the uniquely Jewish laws. This means, for example, that Sabbath laws should be enforced only to signers of a contract with the Jewish state, and no others. The same logic would apply to an Islamic state. This means that a Jewish state and an Islamic state could, in theory, have a co-dominion in the same geographical area. Neither could legitimately enforce their unique religious codes to non-signers, and could enforce only the common law. In the case of inter-state disputes, a neutral third party should adjudicate, provided it is properly trained in jus naturale. Now, if the purported Islamic state does not recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish state, and initiates the use of force as in terrorism, the Jewish state and other interested parties are entitled to extinguish the Islamic "state". How may this be accomplished according to natural law? Those who express sympathy for terrorists, for example in demonstrations as at funerals, or in opinion polls, should be expelled from the territory controlled by the opposing state. This becomes a practical matter of identifying people through photographs and tape recordings. Family members of suicide/homicide bombers should receive special scrutiny. Those who initiate force, for example in rock throwing at IDF soldiers, should suffer immediate retaliatory force. This retaliation need not be commensurate with the amount of force initiated at the specific time, but can take into account the intention to commit greater force based on Islamic ideology. Such stone-slingers and molotov cocktail throwers should be shot dead on the spot. The political/military leadership of terrorists groups should continue to be targeted for execution, and this policy should be accelerated. If helicopter missles cause too much collateral damage, use special forces on the ground. The use of remote-controlled vehicles, air and ground, should be increased. Technology should be applied to increase the accuracy of such weapons. Funding for terrorists should be dried up by legalizing drugs (for adults). Terrorist-linked charity facilities should be closed, and their assets confiscated. The combination of expulsion and execution of terrorist sympathizers, the accelerated execution of terrorist leaders, and the drying up of funding sources for terrorists, should solve the problem. If Israel were to move from a mixed economy to free enterprise, this could be afforded without subsidy from the US "state".

AL AKHTAR TRUST DESIGNATED AS TERRORIST Posted by Lise Rubin, October 15, 2003.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Treasury Department today announced that it is designating Al Akhtar Trust as a terrorist support organization under Executive Order 13224 and will be requesting that the United Nations list the organization as a terrorist support group. Today's designation freezes any assets of Al Akhtar Trust within the U.S. and prohibits transactions with U.S. nationals. The UN listing will require that all UN Member States take similar actions. "Today's designation strikes at the life blood of terrorists - the money that funds them," Secretary of the Treasury John Snow stated. "Shutting down this organization will cripple yet another source of support for terrorists and possibly help undermine the financial backing of terrorists staging attacks against American troops and Iraqi civilians in Iraq. The activities of Al Akhtar Trust demonstrate the dangerous alliance between corrupted charities and terrorists. There is little more despicable than raising money under the guise of doing good and instead diverting the resources of often well-intentioned donors to supporting acts of terror." Al Akhtar Trust is a Pakistani-based charity known to have provided support to al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan. Al Akhtar is carrying on the activities of the previously designated Al Rashid Trust. The organization is also suspected of raising money for jihad in Iraq and is connected to an individual with ties to the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal Reporter Daniel Pearl. This designation builds on ongoing counter-terrorism cooperation with the Pakistani government and comes on the heels of Secretary Snow's recent visit to Islamabad. With today's designation, the U.S. and our international partners have designated 321 individuals and organizations as terrorists and terrorist supporters and have frozen over $136.8 million in terrorist assets and have seized more than $60 million. An accompanying fact sheet included these details: Al Akhtar Trust International is linked to the following persons/entities designated by the U.S. under Executive Order 13224: the Taliban and Al Qaida and Al-Rashid Trust, among others. An associate of Al Akhtar Trust has attempted to raise funds to finance obligatory jihad in Iraq, and it has been reported that a financier of Al Akhtar Trust has been linked to the kidnapping and murder of the Wall Street Journal's South Asia Bureau Chief, Daniel Pearl. Jaish-e- Mohammed members set up two organizations registered in Pakistan as humanitarian aid agencies: AL AKHTAR TRUST and Alkhair Trust. Jaish-e- Mohammed hoped to give the impression that the two new organizations were separate entities and sought to use them as a way to deliver arms and ammunition to their members under the guise of providing humanitarian aid to refugees and other needy groups. (Jaish-e-Mohammed was designated by the U.S. on October 12, 2001 and by the UN 1267 Sanctions Committee on October 17, 2001). According to information available to the U.S. Government, the Chairman and Chief Executive of AL AKHTAR TRUST is Hakeem Muhammad Akhtar, a Pakistani citizen. When asked about his services in Afghanistan and his special relations with Mullah Omar, Supreme Commander of the Taliban, Akhtar stated that their services for the Taliban and Mullah Omar were known to the world. (Mullah Omar, aka Mohammed Omar, has been designated by the U.S. and the UN 1267 Sanctions Committee. Operation Enduring Freedom, the military phase of the war against terrorism, began on October 7, 2001. ... as of mid- November 2001, the AL AKHTAR TRUST was secretly treating wounded Al Qaida members at the medical centers it was operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan. (Al Qaida has been designated by both the U.S. and UN 1267 Sanctions Committee). a senior Al Qaida detainee related that AL AKHTAR TRUST and Al-Rashid Trust were the primary relief agencies that Al Qaida used to move supplies into Qandahar, Afghanistan. This detainee was aware of one shipment, in 2001, arranged by an Al Qaida operative that included a "room full" of cartons. In 2002, Al-Rashid Trust and AL AKHTAR TRUST decided to start a drive to collect donations from the business/industrial circles of Pakistan. Mullah Izatullah, an Al Qaida official living in Chaman, Pakistan, was associated with both Al-Rashid Trust and AL AKHTAR TRUST. Al-Rashid Trust was designated by the U.S. on September 23, 2001 and by the UN 1267 Sanctions Committee on October 6, 2001. During a custodial interview in mid-April 2003, a senior Al Qaida detainee stated that Al-Rashid Trust and AL AKHTAR TRUST provided donations to Al Qaida. While Al Qaida was based in Qandahar, Afghanistan, these organizations provided donations in the form of blankets and clothing to Al Qaida members. When Al Qaida members fled from Qandahar in late 2001, these organizations provided the families of Al Qaida members with financial assistance. AL AKHTAR TRUST was providing a wide range of support to Al-Qaida and Pakistani based sectarian and jihadi groups, specifically Lashkar-e- Tayyiba, Lashkar-I-Jhangvi, and Jaish-e-Mohammed. (All three of these organizations have been designated by the U.S.) These efforts included providing financial and logistical support as well as arranging travel for Islamic extremists. ... an associate of AL AKHTAR TRUST was attempting to raise funds in order to finance "obligatory jihad" in Iraq (i.e., because fatwas had been issued, Muslims were obligated to support jihad in Iraq). Donors were told they could contact AL AKHTAR TRUST via email for additional information. A financier of AL AKHTAR TRUST is also reported to have ties to the kidnapping and murder of the Wall Street Journal's South Asia Bureau. Chief, Daniel Pearl. According to an article appearing in the Wall Street Journal, on or about January 31 or February 1, 2002, citing Pakistani police, a man named Saud Memon drove into the compound where Daniel Pearl was being held, along with three Arabic-speaking men. The compound was owned by Mr. Memon, a garment manufacturer, and was located in the northern outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan. Eventually, the three Arabic-speaking men, along with one of Mr. Memon's employees, were left alone with Daniel Pearl in one room of the compound. One of these men turned on a video camera, and another asked Mr. Pearl questions about his religious background. After the videotaped statement by Mr. Pearl, he was blindfolded and killed. According to the article, Mr. Memon is a known financier for militant groups in association with the Al-Rashid Trust, which is described in the article as having changed its name to Al AKHTAR TRUST. According to information available to the U.S. government, an individual by the name of Al-Saud Memon is the individual primarily responsible for the AL AKHTAR TRUST's finances and the direction of financial resources and support for the Trust.

PA PROMOTES THEN CONDEMNS KILLING OF AMERICANS Posted by Itamar Marcus, October 15, 2003.

PMW has been documenting the duplicity of the Palestinian Authority towards the United States for years. In its English statements, the PA presents itself as an American ally, while its Arabic messages incite its people to hate and kill Americans. Never has this hypocrisy been more striking than today, after the Palestinian ambush that targeted and killed three American diplomats in the Gaza Strip. The official PA rushed to condemn the attack -- even as the PA-controlled media continues its relentless campaign of anti-American indoctrination. During the war in Iraq, the PA actively endorsed the killing of Americans, and even produced a music video celebrating the deaths of US soldiers that was broadcast repeatedly on official PA TV. [Click here to view video] In the months before the Iraq war, the official PA daily published calls to Saddam Hussein to turn Iraq into a graveyard for American soldiers. At a pro-Iraq rally they "praised the role of Iraq and the Commander Saddam Hussein, and stressed that Iraq's land will be a graveyard for the American soldiers..." [Al Hayat Al Jadida, Dec. 19, 2002] Since the war, hatred of the USA has continued unabated in the official and tightly-controlled PA media. This morning's political cartoon in the official daily Al Hayat Al Jadida attacks the US for trying to "paint" the entire world American. A recent sermon on official PA TV described the US as "the foremost enemy of the Muslim nation" and compared it to Pharaoh of the Bible saying: "There is no God besides me." [PA TV February 21, 2003] This past Friday, the PA sermon broadcast on official PA TV included the following threats and warnings to the US: "We hear statements by the little American President, oppressive statements. He says Israel has the right to defend itself... These statements carry destruction for America itself... This president sees himself like one who has ascended to the mountaintop and like one expecting someone to push him so that he falls into the abyss, he and his people with him. We warn the American people that this president is dragging them to the abyss... [Allah] take vengeance on Your enemies, our enemies, enemies of religion." [PA TV Sheikh Ibrahim Madiras, Oct. 10, 2003] A recent sermon on official PA TV told Muslim believers to anticipate the destruction of the US: "If we go back 1400 years in time, we find that history is repeating itself, worshippers of Allah. The Prophet Mohammed was besieged by two powers, Persia in the east and Rome in the west. These represent the Soviet Union and America of today. Persia represents Russia in the east, and America stands for Rome in the west. Persia fell first in the east, just as Russia fell first in the east, and America will fall, may it be Allah's will, just as Rome fell..." [Official Sermon PA TV, September 5,2003,Sheikh Ibrahim Madiras.] Clearly, the American diplomats were murdered today by Palestinians fulfilling their role in their war against Americans, as they have been taught by their leaders, through years of hate-mongering and calls for violence against Americans. Itamar Marcus is Director of the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), whose website address is http://www.pmw.org.il Examples of the hate-indoctrination PA TV broadcast and hate-America cartoons can be viewed on the PMW website.

THOUGHTS ON YOM KIPPUR Posted by Moshe Burt, October 15, 2003.

In the Yom Kippur Mussaf prayers, we recall the majesty of the Kohen Godol and the order of his Avodah - his Service of Hashem in the Beit HaMikdash - and contrast it with the woe which came to us due to our sins and the loss of the Beit HaMikdash and, therefore, the Kohen Godol's Avodah. Eileh Ezk'rah, we recall the poignant and tragic story of the Ten Martyrs, the "10 sages who were brutally put to death to satisfy the anti-Semitic caprice of a Roman ruler." (Artscroll Yom Kippur Machsor, pages 587-593) And from the rear of the Shul came one individual's screaming and wailing as he recited Eileh Ezk'rah and the brutality which befell the martyred Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel, Rabbi Yishmael, the Kohen Godol, Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Chananya and the others. As I continued my tefillah, I knew who it was; his voice and his cries were distinctive and I knew where we were holding in the Tefillah. But, nonetheless, the moment was deeply poignant. It then occurred to me that the screaming and wailing may not only be in commemoration of the brutalities perpetrated upon these Tzadikim who died Al Kiddush Hashem. The crying and wailing may also commemorate the literally millions of Jewish martyrs who died through nearly two milleneum of pograms, the Inquisition, HaShoah (the Holacaust), the past 55 years of the modern day Medinat Yisrael (the State of Israel). It commemorates over 900 dead and thousands wounded who have been savagely brutalized and murdered by the Arabs, the Moslem nation, during their three year war of attrition, their Jihad against us against us called the "Oslo War." In our time, we may not have tear-filled stories of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel and Rabbi Yishmael, the Kohen Godol drawing lots out of their agony at having to see the other executed, or having the skin pealed from the face to satisfy the whim of a ruler's lecherous daughter, or of Rabbi Chananya being burned alive wrapped in his Torah scroll - his chest packed with wet wool to slow the process and enhance the pain. We didn't have Rabbi Akiva who had his skin pealed from his flesh with his students looking on, as he recited Sh'ma Yisrael. The stories of death in our time are less poignant, and may not later be commemorated by an intense piyut on Tisha B'av or Yom Kippur, but the pain is as poignant when we think of Rabbi Rana'an, Shalhevet Pass, the Apfelbaums on the eve of their Chassuna, Marla Bennett and the list goes on and on. Thousands, millions have died for NO other reason than the mere fact that they are Jewish. And we must not forget the tragic stories of our POWs; Ron Arad, Zack Baumel and the others, including Jonathan Pollard. Although the individual referred to may not have had the thoughts in mind during the Eileh Ezk'rah, throughout these nearly two millenia that we were dispersed, we lacked a cohesive, unified national entity and leadership capable of acting, with Hashem's help, to defend ourselves. But we now have our State of Israel and a strong and eminently capable military but yet our leaders are handcuffed in a maze of equivocation, appeasement, political Cheshbonot and "correctness." Their perception is that of powerlessness, as if mere grasshoppers, before 250 million Arabs, a Super-Power and the rest of the world. Although we learn that Klal Yisrael is a people not to be reckoned with as with the other nations of the world, our leaders, the "Jerusalem Beltway" good ole boys who are totally devoid of Torah, are begging, are dying for the love, friendship and co-mingling with the rest of the world. And so, as our blood continues to flow in our very streets, and as Israel's politicos are hamstrung without fear and faith in Hashem and as they act based on equivocation, political Cheshbonot and "correctness," in abandonment of our Security, our POWs and in abandonment of Eretz Yisrael, there is what to cry and wail about. I'YH that next Yom Kippur is joyous, one where we have seen the Ge'ula Shlaima and where we are zocha to the Moshiach, the rebuilt Beit HaMikdash and the Kohen Godol's Avodah in the Kodosh HaKodoshim. May we be zocha to see the end of Jewish bleeding and dying, La'asot Nekama B'Goyim, the Ultimate Redemption, bim hay v'yameinu - speedily, in our time," - IMMEDIATELY - Achshav, Meiyad, Chik Chuk, Etmol!!! Moshe Burt, an Oleh, is a commentator on news and events in Israel and Founder and Director of The Sefer Torah Recycling Network . He lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh.

A PEACE OF SWISS CHEESE Posted by Ellen W. Horowitz, October 15, 2003.

I knew it. I just knew it. You probably thought that Burg and Beilin accepted defeat and were drowning their sorrows on the Oxford speaking circuit. You should have known by now that "old Leftists never die nor do they fade away." I was sure that neither one of them was doing Teshuva in Safed. They had to be in Europe- in one of the so-called "neutral" countries. I figured that we've already t