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THE FESTIVAL OF TABERNACLES
Posted by Stan L. Bowman, Jr., September 29, 2004. |
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Happy Sukkot everyone and pray for the peace of Jerusalem and pray for the rebuilding of the 3RD TEMPLE in Jerusalem. David Ben-Ariel wrote this letter to President Bush. The Jewish/Biblical Holiday of Sukkot Sukkoth begins on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Tishri, which is 5 days after Yom Kippur. The festival of Sukkot, also known as Chag'ha Succot, the "Feast of Booths" (or Tabernacles), is named for the huts (sukkah) that Moses and the Israelites lived in as they wandered the desert for 40 years before they reached the Promised Land. These huts were made of branches and were easy to assemble, take apart, and carry as the Israelites wandered through the desert. Depending where you live determines the length and celebration of Sukkot. Most the of world observes the festival for 9 days. The first two and the last two days being the most important. In Israel the festival is only celebrated for 8 days and the first and last days being the most important. Sukkot completes the biblical trilogy began with Passover and Shavuot. This cycle begins with the fleeing of the people of Israel from Egypt (Passover), continues with Moses receiving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai (Shavuot), and concludes as the Israelites wander the desert living in huts and awaiting their entrance into the Promised Land (Sukkot). Sukkot is the third and final celebration in this Exodus from Egypt. The focal point of the festival is the sukkah. Sukkot is the plural form of sukkah, which means "covering" or "shelter". Those who observe Sukkot build and live in a sukkah for seven days. These huts are constructed as temporary shelters and the roof is covered with foliage which is spaced to let the light in. Inside the hut are hung fruits and vegetables, including apples, grapes, corn, and pomegranates. The families eat their meals in the huts under the evening sky. Though most people limit their activities in the sukkah to eating; some, depending on climate and location, sleep in the sukkah as well. Another important part of the Sukkot observation is hospitality. It is important to share your meals with others. In fact this sharing is so important that the holiday is also know as Chag Ha'asif, Festival of the Ingathering. The ninth day of Sukkot is know as Simchat Torah. Throughout the year, a portion of the Torah is read every week. On Simchat Torah the final passages from Deuteronomy are read. The reading of the Torah is concluded and is started again Contact Stan Bowman at stan120032000@yahoo.ca David Ben-Ariel is author of "Beyond Babylon: Europe's Rise and Fall". He can be reached at http://www.pushhamburger.com/david.htm |
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LAND FOR PEACE OR LAND FOR A PLO CASINO?
Posted by Unity Coalition for Israel, September 29, 2004. |
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David Bedein's article below describes the sordid plan to build a casino on the land of Gush Katif after the Israeli residents are forced from their homes. The proposed disengagement plan is apparently based on a joint financial venture between Yassir Arafat and Dov Weissglass, advisor to the Prime Minister. CLICK HERE to send the sample letter shown below. You can send this letter as is or change it any way you wish. A copy of your letter will automatically be sent to Prime Minister Sharon, President Bush, Uzi Landau, MK Yuri Shtern, MK Dr Arieh Eldad, Minister of Finance Benjamin Netanyahu, and mayors of 20 Israeli communities in Gaza/Judea/Samaria.
"Rubbing Elbows with Arafat" by David Bedein The man who has been the most visible diplomat representing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in negotiations with the Palestinians and with the U.S. government has been a lawyer by the name of Dov Weissglass - the man who created and engineered Sharon's withdrawal plan, and the man whom Sharon has delegated to negotiate for Israel with U.S. National Security Advisor Condeleeza Rice and with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. Weissglass's power in the government of Israel with Ariel Sharon at the helm has eclipsed the influence of the highest officials of the Israel Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense. Yet Weissglass has another identity. Back in December 2002, Israel Resource News Agency uncovered the fact that Weissglass, then the office manager of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, was still in private business, listed in the Israel Corporate Registrar as the owner and operator of his law firm, Weissglass-Almagor and a business trust by a similar name. That finding was publicized in the weekly Israeli newspaper, Makor Rishon. Why is that so important? Well, it would be one thing if Weissglass's firm represented Zogloveck, Israel's kosher sausage firm. However, Weissglass's law firm and business trusts represent the financial interests of the Palestinian Authority, including Muhammad Rashid, the treasurer appointed by Yassir Arafat to manage Arafat's illusive accounts which amount to several billion dollars. Two Israeli journalists, Amos Harel and Avi Issacharov, have just published a book titled "The Seventh War", in which they report that Weissglass actually celebrated the electoral victory of Ariel Sharon in the company of Muhammad Rashid on election night in February, 2001. In June, 2003 Israel Resource News Agency uncovered the fact that Weissglass's law firm and business also represent the Palestinian casino firms, which are in part owned by PLO security chief Jibrl Rahoub, and by Yassir Arafat himself. Why is that important, in light of the demise of the former Palestinian casino in Jericho, that was closed down when the Palestinian Intifada began in October, 2000? According to the Palestinian tourist publication This Week In Palestine, plans are under way to build a new Palestinian casino and resort for tourists in "Southern Gaza", in place of the Jewish communities of Gush Katif that now reside there. And who stands to profit? None other than Dov Weissglass, the architect of the Sharon plan to withdraw those very Jewish communities from Gush Katif. The logical question to ask would be: Where is the law enforcement system in Israel that would act against any such conflict of interest and possible breach of security? In January 2003, after it was revealed that the Prime Minister's office manager, Weissglass, still maintained his law firm and business outside his government job, the Israel Civil Service Commission looked into it and affirmed that Weissglass was indeed still registered in the Israel Corporate Register as part of that law firm. But they dismissed its importance, after Weissglass wrote to the commission that he had divested himself from his law firm and that he had sold all financial interests in his business. To support that claim, The Israel Corporate Authority in April 2003 reported that Weissglass finally removed his name from his law firm in the Israel Corporate Authority records and provided us with a document from the Israel Corporate Authority to prove it. However, in April 2004, our agency uncovered what the Israel Civil Service Commission did not know, which was that Weissglass's name was still registered as the lawyer of record for two other firms which bore virtually the same company name, while also located at the same corporate address. In May, 2004, the Israel Civil Service Commission declared that this represented a conflict of interest for Weissglass. So in July, 2004 Weissglass quietly resigned his position as the Prime Minister's office manager, but received permission from the Israel Civil Service Commission to assume a new position as the all-powerful official "advisor" to PM Ariel Sharon. In other words, although the highest echelons of the Israeli government are cognizant of the fact that Weissglass represents the business interests of Yassir Arafat, Weissglass was still allowed to continue to conduct negotiations on behalf of the state of Israel with all official levels of the Palestinian Authority and the United States government, even though Weissglass continues to represents the business interests of the Palestinian Authority. You might call this a legalized conflict of interest, Middle East style. Meanwhile, two more young Israelis were blown up by a suicide bomber this week... David Bedein is Bureau Chief, Israel Resource News Agency. (http://Israelbehindthenews.com). His article appeared today in Front Page Magazine (www.frontpagemagazine.com). The Unity Coalition for Israel (http://www.israelunitycoalition.org) is "the largest worldwide coalition of Jewish and Christian organizations, with more than 200 groups representing millions of people dedicated to Israel. Though we have many different backgrounds, we have one common goal: A Safe and Secure Israel." |
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CAMERA & REP. BRAD SHERMAN (D-CA) TESTIFY ON NPR'S BIASED REPORTS
Posted by CAMERA, September 29, 2004. |
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Corp. for Public Broadcasting Fails in Oversight of National Public Radio; CAMERA Proposes Reform in Agency's Monitoring of Tax Recipients Washington, D.C. (September 28) -- National Public Radio (NPR) coverage of Arab-Israeli news continues to violate federal law requiring "strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature," CAMERA Washington Director Eric Rozenman has told board members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). NPR receives federal funds through CPB. The corporation is required to monitor recipients' compliance with objectivity and balance mandates, Rozenman reminded board members at their quarterly meeting last week. "CAMERA has documented in studies over extended periods and in analyses of incidental coverage that NPR ... continues to display an established pattern of anti-Israeli, pro-Arab bias," he stressed. U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) also criticized NPR's Middle East reporting. Sherman noted that he, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and nine other members of the U.S. House of Representatives wrote to NPR President Kevin Klose last year after a series of unsuccessful meetings. They reiterated that "for many years, National Public Radio programs have presented a view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is too often biased against Israel." According to the Sherman-Engel letter, "despite concerns raised over the years by listeners, members of NPR affiliate stations, and members of Congress, NPR coverage of the Middle East -- to our ears and to the ears of many of our constituents -- still exhibits a slanted perspective on the conflict." Rozenman informed CPB board members that their annual "Open to the Public" report to Congress reviewing oversight of recipients "is inadequate. It avoids the substance of CAMERA's criticism and numerous other complaints." CAMERA recommended that the board create a unit within CPB to respond promptly to substantive complaints, according to accepted journalistic criteria like those in the Code of Ethics of the Society for Professional Journalists. He said these responses, "rather than vague generalities," should be reported to Congress. Prior to the public forum, CAMERA provided all eight CPB board members with extensive documentation of its criticisms of NPR's Arab-Israeli coverage. Sherman noted that it was unusual for a member of Congress to address the CPB board, but Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson thanked him for his "extraordinary presentation," adding, "I associate myself with it." The Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America is a national, non-profit organization with more than 50,000 members. It monitors major news media coverage of the Middle East for accuracy, objectivity, context, and comprehensiveness. |
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ARAFAT MURDERED U.S. DIPLOMATS
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 29, 2004. |
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FOR MANY YEARS I HAVE CONTENDED THAT THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT WAS NOT ONLY A PRO-ARAB INSTITUTION BUT ALSO A COLLABORATOR WITH YASSIR ARAFAT - with the tacit acceptance of American Intelligence Agencies. These American institutions have not only collaborated with Arab Muslim Terrorist organizations but have used American tax-payers? dollars to fund their activities. The cover-up by the pro-Arab U.S. State Department of Arafat's orders, February 28, 1973, recorded on tape, to execute the U.S. Ambassador, Cleo Noel, his aide and the French Charg d'Affaires in Khartoum is merely one of their heretofore hidden activities. Every year the State Department writes a fictitious report to Congress about the PLO's compliance with Oslo so they can continue to receive several hundreds million of American tax-payers? dollars. These activities and much more were ignored by the 9/11 Commission - quite delibertely. The following article by Kenneth Timmerman tells us the story of this ultimate betrayal and what might be treason of State Department personnel who should be tried for these crimes and, if convicted, be serving a long prison sentence in a Federal Penitentiary. Perhaps, IF the State Department had been caught and their institutional biases corrected at that time in the 1980s, the Terrorist organizations of the world would not have found America a free field in which to thrive and, just maybe, they would not have been able to organize 9/11 and all the other anti-American Terrorist attacks of the 1990s, 2000s, including 9/11, Madrid, Bali, Beslan...... . . . highly classified intercepts of Arafat's verbal orders to the killers and has been suppressed for years by the State Department and by political appointees at the National Security Agency (NSA). . . . Arafat praised his gunmen for pumping 40 bullets into U.S. diplomats Noel and Moore and a Belgian colleague. . . the Department of Justice must issue a warrant for Arafat's arrest on charges of murder. "Arafat Murdered U.S. Diplomats" by Kenneth R. Timmerman (http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=161111) Late in May, 53-year-old Sarah Blaustein, a Long Island, N.Y., native who moved to Israel last year with her husband, was killed by Palestinian terrorists while driving to attend a funeral in Jerusalem. She was the 18th American victim of Palestinian terrorists in Israel since Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat stood on the White House lawn with former president Bill Clinton and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in September 1993 and signed the Oslo peace accords. A Palestinian spokesman, Saeb Erekat, implicitly accepted responsibility for the drive-by shooting, telling CNN that cease-fires only can be forged between armies. "We are not an army," he said pointedly. Also wounded in the attack were Blaustein's husband, Norman, 52, and her son Samuel Berg, 28, who was visiting Israel from New York. Every year since Arafat set up shop in Gaza in 1994, there have been moves in the U.S. Congress to cut off aid to his Palestinian Authority (PA), which runs several hundred millions of dollars each year. But an end to his U.S. subsidy soon could become the least of Arafat's worries. New evidence establishing that Arafat personally ordered the assassination of two U.S. diplomats in Khartoum, Sudan, in 1973 could lead Attorney General John Ashcroft to issue an arrest warrant for Arafat, effectively barring the Palestinian leader from any future role in Middle East peace negotiations. The evidence includes highly classified intercepts of Arafat's verbal orders to the killers and has been suppressed for years by the State Department and by political appointees at the National Security Agency (NSA). It finally is coming to light, thanks to the efforts of a former NSA employee, James J. Welsh, who has been shaking heaven and earth the last six months, trying to get official Washington to pay attention to Arafat's trail of infamy. During his six years as a U.S. senator, Ashcroft was one of Arafat's fiercest critics. In June 1999, he successfully introduced legislation requiring the State Department to compile a report every six months on U.S. citizens killed by Palestinian terrorists. The latest report, released in April, carefully skirts involvement by members of Arafat's security forces in anti-U.S. terrorist attacks. But the trap was laid. "The United States government attaches a high priority to ensuring that the perpetrators of these terrorist acts are brought to justice," the report states. What if the perpetrator is named Yasser Arafat and the evidence of his crimes includes recordings and transcripts of him giving direct orders to the killers who murdered U.S. diplomats in cold blood? As a pro-Israeli lobbyist tells Insight, "There is no statute of limitations for murder." Therefore, should the new evidence come to light, by law the Department of Justice must issue a warrant for Arafat's arrest on charges of murder. In 1973 Welsh was a 27-year-old NSA employee at Fort Meade, Md., whose job was to analyze military communications of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) for potential threats to the United States and to U.S. allies. On Feb. 28 of that year he received a call from a colleague in Cyprus, Mike Hargreaves, alerting him to a highly unusual radio message intercepted between Beirut and Khartoum. The NSA code-named these intercepts FEDAYEEN. "Arafat and his top deputy, Salah Khalaf, were giving orders over their shortwave network to a team of PLO operatives who had just arrived in Khartoum," Welsh recalls. "From the transcript, it was clear that everyone was armed and ready to go. We didn't know what the target was, but it was clear that a major operation was in the works. This was not just a bunch of hand-grenade throwers. These were the big guys." At first, Welsh thought Arafat and his Fatah organization were planning an attack on Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, who was scheduled to arrive in Khartoum later that day for talks with Sudanese President Muhammad Gaafar al-Nimeiry. Welsh pressed his superiors to send an unusual FLASH message - the highest priority - to the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, warning of imminent danger. Welsh went home that Wednesday night thinking he had helped avert a disaster. Just six months earlier, he knew, a similar tip-off had been ignored just hours before Palestinian terrorists burst onto the world scene in Munich, where they seized a dormitory at the Olympic Village and murdered 11 Israeli athletes in cold blood. "We felt tremendous satisfaction over the job that we had done," Welsh recalls. "We went to bed thinking: `At least our embassy personnel will be safe.'" Early the next morning, Welsh received a call at home telling him to turn on the television. A Fatah commando had just stormed the Saudi Embassy in Khartoum during a diplomatic reception and taken U.S. Ambassador Cleo Noel and Charg d'Affaires George Curtis Moore hostage, along with other diplomats. Welsh rushed back to Fort Meade, where his NSA office was in an uproar. "We were shocked," Welsh recalls. "How could the ambassador have gone to the Saudi Embassy reception if he had gotten our warning?" As Welsh learned later, the warning had been downgraded by Juanita Moody, a NSA liaison officer, after a State Department desk officer complained that it had come from "a couple of enlisted guys." (Both Welsh and Hargreaves, who worked the radios in Cyprus, had been detailed to NSA from the U.S. Navy). The downgraded cable didn't arrive for another 48 hours. During those next two days, FEDAYEEN intercepts from PLO shortwave radios began pouring in from the Cyprus listening post, this time with clear orders from Arafat and his deputy, Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad), who were directing the hostage-taking from their headquarters in Beirut. Arafat used a Racal Single-Side Band radio tuned to 7150 kHz to communicate directly with his top deputy Khalil Wazir (Abu Jihad), who had been dispatched to Khartoum from Beirut to carry out the kidnapping. Wazir, in turn, relayed the orders by telephone to the terrorist commandos holed up inside the Saudi Embassy. Details of the operation and the communications scheme penetrated by NSA were reported in a previously secret postmortem account that was commissioned by the Rand Corp. in 1975. The PLO operation was code-named "Cold River," after a Palestinian refugee and training camp, Nahr al-Barad, that Israeli fighter jets had attacked 11 days earlier. At one point, the Palestinian commando was ordered to demand release of Sirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian who assassinated Sen. Robert Kennedy. When then-president Richard Nixon refused to negotiate, Arafat's deputy in Beirut, Abu Iyad, gave the order to execute the hostages: "Remember Nahr al-Barad. The people's blood in Nahr al-Barad is screaming for revenge. These are our final orders. We and the world are watching you." The transcript of Abu Iyad's call to the PLO office in Khartoum shows that it took place at around 8 p.m. local time on March 2, 1973. But when the international news media still hadn't reported the execution of the American diplomats one hour later, Arafat himself came on the radio and reiterated the command to execute the American diplomats. In one of the last FEDAYEEN intercepts that day, Arafat praised his gunmen for pumping 40 bullets into U.S. diplomats Noel and Moore and a Belgian colleague. "Your mission is ended," he told his men. "Release Saudi and Jordanian diplomats. Submit in courage to Sudanese authorities to explain your just cause to [the] great Sudanese Arab masses and international opinion. We are with you on the same road." The Rand report, which relied on the still-classified intercepts, states categorically: "The order to kill three of the hostages came from Beirut. The barrage of messages which they received from Beirut strongly suggests that the operation was being tightly controlled from Beirut, presumably by Khalaf and Arafat." Welsh believes that recordings of those intercepts still exist - either the U.S. originals or contemporaneous copies made by Israeli- or British-intelligence listening posts in the region. Wall Street Journal editorial writer Robert Pollock says that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon confirmed to him recently that Israel gave the U.S. government copies of its own intercept of Arafat's order to murder the Americans. "Several authorities on signals intelligence have given the opinion that this message, coming at the height of a hostage crisis that had been under way for 25 hours, and broadcast over open radio waves in a voice transmission, could not realistically have escaped interception and recording by the intelligence-ga thering facilities of the United States and other countries," the Rand report states. "One authority said, `It would be impossible not to have intercepted it.' Another offered the observation that, `If the U.S. didn't catch it, hundreds of people should have been fired.'" But through the years the State Department and the NSA have sought to downplay the incident, especially in the wake of the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war, when Arafat and the PLO publicly embraced an end to international terrorism. In 1986, 47 U.S. senators signed a letter to then-attorney general Edwin Meese demanding that the Justice Department indict Arafat for murder. One of the signatories was Tennessee Democrat Al Gore Jr. As vice president - and during last year's presidential campaign - Gore championed Arafat as America's "partner" for Middle East peace. But in the 1986 letter, Gore excoriated the Reagan administration for making excuses for Arafat. "These allegations, if substantiated, leave little doubt that a warrant for Arafat's arrest should be issued, and a criminal indictment filed against him," the Senate letter concluded. "To allow other factors to enter into this decision is to make a mockery of our laws and our stated commitment to eradicate terrorism." The Monday after Noel and Moore were murdered on Arafat's orders, the NSA director, Lt. Gen. Samuel C. Philips, drove over to the State Department carrying a special folder with Welsh's warning. "When he returned, we were told, `It's over,'" Welsh recalls. "I was 27 years old and got angry. I threatened to go to Congress to tell them that our warning had been discarded and was now being covered up. I was told in no uncertain terms by my superior that if I didn't shut up I'd have my clearances pulled and be sent out on a fleet oiler within 48 hours." A year later, after eight years in the Navy, Welsh left the NSA and resigned. Twenty-eight years later, Welsh finally is going to Congress asking for an investigation. Former intelligence analysts consulted by Insight believe Welsh is right, and that transcripts of Arafat's orders to kill the U.S. diplomats were sent to CIA stations in Beirut, Cyprus, Paris and Khartoum and still exist. If so, they could be entered into evidence before a court of law as Exhibit A in U.S. v. Arafat.
Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His
articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the
Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For
Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm).
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HAMAS VS US; PEACE STUDIES PROMOTED AGGRESSION; HOW PA TREATS ARABS
Posted by Richard H. Shulman, September 29, 2004. |
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HAMAS VS. U.S. Hamas praises the organizer of the Chechen massacre of Russian children. Its functionary, Ismail Elbarasse is an unindicted co-conspirator in financing Hamas terrorism against Israel. His wife was arrested videotaping Chesapeake Bay Bridge, as he drove over in, including close-ups of cables and other features "integral to the structural integrity of the bridge." Al Qaeda enlists Hamas members for such surveillance. Other high-level Hamas operatives were detained in the US for racketeering, money laundering, and rendering Hamas material support. Former Hamas head Rantisi wrote that attacking American was a religious and national duty. At his funeral service, another Hamas leader said that Hamas' battle is with the US as well as with Israel. Israeli authorities charged an Arab with training with Hamas for terrorism against Canada and New York City. The US media largely ignored his arrest. It treats Hamas as if not menacing the US (Erick Stakelbeck, NY Sun, 9/24, Op. Ed.). We Americans must be hit on the head many times to realize a threat. ANOTHER EXPLANATION FOR ISRAELI LEFTIST ANTAGONISM The Israeli Left or Far Left vehemently opposes Jewish residency in Yesha. The Left has railed against it for so long, accusing it (mistakenly) of being an occupation that steals Arab land and is racist, as to have come to believe that perhaps the entire Zionist enterprise is likewise guilty. The Left feels guilty about the land it owns in Israel. It takes out its feelings of guilt on the settlers. If the settlers were replaced by a parallel Arab state, the guilt feelings would be relieved. The Left wouldn't feel bound to apologize for a Jewish presence in Yesha or in Israel. (There is a parallel Arab state in Palestine - Jordan. Don't they know that?) Actually, no land in Yesha was taken from Arabs to build houses for Jews. Actually, the Arabs rule themselves domestically, so that even if the Geneva Convention applied in Yesha, which it does not, the Israeli presence would not be an "occupation." (Israel has a better claim to the Territories than do the Arabs.) Should the question of occupation "be decided by the EU, the UN, or Swiss bureaucrats at the Intl. Committee of the Red Cross, who call Jewish presence in Yesha 'illegal?'" Offered a guided tour to see for themselves, leftists refuse to go to Yesha, on "principle." Their principles do not keep them from visiting repressive states, nor impel them to denounce the repressive P.A.. They exhibit no humanitarian considerations for the Jews of Yesha. They think they are principled in demanding withdrawal, but withdrawal would increase terrorism against Israel. Thus the Left sides with murderers. The Left does not seem to realize (or does it) that if the Jews have no rights in Yesha, then they have no rights in Israel. The circumstances of settlement are the same in both. The Left suggests that although Israel is winning against the terrorists, it cannot win and ought not to win. That is not ethical but depraved (Prof. Steven Plaut, 9/12, e-mail). Ironically, originally the Left had encouraged settlement in parts of Yesha. ODDLY UNREALISTIC CONDEMNATION OF TERRORISM A Jordanian prince condemned suicide bombing as contrary to Islam for targeting innocent people who are not attacking Muslims. So far, so good. Then he sought to prove his point by alleging falsely that all Islamic schools condemn terrorism. Fact is, most honor it (IMRA, 12/13). He mixed a realistic condemnation with an unrealistic claim that his view is widely implemented. ARABS LEARN THE LESSON FRANCE DIDN'T? The Arab press is critical of Iraqi terrorist abduction of French journalists, who were not opposing the insurgency, and to France's reaction. France pleads for the captives' lives by stressing neutrality. The press finds France mistaken in supposing that its neutrality in the war on terrorism would shield it from terrorism. Terrorists just want to kill and intimidate, regardless of whether a country sends troops to Iraq. France shames itself, and the terrorists shame Islam. Some journalists deplore the double standard by centers of terrorism that plead with the abductors to free the French, but not plead to spare Nepalese. Some Arab journalists are concluding that the war on terrorism must be international (not just up to the US). The head of Iraq considers the government of France partly to blame, because France opposed measures against terrorism. Will Pres. Chirac admit that he was wrong? (IMRA, 12/13 from MEMRI.) WHY PM SHARON OPPOSES A NATIONAL REFERENDUM As some Israelis urge a national referendum on whether to proceed with PM Sharon's abandonment plan, Sharon's aides admitted fearing they would lose one. They believe that the settlers are best able to mobilize voters (IMRA, 12/13). Polls supposedly find a majority of Israelis supporting abandonment. However, when questioned in detail, the majority does not believe that abandonment would bring peace or reduce terrorism. PEACE STUDIES COURSES IN THE U.S. Many peace studies at US colleges present anti-American and anti-capitalist themes. Some courses feature Marxist professors and fringe literature. Their notion of supporting peace may be to organize anti-war rallies against US intervention in Iraq (Prof. Steven Plaut, 12/13, e-mail). The examples given prove the contention for one professor's course. These rallies facilitate aggression by opposing defense against it. P.A. GIVES OUT FREE BULLETS Another P.A. journalist received a warning bullet in the mail, for independent-minded reporting, i.e., for being critical of the P.A. regime. The journalist took his family out of the P.A., to prevent getting another bullet in the head. Thus the P.A. media is kept subservient to Arafat. Western demands for P.A. reform are limited to corruption and Arafat's sole control over the military. They do not include freedom of the press (IMRA, 9/14). If the West admitted that the P.A. controls journalists there, and since the West draws on local "stringers," it would be realized that Western reporting about the P.A. also is controlled and therefore biased in favor of the P.A.. If Western journalism pressed for freedom of the press in the P.A., the P.A. would bar it altogether. The media mostly prefers access to accuracy. FORD FOUNDATION FUNDS ANOTHER BIGOTED NGO MADRE is an NGO that describes itself as "an international women's human rights organization but attempts to justify terrorism as "resistance to military occupation." Terrorism is illegitimate regardless of excuses for it. MADRE falsely accuses Israel of: responsibility for Arab terrorism, Arab wars of aggression, and wanton aerial bombing of houses and mosques. It ignores terrorist attacks and P.A. violations of Israeli human rights, but bewails Israeli assassination of terrorist leaders (IMRA, 9/14). Its reports are replete with vicious lies and misrepresentation. I'm sorry that as a news summary, I don't have space to show you all the details all the time. Hairraising! HOW THE P.A. TREATS ARABS The A.P. published photographs of Arafat's Fatah taking an Arab down the street of some P.A. village and executing him. He was accused of molesting his daughters and collaborating with Israel. (Quite a combination!) It is not known which charge, if any, is accurate, for there was no trial. The crowd chanted "death." The gunmen obliged, and showed off to the foreign press. P.A. police entrapped an Arab homosexual in Gaza. They demanded he become a collaborator against Israel. He refused. They arrested him and hung him by the arms. A high-ranking officer got him released, but demanded sex as the price. He fled, but was rearrested. This time he forced to stand in sewage water up to his neck, etc.. He was taunted for being a homosexual. Israel did not mistreat those Arabs, Arabs did. They suffered capital punishment and brutal homophobia. Capital punishment, discrimination against homosexuals, and the Arab side of the Arab-Israel conflict all are causes celebres of the Left. The left ignores P.A. capital punishment and discrimination against homosexuals, which Israel does not have, lest it have to admit that Israel is the worthier side. The Left objects to "Israeli policies," although they are far more benign than that of many countries to which the Left does not object. Those objections must be pretexts, not ethics. As an excuse, the Left contends that it holds Israel to higher standards, and that Israel has more power to make concessions than have Arafat's Arabs but won't. Actually, Israel does not act worse than other democracies. (It acts more benignly.) If Israel were so brutal, it would have killed 250,000 in the four-year war, instead of 2,500. Leftist complaints about Israel are about a tempest in a teapot. But the Arabs tried to kill as many Jews as they could. How can the Left sympathize with them? Perhaps the Left secretly likes violence (or hates Jews). The Left is confused into supposing that if Israel is the more powerful side, therefore Israel must be in the wrong. That is no logical correlating but irrational sympathizing. Might does not make wrong. Why should the right side make concessions to the wrong one, an evil side, one that utilizes concessions to kill more victims? It is patronizing and discriminatory to hold the Arabs to a lesser standard. But if the Left does, why does it mute the implication that the Arabs are less ethical? (Prof. Steven Plaut, 9/13 from Bret Stephens in Jer. Post, 9/9) If less ethical, less deserving! Crime is crime. Nor is it accurate to consider Israel the more powerful party. The opposing side consists of most Arab states, not just the P.A., and is backed up by most of the rest of the world. In some of the wars, the Arabs started with an advantage and by winning. Some of the Israeli victories over Arab aggression seem miraculous. All were halted by the US and others. The world keeps rearming the Arabs. The Arabs now have a great advantage in military might, are developing weapons of mass-destruction, and are discouraging and dividing Israelis. Diplomacy is moving to deprive Israel of secure borders formed by the better watered core of its own homeland. The Arabs are enthused by religious fanaticism. Pity the Arabs? ESTIMATES OF RALLY ATTENDANCE Estimates of the number attending an anti-abandonment plan rally in Jerusalem differ by tens of thousands. "Haaretz" estimated 40,000, "Yediot" estimated 70,000, and channel 2 estimated 100,000 (IMRA, 9/13). Estimates by advocacy journalists may be tendentious. For leftist rallies, they may exceed a public square's capacity. P.A. POLICE NOW UNDERGOING TRAINING (In what?) Dozens of P.A. police are training in Egypt. Six hundred Egyptians will train more in Gaza. The stated purpose is to prepare these police to control Gaza if Israel withdraws (IMRA, 9/14). Israel now has invited the Egyptian coast guard to negotiate. Egyptian naval patrols would hamper Israeli controls for fear of clashing and leading to war with Egypt. The IDF warns that Egypt facilitates the P.A. insurgency, but the government ignores reality in favor of wishful diplomatic considerations (Arutz-7, 9/14). The head of the Egyptian effort is an intelligence officer. Be leery of stated purposes. The West lies about them half the time, and the Arabs, most of the time. You may surmise that Egypt is setting up an intelligence operation in Gaza to soften up Israel for the next Egyptian invasion, and is arranging for more effective arms smuggling. The sad part is that Israel is allowing this to happen. MORE ATTACKS & MORE CELLS CAPTURED Terrorists constantly try to attack Israelis. Several lately were stopped at checkpoints, where they blew themselves up, to at least wound some Israelis. The checkpoints spared hundreds. Israel broke up more terrorist cells. One included Israeli Bedouin recruited by a member of Hamas. Another also included an Israeli Arab, had an arsenal, and had committed terrorism. Both were planning attacks and kidnappings. A personal bodyguard of the P.A. Prime Minister was caught trying to smuggle arms into Israel (Arutz-7, 9/14). Remember that the Israel government gave V.I.P. passes to P.A. officials, whom the IDF knew were smuggling? The lesson is clear. Checkpoints are valuable, but they would be invaluable if they barred all Arabs from passing into Israel -- the news brief indicates that some don't bring weapons and are let through, but recruit terrorists within Israel. The Arabs of Israel constitute a pool of potential terrorists that no fence in Yesha keeps out of Israel. Israel should start by expelling the tens or hundreds of thousands of Arabs illegally in Israel. The world would claim that that is not "humanitarian" to bar guilty illegals, but it would be humanitarian for the innocent Israelis. P.M. SHARON'S DICTATORSHIP Among the 100,000 people demonstrating against PM Sharon's scheme to drag Jews out of Gaza, some carried signs, "Sharon is a dictator," objecting to his deceitful, illicit, and threatening maneuvers against opposition to it. Sharon's reaction justified their criticism. He ordered the Attorney General to investigate whether they may be prosecuted criminally for "incitement." (That would be unthinkable in the US. "Incitement" for what, for democratic rule?) Were the signs valid, beforehand? Yes. Sharon was elected for opposing abandonment. He thus disenfranchised and cheated the majority that elected him. He vowed to abide by a referendum in his Party, since his position as PM depends on his Party. After having lost the vote by a landslide, he ignored it, again disregarding the wishes of the people. Now there are calls for a national referendum on the major step of unilateral abandonment of territory that not only rightfully is Israel's and is needed for national security and identity, but whose control has enabled Israel to tamp down terrorism. He is refusing to allow a national referendum. Sharon's aides plant rumors about civil war, to discredit the opposition. (He shut down the major opposition radio station.) Now he is moving against a small-circulation ultra-Orthodox paper, upon a complaint by an Arab MK champion of terrorism, on the pretext that its light-hearted, light-headed criticism of the haj for trampling hundreds to death is "racism." The major leftist media, however, maligns Judaism without repercussion. Israel's crazy judiciary permits praising past terrorism but not current or future terrorism! (Prof. Steven Plaut, 9/14, e-mail.) MEDIA MISLED US ABOUT "MODERATE" For months, the media and the ruling class touted the second Prime Minister of the P.A. as a moderate. Then Hamas blew up two Israeli buses, and Israel retaliated by killing about 14 Hamas terrorists at a training camp. PM Qurea responded with a declaration that the Israeli retaliation would justify any further Hamas attacks (terrorism) against Israel. None of the foreign media and ruling class denounced him for it nor did any apologize for having misled people about his being a moderate (Prof. Steven Plaut, 9/10, e-mail). HAMAS ENCOURAGED BY ISRAELI LEFT Israeli journalists interviewed Hamas leaders. Hamas divulged, "It was the Israeli Left and your peace camp that ultimately encouraged us to continue with our suicide attacks." Hamas tried to divide Israeli society; the Left's reaction was divisive. Amid publicity that camouflages the paucity of their numbers, leftist refusals to fight in Yesha encouraged the use of suicide bombing. PM Sharon's proposed, unconditional abandonment of Gaza seems to Hamas as proof (IMRA, 9/10). In view of that Hamas assessment, the P.A. contention that Sharon's plan is a plot really to secure more territory seems more like propaganda than belief. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at ricshulman@aol.com. |
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THE EROSION OF ISRAEL
Posted by Aubrey Wulfsohn, September 28, 2004. |
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In Israel itself there is no longer any free-speech; right-wing Jews are in fear of saying the wrong thing in case they be cruelly. incarcerated. The Courts are corrupt in that the judges are biased by their personal animosity to orthodox Judaism and their left-wing political views. Immigration of Jews is curbed if there is any indication of their wanting to settle outside of the green line whereas immigration of non-Jews is encouraged as long as they are white. The Prime Minister is almost completely predictable. The government is a dictatorship. I am reminded of an old saying: "----", said the king and all the courtiers squatted and strained because in those days the word of the king was law. The Prime Minister uses foul means to get what he wants. He pays no attention to ministers who disagree with him and if this cannot be effective he 'persuades' them to change their minds, or makes vague nice-sounding statements. Unfortunately Jews in general listen though hear something else - usually what they want to hear. He pays no attention to most of his coalition parties or to the majority of Likud. Nothing major gets through without his approval, though he often apportions the blame to others. He double-speaks by having his office 'let out' false information about his verbalised intentions. He is bluffing when he threatens a new election - it would be too uncertain for him and more likely that he loses out. He manipulates the greed of the religious parties. The majority of the NRP MK's would sell their souls to be part of the government; this has been so since the inception of the state. They are presently putting conditions for their remaining in government which are virtually meaningless; the Prime Minister can easily make their conditions irrelevant by introducing such gradual a gradula erosion by small trivial-looking changes which would make make their resignation seem a lot of fuss over nothing. Orlev is trying the referendum idea simply because it allows him to stay in the government longer. The referendum will be formulated in a vague way and if the referendum decides to pull out of Gaza the NRP will not have a foot on which to stand. Shas would sell their souls for money towards their educational institutions. He bought off Netanyahu by allowing him to institute a capatalist state; though I am uncertain about Netanyahu's soul. The UTJ, Shinui and part of Labour are forgetting their principles in order to be in the cabinet. UTJ is giving in on unilateral disengagement (irrevocably leading to disengagement in Yesha and part of Jerusalem) and Shinui and Labour are giving up their principles as they consider giving away most of Israel is more important than their principles. Their hatred of the Jewish religion remains. Without religion they might as well have taken up Herzl's idea of a Jewish state in Uganda. The Primne Minister's plan, as developed a few years ago, is to get rid of: 1. Virtually all holy sites. This includes, at the least, responsibility for the Temple Mount. This is clearly evident from his actions. His vows about Jerusalem and the holy sites are to be taken with a pinch of salt. He almost certainly realizes that 1. Whatever he gives away, Israel will not be able to get it back, and once there is a Palestinian state Israel will not be allowed to make any incursions. 2. There is no way that both Israel and his planned Palestinian state can both be territorally contiguous unless he gives away considerable portions he has not even hinted at. 3. The U.S.plan for Israel is, and has been for over 50 years, a small fortified ghetto completely dependent on the U.S. It is difficult to pinpoint his reasons but the best liars are those who have convinced themselves that their lies are the truth. There is a choice of possible reasons for his actions: he wants to be loved by the nations (virtually impossible) and/or he wants lots of money, property and a Greek Island, and/or he wants the Nobel peace prize, and/or he is 'aber botel', i.e. mentally decrepid from old age. His clever manipulations might be due to his advisors. The Prime Minister must appear as a 'strong man' because a large proportion of Israelis are no different from the Arabs in particular in their appreciation of a strong leader. To give this impression he orders the bombing of (empty) buildings and the assasination of Palestinians. He builds a partition fence simply because he has to appear to be doing something concrete. The same applies to his proposed Gaza canal. In the past he had many achievements but hardly any of these have remained or will remain. The Sinai has been given away, Gaza is back to chaos, the Lebanese border is back to dangerous and almost all of the 'settlements' are on their way out. What else has he done besides (unnecessarily, after the fact) losing battle-fodder? Until maybe recently all Israeli decisions on withdrawals were made in secret. I refer to at least one occasion, while Menachem Begin was prime minister, when I personally saw bulldozers arranging the temporary border between Egypt and Israel long before anything was made public. Remember the secret Oslo accords. Many years ago the Prime Minister used to terrorise Arabs, though now his attempts are a lot of hot air. He could still be thought of as a terrorist in that he is trying to terrorise the Jewish inhabitants of Gaza and Yesha into leaving. He isa cutting off virtually all their access to arms to protect themselves and putting their lives at risk in having to leave their enclaves un-armed. He will, besides blockading access to protestors and residents, cut off the settlements' water, electricity and food supplies. He is terrorising people who speak out against him by his use of administrative detention. Every American president is in turn praised by Jews as being the most pro-Israel president ever. The present president is better than his predecessors in that he does not make promises he will not keep - he instead makes no promises, just almost meaningless statements. When American and European politicians publicly pledge their (eternal) support for Israel they mean a small defenceless ghetto. Once there is a Palestinian state it is entitled to let in whosoever and whatever they want, to set up as large an army-cum-police-force as they wish, to prevent Israeli planes from flying over their territory and to deny Israel access to water. (The Prime Minister does not worry about this as he would rather buy water or use high energy methods to produce it - if it was his money he would be different). There is no way Israel can enforce any treaties made beforehand as punitive action will incur the wrath of the nations. These would love to bomb Israel to smithereens. The Arabs are not interested only in oil - but also water. For example the Arabs in the Sudan are terrorising the non-Arab Sudanese out of their land an villages. Besides their inherent cruelty it is also because of a vast water-aquifer under the region. There is no unity amongst the African tribes and they are not interested in interfering unless the presecution is done by whites. Also they need the support of the Arab states. The West is unconcerned as their oil-supply is unaffected. The same will happen if Israel is over-run by Arabs. The U.S. will once again just express their concern and send boats to rescue useful scientists and whatevr American citizens are still alive. A large proportion of religious Jews who wait for the messiah are not concerned by the destruction of holy sites because they do not consider them relevant - just history. When the messiah arrives he will fix everything. The amount of open spaces in Israel is diminishing rapidly, the Jewish-populated areas usually over-crowded, the shikunim inducing claustrophobia. Where will all the sought-after immigrants go - are they to fill up the spaces provided by the Israeli youth who do not want these spatial restrictions on their life-style? I can think of two solutions (besides the messiah solution): 1. The Jews get out of Palestine No matter what Israel concedes it will be forced by the U.S. to make more concessions. Thus, Israel has to stop making any more concessions as there have already been too many. |
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AMERICAN COMPANIES SUPPORT TERRORISM
Posted by Avi Jorisch, September 29, 2004. |
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Key Facts 1. American Internet and Media Companies are actively supporting the two biggest threats to the U.S: Al-Qaeda and Hizbollah. 2. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001 both the executive branch and Congress created some impressive weapons to curb terrorist financing. Executive Order 13224 empowers the U.S. government to impose financial sanctions against those "that support or otherwise associate" with "specially designated global terrorist" (SDGT). Specifically, the SDGT order, in addition to Congress's USA PATRIOT Act (sections 311 and 319), empowers the Treasury Department to take action against the financial structure of terrorist organizations, blocking their fiscal transactions and targeting the banks that support them. 3. Executive Order 12947 and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701-1707) prohibit the provision of "financial, material, or technological support" to any SDGT, while U.S. Code makes it illegal to "knowingly provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization" (Title 18, U.S.C. Section 2339B). Analysis 4. AP's Washington bureau provides services to the Washington Bureau Chief of al-Manar Hizbollah tv, Mohamed Dalbah. AP also provides the satellite link-up necessary to contribute to live broadcasts from al-Manar's Beirut studios. 5. Telestar 5, a California-based company, broadcasts al-Manar's signal to subscribers in North America 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 6. Internet Companies are providing web services and hosting to a number of Al-Qaeda and Hizbollah internet sites. 7. Hizbollah's American supporters include: a. Alabanza Inc., based in Baltimore, Maryland hosts the following sites: 8. Al-Qaeda's American supporters include: a. Everyone's Internet Inc., a Houston-based company hosts Policy Recommendations 9. The U.S. government should establish an office whose sole responsibility it is to monitor terrorist media outlets and see to it that American companies stop doing business with terrorists or punished to the full extent of the law. 10. By monitoring terrorist mass media outlets, and taking swift action against American complicity, we sent the right message that terror is not welcome on our shores 11. Undoubtedly, much of the web-hosting business will go to companies in Europe and elsewhere around the globe. Many of these countries are allies in the war on terror the U.S. could use diplomatic channels to pressure them to close their businesses to terrorist organizations as well. 12. There will undoubtedly be those who will argue that providing these terrorist organizations with Internet services supports freedom of the press. Nothing could be further from the truth. By providing these services, Internet companies are directly promoting terrorist propaganda in return for cash payments . 13. U.S. media companies regularly refuse to run advertisements they deem unacceptable. They should show the same restraint when doing business in the often shadowy Internet byways and when terrorist funds are involved. It's not just their responsibility, it's the law. Avi Jorisch is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and author of "Beacon of Hatred: Inside al-Manar Hizballah Television," which will be published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in October, 2004. |
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TRUE SPEECH VERSUS FREE SPEECH
Posted by Phyllis Chesler, September 28, 2004. |
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This is a letter I wrote to Richard Brodhead,
President of Duke University.
Dear President Brodhead: Greetings! I am writing to you as a member of Duke's extended family of scholars. As you may know, my archives reside at Duke University as part of a distinguished collection of feminist intellectuals and activists. Indeed, my archives were Duke's first major acquisition in this area. You have in your possession a treasure trove of my research, published and unpublished manuscripts, interviews, course curricula, and world wide civil rights activism from the early 1960s on. Duke acquired my papers in 1992 and I have continued to hand over materials ever since. Other important acquisitions that followed mine include those of Kate Millett, Alix Kates Shulman, Merle Hoffman, Robin Morgan, and others. I am also one of 107 signatories to a letter recently sponsored by the Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies addressed to Secretary of State Colin Powell on behalf of the Global Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, (HR 4230), which would have the United States monitor and combat anti-Semitism world-wide. Other signatories include current and former Senators, Congressmen, Ambassadors, theologians, and educators including the Reverend Dr. Joseph Hough, Jr., President of the Union Theological Seminary, Dr. Harold W. Attridge, Dean of the Yale University Divinity School, Dr. Maxine Clarke Beach, Dean of the Drew University Theological School, Sister Rose Thering, author James Carroll, and R. James Woolsey, Jack Kemp, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Cynthia Ozick, Richard Perle, and Gary Wills. I understand that Duke University will be hosting a Palestinian Solidarity Movement (PSM) conference. I also understand that you and certain faculty members believe that doing so constitutes your commitment to free speech and academic freedom. Ironically, Duke will be supporting a group (which is also known as the International Solidarity Movement), which does not believe in free speech or democracy and which endorses violence, mass murder, Jew-hatred, and homicidal-suicide terrorism. But, you might say, America prides itself on extending its civil rights, including that of free speech to racist groups and to their hate speech. Let me respectfully suggest that, post 9/11, America may no longer do so without risking grievous consequences both in terms of lives lost and truth abandoned. President Brodhead: Would you proudly host a Nazi Party or Ku Klux Klan conference in the name of academic freedom? Given your commitment to the First Amendment, would you still allow the meeting to take place behind closed doors with no press allowed? I understand that this is what the Palestine Solidarity Movement conference planners have demanded. As you know, a free and vigorous press is one of our protections against tyranny. What issue cannot bear the cleansing light of scrutiny? But why is Duke giving any intellectual credibility to what is bound to be a hate-fest? Under President Rudenstein, Harvard, which like Duke is also a private institution, resolved that it would not allow any hate-speech conferences. The Harvard Divinity School also returned United Arab Emirate monies from the Sheikh Zayed Foundation no doubt earmarked for such purposes. Perhaps Duke can consider doing this as well. The PSM/ISM are precisely the kinds of groups that European governments, beginning with Germany, have begun to monitor in terms of their terrorism potential. Why is Duke granting them an aura of intellectual respectability? In my view, the masked and hooded members of al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al Fatah, and the al-Aqsa's Martyrs Brigade--which the PSM and their allies support--are far more dangerous than the Nazis or the Klan ever were. Their terrorism against civilians, especially in Israel, but also world-wide, is both state-sanctioned and trans-national. Their propaganda against Jews and Israelis is based on doctored footage, photo-opportunity journalism, and sophisticated post-Orwellian lies. The Palestine Solidarity Movement and their allies chant "Death to the Jews," and "Death to America," at what they describe as peace rallies; they characterize the mass murder of civilians as "resistance to oppression;" they preach the destruction of Israel and the murder of all infidels in Arabic--but then, in English, French, and German, claim that they have been misunderstood, that they really meant the opposite of what they said. President Brodhead: Until now, I have been proud to be associated with Duke. However, as a Duke family member, I am distressed by Duke's decision to host the PSM conference - but I am even more distressed by Duke's failure, so far, to fund and host very different kinds of programs in this area. Some academics and educators might say that PSM's/ISM's hate speech and lies are only words and cannot hurt anyone. They might also say that honoring diverse and controversial words are precisely what American universities should do. At some other time in history, and perhaps in terms of other subjects, I might agree with you. However, the level of hate-propaganda against Israel and Jews is surreal, global, sophisticated, and deadly. During this latest Palestinian-led and Arab and Iranian-backed Intifada, (2000-2004), such propaganda has both led to and yet rendered invisible the highest civilian body count in Israel's history. In American demographic terms, by now America would have suffered approximately 45,000 civilian deaths at the hands of terrorists and approximately 280,000 civilians wounded, often seriously, and for life. More than half would have been women and children. Only Israel's unilateral creation of a security barrier has begun to staunch the flood of Israeli blood. The Islamists, whom the PSM support, torture and impoverish their own people, sacrifice their own children, practice slavery, and commit genocide. They terrorize their own citizens, especially intellectuals, women, and homosexuals. Nevertheless, many "politically correct" academics have romanticized these barbarians--even the billionaire bin Laden and the multi-millionaire Arafat--as humiliated and impoverished freedom fighters.
I have written about this betrayal of the truth and of the Jews in my twelfth and latest book: "The New Anti-Semitism. The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It." Most "politically correct" academics, including feminists, have joined left-alliances which single out only Israel for imaginary crimes and misdemeanors. They say that Israel is an Apartheid and Nazi state; it is not. But, as one of Duke's pioneer feminists, let me indeed briefly focus on Apartheid as a feminist issue. Islam today is the largest practitioner of both gender and religious Apartheid in the world. Women who live under Islam are, variously, murdered outright in honor killings and oppressed by forced veiling, segregation, sequestration, stoning to death for alleged adultery, female genital mutilation, polygamy, forced marriage to men old enough to be their grandfather, and by domestic and sexual slavery. Women have few, if any, civil, legal, or human rights under Islam today. In addition, under Islam, all non-Muslims: Christians, Jews, Assyrians, Hindus, Zoroastrians, animists--have historically been viewed and treated as subhuman and accorded "dhimmi" status. Today, except for the small country of Israel, all 22 nation states in the Arab Muslim Middle East are Judenrein (free of Jews); Christians there remain at serious risk. You will probably not hear anyone at the PSM conference address Apartheid in this way and to fail to do so is to fail the requirements of objectivity and scholarship. "Free" speech is not always "true" speech. Universities have an obligation to teach the truth as much as they may also wish to model tolerance for all speech, including that which bears no relationship to the truth. Thus, in the interests of free, true speech, may I suggest that Duke: [*] Allow the media in to cover the PSM conference. [*] Allow the conference to be taped so that you and others will see what is being said. [*] Sponsor a pro-democracy and pro-Israel conference, one which reflects a wide spectrum of opinion, not only that of the left-wing Israeli Oslo and Geneva accordianists. This should be an inter-faith and inter-disciplinary effort. The Jewish community should not be expected to monitor Jew-hatred and educate against it by themselves. In addition, such a conference should feature Arab Christians, as well as Lebanese Maronite Christians who are the descendants of Phoenicians and pre-date the Arab conquest of Arabia. [*] Sponsor an international conference on Gender and Religious Apartheid. [*] Sponsor a conference on the feminist challenge to and transformation of patriarchal religions. As yet, perhaps due to funding limitations, none of my extensive work as a feminist activist within Judaism and within Israel, especially as a co-leader of the Women of the Wall struggle in Jerusalem, has been made available to scholars or Duke students nor has any of my work as an anti-racist activist--not only on behalf of minorities of color but also on behalf of Jews--been made available. We live in dangerous times. Keeping a low and "neutral" profile, trying to please and appease all sides--especially the most violent side-- is unwise. One must take a stand against radical evil and injustice. I hope and pray that you will do exactly that. All the best,
Phyllis Chesler, Ph.D., is the author of twelve books including her latest, "The New Anti-Semitism. The Current Crisis And What We Must Do About It." She is working on a new book about the importance of independent thinking for Palgrave-Macmillan (St. Martin's). She may be reached through her website www.Phyllis-Chesler.com. |
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NEWEST ASSAULT ON FREE SPEECH IN ISRAEL
Posted by Steven Plaut, September 28, 2004. |
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1. New assault on Israeli democracy and freedom of speech by the
leftist Attorney General appointed by Ariel Sharon:
(http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/482560.html) "Mazuz eases rules
for police probing incitement," by Yuval Yoaz.
Attorney General Menachem Mazuz yesterday gave the police more power to to open incitement investigations and ruled that in certain cases they will no longer need prosecution approval. Under the new rules, any commander of a police national investigation squad or head of a regional investigations department will be able to order certain types of incitement investigations. Mazuz said he issued the directive because of "the sensitive period we are in, whose sensitivity, according to all the signs, will only intensify." Police will be able to open incitement probes on their own authority if someone publicly and explicitly calls for the use of violence against an elected official or any other specific individual, or if someone publicly and explicitly incites to general racism - for instance, by yelling "death to the Arabs!" at a soccer match or demonstration. If the alleged incitement took place before a crowd, police will have full powers to investigate, up to and including arresting the suspect. If the incitement was via the media or over the Internet, police will be able to start the investigation and collect evidence, but will need prosecution approval to question the suspect. If the call to violence was only implicit, however, or if the suspected incitement consisted only of praising or expressing sympathy for the use of violence, police will still need the prosecution's approval even to start the probe. In those cases, the prosecution will have to decide whether the evidence justifies launching an investigation. Mazuz issued his directive in response to requests from the police in recent weeks for clearer guidance on when they have the power to open incitement probes on their own initiative. Incitement probes are considered a particularly sensitive area, both because they restrict free speech and because they entail "predicting the future" - a person can be convicted of incitement only if there is a "real possibility" the words will lead to actual violence. **** It goes without saying that the new rules of unfree speech will NOT be used to prosecute pro-genocide Arab fascists nor pro-terror Israeli Jewish leftists supporting the annihilation of Israel and endorsing anti-Semitic people and groups. See also http://web.israelinsider.com/Views/4175.htmt
TORONTO - Yusuf Islam, the British singer formerly known as Cat Stevens, was the guest of honour at a Toronto fundraising dinner hosted by an organization that has since been identified by the Canadian government as a "front" for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. In a videotape of the 1998 event obtained by the National Post, Mr. Islam describes Israel as a "so-called new society" created by a "so-called religion" and urges the audience to donate to the Jerusalem Fund for Human Services to "lessen the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Palestine and the Holy Land." The Jerusalem Fund is one of four "fronts" named in a secret Privy Council Office memo that was sent to Jean Chretien, then prime minister, on May 23, 2000, discussing what it called groups that "have unsavoury links with terrorism. "In a limited number of cases, fundraising in support of violent foreign struggles takes place in Canada through the cover of ethnic, religious or community-based associations and groups, lobbying and even criminal activity," the report says. "Front groups operating in Canada include the Jerusalem Fund for Human Services (Hamas Front), the World Tamil Movement (Tamil Tigers Front), the Canadian Kurdish Information Network (Kurdistan Workers Party Front) and the Babbar Khalsa (a Sikh extremist front)." Hamas, also known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, is responsible for most of the suicide bombings against Israelis. Canada has outlawed Hamas under federal anti-terrorism legislation, making it illegal to support the group. Best known for his hit songs in the 1960s and '70s, when he was known as Cat Stevens, Mr. Islam, 56, a Muslim convert, made headlines last week when his flight from London to Washington was diverted to Maine because his name appeared on a U.S. watch list. He was expelled from the United States for national security reasons. "Yusuf Islam was placed on the watch list because of activities that could be potentially related to terrorism," a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security told reporters. The expulsion was criticized by Muslim groups, and Mr. Islam denies any ties to terrorism. "I never knowingly gave any terrorist group money," he said after being deported from Israel in 2000. "I've given to poor people and hospitals. I've helped to buy ambulances in the Holy Land. Obviously quite clear and supportable aims." But on June 20, 1998, Mr. Islam gave the keynote address at a Jerusalem Fund fundraising dinner held in Toronto. The event was videotaped, and a copy was obtained by the SITE Institute, a U.S. terrorism research organization. The video opens with a scene of Niagara Falls, overlayed with the Jerusalem Fund logo, which features the al-Aqsa Mosque and the maple leaf. It begins with an unidentified man explaining the activities of the Jerusalem Fund, which he describes as "helping the Muslims in Palestine" by financing hospitals, health clinics, families in need and orphans. "Palestine is close to the heart of each and every Muslim. What the Muslims of Palestine have been doing for many years now has been that bright light shining, that hope ... that they are still believers that can raise the banner of jihad in the most difficult of circumstances." Mr. Islam then begins a 45-minute speech in English in which he says it is "intolerable" for Muslims to "stand and watch" the situation in the Middle East. He describes Jerusalem as the centre of a land that is holy because of its connection to Allah. "So this city which is blessed because of its religious nature. Therefore, what we see today is the result of the departure of religion from this area, of the uprooting of religion. So many of the people of the faith have been exiled from this region, moved on, to make way for what? Strangely and ironically, they moved on in the name of so-called religion, on behalf of ... the Jews. "Of course, that would explain what is happening. Because the moment that religion and religious virtues disappear, there for sure follows trouble, tyranny, oppression," he says. "So what do we see then today? The concoction of a so-called new society based on an old society." He says there could be "no redeemer except Allah. No political concept or construct or treaty or agent except the laws of Allah, which he instructed for this world. Jerusalem is that, the symbol of that. Out of the hands of the righteous then it falls into disrepute and blood. "Jerusalem, al-Quds, it is a mirror reflecting the reality ... If it is dark, if it is bloody, then so too is the world. Today it reflects injustice of the secular man over the religious man. And how can the secular man be given the control and the sanctuary of the divine place of worship when he doesn't even respect what is holy? How? And how can those of faith allow that to happen? Therefore, peace will not return until we return to the Holy Land." Steven Plaut is an American-trained economist, a professor of business administration at Haifa University and author of "The Scout." He frequently comments - both seriously and satirically - on Israeli politics and the left wing academic community. His website address is http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com. |
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ANOTHER PROOF OF OUR RAISON D'ETRE THAT THIS IS OUR HOMELAND
Posted by Mordechai Ben-Menachem, September 28, 2004. |
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This article is called
"Solving a Riddle Written in Silver" and was written by
John Noble Wilford.
The words are among the most familiar and ecumenical in the liturgies of Judaism and Christianity. At the close of a worship service, the rabbi, priest or pastor delivers, with only slight variations, the comforting and fortifying benediction: "May the Lord bless you and keep you; may the Lord cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; may the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and grant you peace." An archaeological discovery in 1979 revealed that the Priestly Benediction, as the verse from Numbers 6:24-26 is called, appeared to be the earliest biblical passage ever found in ancient artifacts. Two tiny strips of silver, each wound tightly like a miniature scroll and bearing the inscribed words, were uncovered in a tomb outside Jerusalem and initially dated from the late seventh or early sixth century B.C. - some 400 years before the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. But doubts persisted. The silver was cracked and corroded, and many words and not a few whole lines in the faintly scratched inscriptions were unreadable. Some critics contended that the artifacts were from the third or second century B.C., and thus of less importance in establishing the antiquity of religious concepts and language that became part of the Hebrew Bible. So researchers at the University of Southern California have now re-examined the inscriptions using new photographic and computer imaging techniques. The words still do not exactly leap off the silver. But the researchers said they could finally be "read fully and analyzed with far greater precision," and that they were indeed the earliest. In a scholarly report published this month, the research team concluded that the improved reading of the inscriptions confirmed their greater antiquity. The script, the team wrote, is indeed from the period just before the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. by Nebuchadnezzar and the subsequent exile of Israelites in Babylonia. The researchers further reaffirmed that the scrolls "preserve the earliest known citations of texts also found in the Hebrew Bible and that they provide us with the earliest examples of confessional statements concerning Yahweh." Some of the previously unreadable lines seemed to remove any doubt about the purpose of the silver scrolls: they were amulets. Unrolled, one amulet is nearly four inches long and an inch wide and the other an inch and a half long and about half an inch wide. The inscribed words, the researchers said, were "intended to provide a blessing that will be used to protect the wearer from some manner of evil forces." The report in The Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research was written by Dr. Gabriel Barkay, the archaeologist at Bar-Ilan University in Israel who discovered the artifacts, and collaborators associated with Southern California's West Semitic Research Project. The project leader is Dr. Bruce Zuckerman, a professor of Semitic languages at U.S.C., who worked with Dr. Marilyn J. Lundberg, a Hebrew Bible specialist with the project, and Dr. Andrew G. Vaughn, a biblical historian at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn. A companion article for next month's issue of the magazine Near Eastern Archaeology describes the new technology used in the research. The article is by the same authors, as well as Kenneth Zuckerman, Dr. Zuckerman's brother and a specialist in photographing ancient documents. Other scholars not affiliated with the research but familiar with it agreed with the group's conclusions. They said it was a relief to have the antiquity and authenticity of the artifacts confirmed, considering that other inscriptions from biblical times have suffered from their uncertain provenance. Scholars also noted that early Hebrew inscriptions were a rarity, and called the work on the amulets a significant contribution to an understanding of the history of religion in ancient Israel, particularly the time of the Judean Monarchy 2,600 years ago. "These photographs are far superior to what you can see looking at the inscriptions with the naked eye," said Dr. Wayne Pitard, professor of the Hebrew Bible and ancient Near Eastern religions at the University of Illinois. Dr. Pitard said the evidence for the antiquity of the benediction was now compelling, although this did not necessarily mean that the Book of Numbers already existed at that time. Possibly it did, he added, but if not, at least some elements of the book were current before the Babylonian exile. A part of the sacred Torah of Judaism (the first five books of the Bible), Numbers includes a narrative of the Israelite wanderings from Mount Sinai to the east side of the Jordan River. Some scholars think the Torah was compiled in the time of the exile. A number of other scholars, the so-called minimalists, who are influential mainly in Europe, argue that the Bible was a relatively recent invention by those who took control of Judea in the late fourth century B.C. In this view, the early books of the Bible were largely fictional to give the new rulers a place in the country's history and thus a claim to the land. "The new research on the inscriptions suggests that that's not true," Dr. Pitard said. In fact, the research team noted in its journal report that the improved images showed the seventh-century lines of the benediction to be "actually closer to the biblical parallels than previously recognized." Dr. P. Kyle McCarter of Johns Hopkins University, a specialist in ancient Semitic scripts, said the research should "settle any controversy over these inscriptions." A close study, Dr. McCarter said, showed that the handwriting is an early style of Hebrew script and the letters are from an old Hebrew alphabet, which had all but ceased to be used after the destruction of Jerusalem. Later Hebrew writing usually adopted the Aramaic alphabet. There was an exception in the time of Roman rule, around the first centuries B.C. and A.D. The archaic Hebrew script and letters were revived and used widely in documents. But Dr. McCarter noted telling attributes of the strokes of the letters and the spelling on the amulets that, he said, ruled out the more recent date for the inscriptions. Words in the revived Hebrew writing would have included letters indicating vowel sounds. The benediction, the scholar said, was written in words spelled entirely with consonants, the authentic archaic way. The two silver scrolls were found in 1979 deep inside a burial cave in a hillside known as Ketef Hinnom, west of the Old City of Jerusalem. Dr. Barkay, documenting the context of the discovery, noted that the artifacts were at the back of the tomb embedded in pottery and other material from the seventh or sixth centuries B.C. Such caves were reused for burials over many centuries. Near this tomb's entrance were artifacts from the fourth century, but nothing so recent remains in the undisturbed recesses. It took Dr. Barkay another seven years before he felt sure enough of what he had to announce details of the discovery. Even then, for all their microscopic examination of the inscriptions at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, scholars remained frustrated by the many unreadable words and lines. About a decade ago, Dr. Barkay enlisted the help of Dr. Zuckerman, whose team had earned a reputation for achieving the near-impossible in photographing illegible ancient documents. Working with scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Dr. Zuckerman's group used advanced infrared imagining systems enhanced by electronic cameras and computer image-processing technology to draw out previously invisible writing on a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The researchers also pioneered electronic techniques for reproducing missing pieces of letters on documents. By examining similar letters elsewhere in the text, they were able to recognize half of a letter and reconstruct the rest of it in a scribe's own peculiar style. "We learned a lot from work on the Dead Sea Scrolls," Dr. Zuckerman said. "But at first a processing job like this would send your computers into cardiac arrest. We had to wait for computer technology to catch up with our needs." As the researchers said in their magazine article, the only reasonably clear aspect of the inscriptions was the Priestly Benediction. Other lines preceding or following the prayer "could barely be seen." To get higher-definition photographs of the inscriptions, Ken Zuckerman applied an old photographer's technique called "light painting," brought up to date by the use of fiber-optic technology. He used a hand-held light in an otherwise dark room to illuminate a spot on the artifact during a time exposure. In addition, he photographed the artifact at different angles, which made the scratched letters shine in stark relief. The next step was to convert the pictures to digital form, making possible computer processing that brought out "the subtleties of the surface almost at the micron level." This analysis was particularly successful in joining a partial letter stroke on one side of a crack with the rest of the stroke on the other side. It also enabled the researchers to restore fragments of letters to full legibility by matching them with clear letters from elsewhere in the text. In this way, the researchers filled in more of the letters and words of the benediction itself and for the first time deciphered meaningful words and phrases in the lines preceding the benediction. Scholars were particularly intrigued by a statement on the smaller artifact. It reads: "May h[e]/sh[e] be blessed by YHWH, the warrior/helper, and the rebuker of Evil." Referring to God, Yahweh, as the "rebuker of Evil" is similar to language used in the Bible and in various Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars said. The phraseology is also found in later incantations and amulets associated with Israel, evidence that these artifacts were also amulets, researchers concluded. "In the ancient world, amulets were taken quite seriously," Dr. Zuckerman said. "There's evil out there, demons, and you need protection. Having this around your neck, you are involving God's presence and protection against harm." Dr. Esther Eshel, a professor of the Bible at Bar-Ilan and an authority on Hebrew inscriptions, said this was the earliest example of amulets from Israel. But she noted that the language of the benediction was similar to a blessing ("May he bless you and keep you") found on a jar from the eighth century B.C. If the new findings are correct, the people who wore these amulets may have died before they had to face the limitations of their efficacy. They might then have asked in uncomprehending despair, "Where was Yahweh when the Babylonians swooped down on Jerusalem?" Other scholars, including those previously skeptical, will soon be analyzing the improved images. In a departure from usual practices, the researchers not only published their findings in a standard print version in a journal but also as an accompanying "digital article," a CD version of the article and the images to allow scholars to examine and manipulate the data themselves. The research group said, "As far as we are aware, this is the first article to be done in this fashion, but it certainly will not be the last." Mordechai Ben-Menachem is at Ben Gurion University. He can be reached by email at quality@acm.org |
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PALESTINIAN HATE VIDEOS REFLECT IDEOLOGY ISRAEL BEHIND ALL WORLD TERROR AND WARS
Posted by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook, September 28, 2004. |
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PMW received numerous inquiries requesting further elaboration about the visual message that "Israel is to blame for all world terror and suffering" of the last century, expressed in the new PA hate video that was publicized last week in a PMW Bulletin. Palestinian Authority hate videos for children do not spring up in a vacuum but mirror PA society's deep hatred of, and libels against, Jews. As farfetched as it seems to the normal mind to presume Jews have been responsible for all evil and are represent an ongoing danger to the world, two additional items appeared this week in official PA media, which demonstrate that this video for children reflects the reality of their adult mentors. In one a political leader presents the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the infamous forgery that presents a Jewish plan to rule the world, as an authentic Jewish - Zionist plan. In the other a religious leader talks about the dangers Jews are to all humanity - since the time of Muhammad. Note the items below come from different parts of society, reflecting both official PA religious and political establishment ideology. Friday sermon on PA TV by Mudayris, Sept. 24, 2004 "Why did Allah move the direction one faces in prayer from the Al-Aqsa Mosque (Jerusalem) to the Al-Haram Mosque (in Mecca)" The reason is those [Jews] who are the cause of all catastrophes on earth, The reason for it is those [Jews] who spit their poisons in the international and regional level, and [even] more so in the domestic level, those [Jews] who are the reason for every disaster of the world disasters, they are the reason for moving the direction of prayer from the Al-Aqsa to the Ka'aba. These are the Jews, Allah's curse upon them ..." Protocols of the Elders of Zion - an authentic work in PA society. "Recently, issue 64 of the 'Al-Shahada' magazine was published ... In the editorial, the chief editor and general political commissioner of the military forces of the border regions, Ahmad Hilles, dealt with "the war of morale and will" ... The issue included ... research on the topic of the Zionist danger as appears in the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' ..." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, official PA daily, Sept. 20, 2004, supplement of the Political and National Education] Itamar Marcus is director of PMW -Palestinian Media Watch - (http://www.pmw.org.il). Barbara Crook, a writer and university lecturer based in Ottawa, Canada, is PMW's North American representative. |
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ARAB IMMIGRATION TO ISRAEL
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 28, 2004. |
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P.A. PRIME MINISTER APPROVES OF TERRORISM PM Qurei said that Hamas would be justified in retaliating for the IDF bombing of a Hamas terrorist training camp in Gaza (Arutz-7, 9/8). The appointment of a PM was called a "reform." NO HOPE FOR P.A. REFORM "It is becoming increasingly plain that the notion of Palestinian (Arab) 'reform' is a farce. Even more farcical is the notion that genuine reforms ever could spring from Arafat's ranks. This is not merely because they remain answerable to Arafat. Rather, it is because they remain his ideological fellow-travelers, and whatever differences they may have politically or tactically disappear as far as Israel is concerned." (Foreign Ministry, 9/8 from Jer. Post.) This is a point I have been making for years, but Pres. Bush still does not comprehend. The point indicates that the drive to "give peace a chance" was misguided. Give victory a chance! ARAB IMMIGRATION TO ISRAEL In the past four years, an estimated 45,000 Arabs have moved to Israel, mostly illegally. They come primarily from the Territories and from Jordan. Whole families plunk themselves down in Jerusalem and in Arab towns. The Arab localities harbor them knowingly, enroll them in the free public schools, and give them credentials for welfare benefits as if they were citizens. The study asked various Israeli officials what they know of this, whether they study it, and what remedies they suggest. They didn't know, don't study it, and offer no remedy. They considered the subject a delicate one, whose answer might draw international criticism (Arutz-7, 9/8). What doesn't Israel draw international criticism for? There needn't be an justice to the criticism, the point of criticizing Israel is to criticize Israel. The Israeli officials don't know the first thing about defending their country from the internal thereat. They have not learned that salvation trumps political correctness. Their first reaction to criticism is to plead for understanding. Mine would be to castigate the critics for hypocrisy or bias. EU REACTIONS TO "DISENGAGEMENT PLAN" Misinformed EU officials imagined that Sharon's plan for abandoning areas is part of the Road Map. The EU officials said that no Israeli official had apprised them of these matters Finally an Israeli official disillusioned them. The Road Map has conditions for both sides, but Sharon's plan is unilateral. The Map calls for transfer, but Sharon's calls for abandonment. Sharon says he cannot fulfill the Map because there is no responsible authority in the P.A. and the P.A. has met none of the conditions required (Arutz-7, 9/8). Can't they compare Map and Sharon's plan, and see the difference? Lazy, aren't they! They take strong diplomatic positions on matters of life and death for millions in other countries, without adequately informing themselves beforehand. But both plans concede to terrorism. FUNCTION OF ROADBLOCKS Roadblocks are the last line of defense between the hostile P.A. and downtown Jerusalem! Having parked near one in an area populated by Arab aliens, Women in Green brought snacks to the soldiers. Ten minutes later they returned to find all their tires slashed. Obviously, Arab residents do not approve of succoring the soldiers guarding their country. They approve of the medical and welfare benefits conferred upon them by Israel (Op. Cit.). JORDAN POPULATION TREND Jordan's population increase is 2.8%. Religious tradition restrains a population planning program that seeks to reduce the rate to 1.5%. That's population increase, not birth rate. The population problem in Jordan is out of control (IMRA, 9/8). The Arab population explosion is fueling a mass-migration to the West, which then finds itself infected with local jihadists. SHARON'S GREAT SELF-CONTRADICTION PM Sharon is preparing ethnic cleansing of the Jews from Gaza. At the same time, he is ordering the Army to seize a part of Gaza from which the most rockets are being launched against Israel. His self-contradiction is in promulgating unilaterally a plan to remove Jews from Gaza to reduce alleged contact and friction, and sending the Army in because the friction lies in the Arab war, which they now wage from Gaza by rockets and therefore without contact on the ground. If the Jewish residents are moved out, but the Army moves in, then there will have been no point to the abandonment of the communities built at great expense. If the Army then pulls out, too, Gaza would become a "giant rocket launching pad." (Prof. Steven Plaut, 9/8, e-mail.) THE LEFT SLANDERS THE RELIGIOUS The Israeli Left exploited the assassination of Rabin to malign Yesha rabbis. The slander alleged that Rabbis urged the murder. No evidence ever was adduced that rabbis gave such advice or that it influenced the supposed murderer (actually, the murder was one of the Rabin campaign's dirty tricks, which included incitement against Rabin that the campaign then hypocritically denounced. One rabbi made some theoretical statement that secularists distorted into a sinister meaning that any religious person would know it didn't have). Now some rabbis urge the government to smash the terrorist military apparatus, suggesting that it avoid unnecessary collateral casualties but not refrain from needed action just because there might be some civilian casualties. Those would be normal measures and within the recognized bounds of international law. These measures would be humane towards Israel's own people. The Far Left Meretz Party is petitioning to indict the rabbis, as if their request for normal military protection were incitement to murder and racism. Meretz does not cavil at constant Arab racism and demands for murder, but seeks prosecution of religious and nationalist Jews for expressing their wish for protection from that racism and murder. The Far Left does not believe in free speech for opponents. (It doesn't have much of a democratic tradition in Israel.) Israel's anti-racism law has never been used against the Arabs, who preach the murder of Jews as "enemies of mankind." (Op. Cit..) "Haaretz" accuses the rabbis of fanaticism for not allowing for negotiated resolution (9/9, Foreign Ministry). All Arab negotiations have been deceptive. SYRIA TRIES OLD TRICK The Syrian Army has begun dismantling bases near Beirut, and redeploying the troops elsewhere in Lebanon, especially in the Bekaa Valley (near Syria and where narcotics are cultivated). Syria hopes that this move would be perceived by the UNO, or used as an excuse, for dropping the Security Council demand that Syria withdraw from Lebanon altogether. It is not likely to have that effect (Joseph Panossian, NY Sun, 9/22, p.7). Syria did this once before. The Arabs are masters at foiling resolution against them by various forms of procrastination, such as negotiating interminably, making false promises, reshuffling Cabinet posts, and making excuses, denying responsibility, and falsely accusing opponents. BUSH AT THE UNO Pres. Bush touted democracy as truly stabilizing, compared with dictatorial repression that the US formerly supported. He declared that a free Iraq would chill terrorist ambition, but denied any clash of civilization. Peace would not be achieved by P.A. rulers who "intimidate opposition, tolerate corruption, and maintain ties to terrorist groups." Let world leaders "withdraw all favor and support" from such P.A. rulers. In furtherance of the Map, Israel should "impose a settlement freeze, dismantle unauthorized outposts, end the daily humiliation of the Palestinian people (sic) and avoid any actions that prejudice final negotiations." Arab states "should end incitement in their own media, cut off public and private funding for terrorism, and establish normal relations with Israel." (Likelihood?) The speech was coldly received at the UNO, most of whose members are just such dictators (Benny Avni, NY Sun, 9/22, p.4) -- participants in the clash of civilizations and their appeasers. Of course there is a clash, of religions. Pres. Bush ought to know that jihad is occurring all over the world, often militarily but mostly building up to it. That is why Arab governments broadcast mosque sermons calling for the deaths of Americans and Jews. By denying this, he weakens our side and exposes that weakness to the other side, which gains in morale at the spectacle of Western failure to identify the enemy. The European democracies, beset with what in individuals is called low self-esteem, are ashamed to defend Western civilization. Bush failed to identify the enemy in the P.A. as the whole culture and people there. Almost all of them support terrorism. Their leaders do not just maintain ties to terrorist groups; they run the P.A., itself, as a terrorist group. They don't just tolerate corruption; they share in it. Terrorism and corruption are the raison d'etre of the P.A., don't you know. While calling on other world leaders to "withdraw all favor and support from such P.A. rulers, the US supplies it, including restraining Israel from liquidating Mr. Arafat, and training P.A. murderers. It was big of our President to admit past US faults in policy, but hypocritical in that he still supports the Saudi dictatorship, condones the Syrian one, and is trying to create a Palestinian Arab one. He will not get deserved credit for the admission, nor deserved rebuke for the hypocritical attempt to set up an Arab dictatorship. Lip service about making the P.A. democratic does not keep the US from wanting to proceed with the Road Map that would make sovereign that enemy of its US midwife. It would be a sovereign terrorist state. What an ignoble US goal! The criticism of Israel was meant to be seen as a balance for criticism of the Arabs. So was the equating by Sec. Gen. Annan of terrorism with Israel's "excessive use of force." Israel's problem is insufficient use of force to destroy aggressor Arab armies and regimes. The denunciation of Israel for "excessive use of force" is part of the anti-Zionist bias that objects to any Jewish self-defense as offensive to Jew-haters. It also is due to a false notion of balance. Criticism of one side, they think, must be "balanced" by criticism of the other side, deserved or not. I think that further hypocrisy lay in Bush's cautioning Israel not to prejudice negotiations. He implied that Israel should not build further in Yesha, but the Arabs may. If he is willing for the Arabs to prejudice negotiations by establishing facts on the ground, then he is prejudiced in behalf of the Arabs. That is proved by his Map requiring only Israel not to build. The accusation that Israel daily humiliates the Palestinian Arabs, is slander. It is taken from propaganda devised by the Arabs and passed on to their leftist and appeasement-minded supporters. They have the temerity to call inspection of Arabs coming in to Israel "humiliation." Many passengers landing in the US are inspected. If Israeli inspection is humiliation, isn't US inspection? If US inspection is not humiliation, why is Israel's? More hypocrisy. If only Sen. Kerry seized upon that as a campaign issue. But he can't. He is no better. Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target overviews. He distributes his essays by email. To subscribe, write him at ricshulman@aol.com. |
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THE UNJUSTICE SYSTEM
Posted by Aryeh Zelasko, September 28, 2004. |
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While strictly speaking, it is too early to have an opinion on this
event. I assume, however, on the basis of past incidents that this is
more official harassment of "settlers" by Israel's unJustice system.
This is a news item from Arutz Sheva and is archived at http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=69584 Police Requesting Extended Remand of Shomron Resident (IsraelNN.com) Police today will request the extended remand of a Shomron resident who was arrested yesterday after firing at an Arab van driver whom he believed was intending to run him down. The suspect was standing on the side of the road near Itamar waiting for a ride when he noticed the van heading directly at him at a high speed. He told police that he attempted to signal the driver in an effort to ascertain his intentions but the driver continued heading towards him, prompting him to pull his licensed weapon and fire. The driver was killed. Aryeh Zelasko lives in Beitar Illit, south of Jerusalem. He is Director of Sales and Marketing of Israel Visit (www.israelvisit.co.il) which provides information and an internet buying facility for American visitors to Israel. |
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DEFENSE ESTABLISHMENT MULLS CONFISCATING SETTLERS' WEAPONS
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 27, 2004. |
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MA'ARIV September 27, 2004: "Report: Senior ISA official, who brought up the idea, says arms should be collected to prevent possibility that the weapons would constitute a threat to evacuating forces." By Amir Buhbut "A Senior ISA official has suggested to begin the process of rounding up weapons from settlers in Gush Katif ahead of the expected Gaza pullout, Channel 10 revealed last (Sunday 9/26) night. "During a meeting of top defense brass including Mofaz, the senior official explained that arms must be collected ahead of the implementation of the disengagement plan in order to prevent a possibility that the weapons would constitute a threat to evacuating forces. "According to the official, the weapons that are used to protect the settlements from terrorist infiltrations are to be taken as well, but only in a gradual manner so as not to harm the level of security in the communities. "Another senior official told NRG Maariv that the option was being considered. 'It is important to stress that no decisions have yet to be reached. This idea will be considered with other proposals,' he said." (2004-09-27 00:29:5.0) WINSTON COMMENTS: Not surprising, since the first attempt to confiscate the weapons of Israeli citizens in Judea and Samaria was the Rabin-Peres ploy - according to a reliable source who ought to remain anonymous. They started by going to the settlements and demanding to inspect the armory of the settlements - seeming to check their operational ability. 'Somehow' the arms they took to inspect were either not returned or they were kept so long that they made the settlers vulnerable to Arab Muslim attack. Even officers of the region had to turn over their personal side arms which were usually never returned. Leftists have always hated those they pejoratively call 'settlers' (forgetting that they began themselves as settlers in kibbutzim to 'settle' the nascent State to be born in the Land of Israel.) They recognized that, by comparison, they were a low political movement who seemed to never want the territories valued by post-1967 Zionists who found Israel's ancient history in her heartland. Add to the tendency to confiscate, the fact that ammunition was kept in short supply, insuring that settlements would not have enough sustaining power to hold off human wave attacks promised by the Arab Muslim Terrorists. This was part of the earlier plan of the Oslo Accords now picked up by PM Sharon as he tries to weaken the Pioneering Settlers prior to their being uprooted, evicted and evacuated. Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). |
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MEDIA SPIN ON "ISRAELI SHOOTS AND KILLS PALESTINIAN NEAR ITAMAR"
Posted by Emanuel A. Winston, September 27, 2004. |
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PLEASE NOTE: THERE ARE 3 ARTICLES AS PRINTED MONDAY & TUESDAY - PLUS MY COMMENTS & QUESTIONS. STORY AS IT APPEARED ON MONDAY in the JERUSALEM POST: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid =1096259489005 "Israeli shoots and kills Palestinian near Itamar" by Matthew Gutman, THE JERUSALEM POST Sep. 27, 2004 "Judea and Samaria Police reported that an Israeli man shot and killed a Palestinian civilian in the area of Eilon Moreh east of Nablus Monday afternoon. The Israeli, a resident of Itamar's Gidonim outpost in the West Bank, said he opened fire after a Palestinian minivan tried to run him off the road. "However, Palestinian witnesses said the Israeli fired without provocation. According to eyewitness reports, the Palestinian minivan had turned down a dirt path between the settlements of Itamar and Eilon Moreh, reportedly to avoid a checkpoint, which led the van to a settlement bypass road. The settler, whose car was stopped on the side of the road, exited his car, cocking an M16 rifle as he walked across the road, eyewitnesses reported. When the minivan eased onto the small road the suspect shot a single bullet at the Palestinian driver, identified as Sayel Jubara, killing him almost instantly as the bullet penetated his arm and pierced through his chest. According to Israeli law, only soldiers are allowed to carry assault rifles outside of the immediate lands of Gaza and West Bank settlements. "The van was carrying five additional passingers at the time of the fatal shooting, and the eyewitnesses gave testimonies to the police. Ahmed Mohammed Shtiyeh, who saw the entire incident from inside the van, accused the settler of cold-blooded murder. "I saw him drive up, park the car and get out," Shtiyeh said. "When we went over the hump, he shot Sayel from a very close up." The suspect's story, however, contradicts eyewitness reports. He told police that he shot at the Palestinian van in self-defense, after the van had tried to run him over. In view of information collected at the site, IDF sources said that it does not appear that the Palestinian van tried to run the man over as he claims. The suspect was arrested by Judea and Samaria Police. Police are continuing investigation into the incident and have already filed a re-enactment of crime on Monday afternoon." Winston comments: It has been reported by an enthusiastic NPR reporter, Linda Gradstein that "a settler has shot a Palestinian taxi driver who he said attempted to force him off the road. The settler reported it to the Police Station." Keep in mind that, being forced off the road in the winding, hilly roads of Judea and Samaria can mean landing upside down and dead These are not broad American highways with neatly leveled shoulders. No doubt, this incident is one that will be used by PM Sharon and the Leftists in the Media and Knesset to prove that Israelis who live in the territories are unreliable and therefore dangerous. Allow me to share with you two incidents that happened to me personally. In one incident I was driving with my wife to Shilo. It was then a two lane straight road and wide enough for large trucks. We were in a Volvo station wagon. An on-coming Dump Truck with license plates indicating it was Palestinian was approaching in his lane. He then swerved into half of my lane which forced me to swerve onto the rough grade shoulder with a deep ditch beyond. He missed me but not because he didn't try. I happen to be an excellent defensive driver. Had he succeeded, I have little doubt that my wife and I would either be dead or critically injured. In another incident, we had just left the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv main Route One road and headed south from the Latrun turn-off. I don't recall the name of the road. As we were driving in our Volvo station wagon, we picked up a tail. It was a French Peugeot with Palestinian license plates and had four Arabs as passengers and driver. The reason I mention the Volvo station wagon is because it was well-known that Members of Knesset were provided with such vehicles and, therefore, we probably looked like we were of some political importance as a target of opportunity. At this point I must qualify myself as a professional driver so my observations are not dismissed too lightly. I have driven most everything that moves. As a young man I drove a taxi; I drove tow trucks; trucks in the mountains of Colorado; I have a farm pickup and have had numerous cars. I am a qualified professional driver both for most vehicles and for observing traffic and drivers' behavior. Therefore, when I caught this Peugeot tailing us, I picked up speed on a very winding road. The Peugeot tailed me. I had my wife and youngest son in the car with me. My senses told me that this was not merely an innocent driver challenging me for a fast ride. So I stepped on the gas and pulled around large trucks on blind curves. Dangerous, but accomplishable. After a 15 minute chase, I lost him. When I arrived at my destination at Lakhish, I met my friend who was a Reserve Special Forces Commando. I explained what went on and he declared that we were lucky and that I could drive better than most typical drivers. He then commented that several soldiers had been kidnapped and murdered on that road by Arab Muslims. The point being that Palestinians have used their vehicles as attack weapons and most drivers in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Golan Heights are aware of it. Linda Gradstein, always a pro-Arab Jewess spokeswomen for NPR may be delighted to report that "a settler shot a Palestinian driver" but the fact is that numerous Palestinian drivers have, with deliberation, crashed into Israeli vehicles and tried to hit pedestrians. Very few are declared Terrorist attacks, but rather "traffic accidents"....Except for a few notable exceptions. Do you recall when the Israeli bus was forced off the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road near Tel Stone and it crashed over a steep cliff? Many died and were injured. And when an Arab bus driver (as he said: "merely on an impulse") rammed his bus into a crowd of Israelis awaiting a ride, also with many casualties? I am sure there are others. I wonder if the Traffic Police would take accidents caused by Arab Muslim Palestinian more seriously if they finally understood that their intent was just the same as the plane hijackers who flew their planes into the Twin Towers? *** We almost sent this Monday September 27 as is above but, had second thoughts about many issues in the reported story: 1. It was slanted. Credibility went to the Arab 'eyewitnesses'. The word 'eyewitnesses' was used 5 times. 2. No names of suspect, his occupation, his story. 3. Why did the minivan with 6 Arabs evade an army checkpoint? 4. Yehoshua Elitzur, a 32 year old (mature) shepherd (on foot). At age 32 he was probably a soldier, a reserve soldier or on guard. His weapon was licensed. He reported directly to either the Police or the Army depending on which story you read. 5. The Arab Muslims from Beit Faruk in the area of Nablus (Schehem) have murdered 13 Jews from Itamar in 4 separate incidents. 6. Why did the Israeli police or IDF accept the "eyewitnesses of 5 Arabs" over 1 Jew? 7. Why is the M16 even mentioned? An M16 is standard issue for every soldier and settler. Elitzur was licensed to carry this gun. 8. What would you do in an empty field, if a minivan with 6 Arabs who Elitzur had seen evade an Army checkpoint is facing you on a dirt road and accelerates toward you at high speed - especially given the above history of 13 Jews murdered by Arabs? HERE IS THE STORY AS IT APPEARED ON TUESDAY: jsid@dorsai.org Tuesday, September 28, 2004 - 13 Tishrei 5765 4- ITAMAR RESIDENT CHARGED WITH KILLING ARAB "Yehoshua Elitzur, a 32-year-old shepherd from the Itamar, Shomron region was arrested yesterday after reporting to the IDF that he had just shot a suspicious Arab who had sneaked through an army checkpoint near Beit Faruk. "According to Eliitzur, "When I saw the suspicious car sneak by the checkpoint, I chased after the car, aimed my weapon at the vehicle and ordered the driver out of the car. The Arab driver then tried to run me down, at which time I opened fire on him." "Police plan to indict Elitzur quickly on manslaughter or murder charges. Voice of Judea Commentary: "Arabs in this region have a wonderful track record when it comes to murdering Jews. Over the past 2 years, no less than 13 Jews from Itamar have been murdered by Arabs from Beit Farouk, in 4 separate incidents. Naturally the Israeli police accept the version of the Arabs and not of the Jewish victim who, on his own, came to report the incident to the army. Enough with the Sharon appeasement policy that has trickled down to the soldiers in the field." Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com 10:30 Sep-28-04/ 13 Tishrei 5765 "Police Requesting Extended Remand of Shomron Resident (IsraelNN.com) Police today will request the extended remand of a Shomron resident who was arrested yesterday after firing at an Arab van driver whom he believed was intending to run him down. "The suspect was standing on the side of the road near Itamar waiting for a ride when he noticed the van heading directly at him at a high speed. He told police that he attempted to signal the driver in an effort to ascertain his intentions but the driver continued heading towards him, prompting him to pull his licensed weapon and fire. The driver was killed." *** WINSTON'S CONCLUSIONS: So, all we have to wait for is the Leftist Media and a Leftist Court to accept the eyewitness accounts of Arab Muslim Palestinians, who lie with impunity against all Israelis. No doubt, there have been hundreds of such incidents of Palestinian drivers crashing into Israeli vehicles or pedestrians but, the government routinely plays down the statistics lest Israelis are provoked to retaliate. Emanuel Winston is a commentator and Middle East analyst. His articles appear often on Think-Israel and Gamla. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a research associate of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies (http://www.freeman.org/online.htm). |