That night the Jewish quarter was put to the torch, and burned from one end to the other, a huge conflagration consuming everything that had survived the other fires. I photographed the holocaust from the school rooftop. The unburied bodies under rubble and those buried since the Mandate's end were cremated once again. Homes and hospitals and synagogues and shops were burned to their foundations. And the city wherein Jews had lived almost continuously for some 3,500 years was destroyed as never before -- a job more thorough than when Titus leveled it, for the old-fashioned Roman general had no dynamite, and neither guns nor shells with the markings of His Majesty's Army.

The Exodus was over, the graveyard sealed. The Jew had no reason, now, to return to the holy site of his antecedents. It was as Allah -- and the British Foreign Office -- wished matters to be...

...THE next day King Abdullah of Jordan, conquerer and new master of the Old City, arrived. He visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I waited outside. He emerged -- a neat, graying man of sixty-six, with a short, trimmed beard, deep-set eyes and thick brows. He was dressed in a suit of army khaki, which was probably borrowed, for it fitted him badly, his shirt cuffs coming down to his fingertips. Anxious to get his picture, I called out:

"Will Your Majesty please stand still for a moment?"

While the king didn't know English, he understood, and obligingly posed for a rare photo that I took as he stood in front of the Holy Sepulchre surrounded by churchmen of the Latin, Greek, Armenian, Coptic, and Syrian churches.

At that precise moment, I heard a rumble, then another, louder. I had a hunch where it was coming from. I rushed to the roof of the Armenian school. The sun shone radiantly everywhere except on the Jewish quarter. Over it hung motionless a pall of ghastly purplish-gray haze, with fires still raging here and there, and black smoke spiraling through. Only one wall remained standing of the huge sextagonal Hurvath Synagogue Beth Jacob, a landmark of the Old City, whose foundation dated from about the twelfth century. I saw the wall dimly through the dust put that enveloped the area. And now the seventh dynamite charge went off, and the last wall of the ancient structure joined the others in the huge burial mound that was now the Jewish quarter. The great Nissim Back Synagogue had been destroyed earlier. The underground synagogue of Yohannan ben Zakkai (reputedly standing for two thousand years), and twenty-six other synagogues, were buried under the rubble...

...Accompanied by an English-speaking Legionnaire, I began my tramp through the desolation. A horde of looters, including numerous children, shuttled in and out of the Miscab Ladach Hospital carting booty on their heads, or loading it on donkey and homemade wagons...The ultra-orthodox Moslem women gathered the loot with their black veils religiously drawn over their features. Legion soldiers were everywhere -- not to prevent looting but to preserve law and order among the wild beggars and thieves of the Holy CIty.

Climbing over the mountains of stones, I looked upon the pitiful sight that was once the glory of the Hurvath Synagogue. A particularly thorough job of demolition had been done here. On one wall, left partially standing, was a plaque with the Ten Commandments. Only this remained to warn a reckless world and an impotent UN of the words of the Law: "Thou shalt not kill; Thou shalt not steal; Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain..." Sheets of the holy scrolls were strewn all over the rubble. I rescued a small roll of parchment, burnt and discolored from heat, and tucked it inside my shirt.

"I will take it to America as a souvenir of the great Arab victory," I said to my soldier companion.

I found a scorched circular that somehow had escaped the fire. I read in English:

The Grand Synagogue "Beth Jacob" in Hurvath Rabbi Yehuda Hachassid at Jerusalem Jewry, of great historical significance, where all official, religious and national festivals and ceremonies are celebrated..."

It is an ancient and generally accepted tradition for the Jewish tourist, visiting Jerusalem, to attend, at least once, the Services conducted in this Synagogue either on a Sabbath or on a holiday...

For the sake of Jewish Jerusalem, we respectfully request all Jewish tourists coming to our City to pay honour to this House of God, to visit it and worship therein on Sabbaths and Holidays and to please offer their mnaterial contributions for its maintenance and to thus enable its further existence.

May all donors be blessed with Zion's blessings.

Israel last Saturday permitted two boats of protesters to land on the shores of Gaza. This disappointed the more aggressive agitators in the party, as they hankered for a confrontation with the Israeli navy that never came. Yvonne Ridley, on board making a documentary for an Iranian state-funded broadcaster, must have been particularly frustrated.

Having thoroughly assessed the security risks, Israel granted the ships safe passage. The protesters came ashore with enough hot air to fill the 5,000 balloons they'd brought for the children of Gaza. They also delivered 200 hearing aids. Yet their silence regarding Hamas's abuse of its own people, let alone Israeli civilians, has been deafening.

Ironically, while the protesters tub-thumped their way to Gaza, just three weeks earlier, scores of Palestinians were at the Israeli border, fleeing for their lives. Eleven Palestinians died and more than a hundred were injured in fierce fighting between Hamas and its Fatah rivals. Facing slaughter by Hamas forces, nearly 200 Fatah members fled to Israel for refuge. Bilal Hilles, one of the wounded, described his fear at the prospect of returning to Hamas rule. "It would be like a death sentence for me," he told the Jerusalem Post.

Hamas's enslavement of Gaza continues, as does the silent complicity of the protesters.

Observers should be wary. The portrayal of Israel as pantomime villain and as sole cause of conflict in the Middle East is jeopardising the search for real solutions to complex problems. Sections of liberal society risk sleepwalking into the service of those who represent the antithesis of liberal values, namely Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas...

Let us hope that the Republicans avoid the teary-eyed, drippy stories that almost all these Democratic speakers insist on inflicting on us: in this Oprah world, one would think that there is mass starvation, depression, and general mayhem. In every introduction, we hear that the speaker to come was poor, deprived, and a multifaceted victim. Not since reading the Attic Orators has one heard how horrible life has been to such heroic figures, who nonetheless somehow ended up in such a cruel country with big salaries, enormous homes, and influential jobs.

On Satellite Radio's Potus station, they are playing clips of conventions long past, and one simply does not hear a Truman, Stevenson, or Eisenhower indulging us with tales of their own brushes with cruelty, illness, death, poverty, etc. and how only their own character allowed them to survive their absolutely singular experiences.

Eloquent Distortions

Did Clinton in his speech tonight really think that Reagan ending the Cold War was part of a 25-year long foreign-policy catastrophe, while his own record of doing nothing much about the World Trade Center bombing, Khobar Towers, the attacks on East African embassies, and the USS Cole in bin Laden's serial path to September 11 was inspired leadership?

I don't recall Clinton signing a Kyoto Treaty, or giving $15 billion for AIDs relief in Africa, or passing universal health care, or going to the UN or Congress to bomb Serbia, so why attack Bush on such similar topics?...

In support to your link this may be a long but also an interesting reading:

http://www.davidduke.com/general/humanitarian-disaster_595.html

No comment necessary. The facts are speaking for themselves.

Jenna

JENNA DELICH

Following are excerpts from a TV report on female Palestinian suicide bombers, which aired on Al-Jadid/New TV on August 19, 2008.

Reporter: "This elderly Palestinian woman, named Fatima Al-Najjar, led women's demonstrations at the entrance to the town of Beit Hanoun in the winter of 2006, calling upon the occupation to leave her town and stop the killing and destruction. But despite her advanced age, she decided to take a different path."

Fatima Al-Najjar: "I sacrifice myself for the sake of Allah, the homeland, and Al-Aqsa. I ask Allah to accept my sacrifice."

Reporter: "Fatima Al-Najjar blew herself up near several soldiers of the occupation, thus joining the many Palestinian women before her who chose martyrdom over a life of humiliation - Ayat Al-Akhras, Hanadi Jaradat, and Rim Al-Riyashi, who left her two children behind and decided to blow herself up at the Beit Hanoun crossing in northern Gaza. She left her two children an unforgettable lesson on the struggle...

Reporter: "This young woman, who calls herself 'Lover of Al-Quds,' has set out more than once on combat operations, some of which were successful and others not. But she is determined to continue."

"Lover of Al-Quds": "This is the belt we wear around our waists, so that we can detonate ourselves at the push of a button. This is a safety button, and so is this. We won't explode unless we press this button. When God instills the will in our hearts... Our strength lies not in the body, but in the heart. If the heart so desires and we are inspired by God to set out... Every female martyrdom-seeker is inspired by Allah."...