July 2007 Archives

...(As it turned out, Israel suffered less than eight hundred dead, several dozen of them civilians.) With the benefit of hindsight, Segev feels able to argue that Israeli fears were irrational, indeed paranoid: the Arabs were weak and Israel was strong, and Nasser and the others did not really mean it when they spoke of throwing the Jews into the sea.

And yet Segev himself provides the counter to this when he quotes Ben-Gurion: "None of us can forget the Nazi Holocaust, and if some of the Arab leaders, with the leader of Egypt at their head, declare day and night that Israel must be destroyed we should not take these declarations lightly." (Later Segev offers a counter to this counter by quoting King Hussein: "With the Arabs, words don't have the same value as they do for other people. Threats mean nothing." So, in the end, Israel should not have taken Nasser's threats, or moves, seriously?)

In Segev's view, to understand the Six Day War one needs to understand more than the "diplomatic and military background. What is needed is deep knowledge of the Israelis themselves." Not of the Arabs--of Nasser and his generals, who sent in their tank divisions and closed the straits in defiance of the agreements of 1956-1957; or of the Jordanians, who ignored Israeli appeals on the morning of June 5 not to open fire or, later, to stop firing artillery into downtown West Jerusalem, the suburbs of Tel Aviv, and the Ramat David air base in lower Galilee (the IDF began responding only at around noon, after Jordanian troops stormed the U.N. headquarters compound in southern Jerusalem); or of the Syrians, who rained down shells on Israel's Jordan Valley settlements starting on the evening of June 5 (the IDF assaulted the Golan on June 9-10). No, there is no need to look at or understand Nasser, Hussein, or the Syrian leadership--or the hundreds of thousands of Arabs who took to the streets of Cairo, East Jerusalem, Damascus, and Baghdad shouting "Idhbah al Yahud!", "Slaughter the Jews!"...

Magdi Allam, 55, deputy chief editor of Italy’s most influential newspaper Il Corriere della Sera, is again at the center of the storm following his seventh book, dubbed “Viva Israele” (Long Live Israel). The subtitle of the book reads “From the ideology of death to the civilization of life: my story.”

“Long Live Israel” is the tale of his life ever since his youth under the republican regime of late Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser.

According to Allam, Nasser is responsible for having turned Egypt - and the rest of the Arab world - into the cradle of the "ideology of death". Allam claims Nasser brought about an aggressive pan-Arabic dream based on the denial of Israel’s right to exist. The need for the destruction of Israel is the dominant theme that, Allam states, made death and destruction the core values of a once liberal Islamic culture.

Thus, the new book defends the existence of Israel and terms armed Palestinian groups as "dangerous terrorist threats." In addition, Allam wrote that during their operations in the Palestinian territories, Israeli forces have been trying to avoid hitting Palestinian civilians and only aim to defend Israeli citizens….

Furthermore, Allam added that the main cause for the Israeli – Palestinian dispute stems form the Palestinian terror.

Allam says that "Israel - along with Pope Benedict XVI - represents the residual hope for Western civilization, which, more than other civilizations, embodies the sacredness of life and personal freedom."

Allam also slams the Arab calls for the killing of Jews. In the past, Allam also criticized resistance groups in Lebanon and Iraq...

So for five sweaty hours, the coach from Sweety Tours took a few dozen reporters on a tour of the Gaza Strip to try to counter this image. The bus stopped at the presidential guest house - Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian national authority and Fatah leader is locked out of Gaza - to show that the gardens were being watered and the building maintained.

A great deal was made of the fact the portrait of Mr Abbas still hung in the main reception room. But then a few minutes later the bus passed a vast mural of Yasser Arafat, the former Fatah leader. The mural was pockmarked with fresh-looking bullet holes.

"We believe in freedom of speech and democracy," said Ahmed Bahar, the deputy speaker of the Palestinian parliament and a senior Hamas figure...

"Gaza today is better," Ismail Haniyeh, still calling himself Palestinian Authority prime minister, told dozens of foreign reporters who joined a bus tour of the coastal enclave that took in a prison, a church, border posts and security installations...

Manuel Musallam, a priest, told reporters at his church that Hamas was "not a religious movement" hostile to the Christian minority but a "political movement" dedicated to the Palestinian people. "I am the best friend of Mr. Haniyeh," he added...

This is the first time that the newspapers, published in the West Bank, were prevented from distribution in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian journalists said thousands of copies from the three newspapers were seized by Hamas's paramilitary Executive Force on the Palestinian side of the Erez border crossing. The newspapers were taken aboard a truck to a Hamas security installation nearby in the town of Beit Hanan.

According to the journalists, six Palestinians working for the newspapers were detained by Hamas for questioning. Two of them, Hatem Kishawi and Samir Jaber, work for the Fatah-controlled Al-Ayyam, which serves as a mouthpiece for the Palestinian Authority. The other four work for the PA-funded Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda and Al-Quds, a pro-Fatah newspaper owned by a family from east Jerusalem...

..."Of course we're afraid," said a local journalist. "Hamas does not accept criticism. If you write something that they don't like, you will get into trouble. Unfortunately, the situation wasn't much better when Fatah was here. Both of them don't respect the freedom of the media."...

Msgr. Georg Ganswein, the Pope's secretary, was interviewed in Friday's edition of Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung Magazine. Though the interview covered many different issues, his comments about Islamic influence in Europe, and what Catholics should do about it, may prove to be the most controversial...

..."I believe the Regensburg speech, as it is known, was prophetic," Msgr. Ganswein told the German magazine, because it countered a "certain naivete" among people who do not recognize that various currents exist within Islam.

"Attempts at the 'Islamification' of the West cannot be denied," he said, according to an English translation in the Catholic Explorer. "And the associated danger for the identity of Europe cannot be ignored out of a wrongly understood sense of respect... The Catholic side sees this clearly and says as much." True respect, Ganswein said, is shown in a dialogue with Muslims that is frank, open and honest...

...It's the connection between the computer and the neural network, which would communicate with one another, that creates a new kind of machine. Ben-Jacob elaborates: "The network won't replace the computer but it will do the softer cognitive functions of decision-making, interaction with the environment, and sound recognition."

According to Baruchi, biological computing might also lead to technology that Microsoft has been working to achieve, without success: handwriting recognition, made possible by virtue of the biological system's ability to detect patterns...

The petition, which calls on academics to show solidarity with their Israeli counterparts, raised over 10,000 signatures in seven weeks.

In response to the May 30 boycott vote, a campaign was launched by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, an organization of scholars with more than 18,000 academics and professional members, demanding the boycott be overturned. The initiative was led by Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz (read his JPost blog) and Prof. Steven Weinberg, a Nobel Prize laureate in physics from the University of Texas.

The petition urged scholars to stand in solidarity with "our Israeli academic and professional colleagues" and that for the purpose of any academic boycott targeting Israel, the signatories agreed to regard themselves as "Israeli academics" and decline to participate "in any activity from which Israeli academics are excluded."

"Today more than 10,000 of the world's leading scholars speak together with one voice to demand academic freedom for all scholars and to declare that we are all Israeli academics for purposes of any academic boycott," Weinberg said.

Thirty-two Nobel Prize laureates and 53 university and colleges presidents worldwide and from across the political spectrum, along with an array of heads of academic departments and professional societies, have signed the petition...

"You got that right," Eddy said. "Snipers wearing night vision can see the tip of your cigarette from a mile away. They'll watch as you lift the cigarette to your mouth and figure out where your head is. Then BLAMMO. They're really good shots."

I kept the cigarettes in my pocket.

"We're being followed," said Sergeant Fisher.

Eddy, the rest of the soldiers, and I turned around...

Willie Lee Hill, 93, told police he saw the robber while in his bedroom Wednesday night. Hill confronted Douglas B. Williams Jr., 24, of El Dorado, who struck the elderly man at least 50 times, knocking him out, police said.

Hill, covered in blood from the attack, regained consciousness and pulled a .38-caliber handgun on Williams. Williams saw the gun and charged Hill, who fired one round, police said. The bullet struck Williams in the throat.

When police arrived, officers said Williams told them, "I can't feel my legs and I got what I deserved."

Paramedics took Hill and Williams to the Medical Center of South Arkansas for treatment. Doctors later sent Williams to the Louisiana State University Medical Center at Shreveport, where he was listed in critical condition Friday.

Employees at the Medical Center of South Arkansas refused to give Hill's condition or say if he'd been discharged from the hospital Friday, citing medical privacy laws.

Officers reported finding a set of keys, two hearing aids, a CD player, an MP3 player, a Craftsman drill bit set and three pocket knives inside Williams' pockets. Police plan to charge Williams with residential burglary, second-degree battery, theft of property and theft by receiving.

[July 8, 1858]…in consequence of a series of disgusting insults offered to Jews and Jewesses in Hebron, I obtained such orders as I could from the Pasha’s agent in this city…Finding these not answer entirely as might be desired, I repaired to the neighborhood of Hebron myself—and found the whole government of that important and turbulent district being administered by a very old Bashi Bozuk officer as the ton governor; and a military Boluk Bashi with five starved and ragged Bashi Bozuk man as soldiers—The rural district is left entirely to peasant Sheikhs, with one responsible over the rest. The streets of the town were paraded by fanatic Dervishes—and during my stay there a Jewish house was forcibly entered by night, iron bars of the window broken, and heavy stones thrown by invisible hands at every person approaching the place to afford help. One of the Members of the Council affirmed that they were not obliged to obey orders from the Pasha’s deputy—and another declared his right derived from time immemorial in his family, to enter Jewish houses, and take toll or contributions any time without giving account. When others present in the Council exclaimed against this he said—“Well then I will forbear from taking it myself, but things will happen which will compel the Jews to come and kiss my feet to induce me to take their money.” On hearing of my arrival in the vicinity he went away to the villages, refusing to obey the summons to Jerusalem, and I believe the Pasha cannot really compel him to come here—he being a privileged member of the Council, and recognized in Constantinople.

[November 11, 1858] And my Hebrew Dragoman [translator] having a case for judgment in the Makhameh [Muslim court] before the new Kadi [judge], although accompanied by my Kawass [constable], and announcing his office, was commanded to stand up humbly and take off his shoes before his case could be heard. He did not however comply—But during the process although the thief had previously confessed to the robbery in presence of Jews, the Kadi would not proceed without the testimony of two Moslems—when the Jewish witnesses were offered, he refused to accept their testimony—and the offensive term adopted towards Jews in former times (more offensive than Giaour for Christians) was used by the Kadi’s servants…such circumstances exhibit the working of the present Turkish government in Jerusalem.

Leaders of some of America’s most powerful unions are said to be considering whether to pull support for a top British union official, Keith Sonnet, in his bid to lead a major international service workers union, Public Services International. The American union leaders are responding to last month’s passage of a resolution proposing a sweeping boycott of Israeli goods by Sonnet’s union, Unison, which represents 1.3 million public service workers.

The group that Sonnet is looking to lead, PSI, is a global federation of more than 600 unions from around the world, but the American labor movement has traditionally wielded significant power in its ranks.

As the number of British labor unions passing Israel boycott resolutions has snowballed in recent months, American trade union officials have raised alarms over the growing phenomenon, which encompasses boycotts of Israeli goods and academic institutions. Last week, nearly every top union leader in America signed on to a statement drafted by the Jewish Labor Committee decrying the raft of boycott proposals as non-constructive.

Avram Lyon, executive director of the JLC, said that Sonnet, who is running against Danish candidate Peter Waldorff for the international union post, had given assurances to American labor leaders in advance of his group’s national delegate conference that the Israel boycott measure up for consideration would either be voted down or have its teeth taken out. But the opposite came to pass, causing Sonnet’s American counterparts to feel misled, Lyon said.

“That has raised questions among some American unions as to whether or not they will support Keith Sonnet’s candidacy,” Lyon said. “The concern is based on the fact that Sonnet put forward a resolution which American unions would consider to be divisive.”...

NASA said it will try to launch Endeavour on August 7 for the spacecraft's first mission in nearly five years...

In an extensive Chicago Tribune story on the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S [free registration required], "the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation's major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members. Some wanted the Brotherhood to remain underground, while others thought a more public face would make the group more influential… When the leaders voted, it was decided that Brotherhood members would call themselves the Muslim American Society, or MAS, according to documents and interviews. An undated internal memo instructed MAS leaders on how to deal with inquiries about the new organization. If asked, "Are you the Muslim Brothers?" leaders should respond that they are an independent group called the Muslim American Society. "It is a self-explanatory name that does not need further explanation. And if the topic of terrorism were raised, leaders were told to say that they were against terrorism but that jihad was among a Muslim's ‘divine legal rights’ to be used to defend himself and his people and to spread Islam.”

It should also be noted that the 1993 Articles of Incorporation for MAS, states that "Upon dissolution of the Society, and after paying or making provisions for payment of all liabilities of the Society, and in furtherance of the purposes of the Society, all assets should be distributed to the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), a non-for-profit, charitable, and religious federally tax exempt organization under section 503 (c) (3)..."

NAIT was named by the HLF prosecutors as a Muslim Brotherhood group and as an un-indicted co-conspirator in the case...

Hard on the heels of Metal Storm came a movie: Valley of the Wolves, Iraq. Taking off from a popular TV serial, it depicted the U.S. presence in Iraq as a nightmare of brutality. According to the movie, the U.S. was engaging in mass murder and then trafficking in the victims’ organs. Much of the action was devoted to a supposed joint American-Kurdish operation to “cleanse” northern Iraq of its Turkmen (i.e., Turkish) minority. If Metal Storm was a best-seller, Valley of the Wolves could be the Turkish film industry’s biggest commercial success ever.

Then there is anti-Semitism. Kavgam, a Turkish translation of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, was published at about the same time as Metal Storm. Almost two years ago, as I and other European and American visitors saw on a fact-finding trip sponsored by the Nixon Center, it was on prominent display in airports, shopping malls, academic bookstores, at the archeological museum in Ankara—everywhere. And Kavgam is hardly the only example of the new anti-Semitism in the Turkish media. The worst character in Valley of the Wolves is an American Jewish doctor who supervises organ traffic from Iraq to the United States and Israel. Another recent best-seller is a book called Hitler’s Leadership Qualities. Turkish newspapers are rife with anti-Jewish innuendo and worse...

Instead of training teachers in the history and contemporary challenges of the Muslim world, Stotsky concluded that Harvard’s outreach program was “manipulating” apolitical teachers with a “barely disguised” attempt to “shape...attitudes on specific political issues.” The lesson plans designed by K-12 teachers who participated in these Harvard-run seminars included exercises in which students were asked to watch newscasts and spot out instances in which Muslims were stereotyped as violent or barbaric. Lesson plans proposed discussion questions like, “Why have so many groups wanted to control the Middle East?” and “How might the history of repeated invasions influence the history of people in this area?”

Stotsky was taken aback by one of the key teaching resources pushed by Harvard’s outreach program: “The Arab World Studies Notebook.” The “Notebook” has been widely denounced as a “practically proselytizing” text offering uncritical praise for the Arab world. Stotsky calls it, “a piece of propaganda.” Even the Notebook’s editor, Audrey Shabbas, acknowledges that it’s purpose is to provide “the Arab point of view.” One analysis quoted by Stotsky says that the “Arab World Studies Notebook” is designed to “induce teachers to embrace Islamic religious beliefs” and to “support political views” favored by the Middle East Policy Council (formerly the Arab American Affairs Council). The “Notebook” even claims that Muslims actually beat Columbus to the New World, supposedly sailing across the Atlantic in 889. This is the sort of history being pushed on our K-12 educators by Harvard’s federally approved Center for Middle East Studies — at American taxpayer expense...

Giuliani, an outspoken critic of attempts by the Democrat-controlled Congress to set a deadline for withdrawing troops from Iraq, added that Democrats were trying to ignore the continued threat from terrorism.

"We are in a war with Islamic terrorists. No matter how much avoiding you do, it's not going to go away," he said, sparking robust applause.

Yet continue it surely does. Like clockwork, every month, Saudi dollars flow in to build and staff more mosques, from one end of Europe to the other and in every American city. Because Muslim communities in America do not advertise having them, it is difficult to get precise statistics, but Saudi-trained imams originally from Egypt or Pakistan are streaming into America using visas that identify them as "religious guides."

Recently, I stumbled up to a minivan filled with six such new arrivals in front of the Beacon Theater on 75th Street — all of whom were staring at women in short skirts like children let loose in a candy shop. I spoke to them and discovered that they had just arrived from Al Azhar University School of Theology in Cairo, for years now largely a Saudi-controlled Wahhabist seminary, and they were headed to multiple mosques after being sponsored by several Muslim communities in New Jersey and New York.

They spoke no English but, as one told me, there was no need for that. "We preach in Arabic," to Arabs, he said.

It is not insignificant that President Sarkozy of France, whose 60 million citizens include some 5 million Muslims, has decreed that the only imams now permitted to staff French mosques must have been trained in France and be fluent in French.

Over the past year, France has quietly suspended scores of imams who do not meet these criteria. Many are being sent back home to Morocco or Egypt.

America should get a National Intelligence Estimate that tells us how many of the imams coming into this country have an "elemental knowledge" of America's Constitution, its Bill of Rights, and its essential values, such as freedom of speech and the rights of women...

...Contrary to MASOOD's repeated, sworn assertions, however, multiple pieces of evidence establish that MASOOD, in fact, remained in the United States during that period of time. Not only does there exist no record of his exit and reentry to the United States, but evidence establishes that he remained in Boston University housing, received traffic citations, and was employed in the Boston area, all during that period of time, and in fact was present in Boston for the birth of his seventh child in March of 1992. In a continuing attempt to conceal the fact that he had failed to comply with the Exchange Visitor condition that he return to Pakistan, MASOOD repeatedly told under oath a facially implausible story (with shifting details) of the circumstances under which he claimed to have returned to the United States, all in an effort to explain the absence of any record of his alleged reentry into this country.

The fact that MASOOD intentionally lied concerning his supposed return to Pakistan in 1991 to 1993 is buttressed by evidence of other material misstatements which he made to government agencies and other entities. For example, in 1999, MASOOD procured a New Hampshire driver's license, listing a New Hampshire address when, in fact, he was not a New Hampshire resident and did not live at the stated address; he, for years, lived in Boston University housing to which he was not entitled by misrepresenting that he continued to be a student when, in fact, he was no longer a student; in his application for LPR status, he falsely stated that he had never received public assistance when, in fact, his family had applied for and received benefits from the Massachusetts Medicaid program (MassHealth); and in his application for LPR status, he falsely stated that he had never been arrested, cited or charged with breaking any law or ordinance (excluding traffic violations) when, in fact, he had been arrested for shoplifting in Norwood, Massachusetts in 2000 [That case was dismissed at the time. -S].

If convicted on these charges, MASOOD faces up to 10 years' imprisonment, to be followed by 3 years of supervised release, up to a $250,000 fine and a mandatory special assessment of $100 on each charge.

The case was investigated by special agents of ICE New England Field Office and the FBI New England Field Division assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force...

But bottom-slapping is against policy in McMinnville Public Schools. So a teacher's aide sent the gawky seventh-graders to the office, where the vice principal and a police officer stationed at the school soon interrogated them.

After hours of interviews with students the day of the February incident, the officer read the boys their Miranda rights and hauled them off in handcuffs to juvenile jail, where they spent the next five days.

Now, Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison, both 13, face the prospect of 10 years in juvenile detention and a lifetime on the sex offender registry in a case that poses a fundamental question: When is horseplay a crime?

Bradley Berry, the McMinnville district attorney, said his office "aggressively" pursues sex crimes that involve children. "These cases are devastating to children," he said. "They are life-altering cases."

Last year, in a previously undisclosed prosecution, he charged two other Patton Middle School boys with felony sex abuse for repeatedly slapping the bottom of a female student. Both pleaded guilty to harassment, which is a misdemeanor. Berry declined to discuss his cases against Mashburn and Cornelison...

...The outlines of the case have been known. But confidential police reports and juvenile court records shed new light on the context of the boys' actions. The records show that other students, boys and girls, were slapping one another's bottoms. Two of the girls identified as victims have recanted, saying they felt pressured and gave false statements to interrogators...

Carter was cautioned by friends not to use the inaccurate and provocative word Apartheid, but he insisted on putting it in his title, knowing full well how deeply offensive it would be to so many.

Contrast Carter’s insensitivity toward his Jewish readers with his extraordinary oversensitivity toward Muslim readers of Salman Rushdie’s controversial book The Satanic Verses...

...Instead, he condemned him for his “direct insult to the millions of Muslims whose sacred beliefs have been violated and are suffering in restrained silence…”...

...HOW DO I maintain a sense of justice for Palestinians whose freedoms have been compromised under Israel's 40-year occupation and continue to advocate for their human rights, when I know they are being swept up by a pan-Islamism characterized by Islamist extremism? No wonder the Israeli Left has gone underground. Many of our cherished values have gone up in smoke.

We hate the security barrier because it steals Palestinian lands, divides villages and separates families, but we sleep better knowing our children no longer play Russian roulette with their lives when they venture out in public. We deplore targeted assassinations, but when the IDF kills terrorists on their way to fire rockets into Sderot, we breathe a sigh of relief - even if innocent Palestinians are caught in the cross fire...

...This is the issue before us -- should the nation's Op-Ed pages be thrown open to everyone? Are there no constraints or red lines? Whatever happened to the basic standards that civilized people are expected to live by? Like a belief in the reverence and sanctity of all human life; an abhorrence of violence toward others, especially innocents; the desire and ability to be reasonable and avoid extremes. Has Hamas suddenly embraced any of these values? Of course not. So why is The Times conferring a journalistic honoris causa degree on terrorists whose modus operandi is to deliberately target innocent civilians of all faiths on buses, in theaters and in shopping malls?

So what will the editors' answer be? That simply because Abu Marzook can turn a good phrase, mass murderers will from now on be entitled to their point of view?

Let's be clear: This issue is not about giving ink to Hamas' views. Their statements and actions deserve real-time coverage, just the way the statements and actions of Hitler and Stalin received coverage by the most prestigious newspapers in the world's most important democracy. But such people do not deserve the status of a sagely byline, because that destroys the distinction between honorable men and women bound by basic principles of humanity and the despots and terrorists eager to destroy those values...

This is the question that Hamas's security apparatus has been trying to answer since last Friday.

The incident has embarrassed Hamas, whose leaders tried on Sunday to play down the case by claiming that the theft was the work of a child.

Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip accused Fatah leaders in Ramallah of exploiting the incident to defame Haniyeh.

The shoes were stolen after Haniyeh and his entourage arrived at a mosque in Gaza City for Friday prayers...

...Following the prayer, Haniyeh discovered that his shoes were missing. His nervous bodyguard immediately began searching for the missing shoes and all worshipers were required to remain inside the mosque until the search was over.

"It was a very embarrassing situation," said a Palestinian journalist who was present at the scene. "Hamas sent reinforcements to the area and a frantic search for the shoes began."

The shoes were discovered minutes later in the possession of a Palestinian child who admitted that he had stolen them, a Hamas official in the Gaza Strip told The Jerusalem Post...

According to the official, the boy was released immediately without punishment. "We didn't take the case seriously because this is not the first time children have stolen shoes of worshipers during the prayers," he said...

...Another Hamas official told the Post he did not rule out the possibility that Fatah activists were behind the theft.

"These Fatah people are doing their utmost to discredit Hamas," he said. "It's possible that the boy was sent by some Fatah activists to steal the shoes to embarrass Hamas...

• Headline selection for stories in relation to violent incidents is inconsistent. 15% of stories about Palestinian violence named the aggressors while 60% of articles about Israeli operations accused Israel directly.
• Greater attention is paid to Palestinian voices and opinions than Israeli ones. 19 out of 23 articles and picture series capturing the "man on the street" perspective were from the Palestinian viewpoint.

However, in the vast majority of articles reporting on Israeli actions, the headlines were more direct: "Israel launches raids into Gaza" (May 17), "Fresh Israeli air strike on Gaza" (May 19), "Israel backs tougher Gaza action" (May 20), "Israel hits Hamas politician home" (May 21), "Israel strikes at Hamas in Gaza" (May 23), "Israel renews strikes across Gaza" (May 26), and "Israeli raids follow PM's warning" (May 28). While all these headlines appeared during the month of May (a month in which there was a great deal of reporting on violent attacks), the pattern is consistent.

In fact, during the first six months of 2007, out of 26 articles reporting on violent attacks perpetuated by Palestinian groups (on either Palestinians or Israelis), the group responsible for the violence was mentioned in only 15% of the cases. By contrast, in 38 articles where an operation was carried out by Israel, Israel was directly named in 60% of the headlines.

One was during the latest episode of the children's program with Nahool the Hamas Bee, in which Nahool twice reminds the children that the Jews are guilty of murder...

The following are excepts:

Nahool: “You and we will liberate the sad Al-Aqsa that is waiting for us. Yes, we will liberate Al-Aqsa from the filth of the criminal Jews, who killed my grandfather, and killed Farfur, and history will bear witness to that…”

Not many modern universities are prepared to employ a science professor who espouses not merely "intelligent design" but out-and-out divine creation. This applicant's writings on astronomy, for example, include these thoughts on the solar system: "This most beautiful system of sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and domination of an intelligent and powerful Being . . . He governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done."

Hire somebody with such views to teach physics? At a Baptist junior college deep in the Bible Belt, maybe, but the faculty would erupt if you tried it just about anywhere else. Many of them would echo Oxford's Richard Dawkins, the prominent evolutionary biologist, who writes in "The God Delusion" that he is "hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. . . . It subverts science and saps the intellect."...

When Nahmod tried to complain to customer relations, he was told by the charming employee to "leave him alone or he'd 'whoop' him. So Nahmod took his discrimination complaint to the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and, if it pans out, it looks like Rainbow Grocery will be the only one getting whooped around here. Especially since the reaction thus far of Rainbow's employees has been anything but professional...

Norton, a former observer with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization, states in his prologue that he seeks to provide "a more balanced and nuanced account" of Hizbullah, which he calls a "complex organization." Of course, there is little that is complex or nuanced about a group that receives an estimated $100 million a year from the radical Islamic regime in Iran to carry out violence, and has used violence as its raison d'etre dating back to the 1980s.

Indeed, Hizbullah exists to further the violent aims of Iran, to demonize and attack the US and to destroy Israel. Norton neglects to state this unequivocally and, for that reason, he should be publicly shamed...

...Norton's book tries to explain away this violence. He writes that the term "terrorist" is a "rhetorical bludgeon" used to "dehumanize radical or revolutionary groups."...

The sensitive details from the two leaders' meeting in Damascus earlier in the week were related to the Lebanese Arabic daily Asharq Alawsat by an anonymous Iranian source involved with the discreet meeting, and were brought to light on Saturday...

...The report went on to say that aside from economic, cultural and scientific cooperation, Iran will help to fund Syria's purchase of Russian and North Korean weapons. These weapons reportedly will include 400 advanced Russian T-72 tanks, 18 Russian Mig 31s, as well as eight M-8 helicopters and other military equipment.

In addition, Iran will reportedly help Syria build factories that would manufacture medium-range missiles, and will also supply Syria with Iranian-made tanks and armored personnel carriers. The Syrian navy will also reportedly be rearmed with Chinese-made C-801 and C-802 missiles, which are presently being manufactured in Iran.

The same type of missile struck an IDF Navy ship off the Lebanese coast last summer during the Second Lebanon War, killing four IDF sailors.

On the diplomatic front, Ahmadinejad reportedly promised Assad to help topple Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and to push sway on the Lebanese parliament with the aim of restoring pro-Syrian influence there. Assad, for his part, agreed not to enter peace negotiations with Israel.

He is Fireman 3rd Class Alfred E. Livingston, U.S. Navy, of Worthington, Ind. He will be buried on Saturday in Worthington.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Livingston was assigned to the battleship USS Oklahoma when it was attacked by Japanese torpedo aircraft and capsized in Pearl Harbor. The ship sustained massive casualties. Livingston was one of hundreds declared killed in action whose body was not recovered. In the aftermath of the attack, some remains were recovered from the waters of Pearl Harbor. One set of sailor’s remains was recovered and thought to be associated with the USS Arizona losses. However, when efforts to identify the sailor failed, it was inconclusive what ship he was assigned to and he was buried as an unknown in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as The Punchbowl.

In 2006, a Pearl Harbor survivor and researcher, contacted the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) and suggested that the biological and dental information on file for the unknown sailor may be correlated with Livingston’s personnel file. JPAC’s analysts studied the documentation and found enough evidence to support the researcher’s findings that Livingston was actually recovered after the war even though he was originally listed as one of the hundreds of unrecoverable servicemen from the attack on Pearl Harbor. In February 2007, the grave for the unknown sailor was exhumed...

Scans of the 44-year-old man's brain showed that a huge fluid-filled chamber called a ventricle took up most of the room in his skull, leaving little more than a thin sheet of actual brain tissue.

"He was a married father of two children, and worked as a civil servant," Dr. Lionel Feuillet and colleagues at the Universite de la Mediterranee in Marseille wrote in a letter to the Lancet medical journal.

The man went to a hospital after he had mild weakness in his left leg. When Feuillet's staff took his medical history, they learned he had had a shunt inserted into his head to drain away hydrocephalus -- water on the brain -- as an infant...

...So the researchers did a computed tomography (CT) scan and another type of scan called magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). They were astonished to see "massive enlargement" of the lateral ventricles -- usually tiny chambers that hold the cerebrospinal fluid that cushions the brain.

Intelligence tests showed the man had an IQ of 75, below the average score of 100 but not considered mentally retarded or disabled, either...

Sayid Al-Qimni: The ballot box alone does not constitute democracy. The ballot box is just a box made of glass, and nobody knows what goes on inside. People put a piece of paper in it. By no means does the ballot box constitute democracy. We are the prey over which two types of [predators] compete: Ruling families and military governments, on the one hand, and Islamic dictatorships, on the other hand. These two types of dictatorships compete over us, the prey.

When the mufti of the government bans a certain book, the mufti of the [Islamist] groups bans a movie. The former places a ban on words, and the latter places a "ban" on an entire person, by killing him. The women wear a uniform like soldiers. You see them in the street, and they all look like soldiers. The government whips anyone who goes to the police station to file a complaint. The Islamists legitimize whipping. If you legitimize whipping, why are you angry when the government does it? How can you be angry at the government for whipping you, when you are the ones legitimizing the whipping? Whipping is part of Islamic law...

...As you've said, these people issue fatwas about saliva, about the urine of camels, about the urine of the Prophet, and so on... Look, all these people, this entire process, all the candidates, the people who won the elections, the people who helped them succeed – they all belong in the madhouse.

Hani Al-Sibai: Hamas cleaned up the filth and dirt that had existed in Gaza. Then they plotted against it. They want the elections to give rise to Mahmoud Abbases and Muhammad Dahlans...

...What has become of Kemal Ataturk's Turkey? Go to Europe, and you will see. Most of the Turks here are drug dealers, outcasts. Moreover, the English here have a custom. On Christmas, they eat what they call "turkey." Imagine, they call it "turkey," and they serve it as food at the table. This shows the kind of hatred that is deeply rooted in the West – they serve the Turkish, Ottoman, Muslim man as food at the table, for entertainment and as a sign that they have slaughtered him....

The Judea Military Court on Thursday sentenced Ashraf Hanaisha to life in prison after convicting him of the murder of Italian peace activist Angelo Frammartino, to life in prison.

Hanaisha, a resident of the Jenin area who was affiliated with Islamic Jihad, confessed to stabbing 24-year-old Frammartino after mistaking him for an Israeli Jew.

The indictment filed against Hanaisha states that he decided to carry out the attack following the deaths of his cousins. On August 10 2006, he headed towards Jerusalem to realize his plan.

After asking passersby to direct him to a Jewish area where he could find work, Hanaisha spotted Frammartino walking along Sultan Suleiman street with three Italian friends.

Hanaisha trailed the four and when they stopped near a bus station, he took out a knife from his pocket and began stabbing Frammartino in the back. The knife remained imbedded near Frammartino's right shoulder while Hanaisha fled the scene.

Frammartino managed to remove the knife from his shoulder but then collapsed immediately afterwards and paramedics who arrived at the scene were unable to resuscitate him and he died of massive blood loss, just two short days before he was scheduled to return home...

Today Colonel Steve Townsend, the American commander of the 3-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, presided over a meeting with Iraqi Army officers and former insurgent leaders. The insurgent leaders who seem to be sincerely working toward peace are now collectively referred to as “the Baqubah Guardians.” I was allowed to attend the meeting, but was—understandably—not permitted to photograph or videotape the proceedings...

Billionaire Saudi financier Khalid Salim bin Mahfouz sued Miss Ehrenfeld in the U.K. for libel: in her book, "Funding Evil," she wrote that he was involved in funding Hamas and al Qaeda. Mr. bin Mahfouz denied that he had knowingly given any money to either. Taking advantage of British libel laws that place the burden of proof on the defendant, rather than the plaintiff, Mr. bin Mahfouz sued not in the United States, where Miss Ehrenfeld lives and published her book, but in Britain, where neither he nor Miss Ehrenfeld live and where his entire case depended upon a handful of copies sold in that country mostly through special orders from Amazon.com, and the appearance of one chapter of the book on the Internet, where it may have been read by British readers.

Britain's libel laws have given rise to the phenomenon of wealthy "libel tourists," who sue there on the slimmest British connection in order to ensure a favorable ruling...

All Republicans in the Senate except Brownback voted for the measure. Hillary Clinton, who is running for president and obviously is not suicidal, broke with her party and voted with the Republicans. So did Senators Bayh, Conrad, Dorgan, Landrieu, Lieberman, Nelson (of Nebraska), and Schumer. The remaining 39 Democrats were all nays. Call them the "Death Wish Caucus," doing the bidding of CAIR, which is backing the Flying Imams and their alleged right to sue Americans for reporting potential terrorist activity.

A magazine had reported that Rev. Tadeusz Rydzyk, during a lecture earlier this year at a journalism school, described Jews as greedy and criticized President Lech Kaczynski for donating land in Warsaw for a Jewish museum.

Hundreds of people - including former Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki and former Auschwitz inmate and Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski - signed the letter, saying Rydzyk's comments revealed his contempt for Jews and fellow Christians...

...The letter, posted on the Web site of the Krakow-based Center for Culture and Dialogue, calls on Roman Catholic Church leaders to bring him in line with church teaching that anti-Semitism is a sin...

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates said that Cheney and White House aides cannot be held liable for the disclosure of information about Plame in the summer of 2003 while they were trying to rebut criticism of the administration's war efforts levied by her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. The judge said such efforts were certainly part of the officials' scope of normal duties.

"The alleged tortious conduct, namely the disclosure of Mrs. Wilson's status as a covert operative, was incidental to the kind of conduct that defendants were employed to perform," Bates wrote in an opinion released this afternoon...

Congressman Pete King (R., NY), the ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee, sprang quickly into action, concluding that the lawsuits were cheap attempts to intimidate everyday Americans from taking action to help protect our country. Congressman King introduced an amendment to protect passengers and commuters against frivolous lawsuits such as those filed by the imams. The language was overwhelmingly adopted by the House in March, 304-121, as an amendment to H.R. 1401, the Rail and Public Transportation Security Act of 2007...

...I am reliably informed that House Democrats are attempting, under the radar screen, to strip the King Amendment from the legislation based on an alleged technical violation of Byzantine House rules...

The July 19, 2007 congressional hearing on Jewish refugees has an immediate, practical goal of providing US legislators with preliminary information before voting on House Resolution 185 and Senate Resolution 85. Under the proposed legislation, the US president would be required to instruct all official representatives of the United States that "explicit reference to Palestinian refugees be matched by a similar explicit reference to Jewish and other refugees, as a matter of law and equity." The historical legacy of this mass Jewish exodus elucidates the bare minimum equity provided in these resolutions...

Simon returned home from the hospital on Tuesday afternoon; he called me and asked that I thank everyone on his behalf for all the support, prayers and love that have been sent his way:

"Thank you for all of your prayers. Your prayers have kept me going, and they mean a lot to me. Your loving support has gotten me out of the hospital and to where I am, giving me the energy to reach a full recovery."

OF COURSE Islam and its symbols are linked to terrorism, the only people who are currently involved in spreading an ideology --through terrorist acts-- around the world....are Muslims. I find it incredible that these Finnish researchers would be baffled over the connection...

Whether from ignorance or hateful political hyperbole, Congressman Ellison deserves censure of his colleagues. Some Muslims are working assiduously to depoliticize sermons which contribute to radicalization. Additionally, so too should Muslim politicians de-link their public Islamic identity from their politics. This is especially important when they have the dangerous predilection toward the unsubstantiated dissemination of extreme propaganda like Mr. Ellison exhibited...

I don't know who are worse: the Muslim religious authorities digging up Jerusalem's Temple Mount, or the Israeli authorities who are allowing it to happen.

That the Waqf, the Muslim religious trust that serves as custodian of the site, should wish to install new electric and telephone lines is understandable -- provided that the necessary trench is first dug as a professional archaeological excavation. That is the required procedure everywhere in Israel before work can be undertaken at sites with archaeological significance. At the Temple Mount, even more care is required. This is the holiest site in the world to Jews, where the deeply religious fear to tread lest they step on the Holy of Holies: Solomon's Temple and the Second Temple built by Herod the Great once stood on this site. The site is sacred to Muslims as well: Known in Arabic as the Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary, it is presently graced with the magnificent Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque.

...To reduce the impact of the Trial Lawyer Tax, we should reform the system by adopting rules that discourage frivolous lawsuits, such as “loser pays.” The ideal would be the English Rule, in which the losing party pays the winning side’s legal fees. This may prove to be too much of a change for our society, but we should at least shift the burden of proof to the losing party to show good-faith basis for their lawsuit. And Judges should also be able to quickly dismiss frivolous lawsuits...

Known as the Siloam inscription, the tablet was found in a tunnel hewed to channel water from a spring outside Jerusalem's walls into the city around 700 B.C. _ a project mentioned in the Old Testament's Book of Chronicles. It was discovered in 1880 and taken by the Holy Land's Ottoman rulers to Istanbul, where it is now in the collection of the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.

Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski made the request in a Thursday meeting with Turkey's ambassador to Israel, Namik Tan, Lupolianski spokesman Gidi Schmerling said Friday. Lupolianski suggested the tablet's return could be a "gesture of goodwill" from Turkey, Schmerling said Friday.

After Hamas routed Fatah security forces in May, Israel has kept the Karni crossing closed. The reason given is that to open it would expose Israeli workers to a security risk.

"This amounts to the implementation of a policy of collective punishment which is in breach of international law because it involves the intentional inflicting of suffering on a civilian population," Miss Bashi said...

Kerem Shalom has been subject to regular attack by Qassam rockets and mortars fired by Palestinian militias which resulted in the crossing being closed. Six rockets and 22 mortars were fired towards the crossing, including 10 mortars on 10 July.

"It is very clear the responsibility lies with the Palestinians," Ging told The Jerusalem Post by telephone from Gaza, on a day when Palestinians fired mortar shells at two of the three open passages into Gaza.

Such activity, he said, "directly impacts on the humanitarian plight of the Palestinians living in Gaza."...

It's not often you hear them - and a lot of other governments and organizations as well - lumped together as part of the same problem.

But they were on Wednesday night when self-made counterterrorism expert Steve Emerson addressed the Martha's Vineyard Hebrew Center Summer Institute, as the first of their speakers for 2007...

Not everyone he mentioned came out of it badly. He enumerated some half-dozen Islamic leaders around the nation and the world whom he did not consider extremists. But then he said they had no constituencies. And he lauded the Fox News network as intellectually honest.

She introduced Mr. Emerson as being neither shy and retiring nor tactful, and he lived up to the billing. He was combative with questioners and unambiguous in his pronouncements.

He also had requested no press coverage.

The following are excerpts from the Pioneers of Tomorrow show featuring Nahoul the Bee, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on July 13, 2007.

Saraa, child host: Who are you, and where did you come from?

Nahoul the Bee: I am Nahoul.

Saraa: Nahoul who?

Nahoul: I'm Nahoul, Farfour's cousin.

Saraa: What do you want?

Nahoul: I want to continue the path of my cousin Farfour.

Saraa: How do you want to do this?

Nahoul: I want to be in every episode with you on the Pioneers of Tomorrow show, just like Farfour. I want to continue in the path of Farfour – the path of Islam, of heroism, of martyrdom, and of the mujahideen. Me and my friends will follow in the footsteps of Farfour. We will take revenge upon the enemies of Allah, the killer of the prophets and of the innocent children, until we liberate Al-Aqsa from their impurity. We place our trust in Allah.

Saraa: Welcome, Nahoul...

The lawsuits have now been settled, thanks in part to interfaith efforts for more than a year to bring the litigants together.

Speaking halting Arabic, students use Iraqi dinars to buy granola bars and chewing gum in a makeshift dukan. They occasionally feast on kebabs , falafels, and grape leaves as Lebanese music fills their classroom. They watch sexy dancers in Egyptian music videos performing moves they are surprised to see on something other than MTV.

For more than five hours a day, six days a week, the 29 Boston public school students are learning Arabic and studying Middle Eastern history, geography, and culture as part of a national initiative to ramp up the number of Arabic speakers. The new, federally funded program, which is in only eight schools nationwide, is shattering many stereotypes of the Middle East that the students gleaned from coverage of the war in Iraq.

Saturated by images of Muslims and Arabs as terrorists since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the students say they have the unique opportunity to adopt more expansive views of a volatile, oil-rich region that will only grow in importance...

...On July 7, the students visited the Islamic Society of Boston, a mosque in Cambridge's Central Square, where they sat in a circle on the carpet and learned about Islam from two mosque members. Peberlyn Moreta, 16, said she imagined that the women would be veiled head to toe, and was surprised to see only their heads covered...

They giggled at the repeated scenes of a Palestinian woman holding hands with her lover. But the students quickly turned somber when their teacher, Lama Jarudi, delved into why some people martyr themselves in suicide bombings...

"They fear that I'm helping Americans train more spies," said Jarudi, who lived in Lebanon until age 9. "I feel quite the opposite. Anyone who learns the Arabic language inherently has to understand the culture a little bit."...

The parliamentary standards watchdog will rule this week that Galloway failed properly to declare his links to a charitable appeal partially funded from money made by selling Iraqi oil under Saddam Hussein, according to a source close to the inquiry. The one-month suspension for Galloway, often referred to as “Gorgeous George”, is one of the most severe given to an MP.

Galloway, who was expelled from Labour, is now an MP for the Respect party. He may also be asked to apologise to the Commons for his behaviour but will launch a robust defence of his conduct. He denies any wrongdoing...

...In 1998 Galloway founded the Mariam Appeal, which campaigned for the lifting of sanctions on Iraq. The appeal, which paid Galloway’s wife and funded international travel for the MP, received almost £450,000 from Fawaz Zureikat, a Jordanian businessman who was also a trustee of the appeal. It subsequently emerged that more than half of this money came from the proceeds of Iraqi oil sales. An investigation by the American Senate alleged that the Mariam Appeal was used by the Iraqi regime to finance Galloway.

However, the MP strenuously denies that he was complicit in any such arrangement and claims he is the victim of a smear campaign. He says he had no idea that the money donated had come from Iraqi oil sales.

The Mariam Appeal, which raised more than £1.4m, has never filed any accounts and the parliamentary authorities have been unable to account for some of the expenditure.

If this is what passes for logic at the NYT then it's a strange one indeed. Strange, that is, if those subscribing to said logic want to call themselves 'progressive' or regard themselves as 'enlightened'--as the paper and its readers tend to like to do. It's a logic in which humanistic, and yes liberal principles are completely turned on their heads in favor of something small and frightened and selfish and more than a little ashamed of itself...

Why are civilian casualties barely worth noticing this summer? Last July, when Israel's precision strikes against Hezbollah occasionally produced civilian casualties, AP and Reuters cranked out an endless series of breathless stories and photos documenting every last corpse and grieving woman. Where are the "green helmet man"? Why are AP and Reuters so much less interested in civilians killed by Lebanese than civilians killed by Israelis?...

Mattresses, Sleeping bags, sheets etc.

If anyone can spare these items, or anything else that might help them spend their nights in Jerusalem
-please call:

050-324 1522

*For more information, please contact the number above.

Simon Shocket
050-324 1522
simon_shocket@yahoo.com

This is the first case of its kind since Hamas took full control over the Gaza Strip last month.
They said the man, Fadel Duhmush, was caught after being secretly filmed by Islamic Jihad activists as he infiltrated the Gaza Strip with the help of IDF soldiers.

The two-minute film, which was posted on the Islamic Jihad Web site, showed an IDF jeep approaching the security fence along the border with the Gaza Strip.

Duhmush is seen dressed in an IDF uniform as he gets off the jeep and approaches the fence, escorted by two soldiers.

Before jumping over the fence, he is seen changing from his IDF outfit into civilian clothes. The soldiers then collect the military uniform and leave the area.

Islamic Jihad officials in the Gaza Strip claimed that Duhmush was a former member of the group recruited to work for the Israeli security services.

They said it was the first time that a "collaborator" had been caught "red-handed."

Duhmush was being held in the main prison in Gaza City, where he was reportedly subjected to brutal torture during his interrogation, the sources told the Post. They said the circumstances of his death remained unknown.

A spokesman for Islamic Jihad claimed that the 31-year-old Duhmush had committed suicide in his prison cell.

The spokesman said his body was discovered early Wednesday morning and was transferred to Shifa Hospital because the victim's family refused to bury him out of fear for their lives.

A Palestinian journalist in Gaza City said Duhmush had been handed over to Hamas a few days after he was captured by Islamic Jihad members. "I heard from people who saw the body that he had been brutally tortured in the Hamas prison," he said.

...Then Lt. John Donaldson [6], who served in the British 6th Airborne Division that sent a detachment to escort the deported immigrants, is quoted (Maariv, October 17, 2005) as saying that the escorting soldiers never returned to their units in Palestine. Apparently, the ordeal had such an emotional impact on them that a near mutiny erupted among them. The British army decided not to file any charges and closed the matter quietly, in order to prevent a political uproar in the UK.

The ship's ordeals were widely covered by international media, and caused the British government much public embarrassment, especially after the refugees were forced to disembark in Germany...

This video was filmed on the third day of the construction of a trench in the Dome of the Rock exterior platform (The location of the biblical temple). The bedrock and the archaeological remains at part of the location of the trench are just 2-3 feet deep. The trench itself at some points reached the depth of 2.5 feet.

The video was taken at the end of this construction after the trench was refilled again.

The police prevented us from picking up any artifacts or from even bending over the soil to examine the artifacts closely. In the video a police men is sent over Dr. Eilat Mazar to make sure she won't pick up any archaeological artifacts, all at a time while a small tractor maneuvers the earth with no supervision.

Ahmad Jibril: When Abu Mazen came to Damascus with his team, I asked them: "What happened to the investigation into the death of Abu Ammar [Arafat]? The Israelis killed him. He was my colleague ever since 1965 and used to sleep at my home. He and I followed the same path." Is it conceivable that when Rafiq Al-Hariri was killed, all hell broke loose, even though he was just a merchant in Saudi Arabia, who later entered politics, whereas the death of Yasser Arafat, who for 40 years had been carrying his gun from one place to another, is not investigated? Is this conceivable? They were silent, and then one of them said to me: "To be honest, the French gave us the medical report that stated that the cause of Abu Ammar's death was AIDS." I am not saying this, they did. Now they pretend that they miss Yasser Arafat, and complain that [Hamas] entered his house in [Gaza] and so on... I say to every honorable member of the Fatah movement that he should be happy that we got rid of the plague, which had been imposed upon them and upon the Palestinian people. The Fatah movement now has an opportunity to renew itself.

The Metropolitan Police, Britain's largest police force, hopes a campaign beginning Wednesday will highlight that the practice is a crime here.

To make their point, police are offering a 20,000-pound (euro29,500; US$40,000) reward for information leading to Britain's first prosecution for female genital mutilation, Detective Chief Superintendent Alastair Jeffrey said.

In Britain, the problem mostly involves first-generation immigrants from Africa and the Middle East.

Police say they do not have comprehensive statistics about the number of victims. But midwife Comfort Momoh, who specializes in treating them at London hospitals and clinics and who works with police, told the news conference she treats 400-500 victims every year.

Arranging or carrying out the procedure -- in Britain or abroad -- is a criminal offense punishable by up to 14 years in prison, but no one has been prosecuted since it was banned under British law in 2003, Jeffrey said. Police estimate up to 66,000 girls in Britain face the risk of genital mutilation.

"The timing of this campaign is for one good reason: so we can get in before the summer holidays, a time when young girls are taken abroad and subjected to genital mutilation," he told a news conference on Tuesday...

...Authorities believe the number of genital mutilation cases peaks in the summer, because the extended holiday gives girls more time to recover -- thereby making it easier for those responsible to cover up their actions.

Female genital mutilation usually involves the removal of the clitoris and other parts of female genitalia. Those who practice it say it tames a girl's sexual desire and maintains her honor.

It is practiced by Muslims and Christians alike, deeply rooted in the Nile Valley region and parts of sub-Saharan African, and is also done in Yemen and Oman. Through migration, the practice has spread to Western countries like Britain.

The decision reversed an Illinois federal court judge's 2004 ruling that rejected Walid Elkhatib's argument that Dunkin' Donuts discriminated against him based on his race by making the sale of breakfast sandwiches with bacon, ham or sausage a mandatory part of his franchise agreement.

According to court papers, Elkhatib, a Palestinian Arab, has been a Dunkin' Donuts franchisee since 1979, before the company began selling any pork.

Once breakfast sandwiches were introduced in 1984, Elkhatib's Chicago-area Dunkin' Donuts outlets sold them without bacon, ham or sausage for nearly 20 years. The company did not object, even providing him with a sign that said "Meat Products Not Available."

In 2002, however, Elkhatib was told he would not be able to relocate a store or renew his franchisee agreements due to his failure to carry the full product line.

Elkhatib sued Dunkin' Donuts and its former parent company, Allied Domecq, later that year, claiming that the chain's refusal to renew his franchises constituted racial discrimination.

In an opinion Tuesday, U.S. Circuit Judge Ilana Diamond Rovner wrote that because three other Dunkin' Donuts franchisees in the area were allowed to continue operating without selling breakfast sandwiches for reasons other than the owners' religious views such as space or lease restrictions, that there was sufficient evidence to take the suit to trial...

Rydzyk went on to accuse the tiny Polish Jewish community of “grafting $65 billion from Poland" under the pretext of “Jewish pogroms” in the 1930’s saying, “They [the Jews] will come to you and say, 'Give me your coat! Take off your trousers! Give me your shoes!'"...

...Three million of Poland’s estimated 3.25 pre-World War II Jewish population, the largest Jewish community in the world, were murdered in the Nazi Holocaust. The Jewish Community’s property was never returned after World War II by the Communist regime. Current efforts to address the Restitution issue have led to Rydzyk’s outrage.

Father Rydzyk’s extremism was previously criticized by Pope Benedict XVI. His radio station has hosted antisemites and Holocaust deniers. Join the Wiesenthal Center’s call to the Catholic Church to dismiss this “Josef Goebbels in a collar.”

One sign, on a building at 15 Shlomo Street, reads: "For Sale/Rent to Arabs Only." Next door, at 17 Shlomo Street, lives the family of Sasson Nuriel, who was kidnapped and murdered by Hamas terrorists in September, 2005.

Contacted by Arutz-7, the home's owner at first denied speaking or understanding Hebrew or English, though eventually admitted, in fluent Hebrew, that he had placed the sign. "In the State of Israel, Arabs and Jews live equally. We want to be equals and we can therefore sell the house to whoever we want," he said. He declined to give his name, but insisted that his right to sell to "Arabs only" would even stand up in court.

Aryeh King, who conducted a survey of Arabs moving into Jerusalem's Jewish neighborhoods due to the construction of the Partition Wall says at least 120 Arab families had moved into Pisgat Ze'ev as of December, 2006...

...In 2000, Israel's Supreme Court required the Jewish town of Katzir, in the Galilee, to allow Muslim Arabs to move in and build their homes there, ruling that limiting who can purchase land there would constitute discrimination.

The gunmen were protesting against Abbas's refusal to allocate secret halls for them so that they, too, could sit for the exams, without risking being arrested or killed by the IDF. The gunmen were later allowed to sit for the exams in special halls.

One of the teachers said most of the gunmen cheated.

"They opened books and copied the answers word by word," he said. "We were afraid to stop them because they were carrying M-16 rifles."

PA security forces have detained more than 100 Hamas supporters in Nablus over the past three weeks. All the detainees are being held without trial or questioning and are banned from meeting with their lawyers.

Unconfirmed reports that some of the Hamas detainees have been tortured sparked a wave of protests in the city and other parts of the West Bank.

Citing "security concerns," PA policemen banned reporters and photographers from covering Tuesday's demonstration outside the PA lock-up. A university student who was suspected of using his mobile phone to take a picture of the event was beaten and taken into custody.

In a related development, Palestinian journalists complained that the PA had banned the Hamas-affiliated Falasteen newspaper from being distributed in the West Bank. The paper is based in Gaza City.

On the first count, they are correct. On the second, the truth is more complicated. Doctors who justify the murder of innocents are disturbingly common in radical Islam. And there's a case to be made that the Koran itself encourages their crimes...

The union's National Executive Council has forwarded a motion, tabled by union general-secretary Jeremy Dear and seconded by its president Michelle Stainstreet, that calls to put the row over the Israel-boycott call and for members to unite behind the union's key workplace priorities.

The executive council has committed to continuing to work with Israeli journalist unions and has stated it will take no action on the boycott motion.

The motion "strongly reaffirmed" the sovereign role of the union's annual conference in setting National Union of Journalists policy and rejected any allegations that the union was anti-Semitic or racist, reaffirming the union's commitment to fighting racism in all its forms.

The Stop the Boycott Campaign, a coalition of academics and Jewish and non-Jewish groups across the UK, welcomed the decision to drop the boycott call.

"This is an honorable decision and a victory for common sense," said campaign co-director Jeremy Newmark. "It shows that the NUJ leadership are attuned to the wishes of their membership, and should serve as an example to the leaders of other trade unions. This is a shot in the arm for the anti-boycott movement in the UK and the beginning of a backlash against the extreme positions of the pro-boycott camp."

"This is a vindication of the members of the NUJ who do not want their union to boycott Israel," Lorna Fitzsimons, chief executive of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre said. "This vote is instructive to all the trade unions whose conferences are voting to boycott Israel - the rank and file do not want it."...

He is Pfc. Domenico S. Di Salvo, U.S. Marine Corps, of Akron, Ohio. He will be buried July 12 in Seville, Ohio.

In late November 1950, Di Salvo was a member of Company F, 2nd Battalion, 5th Regiment, of the 1st Marine Division then deployed near Yudam-ni on the western side of the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. On Nov. 27, three Communist Chinese Divisions launched an attack on the Marine positions. Over the next several days, U.S. forces staged a fighting withdrawal to the south. Di Salvo was lost on Dec. 2, 1950, as a result of enemy action near Yudam-ni. He was among several in his company buried by fellow Marines in a temporary grave near the battlefield.

During Operation Glory in 1954, the North Korean government repatriated the remains of U.S. and allied soldiers. Included in this repatriation were sets of remains associated with Di Salvo’s burial. That year, U.S. officials identified five of these individuals. One repatriated individual could not be identified at that time and was buried as an unknown in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (The Punchbowl) in Hawaii.

In November 2006, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) exhumed remains from the NMCP believed to be those of Di Salvo.

Among other forensic tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from the JPAC used dental comparisons in Di Salvo’s identification.

The dig has been approved by the police, but the Israel Antiquities Authority declined to respond to the Waqf's excavations and would not comment on whether one of its archaeologists had approved the move.

The Committee for the Prevention of Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount, an apolitical group comprised of archaeologists and intellectuals from the left and right, criticized the use of a tractor for excavation at the Temple Mount "without real, professional and careful archaeological supervision involving meticulous documentation."

Speaking for the committee yesterday, archaeologist Eilat Mazar said: "There is disappointment at the turning of a blind eye and the ongoing contempt for the tremendous archaeological importance of the Temple Mount."

At the beginning of the year, Israeli excavations near the Temple Mount, part of a plan to rebuild the Mugrabi bridge walkway, led to violent protests from Arabs in Israel and around the world.

For instance, one might think that only Israelis are sane, basically rights-respecting, and receptive to basic Western values — so that one can appeal to Israelis' basic principles in arguing that they're acting wrongly. Or one could believe that only Israel — and not Sudan or China — has a healthy enough democratic culture that this sort of treatment will change its policies. In other words, far from being an anti-Semitic policy, the boycott could be an act of deep respect for Israel, essentially saying: "Only you guys aren't savages; we think you might actually listen."

But I am skeptical that this distinction really does account for the vastly disproportionate focus on real and imagined Israeli offenses in many left-wing quarters. The problem is that even other liberal democracies don't get even a fraction of the criticism that Israel gets when they enact comparable policies.

Consider the case of France, which doesn't get so much as a tiny fraction of the hostility directed at Israel, even though most of the accusations typically made against Israel could just as easily be leveled at the French government. The French comparison is far from the only example of anti-Israel double standards. But it has the virtue of highlighting that double standard with unusual clarity because the main arguments used to defend the double standard in other cases simply don't apply to France. The French surely accept "basic Western values," and have a "healthy democratic culture" at least as much as the Israelis do. Let's consider the bill of indictment that left-wingers could make against France were they so inclined:...

...During their time away they experienced two very different Israels. Hadid, the Palestinian Israel; Kramer, the Jewish. Hadid assisting a non-government organisation (NGO) called Ittijah; Kramer, studying Judaism in an Ultra-orthodox sector of Jerusalem...

...In her role as Ittijah's public relations officer, Hadid spent much or her time helping member organisations with fundraising, liasing with foreign embassies and assisting on jobs that required English language skills. The tension of the conflict invaded every aspect of her life...

...Thanks to Ittijah's expanded duties Hadid found herself working long hours, often until three in the morning. She was no longer fundraising but instead spent her time writing daily press releases, giving interviews, fielding emergency calls and helping to organise the delivery of aid...

...The intensity of Hadid's involvement over the last nine months has had a strong impact on her views. When she first arrived in the Middle East, Hadid expressed a desire to make more Israeli friends. Now she has trouble separating the personal from the political.

"I can't look at Israelis anymore. I can't separate your average Israeli citizen from the occupation, I don't want to be friends with them, I don't want to talk to them," says Hadid...

..."To this day I'd never say that I am anti-anybody. But did my objectivity get thrown out the window? Yes. Because I had an Israeli gun pointing at me, not a Palestinian one," says Hadid...

* Played a prominent role at Durban. According to its website, "Ittijah's international profile was brought under the spotlight at the Durban World Conference against Racism in 2001, where Ittijah gathered, facilitated and directed the vision and position of the Palestinian NGOs inside Israel on racism, particularly Israeli-state racism towards Palestinian citizens, and the apartheid the State practices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip."

* Has joined a number of Palestinian NGOs in rejecting anti-terror clauses in funding agreements, specifically USAID and the Ford Foundation.

Fayyad, who is heading the “Emergency Government” in the West Bank, said that he will not allow the existence of what he described “armed militias” in the Palestinian territories.

The brigades said in its statement that Fayyad is providing Hamas with a free service and giving it an alibi to attack the emergency government and its policies, since such statements indicate that this government is against the resistance.

The brigades also stated that Fayyad said in an interview with the CNN that the resistance brought miseries to the Palestinian people, and added that “now the truth is clear to us, Fayyad is America’s man in Palestine, he is the first Palestinian Prime Minister who carries an American citizenship”.

Moreover, the brigades demanded president Abbas to remove Fayyad from his post and appoint a national figure, and demanded Fayyad to apologize to the Palestinian people, the martyrs, the wounded and the detainees.

The brigades said that it will not stand idle while the Israeli occupation continues its invasions and violations, and called for the unity of all Palestinian factions and armed groups.

Jafar Kiani and his partner, Mokarrameh Ebrahimi, have been in prison for more than 11 years for an adulterous relationship and having two children. The couple’s children live in prison with their mother...

...According to the Iranian law, the judge who has issued the sentence would have to be present in person to throw the first stone. Some unofficial sources have reported that only a few of the villagers participated in the stoning and the sentence was mostly carried out by the officials and the related service men.

The judiciary officials have so far neither confirmed nor denied the stoning of Jafar Kiani. Silence seems to be the current policy of some judiciary officials, including Hassan Ghasemi, the Head of Judiciary Office in Ghazvin, who has told the Stop Stoning Forever Campaign activists to contact Alireza Jamshidi, the official Iranian judiciary spokesman, for answers to their questions.

The Stop Stoning Forever Campaign is asking all citizens of the world to raise their opposition to stoning and try to save the life of Mokarrameh Ebrahimi from stoning...

Simon had surgery this morning to repair his lung. Simon is continuing to recover, though we still do not know how long he will remain in the hospital or when he will return to work.

We also learned this morning that the accident was not a hit-and-run as we originally believed; a police report was filed on the scene and the driver has taken responsibility for their actions.

Many of you expressed interest in helping Simon further by making a contribution. You may do so by clicking here or by making your check out to Simon Deng and mailing it to:

American Anti-Slavery Group
198 Tremont St. #421
Boston, MA 02116

Once again, thank you for all the best wishes, thoughts and prayers. We will continue to forward emails, cards and contributions to Simon, so please feel free to respond to this email or send a card to our office.

Ahead of the vote, Eric McDonald, secretary of TGWU's Birmingham branch, which proposed the boycott motion, compared Israel to Nazi Germany...

Syria can, apparently, get away with just about anything. I could hardly blame Assad at this point if he believes, after such an astonishing non-response, that he can reconquer Beirut. So far he can kill and terrorize and invade and destroy with impunity, at least up to a point. What is that point? Has anyone in the U.S., Israel, the Arab League, the European Union, or the United Nations even considered the question?

This week’s messages came from the young viewers, who phoned into the show, expressed their views to the child host, Saraa’ and demonstrated how well they have absorbed the violent lessons of the show and possibly children’s programming.

One young caller proclaimed:
"Awake oh children, awake to action, your destiny is one, and it is to become a Shahid [Martyr] for Allah.”

Later in the show, a nine-year old girl paraphrased the Hadith (Islamic tradition attributed to Muhammad) that has been broadcast numerous times by Fatah and Hamas religious and educational leaders – that the Hour (of resurrection) is dependent on Muslims’ fighting and killing the Jews.

Shahad, 9 years old, on the phone:
Saraa’: What would you like to share with us?
Shahad: The Noble Hadith.
Saraa’: Go on.
Shahad: The Prophet [Muhammad] said: The Hour [Resurrection] will not
take place until you fight the Jews, they will be east of the river and you to the west, and the rock and the tree will say: Oh, Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and fight him!
Saraa’: Thank you very much, Shahad.
[Al Aqsa TV (Hamas), July 6, 2007]

Zhu's fish farm, in a village on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, sends 2.7 million catfish fillets each year to the United States through a Virginia importer. Despite his best efforts -- he has dozens of employees clearing trash from the water each day, and the fish are fed sacks of fish meal more expensive than rice -- Zhu's fish sometimes get sick. Then he brings out the drugs.

"It's standard practice," he said. "Everyone uses them to keep fish healthy."

Chinese exporters like him have seized much of the US market, accounting for 22 percent of all imports, because their fish are cheaper to raise.

The fish are being raised, however, in a country whose waterways are an ongoing problem, tainted by sewage, pesticides, heavy metals, and other pollutants. The situation is worse in the southern part of the country, where Zhu's farm is and where industrial runoff accumulates.

Like other fish farmers throughout the world, catfish growers in China turn to a variety of potions. But the extent to which they use traditional Chinese medicine, which cannot be tested for as easily in the Western countries that import fish, is unusual. Zhu says he uses only safe and legal drugs, but it was clear that some of his competitors have not been so scrupulous.

The competitors spike the water with banned substances to keep their farmed fish alive. Batches of seafood traded recently at the Shanghai fish market, for example, carried the tell-tale greenish tinge of malachite green, a disinfectant powder that has been banned in China because it is a suspected carcinogen but is still commonly used.

Illegal substances such as malachite green keep showing up in Chinese seafood shipped to the United States, provoking a partial US ban on such shipments earlier this month. It was the latest development in an ongoing global awakening about the risks of Chinese-made products, from toys tainted with lead paint to pet-food ingredients containing a deadly industrial chemical.

Using illegal disinfectants and antibiotics "is a lazy way of raising fish," Zhu said. "But it is extremely effective."

Many of the "Southern-style" catfish fillets on US grocery shelves these days are indeed from the south -- of China...

...Chinese imports make up about 5 percent of all catfish sold in the United States, but that figure is growing . In 2004, China sent fewer than 100 containers, at 20 tons each. By 2005, 200 containers were sent, and in 2006, 500 were shipped.

On the face of it, I seem to be wrong. Alan was abducted by a Mafia-like, Palestinian extended family or clan. For what purpose? Apparently to have Alan as a bargaining chip in a power struggle with Fatah and Hamas.

That is one possible explanation. But in the Middle East nothing, absolutely nothing, is ever what it seems to be. (I think it was Lebanon's last murdered president who once said, "Believe nothing of what you read and only half of what you see." He was speaking about events in his own country, but what he said holds good, generally speaking, for the region. My own rule of thumb for interpreting Zionist statements is to assume they mean the opposite of what is stated).

In my assessment, any attempt to establish the truth about who, really, was responsible for Alan Johnston's abduction must recognise a fact of life – that Palestinian and other Arab groups such as the one that kidnapped the BBC's man are easily penetrated by outside agencies ranging from Israel's secret services to Al Qaeda.

It is by no means impossible that Alan Johnston's kidnappers were acting, knowingly or not, for an outside agency. If so, which one? And for what purpose, actually?

...The money for this place comes from the city treasury in large part. Yes, he says almost apologetically, those funds are supposed to be for civic projects – sewers, roads, trash pick-up – but there are only two youth centers built by the city and the mosques are now being used for youth centers; there is a daycare built into the back of this mosque. During the day, sometimes, they put playground equipment on the plaza of the mosque, the very plaza we found empty on both entrance and exit. He wants to show me a prized Quran...

The scandal, under investigation since 2005, involves forged bank records that suggested falsely that Mr Sarkozy and other senior figures had received big bribes in the sale of French warships to Taiwan.

Mr de Villepin was serving as Foreign and then Interior Minister and Mr Sarkozy, his rival for the future presidency, was Finance, then Interior Minister.

The affair poisoned the already strained relations between Mr de Villepin, the protégé of Mr Chirac, and the President’s mutinous subordinate, who was intent on succeeding him.

Investigating judges and police arrived yesterday afternoon at the expensive Paris apartment building where Mr de Villepin lives.

They were acting on material that was extracted last week from erased data on an intelligence officer’s computer. This added to evidence that Mr Chirac had been briefed on the affair at the time, according to leaked judicial transcripts. Two weeks ago the former President refused to obey a judicial summons for questioning over the case. His lawyers argued that he was immune from inquiries into any acts undertaken during his presidency...

State and federal authorities said they have no proof that anyone has been poisoned by toothpaste contaminated with diethylene glycol, a substance that Chinese manufacturers have used as a cheap substitute for the sweetener glycerin. Still, state authorities said, they ordered local health agencies to scour store shelves for potentially tainted toothpaste, knowing that long-term exposure to diethylene glycol may cause kidney and liver problems.

"Suffice to say, this chemical is not allowed in toothpaste in the United States, and we obviously feel it's unhealthy," said Tom Lyons , a Department of Public Health spokesman.

Deaths in Panama, Haiti, and China have been blamed on diethylene glycol found in pharmaceutical products such as cough syrups. The risk posed by tainted toothpaste is believed to be low, FDA representatives have said, because the amount of diethylene glycol in toothpaste would be small, and people generally spit toothpaste out, rather than swallowing it...

By a 2-to-1 vote, an appeals court in Cincinnati ruled that a group of plaintiffs, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, had no legal standing to challenge the National Security Agency's surveillance program. Because the decision to dismiss the case was based on that legal technicality, the court did not take a position on the legality of the program.

Still, the decision erased the only judicial repudiation of the White House's claim that Bush has the wartime power to bypass a law that forbids the government from eavesdropping on Americans' phone calls and e-mails without a judge's permission. Last August, a federal district judge in Detroit had ruled that the warrantless spying program was illegal and must be shut down.

Moreover, yesterday's decision bolstered the administration's position in this and similar cases that any courtroom discussions of the program would jeopardize "state secrets," and so lawsuits challenging the program must be dismissed -- an argument that the district judge in Detroit had rejected in her ruling last summer...

...ACLU legal director Steve Shapiro called the ruling "deeply disappointing."...

...Last August, District Court Judge Anna Diggs Taylor agreed that they had standing to sue, then ruled that the program was illegal...

...The legal analysis by Taylor -- whom former President Jimmy Carter nominated to the court -- was controversial from the beginning. Many legal specialists on both sides of the NSA surveillance dispute had predicted that her judgment might not stand on appeal.

Some had also predicted that the appellate court might instead dismiss the case on the grounds that it was moot after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced in January 2007 that the warrantless surveillance program had been changed...

This is a synopsis of a little book which I read recently, entitled ‘Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland’, by Jan Tomasz Gross (Princeton, 2001). (A review by George Steiner in the Guardian gives a fuller account)

My emotional response to this tale may be taken as read. Indeed, it is hard to conceive that more than one response could be possible. Such, nevertheless, is the case. When I had finished the book I googled it out of curiosity, and came across a review by one Norman Finkelstein. This is, to put it mildly, a remarkable document, and it is worth examining it closely for what it reveals about its author.

Finkelstein is an important figure among people interested in knowing ‘how far they can go’ in their anti-Zionism without convicting themselves of anti-Semitism. He provides them with a benchmark which reassures them that they can in fact go rather a long way...

...One thing becomes clear in the first couple of sentences. He is very, very angry with Jan Gross. In fact, it’s hard not to conclude that he’s far angrier with Gross than with the perpetrators of genocide in Jedwabne. Without having a single criticism to make of the book’s factual accuracy, he sets out to discredit its author. After six paragraphs of denunciation of Gross, Finkelstein finally makes a grudging acknowledgment that he has told a true story and that it needed to be told...

For the next six months, the museum will house 27 (though no more than 15 at a time) of the oldest known biblical texts, making for the largest-ever public display of the scrolls.

To beef up security before the scrolls' arrival, the museum was awarded roughly $80,000 by the Department of Homeland Security's Urban Area Security Initiative for nonprofit institutions considered to be at "high risk" for a terrorist attack. Of the seven San Diego nonprofits awarded a grant in 2006, six were Jewish organizations, the seventh being the museum, which spent the money on security cameras and door locks.

Dave Dalton, head of security for the museum, said that although it's been busy ("busier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs," as he put it), there've been no threats...

It is humiliating because it is obvious that we media – and our allies in the state department, the legal trade, the NGOs, the Democratic Party, the UN, etc., - can’t do squat about such determined use of force.

Our words, images, arguments and skills can’t stop the killing. Only the rough soldiers and their guns can solve the problem, and we won’t admit that fact because the admission would weaken our influence and our claim to social status.

So we pretend Yon’s massacre – and the North Korean killing fields, the Arab treatment of women, the Arab hatred of Israel, etc. - doesn’t exist, and instead focus our emotions and attention on the somewhat-bad domestic things that we can ‘fix’ with our DC-based allies. Things such as Abu Ghraib, wiretapping, etc. When we ‘fix’ them, then we get status, applause, power, new jobs, ego, etc.

Please don’t be surprised. We media are an interest group not much different from the automakers, the unions, and the farmers.

How did Hamas fund this Gaza coup? What of the international "economic siege" that Hamas complained of against its government? Wasn't Hamas so strapped for funds that its leaders resorted to smuggling suitcases of Iranian cash into Gaza across the border with Egypt?

Part of the answer lies in — or rather under — the city of Rafah, on the Egyptian border. Smuggling tunnels, operated primarily by Gaza clans more interested in profit than ideology, run between houses on either side of the border. Egyptian and Israeli authorities have discovered tunnels dug as deep as 98 feet below ground in an effort to avoid sonar detection. Some tunnels include air ducts, electricity and lighting, and even rails and wagons to help smuggle heavy objects. Even when the mouths to the tunnels are found and sealed, the midsections remain intact and new openings are dug to reconnect them.

For a few thousand dollars, groups like Hamas rent tunnels for a night or more to smuggle in weapons and other material, according to Israeli and Egyptian officials and press reports. Hamas was able to smuggle and pay for the weapons, despite the international sanctions regime, through a variety of means — in a textbook example of the seamless cooperation between its military, political and charitable wings...

Dozens of employees arrived at their offices in Gaza to find entrance doors chained and Hamas's Executive Force threatening to arrest them, witnesses said.

No one was hurt in the incident in the Hamas-controlled territory.

"The (Executive Force) fired into the air first and then when employees did not (leave), they fired on the ground, near women employees," said Finance Ministry worker Mesleh al-Kilani.

"Yes, they fired," many of his colleagues shouted.

Guidelines for the working week by President Mahmoud Abbas's emergency government set Sunday to Thursday as working days with a Friday/Saturday weekend.

But the Hamas-led government, which Abbas dismissed after the Islamist movement seized Gaza in a civil war three weeks ago, has set a Saturday-Wednesday working week...

Hamas used the Doghmush gunmen as contract killers against Fatah (in the murder of Mousa Arafat), for the launching of Qassam rockets against Israel while declaring it was adhering to a cease-fire and, of course, for the abduction of Gilad Shalit.

The leader of the Army of Islam, Mumtaz Doghmush, used to spend time with the heads of the Hamas military wing, Ahmed al-Ja'abari, Ahmed al A'ndur and others...

"This call for divestment by the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church borders on anti-Semitism," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "The authors of the report must be living in a bubble to ignore ongoing attacks on Israel and Hamas' violent takeover of Gaza to issue such an outrageous, biased report that focuses only on Israel."

Mr. Foxman added, "While this Methodist task force has busied itself researching divestment, the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah perpetrated war against Israel, and rocket attacks targeted Israeli cities and towns in the north and the south. Yet the Methodists seem to believe that they need to teach Israel a lesson."...

The suspects, 10 of whom have Israeli identity cards, were planning to have the recruited youths carry out terror activities and set up groups that would later become terror cells, the Shin Bet said. They said part of the plan was to gain a foothold in the Temple Mount...

...Hamas is also involved in construction work at the Temple Mount, along with the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, according to the Shin Bet investigation. Security officials said the construction is not being coordinated with Israel and violates the status quo. Hamas is also running tours of the Temple Mount meant to strengthen young people's connection to the site, and has set up religious and social welfare centers in East Jerusalem, the Shin Bet said...

But there was a problem with my theory, and it was never clearer than in a conversation I once had with a Pakistani friend who told me that he loathed people like President Bush who insisted on dividing the world into "us" and "them." My friend, of course, was taking an innocent stand against intolerance, and did not realize that, in so doing, he was in fact dividing the world into "us" and "them," falling straight into the camp of people he loathed.

This is a political version of a famous paradox formulated by Bertrand Russell in 1901, which shook the logical foundations of mathematics. Any person who claims to be tolerant naturally defines himself in opposition to those who are intolerant. But that makes him intolerant of certain people--which invalidates his claim to be tolerant.

Arab governments led by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan have given their backing to a new government without the Islamist movement Hamas. Abbas formed the cabinet last month after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in fighting with Fatah.

The United States and Israel opposed the Hamas-led government because Hamas refused to renounce armed struggle against Israel or recognise the Israeli state.

"Maintain the way of jihad and preaching which has spread among the Muslim Palestinian people. Support it and beware of it easing up, and ward off the danger of those who are laying in wait," said a June 30 statement published on Islamist Web sites.

The document was signed by 16 clerics who are leading figures in Saudi Arabia's powerful religious establishment, including Abdel-Rahman al-Barrak and Nasser al-Omar...

...the clerics said: "It is our right to help them (Muslims) financially and morally and giving alms is a great moral virtue ... we warn against letting down our brothers in Palestine and in Gaza in particular."

...On BBC Radio Four’s Today programme this morning (0755 approx), the reformed Islamist extremist Hassan Butt patiently spelled out to presenter Jim Naughtie that Islamist terrorists carry out their acts of mass murder as an expression of religious faith and fervour. They do it, he said, ‘for the pleasure of God’. Far from being acts of despair, these terrible atrocities are acts of religious exultation.

If we don’t understand, even now, that what we are facing is a religious war, a jihad against the unbeliever and backsliding Muslims across the world we cannot possibly hope to defend ourselves against it. Yet while former Islamist extremists such as Hassan Butt and Ed Husain are urgently telling us the truth, Gordon Brown’s new administration is shutting its ears and embarking on a suicidally stupid and cowardly strategy. Astoundingly, it has decided to deny the religious element of this jihad altogether, to redefine Islamic terrorism as mere criminality and to ban all terms that call this horror by its proper name. From the Daily Express today, we learn:

Gordon Brown has banned ministers from using the word ‘Muslim’ in connection with the terrorism crisis. The Prime Minister has also instructed his team – including new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith – that the phrase ‘war on terror’ is to be dropped. The shake-up is part of a fresh attempt to improve community relations and avoid offending Muslims, adopting a more ‘consensual’ tone than existed under Tony Blair…

He believes that there will be no solution to the crisis until the Palestinians understand that they need to adopt 'realistic solutions' and cease toying with 'dreams.' It is best, he says, to let the Palestinians become accustomed to the fact that if they do not help themselves, they will get nothing.

AASG associate CJ Lonoff wrote us after visiting Simon this weekend, “The good news is that through all of this awfulness, he is our Simon Deng. His spirits are good and he is upbeat, even though he is obviously experiencing discomfort and pain.”...

...In lieu of gifts or flowers, please address any cards or contributions to Simon Deng and send them to: 198 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02116. If you would like to send Simon an email, please respond to this message [Note, that means send an email, don't leave a comment, he won't see it. -S]. We will forward all correspondence to Simon promptly and keep you updated in the coming weeks.

Simon has touched so many lives as he has worked to raise awareness about slavery in Sudan. Thank you in advance for helping us send as much light and love his way during this difficult time.

Farfour's grandfather: "I want to give you something in trust before I die, and I want you to safeguard it, Farfour."

Farfour: "What is it this trust I am supposed to safeguard, grandpa?"

[...]

Farfour's grandfather: "This land, which was [occupied] in 1948, is the land I inherited from my fathers and forefathers. I want you to protect it. It is a beautiful land, all covered in flowers and olive and palm trees. I want you to protect it, Farfour."

Farfour: "What is this land called, grandpa?"

Farfour's grandfather: "The land is called Tel Al-Rabi'. But unfortunately, the Jews called it 'Tel Aviv' after they occupied it."...

The place called Tel-Aviv was established on sand dunes outside Jaffa.

When it grew north (about 8km), it reached two Arab villages called Sheikh Mounis and Jamousin ( a village established by people from Jordan) -- both are close to the Yarkon River in north of today's Tel-Aviv. There was also a small German colony called Sharona. There are clear historical records by General Allenby how his forces bombed Shiekh Mounis and conquered the village. There are aerial photos of the whole area taken by the Germans prior the British occupation in 1917 -- they show the sand dunes and emptiness. (Parts of Jamousin are in the edge of the photos.) I have seen those photos but don't have a link to them.

BTW, Arabs have never settled on sand dunes. This is why when the settlers came to Gaza they took the then-empty sand dunes area.

In any case there is a Palestinian urban legend that Tel-Aviv was established on an Arab village called Tel-Rabia. This carries no historical evidence so far. In fact the historical evidence as late as 1917 show there was nothing in most of the place where Tel-Aviv is now.

Yet this myth is widely belived and is now repeated by Hamas Farfour charater..

Seif al-Din Shahin, the correspondent for the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news channel network, left the Gaza Strip together with his family, they said, noting that he had received many death threats over the past few months.

Shahin's request has yet to be approved by the Norwegian government. Several other Palestinian journalists are also reported to have fled the Gaza Strip out of fear for their lives.

Earlier this year, masked gunmen set fire to the offices of Al-Arabiya in Gaza City, causing heavy damage to furniture and equipment. Although no group claimed responsibility, Palestinian journalists blamed members of Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades.

The group was also responsible for beating Shahin in two separate incidents in 2001 and 2004. The second assault followed Shahin's live broadcast of a rally held on Fatah's anniversary. The report angered Fatah leaders who had instructed Shahin and other journalists to report that tens of thousands had participated.

In 2003 he was arrested by the Palestinian Authority security forces because of his reporting. Al-Arabiya's offices in Ramallah have also been attacked by Fatah gunmen on a number of occasions...

In practice these are troops that have deserted to the ranks of Hamas, and were joined by others - Hamas supporters wearing uniforms of the National Security organization.

The new force is commanded by an officer in the National Security, whose identity was not readily available, but who announced to his men that their role would be to maintain law and order along the border with Egypt...

Human hair is rich in protein content, just like soybean, wheat and bran, the conventional and legally accepted raw ingredients for the production of soy sauce.

U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner said a senior Lebanese Hezbollah operative, Ali Mussa Dakdouk, was captured March 20 in southern Iraq. Bergner said Dakdouk served for 24 years in Hezbollah and was "working in Iraq as a surrogate for the Iranian Quds force."

The general also said that Dakdouk was a liaison between the Iranians and a breakaway Shiite group led by Qais al-Kazaali, a former spokesman for cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Bergner said al-Kazaali's group carried out the January attack against a provincial government building in Karbala and that the Iranians assisted in preparations.

Al-Khazaali and his brother Ali al-Khazaali, both captured in March, have told U.S. interrogators that they "could not have conducted it (the Karbala attack) without support from the Quds force," Bergner said.

Documents captured with al-Khazaali showed that the Quds Force had developed detailed information on the U.S. position at the government building, including "shift changes and defense" and shared this information with the attackers, the general said.

U.S. officials at the time of the Karbala attack said it was unusually sophisticated, with the attackers dressed in U.S. uniforms to get close to the building, and suggested Iran may have had a role in it...

Afghan and American soldiers under International Security Assistance Force command participated in Operation Ghartse Ghar in Helmand province yesterday. The goal was to clear Taliban forces from both sides of the Helmand River in the village of Haderabad.

After battling enemy forces most of the day, Afghan and coalition forces came under heavy fire from enemy small arms, medium machine guns, 82 mm mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

The Afghan and coalition forces identified several enemy positions during this exchange, including mortar positions, observation posts, compounds and a trench system. They returned fire and called in close-air support. All enemy positions were destroyed in the engagement.

Though Afghan and coalition forces appear to have fired at clearly identified firing positions, said Army Maj. Chris Belcher, spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force 82, there are reports of civilian casualties.

"After our forces surveyed the area, there are reports of some possible civilian deaths," Belcher said. The troops found the remains of innocent civilians who were killed in firing positions in a trench line.

"We are deeply saddened by any loss of innocent lives," Belcher said. "Insurgents are continuing their tactic of using women and children as human shields in close combat with friendly forces."...

About 600 military personnel and family members attended a sneak preview of "Transformers," the summer science fiction action-adventure film set for national release July 3.

Audience members cheered as virtuous Autobot transformers fought in concert with their U.S. military allies against the depraved Decepticons, while the clash between good and evil played out in stunning images and bone-rattling sound.

"That was without a doubt the best movie I have ever seen," Army Staff Sgt. Mario Youngblood, dressed in his combat uniform, said as he emerged wide-eyed from the theater. The soldier, who grew up watching the early animated version, said the film did justice to the "Generation 1" Transformers of his youth.

"Transformers" features servicemembers from various branches fighting side-by-side in the thick of the action, depicting joint military operations.

"Obviously, the military has never fought giant robots, and hopefully we never will. But the way this film is structured, if we ever had to do it, this is probably how we would do it," said Army Lt. Col Paul Sinor, a public affairs officer with that service's Office of the Chief of Public Affairs.

During one battle scene, members of a joint special operations force are attacked by a Decepticon in the desert of a Middle Eastern country. Using a common cellular phone, the Army commander on the ground dials the Pentagon and tosses the phone to his Air Force combat controller, who directs an Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft to their position. Operators on the AWACS then call in AC-130 Spectres and A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft for air support...

Al-Aqsa TV broadcast Friday the final episode of the children’s program Tomorrow’s Pioneers, starring Farfur, the Mickey Mouse lookalike whose teachings about world Islamic domination, violence and hatred outraged the world after PMW made them public in May.

Without apparent regard for the sensitivities of their child viewers, the show’s creators killed off the character in a particularly violent way that allowed them to continue the show’s rabidly anti-Israel messages.

In this last episode, the squeaky-voiced Farfur receives land documents from his grandfather. The episode ends when an Israeli investigator tries to force Farfur to give up the key and the papers that his grandfather had given him. When Farfur refuses, the Israeli continues his brutal attack and beats Farfur to death.

Although Farfur’s death is not shown to the child viewers, the hostess of the show, Saraa’, sadly announces his death to the children:

“Yes, our children friends, we lost our dearest friend, Farfur. Farfur turned to a Martyr while protecting his land. He turned into a Martyr at the hands of the criminals, and murderers, the murderers of the innocent children."

PMW reported the existence of the Mickey Mouse knockoff and his hateful messages in May, prompting worldwide outrage. The New York Daily News dubbed the character “Terror Mouse,” while Walt Disney’s daughter Diane described it as “pure evil.”

Despite promises by the PA that the show would be suspended immediately, it remained on the air for another week, and was then suspended during the violence in Gaza. This final episode, which includes the killing of Farfur by Israel, enabled Hamas to remove the program while continuing its hate messages...