November 2007 Archives

Apparently Erekat has not read the draft constitution for the future state he envisions in Palestine or the PA’s Basic Law, which declare Islam the state religion of Palestine. He also conveniently overlooks the following nations that have established Islam as their state religion: Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Yemen, United Arab Emirates.

Nations with predominantly Muslim populations are not the only ones to link their national and religious identity. These nations constitutionally recognize Christianity or Catholicism as their state religion: Argentina, Armenia, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Denmark, El Salvador, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Lichtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Norway and the United Kingdom. Bhutan and Cambodia are officially Buddhist nations.

Israel has no official state religion. Freedom of worship is guaranteed to all. It is, however, the homeland of the Jewish people and was established and recognized internationally as a Jewish state by the United Nations in the partition resolution.

Some Abu El-Haj defenders applaud her courage in taking "unpopular positions on controversial issues." But is tenure about popular and unpopular positions? I thought it was about the quality of a person’s work, about accuracy and truth, according to widely shared scientific and scholarly standards. In the fall issue of Barnard Magazine, in an article about tenure, President Judith Shapiro stresses the importance of students facing "challenges to previous assumptions and beliefs." Does it follow that faculty should teach creationism because it challenges students’ beliefs? Should students be taught that slavery is dignified? That the Holocaust did not exist?

I reject these rationales for granting tenure. Exacting standards are imperative, especially if the research topic is embroiled in ideological controversy, as Abu El-Haj’s work is.

In "Return to the Days of the Mufti" (Haaretz newspaper, Nov. 14, 2007), Israeli journalist Nadav Shragai explains that every time an Israeli archaeologist begins to dig anywhere in the Old City of Jerusalem, members of the Arab and Palestinian community protest loudly that Israelis want to destroy the structural foundations of the Temple Mount mosques in order to construct the Third Temple. In 1929, Grand Mufti Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the Muslim cleric in charge of Muslim holy places in Jerusalem, incited Palestinians against Jews by spreading this lie. The current Mufti is doing the same, using the Temple Mount to inflame people against the Jewish rule that "soils the Muslimhood of Jerusalem."

Contrary to what Abu El-Haj claims about Jewish destruction of Muslim artifacts, it is actually Muslims engaged in ostensible "repairs" to the Temple Mount who are doing everything in their power to destroy the remnants of Jewish (and Christian) past. This activity paves the way, according to Shragai, for pseudo-academics to rewrite the history of Jerusalem, inventing new Palestinian and Islamic terminology that even some Islamic historians define as baseless. As Shragai writes, "Hundreds of academic and religious publications charge that the Temple did not exist at all or if it did exist, that the mosques preceded it." This remarkable statement claims that Islam predates Judaism.

A story in the current issue of The Jerusalem Report parallels this cognitive problem. The interviewer, Eeta Prince-Gibson, asked a woman who lives in the Israeli-Arab city of Umm el-Fahm her opinion about incorporating the city into a new Palestinian state when one is established, rather than have it remain within the Jewish state of Israel. The woman became very emotional and said she wants to remain in Israel. "For 60 years, we’ve lived here." The interviewer then pointed out that Umm el-Fahm was not originally part of Israel and only became attached to the state in 1951. The woman responded, "You Israelis always like to bring up technical things and historical facts that don’t matter." But technical things and historical facts are precisely what matter and can help us resolve debates.

As reported in the Advocate last week, the administrative body of the Temple Mount – called the Waqf – does not permit Israelis to conduct archaeological excavations. Its fear of digs does not arise out of concern for Al-Aqsa’s safety, Shragai tells us. Rather the Waqf fears a challenge to “the web of lies that the Jews were just passersby and not a nation whose roots were planted in Jerusalem” for many centuries prior to the rise of Islam.

Those who deny Jews the right to dig do not want to confront evidence that contemporary Jews are linked to a past whose artifacts lie beneath their feet. Too bad the Islamic archaeological strong-arming in Jerusalem has been transformed into the academically respectable at Barnard.

The size of Jerusalem during the Jordanian rule prior to 1967 was only 6 sq. kilometers, including the Old City (1 sq. kilometer) and five sq. kilometers around it. The areas which Israel added/annexed/occupied in 1967 were together, several times larger than Jordanian Jerusalem. Aside from the Jordanian city, Jerusalem’s new boundaries included 28 additional Palestinian villages which had previously not been considered to be part of the City.

The new municipal boundaries were based on the recommendations of a military committee, which was approved by the government. The recommendations represented interests – or thinking – of the time, and integrated military, demographic and geographic parameters. Militarily, there was a desire to control a route of military and strategic importance surrounding West Jerusalem. Geographically, the aim was to rule as large a territory as possible around what was Western Jerusalem. Demographically, the goal was to include as few Palestinians as possible in the added/annexed/occupied territories.

Arguments relating to Jerusalem's "sanctity", its status as the "eternal" capital of the Jewish people, and the necessity of keeping it united, were not taken into consideration and were not relevant to the considerations upon which the new municipal boundaries were set.

It should also be noted that the new municipal boundaries, set based on the parameters described above, were virtual and evident only in Israeli maps. There was no attempt to signify the new boundaries between Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank on the ground. It is important to stress that the Arab World and the International Community never recognized the new boundaries of the city.

The group said in a statement, released on the 60th anniversary of the UN vote, that "Palestine is Arab Islamic land, from the river to the sea, including Jerusalem... there is no room in it for the Jews."

Regarding the partition decision, Hamas said that "correcting mistakes is nothing to be ashamed of, but prolonging it is exploitation."...

As was Zahar's final sentence: "Like all other people in the world, we look forward to live in peace and security and for our people to live a dignified life in freedom and independence, side by side with our neighbors in this sacred part of the world."...

Anthropology and African-American studies professor J. Lorand Matory ’82 thinks so. At a recent Faculty meeting, he proposed that Harvard reaffirm "civil dialogue," arguing that critics of Israel "tremble in fear" on campus.

In fear of what, one wonders—becoming a bestselling author at the Harvard Coop?

Nine months ago, I started a student journal entitled "New Society: Harvard College Student Middle East Journal," with the aim of creating a more constructive dialogue on campus about the future of the region. The journal was inspired by a Harvard Hillel trip to Israel last winter. I was determined to include a variety of perspectives, so before I approached Harvard Students for Israel or any other Jewish groups on campus, I asked several Muslim and Arab students to contribute articles to the journal.

But I was met with little success: Many Muslim and Arab students preferred not to publish their views, fearing the threat of reprisal.

An Iranian student who had privately expressed opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declined to write, saying he preferred to "lay low" for fear of political consequences back home.

Another Iranian-American student backed out after sending me several articles about Iranian academics based in the U.S. who had been arrested on visits to Tehran. One such academic, Haleh Esfandiari, on a visit to her elderly mother, was detained for eight months and charged with crimes against "national security." The student told me he feared the same fate and worried about what would become of his family if he ever expressed his views about Iran’s theocratic regime.

Similarly, an Arab student who was approached to speak about the situation in Darfur refused, saying that he was certain some of his compatriots at Harvard would report back home about his activities abroad and that he feared being arrested or harassed by his country’s security services.

And one of our writers, Chia N. Mustafa ’09, was told by a poster on the journal’s website that he belonged to "the rank of traitors" and for writing an article advocating independence for Kurdistan.

So when Matory claims that people at Harvard "tremble in fear" because of their views on the Middle East, he is half-right...

On this campus [Columbia], students get berated, publicly mocked in class by professors for mentioning the Armenian genocide, or jihad as part of the problem in the middle east.

You not only don't get publicly mocked by your professor for calling Israel an apartheid state.

I actually know a girl who had to accept a B+ in a class after refusing the opportunity to rewrite a topic-assigned essay to include a discussion of Israeli apartheid. You had to support that definition to get an A- or better.

She won't go public. The fear is too great.

Just a day after Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the Annapolis peace conference pledged to negotiate a peace treaty by the end of 2008, Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority continues to paint a picture for its people of a world without Israel.

An information clip produced by the Palestinian Authority Central Bureau of Statistics and rebroadcast today on Abbas-controlled Palestinian television, shows a map in which Israel is painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag, symbolizing Israel turned into a Palestinian state.

The description of all of the state of Israel as "Palestine" is not coincidental, and is part of a formal, systematic educational approach throughout the Palestinian Authority. This uniform message of a world without Israel is repeated in school books, children's programs, crossword puzzles, video clips, formal symbols, school and street names, etc. The picture painted for the Palestinian population, both verbally and visually, is of a world without Israel.

The fact that this campaign continues before the ink on the Annapolis agreement is even dry appears to contradict the central promise of the Palestinians at the Annapolis conference: that Israel has a right to exist.

Click to view video on PMW website

After a salvo of mortar shells landed near the security fence near Nahal Oz at around 3 P.M. Wednesday, IAF aircraft retaliated by attacking a Hamas position in southern Gaza. Gaza Arabs said one of those killed in the IAF strike today was Rami Abu-Rus, who is active in Hamas. At least 10 people were wounded in the blast.

For months, the IDF's policy has been to try to strike terrorists in the act of firing rockets, or immediately before or after launching them. Strikes on terrorists in the act of firing at Israeli civilians were called off if they entailed a danger of hurting non-combatants. This policy caused great frustration among the victims of the Gaza terrorists, many of whom felt that the government prefers the enemies' lives over their own.

6,288 rockets in six years

Gaza terror squads fired one rocket and five mortar shells at Israeli civilians Wednesday morning. The rocket exploded in a kibbutz in the western Negev, causing no casualties. One mortar shell hit a chicken coop in an agricultural community in the area, causing some damage but no casualties. Two additional mortars were fired in the evening, exploding near the security fence and hurting no one.

The counter at the Committee for Secure Sderot website currently shows 6,288 rocket attacks from Gaza in the past six years...

Annapolis will not mean peace in our time. But it could be a meaningful step toward peace in someone else’s time.

The court upheld the conclusion of a federal judge that the 2004 inspections, which involved frisking and fingerprinting, did not violate U.S. constitutional rights to practice religion and avoid unlawful searches.

"We do not believe the extra hassle of being fingerprinted and photographed — for the sole purpose of having their identities verified — is a significant additional burden that turns an otherwise constitutional policy into one that is unconstitutional," a three-judge panel wrote.

The New York Civil Liberties Union had sued on behalf of five New York residents who attended the "Reviving the Islamic Spirit" conference in Toronto. The NYCLU sought a court order to prevent similar inspections, along with destruction of personal information collected during the stops...

...The U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection had received intelligence giving it reason to believe people with terrorist ties would be attending certain Islamic conferences during the 2004 year-end holiday season.

The court said the inspections were necessary because it was not possible for authorities to know who at the conference may have interacted and potentially exchanged identification or travel documents with people suspected of being terrorists...

...For the first time in 20 years, the Gazans are allowed to travel outside the Strip. With Israeli encouragement, more than 30,000 of them have gone to seek jobs in Jordan or the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The Arabs charge that the Israelis are allowing them to leave for political rather than humane motives, since every departing Arab is one potential terrorist fewer to deal with and one mouth fewer to feed. But the rate of the Arab exodus by bus and hired taxi has dropped off lately as word has spread that few jobs are available in Jordan...

"Probably somebody," I said.

"Yeah, probably somebody did," he said. "Somewhere."

Nobody was shot last night in Fallujah. No American has been shot anywhere in Fallujah since the 3rd Battalion 5th Marine Regiment rotated into the city two months ago. There have been no rocket, or mortar attacks since the summer. Not a single of the 3/5 Marines has even been wounded.

"The only shots we've fired since we got here are warning shots," said Lieutenant J.C. Davis. Another officer didn't agree. "We haven't even fired warning shots," he said. "It's too dangerous."

It's dangerous because anti-American sentiment still exists in the city, even though it is mostly passive right now. It isn't entirely passive, however. Someone has been taking pot shots at Americans. A few days ago somebody threw a hand grenade at Marines. Two weeks ago an insurgent was caught by Iraqi Police officers while planting an IED near the main station. He freaked out, accidentally connected the wires, and blew himself up. "That's what he gets," Private Gauniel said...

At least 200 protesters chanted anti-fascist slogans and waved placards decrying the appearance of the two.

Irving and Griffin were bundled into the hall hours before the forum was to take place as protesters yelled "Keep Oxford fascist-free; We will defend democracy."

Just minutes before the debate was due to take place, a group of protesters broke through the security cordon around the Union and staged a sit-down protest in the hall.

Several students groups, including the Oxford Student Union and the university's Jewish and Muslim societies, have teamed up with activist group Unite Against Fascism to organize the protest...

If the issue is about the size of Israel, then we have a straightforward border problem, like Alsace-Lorraine or Texas. That is to say, not easy, but possible to solve in the long run, and to live with in the meantime.

If, on the other hand, the issue is the existence of Israel, then clearly it is insoluble by negotiation. There is no compromise position between existing and not existing, and no conceivable government of Israel is going to negotiate on whether that country should or should not exist.

PLO and other Palestinian spokesmen have, from time to time, given formal indications of recognition of Israel in their diplomatic discourse in foreign languages. But that's not the message delivered at home in Arabic, in everything from primary school textbooks to political speeches and religious sermons. Here the terms used in Arabic denote, not the end of hostilities, but an armistice or truce, until such time that the war against Israel can be resumed with better prospects for success. Without genuine acceptance of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State, as the more than 20 members of the Arab League exist as Arab States, or the much larger number of members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference exist as Islamic states, peace cannot be negotiated.

Oxford University's students associated condemned the idea as well several Muslim students' organizations who object to Griffin's policies and the Jewish student body. Yet, the Debating Society insisted that in the name of free speech, all opinions must be heard.

Trevor Phillips, chairman of Britain's Equality and Human Rights Commission, said Irving never should have been invited.

"I think it is an absolute disgrace. As a former president of the National Union of Students, I'm ashamed that this has happened," Phillips told British Broadcasting Corp. television. "This is not a question of freedom of speech; this is a juvenile provocation."

He said students at Oxford were "supposed to be brilliant,'" and he appealed for them to "put your brains back in your head."

Phillips said people did not fight and die for the right to freedom of speech only for it to be used as a "silly parlor game."

Last week, British Defense Secretary Des Browne and at least three other lawmakers canceled appearances at Oxford University's 182-year-old debating society because of the Irving invitation. They were not invited to attend Monday's event, but were scheduled to speak before the union on other days.

Luke Tryl, President of the Society claimed that Griffin and Irving were invited to a forum that will discuss the boundaries of the freedom of speech alongside other speakers who will challenge their views.

The Society reported that tickets to event have been sold out.

Hamas argues the time is not right for talks with Israel because the Palestinians are divided. With the Islamic militant group in control of Gaza, Hamas says moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas does not have a mandate to negotiate.

"The announcement of the Arabs that they would participate in the Annapolis conference was a great shock for the Palestinian people," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, said in a statement. "Participation opens doors for normalization of relations with the Israeli occupiers."

Another Hamas official said the group was on the brink of developing a more lethal type of warhead for the rockets it regularly lobs from Gaza into Israel...

All of the Democratic presidential candidates have been running on a platform of abandoning Iraq. At the recent debate in Las Vegas, they refused to relax their embrace of defeat even when asked about the striking evidence of improvement. They continued to insist that "the surge is not working" (Bill Richardson), that "the occupation is fueling the insurgency" (Dennis Kucinich), and that the "strategy is failed" and we must "get our troops out" (Barack Obama).

Blind opposition to war that seems lost is understandable. But can Democrats be so invested in defeat that they would abandon even a war that may be winnable? With developments in Iraq looking so hopeful, this is no time to cling to a counsel of despair.

Tarek Rizk, a garrulous American with Egyptian roots, is the associate director of the Global Interdependence Initiative at the Washington-based Aspen Institute. At his workshops in Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah, he discussed ideas with Palestinian activists on choosing the target audience and ensuring their message is noticed...

Beyond their grief, the two fathers share something else — both are skeptical next week's Mideast summit called by President Bush in Annapolis, Md., will do anything to end decades of conflict between their two peoples...

...Naji and Kehrmann lost their children in vastly different circumstances — and the deaths cannot be equated.

Naji's son, Abdel Moneim, was a militant who was targeted by an Israeli undercover unit in 2004. Kehrmann's daughter Tal was a 17-year-old girl killed four years ago while riding a bus on her way to shop for her high school graduation...

The Kalima (meaning "word" in Arabic) project aims to revive the art of translation across the Arab world and reverse the long decline in Arabic readers' access to major works of global literature, philosophy, science and history.

"The choices reflect what we consider are the real gaps in the Arab library," said Karim Nagy, the founder and chief executive of the project, which was launched yesterday in Abu Dhabi...

...Inspired by Mr Nagy, a literature-loving Egyptian entrepreneur and former McKinsey management consultant now based in Abu Dhabi, Kalima has become an official venture of the Abu Dhabi government. One of the triggers which led to its creation was a widely-circulated statistic from the 2003 UN report into human development in the Arab world. It estimated that more books (about 10,000) were translated into Spanish every year than had been translated into Arabic over the past millennium...

The Palestinian claim ignored the fact that Ottoman firmans (mandates or decrees) gave Jews in the Land of Israel the right of access to the site at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Palestinian claim even ignored accepted Muslim tradition, which admires Rachel and recognizes the site as her burial place. According to tradition, the name "Rachel" comes from the word "wander," because she died during one of her wanderings and was buried on the Bethlehem road. Her name is referred to in the Koran, and in other Muslim sources, Joseph is said to fall upon his mother Rachel's grave and cry bitterly as the caravan of his captors passes by. For hundreds of years, Muslim holy men (walis) were buried in tombs whose form was the same as Rachel's.

Then, out of the blue, the connection between Rachel, admired even by the Muslims, and her tomb is erased and the place becomes "the Bilal ibn Rabah mosque." Well-known Orientalist Professor Yehoshua Porat has called the "tradition" the Muslims referred to as "false." He said the Arabic name of the site was "the Dome of Rachel, a place where the Jews prayed."

Only a few years ago, official Palestinian publications contained not a single reference to such a mosque. The same was true for the Palestinian Lexicon issued by the Arab League and the PLO in 1984, and for Al-mawsu'ah al-filastiniyah, the Palestinian encyclopedia published in Italy after 1996. Palestine, the Holy Land, published by the Palestinian Council for Development and Rehabilitation, with an introduction written by Yasser Arafat, simply says that "at the northwest entrance to the city [Bethlehem] lies the tomb of the matriarch Rachel, who died while giving life to Benjamin." The West Bank and Gaza - Palestine also mentions the site as the Tomb of Rachel and not as the Mosque of Bilal ibn Rabah. However, the Palestinian deputy minister for endowments and religious affairs has now defined Rachel's Tomb as a Muslim site.

On Yom Kippur in 2000, six days after the IDF withdrew from Joseph's Tomb, the Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Hayat al-Jadida published an article marking the next target as Rachel's Tomb. It read in part, "Bethlehem - ‘the Tomb of Rachel,' or the Bilal ibn Rabah mosque, is one of the nails the occupation government and the Zionist movement hammered into many Palestinian cities....The tomb is false and was originally a Muslim mosque."...

Thursday a draft of the joint statement that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are discussing ahead of the conference was leaked to the media. A reading of the document bears out the IDF's concerns.

The draft document shows that the Palestinians and the Israelis differ not only on every issue, but differ on the purpose of the document. It also shows that the US firmly backs the Palestinians against Israel.

As the draft document makes clear, Israel is trying to avoid committing itself to anything at Annapolis. For their part, the Palestinians are trying to force Israel's hand by tying it to diplomatic formulas that presuppose an Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines and an Israeli acceptance of the so-called "right of return" or free immigration of foreign Arabs to Israel...

The cell is shown retrieving the projectiles and launchers and sets them up in a dirt embankment in northern Gaza. At this point army intelligence makes a positive identification and confirms the men are not civilians.

The IDF then launches its first attack against the cell, wounding several of its members.

As the remaining terrorists attempt to flee the scene and evacuate their wounded the army launches its second strike, killing all four of the cell members and destroying the rocket launchers.

Only 3% of attacks are thwarted

While the IDF has time and again stressed the importance of striking rocket launching cells caught in the act, recent statements made by IAF chief, Maj. Gen. Eliezer Shkedi indicate that less than 3% of all Qassam attacks are thwarted.

Shkedi said that the air strikes were effective in targeting between 1-3% of the cells. "If we want to fight, we have to hurt those who manufacture the Qassams, issue the orders, transport the cells, and develop the explosives… everything else related to this industry. We cannot ignore the other 97%," he said.

But for now the army, following directives from the political echelon, can only focus on cells already in the field...

...Even's questions relate to several substantive issues. First, in the reactor in Yongbyon, one can clearly see a chimney, which is necessary for the emission of the radioactive gases (incidentally, based on the emission of the gases experts can determine the capacity of the reactor). In the satellite photos of the structure in Syria there is no chimney. It could be claimed that the Syrians may not have had time to build it. This is a reasonable answer, but it is overshadowed by the fact that there is evidence that the structure was under construction already four years ago. There are satellite photos of the site from 2003. In these photos one can clearly see in one of the building walls openings, which disappeared in the 2007 photos. "We can assume that construction began even before 2003," says Even. "In all those years, five years or even more, a chimney had still not been built? Very strange."

No less strange in his opinion is the fact that the "reactor" did not have cooling towers. The pumping station seen in the photos, 5 kilometers from the site, cannot, according to him, be a substitute for such towers. "A structure without cooling towers cannot be a reactor," he says, pointing to the satellite photo from Yongbyon, in which one can clearly see the cooling tower, with steam rising from it...

..."In my estimation this was something very nasty and vicious, and even more dangerous than a reactor," says Even. "I have no information, only an assessment, but I suspect that it was a plant for processing plutonium, namely a factory for assembling the bomb."

In other words, Syria already had several kilograms of plutonium, and it was involved in building a bomb factory (the assembling of one bomb requires about four kilograms of fissionable material).

Processing the plutonium and assembling the bomb require utmost caution, because plutonium is one of the most toxic and radioactive materials. One microgram can kill one person, and a gram is capable of killing a million people. Handling it requires special lathes, but because of its lethal nature nobody is allowed to come into direct contact with plutonium or with the lathes. That is why there is a need to build labs containing dozens of glove boxes, which isolate and separate the worker from the material and the equipment.

What reinforces Even's suspicion that the structure attacked in Syria was in fact a bomb assembly plant is the fact that the satellite photos taken after the bombing clearly show that the Syrians made an effort to bury the entire site under piles of earth. "They did so because of the lethal nature of the material that was in the structure, and that can be plutonium," he said. That may also be the reason they refused to allow IAEA inspectors to visit the site and take samples of the earth, which would give away their secret...

...it’s the lowly professor Karkhanis and his defenders who speak for the majority of Americans who hold the moral high ground. These are the decent hard working people who pay a lot of money to send their kids to college. They don’t want their kids to be lectured by convicted terrorists. Weather Underground terrorist Susan Rosenberg, convicted terrorist conspirator Mohammad Yousry, Lynne Stewart, Sami Al-Arian, Lori Berenson, Adam Habib and their ilk shouldn’t be promoting their bloodstained ideology in the classroom. The majority of Americans are disgusted with an academic elite that crushes dissent and free speech. Americans who want colleges free from this vermin and who want to ensure free speech for Sharad Karkahnis, are the ones who are now rallying to his side.

Karkhanis speaks for the vast majority of Americans from within the cloistered walls of an elitist institution that silences dissenting points of view...

Daniel Kurtzer, a former American ambassador to both Egypt and Israel who served as the first commissioner of the Israel Baseball League, announced his resignation November 15. He was joined by a majority of the IBL’s advisory board members, who, in a statement released to the press, alleged that the league’s managers had been "unwilling to provide relevant financial information."

The departures come as the league’s founder and sole owner, Boston-based businessman Larry Baras, finds himself under considerable scrutiny. In recent months, reports have surfaced that the IBL owes money to players and to vendors and may not return for a second season. Meanwhile, one of Baras’s former friends and business associates, Natalie Blacher of Dade County, Fla., filed a lawsuit in late September accusing Baras of misappropriating $275,000 she had invested in his company, SJR Foods.

Marty Appel, who was among the board members who resigned, said the decision had come after "continuing attempts to get a better grip of the situation" over the past six or seven weeks...

• Balance: Despite an evenly balanced selection of stories on Israel and the Palestinians, the New York Times gave far more weight to Israeli military incidents in text location, headlines and photo selection than to Palestinian attacks. More than 60% of images sympathetic to one side or the other favored the Palestinians.
• Consistency: Israeli and Palestinian actions were not treated consistently in choice of language. Israel or the Israel Defense Forces were the subject of strongly worded, direct headlines in 18 out of 20 cases (90%). However, in the 20 cases where the Palestinians were responsible for attacks, the language was mostly passive and the group responsible was only named in eight instances (40%).
• Context and Accuracy: Inaccurate statements or important context that would give readers a fuller picture of news events was often omitted. Terms such as "militants", "occupied territory," and "illegal settlements" were used without providing a proper explanation...

ZAKA, a volunteer organization committed to the recovery and identification of human remains, in coordination with the municipality of the rocket-battered city of Sderot, may be on to a new method for combating Hamas: The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

In a lawsuit against Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal, ZAKA's directors Yehuda Meshi-Zahav and Dudi Zilbershlag and Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal argue that Mashaal is responsible for numerous murders and crimes against humanity and war crimes.

In the suit Mashaal is blamed for the killing of 176 civilians and the wounding of hundreds in Hamas-sponsored terror attacks and suicide bombings that took place since 2002. Attacks on military targets were not included in the lawsuit.

Speaking to Ynet, Meshi-Zahav said the plan was to use the international judicial system to combat Hamas.

Referring to the botched attempt on Mashaal's life, Meshi-Zahav said, "If they couldn't kill him in Jordan, we might be able to get him arrested in another country."...

...To students, Massad often seems less like a scholar than a prosecutor presenting his case. Three students recently came forward to say that Massad "repeatedly likened Israel to apartheid South Africa, dismissed its legitimacy as a Jewish state and almost never addressed human-rights abuses in countries such as Iraq, Iran and Syria."...

Hussein, a native of once al Qaeda in Iraq "capital" Fallujah, alleged the U.S. committed war crimes when it retook the city. Absent from Hussein's reports were photos of al Qaeda torture and murder chambers as they killed any one in the city suspected of being 'too Western'...

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There's only one catch: it's in the Gaza Strip.

Workers at this ex-Jewish settlement go in fear of Israeli air strikes, while there is a blockade on building materials.

And the Hamas Islamists backing the site -- envisioned as a combined amusement park, movie studio and hub for international journalism all in one -- say foreign filmmakers will be welcome, as long as their works don't show people kissing.

But those setbacks and the reality of Hamas rule and Israeli sanctions have not discouraged Gaza Media City's backers, inspired by Arab examples in Dubai and Egypt that have drawn foreign investment and created jobs.

They have started work on landscaping in the hope that one day the project will feature a zoo and film lots that recreate among other things, the Palestinian villages of a century ago and today's Israeli settlements...

I have just been told that Anna Baltzer has made an offer to the Superintendent of Schools in Old Saybrook, CT to come and speak to the students there about the situation in Israel / Palestine and about what happened recently when a youth dance troupe from Palestine was prevented from performing in the school system.

I'm planning to write my own letter to the Superintendent, encouraging him to take Anna up on her offer. What a wonderful opportunity this could be to actually open up a dialogue in the public school system on the issue of Israel-Palestine! But this window of opportunity could easily pass us by if not enough people encourage the Superintendent to follow through. He needs to know that there are enough people in the community who would support an honest and open study of this issue.

If you want to write a letter to the Old Saybrook superintendent as well, encouraging him to allow the students to study this issue, his address is:

Joseph Onofrio, II
Superintendent of Schools...(etc...)

Garrett Lisi, 39, has a doctorate but no university affiliation and spends most of the year surfing in Hawaii, where he has also been a hiking guide and bridge builder (when he slept in a jungle yurt).

In winter, he heads to the mountains near Lake Tahoe, Nevada, where he snowboards. "Being poor sucks," Lisi says. "It's hard to figure out the secrets of the universe when you're trying to figure out where you and your girlfriend are going to sleep next month."

Despite this unusual career path, his proposal is remarkable because, by the arcane standards of particle physics, it does not require highly complex mathematics.

Even better, it does not require more than one dimension of time and three of space, when some rival theories need ten or even more spatial dimensions and other bizarre concepts. And it may even be possible to test his theory, which predicts a host of new particles, perhaps even using the new Large Hadron Collider atom smasher that will go into action near Geneva next year...

Does anyone crack a book at these places anymore?

Meet Gabriel Keith, an aspiring journalist who attends Minneapolis Community and Technical College. Keith has served as news editor of the campus paper, volunteering many hours and even quitting his part-time job when it interfered with the paper's needs.

Keith came to MCTC after three tours of duty in Iraq as a Marine. He saw some pretty scary stuff there. But now he knows that a combat zone is a Boy Scout camp compared with a standard-issue college inquisition in 2007.

We join Keith sitting in the college newsroom one afternoon last month.

He is lamenting the headache of student reporters' missed deadlines with fellow staffers. The group jokes about various tongue-in-cheek motivational messages -- an ice pick, a bloody knife and other fanciful instruments of discipline. Keith impulsively sticks a mock noose made from his sweatshirt drawstring to the ceiling, with a note about the hazards of missed deadlines...

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- The elegant iron-railing balconies were once catwalks where guards stood watch over the inmates to make sure they didn't try to break out. If you look closely, you can still see the outline of the holes from the iron bars on the windows.

At the newly opened Liberty Hotel, it's hard to escape what this building once was: a decrepit jail where Boston locked up its most notorious prisoners.

But that's just the point.

After a five-year, $150 million renovation, the old Charles Street jail is now a luxury hotel for guests who can afford to pay anywhere from $319 a night for the lowest-priced room to $5,500 for the presidential suite. The hotel, at the foot of Boston's stately Beacon Hill neighborhood, opened in September.

Architects took pains to preserve many features of the 156-year-old stone building and its history.

The old sally port, where guards once brought prisoners from paddy wagons to their cells, is being converted into the entrance to a new restaurant, Scampo, which is Italian for "escape."

In another restaurant, named Clink, diners can look through original bars from cell doors and windows as they order smoked lobster bisque or citrus poached prawns from waiters and waitresses wearing shirts with prison numbers. The hotel bar, Alibi, is built in the jail's former drunk tank...

According to roughly a dozen recent studies, executions save lives. For each inmate put to death, the studies say, three to 18 murders are prevented.

The effect is most pronounced, according to some studies, in Texas and other states that execute condemned inmates relatively often and relatively quickly.

The studies, performed by economists in the past decade, compare the number of executions in different jurisdictions with homicide rates over time - while trying to eliminate the effects of crime rates, conviction rates, and other factors - and say that murder rates tend to fall as executions rise. One study looked at 3,054 counties over two decades.

"I personally am opposed to the death penalty," said H. Naci Mocan, an economist at Louisiana State University and an author of a study finding that each execution saves five lives. "But my research shows that there is a deterrent effect."...

The Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa, founded by a noted Middle East scholar at Princeton University, Bernard Lewis, will challenge the Middle East Studies Association, which is dominated by academics who have been critical of Israel and of America's role in the Middle East. "Because of various political and financial pressures and inducements, the study of the Middle East and of Africa has been politicized to a degree without precedent," Professor Lewis said in a statement. "Given the importance of these regions, there is an acute need for objective and accurate scholarship and debate, unhampered by entrenched interests and allegiances."

"MESA is still fighting some of the old battles from the '60s and '70s," the president of ASMEA, Mark Clark, said. "They're dealing with nationalism in the territories, and anti-colonialism, which is far less important today."...

When asked if in light of the Russian and Chinese opposition, a likelihood exists of forcing Iran to abandon its nuclear project without having to use force, Kouchner said: "We have proposed to our European partners to adopt measures against Iran also within the European Union framework, in order to let Iran understand that it cannot continue with its policy of creating faits accomplis."

Will France support the use of force by the United States or Israel? Will France be willing to participate in an attack on Iran? Kouchner did not respond directly to the questions but used language that suggests that for France, all options, including that of military force, are open:

"I intend to continue with great determination along this path [of pressuring Iran] which is the only way to bring about an agreed solution, the only one that will prevent us from having, one day, to be faced with a dilemma of 'an Iranian bomb or bombing Iran.'"...

But the problems with this approach actually run much deeper. In Orientalism, Said argued that the traditional scholarly study of the Middle East constituted a racist and imperialist discourse. As borrowed from Foucault, the concept of discourse refers to a set of interconnected ideas. One of the most distinctive conceptual elements of "discourse" is that it is not rule-bound; its connective threads are neither empirical nor logical but political and often comprise a disparate collection of ideas strung together in a come-what-may manner...Borrowing thoughts and ideas indiscriminately from the worlds of literary criticism, literature, law, politics and in this instance from archeology, they construct their analyses with little concern for empirical or logical connectedness. Like mythology, they are masters of the found object, and pull in anything to create a story. This methodology has no connection to science. Its power lies in its politics and its aesthetics, and not in such boring ideas as validity and reliability...

Said did not mention the Armenians even once in his book, for it would have made his passive, victimized Islamic world look rather less passive and not at all the victim. It is a glaring omission. Said's book was properly dismissed by many prominent reviewers as amateurish and dishonest—though on other grounds. They did not even notice the Turkish and Armenian aspect. The book might have been consigned to well-deserved oblivion...

• Can tendentious, politically motivated, subjective, polemical, unbalanced, and/or intentionally misleading and inaccurate publications qualify the possessor of a terminal degree for tenure in his or her field?
• Is the promotion of a personal, political agenda under the guise of an academic discipline legitimate scholarship protected by academic freedom?
• Are disseminating demonstrably erroneous information and extolling the destruction of primary data acceptable elements of publications considered for academic advancement?

Jews have been living in Jerusalem continuously for nearly two millennia. They have constituted the largest single group of inhabitants there since the 1840’s. Jerusalem contains the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism.

Jerusalem was never the capital of any Arab entity. In fact, it was a backwater for most of Arab history. Jerusalem never served as a provincial capital under Muslim rule nor was it ever a Muslim cultural center. For Jews, the entire city is sacred, but Muslims revere a site — the Dome of the Rock — not the city. “To a Muslim,” observed British writer Christopher Sykes, “there is a profound difference between Jerusalem and Mecca or Medina. The latter are holy places containing holy sites.” Besides the Dome of the Rock, he noted, Jerusalem has no major Islamic significance.

At the end of the meeting, the Israeli official invited the Prince of Wales to visit the Jewish state for its 60th anniversary celebrations.

Following the meeting, the Jewish Chronicle reported Friday, Israeli Ambassador to Britain Zvi Heifetz invited Sir Michael Peat, Prince Charles’s principal private secretary, and Clive Alderton, deputy private secretary, to Israel as a prelude to a possible official visit by the prince.

In August, Sir Michael — copying in Alderton — expressed enthusiasm for the idea, replying in an email to the embassy, "The invitation is hugely appreciated and Clive and I would love to come."

However, a private email exchange a month later between the two aides to the prince revealed a completely different picture.

In the exchange of emails seen by the JC, Alderton privately sought reassurance from his superior that the pair need never accept the invitation.

Alderton — whose responsibilities include foreign affairs and relations with ethnic and faith communities and who has accompanied Prince Charles and his wife on a visit to Kuwait in February— complained to Sir Michael in an email of being "pursued" by the ambassador, and asked: "Safe to assume there is no chance of this visit ever actually happening?

"Acceptance would make it hard to avoid the many ways in which Israel would want HRH (Prince Charles) to help burnish its international image. In which case, let’s agree a way to lower his expectations."...

It was ironic that the ADC would charge the Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week speakers with promoting "hate speech" and "bigotry," since the ADC itself has never hesitated to ally itself with genuine purveyors of hate speech and worse. ADC then-President Hamzi Moghrabi said in 1994: "I will not call [Hamas] a terrorist organization. I mean, I know many people in Hamas. They are very respectable…I don’t believe Hamas, as an organization, is a violent organization." This despite the "glory record" Hamas featured on its website up until just a few years ago – a record that openly celebrated the murders of innocent civilians. In 1996, Moghrabi’s successor as ADC’s President, Hala Maksoud, declared: "I find it shocking that [one] would include Hezbollah in…[an] inventory of Middle East ‘terrorist’ groups." Similarly, the ADC’s Communications Director Hussein Ibish said in 2000: "Everywhere Hezbollah fighters, derided by the Israeli and U.S. governments as ‘terrorists,’ conducted themselves in an exemplary manner."...

...[President of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Massachusetts Merrie] Najimy, who is Lebanese, said she does not think American society has "come a long way" since the attacks of four years ago...

American society hasn't come a long way???

Late last month, I went to hear Bishop Desmond Tutu speak at Boston’s Old South Church at a conference on "Israel Apartheid." Tutu is a well respected man of God. He brought reconciliation between blacks and whites in South Africa. That he would lead a conference that damns the Jewish state is very disturbing to me.

The State of Israel is not an apartheid state. I know because I write this from Jerusalem where I have seen Arab mothers peacefully strolling with their families – even though I also drove on Israeli roads protected by walls and fences from Arab bullets and stones. I know Arabs go to Israeli schools, and get the best medical care in the world. I know they vote and have elected representatives to the Israeli Parliament. I see street signs in Arabic, an official language here. None of this was true for blacks under Apartheid in Tutu’s South Africa.

I also know countries that do deserve the apartheid label: My country, Sudan, is on the top of the list, but so are Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. What has happened to my people in Sudan is a thousand times worse than Apartheid in South Africa. And no matter how the Palestinians suffer, they suffer nothing compared to my people. Nothing. And most of the suffering is the fault of their leaders. Bishop Tutu, I see black Jews walking down the street here in Jerusalem. Black like us, free and proud.

Tutu said Israeli checkpoints are a nightmare. But checkpoints are there because Palestinians are sent into Israel to blow up and kill innocent women and children. Tutu wants checkpoints removed. Do you not have doors in your home, Bishop? Does that make your house an apartheid house? If someone, Heaven forbid, tried to enter with a bomb, we would want you to have security people "humiliating" your guests with searches, and we would not call you racist for doing so. We all go through checkpoints at every airport. Are the airlines being racist? No.

Yes, the Palestinians are inconvenienced at checkpoints. But why, Bishop Tutu, do you care more about that inconvenience than about Jewish lives?

Bishop, when you used to dance for Mandela’s freedom, we Africans – all over Africa – joined in. Our support was key in your freedom. But when children in Burundi and Kinshasa, all the way to Liberia and Sierra Leone, and in particular in Sudan, cried and called for rescue, you heard but chose to be silent.

Today, black children are enslaved in Sudan, the last place in the continent of Africa where humans are owned by other humans – I was part of the movement to stop slavery in Mauritania, which just now abolished the practice. But you were not with us, Bishop Tutu.

So where is Desmond Tutu when my people call out for freedom? Slaughter and genocide and slavery are lashing Africans right now. Where are you for Sudan, Bishop Tutu? You are busy attacking the Jewish state. Why?

Simon Deng, a native of the Shiluk Kingdom in southern Sudan, is an escaped jihad slave and a leading human rights activist.

The 19-year-old woman -- whose six armed attackers have been sentenced to jail terms -- was initially ordered to undergo 90 lashes for "being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape," the Arab News reported.

But in a new verdict issued after Saudi Arabia's Higher Judicial Council ordered a retrial, the court in the eastern town of Al-Qatif more than doubled the number of lashes to 200.

A court source told the English-language Arab News that the judges had decided to punish the woman further for "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media."...

Interviewer: Is it true that when Dennis Ross asked you what should be done, you said: "If you have car bombs, send them to Syria"?

Walid Jumblatt: Correct. I said this for a simple reason. Dennis Ross asked me: "What would you think if we engaged Syria?" I said: "I would have no objection. You were a negotiator back then, and you almost reached an agreement about the Golan in Geneva." There was a disagreement with regard to a few meters on the border – not the border of the French and British mandates from 1933-34, but the status quo border from 1948. Hafez Al-Assad almost got to swim in the Sea of Galilee, but he rejected [the agreement], because the principle of peace according to U.N. Resolution 242 means the end of the Syrian regime. What does the Syrian regime do, except operate through Lebanon and Palestine, and send terrorists to Iraq? They do nothing else, but the moment they accept peace, this regime is finished. Just for your information, I once heard from a senior Syrian official, whose name I won't mention, that high-ranking officers had approached Hafez Al-Assad and said to him: Where are you leading us? We can't bear peace. When we sign peace, we are finished."

...17. In my Public Support Meter display, let me find out that the news media has run, in the same magazine, one story blasting us for going to war for minerals and another story blasting us for not acting on the continuing mineral shortage back home.

There should also be simultaneous stories about the outrageous expense of the war effort, and another about how the troops are under-funded and under-equipped. Set it so that I somehow lose public-support points with each story...

Ronit Avni is the Founder and Executive Director of Just Vision, a non-profit that widens the influence of Palestinian and Israeli grassroots peace builders, for which she received the 2005 Auburn Seminary’s ‘Lives of Commitment’ Award. Ronit recently directed and produced the documentary film, Encounter Point, which received the 2006 San Francisco International Film Festival Audience Award and was an official selection at the Tribeca Film Festival, Hot Docs, Atlanta, Dubai and Jerusalem International Film Festival. Encounter Point has screened at the International Finance Center, the United Nations and in Gaza, Tel Aviv, Jenin and more than 31 cities worldwide. Ronit appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2005 with her colleague, Joline Makhlouf and her work was featured on Oprah.com.

Well, sort of. What it actually produced was 18 minutes out of the 27 it was required to bring forward. From this footage, which according to France 2’s Palestinian cameraman was filmed during an implausible 45 minutes of continuous shooting by Israeli soldiers, there is no evidence that anyone at all was killed or injured -- including Mohammed al Durah who by the end of the frames in which he figured seemed to be still very much alive and unmarked by any wound whatsoever.

The drama of today’s hearing was enhanced by the appearance of Enderlin himself, who until today had not graced this case with his presence. As the film was shown to a packed and overheated (in every sense) courtroom, Enderlin and Karsenty offered rival interpretations of the images on the screen. If Enderlin thought he would thus demonstrate the inadequacy of Karsenty’s case, he was very much mistaken. On the contrary, parts of his commentary were so absurd that the courtroom several times burst into incredulous laughter.

Enderlin offered only a vague, rambling and unconvincing explanation of why he had only produced 18 minutes of footage rather than the 27 he claimed to have received from his cameraman in Gaza (Enderlin himself was not in Gaza when these events occurred). After the hearing Professor Richard Landes, one of the people who had already seen the contested footage, said that two scenes had been cut out which clearly showed that the violence had been staged -- including one in which a Palestinian preparing to throw a missile is suddenly picked up and carried into an ambulance despite showing no signs of injury. This scene, said Landes, was filmed by Reuters, who actually filmed the France 2 cameraman filming it. Yet there was no sign of it today...

...Enderlin might not remember where the 27 minutes came from, but we can remind him. His cameraman in whom he claimed to have "full confidence" testified to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights that he had "spent approximately 27 minutes photographing the incident which took place for 45 minutes.": And the three French journalists who were invited by France 2 to view the footage, Luc Rosenzwieg, Denis Jeambar and Daniel Leconte, reported that "In the 24 minutes of film preceding the footage of Al Dura, young Palestinians are performing for the television cameras. They fall and when they think that no one is around, they get up."...

Not one person believed that the version of France 2 was right. Some people maintained that the footage was staged. Others think the footage was real. Clearly, nobody believed that anybody died.

Does the footage vindicate Karsenty?

Everyone was going, "Wow" and talking about whether he'll take action against France 2 for trying to swindle the court. He can wait for the verdict, or sue France 2 for tampering with the tape. He has quite a few options. Clearly, the judge wasn't convinced by France 2's version. The judge's verdict is to be given on February 27.

How did the France 2 people react after the hearing?

France 2 left immediately. They just ran out and left. They didn't want to speak to anyone.

Some people were concerned that reviving the footage would harm Israel's image.

There's absolutely no reason to be concerned for that now...

"Three former leaders of a defunct Boston-based Islamic charity are scheduled to go on trial today in federal court, accused of lying to the government to win tax-exempt status for the charity and then using the nonprofit to distribute publications promoting jihad and to support Muslim militants overseas."

"In what is believed to be the first criminal trial in US District Court in Boston that will explore the role of US charities in financing terrorism, Emadeddin Muntasser, Muhamed Mubayyid, and Samir Al-Monla are charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, tax violations, and making false statements."...

..."...The government alleges that in the early 1990s, the three men were involved in operating the Boston branch of Al-Kifah Refugee Center - which supported Muslims engaged in violent, religiously based military conflict overseas - and published a pro-jihad newsletter called Al-Hussam, Arabic for The Sword."

"After members of the New York office of Al-Kifah were linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York, the Boston branch of Al-Kifah was disbanded, and Muntasser founded its successor organization, Massachusetts Care International, the indictment alleges. The group is not affiliated with the global relief organization CARE International..."

Hmm, Al-Kifah, where have I heard that before? Ahh yes, Aafia Siddiqi - former MIT trained biochemist, now wanted by the FBI - used to work for Al-Kifah in Brooklyn. I'm only speculating here, but I bet there were ample ties between Al-Kifah Brooklyn and Al-Kifah Boston...

Majadele said, "I am a Muslim first, and a government minister second."

Most of the Jewish people, even inside Israel, are secular. Internally, within Israel there is and always will be a debate on how many and how many Jewish (this time religious) characteristics the state should adopt (i.e should buses run on Saturdays or not). Such Jewish characteristics are an internal issue and this is not what Annapolis is about.

When Olmert speaks about his condition for recognizing Israel's right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish People he is touching the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict: Many Arabs are willing for Israel to become a bi-national state side by side to a Palestinian state as long that in the course of the time both those countries would become majority Arab.

For Israel to agree to a Palestinian state there must be a similar and symmetrical recognition that the "'Jewish People" -- not the Jewish religion, the PEOPLE -- have the same right for self determination as any other people: The French, the Germans, the Palestinians etc... - the right of a homeland.

Exact borders are not the issue here and DON'T let ISM style academics/lefties or shrude negotiators like Saeb Erekat make you think there is any religious issue (they always claim "no other religions have a country"). It is NOT the religion it is "WE the (Jewish) People."

Why are Palestinians against such a symmetrical definition?

For various reasons. Some are unwilling to give up their demand to live inside Israel, some are following the teachings of Hamas and the Koran which do not permit a non-Muslim people to hold sovereignty over any part of a land once ruled by Muslims (so-called Dar al-Islam). This type especially see Palestine as a secret Muslim land (Wakf) which belongs to the whole Muslim nation (Ummah).

They need to give up their hidden claim to Israel and recognize the right of the Jewish people to their own national homeland in the Middle East. Israel will of course recognize similar right for the Palestinian people.

For instance, Erekat says, "The Palestinians won't accept Israel as a Jewish state.":

...Miri Eisin, declined to comment directly on Erekat's remarks, but said that recognition of Israel's identity was key to any peace process. "This is not something that is up for discussion. It is a basic creed of the State of Israel," she said. "Our country is a Jewish democratic state. We expect to be recognized as such by any country that would expect to have a peace treaty with us."...

It is not just the issue of refugees but of any future character of Israel and the demographic threat from its own Arab population. If the Arabs have national aspirations as Palestinans they must realize them in Palestine, not in Israel.

Palestinian Arab negotiators do not want to recognize Israel as a Jewish State because then they won't have their desired destruction of Israel's demographic character affirmed. If Palestinians do not recognize Israel as a Jewish State from the beginning that means they can progress with their absurd right of return, meaning all Palestinians will flow into Israel proper even after the Palestinian State is created. The Palestinian negotiators know that this will be suicide for Israel which will become majority Arab in a few years because of Arab profligate birthrate compared to that of Jews. After this is achieved, then the majority can decide on the government, on policies and basically on everything internally.

The Palestinians once said that the Arab womb will be the destroyer of Israel. The only solution is this...once the Palestinian State is a reality, all Arabs including the so called refugees, will only be allowed to enter the country they dreamed of for so long -- meaning none on Israeli property and land. Let them live with their brothers in the future Palestinian state.

This only shows you Palestinian intent. Why so difficult to recognize us as a Jewish State? Why? If they have their own country side by side with ours, why does it really matter what they call us Israeli or Jewish State? It matters a lot to them because through this semantic, they intend to institute the law of return of all refugees to flood Israel with a majority Arab population in the future. By that time not only will Israel not be a majority Israeli State, it won't even be Jewish any more.

Wording on agreements is crucial for both Arabs and Israelis. Semantics for Arabs means they can twist any "written agreement" to their advantage. Let the world and Jews in Israel say no! We should be recognized as a JEWISH STATE -- not only a place that happens to have the name "Israel." Otherwise, no go!

Interviewer: Take, for example, the people who were killed in South Lebanon, while fighting the Israelis – should they be considered martyrs?

Father Samir Khalil Al-Yasou'i: Definitely not. They are not martyrs, because they were fighting. This is political defense...

Interviewer: So they are by no means martyrs? Is it wrong and inappropriate to use the word "martyr" in this case?

Father Samir Khalil Al-Yasou'i: This word is used to incite people and to justify one's positions. If I take my weapon and go to war against another armed person, this means that one of us could get killed. There are victims... In any case, I am considered an aggressor, just like him. Even if he managed to hit me, and I did not manage to hit him, it does not mean that I am considered a martyr and he is the executioner. Moreover, like Dr. Samir said, Gandhi should indeed be considered a martyr, because he was killed fighting for the sake of non-violence, and because he sought to unite the Muslims and the Hindus. In addition, some Buddhists, like those we are seeing now in Myanmar, can be considered martyrs.

Interviewer: They are victims of the lack of religious freedom.

Father Samir Khalil Al-Yasou'i: Yes, because first, there must be non-violence. The violent cannot be considered a martyr...

...Interviewer: Do you think that Christians are persecuted in Saudi Arabia?

Father Samir Khalil Al-Yasou'i: By law, Christians are not allowed to exist there. If a person prays within his own home – as in the case of some people from India, the Philippines, and Pakistan – he is sent to prison and flogged. If a man wears a cross under his shirt... The Saudi airline... This appeared on the Internet three weeks ago, and was removed after they received complaints. They had a list of things that travelers must not take on board: The Holy Bible, any non-Muslim religious symbol, and so on...

...Father Samir Khalil Al-Yasou'i: There's no doubt that among the countries that violate human rights the most, one finds China and Saudi Arabia. This is well known. But this constitutes cowardice on the part of the Western world. They dare not say a word to Saudi Arabia, because they need the Saudi oil and money. So they keep quiet. This is cowardice.

...Suha had been accused of living it up in Paris as Arafat braved an Israeli siege of his compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

She was rumoured to own properties in the French capital and to spend her time shopping with the wife of Adnan Khashoggi, the billionaire Saudi arms dealer, and the sister of the King of Morocco. None of it was true, she said.

"I have met Mrs Khashoggi once and never went shopping with her," said Suha. "I own no property whatsoever. My rented apartment in Paris is an old, ordinary building."...

They had gone on strike at noon in protest against the killings in the rally yesterday, and they had made their way to a nearby police station where they were singing and chanting. In particular, they yelled: 'Shia, Shia, Shia,' which is a reference to Hamas being funded by Iran.

Within a few minutes, baton-wielding police laid into the girls. Some fell to the ground, but most ran away.

As this was happening, some other members of the police force grabbed me and dragged me into a cell. They pushed me against the wall, and one of the officers shouted: 'Hit him, hit him, hit him' in Arabic.

They snatched the camera from me, and one of the police officers urged his colleagues to break my camera. Then, my cameraman was dragged into the room too.

Another police officer, more senior than the others, eventually arrived and insisted on viewing the videotape that my cameraman had. I kept telling them that I was a journalist and that I would telephone the chief of police unless I was released, and eventually they did so.

Today's incident follows two previous incidents yesterday, in which my activities as a journalist were deliberately curtailed...

Hamas security forces in Gaza violently put down a protest by female pro-Fatah students, temporarily detained a British journalist, and arrested hundreds of senior Fatah members today, a day after seven were shot dead at a mass rally...

Homosexuals should be executed, Iranian Parliament Member Mohsen Yahyavi said during a discussion between Iranian legislators and British officials in London in May, according to the protocol of the meeting published Tuesday in the British newspaper The Times.

Yahyavi, a member of the committee on energy affairs in Iran's Parliament, was in Britain for a peace summit.

"According to Islamic law, homosexuality is a grave crime," Yahyavi was quoted as saying. "It's a severe crime that goes against the laws of nature. It is human nature to procreate and homosexuals do not procreate."

The Iranian legislator added, "We do not have any opposition to this type of behavior as long as it is done behind closed doors, but those who (engage in) this behavior in public should be put to death."

The protocol shows that Yahyavi originally indicated that homosexuals should be "tortured," but he quickly corrected himself and said they should be "put to death."...

Mohsen Yahyavi is the highest-ranked politician to admit that Iran believes in the death penalty for homosexuality after a spate of reports that gay youths were being hanged.

President Ahmadinejad, questioned by students in New York two months ago about the executions, dodged the issue by suggesting that there were no gays in his country.

Britain regularly challenges Iran about its gay hangings, stonings and executions of adulterers and perceived moral criminals, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) papers show.

The latest row involves a woman hanged this June in the town of Gorgan after becoming pregnant by her brother. He was absolved after expressing his remorse. Britain said that this demonstrated the unequal treatment of men and women in law and breached Iran’s pledge to restrict the death penalty to the most serious crimes...

The nub of the matter is the petition's reference to "the autonomy of the University in the face of outside threats and pressures," and "a determining role for faculty in the governance of the University." When the professors say "autonomy," they mean a total lack of responsibility or accountability to trustees, students, parents, alumni, or America. When they say "outside threats and pressures," they mean Jewish students and alumni, but not the Arab potentate that funds the professorship of one of the petitioners, Rashid Khalidi.

A similar putsch by leftist and anti-Israel professors ousted Lawrence Summers last year from the presidency of Harvard. Mr. Bollinger's enemies are a sign of his character. How he handles them will be a test of his backbone, and will determine whether Columbia sinks back into the troubled mediocrity that afflicted it after the 1968 strike, or rises above it into the very first rank of American universities.

One of those ‘peace makers' attending the Music and Dance performance by Al-Ghad was Palestinian nationalist extremist Mazin Qumsiyeh. He was formerly associated with the Palestinian ‘rights of return' advocacy group Al Awda , and was a former Yale Medical School genetics lab director. Qumsiyeh was denied tenure, in part, because of his misuse of university auspices for patently political and, some contend, antisemi tic purposes. Qumsiyeh, a naturalized American citizen, hailed originally from the Beit Sahour district near Bethlehem and is a Lutheran. I have written about his energetic exploits in fostering hate of Israel and Antisemitism at another liberal Protestant church in Connecticut and helped to cancel his appearance at an elite private school in New York City...

Gunfire killed at least six people and wounded 80 today at a Fatah memorial rally for Yasser Arafat attended by hundreds of thousands of supporters of the defeated faction in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

A sea of yellow Fatah flags had filled a Gaza square for the biggest gathering held by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's secular faction in the territory since Hamas Islamists routed its fighters there in June.

The rare Fatah rally broke up in chaos after gunfire rang out and grew into what Hamas described as battles with the rival group's fighters, forcing even members of the crowd who had initially stood their ground to bolt for cover.

Dr Muawiyah Hassanein, head of Gaza's emergency medical services, said six people, all civilians, were killed. He said 80 people, including several Hamas security men, were wounded.

Fatah officials accused Hamas forces of opening fire from the nearby Islamic University. Hamas said its men had come under attack from Fatah gunmen and returned fire...

...Fatah nationalist songs blared from loudspeakers as many in the crowd expressed their longing for Arafat, regarded by Palestinians as a symbol of unity.

"Abu Mazen (Abbas) is not like Arafat but he is our president now and we respect him. We urge him to end Hamas occupation," said a teenage participant, who gave his name only as Khaled.

It is not clear if they were fired on first from inside the crowd but it is known that six members of the crowd died and at least 130 were wounded, mostly from injuries suffered in the resulting stampede...

Link: World View News Service

Introduction:

"I am here to support Ron Paul for President because he supports ending US funding of foreign countries. I live in Dorchester, and am editor of the awesome and thought-provoking World View News Service."
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"I gave scares but I never killed anyone," he said. "I couldn't. I never hurled a grenade in a public place."

His greatest achievement was opening fire on the cavalcade of a visiting Indian government minister.

Even when his team caught a police informant, Shakeel called for him to be set free. "I thought I would set an example. Forgiveness is better than killing."

In 1994, when he was 16, he was arrested and taken to a military barracks. Of the 20 boys and young men who had crossed the border to Pakistan with him, only eight were still alive.

Shakeel was tortured. He was stripped, doused with water and given electric shocks. A nail was pushed through his jaw (he showed me the scar). His head was immersed in water.

When he was released, he remained under police surveillance. An injury to his right arm as a result of the torture had left him unable to lift anything and he has relied on his brothers to support him since then. Shakeel is still unemployed and says he feels as if he is 110 years old...

There are millions being brainwashed, raised up to be suicide bombers, and they want to kill .. kill .. kill. When they start using dirty bombs in western cities perhaps our governments will begin to get the message we must take this more seriously. I frankly don't care about what motivates them. If the Indian military has been harsh I do not condone it. It's wrong. However, when Hindu pilgrims are shot dead on the way to their shrines repeatedly it leads to excesses from their military. People get tired of being the brunt of Islamic rage. Too many have been killed by it all over the world.

=A Lesson About Middle East Apartheid=

Which group being compared in the chart below appears to be engaged in the practice of Apartheid?

Read the chart and reach your own conclusions.

The identity of each group appears at the end.

My name is Jim Hammerman. I grew up Jewish outside Chicago and now live in Brookline. While I am not a devout Jew, I bake challah and light Shabbat candles; I fast for Yom Kippur and reflect on its promise of repentance and renewal; I delight in playing dreidel and lighting the menorah with my daughters to remember our ancient fight for freedom of religious practice; and I am inspired to work for a better world for everyone by the annual Pesach telling of how our people broke the bonds of slavery in Egypt.

…you suck. The only thing keeping this campaign from turning into a sketch comedy routine was the lack of a Sudanese support page. “Hi, My name is Mukimbe and although both my arms were chopped off when I was two while I watched my mom get gang raped; I support Grace Ross for Council because Hemp clothing is pretty sweet”. Spare me.

Far from honoring American heroes, these self-absorbed jerks flew the American flag upside down, in the presence of hundreds of people who had been shot at to keep that same flag flying above battlefields abroad.

It turned my stomach, not for any insult towards me--these "VFP" lame-brains can't make a complete sentence, much less an argument worthy of being taken seriously--but for their incredible insult to the veterans.

Once these egomaniacs brought the program to a stop, once they had ensured everyone saw their junior-high-level "statement," the assumption was that they would at least have the decency to go away.

Wrong...

As the chief Palestinian judge and Muslim cleric, Al-Tamimi frequently appears on Palestinian Authority Television praising homicide bombers and spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and fatwas.

In 1994, Al-Tamimi said, "The Jews are destined to be persecuted, humiliated, and tortured forever, and it is a Muslim duty to see to it that they reap their due. No petty arguments must be allowed to divide us. Where Hitler failed, we must succeed."

In August 2003, Al-Tamimi, a personal friend of Yasser Arafat (who appointed him Chief Islamic Judge), was arrested for inciting terrorism. Al-Tamimi’s extremist sermons are well-known for urging attacks on Israel and calling upon Arab nations to wage war. In March 2000, Al-Tamimi delivered a hate speech during the Pope’s visit to Jerusalem, accusing Israel of "genocide" and "strangling Jerusalem." He called on Christians to join Muslims in a jihad to oust Jews from all of Israel...

RAMALLAH, West Bank - The squat tomb sits in dignified quiet, decked in gleaming white Jerusalem stone on a slope that soon will be carpeted green by 25 species of trees and shrubs.

A two-story prayer hall and 98-foot minaret stand guard nearby, completing a memorial complex for the late Yasser Arafat that is tranquil, stately, and well ordered. It is, in other words, pretty much everything his reign as Palestinian Authority leader was not.

Three years after Arafat's death, Palestinian officials yesterday unveiled a tomb complex on the spot where he was buried Nov. 12, 2004, in a scene of pandemonium a day after his death.

During the ceremony, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, laid a wreath in the colors of the Palestinian flag on the tombstone and honored his onetime rival with a moment of silence.

In a brief speech, Abbas pledged to reclaim part of Jerusalem for his people, the Associated Press reported. The fate of the city, claimed by both Israel and the Palestinians as a capital, is one of the most explosive issues in peace talks, expected to resume after a US-hosted Mideast conference in Annapolis, Md., later this month.

"We will continue on the path of the martyred President Yasser Arafat to be reburied in Jerusalem, which he loved . . . Jerusalem, which he tried to make, and which all our people are trying to make, the capital of the Palestinian state," Abbas said...

Janet Lahr Lewis is a professional anti-Israel activist who worked for Sabeel's main office in Jerusalem for 10 years and served as the executive director of Friends of Sabeel for two years, in which position she runs their international outreach operations. She has also achieved a level of prominence within the United Methodist Church, which is the largest mainline Protestant denomination in the U.S. Her UMC profile lists her as the UMC "liaison between ecumenical groups and Israel and Palestine"... Janet is the main contact for ... United Methodist visitors who wish to follow the recommendation of the General Conference to spend a significant amount of time in the area with (Israeli and Palestinian) Christians." In other words, the United Methodist Church has installed a strident anti-Israel activist as their primary contact person for groups wishing to conduct fact-finding tours of Israel and the Palestinian territories under church aegis...

...Which brings us to a problem more complex than the fairly straightforward observation that Palestinian journalists play by a different set of rules in which this kind of manipulation of the "truth" is entirely legitimate. What do Western journalists do with these products of propaganda? Do they know these are fakes or are they fooled? Do they tell the cameramen working for them and using their equipment that filming such staged scenes is unethical and unacceptable? And if they do, why do cameramen who have worked for them for years – Talal worked for Enderlin for over a decade when he took these rushes – continue to film these scenes. And how often do our journalists run this staged footage as real news?

Here the evidence provided by the Al Dura affair suggests that, in some sense, journalists are "in" on the public secret. When representatives of France2 were confronted with the pervasive evidence of staging in Talal’s footage, they both responded the same way. "Oh, they always do that, it’s a cultural thing," said Enderlin to me in Jerusalem. "Yes Monsieur, but, you know, it’s always like that," said Didier Eppelbaum to Denis Jeambar, Daniel Leconte, and Luc Rosenzweig in Paris...

The decision involves planned performances at the town's elementary and middle schools by Al-Ghad Folklore Dancing Troupe.

Town resident Ginger Horton says she felt compelled to complain to school officials after her two grandchildren told her they were offended by the troupe's performance at the high school Monday.

Horton says the grandchildren told her the high school performance depicted Israeli soldiers beating and torturing Palestinians.

School Superintendent Joseph Onofrio says he canceled further performances after learning several parents questioned whether it was appropriate for their children.

The troupe has also performed for schoolchildren in public schools and that has angered and outraged some who say they're not teaching, they're preaching...

...The Al Ghad Folklore Dancing Group is made up of Christian teenagers from the town of Bethlehem in the West Bank. Along with the traditional costumes and music there's interpretive dance, raising the Palestinian flag and crouching under netting to symbolize being restrained and oppressed. The Reverend Bruce Shipman says the politics is part of their cultural experience.

"They also are telling a story of occupation and struggle and hardship and that must be said also,": said Rev. Bruce Shipman from the Church of the Holy Advent...

To be clear - stopping them from performing, even if there was political content, is unacceptable and we need to respond to that. I'm asking because what the nature of our response should be would be framed somewhat differently...

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 11/9/2007) On Tuesday, November 13, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) will hold a noon news conference in the nation’s capital to announce the launch of a major initiative to help enhance understanding of Islam and Muslims in the news media.

Similar news conferences will be held at CAIR offices in Princeton, N.J.; San Diego, Calif.; Cleveland and Cincinnati, Ohio; Tampa, Fla.; and Dallas, Texas...

...The centerpiece of CAIR’s educational campaign will be distribution of the newly-published "American Muslims: A Journalist's Guide to Understanding of Islam and Muslims" to some 40,000 media professionals nationwide.

Other aspects of CAIR’s educational initiative will be outlined at the news conferences...

..."It is essential that all those who write about or comment on domestic and international events have access to accurate, balanced information about Islam and Muslims," said CAIR Chief Operating Officer/Deputy Director Tahra Goraya. "Because Muslims have a duty to provide that information, we will be calling on the Islamic community to support this important initiative."...

But its architectural reign came to an end in 1948, when the Jordanian army destroyed the Hurva during the War of Independence as part of a larger effort to erase the Jewish presence from the Old City and prevent Jews from ever returning there. The Jordanians’ plans failed in the end, however, for with Israel’s victory over Jordan, and its re-conquest, of East Jerusalem in the Six Day War of 1967, the Hurva’s remnants once again fell into Israeli hands. With this pivotal event began what has since become a 40-year saga to decide the building’s ultimate fate...

The official made the comment a day after U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon condemned the militants for using the school.

Footage taken by an Israeli aircraft on October 29 and released by the Israeli military showed Palestinian militants firing mortars from the yard of an elementary school for boys in the north Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. The school is run by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which oversees aid to Palestinian refugees.

"The United Nations is very disturbed about this, and wants to make sure that such incidents are not repeated. It is unacceptable that U.N. premises be used in this fashion," the U.N. official said...

Interviewer: What is the front?[...]

Mursi Nuweishi: There is a misuse of the rights [of women]. This misuse is detrimental to the women themselves and to their interests.

Interviewer: Before we talk about this misuse, what drove you to form this front of yours now, and how would you characterize it?

Mursi Nuweishi: We realized that there is a misuse of [women's] rights.

Interviewer: So what did you do?

Mursi Nuweishi: The Egyptian women – my mother, my sister, my daughter, my wife – have more freedom than they should have. They demanded their rights, and received very many rights, including the recent ruling that they can become judges. So we men want to demand our rights too, because we feel that our rights have been neglected.

Interviewer: So you established the front.

Mursi Nuweishi: Yes.

Interviewer: How many members do you have?

Mursi Nuweishi: We have about 250-300 activists – these are people who convene, and so on.

Interviewer: I expect they are all men.

Mursi Nuweishi: 60% of the members are women.

Interviewer: There are women in the Front for the Struggle against Domineering Women?

Mursi Nuweishi: One of them decided, just today, to form an association [of women] in support of men. She is, incidentally, a senior official in the Foreign Ministry, and the wife of one of the senior ambassadors.

So far, though, the Islamic militants have raised only a tiny fraction of the money it needs for its own Hollywood, at a time when the Gaza economy has ground to a standstill and its people are struggling to feed themselves because of Israeli and international sanctions against the Islamic group listed as a terror organization.

Even so, Hamas envisions a glittering facility with production and graphics studios, satellite technology, gardens, water ponds, a children's entertainment area and an array of cafes and restaurants, said the Felasteen daily, a Hamas paper.

It will even feature mock towns and villages similar to those that Palestinians fled or were forced out after Israel's creation in 1948, the newspaper reported, quoting Fathi Hamad, a Hamas lawmaker and head of the
project...

Al-'Arifi: Beating in the face is forbidden, even when it comes to animals. When a person is beating an animal... Even if you want your camel or donkey to start walking, you are not allowed to beat it in the face. If this is true for animals, it is all the more true when it comes to humans. So beatings should be light and not in the face. Some religious scholars say: "He should beat her with a toothpick." I happen to have a toothpick with me. A man who is angry with his wife because she doesn't get it... If he says to her: "Watch out, the child has fallen next to the stove," or: "Move the child away from the electrical socket," and she says: "I am busy" - then he beats her with a toothpick or something like it. He doesn't beat her with a bottle of water, a plate, or a knife. This is forbidden. The scholars said he should beat her with a toothpick. Check out how gentle the toothpick used for beating is. This shows you that the purpose is not to inflict pain. When you beat an animal, you intend to cause it pain so it will obey you, because an animal would not understand if you said: "Oh camel, come on, start moving." The camel does not understand such things, unless you beat it. A donkey understands nothing but beatings, but a woman, a man, a child, and so on, are generally more affected by emotions than by other things. If you beat her with a toothpick, or if you beat her lightly with your hand, and so on, it is meant to convey: "Woman, it has gone too far. I can't bear it anymore." If he beats her, the beatings must be light and must not make her face ugly. He must beat her where it will not leave marks. He should not beat her on the hand... He should beat her in some places where it will not cause any damage. He should not beat her like he would beat an animal or a child - slapping them right and left. Unfortunately, many husbands beat their wives only when they get mad, and when they start beating, it as if they are punching a wall - they beat with their hands, right and left, and sometimes use their feet. Brother, it is a human being you are beating. This is forbidden. He must not do this.

The Iraqis asked me to convey a message of thanks to the American people. ” Thank you, thank you,” the people were saying. One man said, “Thank you for peace.” Another man, a Muslim, said “All the people, all the people in Iraq, Muslim and Christian, is brother.” The men and women were holding bells, and for the first time in memory freedom rang over the ravaged land between two rivers.

Rows of plastic chairs where the grieving family receives condolences, a few dozen colorful plastic flower wreaths leaning against the wall at the entrance to the building, and a pale, clean-shaven young man in glasses, cautiously smiling from the martyr posters that cover the walls. But the usual image of Al-Aqsa mosque is missing from the picture, and the handwritten notes on the wreaths have quotations from the Bible, not the Koran. The victim belonged to Gaza's Christian community.

Rami Ayad, 31, was the manager of The Teacher's Bookshop, the only Christian bookstore in Gaza, operated by the Palestinian Bible Society. In addition to selling Bibles and Christian books, it offers computer classes and an Internet cafe. The bookstore has been attacked several times in the past two years. Internet cafes, pharmacies and music stores have been targeted as well, by what is assumed to be radical Islamic groups. Following the first attack in February 2006, a few days after the elections for the Palestinian parliament, in which Hamas won a sweeping victory, a note was found on the doorstep, demanding that the shop close immediately. The Bible Society reopened it a few weeks later.

According to Rami Ayad's widow, Pauline, her husband had not received any personal threats. But in retrospect, she realized there were signs that should have been taken seriously. Two months before the murder, a man entered the bookstore and asked Rami why he was not a Muslim. "Because I believe in Jesus," Rami replied. "I know how to make you become a Muslim," the man said, and left.

Two days before the murder, the taxi driver who took Rami home from the bookstore noticed that they were being followed by a car. It parked on the street outside his house, waited for Rami to get out of the taxi, and then drove away. Rami didn't recognize the driver, but he did note that he had a beard. On Saturday, he left the bookstore at four in the afternoon. Two hours later, he called his wife and told her that he might be late. That was the last time anyone heard from him. On the morning of the next day his body was found on a street in Gaza City, shot in the head and stabbed in the chest.

TEHRAN (AFP) — Thousands of young Iranians proclaimed "Death to America" on Sunday as they celebrated the 28th anniversary of the storming of the US embassy in Tehran by student radicals.

A massive crowd, composed mainly of schoolchildren bussed in to central Tehran, gathered outside the site of the former US embassy, known locally as the "Den of Spies."

"Death to America! Death to Israel!" the young people shouted, wearing bibs that depicted the burning of the US and Israeli flags.

Interior Minister Mostafa Pour Mohammadi, in a keynote address, hailed the embassy seizure as "a great and glorious event" from which Iranians were still drawing inspiration...

..."By being here I am doing my religious duty, and by being here I am saying I hate the bullying powers, especially the United States and Israel," said 18-year-old seminary student Esmaeel Mohammadi.

Reihaneh Deqipour, 16, said: "My coming here is a sign I am ready to defend my country and slap the United States in the face, and I'm ready to defend the country to the last drop of my blood.

"Relations with the United States are fine as long as we are equals," she added...

...During 2004-2006 the Kifaya movement was not just Egypt's main moderate opposition force but the most important organized liberal group in the Arabic-speaking world. It began in December 2004 when participants in a small demonstration chanted that they had had "enough" (kifaya) of President Husni Mubarak's quarter-century-long rule as head of a half-century-long regime.

Thus began the Egyptian Movement for Change, best known as the Kifaya group. Those involved expected Egypt's imminent, dramatic transformation. George Isaac, the movement's coordinator, reflected what one reporter called this "delirious optimism." "The door of change is open," Isaac proclaimed "and no one can close it again. Never."

But it slammed shut pretty fast. The regime was still very much in control. In the 2005 elections, Kifaya did not do well. Of course, the elections were fixed but the Muslim Brotherhood emerged with triple the vote Kifaya received. Kifaya's presidential candidate was soon in prison. The masses didn't rise up. Liberalism clearly couldn't compete with either the regime's Arab nationalism or the Brotherhood's Islamism. Isaac now concluded: "Our people are naïve."

How, then, to compete for these "naïve" people's support? Most of Kifaya now seized the same tool the Arab nationalists and Islamists used: nationalist and religious demagoguery. In short, if you can't beat them, join them.

Aside from whether or not using this weapon helped Kifaya—it didn't—the tactic strengthened all the anti-democratic concepts which held Egypt back. They now claimed that the fault was external, not internal. The now insisted that the solution was not a freer culture and society or defeat of extremist ideologies but fighting the evil imperialists and Zionists. Yet if this is true, who needs Kifaya? Who needs internal reform? Who needs democracy?

In 2006, then, the movement made a U-turn. Rather than challenge its competitors' xenophobia, Kifaya imitated it...

The news, coming over the weekend, that Barnard College has granted tenure to an anti-Israel anthropologist, Nadia Abu El-Haj, is a setback to those who had hoped that the tide of anti-Israel sentiment at Morningside Heights would begin to recede after President Bollinger's welcome of President Ahmadinejad. Press coverage of Ms. El-Haj's case in the Nation and the Jewish Week (by the same reporter, no less) has sought to portray her opponents as McCarthyites and has insisted that she has been falsely accused. In fact, she is on the record accusing Israel of being a colonial project.

This is a point to mark. Martin Kramer, who is the Wexler-Fromer Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, made the key point when, in a remarks published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, he wrote, "The tragedy of the academy is that it has become home to countless people whose mission is to prove the lie that Zionism is colonialism. Thus research is undertaken, books are written, and lectures delivered to establish a falsehood." He called the idea that Zionism is colonialism "the root lie."

This is the lie that Ms. El-Haj is dedicated to promoting. In her book "Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society," she writes, "The colonial dimension of Jewish settlement in Palestine cannot be sidelined if one is to understand the significance and consequences of archaeological practice or, far more fundamentally, if one is to comprehend the dynamics of Israeli nation-state building and the contours of the Jewish national imagination as it crystallized therein."

This is, not to put too fine a point on it, nonsense...

Beijing, Nov 2, 2007 (CNA).- Organizes of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing have published a list of “prohibited objects” in the Olympic village where athletes will stay. To the surprise of many, Bibles are among the objects that will not be allowed.

According to the Italian daily La Gazzetta dello Sport, organizers have cited “security reasons” and have prohibited athletes from bearing any kind of religious symbol at Olympic facilities.

Other objects on the list include video cameras and cups.

The Spanish daily La Razon said the rule was one of a number of “signs of censure and intolerance” towards religious objects, particularly those used by Christians in China. Currently in China five bishops and fifteen priests are in prison for opposing the official Church.

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The head of Britain's intelligence services has warned that children as young as 15 are becoming involved in terrorist-related activity.

Jonathan Evans, the chief of MI5, also said that at least 2,000 people are living in Britain who pose a threat to security because of the country's support for al Qaeda-inspired terrorism.

"As I speak, terrorists are methodically and intentionally targeting young people and children in this country. They are radicalising, indoctrinating and grooming young, vulnerable people to carry out acts of terrorism," he told a gathering of newspaper editors in Manchester.

Evans said the figure of 2,000 -- an increase of 400 since November 2006 -- only included those the intelligence services knew about and that the actual number could be double.

He said there had been 200 terrorist convictions in Britain since the September 11 attacks.

The MI5 head added that over recent years much of the command and inspiration for attack planning in the UK had come from al Qaeda's remaining core leadership in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

However, he said in the last 12 months terrorist plots on British soil were increasingly been inspired by al Qaeda cadres in other countries, including in Iraq and East Africa...

...Two weeks ago I watched an 18-minute tape, from which Enderlin prepared his story in September 2000, and which will be submitted to the Parisian court on November 14. The first 10 minutes show footage of a demonstration at Netzarim junction: Dozens, perhaps hundreds of people are throwing a heavy barrage of stones at an IDF outpost. They are all dressed in civilian clothing, some are children under 10 years of age. Molotov cocktails are also seen being thrown at the outpost, and some of them catch fire.

During these moments no reaction is recorded from the IDF outpost, and the first shot, whose source is not visible on the tape, occurs at about the 10th minute. Between minutes 9 and 14, the photographer conducts two interviews at the junction itself. The two interviewees are standing in the direct line of sight of the IDF outpost.

By minute 14, more frequent shooting can be heard. Palestinian policemen in uniform fire from rifles they are holding, but it can't be seen at what, and Palestinians in civilian clothing who were in the IDF's line of fire are seen fleeing from the spot. The first time Mohammed al-Dura and his father are seen on the tape is at 14 minutes and 30 seconds, stooping behind a concrete cylinder. The camera pans right and left and does not focus on them. It returns to them occasionally until approximately minute 16.

The two appear again from minute 17 until the end of the tape, a minute later. These are the images that were broadcast internationally. The father is holding on to the cylinder and waving his hands, and the boy is trying to take refuge in his lap. At this point frequent shots are heard. In the last picture Mohammed al-Dura is seen lifting his head.

The only Christian television station in the Holy Land has closed after 11 years because of a lack of funding.

Nativity television, or al-Mahed as it was known in Arabic, broadcast a mix of church services, films and discussion programmes 24 hours a day from a small studio in Bethlehem, not far from the Church of the Nativity.

Samir Qumsieh, the Greek Orthodox owner and director of the channel, said it had lost around $800,000, half of which were his own personal debts. "I have hundreds of letters thanking me and gratitude shields thanking us from all the churches but nobody translated this into financial support," he said. The station closed yesterday.

"I reached the point where I couldn't continue any more," he said...

“Instead of agitating for war the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way, for they will be among the first to feel its consequences. Tolerance is a virtue that depends upon peace and strength. History shows that it cannot survive war and devastation. A few farsighted Jewish people realize this and stand opposed to intervention. But the majority still do not. Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government.”

“The terms "fifth columnist," "traitor," "Nazi," "anti-Semitic" were thrown ceaselessly at any one who dared to suggest that it was not to the best interests of the United States to enter the war…Before long, lecture halls that were open to the advocates of war were closed to speakers who opposed it. A fear campaign was inaugurated. We are on the verge of war, but it is not yet too late to stay out. It is not too late to show that no amount of money, or propaganda, or patronage can force a free and independent people into war against its will. "

"Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevizing of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!"

An Arab-American evangelical pastor said Wednesday that he has been threatened by a Palestinian security official in the West Bank city of Ramallah, and has fled to Jerusalem for safety.

Pastor Isa Bajalia, 47, a US citizen born in Birmingham, Alabama, said that he had been threatened over the last two months by a Fatah security official from the Tanzim militia who also demanded $30,000 in protection money. Bajalia said he had moved to nearby Jerusalem since the threats began.

The pastor has been living in Ramallah, considered to be the most liberal of all the West Bank cities under Palestinian control, since 1991, together with his American wife and son, who attended school in Jerusalem and has since joined the US Air Force.

For the last decade he served as pastor for a group of 30-35 people in Ramallah, holding Sunday services in private homes and carrying out missionary work among the Palestinians, who are predominantly Muslim.

Initially, Bajalia said he was treated with respect, but some suspicion, by the locals, and viewed as an outsider coming in with a foreign concept. The pastor said the threats began about two months ago after a group of church workers were seen praying on behalf of Palestinians.

"We will do to you what Hamas did to Fatah in Gaza," Bajalia said the Palestinian security official warned him. Bajalia, who has a vision problem, said he was also told that in addition to his eye problems he would not be able to walk anymore.

The Palestinian security official subsequently told Bajalia to register some of his family's land in the official's name and pay him $30,000, the pastor said. Bajalia said he had also been watched for six months...

...The former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and ex-first minister of Northern Ireland said there had been a "selective reading" of the Northern Ireland conflict that was "misleading and demonstrably false." In many cases, he said, it was more about contemporary agendas in the Middle East than serious analysis of the recent history of Northern Ireland.

"Nowhere is the analogy applied more vigorously than in the case of the Israel-Palestinian conflict," Trimble said. "For those eager to inject a creative breakthrough there, the lessons from Northern Ireland are often cited as an inspiration. The foremost expression of this can be seen in the response of many to the growing status and influence of Hamas in recent years.

He called on the Middle East Quartet and international community to "stand firm" regarding Hamas ahead of the Annapolis conference next month.

"It is essential to recognize that Northern Ireland's peace process operated within a distinct context - and one scarcely repeated elsewhere... this narrative which has been transported - often uncritically - to the Middle East, is fundamentally misleading about the true achievements of the Northern Ireland peace process," Trimble said.

"If there is one lesson to learn from Northern Ireland's experience - contrary to what is often recommended in relation to dialogue with Hamas - it is that preconditions were crucial to ending the violence in producing a settlement," he added.

In the 24-page report, Trimble cites the near total collapse of the Northern Ireland peace process on "Bloody Friday" in 1972, when the IRA killed nine people and wounded 130 in a bombing, as evidence that weakening preconditions to dialogue made increased violence more likely.

He questioned whether players in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were seeking victory or accommodation. Whereas the majority in Israel wanted "accommodation," Hamas might still be on the lookout for "victories," he said.

Hamas doesn't want accommodation; rather, they have played into the hands of the most intransigent elements in the Middle East, Trimble said.

Scores of Fatah policemen who used to serve in the Palestinian Authority security forces in the Gaza Strip have now joined the al-Qaida-affiliated group calling itself the Army of Islam, sources in the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry told The Jerusalem Post Thursday.

Meanwhile, Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, claimed responsibility for firing 20 rockets from the Gaza Strip recently. The group said the attacks signaled the beginning of a military campaign dubbed "Operation Gaza Autumn," in the course of which it would fire hundreds of rockets at Israeli communities. It said residents of Sderot had two choices: leave or die.

Fatah officials in Ramallah said they did not know if the threat by the Aksa Martyrs Brigades was genuine.

"We don't know what's happening in the Gaza Strip," a senior Fatah official said. "Ever since the Hamas coup last June, we have no idea what's happening on the ground."

The official, however, did not rule out the possibility that disgruntled Fatah activists were behind the recent spate of rocket attacks, or that some former Fatah-affiliated policemen had joined the Army of Islam.

According to the sources Hamas's Interior Ministry, dozens of Fatah-affiliated policemen who recently lost their jobs have joined the al-Qaida-linked group. The Army of Islam is headed by Abu Muhammad al-Ansari, who is also known as Mumtaz Dughmush.

Ansari is a former PA Preventive Security Service officer in the Gaza Strip. He belongs to the Dughmush clan, whose members have kidnapped several foreign nationals, including BBC reporter Alan Johnston, and bombed Internet cafes, hair salons and restaurants...