November 2006 Archives

Arrests of local imams divides community on law enforcement

Two Bostonians expanded the debate on immigration rights to the Web last week as they created an online petition in support of the recent arrests of local Muslim leaders.

Imams Hafiz Muhammed Masood of the Islamic Center of New England in Sharon and Hafiz Abdul Hannan of the Islamic Society of Greater Lowell in Chelmsford, along with Masood’s 24-year-old son, Hassan, were released on bail from the Plymouth County House of Correction last Tuesday.

The Pakistan natives were among 33 individuals taken into custody around the country as part of an ongoing investigation into a visa fraud scheme. The plan allegedly helped large numbers of illegal aliens fraudulently obtain religious worker visas to enter or remain in the states, according to a statement released by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Local bloggers “Miss Kelly,” who asked to be identified only by her online moniker, and Martin “Sol” Solomon, teamed up to write a petition that applauds ICE’s efforts. The document, which had 145 signatures as of press time, was produced after the Boston chapter of the Muslim American Society crafted its own petition last Thursday in support of Masood and Hannan. If the number of signatures breaks the 1,000 mark, “Miss Kelly” and Solomon plan on sending their paperwork to the ICE and other state officials, including Gov. Mitt Romney and Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

“People talk about the need for immigration laws to be enforced, but when [these officials] try to enforce them, they get in a lot of trouble,” said Solomon, who is well known for his political blog, Solomonia.com. “We are not anti-Muslim, but we are supportive of the authorities.”

“Miss Kelly’s” Web site focuses on issues surrounding Christianity and the rise in Islamic fundamentalism, while Solomon’s blog closely monitors local and national anti-Israel actions.

Boston political humorist and WTTK 96.9 FM radio host Michael Graham said he signed the petition for pro-immigration laws because he is “an outspoken critic of illegal immigration.” Graham invited “Miss Kelly” to his Monday show to discuss the arrest of the imams.

“The law is being enforced, and it’s nonsensical to say that because of someone’s religion they are above the law,” Graham added. “If America’s immigrations officers aren’t going to enforce laws in this case, when are they?”

An area Muslim, who is a member of the Islamic Centers of New England, contacted “Miss Kelly” earlier this week, saying that many Muslims – including himself – wanted to sign the pro-immigration law petition but were afraid to.

“I thought, ‘Oh my god, this is crazy,’” “Miss Kelly” said. “People are coming here illegally and circumventing the system. Who cares how nice they are? Why should they get blanket support?”

Yet Barry D. Hoffman, Consulate General of Pakistan in Boston for New England, said these bloggers are just adding to the “tremendous amount of hysteria” against Muslims.

“If people are so interested in upholding immigration laws, then why don’t they arrest the ... Brazilians in Framingham,” Hoffman asked. “As far as these bloggers go, where do they think their grandparents came from?”

The seizure of the imams also sent ripples of shock throughout the local religious community, especially since the men come from prestigious backgrounds. For instance, 48-year-old Masood’s résumé on the Islamic Center of New England’s Web site states that he has advanced degrees from Boston University and Islamic University in Faisalabad, Pakistan.
But MAS has been working hard to boost Masood and Hannan’s images by arranging rallies and encouraging individuals to fast and pray for their support. MAS also formed a petition that garnered more than 1,400 signatures and was passed on to Judge Paul Gagnon during the bail hearing last Tuesday, according to Bilal Kaleem, associate director of the Boston chapter of the MAS. The imams were released on $7,500 bail, and Hassan was given $2,500 bail.

“We wanted to show the judge that there is a deep well of support in the community for these two imams,” Kaleem said. “We wanted to highlight the work they’ve done and what they stand for.”

In the next couple of months, Masood, Hannan and Hassan will likely attend a pre-trial hearing before an immigration judge to determine what relief may be available, according to the Masood’s attorney, William Joyce of the Boston law firm Joyce and Associates.

Rabbi Barry Starr of Temple Israel in Sharon said that while the facts of the case have not been revealed to him, he does view the trio as “kind, compassionate and outgoing” religious leaders.

The calendar, sponsored by the Islamic Movement - based in the Israeli city Um El-Fahm - marks the birthday of Al-Qaeda founder Bin-Laden, the date of PLO leader Yasser Arafat's death, and significant dates in the lives of Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah and jailed Fatah arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti.

Also noted in the calendar are the anniversaries of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York and of recent kidnappings of IDF soldiers.

Students belonging to the Islamic Movement rejected criticism by many that the material constituted incitement. Mouad Hatib, the university student who was responsible for distribution of the calendars, said, "I don't understand the big fuss. It's a calendar for Arab students at the university... We mention Nasrallah and the date of the kidnapping of the two soldiers and the killing of eight others as a brave operation that led to the Lebanon war."

Regarding the marking of dates in the lives of Nasrallah, Bin-Laden and others, Hatib said, "It's important that the Arab public remembers its leaders."...

Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, who had been serving as defense minister at the time, discovered the details of the deal on Monday.

According to Mofaz, Arafat formulated the deal with Iranian leaders in secret meetings. Mofaz added that as part of the deal Iran supplied the Palestinian Authority with 50 tons of military equipment as specified by Arafat. This equipment was intercepted by the Israel Defense Forces on munitions ship "Karin A" in 2002.

Mofaz added that the capture of Karin A had revealed the depth of the relations that had begun to form between Arafat and the Iranian leadership. The former defense minister believes that as a result of this affair and the revelation of the budding relationship between Arafat and Iran, U.S. President George Bush changed his attitude and began working towards the removal of Arafat from the Palestinian leadership...

as part of their International Week of Solidarity with Political Prisoners:

Can't Jail the Spirit : Art by Political Prisoner Tom Manning

Can't Jail the Spirit exhibits Manning's paintings of political prisoners, freedom fighters, the earth and people struggling against oppression. Forhis actions, Tom Manning became a political prisoner ad has taught himself to paint inside the prison walls.

Can't Jail the Spirit was first displayed at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, Maine. A week after it went up, it was censored after intense pressure by state troopers and the police to shut it down.

Tom's paintings transcend concrete and razor wire, and show that they still can't jail the spirit!

WHERE: Episcopal Divinity School--Harvard University

OPENING RECEPTION: Tuesday, December 5, 2006 - 6:00-9:00pm

with: [snip list of losers]

For a calendar of related events visit
www.jerichoboston.org

Sponsors include:The Jericho Movement, Haymarket People's Fund, American Friends Service Committee, The New England Committee to Defend Palestine, Councillor Chuck Turner, Councillor Felix Arroyo, Voices of Liberation, episcopal divinity school, and the community church of boston.

www.cantjailthespirit.org

After his release in 1971, he married Carol and together they produced three children, Jeremy, Tamara, and Jonathan.

Together with his arrest for the bombings, Manning was also convicted for his role in killing New Jersey police officer Philip Lamonaco during a traffic stop on December 21 1981. The killings launched the largest manhunt in NJ police history[2], and ended with the arrests of Raymond Levasseur, Patricia Gross, Richard Williams, Jaan Laaman, and Barbara Curzi on November 4th 1984, and Manning and his wife Carol on April 24, 1985. All of them were associated with the United Freedom Front...

An inquiry by a senior Education Department officer found the simulation exercise, devised by Macquarie University's centre for Middle Eastern studies, risked creating disharmony in schools and the community and that there was a "significant risk" of harm to the "welfare and wellbeing of students from particular minorities".

Documents given to The Australian show the inquiry was prompted by complaints from parents that background notes presented to the students gave positive descriptions of groups such as Hamas's Qassam Brigades and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Students were not told the groups are listed terrorist organisations and support for them is an offence under Australian law.

The profile of Hezbollah accurately said that its long-term aims were to rid Palestine of the Jewish population and create an Arab state but no mention was made of its terrorist activities, only philanthropic ones.

A profile of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was presented without mention of his sponsorship of international terrorism.

Rather, his goal was listed as trying "to bring the internet to Syria".

Parents complained that students feared being marked down if they did not agree with the dominant anti-Israeli, anti-Western polemic.

The schools simulation is being run by Andrew Vincent, who runs the Macquarie University centre for Middle Eastern studies and was recently criticised in federal parliament for alleged anti-Israel bias. Mr Vincent said he devised the program to help students "work out the passions" of the Arab Israeli conflict.

Asked why the high school simulation was stopped this year, Mr Vincent said: "The allegation was made that we were training terrorists."...

Scientists at a U.S. weapons laboratory say they have trained bees to sniff out explosives in a project they say could have far-reaching applications for U.S. homeland security and the Iraq war.

Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico said they trained honeybees to stick out their proboscis -- the tube they use to feed on nectar -- when they smell explosives in anything from cars and roadside bombs to belts similar to those used by suicide bombers.

Researchers in the program, dubbed the Stealthy Insect Sensor Project, published their findings Monday.

By exposing the insects to the odor of explosives followed by a sugar water reward, researchers said they trained bees to recognize substances ranging from dynamite and C-4 plastic explosives to the Howitzer propellant grains used in improvised explosive devices in Iraq.

"When bees detect the presence of explosives, they simply stick their proboscis out," research scientist Tim Haarmann told Reuters in a telephone interview. "You don't have to be an expert in animal behavior to understand it as there is no ambiguity."...

Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez is an ally of the Iranian mullahs, a supporter of North Korea, a close friend of Fidel Castro and a good customer for Vladimir Putin's weapon factories. Now he's also a business partner of Joseph P. Kennedy II.

The former Democratic Congressman describes the deal he's cooked up with Mr. Chávez as charity for low-income consumers of heating oil. But it's worth asking what the price of this largesse is to Venezuelans and to U.S. security interests.

The arrangement is this: Mr. Chávez's Citgo--a Houston-based oil company owned by the Venezuelan government--is supplying home heating oil to Mr. Kennedy's Citizens Energy Corporation at a 40% discount. Citizens, a nonprofit outfit, says it passes the savings onto the poor, aiming to help 400,000 homes in 16 states that would otherwise have trouble heating their homes. In the process, Mr. Kennedy happens to get a high-profile publicity plug. If you think you qualify, says the television ad that drew our attention to this partnership, just dial 1-877-Joe-4-Oil...

...Massachusetts Democrats seem especially eager to help. In a September 29, 2005, "confidential memorandum" addressed to "President Hugo Chávez" and uncovered by a Congressional committee, William Delahunt (D., Mass.) gushed that it was a "pleasure" to have met with the strongman "to discuss your generous offer." The Democrat advised Mr. Chávez to steer his oil through Mr. Kennedy's nonprofit and declared that "from a public relations perspective" the discount oil scheme "is an extraordinary opportunity to address urgent needs of people living in poverty, while showcasing the compassion of your nation."

Compassion? If fighting poverty is the goal, Mr. Delahunt would do better to remind Mr. Chávez that charity begins at home. The U.S. is far richer than Venezuela and since Hurricane Hugo took power in 1999 Venezuelan living standards have suffered despite soaring oil prices. Annual inflation averaged more than 20% between 2001 and 2005, imposing a tax on the poorest. Meanwhile, an insecure investment climate has taken a harsh toll on private-sector employment and shrunk the middle class.

In his eight years in power, Mr. Kennedy's business partner has also polarized Venezuela with his class warfare, rewritten the constitution, politicized the judiciary, the electoral council and military, and announced he plans to rule until 2021. Freedom House now ranks Venezuela 34th out of 35 countries in the Western Hemisphere in press freedom. Only the Cuban press is more repressed...

...We dialed Joe-4-Oil ourselves to ask directly whether it is also "righteous" to assist an anti-American tyrant at the expense of the Venezuelan people. In between berating our reporter for daring to ask such a thing, Mr. Kennedy said that Mr. Chávez has done "so much more" for the poor than any previous government. As for democracy, he said there was "ample room for improvement in the ways that people get elected in Venezuela as well as in Florida." Mr. Chávez chose his partner well...

1. The Palestinian terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip frequently use civilians as human shields . They establish their military infrastructure within densely populated civilian areas, launch rockets at Israel from densely populated areas, open fire on IDF soldiers from areas inhabited by civilians and use civilian residential dwellings to hide the openings of the tunnels they dig to smuggle arms.

2. The organizations have recently initiated tactics intended to prevent, or at least hamper, IDF counterterrorist attacks on land and from the air by enlisting Palestinian civilians (including women and children). They send them to areas where fighting is being waged or an attack is about to be carried out and use them as human shields. Two prominent instances were the following...

THE DAY after the 9/11 attacks, MIT professor Noam Chomsky wrote of the need "to understand what may have led to the crimes, which means making an effort to enter the minds of the likely perpetrators." What struck Daveed Gartenstein-Ross about Chomsky's response was that "Chomsky made no real effort to enter the minds of the perpetrators. Instead he simply projected his own grievances against the United States onto them."

Gartenstein-Ross had a much stronger idea as to what motivated the 9/11 attackers. After converting to Islam in college, he held a job at the Ashland, Ore., office of Al Haramain, a Saudi-funded charity that sent money to al Qaeda.

In a fascinating memoir due in stores in February, "My Year Inside Radical Islam," Gartenstein-Ross describes how he was drawn to Islam because he saw it as a religion of peace.

Over time, however, he watched himself and those around him seduced into a fanaticism that required them to loathe not only non-Muslims, but also Muslims who belonged to the wrong sect, listened to music or shaved. He had expected an open, accepting religion, only to hear sheikhs arguing that Muslims who leave the religion should be killed, that it is acceptable to kill civilians for jihad and that good Muslims should work to replace democratic governments with Shariah law...

...He believes Americans need a more fact-based understanding of Islam, which requires the media to do a better job of reporting what Muslims think and say -- instead of papering over radical rhetoric. Once when a local reporter visited Al Haramain to write a piece on Ramadan, a co-worker refused to shake her hand, launched a defense of sorts of Algerian terrorists and lambasted a French policy that prohibited schoolgirls from wearing the hijab in class. The comments never made the story. Gartenstein-Ross writes, "And so, as I often did, the reporter chose not to acknowledge that a real clash of values existed here."...

(the footnote to this paragraph reads: “This bulldozing incident occurred a week after I stopped participating in the excavations and was recounted to me after the fact by several participants, both archaeologists and student volunteers. The decision to use bulldozers precipitated quite an argument between the British and Israeli archaeologists digging the site, I was told. With one exception, the former strenuously objected. The exception was a British archaeologist who was a PhD student in the Department of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, a student of the Israeli archaeologist leading the dig.”)

“While this chronological focus (and its nationalist implications) provides a partial explanation for such excavating techniques, in order to more fully understand when and why bulldozers are used on excavation sites in Palestine/Israel, the practice needs to be situated within a broader set of methodological questions. The practical logic that guides archaeologists at work determines how sites will be excavated and which remains will be produced, carefully recorded, and preserved. At both the Jezreel excavations and the Jerusalem excavations, archaeologists moved through dirt rather quickly. Israeli excavators tend to use large shovels, pick axes and large buckets in order to move through the earth. In contrast, for example, the European (mostly British) trained archaeologists at Jezreel explained that they would prefer to excavate with smaller tools and slower digging techniques, including, for example, sifting dirt in search of very small remains: artifactual, animal, seeds, and so forth These smaller finds are seen as essential to the reconstruction of aspects of ancient daily life. In general, however, in Israeli archaeology – and clearly, on those excavations carried out in Jerusalem’s Old City – the practical work of excavating favors larger (mostly, well-preserved architectural) remains over smaller remains. It is only after “significant finds” have been located that specific loci are more carefully excavated from smaller remains (often pottery shards) that can illuminate the history (the chronology of identity) of the architectural structures themselves or lend insight into the settlement patterns of specific (of significant) stratigraphic layers.” (pp. 148-149)

The party was founded back in 1996 as Massachusetts affiliate of the Green Party of the United States. In 1998 Green-Rainbow candidate Stephen Elliot received 12% of the vote for the State Senate, and in 2000 the party achieved official political status when the national Green presidential candidates, Ralph Nader and Winona Duke, got 6% of the Massachusetts vote.

It lost that status in 2004 when the Green-Rainbow ticket didn’t make the 3% threshold in the Massachusetts elections. But it regained it in 2006 when the party came back stronger than ever...

Hamas has dismissed the mayor of the West Bank town of Na'leen, Mohammed Soror, and his assistant, Thaer Omaira, after the two were said to meet with Israeli settlers, the Hamas affiliated website Palestine Info reported Monday.

"Proving it was firm on its political stand of not normalizing with the Hebrew state, Hamas Movement has dismissed mayor of the Na'leen town, west of Ramallah city, for meeting with Israeli settlers without permission from the Movement," (sic) the statement on the Hamas website said.

"Hamas explained that the visit made by the mayor and four members of the municipal council (three of them weren't from Hamas) was decided arbitrarily and without consulting the Movement," the report said, adding: "Hamas' policy bans its members from meeting with Israeli officials."

"We are holding members in our movement accountable over any wrong step they may take; yet, others are awarding their leaders who kiss hands of the Zionists and coordinate with them," said the Hamas statement, in an apparent reference to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah...

GENEVA: The U.N. Human Rights Council on Monday passed two resolutions criticizing Israel, but kept its record intact of singling out no other country for human rights abuses.

The 47-nation council, which has censured only Israel since it began operating six months ago, this time took the Jewish state to task for its occupation of Syria's Golan Heights and for building settlements in occupied Arab territories.

The council voted 32-1 with 14 abstentions to declare illegal Israel's 1981 annexation of the Golan Heights and demand that Israel rescind its decision to impose its laws and jurisdiction on the area, which it captured in the 1967 Middle East war. Canada, which said the resolution was unbalanced, was the only no vote, and European Union members abstained.

Then it voted 45-1 to demand Israel reverse its policy of building and expanding settlements as a first step toward dismantling them. Again, Canada was the only country to vote against the resolution.

The United States and Israel are not members, but Israel's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva said Syria had proposed the Golan Heights resolution "purely to draw attention away from its ... own deplorable human rights record."

"Under Syrian possession, the Golan Heights were used to launch constant attacks against Israeli civilians," Itzhak Levanon said. "Today, the Golan Heights is more peaceful than ever, stable and thriving. The economy is booming, fields are blossoming, and everyone is enjoying the benefits of democracy."...

What had the US done to incur the wrath of the EU's rights watchdogs? Had it tortured people suspected of terrorism and handed over by the EU for trial in the US? No: the US couldn't do that if it wanted to, because the EU will not hand over anyone for trial in a country, such as the US, where they might face the death penalty.

Had the US discriminated against EU citizens on grounds of religion or race? No: both kinds of discrimination are illegal in the US too, and the laws prohibiting them are probably more zealously enforced there than they are in many EU countries.

What had irked the EU regulators was that the US had been allowed access to records of international bank transfers by Swift, the company that oversees most of them. Swift had thought it was acting responsibly: the point of co-operating had been to help the US in its effort to track down who was transferring money to terrorist bank accounts, and stop them doing it...

The American programme, which has been going on since 9/11, has been surprisingly successful: US law-enforcement officers have managed to identify and freeze well over $200 million in terrorist-related bank accounts, thus preventing the terrorists financing some of the incidents of mass murder that they had planned.

You might have thought this would generate appreciation rather than censure from the EU. After all, the networks of Islamist terrorism are global, as are its financial tentacles. We all benefit when it becomes harder for the terrorists to finance their operations, because that makes it more difficult for them to pull them off. But that's not how the bureaucrats in Brussels see it. They insist that in allowing the US access to some of its transaction records, Swift wrongly put "security interests ahead of norms of human rights".

It is difficult to understand how it can be more important to keep bank transactions private than to prevent mass murder. Unless, of course, you are a terrorist intent on mass murder. What makes the EU's stance even more difficult to understand is that it does allow that "an important public interest" is enough to over-ride the "right" to keep bank transactions secret: the European Commission's Working Party on the Protection of Personal Data stresses that "tax and customs administrations" could take a peek at bank transfers without any rights being violated, as could "the services responsible for social security… and the supervisory bodies in the financial services sector".

So it's fine for the authorities to be given access to the details of the money you have transferred in order to ensure you pay your taxes. But it's a violation of human rights for the state to look at what money you've transferred if the purpose is merely to decrease the chance that someone gets killed by a suicide bomber...

TEHRAN, Nov. 21 (MNA) – The proper way to confront bullying powers is to resist them, given that retreat will not thwart the insatiable appetite of the hegemonic powers, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said here on Tuesday in a meeting with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

Commenting on the weakening of the global arrogance (imperialist powers) and the strengthening of the independence-seeking countries, Ayatollah Khamenei said that even today, the global arrogance attempts to control the fate of other nations by waging wars, sowing discord among states, imposing economic sanctions, security measures, political pressure, and propaganda...

...Ayatollah Khamenei called Mugabe a prominent and courageous African figure, saying that the measures he has taken, such as the land reform program which gives formerly occupied lands to Black farmers, are in response to the nation's will.

The Leader referred to Iran's progress in the scientific and technological fields and expressed hope that sharing such experiences with Zimbabwe and the implementation of the agreements the two countries have signed would serve to expand bilateral relations...

The lab was detonated in a controlled manner, and there were no reports of injuries.

The forces also found in the explosives lab three belts made from cloth, ready to contain explosives, a hollow coat used for hiding explosives, and 20 light bulbs and light sockets used for activating explosives.

Test tubes, a hollow gas tank, hollow pipes, batteries, 40 liters of hydrogen peroxide and ohms were also found in the lab.

Since the beginning of the year, Israel Defense Forces soldiers operating in Nablus hit 41 gunmen who were planning, according to the defense establishment, to hit IDF troops or Israeli citizens.

Some 320 wanted terror suspects were arrested in the West Bank city and its surroundings since the beginning of the year, most of them affiliated with Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Fatah and Hamas.

At the beginning of the year, another explosives lab was uncovered in the city's casba. The forces located the lab in an abandoned building after receiving intelligence...

The essential reason, I think, is that America's elites don't want America's borders closed. Businesses want low-wage workers; intellectuals are wed to global visions of cross-border prosperity; politicians want Hispanic loyalty and the Hispanic vote. It's not convenient for any of them to close the borders. If Americans on the ground are enduring difficulties over this, it's . . . too bad. This is further eroding America's already eroding faith in its institutions...

...More and more our leaders forget the common sense of grandma. In most everyone's family there was a grandma who used to sit quietly in the corner and say nothing. Then someone would ask her opinion just to be polite, and she'd say something so wise, so commonsensical, it stopped everyone in their tracks. And you realized that she was smart, that she'd lived a life and seen things.

In the case of illegal immigration in America I think grandma would say, "Stop it. Build a wall. But put doors in the wall so when the problem is over, you can open the doors."

America has, since 1980, experienced the biggest wave of immigrants since the great wave of 1880-1920. And we have never stopped to absorb it. We have never stopped to digest what we've eaten. Is it any wonder we have indigestion?...

One panelist showed pictures of the war's massive destruction: numerous shots of Lebanese neighborhoods flattened like pancakes, bridges blown apart beyond all recognition, and weeping mothers at funerals of civilian Lebanese killed by Israeli bombs. There were no pictures -- or even any mention -- of the hundreds of Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israeli cities. Lebanon suffered the bulk of the war's destruction, and more than 10 Lebanese were killed for every one Israeli. But does that mean that Israeli suffering should be ignored completely?

Most of the audience's questions were sympathetic to the panelists' point of view, but not all. One MESA member asked why there was no Israeli perspective on the panel, and if this disparity was appropriate at an academic conference. He was told that they did not see the need to have an "Israeli apologist" sitting beside them...

There is never a wrong time to do the right thing and if, like me, you are convinced of Israel's cause, then why not support Israel and why not now? I have always been a practical idealist, a non-Jew who has always believed in a two-state solution. But I have never been more concerned about the false reality many people are constructing around Israel and the Middle East, here and abroad. Our polling shows that opinion formers know that Israel is a fully functioning democracy, but care more about what Israel does than what Israel is.

Since its birth 58 years ago, Israel has always been prepared to compromise for peace. From Begin's agreement with Sadat in 1979 to the Arafat-Barak talks at Camp David in 2000, Israeli leaders have been prepared to challenge their own people in pursuit of peace. Last summer Israel withdrew from Gaza, angry settlers and all. Yet the terror from the Gaza Strip has continued - more than 1,000 rockets have been fired into southern Israel in the past year. Since 2000, nine fatalities have been caused by Qassam missiles.

Some media have reported the panic these missiles have caused but they downplay the impact because of the small scale of fatalities compared with those on the Palestinian side. My husband, a British soldier, is currently serving a tour of duty in Iraq. His unit has come under mortar fire nearly every night for the past six months. Not many service personnel have been killed by these missiles but every soldier fears that the next one might have his or her name on it. Do you think that a child, a parent or a grandmother in one of the towns bordering Gaza thinks there have been "only" nine fatalities? Can you imagine what that does to a civilian population?...

The 11 p.m. (2200 GMT) incident at a McDonald's fast food restaurant near the Parc des Princes stadium occurred after Hapoel Tel Aviv's 4-2 victory over Paris Saint-Germain in a UEFA Cup match.

The officer, who was not identified, was trying to protect a Hapoel Tel Aviv fan set upon by some 150 PSG supporters, police said. He lobbed tear gas when the crowd went after him then fired two shots, "having been driven into a corner," police said.

Two people were injured, with one dying later, police said. The victims were not identified.

The Paris prosecutor's office and the National Police General Inspection unit, which probes incidents involving law enforcement officers, were investigating, police said.

There I was last Thursday night, addressing the Cambridge Union, going at it like a locomotive with a mouth, and telling them that, no, you couldn’t blame terrorism on US foreign policy. I mean, take the Istanbul bombings, two of which were exploded at Turkish synagogues, killing Turkish Jews, how could those . . . “Point of information!” came from my left, in the tones — I rather thought — of Berkshire. “Was it not the case, Mr Aaronovitch, that the successful murdering of Istanbul Jews was motivated by a revulsion to Israeli policy, a policy supported by the Americans?” And there was applause.

Applause, readers, not just a nodding of heads at a true, if sad, analysis — but a clapping as of a rhetorical victory gained. I should have replied that this logic would permit BNP members to assault any Muslim near, say, the Green Lanes mosque, and have it argued on their behalf that their action was really the product of Islamist outrages on 9/11. But I didn’t think of it in time.

Maybe the applauders thought of themselves as friends of Palestine...

I am not a “staunch defender of Israel” any more than I am a staunch defender of Poland, and rather less than I am a staunch defender of Spain. Nor, Mr Ingrams, for all your Boratian insinuation, do I write what I do because my secular father was born Jewish and chose to keep the name and therefore I feel I have a mystical blood bond with my racial family. My problem is that I am discovering that those who are pretending to be “friends” of the Palestinians are busily constructing the notion that Israel is the sole cause of the problems of the Middle East. And I now realise the extent to which they have poisoned the debate in Britain, especially among the young...

her words about the Israeli supreme court are interesting: this is the court (headed by barak) who declare the judgment of the Intl UN court about the fence/wall to be short sighted and voided of any factual as well as normative basis.... (well my words not theirs)

To: Immigration officials involved in the case of Imams Hafiz Masood and Abdul Hannan, and other interested public officials

We, the undersigned, would like to thank you for your efforts in enforcing our nation's immigration laws. We would like to assure you of our continuing support in the face of what must be extreme pressure to drop this matter.

We encourage you to continue to pursue this matter in a fair manner consistent with the vigorous application of the rule of law and without regard to pressure group tactics which will attempt to stifle your efforts.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863
By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

The coordinators of the effort to free the soldiers said Arbour, who is now in Israel, finally said no to a meeting after avoiding a direct answer for two weeks.

The families want to discuss UN efforts to attain signs of life from the three soldiers.

Benny Regev, brother of Eldad Regev, said the families were "furious and disappointed" at Arbour's refusal to meet with them.

He said Arbour has "no small responsibility for the well-being and security of the men, as part of Resolution 1701."

He added that he hoped Arbour "would reconsider and consent to meet with us and examine ways to return Udi [Ehud], Eldad and Gilad."...

"Only the departure of residents from Sderot will stop the rocket fire," Ezzedine al-Qassam brigades spokesman Abu Obaida told media persons.

"There are no limits on our rocket attacks and we will prove that in coming days. We advise residents of Sderot to evacuate," the spokesman added.

Six people have been killed in Palestinian rocket attacks against the depressed southern town of 30,000 residents since the second Palestinian uprising broke out in September 2000.

"The Zionist enemy makes residents of Sderot believe it can stop rocket fire thanks to incursions and raids that it wages daily in the Gaza strip. We tell them rockets will continue to fall," Abu Obaida said.

And the finds keep coming. On a drizzly November morning, Gabriel Barkay, the veteran biblical archaeologist who runs the dig, sat in a tent near the mounds examining some newly discovered coins stamped by various Holy Land powers: the Hasmonean dynasty of Jewish kings more than 2,000 years ago, a Roman procurator around the time of Pontius Pilate, the early Christians of the Byzantine Empire, two Islamic dynasties and the British in the 20th century.

Considering the wealth of findings, it is odd, perhaps, that this is an excavation that was never supposed to happen.

Jews revere the Mount as the site of their two ancient temples. Muslims believe it's where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven during a nighttime journey recounted in the Quran. Two mosques stand on the site, as do some of the temple's original retaining walls, including the Jewish shrine called the Western Wall, but there is no visible trace of the temple itself.

The site has been the frequent arena of Israeli-Palestinian fighting, and its volatility has prevented archaeologists from ever touching it.

In November 1999, the Waqf, the Muslim organization that administers the site's Islamic holy places, opened an emergency exit to an ancient underground chamber of stone pillars and arches known to Jews as Solomon's Stables and to Muslims as the Marwani mosque.

Ignoring fierce protest from Israeli archaeologists who said priceless artifacts were being destroyed to erase traces of Jewish history, the Waqf dug a large pit, removed tons of earth and rubble that had been used as landfill and dumped much of it in the nearby Kidron Valley.

The Waqf's position was, and remains, that the rubble was of recent vintage and without archaeological value...

...When it removed the rubble, the Waqf was trying to destroy evidence of Jewish history on the Temple Mount, said Uri Ragones, a foundation spokesman. "We are going back to Jerusalem physically, learning about it and uncovering our past. We're touching our deepest roots as a people."

For its part, the Waqf says it wasn't destroying any evidence of Jewish presence — because there isn't any...

Addressing more than 200 people at the official reopening of the rebuilt Beit Chabad Ohel Devorah in St Kilda East earlier this month, Downer said Australia must continue to actively oppose, rather than merely abstain from, anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations, a number of which he had signed off on earlier that day.

“We are always being told the best thing for diplomacy is to ... abstain ... And I say, ‘Let’s vote against it because it is wrong.’

“The more we and other countries stand up to this sort of behaviour, the more we stand a chance of success the more we try to appease, the more [anti-Israel resolutions] we will encourage.”

Speaking on the 68th anniversary of Kristallnacht, Downer said the horrific consequences of the appeasement shown to the Germans in the 1930s must encourage us to “confront evil when we find it and deal with it and not find excuses to walk on the other side of the road and do nothing about it”.

“This very day we confront the ideological scourge of extremist Islamist terrorism. I don’t think the world should forget that these people want to eliminate Israel. It’s not as though they never say they do it’s not as though they keep it a secret.”...

This is an entirely Alumnae-driven campaign. It is orchestrated by Paula (Rubenstein) Stern, Barnard, Class of 1982, A Barnard graduate now living in Israel. Shapiro can have no evidence that this is "orchestrated" by anyone other than alumnae, because it is not. It is no more being "orchestrated" by Campus Watch than it is being "orchestrated" by Inside Higher Ed, which also covered the issue.

But the basic message to alumnae is, buzz off. We want your money, not your opinions. You got your education here, but you are not sufficiently well educated to read a book and judge the caliber of its scholarship.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva for the last time before he steps down as secretary-general at the end of the year, Annan said the council's preoccupation with Israel's actions in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories while ignoring the situation in Darfur had caused some to wonder whether it had "a sense of fair play."

"They (the council members) have tended to focus on the Palestinian issue, and of course if you focus on the Palestinian-Israeli issue without even discussing Darfur and other issues, some wonder 'what is this council doing?"' he said.

The 47-member council, which earlier this year replaced the discredited Human Rights Commission, has been severely criticized by some countries, including the United States, for moving four times to condemn Israel but not taking up human rights violations in Myanmar, North Korea or Sudan.

...The décor in a major tourist hotel was representative of the now-compulsory and trivial nod to Judaism in America's secular and commercial culture. Inside the hotel, the Middle East Studies Association of North America hosted a panel on the rectitude of a boycott against academic institutions within the Jewish state as part of its annual meeting. The panel, formally titled "Academic Freedom and Academic Boycotts: A Symposium," offered two proponents of such a boycott, Lawrence Davidson of West Chester University and Omar Barghouti, a Palestinian researcher, and two opponents, Joan Scott of the Institute for Advanced Study and Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch...

...The debate provided by MESA, which came out against the boycott of Israeli academics in May 2005, was narrowly drawn. It pitted a pair of academics who urged an immediate ban on doing business with Israeli counterparts against another pair of Israel's critics who argued academic freedom ought to be preserved. At times abstruse, the vocal argumentation evoked the heated discussions among the various shades of leftist at the CCNY Alcoves in the 1930s.

" Israel's research institutions have granted legitimacy on those that recognize … apartheid, ethnic cleansing," Mr. Davidson, who is pro-boycott, said. "The Zionist near-monopoly has allowed Israelis to build support for the racist stereotype of Arab." Mr. Barghouti charged that the acceptance of Israeli academics brings legitimacy to the nation as a whole. " Israel's academy plays a major role in sustaining the apartheid system and colonialism … academic institutions are more important to Israel than academic institutions in the U.S."

While both Ms. Scott and Mr. Stork vocally opposed the boycott on a number of philosophical and tactical grounds — among them, the idea that the best response to a disliked idea is more speech, an unwillingness to hurt those Israeli academics who might oppose the policies of Israel's government, a desire to maintain the principle of academic freedom — neither offered words of defense of Israel overall. Ms. Scott, for example, reminded the more than 100 audience members of the importance the idea of academic freedom held in debates with David Horowitz, a conservative activist who has targeted leftist extremism in academia...

...The conference was not called off because of the inadvertent inclusion of an anti-Semitic article in a packet of reading materials. That was the last straw in a carefully orchestrated campaign to abort the conference by a lobby of people (pro-Israel occupation)who believe that any representation of a point of view other than theirs is ananthema...He fails to identify the “critics” as lobbyists on behalf of the current Israeli regime (or fellow travellers of those lobbyists)...

...Now BAE’s methods are coming under intense scrutiny, after the Serious Fraud Office began investigating claims of a £60 million “slush fund” used by BAE to pay off Saudi Arabian dignitaries. This money is alleged to have helped to provide prostitutes, Rolls-Royce cars and Californian holidays. BAE has always denied any wrongdoing...

SAUDI ARABIA is threatening to suspend diplomatic ties with Britain unless Downing Street intervenes to block an investigation into a £60m “slush fund” allegedly set up for some members of its royal family.

A senior Saudi diplomat in London has delivered an ultimatum to Tony Blair that unless the inquiry into an allegedly corrupt defence deal is dropped, diplomatic links between Britain and Saudi Arabia will be severed, a defence source has disclosed.

The Saudis, key allies in the Middle East, have also threatened to cut intelligence co-operation with Britain over Al-Qaeda.

They have repeated their threat that they will terminate payments on a defence contract that could be worth £40 billion and safeguard at least 10,000 British jobs.

The Saudis are furious about the criminal investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into allegations that BAE Systems, Britain’s biggest defence company, set up the “slush fund” to support the extravagant lifestyle of members of the Saudi royal family.

The payments, in the form of lavish holidays, a fleet of luxury cars including a gold Rolls-Royce, rented apartments and other perks, are alleged to have been paid to ensure the Saudis continued to buy from BAE under the so-called Al-Yamamah deal, rather than going to another country. Al-Yamamah is the biggest defence contract in British history and has kept BAE in business for 20 years...

Ramadan Shalah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader, publicly admits that Israel’s security fence is an important obstacle to the terrorist organizations, and that “if it weren’t there, the situation would be entirely different.” The PIJ has carried out the greatest number of suicide bombing attacks during the past few years.

...On November 11, PIJ leader Abdallah Ramadan Shalah granted a long interview to Al-Manar TV, Hezbollah's television channel. During the interview, for the first time he admitted that Israel 's security fence was an important obstacle to the terrorist organizations (the “resistance”).

He noted that the suicide bombing attacks ( istishhad ) were the Palestinian people's “strategic choice,” and were meant to “create a balance of force and deterrence” in the campaign against a superior enemy. Ramadan Shalah noted that the terrorist organizations had every intention of continuing suicide bombing attacks , but that their timing and the possibility of implementing them from the West Bank depended on other factors. “For example,” he said, “there is the separation fence , which is an obstacle to the resistance, and if it were not there the situation would be entirely different .”...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel was assassinated near Beirut on Tuesday, security sources said.

They said gunmen opened fire as his convoy drove through the Christian Sin el-Fil neighbourhood. Gemayel was rushed to hospital where he later died of his wounds.

Lebanon is in the throes of a political storm pitting the anti-Syrian ruling majority against the pro-Damascus opposition. The political tension threatens to spill into street confrontations.

Lebanon's Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said on Tuesday his depleted cabinet was legitimate despite the resignation of six pro-Syrian ministers, and warned that any anti-government protests could turn violent.

Pro-Syrian Hezbollah and its allies are preparing to take to the streets to topple Siniora's government, which they accuse of being allied with the United States, arguing that it has lost its legitimacy since Shi'ite Muslims are no longer represented...

...One has to be foolish or irredeemably stupid to believe that anything good can come to Europe from the land of presumed opportunity. That that did not happen after the First World War, and will not happen after the second. The Jews have made America what it is today: a nation raped by the Jews, a nation whose 130,000,000 people of many colors and races have been forced into helping the Jews achieve world domination! The descendants of European immigrants do not govern the United States of America today. The foreign and domestic policies of the country are made by the Jews and their lackeys. The American people wanted peace, but were maneuvered into war by Delano Roosevelt, a tool of World Jewry, who himself has Jewish blood in his veins. It was the same in World War I, when Woodrow Wilson, also a tool of the Jews, maneuvered it into the war...

Gillerman was also quoted as saying over the weekend that the French were "more active in furthering the passing of the resolution than the Qataris, who initially presented the resolution."...

...Following his speech, Gillerman walked past the French Ambassador without greeting him. The disregard was apparent even at lower echelons. Israeli diplomats have recently begun regarding France as a hostile force in the Security Council as well as the EU. “It (France) is truly and Arab extension,” one Israeli diplomatic source said...

An IDF spokesman confirmed the raid had been called off because of the protest.

"The attack plan was canceled because of the people there," the spokesman said. "We differentiate between innocent people and terrorists."...

...People flocked to the home of Mohammed al-Baroud after he received a warning from the army late Saturday giving him 30 minutes to leave the house. Barhoud is a commander in the Popular Resistance Committees in the town who is in charge of firing homemade rockets at Israel. Crowds of people stood on the rooftop and in the yard of the home.

Israel routinely orders occupants out of homes ahead of air strikes on suspected weapons-storage facilities, saying it wants to avoid casualties. The incident in Beit Lahia was the first time Palestinians have tried to prevent such an airstrike.

The crowd chanted anti-Israel and anti-American slogans, and people said they were prepared to give their lives to protect the home. "Yes to martyrdom. No to surrender," the crowd chanted...

...But Tehran cannot consider a nuclear holocaust against Israel without taking into account those whom Iran holds to be rightful Muslim heirs to Muslim land. The Islamic republic cannot erase the State of Israel without killing large numbers of the very people whose lives it has sworn to protect: the Palestinians.

There was a time, not so long ago, when many Israelis believed that no Arab power would attack Jerusalem, for fear of damaging the holy sites sacred to Islam. Moreover, there was a feeling that Arab powers would refrain from attacking both the holy city and the territories, in order to avoid Palestinian casualties.

But long-held taboos governing the actions of Muslim fighters have been bent, broken and discarded with impunity in recent years. In Iraq, the February bombing of the Al-Askari mosque, one of the holiest of all shrines to Shi'ites ? apparently at the hands of an Al-Qaida cell - was followed within a day by reprisal attacks on no fewer than 161 Sunni mosques.

Where Islamists once refrained from killing non-combatants, especially Muslims, the number of Muslim non-combatants killed in Iraq has grown so astronomically as to resist accurate count.

During the recent war in the north, nearly half of the Israeli civilians killed by Katyusha rockets fired by Iran's client militia Hezbollah, were Arabs.

Under certain circumstances, might Iran sacrifice the Arabs of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, to say nothing of a million Muslim Israeli citizens, in a cataclysmic assault on the Zionist entity?

More directly, would Iran be willing to kill off millions of Arabs if that were the price of exterminating the state of Israel?

The truth, one wishes, were "No." But the real truth, one suspects, is "Not yet."...

Sources close to Iranian dissident Zahra Kamalfar state she has been living with her children under unspeakable conditions in the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport for 73 days (now more). A one-time demonstrator against the extremist theocracy, she escaped from an Iranian prison when on a two-day furlough to visit her children. She ended up being buffeted from country to country, then spent months in a Moscow deportation motel before being ejected and left to float in the transit area of the airport. Now in imminent danger (possibly Monday, if the Russians cooperate) of being taken back to the Islamic Republic for the Mullah’s version of justice, Ms. Kamalfar speaks out in this dramatic video smuggled out of the airport to Pajamas Media.

...So what is the problem with JROTC? There isn't one. The problem is with the anti military bigotry of the school board majority and the "peace" activists who lobbied against the program on the grounds that San Francisco's schools should not be sullied by an association with the US armed forces.

"We don't want the military ruining our civilian institutions," said Sandra Schwartz of the American Friends Service Committee, a far-left pacifist organization that routinely condemns American foreign policy and opposes JROTC nationwide. "In a healthy democracy . . . you contain the military." Board member Dan Kelly, who voted with the majority, called JROTC "basically a branding program or a recruiting program for the military." In fact, it is nothing of the kind: The great majority of cadets do not end up serving in the military.

But then, facts tend not to matter to smug ideologues like Schwartz and Kelly, who are free to parade their contempt for the military because they live in a nation that affords such freedom even to idiots and ingrates. It never seems to occur to them that the liberties and security they take for granted would vanish in a heartbeat if it weren't for the young men and women who do choose to wear the uniform, willingly risking life and limb in service to their country.

According to The Chronicle, scores of JROTC students were on hand when the school board met last week; many of them burst into tears after the vote. Sad to say, they should probably have seen this coming. For in its trendy anti military animus, the school board was hardly breaking new ground...

...US foreign policy is being reflected through a blinding array of prisms. Yet America continues to pursue an analogue communications strategy in a digital age.

Just look at the satellite landscape. Here in the Middle East, we can watch more than 300 channels, from Hezbollah's al-Manar (labeled a terrorist organization by the United States) to Fox News (which, to borrow Fox's favorite line, "some people say" is the moral equivalent). Turkey, India, Singapore -- wherever you look overseas, all-news satellite channels are de rigueur. Tri lingual France 24 launches in a few weeks to bring "French values" to global coverage. China has a channel. Russia Today will soon broadcast in Arabic. Latin America now has a continent-wide all-news channel. Africans are also talking about one. And then, of course, there's the Internet.

The perspective of these channels is different. So is the spin. The American election was a big story here in the Middle East, but cheering Democrats shared the screen with gut-wrenching images of blood-drenched Palestinian children torn to shreds by Israel tank shells as they lay asleep in their beds. More of those "birth pangs of a new Middle East" that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talked about last summer. Americans may be talking change, but Arabs, watching those scenes repeat endlessly through the day, saw business as usual...

Given the assaults on Israel this summer for its “disproportionate” response to Hezbollah attacks, many feared fall semester on campuses would be afire with anti-Israel campaigns. So far, it’s more like the usual, growing drumbeat: a few large anti-Western/anti-Israel events accompanied by a continuous drip, drip, drip of defamation – leaflets, posters, verbal sniping in classrooms, “academic” panels. Here’s a campus sampling:

Boston:

After Harvard opened the school year with a talk by a former Iranian President whose country promises to vaporize Israel with nuclear bombs, a church in Harvard Square followed up a few weeks later with the former PLO spokesman, now Columbia professor, Rashid Khalidi, who came to blame Israel for Palestinian woes. His far-left audience pushed the event toward full-assault mode. Over at MIT on Sept. 21, Noam Chomsky opened the season with an hour-long anti-Israel rant to a hall filled with breathless admirers. One of my staffers reported: “500 students prostrated themselves in front of him. The supposedly most influential intellectual in America said that the Israelis stage-managed their own trauma in Gaza … to get world sympathy … and not one of the best and brightest spoke up.”

Coming soon to Harvard’s Divinity School is a major hate-Israel fest. Entitled “Three Women, Three Faiths, One Shared Vision,” it’s sponsored by “The Pluralism Project.” The pluralism here will consist of Muslims, Christians and Jews blasting Israel. The Israeli speaker “finds inspiration in the growing movement of young Israelis who are refusing military service.”

Anti-Israelism often takes subtler forms. Moving south: At Brown University in an Arab language class, the professor referred to Israel as Palestine (something we hear is quite common) – until a Jewish student spoke up.

New York City:

At Queens College – A professor taught in her Intro Politics class that Palestinian suicide bombers are freedom fighters.
Columbia invited and then dis-invited (only “for security concerns”) Iran’s President Ahmadinejad – the one who wants to kill all the Jews in Israel – to speak at its World Leader’s Forum. Later, an “anti-war” coalition held a rally in the middle of College Walk to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the Intifada.

At SUNY Stony Brook – the Americans for Informed Democracy sponsored Ghazi Khankan, of CAIR (a hostile anti-Israel lobbying group) to it’s “Hope Not Hate: The Future of U.S.-Islamic World Relations.” The event turned into an Israel bash.

At CUNY Hunter College – there was a nice sized poster: Star of David=swastika

At NYU – A law school panel on the future of Hezbollah had a very negative spin against Israel.

If you are reading this report and have children or know students on these campuses, are you encouraging them to stand up for Israel, Jews and their community? Are you thinking that “this too shall pass” or tacitly hoping they take care of themselves, their grades, and their career paths? What will you do? When will you start? Pro-Israel groups have been preparing students for the campus battles. In the weeks ahead, this column will report on their observations and their struggles.

Iran is set to upgrade its nuclear reactor capability by replacing its 5-megawatt reactor in Tehran with Arak's 40-megawatt heavy water research reactor, the Tehran Times reported.

The Iranian newspaper quoted the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran's Director Reza Aqazadeh as saying that "Tehran's reactor will be turned off by the time that Arak's reactor is started up."

Heavy water nuclear centers can be used to convert uranium into plutonium, for use in the production of nuclear weapons.

The "Arak research reactor is due for completion in 2009 and will make isotopes for medical, industrial, and other peaceful uses," the Tehran Times claimed.

Iran has asked the International Atomic Agency for aid in setting up the Arak nuclear site, but Aqazadeh was quoted as saying that "the work on the Arak research reactor will continue whether the agency provides technical assistance or not."

"It will be more harmful to the agency if it refuses assistance," he warned.

Meanwhile, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki urged Arab and Muslim countries to "cut their diplomatic ties with Israel and avoid having any economic ties with Israeli corporations" on Saturday, the Iran Daily newspaper reported.

"A fair peace will not materialize in Palestinian territories, unless its original inhabitants take control of their country," the Iranian foreign minister said.

Britain faces a sustained threat from extremist Islamic groups recruiting in British universities, the Government warned today.

Releasing new guidance designed to root out suspected terror cells, Bill Rammell, the higher education minister, said there was evidence that undergraduates were being "groomed" by groups infiltrating campuses disguised as ordinary students.

The document, released to all universities today, warns lecturers to be vigilant of students suspected of circulating extremist literature and extremist speakers visiting campuses.

It outlines a series of "scenarios" based on real events reported by university and college staff to illustrate the kind of threat being posed.

This includes a teacher who found pamphlets with titles such as "Who is a legitimate target?" and "From Jihad to a new world order" and a tutor who had been approached by students concerned about a speaker delivering a talk entitled "Terrorist or freedom fighter?"...

...Mr Rammell said: "This guidance provides a recognition - that I believe must be faced squarely - that violent extremism in the name of Islam is a real, credible and sustained threat to the UK, and that there is evidence of serious, but not widespread, Islamic extremist activity in higher education institutions."

He denied that it amounted to an attempt to target the Muslim community, but said that universities had to take "their responsibilities for the safety of their staff and students very seriously"...

...The British Muslim Forum, an umbrella group affiliated to almost 300 mosques, welcomed the guidance and said that the "radicalism of Muslim youths" on campuses needed to be tackled.

A spokesman said: "We would, however, strongly urge the Government to consider issuing similar guidance on tackling anti-Muslim extremism of the far right, as this would reinforce the Government's resolve to tackle all forms of extremism."

Universities UK also praised the guidance but said warnings should be "focussed on all kinds of extremism, not just on extremism in the name of Islam".

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel is using nanotechnology to try to create a robot no bigger than a hornet that would be able to chase, photograph and kill its targets, an Israeli newspaper reported on Friday.

The flying robot, nicknamed the "bionic hornet," would be able to navigate its way down narrow alleyways to target otherwise unreachable enemies such as rocket launchers, the daily Yedioth Ahronoth said.

It is one of several weapons being developed by scientists to combat militants, it said. Others include super gloves that would give the user the strength of a "bionic man" and miniature sensors to detect suicide bombers.

The research integrates nanotechnology into Israel's security department and will find creative solutions to problems the army has been unable to address, Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres told Yedioth Ahronoth.

"The war in Lebanon proved that we need smaller weaponry. It's illogical to send a plane worth $100 million against a suicidal terrorist. So we are building futuristic weapons," Peres said.

The 34-day war in Lebanon ended with a U.N.-brokered ceasefire in mid-August. The war killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

...Mr and Mrs Corrie are just about the WASPiest WASPs you ever saw. They are very polite and well-groomed and caring. They are the American Gothic of the appeasement movement. They sincerely believe that they are - as Mr Corrie said - fighting for "the human rights of Israelis as well as Palestinians" by sadly tut-tutting over anything Israel does to kill terrorists or keep them from killing Israelis. **** Perhaps you have seen videos of really nutty moonbats like Ward Churchill or Noam Chomsky. Folks, what I saw Tuesday night is the soft sell, and it's way more scary...

Lebanese civilians close to the border with Syria told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that weapons for Hizbullah were being brought in by the truckload at night. Lebanese Army troops on duty at the border refused to confirm the claims.

This correspondent watched as a line of trucks and lorries several kilometers long built up at one crossing on the road from Lebanon into Syria. The trucks, en route from Beirut to Damascus, were laden with a mixture of goods: everything from construction materials to fruits and vegetables. But in the late afternoon wintry chill they were stationary; their drivers had disappeared and only the occasional soldier kept guard every few hundred meters.

"They don't move in the day," said Yusuf Saad, a taxi driver waiting at the border crossing.

Saad, who had watched this correspondent from the other side of the road for some time before signaling for me to come over, added that "It's much easier for them to drive at night." He nodded toward the distant Syrian mountain range.

"There's not so much traffic on the road. And I can tell you" - his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper - "they might be going in with produce, but they're coming out with weapons. They hide the rockets under the goods and that's how they're able to bring them into the country."...

...Fifty-three year old electrician Hassan Taha, a strident Hizbullah supporter who lives opposite one of the areas the Israeli Air Force bombed last summer - a crater marks where a school, supermarket and hotel once stood - was emphatic, however. "Of course weapons are coming from the border," he said. "Everybody here knows that. They're coming from both Iran and Syria and also China and Russia. We need the weapons. We are ready now if Israel strikes us...

Plan to come out in a show of support for the imams on the hearing at the JFK Building on the third floor on Tuesday 8:30 AM. The more people that come, the stronger the message to officials that Muslims will not sit idly by and accept intimidation. More details of this will be sent soon.

...We are fighting for the inalienable right of humankind--black or white, Christian or not, left, right or a million different--to be free, free to raise a family in love and hope, free to earn a living and be rewarded by your efforts, free not to bend your knee to any man in fear, free to be you so long as being you does not impair the freedom of others.

That's what we're fighting for. And it's a battle worth fighting.

And I know it's hard on America, and in some small corner of this vast country, out in Nevada or Idaho or these places I've never been to, but always wanted to go...

I know out there there's a guy getting on with his life, perfectly happily, minding his own business, saying to you, the political leaders of this country, "Why me? And why us? And why America?"

And the only answer is, "Because destiny put you in this place in history, in this moment in time, and the task is yours to do."

And our job, my nation that watched you grow, that you fought alongside and now fights alongside you, that takes enormous pride in our alliance and great affection in our common bond, our job is to be there with you.

You are not going to be alone. We will be with you in this fight for liberty.

We will be with you in this fight for liberty. And if our spirit is right and our courage firm, the world will be with us...

The United Church of Christ's Art Exhibit "commemorating" the incarceration of terrorists Oscar Lopez Rivera and Carlos Alberto Torres opens tonight with a reception at 6pm in the Amistad Chapel at the UCC's National Office.

While the UCC has maintained that Rivera and Torres are political prisoners and that "their sentences were disproportionately long," the facts say otherwise. According to the United States Sentencing Commission, which analyzed this matter specifically, "the federal sentencing guidelines generally would call for sentences as long as or longer than those actually imposed, if the defendants had been sentenced under current law (in 1999)."

Specifically to Oscar Lopez Rivera, (an individual so "non-violent" that he wouldn’t renounce violence to get out of prison): In addition to crimes committed in furtherance of FALN goals, he plotted two escapes from federal prison. One was from Leavenworth Penitentiary and, according to a Victim Impact Statement, he "planned to blow up Fort Leavenworth with the most powerful plastic explosives known to the military, riddle guard towers with rounds from automatic weapons, and throw grenades in the path of those who pursued them. To achieve their goals, Lopez considered killing the inmates who threatened Richard Cobb, killing George Lebosky after they became suspicious of him, and killing firearms dealer Michael Neece to gain his weapons." He set in motion plans to obtain the following for his escape attempt: fragmentation grenades, smoke grenades, phosphorus grenades, eight M-16 rifles, two silencers, 50 pounds of plastic C-4 explosives, eight bulletproof vests, ten blasting caps to use with plastic explosives, 100 thirty-shot clips to use with automatic weapons. In Lopez’ probation officer’s assessment, "[Lopez’] level of remorse, rehabilitation and positive regard for this court’s process is minimal, if not nonexistent. He demonstrates a sustained consistent commitment to the use of violence and weapons. He will use any means to gain freedom for the purpose of undermining the principles of the United States government. He has already determined that human life is expendable for this purpose."

This is what we are commemorating today.

Federal immigration agents arrested imams from two Boston-area mosques Wednesday, alleging they were involved in a scheme that provided religious worker visas to immigrants who used them to enter the United States and work instead as gas station attendants, truck drivers, and factory laborers.

Hafiz Abdul Hannan, imam, or leader, of the Islamic Society of Greater Lowell in Chelmsford, and Muhammed Masood, imam, or leader, of the Islamic Center of New England in Sharon, were among 33 people taken into custody nationwide after a multi-year investigation led by agents in Boston and New York, said Paula Grenier, a spokeswoman for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"‘This was a nationwide religious worker visa fraud scheme designed to help illegal aliens," said Grenier. "These people had to be solely engaged in religious employment, and in many cases were not."

Under the Religious Worker Program, started in 1990, churches, synagogues, and mosques can ask the government to approve visas for foreigners to fill vacant positions. Each year, several thousand visas are issued each year that permit immigrants to enter the United States exclusively for religious employment. To obtain the visa, immigrants must have religious training and experience in their native country. Once here, they are not allowed to hold secular jobs. The religious worker permits can ultimately lead to green cards, or permanent residency.

Under the scheme, described by federal authorities, the immigrants, who were mostly Pakistani, paid a fee to US religious organizations, which then sponsored them for the visas. Some of those arrested did legitimate religious work, but had filed false paperwork to win their own visas, or once here, to sponsor others, said Grenier. Because the investigation is ongoing, she would not say whether the imams are alleged to have sponsored the visas for others or violated their own visas by working secular jobs.

The Muslim community in Boston is deeply concerned and outraged due to the recent arrests of two leading Imams in the Greater Boston community on alleged administrative violations of immigration policies.

Imam Hafiz Masood has been a long-standing leader and Imam of the Islamic Center of New England (ICNE), based in Sharon, MA. “He has always been a voice of peace and wisdom and I hope that immigration officials will be sensitive to his leadership position in the community, and ensure that appropriate measures are taken to bring a fair and speedy resolution to this issue," said Hossam AlJabri, President of the Muslim American Society, Boston Chapter.

“He is deeply respected in the Muslim community and we stand strongly behind him and his family in this difficult time,” said Mohiudeen Khan, President of the Board of ICNE.

Imam Masoud's lawyer in the past had ensured ICNE that Masood's immigration papers are perfectly in order and that he is legally clear to work in the US. Imam Masoud and his family are applying for residency status in the US.
Imam Abdul Hannan from the Islamic Society of Greater Lowell has also served the Muslim community in Lowell as Imam for several years. His arrest has also drawn concern amongst Muslims as well as immigration and civil rights groups since it is seen as another strike against a community already beleaguered by law enforcement activity.
"On the surface this appears to be yet another action unfairly targeting the local Muslim community" said Nancy Murray, Director of the Boston ACLU's Civil Liberties Task Force. "We're looking forward to getting more information."

Masood's lawyer, the Honorable William Joyce said: I'm extremely troubled by the way this came about, and I believe that Imam Masood and Abdul Hannan will both be vindicated. The way this all came about is a disgrace. They (immigration officials) wouldn't go to the Cardinal's residence and arrest him for an immigration technicality."
The charges against Imam Masood amount basically to an administrative immigration technicality, leading Ibrahim Ramey from MAS Freedom Foundation to comment, “Indiscriminate arrest of Muslim leaders for trivial and non-criminal offenses can only serve to erode the relationship between the Muslim community and law enforcement community. It hurts the cause of civil rights, and further polarizes society.”

MAS Boston president Hossam AlJabri along with community leaders will be meeting with immigration officials tonight to get more information about the case and will demand that charges and evidence be made public to the Boston community and that the issue be resolved in a fair and speedy manner.

Action Requested

1. Pray for the safe and speedy release of both Imams.
2. Contact your local representative and MA Senators, (a) to inform them of the situation, (b) ask them to help ensure the fair, speedy, and respectable treatment of the Imams...

Leading German and Austrian intellectuals called their countries to review the special relationship established with Israel following the Holocaust.

A group of German and Austrian scientists and intellectuals, including Professor Udo Steinbach, Professor Jorg Becker and Eric Schmidt Engboom issued a proposal titled “Manifesto of the 25.”

European intellectuals voiced their opposition to the special relationship between Germany and Israel, defined as unconditional support for its existence and welfare due to the Holocaust, even if Israel violated international law and human rights.

The manifesto cited one of the “unnoticed” results of the Holocaust as the Palestinian issue and emphasized the Palestinian people played no part in the emergence of the Middle East crisis...

A Muslim organisation which the Government chose not to ban is preaching hatred and has infiltrated the Home Office, an investigation has revealed.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is showing inflammatory videos to small groups of followers then encouraging them to attack non-believers.

An HuT member has gained a job as an information technology worker in the Immigration and Nationality Directorate of the Home Office and been given a grant to organise an event for the radical group, it has been claimed in an undercover investigation by Vigil, a group campaigning against religious extremism.

In a mocked-up video shown to new recruits, a woman interrogator at Guantanamo Bay was shown wiping blood over the face of a prisoner to make him confess. A student in his twenties, who posed as a recruit to HuT, said: "The reaction was shocking.

"The group were clenching their fists and shouting, 'We'll kill her, how can you do this to our brothers? F****** kuffars [non-believers]."

"Afterwards the mushrif [leader] asked for our opinions and people seemed to think the British were the same, they were saying, 'A kuffar is a kuffar and f****** British troops, we have to do something.'

"They said, 'we have to attack from the inside' and I think they meant terror attacks."

The young man, who is known as Jay - not his real name – was forced to rob three people to show his loyalty to the group.

The group, which met at West Croydon Mosque, comprised five black and Asian men, aged between 18 and 28, most of them unemployed and four of them converts. Each group had a number and theirs was in the fifties. "They were thugs," said Jay, who spent six months with them.

Jay said the group were shown DVDs on three occasions, each accompanied by a talk by the mushrif...

Following are excerpts from an interview with Samir 'Ubeid, an Iraqi researcher living in Europe, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on October 31, 2006:

...Samir 'Ubeid:...Mother Teresa was brought, along with a group of people like her…

Interviewer: Some say the prize was awarded to her for her missionary activity in Africa, India, and so on...

Samir 'Ubeid: Let’s assume she was righteous, according to the logic of the media, which is now controlled by the Jews and Hollywood. When they awarded the prize to Teresa, they were trying to award an "artificial hymen" or "artificial honor" to this prize. My colleague said that there is democracy. What democracy is there, if out of 1.5 billion Chinese, only two or three were awarded the Nobel? If you examine the Russian scientists and writers, who shook the world with their literature and their knowledge... What about Sakharov, what about Tolstoy? In addition...

Interviewer: But Sakharov was awarded the Nobel prize.

Samir 'Ubeid: I meant Chekhov. Chekhov! Chekhov! ...

...Are we Arabs not included in the transfer of the scientific genetic code? We, the descendants of Al-Khawarizmi, Al-Jahez, Al-Razi, Avicenna, and Ibn Al-Haytham – are we all born idiots? Is there not a single scientist among us? Are we not included in the genetic code? Is intelligence not transferred down among us Arabs?

Interviewer: Scientific creativity occurs in freedom and democracy, brother.

Samir 'Ubeid: Democracy does not explain how it was awarded to 167 Jews, from among those 15 million scattered around the world, while abandoning 1.5 billion Chinese, a billion Indians, and 380 million Arabs. This is racism...

...The [Grameen] bank for the poor won the prize because some of its shareholders are giants like Haliburton and others...

...They infiltrated this bank, which became in the pocket of the Freemasons. This prize stems from the core of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

A shipwrecked first-century vessel carrying delicacies to the richest palates of the Roman Empire has proved a dazzling find, with nearly 2,000-year-old fish bones still nestling inside clay jars, archaeologists said Monday.

Boaters found its cargo of hundreds of amphoras in 2000 when their anchor got tangled with one of the two-handled jars.

After years of arranging financing and crews, exploration of the site off the coast of Alicante in southeast Spain began in July, said Carles de Juan, a co-director of the project, who works for the Valencia regional government.

The ship is estimated to have been 30 meters (100 feet) long with capacity for around 400 tons of cargo. That would make it twice the size of most other Roman shipwrecks found in the Mediterranean, de Juan said in an interview with the Associated Press.

The freight was an estimated 1,500 well-preserved clay amphoras, or two-handled jars, used in this case to hold fish sauce -- a prized condiment for wealthy Romans, he said.

For centuries the meter-tall amphoras lay undisturbed except for an occasional octopus that would pry one open, breaking the ceramic-and-mortar seal in search of food or shelter...

Police arrested a Reuters photographer from Qalqilya on suspicion that he possessed stolen goods.

According to suspicions, the man, 34, sells stolen electronic goods in his Qalqilya store, where 50 laptops, 8 digital cameras, 40 video camera and 15 palm pilots were seized. The goods were stolen from Israeli households in the Sharon area. (Raanan Ben-Zur)

Jumblatt is head of Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party and is widely considered the most prominent anti-Syrian Lebanese politician.

He charged the Democrats' calls for a withdrawal from Iraq and for changes in U.S. Middle East policy in part emboldened the Syrian-backed Hezbollah militia to bolt the Lebanese parliament this past weekend and to threaten street protests that many say could easily turn violent...

The terror leader, from the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees, said his organization's share of the money was used to purchase weapons, which he said would be utilized "to hit the Zionists."

He said he expects the payments for Centanni and Wiig's freedom will encourage Palestinian groups to carry out further kidnappings.

Officials associated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party and its security organization, the Preventative Security Services, confirmed to WND money was paid for the release of the Fox News reporters.

A senior leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group, the declared "military wing" of Fatah, said the group received a small percentage of the $2 million, which all parties interviewed said was transferred in cash...

...Members of the Dugmash clan lead the "Saladin resistance department" of the Popular Resistance Committees, an umbrella of Palestinian terror groups which previously carried out anti-U.S. attacks, including the bombing in 2003 of a U.S. convoy in Gaza in which three American government contractors were killed. The Committtees is also responsible for scores of anti-Israel shooting attacks and bombings and for a large number of rocket attacks against Jewish communities near Gaza.

The senior leader of the Committees, speaking to WND on condition of anonymity, would not say whether members of his group carried out the Fox News kidnappings, but he admitted the Committees received money for "aiding" in the release of Centanni and Wiig.

The terror leader said $2 million cash was transferred to the Preventative Security Services, the main Fatah security forces in Gaza, for distribution to various parties.

He said the largest portion of the money was provided to the Committees' Dugmash clan, which Israeli security officials say is heavily involved in the smuggling of weapons and drugs into Gaza and which openly has led anti-Israel terror attacks on behalf of the Popular Resistance Committees. The Committees leader would not provide the exact sum transferred to the clan, but said it exceeded $1 million...

You’re not going to believe this one.

All our suspicions about mainstream media slanting and distorting the news from the Middle East are confirmed in a bombshell of a post by Bruno Stevens, at the Lightstalkers pro photographers’ forum: The Lebanon ‘garbage dump’ story: complete explanation. (Hat tip: Snapped Shot.)

His photograph, published by both US News and World Report and Time Magazine, had a caption describing the scene as the wreckage of an Israeli jet shot down by Hizballah. In this post, Stevens reveals that the captions he sent in with his pictures described the scene accurately—but editors at the magazines changed the captions to completely alter the story...

...Now, once and for all, this place is NOT a garbage dump. It is the back entry and parking lot of large Lebanese Army barracks in Kfar Chima, in the eastern outskirts of Beirut. A series of yellow barracks building can be seen behind the Hezbollah fighter on the picture published by TIME; below is another picture from the scene that clearly shows de-commissioned Lebanese Army trucks as well as a mirador from the base northern gate...

...

This is a very important piece of evidence showing probable collusion between Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army, there is little doubt that the Lebanese Army was aware of the presence of at least one missile launcher and at least one large missile on their parking lot. The size of the launcher, destroyed a couple of days later from the ground by an unknown party suggest missiles 10 to 14 meters long.

There were 6 to 8 large articulated trucks parked there, making it a very legitimate target for the Israeli Air Force, quite far away from civilian houses...

...We do not rely only on defense technology. The IRGC has thousands of martyrdom-seekers, who have gained military experience during the eight years of war, and these martyrdom-seekers are prepared to carry out martyrdom operations on large scales. They operate professionally, and have undergone training. They have a strong spirit of martyrdom.

How would you react if a Stanford student organization announced the establishment of a new group called Students Confronting British Nazism, or Students Confronting Women’s Blame for Rape? Or how about Students Confronting African American Inferiority? Anyone with a moral bone in his body would clearly be flooded by feelings of incredulity, followed by outrage. Why? Because these group names not only assert a blatant lie, they are also deeply offensive and dangerous. The British are no Nazis, women are never to blame for rape and African Americans are not “inferior” to anyone. The purpose of such a group would be purely negative — its very ambition to dehumanize and delegitimize an entire group of people. Surely no Stanford student organization would stoop so low, right?

Wrong! By announcing last week that it was creating a new group called Students Confronting Apartheid in Israel — and launching a series of assaults accusing Israel of institutionalized racism, the Stanford student organization Coalition for Justice in the Middle East (CJME) — demonstrated that when it comes to the Jewish people, even the most abusive and pernicious lies are fair game on campus...

...CJME’s actions are not only based on a spiteful myth, they are also dangerous. Racism is the 21st century’s scarlet letter: Once branded racist, you’re an outcast. Those who attempt to label Israel an “apartheid state” are in effect campaigning against co-existence and peace. Does one co-exist with apartheid? No. Does one make peace with apartheid? Of course not, because to do so would be morally wrong. By establishing the new group, CJME hopes that the repetition of the rhetoric of demonization (“apartheid,” “genocide,” “racism”) will come to be accepted as truth, creating an atmosphere of intimidation for Jewish students and animosity toward Israel.

Ah, but what about free speech? While even hate propaganda may be protected speech, this does not mean that it is acceptable to spread offensive lies on campus. Would we tolerate a Stanford student organization whose sole purpose is to trash any other religious, ethnic or gender-based community? Our culture of respect and diversity makes this normatively unacceptable....

Imam Bray, Taken Into Custody during Israeli Prime Minister's Visit; Calls for End to U.S. Support of Killings in Gaza

WASHINGTON, DC - Nov. 13, 2006 (MASNET) After stating to a spirited interfaith group of more than 30 protesters that " there comes a time when silence is betrayal", MAS Freedom Foundation's Executive Director Mahdi Bray committed civil disobedience in front of the White House and was taken into custody by U.S. federal police officials in Washington D.C on Monday, November 13th.

The arrest was the culmination of a MAS-organized protest against the visit to the White House by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The Israeli leader is reportedly seeking support from Washington for continued attacks against the population of Gaza and possible Israeli military action against Iran in response to the Iranian nuclear program.The demonstration, organized by the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation was joined by members of the Muslim community in Virginia and Washington, D.C., and other long-time activists for justice for the people of Palestine. About a dozen members of the Neturai Karta Orthodox Jewish community, including their leader, Rabbi Dovid Weiss, also joined in the protest [Naturei Karta are the extremist sect known for such things as visiting Ahmahdinejad and telling him to keep up the good work (seriously) -S] and expressed their condemnation of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and especially the recent attacks on Gaza civilian areas that have resulted in scores of civilian casualties...

...Ayyub Hanif of the MAS Freedom Foundation was one of several protesters who lead the chant of "Free Free Palestine" and "No Justice, No Peace."...

1. Palestine-Israel Impasse? 11/13 and 11/14 by Ali Abunimah.
2. Somerville divestment project Town hall Meeting 11/14.
3. Vigil at the Harvard Memorial church 11/15.
4. Protest at the Israeli consulate 11/16.
5. Rachel’s words coming to Boston 11/16.
6. Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine by Ilane Pappe 11/17.
7. Beyond apartheid conference 11/1

Tired of hearing talking heads go on about a Palestine-Israel Impasse? Come hear one man SOLUTION!

Monday November 13th - 7 pm
First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church
3 Church Street, Cambridge
(Harvard Square)

and

Tuesday November 14th - 4:30 pm
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Weiner Auditorium, Taubman Building
(Harvard Square)

Event on Monday co-sponsored by Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East -Greater Boston Chapter, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC-MA), the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights (BCPR), United for Justice with Peace Israel-Palestine Task Force and Jewish Voices for Peace - Boston.

Event on Tuesday co-sponsored by Palestine Awareness Committee (KSG), Alliance for Justice in the Middle East (FAS), Justice for Palestine (HLS), Harvard Society of Arab Students (FAS), and the Palestine Solidarity Committee (FAS).

One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse

Will the Palestine-Israeli conflict ever be resolved in a way that will finally bring peace to the region? Noted expert on the topic and the son of Palestinians who fled the country in 1948, author Ali Abunimah makes the radical argument that what is needed is one state shared by Palestinians and Israelis. His book in which he lays out his controversial approach was just published this fall by Metropolitan Books.

More urgent than ever, ONE COUNTRY is a provocative and visionary approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and one that is certain to cause a stir on all sides...

The United States vetoed a Security Council resolution on Saturday that condemned Israel for its military actions in Gaza and called for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from the area.

The United States ambassador, John R. Bolton, told the Council that the resolution “does not display an even-handed characterization of the recent events in Gaza, nor does it advance the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace.”

The resolution, introduced by Qatar, the Arab representative on the Council, had been amended during two days of negotiations to meet objections that it was not balanced. But Mr. Bolton said it remained “in many places biased against Israel and politically motivated.”

In the vote, 4 countries abstained — Britain, Denmark, Japan and Slovakia — and 10 were in favor — Argentina, China, Congo, France, Ghana, Greece, Peru, Russia, Qatar and Tanzania.

The original draft had made no mention of Palestinian rocket strikes into Israel and accused Israel of conducting a “massacre” of civilians in its attack at Beit Hanun on Wednesday that killed 18 civilians.

New language was inserted condemning the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel and calling upon the Palestinian Authority to take “immediate and sustained action” to end the rocket fire. But while the resolution named Israel as liable for the attacks on Gaza, it was silent on who or what group was responsible for the attacks on Israel.

In other changes, a reference to “indiscriminate” Israeli violence became “disproportionate” violence, and the words “military assault,” “aggression” and “massacre” were dropped in favor of the general phrase “military operations.”

Another provision had proposed that a new United Nations observer force be sent into the area to monitor a cease-fire, but it was substituted with language suggested by France that called for the creation of “an international mechanism for the protection of civilians.”

Mr. Bolton said the United States considered this “a promise which is unwise and unnecessary and which, at any rate, raises false hopes.”...

...Our party, which supported the heroic capturing operation, supports further operations like it, in order to liberate our prisoners, especially Samir Al-Quntar...

...Our party hopes very much that its fighters will manage to capture an Israeli soldier. This would be a great honor...

...We support the efforts of the democratic lawyers in Lebanon to establish an international court – either official or independent – in order to place on trial the president of the U.S.A., members of his administration, and the leaders of the Zionist enemy as war criminals, for the massacres perpetrated against our people during the recent aggression...

The anti-Semitic hate group “Wheels of Justice” was recruited to speak to the children of Andover High School by their equally anti-Semitic physics teacher, Ron Francis. And when the principal canceled the group’s visit because no opposing views were being represented, these so-called “peace activists” had to be escorted out of the building by police because they refused to leave “peacefully.”

Now, Francis and Andover Teachers’ Union President Tom Meyers are threatening a lawsuit, saying they do not want opposing views represented. (So much for freedom of speech!)

But who can oppose peace and love? A quick trip to the Web site www.justicewheels.org reveals that Wheels of Justice is a group which seeks to “educate” people on the evils of the United States and Israel. They seek to educate people about the Jewish conspiracy in this country to support Israel. They portray America and the Jews as the root cause of all the violence and turmoil in the Middle East. In short, they cloak themselves under the cover of being “anti-Israel,” but not anti-Semites or anti-Jewish.

Furthermore, Wheels of Justice claims that Israel committed “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians, that the Jews are “illegally” occupying land and oppressing poor Palestinian terrorists, and that the Jewish conspiracy in America is responsible for all of this. The group’s Web site stunningly equates the Jewish “occupation” with Nazi death camps in WW II. (Didn’t Hitler use this same type of propaganda?)

Wheels of Justice sought to bring maps of the “occupied” Palestinian land to Andover High to show just how victimized the Palestinians are at the hands of the evil Jews. But nowhere on its website or in its speeches do they condemn suicide bombings, terrorist acts against civilians, Palestinian support for terrorist groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbolah, or even al Qaeda’s 9/11 attack on the U.S.

In fact, Ron Francis himself makes excuses for all of these terrorist acts by saying that, if he lived in “Palestine,” he “would probably be a suicide bomber too.”...

..."The reason we are at this moment," former president Bill Clinton told a group of Democratic donors Nov. 1, "is that they do not represent faithfully the Republicans and the more conservative independents in the country. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here tonight. This is a sweeping, deep, big thing." According to the nation's most popular Democrat, in other words, Republicans were about to be punished for having abandoned their Republican principles. Voters were going to demote the GOP not because its agenda had grown too conservative -- but because it hadn't been conservative enough.

Exactly.

Nov. 7 was a debacle for Republicans, not conservatives. Democrats gained power in Washington, but around the country there was no shortage of evidence that the nation's tectonic shift to the right is still ongoing. Seven more states approved amendments barring same-sex marriage; only in Arizona was a marriage amendment narrowly defeated. The backlash against the Supreme Court's disgraceful 2005 Kelo v. New London decision continued as well, with voters in 10 states adopting new laws to protect property owners from eminent domain abuse.

The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative was a brilliant conservative victory and a humiliating Republican defeat. By an impressive 16-point margin, Michigan voters said no to racial and gender preferences in state employment, education, and public contracting. But Republicans, who had joined Democrats, big business, and the activist left in opposing the initiative, reaped no political benefit. The GOP had jettisoned its party's colorblind creed in the hope of dampening Democratic turnout. In the end, Democrats swept the Senate and governor's races anyway, while the civil-rights initiative that Republicans should have endorsed sailed to a 58-42 win.

Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a San Francisco liberal of the first water, but many of her party's incoming freshmen campaigned as cultural conservatives. Indiana Democrat Brad Ellsworth, for example, described himself as anti abortion, pro-traditional marriage, "a hunter who supports the Second Amendment," and a "local sheriff" who would fight "to protect our kids from violence and filth on TV and the Internet." He and other "blue-dog" conservatives will be tugging the new Democratic majority to the right, while the defeat of liberal Republicans like Connecticut's Nancy Johnson and Iowa's Jim Leach means that the Republican minority in the 110th Congress will move to the right as well...

Four Palestinian organizations threatened Sunday to launch attacks on US targets in response to what they said was America’s “support of the Israeli crimes and massacres, the last of which occurred in Beit Hanoun.”

A statement was signed by the Popular Resistance Committees, the Al-Aqsa Brigades (Fatah’s armed wing), the Fatah-affiliated Abu Rish Brigades, and another Islamic group who’s name has recently surfaced – the Tawahid Brigades.

The groups warn the United States that its policy is making it “a legitimate target for Palestinian organizations and any Muslim or Palestinian around the world.”

The statement also calls on “all free men everywhere and all the mujahadeen in the Islamic nation to mercilessly strike the Americans – to feed them the same food they are feeding us.”...

The International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom warns against a “silent boycott” in Britain against Israeli institutes of higher education.

The council said that Israeli researchers wishing to publish articles in Britain were asked to remove the name of which ever Israeli academic institute they belonged to as a condition for publishing their articles.

The latest “unofficial boycott” was initiated by the “Bibliography of Translation Studies" journal, owned by a British publishing house headed by Mona Baker, a supporter of the academic boycott on Israel.

The publishing house invited professors from all over the world to send in articles for publication. Among the many professors who accepted the invitation was Prof. Miriam Shlesinger, Department Chair of Translation and Interpreting Studies at Bar-Ilan University.

Shlesinger asked the new associate editor of the publication, Prof. Gaby Saldahana if she would be willing to accept Israeli articles. Saldahana replied that she would accept articles from researchers in Israel, but not from an Israeli academic institute.

Shlesinger, who used to head Amnesty International in Israel, decided not to send in an article to the journal...

Palestinian Foreign Minister and Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar told al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper on Sunday that his group will never "repeat Fatah's mistake of recognizing Israel ."

In a militant interview, which was conducted soon after the IDF's shelling of Beit Hanoun, al-Zahar explained why his group has no intension of recognizing Israel, accept a two-state solution and to accept the partition resolution adopted by the United Nations.

When asked what will happen if international pressure on Hamas increases, he said: "Hamas will never change its position regardless of the pressure's intensity."

He was asked about the Arab peace initiative which calls for recognition of Israel based on the principle of land for peace and said: "We will never recognize the Arab initiative. We ask what is its real value? And the answer is: nothing, because America and Israel rejected it. Also, we will not accept something called 'recognizing Israel'."

Even if the solution is one of two states?

"We can establish a Palestinian state on a foot of land of the liberated land."

And if there is solution that include the establishment of a Palestinian within the 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital?

"We will declare a hudna but we will never recognize Israel."...

...He added that Hamas rejects the United Nations partition of November 1947 as well as Resolution 242...

“Apartheid” – the official policy of racial “apartness” – strangled South African blacks for decades with laws based on race hate. Racism is today’s scarlet letter: once branded a racist, you’re an outcast. Today, anti-Israel “activists” campaign to mark Israel “an apartheid state.”

On Nov. 19, the Northeastern University School of Law and the National Lawyers Guild are hosting a five-hour event called “Beyond Apartheid in Israel/Palestine: the Reality on the Ground and Lessons from South Africa.” Every speaker on the program is an anti-Zionist activist/intellectual.

As we have seen often at such events, speakers will decry Israel’s building of “the apartheid wall” (mostly a chain link fence) as racism. They will dismiss Israel’s need to protect Jews from Arabs who murder them in the name of Allah. Arab murderers will likely be called “freedom fighters.” They’ll make the case in humanitarian terms: walls are bad – people can’t get to work or hospitals. Walls divide and discriminate between populations. Yet at this conference, don’t expect a protest of the wall Saudi Arabia is building on its borders with Yemen and Iraq, or the wall between India and Pakistan, or the electronically-charged fence between Botswana and Zimbabwe, or the DMZ between North and South Korea. It’s not really about walls, actually. It’s about Jews. The National Lawyers Guild doesn’t like Jewish walls.

Apartheid? Israel is the sole democracy in the Middle East, the only place in the region where Arab citizens possess equal rights. Citizens vote, worship freely, are part of the government – and criticize it constantly without fear.

Actually, just as with “walls,” these folks don’t really care about apartheid. They won’t protest gender apartheid throughout the Middle East, where brothers and fathers kill sisters and daughters who act “immodestly.” They won’t protest ethnic apartheid in Sudan, where Arab Muslims ethnically cleanse African Muslims and Christians, driving them off their lands, capturing and enslaving, or just slaughtering them. They won’t criticize religious apartheid in Saudi Arabia, where you can’t be a citizen unless you’re a Muslim.

By withholding the evidence of equal rights enjoyed by Arab-Israelis, minimizing the injustices committed by the Arab despots that surround the Jewish state and misrepresenting the reasons for the security wall, the speakers and sponsors of “Beyond Apartheid in Israel/Palestine” are guilty of defamation against Israel, as well as cheapening the actual experience of apartheid suffered by blacks in South Africa.

Though the National Lawyers Guild has the right to assemble and the invited guests have the right to voice their political views – as they would be allowed in any democratic country including Israel – responsible people in the audience also have the right to call them on their lies and their utter hypocrisy. Someday, Northeastern University Law School may have the courage to convene a conference on actual Middle Eastern apartheid. Women, escaped black slaves, oppressed Christians, terrified apostates, atheists and gays ... a terrific panel. We’re ready, Northeastern. Are you?

This column was co-written by Charles Jacobs and Erik Miller from The David Project Center for Jewish Leadership.

On November 4, 2006, the Iranian channel Al-Kawthar TV (formerly Sahar 1 TV) aired a drama called "'Remember Your Dreams' or 'Guantanamo.'" The film purports to show how the Abu Ghuraib photos were made public,and how the evil of the fictional U.S. Army Major Rosenthal [Say, isn't that a Jooish name?] was exposed, through the efforts of fictional characters: former Guantanamo detainee Dr. Mustafa Nasser, U.S. Army Corporal Jennifer Smith, Lawyers Without Borders activist Andre Mahfuz, Mahfuz's former fiancée, journalist Christine Lemoine, and a helpful Beirut hotel receptionist. The story is set in Guantanamo and in Beirut. The film's credits state that the film was shot in Lebanon and thank IRIB offices in Beirut, Al-Manar TV in Beirut, Lebanese Ministry of Defense, Lebanese Ministry of General Security, Lebanese Interior Ministry, Beirut International Airport and Customs, Beirut Municipality, UNESCO Beirut, and others...

Hamas leader and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniya suggested Friday that he would not head a proposed unity government if stepping aside would help to bring back Western aid.

Speaking to worshippers gathered for Friday prayers at a Gaza City mosque, Haniya said the West did not want him to be a part of the new administration and would not lift its embargo unless he is replaced as leader.

"[They have] one condition, that the siege will not be lifted unless the prime minister is changed," Haniya said, according to Reuters. "When the issue is like this, the siege on one hand, the prime minister on the another ... I prefer the siege be lifted and the suffering ended."

The loss of direct international aid to the Palestinian government has caused an economic crisis in the West Bank and Gaza. The unity government is seen as a bid to resume the flow of aid, which is the government's main source of funding.

The Quartet of Middle East peace brokers, comprising the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia, has boycotted the Hamas-led government since it came to power in March after elections...

...There is no First Amendment issue here. Allowing outside groups of any ideological stripe to come in and proselytize students detracts from the educational function of schools. Teachers who claim they merely seek to provide a range of world perspectives should not object to a forum that includes opposing views. And teachers giving students flyers that are critical of the administration does not advance education in town.

The First Amendment guarantees Wheels of Justice the right to hold its views and speak them. It gives it the right to stand on a street corner or other public space and shout its message. It does not grant it the right to come into a school building to lecture a captive audience of children over the objections of the teachers' bosses, the school administration.

Andover school leaders made the right decision.

Congratulations to Andover High School Principal Peter Anderson for keeping the focus of the teachers and students where it should be: on providing and receiving an education. The high school is not the forum for presenting one-sided views of the world. It is the place where our children should receive non-biased information from impartial educators, not from a group of traveling zealots with their own agenda. If the Wheels of Justice want to hold a forum to advance their agenda, great! The First Amendment gives them the right. Just hold their forum some place other than our high school. Otherwise who comes next to exercise their right of free speech: the Taliban, the Ku Klux Klan, or a group of neo-Nazis?

Fortunately, the majority of teachers at AHS do not see the need to expose their students to the views of these radical groups. Instead they do what they are supposed to do: teach their students the approved curriculum and allow the student to listen to these outside groups (if they choose) outside of the classroom. The high school is not the place for a few teachers to advance their personal agendas, biases and political crusades. I commend Anderson, the administration and all the dedicated teachers at Andover High School for providing our sons and daughters with a quality education. Keep up the good work.

As a concerned group of parents from Andover High School we would like to voice our support for Peter Anderson's decision to postpone a presentation scheduled for Oct. 27 by the group Wheels for Justice. From what we understand, Anderson did not have adequate time in advance of the date to research the background of this group to properly consider if they should be invited to speak at the high school. This type of research would be done with any group that would potentially make a presentation to the students.

As parents we respect and support Anderson's decision on this matter.

..."Nancy Pelosi wants total party discipline," a source in the Democratic Party leadership said. "If you played ball with the Republicans during this session, then you're not going to be given an important chair in the next session."...

Professor and Academic Freedom Took the Fall

Newly released evidence has revealed that the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) worked privately to pressure DePaul University to fire adjunct professor Thomas Klocek for telling Muslim activist students that their views on Middle-East issues were wrong. According to a letter to DePaul’s President from CAIR’s executive director M. Yaser Tabbara, “In light of …Mr. Klocek’s biased remarks, we are requesting that the University…reprimand Mr. Klocek for his conduct by permanently dismissing him from any teaching post at DePaul University.” (Exhibit # DPU 945).

At a student fair on September 15, 2004, during the same month that DePaul launched its Islamic World Studies Program, Professor Klocek engaged several Muslim students in a heated discussion about the Arab-Israeli conflict. He strongly disputed their assertions that Israeli treatment of Palestinians was equivalent to the Nazi treatment of the Jews. He also cited a Chicago Sun-Times columnist who was quoting an Aljazeera writer to the effect that although not all Muslims are terrorists, today most terrorists are Muslim. Later, in another connection between DePaul and the Muslim community, a DePaul Trustee, Michael Murad, wrote to DePaul’s president asking, “What steps have been taken to ensure that DePaul programs in the Middle East are not undermined by this incident?” (#DPU 003174)

According to documents furnished by DePaul in response to document discovery in the lawsuit between Klocek and DePaul, less than a month after the student fair incident, on October 12, 2004, CAIR’s Tabbara sent an email to those who opposed Klocek, stating, “…we [CAIR] will be ready to file a formal complaint with the Illinois State Board of Higher Education… This will also be accompanied by a press release, a press conference or both.” (DPU 003493)

Tabbara’s email also referred to a letter sent to DePaul’s president the next day in which Tabbara made the following demands of DePaul, “In light of the grave implications of Mr. Klocek’s biased remarks, we are requesting that the University take appropriate and immediate responsive action…including:

1. Provide a formal written apology to the students who experienced the incident firsthand.

2. Reprimand Mr. Klocek for his conduct by permanently dismissing him from any teaching post at DePaul University.”

CAIR continued its campaign against Klocek when, according to another just released document (DPU 000763), on December 16, 2004 CAIR wrote Prof. Klocek’s Dean, Suzanne Dumbleton, and said, “The gravity of Mr. Klocek’s actions towards the students should result in his permanent dismissal as a matter of policy. Any alternative action will set a dangerous precedent…”

John W. Mauck, attorney for Thomas Klocek, said, “These documents confirm our suspicions. Rather than protect academic freedom or even treat Thomas Klocek, a professor with a 14 year spotless track record at DePaul, the university surrendered to behind-the-scenes Muslim activist pressure. At DePaul academic freedom has been subjugated to Sharia.”

To see copies of these and other documents view below PDF documents.
DPU 3174.pdf - DPU 3493.pdf - DPU 763_764.pdf - DPU 945.pdf

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- Former Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad lashed out Tuesday against Saddam Hussein's death sentence, claiming the court was set up by his enemies in a "Nuremberg-type" fashion, incapable of a fair trial.

"It was a Nuremberg-type court, manifestly biased and incapable of being just," Mahathir said in a statement, referring to the tribunals for members of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime over the killings of six million Jews during World War II.

Mahathir, who was predominantly Muslim Malaysia's prime minister for 22 years until retirement in October 2003, is well known for his blunt and critical comments about Jews and the West. He is also a vocal critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

While in office, Mahathir projected himself as a spokesman of the Muslim and developing world, winning widespread admiration among the people and leaders of poor countries. After retirement he set up an international committee to defend Saddam...

In the nine months since it came to power, and despite the PLO's demands, Hamas has not changed its views: It refuses to recognize Israel or acknowledge its legitimacy, insists that previous Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements will be recognized only if they serve Palestinian interests, continues to lay claim to all of Palestine, and, in exchange for the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, offers only a temporary hudna (ceasefire). In addition, Hamas continues to express reservations about the Arab peace initiative of 2002, and to support resistance, jihad, and abduction of Israeli soldiers.

...Steiner also said the UN team found no evidence of penetrators or metal made of depleted uranium or other radioactive material. The assessment appeared to counter some media reports that suggested uranium-based munitions had been used during the month long war that ended on Aug. 14.

”No depleted uranium shrapnel, or other radioactive residue was found. The analysis of all smear samples taken shows no depleted uranium, enriched uranium or higher than natural uranium content in the samples,” he said in a statement.

Steiner said the UN team collected samples from Sept. 30 to Oct. 21 with one group focusing on munitions during the conflicts. Several samples were taken to three independent laboratories in Europe for tests, the statement said...

The Northeastern University School of Law National Lawyers Guild Chapter & the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights present

BEYOND APARTHEID IN ISRAEL/PALESTINE:
The Reality on the Ground & Lessons from South Africa

[Time and Location snipped out.] Northeastern University Law School...

With:
OMAR BARGHOUTI, Palestinian analyst, activist and writer;
FELICIA EAVES, Co-chair, Black Voices for Peace;
LEILA FARSAKH, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts at Boston;
ILAN PAPPE, Senior Lecturer of Political Science, Haifa University in Israel;
publications include The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006);
CHUCK TURNER, Boston City Councilor;
DAVID WILDMAN, United Methodist Church General Board of Global Ministries;
WILL YOUMANS, Attorney and divestment activist;
AND MANY MORE…

On July 9, 2005, the first anniversary of the International Court of Justice ruling on the illegality of Israel’s Wall, over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations issued a Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) to be directed against Israel until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights. This conference will examine why Israel’s policies towards Palestinians are apartheid policies. It will explore the role activists can play to respond to the Palestinian Call for BDS, and to help create the kind of pressure that will be needed to move the region “beyond apartheid.”...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush announced Wednesday that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is stepping down from his post.

"The timing is right for new leadership at the Pentagon," Bush said at the White House Wednesday afternoon.

Rumsfeld has been heavily criticized for his policies in Iraq, and exit polls taken during Tuesday's midterm election showed strong voter dissatisfaction -- 57 percent -- with the Iraq war.

"I recognize that many Americans voted last night to register their displeasure with the lack of progress being made" in Iraq, Bush said...

Bush said he has "a series of thoughtful conversations" with Rumsfeld about the defense secretary's resignation.

Former CIA chief Robert Gates,who headed that agency from 1991 until 1993, will be nominated to take over as defense secretary, Bush said Wednesday.

Gates is now president of Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas...

As Somerville went to the polls Tuesday, they were being asked to vote on two questions — 5 and 6 — sponsored by the Somerville Divestment Project.

Both were rejected.

Question 5 — a nonbinding resolution asking the federal government to support the right of all refugees, including Palestinian refugees, to return "home" — was defeated.

With all precincts reporting, Somerville voted:

Yes by 5,098 votes or 38.87 percent

No by 6,236 or 48 percent

On Question 6, a non-binding resolution seeking divestment from Israel and all those supplying military equipment to Israel, Somerville also said no.

With all 21 precincts reporting, Somerville said:

Yes by 3,522 or 27 percent

No 7,735 or 59 percent.

This is representative of understandable frustration and satisfying to the true-believers. As one Lamont commenter notes:

...I think I can safely say on behalf of the peanut gallery that this ad very nicely sums up our intense frustration with Joe Lieberman.

But the primaries are over and Lamont already won. He needs to do more than appeal to the base. I'm not sure that an ad like this really appeals to that vast swath of voters one needs to win a general election, where loyalty to party politics is probably not a great selling point. Advantage Lieberman for his blackboard ad and current "I'm above political parties" posture.

...He has no intention of withdrawing Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Instead, he wants to keep them while, "in return", redrawing Israel's border to eject thousands of Israeli Arabs from the country.

"Minorities are the biggest problem in the world," he said in his soft, Russian-accented English. Asked if Israeli citizens of Arab descent should be forced out through territorial redistribution, he said: "I think separation between two nations is the best solution. Cyprus is the best model. Before 1974, the Greeks and Turks lived together and there were frictions and bloodshed and terror.

"After 1974, they constituted all Turks on one part of the island, all Greeks on the other part of the island and there is stability and security."

When it was pointed out that in Cyprus thousands were forcibly driven from their homes, he replied: "Yes, but the final result was better."

Later, an aide to Mr Lieberman tried to flesh out his remarks. "Israeli Arabs don't have to go," he said. "But if they stay they have to take an oath of allegiance to Israel as a Jewish Zionist state."...

...Q: This is completely up to you. Please use this opportunity to tell us anything and everything you would like readers to know about your experiences in Iraq. Unlike newspaper journalists, I have virtually unlimited space, so please take as much time to tell us what you think the American people should know.

SSG Oliver: First, I want to thank everyone that supports our troops. This is by far the most important thing. Second, I wish that people back home could see everything that happens here, not just the gruesome stories of a war torn country. There is so much more to everything that the Coalition is doing in this country that goes unnoticed. Things such as seeing Soldiers interacting with the local children, giving them school supplies, toys and even sharing their candy and whatever other things the Soldiers have. I cannot remember when the press ran a story about U.S Soldiers establishing an aid station out in a community that allowed many Iraqis to receive medical attention that they would have otherwise not received. The media needs to rethink the coverage and produce a balance of both the good and bad, and maybe then the world will not think that this is a completely war ravaged country...

Following are excerpts from a lecture by Sheik Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi, which aired on Qatar TV on October 28, 2006.

Sheik Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi: Female masturbation is more risky than male masturbation. Male masturbation is not as risky. Sometimes women insert finger, and some women insert objects that may be risky, especially since the hymen is very sensitive, and any playing with it may tear it. This might expose the woman to accusations. She may tell them this or that, but they will not believe her. They will think she must have had forbidden relations with some guys. This way, a person exposes himself to accusations of fornication, a woman might be accused of fornication. She will bring disgrace upon herself and her family. This will be a disaster, and some relatives might kill her. Some people do not stop at the boundaries of religious law. Driven by jealousy and rage, they might commit a crime and kill the girl. Obviously, killing her is forbidden and is a grave sin. Even if she did fornicate, she does not deserve to be killed. At most, she should be flogged, if she confesses four times, or if there were witnesses. Therefore, I do not advise the girls ever to resort to this. A girl must be patient. The thing that tempts such girls, I am sad to say, is that they teach one another. One says to the other: "I did this and that," or "I saw a film, in which they did this and that. " Some TV channels, especially European ones, show outrageous sexual things, which are unacceptable by our standards, our moral values, and religious law. These things are rejected. These scandalous, nude films... A girl might learn things from these people. A Muslim girl must commit herself to what her God decreed. She must take care of herself, fast, pray, be God fearing, keep herself busy. She can read a useful book, prepare her homework, join a charity, and spend her time doing things that are useful to her in this world and the world to come, instead of thinking about satisfying her urges, especially in a manner forbidden by religious law.

Here is a short audio recording made at the Wheels of Justice event this past Saturday in Somerville. This is basically a very short series of audio "pull quotes" featuring Ron Francis. First we hear him bragging about forcing the Somerville Aldermen to have a meeting on their behest (this is the latest thing the SDP is using to pester people with...if you get something like 50 signatures on a petition, you can force the Aldermen to meet. The meeting will be the 14th at Somerville City Hall. The Aldermen are not pleased)...then he talks about the High School business and laments that the Zionist Lobby was successful in getting the appearance cancelled. Finally, he laments the fact that the reason the Palestinian cause doesn't get more traction is that "the opposition" controls all the centers of power in this country.

Here is the audio (it's only about 3 minutes).

He's a disarmingly gentle and courteous man. But he's determined to tell a complacent North America what he knows about fundamentalist Muslim imperialism.

"Yes, 'imperialism,' " he tells me. "The deliberate and determined expansion of militant Islam and its attempt to triumph not only in the Islamic world but in Europe and North America. Pure ideology. Muslim terrorists kill and slaughter not because of what they experience but because of what they believe."

Hamid drank in the message of Jihadism while at medical school in Cairo, and devoted himself to the cause. His group began meeting in a small room. Then a larger one. Then a Mosque reserved for followers of al-Zawahiri. By the time Hamid left the movement, its members were intimidating other students who were unsympathetic.

He is now 45 years old, and has had many years to reflect on why he was willing to die and kill for his religion. "The first thing you have to understand is that it has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with poverty or lack of education," he says. "I was from a middle-class family and my parents were not religious. Hardly anyone in the movement at university came from a background that was different from mine.

"I've heard this poverty nonsense time and time again from Western apologists for Islam, most of them not Muslim by the way. There are millions of passive supporters of terror who may be poor and needy but most of those who do the killing are wealthy, privileged, educated and free. If it were about poverty, ask yourself why it is middle-class Muslims -- and never poor Christians -- who become suicide bombers in Palestine."...

Schools are supposed to be places where children receive their educations. They are not indoctrination camps.

But a small group of teachers tried to turn Andover High into one with their attempt to bring a radical pro-Palestinian group in to lecture students. School leaders, primarily high school Principal Peter Anderson, were right to stop it.

Six teachers, among them physics teacher Ron Francis and social studies teacher Tom Meyers, who is also the president of the teachers union, invited members of the "Wheels of Justice" group to speak to students at the high school. The Wisconsin-based group travels the country in a bus offering, according to its Web site, "nonviolent education and action against war and occupation in Iraq and Palestine for justice and universal human rights."

Rabbi Robert S. Goldstein of Andover's Temple Emanuel objected to the group's appearance at the school saying Wheels of Justice is an "extremist" group whose messages "border on propaganda."

From our own experience, the rabbi's views are accurate. In a 2004 meeting with the paper's editorial board, members of Wheels of Justice were uninterested in discussion or dialogue. They were here to deliver a stern lecture on the evils of the United States and Israel.

An anti-Israel group has managed to put a question calling for sale of Israeli-related investments on the ballot in Somerville again this year. Even though this time it is non-binding and framed as an instruction to the state representative on how to vote on such a resolution for all state entities, the idea is still appalling.

The Somerville Divestment Project also has yet another non-binding resolution on the ballot, again cast as an instruction to the state rep, this time to vote for a non-binding resolution urging the federal government “to support the right of all refugees, including Palestinian refugees, to return to their land of origin.”

This is a dreadful idea too. The return of the 1948 refugees and their descendants, about 3 million people, would swamp the Jewish state. Those who support this proposal surely know that.

Two years ago Mayor Joe Curtatone was eloquent in opposition to an unsuccessful mandatory divestment resolution aimed at the city government. He has not changed his mind.

“They do nothing to promote real dialogue, peace or justice either here in Somerville or in the Middle East,” Curtatone said. “They represent a wasteful and inappropriate use of the ballot initiative system.”

Well put. These questions should be defeated.

...I've never liked the woman -- and not because of her figure or sexual preferences. She holds incredibly sophomoric lefty views that most of us shook off soon after college -- and yet we're all expected to treat her with pious kid gloves because she robotically spouts what pathetically passes for idealism...

Yeah, no worse than calling the Margolis brothers a couple of short Jews. It's true, right?

Thanks to the efforts of Ron Francis, an Andover High physics teacher, and six of the School's history teachers, students will be have the rare opportunity of listening to the Leftist, anti-American, anti-Israel view of the "Wheels of Justice" organization, apologists for the Palestinian cause who preach to students that terrorism, the random murder of civilians in the resistance effort, is a justifiable tool in the Palestinian effort of self-determination against the Colonial settler "project" -- not State -- of Israel.

There was some controversy at the end of October when Andover High's principal, alerted to the actual nature and content of the Wheels of Justice traveling bus tour, temporarily postponed the visit until other speakers, offering a counterbalance to the dialogue, could be found. Tom Meyers, president of the teacher's union and an outspoken supporter of Mr. Francis and his views, was "shocked, shocked" by the School's decision to exclude the lecturers and limit someone's First Amendment rights, although it is not entirely clear exactly whose rights were being denied. The Constitution protects an individual's right to express their views, no matter how reprehensible, in what Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes termed the broad, public "marketplace of ideas," but nowhere is it incumbent on any institution, and certainly not public schools, to be forced to sponsor, or provide a public platform for, the ravings of any outside individual, merely because that individual has a message he or she is eager to express...

...what is most notable about the court's ruling against Karsenty is that such a matter has come before the courts at all. It should be recalled that neither Charles Enderlin, nor, needless to say, the France2 executives in Paris, were present in Netzarim to witness the events at issue. They are thus no more in a position definitively to "affirm" that the scene was authentic than the Mena and its supporters are in a position definitively to affirm that it was staged. In both cases, we are dealing with just more or less plausible hypotheses. In a free society, such controversies are the stuff of public debate: with individuals being at liberty to form -- and express -- their convictions as they see fit. In France in 2006, this is evidently not the case....

Hezbollah is asking "a price" for information about whether two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by the militant group are still alive, Britain's U.N. ambassador said Thursday.

Emyr Jones Parry's comment comes two days after Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah revealed that "serious negotiations" were taking place over the soldiers, whose capture provoked a 34-day war between Hezbollah and Israel.

"They're asking a price for proof of life," Jones Parry said Thursday.

He gave no details on what he meant by "price."

Nasrallah said in an interview on his group's television channel Al-Manar that a negotiator appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan _ who has not been publicly identified _ had been mediating between Hezbollah and Israeli officials...

THE SPECTRE of a nuclear race in the Middle East was raised yesterday when six Arab states announced that they were embarking on programmes to master atomic technology.

The move, which follows the failure by the West to curb Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, could see a rapid spread of nuclear reactors in one of the world’s most unstable regions, stretching from the Gulf to the Levant and into North Africa.

The countries involved were named by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. Tunisia and the UAE have also shown interest.

All want to build civilian nuclear energy programmes, as they are permitted to under international law. But the sudden rush to nuclear power has raised suspicions that the real intention is to acquire nuclear technology which could be used for the first Arab atomic bomb.

“Some Middle East states, including Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Saudi Arabia, have shown initial interest [in using] nuclear power primarily for desalination purposes,” Tomihiro Taniguch, the deputy director-general of the IAEA, told the business weekly Middle East Economic Digest. He said that they had held preliminary discussions with the governments and that the IAEA’s technical advisory programme would be offered to them to help with studies into creating power plants.

Mark Fitzpatrick, an expert on nuclear proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that it was clear that the sudden drive for nuclear expertise was to provide the Arabs with a “security hedge”.

“If Iran was not on the path to a nuclear weapons capability you would probably not see this sudden rush [in the Arab world],” he said.

The announcement by the six nations is a stunning reversal of policy in the Arab world, which had until recently been pressing for a nuclear free Middle East, where only Israel has nuclear weapons...

[h/t: Adam Holland]

Cairo, 2 Nov. (AKI) - Ruling Palestinian Islamist group Hamas is demanding that Israel free 300-400 Palestinian women and minors before the release of Israeli solider Gilat Shalit - held by Hamas-linked militants for over four months - a senior Hamas official told pan-Arab daily al-Hayat. Imad al-Alami, head of a Hamas delegation currently in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, to discuss the prisoner swap, said that only once this stage is completed will Hamas release Shalit in exchange for an additional 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

The demand represents a toughening of the group's demands and appears to create new obstacles for securing a deal on Shalit's release. It also contradicts comments on Wednesday by senior officials involved in talks to free Shalit that signficant progress had been made in negotations in Cairo between Hamas representatives and an Egyptian team headed by intelligence chief General Omar Suleiman.

East Jerusalem newspaper al-Quds also reported on Wednesday that progress had been made, saying Shalit would be released in exchange for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. A total 640 Palestinian prisoners would be freed from Israeli jails - including women and children - less than 48 hours after the transfer of Shalit to the Egyptian authorities. An additional 630 prisoners - some of whom have been detained for over 20 years- would be freed one to two months later, according to al-Quds.

...Sarah Wunsch, a staff attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts, wrote a letter to the School Department's lawyer Friday, saying Andover High students "should not be shielded from what some deem to be controversial views." Meyers distributed the letter to teachers yesterday morning...

...The Wheels of Justice, a group consisting of staunch critics of the U.S. and Israeli governments, were invited by six social studies teachers at the school to speak to 200 students about their experiences in Iraq, the West Bank and Gaza, according to Thomas Meyers, the president of the Andover Education Association and a social studies teacher at the school.

Through an attorney who spoke first to the Advocate, Principal Peter Anderson said that he did not cancel the event, but instead asked the Wheels of Justice to reschedule since he did not feel he had enough time to provide a balanced forum, according to Leonard H. Kesten, an attorney at Brody, Hardoon, Perkins & Kesten, LLP, in Boston. Kesten is representing the school committee and speaking on behalf of the principal and the superintendent.

“[The Wheels of Justice] was not canceled,” said Kesten. “The principal was not familiar with the group and he wanted to gather more information because quite a few concerns had been raised about the presentation. The principal offered to reschedule but the Wheels of Justice said it wasn’t possible.”...

An exclusive one hour special of Obsession will be aired on prime time this weekend on the Fox News Channel. Scheduled for Saturday night at 8 PM, 1 AM, and 5 AM, and Sunday at 4 PM and 10 PM EST, Director Wayne Kopping will be interviewed alongside a 40-minute version of the film.

BEIT HANUN, Gaza Strip (AFP) - Palestinian mothers and wives braved [you gotta be kidding] Israeli helicopter gunships to rescue 15 fighters besieged in a northern Gaza mosque, using their heavily veiled bodies as human shields.

"We risked our lives to free our sons," said Um Mohammed, a woman in her 40s, after the daring rescue that followed protests against a bloody Israeli operation in the northern Gaza Strip that has killed 24 Palestinians.

Militants from various armed groups, including Hamas, had been besieged in the al-Nasr mosque since Thursday, seeking protection from Operation Autumn Clouds, one of the biggest Israeli incursions in Gaza for the past four months.

Braving gunfire and tanks, around 400 women and other demonstrators gathered to protest [this is a protest? Protests usually involve carrying placards, not rescuing terrorists.] against the Israelis at one of the entrances to the town. Three of them, one a woman, were killed and another 25 people were wounded, medics said.

Around 200 women then left the main protest to march on and enter the mosque around 700 metres (yards) away to collect the gunmen, before walking out again, cloaking the fighters in the middle of their heavily veiled ranks. [They are now what's colloquially known as "targets".]

None of the gunmen could be seen amid the dozens of women, who were dressed for the most part from head to toe in black in the religiously conservative Gaza Strip.

Throughout the rescue bid, Israeli helicopter gunships opened fire -- not specifically at the women, but intending to scare them and separate their ranks, but without success. Two women were wounded, medics said.

A source in Hamas confirmed that its armed wing had orchestrated what he called a "complex security operation" to secure the release of the besieged fighters.

The women and fighters they were protecting ran as far as Izbat Beit Hanun, an area northwest of the town not being occupied by Israeli army.

"Hundreds of us entered the mosque and surrounded the resistance fighters to protect them," said one of the women, 21-year-old Nidaa al-Radih.

One rescued fighter was triumphant. "We are free, we are free!" he shouted before running off to safety...

...Some 60 gunmen were reported to have fortified themselves inside the mosque late Thursday after the IDF began encircling the town as part of the operation to stop the launching of Qassam rockets from the area. Palestinian sources reported that the gunmen fired at the troops from within the windows of the mosque and that the IDF responded with stun grenades and teargas to try to force the gunmen to surrender...

...Military sources say that there were large amounts of arms inside the mosque, and that among the gunmen were several senior wanted Palestinians who headed the Qassam rocket infrastructure in northern Gaza...

...Israeli military spokeswoman Avital Leibovich said: "We saw crowds of women. Behind the women hid some of the militants. Some of them were even dressed up as women: we have footage. [Which happens to be how Arafat escaped Beirut way back when.]

"Unfortunately because the militants shot at our forces, sometimes we had to respond."...

...Those women were not innocent bystanders nor human shields caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Human shields implies that they were reluctanly dragged in. They were willing terrorist helpers. They ran to protect terrorists in order that these terrorists could commit more killings. Those women are no different to those who help transport terrorists or those who hide terrorists in their home. They're responsible for any death and destruction the terrorists cause.

That the terrorists were willing to disguise themselves as women to escape, knowing full well if Israeli troops spotted them all the women would be endagered, shows just how much the terrorists care about their "civilians."

Project Valour-IT
(Voice-Activated Laptops for OUR Injured Troops)
In memory of SFC William V. Ziegenfuss

Every cent raised for Project Valour-IT goes directly to the purchase and shipment of voice-activated laptops for wounded servicemembers. As of October 2006, Valour-IT has distributed nearly 600 laptops to severely wounded Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines across the country.

During its initial phase, Valour-IT created "libraries" of laptops equipped with voice-controlled software for the severely wounded staying at major military medical centers. In many cases a laptop was provided to a wounded hero for permanent use.

Valour-IT is continuing to accept donations of any amount to supply the "libraries" of laptops at major medical centers and gifts to individuals, but has also added the option of an individual or organization directly sponsoring a wounded soldier by completely funding the cost of a laptop and continuing to provide him or her with personal support and encouragement throughout recovery. This has proved to be an excellent project for churches, groups of coworkers or friends, and members of community organizations such Boy Scouts...

Question 5: Support the right of return for all refugees - No

Cloaking the dissolution of the state of Israel in the clothing of human rights is just deceitful. If you want a policy debate, so be it, but let us at least acknowledge that there is more to the problems in the Middle East than can be solved by nonbinding ballot questions.

Question 6: Divest from Israel, those supplying military equipment to Israel - No

Once again, this a more complicated question than suggesting we shouldn't fund military equipment in Israel. On one hand, just like when the divestment of retired city employee pensions was at issue, the retirement boards managing this money are duty-bound to find good investments for its charges. If that is General Electric which makes MRI beds for hospitals as well as electronics that could be used elsewhere, so be it. On the other, this question is a simplification of an issue in the Middle East. Go ahead and have a policy debate, but we fear there is more lurking in this issue than an anti-war stance. Why, for instance, are we not being asked to question investment in any other hot spot?

A vicious battle is again erupting in Somerville involving a not-so-local issue: the Middle East.

Unlike a lot of the other ballot questions next Tuesday, question 5 - a nonbinding resolution asking the federal government to support the right of all refugees, including Palestinian refugees, to return "home" - will have Somervillians grappling at an issue they’ve seen before.

Two years ago, members of the Somerville Divestment Project tried unsuccessfully to get the city’s retirement board to stop investing in companies that do business with Israel...

...Haber, Brociner and others have accused the Somerville Divestment Project members of being anti-Israel and even of anti-Semitism, something members deny.

"That term sucks," said Bob Cable, a divestment and right-of-return proponent. "Some of our supporters are Jewish. The Jews, Arabs and Christians could live peacefully. I have great respect for Jews as intellectuals, as social justice activists and baseball players. I would actually prefer the Jews in Israel live in the U.S." [Ah, the casual call for ethnic cleansing of the pro-divestment folk...]

Cable touted the support of Neturei Karta, a group of anti-Zionist Orthodox rabbis based in New York. But on the other side, politicians such as Mayor Joe Curtatone have not taken lightly to the divestment group’s initiative.

"They do nothing to promote real dialogue, peace or justice either here in Somerville or in the Middle East," Curtatone said recently. "They represent a wasteful and inappropriate use of the ballot initiative system, and I strongly oppose them."...

A HALF-DOZEN snapshots from the global jihad:

Australia: Australia's foremost Muslim cleric triggers an uproar when he likens women who don't wear an Islamic headscarf to "uncovered meat" and blames them for attracting sexual predators. "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or the park . . . and the cats come and eat it," says Sheik Taj al-Din Hilali, "whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat? If [the woman] was in her room, in her home, in her headscarf, no problem would have occurred."

Afghanistan: The kidnappers of Italian photojournalist Gabriele Torsello threaten to murder him unless Abdul Rahman, an Afghan Christian convert, is returned to Afghanistan and handed over to an Islamic court. Rahman lives in Italy, which granted him asylum earlier this year, when he faced the death penalty under Afghanistan's sharia law for converting from Islam to Christianity.

Iran: The president of Iran calls Israel "a group of terrorists" and threatens to harm any country that supports the Jewish state. "This is an ultimatum," warns Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for the elmination of Israel and the United States. "Don't complain tomorrow." Days later, the deputy director of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization confirms another stride forward for the country's illicit nuclear program: With the injection of gas into a second cascade of centrifuges, Iran has doubled its uranium-enrichment capacity.

Thailand: Islamist terrorists bomb a column of Buddhist monks as they collect offerings of food in Narathiwat, a city in southern Thailand. One person is killed; 12 are injured. The attack is the latest in a bloody week that has included multiple shootings and another fatal bombing.

France: Another Muslim intifadah rages in France...