March 2007 Archives

Taking hostages is a "dispute"? Why not call it what it is... an act of aggression.

But that's just semantics I guess. The actual content of the statement is much worse and, again, blames the U.S. because we don't have diplomatic relations with Iran...

...Shanta... since you supposedly developed such a great relationship with the theocrats in Iran, why not press the religious leaders to free the hostages?

1) Your trip was a waste of time and money. The good will that you claim was exchanged was a fallacy and you are a dupe. You put on a good show to make it look like the Iranian leaders are reasonable people and to make U.S. leaders look like idiots for not engaging in the same mindless discussion that you participated in. The Iranian leaders don't respect you or the NCC - you are simply a convenient prop in their charade...

Newscaster: The security forces discovered and seized 553 kg of narcotics, in several operations. These operations were carried out on the following routes: Jiroft, Kahnouj, Kahoorestan, Belar, Hormozgan, the Zahdan-Shiraz road, in Jermanshah Province, and the Ahwaz-Iranshahr and Kahnouj-Islamabad roads. Five hundred and fifty-two kg of narcotics were discovered and seized in these operations. The security forces also discovered and seized 7,500 syringes for drug use, 12,337 crates of alcohol, one Kalashnikov rifle, three magazines, and 30 bullets.

Kerry, D-Mass., had criticized Fox because of a $50,000 contribution that Fox made in 2004 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Many Democrats blame the group for sinking Kerry's presidential hopes that year after it aired a series of controversial ads that impugned Kerry's military record in the Vietnam War.

“Sam Fox had every opportunity to disavow the politics of personal destruction and to embrace the truth,” Kerry said Wednesday. “He chose not to. The White House made the right decision to withdraw the nomination. I hope this signals a new day in political discourse.”

But one of Fox's strongest backers, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., said it was “disappointing that a capable and qualified candidate with bipartisan support has become a victim of a political vendetta.”...

...Fox, 77, of St. Louis, is national chairman of the Jewish Republican Coalition and has donated well over $1 million to Republican candidates and causes since the 1990s, according to Federal Election Commission records. He was deemed a “ranger” by President Bush's campaign for helping to raise at least $200,000.

Kerry grilled Fox about the Swift Boat contribution during the Feb. 27 hearing, asking him why he gave money to a group that was “smearing and spreading lies” and had been condemned by members of both political parties.

Fox replied that he considers Kerry a hero. But he refused to call the contribution a mistake.

The unique demand to recognize Israel's "right", not merely its "existence," reflects the general understanding among students of history that the core of the conflict and its resulting sufferings lies not in resource or border disputes, but in a deep ideological resistance by Palestinian Arabs to accommodate any form of a Jewish homeland in any part of Palestine since the end of World War I, accompanied by a persistent denial of any historical connection between the Jewish people and their national birthplace. For the record, Jews have accepted Palestinian Arabs as equally indigenous to the land and equally entitled to independent sovereignty, while Palestinian Arabs, and their Arab neighbors, have rejected any two-state solution offered since the 1920's, including the Peel Commission recommendation of 1937, the United Nations' 1947 decision, and the Camp David offer in 2000.

Noting that the first and second rejections took place prior to the emergence of the refugee problem, and that the territories rejected in those cases were vastly broader than the West Bank and Gaza, it is only reasonable to assume that a deeper, ideological resistance propels Arab hostility toward Israel, a resistance that transcends borders or refugee problems...

``These are the best microprocessors we've ever designed, the best microprocessors we've ever built,'' Otellini told the audience. ``This is not just incremental change; it's a revolutionary leap.''

Otellini's pronouncement relegated to obsolescence Intel's Pentium chip, which once powered more than 80 percent of the world's personal computers. That wasn't the only surprise last July.

A camera zoomed in on engineers in lab coats in Haifa, Israel. The video revealed that the chip Intel is counting on to recover from a battering by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. wasn't invented in Silicon Valley. Instead, Intel is betting on a group of Israeli mavericks and a design bureau 7,400 miles (11,900 kilometers) away.

Shmuel Eden, former head of the Israel Development Center where the new Core 2 Duo was created, says he's fed up with the perception that Intel's prowess is fading...

... Frohman persuaded Grove to sign off on a center in Israel in 1974 -- and went on to become general manager of Intel Israel until he retired in 2001. He pushed for a location near Technion to take advantage of a supply of engineers and the cachet of the university, which Albert Einstein helped found in 1924.

The outpost put itself on the map in 1981 when the Israelis created a cheaper version of Intel's 8086 processor, renamed the 8088. In 1981, IBM chose the chip to power its first personal computer...

...Today, Israel has more scientists and engineers, proportional to its population, than any other country -- 145 for every 10,000 people compared with 85 per 10,000 in the U.S., according to Israel21C, a nonprofit organization aimed at teaching Americans about Israel...

Z. told Haaretz he believed the worst was yet to come. "Pretty soon there will be militants in each and every junction. Everybody knows who's holding Alan Johnston, the BBC correspondent kidnapped two weeks ago. It's a large family, and they're after money. Instead of surrounding the premises and acting against them, the security forces are negotiating with them," he complains. "Breaking in their will cost lives, but there's no alternative. You have to move in with force to restore order."

What Z. doesn't say is that all the large organizations, Fatah included, are trying to dissuade the renowned family from joining the rival faction. Foreign journalists who have been kidnapped and then released by the family say they were treated in an especially demeaning manner. They go on to say that the Iraqi influence was obvious in the clothing of their captors, their language and their methods of handling prisoners, including forced conversions to Islam...

Islamist political groups are incredibly popular in the Middle East, and will remain so for some time. As the oldest of these groups, the Brotherhood has continuing ties to other regional Islamist parties and movements. The United States currently lacks access to some of these Islamist organizations. Engaging with the Brotherhood, therefore, would open up new channels of communication with Islamist groups. It would also signal that the United States is open to talking with all groups that are committed to peaceful political participation...

...For Muslims, obtaining interest-free (sharia-compliant) funding is a religious mandate. Therefore, traditional funding has not been an option. With donations trickling to a halt because of unscrupulous charges of ties to radicalism by groups in opposition to the mosque, the society was compelled to seek assistance funding the partially built structure...

ISB has asked groups to sign on to the amicus brief. They asked Workmen's Circle to sign on. But Workmen's Circle decided to initiate the petition instead. Since ISB - the aggrieved party in this case - has always been open to dialog, they have no problem with the petition. But still it is more supportive of the ISB to support their lawsuit.

"Palestinian partisans that blow themselves up in an attack on Zionist colonizers are heroes, and all decent human beings should support them. Zionist colonizers, their racist ethnic Ashkenazi supporters throughout the world, and non-Ashkenazi supporters of Zionism are not only enemies of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims but of all decent human beings."

I agree with the second sentence on the whole, though you seem a bit obsessed about "racist ethnic Ashkenazim". (But you told the list you are of Ashkenazi origin yourself. So that's all right then.) I profoundly disagree with the first sentence. Suicide bombings are a tragedy for all concerned. And it is not at all clear who you mean by "Zionist colonizers": I and other list members suspected you were including Israeli civilians as legitimate targets. Far from banning you for opposing Zionism, I banned you for off-topic and offensive postings which appeared to condone what amounts to terrorism by any definition of that term.

Mohamed Hadfi, 31, tore out his 23-year-old wife Samira Bari's eyes following a heated argument in their apartment in the southern French city of Nimes in July 2003 after she refused to have sex with him.

Ms Bari, who had demanded a divorce before the attack, was permanently blinded.

Hadfi, a Moroccan, initially fled to Germany. He was finally arrested and sent back to France, where he was indicted for "acts of torture and barbarity leading to a permanent disability".

Prosecutor Dominique Tourette demanded that Hadfi be sentenced to 30 years in prison, two thirds of which must be served in full, calling the defendant a "diabolic torturer".

Once his sentence is served, Hadfi will be deported and barred from ever returning to France.

His lawyer Jean-Pierre Cabanes meanwhile insisted there were extenuating circumstances.

"This is the result of a marriage that was arranged, not chosen," he said, pointing to the gulf separating his client, who came from southern Morocco, and his young wife, who had grown up in France.

Mr Cabanes begged the jury for leniency, claiming his client's action "appeared to stem from a mental illness."

Maybe I would have seen that myself, but the French story especially hit home for me, since last year I was in love with a woman born in Pakistan, who was blind since birth.

But even though she hates Islam, and was raised in the USA, she was afraid to be seen in a Chucky Cheese, in New Jersey, with me and my 7 year old son! (Her Father is devout Muslim, and even dating a non-Muslim is forbidden for women...)

The last time I saw her, she said she could not marry me, even though she had said she wanted to, and that "they are watching me more closely than ever".

I was reading Spencer and LGF for years prior to that, but was shocked to see it up close and personal.

Since then, I started going to a local Mosque (run by a prominent member of a well-known "mainstream" Muslim group)...

The Imam's own assistant told me, that he already has women he wants to introduce me to, after I finish "reverting".

Women who are intelligent, and very obedient... (I am not even exaggerating. He was really trying to sell Islam to me in this way, because the Koran commands women to be obedient to the husband!)

When I expressed concern for the soul of the blind girl (who is not helpless - she has a Master's
Degree), the Imam's assistant told me - bluntly - that in cases like that, the woman is introduced to someone who tells her he is not really religious.

It is like in your article:

MAS, ISB, ICB, ICNE

Who's vision of Islam is dominating the Boston Muslim Community?

...at the Islamic Center of Burlington:

"Tired of the lack of unity among Boston’s Muslims? Finding it hard to get married? Feeling lost and think no one else cares? Teen Troubles?"

"Your local leaders tacke the hot topics facing your community."

Miss Kelly wrote:

One wonders how much this leadership and ideology reflects "ordinary" Muslims in Massachusetts. Or are they self-appointed leaders who simply saw the opportunity to take over and implement their conservative brand of Islamic thinking? Pious or power-hungry?

...Well, at a mosque here in the USA, I am learning how easy it is to get married, if you are a Muslim... and how close we are to the Pakistan and Egypt we read about in news stories...

...these are quotes from her emails - a prisoner of Islam, who grew up in it, in our USA:

..."I repeat, I do not believe in the teachings of Islam and never will. But I can't change the family into which I was born and I can't change my background."

"I need a good cry but I can't because I'm at work. I just wish I could run away with you like so many people do. But that's not so easy in the real world, right? I wish God would just give us the wisdom to fix this so we could spend our life together."

What the release didn't mention, but the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's Katherine Kersten discovered in the complaint, is that CAIR and the imams are also targeting as-yet unnamed "John Does" -- the "passengers . . . who contacted US Airways to report the alleged 'suspicious' behavior of Plaintiffs." That behavior reportedly included praying ostentatiously near the gate, refusing to take their assigned seats after boarding, and asking for unnecessary seat-belt extenders that could be used as weapons.

"The imams' attempt to bully ordinary passengers marks an alarming new front in the war on airline security," Kersten writes. "Average folks, 'John Does' like you and me . . . are our 'first responders' against terrorism. But the imams' suit may frighten such individuals into silence ."

Over the years, CAIR and other Islamist groups have gotten much mileage out of such strong-arm tactics . But there is good news: Some Americans are pushing back. And even better news: Some of the push-back is coming from Muslims who forcefully reject the Islamist project.

One of the most impressive of these anti-Islamist moderates is Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, an Arizona physician, US Navy veteran, and devout Sunni Muslim. In 2003 he founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy to "stand against the religious fanatics who exploit the religion of Islam for a nihilistic, anti-American, anti-Western war." On the day that CAIR and the imams trumpeted their lawsuit, Jasser and AIFD issued a statement supporting US Airways and denouncing the litigation as "wrong for American Muslims, wrong for American security, and wrong for American freedoms." Last week Jasser went further: He offered to raise money for the legal defense of any passengers sued by the imams...

This is believed, by both sources, to be a record number of prisoners tied to Iran. Virtually all were captured in the past two months.

This week’s seizure of 15 British sailors by Iran in the contested waters of the Shattab al-Arab, the ship channel that divides Iraq and Iran, may have been payback for the capture of record number of Iranian operatives inside Iraq. “It may be a bargaining chip,” one diplomatic source said.

The intelligence community is still debating whether the unlawful detainment of British sailors was ordered by Iran’s government or was presented to it as a fait accompli by relatively low-level Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers.

The roughly 300 prisoners held in Iraq—the number grows frequently—are either Iranian nationals or Shiites recruited from neighboring countries that are employed one of its almost two dozen intelligence or paramilitary services.

The record haul of Iran-linked prisoners may not be a sign of Iran’s increasing involvement in Iraq. The Islamic Republic’s participation in the Iraq war, which includes funding, arming and training both Shiite and Sunni militias, has been known to be significant for some time.

More likely, the large number of Iran-linked prisoners reflects a change in tactics following the arrival of Multinational Force Iraq commander Army Gen. David H. Petraeus. Previously, Iranians and other foreigners could not be picked up without a provable connection to terrorism. Now, American and allied forces are encouraged to seize militants based on a reasonable suspicion of involvement in insurgent attacks. This is consistent with Iraqi law.

The number of bombings associated with Iran-backed groups seems to be declining, although both sources cautioned it is too soon to be sure.

The Pentagon received “considerable pressure” from officials in the State department and CIA to release some or all of the Iran-linked prisoners to facilitate discussions between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iranian officials. Apparently, Gen. Petraeus sharply disagreed, saying that he intends to hold the prisoners “until they run out of information or we run out of food,” according to our sources who heard these remarks through channels...

Speaking to the 15-member council in measured tones after the vote, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said, "Iran presents no threat to international peace and security and therefore falls outside the council's charter mandate."...

..."While we hope that Iran complies with this resolution ... the United States is fully prepared to take additional measures in 60 days should Iran choose another course."

China's U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, said China supports Iran's right to a peaceful nuclear energy program, but fully backed the resolution.

"We support the Security Council in taking further and appropriate actions to urge the Iranian side to suspend enrichment-related activities, in order to bring the process back to the negotiation track," Wang said.

The new measures follow a resolution adopted December 23 that prohibited trade with Iran in nuclear materials and ballistic missiles. It also froze assets of individuals and institutions involved in Tehran's atomic programs.

The new embargo on Iranian weapons exports -- such as small arms and explosives -- is an attempt to put the squeeze on supplies to militants in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Iraq.

Nations and international banks are barred from making any new loans to Iran. The new penalties build on previous sanctions barring transfer of nuclear materials and know-how.

The latest sanctions, formulated last week by the five permanent members of the council -- the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France -- plus Germany, freeze the assets of 28 additional individuals and organizations involved in Iran's nuclear and missile programs. About a third of those are linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, an elite military corps.

The resolution also calls for a voluntary travel embargo on Iranian officials and Revolutionary Guard commanders...

The corporation, which has itself made extensive use of FOI requests in its journalism, is refusing to release papers about an internal inquiry into whether its reporting has been biased towards Palestine.

BBC chiefs have been accused of wasting thousands of pounds of licence fee payers money trying to cover-up the findings of the so called Balen Report into its journalism in the region, despite the fact that the corporation is funded by the British public.

The corporation is fighting a landmark High Court action, which starts next week, in a bid to prevent the public finding out what is in the review, which is believed to be critical of the BBC's coverage in the region.

BBC bosses have faced repeated claims that is coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been skewed by a pro-Palestianian bias.

The corporation famously came under fire after middle-east correspondent Barbara Plett revealed that she had cried at the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004.

The BBC's decision to carry on pursuing the case, despite the fact than the Information Tribunal said it should make the report public, has sparked fury as it flies in the face of claims by BBC chiefs that it is trying to make the corporation more open and transparent.

Politicians have branded the BBC's decision to carry on spending money, hiring the one of the country's top public law barrister in the process, as "absolutely indefensible".

They claim its publication is clearly in the public interest.

The BBC's determination to bury the report has led to speculation that the report was damning in its assessment of the BBC's coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict that the BBC wants to keep it under wraps at all costs.

Others believe that the BBC is using the case to test the law about how much protection it has got from making its editorial activities public and also because it fears that if it loses the case it will create a precedent.

Even the casual viewer of main stream media must have noticed an increase in anti-Semitic rhetoric over the past few years. Although much of the news we receive has been edited and scrubbed, the rise in both verbal and physical assaults on Jews is becoming more apparent. At this stage, most of the organized hate incidents in the United States have been verbal, such as during demonstrations, or written in publications and internet sites. Physical violence here have primarily been individual acts, such as the LAX shootings, and the Seattle murder of five women at the Jewish Federation; but European anti-Semitic activities are involving more and more physical assaults that are organized, pre planned, and carried out by groups of perpetrators.

Both France and Germany have experienced a marked increase in vandalism and desecration of Jewish sites over the past several years, in particular involving Temples and cemeteries. France, more than any other European country, is also dealing with, or rather failing to deal with, a rise in assaults on Jews. It has become such an issue that French Rabbis are discouraging members of their congregations from wearing any clothing or adornment that would readily identify them as Jews. The European Union created a commission to study this increase in anti-Semitic activity. It was so damning that the original report was buried, and only a brief edited version was released. Much of the violence was attributed to neo-Nazi skinheads in Germany, and the influx of Moslem immigrants in France. But the rhetoric being used in both European government and media, disguised as criticism of Israel or the Zionist movement, is in reality anti-Semitic.

"You can never be sure around here, but it looks like the pieces are all falling together, finally," Kevin Conway '09, who invited Finkelstein, said.

Finkelstein, a political science professor at DePaul University, was slated to speak next month until he lost the sponsorships of the newly renamed Students for a Democratic Society (formerly the Radical Student Alliance) and the Arab Culture Club two weeks ago.

Conway received $970 for the event, then co-sponsored by SDS and ACC, from the Union Finance Board several weeks ago. But when SDS announced that it would not sponsor the event any longer because Conway, a former member of the club, had invited Finkelstein without the club's consent, it became unclear whether Finkelstein would visit at all. Following SDS's announcement, ACC also pulled its support because, Farrah Bdour '07, ACC co-president, said they wouldn't sponsor the event on its own.

In order to receive F-Board funding, Conway needed club support.

The World Can't Wait club-which seeks to promote student activism, social and political awareness-will co-sponsor the event with ACC on its originally scheduled date, Tuesday, April 23 in the Rappaporte Treasure Hall, Conway said.

He added that Dr. Sara Roy, a senior research scholar at Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies, will introduce Finkelstein...

JudgeChrista Datz-Winter said in a recommendation earlier this year that both partners came from a "Moroccan cultural environment in which it is not uncommon for a man to exert a right of corporal punishment over his wife," according to the court. The woman is a German of Moroccan descent married to a Moroccan citizen.

The judge argued that her case was not one of exceptional hardship in which fast-track divorce proceedings would be justified. When the woman protested, Datz-Winter cited a passage from the Koran that reads in part, "men are in charge of women."

The judge was removed from the case on Wednesday and the Frankfurt administrative court said it was considering disciplinary action.

Court vice president Bernhard Olp said Thursday the judge "regrets that the impression arose that she approves of violence in marriage."...

The Marines were "engaged in routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters," the ministry said in a statement on Friday.

A U.S. military official who monitors the region told CNN the Marines stopped an Iranian ship suspected of smuggling automobiles, and boarded it for an inspection.

The British ministry's statement said the Marines "completed a successful inspection of a merchant ship when they and their two boats were surrounded and escorted by Iranian vessels into Iranian territorial waters."

The statement added, "We are urgently pursuing this matter with the Iranian authorities at the highest level and on the instructions of the Foreign Secretary, the Iranian ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office. The British Government is demanding the immediate and safe return of our people and equipment."

There was no immediate word from Tehran on the incident...

...Interviewer: "Mr. Farrakhan, are you still being accused of being antisemitic, and if that's so, by whom and why?"

Farrakhan: "Are you a Semite?"

Interviewer: "Yes, I'm Arab."

Farrakhan: "Am I against you? Am I against Muslims? No. Are the Jews that came out of Europe Semitic? Who are the Sephardic Jews? Are they Semitic? Am I against them? Who has segregated them and the Ethiopian Jews? Is it not the Europeans? The real antisemites are those who came out of Europe and settled in Palestine, and now they call themselves the true Jews, when in fact, they converted to Judaism...

...No Muslim Who Studies the Koran Would Bomb a Mosque - Where is the Hand of the Mossad and CIA?

Farrakhan: "It is anti-Islamic to bomb a mosque, so what Muslim who studies the Koran would bomb a mosque, whether he is Shi'ite, or Sunni, or Sufi, or Hanafi, or Hanbali? No Muslim would destroy even a synagogue, a monastery, or a church, much less bomb another mosque. Where is the hand of the Mossad in all of this? Where is the hand of the CIA in all of this? I didn’t mis-describe the administration of the United States. They are liars, and they are murderers, and they are guilty of heinous crimes, and they should be removed, for they have violated the constitution of the United States of America, and have violated the peoples of the world."

[...]

"Iran Should Not Be Denied Human Right" to "Atomic Knowledge"; If It "Believes in the Power of Allah, It Can't be Frightened by America"

Farrakhan: "Iran should not be denied the human right to knowledge. Atomic knowledge should be in the arsenal of knowledge of every nation, and if Iran wants to use atomic knowledge for peaceful purposes, she's in accord with international law. But the fear of America is Iran's attitude to Israel, and the cornerstone of America's foreign policy is the protection of Israel. So they don't want Iran to have atomic knowledge...

It is, of course, spurious formalism to defend Riefenstahl by separating politics from art since, as Steven Bach points out in “Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl,” few filmmakers have “so successfully commingled the two.” In his engaging biography, Bach puts the lie to Riefenstahl’s self-vindication and to the whitewashing campaign undertaken by sympathetic reviewers.

Using new primary sources, Bach proves that Riefenstahl was not compelled to make “Triumph of the Will,” as she maintained until her death in 2003. Rather, she specifically requested permission to direct the film that institutionalized the so-called “fascist aesthetic.” Furthermore, although Riefenstahl was adamant about the purely documentary nature of her work, Bach argues convincingly that “Triumph” is not a straightforward depiction of the 1934 Nuremberg Rally.

The famous call-and-response Labor Service sequence in which workers proudly state their hometowns (Q: “Where do you come from, comrade?” A: “I come from Friesland”) was carefully choreographed and rehearsed upward of 50 times. Hitler’s arrival by air lacks, in Bach’s words, “any objective authenticity”: After introductory titles proclaim the “rebirth of Germany,” a small plane glides through the sky and cloud banks drift apart as sunlight floods the screen.

Bach also puts to rest the notion that Riefenstahl knew nothing of the racial policies that led to the Final Solution. After Hitler invaded Poland, Riefenstahl obtained war-correspondent status and traveled to Konskie, where she witnessed the murder of unarmed Jewish civilians. In September 1942 she visited Maxglan, a Gypsy internment camp, and requisitioned 23 prisoners to serve as unpaid extras in “Tiefland,” an epic film financed by the Reich.

Riefenstahl, it seems clear, was not a virulent antisemite. As she mentioned whenever the opportunity arose, she had Jewish friends, colleagues and even, in her youth, a Jewish lover. Bach makes the case that Riefenstahl was not motivated by political or racist zeal. Rather, she glorified Hitler because she was an opportunist with no moral compass. It was her lifelong ambition to become a famous artist — and if cozying up to the Führer was her best chance at fame, then ethics be damned.

Former New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey repealed the post in July 2003 after Amiri Baraka wrote a poem suggesting that Israel had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Baraka, a native of Newark, N.J., had claimed his First Amendment rights were violated when he lost the post and its $10,000 honorarium.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 ruling, said the action was legislative and not political in nature and therefore qualified for immunity.

The move came after Baraka read the 60-stanza poem "Somebody Blew Up America" in public. It includes the lines: "Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed/Who told 4,000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers to stay home that day?/Why did Sharon stay away?"

Baraka refused to resign amid the uproar that followed. The governor and Legislature were barred from firing the poet laureate, so McGreevey eliminated the post...

The court said the cartoons published by the weekly Charlie Hebdo were covered by freedom of expression laws and did not constitute an attack on Islam in general but fundamentalists.

The cartoons, originally published in 2005 by a Danish daily, provoked violent protests in Asia, Africa and the Middle East that left 50 people dead. Several European publications reprinted them as an affirmation of free speech.

The public prosecutor had argued the cartoons were protected by freedom of speech and recommended that the case be dismissed.

With France's presidential election only a month away, the court case has been overshadowed by election politics. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative frontrunner, his centrist rival Francois Bayrou and Socialist party leader Francois Hollande have all spoken out in defense of the weekly.

While witnessing such violence, it might surprise Americans to know that an assistant professor at Barnard College, Nadia Abu El-Haj, has emerged as a leading academic agitator seeking to discredit the historic Jewish connection to Jerusalem and even to the land of Israel. In her volume Facts on the Ground, published by the University of Chicago Press in 1992, El-Haj surrenders herself to an unrestrained revision of Middle Eastern, Biblical, and Islamic history. Her outward intent is to transform the image of Israeli archeology into that of an ideological enterprise aimed at destroying Muslim heritage, while she blatantly seeks to obliterate Jewish heritage. Her underlying objective is to deny that Jews as a nation ever existed. Viewed without anti-Israel bias, El-Haj’s work appears about as reliable and legitimate as theories that space aliens created Stonehenge.

But in the politicized world of Middle East research, to be a crank is to be honored – as a “scholar” no less valuable than a rent-a-mob of stone-throwing street youths to the anti-Jewish cause “intellectualized” by another charlatan, the late Edward Said. And when bogus theory is provided with the seal of approval of Barnard and a dust jacket from the University of Chicago, the Israel-bashers have won a major victory. Prof. El-Haj can congratulate herself for introducing into the American academic environment the hallucinated claim that Jewish identity is a modern, nationalist, and Zionist-imperialist “construct” rather than a product of thousands of years of recorded history and religious tradition...

The Al Aqsa TV children's program shows a child actress playing the daughter, watching Riyashi preparing the bomb and asking her mother, "Mommy, what are you carrying in your arms instead of me? A toy or a present for me?" She later sees a TV news story about her mother's suicide mission and death, and realizes her mother had been carrying a bomb.

"Only now, I know what was more precious than us . . . " she sings of the bomb.

Although she misses her mother, she vows to follow in her footsteps. The video ends as she opens her mother's drawer and picks up the sticks of explosives her mother had left there.

Background:
Reem Riyashi killed four Israelis and wounded seven at the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel in 2004. She gained the sympathy of the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint by telling them that she had a metal plate in her leg that would trigger the metal detector. After she was taken to a room to be searched privately, she detonated the bomb hidden under her clothes.

Click here to see the video clip...

So why is it today that no one draws the connection between the Soviet purge trials and the confession of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed?...

Dr. Al-Arian arrived to the visitation room in a wheelchair because he is too weak and fragile to walk. His wife and youngest children had not seen him in three months. His face was sunken in and his clothes were extremely loose-fitting. Dr. Al-Arian's ears were in pain and he was pale.

His wife, Nahla, said: "I was shocked when I saw my husband. In spirit, he is the same loving husband and father we know, but his physical state has deteriorated rapidly. He is rail thin, but thank God his faith remains strong."...

Kristof is distressed that the Democratic Party leadership is too supportive of the State of Israel. He says that he prefers the view of U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Barak Obama who recently stated, "Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people," for which he says Obama was "scolded."

Kristof does not mention that Palestinian suffering has in large part been brought on by the Palestinians' own actions. Their leaders rejected the United Nations vote in 1947 dividing historic Palestine into two states: one Arab and one Jewish. They supported or actively participated in at least seven wars against Israel: the 1948 War of Independence, the 1967 Six-Day War, the 1968 War of Attrition, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the 1982 Lebanon War [1] and the 2006 Lebanon War [2]. Their leadership declared two intifadas (insurrections) in 1987 and in 2002, which still goes on...

The vehicle was stopped at the checkpoint but was allowed through when soldiers saw the children in the back, said Major General Michael Barbero of the Pentagon's Joint Staff.

"Children in the back seat lowered suspicion. We let it move through. They parked the vehicle, and the adults ran out and detonated it with the children in the back," Barbero said...

... "It killed the two children inside as well as three other civilians in the vicinity. So, a total of five killed, seven injured," the official said.

Officials here said they did not know who the children were or their relationship to the two adults who fled the scene. They had no information about their ages or genders.

"The brutality and the ruthlessness of this enemy hasn't changed," said Barbero, deputy director of regional operations of the Joint Staff. "They are just interested in slaughtering Iraqi civilians, to be very honest."

Attacks on Iraqi civilians are down by a third and sectarian murders have fallen by 50 percent since mid-February when US and Iraqi forces began moving into Baghdad as part of a new security crackdown, the general said...

This issue is not just about Utrecht or Holland. Similar resentment against Muslim immigrants, but at least as much against their own authorities, is quietly brewing among the natives all over Western Europe...

"Without qualification, Howard University and I oppose any action calling for a divestiture" from Israel, President H. Patrick Swygert stressed in a letter Thursday to the American Jewish Committee.

The AJC had written to him after learning of the resolution to express the organization's distress over the development.

"I hope that my complete and unqualified rejection of this resolution will serve to reaffirm our relationship with the American Jewish Committee and all our friends who are interested in promoting peace and reconciliation," Swygert wrote.

He also said that the resolution had not been approved according to university procedures and therefore did not represent the position of the university or the College of Arts and Sciences from which it emerged.

He also stressed that the board of trustees would have needed to approve any such resolution.

Howard, one of the country's leading historically black colleges, has about 10,000 students and is located within the District of Columbia.

According to Alvin Thornton, Howard's vice provost for academic affairs, the resolution arose during a special faculty meeting convened to address a "totally unrelated" topic. The resolution was not listed on the agenda ahead of time or in any other way presented according to the rules of proper procedure.

He said that only 34 of the 441 members of the Arts and Sciences faculty were present at the March 8 meeting, and of them 26 voted for it. As soon as the college's dean found out about the proceedings - which he had not attended in person - he sent a letter to the entire school saying the resolution was "null and void," Thornton said...

"The direct result of a government like the new Palestinian government that openly supports terrorism - a government that sadly now is also made up of Fatah - is a terrorist attack against Israel openly claimed by Hamas terrorists," one official said. "We hope the international community will mark both the words and the overt actions of this new Hamas-led government."

Hamas took responsibility for a rare sniper attack along the Gaza security fence on Monday. And in Egypt, authorities said they apprehended a Hamas suicide bomber who was on his way to an attack inside Israel.

On Monday morning a Palestinian sniper in the Gaza Strip shot and wounded an Israel Electric Corporation employee working next to the Karni Crossing. The 42-year-old worker - Kobi Ohayun - was moderately wounded and was evacuated to Beersheba's Soroka Hospital...

...Meanwhile Monday, Egyptian authorities announced that they had detained a Hamas suicide bomber who was on his way to carry out an attack inside Israel. The man, Salah Adnan Saleh Abdel-Salam, 21, was arrested after he left a mosque in the border city of El-Arish in the Sinai Peninsula, police said...

Tareq's father: The operation that Tareq carried out took place on April 28, 2004, on a Wednesday. It was carried out after surveillance, which showed that a bus of settlers would come from Kisufim to Kfar Darom. Tareq got ready in a car with explosives, intending to crash into the bus. Circumstances delayed him from reaching the bus. But, Allah be praised... He saw the jeep behind the bus, and he immediately turned to it. The moment he saw that the bus was gone... All his thoughts were focused on carrying out the operation...

...Interviewer: So, he turned towards the jeep...

Tareq's father: He didn't hesitate for a moment. Some of the brothers, who were doing the surveillance and filming, told me they had said to him: "Tareq, come back, the bus is gone. Get back, and we will do it another time." He said to them: "I swear by Allah that I see the black-eyed virgins of Paradise on the hood of my car, so how can I possibly go back?" Of course, Tareq didn't return, and, Allah be praised, he crashed into the jeep, which led, according to what the Zionist enemy admitted, to the killing of six of them...

...Some people claim that all these young mujahideen who blow themselves up are desperate people with no money and no homes. These claims are wrong. These are lies and clear Zionist propaganda. All the mujahideen I came to know - and we pray that Allah will unite us with them in Paradise - are the finest of Palestinian society. In addition, they all have homes, money, and so on. They lack nothing. The only thing they need is to reach Paradise, by means of defense and martyrdom for the sake of Allah.

In recent years it has become the practice, in both western Europe and the Middle East, to see and present the Crusades as an early exercise in Western imperialism--as a wanton and predatory aggression by the European powers of the time against the Muslim or, as some would now say, against the Arab lands.

They were not seen in that light at the time, either by Christians or by Muslims. For contemporary Christians, the Crusades were religious wars, the purpose of which was to recover the lost lands of Christendom and particularly the holy land where Christ had lived, taught, and died. In this connection, it may be recalled that when the Crusaders arrived in the Levant not much more than four centuries had passed since the Arab Muslim conquerors had wrested these lands from Christendom--less than half the time from the Crusades to the present day--and that a substantial proportion of the population of these lands, perhaps even a majority, was still Christian.

Lewis isn't really interested in whether the Crusaders were more or less "awful" or "terrible" or "wrong" than other conquerors, ancient, medieval or modern. Any hack propagandist, movie maker, or Slate journalist can do that, for people who enjoy moralizing across millennia. Lewis instead seeks to instruct us, from the sources, as to how the Crusades were viewed by their contemporaries. Christians at the time saw them as a reconquest of their own lands, not as an imperialist intrusion into Islam's privileged domain. (And Lewis goes on to note that Muslims didn't see the Crusaders as much more than a nuisance, until they began to raid closer to their truly privileged domain, Mecca and Medina.)...

To make clear of his assertions, Dr. Sultan said that the serious changes introduced by the Republicans including freedom restricting laws have defied principles on which the America was founded and which the US has maintained since its independence. [Because the Brotherhood is all about freedom.]...

...Sultan expressed hope that the Democrats will be better than the Republicans in terms of foreign polices especially the Iraqi file. However, as regards the situation in Palestine, Sultan lamented that the democrats’ win will not make much difference. He attributed this unchanged policy toward the Palestinian cause to the omnipresence of the Jewish lobby and their infiltration of both parties, calling on Muslims to have a strong and effective lobby by which they can press the US administration to acknowledge their demands.

On the effect of the democrats victory towards Islamic movements especially the Muslim Brotherhood, Sultan said that several studies have been conducted by the Pentagon, citing one by Maryland University, which cost $13 million, criticized the US administration hostility towards all the Islamic movements indiscriminately.

Sultan quoted the study as assuring that the moderate trend among the Islamist movements, mainly the Muslim Brotherhood, is represented by a large number of Islamists. The study stated that dealing direcetly with moderate islamists will serve the US interests in the Middle East.

Reporter: Tonight, IRINN commentary also sheds more light on the conspiracy behind the screening of this anti-culture Hollywood film.

Voiceover: Screening of the movie ‘300’ which has depicted war between the Persians and the Greeks, using an unreal and fabricated story, is facing a wave of protests and criticism by Iranians both inside and outside the country. Warner Bros., which belongs to the famous and rich American Jew, is the company that has made the movie. This movie, which is totally against Persian culture and civilization, could be considered a production by Zionists and a group of American extremists. The film ‘300’ shows the historical war between Persians, at the time of King Xerxes, with the Spartans. The director wrongly depicts the Persians as being violent and warmongers. This film is a complete distortion of history. It shows the Spartans, who were warmongers and racists and violent, as peace lovers, and the Persians as uncivilized- which is nothing but a lie. In addition to distortion of history, the Zionist Warner Company is also pursuing cultural and political objectives by producing such a film which has a very shallow script. From the cultural point of view, the Zionists and the elements affiliated to the U.S. have tried to launch a propaganda front against ancient and historical roots of Iranians, and the hasty production of this film is an indication of its propaganda aspect. But political intentions of Warner have been more important than anything else. This film tries to paint a violent image of Persians who are against peace in today’s world, in order to increase the international political pressure on Iran. This is while films should be made of crimes committed by the Americans, throughout history, all around the world, and it should be shown what the so-called civilized Zionists and Americans are doing today with human rights and humanity.

Reinhardt, one of the most outspoken representatives of the radical Israeli left, was a fierce critic of the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, saying they represented a perpetuation of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. She was also a proponent of an academic boycott of Israeli universities to protest the occupation.

After receiving a master's degree at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Reinhardt wrote her doctoral thesis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under renowned linguist Noam Chomsky.

Her contributions to linguistic theory dealt with the connection between meaning and context, and the interface between syntax and systems of sound.

From 1977, Reinhardt taught courses in linguistics and literature at Tel Aviv University, including classes in critical reading of media and the analysis of discourse based on Chomsky's methods.

For the last 15 years she also taught at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

In December 2006, Reinhardt left Israel and settled in New York to teach at New York University.

Reinhardt and those close to her said the change in the university's relationship to her was made in response to her statements calling for an academic boycott of Israel...

The new numbers are vastly smaller than numbers Peace Now issued in a November report based on leaked information.

In November, Peace Now claimed that 86 percent of Ma'aleh Adumim was built on private Palestinian land. After successfully petitioning the court to see the database, the group reported Wednesday that data show that only 0.5% of the settlement was built on private land...

The Radical Student Alliance and the Arab Culture Club are no longer co-sponsoring the event, and members of the RSA-which now calls itself Students for a Democratic Society [Bwahahaha]-said they in fact never gave their consent to sponsor Finkelstein's visit.

"This just fell in our lap," Daniel Duffy '07, an RSA leader, said. "We have our own issues we're going through right now, like an anti-war campaign. [The Finkelstein visit] has just been an annoyance."

Kevin Conway '09, an RSA?member who invited Finkelstein said his group had committed to co-sponsoring the event scheduled for April 24 in the International Lounge. "Every relevant body on campus was on board," he said. "My colleagues in the RSA just jumped ship."

Conway still hopes to bring Finkelstein to campus because the money and room are still available. "We got everything except for the sponsor," he said. "I've been working on this since January. I'm not giving up, but the odds are against it...

...After the RSA decided that it didn't support the visit, the Arab Culture Club followed suit.

"It wasn't our idea in the first place," Farrah Bdour '07, the club's president, said. "If we would be the only sponsor to this event, it might seem like we were the brainstormers behind it."

Bdour said her club supports Finkelstein's right to visit campus, but does not necessarily support his ideas...

...Prof. Jonathan Sarna (NEJS) questioned the academic value of Finkelstein's visit.

"I don't really know anybody in the field of Jewish studies that would use [his work] as a serious contribution," he said. "This is polemics, not academics. Sarna also said that by bringing Finkelstein, the University would be abdicating its responsibility to bring "real experts" on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Otherwise there is no quality, and we are in many ways destroying what a university should be about."

Muslim organization believes that lawsuit filed by CAIR on behalf of local Phoenix imams is wrong for American Muslims and wrong for America.

[PHOENIX, AZ: March 13, 2007]: Wide media attention is being given today to the lawsuit filed by CAIR on behalf of six imams against U.S. Airways for their claims of discrimination against race and religion. Most of the imams are from local mosques here in Phoenix and were removed from a U.S. Airways flight on November 21, 2006 en route to Phoenix from Minneapolis.

AIFD would like the American public to be aware of our following positions representing an alternative voice from the American Muslim community.

1. We will not accept the victimization agenda of organizations like CAIR. Lawsuits like the one announced today exploit the climate of political correctness and at the end of the day are harmful to the Muslim minority in America.

2. Make no mistake, this type of agenda and policy direction of organizations like CAIR only represents its own membership and its own donors. A relatively small percentage of the 5-6 million American Muslims are enrolled as members of CAIR. Recent considerable donations to CAIR upwards of a combined $100 million from foreign nations like Dubai and Saudi Arabia make these types of costly, distractive actions against domestic airlines such as US Airways very concerning in its manifestation of foreign interference...

...During the interview, Barre further stated that the French Jewish community had turned Vichy collaborator Maurice Papon into a "scapegoat." Papon, who died last month, was responsible for the deportation of 1,600 Jews and the confiscation of Jewish assets while he was a top official in the pro-Nazi Vichy government during the war.

According to Dr. Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Barre's comments were "the very attitude which prompted the collaboration of so many French officials in the implementation in France of the Nazi program for the annihilation of the Jewish people throughout Europe."

Zuroff added that Barre's "attempts to minimize" the guilt of French collaborators or "relativize" the guilt of the Nazis' willing French collaborators is proof that certain elements of French society continue to refuse to acknowledge the enormous share of French guilt in the fate of French Jewry during the Holocaust...

...Barre previously upset Jewish communities when as prime minister he responded to the bombing of a Paris synagogue by Palestinian terrorists in October 1980, killing four passersby and wounding 22, by saying that "those who wanted to get their own back on Jews could have blown up the synagogue and Jews. But not at all, they launched a blind bomb attack and there were three French people, not Jews, that's a fact, not Jews. And that doesn't mean that Jews are not French."

Following the statements, Barre attacked the Jewish lobbies in France, accusing them of distorting his words for political gain...

This self-criticism is rare in the PA media. If it continues, this is a positive development.

Click here to see Dr. Sa'id's condemnation of Palestinian leadership

The following are some of Sa'id's criticisms by topic, followed by an extended transcript.

Dr. Nadir Sa'id, director of Development Studies at Bir Zeit University:

About Palestinian children:

"The message to Palestinian children is that if you use violence...you can achieve influence and you can achieve rule."

"A whole generation was raised on the denial of the 'other' and erasing him completely, and to the possibility of killing him without any restraint or problem.”

About Incitement against women and others:

"There are Imams who incite to killing: killing of women, beating children, killing the 'other.'"

"What happened in Palestine in the last years is speech incitement of the highest degree. Violence speech of the highest degree in mosques, and occasionally in the media, from many politicians."

“There is no denying that crime, in general, needs environmental conditions, and especially environmental conditions of violence and environmental conditions of incitement speech."...

Six coalition forces were treated for exposure to the gas. A military spokesman said other chemicals have been found recently, stockpiled by insurgents.

The suicide bombings in Anbar province appeared to mark a growing power struggle between Sunni Muslims in Anbar province west of Baghdad, where some tribes have broken with al Qaeda-linked insurgents.

The attacks occurred Friday evening as two dump trucks and one pickup truck containing chlorine exploded within hours of each other near the Sunni towns of Fallujah and Ramadi.

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said the chlorine used was not weapons-grade and appeared to be geared toward causing fear and panic rather than massive deaths.

"This is regular industrial chlorine. When these terrorists use this regular chemical in car-bomb manufacture, much of the chemical is destroyed in the explosion. These are not effective weapons for causing casualties," Col. Garver said.

The first suicide truck bomb detonated its load at a checkpoint northeast of Ramadi at 4:11 p.m. Two hours later, another explosion took place just south of Fallujah, near the town of Amiriyah.

Two policemen died in that attack, local police reported.

Thirty-seven minutes later, a third blast took place about three miles south of Fallujah in the Albu Issa region when a suicide bomber detonated a dump truck carrying a 200-gallon chlorine tank rigged with explosives.

Amiriyah residents exposed to the chlorine were treated for symptoms ranging from minor skin and lung irritation to vomiting, the military said.

There have been five suicide car bombs using chlorine gas in western Anbar province since Jan. 28, marking a new turn in the ever-evolving conflict in Iraq.

Col. Garver said U.S. military forces had found other stockpiles of chemicals in a car-bomb factory just east of Fallujah...

Curriculum decisions rest primarily with school administrators. The committee, in its policy making role, has oversight responsibilities. Courts have consistently held that the right to determine curriculum rests with management. Teachers do not have a First Amendment right to deviate from the curriculum and to invite speakers into their classrooms without any oversight including relevance to curriculum. Neither policy nor curriculum decisions are mandatory or appropriate subjects for bargaining. The committee and the superintendent forsake their responsibilities by bargaining these matters.

In Andover, policy and curriculum decisions are the product of collaboration and input from teachers, students, parents and community members. The threat of litigation by a union against its own members for participating in the collegial process of determining policy and curriculum creates a chilling environment that inhibits the academic freedom of teachers. It also thwarts needed change and progress...

I traveled to Florida to serve as the keynote speaker at an annual convention hosted by CAIR. On my way to the event, I spoke with Imam Siraj Wahaj, a charismatic intellectual from the Masjid Al-Taqwa in Brooklyn who has thousands of followers here and abroad. His words summarized the aspirations of mainstream Muslims in the United States and around the globe: "What we need to do is borrow those attributes from the West that we admire and reject those that we don't. That is the wave of the future."

Already, signs support Imam Wahaj's words...

"The president of the Islamic Society of North America warned last night that American Jews who ally with right-wing Christians to oppose Muslim organizations are pursuing a high-risk strategy that could backfire. Ingrid Mattson....said that many American Jews have an existential fear that Muslims are anti-Israel."

Golly gee willikers, I wonder where they get that crazy idea??? Maybe from the endless stream of anti-Israel material that comes from the Muslim American Society, Muslim Student Associations, CAIR and countless Islamic websites?...

The centerpiece of the "resources" offered by Louisville is a video titled "Peace, Propaganda and the Holy Land." The video produced by the American Media Education Foundation (which includes Noam Chomsky on its Board of Advisors) is not a dispassionate or fair assessment of the Arab-Israeli conflict but is, in the words of the New York Times, a "pro-Palestinian documentary [that] presents a condensed argument in favor of prosecuting Israeli leaders in the court of American public opinion." And in order to achieve a conviction, the movie's producers and directors bury exculpatory evidence in a manner that would make even the most ferocious district attorney cringe...

Qaradawi, considered to be a supporter of suicide bombings, is being sued in a Boston court for libel against Muslims [sic -- Dr. Ahmed Mansour is the local moderate Muslim being sued by the ISB]. And the Islamic Society of Boston has not only sued an "Islamic cleric, a Christian political science professor and the Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors," says The David Project, a Jewish group that educates and trains students and the Jewish community about Israel that is a defendant in the lawsuit, along with The Boston Herald, Investigative Project head Steve Emerson and Fox 25 News. They have also twice subpoenaed the Anti-Defamation League, which declined comment.

Photocopies of Islamic Society of Boston IRS tax returns from 1998, 1999, and 2000 which list Qaradawi as a trustee are included as evidence in the statements of several of the defendants being sued for libel. At the same time, notarized 1993 documents from the City of Cambridge also list Qaradawi as a trustee...

Things have evidently changed in British universities...

The David Project, a non-profit educational organization which combats anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry, today welcomed the American Jewish Committee (AJC)'s public criticism of the lawsuit filed by the Islamic Society of Boston against an Islamic cleric, a Christian political science professor, the Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors and various non-profit organizations, journalists and citizens, including the David Project. The AJC statement was posted on the AJC website this morning, at http://www.ajc.org.

“The American Jewish Committee is a preeminent international organization with a history of fighting for pluralism, tolerance and dialog among people of different religions and ethnic backgrounds,” said Charles Jacobs, President of The David Project. “It has richly earned its reputation for progressive values. Like the David Project, it has worked closely with moderate Muslims to build on the common ground that exists between people of different religions who deal with each other in good faith. The AJC has done groundbreaking research on the nature and extent of Islamic anti-Semitism. Like the David Project, it has warned against the extremely serious threat posed abroad and at home by radical Islam, including support for extremism.”

The League's annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, issued today, counted a total of 1,554 anti-Semitic incidents across the United States in 2006, representing a 12 percent decline from 1,757 reported in 2005.

The decline came in a year marked by several violent attacks, including the shooting at the Greater Seattle Jewish Federation in July by an Islamic extremist, in which staffer Pamela Waechter was killed and three others were seriously wounded. That attack and others underscored the continuing threat to Jewish community institutions, particularly at a time of heightened conflict in the Middle East. Tensions from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and last summer's war in southern Lebanon simmered over on to U.S. college campuses and into anti-war protests.

"While any decline in the number of incidents is encouraging, the fact that a Jewish community institution was targeted by a gunman was a sobering reminder that anti-Semitism in America is not just history, but a current event," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director.

"The Audit is just one measure of anti-Semitism in the United States. There is also an onslaught of anti-Semitism out there in blogs, e-mails and Web sites – and most significantly in conspiracy theories about alleged Jewish power which have even penetrated the mainstream – that simply cannot be quantified."...

It is fitting that Professor Spivak will now serve the University as a whole rather than a specific faculty or department. Not only does her world-renowned scholarship--grounded in deconstructivist literary theory--range widely from critiques of post-colonial discourse to feminism, Marxism, and globalization; her lifelong search for fresh insights and understanding has transcended the traditional boundaries of discipline while retaining the fire for new knowledge that is the hallmark of a great intellect. Ever mindful of language's importance to breaking down divisive cultural barriers, she has even enrolled in undergraduate Arabic, Cantonese, and Mandarin courses while teaching her regular courses here.

Professor Spivak's commitment to interdisciplinary scholarship, at the most creative levels, and a life of civic engagement--including in her native India--embodies Columbia's mission of teaching, scholarship, and service to the broader world community. Through her new role as University Professor, I hope and expect more students will be able to experience her imaginative mind and spirit.

It is especially appropriate, therefore, that Professor Spivak will deliver the University Lecture, "Thinking about the Humanities," on Wednesday evening, March 21, in Low Memorial Library Rotunda. We hope you will join us in congratulating Professor Spivak on her appointment to this signal honor at Columbia.

For example, in June 2002, speaking at Leeds University, Spivak said, "Suicide bombing - and the planes of 9/11 were living bombs - is a purposive self-annihilation, a confrontation between oneself and oneself, the extreme end of autoeroticism, killing oneself as other, in the process killing others....Suicidal resistance is a message inscribed on the body when no other means will get through. It is both execution and mourning...you die with me for the same cause, no matter which side you are on. Because no matter who you are, there are no designated killees [sic] in suicide bombing....It is a response...to the state terrorism practiced outside of its own ambit by the United States, and in the Palestinian case additionally to an absolute failure of [Israeli] hospitality."

Interviewer: "Let's talk with the two children of the jihad-fighting martyrdom-seeker Rim Al-Riyashi, Dhoha and Muhammad. Dhoha, you love Mama, right? Where did Mama go?"

Dhoha: "To Paradise."

Interviewer: "What did Mama do?"

Dhoha: "She committed martyrdom."

Interviewer: "She killed Jews, right?"

Interviewer: "How many did she kill, Muhammad?"

Muhammad: "Huh?"

Interviewer: "How many Jews did Mama kill?"

Muhammad: "This many... "

Interviewer: "How many is that?"

Muhammad: "Five."

Interviewer: "Do you love Mama? Do you miss Mama?

"Where is Mama, Muhammad?"

Muhammad: "In Paradise."

Interviewer: "Dhoha, what would you like to recite for us?"

Dhoha: "In the name of Allah the Merciful the Compassionate: 'When comes the help of Allah, and victory, and you see people entering the religion of Allah in troops, then celebrate the praise of your Lord, and ask His forgiveness, for He is ever ready to show mercy.'"

Interviewer: "What else would you like to recite? You have read the surah, 'When comes the help of Allah, and victory.' What would you like to recite for us now?"

Dhoha: "'Mama Rim.'"

Interviewer: "Recite the poem 'Mama Rim' for us. Recite anything. What would you like to recite?"

Interviewer: "Muhammad, do you know how to recite?"

Muhammad: "Yes."

Interviewer: "Go on then, recite something for us. What would you like to recite?"

Dhoha: "I just remembered."

Muhammad: "I am in kindergarten."

Interviewer: "Are you doing well in kindergarten?"

Muhammad: "Yes."

Dhoha: "I am in kindergarten, I want to tell."

Interviewer: "Go on then, tell us. You're in kindergarten too? Are you in kindergarten, Dhoha? In kindergarten or at school?"

Dhoha: "In kindergarten."

Interviewer: "That's great.

"One should talk about the innocence of children..."

Muhammad: "I'm in kindergarten too."

Interviewer: "You're in kindergarten too."

Dhoha: "I want to talk about kindergarten, I want to talk."

"Rim, You Are a Firebomb, Your Children and Submachine Gun Are Your Motto"

Interviewer: "What would you like to recite for us? Have you heard the poem 'Mama Rim'? Go on then, recite it for us."

Dhoha: "Rim, you are a fire bomb."

Interviewer: "Go on, recite it."

Dhoha: "'Your children and submachine gun are your motto.'"

Interviewer: "Muhammad, go ahead and recite..."

Muhammad: "I'm in kindergarten."

Dhoha: "That's it, I'm done."

Interviewer: "OK, do you want to go to Mama?"

Dhoha: "Yes."

"We will not betray promises we made to God to continue the path of Jihad and resistance until the liberation of Palestine, all of Palestine," Hamas said in a statement, in a clear reference to Israel as well as to the occupied West Bank.

In an audio recording posted on the Internet on Sunday, al Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahri accused Hamas of serving U.S. interests by agreeing to respect past Palestinian peace accords with Israel in a recent Saudi-brokered unity government deal with moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah...

...Hamas killed nearly 300 Israelis in 58 suicide bombings after a Palestinian uprising began in 2000. It last carried out a suicide bombing in Israel in 2004.

In its statement Hamas said it continued to be a "movement of resistance, seekers of martyrdom" and that its "principles will never be changed".

"Zawahri's recent statements were wrong ... Resistance is our strategy. How and when? This depends on the reality at the time and our corresponding view of things," Hamas said.

"So be assured doctor Ayman, and all those who love Palestine like yourself, that Hamas is still the group you knew when it was founded and it will never abandon its path."...

Meanwhile, a senior PA official in Ramallah said that Israel's decision not to release more of the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues it owes the PA undermines PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction...

They had argued with members of a Muslim family that had moved three years ago to the edge of Taybeh, a picturesque village in the hills near Ramallah with a dwindling population of 1,300. Mr. Massis’ sons had used a road that ran along the newcomers’ property, which the newcomers insisted was private. The sons spent the night in the hospital, and five members of the Muslim family spent a few days in jail.

In the year since Hamas came to power, some of the fears of a newly Islamist cast to Palestinian society are being borne out. Christians have begun quietly complaining that local disagreements quickly take on a sectarian flavor. And reports of beatings and property damage by Muslims have grown.

In one of the most serious cases, Palestinian gunmen in September set the Y.M.C.A. building on fire in the West Bank city of Qalqilya, where Hamas members hold all 15 local council seats. Muslim figures in the city had previously accused the Y.M.C.A. of engaging in missionary activity and warned it to close down...

In fact, there is now robust evidence that there is no such link. That does not mean, however, that economics is irrelevant.

First, to the question of poverty. Of the 50 poorest countries in the world (see list at right) only Afghanistan (and perhaps Bangladesh and Yemen) has much experience in terrorism, global or domestic.

But surely that is the wrong way to look at things. Aren't the people who commit terrorist acts poor, even if they are from countries that are not? No. Remember, most of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were middle-class sons of Saudi Arabia and many were well-educated. And Osama bin Laden himself is from one of the richest families in the Middle East.

But it goes deeper than that. In a 2003 study in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Alan Krueger and Jitka Maleckova reported the results of a post-9/11 survey of Palestinians. Asked whether there were "any circumstances under which you would justify the use of terrorism to achieve political goals," the higher-status respondents (merchant, farmer or professional) were more likely to agree (43.3 percent) than those lower down the ladder (laborer, craftsman or employee) (34.6 percent). The higher-status respondents were also more likely to support armed attacks against Israeli targets (86.7 percent to 80.8 percent). The same dynamic existed when education was taken into account.

In another study, 129 Hezbollah militants who died in action (not all of them in activities that could be considered terrorism) were compared to the general Lebanese population. The Hezbollah members were slightly less likely to be poor, and significantly more likely to have finished high school.

Outside Palestine, there is general agreement that suicide attacks on civilians is a form of terrorism. [That is unintentionally funny and true.] So where do suicide bombers fit in? A study looked at the biographies of 285 suicide bombers as published in local journals, from 1987-2002. And this found that those who carried out suicide attacks were, on the whole, richer (fewer than 15 percent under the poverty line, compared to almost 35 percent for the population as a whole) and more educated (95 percent with high school or higher) than the rest of the population (almost half of whom went no further than middle school). A similar survey of terrorists in the Jewish Underground, which killed 29 Palestinians in the early 1970s, found the same pattern...

Neuer added that he received that information from diplomatic sources.

It's one of at least four anti-Israel actions he expects the council to take during its fourth session, which started in Geneva on Monday and runs through April 5, Neuer told The Jerusalem Post from Geneva.

The UN body was created in June to replace the Human Rights Commission, which was scrapped because it had a faulty membership composition and repeatedly singled out Israel.

But since its inception, the 47-member body - which includes Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China - has continued to single out the Jewish State. It has issued eight anti-Israel resolutions, and none against any other nation. It has also held three special sessions on Israel...

...Neuer said Israel would be rapped for the Antiquities Authority's construction of an access ramp to the Temple Mount's Mughrabi Gate.

The work has been widely condemned throughout the Muslim world...

Rod Kukurudz decided to uproot his family from a comfortable life in France to Surfside when his then 16-year-old daughter, Audrey, came home one night in 2005 -- upset and fearful.

''Dad,'' she told him, ''now even if it's hot I have to wear a scarf to hide my Star of David,'' while riding the Paris Metro.

French Jews living in South Florida told The Miami Herald that hostility from Islamic militants in France after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States spurred them to leave. Departures surged after last year's abduction and death of Ilan Halimi in France.

The 23-year-old Halimi, a French Jew of Moroccan parents, was kidnapped Jan. 21, 2006, by a gang of youths calling themselves the ``Barbarians.''

''The atmosphere created by that episode, plus other incidents and the general hostility of Muslims in France toward Jews, is what's behind my decision to leave,'' said Kukurudz, who now lives with his wife and their three daughters, including Audrey, in Surfside...

...Immigration court figures show a slight uptick in the number of asylum applications from French nationals starting in 2003 -- but those figures do not specify whether applicants were French Jews. South Florida immigration attorneys say the majority of French Jews are arriving on immigrant, investor and business visas...

...France's Jewish population has been variously estimated at between 500,000 and 700,000 and its Muslim population at five million to six million. But French Jews here say the community has been depleted by frequent departures, the majority to Israel. Jewish Agency figures show that almost 14,000 French Jews have resettled in Israel since 2001...

...''I have seen an increase in my practice relating to wealthy French nationals who are also Jewish, exploring options to use the United States as a safe haven, anticipating problems relating to their Jewish heritage,'' Linda Osberg-Braun said. Other immigration attorneys like Roger Bernstein and David Berger also said they see more French Jewish clients.

In their hearts, many of the French Jews arriving in South Florida feel they are refugees, and there's a movement to press the U.S. government for such status. A group has posted a petition on the Internet -- www.petitiononline.com/ID22206/petition.html -- urging the U.S. Congress to approve a refugee program for French Jews...

The world's 1.4 billion Muslims encompass an enormous range of beliefs and practices, a world of cultures from Arab to post-Soviet to Indian to American, and a wide spectrum of movements from liberal progressive to Islamist. However, today's headlines all too often highlight the familiar stories of violence and extremism within the Islamic world. Is religion truly the driving force behind these actions? Where is the space for voices of the moderate majority to be heard? In our country, where many became acquainted with Islam only in the context of September 11th, how can we better understand this major world religion? Ali Asani and Mona Eltahawy explore the tensions within modern Islam and how we can better understand them.

Ali S. Asani is professor of the Practice of Indo-Muslim Languages and Culture at Harvard University, and member of the board of directors of the American Islamic Congress; Mona Eltahawy is an award-winning New York-based journalist and commentator, and international lecturer on Arab and Muslim issues. Moderated by Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe columnist.

Presented in collaboration with the Old South Meeting House as part of the Partners in Public Dialogue Series.

Ford Hall Forum
Recorded: Thursday, March 15, 2007, 6:30pm
Old South Meeting House

This weekend Brigadier General Ali Reza Asgari, 63, the former deputy defence minister, is understood to be undergoing debriefing at a Nato base in Germany after he escaped from Iran, followed by his family.

A daring getaway via Damascus was organised by western intelligence agencies after it became clear that his cover was about to be blown. Iran’s notorious secret service, the Vavak, is believed to have suspected that he was a high-level mole.

According to the Iranian sources, the escape took several months to arrange. At least 10 close members of his family had to flee the country. Asgari has two sons, a daughter and several grandchildren and it is believed that all, including his daughters-in-law, are now out of Iran. Their final destination is unknown.

Asgari is said to have carried with him documents disclosing Iran’s links to terrorists in the Middle East. It is not thought that he had details of the country’s nuclear programme...

No issue better illustrates Orwell's point than coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the United States. Consider, for example, the editorial in The Times on Feb. 9 demanding that the Palestinians "recognize Israel" and its "right to exist." This is a common enough sentiment — even a cliche. Yet many observers (most recently the international lawyer John Whitbeck) have pointed out that this proposition, assiduously propagated by Israel's advocates and uncritically reiterated by American politicians and journalists, is — at best — utterly nonsensical...

In other words, Edward Said got it exactly wrong. Other scholars said as much in the years after his book came out; Irwin’s critique echoes those made by Jacques Berque, Malcolm Kerr, Bernard Lewis, and Maxime Rodinson. These doyens of Islamic and Arab studies came from radically different points on the political compass, but they all found the same flaws in Said’s presentation. Even Albert Hourani, the Middle East historian closest to Said personally, thought that Orientalism had gone “too far” and regretted that its most lasting effect was to turn “a perfectly respected discipline” into “a dirty word.”

Yet the criticisms did not stick; what stuck was the dirt thrown by Said. Not only did Orientalism sweep the general humanities, where ignorance of the history of Orientalism was (and is) widespread; not only did it help to create the faux-academic discipline now known as post-colonialism; but the book’s thesis also conquered the field of Middle Eastern studies itself, where scholars should have known better. No other discipline has ever surrendered so totally to an external critic.

As it happens, I witnessed a minute that perfectly compressed the results of this process. In 1998, to mark the 20th anniversary of the publication of Orientalism, the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) invited Said to address a plenary panel at its annual conference. As Said ascended the dais, his admirers leaped to their feet in an enthusiastic ovation. Then, somewhat hesitantly at first, the rest of the audience stood and began to applaud. Fixed in my seat, I surveyed the ballroom, watching scholars whom I had heard privately damn Orientalism for its libel against their field now rising sheepishly and casting sideways glances to see who might behold their gesture of submission...

We at MIT Hillel appreciate the Advocate’s coverage of the “Foreign Policy and Social Justice: A Jewish View, a Muslim View” event that transpired on Feb. 22. The MIT Jewish community’s response was well planned by Jewish student leaders from across the spectrum.

One aspect of Hillel’s concern, however, was not touched on in the article. The MIT Jewish community supports free speech. Nonetheless, we believe that a university is responsible for setting the terms of academic discourse so as to maintain intellectual standards.

MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) abandoned this responsibility by co-sponsoring with two student organizations a presentation by extremists and by declining to exercise prior judgment. The effect of the SHASS sponsorship was to lend legitimacy to what were, in fact, hateful rants. We have protested this behavior to the Dean of the School.

MIT Hillel is proud to be a leader on the MIT campus in the promotion of interfaith dialogue and the building of bridges between the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim student communities. The results of these relations were reflected when no religious organization accepted an offer to co-sponsor the Feb. 22 event.

Matthew Cons,
President MIT Hillel Student Board
Gene Fax,
President, MIT Hillel Board of
Directors
Miriam Rosenblum
Director, MIT Hillel

Mr. Wilner, a media-savvy lawyer who immediately realized that the detainee cases posed a tremendous PR challenge in the wake of September 11, hired high-stakes media guru Richard Levick to change public perception about the Kuwaiti 12. Mr. Levick, a former attorney whose Washington, D.C.-based "crisis PR" firm has carved out a niche in litigation-related issues, has represented clients as varied as Rosie O'Donnell, Napster, and the Roman Catholic Church. Mr. Levick's firm is also registered under FARA as an agent of a foreign principal for the "Kuwaiti Detainees Committee," reporting $774,000 in fees in a one year period. After the U.S. Supreme Court heard the first consolidated case, the PR campaign went into high gear, Mr. Levick wrote, to "turn the Guantanamo tide."

In numerous published articles and interviews, Mr. Levick has laid out the essence of the entire Kuwaiti PR campaign. The strategy sought to accomplish two things: put a sympathetic "human face" on the detainees and convince the public that it had a stake in their plight. In other words, the militant Islamists who traveled to Afghanistan to become a part of al Qaeda's jihad on America had to be reinvented as innocent charity workers swept up in the war after 9/11. The committed Islamist who admitted firing an AK-47 in a Taliban training camp became a "teacher on vacation" who went to Afghanistan in 2001 "to help refugees." The member of an Islamist street gang who opened three al-Wafa offices with Suliman Abu Ghaith (Osama Bin Laden's chief spokesman) to raise al Qaeda funds became a charity worker whose eight children were left destitute in his absence. All 12 Kuwaitis became the innocent victims of "bounty hunters."...

Fortunately, there is evidence that the Catholic community in Germany is distancing itself from the comments of the Bishops. According to Spiegel:

The Catholic Church in Germany is now trying to diffuse the row with a number of apologies. Hans Langendörfer, the Secretary General of the German Catholic Bishops' Conference, said he regretted the remarks made by the bishops. They were made during the visit to Bethlehem "under the pressure of a demanding situation," and were by "emotionally affected individuals who made a few very personal remarks, which have already been self-critically corrected." He added, "That is especially true of a passing remark that referred to the Warsaw Ghetto."

Sadly, the damage is done...

When we landed in Kabul, an airport official smoothly confiscated my US passport. “Don’t worry, it’s just a formality,” my husband assured me. I never saw that passport again. I later learnt that this was routinely done to foreign wives — perhaps to make it impossible for them to leave. Overnight, my husband became a stranger. The man with whom I had discussed Camus, Dostoevsky, Tennessee Williams and the Italian cinema became a stranger. He treated me the same way his father and elder brother treated their wives: distantly, with a hint of disdain and embarrassment.

In our two years together, my future husband had never once mentioned that his father had three wives and 21 children. Nor did he tell me that I would be expected to live as if I had been reared as an Afghan woman. I was supposed to lead a largely indoor life among women, to go out only with a male escort and to spend my days waiting for my husband to return or visiting female relatives, or having new (and very fashionable) clothes made...

In October 2006, notoriously anti-Israel journalist Robert Fisk was given the front page of the Independent to spread the libel that Israel had used uranium-based weapons in southern Lebanon during last summer's war.

This was challenged at the time by HonestReporting UK, following a UN investigation clearing Israel of the allegations only a short time later. HR UK castigated the Independent for its shoddy journalism and its failure to issue a retraction. (Read the full communique here.)

Still, Independent readers are under the false impression that Israel employed "secret uranium bombs". This, despite a second acquittal by the Lebanese themselves in the past fortnight, as described by Lebanon's Daily Star:

A panel of experts from the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other international agencies announced a unanimous determination Monday that no depleted-uranium weapons had been used in the summer 2006 war in Lebanon. "To date, there is no evidence of depleted-uranium-ammunitions use during the 2006 conflict in Lebanon," Didier Louvat, IAEA head of radioactive waste issues, told a news conference hosted by the National Council for Scientific Research in Bir Hassan...

On Friday Obama gave a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Chicago. It had been much anticipated in American Jewish political circles which buzzed about his intensive efforts to woo wealthy pro-Israel campaign donors who up to now have generally leaned towards his main rival Senator Hillary Clinton.

Reviewing the speech, Ha'aretz Washington correspondent Shmuel Rosner concluded that Obama "sounded as strong as Clinton, as supportive as Bush, as friendly as Giuliani. At least rhetorically, Obama passed any test anyone might have wanted him to pass. So, he is pro-Israel. Period."...

...Over the years since I first saw Obama speak I met him about half a dozen times, often at Palestinian and Arab-American community events in Chicago including a May 1998 community fundraiser at which Edward Said was the keynote speaker. In 2000, when Obama unsuccessfully ran for Congress I heard him speak at a campaign fundraiser hosted by a University of Chicago professor. On that occasion and others Obama was forthright in his criticism of US policy and his call for an even-handed approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The last time I spoke to Obama was in the winter of 2004 at a gathering in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. He was in the midst of a primary campaign to secure the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate seat he now occupies. But at that time polls showed him trailing.

As he came in from the cold and took off his coat, I went up to greet him. He responded warmly, and volunteered, "Hey, I'm sorry I haven't said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I'm hoping when things calm down I can be more up front." He referred to my activism, including columns I was contributing to the The Chicago Tribune critical of Israeli and US policy, "Keep up the good work!"...

According to a copy of the February 28 ruling from Interpol's office of legal affairs, the wanted Iranians include the former minister of Intelligence and Security, Ali Fallahijan; the former commander of Iran's Quds Force, Ahmad Vahidi; the former commander of the revolutionary guard, Mohsen Rezai; Iran's cultural attaché for its embassy in Buenos Aires, Mohsen Rabbani; and that embassy's third secretary, Ahmad Reza Asghari. Also wanted by Interpol is master Hezbollah terrorist, Imadh Mugniyah.

The decision by Interpol is significant because if the body's general assembly endorses the position of its lawyers, it would mark an unusual acknowledgement by an international organization that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism. The Argentine court requested that Interpol place a red notice out for the former president of Iran, Ali Hashemi Rafsanjani, though the agency's lawyers recommended against it, saying that the decision to include the warrant for him would be too political...

About 100,000 died inside from hunger and disease, and over 300,000 were sent to death camps...

The government information campaign and the news about thousands of additional troops coming had a positive impact even before the operation started. Commanders and lieutenants of various militant groups abandoned their positions in Baghdad and in some cases fled the country. Diyala province, to the east of Baghdad, was the destination for many Sunni extremists, while Shiite militiamen went to Babil and Diwaniya in the south. Some higher-ranking members of Shiite and Sunni militant groups fled to Iran and Syria respectively. This migration motivated the government to announce supporting security measures in five provinces around Baghdad, to make sure that fleeing bad guys do not regroup in other cities.

This indicates that both the addition of more troops and the tough words of Prime Minister Maliki are doing the job of intimidating the militants. The extremists understand only the language of power, and any reluctance or softness on the part of the Iraqi or U.S. government would only embolden them. In this way the clearly voiced commitment of President Bush and Prime Minister Maliki was exactly the type of strong message that needed to be sent...

Union President Tom Meyers claimed that the policy, passed in response to the Wheels of Justice controversy at Andover High School, violated the teachers contract because it changed their working conditions. He also wanted to keep schools from notifying parents about outside speakers unless the union approved.

The School Committee consulted its lawyers about both demands before rejecting them, Chairman Anthony James said.

"That's not a matter of bargaining," he said. "That's under the purview of the administration and the School Committee."

Following the dismissal of a lawsuit that questioned the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s discounted sale of a parcel of land to the Islamic Society of Boston, a local attorney representing the plaintiff in the case is poised to file an appeal.

Samuel Perkins of the law firm Brody, Hardoon, Perkins & Kesten, LLP in Boston said he will challenge Suffolk Superior Court Judge Sandra L. Hamlin’s decision made on Feb. 16. The judge’s decision declared that James C. Policastro of Mission Hill did not have legal standing to contest the sale because he did not file his lawsuit within 30 days of the transaction.

Policastro, who believes that the land deal violated the constitutional separation between church and state, filed his suit on Sept. 28, 2004 – more than 16 months after the BRA sold the property to the ISB. While reports showed that the land had been appraised at more than $400,000, the Muslim society – who intends to build New England’s largest mosque and cultural center on the site – paid only $175,000 for the 45,000-square-foot parcel and later spent an additional $43,820 to make improvements.

Perkins said that his client should have been given the court’s customary three-year period to challenge the sale because he was disputing the authority’s decision on constitutional grounds.
“I think it’s a great shame that [the ruling] was limited to conventional, administrative appeal,” Perkins added. “The law is clear that the statute of limitations for constitutional claims shouldn’t be shoehorned into an administrative process. We think the appeals court will agree with us.”

A related suit filed by Boston-based Israel advocacy group The David Project Center for Jewish Leadership is currently before the court, in which the nonprofit is aiming to get the BRA to release all documents related to the land deal. Policastro and The David Project have worked together, according to Perkins, to “discuss the right approach to shedding light on the BRA’s behavior.” Jeffrey Robbins, the attorney for The David Project, said he did not know the details about dealings between the two parties.

Yet in a statement, the ISB’s Interfaith Coordinator Jessica Masse applauded Hamlin’s decision.

“We are very pleased that the court put an end to the legal campaign against the Islamic Society of Boston, which is part of a greater effort by those seeking to oppose area Muslims from building a place of worship,” Masse said. “Part of Mr. Policastro’s suit demanded that the ISB return the land and the mosque be torn down. That threat is gone. It is full steam ahead now – we will see our mosque built to completion.”

Regarding why you wouldn't vote for John McCain, you wrote, "I admit it, I'm an ageist."

I appreciate your candor, but I have to say that ageism really bothers me. Not because of political correctness. But rather, because we live in a society that increasingly leaves it up to the individual to figure out how to support themselves in their later years. And that is not an easy task. So why put that responsibility on the individual and then constrain how much or in what jobs they are able to work? That seems like a double whammy to me. Nobody else will support me, but I am limited in how I can support myself.

Now I'm not planning to run for president, and I don't want a surgeon operating on me with shaky hands. But ageism is a blanket approach and, by its nature, does not account for individual variability. But perhaps it is too much trouble to determine what each older person is qualified to do? Maybe it's just more practical to make blanket policies?

But this stuff really bothers me. And it's not like I have my head in the sand. I'm in my 40's and have been socking away as much as I possibly can into my 401K for years. But I am convinced that it will not be enough. No how, no way. So I am convinced that as long as my health and stamina hold out, I will need to keep working as much as I can, for as long as I can, in as high a paying job as I can. Because that is what it will take to survive in any kind of decent manner.
(yes, I like having good health insurance, for example....)

So if social security is not meant to really support me (I understand it was conceived of as a "supplement"), and corporate pensions are going the way of the dinosaur (and I've never worked for a company that had one anyway)....and if it's really, really hard to save enough to retire at 65 (or whenever) and support oneself till today's life expectancy....then why limit how much the individual can work? Why have that be either policy or attitude? Because what other option do people like me have? Neither the public nor the private sector has an obligation to support me through entitlements, yet at the same time, I can't do everything in my own power to support myself? Not a happy thought.

I don't think we, as a society, fully understand how hard it is for people to take responsibility for their own retirement with little public or private sector support. We will start to discover that over the coming decades. And I, for one, am not looking forward to being a guinea pig in this big socio-economic experiment.

Mr Solana recalled that the EU, far from letting down the Palestinian people, provided more aid in 2006 than in 2005, including allowances for more than 150 000 families every month, amounting to over a million people or 30 % of the Palestinian population.

In a place where a single day could sometimes make an interesting book, I often go days without writing a word because I am out with soldiers running missions. When I return to base, reality is not respectful to readers or writers, and many important dispatches will never be published simply because I was unable to get internet connections. For the soldiers and their families who wonder why I never published something about this or that mission, or never published even a single photo of a good unit I did a mission with, the breakdown is most often an internet connection that does not work. Full stop...

The Washington Times reported that the institutions had participated in the "advocacy, support or glorification of terrorism."

The paper also cited that since Congress changed the 2004 law restricting aid to entities or individuals "involved in or advocating terrorist activity," the US Agency for International Development (USAID) had provided more than $140,000 in assistance to the Hamas-controlled Islamic University in Gaza alone and had given scholarships to 49 of its students.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said officials were checking into the report.

The Times report said the funding, principally in scholarships to individual students, was being scrutinized by several members of Congress and their aides, who said it might violate US law.

McCormack acknowledged that some US scholarship money had gone to Palestinian university students but only to those confirmed not to have links to terrorism.

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, spoke as board member nations of the IAEA gathered for a session on approving the suspension of dozens of technical aid programs to Iran as part of Security Council sanctions meant to punish Tehran for its nuclear defiance.

Although the issue is not expected to come up until Tuesday at the earliest, the focus of the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board meeting will be on Iran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment activities and linked problems.

Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, Iran's chief delegate to the IAEA, said again his country would "never give up its inalienable right" to develop enrichment, which Tehran says it wants to develop to generate power but which also can produce the fissile material for nuclear warheads.

ElBaradei, whose agency has spent more than four years probing the nature of Tehran's nuclear activities, said the IAEA remains "unable to provide the required assurance about the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program."

In opening comments, he said that unless Tehran takes "the long overdue decision" to cooperate with the IAEA, it "will have no option but to reserve its judgment about Iran's nuclear program, and as a result the international community will continue to express concern."...

...Brandeis University students seeking to bring a controversial critic of Israel to campus were finally granted a date and place Monday; then told an hour later the venue was not available, after all; then offered an alternative venue the next day.

The latest twists in their lengthy effort to bring DePaul University Professor Norman Finkelstein to campus have left the Radical Student Alliance and Arab Culture Club crossing their fingers that he will appear on March 6 at the university, founded as a Jewish-sponsored, non-sectarian school.

“We need to get funding, too,” cautioned Farrah Bdour of the Arab Culture Club. Bdour explained the cosponsoring groups would now go to the school’s student funding board to request emergency funds for Finkelstein’s travel costs...

Though he has been asked to stop posting on local radical email lists, Pete L (using the email address proudline (at) yahoo.com) has continued to spread racist, anti-Semitic propaganda throughout the Boston community.

Pete L has gained infamy over the months for posing as a Palestinian solidarity activist who repeatedly equated Zionism to Judiasm. Countless individuals, many of them Jewish anarchists who oppose the Israeli occupation, have repeatedly pointed out the difference between the Zionist political movement and the Jewish religion and heritage. Despite this, Pete L continued to rail against Jews, making wild assertions about Jewish control over the United States government.

In the early hours of March 3, 2007, in response to Pete L's most recent email, an email went out drawing the connection between Pete L (or proudline (at) yahoo.com) and David Duke, "onetime Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan,founder of the National Association for the Advancement of White People, and the The National Organization For European American Rights, and radio host and participant in the notorious Neo-Nazi site Stormfront". As the email points out, "THE ENTIRE POST (minus the graceful introduction) is a reprint of an article by none other than racist and white supremacist David Duke, with the name of the author deleted."...

I didn't hate it because it was badly written -- it was mediocre in the way that mediocre thrillers usually are, and that means it would ordinarily have been tolerable.

No, the reason I stopped listening to Steve Berry's The Alexandria Link is that this book is evil.

I don't mean it's about evil. I don't even mean that it is evil-porn, like those horror books whose authors are pervertedly devoted to thinking up cool ways to torture and kill people.

I mean that this book, to the degree that it is read by people ignorant of history (i.e., practically everybody), will move us closer to a future in which our society permits or even approves of the murder of Jews and the destruction of the state of Israel.

Wait! This book is fiction! How could it have such an effect?

Well, it can't -- not all by itself. Its effect is incremental. But it's real.

Here's how it works...

More good news for the Muslim community! There has been a groundswell of interest from individuals and organizations asking us how they can help publicly support the ISB and the Muslim community. So far, we've had over 25 organizations express interest in:

"supporting the right of the ISB to raise funds and build its mosque in an atmosphere free from negative and defamatory stereotyping, and that the best interests of not only ISB members, but all citizens, rest upon allowing the Muslim community to freely exercise their right of worship and expression in the United States." -wording from the Amicus brief...

Following is our public statement, and the public statements of Alice Rothchild, from Jewish Voices [sic] for Peace.

John Kerry

...Muhammad Al-Buheiri: This man proved scientifically and objectively... He's an academic, who heads the department of Jewish history at the Israeli Bar-Ilan University. We are not talking about an amateur, a fraud, or someone looking to get famous. We are talking about an academic, who follows scientific and objective principles. He reached the conclusion that there was indeed a group of extremist Jews, who used to slaughter Christian children, and to collect their blood in order to make the Passover matza. It had to be a child who had not reached puberty. They would abduct him, and put him into a barrel designed for this purpose, which had holes in the sides at the place of the arteries. They would insert iron skewers through the barrel, and make the boy's blood flow that way. Then they would collect the blood, and use it for Passover. Some sources in Jewish halacha say that preparing a single matza on Passover this way is sufficient for all the Jews. Others believe that such matzos should be prepared in each country separately...

But not so in Andover, where the leader of the teachers union is challenging the right of school leadership to establish a "controversial speakers" policy. Union President Tom Meyers says that's a change of workplace conditions under the teachers' contract and should be subject to collective bargaining.

Worse, when Andover school administrators sought teachers' input in formulating the policy, the teachers were warned off by the Massachusetts Teachers Association. The association sent them letters stating that any participation in these "illegal" discussions on a speakers policy would expose them to personal liability for censoring their colleagues' First Amendment rights.

Do teachers recognize any limits whatsoever on their in-class activities? Judging from Meyers' actions, it seems they do not.

“Whoever invited them did it for scandal’s sake,” said Lipstadt...

As you can imagine, we (meaning, the organizers and cosponsors of last Thursday’s forum) have received several inquiries in the past few days as to our motivations, and are responding to each one individually. I recently conducted an electronic interview with [a local jouranlist]. Immediately below is his message, and attached here, for your review, are my responses to his questions. Please feel free to reproduce them in full on your website. I endeavor that this document will be of some use in addressing the concerns that you posed in your column.

I look forward to hearing from you and to sustaining our dialogue on this important subject.

Sincerely,

Ali Wyne
President, Forum on American Progress (FAP)

P.S. You may be interested to know that FAP is arranging for David Horowitz to lecture at MIT at some point in the near future.

2) Do you think that a majority of Democrats in Congress would like to see us lose in Iraq for political reasons?

3) Do you believe that the wall on the border will ever actually be completed?

4) Do you think mankind is the primary cause of global warming?

The following are two examples:

1 – On Jan. 29, 2007, a suicide terrorist killed three Israelis in the city of Eilat. The Ma'an Arabic report included the language of the terror organizations, while the English was cleansed with changes and omissions, including changes to the language of direct quotes. The differences are striking:

Denial of Israel's right to exist
In English Ma'an accurately reports that the event happened "in the southern Israeli resort of Eilat." But in the original Arabic, Eilat is changed from an Israeli city to a Palestinian city occupied by Israel – reflecting the terrorist assertion that all of Israel is “occupied Palestine.

Ma'an English: "…in the southern Israeli resort of Eilat."
Ma'an Arabic in first reference: "… in Eilat located in the south of occupied Palestine."
Ma'an Arabic in second reference: "…carried out a brave deed and for the first time in occupied Eilat.”

In the English the mother is referred to simply by her name and age: "Ruwaida Siksik, 42."
In Arabic Ma'an adds: " Ruwaida Siksik, 42, whose family originated from the occupied city of Jaffa."

The routine definition in a news story of Jaffa, a part of southern Tel Aviv, as "occupied" and Eilat as "occupied Palestine" is a way to linguistically express denial of Israel's right to exist, and is the terminology used by the terror organizations...

"Farrakhan may have held his anti-Semitic views in check while on the dais, but if this is what he wants people to read, then the leopard hasn't changed his spots," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "Minister Farrakhan's reading list includes books that purport to expose 'the truth' about Jews and their control of the federal banking system or their role in the African slave trade.

"It's a shame that Farrakhan had an opportunity to change his legacy, and he didn't," added Mr. Foxman.

Toward the conclusion of his Saviours' Day address at Ford Field in Detroit, which was described as his last major speech, Minister Farrakhan told his audience, "I want you to become readers" and "Put these names down."

Among the authors and books he recommended:

• The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, which argues that the history of slavery in the New World was dominated by Jewish ship owners and merchants. The book presents a multi-layered attack against the Jewish people, assaulting the integrity of the Jewish religion, the meaning of Jewish history, and the foundations of Jewish scholarship upon which the book's own fraudulent charges are based.

• The Secrets of the Federal Reserve by Eustice Mullins, an anti-Jewish conspiracy theory propagandist, one of the key conspiracy books claiming that the banking system in the U.S. is controlled by a few elite families (most of them Jewish). It is a key text used by anti-Semites on the far right.

• By Way of Deception by Victor Ostrovsky, a discredited book that makes unsubstantiated claims about Israel's Mossad.

• Palestine Peace Not Apartheid by President Jimmy Carter, a biased, simplistic and distorted view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that portrays Israeli policies in dealing with Palestinians in the territories as inherently racist.

Copies of The Synagogue of Satan, written by nation of Islam member Ashahed Muhammad, which claims that the world is being manipulated and corrupted by Satanic powers led by Jewish elites, were available for purchase at the event.

Majid Goudarzi: I don’t believe that a regime like the Zionist regime is legitimate, let alone that it will ever accept peace. Its very existence involves aggression, war, terrorism, and killing. It cannot stop these methods. This is even repeated in their Torah several times. In the Book of Exodus and the Book of Numbers, it is said several times that Moses called this people corrupt. They are genetically bloodthirsty and criminal, and therefore, they cannot give up their criminal character.