October 2007 Archives

"Isn't it true that these Jewish plots to corrupt the peoples were described by American 'plot-disrupters,' such as Benjamin Franklin and Henry Ford, and even by some Jews, like Alfred Lilienthal, and even Karl Marx, who, more than 150 years ago, exposed in his book On the Jewish Question that there was an instinct within the Jewish individual that drives him to take control of the world, by means of illegal money - which is known today as 'money laundering?'"...

...Narrator: "The Koran said about them: 'They strive to spread corruption throughout the land.' Spreading corruption throughout the land is the declared goal of the Zionist hands of evil, which are infiltrating the world. The Zionists have summarized their destructive principles in what has become known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which contains their secret plan to subjugate the entire world by spreading chaos and promiscuity among the nations, by imposing corrupt and depraved ideologies on human minds, and by destroying the foundations of religion, nationalism, and morality...

Fathi Hamad: I turn to [the Palestinian prisoners] from this mass rally, the goal of which is to express support for you, and to express rage at the enemies of Allah. We declare explicitly and in all honesty, and we sweat before Allah that we will not sit idly by, but will continue the method of kidnapping. It seems that the kidnapping of Shalit was not sufficient to force the enemies of Allah to sign an honorable deal, which would lead to your release with your heads held high. Therefore, your brothers in all the brigades of the mujahideen, and especially the 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, are planning further kidnapping operations in several places. They are planning operations not only in Gaza, but also in the West Bank, and the 1948 territories, as well as abroad...

...Let me inform you that, Allah willing, our 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades will soon manage to add other Shalits to Shalit.

THE Foreign Office has cleared dozens of Iranians to enter British universities to study advanced nuclear physics and other subjects with the potential to be applied to weapons of mass destruction.

In the past nine months about 60 Iranians have been admitted to study postgraduate courses deemed “proliferation-sensitive” by the security services. The disciplines range from nuclear physics to some areas of electrical and chemical engineering and microbiology.

Additionally, figures obtained by David Willetts, the shadow secretary for innovation, universities and skills, show that in 2005-06, 30 Iranians were doing postgraduate degrees in subjects covering nuclear physics and nuclear engineering.

The flow of Iranian scientists to Britain for training has caused alarm as the nuclear standoff between Iran and the West becomes increasingly tense. When confronted with the figures this weekend, the Foreign Office admitted that it was reviewing the vetting for sensitive areas of study and planned to announce an overhaul within the next few weeks to make procedures more rigorous...

According to an anonymous source within the anthropology department, chairman Dr. Brinkley Messick is playing favorites with troubled tenure candidate, professor Nadia Abu El-Haj. Messick named Abu El-Haj, the unreachable, aloof, and controversial "scholar," Director of Graduate Studies. The motives behind the move are clear—Messick bypassed far more deserving candidates for the position so as to cement Abu El-Haj within the department. The more responsibility she has, he reckons, the less likely it is that the objective academic committee will deny her tenure. Apparently positions and titles mean more than academic merit. This, however, should come as no surprise; those familiar with e-mails sent out on the AnthroDish listserv contend that Messick has repeatedly voiced his support for "Nadia" in "this difficult time." According to these sources, Messick once claimed that "we have seen this before." If the tenure committee can validate these conversations, they must not allow interdepartmental favoritism to weigh upon their reasoned decision.

"We will liberate the Land… [which] is Arab in history and identity, Palestine is Arab in history and identity."

And to ensure that no one limits the land of the future "liberated Palestine," the song defines the scope of Palestinian cities, which include all of Israel:

"From Jerusalem and Acre and from Haifa and Jericho and Gaza and Ramallah
From Bethlehem and Jaffa and Be'er Sheva and Ramle
And from Nablus to the Galilee, and from Tiberias to Hebron”

This is significant not only because it was broadcast on Fatah TV, but because the constant repetition of this clip promising Israel's destruction comes at the very time that the world is preparing for a peace conference.

Arafat's Palestinian Authority was notorious for this duplicity. It signaled its real beliefs and intentions only in Arabic, while in English it said what the West and Israel needed to hear to sustain what is widely recognized today as a deceptive peace process. Arafat was successful, with Israel repeatedly giving in to his demands. Israel paid dearly for its trust in Arafat's English pronouncements, with more than 1,000 killed and tens of thousands wounded in the Palestinian Authority-led terror war.

Today's leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, was Arafat's right hand man and partner during the first duplicity period. To Israel and the U.S. in English, he is talking peace. To his people in Arabic, through his TV and schoolbooks [Click for PMW report on PA schoolbooks], he is promoting hatred and promising the destruction of Israel. Is Abbas following Arafat's successful duplicity tactic? It is incumbent upon Israel and the world to verify this before going further....

...I sat down in a pew near the front and opened the folder of conference materials. The back page of the official program was entitled “Apartheid?” and was filled with quotes and maps aimed at proving the Israel-apartheid analogy. They had a line from Jimmy Carter, a line from Archbishop Desmond Tutu (the conference’s keynote speaker), and a line from—no, wait, really?—Nelson Mandela:

“Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children.”

Sounds rather damning, doesn’t it? And who could disagree with Nelson Mandela? There’s only one problem: Nelson Mandela never said, wrote or endorsed those words. They are the creation of an Arab journalist named Arjan El Fassed. When I exposed El Fassed's fraud earlier this year, he claimed: “There is no possible basis for Pollak to say I intended people to believe the memo was written by anyone other than myself.”

In spite of El Fassed’s admission, the Israel-haters continue to use his Mandela quote to promote their views. But El Fassed’s “Mandela Memo” is a fraud—just as much a lie as the Israel-apartheid equation itself. The entire evening was built on such lies.

...Fraudulent accusations against the Jewish state, based on fabricated evidence. Religious endorsement of hatred, couched in the rhetoric of social justice. False caricatures and stereotypes of an entire people. The parading of token Jews to verify everything said from the stage. Sound familiar? They used to have a word for that. But you can’t use “antisemitism” anymore. So I’ll just call it a disgrace.

Rev. Nancy Taylor made an interesting choice in defending Old South Church’s decision to host Sabeel’s Israel = Apartheid gathering by invoking St. Paul’s Letter to Philemon, Paul’s call for reconciliation between an escaped slave, Onesimus, and his master Philemon.

In Taylor’s reading, Paul’s decision to reconcile these feuding parties provides precedence for a modern-day church trying to find a proper path to tread "between two friends – both of whom felt aggrieved, both of whom were sure they were in the right." In this case, these two "friends" are Sabeel (who have had the church’s doors open to them) and the Jewish community angry that supposed interfaith partners would sanctify an event subtly entitled "The Apartheid Paradigm in Palestine-Israel."

In choosing Paul’s Letter to Philemon as precedent for her church’s current predicament, Taylor sees the action of a church founder choosing to publically navigate a path between two feuding parties. But we should not forget that the parties in this conflict were a slaveholder and a runaway slave, with Paul negotiating agreeable and humane terms under which Onesimus would return to his rightful place as a slave in Philemon’s household. While Paul’s era was hugely different than our own, the injustice of slavery rings out to us from the times of Ancient Rome to the plantations of the American South to the slave markets of the present day Sudan. So in this particular case, finding a middle path was not a way to split the difference between two friends both in the right, but an attempt to reconcile with one of history’s most wicked institutions. In treading a path between Onesimus and Philemon, Paul’s mediation was not a virtue but an acquiescence with monstrous evil.

Is there a correct balancing act between one group, Sabeel, trying to brand Israel a racist, apartheid country worthy of the boycott and punishment they advocate in churches around the world, and a Jewish community who finds such hateful words and deeds revolting and humiliating? I suppose Rev. Taylor could open her church to the "Islamofascist Awareness Week" program currently traveling around several college campuses, although I suspect the church might be less inclined to throw open its doors to such a program as hastily as they’ve made their pews available to Sabeel. More to the point, we in the Jewish community have never asked her's or any other church to lend their name and reputation to events designed to denigrate and insult those with whom we simply hold political differences.

Paul lived in a time where slavery was not thought of in the terms it is today. Sabeel and their hosts at Old South Church cannot make the same claim about the deicide and other imagery Sabeel routinely uses in their discourse about Jews and the Middle East. Perhaps it is the presence of the Rev. Desmond Tutu which blinds Rev. Taylor to the reality of what will be taking place under her sacred roof this weekend. Or perhaps her hope for reconciliation reflects the same thinking as the British officer in Mandatory Palestine who wondered aloud "Why can’t the Jews and Arabs learn to behave like good Christians."

The Center for Cross-Cultural Understanding was established on May 23, 2007 by Dr. Hassan El-Najjar to promote peace in the world through education. Authors, contributors, journalists, and readers who cooperated with Dr. El-Najjar in the past five years (2002-2007) are welcome to resume their noble efforts of promoting peace in the world through education.

I feel compelled to share with you, and all of the members of Temple Israel, an open letter that I have written to Reverend Nancy Taylor of Old South Church. Before you read the letter, I want to share the context. Reverend Taylor and the Council of Old South have chosen to rent space in their building for a conference conducted by Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center of Jerusalem on October 26 and 27. The keynote speaker for the conference is Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who is identified as an "International Patron" of the organization. Sabeel is identified by Reverend Taylor as a "partner" of the United Church of Christ (and, therefore, of Old South Church).

I believe (and I hope that you agree) that we must be ever vigilant to protest against anti-Semitism in whatever form it appears. My investigation of this organization, Sabeel, leads me to a clear conclusion that it is anti-Jewish in its rhetoric and devoted to the demonization of Israel. I have asked Reverend Taylor how we are to understand her intentions and those of the Council of Old South in this matter.

For your information, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the parent organization of our Jewish Community Relations Council of Boston, has issued this overview on Sabeel:

"Sabeel: The Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center is a Christian organization based in Jerusalem that advocates for 'solidarity with the Palestinian people.' Sabeel seeks to build a critical mass of Christian influentials who will speak to Israel's culpability for the Palestinian condition.

Narrative: Sabeel documents speak of the formation of the state of Israel as 'original sin.' Israel is cast in purely colonial terms, a result of European post-Holocaust intervention. Virtually no mention is made of any continued Jewish presence in the land. The Palestinian refugee issue is described as resulting from Israeli 'ethnic cleansing.' Sabeel denigrates Israeli efforts at peacemaking including the offers made at Camp David in 2000 and the Gaza disengagement. The flight of Christians from the territories is framed only as a result of Israeli actions; no responsibility is placed on Arab or Palestinian leaders or actions.

Policies: Sabeel expresses a preference for a one-state solution, although it endorses, as a less optimal answer, a two-state solution. Sabeel condemns terrorism, but goes to great lengths to explain why it feels Israeli actions invite terrorism. Sabeel broadly condemns almost all Israeli security measures.

Theology: Sabeel advances 'Palestinian Liberation Theology,' interpreting Christian sacred texts to portray Palestinians as inherently innocent, Israelis as almost exclusively culpable for Palestinian suffering, and creating a theological imperative to advance a pro-Palestinian advocacy agenda. The language used by several Sabeel leaders embraces supersessionism, also known as 'replacement theology,' which rejects a continued Jewish covenantal relationship with God.

Language: Sabeel uses theologically-loaded language such as comparing Palestinians to Christ, and Israelis to those who crucified Christ. Sabeel characterizes Israeli security measures as a 'pagan god' and the occupation as the 'stone placed on the entrance of Jesus' tomb.'

Activities: Sabeel advocates for targeted divestment of companies operating in Israel, routinely draws parallels between Israel and South African Apartheid, and vociferously attacks Christian Zionism.

Leaders: Sabeel was founded by Rev. Naim Ateek, who along with other Sabeel speakers (Christian, Muslim, and Jewish) - including Rev. Donald Wagner, Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh, Huwaida Arraf, and Jeffrey Halper - have long track records of criticizing, in the harshest terms possible, both Israel and Zionism.

Friends of Sabeel-North America (FOSNA) is the domestic group that supports Sabeel regional educational conferences, missions, and international gatherings."

I regret that the subject of this correspondence is not a more pleasant one, but hope that you will take the time to read my letter to Reverend Taylor.

With sincere appreciation,

Rabbi Ronne Friedman

Pathways is a new program on campus that aims to promote tolerance and understanding across religious and cultural group on campus.  Funded by a federal grant, the project is the result of the leadership and vision of a consortium of partners, representing student organizations and faculty members from across the university...

Yesterday, the University of Delaware asked Asaf Romirowsky to step down from an academic panel at the University of Delaware because another panelist, University of Delaware political scientist Muqtedar Khan, didn't want to share the podium with anyone who served in the Israeli Defense Forces. Romirowsky, who holds joint American/Israeli citizenship and lives in Philadelphia, had been invited to join Khan, his colleague in political science, Stuart Kaufman, a staff member of the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, and a graduate student to discuss anti-Americanism in the Middle East. The program was organized by the College Republicans, the College Democrats, and the Students of Western Civilization Club. The Leadership Institute provided the funds for the panel, which met on the University of Delaware campus on Wednesday evening. The students offered Romirowsky the opportunity to come to campus next week and speak alone, with no other panel members who might object to his presence.

If Khan was just an academic, that would be one thing.  But he also straddles the policy world: Khan is a a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a Pentagon consultant.  According to an e-mail he sent to the University, he gave a workshop at the Pentagon yesterday afternoon...

The former mufti of Jerusalem, Ikrema Sabri, has made the claim that there never was a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount, and the Western Wall was really part of a mosque.

"There was never a Jewish temple on Al-Aksa [the mosque compound] and there is no proof that there was ever a temple," he told The Jerusalem Post via a translator. "Because Allah is fair, he would not agree to make Al-Aksa if there were a temple there for others beforehand."

Sabri rejected Judaism's claim to the Western Wall as part of the outer wall of the Second Temple.

"The wall is not part of the Jewish temple. It is just the western wall of the mosque," he said. "There is not a single stone with any relation at all to the history of the Hebrews."

Asked if Jews would ever be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount under Muslim control, he replied: "It is not the Temple Mount, you must say Al-Aksa. And no Jews have the right to pray at the mosque. It was always only a mosque - all 144 dunams, the entire area. No Jewish prayer. If the Jews want real peace, they must not do anything to try to pray on Al-Aksa. Everyone knows that."

"Zionism tries to trick the Jews claiming that this was part of a Jewish temple, but they dug there and they found nothing," Sabri added.

Archeologists overseeing Islamic infrastructure work on the Mount announced this week that they had unveiled a sealed archeological level dating back to the First Temple period...

Scores of local organizations are planning to rally outside the Old South Church in Boston this Friday in response to a weekend conference sponsored by Sabeel, the controversial Christian Palestinian human rights group.

The conference, "The Apartheid Paradigm in Palestine-Israel: Issues of Justice and Equality," will feature Sabeel leaders and the Reverend Desmond Tutu, who, along with Sabeel, has been criticized for his portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. More than 50 organizations plan to join in Friday’s demonstration.

"We respect the right of the Old South Church to have the conference because we believe in freedom of speech, but we absolutely denounce the message," said Nancy K. Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston. "The public needs to understand that [Sabeel] is anti-Israel and against Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state."

The JCRC has teamed up with religious and human rights groups, including the Anti-Defamation League and the United Assembly of God of Framingham, to demonstrate against this weekend’s event.

"They have a right to demonstrate," said Nancy S. Taylor, senior minister at Old South Church. "The people rallying outside the event have legitimate concerns, and the people speaking inside have legitimate concerns. There is more than one truth."...

This is not peacemaking; it is demonization. Such language might have been tolerable in the Old South, but not today.

Not in Boston's Old South.

...This one may well run and run, but it really shouldn’t, because Nadia Abu El Haj’s meaning in this passage (if not her syntax) is perfectly clear. In short, Paula Stern and the other critics are right: Abu El Haj’s position is that ‘the modern Jewish/Israeli belief in ancient Israelite origins’ should be ‘understood as pure political fabrication’, as an ‘ideological assertion’ and, as Stern correctly notes, she is being critical of Israeli archaeologists for not accepting that: they ought to, she thinks, but they don’t. What makes it worse, the reader is encouraged to conclude, is that Israeli archaeologists were in denial about this as late as the 1990s, a fact that undermines the claim of modern Israeli archaeology to be a truly scientific enterprise.

You really need to read the whole book to understand what Nadia Abu El Haj is doing here and to appreciate the full impact of her claims, rather than relying on the fragmented chunks made available via Amazon Reader or, even worse, taking at face value what other people choose to quote or misquote...

...The leaders of several Western superpowers constitute the Zionist party. They are the ones who pull the strings. They created something called Zionism, and invented the so-called "oppression" of the Jews. They themselves created the background for this, and today as well, it is they who are running the show...

...After World War II, they invented the so-called "genocide of the Jews." Throughout Europe and in countries under the control of the Western superpowers, they established an anti-Jewish movement. By means of propaganda and a certain psychological atmosphere, and by using the issue of the so-called "crematoria," they created the sense that the European Jews were oppressed. They used the pretext that some Jews were oppressed and were harmed during World War II and by the wave of anti-Judaism in order to lay the foundations for the establishment of the Zionist regime. Later, of course, they called it "the massacre of the Jews," and only after World War II did they call it "the Holocaust." They made this issue more sacred than all the sacred things in the world...

...How can it possibly be that you have turned this phenomenon – a phenomenon which you yourself invented after the war, and which you began calling "Holocaust" only in 1975 – into something so sacred that nobody is permitted to even raise questions about it? In World War II, there were several incidents similar to a plane crash. Later, under the pretext of these incidents, they have been perpetrating an ongoing genocide of historic proportions in Palestine. They have been perpetrating an ongoing crime in Palestine...

Saying that they are fed up with “aggressive incursion of partisan politics into universities’ hiring and tenure practices,” five prominent academics have issued a call to “defend the university” and gathered dozens of backers in what they view as a new way to bolster academic freedom.

The Ad Hoc Committee to Defend the University has issued a statement and is asking professors and others to sign on.

“In recent years, universities across the country have been targeted by outside groups seeking to influence what is taught and who can teach. To achieve their political agendas, these groups have defamed scholars, pressured administrators, and tried to bypass or subvert established procedures of academic governance,” the statement says. “As a consequence, faculty have been denied jobs or tenure, and scholars have been denied public platforms from which to share their viewpoints. This violates an important principle of scholarship, the free exchange of ideas, subjecting them to ideological and political tests. These attacks threaten academic freedom and the core mission of institutions of higher education in a democratic society.”...

...Signatories to the statement pledge, among other things, to “speak out against those who attack our colleagues and our universities in order to achieve their political goals” and to “urge university administrators and trustees to defend academic freedom and the norms of academic life, even if it means incurring the displeasure of non-scholarly groups, the media among them.”...

...The statement comes at a time of a series of high profile hiring or tenure cases involving professors who work on the Middle East and whose work has been subject to scrutiny by many non-academics during the process they were under consideration. Among the cases are those of Norman Finkelstein, who was denied tenure at DePaul University; Nadia Abu El-Haj, an anthropologist up for tenure at Barnard College; and Juan Cole, a professor of history at the University of Michigan who saw his candidacy for a job at Yale University derailed.

And this week, David Horowitz and his campus allies are sponsoring “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” a series of events that will among other things say that women’s studies and other left-leaning scholars aren’t doing enough to combat radical Islam — and these events are already setting off controversies on many campuses, where students and professors say that the week is a thinly disguised effort to scare people about Muslims...

The Matza restaurant massacre occurred on March 31, 2002, when a Palestinian Hamas suicide bomber detonated his bomb inside the Matza restaurant in Haifa, Israel, killing 15 people and injuring over 40.

The attack occurred at 14:45 during the Passover vacation in Israel, and the restaurant was crowded with families having their lunch. Despite the Passover massacre which occurred just four days earlier in Netanya, and the tense atmosphere following it, the clients and restaurant owners were not particularly worried about security: The Matza restaurant is operated by an Israeli Arab family, and its multi-ethnic nature was thought to make it an unlikely choice for a terrorist attack...

Al-Salam Alikom,

Richard Hess is organizing a Peace Rally in Copley square about Israeli Apartheid in the Occupied territories this Saturday 3pm. http://www.fosna.org/documents/JVP-PeaceRally.pdf (Flyer)

We are looking for Palestinian or Muslim or Arab Children to read stories (with Jewish children) about Palestinians in the West Bank. It is a part of an international conference that we are extremely fortunate to have in Boston...

Please contact A.S.A.P:
Richard Colbath-Hess L.I.C.S.W (cced)...

...I encourage you all to take part in the conference and rally. We would also appreciate it if you encourage the masses as well. You don't usually get all those speakers in one place. Plus you don't want us to continue to appear as if we care less about Palestine than others.

Jazakom Allah Kheiran,
Helmy Mostafa

Head of Muslim body in charge of Temple Mount refuses to attend Knesset committee meeting on excavations at site. 'We don't recognize Israel's sovereignty in Jerusalem,' he explains

The Knesset State Control Committee decided Monday to ask the state comptroller to compile a report on the archeological digs carried out by the Muslim Waqf at the Temple Mount.

The decision came after a representative of the Muslim administrative body in charge of the holy site refused to attend the committee's meeting, stating that he did not recognize Israel's sovereignty at the Temple Mount or the Knesset's authority to make decisions on the matter.

Committee chairman MK Zevulun Orlev explained that the committee convened to discuss the alleged destruction of relics and other damages caused by the Waqf's digs. "We cannot ignore the fact that the Waqf does not recognize the Knesset and its committees. Its members are carrying out excavations at the Temple Mount, which is a very sensitive, special site," he explained.

The Waqf's director-general Adnan al-Husseini said his decision to shun the committee's invitation was dictated by the Waqf's year-long policy. "The Waqf does not acknowledge Israel's authority in Jerusalem or the Temple Mount…the Waqf boycotts Israeli politicians all the time."...

...In the Gaza Strip these days, not even a trip to the bank or the Western Union is without drama. Last week, the Israel Discount Bank, the last Israeli bank to do business with Gaza's financial institutions, cut its ties with the isolated territory. Now cash, the only form of payment most Gazans will accept, is running out.

According to both Gaza bank managers and the local Hamas-run administration, there is a severe shortage of U.S. dollars and Jordanian dinars, the two currencies in which most Gazans keep their savings. Banks are still distributing Israeli shekels, but even those could start running low as early as next week, leading to talk that the impoverished Gaza Strip, a place where increasing numbers of people now get around on donkey carts and cook their meals over open fires, could take another step backward in time and return to the barter system.

"There is no cash in the banks. We go to the black market to buy enough shekels to give to our clients. But tomorrow, who knows, we could be out of shekels...

Finance Minister Roni Bar-On met Monday in Washington with World Bank President Robert Zoellick, and urged him not to cooperate in any manner with Hamas and economic projects in the Gaza Strip.

"We must strengthen moderates through economic cooperation, but there is no room to include Hamas in this framework," said Bar-On.

"We must adopt a policy of isolating the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Hamas, from the West Bank, which is controlled by moderates," said the finance minister.

Bar-On added that Israel would like to contribute to the development of job opportunities and proper living conditions in the West Bank in order to demonstrate to Palestinians that terror does not pay...

While the Gazan economy is in free fall, Hamas, the main target of the Israeli sanctions, and its political rival, Fatah, appear to be awash with cash.

There were crowds in the main streets last week surveying lists of names to see if they had been nominated to receive a $100 (£50) gift for Ramadan from either Hamas or Fatah. Hamas was offering the sum to 40,000 people, while Fatah was giving to 65,000.

Both parties, through their respective governments in Gaza and Ramallah, hope to pay their civil servants and security forces in full this month. Hamas says it will pay 16,000 salaries this week, averaging $400 a person, while Fatah will pay around 60,000 - on the understanding that the recipients stay at home and do not work with the Hamas government.

...In reality, Nadia Abu El Haj is faulting Israeli archaeologists for their thought crimes. Put more simply, El Haj believes they are at fault because "The modern Jewish/Israeli belief in ancient Israelite origins is not understood as a pure political fabrication." [They are blameworthy because they don't see it, as El Haj does, as a pure political fabrication. Sorry to keep pounding at this, but sometimes it's tough to untangle the academic mush-speak. -S]

Read the whole paragraph (p. 250) and see what she really says.

"While  by the early 1990s, virtually all archaeologists argued for the need to  disentangle the goals of their professional practice form the quest for Jewish  origins and objects that framed an earlier archaeological project, the fact that there is some genuine national-cultural connection between contemporary  (Israeli-)Jews and such objects was not open to sustained questioning. That commitment remained, for the most  part, and for most practicing archaeologists, fundamental. In other words, the modern  Jewish/Israeli belief in ancient Israelite origins is not understood as a  pure political fabrication. It is not an ideological assertion comparable  to Arab claims of Canaanite or other  ancient tribal roots.  Although both  origin tales, Arab and Jewish, are structurally similar as historical claims,  (Israeli archaeologist) Broshi’s argument betrays a “hierarchy of credibility”  in which “facticity” is conferred only upon the latter.”

But, Nadia, dear, it is not merely possible but valid for scholars to construct a  "hierarchy of credibility."  Most would say that this is the point of  having scholars. Scholars examine the evidence and make the judgment that, after sustained questioning of the evidence, there is indeed a "genuine national-cultural connection between contemporary (Israeli-)Jews" and many two  and three-thousand year old archaeological artifacts, while there is no evidence of  Palestinian Arab national-cultural connection to Canaanite or other ancient tribes.

New Delhi Deputy Mayor S.S. Bajwa was rushed to a hospital after the attack by the gang of Rhesus macaques, but quickly succumbed to head injuries sustained in his fall, the Press Trust of India news agency and The Times of India reported.

Many government buildings, temples and residential neighborhoods in New Delhi are overrun by Rhesus macaques which scare passers-by and occasionally bite or snatch food from unsuspecting visitors.

Last year, the Delhi High Court reprimanded city authorities for failing to stop the animals from terrifying residents and asked them to find a permanent solution to the monkey menace.

Part of the problem is that devout Hindus believe monkeys are manifestations of the monkey god Hanuman and feed them bananas and peanuts — encouraging them to frequent public places...

This is an obituary for the Oxford Union, which claims to be one of the most famous and distinguished debating societies in the world.  The reality is that it is no longer a debating society at all; it has become a propaganda platform for extremist views, primarily of the hard-left. It has now stopped even pretending to present both sides of controversial issues. To be sure, it puts forward a façade of balance, by presenting speakers who purport to represent both sides of an issue. But the Oxford Union has become a Potemkin village where a façade of fairness serves as a cover for the reality of bias. Consider for example a debate that is scheduled to take place at the Oxford Union on October, 23 2007 at 8:30pm. The proposition before the house is as follows:  “This house believes that One State is the Only Solution to the Israel-Palestine Conflict”

Every rational person knows that the so-called one-state solution is simply a way of achieving by demography what the Arab world has failed to achieve by military attacks: namely the destruction of Israel as a democratic, secular, Jewish state. A one-state solution would produce yet another Islamic fundamentalist state in place of the secular democracy that is now Israel. The resolution is simply another way of presenting an anti-Israel side (the one-state solution) and a pro-Israel side (the two-state solution). Not surprisingly, the three debaters on the anti-Israel side are three well-known anti-Israel extremists.  No problem there, because the one state side is the anti-Israel side. As Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of the new republic put it: “A bi-national state is not the alternative for Israel. It is an alternative to Israel.”

Now let’s turn to the pro-Israel side.  One of three speakers on the pro-Israel side is Peter Tatchell who is a member of the gay rights group called Out Rage! and of the extreme left-wing of the green party.  He too is virulently anti-Israel and favors boycotts of the “the oppressive Israel state.” Yet the Oxford Union picked him to represent the pro Israel side, probably because he once opposed boycotting a gay rights march in Israel.  I couldn’t find any record of Tatchell proposing boycotts of “oppressive” Muslim states, even those that execute gays. And he’s the pro-Israel advocate!

Yet compared to the next debater for the pro Israel side, Tatchell sounds like David Ben Gurion. Readers of this article will probably not believe it when I tell them who else was picked to represent the pro-Israel side by the benighted Oxford Union...

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

ASMK,

On Sunday, October 21st 2007, we will be hosting a distinguished guest, Dr. Mustafa Abu Sway, as a presenter in the Current Affairs series of our weekly Conversations program. Dr. Sway is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Islamic Studies, and Director of the Islamic Research Center at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem. His presentation will include a review of the current situation in the occupied territories and an analysis of the multifaceted struggles that the Palestinians are dealing with at the moment and their impact on the future of the Middle East.

A question and answer session will follow the presentation. The session will be held in center's prayer hall starting at 11:15 AM and concluding by 12:45 PM, insha'allah...

In "Fulbright's Terrorist Tie," Asaf Romirowsky and I recently broke the news that Mustafa Abu-Sway, a professor teaching at Florida Atlantic University courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer, also happens to be "known as an activist" in Hamas, a group on the U.S. government's terrorism list...

IN CIVILIZED circles it is considered boorish to speak of Jews as Christ-killers, or to use language evoking the venomous old teaching that Jews are forever cursed for the death of Jesus. Those circles apparently don't include the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, an anti-Israel "peace" organization based in Jerusalem, or its founder, the Anglican cleric Naim Ateek.

Sabeel and Ateek are highly regarded on the hard-line Christian left, and regularly organize American conferences at which Israel is extravagantly denounced by numerous critics. So far this year, such conferences have been held in Cleveland, Berkeley, Calif., and Birmingham, Ala.; another begins Friday at Boston's Old South Church.

Just as critics of the United States are not necessarily anti-American bigots, critics of Israel are not necessarily biased against Jews. But Sabeel and Ateek's denunciations of Israel have included imagery explicitly linking the modern Jewish state to the terrible charge of deicide that for centuries fueled so much anti-Jewish hatred and bloodshed...

...This brings me to the fifth goal – to alter American and Canadian political opinion so as to make it more favorably disposed toward President Ahmadinejad. I believe this to have been the primary goal, indeed the only one that really mattered to most participants. I say this because that priority is apparent from most of the public comments of various participants...

Wrong, VERY wrong.

Wikipedia takes an organized effort. It is a combination of "user community" and a political organization which in large part is controlled by left-wing academics and "intellectuals" who set it as a goal to re-write the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and disseminate it via Wikipedia.

Their main method: Removing facts which could be understood as "pro-Israel" (they claim those facts are biased) and adding a one-sided view of history. The result is good propaganda: Half truth which creates the needed impression. When possible they add lies: soft, based on so-called "academic research" or "Human Rights" organizations - claims such as "Israel builds apartheid roads in the west-bank"...

A new generation of students, from high school to colleges is using and will continue to use Wikipedia - they will learn about important subjects from biased wikipedia articles.

A large group of Muslims, a well organized group are controlling many Wikipedia articles. (with help of antisemites, anarchists or just "good souls" from the left.)

Take for example an Australian Professor [link removed] (who hides his identity under a internet handle Zero0000 - he was involved in the "trial" with Lance6Wins that you have mentioned)

In real life: Do people know that he is editing many Wikipedia articles about Jews, Israel and Palestine? On his Wikipedia user page in he explains that he must keep his identity a secret "for professional reasons." He is after all, a respected CS professor - but in Wikipedia he is considered a History expert.

Sure, if one wants to edit an article about Penicillin - everything would be fine but try adding a word in an article about Israel 1948 independence war and your words will soon be deleted by one of those "good souls" from the left.

Should you fight, soon you will find that Wikipedia has cliques and rules and a special police force (called administrators) as well as a "supreme court" and together this organization will prevent you from editing wikipedia.

They will record your IP address, keep track of your edits and remember your "editing style" and favorite articles – should you try to circumvent their bans they WILL detect it and ban you again.

There is no way to work in Wikipedia as a loaner.

This organization can be dealt with, if it is done smartly. It will take time, it will take a coordinated effort and it will take discipline: There is no way Wikipedia articles can become "Zionist" - but there is a way, that over time, much of the lies about Israel and history of the conflict can be removed to make the most quoted encyclopedia in the world at least neutral and closer to the truth.

What can you do?

Get a wikipedia ID, edit only subjects which have nothing to do with Israel, Zionism, Judaism. Don't get into any fight, just blend into the community, make friends with other editors – you will need all that in due time. Maybe even get elected to become a "Wikipedia Admin" - many muslims and marxists already are.

...BOSTON COMMON
pre-rally starts at 11:00 rally from noon to 2:00
march begins at 2:00
speakers: MEDIA BENJAMIN HOWARD ZINN
DR. DAHLIA WASFI MELIDA ARREDONDO
LIAM MADDEN (IVAW) SHEP GURWITZ MERRI NAJIMI
ROSTAM POURZAL JOHN WILHEIM and more...

Tearing Down Walls – Building Bridges
Protesting Apartheid in Israel/Palestine
October 27th, 2007 – 3:00 p. m.
Copley Square, Boston
Hear activists from
Israel, Palestine, South Africa
and the U. S. address the issues
of inequality, violence and peace
in Israel/Palestine

...The Israelis know that Syria has capabilities and expertise, and that it has real cooperation with the resistance in Lebanon, and that it is capable of inflicting pain, with which the Israelis are very familiar, if they want to wage such a war. I am not talking about the military or strategic balance of power. Syria has a regular army with all the military capabilities, but even if it comes to guerrilla warfare, we have full cooperation with Hizbullah, and the Syrians will definitely want to repeat what Hizbullah did, if the Israelis even think about committing another act of stupidity.

Activist: Peace is the key to the life of human beings. When a person enjoys peace, he feels safe, becomes productive, and begins to think and develop.

Second activist: There is nothing wrong with having two states – a Palestinian state and an Israeli one. The reality is that the Israelis have a state and we don't.

Third activist: In my opinion, peace serves us more than anyone else. Of course, I support peace, no matter what. After all, we are all human beings. True, we suffer from occupation and oppression. This activity is by people who believe in peace, and believe we have a right to have an independent state, and to have the 1967 borders and Jerusalem. I don't see any reason why this shouldn't happen.

Reporter: These groups are also active on the streets. There, the volunteers try to persuade citizens to sign a document containing several clauses...

If they can't get that, they're happy to see generation after generation, slaughtering each other.

The boycott movement's main target is moderate Palestinians and Israelis. If they compromisers and conciliators succeed, they lose.

That is why the boycott movement is the enemy of the Palestinian and Israeli peoples.

And this is also why this scum must be fought politically wherever we encounter them - in our unions, in the media, and in the street - until they are defeated.

NEW YORK -- Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said the world must not be "forced into retreat" against Islamic terrorists as it faced a situation similar to the Nazi threat before World War II.

In his first major speech since leaving office in June, Blair told a charity dinner in New York: "Analogies with the past are never properly accurate and analogies especially with the rising fascism can be easily misleading but in pure chronology I sometimes wonder if we're not in the 1920s or 1930s again.

"This ideology now has a state, Iran, that is prepared to back and finance terror in the pursuit of destabilizing countries whose people wish to live in peace."

Blair's speech Thursday came days after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates reiterated the Bush administration's stance that "all options" must be kept "on the table" in confronting the threats posed by Iran. This was a reference to the option of using military action against the long-time U.S. adversary.

Addressing the issue of terrorists, Blair continued: "There is a tendency even now, even in some of our own circles, to believe that they are as they are because we have provoked them and if we left them alone they would leave us alone," he said.

Blair, who gave strong personal backing to U.S. President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001 attacks, added: "I fear this is mistaken. They have no intention of leaving us alone...

In a move aimed at undermining Hamas, the Palestinian Authority government in Ramallah decided Thursday to dismantle all Islamic charitable organizations in the West Bank.

Hamas condemned the decision as a "declaration of war" on the needy and warned that thousands of families would be affected...

...The charities that are being targeted are known as zakah committees. In Islam, zakah (purify) is a portion of one's wealth that must be given to the poor or to other specified purposes.

The payment of zakah is a way of purifying one's wealth and saving oneself from greed and selfishness.

PA officials said Hamas has been using the zakah committees as a means of transferring funds to its supporters in the West Bank...

Syria has begun dismantling the remains of a site Israel bombed Sept. 6 in what may be an attempt to prevent the location from coming under international scrutiny, said U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the aftermath of the attack.

Based on overhead photography, the officials say the site in Syria's eastern desert near the Euphrates River had a "signature" or characteristics of a small but substantial nuclear reactor, one similar in structure to North Korea's facilities.

The dismantling of the damaged site, which appears to be still underway, could make it difficult for weapons inspectors to determine the precise nature of the facility and how Syria planned to use it. Syria, which possesses a small reactor used for scientific research, has denied seeking to expand its nuclear program. But U.S. officials knowledgeable about the Israeli raid have described the target as a nuclear facility being constructed with North Korean assistance.

The bombed facility is different from the one Syria displayed to journalists last week to back its allegations that Israel had bombed an essentially an empty building, said the officials, who insisted on anonymity because details of the Israeli attack are classified.

While U.S. officials express increasing confidence that the Syrian facility was nuclear-related, divisions persist within the government and among weapons experts over the significance of the threat. If the facility was a nuclear reactor, U.S. weapons experts said it would almost certainly have taken Syria several years to complete the structure, and much longer to produce significant quantities of plutonium for potential use in nuclear weapons. Nuclear reactors also are used to generate electricity...

Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt General Guide Muhammad Mehdi 'Akef has stated that his movement does not and never will recognize Israel.

He added, "The Muslim Brotherhood does not have anything called 'Israel' in its lexicon; the [only] thing we recognize is the Zionist gangs that occupied the Arab land and expelled its residents... If they want to live amongst us, this must be in the framework of Palestine. If they want [their own] state – we will respond with resistance."

Source: Al-Hayat, London, October 18, 2007

The influential Islamic leader, Yusef Qaradawi, has called on all Muslims to defend Iran in the case of a U.S. attack, according to the Gulf Times.

Gulf Times reports that Qaradawi, in an interview on IslamOnline Radio, said “It is obligatory on all Muslims to resist any possible attack the US might launch against Iran. Iran is a Muslim country which all Muslims should defend while the US is an enemy of Islam that has already declared war on Islam under the disguise of war on terrorism and provides Israel with unlimited support.”

Is the City of Boston listening? Qaradawi, spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, was once listed on IRS forms as one of four directors of the Islamic Society of Boston, and appeared in a 2002 fundraising video for the new sprawling mosque complex built in the neighborhood of Roxbury. After Boston Herald articles about Qaradawi’s unsavory views, the Islamic Society of Boston defended Qaradawi on its website as a “leading Muslim scholar.”...

The media is the most powerful tool for "branding" a country. The enormous number of foreign journalists based in Israel has certainly played its part in keeping the Arab-Israeli conflict in the public eye, far beyond other conflict zones around the world, such as Darfur.

Despite being a global leader in hi-tech, science, agriculture and many other fields, Israel suffers from negative  branding by the media primarily within the context of a conflict situation.

In stark contrast, what is the Netherlands associated with? Many of you will conjure up benign images of windmills and tulips. It would be hard to find anything particularly offensive or negative to say about the Netherlands. Yet, this is precisely what Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs has done with his new blog site "Bad News From the Netherlands"...

The artist, Alan Kaufman, said several of his Jewish-themed paintings were rotated on-and-off the walls at the Himmelberger Gallery near Union Square beginning in July. Some of Mr. Kaufman's works bear the names of figures from the Hebrew Bible, while others listed in a contract with the gallery have titles such as "Anti-Semitism," "Battle for Israel," and "Flight of Israel's Foes." One canvas is named after an Israeli city near the Gaza Strip, Sderot, and depicts a figure crouched under a Jewish star as missiles fly overhead.

Mr. Kaufman said he and the gallery's owner, David Himmelberger, were working closely on a catalog of the art as well as plans to exhibit it at other sites, when Mr. Himmelberger expressed discomfort with using the word "Zionist" in the catalog's title and with essays that included references to Zionism.

An attorney for Mr. Himmelberger, Edward Sarti, described the gallery's choice not to go forward with the catalog as "a business decision."

Mr. Kaufman said the disagreement erupted on October 8 at a meeting with Mr. Himmelberger to discuss the layout and contents of the 24-page catalog. "He had a printout of the catalog with ‘Visionary Expressionism: A Zionist Art' in front of him. He pointed to the word, ‘Zionism,' and said, ‘I can't do that," Mr. Kaufman told The New York Sun. "I said, ‘What exactly is the problem? You know what my paintings are about.'"

"He said, ‘I don't stand for that. … We don't want to advocate any kind of platform here,'" Mr. Kaufman said. The artist said it was not the content of his art, but the labeling of it as Zionist that seemed to be the sticking point. "None of the paintings at the gallery have the actual word ‘Zionism' in it. I think it was the appearance of the actual word Zionism in the title and all the essays that shocked him. He gave me the impression that, ‘Oh my God, we have a Zionist in the house.'"...

A clip broadcast by Fatah-controlled Palestinian television this week shows a map in which Israel is painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag, symbolizing Israel turned into a Palestinian state.

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

I arrived at the Irvine Marriott last Friday evening because I was scheduled to speak the next day at "The No More Wars for Israel Conference" which had been dedicated to Mordecahi Vanunu.

I learned then that the event had been canceled.

Mark Glenn, one of the Coordinators, informed me that three days prior, the Marriott requested payment of $20,000.00, although there was no such requirement in the contract.

Mark told me he was able to secure $8,000 within twenty-four hours and even after a visit from a representative from CAIR, Council of American-Islamic Relations [http://www.cair.com/] informed the Marriott's Events Coordinator that twenty speakers from around the Nation were on their way; the event would not happen at the Marriott as planned...

I am writing this message to clarify a minor error in what is being reported about CAIR's involvement with this matter. CAIR was contacted by a speaker regarding the cancellation of this event in Irvine. In fact, I was the person who had taken the call. After listening to and understanding that the issue was contractual, I provided the name of an attorney whom they can consult for the matter. The speaker had actually already had two contacts- Sami Mashney and M*a*r*ian B*i*s*hay [Edit 4-29-09: Per request, I have obscured this attorney's name as they claim to have had nothing to do with this matter. -MS] - both attorneys that had been referred to her by other people. CAIR representatives did not speak to any Marriott representatives, meet with them nor discussed this matter with anyone besides the speaker who had contacted and spoken with me. I am not familiar or aware of the existence or lack of existence of prejudicial reasons for the Marriott to act in such a manner. I am also not familiar with the conference nor the details of the speakers or topics since very little was told to me about the event by the caller...

Omar:What is this?

Amjad:These are children who were martyred during the blessed Al-Aqsa Intifada. I and a group of friends have cleaned this cave to make it fitting for the Intifidada’s child martyrs. Here, we honor the memory of the martyrs in our own way. All these children sacrified (their lives) for the sake of Allah, in order to liberate their country. The homes of some were toppled on top of them when they were asleep, and others were martyred when they faced tanks with stones. Each martyr has a story of his own.

Omar:All these children were martyred during the Intifada? My God.

Amjad:Yes, my friend. The Zionist enemy is merciless, and does not distinguish between old people and children.

Omar:My God, this picture is so vivid. Who is this martyr?

Amjad:He is the martyr Muhammad Al-Durra, who gained the honor of martyrdom last month, in full view of the entire world. Some journalist risked his life in order to film his martyrdom. This is why we called him “the Martyr of the World.”

Omar:Would you tell me the story of his martyrdom?

Amjad:Muhammad Al-Durra lived with his family in the Al-Bureij refugee camp in Gaza, just like all the other refugee families that had moved to camps within the homeland...

...Abu Muhammad:Allah be praised, you look better. Muhammad, come, my dear. You murderers…

Girls singing in the background: Our martyr, Al-Durra. We long for martyrdom. Our martyr, Al-Durra. We long for martyrdom. Our country is free and our death is happiness. Our martyr, Al-Durra. We long for martyrdom...

First of all, one thing that I've found a little puzzling is Western Europe's refusal to work with us to put real sanctions on Iran. Surely they see the danger of allowing Iran to have nukes and that their refusal means that it is more likely that a military confrontation will occur. So, why don't they give us any real help?...

I think many in Europe do not appreciate the threat that Iran poses. They don't understand its support for international terrorism over the years, that it's really functioning as the central banker for international terrorism, and many of them don't believe that Iran is the threat we do in the nuclear area.

Some do; I think the British and the French see it the same way we do, but many others do not. So, if they don't (agree) about the extent of the threat, they're going to be less willing to engage in necessary activities.

But, even those who are willing to say, "Yes, we agree Iran is a threat," are not willing to even take steps like economic sanctions that would impose some pain on them. I think that's a real problem with Europe, because without even being willing to do that first step, it's very difficult to put any measurable pressure on Iran...

Muslim terror leaders are hailing statements by actor Sean Penn regarding Iran, the war in Iraq and the global war on terror, stating militants have "deep respect" for Penn and urging Americans to listen to the outspoken Hollywood activist immediately.

One senior jihadist leader even asked Penn to officially represent his terror organization's cause to the world media.

"I tell Penn that we don't have the money that the Zionists have, therefore we don't own and we don't have access to your media, and we hope you would ... represent our pain and our cause," stated Abu Hamed, northern Gaza Strip commander of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Palestinian terrorist organization...

...For one chapter, Klein assembled a panoply of senior terrorist leaders and asked them to comment on the views of high-profile liberals and conservatives.

Some of the terrorists interviewed stated they had never heard of Penn, while some said they were familiar with the actor and his activism, including recent "fact-finding" trips to Iraq and Iran and a meeting this year with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

Several terrorists said they became familiar with Penn because of his 1980's marriage to pop icon Madonna, who is well-known in the Mideast, Klein states...

The people of the Massachusetts 5th District need a representative in Congress who understands what it is like to run a family business. We need someone who will be an independent voice for the district, not a tool of union interests and a stagnant, one-party political culture. We need someone who is clear-eyed on the threats we face to our national security and interests.

We need Jim Ogonowski as our representative in Congress.

Ogonowski, a Republican, is a lifelong resident of the Merrimack Valley. He grew up on family farms in Dracut and still runs the family business today. He served for 28 years in the Air Force and Air National Guard.

His principal opponent, Democrat Niki Tsongas, says her experience as the wife of the late Sen. Paul Tsongas, gives her an insider's insight into the ways of Washington. We prefer someone with the military and business experience of Ogonowski, someone who knows how the world works for the rest of us.

Ogonowski understands what happens to ordinary people when Washington politicians try to "fix" things. He's rightly wary of government intrusion into private affairs...

...Ogonowski, whose brother was a pilot on one of the hijacked planes flown into the World Trade Center, understands the threat posed to our nation by terrorism. Ogonowski has said he would have opposed the current war in Iraq. But he recognizes that we are now committed to that nation. A rapid withdrawal on an announced timetable would mean chaos for the region and be damaging to American interests.

The contrast with his opponent could not be more clear. Tsongas wants U.S. military personnel withdrawn from Iraq within 270 days. But she seems to have little understanding of who or what would fill the power vacuum thus created.

Tsongas' nonstop television ad campaign leads voters to believe a vote for her is a vote to end the war. Yet Tsongas has no such power. This is not a campaign for president but a race to replace Congressman Marty Meehan, who also supported a withdrawal. Tsongas would have one vote among 435 congressmen, just as Meehan did. All 435 congressmen and 100 senators could vote to "end the war in Iraq" and President Bush, the commander-in-chief, could simply refuse - unless Congress votes to cut off funding for the conflict. That's something Tsongas has said she'll never do.

More startlingly, Tsongas said at Tuesday's final debate in Lowell that she would "never vote to advance the surge or send additional troops to Iraq." Really? Not even if there were solid evidence of progress in Iraq? Not if Iran were to intervene more blatantly on behalf of its Shiite allies? Not if our generals urgently requested reinforcements? Never?

We live in a dangerous, chaotic world. We can't afford a congressman who would handcuff our ability to react to changing circumstances.

Finally, Tsongas' supporters have made much of the fact that the state could use a woman in an otherwise male delegation. Indeed, that would be welcome. But do we need another Massachusetts Democrat to go along with the nine congressmen and two senators - the entire delegation - already seated?...

Ynet, the news Web site of the Yedioth Ahronoth publishing group, is closing its English version, apparently within days, because it wasn't generating satisfactory revenues. The site had employed 11 people, most of will be fired, a high-ranking source at Ynet told TheMarker.

The site's editor in chief, Jeff Barak, will also be leaving the group after nine months on the job. Asked why the management had decided to kill the site, he said: "The site managers decided to focus resources on the Hebrew site."

The English version consisted of material translated from the Hebrew site. It went online in mid-2005. Top Ynet management refused to comment for this report.

...while the audience in the Roone Arledge Auditorium and millions of television viewers laughed and booed at the Islamist rube, there was one man--ensconced at Columbia University, no less--who was likely nodding along in agreement. His name is Joseph Massad, Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History, and he legitimizes, with a complex academic posture, the deservedly reviled views on homosexuality espoused by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad...

...State repression against gay people happens on a frequent basis across the Middle East. Massad, however, who claims to be a supporter of sexual freedom per se, is oddly impassive when confronted with the vast catalogue of anti-gay state violence in the Muslim world. Massad, unlike Ahmadinejad, does acknowledge that "gay-identified" people exist in the Middle East, but he views them with derision. Take, for instance, his description of the Queen Boat victims as "westernized, Egyptian, gay-identified men" who consort with European and American tourists. A simple "gay" would have sufficed. He smears efforts to free the men by writing of the "openly gay and anti-Palestinian Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank" and the "anti-Arab and anti-Egyptian [Congressman] Tom Lantos" who circulated a petition amongst their colleagues to cut off U.S. funding to Egypt unless the men were released. He then goes onto belittle not just gay activists (one of whom, a founder of the Gay and Lesbian Arabic Society, referred to the Queen Boat affair as "our own Stonewall," in reference to the 1969 Stonewall riot when a group of patrons at a New York City gay bar resisted arrest, a moment credited with sparking the American gay rights movement) but the persecuted men themselves. The Queen Boat cannot be Stonewall, Massad insists, because the "drag Queens at the Stonewall bar" embraced their homosexual identity, whereas the Egyptian men "not only" did "not seek publicity for their alleged homosexuality, they resisted the very publicity of the events by the media by covering their faces in order to hide from the cameras and from hysterical public scrutiny." Massad does not pause to consider that perhaps the reason why these men covered their faces was because of the brutal consequences they would endure if their identities became public, repercussions far worse than anything the rioters at Stonewall experienced. "These are hardly manifestations of gay pride or gay liberation," Massad sneers...

An article by Dr. Walid Ahmed Futaihy
Published in Okaz Today
Tuesday October 9th, 2007
Muslim Cultural Center in Boston

For over a decade now, the state of the Muslim colony of Boston has been one reminiscent of those burrowing in stone in order to brand the earth with labors and accomplishments evocative of their written works of yesteryear.  For over ten years now, the project of building Boston’s largest Muslim cultural center has been the preoccupation of the city’s Muslim colony.  Of concern to this colony have been the material and legal obstacles hindering the erection of such an edifice, in the heart of this noble [patrician is the Arabic word, fs] town, so that Boston’s Muslim colony might become part and parcel of that city’s social, cultural, and civilizational fabric.

For upwards of ten years I have written on this topic in local newspapers.  I have also spoken at local and international news outlets about the benefits of this project and the possibility of it becoming a unique model for emulation; a one of a kind prototype in America.  Indeed, this is a sui generis project fostered and born out of the [local?] American Muslim colony.  In fact, the project had earned the support of Mayor Menino and that of many prominent city officials in Boston; city official who are well acquainted with the Boston Muslim colony’s desire to foster contacts and bonds with their brothers and sisters in the city; city officials who are well aware of the Boston Muslim colony’s eagerness to build bridges of amity so as to fulfill the heavenly prescription of the Almighty to “get to know one another”.

Consequently, the mandate of the Cultural Center will have been intended to be that of an ecumenical mosque, a ministry, a library, a school [the Arabic madrassa is ambiguous here (fs)], multi-purpose auditoriums and venues for various colloquia, seminars, and lectures benefiting Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and an information hub aimed at revealing Islam in its true noble incarnation, correcting in the process the defaced image that has been made of it in the West.  All of this will have been at a prime location in the heart of the city of Boston, mere minutes from a number of local colleges and universities, Harvard’s Medical School, and one of Harvard’s greatest teaching hospitals.

Alas, days, months, and years have gone by, and the [Boston] Muslim colony and its trustees have been facing one challenge after the next; challenges that ran the gamut from things material and legal, to brazen disruptions, distortions, and similar steady attempts at scuttling [blocking, fs] the project—by those who do not wish for Humanity to find Peace through the building of bridges of knowledge and understanding and learning about the other…  But Allah will let his light shine through.  [bold mine; this is a Koranic citation, I’m not sure of the exact—standard—translation, fs.]

After more than a decade of time and of successful fundraising—and donations exceeding 12 million dollars—after more than a decade of standing up to all sorts of legal obstacles, negative publicity, and biased misinformation campaigns, thanks be to Allah, the Dome and the Minaret have finally been erected, and the first prayer in Boston’s ecumenical mosque has been recited (during this holy month), and the doors of this Cultural Center—for Muslims and non-Muslims alike—have been flung open so that all can hear the word of Allah, and all can come to know one another and discover the many faces of goodness in this city.

This has been a decade-long journey during which Allah has written that those who had been involved had been involved through a faithful prayer, a courageous stance for the sake of Truth, or a firm moral or material backing.  And the reward will elude those who have abandoned their duty, for Allah gives each his share based on what each has given, and Allah is all-knowing of those who have believed and done good.  [This also appears to be a Koranic citation, I’m not sure of the exact—standard—translation, fs.]

Therefore, and in my capacity as member of the council of trustees, I would like to thank all of those who have participated, in one way or another, in backing this project.  I pray Allah to reward them with compensation and recompense, for they have participated in the erection of this Muslim edifice, in the heart of the city of Boston so that Allah may reveal the true civilized image of our righteous religion through cooperation among Boston’s Muslim colony and other communities, far from religious, linguistic, or racial bigotry; so that all that which will benefit society will be propagated; so that Islam’s true spirit of forgiveness, love, and goodness, will be propagated; so that, through the correct practices of Muslims, the true essence of Islam, that wonderful divine faith, will be revealed; so that the entire world will see the goodness that Allah has descended on the Seal of the Prophets and the Apostles, our master, our beloved, Muhammad, the culmination of all the Prophets, may Allah be pleased with them and may he reward and please them all.  [again, this appears to be a Koranic citation, I’m not sure of the exact—standard—translation, fs.]

Dr. Walid Ahmed Futaihy
Consulting Physician and President of the Administrative Council
[CEO of the IMC and the Chairman of the Board of Directors]
International Medical Center Hospital
Fax: 6509659

A short while ago we were informed that a senior officer recently released from the IDF proposed handing over territory in the Negev to the Gaza population. He wasn't the only one who supported this foolish idea. And how did this officer justify his proposal? He did so by saying that because Gaza has not become a type of Mediterranean Singapore and its population is multiplying at a dizzying pace, the magic solution would be to transfer territories from western Negev communities to Gaza and by so doing expand the territory of the Strip.

And what will we do in a few years from now, when the population in the Strip gets bigger - will we hand over more territory? Namely, what he is proposing is that the Gaza population keep busying itself with reproduction, whereas we shall hand over our land without being asked, so that we can organize a convenient place for this activity to take place.

Here it should be noted that the Singaporean population, whose territory is just a little lager than the Gaza Strip, is about three times as large as the population in the Gaza Strip; the population in Hong Kong, whose territory is almost double that of the Gaza Strip, is about five times higher than that of the Strip. Namely, it's not a problem of size – it's a problem of content...

If you are a young Muslim American and head off to the Middle East for a spell in a fundamentalist “madrassa,” or religious school, Homeland Security will probably greet you at the airport when you return.

But if you are an American Jew and you join hundreds of teenagers from Europe and Mexico for an eight-week training course run by the Israel Defense Forces, you can post your picture wearing an Israeli army uniform and holding an automatic weapon on MySpace.

The Marva program, part summer camp part indoctrination, was launched in Israel in 1981. It allows participants, who must be Jewish and between the ages of 18 and 28, to fire weapons, live in military barracks in the Negev desert and saunter around in an Israeli military uniform saluting and taking long hikes with military packs. The Youth and Education Corps of the Israel Defense Forces run four 120-strong training sessions a year...

...How have we reacted when we discovered that American Muslims were being taught in a foreign country to fire machine guns at paper figures and simulate military maneuvers? And what about the summer schools in Gaza organized by Islamic Jihad designed to train young Palestinians in the basics of military life? These Gaza camps, uncovered in 2001, were widely denounced by Israel as proof that the Palestinians were teaching their children to hate and kill...

...Gore told the world in his Academy Award-winning movie to expect 20-foot sea-level rises over this century. He ignores the findings of his Nobel co-winners, who conclude that sea levels will rise between only a half-foot and two feet over this century, with their best expectation being about one foot. That's similar to what the world experienced over the past 150 years.

Likewise, Gore agonizes over the accelerated melting of ice in Greenland and what it means for the planet, but overlooks the IPCC's conclusion that, if sustained, the current rate of melting would add just 3 inches to the sea-level rise by the end of the century. Gore also takes no notice of research showing that Greenland's temperatures were higher in 1941 than they are today.

The politician-turned-moviemaker loses sleep over a predicted rise in heat-related deaths. There's another side of the story that's inconvenient to mention: rising temperatures will reduce the number of cold spells, which are a much bigger killer than heat. The best study shows that by 2050, heat will claim 400,000 more lives, but 1.8 million fewer will die because of cold. Indeed, according to the first complete survey of the economic effects of climate change for the world, global warming will actually save lives.

Gore has helped the world to worry. Unfortunately, our attention is diverted from where it matters. Climate change is not the only problem facing the globe...

JERICHO, West Bank: A West Bank peace concert for supporters of a two-state solution to the conflict with Israel has been called off because of security concerns, the organizer said late Thursday.

The concert was to have been held simultaneously in a football stadium in the West Bank town of Jericho and in a park in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Oct. 18.

The New York-based One Voice organization said the concerts were aimed at bolstering its campaign to collect one million signatures of ordinary Israelis and Palestinians demanding that their leaders sit down and finalize an agreement on a Palestinian state living at peace with Israel.

The concerts were to have been free, but concertgoers would have been asked to sign the One Voice petition.

Organizer Daniel Lubetzky said he decided Thursday to call off the Jericho event. "Extremist ideologists have threatened our participants in Jericho, and we felt it is our responsibility not to play with their lives," he said, but did not provide details about the threats...

The neocon conspiracy embedded in the Giuliani campaign, of which I am a part, is most devious. One of our occult powers is our ability to assume the physical traits of one another. This makes it much easier to elude our pursuers. You may see the evidence for our powers in the accompanying graphic, taken from this week's Newsweek.

You will note, for example, that I have assumed the features of Daniel Pipes. This is made possible by the fact that Pipes and I have the same birthday--September 9--the number nine having magical properties in neocon spells. (See "sorcery, neoconservative" in the index to John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby.)

Alas, the witch-hunters at Newsweek belatedly figured out our trick, and published this correction in their Internet edition:

Editor's Note: In our print edition, several captions for the photographs accompanying this report were inadvertantly [sic] transposed. Martin Kramer's photograph is identified as Norman Podhoretz; Daniel Pipes's photograph is identified as Kramer; Peter Berkowitz's photograph is identified as Pipes; Nile Gardiner's photograph is identified as Berkowitz's and Podhoretz's photograph is identified as Gardiner's. NEWSWEEK regrets the errors.

(Believe me, they don't regret it as much as my mother does. She's livid.)...

...The inevitable implication is that, for Newsweek staff, all conservatives look alike...

...There are many learned people in Boston in positions of authority who think that ISB [Islamic Society of Boston]/MAS Boston are connected to Harvard and MIT, and are therefore wonderful representatives of the Muslim community.  They think that interaction of students with the ISB and MAS is of great value.  Unfortunately, they are not seeing the threads of Islamic fundamentalism running through ISB/MAS events.  But I hear about it from Muslims on a regular basis, Muslims who object to the rigid ideology of the ISB/MAS, and their takeover of area organizations.  A local college student recently wrote to me: "I am a MAS member and was starting to be active through the MSA but it a long story, and if you do not act exactly like they want (a robot) you are pushed to the side....They are trying to take over all Muslim groups in Boston without doing any grassroots work on their own, just putting their brand on every thing."

Yup, that MAS logo is showing up everywhere, and only their imams and speakers are showing up at local colleges.

Who brought Suhaib Webb here for Eid?

ROME, Italy (AP) -- The Vatican has published secret archive documents about the trial of the Knights Templar, including a long-lost parchment that shows that Pope Clement V initially absolved the medieval Christian order from accusations of heresy, officials said Friday.

The 300-page volume recently came out in a limited edition -- 799 copies -- each priced at $8,377 [Good work if you can get it! -S], said Scrinium publishing house, which prints documents from the Vatican's secret archives.

The order of knights, which ultimately disappeared as a result of the heresy scandal, recently captivated the imagination of readers of the best-seller "The Da Vinci Code," in which the author Dan Brown linked the Templars to the story of the Holy Grail.

The work reproduces the entire documentation on the papal hearings convened after King Philip IV of France arrested and tortured Templar leaders in 1307 under charges of heresy and immorality...

...Historians believe that Philip owed debts to the Templars and seized on the accusations to arrest their leaders and extort confessions of heresy under torture as a way to seize the order's riches.

The publishing house said the new book includes the "Parchment of Chinon," a 1308 decision by Clement to save the Templars and their order. The document was misplaced for centuries in the archives and found again by researchers in 2001...

...Massad’s work is characterized by illogical extremes and by a knee-jerk paranoia of anything even vaguely Western in its origins or goals. If he weren’t a professor, his argument in Desiring Arabs that a cabal-like “Gay International” (in which agents of neo-imperialism like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are card-carrying members) is using an invented notion of “homosexuality” to demonize the Moslem world would be denounced as veiled homophobia—especially since reviewer Brian Whitaker writes that “Massad offers no evidence to substantiate his claim.” This is a demented argument, especially considering all the work that’s been done on the emergence of gay identity in the Middle East. But it’s incredible what you can get away with when you’ve got “Associate Professor of Arab intellectual history” attached to your name...

An adviser to Mahmoud Abbas said the Kotel should be under Palestinian control.

Adnan Husseini, aide to the Palestinian Authority president, said Thursday that Palestinian demands for Israel to cede eastern Jerusalem under any peace accord also includes the Western Wall.

"This is part of Islamic heritage that cannot be given up, and it must be under Muslim control," Husseini told Israel's NRG Web site, adding that all of Jerusalem's Old City should be part of a future Palestinian state. He made similar comments in an interview with Israel Radio...

...Abbas had no immediate comment on Husseini's statements, which appeared to contradict several past land-for-peace proposals that had won international consensus and called for Israel to retain control of the Western Wall and Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem's Old City...

Despite the efforts of a group called Boycott Israeli Goods, products made in Israel will remain on the shelves of the People's Food Co-op of Ann Arbor.

At a meeting of the co-op's Board of Directors last night, officials announced the outcome of a vote to determine whether the organization should boycott Israeli products. The final vote was 262 members in favor of the ban and 866 opposing it...

...Although the co-op's Board of Directors rejected the proposed referendum, the group collected 600 signatures - enough to force a vote by co-op members. A majority of the votes was needed to implement the ban...

...Carter got one thing right--that there is a legal definition of genocide, embodied in the 1948 U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide--but that's it. The "atrocities" Carter refers to have included, over the past four and a half years, the deliberate, ethnically targeted destruction of not only African tribal populations, but their villages, homes, food- and seed-stocks, agricultural implements, and water sources. People die now in Darfur primarily because of this antecedent violence, directed against not only lives but livelihoods. Here, the Genocide Convention is explicit: You can commit genocide not only by "[k]illing members of [a] group" but also by "[d]eliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part." The destruction in Darfur clearly meets that test.

Then there is the use of rape as a weapon of war by Arab militias in Darfur. The racial component of rape in Darfur has been well-documented at this point. In a typical example, here is what three Fur women--the Fur are the largest African tribal group in Darfur--told Doctors Without Borders: "We saw five Arab men who came to us and asked where our husbands were. Then they told us that we should have sex with them. We said no. So they beat and raped us. After they abused us, they told us that now we would have Arab babies; and if they would find any Fur, they would rape them again to change the color of their children." Racist epithets are typically hurled at women and girls, who are often gang-raped and then scarred to mark them as rape victims--a terrible burden in Darfur's conservative Muslim ethos. Can there be any denying that such ethnically targeted rapes fall under the Genocide Convention's admonition that "[c]ausing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group" constitutes genocide? Moreover, because of the stigma that attaches to raped women, marriage and thus child-bearing becomes impossible for many. And, for some victims, especially younger girls, ensuing medical complications make child-bearing physically impossible. Which means that these rapes clearly meet yet another definition of genocide contained in the U.N. convention: "[i]mposing measures intended to prevent births within the group."...

The Pope hit out at Iran as he pledged to help world Jewish leaders in their fight against anti-Semitism.

Pope Benedict XVI told leaders of the World Jewish Congress that Iran was “an issue of big concern” to him.

At a meeting at the Vatican, the Pope spoke of his concern about rising anti-Semitism and described how he wanted to use educational tools to counter the hatred of the Iranian leadership towards the Jewish people and Israel.

Maram Stern, secretary general of the World Jewish Congress, said after the audience: “We thanked the Holy Father for everything he did for the Jewish people, and more importantly what he will do.”

Speaking to journalists in Rome, he said the Pope had “recognised the question of Iran as an issue of big concern for him.”

Members of the congress discussed the critical problem of “resurgent anti-Semitism” in Europe. Britain itself has seen a marked rise in anti-Semitism, linked to increasing anti-Zionism and to events in the Middle East.

In a statement after the audience, the congress said members of the delegation “called on the Pontiff to take action against those in the Church who wanted to do damage to the close and positive relationship between Christians and Jews”...

Ashkan Dejagah's future as a Germany international is likely over, after the German Football Federation (DFB) decided to suspend him from all national team activity.

Iranian born Wolfsburg midfielder Ashkan Dejagah.

The Iranian-born Wolfsburg midfielder pulled out of an Under 21 match in Tel Aviv last Friday due to "personal reasons," saying he feared for the safety of relatives in Iran if he played in Israel.

It is not yet known if Dejagah's suspension is permanent or whether he will be allowed to make a return to the German national team in the future.

Israel Football Association chairman Avi Luzon met with the DFB president Theo Zwanziger on Thursday morning and was told of the decision to suspend Dejagah. "I wasn't told exactly how long he will be suspended for, only that he is suspended indefinitely. I accept any decision made by the DFB," Luzon told The Jerusalem Post. "The Germans came to Israel with a large delegation because they wanted to show the importance of this visit. The DFB president invited me to Germany and we agreed to play a friendly match between the national teams."

Zwanziger refused to comment on the matter on Thursday, but had said earlier in the week: "Any form of discrimination or anti-Semitism has no place in German football. I will first get a picture of the player's reasoning. We have to give Dejagah a chance to consider his decision again. Does he really identify with what is happening in Iran? We know what we expect from German national players."

Zwanziger, Germany Under-21 coach Dieter Eilts and DFB sports director Matthias Sammer visited Yad Vashem on Wednesday and laid a wreath to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust...

...Voice of reporter: They say they are not afraid of soldiers who might walk into these jungles, or of tanks, which cannot attack them here. The only thing they fear is the fighter planes, which might bomb their posts. In daytime, after the military duties are completed, this is the best way to rest. The people here are not only Somalis. Among them is this American, who says that he heard the cal for the Somali Jihad, when he was away from America.

"Abu Mansour the American": Oh Muslims of America, take into consideration the situation in Somalia. After 15 years of chaos, and oppressive rule by the American-backed warlords, your brothers stood up and established peace and justice in this land.

Voice of reporter: Abu Mansour is not only a fighter, but also the military instructor of the Islamic Courts Union fighters. He is now attempting to blow up a large bomb during training. This time, it is not done in the framework of an attack. He has waited until sunset, after getting everything ready...

Following are excerpts from a Friday sermon on "International Jerusalem Day" by Hashemi Rafsanjani, chairman of the Iranian Assembly of Experts and of the Expediency Council, which aired on Channel 1, Iranian TV, on October 5, 2007:

Hashemi Rafsanjani: Europe resolved a great problem – the problem of the Zionist danger. The Zionists, who constituted a strong political party in Europe, caused much disorder there. Since they had a lot of property and controlled an empire of propaganda, they made the European governments helpless. What Hitler and the German Nazis did to the Jews of Europe at that time was partly due to these circumstances with the Jews. They wanted to expel the Zionists from Europe because they always were a pain in the neck for the governments there. This is how this calamity fell upon the Muslims, especially the Palestinians, and you all know this history, more or less.

[...]

The first goal was to save Europe from the evil of Zionism, and in this, they have been relatively successful.

Join me and Army Captain Phil Messer on a walking tour of Ramadi, Iraq, in a 20 minute video shot during a dismounted foot patrol in early August, 2007.

On Oct. 26-27, Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center will hold a conference at Old South Church, the flagship church of the United Church of Christ (UCC) in Boston. Old South’s decision to allow its worship space to be used by Sabeel is only the latest instance in which a prominent UCC institution has helped legitimize an anti-Zionist organization that traffics in anti-Judaic themes. Despite complaints from mainstream Jewish groups in the United States about Sabeel’s hostile rhetoric and agenda, the United Church of Christ continues to portray the organization as an ecumenical “partner” for peace in the Middle East...

The Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of nine U.S. servicemen, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.

They are 1st Lt. David P. McMurray, of Melrose, Mass.; 1st Lt. Raymond Pascual, of Houston, Texas; 2nd Lt. Millard C. Wells Jr., of Paris, Ky.; Tech. Sgt. Leonard J. Ray, of Upper Falls, Md.; Tech. Sgt. Hyman L. Stiglitz, of Boston, Mass.; Staff Sgt. Robert L. Cotey, of Vergennes, Vt.; Staff Sgt. Francis E. Larrivee, of Laconia, N.H.; Staff Sgt. Robert J. Flood, of Neelyton, Pa.; and Staff Sgt. Walter O. Schlosser, of Lake City, Mich.; all U.S. Army Air Forces. Ray and Flood were buried last week in Harford County, Md., and Dry Run, Pa., respectively. The burials of the other servicemen will be at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. on a date to be determined.

Representatives from the Army met with the next-of-kin of these men in their hometowns to explain the recovery and identification process and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the secretary of the Army.

On July 7, 1944, the men were aboard a B-24J Liberator that departed North Pickenham, England, on a mission to bomb a German aircraft factory near Bernburg, Germany. The plane was last seen by U.S. aircrew members in that vicinity. Captured records revealed that it had crashed near Westeregeln, about 20 miles northwest of the target in what would become the Soviet sector of a post-war-divided Germany.

In 2001, a group of German citizens interested in recovering wartime relics and remains learned of a potential crash site south of Westeregeln. Later that year and in 2002, the group found the site and uncovered human remains from what appeared to be two burial locations. The remains and other personal effects, including identification tags, were turned over to U.S. officials...

BERLIN - For around three generations, the enormous bulk of Adolf Hitler's fan mail remained hidden from the public's eyes. Some of the contents of this postal multitude have recently been published in a new book by Henrik Eberle, a German historian.

Eberle found the Nazi fan mail in a government archive in Moscow. Excerpts from Dr. Eberle's book, "Letters to Hitler - a People Writes to its Leader," were published this week in the German daily tabloid Bild.

"Honorable Reich Chancellor, like lightening from a sunny sky the storm has broken over me. My customers have disappeared," Heinrich Herz, a Jewish craftsman, wrote Hitler on April 27, 1934.

"Honorable Reich Chancellor, give the order that life will become possible again. I would thank you many thousands of times."

Another correspondent, a member of the Nazi Party since 1932, wrote Hitler for advice after learning that his grandmother was Jewish.

"Great leader, what am I to do? Should I terminate my activity? Are we not human? Please help me." The first letter went unanswered. The second received a curt reply: "Maybe you can help out at the local party branch."...

...Hitler's fan mail from his staunch supporters is at times as chilling as the letters he received from some of his victims.

"Dear good Uncle Hitler," wrote one ethnic German woman, Annelene K., from northeast Prussia, which is today in Lithuania.

"We've been waiting so long for you, when are you coming to our region? We would be very happy if we could belong to Germany again. The Jews and the Lithuanians would all then have to leave, wouldn't they? The Jews not only take our bread - they also slaughter Christians for Easter."...

...Last May, the Islamic Society of Boston dropped its suit against the Boston Herald, a local Fox news channel, journalist Steven Emerson, and 14 others. The Society had accused the defendants of libel and of infringing its civil rights by claiming that it had funded terrorist organizations, received money from Saudi Arabia, and bought land for a mosque below market value from the City of Boston.

Though Massachusetts’s anti-SLAPP law does not cover media firms, ten of the non-media defendants filed a motion to quash the Society’s suit. When a state judge rejected the motion, a legal discovery process got under way while the defendants appealed. Bank records and other documents revealed that, contrary to its claims, the Society had raised over $7 million from Saudi and other Middle Eastern sources and had funded two groups that the Bush administration has designated terrorist entities: the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and the Benevolence International Foundation. Records also showed that Society directors had deleted all e-mails about the Society’s land purchase. Finally, discovery revealed that the deputy director of the Boston city agency in charge of negotiating the land deal not only was a Society member whom it had paid to raise money in the Middle East, but also secretly advised the group about obtaining the land cheaply—a clear conflict of interest.

On May 29, soon after the state appellate court heard arguments on the anti-SLAPP appeal, the Society abandoned the suit. Though its lawyers did not respond to requests for comment and its website tried to put a good face on the surrender, Jeff Robbins, who represented several defendants in the complex lawsuit, expressed their belief that the Society had caved, fearing the prospect of paying what could have been millions of dollars in court and legal fees. “The anti-SLAPP motion clearly played a role,” said Robbins, who represented two clients for free because First Amendment issues were involved. Another factor, he said, was the Society’s fear that the court would order it to answer questions under oath and release information that it had tried to keep secret, such as the names of its donors. The case shows that while anti-SLAPP legislation makes it somewhat easier, cheaper, and faster for those accused of libel to fight back, “it doesn’t solve the problem entirely,” said Jeff Hermes, a lawyer for the Boston Herald. “Media companies are not covered by our state’s statute, and defendants in such cases still need to prepare a full defense.”...

Poor Lee Bollinger, if anybody can have pity on him. Now he is confronted with the tenure process of Nadia Abu El-Haj, an assistant professor of archeology at Barnard College, Columbia University. She has written a book called Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society, arguing that the claim of a Jewish presence in the Holy Land is invented. I haven't read her book and I can't pretend to know a lot about archeology. But I do know some; I have been there, moreover, and I have experienced much of the evidence, overwhelming, actually. Of course, if the Jews weren't there, the whole history of Christianity is a fraud, too, and maybe that's what Muslims want to convey anyway...

Following are excerpts from an interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which aired on the Iranian news channel on September 29, 2007:

Interviewer: You were supposed to visit the site of the Twin Towers, but this aroused controversy and many objections in their media. What do you think about this?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: As you know, by spreading lies and by portraying me... For example, they show my picture next to a picture of Bin Laden, or next to tanks and cannons firing and killing people. This is psychological warfare. 9/11 has led to many significant changes. It was used as a pretext to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq. It was the reason for the killing of hundreds of thousands of people. It is only natural for us to respond in an appropriate manner. I wanted to visit there last year, but there was no time for that. So I decided to visit there this year to pay my respect to the casualties and convey my sympathy to the families. I also wanted to raise several questions and express my views. I wanted to say that in my opinion, this incident is the result of the mismanagement of the world, and the result of the inhuman management of the world. Why did such an incident take place? We need to get to the root causes. We don't want them to turn this incident, in 20 years' time, into another false idol like the Holocaust, which they would use as a pretext to kill peoples, and prevent anybody from opening this [Pandora's] box and examining what really happened in this incident. They might turn 9/11 into something sacred, and whoever does not accept it would be considered an infidel, whereas whoever accepts it would have to accept all the ensuing crimes. In any event, we must express our views. I believe that this way, we would have formed cordial relations with the American people, and cold have opened this issue up for discussion. Well, this is exactly what they want to prevent.

Soldiers patrol the scorched and blackened landscape. From atop military trucks and armored personnel carriers, they flash V for victory at stunned journalists.

Destruction and death pervade this Palestinian refugee camp. It took three months of intense fighting between army troops and the Fatah Islam terrorists before the group was defeated. Nearly a month after the battle ended, the media finally reported on the toll: 164 soldiers and dozens of militants died, while 47 Palestinian civilians were killed. An additional 310 were injured.

In the aftermath, the United Nations issued a scathing condemnation. The European Union called for restraint in confronting the terrorists. And Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to break off all diplomatic contact.

All of the above is true - except for the last paragraph. In reality, no indignant voices have been raised either in the West or in the Middle East over the civilian lives lost in the fighting.

Surprising? It should not be. Nahr al-Bared, the refugee camp where the terrorists were dug in, happens to be located in Lebanon. The army which, in the words of the New York Times, "ringed the camp (to) pound it with artillery and tank shells in prolonged bombardments" was Lebanese. Israel played no role in the confrontation. And that's why the media coverage is so muted.

The lesson to be learned from this and previous such events is that there is an obvious double standard that applies in the region. Abbas did not utter a peep over the loss of 47 innocent compatriots in Nahr al-Bared. Yet on September 27, he loudly and angrily called on the UN's Security Council and General Assembly to intervene urgently to stop Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip. The cause of his apoplexy was the deaths of 12 confirmed Hamas terrorists eliminated in Gaza by Israeli troops.

Israel’s leaders still don’t get it

The effect of his message is clear. When the victims of terrorism are Jews, then responding to the perpetrators is unjustified. When the victims are Lebanese, as they were in terror attacks carried out by Fatah Islam, then it is no-holds-barred. As Abbas' Fatah envoy Abbas Zaki explained: "Nahr al-Bared camp didn't fall. What fell was terrorism."

But somehow Israel's leaders still don't get it. Prime Minister Olmert's stubborn public insistence that Mahmoud Abbas is a moderate is increasingly intolerable. Just recently, as evidence of his unwavering faith in this myth, Olmert presented yet another gift to the PA: 87 convicted Palestinian terrorists who botched up their previous murder attempts were given a chance to try again, by being released from Israeli prisons...

An Iranian-German soccer player who plays for the German national under-21 side has asked not to play against Israel in a friendly on Oct. 12. The team has accepted his request, angering Germany's Jewish lobby.

An Iranian-born player for Germany's under-21 national soccer team has caused controversy by asking to be excused from playing a match against Israel in Tel Aviv this Friday.

Ashkan Dejagah, 21, said in a statement posted on the German Football Federation's Web site that his reasons for not playing were "of a very personal nature and have to do with my close family."

But the player had previously been quoted in Bild newspaper as saying: "There are political reasons. Everyone knows I'm a German Iranian." Berlin newspaper BZ quoted him as saying: "I have more Iranian than German blood in my veins. Besides, I'm doing this out of respect. After all, my parents are Iranian."...

...Dejagah fears not being allowed to visit relatives in Iran if he has an Israeli stamp in his passport. "I have nothing against Israel. But I'm worried about having problems later when traveling to Iran," he told the BZ.

DFB President Theo Zwanziger said Dejagah's request had been granted because he had convinced his coach that he had personal reasons for not playing in Friday's match, which is a qualifier for the under-21 European Championship in 2009. "My fundamental position and the position of the DFB are quite clear, however," Zwanziger added. "We will not tolerate a German national player canceling his participation in an international match because of his world view. A player who wears our team strip must identify with this country and its values. Otherwise one has to do without him."...

Last night the Abu Arar family from Burgatah in the Sharon area sat down as usual to break the Ramadan fast. The father of the family, 58-year-old Shahdah, sat at the head of the long table and looked at his large family: Eight wives, 20 little grandchildren, and 67 children. The eldest of his children is 37 and the youngest is a newborn child.

Shahdah Abu Arar has broken Israel's fatherhood record. He started out in 1967. "My first wife was a member of my tribe from the village of Arar in the Negev. We had a lot of children at the time; I had 31 children from my first two wives. The eldest already has his own children, and they all live with me in the complex surrounding my house. We are a very close family," Shahdah says.

"My first wife is my age, and nowadays I hardly spend any time with her," Shahdah describes his daily routine. "Her children have grown, and I leave her alone. I have younger wives to be with. Every night I decide which wife to go to. I really feel like an effendi in my home. My wives do whatever I want and they very much want me to spend time with them."

Shahdah prefers that his wives not be photographed. "I prefer them to stay at home, they have a lot to do. Each one has to take care of her own children, and I have my own chores. I make sure they are all fed. It's very difficult. But thank God my children help out, and we make a good living."...

GAZA, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Hamas and Fatah committed "grave breaches" of international law in their brief civil war in the Gaza Strip in June, a Palestinian human rights group said on Tuesday, detailing a series of extra-judicial killings.

In a new report, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) said 161 Palestinians, of whom 41 were civilians, were killed during fighting between June 7 and June 14 in which Hamas Islamists took control of the territory from secular Fatah.

"The two sides perpetrated grave breaches of the provisions of international law concerning internal armed conflicts, including extra-judicial and wilful killings and shooting at combatants and civilians after capturing them," the PCHR said.

In some cases, people were seized by gunmen in their homes and their bodies were later found dumped in remote areas.

"The PCHR also documented a number of cases, in which militants executed wounded persons during their evacuation to hospitals," the 105-page report said, citing testimony from relatives of the dead.

At least two people -- a Fatah fighter and a Hamas member -- were pushed to their deaths from tall buildings, said the PCHR, the leading Palestinian human rights group in the Gaza Strip...

Egypt confirmed on Tuesday that 30 Islamic Jihad operatives have entered the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing, Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported.

According to the report, most of those who returned to Gaza are terrorists belonging to the Al Quds Brigades, the military wing of the group.

The operatives were injured during the Intifada and were abroad for medical treatment.

Official sources of the brigades denied the reports, although the Islamic Jihad confirmed that one man did return to Gaza with full cooperation of the Egyptians.

Last week, Egypt allowed 80 more Hamas operatives to return to Gaza.

At George Washington University, another outrageous action by the Saudi-funded radical Islamic front group calling itself the Muslim Student Association, as they circulate flyers purporting to be from a conservative campus group with disgusting anti-Muslim messages...Any subtleties, such as whether this was a complete setup and a hoax, are also quickly glossed over by the Washington Post, as they proceed to wring their hands over the dreadful hatred on display...

Standing before several hundred people at City Hall Plaza yesterday, genocide survivors representing five countries, where more than 12 million people were killed, ignited a large torch to signify their hope for bringing an end to the suffering and death in Darfur.

They called upon China, host of the 2008 Summer Olympics, to use its influence with the Sudanese government and its permanent seat on the UN Security Council to address the crisis.

"The Sudanese government is not that strong on its own," said 21-year-old Carine Gakuba, a member of the Tutsi ethnic group, who said she lost her four siblings and parents as a result of genocide by Hutus in Rwanda in 1994.

The theme of next year's Olympic games in Beijing is "One World, One Dream," and organizers and speakers emphasized that they want people in Darfur to realize that vision...

...Speakers competed to be heard with a group of about a dozen people gathered nearby chanting, "Liars" and, "Stop the racist lies." Members of groups including Boston Anti-Zionist Action and the Troops Out Now Coalition, held signs that read, "Free Palestine" and "Stop Attacking Sudan." They said that if the United States intervenes it would steal Sudan's resources.

...every one of the speakers had to endure heckling from a tiny group of counter-protesters on the fringe of the rally identified by the Boston Globe as being representatives of the Boston Anti-Zionist Action and the Troops Out Now Coalition. These hecklers spouted verbal abuse at the survivors regardless of the survivors' native lands, skin colors, mother tongue, or religious belief. A quick check of the Boston Anti-Zionist Action blog shows them misrepresenting a protest that was calling for non-violent action as "a racist pro-war rally against Sudan organized by the [...] Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston." Leaving aside the general anti-Semitic tone of the slur, this sort of disinformation leads one to wonder how much else on their blog is false-- including which groups they are allied with. Does the Green party really want to be identified with people who abuse survivors of genocide? I suspect not-- but BAZA clearly wants to identify with the Green Party.

Needless to say, the six survivors on stage were unfazed, they had suffered and survived far worse than crypto-fascists posing as hippies, shouting slogans like "from Kabul to Jenin, victory to the mujahideen" and "From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free!"...

What Archaeology Tells Us About Ancient Israel

At Columbia University.

New York - The Columbia University chapter of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East in an effort to educate both the university community and the interested public about the archaeological grounding of scholarly understanding of the bible lands in antiquity will bring three of the world’s leading archaeologists of ancient Israel to speak at Columbia this year.

The series was led off by Barnard College Professsor, Alan F. Segal, Professor of Religion and Ingeborg Rennert Professor of Jewish Studies, who spoke on September 17 on: What Biblical Archaeology Tells Us About the First Temple Period.

This Monday, October 15, at 7:00 pm in 717 Hamilton Hall, Professor William Dever will address the topic: Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel.

William G. Dever is Emeritus Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Arizona. He has served as director of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology in Jerusalem, as director of the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem. He spent thirty years conducting archaeological excavations in the Near East. He directed the digs at Gezer, Shechem, Jebel Qa’aqir, and Be’er Resisim and is the author of 27 books and over 350 articles on the archaeology of the Holy Land.

Professor Aren Maeir of Bar Ilan Univeristy will speak Nov. 19 on: The Archaeology of the Philistines: Findings Relevant to Ancient Israel and the Development of Biblical Text.

Professor Jodi Magness of Duke University will speak Feb. 4 on: Jerusalem in the Time of Herod.

Each of the talks will be followed by an ample question period.

...This grisly inventory finds the total number of deaths in conflicts since 1950 numbering about 85,000,000. Of that sum, the deaths in the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1950 include 32,000 deaths due to Arab state attacks and 19,000 due to Palestinian attacks, or 51,000 in all. Arabs make up roughly 35,000 of these dead and Jewish Israelis make up 16,000.

These figures mean that deaths Arab-Israeli fighting since 1950 amount to just 0.06 percent of the total number of deaths in all conflicts in that period. More graphically, only 1 out of about 1,700 persons killed in conflicts since 1950 has died due to Arab-Israeli fighting.

(Adding the 11,000 killed in the Israeli war of independence, 1947-49, made up of 5,000 Arabs and 6,000 Israeli Jews, does not significantly alter these figures.)

In a different perspective, some 11,000,000 Muslims have been violently killed since 1948, of which 35,000, or 0.3 percent, died during the sixty years of fighting Israel, or just 1 out of every 315 Muslim fatalities. In contrast, over 90 percent of the 11 million who perished were killed by fellow Muslims...

This one of a kind and important conference will be held in Orange County, California, minutes away from John Wayne International airport, and 30 minutes from LAX.

Friday evening, the 12th, a cocktail/meet-and-greet party will kick off the weekend's events, which will include a banquet dinner on Saturday evening and breakfast Sunday morning...

Important Update--‘You-know-who’ is up to their old tricks that they inherited from their Pharisee forefathers of trying to silence any opposition to their agenda [No, this is not satire. -S]. As such, these individuals who would dare accuse the rest of us of being unpatriotic are trying to rob us of our rights to free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press and freedom of worship. Elements within the Zionist extremist camp are already in panic mode over this upcoming conference and are calling around to all the hotels in Southern California pretending to be Police Officers and trying to find out where the conference is being held so that they can do their usual business of intimidating hotel owners and others into shutting us down. This is the reason why details of the conference are being kept private at this time.

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On the weekend of October 12-14 patriotic voices of conscience from around the world will be gathering in southern California to call for an end to the endless wars being waged… and yet more planned, if the neocons get their way…. in the Middle East by the U.S., sacrificing the lives of our sons and daughters all for the sake of a worthless parasitic and terrorist nation by the name of Israel that has been subjugating the Arab Christian and Muslim population of Palestine for nearly sixty years.

NOW is the time to stand up and let your voices be heard….BEFORE our out-of-control president and the Israeli moles who encircle and advise him begin what very well may be World War III by attacking the peaceful nation of Iran….AGAIN for the sake of the cancer in the Middle East known as Israel...

...Judaism is nobody’s friend, and the sooner that the rest of us--Jew and non-Jew alike--come to realize this, the better off we will be. Get rid of it. It is a cancer. Cut is out and throw it away, as Jesus instructed that we do. It has never and will never be of any benefit to mankind. We cannot live in any kind of ‘peaceful co-existence’ with it. It is a declaration of war, and as long as it exists out there, mankind will never have peace.

...Ethnicity is a matter of culture and identity, not genetic ancestry. Most people, of course, share both their genes and their ethnicity with their grandparents, but few of us would care to live in a world where our ethnic identity was absolutely determined by who our grandparents were. In such a world no immigrant or grandchild of immigrants could belong fully to the nation of her birth. El Haj, is the child of Palestinian immigrants to the United States who lives with her Lebanese-British husband in London during summers and semester break. They have a child. Should British authorities test that child for genetic evidence of its descent from “Palestine’s ancient tribes,” and, if the test is positive, send the child back to its homeland of Philistia?

This suggestion is not only absurd, it is morally repugnant. That being so, why is Nadia Abu El Haj delivering papers on genetics with titles like “The Descent of Men: Genetics, Jewish Origins, and Historical Truths”? And why is she cooking the genetic data to a false impression that Arabs have a deep genealogical connection to the land of Israel , and Jews don’t?

The overt racial primordialism and overtones of racial essentialism in her work ought to frighten everyone who stands against racism.

A Palestinian Christian activist who had received repeated death threats was found stabbed to death in a street in Gaza City early Sunday.

Rami Khader Ayyad, 32, was director of the Teacher's Bookshop, Gaza's only Christian bookstore, which is run by the Bible Society of Gaza Baptist church.

Health Ministry officials confirmed his death. Ayyad had been missing since Saturday evening. Over the years he had received repeated death threats from unidentified people displeased with his missionary work.

The Interior Ministry run by Gaza's Islamic militant Hamas rulers condemned the killing and said it launched an investigation...

Oh my how the circle completes itself. You just can't make this up if you tried. Founder and spokesman for the Finnish Islamic Party, (FIP) Abdullah Tammi, is not only a former Social Democrat, he's also a former Communist .......and Nazi (in Finnish)...

Sudanese government forces and militia groups razed a town in central Darfur where African Union soldiers were attacked, rebel leaders said on Friday, adding the troops were also threatening to raid a nearby town.

Sudan's army and Darfur rebel movements blame each other for last week's assault on the AU base in Haskanita in which 10 African Union soldiers were killed -- the worst attack on AU troops since they deployed in Sudan.

On Friday rebel leaders said at least 100 people have been killed and thousands displaced in Haskanita since Wednesday by the Sudanese army and pro-government Janjaweed militia forces.

The figures could not be verified and Sudanese military spokesmen could not be reached for comment. AU forces have evacuated the area.

"They have burned down the whole village, not leaving a single hut," Abdel Aziz el-Nur Ashr, commander of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), told Reuters by telephone. "Not less than 100 have been killed."

As of Friday morning, government forces were still burning and looting parts of Haskanita, said Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, leader of a breakaway faction of JEM.

About 800 government and Janjaweed militia soldiers were moving toward the town of Andrav, 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) from Haskanita, Ashr said.

"They are on their way to attack Andrav and they could reach it by evening," he said...

Eight mortar shells and three Qassam rockets landed in the Negev Sunday morning, as residents continued to suffer the brunt of Palestinian munitions fired at the country.

Initial reports said four Qassam rockets landed in the area, one not far from Netivot. Hours later, sappers located the rocket’s remains, and transferred them to an explosives lab, which determined the rocket was in fact a Grad-type Katyusha rocket.

The Salah-al-Din Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, claimed responsibility for the mortar shell attack, and claimed the rocket that landed near the Netivot cemetery was a new and improved type of mortar shell.

The eight mortar shells, which were launched from the northern Gaza Strip, landed in the Eshkol Regional Council kibbutz of Keren Shalom. One of the shells hit a house, causing a fire. Fire fighters rushed to the scene; no one was injured.

“Luckily for us, the kibbutz dwellings are fortified, and the open areas of the kibbutz are also fortified. I really hope something is done to stop the shooting,” said Eli Aharon, deputy head of the Eshkol Regional Council.

The three Qassam rockets, also launched from the northern Gaza Strip, landed in the Sdot Negev Regional Council. No one was injured and no damage was reported.

The Grad-type Katyusha rocket landed in an open field, some 400 meters from a cemetery in Netivot...

...For all its attention to American foreign policy and domestic lawmaking, The Israel Lobby operates more deeply as a theology, a belief system. The original sin, in the Mearsheimer-Walt cosmology, is the United States' support for Israel, which they view as the root cause of global instability, Islamist terrorism and American insecurity. To enter into this faith is to accept the premise that a shifting, stealthy, protoplasmic group of Zionists, most of them Jews but some evangelical Christians, have for decades manipulated the puppet strings of Congress and the White House.

The Israel lobby's "loose coalition of individuals and organizations" has not simply steered the United States into a self-destructive and staggeringly expensive bond with Israel, a "strategic liability." It has pushed America into the Iraq war, alienated us from Western European allies, ruined rapprochement with Syria and begun greasing the way for a military strike against Iran.

Like some other critics of the American-Israeli relationship -- the historian Tony Judt, former President Jimmy Carter -- Mearsheimer and Walt perceive themselves as speaking a previously unutterable truth, a truth so shattering in its clarity that powerful forces seek to muzzle it. The more voices are raised against them, the more convinced they are of their own rightness and persecution.

But, of course, there is nothing very new in what these two scholars say about the pervasive, hidden power of Jews, that convenient euphemism. Mearsheimer and Walt assure readers that the Israel lobby is not a cabal or conspiracy, that it is perfectly acceptable for special-interest groups to advocate for their causes and that they categorically reject such anti-Semitic evergreens as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." It may not be fair to hold any writer responsible for his or her audience. But it is impossible to plow through this book without feeling certain that Mearsheimer and Walt have provided required reading for Jew-haters worldwide. Their credentials in the academic establishment -- and, indeed, the imprimatur of their publisher -- supply intellectual legitimacy to a blatantly slanted, inherently biased worldview...

...Ms. Ross, who previously has said her positions on international issues such as Darfur are not relevant to the council race, said international issues such as the Iraq war should be more important to the council, and that the Sudan divestment proposal is surprising from a councilor who she said has rarely spoken up about such issues.

She criticized the council’s inaction on a resolution from June calling on it to support withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. She maintained the city has lost millions of dollars in federal funding because of the war, so the war is more directly relevant than other foreign issues.

“The Worcester City Council has said they will not deal with international issues,” Ms. Ross said. “The City Council has not allowed them to be relevant, and Perotto has been part of that. If they were really worried about the rest of the world, they should allow (the Iraq resolution) before the council.”...

...Ms. Ross has experience bringing international issues to local prominence.

The former Green Rainbow standard-bearer, who moved here from Somerville in January 2006, was part of a 2004 campaign to get the Somerville pension fund to rid itself of investments in companies that do business with Israel.

The party, on whose administrative committee she has served since at least 2004, endorsed a nonbinding referendum on Israel divestment in a legislative district that includes half of Somerville. The measure sponsored by the Somerville Divestment Project failed at the polls, and the city council eventually voted against divestment. Ms. Ross declined to comment on the Israel divestment issue.

The Green Rainbow position on Israel calls for ending all U.S. military and economic aid to the Jewish state and supports withdrawing institutional investments from Israel state bonds and corporations that do business with Israel; and boycotts of Israeli academics and academic institutions...

As the Darfur peace mission of the retired statesmen known as the Elders came to an end, two of their number - former UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and former US President Jimmy Carter - chastened the West for its handling of the violent situation in Sudan. The BBC reports that Mr. Brahimi - a member of the group of Elders that includes Archbishop Desmond Tutu, rights advocate Graca Machel, and entrepreneur Richard Branson - chastised the West for pandering to Sudanese rebel groups that may not represent the people of Darfur.

"The international community has acted rather irresponsibly on all this in the past by pampering a lot of these people around - not really wondering whether they really represented anybody and whether they were acting responsibly," said Mr Brahimi.

The BBC adds that although he praised the plans for UN-sponsored peace talks later this month in Libya, Brahimi warned that the West needs to ensure that the people of Darfur are properly represented at the talks. Brahimi's criticism of the West's handling of Darfur was joined by that of Mr. Carter, who singled out the United States government for its use of the term "genocide" to describe the Sundanese conflict. Reuters reports that Carter called Washington's use of the term "genocide" was both legally inaccurate and "unhelpful."

"There is a legal definition of genocide and Darfur does not meet that legal standard. The atrocities were horrible but I don't think it qualifies to be called genocide," he said. Washington is almost alone in branding the 4 1/2 years of violence in Darfur genocide. Khartoum rejects the term, European governments are reluctant to use it and a U.N.-appointed commission of inquiry found no genocide, but that some individuals may have acted with genocidal intent. Carter, whose charitable foundation, the Carter Center, worked to establish the International Criminal Court (ICC), said: "If you read the law textbooks ... you'll see very clearly that it's not genocide and to call it genocide falsely just to exaggerate a horrible situation I don't think it helps."

Brahimi's and Carter's comments come at the end the Elders' two-day mission to Sudan. Voice of America reports that during their visit, the Elders found that "people in Darfur were desperate for protection, despite the Sudanese government's insistence that the situation in the region is getting better."...

Iranian leader says during Jerusalem Day rally in Tehran, 'Let a referendum be held in Palestine on the transfer of Zionists to Europe, Canada or Alaska.' [He's all about democratic choice.] Adds: Israel committed crimes under pretext of the Holocaust

According to the regime's mouthpiece, the president suggested holding a referendum on the transfer of Israel's Jews to Europe, Canada or Alaska.

"Let a referendum be held in Palestine. It is our clear proposal to European countries," Ahmadinejad said during the International Quds (Jerusalem) Day rallies in Tehran.

"Let all Palestinians including Muslims, Christians and the Jews attend the referendum," he added.

IRNA said Ahmadinejad repeated an earlier suggestion to Europe on the "settlement of Zionists in Europe or in big lands such as Canada and Alaska so they would be able to own their own land".

Ahmadinejad further stated that "the creation of the Zionist regime, the continuation of its existence and unlimited support for the regime (by the US) are an insult to human dignity."

"Defense for the ominous interests of the Zionist regime is a must for certain powers. Western governments who are pioneers of secularism pursue defense for the Zionist regime as the holiest task in the world," the president was quoted as saying.

"Nations should be allowed to conduct research on crimes of the Zionist regime and decode the black box for its atrocities," he added. ""The Palestinian youth and nation have been deprived of all human rights for more than 60 years. Today, Quds is not an issue only related to Palestine and the Middle East but a case of world humanity."

The president continued to say that Western nations have turned the Holocaust into a "holy issue and do not let anybody raise any question about it...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president accused Israel on Friday of using the Holocaust as a pretext for "genocide" against Palestinians.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who outraged the West in 2005 by calling Israel a "tumour" to be wiped off the map, said the truth should be told about World War Two and the Holocaust.

Six million Jews were killed in the Nazi genocide.

"Iran condemns fabricating such a pretext (the Holocaust) for the Zionist regime to commit genocide against the Palestinian nation and occupy Palestine," Ahmadinejad said in a live broadcast to mark the annual Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day in the Islamic Republic.

"The Iranian nation and countries in the region will not rest until Palestine is free and criminals punished," he said in the speech before Friday prayers...

...The big mystery of the strike is how did the non-stealthy F-15s and F-16s get through the Syrian air defense radars without being detected? Some U.S. officials say they have the answer.

U.S. aerospace industry and retired military officials indicated today that a technology like the U.S.-developed “Suter” airborne network attack system developed by BAE Systems and integrated into U.S. unmanned aircraft by L-3 Communications was used by the Israelis. The system has been used or at least tested operationally in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last year.

The technology allows users to invade communications networks, see what enemy sensors see and even take over as systems administrator so sensors can be manipulated into positions so that approaching aircraft can’t be seen, they say. The process involves locating enemy emitters with great precision and then directing data streams into them that can include false targets and misleading messages algorithms that allow a number of activities including control.

A Kuwaiti newspaper wrote that "Russian experts are studying why the two state-of-the art Russian-built radar systems in Syria did not detect the Israeli jets entering Syrian territory. Iran reportedly has asked the same question, since it is buying the same systems and might have paid for the Syrian acquisitions."

The system in question is thought to be the new Tor-M1 launchers which carries eight missiles as well as two of the Pachora-2A system. Iran bought 29 of the Tor launchers from Russia for $750 million to guard its nuclear sites, and they were delivered in Jan., according to Agency France-Press and ITAR-TASS. Syrian press reports they were tested in February. They also are expected to form a formidable system when used with the longer-range S-300/SA-10 which Iran has been trying to buy from Russia. Syria has operated SA-6s for years and more recently has been negotiating with Russians for the Tor-M1. What systems were actually guarding the Syrian site are not known.

...In your righteousness, however, you missed one crucial fact. My question was never meant to undermine the cause of Palestine. It was meant to undermine the tactics that continue to poison our debate over Palestine. Until people hear the truth, and not propaganda, Palestine will never receive sympathy from the West.

You and I have the same vision, dear woman. We both envision an independent and democratic Palestine existing alongside Israel. Where we diverge is in how to rally the world to this cause. You adore a film decrying the situation in Palestine as “apartheid,” declaring that Israel controls foreign media and governments, and featuring a Palestinian man in his basement ranting about how Israel wants to eliminate the Arab population in Palestine. I prefer the truth: that Israel is trying to secure itself, albeit in a misguided way, and that Palestine is fighting for a state of independence...

At-large City Council candidate Grace Ross, the former Green-Rainbow Party nominee for governor, must change her positions on Darfur and Israel before local Jewish leaders withdraw their criticism of her, a prominent Jewish leader said yesterday.

While Ms. Ross said her discussions with the Jewish activists earlier this week have opened a dialogue, she declined to say if she has changed her stance on whether genocide is occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Many Jews and progressive activists, as well as the Bush administration, hold the view that the violence is clearly genocide. In Massachusetts, liberal Democrats such as state Sen. Edward M. Augustus Jr. and Jewish lawmakers including Sen. Harriette L. Chandler, both of Worcester, have proposed legislation calling for the state to divest itself of its investments in Sudan.

The official Green-Rainbow position is that the violence in the northern African country is caused by several factors, but that calling it genocide is an anti-Arab racist mischaracterization.

Ms. Ross also did not say if she has modified her views on Israel, and Israel’s strikes against the Hezbollah political and paramilitary organization in Lebanon in the summer of 2006. But she tried to distance herself from a position paper she wrote during the Israel-Hezbollah conflict that likened the Jewish people to victims of battering who have themselves become batterers, saying, “I would never say Jews are batterers.”...

...Among others, the local firefighters union and Central Massachusetts AFL-CIO are supporting her.

I mean, "GREEN" party always scored the "identify with the environment, eco-friendliness, save the Earth" types of things for me. Martin Solomon's blog entry (linked aboved) about the local leaders of the Massachusetts Green Party, however, is truly a reality adjustment for me.

A famed Holocaust denier is revising his revisionist thinking — and the move is opening up a rift among his fellow travelers.

David Irving, who was released from prison last December in Austria after being convicted of Holocaust denial, recently announced that he is rethinking his position on the fate of European Jews during World War II. Irving now concedes that a mass slaughter of Jews may have occurred.

In a series of interviews, including one with the Forward, Irving outlined his new beliefs. After his release, he said, he discovered in a volume of trivial Nazi communiqués a memo from SS major Hermann Höfle that refers to “S,” “B” and “T” — code, Irving claims, for the concentration camps Sobibor, Belzec and Treblinka. He said he is 80% sure that the document is genuine and that no other piece of Holocaust evidence has seemed as legitimate.

“This is the only one,” Irving said. “If [the document] is genuine, it refutes the view of the revisionists that nothing happened.”

Irving’s current conclusions still lie far from those of mainstream Holocaust scholars. He believes that around 2.4 million Jews were killed by the Nazis, that Auschwitz was not a death camp and that SS chief Heinrich Himmler ordered the murders behind Hitler’s back...

...Irving confirmed that he has made many new enemies in the revisionist community and kept old ones.

“I’ve received a number of e-mails from around the world,” Irving said. “They’re not very happy with me at all.”

Among the unsympathetic is Michael Santomauro, who runs the revisionist Web site Reporters Notebook. “[Irving] is a flip-flopper on the Holocaust,” Santomauro said. “I think he’s positioning himself to sell more books.”...

...One of Irving’s main allies in the United States is Mark Weber, director of the revisionist Institute for Historical Review. Weber countered the claim that Irving is simply engaged in a publicity stunt.

“Those people who are disappointed that Irving has switched [sides] shouldn’t be, because he’s always been ambivalent,” Weber said, adding that Irving’s current stance marks a return to the way he was thinking when he published “Hitler’s War” in 1976.

Irving agrees with this interpretation of his trajectory.

“You must not think that I’ve done anything to rehabilitate myself,” he said...

Presiding magistrate Laurence Trébucq officially confirmed the court order anticipated during the September 19th Appellate Court hearing of Philippe Karsenty’s appeal against his October 2006 conviction for defamation against France 2 and Charles Enderlin. The Court has ordered France 2 to turn over, before October 31st, the unedited raw footage filmed by France 2 cameraman Talal Abu Rahma on September 30th and October 1st 2000.

Maître Bénédicte Amblard, representing France 2, confirmed that her client will comply with the order. The 27-minute video will be projected in the (open) courtroom on November 14th. The case will be heard in full on the 27th of February 2008.

French mainstream media are observing, to date, a total blackout of information on the case. The same media that touted the France 2 victory over Karsenty in October 2006, with headlines claiming “The icon of the Intifada was not staged” have turned a blind eye to new developments.

Except for Charles Enderlin who dances with joy on his France 2 blog. Announcing the decision to project the footage as if it were his own ultra bright idea, he justifies the refusal over the past seven years to expose it to public or even semi-private scrutiny as a sign of exquisite legality. Only the Court has eyes pure enough to contemplate the handiwork of camerman Talal Abu Rahma...

Arab League, Palestinians and EU Political Convergence

There is a perception about a golden Islamic civilization which does not exist except in a make-believe world and the reason is obvious. It is a view fabricated by many of the EU countries because of the economic potential of doing business with Arabs, which includes immigration to benefit businesses with cheap labor - the same reason President Reagan enacted an amnesty for a million immigrants from south of the border at a time when there was no real problem with illegal immigrants in the U.S. and there was another amnesty in the 90s and George W. Bush has proposed another amnesty for the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. because it benefits business with cheap labor. The same thing has happened with Arabs in Europe. Nobody can really compete in this capitalist system unless they do it cheaper and that means outsourcing and that means illegal immigration is a necessary condition for capitalist profiteering. And that is the real problem.

Revising History

The fantasy is where Europeans and their American leftist supporters have turned Israel into the pariah and the Arabs into some fantasy people of good-will delegitimizing Israel and elevating the Arab world all of which has turned truth upside down. Since the seventh century Muslims have been persecuting indigenous non-Muslim populations in Judea and Samaria as elsewhere, and Europeans have adopted the false conception that Israel is Dar al-Islam (the land of Islam) because it has been to their benefit to do so.

The Arab League, the European Union and the Palestinians began a political convergence, most notably at the time of the oil embargo in the 70s. It is also especially noticeable with the quick recognition of HAMAS as the elected head of the Palestinian Authority, even though HAMAS has sworn to destroy Israel.

A campaign of hate against Israel has increased, especially after 9/11. Israel was even blamed for 9/11. Some propagandists have suggested that Israel was behind the carnage in order to garner support against Arabs. This allegation, of course, has been disproved. But it persists on the InterNUT...

The question of what to do in Iraq today must be separated from the decision to topple Saddam Hussein four and a half years ago. That decision is a matter for historians. By any normal ethical standard, the coalition's current project in Iraq is a just one. Britain, America and Iraq's other allies are there as the guests of an elected government given a huge mandate by Iraqi voters under a legitimate constitution. The UN approved the coalition's role in May 2003, and the mandate has been renewed annually since then, most recently this August. Meanwhile, the other side in this war are among the worst people in global politics: Baathists, the Nazis of the middle east; Sunni fundamentalists, the chief opponents of progress in Islam's struggle with modernity; and the government of Iran. Ethically, causes do not come much clearer than this one...

A wave of blue and white, accompanied by colorful flags from across the globe, swept through Jerusalem on Tuesday afternoon, as tens of thousands of Jews and Christians walked side by side in the annual Feast of Tabernacles Jerusalem March.

The run-up to the parade was marred by a Chief Rabbinate order banning Jews from the event, for fear of "missionary work," but that did not stop some 80,000 - 7,000 of them Christians - from enjoying the festivities...

...The parade included groups of marchers from different segments of Israeli society, including El Al pilots, soldiers, medical personnel, postal workers and representatives of various regions of Israel.

Actors in costumes representing different periods in Israeli history sang songs about the united city, while the Police Band kept the rhythm for the marchers and spectators.

The march, which capped off a series of Succot events in the capital, attracted Jerusalemites who came to see the participating nations' colorful outfits, and evangelical Christians who could not stop declaring their love and support for the people in Zion, as they do every year.

"Many nations and countries oppose Israel. We wanted to tell Israel and its people that we stand next to them and that they will never be alone," Heyn Middelhoven, 30, from the Netherlands, who was marching with a group from the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, told The Jerusalem Post.

Some 1,500 Brazilian pilgrims also participated in the event...

...Having participated in the Jerusalem March nearly every year for the past two decades, I found the controversy over the Chief Rabbinate's encouragement of Jews to boycott it due to the danger of Christian proselytizing ironic indeed.

For I find this event to be one of the most Zionistic experiences on the calendar, giving full expression to Israeli Jewish pride and providing a way to celebrate Succot beyond the religious rituals while honoring our heritage...

(IsraelNN.com) Residents of the Shomron town of Elon Moreh have accused extreme-left activists of deliberately damaging Arab property in order to create conflict. They also say Yediot Acharonot and its associated website Ynet have refused to correct their libel.

Benny Katzover, a senior founder of Elon Moreh, spoke with Arutz-7 and recounted the events leading up to what he says were attempts by left-wing activists to sully Jewish residents' good names and create conflict with the neighboring Arab village.

The village in question, Dir el-Hattab, was hooked up to the Israeli water utility thanks to Katzover's own initiative as mayor of Elon Moreh. Recently, Jewish youth who refurbished a park area within Elon Moreh's municipal boundaries set up a small pool, connected to the water line leading to the village. The pool did not disrupt the flow of water to the village until somebody began cutting the pipe flowing toward the village.

A resident of the town recently photographed leftists as they damaged a water pipe leading to a nearby Arab village. Elon Moreh residents argue that the leftists were hoping to lead the Arabs to think that their Jewish neighbors were destroying their water supply.

After destroying the pipe, residents said, the leftists reported the incident to the Yediot Acharonot newspaper, which published an article accusing the Jews of Elon Moreh of harassing local Arabs and stealing their water. "They were more than happy to publish a half-page story on how we abuse our neighbors, without an ounce of research," Katzover said. He added that the leftists were led by Kibbutz Movement Chairman Yoel Marshak, infamous for his involvement in claims that Arab olive trees were destroyed by Jews, when in fact they had been pruned by their owners and left-wing activists...

...Israel’s decision to stay on the sidelines was unfortunate because the truth always matters. The al-Dura incident wasn’t the only media report to inflame passions against Israel in recent years, but it was the one with the highest profile. Moreover, if, as Mr. Karsenty and others have claimed persuasively, the al-Dura incident is part of the insidious trend in which Western media outlets allow themselves to be manipulated by dishonest and politically motivated sources (recall the Jenin “massacre” that never was, or the doctored Reuters photos from Israel’s war against Hezbollah in 2006), then France 2 must be held accountable...

...If someone entirely unfamiliar with the Middle East had watched Bakri’s film one might believe that Israel indiscriminately kills pregnant women, children and even canaries. Witnesses accuse Israel of mutilating bodies, deliberating destroying a hospital, using Palestinians as human shields, stealing their life’s savings and committing endless massacres. Israelis and Jews are described as cowards and losers and an uninitiated, ill-informed viewer might very well come to that conclusion after watching this film. Needless to say IDF soldiers see the events of Jenin quite differently and have sued Bakri for libel. Beginning last month, the libel suit is currently being heard in an Israeli court. Curiously, Bakri was present at the screening but no time was allotted for a question and answer period. Bakri and one of the film organizers blamed the Kendall Square Cinema for this snag. For a more detailed debunking of this film I recommend Tamar Sternthal’s 2005 review.

After viewing this film I cannot help but conclude that it is little more than a tool for incitement amongst a population that hates not only the State of Israel but the Jewish people...

...Sara Rubin, executive director of the Boston Jewish Film Festival for more than a decade, said she believes there is a profusion of worthwhile filmmaking currently coming out of the Middle East – too much for one festival to encompass – and that she welcomes the Palestine Film Festival.
“I think that art offers us another way to experience the world around us,” said Rubin. “Any time that happens, we gain new insights.”

The objective for the BPFF organizers in creating the nine-day, 43 film event was to expose the local community to Palestinian viewpoints, according to Katherine Hanna, one of eight organizers.

“Our primary mission is to bring Palestinian art and culture to Boston,” said Hanna, who is Palestinian-American.

However, Hillel Stavis, community outreach manager for the David Project Center for Jewish Leadership, expressed skepticism.

“While we should welcome diversity of artistic endeavor, I think it’s obviously a film festival with a pointed political message,” said Stavis, who added that he does not know of any plans to protest the festival. “Virtually every single one of the films has a singularity of message, namely that Palestinians are victims and Israelis are oppressors.”...

...you won’t find any films sympathetic to Jewish self-rule in the Middle East. Here are some of the gems:

“The Price of Freedom” is a reverential biopic about Marwan Barghouti, imprisoned for murdering Jewish civilians. “Leila Khaled: Hijacker” is a “nuanced” view of the pioneer airplane hijacker of the 1970s. “Jenin, Jenin” is the “documentary” – discredited even before its opening – of Israel’s offensive into that city following the worst period of Palestinian terrorism in Israel. “USA vs. Al-Arian” is a “documentary” exculpating the famous Florida professor and funder of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. “Confronting the Wall: Art and Resistance in Palestine” is the obligatory entry depicting “The Apartheid Wall” and the evil Jews who built it. “The Color of Olives” depicts Ghandi-like Palestinian olive farmers peacefully caressing their crop beneath the shadow of the “Apartheid Wall.”

You get the picture. The organizers and “international” filmmakers have one theme and they pound it home with sledgehammers...

Ten months ago he was languishing in an Austrian jail, less than halfway through a three-year sentence with his career - and professional reputation - in tatters.

This week David Irving, the discredited British historian who was described by a high court judge as a Holocaust denier and a racist, says he is launching a comeback with a speaking tour of British cities and a series of new books. "I have kept a low profile for several months because I have had to sort out where to live and to address my financial situation," said Mr Irving, who was declared bankrupt in 2002 after an unsuccessful libel action over claims he was a Holocaust denier. "But now I am ready to start again."

Mr Irving's career has been littered with controversy, culminating with his arrest in Austria in 2005. He was sentenced to three years in jail after a judge ruled that two speeches he made in 1989, dismissing the Auschwitz gas chambers as a "fairy tale" and questioning the existence of extermination camps, breached Austrian law. His appeal was upheld, with the judge saying the crimes were a long time ago and that Mr Irving had undergone an "impeccable conversion".

However, drinking tea on the sofa of a 10-bedroom house he has begun renting near Windsor, Mr Irving says that his views on the Holocaust have crystallised rather than changed. He says that he believes the Jews were responsible for what happened to them during the second world war and that the "Jewish problem" was responsible for nearly all the wars of the past 100 years: "The Jews are the architects of their own misfortune, but that is the short version A-Z. Between A-Z there are then 24 other characters in intervening steps." Mr Irving was due to address a meeting in Coventry last Friday - although that event was disrupted by protesters - and held another meeting at his home on Saturday. He plans to speak in Halifax and Birmingham as well as at several unnamed universities...

...He added: "In my opinion now the real killing operations took place at the Reinhardt camps west of the Bug river. In the three camps here [Sobibor, Belzec, and Treblinka] Heinrich Himmler's men (mostly Ukrainian mercenaries) killed possibly as many as 2.4 million in the two years up to October 1943...

Pressed as to whether this change undermined his previous stance, Mr Irving replied: "It is a crystallisation of my view." Asked if he now accepts there had been a Holocaust against the Jewish people he said he was "not going to use their trade name". He added: "I do accept that the Nazis quite definitely, that Heinrich Himmler, organised and directed a programme, a clandestine programme, for the liquidation of European Jews ... and that in 1942-43 alone over 2.5 million Jews were killed in those three camps." He added that Hitler was "completely in the dark" about the programme...

An official document from Jerusalem denied – for the first time – that Israel was responsible for the death of al-Dura at the start of the second intifada.

The document argued that the images, which showed al-Dura being shot beside his father and have become a symbol of the second intifada, were staged.

"The creation of the myth of Muhammad al-Dura has caused great damage to the State of Israel. This is an explicit blood libel against the state. And just as blood libels in the old days have led to pogroms, this one has also caused damage and dozens of dead," said Government Press Office director Daniel Seaman.

The arguments were based on investigations that showed that the angles of the IDF troops' fire could not have hit the child or his father, that part of the filmed material, mainly the moment of the boy's alleged death, is missing, and the fact that the cameraman can be heard saying the boy is dead while the boy is still seen moving...

Charles Enderlin, the France 2 reporter who is still working in Israel, said in response to this report, "This is not the first time that Seaman makes such allegations against me – it is nonsense. It is pure slander. The video that we filmed is authentic and I stand behind it.

"We plan to show the film in court in France, and I am certain it will end the repeated mudslinging," the French reporter said.

Commenting on the government’s shirking of responsibility for Muhammed al-Dura’s death, MK Ahmad Tibi (United Arab List-Ta'al) said Monday, “The statement is not credible, and it constitutes abuse of al-Dura’s body.”

“Those behind the investigation are shameless people. Those responsible for this terrible murder, which the whole world saw live, must be brought to justice,” Tibi added.

...Between 2,000 and 3,000 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (Pasdaran) are currently in Lebanon. Here, these Iranian soldiers are supporting Lebanese Hezbollah fighters — actual numbers are unknown — with weapons, military equipment, and cash. They are also training them in camps (at least five such camps in the Bekaa Valley and two or three in southern Lebanon) in a variety of infantry/commando operations and terror-bombing techniques...

BEIRUT – Hezbollah is rehearsing for something big here. Not sure what or when. But a few days ago, between 4,000 and 5,000 HezB gunmen deployed to the Christian areas of Beirut in an unsettling “show of force,” positioning themselves at road intersections and other key points throughout the city. Two additional objectives were achieved: First, the operation served as a probing action to determine local reaction. Second, it served as an exercise to gauge the time required (speed, synchronization, etc.) to achieve the key points and intersections.

Amazingly, there was no response from the police or the army.

HezB is also jamming cell-phone signals almost daily. Their lookouts are everywhere, at least from my vantage point, because they are watching the people I'm with and me...

JUBAL LUBNAN (east of Beirut) – I write this with some acceptance of risk (everything is a risk here). But it's something that must be published.

I know for a fact that Hezbollah is building defenses and fortifications from which they can launch attacks in the south (where I was two days ago), in the Bekaa Valley, and in Al Dahiyeh (the Hezbollah security square in Beirut, which we covertly entered and moved through twice during our photo-reconnaissance a few days ago). This is not hearsay: This is reality.

The construction (some of which I have seen with my own eyes) is being contracted through the Lebanese government with Wa'ad, a Hezbollah-owned company created – as both a front and a company based in Lebanon — from Jihad Al-Bina, an Iranian-based company on the U.S. terrorist-watchlist.

Wa'ad ("the promise") is 100-percent owned and operated by Hezbollah. And the company is reconstructing houses and commercial buildings, which were destroyed during the war in 2006. But the houses are being rebuilt – as they were — with secret interconnecting corridors linking the houses together in a link-by-link network of fighting positions. There are tunnels running beneath the houses linking them with other buildings and adjacent neighborhoods, as well as to huge underground command posts. And there are walls being constructed with concealed weapons-storage spaces...

While discussing the problem of looting in an anti-colonial politicial context Abu El-Haj writes (p. 255):

Although never argued by [Palestinian archaeologist Nazmi] Ju'beh, looting could well be analyzed as a form of resistance to the Israeli state and an archaeological project, understood by many Palestinians, to stand at the very heart of Zionist historical claims to the land. In James Scott's words, looting is perhaps "a weapon of the weak."

I can't think of any other way to read this than as a -- granted, tentatively, but still unambiguously phrased -- political justification of the looting of archaeological sites. I think this is one of the most disturbing passages in the book and I am surprised not to have encountered any other comments on it so far.

The other passage is on the last pages (280-81) of chapter 10, "Conclusions."

In producing the material signs of national history that became visible and were witnessed across the contemporary landscape, archaeology repeatedly remade the colony into an ever-expanding national terrain. It substantiated the nation in history and produced Eretz Yisrael as the national home. It is within the context of that distinctive history of archaeological practice and settler nationhood that one can understand why it was that "thousands of Palestinians stormed the site" of Joseph's Tomb in the West Bank city of Nablus, looting it and setting it alight during the renewed intifada that rocked Palestine and Israel in the fall of 2000 ... Joseph's tomb was not destroyed simply because of its status as a Jewish religious shrine. The symbolic resonance of its destruction reaches far deeper than that. It needs to be understood in relation to a colonial-national history in which modern political rights have been substantiated in and expanded through the material signs of historic presence. In destroying the tomb, Palestinian demonstrators eradicated one "fact on the ground."

It is possible that Abu El-Haj is simply offering a explanation of the mentality behind the actions of the marauders here and perhaps we should assume this more charitable interpretation. But I was struck by the fact that there is no condemnation of the desecration of this site and it is equally possible to read the passage as a justification of the actions of the mob (especially given her quoted statement from p. 255 above)...

To conclude, Facts on the Ground makes some interesting observations about how nationalism and politics have fed into and fed off of Israeli archaeology. But these observations are offered in the context of an extreme perception of Israel as a colonial state, and I suspect that, whatever readers think of this viewpoint, the book's tendenz is so transparent that no one's mind will be changed one way or another by reading it. When it talks about things I know about, it consistently slants the presentation of the evidence according to this tendenz so that the conclusions are predictable and not very interesting. This book makes no contribution to the archaeology of ancient Palestine or what it can tell us about the history of ancient Israel. Others can decide whether the book makes a contribution in some other area.