December 2007 Archives

you know well how delicate this matter of truth and confidentiality is. the guidelines were fuzzy for me, i tried to adhere to them. i erased some of the more personal and potentially damaging remarks.

Rick performed nobly and courageously, using his height and bulk well. I often noticed him in the midst of the action, his red cap, blue jacket, and body size conspicuous. Perhaps his years of work with union organizing has emboldened him.

We all know the Israel of wars, oppression, and precarious security, but what about Israel of the humming economy with 90 Israel-related companies on NASDAQ? What about Israeli films garnishing honors around the world: "Jellyfish" and "The Band's Visit" at Cannes, "Beaufort" in Berlin, "My Father My Lord" in Tribeca, "Sweet Mud" at Sundance, and "Aviva, My Love" in Shanghai?

What of Israeli solar power in California that has been saving 2 million barrels of oil annually for nearly 20 years? What of Arava Valley high-tech agriculture, with exports exceeding $100 million? Natafim, the drip irrigation system patented by Kibbutz Hatzerim, is now a multinational conglomerate selling millions of systems throughout the world. What of the Israel that is taking in Darfur refugees, and what of the first Israeli-initiated UN resolution, calling upon countries to share agricultural technology with developing countries, adopted overwhelmingly this month?

It's this other Israel that's underreported.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Sunday that his country will hold no more discussions with Syria until Damascus shows its willingness to let Lebanon elect a new president.

Lebanon's Western-backed government and pro-Syrian opposition have been unable to overcome their disagreements to follow through with the election, and many Western countries have accused Damascus of interfering in the process - a claim Syria denies.

"I will not have any more contact with the Syrians until... we have received proof of Syria's intention to let Lebanon designate a president of consensus," said Sarkozy at a press conference in Cairo after meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

France, Lebanon's former colonial ruler, has led the international effort to mediate between feuding Lebanese politicians and has consistently implored the Syrians to cooperate.

The French president spoke with Syrian President Bashar Assad as recently as the beginning of December to urge him to "facilitate" the election in Lebanon. Sarkozy sent his chief of staff, Claude Gueant, to Damascus in early November, and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner met his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Moallem earlier that month on the sidelines of an Iraq conference in Turkey.

"France has taken the responsibility of talking with Syria," said Sarkozy. "One must recognize today that we cannot wait any longer, Syria must stop talking and now must act."...

Syrian President Bashar Assad is ready for peace with Israel, an influential U.S. Senator said Sunday after talks with the Syrian leader.

Senator Arlen Specter said the political atmosphere in both Syria and Israel was different now and that the time was positive for resuming peace talks between the two countries, halted since 2000.

"We had a very productive meeting with Assad," Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania, told The Associated Press after talks with the Syrian leader in Damascus.

He added that he got the impression after the meeting with Assad that the time was "very positive for productive talks between Israel and Syria."

"There is a sense that he (Assad) is ready and the Syrian public opinion is ready (for peace)," Specter said. The meeting with Assad that was also attended by Rep. Patrick Kennedy, a Rhode Island Democrat...

6 tons of potassium nitrate discovered on humanitarian aid truck, disguised as sugar and marked as EU assistance.

The IDF and Shin Bet uncovered 6.5 tons of potassium nitrate hidden in sacks that were disguised as aid from the European Union, the army announced on Saturday.

Security forces discovered the stash in the cargo of a Palestinian truck at a West Bank checkpoint earlier in December. According to the IDF, the material, hidden in sugar sacks, was planned to be used by terrorists in the Gaza Strip.

"Potassium Nitrate is a banned substance in the Gaza Strip and the Judea and Samaria region due to its use by terrorists for the manufacturing of explosives and Kassam rockets," the IDF spokesperson wrote in a statement.

"This is another example of how the terror organizations exploit the humanitarian aid that is delivered to the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip with Israel's approval," the statement read.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the judge in the case had failed to require the parents of 17-year-old David Boim to properly show a link between the boy's death and the fundraising activities of the charities.

Because of that error, it sent the case back for a possible new trial.

Nathan Lewin, an attorney for the parents, Stanley and Joyce Boim, said an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is possible.

"This court of appeals decision is wrong, very wrong," Lewin said. "It amounts to encouragement of financial contributions to terrorist organizations."

The Boims had sued the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development; the American Muslim Society, also known as the Islamic Association for Palestine; the Quranic Literacy Institute of suburban Oak Lawn; and an alleged Hamas fundraiser.

Their son, a yeshiva student, was gunned down in 1996 while waiting with other students at a bus stop in Beit El, on the West Bank...

"Today, our nation’s great tradition of respect for the rule of law has been upheld. This landmark ruling is a strong rejection of the recent disturbing trend of political lawsuits against American Muslims who have committed no crime other than providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians.

"Pro-Israel groups are engaged in a broad-based attack against domestic humanitarian efforts to aid Palestinians living in dire circumstances under the Israeli occupation. It is reprehensible that groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) would fund and encourage lawsuits that seek to repress First Amendment-protected activities by Palestinian Americans under the guise of fighting terrorism...

Twenty-eight-year old Israeli ends up in Ramallah after GPS system goes haywire. Driver rescued from stone-throwing mob by two east Jerusalem residents he calls ‘his guardian angels’

And you thought your GPS system was trouble? For 28-year-old Bat Yam resident Amir Ochana flawed GPS navigation nearly proved fatal. Instead of a planned return trip to Jerusalem, Ochana’s GPS system directed him towards the West Bank City of Ramallah.

Ochana had just finished work in the Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood of Jerusalem, and wanted to give his secretary a ride home to the Adam settlement northeast of Jerusalem. He plugged in the coordinates for a return trip to Jerusalem into his GPS system and set of on his merry way.

The Bat Yam resident recounts the horror that followed. "I ended up at an army checkpoint…and they let me through even though I was wearing a kippah and had Israeli license plates… I ended up in the center of Ramallah, stuck in traffic and surrounded by Arabs," he says. "I still didn’t realize where I was because I relied on my GPS."

Soon, however, Ochana was spotted by the local Arab residents. "One Arab merchant came up to my car and started rapping on my window….He asked me if I was Jewish and I answered ‘yes.' I immediately knew that something was wrong."

The Arab merchant then entered Ochana’s vehicle through the window, punched him in the testicles and stole his cellular phone. "He began to yell ‘a Jew, a Jew’ and other Arabs soon approached me. They stole my GPS and my other cellular phone," said Ochana.

This mugging was soon the least of Ochana’s problems, as a lynching lmost ensued afterwards. "An entire mob approached me and began to throw rocks at my car….they broke both the front and back windows….I began to cry and ask ‘why me?’" Ochana recalled.

Just as Ochana began to fear the worst, however, help came from an unexpected source. "Two Arabs came out of nowhere…One of them pulled me out of the car and asked me if I was insane. They ran with me to the Qalandiya checkpoint while we were chased by rock-pelting Arabs the entire way, and handed me over to Israeli soldiers," he recounted...

Muhammad Sa'id Ramadhan Al-Bouti: We have no interest in war. We all dream about peace. But it is Israel that fans the flames of war, like Lyndon LaRouche said yesterday. I would like to conclude my speech by quoting the will that Benjamin Franklin read out loud to his American "sons" – but the sons and grandsons have torn this will to shreds. In a speech that Benjamin Franklin delivered at the committee for the drafting of the U.S. constitution in 1789, he warned the committee, and the Americans in general, of the Jewish danger to America and the world. Let me read his speech to you, translated into Arabic.

"There is a great danger threatening the United States of America. That danger is the Jewish danger. Gentlemen, in whichever land the Jews have settled, they have corrupted the morals, and lowered the level of commercial honesty. They always isolate themselves and never mix with others. Because of their feelings of persecution, they always attempt to choke the nations economically, like they did to Portugal and Spain. Since 1700 [sic.], they have been lamenting their fate. But gentlemen, if the world were to give them Palestine, which they claim along with other property, they would soon find a reason to start lamenting their fate once again. How come? Because they are vermin" – he was referring to grave-dwellers who leave their tombs to suck the blood of others. "They cannot live among their own kind. They live at the expense of Christians and others who do not belong to their race. If they are not deported from the United States by the Constitution, within a century they will be streaming into our country in such large numbers that will enable them to rule the country, destroy us, and change the form of government for which we Americans shed our blood, and for which we have sacrificed our lives, our property, and our personal freedom. If we do not deport the Jews, our children will become, within 200 years, field laborers working to feed the Jews, while the Jews will stay in the banks, gleefully rubbing their hands. I warn you, gentlemen, that if you do not deport the Jews once and for all, your children and grandchildren will curse you in your graves. The values of the Jews are not the same as those of the Americans, and they will not be the same even if they live among us for ten generations. A leopard cannot change its spots. The Jews will pose a danger to this country, if they are allowed in. They will destroy our institutions.

"I think I can declare this truth openly. I do not live in Germany or Europe, and so I do not need to whisper these things. We are in a country from which we want to declare who is the number one enemy lying in wait for world peace. Thank you, and may God be with you."

On December 12, 2007, the day after the double suicide-bombing in Algiers for which Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility, Al-Jazeera TV's website aljazeera.net posted an online poll asking, "Do you support Al-Qaeda's attacks in Algeria?" After three days of voting and 30,010 responses, the results were 54.7% in support and 45.3% opposed. The Algerian press and media were unanimous in denouncing the poll, and Al-Jazeera was widely accused of supporting terrorism.

It should be noted that Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb posted a screenshot of the Al-Jazeera poll on its homepage (www.qmagreb.org ), with the caption "The Results of the Vote as Shown on Al-Jazeera!"...

1. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in the Gaza Strip encourage children and adolescents to gather around the corpses of shaheeds ("martyrs for the sake of Allah") and even to kiss them, although it is not rooted in the Muslim tradition (See below, Appendix 1 ). It is part of their indoctrination to hate Israel and employ violence, and it begins at an early age in both the formal and informal educational systems, and as part of the shaheed cult popular among Palestinians in the PA-administered territories during the current confrontation with Israel . (See below, Appendix 2 ).

2. The picture on the first page shows a child kissing the corpse of a PIJ terrorist operative buried on November 25. He was Yussuf Hussein Mousa, 19, a resident of the al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza strip, who was killed in a firefight with the IDF...

...The shaheed cult during the violent confrontation with Israel has created unique burial customs. For example, the men are buried in their clothing and special care is made to cover their reproductive organs in prepration for their meeting with the 72 black-eyed virgins in paradise. There is also a myth that the grave of a shaheed gives off an especially pleasant odor...

A particularly egregious example of this genre of loaded comparisons was made by Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate economist, in his recent book Identity and Violence. Sen has the temerity to proclaim, "…the Jewish Philosopher Maimonides was forced to emigrate from an intolerant Europe in the twelfth century, he found a tolerant refuge in the Arab world."

Sen’s ahistorical drivel aside, Maimonides (b. 1135, in Cordova) was but thirteen years old (in 1148) when Muslim Cordova fell into the hands of the particularly fanatical Berber Muslim Almohads, who invaded the Iberian peninsula from North Africa. Maimonides and all the dhimmi Jews in Cordova were compelled to choose between Islam and exile. Choosing the latter course, Maimonides and his family for twelve years subsequently led a nomadic life, wandering across Spain. By 1160 they crossed the Mediterranean, and settled at Fez, Morocco (also under Almohad control) where, unknown to the authorities, they hoped to pass as Muslims, while living as crypto-Jews. Maimonides’ dual life, however, became increasingly dangerous as his reputation was steadily growing, and the authorities began to inquire into the religious disposition of this highly gifted young man. He was even charged by an informer with the crime of having relapsed (apostasized) from Islam, and, but for the intercession of the poet and theologian Abu al-‘Arab al Mu’ishah, a Muslim friend, he would have suffered the fate of his colleague Judah ibn Shoshan, who had shortly before been executed on a similar charge. Given these precarious circumstances, Maimonides’ family left Fez, embarking in 1165 to Acre, then to Jerusalem, and on to Fostat (Cairo), where they settled, living once again as dhimmis, albeit under more tolerant Fatimid rule...

In today’s Jewish Week, the editor Gary Rosenblatt has a shocking piece on the editor of Ha-Aretz, David Landau’s conversation with Condi Rice last September, in the build-up to Annapolis. Both the message and the language shed a harsh light on the condition of the "anti-occupation" Israeli mindset. The landscape is not pretty...

Saraa, child host: Nahoul, don't you want to convey your holiday greetings on the Feast of the Sacrifice?

Nahoul, a giant bee: Convey greetings, Saraa?

Saraa: Yes.

Nahoul: Who should I convey greetings to, Saraa? Should I convey greetings to my brother, who was martyred in the first Intifada, at the hands of the Zionist Jews? Should I convey greetings to my second brother, who was martyred in the second Intifada? Should I convey greetings to my wounded brother, to my aunt, who was martyred because of the siege, or to her orphans? Who is there for me to greet, Saraa? I won't greet anyone. I am so sad, Saraa...

...Saraa: Don't be sad, Nahoul.

Nahoul: I won't even convey greetings to my mother, who suffers from diabetes, or to my father, who suffers from hepatitis C? Who should I convey greetings to, Saraa? You're rubbing salt on my wounds.

Saraa: Don't be sad, Nahoul. We can all be sacrificed for the sake of the homeland. May Allah help you. All we can say is that we place our trust in Allah against the enemies.

Nahoul: We place our trust in Allah...

"This is a misinformation campaign, a campaign of lies against Iran and its Jewish community. We can't confirm that 40 Iranian Jews landed in Israel," Morsathegh told The Associated Press.

A joint statement signed by Morsathegh and Morris Motamed, the only Jewish lawmaker in the Iranian parliament, also said the Iranian Jews have never been part of any "organized immigration" to Israel...

Jews who attempt to visit our holy sites in the West Bank and Gaza do so at significant risk to our lives while Christians and Muslims enjoy full, uninterrupted access to their holy sites within Israel without ever having to fear for their safety. The tragedy of Bethlehem is not the Israeli security measures that are the first responsibility of any government; it is the absence of true courage and appropriate action on the part of the Palestinian Christians and Muslims who may yearn for peace, yet continue to allow murderers to live, plot, and operate from their neighborhoods, schools and religious sites. The sanctity and peace of Bethlehem will be restored when Palestinians of all faiths find the courage and strength to stand up forcefully against the hatred, violence, and fanaticism that their brethren direct against their Jewish neighbors. In the spirit of this holy season, that should be the call that echoes from every pulpit.

And who was that lone dissenting member state? You guessed it: as Mark Steyn has called it, America Alone.

Is that because 142 member states (including Belarus, China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Laos, Libya, Burma, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Venezuela, Vietnam and Zimbabwe) are right? and America is wrong?

Or is it because the UN system is structured to encourage the mob of member states to treat American money as an all-you-can-eat buffet?

American taxpayers bankroll 22%, or $917 million of this whopping biennial core budget — by far the biggest contribution of any one member state — with just a handful of other countries, including Japan and a few from the European Union, accounting for the bulk of the remainder.

This is just the core budget, of course. The UN system-wide budget is about ten times the size (and for that, the U.S. foots an even bigger portion of the bill, or about 25%), thus likely to total well over $40 billion for the same two-year stretch. Though due to a UN system growing like kudzu, and just as impenetrable, the exact numbers are almost impossible to keep up with.

And does all this money go to make a better world? In a statement to the General Assembly, the U.S. ambassador for management reform, Mark Wallace, noted that this budget contains funding for a conference dubbed Durban II, "an event noxious to my country and a disgrace in the International Community."...

...Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed regret in a statement "that the resolution was not adopted by consensus, marking a break with tradition after 20 years."

"The secretary-general urges all member states to return to consensus decision-making and to demonstrate a greater sense of flexibility and compromise, beyond individual national interests and in the common cause of multilateralism for the good of humankind," the statement said...

This afternoon, I sent the email below to the heads of each of these schools. If they reply, we'll make their remarks available; they may choose to speak through the media. Most important is that they not stand for such blatant anti-Semitism from the head of an institution that is supported by the schools they lead...

...Propelled by this notoriety, which the larger Palestinian Muslim society clearly extolled, including “moderate” Professor Sari Nusseibah (who stated on Al-Jazeera television [Qatar], June 29, 2002, “When I hear the words of Umm Nidal, I recall the [hadith] stating that ‘Paradise lies under the feet of mothers’. All respect is due to this mother, it is due to every Palestinian mother and every female Palestinian who is a Jihad fighter on this land”)...

Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah came out this week against the Olmert government's demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state before peace talks can proceed.

"God made this land for all three of us so a suitable state is one who can adapt itself to the vocation of this land," said Sabbah, an Arab who was born in the northern Israeli town of Nazareth and who regularly officiates at religious events in the Palestinian Authority town of Bethlehem.

"If it's Jewish, it's not Muslim or Christian," he told reporters.

Sabbah had no word on whether a future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip should not be allowed to favor Muslims given those territories' sanctity to Jews and Christians...

Both the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (UOJC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) attacked Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah for commenting last Wednesday during his annual pre-Christmas address that Israel should abandon its Jewish character in favor of a political, normal state for Christians Muslims and Jews...

Sr. Ruth Lautt, Fair Witness National Director, points out "Jews, like any other people, defined in terms of a shared ethnicity, language, history, culture and/or religion, have the right to constitute an autonomous, sovereign political community. We have been very concerned about recent attacks on the legitimacy of a Jewish state. It is dismaying to see Patriarch Sabbah jump on this bandwagon and take the position that a Jewish state is somehow inherently discriminatory."...

Fatah is planning to mark its 43rd anniversary this year with a new poster that presents all of Israel as Palestine.

Designed specifically for the occasion by Abdel Mun'em Ibrahim, the poster features a map of Israel that is entirely draped with a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf.

It also carries a drawing of a rifle as a symbol of the "armed struggle" against Israel.

The poster, which has been endorsed by the Fatah leadership, has already been posted on a number of Fatah-affiliated Web sites.

The underlying message of the poster is that Fatah, like Hamas, does not recognize Israel's existence.

The emblem is in violation of Fatah's declared policy, which envisions an independent Palestinian state alongside, and not instead of, Israel.

By including a rifle in the poster, Fatah is sending a message to the Palestinian public that it has not abandoned the option of "armed resistance," despite current peace talks with Israel.

Founded in 1965, Fatah has celebrated its anniversary over the past 14 years with major rallies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But it's not clear at this stage if Hamas would allow Fatah to hold a big rally in the Gaza Strip...

About 50 Palestinian, Israeli and international peace activists attended the rally in the village of Um Salomona, near Bethlehem, the Biblical birthplace of Jesus that is preparing to celebrate Christmas.

Israeli border guards armed with truncheons briefly detained one activist and beat another five during the rally, the organisers told AFP, adding that one was wearing a Santa Claus costume.

An Israeli army spokesman said there had been disorder at the protest and that several demonstrators who were briefly detained were subsequently released.

Israel says the massive barrier of electric fencing, barbed wire and concrete walls built across the West Bank is needed to stop potential attackers from infiltrating the country and attacking Jewish settlements on Arab land.

In 2004, the International Court of Justice issued a non-binding ruling that parts of the 650-kilometre (410-mile) barrier criss-crossing the West Bank are illegal and should be torn down. Israel has vowed to complete the project.

Are you concerned about getting your ludicrous antisemitic propaganda out to the world in time for Christmas? Not to worry! Agence France Presse is always there to help...

Judging from a prayer she wrote to be used in worship services on the last two Sundays of 2007, Disciples of Christ member Krista Johnson worships one of two gods.

The first god is deaf to the calls of those who call for Israel’s destruction, blind to acts of violence perpetrated against Israel and dumb enough to believe that anti-Semitic groups like Hamas and Hezbollah can be mollified by conciliatory behavior on the part of the state they want to destroy.

The second god is too weak to be asked to address the really intractable problems facing humanity and can only deliver what is reasonable -- not what is necessary.

Johnson, a Sabeel activist who was recently denied access to Israel for problems with her visa, wrote a prayer currently published on the website of the Global Ministries Board, an institution supported by the United Church of Christ and the Disciples of Christ. The prayer offers a general petition for "peace with justice and security for Palestinians and Israelis." But when it comes time for the rubber to hit the road and for Johnson to make specific requests that reveal her understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict, her indifference to Israeli suffering becomes manifest...

...Are these issues so far removed from Johnson's prophetic imagination that she can't be bothered to raise them? Is it impossible for her to ask that Palestinian leaders come to their senses, that the rocket attacks come to an end, that the incitement on Palestinian television stop? Are the kidnapped Israeli soldiers and their families so distant from Johnson's circle of Christian concern that she can't be bothered to offer a petition on their behalf? Has she not heard about Sderot's suffering? Is there no balm in Krista Johnson's heart for the Israelis?

Maybe there is another explanation for her silence on these issues. Maybe she understands just how intractable problems on the Arab and Muslim side of this 60-year-old conflict are. Maybe she secretly believes that the hand of the god she worships is too short to fix these problems and that it is not worth the effort to ask...

So let's not fool ourselves. The Americanized and European-ized Ikhwan are still Ikhwan. They cannot say their agenda in Europe and the United States is "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions," as they write in their U.S. declaration of intent. So, they say they are working for "civil rights," to "end oppression and discrimination," etc. If they stated their real objective they would have no access to power. By reframing their public agenda as something Americans and Europeans understand and embrace (a true touch of genius), they have access to the FBI, DOD, presidents, secretaries of state etc.

So, as Patrick says, they tell us what we want to hear, but never abandon their true intent, and intent they make clear in their internal writings.

Despite efforts by the country's top security echelon to share with Congress videotapes of Egypt assisting Hamas in arms smuggling, the footage has been shown only to some administration officials and never made it to Congress, to avoid infuriating the Egyptians, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The videotapes included footage of Egyptian border policemen allegedly assisting a group of close to 80 Hamas terrorists crossing illegally into Gaza through a hole they had cut in the border fence.

Defense officials said there was also evidence that the Egyptians were assisting Hamas with smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip under the Philadelphi Corridor.

The decision to send the tapes to the Israeli Embassy in Washington was made by Israel's top defense echelon to influence the appropriations process in Congress ahead of a decision to withhold part of the foreign aid granted to Egypt.

That the tape was not shown to Congress reflects a desire by Israel's political and diplomatic echelon not to escalate tension with Cairo by becoming directly involved in lobbying against Egypt in Congress.

For months there has been a debate inside the government over how directly Israel should get involved in the issue inside Washington.

The perception that won the day this time was that over-involvement would be seen by Cairo as an infringement of certain diplomatic "rules" between the two countries and could lead to a major crisis...

STOUGHTON - A state report identifies multiple failures by staff members of a group home that allowed two emotionally disturbed teenagers to be given dozens of electrical shocks at the direction of a caller posing as a supervisor.

The report says none of the six staff members in a Stoughton residence run by the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center on the night of Aug. 26 acted to stop the harrowing events for three hours, despite ample reasons to doubt the validity of the caller's instructions to wake the boys in the middle of the night and administer painful shock treatments, at times while their arms and legs were bound.

The caller said he was ordering the punishments because the teenagers had misbehaved earlier in the evening, but none of the home's staff had witnessed the behavior that the caller cited. As the two boys' screams could be heard throughout the house, near-mutiny erupted among the other boys, who insisted that the accused teenagers had violated no rules. One boy even suggested the call was a hoax, according to the report by the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care, which licenses group homes.

The staffers, inexperienced and overworked, were described as concerned and reluctant, yet nobody verified the orders with central office, nor did anybody check treatment plans for the two teenagers to be sure they were permitted to receive that degree of shock therapy.

The Rotenberg Center has long been controversial for punishing students with two-second shocks, delivered through electrodes attached to their skin, and it is now permitted only on residents with court-approved "aversive therapy" plans...

... As part of a new partnership with Nicaragua's Sandinista President Daniel Ortega, Iran and its Venezuelan allies plan to help finance a $350 million deep-water port at Monkey Point on the wild Caribbean shore, and then plow a connecting "dry canal" corridor of pipelines, rails and highways across the country to the populous Pacific Ocean. Iran recently established an embassy in Nicaragua's capital.

In feeling threatened by Iran's ambitions, the people of Monkey Point have powerful company. The Iranians' arrival in Nicaragua comes as the Bush administration and some European allies hold the threat of war over Iran to force an end to its uranium enrichment program and alleged help to anti-U.S. insurgents in Iraq.

What worries state department officials, former national security officials and counterterrorism researchers is that, if attacked, Iran could stage strikes on American or allied interests from Nicaragua, deploying the Iranian terrorist group Hezbollah and Revolutionary Guard operatives already in Latin America. Bellicose threats by Iran's clerical leadership to hit American interests worldwide if attacked, by design or not, heighten the anxiety.

"The bottom line is if there is a confrontation with Iran, and Iran gets bombed, I have absolutely no doubt that Iran is going to lash out globally," said John R. Schindler, a veteran former counterintelligence officer and analyst for the National Security Agency.

"The Iranians have that ability, particularly from South America. Hezbollah has fronts all over Latin America. That is not new. But it's certainly something we're starting to care about now."

American policymakers already had been fretting in recent years over Tehran's successful forging of diplomatic relations, direct air routes and embassy swaps with populist South American governments that abhor the U.S., such as President Hugo Chávez's Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. But Iran's latest move places it just a few porous borders from Texas, where illegal Nicaraguan laborers routinely travel...

... Few Nicaragua observers believe Iran seriously plans to follow through on any of its $500 million promises or has any obvious need for trade ties with one of Latin America's poorest countries.

Opposition politicians say they understand why Iran might want relations with oil-rich Venezuela and Bolivia but wonder aloud if Iran really is so interested in Nicaraguan bananas as their return on investment.

Those who view Iranian intentions with suspicion point to the new Iranian diplomatic mission in Managua as one reason for all the promises.

"They use their embassies to smuggle in weapons. They used them to develop and execute plans," said Oliver "Buck" Revell, who served as associate deputy director over FBI intelligence and international affairs. "Diplomats have immunity coming and going. It is a protected center for both espionage and, on occasion, for specific operations. So an embassy in Managua is definitely an area that will be of concern to our national security apparatus."...

In a video posted on the Internet on Tuesday, McKinney criticized the war in Iraq and complained about Democrats and Republicans, saying both parties are beholden to corrupt corporate interests. She called the Green Party "my new political home."

McKinney, 52, registered to vote in California after a group called Run! Cynthia! Run! began drafting her as the Green Party's candidate there. Since then, she had made campaign appearances in Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin...

...McKinney is one of at least seven Green Party candidates for president. The party will select its presidential nominee at its July 10 convention in Chicago.

When the wife of the hunter who shot it opened the refrigerator door, the duck lifted its head, giving her a scare.

The man’s wife "was going to check on the refrigerator because it hadn’t been working right and when she opened the door, it looked up at her," said Laina Whipple, a receptionist at Killearn Animal Hospital. "She freaked out and told the daughter to take it to the hospital right then and there."

The 1-pound female ringneck ended up at Goose Creek Wildlife Sanctuary, where it has been treated since Tuesday for wounds to its wing and leg...

Can you imagine how extremely difficult it must have been to find an archaeologist working in Israel who digs in such a way that it is inconceivable that he should happen upon an artifact with any Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or even Babylonian or Assyrian connections?

The Natufians are fascinating, no doubt, but most people would see little relationship between Paleolithic artifacts and contemporary politics. Never fear. The Columbia Anthropology Department has hired a scholar of the Paleolithic who manages to use his Natufian expertise to make scholarly statements on Israel and gay identity politics.

Among Professor Boyd’s specialties are "queer theory" and "cultural politics in Israel and Palestine."...

"I have no doubt that the most senior Iranian leadership, with the help of Hezbollah, is responsible for the attacks in Buenos Aires against AMIA [the community center in 1994] and the Israeli Embassy [in 1992]," Nisman said Tuesday night at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism of the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya.

While investigating the two attacks, Nisman found the necessary legal evidence pointing directly to former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani and his chief of intelligence, Ali Falahian, for their role in the decision to target the community center.

Argentina has issued an international arrest warrant for Rafsanjani, Falahian and a number of Iranian diplomats for their suspected role in the attack. A special Interpol conference approved the warrant at an international gathering in Marrakesh last month.

Nisman told Haaretz that the Iranians had tried to bribe many countries, mostly from Africa, to vote against the Interpol decision...

...Nisman was appointed to head the investigation after it emerged in an Argentine court that the previous investigating judge, Jose Galiano, had paid some $400,000 to a key witness in the case to incriminate former policemen, while diverting blame from Iran and Hezbollah...

He said that the breakthrough in the case came when he and his team identified with certainty the terrorist who carried out the truck bombing near the community center building in July 1994 - a Lebanese man, Ibrahim Hussein Berro. In the attack, 85 Argentines were killed and 230 were injured. Berro is believed to have come to Argentina a week or two before the attack.

Another important figure in the case was Muhsin Rabani, the senior Shi'ite cleric in Argentina.

Rabani, an Iranian, had lived in Argentina since 1983, and four months before the attack was issued a diplomatic passport by the Iranian government and the title of cultural attache at the embassy in Buenos Aires.

According to Nisman's investigation, Rabani opened an account at Deutsche Bank in Buenos Aires, where $150,000 was deposited, and which is believed to have been used to buy the vehicle the suicide bomber used...

We live under the fallacy that educated people - or specialists in a certain field - have better judgment than the man in the street. One of the myths about the Nazis is that they were primitive - that the party had no intellectuals. I've even heard that said by the opening speaker at a major anti-Semitism conference. But if you ask people to name the leading philosopher in Europe in the second half of the 20th century, the dominant answer would be Martin Heidegger - a Nazi.

And if you ask them to rate the 10 most important thinkers of Europe, at that time you often find a second Nazi on that list: German law professor and political theorist Carl Schmitt.

The second point is that in many European countries, if you were not a leftist, you set yourself apart from the leading intellectuals.

I lived in France in the 1960s, and if you weren't on the Left - and even today if you aren't there - you were an intellectual outsider. So we have a generation of intellectuals - in particular in the "soft sciences," such as the humanities and social sciences, many of whom espouse a leftist ideology. These are often intellectuals who have no responsibility and carry their thoughts into a world totally separate from the real world - especially in today's situation, where their salaries are paid partly by the taxpayer.

The academic system has three major lines of defense. The first is academic freedom. The second is tenure. The third is calling its critics McCarthyites. Now, any self-governing world is corrupt by nature. And universities are not very efficient places, as anybody who teaches there will tell you.

Among other forms of corruption, they have been corrupted in the realm of thought. Rather than promoting thinking and the advancement of knowledge, in the soft sciences, you find quite a few people who are promoting ideology instead.

With that comes another consideration. The 1968 generation wanted to conquer the world. They went nowhere. So they took refuge in academia, the only part of the world where they found a real home. This often failed generation ended up in that one refuge, where they could promote each other - and bring in their buddies. This is, among others, particularly true of Middle Eastern studies departments in the United States...

Majed Al-Harazin, among the terrorists killed in the first of three Israel Air Force attacks, was the commander of Islamic Jihad terrorist units throughout Gaza. Wanted by Israeli security services for many years, he was responsible for multiple attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians, including rocket attacks and attempted suicide bombings. Harazin's group said it carried out the rocket attack on Kibbutz Zikkim Sunday afternoon that wounded an Israeli toddler and sent his mother and six others into psychological shock.

PA residents said that weapons dealer Khalil Masarai and a third terrorist were also killed in the first strike. The three were reportedly hit by an Israeli missile as they drove through the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City in a car full of explosives. Seven PA residents who were in proximity to the targeted vehicle were injured; three of them seriously...

...IDF sources confirmed a second airstrike in Gaza later the same night. The second attack killed Karim Dahduh, the head of Islamic Jihad's rocket production, along with three others. Several terrorists were wounded. A third airstrike in northern Gaza on Tuesday morning killed three more Islamic Jihad terrorists...

...In related counter-terrorism activity overnight, security forces apprehended eleven wanted terrorists in Judea and Samaria. The wanted men were captured in Beit Oula, northwest of Hevron, Beit Oumar, southwest of Bethlehem, Kawat Bani Hassan, southeast of Kalkilya, Ba-Tira, west of Ramallah, Bituniya, west of Ramallah, and in Hevron. The terrorists were transferred to interrogators for questioning...

Even after IDF forces carried out counter-terrorism operations on Monday, enemy attackers in Gaza launched a barrage of at least eight rockets and mortar shells at the northern Negev. No injuries were reported, but damage to property was caused in the multiple bombings.

One PA mortar shell targeted soldiers near the Kissufim Crossing, while gunmen opened fire on an IDF patrol in the area. No soldiers were wounded in the attacks. PA terrorists often attack the civilian crossings between Gaza and the Negev region, leading the IDF to keep many of them closed when possible...

..."Having a state is not just a question of territory," Mr Blair insisted in an interview with the Financial Times. "It is about the nature of what happens inside the state . . . So the single most important thing I can do to help the Palestinians is tell them the truth. And the truth is that there will not be a [Palestinian] state unless the nature of that state is clear."...

...Critics say there is much wrong with Mr Blair's strategy - not least the exclusion of Hamas and the international community's failure to commit Israel to stopping all Jewish settlement expansion. There are also fears that backing one Palestinian faction could exacerbate internal divisions and set the stage for a Palestinian civil war.

But Mr Blair did not believe in engaging Hamas. He stressed that the Islamist group could only be brought into negotiations once it recognised Israel and renounced violence.

To cover up for the rampant corruption and mismanagement in the PA, Arafat unleashed a wave of incitement against Israel and the West, especially in the media and mosques. This is the Arab dictators' way of diverting attention from the real problems at home - by keeping their peoples busy hating the West and Israel.

It's estimated that Arafat's PA had received nearly $6.5b. in international aid. A former Arafat aide once admitted that had most of the money been invested for the welfare of the Palestinians, it's most likely they would not have resorted to violence in September 2000 or voted for Hamas six years later.

Plans to reform the PA have been surfacing since Salaam Fayad was first appointed as finance minister in June 2002...

...This money is mainly designed to keep Fatah in power and prevent Hamas from taking over the West Bank. And unless the PA changes its rhetoric and starts promoting real peace and coexistence with Israel, the millions of dollars are not going to create a new generation of moderate Palestinians.

Israel's security measures, including movement restrictions and closures, are also not helping to boost the standing of the moderate camp.

The only way to undermine Hamas is not by channeling billions of dollars to the PA leadership, but by offering the Palestinians a better alternative to the Islamist movement. In order for Fatah to regain the confidence of the Palestinian public, it needs to reform itself and pave the way for new faces. The tens of thousands of Palestinians who participated in the Hamas anniversary rally over the weekend should have sounded an alarm bell in Paris and Ramallah, namely that the Islamist movement continues to enjoy massive support despite economic sanctions imposed on the Gaza Strip.

The video footage - which allegedly shows Egyptian security forces assisting Hamas terrorists cross illegally into Gaza - is being transferred to Congress through diplomatic channels and is intended for senior congressmen and senators who can have an effect on the House foreign aid appropriations process. Israel believes this can be an effective way of pressuring Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak into clamping down on Hamas smuggling activities...

...Officials in Washington could not confirm that the Israeli videotapes had been received, but assessments were that damning video footage of Egyptian Border Police involvement in the Gaza smuggling industry would badly damage Egypt's already tarnished image. That, however, might not be enough to force any change in aid arrangements, which face opposition by Egypt, a key US ally and some congressmen who worry reducing aid will damage the strategic US-Egypt-Israel relationship, among other concerns.

A delegation of American military engineers recently toured the Egyptian side of the Philadelphi Corridor and was shown a number of tunnels that the Egyptians tried to portray as being too small to smuggle weapons through. The delegation was not convinced by the Egyptians and demanded that Cairo take more decisive action against the smuggling industry.

According to recent assessments, since Hamas's takeover of Gaza in June, the terrorist group has smuggled into Gaza 100 tons of explosives, millions of bullets, hundreds of antitank missiles and even a small number of Katyusha rockets...

Ten percent of Saudis have a favorable view of the al Qaeda terrorist network, according to a survey by Terror Free Tomorrow, an international public opinion research group based in Washington.

Fifteen percent said they have a favorable view of al Qaeda's leader, Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, the poll found...

...Saudis also have a better opinion of the United States than in other countries in the Muslim world, with 40 percent saying they view the U.S. favorably. That compares to 19 percent in Pakistan, according to a poll taken by the same group in August, and 21 percent of Egyptians, according to a May survey by the Pew Research Center.

But while the poll was encouraging, "It's not all Kumbaya," he added. Bergen said a "substantial minority" of Saudis -- 30 percent -- support fighting against U.S. and coalition troops in Iraq, and 52 percent would support Saudi Arabia's development of nuclear weapons...

...Thirty-three percent of Saudis viewed Hezbollah favorably, compared to 42 percent unfavorably. When asked about Hamas, 37 percent had a positive response, while 38 percent viewed the group unfavorably.

But Ballen said the survey shows the Saudi population is now one of the most pro-American in the Muslim world, with 69 percent of those surveyed supporting close ties between Riyadh and Washington...

...Saudi King Abdullah is the leading advocate of an Arab League proposal that would normalize relations with the Jewish state in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal to the frontiers it held before the 1967 Mideast War.

But his support for a comprehensive Mideast peace "definitely does not carry over at all," Ballen said: Thirty percent of Saudis support a peace treaty, even if it resulted in the establishment of a Palestinian state, the survey found.

"He's not backed by his own citizens on that," Ballen said.

Saudis expressed support for a free press and free elections, though 79 percent also said they continued to support an absolute monarchy -- and 15 percent supported the recent sentence of 200 lashes and six months imprisonment of a 19-year old Shiite woman for being with a male acquaintance before she was gang-raped by seven men...

The insidious manner in which the current Israeli government has manipulated the domestic political machinery of the United States to produce support for its policies constitutes nothing less than direct interference in the governance of a sovereign state. The degree to which the current Israeli government has succeeded in this regard can be tracked not only by the words and actions of the administration of President George W. Bush and the American Congress, but also by the extent to which a pro-Israel lexicon has taken hold within the mainstream media of the United States. Witness the pro-Israel bias displayed when discussing the situation in southern Lebanon, the air strike in Syria, or the Iranian situation, and the retarding of any effort toward a responsible discussion of anything dealing with Israel becomes apparent.

One would expect such efforts to shape the domestic public opinion of a state deemed hostile, but when the target of these Israeli actions is its ostensible best friend, one must begin to question whether or not the friendship is a one-way street. And if this is indeed the case, then perhaps it is time for the United States to reconsider its decades-old policy of strategic partnership with Israel...

Ninety international delegations are expected at the one-day Conference of Donors for a Palestinian State, the biggest of its kind since 1996, which aims to shore up the process jumpstarted in the US city of Annapolis last month.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas is seeking 5.6 billion dollars (3.85 billion euros) spread over 2008 to 2010 for an ambitious development plan to underwrite a promised state and tackle economic hardship in the Palestinian territories.

The United States is ready to pledge more than 500 million dollars, officials in Washington said.

Delegates gathering for the occasion include UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov...

Moreover, Hanukkah, like other Jewish holidays, was often chosen deliberately by the Nazis as an occasion for murdering Jews. In "Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust," the historian Yaffa Eliach recounts one such slaughter:

"The men selected were marched outside. SS men with rubber truncheons and iron prods awaited them. They kicked, beat, and tortured the innocent victims. When the tortured body no longer responded, the revolver was used. . . . The brutal massacre continued outside of the barracks until sundown. When the [Nazis] departed, they left behind heaps of hundreds of tortured and twisted bodies."

Last week, on the 7th night of Hanukkah 2007, I was in the White House. President and Mrs. Bush have made it an annual tradition to host a Hanukkah celebration in addition to the customary White House Christmas parties, and my wife and I were honored to receive an invitation to this year's reception.

It was a beautiful and festive event. It was also an undeniably Jewish one, from the lavish buffet dinner prepared in a carefully "koshered" White House kitchen, to the Hebrew songs performed by the Zamir Chorale, to the several hundred guests drawn from every segment of the American Jewish community...

Philippe Karsenty, who is appealing his 2006 defamation conviction—for declaring on his Media-Ratings site that the al Dura news report was a blatant fake—obtained medical records proving that Jamal’s wounds were treated by an Israeli surgeon in 1994. Now the surgeon, Yehuda David, has confirmed this information on a December 12 newscast on Israel’s Arutz 10 TV. Jean Tsadik of Metula News Agency resumed the Hebrew-language newscast for French-speaking readers.

According to the Metula release, Jamal al Dura declared on medical records in 1992 that Palestinian militia had attacked him with axes. Doctors at Gaza’s Shifa Hospital were able to save his life but he lost the use of his right hand because they could not repair a ruptured tendon in the forearm. Palestinian doctors referred Jamal to Tal Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv in March 1994. Dr. Yehuda performed reconstructive surgery, grafting a tendon taken from the foot, and restoring almost normal use of the hand. The medical record of that operation also refers to the removal of "foreign bodies," suggesting that other instruments besides axes were used in the 1992 attack.

Alerted by the Ména [Metula News Agency] to the film of Jamal’s wounds produced in 2004 by Talal Abu Rahma at the demand of France 2 news director Arlette Chabot, to silence investigators, Dr. Yehuda and his colleagues declare that the scars shown in that film were incurred in 1992 and result from axe blade wounds and definitely not from gunshot. They are ready and willing to testify to this in any court.

The Metula release promises further revelations in the near future...

...Now we learn that Jamal used the arm restored by Israeli surgeons to act out the blood libel that provoked the murderous rage that killed countless Israeli civilians, including courageous doctors who had treated Palestinians with the same generosity he experienced...

When he questioned whether Mr. Levitt, who did undergraduate work at Yeshiva University, studied the Torah, Judge Saylor interrupted to ask why he was asking. Mr. Zalkind said he was questioning Mr. Levitt’s biases and prejudices...

1) Insinuations: Jews do not and cannot fit properly into our society. There is something foreign, not to mention sinister about them.

2) Complaints: They are so particularistic, those Jews, so preoccupied with their “own.” Why are they so clannish and anachronistic when we need a world of solidarity and love? Really, they make themselves into a "problem." If the so-called "Jewish problem" is singular in some way, it is their own doing and usually covered up by special pleading.

3) Remonstrations: Those Jews, they always carp that they are victims. In fact, they have vast power, especially financial power. Their power is everywhere, even if it is not very visible. They exercise it manipulatively, behind the scenes. (But look, there are even a few of them, guilty-hearted perhaps, who will admit it all this to you).

4) Recriminations: Look at their misdeeds, all done while they cry that they are victims. These ranged through the ages from the murder of God to the ritual slaughter of children to selling military secrets to the enemy to war-profiteering, to being capitalists or middlemen or landlords or moneylenders exploiting the poor. And they always, oh-so-cleverly, mislead you.

Alter a few phrases, a word here and there, and we find motifs of anti-Zionism that are popular these days in parts of the left and parts of the Muslim and Arab worlds:

1) Insinuations: The Zionists are alien implants in the Mideast. They can never fit there. Western imperialism created the Zionist state.

2) Complaints: A Jewish state can never be democratic. Zionism is exclusivist. The very idea of a Jewish state is an anachronism.

3) Remonstrations: The Zionists carp that they are victims but in reality they have enormous power, especially financial. Their power is everywhere, but they make sure not to let it be too visible. They exercise it manipulatively, behind people’s backs, behind the scenes – why, just look at Zionist influence in Washington. Or rather, dominance of Washington. (And look, there are even a few Jews, guilty-hearted perhaps, who admit it).

4) Recriminations: Zionists are responsible for astonishing, endless dastardly deeds. And they cover them up with deceptions. These range from the imperialist aggression of 1967 to Ehud Barak’s claim that he offered a compromise to Palestinians back in 2000 to the Jenin "massacre" during the second Intifidah...

...No, anti-Zionism is not in principle anti-Semitism but it is time for thoughtful minds—especially on the left—to be disturbed by how much anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism share, how much the dominant species of anti-Zionism encourages anti-Semitism...

Interviewer: Some geologists and environmental scientists say that the earthquakes that recently struck Jerusalem and the Dead Sea are artificial earthquakes, caused by the occupation forces, in an effort to destroy the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque. Is there any evidence of this?

Ahmad Abu Halabiya: The truth is that some of these earthquakes may be artificial, while others are natural. What is dangerous is the excavations underneath Al-Aqsa Mosque and the network of tunnels that was built. These have begun to threaten the foundations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Therefore, any earthquake – whether natural of artificial – measuring more than 5.5 or 6 on the Richter Scale will definitely have an impact, unless Allah decrees otherwise. This will have an impact on the foundations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. This is where the danger lies, whether the earthquake is artificial or natural. In any case, it is not impossible for the Jews to generate an artificial earthquake one way or another, in order to accomplish their goal of destroying the foundations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, as a step towards the construction of their false temple, God forbid.

Under the auspices of a global "peace" conference, the White House sanctioned Jew-hatred. The Jew is contemptible, inferior, ignorant, politically and socially disenfranchised: separate entrance ways, service entrances for the Jews, refusal to touch or shake hands with a Jew, refusal of audience members to wear the translation earphones when Ehud Olmert spoke.

"Saud Al-Faisel's ears, underneath his red keffiyah, were left bare. And no, it wasn't because he understood Hebrew. It was the Saudi method of demonstrating their relationship to the State of Israel. Even as the Israeli Prime Minister was greeting him and speaking of peace, they were refusing to listen. For a minute I thought I was wrong that maybe there was a technical problem. But then I saw his aide next to him - also leaving his ears demonstrably naked."

Then, as Olmert's speech ended, and the audience applauded: "The Saudi representative also brought his palms together in order to appear polite. Only someone who sat very close to him could see that the never touched. The little game that the Saudis were playing was just one contradiction - the least noticeable one - in a day full of contradictions." ...(Read more here.)

Submitting to Saudi demands, the Americans prohibited Israeli representatives from entering the hall through the same door as the Arabs. Vile - all of it; sanctioned and institutionalized by the President of the United States. I thought George Bush was a Christian, a man of faith. Shocking. He has squandered his second term and has not acted in good faith. We did not elect him to carry Condi's water.

It is unfathomable to consider this with any other race, creed or color. Imagine separate entrances for the leader of an African nation because a "white" leader refused to walk through the same door as the black man, because it would be unclean?

And Israel took it like the ghetto Jew...

The audit concluded that the vetting process, initiated by the U.S. Agency for International Development and conducted by the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, found no "derogatory information" on the Islamic University in Gaza between 2002 and 2006 -- even after Hamas claimed a parliamentary majority in Palestinian elections in 2006. Several times, university officials certified that they provided no material support for terrorism.

A companion audit found that USAID's operations in Gaza and the West Bank have largely implemented policies to keep future aid out of terrorist hands.

Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) asked USAID's inspector general to conduct the audits after a Washington Times report detailed some of the aid payments to Islamic University earlier this year. He said in an interview Tuesday that the failure to detect terrorist ties at the school suggested "either incompetence or a complete breakdown of the vetting system as run by the State Department." [Both?]

The U.S. designated Hamas a terrorist organization in 1997. Hamas' prime minister sits on the Islamic University's board of trustees. In January, Palestinian security forces seized assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades during a raid of the university...

"It’s like death," Finkelstein says. "You keep saying you’re going to die, but you never really come to grips with it. And I can see I’m not going to get another job. I haven’t yet fully absorbed it."

His days are now spent in solitary scholarly pursuits; his bookshelves buckle under the weight of tomes by Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky. Notes of support from his students sit on a piano; there’s a photo of him and Noam Chomsky ("my closest friend") bare-chested on the beach at Cape Cod.

He was a Maoist revolutionary in his youth. By his own account, his academic career was bedeviled from the start by his politics: It took him thirteen years to wrest his doctorate from Princeton, since no faculty member would agree to advise him on his thesis, an analysis of Zionism. When he finally did earn the degree, none would write him a recommendation. He went on to take a series of adjunct posts—at Brooklyn College, Hunter, and NYU—rarely earning more than $20,000 a year...

...[After being denied tenure at DePaul], Finkelstein says, he lost seventeen pounds. "People saw me wasting away," he says. A student group held a hunger strike; Chomsky and others defended him. One of his colleagues made him a mix CD with tracks like "I Will Survive" and "What’s Goin’ On?" "I’m an old fan of the Negro spirituals," Finkelstein says. "I was going around singing to myself, ‘Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were you there?’ That’s how I felt. I was being crucified by the end."...

Of the striking remarks about incidents reported by PICCR, almost half of those citizens killed were victims of the excessive use of force, particularly by firearms used by Police forces affiliated with the deposed Palestinian government in the Gaza Strip and PNA security personnel in the West Bank: 8 citizens were reported to be killed by firearms in these incidents, including 7 in the Gaza Strip and 1 in the West Bank...

...Over the past month, several violations and aggressions were reported to have been committed against the freedom of opinion and expression in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Most prominently was the incident reported on 12 November, when the Police force of the deposed government killed 7 citizens and injured dozens others while they were taking part in a peaceful gathering. On 27 November, PNA security forces also oppressed a number of peaceful demonstrations which protested against the Annapolis Conference. Moreover, security forces beat and injured a number of journalists in an attempt to prevent them from covering these demonstrations. In the city of Ramallah, security personnel beat Wael ash Shuyoukhi, Al Jazeera Satellite Channel correspondent, with clubs, leaving him a broken left arm. Moreover, security personnel beat Mu'ammar 'Urabi, Director of Watan Television Station, while he was reporting a similar demonstration in the city...

Boy: "My beloved brothers, as you know, today the Al-Aqsa Mosque is crying out: 'Where are the people of the frontline, the Palestinian people?' Yes, my dear brothers, that is the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The subject of our lesson today is Jerusalem, to where your Prophet made his nocturnal journey – the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

"Yes, my beloved brothers, as you know today, and as you knew yesterday and the day before, the Al-Aqsa Mosque has fallen into oppressing and malicious hands, the hands of those who know nothing but injustice. But let me tell you how the Al-Aqsa Mosque will be returned, how we shall rescue it from the shackles of the occupation, from the shackles of the Zionist entity.

"Will it be through conferences? No, not through conferences, but by means of force, because the Zionist entity, your enemy, the enemy of Allah, the enemy of Islam, knows nothing but injustice and the killing of Palestinians, the persevering people on the frontline. Indeed, the [mosque] will be returned only by means of force.

"In 1917, the Balfour Declaration was issued. Balfour decided on the cleansing of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. But look what the Zionist enemy has done, look what Israel and America have done. Look what the allies of Israel and America have done. They have dug tunnels underneath the Al-Aqsa Mosque, but the sheikhs and mujahideen of the Al-Aqsa Mosque have exposed these tunnels and called upon the Palestinian people: 'Look what has happened, look what has happened.'

"These calls have gone unheeded, my beloved brothers. But is it too late? No, it is not too late. If we all unite, the Al-Aqsa Mosque will not remain in the hands of the Zionist enemy, it will not remain in the hands of your enemy, despite all their conspiracies against the Palestinian people."

[...]

Girl: "To Al-Aqsa, to Al-Aqsa – we shall unite our ranks. We will wipe out the people of Zion, and will not leave a single one of them."

This program brings together a diverse group of speakers to address the draconian war measures such as the Patriot Act prepared with foreknowledge and enacted under the false pretense of the 9/11 attacks...

...With Ray McGovern, Nancy Murray, Grace Ross, Donna Marsh O’Connor, Robert Bowman, Barbara Honegger

This is a laudable goal. But like throwing the car keys to a first-grader, it is hazardously premature.

I intend no metaphoric insult to Palestinians, as if they are not mature enough to self-govern. They are grown-ups who deserve to make their own leadership choices.

The sad thing is that their most recent choices, in what passes for elections in their war-torn territories, have been to embrace the blood-soaked rule of Hamas. Far too many Palestinians rejected Mr. Abbas' more moderate Fatah party to elect lawmakers whose policy goals include the violent eradication of Israel.

In a queasy irony, Mr. Olmert, the Israeli leader, nonetheless shares a gung-ho zeal for a headlong rush to a new Palestine.

At the State Department, deputy spokesman Tom Casey tried after the conference to destigmatize the Palestinian voters' hunger for terrorist leadership. "Those Hamas votes were based on a variety of things," he told me. "Hamas made various promises about economic reform and services to people that resonated among voters."

No kidding. But if a candidate comes to me and says he wants to cut taxes and government spending, but, by the way, he also wants to nuke Canada, that's going to be a deal-breaker...

They said four masked gunmen tried to kidnap Nabil Fuad Ayad, who works as a guard at a local church. Nabil's cousin, Rami, was kidnapped and murdered two months ago by the same group, the sources said.

The sources identified the gunmen as members of the radical Islamic Salafi movement.

"They were dressed in the traditional Salafi clothes" said an eyewitness. "They were also carrying guns."

The gunmen tried to force Ayad into their car as he was walking in the street, but he managed to escape to a nearby shop. Shopkeepers who began shouting drove the gunmen away.

As they fled the scene, the assailants fired several shots into the air...

...The Salafis, who have become very active in the Gaza Strip in recent months, are totally opposed to common Western concepts like economics, constitutions and political parties. They refer to the 2,500 Christians in the Gaza Strip as Crusaders and have vowed to drive them out of the area.

Hamas denied any involvement in the attack, saying its security forces had launched an investigation after receiving a complaint from the victim.

Christians living in the Gaza Strip told the Post that they were very worried about the increased attacks on members of their community and religious institutions. "The latest incident is aimed at sending a message to all the Christians here that we must leave," said a Christian leader. "Radical Islamic groups are waging a campaign to get rid of us and no one seems to care."

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5888665061097230933

Among other things, Professor Dershowitz revealed that Noam Chomsky, the radical leftist, had once been his camp counselor. Apparently, Counselor Chomsky did no lasting harm to [camper] Dershowitz.

Another thing Professor Dershowitz revealed tells us much about former President Jimmy Carter. It seems that when Carter appeared at Brandeis to plug his book Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid, he pledged to answer any questions that students e-mailed him afterward. Many took him up on the offer, and Carter did answer every question... except one. That one was this: Did you advise Yasser Arafat to reject the peace offer Israel made at Camp David, at the end of Clinton's term? According to Professor Dershowitz, some 15 students e-mailed that question, and they were the only students not to be answered...

French Hill is being conquered by Arab residents - some of them Palestinians and some of them Israeli citizens - and that is the tip of the iceberg: 250,000 out of 450,000 people living in East Jerusalem are Palestinians who want to improve their housing conditions. Givat Hamivtar, Ramot Eshkol and nearby Ramot are changing their image: The secular or tolerant religious middle class are moving out, replaced by the ultra-Orthodox.

Jerusalem as a whole is losing its productive backbone and is deepening its dependence on state handouts. Young, secular, educated people able to earn a wage are leaving it in droves, followed by their parents. The city leadership is in the hands of ultra-Orthodox elected officials who imbue their managerial style with concepts derived from their world and priorities. This process stems from demographics whose significance is highlighted by the following projection: In about eight years the number of students in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox elementary schools will be more than three times the number of students in secular and religious public schools...

But let’s wait a moment. What do they mean by “confiscated?” What would a Swiss police officer do if his people seized vehicles stolen in Italy? We can assume he would call his counterparts in the Italian police force and hand over the vehicles to them. However, Palestinian police “confiscated” the vehicles.

In other words, the Palestinian police force is short on vehicles, so it confiscates stolen vehicles to meet its own needs. Up until yesterday, a vehicle would be used by the person who stole it, or by the person who bought it from the thief. As of today, this vehicle is being used by a Palestinian police officer.

As it turns out, the Palestinians have developed a unique and creative version of the "good cop, bad cop" routine. This week, we were told that three PA police officers were behind the recent murder of an Israeli man in Judea and Samaria. Two of them were detained by the IDF, while the third one was nabbed by Palestinian officers. So now we have police officers who are murderers and policemen who are thieves.

It is even possible that the murder suspect detained by the Palestinians was arrested by the thieves. Maybe he was even driven to the Jericho prison in a “confiscated” car, which up until recently belonged to an Israeli citizen, but has now been converted into a police cruiser - it no longer belongs to its rightful owner, but rather, serves Palestinian law enforcement officials (while boosting Mahmoud Abbas, of course.)

Forgive me for harping on an insignificant point like 30,000 stolen vehicles, while we have meaningful matters on the agenda such as the boosting of Abbas’ status and the forging of an international coalition of moderate Arabs. But still, before peace breaks out, where are all those tens of thousands of vehicles stolen from Israel?...

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Gaza has recently begun training Palestinian resistance fighters to respect international humanitarian law.

For the past few years various Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza have fired crude homemade rockets at nearby Israeli towns, killing about a dozen Israeli civilians and recently injuring 69 soldiers in one such attack. The rockets usually land in open spaces but cause panic amongst Israeli civilians.

Ostensibly to prevent the firing of rockets into Israel and more likely to pressure the Palestinian civilian population into tempering their support of the resistance, the Israeli army has extrajudicially executed resistance activists, repeatedly invaded certain areas of Gaza and razed homes and agricultural land to make "buffer" zones near the Gaza-Israel border...

...This year, more than 100 Palestinians, mostly resistance activists, have been killed [Good shootin'!] during Israeli army air strikes on and incursions into Gaza...

On September 30, 2000, two days after the beginning of the Second Intifada, French television broadcasted worldwide footage showing the Palestinian child Muhammad al Durrah, crouched behind his father. The footage depicted al-Durrah and his father seeking cover during a gunfight near the Nezarim junction . In the footage, Enderlin attributed al-Durrah's death to the I.D.F despite the face he was not at the scene.

The images as seen in the broadcast, add to Enderlin's voice cover, caused a great shock worldwide, a wave of condemnations against the State of Israel and an increase in anti- Israeli violence in Israel...

Citizens for American Values in Public Education/Stop the Madrassa Community Coalition announce a powerful and multi-faceted initiative to push back hard against attempts by radical Islamist groups to silence American citizens through boycotts, name-calling, threats of lawsuits, defamatory accusations and other forms of intimidation.

Citizens for American Values president Stuart Kaufman stated: "We ourselves have been defamed and slandered as a result of our efforts to raise awareness about the Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA). Because of the depredations of CAIR and CAIR’s relationship with KGIA, Citizens for American Values/Stop the Madrassa has expanded its fight to a nationwide campaign against imposition of Islamist agendas in curricula, language programs, history classes, textbooks, teacher training, and charter schools."

A coalition of organizations will be taking the following strong actions:...

The Amos Trust, a Christian group that works with needy communities around the world, is selling what it calls a nativity set with a difference -- one where "the wise men won't get to the stable."

Organizers say the purpose of the sets -- made by Palestinian carpenters with olive wood from Bethlehem -- is to draw attention to the security measures put in place by the Israeli government.

The network of walls and fences being built between Israeli and Palestinian Authority-controlled areas of the West Bank runs along the perimeter of Bethlehem, dividing it from nearby Jerusalem. Travel in and out of the town is heavily restricted.

The nativity scenes are available in a small version, for around $30, and a larger set -- "perfect for a church" -- goes for around $115. The wall in the larger version is detachable, the Amos Trust says, to allow for the possibility the situation may change in the future.

Garth Hewitt, director of the Amos Trust, said Wednesday his group wants to use the wooden sets to make people aware of what is happening, including how the Christian population of Bethlehem is rapidly shrinking...

...Now a Christian pastor in Pompano Beach, Fla., has filed a lawsuit to halt construction of a new mosque in a predominantly black neighborhood, a project planned by a local Islamic Center whose work is being supported by CAIR. The lawsuit may be used to access CAIR's financial records.

Rev. O'Neal Dozier, a former NFL player who now is minister at the Worldwide Christian Center, a church attended by about 600, told WND his lawsuit is over the plans for a nearly 30,000-square foot mosque in his church's neighborhood.

"What we're looking at now is that we have a hearing coming up in January of 2008," he said. "Of course, this hearing is on a motion by the Islamic Center and CAIR to dismiss our case. That's what they're trying to do.

"What we're trying to do right now, is we need to come up with the funds to do an adequate discovery," he said. "We need to do a very good one, depose all of the various persons on the other side, get all of the pertinent information, get their financial affidavits. We want to get copies of their books. We want to be able to get into their bank accounts."

He said the mosque in question, with a membership he estimated in the dozens, already has a facility in Pompano Beach, but the CAIR leaders say it is too small. They say they need the nearly 30,000-square foot facility on land near the Worldwide Christian Center, in the heart of a financially struggling neighborhood of mostly black residents.

Dozier charges that the only reason CAIR needs such a facility is for recruitment of membership into a cadre of citizens who share a hatred of whites and the U.S. government.

"In this area it would be a bad area to have a mosque, because they would have the potential of breeding terrorists," Dozier told WND. "I know them (the community members) well. Many of them are angry. They feel like they've been left out. They're angry at the government. Angry at the white man. It's just a terrible situation if they were to come in here …"...

"We thought it was really like a message, and we cannot tolerate that," Chincholker said.

Students said a beer bottle was thrown threw the center's window in October.

"They were just watching a video when the bottle went through the window. They thought it was gunfire. That's how strong it was," Chincholker said...

I can defend myself if I have to. But I shouldn’t have to.

If the Canadian Islamic Congress wants to disagree with my book, fine. Join the club. But, if they want to criminalize it, nuts. That way lies madness. America Alone was a bestseller in Canada, made all the literary Top Ten hit parades, Number One at Amazon Canada, Number One on The National Post’s national bestseller list, Number One on various local sales charts from statist Quebec to cowboy Alberta, etc. I find it difficult to imagine that a Canadian "human rights" tribunal would rule that all those Canadians who bought the book were wrong and that it is beyond the bounds of acceptable (and legal) discourse in Canada...

Mr. Ali-Salaam has been a long time representative of the Muslim community and a founding member of the BRIDGES forum (Building Respect in Diverse Groups to Enhance Sensitivity). BRIDGES is a monthly meeting that gathers representatives of the various Law Enforcement agencies, civil liberties organizations, and various communities and organizations including the Muslim American Society and Islamic Council of New England. BRIDGES aims to fulfill the necessary role of establishing necessary communication channels to dispel myths, function efficiently and to remind of the importance of both Law Enforcement's role, and civil rights.

Mr. Ali-Salaam has also worked with the U.S. Department of Justice to deliver lectures and presentations on Islam and Muslims, which have reached thousands of local law enforcement personnel in the past few years.

Last month, the Los Angeles Police Department scrapped its controversial plan to map their Muslim communities upon strong rejection from Muslim community leaders and civil rights organizations. This recent event is an example of the importance of establishing strong and trusted channels of communication between the Muslim community and Law Enforcement.

In the post-9/11 climate, Law Enforcement may be tempted to employ means or approaches towards ensuring safety but which would harm and breach the rights of Muslims in America. It is therefore essential for the Muslim community to be at the table with Law Enforcement to voice their concerns and establish a working partnership based on integrity and transparency.

I first doubted God’s existence at about the age of nine. It was at the school assembly that I lost my faith. We had been given to understand that if we opened our eyes during prayers God would depart the assembly hall. I wanted to test this hypothesis. Surely, if I opened my eyes suddenly, I would glimpse the fleeing God? What I saw instead, it turned out, was the headmaster, Mr. Clinton, intoning the prayer with one eye closed and the other open, with which he beadily surveyed the children below for transgressions. I quickly concluded that Mr. Clinton did not believe what he said about the need to keep our eyes shut. And if he did not believe that, why should I believe in his God? In such illogical leaps do our beliefs often originate, to be disciplined later in life (if we receive enough education) by elaborate rationalization...

Tarsy informed the national office of his departure Friday and alerted co-workers and friends yesterday. In a phone interview, he did not elaborate on the reason for his departure, calling it "a professional judgment based on knowing when it's your time."

But supporters said it was clearly the result of his rift with the ADL's national director, Abraham H. Foxman, over the genocide issue.

"At the end of the day, the vision of the New England leadership and Abe Foxman's leadership were simply not fully compatible," said Steve Grossman, a former member of the ADL New England board. Tarsy "realized that he would have to make too many compromises that he was not prepared to make. I think he leaves with his integrity intact, with his head held high."...

...Al-Sweidan: Before the break, I asked our audience for their views on this important issue. Does a Muslim have the liberty or the right to change his religion? The results are as follows: 24% said: "Yes, he has the right to change his religion." 76% of the people said: "No." Let's hear some opinions and then I will return to out guests...

...Audience member: Sir, if you become an apostate, your punishment is death. There is a great problem that most of us, 70% of us, are Muslims because they were born to Muslim fathers and mothers. Before a person converts to Islam, he has the liberty to choose, but remember that if you want to convert from Islam, you will be punished by death. So you have the liberty to choose, but on the condition...

Al-Sweidan: That's not liberty.

Audience member: It has conditions...

Al-Sweidan: What you are saying is: You have the right to become an apostate, but I will kill you.

Audience member: That's right. I won't tell him not to.

Al-Sweidan: What can be worse than being killed?

Audience member: That's why he will not become an apostate...

In 2006, a whopping 66% of religiously motivated attacks were on Jews, while just 11% targeted Muslims, even though the Jewish and Muslim populations are similar in size. Catholics and Protestants, who together account for 9% of victims, are subject to almost as much abuse as Muslims in this country.

Last year's anti-Islamic hate crimes totaled 156. While just one hate crime is one too many, that's a 68% drop from 2001.

The FBI report gives lie to CAIR's alarmist narrative of "Islamophobic" lynch mobs marching on mosques across America. In reality, Americans have been remarkably, and admirably, tolerant and respectful of Muslims and their institutions since 9/11.

It's plain that CAIR, which claims to be the "Muslim NAACP," has been hyping tensions...

...By crying wolf, CAIR shows it cares more about furthering its own political agenda than protecting ordinary Muslims. When real abuses occur, few Americans may pay attention. So CAIR is actually doing the Muslim community it claims to represent a disservice by hyping hate crimes.

CAIR should spend more time condemning the real threat from Islamic terrorists, not American vigilantes.

Although CAIR is a nonprofit organization, it does not disclose complete directories of its staff or advisory boards, and even refuses to make its federal tax filings readily available to the public.

But a review of federal criminal court documents, past IRS 990 tax records and Federal Election Commission records detailing donor occupations, reveals that Washington-based CAIR has been associated with a disturbing number of convicted terrorists or felons in terrorism probes, as well as suspected terrorists and active targets of terrorism investigations.

"Their offices have been a turnstile for terrorists and their supporters," said one FBI veteran familiar with recent and ongoing cases involving CAIR officials.

As previously reported, three CAIR officials have been linked to terrorism. But WND has learned that at least 11 other CAIR officials have been caught up in terror investigations, bringing the total to 14.

Congressional leaders say they are warning lawmakers and other Washington officials to disassociate from the group due to its growing terror ties...

Just this month at Harvard University, Professor L. Roland Matory expressed a similar notion when he said that there was "widespread censorship of dissent about Israel-Palestine." That alleged censorship had made him feel "unsafe," the same sensation experienced by Carter, no doubt, as he toured college campuses with his view that Israel was singularly at fault for the chronic suffering of the Palestinians.

Matory and Carter are not the first to bemoan the oppressive and fearful might of pro-Israel forces in stifling any criticism or discussion of Israel: Their outrage and trepidations might inspire sympathy save for the inconvenient fact that the sheer volume and frequency of chronic, unrelenting, vitriolic and one-sided demonization of Zionism and Israel on campuses worldwide makes both Matory’s and Carter’s claims of being cowered into silence by Israel’s supporters a bit disingenuous...

Hitler's military victories cited in detail; Holocaust is not a part of Hitler's history

Introduction:

This text is just part of the official Palestinian radio Ramadan quiz that was rebroadcast this past week, whose hero was Hitler. The full broadcast presents Hitler heroically, detailing his 2 Medals' of Honor in World War 1, his rise to power, his launching of World War 2 and specifies country after country that he conquered. His victories in 1940 are coined "his golden year", while his defeat and death are coined: "his bitter end."

Not surprisingly, though citing his victories and "bitter" fall in great detail, the Holocaust is not mentioned. This is consistent with Palestinian education in general which erases the Holocaust from history. See recent full PMW report [PDF] and bulletin on new 12th grade Palestinian history schoolbook, in which many pages are dedicated to the history of World War 2 and even to Nazi racism, but neither Jews nor the Holocaust are mentioned.

Admiration of Hitler in the Palestinian Authority

It may be surprising to Western observers to see official Palestinian radio presenting Hitler heroically. But it is important to understand that the revulsion of Hitler expected in the West is not true in Palestinian society. Palestinians can be found who are named "Hitler" as a first name: Hitler Salah [Al Hayat Al Jadida (Fatah), Sept. 28, 2005], Hitler Abu-Alrab [Al Hayat Al Jadida (Fatah), Jan. 27, 2005], Hitler Mahmud Abu-Libda [Al Hayat Al Jadida (Fatah), Dec.18, 2000.] Articles have appeared in both Fatah and Hamas newspapers which demonstrate Hitler's admired status.

The following is the full text of the "Voice of Palestine" contest in which guessing Hitler's name will win a prize of 600 Shekel, followed by a selection of past articles from both Fatah and Hamas newspapers that have demonstrate Hitler's admired status....

Dr. Fredrick Toben of the revisionist Adelaide Institute said Friday he would defy orders to purge offensive Holocaust denial material from his Web site. Three days earlier he had apologized "unreservedly" for defying a federal court order.

In 2002, Toben was ordered to remove material doubting the existence of gas chambers and extent of the Holocaust following a case brought against him by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

After apologizing Tuesday in an Adelaide court and pledging to remove all the offensive material by the following week to avoid a possible jail term, Toben published a response on his Web site saying he would not remove the banned content.

Toben also told reporters his institute would continue to debate the "many contentious issues of this so-called Holocaust."

The executive council said it could resume the case if Toben refused to follow the court's order and continued to breach the Racial Discrimination Act.

While Palestinian refugees benefit materially from UNRWA, the agency benefits in return from the refugees. The refugees are the organization's raison d'etre. And bureaucracies tend to dislike dissolving themselves. So, like any good bureaucracy, UNRWA has zero incentive to resolve the Palestinian refugee problem if it is to continue to exist. Ending the refugee problem would render UNRWA obsolete.

Instead, UNRWA finds a hundred and one ways to perpetuate Palestinian dependency. The interests of the refugees and UNRWA are fatally intertwined; UNRWA is staffed mainly by local Palestinians — more than 23,000 of them — with only about 100 international United Nations professionals. Tellingly, while the U.N. High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) and UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) avoid employing locals who are also recipients of agency services, UNRWA does not make this distinction. Terrorism does not exclude one from being a part of UNRWA. In fact, quite the opposite is true: UNRWA-overseen hospitals and clinics routinely employ members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Employing Palestinians for decade after decade and providing them with subsistence-level food aid and rudimentary education are a far cry from giving them usable skills and a positive attitude about creating their own independent economy and viable civic institutions.

In addition, the Palestinian agenda (and sympathy for the Palestinian cause) have infiltrated every aperture at Turtle Bay. UNWRA has spent decades keeping this single issue, key to the organization's survival, at the forefront of the U.N. agenda whether it belongs there or not. It has engendered Arab and Western support for the delegitimation of Israel, and facilitated comparisons between Nazism and Zionism — a false linkage that bolsters Palestinian claims of oppression. When former Secretary-General Kofi Annan appeared at a U.N. "Palestine Day" event which astonishingly featured a map of the Middle East that conspicuously omitted Israel, it was emblematic of the way in which the United Nations has transformed itself into a propaganda machine for such thinking. UNRWA has no parallel in the U.N. system. UNRWA is dedicated solely to providing assistance to Palestinian refugees; no other group of refugees, whatever their circumstances, warrants this much attention...

The four were also convicted - in the framework of a plea bargain - of conspiring to commit crimes. The acts attributed to them took place between December 2005 and November 2006.

The harshest sentence handed down is for 20 years in prison and a three- year suspended sentence for Salem Hujeirat. His cousin, Ala Hujeirat, was given 15 years in jails and a three-year suspended sentence. Ruhi Hujeirat and Mohammed Radir received nine years in jail and a three-year suspended sentence each.

The court also ordered the men to pay a total of NIS 190,000 to the complainants.

The indictment against the men charges them with the rape of a female soldier kidnapped at knifepoint and three other kidnappings - of a 16-year-old girl in Kiryat Bialik, a 26-year-old woman from a bus station near Bir al-Maksour and a 13-year-old girl...

"We are raping Jews because of what the IDF is doing to the Palestinians in the territories," one of the six suspects told investigators from the Northern District Central Investigative Unit (CIU) during questioning. During their questioning and their brief appearance at the Nazareth Magistrate's Court Tuesday, none of the four main suspects indicated that they felt remorse for their actions.

Police said they were aware of four attacks carried out by the gang, but they believed there were probably other incidents that had gone unreported by the victims...

Interviewer: It has lethal weapons.

Ahmad Al-Tayyib: Exactly. We are facing tyranny and oppression, while the world watches from the sidelines. The Palestinians, on the other hand, are defenseless and have nothing, and they want to defend their country, their faith, and their homeland. The only method they have is [martyrdom operations], and employing it is very difficult for them. Is it easy for a Palestinian to bring his life to an end? No, it isn't. He too is a human being, who wants to live. What makes him resort to this method? It is not despair, as is claimed by many people who try to interpret martyrdom operations as suicide operation driven by despair. No. That is not true. The Palestinian martyrdom-seeker knows that he is free to go to this operation, in order to please Allah and enter Paradise, in defense of his religion, his country, and his land.

And he supports suicide bombings. Under the right conditions, of course. For example, when killing Jews.

Notice the religious basis for condoning this type of terrorism (he even admits it is "terrorism"). Al-Tayyib, like most Islamic clerics who have gone on record supporting suicide attacks, offers a contorted justification that the attackers aren’t really committing suicide at all. Instead, they are "martyrs" who please Allah and are granted entry to "paradise."

Religiously-sanctioned suicide bombing, coming directly from one of the highest academic authorities in the Islamic world, broadcast on Egypt’s Al-Mihwar TV, October 10, 2007.

The aid, to be used for budgetary support and development, is meant to strengthen Abbas against Hamas Islamists and revive the Palestinian economy after the president launched formal peace talks with Israel last week.

Prime Minister Salam Fayyad will ask donors at the Paris conference, scheduled for December 17, to provide $5.5 billion in aid over three years. The request is based on an economic plan for 2007 to 2010, a senior Palestinian official told Reuters...

This December 16th 2007, American citizens will gather to express their support for ending the oppressive and unconstitutional inflation tax - which has enabled a flawed foreign policy, a costly war and the sacrificing of our liberties here at home...

When you live in a country in which 80 percent of the people are Jewish, you don't know what anti-Semitism is. You are insulated. You do not have pictures of Muhammed al-Dura posted everywhere. Nor do you have the kind of experiences people outside of Israel have. For example, the day after the footage of Muhammed al-Dura was aired, I went to my office - at that time, I had a software company - and one of my employees came up to me and asked in an accusatory tone, "What were you doing in Gaza yesterday?"

I answered, "I wasn't in Gaza yesterday."
He said, "No, I mean your army."

I said, "What? The French army was in Gaza yesterday?"
He said, "No, the Israeli army."...

...Do you think there's a difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism?

Oh yes, they are very, very different. Anti-Semites are frank; anti-Zionists are hypocritical. They hate Jews and have found a way to be anti-Semitic without admitting to it.

Actually, to be accurate, they are interested in two states, but disagreement prevails regarding the identity and entitlement of the second people. They don’t think the Jewish people deserves its own state. They are generous enough to accept one state that would be designated for Palestinians only, and another state that would be designated for the "Israeli people."

The Israeli people will bring together Jews, Muslims, and members of various other religions; a state and a half for one people, and half a state for the other people.

This is an excellent joke. Simply because there is no such thing as the "Israeli people."...

...This has always been the Palestinian approach: "What’s ours is already ours. What Israel already agreed to: A Palestinian state for the Palestinians – that’s in our pocket already. Yet regarding this annoying and bothersome matter of a state for the Jews – this won’t be happening. Why should it be that way? We want to be partners in Israel too."

And we haven’t yet mentioned the State of Gaza, which is yet another tiny and angry Palestinian state that suddenly appeared, and we shall have to engage in negotiations or a small war with it as well one of these days.

Therefore, here is a practical suggestion for role reversal: In the first phase, Israel would not recognize the Palestinians’ right for a state of their own. Why should they get a state? After all, the Arab nation has enough states. If, ultimately, for the sake of peace we will have to allow the establishment of a state with a Palestinian majority, it won’t be recognized as a Palestinian or Arab state. After all, many Jews and Israelis would still be living there.

First, we shall recognize the Jewish right of return to communities in Gush Katif and across Judea and Samaria, the land of our forefathers. Because this is our land too, nobody will be uprooted from his community, neither Jew nor Arab. We will find the technical solutions needed to manage our life together. Meanwhile, the Jewish State will exist safely in little Israel. Two states for two peoples.