March 2008 Archives

Prodded by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Israel said Sunday that it would remove about 50 roadblocks in the West Bank as it moves ahead with faltering negotiations aimed at reaching a peace deal with the Palestinians by the end of the year.

Rice called the announcement "a very good start" to improving Palestinians' freedom of movement in the West Bank, a key element in the peace process. But Palestinian leaders reacted far more cautiously, noting that Israel has promised before to take down internal West Bank barriers but failed to follow through...

On the 28th of March LiveLeak.com was left with no other choice but to remove the film "fitna" from our servers following serious threats to our staff and their families. Since that time we have worked constantly on upgrading all security measures thus offering better protection for our staff and families. With these measures in place we have decided to once more make this video live on our site. We will not be pressured into censoring material which is legal and within our rules. We apologise for the removal and the delay in getting it back, but when you run a website you don't consider that some people would be insecure enough to threaten our lives simply because they do not like the content of a video we neither produced nor endorsed but merely hosted.

Following is an excerpt from a puppet show which aired on Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV on March 30, 2008...

Bush: "Who are you? What brings you to my home? How did they let you in, boy? My guards! My soldiers! Get this boy out of here."

Child: "Nobody will take me out of here."...

..."You killed daddy in the Iraq war. It's true, you killed him in the Iraq war. As for my mom - you and the criminal Zionists killed her in Lebanon. You and the criminal Zionists also killed my younger and older brothers in the Gaza holocaust. I'm an orphan, you criminal!"...

..."I have come to take revenge with this sword - revenge for my mother and my sisters. You are a criminal, Bush! You are despicable. You made me an orphan! You took everything from me, Bush! I must take revenge on you, with this sword of Islam, the Prophet's Al-Battar sword."...

..."What can you give me? All I want is one thing. Bring back my father and mother. I don't want anything from you. I don't want anything from you, just bring back my father and mother. I place my trust in Allah. I need to kill you."

Bush: "No, my dear. Enough. I will give you anything you want. I also... Enough with that. Come with all your friends to the White House. I will give you food and toys. We will sit in the White House and talk. You will get whatever you need."

Child: "You are impure, Bush, so you are not allowed inside the White House."

Bush: "What are you saying?! Why am I not allowed into the White House?"

Child: "Because it has been turned into a great mosque for the nation of Islam. I will kill you just like Mu'az killed Abu Lahab. I will kill you, Bush, because that is your fate."

Child stabs Bush repeatedly

Child: "Ahhh, I killed him."

The University and College Union (UCU)'s national executive committee (NEC) has agreed to reconsider a boycott of Israeli academics at its annual congress in May.

An internal motion to discuss the possibility of a boycott of Israeli academics was put to the NEC meeting on March 14.

It notes the "apparent complicity of the Israeli academy" in Israeli government policies towards the Palestinians, and states the UCU should "promote a wide discussion by colleagues of the appropriateness of continued education links with Israeli academic institutions".

According to the Stop the Boycott Coalition (STB) - academics and Jewish and non-Jewish groups who are against a boycott - Tom Hickey, Brighton University academic and Socialist Workers Party activist, put forward the motion, which was seconded by Linda Newman, UCU's president...

The Palestinian Authority won a major legal victory when a federal judge, in a ruling made public yesterday, agreed to set aside a judgment of nearly $200 million awarded to American victims of Palestinian terrorist attacks in Israel and allow a new trial.

Such rulings are rare, and the judge, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero, said that he would vacate the previous legal victory only if the Palestinian Authority put up a $192.7 million bond to ensure that it does not default again if it loses in court. In a ruling Wednesday, he also ordered the Palestinians to reimburse the plaintiffs for previous legal expenses.

But Marrero's decision gives the Palestinian government hope that it can escape from lawsuits that its officials said threatened to bankrupt it. Top Palestinian officials, including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, had urged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to intervene in the case...

Mark J. Rochon of the Washington firm Miller & Chevalier, who represented the Palestinian Authority, could not be reached for comment.

President Bush showed the world that it isn't words, but actions, that truly make a difference. Millions throughout Africa would agree.

Mr. Bush recently completed a historic visit to the African continent; a trip he described as "the most exciting, exhilarating, uplifting trip" of his presidency. During his visit, we saw pictures of the president dancing, celebrating and attending ceremonies with heads of state. But the real story is not about just this one trip; it is about the commitment the president made to Africa and what the United States has been quietly accomplishing throughout the continent over the past eight years under Mr. Bush's leadership...

...As Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete noted, for the people of his country and others across the African continent, Mr. Bush's "legacy will be that of saving hundreds of thousands of mothers' and children's lives from malaria, preventing new HIV infections and giving hope to those infected through care and treatment, and helping millions of young men and women get education." Perhaps most importantly, he adds, Mr. Bush leaves "the legacy of assisting African nations and people [in building] capacity for their own growth and development." Over the last seven years, the U.S. has committed $1.6 billion to trade capacity-building assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, Mr. Bush launched the Millennium Challenge Account as a new model to support governments that commit to ruling justly, investing in people and encouraging economic freedom. In May 2007, he announced the Africa Financial Sector Initiative, which will create seven new investment funds that will mobilize more than $1.6 billion through support of OPIC.

In the area of improving health care in Africa, the president's actions are already producing measurable results: nearly 1.5 million people are receiving life-saving antiretroviral medications, HIV infection from HIV-positive mothers has been prevented in more than 150,000 infants and 29 million children have been enrolled in schools, some for the first time in their lives. For Mr. Bush, that's just the beginning. On his recent trip, he announced plans to provide more than 5 million mosquito nets to Tanzanians, as well as a new investment to help eradicate certain tropical diseases...

...For more than 90 years, Arab radicals have been at war not only with with Zionism, but simultaneously with any Arab voice - Christian, Muslim, Druse or Beduin - advocating moderation and coexistence with the Zionist enterprise. So, where are the moderates?

They are dead - hacked up with axes, riddled with bullets, slaughtered with knives and exploded by bombs. That's where the Arab moderates are. This book chronicles their story from the start of the British Mandate until the War of Independence...

Qatar-based news channel loses highest-profile American player, former Nightline reporter Dave Marash over 'reflexive anti-American bias' from network. Resigning anchor says attitude more prevalent among British administrators than Arab counterparts

Former 'Nightline' reporter Dave Marash has quit Al-Jazeera English, saying Thursday his exit was due in part to an anti-American bias at a network that is little seen in this country.

Marash said he felt that attitude more from British administrators than Arabs at the Qatar-based network.

Marash was the highest-profile American TV personality hired when the English language affiliate to Al-Jazeera was started two years ago in an attempt to compete with CNN and the BBC. He said there was a "reflexive adversarial editorial stance" against Americans at Al-Jazeera English.

"Given the global feelings about the Bush administration, it's not surprising," Marash said.

But he found it "became so stereotypical, so reflexive" that he got angry.

Marash, who's being replaced by former CNN International host Shihab Rattansi, said he was the last American-accented anchor at the network, which broadcasts from Washington, London, Kuala Lumpur and Doha, Qatar. He said there are more Canadians than Americans working at the Washington office...

...Al-Jazeera English has been largely unsuccessful in getting US cable or satellite systems to pick it up, except for the municipal cable system in Burlington, Vt., and a small system visible in Toledo and Sandusky, Ohio. But its programming is available on the network's YouTube site...

On the 60th Anniversary of the Nakba the New England Committee to Defend Palestine presents

Struggle for the Land: Zionism and the Repression of Anti-Colonial Movements

An Education and Strategy Conference

Saturday, April 12 to Sunday, April 13

Saturday April 12 at 12 PM: Community Church of Boston
[snip]

Suggested Donation: $15

Confirmed speakers include:

Amer Jubran, Palestinian activist and former political detainee
Saja Raoof, Iraqi anti-war activist
Kali Akuno, Executive Director of the People's Hurricane Relief Fund in New Orleans and Malcolm X Grassroots Movement National Organizer
Marta Rodriguez, Puerto Rican independence activist and member of the NECDP
Ward Churchill, American Indian Movement activist and author
Dara Bayer, Palestine solidarity activist
Jihad Abdul-Mumit, former Black Liberation Army political prisoner
Nada Elia, Palestinian activist, and member of the INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence national collective.
Jeffrey Blankfort, anti-Zionist journalist and activist, co-plaintiff in a lawsuit
against the ADL for spying on left organizations

as well as

Photography Exhibition from Gaza
Palestinian political artwork, and art by Brazilian Artist Carlos Latuff

This year commemorates the sixtieth anniversary of the Nakba (Arabic for 'catastrophe') in Palestine. While this past January saw an escalation of the already brutal strangulation of Gaza, as well as continued colonization throughout historic Palestine, Palestinians have continued to resist in all of their historic land. In Gaza, under starvation conditions, Palestinians broke the siege by destroying the wall at Rafah crossing and continue to defend their land through armed resistance against settlers.

In spite of a wider public awareness of the brutal policies of colonial settlement in Palestine, the "United States" continues to provide the main economic, political and military aid to the Zionist settler colony. While every major presidential candidate pledges undying support for "Israel," there is a growing public discussion about the role of Zionism in the "US" political system, and especially of its relationship to the war in Iraq...

1. PIJ leader Ramadan Abdallah Shalah was interviewed in Damascus by the Qatari newspaper Al-Sharq. He said that the second intifada was currently characterized by rocket fire , which had replaced the previous stage of suicide bombing attacks. That, he said, was because the enemy [i.e., Israel ] had found ways and means to protect itself from such attacks: "... For example, they built a separation fence in the West Bank . We do not deny that it limits the ability of the resistance [i.e., the terrorist organizations] to arrive deep within [Israeli territory] to carry out suicide bombing attacks , but the resistance has not surrendered or become helpless, and is looking for other ways to cope with the requirements of every stage [of the intifada]..." (Al-Sharq, March 23, 2008 )...

An Iraqi-American from Michigan who worked for a Southfield charity has been accused of working as a spy for the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein, according to a federal indictment unsealed today in U.S. District Court in Detroit.

Muthanna Al-Hanooti was charged with several counts, including conspiracy to work on behalf of a foreign government and making false statements to the FBI. Al-Hanooti used to work for Life for Relief and Development, a Muslim charity based in Southfield that works in Iraq and other countries. That charity was raided by federal agents in Sept. 2006.

According to the indictment, Al-Hanooti would travel to Iraq and meet with conspirators of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. The indictment says that Al-Hanooti was rewarded with 2 million barrels of oil for his work.

The indictment also alleges that Iraqi intelligence officials used an intermediary in Michigan to help fund a trip to Iraq taken by U.S. members of Congress in 2002.

Al-Hanooti was active in other local groups. He was former head of the Michigan branch of the Council on American Islamic Relations and the president of Focus on American and Arab Interests and Relations.

...we know many people have been upset by the perceived meaning of the article and by misrepresentations in the article itself.

Therefore, Excalibur would like to apologize for printing a headline that was not reflective of the article or the attack itself, for misrepresenting the ages of the school's students as older than they were, for implying that all students of the school - instead of only some - go on to serve in the Israel Defense Forces, for misrepresenting a quotation by former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and for any unfair ideological attributions to the school and its students and members. We apologize for any hurt these errors have caused...

Geneva, March 26, 2008 -- To the sound of cheers, and by an overhwelming majority of 40 out of 47 votes, the UN Human Rights Council today elected Jean Ziegler, the co-founder of the "Muammar Khaddafi Human Rights Prize," as an expert advisor representing the Western world. And for its new Palestine expert, the council chose Richard Falk, who, like Ziegler, accuses the U.S. of being responsible for many of the world's ills and describes Israel in Nazi terminology.

"Even within the benighted UN Human Rights council, today was a dark day for human rights," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights monitoring agency. "The very credibility of the UN human rights system is now at stake."

Falk was approved by consensus. Canada afterward made a statement dissociating itself from the choice. The U.S., a non-voting observer, also took the floor to criticize Falk's published writings.

Ziegler, criticized by many for his performance as former UN expert on the right to food, earned more votes than any of the other candidates. Immediately after the vote, Swiss ambassador Blaise Godet left his seat, and, in front of all the diplomats in the plenary, walked over to warmly shake hands with the Cuban ambassador, both smiling as they congratulated each other. The Castro regime chairs the all-powerful Non-Aligned Movement...

Cleared for publication: Ibrahim Salem, who was involved in clash with troops in Nablus that left one soldier dead, detained two months ago

An elite unit arrested wanted Palestinian terrorist Ibrahim Salem in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet two months ago.

Salem was involved in a shootout with IDF forces in the West Bank town of Nablus in September 2007 in which First Sergeant Major Ben-Zion Henman was killed.

The 23-year-old Salem admitted to being involved in numerous shooting attacks and explosive device attacks on IDF troops in the Nablus area. He also confessed to complicity in a car bombing directed at forces in Nablus in October 2006.

A force belonging to the Duvdevan Unit detained Salem on January 15th, but the story was only cleared for publication Tuesday evening.

Recruitment efforts

The September 2007 clash involved several other terrorists, including some wanted Popular Front members. One of them has been detained by security forces recently. Salem revealed that he and other terrorists were involved in the production of explosive materials at a refugee camp hideout...

Liberal Kuwaiti Sh'ite activist Dr. Ibtihal Abd Al-Aziz Al-Khatib, an academic, has received numerous death threats for her criticism of Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah over the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, and for calling for a commission of inquiry like Israel's Winograd Commission to examine his activities in that war.(1)

The following are excerpts from an interview with Dr. Al-Khatib, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on March 14, 2008...

CAIR is calling on American Muslims and other people of conscience to write letters in support of Dr. Sami Al-Arian, a former Florida professor currently on his second hunger strike in federal detention to protest alleged unjust treatment by U.S. authorities.

Al-Arian, who has already lost almost 30 pounds, began refusing food and water on March 3rd to protest a third attempt by prosecutors to compel his testimony in court. He was recently transferred from his Virginia prison to a medical facility in North Carolina...

UN Watch has learned that this Wednesday, March 26, 2008, the United Nations is planning to elect Jean Ziegler--founder of the "Muammar Khaddafi Human Rights Prize"--as one of only three Western advisory experts on the Human Rights Council. As the darling of the council's ruling Arab and Third World blocs, Ziegler's election is virtually assured. Unless.

Unless his sponsor changes course. Ziegler enjoys close ties with Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, whose diplomats, according to the Human Rights Tribune, are engaged in an intense vote-trading campaign to elect Ziegler. Only the Swiss withdrawal of their nomination will prevent Ziegler from being elected...

...Jean Ziegler has a long history of supporting unsavory rulers and regimes, including some of the world's worst human rights violators. As UN hunger expert for the past 7 years, he ignored regions with the most severe food crises, and instead devoted his time to anti-Western polemics.

Following are excerpts from a TV program featuring Palestinian cleric Wael Al-Zarad, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on February 28, 2008:

To view MEMRI TV Page on Al-Aqsa TV click here.

Wael Al-Zarad: In short, these are the Jews. As Muslims, our blood vengeance against them will only subside with their annihilation, Allah willing, because they tried to kill our Prophet several times....

...What should we do with these people? What is the best solution for them? Should it be by shamelessly bestowing kisses, regardless of our religion and our morals, on satellite TV and in clear view of the whole world? Should it be through futile meetings, which are usually conducted on carpets red with the blood of martyrs? Or should it be through an exchange of despicable smiles and ugly handshakes?...

...What is the best solution for these people, who have perpetrated every possible thing against us? They have destroyed our homes, killed our children, taken our land, and plundered our resources. They have turned our mosques into pubs and bars, where they drink alcohol and get women drunk. From the dome of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, they proclaim that Ezra the Scribe is the son of God...

...By Allah, people, the Jews do not deserve such a fuss. They do not deserve to be feared. The Jews are not a terrorizing bogeyman. The Jews are nothing but human scum, who came as scattered gangs to occupy our land. By Allah, if each and every Arab spat on them, they would drown in Arab spit. By Allah, if each and every Muslim spat on them, they would drown in saliva. By Allah, if the Arabs and Muslims turned into flies, the Jews would die from their buzzing. Therefore, my dear brothers, the Jews do not deserve to be feared so much. Therefore, I ask with pain and sorrow: Isn't there a single reasonable man in any of the Arab air forces? Isn't there a single reasonable man among them, who will break through these aerial borders, and bomb the Jews deep in their own land? Where are all the Arabs and Muslims?

...Harvard didn't explain its thinking, but it seems to have adopted a postmodern version of equality: Equality might be achieved only by imposing unequal access, if those seeking equality do not share the consensus view. Freedom is useless without comfort, so liberation of some might require exclusion of others.

Whatever the logic, the university failed in its educational responsibility. It missed an opportunity to model for its students the kind of moral reasoning it expects of them. The resulting standards are inconsistent, and the muddle has a history...

...The new stance seems generous and tolerant: Be nice to people, even if it means excluding others, as long as the benefit is significant and the injury is minor.

Which brings us to ROTC. Harvard bans ROTC because the military violates the "sexual orientation" part of Harvard's nondiscrimination policy. Harvard students can participate in ROTC at MIT, but Harvard will not provide them meeting space or any other support - even bus fare down Massachusetts Avenue.

If there were ever a special case, this is it. ROTC's discriminatory policy is US law. Until Congress repeals that law, Harvard should accommodate ROTC anyway, in the interests of the nation and of Harvard students wishing to serve it...

..."These hours have been put in place for equality reasons," read Harvard's announcement. The decision apparently resulted from a paradoxical collaboration between the Women's Center, which greets visitors with a sign reading "All Genders Welcome," and adherents to a religion that imposes unequal social strictures on men and women...

...One recurring image invoked in these sermons is the Empty Tomb which, alongside Christ's appearance to his mother and disciples, is offered as proof of Christ's resurrection and God's power and sovereignty, and concern for humanity. The potent image of the Empty Tomb transforms Christ's suffering and crucifixion into a story about victory over death and human sin.

For all its potency, however, the Empty Tomb is not a symbol that can be invoked in the modern era without a wounding, sorrowful wince. While Christians are used to singing about the angel who rolled the stone away, recent history requires them to consider what they will find behind that stone.

During the Holocaust, respectable Christians throughout Europe marched two-thirds of Europe's Jews and millions of other victims into the Empty Tomb of Christ. Baptized Christians forced Jews to dig their own graves, and then shot them standing alongside the pits they dug. When the murderers realized they could save space in these graves by instructing their victims to lie down in the pits before shooting them, they did that too. The officer who came up with this method of killing was given a promotion...

...Today - despite sporadic attempts by Christian scholars and activists to ensure other wise - the Empty Tomb is again being filled, this time with rockets, mortar rounds and fertilizer ready to be converted into explosives for the next round of attacks against Israeli civilians.

These items have been loaded into the Empty Tomb in broad daylight by groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, in full view of anti-Israel activists in so-called peacemaking groups who tell the world that Israeli concessions and withdrawals will lead to peace in the Middle East - despite the fact that Israel has been attacked from every inch of territory from which it has withdrawn since Oslo...

Al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri called for attacks on Israeli and Western targets to avenge Israel's raids on the Gaza Strip, in an audio tape posted on the Internet on Monday.

"O Muslims. Today is your day. Hit the interest of the Jews and the Americans and all those who participated in the aggression against Muslims," said the speaker on the tape who sounded like Zawahri.

"Monitor the targets, collect the money, prepare the hardware, plan accurately and then attack," he added, without specifically naming any targets. "No one can say today that we should fight the Jews in Palestine only."...

..."Let them know that they would bleed for every dollar they spend on killing Muslims," Zawahri said.

"They cannot ... insult our prophet and support Israel, and expect to live in peace in their countries," he added, referring to the publication in the West of cartoons mocking Prophet Mohammad...

The following blog post is from an independent writer and is not connected with Reuters News. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not endorsed by Reuters.com.

The Zionist regime has given orders to allow Israeli troops to fire live rounds on Palestinians protesting the illegal Apartheid Wall surrounding Jerusalem. So as not to acquire bad press, the order to use lethal force against protesters does not extend to protests in which Israeli and international peace activists are also participating...

Merely the term "Zionist regime", popularized by terrorist groups and individuals such as Iran's President Ahmadinejad, should have been enough to raise alarm bells at Reuters as to the unsuitability of such a posting. Not to mention the contents of the piece itself...

...As with all attempts to confront hatred and racism, there are those people and groups who will push back, and lash out. Anti-Racist Blog was aware of this, but underestimated the venom and hostility that it would be confronted with. It is a given that Middle East studies, and the discussion surrounding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in particular can get very heated, and there are lots of emotions involved, but often times the reaction has been beyond the pale...

...After experiencing numerous threatening e-mails, phone calls, and messages, threats of legal action, headaches, and harassment, Anti-Racist Blog has decided enough is enough. The burden and risks have become too great, and what used to be so important doesn't seem worth it anymore...

Since astronomers identified the first planet outside our solar system 13 years ago, however, that idea has become downright quaint. Because now, according to the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, there are 277 confirmed "extrasolar" planets, and quite a few more on the list of those suspected but not yet confirmed.

This explosion in planetary discoveries is taking place at such warp speed that even those most intimately involved are often amazed -- especially because their ultimate goal is nothing less than finding life elsewhere in the universe.

"This is an absolutely astounding time for this field," said Mark Swain of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who last week reported finding the first "exoplanet" to have organic methane in its atmosphere.

"We're not only finding them rapidly and in great variety, but we're starting to characterize them -- their mass and orbits, the properties of their atmospheres, measurements of day and night, dynamics of their winds," he said after the methane discovery was released last week...

Considerably more powerful hardware is also on the way. NASA's Kepler satellite, which is designed to find distant planets as they transit in front of their stars, is supposed to be launched next spring and is expected to locate hundreds or thousands of new planets. The James Webb Space Telescope, a high-powered Hubble successor that will be able to find atmospheric molecules in rocky exoplanets rather than only in gas giants, is scheduled for launch in 2013.

The BBC has apologized for significant errors in two recent news reports on Israel.

In a news item on March 7, following the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva attack, the BBC showed a bulldozer demolishing a house, while correspondent Nick Miles told viewers: "Hours after the attack, Israeli bulldozers destroyed his family home. Later, mourners set up Hamas and Islamic Jihad banners nearby."

The house, however, was not demolished; the BBC was embarrassed when news reports from other broadcasters showed the east Jerusalem home intact and the family commemorating their son's actions...

...In a second incident, in a news item entitled "Israel jets strike northern Gaza" on March 14 on their News Web site, the BBC reported that Israel was deliberately targeting civilians in an operation targeting Kassam rocket launch sites in Gaza, and claiming that the United Nations secretary-general had described it as an attack on civilians.

"The Israeli air force said it was targeting a rocket firing team... UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned Israel's attacks on Palestinian civilians, calling them inappropriate and disproportionate," the report said.

In a letter to the BBC, Manchester Jewish community member Jonathan Hantman wrote,

"It is one-sided for the report to describe Israel's operations as 'attacks on civilians' while not describing the Palestinian rocket attacks, to which Israel was responding, as 'attacks on civilians' or 'acts of terrorism.'"

Hantman also pointed out that Ban's attributed comments were made weeks earlier to the UN Security Council and not in reference to that particular attack. He added that it was also wrong to mention the UN secretary-general's condemnation of Israel without mentioning his condemnation of Palestinian rocket attacks in the same statement.

"Ban's statement, made some two weeks ago, did not refer to yesterday's attack and did not describe Israel's operations on Gaza as 'attacks on civilians,'" Hantman noted. "He did, however, describe Palestinian rocket attacks as 'acts of terrorism.'"...

A little-known group of rather well-known former world leaders is trying its hand at Middle East peacemaking, with a contingent scheduled to visit the region next month on a self-proclaimed mission to "help people understand the urgency of peace." But as they attempt to help resolve one of the world's most intractable conflicts, The Elders, as the group is known, find themselves facing what is perhaps an equally difficult task: overcoming the deep-rooted suspicion on the part of Israel and its supporters toward several of its members.

The Elders are a group of 12 senior statesmen formed last summer by Nelson Mandela, and most of its members are household names in the international arena. What has raised eyebrows in Jerusalem are the individuals the group is dispatching to the Middle East. In addition to former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan, the contingent includes Jimmy Carter, former president and author of "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," and Mary Robinson, a former president of Ireland who was outspokenly critical of Israel when she served as the U.N.'s high commissioner on human rights.

Israeli officials were reluctant to discuss the upcoming visit on the record, arguing that they had yet to be formally approached by The Elders. But an indication of Jerusalem's concern about the group's effort could be gleaned from the response of one official when asked for Israel's views on the contingent's individual members.

"We have no problem with Kofi Annan," the official told the Forward...

A coin from the Second Temple, used in the half-shekel census, was found in excavations in the City of David, just below and east of Jerusalem's Old City. The upcoming Purim festival features the half-shekel prominently in its observance.

The ancient silver coin was discovered in an archaeological excavation that is being conducted in the main Second Temple-era drainage channel of Jerusalem. The foreign coin is of the denomination used during the turbulent Second Temple period to pay the Biblical half-shekel head-tax.

This coming Thursday night (Saturday night for Jerusalemites), before reading the Megillah (Scroll) of Esther, Jews worldwide will contribute a sum of money to charity in remembrance of that half-shekel command.

"Just like today when coins sometimes fall from our pockets and roll into drainage openings at the side of the street, that's how it was some two thousand years ago - a man was on his way to the Temple and the shekel which he intended to use for paying the half shekel head-tax found its way into the drainage channel," theorized archaeologist Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority...

Germany and Israel will try to initiate an international conference aimed at stopping Iran's nuclear program, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed during their working meeting in Jerusalem on Monday.

Haaretz has meanwhile learned that Iran has provided Syria with more than $1 billion for arms purchases, reflecting Syria's drive to build up its military power in the last year, as well as the strengthening of ties between the two countries...

...The $1 billion that Iran has recently provided Syria has been used to buy surface-to-surface missiles, rockets, anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft systems.

Israel has learned that Syria is buying more missiles than tanks, on the assumption that attacking the Israeli home front would deter Israel on the one hand, and help to determine the war on the other.

A government official said this week that Iran was making huge efforts to upgrade the Syrian army. He said the close relations between Iran and Syria could make it difficult for Syria to sever its strategic alliance with Iran.

The London based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported in July 2007, during Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Damascus, that he promised his counterpart Bashar Assad that Iran would finance Russian and North Korean weapon deals for $1 billion. In exchange, Syria reportedly undertook not to proceed with the peace process with Israel...

Palestinian children in Gaza were gathered for an exhibition that depicts Israel burning children in a crematorium. Young children are seen standing beside dolls being placed into a model of a cremation oven.

According to the article in Al Ayyam, "The National Committee for defense of Children from the Holocaust opened its activities with a Holocaust exhibit. The Exhibit include a large oven and inside it small children are being burned, the picture speaks for itself." [Al Ayyam, March 20, 2008]

Another part of the exhibit was a black platform with the words, "Stop the Israel's Holocausts." [Al Hayat Al Jadida, March 20, 2008]

Palestinian Authority (Fatah) TV already already taught children in the past that Israel burned children in the Holocaust. With ovens pictured in the background and actors playing dead children as part of a musical play, an actor in a video declared:

"They [Israel] are the ones who did the Holocaust ... They opened the ovens for us to bake human beings... and when one oven stopped burning they lit a hundred more ovens." [PA TV March 25, 2004]

...Let's not forget the famous quote from the former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin in his speech to the Knesset on June 25, 1982: "[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs."

Internet hate sites, as well as Fisk, attribute this derogation of Palestnians as "two-legged beasts" to former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. The source generally given is:

Menachem Begin, as quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the Beasts," New Statesman, June 25, 1982

Indeed, the radical French-Israeli journalist, Amnon Kapeliouk, did attribute such a quote to Begin in his New Statesman article criticizing Israel's invasion of Lebanon. The author posited:

For this reason the government has gone to extraordinary lengths to dehumanise the Palestinians. Begin described them in a speech in the Knesset as "beasts walking on two legs".

However, further investigation by CAMERA reveals that the actual speech upon which Kapeliouk based his quote, as well as news reports at the time demonstrate that the journalist distorted the quote, giving it a completely different tone and meaning. Begin was talking, not about "the Palestinians" but about terrorists who target children within Israel.

On June 8, 1982, Begin addressed the Knesset in response to a no-confidence motion over Israel's invasion of Lebanon. He talked about defending the children of Israel, and according to a June 9, 1982 AP report, "his voice quaver[ed] with anger and sadness." According to the minutes of the session, Begin stated:

The children of Israel will happily go to school and joyfully return home, just like the children in Washington, in Moscow, and in Peking, in Paris and in Rome, in Oslo, in Stockholm and in Copenhagen. The fate of... Jewish children has been different from all the children of the world throughout the generations. No more. We will defend our children. If the hand of any two-footed animal is raised against them, that hand will be cut off, and our children will grow up in joy in the homes of their parents.

Kapeliouk neither recanted nor apologized for his deception.

Following is an excerpt from an address in English delivered by a Palestinian child Walla Khadher Al-As'ad, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on March 10, 2008:

Wallah Khadher Al-As'ad: Welcome, everybody, to our program that talks about the Islamic uniform, which is the hijab. The hijab has very sacred and good traits, which are the following: One - keeping honor and dignity. Two - it frees the hearts and psyches from false romantic feelings. Three - stopping the greed and the bad thoughts of people and satans. Four - it's a sign of a good woman. Five - keeping its [unintelligible]. Six - the hijab makes a good relationship with Allah, and makes the human enter Paradise.

My Muslim sisters, I would like to say that a lot of films would seem to be destroying the hijab. So, my sister, you should be careful with these destroying voices, because they fight Islam, and they are against its progress. So my sister, you must keep your hijab to enter Paradise.

My sisters in Europe, in America, in the whole world, I would like to advise you that your hijab protects you from this false freedom [As opposed to the real freedom offered by Hamas. -S], and in fact, [Westerners] don't understand anything except destroying their humanity, and satisfying their animal instincts. At last, let me say that the hijab is the best protection for any girl in the world. So there are a lot of [women] all over the world committed to Islam because of the hijab.

Thank you so much for being with us. This was presented by Walla Khadher Al-As'ad.

...This story has gone almost totally unnoticed, leading one to believe that there is actually not much outrage in the offing should the Israeli government take similar measures against other organizations that operate under the false pretense of being journalistic -- while actually being propagandistic -- concerns (have you ever read the Guardian's coverage of Israel?). And even if Israel does get criticized, pushing back against the worst of the activists masquerading as journalists is a fight that desperately needs to happen. And it is a fight that Israel can win.

Each representative has 3 minutes to make their presentation.

On Monday, Arab countries defended the government of Sudan, and praised it for coming a long way in dealing with the genocide in Darfur. The EU countries, the US and including Canada challenged the notion that the Sudan is doing "enough".

In testimony today, Rothstein provoked the ire of Egypt and Iran when she addressed issues of racism in Darfur and Holocaust denial by Iran's President Ahmadinejad.

Rothstein's speech was interrupted by an objection from the Egyptian representative, a leader in the Arab and African blocs, after she dared to mention the killings in Darfur. The President allowed her to continue. When she resumed speaking, her mention of anti-Semitism by Iran's leader was quickly interrupted by the Iranian envoy, who formally objected to any mention of Iran on a discussion of racism.

As a result of the repeated objections and the chairman's caution, Rothstein was denied the right to read her section on the anti-Semitic incitement of Hamas and Hezbollah and the murder of 8 students from Jerusalem while Hamas distributed candy in Gaza. However, the full written statement will form part of the official U.N. record. Interruptions of NGO statements are rare, and generally indicate acute sensitivity on the part of the objecting party.

"What we saw today from Iran is that the truth hurts," said Hillel Neuer, UN Watch executive director. "Our statement dared to speak truth to power. It is a sad day for free speech and the founding principles of the United Nations when NGOs are denied the right to name racists in a debate supposedly dedicated to the subject of racism."

Here is her speech and where it was interrupted:

Together4Israel, along with HonestReporting and many other partners, are putting together the largest ever online rally in support of those living under fire in Israel. All you need to do is go to http://www.together4israel.org/ on Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 11 p.m. Israel Time to watch a live broadcast online of solidarity rallies from around the world. Please make sure to come back to the site on March 20th and be counted for Israel. Thursday, March 20, 2008 11:00 pm Israel Time

9 p.m. GMT / 5 p.m. EDT / 4 p.m. CDT / 3 p.m. MDT / 2 p.m. PDT

The Hamas movement has revealed a new aspect of its anti-Semitism. Dr. Yunes al-Astal, a senior Hamas figure and member of the Palestinian parliament, has provided religious justification for the Muslim destruction of the Jewish people and regards the slaughter at the Mercaz Ha'Rav yeshiva as a partial implementation of Allah's commandment to destroy the Jews.

Holocaust in the next world

Al-Astal, who was head of the Sharia Faculty and chairman of the fatwa committee of the Islamic University in the Gaza Strip stated that extermination, burning and Holocaust would be the fate of the Jewish people not only in the next world, but in this as well, and that the destruction would be carried out by jihad fighters.

The ideology of the radical Islamic movements deals with the perception of Muslims as superior to "infidels." Those responsible for brainwashing the Muslim public make extensive use of the Qur'an verse which states that the Muslims are Allah's "chosen people." Their superiority will be manifested by their taking over the world, both as a vision and a plan for action, and by the Muslims' total destruction of the Jews, Christians and other "infidels."

Instead of a Britney Spears ring tone, Shehadeh Shehadeh's cell phone emits a recording of a speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. "Our entire family has turned Shi'ite," he boasts.

Last week, Israeli security forces operating in the West Bank town of Bethlehem killed his father, Mohammed Shehadeh, who was a senior commander in Islamic Jihad.

"My father decided to become a Shi'ite after he was deported to Marj Al-Juhur in Lebanon in 1992," the son recounted. "He met there with all sorts of Shi'ite people and he saw that the oppression the Shi'ites have had to endure is very much like the oppression that the Palestinians have suffered."...

...Sitting in his house in Bethlehem's Wadi Maali neighborhood, the young man entertained a group of friends, all devout Muslims filled with extremist zeal. They were there to mourn his father's loss with him.

The son is outspoken about his disdain for Israelis. "The Jews killed the prophets," he reiterated several times in his conversation with Haaretz.

"Some Jews are all right and my father valued them, like Neturei Karta," he conceded, referring to a fringe ultra-Orthodox sect that is rabidly anti-Zionist. "But most Jews are the enemy."...

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- A new poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians support the attack this month on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem that killed eight young men, most of them teenagers, an indication of the alarming level of Israeli-Palestinian tension in recent weeks.

The survey also shows unprecedented support for the shooting of rockets on Israeli towns from the Gaza Strip and for the end of the peace negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli leaders.

The pollster, Khalil Shikaki, said he was shocked because the survey, taken last week, showed greater support for violence than any other he had conducted over the past 15 years in the Palestinian areas. Never before, he said, had a majority favored an end to negotiations or the shooting of rockets at Israel...

...Three months ago, Mr. Abbas was ahead 56 percent to 37 percent. After Hamas forces pushed Fatah forces out of Gaza last summer, Mr. Shikaki's polls showed the Palestinian public to be disillusioned with Hamas, and in the subsequent months many argued that Mr. Abbas, with the support of Washington and Israel, had an opportunity to win public support by easing living conditions and advancing in negotiations. That has not happened.

According to the poll, of 1,270 Palestinians in face-to-face interviews, 84 percent supported the March 6 attack on the Mercaz Harav yeshiva, one of Israel's most prominent centers of religious Zionism and ideological wellspring of the settler movement in the West Bank. Mr. Shikaki said that result was the single highest support for an act of violence in his 15 years of polling here. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

On negotiations between Ehud Olmert, prime minister of Israel, and Mr. Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, 75 percent said they were without benefit and should be terminated. Regarding the thousands of rockets that have been launched on Israeli towns like Sderot and Ashkelon, 64 percent support it...

...1941 was a real massacre, it was horrible. The Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, had come to Baghdad that year and lived not far from us; I used to see him and his men. He incited everyone against the Jews of Baghdad, who were not Zionists. He would appear on radio--"you Jews are snakes," etcetera--and the simple people believed him. There were lots of Palestinians who had come to teach in Iraq, we needed so many teachers, and these were often under the guidance of the Mufti and his men, and this poisoned the atmosphere further. So, in 1941 there were 100,000 Jews in Baghdad and possibly 20,000 whose houses were attacked. But during the war, the British brought prosperity and the Jewish community forgot about that pogrom. That started to change in 1948 because of tensions over the war in Palestine when soldiers came back angry at Jews. With these new tensions in the air, the Jews remembered those days of the farhoud. The pro-Nazi party, al-Istiqlal (Independence) hinted at another farhoud, saying the Jews should get out before it happened to them again. It was not their official policy, but we heard it.

The real turning point was in 1948 with the hanging of Shafiq Adas, a rich Jew who was a friend of the Prince Regent. He was hanged in Basra, accused of buying scrap from the British and sending it to Israel. So Jews started to leave and the Muslims who were partners with Jews before were scared now, and a good life for the Jews was no more in the offing. Most of our neighbors were leaving and selling their property. My parents were not crazy about the idea of moving to Israel. My father was fifty and didn't like the idea of such an adventure...

GENEVA, (March 19, 2008) - For decades, the United Nations has ignored the plight of Jewish refugees from Arab countries. Now they are no longer be able to do so.

For the first time ever, appearing in Geneva at the United Nations Human Rights Council, was a Jewish refugee from an Arab country, Regina Bublil-Waldman, who fled Libya in 1967, in fear of her life.

Also appearing was Sylvain Abitbol, Co-President of the Canadian Jewish Congress who is originally from Morocco and Stanley A. Urman, Executive Director of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries.

Celebrating her heritage, Mrs. Bublil-Waldman appeared wearing her grandmother's Libyan wedding dress. At the same time, she was "mourning" the loss of her heritage, as in 1948, there were 36,000 Jews living in Libya. Today, there are none left. Ms. Bublil-Waldman ultimately resettled in the United States where she founded JIMENA (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa).

Mr. Abitbol brought a message of hoped-for peace and reconciliation. He recalled that King Muhammad V intervened to protect Jews living in Morocco from the Nazi regime. While recognizing the historical plight faced by Jews who lived for millennia in Arab countries, Mr. Abitbol expressed the hope that these displaced Jews can serve as an important bridge to the Arab world, much as he does now in his business and community life.

A Report entitled "Justice for Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries: The Case for Rights and Redress" was presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council. Published by Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, the Report contains documents - recently discovered in the U.N. archives - that reveal a pattern of state-sanctioned oppression that precipitated the mass exodus of Jews from 10 Arab countries.

"The Report discloses the pernicious and prejudicial role played by the U.N. in excluding Jewish refugees from Arab countries from the justice and peace agenda" said Stanley Urman, Executive Director of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries. "This is not just a case of justice delayed, but justice denied. Indeed, the displacement of 850,000 Jews from Arab countries is not just a 'Forgotten Exodus' but a 'Forced Exodus."...

Today [Feb 27], Congress moved one step closer to recognizing the 'forgotten refugees.'

In a unanimous bi-partisan decision, the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved H.Res 185, a Resolution recognizing the plight and flight of over 850,000 from Arab countries. The Resolution now moves to the full House of Representatives for a vote.

The Resolution was introduced in the House by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) along with Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY) and Rep. Mike Ferguson (R-NJ)...

The Palestinian Authority is planning to mark Israel's 60th anniversary by calling on all Palestinians living abroad to converge on Israel by land, sea and air.

The plan, drawn by Ziad Abu Ein, a senior Fatah operative and Deputy Minister for Prisoners' Affairs in the Palestinian Authority, states that the Palestinians have decided to implement United Nations Resolution 194 regarding the refugees...

...The initiative is the first of its kind and is clearly aimed at embarrassing Israel during the anniversary celebrations by highlighting the issue of the ":right of return": for the refugees.

Entitled ":The Initiative of Return and Coexistence,": the plan suggests that the PA has abandoned a two-state solution in favor of one state where all Arabs and Jews would live together...

...Almost as if he foresaw the stalemate that now has us in its grips, Alterman writes in his poem that the boy and the girl are dirty, caked with the dirt of the fields and the fire-line. Unlike the Torah, which suggests that preparation for the revelation requires that everyone wash their garments, Alterman suggests that if the Jews insist on being clean, or insist on purity, there's no hope. It's a dirty world we live in, he understands, and in this world, we have to decide how badly we want to stay alive.

But we haven't decided that we want to stay alive. We don't want Ban Ki-Moon to chastise us. We want George Bush to love us. We don't want the BBC or CNN to broadcast pictures of Palestinian children wounded or killed by Jewish soldiers. We don't want more protests like we had this week, with Israeli Arabs rioting in opposition to the minor incursion into Gaza and voicing their support for Hamas. It's all just too complicated and unpleasant we'd much rather pretend that we live in America, that we can ignore the dormant volcano of Israel's Arabs, too.

So we sit. And civilians keep getting targeted, and keep dying. And soldiers die. And Israeli towns become ghost towns. But George Bush most supports us, so we feel better. And the charade with Abu Mazen permits us to continue hallucinating about the possibility of peace, to pretend that the Palestinians aren't simply an utterly failed people that will never make peace in our lifetimes or those of our children, so we feel even better...

A government task force is probing how Iran launders money through the international banking system to finance terror groups buying arms ranging from mortars to weapons of mass destruction.

The probe is focusing on the millions of dollars Iranian banks funnel through mainstream banks for the groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban, the Daily News has learned.

Ordinary commercial transactions and trade financing for Iran are also under investigation by the task force comprising the Manhattan district attorney's office, the Treasury Department and the Justice Department.

Both kinds of transactions violate United Nations and U.S. sanctions against countries that support terrorism.

Banks asked by the task force to provide information on cash flows include Barclays and Lloyd's banks...

The official Palestinian Authority daily newspaper describes the murderer of eight yeshiva students in Jerusalem as a "groom" and his burial as his "wedding celebration." The story in Mahmoud Abbas's Al Hayat Al Jadida goes on to evoke the neighborhood Jabal Mukaber's "week of anticipation... preparing themselves for the wedding procession."

The term "wedding" is the expression commonly used in PA society, and in PA schoolbooks as well, to describe the death of Shahids - Martyrs for Allah. According to Islamic tradition, they will wed the 72 Dark- Eyed Maidens (Virgins) of Paradise.

The article then reports the "shocking news" for the "thousands who were waiting" that the Israeli Army had decided to force a pre-dawn burial to prevent community celebrations of the murders and the murderer. It bemoans the fact "that the groom was buried in the [early] morning without a celebration and without a wedding procession."

However, the PA daily vows that the wedding celebrations will continue:

"The wedding will not end this way... it will last three consecutive days in which [the town] al-Sawahra will welcome all of those who come to congratulate the groom and will hang his portrait embracing the nation's flags."

Seeing the Martyr's death as a wedding can be found throughout Palestinian society. Some examples...

Can you imagine a public school founded by two Christian ministers, and housed in the same building as a church? Add to that -- in the same building -- a prominent chapel. And let's say the students are required to fast during Lent, and attend Bible studies right after school. All with your tax dollars.

Inconceivable? Sure. If such a place existed, the ACLU lawyers would descend on it like locusts. It would be shut down before you could say "separation of church and state," to the accompaniment of New York Times and Washington Post editorials full of indignant foreboding, warning darkly about the growing influence of the Religious Right in America.

But such a school does exist in Minnesota, in a different religious context, and so far the ACLU has uttered nary a peep.

Tax dollars are currently at work funding the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, a popular, rapidly growing K-8 charter school with campuses in Inver Grove Heights and Blaine, Minnesota. According to the Minnesota Department of Education, as a Minnesota charter school implementing a statewide "performance and professional pay program" known as Q-Comp, Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy pocketed $65,260 in state money for the 2006-07 school year. The school's website, meanwhile, boasts that it offers a "rigorous Arabic language program" and an "environment that fosters your cultural values and heritage." Whose cultural values and heritage? According to the indefatigable investigative reporter Katherine Kersten of the Star Tribune, "there are strong indications that religion plays a central role" there.

Which religion? Do you need three guesses?

The Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy was co-founded by two imams; is housed in the same building as a mosque and the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society (MAS); features a carpeted space for prayer; and serves halal food in the cafeteria. All students fast during Ramadan. They attend classes on the Qur'an and Sunnah, or Islamic tradition and law, after school...

...The book, "From Palestine to Seattle: Becoming Neighbors and Friends," is billed as a "storybook on Israel and Palestine" for children 6 through 12. This is no benign Sunday school text, however. It is a well-crafted bit of propaganda that portrays Israeli security checkpoints as the cause, not the result, of Palestinian violence. This message is underscored by the teacher's manual marketed along with the storybook.

The storybook describes adventures of two children from Seattle -- Allison and Matthew -- whose father, a Protestant minister, has just returned from a visit to Bethlehem.

The first part of the book describes the children's email correspondence with Tarek, a young Palestinian boy whose family's life has been disrupted by checkpoints on the West Bank and Miriam, a Jewish Israeli girl, who participates in a program that brings 9- to 12-year-old Israelis and Palestinians play together and learn about one another's religion and culture. Miriam's cousin, an Israeli soldier, has been put in prison for refusing to man checkpoints "because he thought they were wrong and were hurting people."...

...Miryam, the Jewish girl, provides some context to checkpoints by admitting that she's afraid "that one day a bomb will go off in my neighborhood," but this testimony is undercut by criticism of her Jewish friends who think she is "crazy" for meeting with "dangerous" Arabs. Miriam reports that she likes her "new Arab friends, especially Salim, he always makes everybody laugh with his jokes." Thus, the storybook offsets Miriam's fear of terrorism with Palestinian complaints about the checkpoints, the reassuring image of a Palestinian class clown and the depiction of her Jewish friends as unreasonably afraid of Arabs...

...The teacher's guide marketed alongside the storybook encourages instructors to have their students read the section on checkpoints and then have their classes play a game of "Stop and Go." Some children are given "STOP" passes and others are given "GO" passes. The children are then directed to form a single line and approach a refreshment table and attempt to get a cup of orange juice. Those with "GO" passes are given a drink, but those with "STOP" passes "must either wait in line or go back to their seats." Then the process is repeated with grapes. Children with "GO" passes are allowed to eat; those with "STOP" passes are not...

The following is a report of the numerous anti-military acts committed by groups right here in the United States. This list is constantly being updated...

The latest Iraq Perspectives Project report sponsored by a Department of Defense agency has caused considerable interest in the mainstream media. However, this interest has shown yet another weakness in their journalistic systems. Apparently their proof reading is not very good as they consistently added a negative into the headlines, when they surely meant the opposite. How else does one explain the headlines covering a report which starts with the following sentence: "The Iraqi Perspectives Project (IPP) review of captured Iraqi documents uncovered strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism."

The actual report goes on to detail that, despite having examined only 15% of the documents (although they also examined all of the English document titles), they found solid links to al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda spokesman and Imam Sheik Omar Abdul-Rahman's Islamic Group, al-Qaeda's Bahranian arm known as the Army of Mohammed, the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan which was the forerunner of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who was a key ally of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and the Abu Sayyaf group, another al-Qaeda affiliate in the Philippines. In particular, on page 42 of the report they acknowledge that "Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda's stated goals and objectives. 97"...

Following are excerpts from an interview with Qadura Fares, former PA minister and member of the Fatah leadership, which aired on ANB TV on March 9, 2008.

Qadura Fares: The Fatah movement does not denounce this kind of operation, and the Palestinian people has the right to conduct resistance against the occupation. In addition, the Fatah movement - since its foundation and to this moment - has been employing this form of struggle. The operation was not directed against a religious school, as was reported in the media. It was directed at an institute which produces extremist leaders. By the way, most of the leaders of the Gush Emunim movement - the extremist right-wing movement that leads the settlement activity in Palestine - graduated from this institute, including Effi Eitam, that well-known extremist.

Chief of Hamas Police in Gaza General Tawfiq Jabber said that Israel had killed some 100 Hamas police officers in the Gaza Strip since the movement had taken over the enclave in mid June last year.

Israeli air fighters hit several police stations and posts in the Gaza Strip over the past nine months, killing about 100 policemen. Israeli air strikes were retaliatory to rockets attacks carried out by Gaza militants against Israel...

I tend to take this type of event seriously - there are some powerful NGOs and individuals behind it - their names keep cropping up. It required a lot of prepation and cost a lot of money. My opinion is that it was organised in Europe for the benefit of the Arab world and European Muslims.

Israeli security officials believe Saturday's Molotov cocktail attack on the home of Rhode Island Jewish Agency emissary Yossi Knafo was most likely spontaneously perpetrated by a local group, The Jerusalem Post has learned...

...No one was wounded in the attack, which took place just before 2 a.m. near the Brown University campus in Providence. One firebomb hit an outside wall of the house and sparked a fire in the yard, while a second firebomb passed through a window into the living room, but failed to explode...

...The context for the attack is as yet unclear. Knafo has said he knew of no reason anyone would target his home, while Amos Hermon, a member of the Jewish Agency Executive and chair of its Task Force on Anti-Semitism, echoed other agency officials in noting the attack may mark an unparalleled escalation of anti-Israel campus activism...

...Agency officials, including Hermon, cite tensions that may have risen over the weekend due to a massive Jewish Agency campaign on dozens of university campuses and in hundreds of synagogues and schools in the US and worldwide to commemorate the March 6 terror attack on Jerusalem's Mercaz Harav Yeshiva which killed eight students...

Looking back to the U.N. partition plan of 1947, which envisaged Jewish and Palestinian states living side by side in peace, Nayef Hawatmeh comes to the painful acknowledgment of an opportunity missed.

"After 60 years, we are struggling for what we could have had in 1947," laments the leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. "We have missed many historic opportunities."

In a year when Israel is celebrating its 60th birthday, Hawatmeh and his generation of leaders are still in exile and fading from the scene.

Visited by The Associated Press in Damascus, the Syrian capital, these graying grandfathers radiate nostalgia and bitterness. They speak of wasted opportunities, perceived successes, failures and divisions. In monologues that can last 90 minutes and brook no interruption, they voice anger at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for negotiating with Israel, but also at Hamas for taking their struggle down the path of radical Islam...

...While the leaders interviewed say they have no regrets, and insist they will ultimately prevail over Israel, some of them wonder aloud whether things might have been different.

"Would you believe me if I tell you that if I had to do it all over, I would?" said Mohammed Oudeh, architect of Black September's 1972 Olympics attack that left 11 Israeli athletes dead...

...In sum, SPME's statement struck many thoughtful people who are by no means hostile to the State of Israel as loose talk that both discredits the organization and debases the language in ways that do not serve to benefit either a responsible and free society or the Jews.

I must confess that I too, upon first reading the statement found it excessive in its rhetoric, unnecessarily insistent that the reader share the writer's indignation at this wanton slaughter, but that they also assent to a "reading" of the conflict that drew sides in black and white. But as I read the objections, in particular the comparison with Baruch Goldstein - whose name Alan Weisbard is justifiably loath even to mention - I became increasingly convinced that the statement, rather than immoderate in its rhetoric, had only missed a critical step of reasoning that many of us on the board of SPME have already made, even if reluctantly and with much regret.

The missing piece here lies in the culture that produced this deed. Anyone who doubts that Palestinian culture, both "secular" (i.e., Fatah, Palestinian Authority) and religious (Hamas, Jihad Islami) has terrifying genocidal tendencies must visit the site of Palestinian Media Watch. There one finds documented in every aspect of public culture, from sermons on TV and educational programs to crosswords, sports, and children's programs, a culture steeped in genocidal hatreds...

The symbols are reinforced by the strong composition. The woman and her child appear all the more vulnerable as the only elements of humanity and colour against the advancing wall of shields and boots.Such a potent image leaves very little room for any doubt. In such circumstances do we need to know the details of the dispute to have any doubts that what we are witnessing is wrong?

Curious George & Friends, Harvard Square's legendary children's book and toy store features a full range of books from preschool through high school as well as the definitive Curious George Collection. You'll also find Babar, Madeline, Tin Tin and all your other favorites here.

Tibet has now seen six days of violence in its capital Lhasa, and in far distant rural areas of Amdo. During the first four days of peaceful marches by Buddhist monks and displays of Tibetan nationalism by regular citizens, the violence was meted out by Chinese security forces. On Friday and Saturday, citizens came into the streets in large numbers, often clashing with those same security forces.

The Chinese government predictably blames the Tibetan exiled leader Dalai Lama for their troubles; they have no one to blame but themselves. The forcible quashing of expressions of popular sentiment has unleashed a rage that has been building for half a century.

There is no longer a question about troops firing weapons at demonstrators, although the Party Secretary of the region denied it. Dozens of wounded have been treated in local hospitals. China admits to only 10 people killed, but eyewitness reports point toward a much higher number. All military forces in the Lhasa area have been deployed, and armoured vehicles (possibly mistaken for tanks) have fired into crowds...

Following are excerpts from a speech delivered by Dr. Walid Al-Rashudi, head of the Department of Islamic Studies at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on February 29, 2008.

Walid Al-Rashudi: One of the important things that we must tell people is that what is going on in Palestine today is a real holocaust. This is the real holocaust. A holocaust is not the burning of 50-60 Jews in Germany or Switzerland, but the Jews continue to call it the Holocaust. In case you don't know, let me tell you that more than 90% of the Muslims in the world do not know that the Jews receive reparations from Germany and Switzerland for the so-called Holocaust affair. We believe that there was indeed a holocaust, but how many died? 50-60 people? Afterwards, they used it to blackmail these two countries.

So what are we supposed to say in the face of the Gaza holocaust? What compensation will satisfy us? By Allah, we will not be satisfied even if all the Jews are killed.

Palestinian Authority TV hosts held a discussion about the messages of one group on the popular FACEBOOK internet social network, which openly call for Israel's elimination. The group home page called: "Israel" is not a country!... Delete from Facebook as a country!" includes a map of all of Israel marked as "Palestine". Every time Israel is written it appears within quotation marks - "Israel" - and PA TV hosts expressed praise and unreserved support for this hate ideology, saying:

"There is an abundance of information [in the group] about Palestinian history and about the connection of the Palestinian people to this land, which has, of course, been stolen from us. Perhaps this is the most delicate wording we can find: "stolen from us".

"This is a nice development, that we use internet sites for this purpose."

"The beauty of this topic [the internet] is that is should be used to further this cause."

LAS VEGAS, New Mexico (AP) -- Jessie Vigil isn't a police officer, but the car he drives sure makes him look like one.

Vigil painted his 2007 Ford Mustang black and white, added a red-and-blue emergency bar across the top and painted the word "police" on the doors.

The decorating started last summer, in an effort to make the car look like the police cruiser in the "Transformers" movie because his 7-year-old son, Thomas, was a fan.

"My intent was to re-create the movie car," said Vigil, a 35-year-old disabled veteran from the war in Iraq. "When I came back from Iraq, I tried to spoil him. I wasn't the best dad before."

Law enforcement agencies say what he's done with his car isn't illegal as long as he doesn't act like a police officer...

...Vigil did take some liberties with his design. Instead of the familiar slogan "To protect and serve," the car carries the words "To punish and enslave" on the side. Instead of telling people to dial 911 for emergencies, the Mustang advises them to "dial 411 for theater information."

In the United States, the two groups that most ardently support Israel are Jews and evangelical and fundamentalist Christians. Jewish support is easy to explain, but why should certain Christians, most of them politically quite conservative, be so devoted to Israel? There is a second puzzle: despite their support for a Jewish state, evangelical and fundamentalist Christians are disliked by many Jews. And a third: a large fraction of African-Americans are hostile to Israel and critical of Jews, yet Jewish voters regard blacks as their natural allies.

The evidence about evangelical attitudes is clear. In 2006, a Pew survey found that evangelical Christians were more favorable toward Israel than the average American was--and much more sympathetic than either mainline Protestants or secularists. In another survey, evangelical Christians proved much likelier than Catholics, Protestants, or secular types to back Israeli control of Jerusalem, endorse Israeli settlements on the West Bank, and take Israel's side in a Middle Eastern dispute. (Among every religious group, those who are most traditional are most supportive of Israel. The most orthodox Catholics and Protestants, for instance, support Israel more than their modernist colleagues do.)

Evangelical Christians have a high opinion not just of the Jewish state but of Jews as people. That Jewish voters are overwhelmingly liberal doesn't seem to bother evangelicals, despite their own conservative politics. Yet Jews don't return the favor: in one Pew survey, 42 percent of Jewish respondents expressed hostility to evangelicals and fundamentalists. As two scholars from Baruch College have shown, a much smaller fraction--about 16 percent--of the American public has similarly antagonistic feelings toward Christian fundamentalists.

The reason that conservative Christians--opposed to abortion and gay marriage and critical of political liberalism--can feel kindly toward Jewish liberals and support Israel so fervently is rooted in theology...

...In the Jewish neighborhoods, illegal construction typically takes the form of additions to existing legal structures - such as closing a balcony or hollowing out under a building to create an extra room. In the Arab sector, however, illegal construction often takes the form of entire multi-floor buildings with 4 to 25 living units, built with the financial assistance of the Palestinian Authority on land that is not owned by the builder...

• Illegal construction has reached epidemic proportions. A senior Palestinian official boasted that they have built 6,000 homes without permits during the last 4 years, of which less than 200 were demolished by the city.
• This frantic pace of illegal construction continues despite the fact that the city has authorized more than 36,000 permits for new housing units in the Arab sector, more than enough to meet the needs of Arab residents through legal construction until 2020.
• Arab residents who wish to build legally may consult urban plans translated into Arabic for their convenience and receive individual assistance from Arabic-speaking city employees...
• ...Despite frequent accusations that the city's planning policy seeks to "Judaize" Jerusalem, the Arab population of the city has increased since 1967 from 27% to 32%. Moreover, since 1967 new Arab construction has outpaced Jewish construction.

The world's first reusable 3-D screen debuts, thanks to new photorefractive film that can be written on and erased again and again...

...Researchers at the University of Arizona's College of Optical Sciences (OSC) in Tucson, and engineers from Nitto Denko Technical Corporation, in Oceanside, Calif., recently unveiled a prototype of a photorefractive polymer film on which 3-D images can be recorded, erased and replaced with new images. When carried out swiftly enough, this process leads to a series of images on the film that deliver three-dimensional action that can be picked up by the naked eye.

Conventional holograms--such as the silver bird emblazoned on credit cards to verify their authenticity--are static and have no memory. But "imagine a hologram that is dynamic, where the image is changed frequently," says Nasser Peyghambarian, chair of photonics and lasers at the OSC.

The University of Arizona photorefractive polymer is significant for several reasons, says Joseph Perry, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and associate director for photonics at the school's Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics. First of all, he says, it's "updateable"--images can be written, erased and rewritten onto the polymer in much the same way music and video is burned onto CDs or DVDs. "Equally important," he says, is that the researchers were "able to build the display using very basic materials." Dynamic holography has been possible using lithium niobate crystals, but the process of growing these crystals into large display screens is far more difficult and less practical than creating a polymer film...

GAZA, March 12 (Xinhua) -- The Popular Resistance Committee, a group loyal to Hamas, on Wednesday said its fighters have fired three mortar shells on an Israeli commercial crossing point in southeast Gaza Strip.

In a statement sent to the media, the al-Nasser Saladin Brigades, the armed wing of the PRC [Does the PRC actually have an unarmed wing?], said the shells hit Kerem Shalom crossing on the point where Gaza, Egypt and Israel borders meet.

"The Zionist entity admitted the missiles landed on the crossing and claimed they caused no casualties," the statement said...

Following are excerpts from a speech delivered by Hamas MP Fathi Hammad, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on February 29, 2008.

Fathi Hammad: [The enemies of Allah] do not know that the Palestinian people has developed its [methods] of death and death-seeking. For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land. The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahideen and the children. This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: "We desire death like you desire life."

Since the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was founded in June of 1994, the group has worked hard to conceal its true feelings about Hamas. That is, until now. Video footage taken at a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, rally against CAIR reveals its unabashed support for Hamas. If people had questions about CAIR's sympathies before, this should end all debate on the matter...

...Jawhar Sadallah Badran, a Palestinian resident of Deerfield Beach, Florida, has made outrageous statements before. In July of 2006, he told the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, "Hamas and Hezbollah are committing acts of defense against the acts of the Israelis. The only weapons that we have are to strap bombs on our bodies and do whatever damage and destruction we can."

At the time, although he had told the paper that he was not speaking on behalf of any group, Badran was representing the South Florida chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC-South Florida) as its Vice President. [CAIR co-founder and ex-IAP President Rafiq Jaber was also a leader of the ADC.]

Nevertheless, at a March 1, 2008 rally against CAIR's usage of a government-owned facility in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, there was no ambiguity, as Badran made his support for Hamas known. Speaking into a microphone bearing CAIR's name and logo and standing beside a smiling Altaf Ali, the executive director of CAIR-Florida, he clearly and emphatically stated on video: "Hamas is not a terrorist organization."...

...Badran made other pro-Hamas statements at the rally. For instance, he said, "Hamas is a defender of the Palestinian people. That's what Hamas is." In a similar vein, he declared that "Hamas is better than Fatah, because there's no corruption. Hamas takes care of the people." And when asked if he believed a suicide bombing was a terrorist act, he balked on the question and said, "I'm saying that the state of Israel has committed a terrorist act."

Given his associations with extremist groups and given his overtly pro-Hamas stance, it is curious that Badran, too, sits on the diversity committee of the Broward County School Board. On the other hand, given the way that Broward has coddled CAIR over the years, it may very well make sense...

THE SLAUGHTER of eight young yeshiva students and the wounding of nine others by an Arab terrorist in Jerusalem last week was a cold-blooded act of evil. It is difficult to make sense of the depraved fanaticism of someone like Ala Abu Dhaim, who calmly entered the school's busy library, took three guns from a box, and sprayed the room with hundreds of bullets before finally being shot dead by an off-duty military officer and a student who heard the gunfire and came running.

Even more perverse than Abu Dhaim's massacre, however, was the behavior that followed it.

In Gaza, the news that unarmed Jewish kids had been gunned down while at study set off paroxysms of joy. Thousands of jubilant Palestinians whooped it up in Gaza's streets, firing guns in the air to celebrate and distributing candy to passersby. Television cameras recorded the revelry; you can see it for yourself on YouTube.

Hamas, the terror organization that controls Gaza, issued a statement applauding the bloodshed. "We bless the [Jerusalem] operation," it said. "It will not be the last."

Give Hamas this much: It makes no secret of its bloodlust. The same cannot be said of Fatah, the other main faction in the Palestinian Authority. Fatah is headed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, whose polished spokesman, Saeb Erekat, was quick to assure journalists - in English, for Western consumption - that Abbas "reiterated his condemnation of all attacks that target civilians, whether they are Palestinians or Israelis."

Yet just a few days before the yeshiva massacre, Abbas had told the Jordanian daily Al-Dustur - in Arabic, for Arab consumption - that he frowns on terrorist attacks only for tactical reasons "at this time" and that "in the future things may change." He boasted of his long involvement with PLO violence - "I had the honor of firing the first shot in 1965" - and claimed with pride that Fatah "taught resistance to everyone, including Hezbollah, who trained in our military camps."...

A room overcrowded with students and members of the general public burst into applause following Rashid Khalidi's pronouncement that "we owe reparations to the Iraqi people," Tuesday night.

Khalidi, Edward Said professor of Arab studies and director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University, spoke along with Anthony Arnove, author of Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal, at "5 Years of Occupation: U.S. Policy in the Middle East," dissecting the Iraq War and its context in today's world...

...Impromptu or official boycotts of Israeli commercial goods or national sports teams are nothing new. But the assault on words -- merely for being written in Hebrew by writers who happen to carry Israeli passports -- adds a revealing wrinkle to a familiar story...

...At the group's Annual Meeting on June 17, 2007, half the active members were, in effect, expelled. . SDP's leader Ron Francis began the meeting by explaining that there were two classes of SDP membership. He said that only Active Members were allowed to vote for the Board.

In point of fact, SDP bylaws stated that all SDP members are voting members.

Francis then defined Active Members as those working on projects approved by the SDP Board. He excluded members working on a Palestine film series on the ground that the Board had not updated its initial approval of their project.

Finally, he called on all present to state support for the exact wording of the 2004 divestment resolution rejected by the Somerville Aldermen. Those who did not, he pronounced, could no longer be SDP members.

Although the newer members had not even seen this document, they were now suddenly required to take a loyalty oath to it. Henceforth and for the first time, disagreement with any part of this document meant instant exclusion from membership. Thus it became a holy text that could never be challenged...

...The fateful phrase in the 2004 document condemns "armed attacks where civilian casualties are likely." Inclusion of this phrase was supposed to answer accusations that SDP "supports suicide bombers." However, it did not impress the Aldermen in 2004. None of them voted for the divestment proposal.

The expelled SDP members were not calling for endorsement of any sort of violence. Their point was that Americans in SDP are in no position to criticize or give any kind of political advice to people in Palestine. Therefore SDP should not take sides within Israeli politics or among Palestinian political forces...

Bethlehem sources say IDF forces operating in town kill Muhammad Shahade, Islamic Jihad operative believed to be responsible for attack on Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem; three other militants killed in raid

Muhammad Shahade, an Islamic Jihad operative who Palestinian sources say was behind the terror attack in Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem last week, has been killed by IDF forces in Bethlehem Wednesday afternoon, local witnesses reported.

According to reports, another three militants have been killed in the raid, one of them an al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades member.

Military sources said that the four men were responsible for a series of terror attacks against Israel in the years 2000-2001, but did not attribute the Jerusalem attack to Shahade.

Shahade, a former Fatah member and an Islamic Jihad operative, has been known to have extensive ties with Hizbullah...

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) -- The world's first attack aircraft to employ stealth technology is slipping quietly into history.

The inky black, angular, radar-evading F-117, which spent 27 years in the Air Force arsenal secretly patrolling hostile skies from Serbia to Iraq, will be put in mothballs next month in Nevada.

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, which manages the F-117 program, will have an informal, private retirement ceremony Tuesday with military leaders, base employees and representatives from Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

The last F-117s scheduled to fly will leave Holloman on April 21, stop in Palmdale, California, for another retirement ceremony, then arrive on April 22 at their final destination: Tonopah Test Range Airfield in Nevada, where the jet made its first flight in 1981.

The government has no plans to bring the fighter out of retirement, but could do so if necessary...

"I have been warned to shut up. But when Yasser Abdul Said killed those girls he did not just spill Muslim blood on American soil. He shed my blood. I am not going to be quiet. I made a promise at their funerals that I would speak out."

I am talking to Gail Gartrell, the great-aunt of Amina and Sarah Said who were honor murdered by their father, Yasser Said, on New Year's Day, 2008. (I have written about this tragic case before for Pajamas Media.) HERE

As of this writing, Yasser Said has not yet been captured.

The girls were murdered in Irving, Texas, an area with a large Muslim population that is also known to some experts as a place where Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood may be active...

..."It's another face of jihad. These men come here from Egypt, they marry American women in order to become American citizens. The American wives convert to Islam. Then, they have children who are natural-born American citizens--but who are raised to hate America and to want to live under shari'a law. Then, these men expect their teen-age American daughters to marry much older Muslim men from Egypt in arranged marriages. I know that Yasser wanted Amina to marry someone from Egypt."...

...Gail, Connie, Jill, and Joyce are all risking their lives in speaking out. Here's an idea of what they are saying.

That Yasser is probably still hiding out in Texas; that his brothers are hiding him; that Yasser and his brothers may have committed another honor murder in the past. They were allegedly heard plotting to kill their own sister when she threatened to leave her husband; that Yasser beat and sexually assaulted his two daughters; that "Tissie," their mother, both denied and enabled the sexual and physical abuse...

When Greek singer Glykeria performs the song "Shabechi Yerushalaim" in Israel, she receives heavy applause. But recently, when she sang the hit in Greece, the reactions were completely different.

Glykeria is extremely popular in Israel. She performs in the Jewish state and sings in the Hebrew language on a regular basis.

A group of Israeli businesspeople, who were present at a Glykeria gig at a nightclub in Athens last week, sent her a bouquet of flowers and asked her to sing the Hebrew song "Shabechi Yerushalaim." Glykeria accepted.

The performance was held while the IDF was operating in the Gaza Strip. The club was packed, not only with Greek and Israeli fans, but also with a group of Arabs, some of them Palestinians.

As Glykeria started singing the song in Hebrew, the Arab viewers started shouting, whistling out loud and booing in an attempt to stop the show.

"Glykeria was terrified. The Arabs caused a mess, and it was really unpleasant. We felt as if the conflict is chasing us to Athens," said Amnon Angel, one of the businesspeople who watched the show.

According to Angel, the security guards jumped on the Arab viewers and dragged them outside. "They had a lot of hatred in their eyes. They were frantic. We sat there quietly and did not enter any conflicts," Angel said...

..."She is surprised, but not afraid," her husband said. "Glykeria loves Israelis and feels great visiting Israel and singing in Hebrew."

The singer's personal manager, Zion Kedem, confirmed the report, stressing that "nothing will damage Glykeria's love for Israel."...

Since the first rocket fell on Israel on 16 April 2001: 2994
Since the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in August 2005: 2411
Since the Hamas takeover of Gaza in mid-June 2007: 979
This year: from 1 January through 29 Feb. 2008: 498
1-4 March 2008 (tentative): 95

II. Breakdown according to year:

III. Mortar bomb hits during the same period: more than 3000

IV. All of these statistics relate to identified hits in Israeli territory. The total number of rockets launched is about 20% more and includes failed launchings as well as rockets that fell short (inside the Gaza Strip) or in the sea.

V. Grad missiles - during the recent escalation (27 February - 3 March), 23 hits of Grad missiles were identified, most in Ashkelon. Some of them were in the northern part of the city, which was hit for the first time (including Kfar Silver, a youth village north of the city). A Grad missile also hit Netivot, near the grave of Baba Sali. The scope and frequency of launchings of these long-range missiles is unprecedented.

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. Army Air Forces airman, missing since 1942, have been identified and will soon be returned to his family for burial.

He is Aviation Cadet Ernest G. Munn, U.S. Army Air Forces, of St. Clairsville, Ohio. He will be buried in May in Colerain, Ohio.

Representatives from the Army met with Munn's next-of-kin to explain the recovery and identification process, and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the Secretary of the Army.

Munn was one of four men aboard a routine navigation training flight that departed Mather Field, Calif., on Nov. 18, 1942. Their AT-7 Navigator aircraft carried about five hours of fuel, and when the plane did not return to base, a search was initiated. It was suspended about a month later with no results.

Following are excerpts from an interview with Shiite scholar Muhammad Ali Al-Husseini, which aired on ANB TV on March 6, 2008:

Muhammad Ali Al-Husseini: We, as Shiites and Lebanese, have not benefited from this war in any way. Our homes were destroyed, our factories were demolished, we were driven out of our homes, and poverty was forced on us. All this was done without rhyme or reason. The Shiites do not know what the [war's] goals and objectives were, and how we benefited from it. Today, after all the rebuilding that has been done, along comes Hassan Nasrallah again, and says he is ready for another war. I have heard people in South Lebanon ask: "You, Nasrallah, may be ready, but have you asked the people living here if they are ready too?" We have not yet recovered from what happened, we have not yet rebuilt our homes, we have not yet returned to our villages, and life is still not what it used to be. For the past two years, Lebanon has suffered economic, security, and political collapse. Let's be honest. Anyone who wants a war must first ask his partners. He must prepare others, not only himself.

• Around 2004, changes in technology created Web 2.0.[1] As technology adapted, so did online antisemitism. With the new "social web" came a new "social antisemitism." This Antisemitism 2.0 is the use of online social networking and content collaboration to share demonization, conspiracy theories, Holocaust denial, and classical antisemitic motifs with a view to creating social acceptability for such content.
• This phenomenon is spreading antisemitism and acceptability of antisemitism in new and increasingly effective ways. Social pressures are key to understanding Antisemitism 2.0, which is a combination of the technology and the emerging social environment.
• The main threat posed by Web 2.0 to the Jewish people and their supporters is the creation of a culture where antisemitism has social acceptability, particularly among young people, resulting in the lowering of resistance and the establishment of hate networks.
• To challenge Antisemitism 2.0, the Jewish community must as a strategy begin to engage online as an online community made up of individuals and organizations. The community has the talent to combat antisemitism online, but only if it is recognized, trained, funded, and given a shared sense of ownership in the fight against this newest manifestation of antisemitism.

Radical forces in the Middle East have rewritten the international rulebook in a way designed so they can't lose. That is, there is no easy response to their behavior and strategies. Even more worrisome is the widespread failure in the West even to realize this is happening.

Hamas and Hizbullah fire from among civilians and use civilian homes for military purposes; Syria or Iran deploy disinformation; radical regimes pretend moderation, and there are plenty of suckers to take the bait.

Extremism makes many believe that kind words and concessions can transform them; intransigence produces the response that if they won't give up, we must do so...

Mahmoud Abbas's official Palestinian Authority daily newspaper has honored the killer of the eight high school students gunned down this week with the status of Shahid - Holy Islamic Martyr. In so doing, the PA is sending its people a straightforward message of support for the terror murders and the murderer. According to the PA interpretation of Islam, there is no higher status that a human being can achieve today than that of Shahid.

The official PA daily Al Hayat Al Jadida prominently placed a picture of the killer on the front page, with the caption, "The Shahid Alaa Abu D'heim." In a Page One article on the terror killings, his act is again defined as a "Shahada achieving" action.

[See below - a review of religious teachings regarding the supreme status of the Shahid by Palestinian religious leaders on PA (Fatah) television and radio.]

This honoring of terror and terrorists by the PA has significant financial ramifications, particularly at this time. Last week the US Administration sent a request to Congress to allocate $150 million to the Palestinian Authority...

...At issue is whether or not Mr. Abbas has either the capacity or desire to bring Palestinians closer to a peace deal with Israel, and it was his own words that triggered congressional wrath.

In an interview with Jordanian newspaper Al-Dastur last week, Mr. Abbas spoke with pride of violence he had waged in his past, suggested that terrorism could start anew in the future, and essentially backed away from repeated statements that he "recognizes" Israel's right to exist. A top congressional appropriator, Foreign Operations Chairman Nita Lowey, said flatly, "President Abbas' recent statements cast doubt on his willingness to take the steps necessary for peace with Israel."

But Mr. Abbas' comments alone likely would not have sparked this fracas. Just one day after news of the interview shocked key legislators and staffers, who learned of it last Thursday when it was translated into English by watchdog group Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), the administration sent over its request for $150 million in direct cash assistance to Abbas' PA.

"What were they [administration officials] thinking sending over the request the day after Abbas announces he's open to re-starting terrorism and doesn't really recognize Israel's right to exist?" asked one miffed Hill staffer...

"We couldn't have prevented an attack in which the attacker originates from Israel because in east Jerusalem there are Palestinians with blue identity cards (who can move about freely). How many more attacks will we need to go through in order to understand that this is freedom of movement is dangerous?" Knesset Member Dani Yatom rhetorically asked in Beersheba on Saturday.

Yatom addressed Thursday's terrorist attack on the Mercaz Harav seminary in Jerusalem that left eight dead saying: "(Israeli-Arabs) can get to any town in Israel. We must ensure some sort of supervision so those who live in east Jerusalem and have blue identity cards can't cross into Israel without regulation and monitoring.

There must be a division between residents of east and west Jerusalem," the Knesset member emphasized.

He added that someone that supports terrorism should not be granted national insurance allowances. "The terrorist's family should no longer receive national insurance payments," he declared.

Yatom also mentioned the rally that took place last week in Umm al-Fahm in which Israeli-Arabs burned an Israeli flag. He said that whoever burns Israeli flags is basically saying that Israel has no legitimacy and thus "should be punished."...

Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said Saturday night that Israel should create laws allowing for the expulsion of terrorists' families, even if they have Israeli citizenship.

Dichter's statements, part of an increasingly hard-line taken by the former Shabak chief since a Grad-type missile nearly hit his Ashkelon home, came in light of the support in Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods for the terrorist who murdered eight yeshiva students Thursday night.

Arab residents of Jerusalem have been involved in at least 20 percent of terrorist attacks against Israelis, Dichter said Saturday. Israel must find a way to expel terrorists and their families and to prevent them from making use of the freedom of movement granted by an Israeli ID card to harm the state, he said...

...Dichter's seemingly hard-line stance is limited to Arabs from eastern Jerusalem, raising suspicion that it is another way of calling for the division of Jerusalem along demographic lines...

...Palestinians resisting the occupation interpret the message of the rockets as a distress signal of a hurting and wounded community. It is a cry of desperation for help sent to the community of nations to come to their rescue, to lift the Israeli siege, to end their occupation, and to give them freedom. It must be remembered that according to international law, Gaza is still under occupation even after Israel's redeployment...

...It has been 60 years and the cries of the Palestinians have been falling on the deaf ears of the world leaders. Consequently, some Palestinian groups have resorted to violence but their message of need and despair has not been heard. The humanity of the Palestinians has been suppressed and censored. They have been perceived as "terrorists" when in fact they are seeking justice and freedom...

...Those rockets have been a blow to the arrogance and hubris of the Israeli government...

...The problem, laid out in two new studies in the journal Science, is that it takes a lot of land to grow biofuel feedstocks such as corn, and as forests or grasslands are cleared for crops, large amounts of CO2 are released. Diverting land in this fashion also eliminates "carbon sinks," which absorb atmospheric CO2. Bottom line: The government's ethanol mandate will generate a "carbon debt" that will take decades, maybe centuries, to pay off.

Actually, that's not quite the bottom line. Jacking up ethanol production causes other problems, too. Deforestation. Loss of biodiversity. Depletion of aquifers. More ethanol even means more hunger: As more of the US corn crop goes for ethanol, the price of corn has been soaring, a calamity for Third World countries in which corn is a major dietary staple.

Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa bloviates that "everything about ethanol is good, good, good," but it plainly isn't, isn't, isn't. The fate of ethanol, including how much of it is produced, should be determined by the decentralized process of free exchange - by the voluntary interactions of countless consumers and producers, buyers and sellers, each acting according to his best judgment and in his own best interest. Instead, Congress and the president, convinced as always that they know best, imposed a single, inflexible, ham-fisted directive from above. The result is that the carbon dioxide they aimed to reduce will be increased, and many people will suffer unnecessary misfortune...

...The Hamas commander, however, confirmed for the first time that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been training its men in Tehran for more than two years and is currently honing the skills of 150 fighters.

The details he gave suggested that, if anything, Shin Bet has underestimated the extent of Iran's influence on Hamas's increasingly sophisticated tactics and weaponry.

Speaking on the record but withholding his identity as a target of Israeli forces, the commander...said Hamas had been sending fighters to Iran for training in both field tactics and weapons technology since Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza strip of Palestinian territory in 2005. Others go to Syria for more basic training.

"We have sent seven 'courses' of our fighters to Iran," he said. "During each course, the group receives training that he will use to increase our capacity to fight."

The most promising members of each group stay longer for an advanced course and return as trainers themselves, he said.

So far, 150 members of Qassam have passed through training in Tehran, where they study for between 45 days and six months at a closed military base under the command of the elite Revolutionary Guard force...

...According to the commander, a further 650 Hamas fighters have trained in Syria under instructors who learnt their techniques in Iran. Sixty-two are in Syria now.

But what Hamas values most is the knowledge that comes directly from Iran. Some of it was used to devastating effect by the militant group Hezbollah against Israeli forces in Lebanon in 2006...

STATEMENTS MADE DAYS BEFORE HAMAS TERROR ATTACK ON ISRAELI TEENS

(Coral Springs, FL) On Saturday, March 1, 2008, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) expressed its support for Hamas and denied that Hamas was a terrorist organization. The statements were made, during an Americans Against Hate (AAH) rally against CAIR's usage of the Broward County Convention Center, a government-owned facility.

Whilst speaking into a microphone bearing CAIR's name and logo, CAIR-Florida representative Jawhar "Joe" Badran stated clearly on video, "Hamas is not a terrorist organization." At the time, Badran was standing next to the Executive Director of CAIR-Florida Altaf Ali.

Other statements made by Badran at the rally, include: "Hamas is a defender of the Palestinian people. That's what Hamas is." And "Hamas is better than Fatah, because there's no corruption. Hamas takes care of the people."...

...Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas' military wing, confirmed the group was not taking responsibility for the attack -- at least yet.

"There may be a later announcement. ... But we don't claim this honor yet," he said...

B'Tselem severely condemns the Palestinian terror attack that took place in a shcool in Jerusalem, in which 8 Israeli civilians, including 4 minors were killed and many other persons were injured.

Over the past seven years, Palestinian terror attacks in Israel and in the Occupied Territories have killed hundreds and injured thousands of Israeli civilians, among them men, women, and children.

Attacks aimed at civilians are immoral, inhuman, and illegal. Intentional killing of civilians is a grave breach of international humanitarian law and is considered a war crime that can never be justified, whatever the circumstances may be...

..."The lives of Palestinian civilians, who bear no responsibility for yesterday's attack in Jerusalem, should not be put in jeopardy as a result, and the population of the occupied Palestinian territories should not be subjected to further collective punishment by Israeli forces," said Smart.

"The Israeli authorities must adhere to international humanitarian law and human rights standards in any action they take in response to last night's attack, even though that attack demonstrated a disregard for the most fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.

Abuses by one side, no matter how serious, cannot ever justify abuses by the other side,""said Smart.

Al Jazeera has apologised for "offensive" remarks made by a guest during a live debate about the reprinting of cartoons in Denmark said to insult Prophet Muhammad.

In a statement on Wednesday, Al Jazeera expressed its "deepest apologies" for comments made by Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-born US-based academic, which "offended Islam"...

...Protests have raged across the Muslim world since several Danish newspapers recently reprinted a drawing featuring the prophet.

The cartoon, first published in early 2006, caused days of protests worldwide, including in Afghanistan, where 11 people were killed.

Al Jazeera is based in the Gulf state of Qatar.

One medic arrived at the scene as gunfire was still being exchanged.

"The terrorist was shooting at us. We all hide under the cars, under the buses that were here.

"When we got in after the police guys sterilised the place, there was a terrible scene.

"We saw young guys, 15-, 16-year-old guys lying on the floor with their Bibles in their hands, all dead on the floor because the terrorist guys went inside the place and killed those eight or nine young guys who were only here learning in Jerusalem."

'Slaughterhouse'

Yehuda Meshi Zahav, head of the Zaka rescue service, entered the library after the attack.

"The whole building looked like a slaughterhouse," he told the Associated Press news agency. "The floor was covered in blood. The students were in class at the time of the attack.

"The floors are littered with holy books covered in blood."...

The fatalities were named as Yochai Lipschitz, 18, of Jerusalem; Yonatan Yitzchak Eldar, 16, of Shiloh; Yonadav Chaim Hirschfeld, 19, of Kochav Hashahar; Neriah Cohen, 15, of Jerusalem; Roey Roth, 18, of Elkana; Segev Pniel Avihayil, 15, of Neveh Daniel; Avraham David Moses, 16, of Efrat; and Maharata Trunoch, 26, of Ashdod.

...By early morning yesterday FRI the family's compound had been turned into a funeral tent for Abu Idheim with plastic chairs lined up to receive mourners and flags of resistance movements hostile to Israeli flapping in the early spring breeze.

There were the green flags of Hamas, the militant Palestinian group, a yellow one symbolising Hizbollah, the Lebanese shia group, and a single, stark black flag to represent mourning.

Significantly, nobody in the family was willing to answer press questions about Abu Idheim. Normally, the families of suicide bombers speak openly about their dead family member and association with whichever militant group.

Nobody in the Abu Idheim family or his neighbours was willing to speak which suggested his was not a standard terrorist act commissioned by a standard Palestinian militant group...

Abu Abir, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees told Ynet that the terrorist attack at the Jewish seminary in Jerusalem in which six people were killed was a blessed act. "The only way that Israelis will have security is if they get up and leave Palestine. All Palestinians will chase after every last one; we won't leave them space to bury their dead. This is the first of many acts that the Palestinian resistance promised and started to carry out."

The Columbia University Chapter of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East Presents

Anti-Semitism, Holocaust Denial and the Cult of Sacrifice: The Iranian Holy War

Speaker: Matthias Kuentzel, PhD
Location: 301 Uris Hall**
Date: Thursday, March 6, 2008
Time: 6:00 pm

Matthias Kuentzel is a political scientist who lives in Germany. He earned his doctorate, summa cum laude, at the University of Hamburg. He is a research associate at the Vidal Sassoon International Centre for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Since 2001, his research and writing have focused on anti-Semitism in current Islamic thinking, Islamism and National Socialism, German and European policies towards the Middle East, and Iran. His articles have been published in The New Republic, the Wall Street Journal and Internationale Politik. In 2006, he became a member of the Board of Directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.

A year ago, he became a cause celebre in the struggle for academic freedom when his invited presentation, "Hitler's Legacy: Islamic Anti-Semitism in the Middle East," at the University of Leeds (UK) was canceled at the last minute due to "security concerns."

His new book Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11, published by Telos Press, recently won the London Book Festival Prize; it was reviewed in the New York Times Book Review on January 6.

If you cannot attend in person, Click here at 6.00 PM Eastern Time (USA) for Live Streaming of Prof. Küntzel's talk on March 6, 2008.

Or go to www.spme.net

...In order to avoid civilian casualties, Israel sends warning messages before attacking terrorist targets advising civilians to leave. Israel prefers to attack empty buildings used to manufacture rockets, even taking into consideration that the terrorists too will be warned and their lives spared.

Hamas, on the other hand, calls on civilians to come and to protect with their bodies the precise locations they expect Israel to attack. Since they know that Israel will usually strike from the air, they send the children to the roofs to prevent the air force from targeting that building.

During the course of the Israeli operation against terrorists in the Gaza Strip (March 2008), Hamas repeatedly called upon Palestinian civilians to gather near buildings where they feared that the IDF was about to launch air-strikes against Hamas targets hidden within. The purpose of the civilian presence was to have them serve as human shields, exploiting the fact that the IDF avoids harming Palestinian civilians, even if it means aborting attacks on crucial terrorist infrastructure targets.

The following are but a few of the documented examples of calls in the Hamas controlled Gaza media for Palestinians civilians to serve as human shields:...

Two Palestinian terrorists entered the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Kiryat Moshe on Thursday night and opened fire at students inside.

Eyewitnesses said that they saw four people dead, Channel 1 reported.

Magen David Adom has confirmed casualties but the number of wounded was unknown. MDA has confirmed that one of the terrorists was killed...

Six people reported killed in gun battle with terrorist fleeing scene of attack in Kiryat Moshe quarter; one infiltrator killed, said to have been wearing bomb belt

Two terrorists infiltrated a rabbinical seminary at the entrance of Jerusalem and opened fire after nightfall Thursday, police said. At least six people have been reported killed, the ZAKA emergency response service said.

Ambulances raced to the scene from around the city and paramedics confirmed numerous additional casualties. The gunmen entered a dining hall where about 80 people were gathered, witnesses said, and opened fire. "There are at least seven killed and 10 people wounded," said Eli Dein, director of Israel's rescue service.

The seminar is the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in the Kiryat Moshe quarter of Jerusalem, a well-known center of Jewish studies identified with the leadership of the settlement movement. It is home to several hundred students, most aged 18-30.

Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben Ruby said the slain gunman had an explosive belt on his body. "One or two terrorists infiltrated the Mercaz Harav seminary and opened fire in all directions. One terrorist was killed in an exchange of fire, and apparently he had an explosives belt." He said students were being evacuated from the building

Reports indicate police are currently in pursuit of the second terrorist...

In Gaza City, residents went out into the streets and fired rifles in celebration in the air after hearing news of the attack on the seminary.

Following are excerpts from a press conference held by Abu 'Abir, spokesman of Salah Al-Din Brigades in Gaza, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on February 18, 2008:

...We in the Al-Nasser Salah Al-Din Brigades declare, in light of the recurrence of this grave incident, which was permitted by the Jewish, Crusader, infidel Danish authorities:

First of all, we call upon the Islamic nation to rise up, and not make do with a futile economic boycott, in the face of this affront to our honorable Prophet. We call upon them to drive out the Danish embassies and ambassadors from the lands of the Muslims, and to expel them from the Muslim countries. They should take serious and immediate action to burn down the offices of the newspapers that affronted our Prophet, and to bomb them, so that body parts go flying, and with these body parts, Allah will quench the believers' thirst for revenge...

...Fourth, we call upon the Muslims, mujahideen, and monotheists all over the world to pursue any of the pigs who drew or helped publish the offensive cartoon, and to slaughter them immediately on the threshold of the tomb of the Prophet. I love you, oh Prophet of Allah, like I love my father and mother. I swear by Allah if we get our hands on them, we will show them no mercy...

...We call upon Muslims all over the world to bomb the embassies, to kidnap Danish ambassadors, and to kill them on the threshold of the tomb of the Prophet.

Oh nation of Islam, this is our Prophet. This is not about Palestine. You may have sold out the Al-Aqsa Mosque, but will you sell out the Prophet Muhammad too? If you're selling - we're buying. We will sell our souls cheaply to redeem even his honorable shoe, and to redeem the shoe of any Muslim on the face of this Earth...

...Abu 'Abir sets fire to a large flag of Denmark.

...This isn't a standard rebuttal of the apartheid analogy; it's a powerful piece by two black South African writers on why the analogy has come into play within South Africa's domestic politics. Centrally, they make the point that those who suffered directly from apartheid don't buy into the analogy with Israel.

Rhoda Kadalie, the main author, is a former anti-apartheid activist who now works as a newspaper columnist and as director of a non-profit organization in Cape Town...

Dan Rather, Katie Couric, and an Israeli sergeant were all captured by terrorists in Iraq. The leader of the terrorists told them that he would grant them each one last request before they were beheaded.

Dan Rather said, "Well, I'm a Texan, so I'd like one last bowlful of hot spicy chili."

The leader nodded to an underling who left and returned with the chili. Rather ate it all and said, "Now I can die content."

Katie Couric said, "I'm a reporter to the end. I want to take out my tape recorder and describe the scene here and what's about to happen. Maybe someday someone will hear it and know that I was on the job till the end."

The leader directed an aide to hand over the tape recorder and Couric dictated some comments. She then said, "Now I can die happy."

The leader turned and said, "And now , Mr. Israeli tough guy, what is your final wish?" "Kick me in the ass," said the soldier."

...U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), chairwoman of the House's powerful foreign operations subcommittee, wrote Tuesday to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers assistance to the Palestinians, asking it to stop the transfer of $150 million to the Palestinian Authority until it provides certification that the Palestinian Authority has implemented transparency measures.

Lowey also wants clarification of P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas' reported refusal to disavow a return to armed conflict with Israel.

"President Abbas' recent statements cast doubt on his willingness to take the steps necessary for peace with Israel," Lowey said in a statement.

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also sought a "hold" -- with even broader conditions for releasing the money: proof that the Palestinian Authority had halted incitement.

"Statements by Mr. Abbas clearly violate, at minimum, the spirit of U.S. law regarding such hateful rhetoric," she said...

...In all one thousand five hundred years of Muslim history- there have been Caliphates, Dictatorships, Empires, totalitarian states and chaotic free-for-all wars among tribal warlords and not a single democracy and somehow they really think that they are just going to sprout a democracy spontaneously. Right! the Saud family, Ahmadinejad, Abbas, Haniyah, Qaddafi, Assad, Nasrallah, and all the other tin-pot dictators, Imams, Sheiks, fiends and mullahs of the Islamic world are going to just decide one day that since everybody is yearning for democracy its probably a good thing to do and without a word or any sort of help from the western democracies (two hundred thirty two successful years in business here in America alone), will just announce national conventions, write up constitutions and hold elections....

...In seeking to protect the religious rights of the individual (rather than the protection of religious rights based on organizations), as demonstrated by resolution A/HRC/6/L.15/Rev.1's defense of the right to "change one's religion," this resolution provides a clear distinction from the goals of political Islamist organizations and Sharia law. Under Sharia law, the changing of religion (from Islam to another religion) is illegal, and a number of Islamist states have apostasy laws forbidding such an individual choice of religious freedom.

Notably, 15 Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) nations in the UNHRC abstained from voting on this resolution, as they felt this resolution conflicted with the OIC's support for Sharia, which is fundamental to their Islamist view of "human rights", as described in the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam. Pakistan (representing the OIC) urged for an Amendment to this resolution via A/HRC/6/L.49 to eliminate verbiage about the right to change one's religion. Saudi Arabia felt that the resolution "went against Sharia law," and Egypt felt that resolution needed to be applied "within the context of the tenets of Islam."...

Gary Gygax, a pioneer of the imagination who transported a fantasy realm of wizards, goblins and elves onto millions of kitchen tables around the world through the game he helped create, Dungeons & Dragons, died Tuesday at his home in Lake Geneva, Wis. He was 69.

His death was confirmed by his wife, Gail Gygax, who said he had been ailing and had recently suffered an abdominal aneurysm, The Associated Press reported.

As co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, the seminal role-playing game introduced in 1974, Mr. Gygax wielded a cultural influence far broader than his relatively narrow fame among hard-core game enthusiasts.

Before Dungeons & Dragons, a fantasy world was something to be merely read about in the works of authors like J. R. R. Tolkien and Robert Howard. But with Dungeons & Dragons, Mr. Gygax and his collaborator, Dave Arneson, created the first fantasy universe that could actually be inhabited. In that sense, Dungeons & Dragons formed a bridge between the noninteractive world of books and films and the exploding interactive video game industry. It also became a commercial phenomenon, selling an estimated $1 billion in books and equipment. More than 20 million people are estimated to have played the game...

...On Saturday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned Israel for "excessive and disproportionate" use of force. We reject that censure of Israeli actions, as should leaders of all civilized nations. No nation on Earth would sit back passively as a neighbouring territory bombarded its cities with rockets.

It is true that the Palestinians have suffered the bulk of the casualties in the ensuing counterterrorism operations. But such arithmetic does not change the moral calculus: It is not Israel's fault that the Palestinians choose to keep reigniting a lopsided and unwinnable war. Moreover, so long as Palestinians maintain the inhumane and terroristic practise of launching their rockets from civilian areas, Israel is blameless -- under both the letter and spirit of international law -- for the fact that some civilians die alongside the jihadis who deploy among them...

Palestinian officials yesterday said Hamas is receiving millions of dollars from the Gulf state of Qatar, some of which they suspect is used to purchase weapons...

...Palestinian Authority officials, however, said that oil-rich Qatar has been such a staunch supporter and promoter of Hamas -- both financially and politically -- that it is in a unique position to influence the Hamas leadership.

"Qatar gives Hamas millions of dollars a month [on average]," a senior aide to Mr. Abbas told The Washington Times on the sidelines of the Rice-Abbas meetings in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "They say the money is for the people of Gaza, but Hamas steals it, and some of it may be used to buy weapons."

In fact, the aide noted, Qatar has much more money to spare than Syria and Iran, both of which are also strong backers of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

A second Palestinian official said that Qatar has not been shy in declaring its political support for Hamas and that it regularly hosts the group's leaders in the capital, Doha. Qatar also has offered repeatedly to broker a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, this official said...

...The oft-misunderstood "rule of proportionality" is usually cited, wrongly, by the left in critique of Israel's operations against Hamas in Gaza.

One must recognize that the "rule" is, in fact, no rule at all. It is not clearly defined in any statute or treaty. Rather, it can best be described as the resulting synthesis of "customary international law" which is derived from a reading of the ancient Hague Conventions (written in an era when warfare was defined as set-piece battles, conducted by brightly-clad armies amassed on the sunlit fields of Europe) and the 1949 Geneva Conventions which, in part, proscribe armed reprisals against civilians. Sadly, the "rule" is frequently bent or twisted to meet the ends of the particular sophistry at hand...

Hundreds of Arab teens pelted Israeli cars, police and passersby with stones and rocks in east Jerusalem on Monday, as rioting over the violence in Gaza continued in the Arab sections of Jerusalem for the second straight day.

In the most serious incident, two Jerusalem Municipality city inspectors felt in danger of being lynched on a central east Jerusalem thoroughfare that was blocked by burning garbage bins after their car was pelted with dozens of stones and rocks by half a dozen teens, one of whom jumped on the vehicle and beat the window with a metal bar.

The two city workers, who were inside their vehicle when they came under attack, eventually managed to bypass a burning garbage bin that was overturned on the road by driving on the sidewalk and escape to safety.

"I was afraid we were going to be lynched," said city inspector Chaya Elihan...

...Meanwhile, a group of 150 Arab students at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem held a boisterous protest Monday against the IDF operation in the Gaza Strip.

The Arab students who took part in the afternoon protest just outside the main entrance to the university's Mount Scopus campus were met by dozens of Jewish students in a counterprotest opposite the street, with police separating between the two sides.

Carrying Palestinian flags and dressed in keffiyehs, the Arab students chanted the Palestinian liberation slogan: "With our blood and soul we shall liberate Palestine."

"We are part of the Palestinian people and it is impossible to separate us from them," said protester Ali Behar, 23, a third-year student who heads the Arab Students Committee...

...Israeli student protesters, who supported the army's actions in Gaza, expressed their dismay that the university and police allowed such radical Islamic activity on campus.

"We are talking about a group of students who live in the dorms, who study at the expense of the state and in exchange call for the murder of Israelis and support terror," said Erez Tadmor, 28, head of the right-wing student group If You Will It...

The Lebanese Republic is a small, mostly mountainous country in the Western Asia, on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It is bordered by Syria to the north and east, and Palestine to the south. Due to its sectarian diversity, Lebanon follows a special political system, known as confessionalism, to distribute power as evenly as possible among different sects...

...Moreover, the war by Israel against Lebanon in July 2006 was devastating to the economy. A very promising tourist season and strongly resurgent economic activity were interrupted, employment opportunities reduced and unemployment increased...

What can a 19-year-old guy in jogging shorts do at Harvard that a rich Saudi sheik who sponsors terrorism can't?

Get banned from the building.

Six times a week, Harvard kicks all the guys out of the Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center at the request of the Harvard Islamic Society. This is to accommodate those female Muslim students whose faith won't let them work out in front of men.

In the old days, Harvard would have laughed if some Catholic or evangelical mother urged "girls-only" campus workouts in the name of modesty. Today, Harvard happily implements Sharia swim times in the name of Mohammed.

At Harvard, that's called progress.

When I asked Harvard spokesman Bob Mitchell about this new Sharia-friendly policy, he denied that they were banning anyone. "No, no," he told me, "we're permitting women to work out in an environment that accommodates their religion."...

...The flour mill where Marines had been shot at was only a quarter mile away, but the Marines still walked quickly and didn't stop to talk to any Iraqis. They were much more serious and focused than usual. They knew, and I knew, that we were much more likely to be shot at this time.

An Iraqi Police station had just been constructed a few blocks from the mill, and we stopped to pick up some of their officers to take with us. I waited in the front parking lot.

The neighborhood looked terrible: shoddy houses, concrete walls, barbed wire, garbage, and rubble. I snapped a few pictures.

A poor man and his two children saw me point my camera in their general direction and decided to pose for me. They thought I wanted a picture of them. I didn't really, but I took one anyway.

They had an innocent and kind look about them, and I felt bad that they didn't realize that what I was really trying to photograph was their destitute neighborhood. They did not seem ashamed of their humble circumstances.

It would not have surprised me if they had. When I tried to photograph a slum in Cairo near Giza - a slum that was in much worse shape than this one - my taxi driver was embarrassed and implored me to put down my camera. He knew I was a journalist, and he wanted to protect Egypt's dignity...

Southern Strip terminal shut down for security reasons six weeks ago. Some 160 trucks containing humanitarian aid to enter Gaza through three crossings Tuesday

• The Kassam rocket threat started in 2001 and grew when the Palestinian Authority was under Fatah control. Even after the death of Yasser Arafat in November 2004, Kassam rocket fire from Gaza continued under the regime of Mahmoud Abbas. True, Abbas called on Palestinians to stop firing rockets into Israel in 2006, but on the ground, he and the Fatah leadership were either unwilling or unable to halt the Hamas attacks as they increased
• After Israel's disengagement from Gaza, the number of confirmed rocket strikes against Israel increased by more than 500 percent. The 2005 Gaza disengagement provided Hamas with a sense of empowerment and self-confidence that led to a clear-cut escalation in the employment of the rocket capabilities that they had previously acquired.
• The disengagement from Gaza led to the loss of Israeli control over the Philadelphi route between the Gaza Strip and Egyptian Sinai, allowing for a significant increase in the range and quantity of rockets in the Palestinian arsenal. Prior to 2006, the number of Palestinian rocket attacks rarely reached 50 per month. By early 2008, Palestinian organizations displayed a capability of launching 50 rockets per day.
• Israeli security forces recently discovered in the western Negev the remains of a new 175 mm. rocket of Iranian origin that has a range of 26 kilometers. Israeli security sources are also concerned that Iran will try to smuggle its Fajr rockets to Gaza in the future. A 45-kilometer-range Fajr 3, for example, could be smuggled in sections and assembled in Gaza.
• As long as the Philadelphi route is open for Hamas smuggling, the risk to Israel will grow as Iran exports rockets of increasing range to the Gaza Strip. The port of Ashdod is the next likely target, but should Fajr rockets reach Gaza, there is no reason why Hamas cannot pose a threat to Tel Aviv. Control of the launch areas in northern Gaza could significantly reduce the ability of Hamas to harass Sderot and the communities of the western Negev with rocket and mortar fire. The repeated lesson of the last seven years is that only Israel can ultimately be responsible for its own security.

The media are in full-scale propaganda meltdown mode over Israel's military actions against Gaza, excusing and whitewashing Hamas and demonizing Israel for all they're worth, waging a media jihad to defeat Israel in the court of public opinion. It's beyond disgusting...

...According to Israeli spokesman David Baker, "We have over 200,000 Israelis in range of Palestinian rockets. We cannot allow this to go on. These rocket attacks on Israelis are sheer terror, designed to kill or maim as many Israelis as possible." If the attacks do not stop, then by no stretch of the imagination can the Palestinian people be considered ready for peace or even seriously interested in it.

The only way they will stop is if the world finally stops giving the Palestinians a free pass and calls the Palestinian game for what it is. There would be no Israeli strikes if there were no Palestinian aggression. The Palestinians cannot whine about the peace process while continuing to shell Israeli civilians on a daily basis. Yet the world indulges them. So many people believe the myth that the Palestinians are victims, that they are underdogs, that they have no incentive to change their behavior or take any responsibility for their actions. Why should they, when every UN resolution favors their cause, when only Israel and the increasingly isolated United States dare to criticize them openly? When even in the United States many on the political left raise the Palestinian banner?

Those who defend the Palestinians uncritically are enablers of murder. Not just the murder of Israelis, about whom they clearly could hardly care less, but the murder of the Palestinian victims of the Palestinian terrorists. The uncritical Palestinian partisans also share responsibility for the blood of the Palestinians who die in Israeli strikes intended to stop the aggression against Israeli cities. Israel cannot let this go on, while the Palestinians fire more powerful rockets deeper into its territory. These attacks are the only reason for the Israeli strikes. Those who support the Palestinian "resistance" are aiding the provocation that makes these strikes necessary...

...Maazel characterized the concert as a triumph, and speculated that it would "do a great deal for Korean-US relations." But the only clear beneficiary of last week's trip was Kim, whose propagandists will portray a performance by one of the world's preeminent musical ensembles as a gesture of tribute to the Dear Leader. In totalitarian North Korea, as Melanie Kirkpatrick noted in the Wall Street Journal, "the purpose of music, like that of all the arts, is to serve the state."

A few years ago, Maazel composed an opera based on George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four." It was an experience, he says, that sensitized him to the horrors of tyranny - "brutal torture, systematic injustice, contempt for any human dignity." Where was the evidence of that sensitivity during last week's trip to North Korea? Defending the decision to visit one of the planet's most horrendous slave states, Maazel had insisted that "human rights are an issue of profound relevance to us all." But not profound enough, apparently, for Maazel to actually defend them in the presence of North Korea's jailers.

Indeed, while the maestro hasn't hesitated to condemn the United States, he brushes off as mere "errors" the savageries of Kim's regime. "Is our reputation all that clean when it comes to prisoners and the way they are treated?" he demanded in an interview, when asked whether the philharmonic should be making music for a police state. "I think we can . . . stop being judgmental about the errors made by others." Which just goes to show that one can be blessed with perfect pitch yet devoid of moral judgment. At least in that regard, Maazel's decision to program Wagner was only too apt...

PHOENIX - Parents are pulling students out of school. Construction workers are abandoning their jobs. Families are hastily moving out of apartments. more stories like this

Two months after Arizona enacted a law punishing employers who hire illegal immigrants, the law is already achieving one of its goals: Scores of immigrants are fleeing to other states or back to their Latin American homelands.

Gaby Espinoza, who has been unemployed since November, is among those affected. She gave up looking for a job because of the law and might return to Mexico.

Espinoza's husband works here legally, but the law means that employers must ask her for papers...

...The departure of so many students upsets people like Jackie Doerr, who is principal at Andalucia Primary School, which is in a separate district in west Phoenix. She said teachers had made progress teaching English to many of the children. "They have to leave and start all over again. It's just so frustrating when you see how far they have come," she said...

...He's erudite and talks well and smoothly, no doubt about it. In the course of about an hour of conversation, I learned some interesting things about how he does his job. Then we came to the end of our meeting, and he thanked me for making the time to meet. He very politely expressed appreciation that I had decided to share some views with him. And then, with no evident sign of realizing the impact on me, he said he had never met an Israeli victim of terror before. And our meeting was over...

...Perhaps it follows that when you give a man half a job-title, you end up with a half-baked analysis. As a white South African, Dugard might be excused for framing conflicts in terms of the one of which he was part, the one he knows best. But with his one-eye-open, one-eye-closed view of the war of the Jihadists against the Jews, it's inexcusable that he seems to know nothing (to cite just one instance) about the role of Arafat, Fatah and the so-called fedayeen at a time (1966 for example) when the total size of the territory he calls "Israeli-occupied" was zero.

If we're wrong, and if Dugard really does know about those matters, about the role they played and play today, about the deep roots of hatred and of jihadism and of terrorism by Arabs in this ongoing war against Israelis and Jews, then his fatuous, simplistic wrap-up and resort to a discredited "root cause" is a disgrace to him and to those who gave him the job.