February 2009 Archives

The Obama administration has decided to boycott the so-called Durban II conference out of concerns for anti-Semitism.

Multiple sources on a conference call with the White House on Friday told JTA that the Obama administration had opted not to attend any further preparatory meetings ahead of the planned U.N. conference against racism in Geneva in April.

The conference reprises the 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa that devolved into an anti-Jewish free-for-all. Canada and Israel have opted not to attend the conference, and some U.S. Jewish groups had been pressing the United States to do the same.

Preparations for a draft document so far have seen Iran leading a coterie of nations blocking inclusion of anything that might guarantee Jewish protections - including mention of the Holocaust - while inserting draconian language guarding Islam against "insult."

The State Department sent a delegation, including a senior staffer from the American Jewish Committee, to this month's preparatory talks. The delegation's conclusions were that the anti-Israel and anti-Western tendencies were too deeply entrenched to excise.

Now that the United States is withdrawing from the conference, European nations are expected to follow...

I am extremely pleased to announce the appointment of Michele Moody-Adams as the next Dean of Columbia College and Vice President for Undergraduate Education. She comes to Columbia from Cornell University where she is the Hutchinson Professor and Director of the Program on Ethics and Public Life, and has served for the past four years as Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. As an administrator, she has been responsible for ensuring the integrity and coherence of undergraduate curriculum and instruction at Cornell and overseeing a number of academic and residential initiatives...

Less than half a day after members of Cornell community peppered the Arts Quad with flags and signs protesting the war in Gaza, those same signs lay in a heap inside the Green Dragon Café. Around 2 p.m., as the 1,300 black flags -- signifying each Palestinian and Israeli who died in the attacks -- blew in the February breeze, the accompanying signs were destroyed, stolen and discarded.

The signs, which contained quotes from Amnesty International and the United Nations, were meant to inform students about the attacks in Gaza. The exhibit coincided with a fundraiser organized by the Islamic Alliance for Justice, a group that seeks to raise awareness of local and global current events while giving voice to the Muslim community. The IAJ distributed quartercards to raise funds for Mercy Corp, an international humanitarian aid organization...

...Munir maintains that the IAJ had approval to place the signs on the Arts Quad. The demonstration was co-sponsored by Dean of Students Kent Hubbell '67, Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education Michelle Moody Adams, the Alice Cook House and a number of professors...

...it is clear that officialdom is turning a blind eye to such marriages.

A recent review by four Government departments - the Treasury, the Work and Pensions Department, the Inland Revenue and the Home Office - has concluded that 1,000 men in the United Kingdom are now polygamists, although some say the figure is higher.

What is more, the review found, a Muslim man can claim state support of more than £10,000 a year to keep his wives, if the wedding took place in one of those countries where polygamy is commonplace, such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia and across huge tracts of Africa.

For example, a man can receive &£92.80 a week in income support for wife number one, and a further £33.65p for each of his subsequent spouses.

Therefore, if he has four wives - the maximum permitted under Islamic teachings - he can claim nearly £800 a month from the British taxpayer.

Controversially, a polygamist is also entitled to more generous housing benefits and bigger council houses to reflect the large size of his family. He is also able to claim £1,000 a year in child benefit for each of his growing brood...

Following are excerpts from a speech delivered by Egyptian cleric Ahmad Abd Al-Salam, which aired on Al-Nas TV on January 28, 2009.

...Ahmad Abd Al-Salam: "The Jews 'will not fail to corrupt' the believers. What does this mean? The Jews are never remiss - they invest their utmost efforts, day and night, in conspiring how to corrupt the Islamic nation, the nation led by the Prophet Muhammad.

"I want you, Muslim viewers, to imagine the Jews sitting around a table, conspiring how to corrupt the Muslims, and how to destroy their worldly and religious affairs. The Jews 'will not fail to corrupt you,' and this is why we hate them."...

"The Jews conspire day and night to destroy the Muslims' worldly and religious affairs. The Jews conspire to destroy the economy of the Muslims. The Jews conspire to infect the food of the Muslims with cancer. It is the Jews who infect food with cancer and ship it to Muslim countries."...

Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian cleric Zaghloul Al-Naggar, which aired on Al-Rahma TV on January 6, 2009. ...

...The West wanted to avenge its defeat in the Crusades, so it gathered these dispersed [Jewish] communities - the scum of the earth and garbage of the nations - and planted them in the heart of the Arab world, thus saying to us: 'We've returned, after you drove us out of this blessed land.'

"The Jews used to live a life of squalor and humiliation, and were fought and persecuted in Europe and the whole world. I lived in Britain from the early 1960s, and many stores and restaurants still had a 'no dogs, no Jews' sign. The Jews wanted to escape the humiliation imposed on them by the West, and to shift it to the Arab nation. In this case, two goals coincided: The Jews' goal was to have a state, which would protect them from their humiliation all over the world, and the goal of the West was to avenge its defeat in the Crusades, by returning to the region...

..."The Jews have never been faithful to agreements."

Interviewer: "Right."

Zaghloul Al-Naggar: "That is how they are described in the Koran. They are not faithful to treaties or agreements. They depend upon American and Western aid. We - the Arab states, governments, and officials - made a huge mistake in dealing with this as a political issue, when it is, in fact, a religious issue."

Interviewer: "An issue of faith."

Zaghloul Al-Naggar: "The Prophet Muhammad said: 'If [the enemy] treads upon even an inch of Muslim land, Jihad becomes a duty, and a child should set out on Jihad even without his parents' permission, a wife without her husband's permission, and a slave without his master's permission.'"

Interviewer: "So are you calling to wage Jihad?"

Zaghloul Al-Naggar: "Absolutely. There is no solution..."

Interviewer: "But who has the right to declare Jihad?"

Zaghloul Al-Naggar: "Let me be clear. Jihad is the only way to resolve this issue. With the Jews, one cannot achieve anything by means of peace, or a settlement, or open borders, or diplomatic and commercial ties. They are devils in human form. Many people think that Judaism is a religion, but today's Jews are not really Jews, and have nothing to do with Moses and the Torah. They are a gang of evil thieves who stole this land. By nature, a thief who knows he has no right to the land imposes his presence by means of force, by bloodshed, by excessive massacres, by excessive killings, and by destruction, in order to prove that he has rights in this region."

Interviewer: "True."...

"I have come to warn you of a great threat. Free speech is no longer a given, we must now battle for our birthright. We are looking at the end of democracy, the slavery of women, the death of gays. While there might be moderate Muslims, there is no such thing as moderate Islam. Islam is not a religion, it is a political and totalitarian ideology."

Some would say that these are fighting words.

Indeed, Dutch parliamentarian, Geert Wilders, is fighting for Western liberty and Western values, as rooted in the legacies of "Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem." This is the legacy he wishes to leave the "children of Europe," as opposed to the legacy of "Mecca and Gaza." Wilders is fighting for us all, his fight is our fight. As he said earlier today, "it is not about (him) but about Free Speech." Today he may be a "criminal, tomorrow, anyone of us might be considered a criminal too," for telling the truth about the danger that Islam poses to Western democracy. "Today I may be put behind bars. I am not the issue. Will free speech be put behind bars?"

"It is not 8:55pm. It is 11:55pm. We will lose everything."...

Dutch protesters threw shoes at a Israeli reservist soldier during a speech in Amsterdam.

Ron Edelheit was speaking at a Women's International Zionist Organization event Sunday at an Amsterdam hotel while on a visit to his mother. The event had changed locations due to threats. Some 50 demonstrators protested outside the venue.

Edelheit, who holds dual Israeli and Dutch citizenship, had just begun speaking when three youths stood up and threw four shoes at him. Two hit him on the legs. The reservist filed charges against the three youths.

"Today it's a shoe, tomorrow a knife," Edelheit told the Jerusalem Post.

Edelheit was scheduled to speak next in Belgium.

Earlier this month, Israel's ambassador to Sweden, Benny Dagan, was hit by a shoe during a presentation at Stockholm University...

New York University suspended dozens of students who barricaded themselves in a dining hall with demands that included the school support the residents of Gaza.

About 70 members of Take Baacck NYU, the group behind the demonstration, barricaded themselves inside the Kimmel Student Center with a megaphone and a list of demands starting on the night of Feb. 18.

The last protesters left the building on the afternoon of Feb. 20, apparently after agreeing to leave on promises from university officials to begin negotiations. Scuffles reportedly broke out early that morning as hundreds of students gathered outside the student center banging drums and chanting in support of those inside. One person was arrested for disorderly conduct.

Devitt said protesters broke a door lock and injured a security officer.

Their demands included that the university give 13 scholarships to students from Gaza and donate surplus supplies to the Islamic University of Gaza, which was damaged by airstrikes during last month's Israeli offensive against Hamas.

University officials did not accede to any of the group's demands, which also included calls for student representation on the school's board of trustees and greater disclosure of budgets and endowment investments.

...San Francisco State University is not far behind [UC Irvine] in the ignoble way it has enabled its Muslim students' organizations to create a veritable reign of terror on campus against Jewish and pro-Israel students, while simultaneously attempting to silence voices of opposition, a situation made evident this January when SFSU's College Republicans were once again pushed into the limelight for their outspoken challenges to the school's ubiquitous Palestinianism.

Playing off the recent indignity suffered by former president Bush when an insolent reporter hurled a shoe at the President's head during a press conference, the College Republicans had set up a booth to let students who so wished to sign an anti-Hamas, anti-terror petition and throw a shoe at a Hamas flag. Deeply "offended" by the Republicans for daring to condemn terrorists, rather than the Israeli state in defending its civilians from genocidal attack, members of SFSU's General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) and socialist club overturned the table, seized the Hamas flag, and were physically aggressive enough in their assault of the Republican students to result in two of their members, Muhammad Abdullah and Jeremy Stern, being put under arrest...

...in the morally-inverted world of academia, the Republican group, for the third time, find themselves the target of punishment and censure, not their attackers...

...Not content to mount their own vile protests against Zionism, Jews, and Israel, the pro-Palestinian student groups took it upon themselves the following month [in 2002] to disrupt a vigil for Holocaust Remembrance Day where some 30 Jewish students who were reciting the Mourners' Kaddish -- the Jewish prayer for the dead -- were shouted down by protesters who countered with grisly prayers in memory of Palestinian suicide bombers. The pro-Palestinian counter-demonstrators, armed with whistles and bull horns, physically assaulted the Jewish students, spat on them, and screamed such charming epithets as "Too bad Hitler didn't finish the job," "Get out or we will kill you," "F**k the Jews," "Die racist pigs," and "Go back to Russia, Jews." The violence escalated to the extent that San Francisco police officers finally had to usher the Jewish students to safety off campus...

Chas Freeman, reportedly nominated to head the National Intelligence Council preparing finished National Intelligence Estimates for President Obama, acknowledged in 2006 that the $1 million donation to his Middle East Policy Council that he received from "the generosity of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia" was for public relations in the United States. He said in an interview with the Saudi-U.S. Relations Information Service, "Frankly, I'm delighted that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has, after a long delay, begun to make serious public relations efforts. ...I am hopeful that we can put this effort on a sustainable long-term basis." Below are excerpts of his interview.

Additional research should be done regarding his business dealings as Chairman of Projects International, a for-profit firm he has headed since 1995. According to the Projects International website, "He is active in supporting Projects International's clients in all these regions of the world today," including the Middle East...

Richard, you can count me in as a non-Jewish supporter who regularly voices his ardent, pro-Israel positions. Not only am I politically center-left, but I'm not even religiously right wing (I was baptized, but do not count myself as a Christian)-and that makes me rare. I feel comfortable stating that I am vastly more "pro-Israel" than even most of my Jewish friends-except those in Israel-and I have quite a few.

Basically, it comes down to what I believe is a suicidal betrayal of our own value system. To morally support those who are so diametrically-violently-opposed to our way of life and all that we consider civilized is nothing short of insanity. Particularly so when we invoke those civilized values as the very basis for our condemnation of the side which shares and is trying to defend them.

I didn't start out thinking this way, though. I might have if I'd met Richard before my senior year at Boston University, and knew that he was interested in this subject, not to mention Jewish (I took one course from him called "Reading in History" which was designed to teach critical thinking. Based on one particularly good quip he lobbed at me, I actually thought he was Catholic! We never discussed Israel and I didn't see him again until a few years after I had graduated.)

I majored in history and focused all my courses on the Middle East and international relations. I won't say I swallowed everything from the accepted discourse-hook line and sinker-but I'm fairly confident that I'd made some crude comparisons between the treatment/genocide of Native Americans and the Jewish fight for existence in Israel. I remember regularly battling what I perceived as right-wing jewish extremists on NYTimes Mideast forums. I'm quite sure that I did not understand anything of the real Arab-Muslim motives. I thought the conflict was about land, at least primarily, exacerbated by Israeli mistakes and maintained through an endless cycle of violence etc. etc... you know the cliches.

Having been awed by the film Lawrence of Arab when I was 12, I was particularly enamored with Arab-Muslim culture and I wanted to study in an Arab country for my last semester. As it turns out, the only program B.U. had in the Middle East was in Israel. I took the opportunity, thinking that I'd at least be able to use it as a launching pad to see other parts of the region.

By the time I had come back from 6 months in Israel and a few weeks worth of travels through Jordan and Egypt, I had an Israeli flag in my bag. Over the course of my brief studies and travel there, I came to realize that 1) contrary to popular belief, the Israeli "side of the story" was not being taught in university and 2) The most important factors at work in the conflict-the fundamentally, existentially important factors-were virtually unknown to most outside observers and commentators. I'm talking about things like the deceptive, existential threat posed by "right-of-return" advocacy, among others. I took a class at Haifa U. from Dan Schueftan (sp?), who introduced me to a rather blunt, but realist point of view. In his class I read Dan Kurzman's Genesis 1948-a real eye opener that exposed me to a more realistic and factually based narrative of Israel's birth (not framed as just another example of whites pushing out the Indians). It all started really coming together for me when I rode on a bus by a bunch of IDF activity on the Dead Sea. I didn't know what it was until I saw the news that night, where it was explained that the IDF has found a large cache of weapons which had been floated across the sea from Jordan under cover of darkness. I wasn't shocked or scared by it, but I did realize how persistent Israel's enemies are, and how little the Jewish nation can afford to let down its guard.

Compounding all of these observations were my impressions of the incredible chasm between Arab and Israeli culture. In the accepted Western discourse it is often assumed that Palestinians, indeed Israel's neighbors, are poor and "backward" because of hardships imposed on them by imperialist or otherwise unfortunate Western politics. It's not voiced so blatantly, but Israel and the West are usually assumed to be culpable in some fashion. I was SHOCKED at how effective Israeli society was and how fundamentally broken Arab society was-at least by my American standards. In Cairo I witnessed disorder, disrepair, and lots of trash. It was the trash that really got me, because no one seemed to care. Giant piles of it rising up to the second story outside apartment buildings. Dead donkeys-partially decayed-lying in the street or near canals connected to their only source of water: the Nile. Children stomping though junk and trash, no less under the supervision of their parents or uncles, and near the Pyramids of Giza at that. I saw inefficiency everywhere: the lack of trash pickup, the apathetic behavior of bureaucrats at the borders, the number of times people tried to scam me out of my money, the lack of traffic regulation despite an overbearing police presence, the way everyone seemed so resigned to the will of Allah, the extreme number of men who were not working, rather residing at cafes while "their" women worked-a great many of them apparently at home.... etc. etc. I remember being blown away by all this because, for the first time, I realized that culture is something more than just a cool affectation. It really matters and it can make or break your society. Upon my return to Israel I suffered a kind of reverse culture shock. It wasn't Germany, but it close to the opposite of Arab. And in the wake of this epiphany, I also realized that it was highly likely they "did it" to themselves. After that, it was about jealousy (I didn't know about honor-shame then, but I was starting to smell it).

After that semester in Israel I graduated, worked for a year, and finally became an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy. All my subsequent experience, personally and professionally, has basically confirmed that I was right to reverse my original perspective. Last year I wrote a 300 page thesis on how it is that people, indeed whole societies, have come to believe what they do about Israel, that is, how it is that there are so many strongly held and poorly founded believes about the conflict. I describe it as "cognitive warfare" and feel passionately enough about it myself-I'm trying to get it published.

So there is your explanation. Probably more than you were looking for!

Remember Ionesco's "Rhinoceros"? Written in the late 1950s, the play describes the transformation of a quiet, peaceful town into anarchy when one after another of its residents is transformed into a lumbering, thick-skinned brute. Only Berenger, a stand-in for the playwright, tries to hold out against the collective rush into rhinocerism.

First, the townspeople notice a stray rhinoceros rumbling down the street. No one takes a great deal of notice -- "It made a lot of dust." "Stupid quadruped not worth talking about" -- although it does trample one woman's cat.

Before long, an ethical debate develops over the rhino way of life vs. the human way of life. "Why not just leave them alone," a friend advises Berenger. "You get used to it." The debate is quickly muted into blind acceptance of the rhino ethic, the entire town is joining the marching herd, and Berenger finds himself alone, partly resisting, partly enjoying the uncontrolled sounds coming out his own throat: "Honk, Honk, Honk".

These sounds from Ionesco's play echoed in my ears on Jan. 22, when an e-mail from a colleague at Indiana University asked: "Being at UCLA, you must know about this symposium ... pretty bad." Attached to it was Roberta Seid's report on the now famous "Human Rights and Gaza" symposium held a day earlier at UCLA (see "UCLA Symposium on Gaza Ignites Strong Criticism," Jewish Journal, Feb. 11, 2009). [Also, StandWithUs]

To refresh readers' memory, this symposium, organized by UCLA's Center for Near East Studies (CNES), was billed as a discussion of human rights in Gaza. Instead, the director of the center, Susan Slyomovics, invited four longtime demonizers of Israel for a panel that Seid describes as a reenactment of a "1920 Munich beer hall." Not only did the panelists portray Hamas as a guiltless, peace-seeking, unjustly provoked organization, they also bashed Israel, her motives, her character, her birth and conception and led the excited audience into chanting "Zionism is Nazism," "F---, f--- Israel," in the best tradition of rhino liturgy...

President Obama in one of his first actions in office ordered the closure of the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay. He also ordered an in-depth study of the prison camps to decipher whether the terrorists and alleged terrorists at Gitmo are properly treated and that U.S. troops are abiding by the Geneva Conventions.

The report, part of which was leaked today, shows that Gitmo "complies with the humanitarian requirements of the Geneva conventions" and that the prisoners are treated with dignity. A Pentagon official, who spoke anonymously, said that it showed that the Bush administration created a humane detention camp that has been unfairly characterized by critics. Speaking of the remaining 245 detainees there, this official said the report underscored that if the men are moved, they may "go from a humane environment to a less humane environment," according to the New York Times.

Well, well, well. As we at Move America Forward have been saying, President Obama has stepped in it. He has no plans for these dangerous beasts and, un til he ordered his Attorney General to visit gitmo, he had made no efforts to know the truth about what happens at the state0-of-the art prison...

A former ambassador to Saudi Arabia with a history as a critic of Israel will reportedly be named to a top intelligence post in the Obama administration.

ForeignPolicy.com reported Thursday that Chas W Freeman Jr., who served as U.S. ambassador to the Saudi kingdom from 1989-1992 and is currently the president of the Middle East Policy Council, will be the chairman of the National Intelligence Council, which plays the leading role in producing national intelligence estimates. The publication reported Freeman has told associates that in the role, he would occasionally accompany director of national intelligence Adm. Dennis Blair to give the president his daily intelligence briefing...

...In sum, what KLD found was that of the fund's 455 holdings, well over 200 raised significant concerns relative to Hampshire College's socially responsible investment policy and were in violation of values of socially responsible investing. It was on this basis that the investment committee voted as it did to exit from the fund when an alternative fund has been identified. The decision was entirely unrelated to Israel or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In fact, two of the six companies originally cited by students as problematic were given a clean bill of health on Hampshire's policy by the KLD screeners (and a third, it turned out, was not even listed as a constituent of the fund).

At the risk of repetition, let us emphasize again that this review did not include Israel, its interaction with the Palestinians, nor its presence on the West Bank as tests for the stocks in this fund. Moreover, Hampshire currently holds investments in funds that include many hundreds of companies that do business in Israel and in at least three actual Israeli companies: Amdocs, Teva Pharmaceuticals and Check Point Software...

...Sadly, though, there have been students and some members of our faculty who have mischaracterized what happened here, claiming that the board did something that it did not do. None is a member of the investment committee. We have great respect for our students and encourage their endeavors - academic, social, political. We very much want our campus to be a place for learning and for healthy debate from all points of view. But we are also clear, and urge you to understand us clearly, when we say that students do not speak for the college and may not willfully misrepresent the school. It will be, and must be, the college's task to undertake any disciplinary action, according to its established rules and procedures. Discipline is an internal process that is not shared with the public...

The Madoff scheme devastated Jewish finances. But even more devastating, though less widely acknowledged, are the losses stemming from a different Ponzi setup -- a communal strategy which sent Jewish political capital down a rat hole.

The scheme: for decades, Jews have worked, lobbied and organized for non-Jewish, universalist causes with determination, skill and passion. In return, Jews expected that all this "investment" in the welfare of others would build up 'goodwill' credits. Instead, the recipients of and witnesses to Jewish beneficence simply took the goods and ran.

Jews played a leading role in ending segregation and discrimination against Blacks, yet polls show anti-Semitism is at its highest levels in the African-American community. Jews partnered with mainstream churches for decades - lobbying against racism, for unions, for rent control, for welfare, for higher taxes - yet many church leaders have turned vehemently against the Jewish state and led divestment campaigns against Israel. Jews helped lead the fight for gender equality, yet the feminist Ms. Magazine refused an ad celebrating Israeli women's empowerment because significant numbers of its readers are hostile to Israel. Jews are at the forefront of gay rights, yet while there's a group called "Gays for Palestine" (let them hold that sign in Ramallah and see what happens!), no American gay group that I know protests the brutalities against gays in Islamic countries.

The meltdown of Jewish political capital is painful to see. In Boston, last year, the Old South Church, with which our JCRC has had extensive social justice partnerships, hosted a two day Israel hate-fest, featuring Desmond Tutu proclaiming that "Israel is Apartheid." Like the Madoff victims, the JCRC, to its dismay, found its decades-old "investment" had simply vanished.

Of course the primary reason Jews advocate for social causes is that they themselves were so often the victim of bigotry and oppression. Simple justice, lessons learned, heartfelt sympathy and moral obligation drive this benevolent impulse.

But everyone assumed that doing things for others would also bring Jews credit - which they could count on for that rainy day when Jews again might be in danger. Well, it's raining: Today, Islamist Jew-hatred poses dire threats to Jews everywhere and in Europe, Jews are spat upon and their buildings set aflame. And yet there's hardly a peep from any "progressive" partner or the recipients of Jewish good will, hard work and generous donations. Instead they're angry when Israelis defend themselves.

Strangely, unlike Madoff's victims, many Jews stung by what I'd call this "Tikkunista boondoggle" are reacting as though being duped in this way just doesn't matter. Why?

Because rejection by these groups in which Jews invested so much of themselves feels worse than losing money: it is a wound to the heart. The Jews have been jilted. Right now, they're in denial. Perhaps there's a grieving process that could get them past their useless fantasies into a healthy, self-respecting righteous fury.

We need a communal therapy: leaders who would develop a rational analysis of this failed "investment" strategy. And then create one that works.

The Biden prophecy has come to pass. Our wacky veep, momentarily inspired, had predicted last October that "it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama."

Biden probably had in mind an eve-of-the-apocalypse drama like the Cuban Missile Crisis. Instead, Obama's challenges have come in smaller bites. Some are deliberate threats to U.S. interests, others mere probes to ascertain whether the new president has any spine.

Preliminary X-rays aren't encouraging...

Joel Kovel -- one of the more outspoken professorial critics of Israel on American college campuses -- is out of his job at Bard College. This week Kovel sent a letter to all Bard faculty members denouncing the way he has been treated and charging that his politics cost him the position.

Others suggest, however, that Kovel was treated the way many non-tenured professors are being treated these days as colleges retrench -- and that mixed student reviews of his organizational skills in the classroom may have hurt him more than his politics.

And while the college is generally avoiding comment, some at Bard are angry at Kovel's accusations that appear to link Israel's treatment of Gaza with the college's treatment of him.

His faculty letter concluded this way: "If the world stands outraged at Israeli aggression in Gaza, it should also be outraged at institutions in the United States that grant Israel impunity. In my view, Bard College is one such institution. It has suppressed critical engagement with Israel and Zionism, and therefore has enabled abuses such as have occurred and are occurring in Gaza. This notion is of course, not just descriptive of a place like Bard. It is also the context within which the critic of such a place and the Zionist ideology it enables becomes marginalized, and then removed."

Kovel stands out among academic critics of Israel in that he does not just criticize actions of the government there, or advocate for a Palestinian state, but argues for the replacement of Israel with a secular state for Israelis and Palestinians. In interviews, he has called Israel an "abomination" and said that he understands "the desire to smash Zionism." His book Overcoming Zionism set off a controversy last year when its American distributor -- the University of Michigan Press -- temporarily halted sales, and then ended its relationship with Pluto Press, the publisher.

In his letter, Kovel argues that his position at Bard deteriorated as his opposition to Zionism grew and became more public. He cites his various public statements as well as the links of Bard's president, Leon Botstein, to Israel. Botstein is musical director of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, and Kovel's letter cites as problematic a visit by the orchestra to Bard's campus in which the national anthems of the United States and Israel were played. (While Bard does have ties to Israel, it notably has ties to Palestinian higher ed that may be deeper than those of most institutions, just this week announcing a series of joint programs with Al Quds University.)...

...Kovel has taught at Bard since 1988, first holding the Alger Hiss Chair of Social Studies, and later moving to a part-time professorship...

There is a serious omission in Jaschik's treatment of my being terminated at Bard College. He correctly states that the findings of the College Evaluation Committee were instrumental in Bard's decision to let me go. However, he fails to mention that a central aspect of my complaint is that this committee was improperly constituted, in that at least one of its members was heavily involved in Zionist politics, and indeed worked on matters about which I had taken a very public, anti-Zionist stand. The Faculty Handbook of Bard states clearly that such an evaluator should recuse himself, which was not done. Therefore the findings on the basis of which I am to be let go, are to be considered bogus. The reader is urged to follow the evolution of this matter.

...The necessary yet absent component of any deal must be the acceptance of liberal democratic principles by all parties - no matter how many states solutions (one, two, or three) are in the mix. This should be a necessary precondition which must be accepted by all participating parties in any peace talks, and until this is achieved, the best scenario will continue to be only temporary alleviation of fighting, while, at worst, wars will continue to break out.

Israel remains the lone liberal democracy in the Middle East (though Iraq is making progress). Its minorities, including its 1,100,000 Arab citizens, enjoy the same protection under the law as the Jewish majority; its irrepressibly noisy citizens are free to say whatever they wish in politics and in the press; the government is not just elected, but political candidates are selected through elaborate primary systems - not through violence, foreign influence or coercion. Because Israelis have accepted liberal democratic principles both in the way they govern and in their cultural mores, they respect the lives of fellow citizens in a way that increases their readiness for peace...

Tony Blair will receive a $1 million prize in part for his efforts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

Tel Aviv University announced the recipients of the international Dan David Prize, which annually makes three awards for outstanding achievement in the categories of Past, Present and Future Time Dimensions.

Blair, the former British prime minister, was awarded the prize in the Present Leadership category "for his exceptional leadership and steadfast determination in helping to engineer agreements and forge lasting solutions to areas in conflict."...

Geert Wilders to speak at

Ahavath Torah Congregation
1179 Central St
Stoughton, MA 02072

February 25, 2009
6:30pm-7:30pm

Controversial Dutch lawmaker and filmmaker Geert Wilders, banned last week from setting foot on British soil, will appear at Ahavath Torah Congregation on February 25th, 2009 from 6:30-7:30pm.

Mr. Wilders, a current member of the Dutch Parliament, is currently facing prosecution in his homeland for his outspoken criticism of radical Islam. For anyone who is interested in discussing the defense of Western Civilization, freedom of speech and the free exchange of ideas and liberty, Mr. Wilders' case should provoke serious thought and attention.

Mr Wilders will present his film Fitna which he describes as "a call to shake off the creeping tyranny of Islamization". Following the viewing of the film (approximately 15 minutes) Mr Wilders will conduct an open dialog with the audience.

The practice of Islamist Law Fare (also known as Legal Jihad) is equally as dangerous to our liberty and freedom as a hijacked airplane or a suicide bomber, according to Mr. Wilders. Islamists are increasingly using this method of predatory lawsuits to silence free speech around the globe. Though often inconspicuous in media coverage, the results are clear and powerful examples of chilling 1st Amendment rights and bankrupting defendants. Free speech is either allowed to live, or it is stifled one ruling and one country at a time.

Mr. Wilders' visit to Ahavath Torah Congregation is sponsored by the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Middle East Forum's Legal Project which is currently raising funds for Mr. Wilders' legal defense.

Admission is free and open to the public. Donations are welcome. Such checks may be made payable to the Middle East Forum and will be collected during the event.

The prosecution demanded the death sentence today for the Yemeni Muslim who has boasted of killing a Jewish compatriot north of the capital Sanaa late last year.

The court set March 2 as the date for its verdict against Abdul Aziz Yahya al-Abdi, 39, who admitted in December to shooting dead Masha Yaeish al-Nahari in the town of Raydah in Amran province.

Abdi, peering from the dock into the court through an iron gate, showed no remorse for his actions and repeatedly interrupted the prosecutor during the hearing to renew his confession.

The former air force pilot has repeatedly said he carried out the murder after warning Yemeni Jews that he would kill them unless they converted to Islam...

Four weeks after the cessation of Operation Cast Lead, the IDF finally opened its dossier on Palestinian fatalities on Sunday for the first time, and presented to The Jerusalem Post an overview utterly at odds with the Palestinian figures that have hitherto formed the basis for assessing the conflict.

While the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, whose death toll figures have been widely cited, reports that 895 Gaza civilians were killed in the fighting, amounting to more than two-thirds of all fatalities, the IDF figures shown to the Post on Sunday put the civilian death toll at no higher than a third of the total.

The international community had been given a vastly distorted impression of the death toll because of "false reporting" by Hamas, said Col. Moshe Levi, the head of the IDF's Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA), which compiled the IDF figures.

As an example of such distortion, he cited the incident near a UN school in Jabalya on January 6, in which initial Palestinian reports falsely claimed IDF shells had hit the school and killed 40 or more people, many of them civilians.

In fact, he said, 12 Palestinians were killed in the incident - nine Hamas operatives and three noncombatants. Furthermore, as had since been acknowledged by the UN, the IDF was returning fire after coming under attack, and its shells did not hit the school compound...

...Another 300 of the 1,200 - women, children aged 15 and younger and men over the age of 65 - had been categorized as noncombatants [this is certainly far too conservative for obvious reasons], the CLA said.

Counted among the women, however, were female terrorists, including at least two women who tried to blow themselves up next to forces from the Givati and Paratroopers' Brigades. Also classed as noncombatants were the wives and children of Nizar Rayyan, a Hamas military commander who refused to allow his family to leave his home even after he was warned by Israel that it would be bombed.

The 320 names yet to be classified are all men; the IDF has yet complete its identification work in these cases, but estimates that two-thirds of them were terror operatives.

The CLA gave the Post the names of several fatalities who it said had been classified by the Palestinians as "medics," but who it stated were Hamas fighters, including Anas Naim, the nephew of Hamas Health Minister Bassem Naim, who was killed during clashes with the IDF on January 4 in the Sheikh Ajlin neighborhood of Gaza City.

Following the clashes, the Palestinian press reported that Naim was killed and that he was a medic with the Palestinian Red Crescent. The Gaza CLA, however, produced photographs of Naim posing holding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and a Kalashnikov assault rifle that had been posted on a Hamas Web site... [see above]

The following letter was written by a Turkish man to an Israeli government website. In it he mentions what a powerful grip the al Durah image had on his imagination, and what a revelation "Icon of Hatred" was for him. (The specific identity of the Youtube video is confirmed by my source for reasons I cannot go into because it would make it possible to identify the individual whose name I have removed to protect him.) I have not corrected his grammar and syntax in order to give a sense of the great effort he expended in writing this.

Here we have some of the great themes of mankind on display: independent intelligence, brotherhood between races and religions, a sense of gratitude for good deeds, the battle between malevolent propaganda and truth, and the importance of the one slandered to defend himself. What to challenge - granted in it's only a minority - the pessimism of a cynic...

The Obama administration said late Saturday it would participate in planning a United Nations conference on racism, despite concerns the meeting will be used by Arab nations and others to criticize Israel.

The U.S. will decide later whether to participate in "Durban 2," the second UN-sponsored World Conference Against Racism.

The State Department said it would send diplomats next week to participate in preparatory meetings for the World Conference Against Racism, which is set to be held in Geneva, Switzerland in April and which some countries including Israel have already decided to boycott.

In a statement released late Saturday, the State Department said the U.S. delegation to the planning discussions would review current direction of conference preparations and whether U.S. participation in the conference itself is warranted.

"This will be the first opportunity the (Obama) administration has had to engage in the negotiations for the Durban Review, and - in line with our commitment to diplomacy - the U.S. has decided to send a delegation to engage in the negotiations on the text of the conference document," the department said.

"The intent of our participation is to work to try to change the direction in which the review conference is heading," it said. "We hope to work with other countries that want the Conference to responsibly and productively address racism around the world."...

Hamas puppet: I declare war on the Zionists

After having three puppet hosts, the Mickey Mouse look-alike, the bee and the rabbit, all die on TV, Hamas children's television has introduced a fourth puppet host. The new one, a bear named Nassur, appeared Friday on Hamas TV promising to be a Jihad fighter, and declaring war on the Zionists.

[Update: The video has been pulled for "copyright reasons." I sense a new posting coming up on that issue. In the mean time, Atlas has posted the video, also at YouTube, here. We'll see if that one lasts.

Update 2: The original video is now back up. Still looking for back story...]

Below is the full transcript of the video:

Nassur: "I will join the ranks of the Izz A-Din Al-Qassam [Hamas'] Brigades. I will be a Jihad fighter with them and I will carry a rifle. Do you know why, Saraa?"

Saraa: "Why?"

Nassur: "To defend the children of Palestine, the children who were killed, the children who were wounded, the orphaned children. That's why, from this moment, I declare war on the criminal Zionists. Not only me, me and you. You are ready, right, Saraa?"

Saraa: "We are all ready to sacrifice ourselves for our homeland!" [Al-Aqsa TV, Feb. 13, 2009]

...But that's not socialism. Socialism rests on a firm theoretical bedrock: the abolition of private property. I haven't heard anyone this side of Barney Frank calling for any such thing. What is happening now-and Newsweek is honest enough to say so down in the body of the article-is an expansion of the state's role, an increase in public/private joint ventures and partnerships, and much more state regulation of business. Yes, it's very "European," and some of the Europeans even call it "social democracy," but it isn't.

It's fascism. Nobody calls it by its proper name, for two basic reasons: first, because "fascism" has long since lost its actual, historical, content; it's been a pure epithet for many decades. Lots of the people writing about current events like what Obama et. al. are doing, and wouldn't want to stigmatize it with that "f" epithet.

Second, not one person in a thousand knows what fascist political economy was. Yet during the great economic crisis of the 1930s, fascism was widely regarded as a possible solution, indeed as the only acceptable solution to a spasm that had shaken the entire First World, and beyond. It was hailed as a "third way" between two failed systems (communism and capitalism), retaining the best of each...

...Bridges TV aired a speech by the influential Muslim scholar Jamal Badawi on October 4. Mr. Badawi, who teaches Islam throughout North America, gave an interview to the Saudi Gazette on June 24, 2005, in which he raised questions about who was behind the September 11 attacks and suggested that Americans could be behind the car bombings of Iraqi markets...

Bridges TV founder and Chief Executive Muzzammil Hassan founded the TV network in 2004. According to a Reuters story at that time, "his wife came up with the idea in December 2001 while listening to the radio on a road trip.":

"Some derogatory comments were being made about Muslims that offended her," Hassan told Reuters ahead of Tuesday's launch. "She was seven months pregnant, and she thought she didn't want her kids growing up in this environment."

So he founded Bridges TV to combat negative perceptions of Muslims.

But now that he has beheaded his wife, I'm afraid this prominent moderate Muslim will only be feeding those negative perceptions...

Medicine bottles, transferred to the Gaza Strip as humanitarian aid by Israel, were used by Hamas as grenades against IDF troops during Operation Cast Lead. Pictures of the grenades were obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post.

The medicine bottles were manufactured by the Jerusalem Pharmaceutical Company, which is based in el-Bireh, a town adjacent to Ramallah, and the global pharmaceutical company Shire.

The medicine bottles were filled with explosives, holes were drilled in the caps, and fuses were installed. Once Hamas fighters lit the fuses, they had several seconds to throw the grenades at soldiers. The IDF also found small explosive devices that used medical syringes to hold their fuses.

The medical grenades were discovered in northern Gaza by troops during last month's three-week battle against Hamas. The grenades were taken to military explosives experts, and then disassembled and studied.

One bottle turned into a grenade originally contained a drug called Equetro, which is used by people who suffer from episodes associated with bipolar disorder. Another bottle had contained a vitamin supplement called Super-Vit.

"This is another example of Hamas's cynical use of humanitarian supplies to attack Israel," a Defense Ministry official said Thursday. "Israel facilitates the transfer of the supplies to the Gaza Strip, and Hamas uses the supplies to create weapons."...

Bangalore: In a shift that has Russia and Europe worried, Israel may have overtaken Russia as the biggest beneficiary of India's defence budget in the last two years, officials in the know said. Also worrying the Russians and the Europeans is the growing importance of the US for the Indian military.

Requesting anonymity, a senior official in the defence ministry said that Russia has been the biggest supplier to India's defence sector for decades.

But it may have lost out to Israel, which seems to have cornered a larger share of India's defence spend recently. "I don't have country-wise data but it may be due to differences over Gorshkov and other Russian programmes," the official said.

The Americans, too, have grabbed significant Indian deals...

...Over the past few years, India has entered into joint development of several missile systems with Israel as also procurement of top-end technologies without a tender process. After the November 2008 terror attacks on Mumbai, the two countries decided on the joint development of medium-range surface-to-air missiles (MRSAM) for the Air Force.

Though it is technically a joint development between Israel's IAI and Rafael, and India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), a significantly large portion of the contract - worth Rs 12,000 crore - will go to Israel. On similar lines, there's a Barak new generation missile project underway for the Navy. "Most of Israeli procurements have not been through open tenders," said the European firm official...

A Lady Named Irena

There recently was a death of a 98 year old lady named Irena.

During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist.

She had an ulterior motive...

She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews, (being German).

Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of her tool box she carried, and she carried in the back of her truck a Burlap sack, (for larger kids).

She also had a dog in the back, that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in, and out of the ghetto.

The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog, and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.

During her time and course of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.

She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, and arms, and beat her severely.

Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out, and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard.

After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it, and reunited the family.

Most of course had been gassed.

Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes, or adopted.

Last year Irena was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize....

She LOST.

Al Gore won, for doing a slide show on Global Warming.

Outrage over crucifixes hung in classrooms

Some Boston College professors and students are raising a holy ruckus over the Catholic school's return to its religious roots by hanging crucifixes in all its classrooms, calling the move "offensive" and a break from the Jesuit tradition of tolerance.

"There is no choice if you don't think it's appropriate. You can't turn it around," said biology professor Dan Kirschner, faculty adviser for BC's chapter of Hillel, a Jewish student group. "I think it is being insensitive to the people of other faith traditions here."

Amir Hoveyda, head of BC's chemistry department, blasted the school in an e-mail to the Herald for "not being interested in an exchange with its faculty members."

In an interview with the college newspaper, The Observer, which broke the story, Hoveyda described the crucifixes as "offensive" and the university's actions as "anti-intellectual."

"I can hardly imagine a more effective way to denigrate the faculty of an educational institution," he is quoted as saying. "The insult is particularly scathing, since such symbols were installed without discussion . . . in a disturbingly surreptitious manner."

BC spokesman Jack Dunn said college President Rev. William P. Leahy decided to install crucifixes in the university's 151 classrooms as a means of reconnecting the school with its "Catholic mission."

"As a Catholic university, we view the crucifix as a sacred symbol and its placement reflects our commitment to our religious heritage. We hope that those who do not share our faith tradition can respect our intentions," he said...

Sen. Gregg stated, "I want to thank the President for nominating me to serve in his Cabinet as Secretary of Commerce. This was a great honor, and I had felt that I could bring some views and ideas that would assist him in governing during this difficult time. I especially admire his willingness to reach across the aisle.

"However, it has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census there are irresolvable conflicts for me. Prior to accepting this post, we had discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we did not adequately focus on these concerns. We are functioning from a different set of views on many critical items of policy.

Obviously the President requires a team that is fully supportive of all his initiatives...

NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING physicist Steven Weinberg told an Irish audience yesterday that Israel was the "most exposed salient" in a war between liberal democracies and Muslim theocracies.

Prof Weinberg, a strong supporter of Israel, said the conflict between Israel and Hamas was part of a wider conflict.

This included the Madrid, London and Mumbai bombings, the conflict between Shia and Sunni Muslims in Iraq and the Janjaweed in Sudan, all of which had nothing to do with Israel, he said.

"It is a war between secular liberal democracy as you find it in Israel, Ireland and the United States, and the militant theocratical-oriented Islam," he told an audience at Trinity College Dublin last night which included the Green Party spokesman on finance, Senator Dan Boyle, and Fianna Fáil Senator Mark Daly.

Jewish-born Prof Weinberg won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1979. Though now an atheist, he is a supporter of the Jewish state and cancelled a trip to the UK recently because of a proposed boycott of Israeli academics...

The BBC has spent hundreds of thousands on a legal fight to block publication of a report on alleged bias in its Middle East reporting.

The Law Lords today ruled that a campaigner who is pursuing a battle to force the broadcaster to make the report public can continue his fight.

But this means the BBC will probably have to spend thousands more as the case is set to rumble on for months until a final decision is reached.

The corporation is understood to have already used about £200,000 of licence fee cash trying to prevent it having to release the Balen Report.

It was judged at the House of Lords that solicitor Steven Sugar's case had been wrongly blocked by legal rulings at earlier hearings.

Law Lords, by a 3-2 majority, overturned a previous High Court judgement, which now gives renewed hope that the document will seen by the public...

The controversial policy that bans media coverage of flag-draped caskets arriving from the war theater to Dover Air Force Base, Del., is once again being reviewed with an eye toward reversal, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday...

...Gates said he ordered the review after President Barack Obama said Monday night during a nationally broadcast news conference that the White House is "in the process of reviewing those policies."...

...Gates, a Bush administration holdover who has served in the Pentagon's top job since December 2006, said he looked into changing the policy a little over a year ago.

He said the answer he received, partly the result of talks with family members of fallen troops, was that if reporters and photographers were allowed to view the return of flag-draped caskets at Dover, "many of the families would feel compelled to be there for those ceremonies for their fallen hero."

"For these families, this would delay the return of the remains home," he said. "For others, it would be a financial hardship to get to Dover. And there were some privacy concerns."

But, Gates added, "I think that looking at it again makes all kinds of sense."

Media coverage of military remains arriving at ports of entry was once permitted but came to a halt by Pentagon decree during the 1991 Gulf War, on Feb. 2, 1991...

An Arizona man who has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his property is being sued by 16 Mexican nationals who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Roger Barnett, 64, began rounding up illegal immigrants in 1998 and turning them over to the U.S. Border Patrol, he said, after they destroyed his property, killed his calves and broke into his home.

His Cross Rail Ranch near Douglas, Ariz., is known by federal and county law enforcement authorities as "the avenue of choice" for immigrants seeking to enter the United States illegally.

Trial continues Monday in the federal lawsuit, which seeks $32 million in actual and punitive damages for civil rights violations, the infliction of emotional distress and other crimes. Also named are Mr. Barnett's wife, Barbara, his brother, Donald, and Larry Dever, sheriff in Cochise County, Ariz., where the Barnetts live. The civil trial is expected to continue until Friday...

Founded in 1968 with a $2.2 million "seed grant" from the Ford Foundation, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) describes itself as "the leading nonprofit Latino litigation, advocacy and educational outreach institution in the United States." MALDEF's mission is twofold: to "safeguard the civil rights of Latinos" and to "expand the opportunities for Latinos" in American society. MALDEF defines the category of Latinos to encompass both American citizens and illegal aliens. Consequently, the organization supports policies that run counter to American laws, especially American immigration laws...

...Significantly, however, MALDEF has its own connections to racist sentiments and groups. MALDEF's Founder, Mario Obledo, said in 1998: "California is going to be a Hispanic state and anyone who doesn't like it should leave. They should go back to Europe."

Additionally, MALDEF has long partnered with Latino organizations like the National Council of La Raza ("the Race"), which openly seek to advance what they perceive to be their interests as a distinctive racial group.

Composed of a 35-member board of directors and a staff of 75 employees (including 22 attorneys), MALDEF is not a membership organization. Thus its funding derives primarily from a few corporations and large foundations, most notably the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation. It has also received generous funding from the Ahmanson Foundation, the AT&T Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Verizon Foundation.

In Toronto, on Thursday, I witnessed a little incident of some value to the interpretation of world affairs. It happened on a crowded westbound King Street trolley, trapped at Yonge Street by the early rush hour crowds. (Ottawans may envy any kind of functioning transit service.)

Three young men, whom one might characterize as voluntary members of the underclass from the way they were dressed (expensive ghetto gear), jumped the back door of the trolley, in order to avoid paying fares. It is the sort of thing people just get used to in a decaying society. The drivers have their hands full processing paying customers through the front entrance, and can hardly be expected to guard the rear.

But in this case, the driver more than noticed what was happening, apparently through his rear-view mirror. He shut the front doors, stalled the car, and elbowed his way through the standing passengers to confront his unpaid guests. "I've got bad news for you punks," he declared, loudly. "I am not a liberal." Upon being told this, they left the car peacefully. Though I should add that, this being Toronto, the passengers looked more astounded by the driver's declaration than by the punks' behaviour...

...The UN Relief and Works Agency has acted as the great enabler. Set up in 1949 as a temporary agency to house, feed and resettle fewer than one million Arab refugees (Israel received an approximately equal number of Jewish refugees from around the Arab world), UNRWA has grown by bureaucratic persistence into a vast, permanent welfare organization for the 4.6-million descendants of its original "client base" -- and for their descendants, into the indefinite future. It provides for them with a staff and budget several times larger than the combined UN effort on behalf of all the other refugees on the planet.

That UNRWA does not operate in a vacuum, but has instead woven itself into the regional matrix, is evident from the history. The agency's camps, which have grown into permanent settlements, are distributed not only through Gaza and the West Bank, but around Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Arab governments in each of these jurisdictions absolutely refuse to naturalize these permanent residents, almost all of whom were born on their soil, on the claim that they must rightfully be "returned" to the territory Israel now "occupies." Thus UNRWA facilitates the use of these so-called "refugees" as a dagger pointed at Israel's throat...

Dutch Right-wing politician and controversial anti-Islam campaigner Geert Wilders has been refused entry to the United Kingdom despite being invited to visit by a member of the House of Lords, the British parliament's upper chamber.

Mr Wilders, who was due to go to London this Thursday, received a letter today, 10 February, from the British ambassador to the Netherlands telling him that he was not welcome, reportedly because his visit would constitute a threat to public order.

Mr Wilders responded to the decision in fighting mood, telling Dutch media that he still intended to travel to London:"I'll see what happens at the border. Let them put me in handcuffs."

"...'I believed I could make this world anew. I believed that all this world needed was honesty and kindness. I believed that if you treated folk well, that if you gave them peace and offered them justice they would respond with gratitude. I thought I could dissolve evil with good.' He paused. 'I suppose I thought of people as dogs,' he went on ruefully, 'and that if you gave them enough affection then they would be docile, but they aren't dogs, Gwydre, they're wolves..."
-Arthur, from Bernard Cornwell's Excalibur

...True, Mr. Obama has made the U.S. popular in places like Montreal and Berlin, where our unpopularity never mattered much to begin with. But foreign policy is not about winning popularity contests. And woe to the president who imagines he needn't inspire fear among the wicked even as he embraces the adulation of the good.

LONDON (JTA) -- A senior British diplomat was arrested following a complaint about anti-Semitic remarks he made while working out.

Rowan Laxton, the head of the South Asia Group at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, was watching television reports on Israel's military action in Gaza while using an exercise bike at a London gym.

According to the Daily Mail, staff and other gym members allegedly heard him shout "f***ing Israelis, f***ing Jews," as well as that Israeli soldiers should be "wiped off the face of the earth."

Scotland Yard spokesman said a 47-year-old man was arrested in connection with an incident on Jan. 27 following a complaint received by police from a member of the public...

...Laxton served in the Middle East and is considered an expert on the area...

British lawmakers condemned the Al Jazeera network for broadcasting a Muslim cleric's sermon in which he celebrates the Holocaust and prays for the killing of all Jews.

Sheik Yusuf al-Quaradawi, who hosts the popular program "Shariah and Life" on the Arabic language international news network, described the Holocaust as "divine punishment" and prayed to Allah to kill Jews "down to the very last one."

The Muslim cleric, 82, who is no stranger to controversy, said in his sermon, "The last punishment was carried out by Hitler." He went on to say that "This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers."...

It has been almost seven years since the attacks of 9/11/2001 and more than twenty-five years since Hezbollah's bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut. Yet the United States Government and its various law enforcement and intelligence communities still do not have a clear understanding of the threat from militant Islam or jihad, its ideological basis and its doctrine.

The policy the United States has adopted to counter this threat is still based on an incomplete understanding of the threat doctrine, the ideology that drives it, and the religious basis that jihadists use to validate their tactics. This lack of knowledge must be rectified in order to establish realistic policies to counter, defer, contain, and defeat the threat from radical jihadists.

This ignorance and neglect has led to the unimpeded growth within the United States of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), the original modern jihad organization, and its many off-shoots, fronts, and imitators, whose stated purpose is what the Brotherhood itself has called a "civilization-jihad" whose intention is to destroy Western civilization from within. Despite this threat, many intelligence analysts and policy-makers insist that we must "engage" the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies in order to influence their behavior in a positive direction.

An improved policy must be focused on education first and foremost. There must be an organized, concerted effort to educate the government and intelligence communities on the true nature of the threat posed by jihad organizations. A clearly understood and fully elaborated global threat model must be developed, through what might be compared to the Manhattan project: in this case, an all-out, concerted effort to develop, not a weapon, but a clear strategic comprehension of the threat and to develop a clear definition of the enemy.

From this clarity, policies can be developed to confront the activities of the MB in the United States. The Brotherhood must be exposed as a hostile strategic threat. It must be engaged in this realm only.

The process of settlement is a "Civilization-Jihadist Process" with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers...

PRESIDENT OBAMA is clearly trying to reach out to the Muslim world. I watched his Inaugural Address on television, and was most struck by the line: "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers." He gave his first televised interview from the White House to Al Arabiya, an Arabic-language television channel.

But have these efforts reached the streets of Cairo?

One would have expected them to. Mr. Obama had substantial support among Egyptians -- more than any other American presidential candidate that I can remember. I traveled to America several days before the election. The Egyptians I met in the United States told me -- without exception -- that they backed Mr. Obama. Many Egyptians I know went to his Web site and signed up as campaign supporters...

...We also wanted Mr. Obama, who studied law and political science at the greatest American universities, to recognize what we see as a simple, essential truth: the right of people in an occupied territory to resist military occupation.

But Mr. Obama has been silent. So his brilliantly written Inaugural Speech did not leave a big impression on Egyptians. We had already begun to tune out. We were beginning to recognize how far the distance is between the great American values that Mr. Obama embodies, and what can actually be accomplished in a country where support for Israel seems to transcend human rights and international law...

...Again, his elegant words did not challenge America's support of Israel, right or wrong, or its alliances with Arab dictators in the interest of pragmatism...

...It makes no sense to risk life and limb only to allow people who intentionally target children to talk through my pen. Not until they stop the terrorism. Those members of the press who transmute Hamas's crocodile tears into ink only exacerbate the disease.

Recently, I traveled about a thousand miles around Afghanistan, without military, to learn more about the country. Taking chances for good people is one thing, but taking chances to talk with Hamas terrorist leaders, whom I would not believe anyway, is just not smart. Their propaganda is widely available.

One can roam Israel at will, write as one wishes, without reprisal. The choice is easy: the Israelis won't kill the messenger, even when journalists mercilessly rip into them...

...They are isolated and imprisoned. But it's not only Israel who's done this. The Gaza Strip borders Egypt, and Egypt has done the same. The terrorists are tunneling like rats and the Egyptians and Israelis are trying to locate and destroy the tunnels under their respective fence lines. Who wants the Palestinians? If the Palestinians truly were a peaceful lot, victims only of Israel, one might think that they would have free entry into Egypt. But they do not.

The Nazi fugitive nicknamed "Dr Death", who was one of the most wanted war criminals, died in Cairo in 1992 after converting to Islam, it has been revealed.

Nazi hunters had believed Aribert Heim, who reportedly killed hundreds of inmates with poison injections to the heart and removed his victims' organs without anaesthetic, was hiding out in Chile, where he was believed to have an illegitimate daughter.

However, the German state broadcaster ZDF announced on Wednesday that it had discovered that Heim spent nearly 30 years in the Egyptian capital before dying of bowel cancer.

In a joint investigation with the New York Times, ZDF said it had discovered that Heim became a Muslim in the early 1980s and renamed himself Tarek Fared Hussein.

After the war, he practised in West Germany as a gynaecologist but went missing in 1962 as police prepared to prosecute him.

In Cairo, Heim lived off rental income from a property he owned in Berlin. The money was transferred to him at irregular intervals by his sister, who has since died.

Heim, an Austrian member of the Waffen SS, presided over the country's Mauthausen concentration camp.

He was accused of conducting various medical experiments on the inmates, removing the organs of healthy inmates, then leaving them to die on the operating table, and turning the skull of a man he had decapitated into a souvenir paperweight...

...And yet Reuters reported on Monday that what had been one of the best success stories for U.S. troops in Iraq -- the transition of Anbar province from al-Qaeda insurgent stronghold to the most peaceful province in the country -- threatens to unravel and possibly plunge the country back into civil war as the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) faces charges by Anbar Awakening tribal leaders that it rigged the elections in Anbar to their favor.

The IIP is the Muslim Brotherhood affiliate in Iraq, ruling as part of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's governing coalition and currently holding 36 of the 41 seats on the Anbar council. While many of the Awakening leaders did not participate in the previous 2005 elections, they actively campaigned this time around, forming an Anbar tribes list of candidates. And yet when many of their supporters ventured to the polls this weekend, they discovered that their names were not on the voting registration lists. In an effort to head off any possible violence, a curfew has been instituted along with a ban on nighttime vehicle traffic...

Two bullets grazed a window of the Sinai Jewish Center in Amstelveen, Holland's daily newspaper Der Telegraaf reported Wednesday. Bulletproof glass prevented any casualties. According to the report, the center's maintenance man discovered two bullet holes on Tuesday that were fired towards the building's main entrance. There were no injuries, and the motivation is unclear. However, police are investigating whether the incident was related to the escalation of tension in the Middle East.

The Sinai Center is a Jewish mental health center. Although the police confirmed that gunshots were fired, they refused to offer additional comment. The Sinai Center is also withholding comments until the results of the police investigation are completed.

Two weeks ago, there was an arson attempt on a synagogue in Amsterdam's southern district...

Another epistemological challenge. Tim McGirk of Time Magazine has a report of an Israeli randomly murdering three little girls and an old lady. Pay attention to his idea of what constitutes confirmation of allegations he repeats as true...

The tragic story of Khaled Abed Rabbo and his three young daughters -- said to have been shot in cold blood by an Israeli soldier on Jan. 7 in the northern Gaza Strip as the family waved white flags -- has been retold in many outlets, including Time Magazine, the Irish Times, the Washington Post, the Independent, BBC, and the Sydney Morning Herald, among others. Indeed, the Irish Times reports that "Each day, journalists and human rights investigators come to interview the grieving father." And, as reported by McClatchy News, the Abed Rabbos' allegation "is one of at least five such white flag incidents that human rights investigators are looking into across the Gaza Strip."

Yet, human rights investigators and journalists overlook the serious inconsistencies in the varying accounts delivered by Khaled and his relatives, as well as an ambulance driver who claimed to try to help the family. Moreover, early Palestinian accounts of the deaths -- as well as early reports in the Los Angeles Times and Ha'aretz -- tell an entirely different story which involves neither white flags nor cold-blooded executions of small children...

An anti-Israel conference scheduled for an Australian government building was canceled after a several individuals revealed its leader's anti-Semitic motives. Maqsood Alshams, an illegal immigrant from Bangladesh, planned the conference to debate charging Israel with war crimes for its recent actions in Gaza. Alshams has become known Down Under as a "human rights" advocate, his stated context for relentless anti-Israel venom. On December 30, he circulated an email, calling Israel's defensive war a "crime against humanity" and demanding international intervention to "stop the Israeli carnage." In an email response, I asked Alshams why he did not call for "international intervention when Palestinians -- and Hamas in particular -- thanked Israel for leaving Gaza by making it a terrorist base to lob missiles onto civilian populations in Southern Israel?"

Alshams replied, "The simple answer is that you the Jews are real motherf***ing bast*rds." He claimed the Mossad abused him in Turkey's "Jewish Consulate" and told me to "keep your dirty mouth shut calling any Bangladeshi a brother, you guys are simply as*h*les....keep your dirty mouth shut...I wonder why God himself (sic) hate the Jews..." Now Alshams did not share these sentiments with the larger group as it would sully his carefully crafted image and reveal his actual motives; so I did...

...As Earth faces global cooling, both troglodyte right-wingers and lachrymose left-wingers find Albert Gore's simmering-planet hypothesis increasingly hilarious:

"In terms of (global warming's) capacity to cause the human species harm, I don't think it makes it into the top 10," Dr. Robert Giegengack, former chairman of University of Pennsylvania's Earth and Environmental Sciences Department, told the Pennsylvania Gazette. Giegengack voted for Gore in 2000, and says he likely would again.

Commentator Harold Ambler declared Jan. 3 on HuffingtonPost.com that he voted for Barack Obama "for a thousand times a thousand reasons." He added that Gore "owes the world an apology for his actions regarding global warming." He called Gore's assertion that "the science is in" on this issue "the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of mankind."

"It is a tribute to the scientific ignorance of politicians and journalists that they keep regurgitating the nonsense about human-caused global warming," veteran left-wing commentator and Nation magazine columnist Alexander Cockburn wrote. "The greenhouse fearmongers rely on unverified, crudely oversimplified models to finger mankind's sinful contribution - and carbon trafficking, just like the old indulgences, is powered by guilt, credulity, cynicism and greed."...

January 30, 2009: Hitler "Put The Jews In Their Place"

Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi: "Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them - even though they exaggerated this issue - he managed to put them in their place.

"This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers." [...]

January 28, 2009: I Will Die As A Martyr Shooting Jews

Al-Qaradhawi: "To conclude my speech, I'd like to say that the only thing I hope for is that as my life approaches its end, Allah will give me an opportunity to go to the land of Jihad and resistance, even if in a wheelchair.

"I will shoot Allah's enemies, the Jews, and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus, I will seal my life with martyrdom. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds. Allah's mercy and blessings upon you."

This week marks the seventh anniversary of the murder of our son, former Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. My wife Ruth and I wonder: Would Danny have believed that today's world emerged after his tragedy?

The answer does not come easily...

...Danny's picture is hanging just in front of me, his warm smile as reassuring as ever. But I find it hard to look him straight in the eyes and say: You did not die in vain.

A "Gaza and Human Rights" symposium hosted by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)'s Center for Near Eastern Studies instructed attendees on how best to spread anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Americanism...

...Ludicrous ramblings included the statements, "Iran needs nukes to protect itself against America and Israel," and "Israel has violated norms of civilized behavior. Palestinian resistance is the non-violent alternative."

I then calmly asked my question.

"When are any of you going to ask Palestinians to take personal responsibility for their own corruption and failures, and admit they're entirely responsible for their own miserable lot in life by choosing suicide bombings and terror over protecting their own children?"

Lisa Hajjar replied that it's pointless to argue about "who started it." "Occupation was the issue. Oppressed people must fight oppressors."

I interrupted her by asking, "What about suicide bombings?"

Forgetting the event was being filmed, Hajjar lost her cool and retorted, "If you think I favor suicide bombings, then that Zionist hat on your head is screwed on way too tight!"

I replied that my hat was a Fedora, not a Chasidic hat. An "educated" woman would know the difference, although her lack of knowledge about hats was secondary to her bigoted statement. I told her "Your comment was out of line, bigoted and racist."

She acknowledged such comments hurt "her cause" from a public relations standpoint, employing the same tacit language used to describe suicide bombings as "not helpful." She backed down, apologizing twice, yet reiterating that everything else she had said was justified...

...The point is that whatever one's perspective on the Gaza conflict, the comparison between Israel's action against Hamas - a terrorist group sworn to destroy Israel - and the Nazi Holocaust is as false as it is obscene. I say this not as a proponent of Israel, but as a voice for Holocaust remembrance.

Drawing false parallels between the Gaza conflict and Nazi Germany is an affront not only to the living Holocaust survivors and their children and grandchildren, but also to the 6 million deceased. These men, women and children, innocents all - died not in any "war" or "conflict;" they perished in a deliberate eliminationist horror in which, as Elie Wiesel put it, "not all victims were Jews but all Jews were victims."

They were victims of a carefully orchestrated infrastructure of death created with the sole purpose of annihilating a people. As the world stood by and refused even refuge to fleeing Jews, Nazi officials met 70 years ago to plan how the Nazi military machine, combined with scientific acumen, could be mobilized to "exterminate" the Jewish population most efficiently and effectively. The root cause of Nazi aggression was racist hate; its chief facilitator was international acquiescence.

When the Holocaust is misconstrued and trivialized, and its name invoked in the face of all kinds of suffering, its lessons become obscured, its teachings become ambiguous, and its invocation becomes political. Indeed, the political consequence, if not the intent, of this scurrilous indictment is clear: If Israel is a Nazi state it has no right to exist - in fact, there is an obligation to dismantle this Nazi state and delegitimize its supporters...

...The Undersecretary of the caretaker government's Ministry of Prisoners Affairs Ziyad Abu Ein spoke out against the rights violations and accused Hamas of "terrorism," and said they were preventing media outlets in Gaza report on their crimes.

"Our people badly need a free press capable of protecting the truth," he said, noting that the truth was all that could counter the "terrorist procedures against patriotic Palestinians."

Abu Ein also published a list of names and neighborhoods of those in Gaza who were killed, maimed, beaten or tortured during the Israeli war on Gaza.

He encouraged aid organizations inside Gaza to check the list and contact those who have given testimony and prove the truth of the list of 181 names. Abu Ein also called on the Arab League to send a fact-finding mission to Gaza and uncover the reality behind the shocking information...