July 2009 Archives

Children in Hamas summer camps reenacted the abduction of IDF soldier Gilad Schalit in the presence of top Hamas officials, according to pictures obtained by The Jerusalem Post.

According to Israeli defense officials, more than 120,000 Palestinian children are spending the summer in Hamas-run camps. In addition to religious studies, the children undergo semi-military training with toy guns.

At a recent summer camp graduation ceremony, the children put on a show reenacting the June 2006 abduction of Schalit. Present was Osama Mazini, a senior Hamas political leader, who is in charge of the Schalit negotiations with Israel on behalf of the terrorist group.

In one picture, obtained by the Post, Mazini is seen standing next to Ahmad Bahar, the acting speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, distributing Korans to camp counselors.

"This sends a message," one Israeli defense official said, regarding Mazini's participation at the ceremony. "This is Hamas's way of showing Palestinian children that kidnapping soldiers is the correct way of life."...

...The room was completely filled with anti-Semitic and anti-Israel extremists, who booed and yelled during Harris' talk, deriding him viciously every time he showed any support for Israel. In fact, they expressed absolutely no sympathy for the Zionist cause whatsoever.

The screening of this film, co-presented by the extremist groups Jewish Voice for Peace and the American Friends Services Committee (the crowd cheered loudly at their mere mention), is a disgrace that will never be forgotten in this community...

STATEMENT BY CONFERENCE OF PRESIDENTS CHAIRMAN ALAN SOLOW AND EXECUTIVE VICE CHAIRMAN MALCOLM HOENLEIN ON ISSUES RAISED REGARDING CONSTRUCTION IN JERUSALEM

New York, July 21, 2009 ... The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations has long advocated and supported the unity of Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Israel. As such, we believe that legal construction by residents of the city should be allowed as long as it is in keeping with the standards and requirements of the municipality and the national government. We find disturbing the objections raised to the proposed construction of residential units on property that was legally purchased and approved by the appropriate authorities. The area in question houses major Israeli governmental agencies, including the national police headquarters. The United States has in the past and recently raised objections to the removal of illegal structures built by Arabs in eastern Jerusalem even though they were built in violation of zoning and other requirements often on usurped land. In addition to the Jewish housing, the project called for apartment units for Arabs as well.

It is particularly significant that the structure in question formerly was the house of the infamous Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseni who spent the war years in Berlin as a close ally of Hitler, aiding and abetting the Nazi extermination of Jews. He was also linked to the 1929 massacre in Hebron and other acts of incitement that resulted in deaths and destruction in what was then Palestine. There has been an expressed desire by some Palestinians to preserve the building as a tribute to Husseini.

As a united city, Jerusalem's Jewish and Arab residents should be permitted to reside wherever legal and security requirements allow. Hundreds of Arab families have moved into Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem and the same right should be accorded to Jewish residents in live where they choose in Jerusalem. To do otherwise would undermine and prejudge the status of the city.

No government of Israel has or can pursue a discriminatory policy that would prevent the legitimate presence of Jews in any area of its capital.

The Presidents Conference is the central coordinating body for American Jewry, representing 52 national Jewish agencies from across the political and religious spectrums.

...The anger on the part of police officers was obvious, and they said they are receiving "thousands" of emails and messages of support from across the country. One officer said that Obama "owes all police officer across the country an apology" for his remarks...

...Mr. Obama has a point about history, but we're not sure that an episode in an upscale neighborhood involving one of America's most privileged individuals illustrates anything except a misunderstanding. Mr. Gates lives in a city with a black mayor, a state with a black governor and a country with a black President. The dispute was arguably about town-gown relations rather than race. If this is a teaching moment, one lesson is that it's usually better to cooperate during encounters with law enforcement so that matters don't escalate needlessly. And if a cop asks you to step out on the porch, or away from your car, it's probably because he's concerned for his own safety.

Mr. Obama's broadside against local cops sends the wrong message to Americans of every race about how to respond to misunderstandings with police. His comments may also do more to aggravate than alleviate tensions between police officers and the minority communities they serve.

A grave injustice is being committed against the Palestinian people -- perhaps among the greatest in their history. Thousands are being systematically robbed of their citizenship, made stateless once more by a hard-hearted government that pays lip service to peace and the two-state solution, but which seems determined to undermine both.

Israel? No -- the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the monarchy that occupied the West Bank from 1948 to 1967 and which has long had an uneasy relationship with its Palestinian majority. Now, cynically claiming that it has the Palestinians' best interests at heart, the regime of King Abdullah II has begun removing the citizenship of Palestinians with roots in the West Bank.

Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads:

(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.

(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

The Jordanian policy is a clear violation of these fundamental rights. Thus far, it has been met with protest in Amman and mild complaint from the Jordanian media. Yet the rest of the world has been silent.

That includes the world's leading human rights organizations. As of this writing, the front page of Amnesty International's website features an appeal for Israel to cooperate with the UN's "independent" fact-finding mission on Gaza, but nothing on Jordan. Human Rights Watch, which recently bashed Israel for the benefit of donors in Saudi Arabia, has yet to react...

A Word of Truth

By Abdallah al-Hadlaq

Al-Watan, Kuwait 19 July 2009

"Allah testifies that they are lying"

A non-governmental Israeli organization claims that the IDF that attacked Gaza and the ostracized Hamas used local civilians as human shields and opened fire indiscriminately. The report by "Breaking the Silence" says the IDF destroyed buildings, mosques and private homes, and includes testimonies by 30 soldiers who participated in the attack on Gaza (2008/12/27-18/1/2009), but without revealing their names or unit affiliation.

However these allegations are to be rejected because the IDF has proved that its troops follow international law and obey orders despite the stress of battle. These testimonies lack sourcing or corroboration, thus preventing any conclusions from being drawn... Furthermore, it was the ostracized Hamas that caused much grief when it fired dozens of Qassam missiles at innocent civilians in the southern towns and villages of Israel. The IDF had no choice but to fight back causing the deaths of 1400 Palestinians, half of them civilians used as human shields by Hamas, in addition to the 5,000 wounded. Israel lost just 10 soldiers and 3 civilians.

The IDF defended innocent Israeli civilians against Hamas attacks and did all it could to prevent harming any civilians, targeting just the Hamas men, to disarm them by aerial bombing, shelling, and the use of heavy tractors, while maintaining the humane principles of the IDF that seeks to win with minimal human cost to either side.

The report by "Breaking the Silence" was unfair, unbalanced, and lacking in proof, so one wonders where it was when Hamas used schools and homes for weapons storage or for missile launchers. Israeli pilots reported many secondary explosions after they hit Hamas targets. Where was that organization when Hamas smuggled tons of illicit weapons through a network of tunnels from Egypt?

"The radio stations of the Arab regimes kept repeating to us: 'Get away from the battle lines. It's a matter of ten days or two weeks at the most, and we'll bring you back to Ein-Kerem [near Jerusalem].' And we said to ourselves, 'That's a very long time. What is this? Two weeks? That's a lot!' That's what we thought [then]. And now 50 years have gone by." [PATV, July 7, 2009]

With these words an Arab resident of a refugee camp recounts the reason why his family left Israel in 1948, in an interview broadcast on PA TV this month.

In recent years, Palestinian leaders, writers and refugees have spoken out in the Palestinian media, blaming the Arab leadership for the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem. According to these accounts, and contrary to the Palestinian myth that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were deported by Israel in 1948, the vast majority of the Arab exodus from Israel was voluntary, and the result of orders by the Arab leadership.

Furthermore, the fact that this information has been openly discussed by public figures and refugees in the Palestinian Authority media itself suggests that awareness of this responsibility may be widespread - even though Palestinian leaders continue to blame Israel for "the expulsion" for propaganda purposes.

The following statements in the PA media shed significant light on the events of 1948 and counter the attempts by the Palestinian Authority to hide this part of history...

I just got back from the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. I saw it with my own eyes- the system of occupation is stronger than ever.

In places like the south of Hebron and East Jerusalem, I saw Palestinian land being taken daily through an insidious collaboration between violent settlers, the military, and the Israeli government bureaucracy.

The government regularly appropriates land for what it calls "sterile zones." This means no Palestinians allowed. Instead, families are driven from their lands and forced to live in smaller and smaller areas.

There's no other way to put it. This is ethnic cleansing. Because it's happening now, and not just in the distant past, we still can stop it. Especially today when the world's attention is on settlements, and for the first time in recent memory, a US administration is creating pressure on Israel.

But we need your financial help to do it...[snip, etc...]

Cecilie Surasky
Deputy Director
Jewish Voice for Peace

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is the anti-Israel, anti-semitic (there, we said it) gift that keeps on giving!

Not willing to settle for merely assaulting the Jewish state with the one-two punch of the screening of the hagiographic flick "Rachel" followed by a live presentation by the mother of the no-longer-with-us pro-terror activist, the ever-transgressive SFJFF is also presenting a charming documentary called "Defamation"...

Every week new reports are published on the number of civilians killed in the Gaza Strip during Operation Cast Lead. Again and again, Israel is blamed for "disproportionate casualties among civilians." Here and there, claims of "war crimes" are raised. It must be said that, first, any civilian death is deplorable and everything possible must be done to prevent such deaths. Second, any reasonable allegation must be investigated. There is not an army in the world that has not made mistakes, and the IDF is no exception. But apparently there are many entities that are enamored of lies. Hamas claimed from the start that only a small number of those killed in Gaza were fighters. Many human rights organizations adopted the claims made by Hamas and other Palestinian organizations. So the time has come, if truth has any meaning whatsoever, to present the real story.

Abdullah Abdel Hamid Muammar, a 22-year-old student from the village of el-Nassar north of Rafah, was killed in Operation Cast Lead. So we are told by the official report of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). This report contains details about the war casualties that purport to be accurate. The purpose is obvious: to prove to the whole world that most of the casualties were innocent civilians who were hurt by the bombing of the civilian population.

Many human rights organizations, including Amnesty, B'Tselem and Human Rights Watch (HRW), relied, in whole or in part, on the PCHR data, which turned Muammar into an innocent victim. But there's a problem with that. According to a publication issued by the Press Department of the Al Qassam Brigades, Muamar was a member of Hamas, and he appears in a picture on an Arabic website in which he is carrying a Qassam missile. This is also the case with many other "innocent civilians." They were terrorists. It turns out that, to discover that lie - which was just one of many - meticulous investigations were required. Dr. Tal Pavel of the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, and Jonathan Dahoah-Halevy, a researcher at the Jerusalem Center, investigated each name on the list of casualties.

The various organizations announced that between 1,200 and 1,400 were killed in Gaza. The number may have been inflated, as claimed, for example, by journalist Lorenzo Cremonesi, reporting from the Gaza Strip for the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera about inflation of the numbers and the manipulations by Hamas. We should also mention the investigation conducted by the IDF which appears to be a bit more reliable and puts the number of killed at 1164, as well as the fact that Hamas issued explicit instructions to conceal and deceive.

According to Pavel's research, 564 of the dead were members of Hamas. All of them were honored, as fallen fighters, on Hamas websites. In addition to them, according to IDF investigations, about 100 Islamic Jihad members were killed. Assuming that other terrorists were killed, for example those belonging to Fatah, then most of the dead were not innocent civilians. And that's just the beginning.

The bombing of the Hamas Police Academy earned wall-to-wall condemnation because, according to international law, police are considered civilians. Here we will go into the results of the research conducted by Dahoah-Halevy. According to a name-based investigation of each of the "policemen", it turns out that 88.4% of them belong to the security - i.e., terrorism - mechanisms of Hamas. One of them, Muhammad el-Dasuqi, a member of the Resistance Committee, is suspected of being one of the perpetrators of the terrorist attack on the American convoy in 2003.

One of the most prominent events in the Gaza operation was the bombing of the UN school in the Jabalya refugee camp on January 6. All the media around the world publicized horrific pictures of "over 41 killed in the Al Fakhura school." The condemnation was worldwide, from the UN Secretary General, through the President of the United States, to the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Many long weeks passed before it was shown to be a libel. First, the three artillery shells did not hit the school at all. Second, Hamas people were firing from the area and the IDF aimed its fire at them. Third, the number of killed was far smaller than originally reported. Most of the media and human rights organizations that publicized the original news did not bother to publicize the information that was disclosed. Those who are infatuated with libel are not prepared to be confused by the facts.

There were still many killed who are not identified as fighters. That is also worth investigating. If the IDF strike lacked discernment, the demographic breakdown of the casualties (erroneously called "uninvolved civilians") should have been identical to the demographic breakdown of the general population. However, a different picture emerges. A quarter of the population are adolescent girls. Actually, 8% of those killed were adolescent girls. A quarter of the population are adult women. Only 14% of those killed were women. The higher percentage of male casualties - much higher than their proportion of the population - proves that among them were a higher percentage of men involved in the fighting. In other words, the percentage of civilian casualties was dramatically smaller than the claims made against Israel. According to a more in-depth investigation by a team of researchers from the Interdisciplinary Center, between 900 and 1,070 of the casualties (63% - 75%) were killed because they were involved. If we add to that the fact that Hamas used civilians as human shields, or adolescent boys who were forced to participate in the fighting, the percentage of the casualties who were involved in the fighting only increases.

It is interesting to note the behavior of the armies of western countries when they had to conduct a similar war. Let's assume that there is no comparison with the World War II Allied bombing of Tokyo and Dresden. We'll deal with something more similar and closer in time. In 1999, NATO forces conducted a similar war, mainly by aerial bombing, against Yugoslavia (Operation Allied Force). 462 soldiers, 114 policemen and 489-512 civilians were killed.

Because there, the policemen were actually policemen, and in Gaza they are terrorists, the general balance shows that Israel hurt far fewer civilians than NATO did. And with regard to the demographic breakdown and the forced use of adolescent boys and civilians, the number of innocent casualties is apparently far lower.

The Israeli media, which publicized the stories of soldiers from the pre-military preparatory course - which turned out to be rumors and outright fabrications - did not publish the results of the serious investigations below. On the contrary. An editorial by Ha'aretz stated that it involved the "criminal killing of dozens of policemen...knowing that these policemen were nothing but enforcers of civilian order." Hamas is snickering. They publicize pictures of the "policemen" armed with Qassams, and Ha'aretz calls them "enforcers of civil order." The West reads Ha'aretz in English, not Hamas in Arabic. So sometimes, when Ha'aretz is around, Hamas does not need a propaganda department.

Even when this research was available, no one bothered to make corrections. On the contrary. The hara-kiri continues. The media, in Israel and around the world, are tainted with a peculiar selectivity. Any serious research that proves that there were no war crimes is rejected. Any fabrication that doesn't have a shred of basis in fact rates enormous headlines. That is what happened with the bombing of the Al Fakhura school in Jabalya, and in other cases as well.

Prof. Arnold Toynbee, who was no friend of Israel, wrote in one of his books, "In the history of man's endeavors to develop culture, there has never been a society whose progress and cultural level were so advanced that in time of revolution or war, its members could be depended upon not to commit evil acts." That is true of Israel and it is true of every country that finds itself in a state of war. So I will reiterate that every deviation should be investigated. But by the same token, there is no need to hide the true picture: with regard to the fact that Gaza is controlled by an entity whose way is terrorism, whose platform is anti-Semitic, and whose official objective is the destruction of the State of Israel, the number of innocent casualties in the course of the operation was far smaller than the stories fabricated by Palestinian organizations, human rights organizations and newspapers in Israel and around the world, such as Ha'aretz, which feeds many news agencies worldwide. We can, and should, publicize serious claims of deviations. But we also can, and should, at least to the same extent, present the serious research.

In a shocking and unprecedented interview, directly exposing the inhumanity of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's religious regime in Iran, a serving member of the paramilitary Basiji militia has told this reporter of his role in suppressing opposition street protests in recent weeks.

He has also detailed aspects of his earlier service in the force, including his enforced participation in the rape of young Iranian girls prior to their execution...

...He said he had been a highly regarded member of the force, and had so "impressed my superiors" that, at 18, "I was given the 'honor' to temporarily marry young girls before they were sentenced to death."

In the Islamic Republic it is illegal to execute a young woman, regardless of her crime, if she is a virgin, he explained. Therefore a "wedding" ceremony is conducted the night before the execution: The young girl is forced to have sexual intercourse with a prison guard - essentially raped by her "husband."

"I regret that, even though the marriages were legal," he said.

Why the regret, if the marriages were "legal?"

"Because," he went on, "I could tell that the girls were more afraid of their 'wedding' night than of the execution that awaited them in the morning. And they would always fight back, so we would have to put sleeping pills in their food. By morning the girls would have an empty expression; it seemed like they were ready or wanted to die.

"I remember hearing them cry and scream after [the rape] was over," he said. "I will never forget how this one girl clawed at her own face and neck with her finger nails afterwards. She had deep scratches all over her."...

In an article on the liberal website Minbar Al-Hiwar Wal-'Ibra (http://www.menber-alhewar1.info ), reformist Saudi journalist and human rights activist Wajeha Al-Huweidar described Saudi Arabia as "the world's largest women's prison." She added that unlike real prisoners, Saudi women have no prospect of ever being released, since throughout their life, they are under the control of a male guardian - their husband, father, grandfather, brother or son.

Huweidar and other women activists recently launched a campaign against the Saudi Mahram [1] Law, which forbids women to leave their home without a male guardian. She told the Kuwaiti daily Awan that the campaign, whose slogan is "treat us like adult citizens or we leave the country," was officially launched at the King Fahd Bridge, connecting Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, where the women demanded to cross the border without a guardian..

The issue of abuse of women by Sudan's public order police [1] recently gained prominence in the Sudanese and other media, after Sudanese journalist Lubna Ahmad Hussein and 12 other women were arrested in Khartoum on July 3, 2009, for wearing trousers. Two days later, 10 of the women were summoned to the police station and received punishments of 10 lashes each. Charges were brought against three others, including Hussein, for inappropriate dress and conduct.

Clause 152 of Sudanese criminal law mandates up to 40 lashes and/or a fine for inappropriate dress as well as for conduct that contravenes accepted norms.

Incidents of this kind are widespread in Sudan, and are usually disregarded by the local and global media...

A Saudi Arabian princess who had an illegitimate child with a British man has secretly been granted asylum in this country after she claimed she would face the death penalty if she were forced to return home. The young woman, who has been granted anonymity by the courts, won her claim for refugee status after telling a judge that her adulterous affair made her liable to death by stoning...

...One final question -- the one Kennedy himself asked in 1974, when Richard Nixon was pardoned:

"Do we operate under a system of equal justice under law, or is there one system for the average citizen and another for the high and mighty?"

American special Mideast envoy George Mitchell should make a stop at Tel Aviv's Platinum Tower on his next visit to Israel for a chat with former prime minister Ehud Olmert. He will find it interesting. Olmert will tell him that on September 13, 2008, after he resigned and became caretaker prime minister, he hosted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his home in Jerusalem and presented him with a detailed proposal for a peace agreement.

In their previous meeting two weeks earlier, Olmert had presented a map of the Palestinian state, but Abbas complained that it was too small. This time Olmert prepared a giant map of the future border and its twisting route, which he drew with the help of an external expert.

Olmert's map proposed that the Palestinians establish their state on 93.5 percent of the West Bank, receiving another 5.8 percent through a land exchange with Israel. The rest would come in a "safe passage" corridor from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip. The map left the settlement blocs in Israel's control - Ma'aleh Adumim, Ariel and Gush Etzion - proposing in exchange lands in the southern Hebron Hills, the Judean Hills and the Beit She'an Valley. According to the Palestinians, Olmert also proposed dividing the no-man's-land near Latrun. All told, Abbas was offered an area equal to the whole West Bank - 100 percent.

As for Jerusalem, Olmert proposed dividing sovereignty between the Jewish and Arab neighborhoods, and leaving the Old City's "holy basin" and its surroundings without sovereignty, under the management of an international committee with the participation of Israel, Palestine, the United States, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

The most original suggestion involved the refugee issue. Olmert did not recognize the Palestinians' demand for a right of return. Rather, he agreed to take in a small number of refugees over five years, "about the number of people that can fit into the Muqata [Palestinian government headquarters] in Ramallah" - that is, between 2,000 and 3,000 people.

According to the Israeli version, Abbas asked Olmert to let him have the map. "If you sign it, you can have it," Olmert told Abbas. He did not want to give the Palestinians a document that would be a baseline for the next round of negotiations and a basis for demanding more concessions from Israel. Abbas responded that he wanted to study the details with a cartographic expert and return the next day with chief negotiator Saeb Erekat and the cartographer for another meeting. Olmert agreed.

But Abbas did not return the next day, or the day after. He did not even call. He severed contact and eventually explained in an interview with The Washington Post that he had rejected Olmert's proposal because the gaps were too wide...

On July 25th and August 4th the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF) will screen the movie "Rachel," a film which glorifies Rachel Corrie, an activist with the pro-Hamas, anti-Israel International Solidarity Movement (ISM). The ISM has used its activists as human shields in order to obstruct Israel's counter-terrorism efforts.

Corrie was accidentally killed in Gaza while purposefully hindering efforts aimed at preventing Palestinian terrorists from smuggling weapons into Gaza for use against Israeli civilians. [More...]

Corrie's mother, Cindy Corrie (president of the Rachel Corrie Foundation), who has been relentless in her smear and delegitimization campaign against Israel, has been invited by the Jewish Festival to speak at the event.

The Jewish Festival is co-presenting this obvious propaganda event with two stridently anti-Israel organizations, the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). Both organizations unabashedly call for and support divestment from, boycotts of and sanctions directed against Israel.

...In other words, yes, the director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East division is attempting to raise funds from Saudis, including a member of the Shura Council (which oversees, on behalf of the Saudi monarchy, the imposition in the Kingdom of the strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islamic law) in part by highlighting her organization's investigations of Israel, and its war with Israel's "supporters," who are liars and deceivers. It appears as if Human Rights Watch, in the pursuit of dollars, has compromised its integrity.

A day after an explosion uncovered a hidden Hizbullah arms cache in southern Lebanon, the IDF's Northern Command estimated that the group had turned hundreds of homes in the area into warehouses to store short- and medium-range Katyusha rockets.

The IDF released video footage taken from an Israeli aircraft, showing a home that had exploded on Tuesday in the village of Hirbet Selm - located some 20 kilometers north of the Lebanese border. The roof is seen in the footage with dozens of holes, which IDF ballistic experts said were the size of 122-mm. Katyusha rockets.

UNIFIL said that storing the ammunition was a "serious violation" of the UN-brokered ceasefire that ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

The peace keeping force said that it considered the incident a "serious violation" of the UN resolution that ended the conflict, which specifies that there should be no presence of unauthorized assets or weapons in the area of operations.

Israeli defense officials had also accused Lebanon of violating United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701.

"This is a major violation of resolution 1701," one Israeli official said. "The weaponry was stored inside a village and is proof of our longstanding claim that Hizbullah uses civilian infrastructure to hide its weaponry."...

A Leonard Cohen concert planned in Ramallah on the West Bank in September has been cancelled after the artist became embroiled in a campaign to boycott Israel.

The 74-year-old Canadian singer-songwriter announced he would perform in Tel Aviv as part of his world tour. The Ramallah date was added later, allegedly in response to pro-Palestinian campaigners who had tried to dissuade Cohen from appearing in Israel.

Now his Palestinian hosts have cancelled the West Bank concert, amid claims that the planned gig was a hollow attempt to "balance" performances.

"Ramallah will not receive Cohen as long as he is intent on whitewashing Israel's colonial apartheid regime by performing in Israel," the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) said in a statement...

Suicide bomber's children shown re-enactment of mother's death on Hamas TV kids' show
by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

The Hamas TV children's program Tomorrow's Pioneers produced a special broadcast in which the two young children of a female suicide terrorist were invited to the TV studio to watch a video re-enactment of their mother's suicide bombing. The terrorist, Reem Riyashi, killed four Israelis in a suicide bombing in 2004.

Calling the terrorist a "Martyr," the bear puppet and star of the program, Nassur, introduces Riyashi's children to the other children in the studio:

"[Our guests are] the children of the Shahida [Martyr] Reem Riyashi."

Then Muhammad and Duha, the young son and daughter of Riyashi, together with the children in the studio, watch a music video re-enactment of their mother's suicide bombing. While the video is shown, the TV camera shows close-ups of Riyashi's children as they stare at the screen images of their mother's bombing and death.

...MJT: You have talked to Hamas people. Should the Israelis or Americans talk to them?

Goldberg: I don't know what they'd get out of it.

MJT: What did you get out of it when you did it?

Goldberg: A first-hand understanding of how they think. People in the United States find it hard to understand how people in Hamas and Hezbollah think. It's alien. It's alien to us. The feverish racism and conspiracy mongering, the obscurantism, the apocalyptic thinking - we can't relate to that. Every so often, there's an eruption of that in a place like Waco, Texas, but we're not talking about 90 people in a compound. We're talking about whole societies that are captive to this kind of absurdity.

So it's very important - and you know this better than almost anyone - to go over there yourself and tape it, get it down on paper, and say "this is what they actually say."

MJT: It's shocking to hear.

Goldberg: Of course it's shocking to hear.

MJT: Sometimes I can't help but wonder if they really even believe it or if they're just saying it.

Goldberg: I was in Afghanistan in 1998, a week after the first fatwa to "kill all the Jews and Crusaders" came out. I was with a bunch of Americans. They were making light of it because it seemed so ridiculous. They were making light of it, I suppose, partly as a psychological mechanism to allow us to continue staying in Afghanistan.

MJT: (Laughs.) Yeah.

Goldberg: People also made fun of it because it seemed so ridiculous. But it's not ridiculous. Just because a belief sounds ridiculous to you doesn't mean it's not sincerely held...

Over the weekend, as we noted yesterday, Vice President Biden said that if Israel decides it needs to take military action against the Iranian nuclear-weapons program, the U.S. will not "dictate" otherwise. A reader points out that Sarah Palin, who ran against Biden in last year's election, said much the same thing in a September interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson...

...Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy "accommodation." And they say if we'll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he'll forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer -- not an easy answer -- but simple: If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right.

We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we're willing to make a deal with your slave masters." Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Now let's set the record straight. There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace -- and you can have it in the next second -- surrender...

The United States is opposed to enacting a new set of financial sanctions against Iran that are due to be discussed in the G8 summit next week, diplomatic officials in New York reported Friday...

...American officials expressed concern that a decision to enact harsh steps against Iran during the G8 meeting could badly hurt the prospect of Tehran agreeing to renew negotiations with the permanent Security Council members...

...In addition to U.S. reluctance to enact fresh sanctions, G8 members Russia and China have been known to oppose any punitive steps against Tehran...

...For a generation, Iran has spread unrest around the world both directly and through proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas. Tehran's leaders have held conferences, issued edicts, and provided arms to strategically undermine its political foes. Iran has sponsored attacks on U.S. soldiers and citizens...

...Tehran, in short, has a long record of exporting terror and destabilization to other nations. Washington remained on the sidelines of Iran's election controversy because President Barack Obama insisted that "it's not productive . . . to be seen as meddling." Indeed, Obama and his Western counterparts have failed to support the Iranian protests that could help bring an end to the dangerous theocracy that has ruled Iran since 1979, and is itself a meddler par excellence.

In other words, the West is not stopping the Islamic regime from repressing its own citizens. Instead, it is the people of Iran who are finally giving the ayatollahs a taste of their own medicine.

Last Sunday, Honduras removed its would-be dictator, Mel Zelaya, who flouted court rulings by using intimidation to try to get Hondurans to change their constitution to allow him to extend his tenure in office. The country's Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant for Zelaya, which the military enforced by seizing Zelaya and kicking him out of the country. The country's legislature then voted almost unanimously to replace him with its legislative speaker, in accord with the country's constitution.

Now, Obama, who knows nothing about Honduran law, is ignorantly claiming that Zelaya's removal was "illegal," and demanding that Zelaya be reinstated as president. His demand is joined in by the Organization of American States, many of whose leaders, like Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, have either violated their own countries' constitutions, or likewise seek to eliminate term limits contained in their own countries' constitutions. ("A senior Obama administration official said the United States would probably move to suspend economic development and military assistance" to Honduras, one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere)...

Hundreds of emails from Hondurans flooded my in-box last week after I reported on the military's arrest of President Manuel Zelaya, as ordered by the Supreme Court, and his subsequent banishment from the country.

Mr. Zelaya's violations of the rule of law in recent months were numerous. But the tipping point came 10 days ago, when he led a violent mob that stormed a military base to seize and distribute Venezuelan-printed ballots for an illegal referendum.

All but a handful of my letters pleaded for international understanding of the threat to the constitutional democracy that Mr. Zelaya presented...

...This is a moment when the U.S. ought to be on the side of the rule of law, which the Honduran court and Congress upheld. If Washington does not reverse course, it will be one more act of appeasement toward an ambitious and increasingly dangerous dictator.

Taxpayers for Common Sense has complied a list of all the the "Czars" the Obama administration has created. At 31, the number is the highest in history and is more than in the entire history of Imperial Russia...

Senior PA religious official repeats incendiary lies and libels about Israel, Jews and Jewish history
by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

In a single TV interview, one of the Palestinian Authority's most senior religious officials has reiterated several of the many fundamental lies, libels and defamations about Israel, Jews and Jewish history that play a central role in PA ideology and hate propaganda. Tayseer Tamimi, the PA's Chief Religious Justice, regularly appears as a religious authority in the official PA media and at public events.

In this recent interview, Tamimi teaches that the Quran says that Jews have inherently negative traits and have been evil throughout history; that Jerusalem has no Jewish holy sites; that Israel is destroying the foundation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is now "hanging in midair;" that Orthodox Jews deny the Western Wall is part of the Jewish Temple; and that Jesus was not a Jew but a Palestinian.

Tamimi's recent libels, lies and defamations, PATV (Fatah), June 9, 2009 [Links go to Youtube videos.]:

1. The Quran says Jews have inherently negative characteristics
2. Jews have no connection to Jerusalem
3. Israel is acting to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque
4. Orthodox Jews deny the Western Wall is part of the Temple
5. Jesus was not a Jew but a Palestinian prophet of Islam

#1. The Quran says Jews have inherently negative characteristics

Tayseer Tamimi, PA Chief Religious Justice: "Concerning the Jews, the Holy Quran says that they lack understanding, are void of wisdom, know nothing, violate agreements, etc. However, the Jews were known - it was known about them throughout history- that they make false claims, lies, forgery, slander, and fabrications, in order to justify their aggression, land theft, defilement of holy sites, appropriation of land, destruction of homes, murder of children, women, and the elderly."

#2. Jews have no connection to Jerusalem

Tayseer Tamimi, PA Chief Religious Justice: "I know of Muslim and Christian holy sites in [Jerusalem]. I don't know of any Jewish holy sites in it... Israel has been excavating since 1967 in search of remains of their Temple or their fictitious Jewish history."

#3. Israel is acting to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque

Tayseer Tamimi, PA Chief Religious Justice: "The [Israeli] excavations' purpose is to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. In fact, its foundations have been removed. Chemical acids were injected into the rocks to dissolve them. The soil and the pillars [were moved] so the mosque is hanging in midair. There is an Israeli plan to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and to build the Temple."

#4. Orthodox Jews deny the Western Wall is part of the Temple

Tayseer Tamimi, PA Chief Religious Justice: "When the Prophet [Muhammad] entered Jerusalem, after landing with his 'riding animal' in the Night Journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, he tied it to the western wall, which is known today [by Muslims] as the al-Buraq Wall, and which the Jews usurped by falsification and deception [saying it is the Western Wall of the Temple]. Orthodox Jewish groups, such as Neturei Karta, denounce all the actions of the Israeli government and the Zionist movement in Jerusalem. They, more than us, say these claims are false and a distortion of the Jewish faith."

#5. Jesus was not a Jew but a Palestinian prophet of Islam

Archbishop Atallah Hanna (speaking humorously): "We [Christians] are local stock, 100% Palestinian and Arab produce."

Tayseer Tamimi, PA Chief Religious Justice: "Jesus is the only Palestinian prophet."

... The city has helped the Wahhabi clerical establishment - purveyors of the most intolerant religious teachings on the planet - and the Muslim Brotherhood - genesis of all Sunni terrorist organizations - set up shop in the Cradle of Liberty, flying a false flag of moderation. And to make matters worse, this sad milestone is praised as a great victory for diversity and a boon to local Muslims.

Meanwhile, those who criticize this arrangement are branded as bigots and dragged into court, while the press and public officials ignore the links between the leaders of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center and Islamist hatred and terrorism. These claims are supported by tens of thousands of pages of evidence - much of it delivered to us by the society as a result of the discovery process triggered by their own lawsuit.

So why worry? What will the following facts portend for the future of interfaith harmony in Boston and of the venerable and moderate Muslim community of Boston?

• The Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center offers courses from the Islamic American University, whose vice chairman is Jamal Badawi, a trustee of the center, and headed by Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a hate-mongering preacher from the Gulf who has been banned from Egypt and the United States. As the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, he praises suicide bombers, debates the correct way to murder homosexuals, and has urged that the Jews be murdered "to the last one.'"
• Trustee Walid Fitahi has claimed that according to the Koran, Jews are "killers of the Prophets,'' responsible for the "oppression, murder, and rape of the worshipers of Allah.'' Yet Fitahi was chosen to read Koranic passages at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
• ISB records show that the organization has both received money from and donated money to organizations that were later investigated or shut down for terrorist activities. Among the recipients of ISB largesse are the Benevolence International Foundation - an Al Qaeda charity - and the recently convicted Holy Land Foundation - a Hamas charity.

These are the people who will now be ministering to the spiritual needs of the local Muslim community and bringing to the center preachers who share their views...

Dear Michael,

You wrote that Jewish organizations and others are wrong to doubt the sincerity of the leaders of the ISB/MAS's new Islamic Center. You want us to rely on your experience with these leaders who you find "gracious, sincere and warm."

I am sure that you are well intentioned. I think you project your good intentions onto the leadership of the ISB/MAS but sadly you have not only been misled, you seem to be practicing - and advocating - a policy of perpetual self-delusion:

Instead of dealing with facts, you repeat the MAS talking points and vouch for their personal charm. Here are some of the facts you have decided to ignore:

1. We can start with the depressing episode of Walid Fitahi, ISB's outreach director, who made "gracious, sincere, and warm" friends with Jewish rabbis while writing in Arabic papers that Jews were the rapists of the worshipers of Allah and would be scourged for perpetrating the worst of evils. When asked how their outreach director, who spoke so warmly to the Jews of Boston, could say such things, the Islamic Society of Boston denied he ever wrote this. When Jewish agencies persisted, the ISB said that what we had found was simply a bad translation from the Arabic. But it wasn't, and so they finally said, "Well he didn't mean ALL the Jews." Maybe he didn't mean you, Michael. But don't count on it.

2. Then there was the matter of the ISB misleading the Globe editorial board. After it had emerged that the founder of the ISB, and several of the actual owners and Trustees were Islamists with frightening hate and terror connections, the ISB local spokespeople told the Globe that they had a new local board which would run things here in Boston. Not true. Their documents state that the local board cannot make financial or governance decisions without first getting approval from the foreign-based Trustees.

3. And Michael, what about the real owners of the Islamic Center? When it was discovered that Yusef al-Qaradawi, the theologian of the Muslim Brotherhood, was a Trustee, the ISB removed his name from their documents. His name had been on sworn legal filings as Trustee for 8 years running, but the ISB told us that this was a "clerical error." Do you believe that too, Michael? The founder of the ISB, a man named Alamoudi, is in jail for 23 years for terrorism and funneling money to al-Qaeda. The current president of the ISB Trust, Osama Kandil, founded the radical Muslim Arab Youth Association, a group which brought Jew-hating foreign sheikhs to speak to Muslim teens around the country. Jamal Badawi, is an example of a "new" trustee, brought in to show the ISB is actually moderate. But he is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and a founder of the Muslim American Society, which federal authorities say is the Brotherhood's American front group.

Michael, you suggest we trust this group because they are nice to you personally. Did it EVER occur to you that you are being used?

You want us NOT to take into account statements by their leaders and spokespeople and invited speakers which are not intended for our ears?:

Tell us, Michael... what should we do with this data:

1. Qaradawi, who is partnering with Badawi in an Islamic University in Boston, can be seen on www.memri.org saying that homosexuals and Jews should be killed.

2. Following Qaradawi's preachings on wife beating, the ISB had on its website a set of instructions on how Muslim men should beat their wives. (The whip should be hung in a public place in the home.)

3. A preacher named Qadi, who the ISB/MAS hosted at their Cambridge mosque in March 2009, has said in previous talks that Christians are theologically "filthy," that there was no Holocaust, and that Jews are trying to destroy Muslims. (If you missed this piece of data, see www.hatefreeamerica.org for the video.)

4. Jamal Badawi, the newest ISB Trustee, says that Muslims should seek to install Islamic Law wherever they live. Why wouldn't that include Boston?

Michael, I truly believe that we could agree on much more than it would seem from our point-counter/point op-eds today in the Globe.

I would like to propose some "INTRA-faith dialogue:"

I'm sure there would be synagogues that would host us to go calmly through these issues. And maybe churches as well.

I await your positive response.

Sincerely,

Charles Jacobs

...MJT: So you just got back from Sri Lanka. What did you see there? What did you learn?

Kaplan: The biggest takeaway fact about the Sri Lankan war that's over now is that the Chinese won. And the Chinese won because over the last few years, because of the human rights violations by the Sri Lankan government, the U.S. and other Western countries have cut all military aid. We cut them off just as they were starting to win. The Chinese filled the gaps and kept them flush with weapons and, more importantly, with ammunition, with fire-fighting radar, all kinds of equipment. The assault rifles that Sri Lankan soldiers carry at road blocks throughout Colombo are T-56 Chinese knockoffs of AK-47s. They look like AK-47s, but they're not.

What are the Chinese getting out of this? They're building a deep water port and bunkering facility for their warships and merchant fleet in Hambantota, in southern Sri Lanka. And they're doing all sorts of other building on the island.

Now, why did the Chinese want Sri Lanka? Because Sri Lanka is strategically located. The main sea lines of communication between the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, and between the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. It's part of China's plan to construct a string of pearls - ports that they don't own, but which they can use for their warships all across the Indian Ocean.

Sri Lanka defeated, more or less completely, a 26 year-long insurgency. They killed the leader and the leader's son. But there are no takeaway lessons for the West here. The Sri Lankan government did it by silencing the media, which meant capturing the most prominent media critic of the government and killing him painfully. And they made sure all the other journalists knew about it.

MJT: Wow.

Kaplan: There are a thousand disappearances a year in Sri Lanka separate from the war. Journalists are terrified there. The only journalism you read is pro-government. So that's one thing they did.

The Tamil Tigers had human shields by the tens of thousands, not just by the dozens and hundreds like Al Qaeda. They put people between themselves and the government and say "you have to kill all the people to get to us." So the government obliged them. The government killed thousands of civilians.

MJT: Tamil civilians?

Kaplan: Yes. They killed thousands of civilians in the course of winning this war. It acted in a way so brutal that there are no lessons for the West...

...What really caught my attention was how the movie deals with Israel and the Middle East. As with much of what is wrong with how Israel gets reported on in the media, this is a sin of omission rather than commission. The final battle between the Autobots, along with their mostly American allies, and the Decepticons, led by the Fallen (a Monty Python worthy evil villain), takes place around an Egyptian Pyramid, along the border with Jordan. For those of you not familiar with the geography of the Middle East, here is a map of the area in question.

[See Post for map.]

As you can see, while Egypt is very close to Jordan, there is a little resort town called Elat separating Egypt from Jordan. I have been to Elat; it is a beautiful place, perfect for anyone with a sense for political humor. From Elat you can look out and see Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia; all this while remaining firmly in the State of Israel. For some strange reason Michael Bay failed to notice that Israel lies between Egypt and Jordan. (This is all the worse as Steven Spielberg is listed as a producer. One would have hoped that he would have jumped on such a mistake.)

This removal of Israel becomes even more ridiculous when the humans put out a call for help to the Egyptian military, whose country they are in, and the Jordanians and several Jordanian helicopters take part in the battle, mainly by getting blown out of the sky. Last I checked the Middle East superpower in the air is Israel, not Jordan. Why couldn't we have Israel jets shooting it out with the Decepticons to save the world? This could have even been a good opportunity to stick in a peace process message by having Israel fight alongside the Muslim countries of Egypt and Jordan. Particularly since, even in real life, Israel is at peace with both of these countries.

A Palestinian female journalist complained over the weekend that Hamas policemen attempted to arrest her under the pretext that she came to a Gaza beach dressed immodestly and was seen laughing in public.

The journalist, Asma al-Ghul, said that the policemen instead confiscated her passport. Since the incident, she added, she has been afraid to leave her home, especially after receiving death threats from anonymous callers.

"They accused me of laughing loudly while swimming with my friend and failing to wear a hijab," Ghul told a human rights organization in the Gaza Strip. "They also wanted to know the identity of the people who were with me at the beach and whether they were relatives of mine."

In a phone interview with the Dubai-based Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news Web site, the journalist said that the policemen who stopped her belonged to the Hamas government's Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice security force.

The special force reports directly to the Ministry of Waqf Affairs and is said to be a copy of units that have long been operating in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.

The Hamas government, according to local reporters, has refrained from publicly admitting that the force exists out of fear of being branded fundamentalist...

"They say time heals, but each day is more difficult than the last," says Ayelet Modoh, 37.

Six months after the Israeli military operation in Gaza, her sister Irit Shitrit's death in a Palestinian rocket strike is still sinking in...

ormer U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney -- who was aboard a ship the Israeli navy intercepted this week -- is in a detention center and will be returned to the United States, the U.S. Embassy said.

McKinney was among those on a ship that the Israeli Defense Forces said violated an Israeli blockade and crossed into Gazan waters on Tuesday.

The Israeli navy gained control of the ship and took McKinney and about 20 people into custody, said the Free Gaza Movement, a human rights group [LOL] that sent the ship...

...McKinney served six terms in the House of Representatives as a Democrat from Georgia and was the Green Party's 2008 presidential nominee.

The ex-lawmaker is in the Givon immigration detention center in the central Israeli city of Ramle, the U.S. Embassy said.

She has been given deportation papers but has refused to sign them, the embassy said.

She will be held for three more days, assuming she does not sign the papers, and then will be sent back to the United States, the embassy added...

...The delegation of hundreds of people from the U.S., led by British Member of Parliament George Galloway, leaves on July 4 bringing urgently needed humanitarian aid. We are excited and humbled to have been invited on the mission.

We would like to invite you to join us in a dinner on Wednesday at 9pm at Andala Cafe in Cambridge (address/link below) following Mazin Quimsyeh's talk at the Senior Center to celebrate and discuss the convoy, and how it can be connected to the movement in Boston. We are also asking for your help--in supporting the convoy and our ability to participate in it--financially. The dinner will act as a fundraiser for which all contributions are deeply appreciated.

Your contributions are vital to the success of the Viva Palestina convoy, and our ability to bring this aid directly to the hands of the people of Gaza, an experience which we would then proactively use to help build the movement here with writing and speaking. We will not be able to join this historic effort without your help. Please read the attached letter by George Galloway, which explains the purpose of Viva Palestina, and appeals for your support. We are trying to raise $10,000. With everyone's help this is entirely possible...

...I hope you feel able to sponsor their mission. Our funds are being handled by the non-for profit organization IFCO and our aid will be given to NGOs and charities in Gaza - so everything is well within the restrictions placed by the US authorities on humanitarian aid to the territory.

The Anti-Defamation League is urging the Justice Department to investigate whether a U.S.-based group is raising money for Hamas.

Viva Palestina U.S. is a campaign modeled after a similar European initiative, led by British Parliament member George Galloway, that delivered money and a convoy of vehicles to Hamas representatives in Gaza in March. Galloway plans to lead a similar Viva Palestina U.S.-sponsored convoy next month, and he has been visiting the United States recently to publicize and raise funds for it.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, ADL said "it is not verifiable that this 'committee' will function independently of the Hamas leadership in Gaza, and Galloway -- who plans to lead the American convoy -- has already demonstrated his willingness to directly support Hamas."

Viva Palestina U.S. organizers say they intend to adhere to U.S. law and will deliver the money raised to a reception committee of nongovernmental organizations in Gaza. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.

The Supreme Court's decision in Ricci v. DeStefano is a welcome reaffirmation that the government must have a strong basis in evidence to support any race-based decision.

This decision properly forecloses many instances of governmental race-based decision making, particularly those where government unilaterally seeks to correct what it sees as racial injustice for one group while unfairly burdening another.

We are pleased that in making its decision, the Court clearly reaffirmed the central role of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, a fundamental law that ensures that America's workplaces will remain free of racial discrimination and that an employee's race will never be a barrier to opportunity...