August 2009 Archives

Is the crisis in relations between Israel and Sweden coming to an end? That is what Italy's foreign minister, Franco Frattini, would like to believe.

In a telephone conversation with Haaretz, Frattini said he recently met with his Swedish counterpart, Carl Bildt, and the two agreed that at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers later this week, they will work to pass a resolution making it clear that the EU, under the Swedish presidency, strongly condemns anti-Semitism and will take action against any manifestation of it on the continent.

Frattini said he intends to demand that the meeting's summary statement explicitly condemn the article published in the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, which claimed that Israeli soldiers harvested the organs of dead Palestinians. He said his proposed statement would declare articles of this sort to be "acts of blatant anti-Semitism."

"There are limits to freedom of the press that stem from respect for the truth and the duty of every journalist to prove his claims," Frattini explained.

The accusations in the Aftonbladet article are "terrible conclusions, lying and hurtful, and they have the power to assist all those who seek to incite against Jews or who oppose the existence of the State of Israel," he added.

However, Frattini stressed, "the state cannot intervene in the work of the press. The journalists are the ones who must set limits for themselves and must find the right balance within the framework of the journalistic code of behavior."

Frattini said that is why the Council of Ministers, which is scheduled to discuss the situation in the Middle East later this week, is the correct forum "for Sweden to prove, with concrete steps, its determined stance against anti-Semitism. It would be better for the Swedish response to be expressed there than via a government communique to the press."...

Hamas condemned the United Nations Sunday, saying it planned to teach Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip about the Holocaust -- but the U.N. agency which runs schools in the enclave would not confirm any change.

Branding the Nazi genocide of the Jews "a lie invented by the Zionists," the Islamist movement which runs the Gaza Strip wrote in an open letter to a senior U.N. official that he should withdraw plans for a new history book in U.N. schools.

A spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which educates some 200,000 refugee children in Gaza, said the Holocaust was not on its current curriculum. He would not comment on Hamas's statement that it was about to change.

Palestinians resent the way world powers reacted to the Holocaust by supporting the establishment of Israel in 1948, a move that left half the Arab population of then British-ruled Palestine as refugees in Gaza, the West Bank and abroad...

Hamas said it believed UNRWA was about to start using a text for 13-year-olds that included a chapter on the Holocaust.

In an open letter to local UNRWA chief John Ging, the movement's Popular Committees for Refugees said: "We refuse to let our children study a lie invented by the Zionists."

UNRWA spokesman Adnan Abu Hasna said: "There is no mention of the Holocaust in the current syllabus." Asked if UNRWA planned to change that, he declined to comment...

...Hamas's official spokesman in Gaza, Sami Abu Zuhri, said he did not want to discuss the history of the Holocaust but said:

"Regardless of the controversy, we oppose forcing the issue of the so-called Holocaust onto the syllabus, because it aims to reinforce acceptance of the occupation of Palestinian land."

After enduring the CIA's harshest interrogation methods and spending more than a year in the agency's secret prisons, Khalid Sheik Mohammed stood before U.S. intelligence officers in a makeshift lecture hall, leading what they called "terrorist tutorials."

In 2005 and 2006, the bearded, pudgy man who calls himself the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks discussed a wide variety of subjects, including Greek philosophy and al-Qaeda dogma. In one instance, he scolded a listener for poor note-taking and his inability to recall details of an earlier lecture.

Speaking in English, Mohammed "seemed to relish the opportunity, sometimes for hours on end, to discuss the inner workings of al-Qaeda and the group's plans, ideology and operatives," said one of two sources who described the sessions, speaking on the condition of anonymity because much information about detainee confinement remains classified. "He'd even use a chalkboard at times."

These scenes provide previously unpublicized details about the transformation of the man known to U.S. officials as KSM from an avowed and truculent enemy of the United States into what the CIA called its "preeminent source" on al-Qaeda. This reversal occurred after Mohammed was subjected to simulated drowning and prolonged sleep deprivation, among other harsh interrogation techniques.
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"KSM, an accomplished resistor, provided only a few intelligence reports prior to the use of the waterboard, and analysis of that information revealed that much of it was outdated, inaccurate or incomplete," according to newly unclassified portions of a 2004 report by the CIA's then-inspector general released Monday by the Justice Department...

...One former U.S. official with detailed knowledge of how the interrogations were carried out said Mohammed, like several other detainees, seemed to have decided that it was okay to stop resisting after he had endured a certain amount of pressure.

"Once the harsher techniques were used on [detainees], they could be viewed as having done their duty to Islam or their cause, and their religious principles would ask no more of them," said the former official, who requested anonymity because the events are still classified. "After that point, they became compliant. Obviously, there was also an interest in being able to later say, 'I was tortured into cooperating.' "...

The Swedes have no oppinion on Israel but that which we are fed.

In Swedish media, Israel is equivalent to palestinian suffering. The rest is boycotted. Israel is a non-country in Swedish media, pharia.

It is impossible to report anything from Israel in Swedish TV without mentioning the palestinian side. For instance, the only excuse to tell about Tel Aviv is in order to intervew Israeli opposition to the occupation.

Swedish media has boycotted Israel for a long long time. Have no illusions about anything else. So yal67, when you explain that there is another side to the coin, keep in mind that we simply do not understand what you are talking about.

We have been brain washed good. The biggest joke is that yiddish is a minority language in Sweden, while arabic is not. There are 17 000 jews in Sweden and more than 500 000 muslims.

We have a law against antisemitism too. The functions of these signs of tolerance and safety are to show that Israel is not needed. This in spite of the fact that there is real antisemitism spewing from mosques and established media alike.

Somewhere however, the Swedes are subconciously aware of a possible alternative reality but they know not how to access it due to the media administrated lobotomy, besides the brain washing.

So, in all friendness, do not underestimate the task which you have taken on.

The British government decided it was "in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom" to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.

Gordon Brown's government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.

The letters were sent two years ago by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to Kenny MacAskill, his counterpart in Scotland, who has been widely criticised for taking the formal decision to permit Megrahi's release.

The correspondence makes it plain that the key decision to include Megrahi in a deal with Libya to allow prisoners to return home was, in fact, taken in London for British national interests.

Edward Davey, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said: "This is the strongest evidence yet that the British government has been involved for a long time in talks over al-Megrahi in which commercial considerations have been central to their thinking."...

...At a time when Jews are anxious about how Israel will fare in negotiations with the Obama administration over a peace deal with the Palestinians, the Stork and Whitson affairs present an unfamiliar problem to HRW: how to reassure liberal Jews, including HRW's founder and one of its current board members, worried that the organization is playing into the hands of anti-Israel activists from New York to Riyadh. Whether or not its staff actively seek out ways to target Israel, as Netanyahu's office claims, by appearing to focus so many of its resources on Israel -- five reports have been issued already since the Gaza War, three of them criticizing the IDF's conduct, and another report about Israel's "wanton destruction" is forthcoming -- and by hiring people like Stork and Whitson, HRW, under executive director Ken Roth, leaves those doubts unanswered. "Ken feels their facts are right, and the critics are wrong, next case," said Sid Sheinberg, the former Hollywood mogul and vice-chair of HRW's board. "I don't believe that's the way the Israelis should be treated."

Founded in 1978 as Helsinki Watch -- mainly to help insure that dissident intellectuals were treated fairly by the Soviet Union in accordance with the Helsinki Accords -- HRW has, over the past 20 years, come to occupy a diplomatic position of heft and responsibility, "somewhere between a permanent and a rotating member of the Security Council," jokes one longtime U.N. watcher. Even harsh critics like Gerald Steinberg, a professor of political science at Bar Ilan University who also runs NGO Monitor, which tracks HRW and other NGOs in Israel, concede that HRW is unmatched as a voice for exposing grave human rights abuses, from Sudan to China...

..."They frequently say, 'We're trying to be evenhanded,'" said Robert Bernstein, the founder of Helsinki Watch and now a board member emeritus at HRW. "I don't understand trying to be evenhanded, because to me Israel is interested and a believer in human rights and it stands out in the Middle East as practicing it in their country." At its inception, he said, Helsinki Watch planned only to operate in closed societies -- undemocratic, illiberal countries without freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and other basic rights. Operating in open, democratic societies like Israel is complicated because, as Bernstein noted, there are domestic organizations, like B'tselem in Israel, that do "a beautiful job" of holding their own governments accountable. "If you could cover every human rights act, it would be fine," Bernstein said. "But you can't, so you have to make choices about what you cover, and once you make choices, you're political, whether you want to be or not." The overall result of HRW's current work, he added, "is to say we're being evenhanded in a way that makes it come out that both sides are equal abusers of human rights -- I don't agree with that."...

New road signs in Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank will be in Arabic and English, without Hebrew, a US official said on Thursday.

The spokesperson for the US Consulate in Jerusalem, Mindy Masonis, said the new signs would be part of a larger programme aimed at improving conditions in the West Bank.

The development is seen as part of the preparation for a future Palestinian state...

...Masonis said no signs were being taken down, but the new ones in the Palestinian areas would be in Arabic and English. The sign project accounts for about $175 000 of a three-year $20m aid project to improve services in the West Bank.

These long, crazy-looking clouds can grow to be 600 miles long and can move at up to 35 miles per hour, causing problems for aircraft even on windless days.

Known as Morning Glory clouds, they appear every fall over Burketown, Queensland, Australia, a remote town with fewer than 200 residents. A small number of pilots and tourists travel there each year in hopes of "cloud surfing" with the mysterious phenomenon.

Similar tubular shaped clouds called roll clouds appear in various places around the globe. But nobody has yet figured out what causes the Morning Glory clouds.

This shot was captured by photographer Mick Petroff from his plane near Australia's Gulf of Carpenteria.

...On Thursday August 6th, I was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts to attend a conference call scheduled for Monday August 10th hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve. The call would include "a group of artists, producers, promoters, organizers, influencers, marketers, taste-makers, leaders or just plain cool people to join together and work together to promote a more civically engaged America and celebrate how the arts can be used for a positive change!"

I learned after the conference call that there were approximately 75 people participating, including many well respected street-artists, filmmakers, art galleries, music venues, musicians and music producers, writers, poets, actors, independent media outlets, marketers, and various other professionals from the creative community. I suppose I was invited because of my work in creating arts initiatives, but being a former employer of the NEA's Director of Communications was probably a factor as well.

Backed by the full weight of President Barack Obama's call to service and the institutional weight of the NEA, the conference call was billed as an opportunity for those in the art community to inspire service in four key categories, and at the top of the list were "health care" and "energy and environment." The service was to be attached to the President's United We Serve campaign, a nationwide federal initiative to make service a way of life for all Americans.

It sounded, how should I phrase it...unusual, that the NEA would invite the art community to a meeting to discuss issues currently under vehement national debate. I decided to call in, and what I heard concerned me...

And if you think that my fear regarding the arts becoming a tool of the state is still unfounded, I leave you with a few statements made by the NEA to the art community participants on the conference call. "This is just the beginning. This is the first telephone call of a brand new conversation. We are just now learning how to really bring this community together to speak with the government. What that looks like legally?...bare with us as we learn the language so that we can speak to each other safely... "

Is the hair on your arms standing up yet?

A "furious" Rep. Peter King, the hawkish, maverick Long Island Republican, blasted a "disgraceful" Eric Holder for opening an investigation of CIA interrogators and chided his own party for what he described as a weak response to the move in an interview just now with POLITICO.

"It's bulls***. It's disgraceful. You wonder which side they're on," he said of the attorney general's move, which he described as a "declaration of war against the CIA, and against common sense."

"It's a total breach of faith, and either the president is intentionally caving to the left wing of his party or he's lost control of his administration," said King, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security and a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence...

Several sources have informed One Jerusalem that the Obama Administration is planning to significantly step up the pressure on Israel by announcing a comprehensive plan for Israel and the Palestinians at the opening of the United Nations General in September.

Picture this: The anti-Israel nations of the world surrounding President Obama as he demands that Israel give up sovereignty over Jerusalem, abandon settlements, and recognize a terrorist state on the West Bank.

If this happens, Israel will be isolated from the rest of world in a very dramatic manner.

The first sign that something was up came when Egyptian President Mubarak said that the Obama Administration was ready to propose a plan in September and the White House rushed to dampen expectations by declaring that they are nowhere near to readying a plan.

Our sources confirmed that the Obama administration is contemplating this ambush of Israel at the United Nations...

The Palestinian Authority intends to establish a de-facto state within the next two years, despite failing peace talks, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said on Tuesday.

"We have decided to be proactive, to expedite the end of the occupation by working very hard to build positive facts on the ground, consistent with having our state emerge as a fact that cannot be ignored," Fayyad told the Times of London. "This is our agenda, and we want to pursue it doggedly."

According to Fayyad, the idea would be to "end the occupation, despite the occupation."

The de facto state would include security forces, public services and a thriving economy, Fayyad told the Times, and would hopfully serve as the impetus to Israel to move foward on its own commitments.

Fayyad was to unveil his plan for building the institutions and infrastructure of the state of Palestine, which he said could feasibly be readied in the next two years.

Not so much a blueprint as a wish-list, the 65-page plan calls for a new international airport in the Jordan Valley and new rail links to neighboring states, and proposes a generous tax regime for foreign investors.

The Palestinian Authority which Fayyad heads is dependent on foreign assistance for most of its budget. A copy of the plan was obtained by Reuters ahead of publication.

The plan is short on detail, but setting out these objectives is a departure from Palestinian policy over the past 15 years, which focused exclusively on negotiations with Israel rather than building institutions...

The family and relatives of Bilal Ahmed Ghanem, the Palestinian at the center of the organ-theft story in the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, said on Monday that they didn't know if the accusations were true or not...

...Ghanem's younger brother, Jalal, said he could not confirm the allegations made by the Swedish newspaper that his brother's organs had been stolen.

"I don't know if this is true," he said. "We don't have any evidence to support this."

Jalal said his brother was evacuated by the IDF in a helicopter and delivered to the family only a few days later.

The mother denied that she had told any foreign journalist that her son's organs had been stolen.

However, she said that now she does not rule out the possibility that Israel was harvesting organs of Palestinians...

...The family lives in the tiny village of Imatin in the northern West Bank. Ghanem, 19, was killed by IDF soldiers during the first intifada on May 13, 1992.

He was a Fatah activist who was wanted by the IDF for his involvement in violence.

His mother, Sadeeka, said he was shot by an IDF sniper as he walked out of his home. "The bullets hit him directly in the heart," she said.

Ghanem's younger brother, Jalal, said he could not confirm the allegations made by the Swedish newspaper that his brother's organs had been stolen.

"I don't know if this is true," he said. "We don't have any evidence to support this."

Jalal said his brother was evacuated by the IDF in a helicopter and delivered to the family only a few days later.

The mother denied that she had told any foreign journalist that her son's organs had been stolen.

However, she said that now she does not rule out the possibility that Israel was harvesting organs of Palestinians.

...THE RESULTS of media distortion and constant demonizing of Jews and Israelis are felt in Sweden all the time - most recently Saturday in a soccer match involving Jewish youth club IF Hakoah, in which spectators raced onto the pitch during and after the match to assault the Hakoah players for the crime of being Jewish.

One problem, however: at this particular match, none of the Hakoah players happened to be Jewish. Not that it mattered in a climate of hate cloaked in government silence...

... pro-Israel organization's bona fides should be judged by the company it keeps and the FEC documents suggest that J Street keeps questionable company indeed - a "not employed" man is really a Palestinian billionaire; a "self-employed" contributor is also a board member of the National Iranian American Council and serves on J Street's finance committee with a minimum donation of $10,000; a "lawyer" who contributes $15,000 is a board member of the discredited and anti-Israel Human Rights Watch; a "housing specialist" is an anti-Israel activist in the Methodist Church; a "teacher" is a founder of an Islamic school indoctrinating students to be anti-Israel.

J Street's director must take the Post's readers for fools when he claims, "I think it is a terrific thing for Israel for us to be able to expand the tent of people who are willing to be considered pro-Israel."

Why should a National Iranian American Council board member give at least $10,000 to J Street PAC? Perhaps it is because of the very close relationship between the two organizations. In June the directors of both organizations coauthored an article in the Huffington Post, "How diplomacy with Iran can Work," arguing against imposing new tough sanctions on Iran.

The two organizations have worked in lockstep over the last year to torpedo congressional action against Iran. Why would a supposedly pro-Israel, pro-peace organization work so hard to block legislation that would undermine the Iranian ayatollah regime? Ostensibly, any step to hinder Iran's nuclear development and aid to Hamas and Hizbullah would be a step toward regional peace. Deterring Iran through sanctions would lessen the need for military action against Iran. This, as well as championing Hamas's cause, just doesn't make sense.

THE POST also noted donations from individuals connected to Arab American groups.

In June, the director of J Street was a guest speaker at the annual conference of the Arab lobbying group, the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee. Appearing on the same panel was the J Street-endorsed Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Maryland), one the few members of Congress who refused to support a congressional resolution in January that recognized Israel's right to defend itself against Hamas. J Street's PAC raised $30,000 for Edwards in June...

...Pointing to the large number of supporters on J Street's e-mail list, Ben-Ami said the idea is to "take this energy and excitement that we've generated in a little over a year [and] take that offline and into community meetings."

To that end, J Street will be coordinating with Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, a left-wing grassroots network of some 50,000 backers founded in 2002 and engaged in similar activities, and exploring how the two groups might best work together.

In welcoming J Street's announcement, Brit Tzedek on Tuesday also noted that it would no longer be looking to fill its executive director position, raising questions about whether the two organizations would eventually merge...

..."You're talking about a fringe, extreme group with no influence joining a group with pretensions on influence. Zero times zero in the end still equals zero," said Morris Amitay, who runs the pro-Israel Washington PAC and is a former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Washington's dominant pro-Israel lobby. AIPAC has 100,000 members according to its Web site, offices around the country and a growing campus presence.

"To say J Street has as much support as AIPAC is ridiculous," Amitay said. "They have an e-mail list. I can get you an e-mail list with 100,000 people for a few hundred dollars."

Of all the cottage industries you might expect to find in the Israeli- occupied West Bank, the crocheting of Jewish skullcaps by Palestinian hands seems one of the oddest.

But creating the colorful cap, known in Hebrew as a "kippah," keeps hundreds of women busy in villages like Deir Abu Meshal, which have been making the religious headgear for their Jewish neighbors for some 40 years.

Almost every house in the village of 3,000 west of Ramallah makes the little caps. It's a social event as well as a helpful cash-earner. Women bring their wool and needles to each other's home to crochet and chat.

"We make qors (the Arab name for kippah translates as 'disc') while having a gossip," said Umm Ali. "We meet each other and we make money at the same time," added the mother of three, whose husband is unemployed...

...Six Palestinian skullcap dealers distribute the wool, needles and the models to women in this village and 10 neighboring villages.

The finished articles are collected each week and shipped to Israeli retailers. The skullcaps are also exported to the United States.

"The kippah business is what makes my shop busy. Women buy stuff from the kippah money they earn," said Riyad Ata, whose grocery store serves as a collection point for finished caps from some 100 women...

..."Without this knitting business, people here would be very poor," said Nema Khamis, 50, who passed on her skills to her five daughters and daughter-in-law.

Palestinian weavers used to make the traditional keffiyeh, the checkered Arab headscarf that late leader Yasser Arafat made a national Palestinian symbol. But much of that business has now gone to China, where costs are lower.

The Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet has published an entire section of its Sunday edition that is devoted to defending its blood libel that the IDF murdered 'Palestinians' are harvested their organs for resale abroad.

Here's an article by their editor, Jan Helin, and here is the Google translation...

(IsraelNN.com) Antagonism between Israel and Sweden over Swedish media accusation that IDF soldiers sold Arab body parts is heating up, in light of evidence that Sweden's government funded the "research" for the story. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is expected to demand a Swedish government condemnation of the accusations.

News of the funding was broken Sunday morning by Maariv/NRG. Maariv's correspondent in Sweden, Liran Lotker, reports that most of the material in last week's controversial article is old, having appeared in a book written in 2001 by the author of the article. The book, entitled Inshallah, was funded by various bodies, including the Foreign Ministry of Sweden, Swedish labor unions, and some organizations based in the Palestinian Authority-controlled areas.

...Israel's envoy to Sweden, Benny Dagan, responded to a Swedish reporter on Sunday who asked why Israel did not investigate the claims.

"Why don't we investigate why the Mossad and the Jews were behind the bombing of the twin towers?" he said. "Why won't we investigate why Jews are spreading AIDS in the Arab countries? Why won't we investigate why Jews killed Christian children and took their blood and organs to bake matzot on Pessah?"...

Dear Mr Secretary

Over the years I have been a prosecutor, and recently as the Director of the FBI, I have made it a practice not to comment on the actions of other prosecutors, since only the prosecutor handling the case has all the facts and the law before him in reaching the appropriate decision.

Your decision to release Megrahi causes me to abandon that practice in this case. I do so because I am familiar with the facts, and the law, having been the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the investigation and indictment of Megrahi in 1991. And I do so because I am outraged at your decision, blithely defended on the grounds of ''compassion''.

Your action in releasing Megrahi is as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice. Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law. Your action gives comfort to terrorists around the world who now believe that regardless of the quality of the investigation, the conviction by jury after the defendant is given all due process, and sentence appropriate to the crime, the terrorist will be freed by one man's exercise of ''compassion''. Your action rewards a terrorist even though he never admitted to his role in this act of mass murder and even though neither he nor the government of Libya ever disclosed the names and roles of others who were responsible.

Your action makes a mockery of the emotions, passions and pathos of all those affected by the Lockerbie tragedy: the medical personnel who first faced the horror of 270 bodies strewn in the fields around Lockerbie, and in the town of Lockerbie itself; the hundreds of volunteers who walked the fields of Lockerbie to retrieve any piece of debris related to the break-up of the plane; the hundreds of FBI agents and Scottish police who undertook an unprecedented global investigation to identify those responsible; the prosecutors who worked for years - in some cases a full career - to see justice done.

But most importantly, your action makes a mockery of the grief of the families who lost their own on December 21, 1988. You could not have spent much time with the families, certainly not as much time as others involved in the investigation and prosecution. You could not have visited the small wooden warehouse where the personal items of those who perished were gathered for identification - the single sneaker belonging to a teenager; the Syracuse sweatshirt never again to be worn by a college student returning home for the holidays; the toys in a suitcase of a businessman looking forward to spending Christmas with his wife and children.

You apparently made this decision without regard to the views of your partners in the investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the Lockerbie tragedy. Although the FBI and Scottish police, and prosecutors in both countries, worked exceptionally closely to hold those responsible accountable, you never once sought our opinion, preferring to keep your own counsel and hiding behind opaque references to ''the need for compassion''.

You have given the family members of those who died continued grief and frustration. You have given those who sought to assure that the persons responsible would be held accountable the back of your hand. You have given Megrahi a ''jubilant welcome'' in Tripoli, according to the reporting. Where, I ask, is the justice?

Sincerely yours,

Robert S. Mueller, III

Director

The Swedish government has moved to shut down the website of a far-right political party's newspaper over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The site's host, Levonline, pulled the plug on the website of the Swedish Democrats' SD-Kuriren newspaper after consulting with the government.

It is believed to be the first time a Western government has intervened to block a publication in the growing row.

Kuriren editor Richard Jomshof said the government was breaking the law.

"We have to do something about it. This is illegal. They can't do this just because we are a small magazine," he told the BBC News website...

...Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds described Kuriren's move as "a provocation" by "a small group of extremists".

"I will defend freedom of the press no matter what the circumstances, but I strongly condemn the provocation by SD-Kuriren. It displays a complete lack of respect," she said in a statement.

Site back up

Levonline CEO Turkel Nyberg told the BBC News website his company had pulled the plug on the site after discussions with the foreign ministry and the security police.

"It seemed like it could be a bad for us and for others to have the site up. The problem was the content, which was these Muhammad pictures," he said.

He said he had been told by the government that Arab media were carrying reports about SD-Kuriren's call for cartoons about Muhammad.

Sweden - which opposed the war in Iraq and is a leading donor to the Middle East - has largely avoided becoming the target of Muslim anger over the cartoons...

...in an attempt to blame the victims of his libel for having the chutzpah to denounce it, Helin invokes the more familiar language of Israel-bashers: "It's deeply unpleasant and sad to see such a strong propaganda machine using centuries-old anti-Semitic images in an apparent attempt to get an obviously topical issue off the table."

So, according to Helin, it is Israel, which he accuses of killing children and then cannibalizing their bodies, that is invoking anti-Semitic imagery...

CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

Ben-Dror Yemini, Maariv, 21.8.09

HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS BECAME THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN RIGHTS

On Sunday (16.8.09), I wrote an article entitled "Author of Report Against Israel Supported Munich Massacre" which dealt with Joe Stork, the man who presented the severe Human Rights Watch (HRW) report last week (13.8.09) which said that 12 Palestinian civilians, including children, were shot to death by IDF soldiers even though they were waving white flags.

The article received widespread coverage and many references, and apparently struck a very sensitive chord with the organization. Up until now, the organization did not respond to claims of anti-Israel bias; on occasion, it arrogantly belittled the claims. This time the organization deviated from its habit. Two days later (18.8.09), Stork sent a letter to Maariv in which he tried to deal with the claims that were made against him [This was also posted on this, and I'm sure many other, blogs. -MS]. The letter is presented in full below, both for reasons regarding the right of response and in order to make it clear that the letter, in effect, only strengthens the claims against the organization in general and against Stork in particular. Following is Stork's letter in full, with remarks added in order to set the record straight.

***

"The Israeli government and Ben-Dror Yemini ['Author of Report against Israel Supported Munich Massacre'] seem to share a "shoot the messenger" approach when it comes to addressing painstakingly researched criticisms of the Israel Defense Forces' actions in Gaza. Instead of addressing these detailed findings, they spread malicious misinformation about me and my organization, Human Rights Watch."

Stork is right. One must deal with the message, not the messenger. But sometimes, in extreme cases, there are grounds for focusing on the messenger. Let us assume that a former Ku Klux Klan activist would issue a report against Afro-Americans. Would the report be important or the messenger? The comparison is not far off the mark in the current case. Stork opposed the recognition of Israel and was even one of the founders (!) of a group that admired the murder of the Israeli athletes in Munich. Stork also recommended that the left-wing body should withdraw if the PLO decided to negotiate with Israel. May we not doubt the objectivity of such a man?

"On August 13, Human Rights Watch released a report detailing instances in January in which Israeli soldiers killed Palestinian civilians who were waving white flags to convey their civilian status. Government spokespersons sought to dismiss the report by calling Human Rights Watch biased. But to date no critic has disputed the facts about the seven incidents in the report, in which soldiers shot and killed 11 unarmed civilians, including four children and five women."

One of the main stories in the HRW's report relates to Abd Rabbo family, that three of her daughters were shot in cold blood, despite the fact that they raised a white flag, and despite the fact that fighting was not in the area. The case was published extensively on many newspapers around the world. A special report of Tamar Sternhal from CAMERA found out significant contradictions in the testimonies of the family members and the neighbors. Sternhal['s] test was much more meticulous than the HRW report, and was posted on 4.2.09 - long before the publication of the report of HRW. It was ignored by the HRW team. Even "Time Magazine" published a contradicting testimony about the Abed Rabbo affair, but again, it was ignored by HRW.

And indeed, it is becoming clear that HRW carried out negligent and non-serious work. All of the incidents appearing in the report were known to the IDF. The report itself did not add anything. Moreover, the claim that, "no critic has disputed the facts about the seven incidents," is a total lie. On the contrary, regarding five of the seven incidents, it was decided to open Military Police investigations, meaning that the IDF is carrying out a serious inquiry. If there are discrepancies - they are being thoroughly examined.

HRW adopts the opposite method. Videos have been published of Hamas personnel exploiting civilians and hiding behind white flags. These were even published on You Tube. Is there even one word - one! - about this in the HRW report? Of course not.

In the same video, it should be pointed out, the terrorist hides in a house from which civilians are waiving white flags. The terrorist was apprehended. The civilians were not hurt. It is no coincidence that the film's findings were not refuted in the HRW report because when the target is painted in advance - the delegitimization of Israel - the facts will not confuse Stork and his people. While photographic testimony that refutes the findings of the report receives no comment, the testimony of Palestinians living in the shadow of Hamas's reign of terror receive top billing. Is this testimony serious? NGO Monitor responded to this and refuted HRW's claims. But Stork, as is his custom, takes no notice.

Many claims have been made against Israel. Israel did not ignore them. On the contrary, many of these claims were refuted in detail, in a 163-page Foreign Ministry report that was issued on 29.7.09. The HRW report, which was issued two weeks later (13.8.09), ignores most of them, just as the video was ignored because this is what HRW does. Stork is not even interested in checking; he wants delegitimization.

"Now, again instead of addressing our research, Mr. Yemini has launched a personal attack on me, which the Israeli government has dutifully translated and distributed. The quotes he attributes to me are more than 30 years old. Most of them I do not recognize, and they are contrary to the views I have expounded for decades now. For instance, selective excerpts about the Munich massacre come from an unsigned editorial that appeared 37 years ago where at the time I was one of seven volunteers that produced the publication. All my work since then shows that I would never support such an attack. For nearly 40 years, I have been documenting, writing, and speaking out on injustices by virtually all of the governments and many non-state armed groups in the Middle East. This work is readily available - including at Middle East Report magazine, which I edited through 1995, and at Human Rights Watch since then - but Mr. Yemini did not include these many statements, undoubtedly because they did not support his claims. Had he looked at the hundreds of statements, articles and reports I've written since the 1970s, he would have found exposés of Saddam Hussein's murderous regime and my report for Human Rights Watch on war crimes by Palestinian suicide bombers. I have dedicated much of my adult life to the protection of human rights for all and to fighting the idea that civilians can be attacked for political reasons. Ma'ariv and Mr. Yemini owe me an apology."

Indeed, it is clear that Stork does not deny even one of the claims that I raised. He simply claims that there are his remarks from many years ago. Has Stork disavowed his very problematic past with the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP)? Indeed, in an article he wrote in 1993 on US-Israel relations, Stork expresses very similar positions to those he expressed in his MERIP days. Moreover, many footnotes in the same article direct the reader to remarks written in MERIP years before. This means that not only has there been no turning point but a reiteration and continuation of the past. And it should be clear that Stork was for the Israelis just as the KKK activist would be for the Afro-Americans.

Let us continue. Stork claims that HRW published condemnations of Saddam Hussein and Palestinian suicide terrorists. This is the case, there indeed were additional reports. But these reports do not pass the proportionality test. Among countless human rights violations around the world in which Israel has a marginal and small place, HRW sees fit to issue countless reports precisely on Israel, a disproportionality that indicates a pre-selected goal and Stork's special logic. Even when HRW issues a condemnation of a Palestinian action, Stork adds clarifications of his own [in a 2001 BBC report]: "Most of the [Palestinian] security officers have been in Israeli jails." Yes, the Stork of the past is no different from the Stork of today.

Stork's headline-grabber has to do with the equivocal support issued by MERIP in the wake of the Munich massacre: I was "one of seven volunteers," he tries to claim. Not exactly. Stork was one of MERIP's founders and the chief editor of the journal which published a statement in support of the massacre. It is a pity that Stork does not read his own CV as it appears on HRW's official website. The determination that the action was "an important boost in morale" for the Palestinians is part of the sequence of other remarks, including opposition to recognizing Israel, encouraging Arab countries to struggle against Israel, etc.

***

I believe that today, Stork would not issue a statement in support of massacring athletes. But Stork has merely gone from the highest rung on the anti-Zionist ladder to the next one lower down. But he is still on the same scale. He was and remains in the ranks of the anti-Israel Left. NGO Monitor and Prof. Gerald Steinberg will soon publish a book that analyzes a decade's worth of HRW publications and the people behind them, including Stork himself. But Stork is above criticism. It is possible to assume that he did not bother to study NGO Monitor's detailed response to the HRW report. This allows Stork to claim that there were no responses. This is what he does. When Steinberg previously issued a biting and substantive criticism, Stork arrogantly responded that he is not at all interested in criticism against him.

Israel, in contrast to Stork, takes notice of the criticism against it. It checks itself. Not all criticism of Israel deserves to be dismissed. Israel also makes mistakes. But Stork is a special personality. He is both radically anti-Israeli and unwilling to be criticized. Is it possible to accept the "criticism" of such a man?

***

Stork is not alone. When he began to work at HRW, he had no special expertise in the field. His only talent was a series of articles that were exceptionally hostile to Israel. That is not surprising. The Director of the Middle East Department, Sarah Leah Whitson, arrived at HRW after having been in a pro-Arab body. This is legitimate. Is there a chance that someone from the Anti-Defamation League would be accepted to HRW?

Global human rights are in a predicament. The UN Human Rights Council has turned into the Dark Regimes Rights Council. Saudi Arabia, Iran and Libya have an automatic majority. Non-governmental organizations, such as HRW, were supposed to stand against such bodies. But in reality a sad thing happened, Whitson flew to Saudi Arabia recently to raise funds for HRW. And they don't even understand that they have a problem. This is how non-governmental bodies have transformed antagonism towards Israel to the main issue. They are biased to the extreme. They place Israel in the same category as Sudan, and publish weak protests on the suicide and rocket industries, just to discharge a perfunctory obligation.

Israel is contending with the Hamas regime, the official covenant of which is the closest thing to Nazi ideology. This is a group that calls for the elimination of the State of Israel, the malicious murder of Israeli citizens, gratuitous Jew-hatred, and many of its speakers talk candidly about taking over the West. How exactly is a democratic country supposed to confront such an entity, indoctrinated in the ideology of hatred, murder and incitement? Why is Europe permitted to fight the Taliban - which threatens Germany or Spain much less - with much harsher measures, but Israel is prohibited from fighting a body like Hamas?

It is permitted to criticize Israel. But HRW has lost the moral right to do so. He who in the past has called for the elimination of Israel; he who supports, directly or indirectly, the boycott of Israel, cannot become an objective critic. There is a need for an international struggle for human rights. But bodies such as HRW hurt this important struggle. They become the prop of the world's darkest regimes. Instead of saying unequivocally that such a regime, such an ideology, such an element - has no right to exist, the HRW is waging a struggle that is not a criticism of Israel, but rather wild slander against Israel. True, there is marginal criticism against Hamas. But criticism of Israel is the main point. And therefore, for the sake of returning human rights to its proper standing, it is time for HRW to cleanse its ranks.

The very existence of a group like Hamas is a crime against humanity. Stork and HRW find it difficult to understand this. On the contrary, in their crude attack, in their delegitimization of Israel, they are parties to this crime.

Ben-Dror Yemini is a senior editorialist in Maariv (bdyemini@gmail.com)

No Jewish connection to Western Wall: PA academic

A Palestinian Authority university lecturer is the latest PA academic to rewrite history and deny Jewish history in Jerusalem - in particular, the Jewish people's connection to the Western Wall (Wailing Wall) of the Jewish Temple.

Shamekh Alawneh, a lecturer in modern history at Al-Quds Open University, says the Jews invented the connection to the Wall for political purposes, to convince European Jews and Zionists to come to "Palestine."

"It has no historical roots," he said on a television program called Jerusalem - History and Culture. "This is political terminology to win the hearts and the support of the Zionists in Europe, so they would emigrate and come to Palestine. Nothing more!"

The show's interviewer also refers to the "Judaization" of Jerusalem, and to Jewish plots to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Denying Jewish history in Jerusalem and the existence of the Jewish Temple is a central component of PA political ideology. This denial started with Yasser Arafat and continues to be reiterated by academics, politicians and religious leaders.

PA leaders systematically distort the ancient history of Jerusalem, ignoring the vast historical documentation and thousands of archeological finds related to Jewish history that have been found in Jerusalem.

To view other examples of PA denials of Jewish history in Jerusalem and the existence of the Temple from the PMW archives, click here.

Following is the transcript of the interview:

Interviewer: "There are plots against this [Western] wall that seek to harm the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and there is an attack on history, theft of culture, falsification of facts, erasure of the truth, and Judaization of the place . . .."

Shamekh Alawneh: "The [Jews'] goal in giving the name 'Wailing Wall' to this [Western] Wall is political. . . The Jewish Zionists had no choice but to invent an excuse [about Jerusalem] to spread among the Zionists or the Jews in Europe, to connect to something concrete from the past about Jerusalem. They made false claims and called the 'Al-Burak Wall' the 'Wailing Wall.'"

Interviewer: "Can we understand that this term [the 'Wailing Wall'] and this strange [Jewish] interest concerning this place are new, with no historical roots?"

Alawneh: "Absolutely. It has no historical roots. This is political terminology to win the hearts and the support of the Zionists in Europe, so they would emigrate and come to Palestine. Nothing more!" [PA TV (Fatah), Aug. 11, 2009]

..."I have a personal opinion, it concerns me that it's true," Donald Bostrom, who penned the story, told Israel Radio en route to an emergency meeting at the editorial offices Aftonbladet, presumably to discuss the aftermath of the report.

"I was [present] during the interview that night, I was a witness. It concerns me to the extent that I want it to be investigated," Bostrom told the station. "But whether it's true or not - I have no idea, I have no clue."...

...Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon responded to the report by saying: "This is a blood libel and the worst type of anti-Semitism."

Ayalon called on the Swedish government to condemn these accusations and said Israel "sees a correlation between the Swedish government's public statements, which are extremely critical of Israel, and anti-Semitism in the press."

Sweden currently holds the rotating EU presidency, and in recent months there has been some diplomatic tensions between the two countries...

...The Swedish Embassy issued a statement Wednesday distancing itself from the report.

"The article in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet is as shocking and appalling to us Swedes as it is to Israeli citizens. We share the dismay expressed by Israeli government representatives, media and the Israeli public. This embassy cannot but clearly distance itself from it," the statement said.

It continued its condemnation of the paper by saying, "Freedom of the press and freedom of expression are freedoms which carry a certain responsibility. It falls on the editor-in-chief of any given newspaper."...

A leading Swedish newspaper reported this week that Israeli soldiers are abducting Palestinians in order to steal their organs, a claim that prompted furious condemnation and accusations of anti-Semitic blood libel from a rival publication.

"They plunder the organs of our sons," read the headline in Sweden's largest daily newspaper, the left-leaning Aftonbladet, which devoted a double spread in its cultural section to the article.

(Click here for the original article in Swedish)

The report quotes Palestinian claims that young men from the West Bank and Gaza Strip had been seized by the Israel Defense Forces, and their bodies returned to the families with missing organs.

"'Our sons are used as involuntary organ donors,' relatives of Khaled from Nablus said to me, as did the mother of Raed from Jenin as well as the uncles of Machmod and Nafes from Gaza, who all had disappeared for a few days and returned by night, dead and autopsied," writes author Donald Boström in his report...

...But the liberal Sydsvenskan - southern Sweden's major daily - had harsh criticism for the rival paper, running an opinion piece under the headline "Antisemitbladet" (a play on the name Aftonbladet).

"We have heard the story before, in one form or the other. It follows the traditional pattern of conspiracy theory: a great number of loose threads that the theorist tempts the reader to tie into a neat knot without having been provided with any proven connection whatsoever," writes leading columnist Mats Skogkär of Sydsvenskan.

"Whispers in the dark. Anonymous sources. Rumors. That is all it takes. After all we all know what they [the Jews] are like, don't we: inhuman, hardened. Capable of anything," the opinion piece says. "Now all that remains is the defense, equally predictable: 'Anti-Semitism' No, no, just criticism of Israel."...

...I didn't find anything nearly as outrageous as his quotes from the '70s. What I found was someone with fairly standard, far Left anti-Israel views, who was especially exercised by the "special" U.S.-Israel relationship.

Which leads to the question of why Human Rights Watch hired him in 1996 to be a senior member of its Middle East staff, direct from his position as editor of Middle East Report. When HRW hired Stork, as near as I can tell (see his official HRW bio), he had no law degree and had not practiced international law, had never worked for a human rights group, had no military experience or experience with munitions, never held an academic position (he has an M.A. in international affairs), and otherwise had no specific qualifications one could pinpoint that would suggest that he'd be the person an "objective" human rights group would hire to a top position.

Stork did have a great deal of experience, however, as a leftist anti-Israel polemicist, who sought to undermine U.S.-Israel ties. One can only assume that this is why HRW director Ken Roth hired him.

AUTHOR OF REPORT AGAINST ISRAEL SUPPORTED MUNICH MASSACRE

(Article by Ben-Dror Yemini, Ma'ariv, 16.8.09, p. 13)

Joe Stork, a senior official in Human Rights Watch, which accuses the IDF of killing Palestinians who waved white flags, is a fanatical supporter of the elimination of Israel. He was a friend of Saddam, ruled out negotiations and supported the Munich Massacre, which "provided an important boost in morale among Palestinians."

Last Thursday, many world media outlets covered the press conference in which a senior Human Rights Watch official, Joe Stork, presented the report accusing Israel of killing twelve Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who waved white flags during Operation Cast Lead. Stork, the person identified with the report, has a unique history of Israel-hating: He supported the murder of Israeli athletes in Munich, was an avid supporter of Saddam Hussein and more.

Several times in the past, Stork has called for the destruction of Israel and is a veteran supporter of Palestinian terrorism. Already as a student, Stork was amongst the founders of a new radical leftist group, which was formed based on the claim that other leftist groups were not sufficiently critical of Israel and of the United States' support of it. Already in 1976, Stork participated in a conference organized by Saddam Hussein which celebrated the first anniversary of the UN decision that equated Zionism with racism. Stork, needless to say, arrived at the conference as a prominent supporter of Palestinian terrorism and as an opponent to the existence of the State of Israel. He also labeled Palestinian violence against Israel as "revolutionary potential of the Palestinian masses" - language that was typical of fanatical Marxists.

In articles which he authored during the 1970's, Stork stated that he was against the very existence of Israel as an "imperialistic entity" and, to this end, provided counsel to Arab regimes on how to eliminate the Zionist regime. He also was opposed to any negotiations since this meant recognizing its existence: "Zionism may be defeated only by fighting imperialism," wrote Stork, "and not through deals with Kissingers."

On other occasions, Stork expressed his position that the global Left must subordinate itself to the PLO in order to strengthen elements that opposed any accord with Israel. It would seem that he has not changed his ways since then. He is still conceptually subordinate to those who have maintained their opposition to the existence of the State of Israel. Once the world's radical left supported the PLO. Today, part of the global Left supports Hamas.

Stork, of course, is not alone. The hate ships that arrive from time to time, or attempt to arrive, to the shores of Gaza, are full of radicals of his ilk. They do not identify with efforts towards compromise or peace. On the contrary, they identify with those who are continuing the old line that supports the elimination of Israel. And what would happen if the PLO should decide to enter the negotiations track? Stork already recommended years ago that the Palestinian left splinter in order to continue the resistance. Hamas obeyed. It is possible to guess where Stork's heart lays.

Where does Stork stand regarding matters of objectivity and neutrality? He criticized Professor Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, himself a PLO figure, because he edited an anthology which tried, at least seemingly, to produce a balanced presentation. "Academic neutrality is deceitful," wrote Stork. And what about factual accuracy? Stork claimed that Menachem Begin said that, "The Palestinians are two-legged animals." In fact, Begin said that those who come to kill children are "two-legged animals." The difference is, of course, huge. Stork, time after time, justifies his high standing in the industry of hate and lies against Israel.

Stork reached his peak in a statement published by the Middle East Research and Information Project, which dealt with gathering information on the Middle East conflict, and in which Stork was a leading figure. This was a statement that included explicit support for the murder of the eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics: "Munich and similar actions cannot create or substitute for a mass revolutionary movement," the statement said, "But we should comprehend the achievement of the Munich action...It has provided an important boost in morale among Palestinians in the camps." Murder and terrorism, if so, are a matter of morale.

This is the man. A radical Marxist whose positions have not changed over the years. On the contrary. Objectivity, neutrality or sticking to the facts are not Stork's strong suit. He even proudly exclaims that there is no need for neutrality.

Is it possible to relate seriously to a report against Israel which this man stands behind? Both CAMERA and Professor Gerald Steinberg have revealed worrying data on the leaders of Human Rights Watch and on the two people who head its Middle East Department -- Sarah Leah Whitson and Joe Stork -- even before its latest report and unconnected to it. The organization, as part of its false presentation, issued polite condemnations of Hamas rocket fire. But it seems that such blatant anti-Israel bias leaves room for doubt. A Stork produced report on Israel is about as objective as a report by Baruch Marzel on Hebron.

Israel is called upon to provide explanations in the wake of Human Rights Watch reports. It is about time that Israel publicly exposed the ideological roots of several of this organization's leaders and demands the dismissal of these supporters of terrorism and haters of Israel. Until then, Israel, justifiably, cannot seriously comment on criticism from such a body.

Despite a plea by an activist from the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, the General Council of United Church of Canada has voted down two proposals to boycott Israel, and denied approval to a third that was originally accompanied by background material that obliquely accused un-named Jewish members of the Canadian Parliament of being disloyal to Canada because of their support for Israel. The vote took place on Thursday, Aug. 14, 2009, shortly after the commission voted to repudiate the background material associated with these resolutions.

The Council's decision does not prohibit local churches from boycotting Israel and leaves open possibility that the denomination will re-consider the issue at its next meeting in 2012...

SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER: WHILE UCC VOTES DOWN VILE ANTI-ISRAEL LANGUAGE, IT ENDORSES 'AMMAN CALL' FOR PALESTINIAN RIGHT OF RETURN AND ENCOURAGES LOCAL GROUPS TO CONSIDER BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL

"More challenges to Israel's legitimacy will be presented at Lutheran conclave next week," cautions Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Wiesenthal Center.

The Spanish government is paying for 40 activists from Spain to travel to Israel in August to help rebuild two Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem that the Israeli government deemed illegal and tore down in 2008. The volunteers will be working with a left-wing non-governmental organization called the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).

The Jerusalem-based ICAHD, which is holding its seventh annual summer "rebuilding camp" from August 2-15, signed up 80 activists this year, 60 of whom are from abroad. Of those, 40 are from Spain. The Spanish government is providing full sponsorship for the activists to participate in the camp.

The money is coming from the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), which is part of the Spanish Foreign Ministry. During 2009, AECID has allocated approximately €80,000 ($110,000) to support ICAHD's activities.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry says it is "very strange" that the government of Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero would "finance political activities" in another country, especially one with a democratically elected government like Israel.

But what seems equally strange is that Zapatero would be rebuilding illegal homes in Israel while he himself has been on a demolition spree all across Spain.

The Zapatero government recently unveiled a €5 billion plan to demolish thousands of illegally built coastal homes and hotels. The Spanish Environment Ministry says it wants to protect Mediterranean and Canary Island shorelines. By some estimates, there could be as many as 100,000 houses in Spain that have been built illegally. Homes built illegally after the 1980s, when laws to protect the coast came into force, face demolition with no compensation...

Spanish house demolitions have not been limited to the coastal regions. In Madrid, the Orwellian-sounding Urban Discipline Service has been busy tearing down hundreds of illegal homes belonging mainly to Gypsies and Moroccan immigrants. The Madrid municipality is presumably using criteria similar to those used by the Jerusalem municipality for tearing down illegal structures...

AFP - Hamas police stormed a mosque in Gaza on Friday where radicals had declared an Islamist "emirate," sparking clashes that left 13 people dead and injured at least 100, emergency services said.

Shooting continued after dark, witnesses said, after clashes began in the afternoon following weekly prayers in the southern city of Rafah, which straddles the Egyptian border.

Among the dead was Mohammed al-Shamali, head of the Hamas military unit for southern Gaza [Note: Commander of group which kidnapped Schalit reportedly killed in Gaza], emergency services said, adding that bodies of some other victims could not be reached because of the intensity of the fighting.

Twenty of the wounded were said to be in serious condition as the confrontation developed into one of the most violent incidents in Gaza since Israel's 22-day onslaught on the impoverished enclave in December and January [These pieces of s**t never miss an opportunity do they? -S].

An Egyptian security official said a three-year-old boy was critically wounded by a bullet from the fighting across the border.

Witnesses said that following prayers, a group of Palestinians announced the formation of the Islamist "emirate," defying the authority of Hamas, which has ruled Gaza's 1.5 million people for the past two years.

"We are today proclaiming the creation of an Islamist Emirate in the Gaza Strip," Abdul Latif Musa, a representative of Jund Ansar Allah (Soldiers of the Partisans of God), said at the Bin Taymiyya mosque, the witnesses reported.

Musa was surrounded by armed fighters when he made his statement, according to the witnesses.

Rafah is the Gaza stronghold of the so-called Salafist movement, of which Jund Ansar Allah is said to a part and which is ideologically close to Al-Qaeda.

An AFP photographer reported that Hamas police dynamited Musa's house. It could not be established whether the Islamist was there at the time.

Hamas police blocked all entrances to Rafah, the photographer said...

...At the same time, Hamas premier Ismail Haniya denied that the group exists.

"No such groups exist on the ground in Gaza," he said at prayers in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. He blamed the "Israeli media for spreading this information with a view to turning the world against Gaza."...

Sergeant First Class Jared C. Monti of Raynham, MA was killed in action on June 21st, 2006, while deployed with the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan. On July 24, 2009 Jared was posthumously awarded the highest honor our country has to give, the Medal of Honor. What, exactly, did Jared do to deserve such an honor?

When SFC Monti realized that a member of the patrol, Private First Class (PFC) Brian J. Bradbury, was critically wounded and exposed 10 meters from cover, without regard for his personal safety, he advanced through enemy fire to within three feet of PFC Bradbury's position. But he was forced back by intense RPG fire. He tried again to secure PFC Bradbury, but he was forced to stay in place again as the enemy intensified its fires.

The remaining patrol members coordinated covering fires for SFC Monti, and he advanced a third time toward the wounded Soldier. But he only took a few steps this time before he was mortally wounded by an RPG. About the same time, the indirect fires and CAS he called for began raining down on the enemy's position. The firepower broke the enemy attack, killing 22 enemy fighters. SFC Monti's actions prevented the patrol's position from being overrun, saved his team's lives and in spired his men to fight on against overwhelming odds.

At a time when partisan bickering over healthcare reform is at a fever pitch, Pundit Review and Massachusetts leading liberal blog Blue Mass Group are putting politics aside to try to raise money for to support Jared's legacy and Scholarship Fund. Jared fought and died for all Americans, and supporting his scholarship fund seems like the least we can do in return.

Won't you join us, by contributing and spreading the word through your blog and social network? We invite any other bloggers who would like to to join us to please do so. Just send me a note at punditreview at hotmail dot com or @punditreview on Twitter. We'll update them with your logo as soon as possible.

Obama: Free the Muslim Slaves!

by Charles Jacobs and Nick Petrocchi

Think health care is an important national issue? Well the people of Mauritania, a small country in North Africa, just had a national referendum on one of that nation's biggest concerns: the lingering reality of black Muslim slavery. As the polls closed, Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, a former slave campaigning for President to end governmental inaction against slave-masters, suspects the election was rigged.

Slavery has existed in Mauritania since before Arab armies from the Arabian Peninsula stormed across North Africa, conquering territory and peoples under the banner of Islam. In the process, all of Africans in Mauritania were converted to Islam, and hundreds of thousands of these were enslaved. While the Koran forbids the enslavement of fellow Muslims, in North Africa - just as in Western societies -- racism trumps religious doctrine. The slaves are chattel, wholly owned property of masters who can pass them on through their estates. Masters use slaves for labor, sex and breeding. Slaves are exchanged for camels, trucks, guns or money. Children of slaves are the property of their masters. Slaves can be given as wedding gifts.

Such was the case of Barakatu Mint Sayed, as recently reported in the UK Telegraph. Barakatu was separated from her mother when she was ten, and given to her master's cousin. Twenty years later, her daughter, Mulkheir, was also given away, forcing Barakatu to revisit her trauma once again.

Before Human Rights Watch became politically correct, the organization issued a report describing the three favored tortures Arab/Berber masters would inflict upon "uppity" slaves. Sensitive folks should not finish this paragraph: 1. The Insect Treatment: tiny dessert insects are placed in the ears of the offending slave, his head is bound with cloth and hands tied to prevent its removal. Slaves were often driven mad. Burning Coals: slaves were buried in sand and had hot charcoals placed near sensitive body parts. The Camel Treatment: slaves were tied to the shrunken underbellies of camels who'd purposely been deprived of water for days. The camels were then given to drink, and their expanding stomachs ripped the slaves apart.

In September, 2007, after years of pressure from abolitionist movements, led by our own Boston-based American Anti-Slavery Group -- whose testimony to Congress and public protests pressured the US government into cutting aid to Mauritania - the regime in Nouakchott declared slavery would be abolished. This was the forth time Mauritania "abolished" human bondage.

We, and our often imprisoned Mauritanian Muslim abolitionist allies at "SOS Slavery," thought the 2007 "abolition" was actually going to make a difference. It has, but not enough. Hundreds of thousands of people are still tied to masters or former masters. The American Embassy in Mauritania reports that the regime has never prosecuted a single slaveholder.

President Obama might have mentioned the plight of the Muslim slaves in Mauritania (and in Sudan's Darfur region) in his famous Cairo speech. Boulkheir, the former slave and Presidential candidate, is called "Mauritania's Obama." The AASG (www.iabolish.org) is once again campaigning for the US to intervene.

Charles Jacobs is President of the American Anti-Slavery Group, Nick Petrocchi is a research associate.

The Israeli government yesterday resolved its dispute with New England Consul General Nadav Tamir, clearing the way for him to resume his work in Boston. But he will return to a community still grappling with the lessons of the weeklong controversy surrounding him.

Tamir met yesterday in Jerusalem with Director General Yossi Gal, after being summoned to explain his leaked memo criticizing his own government for its rocky relations with the Obama administration. Gal chided Tamir for distributing the memo too widely, making a leak likely, and Tamir said he regretted his handling of the matter, said Yigal Palmor, Israel Foreign Ministry spokesman.

Tamir did not receive a formal censure, Palmor said, and the meeting did not involve "anything like being scolded or reprimanded,'' contrary to reports in some Israeli media that Tamir had been censured...

Although nearly 80 percent of Jews nationally voted for Obama, Jews who had fled the former Soviet Union opposed the Democratic candidate by as big a margin, noted Greg Margolin, editor and publisher of the Jewish Russian Telegraph. He said Russian Jews account for more than 50,000 of the Boston area's population of more than 220,000 Jews, yet they often weren't able to be heard on major issues.

"Today, there are two opinions in Boston where there used to be only one,'' Margolin said. "The left-wing monopoly on public opinion in Boston is broken.''...

The J Street political action committee has received tens of thousands of dollars in donations from dozens of Arab and Muslim Americans, as well as from several individuals connected to organizations doing Palestinian and Iranian issues advocacy, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

Additionally, at least two State Department officials connected to Middle East issues have donated to the PAC, which gives money to candidates for US Congress supported by J Street. The organization describes itself as a "pro-Israel, pro-peace" lobby pushing for more American involvement and diplomacy in resolving the Middle East conflict.

Arab and Muslim donors are extremely rare for other organizations that describe themselves as supporters of Israel as J Street does, Jewish leaders at organizations across the political spectrum told The Jerusalem Post...

..."It raises questions as to their banner that they're a pro-Israel organization. Why would people who are not known to be pro-Israel give money to this organization?" asked Lenny Ben-David, a former Israeli diplomat and staffer for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a major Washington lobby but not a PAC that makes contributions to candidates. "Once you introduce a large group and large amount of money from people who are suspect in their pro-Israel credentials, J Street loses some of its credibility in claiming it is pro-Israel and representing the Jewish community."

Ben-Ami described the organization as one that is "primarily but not exclusively Jewish" and said that as the numbers of Arabs and Muslims participating in J Street are low, he would like to welcome more non-Jews into the fold...

...Yale University and Yale University Press consulted two dozen authorities, including diplomats and experts on Islam and counterterrorism, and the recommendation was unanimous: The book, "The Cartoons That Shook the World," should not include the 12 Danish drawings that originally appeared in September 2005. What's more, they suggested that the Yale press also refrain from publishing any other illustrations of the prophet that were to be included, specifically, a drawing for a children's book; an Ottoman print; and a sketch by the 19th-century artist Gustave Doré of Muhammad being tormented in Hell, an episode from Dante's "Inferno" that has been depicted by Botticelli, Blake, Rodin and Dalí.

The book's author, Jytte Klausen, a Danish-born professor of politics at Brandeis University, in Waltham, Mass., reluctantly accepted Yale University Press's decision not to publish the cartoons. But she was disturbed by the withdrawal of the other representations of Muhammad. All of those images are widely available, Ms. Klausen said by telephone, adding that "Muslim friends, leaders and activists thought that the incident was misunderstood, so the cartoons needed to be reprinted so we could have a discussion about it." The book is due out in November...

...Reza Aslan, a religion scholar and the author of "No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam," is a fan of the book but decided to withdraw his supportive blurb that was to appear in the book after Yale University Press dropped the pictures. The book is "a definitive account of the entire controversy," he said, "but to not include the actual cartoons is to me, frankly, idiotic."...

• HRW had no presence in Gaza during the conflict. Therefore, the organization's Gaza 'reports', including "White Flag Deaths" are based entirely on unverifiable claims wrapped in a façade of research.
• The report's co-author Joe Stork is a veteran anti-Israel political activist and the antithesis of a professional legal analyst. Before joining HRW, he was a leader of MERIP (Middle East Research and Information Project), whose publications have carried laudatory interviews with terrorist leaders and urged socialists to "comprehend the achievements" of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre.
• HRW's publication fails to investigate incidents in which "white flags", ambulances and hospitals were used by Hamas to hide military activity. Instead, the entire report is designed to provide "evidence" of alleged Israeli war crimes (a term used 15 times)...

...This is another HRW publication that substitutes speculation for serious research. The text reflects HRW's consistent pattern with regard to the Middle East, with condemnation of Israel as its starting point, particularly in relation to the Gaza conflict. It is further evidence, if any were needed following the Saudi fundraising dinner that HRW is more interested in targeting Israel than in promoting universal human rights...

HRW continues its assault on Israel based on methodologies that, were they used in science, would have us still living in the Ptolemean universe (i.e., human rights revolve around the Palestinians). Fortunately, both NGO Monitor and the IDF are responding vigorously...

The Commission votes no to a call for a national economic boycott of Israel but encourages all levels of the church to study ways to end the occupation of the disputed Palestinian territories.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called on Israel's consul general in Boston to resign after he criticized the government's handling of relations with the United States.

"Any official who is uncomfortable with government policies can resign," Lieberman said Monday during a meeting of Foreign Ministry officials...

...Tamir was summoned by the Foreign Ministry on Saturday. He is due to arrive soon in Israel.

Lieberman said Tamir should have voiced his concerns directly to his supervisors.

"I have never received a complaint I didn't answer," Lieberman said Monday. "The fact that the memo was sent to such a wide list of recipients raises the suspicion that it was meant to be leaked to the press."

...After the program we support our participants' involvement in human rights based and justice oriented efforts, including contributing to the Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions movement against Israel until it complies with international law. This initiative is a direct response to the call from Palestinian civil society and is designed in the footsteps of the ultimately successful movement against South African apartheid...

...Birthright Unplugged also organizes travel for groups in addition to our Unplugged and Re-Plugged offerings. Our most recent delegations include Brandeis University/Carter Center and Boston College student groups and a Workmen's Circle group from Boston.

Israel's foreign minister said yesterday that the consul general in Boston should resign if he can't support Israeli government policies - but stopped short of saying he would fire Nadav Tamir over his internal memo criticizing his country's approach to US relations.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, speaking in Jerusalem, was quoted as telling a meeting of officials in the Foreign Ministry that "if someone is not happy and can't live with government policy, the way is not to criticize and leak but to resign. With all due respect to the consul . . . it is not his job to express political positions.''

Lieberman has ordered Tamir to return to Israel this week to explain his memo critical of Israel's handling of its relations with the United States, which caused a firestorm in Israel after it was leaked to the media last week. Lieberman faults Tamir not only for the content of the memo but for distributing it internally, making it all but certain to be leaked.

It was evident that Tamir, who is respected by mainstream Jewish groups in Boston as well as colleagues in Israel's foreign ministry, has become entangled in a larger debate among Jews in Israel and the United States over which country is responsible for the growing tensions between them...

...in Boston, several influential Jewish leaders defended Tamir. They said that in his three years in Boston as consul general, he has won widespread respect for his integrity and his intelligent approach to building relations within the community and with non-Jews - and they look forward to having him finish out his final year here.

"He is thoughtful, fair, and insightful. I have found him really to be the best Israeli diplomat I have worked with in my 19 years here,'' said Nancy Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish community Relations Council since 1990. "We have found him to be an amazing partner when it comes to creating and mobilizing support in greater Boston.''

Steve Grossman, a longtime advocate for Israel and a former president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, offered an equally ringing endorsement: "I've known Israeli consuls general for the last 30 years or so. And I don't think Israel has had a more effective leader in New England in that time than Nadav Tamir.''...

...Amid the support for Tamir voiced in Boston yesterday was at least one dissonant [sic. I believe that should be "dissenting." I'm not going to be on American Idol any time soon, but there is nothing dissonant about my voice.]

Boston blogger Martin Solomon published what he said was the full text of Tamir's three-page memo on his Solomonia.com website. He said the memo was sent to him by an undisclosed source in Israel [Quibble: I actually didn't say it was from Israel.].

Solomon argued in his blog entry that it is the Obama administration's "naive and reckless" Israel and Mideast policies that are causing strains in the US-Israel relationship rather than Israel's policies.

He asked his readers: "Who has Nadav Tamir been breaking bread with? Many of the people in so-called Jewish 'leadership' positions are there by virtue of their checkbooks and connections, and many of those would sell Israel down the river in a heartbeat if it made them uncomfortable at their Cambridge cocktail parties. Have they got their hooks into the local Israeli rep?"...

Pat McCarthy of Lowell, is a former WCAP radio host, and member of the Democratic City Committee. He is a long-time union and Democratic Party organizer. On August 8, 2009 Mr. McCarthy arrived at Niki Tsongas' (D-MA) town hall event on healthcare with members of her paid congressional staff. Mr. McCarthy then proceeded to help Mrs. Tsongas' staff set up the town hall.

As the town hall got started Mr. McCarthy noticed that Sam Meas (R-Haverhill), Mrs. Tsongas' only announced opponent was in the hall. Mr. McCarthy then proceeded to video tape Mr. Meas for essentially the remainder of the town hall. As Mr. Meas moved around the hall, Mr. McCarthy followed with his camera...

...reader Jeremy Kendall writes: "Interesting note: there was only one handmade sign in support of the public option at the event. All of the rest were handed out by MoveOn.org and the Tennessee Health Care Coalition."

Israel's consul-general in New England has been summoned home to "clarify" a letter he wrote to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman blasting Israeli policy toward the Obama administration.

According to a senior Foreign Ministry official, Nadav Tamir, consul in Boston, "is one of our best and smartest, so this is embarrassing to the whole ministry."...

..."We expect from our diplomats abroad to point out weaknesses in our policy, lacunae, but they do so in a constructive way in confidential memos to the deputy director-general, not in public," said a senior ministry official.

In the wake of the publication of the letter on Channel 10, Lieberman ordered Tamir to return to Jerusalem to "clarify" his actions to ministry director-general Yossi Gal...

Top Fatah officials on Thursday ruled that Israel was to blame for the death of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Officials on the third day of the Fatah convention in Bethlehem accepted the proposal, put forth by the chairman of the Araft Institute, stating that Israel had been behind the "assassination" of the late Palestinian Authority Chairman.

The second clause of the proposal, following the blame on Israel, called for leaving the investigation into Arafat's death open. The third clause affirmed Fatah's request for international aid to probe the issue...

Palestinian school books and educational television routinely teach children to envision a world without Israel. One of the results can be seen in this graduation ceremony sponsored by Fatah in which high school graduates in a speech identify the Israeli cities Haifa, Acre, Jaffa and Jerusalem as part of "Palestine."

The following is an excerpt from the speech by the high school graduates:

Sign on stage: "Tribute to high school graduates under the auspices of Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah."

Male graduate: "In the name of the Shahids (Martyrs), in the name of the prisoners, in the name of the stone and the rifle."

Female graduate: "In the name of Fatah, the school that taught us the meaning of nationalism."

Male graduate: "in the name of Palestine: Haifa, Acre, Jaffa, and our Arab Jerusalem."
Female graduate: "In the name of Palestine: Gaza, the West Bank and the flag of national unity."
...
Male graduate: "Fatah is [still] with the rifle. And our rifles are not rusty even if they have fired thousands of bullets." [Al-Filistiniya TV (Fatah), July 28, 2009]

Fatah leaders responded with loud applause when two terrorists who committed the worst terror attack in Israel's history were referred to as heroic Martyrs by former PA Prime Minister Abu Alaa, at the opening ceremony of Fatah's Sixth General Conference:

"We have in our midst the hero Khaled Abu-Usbah, hero of the operation [terror attack] led by the Shahida (Martyr) Dalal Mughrabi [loud applause from the audience]. We salute him and welcome him. And [we salute] the hero, the Shahida (Martyr) Dalal. [He shouts:] All the glory! All the glory! All the glory! All the sisters here are Dalal's sisters." [PATV (Fatah), Aug. 4, 2009]

Dalal Mughrabi and Khaled Abu-Usbah are seen as Palestinian heroes for having carried out the bus hijacking in 1978 in which 37 Israeli civilians, 12 of them children, were murdered.

Former Prime Minister Abu Alaa (Ahmad Qurei), who read the statement, is the current Chairman of Fatah Department for Recruitment and Organization.

Israel's consul-general in Boston sent a blunt and extremely critical letter of Israel's policies toward the US to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Channel 10 reported Thursday, saying that Israel's policies were causing damage to strategic ties with the US.

In the three-page letter, entitled "Sad passing thoughts on Israeli-US relations," Nadav Tamir wrote that the perception of a conflict between Israel and the Obama administration was harming US public support for Israel, and causing it more damage than the Second Lebanon War or Operation Cast Lead.

"The way in which we are conducting the relationship with the US government is causing Israel strategic damage. The distance created between us and the Obama administration has clear implications on Israeli deterrence," Tamir was quoted as writing.

The Israeli consul went on to say that narrow political considerations were contributing to the deterioration of the ties. "There are people in the US and Israeli politics who ideologically oppose [US President Barack] Obama, and are willing to sacrifice the special relationship between the two countries in order to advance their political agenda."

He also took the government to task for making differences with the US public, while Washington was trying to downplay them. "There have always been differences in the stances of the two countries, but the governments were careful to make sure they were coordinated," he reportedly wrote.

According to Tamir, many in the US were lumping Israel together with Iran and North Korea as disobedient governments that Obama had to deal with.

The current situation, he said, is hurting American Jewry as well.

"The atmosphere of confrontation between the Israeli government and the Obama administration puts the American-Jewish community, which is so important to us, in a difficult position," he wrote. "Many of them are distancing themselves from the state of Israel because of this conflict."...

• In this report, and accompanying press releases and conference, interviews, etc., HRW accuses the IDF of using drones to launch precise weapons during the Gaza operation, leading to wrongful civilian deaths. The entire publication is based on allegations from only 6 ambiguous incidents.
• The term "war crimes" is used 7 times, and the alleged drone attacks are termed "unlawful". The case is entirely speculative, but the conclusions are stated with absolute assurance, as if the evidence was totally clear.
• Instead of credible evidence, HRW emphasizes technical and legal claims that are unfounded or irrelevant, but present the facade of expertise. These include references to satellite imaging, precise GPS coordinates, weapons specifications, Geneva conventions, etc., none of which offset the complete absence of verifiable evidence.
• Robert Hewson, editor of Jane's Air-Launched Weapons, stated "Human Rights Watch makes a lot of claims and assumptions about weapons and drones, all of which is still fairly speculative, because we have so little evidence." (Dan Williams, "Human Rights Watch accuses Israel over Gaza drones," June 30, 2009)
• On HRW's "evidence" quoting Palestinian claims to have seen and heard the missiles, a retired British colonel and Commander of British forces in Afghanistan "questioned whether such distinctions could be made, not least as the Spike's range is 8 km (5 miles) ...In a battlefield, in an urban environment, with all the other noises, it's certainly more than likely you would not hear something five miles away." (Reuters, June 30)
• Additional "evidence" and references are from unverifiable Palestinian "testimony," reports from journalists (such as an email from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation quoting a Jane's Defence Weekly staffer), and from other NGO officials.
• On the legal issue of military necessity, the report takes at face value the Palestinian claims of seeing no active Hamas fighters in the area of the alleged attacks. The Israeli government's report on the Gaza combat provides details that refute this speculation.
• HRW asserts that drone operators in the midst of the conflict should have consulted with military lawyers "to help determine whether targets are legitimate." This suggests that the authors have no significant battlefield experience in which split-second decisions must be made, or are simply inventing claims.

1. Why did it take HRW 6 months to issue a report that covers no new ground and largely repeats the International Crisis Group's report of April 2009? In the interval, HRW issued two publications condemning Israel. NGO Monitor's detailed analysis of HRW's report on Israel's use of drones can be found here.
2. Why does HRW perpetuate the "balance" between terrorist groups and their targets? ("Whether it is Hamas' claims of the 'right to resist occupation' or Israel's of the right 'to combat terror', the reasons for engaging in armed conflict do not permit a party to ignore its legal obligations in the way it conducts hostilities.")
3. Why did HRW fail to condemn Hamas for extensive use of human shields? What is the basis for the claim that Hamas "did not...force civilians to remain in areas in close proximity to rocket launching sites"?

Funny how they couldn't manage to release the report at the same time they released the one condemning Israel, isn't it? Also--five bucks says most media outlets ignore this report, as opposed to the thousands that picked up the report condeming Israel.

The U.S. State Department has summoned Israel Ambassador Michael Oren over "unacceptable" and "provocative" evictions of Arabs from Jewish-owned homes in the Sheikh Jarreh neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem. In a possible effort to try to lower the heat on Israel, Assistant Secretary of State Jeffery Feltman, instead of Secretary Hillary Clinton, summoned Oren.

The U.S., like most of the Western world, does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem neighborhoods, including the Old City and the Western Wall (Kotel), that were restored to the Jewish State in the Six-Day War in 1967.

Secretary Clinton earlier this week charged that the evictions of Arabs are "deeply regrettable" and violate Israeli obligations of the American Roadmap plan, although she did not cite any specific reference in the Roadmap to removing illegal residents. Israel has previously expelled thousands of Jews from homes which they owned in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, but these areas also are not recognized by the U.S. as part of Israel.

The State Department did not reply to Oren's statement that the homes where Arabs were evicted are owned by Jews, who bought them during the British Mandate before the War for Independence in 1948. Arabs claim they bought the properties in 1958 during the Jordanian occupation...

...Oren was not the only envoy to be summoned over the evictions. Sweden, which currently serves as the rotating president of the European Union, rebuked Israeli Ambassador Benny Dagan. In return, the Foreign Ministry summoned the Swedish ambassador to Israel...

Virulent anti-Israel resolutions will be presented at the United Church of Canada's (UCC) 40th General Council this Sunday, August 9th, including "comprehensive boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions at the national and international levels".

One pending UCC resolution slanders the Jewish people's return to Zion as "built mainly on land ethnically cleansed of its Palestinian owners." This "Big-Lie", genocidally-charged phrase that Israel is guilty of "ethnic cleansing", is language deployed by the worst anti-Semites.

We therefore are urging all members of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and all friends of Israel, to act immediately against this outrage by signing this petition to the heads of the UCC, demanding that they publicly denounce these resolutions in advance of the resolutions' consideration at this weekend's General Council.

The calls for boycotts of Israeli academic and cultural institutions - the very contacts that reasonable people hail for the understanding they bring between communities - are promoted today only by the most virulent haters of the Jewish state.

The thrust and language of these resolutions are a slap in the face to the Jews of Israel and her supporters in Canada, and will empower the forces of anti-Semitism and intolerance in Canada and throughout the world.

The UCC General Council convenes this Sunday - they need to hear from us now!

Resolutions accuse Israel of 'ethnic cleansing' and urge total boycott. SWC online petition urges Church leaders to condemn language empowering "the forces of anti-Semitism and intolerance that's a "slap in the face to the Jews of Israel and her supporters in Canada"

The Simon Wiesenthal Center urged the leadership of Canada's leading Protestant denomination, the United Church of Canada (UCC), to publicly denounce virulent anti-Israel resolutions slated for the Church's General Council that convenes this Sunday in Kelowna, BC. The four resolutions, most put forward by the World Affair Committee of the UCC Toronto Conference, propose boycotts of Israeli products, cultural and sporting institutions and divestment from companies that do business in Canada as a way of punishing Israel for what they see as its "racist" brutality against Palestinians. Most controversial is that their supporting materials accuse Israel of violations of the Geneva Convention, calling it an "occupying force" engaged in ethnic cleansing and that Israel was built on land stolen from Palestinians...

Democratic Congressman Eliot Engel (NY-17) said yesterday that honoring former UN Human Rights High Commissioner Mary Robinson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom was "a mistake."

Engel is the first Democrat to speak out publicly against the President's decision to give Robinson our country's highest civilian award.

In an interview with journalist Jennifer Rubin, Engel said that Robinson "always managed to find a moral equivalence" between Israel's fight for freedom and the terrorism Israel faces, and that Robinson "epitomizes all that is wrong with the United Nations" and its anti-Israel bias.

Engel went further in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, saying that he hoped the administration would rescind the award.

AIPAC took the unusual step of publicly criticizing the White House, saying:

AIPAC is deeply disappointed by the Obama administration's choice to award a Presidential Medal of Freedom to Mary Robinson. AIPAC respectfully calls on the administration to firmly, fully and publicly repudiate her views on Israel and her long public record of hostility and one-sided bias against the Jewish state.

Robinson is widely known for the high-profile role she played in leading the deeply flawed U.N. Human Rights Commission and for presiding over the U.N.'s Durban Conference on Racism, which the United States boycotted for its unprecedented hostility to Israel and its final outcome document that equated Zionism with racism.  

...In addition to Robinson's dishonorable role in the Durban debacle, her tenure on the UNHRC was deeply flawed, and her conduct marred by extreme, one-sided anti-Israel sentiment...

This is a video of David Wood and Nabeel Qureshi asking questions at Arabfest, Dearborn. The date is June 21st, 2009. There was a booth at the festival which had a banner titled "Islam: Got Questions? Get Answers." From their table, we picked up a pamphlet claiming that Islam promotes peace. We noticed that it was full of poor logic and errors, so we decided to make a video refuting it. We went to the booth that gave us the pamphlet to give them the opportunity to defend their claims. Security, however, stepped in and forced us to turn off our camera.

We left the booth, received advice from police, and found out that the actions of the security guards were illegal. We went back to the booth to record a potential answer again. Realizing that the Muslims present had no answer, we left.

When we came outside, we were asked some questions by two young men, who had been sent by security to entrap us. While we responded to them, festival security started assaulting us, as you will see in this video. The conclusion of this video is a mob of festival security attacking our cameras, pushing us back, kicking our legs, and lying to the police...

...the real question is: Why don't the media -- the watchdog legions who trekked to Sarah Palin's Alaska hometown to scour for every kernel of gossip, and who were so desperate for Bush dirt that they ran with palpably forged military records -- want to dig into Obama's background?

Who cares that Hawaii's full state records would doubtless confirm what we already know about Obama's birthplace? They would also reveal interesting facts about Obama's life: the delivering doctor, how his parents described themselves, which of them provided the pertinent information, etc. Wasn't the press once in the business of interesting -- and even not-so-interesting -- news?

And why would Obama not welcome Hawaii's release of any record in its possession about the facts and circumstances of his birth? Isn't that kind of weird? It would, after all, make the whole issue go away and, if there's nothing there, make those who've obsessed over it look like fools. Why should I need any better reason to be curious than Obama's odd resistance to so obvious a resolution?...

...Among the 16 winners picked by President Obama this year for the high honor of receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom is a very strange choice indeed:  A former president of Ireland and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson.

You can read plenty about Robinson's record in an article written in 2002 by the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Rubin, "Mary Robinson, War Criminal?" There's plenty of appalling detail, but the nature of the problem is exemplified by Mary Robinson's role as secretary-general of the UN's infamous 2001 Durban conference. That gathering was supposed to focus on fighting racism, but instead ended up as such as jamboree of anti-semitism that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell ordered the U.S. delegation to walk out...

..."There's a lot of bullying by certain elements of the Jewish community. They bully people who try to address the severe situation in Gaza and the West Bank. Archbishop Desmond Tutu gets the same criticism."...

...Despite President Barack Obama's strange, pre-Moscow summit remark last month in a New York Times interview that the U.S. and Russia are continuing to "grow" their nuclear stockpiles, both countries have in fact reduced their stockpiles drastically since the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991. Those reductions resulted from unilateral decisions, not from arms-control bargaining.

Thus, on Nov. 13, 2001, President George W. Bush announced that the U.S. would unilaterally reduce its "operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads to a level between 1,700 and 2,200 over the next decade." This was far less than the 6,000 limit allowed under the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Russian President Vladimir Putin promptly said in December 2001 that Russia would similarly reduce its nuclear forces.

Thus, benefiting from the happy reality that the Cold War was over, each country felt free to cut its arsenal, whether or not the other committed itself to do so. The 2002 Moscow Treaty, which simply made legally binding the reduction pledges each president had already announced, was negotiated as a friendly gesture to Russia. U.S. officials did not see it as a strategic necessity, but Mr. Putin wanted formal acknowledgment that Russia retained nuclear-arms parity with the U.S., though it could no longer be seen as America's peer overall.

Now, with START set to expire in December, it is Mr. Obama who's intent on signing a new treaty. He says U.S.-Russian arms reductions will help stem nuclear proliferation.

Mr. Obama here is mixing up pretext and policy. When criticized for pursuing nuclear weapons, proliferators like North Korea and Iran make diplomatic talking points out of the size of the great powers' arsenals. They try to shift the focus away from themselves by complaining that the Americans and Russians aren't working hard enough to reach disarmament goals envisioned in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But depriving proliferators of such talking points won't affect their incentives to acquire nuclear weapons--or the world's incentives to counter the dangers that the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs pose to international peace...

Here's a story about how un-professional a pro-democracy organization becomes when dealing with the State of Israel.

On May 1st 2009, Freedom House, an international NGO that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, declared that according to its Freedom of the Press Index, Israel is no longer a "free" country, but only "partially free".

That was odd: if anything, the Israeli press might be blamed for over-aggressiveness, lack of respect for privacy matters and tendency towards sensationalism. Maybe much more so than many other Western media, the Israeli press is robust and boisterous, and far from not being free.

On the other hand, Freedom House is an extremely respected organization, quoted frequently in all major newspapers, as well as in academic papers and governmental reports.

I decided to check with Freedom House how did they arrive at that conclusion, and to my great surprise, I discovered I was the first journalist (Israeli or non-Israeli) to do that. No one before asked Freedom house what was the reason for downgrading Israel to be only "partially free"...

...The housing complex in question is located in the Sheik Jarra neighborhood of eastern Jerusalem. The home was originally Jewish, but its Jewish occupants were chased out during countrywide anti-Jewish Arab riots in 1929. Arabs then squatted on the property, with one family, the Hejazi family, becoming the de facto occupants despite never having purchased the property.

Even though documentation proves the complex is owned by Jews and that Arabs have been squatting on it illegally for almost a century, Jewish groups still legally re-purchased the property from the Hejazi family. Following pressure from the Palestinian Authority, however, the family later denied selling the complex back to the Jews despite documentation and other evidence showing the sale went through.

Israel's court system, not exactly a friend of Jewish "settlers," twice ruled now the property undoubtedly belongs to Jews.

Many of the articles on the home use the terms "occupied" and "East Jerusalem." Reuters called it "occupied Arab East Jerusalem."

According to the United Nations, eastern sections of Jerusalem are not "occupied" but "disputed." Referring to the area as "Arab East Jerusalem" presupposes the outcome of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that have yet to take place and ignores British documentation that authenticates Jews outnumbered Arabs in eastern Jerusalem from the 1800's until Jews were expelled by Arabs in 1929...

...This benighted group of progressive Jews are akin to the fabled Wise Men of Chelm, the mythical Polish shtetl in the humorous works of the late Nobel-laureate, Isaac Beshevis Singer like "Zlateh the Goat" and the "The Fools of Chelm." In her play, "The Wise Men of Chelm," author Sandra Fenichel Asher introduces us to these foolish Jews:

Legend has it that when the earth was created and the time came to fill it with people, two angels were chosen to deposit wise and foolish souls evenly over the land. But one angel tripped on a mountain peak and the entire sack of foolish souls emptied out over one spot, a tiny town in Poland called Chelm.

Given what transpired in Boston at the ISBCC dedication, it would appear that the angels dropped some foolish Jews on the banks of the Charles River that divides the Cities of Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts.

This article will attempt to reveal the foolishness of these progressive Jews as an illustration of what occurs when you align yourselves with your enemies...

...Differences in the execution of policy, however, make all the difference. Take, for example, outreach to Iran.

The Bush administration mulled this, and even tried it, diplomats warily meeting Iranians in various venues. But when Mr. Obama said to the leaders of Iran and other despotisms, "We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist" he did not expect to find the Supreme Leader's paws sticky with the blood of freshly slaughtered protestors. Remarkably, rather than adjust the policy, the administration almost immediately released five Iranian "diplomats"--in truth, members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps--that we held in Iraq.

The Iranian policy shows a faith in diplomacy that might be understandable coming from process-obsessed diplomats who live for démarches, talking points, working groups, back channels, dialogues and summits.

But this policy will soon encounter the reality, a looming choice between war with Iran or acceptance of its status as a nuclear power. Is the administration prepared to act if diplomacy fails, as so often it does?

The confidence in diplomacy reflects a deeper theme here, namely, the repudiation of the Bush era. Even as stubborn facts cause the administration to claim many of the same executive privileges (e.g., a proper secrecy about some CIA activities) as its predecessor, and continue or expand the same policies, it suffers from its desire to be un-Bush.

Believing (incorrectly) that the Bush administration did not do diplomacy, it does so promiscuously, complete with such tomfoolery as a misspelled reset button given to the Russian foreign minister. Abhorring Bush's freedom agenda, it will avoid anything of the kind until, of course, being Americans, the president, the vice president or the secretary of state blurt out their faith in universal ideals, and their indignation at the behavior of thugs, dictators and tyrants...

...The Pentagon said the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology on Saturday had positively identified the remains of Navy Capt. Michael "Scott" Speicher, whose disappearance has bedeviled investigators since his fighter jet was shot down over the Iraq desert on the first night of the 1991 war.

The top Navy officer said the discovery illustrates the military's commitment to bring its troops home...

...The Pentagon initially declared Speicher killed, but uncertainty - and the lack of remains - led officials over the years to change his status a number of times to "missing in action" and later "missing-captured." The family Speicher left behind, from outside Jacksonville, Fla. - continued to press for the military to do more to resolve the case...

...Officials said Sunday that they got new information last month from an Iraqi citizen, prompting Marines stationed in the western province of Anbar to visit a location in the desert which was believed to be the crash site of Speicher's FA-18 Hornet.

The Iraqi said he knew of two other Iraqis who recalled an American jet crashing and the remains of the pilot being buried in the desert, the Pentagon said.

"One of these Iraqi citizens stated that they were present when Captain Speicher was found dead at the crash site by Bedouins and his remains buried," the Defense Department said in a statement.

The military recovered bones and multiple skeletal fragments and Speicher was positively identified by matching a jawbone and dental records, said Rear Adm. Frank Thorp.

He said the Iraqis told investigators that the Bedouins had buried Speicher. It was unclear whether the military had information on how soon Speicher died after the crash...

Israel is up in arms over a declaration by a British government spokesman that the UK is funding political activity in Israel.

British spokesman Martin Day said in an interview in Dubai with Al-Arabiya television last week that the British government was "taking practical steps towards freezing settlement activities."

"For instance," Day said, "we finance projects aimed at halting settlement activities. One of these projects seeks to build new Palestinian neighborhoods in east Jerusalem and save Palestinian houses from demolition."

In addition, Day said in an Arabic interview, "we also finance organizations that monitor settlement activities."...

...Yossi Levy, the ministry's spokesman for the Hebrew press, characterized Day's comments as the "height of chutzpah," and said such activity was "unheard of."

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said, "We can't recall any other case of a democratic country funding political activities inside another democratic country."

Additionally, he said, this makes no sense from their point of view because any political activities they are backing will lose credibility in the eyes of the Israeli public when it is revealed that these activities are funded by a foreign government.

"How would the British feel if another country funded political activities of groups within the UK?" he asked...

Recent revelations about foreign government funding for local NGOs involved in political activity have triggered discussions by senior Israeli officials about the possibility of making such aid illegal, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The senior officials are looking into whether it might be possible to ban donations from foreign governments to political NGOs, just as it is forbidden for foreign residents, let alone governments, to contribute to Israeli political parties.

One of the questions that will have to be addressed, according to an official involved in the discussions, is what constitutes a political NGO. While it seems that there is an obvious distinction between an organization like Hadassah, which funds hospitals, and one like Breaking the Silence, which has a perceived political agenda, the distinctions would have to be spelled out in legislation.

The discussion follows Post revelations that foreign governments are funding of Breaking the Silence, which last week added its voice to a number of NGOs that have issued scathing reports of the IDF's activities in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead.

Israel has already contacted the Dutch and British governments about their funding of the organization, and is expected to soon take up the matter with the Spanish government as well.

The Spanish Foreign Ministry's agency for international development cooperation budgeted 80,000 for Breaking the Silence in 2009. It allocated 100,000 for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and another 80,000 for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, a group led by far-left activist Jeff Halper...

Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy claims the ACLU, in suing the school for allegedly promoting religion, defamed the school.

An Inver Grove Heights charter school accused of crossing the line between religion and public education is fighting back against the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota.

Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA) says the ACLU, which sued the academy in January, defamed the school and hurt its ability to hire qualified teachers, according to counterclaims filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.

In its suit, the ACLU alleged that the public school promotes the Muslim religion, violating the Constitution's First Amendment.

The K-8 school has denied the allegations and said in court documents that Charles Samuelson, executive director of the Minnesota ACLU, injured the school's reputation by saying publicly that TiZA is "a theocratic school ... as plain as the substantial nose on my face."

"We're surprised by these counterclaims," ACLU legal counsel Teresa Nelson said Tuesday. Nelson declined to comment further, saying the ACLU needed a chance to analyze the court documents.

$100,000 in damages sought...