February 2010 Archives

"One of the things that happened to us was that stupidly we interpreted the Nazi defeat as a vindication of the Jewish ideology and the Jewish people."

"Carpet bombing and total erasure of populated areas that is so trendy amongst Israeli military and politicians (as well as Anglo-Americans) has never been a Nazi tactic or strategy."

Israel on Sunday lodged a formal complaint with Spain, charging that anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are being instilled in elementary students across parts of the country.

The Israeli embassy in Madrid has received dozens of postcards addressed to the Israeli envoy - from students ages 5 and 6 - including hand-written messages such as "Jews kill for money," "Evacuate the country for Palestinians," and "Go to someplace where someone will be willing to accept you."

According to sources in the Foreign Ministry, this is an organized campaign by officials outside the education system in Spain that have been given permission to work with the students...

...The Spanish envoy explained that the postcards were a private initiative, and not one that is part of Spain's education ministry.

Gilon said Israel understands this is not a government policy, but stressed that these types of initiatives have no place in schools and that Israel requests action be taken to have the campaign stopped.

WARSAW -- When Pawel looks into the mirror, he can still sometimes see a neo-Nazi skinhead staring back, the man he was before he covered his shaved head with a skullcap, traded his fascist ideology for the Torah and renounced violence and hatred in favor of God.

"I still struggle every day to discard my past ideas," said Pawel, a 33-year-old ultra-Orthodox Jew and former truck driver, noting with little irony that he had to stop hating Jews in order to become one. "When I look at an old picture of myself as a skinhead, I feel ashamed. Every day I try and do teshuvah," he said, using the Hebrew word for repentance. "Every minute of every day. There is a lot to make up for."

Pawel, who also uses his Hebrew name Pinchas, asked that his last name not be used for fear that his old neo-Nazi friends could harm him or his family.

Twenty years after the fall of Communism, Pawel is perhaps the most unlikely example of the Jewish revival under way in Poland, of a moment in which Jewish leaders here say the country is finally showing solid signs of shedding the rabid anti-Semitism of the past...[More.]

We've written a number of times about Minnesota's Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA), a charter school that appears to be Muslim in all but name, and is closely affiliated with, if not an alter ego of, the radical Muslim American Society. The American Civil Liberties Union is engaged in litigation against TIZA, in which the ACLU alleges that the school unconstitutionally promotes religion at taxpayer expense. That litigation has gotten quite bitter.

Our friend Kathy Kersten has done more than anyone else to shed light on TIZA and its relationship with the Muslim American Society through her columns in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Now, relying on court records, she details allegations of threats made against those who have provided information about the school's operations...

The false-passport row denies Israel's right to act against those trying to destroy it.

FOR average Israelis, members of the silent majority (as distinct from the country's chattering cliquey elite), the false-passports brouhaha abroad is just another sideshow in the international community's theatre of the absurd.

In this global burlesque, everything can be turned upside down. The lie is granted equal standing with truth, and flagrant canards frequently gain the ascendancy and are paraded as fact. Values are devalued. Good and evil are interchangeable. Anything goes.

In this environment of intellectual anarchy, Israel's existential struggle stands no chance of being granted anything vaguely resembling a fair hearing.

The case of terror kingpin Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is instructive. After his body was discovered in a Dubai hotel, his own son, Abdel-Rauf, bragged on TV that the late lamented ''fought the Jews, hit the Jews, kidnapped and killed Israelis. He outfitted and dispatched suicide-bombers.'' That evidently made him an object for admiration. Killing Jews is a noble objective, one to take pride in, to revere.

Mabhouh co-founded the Hamas military wing and Hamas declared war on Israel. He was a self-confessed murderer.

Last year he boasted on al-Jazeera about his personal culpability in the separate 1989 kidnap-murders of Israeli soldiers Avi Sasportas and Ilan Sa'adon.

He crowed about smuggling into Gaza thousands of Iranian-made missiles for the sole purpose of making the lives of Israeli civilians hellish in the country's heartland, including Tel Aviv.

So when Israelis point to Mabhouh's gory record, it isn't just their biased say-so. It's hardly an unsubstantiated assertion, an excuse to justify assassination.

Accustomed and resigned as Israelis are to the world's double standards, they nevertheless watch with renewed amazement as Mabhouh's suspected killers are placed on Interpol's wanted list, where Mabhouh himself never appeared - soaked with blood as his hands were. Has anyone, incidentally, bothered inquiring which passport Mabhouh was travelling under and why he was allowed to enter Dubai on a gun-running mission?...

...For decades, many American Jewish groups - including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a long-established and influential lobby - have been reluctant to second-guess the policies of Israel's elected government.

When they disagree with Israel, "they do it behind closed doors," said Martin Solomon, Boston-area blogger and businessman who writes the Israel-oriented blog Solomonia. "They don't want to give ammunition to people who mean to do real harm to the state."...

Have you ever heard of a supposedly "pro Israel" group that has issued more press releases condemning Christian Zionists than it has Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadenijad, Hezbollah and Syria combined? No? Then welcome to J Street, the self-described "pro Israel, pro peace" lobbying group that bends over backwards to insult Israel's friends and supporters, especially evangelical Christians, and makes a living off of criticizing Israeli government policies.

I've discussed J Street's naked anti-Christian bigotry before (see here and here) but since they are at it again (more on that in a bit), I felt compelled to undertake a little research project. I went to J Street's website and surveyed the group's press releases from the past year and a half. The results? To start, four press releases (including one from February 1, 2010) attacking John Hagee and Christians United for Israel (CUFI). Indeed, two of J Street's first four press releases were devoted to slamming Hagee. Talk about misguided priorities: a purportedly pro-Israel group using all of this ink on Hagee and evangelical supporters of Israel at a time when Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria are stockpiling increasingly lethal weapons and publicly calling for Israel's destruction. 

In those press releases, J Street essentially painted Hagee--a man Senator (and orthodox Jew) Joseph Lieberman once compared to Moses--as a closet anti-Semite and portrayed Christian supporters of Israel as some sort of wild-eyed, apocalyptic death cult (a strategy which this release by J Street's founder, Jeremy Ben-Ami, took to new extremes).  But what may be even more offensive is that J Street has come up with exactly one--one--press release condeming genocidal Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadenijad. And zero press releases condeming either Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah or Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, two others who regularly threaten Israel's demise. If J Street wants "end times" and "apocalyptic," then Ahmadenijad, Assad and Nasrallah--who all met yesterday in Damascus to plot further attacks against Israel--are certainly the real deal. So why the bizarre preoccupation with evangelical Christians, an extremely large and influential group that Israeli government officials of every political persuasion routinely hail as among the Jewish people's greatest friends and supporters?...[More.]

TORONTO - At the last minute, York University has cancelled events organized by a coalition of Canadian pro-Israel students and organizations due to "security" concerns. The events organized by the Imagine With Us coalition were scheduled for this week in anticipation of Israel Apartheid Week (IAW), which begins on March 1.

The Imagine With Us coalition - a "multi-faith, multi-political movement that is concerned with maintaining Canadian values and keeping our campuses safe from hatred, discrimination and radical incitement, particularly from those subscribing to radical Islam," explained Michael Mostyn, national director of public affairs for B'nai Brith Canada - is led by My Canada, a non-partisan organization of young adult Christians who are passionate about a variety of social justice issues, and B'nai Brith Canada.

On Monday and Thursday of this week, events were scheduled at York which included the participation of Middle East expert and political commentator Daniel Pipes, Israeli scholar of Arabic literature and political discourse Dr. Mordechai Kedar, former PLO terrorist Walid Shoebat, human right activist Rev. Majed El Shafie, social justice activist and founder of My Canada Faytene Kryskow, and B'nai Brith Canada CEO Frank Dimant. The events were scheduled to be streamed live to campuses across Canada and to be viewable online internationally.

On Monday morning, York University informed Imagine With Us campus partners Christians United for Israel (CUFI) that the university was cancelling the event due to the fact that Imagine With Us did not meet their requirements. York had required that the organizers include a formidable police and campus security presence paid for by the organizers, a list of all attendees in advance, a minute-by-minute synopsis of all speakers' talking points and a ban on public advertising of the event at York and on satellite campuses.

York University has said that the requirements were demanded of the event organizers due to the participation of individuals who they claim invite the animus of anti-Israel campus agitators...[More.]

Beginning Monday, university campuses play host to an annual event known as Israeli Apartheid Week, where Israel is assigned the role of Jew among the nations -- singled-out, cursed and harassed.

Some Jewish students at Canadian universities will discreetly choose to stay home, to avoid having to answer for the Jewish state. The whiff of something medieval hangs over this March ritual.

This isn't about Jews, say the organizers. It's about Zionists. Problem is, the activist groups behind Israeli Apartheid Week are doing everything to erase the distinction...[Read the rest.]

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Deputy Minister, members of the Knesset. On the same day that the group of members of Congress visited Israel, and official parties did not want to meet them, another congressman also visited Israel. I took him on a tour with me and asked him what he thinks about not letting them meet the prime minister and the foreign minister. He said: them? That group has some of the biggest enemies of Israel in the US Congress.

When I try to think about J Street it depends whether I got up in a good mood or a bad mood. When I get up in a good mood I think about them: they are doing harm and wish to be rewarded. When I get up in a bad mood I remember what Rashi wrote in his Torah commentary about pig. Why do we hate it so much? Because the pig lays down and spreads its limbs and says "look how pure I am." What is my problem with that lobby? It is fine for there to be a lobby in Israel, in the US, wherever they want, that is in favor of establishing a Palestinian state in the middle of our country. I think it is a disaster for Israel, I think it is suicidal, I think it will destroy the Zionist enterprise. But it is perfectly legitimate. What is so infuriating about this lobby is the pure face they put on as a pro-Israeli lobby. So let everyone know. These are feathers they should not wear. Thank you.

FOREIGN Minister Micheal Martin yesterday pleaded with Israel to end the crippling blockade of Gaza on an historic trip to the occupied territory.

As he visited Gaza, Mr Martin said the blockade was choking ordinary people and helping to swell the ranks of the Islamic Hamas administration.

The minister visited UN-operated schools, a food distribution centre and met with business leaders to witness first-hand the hardships suffered by 1.5 million people. "I would appeal to the Israeli government and all concerned to lift this blockade," he said.

Mr Martin is the first EU foreign minister to enter the Gaza Strip in more than a year after repeated efforts by other states were refused by Israel, including an initial attempt by Ireland in December...

Denis Avey, even at the age of 91, cuts a formidable figure. More than 6ft tall, with a severe short back and sides and a piercing glare, he combines the pan-ache of Errol Flynn with the dignity of age. This is the former Desert Rat, who, in 1944, broke into -- yes, into -- Auschwitz, and he looks exactly as I expected. He removes his monocle for the camera, and one of his pupils slips sideways before realigning. It is a glass eye. I ask him about it. He tells me that in 1944, he cursed an SS officer who was beating a Jew in the camp. He received a blow with a pistol butt and his eye was knocked in.

If Avey's story is difficult to believe...

...Avey was a troublesome prisoner. In the summer of 1943 he was deported to Auschwitz, in Poland, and interned in a small PoW camp on the periphery of the IG Farben factory. The main Jewish camps were several miles to the west. "I'd lost my liberty, but none of my spirit," he says. "I was still determined to give as good as I got."

But he knew immediately that this was a different order of prison. "The Stripeys -- that's what we called the Jewish prisoners -- were in a terrible state. Within months they were reduced to waifs and then they disappeared. The stench from the crematoria was appalling, civilians from as far away as Katowice were complaining. Everybody knew what was going on. Everybody knew."

Remarkably, Avey was able to think beyond the war. "I knew in my gut that these swine would eventually be held to account," he says. "Evidence would be vital. Of course, sneaking into the Jewish camp was a ludicrous idea. It was like breaking into Hell. But that's the sort of chap I was. Reckless."...

Following are examples of some of how, according to Shabaneh, international aid to the Palestinians is being "hijacked" by "thieves and thugs in the inner circle of Mahmoud Abbas."

• Thousands of civil servants whose names appear on the payroll of the Palestinian Authority either do not exist or have never reported for work. The Palestinian Authority has more than 150,000 registered civil servants whose salaries are paid by American, European and Arab governments. Shabaneh's investigations showed that senior officials in the president's office and the Palestinian Ministry of Finance have been "diverting" millions of dollars of these payments to their private bank accounts every month.
• Just before the January 2006 parliamentary election, the US gave $3.2 million to help Fatah boost its image among Palestinians. The goal was to prevent Hamas from winning the vote back then. [Hamas did win in the end]. Shabaneh says that his investigations showed that the money was given to an advertisement company owned by Abbas's family and that most of the money had "vanished."
• A former minister in the Palestinian Authority convinced Mahmoud Abbas and his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, to give him about $5 million of international aid so that he could purchase lands in Jerusalem before Jews lay their hands on them. Shabaneh's investigations showed that the minister deposited most of the money in his private bank account and had built a huge and luxurious villa on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
• Shabaneh's inquires also found that Azzam al-Ahmed, a senior Abbas advisor and Fatah official, took about $1.5 million from Arafat and Abbas under the pretext that he, too, wanted to purchase land that would otherwise end up in the hands of Jews. Ahmed's brother, who served as the PLO's lawyer in Jordan, is also suspected, according to Shabaneh's files, of defrauding the Palestinian Authority into paying him millions of dollars for fictitious land deals.
• Shabaneh discovered that a former Finance Minister in the Palestinian Authority had deposited $8 million in his private bank account. When Shabaneh demanded explanations, he was told to mind his own business.

Aging populations reject radical agendas, and the Middle East is no different. Now eventually, this will happen among the Palestinians too, but it will happen faster if the West stops providing pro-natal subsidies for Palestinians with refugee status. Those subsidies are one reason why, in the ten years from 1997 to 2007, Gaza's population grew by an astonishing 40 percent. At that rate, Gaza's population will double by 2030, to three million. Israel's present sanctions on Gaza have a political aim -- undermine the Hamas regime -- but if they also break Gaza's runaway population growth -- and there is some evidence that they have -- that might begin to crack the culture of martyrdom which demands a constant supply of superfluous young men. That is rising to the real challenge of radical indoctrination, and treating it at its root.

I didn't propose that Israel take a single additional measure beyond the sanctions it now imposes with the political aim of undermining Hamas. And I didn't call on the West to "deliberately curb the births of Palestinians." I called on it to desist from deliberately encouraging births through pro-natal subsidies for Palestinian "refugees," which guarantee that Gazans will remain both radicalized and dependent. The Electronic Intifada claims that "neither the UN, nor any other agencies, provide Palestinians with specifically 'pro-natal subsidies.'" This is a lie: UNWRA assures that every child with "refugee" status will be fed and schooled regardless of the parents' own resources, and mandates that this "refugee" status be passed from generation to generation in perpetuity. Anywhere in the world, that would be called a deliberate pro-natal policy. Electronic Intifada: "Kramer appeared to be equating any humanitarian assistance at all with inducement for Palestinians to reproduce." Appears to whom? A pro-natal subsidy is a national or international promise to support the yet-unborn, not humanitarian assistance to the living. The pro-natal subsidy in Gaza is the unlimited promise of hereditary "refugee" status to future generations.

(Stopping pro-natal subsidies isn't an original idea, and I credit Gunnar Heinsohn for making a much more detailed case for it, in his January 2009 Wall Street Journal Europe article, "Ending the West's Proxy War Against Israel: Stop funding a Palestinian youth bulge, and the fighting will stop too." He also coined the phrase "superfluous young men.")

...Accusations have been made that Martin Kramer's statements are genocidal. These accusations are baseless. Kramer's statements, available at http://www.martinkramer.org/sandbox/2010/02/superfluous-young-men/, express dismay with the policy of agencies that provide aid to Palestinian refugees, and that tie aid entitlements to the size of refugee families. Kramer argues that this policy encourages population growth among refugee communities. While these views may be controversial, there is no way they can be regarded as genocidal.

Those who have called upon the Weatherhead Center to dissociate itself from Kramer's views, or to end Kramer's affiliation with the Center, appear not to understand the role of controversy in an academic setting...

The son of a leading Hamas figure, who famously converted to Christianity, served for over a decade as the Shin Bet security service's most valuable source in the militant organization's leadership, Haaretz has learned.

Mosab Hassan Yousef is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a Hamas founder and one of its leaders in the West Bank. The intelligence he supplied Israel led to the exposure of a number of terrorist cells, and to the prevention of dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts on Israeli figures.

The exclusive story will appear in this Friday's Haaretz Magazine, and Yousef's memoir, "Son of Hamas" (written with Ron Brackin) will be released next week in the United States. Yousef, 32, became a devout Christian 10 years ago and now lives in California after fleeing the West Bank in 2007 and going public with his conversion.

Yousef was considered the Shin Bet's most reliable source in the Hamas leadership, earning himself the nickname "the Green Prince" - using the color of the Islamist group's flag, and "prince" because of his pedigree as the son of one of the movement's founders.

During the second intifada, intelligence Yousef supplied led to the arrests of a number of high-ranking Palestinian figures responsible for planning deadly suicide bombings. These included Ibrahim Hamid (a Hamas military commander in the West Bank, Marwan Barghouti (founder of the Fatah-linked Tanzim militia) and Abdullah Barghouti (a Hamas bomb-maker with no close relation to the Fatah figure). Yousef was also responsible for thwarting Israel's plan to assassinate his father.

"I wish I were in Gaza now," Yousef said by phone from California, "I would put on an army uniform and join Israel's special forces in order to liberate Gilad Shalit. If I were there, I could help. We wasted so many years with investigations and arrests to capture the very terrorists that they now want to release in return for Shalit. That must not be done."...

..."So many people owe him their life and don't even know it," said the handler, named in Yousef's book as Captain Loai. "People who did a lot less were awarded the Israel Security Prize. He certainly deserves it."...

...With his memoir, Yousef hopes to send a message of peace to Israelis. Still, he admits he is pessimistic over the prospect of Israel signing a peace agreement with the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, let alone Hamas.

"Hamas cannot make peace with the Israelis. That is against what their God tells them. It is impossible to make peace with infidels, only a cease-fire, and no one knows that better than I. The Hamas leadership is responsible for the killing of Palestinians, not Israelis," he said. "Palestinians! They do not hesitate to massacre people in a mosque or to throw people from the 15th or 17th floor of a building, as they did during the coup in Gaza. The Israelis would never do such things. I tell you with certainty that the Israelis care about the Palestinians far more than the Hamas or Fatah leadership does."

The current drama playing out at the University of California, Irvine is shaping up to be nearly note-for-note identical to the one we witnessed in 2008. Then, as now, harshly anti-Israel speakers sparked the Zionist Organization of America to issue condemnatory press releases and appeal to the United States government for an investigation (the results of which, it should be noted, determined no dereliction of duty on the part of the university). Students stood up and said the portrayal of their campus as an anti-Semitic inferno were overblown, which was followed by other students who said quite the opposite....

...Chemerinsky is misleading about what Drake has done. He has denounced hate speech. He did it for me personally two years ago when I cornered him in a D.C. convention center. But so far as I'm aware, he has NOT done it "when anti-Jewish or anti-Israeli sentiments have been expressed." He has done it when critics demanded it. And he has not "expressly proclaimed the inappropriateness of such speech." He has expressed his opposition to hate-speech in general, without "expressly" referring to any speech in particular...

...Doctors were accustomed to alcohol poisoning by then, the routine of life in the Prohibition era. The bootlegged whiskies and so-called gins often made people sick. The liquor produced in hidden stills frequently came tainted with metals and other impurities. But this outbreak was bizarrely different. The deaths, as investigators would shortly realize, came courtesy of the U.S. government.

Frustrated that people continued to consume so much alcohol even after it was banned, federal officials had decided to try a different kind of enforcement. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the United States, products regularly stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. The idea was to scare people into giving up illicit drinking. Instead, by the time Prohibition ended in 1933, the federal poisoning program, by some estimates, had killed at least 10,000 people...[The rest.]

...THE US overcame the Soviet threat by making it clear that we would respond to an attack against an ally as if it were an attack against the US homeland. We also undermined the Soviet system from within by linking trade relations to progress in human rights. These two elements - a clear military commitment, and an emphasis on human rights - must form the core of a new, bold policy towards Iran as well: No tolerance for a nuclear Iran.

The US must commit to a military response in support of UN Security Council resolutions should Iran continue to flout them. The target should be not only Iran's nuclear facilities, but the main political institutions of the regime. We must force Teheran to hide its leaders as carefully as it has hidden its centrifuges, weakening the regime and giving strength to its many opponents.

Extend preemptive support to Israel. The US must commit to supporting Israel in the event that Israel decides to launch a preemptive strike against Iran, as it did against Iraq in 1981. Unlike a defense pact, which would allow Iran to attack before Israel or the US could respond, a preemptive guarantee would take the initiative away from Teheran and make it bear the full consequences of its present actions.

Develop human rights sanctions. Until now, sanctions have focused on the Iranian nuclear program. We need sanctions targeting Iran's abuses of human rights. The US must lead, because the UN Human Rights Council still refuses to act. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) have introduced legislation providing for human rights sanctions. Passage must become an urgent priority.

The US must assist Iranians in their struggle for freedom. We must help Iranians help themselves by providing alternative media platforms and developing technology that can frustrate the regime's attempts at censorship. We must deny the Iranian government any semblance of legitimacy in international forums, and speak out forcefully at every opportunity on behalf of Iranian freedom.

THESE FOUR steps together form what I call the Neda doctrine, which is a simple acronym that also honors the memory of Neda Agha-Soltan, who was murdered last June as she attempted to join protests against Iran's fraudulent presidential election. Her example reminds us that our greatest and most courageous allies against the Iranian regime are the Iranian people...[More.]

The UC Irvine students who were arrested after protesting a Feb.8 speech by Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren have received disciplinary letters from the university office of judicial affairs.

UCI sent the letter to the eight Irvine student protesters early last week.

The UC Riverside's student conduct office is reviewing video footage and materials from the speech and demonstration but has yet to make a decision regarding the three UCR students who were arrested. Administrators have sent inquiry letters to the students in question.

According to Cathy Lawhon, UCI spokeswoman, the protesters had to respond to their disciplinary letters and make appointments with campus judicial affairs by Tuesday or holds would be placed on their registration and financial aid. The letters, outlining the initial complaint, are the first step in a six-week long disciplinary process; Lawhon did not know if the students answered the notices by the Feb. 16 due date.

Mohamed Abdelgany, president of UCI's Muslim Student Union and one of the eight Irvine student protesters, said that he responded to the letter and suspects that the university is threatening to pursue "very harsh punishments against (him) and his fellow students."

Abdelgany, who believes that the sanctions could be as serious as suspension or expulsion, has offered a suggestion to the administration.

"The best action for the university to take is to hear our grievances, and work to make all students and student groups feel included. That would be true leadership," said Abdelgany in an e-mail to the Register...

...Traher Herzallah, one of the three UC Riverside protesters, said that his protest followed in the footsteps of Nelson Mandela and Rosa Parks and added that "one would think that (UC Riverside) would... even support the students for exercising their First Amendment rights rather than reprimand them."...

Turkish police detained about 50 military commanders Monday for allegedly planning to blow up mosques in order to trigger a military takeover and overthrow the Islamic-rooted government.

The nationwide sweep highlighted the ongoing struggle between the secular establishment and the Islamic-oriented government -- and left many wondering if the military no longer called the shots in a nation accustomed to viewing it as the pillar of the secular state.

The detention of 49 senior military officers, according to CNN-Turk television -- including members of the elite class known as "Pashas," a title of respect harking back to Ottoman times -- proved, at the very least, that such officials are no longer untouchable.

Turkey's secular military has ousted four governments since 1960, demonstrating its influence and place of power since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk created the republic from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire...

Foreign Ministry blasts group for 'premeditated public relations circus' on delegation visit to Israel.

The American "pro-Israel, pro-peace" lobby group J Street made "untrue assertions" about an alleged boycott of the congressional delegation it recently brought to Israel, and about Israel allegedly apologizing to the group for the slight, a senior Foreign Ministry official told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

"[Deputy Foreign Minister Danny] Ayalon did not prevent the delegation from meeting with senior Israeli officials," as claimed by J Street last week, said Barukh Binah, Foreign Ministry deputy director-general and head of its North America Division.

"Ayalon was never part of the delegation's schedule and talk of boycotting meetings with congressman has no basis in fact. On the contrary, the deputy foreign minister is always willing to meet with elected officials from any friendly country, especially the United States of America, and [with] Jewish organizations which represent a range of diverse views from across the political spectrum."

Binah also rejected the "subsequent assertion that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs apologized in hastily arranged meetings," which he said was simply not true.

A senior Foreign Ministry official who asked to remain anonymous blasted the group for "coming to the region with the intention of creating headlines, perhaps for fund-raising purposes. The media and the congressmen became unwilling participants in a premeditated public relations circus. It is extremely disappointing that a so-called pro-Israel organization would put self-aggrandizement ahead of the interests of the State of Israel."

Meanwhile, questions were raised in Israel about the pro-Israel credentials of the five-member congressional delegation brought by J Street, composed of California Democrats Lois Capps and Bob Filner, Massachusetts Democrat Bill Delahunt, New Jersey Democrat Donald Payne and Ohio Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy...[More.]

A former senior British army officer has said international media including the BBC are being exploited by "dark forces" who want to harm Israel.

Col Richard Kemp, who was a commander in Afghanistan, said some international criticism of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) was motivated by anti-Semitism.

He was speaking at a dinner in London hosted by a pro-Israel lobby group.

Col Kemp had defended the actions of the IDF at the UN Goldstone Hearings into the Gaza incursion of 2008...

...Col Kemp, who is now retired from the Army and makes a living from writing, said the advice he received from the Israeli armed forces on how to tackle Afghan suicide bombers had been invaluable, and formed the basis of official army guidelines used by soldiers on the ground there.

There were some "bad" soldiers in the IDF, Col Kemp acknowledged.

But he added that despite similarities between the IDF and British forces, UK soldiers did not have to deal with the same amount of criticism from the international community.

"When we go into battle we do not get the same knee-jerk, almost Pavlovian response from many, many elements of the international media and international groups, humanitarian groups and other international groups such as the United Nations which should know better... of utter automatic condemnation. We don't have to put up with that."...

Palestinian Authority TV news recently chose to feature a Palestinian mother promoting her son's death as a positive goal.

Upon learning of her son's death in an Israeli air strike, the mother explained that she had always hoped for her son's Shahada - death as a Martyr -- and recommended that other mothers likewise "sacrifice their child for Palestine."

The words of another woman, chosen by PA TV news for the pre-recorded news report, described how Palestinian society sees Martyrs as grooms. This is based on the Islamic tradition, promoted actively by the PA and Hamas, that Martyrs will marry 72 virgins in Paradise.

PA TV news report:

Mother upon news of son's death in an Israeli air strike: "We had always hoped for his [my son's] Martyrdom (Shahada), knowing he wanted to die as a Martyr (Shahid). Every time he went out, we would say to him, 'May Allah be with you.' We knew that he wanted to die as a Martyr. Praise to Allah, he sought Martyrdom, and he achieved it. My message to every mother is to sacrifice her child for Palestine." Second woman: "By Allah, we welcome every Martyr as if he were a groom among us." [PA TV (Fatah), Feb. 11, 2010]

Palestinian Media Watch has documented that these two ideas -- that death is a higher value than life and that Martyrdom death leads to a wedding between the Martyr and the virgins of Paradise -- have been promoted actively by both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas for years...[More]

The man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing is living with his family in a luxury villa in Libya six months after he was released from jail on compassionate grounds because he had less than three months to live.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, who is suffering from terminal prostate cancer, no longer receives hospital treatment after ending the course of chemotherapy that he had been given after returning to his homeland last August...

...The latest disclosure will incense many of the relatives of those who died in the bomb blast in December 1988 when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded in mid air over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 243 passengers, 16 crew and 11 people on the ground...

...The Sunday Telegraph revealed last September that the Libyan government had paid for the medical evidence which helped Megrahi, 57, to be released. The Libyans had encouraged doctors to say he had only three months to live.

The life expectancy of Megrahi was crucial because, under Scottish rules, prisoners can be freed on compassionate grounds only if they are considered to have this amount of time, or less, to live.

Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary, ruled last August that Megrahi should be freed. Megrahi's release came after Libyan leaders warned that lucrative oil and trade deals with Britain would be cancelled if the bomber died in jail.

One leading prostate cancer specialist cast serious doubt yesterday on the wisdom of predicting that Megrahi had only three months to live - when a patient still had to undergo chemotherapy. Dr Chris Parker said it was extremely difficult to give an accurate prognosis for individual patients. "Studies show experts are very poor at trying to predict how long an individual patient will live for," he warned.

Megrahi received the chemotherapy drug Docetaxel - trade name Taxotere - shortly after returning to Libya.

Dr Parker, who is with the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden Hospital, said: "The average prognosis for survival after Docetaxel would be 12 months....

Just before Christmas, a ecumenical gathering of Palestinian Christians met in Bethlehem to launch the Kairos Palestine Document, which urges a boycott of Israel.

As option B, the document also approves "armed resistance" as carried out by "some political parties," clearly meaning Hamas and other terrorist groups. However, the document rejects the charge of terrorism, labelling armed attacks on Israelis as "legal resistance."

Such "resistance" has included a daily rain of rockets on the men, women and children of Sderot. It includes suicide bombings aboard buses and blowing up teenagers at a discotheque. It includes the assassination of parents and children in a pizza parlour and the mass murder of elderly Jews at a Passover Seder...[The rest.]

...1.4 In the face of this reality, Israel justifies its actions as self-defence, including occupation, collective punishment and all other forms of reprisals against the Palestinians. In our opinion, this vision is a reversal of reality. Yes, there is Palestinian resistance to the occupation. However, if there were no occupation, there would be no resistance, no fear and no insecurity. This is our understanding of the situation. Therefore, we call on the Israelis to end the occupation. Then they will see a new world in which there is no fear, no threat but rather security, justice and peace.

1.5 The Palestinian response to this reality was diverse. Some responded through negotiations: that was the official position of the Palestinian Authority, but it did not advance the peace process. Some political parties followed the way of armed resistance. Israel used this as a pretext to accuse the Palestinians of being terrorists and was able to distort the real nature of the conflict, presenting it as an Israeli war against terror, rather than an Israeli occupation faced by Palestinian legal resistance aiming at ending it...

...Aaron Mannes elaborated on CAIR's Hamas connection a while back in "CAIR and Hamas: Implications and an illustration." Now an immigration judge in Dallas has ordered the deportation of Nabil Sadoun, a Dallas resident and former board member of CAIR; Sadoun was deported to Jordan, to which he had already hightailed it, after he failed to appear at his immigration hearing. The Dallas NBC affiliate reports that the immigration judge made vague references to the government's voluminous motion to deport Sadoun, including alleged involvement with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. According to the report, the judge concluded Sadoun lied on government forms when he denied he was a member.

The NBC affiliate sought comment from CAIR. CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said Sadoun left the organization several months ago. Asked the reason for his departure, Hooper responded: "Board members come on, [and] they leave."

Thanks, as always, for clearing that up. [More<.a>.]

THE Booker prize-winning author Salman Rushdie has accused Amnesty International of "moral bankruptcy" for working with a former terror suspect from Britain.

Rushdie, whose plight was championed by Amnesty when he was placed under a fatwa by the Iranian regime for his novel The Satanic Verses, said the charity had done "incalculable damage" to its reputation by collaborating with Moazzam Begg, a former inmate of Guantanamo Bay, and his organisation Cageprisoners.

His accusation follows the suspension this month of Gita Sahgal, a senior Amnesty official, who raised concerns about the organisation's links to Begg and Islamists.

"It looks very much as if Amnesty's leadership is suffering from a kind of moral bankruptcy and has lost the ability to distinguish right from wrong," said Rushdie.

Kate Allen, director of Amnesty UK, said it took criticism "seriously" but would continue to press for "universal respect" for human rights.

Amnesty International has done its reputation incalculable damage by allying itself with Moazzam Begg and his group Cageprisoners, and holding them up as human rights advocates. It looks very much as if Amnesty's leadership is suffering from a kind of moral bankruptcy, and has lost the ability to distinguish right from wrong. It has greatly compounded its error by suspending the redoubtable Gita Sahgal for the crime of going public with her concerns. Gita Sahgal is a woman of immense integrity and distinction and I am personally grateful to her for the courageous stands she made at the time of the Khomeini fatwa against The Satanic Verses, as a leading member of the groups Southall Black Sisters and Women Against Fundamentalism. It is people like Gita Sahgal who are the true voices of the human rights movement; Amnesty and Begg have revealed, by their statements and actions, that they deserve our contempt.

...The firefight ebbs. The mortar fire ceases. A few last stray rounds streak past. A cry from behind causes me to turn. Lying in the road is a young Iraqi woman. I run over to help. She's caught a round just below her temple. Her stunning beauty has been ruined forever.

She cries, "Paper! Paper" over and over until the ambulance arrives to take her away. An old lady emerges from the schoolhouse-turned voting site, sheets of blue paper in hand. She gives one to the wounded girl, who clutches it to her like a prized possession even as the ambulance carries her away.

The ballot was her voice. All she wanted was a chance to exercise it, just once, before she died...[More.]

...The One's agenda has vaulted fiscal conservatism to the top of the list of right-wing priorities; with even Darth Cheney sanguine about gay marriage, social issues simply don't have the same bite that they used to...thanks to the GOP's tilt towards libertarianism, that the big tent is a little bigger this year than it used to be...

In the latter days of the Carter presidency, it became fashionable to say that the office had become unmanageable and was simply too big for one man. Some suggested a single, six-year presidential term. The president's own White House counsel suggested abolishing the separation of powers and going to a more parliamentary system of unitary executive control. America had become ungovernable.

Then came Ronald Reagan, and all that chatter disappeared...

...That's not a structural defect. That's a textbook demonstration of popular will expressing itself -- despite the special interests -- through the existing structures. In other words, the system worked.

An UNRWA educational program in Ramallah has honored the terrorist Abu Jihad with a football tournament in his name. The tournament was organized by the Fatah Students' Youth Movement at UNRWA's Women's Training Center and Faculty of Educational Sciences in Ramallah:

"The Student Union Council and the Shabiba [Fatah] Students' Movement at UNRWA's Faculty of Educational Sciences has launched a football tournament under the name, 'The Shahid (Martyr) Abu Jihad Tournament.'" [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 17, 2010]

Dedicating sports tournaments and summer camps for Palestinian youth to terrorists who have killed Israelis is Palestinian Authority policy. Palestinian Media Watch has regularly documented the PA's glorification of terrorists.

The fact that UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees) is hosting a tournament honoring a terrorist is not the first time that the UN has supported the PA's policy of honoring terrorists. In the past, the UN has supported summer camps named after terrorists, including a UNICEF-sponsored camp in 2003 named after "the Shahida (Martyr) Wafa Idris." For examples of camps named after terrorists, click here.

Abu Jihad was one of the founders of the Fatah Movement and the orchestrator of the organization's terror activities from the mid-1960s. Second in command to Yasser Arafat, he headed the military wing of the PLO and served as deputy supreme military commander of Fatah...[More.]

Analysis: Churches for Middle East Peace and the BDS Movement

Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), which is J-Street's partner in sponsoring the visit of a US Congressional delegation to Israel, is a US-based political advocacy organization. Like many other such NGOs, CMEP's rhetoric and its activities are not always consistent, and some of its constituent groups are centrally involved in the political war against Israel.

A number of CMEP partners take an active role in promoting BDS - the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign - as part of the 2001 Durban NGO agenda which calls for the total international isolation of Israel. For example, Friends of Sabeel North America (www.fosna.org) is a fundraising and publicity branch of the Palestinian NGO Sabeel. This organization, headed by Naim Ateek, is a leader of the church divestment campaign, and in his speaking tours around North America, Ateek employs antisemitic themes and imagery in sermons promoting his "Palestinian Liberation Theology." In promoting this agenda, his rhetoric includes references to "the Israeli government crucifixion system".

CMEP's website also features the "KAIROS Palestine Document", which was written by a group of Palestinian Christians, including Ateek. KAIROS Palestine calls for action designed to create "a system of economic sanctions and boycott [and divestment] to be applied against Israel," echoing Sabeel's efforts. CMEP also quotes Bishop Mark Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, referring to the document as "a word of hope in a time of pessimism that could lead to despair."

This adoption of the Palestinian narrative of victimization, perhaps a reflection of the close ties to Sabeel and other Palestinian groups, was also evident in a January 21, 2005 full-page New York Times ad sponsored by CMEP. The text read, in part, "With each news report of Palestinian suffering...popular support in Arab and Muslim countries for terrorism grows and the threat of attacks directed at the United States increases."

A number of CMEP's board members also reflect the goal of demonization, under the façade of promoting peace. For example, Helena Cobban, a fierce anti-Israel ideologue and member Human Rights Watch's Middle East board, sits on CMEP's Leadership Council.

Thus, while much of the media coverage of this delegation has focused on the involvement of J-Street angle, this is only half of the story. CMEP is an equal partner, and deserves equal scrutiny.

A visiting U.S. congressman lashed out at Israel's number two diplomat Wednesday, saying he was snubbed by the Foreign Ministry and demanding an official clarification.

Rep. William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts and a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, is heading a congressional delegation to the region. The trip is hosted by J Street, a liberal Jewish lobbying group that presents itself as an alternative to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- one of Washington's most powerful lobbies.

J Street, which supports President Barack Obama's push for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, says it sought a meeting for the U.S. representatives with Israeli diplomats but was turned down.

The Foreign Ministry dismissed the complaint, saying in response that it did not need mediators to set up meetings with U.S. officials.

The snub appeared aimed at J Street. Israel's government has been critical of the group's programs, which are more dovish than those of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hawkish government.

Speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv, Delahunt said he was surprised and disappointed to read an Israeli newspaper report that he was being boycotted by the Foreign Ministry for his affiliation with J Street and identified Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon as the culprit.

"We were puzzled that the Deputy Foreign Minister has apparently attempted to block our meetings with senior officials in the Prime Minister's office and Foreign Ministry -- questioning either our own support of Israel or that we would even consider traveling to the region with groups thatthe deputy foreign minister has so inaccurately described as 'anti-Israel'," Delahunt said.

"In our opinion this is an inappropriate way to treat elected representatives of Israel's closest ally who are visiting the country."

Delahunt asked the Israeli government "for a clarification of its stance toward this and future delegations."

Ayalon's office said the deputy minister was prepared to meet any elected officials, especially from the U.S. Congress, but he "didn't need mediators."...

...Four other U.S. representatives were traveling with Delahunt -- Democrats Donald Payne of New Jersey, Lois Capps of California, Bob Filner of California and Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio...

Today, the Muslim Public Affairs Council sent a letter to UC Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake and UCI School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky calling for an investigation into the arrest of 11 students who protested during a speech given by Israel's Ambassador to U.S., Michael Oren, on Monday. UC Irvine police arrested the students after they stood up during Oren's speech and individually condemned Israel's practice of collective punishment towards Palestinians in the Gaza Strip...[More.]

...Not to mention that the next time Israel's soldiers are captured/kidnapped by Hamas or Hezbollah, I certainly will have very little sympathy considering the depredations by Mossad against their leaders. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Domestic U.S. politics constrain innovative thought - even open debate - on the process without end that is the peace search.

An Arab refugee in Lebanon described in an interview on Palestinian Authority TV how he and other Arabs left for Lebanon from Israel during the 1948 war, after Arab leaders said their absence would be temporary:

"They [Arab leaders] said: 'A week, two weeks, approximately, and you'll return to Palestine,'" said Sadek Mufid.

This refugee's testimony is yet another example of how Palestinian leaders, writers and refugees themselves have begun to speak out in recent years and openly blame the Arab leadership for the creation of the Arab refugee problem. Mufid describes a large departure to Lebanon from Israel, which led to the creation of "11 or 15 refugee camps." He does not place the blame on Israel. As Palestinian Media Watch has previously reported, other recent Palestinian accounts likewise describe a deliberate exit from Israel under orders by Arab leaders, which contradicts the Palestinian leadership's charge that the hundreds of thousands of Arabs who left in 1948 were expelled by Israel.

Sadek Mufid, who left Dir Al-Qasi (Acre region) in 1948, was interviewed on PA TV's weekly program entitled Returning. Each program focuses on a different refugee camp...[More.]

They were there for 4 or 5 years and then moved to Alabama. When they left we all said "Those poor folks in Alabama"...

...She was such a trouble maker. I disengaged from them early on. I literally did not have any conversation or interaction with either her or her husband (also a nutball) for over 3 years. Nothing...

...She made a big stink about the kids playing basketball in the neighborhood. On the day they first moved into the house they drove their moving truck into the basketball post that was situated between our two driveways and under the streetlight. For years all the neighborhood kids played ball there (and so did some of the Dads). When they ran the post down we thought it was just a dumb-ass accident. We soon found out that they did it on purpose.

One of the other neighbors put up a new hoop on his property and she complained about the kids. It was a protracted fight that involved multiple calls to the police. The end result was that the kids in the neighborhood couldn't play ball after 7pm at night. She also complained about street hockey, skate boarding, tag, etc., etc...

Why move into a neighborhood if you don't want to hear kids playing??? That's the whole point of living in a neighborhood so kids have others to play with.

What pissed me off was the loony venom and fury that accompanied her attacks. She alleged that the basketball players were smoking pot at night and causing other trouble. Totally untrue. Look at the newspaper, the Ipswich Police were in the Globe today calling her a "regular customer". She complained about everything.

She nearly got into a fistfight one night with one of the Moms who was defending her son's right to play.

She complained so much the ice cream truck stopped driving through our street. If the kids wanted ice cream they had to go over to the next street and stop the truck.

Just this past Sunday morning as we were watching the news my son said, "Remember how she wouldn't let us have ice cream?" He was about 8 at the time and thought that it really sucked. All the kids knew that she was the cause.

There were a couple of neighborhood block parties in the last 2 years that she and her family weren't invited to because she had caused too many issues with people there. I remember there were probably 100 people at one party and they were the only ones not there. Everybody hated them. At one point someone let the air out of her tires.

The day they moved out I was getting home as their moving van pulled away and went up the street. I got out of my car and a bunch of the neighbors were outside and I yelled "Ding Dong the witch is dead!" and a cheer went up all around. Soon after the new people showed up to clean the house and move some things in and the whole street celebrated with a pizza party. We welcomed the new folks with open arms. It was like the sun finally came out again.

The terrorist who helped bomb Pan Am flight 103 is still alive - and free - in Libya nearly six months after Scotland released the mass murderer from prison on 'compassionate' grounds.

Scottish officials had said Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi would die within three months from prostate cancer when they announced they would set him free. But nearly six months later, al-Megrahi is still calling in about twice a month from Libya to authorities in Scotland as part of the terms of his release.

"It has almost become comical," said Bert Ammerman who lost his brother in the bombing. "I have to laugh that he has to phone in that he is following his probation terms. This is a complete insult. Shame on Scotland. Shame on the White House."

Convicted terrorist Megrahi was set free back on August 21. He had been sentence to life in prison after being convicted in 2001. When he landed home in Libya, he was greeted by cheering crowds at the Tripoli airport, some waving Libyan and Scottish flags...

LET'S rewind to August.

And a moment during the Megrahi debate when you could actually hear the tumbleweed rolling through Kenny MacAskill's head.

It came when Labour MSP Ken Macintosh asked what happens if the Lockerbie bomber failed to show up for the monthly video conference that was part of his release terms.

The following silence felt like an Ice Age, before the Justice Secretary replied: "I have returned him to Libya to die."

There then followed a second silence, broken only by that tumbleweed rolling from ear to ear...

...Smith takes as his prooftext Osama bin Laden's comment in 2001, "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse." What Smith calls the strong-horse principle contains two banal elements: Seize power and then maintain it. This principle predominates because Arab public life has "no mechanism for peaceful transitions of authority or power sharing, and therefore [it] sees political conflict as a fight to the death between strong horses." Violence, Smith observes is "central to the politics, society, and culture of the Arabic-speaking Middle East." It also, more subtly, implies keeping a wary eye on the next strong horse, triangulating, and hedging bets.

Smith argues that the strong horse principle, not Western imperialism or Zionism, "has determined the fundamental character of the Arabic-speaking Middle East." The Islamic religion itself both fits into the ancient pattern of strong-horse assertiveness and then promulgates it. Muhammad, the Islamic prophet, was a strongman as well as a religious figure. Sunni Muslims have ruled over the centuries "by violence, repression, and coercion." Ibn Khaldun's famous theory of history amounts to a cycle of violence in which strong horses replace weak ones. The humiliation of dhimmis daily reminds non-Muslims who rules...

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has honored the terrorist who attempted to stab an Israeli soldier by paying a condolence call to his family. The terrorist was killed by Israeli soldiers after the attack Friday in Hebron.

Today's official PA daily carries a front-page picture of the terrorist, glorifying him with the title "Shahid" - a holy Islamic Martyr - together with the picture of Fayyad's visit. Becoming a Shahid represents the highest religious achievement that can be attained by a Muslim.

The following is the front page story of Prime Minister Fayyad's condolence visit as reported in the official PA daily. This article likewise glorifies the terrorist as a "Shahid":

"The [Palestinian Authority] Prime Minister [Salam Fayyad] paid condolences to the family of the Shahid (Martyr) Faiz Faraj, who was killed on Friday evening by the occupation forces (Israel), having been fired upon directly in the old Al-Shalala neighborhood in Hebron. Fayyad denounced in extremely harsh terms the actions of the occupation forces, carried out as part of the ongoing campaign to suppress the non-violent protests of residents in the various regions." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 14, 2010]

CAIR, NLG Ask Calif. University, DA to Drop Charges Against 'Irvine 11'

University's action against protesters selectively and disproportionately penalizes students, harms free speech

(ANAHEIM, CA, 2/13/10) ­ The Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) and the Los Angeles office of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG-LA) sent a letter Friday to University of California, Irvine (UCI) Chancellor Michael V. Drake urging him to drop charges against 11 students who peacefully protested at a UCI-sponsored event. A letter was also sent today to the Orange County District Attorney's office by CAIR-LA.

Earlier this week, the students spoke out during the speech of the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren at the event, which was also co-sponsored by the UCI School of Law and by the university's political science department. The students, since dubbed the "Irvine 11," left in a voluntary and peaceful manner and were then detained briefly and cited by UCI police officers.

VIDEO: Protesters Disrupt Israeli Ambassador Speech at UCI

In a letter sent to the university administration, CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush and NLG-LA Executive Director James Lafferty stated in part:

"the right to freely express one's opinions is a most sacred freedom protected by our Constitution, finding college campuses to be its most cultivating venue. Civil protest against government abuses is a time-honored tradition that has led to the end of apartheid and the birth of civil rights.

"The students voiced political views to shame the representative of a foreign government embroiled in controversy for its outrageous violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. Delivering this message in a loud and shocking manner expressed the gravity of the charges leveled against Israeli policies, and falls within the purview of protected speech."

In the letter to the district attorney's office, Ayloush stated in part:

"The selective application of laws by off-campus law enforcement agencies to students engaged in constitutionally-protected political speech will be viewed by the American Muslim community and those who value free speech as an attempt to repress legitimate student protest and will undermine this important First Amendment Right."

The letters to the university administration and the district attorney's office urged that the "charges and disciplinary actions against the students involved be dropped."

Representatives of CAIR-LA have been in touch with the students, their parents, and many community members who have expressed concerns that the university's actions amount to retribution against and intimidation of students for expressing dissenting political views. CAIR-LA has also been in touch with Chancellor Drake since Monday's incident to share the Muslim community's free speech concerns...

...The actions of the MSU supporters who disrupted Oren's speech were obviously intended to silence Oren. The ActLeft message cloaks the MSU supporters in the garb of "civil disobedience," but the actions of the MSU are both hateful and tyrannical. The actions are based on the proposition that the defense of Israel in speech is beyond the bounds of civilized discourse just as the defense of Israel in deed is illegitimate because Israel is illegitimate...

...The MSU is a chapter of the Muslim Student Association, which was itself founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. They seek the extinction of Israel. Resistance is required. If the spines of campus administrators need to be stiffened, it is not only supporters of the MSU from whom administrators should hear.

All the sordid details of the Palestinian sex tape scandal are rising to the surface the way scum does on a stagnant pond.

The allegations in the sex scandal itself read like a textbook sexual harassment or coercion case. The whistleblower provided the tape to Israel Channel 10 reporter Tzvi Yehezkeli and told him it starts with the Secretary General to the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Rafik Al Husseini is his name and he wanted to hire a second secretary. A woman applied. Yehezkeli says through a series of text messages and meetings, Al Husseini let the applicant know, if she wanted the office job, she needed to meet him in the bedroom for a little manual labor first.

She reported that to Palestinian intelligence, who set up cameras in her apartment. When Al Husseini showed up, allegedly to welcome the applicant to the work force in the most primitive way, tape was rolling. Shortly after Al Husseini got in his bureaucratic birthday suit, intelligence officers blew the mood by storming the boudoir. The allegation goes on to say Al Husseini apologized and offered them "anything" to make this story go away.

The whistleblower, Fahmi Shabaneh, is now on the run. He was the head of the anti-corruption unit in the Palestinian Authority. In addition to the sex tape, he has provided to Yehezkeli evidence of millions and millions of dollars leaking from government bank accounts to private ones.

A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, Tayeb abdel Rahim,told reporters that Shabaneh's allegations are, "lies and unreal stories made by a former low ranking Palestinian officer." He said, "this officer was fired more than 2 years ago and he is a collaborator with the Israeli government." The Palestinian Authority issued an arrest warrant for Shabaneh alleging the following crimes: damaging the honor of the State, conspiracy to commit murder and real estate crimes. Shabaneh is no where to be found.

Baroness Tonge, a Liberal Democrat frontbencher, has been sacked after calling for an inquiry into allegations that Israeli soldiers supporting the relief effort in Haiti had been involved with organ-trafficking.

Party leader Nick Clegg removed Lady Tonge as a Lib Dem health spokeswoman in the Lords on Friday, describing her remarks as ''wrong, distasteful and provocative''.

It is the second time she has been fired for making controversial comments about Israel.

The latest row followed accusations in the online Palestine Telegraph - of which Lady Tonge is a patron - that members of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) had been harvesting body parts in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake.

She subsequently told the Jewish Chronicle: ''To prevent allegations such as these - which have already been posted on You Tube - going any further, the IDF and the Israeli Medical Association should establish an independent inquiry immediately to clear the names of the team in Haiti.''

Fellow Lib Dems were said to have complained to Mr Clegg about her comments.

In a statement issued this evening, the leader said the peer ''apologises unreservedly''.

''Following discussions with the Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords, Lord McNally, I have decided that Jenny Tonge will stand down as Liberal Democrat health spokesperson in the Lords following her unacceptable comments suggesting an inquiry into highly offensive allegations against the IDF humanitarian operation in Haiti,'' Mr Clegg said.

''The comments were wrong, distasteful and provocative and I recognise the deep and understandable distress they have caused to the Jewish community.

''While I do not believe that Jenny Tonge is anti-semitic or racist, I regard her comments as wholly unacceptable. Jenny Tonge apologises unreservedly for the offence she has caused.''...

Contemporary Germany is sometimes criticized. No one is calling for its abolition. The Catholic Church is criticized quite a bit; does anyone seriously think one billion Catholics are imperiled? Likewise the Muslim world; there are many hundreds of millions of Arabs, and more than a billion Muslims worldwide; they are not going anywhere. We like to make fun of the French--but no one is saying France ought to eradicated, or that French people are murderers and should be eliminated. Black people are victims of perpetual racism, and yet black people are not going to disappear, and neither are the nations of sub-Saharan Africa, or the Caribbean, where people of African heritage form a majority. It's not to say they aren't victimized, or that they don't suffer tragedies. Only that they do not have cause for existential angst, for wondering if they will have descendants, posterity, a place in the future.

Now, as for the Jews: Our sole homeland, on our historic toothpick of land, is incessantly, loudly declared illegitimate. And Jews themselves are impugned, our character is impugned, our loyalty called into question in the Diaspora. And we constitute a tiny percentage of the world's population. And there have been numerous attempts to finish us off.

If you can't understand why we get a little tetchy about books, movie stars and bloggers arguing that we're the principal source of evil in the world, then you are not capable of empathy.

...What Israel needs is a leader who will step forward and say, "Here is the way things should look," and then present an outline for the creation of a viable Palestine. The settlers will go nuts, but that's what they do. Hamas will go nuts, because that's what it does. But Hounshell is right: What is needed is a Rabin. I tend to think that Netanyahu has the potential to be this leader. Maybe it's more a hope than a reality at this point, but only someone from the right can bring the majority of Israelis to the painful compromises that are obviously necessary. And, to make the obvious point, one of the reasons this compromise is necessary is because American public opinion is one of Israel's most important battlegrounds.

...And he doesn't recognize, at least from what I've read so far, that his analysis of the Middle East crisis is consistently and rather wildly one-sided. For instance, he recently wrote, "Without a permanent cessation of such (settlement) activity, there's no way to get the two sides together. But Israel simply refuses to cooperate, as it has refused for two decades in its land-grab." I'm opposed to all settlements, just as Andrew is, but it is silly to argue that for two decades Israel has simply refused to cooperate. By the end of the Camp David talks, Israel was ready to cede roughly 90 percent of the West Bank to the Palestinians. By the Taba round, more than 95 percent. Recently, the former prime minister, Ehud Olmert, made -- as an opening gambit -- an offer of 97 percent of the West Bank, plus land swaps. These offers were rejected by Israel's Palestinian interlocutors. And of course, Israel unilaterally reversed its land-grab in Gaza by forcibly evacuating eight thousand settlers there in 2005 (and it evacuated four West Bank settlements at the same time). But these are facts you will no longer learn on Andrew's blog.

The New Israel Fund, which does extraordinary work in Israel, has recently come under attack for supporting -- this is my interpretation -- anti-Likud NGOs...

...The New Israel Fund, of which I'm a supporter, advocates for civil liberties, minority rights, women's rights, gay rights and religious pluralism, and yes, it's a supporter of the idea that Israel should be a haven for Jews. I've had numerous arguments with its former director, my friend Larry Garber, about a few of the groups NIF has supported, those whose leaders argue for a repeal of the Law of Return, or for soft one-statism. I don't like those groups very much, but it is my impression that they represent only a small portion of the funding work of NIF. Mainly, the New Israel Fund supports groups that work to ensure that Israel remains a democracy, and it surely represents American Jewish values of tolerance, pluralism and diversity, as well as support for Israel as a Jewish state.

[A young man walks into a bar in Scotland and sees an old-timer sitting at the bar with a long face. "What's wrong old fella?" he asks.]

The Old Man says, "Lad, look out there to the field. Do ya see that fence? Look how well it's built. I built that fence stone by stone with me own two hands. I piled it for months."

"But do they call me McGreggor-the-Fence-Builder? Nooo..."

Then the old man gestured at the bar. "Look here at the bar. Do ya see how smooth and just it is? I planed that surface down by me own achin' back. I carved that wood with me own hard labour, for eight days."

"But do they call me McGreggor-the-Bar-builder? Nooo..."

Then the old man points out the window. "Eh, Laddy, look out to sea...Do ya see that pier that stretches out as far as the eye can see? I built that pier with the sweat off me back. I nailed it board by board."

"But do they call me McGreggor-the-Pier-Builder? Nooo..."

Then the old man looks around nervously, trying to make sure no one is paying attention.

"But ya fuck one goat..."

Shamai Leibowitz was at American University on a full scholarship as a NIF Fellow at a time of his divestment activism in Somerville, MA. It was on NIF dime that Leibowitz traveled to Boston at that time and worked as a spokesperson for the Somerville Divestment Project.

During that period, Larry Garber, then new NIF director, had an appearance at Harvard University. During the Q&A period, he was specifically asked about Leibowitz' divestment activism in Somerville. Garber acknowledged his familiarity with Leibowitz' activities, but expressed not an iota of concern or a disagreement.

It was only much later, after the damage was already done, that NIF leadership changed its tune somewhat under the pressure from the Boston Jewish Community.

Listening to the few vocal opponents of our Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem project -- among them the notorious Sheik Raed Salah, leader of the extremist Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel -- you would never know that the Israeli Supreme Court deliberated for almost three years before unanimously rejecting all their claims and authorizing the Wiesenthal Center to begin construction. Just six weeks ago, Chief Justice Dorit Beinish also rebuked those who re-petitioned the Supreme Court for an "abuse of court proceedings," ordering them to pay professional costs.

Still, our opponents would have you believe that in the name of tolerance, our bulldozers actually have invaded the adjacent Mamilla Cemetery, desecrating ancient Muslim tombstones and historic markers.

They don't want you to know the real facts. The museum is not being built on what can rightfully be called the Mamilla Cemetery, but on a three-acre site in the heart of West Jerusalem that, for more than half a century, served as the city's municipal car park. Each day, hundreds of people of all faiths parked in the three-level underground structure without any protest from Muslim religious or academic leaders or interest groups. Additionally, telephone and electrical cables and sewer lines were laid deep below ground in the early 1960s, again without any protest.

As the Supreme Court noted in its ruling, "for almost 50 years the compound has not been a part of the cemetery, both in the normative sense and in the practical sense, and it was used for various public purposes." It also noted: "During all those years no one raised any claim, on even one occasion, that the planning procedures violated the sanctity of the site, or that they were contrary to the law as a result of the historical and religious uniqueness of the site. . . . For decades this area was not regarded as a cemetery by the general public or by the Muslim community. . . . No one denied this position."...[More.]

The demonstrators also donned long hair and loincloths Friday for the weekly protest against the barrier near the village of Bilin.

They equated their struggle to the intergalactic one portrayed in the film...

...The "Avatar" protest comes a day after the Israeli government began rerouting the enclosure to eat up less of the Palestinian village.

The Palestinian Authority on Wednesday accused former intelligence official Fahmi Shabaneh of "collaboration" with Israel and issued a warrant for his arrest.

Shabaneh, who was in charge of the anti-corruption unit in the Palestinian General Intelligence Service, was forced to quit his job after revealing dozens of cases of financial, administrative and sexual corruption among PA President Mahmoud Abbas's inner circle.

In an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post two weeks ago, Shabaneh, 49, who lives in Jerusalem, accused Abbas of failing to act against senior PA and Fatah officials allegedly involved in the theft of public funds and in sex scandals.

Shabaneh showed the Post video footage of Rafik Husseini, the director of Abbas's bureau, lying naked in the bedroom of a Christian woman from Jerusalem who had sought work with the PA.

Shabaneh also presented the Post with hundreds of documents he had collected during his work implicating many of Abbas's close aides in embezzlement, land theft and fraud.

Shabaneh's revelations to the Post were the first of their kind by a senior Palestinian official who was in charge of investigating corruption in the PA.

Shabaneh said that he decided to talk to the Post after Palestinian, Arab and foreign media organizations refused to interview him out of fear of being "punished" by the PA.

"We don't have a free media in the Arab world," Shabaneh explained on Wednesday. "Al-Jazeera and other Arab media outlets told me that they are afraid to publish anything that angers the Palestinian Authority."

Shabaneh said that even some foreign journalists based in the country had refused to publish his statements, citing various pretexts, including fear of retribution by the PA.

"Some of the foreign journalists don't want to hear negative things about Fatah and Abbas," he said. "That's why they didn't want to cooperate with me and why I decided to go to the Post."...[More.]

...Surveillance footage made available to Excalibur shows no evidence of a physical brawl. While the footage lacks audio, it does clearly show that no one physically touched another person or invaded anyone's personal space in a threatening manner.

Body language is exuberant, at most, but never aggressive. No more than 20 to 30 people can be seen around the table in the video, including both parties and bystanders. Two visible handheld cameras can be seen on screen, none of which is smacked to the ground.

Nevertheless, Alex Bilyk, York's director of media relations, said that an investigation further probing this issue is underway, and any necessary action will be taken via the Student Code of Conduct...

In the wake of last week's incident involving Jewish students on its campus, York University has made available to the media a surveillance video documenting the incident, which took place in Vari Hall on the university's campus.

The video was taken using the closed circuit cameras which are installed on campus, and although there is no audio as the camera is placed in a high traffic area, it clearly shows the events which took place between 4pm and 5pm on Monday, February 1, the day in question. The table which was set up by the Hasbara group at York is visible, and no more than about 15 to 30 people are seen around the table at any given time. At one point, it can be seen that an argument may have taken place; however, at no point during the video is there any evidence of a brawl, nor can a shouting match be evident from the students' body language. At several points cameras are being used by the students, and at one point a female student who obviously does not take well to being on camera tries to reach for the camera, but the male student holding it lifts it up so it is out of her reach. No evidence of students being physically assaulted can be found during the video. York's security officers are seen towards the end of the video taking statements from students who were on scene...

Judging from last week's coverage of George Galloway's recent appearance at the Palestinian Cultural Center in Allston, it appears the British Member of Parliament successfully portrayed himself as a peace-loving truth-teller intent on alleviating the suffering of people in the Middle East.

It's an amazing feat for an apologist for murderers and dictators in the region.

Galloway has praised the leaders of both Hezbollah and Hamas, and has praised and defended Tariq Aziz, an official in Saddam Hussein's government convicted of crimes against humanity for his part in the summary executions of 42 merchants in Baghdad in and for his role in the displacement of the Kurds.

Galloway has mocked the reformist movement in Iran, stating the protesters were in the streets because the "cookie crumbled the wrong way" in the election that kept Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in office. These protesters are being murdered in the street by a tyrannical regime that by most accounts stole an election to stay in power, and yet Galloway mocks them, going so far as to suggest that "foreign hands" were responsible for the protests in Tehran.

In response, Diana Nammi, director of the Iranian and Kurdish Women's rights Organization, a British charity to protect women from the Middle East from honor killings and forced marriage, said "[Galloway] lives in a free country and is hurting that country. Galloway has never lived in Iran. He has never been beaten for criticizing the government. If he could live in Iran for a month, then he could say it is a democracy. He has freedom, but I don't think he lives on this earth. How is it that George Galloway cannot see what is going on?"

Galloway has a different attitude toward elected leaders in the West. In May 2006, he stated that it would be "morally justified" for a suicide bomber to kill British Prime Minister Tony Blair, qualifying his statement by stating, "I'm not calling for it."

And when a Hezbollah rocket in 2006 killed nine Israeli soldiers, Galloway gloated, stating, "They [Israelis] seem to be getting a bloody good hiding on the other half of the screen." (Galloway was being interviewed live by Sky News, which used a split screen to show the carnage from the rocket attack alongside the MP as he was being interviewed.)

During his presentation at the Palestinian Cultural Center for Peace in Allston last week, Galloway defended Hamas, suggesting the organization's only sin is that the U.S., Great Britain and Israel don't like it. Never mind that Hamas's anti-Semitic charter explicitly calls for Israel's destruction, and that its leaders have called for violence against the American people.

Hamas has launched thousands of rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip -- territory that Israel withdrew from in 2005 in hopes of achieving peace -- and murdered hundreds of civilians in suicide attacks. It is to this group that Galloway and his Viva Palestina organization brought a convoy of supplies and money.

As a resident of Brighton, I am deeply concerned that the leaders of the Palestinian Cultural Center for Peace allowed Galloway to bring his dishonest and hateful message to Allston. Galloway's message is not one of peace, but a message of hostility toward Israel, Great Britain and the United States.

Dexter Van Zile is Christian media analyst for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. He is also a resident of Brighton.

We, the citizens of Newton, Massachusetts, ask for a public apology from Aldermen Stephen Linsky and Ted Hess-Mahan for proposing a resolution that would have the city welcome Aziz Abdul Naji, a Guantanamo Bay detainee, into the Newton community.

Mr. Naji is a self-confessed jihadist, according to declassified Department of Defense documents publicly available through the New York Times. Born in Algeria, in 1999 Mr. Naji joined Lashkar-e-Taibah, the terror organization responsible for the Mumbai Massacre. This brutal act of terror resulted in the murder of 173 people, including a Chabad Rabbi and his wife who were tortured prior to their murder.

The Islamic supremacist ideology that motivated Naji to join Lashkar-e-Taibah is explicitly committed to the destruction of India, Israel and America. All jihadists are fervent adherents to harsh, intolerant, and hateful Islamist beliefs about the treatment of women, homosexuals, and all non-Muslims, especially Jews, Christians, and Hindus.

By welcoming such a person to our city, the Aldermen displayed astounding ignorance about the ideology of radical Islam. In addition to an apology, we also believe that Aldermen Linsky and Hess-Mahan should seek to be educated about the threats of global Jihad and its intolerant ideology.

Baroness Tonge, the Liberal peer, said this week that Israel should set up an inquiry to disprove allegations that its medical teams in Haiti "harvested" organs of earthquake victims for use in transplants.

Her call has been sharply criticised by fellow LibDems, but party leader Nick Clegg has refused to act against her.

The organ theft claims were published last week in the Palestine Telegraph, an online journal based in Gaza of which Baroness Tonge is a patron.

In a statement to the JC, she said the Israel Defence Forces were "to be commended for their fantastic response to the Haitian earthquake".

But she added: "To prevent allegations such as these -- which have already been posted on YouTube -- going any further, the IDF and the Israeli Medical Association should establish an independent inquiry immediately to clear the names of the team in Haiti."

Ed Fordham, the Lib Dem candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn, said: "It's abhorrent that anyone should suggest that something as perverse and sick as this should be investigated."...

...Monroe Palmer, chairman of Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel, added: "Whilst I welcome Tonge's approval of Israeli actions in Haiti, she is misguided to call for any investigation. On this basis, there could be calls for an investigation to discover the 'truth' in the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."...

A Sunday Worship Tour of Cambridge, Massachusetts

It was an interesting day.

First stop was St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Cambridge, MA. We distributed literature and later attended a slide show by Rachel Wyon, who St. Peter's helped send on the "Gaza Freedom March". Ms. Wyons never actually made it to Gaza, but believes she is an expert on life there anyway. She informed us of many previously unknown "facts", such as:

• 'Refugee camps' in PA-controlled territory, which exist because the PA and other Arab nation refuse to absorb their own citizens, are really all Israel's fault
• No Hamas members were killed in the Gaza war; all casualties were civilian. (Israelis must be really bad shots - all that work and they didn't harm a single person who wasn't innocent!)
• All Israeli "settlements" and new construction are illegal, no matter where they are
• Many, many Jews (probably the majority) oppose the "occupation" and (unspecified) Israeli policies
• Palestinian Arabs practice only non-violent resistance
• Eight years of Gazan attacks on Israel had no connection to Operation Cast Lead
• It is unreasonable for Israeli border control personnel to question or detain "internationals" entering the country from Gaza because they are "peace activists"
• Zionism is not really connected with Judaism
• Hedy Epstein is a real Holocaust survivor!
• The GFM delivered vital humanitarian aid, all of it hand-carried on busses
• Gazans have been forgotten by the world, no one every hears anything about them
• No one need worry about Hamas stealing aid because no one has ever heard of such a thing
• It is much more helpful to Gazans for 1,400 people to demonstrate in Cairo than to use the money spent on hotels and plane tickets for 'humanitarian aid' to this starving population
• Even though Wyon spent most of her time touring in Egypt and Israel and never attended a single meeting or demonstration (see above), the true purpose of her trip was to help Gazans
• No one need be concerned about any connection between the GFM and Hamas, especially not Ms. Wyon
• No one has ever heard of any such connection anyway, especially not the pastor and warden at St. Peter's, as it is impossible to read information confirming the link with your eyes closed (I'm not making this up - the warden literally closed his eyes when I tried to show him photographs of GFM demonstrators holding Hamas flags and antisemitic signs)
• 'Palestinians' are a warm, friendly, noble, thoughtful, and peaceful people; misunderstood and mistreated by the entire world, especially by Israel, and all of their problems are caused by others, especially Israelis

Next, it was on to a Quaker Meeting House, where we distributed information about 'Skip' Schiel, aka Ein Al-Nour, who was giving a presentation called "Gaza Steadfast". There I had the unique experience of being assaulted by a Quaker, who tried to rip materials from my hands and told me that the real problem in this country was the "Jewish lobby", which is an enemy of democracy and the American people. (I'm not making this up, I wish I were).

Later I was surrounded by several eerily grinning Stepford-like Quakers who wanted to "help" me with my "problem" of not seeing Schiel as the loving, gentle soul he really is. And he never said any of those things written in his blog about the "Jewish lobby" (seems to be a popular phrase among the 'Friends'), admiration of the "brave" 9/11 hijackers, desire to ride on a bus 'with a suicide bomber on his way to kill as many Jews as possible', or Israel being the possible cause of his being attacked by a pigeon in a dream (I really, truly am not making this up).

Altogether a very interesting day, which I hope never to repeat.

The terrorist who stabbed an IDF soldier to death at the Tapuah junction on Wednesday afternoon was a Palestinian Authority police officer from Yabed, according to IDF sources.

The IDF soldier was named as First-Sgt. Muhammad Ihab Khatib, 26, from the northern village of Marar. He served as a logistics non-commissioned officer in the Kfir Brigade.

Khatib was waiting in his Sufa jeep in a queue of traffic when he was stabbed in the chest through an open window.

In the soldier's attempt to speed away, the vehicle overturned.

The PA officer, identified as Mahmoud Hattib, was then run over and lightly hurt by a local security officer from the nearby settlement of Rehelim. He was then arrested by police. Defense officials assessed that Hattib worked alone...

...Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad denounced the attack and said it "conflicts with our national interests." He pledged to take steps to prevent such incidents in the future, while endorsing "peaceful resistance" against settlements and the security barrier...

Col. (ret.) Desmond Travers was one of the four members of the UN Fact Finding Mission that produced what is widely called the Goldstone Report. The Mission investigated Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip between December 27, 2008 and January 18, 2009. Travers joined the Irish Defense Forces in 1961 and retired after forty years. As the only former officer who belonged to Justice Richard Goldstone's team, he was the senior figure responsible for the military analysis that provided the basis for condemning Israel for war crimes.

After following his repeated public appearances with the other mission members in July 2009, and especially in light of his most recent interviews, serious flaws have now become evident in the methodology he followed, in his collection and processing of data, and in the conclusions he draws. In the past, the flaws in the Goldstone report, and especially its lack of balance, have been criticized by the London Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Economist, but the fundamental problems of its military analysis have not been fully addressed. In the material presented
here, this becomes evident in four specific ways:

1. A Fundamental Bias against the Israel Defense Forces

During the Mission's collection of testimonies from Palestinian psychologists in the Gaza Strip, Travers asked them straight out to explain how Israeli soldiers could kill Palestinian children in front of their parents. In an interview with Middle East Monitor, on February 2, 2010, he asserted that in the past Israeli soldiers had "taken out and deliberately shot" Irish peacekeeping forces in Southern Lebanon. Both of these statements by Travers are completely false. It should be stressed that one of the most vicious and unsubstantiated conclusions in the Goldstone Report is the suggestion that Israel deliberately killed Palestinian civilians...

...Travers comes up with a story that the IDF had unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's) that could obtain a "thermal signature" on a Gaza house and detect that there were large numbers of people inside. Incredibly, he then suggests that with this information that certain houses were "packed with people," the Israeli military would then deliberately order a missile strike on these populated homes. The primary technical problem with his theory is that Israel does not have UAV's that can see though houses and pick up a thermal signature. More importantly, Israel used UAV's to monitor that Palestinian civilians left houses that had received multiple warnings, precisely because Israel sought to minimize civilian casualties, a fact that Travers could not fathom, because of his own clear biases...

...Travers most recent interview also had a disturbing additional element. When addressing the role of British officers in defending Israel's claims, Travers suddenly adds: "Britain's foreign policy interests in the Middle East seem to be influenced strongly by Jewish lobbyists." Travers implies that British Jews have interests that differ from Britain's own national interests and that Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government is influenced by these considerations. This statement, unless corrected, places Travers is a position in which his views are suspect of being motivated by anti-Semitic prejudices. Even without this last statement, he clearly emerges as an individual who is not qualified to take part in any serious fact-finding mission and the U.N. should not seek his services in the future...

...Here's the full text of the interview [PDF] from which these quotes are derived.  All the quotes check out, but the quotes recounted above don't begin to illustrate Travers's hatred of Israel, unwillingness to credit anything Israel says or question any Hamas assertions, and general nuttiness.  To get the full sense of it, you have to read the whole thing.  For example, did you know that there is no evidence that Hamas used human shields or intimidated the civilian population?  In fact, according to Travers, any such allegations are likely an artifact of "Israeli combat troops specially trained to operate in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in civilian attire. They worked as 'franc-tireurs' (literally 'free shooters') and could have been in a position to cause confusion among the population."...

Japanese nongovernmental organizations and Diet members expressed serious concern Tuesday over the conflict-ravaged Gaza Strip, urging the government and the international community to be more proactive in working toward peace in the Middle East.

The event, cohosted by several human rights groups, including Amnesty International Japan and Human Rights Now, was held while Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was in Japan for meetings with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada.

Kazuko Ito, secretary general of Human Rights Now, stressed that the International Human Rights Law may have been violated during fighting in the Gaza Strip between December 2008 and January 2009. According to the organizers, the conflict ended in the death of about 1,400 people, of whom only 13 were Israelis.

"It is said that out of the 1,400 casualties, many of them were women and children, innocent civilians," Ito said during the meeting. "There is suspicion that (the conflict) was a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime. But despite the number of deaths, no one has been held responsible."...

...Foreign Ministry official Mitsuko Shino, who was also present at Tuesday's meeting, explained that while Tokyo was disappointed that the conflict in Gaza resulted in many casualties and echoed the necessity of finding out what really happened, she pointed out that the U.N. resolution had already pointed its finger at Israel.

"What we found to be a problem in the resolution was that even before the fact-finding mission went to investigate, it already hinted who was to blame," Shino argued.

Deputy foreign minister remains calm while verbally attacked by students attending London lecture

Despite securing a promise by the UK's Foreign Office that he would not be arrested upon arrival there, Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon was not exempt from the rage of pro-Palestinian demonstrators waiting for him both outside and inside a lecture hall in London.

One protestor at the Oxford University hall, where Ayalon spoke Tuesday, waved the Palestinian flag and interrupted Ayalon's lecture for several long minutes, during which he did not stop yelling at the Israeli minister and called him a "racist" and "a war criminal."

Many in the crowd cheered the interruption, and applauded the demonstrator as he was escorted out of the lecture hall by security.

The incident was the unfortunate "highlight" of an already troubled lecture: While Ayalon's address began in a rather routine fashion, about 15 minutes into the lecture, while he was reviewing the challenges of the Middle East, one of the IISS' students stood up and began reading excerpts from the Goldstone Report aloud, ignoring her fellow students' requests to stop for several minutes.

Ayalon resumed his speech, but was soon interrupted again, this time by a student who declared herself Lebanese and began yelling anti-Israeli slogans. She remained standing the entire length of the lecture, repetitively interrupting Ayalon...[More.]

...This morning, the Union's President launched an investigation aimed at identifying the Members who disrupted the event. The Union will be taking disciplinary action against these Members, in accordance with the Society's rules...

...The Oxford Union will be apologising to Mr Ayalon for the actions of its Members and thank him for the professional way in which he handled the situation.

...My daughter, who's currently in basic training in Karkal - one of the few mixed men-women combat units - was home for Shabbat. In passing, I mentioned that a photographer friend thought it would be interesting to come down and do a story on the unit.

"Yes, Ma'ariv was here this week talking to Elinor," she said matter-of-factly, referring to one of the Hebrew tabloid daily papers. "I guess she's the first Arab girl to join a combat unit."

"What? You have an Arab girl in your unit?" I squeaked. "And you never told me? That's a great story."

"I guess it is - it's in Ma'ariv today," she told me, as we went online and saw the huge photo of Elinor Joseph in battle gear and camouflage.

The story described how Joseph, a Christian Arab living outside of Haifa, has excelled in the unit. She labels herself "Arab, Christian and Israeli" in that order, and received special permission from the IDF to take her uniform off and put on civilian clothes before reaching home, in case any of her neighbors don't share her allegiance to the state.

My daughter said that she's 'one of the guys' and is 'hamoodi' (cute), and aside from a slight accent in Hebrew, nobody would ever know that she wasn't one of the other Jewish Israelis in the unit...

Eleven people were arrested as Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren was repeatedly interrupted while trying to deliver an address Monday night at the University of California, Irvine.

Oren was speaking about US-Israeli relations and was interrupted nearly a dozen times.

A young man began with the first outburst, yelling, "Michael Oren! Propagating murder is not an expression of free speech!" The man's yelling was followed by both heavy applause and objections.

The outburst closely resembled part of a statement released by the university's Muslim Student Union (MSU) prior to and against Oren's appearance, which said, "As people of conscience, we oppose Michael Oren's invitation to our campus. Propagating murder is not a responsible expression of free speech."...[More.]

Violence is the ideal means to solve conflict. For years this has been the repeated message from both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas - from glorifying violence by honoring terrorists as role models to directly calling for the killing of Jews.

Israel, which is denied any legitimate right to any part of "Palestine," is presented along with the US as the arch-enemy against whom this violence should be directed.

Palestinian children have absorbed the message and know by heart how to sing praises to violence. In the latest episode of the weekly children's program Tomorrow's Pioneers on Hamas TV, a Palestinian boy chose to sing the following children's song...[snip transcript of above video]

...It is worth noting that the two hosts, the young girl Saraa and Nassur, an adult in a bear costume, approved of the boy's choice of song and let him sing it. Only when the boy cursed("Son of a bitch"), did the young girl cut him off, pointing out that the "program is a program for children, not for anything else." The objection was to the boy's cursing, not to the content of the song. The adult inside the puppet ended the exchange by defending the boy: "He didn't say anything else, Saraa. He said the truth."...[More.]

York University in Toronto is investigating allegations of assault against two Jewish students during a pro-Israel program.

The incident, which is alleged to have taken place Feb. 1, occurred when about 20 Jewish members of the on-campus group Hasbara Fellowships at York University gathered, with permission from the university, to raise awareness of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and terrorist acts committed by Hamas.

Tyler Golden, co-president of Hasbara Fellowships, told JTA that about 50 activists and protesters surrounded the Jewish students and began chanting anti-Israel and anti-Semitic slurs.

He said two Jewish students were slapped, one on the arm and the other across the face.

Two university security officers arrived on the scene. Toronto police were not called "because we wanted to give the university a chance to put its system into place," according to Golden.

Golden said a complaint was lodged with York's Student Conduct and Dispute Resolution Office...

...According to its Web site, the Jewish Defense League of Canada has offered a $500 reward "for the assailants [sic] identities, names, alias [sic], phone numbers and addresses."

A year ago, a group of Jewish students at York were barricaded in the Hillel lounge by a mob yelling anti-Semitic and anti-Israel slurs. Police had to escort the Jewish students out of the building. Two York students were reprimanded for the incident...

...There is a vital role for groups like HRW and Amnesty to play in the world. Properly understood, their mission is to use their moral authority to shame and condemn tyranny and those who wish to make the world a hospitable place for tyrants and terrorists. But moral authority requires moral clarity. HRW and Amnesty have been overtaken by activists who use their position to wage easy campaigns against open societies instead of taking on the more difficult, thankless, and sometimes dangerous struggle against closed ones.

For people who do not follow these issues closely, there have been a few recent moments that indicate beyond any doubt that something is rotten in the "human-rights community." One moment was when HRW went to Saudi Arabia to raise money. We have arrived at another such moment: a human-rights organization has suspended an employee for complaining about the organization's partnership with a terrorist. [More.]

Just Journalism has today published a study suggesting a shift in editorial policy at the BBC News website regarding the blockade of Gaza. 'BBC on the Gaza blockade: the roles of Israel and Egypt' shows that for most of 2009, the Gaza blockade was associated solely with Israel, rather than with Israel and Egypt. However, more recently, the Corporation's website has reflected more consistently the role of Egypt in enforcing the blockade at its shared border with Gaza.

A likely outcome of this development is that the BBC News website makes plainer to users that the Gaza blockade is upheld by two countries and not one. This would be an important step towards creating a more accurate picture of the factors currently impacting on the Gaza strip...

The Supreme Court ordered two pro-Palestinian foreign activists released on bail on Monday, saying Israeli immigration officers overstepped their bounds by detaining them in the West Bank.

The activists' lawyer described their arrest as part of a campaign by Israel to choke off weekly demonstrations by Palestinians, left-wing Israelis and foreign activists against Israel's West Bank separation barrier as peace efforts remain at a stalemate.

Israeli soldiers raided the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday and detained Spaniard Ariadna Jove Marti and Australian Bridgette Chappell, handing them over to immigration officers overseen by Israel's Interior Ministry for possible deportation.

Both women belong to the International Solidarity Movement, which is at the forefront of anti-barrier demonstrations.

Palestinian authorities and the women's attorney called the entire operation illegal, arguing the military had no right to raid a city within an area designated by interim peace accords as being under Palestinian civil and security jurisdiction.

But the Supreme Court ordered Marti and Chappell released on other grounds, saying immigration officers - authorized only to operate inside Israel - had taken custody of the women from the military at a prison inside the West Bank...

When dying as a Martyr for Allah, the Shahid is immediately forgiven his sins, he is crowned with honor and he marries 72 dark-eyed wives. These are among the rewards promised the Muslim believer who dies in battle for Allah.

Six privileges, or kindnesses, to be granted the holy Martyr are mentioned in a hadith (tradition attributed to the Prophet Muhammad in Islam) and were explained in a recent Friday sermon broadcast on Hamas TV.

The privileges that are bestowed upon the one who dies for Allah and mentioned in the hadith are:

1- The Shahid's sins are forgiven
2- He sees his place in Paradise and lives a full life of joy with Allah
3- He is protected from "the Great Shock" on Judgment Day
4- He is crowned with a crown of honor
5- He marries 72 dark-eyed wives
6- He will be able to intervene on behalf of 70 of his family members on Judgment Day, thereby ensuring them the reward of Afterlife

For years, both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have promoted the ideal of dying as a Martyr for Allah. The promotion has been successful...[More.]

Two Spanish, Australian women arrested early Sunday in Ramallah, handed over to Oz unit members. American national, who was with them in apartment, says '10 soldiers broke in, demanded our passports and then informed the two that they were arrested for not having a valid visa'

Two Spanish and Australian peace activists were arrested early Sunday after Israel Defense Forces soldiers raided the house they were staying in near the West Bank city of el-Bireh in the Ramallah area.

The two women were arrested on suspicion of staying in the area with an invalid visa. The two were taken to the Ofer Base and handed over to members of the Interior Ministry's Oz unit.

In the meantime, the two women petitioned the High Court of Justice, which decided to delay their deportation from Israel and scheduled an urgent discussion for Monday.

Ryan Olander, an International Solidarity Movement activist from the United States who shared an apartment with the two women and who was also arrested for the same allegations several weeks ago, told Ynet that "10 soldiers broke into the apartment, examined the passports and then informed Ariadna Jove Marti and Bridgette Chappell that they were under arrest on suspicion of not having a valid visa...

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has been crowned as "the Palestinian Ben-Gurion at the recent Herzliya Conference. However, there is a great gap between the achievements attributed to him and his abilities in practice.

Fayyad is credited with changing the corrupt PA apparatus, but even in the financial realm where his expertise lies, his abilities are mostly manifested through the drafting of impressive documents as well as fundraising.

Meanwhile, the absurdity inherent in his statements regarding "Palestinian independence within two years" is clear to anyone familiar with the Palestinian economy. Fayyad is a former World Bank official, but even on the financial front his deeds are far from the image he has nurtured.

The Palestinian economy is the only place in the world where the per capita GDP is less than half the disposable income per capita. This is the result of three factors:

1. The Palestinians barely produce anything. Most of their GDP comes from government expenditures by the PA itself.

2. The Palestinians receive immense sums donated by the world.

3. Tax collection is almost unheard of, aside from the taxes collected (for Fayyad) by the Israeli government, which provides the PA with NIS 450 million (roughly $120 million) monthly; this comprises about 40% of the PA's budget.

The result is clear: Low GDP, but high disposable income. Indeed, it's an economic miracle.

Meanwhile, the situation is even more extreme in the Gaza Strip, where the PA spends 57% of its budget. Fayyad hands over salaries and allowances to 150,000 people, yet tens of thousands of them don't work, while others receive two salaries: One from Fayyad and another from Hamas. This is why the only industries active in Gaza are imports through smuggling tunnels and real estate - the surplus of cash in Gaza's banks prompts them to offer mortgages, and this results in a rise in real estate prices...

The economies of Gaza and the West Bank (Judea/Samaria) thrived in the first decades (1967-1987) of that so-called occupation. Aside from UNRWA, little outside aid entered the territories. Yet under Israel's security umbrella and open borders, the areas thrived.

Those who get their "history" from the Palestinians ignore how much Israel invested in their infrastructure - water and sewage lines, electricity, schools and medical facilities - all of which were neglected under Jordanian and Egyptian rule. Infant mortality went down, average lifespan went up, agricultural output and average incomes skyrocketed.

Then Palestinian "nationalism" came to the fore in the first intifada, but it took Arafat's arrival to really screw things up. The territories are now rife with welfare dependency, corruption and bloated non-productive bureaucracies.

The United States announced it will donate $40 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Thirty million dollars will be allocated to basic services that the agency provides to Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The remainder sum will be especially allocated to the West Bank and Gaza and will include food deliveries and a program to create work places.

...Yesterday, when Marr finished his morning show on WCBM-AM, he called me - "Let me tell you how it happened ... " - and popped the balloon.

"It never actually aired," Marr said. "It was never meant to air."

Marr said it was a prank. Marr and Weaver were pre-recording a segment from Seattle in 1982, when the pair flubbed a take of the Manager's Corner. They got to laughing and decided to record an entire fake segment and send it back to the station engineer as a joke.

The dialogue was all off-the-cuff and off-the-air. Weaver didn't have to try very hard to act like an old cuss. The engineer, of course, got a kick out of it, and the listeners heard a different, sanitized version of the segment before Sunday's ballgame.

The prank tape didn't die, though. It was kicked around Baltimore on audiocassette for years, and naturally, when YouTube was born, colorful Weaver made the jump into the digital age.

"It's been all around the world by now," Marr said. "Just grown like ivy."

NIF and its president Chazan threatened legal action over ad in paper.

The Jerusalem Post has canceled Naomi Chazan's biweekly column, after she and the New Israel Fund of which she is president threatened legal action against the paper over a recent advertisement.

The decision was taken by Jerusalem Post management after a legal threat was received at the paper from the NIF and Chazan's lawyers.

Along with other publications, the Post last Sunday carried an advertisement criticizing Chazan and the New Israel Fund in the context of the Goldstone Report on Operation Cast Lead.

In Friday's paper, the Post carried an advertisement defending the NIF and Chazan against their critics.

A survey conducted May 18 to June 16, 2009 by the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project also finds limited support for the Lebanese Shia organization Hezbollah.1 While most Palestinians (61%) and about half of Jordanians (51%) have a favorable view of Hezbollah, elsewhere opinions are less positive, including Egypt (43%) and Lebanon (35%). As with many issues in Lebanon, views of Hezbollah are sharply divided along religious lines: nearly all of the country's Shia Muslims (97%) express a positive opinion of the organization, while only 18% of Christians and 2% of Sunni Muslims feel this way.

Meanwhile, Turks overwhelmingly reject both groups -- just 5% give Hamas a positive rating and only 3% say this about Hezbollah. There is also little support among Israel's Arab population for either Hamas (21% favorable) or Hezbollah (27%). Outside of the Middle East, many in Pakistan, Indonesia and Nigeria are unable to offer an opinion about these groups...

"The siege of Gaza is causing enormous suffering among innocents, and it's hard to see how that deprivation can be justified," said Uri Zaki, B'Tselem's USA Director. "International law, as well as basic human and Israeli values, demands that Israel do its utmost to address its legitimate security concerns without inflicting unnecessary harm to the civilians of Gaza. The current policy doesn't come close to meeting that standard." Gazans' rights to minimal standards of food security, shelter, health, education and to travel are protected under international law. These needs should not be held hostage to security and political issues.

Israel's closure policy is designed to weaken Hamas' hostile leadership, to persuade Hamas to cease firing rockets at civilian targets in Israel, and to release Corporal Gilad Shalit. However, the closure has instead harmed Israel's security by strengthening Hamas and adding to tensions that threaten renewed violence.

The signpost is up: J Street is in Boston.

The left-of-center group - which bills itself as pro-Israel, pro-peace - has been welcomed with a seat at the Israel roundtable of local Jewish leaders, sponsored monthly by the Jewish Community Relations Council.

And Feb. 4, it will hold a kickoff event at Temple Ohabei Shalom in Brookline.

Janette Hillis-Jaffe started work as the New England regional political director for J Street on Jan. 1.

"I've met with folks from AIPAC and [the American Jewish Committee], and I felt very welcome," Hillis-Jaffe said. "There are no rivalries, and I don't think there will be any. The Boston Jewish community is known for being able to embrace a lot of different perspectives."...

...Now, people can choose among three ways to become involved: J Street U, which so far has a presence at Harvard, Brandeis and Tufts universities; J Street Local, for grassroots organizing and education; and J Street PAC, established as a separate entity to allow for political contributions.

Hillis-Jaffe said she would be working mainly with J Street PAC, which requires a minimum annual donation of $1,800 for membership.

"We get involved and take positions on political races," said Hillis- Jaffe. "A group like AIPAC doesn't." ...

Klocek Takes Fight Against DePaul to the Appellate Court

On January 19, 2010, attorneys for former DePaul University professor Thomas Klocek filed his opening brief in his appeal of the circuit court's decision to deny him a jury trial on the merits of his defamation case against DePaul.

Klocek's case began in June, 2005, after he saw his reputation and 14 year career at DePaul destroyed by numerous DePaul publications which falsely portrayed an academic discussion Klocek had had with representatives of the Students For Justice in Palestine and United Muslims Moving Ahead. The discussion centered around the conflict in the Middle East among other things. In the face of DePaul's motions to dismiss, Klocek's defamation claims were upheld in 2006 by Judge Nudelman and upheld again in 2007 by his replacement Judge Kelley.

However, in 2008, Judge Kelley was replaced by Judge Winkler who, in several orders just 21 days and less before the jury trial was to start on March 16, 2009, dismissed Klocek's entire case. The bulk of the dismissal came on motions to which Klocek was not even given an opportunity to respond.

Klocek is hopeful the Appellate Court will give him his day in court.

If you would like to read Klocek's brief, click here

In December Mrs Livni cancelled a trip to Britain after Westminster magistrates' court issued a warrant seeking her arrest in connection with alleged war crimes relating to Israel's Gaza offensive.

Hamas, the Palestinian group which is considered a terrorist organisation by Britain, was believed to have helped British lawyers secure the arrest warrant against Mrs Livni.

It sparked a diplomatic row and Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, expressed his regret over the incident saying that Mrs Livni was "most welcome in Britain any time".

The British government also said it would look at universal jurisdiction legislation and review how warrants were issued.

Yesterday Mrs Livni told the Jewish Chronicle: "I will do this not for me, not for provocation, but for the right of every Israeli to travel freely."...

A report in Palestinian Authority media appears to dent the reputation Hamas has enjoyed as an organization whose leaders lead austere lifestyles, as opposed to Fatah's corrupt leadership.

The report, in the independent Kafiyeh network, claims that Hamas Gaza kingpin Ismail Haniyeh has bought property worth $4 million in Gaza and apparently intends to build there. The purchase is reportedly registered in the name of one of his sons.

Haniyeh has reportedly purchased real estate for his family members as well, including an apartment for his wife...

Former Israeli lawmaker Naomi Chazan's visit to Australia was canceled following allegations that the organization she heads helped provide information for the Goldstone report.

Chazan, president of the New Israel Fund, was invited by the Union for Progressive Judaism -- the Australian equivalent of the Reform movement -- to address fund-raisers next week for the United Israel Appeal in Melbourne and Sydney .

But her invitation was withdrawn this week following a maelstrom over allegations by the right-wing student organization Im Tirzu that NIF had disbursed more than $7 million to 16 NGOs that had provided 92 percent of the negative information contained in the controversial United Nations report on last winter's Gaza war.

Dr. Danny Lamm, president of the Zionist Council of Victoria, which withdrew its decision to co-host Chazan at a function in Melbourne this weekend, told The Age newspaper that "Organizations that they have funded have done damage to Israel, and as a consequence we don't want to have anything to with the New Israel Fund."...

...We can reveal that "Jenna Daoud" is actually Jana Al-Akhras, daughter of CAIR national vice chairman Ahmad Al-Akhras. In fact, after Al-Akhras was interviewed by Al-Jazeera, she bragged about the interview on her Facebook page:...

...The participation of Jana Al-Akhras is also confirmed by a list of US participants in a trip alert published on the Viva Palestina website (the page still exists, but has been scrubbed of any names). Al-Akhras was joined by three others from the terror-riddled Columbus area: Mohammed Soltan (president of the Ohio State Muslim Student Association and son of international terror sheikh Salah Soltan), Kareem El-Hennawy, and Ammar Zahar. According to the list, the elder Soltan himself also participated in the convoy...

...Apparently the proud papa, CAIR vice chairman Ahmed Al-Akhras forwarded update messages to the local Muslim community from his daughter updating them on their progress. The local CAIR chapter in Columbus also published these email updates from Al-Akhras and the parents of the other local convoy members. The Central Ohio Muslim community held a fundraiser featuring Galloway himself last April to raise money for the Hamas terrorist group, sponsored by the Ohio State Muslim Student Association and the Noor Islamic Cultural Center (yes, the very same mosque involved in the Rifqa Bary case).

During their travels, the convoy members, including Al-Akhras and her Ohio co-conspirators, met with a number of Hamas officials, including several designated terrorists...[More.]

A Pakistani neuroscientist was convicted on Wednesday of attempted murder for trying to kill American soldiers and F.B.I. agents in Afghanistan.

Federal prosecutors said the neuroscientist, Aafia Siddiqui, 37, grabbed an M4 rifle in a police station in the city of Ghazni, Afghanistan, on July 18, 2008, and fired on American officers and federal agents.

After slightly more than two days of deliberations, a jury in Federal District Court in Manhattan found her guilty.

As the jurors began leaving the courtroom, Ms. Siddiqui, who studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University, turned in her chair to face them.

"This is a verdict coming from Israel and not from America," she said, holding her right index finger in the air. "That's where the anger belongs. I can testify to this, and I have proof."

Ms. Siddiqui was then led out of the courtroom while the judge and lawyers for both sides discussed a sentencing date...

Palestinian militants said Tuesday they had launched a large number of floating explosives into the Mediterranean Sea to avenge the death of a top Hamas commander, a day after two bomb-laden barrels washed up on Israel's coastline.

Israeli authorities launched an intensive search for new bombs, closing miles of beaches, deploying robotic bomb squads and ordering surfers out of the wintry waters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Hamas and hinted at retaliation.

Abu Saed, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, a Gaza faction with close ties to Hamas, said the attack was meant to avenge the killing last month of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a veteran Hamas operative who Israeli defense officials say was involved in smuggling rockets into Gaza [Some are saying he was assassinated by Arabs, not Israelis. -MS]...

..."We confirm that there are still many of these charges in the ocean, and they haven't exploded yet," Abu Saed said, standing alongside five other gunmen in military fatigues.

In Jerusalem, Netanyahu accused Hamas, which rules Gaza, of being behind the operation, with support from Iran and Syria.

"We view with great severity the Hamas operation near the Gaza beach, and we will respond accordingly," he said, without elaborating.

On Monday afternoon, a barrel bomb washed up on the beach of Ashkelon, about nine miles (15 kilometers) north of Gaza. A few hours later, another one was found at Ashdod, six miles (10 kilometers) farther north.

Each had about 22 pounds (10 kilograms ) of explosives, police said. They said bombs of that size could cripple small civilian vessels but not Israeli warships...

SLUSH FUND

by Ben-Dror Yemini, Ma'ariv, 2.2.10

The New Israel Fund is part of the global deception campaign. It does not deal with human rights but with denying one people's right to self-determination.

The New Israel Fund is angry. It thinks that it is correct to spread false testimony about the State of Israel. It thinks that it is OK to participate in the demonization campaign of groups whose goal is to eliminate Israel. It thinks that it is OK to cooperate with the Goldstone Commission, even though it was established by the automatic majority of dark countries that controls the "UN Human Rights Council." It thinks that it is OK for Israel to cooperate with the Commission even though no country in the free world supported its establishment. It is certainly legitimate, in a democratic country, to do all these things.

But there is something else that is also legitimate: Expose the truth about the Fund and the groups that falsely carry the description "human rights." If most of the political groups that are supported by the Fund do not recognize the State of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state - do not say human rights. Tell the truth: Denial of rights only for Jews. The Palestinians have the right to a state, a national state, of their own, just as the Croats, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks and other peoples do - but not the Jews.

For example, the New Israel Fund supports the Zochrot non-profit association, which openly aspires to eliminate the State of Israel via the realization of the "right of return." Not that there is any such right and not that there has been even one precedent of a mass "return" after post-war population exchanges - but this does not bother the Fund. It always jumps at the slogan "human rights."

None of this is to say that Israel is exempt from criticism. Among the hundreds of claims, there are those that have merit. But many sane people abhor the human rights bodies, not because they abhor human rights, on the contrary. It is because most sane people are fed up that human rights have become a weapon for dark forces.

The New Israel Fund has turned itself into yet another body, one among many in the world, that are party to global deception. There are a million and one attacks on human life and human rights in the world. Israel, as a state in the midst of conflict, makes fewer attacks than any other element. This has been verified. This is anchored in numbers. But it is Israel that absorbs most of the criticism. This is called demonization, delegitimization and obsession.

There is no defense of human rights here but rather an orchestrated campaign in the service of Iran and Hamas. This is not the Fund's intention but this is the result. Things should be called by their name. Most of the groups supported by the Fund deal in the delegitimization of Israel. But the Fund rolls its eyes and whines: What is wrong with human rights? There is nothing wrong. There is something wrong with those who clearly aspire to deny the Jews' right to exist in the only place where they have sovereignty, in order to turn Israel into a "state of all its citizens," in which the majority will be Hamas supporters. There is something wrong with those who want to perpetrate politicide on only one people in the world. There is something wrong with those who collaborate with dark forces and try to sell the lie that it is all about "human rights."

How is it that so many people, mainly Jews, support the Fund? How is it they facilitate this systematic campaign that masquerades as humanitarian and is, in effect, demonic? They are not anti-Semites. They are people with good intentions. Their rhetoric deals with human rights and minorities. Jews are sensitive to this and good for them. Most are simply unaware. Most truly and innocently want Israel to be more enlightened and more progressive, and stricter about human life and human rights. But they do not know that the money goes to other goals.

Even Professor Naomi Chazan, who heads the Fund, does not hate Israel. But what has happened to countless bodies that deal with "the rights talk" has happened to them. In the end, they serve the agenda of Iran and Hamas.

Human rights groups can restore the confidence in themselves. They need to support human rights, not groups that deal in denying Israel's right to exist. In the meantime, these groups, including the New Israel Fund, are the major enemy, not only of Israel but of the free world and human rights.

Christians United for Israel objected to an advertisement run by a group it funds that depicted the president of the New Israel Fund wearing a horn.

"Although we are often demonized by our critics, CUFI never demonizes those with whom we disagree, and we object when anyone does," CUFI spokesman Ari Morgenstern told JTA...

I am not available at that time, but keep me posted. I am thinking the ship for Viva Palestina from the US ought to be the USS Howard Zinn.

When a right-wing group with a destructive agenda and a lot of money taps into the Israeli public's anger, the results are usually not pretty.

That's what happened last week when a new organization made a big splash in Israel by accusing the New Israel Fund and its grantees of being behind the Goldstone Report. Timed to capitalize on the anger many Israelis feel about the Goldstone conclusions, andpersonalized with a particularly despicable attack on NIF President Naomi Chazan, the attack was the latest salvo in a coordinated attempt to de-legitimize civil society, repress the activities of the human rights community and weaken Israeli democracy. It comes as no surprise to discover that this new group is funded by the same abundant money that flows to extremist settlers' organizations, including a sizable contribution from John Hagee's "Christians United for Israel" - a group that once stated that Hitler was carrying out God's will."...

...The ugly language and personal threats against NIF and our President are all too reminiscent of the atmosphere of incitement and hatred that preceded the Rabin assassination. Sadly, these vicious attacks are being launched against the very organizations that protect Israel and its international reputation as a vibrant democracy...

To ACRI, Bimkom, B'Tselem, Gisha, PCATI, Yesh Din, HaMoked, PHR-I, Rabbis for Human Rights, and New Israel Fund (NIF):

The recent attacks directed against NGO Monitor's detailed research represent a dangerous attempt to prevent free speech and informed public debate on the political role of some NGOs. In particular, in your February 1, 2010 letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu, you tendentiously referred to NGO Monitor as an "extreme group" that "unleashed an unrestrained and inflammatory [attack]," and implied that we are the "rotten fruits" of Israeli democracy; B'Tselem's US representative, Mitchell Plitnick, labeled us "extremists" and "right wing"; and, a few months ago, an NIF employee posted an indecent graphic on his blog (which was later removed) to illustrate his opinion of NGO Monitor's publications.

These characterizations are inconsistent with claims to uphold the mantle of human rights and democracy in Israel. Contrary to the implications of your letter, NGO Monitor has never contested the right of civil society organizations to exist or to criticize. And if your rhetoric about upholding free speech in Israel were matched by your policies, you would uphold our right as an independent research organization, and the rights of NGOs that do not share your political views, to do the same...[The rest.]

Professor Benny Morris will be in Cambridge next week to talk on "1948 Revisited" and answer your questions...

We will be screening "Promises" (below) this Thursday instead of Professor Benny Morris' presentation on "1948 Revisited."

We understand that whilst Professor Benny Morris' contribution to history is highly respectable and significant, his personal views are, regrettably, deeply offensive to many.

We want to clarify that the intention of the Israel Society was never to give racism a platform. We had hoped to listen to a historical presentation on "1948" followed by a Q&A - a space for anyone, including those with grievances, to challenge Morris.

Ultimately, we place respect for those who have been offended above the importance of hosting this speaker. As such, in response to complaints about this speaker, we have cancelled this proposed event, and apologise for any unintended offence.

We do still hope to see you on Thursday!

Christians and Jews United for Israel and APT are co-sponsoring a protest against a fundraiser for George Galloway's radical organization at the Palestinian Cultural Center, 41 Quint Ave., Allston, MA on Monday, February 1st at 6:00 p.m.

George Galloway, who is banned from entering Canada and was recently deported from Egypt, has entered the U.S. to raise money for his Hamas-connected organization. The Palestinian Center is hosting him for a talk and a $1,000-per-plate dinner.

Please join us outside the Center at 6:00; signs and other materials will be provided. Let them know we want Hamas Out of Boston!

PA TV Sermon: "Jews are the enemies of Allah and humanity" "The Prophet says: 'Kill the Jews'"

"Even if donkeys would cease to bray, dogs cease to bark, wolves cease to howl and snakes to bite, the Jews would not cease to harbor hatred towards Muslims."

By Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

A sermon calling for the genocide of Jews was broadcast Friday by PA TV, which is under the control of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. The speech called the Jews the enemies of God and humanity, and compared Jews to Nazis.

In a recent interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Abbas proudly declared that there is no more incitement in the mosques:

"They [Israel] said there is a problem with incitement in speeches in mosques during Friday prayers. Today there is no more incitement at any mosque," he [Abbas] said." [Haaretz, Dec. 16, 2009]

The following is the transcript of excerpts of the hate speech in a mosque broadcast on PA TV:

"The loathsome occupation in Palestine - its land and its holy places - by these new Mongols and what they are perpetrating upon this holy, blessed and pure land - killing, assassination, destruction, confiscation, Judaization, harassment and splitting the homeland - are clear proof of [unintelligible word - Ed.] hostility, of incomparable racism, and of Nazism of the 20th century. The Jews, the enemies of Allah and of His Messenger, the enemies of Allah and of His Messenger! Enemies of humanity in general, and of Palestinians in particular - they wage war against us using all kinds of crimes, and as you see - even the mosques are not spared their racism...

"Oh Muslims! The Jews are the Jews. The Jews are the Jews. Even if donkeys would cease to bray, dogs cease to bark, wolves cease to howl and snakes to bite, the Jews would not cease to harbor hatred towards Muslims. The Prophet said that if two Jews would be alone with a Muslim, they would think only of killing him. Oh Muslims! This land will be liberated, these holy places and these mosques will be liberated, only by means of a return to the Quran and when all Muslims will be willing to be Jihad Fighters for the sake of Allah and for the sake of supporting Palestine, the Palestinian people, the Palestinian land, and the holy places in Palestine. The Prophet says: 'You shall fight the Jews and kill them, until the tree and the stone will speak and say: 'Oh Muslim, Oh servant of Allah' - the tree and the stone will not say, 'Oh Arab,' they will say, 'Oh Muslim'. And they will not say, 'Where are the millions?' and will not say, 'Where is the Arab nation?' Rather, they will say, 'Oh Muslim, Oh servant of Allah - there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.' Except for the Gharqad tree [tree mentioned in the Quran - Ed.], which is the tree of the Jews. Thus, this land will be liberated only by means of Jihad..." [PA TV (Fatah), Jan. 29, 2010]

An official Palestinian Authority TV news report recently included a short clip of a young child vowing to "liberate Palestine" - "with our weapons."

"Palestine is the heart of our nation," said a boy of about 10 who was featured in the news report about a Fatah event in Cairo earlier this month.

"We will liberate it with our own hands, with our weapons or our stones. We will liberate Palestine! We will liberate Palestine!" [PA TV (Fatah), Jan. 14, 2010]

The significance is not that the young boy said this but that PA TV news chose to broadcast it.

The decision to include a child's pledge of violence in a PA TV news report is just the latest example of the PA under Mahmoud Abbas actively glorifying violence against Israel and teaching children to see violence as the means to conflict resolution.

To view more examples from the PMW web site of the PA's promotion of violence, click here.