March 2010 Archives

Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi -- convicted in Scotland for his role in the Lockerbie bombing, which killed 270 people, but released last August on humanitarian grounds because terminal prostate cancer left him only three months to live -- appears to be alive and well in Libya.

The local Scottish council is now abiding by Megrahi's refusal to release his medical records. I guess the logic is, "Terrorism is forgivable and justice is expendable, but how could we ever violate the privacy of a mass murderer?"...[More.]

Not too long ago, taking to the streets to protest your government was considered a patriotic act.

It's true!

But it seems that publicly airing your grievances stopped being patriotic right around noon on January 20th, 2009.

Once President Obama was sworn in, protesting became incitement to violence.

If you've opened up a newspaper or watched a cable news program in the past week or so, you've probably seen members of the media painting Tea Party activists as dangerous bigots. That's because disagreeing with President Obama on issues like government spending and high taxes makes you a racist, you see...[More.]

...It is thought the tank from the 31st Tank Battalion formed part of the invasion force that liberated France from the Nazis more than six decades ago.

Residents recalled the tank entering the cathedral city where it had been carrying out reconnaissance when it either ran out of fuel or broke down.

When France was liberated it was pushed down a hole and buried, one resident said...

A mysterious room which could possibly be a World War II bunker has been discovered under the car park of a pub in Brandon.

Peter Otoka, owner and landlord of The Flintknappers public house on Market Hill, was informed of the appearance of a pothole at the weekend after a friends car became stuck in it.

Further investigation of the hole revealed it led to an old underground room, which contains furniture and a large amount of timber. Also noticeable towards the back of the room is what is believed to be electrical wiring...

...Mr Otoka told BrandonSuffolk.com "We don't know yet whether it's a bunker or a cellar. I was told there used to be a row of cottages there, so there could be a row of cellars as well"...

...February 17th, 2002 is a day I will never forget: It was during the Intifada, with the worse still ahead of us. I participated in an intimate Peace Now demonstration as an active member. For more than 30 years, I shared Friedman's view that a return to the 1967 borders is a magical solution. Yet during the rally, we were informed that a suicide bomber killed two children at a pizza parlor. The protestors observed a moment of silence, before the next speaker, a Palestinian "moderate," took the stage. His speech focused solely on accusing Israel while going back to the Nakba and early days of Zionism. The terror attack at the pizza parlor in Karnei Shomron was not mentioned at all. I left the rally with a sense of disgust...

...Of the $3 billion handed over by the US annually, only $690 million are transferred to Israel in practice. The rest - 75% of the aid - remains in the US and constitutes an indirect government subsidy to US arms manufacturers - Boeing, Lockheed, McDonnell Douglas etc. - thereby enhancing US employment.

Israel's acquisitions in the US are far greater than the American grant. Just recently we read about a $1.8 billion acquisition of Hercules aircraft from Lockheed. Does Friedman think there are no other global cargo plane manufacturers? Moreover, as result of the US grant, Israel has given up on the development of weapons that would compete with America's military-industrial complex. In addition, Israeli developments were integrated by American manufacturers, thus saving the lives of US troops on the battlefield...

...So take back the $690 million you gave us. We'll do just fine without it. It comes out to about NIS 400 (roughly $120) per every Israeli citizen - most certainly not something that would bring us down. We don't have to read claims about Jews and money in Friedman's writing. We could hear them for free, for 20 years, at Reverend Jeremiah Wright's sermons.

If Friedman still wishes to know what the US money contributes to the regional conflict, I learned about it when I escorted foreign journalists during a tour in the territories. A Palestinian industrialist told me: "There will be no peace between us until Palestine has a normal economy. I'm an industrialist and one of the only ones who produce something in Palestine. Yet what we have here is an economy unlike anywhere else in the world. It's not only the official budget of the Palestinian Authority, who receives about $2 billion annually from abroad and spends it on tens of thousands of needless internal security orgnizations and government jobs. The Americans and Europeans are completely crazy."...

...a 2002 kindergarten graduation by a Hamas charitable organization in Gaza featured 1,600 children carrying pretend rifles and a 5-year-old girl on stage reenacting the murder of two Israelis in Ramallah, according to the Israeli newspaper Maariv. The child dipped her hands in red paint and raised them aloft, mimicking hands the Palestinians dipped in the blood of murdered Israelis and proudly raised in victory to a mob after the notorious October 2000 killings...

...We're here to agitate, not wait. When Washington talks of expanding war, not ending war, how can we not be out on the streets? When Washington spends trillions for war and bailouts, (not jobs and healthcare), we must march. When Washington rains cluster bombs on children, we must march. When Washington backs 60 years of occupation and the siege of Gaza, we must march. When our soldiers die or come home wounded in body, mind, and spirit, we must march...

Journalists who met Israeli colleagues face expulsion from Fatah-run syndicate.

Palestinian journalists who last week met with their Israeli colleagues and an IDF spokesman in Tel Aviv have come under fire from both Hamas and Fatah.

The trip was arranged by the non-profit Israel advocacy group The Israel Project, whose Web site described the group as "an international non-profit organization devoted to educating the press and the public about Israel while promoting security, freedom and peace."

The journalists met with Maj. Avichai Edri, head of the Arabic-language branch of the IDF Spokesman's Office.

Three of the journalists - Lana Shaheen, Mueen al-Hilu and Abdel Salam Abu Askar - are from the Gaza Strip, while another two are from the West Bank.

They now face expulsion from the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Journalists Syndicate on charges of promoting normalization with Israel.

The syndicate decided to establish a committee to question the journalists who went to Tel Aviv about their motives and the identity of the party behind the invitation.

The syndicate is also planning to hold an emergency meeting next week to discuss punitive measures against Palestinian journalists who defy a ban on normalization of relations with Israel.

Hamas has also condemned the Palestinian journalists as "collaborators." Hamas officials claimed that some of the journalists were known as supporters of Mohammed Dahlan, a former Fatah security commander in the Gaza Strip...

...The march began with a small group at Manger Square in central Bethlehem. As the crowd, accompanied by music and carrying signs or Palestinian flags, moved through the town, more and more people joined until it numbered about 150 Palestinians, Israeli activists, journalists and internationals.

The march was to protest the limitations placed upon Palestinians - Christians and Muslims - to travel to Jerusalem for worship at the holy sites in the city.

The march was supposed to have stopped at the checkpoint, but once the group reached the checkpoint gate for vehicles, approximately 100 protesters made their way through the gate. Apparently the security guards were unprepared: they were far too few to be able to stop the demonstrators who managed to walk through the second gate and on to the road to downtown Jerusalem, still being led by the donkey and the horse.

About a hundered meters down the road, the Israeli police realized what had happened and blocked the way. The demonstators stopped, although they easily could have marched on as there were only a few police officers on the scene.

In response, the checkpoint was closed for all vehicles and foot traffic attempting to enter Jerusalem. According to Ma'an News, eleven Palestinians have been detained; four Israeli activists and one international person were detained and later released.

The following day, Checkpoint 300 - the main Bethlehem checkpoint - remained completely closed. All of the checkpoints along the security barrier were only open to a limited number of people (international citizens, school children and Palestinians with specific work permits, worship permits or medical permits) for the Jewish holiday of Pesach...[Etc...]

...Tuhami Muntasir, former advisor to the Mufti of Egypt: It has become clear that this is being funded, and that it is sponsored organized Zionist activity. They get money from various sources - maybe from Cyprus, maybe from Israel... What they do at their parties...

Interviewer: Do you get money from any source?

Karim 'Ammad: If we did, would we be in such a poor state? What money? This is the first time I'm hearing this claim.

Tuhami Muntasir: I am talking about confessions of people who were caught...

Karim 'Ammad: What you said sums it up. You're talking about the past. Today there's nothing...

Tuhami Muntasir: I am talking about confessions of people who were caught... I am not done yet.

Bassem Ali: Go ahead, finish.

Tuhami Muntasir: Let me tell you that the phenomenon that we are witnessing right now is a clear manifestation of a well-funded Zionist campaign, which is based on a "constitution" - The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. With your permission, I am not done yet. Protocols of the Elders of Zion - that founding constitution... What does Zionism want to accomplish? You are an intellectual, and you know this. It wants to rule the world.

Interviewer: Let's be reasonable.

Tuhami Muntasir: It wants to rule the world. Let me finish. It wants to rule the world. Zionism has means to do so, and it has priorities. The Zionists say: We will establish clubs and we will draw people, who have certain characteristics and who are willing to collaborate, and we will bring them to the top of the pyramid...[More.]

Laura Rozen allows an anonymous Administration official to hijack her blog and accuse the National Security Council's Dennis Ross of dual-loyalty...

...An alternative explanation might be that Ross, who is a well-known critic of Netanyahu's, understands the internal dynamics of Netanyahu's dysfunctional coalition, and is looking for smart ways for President Obama to manipulate the situation so that progress -- not merely rhetorical progress, but actual progress -- can be made, both in bringing about the territorial compromise needed for peace, and in stopping Iran from going nuclear. But in today's neo-Lindberghian climate, if a Jewish Administration official suggests a course of action that can be interpreted in any way as sympathetic to Israel, he will be called a dual-loyalist, in this case by a coward hiding behind a screen of anonymity erected by Politco.

AIPAC put a 39 page long document on its website with support for Israel written by 9 senators and 47 members of the House of Representatives, divided almost equally between Democrats and Republicans, something that confirms how it operates; by financing the campaigns of those who support its policies. How else to explain the support of supposedly democratic legislators for a government that practises ethnic cleansing and a peculiar form of apartheid?

...In June 2006, Garlasco had alleged that an explosion on a Gaza beach that killed seven people had been caused by Israeli shelling. However, after seeing the details of an Israeli army investigation that closely examined the relevant ballistics and blast patterns, he subsequently told the Jerusalem Post that he had been wrong and that the deaths were probably caused by an unexploded munition in the sand. But this went down badly at Human Rights Watch HQ in New York, and the admission was retracted by an HRW press release the next day.

Since the Garlasco affair blew up, critics of Human Rights Watch have raised questions about other appointments. An Israeli newspaper revealed that Joe Stork, the deputy head of HRW's Middle East department, was a radical leftist who put out a magazine in the 1970s that praised the murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. In 1976 he attended an anti-Zionist conference in Baghdad hosted by the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

As Kenneth Roth pointed out to me, this was all three decades ago, Stork was just one of seven editors of the magazine when its editorial praised the massacre, and he later became a staunch critic of Saddam Hussein. Certainly, he no longer spices up reports with talk of "revolutionary potential of the Palestinian masses." That said, when Stork was hired by HRW in 1996 he had never worked for a human-rights group, had never held an academic position, and had a history of anti-Israel activism...[Much more.]

The owner of a Montreal collectibles shop is defending his decision to sell a bar of soap he advertises as being made of the fat of Holocaust victims.

Jewish groups in Montreal are denouncing the shop in the city's Plateau-Mont-Royal neighbourhood where the beige bar of soap is displayed.

The soap is inscribed with a swastika and displayed in a glass case with a card that says "Poland 1940."

On Friday, Abraham Botines, a Spanish-born Jew who has operated the quirky boutique since 1967, admitted he has no idea whether the soap is really made of human remains.

"I'm 73 and I was collecting things from the Holocaust and from World War II because I belong to that period," Botines told The Canadian Press in an interview Friday in the cluttered shop.

"In my lifetime I got a lot of curiosity items -- that is, things that are hard to find ... and my things, my children, they don't have any interest."

But Botines is adamant he's selling a collectible item and not hateful ideology.

After reporters began descending on the store Friday morning, the controversial bar of soap was put aside.

Botines said it can now be seen only by serious collectors...

"'Scuse me, I'm all finished, Mr. Keefer. I'm up to the toast. Here's to You. You bowled a perfect score. You went after Queeg, and got him. You kept your own skirts all white and starchy. Steve is finished for good, but you'll be the next captain of the Caine. You'll retire old and full of fat fitness reports. You'll publish your novel proving that the Navy stinks, and you'll make a million dollars and marry Hedy Lamarr. No letter of reprimand for you, Just royalties on your novel. So you won't mind a li'l verbal reprimand from me, what does it mean? I defended Steve because I found out the wrong guy was on trial. Only way I could defend him was to sink Queeg for you. I'm sore that I was pushed into that spot, and ashamed of what I did, and thass why I'm drunk. Queeg deserved better at my hands. I owed him a favor, 'don't you see? He stopped Hermann Goering from washing his fat behind with my mother.

Two others wounded, one seriously; at least 4 Palestinian terrorists killed; unusually, Hamas claims responsibility for 'ambush' of IDF troops.

Major Eliraz Peretz, 31, from Eli, deputy commander of the Golani Brigade's Battalion 12 and Staff Sergeant Ilan Sviatkovsky from Rishon Lezion, were killed in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday evening, the IDF announced several hours after clashes occurred near the town of Khan Younis there...

...Peretz and Sviatkovsky were killed when a team of soldiers from Golani's Battalion 12 entered the Strip around 2:40 p.m. after several men were spotted placing what seemed to be explosive devices near the Gaza border fence on Thursday night.

The force was then attacked with mortar shells and gunfire from inside the Strip, as well as an explosive device that went off nearby. In the fire exchange that ensued, at least four Palestinians were killed and several others wounded.

But the soldiers were not killed by the explosive device but by gunfire, when the grenade in one of the soldiers' vests was hit by a Palestinian bullet and exploded on his body.

The military was uncertain whether the incident was a prepared ambush or if the fire exchange began because the soldiers crossed the border fence into Gaza.

The IDF was using helicopters and mortar fire against the Palestinians, who reportedly belong to the Jaljalat, an extremist al-Qaida inspired group. The group is not affiliated with Hamas.

Palestinian sources reported five IDF tanks and two armored bulldozers entering Gaza strip firing shells at targets near the town of Khan Younis. The tanks were still in place firing occasional rounds around midnight Friday.

But later on Friday evening, the Hamas Website said the group's gunmen were involved -- a departure from the Islamic terror group's tendency over the past year to avoid confrontation with Israeli forces.

Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida told Hamas radio that IDF forces "fell into an ambush" set by Hamas terrorists east of Khan Younis. He did not elaborate. He said IDF troops entered 500 meters into Gaza "but our men preempted them."

He also said the action was taken in revenge to the killing of Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, which Hamas pinned on Israel.

Islamic Jihad also claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that the attack was intended to kidnap a soldier.

...The enemies of Israel -- who just so happen to be the enemies of the United States -- will be emboldened. Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda and their compatriots are smiling right now, and preparing for war.

The left-wing academics, bloggers and NGO lawyers are dusting off their computer keyboards for renewed attempts to delegitimize Israel, and the despots who run the UN Human Rights Council are preparing new anti-Israel resolutions.

Our President does not realize that by trying to impose his peace on his terms he is increasing the likelihood of war. A sense of Israeli encirclement and a need to strike first because of uncertainty led to the 1967 war...[More.]

BARACK Obama's anti-Israel jihad is one of the most irresponsible policy lurches by any modern American president. It rightly earns Obama the epithet of the US president least sympathetic to Israel in Israel's history. Jimmy Carter became a great hater of Israel, but only after he left office...

...Like the Europeans, Obama is adopting the Arab narrative of the Middle East, wherein Israeli perfidy is responsible for all that ails the region. The administration's broadsides against the Jewish state could have been delivered by Finnish foreign minister Alexander Stubb, who's always up for a good chiding of the nasty Israelis.

The Europeans congratulate themselves on the realism of their "evenhandedness." But it is the realpolitik of weakness. It heaps scorn on an embattled outpost of the West while appeasing the terror states and tin-pot dictators that assail it...

"Article 49 is simple, clear and is not a subject of controversy. It forbids an occupying power from moving its own civilian population onto occupied lands as permanent residents. Despite this prohibition Israel has constructed settlements outside and beyond its borders for more than 40 years."

Benjamin Netanyahu was left to stew in a White House meeting room for over an hour after President Barack Obama abruptly walked out of tense talks to have supper with his family, it emerged on Thursday...

The Israeli prime minister arrived at the White House on Tuesday evening brimming with confidence that the worst of the crisis in his country's relationship with the United States was over...

...Mr Obama...immediately presented Mr Netanyahu with a list of 13 demands designed both to the end the feud with his administration and to build Palestinian confidence ahead of the resumption of peace talks. Key among those demands was a previously-made call to halt all new settlement construction in east Jerusalem.

When the Israeli prime minister stalled, Mr Obama rose from his seat declaring: "I'm going to the residential wing to have dinner with Michelle and the girls."

As he left, Mr Netanyahu was told to consider the error of his ways. "I'm still around," Mr Obama is quoted by Israel's Yediot Ahronot newspaper as having said. "Let me know if there is anything new."

For over an hour, Mr Netanyahu and his aides closeted themselves in the Roosevelt Room on the first floor of the White House to map out a response to the president's demands.

Although the two men then met again, at 8.20 pm, for a brief second meeting, it appeared that they failed to break the impasse. White House officials were quoted as saying that disagreements remained. Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, added: "Apparently they did not reach an understanding with the United States."...

..."There is no humiliation exercise that the Americans did not try on the prime minister and his entourage," Israel's Maariv newspaper reported. "Bibi received in the White House the treatment reserved for the president of Equatorial Guinea."...

... Petraeus continued, "So we have all the factors in there, but this is just one, and it was pulled out of this 56-page document, which was not what I read to the Senate at all."

In an effort to tamp down the controversy, Petraeus said, he spoke to Gabi Ashkenazi, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, and reassured him that the reports were inaccurate. He also said he sent Ashkenazi a blog post written by Max Boot of Commentary, which he said "astutely" picked apart the erroneous information that's been floating around.

When asked about the claim that the perception that the U.S. is too reflexively pro-Israel puts American soldiers at risk, Petraeus said, "There is no mention of lives anywhere in there. I actually reread the statement. It doesn't say that at all."...

Parents and players of the Dollard des Ormeaux Midget B Civics are furious they will have to forfeit a regional semifinal hockey game that falls on the first night of Passover.

Team manager Eva-Lynn Gross was told by organizers it would be "easier to move Passover" than to reschedule a playoff game.

At least 10 of the team's 15 players are Jewish and are not willing to miss the first Seder on Monday night.

"The kids are very disappointed," said Gross, who has made appeals to the Dollard des Ormeaux and Lake St. Louis hockey leagues. "They should work around stuff like this."

Games can't be rescheduled during regionals, Lac St. Louis executive director Sylvain McSween said. "There are 700 hockey matches in less than three weeks, and we can't have any changes. One special case leads to another and another. There's nothing we can do."...

Parents are even more upset that organizers wouldn't allow them to switch places with another team that offered its spot so the Civics could play at a time that wouldn't conflict with Passover.

"Lac St. Louis said no to that, too," said Earl Eichenbaum, the team's assistant coach. "The kids are very upset because they earned the right to play in this tournament. To be denied to progress seems unfair."

But if the league allows one team to switch times, everyone will ask for the same consideration, McSween said...

...The reason plots against Saudi oil installations are of such concern is the possibility that a catastrophic attack on a key facility could have a devastating effect on the world economy. Former CIA case officer Robert Baer famously wrote in his 2003 book Sleeping with the Devil:

A single jumbo jet with a suicide bomber at the controls, hijacked during takeoff from Dubai and crashed into the heart of Ras Tanura, would be enough to bring the world's oil-addicted economies to their knees, America's along with them. Indeed, such an attack would be more economically damaging than a dirty nuclear bomb set off in midtown Manhattan or across from the White House in Lafayette Square.

It is unclear if the present plot was intended to be catastrophic or merely disruptive. The tactics and weaponry involved (suicide bombers, explosive belts) are more suggestive of a disruptive attack. But that should not distract from the fact that these arrests are a reminder of the oil supply's vulnerability.

"AIPAC can be summed up in the words of an American college student on their promotional video. And the sentiment is repeated over and over again..."I love Israel, and I love the US-Israel" relationship." Get it. American kids, born and bred in America -- whose grandparents and grandchildren are or will be Americans -- love America because America is Israel's friend...Who are these people? Have you ever met a Jewish college kid like that?" (emphasis added)

"Why do they scream, as one, over one poor captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, but give no indication of caring very much about the 4000 Americans killed In Iraq and Afghanistan. (Of course, most of them were for the Iraq war and are now pushing for crippling Iran sanctions that could lead to war)."

"So why are we the way we are? And why is the AIPAC fringe like it is? I'll tell you one thing. It is not primarily because we are better Americans. It is because we are better Jews, even better Zionists. They are...something else."

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas plans to promote terrorist Mahmoud Damara, the former head of the PA's elite "Force 17," to the rank of Major-General. Damara is serving time in an Israeli prison for his involvement in multiple murders. The promotion was publicized in the PA daily Al-Quds.

Damara served in Force 17 and later in the presidential guard. He was wanted by Israel since 2000 for terrorist activity, and was arrested in 2006.

As head of a cell of Tanzim terrorists, Damara, also known as Abu Awad, initiated several terrorist attacks targeting soldiers and civilians...

The owner of a private Christian TV station on Tuesday accused the Palestinian Authority of silencing the voice of the Christian minority in the Holy Land by forcing him to go off the air.

Samir Qumsieh, owner and director of Al-Mahed (Nativity) TV, which was founded in Beit Sahur, near Bethlehem, 14 years ago, said PA security officials who raided his station last week told him that the decision to close it down had been taken because he did not have a proper license.

"It's strange that they are closing us down now after we have been broadcasting for the past 14 years," Qumsieh said. "This is a breach of freedom of speech and an attempt to silence the media."...

...The Christian broadcaster was one of several private radio and TV stations that were closed last week under the pretext that they had been operating without a proper license from the PA's Ministry of Information and Ministry of Interior.

Most of the stations have been operating for over a decade.

The move drew a wave of protests by the owners and many journalists, who accused the PA government of seeking to silence the independent media in the Palestinian territories.

Some of the owners said they weren't able to renew their licenses because of the high fees requested by the PA authorities...

The Palestinian Authority appears to have backtracked on its decision to close down 10 TV stations, including a private Christian channel.

The PA had taken the stations off the air, claiming they did not have proper licenses, but announced Wednesday that the networks would be given one month to sort out the issue.

Nevertheless, the owner of the Christian station said he would not reopen the channel until the PA apologizes...

...Palestinian Media Watch has documented the continuous Mughrabi veneration by Abbas and the Palestinian Authority in recent years, both in connection to the square near Ramallah on the West Bank and in many other contexts. The following are 15 examples of the glorification of this one particular terrorist, Dalal Mughrabi. Five by Abbas himself, five by the Palestinian Authority or its leaders, and five by Fatah or its leaders:

1. It was Abbas himself who defended the naming of the square after Mughrabi: "I do not deny it. Of course we want to name a square after her." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 17, 2010]
2. It was Abbas himself who on December 31, 2009 honored that same terrorist Mughrabi by sponsoring a celebration of her birthday. [PA TV (Fatah) News, Dec. 29, 2009]
3. It was Abbas's Fatah youth movement who prepared the Mughrabi square for the ceremony. [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 8, 2010]
4. It was Abbas himself who funded a computer center after that same terrorist. "Present at the event were President Mahmoud Abbas's advisor... inaugurating the [Dalal Mughrabi] center, funded by a contribution from the President's [Abbas's] Office." [Al-Ayyam, May 5, 2009]
5. It was Abbas who sent his Secretary General of the Presidency, Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim, to speak in his name, and called the terrorist the "bridge over which we pass on the way to our freedom." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 9, 2010]
6. It was Abbas himself who sponsored high school graduation ceremonies in honor of the same terrorist Mughrabi at which "the representative of the President [Abbas] ... reviewed the heroic life of [Mughrabi] the Shahida (Martyr)." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Fatah), July 24, 2008]
7. It was Abbas's Minister of Culture, Siham Barghouti (Fatah) who defended naming the square after the terrorist: "Honoring them [the Martyrs] this way is the least we can give them, and this is our right." [Al-Ayyam, Jan. 11, 2010]
8. It was Abbas's PA TV that opened its broadcasting this month on March 11, the anniversary of the attack, by praising the terror attack as: "A glorious chapter in the history of the Palestinian people." [PA TV Fatah March 11, 2010]
9. It was not Hamas but Fatah, the party headed by Abbas, that decided to go ahead and dedicate that square after "a terrorist who murdered innocent Israelis." It was Fatah leaders who held up a banner that read: "On the anniversary of the Coastal Road Operation we renew our commitment and our oath that we will not stray from the path of the Shahids (Martyrs), Shahida (Martyr) Dalal Mughrabi Square, Shabiba (Fatah) students' movement" [Al-Quds, March 12, 2010]
10. It was Abbas's Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq Tirawi who said at the square's dedication: "We shall not submit to any threats, and we are here today to celebrate our history and our battle in naming the square after Mughrabi." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 12, 2010]
11. It was Abbas's Fatah spokesman Dr. Faiz Abu Aytah who emphasized "the right of Fatah, of the Palestinian Authority, and of the Palestinian people to celebrate the anniversary of her [Mughrabi's] Martyrdom... Fatah is proud of Dalal's affiliation with it as a movement." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 11, 2010]
12. It was Abbas's PA TV that interviewed the sister of the "terrorist who murdered innocent Israelis," on the anniversary of the terror attack and introduced her as follows: "Now, dear viewers, we move on to a glorious chapter in the history of the Palestinian people... Dalal Mughrabi, the Palestinian Shahida (Martyr), has become a symbol and model." Rashida Mughrabi, sister of terrorist Dalal Mughrabi responded: "This is a day of glory and pride for our Palestinian people." [PA TV March 11, 2010]
13. It was Abbas's PA that held a soccer tournament named after the same "terrorist who murdered innocent Israelis." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Fatah), Aug. 8, 2008]
14. It was Abbas's Fatah that held a summer camp named after the same Mughrabi "out of honor and admiration for the Shahida (Martyr)." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Fatah), July 23, 2008]
15. It was at the ceremony of the Sixth General Conference of Abbas's Fatah movement that Fatah leaders responded with applause when former PA Prime Minister Abu Alaa (Ahmad Qurei) honored Mughrabi and her co-terrorists: "We have in our midst the hero Khaled Abu-Usbah, hero of the operation [terror attack] led by the Shahida (Martyr) Dalal Mughrabi [applause]. We salute him and welcome him. And [we salute] the hero, the Shahida (Martyr) Dalal. [He shouts:] All the glory! All the glory! All the glory! All the sisters here are Dalal's sisters." [PA TV (Fatah), Aug. 4, 2009]

Most of the above terror glorification by Abbas and Fatah has happened in the last few months, and it has all happened in the last two and a half years under Abbas. All this has been reported by Palestinian Media Watch. Yet tragically, people in the US State Department are not giving Secretary of State Clinton accurate information about PA Chairman Abbas...

This advertisement is another example of the misuse of UN funding. An ad by a Palestinian youth organization, PYALARA, which is funded by UNICEF, shows an axe destroying a Star of David. The UNICEF logo is right on the ad. The large Star of David that has been destroyed has on it pictures of stars and stripes, presumably representing the USA, and an additional smaller Star of David.

The organization PYALARA (Palestinian Youth Association for Leadership and Rights Activation) has been funded by UNICEF since the year 2000: "PYALARA has been chosen by UNICEF as a major strategic partner in Palestine." [PYALARA website]

On the axe that destroys the Star of David is the word: "Boycott!" in the imperative tense. Youth are invited to watch the PA TV program calling for a boycott of Israel. In the program the host acknowledges that they are aware that the boycott is illegal but they have chosen to ignore this:

"We know that the Palestinian Authority is tied to a number of agreements that prohibit it from completely boycotting Israel... we call upon all the youth, to all the residents, to all businesses and stores, to completely boycott the Israeli goods in their stores."

The program started as follows: "The program Speak Up has decided to dedicate this program to a theme which is a national obligation upon each of us - the topic of boycotting Israel in all ways." [PA TV March 21, 2010]

The ad reads that the weekly youth program Speak Up is "produced in cooperation with PBC (PA TV) with the support of UNICEF."

"JNews will bring to public attention the authentic voices of those directly affected by the conflict and highlight the problems facing migrants and asylum seekers in Israel, the poor and the dispossessed, Arab-Palestinian citizens and the Bedouin. More generally in Israel-Palestine it will focus on the conditions of prisoners and detainees, the status and treatment of women, and the political and civil rights of Palestinians living under occupation and under the control of the Palestinian Authority."

What do Mexico's Zapatistas, the French National Front, Slow Food, rave subculture, and al-Qaeda all have in common? From right-wing to left-wing to no-wing, they all proudly proclaim their mission to defend their distinctive identities against modernity's homogenizing processes. This controversial book establishes fundamental similarities between anti-globalization "aurora" movements that aim to destroy the modern world and bring a radiant new dawn to humankind.

While these groups often despise one another, they nonetheless share many fundamental characteristics, goals, and attitudes. Drawing on the original writings and actions of various anti-globalist groups, the authors reveal a common tendency toward charismatic leadership, good versus evil worldviews, the quest for authentic identity, concern with ritual, and unbending demands for total commitment. These movements, however they pursue world transformation and personal transcendence, are a prominent and continuing aspect of our present condition. This book is a strong reminder that, no matter what the cause, revolution is not a thing of the past and the fervent search for another world continues.

"Netanyahu's agent, Senator Joseph Lieberman, provides the poison to the chalice of health care reform and - at the same time - accomplishes the mission of his ultimate master: the Prime Minister of a government of a foreign nation whose relations have proven to be more than burdensome for the American people."

"It is time to sever the umbilicals of nation, state, government and military ties between the USA and Israel that protract the crises in: the Middle East, the global economy; the US Congress; the clinics, surgeries and hospitals of America and the promised lands of Judea, Samaria and Gaza."

The United States has diverted a shipment of bunker-busters designated for Israel.

Officials said the U.S. military was ordered to divert a shipment of smart bunker-buster bombs from Israel to a military base in Diego Garcia. They said the shipment of 387 smart munitions had been slated to join pre-positioned U.S. military equipment in Israel Air Force bases.

"This was a political decision," an official said.

In 2008, the United States approved an Israeli request for bunker-busters capable of destroying underground facilities, including Iranian nuclear weapons sites. Officials said delivery of the weapons was held up by the administration of President Barack Obama.

Since taking office, Obama has refused to approve any major Israeli requests for U.S. weapons platforms or advanced systems. Officials said this included proposed Israeli procurement of AH-64D Apache attack helicopters, refueling systems, advanced munitions and data on a stealth variant of the F-15E.

"All signs indicate that this will continue in 2010," a congressional source familiar with the Israeli military requests said. "This is really an embargo, but nobody talks about it publicly."...

...Uncle Hassan: "Unfortunately, 'Alloush and dear children, the Arab and Islamic nation is in a slumber. A deep slumber. We must stand up. We must awaken. 'Alloush and dear children - each one of you must tell his father, his grandfather, and the rest of his family that they should all arise as one. They must rise up against the criminal Zionists, who are planning to destroy Jerusalem, and to turn the Islamic waqf into something bad. We must rise against the Zionist criminals, the enemies of Allah, and liberate Jerusalem and all the holy places. We should liberate them. Do you hear, 'Alloush?"

'Alloush: "Ah, now I get it. I thought the Jews wanted to enable people to visit the Ibrahimi Mosque, but it turns out that they want to steal it."

Uncle Hassan: "That's right, 'Alloush. It's a good thing that you got it. Did you tell this to anyone else, or just me?"

'Alloush: "Just you."

Uncle Hassan: "Very good. You didn't make us look bad. Do you know what people would accuse you of, if you said this in the street?"

'Alloush: "Of what, Uncle Hassan?"

Uncle Hassan: "They would accuse you of being a collaborator. They would think that you are a Zionist collaborator. I would like to tell you two things, in conclusion: We must think before we speak. Get it? We should be familiar with all our Arab and Islamic holy places, okay?"

'Alloush: "Okay."...

Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) today released an 8-minute online video clip describing a network of Islamic radicals operating in New England. The video focuses on the October arrest - and the response to that arrest - of a Sudbury, Massachusetts resident who the FBI charged with planning to machine gun shoppers in a New England mall.

"The arrest of Tarek Mehanna was shocking," said APT President, Dr. Charles Jacobs. "It occurred just two weeks before the murder of 13 Americans at Fort Hood.

Jacobs said "What is especially disheartening, given the historical moderation and success of Boston Muslims, is the current groundswell of support for Tarek within a segment of the Boston Muslim community and its virulent response to his arrest."

...A commission of historians confirmed earlier findings that up to 25,000 people died in the firestorm unleashed by British and US bombers on February 13-15, 1945.

The study was meant to resolve a dispute that has raged in Germany for decades, with far-right groups claiming that up to 500,000 people were killed in the attack. Critics of the raids have sought to have them classified as a war crime, arguing that they were strategically unnecessary because Germany was already on its knees, and that they targeted civilians rather than military objectives.

In recent years a consensus has emerged among most historians that between 25,000 and 40,000 were killed in the bombing of one of the most beautiful Baroque cities in Europe. However, the reaction to yesterday's exhaustively researched figure suggested that many in Germany still believe that the death toll was significantly higher...

...During five years of research the Dresden Historians' Commission reviewed records from city archives, cemeteries, official registries and courts and checked them against published reports and witness accounts. The figure of 25,000 matches conclusions reached by local authorities immediately after the war, in 1945 and 1946...

...The inflated death toll was partly the work of the far-right historian David Irving, who in his 1963 book The Destruction of Dresden called the bombing a deliberate war crime. He based his figures on a Nazi document that reported 202,400 dead: the historian Frederick Taylor said the document had been faked by the Nazis, who had simply added a nought to each total...

...While escorting evangelicals through the landmarks of their faith, Brog introduces his charges to the modern Middle East. The Galilee, where Jesus lived and worked, is where Hezbollah rains rockets down on the villages from which Jesus recruited his disciples; Jerusalem, where he died for man's sins, is protected by a security barrier against the suicidal designs of the enemies of God's chosen people. And for evangelicals, even as the Jews rejected Jesus, God never rejected the Jews, who remain God's chosen people.

The Biblical verse that inspires American evangelicals' love for the Jews, the nation that gave them their savior, is Genesis 12:3: "I will bless them that bless thee," God told Abraham, "and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." Their philo-Semitism is a reversal of the millennia-old Christian tradition of replacement theology, or the belief that God's covenant with the Jews was superseded by his covenant with the church through Jesus Christ. Central to this understanding is the interpretation of the word "Israel." "Evangelicals read the Bible literally," says Brog. "If you take Israel to mean Christ's church, then this can be used as an example of God rejecting the Jews. But if you believe Israel means the Jews, then the Bible becomes a Zionist book."

The fact that sacred history is alive to evangelicals can make them powerful advocates for the modern state of Israel. Their witness extends beyond the congregations, small churches, and mega-cathedrals spread throughout the country and now reaches all the way to Washington, D.C., where Brog shows them how to put their philo-Semitism to practical use. "When they come up to meet with their congressmen or senators," says Brog, "we share with them the details of timely legislation like the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act." That is to say, they show them how to support it...[More.]

Ben Cohen: ...one thing Jeremy did not mention is that there has been a 10-month moratorium on settlements by the Netanyahu government, that was a very important concession...

Jim Clancy (interrupting): ...Now wait a minute, settlements...Ben Cohen, you're drawing lines here that are absolutely false, you know well when you say that that Israel continues to build in occupied east Jerusalem. Ok, I know it is not completely sorted out, but there is no sense in you looking the audience straight in the eye and not telling the truth....

BC: I am looking the ...

JC (interrupting): The last word here, I've got to give it to Jeremy.

BC (sarcastic): Of course you do, Jim.

Vice President Joe Biden took umbrage last week when Israel announced during his visit that it had approved new housing construction in East Jerusalem. But another contentious incident that took place during Biden's visit got far less scrutiny.

March 11 marked the 32nd anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel's history, and this year the Palestinian Authority decided to honor the 19-year-old leader of the attack, Dalal Mughrabi, by naming a square in a town outside Ramallah after her. The commemoration was scheduled for the anniversary.

The official ceremony was ultimately canceled to avoid antagonizing Biden during his visit, but the square was nevertheless named for Mughrabi, and several dozen Palestinian students from President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement gathered in her honor for an unofficial dedication.

So what was the deed that deserved this commemoration? On a Saturday in March 1978, the squad of Palestinian terrorists led by Mughrabi entered Israel by boat from Lebanon and made their way to the main road between Haifa and Tel Aviv. By day's end, they had murdered 38 innocent men, women and children.

The first person Mughrabi and her gang of terrorists encountered was Gale Rubin, an American photojournalist taking photos of birds near the beach. They killed her and continued on their deadly path.

They then hijacked a bus full of happy families returning from a Saturday excursion. On their way to Tel Aviv, the terrorists shot at passing cars and killed more innocent people.

The terrorists tied all the men's hands to the bus seats. When Israeli security forces stopped the bus, the terrorists ran out while throwing hand grenades into the bus, setting it on fire. The men inside were burned alive.

The three of us writing this article each have experience with Palestinian terrorists. Seven years ago this month, on March 5, 2003, our children were killed by a Palestinian suicide murderer who exploded the bomb he was carrying on a city bus in Haifa. Seventeen people, mostly children on their way home from school, were killed.

Our children were just beginning their lives when that bomb exploded. Tal Kehrmann was 18 years old. Yuval Mendelevich was 13 1/2 . Asaf Zur was almost 17 years old.

We don't believe people who murder children should be held up as heroes. Though the official Ramallah ceremony was canceled, Mughrabi's name will remain on that square. And she is already commemorated in Hebron, where a girls school is named after her...[The rest.]

From a friend visiting Israel: One marked point I noticed was the intolerance of the Muslims in Nazareth... their banners boldly proclaiming that Allah is God and that he has no "begotten son" across the Church of the Annunciation there. If we dared to state that Jesus was the last prophet from God near a Mosque there would be WWIII. It's so biased. I am glad that I can see first hand how small the nation of Israel is, the land mines the Syrians planted in the Golan (Our guide is a Jewish lady from Russia that shared how a child recently had his foot blown off from the mines the Syrians had planted there.)

BRONNER: I would say that there is some level of prejudice about the fact that he had some Islamic background through his stepfather. But I think it has to do more with the fact that when he came into office a year ago, he wanted to recalibrate the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world. And the easiest and clearest way of doing that was to put some distance between the United States and Israel, and he did that. And that made people nervous. I think there's also some sense here that--some degree of racism, to be perfectly honest.

...On what does Bronner's "honest" allegation of racism rest? Are there polls to show Israelis are less favorable toward the president because he's African-American?

There are polls - but they reveal something very different. Multiple polls in Israel before Obama's election showed him the favorite over John McCain. In July 2008 a Maagar Mohot Survey found 37% preferred seeing Obama elected, compared to 28% for McCain. In November, just after the election a Shvakim Panorama poll found 63% said they were not concerned about the election of Barack Obama.

In May 2009 a poll by the Begin-Sadat Center found Israelis remained positive about the U.S. president, with 38% perceiving he had a friendly attitude toward Israel and just 7% an unfriendly view. Similarly, despite expressing uncertainty about his possible policies, a full 60% expressed favorable opinion about the president.

A Smith Research poll found a similar number of 31% in May perceiving Obama being friendly toward Israel. These attitudes plummeted though in June, by which time only 6% of Israelis considered Obama friendly. That dropped even further by August 28 when 4% found him favorable to Israel.

What happened between May and August? On May 18, at a joint White House press conference with Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Obama appeared to sidestep the Oslo Accords saying: "Settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward." Responding later to questions about this, Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev said: "The issue of settlements is a final status issue, and until there are final status arrangements, it would not be fair to kill normal life inside existing communities."...

GAZA CITY -- Gaza's borders are closed and its economy in shambles, but the glittering alleys of the territory's centuries-old gold bazaar are packed with young brides to be.

The market has experienced an unlikely renaissance in recent years as Gaza's Islamist Hamas rulers have championed weddings and Israeli closures have crippled the local economy, making gold an attractive investment.

"Not only have we not been hurt by the Israeli blockade, but our business has actually gotten better," gold merchant Iyad Basal says as people cram into his crowded family-run shop.

"We have not stopped working since the blockade because the gold comes to us through smuggling and Hamas encourages marriage," he adds...

...not even the opposition accused Netanyahu of a deliberate provocation. These are not the days of Yitzhak Shamir, the former Israeli prime minister who used to greet a visit from Secretary of State James Baker with an announcement of the creation of another West Bank settlement. Netanyahu has placed the need for strategic cooperation with the U.S. on the Iranian threat ahead of the right-wing political agenda. That's why he included the Labor Party into his coalition, and why he accepted a two-state solution--an historic achievement that set the Likud, however reluctantly, within the mainstream consensus supporting Palestinian statehood. The last thing Netanyahu wanted was to embarrass Biden during his goodwill visit and trigger a clash with Obama over an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood.

Nor is it likely that there was a deliberate provocation from the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, which runs the interior ministry that oversees building procedures. Shas, which supports peace talks and territorial compromise, is not a nationalist party. Its interest is providing housing for its constituents, like the future residents of Ramat Shlomo; provoking international incidents is not its style.

Finally, the very ordinariness of the building procedure--the fact that construction in Jewish East Jerusalem is considered by Israelis routine--is perhaps the best proof that there was no intentional ambush of Biden. Apparently no one in the interior ministry could imagine that a long-term plan over Ramat Shlomo would sabotage a state visit.

In turning an incident into a crisis, Obama has convinced many Israelis that he was merely seeking a pretext to pick a fight with Israel. Netanyahu was inadvertently shabby; Obama, deliberately so.

According to a banner headline in the newspaper Ma'ariv, senior Likud officials believe that Obama's goal is to topple the Netanyahu government, by encouraging those in the Labor Party who want to quit the coalition.

The popular assumption is that Obama is seeking to prove his resolve as a leader by getting tough with Israel. Given his ineffectiveness against Iran and his tendency to violate his own self-imposed deadlines for sanctions, the Israeli public is not likely to be impressed. Indeed, Israelis' initial anger at Netanyahu has turned to anger against Obama. According to an Israel Radio poll on March 16, 62 percent of Israelis blame the Obama administration for the crisis, while 20 percent blame Netanyahu. (Another 17 percent blame Shas leader Eli Yishai.)

In the last year, the administration has not once publicly condemned the Palestinians for lack of good faith--even though the Palestinian Authority media has, for example, been waging a months-long campaign denying the Jews' historic roots in Jerusalem. Just after Biden left Ramallah, Palestinian officials held a ceremony naming a square in the city after a terrorist responsible for the massacre of 38 Israeli civilians. (To its credit, yesterday, the administration did condemn the Palestinian Authority for inciting violence in Jerusalem.)

Obama's one-sided public pressure against Israel could intensify the atmosphere of "open season" against Israel internationally. Indeed, the European Union has reaffirmed it is linking improved economic relations with Israel to the resumption of the peace process--as if it's Israel rather than the Palestinians that has refused to come to the table...

...I further queried this officer as to whether he had ever heard Petraeus express the view imputed to him by Mark Perry -- namely that Israel's West Bank settlements are the biggest obstacle to a peace accord and that the lack of a peace accord is responsible for killing American soldiers. This officer told me that he had heard Petraeus say "the lack of progress in the Peace Process, for whatever reason, creates challenges in Centcom's AOR [Area of Responsibility], especially for the more moderate governmental leaders," and that's a concern -- one of many -- but he did not suggest that Petraeus was mainly blaming Israel and its settlements for the lack of progress. They are, he said, "one of many issues, among which also is the unwillingness to recognize Israel and the unwillingness to confront the extremists who threaten Israelis."...[More.]

Before he left his one-story, stone house for the last time, he looked down at the Persian rug lining the formal living room where he had played with his brother, George, 18 days earlier, as his father, Jibrail, huddled over the console radio, listened to the UN General Assembly vote on the partition of Palestine.

As he walked from the now empty living room, across the colorful tile porch, and passed the green-shuttered windows to the waiting taxi, he studied the pine trees and green gardens around him in the German Colony.

He remembered how he loved to get lost in all that backyard greenery, with his best friend, Leila Itayyim. After school they played tag and hide-and-seek, built dirt castles, raced their pet turtles and helped his father tend the garden. He took one last look at his favorite tree, where he loved to hide high up in the branches to see everything without being seen, and wished he was sitting there instead of leaving.

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S Middle East diplomacy failed in his first year in part because he chose to engage in an unnecessary and unwinnable public confrontation with Israel over Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Over the past six months Mr. Obama's envoys gingerly retreated from that fight and worked to build better relations with the government of Binyamin Netanyahu. Last week the administration finally managed to strike a deal for the launching of indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks. So it has been startling -- and a little puzzling -- to see Mr. Obama deliberately plunge into another public brawl with the Jewish state...

THE Lockerbie bomber was at the centre of a fresh row last night after it emerged he is taking a cancer-busting drug that could keep him alive for FIVE more years.

Terminally ill Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was prescribed chemotherapy treatment Taxotere after returning to Libya.

But yesterday reports claimed Megrahi wasn't given the drug while he was in Greenock prison - amid claims he could have been kept behind bars if he had taken the medication.

Last night Tory justice spokesman Bill Aitken demanded answers from Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.

He said: "Was the existence of a drug which is reportedly now extending the life of the Lockerbie bomber included in any of the reports Kenny MacAskill read before making the decision to release him?

"Alex Salmond's government is still refusing to publish the independent advice upon which they based their decision."

Megrahi - sentenced to life for the 1988 jet bombing that killed 270 people - was freed on compassionate grounds seven months ago and returned home to Libya.

Yesterday it emerged the prostate cancer sufferer's condition has now stabilised.

A source close to the 57-year-old said: "After his treatments, he can be unwell for two or three days but then enjoys a period when he's quite well."

Hamas gunmen used Palestinian children as human shields, and established command centers and Kassam launch pads in and near more than 100 mosques and hospitals during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last year, according to a new Israeli report being released on Monday that aims to counter criticism of the IDF.

The detailed 500-page report, obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post, was written by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (Malam), a small research group led by Col. (res.) Reuven Erlich, a former Military Intelligence officer who works closely with the army.

The IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) cooperated with the report's authors and declassified hundreds of photographs, videos, prisoner interrogations and Hamas-drawn sketches as part of an effort to counter the criticism leveled at Israel in the UN-sponsored Goldstone Report.

Work on the Malam report began immediately after former judge Richard Goldstone issued his damning report of Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip in September...

...Well, it will be interesting to see how extensively this report is covered in the western media. At the time of writing this article, the BBC website did have a report up on the use of human shields in Gaza...about Israeli soldiers allegedly using Palestinians as human shields.

Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, has told the country's diplomats there that U.S.-Israeli relations face their worst crisis in 35 years, despite attempts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office to project a sense of "business as usual."

Oren was speaking to the Israeli consuls general in a conference call on Saturday night...

...Netanyahu consulted Sunday with the forum of seven senior cabinet ministers over a list of demands that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made in a telephone conversation Friday.

Clinton harshly criticized the announcement last week of plans to expand the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood in East Jerusalem while U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was visiting Israel.

Haaretz has learned that Clinton's list includes at least four steps the United States expects Netanyahu to carry out to restore confidence in bilateral relations and permit the resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians.

1. Investigate the process that led to the announcement of the Ramat Shlomo construction plans in the middle of Biden's visit. The Americans seek an official response from Israel on whether this was a bureaucratic mistake or a deliberate act carried out for political reasons. Already on Saturday night, Netanyahu announced the convening of a committee to look into the issue.

2. Reverse the decision by the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee to approve construction of 1,600 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo.

3. Make a substantial gesture toward the Palestinians enabling the renewal of peace talks. The Americans suggested that hundreds of Palestinian prisoners be released, that the Israel Defense Forces withdraw from additional areas of the West Bank and transfer them to Palestinian control, that the siege of the Gaza Strip be eased and further roadblocks in the West Bank be removed.

4. Issue an official declaration that the talks with the Palestinians, even indirect talks, will deal with all the conflict's core issues - borders, refugees, Jerusalem, security arrangements, water and settlements...

Palestinian Authority security personnel over the weekend seized a house belonging to Fahmi Shabaneh, the former Palestinian intelligence official who exposed a series of scandals that have seriously embarrassed the PA leadership.

Shabaneh told The Jerusalem Post that the security forces raided his house in Jericho, destroyed furniture, knocked down walls and confiscated equipment and personal items.

He lives in Jerusalem and holds an Israeli ID card like all permanent Arab residents of the city.

Shabaneh said that the raid was carried out by a joint force belonging to the PA's General Intelligence Service and the Civil Police.

Until recently, Shabaneh, a lawyer, was head of the anti-corruption unit in the General Intelligence Service...

...The PA issued an arrest warrant for Shabaneh last month after he exposed a sex scandal involving Rafik Husseini, director of PA President Mahmoud Abbas's bureau. The PA has accused Shabaneh of "high treason" and "collaboration" with Israel although he served in the Palestinian security services for nearly 15 years...

...Shabaneh, meanwhile, has threatened to expose a new scandal involving Sheikh Tayseer Bayoud Tamimi, chief judge of the Islamic Courts in the PA.

Shabaneh told the Post that he has issued an ultimatum to Tamimi, the highest-ranking Islamic figure in the PA territories, to resign within a week or else he would publish allegations of sexual misconduct against him.

Shabaneh said that when he was still in his job he received a number of complaints against the sheikh and other judges working in the Shari'a courts in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

He also released a recording of a phone call from last week in which Tamimi pleads with him not to expose details of the scandal he's allegedly involved in.

"After I publish the case against Judge Tamimi, he will be forced to resign because he has brought shame on the Islamic courts in Palestine," Shabaneh said. "His fate will be similar to that of Rafik Husseini, whom we filmed naked in the bedroom of an Arab woman from Jerusalem."

Shabaneh added that he also had incriminating material against a former PA minister who lives in the Jerusalem area. "He will be the next in line," he said. "This minister has also been begging me not to expose his file."

Dear friends,

This morning Mrs Navanethem Pillay, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, spoke before the Permanent Committee on Human Rights of the Foreign Affairs Committee, where I sit as Vice President.

I would like to voice my surprise for what I heard from Mrs Pillay - a feeling that I expressed very clearly to her - still thanking her for her informative visit. The Commissioner interpreted the meeting as an opportunity to harshly criticize Italy's policies on immigration and what she considers as the criminalization of illegal immigration.

She voiced the same criticism on the policies concerning the Roma people and invited the Members of the Chamber of Deputies to justify themselves, indeed to clear themselves. This request was rejected by both the right and the left wing. Indeed, many members felt the need to ask the Commissioner some questions about the Organization where she serves, because it is deemed to be extremely problematic for its poor performance and its intolerable partisanship.

I reminded the Commissioner that the UN Human Rights Council, which reports to her, stems from the discredited Commission on Human Rights. This Commission from 2003 was also chaired by a human rights champion such as Libya and was dissolved by Kofi Annan in 2006 after having devoted much of its work to defend almost all dictators in the world rather than dissidents.

...There is another benefit to disengagement. As Goldblog readers know, I'm deeply distressed by many currents in Israeli society and politics, the continuing, disproportionate power of the settlement movement being chief among my concerns. But I find myself hesitant to criticize Israel these days because my words are inevitably used by people who don't have Israel's best interests, or the best interests of American Jews, at heart. So I want to find a new way to write about these issues...

...the city council of Malmö that Reepalu heads, had been informed about the rise of antisemitism on repeated occasions, beginning with a motion submitted by Karlsson in January of 2008, November of 2009 and as recently as this January of 2010. Reepalu was seated in a meeting where the SD representative brought the matter up. This exposes Reepalu not only as a liar, but also as a totally unreliable politician that cannot be trusted to seriously address the growing problem of antisemitism in his city...

We are shocked and stunned at the Administration's tone and public dressing down of Israel on the issue of future building in Jerusalem. We cannot remember an instance when such harsh language was directed at a friend and ally of the United States. One can only wonder how far the U.S. is prepared to go in distancing itself from Israel in order to placate the Palestinians in the hope they see it is in their interest to return to the negotiating table.

It is especially troubling that this harsh statement came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly and privately explained to Vice President Biden the bureaucratic nature in making the announcement of proposed new building in Jerusalem, and Biden accepted the prime minister's apology for it. Therefore, to raise the issue again in this way is a gross overreaction to a point of policy difference among friends.

The Administration should have confidence and trust in Israel whose tireless pursuit for peace is repeatedly rebuffed by the Palestinians and whose interests remain in line with the United States.

...And let's not kid ourselves: the rest of the world is watching, just as other nations looked on as we shoved the Hondurans under the bus when confronted with a lackey of Hugo Chavez, and just as we did to the Czech Republic and Poland in an effort to ingratiate ourselves with the Russian bear. This administration has an unseemly habit of trashing our allies so as to prevent conflicts with our foes. In the end, we will be low on allies and our foes will be emboldened. As for our standing in the world, I suggest it's about to reach Jimmy Carter-like depths. That's what happens when friends come to regard the American president as untrustworthy and motivated by personal pique. (So much for the president with the "superior temperament.") Let's see if the administration can undo the mess it has made. It won't be easy.

There were reports last week that the Combined Jewish Philanthropies is distributing funds to organizations most Boston Jews would define as anti-Israel. The money is not part of CJP's community funds, but comes through a separate program: Donor Advised Funds. DAF's are an important part of CJP community services, used by donors to save taxes and administrative costs. Boston Jews write checks to the CJP, then recommend distributions to specific charities. The vast majority of the organizations on CJP's approved list serve the community. Many are important pro-Israel groups. But, given last week's revelations, CJP needs to revisit its DAF lists.

It was Hillel Stavis, the veteran pro-Israel activist and businessman, who researched and posted this story on his blog, www.jstreetjive.com. Hillel cited 10 DAF organizations he thinks work against Israel's interests:

• The American Friends Service Committee
• Democracy Now!
• The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC)
• The Tides Foundation
• Media Matters
• The New Israel Fund
• Brit Tzedek v'Shalom
• Physicians for Social Responsibility
• The Workmen's Circle
• Amnesty International

The Unitarians!? Maybe a naive Jewish donor saw some Unitarian program that feeds starving children, but surely we can choose philanthropies that don't support our enemies. If any Jewish money got to the UUSC - even a little - that would be a mistake. On March 14, the Utilitarian church in Cambridge will host an "Israel Apartheid Week" program featuring a film on Israeli "racism" and a talk by the loathsome Noam Chomsky.

Not one Jewish dime should go to the American Friends Service Committee, a determined battler against the Jewish state. Not a nickel for Democracy Now!, which hectors Israel, promotes the Goldstone Report and is outraged that Israel might have assassinated the Hamas monster in Dubai. Media Matters posts articles bashing Congress for not condemning Israel for its "disproportionate use of force" in Gaza. CJP, according to Stavis, directed $200,000 to them in 2007.

Young supporters of the Islamic Jihad movement march during a rally in Gaza City, 10 March 2010, showing solidarity for the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem

In June 2009, internationally renowned Egyptologist and Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities secretary-general Zahi Hawass[2] made headlines when he gave U.S. President Barack Obama a personal guided tour of the Pyramids.[3] In February 2010, Dr. Hawass was in the news following the culmination of the two-year international and interdisciplinary investigation into King Tut's death that he led.[4] A New York Times article last week noted his role in the restoration of one of Cairo's most historic synagogues and the yeshiva of Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, or Maimonides. The article quoted Dr. Hawass as saying, "It's part of our history. It's part of our heritage," and states that he also promises that six more synagogue buildings in Cairo will be restored within two years.[5]

Yesterday, Dr. Hawass attended a Washington, DC ceremony at which he collected a stolen Egyptian sarcophagus that had been seized by U.S. Customs officials (above).[6] He praised the U.S. for its role in recovering the sarcophagus and other stolen Egyptian antiquities.[7]

According to his website, Dr. Hawass holds an honorary doctorate from the American University in Cairo, and was one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2005.[8] He is spokesman for CNN on archaeological news in Egypt, is Explorer-in-Residence of the National Geographic Society, received the 2000 Distinguished Scholar of the Year Award from the Association of Egyptian-American Scholars, was awarded a Mellon Fellowship, was a Fulbright scholar, and received an Emmy for his performance in a documentary.[9] He frequently briefs members of the entertainment industry[10] including Shakira at Giza,[11] Samuel L Jackson at the 33rd Cairo International Film Festival,[12], and actor Vin Diesel. He has presented copies of his books to former U.S. First Lady Laura Bush,[13] and given President Obama a replica of his own hat.[14]

In February 2009, Dr. Hawass asserted on Egyptian TV that the Jews control the entire world, stating that it was their "unity that gave them this power" (to view this clip, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2049.htm ). Just last month, in February 2010, he stated that he had said to "the rabbi in Washington... [that] under no circumstances will I open a Jewish [antiquities] museum" until "the Palestinians get their rights" (to view this clip, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2406.htm).

Following are the transcripts of the two clips...[More.]

...The problem is particularly tough for hard core realists who believe that the behavior of every state is determined by the nature of the international system. For these thinkers, domestic politics don't matter; states do what they must. States are like billiard balls; they move when struck. It doesn't matter what the billiard ball thinks; it rolls where it's pushed.

So what about the red, white and blue ball on the pool table that keeps cozying the blue and white ball with the Star of David no matter where you push it? Why does it behave so strangely?

The scholars seek a theoretical explanation which can accommodate this peculiar case, but they are looking for a small explanation -- one that reaffirms the general theory of billiard ball realism even as it explains the exceptional case of the United States.

The simplest, most elegant answer to this problem to say that the Israel lobby is different from all other lobbies. It is the one and only exception to the rule that domestic politics don't matter: The Jews are so rich, so focused and so good at what they do that they have built a lobby that is unique in the world.

There are only two problems with this approach. The first is that the idea of a uniquely powerful Jewish lobby is catnip for anti-Semites. As I've repeatedly said, you don't need to be an anti-Semite to hold this view, but this idea (that the Jews have a wealthy, well connected and ruthless power lobby that is like no other and that this cabal manipulates the political system the way that a puppeteer dangles marionettes) draws angry loners and anti-Semites like ants to a jelly jar.

Hint to the youth: Anytime a young intellectual is trapped in a nasty spot like this, squatting in a foxhole with anti-Semites and assorted tinfoil hatters, your first thought should be, "Where did I go wrong?"

The quest for truth leads us all on some strange journeys, but the 'discovery' that a Jewish conspiracy explains some otherwise inexplicable historical development is one of the great dead ends of all times. It provides a faux eureka moment, the illusion of earthshaking discovery just as you fall into the pit. August Bebel called anti-Semitism the 'socialism of fools'; he could have gone further. It's the economics of fools, the sociology of fools, the theology of fools, the history of fools and, sadly, the geopolitics of fools as well...

"The Etzion Bloc, or Gush Etzion as it is called in Hebrew, is located on the main road from the south to Jerusalem, northwest of Hebron. The Etzion bloc was settled and resettled three times, on land purchased by the Jews, beginning in 1927. Each time, residents were forced to abandon their homes in the face of Arab violence. The final saga of the Etzion bloc included two separate massacres and a prolonged and stubborn defense against hopeless odds. The bloc was finally overrun by soldiers of the British armed and officered Jordan Legion, who were responsible for the final massacre of surrendered defenders, a war crime."

...Asked whether the family was getting support from the U.S. government, Simpson said it was a U.S. government official who first encouraged them to sue the Israeli government.

The family has met with many senior American officials, she added, and more than 70 congressmen signed a letter demanding a serious investigation.

...The White House apparently supports the Corries' position on the matter. Biden's aides told them that President Barack Obama shares the view of the Bush administration, that Israel's military probe was insufficient...

An American journalist working for a Palestinian news agency voluntarily left Israel on Wednesday after being detained for a week and risking deportation, his lawyer said.

Castro Daoud said his client, Jared Malsin, chose to leave because "he could no longer endure the conditions of his detention."...

...Interior Ministry Spokeswoman Sabine Hadad said Malsin raised security suspicions during an initial investigation upon his arrival...

...Malsin, a 26-year-old graduate of Yale University from Hanover, N.H., was the English-language editor of the Maan news agency in the West Bank. The agency said Israel has accused him of anti-Israel reporting and that it fears Malsin withdrew his appeal under duress.

[This] is written by an acquaintance of mine, and older woman who is Catholic. Who somehow got roped into attending something that from her description sounds like some Friends of Sabeel meeting. And she came away very upset, disappointed and confused. She wrote down her thoughts and sent them to me. I would like to see them out there...

To Christians of the Holy Land:

I do not understand why the Christians of the Levant choose to continue to cast their lot with the Moslem Arabs rather than with the Israeli Jews. They should EMBRACE the Israelis: learn from their history, their drive and their sense of identity. The history of the Jews of Israel shows that a culture and language and be revived and invigorated. And that is what the Christians of that area should do.

The Palestinian Christians are descended from the first followers of Jesus in Roman Judea. They are not Arabs -- Arabs are from the Arabian peninsula and invaded the Christian lands many centuries ago. They forced an alien language and writing system on the indigenous Christian population, and many were forced to convert. Christians spoke Aramaic or Greek before they were conqured by the invading Arabs. They spoke the languages of Jesus and of the New Testament.

Christianity and Judaism are siblings. Jesus was a Jew, and Christianity rose out of the Jewish Religion. His earliest follwers were Jews, and early Christianity was decidedly a Jewish sect. The Hebrew Bible is a holy part of the Christian Canon. Many Greeks living in the holy land were also drawn to Christ and to Christianity. Monotheism appealed to their intellect in a way that the naturistic polytheism of the Roman Empire could not, and they had flirted with Judaism, but found it too constraining to convert outright. Christianity lacked the barriers they felt that Judaism had, and many flocked to the new religion. And it is the Judeo-Christian and the Judeo-Greco traditions that have shaped our modern world. And much of that is rooted in the Land of Israel. Which is another reason why the Christians of the Holy Land should embrace their Israeli Jewish brothers. They are the only two people who have an historic claim of many centuries to this corner of the world.

See how Bethlehem has declined over the last fifteen years, under modern Moslem rule of the Arabs! But look at how Nazareth and Capernaum have thrived under Israel sovereignty--clean modern cities, yet you can still feel the presence of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. But over Bethlehem, He weeps ... The Via Dolorosa begins in a madrassa! The keys to the Chruch of the Holy Sepulchre are held by Moslems! See how your Christian brethern in Egypt and in Iraq are being murdered by those with whom you have chosen to cast your lot as Palestinians. Shouldn't you stand with your family in Christ? Why do you not!? The Moslems hate the Jews, and you are the brothers of the Jews. Yet, you persist in standing with those who support Hamas and Hezbollah, and you revile your Israeli brothers. As Christ was a Jew, these, too, are your brothers in Christ. How Jesus's heart must ache when his followers from his homeland do this!

Christians of the Holy Land--Embrace your OWN history! Your OWN language! Your OWN culture! Throw off the yoke of the foreign language and culture of your Arab conquerers! Embrace your Israeli brothers and learn from your Jewish brethren how to do take back your history and identity! Remember Christ and your history and His history!

...A group like AIPAC enjoys power and recognition not because it controls or even represents the votes of Jews. AIPAC's power rests on gentile ideas and support; if a politician gets loudly and publicly labeled anti-Israel by AIPAC and its allies that politician will get hammered in the next election because so many American gentiles want their politicians to support the Jewish state. AIPAC works like the NRA; it is the publicly accepted voice on an issue about which the public has strong views.

Politicians don't fear the loss of National Rifle Association PAC money nearly as much as they fear the loss of millions of pro-gun votes at the next election. This, I think is why AIPAC is so powerful. To be convincingly labeled an anti-Israel politician is the kiss of death almost everywhere in the United States -- just as to be anti-gun is the kiss of death. American gentiles consider AIPAC and those affiliated with and endorsed by it to be reliable guardians of pro-Israel policy; politicians don't want to cross a force with this kind of hold on the public.

AIPAC has the power that it does because it has been in effect deputized by American pro-Israel gentiles to guard the frontiers of our Israel policy...

...The plan

On May 14, 2010, more than 100 Palestinians and supporters will fly to Lid airport (Ben Gurion International Airport). They will take a variety of routes and arrive on different flights. Both the Palestinians and their supporters will be nationals who do not ordinarily require visas to visit Israel. However, they will be selected from among those who have personally been denied permission to enter.

The nationalities of the volunteers will qualify them to board the flights. However, Israeli customs authorities will probably stop them upon arrival, place them in detention, and try to deport them as soon as possible. El Al flights should be avoided, where Israeli security would probably prevent boarding.

The volunteers will nonviolently resist deportation, through non-cooperation and by refusing to comply with airline passenger requirements. Previous resistance of this type has shown that the captain of the aircraft will refuse to accept such passengers, who will then be returned to detention.

Lawyers will be arranged in advance, who will argue that the volunteers should be permitted to exercise their right to enter, and to remain at least until their cases are heard. Some cases may be appealed to the High Court and possibly to the International Court of Justice, if there is a means to do so...

Recently the hate crimes in Malmö and Skåne County have come under increased surveillance as the numbers have doubled since last year. According to the Swedish daily newspaper Expressen, "During the year of 2009, 270 hate crimes were reported in Skåne County and about 25 percent of these were aimed towards Jews."

One of those exposed to anti-Semitic hate crime is Rabbi Shneur Kesselman of the Malmö Jewish community. He states in an interview with Expressen on March 5th that "ever since I came here people have been shouting 'fucking Jew' and 'heil Hitler' at me."

What is worth noting about Rabbi Kesselman's statement in Expressen is that out of the 65 incidents in 2009, according to the Skåne police, three of these incidents were directed at Kesselman. Yet according to Kesselman, 15 separate reports were filed concerning anti-Semitic hate crimes aimed towards him. The worst incident involved someone trying to run him over with a car. Apparently, the authorities have a different method for calculating these figures, as the full number of incidents does not appear in the Skåne police statistics...

Many people think that Jewish lobbying, pressure and influence dragged a reluctant Uncle Sam into the Middle East.  Think again.

Now it's true that American opposition to Zionism has a long and distinguished pedigree.  In the 19th century, American missionaries built a network of colleges and hospitals across what was then the Ottoman Empire and what today we call the Middle East.  The missionaries and their students helped develop modern secular Arab nationalism. The idea was that if Arabs stopped thinking of themselves as Muslims and Christians, but developed a communal inter-religious identity, this would allow Christian Arabs to play a larger role in political life and, the missionaries hoped, one day open the doors to present the gospel to the Muslims.  Many of the great leaders of Arab secular nationalism, including the (French-educated) Michel Aflaq, founder of the Ba'ath Party that once ruled Iraq and still rules Syria and whose beautiful tomb in Baghdad (at right) was built by Saddam Hussein, were Arabs of Christian origin.

For these missionaries, the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine looked like a disaster. It radicalized and fragmented Arab politics and introduced the motifs of religious struggle that to this day divide, for example, the Palestinians between religious parties like Hamas and secular ones like Fatah. Zionism was especially polarizing in modern Syria, Lebanon and Palestine -- where some of the highest concentrations of Arab Christians were. Moreover, the American missionaries in the Arab world identified with the Arab struggles for independence first from the Ottomans, and later from the British and the French. They generally had a great deal of respect for Arab culture and looked to establish a close relationship between the United States and the rising Arab peoples. The missionaries and their successors believed that the smart choice for the United States in the Middle East was to make friends with the Arabs; American support for the Jews was a foreign policy disaster that ran clearly counter to our obvious national interest...

...According to my sources, Hafiz Muhammed Masood is back in Lahore, Pakistan, where he is the imam of an important mosque in Lahore controlled by Jamat e Dawa (the new face of the terrorist group Lashkar e Taiba). Masood reportedly recently celebrated a second marriage to a lady in Lahore. It was quite a big event, I'm told.

Masood's lawyer said this of Masood back in Ocotber 2008, "He is totally petrified of going back to Pakistan." And "he was heartbroken about leaving his wife and eight children and returning to a country where he could be in danger because he preached peace in the United States, said his lawyer, Norman S. Zalkind of Boston." Sounds like Masood is doing just fine though. What do his interfaith supporters in Sharon think of the second wife? What do his own wife and children think?

Meanwhile, Masood's first (?) wife and family are still living in the Islamic Center of New England estate in Sharon, MA, and they are facing deportation charges too.  The family applied for political asylum in the U.S., but it was denied.  How do you say "chutzpah" in Urdu?  That deportation case continues. [More.]

An Arab member of the Knesset who goes all the way to the US and Canada to tell university students and professors that Israel is an apartheid state is not only a hypocrite and a liar, but is also causing huge damage to the interests of his own Arab voters and constituents.

If Israel were an apartheid state, what is this Arab doing in the Knesset? Doesn't apartheid mean that someone like this Knesset member would not, in the first place, even be permitted to run in an election?

Fortunately, Arab citizens can go to the same beaches, restaurants and shopping malls as Jews in this "apartheid" state. Moreover, they can run in any election and even have a minister in the government [Ghaleb Majadlah] for the first time.

In this "apartheid" state, the Arab community has a free media that many Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip envy. Ironically, an Arab newspaper in Nazareth or Haifa that is licensed by Israel enjoys more freedom than the media controlled by Hamas and Fatah, as well as most corrupt Arab dictatorships.

Ironically, this Knesset member who is complaining about apartheid enjoys more privileges than most Jews and Arabs in Israel. As a parliamentarian, he is entitled to do many things that an ordinary citizen cannot do, thanks largely to the immunity he enjoys as an elected official...[More.]

...Frankly, those who think they can make substantive changes in American policy toward Israel by attacking the Jews and the Israel lobby remind of some bulls I once saw at the bull fights in Madrid. Bull after bull went for the red cape, not the matador. Bull after bull went down in the dust as the crowds cheered and threw flowers. That is pretty much what has happened to those who want to distance the US from Israel; they go for the highly visible and attractive target of the Israel lobby, and time after time they go down. I don't think this is smart, but don't let me stop anybody's fun.

I'll get into the reasons why I think the Israel lobby is more matador's cape than matador going forward, but there's one difficult subject that needs to be addressed up front, and that issue is anti-Semitism. This form of prejudice is as deeply embedded in western Christian history as racism is in American culture. As a native South Carolinian born back in the days of legally-enforced racial segregation, I have learned a lot about the subtle qualities and stubborn persistence of racist images and ideas that you take in unconsciously from the culture that shapes you...

Craig and Cindy Corrie, I welcome you to Israel where, I understand, you plan to bring a civil suit before an Israeli court on March 10 "to put on public record," the British Guardian wrote, "the events that led to [your] daughter Rachel's death in March 2003."

I thank God for the well-being of my children and grandchildren, and I cannot imagine the pain and anger you feel over the loss of your daughter, Rachel.

My sons have served as combat soldiers, and may have actually fought on the very ground where your daughter died. The area was laced with tunnels to smuggle weapons and explosives for use against Israelis. My children are Israelis who ride in buses and eat in pizzerias, and by the grace of God they have been spared attacks by the suicide bombers your daughter championed.

Some may see the irony in your using the courts and the free press of Israel in your attempt to pursue and denounce the nation your daughter loathed. I see the tragedy in your allying with the International Solidarity Movement -- the very people and organization who led and, in a sense, really pushed Rachel to her death.

According to news accounts, Israel will permit four of Corrie's colleagues from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) to enter Israel to give testimony on what occurred that day. Actually, I believe it's a good decision to permit the four into Israel's jurisdiction where the ISM members could and should be arrested for reckless endangerment, fraud, manslaughter, aiding terrorists, and a host of other charges. The public may also discover who paid for your lawsuit and the expenses of bringing you and ISM witnesses to Israel...[More.]

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron and the Mosque of Bilal Ibn Rabah, "will forever be Islamic and will never be part of the Jewish heritage." In an interview to a Saudi paper published on Sunday, he said: "Palestine is our case did it is not out of our agenda in any given day."

Erdogan, who described Palestine as an open prison, urged Palestinians to unite and end their internal division "because it is not in favor of the Palestinians, but in the the interest of their enemies. He added:" I love my brothers in Fatah And my brothers in Hamas wherever they are."...

Another chapter is unfolding in the ongoing confrontation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority over the naming of a square after the terrorist Dalal Mughrabi. In December, Palestinian Media Watch publicized that the Municipality of Ramallah planned to name a public square in honor of the terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, who led the worst terror attack in Israel's history when she and other terrorists hijacked a bus and murdered 37 civilians in 1978. Prime Minister Netanyahu immediately protested to the US and sharply criticized the PA for its intention to name the square in Ramallah "after a terrorist who killed dozens of Israelis."

The official PA daily newspaper reports today that the PA has chosen to ignore PM Netanyahu's criticism and protests to the US. Not only does it still intend to name the square after the terrorist, but the date chosen for the inaugural ceremony is this Thursday, March 11, the 32nd anniversary of the terror attack.

Since PMW's exposure of the story, PA leaders have repeatedly rejected PM Netanyahu's criticism while defending the practice of honoring murderers, whom they honor as Martyrs (Shahids). PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas also referred to the terror attack as "military activities."...[More.]

An Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would be quietly supported by a wide coalition of Islamic nations, including a number of extremist states, Deputy Minister of the Negev and Galilee Ayoub Kara said Saturday.

Kara, speaking at a Beersheba event, said that though none of them would admit to it publicly, Islamic nations had conveyed messages to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that they would back military action against Iran by Israel and the US.

Kara said that Israel would strike "if there is no option."...

Christopher Hitchens, an internationally known columnist, intellectual and author whose provocative books and essays in Slate, Vanity Fair, the Atlantic and other publications have hammered at organized religion, the Clintons, Winston Churchill and Mother Teresa alike, appeared Wednesday, March 3, before a packed audience at UCLA to portray anti-Semitism as "the godfather of all other forms of racism" and "the gateway to the tyranny of fascism and war."

Alternating between black humor, biting sarcasm and insightful analysis, Hitchens took over the podium at Korn Convocation Hall to deliver the eighth annual Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture at UCLA to an audience of more than 400 people, including Pearl's father, Judea Pearl, an emeritus professor of computer science at UCLA and president of a foundation formed to continue his son's mission of promoting cross-cultural understanding through journalism and music.

Daniel Pearl, a prominent Wall Street Journal reporter and the paper's South Asia bureau chief, was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002...

The hearing of witnesses in the civil tort filed by the family of Rachel Corrie - a member of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who was crushed to death by an IDF bulldozer in 2003 - is due to begin next week in the Haifa District Court.

The plaintiffs - Corrie's father, Craig; her mother, Cynthia; her brother, Christopher; and her sister Sarah Simpson - are suing the state for $324,424 in damages in what they charge was her wrongful death, caused by the use of "deliberate and utterly unreasonable force by the bulldozer driver" who ran over her over.

Corrie, who came from Olympia, Washington, was 24 years old when she died on March 16, 2003. She was stationed at the time with other ISM volunteers in Rafah, at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip.

The IDF Southern Command conducted an investigation of the incident and closed the file without taking measures against any of the soldiers involved...[More.]

A Human Rights Watch spokeswoman told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday night that its embattled senior military analyst Marc Garlasco resigned nearly three weeks ago, even though, according to NGO Monitor, he was still listed on HRW's Web site as an employee earlier in the day.

HRW suspended Garlasco with pay in September, "pending an investigation," after allegations surfaced that he was an avid collector of Nazi memorabilia.

Yet according to NGO Monitor, since Garlasco's paid suspension, no word had been given regarding his employment status with the organization or any investigation into the allegations made against him. Additionally, Garlasco's name remained on the organization's online list of employees.

After HRW was queried regarding Garlasco's status on Thursday evening, the group's communications director, Emma Daly, responded in an e-mail stating, "Human Rights Watch regretfully accepted Marc Garlasco's resignation on February 15th [and] he is no longer listed as a staff member on Human Rights Watch's Web site."...

...Now in case any of my readers have missed the census news since 1790, there are not now and never have been all that many Jews in the United States. Less than two percent of the roughly 300 million people in the United States are Jewish. This means that Jews can at most account for two of that 63 percent of the population who sympathize with Israel. Pro-Israel gentiles in America outnumber pro-Israel Jews by a factor of 20-1, and ever since polling on this issue began, the overwhelming majority of the Americans who support Israel against its enemies haven't been Jewish.

This brings us to a problem: why do so many people, especially self-described 'realists' when it comes to Middle East policy, find it mysterious that American foreign policy supports Israel? Surely in a democratic republic, when policy over a long period of time tracks with public sentiment, there is very little to explain. American politicians vote for pro-Israel policies because that is what voters want them to do. Case closed, I would think. Late breaking news flash: water runs downhill.

Yet many otherwise intelligent people are drawn over and over again to the idea that a mysteriously powerful Jewish lobby is somehow thwarting democracy to bend American foreign policy to its nefarious will. Polls, reason, history, none of this matters. America supports Israel because of 'the Jews'...[Read the rest.]

The real apartheid in the middle-east is the rejection of the legitimacy of a Jewish State, according to Irwin Cotler, the featured speaker at Hadar's second public forum February 24 on Lawfare: Fighting False Legal Actions and Boycotts that Demonize Israel. Cotler, former Justice Minister of Canada, a Canadian MP and a renowned international human rights lawyer also told the packed hall at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center that groups like Hadar that mobilize citizen engagement are of vital importance in "delegitimizing the delegitimizers."

The delegitimization of Israel - while not a new phenomenon - has been "laundered" under the banners of human rights, the UN, and the fight against racism, Cotler explained. The Palestinian narrative with its many falsifications has been adopted as the human rights narrative and Israel is portrayed as an international outlaw. In addition, the recent Goldstone commission was corrupt from its creation by the fundamentally biased UN Human Rights Council, Cotler said...

WHETHER IT was a major diplomatic slight or a minor one overblown by media coverage, what happened to Representative William Delahunt in a congressional trip to Israel last month was telling.

Because the trip was sponsored by J Street, a "pro-Israel, pro-peace" organization that has criticized the Israeli government, Israel's minister of foreign affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, and his deputy, Danny Ayalon, refused to meet with the five congressmen as long as J Street and another pro-peace sponsor was present. The message was clear: Your traveling companions have criticized us, so we won't sit with you unless you keep them away from the table...

Official Palestinian Authority TV continues to teach children that all of Israel is "occupied Palestine."

On the latest episode of The Best Home, a PA TV program for young children, the host says that Israeli Arab children living in the Israeli cities Lod, Nazareth and Be'er Sheva are living under occupation. She addresses Israeli Arab viewers: "Dear children... we will always remain in contact with you, because you have the right, and this program is certainly yours too, just as it belongs to every Palestinian child, since you are part of occupied Palestine."

The host repeatedly avoids using the name "Israel" on the program, referring to the land of the State of Israel alternately as "the occupied territories," "the 1948 territories" or "occupied Palestine."

Palestinian Media Watch has repeatedly documented the Palestinian Authority policy of depicting a world in which Israel does not exist...[More.]

On the website of the liberal newspaper formerly known as the Guardian, you will find the report of a complaint made by Israel 'after its embassy in Madrid received postcards from nine-year-old schoolchildren accusing it of killing Palestinian babies and waging war for money'. The complaint is about anti-Semitism among other things, and from the report itself it would appear to be well-grounded. In any case, someone at the liberal newspaper formerly known as the Guardian has chosen a pictorial comment on this story and you may judge its suitability for yourself.

Here's my judgement of it. We can score another one for the viewpoint: it may be anti-Semitic, Mum, but that doesn't mean it's altogether bad. (Notice, too, the scare-quotes in the headline.)

Dear President Naylor:

I am a graduate of University College (1973) at which time I had the honour of standing first among the students in the Department of History. I received an excellent education, specializing in the history of values and ideologies. Then I attended, and graduated from, the Faculty of Law, in 1976.

I have tried to live a life of ethics, respect for individual human rights and social justice, and service to my profession and the community. I have won awards for my service to my municipality in volunteering on municipal committees and for my development of affordable rental housing for low income working people. I have a record of writing about race relations and participating in conferences meant to accomplish respect for diversity in the context of adherence to foundational Canadian values.

I am ashamed that University of Toronto hosted the first Israel Apartheid Week, and continues to make its facilities available to this distortion of "free speech and respect for diversity". I read your February 24 remarks on freedom of expression and diversity, and sadly, I feel that you misstate the basic issues. My university is now known as the birthplace of this vile hatefest.

The University would never allow an "Islamic Apartheid Week" because of course the speakers would be violently attacked by mobs of illiberals who have brought with them to the University no respect for free speech but only a respect for their upbringings where they were taught that Jews and the Jewish State are evil, and inferior.

I am disgusted that in a time of war against our liberal values, University of Toronto chooses to support one side, and that is the side that supports the war against our freedoms and our civilians from Sderot to Manhattan, from London to Madrid, and from Buenos Aires to Mumbai.

I myself have had my lectures shouted down and my books effectively banned. See here.

I know that freedom loving writers like myself no longer have the freedoms that you are so proud of extending to people who support the murder of Jewish children, less than a century after the Holocaust...

..."The connection between Jews and money is an old stereotype, and killing babies is also a stereotype that was used in Spain in the dark ages," he added. "We thought it was part of the past, but obviously it is not."

Joan Malonda, the head teacher of El Castell primary school in Almoines, today confirmed that the hand-drawn cards had come from his pupils.

He denied the children were being indoctrinated, adding: "A lot of this work was done at home and reflects the atmosphere in their own social environment. They were simply asked to write a postcard on the subject.

"We try to teach the children to have a critical attitude, but we also want them to contrast their criticism against other points of view."

Malonda, who received the backing of parents when he fought off attempts by local authorities to remove him from his post last year, said he would welcome an approach from the Israeli embassy.

"We haven't heard back from them," he said.

"My Jewish last name and identity became a weapon I used against the Zionist justification of Israeli legitimacy and the actions of the state of Israel. If Zionists could spin Jewish history, I could use my socially assumed Jewish identity to strike back.

I became an active anti-Zionist and Palestinian solidarity activist, going to weekly demonstrations in front of the Israeli consulate and arguing in my high school classes about the daily violent Israeli repression of Palestinian demands for self-determination.

As the Israeli repression of the Second Intifada intensified, with the Army routinely using live ammunition against Palestinian youths throwing stones, I got involved with a Toronto group called Jewish Youth Against the Occupation. I was determined to stop Zionism from speaking in the name of Jewish liberation, and the only form of Jewish identity I could associate with was one in opposition to Zionism."

Here's the latest video from AJC Reality Check, focusing on how the prejudices of one of Richard Goldstone's lieutenants, Desmond Travers, played a key role in the distortions which followed in the Goldstone report.

Frontpage Interview's guest today is Dr. Charles Jacobs, a columnist for the Boston Jewish Advocate who is concerned about the failure of leadership in America and in the Jewish community to deal with anti-Semitism. He has done a series exposing the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for failing to deal with Islamic anti-Semitism. He's been widely published, including in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Jerusalem Post, and the Encyclopedia Britannica. He has appeared on local and national television and radio, including NBC, CBS, NPR, CNN and PBS. He received his doctoral degree in social policy from Harvard. In 2007, he was named by the Forward newspaper as one of America 's 50 top Jewish leaders.

FP: Dr. Charles Jacobs, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Tell us about the series you are doing on the ADL and its failure to deal with Islamic anti-Semitism. What have you discovered?

Jacobs: Thanks, Jamie. Let me provide some context. The Jewish community has come under siege. We have had a wonderful 50 years after the end of WWII but the world has changed and unfortunately some of our leaders seem not to have recognized this. Given our small size and our sizable foes, the Jewish community has always valued unity. Unity is important, but I reluctantly decided to become critical of some of our leaders because of the seriousness and urgency of the current situation.

A few months back, I decided to break what is in effect a gentlemen's agreement among Jewish leaders not to criticize each other in public. At the end of an op-ed about Wafa Sultan, the courageous Muslim reformer who risks her life daily to fight real threats posed by Islamists to us all, I chided ADL for its relative silence on this, the greatest threat to Jews today. When Abe Foxman responded with a letter to my home town Jewish paper attacking me, I began a series of articles on the ADL's failure, and I proposed a list of key principles for beginning a serious effort against Islamic anti-Semitism.