June 2003 Archives

The site is the location of the Al Aqsa Mosque, known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary, Islam's third-holiest shrine, built over the ruins of the biblical Jewish Temples. Jews refer to the hilltop as the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site.

Palestinian riots erupted on Sept. 28, 2000, after Ariel Sharon, now Israel's prime minister and then leader of the parliamentary opposition, made a highly publicized trip to the site, saying he was there to underline Israel's sovereignty.

Israel captured the hilltop in the 1967 war, along with the rest of the walled Old City of Jerusalem, but turned administration of the mosque area back to the Islamic Trust shortly afterward.

Islamic Trust officials banned Jews from visiting the site shortly after the current conflict erupted. On Monday, Israel Police spokesman Gil Kleiman said there has been no official opening of the site, but police have escorted small groups of tourists and Jews on short visits in recent weeks. "There have been small groups who have been allowed up in limited numbers," he said, and there was no opposition from Palestinians.

During the conflict, several Muslim leaders have threatened violence if Jews visit the site again.

Several times after Muslim prayers at Al Aqsa, Palestinians have thrown rocks at the Western Wall, a Jewish holy site below, forcing police to evacuate Jewish worshippers.

Despite overwhelming archaeological evidence, Muslim clerics and Palestinian leaders insist that there was never a Jewish holy site on the hilltop, and it belongs exclusively to them. The issue helped torpedo Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at a summit hosted by then-U.S. President Bill Clinton in July 2000.

The poll, which covered 723 adults and has a margin of error of 3.6 %, also showed that 64% of the Palestinians support Arafat as opposed to 41.4% who support Abbas.

The ambush occurred hours after Israel pulled forces out of parts of the Gaza Strip (news - web sites), launching a disengagement process buoyed by the truce announcement of Islamist militant factions and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (news - web sites)'s Fatah (news - web sites) movement.

Fatah officials said armed groups within the movement would comply with the pact. But a spokesman for Fatah's main militant faction, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, said it never approved the deal and claimed responsibility for the shooting.

"We are not committed to this so-called truce and we will continue to fight the (Jewish) settlers and the Israeli military inside the occupied territories," the official told Reuters.

The attack, on a passing truck near the settlement of Shaked in the northern West Bank, raised questions about a follow-up deal for an Israeli withdrawal from Bethlehem in the south of the territory reported by Palestinian security minister Mohammad Dahlan. [...]

And so another generation is condemned to the racial obsessiveness that now permeates American campuses.[...]

But to point that out is to commit the social faux pas of noticing the elephant in the affirmative-action living room: the failure of so many black students to finish college. Nearly half of all black Americans between 25 and 29 have been to college, Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom wrote in their sweeping 1997 book, ''America in Black and White,'' but only 15 percent managed to earn a bachelor's degree. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education said in 1994 that the black college dropout rate was ''disastrous.'' It still is.

This is the unfortunate and unavoidable result of race-based admissions. To achieve a racially balanced student body, universities lower the academic standard black and Hispanic applicants must meet. That enables the schools to avoid the embarrassment of an insufficiently ''diverse'' entering class. But it also condemns the racially preferred minorities to an academic environment in which they are consistently outperformed. That embarrassment, apparently, the schools don't mind.[...]

Andrew Wilkie, the Nuffield professor of pathology and a fellow of Pembroke College, is under investigation after telling Amit Duvshani, a student at Tel Aviv university, that he and many other British academics were not prepared to take on Israelis because of the "gross human rights abuses" he claims that they inflict on Palestinians.

Prof Wilkie made the comments after Mr Duvshani, 26, wrote to him requesting the opportunity to work in Prof Wilkie's laboratory towards a PhD thesis. Mr Duvshani, who is in the last months of a master's degree in molecular biology, included a CV detailing his academic and outside experience, including his mandatory three-year national service in the Israeli army.

In a reply sent by email on June 23, Prof Wilkie wrote: "Thank you for contacting me, but I don't think this would work. I have a huge problem with the way that the Israelis take the moral high ground from their appalling treatment in the Holocaust, and then inflict gross human rights abuses on the Palestinians because they [the Palestinians] wish to live in their own country.

"I am sure that you are perfectly nice at a personal level, but no way would I take on somebody who had served in the Israeli army. As you may be aware, I am not the only UK scientist with these views but I'm sure you will find another lab if you look around."

Mr Duvshani told The Telegraph that he was shocked by the email. Speaking from his home in Tel Aviv, he said: "I was appalled that such a distinguished man could think something like that. I did not expect it from a British professor. I sent similar applications all round Europe and did not have another response like that. Science and politics should be separate. This is discrimination."

Mr Duvshani said he would not be put off coming to Britain, because "I think there are better people than him there". He said, however, that he was unlikely to accept any position offered by Oxford University.

Mr Duvshani had no further contact from Prof Wilkie or from the university after receiving the email. When this newspaper contacted the university on Friday, however, a spokesman said that she was aware of the email following a complaint from academics who had seen it.[...]

"The findings illustrate the Republicans' strong advantage over Democrats in the current system," the center concluded. That's for sure. With the McCain-Feingold law capping total contributions at $95,000 per person, the Democrats are plain out of luck. [...]

The first step is to stop underestimating the nature of the threat. The CIA keeps telling U.S. officials that there is no "organized" resistance, as if it needs to find some headquarters in a basement to prove it. When oil pipelines are being blown up, Iraqis who work with Americans are assassinated, and GIs are routinely ambushed, the prudent conclusion is that the attacks are organized until proven otherwise.[...]

Mr. Bremer should go beyond merely screening out Baathists and begin prosecuting them for war crimes. The allies have been reluctant do this, for fear of having to hold hundreds of prisoners, as well as preferring to leave prosecution to a new Iraqi government. But events on the ground have changed.[...]

Mr. Bremer will soon start naming a provisional governing council of Iraqis, and the faster the better there too. The sooner the Kurds and majority Shiites see a stake in a new government, the more difficult it will be for the Baathists to pose as spoilers. Our sources say an election has to be put off, because the two most organized forces today are the Baath Party and Shiites allied with Iran. That's a judgment call, though we'd note it is one more reason for bringing Baathists to the justice of public trials.

There's also a message here for the U.S. political class: Saddam is counting on the media and politicians to continue their bureaucratic navel-gazing since the main fighting ended. He wants them to re-parse every Pentagon word, and to interview every CIA analyst, to somehow show that liberating Iraq was a mistake. While the Beltway spins, he and his Baathists can plot their return.

Originally, the sides discussed an Israeli withdrawal and Palestinian Authority takeover in Bethlehem and in the three northernmost, relatively small, districts of Gaza. In the end, they put off Bethlehem and agreed to Israeli withdrawal and Palestinian Authority acceptance of security responsibility for all of Gaza -- an area of about 1.3 million people, slightly more than a third of the Palestinian population of the occupied territories.

Talks on implementing the withdrawal and on security coordination between the sides are scheduled to resume tomorrow. The pullback by the Israel Defense Forces could begin as soon as Monday. Talks on Bethlehem are expected to resume next week.[...]

--

From: "Andrew Wilkie" awilkie@worf.molbiol.ox.ac.uk
To: "Amit Duvshani"
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2003 9:58 AM
Subject: Re: PhD application

Dear Amit Duvshani,

Thank you for contacting me, but I don't think this would work. I have a huge problem with the way that the Israelis take the moral high ground from their appalling treatment in the Holocaust, and then inflict gross human rights abuses on the Palestinians because they (the Palestinians) wish to live in their own country.

I am sure that you are perfectly nice at a personal level, but no way would I take on somebody who had served in the Israeli army. As you may be aware, I am not the only UK scientist with these views but I'm sure you will find another suitable lab if you look around.

Yours sincerely,
Andrew Wilkie

Nuffield Professor of Pathology,
Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine,
The John Radcliffe,
Headington,
Oxford OX3 9DS,
UK.

Tel (44)-1865-222619
Fax (44)-1865-222500

Oh, in explanation of our radical new redeployment, we will profess that the nature of war itself has changed or that it signals no cooling in our relationship. In fact, anytime American soldiers risk their life on a trip-wire vulnerable to 10,000 cannon while their benefactors march in the street against such a courageous presence and their corrupt politicians talk of a third way, it is long time to come home. Under the present radical mood in America, redeployment is the stale option — complete withdrawal along the Philippines or Panama model being the more preferred solution. [...]

"If we do not want a 'Made in America' solution, let's find out how to resolve the issues of North Korea and Iran," declared Condoleezza Rice, the US national security adviser, during a visit to London.

She tried to play down the prospect of a war against Iran, saying: "We do not ever want to have to deal with the proliferation issue as we did in Iraq." But her comments had strong echoes of the blunt talking that surrounded the debate before the Iraq war.

Accusing Iran of seeking secretly to build nuclear weapons, and vowing that North Korea would not be allowed to "blackmail" the world with threats to resume its nuclear programme, Miss Rice said the US sought international co-operation.

She said Iran's programme was best dealt with by convincing the nation to agree to intrusive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. North Korea was best addressed by regional powers exerting pressure.

But Miss Rice, who leaves for the Middle East today, pointedly did not rule out military action. "The avoidance of war is not in itself a final goal," she said. "Sometimes one has to fight wars to deal with tyrants."

Later Miss Rice added: "We want a multi-lateral solution. But we do want a solution.

"Post 9/11, the sense of urgency to have solutions to these problems has grown. The absence of action is not a solution. Sometimes multi-lateralism is code for not acting."

Addressing the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Miss Rice delivered a thinly-veiled attack on Jacques Chirac, the French president, and his desire to create a "multi-polar" world in which Europe acts as a counter-weight to America.

She described the notion of competing poles as a destructive throw-back to European rivalry in the 19th century.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer also said that in Canberra's view, other nations' sovereignty was "not absolute."

The assertive new doctrine outlined by Downer came a day after Australia announced it would lead an international force of troops and police to restore order to the violence-wracked Solomon Islands in the southwest Pacific.

Downer's speech reflected comments late last year by Prime Minister John Howard that Australia would be prepared to launch pre-emptive strikes against terror targets in Asia -- words that sparked outrage in Asia.

Downer's doctrine is likely to cause further unease among Australia's Asian neighbors. For example, Mahathir Mohamad, prime minister of Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim nation and longtime critic of Australia, has accused Howard of acting like a deputy sheriff to President Bush.

The impact of international terrorism was brought home to Australia on Oct. 12 when 88 of its citizens were among 202 people killed in the bombings on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

Australia's decision to send 2,000 troops to support the U.S.-lead war in Iraq without U.N. sanction "has signaled that we are prepared to take the hard decisions to enhance our security," Downer said in a nationally televised address to the National Press Club.

"Some multilateral institutions will remain important to our interests," he said. "But increasingly multilateralism is a synonym for an ineffective and unfocused policy involving internationalism of the lowest common denominator."

He added: "We are prepared to join coalitions of the willing that can bring focus and purpose to addressing the urgent security and other challenges we face. ... Sovereignty in our view is not absolute. Acting for the benefit of humanity is more important."[...]

"The notion that on the one hand Hamas is peaceful and on the other hand is trying to blow up the peace process is just illogical and, we're saying, will not work."

Other radical groups like Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and "all of the other rejectionists" should also be targeted, she said.

Rice also drove home Washington's warnings to North Korea and Iran over their nuclear programmes. "The North Koreans will have to be stopped and the world will have to stop them," she said. "Blackmail will not work. You will simply isolate yourselves further."

On Iran, which Washington suspects may be secretly developing nuclear weapons, she was equally blunt: "The world should not tolerate any attempt by Iran to get nuclear weapons." [...]

The statement "urged Iraqis to stay away from U.S. forces for their own safety because the group planned further attacks in the near future," Jazeera said, showing a copy of the brief statement in Arabic.[...]

"In order for there to be peace, Hamas must be dismantled," Bush said at a joint news conference with the European Union leadership.

Bush called on the nations of the European Union to cut off funding and support of Hamas and other militant Mideast groups to enhance the prospects of peace in the region. (European Union summit)

"Progress toward this goal will only be possible if all sides do all in their power to defeat the determined enemies of peace, such as Hamas and other terrorist groups," Bush said.

"Nearly every hopeful moment in the region, nearly every sign of progress toward peace, is followed by more murders in the guise of martyrdom, as those who oppose peace do all they can to destroy the hopes and aspirations of those who desire to live in peace."

Bush made his comments after Palestinian officials said they reached a cease-fire agreement with Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas, to suspend attacks against Israelis for three months. (Full story)

Asked about the reports of the cease-fire, Bush said, "I'll believe it when I see it, knowing the history of the terrorists in the Middle East.

"It's one thing to make a verbal agreement, but in order for there to be peace in the Middle East, we must see organizations such as Hamas dismantled. And then we'll have peace, then we'll have a chance for peace," he said.

"The true tests for Hamas and terrorist organizations is the complete dismantlement of their terrorist networks, their capacity to blow up the peace process." [...]

The statement, unprecedented in an organization which had called for the eventual destruction of Israel, closely followed reports by both Israeli and Egyptian officials that Hamas is on the brink of declaring a cease-fire with Israel.

Hamas has come under intense, Egyptian, Palestinian, European and American pressure in recent weeks to curb terrorism against Israel, enabling the road map to move forward.

"What is the point in speaking in rhetoric," said Abu Shanab, "lets be frank, we cannot destroy Israel. The practical solution is for us to have a state along side Israel."

One of five top officials of the group, Abu Shanab is known as a moderate among Hamas ranks. The moderate tenor of his statements have often conflicted with the inciting rhetoric of the more militant Hamas leaders like the group's number two, Abdel Aziz Rantici.

According to Hamas political insiders, last week's attempted assassination of Hamas number two, Abdel Aziz Rantici, also indicated that Israel is no longer willing to distinguish between the group's political and military wings, effectively lifting an invisible blanket of immunity from many of its leaders.

"When we build a palestinan state," Abu Shanab, an engineer by trade continued, "we will not need these militias; all the needs for attack [against Israel] will stop. Everything will change into a civil life."

"[The future Palestinian state] is not one that is to take place of Israel" he said.

He noted that the Palestinian state he envisions will not supercede Israel "but one that lives with it," largely because it could face destruction in a full-scale war against Israel. "Israel's balance of power is much greater than the whole Arab world combined. It is strong enough to make for stability for the rest of our lives, and beyond that as well," he said. [...]

There are reports of many having been wounded and a few killed by Bassiji vigilante forces, but no sign of the protests slowing down. Also, the protests have now spilled into more areas than the streets around Tehran University. There are rumors that the youth of Naziabad, one of the poorest and traditionally most religious sections of Tehran, have extended their support to the students and offered to do the dirty fighting for them. Even in the well-to-do northern residential areas of town young and old have taken to the streets in support of the uprising.[...]

But anti-Americanism here is staid. Tired of theocratic hard-line rule, the people are happy to get whatever help they can from abroad. The opposition radio and satellite television are widely used even in the poorer sections of Tehran. Accusations of American backing actually have given courage to the demonstrators. Unlike the streets of Paris, Berlin or Berkeley, anti-Americanism is not fashionable in Tehran. The regime, having adopted it for the past twenty-five years since the Islamic Revolution, has beaten the life out of it.

People are encouraged by the presence of U.S. in both the East (Afghanistan) and the West (Iraq) of Iran.[...]

The decision validates the policy that allows those in admissions offices at the law school to not only take race into consideration, but to weight it more than other factors, such as grade point average and test scores on standardized law school entrance examinations.

Critics of the system said the process mirrored that of a quota system, while supporters say the process adds to a more diverse student body.

The Bush administration even weighed in on the legal process, filing legal briefs in opposition of the policy.

Justices may also weigh in on the school's undergraduate admission policy. The facts in that case are nearly identical to those of the law school case.

Our Apology
By Stephen Berger
FrontPageMagazine.com | June 23, 2003

Following the latest atrocity in Jerusalem, Secretary of State Powell urged the Palestinians to issue some form of denunciation.

Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas complained that only the Palestinian side is ever required to denounce terror.

Predictably, the Palestinian denunciation later mumbles that they "deplore the murder of civilians on both sides."

Perhaps the Palestinians have a point, and so to set the record straight, I do hereby denounce the following in the name of the Jewish people:

1. All Jewish suicide bombers who have ever acted against Arabs.

2. All Arab buses blown up by Jews.

3. All Arab pizza parlors, malls, discotheques and restaurants destroyed by Jewish terrorists.

4. All airplanes hijacked by Jews since 1903.

5. All Ramadan feasts targeted by Jewish bombs.

6. All Arabs lynched in Israeli cities; all Arab Olympic athletes murdered by Jews; all Arab embassies bombed by Jews.

7. All mosques, cemeteries and religious schools fire bombed or desecrated by Jews in North Africa, France, Belgium, Germany, England or any other country.

8. The destruction of American military, governmental and civilian institutions in Kenya, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen - >> along with the murder of U.S.Marines and diplomatic personnel.
9. All Jewish school books which claim that Arabs poison wells, use Christian blood to bake pita, control world finance, and murdered Jesus; or that Arab elders meet secretly to plot a world takeover.

10. And I am particularly ashamed at the way my fellow Jews attacked the World Trade Center, Pentagon and civilian aircraft on September 11th and danced in the streets to celebrate the act.

Prof. Stephen Berger works at the Tel Aviv Medical Center.

When you are confronted with the collected anti-Semitisms of the post-11 September Arab world, what is most striking is the weirdness of journalists and politicians raiding the ancient political sewers of old Europe for arguments. Take the example of what is called the 'blood libel'. This is the old medieval story of how Jews kidnap Christians, kill them and use their blood in arcane rituals. We had a spate of these tales in England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and many Jews lost their lives as a result.

So what on earth is the blood libel doing in a column in the respected Egyptian mass daily paper Al-Ahram, in a book by the Syrian defence minister and in broadcast sermons from various Palestinian mosques? The libel in question is the 1840 Damascus case, in which several Jews (including a David Harari) 'confessed' to the Ottoman authorities - under torture - to kidnapping a priest and stealing his blood.

Holocaust denial is another widespread feature of Arab discourse, but for different reasons. In a school in Gaza, a middle-aged teacher of English interrupted my interview of several of his pupils, and launched into a tirade against the Jews. Were they not behind all wars? Had they not caused trouble wherever they were? Had they not caused troubles even for the Germans? 'When?' I asked him. 'Before the reign of Hitler,' the teacher replied. [...]

The answer to this dilemma is to accept that whatever we do, we shall be blamed for either too little or too much attention. Such are the inevitable wages of envy and resentment that the successful always earn from the weak and failed. That being said, there are also a number of other reasons why at the present juncture we must press ahead, contain our anger, and try to finish the nearly impossible — and absolutely thankless — task of defeating terrorists, and in Afghanistan and Iraq restoring humane government to tyrannized people.

First, the events of September 11 demonstrate that Clintonian lip biting and a few cruise missiles amid Middle East aggression earns disdain, not thanks, for magnanimity. Leave a Taliban Afghanistan alone or let Saddam's Iraq be, and in a decade you win 20,000 al Qaeda operatives training with impunity and the sons of Saddam re-armed with nuclear weapons, unless one prefers another twelve years of 350,000 sorties and $20 billion in no-fly-zones — three or four times over. The Middle East is not static and will not cease its anti-Americanism if left to its own good graces — inasmuch as the conditions that promote terror do not derive from American provocation, but arise out of indigenous pathologies.

Second, neither is the Islamic world isolationist. Arabs and Near Eastern Muslims in the millions are desperate to emigrate to the United States and Europe. Fundamentalist clerics, mullahs, and theocrats are free to live within the confines of the Koran and in medieval bliss without their cell phones, antibiotics, glasses, televisions — and sophisticated weapons — that are either imported or indigenously produced on borrowed Western designs. But they do not — and will not.

So the problem is with their hypocritical and vocal leadership, not us — specifically their ambiguous relationship with the West and their creepy desire for Western material comforts, but not the underlying foundations of secularism, gender equity, consensual government, freedom, capitalism, and transparency that alone produce such prosperity. The best way to get America and the West out of millions of Islamic lives is not to burn effigies of George Bush in the Arab Street, but would be for Arab governments to prohibit immigration to the West, to stop importing Western material goods, and to bar decadent Westerners from entering Arab countries.

Any takers? The bitter truth is that the Middle East wants the West far more than the West the Middle East.[...]

Israel is now completely at war with Palestinian terror groups, no less than America is at war with al-Qaida worldwide and Saddam Hussein loyalists in Iraq.

Hence, Israel must escalate its rules of engagement, mimicking those recently established by American forces in our own war against terror waged in Iraq and Afghanistan. As such, Israel should pre-emptively and unrelentingly eliminate Hamas and company where they stand as soon as they are identified or self-identify.

By "eliminate," I mean kill.

By "as soon as they self-identify," I mean as soon as parading militants don the green-masked and explosive-bedecked uniform of a suicide bomber, or publicly proclaim themselves as waiting for orders to do so, whether the militant is beating his chest in a rally or cradling a megaphone in a press conference.

By "where they stand," I mean wherever they are located - in a car, in a training camp or in a public protest procession. Israel must hit Hamas members while marching in uniform in the West Bank and Gaza before they change clothes into Hassidic garb and Israeli pop attire and then board buses in Jerusalem.[...]

“He’s the only client I ever fired in writing. He was the most difficult human being I’ve ever met. There was no one who even came close.

“Michael Moore would never withstand the scrutiny he lays on other people. You would think that he’s the ultimate common man. But he’s money-obsessed.”

Fund, meanwhile, believes that much of the cultural establishment has given Moore gentler treatment than he deserves, because his left-wing views reflect their own. “Mr Moore’s allies have basically defended him with silence,” Fund told me. “He is getting a pass because he’s frankly indefensible. I’m not saying he’s not funny, but he’s irresponsible with the facts.”[...]

Sadoun says that during the war he was meant to view our reports before allowing them to be sent by satellite to London for transmission. He claims he never did. He just provided the necessary stamp on the paperwork.

That had been pretty obvious as the Americans closed in on Baghdad. The information ministry wanted to repudiate claims that the airport was on the point of being taken. Sadoun got permission for us to go and film the "quiet" airport.

The moment we arrived American artillery opened up on the place, and we took shelter in a dugout with several Iraqi soldiers. Sadoun made two half-hearted attempts to stop us filming.

We are opposed to the existence of the apartheid colonial settler state of Israel, as it is based on the racist ideology of Zionism and is an expression of colonialism and imperialism, and we stand for the total liberation of all of historic Palestine. As an anti-racist, anti-imperialist movement, we support equality and justice for all peoples and all religious identities.[emphasis mine]

As a solidarity movement, we are committed to working fully in support of the Palestinian people's resistance movement. We unconditionally support Palestinians' human right to resist occupation and oppression by any means necessary. We are committed to building unity at local, national and international levels in order to provide the international support needed by the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation, and we invite all that share this commitment to join us in struggle.

New Jerseyans who oppose making state facilities available to supporters of terrorists and terrorism should contact Gov. James McGreevey (e-mail address found at http://www.state.nj.us/governor/govmail.html) and any other state officials they know. McGreevey attempted to effectively strip Amiri Baraka of his poet laureate post several months ago, so he may be willing to work against Rutgers' hosting this conference. Alumni of Rutgers may also consider contacting their alma mater and promising to withhold annual giving contributions if the university goes ahead with its plans.

As a journalist specializing on Middle East history, I urge you to refocus on the goals you brilliantly outlined on June 24, 2002. We must not ask Israel to negotiate for a Palestinian State until the renewed terrorist attacks stop and the terrorist infrastructure is dismantled.

Hamas is not at war with the Palestinian Authority, despite a PR campaign to the contrary. The PA has worked actively with Hamas for years. In 1995, it wrote a pact with the Islamist terrorists in Hamas. Mahmoud Abbas’ protests are evidently for show. On March 3 of this year, Abbas urged that violence continue.

A draft of the Hamas-PA pact, appended below, ran on Sept. 20, 1995 in Egypt’s Al-Ahram government weekly. Article 12 requires the PA to cease all preventive security and let Hamas operate without PA interference. The agreement gives Hamas a role in the PA government, which Abu Mazen fulfilled by naming a Hamas partisan as education minister.

Indeed, PLO political chief Farouq Al-Qaddoumi confirmed on Jan. 3, 2003, Fatah was “never different from Hamas… Strategically, we are no different from it.”[...]

"It would not be enough in the long term for Hamas to say they were not going to do it (stage terror attacks) right now (but) were not going to give up the capability. Ultimately these terrorist groups have to not only stop committing terrorist attacks but we'd have to eliminate their capability to do so," Powell told reporters while en route to Cambodia. "That has to be one of the goals as we move forward in the road map." [...]

Why?

Because it scares us more -- and by "us" I mean the more powerful elites in Israel, including those who work in the media. The dirty little secret of Israel's upper-middle and upper classes is that we know that our odds of getting hit in an attack are greatly reduced -- not eliminated, but reduced -- by our socioeconomic status.[...]

Indeed, in the two months before Election Day '96, the Times ran no stories on its front page about Paula Jones, the Rose Law Firm, Hillary's billing records and only lightly covered Whitewater.

Here's the story:[...]

The radical approach to Italy's asylum problem was outlined by a senior minister in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's coalition government.

Reforms Minister Umberto Bossi said he was sick of illegal immigrants and wanted to hear "the blast of cannons".

"After the second or third warning, bang... we fire the cannon," Mr Bossi told Corriere della Sera newspaper.

"Without too much talking. A cannon to knock out whoever may be there.

"Otherwise, we're never going to put an end to this problem."

Asked whether it would be right to fire on immigrants who are generally unarmed women and children, Mr Bossi was firm.

"Whether they're good or bad, one way or the other illegal immigrants have got to be chased away," he said.

"The navy and coastguard should defend our shores and use their cannons to do it.

"That's the best way to enforce the law. No deferring or turning back."

Until now, the Italian navy has only been permitted to board boats at sea and escort them back to port, in line with international practice.

Mr Bossi's comments come in the wake of a recent surge in illegal immigration from north and central Africa.

More than 1,000 people have landed in southern Italy in the last three days and nearly 3,000 so far in June.

Mr Bossi, who heads the right-wing Northern League party, threatened that if the government didn't start taking a harder line, he would pull his support for the coalition.

"Whether the government's allies agree or not, I want to hear the sound of the cannons by the end of the week or I'm off," he said.

The timing of the MKO raid is interesting, too. This was a very big raid on a group that had been operating a branch openly in France until now. In the past the group operated, from Iraqi soil, with the blessing and support of Saddam Hussein. But now that Saddam is gone maybe the French decided they needed to to a kind act to ingratiate themselves with the equally odious Ayatollahs of Iran.[...]

''They missed a good opportunity to shut up,'' Berlusconi told reporters in response to French criticism of his decision not to meet Palestinian leaders during a recent trip to Israel.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said this week that Berlusconi had ''not satisfied the European position'' by holding talks only with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon during his June 9 visit to Jerusalem.

''I went (to Israel) as the prime minister of Italy. There's no way France can issue criticism over something that was the sole right and responsibility of the Italian prime minister,'' Berlusconi said, clearly bristling with irritation.

Bush's goal may appear to be just another diplomatic twist in the half-century search for an Arab-Israeli resolution. But it is much more. Indeed, it could well be the most surprising and daring step of his presidency. Here's why:[...]

Police say three armed suspects walked into the Mr. Insurance building in Phoenix and demanded money. A fourth suspect was in the getaway car, according to the report.

Investigators said after the suspects left with the store's money, the co-owner jumped into his Hummer and chased after the suspects.

Police said that the man, identified only as Peter, followed the suspects through a neighborhood and eventually caught up with them. He then rolled his Hummer over their car.

Two of the suspects were taken to the hospital in critical condition.

The two other suspects managed to get away but police later caught them as well.

It is not known if Peter will face charges.

Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh said the EU needed to establish whether putting Hamas on its terrorist list while seeking its agreement to a cease-fire was the right strategy.

And de Villepin made a distinction between "mass movements" and "terrorists." "It is in our interest to have Palestinian interlocutors, I distrust a strategy based on cutting off dialogue," he said.[...]

Despite his optimism about talks being led by Egypt, there was no sign on Monday that Hamas and other groups spearheading armed resistance to Israeli occupation were ready to back down.

The EU's outgoing Middle East peace envoy, Miguel Angel Moratinos, told Spain's El Pais daily on Monday the bloc should add Hamas to its terrorist groups list because a political agreement would be impossible "if they carry on bombing."

But Villepin dismissed the envoy's comment, noting: "He's at the end of his mandate."

He also sniped at Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for visiting only his Israeli counterpart, Ariel Sharon, and not Palestinian leaders during a recent visit to the region. "Mr. Berlusconi did not live up to the European position," he said.

At the weekend Villepin had raised the possibility of sending an EU peacekeeping force to the occupied territories to halt the Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed.

Although the Palestinians have welcomed the idea of an interposition force in the past, Shaath was not enthusiastic, and there was a cool reception from France's EU partners.

One security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said two police officers were killed in a shootout at a checkpoint shortly before a fierce gun battle erupted during a raid on a bomb-filled, booby-trapped apartment late Saturday.

The Saudi Interior Ministry released a statement saying the raid occurred at an apartment building in the al-Khalidiya district, about three miles from the main Mecca mosque, at 9:30 p.m.

The statement said police clashed with a "group of terrorists...(who) were preparing an imminent terrorist act." No details of the alleged plot were given.

Five suspected militants died in the gunbattle initiated by the "terrorists," the statement said without giving their nationalities. Five security agents and four bystanders were slightly injured.

The statement said the apartment was booby-trapped and ready to explode. Some 72 bombs of different sizes were found with numerous other weapons, including semiautomatic rifles, knives, communication devices, bomb-making materials and masks.[...]

''The free world and those who love freedom and peace must deal harshly with Hamas and the killers,'' Bush told reporters when asked whether Israel was justified in recent attacks against the group.

''That's just the way it is in the Middle East,'' he said as he left Sunday services at First Congregational Church in Kennebunkport.

The remarks were his most extensive on the situation in the Middle East since a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence last week threw his peace ''road map'' into turmoil, and they intensified earlier calls for action against Hamas.

Hamas has defied the Palestinian Authority and rejected the road map as too generous to Israel. It claimed responsibility for the most lethal incident in the current outbreak, a suicide bombing in Jerusalem on Wednesday which killed 17.

The Bush administration had criticized Israel for trying to assassinate a Hamas leader on Tuesday, but trained its sights on Hamas in the wake of the Jerusalem bombing and complaints from pro-Israel groups in the United States.

Bush said the United States was helping the Palestinian Authority reconstitute a security force to take on Hamas, but declined to say if Washington would provide arms or money.

U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the Republican chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, ''clearly, if force is required ultimately to root out terrorism, it is possible there would be American participation.''

Asked if that meant such troops would go after Hamas or other groups, he said, ''That may be the conclusion.''

''...It may not be just Hamas but clearly Hamas is right in the gunsights,'' he added.[...]

Some 30 years ago, Coleman was a rock group roadie for the band Ten Years After, setting up the stage and steadying the bass amplifier during concerts for the 1960s musicians.

Today, Coleman is a roadie of a different sort. The freshman senator, one of only three Jewish Republican members of Congress, is traveling around the country appealing to Jewish groups to support President George W. Bush and hoping to reverse a nearly century-long trend of Jewish support for Democrats.

The Democrat-turned-Republican talks up Bush's efforts to combat terrorism and the president's support for Israel, but Coleman also focuses on his own personal transformation, a Brooklyn-born Jew who switched parties, in hopes of swaying Jewish voters.

"Compassionate conservatism is a Jewish ethic," the senator tells his audiences.

Coleman has made nine appearances before Jewish groups in states such as Florida and California since taking office in January, the kind of activity - and destinations - that would put Coleman in position for any political leap in 2008 if Bush is re-elected.

Coleman, who makes another appearance later this month, says he hasn't coordinated his schedule with the White House, but expects to when the campaign gets into full swing.

The 53-year-old senator, who jokes that before he went to college - "I never met either a Republican or a Lutheran" - gives his testimonial with the passion of a convert.

"I became a Republican to make come to life the ideals I had as a Democrat," Coleman told a gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Washington last month. "I believe in equality and social justice. The key to justice and equality is for mom and dad to have a job." [...]

Reuters presents no facts, however, to support its inference that the Belgium attack is somehow "linked to violence in the Middle East." It's pure conjecture--or should we say editorializing?

Nevertheless, tactical victory and military dominance have not yet led to strategic victory. Israel, it is true, is relatively safe from conventional enemies, but not from suicide bombers, assorted terrorists, and the exhausting Intifada. Its enemies wisely turned to an asymmetrical, postmodern struggle in which the Arab world and Europe — thanks to the global media, political calculation, Western postcolonial guilt, fear of terror, oil worries, and old-fashioned anti-Semitism — would reinvent killers into freedom fighters. Meanwhile, the Palestinian street adopted a sort of nihilism that their own ongoing wretchedness was worth it if at least a modicum of the same misery might be imparted to the Jews.[...]

In your new book, Living History, you correctly note that when you asked me to help you and Bill avert defeat in the congressional election of 1994 I was reluctant to do so. But then you assert, incorrectly, that my reluctance stemmed from difficulties in working with your staff. You even misquote me as telling you: "I don't like the way I was treated, Hillary. People were so mean to me."

As you know, I never said anything of the sort. I had, in fact, no experience in dealing with either your staff or the President's at that point, and had not yet met Leon Panetta or George Stephanopoulos. My prior dealing with Harold Ickes had been twenty five years earlier.

The real reason I was reluctant was that Bill Clinton had tried to beat me up in May of 1990 as he, you, Gloria Cabe, and I were together in the Arkansas governor's mansion. At the time, Bill was worried that he was falling behind his democratic primary opponent and verbally assaulted me for not giving his campaign the time he felt it deserved. Offended by his harsh tone, I turned and stalked out of the room.

Bill ran after me, tackled me, threw me to the floor of the kitchen in the mansion and cocked his fist back to punch me. You grabbed his arm and, yelling at him to stop and get control of himself, pulled him off me. Then you walked me around the grounds of the mansion in the minutes after, with your arm around me, saying, "He only does that to people he loves."

I continued to work for Bill since I felt a responsibility to do so until Election Day in 1990. But our relationship was never close and never the same. After the 1990 campaign we parted ways as a direct result of the altercation.

When the story threatened to surface during the 1992 campaign, you told me to "say it never happened."

That, and not the invented conversation in your memoir, was the reason that I was reluctant to work for Bill again.

Yours,

Dick Morris

The confrontation had seemed almost inevitable for months. And for a team of Israeli officials considering a clampdown on international activists disrupting IDF operations in Gaza, the suicide bombing of the Mike’s Place bar in Tel Aviv in late April, in which three people were killed, was the last straw.

For several weeks, top administrators from the Foreign and Interior Ministries, the police, and the defense establishment had already been meeting to frame new guidelines. Their work was prompted by a string of serious clashes with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), mainly in the Gaza town of Rafah, resulting in the death of at least one activist at army hands.

But now, say Israeli officials, things had taken a major shift for the worse. Their inquiries showed that the two suicide bombers involved in the Mike’s Place attack, both British nationals, had actually been hosted by ISM. "For us," says the Foreign Ministry’s Information Chief Gideon Meir, "that was the turning point." Defying army bulldozers was one thing; providing cover for suicide bombers to slip into the country quite another.[...]

At the start of the interview, from Gaza, which began at noon, Hania was asked about the possibility that Israel might try to harm Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. "These threats don't frighten Hamas or the Palestinian people, because the occupation has already made use of everything at its disposal to end the intifada and the Palestinian resistance," he said. . . .

At this point, while still responding to the interviewer's first question, Hania can be heard saying, "I must end the interview now because I hear helicopters."

As the President said after the bombing in Jerusalem, "It is clear that there are those in the Middle East who hate peace." We know who they are because they have declared themselves: Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizbollah and Yasser Arafat's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

There can be no peace with someone who wants to kill you. The terrorist entities on the Palestinian side of the conflict want exactly that. The Road Map powers have put Israel in an impossible position. No government in the world can fail to respond when its civilians are murdered. Since the Palestinian Authority is completely unable (and probably unwilling) to keep its terrorist armies and allies in check, someone else has to do it. The regrettable statement by the President condemning Israel's wholly justified military response to Hamas's first military attack shows that the Road Map powers do not want Israel to protect itself, nor to disarm the terrorists. Therefore, it is morally incumbent on the Road Map powers to do it themselves. Only that way can real peace negotiations begin.[...]

But the White House, while rebuking Israel Wednesday for trying to assassinate a Hamas leader, Thursday put the blame for the violence on Palestinian militants.

"The issue is not Israel, the issue is not the Palestinian Authority (news - web sites), the issue is the terrorists who are killing in an attempt to stop the (peace) process," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites).

"The issue is Hamas, the terrorists are Hamas," he said.[...]

Israel: Sheik Yassin Also In The Crosshairs
Aaron Lerner Date: 10 June 2003

Israel Television Channel 2 correspondent Udi Segal reported this evening that Israeli officials say that in addition to Hamas leader Rantissi, Israel has been decided to kill the top man in the Hamas, Sheik Yassin.

Speaking earlier on Channel 2, MK Yuval Steinitz, the head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said that the Government of Israel would be shirking its duty and obligation to the citizens of Israel if it stood by with its arms folded just because the Palestinians are thinking about talking about having some kind of time out.

Steinitz said that President Bush would never take such a stand regarding American citizens facing terror, noting that the difference between Israeli and American operations is that while Israel waited for an opportunity to hit Rantissi with a minimum of peripheral damage, an American operation would have simply dropped a bomb on the top of Rantissi's house, killing
everyone there.

Dubai Al-Arabiyah Television in Arabic, an independent television station financed by Arab businessmen, at 0950 GMT on 10 June carries an interview with Al-Arabiyah TV correspondent in Gaza, Sayf al-Din Shahin to discuss the situation in Gaza following the Israeli attempt on HAMAS leader Abd-al-Aziz al-Rantisi. The correspondent says: "I learned a short while ago that the Israeli Army and Government have asked the representatives of the diplomatic missions, consuls, and foreigners in Gaza to leave the city. We do not know whether this request means that Israeli escalation will continue or that Israel will launch new attacks on Gaza."

Israel Government: STATEMENT ON ABDUL AZIZ RANTISI
(Communicated by the Israel Government Press Office)
Tuesday, June 10, 2003

Abdul Aziz Rantisi is among the most extremist leaders of the criminal Hamas organization in Gaza. He has preached and directed murder, sabotage, terror and incitement for many years.

Since the Aqaba summit, and in order to wreck the process begun at Aqaba, Rantisi has stepped up his murderous activities, both openly and covertly; this has found expression - inter alia - in the awful act of terror that was perpetrated recently at Erez checkpoint. The State of Israel has every reason to assume that Rantisi's criminal activities will increase.

The Palestinian Authority has been well aware of Rantisi's activities for some time but is taking no action to stop them. Thus, the State of Israel has been compelled to protect its citizens and try to halt this arch-terrorist's murderous actions, the danger of which is increasing.

Is this because NPR believes that Israelis, even women and children on a Tel Aviv bus, are not "innocents," or perhaps that, by definition, those who attack Israelis cannot be terrorists? While some might consider these possibilities farfetched, NPR's online style guide for reporters suggests otherwise. In the guide, available here, NPR instructs that the word terrorism "connotes" that the victims are "innocents," clearly indicating that if the victims of an attack are not innocent, then the attack is not terror. To drive the point home, NPR's definition then explicitly questions whether Palestinian attacks against Israelis should be termed terrorism:

terrorism, terrorist — Terrorism is the act of causing terror, usually for political purposes, and it connotes that the terror is perpetrated on innocents. Thus, the bombing of a civilian airliner clearly is a terrorist act, but an attack on an army convoy, even if away from the battlefield, is not. Do not ape government usage. The Israeli government, for instance, routinely refers to PLO actions as terrorist. A journalist should use independent criteria to judge whether the term is accurate. [Emphasis added.]

If this is what NPR reporters and hosts are taught and are expected to follow, then it is little surprise that the attacks in Saudi Arabia and Morocco, which clearly targeted innocent civilians, were routinely described by NPR employees as terror perpetrated by terrorists. Here are some examples (we do not count instances in which NPR guests used the word terror — the issue is how NPR uses the word):[...]

The failure of the last round was foreshadowed at its very start, on Sept. 13, 1993 - the day of the famous handshake between arch-enemies Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn and the signing of the Oslo accord.

Less famously, the initiative's death knell came at the same moment, as a pre-recorded speech by Arafat to the Palestinians rolled on Jordanian television: Arafat avoided any mention of peace with Israel or the renunciation of terrorism, the central premises of that day's agreement. Instead, he explained how his having signed the Oslo accord fit into the context of destroying Israel.

Arafat reminded viewers of a decision by the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1974 to establish "a national authority on any part of Palestinian soil that is liberated or from which the Israelis withdraw." He presented the Oslo accord as a step toward the piecemeal dismantling of Israel.

In response, Rabin should have immediately put a stop to the negotiations. He should have declared the just-signed agreement void because Arafat had breached its core principle - Palestinian acceptance of the Jewish state. Rabin should have suspended his part of the bargain until Arafat spoke again to renounce violence and accept the permanent existence of Israel.

But Rabin, of course, did no such thing, not then and not at any other time during the remainder of his prime ministry, despite myriad cases of incitement and violence. Nor did his successors. To the contrary: Israelis showed themselves so indifferent to violence directed against themselves that - even as the violence continued - they withdrew from the large part of the West Bank and Gaza.

Hamas vowed revenge and threatened to kill Israeli political leaders in reprisal for the attack on Abdel Aziz Rantisi, the most high-profile leader of the Islamic militant group to be targeted by Israel in 32 months of fighting.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas told Palestinian Satellite TV the helicopter strike was a "terrorist attack" and accused Israel of undermining the "road map" peace plan.

The attack is likely to weaken Abbas as he tries to bring Hamas back into negotiations on halting anti-Israeli attacks, four days after the group broke off talks, accusing Abbas of making too many concessions to Israel.

Egyptian mediators were pressing ahead with efforts to persuade Hamas to call a cease-fire. The Egyptian intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, was to arrive for talks with Hamas as scheduled Wednesday in the West Bank.

Hamas participated Sunday in a rare joint operation with Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades to kill four Israeli soldiers at an army outpost in Gaza. Hamas has killed hundreds of Israelis in bombings and shootings in the fighting.

Some Hamas leaders said before Tuesday's strike they were considering resuming truce talks. After the strike, however, Hamas threatened to target Israeli politicians in revenge.

"An eye for an eye ... a politician for a politician," said one Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar. Palestinians "must throw the road map into the garbage and commit to the map of holy war."

Speaking to reporters from his hospital bed in Gaza, Rantisi said the deaths caused by the strike "deserve to be retaliated for. But we must all remember that our war is not a war of retribution. We are resisting an occupation that has raped the land and sacrificed the holy sites."

"We will continue with our holy war and resistance until every last criminal Zionist is evicted from this land," Rantisi said.

Abbas said in a statement that attacks like the strike "obstruct and sabotage the political process." The "road map" for Mideast peace and Palestinian statehood by 2005 was launched last week by Bush, Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) at a summit in Jordan.

Bush "is deeply troubled by the strike," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) said. "The president is concerned that the strike will undermine efforts by Palestinian Authorities and others to bring an end to terrorist attacks, and does not contribute to the security of Israel."

Israeli security officials confirmed that Rantisi was the target of the strike.

Israel's Government Press Office called Rantisi an "arch-terrorist" bent on wrecking the plan affirmed at the Jordan summit. Since the summit, "Rantisi has stepped up his murderous activities, both openly and covertly," the statement said.

Israel sent mixed messages with its actions Tuesday. On the one hand, Israeli troops dismantled 10 tiny, uninhabited settlement outposts in the West Bank overnight, in line with the first requirements of the peace plan.

Israel has accused Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) of trying to undercut Abbas in trying to negotiate a truce. Israel Radio on Tuesday quoted Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz as saying Israel may soon expel Arafat, a step that, according to Israeli reports, has been blocked by the United States.

The attack on Rantisi further weakened Abbas, who has been criticized at home for pledging to end the "armed intefadeh" while getting little in return from Israel.

The road map says Israel must refrain from actions that undermine trust, but does not specifically rule out the targeted killings of Palestinian militants.

Israel accepted the plan last month but reserved the practice of targeted killings to "ticking bomb" scenarios, as a last means of preventing attacks on Israelis.

Rantisi, a political leader of Hamas and its frequent spokesman, has been careful to deny all knowledge of the military wing's actions.

The attack on Rantisi, a pediatrician, began before noon Tuesday, when three Israeli Apache helicopter gunships appeared over the skies of Gaza City. In quick succession, they fired seven missiles toward Rantisi's Jeep Pajero as it drove in a crowded thoroughfare near a 16-story apartment building.

"I opened the door and jumped out immediately," Rantisi said.

The vehicle burst into flames and was reduced to a scorched pile of metal.

A witness, bread vendor Salim Abdullah, 23, said the first missile missed Rantisi's car.

"The doctor (Rantisi) ran from the car. One of the helicopters started firing machine guns at him while he was running. At the time, I was hiding next to a wall. I saw the doctor bleeding," said Abdullah, who also was injured.

A Rantisi bodyguard and a 44-year-old woman were killed, said Dr. Moawiya Hassanain, director of Shifa Hospital.

Twenty-seven people. including Rantisi's son, Ahmed, and three bodyguards, were hurt. Three bystanders were in critical condition, Hassanain said.

Thousands of Hamas supporters crowded the hospital courtyard after the missile strike, chanting slogans against Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, as Hamas gunmen fired in the air.

"Abu Mazen, we want resistance!" the crowd shouted. "We will not give up! We will not cooperate with the Zionists!"

Sharon has only reluctantly accepted the three-stage road map. Sharon has said he would meet Israel's obligations, but has been evasive about full compliance with the first step — the dismantling of dozens of settlement outposts established in the West Bank since he took office March 2001.

Israel was to remove five more outposts, including four populated ones, later Tuesday. Settler leaders said they would try to prevent those removals but would not use violence.

Settler rabbis said Tuesday that Sharon's decision to dismantle outposts was a "crime" and violated Jewish values.

Berlusconi met Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem shortly after arriving in Israel. They were due to hold a news conference after their talks.

Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas's office said Berlusconi, whose country is about to take over the European Union's rotating presidency, had decided not to meet Abbas after the new premier insisted he also see Arafat.

Sharon has avoided receiving foreign leaders whose visits include a meeting with Arafat, who Israel and the United States say is behind Palestinian violence. Arafat denies the charge.

''Mr Berlusconi cancelled his meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas because Abbas insisted the guest also meet with Arafat,'' Abbas's office said in a statement.

The Italian Embassy in Israel and the Italian government did not immediately comment. Arafat is holed up in his devastated headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

This kind of "discrepancy" qualifies as front-page news these days. Why? Not because the Bush administration may have -- repeat, may have -- exaggerated the extent of knowledge about what Hussein had in his WMD arsenal. No, the critics' real aim is to prove that, as a New York Times reporter recently put it, "the failure so far to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq may mean that there never were any in the first place."

The absurdity of this charge is mind-boggling. Yes, neither the CIA nor the U.N. inspectors have ever known exactly how many weapons Hussein had or how many he was building. But that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and the ability to produce more? That has never been in doubt.[...]

For several decades, the Algerian government has dealt with the Berbers, the descendants of Algeria's original inhabitants, the way most postcolonial governments in the Middle East and North Africa have dealt with ethnic and religious minorities-by attempting to buy them off, and when that has failed, by the blunt force of repression, in the hope that over time they would assimilate into the majority.[...]

The Palestinian gunmen, who were dressed as Israeli soldiers, opened fire at the Erez crossing, prompting Israeli soldiers to fire back, killing three, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Four others were injured in the attack, according to Israeli sources.

It is the first deadly attack since last week's summit in Aqaba, Jordan, between Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and U.S. President George W. Bush.

It came just hours after radical and militant Palestinian groups pledged to continue their armed intifada against Israel.

Three militant Palestinian groups -- Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades -- claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to journalists in Gaza. [...]

These sensational headlines are based on this sentence in the summary of the DIA report: "There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons."

But the report also said:

"Although we lack any direct information, Iraq probably possesses CW [chemical weapons] agent in chemical munitions, possibly including artillery rockets, artillery shells, aerial bombs and ballistic missile warheads. Baghdad also probably possesses bulk chemical stockpiles, primarily containing precursors, but that also could consist of some mustard agent or stabilized VX.

"Iraq is assessed to possess biological agent stockpiles that may be weaponized and ready for use. The size of those stockpiles is uncertain and subject to debate. The nature, size and condition of those stockpiles is also unknown.

The report noted "unusual munitions transfer activity in mid-2002," which "suggests that Iraq is distributing CW [chemical weapons] munitions in preparation for an anticipated attack.

"Iraq is steadily establishing a dual-use industrial chemical infrastructure that provides some of the building blocks necessary for production of chemical agents....Baghdad is rebuilding portions of its chemical production infrastructure under the guise of a civilian need for pesticides, chlorine and other legitimate chemical products, giving Iraq the potential for a small 'breakout' production capability."

In short, there is no story here at all. It is worth noting, too, that a particular concern expressed was Iraq's production of castor oil and chlorine in greater quantities than required for industrial purposes. Castor oil can be used to make ricin, a deadly poison for which there is no antidote. A gang of Islamofascists who were plotting to use ricin to commit acts of terrorism in England was broken up several months ago. Where they obtained their ricin has not been publicly revealed.

The scale of the lawlessness and thuggery would generate endless anguished editorials in the English-language press if France were Iraq, and if somehow the United States could be blamed for it. The demonstrators have barricaded roads and railway tracks, ransacked and occupied administrative buildings, set fires, reversed over one another with their cars, sealed off city centers, emptied garbage onto the streets and rendered public transportation throughout the country unusable. Air traffic has been brought to a halt. Demonstrators cut off power lines at the Gare de Lyon. Tourists have been stranded everywhere. The national railway company, the SNCF, has lost $140 million in six days.

This is not a loss the shaky French economy can tolerate. And why? Because the government has proposed to increase the number of years public sector employees must work to receive full retirement benefits, from 37.5 years to 40 years -- a move that would bring them in line with the private sector. Are these reforms necessary? You bet. Will France go broke if they're not implemented? Without a doubt -- retirees will account for a third of the French population by 2040, and the best projections suggest that if the reforms aren't implemented, France will be running a 50 billion Euro annual deficit by 2020. Have the reforms been proposed by a democratically-elected government? Indeed. Are they supported by the public at large? Yes. Pretty much everyone, save the demonstrators themselves, acknowledges that pension reform is necessary.

What's interesting, sociologically, is that the account given by the demonstrators of their behavior simply doesn't correspond to reality: There is no objective grievance commensurate with the scale of the violence. An especially interesting fact is that the violence has been whistled up and spearheaded by the transport workers, who are for the most part unreconstructed communists, and who would not be affected by the proposed reforms. Given that the ideology championed by the leaders of these protests has been, over and over again, completely discredited, how should we account for their influence? The only conclusion I can draw from this is that a segment of French society can be easily inspired to smash things for the fun of it. I wonder why.

With schools and government offices closed yesterday, Channel ferries halted, and airlines cancelling most of their flights to and from France, Mlle Herold called the union members 'reactionary egotists'

They "claim to defend public services but are just defending their own interests", she said.

With her pale blue mascara and long eyelashes, she makes an unlikely Joan of Arc. But her words have found an echo in large protests by students and parents against repeated strikes by teachers and threats to disrupt this summer's exam schedule.

She has also become an emblem for the many in French society who believe that economic reforms are long overdue. She blames President Jacques Chirac for caving in repeatedly during his career to union pressure. The many British travellers who have been affected by the strikes in France can only hope her campaign succeeds.[...]

Notes were passed. Admiring phrases were translated into Arabic. And when the unit was transferred to Fallujah several weeks ago, letters were written about the pain of parting.

Before they shipped out to the Middle East, US soldiers were warned of the dangers of offending Iraqi women, with some instructed not even to make eye contact. Sensitivity about interactions with women has continued to be a flashpoint in the American occupation: The ongoing bloodshed in Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim town west of Baghdad, has been fueled in part by a rumor that soldiers are ogling women's bodies with night-vision goggles, which cannot see through clothing.

But on the sultry streets of Baghdad, where 53,000 American troops are now stationed, soldiers are finding that their interactions with Iraqi women are leading to friendships and, in some cases, romance. With emotions running high during the weeks after Saddam Hussein's regime fell, some soldiers found that relationships developed naturally.

Affections were particularly warm outside the Baghdad Convention Center, where the cosmopolitan staff of the Iraqi Media Network, a television station, moved into new offices guarded by US soldiers, said Josh O'Connor, a freelance producer from North Carolina who now works for the Iraqi station.

''There were a couple [marriage] proposals here and there,'' said O'Connor, 29, who found himself acting as a conduit between his colleagues and soldiers. ''Usually it was the women proposing to the men. Not all of them were accepted.''[...]

"We are cutting off all dialogue with the Palestinian Authority," said Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, accusing it of trying to dictate the terms of Wednesday's peace summit in Aqaba, Jordan, to the group.

Hamas, whose military wing has been responsible for many of the recent terror attacks against Israeli civilians as well as the Israeli military, has been labeled by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization.

But the Palestinian Authority said it had received no formal notification from Hamas that it is stopping talks and will not accept such a stance. The authority said it will continue to carry through with its pledge to clamp down on violence, no matter what its justification may be.

Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin also said the group is cutting off dialogue with the Palestinian Authority. In recent talks, Abbas has urged Hamas accept a cease-fire and an end to attacks against Israelis.

At the historic meeting in Jordan, Abbas, U.S. President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon showed support for the Middle East road map, which sets out procedures that would lead to two states -- Israel and Palestine -- existing together in peace.

Yassin said the dialogue has been halted because of the "bad position" that ignored the status of Jerusalem and the issue of the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the region.

Using Abbas' popular name, Yassin said that "Abu Mazen gave the Jews what they did not deserve."

"I believe that Abu Mazen himself closed the door in front of Hamas because he committed himself in front of Bush and Sharon" to positions opposed by the Palestinians, said Rantissi.

A two-page Hamas leaflet passed out in Gaza Friday urged Palestinians not to accept the dictates of this week's summits in Egypt and Jordan, especially Abbas' calls for an end to the armed intifada, the uprising that began in September 2000.

The strongly worded leaflet said the United States was trying to impose its position on the Palestinians and it called on Palestinians and the Arab world to oppose such dictates.[...]

Why? Because there were actually four reasons for this war: the real reason, the right reason, the moral reason and the stated reason.

The "real reason" for this war, which was never stated, was that after 9/11 America needed to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world. Afghanistan wasn't enough because a terrorism bubble had built up over there — a bubble that posed a real threat to the open societies of the West and needed to be punctured. This terrorism bubble said that plowing airplanes into the World Trade Center was O.K., having Muslim preachers say it was O.K. was O.K., having state-run newspapers call people who did such things "martyrs" was O.K. and allowing Muslim charities to raise money for such "martyrs" was O.K. Not only was all this seen as O.K., there was a feeling among radical Muslims that suicide bombing would level the balance of power between the Arab world and the West, because we had gone soft and their activists were ready to die.

The only way to puncture that bubble was for American soldiers, men and women, to go into the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, house to house, and make clear that we are ready to kill, and to die, to prevent our open society from being undermined by this terrorism bubble. Smashing Saudi Arabia or Syria would have been fine. But we hit Saddam for one simple reason: because we could, and because he deserved it and because he was right in the heart of that world. And don't believe the nonsense that this had no effect. Every neighboring government — and 98 percent of terrorism is about what governments let happen — got the message. If you talk to U.S. soldiers in Iraq they will tell you this is what the war was about.[...]

A spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor's office told a news conference the 45-year-old man was arrested late on Wednesday in the western Belgian town of Deinze.

Two postal workers were taken to hospital after being exposed to the chemicals in the letters at mail depots.

No one else was hurt by the 10 letters sent to a variety of targets, including a court trying al Qaeda suspects in Brussels, the Saudi Arabian embassy, three ministries, an airport and a port authority. The letters were received on Wednesday.

The brownish-yellow powder contained phenarsazine chloride, an arsenic derivative used in nerve gas, as well as hydrazine, an agent used as a rocket propellant, the Health Ministry said. Both substances are also found in pesticides.

The letters contained no more than a spoonful of the chemicals -- not enough to be life-threatening -- but caused irritation to the eyes, skin and breathing.

The prosecutor's office spokesman said that if the man was found guilty of injuring the people and making them unable to work, he could face between six months and two years in jail.

A spokeswoman for the federal police said that five police officers had also been taken to hospital on Thursday, but she could not confirm a report on Belgian radio that the officers had been affected by powder from the letters.

Belgian news agency Belga said the policemen had been working at an office block in central Brussels housing various judicial services, which had then been evacuated for fear the powder could spread through the air conditioning system.

For a number of years I served as head of the technical department at a munitions complex that made missile guidance systems and related electronic devices for North Korea's military. I was one of 100,000 or so scientific and professional people involved in the regime's weapons of mass destruction industry.

While I made enough money to modestly feed my family, I witnessed mass starvation and oppression of those less fortunate, and unspeakable abuses of power and lifestyle excesses by senior political officials of the regime. As did everyone, I lived in constant fear of being sent to the gulag for the slightest indiscretion.

Nonetheless, I was trusted with some of the regime's biggest secrets. While serving, I was sent to Iran to test launch one of our missiles with a new guidance system for the then-ruling Ayatollah Khomeini. I consulted with colleagues who were sent to serve on an operational war basis for Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War, and others who were sent to other countries to sell, service and install such missile systems. I ordered, supervised and monitored the foreign purchases of electronic and guidance material -- 90% of which came from Japanese suppliers. I worked with some of the 60 or so Russian scientists who had been "cherry picked" by the regime to work in Pyongyang's nuclear, atomic, chemical and biological warfare programs -- and who continue to work there.[...]

But a paradox develops: At this highest crest of acceptance of a two-state solution since 1947 -- when Israel adopted the original U.N. partition but Arabs did not -- Arab leaders are increasingly edging away from openly recognizing Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.

That retreat is largely disguised and conducted in diplomatic code. It nonetheless feeds separate tides of anti-Israeli resentment and anti-Semitic hatred of Jews that are rising and fusing in Europe, potentially in the United States and elsewhere. Such behavior does not summon peace to the Middle East.

Arab leaders who met with Bush in Egypt on Tuesday did so on the condition that Israel was excluded. Earlier, Palestinian negotiators told journalists they had turned down a proposed joint communique with the Israelis because of proposed language that could be interpreted as endorsing Israel's existence as a Jewish state.[...]

"Until we get guarantees that we will get our fuel back, we will not export anything," he said. "People have got confused, because there are two protocols and some people have interpreted this in a different way."[...]

“Objectivity is impossible,” Zinn once remarked, “and it is also undesirable. That is, if it were possible it would be undesirable, because if you have any kind of a social aim, if you think history should serve society in some way; should serve the progress of the human race; should serve justice in some way, then it requires that you make your selection on the basis of what you think will advance causes of humanity.”

History serving “a social aim” other than the preservation or interpretation of a historical record is precisely what we get in A People’s History of the United States. Howard Zinn’s 776 page tome, which after selling more than a million copies, has been recently re-released in a hardback edition.[...]

The Chicago Sun Times is disgusted, and pulls no punches in their commentary:

Caricature assassination

Newspapers tend to ignore each other's faults with a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I shudder and silence. Or else they tweak their rivals in a playfully malicious way. Neither reaction is appropriate when confronted with the vile, blatantly anti-Semitic cartoon by Dick Locher the Chicago Tribune ran on its editorial page May 30.

In it, a grotesquely hook-nosed figure labeled with a Star of David--Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, perhaps--stands before a chasm labeled "Mideast Gulch.'' A kneeling figure--President Bush, apparently--is carefully laying dollar bills across the bridge. The Sharon figure gazes at the money and says, "On second thought, the pathway to peace is looking a bit brighter.''

On the other side, patiently waits Yasser Arafat, arms crossed.

The cartoon's message--that Israel's interest in peace is sparked, not by a desire to end bloodshed, but by American cash--is a lie that sails beyond legitimate comment into a baseless slur. We recognize there is a distinction between opinions critical of Israel and anti-Semitism. But wherever that line is, Locher's cartoon, with its hump-backed, balloon-handed, hook-nosed Jew, steps far over it. The cartoon is like a swastika painted on a synagogue door, an act whose hostility and use of the shunned symbols of hate dwarf any shred of legitimate meaning. Printing it was a callous offense against all Chicago.

What's next, big-lipped black people being lured with watermelon?

UPDATE: Here's Don Wycliff's column in the Trib about it. But Wycliff isn't being honest. He says that "the cartoon carried several other messages that could be seen as drawing on anti-Semitic symbols and stereotypes." Could be seen? You mean the absurdly hook-nosed Jew staring greedily at money, with the Star of David on his sleeve while the President supinely offers more cash?

"Could be seen?" Let's be honest here: The equivalent would be a blubber-lipped Jesse Jackson eating watermelon and saying "I sho' lub 'dese Democrats," while Tom Daschle beamed in the background. That cartoon never would have seen print, and the columnist would have been fired. The racial stereotyping here was just as obvious -- and, historically, tied to even worse things than Jim Crow -- and if it was really published out of ignorance, then the folks who oversaw it are too ignorant to work in the news business.

The European Parliament is hosting an exhibition entitled "The New Doors of Jerusalem: Apartheid Israel".

In a letter to the President of the European Parliament, Pat Cox, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s International Liaison Director, Dr. Shimon Samuels, noted that, "Not only does the display focus on so-called 'Israeli colonialism', the 'sociocide' of the Palestinian people, 'coerced' land sales to Jewish settlers, it also includes personal attacks on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and features Jews through racial and religious stereotypes."

Samuels continued, "The timing of this exhibition, when Israel has accepted 'the Roadmap' and its Prime Minister has demonstrated his willingness to take immeasurable risks for peace, is politically and morally repugnant." The letter added that "Its display at the seat of the European Parliament impugns the European Union's impartiality and disqualifies its diplomatic role as a partner to the Quartet sponsorship of 'the Roadmap' initiative."

The Center demanded "the immediate removal of this exhibit and the public condemnation and disciplining of whoever authorized it."

For further information, please contact Dr. Samuels at +33.609.77.01.58

Israel Television Channel Two News correspondent Ehud Yaari showed a tape this evening of the meeting Yasser Arafat held in Ramallah with children to mark International Children's Day.

Arafat devoted his remarks to encouraging the children to be
"shahid" (die for the cause), noting that one shahid who dies for the sake of Jerusalem has the power equal to 40 of the enemy dying.

Yaari noted that Arafat said nothing in his remarks about peace or
reconciliation.

Many in Israel do not expect anything Arafat says or does to have an impact on the standing of Arafat's junior partner, Abu Mazen, vis-a-vis the Americans. In fact, paradoxically, the more active Arafat is in calling for terror and violence - and even organizing terror attacks, the more Abu Mazen will be seen by the Bush team as a victim of Arafat who must be supported by Israeli concessions so that one day he can finally dethrone Arafat (and in the meantime to be treated with compassion - expected only to make some statements and photo-opportunities).

While the above scenario completely contradicts Mr. Bush's "vision", it would appear that the Bush team has locked onto Abu Mazen come-what-may.

And Abu Mazen knows it, as does his boss - Yasser Arafat.