August 2003 Archives

On Saturday, federal agents and police in northwestern Pennsylvania were trying to solve the bizarre case of 46-year-old Brian Douglas Wells, who left to deliver a pizza to a mysterious address in a remote area about an hour before he turned up at the bank with a bomb strapped to his body.

No one else was hurt in Thursday's explosion, which happened in front of law enforcement officers as they waited for a bomb squad to arrive.

WJET-TV of Erie captured audio and video from Wells as he sat handcuffed in front of a state police cruiser. "Why is nobody trying to come get this thing off me?" he asked.

A state police spokesman confirmed Friday night that Wells had made a number of statements, including that he had been forced to rob the bank.

The tape shows Wells telling authorities someone had started a timer on his bomb under his T-shirt, and that there was little time left.

"It's going to go off," Wells said. "I'm not lying." ...

It's a question that editors around the country are struggling with as their news organizations come under increasing criticism for alleged bias in their coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I'm afraid Webster's New World Dictionary isn't much help. It defines militant this way: "at war, fighting . . . ready and willing to fight; especially vigorous or aggressive in support or promotion of a cause." A terrorist is "a person or thing causing intense fear" and uses "force or the threat of force to demoralize, intimidate and subjugate, esp. such use as a political weapon or policy . . ."

The madness in the Mideast is all of those things and more, and the words you find in Webster's don't begin to describe just how horrible the terrorism and the military retaliation that follows each suicide bomber's success is in the daily lives of the Israelis and the Palestinians. When a Palestinian suicide bomber recently boarded a bus in Jerusalem and blew 20 men, women and children to bits, most of the wire service reports I saw, including one from the Associated Press, said the carnage was the work of Palestinian "militants."

For me, it's not a hard call. Acts of terror are committed by terrorists, and the horrific bus attack on Israeli civilians, like the dozens of suicide bombings that preceded it, was an act of cold, indiscriminate terror. So why do so many news organizations insist on describing terrorists as militants? I don't think militants set out to deliberately kill children.[...]

Manning Pynn, the Sentinel's public editor, recently wrote that despite the style committee decision, the paper will continue to use "militant" to describe Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, both of which are on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations. "The term "terrorist' certainly expresses judgment: It imputes to the person or organization being described the motive of trying to instill fear. "Militant' seems to me much more neutral," Pynn wrote.

Foolish me. I thought instilling fear is exactly what Hamas and Islamic Jihad mean to do when they send their suicide bombers into markets, restaurants and buses to kill and terrorize Israeli civilians. I'm all for fair and balanced reporting (I hope the Fox cable news network doesn't slap me with a lawsuit for trademark infringement), but I also believe that words do matter. And if the word "terrorism" is to have any real meaning, then blowing up a bus crowded with women and children must be condemned for what it is - an act of terrorism.

The ambassador, Gerard Araud -- who is due to take up his post in September -- immediately denied the accusations, according to a brief statement released by the French foreign ministry on Sunday.

A correspondent for Yediot Aharonot, Boaz Bissmuth, said he had overhead a conversation between Araud and two other veteran diplomats in the gardens of the French foreign ministry in Paris.

The journalist said he then introduced himself to the incoming ambassador, who said: "You don't intend to write that," explaining that his comments were made during a private party and thus not in the public domain.

However, Bissmuth wrote he believed that the comments "were sufficiently serious" to warrant their publication.

In a statement, French foreign ministry spokesman Herve Ladsous said: "Gerard Araud denies in the most formal way all of the comments attributed to him by an Israeli journalist with respect to the state of Israel and its prime minister."

Israeli Education Minister Limor Livnant told public radio that Israel should not sign Araud's letter of accreditation if the French diplomat had indeed used the words ascribed to him.

"But we must verify what he said," the minister added.

So instead of suffering for the common European good, President Chirac has decided to bust out, to let his deficits soar and try to spend his way to an economic recovery.

It is hard to know what lesson Sweden is to draw from this as it prepares to vote on Sept 14 on whether to start using the euro. Is every country that uses the single currency allowed to behave like this?

But I understate.

This is country where last year one in five voters - that is, 5.8 million people - gave their ballot to a Holocaust denier. This is a country where the Council of State recently ruled that Maurice Papon, the Vichy official who deported Jews to Auschwitz by the thousands before going on to bigger and better things in the Fifth Republic, just had his pension reinstated after serving a two-year jail sentence. This is a country that earlier this year united as one to oppose the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and cheers at every American setback. This is a country that seeks the leadership of a European Union whose rules it routinely flouts. This is a country that aspires to an alliance with Russia, China and other semi- or full-fledged dictatorships so that it can stick it in the eye of Washington and its "simplistic" president. This is a country in which the president, the prime minister, the minister of health, and the director general of health all were on vacation when a public-health catastrophe occurred...

Israel has ready a plan to bomb Iran's Bushehr nuclear-power plant should the Persian Gulf coast facility, now under construction, begin producing weapons-grade material, an insider tells us.

This source says Israel has mapped out a route its jet fighters would take to destroy what is designed to be a two-reactor plant. A successful strike would ensure that the radical Tehran regime does not develop nuclear weapons. Iran has tested 600-mile-range ballistic missiles that can reach Israel and carry nuclear, biological or chemical warheads.

Russia has signed an $800 million contract to provide two reactors for the plant near the port city of Bushehr. The United States opposes the deal, as well as any nuclear program in Iran.

Israeli F-16s penetrated Iraqi airspace in 1981 to bomb the Osiraq nuclear-power plant, at the Tuwaitha nuclear center near Baghdad. Analysts believe the action, while condemned by the international community, kept Saddam Hussein from acquiring the bomb.

U.S. Central Command has contingency plans for war with Iran, but there is no active discussion of invading a country that President Bush has put in the "axis of evil." Still, some in the Pentagon talk unofficially of what would be needed to take out the Bushehr plant.

The Pyongyang team later backed off its fierce rhetoric, the official said, and multilateral talks involving the United States, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia aimed at ending the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula were continuing today.

The White House moved quickly to downplay the flare-up, with spokeswoman Claire Buchan saying North Korea had a history of making "inflammatory comments."

"The assessment from our team that's on the ground in Beijing is that this is a positive session," she said...

Fortunately, the nucleus of such a government is already available, in the Iraqi National Congress, headed by Ahmad Chalabi. In the northern free zone during the '90s they played a constructive role, and might at that time even have achieved the liberation of Iraq had we not failed at crucial moments to support them. Despite a continuing lack of support amounting at times to sabotage, they continue to acquit themselves well in Iraq, and there can be no reasonable doubt that of all the possible Iraqi candidates they are the best in terms alike of experience, reliability, and good will. It took years, not months, to create democracies in the former Axis countries, and this was achieved in the final analysis not by Americans but by people in those countries, with American encouragement, help and support. Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress deserve no less.

The following piece is a fascinating glimpse into the internal collapse of Palestinian society. Even more interesting, it was sent out by The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG), which is an amazing Palestinian organization, with the guts to protest human rights violations by the Palestinian Authority against its own people.

Naomi Ragen

PRESS RELEASE

August 27, 2003

Nablus' Residents Are Not Afraid of the Israeli Defense Forces

Some residents in Nablus admit that they welcomed the curfew that the IDF troops enforced in their city last Thursday, and that they are not afraid of them. In their point of view, the curfew prevented a collapse of internal order and security in the West Bank.

Some local residents in Nablus admit that they had been convulsed by a series of killings and murders and by shooting sprees on the street perpetrated by gunmen who claim that they belong to the Fatah movement. These gunmen's aim is to intimidate the locals or to carve out turf for themselves.

Three Palestinians were killed by Palestinian gunmen during August. Nablus' residents ask some Palestinian leaders to do something about these gunmen and the violence that grips the city. The local residents said that the Palestinian security system had to use all its power to prevent this collapse of internal order.

On Monday august 18, Shua'ib Shakshir, who was a worker in a factory, was murdered by masked men who broke into the factory and opened fire before security men could respond. Shakshir was killed, although he was not the target.

After few days, masked men also killed Ziyad Abu Hamdan, who was a guard at a cell phone store owned by the target. A flyer circulated by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades declared that the shooting attacks came as a result of various power struggles between rival families.

Following the murders, armed groups started to attack one another in the city, cars and houses burned, the brother of Nablus' governor was kidnapped for several hours, and a restaurant was destroyed. About 10 people were wounded by the street shootings. Armed masked men erected checkpoints in the city.

Although some Nablus' residents are not afraid of the curfew that the IDF troops enforced in their city, this does not mean that they are happy of the curfew. Five Palestinians were killed by the Israeli forces during the period between August 8 and August 22. Moreover, the Israeli army damaged seven of 14 health clinics in a compound operated by the non-government Work Committees Onion of Health. These facilities provide free health care to the city's residents...

Palestinian Authority officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Haaretz reported Wednesday that the PA general prosecutor notified on Sunday the directors of 12 Islamic charity organizations operating in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank that more than 30 of their bank accounts in the territories had been frozen.

Banks received instructions not to allow transactions of organizations such as al-Mujma Al-Islami, which gave birth in the 1980s to Hamas, and other organizations connected to the civilian wing of Hamas.

Nonetheless, hundreds of Palestinians relying on welfare tried to pick up their monthly support checks, apparently unaware that the accounts had been frozen. They were told by banks that they would not receive money, and that the accounts had been frozen.

The heads of the charities were given the same message by the banks.

The funds were frozen by the Palestinian Monetary Authority, according to a copy of the order obtained by The Associated Press. Authority officials declined comment.

UK charity authority freezes Palestinian bank account

Britain's charity authority has frozen the bank accounts of a Palestinian aid organization that the United States last week charged with funding the radical Palestinian group Hamas.

The Charity Commission said Wednesday it had opened a formal investigation into the affairs of Interpal - the Palestinian Relief and Development Fund - and had frozen the accounts held in its name. "This action follows concerns received alleging the charity's links to Hamas political-militant activities," a commission spokeswoman said, adding that the charity was not being closed down and that it would be able to continue its work under commission supervision...

I was not surprised at the question, considering its source. Among many South Americans, as among many Eastern Europeans, the knee-jerk response to nearly every evil is "blame it on the Jews." For example, Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Meridiaga, the archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, has blamed the "Jewish media" for the scandal involving Catholic priests having sex with young parishioners.

But the question got me to thinking: Who does share the blame with the terrorists themselves for the horrific explosion that killed and injured so many innocent people? Although the primary culprit is clearly the terrorist group that planned and executed the mass murder, the secondary culprit is the U.N. itself...

Israel's security should be a very high priority for American Jews. When Jews were persecuted and murdered in Nazi-occupied Europe, almost no one was willing to help them or give them refuge. During the Holocaust, from 1941 to 1945, six million Jews were murdered. The citizens of almost every country occupied by the Nazis, particularly France, collaborated with Hitler and turned their Jewish fellow citizens over to the Germans for extermination in the gas chambers...

...Before Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was decapitated by his Muslim abductors who videotaped the atrocity, he was compelled to say with his last breath, "My mother is a Jew. My father is a Jew. I am a Jew." Every Jew should embrace his or her identity with pride and vote their conscience. I remain a Democrat, but have supported candidates from other parties when my conscience so dictated. So let me now proclaim, "My mother of revered memory was a Jew. My father of revered memory was a Jew. I am a Jew."

For the first time since the affirmative action plan was put in place 30 years ago, the city will be forced to compensate white applicants who say the hiring policy violated their civil rights.

"I think hopefully we're just going back to normal, the way it was meant to be, so that now they are just hiring the best person, regardless of race or color," said attorney Harold Lichten, who represents the four men who challenged the hiring plan in court along with a fifth white man who was recently hired by the Fire Department after earning a perfect score on the civil service exam...

...Attorney Toni Wolfman, who represents the NAACP, which brought the 1972 suit that triggered the affirmative action policy, disagreed with Lichten's statement that the court rulings will lead to a more "normal" hiring practice.

"If a return to normal means a return to the way in which the Boston Fire Department conducted its hiring prior to the mid 1970s, it will be a disaster for any applicants of color in the city," said Wolfman, adding that there's not an effective check on the discretion used by those doing the hiring...

For five months, I quietly endured Sen. Edward Kennedy borking me as someone not "committed to bridging differences and bringing peace" and a Washington Post editorial criticizing me as "a destroyer" of cultural bridges, among other slings.

Fortunately, others responded on my behalf; for example, Sen. Chuck Schumer and the Los Angeles Times both endorsed my nomination...

The officials say the remains will be stored at the planned memorial in the hope that science will one day find a way to identify them.

Investigators have been unable to identify the remains because in most cases the DNA was badly damaged.

Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the medical examiner's office has recovered almost 20,000 body parts and tried to match them with nearly 2,800 people listed as missing. 1,271 victims remain unidentified...

This nation needs to learn lessons in destruction.

[...]

Israelis are Cold Blooded Murderers
by Itamar Marcus

[Click here to view - ADSL]
[Click here to view - 56K]

Introduction:
Twice today PA TV broadcast a particularly hateful music video intended for children. It opens with a young girl rushing home to her mother with flowers, but as she approaches, an Israeli rifle appears at the corner of the screen and her mother is murdered in front of her eyes. In the next scene, the girl places the flowers intended for her mother on her mother's grave. The rest of the 5-minute music video is the girl's song of mourning and longing for her mother, which she sings over the grave.

This PA video is designed to create fear and hatred of Israelis among PA children, depicting them as people who would murder even their mother in cold blood. It had been broadcast almost daily from Jan - July 2003, and stopped being broadcast two weeks ago. As reported above, today it was broadcast twice.

The following are selections from the text of her song [PA TV subtitles]:
“My mother I miss you
I know that you can hear me
I can go to you ...
If you cant come to me

Cold has come to my life
It makes me suffer...

Ma, you voice still a tear in my eyes, I bear
Ma, you voice still a tear in my eyes, I bear

Bring my mother back to me
Bring my mother back to me
Bring my mother back to me”

Perhaps the moment will come when something that Bush loves at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, is no longer there. He brags about being able to jog in inhospitable 100-degree heat, but just maybe, when something he is used to disappears, a cactus, a flower, a cricket song, he will realize how we have abused the hospitality of the planet. He just might get that awe. That is our best hope for him to take the environment seriously. He needs the awe to forget about the oil.

The Iraq war has introduced us to the Assyrians, a people whom most Americans probably associate with the Bible and assume must have disappeared millennia ago. Yet there they are, on TV, with one of them, Younadem Kanna, taking a seat on Iraq's new governing council. Their precarious history speaks to the perils of the current moment...

The official said all of the guards at the compound were agents of the Iraqi secret services, to whom they reported on United Nations activities before the war. The United Nations continued to employ them after the war was over, the official said.

The official said that when investigators began questioning the guards, two of them asserted that they were entitled to "diplomatic immunity" and refused to cooperate. Diplomats working in foreign countries are often entitled to immunity from prosecution by local authorities, but the official said the two guards could make no such claim.

Investigators are continuing to question the guards, the official said.

"We believe the U.N.'s security was seriously compromised," the official said, adding that "we have serious concerns about the placement of the vehicle" and the timing of the attack...

However, most significantly, the Arabic language official Palestinian Authority Radio, Palestinian Authority TV and Palestinian Authority newspapers did not carry any real condemnation from Abu Mazen or any other official from the Palestinian Authority yesterday.

Dr. Michael Widlanski, who recently completed his Ph.D. on the subject of the Palestinian Authority media, and who was formerly a reporter for the Israel bureau of The New York Times and the bureau chief of The Atlanta Constitution, listened to and recorded the radio newscasts of the PA radio station on the day following the bus massacre.

The PA radio anchor led newscasts throughout the day by saying that "The Israelis are describing yesterday's operation as a terrorist attack." He then went on with other news of the day...

Dear HonestReporting Subscriber,

On Tuesday evening a Palestinian suicide terrorist struck a packed Jerusalem bus, killing twenty and injuring more than one hundred. One aspect of this attack made it uniquely barbaric ― the bus was filled with young children on summer vacation, on their way home from worshiping with their families at the Western Wall. With at least seven children dead and more than forty still wounded, this one has become known in Israel, with a heavy heart, as "The Children's Attack."

Yet many news outlets chose to focus their main reports on the diplomatic implications of Tuesday's attack. Reuters, for example, headlined a story "Bus Blast in Israel Deals Deadly Blow to Truce."

While the political fallout of the bombing is significant, "the story" of a terror attack ― especially one targeting children ― is far more than diplomatic. With scores of parents still nursing or mourning their children, and children mourning their parents, some reporters submitted human interest stories on the human fallout of this particularly heinous attack:

-- James Bennet of The New York Times wrote a poignant article describing the funeral of a baby, and doctors' noble efforts to treat child terror victims.

-- Associated Press addressed the excruciating difficulties of reuniting families victimized by the blast.

-- The Washington Post ran a touching profile of the child victims of the attack, entitled "Special Sorrow for the Young."

This is a human interest story about Israeli victims that demands broad coverage. Did your local paper print such a story?

HonestReporting encourages subscribers to call the editors of your local paper right now, and urge them to run a follow-up, human interest account of Tuesday's barbaric murder of Jerusalem children and families. Five Americans were also killed in the attack ― a further reason for local human interest in the U.S. (Your local paper can run one of the aforementioned articles, which are easily available for reprint.)

A full listing of U.S. newspapers is available online.

--- REUTERS' "HUMAN" INTEREST ---

Reuters also released a sympathetic, human interest profile ― on the life of the terrorist bomber. Reuters encourages readers to rationalize his monstrous act, describing how the "academic cleric...was embittered by ill treatment" in an Israeli jail, and "infuriated by Israel's killing this month of a distant relative." Further, Reuters confers a modicum of credibility to his mass murder by blandly grouping him among "militants waging a 34-month-old uprising for independence."

On the Israeli side, Reuters did release an article on the religious community hit hardest by the blast. The article, however, was largely a cold, sociological overview that referred to the people as "menfolk" who don "heavy dark frocks and headgear."

Apparently, this is the best Reuters can muster to humanize Israeli terror victims.

Comments to: editor@reuters.com

To make sure that I had not misunderstood him, I called him back. His response? ''Call me tomorrow morning.'' Then he hung up the phone again.

Instead of calling Mr. Hooper the next day, however, I sent him an e-mail and told him that his comment kept haunting me and that I believe I was owed an explanation. In my quest to comprehend CAIR's position regarding the Middle East peace process, I posed the following six questions, hoping for a clear response:[...]

According to Israel Radio, a bus has blown up near the neighborhood of Maalot.

An eye-witness told Israel Radio that bus #2 on the way to the Wailing Wall exploded "just before Road #1" at the end of Shmuel Hanavi. He said it was full of passengers.

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress helped end the war when it dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, killing an estimated 140,000 Japanese. It will be one of the main attractions of a massive aircraft display at the National Air and Space Museum's new facility in Northern Virginia. The plane has been meticulously restored, its enormous wings polished to a blinding silver and its cockpit, bomb bay and propellers gleaming, thanks to 300,000 hours of work.

It is one of 80 historic aircraft that will be on display at the Udvar-Hazy Center when the museum opens in December at Dulles International Airport...

"It's short-term," Mr. Bush told Armed Forces Network in an interview he gave Thursday but that was made public yesterday. "We have a special obligation in Liberia to help with humanitarian aid. And therefore we will."

The president said: "We'll be out of there by October the 1st. We've got U.N. blue-helmeted troops ready to replace our limited number of troops."

The promise addresses fears that U.S. forces, committed to long-term deployments in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan, would face an open-ended mission in Liberia, where 200 Marines were deployed last week.

The release of the president's remarks came as Liberia's government and the rebels signed a peace deal...

"Good, good!" they yell, as they run into the street, often oblivious to oncoming traffic. They give us a hearty thumbs-up and vigorously wave and pump their hands. They are eager to see us and to talk with us. To them, it is clear, we are heroes who liberated them from Saddam Hussein.

"Bush good, Saddam bad!" many Iraqis tell us emphatically--and repeatedly. I'm not sure how George W. Bush is faring with the American public, but he's got a lock on Al Hillah.

Iraqis routinely ask me to "thank Mr. Bush for freeing us of Saddam" and tell me, "We are very grateful, because you have freed us of our worst nightmare, Saddam Hussein." (A lot of Iraqis speak surprisingly good English because most studied it in primary and secondary school.)

It all reminds me of my experience a decade ago in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Most ordinary Russians, Poles and Czechs hailed Ronald Reagan as a hero for bringing down the "evil empire" when few people had the courage even to call it that.

In much the same way, ordinary Iraqis have a tremendous reservoir of goodwill for the president who coined the term "axis of evil"--and who then acted to eradicate a primary source of that evil...

The prime minister endorsed U.S. economic and diplomatic pressure on Syria in a 90-minute conversation in his Jerusalem office, Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said in a telephone interview.

While Sharon appeared to be in an exceptionally good mood, he complained that Syria allows Hezbollah to "run wild" in Lebanon and does not feel the heat of U.S. diplomatic overtures, Engel said...

On another front, Engel said Sharon told him Israel could "do business" with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas but did not think Abbas had control of the security situation.

Engel said he informed Sharon that Israel has strong support in Congress to build a security fence to separate it from Palestinian-held areas, despite the Bush administration's reservations.

Sharon told Engel and two other Democratic members of the New York congressional delegation, Anthony D. Weiner and Gregory W. Meeks, that "the Palestinians cannot refuse to oppose terrorism and, at the same time, criticize Israel the fence." [...]

On Syria, Engel said he was certain a majority of the House and the Senate would support his legislation, which is co-sponsored by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla.

Engel said it would authorize President Bush to freeze Syria's assets in the United States, restrict trade with Syria and curb travel by Syrian officials to the United States unless Syria ended its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction, halted aid to Hezbollah and withdrew its troops from Lebanon.

Engel said he did not push the legislation during the war in Iraq at the behest of the administration.

"Now is really the time to push it," Engel said. "And Sharon feels the same way. He feels pressure should be put back on Syria."

"This bill is a great opportunity for the administration," Engel said. "There are waivers giving the president options. It's a no-brainer to pass it."

Hamid Reza Asefi, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, told reporters Monday that he hoped Israel, which has warned against Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program, would not resort to such an "adventure."

McCain, who led a bipartisan delegation of senators and congressmen to Israel and the Palestinian areas, recounted his exchange with Abbas in an interview with The Jerusalem Post editorial board.

"The thing I said is, 'Arafat is undermining you every way he can.' He said, 'that's right,'" McCain recalled.

McCain then asked Abbas about press reports, which say he has no authority over the Palestinian security forces. Again Abbas said, "that's right," and added that he has made bringing them under his control a top priority.

"He didn't say it, but I had the distinct impression that he doesn't feel that he's strong enough to take (the terrorist groups) on."[...]

But those who have changed their minds will recall that they did not do so on their first visit. Then, on the contrary, they probably saw confirming evidence of their suspicions. Fat old men slumped asleep in the boxes, their stiff shirts buckling; their wives more interested in the clothes and faces in the other boxes than in the stage performance; souldful creatures needing haircuts standing in the back of the orchestra, or squatting on the floor, in self-conscious poses of rapture; on the stage a fat screechy woman pretending to be a demure little country bride, a little man with a potbelly and short jerking arms impersonating Don Juan, a chorus of aging painted ladies, and men with ridiculous matchstick legs in tight hose, making tired clumsy gestures at acting now and then; while the orchestra tootled and tinkled without cease one monotonous kind of sugary noise; that, in all likelihood, was his first impression of one of the miracles of human inspiration, Mozart's Don Giovanni.

Sir Thomas Beecham once said that Don Giovanni has never had an adequate performance - that is, a trope of singers capable of singing it, and an audience equipped to hear it. The run of singing artists does not produce in one generation enough voices to match Mozart's demands. The people who fill an opera house on any night are - people; some wonderful, some ordinary, some stupid, some insufferable, some dragged there by wives, some coming there to prove they are intelligent, some coming out of habit, some to tell the folks back home that they saw a New York opera, and some who love Mozart as they love the sunlight, and who are willing to endure all the coarseness and failure of another performance for the sake of the shafts of lovely light that despite all will break through now and then.

As performers and audience cannot usually rise to Mozart, the rabbi and his congregation cannot usually rise to Moses. That does not mean that the law of Moses is less sublime than world opinion acknowledges it to be, or that the forms of popular worship it has inspired are not capable of carrying its message down the years. The fact is that the synagogue, for all its human weaknesses, has done so. Every synagogue at every service has worshippers to whom the words and the ceremonies are transfusions of strength and intelligence; perhaps a few, perhaps many. The visitor's quick look cannot go inside their heads and hearts; in the good phrase of the jazz addicts, he does not dig what he is seeing.

-Herman Wouk
This Is My God

In filibustering the judicial nomination of Alabama Atty. Gen. William H. Pryor Jr., for instance, Senate Democrats are stopping a far-right extremist from joining a federal appeals court for life. But in trying to prevent Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes from joining the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace, Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) are abusing their privilege.

Pipes has a long record of stirring up controversy on Islamic affairs. Long before Sept. 11, 2001, he warned of the danger of Arab terrorists lurking within the United States. He has been a fervent defender of Israel, including its settlement policy. His stands have earned him the enmity of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is leading the charge against his nomination.

But however provocative Pipes may be, he is no bigot. In his 2002 book "Militant Islam Reaches America," he states that Muslim immigrants can "bring much of value, including new energy, to their host societies." He has consistently urged Arab Americans to shun radicalism and embrace moderate Islam. Pipes, who earned his doctorate at Harvard and has written 11 books, would bring a lively and inquiring mind to the institute, which is a research organization created by Congress to promote peaceful resolutions of international conflicts.

Pipes would not, in this capacity, have remotely the power of a federal judge. His nomination has been endorsed by a number of distinguished scholars, including Paul Kennedy, Fouad Ajami and John Keegan.

President Bush appointed Pipes to the board April 4 and is reportedly considering a recess appointment, which circumvents the normal Senate approval process. It should not have come to this. Sens. Kennedy, Dodd and Harkin should drop their resistance to Pipes.

You'd never know this from watching Arab satellite television like Al Jazeera. Because although these stations have 21st-century graphics, they're still dominated by 1950's Nasserite political correctness — which insists that dignity comes from how you resist the foreigner, even if he's come as a liberator, not by what you build yourself.

But the truth will come out...

The warplanes reportedly swooped in low over Assad's summer palace in the port city of Latakia, where Assad was staying. Assad reportedly saw and heard the jets, the TV reported.

The aircraft later buzzed Beirut, but the message was apparently received and Hizbullah kept their anti-aircraft cannons in the North quiet.

The IDF Spokesman refused to confirm or deny the report. Military sources on Saturday, however, stressed that Israel did send the Syrian leader a "direct message" that it holds Assad's government responsible for silencing Hizbullah.

The incident took place last Sunday, after Hizbullah anti-aircraft shells hit the northern border town of Shlomi, killing 16-year-old Haviv Dadon. Air force jets retaliated by blowing up the Hizbullah battery.

The successful buzzing of Assad at his palace demonstrated the excellent real time intelligence of the security services.

"Afghanistan is a democratic country," Shirzai said at the ceremony, held in Kandahar -- the spiritual headquarters of the former Taliban leadership. "President Hamid Karzai has authority to change or dismiss anyone in Afghanistan." [...]

I am writing to you from Nineveh, the city of the prophet Jonah. Its present name is Mosul. I have had the privilege of seeing its ancient walls, of touching its stones, of going to the grave Islamic tradition says is the prophet Jonah's. There is a mosque at the site; but hundreds of years ago, the Iraqis we work with tell me, it was a synagogue. They tell me the reason the site is so sacred is because of the sacredness in which the Jews held it. Presently, there are no signs of this ancient synagogue.

I am the rabbi of the 101st Airborne Division, the division Steven Spielberg immortalized in his epic Band of Brothers. We, the soldiers of the 101st Airborne, fought our way up from the south, from Kuwait. The battle took us past Ur, the city where Abraham was born. We maintained contact with the enemy, passed the site of the great talmudic academies of Sura and Pumpaditya, to the city of Babylon, where the prophet Daniel was taken. There we engaged the Nebuchadnezzar Iraqi Armored Division and beat them. We continued the battle to Baghdad, where so many Jews lived and were massacred in the summer of 1948. It was the city of so many of our sages, including the Ben Ish Chai.

Now we are in Mosul. I ask about the Jews who lived here, and very few remember them. Many say Jews never lived here; but my heart tells me different. The old ones tell me there was a Jewish quarter, a synagogue, study halls, and a cemetery.

One day, while searching the streets of the ancient city, I came across a building missing half of its roof. The site was a garbage dump and the building's interior was three-quarters full of rotting garbage, feces and sewage. I had to crouch down low to get inside as the doorway was almost completely buried...

Still, behind the easy pleasure of poking fun at European pretensions, there are serious - and hardening - differences between Americans, who embrace the future, and the French or Germans or Belgians who cling to the past.

None of those differences go so deep as our opposing concepts of freedom...

That policy proved notably successful. France and Germany, which had warred against each other dozens of times over preceding centuries, finally found a way to build constructive, lasting ties. The two countries are now at the heart of the movement toward European political union.

So most French people found a way to get beyond their many grievances against Germany.

Who is Daniel Pipes? Pipes is a former professor at the U.S. Naval War College. He has taught history and Islamic studies at Harvard and the University of Chicago. He is a scholar and the author of 12 books, four of which are on Islam. Unlike most of the complacent and clueless Middle East academic establishment, which specializes in the brotherhood of man and the perfidy of the United States, Pipes has for years been warning that the radical element within Islam posed a serious and growing threat to the United States.

During the decades when America slept, Pipes was among the very first to understand the dangers of Islamic radicalism. In his many writings he identified it, explained its roots -- including, most notably, Wahhabism as practiced and promoted by Saudi Arabia -- and warned of its plans to infiltrate and make war on the United States itself...

This naming of a children's summer camp for a teenage terrorist is particularity problematic as it is quite natural for children to see another child being honored as a role model.

The following appeared in yesterday's PA daily.
"Dr. Ahmad al-Yazji, Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports attended a graduation ceremony of a summer camp named after the Sahida (Woman who died for Allah) Ayyat Al Akhras. It was organized by the Shabaiba [youth organization] of the Fatah in East Gaza....150 children aged 9-15 participated in the camp...
Al-Yazji stressed the role of the struggle fulfilled by the Palestinian National Liberation Movement “Fatah” and saluted the Shahids (Those who died for Allah), the wounded and the prisoners."
[Al Quds - Aug. 14. 2003]

Riduan Isamuddin, 36, also known as Hambali, is in U.S. custody in an undisclosed location, according to a spokeswoman for the CIA. The agency would not reveal where he was captured...

A senior administration official said Hambali's group, Jemaah Islamiya, was linked to last year's Bali bombing and a series of deadly church bombings in the Philippines. The Bali bombing last October at two nightclubs killed 202 people, mostly Western vacationers.

He is also a leading suspect in the J.W. Marriott bombing in Jakarta and a close associate of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind who was captured earlier this year.

Hambali is also connected the the Sept. 11 plot, although it's unclear how much of a direct role he played. Authorities say Hambali ordered one of his deputies to host meetings between two eventual Sept. 11 hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, and another high-ranking al-Qaeda figure, at his apartment in Malaysia in January 2000...

Hambali is thought to be the operations director for Jemaah Islamiya, which has a stated goal of creating a single Islamic state encompassing Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the southern Philippines.

...While American leaders mouth platitudes, Palestinian TV broadcast a music video (two days prior to the latest homicide bombings) that reinforced the doctrine that heavenly rewards await all who die for Allah. The video begins with scenes depicting a romance cut short when Israeli soldiers shoot the woman in the back. She immediately goes to heaven, where she joins other young women dressed in identical long white gowns - the "Maidens of Paradise." The maidens are dancing in water, a clear depiction of the afterlife in Islamic tradition. Later in the video, the man attempts to visit the woman's grave and soldiers also shoot him in the back. He is transported to heaven where he is reunited with the woman. See it for yourself at www.isratv.com/video/twolovers128.asx

Who among the believers would trade this promise for three weeks of summer camp and a speech by Colin Powell? That's why the war continues, not because of land, but because of the promise of paradise. What political doctrine can compete with that?

According to one Israeli spokesman, the Palestinians have made "hundreds" of tunnels in recent years. Indeed, more than twenty have been found and destroyed in 2003. Nonetheless, thousands of weapons and much ammunition have passed through, including heavy machine guns, armor piercing weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and, according to a July 30, 2000 Sunday Telegraph report, possibly even SAM-7 antiaircraft missiles. According to the Jerusalem Post, "raw materials necessary to build rockets" are often smuggled below ground to Gaza. Worse still, high explosives for suicide bombings have passed through these caverns...

So much for the news. Now the analysis: Oy. And vey...

Three were injured including one of the wanted men, a 90-year old man and a boy. The other Islamic Jihad man was arrested, sources in Gaza told the Jerusalem Post.

Following the attack the Islamic Jihad and Hamas disseminated a leaflet calling on the groups members to organize a council meeting in order weigh their reaction pending further anti-terror operations by the Palestinian Authority...

Instead, the officials said, the United States would widen its effort to enlist other countries to assist the occupation forces in Iraq, which are dominated by the 139,000 U.S. troops there.

In addition to American forces in Iraq, there are 21,000 troops representing 18 countries. At present, 11,000 of that number are from Britain. The United States plans to seek larger numbers to help, especially with relief supplies that are coming from another dozen countries.

Administration officials said that in spite of the difficult security situation in Iraq, there was a consensus in the administration that it would be better to work with these countries than to involve the United Nations or countries that opposed the war and are now eager to exercise influence in a postwar Iraq.

"The administration is not willing to confront going to the Security Council and saying, 'We really need to make Iraq an international operation,"' said an administration official. "You can make a case that it would be better to do that, but, right now, the situation in Iraq is not that dire."[...]

This report analyzes Palestinian Arab violations of those obligations during the 15th week following the unveiling of the Road Map plan, August 5 - August 11, 2003...

Bush's recess appointment of Daniel Pipes could spark a backlash from some Muslim Americans and Democrats in Congress, who oppose his nomination to serve on the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace, which was created by Congress to promote peaceful solutions to world conflicts.

Bush has sought to improve relations with the Muslim American community since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Pipe's nomination has been stalled for months in the Senate, where key Democrats objected to his controversial statements and writings defending racial and religious profiling and suggestions that mosques in America should be targets of police surveillance.

Bush has stood by his nominee and, according to sources, plans to issue a recess appointment as early as this week. In so doing, Pipes would bypass the Senate confirmation process and could serve on the institute's board through next year.

Bush has used recess appointments in the past to appoint some of his most controversial nominees.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on Bush to withdraw the nomination after he was quoted by an online news service as comparing "Islamic people" to "Nazis."

Pipes aroused criticism when he launched an organization that collects complaints against professors and academic institutions deemed to be biased in favor of Islam, Muslims and Palestinians.

Supporters of Pipes say he is a respected scholar who was one of the few to warn before the Sept. 11 attacks of the threat posed by Islamic extremists.

"What he has said comes from a wealth of study and knowledge and understanding," said Shoshana Bryen, director of special projects at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

But it is not based on any historical hatred of Jews as a race.

It has more to do with the need to be seen supporting the Palestinians, even if only in a purely symbolic way.

That means that if and when real peace comes, the Egyptian media are likely to quickly forget their anti-Semitic line...

Clan leaders and their hangers-on packed the mayor's office at the morning meeting, described by Lt-Col Chris Hickey, US army Fallujah commander, as "an extremely important day".

They came from the Albuaisa tribe, from the al-Jumela and from the al-Halabsa. They greeted the sheikhs of the al-Mahamuda tribe, the Albu al-Wan, the al-Zuba'a and Albuaisa-Qais.

At a rowdy session, they agreed to work with American troops to stamp out the looting as well as the rocket and grenade attacks, that have made Fallujah a byword for instability and danger.

The success of the operation is thought to have influenced America's new found willingness to consider a softer approach elsewhere in Iraq. Colin Powell, secretary of state, and Gen Ricardo Sanchez, coalition forces commander, both conceded this week that military heavy-handedness in Iraq was breeding local resentment against US forces.

American troops were given a reminder on Tuesday of the daily attacks they used to face when a rocket-propelled grenade crashed into Fallujah's police station and injured two Iraqi officers.

"It wasn't aimed at us though," said an Iraqi policeman in Fallujah yesterday. "Someone was trying to kill the Americans nearby."

Despite the attack, everyone in Fallujah agrees that the situation has improved since American soldiers arrived.

After the war, US troops were seen as invaders, not liberators. In several protests in May, US soldiers fired on demonstrators who had gathered around their base, killing 18. Since then, however, a military rethink has improved relations with the local community.

US forces withdrew from their fixed checkpoints in the town, effectively handing it over to the local police force.

Lt-Col Hickey also said that US raids into houses in Fallujah, once a major point of friction with locals, are less frequent and less heavyhanded than before.

"We launched a raid on a bad tip recently and so we apologised. I later wrote a formal letter of apology to the owner of the house we stormed," he said.

US troops have also picked up other local rules. "They now pay blood money," said Taha Bdewi Hamid AlAlwani, Fallujah's mayor, yesterday. "If they mistakenly kill someone, they pay the victim's family $2,000. For an injury, it is $500."

Mayor Al-Alwani has proved the key to bridging the cultural divide between local tribal leaders and the Americans.

Nominated by the sheikhs, his election was later confirmed by the coalition and, unlike many politicians in post-Saddam Iraq, he has managed to avoid accusations of being a US stooge.

"It is a very difficult equation to be trusted by both sides," he said. "But the tribes know me and they see that I can make the Americans respond to their requests."

On the streets, those demands are the same in Fallujah as everywhere else in Iraq: security, electricity and running water.

Through the intermediary of the mayor, however, the tribes can now hold the American troops accountable for improvements in infrastructure without resorting to heavy weaponry.

"The mayor convinced us to work with the Americans," said Talib al-Hasnawi, brother of the sheikh of the Albuaisa tribe, Khamis al-Hasnawi.

"Now this council will meet every Wednesday and each time the Americans will have to answer our demands from the week before." On the base 10 miles outside Fallujah to which American troops have withdrawn, Lt-Col Hickey is already preparing his answers for next week.

"I understand they want power," he said. "And it will take too long to plug the town into the network so I'm working to get two 20 megawatt generators here. They will soon power the whole town."

Back in Fallujah such improvements could help to dissolve further the fog or mutual misunderstanding and mistrust that once reigned. "The Americans are really beginning to work for us," said Mayor Al-Alnawi.

"Here they have learned an important lesson which could be useful for them all over Iraq. Everywhere, commanders should tell the soldiers: learn from Fallujah."

Most of the injured are construction workers and people who came into contact with the drums after they had been unwittingly opened...

The meeting of the Majelis Mujahedeen Indonesia, founded by Indonesia's best known Islamic militant, Abu Bakar Bashir, was supposed to show that Indonesia's radical Islamic movement is very much alive despite the fact that Mr. Bashir is now on trial on terrorism charges.

But only a relatively small crowd of several thousand turned up, leading the organizers to hold the ceremony under tarpaulins outside the walls of the city stadium, instead of inside the arena.

The sparsely attended event came five days after the bombing of the J. W. Marriott hotel in Jakarta, which killed 10 people and wounded more than 150.

In a significant change in attitude toward the nation's militant Muslims, none of the invited mainstream politicians showed up.

Most notably, Vice President Hamza Haz, who was listed on the program and has often appeared before militant groups, did not come. Nor did Din Syamsuddin, a top official of Muhammadiyah, one of the nation's largest Muslim organizations. Hidayat Murwahid, the leader of the Justice Party, an increasingly popular group that wants to impose Islamic Shariah law on Indonesia, was also absent...

The poor turnout showed that Indonesian leaders now know it is no longer useful to be associated with radical Islam, said Sidney Jones, an expert on Indonesia.

"That means there is a real sea change in Indonesia since the Bali bombing," said Ms. Jones, the director of the International Crisis Group, a Geneva-based group that focuses on crisis prevention. She has written extensively about Mr. Bashir.

"The Indonesian political elite and the Indonesian public now feel that organizations that flirt with violence are no longer acceptable," she said.

A Western intelligence specialist on Indonesia said he regarded today's meeting as an important barometer of popular feeling about radical Islam here in the world's most populous Muslim nation.

"This means it's a dirty association, it has lost its legitimacy," the intelligence official said of the poor turnout. "At last the message is getting through that Bashir maybe a terrorist." [...]

The biggest crowd pleaser was Mr. Bashir's lawyer, known as Mahendra, who came to Solo from Jakarta on a flight this morning dressed in casual weekend gear and then quickly changed into the all-white garb suitable for a religious appearance. "Some Muslims say they are Muslims but don't support jihad," he said, referring to religious war. "They are not real Muslims." There were shouts of approval.

"Secularism is not blasphemy. I am a Muslim. I am devoted to my religion. I want to get it back from the state and that is why I want a secular state. . . . When young people come to religion, not because the state orders them to but because they feel it themselves in their hearts, it actually increases religious devotion. . . . The problem of the Middle East cannot be solved unless all the states in the area become secular. . . . I call for opening the door for Ijtihad [reinterpretation of the Koran in light of changing circumstances]. The Koran is a book to be interpreted [by] each age. Each epoch should not be tied to interpretations from 1,000 years ago. We should be open to interpretations based on new and changing times."[...]

The design of the Tavor is based largely on lessons learned during military operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the 34-month-old Al Aqsa intifada.

The first Tavors, made by Israel Military Industries (IMI), have been issued to elite Israeli infantry units, part of an order of 15,000 announced last month by the Defense Ministry.

Security sources said deals were under way to sell the weapon, retailing at $1,000, to "friendly foreign clients."

"The Tavor is probably the finest assault rifle now available. It is a matter of national pride," Moti Rosen, vice president of the small-arms division at IMI, said on Sunday.

Named after a mountain where biblical Israelites did battle, the Tavor is compact. Its commando variation weighs 2.8 kg (6.2lbs) compared with the Uzi's 3.7 kg and M-16's 3.4 kg. Bullets are loaded through its stock, allowing for a snub barrel.

"The Tavor would be useful anywhere where close quarters battle is the rule, and from vehicles," said Charles Cutshaw, firearms editor at Jane's International Defense Review Magazine.

It has large vents to prevent dust clogs and sights allowing the shooter to aim with both eyes open.

The Tavor spells the end, locally, of the M-16, a staple assault rifle supplied to Israel since the early 1970s as part of Washington's annual defense grants.

The M-16 has drawn complaints. Designed for Vietnam-style tropics, it jams frequently in the desert. Many of the rifles Israel received were from military surplus and often fatigued.

Nonetheless, Israel long allowed the M-16 to eclipse its Uzi and another IMI-made assault rifle, the Galil, which both ended up being sold to client states in Africa and South America.

Rosen said he expected no such hold-ups with the Tavor, developed over a decade at an undisclosed production cost.

"As for the Americans, I'm sorry if they lose business but that's the price of progress," he said.

Colt Manufacturing, which produces the M-16, did not comment.

KUWAIT - Kuwait said on Saturday it had put off a key visit by Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas because he would not apologize for Yasser Arafat's support of Iraq after it invaded in 1990.

"There was supposed to be a joint declaration at the conclusion of Abbas' visit which would include a clear and frank condemnation by the Palestinian Authority of the occupation crime but they were reluctant to agree," Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah told Saturday's al-Seyassah daily.

"The Kuwaiti people cannot accept a visit by a senior Palestinian Authority official unless there is a statement that includes an apology for the Authority's position over Iraq's aggression on Kuwait in 1990."

Abbas, in Saudi Arabia at the start of a regional tour, planned to visit the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait to brief them about his talks in Washington last month with President George Bush on the U.S.-sponsored "road map" for Middle East peace.

Kuwaiti newspapers, quoting Palestinian officials, said Abbas would now visit Tunisia instead of becoming the first top Palestinian official to come to Kuwait since the 1990 invasion.

Kuwait was angered then by what it said was Palestinian leader Arafat's siding with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

One enterprising chap even tracked down our home number and phoned to express his outrage that we accused MoveOn of being (his word) "extremist." Later in the conversation he informed us that Saddam Hussein's regime posed no threat and that George W. Bush isn't really the president...

Although such a pledge would not be a formal treaty subject to congressional ratification, it nevertheless could be endorsed by Congress in a resolution, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told reporters at the Washington Foreign Press Center.

"There should be ways to capture assurances to the North Koreans — from not only the United States, but we believe from other parties in the region — that there is no hostile intent among the parties that might be participating in such a discussion," Mr. Powell said...

The firefight in the Askar refugee camp, where Israeli troops also shot and killed a Palestinian protester outside the suspected bomb lab, came as an Israeli official said the course of a security barrier might be altered to encompass less West Bank land than initially planned...

Friday's gunbattle in the Askar refugee camp, next to the northern West Bank city of Nablus, was not expected to derail a cease-fire declared by the main Palestinian groups June 29, although a Hamas leader said the raid violated the truce.

The incident began before dawn, when soldiers surrounded a Hamas hideout in Askar to arrest two suspected Hamas bombmakers, Khamis Abu Salem and Fayez Sadder, said Col. Arieh Knafo, who commanded the raid.

As the soldiers approached, they were shot at from inside the three-story apartment building. An Israeli soldier, 20-year-old Roi Oren, was killed.

Soldiers returned fire, killing one Hamas activist. At one point, an explosion went off, bringing down most of the building and the second Hamas fugitive was buried under the rubble, the colonel told The Associated Press.

A third Palestinian, Mohammed Dak, 20 died later of gunshot wounds, a local hospital said. Witnesses said he was hit when soldiers shot at Palestinian stone-throwers outside the suspected bomb lab.

Israeli troops later blew up the remainder of the building. The lab had contained dozens of kilograms of explosives, the colonel said. He denied initial reports that troops fired an anti-tank missile at the building, saying two tanks were on standby, but did not fire.

In the Gaza Strip, Hamas official Ismail Abu Shanab said Israel violated the cease-fire, but stopped short of saying Hamas - which has carried out scores of suicide bombing attacks against Israelis - would call off the truce. "The Israelis should bear responsibility for this attack and all of its consequences," Abu Shanab said...

The alleged findings by David Kay, a former UN weapons inspector now working for the United States, would buttress the administration's claim that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was concealing weapons of mass destruction -- a key component of President Bush's case for war that has since fallen into dispute.

Kay's report acknowledged that his team of 1,400 investigators had not yet found any such weapons, raising the possibility that Hussein either hid them, destroyed them, or was simply bluffing in his orders to the Republican Guard.

Kay told Congress his team is searching new sites almost daily, interviewing scientists and captured leaders, and sifting through thousands of pages of documents, officials said.

A summary of his report, described by officials who have seen it, said Republican Guard commanders were ordered by Hussein's regime to launch chemical-filled shells at oncoming coalition troops, and that Kay believes he will soon know why the shells weren't launched...

People lay down in front of the peacekeepers' armored personnel carriers, waved white flags and reached out to shake hands or even brush the boots of foreign soldiers many consider saviors after two weeks of bitter fighting.

Some people threw confetti made from torn-up leaves over the peacekeepers as they made their first trip through Monrovia since arriving in Liberia Monday.

The Nigerian soldiers blew kisses or gave 'V for victory' signs as they drove through the city, where last week mortar shells and stray bullets dealt sudden death to residents.

"It's beautiful, it's beautiful," said Nigerian Lieutenant-Colonel Amos Nudamajo...

The West African troops have brought new hope to a land broken by 14 years of conflict that have destabilized the region and created a generation of drugged-up, brutal young fighters...

Public health officials have recognized the seriousness of the problem, but too often their response has been tepid and designed to avoid controversy. The Centers for Disease Control Web site, for example, advises people to avoid mosquito bites by covering up, using insect repellent, and staying indoors during peak mosquito hours. Missing from its list of suggestions, however, is any mention of insecticides or widespread spraying. Anyone curious about the role of pesticides in battling mosquitoes and West Nile is directed to a maze of other Web sites.

In the absence of a vaccine, elimination of the organism that spreads the West Nile virus — in this case, the mosquito — is the key to prevention, but fundamental shortcomings in public policy limit the tools that are available...

If Proposition 54 passes, California and its official institutions would have no more authority to ask a citizen her race than they do to ask her religion or sexual orientation. No longer would Californians be forced to check those odious little boxes and sort themselves into rigid racial and ethnic categories. In the nation's most racially and ethnically diverse state, official racial classifications and stereotypes would at last become a thing of the past...

Yet many in the Western media seem unable to mention my father's name without regurgitating a 14-year-old Jordanian libel that he wrongfully diverted assets of his own Petra Bank. The real story couldn't be more different. Petra Bank was seized and destroyed by those in the Jordanian establishment who'd become willing to do Saddam Hussein's bidding. That Jordan has branded my father as an "asset diverter" would be comic, were it not for what it says about that kingdom's servile complicity with Saddam.[...]

Read on:

UC BERKELEY STUDENT FACES BLATANT ANTI-SEMITISM FROM ARAB INSTRUCTOR IN CLASS

Dean of Letters and Sciences
University of California at Berkeley
Campus

Dear Sir,

I am writing to call your attention to an incident that occurred August 6, 2003 during the Iraqi Arabic (Arabic15) class, in which I am currently enrolled. The instructer, Abbas Kadhim, announced before the entire class during a discussion on Zionism that he believes that the infamous text "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is not an anti-Semitic forgery but was in
fact written by Jews.

"The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" was a forged text supposedly written by Jews. In it, the Jews describe a plan of achieving world domination. All reputable historians consider the document to be a forgery perpetrated by the Tsar's secret police.

I asked Mr. Kadhim if he was being serious about his claim. He assured me that he was one hundred percent certain in his belief that Jews were behind the "Protocols." By making such a statement, Mr. Kadhim spreads potentially dangerous anti-Semitic propaganda.

I say "propaganda" because for over a century the forgery was used to justify and encourage anti-Semitism to the point of killing Jews: The "Protocols" led to violent pogroms in Tsarist Russia, and Hitler incorporated much of the "Protocols" in his Mein Kampf to prepare the German public psychologically for the Final Solution.

I am disgusted that UC Berkeley is giving a forum to an ignorant, anti-Semitic, and prejudiced individual such as Mr. Khadhim to voice his views. I request that the University of California investigate the matter forthwith and dismiss Mr. Kadhim from its staff.

Sincerely,

Susanna Klein

*

Visit www.Dafka.org

WASHINGTON - On most days, the Pentagon's "Early Bird", a daily compilation of news articles on defense-related issues mostly from the US and British press, does not shy from reprinting hard-hitting stories and columns critical of the United States Defense Department's top leadership.

But few could help notice last week that the "Bird" omitted an opinion piece distributed by the Knight-Ridder news agency by a senior Pentagon Middle East specialist, Air Force Lt Col Karen Kwiatkowski, who worked in the office of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith until her retirement in April.

"What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline," Kwiatkowski wrote. "If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of 'intelligence' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Saddam [Hussein] occupation [of Iraq] has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense [OSD]."[...]

Springer, who has hosted the trash-talking "Jerry Springer Show" for the last 13 years, said that he could not reach voters because of his links to the program.

"For me to be heard, I could no longer be doing the show. There has to be separation between the show and my entrance into politics in the elective arena," Springer told reporters at a press conference. "That separation obviously has not taken place and certainly would not take place in time for this election."

Springer said that he had received much support as he criss-crossed Ohio over the past six months. But he said one message was clear throughout: that he could not run for office while hosting a show in which not only the female guests, but audience members, frequently strip off their shirts in a Mardi Gras-style circus environment.

"I have enjoyed doing it, so I am not apologizing for the show," Springer said, "but I do recognize what I am being told, and I do recognize the reality."

"And the reality is," Springer added, "'We will listen to you, we believe your sincerity, we even like some of your answers, and we're ready to sign up, but you can't be doing the show while this is going on.'"[...]

I love that quote. I love it, first of all, for its bold, gutsy, shameless, world-class hypocrisy. Mr. Moussa presides over an Arab League in which not one of the 22 member states has a leader elected in a free and fair election. On top of it, before the war, Mr. Moussa did all he could to shield Saddam Hussein from attack, although Saddam had never held a real election in his life. Yet, there was Mr. Moussa questioning the new U.S.-appointed Iraqi Council, which, even in its infant form, is already the most representative government Iraq has ever had...

On Wednesday, Israel released 339 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture to support the road map peace process, despite the absence of any such Israeli obligation under the actual terms of the road map.

In response to Israel's announcement of the prisoner release, Yassir Arafat made the following derisive statement to reporters on Tuesday: "They say they are going to release 400, and then they turn around and arrest 800. What is this? Deception? Are they laughing at us? Is this the implementation of the road map?"

HonestReporting asks: What 800 recent arrests was Arafat referring to? No reports in the recent past indicate any arrests of that magnitude (though scattered IDF anti-terror raids have included some 50 arrests).

Yet London's The Guardian not only quoted Arafat in full, but repeated his "mass arrests" claim as actual fact: "The list of 342 [prisoners] fell about 200 short of the number the Israelis said they would free...Hundreds more have been arrested in the meantime."

HonestReporting encourages readers to challenge The Guardian to provide evidence for their claim that "hundreds" of Palestinians have been recently arrested — a claim used by The Guardian to downplay, in cynical fashion, the significance of Israel's large-scale prisoner release.

Comments to: letters@guardian.co.uk

Stephen Pritchard, the readers' editor at the Observer, wrote on the issue that "the editor of The Observer is a member of the Commission, though, naturally, he takes no part in deliberations concerning the paper. He saw Ingrams's piece as an attack on the supporters of the current Israeli government's hardline policy on Palestine. `This was anti-Sharon, not anti-Semitic,' was how he put it to me.

"Ingrams' piece was inflammatory, but I cannot see how it can be viewed as anti-Semitic to oppose the policies of Ariel Sharon, any more than it is racist to oppose the policies of Robert Mugabe. That is not excusing the bigotry implicit in that opening paragraph. I agree with a reader who pointed out that Ingrams's piece displayed such a degree of prejudice against Jews that it will be impossible ever again to take seriously anything he writes about Israel.

"I put this to Ingrams, and this was his response: `From a logical viewpoint, I don't see how an article by me can simultaneously be guilty of prejudice against Jews but not anti-Semitic. Nor is it clear how a statement calling for Jewish correspondents supporting Sharon to declare an interest is indicative of bigotry. The fact that you yourself do not indicate whether your correspondents are Jewish merely confirms my view. I shall continue to write about Israel while bearing in mind that though you may not take me seriously there are plenty of others, including many Jews, who will.'"...

"We have urged them [the Israelis] to consider the route that the fence is taking. They have affirmed that they are considering the route of the fence and are taking our views under consideration," said the State Department official. "All talk of deduction of loan guarantees is premature."

The New York Times said earlier Tuesday that
American officials had confirmed that the U.S.
may calls for cuts in the loan guarantees...

You can`t pick a fight on that anywhere in the world, including Tel Aviv. The fact that four wars have been fought for the ostensible purpose of resolving the plight of the Palestinians has solidified this consensus. Everyone believes it.

The Oslo peace process lies in ruin, and the road map plan is off to a shaky start, due to the inability of the parties involved to agree on a formulation of principles concerning the right, or lack thereof, of the Palestinians to determine their own future on the West Bank of the river Jordan -- the area universally regarded as the historic, political, geographic, and demographic landmass of Palestine.

But even as the arguments rage over whether or how this should or can be accomplished - a state, a homeland, an entity? - a lot of well-intentioned people will tell you that there is not now and never has been a Palestinian nation.

The problem with this notion is that it is not true. There is and has been a Palestinian nation since May 14, 1946 - only two years to the day before there was an Israeli nation...

Police officials said Tuesday that Knesset members will not be permitted to visit the Temple Mount compound on Thursday, which is Tisha B'Av, the Jewish day of mourning for the destruction of the First and Second Temples, Israel Radio reported.

The officials made the announcement in response to recent statements by right-wing MKs that they intended to visit the disputed religious site in the Old City of Jerusalem. Late last month, police suspended visits by Jews and Christians to the holy site due to fear of Palestinian riots.

"Immunity doesn't open locked doors," a senior Jerusalem district police official said, referring to the parliamentary immunity MKs enjoy.

The police move in July to suspend visits by non-Muslims came in response to Palestinian anger at a decision earlier this month to ease restrictions on Jewish prayers on the Temple Mount that were halted in September 2000 after the outbreak of violence that accompanied Ariel Sharon's controversial visit to the site, which is holy to Jews and Muslims.

Palestinians say Sharon's visit sparked the Al-Aqsa Intifada, named for the mosque on the mount.

Israeli officials have become increasingly concerned in recent weeks that violence could erupt at the holy site, as the matter has received widespread coverage in the Palestinian media and has also drawn harsh comments from Palestinian public figures, specifically Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, who has warned of "grave consequences" if Israel continued to allow Jews to visit the Temple Mount...

The younger Ayatollah's arrival on the scene is already causing a stir in the Shi'ite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf. The younger Khomeini is determined that Iraq does not relive his grandfather's revolution.

''Religion has got to be separated from regimes, such as it is in America,'' said the younger Khomeini, smoking cigarettes through the interview. Since the revolution, Iran's Muslim clerics have ruled Iran, requiring women to cover everything but their face and banning alcohol. About 4,000 people have been arrested since student protests against the government erupted in May.

As the oldest grandson of Iran's revolutionary Ruhollah Khomeini, this Ayatollah learned his political lessons at his grandfather's feet. Three decades on, the protege who was supposed to inherit the legacy rejects the most basic revolutionary beliefs of his grandfather, who dubbed America ''The Great Satan.''

''It is clear to Iranians that they have suffered from the tyranny of that country,'' Khomeini said. ''Iranians want freedom and democracy.''[...]

Any such punitive step by the United States toward Israel would mark a change in President Bush's longstanding efforts to avoid any kind of confrontation with the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Aides to Mr. Bush and Mr. Sharon have gone out of their way for months to say that they have few disagreements and that all have been resolved amicably. Such talk was reiterated last week during Mr. Sharon's visit to the White House.

What is at issue in the administration's possible action is $9 billion in loan guarantees approved by Congress in the spring. They are intended for housing and commercial projects and were part of a package that also included $1 billion in military aid to help Israel cope with the effects of the Iraq war.

Administration officials, who disclosed the potential move, said that it was being considered in response to a campaign by Palestinian leaders, who say the barrier has cut Palestinians off from farms, homes, schools and workplaces.

The Palestinians also contend that it is aimed at establishing a de facto border for Israel in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The future boundary of Israel and a Palestinian state is supposed to be negotiated in talks between the two sides.

An Israeli official said tonight that word of the administration's move, which was first disclosed in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, had not been transmitted to Mr. Sharon's government. "This takes us by surprise," he added...

Syria assumed the presidency of the United Nations Security Council yesterday morning for the month of August, marking the second time the terrorist-sponsoring nation has held the prestigious post.

Syria, which was elected in October 2001 by 160 nations out of 177 to a two-year term as a non-permanent member, plans to concentrate its presidency on discussing peace initiatives in Africa, following the situation in Iraq, hearing reports on the International Criminal Court and pressing for the inclusion of Syria and Lebanon in road map negotiations, Ambassador Mikhail Wehbe told reporters yesterday.

Speaking only in Arabic, Wehbe declined to answer questions on Syrian support for the road map or the fate of Israeli MIA's kidnapped by the Syrian-backed terrorist group Hizbullah, saying only, "There cannot be security without peace, and there cannot be peace if it's not comprehensive and just."

During Wehbe's last term as council president, in June 2002, the Damascus-based Islamic Jihad terror group claimed responsibility for killing 17 Israelis in a suicide bombing at the Megiddo junction.

Britain takes over from Syria as president of the 15-member council on September 1.

As the recent, long-awaited report on 9/11 made clear - especially if you can read through a black Sharpie - claiming you're a ''charitable organization'' is second only to saying ''religion'' when you want to make people lie down and let you get away with something criminal. People like the Saudis can get away with giving money to people like Hamas by saying, ''Hey, they're a charity, too.''

Yeah, Habitat for Inhumanity...

These are matters that must be brought to the immediate attention of the White House, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the US House International Relations Committee, and to the media . . .

1. The US State Department has ignored all data brought to its attention from Israeli intelligence which provides documents, records minutes, and recordings which demonstrate Abu Mazen's direct involvement with the PLO murder campaign which has ensued over the past three years, which have resulted in more than 18,000 terror attacks and more than 800 Israeli citizens who have been murdered by Arab terrorists in cold blood.[...]

The goal of the planning should be to be prepared on short notice both to destroy the nuclear capabilities at Yongbyon and other key North Korean facilities and to protect South Korea against attack by destroying North Korean artillery and missile sites. Our stealth aircraft, equipped with precision bombs, and cruise missiles will be crucial--these weapons can be tailored to incinerate the WMD and minimize radiation leakage.

The key point is that the base infrastructure available in the region and the accessibility of North Korea from the sea should make it possible to generate around 4,000 sorties a day compared to the 800 a day that were so effective in Iraq. When one contemplates that the vast majority of these sorties would use precision munitions, and that surveillance aircraft would permit immediate targeting of artillery pieces and ballistic missile launch sites, we believe the use of air power in such a war would be swifter and more devastating than it was in Iraq. North Korea's geriatric air defenses--both fighter aircraft and missiles--would not last long. As the Iraqis understood when facing our air power, if you fly, you die.

Marine forces deployed off both coasts of North Korea could put both Pyongyang and Wonson at risk of rapid seizure, particularly given the fact that most of North Korea's armed forces are situated along the DMZ. With over 20 of the Army's 33 combat brigades now committed it would be necessary to call up additional Reserve and National Guard units. However, the U.S. forces that would have the greatest immediate effect are Expeditionary Air Forces and Carrier Battle Groups, most of which have now been removed from the Iraqi theater...

Sunday, August 3, 2003 Posted: 6:58 PM EDT (2258 GMT)

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Four Israeli civilians were wounded when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on cars traveling from Har Gilo to Jerusalem late Sunday, medical services and the Israel Defense Forces said.

The IDF reported that the Israelis were traveling in two cars near the Palestinian village of Wallaje.

Security sources said the shooting happened near the Wallaje checkpoint. The cars reached the checkpoint after they were shot.

The suspected gunmen remained at large.

Medical services said the seriously wounded victim was a 39-year-old woman. Her 9-year-old daughter was moderately wounded, and her 16-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son were lightly wounded, they said.

The shooting occurred northwest of Bethlehem, in the West Bank. A few weeks ago, Israel handed over the security responsibility for Bethlehem and the villages around it to the Palestinians as part of efforts to implement the "road map" to peace.[...]

“It’s been decided that they will not be transferred to Jericho or Gaza,” minister of state without portfolio Abdelfatah Hamayel told AFP. Instead the leadership was seeking “international guarantees” that the detainees, along with the rest of the “hundreds of wanted Palestinians” would not be targetted by Israeli attacks, he said...

"I will give you," Adams said, "Independence forever!" Asked if he would like to add something more, he replied, "Not a word."

AGRA: A 28-year-old carrier van driver's head nearly got chopped off in a road accident. Weeks later he is alive, thanks to sheer grit.

His head almost severed, blood oozing and eyes popping out, Balram was in a dazed state when the accident took place on July 5 in Fatehabad in Uttar Pradesh.

He, however, kept his head attached to his body with some cloth. When no one came to help him, he drove his own vehicle for 30 km to reach a nursing home in Agra.

Doctors there found the head partly joined with the spinal column -- something that saved his life.

D.V. Sharma, who runs the nursing home, said it was Balram's supreme confidence and presence of mind that must have made him drive without any loss of time.

"Had there been some delay, death was a certainty."[...]

...Adams boldly offered an amendment guaranteeing complete religious freedom in the commonwealth. As he believed that all were equal before God, so he believed that all should be free to worship God as they pleased. In particular, he wanted religious freedom for Jews, as he had written earlier to a noted New York editor, Mordecai Noah, who had sent him a discourse delivered at the consecration of a synagogue in New York.

"You have not extended your ideas of the right of private judgement and the liberty of conscience both in religion and philosophy farther than I do," Adams wrote in appreciation.

I have had occasion to be acquainted with several gentlement of your nation and to transact business with some of them, whom I found to be men of as liberal minds, as much as honor, probity, generosity, and good breeding as any I have known in any seat of religion or philosophy.

I wish your nation to be admitted to all the privileges of citizens in every country in the world. This country has done much, I wish it may do more, and annul every narrow idea in religion, government, and commerce.

...his amendment failed to pass.

Buried with the brothers was 14-year-old Mustafa Hussein, Qusai's son, who also was believed killed in a fierce gunbattle with U.S. troops July 22 in Mosul.

A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the funeral ceremony at the family cemetery was quiet and uneventful.

There were no outbursts of violence reported in the city...

Bush: "I am mindful that we're all sinners and I caution those who may try to take a speck out of the neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own," the president said. "I think it is important for our society to respect each individual, to welcome those with good hearts."

Con artist that he was, the Wizard knew something that is being forgotten: Human dignity cannot be simply granted or bestowed from above. The American people seem to understand this principle, and I think this latest bit of Gallup Poll insolence poll proves it.

"F--k the Communists."

Press reports note that the T-shirt drew "laughs and applause" from the audience.

Czech communists are, reportedly, offended by this gesture. Well, Havel is right, f--k 'em. Their party was responsible for the murder, jailing or exile of tens of thousands of people - and that's really something to be 'offended' by.

Quite a history.

But more than awe piqued Ariel's curiosity about this survivor's experiences in the Holocaust. Ariel had read the number tattooed on his arm. The last four digits were 7401.

"Don't talk about it!" Ariel recalls the carpenter telling him forcefully, painfully. "I lost my whole family, my mother, my father; there was a brother in back of me, a brother in front of me — I'm the only one left. Don't bring it up again!"

Ariel didn't.

Except once...

Yet, so far, the long-term factors in play are still in our favor, and we need not listen to our own Democratic street — or trust in the veracity of the New York Times. Neither has had a good track record of either prescience or principled behavior in these last six months.

On the news of some dramatic development — Saddam's death or capture, the collapse of the mullahs in Iran, firm textual or material evidence of WMD — our summer of discontent will end. Without warning and quite abruptly, the resistance may well dry up, allowing Iraq to settle down and go the way of those also often difficult, but ultimately successful, efforts in postwar Germany and Japan.

The official news agency, KCNA, says North Korea made the proposal Thursday during talks in New York with U.S. officials. It says the talks would include the two Koreas, Japan, China, Russia and the United States. No timing or place for the talks is certain yet, but U.S. officials have said that meetings could begin in Beijing by September.

North Korea's decision fulfills a key demand of the United States. The Bush administration has said the only way to end the crisis surrounding North Korea's nuclear program is through talks with Pyongyang's neighbors and the major nuclear powers.

For the past nine months, North Korea has been insisting that it would only take part in direct talks with the United States. China has tried to organize a new round of negotiations for several weeks. The diplomatic activity comes amid increasing evidence that North Korea is restarting the nuclear weapons program it agreed to freeze in 1994.

David Kay, a former United Nations inspector who is joint head of the Iraq Survey Group, offered an unprecedentedly optimistic assessment of the hunt for weapons of mass destruction.

Although he called for patience, he predicted that doubters were in for a "surprise" by the time his work was done.[...]

-John Adams, 1805