November 2004 Archives

As nutty as it sounds, how else can you explain such a muted reaction to an act that so directly impacts creative people everywhere? Can you conceive of a filmmaker being assassinated because of any other subject matter without seeing a resulting explosion of reaction from his fellow artists in America and around the world?

As I said, it’s a nutty-sounding explanation, but we live in nutty times.

The resolution endorses an agreement Iran struck with Britain, France and Germany two weeks ago to suspend its nuclear activity in exchange for assurances that it will not be referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions...

... The passage of the resolution marked a new chapter for the Islamic republic, despite the questions about its nuclear ambitions, and made it clear there was little international support for the Bush administration's drive to ratchet up diplomatic pressure against Iran.

The Bush administration did not block the IAEA resolution but criticized it afterward and said for the first time that it is willing to take Iran to the Security Council on its own.

Meanwhile, Iran's leaders claimed the resolution as a diplomatic victory, while U.S. officials expressed disappointment the international community did not take a harder line.

Diplomats and nuclear experts said the resolution dramatically alters the way Iran will now be judged by the international community and could make it easier for the United States to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council if it violates the suspension, officials and nuclear experts said.

"This is really a win-win situation for the administration," said Robert Einhorn, who was assistant secretary for nonproliferation policy at the State Department from November 1999 to August 2001...

If the United States did so, Iran would be likely to highlight other wording in the resolution that says Iran's suspension is a "voluntary, non-legally binding confidence-building measure," giving Tehran legal maneuvering room to fight the United States.

"My government would like to state, for the record, our reservations about this resolution," Sanders said, adding: "Most of what the board is still requesting of Iran is sadly familiar. Indeed, we have been making such requests since June 2003."

Iranian negotiator Sirus Naseri fell asleep during Sanders's speech, according to diplomats in the room...

"I'm broke. I've been hurt every way I can be hurt. I have no money in the bank but am doing little bits here and there to pay the bills," he said.

All the millions of dollars raised by Gardner and his fellow Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and all the proceeds from John O'Neill's book, Unfit for Command, go to families of veterans, POWs and MIAs.

And, even though Gardner is broke and jobless for speaking out, the husband and father of three says he'd do it all over again. He says it wasn't for politics. It was for America.

The Free Muslims are petitioning the UN Security Council and the United States government to establish an international tribunal to prosecute religious leaders, including clerics who issue “fatwas” which are religious opinions, edicts, rulings and conclusions that incite violence and justify the use of terrorism. These religious leaders are especially dangerous because some of their followers consider their opinions to be gospel.

This petition is a follow up to the recently adopted UN Resolution 1566 that reads in part:

"...[A]ll members of the Security Council to consider and submit recommendations... on practical measures to be imposed upon, individuals … involved in or associated with terrorist activities…bringing them to justice through prosecution or extradition, freezing of their financial assets..."

It is crucial to hold these religious leaders accountable because most terrorists who kill in the name of Islam rely on the fatwas and conclusions of these religious leaders to convince themselves that they are going to heaven after their death.

The Following is an example of a Fatwa that encourages terrorism:

"Sheikh Yousif Al-Qardhawi issued a Fatwa permitting the killing of “fetuses” (unborn) Jews, because (according to him) when Jews are born and grown-up they will join the Israeli army. Furthermore, on September 3, 2004, (at the Egyptian Journalist Union) Al-Qardhawi issued a fatwa to kill all American civilians working in Iraq. And on July 3, 2004, he issued another fatwa permitting the killing of Muslim intellectuals as being apostates, claiming that Islam justifies the killing of such apostates."

These extremist clerics continue to issue fatwas that incite terrorism under the false umbrella of Islam. Join us in stopping these religious leaders by signing this petition requesting the U.N. to create an International Tribunal to prosecute them.

This petition has been organized by Dr. Jawad Hashim (Iraq’s former Minister of Planning), Lafif Lakhdar (A Tunisian Intellectual), and Dr. Shakir Al-Nabulsi (A Jordanian writer and author). The Free Muslims Against Terrorism has joined this effort and we seek 20,000 people to sign this petition. More than 3,000 people have already signed.

All people are invited to sign this petition by sending your name, profession, country of residence and nationality to Jmhashim@hotmail.com and cc: President@freemuslims.org. Write “petition” in the subject line.

For more information visit our website at: www.freemuslims.org

French forces had previously said they fired warning shots during the unrest, but Alliot-Marie told France's RTL television on Sunday night the troops had most probably "made full use of their weapons" in some cases.

The mob violence erupted after government forces killed nine French soldiers and an American aid worker in a bombing raid on the rebel-held north, prompting the former colonial power to destroy most of Ivory Coast's small air force in retaliation.

The Ivorian government has repeatedly accused French forces of firing on crowds of unarmed demonstrators, particularly at the Hotel Ivoire in the main city, Abidjan. Paris has insisted the protesters were often armed with guns and machetes.

Alliot-Marie said the French troops sometimes had no choice but to open fire, particularly when they were returning from other parts of the country to protect French and other foreign nationals from attack in Abidjan.

"When they tried to stop our armoured vehicles from getting to Abidjan, to stop them from protecting our citizens and other foreigners who were victims of the violence, they had to fire," she said.

"Naturally, they fired warning shots and in some cases, most probably, they had to make full use of their firearms. That is the reality. There was nothing else that could be done."

Around 8,000 expatriates fled the world's top cocoa grower as militant supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo went on a looting rampage for several days. The government says 57 people were killed and more than 2,200 injured in the unrest.

Alliot-Marie said the troops had also fired to disperse crowds blocking two bridges linking residential and commercial parts of Abidjan to the airport.

She said the crowds were being forced to block the bridges by other protesters carrying arms.

"(The French troops) had to stop this crowd coming into contact (with the expatriates) otherwise there was a risk of a real massacre," she said.

The defence minister said the troops had remained calm throughout their mission.

"Faced with a crowd which was, after all -- this has not been said enough -- well-armed with Kalashnikovs (automatic rifles) and pistols and not just machetes, they showed composure and restraint," she said.

He told AFP: “French troops fired directly into the crowd. They opened fire on the orders of their chief Colonel D’Estremon. Without warning.”

Guiai Bi Poin he said he was at the French colonel’s side in the hotel lobby throughout the night...

...Guiai Bi Poin said the crowd at the Hotel Ivoire was yelling insults but was unarmed.
“Not one of my men fired a shot,” he said. “There were no shots from the crowd. None of the demonstrators was armed — not even with sticks, or knives or rocks.”

He said that when he reported to the French commander on the day of the riot, he was told: “Colonel, my barbed wire has been crossed, and the crowd is getting excited. If they do not let us leave within 20 minutes, I am going to shoot.”

“Suddenly,” said Guiai Bi Poin, “there was a movement on our left and my gendarmes were pushed violently by the crowd. They fell back a meter or two. D’Estremon then said to me, ‘Colonel, the red line has been crossed. I am going to open fire. FIRE!’”

The officer said the French troops began shooting. “It was not a haphazard fusillade. It was carried out on the orders of their chief. And there was no warning.”

Guiai Bi Poin said he yelled at the French officer to fire in the air, to aim higher, “He did this but some of his men did not obey and some continued to fire on the crowd. I saw lots of people falling, but I do not know how many victims there were.”

Similar wishful thinking is now at the heart of European — and probably a good deal of American — strategic thinking about the Iranian nuclear project. That it is a disgusting abdication of moral responsibility and a strategic blunder of potentially enormous magnitude is both obvious and irrelevant to the actual course of events.

I do not believe Israel will solve this problem for us, both because it is militarily very daunting and because successive Israeli governments have believed that Iran is too big a problem for them, and if it is to be solved, it will have to be solved by the United States and our allies. Whether that is true or not, I have long argued that Iran is the keystone of the terrorist edifice, and that we are doomed to confront it sooner or later, nuclear or not. Secretary of State Powell disagreed, and he was at pains recently to stress that American policy does not call for regime change in Tehran — even though the president repeatedly called for it. And the president is right; regime change is the best way to deal with the nuclear threat and the best way to advance our cause in the war against the terror masters. We have a real chance to remove the terror regime in Tehran without any military action, but rather through political means, by supporting the Iranian democratic opposition. According to the regime itself, upwards of 70 percent of Iranians oppose the regime, want freedom, and look to us for political support. I believe they, like the Yugoslavs who opposed Milosevic and like the Ukrainians now demonstrating for freedom, are entitled to the support of the free world.

Even if you believe that a nuclear Iran is inevitable, is it not infinitely better to have those atomic bombs in the hands of pro-Western Iranians, chosen by their own people, than in the grip of fanatical theocratic tyrants dedicated to the destruction of the Western satans?

And maybe it isn't inevitable. Faster, please.

-From Hitler's professors, Arafat's professors, by Edward Alexander

Anniversary of the UN vote on Resolution 181

Columbia Unbecoming features interviews with Jewish students at Columbia University on how professors in the school’s Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Culture (MEALAC) department have created an atmosphere hostile to academic freedom inside and outside the classroom. The emotional testimony of Jewish students at Columbia shines a light on the growing anti-Israel atmosphere on American campuses. In the documentary, American Jews and Israelis studying at Columbia recount being silenced and intimidated by professors and classmates for holding views to sympathetic to Israel or simply for being Jewish.

Featured in the film is Columbia Univ. student NOAH LIBEN who will lead a discussion following the screening.

Now that it's over, there is a lot of things that people back home should know. First of all, every citizen of Fallujah (non-insurgent) is getting $2,500 USD (that's a lot over here) to fix up their house or buy new things that may have been destroyed in the fighting. Insurgents took up positions in resident's houses so we were forced to destroy a lot of buildings.

There is over $100 million dollars ready to be spent to re-build the city. This may seem like a lot of money, but I can assure you that it is a small price to pay for the amount of evil people no longer alive, contemplating how to kill more Americans. The intelligence value alone is already paying huge dividends. Some of the 900 detainees are telling everything they know about other insurgents. And the enemy never expected such a large or powerful attack and they were so overwhelmed that they left behind all kinds of things, including books with names of other foreign fighters, where their money and weapons come from, etc.

I went into the city 3 times, but after a lot of the fighting had been done. It was amazing to see how the American military had brought the world's most evil city to its knees. I have an awful lot of pictures that I am going to upload to my webshots site...it will blow your mind to see what the insurgents forced us to do to win this fight. And seeing the pictures of what I saw first hand will make you very happy to be an American and know that our country has this might if evildoers force us to use it...

1920 marked the beginning of the publication of this research series, in the Dearborn Independent, the Ford Motor Company's weekly magazine. These articles were eventually collected in book form under the title, The International Jew. The book became a wide success. It is estimated that more than 10 million copies of the book were sold in the United States alone!

Yet today this book is almost impossible to find. You will not be able to buy it in your local bookstore, nor check it out at your local library. The truth is that in the so called "democratic, pluralist" America this book has been systematically suppressed.

The International Jew is a magnifying glass applied to the hidden sources of immorality, vide [sic?], degeneracy, and subversion. It is a threat - a threat to the international financiers who would prefer to keep information selective and geared towards a world oligarchy of self-interest. The lack of awareness of this insidious encroachment into lives of ordinary people increases by the day. By reopening this debate this book exposes the inherent danger of unchecked Zionism.

Product Description:

...At the Nuremberg Tribunal, Baldur Von Shirach, Hitler Youth Leader, said he had been influenced through reading these books. The work was also quoted in Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler.

This volume reprints the articles from May 22 to October 2, 1920.
This four-volume set is an important document in the history of anti-semiticism [sic] in America.

Mithal al-Alusi, an Iraqi politician who visited Israel a few months ago, heads the new Iraqi Nation Democrat Party. According to Alusi, 1,150 people have signed the party's request to the elections committee to participate in the elections.

"We are keeping Iraqi interests in sight. These interests includes strategic relations with the United States and also ties with Israel," Alusi Said.

Iraqis leveled bitter criticism at Alusi regarding his visit to Israel, which he made using his German passport.

Alusi was removed from his leadership position of his then political party, a warrant was put out for his arrest and he was forced to retreat within his home in the poor Shi'ite Sadr City area of Baghdad. Alusi himself is a Sunni.

Al-Hayat newspaper reported Friday that the Iraqi National Congress party, under the leadership of Ahmed Chalabi, will join Alusi's new party, since he has officially declared the demise of his previous party. He added that a few men of Muqtada al-Sadr, the extremist Shi'ite leader, have joined him as well.

"The style of rule of Sadaam Hussein must change in the direction of closeness with Israel," Alusi said. "The Iraqis need to deal with various Israeli companies - particularly those of the half million Iraqis in Israel - from the standpoint of supporting peace and Iraq."

Following his visit to Israel, Alusi delivered a detailed report to the offices of the Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawer, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Hoshyar Zebari. He has not yet received a response.

On November 16, a 23-year-old Jewish man from the West Bank city of Ariel was stabbed in his back while waiting in a bus stop at the Geha junction in the center of the country.

The man said the stabber had a Middle Eastern appearance and an Arabic accent.

Earlier this week, Mustafa Mahajna, 28, arrived at a police station in the Dan district and admitted he was behind the failed murder attempt.

Mahajna said he had mistakenly taken the man, who was wearing military trousers, for a soldier, and that he wanted to grab his weapon and open fire on nearby people.

Mahajna explained he "wanted to carry out the sacrificial murder because of his hate for Israel."

The Magistrate's Court extended Mahajna's remand until Sunday.

The United Nations General Assembly last night adopted for the first time a resolution that condemns suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

The resolution states, among other things, the “deep concern regarding suicide bombings, which cause loss of Israeli life”. 142 nations voted in favor of the resolution, five voted against and six abstained.

For dozens of years, the UN has been adopting resolutions tabled by Palestinian or Arab representatives, which condemn Israel for its actions in the territories. Last year, such a resolution was again passed, supported by the majority of European nations.

This year, the EU demanded of the Palestinians to add an article condemning the suicide bombings. It was the first time the subject was mentioned in a typical pro-Palestinian proposal.

On Monday, the Third Committee of the General Assembly passed a resolution that called for "Elimination of all forms of religious intolerance".

The resolution was adopted with specific mention of anti-Semitism, despite the efforts of the OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) to remove or amend references to anti-Semitism in the text.

And Israel is a country the size of Wales, which within the first 25 years of its re-establishment (remember, the Jews were in the countries of the Middle East some seven centuries before the Muslims even existed) — from the Declaration of Independence in 1948 to the Yom Kippur War of 1973 — single-handedly fought off murderous attacks from such neighbouring dictatorships as Egypt, Jordan and Syria. (The US, surprisingly, did not begin to aid Israel in any major way until the mid-1970s; the country was founded with arms from the Communist bloc, and the first Government comprised a coalition of the majority Socialist Mapai Party with the Stalinist Mapam Party to the Left and religious and liberal groups to the Right. Beat that for pluralism!) ...

NORRISTOWN, Pennsylvania (AP) -- A man pleaded guilty Wednesday to ransacking the apartment of a newlywed Marine reservist killed in Iraq, breaking in while his widow was with family members planning his funeral.

Prosecutors said Kevin Selvoski, 24, and an alleged accomplice stole a computer and video games to buy heroin.

"You have an individual who paid the ultimate price for his country and they gave him a slap in the face by robbing him and his widow," said prosecutor Robert Sander...

A statement from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force called the find the city's "largest weapons cache to date."

The Marines said the Saad Abi Bin Waqas Mosque compound was also being used as a suspected safe house and planning site for insurgents in Falluja, according to the statement.

The statement didn't provide specific numbers of the weapons -- which were discovered by U.S. and Iraqi forces on Wednesday.

The statement did say that the mosque compound was "heavily laden with small arms, artillery shells, heavy machine guns, and anti-tank mines."

"Other buildings within the compound had mortar systems, rocket-propelled grenades, launchers, recoilless rifles and parts of surface-to-air weapons systems. Marines also found the barrel of an anti-aircraft gun outside one of the buildings."

Weapons and explosives also filled the mosque's main prayer building, the mullah's residence and, adjacent to the residence, a small shed that had been "rigged to explode," the statement said.

In addition, Iraqi forces and Marines found a vendor's truck full of explosives, grenades and bomb-making materials. The truck may have been used as a mobile bomb-making factory, the Marines' statement said.

Also, the mosque's rectory contained documents detailing "insurgent interrogations of recent kidnap victims," according to the statement.

Alleged Sunni Muslim rebel supporter Sheik Abdulla al-Janabi also had been using the mosque to preach anti-coalition rhetoric, the statement said...

Such a strategy would not, in fact, guarantee us security because it conflates bin Laden’s short-term grievances with his long-term goals. Al-Qaeda was founded with the explicit goal of re-establishing the caliphate, a Muslim super-state encompassing the entire Islamic world that would be primed for perpetual conflict with the West.

Bin Laden’s caliphate would be ruled according to the strict version of shariah law typified by the Taliban, where homosexuals and those preaching non-Islamic faiths were executed, women were kept in burkas, and men were imprisoned if their beards were not long enough. Accommodation is a trap because withdrawing from the Middle East would make the attainment of such an Islamist super-state – and the greater danger it would pose – more likely.

Despite this, some influential Westerners seem ready to fall for this rhetorical gambit. Indeed, even prior to the October 29 videotape, some Western politicians and other noteworthies were already clamoring for negotiation with al-Qaeda and accommodation to their demands...

Additionally, he said their spirits are high, but they would certainly appreciate any "care packages" that folks in the States would care to send their way (preferably consisting of non-perishable food items, candy, deodorant, eye-drops, q-tips, toothpaste, toothbrushes, lip balm, hand/feet warmers, black/dark undershirts, underwear & socks, and non-aerosol bug spray)

"We strongly support efforts to review the conduct of the election and urge Ukrainian authorities not to certify results until investigations of organized fraud are resolved," the White House said in a statement.

Russia, which backed Yanukovych, dismissed foreign charges of electoral fraud as premature and arrogant. "We cannot recognize or protest results that are not yet official," President Vladimir Putin told reporters during a state visit to Lisbon. "Ukraine is a state of law. It doesn't need to be lectured."

With 99.48 percent of precincts counted, Yanukovych had 49.39 percent of the vote compared with 46.71 percent for Yushchenko. The results were official but not final. Exit polls had put Yushchenko well ahead...

The West, and especially Western Europe, can and should encourage them. To do so is not difficult, but it does require that we understand what is happening, call things by their real names, and drop any of our remaining illusions about President Putin's intentions in former Soviet territories. Beyond that, all that is needed is a promise -- even an implied promise -- that when the specter of this new iron curtain is removed, Ukraine too will be welcomed by the nations on the other side.

As school kids we all heard the UN described as "the last best hope of mankind" and "if it hadn't been invented it would need to be." Even now as adults we hear calls for "sending" in the UN; getting UN approval; the need to "work with the UN"; and praise for its "technical and relief agencies." On its official website, the UN modestly states, "United Nations. It's Your World."

We at The Diplomad are here to ask you to forget all that misty-eyed blather. Our Diplomads have served at the UN, in New York, Vienna and Geneva, and worked with the UN in a variety of other posts, and can tell you from experience that the UN is a massive, expensive hoax that needs to be ended once and for all.

Those who don't rely on the "elite" MSM for all their information, know about the UN's "oil-for-food" scam that is slowly being uncovered, and could prove the most massive financial scandal in human history (even bigger than Massachusetts' "Big Dig.") The "oil-for-food" scam, huge as it is, flows logically from the ruling ethos at the UN. The UN system is built on corruption, on the principle of the shake-down; whatever lofty objectives might have existed at its creation, for the UN corruption now provides the means and reason to exist.

Let us explain.

The UN as an institution is the purest of pure bureaucracy: it is the thirty-year single malt of bureaucracies. We refer you to the UN website for details on careers there, but suffice it to say that if you want a job that is VERY well-paying, has lots of perks (first class travel; a generous pension; right to retire almost anywhere you want; tax free), and involves little actual work, the UN bureaucracy is for you -- unfortunately, if you're an American (or Israeli) you'll have a hard time getting it given the solid anti-Americanism (and anti-Semitism) of the UN Secretariat. The UN bureaucracy must have served as inspiration for a sci-fi story we vaguely recall about an ancient civilization that builds an elobrate machine that continues to operate even after the civilization itself has died. Subsequent generations -- in this case, in Europe and the boardroom of the NY Times -- have no idea what the machine does, but don't tamper with it, and, in fact, begin to worship it...

So as several research teams announced over the past year that they had seen methane gas in the Martian atmosphere, the response has been so cautious that you'd hardly know just how revolutionary the discovery might be. For decades, methane has been near the top of scientists' list of biomarkers (substances whose presence is a possible sign of life). The idea of finding it on Mars seems so unlikely that many researchers assumed the discovery had to be some sort of mistake.

That reaction is no longer tenable. Last Thursday, at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Science (DPS), planetary astronomer Michael Mumma of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center announced hard-to-dispute evidence that the gas is really there. It may yet turn out to be nonbiological, but a living, breathing source is just as plausible. "I'll tell you quite honestly, I'm shocked," Mumma said to his colleagues. "We were not expecting this."

What makes methane so interesting is that the gas is unstable. On Earth, a methane molecule released into the air typically gets broken down by solar ultraviolet radiation in about 10 years. On Mars, farther from the sun, it lasts about 300 years. The persistence of the gas in our atmosphere indicates it is being replenished--in Earth's case, mostly by bacteria...

Video 2

The reader who emailed these links from France included these comments:

It’s an interview in French, made on Swiss TV the 14th November.

With [the first] link you see the little reportage made by swiss journalists.

Swiss journalists says “we heard A LOT of witnesses. All are Swiss, no Ivory. All say the same thing: French army did shoot the crowd.”

It’s a little bit weird that this interview wasn’t aired in USA, France, or anywhere...

When an American soldier shoot someone, it’s on the whole planet in a few minutes.

In Germany, most of the country's Muslim groups refused to take part in this past Sunday's Muslim demonstration in Cologne against terrorism and violence. In fact, the Turkish government organized the 20,000-person demonstration without support from local Muslim organizations. Its sole sponsor was DITIB, the Turkish government's Muslim association headed by an appointee from Ankara. DITIB "already had tried in vain to organize a common declaration by all German Muslims against Islamist terrorism", noted Der Spiegel Online on November 19...

Introduction
As the Palestinian media slowly return to their regular routine following Arafat's death, their well-documented hate promotion and incitement are likewise reappearing. One common theme that has quickly returned due to the war in Iraq is the depiction of the US, verbally and visually, as the cruel and inhuman enemy.

A cartoon in today's official PA daily, Al Hayat al Jadida, shows an American soldier raping a young girl, while the Arab world looks on with amusement and even offers support. The most recent Friday sermon on PATV depicts the US as the creator of international terror. In a third example, a vicious cartoons depicts US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as the exterminator of Arabs.

The following are the three anti-American items:

1.US soldier rapes young girl

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, November 22, 2004]

2. Friday sermon on PATV, Sheik Ibrahim Madiras, Nov. 19, 2004
"Fallujah is undergoing ethnic cleansing right now: Thousands of shahids [martyrs], hundreds killed every hour... You've seen with your own eyes the terrorism, the terrorism of the United States, who accuses the Palestinian people, the Iraqi people and all Muslims of being terrorists, while creating international terror. The U.S. is the one who creates terror."

3. Condoleezza Rice as "exterminator" of Arab people

Muzammil H. Siddiqi, former president of the Islamic Society of North America, ministered to a 25-year-old Muslim convert now the subject of an FBI manhunt.

Adam Gadahn allegedly traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan to train at al-Qaida camps following his conversion while attending the Islamic Society of Orange County in Garden Grove, Calif., in the late 1990s. Siddiqi is head of the mosque there.

Congress is reviewing the financial records of the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, as part of a post-9-11 investigation into alleged ties between tax-exempt Muslim organizations and terrorist groups...

...ISNA's website says its mission is to "advance the cause of Islam and Muslims in North America." It lists training imams as its No. 1 goal.
But critics say ISNA is an extremist group disguised as a moderate group.

ISNA "enforces Wahhabi theological writ in the country's 1,200 officially recognized mosques," said terror expert Stephen Schwartz, author of "The Two Faces of Islam: Saudi Fundamentalism and Its Role in Terrorism." Wahhabism, a puritanical, anti-Western strain of Islam, is the official religion of the Saudi government. It's also practiced by Osama bin Laden.

Members of ISNA's board include controversial New York imam Siraj Wahaj, named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal case last decade against terrorist Omar Abdel Rahman, a.k.a. the Blind Sheikh...

"…And he [Allah] declared ‘Whoever is at war with my friends, I declare war on them.’ Who is a friend of Allah? [He chants a passage in Arabic] Allah. Your true friend is Allah, the messenger, and those who believe. Americans and Canadians. Hear it well. Hear what I’m telling you well. The Americans are not your friends, hear what I’m telling you, hear it well. The Canadians are not your friends, hear what I’m telling you, hear it well. The Europeans are not your friends. Your friend is Allah, the Messenger and those who believe. These people will never be satisfied with you until you follow their religion. They will never be satisfied with you…"[1][9]

"I have a vision in America, Muslims owning property all over, Muslim businesses, factories, halal meat, supermarkets, all these buildings owned by Muslims. Can you see the vision, can you see the Newark International Airport and a John Kennedy Airport and La Guradia having Muslim fleets of planes, Muslim pilots. Can you see our trucks rolling down the highways, Muslim names. Can you imagine walking down the streets of Teaneck, [New Jersey]: three Muslim high schools, five Muslim junior-high schools, fifteen public schools. Can you see the vision, can you see young women walking down the street of Newark, New Jersey, with long flowing hijab and long dresses. Can you see the vision of an area ... controlled by the Muslims?"

U.S. officials said Chilean police had been chafing for a week about a demand by Secret Service agents that they control the president's space, even when he was on sovereign turf. Now, it was payback time.

In the fracas that ensued, amid a flurry of half nelsons, one Secret Service agent wound up jammed against a wall. "You're not stopping me! You're not stopping me! I'm with the president!" an unidentified agent can be heard yelling on videotape of the mayhem.

It took Bush several minutes to realize what was happening. The president and the first lady walked on through the door onto a big red carpet, looking relaxed. They greeted Lagos and his wife, Luisa Duran. "You want us to pose here?" Bush asked Lagos with a grin, and they turned to face a wall of flashes.

Then Bush either realized he was missing something, or he heard the commotion. The president, who is rarely alone, even in his own house, turned and walked back to the front door unaccompanied, facing the backs of a sea of dark suits. Bush, with his right hand, reached over the suits and pointed insistently at Trotta. At first the officials, with their backs to him and their heads in the rumble, did not realize it was the president intervening. Bush then braced himself against someone and lunged to retrieve the agent, who was still arguing with the Chileans. The shocked Chilean officials then released Trotta.

Trotta walked in behind Bush, who looked enormously pleased with himself. He was wearing the expression that some critics call a smirk, and his eyebrows shot up as if to wink at bystanders.

Bush adjusted his right cufflink and muttered something to Lagos, took the first lady's arm and headed into the dinner of grilled fish...

Then this...

The community of devout Moroccan and Turkish immigrants in this town south of Amsterdam rushed to Bedir Islamic Elementary School as flames lit up the sky.

Among them was Emine Altun, 32, who stood shivering as the school that taught 120 children, including her two boys, was gutted in less than an hour on Nov. 9.

Scrawled in white spray paint were the initials of the hate group known as White Power.

''We could only cry," Altun said.

The attack was among the spate of bombings, fires, and vandalism at more than 20 mosques and Islamic schools and organizations in the bitter, violent atmosphere that has erupted after the Nov. 2 murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a suspected Islamic extremist. Several Protestant churches also have been attacked in a spiral of revenge.

A note was left on his chest, allegedly by his suspected killer...

The video is highly subjective. Just like with any home movie, it starts and stops at different times with no particular purpose, and no time sequences are shown. When the firing starts, you can't see who's shooting, where it's aimed, or why. In fact, you never see soldiers shooting, at least in part II -- you just hear the shots and see the aftermath. Just as with the video in Iraq, the entire presentation lacks context. Who starts the shooting? Did anyone in the crowd have weapons and fire back, or fire first? So far, I can't tell.

Perhaps this might be the French Amritsar, but the video shown doesn't prove it; it merely suggests it. Before we leap to conclusions, we need a bit more evidence than these videos provide.

Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie urged President Laurent Gbagbo to stop stoking anti-French hatred in the country, where French troops are trying to keep the peace between the rebel north and the south he controls.

Gbagbo said in a French Internet forum on Saturday that he believed that the charge, first made by Cardinal Bernard Agre on Vatican Radio last week, was true even though he had not visited morgues as Agre had and seen proof for the accusation.

"The outrageousness of the terms President Gbagbo has used rob them of all credibility," Alliot-Marie said.

"These charges amount to disinformation similar to President Gbagbo's doubts about the reality of the French military victims in Bouake," she told France-Inter radio, referring to nine French soldiers killed in a rebel raid on Nov. 6.

Asked about the charge that French soldiers had beheaded young Ivorians during protests in the capital, Gbagbo told the Internet forum run by the magazine Le Nouvel Observateur:

"This testimony by the prelate was reported by all the people who were present at the siege of the Hotel Ivoire by the French army and all those who were in the hospitals.

"I wasn't in the hospitals but everyone who went there said it. We can assume this testimony repeated by several people is true."

Agre told the French service of Vatican Radio on Nov. 11: "I've just come back from the hospitals, it's unbearable, these young girls decapitated by the French army, these people even lying on the floor."

Alliot-Marie accused Ivory Coast's leaders of manipulating crowds of protesters in an extremely dangerous way...

Intoduction
The hope that the situation in the Palestinian Authority (PA) will improve dramatically with the demise of Yasser Arafat is based on the mistaken assumption that the problems in the PA stemmed mainly from Arafat as an individual and not from the society he created.

But an interview with a Palestinian mother on PATV yesterday indicates the depth of the PA society's worship of Death for Allah (Shahada), and support of suicide terror, which has not changed merely because of a change of leadership. In this program, a Palestinian mother of a suicide terrorist talks about how she and other mothers in her position see their sons Shahada death as a positive event -- like a joyful wedding.

The following is an excerpt from the PATV NOV. 17:

Moderator: "They [Israelis] accuse the Palestinian mother of hating her sons and in encouraging them to die. This is what we hear from Israelis. Is this true?

Mother Um Al-Ajrami: "No, we do not encourage our sons to die. We encourage them to Shahada [martyrdom] for the homeland, for Allah."

[She then talks about a group of women, all mothers of Shahids, who go to other mothers of Shahids during the period of mourning]:
"We don't say to the mothers of the Shahids, 'We have come to comfort you’, but 'We have come to bless you on the wedding of your son, on the Shahada of your son. Congratulations to you on the Shahada . . . ' For us, the mourning is joyous. We give out drinks, we give out sweets. Praise to God -- the mourning is joyous. occasion" [PATV, Nov. 17, 2004]

The "Islam Online" website (www.islamonline.org) points out that this woman, Um Al-Ajrami is quoted as saying, "I brought sweets and biscuits in order to change the day of joy to a new wedding, not mourning. I will sweeten anyone who will come to me to bless me on the occasion of the first holiday of the Shahada of my son."
[www.islamonline.org]

Palestinian Media Watch has frequently documented that the PA political and religious leadership has promoted the interpretation of Islamic tradition, that Shahada -death is not to be feared, but should be aspired and anticipated with great pleasure. Young men are taught by religious leaders and through video clips that if they die as Shahids, they will join 72 beautiful maidens in Paradise. (see sermon and video clip.) The Palestinian mothers' positive, even joyous, responses to their sons' deaths -- and their celebration of their sons' "marriages" to the maidens of Paradise -- is a result of years of PA indoctrination.

This Saturday (Nov. 20), a fundraiser will be held at the Westchester County Center in White Plains, New York, raising money to bring a Palestinian art exhibit to the New York metro area. Here's one of the paintings from the proposed exhibit (previously shown in Houston, TX), portraying Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon collecting and boiling a young Palestinian's blood:

The painting rehashes the historic anti-Semitic blood libel, with Sharon as sadistic torturer and the United States his accomplice.

Suicide bombers are also praised in the 'art' exhibit -- the official introduction explains that

[t]o several of the artists, the subject of the martyrs is an all-important topic. A true martyr is anyone who gives his life in service of his people, including...suicide bombers that attack Israeli civilians.

One of the works (pictured at right) 'pay[s] homage to the first 13 martyrs in the current uprising.'

Though two state legislators and local Jewish groups urged Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano to cancel the fundraiser -- which will be held in a public building -- Spano has decided to allow Saturday's event to take place.

In the (NY) Journal-News, the protesting legislators clarify that

this isn't about free speech - it's about whether to allow [the fundraiser] on county property. Spano has banned gun shows from the County Center because he opposes such a use of the space, they argue, and he should exert the same discretion here.

Comments to Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano: click here (Please remember that polite criticism is far more effective.)

Drastically reduce the layers of bureaucracy. Do we need so many staff assistants, special assistants, executive assistants, etc.? Flatten out the pyramid. Work on eliminating whole offices and bureaus. Have the Secretary go to Congress and argue for eliminating the annual human rights report exercise -- an enormous and wasteful enterprise that keeps hundreds of people employed to appease a handful of NGOs who don't like the reports anyhow. Kill off this requirement; eliminate the whole human rights bureau (DRL). Scrap the Undersecretary for Global Affairs (G): what the hell is that job anyhow? Cut the oceans and environment bureau (OES). Merge the three quasi- pol-mil bureaus and reduce their overall size. Beef up the INR function. Spin off USIA, again. Take a merciless look at the consular affairs (CA) bureau, and get rid of all those lawyers in that bureau! Do we need to baby long-term American expats who haven't lived in the US for years and years and often don't pay taxes? Split the CA bureau: hive off citizen services from visa issues...

By the way, terrorists who chop off civilian's heads are not prisoners, they are carcasses...

...The other possible candidates also reflect Arafat's strategy of using terror to eradicate the State of Israel and all Jews. There are no leaders who openly favor making peace with Israel because Arafat had them executed.

Three who have assumed senior leadership positions of the major Palestinian Arab institutions are Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen), Farouk Kaddoumi and Ahmed Qureia. A quick look at their resumes does not give confidence that these guys are the peace-loving democrat leaders sought by President Bush...

...Both The New York Times and Israeli Radio reported on March 31, 2003, that Abbas, a former Palestinian Authority prime minister, had offered Cabinet positions to leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and praised Arab terrorists imprisoned by Israel as "political prisoners" and "heroes." Abbas is the author of a book that denies the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews...

...Two years ago, Kaddoumi declared "the PLO no longer recognizes Israel and adheres to its national charter." Thirty of the 33 clauses in the PLO charter call for Israel's destruction or violence against Israel. Numerous statements by Kaddoumi over the years have made it clear that he, like Arafat, has no intention of settling for anything less than all of the land and none of the Jews...

...Qureia has opposed action against terrorists, attacked President Bush for referring to Israel as a "Jewish state," declared his hope that Britain would "correct the historic mistake (it) committed against Palestinians through the Balfour Declaration in 1917" (which declared Britain's support "in Palestine for a national home for the Jewish people") and publicly trampled on Israel's flag.

The vision for Israel's future must be based on something other than fantasy. Hoping that these killers will suddenly beat their swords into ploughshares, or that the brainwashed "Palestinian people" will elect a true democrat or someone who would pursue objectives other than those of Arafat and his henchmen, is wishing upon a star.

Since Israel's establishment as a modern nation in 1948, pleadings for peace have traveled in just one direction. Peace can't be made in a vacuum. It takes two peoples committed to democratic longings and religious liberty. So far, only one side has demonstrated a commitment to such principles...

Now, notwithstanding the fact that they and other Arabs have waged war against Israel incessantly — via both conventional and unconventional means — ever since the modern Jewish State was founded in 1948, they have obtained the support of even President Bush for the ultimate reward: a sovereign state of Palestine.

Unfortunately, there is every reason to believe that such an entity will amount to something Mr. Bush would never knowingly countenance, let alone support — the creation of yet another state-sponsor of terror...

If nominated and confirmed, Rice would be the second woman and the second African American to be the nation's top foreign policy representative...

Last Monday, JCRC joined 100 pro-Israel community members to deliver testimony and urge the Somerville Board of Aldermen to oppose a resolution to divest from Israel.

Members of local unions, Rep. Tim Toomey, and Somerville Mayor Jospeh Curatone clearly stated their opposition to the resolution. A similar statement was also read from Sen. Jarrett Barrios.

If you are a constituent, please send a short email or call Senator Barrios, Representative Toomey, and Mayor Curatone's offices to thank them for thier support of Israel and opposition to divestment.

The Legislative Matters Committee will be voting on the divestment resolution at their December 7 meeting. In preparation for that meeting, they will spend the next few weeks reviewing their notes on this issue.

We have been invited to submit written testimony through the end of November. Statements can be sent to the City Clerk: John Long, at Somerville City Hall by email (see below) or by mail at: 93 Highland Avenue, Somerville, MA 02143.

Testimony should be no more than 1 page and focused on one reason that you oppose divestment and support Israel. Please be respectful of the Aldermen and their process.

We are encouraging people to focus on one of three areas: investment in Israel as an investment in democracy, debunking the comparison of Israel to South Africa, and personal stories of local residents connected to Israeli life under terror.

Somerville residents are also encouraged to join us on December 7 at Somerville City Hall. We suggest you arrive before the 7:00 start of the meeting to be sure you will be able to get inside the chambers.

To email John Long click here:

If you are sending testimony that focuses on Israel as a democracy, you can mention the following:

• Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.
• Somerville's investments in Israel also benefit Palestinians, whose economy relies heavily on Israel.
• 1.1 million Israelis are Arabs, making up 20% of the population, and have full voting, expression, and religious practice rights.
• The Israeli Supreme Court, which recently voted to re-route the security fence, has both Arab and Israeli justices.
• Israel is the only country in the Middle East where women are guaranteed equal rights, equal pay, and equal healthcare as their male counterparts.

• A central goal of the South African apartheid system was to strip black South Africans of their citizenship. The 20% of Israeli citizens who are Arab Muslims and Christians to enjoy full voting rights and access to education and health care in Israel.
• 10 of the 120 seats in the Israeli Parliament are held by Arab parties, thus ensuring participation in national goverment actions.
• No Israeli government has sought to annex the West Bank or Gaza Strip. Once terror and violence ceases, Israel seeks the creation of a Palestinian state through negotations. Divestment only strengthens the hand of extremists who use violence to delegitimize the peace process.

• There is no excuse for Palestinian use of terrorism - the deliberate and systematic murder of civilians to inspire fear for political purposes. Israeli civilians in pizzerias, on buses, and at family holiday celebrations are the intended targets of terror attacks, and their deaths are used as political capital.
• Palestinian terror is counterproductive. Instead of bringing more concessions, it makes Israelis less inclined to trust the Palestinian people and leadership. It is this use of violence that has caused the collapse of the peace process.
• Israel is a country under constant attack, seeking to keep its people safe. In its efforts to limit the magnitude of attack by Palestinian terrorists, innocent civilians are occasionally caught in the crossfire. Like America, Israel is a country with accountability for loss of life in combat. The Israeli army has a strict code of ethics in place, and soldiers found responsible for deaths of Palestinians are held to the strict code of ethics and investigations.

...Coleman said this week's hearings will show that ''the scope of the ripoff'' at the U.N. is substantially more than the widely reported $10 billion to $11 billion in graft. But more than money is involved. These hearings also should expose the arrogance of the secretary-general and his bureaucracy. At the same time that he has refused to honor the Senate committee's request for documents, Annan has inveighed against the Fallujah offensive sanctioned by the new Iraqi government while ignoring the terrorism of insurgents. This is an unprecedented showdown between a branch of the U.S. government and the U.N.

The scandal is not complicated. Money from Iraqi oil sales permitted by the Saddam Hussein regime under U.N. auspices, supposedly to provide food for Iraqis, was siphoned off to middlemen. Billions intended to purchase food wound up in Saddam's hands for the purpose of buying conventional weapons. The complicity of U.N. member states France and Russia is pointed to by the Senate investigation. The web of corruption deepened when it was revealed that Annan's son, Kojo, was on the payroll of a contractor in the oil-for-food program...

...Coleman has been joined in rare bipartisan cooperation by the subcommittee's fiercely liberal ranking Democrat, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan. Coleman sent Levin a draft of a tough letter to Annan, and Levin signed it. The bipartisan letter demanded access to U.N. internal audits and key U.N. personnel. It also accused the Volcker committee of ''affirmatively preventing the subcommittee'' from investigating the scandal. A major point of dispute is the U.N.'s flat refusal to permit Lloyd's Register, hired by the U.N. to inspect Iraq's oil-for-food transactions, to provide any documents to the Senate.

The reaction by the U.N. bureaucracy has been an intransigent defense of its stone wall. Edward Mortimer, Annan's director of communications, publicly sneered at the Coleman-Levin letter as ''very awkward and troubling.'' Privately, Annan's aides told reporters that they were not about to hand over confidential documents to the Russian Duma and every other parliamentary body in the world.

But the U.S. Senate is not the Russian Duma. These are not just a few right-wing voices in the wilderness who are confronting Kofi Annan. ''In seeing what is happening at the U.N.,'' Coleman told me, ''I am more troubled today than ever. I see a sinkhole of corruption.'' The United Nations and its secretary-general are in a world of trouble.

"This is like an onion -- we just keep uncovering more layers and more layers," said Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minnesota, whose Senate Committee on Government Affairs received the new information at hearing Monday.

The new figures on Iraq's alleged surcharges, kickbacks and oil-smuggling are based on troves of new documents obtained by the committee's investigative panel, Coleman told reporters before the hearing...

Two Palestinian policemen were killed in the ensuing gun battle, which lasted for more than 10 minutes. Abbas was unhurt, but his bodyguards threw him to the ground as the shooting intensified...

...PA officials expressed fear that the shooting attack would trigger internal fighting in the Gaza Strip and called for calm.

The attack occurred shortly after Abbas and Dahlan arrived at the tent to receive condolences for the death of Arafat.

Eyewitnesses said a group of 30 gunmen, clad in green and belonging to one of Fatah's splinter groups, raided the tent chanting slogans against the two, who were surrounded by dozens of armed bodyguards.

Fatah's armed wing Aksa Martyrs Brigades strongly denied responsibility for the shooting attack and called for an immediate investigation.

The gunmen who entered the tent shouted "Abbas, Dahlan, go away, you American agents." The gunmen, who were not masked, also chanted slogans in praise of Arafat.

"When they came close to Abbas, some of them opened fire from their automatic rifles," said a Palestinian journalist who was in the area.

"Then I saw a uniformed policeman lying in a pool of blood. He had been hit in the head. Another man was also shot and killed."

In addition to Abbas and Dahlan, a large number of senior Palestinian officials were inside the tent when the gun battle erupted. They included General Musa Arafat, overall commander of the National Security Forces in the Gaza Strip; General Amin al-Hindi, head of the General Intelligence; Saeb al-Ajez, commander of the Civil Police; and Nasser al-Kidwa, the PLO's representative to the UN, who is a nephew of Yasser Arafat...

The four senior officials represent nearly two decades of experience leading the Directorate of Operations under both Republican and Democratic presidents. The officials were dismayed by the reaction and were concerned that Goss has isolated himself from the agency's senior staff, said former clandestine service officers aware of the offers.

The senior operations officials "wanted to talk as old colleagues and tell him to stop what he was doing the way he was doing it," said a former senior official familiar with the effort.

Last week, Deputy Director John E. McLaughlin retired after a series of confrontations between senior operations officials and Goss's top aide, Patrick Murray. Days before, the chief of the clandestine service, Stephen R. Kappes, said he would resign rather than carry out Murray's demand to fire Kappes's deputy, Michael Sulick, for challenging Murray's authority.

Goss and the White House asked Kappes to delay his decision until tomorrow, but they are actively considering his replacement, several current and former CIA officials said.

Kappes, whose accomplishments include persuading Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi to renounce weapons of mass destruction this year, began removing personal photos from his office walls yesterday, associates said.

A handful of other senior undercover operations officers have talked seriously about resigning, as soon as tomorrow.

"Each side doesn't understand the other's culture very well," one former senior operations officer said. "There is a way to do this elegantly. You don't have to humiliate people. You bring in people with really weak credentials, and everyone is going to rally around the flag." ...

But my grandmother, like so many Palestinians, was educated because she had to be. Because so many Palestinians are dispossessed of their land, they have to carry their culture and history in their heads...

WORD HISTORY: It has never been good to be a Philistine. In the Bible Samson, Saul, and David helped bring the Philistines into prominence because they were such prominent opponents. Though the Philistines have long since disappeared, their name has lived on in the Hebrew Scriptures. The English name for them, Philistines, which goes back through Late Latin and Greek to Hebrew, is first found in Middle English, where Philistiens, the ancestor of our word, is recorded in a work composed before 1325. Beginning in the 17th century philistine was used as a common noun, usually in the plural, to refer to various groups considered the enemy, such as literary critics. In Germany in the same century it is said that in a memorial at Jena for a student killed in a town-gown quarrel, the minister preached a sermon from the text �Philister �ber dir Simson! [The Philistines be upon thee, Samson!],� the words of Delilah to Samson after she attempted to render him powerless before his Philistine enemies. From this usage it is said that German students came to use Philister, the German equivalent of Philistine, to denote nonstudents and hence uncultured or materialistic people. Both usages were picked up in English in the early 19th century.

Over the past several months, as much of official Washington looked on wide-eyed and agog, many in the C.I.A. bureaucracy have waged an unabashed effort to undermine the current administration.

At the height of the campaign, C.I.A. officials, who are supposed to serve the president and stay out of politics and policy, served up leak after leak to discredit the president's Iraq policy. There were leaks of prewar intelligence estimates, leaks of interagency memos. In mid-September, somebody leaked a C.I.A. report predicting a gloomy or apocalyptic future for the region. Later that month, a senior C.I.A. official, Paul Pillar, reportedly made comments saying he had long felt the decision to go to war would heighten anti-American animosity in the Arab world.

White House officials concluded that they could no longer share important arguments and information with intelligence officials. They had to parse every syllable in internal e-mail. One White House official says it felt as if the C.I.A. had turned over its internal wastebaskets and fed every shred of paper to the press.

The White House-C.I.A. relationship became dysfunctional, and while the blame was certainly not all on one side, Langley was engaged in slow-motion, brazen insubordination, which violated all standards of honorable public service. It was also incredibly stupid, since C.I.A. officials were betting their agency on a Kerry victory...

South African anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela on Thursday hailed Arafat as "an icon in the proper sense of the word" and urged new commitment to a Middle East settlement.

"Yasser Arafat was one of the outstanding freedom fighters of this generation, one who gave his entire life to the cause of the Palestinian people," said Mandela, who met Arafat numerous times over the years.

"We honor his memory today. We express our sincerest condolences to his wife, family and the Palestinian people. It is with great sadness that one notes that his and his people's dream of a Palestinian state had not yet been realized."...

The paper said Suha reached an agreement about the money during a meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the PLO's newly elected chairman, who visited while she was staying next to her husband's bed in the French military hospital outside Paris.

It said Abbas personally promised Suha that she would receive $22 million a year to cover her expenses in Paris. The paper noted that in July Arafat transferred to his wife $11 million to cover her living costs for the first six months of the year.

Abbas and the Palestinian leadership were forced to strike the deal with Suha after she refused to allow them to visit her husband in hospital.

The Palestinian leaders reached the conclusion that it would be better to make a deal with her in order to solve the crisis surrounding Arafat's possessions and secret bank accounts.

According to Palestinian officials, the money that Suha is expected to receive will come from secret accounts held by Arafat and his cronies in various countries. They estimated that at least $4 billion were being held in these secret accounts.

The decision came as many young guard Fatah activists in the West Bank expressed dissatisfaction with the new division of powers in the Palestinian Authority and the PLO, saying they were once again being shunned by the old guard.

Most of the criticism is directed against Mahmoud Abbas, who has replaced Arafat as chairman of the PLO executive committee, and Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei, who took over as head of the National Security Council, a body that oversees the work of the Palestinian security forces...

"The Spanish government expresses its great sadness at the death of Yasser Arafat, the president of the Palestinian National Authority, and winner of the Nobel peace prize," the statement read.

"Arafat's charismatic personality, the international status that he gave to the Palestinian nation and his unrelenting fight for recognition for his people makes him one of the most relevant leaders of our time," the statement read...

...Officials in Jerusalem said the Spanish comment was the "worst" reaction to Arafat's death to come from Europe because it completely ignored his involvement in terror.

"This reaction is without any proportion, and shows no empathy or understanding for what Arafat brought upon the Israeli public during his years of power," one official said. "The fact that there is no mention, not even a word, of Palestinian terror, or no mention of the fact that his hands were soaked with blood, raises questions about the objectivity of the Spanish government."

Spain's comment was held up in contrast to comments made by Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who in remarks to the media said emphatically that he will not be attending Arafat's funeral. Howard said that a "suitable representative" will be sent from Australia, but it will not be someone at the ministerial level...

When someone finds out I served in Iraq they always make a comment. A nonveteran will say, "Thank you," but a veteran will say, "Welcome home, how are you?" Thank you to everyone who asked that question. You helped me find that new person I didn't understand when I returned home. You helped me find the person I want to be in the future, a person who will always strive to make a difference in another veteran's life.

If there is a soldier you know who is overseas, send him an e-mail or a card or a package -- to let him know you care. Ask his wife if she needs help with the kids. Give her some telephone cards so she can call her husband overseas. On your day off, do more than just thank veterans -- act. If you help a veteran, you can make a difference.

Above all, today, don't just thank veterans for their service. Instead, ask them how they are.

In a better world, the PLO chief would have met his end on a gallows, hanged for mass murder much as the Nazi chiefs were hanged at Nuremberg. In a better world, the French president would not have paid a visit to the bedside of such a monster. In a better world, George Bush would not have said, on hearing the first reports that Arafat had died, "God bless his soul."

God bless his soul? What a grotesque idea! Bless the soul of the man who brought modern terrorism to the world? Who sent his agents to slaughter athletes at the Olympics, blow airliners out of the sky, bomb schools and pizzerias, machine-gun passengers in airline terminals? Who lied, cheated, and stole without compunction? Who inculcated the vilest culture of Jew-hatred since the Third Reich? Human beings might stoop to bless a creature so evil -- as indeed Arafat was blessed, with money, deference, even a Nobel Prize -- but God, I am quite sure, will damn him for eternity...

Haaretz reported Tuesday that Iranian drone experts from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards took part in the launch from Lebanon of a Hezbollah drone that spent several minutes over northern Israel this week.

On Wednesday, the Arab-language Al-Shark Al-Awsat newspaper, which is published in London, quoted a senior official in the Revolutionary Guards as saying that the drone was one of eight Iran-produced unmanned airborne vehicles that the country gave Hezbollah in August.

Iran also supplied Hezbollah with surface-to-surface missiles that have a 70-kilometer range, according to the report.

The official also said Iran had launched similar drones over Iraq to garner information on American military activity there...

...What makes it unusual is that Iranian military experts from the Revolutionary Guards sent their people to a third country to act against Israel. They have usually supported Palestinian terror groups with money or weapons, but in this case, Iranians were involved directly in launching the drone and preparing it for its mission.

Lebanon also cannot wash its hands of the affair and pretend innocence. It is possible the Lebanese did not know about the activity and the preparations and did not know about the Iranian involvement, but since it took place on Lebanese territory, the Lebanese government is directly responsible for the act of aggression. Its arguments won't hold water if Israel decides to react to similar incidents in the future...

...Another lesson is that if Iran is ready to take the risk with such a direct involvement, it could slide into even riskier moves...

rejected the Oslo accords and refused to return with Mr. Arafat to the West Bank and Gaza. He still lives in Tunis, where he retains the title of P.L.O. foreign minister, despite the fact that Mr. Shaath holds the Palestinian Authority's title of minister for external affairs

Got that? The farce is complete, and Arafat dies as wretchedly as he lived.

Kaddoumi's remarks were made in an interview with the Jordanian newspaper Al-Arab. He admitted that the PLO charter, which denies Israel's right to exist, was never changed.

In response to a question what does Arafat mean when he talks about the continuation of the struggle, Kaddoumi, who is one of the few PLO leaders still living in Tunisia, said: "Yes, the national struggle must continue. I mean the armed struggle. In the past we abandoned our political parties in favor of the armed struggle.

"Fatah was established on the basis of the armed struggle and that this was the only way to leading to political negotiations that would force the enemy to accept our national aspirations. Therefore there is no struggle other than the armed military struggle."

Commenting on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, Kaddoumi said: "If Israel wants to leave the Gaza Strip, then it should do so. This means that the Palestinian resistance has forced it to leave. But the resistance will continue. Let the Gaza Strip be South Vietnam. We will use all available methods to liberate North Vietnam."

Kaddoumi revealed that the PLO leadership has entrusted him with being responsible for the "portfolio" of supporting the Iraqi resistance against the US-led coalition forces in Iraq. "There is no doubt that the Palestinian revolution supports the Iraqi resistance and we have seen demonstrations in the occupied Palestinian territories in backing the intifada and resistance in Iraq," he said. "I'm in charge of this issue and I condemn the American position." ...

Well, "laisser manger humus," I guess we could say. I wonder how many of those starving Palestinians are aware of this settlement and, if they are, why they put up with this? It is a Stockholm Syndrome larger than Sweden itself. Instead of following the rais' funeral bier down the streets of Ramallah, they should be tearing him limb from limb, pissing down his mouth and tossing the remains in one of those HazMat recycling bins.

Of course, despite their well known proclivity for conspiracy theories, you can't expect the poor Paleos to know all that much about how they have been raped when the details are continually softened by European and even American news organizations. It was almost other-worldly listening to Juan Williams on Fox News last night calling Arafat a symbol of his people's liberation movement. I guess Juan confused liberation with enslavement. He's not the only one. The biggest enablers in this sadistic game are the Swiss (and other) bankers with their unmarked accounts, which allow dictators to rob their people blind, often with the tacit permission of their supposed "charitable" donors. Isn't it about time these accounts be opened up and declared illegal? Why don't we ask Kofi Annan's help with that?... Oh, yeah, forgot, sorry...

Two Dutch churches were attacked by arsonists, in seeming retaliation for earlier attacks on mosques, while an opinion poll showing that 40 per cent of Dutch people no longer considered Muslims welcome underlined a rapid deterioration of tolerance in the previously liberal Netherlands. A Muslim school in the southern Dutch village of Uden was burnt down last night. The attackers left a message referring to the murder.

Mr van Gogh, whose last film, Submission, criticised the treatment of women under Islam, was cremated in a ceremony broadcast on large screens for the crowds outside an Amsterdam cemetery and live on national television. A sarcastic letter was read out to Mr van Gogh’s killer, promising “we will do our very best to learn more about your beliefs to prevent further misunderstanding” and apologising that the killing “had to happen in the middle of Ramadan”. ...

JCRC has been working with a dedicated group of Somerville residents and business owners, local Jewish and non-Jewish organizations, labor representatives, local elected officials, and religious leaders. Through our coordinated strategy to defeat this one-sided resolution, all of the Aldermen, the Mayor, and other local leaders have been contacted.

Tonight will be the hearing of the Legislative Matters Committee and the full Board will meet tomorrow night. We are encouraging Somerville residents to be there to speak out against the resolution. We will be there in support of their efforts and to help manage the process with local residents who requested we participate.

We have worked together to fight similar resolutions at local universities and we are confident we will be successful in fighting this one. We do not want the City of Somerville to begin a divestiture trend among local municipalities.

We thank you for your inquiries and ongoing support. Please join us in supporting the efforts of Somerville residents working tirelessly to defeat this resolution. If you know anyone who wants to make a written statement, please have them direct it to: Somerville's City Clerk, John Long, at Somerville City Hall. He can be reached by email at JLong@ci.somerville.ma.us, or by mail at: 93 Highland Avenue, Somerville, MA 02143.

Members of local unions, Rep. Tim Toomey, and Somerville Mayor Joseph Curatone clearly stated their opposition to the resolution. A similar statement was also read from Sen. Jarrett Barrios.

The Board of Aldermen will NOT be addressing this issue at tonight's meeting. Accordingly, it is not necessary for us to turn-out a large crowd tonight.

The Aldermen will be accepting written statements through the end of this month. Statements can be sent to the City Clerk: John Long, at Somerville City Hall by email at JLong@ci.somerville.ma.us, or by mail at: 93 Highland Avenue, Somerville, MA 02143

The resolution, which was submitted by eight of the Board�s 11 members, would recommend the city divest in Israeli bonds and any stock it holds in six companies: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Electric, United Technologies, and Caterpillar. The resolution notes that all of the companies supply military equipment to Israel, with the exception of Caterpillar, which, it says, �profits from bulldozers that are used by Israel to illegally demolish homes.�

In his letter, Curtatone said he opposed the resolution because Israel remains �an important democratic ally trying to survive in an often hostile environment� and he urged the board not to �take any actions that undermine the safety and security of the Israeli people.�

�[Israel] continues to be the target of ruthless and deadly terrorist attacks,� he said. �Many of its neighbors refuse to recognize its very right to exist and Al Qaeda has made Israel�s destruction one of its primary objectives.�

Curtatone said he supports efforts to ensure basic civil rights and liberties for the Palestinians living on the West Bank and in Gaza and he welcomes �the divergent views and robust debate we enjoy here in Somerville.�

�Somerville residents should speak out not only on local but also national and international issues,� he added. �But the complexity of the Middle East situation argues for extreme caution.�

Curtatone said the city�s retirement board is the only city agency that holds investments and he said the board�s chief responsibility is to secure the highest rate or return possible for the fund.

�In rare exceptions, the moral imperative is so clear and unambiguous as to warrant divestment,� said Curtatone. �In this case, the complexity of the situation makes granting an exception unwise.�

By M aria H ussain, Editor
World View News Service

Dear Friends of Palestine,

Quite by accident, the Aldermen of Somerville, Massachusetts selected the night of November 9th, 2004 to vote on the Socially Responsible Investment Resolution which recommends that the city's retirement benefits investment plans be taken out of Israeli security bonds and companies such as Caterpillar which aid in the Israeli occupation army's war crimes against the civilian population of Palestine.

On the 9th of November, quite possibly the Night of Power, the American people will stand up to the Jewish community. Already, the Zionist telephone hate hotline has been busily threatening and trying to intimidate the Aldermen and their families. We hope that the Aldermen will not be swayed in their decision to avoid investing public money in controversial companies or in countries that the disregard human rights rulings issued by the World Court. There is every reason to believe that the truth will be victorious on that night, for it is the most holy night in the sacred month of Ramadan.

Allah says about the Night of Power: "Ah, What will convey unto thee what the Night of Power is! The Night of Power is better than a thousand months. The angels and the Spirit descend therein, by the permission of their Lord, with all decrees. Peace until the rising of the dawn." (Surat al Qadr 97:1-5). The Night of Power, the night when the Quran was first revealed to the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, is called Laylat Al Qadr, and it is the night during which destinies are decided. (See Surat Ad-Dukhan 44:4). Laylat Al Qadr is a night in which angels descend to earth and ascend back to heaven, carrying with them the sincere prayers of the people who are awake.

It is a unique privilege to be able to experience Allah's mercy and forgiveness on this blessed night when Muslims all over the Boston area, and all over the world, will spend the night awake in prayer and reflection. To receive the Holy Spirit of Allah in this Night of Power is worth more than 84 years of life. The Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, said that he who seeks blessings and guidance from Allah on this Night of Power will have his previous sins forgiven: the ultimate liberation.

Inshallah, this Night of Power will go down in history like John Brown's uncompromising stand against slavery. Life's purpose is not just to find linguistic loopholes to evade the clear criteria given to us by our Creator which define right and wrong. For Allah has said: "I answer the prayer of the supplicant when he crieth unto Me. So let them hear My call and let them trust in Me in order that they may be led aright." (Surat al Baqarah 2:186).

Oh Muslims who are praying tonight, remember the good people in Somerville who want their city to divest from Israel, because they are coming up against the Beast, and they will have to make this jihad, but they are not alone. "Victory cometh only by the help of Allah. Lo! Allah is Mighty, Wise." (Surat Al Anfal 8:10).

If there is even one person in Somerville, Massachusetts, who is attending the Alderman meeting with the weight of a mustard seed of faith in his or her heart, I pray the sky open up and Allah's glory be made manifest for the sake of bestowing dignity and honor upon the keepers of the holy shrines in the holy land.

If Allah does not grant victory to the Palestinian people, the noble mosques and dignified churches in which the names of the prophets are recalled, will be bulldozed to the ground. If Palestine is crushed, so too will the spirit of humanity be ground into the dirt. Like Rachel Corrie, our back will be broken.

In a grave and deadly hour such as this, the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, prayed for the safety of his companions in the heroic Battle of Badr. "Oh Allah, if this small band of Muslims is destroyed, You will not be worshipped on this earth." Early in the history of Islam, when it appeared that the enemies of Islam would mass murder the Muslims, the Muslims refused to submit to anything other than Allah. Therefore "Allah willed that He should cause the Truth to triumph." (Surat Al Anfal 8:5).

It is in such a perilous hour that we live today, when we have no choice but to stand up against the raging Beast consuming all that is beautiful and holy on this earth, because this is not just about doing our moral duty towards our brothers and sisters in Palestine, but this is about being willing to follow in the footsteps of the prophets. We all have to be willing to uphold universal principles of justice as defined by Allah through Moses, Jesus and Mohammed, peace be upon them, not justice as the pro-Israel public relations agents redefine it.

"Allah Almighty says: (When ye sought help of your Lord and He answered you, saying): "I will help you with a thousand of the angels, rank on rank." Allah appointed it only as good tidings, and ... remove from you the fear of Satan, and make strong your hearts and firm (your) feet thereby when thy Lord inspired the angels, (saying:) "I am with you. So make those who believe stand firm. I will throw fear into the hearts of those who cover up the Truth. Then smite the necks and smite of them each finger." (8:9-12).

The State of Israel is the primary threat to World Peace today, especially in that it controls American politics. The American people have a duty to break the neck of the State of Israel by cutting off its supply of funding. We must kill the stranglehold that the supporters of Israel have placed upon our throats. These criminals have destroyed our democracy with the Patriot Act, ruined our economy with useless wars designed to make Israel the world superpower, they have printed lies in the newspapers that resulted in thousands of innocent Muslims to be imprisoned indefinitely without charge, tortured, and degraded. These people would knowingly put another family out of their home, and then happily move into their house. These people, dual citizen Israeli-Americans, are willing and eager to put American lives at risk just so they can enjoy stolen real estate at bargain prices available only to themselves.

On the 9th of November, when the organized Jewish community will attempt to deny, justify, or downplay Israeli war crimes, the American people will say no to Israel's occupation of Palestine. I pray Allah give the good people of Massachusetts the right words to say, and the courage to declare total opposition to Israel's use of our money. We must all thank these good Americans for standing up for all Americans' right to make socially conscious decisions in regards to their investments.

Any of you who believe in angels, this is the night for us to wake up and believe there is such a thing as Truth. Allah will send down His reinforcements like He did in that great battle centuries ago. Allah will back us up with 1000 angels. The Battle of Badr showed the world that a small group of people armed with the truth can prevail against those who wish to prevent the truth from being spoken.

True peace is the submission of the heart to make the decision to do the right thing no matter what the cost. This kind of peace exists within, and is not dependent on the evildoers' willingness to cease bombing those who refuse to worship the Beast. For we know that we too could face torture like Jesus faced at the hands of the Romans, or like our friends in Guantanamo, Israel's prisons, and Abu Ghraib.

On this night the testimony will be made about the truth of Israeli war crimes on American soil, in a government building, on live TV. Whether we are in Somerville at the Town Hall, or saying a prayer in the masjid, or tucking our kids into bed on that night, we should all be clear that if we are ever to succeed in taking this first step towards divesting from Israel, this is the night we could really do it.

All of you who are seeking the victory of Allah on behalf of the Palestinian people who are hungry, afraid, and abandoned, in these holy nights at the end of Ramadan, God willing, this is the night for salvation, for victory, for success.

"I believe that the Department of Justice would be well served by new leadership and fresh inspiration," he said. "I believe that my energies and talents should be directed toward other challenging horizons."

In a statement from the White House, Bush said Ashcroft "has worked tirelessly to help make our country safer" and "served our nation with honor, distinction, and integrity."...

Here is the breakdown for Beverly Hills:

2004 UNOFFICIAL

BUSH 20.47% GORE 76.51% OTHER 3.02%

Frum, a key figure in Republican politics and the man who coined the terms "axis of evil," writes in National Review Online that Arafat's undisclosed illness is well-known, but has been kept under wraps by the mainstream media.

"Speaking of media bias, here's a question you won't hear in our big papers or on network TV: Does Yasser Arafat have AIDS?" asks Frum, who also writes for the National Post.

"We know he has a blood disease that is depressing his immune system. We know that he has suddenly dropped considerable weight -- possibly as much as one-third of all his body weight. We know that he is suffering intermittent mental dysfunction. What does this sound like?"

Earlier, John Loftus told John Batchelor on ABC radio on October 26 that Arafat is dying from AIDS. Loftus said the CIA has known this about Arafat for quite awhile and that as a result the US has encouraged Sharon not to take Arafat out because the US has known Arafat was about done. It was deemed better to have Arafat discredited as a homosexual.

Although homosexuality is rife in the Arab world, it is at least officially consider a sin and a crime, and regarded--especially in fundamentalist circles--as a mark of great shame and depravity...

So if the election cannot be explained by a massive upsurge in evangelical voters, what really happened? In this election, Bush received 3.5 percent more of the vote than he did in 2000. The exit polls show this movement to be almost entirely the result of changes in two disparate groups: Hispanics (who went from 35 percent for Bush in 2000 to 44 percent this year -- enough to move the entire popular vote 1 percentage point) and white women (who went 49 percent for Bush in 2000 and 55 percent this year -- enough to move the popular vote 2.5 percentage points). It appears that the bulk of the movement in the white women's vote was among married women, particularly those with kids, who may have gone as high as 2 to 1 for Bush.

Hispanics don't fit into the caricature of Bush voters as gun-toting, Bible Belt Republicans, nor do these moms. While the Hispanics who voted for Bush are religious and more pro-life than the average voter, their central concerns tend to be about aspirations: the success of their families and children. The modern moms also have family values and the success and safety of their kids as their chief concerns.

These new Republican voters were solidly Democratic in 1996. Bill Clinton won 72 percent of the Hispanic vote in 1996; Kerry got 53 percent. Clinton not only won female voters overall, he also won white women (48 percent to Bob Dole's 43), married women (also 48 percent to 43) and moms (53 percent to 38). Unlike the unreachable evangelicals, these voters are not far removed from the values of the mainstream of the Democratic Party. They voted Democratic on the basis of balanced budgets, a fair immigration policy, expanded educational opportunities and greater protections for their kids from the dangers of tobacco and other marketing.

So while liberals and conservatives can be motivated and brought to the polls in increasing numbers, the real battle at the end of the day is for the more moderate voters who this year slipped away to the Republicans, on the basis not of gun control and gay marriage but of security and secular values such as trust and standing up for your beliefs. They are the core of any winning national coalition and at the heart of our national values. These voters have chosen Democrats in the past, and as the Democratic Party rebuilds, they are the first and most important voters we must attract to win a majority in 2008 and beyond.

If the morality gap doesn't explain Bush's re-election, what does? A good part of the answer lies in the terrorism gap. Nationally, 49 percent of voters said they trusted Bush but not Kerry to handle terrorism; only 31 percent trusted Kerry but not Bush. This 18-point gap is particularly significant in that terrorism is strongly tied to vote choice: 99 percent of those who trusted only Kerry on the issue voted for him, and 97 percent of those who trusted only Bush voted for him. Terrorism was cited by 19 percent of voters as the most important issue, and these citizens gave their votes to the president by an even larger margin than morality voters: 86 percent for Bush, 14 percent for Kerry.

These differences hold up at the state level even when each state's past Bush vote is taken into account. When you control for that variable, a 10-point increase in the percentage of voters citing terrorism as the most important problem translates into a 3-point Bush gain. A 10-point increase in morality voters, on the other hand, has no effect. Nor does putting an anti-gay-marriage measure on the ballot. So, if you want to understand why Bush was re-elected, stop obsessing about the morality gap and start looking at the terrorism gap.

At one point in the summer, as Dean was starting to pull away, Teresa called Jordan and demanded, "I want you to issue a challenge for me to debate Howard Dean." Jordan was less than diplomatic in telling her it was a crazy idea, and he had a little too much fun sharing the moment with other campaign officials...

Rove made little attempt to hide his feelings. Poking his head into the crowded press cabin on Air Force One during a trip on a frigid day in January, he snarled, "Weenies!"...

Today, the region is not the "Fertile Crescent" it once was.

Twelve years ago, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein ordered the destruction of the marshes in retaliation for an uprising against his regime.

Satellite images and U.N. reports indicate that by 2002 about 7 percent of the wetlands remained. Experts began to fear that they would be gone by 2008.

Today, researchers hope that what Saddam destroyed, science can help regenerate. They are seeking to reverse the damage from years of damming and draining of the marshes.

Sitting at the confluence of four rivers, the vast Mesopotamian wetlands were once considered among the world's most important habitats. Sheltering migrating birds and spawning grounds for fisheries, they spanned about 8,000 square miles.

"Sixty percent of the fish consumed in Iraq in 1990 was from the marshes," said Dr. Azzam Alwash, director of the Eden Again project, one of the groups charged with rebuilding the wetlands.

Today, the marshes, which are critical for fisheries, have decreased by nearly 50 percent in some areas, said Dr. Curtis Richardson, director of Duke University Wetland Center...

For four years, Americans watched and listened as President Bush was demonized with a savagery unprecedented in modern American politics. For four years they saw him likened to Hitler and Goebbels, heard his supporters called brownshirts and racists, his administration dubbed "the 43d Reich." For four years they took it all in: "Bush" spelled with a swastika instead of an `s,' the depictions of the president as a drooling moron or a homicidal liar, the poisonous insults aimed at anyone who might consider voting for him. And then on Tuesday they turned out to vote and handed the haters a crushing repudiation.

Bush was reelected with the highest vote total in American history. He is the first president since 1988 to win a majority of the popular vote. He increased his 2000 tally by 8 million votes and saw his party not only keep its majorities in the House and Senate but enlarge them. And he did it all in the face of an orgy of hatred.

The smears and rancor were bottomless and venomous. Michael Moore accused Bush of being in cahoots with Osama bin Laden. George Soros said the president's policies reminded him of the Nazis. Cameron Diaz warned that if Bush was reelected, rape would become legal. Randi Rhodes told her radio audience that Bush, like Fredo in "The Godfather," should be taken out and shot. Whoopi Goldberg headlined a New York fund-raiser in which Bush was called a "thug" and a "killer." Howard Dean speculated publicly about the "interesting theory" that Bush knew what was going to happen on Sept. 11 but kept silent.

The novelist Nicholson Baker went so far as to publish a novel that revolves around Bush's possible assassination.

John Kerry never sank to that level of slime, but he never repudiated it, either. Instead of condemning the foul things said about Bush at that New York fund-raiser, for example, Kerry told the audience that "every performer tonight . . . conveyed to you the heart and soul of our country."

Israeli and Palestinian officials said Arafat died on Thursday in a military hospital in Paris. They said Arafat was deemed clinically dead, but is still attached to life support systems on the insistence of his wife, Suha.

"He is dead, but neither Arafat's wife nor the Palestinian leadership is ready to announce this," a PA official said. "The announcement could take place on Friday."

The problem is that Arafat is still the only Palestinian official who can pay the bills. And it is unclear who, if anyone, has access to the estimated $2-3 billion in his personal Swiss bank accounts, according to a report in the current edition of Geostrategy-Direct.com. Even his wife is said to be unaware of how to access the funds.

Arafat continues to hold the purse strings to the Palestinian finances. For the last decade, he has been the final, and often only word on payment to everybody from the suicide bomber to the janitor. Not a dime was paid without Arafat's okay...

...For Palestinians, the main question is where is Arafat's money?

Issam Abu Issa knows how Arafat appropriated and concealed money. Abu Issa was the founder and chairman of the Palestine International Bank from 1996 until he fled to Qatar in 2000.

"Rather than use donor funds for their intended purposes, Arafat regularly diverted money to his own accounts," Abu Issa said in a report for Middle East Quarterly. "It is amazing that some U.S. officials still see the Palestinian Authority as a partner even after U.S. congressional records revealed authenticated PLO papers signed by Arafat in which he instructed his staff to divert donors' money to projects benefiting himself, his family and his associates."

Arafat controls billions of dollars meant for the Palestinian people. In a word, he stole it, intelligence sources said, according to the Geostrategy-Direct report.

His personal fortune has been estimated at between $2 and $3 billion, most of it in Swiss bank accounts.

In 1997, the PA auditor's office said in its financial report that $326 million, or 43 percent of the annual budget, was "missing." ...

But all that goes out the window with murderers and terrorists. This tradition is predicated on the assumption that ones opponents are not ones enemies. A poliical opponent shares a bedrock faith in political norms and (small L) liberal rules.

None of this applies to Yasser Arafat in my opinion. He's a bad man who's been terrible for his people and if there's any justice, when he dies he will receive 72 virgins who look exactly like him.

Radio Monte-Carlo also reported on Thursday evening that Yasser Arafat is clinically dead.

Proche Orient reported that doctors decided to take Arafat off the artificial respirator on Thursday evening at about 5:30 p.m.

Channel two reported that the Israel Defense Forces received information Thursday from a "very reliable source" that Yasser Arafat died in hospital at about 5:30 p.m. Israel time.

At a press conference at Percy Military Hospital held at 6:30 p.m. officials said Arafat was not dead, but did not give his condition. The officials said Arafat was taken to intensive care so that "he could get the treatment required for his illness."

Senior Arafat aide Mohammed Rashid on Thursday eveing said Arafat is still alive, Channel 2 reported. PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei Mohammed Dahlan denied the reports, Al Arabiyeh reported.

The commanders of the Palestinian security forces have been summoned to an urgent meeting in Ramallah Thursday night following reports that Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat was in critical condition.

PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei is expected to head to the Gaza Strip on Friday for talks with representatives of all the Palestinian factions on the latest developments surrounding Arafat's illness...

Others were not quite so cautious. A Dutch student declared: “This has to end, once and for all. You cannot just kill people on the street in a brutal way when you disagree with them.” Job Cohen, the mayor of Amsterdam, declared: “We will show loud and clear that freedom of speech is important to us.”

Freedom of speech: Eight weeks ago, van Gogh’s film Submission aired on Dutch TV. The brainchild of an ex-Muslim member of the Dutch Parliament, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Submission decried the mistreatment of Muslim women — and even featured images of battered women wearing see-through robes that exposed their breasts, with verses from the Qur’an written on their bodies.

In poor taste? Insulting? Probably that was a bit of the intention. Van Gogh, the great grandson of Vincent van Gogh’s brother (“dear Theo”), was a well-known gadfly on the Dutch scene; in the past, he had attacked Jewish and Christians with enough vehemence to elicit formal complaints. But after Submission, the death threats started to come. Van Gogh, in the eyes of many Dutch Muslims, had blasphemed Islam — an offense that brought the death penalty. The filmmaker was unconcerned. The film itself, he said, was “the best protection I could have. It’s not something I worry about.”

His death shows that it’s something that everyone who values freedom should worry about...

WOOOHOOOOOO!!

So if the liberal hawks honestly thought the war could be conducted without brutality, they were merely naïve. If, however, they are not so much disappointed in the war as tired of Bush, they are something worse. I'm not going to prescribe how anybody should vote, but are there any issues of greater moment than the invasion of Iraq? What is the case for turning out a president who delivered something of such importance to people who say they wanted it? That Bush supported the Federal Marriage Amendment? That No Child Left Behind is underfunded? That Michael Powell has been too rough on Howard Stern? Are these the same people who spent the last three years reminding me that there's a war on?

I realize that supporters of the Iraq war could use the very same arguments I'm making here. They're welcome to them. The old-fashioned conservative hawks may not be a very attractive bunch, but at least they have the courage of their convictions. If it eventually turns out the invasion of Iraq leads to an outbreak of peace and freedom in the Dar al-Islam (and I hope to be proven wrong on this matter), the liberal hawks will undoubtedly swoop back in to show they were on the right side of history. If that day ever comes, just remember one thing: When the going got tough, they were the ones who looked to Secretary of State Biden to bail them out.

In previous solidarity gatherings at Berkeley and the University of Michigan, the organizers of these conferences have featured known (and now jailed) Islamic terrorists and led participants in chants of "Kill the Jews!" Duke's Conservative Union ran an ad detailing the organization's violent history and agendas in an effort to dissuade their university from disgracing itself by defending the charade that this event had anything to do with an academic curriculum. But despite the clear evidence as to who the solidarity movement represents and what its agendas of violence and hate may be, the Duke Administration represented by its Vice President for Governmental Affairs, John Burness, ran interference for the radicals and went out of their way to make sure the event would take place exactly as the organizers intended...

After the vote was passed, several lawmakers stood up and shouted: "Death to America."

Iran has previously stated its nuclear program is intended for peaceful civilian uses. The Iranians have said they have every right to resume enriching uranium.

Enriched uranium can be a fuel for both nuclear energy and atomic weapons...

Foreign journalists seemed much more excited about Mr Arafat's fate than anyone in Ramallah.

We hovered around the gate to his compound, swarming around the Palestinian officials who drove by, poking our microphones through their dark, half-open windows.

But where were the people, I wondered, the mass demonstrations of solidarity, the frantic expressions of concern?

Was this another story we Western journalists were getting wrong, bombarding the world with news of what we think is an historic event, while the locals get on with their lives?

Yet when the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound, I started to cry... without warning.

In quieter moments since I have asked myself, why the sudden surge of emotion?