January 2005 Archives

Shortly after the murders, members of the Egyptian consulate went to visit the family to encourage them to keep quiet. And many family members have obeyed, saying nothing to reporters or anyone else. However, two family members and another Copt viewed the bodies at the funeral home. One of these eyewitnesses said that he clearly saw that the family members had not suffered “stab wounds to the throat,” as the prosecutor’s report states, but rather the following:

A. Both adults, Hossam and Amal, had a horizontal slit across the throat. Below the slit, on the left, right and middle of the throat were three holes, big enough so that one could place a finger in each hole. According to the eyewitness, it was as if the assailant(s) took a knife and turned it repeatedly in a circular fashion, as if to screw holes into the victims’ necks.

B. The two young girls, Sylvia (15) and Monica (8), also had a horizontal slits in their throats, along with two holes bored below the slits, one on the right and one on the left sides of their necks. The holes were similar to those on their parents’ necks.

C. The eyewitness said although the bodies of the victims were all covered, he was able to see the arms of the little girl Monica. Although the tattoo of the cross inside Monica’s wrist was not defaced, he saw that her wrists were cut. He was not able to see the wrists of the other victims to see if the crosses on their wrists were defaced.

D. Though the family wants to reserve judgment until the results of the case are released, they did say that the way the four family members were bound and gagged and the way their throats were slit with holes carved is similar to executions that are shown on al-Jazeera. The American public is not aware of this because the details of the executions are not often described in news accounts...

He added, "Once you open the door of reform and it's allowed to be discussed in societies, as it is throughout the Middle East, it's very difficult to close again. So I think that people are waking up, leaders are understanding that they have to push reform forward. And don't think there's any looking back."

One year ago, the subject "was taboo," he said. "It's now being talked about in all circles of life throughout the Arab world."...

One page from barsomyat.com features a group of photographs of a Syrian Christian, "Joseph," who now lives in Canada. Barsomyat.com's users have posted personal information about Joseph, including his brother's parole status, and make clear that they are actively trying to track down his current address.

Subscribers also post explicit warnings to Joseph. One comment states, "Know, oh Christian, that you are not far from us and you are under our watchful eyes!" Another user remarks, "Laugh, oh Christian, and soon you will see a big hit."

Ahmed Paul, an Egyptian Christian and a theology student in America, said he believes Joseph was targeted because he frequently engaged in debates with Muslims on PalTalk. The Internet chat service attracts up to 3 million users a month, and subjects range from movies to music to religion to adult topics -- and some Arabic-speaking users of PalTalk have reported that contentious debates between Christians and Muslims are common in certain chat rooms.

Hossam Armanious, a Coptic Christian from Jersey City, N.J., who was found murdered earlier this month, frequently debated with Muslims on PalTalk...

I couldn't think of a scene more beautiful than that.
From the early hours of the morning, People filled the street to the voting center in my neighborhood; youths, elders, women and men. Women's turn out was higher by the way. And by 11 am the boxes where I live were almost full!
Anyone watching that scene cannot but have tears of happiness, hope, pride and triumph....

...How can I describe it!? Take my eyes and look through them my friends, you have supported the day of Iraq's freedom and today, Iraqis have proven that they're not going to disappoint their country or their friends.

Is there a bigger victory than this? I believe not.

I still recall the first group of comments that came to this blog 14 months ago when many of the readers asked "The Model?"… "Model for what?"
Take a look today to meet the model of courage and human desire to achieve freedom; people walking across the fire to cast their votes.

Could any model match this one!? Could any bravery match the Iraqis'!?
Let the remaining tyrants of the world learn the lesson from this day.

The media is reporting only explosions and suicide attacks that killed and injured many Iraqis s far but this hasn't stopped the Iraqis from marching towards their voting stations with more determination. Iraqis have truly raced the sun.

I walked forward to my station, cast my vote and then headed to the box, where I wanted to stand as long as I could, then I moved to mark my finger with ink, I dipped it deep as if I was poking the eyes of all the world's tyrants.
I put the paper in the box and with it, there were tears that I couldn't hold; I was trembling with joy and I felt like I wanted to hug the box but the supervisor smiled at me and said "brother, would you please move ahead, the people are waiting for their turn".

Yes brothers, proceed and fill the box!
These are stories that will be written on the brightest pages of history...

My condolences to the Great American people for the tragic recent losses of soldiers. The blood of Iraqis and Americans is being shed on the soil of Mesopotamia; a baptism with blood. A baptism of a lasting friendship and alliance, for many years to come, through thick and thin, we shall never forget the brave soldiers fallen while defending our freedom and future...

As we said before, today’s elections are only the beginning. Suicide bombers, car bombers, and terrorists will still be with us tomorrow morning. Innocent people will die tomorrow morning as they died today. Political problems will not vanish. However, today’s baby step had to be taken and it was taken by a proud nation determined to turn over the page of tyranny and fear.

I slept really late but I woke up at 6.30. I shaved (I do this once every century) and dressed as I was going to a party. The phone rang and I let it ring for a while before I answered. "Hey Ba'athist! Why are you still asleep? Why not go and vote?" a friend's voice came through teasing me. I tried to see if anyone started voting already so I turned on the TV and saw that few people have already done that but the reports were not very encouraging. I heard some explosions and gun shots. Some were far and some were near. I turned on the computer, made a post and checked the news.

My sister who's staying with us together with her husband and their one and a half year old son, "Mohammed", called on me to have breakfast. As I was sipping my tea I was surprised when my mother came back telling us she already voted! I envied her but I had changed my mind on rushing to vote. I decided instead to enjoy these moments to the last. I got out walked to the voting center like I was taking a walk in a park or on the bank of the river. As I got out it was still early and I saw no one on the streets but as I got near to the voting center I started seeing people in groups heading the same way. Most of them were women. I saw a crippled man and my old neighbor and his older wife leaning on their walking sticks going to vote...

...I'm stil overwhelmed with thoughts and emotions that I don't know what to say more. The only things I can feel so strongly now are hope, excitement, pride and a strange internal peace. I have won my battle and I'm watching the whole Iraqis winning their battle too. I'll try to write to you later my friends.
A'ash Al Iraq, A'ashat America, A'ash Al Tahaluf. (Long live Iraq, long live America and long live the coalition)

It is the birth of freedom and democracy in Iraq!

It is a great festival!

Today only we may announce the victory!

Today we hit back in the heart of the terrorists and the tyrants!

Today is the day in which the souls of our martyrs comforted!

Today those who were killed in Iraq or wounded among our friends from the USA and other allies, who helped us to reach this day, are with us again to inscribe their names with Gold for ever!

Today we challenged the killers and terrorists and foot on them with our shoes!

Many people walked long distances to vote in a most civilised way!

People asked for more time to enable them to vote!

One woman was crying because she can not reach the requested polling station to vote!

In many parts the police helped citizens to take them with their cars to the polling stations!

As we expected the enemies of God and freedom send their mentally retarded cockroaches in some suicidal attacks.

On the top of our privileged today are those who were killed in their way for voting. Their names should be perpetuated for ever! Their names should be written in Gold in Al-Fordos Square in Baghdad!

Our thanks go to George W Bush who will enter the history as the leader of the freedom and democracy in the recent history! He and his people are our friends for ever!

At this moment the voting closed and we will see the results then!

God bless Iraq and America.

Sometimes we dissidents were not invited, but received an apology, and sometimes we were invited, but did not accept the invitation so as not to complicate the lives of our courageous diplomat friends. Or we were invited to come at an earlier hour in the hope that we would leave before the official representatives arrived, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. When it didn't, either the official representatives left in protest at our presence, or we left hurriedly, or we all pretended not to notice each other, or -- albeit on rare occasions -- we started to converse with each other, which frequently were the only moments of dialogue between the regime and the opposition (not counting our courthouse encounters).

`Dissidents or trade'

This all happened when the Iron Curtain divided Europe -- and the world -- into opposing camps. Western diplomats had their countries' economic interests to consider, but, unlike the Soviet side, they took seriously the idea of ''dissidents or trade.'' I cannot recall any occasion at that time when the West or any of its organizations (NATO, the European Community, etc.) issued some public appeal, recommendation or edict stating that some specific group of independently minded people -- however defined -- were not to be invited to diplomatic parties, celebrations or receptions.

But today this is happening. One of the strongest and most powerful democratic institutions in the world -- the European Union -- has no qualms in making a public promise to the Cuban dictatorship that it will re-institute diplomatic Apartheid. The EU's embassies in Havana will now craft their guest lists in accordance with the Cuban government's wishes. The shortsightedness of socialist Prime Minister José Zapatero of Spain has prevailed...

The document, drafted by France and co-sponsored by the United States, Britain, Denmark and Greece, was adopted unanimously by the 15-member council, although Russia and Algeria as well as Lebanon voiced criticism.

For the first time in years, the Security Council mentioned Secretary-General Kofi Annan's report in May 2000 that verified Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon behind a UN-drawn frontier, called the "blue line." This frontier put the Shaba Farms in Syria.

The resolution said the "continually asserted position" by Beirut was "not compatible" with past council resolutions or reports by Annan. Beirut contends the Shaba Farms are part of Lebanon and still occupied by Israel...

...Without mentioning the Shaba Farms by name, Lebanon's deputy UN ambassador, Ibrahim Assaf, said the council "selectively highlighted passages from the secretary-general's report," and contended that "these elements could have a detrimental effect on peace and security."

But France's envoy Michel Duclos said, "The blue line remains the agreed reference for the international community."

The resolution also said Lebanon should "extend and exercise its sole authority in the south," a reference to the militant group Hezbollah, which dominates the south and exchanges fire with Israel in the Shaba Farms area.

Anne Patterson, the U.S. acting ambassador, told the council that the biggest impediment to peacekeeping was "the continued specter of armed militias in southern Lebanon, coupled with the Lebanese government's unwillingness to assert its sole and effective control over all its territory."

She said that Lebanon's position that the blue line was invalid is not compatible with Security Council resolutions and in any case is no excuse for allowing Hezbollah to engage in violence along and across the blue line."...

Over the last few years, I've become quite disappointed with the Democratic party on a number of fronts. I believe the party is too reactionary and offers up no ideas of its own. They more or less just oppose whatever the Republicans want to do. I believe the party is too soft on national defense, and is more worried about opinion polls in France than defending the country. I believe that the Democrats are more worried about pleasing certain special interest groups than implementing worthwhile ideas (teacher's unions vs. school vouchers). And so forth.

But nothing has surprised or saddened me more than to see the overt racism from the left.

Examples? Fine. Let's start...

The Indonesian government (rightly so) is in charge of the overall relief effort underway on the western coast of Sumatra. Last time I checked, it is their country. Simply put, we are here to aid them with their recovery. We are merely one part of what could end up as the largest relief effort in history. The resources and personnel of the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group are working in concert with the people of Indonesia, other nations, militaries, and a host of non-governmental relief agencies including US AID, Red Cross & Red Crescent Society, WHO, UNICEF, Doctors without Borders, and the WFP.

The civilians that have been transported by our helicopters and have been hosted aboard the carrier are not a "traveling circus" of aid workers or "trifling do-gooders." On the contrary, these are professionals who have years of experience in mitigating human suffering and tragedy. While there are many highly trained men and women deployed alongside me, there are few (if any) who have expertise in the prediction of malaria transmission vectors, the proper disposal of tens of thousands of human remains, creating a system to match orphaned children with distant relatives, reviving an entire economy, prioritizing bridges or roads to be re-built, or any of the other skills sets that are so critical to disaster relief...

Widening the lens, we notice that last month the U.N. adopted 22 resolutions condemning the state of Israel, and four country-specific resolutions criticizing the human-rights records of the other 190 U.N. member states. Also in December the public entrance of the U.N. sported the annual solidarity with the Palestinian people exhibit, featuring a display about Palestinian humiliation at having to bare midriffs at Israeli checkpoints. (No mention was made of the purpose of the checkpoints or the Israelis who have died from suicide belts on Palestinians who circumvent them.)

On exactly the same day that the secretary-general announced the holding of the commemorative session, January 11, 2005, he also pushed forward the U.N. plan to create a register of the Palestinian victims of Israel's non-violent security fence. (There are no plans to create a register of Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism.) In March the U.N. will begin its annual session of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, at which Israel will be the only U.N. member state not allowed to participate in full because U.N. states continue to prevent it from gaining equal membership in a regional group. The U.N. remains without a definition of terrorism, never having transformed the names of Palestinian terrorists from abstract entities into the targets of specific U.N. condemnation or consequences of any kind. And any day now we can expect the secretary-general to continue his pattern of denouncing Israel's lawful exercise of self-defense as "extrajudicial killing" or as a morally reprehensible contribution to "a cycle of violence." In other words, U.N. demonization of Israel and the green light to the killers of Israelis that such demonization portends will not skip a beat. This is the face of modern anti-Semitism.

Jews everywhere are indebted to the willingness and ability of Israelis to live and breathe self-determination. When contemporary political issues are set aside, and an affirmation of the centrality of the Jewish state's well-being to the Jewish people's well-being is not key to a commemoration of the Holocaust, "never again" is an empty phrase. Worse, situated in a place where a U.N. General Assembly resolution said Zionism was racism until 1991 and the 2001 U.N. Durban Declaration delivers the same message, it plays into the hands of those who would separate Jews from Israel for no other reason than to divide and conquer...

Here are some of the excerpts that made my blood boil (don't read if you have high blood pressure!), followed by my comments...

The tip about a purported bomb plot involving Chinese nationals, which surfaced days before the Jan. 20 U.S. presidential inauguration, spurred a manhunt for 14 people and had police using radiation sensors in Boston's subway system.

Baja California state prosecutors said the tip was made by People trafficker Jose Ernesto Beltran, who called a law enforcement agency in California while high on drink and drugs to warn that a group of Chinese migrants planned to launch an attack.

"He was going to take the Chinese over (the U.S. border) but they didn't pay him," prosecutor's office spokesman, Moises Uribe, said by telephone from the city of Mexicali.

"He then took revenge by calling 911 in the United States and telling them that the group planned to carry out a terror attack on Boston," he added...

I'm writing to ask for a favor in the form of a link. This is not about me, my blog, my traffic, or my ego.

Jim Hake from Spirit of America brought me on to edit the Friends of Democracy site during the week before and the week after the January 30 election in Iraq.

http://www.friendsofdemocracy.info/

We have more than a dozen local Iraqi correspondents, at least one in each province, filing daily reports. These reports include news, interviews, quotes, photos, whatever they can get in a day. They aren't professional journalists. They are more or less ordinary Iraqis. Some of them you already know – Omar and Mohammed from Iraq the Model, for example. Others you don't know because they don't speak or write in English. Their reports are translated from Arabic before they are uploaded to the reports site.

My job isn't to edit the reports, exactly (they are published raw on a secondary site), but to run a blog on the main site which summarizes, excerpts, and links to the reports from the field. I'm also going to be excerpting and linking to essays and posts in the Iraqi blogosphere and - on rarer occasions - stories in the mainstream and Middle Eastern media. The idea is to let Iraqis themselves tell their own story of their own first free election. What I do on the site has nothing to do with me. You won't find me bloviating there as I do on my own blog. I am invisible. My name isn't even on it.

The site is called "Friends of Democracy: Ground level election news from the people of Iraq." To the best of my knowledge there is nothing else like it anywhere out there, at least not in English. (We also have an Arabic site.)

If you have the time and the inclination, please give us a link. Remember, this isn't about me. This is for, about, and mostly by the Iraqi people themselves.

http://www.friendsofdemocracy.info/

Thanks kindly in advance!

Cheers,

Michael J. Totten

On this day in 1945, soldiers of the Red Army liberated the Auschwitz death camp. There were only a few thousand prisoners left in the camp at that time, the rest (about 56,000) having been marched out by the Nazis in a mad rush west to mask their crime and finish their work.

I won't try, of course, to put to words in a simple blog post the things that went on in places like that. Others have done it far better than I could in both book and film.

But the reader may indulge me in a few thoughts...

Pastor Martin Niemöller

British Muslims are to boycott this week’s commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz because they claim it is not racially inclusive and does not commemorate the victims of the Palestinian conflict.

Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, has written to Charles Clarke, the home secretary, saying the body will not attend the event unless it includes the “holocaust” of the Palestinian intifada.

The boycott was condemned by Khalid Mahmood, the MP for Birmingham Perry Barr:

“I’m proud to be a Muslim. But if people are boycotting this then I think it’s a mistake. People who were exterminated in the Holocaust were not just Jews. There were Romany gypsies as well. Anybody who is interested in human rights should support this remembrance.”

Well there's a powerful argument: People who were exterminated in the Holocaust were not just Jews. Yes, I think we get the message.

The six are suspected of having come into the United States from Mexico, and may have headed to New York and then to Boston, the target of a planned attack that could involve a lethal substance, possibly chemical or biological or explosive, three law enforcement officials briefed on the threat said.

The tip about the threat was given to the FBI by only one person, the officials said, and it had not been corroborated as of this afternoon...

``They got a call from across the border in Mexico to the California Highway Patrol and he said he brought two Iraqis and four Chinese (individuals) across the border and according to him, they stated soon to follow behind them would be some sort of material,'' said a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation.

``He refers to some sort of nuclear material that will follow them through New York up into Boston.''

According to the source, the caller has not identified himself and did not show up for a meeting with federal investigators in California but he did leave pictures of four Chinese men and some names at a ``drop'' site at the Mexico-California border.

``They were dropped by the source at a location. He literally threw them over a fence from Mexico to the U.S. side,'' said the source. ``There are pictures of the four Chinese and some names but just how accurate they are remains a question'' ...

...A company that trains explosive-sniffing dogs said it was alerted that the canines would be searching for a ``dirty bomb,'' a New York City law enforcement official said yesterday.

The Massachusetts investigator said much of the man's information sounds far-fetched and investigators have some doubts about the caller's validity because he has not identified himself...

``It's very weird. Even if (the Iraqis and Chinese) were going to do something why would they be blabbing to the yahoo smuggling them across the border? You have to wonder if they screwed him on a deal but you have to treat it seriously and the issue is how do you put it out to the public and not get everybody (in a panic)?'' ...

Some kind of message seems to have gotten across, however, as the Palestinian Authority – according to senior diplomatic officials – began deploying security forces Wednesday night in Gaza Strip areas from where Kassam and mortar rockets have recently been launched.

Gaza Division Commander Brig.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi passed a message on to Palestinian security chief Moussa Arafat Wednesday night, in a meeting initiated by the PA, that the IDF will take control of the launching areas inside Gaza if the Palestinians fail to do so.

Following the security cabinet meeting – the first since Labor joined the government – the Prime Minister's Office put out a statement saying that Israel "will allow neither terrorist actions nor the firing of rockets and mortar shells against Israel communities and will take all necessary steps to prevent this."

"In light of the severe events which have been reviewed and on the basis of security establishment recommendations, the cabinet approves the security establishment recommendations regarding alternative courses of action and response by the IDF and the security forces in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, as they were presented to the cabinet."

Diplomatic officials said that Hizbullah, which is based in Lebanon, Iran and Syria are all playing a role in the terror upsurge in Gaza.

"The cabinet instructs the security establishment to prepare forthwith to carry out all the approved alternatives," the statement read.

But, the statement added, in an indication that the plans were being drawn up but not meant for immediate implementation, "Due to operational considerations the alternative that is chosen and the timing of its implementation will be determined by the decision of Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon, Vice Premier Shimon Peres, Industry, Trade and Employment Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz."

In other words, the plans are ready – including plans to strike at Hizbullah positions in Lebanon -- but the cabinet is giving Abbas another chance before implementing them.

Mofaz told the security cabinet that there is a need to strike a balance "between providing security for the country's residents, and the desire to let Abu Mazen [Abbas] begin an era of dialogue and stopping terror." ...

According to Israeli security officials, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz approved a Palestinian request to meet with senior IDF officers in the Southern Command to allow the Palestinians to present the planned security steps needed to restore calm and halt attacks on Israeli communities.

The Palestinians were reportedly represented by intelligence chief Amin al-Hindi and Arafat. In the security meeting, the Palestinians briefed Israeli officials on the measures they intend to take amd where they want to deploy the police. The PA wants Israel to assure them that the IDF will not shoot at their armed policemen who will be deployed to stop the firing of Kassam rockets.

The Palestinians had asked for the meeting, which was made possible by Israel's decision to resume contacts with the PA...

He also revealed that gravestones in the Jewish section of a municipal cemetery in Aldershot, Hampshire, including those of ex-servicemen, were desecrated over the past few days. This was the second such incident at the cemetery in two months.

In the latest attack by vandals, a total of 12 headstones were defaced with Nazi daubings.

The Stamford Hill attacks on conspicuously dressed ultra-Orhtodox men are believed to have been perpetrated by a gang of up to four men, who have been described as black and Asian.

In some cases, the victims were struck with iron bars, while in others they were punched, kicked and head-butted by their assailants. Some required hospitalization for treatment.

Police are investigating the incidents.

Mike Whine, a senior official at the Community Security Trust (CST), which is dedicated to defending the Jewish community, told the Post he could discern no particular reason for the attacks, which he described as "potentially lethal."

He noted that CST's annual survey of anti-Semitism, which is scheduled to be published next month, would indicate a pattern of rising anti-Semitism and rising violence.

The claim is in an extensive profile of Dr Allawi written for this week's issue of the magazine by an American journalist, Jon Lee Anderson, the author of The Fall of Baghdad and a regular Baghdad correspondent for The New Yorker.

Writing about his research in Jordan in December, Anderson says: "A well-known former government minister told me that an American official had confirmed that the killings took place, saying to him, 'What a mess we're in - we got rid of one son of a bitch only to get another one'."...

Cries and screams broke out in a room at the Tokyo Bar Association as the message came through that Ahmet Kazankiran, 48, and his eldest son, Ramazan, 20, had been forced onto the plane. The news was received during a press conference held by the remaining members of the deportees' family and another Kurd family facing deportation, and supporters and one of their lawyers.

The pair won recognition last summer during a sit-in outside United Nations University to protest their plight.

On Monday morning, the father and son reported to the Immigration Bureau in Shinagawa Ward to apply for an extension to their provisional release. Before noon, it was announced that the two were being detained. The next day, they were deported...

...Kazankiran took part in protest demonstrations in Turkey to stop discrimination against minority Kurds and was once arrested and tortured, his supporters said.

It is extremely rare for anyone to be deported so soon after detention, said Takeshi Ohashi, the lawyer present at the briefing.

"I am angered by the way (Ahmet and Ramazan) were deported," he said, decrying Japan's apparent lack of a human rights standard.

In Japan, very few asylum-seekers are granted refugee status, with only 26 people, including those granted special residence permits, in 2003.

The Kazankirans and Erdal Dogan and his family, also Kurdish asylum-seekers, together staged the two-month sit-in. The remaining 10 members of the two families face imminent deportation...

...The quick day procedure from detention to deportation is not exceptional, the Immigration Bureau official claimed, explaining that deportation orders had already been issued and the law states that deportees must be sent back to their home country as soon as possible once the orders are issued.

The official also said that because deportation orders have been issued for the rest of the Kazankirans as well, the family will be united once again "if they are going to be sent to the same country" as Ahmet and Ramazan.

We Americans of today, together with our allies, are passing through a period of supreme test. It is a test of our courage—of our resolve—of our wisdom—our essential democracy.

If we meet that test—successfully and honorably—we shall perform a service of historic importance which men and women and children will honor throughout all time.

As I stand here today, having taken the solemn oath of office in the presence of my fellow countrymen—in the presence of our God—I know that it is America's purpose that we shall not fail.

In the days and in the years that are to come we shall work for a just and honorable peace, a durable peace, as today we work and fight for total victory in war....

...We can gain no lasting peace if we approach it with suspicion and mistrust or with fear. We can gain it only if we proceed with the understanding, the confidence, and the courage which flow from conviction.

The Almighty God has blessed our land in many ways. He has given our people stout hearts and strong arms with which to strike mighty blows for freedom and truth. He has given to our country a faith which has become the hope of all peoples in an anguished world.

So we pray to Him now for the vision to see our way clearly—to see the way that leads to a better life for ourselves and for all our fellow men—to the achievement of His will to peace on earth.

U.S. District Judge Richard Casey ruled in a lengthy written order that Saudi Arabia, Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan Prince Turki al-Faisal, the country's ambassador to Britain, all have immunity from the litigation.

The judge also dismissed a number of other parties as defendants including Arab Bank, Al Rajhi Bank, and Saudi American Bank.

The rulings stemmed from eight cases that were consolidated before the Manhattan federal judge, who is considering pre-trial matters. The complaints alleged that more than 200 defendants helped support and fund Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network.

The cases were filed on behalf of more than 3,000 plaintiffs including representatives and family members of those killed in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks as well as survivors and insurance carriers.

The plaintiffs alleged that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Royal Family and people prominent in Saudi society made it possible for al Qaeda to grow into a "sophisticated global terrorist network."

The plaintiffs also charged that Saudi Arabia maintained and controlled charities within al Qaeda's structure.

Saudi Arabia responded to the suits saying that it has worked with the United States to share information in the fight against terrorism and that the State Department has not designated the Kingdom as a state sponsor of terrorism.

It also said that the 9/11 Commission in the United States had found no evidence that Saudi Arabia supported those who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

In his ruling, the judge refused to immediately throw out allegations against National Commercial Bank, Saudi Arabia's largest, which the plaintiffs say bin Laden and al Qaeda used for their operations.

The bank, which is mainly state-owned, contends that it has immunity as agent of the government, but the judge said further information was needed to determine its status.

The non-Muslim West is in a fight for its very life, although few are willing to admit it. The most important theater of this conflict is not Iraq or Afghanistan, but the domestic ideological conflict in all its permutations. This conflict calls upon us to defend the principles which have made Western civilization great, and unique: equality of dignity and rights for all, due process, etc. If we compromise or discard these principles to fight the jihad, we might as well elect Osama bin Laden President of the United States. Accordingly, I reject solutions to this problem that contravene those principles. But there are no good choices in this conflict: "banning Islam" is a quixotic call with genocidal overtones, trampling upon the freedom of conscience that we should defend (although freedom of conscience must end where violent jihad begins); calling for Islamic reform, however, is essentially just as quixotic, given the dim prospects of such a reform.

What we can do at this point is continue to try to raise awareness of the true nature of this conflict, which is the purpose to which Jihad Watch is dedicated, and advocate in the public sphere measures which take realistic account of the nature of Islam, the implications of virtually unrestricted immigration from Muslim countries, the likelihood of jihadist activity in American mosques, and so on. At the same time, we need to call upon the Muslim world to heed voices like Thomas Haidon's, before the conflict escalates to a point that will make that impossible...

What does the genuine reformist discourse/movement entail? It is difficult to capture a confining definition, as there is much divergence even within reformist circles. However, there appears to be some agreement among actors that traditional Islam, including the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad, is the primary source of the malaise. Several Muslim reformist organizations have used this as a platform, including the Free Muslim Coalition against Terrorism and the opaque Progressive Muslim Union of North America. There is also a small but growing voice within this discourse that genuinely believes that secularism is consistent with Islam. In fact, some Muslim commentators argue that Islam demands secularization. This is perhaps one of the most encouraging aspects of the movement.

To date however, a comprehensive framework for the reformist agenda has not been established by the reformers their organizations, and this is a partial reason for the marginal effect of the discourse. Further compounding the situation is the presence of perceived moderates and reformers who have attempted to divide and destroy this discourse, including such individuals as Tariq Ramadan. These fake reformers and their representative organizations say one thing and mean another...

I would soon find out...

"I hope we can solve it diplomatically, but I will never take any option off the table," Bush told NBC News, adding that he could act if Iran "continues to stonewall the international community about the existence of its nuclear weapons program."...

...The New York Times reported today the Bush administration imposed penalties on eight Chinese firms it thinks aided Iran in improving ballistic missiles. The State Department did not name the technology allegedly exported. The firms are barred from doing business with the US government.

Between 1991 and 1996, Osama bin Laden lived in Sudan where he was protected by Hassan Abdullah at-Turabi, the leader of Sudan's National Islamic Front, an Islamist movement. According to the 9-11 Commission, Sudanese officials facilitated meetings between al-Qaeda operatives and Iranian officials, a relationship which blossomed into tactical training:

Turabi sought to persuade Shiites and Sunnis to put aside their divisions and join against the common enemy. In late 1991 or 1992, discussions in Sudan between al Qaeda and Iranian operatives led to an informal agreement to cooperate in providing support—even if only training—for actions carried out primarily against Israel and the United States. Not long afterward, senior al Qaeda operatives and trainers traveled to Iran to receive training in explosives. In the fall of 1993, another such delegation went to the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon for further training in explosives as well as in intelligence and security. Bin Ladin reportedly showed particular interest in learning how to use truck bombs such as the one that had killed 241 U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1983. The relationship between al Qaeda and Iran demonstrated that Sunni-Shia divisions did not necessarily pose an insurmountable barrier to cooperation in terrorist operations...

...'Aid Came from the Neighboring Countries - We Got Aid Primarily from Iran'

Interrogator: "Did you get support from the countries of the region?"

Muayed Al-Nasseri: "Yes, sir... Many factions of the resistance are receiving aid from the neighboring countries. We in the Army of Muhammad - the fighting has been going on for almost two years now, and there must be aid, and this aid came from the neighboring countries. We got aid primarily from Iran. The truth is that Iran has played a significant role in supporting the Army of Muhammad and many factions of the resistance. I have some units, especially in southern Iraq, which receive Iranian aid in the form of arms and equipment."

Interrogator: "You're referring to units of the Army of Muhammad?"

Muayed Al-Nasseri: "Yes. They received money and weapons."

'[Fighters] Met Personally with Iranian Leader Khamenei... They Even Got Car Bombs'

Muayed Al-Nasseri: "As for other factions of the resistance, I have reliable information regarding the National Islamic resistance, which is one of the factions of resistance, led by Colonel 'Asi Al Hadithi. He sent a delegation to Iran from among the people of the faction, including General Halaf and General Khdayyer. They were sent to Iran in April or May and met with Iranian intelligence and with a number of Iranian leaders and even with Khamenei."

Interrogator: "You mean they personally met with Khamenei?"

Muayed Al-Nasseri: "According to my information, they met with him personally, and they were given one million dollars and two cars full of weapons. They still have a very close relationship with Iran. They receive money, cars, weapons, and many things. According to my information, they even got car bombs."

'Cooperation with Syria Began in October 2003... Later, Saddam Hussein Himself Authorized Me to Go to Syria'

Muayed Al-Nasseri: "In addition, as I've told you, Syria... Cooperation with Syria began in October 2003, when a Syrian intelligence officer contacted me. S'ad Hamad Hisham and later Saddam Hussein himself authorized me to go to Syria. So I was sent to Syria. I crossed the border illegally. Then I went to Damascus and met with an intelligence officer, Lieutenant-Colonel 'Abu Naji' through a mediator called 'Abu Saud.' I raised the issues that preoccupied Saddam Hussein and the leadership. There were four issues: First, the issue of the media; second, political support in international forums; [third], aid in the form of weapons, and [fourth], material aid, whether it is considered a debt or is taken from the frozen Iraqi funds in Syria."

'The Syrian Government is Fully Aware of this, and the Syrian Intelligence Cooperates Fully'

Muayed Al-Nasseri: "Through the Ba'th party - the Arab Socialist Ba'th Party operates in Syria with complete freedom. It maintains its relations and organizes the Ba'th members outside Iraq. The Syrian government is fully aware of this, and the Syrian intelligence cooperates fully, as well as the Ba'th Party, in Syria.

"As for the Ba'th Party, after we contacted them, they organized a meeting for me with a man named Fawzi Al-Rawi, who is a member of the national leadership and an important figure in Syria. The Syrian government authorized him to meet with me. We met twice. In the first meeting, I explained to him what the Army of Muhammad is, what kind of operations we carry out, and many other things. In the second meeting he told me that Syrian government officials were very pleased with our first meeting. He informed me that the Army of Muhammad would receive material aid in the form of goods, given to us for free or for a very low price, for us to sell in Iraq, in order to support the Army of Muhammad. This was done this way due to Syria's current circumstances, international pressure, and accusations of supporting the terrorism and resistance in Iraq."...

"There is no leadership in the world that gets elected on a peaceful program and leaves arms in the hands of militias and other groups," Nafe told Reuters.

"Weapons that don't belong to the Palestinian police are illegal. So wherever illegal weapons are found, we will collect them," he said.

The Special Forces are among at least a dozen, sometimes competing, Palestinian security forces...

Abbas said he expects to meet Prime Minister Ariel Sharon before any planned visit to Washington in the near future.

Speaking to Palestinian reporters on Tuesday, Abbas said all the Palestinian factions had to respect the rule of law in the Palestinian areas, and that those breaking the law will be punished...

...He disclosed that Abbas had also issued instructions to recruit gunmen belonging to Fatah's armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, into the security forces. "These men will play a role in building the PA and its institutions," he said, referring to scores of Fatah gunmen wanted by Israel for their involvement in terrorism.

However, a spokesman for the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in Nablus rejected the offer, saying his men would continue to fight against Israel "until the end of the occupation."...

...The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Islamic Jihad also rejected the call to halt attacks, saying the armed struggle is a legitimate tool....

Ella Abukasis, 17, was returning from a meeting of the Bnei Akiva youth movement, together with her siblings and a friend, last Saturday around 6:30 P.M., when they heard a warning that a rocket was approaching.

The rocket landed near them while they were on Jerusalem Street, only 100 meters from the Abukasis' home.

Abukasis suffered severe head wounds from shrapnel. Her friend and sister were both wounded lightly. According to one eyewitness, Ella had dived to shield her 9-year-old brother Tamir from the Qassam...

In addition to her work at the French news agency, Batsh was also a reporter for the PA's official organ, Al-Ayyam,. In other words, she was also on the PA's payroll, since the Ramallah-based newspaper was established and is financed by the PA. Al-Ayyam's editor, Akram Haniyeh, has been listed as an adviser to Yasser Arafat.

But Batsh was not the only journalist at AFP who was working simultaneously for the PA. One of the agency's correspondents in the Gaza Strip is Adel Zanoun, who also happens to be the chief reporter in the area for the PA's Voice of Palestine radio station.

The AFP bureau chief in Jerusalem, Patrick Anidjar, refuses to discuss the issue, saying, "I don't understand why you have to have the name of our correspondents." Pressed to give a specific answer, he says: "I don't want our correspondents' names to go into print. I don't want to answer the question. What is this, a police investigation?"

Regarding the ratio of Palestinian to Israeli correspondents employed by AFP, he says that it's about 50-50.

"We have 20 Palestinian journalists and 20 Israeli journalists, including photographers. Most of those working in the the West Bank and Gaza Strip are Palestinians, and most of those working in Israel are Israelis, as is logical, no?"

IT IS perhaps less logical when the covering of Palestinian affairs is entrusted only to Palestinian journalists, some of whom are openly affiliated with the PA or other political groups.

"I will never work on a story that defames my people or leadership," boasts a Palestinian "fixer" (mediator/guide/translator) who works on a regular basis with many foreign journalists. "It is my duty to protect my people against Israeli propaganda."

AFP is not the only member of the international news media to employ "journalists" who see themselves as "foot soldiers" serving the Palestinian cause. Other parts of the foreign media frequently allow their stories to be filtered through such fixers-consultants...

It has led one professor, who denounces the whole matter as a "witch hunt," to abandon one of his signature courses. It has prompted a faculty member in the medical school, not at all directly involved, to send an e-mail message to an implicated professor that he is a "pathetic typical Arab liar" and should leave the country. There have been death threats. Students have been labeled as "ignorant" and "liars" by teachers. Perhaps it is not surprising that one professor caught in the whirlpool came down with shingles...

Muhammad Bakri, producer of "Jenin, Jenin," a documentary that claims Israel committed genocide in the Jenin refugee camp in April 2002, admitted in a deposition to inaccuracies throughout his film. The filmmaker is being sued by five Israeli soldiers visible in still footage in the film, which alleges IDF troops killed a "large number" of civilians, mutilated Palestinian bodies, randomly executed and bombed women, children and the mentally and physically impaired, and leveled the entire refugee camp, including a wing of the local hospital.

The documentary doesn't show footage of the alleged atrocities, but in some scenes, faces of the soldiers now suing Bakri were superimposed over "eyewitness testimony," and it was indicated they had committed "war crimes."

But Bakri, in a deposition obtained by WND, admitted he "believed" selected witnesses but didn't check the information they provided.

"I believed the things that I've been told. What I did not believe was not included in the film," said Bakri.

When asked about a scene in which it is implied Israeli troops ran over civilians, Bakri admitted to constructing the footage himself as an "artistic choice." He also answered "no" when asked if he believed "that during the operation in Jenin, the Israeli soldiers killed people indiscriminately."

In perhaps the most explosive element of the deposition, Bakri admitted his documentary, which was screened in theaters around the world, was financed in part by the Palestinian Authority. He said Yasser Abed Rabu, Palestinian minister of culture and information and a member of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat's executive committee, "covered a part of the film expenses." ...

Mr. Hersh’s article is so riddled with errors of fundamental fact that the credibility of his entire piece is destroyed.

Mr. Hersh’s source(s) feed him with rumor, innuendo, and assertions about meetings that never happened, programs that do not exist, and statements by officials that were never made.

A sampling from this article alone includes:

* The post-election meeting he describes between the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not happen.

* The only civilians in the chain-of-command are the President and the Secretary of Defense, despite Mr. Hersh’s confident assertion that the chain of command now includes two Department policy officials. His assertion is outrageous, and constitutionally specious.

* Arrangements Mr. Hersh alleges between Under Secretary Douglas Feith and Israel, government or non-government, do not exist. Here, Mr. Hersh is building on links created by the soft bigotry of some conspiracy theorists. This reflects poorly on Mr. Hersh and the New Yorker.

* Mr. Hersh cannot even keep track of his own wanderings. At one point in his article, he makes the outlandish assertion that the military operations he describes are so secret that the operations are being kept secret even from U.S. military Combatant Commanders. Mr. Hersh later states, though, that the locus of this super-secret activity is at the U.S. Central Command headquarters, evidently without the knowledge of the commander if Mr. Hersh is to be believed.

By his own admission, Mr. Hersh evidently is working on an “alternative history” novel. He is well along in that work, given the high quality of “alternative present” that he has developed in several recent articles.

Mr. Hersh’s preference for single, anonymous, unofficial sources for his most fantastic claims makes it difficult to parse his discussion of Defense Department operations.

Finally, the views and policies Mr. Hersh ascribes to Secretary Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, Under Secretary Feith, and other Department of Defense officials do not reflect their public or private comments or administration policy.

Well, I am sorry, but these are horrible thoughts for the New Year. Nevertheless, do not go thinking that we have weakened. This time America is right, and the Iraqi people will never allow the clock to be turned back. No matter what sacrifices are required: We Shall Overcome.

Love to all our friends in America and elsewhere: You shall be proud of the Iraqi people, your grateful friends.

The call was issued following an emergency meeting of the committee in Ramallah to discuss the latest upsurge in violence in the Gaza Strip.

However, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah's armed wing, the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, responded by rejecting the call and pledging to pursue the fight.

Sunday's meeting was held against a backdrop of increased rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli settlements and towns over the past few days. It also came days before Abbas's planned visit to the Gaza Strip to try to convince all Palestinian groups to accpet a cease-fire.

A statement published by the committee after a three-hour meeting chaired by Abbas said: "The (PLO executive) committee calls for halting all military operations that cause harm to our national interests and provide Israel with an excuse to disrupt stability on the Palestinian arena."

This specific phrase was played down, appearing only towards the end of the statement, most of which was devoted to criticizing Israel's practices in the Gaza Strip. ...

"Another instance of the same kind … occurred when I appeared on the MBC network, and to my left sat the well-known American Islamist Mr. Nihad Awad, who heads the American-Islamic organization CAIR.

"I am not referring to the organization CARE. [This organization's] activist in Iraq, Margaret Hassan, had her throat slashed by the 'heroes of Iraq.' [I am referring] to the organization CAIR, whose areas of interest are different – and they are not humanitarian services.

"The program's subject was 'Islamophobia' … and it took place before the events of September 2001. Mr. Nihad Awad brought with him a film prepared by his organization, and screened it for us in order to prove to us that America was hostile to Islam and hates Muslims, and that American Muslims are subject to ethnic discrimination and racist fanaticism and that the organization therefore requires financial support from Muslims in order to protect the Muslims in America.

"As proof of CAIR's activity in the U.S. and in order to attract the required support, he related a story about a book that was in front of him. He [claimed] that this book was written against Islam, was used for teaching American pupils, and contained grave damage to the Prophet of Islam – because it discussed the Prophet's marriage to Safiyya bint Huyay ibn Akhtab, after her father, her brother, her husband, and all her tribe were killed. [Nihad Awad added that] CAIR sued [in the matter] and won, and that this section was removed from the book…

"I reached out my hand and picked up the book, and was surprised by its title: ' The Religions in the World. 'It was not a book dedicated to Islam. I skimmed the table of contents and saw that it presented all the world religions in general, apparently because they [the Americans], with their civil education, do not teach so-called Islamic or Christian education.

"Do you feel, as I do, the magnitude of this tragedy? It is our tragedy, not the Americans'. This is because the story [about the Prophet's marriage to this woman after killing her family members] is historical truth and there is a consensus [regarding its truth], and it is written in all the Islamic traditions. [Our heritage] sets out in detail the reasons for this incident, the kind of war that was being fought then, and the rules of war [that prevailed at that time] – according to which the women of the defeated side were the captives of the victor.

"But the organization CAIR vehemently denies that this incident even occurred. This is denial of something that is known for certain in the religion, because it is linked to the history of Da'wa and the history of the Koran and Islamic law…

"This is also a mockery of the democracy and noble laws of America, by a deception that exploits the progress [that guides American] legal values, and by a blatant lie in order to eradicate the story from an American [school] book.

"The Americans, out of respect for Muslims and their religion … ordered that the story be expunged from the [school] book, and even accused its authors of ethnic extremism – which is a terrible accusation in America…" ...

But struggling to cope with daily violence, crime, and fuel and food shortages, and fearing more bloodshed ahead of Jan. 30 elections, most said they had paid little attention to Graner's court martial.

Some said members of Saddam Hussein's regime responsible for torture and killing at the notorious prison west of Baghdad before the U.S.-led invasion should also be brought to justice.

"It's too little. This isn't justice," trader Ali Ahmed, 23, said of Graner's sentence.

"Even capital punishment isn't enough. But since it's forbidden to torture him the way he tortured the prisoners, I would have settled for the death penalty."...

Sharon's demand that the Palestinian Authority exert substantial control over the jihadists within its borders may have made sense during the Arafat era, but now that he is dead I wonder if Sharon is not just giving leverage to the terrorists. That is, if you do not believe that Abbas can coerce the terrorists, he can only negotiate with them. Sharon is, in effect, requiring that Abbas make concessions to the terrorists in order for Sharon to deal with him. What am I missing?

I think you know that I am a big supporter of both Israel and Sharon, who I believe is Israel's best chance for lasting and well-defined borders. But I am not convinced that this move is necessary.

Yeah, right. Abbas had been acting Prime Minister throughout the entire election period, pledging that whole time not to disarm the terrorists. Well, he kept his promise, evidently...

1. Start repealing Syria’s 40-years old emergency laws.

2. Free all political prisoners from jail.

3. Abolish media censorship.

4. Initiate democratic reform.

5. Speed up economic development

6. Cut down relations with Iran.

7. Announce publicly that the disputed Shebaa Farms at the base of Mt. Hermon are former Syrian territory. This would cut the ground from under the Lebanese terrorist Hizballah’s claim that the land is Lebanese and must be “liberated” from Israeli “occupation.”...

...8. Hand over to US or Iraqi authorities 55 top officials and military officers of the former Saddam regime, who are confirmed by intelligence to be established in Syria and running the guerrilla war in Iraq out of their homes and offices.

(An address, telephone number and cell phone number were listed beside each name).

But the punchline was in the last demand.

9. Syria had better make sure that none of the Kornet AT-14 anti-tank missiles which it recently purchased in large quantities from East Europe turn up in Iraq. US intelligence has recorded their serial numbers to identify their source. DEBKAfile’s military sources add: Because he cannot afford to buy advanced fighter planes and tanks, Assad purchased massive quantities of the “third generation” Kornet AT-14 anti-tank weapons.

Just in case any are found in Iraq, General Casey, commander of US forces in Iraq has already received orders from the commander-in-chief in the White House to pursue military action inside Syria according to his best military judgment.

Number 9 therefore incorporates a tangible threat. The American general has the authority to launch military action against Syria as he sees fit and without delay if Damascus continues to meddle in Iraq’s affairs.

What would I be crying about?

The Indian story. It’s taken me many years to face it, but in my Comanche blood is written the worst historical trauma of all: to be free as the wind, then caged forever; to roam the prairie like a wild horse, then to be roped into everlasting confinement. Yes, I cry for an irreparable, tragic past. It is a doleful drone in my soul, a long, lonely drum beat.

I don’t know how to describe the sorrow. For all my education in the arts, I am mute. I have no voice. Yet...

...I haven’t killed my fears yet. I’m still afraid of the Indian tragedy within me. For now, I find my voice in the ancient wailing of another people. I indulge myself through their exquisite articulations. I hide behind the Jews.

The report comes following a deadly attack Thursday night at the Karni terminal crossing in the Gaza Strip, in which six Israelis were killed, and five civilians were wounded.

In response, Israel has announced that it will not negotiate with the PA until the attack is investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice.

"Israel informed international leaders today that there will be no meetings with Abbas until he makes a real effort to stop the terror," said Sharon spokesman Assaf Shariv.

Shariv said that Israel informed officials from the US, EU, Britain and the Palestinians.

Shariv said Israel made the decision because the attack on the Gaza crossing was launched from a Palestinian Authority base...

Every day you will learn to master combat assault weapons such as the M16, the Galil, the Uzi sub machine gun, the Uzi pistol and the Desert Eagle. You will be firing semi-automatic and full automatic, breaking the weapons apart, cleaning them and putting them back together...

...After you have mastered the basics of patrol techniques and attack methods, we move on to advanced training. Advanced training includes roadblock setup and vehicle inspection, explosives detection, camouflage application using the natural environment and camo face paint, ambush techniques, learn how to defend yourself using Israeli hand to hand combat techniques / Krav Maga and hostage rescue scenarios.

If you want to learn from the most elite fighting force in the world, then this is your program, designed exclusively with you in mind. We understand that you want to live in a comfortable environment mixed with the combat proven skill and toughness of the Israeli army. The food is great, the beach side barbecues even better and the beds are comfortable. We are not here to pamper you but we will make you feel like this is your second home...

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 1/14/05) - The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today said that it is encouraged by a recent meeting in Los Angeles with representatives of the Fox television network to discuss Muslim concerns about the drama series "24." SEE: http://www.fox.com/24/

CAIR called for Wednesday's meeting to address the depiction of a "Muslim" family that is at the heart of a terror plot in the popular program. The Washington-based Islamic civil rights and advocacy group is concerned that the portrayal of the family as a terrorist "sleeper cell" may cast a shadow of suspicion over ordinary American Muslims and could increase Islamophobic stereotyping and bias.

At the meeting, which included representatives from CAIR's Southern California office and from the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council, Fox officials said they would distribute a CAIR public service announcement (PSA) to network affiliates and ask that it be aired in proximity to "24."

TO VIEW THE CAIR PSA, GO TO:
http://www.cair.com/default.asp?page=PSAJun2004

SEE ALSO: "US TV to Screen Pro-Muslim Spots"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4173647.stm

FOX also gave meeting participants assurances that the program will be balanced in its portrayal of Muslims. Network representatives said that they had already reviewed existing episodes and removed some aspects that could potentially be viewed as stereotypical.

"We thank Fox for the opportunity to address the Muslim community's concerns and for the willingness of network officials to take those concerns seriously in an atmosphere of mutual respect and cooperation," said CAIR Communications Coordinator Rabiah Ahmed. She added that CAIR looks forward to working with Fox in the future.

In response to the continued criticism, Mayor Livingstone called a January 11, 2005 press conference, at which he released a report defending Sheikh Al-Qaradhawiand demanded that the British media apologize for condemning Al-Qaradhawi's visit.

In his report and during the press conference, Mayor Livingstone singled out MEMRI as the source of documents and translations which he dismisses...

...MEMRI will soon be issuing an official response, as well as additional new material on Qaradhawi.

The following is a compilation of media research material on Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi, done by MEMRI over the past few years. It includes: 1) MEMRI TV clips of Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi; 2) MEMRI Special Reports about Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi; 3) MEMRI Special Dispatches of Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi's writings and interviews...

After noting that violence is likely to depress turnout in Iraq's western, and predominately Sunni, provinces, the Times calls for a postponement of voting for a "fixed period of only two or three months," during which time the Allawi government "should convene an emergency meeting" to develop a "revised election timetable." In return, Sunni leaders "would have to promise to take part in the elections that followed." In other words, the Times and the "realist" establishment it represents, counsels the Iraqi government to answer the fascist insurgency by delaying elections, calling a meeting and holding Sunnis to their word. We've witnessed this sort of "realistic" betrayal of democracy and reliance on paper agreements and the pledges of criminal thugs before, only it didn't take place in Baghdad--but in Munich...

Other conservative organizations, ranging from gun clubs (Harvard’s has more than 100 students blasting away) to impudent newspapers and magazines, are budding at schools everywhere—even at Berkeley, crucible of the sixties’ student Left. And right-of-center speakers invited by these clubs are drawing large and approving crowds. “At many schools, those speeches have become the biggest events of the semester,” Time reports. One such talk at Duke by conservative author and former Comedy Central host Ben Stein, notes Time, attracted “a bigger crowd than the one that had come to hear Maya Angelou two months earlier.”...

At the Guardian, where she later served as news editor, she found herself increasingly at odds with the conventional wisdom. "I used to have this argument at the Guardian, which amazed and horrified me. I used to say, 'Why do we make a front page splash when the Israelis kill five Palestinians, when the murder of thousands of Muslims by Muslims is a nib on page seven? It's a double standard.' And they would say, 'Of course it's a double standard because we hold Jews to account by Western standards. We can't judge the Third World by our standards.' When I first heard this argument I was gobsmacked [stunned], because to me it was racist. It's moral and cultural relativism."...

For months now, MPAC has been touting its new “National Anti-Terrorism Campaign” (NATC), garnering uncritical publicity in the media and even praise from government officials. The Campaign’s glossy brochure proclaims that “It is our duty as American Muslims to protect our country and to contribute to its betterment.” But like the old Whip Inflation Now campaign of the Ford Administration, the NATC is long on style and short on substance. It recommends, for example, that “All activities within the mosque and Islamic centers should be authorized by legitimate, acknowledged leadership…” That sounds great until one realizes that if a mosque is involved in terrorist activity, it is most likely with the complicity of mosque leadership — as per the Naqshbandi Sufi leader Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani’s 1999 testimony before a State Department Open Forum that eighty percent of American mosques were controlled by extremists.[1] The rest of MPAC’s recommendations are in the same vein, appearing to be more concerned about misbehavior by non-Muslim law enforcement officials in mosques than about the possibility of terrorist activity in those mosques. WIN buttons are one thing, but the consequences of false advertising by MPAC are much more deadly. Now with the publication of this new report, MPAC’s counterterrorism agenda seems to boil down to one substantive point: Steve Emerson, not Islamic terrorism, is the enemy...

Of course, MPAC is entitled, under our freedoms, to deceive — as any self-respecting militant Islamic group would if it wanted to acquire political influence. But the real danger lies in the consequences of falling for that deception. Do all those elected officials, law enforcement agents and journalists who dutifully attended MPAC’s most recent conferences, touting MPAC’s “moderation,” really understand that they are granting legitimacy to a group whose agenda is exactly the opposite of “countering religious and political extremism?”

Pressure for some form of military action is also coming from interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, these sources said.

Some former and serving U.S. intelligence officials who have usually been opposed to any expansion of U.S. military activities in the region are expressing support for such strikes.

A former senior U.S. intelligence official told United Press International, "I don't usually find myself in sympathy with the Bush neo-cons, but I think there is enough fire under this smoke to justify such action."

Referring to the escalating attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq by Iraqi insurgents, he added, "Syria is complicit in the (anti-U.S.) insurgency up to its eyeballs."

"Syria is the No. 1 crossing point" for guerrillas entering Iraq," Gary Gambill, editor of the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, said. He added that Damascus "does nothing about it."

An administration official said Syria has "camps in which Syrians are training Iraqis for the insurgency and others where Iraqis are training Syrians for the same purpose" which could be hit by U.S. air strikes...

(NOTE: Modify the press release below by using local information. Then, call your local newspapers, TV and radio stations to find out the appropriate person to send the press release to. Also send a copy to the Daybook editor at the nearest Associated Press office. Visit www.ap.org for more details.)

LOCAL MUSLIMS TO PRAY FOR THOSE KILLED IN TSUNAMI

WHAT: On Friday, December 31, Muslims in [your city or state] will offer prayers for those who died as a result of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Asia. The prayers, called salat al-ghaib (sa-laat-all-guy-ib), or "prayers for those who have died in a distant place," will be held following the regular Friday
Jum'ah prayers at [location].

WHEN: Friday, December 21. Jum'ah prayers begin at [time].

WHERE: [location, address and directions]

CONTACT: [names and phone numbers of contact people]

NOTE: Because this is a religious service, reporters and photographers of both sexes should dress modestly. Photographers should arrive early to get into position for the best shots. Photographers are also advised not to step directly in front of worshipers and to seek permission for close-up shots.

(I should reiterate too that the fence really is a fence, made of chain-linked wire, and not a wall, as its critics maintain. There is a small section of it that is a wall, looking something like the type of barriers that you see at the verges of motorways in this country. The resemblance is not accidental, because that's exactly what that part of the security fence is: a barrier alongside a main road where sniper fire had been directed at motorists, and which a fence would be powerless to stop.)

In addition, these security measures have reinforced an overwhelming consensus in Israeli society for a strategy of defensive deterrence, withdrawal from strategically and politically indefensible settlements in Gaza, and direct negotiations for a Palestinian state...

• Education and Incitement. In any society, what is taught in public schools and broadcast on public airwaves is a good indication of the values that are being inculcated in its people. PA-run schools and the PA-controlled media have been used to poison a generation of Palestinians against Jews and Israel. The Free World must demand that this end immediately.

• Refugee Camps. A PA dedicated to bettering the lives of its citizens will immediately seek to address the miserable conditions of Palestinians who have been living in refugee camps for four generations. A PA interested only in controlling its subjects will prefer to continue to use these Palestinians as pawns in a political struggle against the Jewish State by feeding fantasies that they will return to pre-1967 Israel. The Free World should express its willingness to fund a program that provides decent housing for those living in the camps. A PA leadership that rejects such a plan is not interested in the welfare of its own people and hence not a partner for peace.

• Economic Independence. In a fear society, people are cogs of the regime. That is why one of the anchors of a free society is a middle class not dependent on government largess. With a monopoly over basic industries, and the power to decide who receives work permits to Israel and who receives international assistance, the PA has a stranglehold over the Palestinian economy. Money sent is used to fund terrorism and corruption rather than to improve lives. While I have long advocated a new Marshall Plan for the Palestinians, the success of such a plan will depend on ensuring that money is invested only in projects that directly benefit the Palestinians. That will help them re-establish the middle class that is so essential for their future...

It is one thing to utter such words in the privacy of one's own home, but it is quite another to do so in the presence of the men firing the rockets.

For the past four years, Hamas terrorists have used the fields north of Beit Lahiya as a launching pad for the hundreds of mortar shells and Kassam rockets they lobbed into nearby Israeli settlements and the city of Sderot. In response, IDF tanks routinely thrash through this largely agrarian town of 40,000 people, leveling much in their path, and leaving mothers like Hibel to pick up the pieces.

After exercising her right to vote for the first time in her 30 years, Hibel was not to be intimidated by the grim-faced "mujahideen" who had sauntered over to eyeball the strangers in town. As if to spite them, Hibel continued: "I voted for Abu Mazen [Abbas] only because of his declaration that firing Kassams was stupid; I voted for him because he promised that the screaming of the children would stop." Then she proudly displayed the ink stain on her thumb to prove that she had voted.

Though unimpressed, the "mujahideen" - two young Hamas activists with straggly beards and greasy sweatshirts who, after four years of fighting, are already considered seasoned fighters - patiently waited until Hibel finished.

Then 22-year-old Fadal fired off a tirade that the boys who had gathered around the circle of interlocutors had likely heard countless times before. With a final flourish Fadal spat, "Abu Mazen sells the blood of the martyrs."

He and his sidekick, 19-year-old Bilal, were convinced that "there will be a civil war if Abu Mazen thinks of arresting the mujahideen or taking away our guns."

They also believed that "the Zionists and the Americans rigged the elections" in Abbas's favor...

When Smith saw a presentation on the Holocaust, he knew that was what he wanted to explore.

“I could teach about hatred and what it cost,” he says.

When Smith brought the idea to Linda Hooper, he warned that studying the Holocaust would expose the children to disturbing images and stories. They agreed that the project would be a voluntary, once-a-week after-school activity for eighth-graders only. The first year, parents were required to attend with their kids...

...She began by reading aloud to the kids from Elie Wiesel’s Night, Anne Frank’s diary, and history books. Her students were having a hard time understanding the magnitude of the Holocaust. They never had seen 6 million of anything. The kids decided to collect 6 million paper clips.

Why paper clips?

“You needed to make it something you can walk past, something you can touch,” Roberts explains. Given the size of the school building, Hooper told the class that they had to pick something small.

The kids searched the Internet for inspiration and discovered that during World War II, Norwegians had worn paper clips on their collars to show their solidarity with Jews and their opposition to Nazism and anti-Semitism.

Another reason was what paper clips symbolized—holding things together...

Introduction
As today's PA elections approached, the PA increased the level of hate promotion by its leaders. The most widely reported incident was a Jan. 5 speech by PA leader Mahmoud Abbas in which he twice referred to Israel as the "Zionist enemy." What has not been publicized, however, is the general increase in hate promotion from other media venues controlled by the PA.

For example, after a few weeks of very moderate Friday TV sermons, including one in which the Imam actually read from a prepared text, the PA decided to return to the hate promotion that has been much more common for these sermons. This past Friday, Sheik Ibrahim Madiras preached about the corruption of the Jews, even blaming the Tsunami disaster on the Jews and America. The previous week, he preached about the Palestinians' longing for the destruction of Israel and America.

The following are the texts of these broadcasts:
To view click here

Sheik Ibrahim Madiras Friday sermon, PA TV Jan. 7, 2005:

"The Muslim remembers, how the Jews corrupted the land...
Oh Muslims! The Jews are Jews. Their character and custom are the corruption and destruction of this land. We keep warning you: the Jews are a cancer that spreads inside the body of the Islamic and Arab nation.... They invest in the East Asian countries, which were destroyed [by the Tsunami] because of the Jewish and American corruption and destruction."

Sheik Ibrahim Madiras Friday sermon, PA TV Dec. 31, 2004:

“[Sharon said] ‘No to the return to the 67 borders’. I will not add my voice to Sharon’s voice, but raise it above his voice and tell him: No to the return to the 67 borders. We are interested in returning to our genuine borders. We want to return to the 1948 [pre-Israel] borders... We want to return to these borders, and we will yet return to them, by Allah, even if it will take time.
We are interested in returning to the 1936 borders, to the revolution... and we are interested in returning to 1929 borders... [a time when] a group of our grandfather and fathers became Martyrs for Allah in the Al-Buraq revolution, as they were defending the Al-Aqsa mosque from the Hagana gangs, Allah curse them and curse those who supported them. We want to return to 1919 borders... [We have a claim] which we can't forget and will never forgive forever... [against] Britain and all governments who assisted that state [Israel] to be established on this land, which is a false state on a true land...

America today, America is the sponsor of terror on this land. America, who pretends for freedom and pretends for democracy, is the sponsor of terror on the face of this land. America has reached her peak, we admit in it, America has reached a peak but, by Allah’s will, is on the way to the abyss. America, led by its president now, [who is] leading it to the abyss, to destruction, to death, by Allah’s will. America, for whom Bush dug a grave the day he invaded Afghanistan, and prepared the grave for burial the day he invaded Iraq, by Allah, America will be buried the day the American embassy will be moved to Jerusalem, and it will be the last nail in her coffin.”

The strong-willed defense secretary and the equally hard-nosed Republican senator from Arizona, both ex-Navy pilots and hawks on Iraq, were supposed to make peace over two nagging issues.

Mr. McCain did not believe Mr. Rumsfeld was adequately paying attention to, or disclosing information about, the Boeing tanker lease scandal; Mr. Rumsfeld wanted Mr. McCain to lift his opposition to several Pentagon nominations bogged down in the Senate.

Rather than serving as a peacemaker, the meeting turned into a frank exchange of views that left both men bitter toward the other, according to two defense sources who were briefed later.

"It went very badly," said one source. "Rumsfeld brought over McCain to schmooze him. It didn't work."

The sources differed on the exact wording, but they agreed that when Mr. Rumsfeld was unable to persuade the Arizona Republican to let the nominees go forward, he suggested the senator, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, was hurting the war effort.

"This is when McCain just about climbed over the table," one source said.

A spokeswoman for the senator did not return phone messages...

"The court must view things from the perspective of welfare of the child," the couple's attorney said...

..."It is good that there are judges in Jerusalem, and good that they are more advanced than the public's representatives in the government and Knesset," Yahad MK Yossi Sarid said. "Parental rights must be preserved for every couple, without excluding the many homosexual and lesbian couples."

Shinui MK Ilan Liebowitch said the court decision was "a brave step that reveals a degree of enlightenment that is not possessed by the government or Knesset."

The New Family organization - a legal advocacy group which focuses on gay couples, as well as single parents, families of foreign workers, and other groups it considers to be treated unfairly under Israeli family law - called court decision "revolutionary."

"One speaks of a revolution in the legal world more than in the real world, because the reality has existed for a decade or more," the organization said in an announcement following the ruling. "We hope the court will remove all obstacles faced by the homosexual and lesbian community."

Moayad Ahmed Yasseen, leader of Jaish Muhammad, which is Arabic for Muhammad's Army, was captured nearly two months ago in Fallujah, the former guerrilla stronghold west of Baghdad.

Alhurra television, which has its headquarters in Washington, said the tape of his purported confession was made Dec. 24 and provided to the station by Iraq's Ministry of Defense...

...On the tape, Yasseen, a colonel in Saddam Hussein's army, said two other former Iraqi military officers belonging to his group were sent "to Iran in April or May, where they met a number of Iranian intelligence officials." He said they also met with Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

He said Iranian officials provided money, weapons "and, as far as I know, even car bombs" for Jaish Muhammad.

Yasseen also said he got permission from Saddam -- while the former dictator was in hiding after his ouster by the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 -- to cross into Syria and meet with a Syrian intelligence officer to ask for money and weapons. He didn't say if the request was met.

The U.S. military has said Jaish Muhammad appears to be an umbrella group for former Iraqi intelligence agents, army officers, security officials and members of Saddam's Baath Party.

The group is known to have cooperated with Jordanian terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as well as other Saddam loyalists and al-Qaida supporters. Allawi has accused Jaish Muhammad of killing and beheading a number of Iraqis, Arabs and foreigners in Iraq.

To judge from the exit polls published Sunday night, business won out. A majority of more than 60 percent of people voting for the Palestinian Authority chairman chose Fatah candidate Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), one of whose election slogans was to put a stop to the "military intifada" - or, as we would put it, to terror attacks.

Mustafa Barghouti, the candidate of the left who linked himself to the Palestinian opposition groups that are calling for a continuation of the violence, lost...

"Physical intimidation has also played a role. . . . On Wednesday, shots were fired at [candidate Bassam el] Salhi's offices in Ramallah . . . ."...

Armed with Kalashnikov rifles, the two gunmen parked near the Migdalim settlement and waited at the roadside, signaling to Israeli cars to slow down, eyewitnesses said. Some said the two were in IDF uniform, but this has not been confirmed.

First, they shot at a car driving west. The driver was lightly wounded but continued driving until he reached an IDF barricade at the Tapuah junction and reported the attack. The assailants opened fire at another car carrying four IDF soldiers on leave. Atiya, a paratrooper, was fatally wounded in the head. The other three soldiers were also wounded, one seriously and two lightly to moderately. One of them got out of the car and shot back at the gunmen, but they fled from the site unhurt...

The United States will focus its immediate efforts on supporting the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip planned for this summer, officials said. The U.S. may also resume providing direct aid to the impoverished area and training for Palestinian security forces.

"We are not going to stand by and let this government fail," a State Department official said. "Additional assistance will certainly be considered."

But Washington still wants progress from the new Palestinian Authority government in taming the activities of the militant organizations Hamas and Islamic Jihad, even if the post of president goes to U.S. favorite Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen...

...U.S. officials remain wary because of suspicions that aid to the Palestinian Authority was misused and that some Palestinian security troops trained by the U.S. ended up fighting alongside the extremists.

"Don't look for us to be opening up the floodgates of U.S. assistance if there is still a risk that that aid is going to be funneled off toward those who support violence," the State Department official said.

The Bush administration has pledged at least $350 million, a figure that does not include millions of dollars being spent each day to deploy the U.S. military on relief operations in the region.

Australia, which made the largest single pledge of more than $800 million, said yesterday it prefers to deal directly with Indonesia and other affected countries in disbursing its aid.

"That is a much better outcome than pushing money through international organizations," Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told CNN in an interview.

Mr. Powell said the United Nations would play "a lead role, but not the only lead role" in coordinating relief.

He pointedly noted that U.S. military personnel and private aid organizations have done virtually all of the relief work to date around Indonesia's Aceh province, with U.N. humanitarian organizations still struggling to establish a major presence...

Gold: During the period, when I served as Israel's ambassador to the UN in the 1990's, I was struck by a sense that the world was becoming far more anarchical than anyone had anticipated at the end of the 1991 Gulf War. After all the Cold War was over. The competition between the superpowers was no longer going to exacerbate conflicts around the world and their delegations on the UN Security Council were not going to neutralize one another with their respective veto power. For that reason, President Bush (41) envisioned a "New World Order" emerging and after the success of the Security Council in confronting the aggression of Iraq in Kuwait, the UN was supposed to become the main glue holding that order together. Yet instead, the decade of the 1990's was marked by growing disorder--global chaos. A new, and far more dangerous brand of international terrorism arose that struck the US on 9/11, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction accelerated, and acts of genocide returned in Africa and even on the continent of Europe.

From my vantage point, the UN seemed to be directly connected to this global deterioration. Had it not taken responsibility for multilateral diplomacy over the future of Afghanistan during the rise of the Taliban, or not claimed to protect international security through the mechanism of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and finally not deployed peacekeepers on the ground in Rwanda and Bosnia prior to the mass killings in those areas, then I couldn't make that charge. But peoples of the world looked to the UN to protect them, and the UN let them down. And frequently these UN failures led to the spread of far worse crises, particularly in the Central African Republic and in the Balkans. With this record, what moral right did the UN have to attack President Bush for seeking to forcibly implement UN Security Council resolutions with respect to the regime of Saddam Hussein?

FP: It doesn’t appear it had any moral right at all. So crystallize for us briefly, then, your main indictments against the U.N.

Gold: For President Franklin Delano Roosevelt the UN was supposed to be instrumental in "nipping aggression in the bud," and by doing so, preventing a re-play of the Second World War. But the UN couldn't even define aggression until 1974 and even then its definition was full of loopholes. Worse still, the UN is a manufacturing plant for the worst moral equivalence that just cripples effective action to stop wars: in its international behavior, for the most part, the UN does not distinguish between aggressors and the victims of aggression. In Bosnia, UN forces were partial to the Serbs, and not to their Bosnian Muslim victims. In Rwanda, when General Romeo Dallaire, the UN commander on the ground, proposed to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, headed by Kofi Annan, that it was necessary to destroy the arms of the Hutu militia before they were used to exterminate the Tutsi tribe, he was told by Annan's office to not take sides--indeed, he was instructed to remain "impartial". More than eight hundred thousand Rwandans were massacred within a few months.

Most recently, the UN General Assembly sought to activate the UN's judicial arm--the International Court of Justice in the Hague--to stop Israel's security fence. Annan's office supplied supporting documentation to the judges in the Hague about Palestinian grievances over the fence, without even relating to the wave of Palestinian suicide terrorism against Israeli civilians that caused the fence to be built in the first place (nor was there mention of other security fences built on disputed territory in Kashmir or Cyprus). Yet the UN holds itself up to be "the source of international legitimacy"--a beacon of international justice. It is clear, however, that the UN does not determine the relative justice in the claims of parties engaged in an international dispute. It can only reflect the sum total of the political power that a state or national movement can mobilize on his behalf within the halls of the UN. For many peoples, from Tibetan Buddhists to Rwandan Tutsis, to Lebanese Christians to Iraqi Kurds and Black African Muslims in Darfur, Sudan, (and not just the Jewish people) that leaves them completely unprotected if they have to rely on the machinery of the UN...

Some of the al-Qaida fighters had received resistance training, which taught that Americans were strictly limited in how they could question prisoners. Failure to cooperate, the al-Qaida manuals revealed, carried no penalties and certainly no risk of torture—a sign, gloated the manuals, of American weakness.

Even if a prisoner had not previously studied American detention policies before arriving at Kandahar, he soon figured them out. “It became very clear very early on to the detainees that the Americans were just going to have them sit there,” recalls interrogator Joe Martin (a pseudonym). “They realized: ‘The Americans will give us our Holy Book, they’ll draw lines on the floor showing us where to pray, we’ll get three meals a day with fresh fruit, do Jazzercise with the guards, . . . we can wait them out.’ ”

Even more challenging was that these detainees bore little resemblance to traditional prisoners of war. The army’s interrogation manual presumed adversaries who were essentially the mirror image of their captors, motivated by emotions that all soldiers share. A senior intelligence official who debriefed prisoners in the 1989 U.S. operation in Panama contrasts the battlefield then and now: “There were no martyrs down there, believe me,” he chuckles. “The Panamanian forces were more understandable people for us. Interrogation was pretty straightforward: ‘Love of Family’ [an army-manual approach, promising, say, contact with wife or children in exchange for cooperation] or, ‘Here’s how you get out of here as fast as you can.’ ”

“Love of family” often had little purchase among the terrorists, however—as did love of life. “The jihadists would tell you, ‘I’ve divorced this life, I don’t care about my family,’ ” recalls an interrogator at Guantánamo. “You couldn’t shame them.” The fierce hatred that the captives bore their captors heightened their resistance. The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan reported in January 2002 that prisoners in Kandahar would “shout epithets at their captors, including threats against the female relatives of the soldiers guarding them, knee marines in the groin, and say that they will escape and kill ‘more Americans and Jews.’ ” Such animosity continued in Guantánamo...

In fact, an American consensus is growing that envy and hatred of the United States, coupled with utopian and pacifistic rhetoric, disguise an even more depressing fact: Outside our shores there is a growing barbarism with no other sheriff in sight. Any cinema student of the American Western can fathom why the frightened townspeople — huddled in their churches and shuttered schools — almost hated the lone marshal as much as they did the six-shooting outlaw gang rampaging in their streets. After all, the holed-up 'good' citizens were always angry that the lawman had shamed them, worried that he might make dangerous demands on their insular lives, confused about whether they would have to accommodate themselves either to savagery or civilization in their town's future, and, above all, assured that they could libel and slur the tin star in a way that would earn a bullet from the lawbreaker. It was precisely that paradox between impotent high-sounding rhetoric and blunt-speaking, roughshod courage that lay at the heart of the classic Western from Shane and High Noon to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Magnificent Seven...

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory revealed the eruption, located in a galaxy cluster known as MS 0735.6 + 7421. Specifically, the Chandra images show two cavities, each some 650,000 light-years across, that were scoured out by jets of energy emanating from the black hole, which itself may be a billion times the mass of our sun. Announcing the findings today in the journal Nature, Brian McNamara of Ohio University and his colleagues posit that this enormous release of energy occurred as matter fell into the black hole: most was gobbled up, but some was spewed back out rather violently.

The discovery is unexpected not only because of its record-breaking nature, but because previous work suggested that large black holes don't consume as much matter or grow as quickly as small ones do. "This new result is as surprising as it is exciting," comments co-author Paul Nulsen of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. "This black hole is feasting when it should be fasting." --Kate Wong

In a series of demoralizing comments first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, the defeated Democrat griped, "What is sad about what's happening here now is that so much of it is a process of catching up from the enormous miscalculations and wrong judgments made in the beginning."

Kerry said that because of the Bush administration's mistakes, "the job has been made enormously harder."

Among the errors cited by the disgruntled Democrat: the decision by former U.S. occupation leader Paul Bremer's to disband the Iraqi army and purge the government of former members of Hussein's Baath Party.

Both moves were have fueled the Sunni insurgency, he claimed, lamenting, "Mistakes have been made."

Then, perhaps sensing he'd gone too far, the 2008 White House hopeful cut short the Bush-bashing, saying, "Now, it's a different time and different set of judgments that have to be made. I'm here to make judgments about what moves are available to us."

He's right to be concerned, although the Democrats in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body (a.k.a. the Senate of the United States) have other intended victims before they get back to the CIA. The Dems' intent is to criminalize as much of the Bush war policy as they can, beginning with today's assault on Alberto Gonzales. In the process, they will speak as if the war on terrorism only began during the Bush years, and that any counterterrorist policy that displeases them was ipso facto a Bush policy.

I doubt anyone in this administration — which, remember, already retreated from its earlier positions on interrogation methods permitted against captured terrorist suspects — is going to point out that the most controversial and ethically questionable method of all was developed during the Clinton administration in direct response to orders that came directly from the White House. "Rendition" was a Clinton creation, and was approved by Clinton's lawyers, with no apparent cries of pain either from the Justice Department or from anyone in Congressional "oversight" committees. Gonzales might quietly make that point if anyone yells at him. It won't register with the Democrats, but it might help the public understand the real world a little better.

As usual in the many congressional debates about the war in which we are engaged, the central issues will not be raised at all. Does anyone know which interrogation methods, if any, have proven effective over the past three-plus years? Isn't that worth knowing? I have long been critical of torture on the grounds that whatever "information" it produces must be highly suspect. A man will say anything to stop the pain, won't he? So how can we believe what he says? But there are phases of gray in between the blackness of torture and the whiteness of gentle inquiry, and many of the gray methods have been effective. So say experts from, say, the Chicago police force in the glory days, or the British questioners of the IRA over the years, or the Spanish judges who have dealt with ETA, or the Israelis who interrogate Arab terrorists...

When Israeli defenders returned fire this week, Abu Mazen called all Arab casualties "martyrs who were killed today by the shells of the Zionist enemy." He hopes to win extremists' votes by adopting their hate-filled rhetoric as well as Arafat's platform of a "right of return" of Arabs to overwhelm Israel.

Sharon hopes this is campaign oratory to increase the expected majority for Abu Mazen. But the Palestinian, by appeasing his fiercest faction of die-hards, is playing with fire. To reach a settlement, he will have to make compromises that these warring radicals totally reject - which, if they refuse and rebel, would mean Palestinian civil war...

...Sharon is hopeful. "In the past, I have shaken hands with Abu Mazen, and with him I can talk," he told me the other night. "I would never shake Arafat's hand."

He is also confident that he can carry out his disengagement during or after an election, if one is needed - provided his counterpart on the Palestinian side makes certain that the thousands of Israelis making this painful exodus are allowed to leave in peace. I take that to mean he expects Abu Mazen to restrain his armed extremists by any means necessary...

Members of the Fatah (news - web sites) youth movement chant slogans during a rally for Palestinian presidential candidate Mahmoud Abbas at a hotel in the Jerusalem suburb of Beit Hanina, January 5, 2005. Palestinian fighters wounded 12 soldiers in a rocket attack on Israel Wednesday, defying calls for a cease-fire from Mahmoud Abbas, the frontrunner to succeed Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) in an election Sunday. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

"We have found numerous, serious election irregularities in the Ohio presidential election," said a report issued Wednesday by Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.

Should Conyers and other House Democrats find a senator to co-sign their challenge, the House and Senate would be required by law to meet separately for up to two hours to consider it. Lawmakers are allowed to speak for no more than five minutes each...

...Even so, the effort seems certain to leave Bush's victory intact because both Republican-run chambers would have to uphold the challenge for Ohio's votes to be invalidated...

...Many Democrats oppose challenging the Ohio vote, worrying it would do little but antagonize voters who consider the election over. The numbers are also politically daunting: Bush won an Ohio recount by over 118,000 votes, and won nationally by more than 3 million...

#aD#The world is awash in Che paraphernalia, and this is an ongoing offense to truth, reason, and justice (a fine trio). Cuban Americans tend to be flummoxed by this phenomenon, and so do others who are decent and aware. There is a backlash against Che glorification, but it is tiny compared with the phenomenon itself. To turn the tide against Guevara would take massive reeducation — a term the old Communist would very much appreciate...

...The fog of time and the strength of anti-anti-Communism have obscured the real Che. Who was he? He was an Argentinian revolutionary who served as Castro's primary thug. He was especially infamous for presiding over summary executions at La Cabaña, the fortress that was his abattoir. He liked to administer the coup de grâce, the bullet to the back of the neck. And he loved to parade people past El Paredón, the reddened wall against which so many innocents were killed. Furthermore, he established the labor-camp system in which countless citizens — dissidents, democrats, artists, homosexuals — would suffer and die. This is the Cuban gulag. A Cuban-American writer, Humberto Fontova, described Guevara as "a combination of Beria and Himmler." Anthony Daniels once quipped, "The difference between [Guevara] and Pol Pot was that [the former] never studied in Paris."

The first salvo was an article in the Chronicle by one of its columnists, a Duke senior named Philip Kurian. Headlined "The Jews," it denounced Jews as "the most privileged 'minority' group" in the United States and in particular bemoaned the "shocking overrepresentation" of Jews in academia. Replete with references to the "powerful Jewish establishment" and "exorbitant Jewish privilege in the United States," the article went on to characterize Jews as a phony minority that can "renounce their difference by taking off the yarmulke."

Mr. Kurian's column was followed by an even more intense anti-Semitic outpouring on the Chronicle's electronic discussion boards. "I am glad you have the courage to stand up to the Jews," wrote one correspondent. Another said he "was thrilled to read Mr. Kurian's belligerent critique of that long-nosed creature sitting squarely in the middle of the room that nobody is allowed to talk about. Yes--that elephant Mr. Sharon . . . and his treasonous cousins in America."

One posting, beside providing a link to an online article blaming the Jews for the outbreak of World War II, called for "an investigation into the Jewish community's practices and leadership during the past 150 years." "Whenever anyone says anything negative about the Jews," expostulated still another writer, "they go after them with Mafia-style ruthlessness. . . . This is the reason Jews are the most hated people on earth and why they have always been kicked out of every country."...

Poller: Would you call the people who were holding you insurgents or résistants?

Malbrunot: For us it is clear: People who combat an illegal occupation that results from an illegal war are résistants. Resistance is a sacred right, whether you are Islamist or nationalist, you are résistants. However, when you capture people from a country that has nothing to do with the situation, then your methods have nothing to do with the resistance...Taking hostages is a method of terrorism.

In other words, as long as paramilitary death-squads murder innocent Iraqis, they are "resistance fighters." But should they make the la grande erreur and kidnap a Frenchman, they become...terrorists...

Excuse me, but prime minister, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, means the "head of the executive branch of government in states with a parliamentary system." Despite tens of thousands of references to Abbas as prime minister, he in not a single way fits this description.

Oh, and there is also the small matter of there being no country called Palestine. Arab maps routinely show it in place of Israel. The United Nations recognizes its existence. So too do such telephone companies as France's Bouygues Telecom and Bell Canada. Nonetheless, no such place exists.

One can dismiss use of these terms as symptoms of the same unrealism that has undermined Palestinian war efforts since 1948. But they also promote the Palestinian cause (a polite way of saying, "the destruction of Israel") in a vital way...

"In order for Bush, Sharon, and their like not to become intoxicated by their being considered People of the Year, we remind them both that Time Magazine chose Adolf Hitler as Man of the Year in 1939, the man who dragged the entire world into the greatest catastrophe of modern history."

But out in the real world we know how to distinguish Jesus from Hitler, and the Sharia from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Alam's assumption that an Al-Qaeda will bring freedom and unity to the Islamic world assumes a society that consigns women and non-Muslims to all manner of misery, and puts a straitjacket on free inquiry, freedom of conscience, and the human soul.

Al-Qaeda and the rest see the implementation of Sharia as the goal of their striving, which in itself places them on the other side of the moral divide from the men who fought and died to secure "liberty and justice for all," however imperfectly these principles were applied after their victory. Yes, Professor, they are fighting for their freedom as they see it. So were the Nazis, striving to free Germany from the so-called "Jewish threat" and the encirclement of hostile powers. But someone who wrote in 1938 about the Nazis' returning dignity to the German people would have deserved the condemnation of free men, just as Shahid Alam deserves that condemnation now...

Powell said nonetheless he remains convinced that Abbas' "prevailing position" is recognition of "the need to end terror and the need to try to persuade all segments of the Palestinian population to move away from terror and to move toward this opportunity for peace."

"If they don't move in that direction, then we're going to be stuck again. So we need reformed Palestinian leadership that deals with this terrorist threat," Powell told NBC's "Meet the Press."

Powell said that if Abbas becomes president, however, he may have to do more than just try to persuade terrorists to stop their violence. "He may have to undertake operations against them," Powell said.

"If he does that, and shows a real commitment to end terror, I think he will find an Israeli partner ready to work with him, and he will certainly find the international community, and the especially the United States, ready to play an important role," he said...

Mr. Abbas has been critical of Palestinian attacks against Israel, arguing that they are counterproductive, and he reiterated that position on Saturday. But at a campaign rally and in interviews in the Gaza Strip, he also said the Palestinian leadership would seek to shield wanted militants from the Israeli forces.

"We will not forget the wanted, the heroes," he said at a rally in Rafah, a much-battered town on Gaza's southern border with Egypt. "They are fighting for freedom." ...

"The armed struggle will never stop until the Palestinian people gain their legitimate rights for freedom and independence and a Palestinian state is established with Jerusalem as its capital,"said the group in a leaflet to mark the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Fatah movement.

"The historic struggle of the Palestinian people against the military occupation of their lands would be torches that wouldlight the path of fighting for freedom for the coming generations,"said the leaflet.

The group called on the Palestinians not to stop "fighting the occupation and to carry the torch that late leader Yasser Arafat carried," adding "we will never give up as long as there is an occupation."

"After their election, we'll see if they take the steps to stop the terror. If they do, it will be also quiet on our side." That seems to me to accept a cease-fire, qualified with "but if we have intelligence of a terrorist attack, we'll have to act."...

What struck me about these comments was that there was no hesitancy to make them. With the opposition sitting there, with the entire conference being conducted in Arabic and televised throughout the Middle East, declaring that violence against the Israelis was wrong bore no stigma and apparently little risk. Declaring that Palestinians had responsibilities to fulfill was also treated as legitimate, not sacrilegious...