February 2006 Archives

"I believe the Jewish people have the right to a state," Kelman said. He reminded his listeners that the Jewish people suffered during the Holocaust and were not helped by European or U.S. Christians.

"You failed that test as Christians," he said. "Our history at your hands, for 6 million of us, is an immoral position. To choose to be weak is an immoral position.

"Our biggest problem as Jews is that we have power," he said. "You love us when we're weak. But many Christians have a hard time dealing with Jews who have power."...

"We will not resume that giving until we are able to see a significant change in the spiritual direction of our church," Dr. David Swanson, senior minister of the congregation, said in the Feb. 22 edition of Columns, the congregation's newsletter...

...PCUSA budget-makers have already predicted record-setting membership declines of 65,000 in 2005 and 85,000 in 2006, which would dramatically shrink already dwindling support for the denomination. The General Assembly Council is recommending that the per-capita rate be $5.72 in 2007 (based on 2005 membership) and 2008 (based on 2006 membership.) The financial loss for those membership declines would total $1.6 million over the two years...

...Swanson also identified other issues: cutting missionaries; making them raise their own funding; giving large sums to political causes ("such as a Pro-Choice March in Washington"); and the proposed divestiture of Presbyterian funds in corporations that do business with Israel "as a faulty means of promoting peace in the Middle East, serving to inflame Jews against our church both in this country and abroad."...

The Palestinians have chosen Hamas? We can agree that it was their democratic right to. But we should also agree that the sooner they realize they have made a bad choice, the better. Any Western attempt to thwart such a realization by supporting a Hamas government can only help delay the discreditization of radical Islam among the Palestinians and Arabs themselves. This would be a very foolish thing to do.

The text of the poem:

"Daddy brought me a present
A machine gun and a rifle
When I am big I will join the liberation army
The liberation army has taught us
How to liberate our homeland"
[PA TV, February 26, 2006]

Related videos from PMW archives

In a previous PA TV children's program, preschoolers were taught the recommended response if a "little boy" were to cut down a tree - to "bring AK-47s and ... commit a massacre."

When three 15-year-olds were killed on a suicide mission PA honored them and their desire to be killed as shahids - martyrs for Allah. Click here to see this clip.

To see more previous broadcasts of terror and Shahada promotion on PA TV on the PMW website, click here and here.

The firm, Dubai Ports World, is seeking control over six major US ports, including those in New York, Miami, Philadelphia and Baltimore. It is entirely owned by the Government of Dubai via a holding company called the Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation (PCZC), which consists of the Dubai Port Authority, the Dubai Customs Department and the Jebel Ali Free Zone Area.

"Yes, of course the boycott is still in place and is still enforced," Muhammad Rashid a-Din, a staff member of the Dubai Customs Department's Office for the Boycott of Israel, told the Post in a telephone interview.

"If a product contained even some components that were made in Israel, and you wanted to import it to Dubai, it would be a problem," he said.

A-Din noted that while the head office for the anti-Israel boycott sits in Damascus, he and his fellow staff members are paid employees of the Dubai Customs Department, which is a division of the PCZC, the same Dubai government-owned entity that runs Dubai Ports World.

Moreover, the Post found that the website for Dubai's Jebel Ali Free Zone Area, which is also part of the PCZC, advises importers that they will need to comply with the terms of the boycott...

Soldiers and a civilian at the site opened fire on the terrorist, who according to police was taken to hospital in critical condition.

Two Israelis were wounded in the attack, including a 17-year-old girl who was lightly injured. The second Israeli, a 25-year-old, was stabbed in his chest and stomach and was downgraded from serious to moderate condition.

Both were also being evacuated to Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein Karem Hospital.

Head of Gush Etzion Regional Council Shaul Goldstein responded to the attack, saying, "Hamas's position has placed a new challenge before Israel, forcing it to deal with serious terror attacks. Every concession Israel makes will be viewed by the other side as a form of surrender.

"It is the second attack within four months at the same junction and we expect the government of Israel to safeguard its citizens," said Goldstein.

But now, on her daily excursions from the West Bank's Taiba to nearby Ramallah, the scarf serves as a political symbol of the changing times.

"Since Hamas took over, I cover my head in Ramallah," she says. "I don't feel comfortable."

In the largely cosmopolitan Ramallah, though they comprise some 10 percent of the population, Christians are becoming less and less visible...

The suspension has triggered widespread dismay, even by the mayor's political opponents, including Tony Blair, because the largest personal democratic mandate in Europe has been overturned by unelected officials...

...But even he was stunned last week when an obscure committee, the Adjudication Panel of the Standards Board for England, suspended him for bringing his office into disrepute.

Because the office of elected mayor is less than a decade old, this is the first major test of the rules under which Mr. Livingstone has been penalized. The suspension is due to take effect tomorrow, but it is expected that the High Court will grant a stay of execution while the appeal is heard.

The controversy erupted more than a year ago, when Mr. Livingstone emerged late in the evening from a party to honor Britain's first openly homosexual member of Parliament, Chris Smith, to find Oliver Finegold, a Jewish reporter from the London Evening Standard, asking him polite but insistent questions.

Mr. Livingstone, who has a history of embarrassing incidents after drinking, responded with an extraordinary display of aggression, repeatedly accusing Mr. Finegold of being a "concentration camp guard" and a "Nazi war criminal," despite the journalist informing him that he was Jewish, adding: "Your paper is a load of scumbags." Mr. Finegold did not lose his cool, but recorded the outburst on tape.

The Mayor's comments were widely condemned, but he refused to apologize, justifying them by reference to the record of Associated Newspapers, the firm which owns the London Evening Standard, during the 1930's, when its owner, Lord Rothermere, expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler...

Here we go again: Seems that the group called CT United For Peace was planning an antiwar rally in New Haven on March 18, on the third anniversary of Bush's Iraq war, and a couple of champions of Palestinian rights wanted to include in the platform a demand that Israel get out of Palestine. A colleague relates that "pro-Israel peaceniks went to a planning meeting to argue against that, but lost."

The result was predictable. Now instead of one unified antiwar march, there are going to be two marches. One on the 19th in Hartford, under the umbrella of "Connecticut Opposes the War," which will be an Iraq War-only march that winds up in front of Joe Lieberman's office. CT United For Peace, meanwhile, is sticking to its plan to march in New Haven on Saturday the 18th, and, the hope is, the Zionist enemy will see the folly of its ways under the crushing weight of these protesters, and will depart Palestine, en masse, by sunset...

...The split is also curious when you consider all the dark murmurings coming from the Free Palestine crowd about how Lieberman's pro-war position is inexorably linked to his support for Israel. Instead of taking the most effective stand against the war, they're selfishly splitting the ranks. There's a phrase that could explain this business, a phrase I picked up back in day, from the identity politicians, in fact: It's called "sublimated anti-Semitism."

"We do not disassociate Islam from the war. On the contrary, disassociating Islam from the war is the reason for our defeat. We are fighting in the name of Islam."...

..."They fight us with Judaism, so we should fight them with Islam. They fight us with the Torah, so we should fight them with the Koran. If they say 'the Temple,' we should say 'the Al-Aqsa Mosque.' If they say: 'We glorify the Sabbath,' we should say: 'We glorify the Friday.' This is how it should be. Religion must lead the war. This is the only way we can win."...

..."Everything will be on our side and against Jews on [Judgment Day]; at that time, even the stones and the trees will speak, with or without words, and say: 'Oh servant of Allah, oh Muslim, there's a Jew behind me, come and kill him.' They will point to the Jews. It says 'servant of Allah,' not 'servant of desires,' 'servant of women,' 'servant of the bottle,' 'servant of Marxism,' or 'servant of liberalism'... It said 'servant of Allah.' ...

The interview features the mother of Wafa Al-Bas, a 21-year-old Palestinian woman who was arrested at the Erez border crossing in June 2005 with a 20-pound bomb inside her underwear. Her target was the outpatient clinic of Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, where she had been receiving regular treatments for serious burns to 45 per cent of her body from a gas stove explosion in her home.

Her greatest wish, she said later, was to kill 30 to 50 Israelis, including children. The hospital attack would likely have killed or maimed the Israeli doctor who had saved her life.

In last week's PA TV interview with Wafa's parents, her mother says the event was hard for her - not because her daughter was on a suicide mission, but because she was arrested...

...Palestinian artists, like their peers in Europe and the United States, are thoroughly contemporary, but with a significant difference - the Palestinian artist is deeply concerned with the historical fate of the Palestinian people and issues of life, death, freedom and justice...

Dates March 14th-April 22nd, 2006. Open Tuesday to Saturday noon to 6.00 pm. Admission is free.

An opening reception will be held Thursday, March 16th, 2006. 6.00 pm-9.00 pm. The Bridge Gallery is at 521 West 26th Street, 3rd Floor (between 11th and 12th Aves) New York, NY Tel: 646-584-9098

Something is very wrong at our elite universities. Last week Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard when it became clear he would lose a no-confidence vote held by politically correct faculty members furious at his efforts to allow ROTC on campus, his opposition to a drive to have Harvard divest itself of corporate investments in Israel, and his efforts to make professors work harder. Now Yale is giving a first-class education to an erstwhile high official in one of the most evil regimes of the latter half of the 20th century--the government that harbored the terrorists who attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001...

...Many foreign readers of the Times will no doubt snicker at the revelation that naive Yale administrators scrambled to admit Mr. Rahmatullah. The Times reported that Yale "had another foreigner of Rahmatullah's caliber apply for special-student status." Richard Shaw, Yale's dean of undergraduate admissions, told the Times that "we lost him to Harvard," and "I didn't want that to happen again."...

Local activists and media argued that the land discount was both gratuitous (saving the ISB a couple hundred thousand dollars on a $22 million construction project) and constitutionally dubious (an encroachment on church-state separation). The land sale so enraged Mission Hill resident James Policastro that he sued the BRA and the city in September, 2004. Recently, a judge declined the city’s bid to have the courts dismiss the lawsuit, which questions the land deal’s constitutionality. The BRA is presently working to avoid turning documents over to Policastro’s lawyer.

However heated things have gotten so far, a series of new documents obtained by the Dig shows that, as far as the ISB land sale goes, the city’s legal and PR woes are just beginning. The BRA first anticipated a lawsuit like Policastro’s more than 16 years ago, and was explicitly warned about discounting land for a religious organization. What’s more, previously unpublished letters show that the BRA had originally valued the land it sold to the ISB as being worth much, much more than the $401,000 it has publicly acknowledged...

Is that an gripping story? You'd think so. Particularly when, in the same city, on the same night, a Jewish woman was brutally murdered in the presence of her daughter by another Muslim. You've got the making of a mini-trend there, and the media love trends.

Yet no major French newspaper carried the story.

This month, there was another murder. Ilan Halimi, also 23, also Jewish, was found by a railway track outside Paris with burns and knife wounds all over his body. He died en route to the hospital, having been held prisoner, hooded and naked, and brutally tortured for almost three weeks by a gang that had demanded half a million dollars from his family. Can you take a wild guess at the particular identity of the gang? During the ransom phone calls, his uncle reported that they were made to listen to Ilan's screams as he was being burned while his torturers read out verses from the Quran...

The suit alleges that over the course of three years during a period of mounting suicide bombings in Israel, the French bank, Credit Lyonnais, failed to quickly cut ties with a fundraising organization of Hamas.

The lawsuit was filed last week in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, where a judge is scheduled to hear arguments next week in a similar case against a British bank filed by the same lawyer.

For the victims, the suit represents an effort to prevent terror organizations from using banking services with the same ease as other clients.

"The only thing in my mind is I couldn't not do it," Sarri Singer, 32, said by telephone of her decision to join the case against Credit Lyonnais.

Ms. Singer, of Lakewood, N.J., was next to a Hamas suicide bomber disguised as an Orthodox Jew who murdered 16 passengers on a bus in Jerusalem in June 2003.

"If you don't sue them, you're allowing these people to get away with what they're doing. The only way to stop it is to not allow these banks to maintain these accounts for charities that are actually global fundraisers for designated terrorist groups."...

István Csurka is the leader of the Hungarian Justice and Life Party (MIEP), an ultra-nationalist political group he founded in 1993. Five years later, Csurka and MIEP received 5.5 per cent of the popular vote in national elections, which was enough to earn 14 seats in the 386-seat parliament. In the 2002 elections, MIEP garnered approximately the same number of votes, but because of higher voter turnout failed to cross the five per cent threshold needed for parliamentary entry. Csurka has, therefore, never enjoyed the success of other European extremists such as Jörg Haider in Austria or Jean-Marie Le Pen in France, whom Csurka counts as a personal friend. But with the election expected to be close, Csurka's support -- should MIEP receive five per cent -- could prove vital in a coalition government...

..."David Irving is my personal friend," says Csurka. "And it is our moral responsibility to stand with him." As for the map of greater Hungary, Csurka sighs. "All of this was once ours," he says. "But you should also know that this little bowl that is now Hungary is in just as much danger of being lost as that former great country, and we concentrate on protecting what we have." When asked who or what is threatening Hungary, Csurka talks about "international capital," "bankers" and "Bolsheviks." His critics often accuse him of using these words as code for Jews...

A handful of conference attendees were standing in a circle making faces at a cute, chubby infant girl, who was being cradled in the arms of her twenty-something, hijab-clad mother. When asked her daughter's name, the mother responded, "Jenin." Several cooed with delight, and one young man was particularly excited, widening his eyes and nodding his head vigorously.

The newborn's name, of course, comes from an incident that occurred in April 2002 during Israel's Operation Defensive Shield military campaign against terrorist organizations in the West Bank. To the mother and many others at the conference, it is known as the "Jenin Massacre."

Thing is, there was no massacre. But one would never know it if his only source of information was the PSM conference...

Roman Catholic leaders at first said Muslims were right to be outraged when Western newspapers reprinted Danish caricatures of the Prophet, including one with a bomb in his turban. Most Muslims consider any images of Mohammad to be blasphemous.

After criticizing both the cartoons and the violent protests in Muslim countries that followed, the Vatican this week linked the issue to its long-standing concern that the rights of other faiths are limited, sometimes severely, in Muslim countries.

Vatican prelates have been concerned by recent killings of two Catholic priests in Turkey and Nigeria. Turkish media linked the death there to the cartoons row. At least 146 Christians and Muslims have died in five days of religious riots in Nigeria.

"If we tell our people they have no right to offend, we have to tell the others they have no right to destroy us," Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's Secretary of State (prime minister), told journalists in Rome.... [continued in extended entry]

He took me outside and told me: By Allah, I will drive them crazy. By Allah, I will turn this agreement into a curse for them. By Allah, perhaps not in my lifetime, but you will live to see the Israelis flee from Palestine. Have a little patience. I entrust this with you. Don't mention this to anyone. Always remember this. Sometimes, when I would criticize him strongly, he would say to me: Do you remember the promise I made, Abd Al-Bari?...

...That is why I knew that it was he who founded and armed the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, in order to redress the balance with the historic mistake of the Oslo Accords.

The verdict by the Milan judges, released Wednesday, echoes an earlier one in the case when a lower court judge ruled the actions of the three men were those of guerrillas, not terrorists.

Government officials condemned the latest ruling. Justice Minister Roberto Castell apologized to the victims of suicide attacks and their relatives, saying “there is in me a great feeling of shame, bitterness and powerlessness.”

“At this point, I feel I have the duty to apologize to the hundreds of children, women and men who were massacred by suicide bombers, and to their relatives,” he said in a statement carried by Italian news agencies...

...The judges ruled that recruiting suicide bombers could not be considered terrorism because during an armed conflict the only acts that count as terrorism are “acts exclusively directed against a civilian population,” according to a copy of the ruling given to The Associated Press.

“The recruitment of volunteers in Iraq to fight against the Americans cannot be considered under any circumstance terrorist activity,” it adds...

Khaled Mash'al: Oh the West, the Islamic nation's history with you is bitter. We do not believe you anymore. We do not trust you anymore. We do not rely on you. We are not waiting for you. We will rely only on Allah, and then on ourselves, because you are an international community that respects only force. We have witnessed your oppression - all the Zionist oppression in the land of Palestine - they killed elderly people and women, they destroyed villages and homes, they destroyed agricultural produce, they uprooted our blessed olive trees. What have you done? Nothing except for offering some sympathy and useless words. At the same time you came to the aid of 200,000 in East Timor, against 200 million Muslims in Indonesia. You have made Darfur, in Sudan, your greatest concern. Why do you view certain issues one way, and turn a blind and oppressive eye at the real issues of our nation?...

So far as we can tell, a new, twin policy from the mainstream media has been promulgated: (a) If a group is strong enough in its reaction to a story or caricature, the press will refrain from printing that story or caricature, and (b) if the group is pandered to by the mainstream media, the media then will go through elaborate contortions and defenses to justify its abdication of duty. At bottom, this is an unacceptable form of not-so-benign bigotry, representing a higher expectation from Christians and Jews than from Muslims.

While we may disagree among ourselves about whether and when the public interest justifies the disclosure of classified wartime information, our general agreement and understanding of the First Amendment and a free press is informed by the fact -- not opinion but fact -- that without broad freedom, without responsibility for the right to know carried out by courageous writers, editors, political cartoonists and publishers, our democracy would be weaker, if not nonexistent. There should be no group or mob veto of a story that is in the public interest.

When we were attacked on Sept. 11, we knew the main reason for the attack was that Islamists hated our way of life, our virtues, our freedoms. What we never imagined was that the free press -- an institution at the heart of those virtues and freedoms -- would be among the first to surrender.

I believe that Dubai Ports World is either wholly or partially owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates. If either DPW or the UAE participates in the Arab boycott of Israel, would that not put them in conflict with America's anti-boycott federal law? And if they are participants in the boycott, how can they be allowed to be the successor in interest to the existing port operation contracts awarded to a British company that does not participate in the boycott.

I am not a lawyer, nor do I pretend to have any extraordinary insight into this type of business relationship. All I know is that the anti boycott law is still on the books, although enforced sporadically. Perhaps you can use your information base and contacts to see if my point has any validity...

According to Sarkozy, documents of support for the Comité de bienfaisance et de secours aux Palestiniens (CBSP) were uncovered. The organization is accused by Israel and the US of sponsoring Hamas. Though the US ordered in 2003 that its assets be frozen, the CBSP is not featured on European lists of organizations considered to be terrorist. The other documents found in the house-searches were described by Sarkozy as Salafi decrees.

The French government considers the murder to be an anti-Semitic crime.

Later that same day, investigating magistrate Corinne Goetzmann detained seven of the suspects on charges of kidnapping, sequestration, torture, acts of barbarism and premeditated murder in an organized gang. They will also be charged with targeting the victim on the basis of his religion, French for hate crime, which carries a stiffer penalty. Justice Minister Pascal Clément explained that the charge of anti-Semitism was based on the fact that one of the suspects had declared to the judge that they picked a Jew because Jews are supposed to be rich. But, according to reports in the French press, some of the suspects in police custody said that they tortured Ilan with particular cruelty simply because he was Jewish.

No longer able to deny or play down the racial motive, the investigation is entering a new phase. One of the most troubling aspects of this affair is the probable involvement of relatives and neighbors, beyond the immediate circle of the gang, who were told about the Jewish hostage and dropped in to participate in the torture.

Ilan's uncle Rafi Halimi told reporters that the gang phoned the family on several occasions and made them listen to the recitation of verses from the Quran, while Ilan's tortured screams could be heard in the background. The family has publicly criticized the police for deliberately ignoring the explicit anti-Semitic motives, which were repeatedly expressed and should have dictated an entirely different approach to the case from the start. Police searches have now revealed the presence of Islamist literature in the home of at least one of the gang members...

...The murder of Ilan Halimi invites comparison with the November 2003 killing of a Jewish disc jockey, Sébastien Selam. His Muslim neighbor, Adel, slit his throat, nearly decapitating him, and gouged out his eyes with a carving fork in his building's underground parking garage. Adel came upstairs with bloodied hands and told his mother, "I killed my Jew, I will go to paradise." In the two years before his murder, the Selam family was repeatedly harassed for being Jewish. The Selam case has not been opened by the magistrate. The murderer, who admits his guilt, was placed in a psychiatric hospital, and may be released soon...

The Tokyo District Court found Fusako Shigenobu, 60, guilty of kidnapping and confinement, as well as attempted murder in the 1974 case, court spokesman Tomoyuki Kushida said. Shigenobu was also convicted of passport law violations.

Shigenobu was arrested in western Japan in November 2000 after more than 25 years on the run, most of it in the Middle East. She had pleaded innocent to the kidnapping and murder charges.

The Japanese Red Army, a violent ultra-leftist group sympathetic to Palestinian causes, was formed by Shigenobu and fellow member Junzo Okudaira in 1971. It took responsibility for several international attacks in the 1970s, including the takeover of the U.S. Consulate in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1975.

The group is also suspected in the 1972 machine-gun and grenade assault on the international airport outside Tel Aviv, Israel, that killed 24 people. Shigenobu's husband died in the cross-fire...

...The National Police Agency says seven other members, including Okudaira, are still on the run...

One of the men, a citizen of both the U.S. and Jordan, also was accused of threatening to kill or injure President Bush, according to an indictment released Tuesday.

All three had lived in Toledo within the past year and were arrested over the weekend - two of them in Toledo, the third in Jordan, authorities said.

An unidentified person with a military background helped the U.S. government foil the plot by working with the suspects while secretly gathering evidence, according to the indictment...

...Amawi ran an agency called Jerusalem Transporation Corp., and El-Hindi owns a Toledo company called European Medical Studies and Services, according to filings with the secretary of state. No phone listings were found for either business.

Earlier this week, the U.S. government ordered a freeze on the assets of KindHearts, a Toledo-based group suspected of funneling money to the militant organization Hamas. Law enforcement officials, speaking of condition of anonymity, said the arrests of the three men spurred the decision to freeze KindHearts' assets.

"Some aspects of them do overlap," an official said.

KindHearts has denied any terrorist connections and has said it is a humanitarian organization...

So the same Democrats who lecture that the war on terror is really a battle for "hearts and minds" now apparently favor bald discrimination against even friendly Arabs investing in the U.S.? Guantanamo must be closed because it's terrible PR, wiretapping al Qaeda in the U.S. is illegal, and the U.S. needs to withdraw from Iraq, but these Democratic superhawks simply will not allow Arabs to be put in charge of American longshoremen. That's all sure to play well on al Jazeera.

Yesterday Mr. Bush defended his decision to allow the investment to go ahead, and he threatened what would be his first veto if Congress tries to block it. We hope this time he means it.

The largely Arab-American, kaffiya-clad students received a weekend of training in how to promote "divest from Israel" campaigns, how to influence the media and deceive church groups, how to frame campaigns to demonize Israel and Zionism and to prove that Israel is worse than apartheid South Africa.

The people under the PSM umbrella were not there to find out how to build peace-directed coalitions through promoting dialogue with pro-Israel advocates around the world. Nor were they there to learn how to improve the lives of ordinary Palestinians by building hospitals and schools. Real Palestinians seemed almost irrelevant. When an audience member asked whether Palestinians should be consulted about the boycotts, University of Wisconsin Al Awda and Boycott leader Mohammed Abed answered that “Human rights issues are too important. A human rights group doesn’t wait for a nod [of approval] even from Palestinian civil society.”...

...When Hamas or elections came up, they gave twisted answers. Palestinians had fair and free elections. The electorate will not allow Hamas to impose laws that violate human rights. “If they ask how we can deal with Hamas and its fundamentalism, ask them how they deal with an American fundamentalist president,” urged Omar Barghouti, a journalist and Tel Aviv University PhD candidate who was the ‘surprise’ guest speaker from ‘Palestine.’

Even when the speakers’ own lives contradicted their lies about “Israeli apartheid,” they didn’t flinch. “I have not been subjected to any racism personally at Tel Aviv University,” Barghouti admitted when asked about his experiences. “But this is not about me,” he hastily added. “This is about a system of racism.” No one pressed him to explain how or why he, a prominent anti-Israel activist, escaped the snares of a ‘brutal racist system.’ They couldn’t discuss real facts about Israel. That would interfere with their wholesale effort to portray Israel as evil.

Non-violence was not high on the agenda. Opening panelist Philip Farah told the audience that Mahatma Ghandi had once said that “If the choice were between violence and submission, we would choose violence a thousand times.”...

Any depiction of God and his prophets is considered offensive under Islam, and disrespectful representations are even worse, as the recent worldwide outrage over the Danish cartoons has shown. But some Muslims also refrain from producing images of ordinary human beings and animals, citing Islamic teaching.

That presented a challenge for Higher Ground Academy, a K-12 school just west of Central High School on Marshall Avenue that has about 450 students. About 70 percent of them are Muslim immigrants from eastern Africa.

Executive Director Bill Wilson said he had concerns for some time about how to reconcile the school's art curriculum with the views of Muslim families, but the departure of the art teacher at the end of last school year gave him a window to act.

This fall, he hired ArtStart, a St. Paul-based nonprofit organization, to offer more options for about 150 kindergartners through second-graders, including visual arts and drumming. But parents were still upset that their children were drawing figures, Wilson said, and some pulled their children out of art class altogether.

Wilson then sat down with teacher and parent liaison Abdirahman Sheikh Omar Ahmad, who also is the imam at an Islamic center in Minneapolis, to work with ArtStart in determining how to meet state standards without running afoul of Muslim doctrine...

...Out the window right away went masks, puppets and that classic of elementary school art class, the self-portrait, said Sara Langworthy, an artist with ArtStart. Revamping the curriculum "definitely requires stepping outside of the normal instincts that you fall back on," she said.

In their place came nature scenes and geometric forms and patterns, said Carol Sirrine, ArtStart's executive director. This week, the class was cutting out shapes to make into cardboard pouches. Another project involved taking photographs and mapping the neighborhood around the school.

The conversation about what is appropriate is still open.

In a meeting this week, Langworthy asked Ahmad whether the students can do silhouettes of hands. That's fine, he said...

Several members of the infrastructure, some of whom were detained recently, were fugitives who operated out of Palestinian Authority (PA) buildings in Bethlehem where they were protected from possible arrest.

The infrastructure was led by Jabr Fouaz Eid Akhras, a member of the PA National Security Service, originally from the Gaza Strip but who currently resides in Bethlehem. He was behind the 18 November 2003 deaths of Sgt.-Maj. Shlomi Belsky and St.-Sgt. Shaul Lahav at the tunnels checkpoint near Bethlehem. From his room in the Mukata, Jabr commanded the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Bethlehem and systematically directed attacks despite the fact that Israel had repeatedly requested that Palestinian security service heads halt his activities and despite Palestinian claims that he was in prison.

The infrastructure members who were arrested had considerable war materiel in their possession, including: eight IDF mortar rounds, a mortar, a machine gun, flak jackets and helmets.

The arrested infrastructure members admitted that they intended to perpetrate mortar and small arms attacks on Gilo and Har Homa, with the attack on Gilo due to be carried out a day or two after the arrests. They also admitted to planning mortar and small arms attacks on an IDF base in the Bethlehem area and on an IDF patrol in El Khader.

The arrested infrastructure members said that Popular Resistance Committees terrorists from the Gaza Strip were instructing, and providing professional and financial assistance to, members of the infrastructure in Bethlehem and were, in effect, moving the center of their activities from the Gaza Strip to the Bethlehem area following the IDF departure from Gaza.

The terrorist wing of Hamas has placed on its website's homepage a graphic of the destruction of the Star of David - the symbol of Israel - in a nuclear holocaust.

The homepage of Az A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the terrorist wing of Hamas, features a black rectangle at the top of the page in which a Star of David appears. This is followed immediately by an image of a nuclear explosion that erases the star. Then Arabic words appear:

"The Az A-Din Al-Qassam website exclusively tells the whole story of the most elusive squad [to be uncovered] in the history of the Entity [i.e. Israel], in the city of Ramallah."

When clicking on the window more information appears glorifying this "elusive" terrorist cell, captured by Israel.

The scene of the atomic destruction of the Star of David repeats every few seconds.

The graphics can be seen by following this link: www.alqassam.com/arabic/

2. We have for a long time now watched helplessly the killing, maiming and destruction of Christians and their property by Muslim fanatics and fundamentalists at the slightest or no provocation at all. We are not unaware of the fact that these religious extremists have the full backup and support of some influential Muslims who are yet to appreciate the value of peaceful co-existence.

3. That an incident in far away Denmark which does not claim to be representing Christianity could elicit such an unfortunate reaction here in Nigeria, leading to the destruction of Christian Churches, is not only embarrassing, but also disturbing and unfortunate.

4. It is no longer a hidden fact that a long standing agenda to make this Nigeria an Islamic nation is being surreptitiously pursued. The willingness of Muslim Youth to descend with violence on the innocent Christians from time to time is from all intents and purposes a design to actualize their dream...

For Paley, moreover, the close-minded opinions of a political firebrand like Cole can alienate and stifle students. Earlier this year, Paley met with Cole to discuss her interest in studying abroad in Egypt next year. Yet she said she feared engaging Cole in an argument or even mentioning her Judaism or Zionist beliefs. “I didn’t want him to see me in his eyes as a Jewish student, but as a serious student of Middle East studies who wanted to talk to him about Arabic,” she said...

Many of the campaigns involved deception, and the agendas were the same as those in prior years, ignoring the fact that so much has changed in the Middle East during the last year in the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians. This conference simply ignored that so much has changed on the ground.

Non-violence was not high on their agenda. Opening panelist Philip Farah told the audience that Mahatma Ghandi had once said that "If the choice were between violence and submission, we would choose violence a thousand times."

And there was an acceptance of the art of deception throughout the conference. For example, opening panelists advised the audience to "inoculate" themselves against the charge of anti-Semitism by working with "Jews and Israelis." The message was that when you have Jews on your team, you obviously cannot be accused of being anti-Jew.

Holding the conference on the Sabbath did not seem to trouble the two ultra-orthodox Neturei Karta rabbis who showed up and stayed all day so they could attend this conference...

Maher Bitar and Nadeem Muaddi told people how to infiltrate churches in order to gain support for an anti-Israel agenda. They emphasized "targeting" small churches that don’t have their own political agendas already. "Be patient about bringing up the divestment issue with your new Christian friends", Mauddi advised. To win the congregants' trust, he encouraged activists to deceive their new prospective friends by "looking and acting Christian." "Dress conservatively," he said. No kyffias, sandals or jeans. Instead, "men should wear button-down shirts, sports coats or khakis". He went on to say that women should wear mid-length skirts with colored pantyhose. He told them to be well-groomed and to speak nicely, avoiding curse words and slang. "Mind your manners." he said. "If someone sneezes, say 'God Bless you. And always come bearing gifts, especially something from the Holy Land like holy water or rosary beads." He further advised the activists to get involved in the church community. "Don’t look down on the church ladies' clubs—join them". All the participants regarded the Presbyterian vote (that has been considering divestment) as an exciting victory. They gave credit to Sabeel, the Palestinian Christian group that has worked hard to demonize Israel and promote divestment in North and South American mainline churches. The people in all these sessions seemed to welcome the advice about how to deceive and manipulate the churches so they could spread the virus of hatred through well meaning religious communities..

The needless festering of grievance in the undeniably miserable 59 camps (27 of which are located in the West Bank and Gaza) is not UNRWA's only flaw, however. Indeed, far from being an impartial dispenser of humanitarian relief, UNRWA has become an enabler of terrorists, complicit through sins of commission and omission, in the cycle of violence wracking the Middle East.

Until the Bush administration blocked his reappointment last year, long-term UNRWA commissioner-general Peter Hansen made a career out of "see no evil, hear no evil" with respect to Hamas while imputing all manner of malfeasance on Israel. The final straw for Washington may have been Hansen's candid admission during a television interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in late 2004: "I am sure there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll, and I don't see that as a crime." Hansen's placid acquiescence to paying Hamas is usefully contrasted with his hysterical comments -- since proven false by the UN's own investigation -- that Hansen had seen "with my own eyes" Israeli "helicopters strafing civilian residential areas," "wholesale obliteration," and "mass graves" during Israel's Defensive Shield operation following the massacre of Passover celebrants by Palestinian terrorists in 2002. These "big lies" are on a par with Hamas's citing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in its founding Covenant...

The Globe can print a photo from almost three years ago, but they can't print cartoons that have resulted In protests and riots around the world, which have resulted in 45 deaths?

In your recent column explaining why the Globe wouldn't print the Mohammed cartoons, you wrote: "Freedom of speech means that news organizations have the liberty to decide whether or not something meets strict standards of accuracy, fairness, and taste for the sake of the community." Does it meet the Boston Globe's strict standards of "accuracy, fairness, and taste for the sake of the community" to print 3-year old torture photos? Does the editor think that the reader wouldn't otherwise understand what the letter was about? Is the Boston Globe completely unconcerned with further fanning anti-American resentment in Iraq, which could very well result in more harm to US soldiers? Do these concerns ever factor into your decision-making?

Publishing that photo in today's paper was unnecessary and disgusting.

"We must make a plan so all Muslims will be able to supply the Palestinians with a yearly financial aid package," Khamenei told Hamas' political leader Khaled Mashaal on Monday.

"This voluntary gesture will create a spiritual bond among Muslims and the Palestinian cause and have a great impact on the world," Khamenei said.

He lauded Hamas for not moderating its fierce resistance to
Israel after its upset victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections last month.

"The Hamas positions are fundamental and right," he said, praising Palestinians for electing the Islamic party.

"The Palestinian people voted knowing it meant choosing resistance and fighting the Zionist regime."...

If your local media describe Haniyeh as "pragmatic" or "moderate" ask them on what basis they are using those terms...

The victim, who was burnt and cut on 80 percent of his body, died of his wounds as he was taken to hospital...

...community security services suspect the kidnappers who tortured the young man may have had anti-Semitic motives...

"The short answer to the question of where the WMD Saddam bought from the Russians went was that they went to Syria and Lebanon," former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense John. A. Shaw told an audience Saturday at a privately sponsored "Intelligence Summit" in Alexandria, Va.

"They were moved by Russian Spetsnaz (special forces) units out of uniform, that were specifically sent to Iraq to move the weaponry and eradicate any evidence of its existence," he said.

Shaw has dealt with weapons-related issues and export controls as a U.S. government official for 30 years, and was serving as deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security when the events he described today occurred.

He called the evacuation of Saddam's WMD stockpiles "a well-orchestrated campaign using two neighboring client states with which the Russian leadership had a long time security relationship."...

More serious is the book's consistent resort to factual misrepresentation, distortion, and outright falsehood. Readers are told of events that never happened, such as the nonexistent May 1948 Tantura "massacre" or the expulsion of Arabs within twelve days of the partition resolution. They learn of political decisions that were never made, such as the Anglo-French 1912 plan for the occupation of Palestine or the contriving of "a master plan to rid the future Jewish state of as many Palestinians as possible." And they are misinformed about military and political developments, such as the rationale for the Balfour declaration:

Without Russia, there was very little hope of successfully surrounding Germany with a ring of enemy states, a strategy it was hoped would cause Germany to surrender. The British government expected that Russian Jews would become the agents of pro-British propaganda that would persuade the tsarist government to come out clearly in support of the Allies' effort to subjugate Germany.

But Russia was a member of the Triple Entente coalition with Britain and France from the time of the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 and so needed no encouragement to join the war three years later, least of all by its despised and persecuted Jewish minority. In fact, it was hoped that the Zionist movement, by virtue of its perceived connections to the Bolshevik movement, would help keep communist Russia in the war...

...Does Pappé count on the ignorance of the general reader to accept it? Does he expect his peers to give him a pass? That Cambridge University Press purveys this disgraceful work suggests that they just might. It also symbolizes the crisis in Middle East studies.

A generation after France's right-wing party began its surge with a tough anti-immigration campaign tinged with both racism and anti-Semitism, three factors are coming into play that could spell a strategic realignment...

But the Phoenix isn't publishing the Mohammed drawings, and in a brutally candid editorial it explained why.

''Our primary reason," the editors confessed, is ''fear of retaliation from . . . bloodthirsty Islamists who seek to impose their will on those who do not believe as they do . . . Simply stated, we are being terrorized, and . . . could not in good conscience place the men and women who work at the Phoenix and its related companies in physical jeopardy. As we feel forced, literally, to bend to maniacal pressure, this may be the darkest moment in our 40-year-publishing history."

The vast majority of US media outlets have shied away from reproducing the drawings, but to my knowledge only the Phoenix has been honest enough to admit that it is capitulating to fear...

And worse than that: You betray as well the dissidents and reformers within the Islamic world, the Muslim Sakharovs and Sharanskys and Havels who yearn for the free, tolerant, and democratic culture that we in the West take for granted. What they want to see from America is not appeasement and apologies and a dread of giving offense. They want to see us face down the fanatics, be unintimidated by bullies. They want to know that in the global struggle against Islamist extremism, we won't let them down.

"They think they have won the debate," he says with a sigh. "They believe that the British Government has capitulated to them, because it feared the consequences if it did not.

"The cartoons, you see, have not been published in this country, and the Government has been very critical of those countries in which they were published. To many of the Islamic clerics, that's a clear victory.

"It's confirmation of what they believe to be a familiar pattern: if spokesmen for British Muslims threaten what they call 'adverse consequences' - violence to the rest of us - then the British Government will cave in. I think it is a very dangerous precedent."

Dr Sookhdeo adds that he believes that "in a decade, you will see parts of English cities which are controlled by Muslim clerics and which follow, not the common law, but aspects of Muslim sharia law.

"It is already starting to happen - and unless the Government changes the way it treats the so-called leaders of the Islamic community, it will continue."...

"He calls the education in the state schools of the West 'aggression against the Islamic personality of the child'. He has said that 'the Muslim respects the laws of the country only if they do not contradict any Islamic principle'. He has added that 'compromising on principles is a sign of fear and weakness'."...

But the reasons Alamoudi enjoyed this status are not so difficult to understand. He purported to represent millions of American Muslims, who deserve a political voice in Washington. And, throughout his public life, he spoke out against terrorist attacks in the United States. In a typical speech to thousands of American Muslims at the annual convention of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) in Chicago in 1996, for instance, he told the audience, "Once we are here, our mission in this country is to change it. ... There is no way for Muslims to be violent in America, no way. We have other means to do it."

To a large extent, his reputation as an influential moderate Muslim became self-perpetuating, his stature enhanced each time he met with a mainstream politician or clergyman. The pages of his organization's newsletter and sympathetic publications reported that he had held meetings with President Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, and National Security Adviser Anthony Lake in the mid-'90s. The State Department reportedly sent Alamoudi on diplomatic junkets to Muslim countries in the late '90s. Bush administration officials had picked up where their predecessors in the White House left off, granting Alamoudi and his associates photo opportunities with the president and an open-door policy with senior administration officials...

The money is being returned "in the interest of seeing that these funds not potentially make their way into the coffers of a future Palestinian government that might not recognize the right of Israel to exist," McCormack said.

The money was doled out last year for infrastructure projects in Gaza, a move intended to spur the economy in the area after the Israeli withdrawal, McCormack said. Most of the money hasn't been spent and should be returned promptly, he added.

McCormack also said the United States is interested in helping "the most vulnerable among the Palestinian population" through the United Nations or other organizations...

Edgerton built a special lens 10 feet long for his camera which was set up in a bunker 7 miles from the source of the blast which was triggered Nevada - the bomb placed atop a steel gantry anchored to the desert floor by guide wires. The exposures are at 1/100,000,000ths of a second...

...Ateek also indicated that he was not disagreeing with others who advocated sterner economic measures against Israel. "I think we need to encourage everything that is non-violent," he said, including "a boycott [of Israeli goods], which would be wonderful."...

..."I believe Jewish-Christian dialogue groups have been a problem," Ateek commented. In many cases, he said, Christians have been persuaded to oppose divestment "because they're so close to their [Jewish] friends." He did not acknowledge that Christians might have good reasons of their own to disagree with divestment - apart from any supposed deference to their Jewish friends...

Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said the Anglican vote on whether to pull money from "companies profiting from the illegal occupation" was ill-judged and would inflame relations between the two religions.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual head of the world's 77 million Anglicans, sparked anger by supporting the vote at a meeting of the church's governing body.

"The vote ... was ill-judged even on its own terms," Sacks wrote in the Jewish Chronicle newspaper on Friday. "The timing could not have been more inappropriate. (Israel) needs support not vilification."

He warned that the row would reduce the church's ability "to act as a force for peace between Israel and the Palestinians".

"The church has chosen to take a stand on the politics of the Middle East over which it has no influence, knowing that it will have the most adverse repercussions on a situation over which it has enormous influence, Jewish-Christian relations in Britain," Sacks added...

Mahathir Mohamad: They always like to label people as being anti-Semitic, so that even if you do and say innocent things you are supposed to be unfair. But other people are subject to criticism, subject to condemnation – including the Muslims. Now if you can condemn the Muslims – as terrorists, for example – why is it that when the Jews do something that is wrong, that is criminal, we cannot say anything? Why is it that they are supposed to be exempted from normal opinions of people?

[...]

Mahathir Mohamad: Ahmadinejad asked for the elimination of Israel, but Israel has actually eliminated Palestine. Israel doesn't allow the Palestinian state to exist. It is really called the Palestinian Authority. Now if Israel can insist that Palestine does not exist, why cannot some other person say that Israel shouldn't exist? Or if it wants to exist, it should exist in Europe, (from) where the Zionists came? Or in America? How about giving a little bit of Texas to make the State of Israel?...

MAS Boston presents itself as a "moderate" organization, by the way. It's hard to believe their Public Affairs chief would be out defending Hamas if he didn't have the backing of the MAS Boston leadership. It seems to me almost newsworthy that the spokesperson for a "moderate" Islamic group--in the city where the 9/11 attacks originated--is a supporter of Hamas...

Please be advised that it is our organizational policy, when employees make statements that are erroneous or do not reflect our organizational views, to issue an official statement of clarification.

Mr. Hamza Pelletier's statement on the Michael Graham Show on Monday, February 6, 2006 stating that, "Hamas is not a terrorist organization" does not reflect the position of the Muslim American Society or its Freedom Foundation. Hamas has been designated by the United States government and European Union as a terrorist organization. We at the Muslim American Society recognize this designation as factual.

Mr. Pelletier has not been authorized to state on behalf of the Muslim American Society that Hamas is not a designated terrorist organization. Any statement made by Mr. Pelletier to the contrary should not be construed by your station or others as reflecting the views of the official position of the Muslim American Society and its Freedom Foundation.

Mr. Pelletier has been advised of the aforementioned and has acknowledged in writing that his statements on your station were his own and not the official position of the Muslim American Society. Should you or your staff need further clarification concerning this matter please feel free to contact me at (202) xxx-xxxx.

Sincerely,

Mahdi Bray, Executive Director of MAS Freedom Foundation
C.C. Dr. Esam Omeish, President of Muslim American Society
Ashraf Nubani Esq.

A report posted on Hamas' website recently, describes the establishment of the organization's first cell in Ramallah, immediately following the outbreak of the intifada.

According to the report, after the cell was founded, its members began looking for appropriate funding for their activity. Two funding channels were consequently opened, one vis-à-vis Hizbullah, by sending activists to Lebanon to train and return with money, and the other internal – money raised in the West Bank.

Until recently, Hamas has denied all claims that it received funds from Hizbullah. Other Palestinian terror groups have done the same, charging the reports were "Israeli propaganda" aimed at implicating the Lebanese group with responsibility for the intifada, in a bid to generate international – and mainly American – pressure on Syria and Iran.

However, in the current report on its website, Hamas boasts the cell sponsored by Hizbullah was one of the group's most prominent wings in the West Bank...

The release of more Abu Ghraib images "could only further inflame and possibly incite unnecessary violence in the world and would endanger our military men and women that are serving in places around the world," DoD spokesman Bryan Whitman told Pentagon reporters.

"The abuses at Abu Ghraib have been fully investigated," Whitman said. "As you know, it's been the policy of this department - it has been and continues to be - that all detainees in our custody will be treated humanely."...

The last assessment of Title VI recommended this refocusing, but didn't propose a way to do it. The mission of the National Research Council is to figure out just that. And if it can't envision a practical and effective way to reorient the program, it should have the courage to announce this: after nearly half a century, the time has come to retire Title VI from America's service.

Valley of the Wolves: Iraq (Kurtlar Vadisi: Irak in Turkish) is set for release in a dozen Arab and European countries and the producer is at the current Berlin International Film Festival to find distributors for the United States and additional markets.

The film's arch villain is a rogue American officer, played by Billy Zane, who is a self-professed "peacekeeper sent by God." He and his men shoot up an Iraqi wedding party, killing the groom in the presence of the bride and a little boy in front of his mother...

...The Busey character, listed only as The Doctor, is far removed from the Jewish stereotype in both appearance and manner, but hardly a credit to his heritage. At one point, he scolds American soldiers for shooting up the wedding guests "because it ruins their organs." In another scene, a group of apparent organ buyers includes a man clearly dressed as an Orthodox Jew.

Even worse is the depiction of Zane's character, Sam William Marshall, as a psychopathic Christian fundamentalist, who can be kind to an Iraqi one moment and then kill him instantly...

...Vickie Roberts, Busey's attorney for the past six years, said that the actor was not giving any interviews but defended her client on constitutional grounds. "There is something in this country called the First Amendment that protects freedom of expression," she said, "I hope we are not returning to the McCarthy era."

Roberts added, "If Gary played a rapist in a movie, would anyone believe him to be an actual rapist? He is an actor, not a politician."

When asked about the moral and ethical implications of portraying an anti-Semitic stereotype in a foreign movie, Roberts declined to comment.

Below is a quote from the article, which was headlined, "How will a Hamas government act regarding the prisoners in the prisons of the Occupation?"

"...Nabil Nassar, the representative of Hamas in the National and Islamic Forces Prisoners Committee said, 'We will not leave them [i.e. the prisoners] alone. The coming government will double its efforts to set them free using every possible means.'

"Nassar said that Hamas, which will form the coming government, can take care of the prisoner issue and kidnap [Israeli] soldiers if it fails to set prisoners free by peaceful means..."
[Al-Ayyam, February 14, 2006]

Months after the original, uneventful publication of the cartoons, Qaradawi used his ready platform at al Jazeera to issue one of those fatwas he'd researched at that European Council of his. This one called for a "Day of Rage." It worked so well that, by the end of last week, the media were reporting, with a straight face, that Qaradawi was now "condemning" the savagery he'd quite consciously started. (See The Muslim Brotherhood Playbook, p.1.) The poor, misunderstood imam, it seems, had only meant to provoke "logical" rage, like boycotts of Havarti cheese and the like. After all, he's a "moderate" who opposes violence ... whenever he's not stirring it up...

[snip]

...Nonetheless, the contemporary vision of "moderate Islam" as a meaningful force for good is a mirage. Certainly there are moderate Muslim individuals. Large pockets of them, there and there, who have assimilated to the modern world and want only to live in ecumenical peace. But many of the people we call "moderates" are flat-out phonies, the bag-men who rise on the shoulders of the leg-breakers.

The authentic moderates, meanwhile, tarry in muted resistance to the domineering strain of their faith...

The government of President Mahmoud Abbas must renounce violence, recognize Israel and accept previous Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements, Harper told the Palestinian leader Tuesday during a telephone conversation.

“Future assistance to any new Palestinian government will be reviewed against that government's commitment to the principles of non-violence, recognition of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations,” Mr. Harper said in a statement released after the phone call...

''We believe that the Palestinian people should not be punished for the fact that they chose as their representatives a party that has a different outlook on politics and the geopolitical state in Palestine," he said. [Ah yes, politics by other means...]

He said the Saudi government is urging any Palestinian government to honor previous agreements between the Palestinian Authority and Israel that would lead to the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel and for the recognition of Israel...

The new request, which was made yesterday at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Bush's foreign affairs budget, would increase spending on democracy programs for Iran this year from $10 million to $85 million.

Rice announced the initiative as Washington steps up pressure on the hard-line regime in Tehran over its nuclear program, which Washington suspects is geared toward producing a nuclear weapon.

''We find it in our interest now . . . to see if we can't engage the Iranian population," Rice told the senators. ''In some ways, you could argue that they need it even more now because they are being isolated by their own regime."...

Barbara Boxer, a Democrat from California, had a testy exchange with Rice in which she asked:

''Do you agree that nations throughout the world are electing more negative candidates who run against America?"

''I don't see, Madame Secretary, how things are getting better," said Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican.

''I think things are getting worse. I think they're getting worse in Iraq. I think they're getting worse in Iran."

To the Courageous Men and Women of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, who have changed the city of Tall’ Afar from a ghost town, in which terrorists spread death and destruction, to a secure city flourishing with life.

To the lion-hearts who liberated our city from the grasp of terrorists who were beheading men, women and children in the streets for many months.

To those who spread smiles on the faces of our children, and gave us restored hope, through their personal sacrifice and brave fighting, and gave new life to the city after hopelessness darkened our days, and stole our confidence in our ability to reestablish our city...

In an article posted at thelutheran.org on Feb. 9, 2006, Bishop Younan warned Westerners to tread lightly when responding to Muslim protesters who have burnt Danish flags or engaged in other violent acts to express their displeasure over the cartoons.

“Are we really losing our civility to such a degree that we are incapable of rational discourse and can only resort to violence and desecration of sacred symbols, prophets, writings and places?" he said, subsequently adding that it is time for Christians and Muslims to “create a code of ethics by which religions and nations should [handle] religious differences.”

Notwithstanding the Bishop's attempt to equate the burning of embassies with the publication of cartoons depicting Mohammed in an offensive manner, Bishop Younan's statements would have more credibility if he had spoken publicly about the persistent demonization of Jews, Israel and the United States in papers throughout the Middle East, oftentimes through the desecration of Christian and Jewish imagery...

America’s government committed “terrible abuses” against Arabs following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Gore told a Saudi audience at the Jiddah Economic Forum. Arabs had been “indiscriminately rounded up,” said Gore, and held in “unforgivable” conditions.

Gore did not mention that 15 of the 19 terrorists who carried out mass murder on September 11 in the United States were Saudis...

Another example is that of the murderous rioting of Muslim mobs who were well organized and funded by both Iran and Syria, and possibly by Saudi Arabia as well and were mightily offended by the Danish cartoons, whose three most incendiary examples were never published in Denmark but were "accidentally" slipped into the mix by a Muslim mullah. The fact that both Jews and Christians are routinely cartoonized as apes, pigs, lice and blood-drinking fiends in the Islamic media does not seem to count, nor does the fact that Jews and Christians do not go on anti-Muslim rampages when their sensibilities are similarly offended. The Arab world's sleight-of-hand media tricks (fake massacres in Jenin, fake deaths of Palestinian children at Israeli hands) still seem to work. And the Western world, especially its intelligentsia, keep falling for them.

Now, even the British architects want to divest in Israel! And the British Anglican Chuch has just resolved to do so. In addition, Georgetown is proceeding with its decision to host the fifth annual Palestinian Solidarity conference. Perhaps this too is only "accidentally" related to the fact that a Saudi Prince has just donated twenty million dollars to Georgetown as well as to Harvard...

The ambassador said bin Laden had created a cultlike attitude in which recruits "devote themselves and sacrifice their lives without question."

"Nothing justifies any terrorist act whether through suicide bombing or through any other activity," al-Faisal said.

Still, he distinguished the suicide attacks carried out by Palestinian groups against Israel, saying the attacks were justified by groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad as "legitimate means of war under occupation."...

Syed Soharwardy, president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, said the cartoons have caused Muslims in Calgary, and worldwide, unnecessary stress and heartache.

"We are, on Monday, going to see lawyers. We will try to find out if there is a possibility to have a civil lawsuit. That's what we're going to explore," Soharwardy said Sunday.

"We see these cartoons as racist. We see these cartoons as hurtful, and we see these cartoons as against our religion. There has been damages towards the Muslim community for their losing their peace of mind, and creating stress on people's heart."...

In a tense television debate held between Israeli Ambassador in Washington Danny Ayalon and Safieh, which was broadcast on CNN's "Late Edition," the Palestinian envoy was asked by host Wolf Blitzer to comment on the recent violent Muslim demonstrations across the world that erupted in response to the publication of caricatures mocking Prophet Muhammad in a Danish paper.

Safieh replied by saying that his personal acquaintance with both western and eastern societies has led him to believe the pro-Israeli Likud's global wing acted to bring the western, mostly-Christian society to a collision course with Islam.

Stunned by Safieh's answer, Blitzer asked his guest whether he was serious, or only joking. Safieh then explained that the editor of the Danish newspaper that originally published the cartoons is a fan of Jewish right-wing columnist Daniel Pipes, and that the two cooperated in distributing the caricatures that roused furor among Muslims.

Israeli Ambassador Ayalon dismissed the remarks and said they were "nonsense."...

In other words: in our Islam we don’t do God, we do Palestine, Kashmir, Afghanistan and Iraq.

That is not all. This political Islam also has grievances about aspects of British and more broadly European domestic politics. It is unhappy that gays and lesbians are allowed to live without hindrance. It does not like the way women are allowed to “get cheeky” and even argue with their menfolk.

It is scandalised by the West’s “corruption and debauchery” and that there is no “moral force” to set strict limits to individual liberties...

...Because it offers a unique freedom, Britain has become host to dozens of Islamist parties which are banned in the Muslim world. The Algerian Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), the Tunisian An-Nahda al-Islamiyah, the pan-Islamist Hizb al-Tahrir (Liberation party), the Iranian Mujaheddin Khalq (People’s Holy Warriors), the Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah movement and a number of other groups that could best be described as terrorist outfits have had propaganda bases and safe havens in Britain for two decades.

The third reason for the politicisation of Islam in Britain is its rapprochement with the extreme left over the past decade. Today political Islam and the British extreme left are in coalition in a number of organisations, including the anti-war alliance. Muslims provide the street muscle and the “poor masses” that the traditionally atheistic extreme left lacks. In exchange the extreme left puts its experience in militant politics at the service of political Islam. Hatred of “bourgeois democracy”, anti-Americanism and opposition to Israel provide the unifying factors of this unnatural alliance.

Islam cannot have it both ways: pretend to be a religion and demand special respect while operating as a political ideology which, by definition, must be open to criticism and even denigration...

We do not recall any prayer meetings called by the imams on Antwerp’s main square after 9/11, after the Madrid bombings, after the London bombings. However, the Antwerp imams felt compelled to pray in public on Antwerp’s central square because... more than four months ago a paper in Jutland had published twelve drawings. What is the point of all this? None other, surely, than to show the citizens of Antwerp that they are the boss now in Europe, while we are the intimidated natives, the dhimmis, the slaves...

My father was killed as a result of the Fedayeen operations when I was eight years old. He was hailed by Nasser as a national hero and was considered a shaheed, or martyr. In his speech announcing the nationalisation of the Suez Canal, Nasser vowed that all of Egypt would take revenge for my father's death. My siblings and I were asked by Nasser: "Which one of you will avenge your father's death by killing Jews?" We looked at each other speechless, unable to answer.

In school in Gaza, I learned hate, vengeance and retaliation. Peace was never an option, as it was considered a sign of defeat and weakness. At school we sang songs with verses calling Jews "dogs" (in Arab culture, dogs are considered unclean)...

Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine, whose members include Richard Rogers and the architectural critic Charles Jenckes, met for the first time last week in secret at the London headquarters of Lord Rogers' practice. He introduced the meeting, and the 60 attendees went on to condemn the illegal annexation of Palestinian land and the construction of the vast fence and concrete separation barrier running through the West Bank and Jerusalem.

The group said that architects, planners and engineers working on Israeli projects in the occupied territories were "complicit in social, political and economic oppression", and "in violation of their professional code of ethics".

It said that: "Planning, architecture and other construction disciplines are being used to promote an apartheid system of environmental control."

The meeting discussed a boycott of Israel - targeting Israeli-made construction materials and Israeli architects and construction companies - as well as possibly calling for the expulsion of Israeli architects from the International Union of Architects...

In a letter to Ahmadinejad, Yeshayai asked how it was possible to ignore all the evidence of the massacre and expulsion of the Jews of Europe in World War II. He added that Ahmadinejad's comments caused concern among the Jewish community in Iran...

The vote on Monday by the General Synod, the church's parliament, to "disinvest from companies profiting from the illegal occupation," prompted widespread opprobrium and severely tested Jewish-Christian relations in the UK.

Williams' predecessor, Lord Carey, told The Jerusalem Post he was "ashamed to be an Anglican when I see this kind of thing," while Britain's Council of Christians and Jews said it was "wholly regrettable" and "will have little consequence for Israelis and Palestinians, and only further inflame the conflict at a very difficult time".

Israeli Anglicans have distanced themselves from the vote, saying they were "in no way connected with the Church of England in sponsoring this initiative." Rev. Murray Dixon of Christ Church in Jerusalem has stated the "continuing preoccupation with Israel" by the Church of England, to the exclusion of other international conflicts, "points to anti-Semitism."

The purported aim of the PSM is to encourage divestment from Israel. To this end, its conferences boast a cavalcade of anti-Israel speakers whose speeches often degenerate into anti-Semitism. At the 2004 conference at Duke University in North Carolina, for example, keynote speaker Mazin Qumsiyeh referred to Zionism as a "disease." Workshop leader Bob Brown deemed the Six-Day War "the Jew War of '67." Not to be outdone, Nasser Abufarha praised the terrorist activities of Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine...

That, my friends, is LIBERATION, not "occupation"...

Hamid Ali, spiritual leader of the mosque in West Yorkshire, said it had forced people to take notice when peaceful meetings and conferences had no impact.

He also praised the bombers as the “children” of Abdullah al-Faisal, a firebrand Muslim cleric, who was convicted of inciting murder and racial hatred in 2003.

Ali revealed that the leader of the London suicide bombers had attended sermons in Yorkshire by al-Faisal and tapes of al-Faisal’s teachings were still circulating within his mosque.

Al-Faisal, who has branded non-Muslims as “cockroaches” ripe for extermination, is serving a seven-year prison sentence but is eligible for early release next week.

Evidence of continuing extremism and terrorist sympathisers in the bombers’ community has been exposed by a six-week investigation by The Sunday Times. It contrasts with the public statements of condemnation by community leaders — including Ali — in the immediate aftermath of the July 7 attacks...

MAS Boston presents itself as a "moderate" organization, by the way. It's hard to believe their Public Affairs chief would be out defending Hamas if he didn't have the backing of the MAS Boston leadership. It seems to me almost newsworthy that the spokesperson for a "moderate" Islamic group--in the city where the 9/11 attacks originated--is a supporter of Hamas.

Unfortunately, we don't have a newspaper in Boston. We have the Boston Globe.

Have any of these "moderates" ever protested the grotesque caricatures of Christians and, most especially, Jews that are broadcast throughout the Middle East on a daily basis? The sermons on Palestinian TV that refer to Jews as the sons of pigs and monkeys? The Syrian prime-time TV series that shows rabbis slaughtering a gentile boy to ritually consume his blood? The 41-part (!) series on Egyptian TV based on that anti-Semitic czarist forgery (and inspiration of the Nazis), "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," showing the Jews to be engaged in a century-old conspiracy to control the world?

A true Muslim moderate is one who protests desecrations of all faiths. Those who don't are not moderates but hypocrites, opportunists and agents for the rioters, merely using different means to advance the same goal: to impose upon the West, with its traditions of freedom of speech, a set of taboos that is exclusive to the Islamic faith. These are not defenders of religion but Muslim supremacists trying to force their dictates upon the liberal West...

The conference is to be held at Georgetown University Feb. 17-19 under the guise of freedom of speech, but the Palestine Solidarity Movement's agenda violates Georgetown's own policy guidelines for campus events. Those guidelines require "politically sensitive activities" to be sponsored by the University and not to "conflict with Georgetown University standards as a Roman Catholic institution [1] ." Instead, the conference is sponsored by a student group...

News of Mr. Shikaki's possible ties to Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders prompted an immediate response from members of the Jewish community. The Zionist Organization of America has called for a boycott of the school. A Brandeis alumna who is also a ZOA-affiliated lawyer, Susan Tuchman, is calling for an investigation into the terms of Mr. Shikaki's hiring and his past, urging the university to "sever its ties with Khalil Shikaki unless and until it is determined with absolute certainty that he has never been connected with Palestinian Islamic Jihad or those who support terrorism or the destruction of Israel."

Mr. Shikaki has not been indicted on any criminal charges in America. He has repeatedly denied any connection to his brother's terrorist organization; any knowledge of the connections between WISE and the Islamic Committee for Palestine - both alleged by the government to be front groups for Islamic Jihad - and PIJ, and any knowledge that top figures in the organization with whom he had associated were at all involved in PIJ...

If one needed any fresh evidence of this, one need only consult Massad's recent review of Spielberg's Munich. "Lunatic" would not be too harsh a description of the review. For example,many of us are familiar with the ship "Exodus," made famous by the movie of that name. The ship was one of many ships carrying Holocaust survivors trying to get from Europe to Palestine after World War II, only to be captured by the British and diverted to Cyprus, where the refugees were placed in internment camps. [The actual passengers on The Exodus were sent to internment camps in Germany, but in the movie they may have been sent to Cyprus, were most "illegal" Jewish immigrants were sent]...

...Here is how Massad describes the movie's plot: "Exodus tells the story of the Zionist hijacking of a ship from Cyprus to Palestine by a Zionist Haganah commander." This is analogous to saying that Schindler's List was a movie about Jews taking a working vacation in Poland...

Later that day, the three organizations underwriting the conference, the Ford, Rockefeller, and Nathan Cummings foundations, called for its postponement after the professors' association acknowledged it had circulated an anti-Semitic article by a Holocaust denier published in the Barnes Review, which has published speeches by Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goering, and Benito Mussolini. The association said the article's distribution was an accident and it has publicly apologized.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, the president of the Ford Foundation, Susan Berresford, and the president of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Lance Lindlom, said the paper's inclusion in the conference materials had "undermined the credibility of this conference as a forum for intellectually honest and rigorous exchange." The Rockefeller Foundation, which was to house the conference free of charge at its historic villa on the banks of Lake Como in Bellagio, Italy, issued a separate statement on Tuesday that asked the association to delay use of its facilities. "The sponsors of the conference and subsequent publications have stated that the credibility of the conference has been undermined. ... The Rockefeller Foundation shares these concerns," it said...

So in a small act of solidarity with Denmark and of support for free speech, Stankiewicz bought two Danish flags on Monday and raised one of the red-and-white banners outside the Town Hall that morning, flying it on the pole beneath the US flag.

The symbolic gesture was short-lived, as Stankiewicz lowered the flag the next afternoon after a local veteran complained that it was improper to fly the flags of two countries on one pole. He declined to release the name of the veteran.

But many people in town saw the foreign flag display as insensitive and inflammatory. Several town employees told Stankiewicz they did not agree with his decision and worried the flag could provoke violence against Town Hall in light of the attacks against Danish and other European embassies throughout the Middle East. Stankiewicz described their concerns as an ''overreaction."

The Stoughton No Place for Hate Committee, a local antidiscrimination group, plans to discuss the episode at its meeting tonight because of fears that residents might be hurt or insulted...

...Stankiewicz said he had closely followed reports of the Islamic protests. But it was a op-ed column written by Jeff Jacoby in Sunday's Boston Globe, headlined ''We Are All Danes Now," that persuaded him to show his support publicly.

''This was an extremely limited show of support for a country and its democratic institutions," said Stankiewicz, 48. ''Is religion going to trump free speech? If you don't stand up for certain rights, you risk losing them."

On Monday, Stankiewicz traveled to a flag store in Rockland and bought the only two Danish flags they had. One he flew at Town Hall, the other still hangs in a front window of his home.

Stankiewicz, who has visited Denmark and has friends there, said he worries that Western countries will cave in to terrorist threats unless they stick together.

''I thought people might be upset, but they need to understand what's at stake," he said. ''People are willing to sacrifice civil liberties to feel safe, and that's a slippery slope."...

In response to numerous queries, Palestinian Media Watch would like to stress that there are no Arab caricatures insulting the Hebrew prophets or Jesus. This is for a simple reason - Islam presents the Hebrew prophets and Jesus as Muslims who prophesied Islam. They teach that both Moses and Jesus received Islam from Allah and that Jews and Christians later distorted these teachings. As such, Judaism and Christianity are said to be perversions of Allah's only true word - Islam. Thus Moses, Abraham, all the prophets of the Hebrew Bible and Jesus are respected Muslims and are not ridiculed. However Jewish and Christian symbols are frequently used, such as in the portrayal of Jews crucifying "Palestine" in the picture above.

Jews appear in the Arab media as subhuman, cannibals and as various animals, such as snakes, scorpions and spiders – often posing some form of threat to humanity. Below is a small selection...

An interdict obtained in the Johannesburg High Court on Friday night prevented Inde-pendent Newspapers, John-com Media (publishers of the Sunday Times) and the Newspaper Printing Company from publishing the controversial cartoons.

Zubair Bayat, secretary general of the Jamiat-ul Ulama (Council of Muslim Theologians) in KwaZulu-Natal, said that the interdict had been obtained by the Jamiat-ul Ulama of Transvaal after newspapers had refused to give an undertaking that they would not publish the cartoons.

"It's blasphemy whether it is Mohammed, Jesus or a figure of any other religion depicted that way," said Rev Cyril Pillay, spokesman for the Global Network of Christian Leaders.

Pillay said that while he appreciated that the press should have freedom, it should not be allowed to desecrate other religions.

"Religious tolerance is of paramount importance, especially in a democracy. Muslims were offended by this cartoon so I can understand and appreciate their stance," he said.

Rabbi Hillel Avidan, of the Temple David synagogue in Overport, said he had not seen the cartoons but, from what he had heard of them, they were "a terrible insult to Muslims"...

...Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon, speaking in Tongaat this weekend, said: "The concept of prior censorship is very dangerous.

"It is wrong to blaspheme a figure like Mohammed, but it is not the right thing to ban a publication. Free speech is very important," he said.

...In the '60s, the editor of the North Augusta Star faced economic boycotts, violent crowds and threats from the police after uncovering wrongdoing by the police chief. He never backed down, and eventually the town government reformed. And then there's the famous case of N.G. Gonzales, one of the founders of The (Columbia, SC) State newspaper, who was gunned down in broad daylight at the corner of Main Street in 1903 by Lt. Governor James Tillman. Tillman was the nephew of the most powerful politician in the state, US Sen. "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman, but Gonzales didn't care. He wrote paint-stripping editorials and merciless news stories that helped kill Jim Tillman's campaign for governor. When Tillman shot the unarmed editor, Gonzales didn't complain. He looked the Lt. Governor in the eye an offered one last editorial comment:

"Shoot me again, you coward."

Gonzales died. The well-connected Lt. Governor was acquitted. One of the pro-Tillman jurors who heard the case offered the quote above as a defense for letting a murderer go free.

But it was H. L. Mencken who gave us the most lasting quote from the political assassination of N. G. Gonzales: "He was the last editor of The State worth shooting." Just over 100 years ago, a newspaper editor was willing to risk his life defending his principles. Today, the fight for freedom can't even make the news pages of most American papers...

Some of the fugitives were arrested and now in his custody in Palestinian prisons, said Al-Meghani. “We are proceeding with other procedures in this regard in accordance with the Riyadh Arab agreement for judicial cooperation in 1983,” he added.

“There are 50 cases of financial and administrative corruption. The amount of money that was squandered and stolen is more than $700 million,” he told a press conference in Gaza City, adding: “Some of these millions were transferred into personal accounts here and abroad.”...

As we have said in the past, divestment is unfair and counterproductive, a failed one-sided strategy pursued by those with an agenda against Israel. By focusing on companies that they claim aid Israel in oppressing Palestinians, the Anglican Church distorts historical facts and impugns the intentions of the State of Israel, whose ultimate goal is to protect and defend its citizens from terrorism.

At a time when Palestinians have voted overwhelmingly in favor of governance by Hamas, a violent terrorist organization whose goal is the destruction of Israel, it is morally reprehensible for the Anglican Church Synod to single out Israel for criticism while failing to condemn Palestinian terrorism...

..."We must rage, and show our rage to the world."...

"The governments must be pressured to demand that the U.N. adopt a clear resolution or law that categorically prohibits affronts to prophets - to the prophets of the Lord and His messengers, to His holy books, and to the religious holy places. This is so that nobody can cause them harm. They enacted such laws in order to protect the Jews and Judaism. Like some Danes have said: 'We can mock Jesus and his mother.' They were asked: 'Can you mock the Jews?' Here they stopped. The Jews are protected by laws - the laws that protect Semitism, and nobody can say even one word about the number [of victims] in the alleged Holocaust. Nobody can do so, even if he is writing an M.A. or Ph.D. thesis, and discussing it scientifically. Such claims are not acceptable. When Roger Garaudy talked about it, he was sentenced to jail, according to the laws. We want laws protecting the holy places, the prophets, and Allah's messengers."...

Rev. David Runnion-Bareford, Executive Director of Biblical Witness Fellowship, the largest renewal group in the United Church of Christ, has released the following statement, in response to the silence of the denominational leadership following the recent Palestinian election that gave Hamas victory.

“With the tragic rise to power of the terrorist organization Hamas in the Palestinian Territories, it is now obvious that resolutions against Israel by the United Church of Christ and other mainline Protestant denominations were ill conceived, misdirected and only served to place Israelis and Palestinian Christians at greater risk. The President of the United Church of Christ was part of a small secretive team that undid the due process of UCC’s national General Synod meeting this past July, overriding the work of the delegates to press an anti-Israeli resolution upon Synod.

“We call on President John Thomas of the United Church of Christ now to admit his error and publicly denounce Hamas. We call on members and congregations of the United Church of Christ to stand in prayer and solidarity with the people of Israel, and our fellow Palestinian Christians, who are suffering from the oppression and violence of Hamas, and their terrorist allies. We encourage our fellow members, churches and structures of the United Church of Christ to urge the U.S. Government to actively pursue peace and justice by doing all in their power to protect those who seek to peacefully coexist in this region.”

Alon Moreh Family Receives Unprecedented Court Victory Over Palestinian Terrorist Organization

The Jerusalem District Court has awarded a family of terror victims an unprecedented judgment in the amount of N.I.S. 90 million ($20 million) against a Palestinian terrorist organization. Six children of the Gavish family brought suit against the Hamas in the District Court in May 2002 following a brutal terrorist attack on their home which left four members of the household, including both parents, dead. The District Court's decision sought to punish the Hamas for the murders and provide some measure of compensation for the surviving family members.

On the evening of March 28, 2002, a Hamas gunman, armed with an automatic rifle, infiltrated the Gavish family's home in the community of Alon Moreh and opened fire on its inhabitants. The terrorist immediately killed Rachel and David Gavish, 50, their son Avraham Gavish, 20, and Rachel's father Yitzhak Kanner, 83 before being killed himself by neighbors. The remaining six children, ages 15 to 22, managed to escape out of a second floor window.

If the ruins of the synagogue do exist, it would be a significant find because archaeologists know of few such Jewish sanctuaries from the period, when Muslims ruled the area, said Amir Ganor, an archaeologist who also serves as an investigator for an authority that prevents antiquities thefts.

The work of art has Jewish insignia, including the words in Hebrew for "Peace Unto Israel," part of a Jewish candelabra and palm branches, Ganor said. Tests have proven almost without a doubt that the mosaic is authentic and dates back to the 7th century, he said. Only a few more tests are needed to confirm its authenticity, Ganor said.

"This is a very significant find, because we know of only one synagogue from this period, in (the West Bank town of) Jericho," Ganor said...

The New York Sun yesterday reported that eight of the 21 participants in the conference organized by the American Association of University Professors supported boycotting Israeli universities. Critics said that would misrepresent the number of those who support academic boycotts and wrongly legitimate their position.

The conference's sponsors yesterday said that one of the articles the American Association of University Professors circulated to those attending the meeting as preparation was printed in a pro-Hitler magazine, the Barnes Review.

The February 6 divestment vote, which was backed by current Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, was "a most regrettable and one-sided statement," Lord Carey said, and one that "ignores the trauma of ordinary Jewish people" in Israel subjected to terrorist attacks...

...The church's call to pressure Caterpillar and other multi-nationals to withdraw from the territories was a "one-eyed" response that "only rebukes one side," Lord Carey said, and displayed the church's "propensity to reduce complex issues to black and white."...

..."The Jewish community will have to reconsider their attitude to interfaith work with the Anglican community," she said, adding, "The writing is on the wall for the Jews of Great Britain, 350 years after they settled here."

The symbolism of this vote was that "Israel will be criticized regardless of what happens," Benjamin said. In the mind of the Church of England, "nothing Israel ever will do will be right, while nothing the Palestinians will do will ever be wrong," he charged.

Whereas the "old" American media remained resolutely obtuse to the point of Chirac's speech, evidently the French authorities themselves wanted it to be at least partially understood even by the American public. Thus, France's state-controlled AFP news service (for details of the AFP's relation to the French state, see here and here) issued its own English-language report on the speech. The AFP's helpful title: "Chirac's nuclear warning a signal to the US"...

But the San Francisco overture also includes a new twist.

Instead of zeroing in on Israel, the presbytery's overture would direct the denomination's Committee on Mission Responsibility through Investments (MRTI) to "recommend opportunities for investment in joint Palestinian-Israeli ventures, including those provided by organizations such as Oikocredit, which benefit both peoples."

Oikocredit – oiko is from the Greek word that forms part of the term ecumenical, meaning worldwide community – is a World Council of Churches bank established to provide loans for poor people around the globe. Whether Israelis, even in partnership with Palestinians, would qualify for Oikocredit assistance is unknown...

... The PCUSA has a large investment in Caterpillar. When the 2004 General Assembly approved the divestment resolution, the denomination owned 37,100 shares of Caterpillar stock valued at $2,893,058. The stock split recently, and those same holding were valued at $5,058,214 as of today – a gain of $2,165,156.

That 74.8 percent gain in value is one of the reasons that managers of the Presbyterian Foundation and the Presbyterian Health and Pension Board, the owners of the Caterpillar stock, have warned the denomination against making fiduciary decisions on the basis of political or social leanings.

If all of the PCUSA's funds in Catepillar had been invested in Oikocredit in June 2004, the return would been ranged from 1 percent to 2 percent annually. At 1 percent, the return would have been approximately $44,710 through January 2006; at 2 percent, the return would have been about $89,420. The two Presbyterian investment bodies would have lost between $2.07 million and $2.12 million in a Caterpillar-for-Oikocredit swap...

Sheikh Salah Al-Din: We were told that conspirators would come to foil our plan, to prove that the Muslims are barbaric riffraff. I said to the people: Brothers, this is not right. They said to me: You're an infidel. They beat me with sticks.

Reporter: Who beat you?

Sheikh Salah Al-Din: These people who come only to destroy.

The flags were torched to show disapproval of the publication in Denmark and Norway of cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad.

Earlier Kano state MPs passed a resolution to call off multi-million dollar trade negotiations with Denmark.

In Niger, thousands took part in banned protests against the cartoons...

The BBC's Ado Saleh in Kano says some 200 people, including the 40 state parliamentarians, attended the flag burning.

They shouted "Allah Akbar" (God is great) as Kano's parliament speaker Balarabe Saidu Gani set the flags alight, he says...

...The Christian Association of Nigeira has condemned the publication of the cartoons.

Tensions between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria have led to clashes leaving thousands dead in recent years...

With caveats about sample size, the trends are clear. There is no single, agreed voice for Muslim opinion. More Muslims trust what they hear about what is going on in the Middle East from English-language Muslim channels (68 per cent) than from the BBC (58 per cent). As many people are likely to listen to the clerics at their local mosque to find out about the Middle East as tune in to the BBC. More are likely to turn to the English-language Muslim press (49 per cent) as to national newspapers (42 per cent).

A majority regard the Jewish community and its links to Israel with suspicion. More than half both think that it is right to boycott Holocaust Memorial Day and believe that the Jewish community has no interest in the plight of the Palestinians and has too much influence over British foreign policy.

Nearly two fifths (37 per cent) believe that the Jewish community in Britain is a legitimate target “as part of the ongoing struggle for justice in the Middle East”. Moreover, only 52 per cent think that the state of Israel has the right to exist, with 30 per cent disagreeing, a big minority. One in six of all Muslims questioned thinks suicide bombings can sometimes be justified in Israel, though many fewer (7 per cent) say the same about Britain...

...12 per cent of 18 to 24-year-old Muslims believe that suicide bombings can be justified here, and 21 per cent in Israel. A fifth of all Muslims, and a quarter of men, say suicide attacks against the military can be justified, though only 7 per cent say this about civilians...

Ahmed al-Meghami, the Palestinian Attorney-General, has uncovered a trail of corruption involving expenditures of the Palestinian Authority (PA). The total known value is $700m, with suspicion that the final figure will be measured in the billions...

...It is rumoured that the story was held up by President Abbas until after the elections, fearing that its content would cause even greater electoral damage to the outgoing Fatah party. Whatever the truth, it is known that numerous senior officials fled the Palestinian territories as soon as the election results were announced.

Amongst those cited is Sami Ramlawi, former director-general of the PA's Finance Ministry, who may have fled to Jordan. Unconfirmed reports on the Palestinian internet say that he fled with a suitcase containing $20 million. And Harbi Sarsour, head of the PA's Petroleum Authority, was arrested recently on suspicion of embezzlement and mismanagement. The Petroleum Authority was closely controlled by Chairman Arafat, whose private wealth at the time of his death was estimated in the billions...

His latest verbal hostility towards the Jewish State came in a response to proposal by Sebastian Coe, Chairman of the London Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games in 2012, that a ceremony be held to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

Britain’s ITN Television asked a number of public figures to give their opinion on the proposal and here is what Livingstone had to say: “The most suitable way to commemorate the Munich Olympics is the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel but without barriers.”...

In a surprise move, the General Synod voted to back a call from the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East for "morally responsible investment in the Palestinian occupied territories".

In particular, the Synod backed the Jerusalem church's call for the Church Commissioners to disinvest from "companies profiting from the illegal occupation", such as Caterpillar Inc. Caterpillar, a US company, manufactures bulldozers used in clearance projects in the occupied territories, and also used by Palestinians in their own rebuilding work.

The motion was passed overwhelmingly, in spite of strong lobbying from leading members of Britain's Jewish community, concerned that Israel's right to protect itself from suicide bombers and other Palestinian terror attacks should not be compromised. No time was made to debate an amending motion put forward by Anglicans for Israel, the new and influential pro-Israel lobby group...

...The Jewish community's distress will be augmented by the fact that the vote to disinvest was backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. By contrast, Dr Williams has so far not commented on the recent Palestinian election victory of Hamas, an organisation committed to destroying the state of Israel...

...In the debate Mr Maclouronne said that the Bishop of Jerusalem, the Right Rev Riah Hanna Abu El-Assal, had written to him urging the disinvestment cause...

Why do these things happen? Are prominent Jews so afflicted by political correctness that they feel they have no choice but to open the way for their worst enemies to gain new prominence in America?

Let's be clear on some basic facts: Khalil Shikaki is the brother of Fathi Shikaki, a PIJ founder killed in 1995 on the island of Malta. And, while brothers can disagree, these siblings did not.

As shown by U.S. government evidence, Khalil Shikaki spoke at three annual conferences of the Islamic Committee for Palestine (ICP), a group the Justice Department describes as a front for PIJ. Shikaki appeared at its 1991 event, in Chicago, along with none other than the "blind sheik," Omar Abdul Rahman — infamous to all New Yorkers for his terrorist plotting and now serving a life sentence in prison.

All of the ICP conferences in which Shikaki participated featured bloodthirsty jihad rhetoric against Jews...

It is, therefore, inconceivable that the AUMF does not also support the president's efforts to intercept the communications of our enemies. Any future al Qaeda attacks on the homeland are likely to be carried out, like Sept. 11, by operatives hiding among us. The NSA terrorist surveillance program is a military operation designed to detect them quickly. Efforts to identify the terrorists and their plans expeditiously while ensuring faithful adherence to the Constitution and our existing laws is precisely what America expects from the president.

History is clear that signals intelligence is, to use the language of the Supreme Court, "a fundamental incident of waging war." President Wilson authorized the military to intercept all telegraph, telephone and cable communications into and out of the U.S. during World War I. The day after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt authorized the interception of all communications traffic into and out of the U.S. These sweeping measures were seen as necessary and lawful during critical moments of past armed conflicts. So, too, are the more focused intercepts of al Qaeda during our current armed conflict, especially given the nature of the enemy we face...

Gen. Hayden and those familiar with the FISA process contend that it is simply too slow for the "hot pursuit" of terrorist communications.

Since even the most "outraged" members of Congress haven't actually called for the president to stop the eavesdropping program, one suspects that it is every bit as vital and effective as Gen. Hayden says it is. Those crying foul in the wake of the program's disclosure haven't offered a workable alternative, other than including more people on the briefing list or rewriting the law itself — which means fully disclosing a highly-classified program to 535 members of Congress and their staffs. Is there anyone in America who believes that 1,000 people on Capitol Hill can keep these operational details quiet?...

AROUB REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank --Here at the grass roots of Palestinian society, the imam of the local mosque is unequivocal about the root of Hamas's appeal: strict, unyielding Islamic faith.

Nizar Aweidat, 27, doesn't look the part of a typical cleric, wearing the frayed, plaid, buttoned-down shirt favored by secular Palestinians and a faint strip of peach fuzz on his upper lip instead of a beard. But Aweidat has shepherded a surge of support for Hamas in this tiny refugee camp that once unanimously supported the secular Fatah faction.

Fatah suffered a stunning defeat in the Jan. 25 Palestinian legislative elections, in part because of the success men like Aweidat have had in luring voters to Hamas. How Aweidat lured those voters is instructive: He attracted supporters not through the web of social services typically cited as the source of Hamas's appeal, or with talk of the extravagances of Fatah, but through religion...

The pollsters asked Muslim respondents what role Islamic law, the shari'a, should play in legislation. The results were astonishing...

...responses didn't vary with level of education: "Pooled data from Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt indicate that 58% of respondents with low education, 59% of those with moderate education, and 56% with higher education believe that Shari'a must be the only source of legislation in their countries."

This is the force driving the Islamist surge across the region, and it's why Islamists will carry any free and open election. The call for shari'a is the prime marker of Islamism, and if two-thirds of any public desire it, an astute campaign by an Islamist party can readily translate this into ballots. Shari'a allegiance may be an even more reliable indicator of voting behavior than straightforward questions about voting preferences...

It didn't happen, of course. Hindus may consider it odious to use cows as food, but they do not resort to boycotts, threats, and violence when non-Hindus eat hamburger or steak. They do not demand that everyone abide by the strictures of Hinduism and avoid words and deeds that Hindus might find upsetting. The same is true of Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Mormons: They don't lash out in violence when their religious sensibilities are offended. They certainly don't expect their beliefs to be immune from criticism, mockery, or dissent.

But radical Muslims do...

They have produced two cartoons so far: one denying the Holocaust, and another showing Anne Frank in bed with Hitler...

The aerospace command will fly Operation Noble Eagle air defense protection missions in the Detroit and Windsor, Ont., Canada area, officials said. Windsor is just across the Detroit River from Michigan. And NORAD has military assets from both Canada and the U.S.

Operation Noble Eagle is a defense and civil support mission started after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to help protect the U.S. homeland.

On Feb. 2, NORAD conducted an exercise, which met all essential mission objectives to ensure the highest state of readiness for airspace security and defense for the football game, Michael B. Perini, NORAD director of public affairs, said.

Command mission assets for Super Bowl XL will include CF 18s, F 16s, an E-3 airborne early warning and control system aircraft, and air refueling tankers, NORAD officials said...

Monday, Feb. 6, 3:30 PM EST

Shlomo Ben-Ami, the former Foreign Minister of Israel and author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace will be in our office on Monday and he has graciously agreed to sit down to answer your questions in a live chat beginning 3:30 PM EST!

Scars of War, Wounds of Peace is a balanced and evenhanded history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and includes behind-the-scenes accounts of the Oslo, Madrid and Camp David summits. President Clinton says it "should be read by everyone who wants a just and lasting resolution" to the Middle East peace process.

An Oxford-trained historian, Ben-Ami had a distinguished career at the University of Tel Aviv before he was appointed Israel's ambassador to Spain in 1987. He later became a member of the Knesset, Minister of Public Security, and finally Minister of Foreign Affairs. He has been a key participant in many Arab-Israeli peace conferences, most notably the Camp David Summit in 2000.

Click here to read Ben-Ami's reaction to Hamas' victory in the Palestinian elections

Submit your questions in the comments section below or by email blog.us (at) oup.com. Then, check back to http://blog.oup.com between 3:30 - 4:00 PM on Monday.

Could you comment on this dispute and the offer made to Arafat at Camp David and Taba? Was the offer as generous as we've heard, or is the word "Bantustan" an accurate description and was there some sort of deal breaker sprung at Taba as Professor Chomsky insisted?

Remember the Christian Peacemaker Teams, the outfit that had four of its members kidnapped in Iraq a while back? Today's Des Moines Register features an op-ed by one Pat Minor, a CPT member, in which she explains why she supports terrorism against Israel. But don't worry, some of her best friends are Jewish:

"What do you think about Hamas' victory?" I asked a co-worker, Sid Oxborough. He shrugged. "Personally, I think it's great. But, it probably won't help their cause." . . .

While I abhor violence of any kind, it is hard to condemn a people who are resisting an oppression that has rendered them silent for more than 50 years. . . .

Sid, who considers himself a diaspora Jew, says, "Obviously, the Israelis are Jews, so they are my people. But, the Palestinians are oppressed, so they're my people more."

This is an example of what Arnold Kling calls "folk Marxism":

Folk Marxism looks at political economy as a struggle pitting the oppressors against the oppressed. Of course, for Marx, the oppressors were the owners of capital and the oppressed were the workers. But folk Marxism is not limited by this economic classification scheme. All sorts of other issues are viewed through the lens of oppressors and oppressed. Folk Marxists see Israelis as oppressors and Palestinians as oppressed. They see white males as oppressors and minorities and females as oppressed. They see corporations as oppressors and individuals as oppressed. They see America as on oppressor and other countries as oppressed.

Folk Marxism leads a Jew to applaud the murderers of Jews, and a Christian to condone violence even while claiming to abhor it. And note what Oxborough said to Minor about the Hamas victory: "Personally, I think it's great. But, it probably won't help their cause." Folk Marxism isn't actually about helping the "oppressed"; it is nothing more than a perverted moral vanity.

The Palestinian people have spoken. According to their apologists, sure, Hamas wants to destroy Israel, wage permanent war and send suicide bombers into discotheques to drive nails into the skulls of young Israelis, but what the Palestinians were really voting for was efficient garbage collection.

It is time to stop infantilizing the Palestinians. As Hamas leader Khaled Meshal said at a news conference four days after the election, "The Palestinian people have chosen Hamas with its known stances." By a landslide, the Palestinian people have chosen these known stances: rejectionism, Islamism, terrorism, rank anti-Semitism and the destruction of Israel in a romance of blood, death and revolution. Garbage collection on Wednesdays...

Asked to explain the institutionalized anti-religious practices he's encountered, Aaron replies, "It's the new nature of the cultural war in Israel. The great divide used to be the so-called right wing versus the so-called left wing. Essentially, whether or not to give up land to the Palestinians. Now the mask is coming off and the real battle is starting to be waged openly – religious nationalism versus anti-religious post-Zionism.

"More simply, is Israel supposed to be a Jewish state based on religious ideals or will it be a state like all others that just happens to be comprised mostly of Jews? At its core, it is what all the land withdrawals and proposed land withdrawals are about, and it's what my 'yarmulke problems' are about. That is the fight I am witnessing here. The victor will determine the future of Israel and the Jewish people."...

In his recent Guest Viewpoint, Geoff Browning raised an intriguing question: “Is the Presbyterian Church (USA) Anti-Semitic?” In a dazzling display of rationalization he suggests “that the accusation of unfairness or anti-Semitism” relies upon “the very logic used by anti-Semites.” As innovative as that line of reasoning might be, I am persuaded that it dodges the actual criticism being leveled against the PC(USA). While we as Presbyterians may want to seriously and prayerfully explore our true motivations, the rest of the world is unconcerned with such self-examination. Those who level a charge of anti-Jewish bias are speaking of the actions and public statements of official bodies of the Presbyterian Church (USA). There is a strong temptation to dismiss such criticisms without examination, breathing a sigh of relief and feeling comfortable that we oppose the “real” anti-Semites. After all, we recognize that anti-Semitism is a real problem in our communities – indulged in, no doubt, by some regressive, neo-Nazi named “Bubba”. We, on the other hand, are progressive, compassionate, and concerned with justice. I hope and pray that we will not so easily let ourselves off the hook. It would benefit us to ask why someone might label us in that manner. I can see two reasons: our policies on Israel and Palestine, and our more blatantly anti-Jewish pronouncements...

Moreover, the Muslim world suffers from a lack of visionary leadership. In this particular case, when Muslim leaders, including American Muslim leaders, realized that Muslims are furious they joined the chorus of fury rather than explain to their people that they must be reasonable and that freedom of speech is healthy even if it is insulting. What is even more disgusting is that most American Muslim organizations, who should know better, have joined the chorus of instigators rather than taking this opportunity to teach their members about the importance of freedom of speech and tolerance...

...When will Muslims wake up and realize that their intolerance of opposing opinions is keeping them in the dark ages? When will Muslims realize that respect must be earned and not forced through violence and coercion? When will Muslims realize that individual liberty and freedom of expression are fundamental human rights? When will American Muslim organization provide solutions to Muslims rather than instigate problems? The Free Muslims Coalition hopes that the answer to all these questions is soon.

"Our position on Hamas is different from that of the United States and Western Europe," said Putin, speaking at an annual news conference in the Kremlin. "The Russian Foreign Ministry has never regarded Hamas as a terrorist organization. But this does not mean that we totally approve and support everything that Hamas has done."

Russia joined with the four other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- the United States, Britain, France and China -- and Germany in London on Monday to call on Hamas to renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist. In the news conference, Putin called on Hamas to engage with international governments and repeated the call for recognition of Israel's right to exist. But he said the diplomatic process to find a solution to the conflict should not be dominated by the United States...

The policy follows considerable controversy in the last year over a boycott declared by Britain’s main faculty union against two Israeli universities. The AAUP and many other faculty groups condemned the boycott, which was ultimately withdrawn. But tensions over the boycott remain high — and the AAUP is currently facing criticism for inviting eight prominent backers of the boycott to a small private gathering in Italy this month to discuss academic boycotts.

AAUP officials say that the invitations simply represent the group’s commitment to listening to all ideas. But critics say that the association is devaluing its statement by giving legitimacy to those who would seek to isolate Israeli scholars and academics...

"The Roots of War: The Road to Peace" was scheduled to air on KERA-TV on Sunday, January 29, but the premiere was postponed by the station's managers after a local Muslim group alleged that the program contains inaccuracies and anti-Muslim bias. The documentary's producers, Niki and Dennis McCuistion, have defended their work; they have refused to make changes...

..."There's a real danger in this," American Jewish Congress general counsel Marc Stern said in an interview with the Forward. "Whatever the legalities, you take all this together, and you have the Muslim world saying, 'You can't criticize us.' It's one thing for them to say, 'You can't come to Saudi Arabia and criticize us,' but to say, 'You can't criticize us in Denmark, and you can't criticize us in the United States' — even the excess and extremism in some parts of the Muslim world — that's a rather glum and ominous state of affairs."...

...Mohamed Elibiary, president of the Dallas-based Muslim advocacy group The Freedom and Justice Foundation, raised concerns after viewing the film at an advance screening.

"I was expecting them to break new ground, to take not a pro the other side [view], but take a close look at the other side and take a more critical look at our side here, and see, does the other side have any story to tell, have anything to say," Elibiary told the Forward. "Unfortunately, they failed in that regard."...

...Jyllands-Posten will never win any awards for good taste. Several years ago, during a petition campaign against anti-Israel bias in the press, the paper saw fit to publish a letter from a Dane who tried to discredit the petition by counting its "Jewish names." (Of course he got it wrong, targeting Vikings named Weber and missing Jews named Mallow.)

When Dr. Nusseibeh arrived at the hotel later that day, he took with him two armed bodyguards, protection he needed, in part, from Palestinian militants who had long viewed his peacemaking efforts as treason. Dr. Reinharz had to intervene personally to persuade the hotel's security officers to admit Arabs with weapons. The two university presidents eventually sat down, the very picture of civilized discourse, as the Israeli and Palestinian guards stood by with guns bristling...

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him.
He was supposed to feel bad.
He's the neighborhood bully.

But he decided to join Hamas - a group that seeks to destroy Israel and replace it with an Islamic state based on strict Sharia law - because he believes a Hamas government is in the best interests of the Palestinian people.

"We are all - Christians and Muslims - united for a free Palestine. Our ancestors fought with the Muslim leader, Salah al-Din, against the crusaders," he told the Arabic-language al-Jazeera satellite television channel during an interview. "We also share a common suffering under Israeli occupation and each of us has reciprocal respect towards our religious beliefs."...

...the prospect [Hamas] could win the election or do well enough to influence the Palestinian Authority has some Western countries worried as Hamas is regarded as a terrorist group that has spearheaded a wave of suicide bombings against Israel.

This does not concern al-Taweel, who has said he opposes the 1993 Oslo peace accords with Israel and calls for Palestinians to continue to resist Israeli occupation.

"My programme isn't specifically for Christians only, but designed for all Palestinians," he said. "We are fighting for the right of return of displaced Palestinian refugees and fighting corruption in Palestinian governance."...

A simple check of outside speakers at DePaul include, Bernadine Dohrn, Deval Patrick, Julian Bond, Kwame Toure (Stokeley Carmichael) Sami El-Arian, Kathy Kelly, Eric Foner, Michael Dyson, Angela Davis, Hurricane Carter, Sister Helen Prejean, Norman Finkelstein, and Jesse Jackson to name just a few of the more prominent ones. While there have been exceptions, the school generally brings in speakers who favor abortion, oppose Israel, favor gun control, support affirmative action, oppose the death penalty, oppose American foreign policy, and oppose the war in Iraq. While the school sponsored several forums prior to the war in Iraq, there wasn’t a single speaker chosen who spoke in favor of the government’s policy...

This year I learned from a non-Jewish British friend who is a leader in the realistic human rights movement in the UK (supportive of Israel) that Badawi had recently told him that he had never taken out citizenship in spite of more than 30 years as the Establishment spiritual leader of British Islam. He told my friend he remained an Egyptian citizen. He also said that he had no interest in Darfur because those sub-Saharan Muslims were not really Muslims but polytheists...

The "Stiletto," a shallow-water craft made of a tough, lightweight carbon composite material, offers a safer, more comfortable ride and is easily reconfigured to accommodate technological advances and the military's needs, said Navy Cmdr. Greg E. Glaros, a transformation strategist in the Office of Force Transformation...

The radical uniqueness of this stance becomes apparent when one considers that no parallel movements exist for dismantling other countries, even when these were created by territorial partition in response to religio-ethnic strife, as in the case of Pakistan and India (established at the same time as Israel), or through colonial conquest and ethnic cleansing, like Australia, Canada, the United States, and most Latin American countries. The fact that, in general, the damage done to the indigenous populations of these countries remains unaddressed has not undermined their international legitimacy, which is never brought into serious question.

Anti-Zionism is also widely used in the current debate as a means of criticising the overwhelming majority of Jews who support Israel’s existence, while avoiding direct reference to Jews as such. In this context “Zionist” has been emptied of its original historical and political content, and turned into a term of abuse that is used as a rough paraphrase of expressions like “racist” and “colonialist”.

In a more sinister vein, it is employed to suggest a powerful, quasi criminal political and financial lobby working from within the Jewish Community, in league with the Unites States, to promote Israeli and Jewish interests by controlling the press and pulling levers of international power. It is in this mode that current anti-Zionism blossoms into full blown anti-Semitism...

The deeper problem with Fisk’s work is not the sort of thing that can be fixed by acquiring a better research assistant or fact-checking apparatus. Facts must be placed in their proper context, after all, and this demands a degree of good faith that Fisk utterly lacks. Indeed, so blatant and thoroughgoing are his ideological prejudices that his very name has entered the lexicon of the Internet as a synonym for systematic bias. Among the online commentators known as bloggers, the verb “to fisk” has come to mean a point-by-point rebuttal of an egregiously slanted piece of writing—like, classically, a Fisk dispatch from the Middle East...

...Such is the general standard Fisk applies as an “impartial witness to history.” Massacres of innocent civilians by Arab and Islamic militants throughout the world—from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to Manhattan, Bali, and Baghdad—are for him not acts of terrorism but rather the understandable and altogether patriotic response of people brutalized by colonial occupation. The curious effect of this effort to absolve Middle Easterners of any blame or responsibility for their region’s problems, or their own deeds, is to make Fisk guilty of the sin for which he endlessly berates the West; he patronizes his subjects in the worst tradition of the “white man’s burden.”...