June 2006 Archives

This utter whitewash of the facts concerning the kidnapping and murder of a young Jew is enough to make any Jew paranoid. I wonder if B’nai B’irth accepts Catholics as members?

The resolution, which was sponsored by Islamic countries, was passed by a vote of 29-12, with five abstentions. It effectively revives a practice of the UN's dissolved Human Rights Commission, which also reviewed alleged Israeli abuses every time it met.

Israel protested Friday's vote, calling it a perpetuation of "the old infamous habits" of the widely discredited commission.

The resolution requires UN investigators to report at each council session "on the Israeli human rights violations in occupied Palestine."

The resolution also said the council "decides to undertake substantive consideration of the human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and other occupied Arab territories at its next session and to incorporate that issue in its following sessions."...

...Besides Arab and other Muslim countries, "yes" votes were cast by African nations, Brazil, China, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, India, Mexico, the Philippines, Russia and Sri Lanka. Canada and European Union members on the council voted against it...

In the Middle East of today, the demonization of Jews has reached unprecedented levels. Jews are accused of every evil under the sun, from cannibalism to the attacks on the Twin Towers, to causing the tsunami, the bird flu, AIDS and so on. At the end of my lecture I wanted to point out that it is our shared duty to combat this kind of anti-Jewish propaganda in the Muslim world. Nothing too controversial for a speech at a European university -- or so I thought.

Much to my surprise, though, the dean of the faculty asked me to delete the passage on Islamic Jew hatred. When I refused, she referred the matter to the highest university administrator, the rector magnificus, who summoned me to his office to appear before a committee of four professors (including the rector himself). The committee presented three reasons for removing the Muslim passages.

They claimed it was too dangerous to give the complete lecture because it might trigger violent reactions from "well-organized Muslim student groups" for which the rector could not take any responsibility. The committee also said it feared my speech would thwart efforts at bridge-building between Muslims and non-Muslims at the university. Finally, they claimed my lecture was far below the university's scholarly standards, especially because of some sarcastic remarks about Dutch public figures (whom I criticize for their anti-Jewish position). "We feel we have to protect you from yourself," I was told. The rector said I had 24 hours to drop the controversial section. If not, he would have to assume his "rectorial responsibility." I wasn't sure what this meant, but it sounded very threatening...

Last week the PC-USA, which jump-started the divestment movement with its 2004 decision to target Israel, voted overwhelmingly to reverse that decision. The resolution, which passed overwhelmingly and survived a last-minute motion to reconsider, also conceded “flaws in our process” on the divestment issue and acknowledged the “pain that this has caused,” a statement widely seen as an apology to an infuriated Jewish community.

But divestment advocates “have a lot invested in this process. They are not going away,” said Yitzhak Santis, director of Middle East Affairs for the Jewish Community Relations Council in San Francisco.

Santis said divestment advocates are already planning to revive the issue at the next Presbyterian General Assembly in 2008...

“The vote at the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly was neither a total setback for those seeking economic sanctions as a lever against the occupation nor a complete victory for the Jewish organizations who pressed the Presbyterians to abandon economic sanctions,” said Joel Beinin [Booo, Hissss], director of Middle East Studies at the American University in Cairo and leader of Jewish Voice for Peace — one of a handful of Jewish groups that supports divestment. His group was prominently featured at last week’s Presbyterian convention.

“The strategies of selective divestment, boycotts and other forms of non-violent pressure to isolate Israel internationally are now on the table and cannot be removed,” he said. “Israel has already lost the battle for international public opinion. Sooner or later it is going to face economic sanctions as well.”...

“I would use whatever influence I have to convince my board that if the right opportunity comes up, we should consider it,” Cahill told the Advocate this week, referring to the possibility of investing some of the $30 billion in the state’s Pension Reserves Investment Trust. “The stability that is [in Israel] now makes it more attractive than in the past, as does the pool of intellect and talent there.”

Cahill was part of a 25-member delegation that included state comptrollers, treasurers and chief executives presiding over large pension funds, representing in total more than $1.5 trillion dollars of possible investment. Among the leading state pension investors in Israel are California and New York, which alone has invested nearly $1 billion in Israel-based companies.
Packed into the four-day trip, which was organized by the World Pensions Forum, were meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, several government ministers, former president Shimon Peres, King Abdullah of Jordan, and business and high-tech executives...

The ramp, which leads from the Western Wall plaza to one of the Temple Mount Gates, is located in one of the most sensitive places in the world, and plans to carry out excavations under it have therefore been held up by the Shin Bet security service and the prime minister's military secretary for the past two years, for fear of Muslim riots.

...The need to remove the ramp arose in February 2004, when one of its supporting walls collapsed into the West Wall plaza. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the city eng ineer said that the ramp was unstable and must be removed soon...

1. The announcement by representatives of Hamas and Fatah that agreement had been reached on this document has been perceived by some as being "a step in the right direction" in terms of efforts to achieve peace between the Palestinians and Israel. In reality, it constitutes a step in the wrong direction.

2. The objective behind this document had nothing to do with advancing prospects for peace with Israel. The goal was to address internal Palestinian interests, promote a Palestinian consensus, and avoid a decline into confrontation between the various Palestinian factions.

3. The document fails to meet the requirements of the Roadmap and the three basic conditions of the Quartet: recognition of Israel's right to exist, ending terrorism, and adherence to all existing agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

4. Explicitly supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state within all the territories "occupied since 1967" does not mean recognition of Israel...

"Given the statistical contradictions in the number of Holocaust victims, the French intellectual Roger Garaudy asks how the truth can be determined. The Holocaust Industry, by Dr. Norman Finkelstein, recounts how the Jews of the world have turned Jewish suffering at the hands of the Nazis into a political and ideological industry in order to garner support for Israel, and into a source of economic extortion, which has yielded inconceivable sums for the Jews and their organizations, using as a pretext the so-called victims of the Nazi annihilation operations."...

...Finkelstein: "Well, one of the points I tried to make in the book is that there has been a gross inflation of the number of survivors of the Nazi Holocaust. In fact, as all the historians have shown, Hitler's extermination of the Jews was very efficient. It was like a factory, an assembly line. Jews were processed to be murdered. When you have such an efficient system there can't be very many survivors. In fact, the best estimates show that by May 1945, that is, at the end of World War II, about 100,000 Jews had survived the death camps, the ghettos, and the labor camps. If 100,000 Jews survived the camps and ghettos in 1945, then 60 years later - that is, roughly around now - there can't be more than a few thousand survivors still alive."...

...Finkelstein: "But the Holocaust industry wanted to blackmail Europe in order to get compensation moneys. And in order to blackmail Europe they said there were hundreds of thousands of needy Holocaust victims who were still alive, and they started to inflate the number of survivors in order to blackmail Europe."...

1972: Members of the Black September terrorist group sneak into the Olympic Village in Munich and take 11 members of the Israeli delegation hostage. All 11 are killed.

1979: An Israeli soldier who was captured the previous year when he accidentally entered an area of southern Lebanon controlled by the PLO is exchanged for 76 terrorists.

1982: Three Israeli soldiers disappear in the Battle of Sultan Yakoub at the start of the War in Lebanon. Despite decades of rumors about their fate and alleged behind-the-scenes negotiations, Zvi Feldman, Zachary Baumel and Yehuda Katz are still considered missing in action.

1985: Israel trades 1,150 Palestinian prisoners for three soldiers captured in Lebanon and held by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command...

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal - operating from his headquarters in Damascus -- ordered the raid in which Gilad Shalit was kidnapped. Meshaal, and pretty much every other terrorist leader other than Usama bin Laden, operate from Syria with impunity because Bashar Assad's Syria - the Syria he inherited from his father, and which has been on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism since 1979 - is entirely stable. He has no fear that through American or Israeli action his support for terrorism will be interrupted. From Syria money, weapons and terrorists flowed into Iraq for months before and ever since the American invasion of 2003.

Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said that Meshaal - even in Syria - was a target for Israeli action. We should encourage Israel to strike into Syria, and not just to capture or kill Meshaal. Destabilizing Syria, and thus destabilizing its support for terrorism in Israel and Iraq is the goal. If anyone chooses to equate "destabilization" with "regime change", we should do nothing to encourage or dissuade them. It's time to put the terrorist genie back in the bottle. If the genie won't comply, we may soon have to smash the bottle all to pieces.

The rest is history. Several churches leapt on to the "divestment" tactic as a way of expressing their disapproval of Israel and their support for the Palestinians. What they supported in the Palestinian polity was never quite clear. The tactic of terror against Israelis which retains, as of mid-June, a 56 percent majority among the Palestinians, up from 52 percent in March, perhaps. The Presbyterians and Episcopalians (along with the United Church of Christ, linear descendants, among others, of the Congregational Church composed of American Zion Puritans, who were Hebraists and in the nineteenth century supported the Jewish restoration to Palestine) were among the first to climb onto this bandwagon, with much righteous self-satisfaction.

But the issue festered among many in the clerisy and, perhaps more important, in the rank-and-file of the churches' congregations...

That lapse in media judgment is worth recalling in the coming days, when much of the media will be presenting the "prisoners' document"--a set of demands drawn up by Hamas and Fatah members imprisoned in Israel--as a historic Hamas concession, offering "tacit" recognition of Israel. In fact, the document does nothing of the sort. Nowhere does the document recognize the right of Israel to exist. Instead, it calls for Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders, followed by the "right" of Palestinian refugees to resettle in Israel and demographically overwhelm the Jewish state. The prisoners' document, in other words, is a plan for the phased destruction of Israel--precisely why Hamas can endorse it.

Driving on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, I saw this graffiti: "Olmert, gadol alecha"--which roughly translates as, "Olmert, the job is bigger than you are." For Olmert to disprove that growing suspicion among Israelis, he must commit himself to the destruction of the Hamas regime. Sooner or later, Israel will have no choice but to adopt that policy. The only question is whether Olmert will still be prime minister when that happens.

Whatever the stereotype of the "typical Marine" may be, it's probably safe to say I'm not it. (In truth, very few Marines are.) I was raised in an intellectual, liberal, Democratic family, and to this day I consider myself a "liberal" although I vote Republican now. I was among the 52% who voted for President Bush in 2004, and I guess I am among the 29%, or whatever figure the polls are giving, who still support him now. I was poised to write a poison-pixel email in response to your last column, but instead followed my better instincts as a blogger and waited until some of the anger had subsided and I could write a little more calmly.

Your column from last Thursday, concerning the brutal killings of Tucker and Menchaca, at least implicitly acknowledges some value in the "military objective in toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein", which is more than can be said for many of your journalistic colleagues; this, however, is all that can be said in its defense.

First, there is the general premise of your column, summed up in your lurid conclusion that "the weight of the coffins and the gravestones and the dead flowers would crush the cynical and sentimental notion that this war will end well." By this logic, every war that ever brought with it coffins and gravestones and dead flowers, which is to say every war ever fought, must end badly. Do you really believe this? If so, then you must believe that the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Second World War all ended badly. Are you prepared to justify that conclusion? If you are a strict pacifist, that's your business, but please be plain about it...

The 127 blocks, some as high as 9 feet, are spaced at regular intervals around the hill, like a crown 100 feet in diameter.

On the shortest day of the year -- December 21 -- the shadow of one of the blocks disappears when the sun is directly above it...

...Cabral has been studying the site, near the village of Calcoene, just north of the equator in Amapa state in far northern Brazil, since last year.

She believes it was once inhabited by the ancestors of the Palikur Indians, and while the blocks have not yet been submitted to carbon dating, she says pottery shards near the site indicate they are pre-Columbian and maybe older -- as much as 2,000 years old.

Last month, archaeologists working on a hillside north of Lima, Peru, announced the discovery of the oldest astronomical observatory in the Western Hemisphere -- giant stone carvings, apparently 4,200 years old, that align with sunrise and sunset on December 21...

Sergeant Joe Roberts with the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion is serving with the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, stationed in the Gode/Ogaden Region of Ethiopia. SoA will use the donations to this project to provide for the supplies outlined by Sergeant Roberts below and similar requests in this region.

Email from Sergeant Joseph Roberts:

"Here's an example of one way SoA may be able to assist. We [were] able to build some schools and clinics with our funds but have to find other organizations to provide desks, chairs, blackboards, uniforms etc...

Al-Mezan, which is also funded by the Ford Foundation as well as the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and International Commission of Jurists among others, said in its press statement that the incident was a "savage massacre." Al Mezan accused Israel of responsibility for the attack based on evidence gathered by "TV channels [which] reported that shells were fired from a naval ship located close to Beit Lahia beach." Al Mezan added that the incident "highlight[s] Israel's organized killing of Palestinian civilians."...

After that, Ron Bell got up to speak. Bell has a long history as a community organizer in Boston, most prominently as the founder of Dunk the Vote. Formed in the wake of the Charles Stuart episode, when the rights of so many African-American men were systematically smashed, Bell used Dunk the Vote to build community power through voter registration in the Black community, registering some 35,000 people. As Bell spoke, a man walked in, made his way through the crowd, and stepped in front of the speaker with a big sign revealing the reason for the protest that evening, urging that next time, the organizers don’t invite the JCRC.

The JCRC, you see, is the Jewish Community Relations Council, and they were one of the 18 or so organizations represented at the event. They do a lot of organizing in synagogues, largely through the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization. Another wing of their organization focuses on Israel and Palestine, and many in the Jewish community and beyond find their positions pretty conservative. [There are a lot of people inside and outside JCRC who would get a grin at that description.-S] There has been much discussion, wrestling, protest, etc. over these positions throughout the years...

On a more personal level, I've had a few email conversations with Volokh Conspiracy readers along the following lines:

Reader: Israel is illegitimate because it violated international law by not allowing Palestinians who fled Israel during the War of Independence to return.

Me: I'm not an expert on international law, but I do know something about Israeli history. There is no practical way Israel could have permitted the return of most of these refugees. First, the Palestinian and broader Arab leadership remained committed after the war to Israel's destruction. The Arab community within Israel's border had participated in the war against Israel. The immediate result of allowing hundreds of thousands of generally hostile Arabs back into Israel (which had well less than a million Jewish residents at its founding) would have been constant intercommunal violence and ultimately another war. You can't expect Israel to have committed national suicide...

I want to thank you personally for breaking the story on the government illegally using the SWIFT system to track money.

This administration is always breaking the law. They all belong behind bars. Just remember, it's your duty to make sure they're kicked out of office, in the most humiliating way possible. Republicans are killers of poor people all around the world. Crimes against humanity should not go unpunished.

Keep up the good work.

Henry David

The Bush administration is preparing new laws to help track terrorists through their money-laundering activity and is readying an executive order freezing the assets of known terrorists. Much more is needed, including stricter regulations, the recruitment of specialized investigators and greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities. There must also must be closer coordination among America's law enforcement, national security and financial regulatory agencies...

The video is a collection of statements by Hamas terrorist leader, Yasser Ghalban, killed last week by Palestinians, in the ongoing internal fighting.

The following is the transcript of selections from the Hamas video:

"We will rule the nations, by Allah's will, the USA will be conquered, Israel will be conquered, Rome and Britain will be conquered…The Jihad for Allah... is the way of Truth and the way for Salvation and the way which will lead us to crush the Jews and expel them from our country Palestine. Just as the Jews ran from Gaza, the Americans will run from Iraq and Afghanistan and the Russians will run from Chechnya, and the Indian will run from Kashmir, and our children will be released from Guantanamo. The prisoners will be released by Allah's will, not by peaceful means and not by agreements, but they will be released by the sword, they will be released by the gun".

The video identifies itself as from the "Al-Qassam Brigades Media Office." "Al-Qassam Brigades" is the name the Hamas calls its military wing. (www.palestine-info.net) June 22 2006:

As part of renovations to the Darussalam mosque in San Francisco last fall, a wall separating the women worshippers from the men was demolished and not reconstructed. This was the result of a campaign by what the Times calls "a small if determined band of North American Muslims, mostly younger women," to change practices they feel are discriminatory, and not a necessary part of Islam.

And it is because of this, too, that the Israeli response to Sunday's raid should not be Chief-of-Staff Halutz's. Rather, it should be: "Fair enough! You fought this time like soldiers rather than like terrorists - we will treat you this time like soldiers rather than like terrorists."...

...Israel should therefore say to this government: "The charade is over. While we are willing to negotiate through neutral parties a prisoner exchange involving Gilad Shalit, we are also declaring war on you. From now on we will treat you as any country treats another country it is at war with. We will close all our borders with you, cease providing you with all services, and consider any branch of your government, any of its members, and anyone on your side contributing to your military effort, legitimate war targets. We will do our very best to avoid harming civilians, and we will expect you to do the same, but anyone else, from Prime Minister Ismail Heniya down, is from now until further notice a legitimate target. And when you're ready to sue for peace-and-quiet, let us know."

Rest assured that Hamas will sue fast. This time, though, Israel will have to insist that the quiet, if not the peace, be real and lasting.

You can see why Buffett would want to give his billions to charity. The federal death tax is currently being phased out, but it will reappear in 2011 unless Congress acts--which means that if Buffett lives that long, the government will confiscate 55% of his assets upon his death.

But wait. Buffett is, as a New York Sun editorial notes, "an avowed supporter of the estate tax."...

...When billionaires back the death tax, keep in mind that they have no intention of actually paying it. They are being "generous" with other people's money. This is the way in which the superrich wage class warfare against the merely affluent.

In a leaflet distributed in the Gaza Strip, the group, which belongs to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah Party, said the weapons were the result of a three-year effort.

According to the statement, the first of its kind, the group has managed to manufacture and develop at least 20 different types of biological and chemical weapons.

The group said its members would not hesitate to add the new weapons to Kassam rockets that are being fired at Israeli communities almost every day. It also threatened to use the weapons against IDF soldiers if Israel carried out its threats to invade the Gaza Strip.

"We want to tell [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert and [Defense Minister Amir] Peretz that your threats don't frighten us," the leaflet said.

"We will surprise you with our new weapons the moment the first soldier sets foot in the Gaza Strip."

Unlike many others, Jews migrated one way. Jews did not remain loyal to antisemitic countries of origin; most learned English immediately and embraced Americanism. Millions today immigrate for economic gain while despising America and maintaining loyalty to home countries.

We can best honor our immigrant experience by advocating for more generous policies for real refugees and asylum seekers — not by pushing for legislation that betrays America's workers, devastates America's poor, exploits Mexicans, threatens America's social cohesion and endangers Jewish interests.

And the provenance of this money? Ironically, given President Bush’s pledge that “those who do business with terror will do no business with the United States,” much of it comes from a country whose princes are regular guests at the Crawford Ranch.

According to Israel’s Center for Special Studies, as of 2003, up to 60 percent of Hamas’s annual budget came from Saudi Arabia, including from official sources, government-sponsored telethons, and government-run charities, as well as from Saudi individuals and organizations. The Saudi flow of money to Hamas has been so great, historically, that long before he became PA president, Mahmoud Abbas was complaining about it, as attested to by a December 2000 letter he wrote to Prince Salman, governor of Riyadh, discovered by Israeli forces during Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002...

In truth, though, most Americans have never thought about what it would mean if the terrorists really did win -- if militant Islamists were to succeed in their quest for political control of the United States. It isn't something that elites in academia, government, or the media generally like to talk about, for fear of being branded racist or ``Islamophobic." American Islamists themselves are careful not to speak too candidly about their supremacist goals.

Life in an Islamist United States would be largely unfree and intolerant, if the experience of countries where radical Muslims have achieved power -- Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, and Afghanistan -- is any guide. What would that mean in American terms? That's the question a remarkable new novel sets out to answer...

...The new materials would seek to "root out" the teaching that Jews were "Christ killers" and reawaken the knowledge and affirm an appreciation of the church's Jewish origins, supporters argued.

Bishop Edward Little of northern Indiana also asked church to apologize to the Jewish people for its "consistently unbalanced approach to the conflict in the Middle East." "Virtually all General Convention resolutions concerning the Middle East, and all public policy pronouncements by Episcopal agencies, have relentlessly criticized the state of Israel, portraying the Jewish state as an oppressor nation and the Palestinian people as victims of Israeli oppression," he argued.

Opponents of the resolution argued the church should apologize instead to the Palestinians for the US government's support for Israel.

However, Rev. Bruce Chilton, professor of religion at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York stated, "Terrorism is a war crime. If we fail to say that, how can we claim any moral ground whatsoever?"

The church's international peace with justice committee amalgamated Little's call for an apology with three resolutions asking the church to condemn the "wall," calling for dismantling settlements on the West Bank and supporting Palestinian human rights.

The committee rejected the term "wall" to describe the separation barrier, and modified its blanket condemnation to call for the removal of the "barrier where it violates Palestinian territory."

It also urged the US government to pursue a two-state solution and support the human rights of both Palestinians and Israelis, denounced terrorism, called for an eradication of anti-Semitism, supported a withdrawal from the territories to the 1967 borders, asked both sides to recognize the "elected leadership" of the other, supported positive financial investments in the region and advocated the " elimination of corruption within the Palestinian Authority and appropriate financial transparency to better serve human and economic rights of Palestinians."...

Two weeks later, Abu Arabid and Haaretz view the now-famous tape of Huda Ghalia as she runs along the beach and finds the body of her father. The most gruesome images, it turns out, were censored for television...

...[YNet:] But not all the settlers are the same. Not all are violent and not all of them live in the West Bank because of ideological reasons. And besides, if a foreigner wants to live here you wouldn’t let him?

[Rajoub:] "A non-Jewish foreigner is a different question. We aren’t against the Jews as Jews, as a religion. We are against those settlers because of their behavior and the immense suffering they have caused us, and the large number of victims their conduct has cost. Settlers’ behavior did not leave us with the option to classify who among them is extremist and who is moderate."...

As a Political Party I want us to be taken seriously, we need to set our standards higher. I believe there has to be accountability on all sides. The blood of innocents has been spilling for generations on all sides.

I would never know there is any kind of Peace Movement ongoing in the State of Isarel from the leaflet we are asked to support. Many in Israel have taken risk to support the rights of the People of Palestine...

The remnants included 216th General Assembly Moderator Rick-Ufford Chase's unsuccessful attempt to convince the commissioners to reconsider a resolution on the Middle East because it called on the denomination to restrain from telling other nations not to protect their borders.

That wasn't the way Ufford-Chase wanted the resolution to read. He said the Presbyterian Church (USA) should not abandon its prophetic right to tell nations what to do.

He was addressing one of the statements in the new General Assembly policy that replaced the 2004 resolution favoring Palestinian interests over Israel's defense of its borders, including military occupation in some Palestinian areas and a separation barrier that has been credited with significantly reducing terrorists' suicide attacks on Israeli civilians.

The General Assembly approved the policy, written by its Peacemaking and International Issues Committee. It begins with an apology for the actions of the 216th General Assembly, which adopted a resolution calling for phased selective divestment of denominational holdings in multinational corporations doing business in Israel. That resolution included no similar sanctions against the Palestinians.

The new statement also defended Israel's right to construct a barrier to protect its citizens, while the 2004 resolution condemned that barrier.

Ufford-Chase wanted the statement defending Israel's right to build the wall extracted from the committee reports. But the majority of the assembly seemed to prefer the advice of Noel Anderson of San Joaquin Presbytery, who noted that the committee carefully considered that part of the report and approved the statement almost unanimously, and asked the commissioners to reject Ufford-Chase's request. They did...

Saeed Mortazavi is Iran's prosecutor general. In 2003, Mortazavi ordered the detention and interrogation of Kazemi, who was tortured and later died of her injuries.

This week, Mortazavi resurfaced as part of Iran's official delegation to the inaugural meetings of the new UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Iran can't even get into the new human rights club, since it failed to win election to the council. It decided to show up anyway, and sent a team of observers to the council's first meetings in Switzerland.

George Gordon-Lennox of the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders was shocked to see Mortazavi. His role, said Gordon-Lennox, has been "putting journalists in prison."

But there are also accusations of torture, and in the case of Kahzemi, involvement in both her murder and the subsequent coverup.

"What it says to us about the council is that the council is not getting off to quite as good a start as anyone would hope," said Gordon-Lennox...

...Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said in a news release that he is disgusted by Iran's action.

Mortazavi ordered the arrest of Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi (shown in an undated file photo), who later died in Iranian custody. Mortazavi ordered the arrest of Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi (shown in an undated file photo), who later died in Iranian custody.

"The presence of Mr. Mortazavi in Iran's delegation demonstrates the government of Iran's complete contempt for internationally recognized principles of human rights," he said.

The Canadian government has also demanded Mortazavi's arrest...

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center said, "If this resolution were adopted by the international community it would create a legal tool to go after those who incite, plan, and abet such activity. It would further empower victims and their families to take legal action against the food chain of terrorism."

"The Wiesenthal Center calls on all churches and NGOs to follow PCUSA's lead and work together for the adoption of this important initiative," concluded Cooper.

Rabbi Cooper, Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, the Center's Director of Interfaith Affairs and Dr. Judea Pearl, father of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal writer murdered by jihadists in Pakistan attended the PCUSA National Assembly to urge that anti-Israel divestment resolution be rescinded. It was replaced by resolution calling for proactive actions to benefit both Palestinians and Israelis.

Since 2003, the Simon Wiesenthal Center has spearheaded a campaign to have suicide bombings declared a 'Crime Against Humanity.' The goal of the campaign is to create a legal tool for victims to go after sponsors and those who inspire this deadly culture of mass murder worldwide. To this end, Center officials have brought the initiative to European Union head Javier Solana; His Holiness, the late Pope John Paul II; Turkish Foreign Minister Abdallah Gul; former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin and diplomats from 20 other countries...

We believe this case sheds serious questions on the commitment to academic freedom and civility in academic discussion with this egregious termination. We further believe that this action by administration has separated DePaul from the academic community...

Does this mean that Jews are a nation of meinsteins? It does not. Their average IQ has been measured at 108 to 115, one-half to one standard deviation above the mean. But statisticians have long known that a moderate difference in the means of two distributions translates into a large difference at the tails. In the simplest case, if we have two groups of the same size, and the average of Group A exceeds the average of Group B by fifteen IQ points (one standard deviation), then among people with an IQ of 115 or higher the As will outnumber the Bs by a ratio of three to one, but among people with an IQ of 160 or higher the As will outnumber the Bs by a ratio of forty-two to one. Even if Group A was a fraction of the size of Group B to begin with, it would contribute a substantial proportion of the people who had the highest scores...

While international law, through various treaties and international consensus affirms the criminality of such acts when linked to a government, it is crucial that the church and the world affirm the culpability of individuals and groups that assist in carrying out suicide bombings [and terrorism] through financial or logistical support and that civil or military authorities who fail to exercise adequate powers of control over perpetrators and fail to take appropriate measures, be held accountable. The international community and faith community as a whole are obligated to prevent and call for international judicial prosecution of all those aiding and abetting these crimes.

We instruct our Moderator and Stated Clerk to encourage our leaders in the U.S.A., our ecumenical partners, our interfaith partners, the National Council of Churches, the World Council of Churches, and the United Nations Security Council to make suicide bombing a matter of declaration and legislation under national laws, and to raise this issue with all appropriate international agencies as appropriate.

We hereby pledge and instruct the Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Washington Office of the PC(USA), and the Presbyterian UN representatives to take every opportunity to publicly and officially condemn suicide bombings [and terrorism] and to help empower victims of such attacks to be able to bring those who plan and inspire suicide bombings to the bar of international justice. Further to instruct the Stated Clerk to notify the United Nations, the World Court, the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other appropriate human rights organizations of the 217th General Assembly (2006)'s position on this topic, and ask for their collaboration in amending international law, especially international criminal court elements of crime; Article 7 entitled "Crimes Against Humanity."

To these ends, we replace the instructions expressed in Item 12-01 (Minutes, 2004 Part I, pp. 64-66) item 7, which reads

"7. Refers to Mission Responsibility Through Investment Committee (MRTI) with instructions to initiate a process of phased selective divestment in multinational corporations operating in Israel, in accordance to General Assembly policy on social investing, and to make appropriate recommendations to the General Assembly Council for action."

with the following:

To urge that financial investments of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), as they pertain to Israel, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank, be invested in only peaceful pursuits, and affirm that the customary corporate engagement process of the Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment of our denomination is the proper vehicle for achieving this goal."

No, all of this greenhouse gases and carbon emissions mumbo-jumbo is cover for a Zionist-Likudnik-neocon plot. If the Gore plan catches on and American citizens start demanding engines free of fossil fuel and candidates dedicated to overtaxing gasoline and forcing car manufacturers to meet European air quality standards, it will be worse than 20 Projects for a New American Century, 50 Weekly Standards, a hundred Charles Krauthammers.

Do I jest? I only suggest that an America powered by alternative fuels is a disaster to Middle East Studies as we know it. Who will endow university chairs reserved for professors who compare Israeli policies to Syrian ethnic cleansing if Saudi Arabia's chief export is sand? Who will pay for all those Council on Foreign Relations studies demanding endless negotiations with Iran or reenergized peace processes, if the big oil companies suddenly no longer care about canoodling with the Arab and Persian despots? What will become of the diligent CIA operations officer when he wants to retire if there are no more oil companies or family owned oil kingdoms to employ him? Realist foreign policy may never recover from Al Gore's environmentalism.

That's just the impact in Washington. If Saudi Arabia falls, consider the devastation to the Madrassa start up business on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. If Iran's petroleum profits dry up, where will Hezbollah fighters receive their spiritual guidance, let alone their small arms and phony passports? Mr. Gore's Daily Kos fans may eventually wake up to the prospect that his vision could stop Hugo Chavez of Venezuela from using his oil profits to tip the balance of Latin America's elections in favor of anti-American populists.

The netroots should have seen this one coming. I say, the moveon.org speech for Mr. Gore was only a ruse. If you look back at the man's career, he has been consistently in the pocket of the Israelis. Aipac lobbyists used affectionately to call him the third senator from New York. In the 1980s, Mr. Gore had the audacity to press for a resolution demanding that Arafat be made to account for his role in approving the assassination of a former American ambassador in Khartoum, just as American Jews were beginning to meet with members of the Arafat organization in Oslo, Norway...

...So when people talk about an inconvenient truth and let them talk about who really benefits from Al Gore's crusade against global warming? The only thing stopping the Israelis for now is the internal combustion engine foisted off on the American people by none other than Henry Ford. The case is rested.

The officials said the order comes in the wake of Israel's ongoing policy of targeted assassinations against Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah members, especially in the Gaza Strip.

...The PA already has about 100 suspected "collaborators" in its prisons in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including six who are on death row...

...At a closed meeting of the Palestinian Legislative Council's Security Affairs Committee earlier this week, the Fatah and Hamas legislators put aside their differences when the issue of the "collaborators' file" was raised. The committee is headed by former Fatah security commander and minister Muhammed Dahlan, who himself has been repeatedly accused by his rivals of collaborating with Israel and the US.

The parliamentary committee, whose job is to oversee the work of the various branches of the PA security forces, decided that the time has come to launch a massive crackdown on "collaborators." The members of the committee also decided to issue instructions to the judiciary system to pass death sentences against those found guilty of working for the Israeli security services...

...At least seven Palestinians have been killed in the past two months in the West Bank after being accused of collaboration with Israel. All of the killings were carried out by Fatah militiamen belonging to the group's armed wing, Aksa Martyrs Brigades. The victims, who were executed in public squares, included two women from Nablus aged 28 and 50...

At about 3:30 p.m., gunmen opened fire from the direction of the village of Sanjil at an Israeli bus traveling near Ofra carrying students
of the Ofra "Maaleh Levona" girls' high school. Owing to the fact that the bus was armored, the teens sustained only light injuries caused by shrapnel. The three were evacuated to a Jerusalem hospital for treatment.

Magen David Adom, police and army forces arrived at the scene and began searching for the shooters.

Hezi Tzuri, an MDA paramedic told Ynet: "When we arrived we saw the girls getting off the bus panicking and shouting. Two teens complained of back pains and we found several shrapnel wounds on their body. They were given initial treatment and taken to the Hadassa Ein Kerem Hospital. Two other students who suffered from shock were also evacuated to the hospital."...

In response to questions that have been directed to the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in recent days by various media outlets, we would like to make it clear that no fragments were found in her body except for one fragment that is inaccessible to surgery; it is also clear - beyond all doubt - that part of her injuries were caused by fragments.

This combination is not routine and does not correspond to our accumulated medical experience as a result of having treated hundreds of patients who were wounded in terrorist attacks and by bombs and who usually arrive with fragments in various places throughout their bodies.

In such cases, standard medical practice is not to search for or extract the fragments unless they constitute an immediate danger to the patient.

This is also the reason that, in most cases, fragments remain in the patients’ bodies, frequently for the rest of their lives.

Ichilov hospital did not accuse Shifa Hospital in Gaza of directly of removing shrapnel for no medical reason, but it said that it had never received a patient who was in an explosion with all the shrapnel removed (except for one unreachable piece).

"This is surprising and raises questions" about the care she received in Shifa, the Ichilov spokeswoman said. Asked whether Ichilov surgeons had contacted Shifa doctors who treated the patient to ask the reason for the incisions to remove shrapnel, the spokeswoman said: "We are not in such close contact with Shifa. We received the medical report on the patient, and that's all."

Israeli authorities say the chances are "one-in-a-billion" that she was hurt by an Israeli missile...

"We acknowledge that the actions of the 216th General Assembly caused hurt and misunderstanding among many members of the Jewish community and within our Presbyterian communion. We are grieved by the pain that this has caused, accept responsibility for the flaws in our process, and ask for a new season of mutual understanding and dialogue.

To these ends, we replace the instructions expressed in Item 12-01 (Minutes, 2004 Part I, pp. 64-66) item 7, which reads

"7. Refers to Mission Responsibility Through Investment Committee (MRTI) with instructions to initiate a process of phased selective divestment in multinational corporations operating in Israel, in accordance to General Assembly policy on social investing, and to make appropriate recommendations to the General Assembly Council for action."

with the following:

To urge that financial investments of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), as they pertain to Israel, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank, be invested in only peaceful pursuits, and affirm that the customary corporate engagement process of the Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment of our denomination is the proper vehicle for achieving this goal."

The two-page recommendation contains additional items, including affirmative investment opportunities, an end to all violence and terror against Palestinian and Israeli citizens and interfaith cooperation.

...While full assembly embrace of the committee vote would be a huge defeat for pro-divestment forces, it is clear that significant animus toward Israel exists among some conference delegates. Many Presbyterian officials seemed apologetic not about the vote for divestment itself, but rather the "hurt feelings" and "misunderstandings" it caused. Still, disavowing divestment as the explicit aim of the church represents a sea change from just two years ago.

One thing is certain: the full Assembly ratifying the committee action would be devastating for the divestment forces. "The big mo" is critical for any nascent movement, thankfully including those who want widespread demonization of the Jewish state.

We heard that "Israel has shown no willingness to give up land." Wrong. Israel HAS given up land several times, including Gaza recently.

We heard, "Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons and so doesn't need a security barrier." Let me get this straight: Do we expect or want Israel to combat snipers and suicide bombers with nuclear weapons? Not me!

We heard, "Israeli actions have devastated the Palestinian economy." That's scapegoating! Graft, corruption, and armed battles between Hamas and Fatah gunmen will ruin any economy.

We heard, "Commissioners are just scared of offending the Jewish community." Such statements demean your faith and courage as commissioners. How false to make this out to be a case of mean Jews making Presbyterians cower in fear! PRESBYTERIANS are offended too, not just our Jewish friends!...

The argument occurred in the large and open hallway outside of the room where the 217th General Assembly's Peacemaking and International Issues Committee was considering whether to rescind the divestment proposal, which has been condemned internationally by Jewish groups.

When reporters heard about the argument, they joined a small throng around Andrews and began taking notes. Realizing their presence, Andrews responded harshly, declaring that she was having a "private conversation" and reporters were not allowed to quote her...

...Andrews was arguing that the denomination's divestment policy was intended to pressure Israel to support a two-state solution for the warring Israelis and Palestinians. She also repeated her strong opposition to Israel's defensive wall that was built to protect Israeli citizens from terrorist suicide-bombers.

Her opponent was arguing that Palestinians must cede to Israel's right to exist and to maintain the defensive wall to protect its civilians. She and he agreed that the Palestinians had suffered during their long conflagration.

Andrews was at the committee meeting to lobby, along with 216th General Assembly Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase, for a proposal that called on the General Assembly to approve a small task force to advise the General Assembly Council on Jewish-Christian-Muslim relationships.

With that advice, which would not have derailed the move toward divestment, the council would have made a proposal to the 218th General Assembly.

But the Peacemaking and International Issues Committee gave scant attention to the General Assembly Council's proposal, choosing instead to craft its own recommendation...

On Monday, Maj.-Gen. Meir Klifi - head of the IDF inquiry commission that cleared the IDF of responsibility for the blast - met with Marc Garlasco, a military expert from the HRW who had last week claimed that the blast was caused by an IDF artillery shell. Following the three-hour meeting, described by both sides as cordial and pleasant, Garlasco praised the IDF's professional investigation into the blast, which he said was most likely caused by unexploded Israeli ordnance left laying on the beach, a possibility also raised by Klifi and his team...

...Meanwhile Monday, The Post learned that the IDF was currently inspecting a second piece of shrapnel doctors had retrieved from one of the Palestinians wounded in the blast and currently being treated at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba. A first piece of shrapnel, examined by the IDF as well as by an independent academic institute in Beersheba was found to not have come from a 155 mm shell, the type used in IDF artillery attacks on Kassam launch sites in the Gaza Strip. The second piece of shrapnel, sources said, was currently being examined in an IDF lab.

Garlasco told Klifi during the meeting that he was impressed with the IDF's system of checks and balances concerning its artillery fire in the Gaza Strip and unlike Hamas which specifically targeted civilians in its rocket attacks, the Israelis, he said, invested a great amount of resources and efforts not to harm innocent civilians.

"We do not believe the Israelis were targeting civilians." Garlasco said. "We just want to know if it was an Israeli shell that killed the Palestinians."

Lucy Mair - head of the HRW's Jerusalem office - said Klifi's team had conducted a thorough and professional investigation of the incident and made "a good assessment" when ruling out the possibility that an errant IDF shell had killed the seven Palestinians on the Gaza beach.

'We differ when it comes to other pieces of information from other sources that don't relate to the military strike such as the timing and the type of injuries," Mair explained. "While they [the IDF] made a very good presentation, we still think there are enough unanswered questions that have not been examined by Klifi's team…and that is why we believe there should be an independent investigation."

To the Sueddeutche Zeitung, Harbed explains that he had been informed afterwards about the explosion and driven to the scene by the rescue medics in the ambulance. In his pictures however, Harbed films the hysteria of the ten-year Huda, as if he were a witness of the detonation. Also he films the arrival of the medics, as though he was at the beach beforehand. Additionally, some of the dead and wounded are covered with cloths - who did that?

Harbed claims that Huda escaped serious injury, since she was bathing in the sea. In his photos, however, Huda is running around in dry street clothes. Harbed runs several minutes of the crying Huda and afterwards turns his camera to the dead and injured.

Suddenly a man beside Huda's dead father can be discerned, until now covered and motionless, who appears with a machine gun in his hand. In the pictures of the cameraman one can recognize both medics in green OI clothes as well as dozens of men, most with typical Hamas full beards, apparently securing pieces of evidence...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was among those demanding an investigation be launched into the Gaza incident...

...A day after receiving the findings of the IDF probe into the blast, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in Paris that the findings apparently prove Israel was not involved in the beach explosion, adding that he hopes those countries that condemned Israel immediately following the incident would refrain from doing so in the future without waiting for an investigation’s conclusions.

“Our enemies are not Palestinian children or mothers,” Olmert said. “We do not want to harm innocent civilians.”

During his meetings with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other top UK officials, Olmert stressed the fact that tragedies may accidentally occur during Israeli self-defense activity, adding that the difference is that Palestinian Qassam rocket fire toward civilian targets in Israel is intentional...

Kids frolicked seemingly free of fears of more shells. Some peddled chocolates to passers-by...

...But as a boy ran through the sand to launch his kite, a more sinister launching took place behind him.

Out of the sand dunes burst a Qassam rocket, soaring skywards towards Israel through a brilliant blue sky.

The children froze in their tracks and looked for their parents. Some started to run, the ghosts of the week before still fresh in their minds. A mother called out to them and their panic quickly stopped.

“She said the Israelis won’t send their bombs again,” a small girl said before scampering back to her sandcastle...

We support a unified movement against racism and colonialism. Such a movement requires active opposition to racists who attack indigenous people, immigrants, New Afrikans, and other oppressed and colonized people.

Both as material reality and as ideology, white supremacy shows itself across the entire spectrum of US life--from KKK and Nazi groups at the "right-wing" margin, to Minutemen, to racist police and Homeland Security, to the current inheritors of a doctrine of "manifest destiny" who sit at the very center of economic and political power in the United States. Viewed from the radical lens of the indigenous people of this continent, the same ideology shows itself in large portions of the "left" who still cling to European ideas of "progress" as a justification for colonialism, or who fail to recognize the magnitude of colonial crimes against indigenous people here and around the world. This same racism can be seen in the refusal to recognize the legitimacy of resistance to settlers, whose colonization of land means genocide against the indigenous people.

The history of Palestine offers a good window for understanding how, in the history of colonialism, the extreme right, the liberal center, and the radical left often take positions that overlap so completely as to be objectively the same for indigenous people. In Palestine, Zionist followers of Jabotinsky in the Revisionist Movement--a movement that was allied with Italian fascism in the 1930s, had training camps in Mussolini's Italy, and that offered support to Hitler on the grounds of a shared ideology around the concept of the totalitarian organization of society to enforce racial or ethnic purity (the movement of Israeli Prime Ministers Menachim Begin and Yitzhak Shamir), worked hand in hand with "left-wing" Zionists (including those Marxist and anarchist currents who took part in the Kibbutzim) in eradicating Palestinian villages in 1948 and dispossessing some 80% of the population. The groups differed in their concepts of how Zionist society should be organized; they were nearly unanimous in their policies toward indigenous Arabs.

The upscale natural foods chain said that lobsters are not treated humanely enough en route from the boat to the dinner plate. The company said for now it would only sell frozen lobster products that meet standards for humane treatment.

Chef Jasper White, whose four Summer Shack restaurants sell $4 million to $5 million worth of lobster each year, called the decision ``pure silliness" and a ``PR move" to appease animal-rights activists. Some 10,000 families in New England and maritime Canada depend on lobstering for income, he says, and Whole Foods should be more concerned about them than about an animal that he called ``basically an insect."

``People first, lobsters second," White said. ``Lobsters are for dinner."...

Two Israeli teenage girls escaped a kidnapping attempt Thursday at a hitchhiking post located at the Rahelim Junction in Samaria.

An initial investigation carried out by the IDF revealed that three Palestinians from Jenin arrived by car to the bus station and tried forcing the girls into the car at gunpoint.

The two resisted and one of the girls, 15-year-old Emuna Shachar of Jerusalem, sustained light injuries as a result. The gunmen were apprehended following a pursuit carried out by IDF forces...

The church also funds fiercely pro-Palestinian committees, sends representatives to Palestinian advocacy conferences, and has written obsequious congratulatory letters to the terrorist leaders of Hamas on their recent election victory. Simultaneously, the church remains remarkably docile on profoundly serious issues such as genocide in Darfur, the Iranian nuclear buildup and mistreatment of Christians in communist and Muslim countries...

...Instead of admitting in 2006 that the Middle East has changed dramatically since 2004 -- the rise of a land-for-peace consensus in Israel, the election of Hamas to the Palestinian government, and the equally (if not more) disastrous election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran -- the Presbyterian Church clings stubbornly to flawed policies that are now all the more embarrassing...

The money from Stanley W. Anderson of Denver, Colo., for the new Loaves and Fishes Church Growth Fund will be distributed to presbyteries through grants ranging from $250,000 to $1 million each...

An incident report filed last month by the Capitol Police said McKenna was "physically assaulted" by McKinney, who hit him with a "closed fist." The confrontation occurred at a security checkpoint in a congressional office building after McKenna failed to recognize the six-term Georgia Democrat and tried to stop her from bypassing a metal detector, which members of Congress are allowed to do...

At press time the two Ethiopian and two Eritrean Christians remained in the city’s deportation jail.

More than 100 Eritreans, Ethiopians and Filipinos were gathered for worship in a home in Jeddah’s Al-Rowaise district at 11 o’clock last Friday morning when a group of Saudi police entered the meeting, wooden clubs in hand.

The startled worshippers brought chairs to seat the policemen, who sat and waited for the three-hour worship service to conclude. None used their clubs or physically mishandled the worshippers...

...But after the June 9 weekly praise and prayer service finished, police arrested four leaders of the group: Ethiopian Christians Mekbeb Telahun and Masai Wendewesen, together with Eritrean Christians Fekre Gebremedhin and Dawit Uqbay.

The four were jailed in the Jeddah Terhil (Deportation) Center, where guards have since permitted an acquaintance to bring them all a change of clothes. Three of the men are married; Wendewesen is single.

A Christian who spoke with the detainees by telephone reported they were “doing fine, with okay morale.” But he said he did not know how they were being treated, or whether they were undergoing interrogation...

...Typically the Saudi government deports expatriate Christians caught conducting worship meetings in their homes or privately owned villas, forcing their employers to terminate their work contracts.

Under the kingdom’s strict interpretation of Islamic law, public non-Muslim worship is prohibited, although members of the royal family insist that Christians are free to worship within their own homes...

Dr. Judea Pearl, a professor at the University of California in Los Angeles, made his appeal during an impromptu press conference at the booth of End Divestment Now in the exhibition hall of the Birmingham Civic Center. His son, Daniel Pearl, was murdered in 2002.

"I implore you to rectify this wrong," Pearl told a group of about 40 people who stopped to listen to him and three other speakers condemn the divestment resolution that was approved by the 216th General Assembly in 2004...

...Pearl, who has established a foundation in his son's name to pursue peace efforts and dialogue on Mideast issues, said the resolution has abetted Hamas, a terrorist group that recently won election to power in Palestine, and that it will discourage Israeli peace efforts in the Mideast.

He urged the Presbyterian Church to adopt a policy of neutrality. He said he could forgive God for allowing his son to become the victim of terrorists, but that he could not forgive the church if it continues to show favoritism toward radical Muslims who call for the destruction of Israel.

Pearl said his son was a humanitarian who gave voice to the very people who beheaded him. Now, he added, he feels betrayed by the PCUSA. "Take a stand against the hate of terrorism that took over our planet," he urged.

The root cause of violence in the Middle East, he said, is not Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. "The root cause is the total rejection" of Israel's right to exist. "The idea that Jews will have a state in the Mideast is unacceptable" to terrorists. "This is a reality."...

A "top official" told reporters on June 7, 1968:

We cannot permit a wave of anti-Arab sentiment among the American public at a time when we are trying to restore good relations with friends in the Arab world.

How did those friends respond? NYT reported on June 7: "Initial Arab reaction today deplored the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, but several newspaper editorials here asserted that the crime could not be isolated from United States policy in the Middle East."

Sounds familiar? It should. The same type of editorials were written after 9/11. And why not? Those editorials were not a product of a free press but of government mouthpieces. Arab governments dared blame the victim and discovered that they not only can get away with murder but that Foggy Bottom is there ever ready to help them do so. Indeed, together they've worked to convince the world that the fact that Arabs kill more and more Americans is proof positive of greater and greater American (not Arab) mendacity...

Rachel Corrie's parents were in the room. Both of them spoke. Others brought up how caterpillar used bulldozers in Jenin and created rubble. Some talked about being "socially responsible..." which would necessitate that Caterpillar stop selling bulldozers to Israel. They came from a variety of different, manipulative angles. "I have come here out of LOVE for caterpillar. It is my love that motivates my request to you that you stop selling bulldozers to Israel."

I am sitting here at this computer completely grateful that we came here today, so that Israel's side of the story could be represented at this meeting. What follows are our two brief presentations that were made by us at the meeting. There was only one other person at this meeting who stood up during the hour and a half meeting, on behalf of Israel. He is a grandparent who said that his grandson had just returned from Israel and that Israel has a right to defend her citizens.

Roz Rothsteins speech at the Caterpillar shareholders meeting:

Francis, the leader of a controversial organization that protests the policies of the Israeli government, is also the informal adviser of the unofficial after school student group Students for Middle East Justice. While respected by colleagues and students as a physics teacher, Francis has angered some opponents of his politics who believe he has used his role with SMEJ to promote an "anti-Semitic" political agenda with students.

Josh Weiner, a former member of SMEJ who is also Jewish, says "that's absolutely false."

"There was no anti-semitism at all," said Weiner, a 2005 graduate...

"I have no problem with political views no matter how radical they are," said School Committee member David Samuels. "But I would have a big problem if I found those views being disseminated on school property to students of the school system."

There is no investigation by the administration into Francis' involvement with the after-school group SMEJ, and the community is not asking for one, said Superintendent Claudia Bach.

"Based on my communications with the principal, there is no reason to believe there is any inappropriate conduct," said Bach...

"People living in the United States are severely compromised when judging the actions of the Palestinian resistance because we are funding with our tax dollars the relentless racist oppression of Palestinian people, which meets the international definition of genocide. Our first responsibility is to stop the violent attacks against non-combatants done by Israel and funded by us. That has to come before we raise any questions about the choices Palestinians make," said Francis.

"If you aid and abet a rapist, can you comment on the choices the woman makes to stop the rape from occurring? Because the woman may use a tactic that you oppose on principle, should that make you any less insistent that the rape cease? Don't make the excuse that she used a tactic that you oppose as an excuse to justify the rape.

"I oppose violence against non-combatants, but it is completely understandable that some Palestinians and other people in the world, having exhausted every non-violent approach to end their oppression, would choose violent acts against non-combatants. ["I don't approve of beating your wife, but I understand it..."-S]

"I do not condemn the Palestinian people because the actions they are taking, given the circumstances they face, (are) completely understandable and within the bounds of normal human behavior. I have to ask myself, would I be any different?

"I do condemn the Israeli attacks because they are the ones responsible for stopping the oppression. Under international law, the occupying power is responsible for the people under occupation."

Salam al-Maryati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, said Thursday that Israel was crowding Palestinians into conditions “like the Warsaw Ghetto,” said Ethan Felson, assistant executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, who was in attendance.

The forum took place a day in advance of the Presbyterian Church USA’s 217th General Assembly in Birmingham, Ala., where the group is slated to vote on its 2004 resolution to begin a “phased, selective divestment” from companies that do business with Israel.

Mark Pelavin, associate director of Reform Judaism’s Religious Action Committee, who also served on the panel, said the Presbyterian Church has not taken into account the effects of Hamas taking over the Palestinian Authority government.

An opening speaker from Human Rights Watch called Israel’s occupation and settlement activity illegal and labeled terrorism a crime against humanity.

Answer: This is another example of the Palestinians' classic and cowardly human-shield tactic -- attacking innocent Israeli civilians while hiding behind innocent Palestinian civilians. For Palestinian terrorists -- and the Palestinian governments (both Fatah and Hamas) that allow them to operate unmolested -- it's a win-win: If their rockets aimed into Israeli towns kill innocent Jews, no one abroad notices and it's another success in the terrorist war against Israel. And if Israel's preventive and deterrent attacks on those rocket bases inadvertently kill Palestinian civilians, the iconic "Israeli massacre" picture makes the front page of the New York Times, and the Palestinians win the propaganda war.

But there is an even larger question not asked. Whether the rocket bases are near civilian beaches or in remote areas, why are the Gazans launching any rockets at Israel in the first place -- about 1,000 in the past year?

To get Israel to remove its settlers, end the occupation and let the Palestinians achieve dignity and independence? But Israel did exactly that in Gaza last year. It completely evacuated Gaza, dismantled all its military installations, removed its soldiers, destroyed all Israeli settlements and expelled all 7,000 Israeli settlers. Israel then declared the line that separates Israel from Gaza to be an international frontier. Gaza became the first independent Palestinian territory ever.

And what have the Palestinians done with this independence, this judenrein territory under the Palestinians' control? They have used their freedom to launch rockets at civilians in nearby Israeli towns...

"Your state is temporary, but the Jewish people will continue to live," Yousef said consolingly this week to an Israeli guest in his office, which is adjacent to the Prime Minister's Bureau. "You will be able to live with us here, in one state, as you lived peacefully under the flag of Islam for hundreds of years."

In recent weeks the idea of a binational state under Islamic rule has been enjoying renewed popularity among Hamas spokesmen. "The Golden Age of the Jews was in Andalusia," they recall. "The Muslims never did you harm." A long-term interim settlement with Israel can also be considered, Yousef believes. The terms? "We will give you a hudna [cease-fire] for 50-60 years. You will give the right of return to all the 1948 refugees, to their homes."

It is unlikely that Hamas is deluding itself into believing this to be a realistic plan, but the aggressive declarations are aimed inward, at the traditional supporters of Hamas, rather than at Israel and the international community. In any event, prospects for negotiations with Israel look faint at the moment, and as far as the veteran members of Hamas are concerned, the fact that the organization has not perpetrated attacks on Israel for more than a year and a half is detrimental to its prestige.

"People are calling us traitors," Salah al-Bardawil, spokesman of the Hamas faction in the parliament, told Haaretz this week. "We are being accused of having become a group of power-hungry people and of having forgotten the precept of the jihad."...

"The use of this imagery against the Jewish state is inexcusable," says Sister Ruth Lautt, O.P., Esq., National Director of Fair Witness. "This language is not the language of peace and justice. It does not uplift the Palestinians, but demonizes Israel."

In a recent article in the Columbus Dispatch, Rev. Richard Toll, Sabeel's chairman in the U.S., admitted that Rev. Ateek has toned down his rhetoric, demonstrating awareness that this imagery is unacceptable. Nevertheless, a more robust repentance on Ateek's part is necessary says Rev. Dr. Bruce Chilton, Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College in Annandale, New York. "Anti-Semitic language is sinful. If Canon Ateek wishes to put his past rhetoric behind him, I welcome that, but he should repent of what he has done and express an intention to change. By the same token, if he wishes to acknowledge today that his previous suggestion of dismantling the State of Israel was destructive, the way of repentance is open to him."

On repeated occasions, Ateek has expressed support for a one-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, which would effectively mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state, says Dennis Hale, Ph.D., a professor of Political Science at Boston College.

"An acknowledgement of Arab refusal to admit Israel's right to exist behind safe and secure borders is the bottom line to any legitimate peace campaign," Hale said. "The Palestinians have been offered a state of their own on numerous occasions, but have turned it down in favor of a fantasy of destroying Israel. Church leaders who do not acknowledge this reality are not serving the interests of peace."

Dexter Van Zile, a member of Fair Witness' executive committee, says churches embrace Ateek's agenda at their own peril.

"A number of churches have asked Israel to take down the security barrier without asking the Palestinians to stop terror attacks," Van Zile said. "Unfortunately, all these churches rely on Ateek for guidance."

...Although the office of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the document was found in al-Zarqawi's hideout following a June 7 airstrike that killed him, U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the document had in fact been found in a previous raid as part of an ongoing three-week operation to track al-Zarqawi.

"We can verify that this information did come off some kind of computer asset that was at a safe location," he said. "This was prior to the al-Zarqawi safe house."

The document also said al-Zarqawi planned to try to destroy the relationship between the United States and its Shiite allies in Iraq.

While the coalition was continuing to suffer human losses, "time is now beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance," the document said.

The document said the insurgency was being hurt by, among other things, the U.S. military's program to train Iraqi security forces, by massive arrests and seizures of weapons, by tightening the militants' financial outlets, and by creating divisions within its ranks.

"Generally speaking and despite the gloomy present situation, we find that the best solution in order to get out of this crisis is to involve the U.S. forces in waging a war against another country or any hostile groups," the document said, as quoted by al-Maliki's office.

According to the summary, insurgents were being weakened by operations against them and by their failure to attract recruits. To give new impetus to the insurgency, they would have to change tactics, it added...

Initially, the main objective of the attack appeared to be to secure the release of Fatah/BSO leader Muhammed Awadh (Abu Da'ud) from Jordanian captivity. Information acquired subsequently reveals that the Fatah/BSO leaders did not expect Awadh to be freed, and indicates that one of the primary goals of the operation was to strike at the United States because of its efforts to achieve a Middle East peace settlement which many Arabs believe would be inimical to Palestinian interests. [Note: So actually working to achieve Middle East peace made (and makes) the US a target. -S]

Negotiations with the BSO terrorist team were conducted primarily by the Sudanese Ministers of Interior and of Health. No effort was spared, within the capabilities of the Sudanese Government, to secure the freedom of the hostages. The terrorists extended their deadlines three times, but when they became convinced that their demands would not be met and after they reportedly had received orders from Fatah headquarters in Beirut, they killed the two United States officials and the Belgian Charge. Thirty-four hours later, upon receipt of orders from Yasir Arafat in Beirut to surrender, the terrorists released their other hostages unharmed and surrendered to Sudanese authorities.

The Khartoum operation again demonstrated the ability of the BSO to strike where least expected. The open participation of Fatah representatives in Khartoum in the attack provides further evidence of the Fatah/BSO relationship. The emergence of the United States as a primary fedayeen target indicates a serious threat of further incidents similar to that which occurred in Khartoum.

The memorial to Adolph Hitler is causing quite a stir in Wisconsin and beyond.

Eighty-seven-year-old Theo Junker says he served in a branch of German paramilitary unit in World War II. Junker says he hopes his memorial will clear up inaccuracies about the war and the role of Adolph Hitler.

"Adolf Hitler is the greatest guy, so you don't know the other side," Junker said.

Junker spent $200,000 and five years building this shrine to the fuehrer and in a sense, to himself.

"They told everybody like we was monsters. They thought, 'The SS, they are bad guys,'" Junker said.

An inscribed plaque accuses the Allies of atrocities during the war.

"Not a single person in the Third Reich was gassed," Junker said...

Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi: The same punishment as any sexual pervert - the same as the fornicator...

...The schools of thought disagree about the punishment. Some say they should be punished like fornicators, and then we distinguish between married and unmarried men, and between married and unmarried women. Some say both should be punished the same way. Some say we should throw them from a high place, like God did with the people of Sodom. Some say we should burn them, and so on. There is disagreement...

...The important thing is to treat this act as a crime.

To applause from members of parliament, minister Farouk Hosni said: "We ban any book that insults any religion... we will confiscate this book."

Parliament was debating the book and film at the request of several Coptic Christian members who demanded a ban.

Georgette Sobhi, a Coptic member, held up a copy of the book and the Arabic translation and said it contained material which was seriously offensive.

"It's based on Zionist myths, and it contains insults towards Christ, and it insults the Christian religion and Islam," she said...

Meanwhile, he answered voters' questions from Falluja by e-mail.

The strategy paid off this week when the Marine reservist won a seat on the Grand Forks City Council. McNamara, 48, beat four other candidates with 49 percent of the vote in the city's second ward, despite serving thousands of miles away.

McNamara said he will take part in council meetings via speakerphone until he returns to North Dakota in about 90 days. He said he could not have won the race without his family, and he would encourage others serving in Iraq to run for office.

"When I grew up, everyone was a veteran and they really, truly understood what service to the nation was," he said by phone from Iraq, where he works in a combat operations center. "The country is straying from that. When you come here and see young men get killed, and the terrible ways they get killed, it consecrates democracy for you."

McNamara, son of former Boston Red Sox manager John McNamara, said he is not affiliated with a political party. He has served a total of 15 months in two tours of duty in Iraq...

Turner's photos appear to match ones found on a pornographic website. Yesterday the Globe apologized for including a photo showing the images with the article about Turner's claims...

The "celebration" is of the ethnic cleansing and subsequent denial of refugee rights for the 5.2 Palestinians around the world who are recognized by the UN as refugees.

It's a racist event should be protested. Jewish priviledge nature of the state of Israel is apartheid (legalized racism) plain and simple and it must be ended. [I expect they'll be protesting other racist celebrations by the Italian and Japanese communities next...not. -S]

If we do endorse, let's bring the GRP banner to make our support known.

are there any concerns ???....

I talked with a social studies teacher at my school (Andover Public High school) and he is amenable to having students earn credits to do internships similar to what Michelle did as a community organizer.

I both hope and suspect that several students will be interested... we need to find anchors....

Ron

Many Jews feel that such a reflex is needed these days in France, home to the largest population of both Jews and Muslims in western Europe and sporadically simmering with tensions...

...Formed in 2000, the Jewish Defense League - which has no ties to the U.S. Jewish Defense League - groups about 100 to 150 Jewish teens and young men to protect their community, experts say.

"Jews are fed up," said a league member named Maxime who refused to give his full name, saying he feared for his safety. "We've been nice for 30 years. Now, we gather and fight back."

Maxime, a 22-year-old waiter, admits his group is not afraid to take justice into its own hands if need be. He bragged about a 2003 incident in which a Jewish Defense League member beat up pro-Palestinian university students, injuring one.

"If a (Jewish) kid gets beaten up at school a few times, we go there and talk to the guy who beat him up," he said. "If he does it again, we go back and it's another story."

"Investigations are useless," Maxime said. "We're a second police."

Group members are unarmed but train in Krav-maga, a form of close combat developed by the predecessor of the Israeli Army. Apparently tolerated by authorities, they patrol Jewish neighborhoods such as Paris' Marais and keep watch in community centers and even synagogues to keep any subversives at bay.

Members wear scarves or masks but not uniforms and move quickly to protect Jewish sites when they feel it necessary, like during the riots that spread through poor French suburbs last fall...

The leader, who was dismissed from his Waqf position after he quietly made his beliefs known, said Al Aqsa custodians passed down stories for centuries from generation to generation indicating the mosque was built at the site of the former Jewish Temples.

He said the Muslim world's widespread denial of the existence of the Jewish temples is political in nature and is not rooted in facts.

"Prophet Solomon built his famous Temple at the same place that later the Al Aqsa Mosque was built. It cannot be a coincidence that these different holy sites were built at the same place. The Jewish Temple Mount existed," said the former senior Waqf leader, speaking to WorldNetDaily from an apartment in an obscure alley in Jerusalem's Old City.

The former leader, who is well known to Al Aqsa scholars and Waqf officials, spoke on condition his name be withheld, claiming an on-the-record interview would endanger his life.

While the Islamic leader's statements may seem elementary to many in the West, especially in light of overwhelming archaeological evidence documenting the history of the Jewish temples and description of services there in the Torah, his words break with mainstream thinking in much of the Muslim world, which believes the Jewish temples never existed.

"I am mentioning historical facts," said the former leader. "I know that the traditional denial about the temple existing at the same place as Al Aqsa is more a political denial. Unfortunately our religious and political leaders chose the option of denial to fight the Jewish position and demands regarding Al Aqsa and taking back the Temple Mount compound. In my opinion we should admit the truth and abandon our traditional position."

The leader said his conclusion that the Jewish temples existed does not forfeit what he calls "Islamic rights" to the Temple Mount and Al Aqsa Mosque.

"Yes, the temple existed. But now it is the place of the mosque of the religious who came to complete the divine religion [that started with Judaism] and to improve humanity," said the leader.

"We believe that Islam is the third and last religion. It came to complete the monotheistic message. The mosque is here at the place of the temple to serve for the same purpose, for the work Allah"...

The Philadelphia controversy has fed a national debate over immigration in which the U.S. Senate passed a bill that would declare English the national language and politicians have raised objections to a Spanish version of the national anthem.

The sign may violate the city's Fair Practices Ordinance, which bans businesses from discriminating on the basis of nationality or ethnicity, Lawton said.

"The complaint will say that the sign discourages patronage by non-English speakers because of their national origin and/or ancestry," said Lawton, whose agency enforces the city's anti-discrimination laws.

Geno's will be given a up to two weeks to respond and, if the agency determines the sign has violated the city ordinance, will be ordered to take the sign down. If the restaurant refuses, it will be subject to a $300 fine, Lawton said.

Geno's owner Joey Vento, the grandson of Italian immigrants, said he has no plans to remove the sign.

"I don't see why I should have to. It's freedom of speech," said Vento, 66, who opened the restaurant 40 years ago.

"If you don't speak English, the sign means nothing," he told Reuters on Monday.

One from California said groups like his should be banned for representing "filthy, illegal alien invaders", he said.

"This is dividing this nation," he said. "I'm really saddened by these individuals who are upset by having to be tolerant. I'm glad I'm living in an America where comments like Mr. Vento's are out of order."

France has long been widely perceived as a special ally in the West to the Arab world, the fruit of its historical roots in the region. A survey four years ago appeared to bear up that assumption, denied by French officialdom. At the time, French respondents to the survey sympathized with the Palestinians over Israel at a roughly two-to-one ratio, 36 percent sympathizing with the Palestinians compared to 19 percent placing their sympathies with Israel.

Today, however, sympathies have undergone a swing in France, home to western Europe's largest Jewish and Arab populations, the latest Pew Global Attitudes survey suggests.

It showed sympathies in France to be equally divided among the public, with 38 percent placing their sympathies with the Palestinians and the same number placing their sympathies with Israel.

Nine percent of those surveyed said their hearts were with both sides, while 12% opted for neither side and four percent said they did not know how they felt on the subject.

"I've always said that the sympathy quotient toward Israel was always much stronger than we imagined, notably in the (French) provinces and outside the intellectual milieu," said Jean-Yves Camus, of the Institute for International and Strategic Relations.

He suggested that two events, the November 2004 death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the illness of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, might be contributing factors in the change of heart.

The French media and the elite, which tend to set the tone, put a more positive light on Sharon once he suffered an incapacitating stroke in January, Camus said.

With Arafat's death, "lots of opinion-makers, journalists realized" his role in the deadlock of peace negotiations and in the Palestinian Authority's internal problems, Camus said...

The Palestinians had blamed an Israeli shell for the killing of the civilians in the northern Gaza Strip on Friday, and had recognized as a hero a Palestinian girl whose image was broadcast around the world crying over her father's body at the scene.

While Israel had originally left open the possibility that it was responsible and expressed sorrow for the deaths, senior officials had suggested that Palestinian militants could have planted explosives on the beach and the army opened an investigation.

The military committee looking into the blast is expected to issue its findings later Tuesday.

The committee will announce that Israel was almost certainly not involved in the explosion and it was caused by explosives planted by the Hamas militant group, military officials said on condition of anonymity since the results were not official yet.

The blast occurred on the outskirts of the town of Beit Lahia, not far from where Palestinian militants frequently fire rockets toward Israel. Israel often shoots artillery in the area to prevent the rocket launchings.

According to the findings, shrapnel taken from two wounded Palestinians who were evacuated to Israeli hospitals showed that the explosives were not made in Israel, the officials said. In addition, the last Israeli shell fired toward Palestinian rocket launchers who operate in the area was seven minutes before the blast and landed 250 yards from the scene, the officials said.

Also, after the blast, Israeli military viewed Hamas militants collecting the shrapnel from the area, in an apparent effort to prevent authorities from revealing that the explosion was caused by explosives it had laid, the officials said.

The results of the investigation are also based on threats by Hamas to stop Israeli naval commandos from landing on the beach after group militants were killed in the area in an ambush by Israeli navy divers last month, the officials said.

The army has accounted for five of six of the shells that it fired in the area Friday evening before the blast, the officials said. The one shell that is not accounted for was fired before the five others _ more than ten minutes before the blast that killed the Palestinians _ and apparently landed further away than the shells that were fired later, the officials said.

"I am aware of international officials to whom the truth is unimportant, nevertheless, Israel will try its best to explain its policies."...

"We will act with all our might and use all our means against any group that acts against us," Peretz said.

"We showed the necessary restraint in light ... of the international uproar that resulted, but it's over," Peretz continued...

...The Islamic Jihad said earlier that two of its operatives who were killed were Hamoud Wadiya, the group's top rocket launcher, and Shawki Sayklia. Seven Palestinian civilians, including two schoolchildren, were also killed Tuesday when the single missile fired by the IAF detonated the Katyushas inside the car. The army said it had proof that only one missile had been fired and that the terrorists were the only target in the strike...

...Mowadh Jalaladin, a representative of the Barty tribe, which he said has about 250,000 members, said handing over to a U.N. force "would inaugurate foreign occupation and intervention" and remind Sudanese of the colonial past, echoing earlier government rhetoric that has fanned anti-U.N. sentiment...

...The cry also has been taken up by international extremists. Al-Jazeera satellite channel on Friday broadcast a videotape by the deputy leader of al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, in which he said the U.N. Security Council visit to Sudan was "to prepare to occupy and divide it."

In a tape aired on Arab television in April, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden urged followers to fight any U.N. peacekeeping force in Sudan.

If a U.N. force comes to Darfur, Jalaladin said, "We are declaring jihad against it.

"It means death. It means defending Sudan and Islam," Jalaladin said.

"The root causes of the Darfur conflict are the doing of the Jewish organizations who financed this armed rebellion," he claimed. "We don't want the Security Council to be an instrument of the ugly undertakings of the United States of America."...

• “That Star of David, which we are told is originally a religious symbol, symbolized hate and evil. Even today, I couldn’t imagine a more hateful sign.”
• “[M]any Americans and westerners, long misinformed by the Zionist-controlled media especially after the events of September 11, 2001…”
• “[S]o-called ‘anti-semitism’…has now become the single most important element of Jewish identity.”
• “[A]nti-semitism has been taking place for 100 years in Palestine, against the Palestinian Arab semites, by European Jewish colonialists. A mini-holocaust.”
• “Zionism is against true Torah Judaism. But Zionism is even more than that; Zionism and anti-Jewish feelings are faces of the same coin of racism. In fact Hitler…talked about the “great movement” of Zionism (because both he and they agreed that Jews have no place in Europe)...”
• “Zionist apartheid, racism, and settler-colonialism in Palestine… is violative of the most basic human standards…Thus, the Palestinian resistance is justified…”
• “What do you think of the suicide bombings?...First of all we don’t call it a ‘suicide attack,’ we call it a ‘martyr attack.’”
• “[I]t is not only correct to call Israel an apartheid state but it is more imperative that we Americans stop funding and investing in such an oppressive regime….Some would argue that we would be singling out Israel or taking sides…We also did not say we took sides when we divested and boycotted…Nazi Germany (a boycott which was actually only violated by the Zionist movement in their collaboration with the Nazi regime…”

According to Channel 2, the findings, expected to be formally released on Tuesday, showed an inconsistency between the shrapnel found in the body of one of the wounded babies and the metal used in IDF artillery.

Moreover, the investigation noted the absence of a crater at the site of the explosion, as would be expected if an IDF shell had landed there.

The third observation casting doubt on the possibility of IDF shelling was the gap between the time when the army shot the artillery and when the commotion on the beach began. According to the probe's findings, several minutes past after the shelling, before the Palestinians on the beach reacted.

The leading theory currently entertained, suggested that an explosive charge, buried by Palestinians on the Gaza beach to prevent Israeli infiltration, was behind the explosion.

Throughout the whole investigation, army officials complained at the lack of Palestinian cooperation. Unconfirmed reports further suggested attempts by Palestinians to remove shrapnel from the bodies of the wounded, treated in Israeli hospitals, thus impeding the investigation.

Eyeless in Gaza, Mr. Annan carelessly relies on heart-wrenching press photographs juxtaposing Israeli shelling with a child crying over her dead mother's body. Israel, meanwhile, fears inflaming the region where myths about the supposed Jewish thirst for innocent Arab blood quickly translates into a war cry for billions of Muslims around the world...

...Now the Israel Defense Forces, while quick to express regret over the death of seven members of the Ghalia family on the Gaza beach on Friday, vows to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident. "Our expression of sorrow does not imply taking responsibility for the incident," the IDF's chief of staff, Dan Halutz, stressed on Saturday.

Investigators have tracked all shells fired during the Friday Israeli raid against Gaza rocket launching sites. They have concluded that IDF air and naval firing did not land where the deaths occurred, while a single artillery shell has yet to be accounted for. The IDF, however, does not exclude the possibility that the deadly explosion's source was a land mine, put in by Palestinian Arabs fearing an Israeli invasion, or a locally made bomb.

The Palestinian Authority has refused to cooperate with the IDF's investigation. Tell-tale shrapnel hitting those among the 70 injured who were transferred to Israeli hospitals has been painstakingly removed by Gaza medics as key evidence. "Some in the Palestinian Authority would rather see this as a propaganda tool," said Israeli Foreign Ministry's spokesman, Mark Regev...

The following is the time frame of the PA TV editing and falsification:

00 - :32 Seconds: PATV clip introduces the scene by showing an Israeli missile boat firing on the Gaza coast. Audio of ambulance siren is added to visual to create false impression that boat was shooting at same time as ambulances were present.

0:32 - 1:05: Scene switches directly to the victims, creating a false connection between the events.

1:05 – 1:09: PA TV returns to the naval vessel showing sailor with binoculars looking at shore, again creating the false impression he is observing the evacuation.

1:09 – 2:00: The evacuation scene continues ending with the word "Why" on the screen only in English, indicating a foreign target audience, possibly media.

The video of the Israeli navy was unrelated to the deaths, having been filmed earlier in the day and had already released to the media and to the internet by the Israeli army at 4:00 PM, an hour prior to the deaths.

Comment: It should be noted that not only is the video falsified, but the beach scene clearly backs the Israeli contention that the deaths were not caused by an Israeli shell. Any Israeli shell would have left a giant crater and spread sand over the entire area, as well as on the victims. There is no crater and the beach scene is not disturbed in a way that indicates an Israeli shell could have landed nearby.

A police spokesman, Detective John Sweeney, described the boy only as "male, 12-years-old, Arabic." He was charged with criminal mischief and making graffiti, misdemeanors that will be handled in family court.

On Memorial Day, patriotic residents of Senator Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues in Bay Ridge awoke to see the letters PLO painted on a garage, four trees, and a van. Only the houses on the block that displayed the American flag were attacked.

Tensions were already high among some residents of the area. On May 14, about 200 Brooklyn Palestinians marched through Bay Ridge in an anti-Israel protest. Many held up signs denouncing America's support of Israel and chanted "Shame, shame, U.S.A."

News of the arrest has done little to comfort many Bay Ridge residents, who perceive the political message allegedly sent by the 12-year-old as only a small piece of a growing cultural conflict resonating in the small corner of south Brooklyn...

...Out of fear of further retribution, members of one family living on Senator Street in Bay Ridge said they have stopped displaying the American flag. Other residents decided to leave Old Glory up, but not without hesitation.

"I believe they were trying to intimidate us," a resident in one of the houses whose front yard tree was defaced by vandalism, Ayed Eskander, said. "They sent a message to six houses. Four of them on the tree, one on the fire drain, and one on a van. Only the homes that displayed the American flag were attacked. The homes that didn't have the flags up were left alone."

Bay Ridge has seen a rise in its Arab population over the past three decades and at times there have been signs of contentious relations with new Muslim immigrants.

According to some residents, the tensions with the Muslim community were at a boiling point during the days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but have since cooled off.

Tensions resurfaced after the recent conviction of Shahawar Martin Siraj, 23, who was found guilty of a conspiracy to bomb the subway station near Macy's at 34th Street. Police arrested Siraj and a co-conspirator just days before the city hosted the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Some in the Muslim community viewed the trial as proof that police tried to entrap and prosecute innocent Arabs.

Not everyone is convinced that the relationship between the Muslim community and other local residents is strained. But Mr. Eskander, who moved to Bay Ridge from Egypt in 1980 to "raise his children in freedom," wonders whether the PLO graffiti is only the beginning.

The Egyptian-born Mr. Eskander also brought his flag inside, although for a fairly innocuous reason.

"I brought it in because it had a small tear," he said. "I replaced it with a bigger flag. I want everyone to see it. That is my flag now and this is my country."

It is totally unimaginable why someone would describe the head chopping, children murdering terrorist as a hero. It's disgusting and infuriating beyond words.

This wrongful description of evil is a major reason for misery in this region and it only contributes to justifying more unjustifiable death and violence. This makes one sometimes whishes that Iraq is somehow lifted away from these perverted sociopaths who surround us...

Hamas, which leads the Palestinian Authority parliament, blamed the deaths on Tel Aviv as its military branch resumed attacks on Israel for the first time in 16 months.

But Israeli Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant said Sunday the military can prove it wasn't Israeli fire that hit the beach in Gaza, killing eight people.

Galant, who commands Israel's southern command, said Israel stopped firing 15 minutes before the explosion...

"We are repeating the same mistakes of the past in taking responsibility when there are other possibilities about who is responsible," Gissin said.

He said that Friday's tragedy on the Gaza beach may indeed be similar to the shooting of Mohammed al-Dura in 2000, the "Jenin Massacre" in 2002, and the killing of 21 people at the Jabaliya refugee camp last September. While the Palestinians originally pinned the blame for all these incidents on Israel, it has since turned out that al-Dura may have been killed by Palestinians, that there was no "Jenin massacre," and that the deaths in Jabaliya were caused when Hamas activists "mishandled" explosives at a mass rally.

Gissin said that Israel should immediately have raised doubts after Friday's incident about the Palestinian version of events that placed the blame squarely on Israel.

"We jumped to conclusions before the evidence, and we immediately assumed that it was probably an Israeli shell," Gissin said. "But we don't know that for a fact. The Palestinians moved in and destroyed all the evidence. People should be asking themselves, 'why?' "

Just as Israel is conducting an investigation, Gissin said that the international community should also be demanding that the Palestinians conduct an investigation. But rather than doing that, he said, the Palestinians are removing evidence from the scene.

"We look at the area as a battle zone," Gissin said, "while the Palestinians view it as a crime scene, and are interested in making the evidence look like Israel carried out an atrocity," he said.

Gissin said that the evidence "didn't add up" in Jenin to equal a massacre because there were not enough bodies, and in Jabaliya there were too many witnesses to what happened to buy the Hamas line that the explosion in 2005 was the result of missiles fired by an IDF helicopter.

"But now we have a classic case where there is no real evidence, and all we have is a picture of a crying girl on the beach," Gissin said of Friday's incident in Gaza. "Nobody knows how the people there were killed. If it was an Israeli shell, why didn't the Palestinians invite the press to see the remnants of the shell, why have they been so quick to remove the evidence?"

Gissin bemoaned a situation where he said that instead of waiting for the investigation, the Israeli press jumped to the conclusion that it was an errant Israeli shell and reflexively began calling for an end to artillery fire on Gaza...

"Shortly after we stopped defensive firing at Hamas rocket launch pads which were deployed behind Palestinian human shields, members of Hamas scrambled to fire more rockets at our positions," said Col. M. "We have eyes on every meter of Gaza, from the sky, from the ground and from the sea. One of their rocket tripods collapsed inadvertently setting off an explosion of a stockpile of Qassam rockets. The Palestinians killed their own children. And this was not the first time."

Hamas terrorists fired rockets and mortar bombs from a crowded Gaza beach at southern Israel. Some of the rockets fell near the Israel city of Ashkelon. Some 17 rockets were fired between Saturday and Sunday morning. A man at a school in the Israel town of Sderot was wounded, Israel officials said.

Israel Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant said today that the Israel Defense Forces has additional evidence that it wasn't Israel artillery that hit the beach in Gaza. Galant, who commands Israel's southern command, said Israel stopped firing 15 minutes before the explosion. It's all on secure videotape from both sides of the conflict. Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he was sorry about the deaths, which included three children...

...The Israel Colonel who confirmed that a Hamas explosives stockpile killed innocent Palestine children on a Gaza beach, added: "It should be noted that the Hamas rockets which killed those kids came from Iran. For many in Palestine, Iran and Syria, those children are now merely good "martyrs" and serve as blood food for the Islam terror propaganda machine."

The United States acted as "judge and jury" against the leader of the al-Qaida in Iraq, Castro said late Friday.

"They bragged, they were practically drunk with happiness."

"The accused cannot just be eliminated," he told a literacy conference. "This barbarity cannot be done."...

That remark and others by the Rev. Naim Ateek have sparked criticism of the plan to honor him during the Episcopal Church USA’s General Convention. He’ll be named a co-winner of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship’s John Nevin Sayre Award, along with Madeleine Trichel, founder of the local Interfaith Center for Peace.

Ateek, a Palestinian and an Israeli citizen, is the founder of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem. He encourages Christian churches to divest holdings in companies dealing with Israel.

The Rev. Bruce Chilton, an Episcopal priest at Bard College and rector of St. John the Evangelist Church in Barrytown, N.Y., said giving Ateek the award "strikes me as making a mockery of the process."

"His ultimate goal includes the removal of the state of Israel, which is not a vision of peace at all but a matter of forcible elimination," said Chilton, chairman of the Episcopal Diocese of New York’s committee on Episcopal-Jewish relations.

"He has spoken very warmly of the tactic of suicide bombing, explaining it as a logical outcome of the difficult situation in which many Palestinians live."...

...Ateek’s statements have included a 2002 article in Cornerstone, the Sabeel newsletter, in which he condemned suicide bombings. But he said that such bombings are the result of Israeli oppression.

Similarly, in a May article in Joint Advocacy Initiative magazine, Ateek said the Hamas group elected to govern the Palestinians must become nonviolent.

"People, however, need to remember that Hamas’ violence was provoked by Israel’s policies against the Palestinians as well as Israel’s contempt of international law," he said.

He raised ire in April 2001 when he said in his Easter message to Sabeel supporters: "In this season of Lent, it seems to many of us that Jesus is on the cross again with thousands of crucified Palestinians around him. ... The Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily."...

Woolsey is not only an attorney and public servant, having held presidential appointments under four administrations, two Democratic and two Republican. He is also a member of Chevy Chase Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. As such he is concerned with the implications of a denominational decision two years ago to institute a process leading toward divestment from corporations doing business with Israel. His talk will address the issue of Israel, Palestine, and Presbyterians. It will touch on the multiple items of business the General Assembly is considering that would end divestment and move the church toward actions to promote peace in the Middle East...

The Cole, along with five other ships and a submarine, left the East Coast to conduct security operations in support of the war on terrorism.

The destroyer had been refueling in Yemen's port of Aden on Oct. 12, 2000, when al Qaeda-linked militants in a dinghy packed with explosives attacked.

The explosion blew a hole in the side, but the ship remained above water and eventually underwent $250 million of repairs.

No sailors from the 2000 crew are still aboard the Cole.

The crew of 320 that left Thursday is expected to be gone for six months, officials said.

The Palestinians hold the notion of occupation dear to them, to the point that no matter what Israel does - even withdraw forces completely from Gaza - they say the occupation continues. Israelis are trying to "un-occupy," in terms of currency, utilities and much else, and the Palestinians are saying, "No, we're your unwanted stepchild, and we're yours."

They found that this word, ihtilal (occupation), is a very useful one, domestically and internationally.

What is the ultimate Palestinian war goal, then, statehood or the elimination of Israel?

Oh, definitely the elimination of Israel. That is to say, there is far wider agreement on this than on the notion of a Palestinian state. Recall that making the region Israel controls into southern Syria drove Arab politics in the early 1950s. Then came the heyday of Pan-Arab nationalism in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Today, Hamas strives for an Islamic state whose boundaries need not be those of Mandatory Palestine. All of these outlooks agree on the need to eliminate Israel but disagree on what should replace it.

There is much talk now about the regimes in Egypt and Jordan being in danger of destabilization as a result of the chaos in the Palestinian Authority. If so, why are these countries more actively siding with the PA than with Israel?

The Palestinian cause is a challenge to most Arab leaders - something they ride at their peril. It has a potential to challenge their regimes from the outside. So they handle the issue with great caution. Most Arab leaders, especially those of Jordan and Egypt, would like to end this conflict. Indeed, in both cases, their predecessors tried, by signing formal peace agreements with Israel, to pull out.

Why did that not succeed?

In both cases, the population said no. They had given their proxy to their governments and said, "Here, leaders, you're in charge of anti-Zionism."

When the leaders betrayed them by signing formal peace agreements - Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994 - the popular reaction was, "We're taking back our proxy; we've got to do this ourselves."

You see a ratcheting up in popular attitudes toward Israel.

I lived in Egypt for three years before the signing of the peace agreement with Israel, and Israel was hardly ever a topic. Egyptians did not engage in economic boycotts of firms that were dealing with Israel or rumored to be sending money to Israel. No songs celebrated hatred of Israel. Political cartoons were nasty toward Israel, but just politically, not religiously.

I conclude that we see a far deeper anti-Israel sentiment in the post-1979 period than before then. The same goes for Jordan, where the king signed a particularly warm agreement with Israel, the popular reaction to which was, "No! We will not have trade. We will not have other forms of contact with Israel."

What does this imply?

That, contrary to common perception - according to which Arab governments foment trouble with Israel as a cheap way of diverting attention from their own malpractices - the issue of Israel is a grass-roots issue that scares them. We witnessed this, for example, during the violence of late 2000-early 2001, when massive demonstrations took place on Arab streets and the governments dealt with them very gingerly. A prime minister might head a demonstration in a show of solidarity, but he was clearly nervous about it...

Referring to the entry in his op-ed for the Yale Daily News, Rubin contends that Cole “accuses Jewish Americans of using the Pentagon as Israel’s Gurkha regiment.” Similarly, Webber and Johnson claim that “according to Mr. Cole, American Jews both inside and out of government are primarily loyal to Israel and subvert American interests for those of the Jewish State.”

“These articles,” said Cole, “attempted to make my critiques of the Likud, on both sides of the Atlantic, look like an attack on American Jewry in general, which is manifestly not the case. For these people, Likud equals Israel equals Jews, so all criticism of revisionist Zionism and Greater Israel expansionism is anti-Semitic.”...

First, according to the source, most of Cole’s scholarship pertains to the Baha’i faith and is limited to the 18th and 19th centuries, a liability for a professor charged with teaching about the contemporary Middle East.

Second, the source continued, Cole appears to lack in collegiality, as his penchant for combative blog entries and personal spats with detractors might make him an unnerving fixture on Yale.

Finally, Cole’s politics may have played a role, though a less important one than the other two factors, said the source...

Here is news for Cole: Israel has been a state for nearly sixty years. Its founders included victims of the worst antisemitism. But Israelis of both genders earned their statehood not by whining like crybabies, but by fighting "like men" and women against neighbors bent on their destruction. Because Israel is a Jewish state, it remains a lightning rod for genuine antisemites, who do exist outside scare quotes, and who also lurk in the darker recesses of academe. When they make criticisms of Israel that invoke antisemitic themes (such as Jewish mind-control of America), they deserve to be denounced for what they are...

The Israeli government attempted to deport Larudee after he landed at the airport outside Tel Aviv on Sunday, said Greta Berlin, a member of the International Solidarity Movement, which documents the occupation of Palestinians in the West Bank.

Larudee also is a member of the solidarity movement but was in Israel primarily to practice his trade as a piano tuner.

"He said `I have a skill, something that can contribute to the occupied Palestinians,"" Berlin said. ""I will offer piano-tuning services to people who want their pianos tuned.""

Jarad Bernstein, the director of media relations for the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco, confirmed that Larudee is awaiting a hearing before a judge to decide whether he can stay in Israel. That court date has not been scheduled.

While the solidarity movement considers itself a peaceful organization, Bernstein said the group has an agenda that sometimes "interferes with Israel's agenda of providing security to its citizens." However, he could not provide any examples except to say that members once blocked construction of a security fence in the West Bank.

"The threat we are to Israelis is we tell the truth," said Berlin, adding that the movement has no leaders or headquarters.

Larudee was born in Iran, the son of an Iranian Presbyterian minister and a New England missionary. He lived in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon on and off for about 12 years in various administrative posts before returning to the United States in 1993...

According to Irbil Minister of Interior Karim Sinjari, equality is very important for the residents of the Kurdish provinces.

“We are working very hard to be progressive and set the standard for human rights in Iraq ,” he said.

According to Sinjari, changing the country's view of women is an important step to separate themselves from the old way of thinking.

Although women throughout Iraq have been given the right to vote and are accepted in the army and police academies, the city of Irbil was the first city to allow women to hold positions of power.

Iraqi Police Lt. Narseed, is one of the first female officers in the city.

She wanted to be a police officer at a very young age but thought that the career field would not be open within her lifetime. That all changed when the Coalition removed Saddam from power. She said she had already graduated college and was becoming a lawyer when she made the decision to become a police officer. “When I heard that the doors had opened for women to become officers, I jumped at the chance and then went to the police academy.”...

So I believe something additional is involved here, and that is the fact that Zarqawi was a terrorist whom even extreme leftists and Hamas apologists have had trouble wrapping their minds around. He resembled nothing more than the bogeyman, a figure of horrific brutality more appropriate to the nightmares of childhood...

After serving in 10 overseas posts, Daniel Hirsch has spent the last three and half years behind a desk at Foggy Bottom or elsewhere in Washington as agents from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security have scoured his past to determine whether he is trustworthy and loyal enough to be allowed access to government secrets.

Mr. Hirsch told The New York Sun yesterday that the investigators have seized on a trip he took in 1983, at age 23, with a group called Volunteers for Israel. He said he was already working for the CIA at the time and cleared it with the agency before going.

"At that time, it was no big deal," Mr. Hirsch said. "Nobody gave it a second thought until a quarter of a century later. Now, it's a big deal."...

Outrage’s Peter Tatchell called the idea a “a tragic betrayal” ... “For all its faults, the Israeli state does not jail and torture [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people] because of their sexuality. The Palestinian state does. We find it shocking that much of the Left is silent about this violent victimisation of Palestinian queers."

The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades said it had killed the man, Nihad Hashash, claiming that he had confessed to cooperating with Israel on a video they took. Hashash had informed on 20 Al Aqsa members to the Israelis, who later killed or arrested them all, group members said.

Most tyrants and terrorists are inspired by a charismatic figure who triumphed in a heroic past. Hitler looked back to Napoleon and Frederick the Great. Lenin measured his achievements against the record of the Paris Commune of 1870.

Zarqawi's role model was twelfth century Arab fighting king Nur ad-Din Zanki. Zanki had two missions in life: to drive the Crusaders from Arab lands and to crush Shiite rulers. Few understood the importance that Zarqawi placed on him. In interviews with Iraq and Zarqawi specialists at the State Department, Defense Department and West Point's Combating Terrorism Center, we found no one who understood the importance that Zarqawi placed on Zanki...

The Canadian union's Ontario branch called for a policy of boycotts, divestment and sanctions against the Palestinian Authority until it recognises the Jewish people's "right to self-determination".

The election victory for Hamas, which rejects the Oslo accords, the road map, the 1947 UN partition plan and basically every other suggestion of ways in which Israelis and Arabs can live together side by side is a worthy target for the Canadian unionists.

And they've really hit the nail on the head by singling out this issue of recognising the other side's rights. Israel under Ben Gurion accepted the UN partition plan back in 1947 and most Israeli governments right up to the present day have agreed to one form of compromise or another -- most recently the complete withdrawal of all settlers and soldiers from Gaza. In the face of one side's refusal to recognize the other's right to exist, I can see where those Canadian unionists were coming from...

SDP supports the Geneva conventions and therefore opposes the killing of non-combatants, on principle and in all circumstances. We therefore oppose attacks made by US-supported Israeli military forces on innocent civilians [This is, of course, something that the Israeli military does not do, unlike Hamas. They target terrorists who shield themselves amongst civilians -- itself a war crime. -S]. We also oppose the attacks on non-combatants by Palestinians–even non-combatants who politically support the apartheid regime that oppresses Palestinians.

We also believe, however, that it is hypocritical to use Palestinian attacks on non-combatants as an excuse for supporting the apartheid Israeli government’s racist discrimination against Palestinians, just as it would have been hypocritical in 1831 to use the fact that a slave rebellion in the American South (led by Nat Turner) killed innocent white children as an excuse for supporting slavery.

We condemn all forms of violence, be they terrorist activities or state-sponsored. We especially condemn attacks against civilians, Palestinians and Israelis, be they suicide bombings or indiscriminate military strikes. We condemn all forms of injustice, including destruction of homes, confiscation of property, illegal appropriation of territories, and the illegal occupation of Palestine...

...Eyewitnesses concur about the incursion: 30 men in paramilitary formation stormed into rue des Rosiers, shouting threats and insults against Jews. Some wore boxer’s mouthpieces and leather gloves with brass knuckles. They burned with anger and itched for a fight. Frantic calls to the police met with laconic replies: “Yes, we have been informed.”...

...Men, women, and children felt totally defenseless, delivered up to a storm of uncontrollable rage. Some witnesses report seeing baseball bats, sticks, knives; others suspected their presence under thick black jackets; all believed that these men were capable of committing a massacre. The police did not come until the militia had left. They did collar some members of the group later, close to their Belleville headquarters; they questioned and released them...

...Outside the ORT school, where the minister met with residents, a dapper gray-haired shop owner said, with dignified regret, “It’s over for Jews in France.” And added, “The police told me . . . they said it’s over for us . . . they can’t handle this problem. . . . It’s too late.”

IDF sources confirmed the attack, claiming that Sahamdana and the other terrorists were in the midst of training a terror attack they planned to perpetrate against Israel when the missiles struck. Earlier in the day, Peretz ordered the IDF to step up the targeted killings of Palestinians involved in Kassam attacks against Israel.

"No terrorist from any of the organizations will be immune if they engage in anti-Israel terror activity," Peretz said during a meeting with security officials in Tel Aviv.

Abu Samhadana was a key player in rocket attacks on Israel and a suspect in the fatal 2003 bombing of a US convoy in the Gaza Strip. His recent appointment as director general of the Hamas-led Interior Ministry infuriated both Israel and Hamas' Fatah rivals, led by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

A spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees vowed revenge.

"The Zionists and Israelis have opened the gates of hell by assassinating Abu Samhadana," spokesman Abu Abir said...

My friend is living in Winnipeg, Canada and has a graduate degree. Yet, to her it is nothing less than obvious that Muslims can behave other people very much like animals. When we asked her what would her reaction be if she was asked to do something similar by the Cristian authority, she looked at us as if we had asked what if geese ask you to pay them tax. Probably for her the world is very simple; there is a minority of Muslims, much better if Shia, and then there is the rest of the world. The minority, while numbers do not matter, is supported by the creator of the whole world and is helped out by his almighty.

Our friend is not devil. In contrary she is very kind and hospitable. She cooks very well and loves her flowers. She has got A+ on all her courses and you would never hear her saying anything bad behind anybody, even non-Muslims. She is the most tender extremist I have ever seen...

Now Great Britain is applauding the targeted killing of a terrorist who endangered its soldiers and citizens. What is the difference, except that Israel can do no right in the eyes of many in the international community. Surely there is no real difference between Zarqawi on the one hand and terrorist leaders from Hamas and Islamic Jihad on the other hand. If it is argued that Sheik Yassin was merely a spiritual leader of Hamas (a total lie since he explicitly authorized numerous terrorist acts), then it must be noted that one of the people targeted by the United States was Sheik Abd-al-Rahman, who was also described as a "spiritual advisor."...

I was frankly surprised to find a letter from Norman Finkelstein featured with approval on the Witherspoon Society page.

Finkelstein is a sort of crackpot intellectual, the fact that some of his ideas are congenial is no excuse for mistaking describing him as a responsible scholar.

Your headline, "Jewish professor of political science writes in support of divestment," further misleads in giving the impression that Finkelstein's opinions are in any sense representative of the Jewish community. Support for divestment among Jews is extremely low. Among Jews with an affiliation beyond the mere accident of ancestry, support for divestment drops to nearly zero.

Your description of Finkelstein as "work(ing) for lasting peace between the two nations," is extremely odd. To say that someone has "worked for... peace" applies some positive activity. Finkelstein is a critic, not a worker. And he is not an evenhanded critic of "the two nations." He is an angry, intemperate, vicious critic of Israel alone.

Finkelstein is a well known Holocaust minimizer and anti-Israel propagandist whose writing is popular in neo-Nazi circles. For those of your members who are not familiar, here are a few, random Finkelstein quotes:

'I can't imagine why Israel's apologists would be offended by a comparison to the Gestapo.'

"All opinion-leaders, from the left to the right, are Jews…"

Finkelstein has made intemperate allegations that Holocaust surviviors are bogus, "I'm not exaggerating when I say that one out of three Jews you stop in the street in New York will claim to be a survivor."

"Elie Wiesel [is] resident clown of the Holocaust circus."

According to the highly regarded University of Chicago historian, Peter Novick, "No facts alleged by Finkelstein should be assumed to be really facts, no quotation in his book should be assumed to be accurate." "(Finkelstein) "displays a paranoid belief in some sort of global conspiracy of the Jewish elites in the U.S."

While I understand the impulse to advertise the opinions of your political allies, it really does the Witherspoon Society no credit to ally itself with a man like Norman Finkelstein.

Sincerely Yours,
xx

Livni told Welch that Israel sought to transfer to the Palestinian Authority medications worth NIS 50 million (about USD 11 million), but the Palestinians asked that the sum be delivered in cash from their tax money.

Israeli defense officials said that "the Palestinians' stance reveals that there is no real health crisis in the PA and that they are trying to use the money for other needs."...

This action comes four months after Andover High School teacher Ron Francis posted an article on the Somerville Divestment Project Web site defending Hamas from media bias. Francis’ alleged actions have prompted phone calls and e-mails to the school from parents concerned about how he may have recruited and coached four students in an after-school club and paid them to collect signatures on behalf of the Somerville Divestment Project last fall.

“We really need to find out all the information we can before we take any position at all,” said Andover School Committee member David Samuels, who along with the other members was only recently made aware of the four AHS students who participated in the signature drive. “We’re all elected public officials and it’s our job to know what’s going on before we jump to any conclusions.”...

...According to a number of Somerville residents, including Tom Champion, communications director for the city, one of the signature collectors engaged him in a heated debate when he refused to sign the divestment petition last year.

“I think it would be accurate to say that the mention of [Francis’] name still evokes a strong negative reaction from everyday employees at City Hall who were there during the height of this controversy,” Champion said.

While Francis maintains that his positions are backed by a large number of people in the world and there is no reason to hide his views, Champion suggests that “his methods are not how you make friends and influence people.”...

...Francis insists, as he is quoted in the May 25 Andover Townsman: “There’s a difference between criticizing the policy of the Israeli government and being anti-Jewish.”

Yet witnesses at pro-Israel rallies, where Francis has protested, suggest a different line of thinking. According to a member of the Andover community who wished to remain anonymous, “He’s a fanatic and comes from a point of hate. I don’t feel a love or concern for the Palestinians in his actions and writing but a hatred of Israel.”...

...Would you want a teacher educating your kids who protests at an Israel rally by chanting, “Long live the Intifada?” Even though Francis is alleged to have chanted those words outside of a school setting, the allegations have wound their way into Francis’ physics classroom. That’s more than distracting. That’s wrong.

...Beit Shalom's adherents neither want to convert Jews to Christianity nor convert to Judaism themselves, Weiss explained. Their goal is world peace, which they believe will come through the state of Israel and world Jewry...

...many Beit Shalom followers displayed a Mogen David outside their homes, Judaica inside and photos of famous Israelis on the walls. In areas where Israeli guests are housed, all signs are in Hebrew. Some of the priests speak fluent Hebrew.

The religion's founder, Takeji Otsuki, had a revelation from God in 1938 when he was told to pray for peace in Jerusalem and for the Jewish people. Otsuki was also told that within 10 years there would be a Jewish state. Thus, Beit Shalom was born.

Although it got off to a slow start, today Beit Shalom has more than 100 churches and 10,000 followers in Japan. Otsuki, 91, who sermonized in the videotape, is passionate about his mission.

Followers of Beit Shalom do not observe Jewish holidays or practice Jewish rituals, according to Weiss. Their interest is Israeli culture.

Participants study modern Hebrew and many go to live in Israel for a time. They have planted a forest in Sha'ar Hagaion, along the road between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Two years ago, Beit Shalom built a Holocaust education center in Fukiyama, a city near Hiroshima. Outside the center, roses called "Anne's roses" bloom. Named for Anne Frank, these are the same strain that grew outside the house in which the Frank family hid in Amsterdam. These roses were sent to Otsuki by Otto Frank...

From a distance, troops noticed four apparently armed Palestinians approaching the border north of the Kissufim crossing.

When the four were some 400 meters from the fence, the soldiers realized that they were children, who looked to be about 13 years of age, and that their guns were toys...

According to a statement by the developers of the new technology, German firm ESG, the wings can enable paratroopers to glide up to 25 miles after being dropped from a height of over 30,000 ft.

"Parachutists can penetrate into areas that are difficult to reach without their transport planes having to fly into a danger zone," a spokesperson for ESG explained.

This will be augmented when new technology is developed to attach small turbo rockets to the wings, which would mean that soldiers would not need to be dropped from such a height in order to achieve the desired range...

..."Dozens of Hamas gunmen and members of a back-up force of the Interior Minister ... are setting equipment on fire," said Mohammad ad-Dahoudi, director of Palestine Television, which is under the control of President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah.

The gunmen shouted accusations against the network, alleging its reports favoured the rival Fatah movement. There were no reports of any injuries during the incident.

Two employees said they were beaten by the gunmen...

Experts say the rockets belonged to the kind developed by Hamas who have a larger warhead and are more precise than those held by Islamic Jihad.

IDF intelligence believes the rockets were fired by members of Hamas acting on their own initiative in defiance of orders from above to avoid carrying out terror attacks against Israel...

The sources said the experiments have involved relatively simple chemicals, and as far as is known, the organization is not yet able to integrate such agents into its bombs effectively. However, they said, Hamas' West Bank cells include several skilled bombmakers who are investing great effort in trying to upgrade their weapons.

The organization also is amassing large stocks of explosives so operatives will be ready to launch attacks immediately should its leadership decide to end the security "lull," the sources added...

...In Gaza, Hamas operatives often assist attacks carried out by Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees. The rockets fired at Sderot last week, for instance, were made by Hamas, and "rebellious" members of the organization helped launch them. The Shin Bet security service also accused senior Hamas operatives of having helped the Popular Resistance Committees prepare a attack in April at the Karni crossing between Gaza and Israel. That plan was foiled by PA security personnel.

There is also one type of attack to which Hamas' leadership has given its unequivocal blessing: attempts to kidnap Israeli soldiers or civilians for use in negotiations over the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israel...

The Presbyterian Church USA is meeting in Birmingham, Ala., later this month to revisit the issue.

Yet American businessman Larry Baras is determined to bring professional baseball to Israel, and already has scheduled opening day for next June.

Baras is fielding a high-powered team -- including a New York Yankees executive, a one-time Red Sox general manager and a former ambassador to Israel -- intent on bringing the sport to the Holy Land.

Baras envisions bringing in dozens of Jewish-American players to compete in a two-month summer league. He hopes the league will help develop local talent along the way, enabling Israel to put together a team to compete in the 2009 World Baseball Classic.

"I'm under no illusions as to what I have here. But I think it can be done," Baras said during a recent trip to Israel. "This is a long-term project. It will be brick by brick."

Baras, who owns a Boston-area baking company, spent his visit scouting out potential venues throughout the country, returning home even more optimistic than when he arrived.

He said Israel's only full-size diamond -- located in the Baptist Village near Tel Aviv -- is virtually ready for action, while another field at Kibbutz Gezer -- between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem -- easily can be enlarged for games. A number of soccer stadiums could be converted for baseball use, he added.

"I fell in love with the place," he said, describing the rolling hills, vineyards and fragrant flowers that surround Gezer's field. "You just feel you're sitting and watching something so breathtaking."...

... Intent on building up a local talent base, the league has named Dan Duquette, former general manager of the Boston Red Sox, as its director of player development.

Duquette, who now runs a sports academy in Massachusetts, plans to open a similar facility in Israel to train young baseball and softball players. He hopes to build a national team -- comprised of Israelis as well as Jewish-American players - that can compete in the 2009 World Classic.

"I understand it's a challenge," Duquette said. "I've had a knack for turning around baseball organizations with good players and development operations. This project is along those lines." ...

The Black Eyed Peas, for example.

We didn't know what hit us. The expectations of the thousands in that stadium, and the tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands following the live concert broadcast on Army Radio, ran in a very different vector, pointing squarely at the hip hop nation of the City of Angels, a mesmerizing funk-til-death backup band, by-your-throat rhythm cascades, assault rifle bursts of knowing, glowing, mow-down rhyme riffs and inexhaustible energy in human motion. That's what we'd come for.

What we didn't expect, was Zionism.

"We've been here for five days," vocalist-rapper Will.I.Am called to the crowd. "And that's been the best five days of our lives."

"Check this out," he went on, ticking off the ways he found himself loving the country, from the landscape, to the tight-knit character of family life, to "the most beautifullest women on the planet.

They stopped at nothing. They spoke about the possibility of moving to Israel to live. "Y'see, I brought my mom and my grandma. You know, we're Christian, but I think I'm gonna convert to Judaism ..."

The audience, which came knowing every syllable of every infinitely complex song, was caught entirely unprepared. They were witnessing a full-blown Revival Meeting of that old time Zionism, and it was their turn to testify.

Testify they did.

In seconds, they were delirious.

The band broke into a horn driven, Mussel Shoals-seasoned "Hava Nagila." The crowd, already bananas, roared so loud it would have surprised no one had it been capable of levitating itself through sheer animal delight, and a peculiarly local version of loud, proud, surprised, oddly patriotic, unedited love.

Fergie, the group's woman singer, flew in the face of every conceivable assumption, as well as every tenet of political correctness, by calling Israel "one of the most fun places on the planet." But the crowd, knowing exactly what she meant, loosed yet a larger paroxysm...

What a Pleasure.

It was a pleasure to watch thousands of enthusiastic young people march up Fifth Avenue, proudly carrying banners and singing in Hebrew. they came in groups. dozens of day schools. synagogues. youth gorups. Adults marched and rode on floats, Hadassah, the Federations, Magen David Adom. A contingent of El Al pilots stopped every couple of blocks to sing and dance. One group carried a twenty foot long model of the Temple at Jerusalem. Several carried American or Israeli flags the size of the one that flew over Fort McHenry in 1812.

But the great pleasure, by contrast with the annual Boston event, was the absence of the anti-Semites. For this we owe thanks to the New York City Police. The Israel-haters and the anti-Israel Jews did show up. There was the daughter of a well-known Boston Rabbi who walked along the parade route handing out Jews Against the Occupation brochures. She had the decency to blush when I hugged her and asked how her parents are. She dashed off after muttering something about being "on the wrong side." But for the most part, the spewers of hate who some years make the Boston event unpleasant were roped into a "few speech zone" in front of the Plaza Hotel at 59th and Fifth. I was told that about twenty crackpots from Neturei Karta were there, along with several dozen assorted racists who want to abolish the Jewish state. But the NYPD kept them in their pen and the rest of us could enjoy the day without seeing them or hearing them.

We could stand lining Fifth Avenue on both sides several people deep for over a mile, smiling toddlers with baloons, proud grandparents with little Israeli and American flags entwined on their lapels, and watch wave after wave of Jewish youth march past singing out their pride and solidarity with Israel.

As in the case of the creationists, there is little point in pursuing a debate with the boycotters when they do not accept the basic principles of non-discrimination and universal access to academic institutions which form the basis of our opposition to their campaign. There are, of course, people of good will who may have been misled by the boycotters’ propaganda, particularly by the false and misleading comparison between their movement and the boycott of apartheid South Africa. It is important to engage these people in constructive dialogue. However there is no point in expending valuable resources in an enervating ritual that leaves us permanently on the defensive in a debate controlled by our adversaries. It is futile to attempt to persuade bigots that they are mistaken. One’s main concern should be simply to prevent them from implementing their ideas in a manner which disadvantages innocent people.

There are, I think, two elements worth pursuing in a more efficient strategy for dealing with the boycott. First, individuals and institutions that engage in acts of discrimination against Israeli (or other) academics on grounds of nationality or location should be exposed and vigorous legal action taken against them using current anti-discrimination legislation. If these actions are successful, they will set important precedents that will deter boycotters in the future...

The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?

It illustrates a key point that James C. Scott makes in his book Domination and the Arts of Resistance: what people say as part of the public transcript is often contradicted by what they say in private. This recalls what happened when the Phalangist massacres of Palestinian refugees at Sabra and Shatilla started. The Palestinians ran to the Israeli posts for protection, thereby showing that, when the chips are down they knew Israelis don’t massacre, no matter what Arab leaders and media told them. One can find similar examples of the massive gap between what an “honor-shame” propaganda-oriented public sphere continually repeats for the sake of its own self image, and what people know privatley, but won’t contradict publicly...

On issues from air quality to global warming, government science is being censored, manipulated, and distorted on an unprecedented scale. Scientists and citizens alike have helped UCS put the issue of political interference in science squarely on the public agenda. Now here's your chance to show off your artistic and comedic talents in support of independent science—it's said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but what about an editorial cartoon?

This is Science Idol!
The Union of Concerned Scientists is hosting Science Idol: the Scientific Integrity Editorial Cartoon Contest. We're looking for your creative take on the issue of political interference in science. Submit one-panel or multi-panel, print cartoons that address the misuse of science on a specific issue or in general...

Hamas is consistently called a terrorist organization while Israeli actions funded by the US, representing far more and far worse violent "terrorist" activities go virtually unmentioned - and I have listened to and read many stories on this matter.

It is never discussed why it is that many people around the world view Israel's colonial project since fall of 1947 - ethnic cleansing followed by apartheid with subsequent denial of fundamental rights including the right of return - as fundamentally illegitimate. A distinction is never made between questioning the existence of "apartheid Israel" and "Israel"; the question of the validity of a Jewish-priviledge state is never raised.

Virtually the whole world knows that the Right of Return if one of the key issues if not THE key issue in the conflict...

However, we were unprepared for the unimaginable - we came across an article in the Jewish Chronicle dated 31.05.06, stating how this particular “shopkeeper is defying one of Britain’s biggest Muslim lobbying groups by continuing to sell Israeli produce.” MPACUK were flabbergasted to say the least...

...MPACUK are deeply outraged and will not relent on our firm stance to boycott Israeli products. In this mission we have even come across Muslims - those who should find it innate within them to defend the Ummah with our wealth, possessions and deeds - who ignore the Palestinian’s plight. We will continue to hold to account and expose those who continue with their quest to fund Israel. Any Muslim store or business who is indifferent to the suffering of the Ummah and who refuses to acknowledge our sincere, polite naseeha as to why they should boycott Israeli products, will be held accountable by MPACUK and will be exposed here on Britain's Biggest Muslim website; we will ensure the wider Muslim community hears about it, so stay tuned in...

...Greenberg told The Jerusalem Post that the shifts in attitudes reflected in the surveys were so dramatic that he "redid" some of the polls to ensure there had been no error.

He singled out France as the country where attitudes had changed most dramatically. Three years ago, 60 percent of French respondents said they took a side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and of that 60%, four out of five backed the Palestinians. Today, by contrast, 60% of French respondents did not take a side in the conflict, and support for the Palestinians had dropped by half among those who did express a preference...

...At the root of the change, said Greenberg, was a fundamental remaking in Europe of the "framework" through which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is viewed.

Three years ago, he said, the conflict was perceived "in a post-colonial framework."

There was a sense "that Europe could cancel out its own colonial history by taking the 'right' side" - the Palestinian side. Yasser Arafat was viewed as "an anti-colonial, liberation leader." The US was seen as a global imperial power, added Greenberg, and the fact that it was backing Israel only added to the "instinctive" sense of the Palestinians as victims.

France, with the largest Muslim population - moreover an entirely Arab Muslim population - with the direct experience of Algeria and the most anti-US positions, was most prey to this mindset.

Today, by contrast, the Europeans "are focused on fundamentalist Islam and its impact on them," he said. The Europeans were now asking themselves "who is the moderate in this conflict, and who is the extremist? And suddenly it is the Palestinians who may be the extremists, or who are allied with extremists who threaten Europe's own society."

An increasing proportion of Europeans are concluding that "maybe the Palestinians are not the colonialist victims" after all.

Furthermore, the pollster said, the question of which side held "absolute," uncompromising positions had also shifted - to Israel's benefit. The sea-change in attitudes, he said, had been accelerated by the fact that former prime minister Ariel Sharon, who had been widely regarded as an ideological "absolutist," had surprised Europe with his disengagement initiative. And at about the same time, the Palestinians had chosen the "absolutists" of Hamas as their leadership...

The details he passed on were so precise and so terrifying that intelligence agents had to drop some of their other investigations to concentrate on what was supposedly happening behind the net curtains of a neat terraced house in an East London suburb.

The belief was that the authorities had only days to act. Surveillance had to be hastily organised, the police and other agencies had to be told, along with ministers, that this time the terrorists were expected to use chemicals and not explosives to murder their victims.

The nervous informant claimed to have seen the chemical vest that the terrorist would use, and while he didn’t understand how the device would work, he did pass on a description and the address where he saw it. The man also offered a list of names.

Some elements of the story he had to tell agents bordered on the incredible, but security sources said that they dared not ignore this alert...

Three tonnes of ammonium nitrate, a commonly used fertilizer used to make explosives, were recovered by police, who say that's three times the amount used in the bombing of a government building in Oklahoma that killed 168 people.

"It was their intent to use it for a terrorist attack," RCMP assistant commissioner Mike McDonell told a news conference.

"If I can put this in context for you, the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people was completed with only one tonne of ammonium nitrate."...

...Of the adults, six are from Mississauga, just outside Toronto; four are from Toronto itself and two are from Kingston in the eastern part of the province.

Most were Canadian citizens or residents. Police described them as coming from a broad "strata" of society. Some are students, some are employed, some are unemployed. The adults range in age from 19 to 43...

That the leader of the Presbyterian Church USA would use, in describing Israelis, the kind of language that angry, intemperate people use of enemies in time of war is shocking. It can, perhaps, be partially explained by understanding that for many years influential members of the church hierarchy have viewed the Middle East through the eyes of Arabs opposed to the existence of the state of Israel. As PCUSA missionary and missionary-in-residence at Louisville Marthame Sanders put it, as regards the Middle East “balanced is absolutely not the right approach.” ...

So, the procedure was scheduled to take place at Schneider Children's Medical Center in Petach Tikvah.

So far so good, right?

Well, a couple of wrinkles quickly appeared in the plan. First of all, this little girl is not an Israeli citizen and is therefore not covered by the national health plan. By rights she should have been treated in a PA hospital.

What's supposed to happen when a Palestinian ends up in an Israel hospital (such as after a car accident or some other emergent occurrence), is that the care is provided and the bill is then submitted to the PA Ministry of Health for reimbursement...

...The Schneider Medical Center agreed to absorb a large chunk of operation's cost, as did the Peres Center for Peace. Of the $58,000 price tag, Schneider Hospital and the Peres Center each agreed to pay $24,000, while the PA was asked to kick in only $10,000. Not a bad deal considering how the rising cost of rocket components and guns has the Palestinian Authority in a bit of a financial crunch just lately.

So what happened?...

...Anyway, knock me over with a feather... Abu Mazen (Dr. Abbas' nom de guerre) agreed that the PA would pay its share for the operation and forwarded the bill to his Minister of Health, Dr. Bassim Na'im (who actually is an MD).

Well, it seems Dr. Na'im had a bit of a conflict when presented with the bill. You see, in addition to being a physician ('First do no harm'), he's also a member of Hamas ('First, do no good').

Guess which side won this Faustian tug-o-war? You got it... Dr. Na'im refused to write the check for the PA's share of the bone marrow procedure because, "...it would be seen as cooperating with the Zionist enemy."...

Larry Summers attacked the decision by members of Natfhe on Monday to support a boycott of Israeli academics who fail to dissociate themselves publicly from Israel's "apartheid policies".

He said: "There is much that should be - indeed that must be - debated regarding Israeli policy. And all views can be, should be and will be expressed by those in academic life.

"However, the academic boycott resolution passed by the British professors union in the way that it singles out Israel is in my judgment anti-Semitic in both effect and in intent [emphasis mine]."

He added that he hoped the decision would be repudiated "in the strongest possible terms" by scholars around the world...

"There is nothing anti-Semitic about putting pressure on Israeli institutors and their academic staff to fight against the illegal and anti-human-rights policies of the Israeli state.

"When Israeli academic institutions and staff protest for the academic freedom of their academic colleagues in Palestine then I will feel more sympathetic to them."

Today, not a single Jew is left in Iraq [I had thought there was a small handfull of elderly folk.-S]. Arab apologists trace the dismantling of the Jewish communities of the Arab world (Mizrachim) and of North Africa (Sephardim) to anti-Jewish sentiment growing out of the creation of Israel. Implicit in this is the imposition of collective responsibility, as if the Jews of the Arab world and North Africa were directly responsible for whatever Israeli Jews did or did not do...

These intellectuals are nearly all secularists, who've long insisted to the world that the cause of Palestine is also the cause of revolution, equality, and democracy. So now that Hamas rules, are these intellectuals speaking the same truth to (and about) the Islamists who've become the new power?

No one knows what guidance Edward Said would offer were he alive today. But during his last decade (he died in 2003), he made occasional reference to Hamas (and Islamic Jihad). When these references are assembled, as they are below, they convey a consistent message. Palestinian intellectuals seem to have ignored it, as they rush headlong to embrace an Islamist regime...