Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, September 10, 2004

Israel explodes bomb in Muslim graveyard

BETHLEHEM -
Israeli soldiers blew up a bomb hidden by militants in a Muslim cemetery in Bethlehem yesterday, prompting an outcry by Palestinians who said the graveyard had been desecrated.

Israel said the militants were to blame for the damage when troops detonated the bomb concealed in an empty grave.

The location is especially sensitive as it is near Rachel’s Tomb, a flashpoint West Bank shrine that is Judaism’s holiest site.

“We didn’t desecrate a cemetery. We neutralised a bomb,” said army spokesman Jacob Dallal.

But the explosion also destroyed the nearby grave of a 60-year-old Palestinian and rankled the nerves of local people who said the soldiers had violated the sanctity of Bethlehem’s only Muslim cemetery.

The head of Bethlehem’s Islamic Waqf, which oversees the cemetery, said even the presence of a bomb would not justify the army’s actions.

Letter I sent to CBS News

Between your ridiculous lead-off of the Israeli spy "scandal" which has gone nowhere, to your being completely snookered by the obviously forged documents about Bush's National Guard service, CBS News has gone from the crown jewel of the once-"Tiffany Network" to a laughingstock. This is far worse than the scandals at the New York Times and if there isn't a serious shakeup at your news division, your credibility will have evaporated to National Enquirer levels.

U.S. Army's Tactical High Energy Laser Shoots Down Mortar Rounds

REDONDO BEACH, Calif., Aug. 26, 2004 -- The Tactical High Energy Laser, built by Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) for the U.S. Army, shot down multiple mortar rounds Aug. 24, proving that laser weapons could be applied on the battlefield to protect against common threats.

In tests representative of actual mortar threat scenarios, the THEL testbed destroyed both single mortar rounds and mortar rounds fired in a salvo at White Sands Missile Range, N.M.

The tests were conducted by the Army as part of the Mobile THEL (MTHEL) program. The MTHEL program is the responsibility of the SHORAD Project Office under the U.S. Army's Program Executive Office for Air, Space, and Missile Defense. The purpose of the MTHEL program is to develop and test the first mobile Directed Energy weapon system capable of detecting, tracking, engaging, and defeating Rockets/Artillery/Mortars (RAM), cruise missiles, short-range ballistic missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles. The Army is collaborating with the Israeli Ministry of Defense in the execution of the MTHEL program.

'These successful tests once again prove the versatility of the THEL testbed to counter a wide range of threats, particularly low-tech weapons like mortars,' said Patrick Caruana, vice president of Space and Missile Defense for Northrop Grumman Space Technology. 'For the first time, we have a way to protect our forces, and those of our allies, against almost daily mortar attacks. Together with the U.S. Army, we have overcome the technical hurdles and we're ready to move laser weapons onto the battlefield.'

As the nation's only laser weapon, the THEL testbed has shot down a variety of threats since 2000, showing its versatility by destroying about three dozen targets, ranging from Katyusha rockets to artillery shells and large-caliber rockets, and now mortar threats as well.

'In the foreseeable future, MTHEL is the only directed energy program we can depend on to counter threats posed by rockets, artillery and mortar rounds,' said Joe Shwartz, MTHEL program manager for Northrop Grumman Space Technology. 'The MTHEL prototype, when developed, will put directed energy into the warfighters' hands as early as possible. MTHEL could serve as a pathfinder for the Army to incorporate directed energy into its plans because it offers all the building blocks required to insert speed-of-light technology into the U.S. Army's Future Combat System and Future Force architectures.'

The THEL demonstrator was designed, developed and produced by a Northrop Grumman-led team of U.S. and Israeli contractors for the U.S. Space & Missile Defense Command, Huntsville, Ala., and the Israeli Ministry of Defense. The THEL demonstrator has evolved to the THEL testbed for the MTHEL program. In addition to Northrop Grumman's Space Technology and Mission Systems sectors, U.S. companies involved in testbed development are Ball Aerospace, Boulder, Colo., and Brashear LP, Pittsburgh, Pa. Israeli companies that supported THEL ACTD development are Electro-Optic Industries, Ltd., Rehovot; Israel Aircraft Industries, Ltd., Yehud Industrial Zone; RAFAEL, Haifa; and Tadiran, Holon.

Northrop Grumman Space Technology, based in Redondo Beach, Calif., develops a broad range of systems at the leading edge of space, defense and electronics technology. The sector creates products for U.S. military and civilian customers that contribute significantly to the nation's security and leadership in science and technology.

Atta's father: 9/11 attacks were Jewish conspiracy

Retired lawyer Mohammed al-Amir Atta has had three years to hone the attacking style he's adopted as a defense against what he maintains are spurious charges his son was the lead September 11 hijacker.

The attacks were a Jewish conspiracy carried out by the Israeli intelligence service, not a plot by Islamic extremists including his son, the elder Atta declared in an interview with The Associated Press. Moreover, he added, the United States deserved the devastating result because of its anti-Arab policies.

Still, Atta is unwilling to answer direct questions about his son, as became apparent when he's asked about a large photograph on his living room wall showing his son relaxed, so unlike the somber passport photo broadcast around the world after September 11, 2001.

'Sons are dear,' is all he will say.

Atta no longer claims his son is still alive, even though he once said his son had called him the day after the attack from an undisclosed destination.

The younger Mohammed Atta was named in FBI and congressional reports as the suicide pilot of the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center and the leader of the 19 Arabs who carried out the September 11 attacks.

In a videotape months after the attacks, al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden himself described the 33-year-old Atta as being 'in charge of the group' that struck America.

Today, the elder Atta and many Arabs place the blame for terrorism on what they say are the conditions that fuel militants' anger, not on the militants themselves. 'No nation has done as much evil in the world as America did, and you do not expect God to punish it?' he asked.

'If a Palestinian flies a plane and strikes the White House and kills [US President George W.] Bush, his wife and his daughters, he will go to heaven,' Atta said. 'So will any Muslim who defends his faith.'

Despite his religious rhetoric, Atta smokes and has decorated his apartment with statues of Buddha, actions few devout Muslims would accept."

A Palestinian terrorist of Hamas wires a makeshift explosive device as children stand near him, in a narrow alleyway of the refugee camp of Jebaliya, outside Gaza City, Thursday Sept. 9, 2004.

The Syria problem (Washington Times editorial)

To listen to John Kerry, many of the conflicts plaguing the Middle East could be resolved if President Bush were more willing to work with our European allies and the United Nations.
Reality, to put it mildly, is very different — a point American officials are experiencing firsthand in trying to persuade Syrian strongman Bashar Assad to change his ways.
Example No. 1 is Lebanon, a country occupied by 17,000 Syrian troops and a haven for Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations. On Thursday, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1559, which called for the removal of all foreign forces from Lebanon. The resolution — hammered out by American and French delegates — was widely portrayed as evidence that Washington and its allies are working together to change Syria's behavior. The following day, however, Damascus reminded the international community of the limited utility of Security Council resolutions, when the Syrian-dominated Lebanese Parliament voted 96-29 to amend the country's constitution to extend the term of President Emile Lahoud, a Syrian puppet, by three years.
Reality also reared its ugly head on the question of U.S.-European cooperation in deterring Syrian-sponsored terrorism against Israel. On Wednesday, Hamas suicide bombers struck a pair of Israeli commuter buses in Beersheba killing 16 people. When Israel, noting that Hamas is based in Damascus, threatened to target leaders of that terrorist group (causing several to go underground), the Jewish state was warned not to by European Union foreign-policy boss Javier Solana, who declared that an Israeli retaliatory strike would "complicate" the situation.
Eleven months ago, Israel launched retaliatory raids against several terrorist bases in Syria after Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another Syrian-backed terrorist group, killed 21 people in a suicide bombing at a restaurant. The raids were the first Israeli military attack conducted on Syrian territory since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. (For good measure, Israeli warplanes buzzed Mr. Assad's house, to remind him that Israel has the military capability to throttle Syria.) So, Mr. Assad, in an interview published yesterday, says he wants to renew peace talks with Israel. For its part, Israel replies that it won't negotiate until Mr. Assad expels Hamas — which he refuses to do.
Syria's support of terrorism against Israel, of course, is just part of the problem. Along with its ally, Iran, Damascus has played an integral role in supporting the terrorist insurgency in Iraq, and it has provided safe haven for Abu Musab Zarqawi. In Mr. Assad's hands, Syria's stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and its ballistic-missile capability already force any potential foe to think twice about retaliating for any act of state-sponsored terror. And this Syrian deterrent capability could be growing. The Los Angeles Times recently reported that international investigators are examining whether Syria acquired nuclear technology through the black-market network operated by Pakistani weapons scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Contrary to Mr. Kerry's worldview, U.N. resolutions and cooperation from the EU will play marginal roles at best in changing Syrian behavior. Unless Mr. Assad is credibly made to fear that he could meet the same fate as Saddam Hussein, Damascus' conduct won't change at all.

The Middle East's lost resources (Arab expat conference at Oxford)

Arab blues at Oxford

LONDON Last Saturday, 100 of the best contemporary minds in the Arab world sat down to lament the state of the region's political leadership - united by the devastating reality that not a single one is able to return to work in his or her native country. Worse, whether legally or from fear, a majority cannot go home at all.
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So much for the protestations about reform in the area - and the effect of Washington's pressure on Arab governments.
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This was no collection of fatwa-thumping Islamists, dedicated to the downfall of the current regimes. Instead they came together as liberal academics and businesspeople, men and women exiled by nothing more revolutionary than their belief in a fairer and more democratic world. Most now live in Europe, but they brought an array of painful baggage from Tunisia, Sudan, Syria and Saudi Arabia: Some have been shot at, others jailed, harassed or intimidated.
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Together they represent the lost resources of an Arab world that is fast becoming isolated by illiteracy, ignorance and repression.
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For the last 14 years, members of the group, the Project for Democracy Studies in Arab Countries, have assembled quietly at Oxford University to discuss what is not available for public discussion in their native region, even in countries that cultivate a more liberal face, like Jordan and Lebanon. As one participant murmured sadly, "Nowhere in the Arab world would such a gathering be possible.”
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While news reports are dominated by Iraq, Al Qaeda and the Palestinians, speakers focused on the structural weaknesses in Arab regimes: despotism, corruption and excessive government interference in the lives of ordinary people. “We were on about this long before the Americans started talking about reform," a physician living in Germany said. “And we'll be on about it long after they've lost interest.”
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That sense of managing alone contrasts sharply with the attitude of most Arab commentators, who delight in blaming the rest of the world for every misfortune, real or imagined, and look to it to right all wrongs. The Oxford delegates believe that it is only Arabs themselves who can create the institutions in their societies that can lead them to a better future.
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What is especially lacking, they point out, is a range of civil organizations to safeguard and monitor the rule of law, human rights and education, as well as sectarian and ethnic diversity. Honest, publicly accessible information about the shortcomings in Arab societies is almost nonexistent. No longer is ignorance bliss - it now translates into paralysis and stagnation.
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More worryingly, a new generation, denied the opportunity to participate in a range of democratic institutions or other vehicles for public self-expression, is finding more dangerous outlets for its passions.
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“It's easier for a young Arab to blow himself up, rather than sweep the area outside his house," said a Saudi researcher from an English university. “He doesn't feel he belongs to anything.”
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Of all the obstacles to reform, none is trickier than the interpretation of Islam itself. Religious dogma is variously used in the Arab world as a cover and an excuse for coercion. With no central Islamic authority, each regime feels free to manipulate the scriptures as it sees fit and to claim justification for the most ludicrous excesses. How else could Saudi Arabia get away with banning the gift of flowers on Valentine's Day or forbidding women to drive?
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The only solution, the Oxford group says, is to redefine the relationship between politics and religion - in effect, a house-cleaning operation, to be carried out by civil institutions as yet unborn.
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Oxford is a good place to dream, but this group didn't come for that. They came to exercise the fundamental right of free speech, in an atmosphere devoid of intimidation and surveillance.
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They remain unknown in the West, because neither are they terrorists nor do they have oil. But the Arab world cannot ultimately move forward without them. It's time the international community recognized that and helped them get a ticket back home.

Tanzim fugitive planned attack at Jerusalem cafe

A combined Shin Bet and IDF operation in Bethlehem on August 5 resulted in the arrest of Tanzim fugitive Murad Ala'an, thus thwarting a suicide bomb attack on the Cafe Filter in Jerusalem where he was employed as a cook.

Details released for publication on Wednesday revealed that Ala'an, 20, who lived in the Al Aida refugee camp next to Bethlehem, was an Israeli identity card holder. He was granted the Israeli ID during a period of time when he lived with his mother in east Jerusalem.

Six months prior to his arrest, Ala'an was recruited by Fadi Tsalahat, a member of the Palestinian security forces, to join the Fatah Tanzim. Tsalahat told Ala'an that he, together with Nabil Ahmed Abayat, a senior Tanzim member, were searching for a suicide bomber to launch an attack in Jerusalem.

Ala'an told investigators that at first he did not acquiesce to Tsalahat's request, but a week later, distressed by rumors that he was collaborating with Israeli intelligence, he decided to go ahead.

Ala'an told Tsalahat that he would launch the attack in his work place at the Cafe Filter. He confessed to investigators that upon seeing the explosives belt that had been prepared for the attack he regretted having consented to carry out the attack.

Tsalahat was arrested by security forces a day after Ala'an's arrest on August 6."

Five Sentenced in Jordan for Trying to Attack Israel

Jordan's state security court sentenced five Palestinians to prison terms of up to four years for trying to infiltrate Israel to attack Jewish settlements, judicial sources said. The five men were arrested in November.

Security sources said the Palestinians belonged to an unnamed Muslim fundamentalist group sympathetic to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network.

VDH - Answering an Arab-American

I am an Arab-American born in the U.S. I cannot understand why anyone would be hostile toward the Palestinian right to freedom when these are the very ideals on which this country was built. I regret the targeting of civilians on both sides, yet many pro-Israeli individuals regret only the targeting of Israeli civilians. What is your opinion on the solution? Do the Palestinians have a right to freedom from the illegal Israeli occupation? Are the Israelis to blame for anything, or is it just the Arabs?

Hanson: I don’t want to get into 50 years of acrimonious history in this short (?) answer, and feel most Americans like myself support some sort of autonomous Palestinian state with perhaps 95% of the territory of the West Bank. But remember any outstanding difference between the two sides might be adjudicated—if there were two roughly equal parties at the table.

There are not. On the one side, you have a free press, open society, gender equality, and democratic government with a vocal opposition; on the other, you have one rigged election/one time, lawlessness, Arafat’s censorship, and thuggery in lieu of politics—not unlike Saddam’s Iraq, Khadafy’s Libya, or Assad’s Syria.

Don’t tell me this is “radicalization” because of this or that gripe; rather, ask why is there not a single Arab democracy in the Middle East? Colonialism or Cold War realpolitik was the excuse for 40 years, but its shelf life is over, and we need to hear some new reason that forbids 300 million from voting.

No, when we look around the world and see terrorists killing in Russia, Israel, Madrid, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Spain, and on and on, we see a generic pattern that transcends the politics of the day. Of course not every Muslim is a terrorist, but we are getting to the point that every fascist terrorist is nearly always a Muslim it seems. Why so?

The answer is that instead of blaming Israel, the United States, or the man in the moon for Arab problems—sit down, take a deep breadth and ask yourself, ‘Why is there no democracy, no equality of the sexes, no religious tolerance, no free press, no loyal opposition in a Syria, Yemen, Libya, etc.’—or why do Arabs not vote freely except in the United States, France, or in the case of those one million Arabs who live in Israel of all places?

Look at China or South America who have very little oil or natural resources, and yet are restructuring their societies to meet new challenges rather than blaming the British for the Opium Wars or trashing the United States for the United Fruit Company. I am very worried about the Islamic world’s obliviousness about the radical shift in world opinion. The globe no longer has any patience at all with suicide bombers, car explosives, beheadings, and all the other nonsense that is now offered daily on our screens for the various causes of Chechnyan independence, Arafat’s autonomy, a return to Baathism, a theocratic state in Afghanistan, or a return of Spain to the Moors, and on and on.

We are simply tired of it. If the Palestinians had open and fair elections, a free press, nonviolent politics, and peaceful civil protests, then a great deal of their grievances would be addressed. But until then I am afraid that the average citizen of the world turns on the TV set, looks at some teen-ager burning some flag and shooting off a machine gun, or watches one of those barbaric last farewells of suicide bombers, and then simply flips the channel, and sighs, “enough of that nonsense.”

The Arab leadership should ask itself, why are 4 billion Anglo-Americans, Chinese, Indians, Japanese, Russians, black Africans, and Latin Americans coming to the consensus that something is very very wrong in the Islamic world and it has nothing to do with outside parties—but everything to do with a failure to address self-induced misery that involved everything from patriarchy and tribalism to religious intolerance and autocracy. I’m again sorry, but after the last two weeks of daily killing, I have no patience with the same old, same old “Israel is to blame.”

In the time you wrote that question, more poor unarmed Black Africans were butchered by Arabs in the Sudan than all the Palestinian militants killed in the last month by the Israelis—but the Arab-American community is absolutely silent to the tens of thousand murdered in Darfur by Arab Muslims who identify themselves as such as a reason for their pursuit of genocide.

UN urges Israel to accept Syrian overtures

The U.N. special coordinator for Middle East peace, Terje Roed-Larsen, said Tuesday he believed there is a genuine interest in Syria to resume peace talks with Israel. However, the Israeli response was cool.

In an interview broadcast on Israel's Channel 1 TV, Larsen said: 'I do believe that there is a genuine interest in Syria to go back to the table in order to find a solution to the conflict with Israel. ... 'I would urge both parties ... to start exploring (whether) there is a possibility ... (of going) back to the table....

'It's vital, necessary, crucial at this point of time where the region is in such turmoil ... to try to resume peace talks because that will also calm other conflicts in the region,' he said.

'Summer camps' for terrorists

Ya gotta love the ability of Hamas members to lie about everything.

Israel kills Hamas fanatics on parade: Staff at Shifa hospital in Gaza City said that three of the estimated 30 wounded were clinically dead. Among the survivors was Mohammed Abdel Moiti, who said he could remember nothing of the attack. He maintained that the group were not fighters but were taking part in a 'summer camp' and had been doing sports training.

However, a Hamas spokesman, Mushir al Masri, admitted that they were being trained as 'elite groups to terrorise the enemy' and promised that 'this ugly crime will not go unpunished'.

Suicide-bomb belt discovered near Nablus

Members of the IDF's Haruv Battalion on Tuesday thwarted a suicide bomb attack that was to have taken place in central Israel in the coming days after finding a seven-kg. explosives belt hidden in a barrel in the yard of a house in Silat a-Daher, northwest of Nablus.

Security officials told The Jerusalem Post that a major attack was thwarted after an intelligence tip-off revealed the whereabouts of the bomb. Sappers blew the belt up, and a manhunt for the dispatchers and the plotters is under way, as are efforts to determine which terror group was behind the planned attack. In the early morning, security forces arrested two fugitives in the village, but it is not clear if they are linked to the planned attack or to other terror activities.

On Tuesday the security establishment registered 47 warnings of plans by terrorists to launch attacks against Israelis. In the afternoon Border Police sappers blew up two pipe bombs that had been placed on Route 60 near El-Khader, west of Bethlehem. Officials believe that terrorists planned to detonate the bombs near army forces or Israeli civilian cars on the road, which is the main route linking Jerusalem to Hebron.

In the early morning, 23 Palestinian fugitives were arrested in raids in the West Bank.

Israeli Officials Free Scores of Palestinians

Israel began freeing 161 Palestinian prisoners from its jails on Tuesday in the largest mass release in more than seven months, Israeli security officials said.

The Palestinian Authority called the move meaningless, and Israeli officials said it was meant not as a good will gesture but as a way to ease conditions in prisons overflowing with Palestinians rounded up during nearly four years of conflict.

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The release came less than a week after Palestinian inmates halted an 18-day hunger strike called to protest prison conditions. It was not known whether any of those released had been among the 3,000 who had taken part in the strike at its peak.

Israel's plan called for the release of 137 Palestinians on Tuesday and another 24 on Wednesday, all nearing the end of their jail terms and most convicted of minor offenses like stone-throwing or illegal entry into the country, security officials said.

The officials said none of the freed detainees had been involved in attacks on Israelis. 'These are prisoners without blood on their hands,' a member of the military said."

State Dept sends mixed signals on fighting terror

Powell opposes attack on Hamas training camp: Secretary of State Colin Powell disapproved Tuesday of an Israeli helicopter attack on a Hamas training camp in Gaza. 'Retaliation is not a solution' to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said.

State Dept:

At this point, we're still trying to chase down the remarks and see what he actually said and whether he actually said what's been reported. Certainly, if the remarks are reported accurately, if he indeed did say this, then we would certainly find those kinds of comments unacceptable. There's nothing that can justify the kind of terrorism, the kind of bus bombings and other things that are attributed to Hamas recently.
We've made very clear these groups need to be put out of business. We've made very clear the Palestinian leaders need to take hold of this problem, need to get the authority and take immediate and credible steps to end terror and violence. The time for explanations, excuses and discussion is long past. We think it's time to see some action that sends a clear message that terrorists will not be tolerated.

And Colin Powell on the Today show this morning said "You don't negotiate with child-killers." - speaking of course about Beslan. Somehow he seems to have the illusion that the Palestinian Authority does not fit that definition.