Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Israel increases role for IAF air support in anti-terror operations

The IAF's increased involvement was noticeable during May's Operation Rainbow in Rafah, but it went up a few notches in the current fighting. An IAF assessment at the start of the week shows helicopter gunships were responsible for some 50 percent of the fatalities among armed Palestinians during Days of Penitence.

The IAF's involvement was offensive and defensive. On the offensive front, the IAF closely supported infantry and armored corps forces in the built-up areas of the Jabalya refugee camp and the towns of Beit Hanun and Beit Lahia. The ground forces operated, in essence, under an airborne cover providing them with combat helicopters, drones and additional intelligence means.

Helicopters helped attack targets inside the Palestinian communities and also to locate and strike at armed cells that threatened ground soldiers. This is one of the reasons why the offensive force didn't sustain a single fatality during the operation. In addition, helicopters located and attacked Palestinian cells that attempted to fire rockets into Israel from the outskirts of built-up areas and in open ground.

To achieve these results, the IAF maintained an aerial combat arena, for all intents and purposes, in the Strip over the past weeks. Combat helicopters hovered over the Strip day and night, reserve pilots were called up for intensive and lengthy periods of duty, and the IAF's intelligence squadron set up a Palestinian department for the first time, with a number of senior officers entrusted with the task of gathering information regarding the firing of the Qassam rockets and coordinating operations with the IDF's Southern Command.

The IAF also significantly tightened its working relationship with the Shin Bet security service - ties that were institutionalized during the course of the assassination operations in recent years.

'I have no doubt that after the disengagement, there will be helicopters in the air along the border of the Strip 24 hours a day,' a senior IAF source said this week, adding that the techniques developed recently would serve the IDF also in the event of a flare-up along the northern border .

Presbyterian Church meets Hezbollah and calls Israel "oppressive"

DAMASCUS, Syria -- The head of a visiting U.S. Presbyterian Church delegation called on Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territories and said Monday that his church is studying the possibility of withholding investments to increase pressure on Israel.

'The occupation by Israel in the West Bank and Gaza must end because it is oppressive and destructive for the Palestinian people,' the Rev. Nile Harper said in an interview with The Associated Press.

He criticized as 'unhelpful' the barrier Israel is building in the West Bank to prevent Palestinian suicide bombings.

Harper, of Ann Arbor, Mich., warned that the General Assembly of his church, whose investments in U.S. firms total $8 billion, had instructed its investment agency to study the possibility of withdrawing its money from U.S. corporations whose products 'are being destructively used against the Palestinians' by Israel.

The 24-member delegation traveled to Lebanon on Sunday and met with the south Lebanon commander of Hezbollah, a group Washington calls terrorist but Lebanon sees as a legitimate resistance movement against Israeli occupation of Arab lands.

On Monday, they traveled to Syria, where they met with the minister of expatriates. They were scheduled to meet with President Bashar Assad on Tuesday and to travel to Jordan on Wednesday.

The meeting will aim to gauge the Syrian president's views on Syria's relationship with the United States, said the delegation's coordinator, Peter Sulyok.

'We are interested in peace and justice for Palestinians as well as in the relationship between Syria and Lebanon and Syria and Israel,' Sulyok said. 'We will be looking to see what new initiatives there might be, what possibilities there might be for peace.'

US Official Warns Syria Over Lebanon Troop Pullout

Agence France Presse, Arab News

BEIRUT, 16 October 2004 — A top US official said in remarks published yesterday that a Syrian failure to comply with UN demands to pull out its troops from neighboring Lebanon would be a “serious problem.”

“We are determined to seek the implementation of (UN Security Council) Resolution 1559” which calls for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Lebanon, deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs David Satterfield was quoted as saying.

“And Syria’s failure to implement it (resolution 1559) will be a serious problem,” Satterfield was quoted in Lebanese newspapers as telling LBCI satellite television Thursday. “We are now trying to see whether Syria’s cooperation is serious. We will not wait forever for Syria and we want to see it act.” Resolution 1559, co-sponsored by the United States and France and adopted last month, also called for an end to outside interference in Lebanese internal affairs in a clear reference to Syria’s domination of its smaller neighbor.

Jew-Hating Videos on Palestinian TV for Kids

INTRODUCTION:
Short indoctrination clips and music videos for children, promoting violence as an ideal that is expected of them, were broadcast daily on PATV, often for several hours a day, during the period of conflict, Oct. 2000 - mid 2003.
The following are several examples from among many:

Song and Dance to Violence:
This MTV style music video from PA TV calls upon children to attack Israelis with stones: “You will not be saved, Oh Zionist, from the volcano of my county’s stones” and is sung to scenes of children throwing stones and participating in frenzied "war dances”. [PA TV Mar. 2002- June 2003, repeatedly]

Song and Dance to Violence: [PA TV Mar. 2002- June 2003, repeatedly]
[This song calls upon children to attack Israel with stones. It reiterates the preparedness to die: "I will even willingly fall as a Shahid!," is sung to scenes of children throwing stones and participating in a frenzied "war dance."]
"What is dearer to us than Al-Aqsa, Shake the earth, Raise the stones. You will not be saved, Oh Zionist, from the volcano of my country’s stones, You will not be saved, Oh Zionist, from the volcano of my country’s stones, You are the target of my eyes, I will even willingly fall as a Shahid[martyr]. You are the target of my eyes, I will even willingly fall as a Shahid. Allah Akbar, Oh the young ones".

Music Video to Children: Fight and "Don't be Afraid"

This PA TV music video instructs children to attack soldiers with stones and attempts to allay their fears. "Don"t be Afraid" the 10 year old sings to the 5 year old repeatedly. "The stone in their hand turns into a rifle..."
This was broadcast repeatedly 2000 - 2003.

Music Video to Children: Fight and “Don’t be Afraid” This was broadcast repeatedly 2000 - 2003.
[a young boy talking to an even younger child. (Jan 11, 2001) the older one is explaining and reassuring the younger about young stone throwers who appear on the screen:“Don’t be afraid”. We hear his plaintive voice singing in the background as the screen melts to large assemblies of children, in vivid colors, blues and greens, throwing stones, and waving, and at soldiers with weapons, as he continues]
"Don’t be afraid. Allah is with them. Don’t be afraid, the stone in their hand has turned into a Kalachnikov. Don’t be afraid. Allah is with them. Don’t be afraid, the stone in their hand has turned into a Kalachnikov. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. Allah is with them. Don’t be afraid".

Teaching Children they can Destroy Israeli Symbols.
One of the most frequently broadcast PA music videos over 3 years teaches children that throwing stones at Israelis defends mother's honor. In one scene young boys throw stones at a glass window - smashing Jewish symbols and extinguishing the flames on a Menorah [Jewish Traditional Candelabra], teaching children that their stones are stronger than Judaism.

Teaching Children they can Destroy Israeli symbols [2001-2004]
[The prize-winning “You Shall Not Be Humiliated Mother”, ( recorded June 2001), opens with a woman in tears, sitting among the ruins of her home, when her son and his friends arrive. He sadly wipes the tears from her face with his hand. and suddenly jumps up and runs off to avenge her honor. The scene switches intermittently to a choir singing] "Beware, oh Zion! My mothers tears- how humiliated. Beware, oh Zion! My mothers tears-how humiliated. Even if they[Jews] gathered from the world, Even if they[Jews] gathered from the world, Your debt remains open with me! Your debt remains open with me!"
[The children are shown in various battle scenes, processions of flag-waving children, throwing stones, causing symbols such as the Israeli flag, Star of David, the seven branch candelabra (menorah), a soldier, to disappear or shatter] " Even if you decreed my death, even if you decreed my death, The stone is my revenge, my answer!"

PA Teaches Young Children to Replace Toys with Rocks:
Young Palestinian boys and girls taught to replace their trucks and dolls with rocks [PA TV May 2, 2001]

PA Teaches Young Children to Replace Toys with Rocks: [PA TV May 2, 2001]
“Palestine’s child”
[A Palestinian Authority TV clip (recorded May 2 ’01) explicitly tells the children: “The promise of peace has ended, the time for talk has ended” spoken as the TV screen shows the White House handshake between Arafat and Rabin at the time of signing of the Oslo Accords]
"The promise of peace is over The time of talking is over. The promise of peace is over The time of talking is over."
[At the end, the boy and the girl both stand still, the boy drops his toy car, the girl drops her doll, as they bend over to pick up stones, and run off to fight Israel]
"How will I find you, Muhhamad, Palestine’s child? How will I find you, Muhhamad, Palestine’s child?"

Kill all the Jews - Words of Palestinian Teenager on TV:
A teenage girl calls for the killing of Jews: “We won't leave a single Jew here.” [PA TV Oct. 22, 2000]

Kill all the Jews- Words of Palestinian Teenager on TV [PA TV Oct. 22, 2000]
Young girls about 12 years old, in a crowd with white head covers, flags waving across the screen, were interviewed on PA TV on 22 October 2000. One with an increasingly vituperative shrill voice and angry expressive hand and arm movements, says:
"We ask that countries stand by our side We want them to help us. We only want them to give us weapons. We on our own young boys and girls, we kill them[the Jews] on our own, murder them, shoot all of them. Just give us weapons, the boys and the girls themselves we will kill them all[the Jews]. We won’t leave a single Jew, We won’t leave a single Jew here".

PA Children Taught to be Combatants - Visual Messages
In the very same week that the Palestinian Journalists Union “banned journalists from photographing Palestinian children carrying weapons ... [because] the pictures harm the Palestinian cause” [AP, Jerusalem Post Aug. 26, 2002] PA TV interviewed a child in his home - and for the purpose of the interview - he held a Kalatchnikov automatic rifle. The media regularly shows pictures of children with weapons.
[PA TV Aug. 23, 2002]

PA Children taught to be Combatants- Visual Messages [PA TV Aug. 23, 2002]
Boy: I want to address Sharon and tell him that my father’s blood was not shed in vain.

Al Qaeda linked to Arafat

By Herbert London

Linking al Qaeda to Iraqi terrorist impulses was one of the tasks of the September 11 commission. And despite claims to the contrary from the Democratic hopefuls, there were linkages. In the shadowy network of terrorist groups, there are often alignments involving information-sharing, weapons development, safe houses and scientific expertise.
The unmistakable rationale for these alignments is future terror attacks against the United States and Israel. None of this is surprising. Immediately after September 11, 2001, not only Hamas approached al Qaeda, but Yasser Arafat's own forces, Al Aqsa Brigades, did so too.
Tired of Tom?
Although Palestinian terrorists hardly needed al Qaeda to prod them to commit acts of unspeakable cruelty, the example of September 11 offered direction and new resolve. For its part, al Qaeda has been pleased its Palestinian allies cite the Hadith: "Oh Allah, annihilate the Jews and their supporters."
The idea of killing on behalf of Islam is glorified both by the Palestinian terror organization and al Qaeda. In addition to the usual sanctification of suicide bombing, both groups approve of religious-based murder within the Islamic community.
Muslims who collaborate with the United States or are suspected of doing so are deemed Murtaddun (apostates) and a sentence of Murtadd Harbi is applied — to wit, a Fatwa or death sentence. The pertinent Koranic verse is: "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Prophet and strive to make mischief in the land, is only this — that they should be murdered or crucified, or their hands and feet should be cut off on opposing sides."
While al Qaeda's hatred of the United States is only tangentially related to American support of Israel, the Palestinian terror groups focus on this issue exclusively. Nonetheless, it is not uncommon for all these organizations to target the presumptively "unforgivable" sin of American ties to "apostates and criminals" who rule in Kuwait, Jordan, the Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
On Dec. 2, 2002, al Qaeda announced establishment of the "Islamic al Qaeda Organization in Palestine." The announcement declared "a vow of allegiance to the emir of the Mujahideen, the leader Osama bin Laden, by means of whom Allah strengthened the Nation of Islam." Calling for an end to regimes that "serve only the murderous Jews and the Great Satan," the announcement concludes with a plea to "our brothers in Islam in Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to attack the American interests and the heretical institutions of apostasy.... Death to the Jews and Zionism; death to America; strength to Allah, Allah is great, and victory to Islam."
Although rarely reported in the West, al Qaeda now operates in the West Bank and Gaza at Mr. Arafat's expressed invitation, and with substantial logistical support. Mr. Arafat had imported Hezbollah fighters from Iran and Syria to assist with terrorist attacks against Israel; now he has added Osama bin Laden's Islamic fighters to the deadly terrorist mix.
According to authoritative Israeli intelligence sources, Mr. Arafat assembled under his wing Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah, Jibril's Popular Front, Iraqi military intelligence units (Palestinian terrorists were always close to Saddam, even sending Palestine Liberation Army units to help torture Kuwaitis in 1991), the pro-Iraqi Arab liberation Front, and, since April 2002, al Qaeda. Significantly, the same Israeli sources believe the same crosscut of Islamic terrorist groups exists nowhere else but in the United States — though at the moment "only" as sleeper cells.
There is probably little doubt terror strikes against the United States and Israel are being planned by joint Palestinian terrorist groups and al Qaeda, supported tactically by Hezbollah. Acknowledging this, Efraim Halevy — former Mossad chief and national security adviser — correctly identified the mega-terror menace as authentically "genocidal." Speaking on Dec. 2, 2002, Mr. Halevy emphasized Israel would respond to such barbarous attacks in ways that "have not yet been revealed." The United States, too, would surely respond in ways that could bring counterterrorist operations to new levels.
Arguably, the most important perception that emerges from this analysis is the terror network has no walls between the various organizations. Palestinian terrorists have friendly allies in al Qaeda and vice versa. It is therefore absurd to think Mr. Arafat is a potential American friend and Osama bin Laden an enemy. They are both enemies.
Faced with the potential of al Qaeda-Palestinian terror, Americans should understand the unavoidably best approach to threats of mass destruction is timely, vigorous and dedicated pre-emption against all who threaten us and our interests.
At a minimum, we should stop sending our tax dollars to Yasser Arafat and his corrupt Palestinian Authority.

Iran to launch first spy satellite by spring

Iran will launch its first spy satellite in March or April 2005, Uzi Rubin, head of the Defense Ministry department responsible for ballistic missile defense, predicted over the weekend.
The launcher will be based on Russian ballistic missiles adapted by expatriate Russian experts, Rubin said. These experts have significantly advanced Iran's ballistic capabilities, he said, among other things, by significantly improving the accuracy of its Shihab-3 missile.

Iran is currently developing three satellites. Two are small, weighing 20 to 60 kg, and are expected to be launched mainly as a test. The third weighs 170 kg and will carry a telescopic camera for espionage purposes. That is the one that Rubin expects to be launched next spring.

Unlike its nuclear program, which is shrouded in secrecy, Iran has been very open about its missile and satellite programs, and Rubin said that Tehran views the satellite launch as a global show of strength. That, he added, ought to worry the West, and especially the United States.

Rubin, who has won two national security prizes for his role in developing the Ofek spy satellite and the Arrow anti-missile missile, bases his belief that Iran is being aided by expatriate Russian experts on photographs that Tehran disseminated of improvements in the Shihab-3. He said the new shape of the missile's cone - the part containing the warheads - is very similar to that found in old Soviet missiles, but different from that of the missiles Russia has produced since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990.

Israeli experts believe that the Shihab's new shape is meant to foil the Arrow. 'We go crazy about Iranian progress in the nuclear field, and forget that the missiles Iran is developing can do us damage even with conventional capabilities,' Rubin said.

Brussels says no plan to suspend EU-Israel pact

The European Union does not intend to suspend its association agreement with Israel, an official said Friday after a UN human rights expert called for the EU to punish the Jewish state.

The UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, said in Geneva Thursday that the 2000 association agreement laid out respect for human rights as an 'essential condition'. (Click the link to see what a Jew-hating nutcase Jean Ziegler is. - EoZ)

But he said that Israel was abusing the accord, which sets out the framework of its trade and political relations with the EU, by violating Palestinians' right to food.

'There are no plans to suspend the association agreement,' a spokeswoman for the EU's executive commission, Emma Udwin, told reporters in response to Ziegler's appeal.

'But in all our council (ministerial) conclusions and contacts with the Israelis, we are stressing the need to act within the bounds of international law, to respect human rights and to avoid any impact on civilians,' she said.

The EU has often been highly critical of Israeli action in the occupied territories such as house demolitions, checkpoints and disruption of EU-funded aid projects.

Ziegler said the Israeli military was 'producing a humanitarian food crisis' among the Palestinians. (Just curious what he thinks of Darfur - EoZ)

According to a report that the official is due to present to the UN General Assembly next week, 22 percent of children in Palestinian territories are gravely malnourished, and half of the Palestinians are dependent on food aid.

'Grave violations of the right to food have been recorded, they are clear. This (EU) accord must be suspended,' he said.

Duke conference speakers endorse terrorism

By Aaron Klein
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

Speakers at a Duke University Palestinian solidarity conference that starts today have advocated suicide bombing and are connected to terrorist organizations, charged the university's Conservative Union.

The Palestinian Solidarity Movement, allied with the controversial International Solidarity Movement, an organization that openly supports Hamas and calls for the destruction of Israel, is holding its fourth annual conference to "put pressure on the Israeli government, partly by urging universities to sell their stock in companies with military ties to Israel," WorldNetDaily previously reported.

Attendees of the three-day event will listen to speakers explain their strategies for taking action against Israel, including lectures entitled, "Divestment: The Weapon of the Global Fight for Justice" and a talk on "How to effectively use the media and improved public relations to advance the Palestinian cause."

Now a list of speakers, which was recently released, has revealed that several of those featured openly advocate terrorism.

In a recent article, Charles Carlson, who will lead a workshop at the conference, called Palestinian suicide bombers intelligent bombs "because the body bombers act in a logical fashion...Lest there be any doubt, this writer supports the Palestinian right to launch bombs on Israelis any way they know how...I salute the 58 Intelligent Bombs; they were not cowards, nor were they 'homicide bombers,' as President George W. Bush calls them."

Carlson specifically encourages the use of children as weapons, declaring, "How dare anyone, even Yasser Arafat, condemn youth for choosing to sacrifice their life for something in which they believe...I pray for these sad children and do now join those who condemn them."

Carlson also calls for the mass murder of Israeli youth, asserting, "Each wedding, Passover celebration or Bar Mitzvah [in Israel] is a potential military target..."

Also, the Rutgers Society, which will teach a workshop at the PSM conference, lost its funding from the Turner Foundation because of its role in providing military-style training to members of the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front, which are both recognized by the FBI as terrorist organizations.

Rutgers director John Sellers openly advocates vandalism and property destruction. "I think you can be destructive, you can use vandalism strategically. It may be violence under the law, but I just don't think of it as violence," said Stellers, charges the Conservative Union.

Also leading a workshop at Duke will be Fadi Kiblawi, who advocates killing Jews everywhere. He wrote an article, "The helplessness, the degradation. It is enough to make one indifferent when they [Jews] die in a freak accident in a wedding hall while dancing Dabkeh. It is enough to make one want to strap a bomb to one's chest and kill those racists...The enemy is not just overseas. The enemy is also amongst us."

Another PSM conference leader, Abe Greenhouse, was arrested in 2003 for smashing a pie in the face of Israeli Minister and former political prisoner Natan Sharansky, who was about to begin a speech at Rutgers University.

"President Brodhead, is this your idea of 'education through dialogue'?" the Conservative Union asked in an open letter advertisement to University President Richard Brodhead that detailed the speakers connections to terrorism.

The conference will be PSM's fourth national gathering, following previous events at Berkeley, Michigan and Ohio State. Some PSM critics have charged those earlier events were hotbeds of anti-Semitism, with some attendees shouting, "Kill the Jews," and "Death to Israel!"

Rann Bar-On, a graduate student who has identified himself as an activist for the International Solidarity Movement and is a member of the campus group sponsoring the PSM conference, said he thinks the event will foster a useful dialogue on campus.

Bar-On said PSM supports nonviolent action on behalf of the Palestinian people, but neither he nor the group would sign a statement prepared by Jewish groups condemning terrorism.

"We don't see it as very useful for us as a solidarity movement to condemn violence," Bar-On told The Herald-Sun last month.

And a statement on the PSM website says: "As a solidarity movement, it is not our place to dictate the strategies or tactics adopted by the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation."

Last year's original conference organizer, Charlotte Kates, reportedly said, "Why is there something particularly horrible about 'suicide bombing’ except for the extreme dedication conveyed in the resistance fighter's willingness to use his or her own body to fight?"

PSM spokesperson Fayyad Sbaihat dismissed Kates quotations as having been "taken out of context."

France promises to fight anti-semitism

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, visiting Israel to patch up tense relations, promised on Sunday that his country would do all it could to fight anti-Semitism.

Ties have been strained over France's support for the Palestinians as well as growing anti-Semitic incidents in France and a row that erupted after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon urged French Jews to emigrate.

Barnier said his government was determined 'to fight anti-Semitism, racism of all forms and xenophobia and is committed to do all it can to punish this shameful conduct that nothing can excuse.'

He was speaking at a memorial ceremony for French Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust.

The number of anti-Semitic incidents in France has more than doubled in the last year, according to official figures.

That is partly due to tension between France's 600,000 Jews and 5 million Muslims. Jewish leaders and public officials blame Muslim youths for the rise in attacks.

Relations between France and the Jewish state hit a low in July, when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called on French Jews to emigrate to Israel to escape anti-Semitism. Sharon later praised France for fighting anti-Semitism to quell the spat.

Barnier angered Israel during his last visit to the region, in June, when he became the first senior official from a major power to meet Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in more than a year. He urged Israel to stop isolating Arafat.

Barnier is due to meet Sharon on Monday.

Threat to Jerusalem Holy Site Keeps Israeli Security Chiefs on Edge

Nice examples of media bias here. -EoZ

JERUSALEM (AP) - The camera scans the holy terrain, the domed mosques and people strolling along a tree-shaded plaza. It zooms in on a group of foreigners who turn out, after a few mouse clicks, to be visiting U.S. security chiefs on a guided tour of the hilltop revered by both Muslims and Jews.

In an Israeli police station at the Jaffa Gate into the Old City, in front of TV screens picking up images from 280 cameras scattered across the densely populated heart of Jerusalem, a 24-hour watch goes on for stirrings of apocalypse.

Police have stepped up surveillance in recent weeks, amid fears that as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict nears a critical juncture, the sacred hilltop with its two mosques, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, will become the ultimate flash point for disaster.

Israel's security chiefs are wrestling with two nightmare scenarios they say are increasingly realistic - an attack on the mosques by Jewish extremists trying to stop Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and a collapse of parts of the structurally shaky mosque compound onto thousands of Muslim worshippers.

Muslims would almost certainly blame either catastrophe on the Israeli government and transform its conflict with the Arabs into a full-blown religious war.

In recent weeks, police have increased patrols at the Al Aqsa and Dome of the Rock mosques and undercover agents are shadowing well-known militants.

However, security officials say a lone assailant not on anyone's watch list - someone, perhaps, like the Jewish nationalist who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 - could easily slip through their net. One of their greatest fears is a shoulder-held missile fired from one of the alleys near the holy places.

Lately, with hard-liners increasingly desperate to stop Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's withdrawal plan, the warnings have reached an unusually high pitch.

Israel is sitting on a "keg of nitroglycerin," said Carmi Gillon, a former chief of Shin Bet, the secret service. The agency has held top-level meetings on what it describes as a threat to Israel's existence. Its director, Avi Dichter, who rarely speaks in public, has said everyone should be losing sleep.

Adding to the anxiety, Israel's police minister, Gideon Ezra, says the eastern wall of the compound is in danger of collapse after an earth tremor in February worsened existing structural damage.

Muslim keepers of the shrine, as well as Jordanian experts, deny Ezra's assessment, while leaders of Israel's Islamic movement have urged followers to rally in defense of the mosques.

Israeli security officials say they don't have concrete leads on a plot to harm the mosques. Notice that it took until paragraph 12 to say this, after all the fear-mongering earlier. -EoZ. However, given the beating they took for failing to head off Rabin's assassination, they clearly don't want to seem complacent.

Opponents of the withdrawal accuse the government of trying to paint them as wild extremists. "There is no doubt that as we get closer to the evacuation, there will be greater attempts to delegitimize the right," said Pinchas Wallerstein, a leader of Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

But Israeli authorities say the motivation is powerful, the mosques are vulnerable and the threat is at an unprecedented level.

Even Tzahi Hanegbi, a staunch opponent of withdrawal, has joined the chorus. In July, while still serving as Sharon's police minister, he said the threat to the shrine from Jewish extremists is "greater than it has ever been."

Some of those fighting against withdrawal believe Sharon is defying God's will by giving up parts of what they see as the Promised Land.

Baruch Marzel, a well-known extremist living in the West Bank, said Sharon must be stopped at any price. When Palestinians call for the genocide of Jews, or blow up Jewish babies, they are "militants" or "activists." When an Israeli Jew disagrees with his government, and has not done anything illegal nor advocated any violence, he is an "extremist." Meaning he is comparable to OBL but not nearly as bad as someone like the murderer Barghouti, who is a "moderate." -EoZ

"We are sitting and thinking and planning and will find all possible ways to respond," said Marzel, refusing to elaborate. "We are talking about danger to life, to our nation ... Certainly the saving of lives is above the law." What an extreme position! -EoZ

In light of new threats, (none of which has yet been spelled out in this article - EoZ) Jerusalem police chief Ilan Franco has ordered more patrols around the Temple Mount. Some 700 officers, including regular police, paramilitary border troops and undercover forces, are regularly assigned to the Old City.

However, the overall security effort appears still focused on Palestinians rather than on Jews. The cameras were installed not to protect the mosques but for Pope John Paul II's visit in 2000, and at the Old City police station, no single camera is trained on the shrine at all times; officers flip from camera to camera, zooming in when they spot something suspicious.

Police spokesman Gil Kleiman acknowledges that the cameras are mostly to deter crime, such as pickpocketing of pilgrims, and attacks on Jews by Palestinians. But he denies police are fixated on Palestinians. "The Temple Mount is a very sensitive area, and the Israeli police is very aware of that," he said.

The mosque compound straddles the fault line of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Israel captured it when it overran Arab east Jerusalem in the 1967 war, and, recognizing its sensitivity, left it under administration of the Islamic Trust, with Israeli police in overall charge of security. Helping to keep the peace was a rabbinical warning to Jews that their presence in the compound might defile Jewish holy ground.

But to devout Jews the site of Jerusalem's great Jewish temple remains a powerful symbol. Sharon's visit there in 2000, before he was prime minister, set off the violence that presaged the present intefadeh, or uprising. (Amazing - and I thought that the people who threw rocks set off the violence, not someone visiting a holy site. -EoZ)And it is a tempting target for those hoping to change history with a single act.

In 1969, an Australian Christian fundamentalist set fire to Al Aqsa and caused extensive damage, saying he wanted to clear the way for rebuilding the temple. An Israeli court ruled him insane. In 1982, an Israeli reserve soldier from the United States opened fire on the Dome of the Rock, the golden-capped mosque opposite Al Aqsa, killing two Palestinians and wounding nine.

Two years later, the Shin Bet caught Jewish extremists who had amassed large amounts of army explosives to blow up the Dome of the Rock.

Yoel Lerner, 63, was one of the militants imprisoned for that plot. Now free and living in Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter, he says he has disavowed violence but thinks Sharon's withdrawal plan might spur others into action.

Lerner said destroying the mosques isn't simple, and that a rocket might do only limited damage. Large amounts of explosives could work, "and I don't see that happening very soon," he said.

Adnan Husseini, director of the Islamic Trust, said police are too lax with potential troublemakers. "We always try to convince them that they have to be strict with these people," Husseini said. "They say, 'if anything happens, we'll take care of it, don't worry.'"

PA to hang man for 'collaborating' with Israel

A Palestinian man was sentenced to death by hanging on Saturday after being found guilty of 'collaborating' with Israel. Another three Palestinians were sentenced to prison terms ranging from three years to 10 years on the same charges.

Yusef Hassan Sinwar, 31, of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, was convicted by a Palestinian Authority civil court of assisting the IDF in tracking down and killing wanted activists. In passing the death sentence, the first by the PA in two and a half years, the judges noted that he had 'undermined the power of resistance of the Palestinian people by serving as a collaborator with the enemy.'

Sinwar was arrested in October 2001 by the PA's General Intelligence Force in the Gaza Strip. This is the first time that a Palestinian accused of collaboration with Israel is sentenced to death by hanging. In the past, Palestinians convicted of the same charges were sentenced to death by a firing squad.

Sinwar was one of the four defendants who appeared before the Gaza court. His verdict requires the approval of PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, who over the past three years has refrained from endorsing executions, following protests from human rights organizations.

That last phrase is sadly funny for so many reasons. - EoZ

State Department: Palestinians won't prosecute American-killers in Gaza

The Palestinian Authority has shown an "unacceptable" performance in its failure to prosecute those behind the fatal bombing of a U.S. convoy entering Gaza last year on a cultural mission, the U.S. State Department said Friday.

"We haven't seen them demonstrate either the will, much less the capacity, to investigate the case seriously," department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

"We have seen statements from time to time by Palestinian officials that they know who did it. And if that's true, then they should take immediate action to arrest and prosecute whoever did it," Boucher said.

The three murdered Americans were John Branchizio, 37, of Texas, John Linde Jr., 30, of Missouri, and Mark Parsons, 31, of New Jersey. They were security personnel guarding a convoy of U.S. diplomatic vehicles that was attacked by Palestinian Arab terrorists at the Beit Hanoun junction in the Gaza Strip on October 15, 2003.

The three guards, contractors from the security firm DynCorp, were protecting the convoy on its way to interview Palestinian candidates for Fulbright scholarships.

The Palestinians arrested suspects in connection with the attack, but the United States has long doubted the credibility of those arrests.

"At the time that they made those arrests we expressed certain skepticism that they had arrested the people who were really responsible for these crimes, and felt that there was further serious investigation and action that needed to be taken," Boucher said.

Israel Insider reported last month that Musa Arafat, the newly appointed head of PA Military Intelligence and a cousin of PA chairman Yasir Arafat, told Reuters (Sept. 22, 2004) that "Palestinian security forces know who was behind the killing of three Americans in Gaza nearly a year ago but cannot act against the factions while fighting with Israel continues."

In July, State Department official David Satterfield said at a Senate hearing, regarding the PA's failure to arrest the killers: "There has been no satisfactory resolution of this case. We can only conclude that there has been a political decision taken by the chairman to block further progress in this investigation."

Until Satterfield's statement, the Bush administration had maintained that the PA was trying, but was unable, to capture the terrorists involved in the murders of 51 American citizens in Israel and the territories since the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993.

Neo Anti-Semitism in Today's Italy

Neo anti-Semitism, camouflaged as anti-Zionism, is spreading in Italy today. Three important Italian intellectuals are part of this phenomenon - Sergio Romano, Alberto Asor Rosa, and Barbara Spinelli. They accuse Israel respectively of being a war-mongering, imperialist, arrogant nation, affirming the racial superiority of the Jewish people, and Italian Jews of having double and contradictory loyalties.

Click link above to read whole, long article. -EoZ

Scotsman.com News - International - Saddam bankrolled Palestinian terrorists

The link between Saddam and terror was always clear, but since it was only terror against Israelis, no one is too upset over it. -EoZ

SADDAM Hussein’s links to terrorism have been proven by documents showing he helped to fund the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The PFLP, whose history of terrorism dates back to the "black September" hijackings of 1970, was personally vetted by Saddam to receive oil vouchers worth £40 million.

The deal has been uncovered by US investigators, trawling millions of pages of documents showing a network of diplomats bribed by Saddam’s regimes, and political parties who qualified for backhanded payments from Baghdad.

The Iraq Survey Group (ISG), which is still working its way through 20,000 boxes of documents from Saddam’s Baath party discovered only recently, found a list of pressure groups bankrolled by Saddam.

Using the United Nations’ own oil-for-food scheme - ironically intended as a sanction to control the behaviour of his dictatorship - Saddam gave Awad Ammora & Partners, a Syrian company, two million barrels of oil.

Documents handed over to US authorities by a former Iraqi oil minister only four months ago show that this was a front for the PFLP - which was then embarked on a spate of car bombings aimed at Israeli officials.

The Iraqi records show only one six-month period - suggesting the payments could go on for much longer. While some allocations to the likes of Russian political parties were not cashed in, the PFLP oil deal was carried out in full.

Since its inception after the Six-Day War of 1967, the PFLP has been dedicated to violence - and for this reason split from the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) when it accepted the peace process.

Its first atrocity came in September 1970 when its members hijacked four aircraft bound for the United States. All planes were blown up on the ground after the passengers were evacuated. A hijacking at Lod airport in Israel two years later left 24 dead.

It is now devoted to thwarting the "roadmap" plan for peace in the Middle East - recently mainly through a campaign of car bombs.

While the PLO has been rehabilitated into the political process, the PFLP has remained opposed to it. On Wednesday, it issued a statement saying it had joined forces with Hamas, the main Palestinian terrorist group, in a machine gun attack on a busload of Israeli soldiers.

Earlier last week, it launched a rocket attack at an Israeli kibbutz.

Interviews from Iraqi officials captured by US troops confirm that Saddam saw himself as the potential "liberator" of Palestine. Taped conversations have been uncovered from 1991 saying he wanted to deploy biological warfare on "the Israeli cities - all of them".

Debriefings from Iraqi regime members have also disclosed that "Saddam was conscious of Israel’s WMD arsenal and saw Israel as a formidable challenge".

Three years ago, Saddam gave a speech on Iraqi television saying "there can never be stability, security of peace in the Middle East so long as there are immigrant Jews in the land of Palestine".

His financial support also extended to Abu Al-Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Liberation Front - another terrorist group - who was allocated 11.5 million barrels of oil.

The PLO is also named as a main beneficiary from Saddam’s scheme - receiving four million barrels under its own name and five million barrels for its "political bureau". The cash was again passed through Syria, a known conduit for Palestinian terror organisations.

Meaningless press release from the UN

SECRETARY-GENERAL COMMITTED TO PREVENTING ILLEGAL USE OF UN VEHICLES, FACILITIES BY ARMED MILITIA: The Israeli Government has acknowledged that the video of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) ambulance does in fact show the driver handling a stretcher and not a rocket.

The Secretary-General is committed to preventing the illegal use of UN vehicles or facilities by armed militants. Should any further issues arise, the Secretary-General expects the Government of Israel to share with the United Nations, through normal diplomatic channels, any information it might have so that the matter may be properly investigated.