Tuesday, November 23, 2004

  • Tuesday, November 23, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
A senior Fatah member who until recently was among scores of fugitives hiding out in Yasser Arafat's Mukata compound was among four armed men killed in the West Bank and Gaza on Sunday.

Muhammad Ghassan Sheikh was killed, along with two of his aides, by an elite police unit while in a car in Beituniya, west of Ramallah, on Sunday evening.

As the unit closed in to arrest Sheikh, he opened fire, lightly wounding a policeman.

Police officers shot back; Sheikh was killed along with Nasser Said Jabarra, 30, a member of Yasser Arafat's presidential guard, Force 17, and Salem Hilna, 33, a member of the PA security forces.

During the two years that he was holed up in the Mukata, Sheikh planned suicide bombings and maintained contact with terror cells in the West Bank. He has had contact with Fatah Tanzim activists in Ramallah and Samaria and members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Iraq since his first terror activities in 2001.

Sheikh and other Mukata fugitives are believed to have left the Ramallah compound only after Arafat's death.

Sheikh was also involved in a shooting on a road between Na'ame and Talmon on June 13 in which a man was killed and two others were wounded.

In 2002, Sheikh helped plan a suicide bombing in Jerusalem and recruited his cousin to lead the suicide bomber from Samaria to Jerusalem. The next year, he was to have supplied the weapons and bombs to be used in a suicide bombing at the Beit El military court. However, both attacks were thwarted.

In August of that year, he was involved in shooting at security forces in the Ramallah area.

In March, Sheikh was to have sheltered a suicide bomber and his transporter who were sent by the Tanzim in Nablus to Ramallah, where they were to stay before setting out for Jerusalem. Both were arrested by security forces before they reached Ramallah.
  • Tuesday, November 23, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
The UN Third Commission on Human Rights has approved for the first time a resolution on religious tolerance that incudes condemnation of anti-Semitism and concern about its spread.

The article that references anti-Semitism notes that the commission recognizes 'with deep concern' the growth in the number of incidents of lack of tolerance and violence directed at people who belong to religious communities in various parts of the world, including attacks motivated by hatred of Muslims, anti-Semitism, and hatred of Christians.'

The resolution is adopted annually by consensus, and the original formulation focused on condemning all forms of religious intolerance and xenophobia.

Attempts made in the past by Israel and Jewish groups in the U.S. to include explicit references to anti-Semitism were foiled by the Arab and Islamic states. This year, too, the Arab states were active behind the scenes, trying to prevent the mention of anti-Semitism in the draft.

But Holland - holding the current presidency of the European Union - and Germany made clear to Arab diplomats last week that Europe was determined to include the reference to anti-Semitism.

Anyone want to bet that the Arab nations will spin this by saying that "anti-semitism" means hatred of Arabs and that Jews are not Semites? -EoZ
  • Tuesday, November 23, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
Haaretz - Israel News: "In Ramallah, however, PA officials warned Powell that they could not be responsible for the reactions of armed Palestinian organizations should the Israel Defense Forces kill any of their members. According to Palestinian sources, both PLO head Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia urged Powell to press Israel to stop IDF operations such as the one in Ramallah on Sunday, in which three Fatah operatives were killed during an attempt to arrest them.

A senior PA official told Haaretz that IDF operations inside PA-controlled territory such as Ramallah are particularly problematic. 'These are the biggest threat to the continuation of Palestinian rule and our ability to hold elections on January 9 in an optimal fashion,' he said.

The official said that Abbas and Qureia also presented various other demands of Israel to Powell, including dismantling parts of the separation fence, as well as asking the U.S. for financial support. Powell responded that he will try to explain the importance of financial aid to the U.S. Congress.

At his meeting with Sharon, Powell stressed that U.S. President George Bush sees an opportunity to advance the peace process. Bush has not changed his view that the Palestinian state must be free of terror and incitement, he said, but efforts to combat terror and incitement must not become a precondition for negotiations.

Sharon stressed in response that Israel rejects European proposals to skip the first stage of the road map peace plan, which requires the PA to fight terror and carry out reforms, and go straight to final-status talks.

'The Palestinians are daydreaming if they think that after Arafat's death, all they need to do is submit a list of demands to Israel,' he said."
  • Tuesday, November 23, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
British security services have thwarted September 11-style terror attacks on London’s Heathrow Airport and Canary Wharf, it emerged tonight.

Plans to crash planes on the two high-profile targets are among four or five al Qaida strikes that security chiefs believe they have stopped.

Training programmes for suicide pilots have been disrupted, a senior authoritative source told ITV News.

The Home Office and Metropolitan Police declined to comment on the report.

Monday, November 22, 2004

Hate 101

Climate of hate rocks Columbia University

Special Report

By DOUGLAS FEIDEN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Many students say Columbia Prof. Hamid Dabashi, a department chairman, has bullied and threatened them for defending Israel.
Students Ariel Beery (speaking) and Noah Liben (r.) at press conference after showing of the film 'Columbia Unbecoming.'
In the world of Hamid Dabashi, supporters of Israel are "warmongers" and "Gestapo apparatchiks."

The Jewish homeland is "nothing more than a military base for the rising predatory empire of the United States."

It's a capital of "thuggery" - a "ghastly state of racism and apartheid" - and it "must be dismantled."

A voice from America's crackpot fringe? Actually, Dabashi is a tenured professor and department chairman at Columbia University. And his views have resonated and been echoed in other areas of the university.

Columbia is at risk of becoming a poison Ivy, some critics claim, and tensions are high.

In classrooms, teach-ins, interviews and published works, dozens of academics are said to be promoting an I-hate-Israel agenda, embracing the ugliest of Arab propaganda, and teaching that Zionism is the root of all evil in the Mideast.

In three weeks of interviews, numerous students told the Daily News they face harassment, threats and ridicule merely for defending the right of Israel to survive.

And the university itself is holding investigations into the alleged intimidation.

Dabashi has achieved academic stardom: professor of Iranian studies; chairman of the Middle East and Asian languages and cultures department; past head of a panel that administers Columbia's core curriculum.

The 53-year-old, Iranian-born scholar has said CNN should be held accountable for "war crimes" for one-sided coverage of Sept. 11, 2001. He doubts the existence of Al Qaeda and questions the role of Osama Bin Laden in the attacks.

Dabashi did not return calls.

In September in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, he wrote, "What they call Israel is no mere military state. A subsumed militarism, a systemic mendacity with an ingrained violence constitutional to the very fusion of its fabric, has penetrated the deepest corners of what these people have to call their soul."

After the showing of a student-made documentary about faculty bias and bullying that targets Jewish students, six or seven swastikas were found carved in a Butler Library bathroom last month.

Then after a screening of the film, "Columbia Unbecoming," produced by the David Project, a pro-Israel group in Boston, one student denounced another as a "Zionist fascist scum," witnesses said.

On Oct. 27, Columbia announced it would probe alleged intimidation and improve procedures for students to file grievances.

"Is the climate hostile to free expression?" asked Alan Brinkley, the university provost. "I don't believe it is, but we're investigating to find out."

But one student on College Walk described the campus as a "republic of fear." Another branded the Middle East and Asian languages and cultures department the "department of dishonesty."

A third described how she was once "humiliated in front of an entire class."

Deena Shanker, a Mideast and Asian studies major, remains an admirer of the department. But she says she will never forget the day she asked Joseph Massad, a professor of modern Arab politics, if Israel gives warnings before bombing certain buildings so residents could flee.

"Instead of answering my question, Massad exploded," she said. "He told me if I was going to 'deny the atrocities' committed against the Palestinians, I could get out of his class."

"Professorial power is being abused," said Ariel Beery, a senior who is student president in the School of General Studies, but stresses he's speaking only for himself.

"Students are being bullied because of their identities, ideologies, religions and national origins," Beery said.

Added Noah Liben, another senior, "Debate is being stifled. Students are being silenced in their own classrooms."

Said Brinkley: If a professor taught the "Earth was flat or there was no Holocaust," Columbia might intervene in the classroom. "But we don't tell faculty they can't express strong, or even offensive opinions."

Yet even some faculty members say they fear social ostracism and career consequences if they're viewed as too pro-Israel, and that many have been cowed or shamed into silence.

One apparently unafraid is Dan Miron, a professor of Hebrew literature and holder of a prestigious endowed chair.

He said scores of Jewish students - about one a week - have trooped into his office to complain about bias in the classroom.

"Students tell me they've been browbeaten, humiliated and treated disrespectfully for daring to challenge the idea that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish nation," he said.

"They say they've been told Israeli soldiers routinely rape Palestinian women and commit other atrocities, and that Zionism is racism and the root of all evil."

One yardstick of the anti-Israel sentiment among professors, critics say, is the 106 faculty signatures on a petition last year that called for Columbia to sell its holdings in all firms that conduct business with Israel's military.

Noting that the divestment campaign compared Israel to South Africa during the apartheid era, Columbia President Lee Bollinger termed it "grotesque and offensive."

That didn't stop 12 Mideast and Asian studies professors - almost half the department - and 21 anthropology teachers from signing on, a review of the petition shows.

To identify the Columbia faculty with the most strongly anti-Israel views, The News spoke to numerous teachers and students, including some who took their courses; reviewed interviews and published works, and examined Web sites that report their public speeches and statements, including the online archives of the Columbia Spectator, the student newspaper.

Their views could be dismissed as academic fodder if they weren't so incendiary.

Columbia's firebrands

In the world of Hamid Dabashi, supporters of Israel are "warmongers" and "Gestapo apparatchiks."

The Jewish homeland is "nothing more than a military base for the rising predatory empire of the United States."

# Nicholas De Genova, who teaches anthropology and Latino studies. The Chronicle of Higher Education calls him "the most hated professor in America."

At an anti-war teach-in last year, he said he wished for a "million Mogadishus," referring to the slaughter of U.S. troops in Somalia in 1993.

"U.S. patriotism is inseparable from imperial warfare and white supremacy," he added.

De Genova has also said, "The heritage of the victims of the Holocaust belongs to the Palestinian people. ... Israel has no claim to the heritage of the Holocaust."

De Genova didn't return calls.

# Bruce Robbins, a professor of English and comparative literature.

In a speech backing divestment, he said, "The Israeli government has no right to the sufferings of the Holocaust."

Elaborating, Robbins told The News he believes Israel has a right to exist, but he thinks the country has "betrayed the memory of the Holocaust."

# Joseph Massad, who is a tenure-track professor of Arab politics. Students and faculty interviewed by The News consistently claimed that the Jordanian-born Palestinian is the most controversial, and vitriolic, professor on campus.

"How many Palestinians have you killed?" he allegedly asked one student, Tomy Schoenfeld, an Israeli military veteran, and then refused to answer his questions.

To Massad, CNN star Wolf Blitzer is "Ze'ev Blitzer," which is the byline Blitzer used in the 1980s, when he wrote for Hebrew papers but hasn't used since.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon can be likened to Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, he once declared.

"The Jews are not a nation," he said in one speech. "The Jewish state is a racist state that does not have a right to exist."

Massad didn't return several calls. On his Web site, he says he's a victim of a "witch hunt" by "pro-Israel groups" and their "propaganda machine."

# George Saliba, a professor of Arabic and Islamic science. His classroom rants against the West are legendary, students have claimed.

One student says his "Islam & Western Science" class could be called "Why the West is Evil." Another writes that his "Intro to Islamic Civilization" often serves as a forum to "rail against evil America."

A recent graduate, Lindsay Shrier, said Saliba told her, "You have no claim to the land of Israel ... no voice in this debate. You have green eyes, you're not a true Semite. I have brown eyes, I'm a true Semite."

Saliba did not return calls.

# Rashid Khalidi, who is the Edward Said professor of Arab studies. He's the academic heir to the late Said, a professor who famously threw a stone from Lebanon at an Israeli guard booth.

Columbia initially refused to say how the chair was funded. But The United Arab Emirates, which denies the Holocaust on state TV channels, is reported to have provided $200,000.

When Palestinians in a Ramallah police station lynched two Israeli reservists in 2000 - throwing one body out a window and proudly displaying bloodstained hands - the professor attacked the media, not the killers.

He complained about "inflammatory headlines" in a Chicago Sun-Times story and called the paper's then-owner, Conrad Black, who also owned the Jerusalem Post, "the most extreme Zionist in public life."

Reached at Columbia, Khalidi declined to comment on specifics.

"As somebody who has a body of work, written six books and won many awards, the only fair thing to do is look at the entire body of work, not take quotes out of context," he said.

# Lila Abu-Lughod, a professor of anthropology, romanticizes Birzeit University in the West Bank as a "liberal arts college dedicated to teaching and research in the same spirit as U.S. colleges."

But it is well-established that Birzeit also is the campus where Hamas openly recruits suicide bombers, stone-throwers and gunmen.

As in her published works, Abu-Lughod gave a carefully nuanced response when reached Friday by The News:

"The CIA has historically recruited at Columbia, but that's not the mission of Columbia. The mission of Birzeit is to educate students, and they're working under very difficult circumstances to do that."
  • Monday, November 22, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
Outgoing US Secretary of State Colin Powell was asked to step down after telling President George W. Bush he wanted more power to confront Israel over the peace process, according to London's Sunday Telegraph.

At the same time, the Sunday Times reported that secretary of state-designate Condoleezza Rice is convinced Yasser Arafat's death has created a unique opportunity and she believes the revival of the peace process leading to a Palestinian state will be her top priority.

Powell was widely rumored to be ready to resign after four years of conflict with Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

However, the Telegraph quoted 'friends' as saying he changed his mind because he saw the chance of progress on the peace process and wanted to see through the Iraqi elections.

He was reported to have made an unsuccessful pitch to remain in office for at least one more year during British Prime Minister Tony Blair's visit to Washington earlier this month.

The paper noted that while Powell's departure was announced on November 15, his letter of resignation was dated November 11, the day of his meeting with Bush.

White House officials were quoted as saying that Powell was not asked to stay on. Briefing reporters later, Powell said he and Bush had had 'fulsome discussions,' diplomatic code for disagreements.

'The clincher came over the Mideast peace process,' a recently-retired State Department official reportedly said. 'Powell thought he could use the credit he had banked as the president's 'good cop' in foreign policy to rein in [Prime Minister] Ariel Sharon and get the peace process going. He was wrong.'

Among those who lobbied against Powell were Cheney and Undersecretary of State John Bolton, both of whom want the administration to focus primarily on Iran's nuclear ambitions and the fight against Islamic terrorist groups.

Cheney and Bolton, who will be Rice's deputy, were said to fear that Powell would back away from a confrontational approach. They are also frustrated that Britain, France, and Germany are still seeking a diplomatic deal with Teheran rather than backing an immediate UN Security Council resolution condemning Iran and threatening sanctions.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Times reported that Rice is said to be sympathetic to the Palestinians' plight and has said she will work tirelessly for a democratic settlement.

Stanford Institute for International Studies director Coit Blacker, who has been a friend of Rice for 25 years, was quoted as saying: 'She is going to focus like a laser beam on it. The timing could not be better. I know from talking to her she feels this may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get a settlement.'

According to Blacker, Rice's style of diplomacy will be very different from that of Powell.

'She believes in old-fashioned diplomacy,' he said. 'You get on a plane and you go to the capital and meet your counterpart. We're going to see a change there.'

The paper also reported that before news of Rice's nomination was made public, she met Minister-without-Portfolio Natan Sharansky and assured him that bringing democracy to the Middle East would be 'the centerpiece' of US foreign policy over the next four years.

Sharansky was in Washington to promote his latest book, The Case for Democracy, on how to beat terrorism. Rice told him, 'You know why I am reading your book? Because the president is reading your book and he thinks I should read it.'(Jerusalem Post/Douglas Davis)"
  • Monday, November 22, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
Poll: 80% of Palestinians Believe Arafat Was Poisoned
A poll conducted by the Center of Opinion Polls and Survey Studies at Najah University on November 19-20, 2004, asked: "Several Palestinian personalities support the conviction that Arafat died by being poisoned, do you believe this?" Yes - 80%, No - 9%. (IMRA)
  • Monday, November 22, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
The hope that the situation in the Palestinian Authority (PA) will improve dramatically with the demise of Yasser Arafat is based on the mistaken assumption that the problems in the PA stemmed mainly from Arafat as an individual and not from the society he created.

But an interview with a Palestinian mother on PATV yesterday indicates the depth of the PA society's worship of Death for Allah (Shahada), and support of suicide terror, which has not changed merely because of a change of leadership. In this program, a Palestinian mother of a suicide terrorist talks about how she and other mothers in her position see their sons Shahada death as a positive event -- like a joyful wedding.

The following is an excerpt from the PATV NOV. 17:

Moderator: "They [Israelis] accuse the Palestinian mother of hating her sons and in encouraging them to die. This is what we hear from Israelis. Is this true?

Mother Um Al-Ajrami: "No, we do not encourage our sons to die. We encourage them to Shahada [martyrdom] for the homeland, for Allah."

[She then talks about a group of women, all mothers of Shahids, who go to other mothers of Shahids during the period of mourning]:
"We don't say to the mothers of the Shahids, 'We have come to comfort you’, but 'We have come to bless you on the wedding of your son, on the Shahada of your son. Congratulations to you on the Shahada . . . ' For us, the mourning is joyous. We give out drinks, we give out sweets. Praise to God -- the mourning is joyous. occasion" [PATV, Nov. 17, 2004]

The "Islam Online" website (www.islamonline.org) points out that this woman, Um Al-Ajrami is quoted as saying, "I brought sweets and biscuits in order to change the day of joy to a new wedding, not mourning. I will sweeten anyone who will come to me to bless me on the occasion of the first holiday of the Shahada of my son."
[www.islamonline.org]

Palestinian Media Watch has frequently documented that the PA political and religious leadership has promoted the interpretation of Islamic tradition, that Shahada -death is not to be feared, but should be aspired and anticipated with great pleasure. Young men are taught by religious leaders and through video clips that if they die as Shahids, they will join 72 beautiful maidens in Paradise. (see sermon and video clip.) The Palestinian mothers' positive, even joyous, responses to their sons' deaths -- and their celebration of their sons' "marriages" to the maidens of Paradise -- is a result of years of PA indoctrination.
  • Monday, November 22, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
Suha snatches medical dossier before Arafat's nephew gets it, flees to Tunis

Yasser Arafat's widow took possession of his much-sought medical dossier on Friday. She fled with the files after Palestinian TV broadcast a Friday sermon which threatened her life. She reportedly flew to Tunis in Arafat's jet, defying PA orders. Although the French defense ministry decided Nasser al Kidwa could access information on his uncle's mystery illness, Suha's lawyers claim only his widow can.

Suha Arafat obtained the file from the Percy military hospital in suburban Paris in mid-afternoon, attorney Jean-Marie Burguburu told The Associated Press by telephone.

Burguburu declined to give any details about the content of the file, but said the Palestinian leader's widow was considering whether to release the information to the public.

'The decision is in the process of being examined,' he said. 'The problem is, on the one hand, to try to stop all these false ideas about the death of President Arafat - these rumors.'

'Secondly, it's to make sure that there is not any abnormal exploitation of this medical file,' Burguburu said.

Earlier, Palestinian leaders dispatched an emissary to Paris to pick up the records and promised to make public the cause of Arafat's death.

It wasn't immediately clear how the latest development would affect the mission of the emissary -- Nasser al-Kidwa, Arafat's nephew and also the Palestinian representative to the United Nations. He had confirmed to the AP late Thursday that he would be traveling to France.

French officials insist the law prevents them from making Arafat's medical records public -- but they can give them to family members, who can then reveal information if they wish.
"
  • Monday, November 22, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
Yasser Arafat agreed to sign the Oslo Accords because he expected that the agreements would lead thousands of Jews to flee Israel.

Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based daily al-Quds al-Arabi, said Arafat said so when they met in Tunis, days before he returned to the Gaza Strip. 'The man told me, 'Listen, Abdel Bari, I know that you are opposed to the Oslo Accords, but you must always remember what I'm going to tell you. The day will come when you will see thousands of Jews fleeing Palestine. I will not live to see this, but you will definitely see it in your lifetime. The Oslo Accords will help bring this about.''

Before Oslo, Atwan regularly met with Arafat but later became a harsh critic of the Accords and corruption in the Palestinian Authority. He repeatedly called on Arafat to resign.

'President Arafat was the one who established the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in response to the attempt to marginalize him after the failure of the Camp David summit,' Atwan added.

'At the summit, he faced immense pressure from Israel, the US and some Arab parties to compromise on Jerusalem. Ironically, some Arab leaders, including Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz, called Arafat demanding that he display flexibility on the issue of Jerusalem.'

Atwan said Arafat rejected Israel's offers at the summit 'because he wasn't prepared to sign a final agreement with the Jewish state. He was well aware that such an agreement would make him go down in history as a traitor because he would have to give up the right of return for the refugees and most of the sovereignty over east Jerusalem.'

Commenting on Arafat's hope that the Oslo Accords would force thousands of Jews to flee Israel, Atwan said: 'The Jews did not flee from Palestine by the thousands as President Arafat predicted. But they have started packing their bags to run away from the Gaza Strip and some settlements in the West Bank. There are also signs of emigration to Europe, the US and Canada following the suicide bombings and the sense of insecurity among Israelis.'

Friday, November 19, 2004

  • Friday, November 19, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
Anti-Israel Crowd Gets Ugly at San Francisco Counter-Protest
Written by Cinnamon Stillwell

For over a year now, an ongoing battle between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel groups has taken place in the streets of San Francisco. Long used to running the show, the anti-Israel crowd is now routinely counter-protested by groups like San Francisco Voice for Israel and ProtestWarrior.com. And judging by the behavior at last weekend’s counter-protest, they’re not too happy about it. The following after-report from San Francisco Voice for Israel provides the details.

They say that when a caged rat is cornered, it lashes out. A perfect example of this was the Justice In Palestine rally on Saturday, November 13, at the 24th and Mission BART station plaza.

It had not been a good couple of weeks for the anti-Israel forces. Their preferred candidate for president of the United States, Ralph Nader, had gone down to humiliating defeat, achieving a mere 0.5% of the vote. Furthering their angst, master terrorist and father of the Palestinian people, Yassir Arafat, had died of a mysterious illness in a French hospital, and no western head of state came to his funeral. Additionally, newspapers were full of reports of Arafat's corruption and how he fleeced the Palestinian people of billions of dollars.

We knew the anti-Israel crowd was particularly on edge because the week before a Palestinian student group (GUPS) at San Francisco State University violently attacked members of a Republican student organization. Not just with words, but also by throwing food, attempting to destroy the table, and even physical attacks.

With this in mind, we were not surprised when the intimidation started almost immediately as we were setting up at the BART station plaza. We were instantly surrounded by Palestinian flags to the front, and the ''Jews for a Free Palestine'' sign to the back. Undeterred, we raised our Israeli and American flags, put out flyers, and even offered Israeli chocolates, cookies, and tea to anyone who wanted them, from whatever political perspective.

As we prepared to fire up some music, one of their people came over and boasted of the volume capabilities of their own sound system and if we even tried to play music, they would ''shut us down.'' We subsequently discovered that they had even taken the precaution of obtaining an exclusive sound permit to forbid any other type of amplified sound in the plaza!

There were about one hundred of them in total. They comprised the usual collection of Stalinists and other factions from the far left, along with their Arab supporters. Conspicuously absent were the anti-Semitic signs and statements we have come to expect at these events. We numbered roughly 25, with many teenagers, and a handful of Israelis.

Soon it was time for them to bring out their speakers. As this was the ''Targets of the Empire'' rally, they spoke on everything from the San Francisco Hotel Union strike, Cuba, Venezuela, and Haiti, but always tying it back to ''Palestine.'' Unintended irony appeared when a striking hotel worker spoke, but failed to mention that the American Israeli Policy Advisory Committee (AIPAC) had moved their banquet so as not to cross picket lines. A representative of Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT) tried to claim that it was the Israeli ''occupation of Palestine'' that caused the Palestinian Authority to oppress gays, and that once Israeli control ends, the P.A. will no longer harass, murder, and torture Palestinian gays.

The highlight of the lineup was Dick Becker, head of the local chapter of A.N.S.W.E.R. He railed against us for ''admiring'' Ariel Sharon, despite not a single pro-Sharon sign being present and not a single pro-Sharon statement having been issued. He then went on to praise the al-Qaeda led terrorists in Fallujah and compared them to the Jews who participated in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising during the Holocaust.

Given the statements made by Becker and the other speakers, it was no surprise that the anti-Israel protestors did not want these speeches made public, and so went about attempting to block our filming of the speakers. They waved flags directly in front of the cameras and then when they finally realized the flags were translucent, held up signs. As they doggedly attempted to block filming of the talks, they displayed the very same fascist policies that, at least in principle, they claim to oppose!

The harassment did not stop there, however. As our cameraman attempted to film a polite exchange between an anti-Israel Israeli and a pro-Israel Palestinian, members of QUIT put a flag in front of the camera. They persisted even when the anti-Israel Israeli said she did not mind being filmed! As the cameraman attempted to push the fabric of the flag aside, the anti-Israel activists started shouting, ''You're provoking us! You're provoking us!'' repeatedly.

They were clearly itching for a fight, and when we would not take the bait, they tried to initiate violence themselves. Twice they tried to assault us, but the nearby San Francisco police were ready. They had heard about the SFSU attacks and swooped in as soon as the anti-Israel activists got violent.

The distinct ugliness of this rally – the harassment, the intimidation, and the thwarted attempts at physical violence – represents an acceleration of the continued moral decline of the anti-Israel activists. No longer content to merely lie about the situation and to glorify al-Qaeda, Hamas, and other terrorists, they are resorting to puffing up their chests and lashing out at us, while trying to suppress public dissemination of their ideas and their agenda.

They failed.

They failed to intimidate any of us. They failed to hurt any of us physically. They failed to suppress the truth.

They now know that we will not back down.

They know we are tracking them, and they are running scared. As a result, they lash out.

We know that with the truth, morality, and justice on our side, we will prevail.
  • Friday, November 19, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
A new TV series called 'The Ambassador' features 14 Israelis trying to outdo each other battling Israel's global image problem in the face of a 4-year-old Palestinian uprising.

Devised by an American-Jewish benefactor, the series begins airing next week with contestants in business suits plying their propaganda skills at various foreign locales, a Channel Two advertisement said on Thursday.

In a format recalling the U.S. reality show 'The Apprentice,' where participants vie for a management post under magnate Donald Trump, an Israeli panel including an ex-security chief and a former army spokesman will weed out the winner.

The prize: an all-expenses-paid year working as an Israeli public relations liaison in New York.

Israeli crackdowns on a Palestinian revolt raging in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since September 2000 have drawn censure internationally, and many Israelis say their politicians lack the personality or language skills to offset the bad press.
  • Friday, November 19, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
The progressive Egyptian intellectual Dr. Amr Isma'il whose articles are regularly published on the secular Arab website www.rezgar.com, wrote an article condemning the Arabs' lack of self-criticism and the Islamists' abuse of the term "democracy." The following are excerpts from the article, which appeared on the progressive Arabic website www.elaph.com: [1]

'Why Do We Talk by Means of Bullets, and Hasten to Make Sweeping Accusations of Unbelief?'

"Why can't we see things as the rest of the world sees them? Why do we always feel that someone is conspiring against us, and that he is the cause of our problems and our cultural and economic backwardness?… Why are we not able to criticize ourselves and [why do] we view anyone who tries to do so as an enemy of the nation and of its principles, and other things of this kind that make some people afraid to think?…

"Why do we talk among ourselves by means of bullets, bombs, and car bombs, and when we disagree we hasten to accuse [our interlocutor] of unbelief and of being dragged after the West and the East? Why don't we recognize that nobody among us has the answer to all the questions and whoever pretends to have the absolute truth is nothing but a pretender? Have we heard that in any respectable country the parties and political streams talk by means of bullets, as sometimes happens between the various factions in Gaza and as is happening now in Iraq?…"

'We Kill, Blow Up Cars, and Slit Throats in the Name of Allah, Yet Protest When Others Depict Muslims as Terrorists'

"Why are we the only nations in the world that still use religion, Islam, and the name of Allah in everything – in politics, economics, science, art, and literature. We kill in the name of Allah, blow up cars in the name of Allah, and slit throats in the name of Allah and Islam, and then we protest when others depict the Muslims as terrorists. We indiscriminately kill doctors who went to provide medical care to Afghans, and then we protest when the world describes these acts as acts of terror. We blow up embassies and trains [and consequently] children, women, and citizens with no connection to our cause are killed, and then we protest when the world describes these extremists, who view themselves as Muslims, as terrorists.

"We do not ask ourselves why no other religious group perpetrates these acts of atrocity, and when a terrorist country like Israel does so, it does not say it is killing in the name of the Lord or in the name of Allah, but claims it is doing so out of self-defense. Why Allah is [held responsible] for our bad deeds and for our desire for revenge... Why don't we act like [Israel] and say that these acts are for self-defense or for defense of the homeland, without bringing Allah and Islam into it? Why don't we ever ask ourselves what are the roots of extremist thinking and why don't we try to deal with it? When other countries demand that we deal with these roots and reconsider them, we scream that they are intervening in our internal affairs and that they are the enemies of Islam. Why don't we ask ourselves whether anyone had demanded that we reconsider our curricula before we blew up the [World] Trade towers and killed thousands, and before we blew up the trains in Madrid and killed hundreds, and before we kidnapped hostages and slaughtered them on the TV screens, so that the entire world would see our ugly face?"

'Democracy is the Best Regime, and has Brought Progress and Prosperity to Those Countries that Have Adopted It'


"Why can our brain not understand that democracy has proven itself to be the best regime and that it has brought progress and prosperity to those countries that have adopted it? Why can our brain not understand that democracy is not just the election ballots, but is an entire framework, the most important [aspect] of which is freedom of choice, in religion, in belief, in attire, and in the freedom to express political and cultural opinions, even if they differ from what is accepted, as long as they do not incite to violence. Why don't we understand that democracy is complete equality between people, regardless of sex, color, or religion…

"We have reached a crossroads. If we want Islam as a political solution, not as a religion … we must be strong and admit honestly that Islam – according to the belief of groups of political Islam that follow bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri's organization – stands in utter contradiction to democracy in its true meaning… Let all the political Islamic groups, and first and foremost the 'Muslim Brotherhood,' cease their policy of concealing [their real opinions] and show their true faces [and reveal] that they are trying [to bring] an Islamic rule that at best will be no different from Iran, and at worst, [no different] from the Taliban…

"However, if we want a democracy, we cannot avoid agreeing that religion must not [be mixed up] with politics, which is the expression of the people. Since most of our peoples are Muslims, they will not legislate laws that contradict the principles and spirit of Islam, and they do not need parties that claim to speak in the name of religion, [while in actual fact] they are appropriating it in the name of their political and mundane interests.

"Democracy has only one meaning: No party or political trend has [the right] to claim that it absolutely and everlastingly represents the people. Governing is a ball that we pass between ourselves… Citizenship, and its attendant rights and obligations, belongs to all those who live in the homeland, regardless of sex, color, or religion. The most basic civil right is the right to vote and the right to present candidacy to any public office, including the presidential office, whether man or woman, Muslim or non-Muslim, as long as they uphold the constitution and pledge not to change it, except through the means of change determined in the constitution itself, and to which the people have agreed.

"This is democracy. If we want a different regime, let us call it by any other name except democracy. Otherwise we will be using the tools of democracy in order to destroy it, just as those who conceal [their true opinions] in our world – and these are, regretfully, many."

[1] http://www.elaph.com/elaphweb/AsdaElaph/2004/10/19110.htm, October 31, 2004.
  • Friday, November 19, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
Relief is perhaps the best way to describe the private reaction of most Arab officials to the sudden and somewhat ambiguous death of Yasser Arafat, the icon of the Palestinian struggle for the past 40 years.

In public, before their own constituencies, these same officials laid on what they felt obliged to provide: a red carpet funeral. Most major Arab leaders and senior representatives were on hand in Cairo to pay their last, and somewhat belated respects to a man they had largely forgotten during his nearly three-year siege in Ramallah.

But beyond the honours of a brief state funeral, Arafat received very little recognition from his fellow Arab leaders. Official statements eulogising the Palestinian leader sounded more like a simple notification of another death, rather than any genuine outpouring of grief at the loss of a revolutionary hero.

At the Cairo headquarters of the Arab League, a two-hour ceremony was held to collectively eulogise Arafat, in response to a request circulated by the Palestinian permanent mission in Cairo and strongly supported by Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa.

But once the ceremonies had ended, there was hardly any further mention of him. Instead, Arab capitals began talking about the need to 'capture the moment' and 'seize the opportunity' to get the US to start moving on the Palestinian-Israeli front. In addition, papers are already being drafted in at least a couple of Arab capitals to be presented at a Barcelona process foreign ministers' meeting in The Netherlands, the current rotating chair of the European Union, in the hope of instilling new momentum into the peace process.

In a syndicated article, 'Arafat left, leaving the Palestinians with an ever vivid dream of independence', run by the Saudi-owned, London-based Asharq Al-Awsat, King Abdullah of Jordan, who was known to have an uneasy relationship with Arafat, as did his late father King Hussein, described the death of the PLO leader as 'a new chance for peace'.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, certain Arab diplomats, in particular those from countries with direct borders with the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel, were explicit in expressing their relief at the death of Arafat. For them, his passing marks the end to the presumptuous obstacles that the Palestinian leader had thrown up on the road to a settlement with Israel, largely for the sake of his own glory. Some see his death as heralding an end to the oppressive control that he had exercised over the Palestinian resistance movements, including Hamas and Jihad. Other diplomats are breathing a sigh of relief at the demise of a leader they considered too self-centred to really care about the misfortunes of his own people.

In six interviews conducted by Al-Ahram Weekly since Arafat's death, there was not a single word of sorrow expressed by any Arab diplomatic source. Indeed, for many, Arafat's death would seem to mark not an end, but a new beginning. This sentiment was also expressed by some Palestinians, who were known for their opposition to Arafat's authoritarian style of rule.

'It is understandable, in a way, that Arab leaders work in a totalitarian manner,' one Palestinian source said. 'They are leaders with states. But Arafat was not a leader with a state; he was the leader of an independence movement.' According to the source, at one point Arafat seemed even to wish to fool himself, claiming that he was a true 'Arab president' in order to be received at the White House.

Given the dominance of such perceptions in diplomatic circles, it is hardly surprising that Arafat's passing has been an occasion for a general sigh of relief. 'He thought he could keep on playing his games of saying 'yes' to one person and 'no' to another over the same offer,' one diplomatic source said. 'He thought he could be the leader of the Intifada and the leader of the peace treaties at the same time. That was impossible. That was the reason that in the end, nobody was willing to burn his fingers for him, because we all knew his real game.'
  • Friday, November 19, 2004
  • Elder of Ziyon
Palestinian Authority policemen rescued three Palestinians from a collapsed tunnel through which they were attempting to smuggle weapons a few hundred meters from the Egypt-Israel border in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday.
The three were arrested by Palestinian security forces and transfered to Israel for medical treatment. The Israel Defense Forces made their rescue possible on condition that they be transfered to the army afterward.

The three, all from the same family, were trapped in rubble after the tunnel collapsed due to heavy rain in the area overnight. The family is from the Yabna refugee camp in Gaza.

Military sources said the tunnel collapsed while an unknown number of Palestinians were digging toward an IDF outpost near Rafah in southern Gaza.

The sources said the army had permitted two Palestinian bulldozers to enter the area to help dig out the people.

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