Hamas re-iterates its desire for genocide

Hamas ruled out any truce with Israel Sunday and repeated its desire to destroy the Jewish state, rejecting what had appeared to be more conciliatory comments by one of the Islamic militant group's leaders.

'There is no talk about a truce now at all,' Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a top Hamas leader, told reporters.

'Our strategy is to liberate all Palestinian soil,' Zahar said, referring to the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.

Funny how Reuters throws Israel itself as the third item, almost as an afterthought. A responsible reporter would have said "referring to all of Israel, as well as the West Bank and Gaza." - EoZ

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The Violin and the Guitar

By Frimet Roth December 2, 2004

The past week saw a flurry of harsh accusations and lame defenses hurled between the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) and Machsom Watch, a self-appointed watchdog of Israel's security checkpoints.

The catalyst was a video taken by a Machsom Watch volunteer. It shows a Palestinian playing a violin at a checkpoint while a line of Palestinians stands behind him, waiting. This appeared on the cover page of the November 25 edition of the Israeli daily, Haaretz. The accompanying account, written by Akiva Eldar, begins with this: "An officer and soldier ... forced a Palestinian youth to play his violin for them." The article mentions that the volunteer's "shocked" reaction to the scene was related to her status as "the child of a holocaust survivor."

Eldar quotes the official response of an IDF spokesman. While conceding that the incident demonstrates "insensitive treatment by soldiers contending with a complicated and dangerous reality", the IDF adds that everything is being done "to improve the situation at roadblocks". The Palestinian, according to Haaretz, was asked to remove his violin to confirm that no explosives were concealed within it. To that extent, the inspection was deemed acceptable. However, requiring the man to play his violin was, in Haaretz's view, abusive and demeaning.

Three days later in Haaretz's pages again, the veteran left-wing Knesset member Yossi Sarid devoted an op-ed to the 'outrage' in which he speculated on possible justifications the army might have had for demanding the music. Ever the cynic, he writes: "Perhaps the soldiers decided to entertain those waiting on that stationary line so they wouldn't grow impatient or angry ... perhaps the soldiers are classical music fans, in particular of solo violin...."

The violinist is 28 years old and clearly balding in the photo. But for Haaretz and Sarid he is, eternally, a Palestinian "youth".

Also responding in a letter to Haaretz was a former principal violinist for the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. He writes: "Over a decade ago, I found myself in a very similar situation. During a concert tour in Great Britain, we arrived at Belfast airport and at border control I was asked to open my violin case and immediately afterwards even to play for them? It is appropriate to point out that musical instrument cases have been used at times to hide weapons." (He cites a movie and television show as examples.) In letters to the Jerusalem Post, other musicians described similar requests to play their instruments at overseas airport inspections.

Nevertheless, the notion that the request of this Palestinian to play was humiliating and unjustified could not be laid to rest. Even the IDF bought it in revising its statement to deny that the request had been made at all. The Palestinian had volunteered to play, was its claim now.

One of the Machsom Watch activists present at the scene originally agreed with the IDF's amended version. However, she retracted her testimony on learning that the Palestinian insisted he had played only because he had been ordered to play and that he had felt humiliated as a result.

The activist decided she liked his version better. She explained her see-sawing to the press: "I gave my first version before I read the Palestinian violinist's testimony which appeared yesterday.... I was prepared to believe the soldier's version but when I learned that the Palestinian rejects it, I had no reason to favor the soldier's version."

It's worth noting that the Machsom Watch activists at the roadblock all conceded that they hadn't heard the actual conversation between the soldier and the Palestinian. Even if they had, it was in Arabic, a language not one of them (by their own account) understands.

The story of the soldier and the violinist has been blown way out of proportion to its significance. I too would like it removed from the media burner. But not before another musical instrument gets its deserved mention.

I'm referring to a guitar. One that also grabbed a few headlines on 9th August, 2001.

On that morning, Izzadin Al-Masri, the newly-religious son of a well-to-do Palestinian restaurateur, passed through a machsom -- a checkpoint -- on the edge of West Jerusalem. Accompanied by a Palestinian women dressed as an Israeli to allay suspicions, he strode into the center of the city. A guitar case was slung over his shoulder. At 1:45 pm, he reached the intersection of King George and Jaffa streets. The restaurant was packed with mothers and children. This was lunch time, and the country's schools were closed for summer vacation. Al-Masri entered easily -- there was no security guard. Seconds later, he activated the explosives in his guitar and murdered fifteen Israelis in cold blood. My daughter Malki, 15, was one of them.

Has Machsom Watch forgotten that terror attack? Did Haaretz as well? And what about the apologetic IDF spokesperson? Or does the meddlesome Machsom Watch have them all shivering in their pants?

The person who truly ought to make them shiver is Abdullah Barghouti. On Tuesday, this senior Hamas operative was sentenced to 67 life terms in prison for his responsibility in terror attacks that resulted in the deaths, by murder, of 66 Israelis. Barghouti lived in his native Kuwait until five years ago when he moved to Ramallah. An engineer, he built the bomb that murdered the Sbarro fifteen as well as the victims of two other lethal attacks in Jerusalem and another in Rishon Letzion.

I watched him on television confessing that, yes, he did fill a guitar with explosives. "In a guitar? Why in a guitar?" a shocked TV interviewer asked.

"This is war," the stone-faced Barghouti answered.

It seems to me that far too many people have forgotten that basic truth. This is war. We are under attack. Machsom Watch volunteers have a problem acknowledging that. It is a dangerous problem.

One day, an IDF soldier on machsom duty, distracted and intimidated by those camera-clicking, note-scribbling activists, is going to cut short a routine security check to appease them.

The results might be very far from routine.

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A pro-Israel group teaches us a lesson about Evangelicals and ourselves

By Jonathan S. Tobin

Can a group number as many as 70 million individuals fly under the radar? Outside of the context of politics, Christian evangelicals are virtually invisible in American culture, except to be laughed at or feared.

Just as the image of the Jew can be a dangerously misleading generalization, the same is true for the image of the evangelical.

Listen to many Jews talk about conservative Christians and you'd think they're discussing the Taliban.

This disconnect between image and reality is of no small importance in the aftermath of a presidential election in which evangelicals and "moral values" voters are said to have provided the margin of victory for President Bush.

As much as many Jews like to think of themselves as open-minded (i.e., liberal), there is more to the divide between Jews and evangelicals than disagreements about church-state separation or abortion.

Some of the same people who are most fearful of the Christian right are also quick to dismiss the support that many of them demonstrate for Israel. They tend to put it down to millenarian beliefs based in a fundamentalist worldview that values Jews only to the extent that they help bring on an end-of-days Messianic return of Jesus.

All of which should prompt us -- no matter where are votes went earlier this month -- to ask: Who really are these evangelical moralists?

CHRISTIANS WHO GIVE
In searching for the answer to that question, one group whose contributors are almost all evangelicals ought to give pause to those most convinced of the Christian right's perfidy.

The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (www.ifcj.org) has been around for two decades, operating on the margins of the Jewish world but deeply embedded in the hearts of evangelicals.

Founded by Chicago-based Yechiel Eckstein, an Orthodox rabbi, and intended to be a partnership between Jews and non-Jews, some 98 percent to 99 percent of its money now comes from the Christian right.

Where does the money go? To the same sort of programs that dollars raised by local Jewish federations across the country: to aid in the immigration and absorption of Jews to Israel, and to help care for needy Jews and endangered Jewish communities in places like the former Soviet Union, much of it via the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

According to George Mamo, a Philadelphia-born evangelical who serves as chief operating officer of the group, the fellowship raises around $45 million per year for these purposes, most of it coming in small gifts from more than 350,000 American Christians.

Most of the money comes in as a result of infomercials on Christian TV stations, but it winds up funding projects such as the $500,00 the group recently gave to provide security for Turkish synagogues previously targeted by Islamic terrorists.

Mamo says the group's database shows that most of those who give to the fellowship are "giving sacrificially."

Some, he told me, even tithe to this cause out of their Social Security checks.

Do they do it because they think this will bring on Armageddon? Surveys conducted by the group reveal that this is the belief of only a tiny percentage. Instead, says Mamo, most of it is based on a reading of scripture that the Lord will bless those "who bless the seed of Abraham."

Eckstein has written that these Bible-based beliefs blend in a love for the Jewish people with a need for contrition for millennia of Christian persecution of Jews, as well as a sense of Israel as a fellow democracy. All of this is in direct contrast with the drift toward anti-Zionism among liberal Protestant sects of late.

Mamo answers those who view evangelical Zionism with distaste by responding that "most of us recognize that without Judaism, there would be no Christianity."

Nor do most of them anticipate any mass conversion, as Jewish critics contend. "We believe G-d is sovereign," says Mamo. "There is no magic number of Jews [who make aliyah] that will bring about a transformation of the world. Nobody believes that."

He tells stories of various small contributors who may not know any Jews in their own communities, but who believe Jews "are the apple of G-d's eye" -- and are thus owed support.

Nobody is saying that Jews who disagree with evangelicals on a host of domestic issues should stop advocating for what they believe to be right.

Nor should we lower our guard on the separation of religion and state. Even those of us who are less extreme on separation issues (such as supporters of much-needed school-choice initiatives) cannot share the blithe dismissal of separation that is often heard on the right.

DEBATE WITH RESPECT
But what we should be doing is debating these issues fairly. We should not allow disparaging stereotypes about evangelicals to characterize our interaction with them. And we should reprove those who use such hateful words just as we would hope our Christian neighbors would react similarly to anti-Semitic comments.

Nor should we accept wild and wholly inaccurate charges about a supposed conservative drive to undo the Bill of Rights.

And, most of all, we should stop questioning their loyalty to Israel. On that point, evangelicals have established their bona fides. If they do indeed have more clout, you can bet they will use some of it to back up the Israelis if a new diplomatic process puts them in a corner.

Will many Jews do as much?

And, as the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has shown, many of them are willing to put their money where their mouths are -- to help Jews in need and to aid Israel.

We ought to be touched by the story of what this group has accomplished, as well as moved by the willingness of so many of its contributors to give to Jewish causes.

Disagree all you want with the evangelicals, but give them their due. They have earned our respect. As Yechiel Eckstein and George Mamo have proved, they have given as much to us.

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A bit under the weather

"He's a bit under the weather but in a couple of days he should be back to work."

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MEMRI::Kuwaiti Progressive Scholar: 'All the Good is in Secular Thought, All the Evil in Religious Thought'

The Kuwaiti progressive scholar Ahmad Al-Baghdadi, a political science lecturer at Kuwait University, recently published several articles in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa, denouncing religious thought and praising secularism. The following are excerpts from the articles:

'Muslims Have no Future as Long as They are Subjected to Religious Thought'

In an article titled 'Secularism and Life,' Al-Baghdadi claimed that only a society free of religion could make progress and develop, arguing that Islamic religious thought prevents progress and development:

"… Secularism as a [world] view and as a way of life was not formed in a vacuum, but is the outcome of the painful life experience of human beings which has continued for close to a millennium and in the course of which the religious thought of the Church, devised by the religious clergy, was abolished… During this experience, Western man lived in intellectual darkness and [endured] devastating wars in a period called 'the Dark Middle Ages.'

"For the person educated in sciences, industry, finances, politics, and culture there was only one solution, which constitutes a refuge for the poor societies. That [solution] is: distancing the man of the cloth from life… From that moment on, the Western world became the only world to develop, progress, and flourish in all spheres of life.

"In order [to avoid] being accused of subjectivity against the religious way of thought, let us present examples from the reality of life in the Muslim and Arab countries:

"1. Religious thought is the only way of thought nowadays that refuses to accept the 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights' on religious grounds, and this constitutes an obstacle to [the realization of] these rights in the Islamic countries, not only in the matter of inheritance, but also in matters such as equality, freedom of thought, and freedom of speech.

"2. Islamic religious thought is the only way of thought nowadays to persist in [accusations] of ridda [apostasy]… Unfortunately, this persistence [leads to] the killing of human beings, even without trial.

"3. Religious thought objects to freedom of thought and freedom of speech when religion is criticized. Moreover, religious thought reveres things that religion itself does not instruct [us] to revere. Thus, for example, regarding [the immunity from criticism of] the Prophet's companions, who are not considered part of the principles of religion or of the roots of belief. Religious thought does not distinguish between religion and its believers.

"4. Religious thought is still anti-woman even if the religious clerics claim otherwise.

"5. Religious thought is opposed to human health in matters of treatment and medicine. The prohibition of including alcohol in most medicines leads to their reduced effectiveness… [Moreover,] the Muslim doctor nowadays does not dare to instruct a patient not to fast [during the month of Ramadhan], and the hospitals therefore become full of patients who fasted.

"6. Religious thought supports political tyranny, because it opposes democracy and the constitution. [For example,] in Kuwait [some] strive to destroy the constitution and the constitutional state, and in Saudi Arabia there is complete opposition to democracy.

"7. If we were to imagine that an [Arab] regime adopted a certain religious school of thought, what could happen to the other schools of thought?

"8. Religious thought opposes the Other, accuses him of heresy, and objects to living by his side. Proof of this are the supplications and appeals [to Allah] that we hear in the mosques to destroy all non-Muslims and harm them, rather than requesting guidance for them on the straight path, [as would have occurred] had there been an ounce of human tolerance.

"9. Religious thought is the main reason for the production of terror, because of the negative interpretations of the [Quranic] verses regarding Jihad.

"10. Religious thought opposes any kind of creativity and art…

"The West did not make progress until it became free of this way of thinking. This is the only solution facing the Muslims. They have no future as long as they are subjected to religious thought." [1]

'Muslim Countries cannot Adopt Secularism because its Principles Contradict Tyranny, Oppression, Backwardness, and Anarchy'

In an article published two days later in Al-Siyassa, titled 'The Good in Secularism and the Bad in You,' Al-Baghdadi explained the differences between secular and Islamic countries:

"There is no Islamic country in which a Christian or a Jew could reveal a cross or a skullcap, and get away with it peacefully. In addition, members of [other] human religions, like Buddhism and Hinduism, are prohibited from conducting their ceremonies in public, even with governmental approval, without people harming them, as happened at the Hindu place of worship in Kuwait. In contrast to this religious persecution [in Islamic countries,] of which the [Islamic] religious stream boasts, there is no secular country that prohibits the construction of mosques, even in the event that the government does not finance them. Moreover, there is no secular country that prevents the Muslim from praying in public…

"There is no church in the secular Christian world in which a priest stands and curses anyone who disagrees with his religion or prays for trouble and disaster to befall them, as do the preachers in our Friday sermons. [Moreover,] our religious thought has no parallel to the message recently pronounced by the present Pope regarding the importance of peace for all. Contrary to the ease with which a mosque is built in secular Europe and America, the construction of a church [in a Moslem country] is carried out only with the approval of the country's president, [and even then] it is rare.

"There is no non-Muslim religious institute that teaches its students to hate the Other, claiming that he is considered an infidel, doomed to hell, regardless of whether he was of any use to mankind. This hatred is present in the curricula of the Islamic religion.

"Throughout [Muslim] history there has not been one Muslim judge who strived to attain justice for a non-Muslim who was wronged, whereas the U.S. and Europe have saved many peoples from oppression, while sacrificing human life and property in order to save other [peoples.] [In this context] one cannot but note the benevolence of the secular toward the Kuwaitis when they decided to liberate Kuwait and reinstate the honor of its government and its people.

"In the secular world the author, the intellectual, and the journalist are not sent to jail for their opinions – with the exception of the European laws concerning the denial of the Holocaust that annihilated the Jews of Europe, because this is a fact from which the European conscience still suffers. [Even in such a case, the Holocaust denier] is not imprisoned, but is merely fined. They do not consider him a murtadd [apostate], and do not seek his death, try to assassinate him, harm his livelihood, or separate him from his wife and children. In contrast, the extremist Muslims and the Islamic clerics often adopt ideological terror, issuing calls for killing, and accusations of ridda [apostasy]…

"Those in the religious stream cannot avoid admitting that all the good is in the secular thought, and all the evil is in the religious thought, for they take advantage of religion in order to harm not only people but religion itself, to the point that Muslims no longer respect their religion, and they start to exploit it for financial gain by selling Islamic books and drink.

"Do you know why Allah helps the secular country? Because it is just. Why doesn't He help countries that build mosques every day? Because these countries are oppressive…

"The Muslim countries cannot adopt secularism for a simple reason: the principles of secularism contradict the outlook of these countries, which are based on tyranny, oppression, aggression, backwardness, and anarchy. Moreover, these countries exploit religious thought in order to impose their legitimacy. Thus you find that they are the most avid supporters of the religious groups, knowing that these groups include those who support terrorism and harm society. For the religious groups do not support rights and justice as much as they support oppression and tyranny, whereas secularism [acts] in the opposite manner." [2]

[1] Al-Siyassa (Kuwait), November 14, 2004.

[2] Al-Siyassa (Kuwait), November 16-17, 2004.

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An Analytic Approach to Campus Pro-Israeli Activism - Case Study

Anti-Israeli campus groups have made inroads at American universities by using the campus media, creating strategic partnerships with mainstream left-wing groups, and supporting certain members of the faculty and staff. Pro-Israeli activists who wish to combat this threat must respond to all three of these avenues by getting organized, utilizing the media, and maintaining relationships with organizations, campus influentials, and the Jewish community. The Coalition of Hopkins Activists for Israel (CHAI) was created in September 2000 to enact these steps in seeking to preempt potential anti-Israelism on the Johns Hopkins University's Homewood campus.

.....

Conclusion

Anti-Israeli activism - often called pro-Palestinian activism - stands on three legs: strategic relationships, professors, and the media. Each must be addressed systematically by pro-Israeli activists. Although CHAI, like most other pro-Israeli organizations on American campuses, began as an ad hoc, quick-response group addressing bias and misinformation, it quickly developed a larger mission. It geared its strategy to the specific character of JHU and concentrated on the types of activity most likely to succeed there. Since JHU tends to be cerebral and not actively political (that is, while many students study politics, they are not involved in political protests, debates, and large-scale campaigns), education campaigns, with emphasis on exposing bias in the media, were deemed the best approach.13 At the same time, CHAI established its niche in the university's Jewish community.

Once the on-campus approach proved successful, it was important to forge relationships within the university and the larger Jewish community. By involving university officials in the planning and execution of events, CHAI maintained a significant profile within the university. By planning events that drew the larger Jewish community to the campus, CHAI became an integral part of the Baltimore pro-Israeli community. Relationships with alumni and professors have also been critical in effecting long-term change on the campus. Finally, CHAI's connections with a broader pro-Israeli network have proved important for training activists and for planning and refining the group's activities.

Four years after CHAI's creation, all its original founders have graduated and left the area. However, the mark of success is that CHAI members now play a role in all the major campus organizations, and have maintained the ties with the university officials and faculty. Indeed, this campus has never become prone to extreme or violent anti-Israeli activity.

The main lesson from CHAI's experience is that it is crucial that pro-Israeli activism be conducted strategically.

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Misfit at the mosque

Prof. Khaleel Mohammed is not a beloved figure among Muslim students in the United States. His visits to campuses to lecture are almost always accompanied by demonstrations of protesters condemning his opinions and his views. He has also felt hostile looks at the mosque where he used to worship in the city where he lives, San Diego, and therefore he rarely goes there. And indeed Mohammed's views are very unusual in the Arab world. His main thesis is that the Holy Land (according to most commentators, this refers to the area of Israel-Palestine) was given to the Jews. He takes this from the Koran itself, the divine book that is sanctified by Muslims, and is prepared to do battle with anyone who disagrees with him.
"O my people! Go into the holy land which Allah hath ordained for you. Turn not in flight, for surely ye turn back as losers," says the Prophet Moussa (Moses) to his people, the Children of Israel, in verse 21 of Sura (Koran chapter) 5, which is called "Al Ma'ida" ("The Table Spread"; English translation by Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, "The Meaning of the Glorious Qu'ran," 1930).

Sinful behavior

The word "ordained" is a translation of the Arabic word katab, a strong imperative that implies compulsion, orders and the determining of fate. "If Allah katab the Holy Land to the Jews, then it is theirs unless stated otherwise - and it is not stated otherwise in the Koran," explains Prof. Mohammed. The continuation of the koranic story, which is based to a large extent on the biblical story, is that the Children of Israel refused to enter the land that was promised or bequeathed to them. They were afraid to do this because it was inhabited at the time by "a nation of giants" that frightened them. Because of their refusal of Moses' call and their cowardice, the land was forbidden to them for 40 years and they lost their way without the guidance of the Prophet Moses. From that moment, they were considered a nation of criminals who defy divine will.

"[Their Lord] said: "For this land will surely be forbidden them for forty years that they will wander in the earth, bewildered. So grieve not over the wrongdoing folk" (verse 26; Pickthall). Prof. Mohammed stresses that this refers to a period of 40 years only. "They received punishment for their sins - a prohibition limited in time on their entry to the land. This makes no difference to the principle whereby the land was intended for them," he says. "The establishment of the State of Israel is the expression of the fact that the Jews desired to return to their land. The State of Israel was established thanks to the `Jewish jihad,' and the acts of terror that are being carried out by Palestinians inside Israel are not jihad because this is not their land."

The Children of Israel are mentioned in the Koran several dozen times, and usually the attitude toward them is ambivalent. The Koran respects the chosen people because Allah chose it. Allah favors the Children of Israel, sends them prophets and makes them kings, but they disobey his commandments. They are supposed to observe God's laws, believe in the law, keep the Sabbath - but they do not do this. The most flagrant act of disobedience is the refusal to enter the "holy land" that was promised to them. The sinful behavior of the Children of Israel is what causes the decline in their status.

The Koran stresses that they lose their senior status in favor of the new community that is gaining strength in the region, the Muslim-Arab community. As Prof. Uri Rubin of Tel Aviv University writes in his book "Between Bible and Qu'ran: The Children of Israel and the Islamic Self-Image" (Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, Darwin Press, 1999), the Koran concentrates on the choosing of Israel only to show that the Children of Israel broke their commitment to God and thus lost their status. In order to prove this, it brings at length the biblical stories of the sins that the Children of Israel committed on their way to the promised land. In the eyes of mainstream Islam, the fact that the Children of Israel broke their commitment sufficed to deprive them of all their rights, including the rights to the Holy Land.

Not afraid

Prof. Mohammed, 40, was born in Guyana in South America, studied classical Islamic theology at Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He did his master's degree in Judaism and Islam in Canada, and afterwards completed a doctorate in Islamic law at McGill University in Montreal. He currently teaches at San Diego State University. He says he is not afraid to voice his opinions, even though they are not liked. "These are my opinions, and I am prepared to debate them with anyone. The average Muslim is not prepared to conduct a discussion about this. He needs backing from sheikhs and imams," he says. It is clear he enjoys the debate.

Prof. Mohammed is in Jerusalem as the guest of the Jerusalem Summit, an organization with a right-wing orientation that is currently holding a conference at the King David Hotel. Tomorrow morning, he will present his theories at a panel discussion on "Focusing on Elements of Tolerance and Openness in the Koran."

It is doubtful Mohammed's colleagues on the panel will accept what he has to say. General (ret.) Mansour Abu Rashid, formerly head of Jordanian intelligence, will chair the panel. He belongs to the dwindling number of Jordanians who still support peace with Israel. All he needs is for the opposition in Jordan to accuse him of collaborating with someone who brings a revolutionary interpretation of the Koran, as this involves not only political opinions but also opinions that undermine modern Islamic thought.

Prof. Yohanan Friedmann of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, an internationally respected expert on Islam who will also participate in the panel discussion, would like to take a far more cautious approach with respect to the relevant verses. "The Koran is a difficult book. It is customary to try to understand it through the various commentators who worked on it during the course of history, and the shelves are laden with books that testify to how many people have tried to do this. But it is necessary to be very careful about using the Koran for current political purposes," he says diplomatically.

Prof. Friedmann believes it is impossible to harness scripture to the political conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, because for every verse, its opposite can be found. According to him, it is possible that the Koran says that the Holy Land was given to the Jews, but it also says that they were big sinners.

No proof of ownership

Prof. Mohammed agrees that the use of koranic verses in the context of current political questions is problematic, but he says he does this because the national conflict in the region has become a religious conflict. Testifying to this more than anything is the fact that Yasser Arafat would make use of a term taken from this group of verses. He used to call the Palestinian people sha'ab al jabarin, the nation of giants, referring to the nation that the Children of Israel feared as they approached the Holy Land.

Prof. Mohammed almost sounds like he is ready to throw himself into battle. "I show Muslims who use religious arguments that they don't have a case. Even the Koran, the basis of our religion, states explicitly that this is land that belongs to the Jews." With regard to the future of the Palestinian inhabitants, Mohammed refrains from expressing a clear opinion: "They have the right to exist with honor. There must not be a situation in which they continue the terror against Israel from within their territories."

Sheikh Abdullah Nimr Darwish, the founder of the Islamic movement in Israel, disagrees entirely with Prof. Mohammed's opinion. He is very familiar with the relevant verse, and in his opinion it does not prove any ownership of the land. "The verse says that Moussa's people must enter the Holy Land. Does ownership derive from this? When I invite someone to enter my office, does the office become his? Definitely not."

In Darwish's opinion, the fact that Abraham and Jacob paid for their burial site with money shows that the land did not belong to the Children of Israel. "If we're talking about religion, then according to Islam only the prophets inherit from one another. Mohammed succeeded all the prophets who came before him, including Moussa, who is Moses, and he brought the word to all human beings. This does not mean that the Muslims are claiming the lands of others if they do not have certification of ownership in the land registry, and the use of the world katab does not justify anything," he says. According to Darwish, the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians is national and political, not religious. "The Palestinians are fighting against the occupation, not against Judaism, and therefore it is necessary to reach a political compromise with them, not a religious compromise," he explains.

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A tender parental moment

An Iranian man, prepares his daughter, who is a member of a suicide commandos unit, by covering her face in the same style of Palestinian and Lebanese militants, during a ceremony where the first suicide commandos unit was inaugurated at the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery just outside Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Dec. 2, 2004. Some 200 masked young men and women gathered at the cemetery Thursday to pledge their willingness to carry out suicide bomb attacks against Americans in Iraq and Israelis.The ceremony was organized by the Headquarters for Commemorating Martyrs of the Global Islamic Movement, a shadowy group that has since June been seeking volunteers for attacks in Iraq and Israel.

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What if it's not Israel they loathe?

Eye of the Storm: What if it's not Israel they loathe?
By AMIR TAHERI

In his recent foray into Ramallah, Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw identified the Palestine-Israel conflict as the most important issue between the West and the Muslim world. Straw was echoing the conventional wisdom according to which a solution to that problem would transform relations between Islam and the West from what is almost a clash of civilizations to one of cuddly camaraderie.

But what if conventional wisdom got it wrong?

I have just spent the whole fasting month of Ramadan in several Arab countries, where long nights are spent eating, drinking coffee and, of course, discussing politics.

There are no free elections or reliable opinion polls in the Arab world. So no one knows what the silent majority really thinks. The best one can do is rely on anecdotal evidence. On that basis, I came to believe that the Palestine-Israel issue was low down on the list of priorities for the man in the street but something approaching an obsession for the political, business, and intellectual elites.

When it came to ordinary people, almost no one ever mentioned the Palestine issue, even on days when Yasser Arafat's death dominated the headlines. When I asked them about issues that most preoccupied them, farmers, shopkeepers, taxi drivers and office workers never mentioned Palestine.

But when I talked to princes and princesses, business tycoons, high officials, and the glitterati of Arab academia, Palestine was the ur-issue.

The reason why the elites fake passion about this issue is that it is the only one on which they agree. In many cases, it is also the only political issue that people can discuss without running into trouble with the secret services.

More importantly, perhaps, it is the one issue on which the elites feel they have the sympathy of the outside world. For example, I found almost no one who, speaking in private, had any esteem for Arafat. But all felt obliged to hide their thoughts because Arafat had been honored by French President Jacques Chirac.

When some Arab newspapers ran articles on Arafat's alleged corruption and despotism, other Arab media attacked them for being disrespectful to a man who had been treated like "a hero of humanity" by Chirac.

Conventional wisdom also insists that the US is hated by Muslims because it is pro-Israel. That view is shared by most American officials posted to the Arab capitals. But is it not possible that the reverse is true – that Israel is hated because it is pro-American?

When I raised that possibility in Ramadan-night debates, I was at first greeted with deafening silence. Soon, however, some interlocutors admitted that my suggestion was, perhaps, not quite fanciful.

Let us consider some facts.

If Muslims hate the US because it backs Israel which, in turn, is oppressing Muslims in Palestine, then why don't other oppressed Muslims benefit from the same degree of solidarity from their co-religionists?

During Ramadan, news came that more than 500 Muslims had been killed in clashes with the police in southern Thailand. At least 80 were suffocated to death in police buses under suspicious circumstances.

The Arab and the Iranian press, however, either ignored the event or relegated it to inside pages. To my knowledge, only one Muslim newspaper devoted an editorial to it. And only two newspapers mentioned that Thailand was building a wall to cordon off almost two million Muslims in southern Thailand – a wall higher and longer than the controversial "security fence" Israel is building.

Muslim states have never supported Pakistan on Kashmir because most were close to India in the so-called nonaligned movement while Pakistan was a US ally in CENTO and SEATO.

When Hindu nationalists demolished the Ayodhya Mosque, no one thought it necessary to inflame Muslim passions.

Nor has a single Muslim nation recognized the republic set up by Muslim Turks in northern Cyprus. The reason? Greece has always sided with the Arabs on Palestine and plays occasional anti-American music while Turkey is a US ally.

When the Serbs massacred 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica 10 years ago, not a ripple disturbed the serene calm of Muslim opinion. At that time, the mullahs of Teheran and Col. Muammar Gaddafi of Libya were in cahoots with Slobodan Milosevic, supplying him with oil and money because Yugoslavia held the presidency of the so-called nonaligned movement. Belgrade was the only European capital to be graced with a state visit by Ali Khamenehi, the mullah who is now the Supreme Guide of the Islamic Republic.

And what about Chechnya which is, by any standard, the Muslim nation that has most suffered in the past two centuries? Last October the Muslim summit in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, gave a hero's welcome to Vladimir Putin, the man who has presided over the massacre of more Chechens than anyone in any other period in Russian history.

Right now there are 22 active conflicts across the globe in which Muslims are involved. Most Muslims have not even heard of most of them because those conflicts do not provide excuses for fomenting hatred against the United States.

Next time you hear someone say the US was in trouble in the Muslim world because of Israel, remember that things may not be that simple.

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Ottawa assails Israel's UN foes

UNITED NATIONS — UN Ambassador Allan Rock Tuesday delivered a scathing denunciation of the General Assembly's resolutions isolating and attacking Israel, confirming a shift in Canada's approach to the Middle East.

During an annual debate on the question of Palestine, Mr. Rock said Canada will vote Wednesday against two key resolutions on which it has abstained in the past, lining up with the United States, often the only major power to defend Israel at the United Nations.

"We believe that the time has come, especially given the renewed hope for the peace process, to evaluate the efforts that all of us make at the United Nations to determine if they could be redirected towards more constructive outcomes," Mr. Rock said.

He said the General Assembly and the much more powerful Security Council should do more to foster respect and trust between Israelis and Palestinians in order to help bring peace to the region.

Canada has typically abstained on resolutions that condemn Israel's occupation of and settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.

Only the United States and a few others have been left to support the embattled Jewish state.

Mr. Rock's speech Tuesday confirmed a shift in approach to UN questions involving the Middle East that has been evident since last summer. Then, Canada abstained on a widely supported resolution that noted the International Court of Justice's finding that Israel's security fence violated international law.

Critics in the Canadian-Arab community suggest the Martin government is in danger of abandoning Canada's long-standing evenhandedness toward the region, while Jewish lobbyists insist the government is merely adjusting its UN positions to reflect its overall approach.

Mr. Rock said General Assembly resolutions on the Middle East are "often divisive and lack in balance" because they condemn Israeli violence but play down attacks against Israeli civilians.

"References to Israeli security needs are often overlooked in the General Assembly. Repeatedly emphasizing Israel's responsibility under international law obscures equally important responsibilities of other parties to the conflict."

He added that the UN often fails to adequately condemn the Palestinians for their failure to rein in terrorists who target civilians or to reform their own governing bodies.

In an effort to be evenhanded, Canada will support a resolution on which it has abstained in the past: It calls for a nuclear-free Middle East and singles out Israel, which is widely suspected (but has never admitted it) to have nuclear capability.

Mr. Rock said the government's fundamental policy toward the Middle East remains unchanged.

It supports Israel's right to exist with secure borders, and its right to defend its citizens from terrorist attacks, in accordance with standards of international law and human rights.

It also supports the creation of a Palestinian state, and opposes the establishment of settlements in the territories, unilateral moves by Israel to annex East Jerusalem and the construction of the security fence inside the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Mazen Chouaib, executive director of the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations, said the shift at the UN sends a troubling signal to Arabs in Canada and around the world.

"It can be read as a message that Canada is abandoning its position as far as the Palestinians are concerned, if this pattern continues," he said. "Canada will start to be seen in a different light; this could send the signal that Canada is abandoning its honest broker's role."

But Shimon Fogel, chief executive of the Canada-Israel Committee, said the UN General Assembly has long been a venue for one-sided, anti-Israeli rhetoric from the Islamic world.

Changing Canada's policy toward votes at the UN has been a cause célèbre for the pro-Israel lobby.

"The concerns about the abuses in the General Assembly, as well as the other institutions of the UN system like the Commission on Human Rights, have been a concern to Canada for a long time," he said.

Mr. Fogel said Canada's more aggressive stand at the UN provides moral support for Israel, rather than having any practical effect.

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Israelis: Give PA one last chance, then strike

Jerusalem Newswire November 30, 2004

JERUSALEM - Nearly two-thirds of Israelis believe the post-Arafat Palestinian Authority should be given one last chance to honor its peace obligations, or face a full-scale Israeli military effort to eliminate the scourge of Palestinian Arab terror.

Asked what Israel should do if the new PA leadership continues to espouse Yasser Arafats policy of anti-Jewish terrorism by this time next year, 60 percent of respondents in a new public opinion poll voted for abandoning peace efforts and dealing with the situation militarily.

Nineteen percent believed Israel should continue to seek a diplomatic settlement with the PA, despite its refusal to curb the ongoing Islamic terror.

Showing public disapproval for Prime Minister Ariel Sharons policies, only one-third of Israelis backed the idea of conducting a unilateral withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Gaza in the face of persistent Palestinian non-compliance.

An overwhelming 80 percent of respondents felt a sovereign Palestinian Arab state ruled by known terrorists would pose an existential or very grave threat to Israel.

The poll was conducted by telephone from November 18-22 among a random sampling of 528 adult Israelis. It was carried out by Maagar Mohot Interdisciplinary Research and Consulting Institute Ltd.

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Egypt said to aid Pal terror, smuggling

EGYPT SAID TO AID PALESTINIAN STRIKES

TEL AVIV [MENL] -- Israel's military has determined that Egypt seeks to weaken Israel through attacks by Palestinian insurgency groups.

Israeli military sources said the assessment was contained in Military Intelligence reports relayed to the General Staff and the Cabinet over the last two months. The sources said MI has determined that Egypt has facilitated the smuggling of weapons and insurgents from the Sinai Peninsula to the Gaza Strip for attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians.

'We are not only talking about weapons,' a senior military source said. 'We are talking about the infiltration of Egyptian and other trainers to help improve the capability of Palestinian terrorist groups and the Palestinian Authority.'

The MI assessment comes amid Israel's effort to launch security cooperation with Egypt. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abu Al Gheit and intelligence chief Gen. Omar Suleiman were scheduled to visit Israel and the Palestinian Authority on Dec. 1.

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PA denies end anti-Israel media incitement

Ramallah, West Bank, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- A Palestinian Information Ministry official denied Tuesday the Palestinian Authority ordered its mass media to stop inciting violence against Israel.

'The news on that subject published by certain Arab and foreign media are completely untrue,' Ahmed Sobh told a local radio in Ramallah.

'The aim of such wrong news is to give the impression to the public in the Arab world that the Palestinian Authority heeds the instructions of Israel instead of achieving the aspirations and ambitions of the Palestinian people,' Sobh said.

Official sources told UPI Monday Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Mahmoud Abbas recently visited PA media and television operations in Ramallah and Gaza and asked them to stop publishing and airing anti-Israel material.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called on the PA to end incitement and change anti-Israel school curriculums as a condition for resuming peace talks. However, the sources said the PA insisted any action on incitement must be reciprocal.

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Ex-Norwegian PM wants east Jerusalem as Palestinian capital

OSLO (AFP) - Former Norwegian prime minister Thorbjoern Jagland called for the creation of an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital as a first step towards stabilizing the region.

'A Palestinian state must be created, with east Jerusalem as its capital... This would be the first and the best of steps to establish a dialogue with Muslims and Arabs,' said Jagland, currently the head of the Norwegian parliament's foreign affairs committee and one of the leading members of the Labour opposition.

Giving in to suicide bombers is the first step? I guess dismantling Israel is step 2, converting all of Europe to Islam is step 3 and giving Iran nukes is step 4, according to this clown. - EoZ

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Iranian 'Sputnik' Could Be Trojan Horse for Tehran's Ballistic Missile Program

Aviation Week & Space Technology reports in its November 29 issue that U. S. intelligence analysts are concerned about the planned launch from Iran, by early 2005, of an Iranian built satellite on an upgraded version of Tehran's largest ballistic missile, the Shahab-3.

The preparations for and launch of one or more Iranian satellite 'is something that needs to be watched closely,' a U. S. government missile analyst familiar with Iranian capabilities told AW&ST.

Such an 'Iranian Sputnik' would elevate the stature of the Iran in the Middle East.

Tehran's satellite launch plans could also be a 'Trojan Horse' to further advance ballistic missile or nuclear warhead related technologies, sources told the magazine. Some of the materials and micro-electronic technologies necessary for Iranian satellite design could also be important for the development of tiny high quality components needed to produce small nuclear weapons, AW&ST reports.

The U. S. intelligence community was taken by surprise in 1998 when a North Korean satellite launch attempt unexpectedly demonstrated a long range North Korean missile capability. U. S. intelligence officials said they do not want to be surprised again, this time by Iran.

Even if they fail initially, Iranian satellite launch attempts would help Iran develop both range and warhead improvements to the Shahab-3 missile under the cover of a civilian space program, AW&ST reports.

If the Iranians are successful with the space launch program, it will have political and technological ramifications in both the U. S. and Middle East. 'It would move the Iranians from the junior varsity into the big leagues,' an analyst told the magazine.

And as previous experience with North Korea shows, such a space launch demonstration can have significant impact in a weapons context. 'Something like that from Iran would certainly have a similar effect in the Middle East,' sources told AW&ST.

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