When rules go out the window and near-torture is self-defence

Al-Qaeda fights outside the Geneva Conventions and so is not protected by them, writes Ted Lapkin.

To borrow from Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, the International Committee of the Red Cross is like any other human rights group, only more so.

For all its public image of impartiality, the Red Cross can play hardball politics with the best of them when it sees fit.

The leaked Red Cross report that accuses the United States of maltreating al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees must be read with a critical eye. According to The New York Times, the Red Cross complained that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were subjected to 'solitary confinement, temperature extremes, use of forced positions'.

While certainly unpleasant, do such practices really meet the legal definition of torture? It seems that even the Red Cross has its doubts, hence its use of the term 'tantamount to torture' in its leaked report.

The United Nations Convention against Torture defines torture rather narrowly, describing it as the intentional infliction of 'severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental' for political or military reasons. It is questionable whether measures cited in the leaked document would meet the 'severe pain or suffering' standard.
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It is true that article 16 of the convention requires that states which are party to it 'shall undertake to prevent' lesser acts 'of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment'. But international legal language is precise. An obligation to 'undertake to prevent' is not the same as an absolute prohibition.

While lesser categories of coercion should not be routine, they should be available to intelligence authorities in case of a classic 'ticking bomb' scenario. If inflicting mild discomfort on a captured al-Qaeda operative could prevent a mass-casualty terrorist attack, would that be a greater offence against morality than allowing the slaughter of innocents to proceed?

The Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War goes well beyond the convention against torture to impose a blanket prohibition on any sort of pressure during questioning. In fact, the Geneva Convention imposes such severe limitations on interrogators that it would outlaw routine investigative procedures used every day by Australian police.

But that point is really academic, because the text of the conventions makes them inapplicable to the conflict with al-Qaeda. Human rights advocacy groups may not like it, but the letter of international law is not always consistent with their political agendas.

These are not simply hypothetical dilemmas that are the stuff of law school classrooms or philosophy seminars. We live in a time when these are real-world questions with real-world consequences. A case in point: last July, when the Chicago Tribune reported that 'recent information from Guantanamo has derailed plans for attacks during the Athens Olympics next month and possibly forestalled at least a dozen attacks elsewhere'.

The laws of war essentially propose a contract to combatants: if you observe these rules of civilised warfare, then you will be treated in a civilised manner. The conditional nature of legitimate combatant status is reflected in the text of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. A common article two of those conventions states that parties to the treaty are under no legal obligation to apply their terms to non-parties who do not themselves abide by the law of armed conflict.

The men detained at Guantanamo were captured on the battlefield while fighting for organisations that systematically violated the most basic tenets of the law of war. Captured al-Qaeda fighters were drawn from the ranks of an organisation that sees the deliberate destruction of women, children and the elderly as a legitimate tactic. From flying hijacked airliners into office buildings to bombing commuter trains in Madrid, Osama bin Laden's minions have committed every war crime on the books.

The Taliban were also serial transgressors against the law of war. At a press conference in early 2002, the US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, explained why Washington declined to recognise Taliban fighters as legal combatants: 'The Taliban did not wear distinctive signs, insignias, symbols or uniforms ... To the contrary, far from seeking to distinguish themselves from the civilian population of Afghanistan, they sought to blend in with civilian non-combatants, hiding in mosques and populated areas. They [were] not organised in military units, as such, with identifiable chains of command; indeed, al-Qaeda forces made up portions of their forces.'

The Guantanamo Bay detainees are illegal combatants whose actions placed them beyond the pale of international law. To afford them the privileges and protections of the Geneva Conventions, despite their crimes, would provide reward where retribution is warranted.

If the task of preventing the next September 11 requires that al-Qaeda captives at Guantanamo Bay be denied their full eight hours of slumber, I certainly won't lose any sleep over it.

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Israel's Morality and the World's Myopia

By Daniel Gordis

Any discussion of the manner in which Israel has conducted its armed conflict with the Palestinians over the past four years demands, first and foremost, clarity about the nature of the conflict and what is at stake. Israel is at war—not against "militants," or against those who would seek to "liberate" the Palestinian people. Israel is engaged in a war for her survival, against well-armed and increasingly well-trained, highly disciplined groups of terrorists, who are wholly up front about their agenda. Their agenda is not the liberation of the "territories" that were captured in June 1967 in a war that Israel did not want. Their agenda, as Hamas and Hizballah (among others) freely admit, is the eradication of the "Zionist entity" from what should be, in their minds, an exclusively Muslim Middle East.

This is not the Chechens against Russia. All the Chechens seek is independence. Were they granted that, there is every reason to expect that Chechen terrorism against Vladimir Putin's Russia would cease. The same is true with the Basques in Spain. But not with Israel. The only way that Israel could bring an end to the terrorists' attempt to destroy any semblance of normalcy for Israeli life would be to cease to exist. Israelis understand that, and they know full well that any other country fighting for its very existence would be enraged at being judged as Israel has been judged, particularly by Europe, in the last four years.

How this War Began

Israelis also remember when this war began—immediately after Ehud Barak called Yasir Arafat's bluff. Barak offered the Palestinian people the state and the independence they had always said their decades-long terrorist campaign had been designed to bring them. But in Barak's agreement, Israel would have continued to exist. And that, in the end, Arafat could not abide. So he, and a multiplicity of loosely aligned terrorist organizations that include, but is not limited to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizballah, Fatah, Force 17, and the El-Aksa Martyrs' Brigade sought to bring Israel to its knees by terrifying an entire population into submission.

It is still said, ludicrously, that Arafat couldn't sign the Camp David package because Barak's deal was not good enough. The West Bank, according to some accounts, would have been divided into three cantons, with Israelis retaining control over passage from one to the other. Perhaps. The picture is unclear. But let us suppose that that claim is true, and that Arafat had genuinely wanted a deal. The most effective thing he could have done would have been to tell the tens of thousands of Palestinians who then had the right to enter Israel to sit on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway and on the highway between Tel Aviv and Haifa. He could have invited CNN, whose presence would have made it impossible for the IDF to use force to disperse the crowds. And Arafat could have put the map of Barak's proposal on the back page of the front section of the New York Times and showed the world why he could not sign. Israel would have been forced to concede, and the maps would have been altered.

No Peace in our Lifetime

But that was not Arafat's agenda. Thus, most Israelis now understand that there will not be peace. Not in our lifetimes, and probably not in the lifetimes of our children. There may be a cessation of hostilities—some years more violent and some years less—but we now know that to live here means to live and to raise our children in a permanent state of war. That sentence, that "fate," has created anguish, despair, sadness, and even hatred in Israeli society. And given that despair, and the offer that was rejected, what is striking is the restraint that Israel has exercised. Who else, knowing that no matter what else we may do, we will always be at war, would exercise such restraint?

In Israel, the Kahanist notion of transferring Palestinian populations out of the disputed territories is still considered racist and out of the question. Shutting off the water or electricity or phones of these populations for months on end, to force them to begin to exert pressure on the terrorists, has never been seriously suggested. Has Israel ever considered eradicating a town after it has knowingly harbored a suicide bomber who then killed dozens of innocent civilians? Nor has Israel chosen to fight the war exclusively from the skies, thus reducing the danger to its own troops. Would any other country, fighting for its life and knowing that the fight will never end, exhibit such moderation?

The World Ignores Israeli Restraint

The world, of course, ignores that restraint. It focuses not on American tactics in Afghanistan or Iraq, or the Russians' war against Chechnya, or the atrocities in the Sudan. Instead, it focuses on the mistakes that, admittedly, have been made by Israel. The conduct of a small minority of soldiers at roadblocks has been reprehensible (and judicial proceedings are under way against many of them). The commandeering of some Arab homes by troops is unquestionably distasteful, though sometimes probably unavoidable. Innocent Palestinians, including children, have been caught in the crossfire, and Israeli troops have sometimes been careless and, occasionally, malevolent. Israelis know that, and most are embarrassed by it.

But that the terrorist organizations have chosen to use civilian neighborhoods as their bases is rarely mentioned. No one has dared accuse Israelis of "eye-for-eye" tactics, blowing up buses or wedding halls or restaurants, for such an accusation would be ridiculous. When terrorists fled into the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Israeli troops surrounded the church, but didn't storm it. Compare this to the Americans' treatment of mosques in Najaf or Falluja, when their patience with Moqtada Al-Sadr ran out, or what we know would have been the case had Jews been hiding in a church or a synagogue and it had been Palestinians pursuing them. All of this escapes the critical eye of a watchful West.

So, too, does the IDF's consistent determination to do better. The unsuccessful attempt in September 2002 to kill the Hamas chief, Ahmad Yassin, which Yossi Klein Halevi discussed in his piece in this series, had a history. Israel used a half-ton bomb because it acknowledged that in its killing of Hamas chief Salah Shehade two months earlier, it had erred. Then, the IDF chose a one-ton bomb, which did kill Shehade, but which also killed fourteen bystanders, including children. The reaction in Israel was swift, and visceral. Israelis were ashamed and appalled. When Yassin escaped two months later, whatever disappointment was felt that he survived was vastly exceeded by a certain pride that we'd learned, that we had not made the same mistake again, and that despite our desire to kill Yassin, we'd placed the value of innocent life first and foremost. We also noted that the world took no notice of this changed tactic.

In April 2002, when Israel pursued terrorists into the casbah in Jenin, we did so on the ground, in door-to-door fighting, to avoid causing unnecessary collateral casualties. Fourteen of our soldiers were killed in one day. But the world—instead of pointing to the difference between Israel's handling of the battle and what would have happened anywhere else—accused Israel of a massacre. European papers reported the massacre as fact, not as allegation. Kofi Annan, when asked about Israel's denials, responded, "Can Israel be right and the whole world wrong?" But when a UN investigation proved that there had been no massacre, and that Israel had been right, did Annan apologize? Not a word. Did European papers print retractions? By and large, they did not.

Myopia about the Separation Fence

The myopia of the world's judgment of Israel's morality is most obvious with regard to the separation fence currently under construction. As the Israeli political right correctly understands, the fence is a de facto way of ceding land. If the fence were built, and if it worked, there would be no need for Israeli forces to cross and to be a presence in the daily lives of Palestinians. It would, of course, also dramatically cut down on terror. But the world, buying wholesale into a Palestinian disinformation campaign designed to make the building of the fence impossible, refers to the "apartheid fence," rather than to the attacks that led to its construction or the diminution in Israeli military presence that it heralds.

Why, incidentally, do the Palestinians oppose the fence? Because the fence would effectively end much of the conflict (although the Kassam rocket attacks do portend that even the fence will not be a complete solution). And, as we know, the end of the conflict is the last thing that the Palestinians want.

The fence has, unquestionably, caused hardship for Palestinians. Some of that is inevitable, given the way in which the two populations are intermingled across the West Bank and around East Jerusalem. And some of the route was ill planned. But compare the ruling of the International Court of Justice at The Hague with that of the Israeli Supreme Court. The ICJ demanded that Israel remove the wall in its entirety. Israel's Supreme Court ruled that the fence was legitimate in principle, and it agreed with the army that its purpose had been security, not an attempt to steal Palestinian land. But still the court demanded that part of the fence be moved to address the hardships it imposed on the Palestinian population.

The court of international opinion, however, seems not to have noticed the extraordinary phenomenon of the Supreme Court of a country at war ruling in favor of the population seeking to destroy it. Outside observers wrote that "even the Israeli Supreme Court argued that the fence is immoral." But the point was precisely the opposite. Even under conditions of war, conditions that are unlikely to end any time soon, Israel's democratic apparatus continues to function, even to the point of protecting the interests of those waging war on the country in which the court sits. Here, too, Israel placed the interests of innocent (or not-so-innocent) civilians ahead of its own security interests. And this, too, the world has ignored.

Israel's Vigorous Debate about its Conduct of the War

This democratic ethos of Israeli society points to yet another unique dimension of the conflict. In what could not be a more radical difference between Israel and the Palestinian Authority waging war on it, Israel is a country in which a vigorous and open debate about how to balance the needs for security with Jewish humanitarian values continues. Despite my own belief that, in all, our conduct of the war has been restrained, not every Israeli agrees. Some Israeli young men have refused to serve over the Green Line, and recently, several had their military service cut short, with no serious repercussions. A much publicized group of pilots announced that they would no longer fly certain missions that they considered morally problematic. Driving Israel's highways, one can often see protesters holding signs that say "hayalim amitzim lo maftzitzim," or "Brave Pilots Don't Bomb." Whether or not one agrees, we have a right to take pride in a democracy in which such issues are openly debated, where freedom of the press reigns, where the Talmudic tradition of virtually unlimited debate on issues of morality continues.

Where are the Palestinians arguing in their streets for a cessation to the bombings, to the Kassam rockets, to the shootings, so that their lives can be restored to normal? On the security fence, one sees hundreds of instances of graffiti accusing Israel of apartheid-like policies, demanding that the fence be removed. But where are the graffiti calling for an end to the terror that brought the fence in the first place? Or the graffiti that note that, if only Arafat had continued to negotiate, none of this would have happened? That voice, sadly, is not heard.

At this writing, Ariel Sharon is leading an attempt to have Israel withdraw from the Gaza Strip and a handful of settlements on the West Bank. And what has been the reaction from Gaza? A barrage of Kassam rocket fire that has killed Israeli children and consumed entire Israeli towns with fear, all designed to make the pullout impossible. Because pulling out of Gaza would show the world that Israel is not interested in holding on to these territories forever, something the Palestinians are desperate for the world not to see. Because pulling out of Gaza would give Israel a more manageable line of defense, which the Palestinians do not want. And because pulling out of Gaza would force the Gazans to recognize that their poverty and their suffering are not the products of Israeli policy, but predated Israel's conquest of the land in 1967 and will follow it as well.

How did Israel seek to counter the Kassam barrages? By Operation "Days of Penitance" in October 2004—again on the ground, again with casualties—and not from the air, which would have been safer, but which would have undoubtedly caused much more collateral damage.

Despite the many complexities of the Israeli-Arab conflict in general, and of the current conflict with the Palestinians in particular, certain basic facts are clear: Israel tried to create a Palestinian state. When that offer was met with a war of terror, Israel tried to build a fence that would keep the terrorists on one side and its soldiers on the other. When the fence was treated as an "apartheid fence," Israel tried to pull out of Gaza, which the Palestinians are now seeking to make impossible. The world calls Israel racist, but the only population that Sharon is considering moving is the Jewish population in Gaza, not the villages that openly harbor the terrorists who seek to kill our children. And all this unfolds within the context of a democratic society that—in keeping with thousands of years of Jewish tradition—passionately argues whether our responses have been too draconian, or insufficiently considerate of the Palestinians (some complicit and some not), who have sadly been caught in the crossfire of a tragedy unleashed by their own leaders.

Israel's Moral Campaign against Terror

Yossi Klein Halevi argues that Israel's victory in this war on terror may some day be seen as one of the greatest victories of Jewish history. That may well be true. But Israel's conduct of this war will also be seen, I suspect, as one of the most moral campaigns against terror, a sickening phenomenon that is likely to grip the Western world to an ever greater extent over the next few years.

Unfortunately, Israel is often a barometer of what the Western world will next face. When Israel destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in June 1981, condemnation was virtually universal. Today, the Western world knows that Israel may have saved the world from disaster. The same is true with the battle against Islamic terror. As the battle spreads, and as Westerners in Britain, France, Spain, and the United States experience ever more terror firsthand, the world will come to admire the restraint and fortitude with which Israel has fought for her life. Ultimately, I believe, Israel's conduct of this war—with all its warts—will be a model toward which much of the currently critical world will one day aspire.

Dr. Daniel Gordis (www.danielgordis.org) is vice president of the Mandel Foundation-Israel and director of its Jerusalem Fellows program. He is the author of several books, including Home to Stay: One American Family's Chronicle of Miracles and Struggles in Contemporary Israel (Three Rivers Press, 2003). His "dispatches" on life in Israel have been widely reprinted in a variety of publications, including the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife and three children.

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Palestinians ask for $4 billion

All that R&D for Kassam rocket research and shrapnel for bombs costs a pretty penny. -EoZ

The Palestinian Authority will ask donor countries at a meeting in Oslo for about $4 billion over three years to stave off an economic crisis, Palestinian officials in Ramallah said yesterday. The two-day conference opens tomorrow.
They said the Palestinian Authority would seek the money to finance infrastructure projects including air and sea ports, to help with the 2005 budget and to create jobs.

'We need $1.3 to $1.4 billion a year,' Economy Minister Maher al-Masri said. 'We will present our plan to the donor countries and then discussions will start. They will decide how to respond to our plan in a separate meeting in January.'

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Islamic charity called a 'money-laundering clearinghouse' for Hamas

A former FBI terrorism expert told a federal jury Monday that an Islamic institute served as 'a money-laundering clearinghouse' for the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

'It was an important part of the larger Hamas conspiracy,' said Matthew Levitt, director of terrorism studies at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The testimony came in a lawsuit filed by Joyce and Stanley Boim, the parents of an American teenager shot to death by two Hamas militants in Israel eight years ago.

They say the Quranic Literacy Institute of suburban Oak Lawn, two Islamic charities and an alleged Hamas fundraiser, Mohammed Salah, bankrolled the purchase of weapons by Hamas and thus are responsible for the death of their 17-year-old son.

He was shot to death while waiting for a bus in the West Bank. The Boims are Americans who moved to Israel in 1985. U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys already has found that Salah, the two charities, Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and the Islamic Association for Palestine, helped to finance Hamas and so are liable in the Boim death.

The Boims are suing under a federal law that says Americans who are victims of terrorism abroad can go to court for damages against U.S.-based organizations that raise funds to finance such activities.

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New Fatah head wants Americans to die

TUNIS - The new head of Fatah, the main grouping in the Palestine Liberation Organization, called on Iraqis to defeat the US forces that have invaded their country, and called on Arabs everywhere to tighten their links with the Palestinians.

Speaking to reporters on Monday in Tunis, Fatah leader Faruq Qaddumi said: “We support the Iraqi resistance, and its victories will be those of the Palestinian resistance.”

Qaddumi, who took over as head of Fatah after the death of veteran Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on November 11, denied he was interfering in Iraq’s internal affairs, noting the country was under occupation.

“We will always be against occupiers and we support those who fight occupation,” he said.

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Tehran Times: Al Jazeera a Zionist Plot

Al-Jazeera’s Psyops

By Hassan Hanizadeh
The Al-Jazeera network’s recent insult of the Iranian nation was totally unacceptable.

The Arabic network, which broadcasts its programs from the little Arab country Qatar, has recently posted an insulting cartoon about the Islamic Republic of Iran on its English site.

In the cartoon, a cleric, who is the symbol of the Islamic Republic of Iran, indifferently passes by various scenes of the current problems in the Islamic world, but reacts strongly when he sees that the name of the Persian Gulf has been changed to the unacceptable “Arab Gulf”.

Iranian officials made a prompt denunciation of this very amateurish and dishonorable measure, which has its roots in Al-Jazeera officials’ animosity toward Iranians.

The Al-Jazeera network was founded in 1997, ostensibly to create a new movement in the static media of the Arab world, which are mostly government controlled, and was initially welcomed.

Many media experts believed that the new network would create a revolution in the field of information dissemination, particularly in the Arab states on the Persian Gulf.

However, at the same time, rumors arose suggesting that the network was established by U.S. and Israeli agents in order to present a bad image of Islam to the world.

Some regional experts expressed doubts about the allegations though, because the establishment of a media outlet with the aim of promptly informing Arab nations about the latest world news seemed to be a good idea.

But the actions of the network gradually revealed the fact that Al-Jazeera officials, on the orders of Zionist agents, are trying to divide Islamic countries and tarnish the image of Islam.

After Al-Jazeera broadcasted some distorted news reports about Saudi Arabia, tension rose between that country and Qatar, and the two Arab states almost cut off diplomatic relations.

Yet, instead of adopting a defensive stance toward the negative propaganda of the network, Saudi Arabia took an innovative measure and established the Al-Arabiyya network to confront Al-Jazeera.

At the beginning of the U.S. attack on Afghanistan, Al-Jazeera became the tribune of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorist groups in order to give the world the impression that those terrorists represented real Islam.

In addition, since the occupation of Iraq began, ethnic tension has risen and there have been clashes between Iraqi Sunnis and Shias, partly due to the efforts of Al-Jazeera.

By broadcasting abhorrent scenes of the beheadings of foreign hostages by the criminal agents of the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi terrorist group, the network succeeded in increasing anti-Muslim sentiment throughout the world, particularly in the West.

Following the advice of U.S. and Israeli experts in psychological operations (psyops), Al-Jazeera took actions which gave Westerners a negative image of Islam and Muslims.

In fact, the Al-Jazeera network was founded at exactly the same time when Iranian President Mohammad Khatami introduced his Dialogue Among Civilizations initiative as a logical strategy to bring the West and the Islamic world closer together.

Of course, the Zionists were not pleased at the idea because they believe that increased proximity between the Islamic world and the West is not in their interests. And that is why they founded the Al-Jazeera network to tarnish the image of true Islam.

Now, after seven years, it has become apparent that the real strategy of the network has been to create divisions between Islamic countries, to give the impression that Islam is a threat to the West, to present a negative image of the real Islam to the world, to isolate Muslims residing in the United States and other Western countries, and to create sectarian divisions between Shias and Sunnis in the Middle East.

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Nobel Peace Prize winner dies, number of terror attacks goes down

The number of attempted terror attacks has dropped since Yasser Arafat died three weeks ago, with Palestinian terror organizations in a 'waiting mode' to see how things develop on the ground, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the cabinet Sunday.

Mofaz said that despite the reduction in attempted attacks, the number of alerts remains high, as does the motivation to carry out attacks, including attacks inside the Green line.

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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.

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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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