Hamas: Current calm a trick, pre-'67 borders not enough

Another excellent find by MEMRI:

A convention held by the Egyptian newspaper "Al-Ahram," which was attended by writers and experts on Palestinian affairs following the Palestinian Cairo agreement on calming down the situation [ Tahdiah ], also hosted the head of the Hamas political bureau, Khaled Mash'al. Speaking at the convention, Mash'al stated that the Tahdiah was a trick and that the resistance will continue as long as the occupation exists. Mash'al also expressed concern about the PA and Fatah taking over settlement lands after the withdrawal and stated that in the eyes of Hamas, there is no objection to the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders as an interim solution. The following are excerpts from Mash'al's speech: [1]

We Agreed to the Tahdiah to Prevent an Internal Palestinian Implosion

"We have made an achievement in the Palestinian arena... We wanted to avoid the internal Palestinian implosion that Sharon wanted. He [Sharon] wished for dissent [among us] so that he [could] pressure Abu Mazen to confront the resistance... [With our consent] we avoided it. Our second goal was to send a message to the international community that the problem does not lie with the Palestinian people or the Palestinian resistance, [but rather] with the occupation... Our third goal was to give a chance and headspace to set the Palestinian house in order... Fourth, we strived to achieve, through the temporary initiative of Tahdiah, a chance to fulfill the Palestinian peoples' direct interests, such as releasing prisoners...

"... Every term has a special meaning, and our choice [of the term] Tahdiah is not incidental. A Hudna [cease fire] is an agreement whose terms are acceptable to both sides, but in the current situation there are no such terms. The Palestinian side is the weak one... we treat this Tahdiah as a Palestinian initiative conditional to the other side fulfilling the terms...

"… Hamas controls its military wing... and despite that fact that it is one of the largest factions of the resistance, it is highly capable of keeping its men disciplined. Tahdiah means Tahdiah [and when you talk of] escalation, there is escalation. There is a commitment and it is honored... In the eyes of Hamas, Tahdiah is a trick within the resistance plans, [but] in the eyes of the [Palestinian] Authority, Tahdiah is a step on the way out of the resistance plan... but we still give it a chance... we can be patient and suffer, but not from the perspective of those who want to be free of the Intifada..."

I Told Abu Mazen: "Beware, Less They Poison You as They Did Arafat"

"... As we draw near the end of the summer and the end of 2005, the following atmosphere will be created: The [diplomatic] settlement will be 'refrozen,' and one cannot deny the possibility that Sharon will blame Abu Mazen for being the obstacle for peace, just as Abu Ammar [Arafat] was considered one. Abu Mazen heard this from me, laughed, and said that 'this is a predictable and unsurprising scenario.' I replied: Beware, less they poison you as they did Arafat...

"... I cannot be satisfied with the 1967 borders alone and see them as a permanent solution... A Palestinian might say: 'Who gave you the right to forego the rights of Palestinians?' So Abu Mazen himself says, in his talks: 'I cannot forego the right of return.' It will be his political suicide, for there are 5-6 million whose problem must be solved. However, Hamas has no objection to accept the 1967 borders as an interim solution.

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Those expansionist Israelis

I just saw an incoherent response, written by one Doris Rausch, to this great article.

This is precious little real information in this short rant (no footnotes nor any real facts of any kind) but its main "proof" is in this priceless paragraph:

But if you want the truth, all you have to do is take a look at a current map; you can see for yourself the "facts on the ground" as to who is trying to push whom into the sea.

OK, Doris, let's do as you suggest.

Some mental midgets suggest that the two blue bands in Israel's flag symbolize Israel's expansionist plans - to the Nile and Euphrates rivers. One wonders why the Middle East's only nuclear power, which could have blown up her enemies to smithereens since the 60's and taken control of not only all that territory but also all that oil, hasn't seen fit to act on its obvious territorial greed.

But never mind that. Let's look at the maps, as Doris suggests.

On my map, in the mid-70's, Israel controlled all territory from the Suez Canal to the Jordan River to the Golan Heights. Since then, Israel has:

• Given every single square centimeter of the Sinai to Egypt, including dragging Jews out of their homes in Yamit (for peace.)
• Withdrawn from all Lebanese territory behind UN-drawn borders (for peace.)
• Given autonomy to the PA for territory where 97% of Palestinians live in the West Bank and Gaza during Oslo (for peace.)
• Offered all of Gaza and almost all of the West Bank to the PA (for peace.)
• Offered almost the entire Golan Heights to Syria (for peace.)
• Planned to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza and uproot Jewish settlers there (for peace.)

I certainly detect a pattern in Israeli moves, and none of it has the least bit to do with expansionism.

I am happy to take your advice about reading the map, Doris, but I am afraid that you have limited skills in understanding basic cartography.

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Who's your Daddy? Genealogy/genetics testing becomes mainstream

Interesting article about modern uses for genetics testing and genealogy.

Growing up in the Rio Grande Valley, Harlingen architect Danny Villarreal had heard the stories from his grandparents. His ancestors, it was whispered, had come to Mexico from Spain under something of a cloud. Apparently, they were not purebred Castilian Spaniards, but members of a persecuted minority -- namely, Jews who had converted to Catholicism on pain of death at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition.

Villarreal was intrigued. As he grew older, he took up genealogy as a hobby. "It's turned into a pretty big thing," he says. Villarreal discovered a paper trail to back up the stories of his family's elders. In Saltillo, Mexico, he found a 380-year-old document that concerned one ancestor of his -- Diego de Villarreal -- who had gotten a little too full of himself for the local padre's liking. "One of the documents out of Saltillo was the parish priest complaining to the Inquisition about this guy Diego de Villarreal, who had some silver mines and was a captain in the military," Villarreal says. "The complaint was that he would come into town wearing silk clothing and jewelry, and he was allowed to bear arms. People who were 'New Christians' " -- recently converted Jews -- "were not allowed to do those things. It was all political, he had a lot of power, he had his own little army. I guess the Church didn't like that."

In the end, nothing came of the priest's tattling letter. The Inquisition's enforcers weren't about to leave their comfortable offices in Mexico City and sully their long black robes in the Nuevo Leon dust, not to mention risk their scalps at the hands of the Apaches and Comanches then raiding along the route, and the local authorities swept the affair under the rug. For good reasons: "The thing was that the people who were ruling northern Mexico during that time were all descendants of Jews, so this priest didn't have the political power to be able to get him out," Villarreal says.

At least that's the theory. And as far as the case of Diego de Villarreal goes, it would seem that in the 17th century, northern Mexico -- which included Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California -- was run and in no small part populated by crypto-Jews. But was there anything to back up this idea other than legends and moldering documents in Mexican archives? Couldn't it be that the priest had been motivated to denounce de Villarreal as an uppity New Christian by simple jealousy? Or maybe de Villarreal had insulted the priest. Who knows?

The long and the short of it is this: Sometimes documents tell lies, but DNA never does, at least if you conduct your tests in a competently run lab. Danny Villarreal discovered a Houston company, Family Tree DNA, that conducts DNA tests for genealogical purposes. He ordered a kit, swabbed some genetic material from the inside of his cheek and mailed it back to Houston. FTDNA sent the test off to a genetics lab at the University of Arizona, and a few weeks later Villarreal got his results back. Although the company didn't find that he was related to anyone then in its database, it did have a few surprises for him.

First, there was his haplogroup -- the genetic marker that goes back on his Y chromosome for tens of thousands of years. All humanity is divided into 18 of these, and Mexicans of European descent would likely be in either haplogroup R-1A or R-1B, the most common groups in Western Europe, or if they were primarily of Native American descent, Q or Q-3. Villarreal's was E-3B, which is a Semitic haplogroup that evolved in East Africa and then spread around the Mediterranean and is most common today in the Middle East and in North and East Africa. Then there were his closest genetic matches. All three of them were to Jews in places like Hungary, Belarus and Poland. It appeared that the parish priest back in Saltillo had not been lying after all.

On discovering his Jewish ancestry, Villarreal says, his reaction was mixed. "I was kinda surprised. I didn't know how to react," he says. "I'm a good ol' Catholic boy -- I went to Catholic schools and everything. It's not gonna change my religion or anything like that, but it was kind of interesting."

It turns out that Villarreal is far from alone. There are plenty of genetic Jews among the Hispanics of South Texas, the American Southwest and northern Mexico. Companies like FTDNA are turning them up all the time -- not to mention establishing kinships where none were known to exist, solving history's mysteries and answering questions people have about themselves that until now had no answers.

[...]
FTDNA also can answer the ultimate genealogical poser: If you're a male, and thus the owner of a Y chromosome, it literally can tell you where your ancestors were in prehistoric times. (Women who want to test can find out their haplogroup by testing their mitochondrial DNA; if they want to test their male ancestry, they have to persuade a male relative to take the test.) "I can tell that your deep ancestry comes from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, whether his father's father's father was African, or a Semite," says Greenspan. "In other words, I can tell if someone is descended from the Neolithic farmers who came to Europe 9,500 years ago, or I can tell someone that in all probability they are a -- how can I put this -- an ethnic Jew."

Which brings up another potential dark side. During the holocaust, Hitler relied on traditional genealogy to dispatch millions to the death camps. One Jewish grandparent was all it took. A modern-day Hitler would have much more sophisticated tools at his disposal. Greenspan -- who is Jewish himself -- doesn't dispute it. "The fact of the matter is, anything that has power can cut both ways," he says. "And this is powerful. If there was some tyrannical maniac who came along and said, 'I'm gonna kill everyone who has Viking ancestry,' then I think the technology in general would be dangerous. I don't know how you could put the genie back in the bottle on this."

Villarreal had some uncomfortable moments after revealing his distant Jewish ancestry on his Web site. "I get a lot of hate mail from people all the time," he says. "I never realized there was so much hatred of Jews -- I mean I got some pretty bad e-mails. So bad that I have to take 'em off my Web site and block the senders. Stuff like, 'If I had Jewish blood running in my veins, I wouldn't admit it to anybody,' stuff like that. Some of it comes from people who I know are Hispanic and who also know about the history of the Sephardic Jews and stuff like that."

[...]
Like many genealogists, Greenspan hit some dead ends. In the mid-'90s, he discovered another Greenspan living in Argentina who grew up ten miles from his grandfather in Ukraine and whose family was in the same business as his. He had a hunch that they were related, but there were no documents to back it up. He wanted to do a DNA test, but no company did DNA testing for genealogical purposes back then. "I searched everywhere, and I was talking to a genetics professor at the University of Arizona, and he said somebody should start a company doing something like this, because he got phone calls from genealogists all the time," he says. "And sure enough, it took me a while, but eventually I convinced him at the University of Arizona to do the testing, and the rest is history. We really are the first company in the world to offer this service."

The Arizona genetics professor is Michael Hammer, who made waves in the '90s by discovering the Cohanim gene in Jews. By tradition, Cohanim are Judaism's priestly caste, said to be descended from Moses's brother Aaron. Hammer conducted a study and proved that a statistically significant percentage of Jewish men who claimed to be Cohanim did in fact share a genetic signature. Today, Hammer's lab does FTDNA's tests on a for-profit basis, and Greenspan's Houston office runs the operations.

And the business is doing well. The first anthrogenealogy conference, held in Houston late last year, was a success. Greenspan was treated as a rock star by the mostly aging genealogists who attended. The future of this young hybrid science was a hot topic. Greenspan believes his company will do nothing less than help to revolutionize the whole concept of the family tree. "Think of it this way: Think of the anthropological side as the branches and the limbs of a tree. Think of the genealogical side as the leaves. Right now we're probably missing the twigs -- in other words, I can tell a man by looking at his leaves what branch of the tree and maybe even what limb of the tree, but I can't tell him what twig he is on. Yet at the same time I can look at the leaves and make a comparison of them and get an idea of who is related. I think in the next few years many of those branches are gonna get fleshed out in such a way that we'll be able to do the whole branch-limb-twig-leaf deal.

"In the next ten years, every single surname is going to have a DNA surname project," he says. "That is literally inevitable."

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My Name is Rachel Levy, Thaler, Levi, Gavish, Charhi, Shabo

Honest Reporting points out a new play in London called "My Name is Rachel Corrie." It is getting great reviews from the genteel anti-semites of the British press. But for some reason we do not expect to see any plays about the victims of Palestinian terror playing on the West End.

Here, Honest Reporting shows some of the lives of real heroines named Rachel, those who sacrificed their lives to live in a country with their people. Their heroics were that they continued to go to stores and schools and restaurants despite the constant bombings from the Palestinian terrorists who Rachel Corrie supported and who she was a pawn of. They loved Israel, the only place where they can live freely and proudly as Jews without a second thought.

Unlike Rachel Corrie, they didn't want to make headlines; they didn't do public burnings of their own country's flag. They just wanted to live in peace, a goal that Corrie's ISM does not want for Jews. The ISM (and Corrie at the time of her death) were trying to protect terrorists, and didn't lift a finger to protect Jews. This is who Rachel Corrie was.

There are no public squares in Israel named after the bulldozer driver who accidentally killed Corrie. No trading cards with his name, no posters with his picture. But the people who killed these truly innocent Rachels are considered heroes by the Palestinians.

These Rachels do have something in common with Corrie, however:

When these Rachels died, Israel was saddened and the Palestinians celebrated. And when Corrie died, Israel was also saddened and the Palestinians also celebrated - for to them, public relations is worth far, far more than human lives. The play in London, a free advertisement for Palestinian terror, couldn't have happened without Corrie's death, and there is little since the deaths of Americans on the USS Liberty that has made the haters of Jews happier than Rachel Corrie's demise.

My Name is Rachel Levy

Mar 29, 2002 - Rachel Levy, 17, of Jerusalem, was one of two people killed when a female suicide bomber blew herself up in the Kiryat Yovel supermarket in Jerusalem.

On Friday afternoon, Rachel's mother, Avigail, asked her to go to the supermarket to buy some things for the Shabbat meals. A 16-year-old female Palestinian suicide bomber, wearing a belt of explosives around her waist, walked into the supermarket in Jerusalem's Kiryat Hayovel neighborhood Friday afternoon and blew herself up. Haim Smadar, the security guard, prevented the bomber from going deep inside the store. Rachel Levy, who was near the entrance, was killed; 28 people were injured.

Rachel Levy was a senior at the Sieff High School. Fellow pupils from her photography class at school said that she was an excellent pupil, and that an exhibition of Rachel's photographs is being held at her school. "She was a charming girl, allways smiling and pleasant. simply a wonderful person," said a relative. "She loved books, music, and sports," said her mother.

Rachel's cousin, Rafi Levy, was killed in a terrorist shooting attack at a roadblock near Ofra a month ago.

Rachel Levy was buried in Jerusalem. She is survived by her parents, Amos and Avigail, and her two brothers: Guy, 23, and Kobi, 7

My Name is Rachel Thaler

Feb 27, 2002 - Rachel Thaler, 16, of Ginot Shomron died of wounds suffered on February 16 when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a pizzeria in the shopping mall in Karnei Shomron in Samaria, bringing the death toll in the attack to three.

Rachel Thaler had gone on Saturday night to the local Yuvalim Mall in Karnei Shomron with his brother, Lior. Since its opening six months ago, the mall has become a popular meeting place for local youth. Rachel, who suffered a critical head injury in the bombing, never regained consciousness. She died 12 days later. Her family donated her organs for transplant. The condition of Rachel's brother, Lior, 14, who was also seriously injured, has improved greatly.

Ganette Thaler said she had donated her daughter's organs, because she thought it was important that other people benefit from her tragedy, especially during this time of so many terrorist attacks. "I feel that part of my daughter is living in two other people who gained life from her donation. I know that's what my daughter would have wanted," she said.

Rachel was the oldest of the family's three children. Her parents - Ganette, from England, and Michael, from the US - moved to the Ginot Shomron neighborhood five years ago, and were divorced three years later. Michael had moved back to the US, while Ganette remained in Ginot Shomrom with the children.

"It hasn't been easy for her. Not long ago, Ganette discussed the possibility of moving to the US. Rachel came to me and asked me to persuade her mother to remain," Vered Cohen, a family friend and neighbor, said.

Rachel studied at the Ulpana in Dolev. Eliraz Smet, Rachel's guide in the Ulpana, said "She always had a smile on her face. We would aske her to teach us how she always kept the smile, even with what's going on."

Rachel Thaler was buried in Karnei Shomron. She is survived by her parents and two brothers, Lior and Zvi

My Name is Rachel Levi

Feb 14, 2001 - Sgt. Rachel Levi, 19, of Ashkelon, was one of 8 Israelis killed when a Palestinian crashed a bus into a crowded bus stop at Azor junction, south of Tel Aviv. It was the deadliest Palestinian attack on Israelis in four years.

Sergeant Rachel Levi worked on computers in logistics at Tel Hashomer. She had signed to continue her service in the IDF for an additional three years.

She had been dropped off by her father near the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station, about an hour before she was killed. He said: "Adi, my older daughter, told me that the attack occured at a junction where Rachel used to be daily. We called her on her cell phone, but there was no answer. We called her commander, and he said that she had not arrived. We then called the hospital, and they told us that she was not among the injured. We asked about her close friend and neighbor, Sigal Yunsi, and we were told that she was severely injured. I felt weak in the knees. We did not know what was happening. And then the officers came with the bad news."

"The army was her whole life," her mother Henya said. "I don't wish this feeling on any mother, I can't stop shaking."

Rachel left behind her parents and two sisters. She was buried in Ashkelon.

My Name is Rachel Gavish

Mar 28, 2002 - Rachel Gavish, 50, of Elon Moreh was one of four members of the Gavish family killed in Elon Moreh, when a Palestinian terrorist infiltrated the hilltop community near Nablus, burst into their home, and shot them shortly before 9 P.M.

She was killed along with her husband David, her son Avraham, and her father Yitzhak Kanner.

The terrorist continued to shoot from one of the rooms while neighbors and security forces returned fire. Others placed a ladder to allow family members on the top story to escape. The terrorist remained in one of the top-story rooms, until he was shot and killed by security forces.

Rachel Gavish, together with her husband David, were among the founders of the Elon Moreh community. She worked as an educational counselor at the Ariel Regional College and at the Academic College for girls in Elon Moreh.

In Elon Moreh, thousands attended the funerals of Rachel, 50, and David Gavish, 51, their son Avraham, 25, who lives in Kedumim with his wife and was visting the family during the Pessah holiday, and Rachel's father, Yitzhak Kanner.

Rachel Gavish was buried in Elon Moreh alongside her family members. She is survived by her six children: Menashe (23), Yeshurun (2), Avigdor, (19), Tzofia (18), Leah (17), and Assaf (14)

My Name is Rachel Charhi

Apr 4, 2002 - Rachel Charhi, 36, of Bat-Yam, died five days after being critically injured in a suicide bombing in a cafe on the corner of Allenby and Bialik streets in Tel-Aviv on March 30. Some 30 others were injured in the attack. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility.

Rachel and her husband Ben-Zion, who was among the injured, saw the terrorist and tried to escape but did not succeed, reported Rachel's siblings.

Rachel was a secretary at an accounting firm. Her daughter had often suggested she quit her job so as not to have to ride the busses, but Rachel told her not to worry. On the day of the attack, Rachel and Ben-Zion thought to dine in a different cafe but chose My Coffee Shop instead, since it was less crowded.

Rachel was buried in the Yarkon cemetery in Tel-Aviv. She is survived by her husband Benzion, daughter Kinneret 14 and sons Ariel 13 and Barak 7

My Name is Rachel Shabo

June 20, 2002 - Rachel Shabo, 40, of Itamar was murdered along with three of her sons when a terrorist entered their home in Itamar, south of Nablus, and opened fire.

Shortly after 9 on Thursday night, the terrorist infiltrated the settlement, shooting in all directions before bursting into the Shabo home. The terrorist first shot the mother, Rachel (top right), in the back. Then he shot Avishai, 5 (top, second from right), Zvika, 13 (bottom, second from right), and Neria, 16 (bottom, third from left), as well as a neighbor, Yosef Twito, who came to their aid. Thirteen-year-old Avia told the doctor who treated her in the hospital that she had heard her mother shout out in pain and then all was quiet.

Boaz Shabo, the father, a printer by profession, was not at home. The older children - Yariv and Atara - were also out, visiting friends.

Rachel grew up in Karnei Shomron and met Boaz, from Moshav Beit Meir near Jerusalem, 20 years ago. The Shabos were among the founders of Itamar 18 years ago and always welcomed newcomers, inviting them to their home for a Shabbat meal. Rachel worked as a secretary in the nearby settlement of Yitzhar until a year ago. Her friends described her as an energetic and affable person.

Only a month earlier, Neria had escaped terrorist shots in his bedroom at the yeshiva high school on Itamar, when three of his friends were killed. His pillow had been hit by bullets. Neria's friends said he had been a genius. Zvika's friends described him as a righteous young man.

Rachel Shabo was buried in Itamar alongside her three sons. She is survived by her husband Boaz, and four of their children - Yariv (17), Atara (15), Avia (13) and Asael (10).

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Update: http://www.rafahpundits.com/ seems to think that if none of the victims of Palestinian terror were killed from explosives smuglled in from Gaza, that somehow this list of Rachels is irrelevant. The psychological backflips that terror supporters use is astounding.

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LA Jews getting barraged with hate mail

Dozens of Jewish residents, businesses and synagogues in the Los Angeles area have been barraged by hate mail in recent weeks.

The FBI, US Postal Service and Los Angeles police are investigating the large manila envelopes, some of which had 'Die Jews Die' scrawled on the outside.

'We want to reassure the community that the letters are part of a series of mass mailings and do not seem to be targeting anyone individually,' Amanda Susskind, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying.

Wow, that's reassuring.

This must be the first time I've seen the ADL understate anti-semitism. They freak out over something like The Passion, but actual death threats to Jews get pooh-poohed?

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Anti-semitic studies (Spectator UK)

Anti-Semitic studies
Douglas Davis

Pay attention, Professor. If you support the proposed academic boycott of Israel — and if you are to remain intellectually honest — prepare for a radical lifestyle change. Firstly, unplug your computer. Good. Now switch off your interactive digital television set. Well done. And now throw away your mobile phone. Excellent. You see, Professor, these machines are not only the engine of the globalised, capitalist world but they also depend on technologies that have been produced by Israeli academics in the Zionist entity.

Stop playing with your detached mouse, Professor, and concentrate. I’m afraid you may not use the British Library because it has been computerised by Ex Libris, a Zionist company that was spawned by the odious Hebrew University of Jerusalem. And if, God forbid, you develop problems of the small intestine, you may not pop the Zionist-invented ‘video capsule’, which passes naturally through your body as it monitors this delicate piece of your anatomy. You will, sadly, have to take it up the derrière, Professor. As a matter of principle, of course. But remember: your principle allows your proctologist to keep his hand in.

All this boycotting, you see, is the logical extension of proposed academic sanctions against Israel by some members of your Association of University Teachers (AUT) when they meet in Eastbourne next Wednesday. Just visit the website of Egyptian-born Mona Baker of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. She set the standard by firing two Israeli scholars from the boards of her translation journals as a matter of high academic principle.

You will see that Ms Baker’s ambitions do not end with the academic boycott. Her website also includes a section entitled ‘Boycott Israeli Products & Services’, which features dozens of global brands that, inconveniently, are not Israeli at all. The offenders presumably have earned their place in infamy by dealing with the Zionist entity, by being owned by Jews or by having Jews on their boards. They range from Coca-Cola and Nescafé to Johnson & Johnson and Estée Lauder, from Hugo Boss and Ralph Lauren to Selfridges and Marks & Spencer, from Kleenex and Wonderbra to Lancôme and.... All marked for boycott.

Absent from Ms Baker’s list — and here I think I can help — is a set of global companies which are arguably even more culpable because they not only operate in Israel but also do most of their R&D there. IBM and Intel each have three R&D centres in Israel; Microsoft established its first non-American facility there, and Cisco Systems has built its only non-American R&D centre in Israel. Then there is Motorola, which has its largest R&D site in Israel, and News Corp, whose company NDS develops those neat interactive technologies for digital television. There are many more.

The AUT boycott brigade has cause for concern. It knows that these companies are attracted not only by the innate brutality of the expansionist regime but also by the cunning of its university graduates (most of the R&D centres are located on or near Israeli university campuses). Proportionally, the Zionist entity has more university graduates than any other country, while its scientists, engineers and agriculturists publish more professional papers per capita than do their counterparts anywhere else on earth. The result is that Israel has the largest concentration of high-tech companies outside Silicon Valley. But the ultimate sin is that Israel, which came to independence in the process of post-war decolonisation, stubbornly refuses to become a failed state.

So dangerous has the situation become, dear Professor, that when you meet in Eastbourne you will set aside the small matter of your pay deal (which many universities have failed to implement). Instead, you and your fellow intellectual heavyweights will ponder far worthier matters. Like foreign affairs. Of course, you will not have to bother your turbo-charged minds with this week’s Unicef report which shows that half of the women in the Arab world are illiterate and more than ten million children in the region don’t attend school.

The issue that will preoccupy you will be the aggressive imperialist apartheid state: a state that has nurtured the Palestinian universities and colleges in the West Bank; one that offers equal rights — and access to its universities — to all its citizens, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or sex; and which has educated tens of thousands of Palestinians at Israeli universities (several hundred a year still opt for an Israeli education). It is significant that Omar Barghouti, the Palestinian who is encouraging you and your British comrades to boycott Israel, is a doctoral student at none other than Tel Aviv University.

No, Professor, not all Israeli universities and not all Israeli academics will be boycotted if the AUT motion is passed. Such a proposition was defeated 3–1 at the association’s conference two years ago, and the boycotters are too smart to repeat past mistakes. The new motion, says one of its authors, has been ‘tactically’ amended to get it passed. ‘We’ve got to be a bit more sophisticated,’ she says. And sophisticated they are. They even had a dry run last December, when they met to rehearse their presentations and develop killer responses to potential critics.

Their sleek new motion — which does not involve a single book-burning — envisages sanctions against only the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University and Haifa University. And there’s more: the boycotters generously offer Israeli academics the opportunity to buy themselves immunity if they are prepared to denounce their country, specifically, ‘conscientious Israeli academics and intellectuals opposed to their state’s colonial and racist policies’. Who could seriously question the integrity of your fellow academic freedom fighters?

But there are, of course, small obstinate obstacles in the way of you visionaries, Professor. Britain’s academic institutions, for example, have not endorsed boycotting Israel’s academic community. Indeed, when the Oxford don Andrew Wilkie told an Israeli PhD applicant that there was ‘no way would I take on somebody who had served in the Israeli army’, he was hauled before the university’s disciplinary body and suspended without pay for two months.

Cambridge University’s Professor Sir Aaron Klug, Nobel laureate and former president of the Royal Society, put me right when I asked him about the possible impact — on Britain no less than on Israel — of such a boycott: ‘How important is the AUT? That’s the question you have to ask.’ He is no supporter of Israel’s Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, and his policies but he does consider that the proposed boycott is ‘ill considered and doesn’t promote anything at all’. The AUT, he says, is out to attack Israel ‘but this is no way to proceed’. Sir Aaron is ‘not one who looks for anti-Semitism around every corner,’ he says, ‘but I do think there’s an element of that here. It does give people who are anti-Semitic the opportunity to express themselves.’

But relax, Professor. The AUT has solemnly concluded that there is a clear distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. They don’t mind Jews. They just detest the Jewish state.

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Important archaeological relics saved from Wakf Temple Mount garbage

On the grounds of a Jerusalem national park with a view of the Temple Mount, a small group of Israeli archaeologists and volunteers sifting through piles of rubble discarded by Islamic Wakf officials from the Temple Mount into a city garbage dump have recently uncovered a series of history-rich artifacts dating back to the First and Second Temple periods.

The five-month old privately-funded project underway at the site, which is being directed by Bar Ilan University archeology professor Dr. Gabriel Barkay, is being called virtually unprecedented since archaeological excavation has never been permitted on the Temple Mount itself.

Six years ago, following the Islamic Wakf's unilateral construction of a mosque at an underground area of the Temple Mount known as Solomon's Stables, Wakf officials discarded more than 10,000 tons of rubble with history-rich artifacts, at a municipal garbage dump in the Kidron Valley and other locations outside the Old City.

The November 1999 destruction and removal of the antiquities in the wake of the mosque construction was later called "an unprecedented archaeological crime" by the head of Israel's Antiquities Authority, the state-run archaeological body nominally charged with supervision at Judaism's holiest site, as well as by Israel's leading archaeologists.

According to decades-old regulations in place on the Temple Mount, Islamic Wakf official administer the compound, while Jerusalem police are in charge of overall security at the site.
[...]
Starting in November, the archaeologist and a small team, led by his 32-year-old former student Zachi Zweig, transferred 68 truckloads of rubble saturated with archaeological finds from the garbage dump to the Emek Zurim National Park, on the western slopes of Mount Scopus. Using a mechanical sifter, the rubble was then separated into heaps based on size, before being hand-checked for antiquities.

Over the last five months, Zweig a small team of six workers -- and an equal number of daily volunteers -- who have sifted through 15 percent of the rubble to date have uncovered scores of history-rich artifacts, from the First Temple Period until today amidst the rubble, including a large amount of pottery dating from the Bronze Ages through modern times, a large segment of a marble pillar's shaft, and over 100 ancient coins, among them several from the Hasmonean dynasty.

The one meter tall marble column, streaked with purple veins and white spots, is thought to date back to Late Roman or the Byzantine period, Barkay said, and is similar to column shafts near the southern wall of the Temple Mount.

The first coin recovered from the rubble was from the period of the First Revolt against the Romans that preceded the destruction of the Second Temple, he added.

The coin bore the phrase "For the Freedom of Zion," and was particularly meaningful as the Temple Mount was one of the epicenters of the fight against the Romans.

Other finds include a spout of a Hasmonean lamp, an assortment of arrowheads, an ivory comb, a ceramic flask, various first temple figurines, and numerous pottery oil lamps.

The historical project underway is now in danger of going unfinished due to a lack of financial support, with the project director saying that the project will abruptly end in one week unless organizers receive urgent financial backing needed to complete the work.

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20 Israeli companies "most promising": Red Herring

Another truly remarkable accomplishment from a tiny country with constant worries of terror and few natural resources.

No less than 20 of Red Herring's 100 most promising companies in Europe are Israeli.

Israel is the second most highly represented country, with only Britain providing more than a fifth of the companies on the list. Together Israel and Britain are responsible for 53 percent of these promising companies.

Ireland, Finland, France and Germany each have less than 10 names on the list.

Among the 20 Israeli firms are Mellanox Technologies (the mother of InfiniBand technology), Wisair (developer of a ultra-wideband chipset for wireless communications), the biotechnology company D-Pharm, EZChip and Flash Networks.

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Abbas is not serious about peace (IsraelInsider)

Can Abbas tame the lion?
By Micah D. Halpern April 13, 2005

Success or failure. Truth or dare. The future of the Palestinian Authority lies in the hands of one man, President Mahmoud Abbas.

The decisions that Abbas makes will shape the future, long term and short term, of the Palestinian people. The choices are his to make. The commitments are his to undertake.

Some decisions, like cracking down on terror, like taking control, are actually, physically difficult. But Abbas must tame the Palestinian Wild West or it will consume him. And if or when the first democratically elected president of the Palestinian Authority falls, anarchy will set in. And if anarchy enters, any chance of a decent life for the people of Palestine disappears. And when Abbas falls, any chance for rapprochement between the Palestinian Authority and Israel fails. If Abbas is consumed, Palestinian society will never flourish, it will become, instead, a Nicaragua or a Belfast.

How does one tame the lion?

Disarming the gangs of hooligans that roam through the cities and towns, imprisoning, cutting off funds, making it unlawful to incite, all those are obvious ways to recapture control. Physically difficult, but possible.

Convincing the masses of the importance of the mission, that's much, much, more difficult. And the reason it is more difficult is because re-education requires much more than a physical commitment, it requires an emotional commitment. And here, Abbas has failed miserably. Abbas has barely even attempted to re-educate the Palestinian people.

Education, or re-education, is central to the success of President Abbas. It is an essential tool for the implementation of a democratic, economically sound and productive future for his people. And yet, Abbas has not even begun to put in place the easiest of educational reforms. There are concrete actions that take no time to put in place and require no energy to implement. There are actions that take almost no money but which would have serious short and long term impact for the future of the Palestinian people.

All Abbas needs to do, as a first, simple, crucially important step is take one book off the school reading list. If Abbas is really committed to peace with the Israelis, if he is being truthful when he speaks of peace and progress in international diplomatic circles, he will push forward on the process of re-education now. He is already late, any later will be too late. But does he dare?

Israeli Minister Natan Sharansky has just sent an emergency letter to Israel's President Ariel Sharon and to United States President George Bush.

This is his issue:
The official 10th grade Palestinian school curriculum teaches The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion. The edition used in the schools is published in Syria. The curriculum never mentions that the Protocols are a forgery of the Russian secret police created by the Czar in order to generate the notorious myth that the Jews control the world.

One must ask:
Why teach The Protocols if not to expose the work as a conspiracy theory of Antisemites? In any other context, what is the educational purpose behind teaching The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion to impressionable 10th graders given today's social and political climate?

In order to perpetuate the myth. We all know the answer. The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion has not been removed from the Palestinian school curriculum, the book has not been removed from school library shelves, only, ONLY, in order to perpetuate the myth!

The Palestinians continue to teach The Protocols because they are not yet committed to the reforms. And Mahmoud Abbas, as president, is the man responsible for re-educating or not re-educating his people, for implementing reforms or for letting them linger, ignored if not forgotten.

There's more. There are the maps.

In no official Palestinian Authority map is Israel identified. Not just school maps - any and all maps.

It is hard to imagine a civilized, long-term, interaction between peoples, between societies, between countries when the official maps of one of the partners still do not recognize the existence of the other.

Here's even more. Of the 160 schoolbooks the Palestinian Authority uses to teach from, not a single text refers to Israel as an independent state. Shocked? Not any more, I would think.

Yes, Palestinian President Abbas must break the backs of the terrorist thugs who might physically challenge his control over his society. But he must also transform an educational system, he must educate. Future Palestinian leaders should be groomed in schools, not in marauding packs.

One need not teach love, but neither should one perpetuate hatred.

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White House: Democratically-elected Hamas should be respected

I've written before about wishful thinking overtaking common sense in the "peace process." The White House is not immune to this syndrome, as is clear from this exchange with WorldNetDaily. Here, we discover that the last Palestinian elections were "free and fair" and that Hamas members who get elected aren't terrorists:

WND: Scott, on the road map, can you identify even one Palestinian terrorist group that has been disarmed by the Palestinian Authority in accordance with the Bush administration's own road map? And I have a follow-up.

McCLELLAN: I think it's important to look at some of the steps that have been taken. And the president talked about President Abbas the other day in the news conference. We look forward to having President Abbas visit Washington again so the president can talk to him about what we can do to support them in their efforts to move forward on the two-state vision that he outlined. But there have been some steps taken to address the security situation.

It's important that they have a unified security structure. General Ward has been in the region working closely with the Palestinians to help put those security forces in place and have a unified structure to address some of these issues. But the road map is very clear in what it says. We've been very clear in what our views are, as well. And it's important that the parties meet their obligations.

WND: In the event that Hamas, a terrorist organization not yet disarmed by the Palestinian Authority, wins a majority in the legislative PA, will the Bush administration still send $350 million U.S. taxpayer dollars to the PA, or not?

McCLELLAN: Les, it's – the one thing that you see when people have elections that are free and fair is that they tend to choose people who are committed to improving their livelihood, not people who are committed to terrorist acts. And I think if you look back at the previous Palestinian elections, the people that were elected, while they might have been members of Hamas, they were business professionals. They were people that ran on talking about improving the quality of life for the Palestinian people and addressing their economic needs and addressing other needs that are important to them – not terrorists.

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Hamas member's sister hides his gun in her underwear

Troops searching a West Bank house for a wanted Hamas gunman found his sister hording his gun in her underpants, the army said, adding that it would consider renewing strip-searches among Palestinian women when searching and screening for potential terrorists.

The soldiers in the Balata refugee camp, a terrorist hotbed, find the gunman inside his house and ordered him to surrender his weapon. He refused, saying he didn't have it. After questioning, they found the man's sister had hidden it her underwear.

Troops then arrested the Hamas terrorist. They also found a gun holster and bullets inside the building.

An army spokesman said the incident raises serious questions about the need to search Palestinian women, mainly at checkpoints.

“Until now we have gone easy on women,” a spokesman said. “Perhaps we need to reconsider that policy.”

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3 US Muslim brothers guilty of aiding Hamas - one was a founder of CAIR/Texas

Ghassan Elashi is one of the founders of th Texas chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, which puts up a moderate front in the press but which has had numerous terrorist connections.

Three brothers have been found guilty of supporting terrorism in a US court in Dallas, Texas.

The men were charged with passing money to an official in the militant Palestinian group, Hamas.

Ghassan, Basman and Bayan Elashi were tried on 21 counts of conspiracy, money laundering and dealing in the property of a terrorist.

They will be sentenced later, after one of the US government's highest profile terrorism prosecutions.

Ghassan and Bayan Elashi were convicted on all 21 counts, while Basman Elashi was found guilty on three counts.

Prosecutors said the men tried to conceal a $250,000 investment in their computer firm by an alleged official with Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook.

Ten years ago he was accused of being a terrorist by the US government.

He was deported and is now believed to be living in Syria.

This effectively meant that it would be illegal for anyone to do business with him - something the Elashi brothers have now been found guilty of.

Last year the three, along with two other Elashi brothers, were convicted of making illegal technology shipments to Libya and Syria - countries the US government considers state sponsors of terrorism.

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Not-so-OK Corral

Another classic from Cox and Forkum.

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Israel's hockey team wins tournament!

Hockey? In Israel?

Once upon a time Ephraim Kishon wrote a funny story about an Israeli hockey team that didn't know how to skate.

TEL AVIV - As it turns out, our hot and humid Middle Eastern nation has an ice-hockey team, and not a bad one at that.

At the beginning of the week, Israel won the gold medal at the International Ice Hockey Federation Division II Group B world championships, an achievement that pushed it into Division I, one tier below the top division.

Under the direction of Canadian coach Jean Perron, Israel was able to win four of its five games and tie one.

More impressively, the team won without Israel’s most renowned hockey star, Max Birbraer, who was drafted by the NHL’s New Jersey Devils three years ago.

However, Israel did enjoy the services of the three Eisenman brothers, Alon, Erez and Oren.

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Why is Israel a world pariah?

An excellent article in response to a rabidly anti-semitic crackpot article published in the same newspaper last month. The newspaper, the Baltimore Chronicle and Sentinel, is unabashedly left-wing and critical of Israel, and it is to their credit that they even agreed to publish this response.

by Michael Suedfeld
This is a critical time in Middle East history. Both the Palestinians and Israelis are eyeing painful concessions to achieve lasting peace and no one in the world is more acutely aware of this than Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The way forward is not through old rhetoric and the dredging of past events but through conciliation and dealing with the hard realities of 2005. Unfortunately, one of those realities is that some people, when presented with the possibility of turning to peace and progress, will be unable to leave their tired views behind.

How else to explain those such as William Hughes who, in this publication last month, went on a vitriolic tirade against Sharon and the nation he heads? Hughes repeated the many mantras of Israel-bashers, relying on falsehoods and half-truths to reach his goal.

It is fruitless to comment directly on such attacks. Those who forward them are on a mission. They want a very public humiliation, if not the outright dissolution, of the Middle East’s sole traditional democracy; the country that ranks highest among Middle East nations when rated for human development[1]; a country that is a world leader in technological, medical and other scientific advances[2]; a country with less than three per cent of the Middle East’s population[3]; a country that is such a minute portion of the Middle East geographically, it can be measured in tenths of a per cent; a country with few natural resources and none of that most precious Middle East commodity--oil.

Rather, I challenge readers to ask themselves: why is Israel a world pariah?

Is it because of its actions? There are numerous areas around the world where the death tolls are hundreds of times higher and where oppression--particularly of women and minorities--is a routine part of daily life, including most, if not all, other Middle East countries.

Is it because of Sharon? Since Yasser Arafat’s death, Sharon has released hundreds of prisoners[4], allowed convicted and exiled Palestinian terrorists to return to their homes[5], strengthened his commitment to removing Gaza settlements, relaxed travel restrictions[6], removed checkpoints and turned over security to Palestinian forces[7]. As for war crimes, if Sharon’s guilty so, too, are numerous world leaders with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan leading the list. Sharon may have stood by as between 500-1,000 innocents in Sabra and Shatila were murdered by Christian Phalangists (Arabs, not Jews or Israelis), Annan did exactly the same thing in Rwanda (500,000-plus dead[8]), in the former Yugoslavia (more than 100,000 dead[9]), and, today in Sudan (an estimated 300,000 dead[10]).

Is it the media? As the second Intifidah began, there were 350 press organizations with permanent representatives in Israel and another 1,300 arrived shortly after[11]. Those people were there to write “hard” news even if they had to create it. The Jenin refugee camp reporting was one of the great shams of modern journalism, yet people, including Hughes, still cite it as if there were actually a massacre there.[12]

Do we hold Israel to a higher standard than its neighbors? That’s unfair to Israel but more so to Arabs. Lebanese historian Kemal Salibi described it this way: “The liberal tradition in the West tries to impute to the behavior of the native or the underdog an idealist position which is not really there...When it comes to the thinking about Middle East politics, the American liberal mind is often chasing rainbows. They are living in a world of delusion.”[13] Arabs are not children and would be best served if we in the West demanded better from their leaders.

Is Israel perfect? No modern nation is. Israel is, however, home to a kaleidoscope of people from some 100 national backgrounds of diverse races and cultures.[14] The Arab Muslim, Christian and Druze minorities comprise approximately 20 per cent of the population.[15] Druze serve with distinction in the Israeli Defence Forces. There are Arab members of the Knesset[16], Arab members of the courts, including Supreme Court[17] and, in the last two World Cup of Football (soccer) qualifying games, Arab-Israelis scored the tying goals becoming, at least briefly, national heroes.[18] In contrast, Jews can’t even visit countries such as Saudi Arabia.[19]

In short, there is no reason to hate or demean Israel in proportions so out of whack with its actions and significance. At least not for anyone really interested in peace, justice and the other ideals this publication’s operators profess to espouse.

---

REFERENCES:
[1] Human Development Index
[2] Facts about the 100th smallest country
[3] Depending on which countries are included as “Middle East”, there are between 260 million and 300 million Middle East residents; approximately 6 million in Israel.
[4] Israel releases Palestinian prisoners
[5] Deported Palestinians Allowed to Return
[6] Israel to Lift Restrictions in West Bank
[7] Israel returns Tulkarem to Palestinian control
[8] U.N. Panel: Rwanda Death Toll Down
[9] Revised death toll for Bosnian war
[10] Sudan toll underestimated, report says
[11] Ha'aretz: Foreign press ired by government media center cuts
[12] Palestinians confirm no Jenin 'massacre'
[13] "The Middle East"
[14] Brainboost - How many people live in Israel?
[15] World Factbook
[16] Current Knesset Members
[17] First Arab Named To Israeli Supreme Court
[18] Arab soccer players rescue Israeli team, spark hopes for Jewish-Arab reconciliation
[19] Saudi tourism: No Jews please

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