Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, September 04, 2011

Turkish member of Palmer commission criticized in Turkey

Veteran diplomat Özdem Sanberk, the retired ambassador who represented Turkey on the U.N. panel investigating the deadly Mavi Marmara raid, has become the subject of criticism over the panel’s report, which Turkey rejected as one-sided.

“Sanberk should not have appeared in the happy picture taken when the report was submitted, despite his reservations, to the U.N. secretary-general. I think he could have nixed the release of the report if he had resigned from the team instead of just stating his reservations,” said Volkan Bozkır, an Istanbul deputy from the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, who joined the party recently after retiring from the Foreign Ministry.

“The commission failed to be an objective commission. It contained Turkish and Israeli representatives. The Turkish representative put his reservations on almost all conclusions of the report,” Bozkır wrote Sunday in a message on the social-networking website Twitter. The Istanbul deputy, who heads up Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, also urged Turkey to take more caution against this type of behind-the-scenes intrigue in international platforms and courts.

Despite Bozkır’s criticisms of Sanberk, others in Ankara believe the retired ambassador should not be made a scapegoat because any failures with the report are due to collective mistakes. Members of this camp say Turkish diplomacy ignored the ability of the pro-Israel lobby to influence such commissions, and that singling out the commission’s president and vice president, Geoffrey Palmer and Alvaro Uribe, to write the report’s conclusions was a mistake made at the beginning of the process.

It is eerie how many UN commissions are influenced by the Israel lobby, isn't it?

Wikileaks: Anti-semitism in Japan

From a newly released Wikileaks cable from April 2009:

Summary: Japanese anti-Semitism may be the ultimate oxymoron since Japan is a Shintoist/Buddhist society with virtually no Jewish minority and no history of discrimination against Jews as an ethnic or religious group. However, anti-Semitic attitudes and anti-Jewish conspiracy theories are accepted by surprisingly many Japanese. The idea of Jewish economic, political and intellectual "omnipotence" has gained an audience among Japanese who are not otherwise anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitism in Japan is manifested through books, magazines, public appearances by anti-Semitic writers, and several internet sites. The Israeli Embassy in Tokyo notes that what is found in Japan isn't "classical anti-Semitism," but a "combination of unfamiliarity, a tendency amongst a few to give credence to conspiracy theories about Jewish power, and some issues that are politically sensitive."

The first incident occurred on a national television talk show, TV-Asahi's Sunday Project, hosted by veteran journalist and interviewer Soichiro Tahara. Tahara's remark, which prompted a statement of criticism from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, took place during an interview with former Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka. Tahara had raised the arrest of Tanaka's late father, former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, in connection with the Lockheed scandal in the mid-1970s and the recent arrest of an aide to Democratic President Ichiro Ozawa for illegally receiving political donations. Tahara, who has written a book alleging that the Lockheed scandal was a CIA plot against former PM Tanaka, remarked, "Mr. Tanaka was done in by the Jews, and Ozawa was done in by them too."

The second recent anti-Semitic incident was much more surprising since it came from Atsuyuki Sassa, a former policeman and one-time national-security aide (1986-89) to then-Prime Minister Nakasone who is now well known as a commentator on crisis management and defense issues. Appearing on a Saturday morning NTV infotainment program on March 21, the former chief of Japan's National Security Council, in referring to the issue of massive bonus payments by AIG to its executives, as well as the use of private jets by the heads of the "Big Three" companies, said: "There were terrible capitalists around the 18th century. I know it is bad to say this, but most of them were Jews. It is the Jews who are doing awful things today." When the program host immediately told Sassa that his remarks were out of line, Sassa insisted, "But that is my view."

Anti-Semitic books and articles occasionally appear in Japan even if these views are not widely shared. There are also several rabidly anti-Semitic websites in Japanese spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories (e.g., that Jews masterminded 9/11). While most such literature tends to favor conspiracy theories of international Jewish control, even citing such fabrications as the early 20th century Protocols of the Elders of Zion, writings that deny the Holocaust or defend Nazi pogroms can also be found. One internationally notorious incident occurred in 1995 with the publication of an article by then 38-year old physician Masanori Nishioka titled. "There Were No Nazi 'Gas Cambers'," in the February issue of Marco Polo, a slick, 250,000-circulation monthly aimed at a young audience, published by Bungei Shunju, one of Japan's most influential publishing house.

One of most infamous peddlers of Jewish conspiracy theories has been Masami Uno, who has written such books as "The Invisible Empire - Jewish Zionists Control the World." Uno needless to say denies the Holocaust and even claims that the diary of Anne Frank was a hoax. With conspiracy theorists like Uno, just about everything that goes wrong in the world, including the current financial crisis, can be blames on the Jews.

Although anti-Semitic propaganda seems found mainly among right-wing nationalists, the same conspiracy-minded prejudices can be found in leftist publications, as well. Shukan Kinyobi (Weekly Friday) had a special collection of articles in its January 16 issue on "The danger of Obama" that excoriated the President and his policies. One of the features was a two-page spread with photos, names, and comments of the "Jewish lobby" that allegedly controls the Obama administration. The magazine characterized out Jews who were appointed or slated for appointments in the Obama administration as a cabal that would now run the U.S. government. The collection subsequently came out as a book available from Amazon Japan.

Blatant anti-Semitism can be found in the works of the political cartoonist Yoshinori Kobayashi, an ultranationalist whose books of polemical cartoons sell well among young readers. He has long been a frequent guest on a TV-Asahi all-night debate show on television and other talk shows, where his outrageous political views no doubt are expected to raise the ratings of the programs. He is a regular contributor to Sapio, a nationalist biweekly magazine that targets young readers.

Kobayashi's book contains a strong passage that reveals his hatred of the Jews. Singling out Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who directed the Manhattan Project that led to the development of the first atomic bomb, Kobayashi used him as a scapegoat for all Jews, who he accused of masterminding the atomic bombing of Japan. The following chilling passage comes from the book: "The director of the Manhattan Project was Dr. Oppenheimer, a Jew. He did the Devil's work. Japan saved up to 20,000 Jews during the war, but Jews built the atom bomb and lent their hands to Japan's Holocaust."

There are no reports of violence or discrimination against Jews in Japan. According to Arie Grosman, Coordinator for the Jewish Community Center in Tokyo, although protests at the Israeli Embassy itself tend to peak around periods of Middle East disturbance, "at a personal level there are no acts of anti-Semitism toward individuals. We do of course from time to time get threatening letters and post cards, but this is mostly when fighting is going on back home."

Palestinian Authority lies to US diplomats about incitement (Wikileaks)

A new Wikileaks cable talks about how the PA was supposedly fighting incitement against Israel in its mosques in 2009:

On October 1, PA Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud al Habash outlined his ministry's efforts to eliminate incitement from 1,500 West Bank mosques, 80-90 percent of which are currently controlled by the PA. Al Habash told Post: "we monitor and control the Friday sermons with unified talking points of approved themes, and (imams) are not allowed to stray to other topics." If an imam deviates significantly from approved themes, he said, "we bring him in, counsel him and see if we can fix the problem. If we can't, he'll be relieved from his duties and given an administrative job -- or we may separate him from service altogether." Al Habash noted the PA has partial cooperation from, but no control over, Gaza mosques.

When asked to cite specific instances in which the PA had acted against incitement in mosques, al-Habash noted that an imam from the Tulkarm village of Qaffin was recently fired for inciting worshippers against the PA. Pressed on actions taken against imams inciting against Israel, al-Habash asserted that "There is no more incitement against Israel in (our) mosques, because compliance with our guidelines keeps such views out of the mosques (that the PA controls)." He admitted, however, that Area C mosques are a problem. "In Bethlehem's Husan (village) there are four mosques not under our control; we've been asking the IDF for two and a half months to let PASF enter Husan for this purpose and we've had no response." NOTE: Husan is an Area B/C "seam-zone" village west of the separation barrier, bordering on the Beitar Illit settlement. END NOTE.

Al Habash noted that his ministry is currently reviewing the curriculum of eight religious schools in the West Bank and Gaza. In addition, he said, "President Abbas has approved giving (our ministry) jurisdiction over the religious programming in the Palestinian Broadcasting Company's radio and TV programs; no publications by official Palestinian media violates the rules." Referring to recent incidents in Jerusalem (reftel), Al-Habash said, "there was no violent reaction in any Palestinian city or village; this is indicative of success in our efforts to reduce the culture of violence." NOTE: Al Habash was a member of Hamas until 1996; after that he worked with PA security services in Gaza against Hamas and joined Salam Fayyad's 2007 government as Minister of Social Affairs, changing to Religious Affairs last May. END NOTE.

The PA eliminated incitement from mosques by October 2009?

Then how could the following televised sermons have been possible?

Palestinian TV preaching genocide: Jews are enemies of humanity from Palestinian Media Watch on Vimeo.

"Oh Muslims! The Jews are the Jews. The Jews are the Jews. Even if donkeys would cease to bray, dogs cease to bark, wolves cease to howl and snakes to bite, the Jews would not cease to harbor hatred towards Muslims. The Prophet said that if two Jews would be alone with a Muslim, they would think only of killing him. Oh Muslims! This land will be liberated, these holy places and these mosques will be liberated, only by means of a return to the Quran and when all Muslims will be willing to be Jihad Fighters for the sake of Allah and for the sake of supporting Palestine, the Palestinian people, the Palestinian land, and the holy places in Palestine. The Prophet says: 'You shall fight the Jews and kill them, until the tree and the stone will speak and say: 'Oh Muslim, Oh servant of Allah' - the tree and the stone will not say, 'Oh Arab,' they will say, 'Oh Muslim'. And they will not say, 'Where are the millions?' and will not say, 'Where is the Arab nation?' Rather, they will say, 'Oh Muslim, Oh servant of Allah - there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.' Except for the Gharqad tree [tree mentioned in the Quran - Ed.], which is the tree of the Jews. Thus, this land will be liberated only by means of Jihad..."
[PA TV (Fatah), Jan. 29, 2010]

Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine:

"The Al-Aqsa Mosque is threatened by the plans of the enemies of Allah [the Jews], who have violated all faith and religious laws, and even deviated from their humanity."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Fatah), June 26 2010 & al-msjd-alaqsa.com (Al-Aqsa Mosque Forum), June 25, 2010]

PA TV broadcasts Friday sermon with preacher Dr. Subhi Ubeid. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Secretary General of the Chairman’s Office, Al-Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim, are in the audience.
“Saladin [Muslim military leader who conquered Jerusalem] was embarrassed to smile while Jerusalem was occupied. And now Palestine is occupied by the colonialist invaders. Where is Saladin to restore to this nation its glory and its greatness?”

Habash himself directly incites against Israel!

Speaker: Mahmoud Al-Habbash, PA Minister of Religious Affairs
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is in the audience.
"Jerusalem is not just a city. Al-Aqsa is not just a mosque. Jerusalem is the key to peace, and Jerusalem can ignite a thousand and one wars. Unless the issue of Jerusalem is solved, so that it returns to its owners; unless Jerusalem will be Palestinian, as it was throughout history, the capital of the Palestinian state and the capital of the Palestinian people, the place which is the object of heartfelt longing and which all Muslims aspire to reach; unless Jerusalem is like that way, there is no peace. There is no peace without Jerusalem. There is no stability without Jerusalem. If Jerusalem is dishonored, if Jerusalem is disgraced, if [Jerusalem] is lost, it may leave the door open to all possibilities of struggle, all possibilities of war. The term 'war' cannot be erased from the lexicon of this region as long as Jerusalem is occupied, as long as Jerusalem is disgraced, as long as the residents of Jerusalem are being targeted. It's not possible; Jerusalem has to return to its owners. And we are its owners."
[PA TV (Fatah), Aug. 20, 2010]

Egyptian ambassador admits terrorists coming from Gaza to Sinai

Palestine Today reports on statements made by the Egyptian ambassador to the PA, Yasser Osman, in Ramallah.

Osman confirms that Egypt is closing tunnels in Rafah, but not any of the tunnels that are used to smuggle goods into Gaza; rather only the tunnels that "harm the national security of Egypt and the Palestinians."

He said that Egypt plans to increase the number of people travelling through the Rafah crossing, but it has to wait for "the return of calm to the Sinai."

Which means that Egypt is publicly admitting that Gaza terrorists are infiltrating the Sinai and causing problems for Egypt as well as Israel.

While he didn't explicitly say that there was coordination with Hamas on the closing of tunnels, he said that "there is an understanding with the Gaza Strip on the border control and that includes the issue of tunnels."

Arab cartoon threatens Israel

A video from Arabic online cartoon network Kharabeesh:

The warning in Hebrew at the end translates to "Egypt will be the grave of invaders."

The tune at the end is an Arabicized version of Israel's national anthem.

(h/t Yoel)

"Jewish extremist gangs stormed the Al Aqsa Mosque"

Palestine Today writes that "Jewish extremist gangs stormed the Al Aqsa Mosque" this morning.

And they provide a photo of those rampaging, storming Jews:

Shocking, I know. They didn't even have enough respect for the holy spot to play some soccer.

Palestine Times' photo shows haredi visitors to the site today, which is a relatively new and growing phenomenon:

I have no idea why they censored some of the faces.

Wikileaks: Anti-semitism in Tunisia is well hidden

From a newly released Wikileaks cable from January 2007:

In separate meetings on December 12 with the Minister of Religious Affairs, the MFA, and members of Parliament, including Jewish community leader Roger Bismuth, the GOT presented a united front on Tunisia's record of religious tolerance. All interlocutors described the Tunisian model as a shining example of how a minority religious community was supported and protected by government policies. The Minister of Religious Affairs, El Akhzouri, stating a talking point heard throughout the day, said "Tunisian Jews are Tunisians first, Jewish second." Another oft-repeated soundbite heard from GOT officials was: "We shouldn't speak of tolerance, we should speak of acceptance." While recognizing some isolated incidents (Ref B), Tunisian officials denied that anti-Semitism was a significant problem in Tunisia.

...In Djerba, members of the community, including the community president and the Grand Rabbi of Tunisia, picked up where the GOT interlocutors left off the previous day, extolling the virtuous religious policies of President Ben Ali, and repeating throughout the day that "there are no problems." The President of the Djerba Jewish community, Youssef Uzan, nervously intimated to PolFSN that things were not as perfect as everyone said, but would say nothing more. "You may come and go, but we have to stay here and deal with (the GOT) when you are gone," he said, explaining why he did not want to complain about community problems to a foreign visitor. Throughout the day, Uzan had to constantly report on the delegation's whereabouts to GOT authorities (who were tailing the group everywhere in any case), and had to set an extra place when a local GOT official entered uninvited to a lunch prepared by the Jewish community for the visiting delegation.

One community member, a jeweler named XXXXXX, however, quietly told poloff "of course we have problems." While emphasizing that the GOT should be commended for its protection of the community, he said it was "ridiculous to claim that everything was perfect." He spoke at length, and with as much caution as if he were disclosing a state secret, of a long-standing dispute, dating back ten years, with the former community president. The president had received, in the name of the community, a significant donation from the widow of a Tunisian Jew. This former president had misappropriated the funds, and when the community tried to install a new president, the matter went to court. According to the Haddad, the court only recognized the former president since only his name was listed on papers establishing the Jewish association. Haddad told poloff that to officially replace him and gain control of the widow's donation, the community would have to create a new association, but that Tunisia's restrictive law on associations prevented this. Haddad said the former president left Djerba, and was currently living in "a million-dollar" apartment in Tunis, where he enjoyed high-level connections in the GOT.

XXXX also mentioned several periods of tension between the Djerban Jews and their Muslim counterparts. He said that in the early eighties, during a time of increased tension in the Levant, members of the Jewish community were the targets of physical and verbal assault, causing many members of the community to emigrate. He said that this had stopped with Ben Ali's accession to power in 1987, and the protective policies the GOT employed towards the Jewish community. XXXXXX said that the Muslim community now knew that the GOT had made it clear that any assault on the Jewish community would meet severe retribution, as the GOT benefited greatly from "showing the world" Tunisia's Jewish community. XXXXXX quickly noted that, absent this tacit threat, as well as the tangible measures of protection, he feared he and his fellow Jews would "again be stoned in the street."

The former regime was clearly protecting the Jewish community for political purposes and used them as a showcase for their tolerance. The question is, in the new Tunisia, whether the Muslims continue to treat Jews with respect or if things will go downhill for Jews without government protection.

Amnesty seizes on Palmer's criticism of Israel, ignores rest of report

Amnesty International has come out with their comments on the Palmer Report. Curiously, they are only on video.

What is not surprising is:

They seize on the one relatively small part of the report critical of Israel and completely ignore the other parts of the report - including those critical of Turkey and the flotilla organizers.
They do not address, at all, the parts of the report that completely contradict Amnesty's own legal reasonings.
They continue to call the Turkel report a "whitewash" even though the Palmer report was much closer to the Turkel report in most important matters, and Turkel himself recommended that the testimony of soldiers be made public - the exact opposite of a "whitewash."
They never responded to Turkel's not Palmer's, extensive legal arguments.

Truth does not seem to be what Amnesty is interested in.

PA: Palmer report "violates international law" (updated)

From Ma'an:

The Palestinian Authority on Saturday condemned a UN report into a deadly Israeli raid on a Turkish-led aid flotilla as a political document not based on international law.

"This report is terrible and negative. It's a purely political report, it's not legal," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said of the report on the May 2010 raid which killed nine Turkish activists.

"It's a political report that is not based on international law, but on the contrary, it violates international law, because the Gaza Strip is still under Israeli occupation," he told AFP.

"Israel's actions against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip has reached the level of war crimes," he said.

I have a feeling we will not see a scholarly repudiation of the Palmer report by Erekat, and that his criticisms will remain on the level of the political equivalent of schoolyard insults.

UPDATE: Challah Hu Akbar notes that the PA criticized the report without even reading it!

Poster: How badly do PalArabs want a state?

IAEA concerned over evidence Iran is developing nuclear weapons

From the BBC:

The UN nuclear watchdog says it is "increasingly concerned" that Iran is secretly working on components for a nuclear weapons programme.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) describes its information as "extensive and comprehensive".

In a report seen by news agencies, it also says Tehran is preparing to enrich uranium at a new location - an underground bunker near Qom.

The IAEA says "many member states" had provided evidence for its latest assessment on Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Extracts of the report, published by the AFP news agency, said the IAEA was "increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed nuclear related activities involving military related organisations".

These included "activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile".

Sleep tight.

The NYPD's "mosque crawlers" and "rakers" look for terror intel

The AP came out with this serious piece of investigative journalism last week, revealing an alleged secret NYPD unit that works with the CIA to gather intelligence on potential Muslim terrorists in the area. Excerpts:

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the New York Police Department has become one of the nation's most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies, targeting ethnic communities in ways that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government, an Associated Press investigation has found.

These operations have benefited from unprecedented help from the CIA, a partnership that has blurred the line between foreign and domestic spying.

The department has dispatched undercover officers, known as "rakers," into minority neighborhoods as part of a human mapping program, according to officials directly involved in the program. They've monitored daily life in bookstores, bars, cafes and nightclubs. Police have also used informants, known as "mosque crawlers," to monitor sermons, even when there's no evidence of wrongdoing.

Neither the city council, which finances the department, nor the federal government, which has given NYPD more than $1.6 billion since 9/11, is told exactly what's going on.

Many of these operations were built with help from the CIA, which is prohibited from spying on Americans but was instrumental in transforming the NYPD's intelligence unit.

A veteran CIA officer, while still on the agency's payroll, was the architect of the NYPD's intelligence programs. The CIA trained a police detective at the Farm, the agency's spy school in Virginia, then returned him to New York, where he put his new espionage skills to work inside the United States.

The NYPD denied that it trolls ethnic neighborhoods and said it only follows leads. Police operations have disrupted terrorist plots and put several would-be killers in prison.

"The New York Police Department is doing everything it can to make sure there's not another 9/11 here and that more innocent New Yorkers are not killed by terrorists," NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. "And we have nothing to apologize for in that regard."

AP's investigation is based on documents and interviews with more than 40 current and former New York Police Department and federal officials. Many were directly involved in planning and carrying out these secret operations for the department. Though most said the tactics were appropriate and made the city safer, many insisted on anonymity, because they were not authorized to speak with reporters about security matters.

...

Since 1985, the NYPD had operated under a federal court order limiting the tactics it could use to gather intelligence. During the 1960s and 1970s, the department had used informants and undercover officers to infiltrate anti-war protest groups and other activists without any reason to suspect criminal behavior.

To settle a lawsuit, the department agreed to follow guidelines that required "specific information" of criminal activity before police could monitor political activity.

In September 2002, [NYPD intelligence chief David] Cohen told a federal judge that those guidelines made it "virtually impossible" to detect terrorist plots. The FBI was changing its rules to respond to 9/11, and Cohen argued that the NYPD must do so, too.

"In the case of terrorism, to wait for an indication of crime before investigating is to wait far too long," Cohen wrote.

U.S. District Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. agreed, saying the old guidelines "addressed different perils in a different time." He scrapped the old rules and replaced them with more lenient ones.
It was a turning point for the NYPD.

...

With his newfound authority, Cohen created a secret squad that would soon infiltrate Muslim neighborhoods, according to several current and former officials directly involved in the program.

The NYPD carved up the city into more than a dozen zones and assigned undercover officers to monitor them, looking for potential trouble.

At the CIA, one of the biggest obstacles has always been that U.S. intelligence officials are overwhelmingly white, their mannerisms clearly American. The NYPD didn't have that problem, thanks to its diverse pool of officers.

Using census data, the department matched undercover officers to ethnic communities and instructed them to blend in, the officials said. Pakistani-American officers infiltrated Pakistani neighborhoods, Palestinians focused on Palestinian neighborhoods. They hung out in hookah bars and cafes, quietly observing the community around them.

The unit, which has been undisclosed until now, became known inside the department as the Demographic Unit, former police officials said.

"It's not a question of profiling. It's a question of going where the problem could arise," said Mordecai Dzikansky, a retired NYPD intelligence officer who said he was aware of the Demographic Unit. "And thank God we have the capability. We have the language capability and the ethnic officers. That's our hidden weapon."

The officers did not work out of headquarters, officials said. Instead, they passed their intelligence to police handlers who knew their identities.

Cohen said he wanted the squad to "rake the coals, looking for hot spots," former officials recalled. The undercover officers soon became known inside the department as rakers.

A hot spot might be a beauty supply store selling chemicals used for making bombs. Or it might be a hawala, a broker that transfers money around the world with little documentation.

Undercover officers might visit an Internet cafe and look at the browsing history on a computer, a former police official involved in the program said. If it revealed visits to radical websites, the cafe might be deemed a hot spot.

Ethnic bookstores, too, were on the list. If a raker noticed a customer looking at radical literature, he might chat up the store owner and see what he could learn. The bookstore, or even the customer, might get further scrutiny. If a restaurant patron applauds a news report about the death of U.S. troops, the patron or the restaurant could be labeled a hot spot.

The goal was to "map the city's human terrain," one law enforcement official said. The program was modeled in part on how Israeli authorities operate in the West Bank, a former police official said.

...The NYPD declined to make Cohen available for comment. In an earlier interview with the AP on a variety of topics, Police Commissioner Kelly said the intelligence unit does not infringe on civil rights.

"We're doing what we believe we have to do to protect the city," he said. "We have many, many lawyers in our employ. We see ourselves as very conscious and aware of civil liberties. And we know there's always going to be some tension between the police department and so-called civil liberties groups because of the nature of what we do."

...Undercover agents like the rakers were valuable, but what Cohen and Sanchez wanted most were informants.

The NYPD dedicated an entire squad, the Terrorist Interdiction Unit, to developing and handling informants. Current and former officials said Sanchez was instrumental in teaching them how to develop sources.

For years, detectives used informants known as mosque crawlers to monitor weekly sermons and report what was said, several current and former officials directly involved in the informant program said. If FBI agents were to do that, they would be in violation of the Privacy Act, which prohibits the federal government from collecting intelligence on purely First Amendment activities.

...To identify possible informants, the department created what became known as the "debriefing program." When someone is arrested who might be useful to the intelligence unit — whether because he said something suspicious or because he is simply a young Middle Eastern man — he is singled out for extra questioning. Intelligence officials don't care about the underlying charges; they want to know more about his community and, ideally, they want to put him to work.

Police are in prisons, too, promising better living conditions and help or money on the outside for Muslim prisoners who will work with them.

...NYPD's intelligence operations do not stop at the city line.

Cohen's undercover squad, the Special Services Unit, operates in places such as New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, officials said. They can't make arrests and, if something goes wrong — a shooting or a car accident, for instance — the officers could be personally liable.

But the NYPD has decided it's worth the risk, a former police official said.

With Police Commissioner Kelly's backing, Cohen's policy is that any potential threat to New York City is the NYPD's business, regardless of where it occurs, officials said.

[T]he NYPD's out-of-state operations have had success.

A young Egyptian NYPD officer living undercover in New Jersey, for example, was key to building a case against Mohamed Mahmood Alessa and Carlos Eduardo Almonte. The pair was arrested last year at John F. Kennedy Airport en route to Somalia to join the terrorist group al-Shabab. Both pleaded guilty to conspiracy.

Cohen has also sent officers abroad, stationing them in 11 foreign cities. If a bomber blows himself up in Jerusalem, the NYPD rushes to the scene, said Dzikansky, who served in Israel and is the co-author of the forthcoming book "Terrorist Suicide Bombings: Attack Interdiction, Mitigation, and Response."

"I was there to ask the New York question," Dzikansky said. "Why this location? Was there something unique that the bomber had done? Was there any pre-notification. Was there a security lapse?"

All of this intelligence — from the rakers, the undercovers, the overseas liaisons and the informants — is passed to a team of analysts hired from some of the nation's most prestigious universities. Analysts have spotted emerging trends and summarized topics such as Hezbollah's activities in New York and the threat of South Asian terrorist groups.

There's a lot more. Although the tone of the report is very negative, it does not appear that any of this is illegal. It also looks like the NYPD is going as close to the line as it can without crossing it.

Will Amnesty accuse Palmer of a "whitewash"?

A day after Israel released the Turkel Report on the 2010 flotilla incident, Amnesty International called it a "whitewash" - before they even read the report.

A few days later, they made that accusation clearer, writing a report officially calling the Turkel report a "whitewash." This is not only them disagreeing with the conclusions; it is Amnesty impugning the objectivity and methodology of the Turkel Commission, with no evidence on their part.

Among their charges of Turkel:

The Commission’s failure to account for the deaths reinforces the view that the Israeli authorities are unwilling or incapable of delivering accountability for abuses of international law committed by Israeli forces.

...Amnesty International also contests the Commission’s findings that the purpose of Israel’s naval blockade on Gaza was “primarily a military-security one”....The naval blockade must be assessed in the context of the closure policy implemented by the Israeli government since June 2007 – a siege that constitutes collective punishment and violates the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Finally, Amnesty International rejects the Turkel Commission’s conclusion that the closure policy is lawful.

All of these points are considered and repudiated in the Palmer report.

Will Amnesty call Palmer a "whitewash" as well? Will they claim that the Zionist lobby infiltrated the UN? Will they continue to pretend that somehow the biased UNHRC report is fair and Palmer is not? Or will they apologize to the Turkel Commission for being largely vindicated by Palmer?

Turkey's temper tantrum

Turkey, which claims that they denied an Israeli request to push off the release of the Palmer report, is outraged that the New York Times released that same report a day early.

And they are downgrading relations with Israel:

Turkey on Friday downgraded its diplomatic relations with Israel to the lowest possible level, expelling the Israeli ambassador and canceling all military agreements with Israel, Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters, a day after The New York Times published a leaked U.N. report into the May 2010 Gaza flotilla incident.

The report backed Israel's legal right to impose a naval blockade on Gaza, but said Israeli commandos used "excessive and unacceptable force" when they commandeered the Mavi Marmara, the lead ship in the Gaza-bound flotilla, in international waters. The report slammed Turkey for not doing enough to ward off the deadly confrontation at sea. Turkey has rejected the report's conclusions and is sticking to its demand that Israel apologize for the incident, which left nine of its citizens dead, and compensate the victims' families.

A visibly angry Davutoglu told reporters at a press conference that since Israel had not apologized for the incident, Ankara was embarking on a series of steps against Israel, including scrapping all military agreements between the two once-close allies, and downgrading diplomatic ties to the level of second secretary. Davutoglu said that Israel's ambassador in Ankara, Gaby Levy, will leave Turkey by Wednesday.

Davutoglyu said Turkey would initiate legal action against the Gaza blockade in international courts, as well as aid families of those killed in the Gaza flotilla raid in seeking litigation against Israel.

The five measures Turkey is taking against Israel:

1. Downgrade diplomatic ties between the two countries to level of second secretary, effectively expelling diplomats above the said level.

2. All military agreements will be put on hold.

3. Turkey will take measures for freedom of maritime movement in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

4. Turkey will no longer recognize the Gaza blockade and will take the issue to the International Court of Justice.

5. Turkey will support all flotilla victims, Turkish and foreign, in court.

Also:

Turkish President Abdullah Gül on Friday termed a leaked United Nations panel report on the Mavi Marmara incident “null and void” for Turkey, saying a series of decisions taken by the Turkish government in the face of the report are only initial steps, signaling further measures.

Turkey may be outraged, and Israel upset, but Hamas is happy.

So are Israel's Arab MKs. (h/t Sophie)