Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, October 10, 2004

israelinsider: Views: A proud Israeli Bedouin questions American-Jewish apathy

Two years ago, a few proud Bedouin Israeli citizens like myself asked: what is our position and status in the State of Israel in the midst of its current situation? After all, Bedouins are part of Israel's success story. During current times, when Israel is being attacked and accused of being a racist state, an 'aggressor and an oppressor', we decided that the smallest and probably most effective thing we could do is to spread our story as part of Israeli society.

I, Ishmael Khaldi, am Israeli. I served with the IDF, with the Israel police, and with the Israeli Defense Ministry. In the last year, I have lost two Bedouin friends on army duty (God bless their memory) defending the State of Israel. My friends and family feel that we have a common destiny with the Jewish people in Israel: our grandparents created this land with Jewish immigrants who arrived during the 1920s, '30s and '40s to build a democracy.

Because of this connection to the State of Israel, I cannot stand on the sidelines during Israel's time of need. I feel that I must speak up and be heard.

I recently returned from a two-month campus speaking tour in North America, mostly organized by Hasbara Fellowships. This was the fourth tour I had done over the past year. I've traveled the United States coast to coast (of course, being a Bedouin nomad, I mainly took Greyhound!) and flew for a ten day tour across Canada.

The tour was certainly miraculous - a Bedouin shepherd who had never been to any major city before, all of sudden found himself in downtown Manhattan! It proved to be one of the most adventurous, challenging and enriching experiences of my life.

I came to the U.S. and Canada to speak on college campuses about Israel, as one who certainly holds a perspective that is rarely heard - a proud Israeli that is not Jewish. I came to share one man's tale of Israel's culture, society and politics from the perspective of a Bedouin minority in the Jewish State.

Arriving in North America, committed to defending Israel from the poisonous venom of hatred and attacks that I had heard much about, I expected to see the same commitment on campuses among the Jewish students. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case.

I had heard much about the struggle of pro-Israel student activists, attempting to counter the unbalanced, biased and false accusations made against Israel. I had not come to North America to preach that Israel was perfect. As all Israelis know, Israel has problems like all nations of the world. Still, many students tried to stop me from speaking. There were even students who had the audacity to compare me to Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, making false claims that I was doing the same for Israel.

The United States has always been described as being the 'land of the free' and a home for free speech. How can New Hampshire's slogan read, "live free or die" if the student union is allowed to ban me from telling a cultural story? I can't believe that the hatred for Israel is so strong that student governments are able to defy their own dignity as free American citizens, in order that the truth about Israel should remain a secret.

The deep-seated hatred manifested itself clearly throughout the country with the many loaded questions asked by anti-Israel students. For example, a Muslim student at Rutgers University completely ignored the fact that Israel is a free state and asked, "how could you support a Hebrew state if you're not Jewish?" Another questioner asked, "don't you think that if Israel didn't exist, then the Palestinians wouldn't have any problems?"

In Milwaukee, I was asked "how many Palestinian old men and women have you humiliated while serving in the Israeli police?" How can such a question be asked? Only if the truth were known, that Israeli soldiers have on many occasions helped Palestinians.

The situation I encountered on many of the campuses in North America and Canada was horrifying. I was not as shocked by the Arab questioners as I was with the personal threats, and the severe apathy of the majority of Jewish students.

In my years of speaking to people, I've never received threats or personal attacks like I did speaking on campuses. There were threatening incidents at both the University of Florida and at California State University. Both were chilling. The crowd in Florida was one full of anger and hatred, yet I had to stand before them unsure of the enemy who had sent threats earlier that day. In California I spoke facing a young student who wore a T-shirt with a swastika on it, chewing on a piece of paper as some sort of protest against my talk.

Even more upsetting, I expected to see many more Jewish students aware of the situation in Israel, but that wasn't the case. I expected the Jewish students to realize that the situation was not only affecting Israel and Israelis, but Jews all over the world.

On the other hand, the Arab students and their supporters knew almost all the last minute news clips from the Middle East. How can Israel's voice be heard if the Jewish students don't have the facts or the knowledge to speak up? I don't take the mass of Jewish students to task for not agreeing with all of Israel's policies, but I do take them to task for not caring about Israel or what happens there. It is the apathy which allows the anti-Israel propaganda to strengthen itself more and more over time.

As a personal aside, sixty years after the horrors of the Holocaust, Israel is going through one of the most critical times in its history. More than 60 years after my grandparents joined their destiny to that of the Jews coming to the Land of Israel, I feel that history is somehow moving backwards. Antisemitism and hatred towards Israel is soaring. Comparing me, a Muslim Bedouin who supports Israel, to the Nazis is just another clear piece of evidence.

And yet, 60 years after the horrors of the Holocaust, I felt that on campus, the Jewish voice is silent. Where are the Jewish students fighting back? My commitment in these crucial days, while Israel is struggling for its right to exist, is to continue the heritage of my grandparents and to stand together to fight for the State of Israel.

History will not tolerate us if we keep our voice silent. We must roll up our sleeves once again to build a better future for Israel and all of its loyal citizens. Israel's right to exist is my right and my people's right, just as Israel's destiny is our destiny.

But just as history demands for me to fight for Israel, history also will not tolerate a generation of Jews who don't care.

High Church hypocrisy and other humiliations

In his speech to the U.N. General Assembly last week, President George W. Bush mentioned with disfavor Israel's 'humiliations' of Palestinians. The irony of the president's misplaced concern (though the speech contained other passages reflecting this country's friendship with Israel) was highlighted when, a day later, a female Palestinian suicide bomber was halted at a checkpoint near a Jerusalem bus stop.

Just before border guards were about to 'humiliate' her by asking questions or searching her bag, the woman exploded her bomb, killing two soldiers.

For all of the outcry about Israeli behavior, few noted that this attempt to question the woman saved the lives of dozens of innocents who might have perished had the soldiers failed to prevent her from boarding a bus.

But the president isn't the only one who has been misled on this issue. Some churches are using the concern about Palestinian sensibilities to push an agenda of anti-Zionism.

Following the outcry about the recent vote by the Presbyterian Church USA to endorse divestment of Israel to express their condemnation of Israeli measures of self-defense, it wasn't clear whether other mainline liberal churches would follow suit -- or listen to the better angels of their nature and refrain from such despicable behavior.

But the Presbyterians' high-church Episcopal cousins seem ready to follow in their footsteps.

The decision to recommend a divestment of Israel was announced last week in Jerusalem by representatives of the church's 75 million adherents. They did so after a ten-day tour of the country which included a meeting with arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat in his Ramallah lair but no meetings with Israeli officials other than one with an Arab member of the Knesset who actually opposes the country's continued status as a Jewish state.

They seem particularly unwilling to listen to any evidence -- such as the thousands of dead, wounded and maimed Israelis over the course of the last four years of Palestinian terrorism -- that would justify any measures of Israeli self-defense. They seem especially irate about Israeli moves, such as checkpoints and the erection of a security fence, which hamper the ability of Palestinian killers to move to their targets with impunity.

The motive of the Anglicans (known in this country as the Episcopal church), they say, is to bring an end to the conflict between Israel and Palestinians. But given the nature of their proposed solution, the only thing they seem to really want to end is Israel's existence.

They intend to follow up on this initiative with the Episcopal Church USA.

Given the incendiary nature of many anti-Israel statements made by local and national Episcopal leaders, the chances of this step being adopted must be assessed as good.

It is interesting to note that although the call for divestment from companies that do business with Israel is making progress among church groups just as it seemed to fading on college campuses. That a sector of our society can be found to be more hostile to Israel than American universities really says something about the current state of the Protestant church.

As in the case of the Presbyterians, the drift of Episcopal activists toward support for anti-Israel measures is not necessarily reflected by the general membership of the church. Most ordinary American Episcopalians, like their Presbyterian counterparts, will soon wake up to discover that their representatives have signed on to a measure that obligates them to wage economic warfare on the Jewish state. This will be a surprise to most of them, but that will not make the problem any less serious.

Divestment is just the latest tactic adopted by those who excuse Palestinian terror. They are motivated not by a real concern for the plight of Palestinians, who, it should be remembered, would be living in their own sovereign state by now had their leaders accepted Israel's offers of peace. Instead, the embrace of divestment will send an unmistakable signal that the Palestinian war to exterminate Israel via terror is justified.

This is an act of such blatant immorality so as to render the church unqualified to speak with any moral authority on any topic, even the very real suffering of the Palestinians.

Though American Jews have invested decades of effort in interfaith dialogue with these churches, the Episcopalians and any who would follow them should understand that they cannot continue on this path and still pretend to maintain a friendship with the Jewish community.

The message that they must receive from every sector of responsible Jewish opinion must be clear: Divestment in Israel isn't merely wrong. It is a declaration of war on the Jewish people."

Iraqi arrested in Nashville for terror

The F.B.I. says it has foiled a terrorist plot in Nashville by arresting a man who bought automatic weapons at a local Krispy Kreme donut shop on Thompson Lane.

33-year-old Ahmed Hassan Al-Uqaily was caught Thursday after buying machine guns, handguns, ammunition and hand grenades from an undercover agent.

He told investigators he was angry with the Jewish community, but as far as Channel 4 knows, there was not a specific target.

Channel 4 News’ Susan Harding reported that Al-Uqaily has lived in Nashville since 1991 and lived at at least four different addresses. His name has often appeared in the media over the last few months as an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq.

Federal authorities said Friday they arrested Al-Uqaily during a sting operation set up after he made threats about "going Jihad."

Palestinian who allegedly sold land to Jews killed

Gunmen belonging to Fatah's armed wing, Aksa Martyrs Brigades, on Wednesday night shot and killed a Palestinian who had been suspected of selling land to Jews.

Sources in Ramallah said three gunmen stormed a local hospital and kidnapped Sami Burnat, 51, a resident of Balin village west of the city.

The kidnappers took Burnat to a nearby field, where they sprayed him with bullets, killing him instantly, the sources added.

EU diplomat admits success of Israel wall

The EU's representative in the Middle East has conceded that the controversial wall being built by Israel in the West Bank has stopped Palestinian extremists from carrying out suicide attacks in Israel.

His comments, made in an interview with Financial Times Deutschland, make him the first high-level EU diplomat to publicly say that the barrier has fulfilled its aim.

'The barrier has drastically sunk the number of attacks', said the Belgian diplomat.

However, although he admitted that the number of attacks has fallen, he told FT Deutschland that it does not mean that he finds the wall good."

Saddam paid off French leaders

Saddam Hussein used a U.N. humanitarian program to pay $1.78 billion to French government officials, businessmen and journalists in a bid to have sanctions removed and U.S. policies opposed, according to a CIA report made public yesterday.
The cash was part of $10.9 billion secretly skimmed from the U.N. oil-for-food program, which was used by Iraq to buy military goods, according to a 1,000-page report by the CIA-led Iraqi Survey Group.
According to a section of the report on Iraqi weapons procurement, the survey group identified long-standing ties between Saddam and the French government. One 1992 Iraqi intelligence service report revealed that Iraq's ambassador to France paid $1 million to the French Socialist Party in 1988.
The CIA report stated that the Iraqi ambassador was instructed to 'utilize [the $1 million] to remind French Defense Minister Pierre Joxe indirectly about Iraq's previous positions toward France, in general, and the French Socialist party, in particular.'
In the late 1990s, Iraq also used an oil-purchasing voucher system through the U.N. oil-for-food program, which began in 1996 and ended in 2003, to influence the French to oppose U.S. initiatives at the United Nations and to work to lift sanctions, the report stated.
The Iraqi Intelligence Service paid off French nationals by dispensing vouchers that allowed the holders to make hundreds of thousands of dollars in commissions by selling them to oil buyers.
The payoffs help explain why the French government, along with Russia and China, opposed U.S. efforts in the United Nations in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion, U.S. officials said.
Iraqi intelligence agents also targeted French President Jacques Chirac, by giving gifts to a spokesman, two of his aides and two French businessmen, the report said.
One Iraqi intelligence report stated that a French politician assured Saddam in a letter that France would use its veto in the U.N. Security Council against any U.S. effort to attack Iraq. "

(Former?) Al Aqsa terrorist speaks

TONY EASTLEY:
While the Islamic groups are vowing to fight to the end, one wanted militant from the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades believes the Palestinian Intifada or uprising has achieved nothing.

In an interview with AM he says Israel has been successful in crushing the resistance, leaving his group a leaderless rabble involved in extortion and kidnapping.

Middle East Correspondent Mark Willacy reports from the West Bank.

MARK WILLACY: Well, I've just been driven by a Palestinian contact to a house here in the West Bank village, to meet a man who used to be a gunman in the al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades. He's wanted by the Israelis for carrying out a number of attacks against Jewish targets.

But Abu Yasser, as he wants to be called, says he's turned his back both on violence and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

Over some thick black Arabic coffee, Abu Yasser tells me how he began carrying out attacks for the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades just months after the intifada broke out.

"The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is composed of a number of de-centralised cells," he says.

"Our cell was made up of gunmen who would shoot at Israelis – both soldiers and civilians – who came into our area," he tells me.

Throughout our interview Abu Yasser's leg shakes almost uncontrollably. He knows he's a hunted man. But the 29-year-old says he left the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades months ago, disillusioned with the direction the militant group was heading.

"The al-Aqsa Brigades here in the West Bank has lost its leadership. There's no one left to lead," he says.

And what remains has split into two groups – one that wants to stop the killing and start talking and another that is made up of thugs.

"These thugs steal, kidnap and run protections rackets," he says. "The Palestinian people now fear the al-Aqsa Brigades rather than respect them," he tells me.

A recent poll commissioned by a Nablus University found that more than two-thirds of Palestinians believe it's time to end the killing and sign a ceasefire with Israel. Previous polls had found that most wanted to continue the fighting.

Abu Yasser says ordinary Palestinians are tired of the killing. And the former al-Aqsa Brigades gunman says he's tired of hiding.

"Psychologically I have become used to running from the Israelis," he says. "What keeps me going is thinking of my family and how they would cope if I was arrested or killed," he tells me.

Israel will certainly never forget Abu Yasser and the dozens of attacks he helped carry out. But it's only a matter of time when they come hunting for him once again.

Have a good yom tov

I'm off again until after the weekend; chag kosher v'sameach!

Berlusconi: Italy will support Israeli EU membership

'Italy will support Israeli membership in the EU,' Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry Trade and Labor Ehud Olmert during a meeting in Rome last Wednesday evening.

Berlusconi told Olmert, 'As far as Italy is concerned, Israel is completely European in terms of its standard of living, heritage and cultural values. Geography is not a determinant.'

Berlusconi added that he supported Israel's disengagement plan. He noted that he had refused to meet Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat during a visit to Israel, and announced that Italy would include Hizbullah in its list of terrorist organizations.

Berlusconi is scheduled to visit Israel in March 2005.

Olmert and Italian Minister of Communications Maurizio Gasparri signed an bilateral cooperation agreement on information and network security. The agreement will help Israeli companies penetrate both Italian government and private markets.

JTA NEWS Evangelical Christians rally en masse for the Jewish state

JERUSALEM, Oct. 5 (JTA) — “I Stand by Israel” reads Christel Diekmann’s T-shirt as Star of David earrings dangle above her shoulders.

On her 34th pilgrimage to Israel, she is one of more than 4,000 evangelical Christians from across the globe who have gathered here to pledge their unconditional support for the Jewish state.

“If I believe in the Bible I have to help Israel,” said Diekmann, 51, who runs a Jewish-Christian outreach organization in Oberursel, Germany.

Dismissing any skepticism about the unflinching support for Israel offered by the evangelists, American television evangelist Pat Robertson, the highest profile of the pilgrims, who has spoken out vehemently against Palestinian statehood and militant Islam, said, “I’m one of the best friends you’ve ever had.”

As other Christian groups consider divestment campaigns against Israel and anti-Israel sentiment across the world grows, many here welcomed the visiting Christians.

Israel’s minister of Diaspora affairs, Natan Sharanksy, who spoke to and was honored by the visiting pilgrims, told JTA that the evangelical Christians are good for the Jewish people.

“First of all, they are friends and secondly they are very important allies,” he said in a phone interview, adding that the evangelicals have “moral clarity” about the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Sharansky noted that the evangelicals’ theology about the Messiah is different from that of the Jews, but said that it did not matter for now, noting it could be a long time till the Messiah comes.

The Christians have gathered in Israel this week to celebrate the Sukkot holiday in what they call their annual Feast of the Tabernacles, a festival they say was traditionally a time for non-Jews to celebrate along with Jews during the period of the ancient Temples.

The festival is organized by the International Christian Embassy, whose officials dub the event the largest solidarity mission to Israel this year.

“We found that Israel has not run out of adversaries and she needs friends,” said David Parsons, spokesman for the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem.

“When we read our Bibles, we see it has wonderful things to say about Judaism and Israel,” he said.

“It’s a biblical basis of support and we find that from many different backgrounds” the thing the pilgrims have in common “is the Bible and a God-given love for Israel.”

The Christian Embassy was founded 25 years ago, Parsons said, “to minister comfort to the Jewish people” and to show Jews that there are those who were dismayed by the history of Christian anti-Semitism and wanted to stand with Israel and its right to exist.

According to Parsons, with its representatives in 80 countries, the International Christian Embassy is probably the world’s largest Christian Zionist organization.

The organization said it did not believe in the End of Days scenario that Jews are to be gathered back to Israel for their eventual destruction after Armageddon.

“We don’t think they are being gathered back to be annihilated. We believe God will protect this nation no matter what comes,” Parsons said.

At a news conference, Robertson evaded the question of whether in the long run, Jews and Christians were at odds theologically.

“I don’t know,” he told reporters, “It’s in God’s hands.”

Part of God’s plan, he said, is for the ingathering of Jews back to Israel. He and other evangelists see God’s hand in the creation of Israel. And he said he sees Arabs’ attempts to foil the state part of “Satan’s plan.”

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein is probably the Jewish figure most intensely linked with Christian evangelists. As the founder of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, he has been working with them for almost 30 years.

He said in that time he has seen more Christian support for Israel and increasingly positive Jewish attitudes toward such Christians.

“I’ve seen a change in Jewish attitudes, people are much more positive and open and saying, ‘Thank you.’

“They are aware that these people are our friends,” he said, adding that having Christian friends is a critical asset for Israel and the fight against world anti-Semitism.

Eckstein said it is especially important for Jews now to link up with Christian supporters when there are so many born-again Christians at the top levels of the American government, including President Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft and the majority leader of the House of Representatives, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

Eckstein’s organization raises some $20 million a year from Christians abroad for causes in Israel such as soup kitchens and immigrant absorption.

He said his organization encourages churches not only to pray for Israel but to contribute financially and lobby for Israel.

Some Orthodox Jews in Israel are especially wary of Christian evangelists because of potential proselytizing.

Orthodox Jews here worry about missionary activity “of which there is no small amount in Israel,” said Jonathan Rosenblum, director of Jewish Media Resources, an Orthodox media resource organization.

Singing “We Love Israel,” waving Israeli flags and blowing shofars, thousands of pilgrims from the 80 countries represented at the Sukkot gathering took to Jerusalem’s streets Monday to express their support for Israel.

They passed out their country’s flags as well as candy to the large crowds of Jerusalemites who gathered to watch their parade wind through downtown.

People are here “because we believe in God and God is the God of Israel, so we love the people of the land,” said Ruben Pavia, 43, a bank clerk from Belem, Brazil, wearing Brazil’s national colors of green and yellow and waving his country’s flag along with dozens of his fellow Brazilians.

Dancing with a group representing the Ivory Coast, 34-year-old Jean Paul Dogo, who works as a translator for his West African country’s first lady, praised Israel.

“We love Israel, our hearts are with Israel without conditions. They are our brothers,” he said.

In the crowd of onlookers there were smiles and hands grasped in greeting with the marchers. Many waved and shouted “Shalom” in return to the greetings of the pilgrims.

“You see I am crying. I am very moved because we are so alone and this gives us feeling that someone cares,” said Miriam Bennet, 57, a homemaker from Bnei Brak.

She said she did not mind that the marchers were devout Christians. “We can’t all be Jewish,” she mused. “It’s just nice to see we are not alone.”

Israelis, American Win Nobel for Chemistry

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Israelis Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko and American Irwin Rose won the 2004 Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for discovering a key way cells destroy unwanted proteins — starting with a chemical "kiss of death."

Their work provides the basis for developing new therapies for diseases such as cervical cancer and cystic fibrosis.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored Ciechanover, 57, Hershko, 67, and Rose, 78, for work they did in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Each human cell contains about 100,000 different proteins, busy bees that carry out jobs like speeding up chemical reactions and acting as signals. At least five Nobel prizes have been given for research into how cells make proteins, but the question of how they destroy proteins has received much less attention, the assembly said.

The three scientists uncovered a process that starts when a doomed protein is grabbed by a particular molecule, marking it for destruction. Such marked proteins are then chopped to pieces.

The process governs such key processes as cell division, DNA repair and quality control of newly produced proteins, as well as important parts of the body's immune defenses against disease, the academy said in its citation.

Scientists are trying to use the process to create medicines, either to prevent the breakdown of proteins or make the cell destroy disease-causing ones. One example is the cancer drug Velcade, approved last year in the United States, which interferes with the cell's protein-chopping machine.

Many other drugs that harness the protein-destroying process are in development, said Ciechanover, who is director of the Rappaport Family Institute for Research in Medical Sciences at the Technion, in Haifa, Israel. Hershko, originally from Hungary, is a professor there.

Rose is a specialist at the department of physiology and biophysics at the college of medicine at the University of California, Irvine.

Ciechanover told reporters, "I'm happy that I can speak on the phone at all and that I remember I my English. I'm not myself, that's for sure, not for a while."

It's the first time an Israeli has won a Nobel science prize, although Israelis have won peace and literature Nobels. "I am as proud for myself as I am for my country," Ciechanover said.

The prizes, which include a $1.3 million check, a gold medal and a diploma, are presented on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.

Sympathy for the Arrow at the breakfast table

A joint security forum between Israel and the U.S. builds on mutual strategic interests.

A delegation of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee has just returned from Washington after a week-long series of meetings of the joint security forum of the U.S. Congress and the Knesset. One of the meetings on Iran's nuclear capabilities shocked some Congressmen, and a bill proposing sanctions against Tehran has been proposed.

The forum, revived last year by MK Yuval Steinitz (Likud) and Republican Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, serves as an unofficial channel of communication between Israel and the United States. Originally founded by Minister Uzi Landau when he served on the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense committee (1996-1999), the forum allows an exchange of ideas on strategic issues in which Israel and the U.S. have a common interest.

"We managed to assist in the salvaging of the Arrow project," Steinitz says proudly. "Last year, Congress agreed to allocate $75-80 million for accelerated production of the Arrow missile, but as we were about to leave for the first joint meeting, in September 2003, the decision was revoked. Congress didn't approve the bill because of the huge costs of the war in Iraq. We asked our friends in the forum to call a meeting with the House Armed Services Committee, which was in charge of these issues. At the breakfast table we were told why Congress could not allocate any funds for the Arrow, but within an hour their team asked to consult among themselves [and] then came back promising to reconsider the issues. Two weeks later we were informed that Congress decided to allocate $88 million for the Arrow project."

Israeli representatives in the joint forum also succeeded in persuading Congress to allocate tens of millions of dollars this year for further development of the Nautilus project - the interception of missiles, rockets, and Qassams with laser technology. Trials have proven the effectiveness of the joint American-Israeli project, currently under development. "The defense establishment attaches great importance to pushing the project forward, because of its potential for revolutionizing tomorrow's battlefield," says Steinitz.

The MKs invested huge efforts in educating their counterparts in Congress about the potential threat of Iran's nuclear capabilities. During their first visit in Washington, and at the forum's initiative, the Senate held a special hearing on the subject with senior government representatives. Steinitz reveals that U.S. government experts predicted at the hearings that as soon Iran overcomes the technological challenges involved in building a nuclear bomb, it would be able to produce as many as 20 nuclear warheads every year. According to this scenario, Iran would likely become a world nuclear superpower.

The members of Congress were so shocked by the forecasts, forum members reported, that Senators Jon Kyl and Dianne Feinstein (Dem.-CA) responded by drafting a resolution calling on Iran to halt its nuclear weapons program. The resolution was approved by the House and the Senate and is awaiting President George W. Bush's signature.

The resolution won't solve the problem of the Iranian threat, Steinitz says, but it has a declarative value, by stating that not only Israel's security is at stake, but also American interests. The resolution proposes sanctions against Iran and declares that "the United States will reconsider its military and economic cooperation with countries that assist Iran in developing its nuclear program."

In their discussions with their American colleagues, the MKs broached Israel's concerns about the sale of various weapon systems to Arab countries, particularly Egypt and Saudi Arabia. At issue are anti-missile systems, sophisticated fighter pilot electronic control systems, and missile-bearing ships and tanks. Members of Congress promised the MKs that they would oppose the sales.

The MKs' pitch against the sale of 50 advanced sea-to-sea missiles to Egypt was also partially successful. These missiles have a range of 150 km, and there is concern they could threaten Israel. U.S. government officials promised that the missiles would be blocked by technological means from hitting Israeli land targets and only be allowed to fire on targets at sea.

Israel arrests 13 UN employees for terror

TEL AVIV, Israel (Reuters) - Israel has arrested 13 U.N. employees and plans to indict them for 'suspected links to terrorism,' an Israeli army officer said Tuesday.

Maj.-Gen. Yisrael Ziv, speaking to reporters, did not say when they were arrested.

His comments came after Israel backed away from an accusation that Palestinian militants had used a U.N. ambulance in Gaza to transport a rocket to be fired at Israel.

'We have in our hands a list of 13 detainees who are to be indicted, they are U.N. people with suspected links to terrorism,' Ziv said.

Silence the sirens of defeatism! (Internet Haganah)

One consequence of the recent upsurge in jihadi snuff films has been that a whole new group of mainstream media reporters have suddenly "discovered" that jihadis are using the internet. The format of these reports is pretty consistent:

* The "militants" are using the internet to spread their message and share videos of their gruesome achievements, one severed head at a time.

* The internet is "anonymous" and the "militants" can use it with impunity from anywhere in the world, and even when they use a pseudonym the "authorities" can't catch them.

* The "experts" all agree that nothing can be done, so we should just sit and watch. Not only that, but trying to do something is probably a bad idea, so we should just sit and watch.

Mind you, I've been interviewed for a number of these stories, but you know, it's a funny thing - my comments, which suggest that the situation is far from hopeless, rarely make it into the report. So, for the record:

* The internet is being used by Islamist terrorists to great effect. Not only are their websites useful for achieving specific objectives, but they are also central to creating and maintaining a culture of jihad and reinforcing each terrorist's identification with the jihad. When you disrupt the smooth operation of the websites of Islamist terrorists you have a very real and very negative impact on each and every administrator and user of a given site.

* The internet is not nearly as anonymous as people think. To paraphrase something a terrorist once said: They have to be successful every time - I only have to catch them making a mistake one time. Even the most technically adept Islamist terrorist will make a mistake from time to time, and the more one pressures them, makes them move, makes them spend time online moving sites, rebuilding sites, finding sites that have moved, registering and re-registering for access to sites, the more opportunities one creates for identifying and locating the Islamist terrorist in question.

* Those experts and authorities who think that the rest of us should just sit on our hands and wait for our turn to become dhimmis or be beheaded are guilty of replacing the common good with their own parochial self-interest. There is no concensus among experts regarding how best to deal with internet use by Islamist terrorists, and the authorities, frankly, need all the help they can get.

* Many things can be done, have been done, have been proven effective, and will continue to be done to fight Islamist terrorists online. Those 545 Little Blue AKs™ I've posted over the last two years represent sites that have ceased operation at least temporarily, and in dozens of cases, permanently. Get a website removed from a server at a time when the webmaster has been lazy and doesn't have a backup, and the effect on that site can be lethal. Force them to keep a good current backup and you have that much more evidence that can be seized, and if they keep that backup offline, you have more locations where that evidence can be seized, and if they try harder to be anonymous, or to operate more sites, or to be better prepared for the next time a site gets taken down, all those things translate into more activity online that can be intercepted and analyzed to the purpose of finding, capturing and/or killing the Islamist terrorist in question. To the extent to which we have done this, the result is that there are now fewer high-quality sites online, meaning that there are fewer sites to monitor, allowing us to more effectively monitor those sites which we choose to monitor.

* This leads us to the final point: we can do much, have done much, and will continue to do much that makes the internet a less-than-friendly environment for Islamist terrorists to operate in. That said, the problem is not, for example, the film of some poor man having his head hacked off. Nor is the problem the websites that host such movies. No, the problem is the jihad, and the jihadists. So, how do you stop "Abu Maysara al Iraqi" from issuing communiqués in the name of Zarqawi's Tahid wal Jihad group? You find out where he is likely to be sleeping in Fallujah, and you turn that "safe-house" upside and inside out with a couple of hundred pounds of precision-guided death, like so:

Remember, you only have to kill him once.

Hat tip to interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who recently said

When political leaders sound the sirens of defeatism in the face of terrorism, it only encourages more violence.

Unsung Victims of Kassam Rockets

Kibbutz Nir'am, a little closer to the Gaza Strip than Sderot, seems dead this morning. The air is hot, harsh and still – hamsin weather. Hardly anybody is outdoors.

Ofer Lieberman, who runs Nir'am's farm and handles the kibbutz's media relations, has shown us the meter-wide, 10cm.-deep crater in a road near the fields where the Kassam landed the previous morning.

Sitting in his cramped office upstairs in the kibbutz garage, the laconic, goateed Lieberman complains how Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz visited Sderot the previous day but, typically for an Israeli politician, cancelled his scheduled stop to the kibbutz.

It is the day before Succot, two days before Dorit Aniso, two, and her cousin Yuval Abebeh, four, would be killed by a Kassam in Sderot. At 10:55, a muffled "boom" sounds in the near distance and rattles the windows.

"That," says Lieberman, pointing in the air, "was a Kassam."

As we hurry down to his van, he gets a call on his cellphone from the contractor building his new house that the Kassam has fallen nearby. But when Lieberman pulls up to the construction site, he finds no sign of a missile, so he calls the contractor.

"I don't see anything," he tells the contractor. But there has been a misunderstanding.
"It fell near the house I live in?" Lieberman exclaims, as he floors the van, cursing; nobody is at home, but three of his four daughters are in the school right near their house.

A crowd has already gathered, staring at the scorched Kassam sticking out of the dirt about 25 meters from Alon elementary school. The school has already started the holiday, but some 30 kids are there for activities. Another dozen preschoolers are in the Shikma kindergarten nearby. Shrapnel from the Kassam has flown through the windows of a cottage used as a sewing room, and over the head of seamstress Ruti Almog sitting inside, leaving her unharmed.

Many kids in Alon and Shikma are screaming and crying, but physically they are unharmed. Lieberman stands with his daughters and watches as soldiers trot past; police have cordoned off the missile site, parents hug their children and everyone is buzzing about where they'd been and what they'd been doing when that ugly metal thing crashed on the ground.

"We were playing right over there," says Aviv Revivo, 12, standing with two friends and pointing to a spot on the nearby lawn. "The Kassam from yesterday I saw in the air before it landed. I heard the whistle and I looked up and I saw it flying over my house."

SINCE THE Kassams started coming out of Gaza nearly two years ago, more than 100 have landed on Kibbutz Nir'am – almost as many as have fallen on Sderot. Nobody on the kibbutz has been physically injured, although one Kassam destroyed a trailer that, luckily, was unoccupied at the time; another landed near a preschool, and now there is this latest close call.

The psychological toll has been heavy on both parents and children, who total some 300. Kassams land in their midst and IDF helicopters blast away at Gaza from over the heads.

"Nobody knows what's going on here. The press and the politicians are only interested if there's blood. They all go running to Sderot, and not one single cabinet minister has visited Nir'am since the Kassams started," says Lieberman. (On Sunday, Deputy Defense Minister Ze'ev Boim made up for Mofaz's cancellation.)

"If that Kassam had fallen 30 meters away, and we'd had three dead children and 30 injured at the school," Lieberman adds, "the whole government would have shown up by now."

Inside the Alon school, the children are seated around Tali Simchi, who has come to class today – planning to lead a drama lesson – at the insistence of her daughter, Michal, nine, who is still scared from the Kassam attack yesterday.

"We're trying to make peace with the Palestinians," Simchi, 41, tells the children, "but everywhere there are extremists, and now we're facing Hamas, who think God gave them the right to all of the land and that's their goal, to take it all, and that's why they fire those missiles at Nir'am. And our job, as people who live on the border, is – that's right – to live with it, to live with the fear, which is natural, and to talk about how we're afraid, and to keep believing that all this will pass."

A middle-aged soldier in red boots with several "chocolate bars" and "felafels" on his uniform comes through the door.

"Look who's here!" Tali calls to the children, grinning extra widely for effect.

It is IDF Col. Itzik.

"What heroes you are," he tells the children with an equally large grin. "Everybody okay? I'm going to bring all my soldiers here to learn from you how to be heroes. Keep on protecting us and we'll keep on protecting you. Well, I came here to give encouragement, and I leave here encouraged," the colonel says and strides back out the door.

I asked Michal how she sleeps at night.

"Not so well," she says. "I'm afraid the Kassams will fall on me all the time."

When this latest Kassam fell, she says, "All I saw was like gray in front of my eyes."

Completely unashamed, Tom Ben-Odiz says, "I cried. I'm 13, but I cried."

When the Kassam fell, a birthday party had been in progress. Or Rabin, nine, now has her arms around the birthday girl, Neta Amar, who is turning seven. Like the other children, Neta has spoken with her parents. She doesn't seem to want to talk to anyone else.

"She was in shock at first," says Or, "but now she's started to cry."

OTHER KIBBUTZIM near Gaza have been hit by Kassams, but none so badly as Nir'am. The kibbutz is broke; it hasn't paid its bank debts for two years, and Mekorot has threatened to cut off its water. Like most kibbutzim, it has been struggling financially for many years, and now the Kassams have driven away its weekend bed-and-breakfast trade and summer campers, as well as many of its outside pupils and cutlery works customers.

Yet Nir'am has not been granted "confrontation line" status as Sderot was in July, which means it gets none of the financial breaks, such as a 13 percent income tax reduction, that is granted residents in that town, a few hundred meters away.

Following the Kassam deaths of the two little cousins, the Prime Minister's Office announced an aid package for Sderot neighborhoods, schools and businesses. Nir'am wasn't mentioned.

"Everybody talks about Sderot, Sderot. I live in the 'Mem 3' neighborhood, the Kiryat Shmona of Sderot, but the Kassams haven't fallen here any less," says Arianna Amar, 33, an assistant teacher at Shikma kindergarten.

When this last one fell so close by and the kids started screaming and crying, Amar put on a brave face, hugged them and said that even though the floor had shaken, the missile had actually landed far away in the fields. But she was shaking and tears were falling.

"I wanted to go home, but it's no better there," she says, adding that if there was any way of selling their apartment, she and her family would already have moved far away from the Gazan border.

THIS HAS also been on the mind of Emma Segev. Now 31, she came to Nir'am as an 18-year-old volunteer from Brighton, met a young kibbutznik named Gil and married him. Now he's an agronomist on the farm, she's head of purchasing at the cutlery factory, they have two sons – Yuval, five and Ben, two – and today, she says, was "too much already."

Standing outside the cow shed near the factory, Segev reflects on the day and the days before.

"I saw the [factory] manager go white while he was on the phone. 'Where?' 'It was next to the kindergarten.' My knees buckled, my eyes welled up. I phoned the kindergarten teacher, whose voice was shaking with fear. I heard the kids' voices. Yuval said it had made him jump.

"Today," she continues, "it went way beyond saying everything's okay now, and going back to normal. It became so clear to me that I really feel quite irresponsible for being here with my kids. I couldn't concentrate anymore, I couldn't get any work done. I was thinking about what we're going to do, because I don't think we can go on like this.

"And it absolutely breaks my heart when we hear the helicopters firing into Gaza. I can't imagine what a mother there is going through," she goes on. "I'd go back to England tomorrow, but my husband's an Israeli – he'd agree to live in England if it weren't for the weather. So I think the thing to do is find a quieter, more peaceful place somewhere in Israel. Tonight we're going to stay with Gil's brother in Ashkelon.

"Enough," she says, "enough for one day."

During the nearly two-year Kassam onslaught, none of Kibbutz Nir'am's families moved out. But on Friday, after the Kassam landed right by Alon school, after another Kassam killed those two small cousins in Sderot, the Segevs informed the kibbutz that they had leased a house on a desert moshav and would be moving in a week or so. They were taking a year's leave of absence; after a year, they'd see if it was safe to go home.