Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, October 24, 2014

J-Street supports pol who gave award to friends of Hamas

The "Free Gaza" movement and Hamas have been great friends for years. Here is Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh with a large group of Free Gaza members he had just given awards to:

Here's free Gaza co-founder Paul Larudee, one of the awardees above (seated second from the left,) shaking hands with this same terrorist leader:

Now, here is Larudee and other Free Gaza co-founders Kathy Sheetz and Greta Berlin being given another award from the "The San Jose Peace and Justice Center."

Concurrent with this presentation, Congressman Mike Honda sent Certificates of Special Congressional Recognition to each of these terror supporters as well as a letter of commendation recognizing the award recipients for their "peace" work in campaigning tirelessly against Israel.

Guess who wants you to give money to Mike Honda's campaign?

Yes, that "pro-Israel, pro-peace" group J-Street:

J-Street has an interesting definition of "pro-Israel." To them, it means "supporting those who hate Israel."

(Honda's opponent, also a Democrat, doesn't seem to push any particular foreign policy line.)

See also "J-Street endorses candidates who voted against Iron Dome funding."

By the way, the San Jose Peace and Justice Center once hosted an author who defended prominent people against charges of terrorism. They included Hamas leader Khaled Meshal - and Syrian president Bashar Assad!

(h/t Anarcho-Zionist)

Gideon Levy's fantasy and some video reality

From insane-leftist Gideon Levy in Haaretz:

The uprising is on the way. When the next wave of terror emerges from the alleys of East Jerusalem, Israelis will pretend to be astonished and furious. But the truth must be told: Despite Wednesday's shocking incident, the Palestinians are turning out to be one of the most tolerant nations in history. Mass arrests, violent settlers, deprivation, expulsion, neglect, dispossession — and they remain silent, except for the recent protest of the stones.

After I read this I happened to see this video report from Israel's Channel 10 showing dozens of recent attacks against Jews in Jerusalem - firebombs, rocks thrown at buses, small rockets and more. It is in Hebrew but it is self-explanatory.

This version of the video was enthusiastically reproduced by a pro-terror Arab media outlet with the headline "See how the people of Jerusalem [i.e., Arabs] make the lives of Zionists into hell."

But Levy knows that things have really been quite calm.

(h/t Oliver)

In Arabic, he's a hero. In English, he's "mentally ill because of Israeli torture." (update)

From Ma'an:

Abd al-Rahman al-Shaludi, who died early Thursday after being shot by Israeli police following a suspected attack on civilians in Jerusalem, suffered psychological issues following his release from an Israeli jail, his mother said.

His mother was quoted by the Wadi Hilweh Information Center as saying that her son suffered mental health issues after being released from Israeli prison custody in March, where he was allegedly tortured.

On the day of the incident in Jerusalem, she had taken al-Shaludi to see a doctor who referred her to a psychiatrist and booked an appointment for Nov. 9.

This story is interesting in a couple of ways.

Shaludi was released from prison last December. Isn't is a huge coincidence that the very day that his mother gets a referral to a psychiatrist (with a very specific appointment date, making it sound quite realistic) is the exact same day he decides to attack the Jews?

And if she was so worried about his mental state thatshe had to accompany him to the doctor, then why is she letting him drive by himself?

There could be two explanations. One is that she is telling the truth, and Shaludi decided to do a terror attack rather than be known as someone who needs a psychiatrist.

But the other possibility is that this story is completely made up.

One other interesting fact: Ma'an did not publish this story in Arabic. And neither did any other Arabic news site.*

In Arabic media, there is not one mention I could find of his mental state. After the initial reports asserting that the terror act was an accident, after the videos came out, Arab sites started being proud of his act - or changed their tone to one of outrage that Israeli police "murdered" him.

The "mental health" (because of Israel, naturally) is probably made up for Western consumption, because only Westerners would be sympathetic to someone who is mentally ill. But such a diagnosis is a source of shame for Arabs, so they make up a different story for their own people.

In an honor/shame society, the truth is not relevant. Only appearances are. This is why they lie so easily, and why Westerners cannot understand them,

Either way, the attack has nothing to do with "Israeli torture." A three month old baby was killed because killing Jews is the most honorable ambition in Palestinian society.

*UPDATE: The story about his mental health was published in Arabic here (h/t Bob K)

10/23 Links Pt2: J Street U Slammed for Offensive Post After Baby's Murder; Is Beinart Just a Troll?

From Ian:

J Street U Slammed for Insensitive Post Following Murder of Baby

J Street U, the campus arm of the George Soros-founded organization which claims to be pro-Israel, is garnering negative attention after an insensitive post following the murder of a Jewish baby in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
Rather than simply express sympathy with the family of the murdered three-month-old, who was killed in a Hamas-endorsed attack, J Street U felt it was necessary to editorialize. "In Jerusalem, a baby has been killed and 8 wounded by a terrorist from the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, the same neighborhood where last week new Jewish settlers moved in," the group wrote on its page.

"In Jerusalem, a baby has been killed and 8 wounded by a terrorist from
the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, the same neighborhood where last week new Jewish settlers moved in."
"That's just a wrong post, in so many different levels. Allowing the blood of anyone who lives where you don't want them to live. So it's ok to kill any settler in the West Bank? J (S)treet- your mind is just twisted," Hen Mazzig on StandWithUs commented on the post. "That's from an Israeli leftist."
Michael Dickson, StandWithUs' Israel Director joined Mazzig in chastising the campus group. "And in one line, you express no remorse for the 3 month old victim, you blame Jews for the murder of a Jewish baby and expose your amoral mindset," he wrote. "A disgusting justification of terror; you should feel ashamed."
“Are you saying the "settlers" are responsible for what happened?” asked Lori Lowenthal Marcus of the Jewish Press. “That really is the soft bigotry of low (no?) expectations.”
Jewish Voice for Peace, a rapidly anti-Israel organization, proved wiser than J Street and elected to simply pretend the incident never happened on its Facebook feed. Hours later, J Street U linked to a two-sentence-long statement from its parent organization condemning the attack.

Netanyahu decries world’s ‘flaccid response’ to Abbas

The day after an East Jerusalem man with ties to Hamas drove his car onto a light rail platform, killing a three-month-old baby and wounding eight, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at the international community for failing to criticize Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Palestinian leader “both glorifies the murderers and also embraces the organization to which the terrorists belong, Hamas,” Netanyahu said during a briefing with security officials in Jerusalem’s national police headquarters. “And faced with these actions of the Authority chairman, we find only a flaccid [response] internationally. [World leaders] are unwilling to say two words, even one word of criticism of him [Abbas]. We do not share this weakness. We will stand firmly for our rights and obligations to defend our capital.”
“The attack in Jerusalem is supported by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas,” Netanyahu said, in an apparent reference to the praise that the terrorist, Abdel Rahman Al-Shaludi, received Thursday from a Jerusalem branch of Abbas’s Fatah organization.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians accept US request to delay Security Council bid for statehood

The London-based pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat reported on Thursday that the Palestinian Authority has agreed to delay by two months its plan to seek a Security Council resolution calling for an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines within three years.
The paper quoted Palestinian sources in Ramallah as saying that the PA leadership will give US Secretary of State John Kerry a two-month window to present his own plan for peace. The sources said that the PA leadership was nevertheless determined to proceed with the Security Council bid.
The sources also told the newspaper that the PA leadership is prepared to return to the negotiations with Israel but not according to “old mechanisms.”
The Palestinians are now conditioning the resumption of the talks on Israel presenting a map with its borders and a full cessation of settlement construction during the talks, according to the report.
Kerry said on Wednesday that current relations between Israel and the Palestinians were "unsustainable" and that the United States was conscious of the urgency of the situation.

"Witnesses"

Here are a couple of times that Ma'an used the word "witnesses" over the last couple of days:

Witnesses said Abd al-Rahman al-Shaludi, 20, was shot by Israeli guards at the light rail station after he lost control of his vehicle and hit commuters standing nearby.

They told Ma'an that al-Shaludi exited his vehicle after striking the pedestrians, at which point he was shot in the back by the guards. They stressed that the incident appeared to be an accident.

Now that we know how trustworthy Ma'an's "witnesses" are, we can understand these other articles:

From Friday:

Witnesses said that Israeli forces assaulted young worshipers as they attempted to enter the Old City through Damascus Gate to pray morning prayers earlier on.

I've looked at lots of videos of the events last Friday and the only assaults I've seen were from Arab Muslim women attacking Jews and Israeli police.

Eyewitnesses said the Israelis performed Jewish religious rites including "singing and dancing" near Bab al-Rahma (Gate of Mercy), also known as the Golden Gate. During the rites, witnesses added, the Israelis verbally attacked Muslim worshipers.

The eyewitnesses said that the director of the Al-Aqsa Mosque along with security guards and worshipers confronted the visitors, "forcing Israeli police officers to move them out" after having initially failed to do so.

I've watched dozens of videos of Jews on the Temple Mount, and never have I seen any of them sing anything or verbally attacking anyone from the holy spot. As soon as they leave the Chain Gate, however, they often break out into song. Apparently, that is what is being referred to here.

See how reliable Arab "eyewitnesses" are?

Here is a survey of how the Arab media has mentioned the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in recent weeks.

Moroccan news site Hespress has a long, convoluted op-ed that tries to claim that between the Balfour Declaration, the League of Nations acceptance of the British Mandate and the 1947 UN partition resolution, that the entire world must be run by Zionists who are following the Protocols, "which is a collection of evil texts centered around the plan of the Jews to control the world through the international economy and the creation of global institutions belonging to its global influence."

Akhbar Cairo has a long running series on the Protocols, and it discusses Protocol 11 - control of the publishing houses and news agencies.

If I am understanding this Egyptian Youm7 story correctly, there will be a rebroadcast of the classic antisemitic film "Horseman without a Horse" this month, or perhaps an in-depth interview with its creator and star. That 2002 miniseries was based on the Protocols.

A person won an award in Egypt on his book analyzing the Protocols.

The only Arab story I've seen in recent memory that assumes that the Protocols are fake is this one in Akhbar Now that surveys how the US was rife with antisemitism in the 1930s, using Father Charles Coughlin's radio program as an example, and notes that thereis very little Jew-hatred in the US today. The author posits that the same will happen with Muslims and that in a couple of generations they will be accepted as full members of US society.

10/23 Links Pt1: Father eulogizes Chaya Zissel 'You made us happy from the moment you arrived'

From Ian:

Father eulogizes infant killed in Jerusalem attack: 'You made us happy from the moment you arrived'

At midnight, in a small crowded funeral parlor in Jerusalem, Shmuel Elimelech Braun stood in front of the the small white shroud covered body of his three-month-old daughter Chaya Zissel, killed earlier that day in a terror attack.
“Zissla, you were pure,” he said in a tear-choked voice. Earlier on Wednesday, he and his wife had taken her for her first trip to see the Western Wall.
“In the last hour, you were by the Kotel. You woke up.We shmoozed (talked) with each other,” the young father said.
“You looked at me and smiled,” Braun said.
“I told you, this is the Kotel, this is Har HaBayit (The Temple Mount),” he recalled.
Braun spoke with his young daughter about the cherubs that had been on the Ark of the Covenant when the Temple existed and described how their faces were like that of a pure child.
“Like you,” Braun had said. “You looked at me, with a twinkle in your eye, like you knew, like you understood me,” he said.
“You made us happy from the moment you [arrived],” he Braun said.

Grandfather of Slain Israeli Infant: ‘She Was Pure‏’, ‘Murdered for No Reason’ (VIDEO)

Three-month-old Chayah Zissel-Bron “was pure,” and “was murdered for no reason,” her grandfather Shimshon Halperin said in a tearful statement at a Jerusalem hospital where she succumbed to injuries from a terror attack earlier on Wednesday, Israel’s Ynet News reported.
Bron was killed, and others were wounded when a Hamas terrorist drove a vehicle into people waiting at a Light Rail station close to the National Police headquarters on Wednesday evening.
“The pure girl was living with a holy soul that never did anything wrong to anyone,” Halperin told reporters. Hayah “was murdered for no reason. Unfortunately ‘Esau has hated Jacob’ for thousands of years. Arab hatred has no mercy,” Halperin said.
Bron arrived at the emergency room of Hadassah Mount Scopus in critical condition, and, despite attempts at resuscitation, she was too gravely hurt from cranial bleeding to pull though surgery, according to Pediatrics chief, Prof. Yehuda Barkan.
“The baby was brought in mortally wounded. She fought for her life, but she suffered severe head injuries,” according to Barkan.
Halperin is the son of the late Rabbi Rafael Halperin, a public figure and founder of a national eyewear chain.
“Her parents are traumatized; they heard about it five minutes ago,” Halperin said. “They just returned from the Western Wall, it was [Hayah's] first time – she lived to see the Wall. They were photographed holding her facing the Temple Mount. They told her, ‘it’s the Temple, and that is the Temple Mount.’

Richard Kemp: Israel's Security and Unintended Consequences

Would General Allen -- or any other general today -- recommend contracting out his country's defenses if it were his country at stake? Of course not.
The Iranian regime remains dedicated to undermining and ultimately destroying the State of Israel. The Islamic State also has Israel in its sights and would certainly use the West Bank as a point from which to attack, if it were open to them.
There can be no two-state solution and no sovereign Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan, however desirable those things might be. The stark military reality is that Israel cannot withdraw its forces from the West Bank.
Fatah leaders ally themselves with the terrorists of Hamas, and, like Hamas, they continue to reject the every existence of the State of Israel.
If Western leaders actually want to help, they should use all diplomatic and economic means to make it clear to the Palestinians that they will never achieve an independent and sovereign state while they remain set on the destruction of the State of Israel.

Listen to Hamas

It isn't often that we can point to a simple phrase and decipher a world of truths. Today, though, we can, if we have the courage to listen - to Hamas.
According to Hamas, Wednesday's murder of an Israeli infant was, "a natural response to the crimes of the occupation and invasion of Jews in our land."
Note what they did not say. The attack was not a natural response against settlers, not even against Israelis - no, the murder of this tiny child was a natural response against Jews.
Listen to their words; it was not a gaffe, it was not a mistranslation. It was and is, the truest expression of their beliefs.
Two interesting phrases in this short sentence. Each deserves our attention. First, as noted above, we can glean from Hamas' celebration of Abed a-Rahman a-Shaludi's deliberate attack against innocent pedestrians waiting at a bus stop that the target is - Jews.

The Palestinian Teachers Association in Lebanon is intended to provide support, guidance and news for its members. Its goals include defending the rights of teachers, improving their economic and social conditions, sharing knowledge and skills, to work on the development and activation of the teachers union in UNRWA and to help the development of UNRWA schools.

I believe that every Palestinian teacher in Lebanon works for a UNRWA school, since Lebanese anti-Palestinian apartheid laws do not allow Palestinians to live outside their UNRWA-run camps nor do they allow Palestinian teachers get jobs in regular Lebanese schools.

The association website, written by and edited by these UNRWA teachers, includes many examples of explicit antisemitism and even Holocaust denial. The logo itself shows how interested the association is in co-existence with Israel.

Haitham Kawash, teacher at the UNRWA Salamah school in Sidon, encourages violent Jihad against "cowardly Jews" to free all of Palestine.

Dr. Mohammed Yasser Amr, in an article recommending the establishment of a curriculum of "refugee studies," asserts that the jihad of science and knowledge is no less important than the jihad of weapons. (That makes him a moderate.)

This article discusses whether Jews have the right to live in Israel, and concludes "For what purpose do the children of Israel want the blessed land now, where they no longer have any role except (spreading) corruption on earth?"

Another article traces the history of racist Judaism, saying among many other things that "Jewish racism preceded the racism in Europe by several centuries because its roots go back to the Torah and the Talmud."

Here's one that falsely claims that the Talmud calls non-Jews pigs and wild dogs and instructs Jews to kill disbelievers.

A recent article denouncing the visit to Auschwitz by a Palestinian teacher and his students says "I do not consider the Holocaust a massacre against the Jews only, victims of the Holocaust were Jews, homosexuals and the mentally ill physically disabled and others, but [the teacher] did not mention that traitors and spies were among those targeted by Hitler, and we emphasize that fact, and also emphasize that the number of all of those [killed] did not exceed one million, and the targeting of Jews did not have a religious background, but also for sexual deviations and mental illness and the charge of treason, so why do a pilgrimage to the graves of traitors and perverts? "

There are many more such articles being promoted and written by Lebanese Palestinian teachers in UNRWA schools. I could not find a single article that was sympathetic to Jews.

We see that the problem of bigoted, antisemitic teachers employed by UNRWA is not limited to Gaza, but is throughout the entire UNRWA system. Is there any doubt that Syrian and Jordanian UNRWA schoolteachers are just as bad as those in the territories and Lebanon?

UNRWA has been teaching hate against Jews for decades. It has been telling students that Israel must be destroyed for decades. As I documented previously, UNRWA teachers taught generations of Palestinian Arabs that "return" was the only acceptable option. This was documented in a monograph that noted that in Lebanon in the late 1950s:

Children in the physical education classes at the UNRWA schools exercised to the chant of a-w-d-a (return)

A UNRWA principal in 1961 described his school's curriculum to journalist Martha Gellhorn:

In our school, we teach the children from their first year about their country and how it was stolen from them. I tell my son of seven. You will see: one day a man of eighty and a child so high, all, all will go home with arms in their hands and take back their country by force.

There is a direct line from UNRWA teacher radicalism and terror attacks happening today. We've proven just this week that UNRWA is not interested in reforming or admitting mistakes in its huge education system - instead it does everything it can to cover them up. But they can't hide the hate. It is in plain sight for those willing to do the research.

UNRWA's latest commissioner general Pierre Krähenbühl has been given many opportunities to address and fix the issues of UNRWA teacher hate and antisemitism I revealed over the past two weeks. He chooses not to, and instead simply ensures that embarrassing websites that prove UNRWA's teaching of hate and tacitly encouraging terror are simply deleted, hoping that the mainstream media will not pick up on this story. So far, his gamble is paying off...but it won't forever.

He cannot delete the websites that are not under UNRWA control. He cannot delete the Facebook and Twitter accounts of UNRWA teachers that reveal their Jew-hatred every day. He cannot hide the truth. The fact that he has tried to do exactly that is all the proof you need that UNRWA is an inherently corrupt institution.

Its donors may be interested in knowing this.

Given that there is no way the UNRWA education system is going to fix itself, and its role in churning out generations of children who are being taught to hate, It is way past time to dismantle this sick institution whose only remaining purpose is to keep the cash flow coming.

Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party praises murder of baby

While most Fatah-oriented media is calling yesterday's Jerusalem terror attack an accident, Fatah's official Facebook page is praising the terrorist.

It published this "martyr" poster:

The caption, according to NRG, says "The martyr hero Abd al-Rahman al-Shaloudi performs a sacred act of running over the settlers in occupied Jerusalem."

Fatah is led by Mahmoud Abbas, who is treated like an honored statesman by nearly every nation on Earth.

Palestinians praise baby murderer, encourage more car attacks

Palestinians have been praising yesterday's murder of three-month old Chayah Zissel-Bron.

The new theme among Arab media (from as far away as Saudi Arabia) is that the murderer Abdel Rahman Al-Shaludi was acting out of revenge for the incident last Sunday where a Jew accidentally hit and killed a five year old Palestinian girl, an act that has been widely reported in Arab media as a premeditated murder.

Here is a "martyr poster" for the murderer that includes a photo of the accident victim:

Another poster reproduced by the Shehab News Agency encourages more Palestinians to use their cars as weapons:

This image received some 5000 Facebook "Likes" in a few hours.

The hundreds of comments for both these posters have been unanimously supportive of the murder and the murderer.

The official Palestinian Authority news agency, for its part, is calling the murder a mere traffic accident and is denouncing the shooting of Al Shaludi.

(h/t Jack)

New Arab cartoon shows evil Jews replacing Al Aqsa mosque with Temple

Arabs sure spend a lot of effort to incite against Jews.

Ateret Cohanim called this "the feel good movie of the year!"

10/22 Links Pt2: Baby killed in Jerusalem terror attack; The Sick Logic of Jewish Met Opera Donors

From Ian:

Baby killed as car rams crowd in apparent Jerusalem terror attack

A three-month-old girl was killed Wednesday afternoon and eight others were injured when a car crashed into a crowd at a light rail station in Jerusalem in what officials said was a likely terrorist attack.
A suspect, identified by an Israeli official as a member of terror group Hamas, attempted to flee the scene on foot and was shot by police, a police spokesperson said.
“A private car which arrived from the direction of the French Hill junction hit a number of pedestrians who were on the pavement and injured nine of them,” police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement.
“Initial indications suggest this is a hit-and-run terror attack,” Samri said. (h/t Alexi)

Netanyahu blames Abbas incitement for Jerusalem attack

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leveled blame on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for an apparent terror attack in Jerusalem Wednesday, saying the Palestinian leader was inciting violence against Jews in the city.
At the same time Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat called for a bolstered police presence in neighborhoods that have seen violent riots in recent months, as stone throwing protests broke out across East Jerusalem Wednesday night.

Isi Leibler: British vote epitomizes ignorance, opportunism and malice

Abbas continues to incite to violence and hate and his Fatah party still calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. In recent months, the official PA TV revived the medieval blood libel accusing Jews of using the blood of Palestinian children to make matzot for Passover, promoted The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and alleged that Israel was poisoning Palestinian water wells. Abbas continues to glorify mass murderers and insists that there will never be an agreement unless Israel accepts the right of return of the five million descendants of Arab refugees, which would entail the end of Israel as a Jewish state. He also reaffirmed his union with Hamas – the globally designated terrorist organization.
The UK parliamentary resolution effectively endorses a state in which the genocidal Hamas occupies a central role and which, according to polls, would emerge victorious in an election. To make matters worse, Abbas has publicly stated that should that occur, he would hand over control of the state to Hamas.
British socialists who voted for the resolution totally disregarded Israel’s security concerns by supporting the establishment of a state based on the 1949 armistice lines. The resolution does not even require Hamas to amend its charter calling for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews throughout the world – a charter that the Nazis would proudly have supported. Nor did it call for demilitarization and cessation of hostilities against Israeli civilians.
The implications of passing such a resolution are harrowing, exceeding the worst excesses of perfidious Albion when the anti-Semitic British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin displayed his hostility to the Jews during the last years of the mandate.
One cannot justify such behavior on the basis of ignorance. Clearly, the motivations represent a combination of electoral opportunism, leftist political correctness which transforms Israel the victim into the aggressor, cultural relativism which no longer distinguishes between good and evil and promotes moral equivalency; and above all, an indisputable odor of outright anti-Semitism.

Alan Dershowitz: Metropolitan Opera Stifles Free Exchange of Ideas about a Propaganda Opera

The Palestinian murderer is played by a talented ballet dancer, who is portrayed sympathetically. A chorus of Palestinian women asks the audience to understand why he would be driven to terrorism. "We are not criminals," the terrorists assures us.
One of the terrorists—played by the only Black lead singer—is portrayed as an overt anti-Semite, expressing hateful tropes against "the Jews". But he is not the killer. Nor, in this opera, is Klinghoffer selected for execution because he is a Jew. Instead, he is picked because he is a loudmouth who can't control his disdain for the Palestinian cause.
At bottom The Death of Klinghoffer—a title deliberately selected to sanitize his brutal murder—is more propaganda than art. It has some artistic moments but the dominant theme is to create a false moral equivalence between terrorism and its victims, between Israel and Palestinian terrorist groups, and between the Holocaust and the self-inflicted Nakba. It is a mediocre opera, by a good composer and very bad librettist. But you wouldn't know that from the raucous standing ovations received not only by the performers and chorus master, who deserved them, but also by the composer, who did not. The applause was not for the art. Indeed, during the intermission and on the way out, the word I heard most often was "boring." The over-the-top standing ovations were for the "courage" displayed by all those involved in the production. But it takes little courage to be anti-Israel these days, or to outrage Jews. There were, to be sure, a few brief expressions of negative opinion during the opera, one of which was briefly disruptive, as an audience member repeatedly shouted "Klinghoffer's murder will never be forgiven." He was arrested and removed.
What would require courage would be for the Met to produce an opera that portrayed Mohammad, or even Yassir Arafat, in a negative way. The protests against such portrayals would not be limited to a few shouts, some wheelchairs and a few hundred distant demonstrators. Remember the murderous reaction to a few cartoons several years ago.